"This is it?" Crowley asked. He was feeling distinctly underwhelmed. "No offence, Aziraphale, but I had expected something with a little more… A little more..."

Crowley cast a languid and demonic eye over the scruffy exterior of the dingy little thermopolium. It wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he had, against his better judgement, assented to joining his erstwhile arch-nemesis for dinner. If one was to be dining with the enemy, one at least expected to do so in a place with some class. Some style. At least with some basic hygiene standards…

From the bar window, open to the street, a portly man was yelling from behind the counter.

"Ccccccome and get 'em, get 'em while thur 'ot! Guaranteed noooo dog meat! Ggggget 'em while thur 'ot! Bargain for th'price! An 'undred percent pork an' parsully! Best sausages this side'a the Tiber!"

He was lying of course, Crowley intuited. He didn't need his Demonic senses to know that.

Behind the shouting sausage-seller, the sounds of drunken ranting, arguments over dice, and of general degeneracy oozed out onto the street from the open windows of the restaurant. If, that is, you could even call it a restaurant. Crowley doubted one could, at least not with a clear conscience. Where the hell had the Angel brought him?

"A little more…?" Aziraphale repeated Crowley's unfinished sentence back to him with such wry devilry in his voice that Crowley only just managed to keep himself from grinning. Luckily he caught himself in time, and instead rolled his eyes and sighed in a way he hoped seemed irritated. His heart wasn't in it, though.

"Don't judge a book by it's cover, my de- , erm, Crowley." Aziraphale was clearly trying to sound mysterious and enigmatic. It didn't really work. Although, Crowley was growing more and more intrigued by the minute, so maybe it did.

The Angel gestured for his dinner-guest to enter the filthy bar.

Crowley hesitated for only a short moment; a small, obligatory display of reluctance and rebellion. He did have an image to uphold, after all. Being enthusiastic about going out for dinner in a total dive like this, with an Angel of all people, certainly did not fit that image. Didn't jive with his aesthetic. Crowley liked to be cool. Luckily he had no friends in Rome to catch him out. He didn't even have any acquaintances. He hadn't been here long.

Crowley didn't like Rome very much. Really, he'd only come because Beelzebub had finally gotten word, over a hundred years late, that Rome was just a bit of a big deal in international politics. Crowley had been hoping that Hell would stay happily ignorant of this for another hundred years, but no such luck. He hated Rome. It was pretentious, and busy, and excessive, and messy. Plus it was so full of depravity that his presence here was completely useless. And quite frankly the place was a fire hazard. Coming to Rome always felt uncomfortably like going home. When you're a Demon that prospect isn't particularly appealing.

But, regretfully, the news that Rome was the Place To Be had finally filtered through Hell's grubby ears and into their grubbier brains, and Crowley had been given marching orders to go and " tempt the Emperor", so here he was.

Crowley had laughed out loud when he'd read those orders. Although he didn't visit Rome often, it was easy enough to stay abreast of current events, or at least current-ish, even out in the far-flung corners he'd preferred of late. Gossip out of the Eternal City was full of Emperor Gaius' excesses, political misdemeanours, and general debauchery. Tempting Caligula would be about as effective as spitting in the ocean. Easy enough gig, though. Crowley figured that he could show up, maybe do some small cursory tempting, then claim credit for the rest and earn himself a nice little commendation. All the while spending the remainder of his time in Rome catching a few theatre performances, updating his wardrobe, and enjoying the luxuries of indoor plumbing. For all of their many faults, you couldn't deny that the Romans really knew how to bathe.

It had been a pretty sound plan, theoretically. But then Crowley had actually met Caligula. And at one of his famous parties, no less. Getting an invite had been no easy task, but he had managed it in the end. That party was… an experience, to say the very least. That is to say, it was an experience in same the way that it would be an experience to be halfway through a meal and to then discover a fingernail in it. Still attached to the finger.

Crowley had stuck it out for about fifteen minutes before promptly turning on his heels and making a quick exit out of a window. From there he'd headed straight to a bar to get thoroughly drunk and scrub it all out of his memory, and that's where Aziraphale had found him.

Crowley's itinerary had thus been flipped entirely on its head. Instead of hanging out at the palace on the Palatine with an Emperor and tempting him to go and wind up the Parthians a bit, he had found himself being tempted to enter a shabby, grubby little thermopolium with an Angel. Successfully tempted, too. That definitely hadn't been on his to-do list.

Aziraphale smiled brightly at him, holding open the dilapidated wooden door. Crowley huffed, and sauntered through as casually as he could.

The quote-unquote restaurant was no better inside than out. Possibly worse actually, if that could be believed. Away from the open front, the internal bar was infernally dark and dingy, and was populated by the type of dubious moral characters that would have felt very at home in Hell. Crowley did not like it one bit.

