A/N: This started off as a one-paragraph flashback for 'The Debt', but took a life of its own. Have it.

THE DISSEMBLER

Aziraphale could vaguely remember a sunny afternoon, back in the early days of Hellas, when the sensation had first surfaced – not in him, but in Crowley, because that is where new sensations were known to surface, so they could be named.

Hellas, definitely Hellas. Or was it even earlier?

Could have been. Long after the Ark, surely, but way before that fateful tan in the southern sun when things got blurred for the first time.

The concept was not new to Crowley, anyhow. He had already tried to explain it before (exactly thrice) without notable success; and each time, Aziraphale felt like he had understood, but not quite. It seemed that they were talking about similar things, but when Crowley said black, Aziraphale thought white – or the other way around –, and it frustrated them both to no end.

That day, however, they found common ground through the language of Socrates and Plato.

"My point is," Crowley said, waving his drink in the general direction of the darkening skies, "my point is – eironeia."

Aziraphale battled a wave of great confusion mingled with exhilaration. "Excuse me?"

"That's what it is," said Crowley. His voice was slurred, but his eyes were vivid. "I named the thing. Our whole damned existence is a big-big bunch of eironeia. What do you think?"

Aziraphale mimicked the word, but epiphany avoided him. "You mean – the fact of belying?"

"Forget truths and lies, angel. It's – have you never…? I'm sure you must have… well. Maybe you haven't but I think you have."

"You're not making any sense whatsoever."

Crowley made an unidentifiable noise. "No, s'pose I'm not. Uh… 's like… remember last time? The amphitheatre?"

"You sneaked up on me."

"Ye- yeah, I did. I sneaked up on you. I'm a snake, I sneak. Clear case. Anyway – I asked…"

"You asked if I was there for the play." Aziraphale shook his head with a bemused smile. "My dear boy. For what other reason could I have climbed all those stairs?"

Crowley clicked his tongue. "Well, that's not what you told me."

"Oh," said Aziraphale. "Did I lie to you?"

"Nah – nah, that's exactly my point!" Crowley countered with a triumphant grin. "You did not! I mean – if you squint, you did. You said that no, you were there to watch the grass grow, which was technically not true…"

"I must apologize. That was awfully rude of me."

"Nah, angel, it wasn't – hear me out! That's eironeia. I get that thing. I like it. And you're very good at it."

Aziraphale frowned. "Good at lying?"

"Not lying. 'Twasn't. Lying. I mean, it literally was, but 's evident that it was, so it's harmless. See? 'S just denying things. I'm talking about everyday denial. When someone asks you a stupid question, for one – let's say that they want to talk to you while you obviously don't… and so they start making small talk to spark up a conversation, like, beautiful blue skies today, eh? And… let's say it's raining. So you think, oh Satan, he's soo stupid. I'm out. But you're an angel, and you can't grant yourself the luxury of being rude. Which is why you go all eironeia on them – so they would go away."

"Oh, dear," said Aziraphale, a flower of confused warmth blossoming in his chest. "Were you trying to spark up a conversation?"

"Nah – stopped by to annoy you. 'S all."

"Crowley –"

"Figuratively speaking. You know."

"…I see."

"Anyway. Eironeia. As I said, you're good at it. It's…"

"Being rude?"

"No – will you just let that one go! It's… in a sense, it's saying the contrary of what you mean, but in a way that everyone understands that you don't mean it. Unless they're very stupid. You know. 'S like, s'like running around screaming look at me, I'm dead while you're obviously alive, only it's – well, it's somewhat more subtle than that. Somewhat. And I'd say there's something damned funny about it, but also something damned sad. And infuriating. I mean, with eironeia, you get the feeling that it shouldn't be funny because it's not fair. Like a joke that kicks you in the stomach with its punchline, a joke which is actually funny, but also deeply unpleasant. Wry. Like a bite of a rotten apple, or the smell of bad milk."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, a little bit breathlessly.

"Yeah! So that's it. And I figured that sometimes we talk rotten apples and bad milk, and we laugh at it. Genuinely. That's what I'm saying. And sometimes the world itself goes on a whim of eironeia. The entire world. And life is so funny and so utterly sad, and constantly denying itself with a very straight face, yes?"

"Yes," said Aziraphale excitedly. "Oh, yes!"

They shared a glance like two children caught red-handed; Crowley's grin wide and frenzied and Aziraphale's smile quiet, yet thoroughly amused.

And for the first time ever, they could be both perfectly, utterly sure that the other understood.

It did not take much longer to realize that the sensation of eironeia, wider known as irony, was just as profusely known to humans as it was to them.

A/N: Irony LAT ironia [/cavillatio] GR eirōneia 'simulated ignorance', from eirōn 'dissembler'.