The peculiar thing about having lunch with Adam Young, former spawn of Satan, was that his company often did not need to prepare for the occasion at all. Nor were they aware of the occasion before it began, and only became aware once they found themselves to be sitting at his kitchen table with a plate full of biscuits and a cup of tea.

Crowley twisted in his seat, peering over his shoulder as though the interior of his flat would appear and he could simply resume watering his plants, shake off this whole encounter as though it were merely the result of having had a little too much to drink. No such luck, though. No matter how many times he blinked or turned his head to check, he was always sitting in a very ordinary kitchen, with a very extraordinary boy. Carefully, as though he were staring down a tiger, he set the spritzer he'd been watering his plants with down on the floor. Aziraphale had theorized that in making Arthur Young the only father he'd ever had, Adam had chosen a life of normalcy. A human life.

Well, so much for that. "Hello, Adam."

Fortunately, he'd happened to be wearing his sunglasses indoors again. After all, it'd be just his luck if the kid got spooked by his slit pupils and accidentally turned him into a newt. Preoccupied as he was with chewing on exactly one biscuit more than he could comfortably stuff in his mouth, Adam offered a sheepish wave. Crowley responded similarly, though his gesture could be translated roughly as, Take as long as you like. Honestly, take forever. I'm not daft enough to rush even a retired Antichrist.

Adam Young's kitchen was not so much on the opposite end of the spectrum from Warlock's as one might expect. After all, the opposite of garish and cluttered with art prints and geometric shapes was understated and drab, yet though the Young household held a number of items at its disposal and even less room to store them with, the impression given from the moment any guest, occult or otherwise, crossed the threshold was that the place was, as Aziraphale would put it, loved.

Between the plaid placemats and the plaid towels and the floral wallpaper, there was also a very real chance that whoever had designed Adam Young's home had not only known Crowley, but hated him on a very personal level. As he mulled over how best to summon Aziraphale over to Tadsfield to bail him out, Adam swallowed down his snack with a sip of tea, freeing up his mouth enough to ask with honest curiosity, "What are your eyes like behind those shades of yours?" Curiosity like that would have gotten him tossed headfirst into a boiling lake back in the day. "They must be pretty embarrassing if you're wearing sunglasses inside." Crowley bristled in spite of himself, not that Adam seemed to notice. "Are your eyes pink? Is that it? Do they sparkle?"

Slouching back into his seat, Crowley waved off the boy's questions with a dismissive, "Obviously not." Then, on second thought, leaned forward to add sternly, "And don't be getting any funny ideas."

"I'd like to see them." Adam stared up at him expectantly. Open and earnest, with honeysuckle curls and boundless curiosity. At the nunnery, when Adam was a just a squirmy baby, Crowley recalled mentioning that the boy took after his father. He hadn't meant it as a compliment back then, but looking at him now, he was starting to see how it could be. There was a time, after all, when Lucifer had shone the brightest of them all. "Will you show them to me?"

It wasn't an order. Not really. More of a request than anything.

Even so, an old, buried instinct in Crowley yearned to please. He gave his head a hard shake, and deliberately stalled for time until he could get the impulse under control. When he was satisfied, he slumped over the table, only his arms keeping him propped up, fixed the boy with a weary stare, "Oh, you don't want that," and denied him.

Adam shrugged, his shoulders jerking quickly in the manner of little boys, always moving like they're fitting the energy of a lifetime in a day. "Sure, I do. I always know what I want." There was the self-assuredness. "Just like you know what you don't want, and you don't want to show me." And there was something different. Lucifer had never been one for patience or compassion. Adam Young, on the other hand, had trained a dog to stand. He spent hours every day coming up with new games for his friends to play. He was guileless, wise, and frighteningly innocent. Rather like a certain bookish angel Crowley knew.

Taking a judicious sip of his tea, as all of his biscuits had miraculously disappeared, Adam peered almost shyly up at him over the cup's rim, which the demon found endearing, if grudgingly so. Uncomfortable with silence, the boy cleared his throat. "So, are you, then?"

"Am I what?"

"You know… Embarrassed?" And in case Crowley had somehow forgotten what he'd been plucked from his flat in London to discuss, Adam gestured vaguely towards his own perfectly normal slate-colored eyes.

"Well," Crowley started, drawing out the word to three syllables, "I've had millennia to get used to them." He gave the shades a flick. "Sure, they're not very nice to look at, but they're mine." And that was all that mattered. Of course, that didn't mean he'd be showing them off to any old human he met walking down the street. A very close call with a burning pyre had taught him early on that not everyone was as accepting of his demonic features as Aziraphale.

