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Anathema rested her cup and saucer on her knee and leaned forward to look intently at Aziraphale, sitting neatly on the couch across from her in Jasmine Cottage’s parlour. Crowley lounged next to him, cup of coffee in one hand and phone in the other.
“I’m really very grateful that you’re happy to answer so many of my little questions,” she said. “So many of my reference texts are just hopelessly out of date, and it will be nice to bring witchcraft into the modern age.”
“You’re most welcome, my dear!” said Aziraphale. “It’s such an interesting endeavour to be part of, a new volume about ethical witchcraft in the modern era! It’s going to be an ebook” he told Crowley, who already knew this, and nodded vaguely in response.
“I have to admit I’m curious,” continued Anathema, “about you on a personal level, if you don't mind me asking. Demons used to be angels, right? So, did you two know each other before, um, the Fall?”
Aziraphale looked flustered and glanced at Crowley then leaned forward towards Anathema. “Oh dear, we don’t talk about such things, it’s considered rather impolite when demons don’t rememb-“
“Yeah, sure, we met,” said Crowley, eyes still on his phone, at the exact same time.
Again, simultaneously:
“I beg your pardon?!”
“...what?”
Crowley recovered first. “Do you mean to tell me, angel, that you don’t remember? I thought you never brought it up because…I don’t know, the-“ He gestured with both hands, one above his head, the other at his waist. “-bothered you.”
“…height difference?” Anathema guessed.
“No! What? No!” flustered Aziraphale. “I’m sure I’d know if I’d met you. I thought that demons didn’t remember their ethereal selves, and it was just rude to bring it up!” He gasped suddenly, pointing at Crowley accusingly. “You already knew my name! When we met!”
Anathema was a woman of sound instincts, and they told her to sit back, stay quiet, and enjoy the show.
“Of course I remember!” scoffed Crowley. “Granted, some of the demons forgot on purpose, or pretended to, I think they were just embarrassed. I was an angel for eons, you don’t just…forget that!”
“But…” Aziraphale looked anguished. “I would have known, wouldn’t I? What was your-“
Crowley had decided to be amused, and sat back. “Ah ah ah. I don’t think I should tell you my old name! My feelings are hurt. That you don’t even recall our conversation!”
“So, we actually spoke,” said Aziraphale. “That narrows it down a bit. There were twenty-million angels before the Rebellion,” he explained to Anathema, who hadn’t asked but was very entertained. “I wasn’t created too long before, so I hadn’t had time to meet nearly everyone yet.”
“But Crowley had been an angel for eons?” she asked. “So, you’re younger than him?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Aziraphale, actually pulling his spectacles out of his pocket to peer at Crowley, who rolled his eyes behind his glasses. “How much older are you?”
Crowley sighed. “Tell you what, you guess my old name, and I’ll tell you if you’re right. It’s really not a big deal. I thought you knew and we’d just…decided not to talk about it.”
“Oh!” said Aziraphale. “I do like guessing games.”
“Eons older, anyway,” said Crowley.
“Not as helpful as you’d think,” frowned Aziraphale. “Before She created the universe, time didn’t exactly exist. Are you older than the creation?”
“I’m older than a lot of things. Whippersnapper.”
“You must have looked different, if I can’t remember-“
“It was before we’d all started, y’know, looking a bit like this.”
Anathema couldn’t help herself. “As opposed to what?”
“You don’t think angels looked like humans before humans were even conceived of, do you? Junior here-“ Crowley gestured at Aziraphale’s corporation. “-he’s a Principality, they were created to be guides and rulers of the material world and humans, so he’s looked pretty much like that since day one. Yours truly…well, I’ve been fashionable since before it was a thing. I invented fashionable.”
Azriaphale had sat back and his eyes were flicking left to right, like he was reading, as he searched his memories. “So you were non-corporeal. And older than me, than the physical universe, so you must have been higher up in the ranks…What did we talk about? Did you give me orders? I probably wouldn’t have remembered that, I didn't always pay a lot of attention to who was telling me to do things.”
“Is this twenty questions? How many clues do you need!” said Crowley. Anathema noted with interest that the tips of his ears had turned a little pink.
“What did you talk about?” she asked. “It wasn’t just orders, was it?”
Crowley sighed. “Fine. If you must know, Aziraphale, you were…nice. That’s why I remembered. You paid me a compliment.”
“A compliment?”
