The Curious Condition of Being Human

Chapter 5

There was a tightness to the angel's demeanor that worried Crowley. He stepped back to let Aziraphale into his flat. "Getting kind of late for a drop-by, isn't it?"

"Well, I came by earlier, but you were out. You were out all day, as a matter of fact. Then I saw you lugging all manner of strange things up the stairs. So I know you're lying to me."

Crowley blanched and tried to put together Aziraphale's logic. "How...so?"

Aziraphale walked over and picked up a bundle of incense, an antique weigh scale, and a club pack of frankfurters. "A very strange assortment of items for a budding so-called entomologist."

"A...what?"

Aziraphale bristled. "Someone who studies bugs, Crowley! Oh now I really know you've been lying to me. So, what is it?"

Crowley tried to think of an answer to that question that might appease Aziraphale.

But he took too long, because Aziraphale spoke first. When he did, his voice was tight and squeaky. "It's not someone else, is it?"

Crowley just stared at him. "Someone...else?"

"What else could it be? You've never been shy about telling me your schemes before. Or at least not lying to me about the fact there is a scheme." He dropped the pack of frankfurters which made a wet, squelching noise. "Well?"

"Angel, there hasn't been anyone else in six thousand years. Why the hell do you think I'd start now?"

Aziraphale blinked. For a moment, Crowley thought he saw a break in the angel's demeanor. But the fingers of the enchantment crept over him and pulled him back down into the human delusion.

"I suppose it certainly feels like it's been that long, sometimes. But maybe...well, it's only natural that one might become bored and restless after so long." Aziraphale looked down at his shoes.

Crowley's inner demon (the one below his outer demon and the one that caused him to rebel in the first place) was telling him to push the sliver of this a little harder to wedge open cracks for the counter-spell to work through once it was ready.

But Crowley's inner angel (which did exist - though he'd never admit it) couldn't bear to make the heartbreak he saw in Aziraphale's eyes and in his body language any worse.

"Rrrawngh..." snarled Crowley in frustration. He raked his fingers through his fire-red hair and stamped a skinny leg.

Aziraphale looked up with a start. "Are you all right?"

Crowley gritted his teeth. Then a lie formed, then slithered up his throat to his tongue. "You've caught me," he murmured. "I have been sneaking about. But it's not for what you're thinking. I'm working on a surprise."

"A surprise?" Aziraphale straightened. "For me? That involves frankfurters?" The last word ended on an understandably incredulous note.

"I eh..." Crowley's eyes flicked to the weird assortment of items. "I promise it will all make perfect sense when it's together and I reveal it to you." Which was, in fact, true. If everything went to plan.

Aziraphale didn't seem quite convinced. The angel always did have a gift for seeing through Crowley's lies, both the obvious ones and the ones he told himself. But there was just enough truth in what he was saying to throw him off.

The angel's facial muscles twitched. "I don't know. This all seems very suspicious, still. And not in the oh, you're in for a nice surprise sort of way. Like the way one might get on Christmas morning or when pulling up to a house with far too many cars out front on your birthday. This feels more like I'm about to be surprised with a terminal illness diagnosis. Or something really horrible. Like a water leak in my shop where I keep my most valuable books." He shivered at the thought.