The eleven-year-old boy, the child, then tried a new tactic. Goading. "You'd think a demon would be proud to show off his snake eyes," he said with an air of expectation. "I wouldn't ever wear sunglasses if I had eyes as cool as yours." Such a statement would suggest that Adam did, indeed, wear sunglasses, which was simply not the case. In truth, he had never needed them, thanks to an uncanny resistance to even the brightest lights.

Crowley rested his face in his hands with a muffled sigh. It was hardly even noon and he was already exhausted. "Can't hide anything from you, can I?" Outside the kitchen window, a dog barked insistently at three children chasing each other through the yard. The game, as far as he could tell, was to run in a large circle without being caught, and the child who lasted the longest without falling dizzily to the grass would be declared the winner. One of the children tumbled down to the earth, giggling as they fell. "I'm sure you've heard the stories. I wasn't always a demon."

Most likely having seen his father do the same when he was thinking, Adam stroked his chin. "So, not quite evil. And not quite good, either." He laughed, high and light. "Why, you're basically human, aren't you?"

"Hey," Crowley snapped without heat. "I take offense to that."

It was the human with glasses that had fallen. Now, the other two were attempting to lift him off the ground, except the dog kept dancing around their ankles and the boy in glasses refused to be anything other than a snickering mass of dead weight. Bemused, Adam followed his gaze. "Humans aren't so bad," he said softly.

"Not the little ones," Crowley conceded. "When you've lived as long as I have, nothing much scares you, but the human imagination? I've seen what it can do time and time again, and it's a terrifying thing to behold."

Somehow, Adam didn't appear reassured, and Crowley had just about run out of patience, as he didn't see how swirling a spoon in tea could be more fascinating than conversing with an actual demon. At last, Adam glanced hesitantly up at him through delicate circlets of golden bangs. "I guess I wanted to see if I could do something for you, since you both helped me stand up to my other dad, but…" When he trailed off, Crowley wondered if it was possible for a demon to die of heart failure. He didn't think it was, but in the presence of the Antichrist, who could say for certain? "I mean, I can always fix it if you don't like the surprise." A watch appeared on Adam's wrist. "And would you look at the time? Pepper's calling me." He shot to his feet with a hasty wave, "Bye, Mr. Crowley," then darted out the kitchen.

It took a moment for Crowley's mouth to catch up with his brain, "What? Adam, what did you-"

"Are you alright, dear?" Had Aziraphale miracled himself into any other kitchen, Crowley would have jumped out of his skin. Since it was not just any kitchen, and was in fact a very cluttered, very lived-in kitchen with plaid towels, a cabinet full of eclectic mugs, and a refrigerator plastered with detailed drawings of aliens and dinosaurs, the angel who had only just appeared fit in so well it was as though he had always been there.

Aziraphale's brow furrowed at the demon's distress. So great was his concern that he reached out a palm that very nearly cupped the demon's cheek, and had Crowley not leaned away from his touch, thinking that the angel was only acting on his first impulse, the one that demanded he help every sorry sob story that crossed his path, he most likely would have.

"I'm courting oblivion every time I talk to that kid," Crowley muttered tetchily, climbing to his feet and brushing some nonexistent dust from his cuffs while Aziraphale surreptitiously allowed his arm to fall to his side. "What do you think, angel?"

The demon stalked out of the cottage home, grumbling under his breath all the while. Since Aziraphale had already used up a miracle and Crowley wasn't in the mood to perform one of his own, he had set his mind to walk down the dusty road all the way to London. Given the general state of the M25, there was a good chance he'd actually make better time that way than if they hailed a taxi or hitched a ride.

After waving genially to the children when they passed through Adam's yard, Aziraphale set out in a steady jog to catch up with him. "I was in my bookshop," the angel started breathily, "when I felt the gentle tug of young Adam's summons, but since it's simply good manners to provide an invitation prior and I was otherwise engaged, I politely resisted the call."

Crowley stopped for a moment to digest that. "...That was an option?" There was a thick coating of dusty soil on his leather shoes.

"Yes. Anyways, soon after, I received a very strange message from the boy telling me that I should come and retrieve you." He slowed to a stop, squinting in the sunlight to make out the profile of the Bentley parked at the end of the street. When Crowley spotted it, a grin split his pale features, and he hastened his pace, taking back everything he'd ever thought or considered about walking.

"Like I keep telling you, angel," he said airily over his shoulder. Seeing the Bentley had done wonders for his mood, "it's called an answering machine. Humans leave messages on them." It wasn't until they were seated inside of the classic automobile, Aziraphale settling in for what was sure to be an extremely long drive back to London, that Crowley paused to remove his sunglasses.