“That’s all. You said you liked….something I’d created, I said ‘thanks’ – I don’t think you’d realised I was there at first - and I asked your name, because it make an impression. All the other new angels were looking at God and you looked at the universe. You told me your name, but got all embarrassed when you realised who I was, and went off to get assigned your burning sword or whatever.”
“You’d…created something. In the universe,” said Aziraphale slowly.
“Is that not usual?” asked Anathema.
“No, not really,” answered Aziraphale, still thinking. “God actually created most of it of course, all the…building blocks, the atoms and laws of space and time. The only ones entrusted with creating parts of the universe were the first angels, the…archangels…” he trailed off.
Crowley smirked, and drew a little tick-mark in the air with one finger. The shape flamed and hung in the air for a moment.
“The…the only archangel I spoke to before I was assigned to Eden and told to report to Gabriel…”
Crowley raised his eyebrows, made a go-on gesture with his hand.
“You…you’re…” Aziraphale took his glasses off and put them on again. “Well really, this is intolerable! You never said anything!”
“What’s the big deal?” asked Anathema.
“Ooohhh!” Azirpahel huffed. “I know Americans are all very egalitarian, but it would be like finding out that Newt was actually related to, to the President-“
Everyone winced. “Wrong side,” muttered Crowley.
“-to the Royal Family then. And he’d created…stars and galaxies! Beautiful ones! Only you’d known him for six-thousand years and he’d never said anything!”
Crowley threw up his hands. “I’m glad I never mentioned it, if you’re going to overreact and be all dramatic about it!”
“Oh, I’m being dramatic, am I?” said Aziraphale, dramatically. “Even Anathema’s probably heard your name.”
“My old name,” Crowley said, emphatically. “My old name, let’s get that straight. My name is Crowley. That angel ceased to exist the moment I Fell.”
“Of course, my dear,” said Aziraphale, sensing perhaps he'd gone a little far in the face of Crowley's apparent discomfort. He patted Crowley’s arm placatingly.
“It’s just…it’s like telling someone what school you used to go to. Once I Fell it didn’t matter any more. Lucifer certainly didn’t care that we were essentially bro-”
Aziraphale gathered himself. “If…if you like we can, how did you put it, decide we’re not going to mention it?”
Crowley sighed, looking a little morose. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that, angel, thanks.”
Later, Anathema waited while the two supernatural beings made their farewells. As soon as they were out the door she hurried to her bookshelves, pulling down the Guide To Angels, their Hierarchy and Choirs. She started flicking through – Aziraphale had said that even Anathema would have heard of Crowley’s old name. She jumped a little when Crowley spoke from beside her elbow. “Came back to…well, to be honest, I thought I’d find you looking at something like this and it would be funny to catch you.”
He took the book from her hands, riffled through the pages to the ‘R’ section, and pointed to an entry with one long finder. The nail was looking slightly darker and claw-like than usual; Anathema supposed he was making a point. “Dreadful illustration though. Doesn’t look a thing like me.”
Anathema agreed. The illustration was…insipid. Whoever Crowley might once have been, she was fairly sure he’d never been insipid.
“Just, ah, just out of interest. If you found out that your Newt was…Royalty. Would it matter?”
Anathema tore her eyes on the page, and caught an unlikely vulnerable expression on the demon’s face before he caught himself and schooled his face back to nonchalance. “Oh…” she said. “I would be surprised. Because he’s Newt. But I don’t think you have to worry, Crowley. Aziraphale loves you.”
"He…he does.” It was a statement, but Anathema heard the question.
“I’m a witch, we can tell these things.” She smiled at him. “Go on, he’s waiting for you.” In every sense, she thought.
Crowley gave her a small, genuine smile, then smirked. He couldn’t help himself. “Of course, if you tell anyone else about my…previous employment I’ll need to-“
“Rip my spine from my body and feed it to Dog, yadda yadda. Go on!”
“I was going to say turn into a snake and bite you, but sure. All right, toodles!”
“…you can turn into a snake? You’re actually that snake? I thought Aziraphale was being…metaphorical!”
Crowley lowered his glasses enough to wink at her, and turned to saunter out to the Bentley. Through the window Anathema watched the two leave. She wondered if it would be rude to ask next time if currently-corporeal ethereal and occult beings engaged in…Well. Perhaps some things were beyond mortal understanding.
She saw that the Bentley was still parked, because Aziraphale had Crowley pressed up against the side, and was kissing him.
Or not.