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As stereotypical as it would sound to a human, angels all had a celestial domain that they presided over.
Aziraphale himself was an angel of Knowledge and Learning. While he was no longer required to take an active part in his duties as an Angel of Knowledge and Learning, his nature had seeped into his life on earth, manifesting as the hoarding of the collected literature of the human race. He considered denying this before he glanced around the dusty bookshop, deciding that yes, it really was undeniable that he still was attached to his old position.
Aziraphale often found himself wondering what happened to the nature of a Fallen Angel. Usually these trains of thought were brought on by thinking about Crowley for too long in one day - therefore this occurred regularly since the Almost-pocalypse. Every second day when they were out for dinner and the angel had found himself watching the demon too closely he would wonder what Crowley had been like before The Fall. Heaven taught that a demon lost all semblance of the angel that they once were, and therefore had no affinity towards a domain of being. Domains were holy things, things of love - a demon could never be connected to this still.
So Up There claimed.
Aziraphale doubted this claim. One more item on the ever growing list that he found himself doubting Heaven on. No, Crowley wasn’t fully disconnected from love, from the aura of love that filled the air, and was stronger in Tadfield than anywhere else. Aziraphale could tell that. But then, Crowley wasn’t a very good demon was he?
He had considered many possible domains that Crowley could fit into. Music was one that had come up multiple times in Aziraphale’s pondering. He always loved music, it was something the demon had ensured to be caught up with every decade. Up to date with every new genre of music and every new outcast band. Not to mention the Bentley and the way it warped music. Nature was another such area Crowley had an affinity with. Yes, animals weren’t too fond of him, and arguably plants weren’t fond of him either. But there was an undeniable connection between plants and him. Perhaps an Angel of Advancement, of Change? That would fit with his compulsion to always be on the cutting edge of technology, always buying the newest fandangled invention that cost far more than even the more well off human could even consider purchasing. This was of course only a relevant line of thought if Crowley’s previous position as an Angel still affected him today. Perhaps...
And if Aziraphale continued to allow himself to be distracted by thinking about the lithe serpent then he was soon have to admit to himself some things he would rather avoid. So he stopped thinking.
The angel shook his head, opting to return his attention to the Oscar Wilde first edition sitting in his lap which had already been read countless times and which had been sitting there for quite some time not not actually being read. The internal discussion in the angel’s mind would continue soon enough anyway, he acknowledged that. The demon would be arriving at the shop any time now to whisk them away to the Ritz for dinner, followed by a few too many drinks in the back room of the shop and a handful of drunken touches that lasted just slightly too long.
No. No more thinking of that.
He glanced towards the clock over his spectacles. 5:23PM. Crowley should be around in an hour or so. The angel settled back into his book and attempted to not think of skinny, red haired demons called Anthony J. Crowley.
—
At 8:23PM the demon called Anthony J. Crowley cursed at the paper in front of him for the 17th time since moving onto this sheet of thick paper. His attempts at perfecting water colour wasn’t faring well for the block of watercolour paper he was rapidly working through. The previous papers had come to an unfortunate end, crushed up into slightly soggy balls and thrown into the corner of the spare room in Crowley’s flat. The spare room was kept locked at all times and was the only area of the apartment which wasn’t pristine. Where the rest of the apartment was all sleek leather and polished marble with not a spec of dust or dirt in sight, the spare room was, quite frankly, a mess. And as a result, it was the only room that actually looked lived in.
Canvases and pieces of paper in varying degrees of brightness and colours covered the floor like a carpet and were stacked and leant against all four walls. There were perfect acrylic painted landscapes which could just as well be pictures. An incredibly detailed sketch of Notre Dame lay to the side of Crowley’s desk, curling at the edges.
Crowley had always admired and loved art. Through the entirety of history he had been drawn to it, from the earliest wood carvings to Da Vinci and Van Gogh, the serpent had been there - watching the birth of new art mediums. And partaking in it. It took some effort, while he took naturally to sketching and painting, perfection wasn’t attained immediately. Even occult beings had to put some effort in if they wished to improve - without using any miracles anyway.
He sketched the skylines of cities with the knowledge that, in a century, while the city may remain, the skyline would be entirely different. He painted animals, preserving their image in vibrant pigments that he could look back at once the humans inevitably drove the creatures to extinction. A picture of a duck done in oil paint was hung beside the open door to the rest of the flat.
The majority of the pieces had one common subject however, featuring curls, and unnecessary reading glasses and truly unfashionable suits which were always at least 50 years out of date. Many of the pieces highlighted the blue of the eyes, the gold of curls.
Most commonly Aziraphale’s likeness was preserved in charcoals, shaded perfectly and looking as accurate as reality.
And every single piece had never been seen by another soul, occult or otherwise.
There were multiple reasons for this. Reason one, Crowley was a demon for someone’s sake! He could just be seen taking time to perfect shading with soft pastels, he was supposed to be evil!
Reason two was rather obvious, a certain angel featured in many of the demon’s pieces of work. For a good 3 centuries Crowley had been drawing him, that was around the time where Crowley had realised he loved the bastard (note the use of ‘realised’. In fact the demon had been smitten for much longer, he simply hadn’t realised it.) - and by Someone, he hated that. It got easier as the time past, since the Armageddon’t the demon could almost convince himself that the affection wasn’t one sided. And then he would remember himself and his place in things- the occult, the demon, the evil. Aziraphale was the ethereal, the angel. The good.
