A/N
kaskal = expedition, caravan; road, journey<br />
according to http://sumer.grazhdani.eu/index.php
They ate at a little French place in Belgravia and had returned to Crowley's flat to retrieve Aziraphale's book before leaving.
"I'll be just a moment."
"Take your time, Angel. We're in no rush."
He smiled that smile, the one that made his eyes sparkle and go all crinkly in the streetlights, the one he always used when adoration was written across his cheeks in an orange sort of way.
The one that always made Aziraphale feel treasured.
"No," he glittered. "We aren't."
The angel hurried through the downpour and disappeared behind the door, leaving Crowley with the fluorescent stars in his eyes.
Inside the flat, Aziraphale vanished the tea and food from earlier so it wouldn't rot and snatched up his book, when something caught his eye. Down the corridor and through the doorway, potting soil could be seen spilt over the floor, and when he went over to investigate, the plants were dead. All of them, wilted away. The soil was dry as sand and crunched under his shoes and a black orchid lay shattered at his feet, as if a stiff wind had swept through the place and knocked it over. The smell of iron still lingered in the air, and on the ground by the fallen plant lay a feather.
He stooped to pick it up. It was a blood feather, the tip a rusted brown and its vanes not yet sprouted yet, only a small plume at the tip. He felt a little sick, but outside an antique car horn crooned plaintively. Aziraphale tucked it into his breast pocket and hurried downstairs, slid smoothly into the Bentley's bench seat.
"Thought we weren't in a hurry?"
Crowley shrugged.
"No time like the present, and all that." They pulled jarringly away from the curb.
"Where was it?"
"Hm? Oh, I erm-it fell between the cushions. The book."
"I figured. That sofa swallows everything."
Crowley sped away from the curb and squinted through the sheets of rain at street signs.
"Which way is Italy?"
"Err-that way, I think."
"Right, allons-y!"
The Bentley peeled around a corner, speeding down the pavement. Crowley concentrated, shut his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, the rain had stopped and Savile Row had become a long, winding road along the coast, which, in due time, became a narrow drive lined with elderly ginkgo trees leading up to a large estate overlooking the water.
It was called Ama-gi₁. The house itself looked like it was based off of one of those big white greek stone things, built in the late 1700s or so with a major renovation sometime within the last forty years. And that was exactly what the handful of humans who'd seen the place within the last few millennia had believed. Crowley parked out front and stepped out into the salty night air. The sky was clear and their rain-studded car looked out of place.
The front door was unlocked and all the lights switched on, illuminating the cavernous atrium and its mosaic floor (which they had put in because Crowley was jealous of the one in Critias's new villa back in the early 5th century BC). Its tesserae had worn away through time under their tread. Moonlight floated in through the compluvium above, and the pop of a cork ricocheted off the walls. Aziraphale shed his mack onto the hall tree and was reminded of the feather in his pocket when the quill poked uncomfortably against his chest. Crowley was in the kitchen pouring two glasses of ajaccio rouge.
"Red?"
"Just one glass, I'm rather spent."
"I'm just saying, maybe we should be more careful."
"Whatever for?"
"I have...a sense about these things," Crowley insisted.
"Well-either somebody's protecting us, or they've all lost interest-either way, we're safe now. No more...dancing around each other and sending secret messages and you, disappearing to your lair..." Aziraphale muttered into his glass, batting a long-suffering hand in his direction.
"I don't think you get it angel. Just because we won't get in trouble for 'fraternising' as you called it-"
"That was over a hundred-and-fifty years ago!".
"-doesn't mean we can just be pals now."
"You don't want to be my friend."
Aziraphale feared if only for a moment that he'd look up and see his demon staring back in silent confirmation, but his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open in stunned silence.
"No-Darling, you know that's not true. I'm just...it isn't right. I'm not right, not for you."
Aziraphale nearly dropped his glass.
"Excuse me?"
Crowley knew that look, he knew that voice. He groaned preemptively.
Instead of the tiresome lecture on self-appreciation he was expecting, he felt a hand on his own.
"My dear, it is an honour, to know you. You don't-the fact that you're fallen never actually struck me as a bad thing."
"Really," said Crowley, with a nearly whispered rasp, sprouting streaks of curiosity and genuine surprise as it left his lips. He mentally admonished himself.
"Yes. It never occurred to me to think of..." his swirled his glass, cast his eyes to the sky. "-of you as anything less than an angel. You're just a different variety, is all."
Crowley was still swimming languidly in the alcoholic buzz. He drew aside the curtain to his closet, hooking it in the elbow of the statue of Eumachia who stood to the side. Inside were several millennia of clothes that he should probably get rid of, but he climbed into grey linen shorts and a loose matching shirt.
He spent the night restless in his bed, feeling like a whale in an empty ocean.
1. Ama-gi means "Sanctuary" in sumerian. Sumerian was the first recorded language, dating back as early as 3100 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia, with the height of the the Sumerian Empire-its native speakers-between 4100 and 1750 BCE. According to the book and the show, Crowley and Aziraphale met in 4004 BCE. Therefore it's logical to assume that on Earth, this would be the language they'd use. There are surviving ruins from that age, so it isn't unreasonable to assume that a structure from six thousand years ago wouldn't still be standing today. The idea is that a long time ago, Crowley and Aziraphale recognised their need for a secure location to meet, so they cordoned off part of Corsica before anyone noticed. Over time, it became a sort of base, then a home. The estate isn't necessarily from three thousand years ago, its from all history. They kept renovating and rebuilding so there are odd things like a subzero in the kitchen but a dutch oven in the fireplace, or 18th century rococo trim furniture on a rug made by like, the Mayans or something. It's supposed to feel like a classy mansion that also might be a cave.
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