"I don't think that counts," Aziraphale said plaintively, scuffing at the wet sand with his shoe. "How was I to know the wretched man could do that much damage with the jawbone of an ass? I thought he'd get tired of trying to pummel people with it and go have a nice lie-down."
"Then penicillin doesn't count either," Crowley answered. "It's mold, I had no idea that feeding it to children would actually be useful."
"Well, you're still standing here watching the sunset with an angel."
"No, you're standing here waiting for night to fall with a demon."
"We never settle this argument, you know."
"It's true," Crowley said amiably. "We're too well matched in the temptation department –"
"Here, now, it's not temptation when I do it –"
" – and unless one of us discovers some new form of, well, call it influence, that we've somehow managed to miss all these thousands of years, neither of us is ever going to manage to tip the scales." Crowley was far less displeased about this fact than he ought to have been.
There was silence for a while as the sun slowly disappeared behind the waves. At some point that was not the perfect point, which would have been just as the light vanished altogether, but at a point that would do well enough to be getting on with, Crowley felt Aziraphale's fingers slip lightly between his own, and invisible but undoubtedly feathered wings unfurled between him and the chilly breeze.
"Well," Crowley said softly, and meant to pull his hand away, possibly in just a few minutes. "That's a new one."