Although he'd been hoping to catch a glimpse of serpent yellow in the rearview mirror, Aziraphale confirmed his worst fears for him. "Your eyes!" The angel gasped.

Instead of slits, all that stared back at Crowley from his reflection was round and human. Hickory brown and flecked with gold, they might have borne some resemblance to his long lost angelic visage. Or perhaps not. Crowley's memories of his appearance prior to the boiling sulfur bath were fuzzy at best, which was just fine by him. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't anything worth remembering about Heaven, and these eyes, while beautiful and human and convenient, weren't his.

He chanced a glance at Aziraphale, who wore a look of equal measures worry and upset on his behalf. Normally, such proof that the angel cared for him would have instantly lifted his spirits, but this was a vital part of his identity that had been changed without his permission, and under the guise of a gift at that. More than even his outrage at having been changed to suit someone else's idea of him once again, it was the hint of desperation in Aziraphale's gaze that unbalanced him. The angel could see Crowley, the essence of him, as he always had, but where once it had been effortless, now he was forced to search.

"The boy's in for it now," Crowley growled through gritted teeth.

Alarmed, Aziraphale touched his wrist. "You cannot harm the Antichrist, Crowley. He'll destroy you."

Crowley, on the other hand, was already starting the engine. He slammed the gas pedal down like a racer in the Kentucky Derby, "I can blessed well try!"

Aziraphale held onto his seat belt for dear life, shouting over the roar of the pistons, "I just don't see what all the fuss is about, my dear. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm. Young Adam is a fine lad."

"You don't get it!" Frustration mounting, he squeezed the steering wheel with enough strength to leave dips in its surface. "It's not just the eyes." Fear passed over his features in a flash of vulnerability. "I am going to die soon, Aziraphale." When the angel opened his mouth as if to protest, he rushed to add, "Sooner than you, at the very least. Whether he meant to do it or not, the boy's made me human. I can already feel these cells decaying. And I highly doubt I'll be made Hell's field agent again when I'm through." That was an understatement. The only thing waiting for him after a natural death was a bathtub filled with holy water.

Aziraphale's expression hardened. "You're quite right," he replied stiffly. "That is unacceptable."

"And it's not just…" Taking one hand off the steering wheel, Crowley waved vaguely in the general direction of his face. "It's not just that. It's about me." A plump woman on the sidewalk clutched her Pomeranian to her bosom as the Bentley raced past, leaving scorching tire marks in its wake. "This isn't the first time some being powerful enough to bend reality to their whim has taken everything that I am and reshaped it into something else, and this time I don't have thousands of years to figure out what it is."

Aziraphale's lips parted in surprise. "Does it truly bother you so? I thought-"

"An angel wouldn't understand," Crowley interrupted, sounding strained. He ran his fingers through his hair, feeling like a bundle of raw nerves as the Young household appeared around the corner. The Bentley took a sharp turn into the driveway, its tires smoking. "You are as you were born," continued Crowley with the defeated air of one trying to explain the stars to a fellow who had never in his life seen the sky. "But we were stripped of our divinity, our shapes, our voices. I'm not what I was and I never will be again, but I at least wanted to remain as I am." And he bent forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, taking shaky breaths. It made him look smaller, younger. It was that which finally convinced Aziraphale of how dire the situation was, because Crowley, after having spent so much time crawling on the ground at the Beginning, hated feeling small more than anything.

Unable to resist the urge any longer, the angel placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Come, my dear," he said comfortingly. "We shall have this all sorted out, soon. You have my word."

They found Adam's mother, a petite young woman with a short bob, working in the garden. She wore overalls and a wide-brimmed hat as she went about plucking weeds from the soil. Personally, Crowley had always found burning a fistful of weeds with Hellfire in full view of their friends to be a much more effective and permanent solution, but to each their own.

Since two strange men asking after her child undoubtedly would not go over well, Aziraphale explained to her that a dog had trampled his gardenias. Oh, it wasn't a major problem - plants could always grow back, after all - but he and his partner were really hoping to impress upon the boy the importance of keeping a proper watch on his pet when they went frolicking about the neighborhood.

Adam's mother was appropriately horrified by the news, promising to make sure her son replanted their gardenias first thing tomorrow. "He's on a sleepover, you see," she told them, not unkindly. "I'm so very sorry for any trouble our son has caused. This is his very first pet but, no, if he's going to take care of a dog, he must learn to be responsible for it." She glanced between the pair of them, a well-dressed gentleman in a vest and tartan bow tie standing beside a tall red-haired man dressed in a stylish dark jacket and just on the edge of starved. "Would you and your partner fancy anything to drink?"