Crowley cursed again, and tossed the failed attempt at a water colour landscape into the trash pile with the rest of them without so much as glancing towards the door.
“Six millennia and I still can’t use damned watercolours. I swear this damned media must have been one of ours.”
He ran a hand through mussed red hair and sighed, inspecting his cup of water and deciding that fresh water was in order. He never miracled anything where his art was concerned, and that included something as small as fresh paint water.
The paint water cup very soon found itself at the mercy of gravity as Crowley noticed the figure standing in the door way and reacted to the situation very calmly (by yelping in an undignified manner, jumping out of his skin, dropping the cup of dirty water and letting enough demonic energy charge the air that in the other room his house plants stood up straighter in fear - hey, it was shocking to have the one person you least wanted in one particular room standing in the doorway). The cup never hit the floor, much to its own surprise, as the angel standing in the doorway ensured it safely found a perch on the counter in the kitchen with a small hand gesture. Said angel stared at Crowley. Crowley stared at Aziraphale. There was a lot of staring.
It took a solid minute for Crowley to realise the angel had likely been there for some time. Which meant that Aziraphale had seen his works. Which meant that he had seen the many, many, portraits of the angel.
“Angel, I didn’t- it’s not, I mean-“ For being a usually very suave demon, the words tumbled rather clumsily from his tongue.
“Art.”
Crowley blinked - an unusual occurrence, “Yes..? Aziraphale, did you hear-“
“Yes I hear you, my dear. But art! I never realised, after all this time I never even considered it - you were an Angel of Art!” Crowley blinked again, both grateful for the angel’s incredible obliviousness and confused as to how this conversation was going and why the angel was even here. Aziraphale took Crowley’s silence as a cue to continue babbling, “I have wondered for some time whether you still had a domain, and look, art! You are very skilled, aren’t you!” He trailed away to inspect the duck painting hanging on the wall.
Internally Crowley searched for a way to herd the angel out of the room.
“Yeah, well, not exactly demonic is it? I have a reputation to uphold, don’t I? Now come on, let’s go-“
“Is that me?”
Shit.
“And that’s, another... Oh. How very flattering, I must say I... you have rather a lot of those, is that from Italy in the 17th century?” Crowley tried very hard not to yelp as he watched the angel begin to pick his way across the floor, stepping around various canvases that lay on the floor - though whether it was the controlling artist instinct that made him panic at Aziraphale’s proximity to his work or whether it was just the hopeless fondness for the angel and fear that Aziraphale would figure it out by looking at the paintings, Crowley couldn’t know. Aziraphale remained apparently oblivious to the demon’s discomfort and continued dancing around canvases. “Oh, I remember that hairstyle! Crowley, why do you have so many portraits of, well, of me? I wouldn’t say I was a particularly interesting subject.”
The demons mouth moved before he gave it permission to, “Of course you are, Angel.” He bit his serpentine tongue and opted to glaze over how genuine that statement had been and change the subject, “Why’re you here anyway?”
“We were meant to be going out for dinner, my dear, don’t you remember?”
“Course I remember, but that’s not for-“ Yellow eyes glanced down to an overly fancy wristwatch, “Oh.”
“Yes, oh. Fashionably late is one thing, but I was becoming rather concerned about you, Crowley. Over two hours late? I came to check what was keeping you.”
“Err, yes, sorry about that, I got distracted,” he gestured with a lazy wave towards the soggy pile of failed water colour paintings, “Still want to get dinner?”
“I would love to.” The angel smiled brightly, the demon fought the urge to mirror the smile and instead hustled them out. He gave a final glance to the haphazardly stacked and balanced papers and canvases.
Painting Aziraphale was always an odd thing.
Art preserved that which would all too soon be gone, the lifespan of every creature was fleeting when you were a 6000+ year old immortal who had been around since the beginning of time. He had seen the stars born, the corruption of Eden, the birth of the first children, the drowning of the Middle East, wars, famines, ancient architecture lost to conflict, the ancient temples reclaimed by jungles.
For an immortal, turning away and leaving a city may as well be leaving it forever, you never knew what would still be there when you looked back.
After seeing so much of the world lost, decade after decade, century after century, the creation of art was reassuring. He preserved the skylines in the knowledge and expectation that he may never see the city look the same again, but on that piece of paper it would live eternal. Animals were preserved past their lifespan on earth with the layering of pencil lines.
But Aziraphale would always be there, he was an angel, immortal. There was not the fear he would change. He wouldn’t die. For all intents and purposes he was the one thing Crowley knew would always survive. The seasons changed, the world burned and boiled, the end of the world very nearly came - but Aziraphale looked no different to that day in Eden where they were introduced.
And yet there was still the fear he one day would never see the angel again. That he’d be gone as soon as he was no longer looking. That heaven may one day take Aziraphale back.
So he painted and sketched and drew, content that if the day should ever come his Angel was gone, he’d have some comfort in what once was.
With a final click he locked the room away, safely behind a door to no longer be seen. It would still be there even when he couldn’t see it, of that he was certain.
Turning back he saw so too was his Angel, still patiently waiting.