Aziraphale strode in with a calmly confident air, and glanced around the room with a searching expression. Eyes landing upon a matronly woman in her fifties, his face broke into a bright smile.

"Philomena, my dear lady!"

At the sound of his voice, the woman turned with a scowl that Medusa would have envied. Crowley nearly flinched. Nearly .

However, the moment her gaze lighted upon the Angel, her scowl transformed into a broad, one might even say wicked, grin. She swooped over and wrapped the Angel up in a bear hug.

"Aziraphale! Oh, darling lamb, I din't know you wuz back in Rome! When did you get back, pet? You'd better tell me you just arrived this vurry minute or my poor heart'll be clove in two, you little scoundrel!"

Aziraphale tried to reply, but it was as much use as trying to reply to a hurricane.

"And showin' up 'ere, of all the places! You found us, then?" she continued, relentlessly. "Well, a'course you did my little lamb, what am I thinkin' of? I 'spect you been writing to our bright little lord n' master in the back, 'ave you? Tellin' you all about 'is latest little pet project no doubt. Lovely boy he is, wu'nt work fer no one else, but gods preserve us can 'e ever talk for the Empire when 'e gets started on 'is little projects. 'As 'e told you about 'is book?"

"Ah, yes, well -"

"Ah, pet, but it is so good to see you! I've missed that face!" Philomena turned to Crowley. "Look at that face! 'Ave you seen this face? Tell me truff'lly, 'ave you ever seen a face so precious as this one?" She was pinching Aziraphale's cheeks. Crowley shook his head, thoroughly entranced by a mixture of abject horror and sadistic delight.

Philomena then took a moment to look Crowley up and down, as if his presence as a stranger had finally filtered through to her preoccupied mind.

"And who might you be, my love? Aziraphale, yer manners are as bad as ever, your muvver should be ashamed of 'erself for raising such a child as you. Were you ever gonna introduce me to your friend 'ere? What's your name, lovey? You not from round 'ere? 'Aven't seen you, but then again 's'a big old city, after all, so many people these days poppin' up from all over. You knows what, but I met a young lady from Britannia the other day, would you believe it? Britannia! Cor, but thas' annuver world!"

Crowley's mouth opened and closed as his head bobbed up and down and side to side like a duck in a tsunami. By Satan this woman could talk. Crowley liked her.

"Whur're you from, then pet?" Philomena continued, appraising the Demon's appearance. "Provincial, are ye? Don't look local, a'though I 'spose I sh'un't judge, not tha' that'd be a bad thing, the gods know most Romans're demons these days. And you look wholesome enough. Got a good face on you, my love. Yer a good 'un, thas' fer sure. But 'ow do you know our lamb Aziraphale? Friends, are you? Not corrupting you, izzee? You watch out for him, 'e's a devil 'e is. 'Though ye wou'n't think it to look at 'im, would you! Those cheeks, I just wanna bite 'em!"

Philomena pinched at Aziraphale's face again, and the Angel barely managed to suppress an irritated huff.

Crowley grinned and meant every inch of it.

"Is that so? Devil, is he? Well, well, well," the Demon replied to Philomena with an amused, nonchalant lilt, never taking his eyes off of the Angel. Crowley was having far too much fun watching him squirm. Even if he got food poisoning, which by the look of the place was extremely likely, Crowley felt that this weird little escapade would still have been absolutely worth it just to see Aziraphale getting so flustered.

"Really, Philomena…" Aziraphale chastised, thoroughly ruffled. "Crowley is a… a business colleague."

"Mmhm. Business colleague. Yep . That's me." Crowley drawled the words, voice dripping with deliberately annoying sarcasm. The Angel glared at him. Crowley was enjoying this far too much.

"Yes, quite..." Aziraphale turned to Philomena, clearly doing his best to pretend the last few minutes hadn't happened. "We were actually hoping to speak with the proprietor. I'm looking to order from the... Special menu?"

Philomena grinned again and clapped Aziraphale on the back unexpectedly, causing him to stagger forward.

"Chickpea, you don't 'ave to tell me! I knows vurry well why you're 'ere, and as much as I'd love to say it was to profess yer undying love fer old Philomena, I summow doubt it." She chuckled heartily. "Come, come, go sit yerselves down over thur, and I'll go an' fetch the… how d'you put it, love? 'Proprietor'?" She said the last word in a surprisingly accurate impression of Aziraphale's own posh accent, and laughed again before bustling off into the dank pits at the back of the shop.

Aziraphale shot a look to Crowley which seemed to say Don't even think about saying anything, and which managed to be vaguely threatening and completely embarrassed at the same time. Crowley found that just a smidge adorable, not that he would admit that to himself for at least another couple of centuries.

Crowley held up his hands in mock defense, replying with an expression of his own that said Who? Me? Never. Wouldn't dream of it!

With one last dubious pout, Aziraphale went and sat down at a corner table. Crowley followed him.