While Crowley was too stunned to respond, Aziraphale answered politely on his behalf, "I believe that would be lovely. Two sugars and cream, if you please."

Once she was out of earshot, Crowley roused from his stupor. His features contorted in rage, but before he could damn himself a second time, Aziraphale preemptively clapped his hands over his mouth. This did not seem to stop the demon, though his screams were rendered muffled and unintelligible. Before he was finished, Aziraphale was already dragging him to the car. Now that only one of them possessed preternatural strength, it was a regrettably simple task. "We'll come back tomorrow," he slipped Crowley into the driver's seat, hoping that the long drive back to London would sufficiently cool his head.

Naturally, staying in a hotel was out of the question, as was the utterly preposterous notion that Crowley would be spending the night alone in his flat. As if Aziraphale would allow such a thing. No, he insisted that Crowley spend the night in his bookshop, just the two of them, with a good book, a bottle of wine (or several), and a nice fire to keep them warm.

To his amazement, Crowley agreed without resistance, following him wordlessly into the bookshop. It wasn't until later, when they were reading novels by candlelight, that Aziraphale's newly human friend gave him any cause for worry.

He heard the sound of pages being flipped too hastily, followed by the sharp hiss of indrawn breath, and looked up from a signed copy of Nostradamus' prophecies to see Crowley staring oddly a bead of crimson welling from the tip of his finger. "This body is so fragile," he mused, "Nothing so harmless as a piece of paper has ever been able to hurt me before. It's like I'm made of a billion lives that are constantly decaying and replenishing themselves." He waggled his finger at the angel when Aziraphale passed by the couch on his way to find the bandages he kept on hand for customers. "These cells are drying out as we speak." As Crowley spoke, the blood trickled down his wrist, dripping onto the page he'd been reading. Fascinated, he watched it soak into the paper, blurring the print.

He started when Aziraphale gently pressed a wet cloth to the cut, "I think that is quite enough wine for you, my dear," cleaning the small wound before unwrapping a small bandaid and sticking it on. "There. Much better."

Over the many hours they'd been reading and drinking in silence, the fire had grown dim, the candles running down to the wick. As a result, while Crowley suspected that the angel was smiling tightly, the corners of his eyes pinched with worry, for the first time since they'd met in the Garden, he couldn't be sure. The room was too dark for him to see.

After hesitating for a moment, he leaned forward, blowing out the remaining candles, and suffocated the fire. Then he removed his dark glasses to see… nothing. He couldn't make out any of the angel's features in the blackness that had descended, not his off-white coat or wisps of white hair. "I could always see you, you know," he muttered forlornly into the amorphous dark. "Before."

"Well, I see you, Anthony J. Crowley," came the response from his left, as he felt himself being confidently guided to the bedroom. "I've always seen you."

Crowley soon discovered, much to his consternation, that sleep was not easily forthcoming.

His physical body refused to be still, to be silent, while his soul yowled in agony, writhing and clawing at the parts that had been shaved off to fit the formerly divine into a human vessel. Every second, he could feel his cells splitting and fusing, the blood flowing through his veins, the air moving through his bronchial system. The growth of his hair and nails. The sloughing of dead skin.

It was enough to drive anyone mad.

Keeping his voice deliberately flat, Crowley commented for the benefit of the angel sitting quietly in the corner, "You'll have to find some other demon to have an Arrangement with, I expect." After all, he didn't really qualify as a demon, anymore. And given how much strain both his body and soul were under, he doubted he would qualify as a human for much longer, either. Perhaps he'd end up in Hell again.

Hastur would love that.

The angel glanced aside, his hands clasped in his lap. "No other demon would agree to it." Crowley snorted. "And even if they did," Aziraphale plunged on, "there's quite simply no one else I'd rather share a good Chardonnay with. My fellow angels are seriously lacking when it comes to their appreciation of wine, and the humans could never keep up."

Feeling warmer in a way that started in his stomach and spread from there, Crowley mumbled, "I suppose I did tempt you into something of a drunkard."

The angel gave a long-suffering sigh, fixing him with a look that was simultaneously exasperated and unbearably fond. "Hardly. I'm just saying - You're the only one I want to be with, Crowley." After finding his friend's hand beneath the fabric, Aziraphale covered it with his own. "It could only ever be you."

And Crowley stared, a rueful grin playing at the corners of his mouth. "It's not fair. You say these things when you don't know what they mean. You don't know what they do to me."

Upset stained the angel's visage, though he hastened to hide it. When he slowly withdrew his hand, Crowley didn't react to its departure, choosing instead to focus on the space where their hands had touched with something akin to awe.

"Get some rest, my dear," Aziraphale said softly. "I promise to be right here when you wake."

And perhaps it was because Crowley believed him, or simply due to his body giving in to its alcohol-induced exhaustion, but sleep soon found him, after all.

When the morning came, Crowley found out firsthand what a hangover felt like without demonic resistance or angelic interference, and took it with the tolerance associated most often with those who had never once encountered any sort of inconvenience in their lives. He lay sprawled over the couch, groaning sporadically about the drummer in his head, while Aziraphale set about ordering a pair of omelets with toast for breakfast. Something carb-rich with lots of water and orange juice for hydration. And if his fingers happened to brush Crowley's temples once or twice while he spoke on the phone, and if Crowley's headache happened to ease afterwards, then that was their little secret.

It was another five, almost six-hour drive to Tadsfield before they once more stood outside the Young household, each of them dressed much the same as they had the day previous. This time, Adam answered the door. At first, he looked delighted to see them. Then he read the heavy atmosphere surrounding pair, and his expression clouded with remorse.

He apologized to Crowley before Aziraphale could get a word out, "I'm so sorry. I just thought you might like to give being human a try." And Crowley inclined his head to show he understood that the boy hadn't meant to hurt him. Quite the opposite, really. No more demonic ties meant he and the angel didn't have to be enemies, anymore, which was wonderful except for that they really weren't enemies, regardless. It was something they'd fought for, the chance to drive together and go out to lunch and drink and still remain themselves.

"Next time," Crowley grumbled, "why don't you ask? Isn't that the polite thing you do before you de-demon a demon?" He carefully removed his dark glasses. Brown eyes with flecks of gold stared down at the boy. Then he knelt to Adam's level. "I like being me," he explained patiently, in terms he hoped the child would understand. "Even the parts I'm not very proud of." A wan smile passed over his greying features. "Isn't that why you still have a few miracles up your sleeve?"

Ashamed, Adam nodded. Then he plunged a hand into one of his pants pockets, dug around for a bit, and pulled out a biscuit that Crowley could recall having seen on the boy's plate during their prior conversation. "I knew I'd missed something." He plopped it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and bid them both a fond farewell before running to join his friends in the garden.

Crowley turned expectantly to Aziraphale. "Do you think he did it?"

The angel gazed deep into his eyes, and smiled, "Why, they're absolutely beautiful," only to be bewildered when the demon didn't react quite the way he'd imagined.

"I see," Crowley murmured, heading down the stone path to where the Bentley remained parked in the driveway. "Maybe the boy's planning to change me back after dinner, then." He paused, momentarily distracted. "How many meals do growing humans eat in a day, anyway?"

Aziraphale swatted his retreating back impatiently. "No, you silly demon. I've always thought your eyes were lovely." Crowley drew in a sharp breath. "Whether as an angel, a demon, or a human, I don't think that would change at all." Almost to himself, the angel added, "I rather did miss them, though," and Crowley thanked whoever was listening that his hearing was up to demonic standards once more.

There was one thing he wanted to do, however, while the rush from having a shortened lifespan still coursed through his system. He darted forward, brushing his lips against the angel's, just to get a taste. Though he'd expected a jolt, a shock, or even the smell of seared flesh, what he got was a spark, pleasant and warm as a cup of tea and a good book.

"Thought I might like to try that just once," he explained good-humoredly to his ethereal companion, noting with more than a little satisfaction the impressive flush that traveled all the way down to his roots. He placed a pair of fingers on his lips, serpent eyes glittering with mirth. "I'm surprised it didn't burn."

Aziraphale bristled. "Why, of course it didn't." He gripped Crowley's jacket sleeve, emanating an intensity the demon hadn't felt since he'd brandished a flaming sword against the devil. "I would never hurt you. You must know that." And Crowley glanced down at where divinity met the damned and felt warmed by the belief that welled within him. More than God, more than Heaven or Hell, or The-Apocalypse-That-Wasn't and all the others that would follow, Crowley believed in his angel.

Snickers from the bushes startled the pair, though, as Crowley was only too pleased to note, Aziraphale didn't pull away as he normally would, and they spun to see four heads duck down and a little yapping dog who didn't get the memo. As surreal as it was to see the infamous hellhound being frantically shushed by a curly-haired boy and girl, it was also right. The beast had chosen a side, after all. A side with glasses and grass stains and forts. With innocence and light and laughter, and all the things that mattered.

There was a strange solidarity in that.