Chapter Text
Crowley was an incredibly sophisticated and intelligent being: a verifiable genius, if he’d ever bother to have himself tested, which of course he hadn’t. He knew more about the inner workings of the universe than nearly anyone else in it, he had an eidetic memory if he cared to use it, and, perhaps most offensively of all, he was good at maths.
Despite this, Crowley was not a smart man.
If Crowley had been a smart man, he would never have said it. He would have thought it, and perhaps even have gone so far as to open his mouth, but then he would have reconsidered and swallowed the comment down. If he had known that it was going to upset things, which it was, and turn everything inside out and upside down, which it would, if he’d known that Aziraphale was going to lurch out of his arms with a startled cry and defend himself against even the most innocent of touches for days—well, of course Crowley would never have said it.
He didn’t know, though. And so he didn’t reconsider.
He’d meant it as a tease, in his defense. A joke. Something to say in the quiet moments of their morning, when they were still wrapped around one another and procrastinating about getting out of bed. He’d thought Aziraphale would laugh, and maybe slap his arm. Call him rude. Lean up and kiss him anyway.
It’d be funny, he thought. It’d be—well, nothing.
So he’d said it.
They’d been lounging in bed together, post-coital and loose-limbed, smelling of each other, of salt, of sex. It was a wonderfully sore, sticky, sweet kind of moment, slow as treacle, soft as the sound of the sea lapping up against the bottom of the cliffs just a walk away. They were thinking about getting up, getting breakfast, getting started, but they hadn’t yet, and Crowley nuzzled down into Aziraphale’s curls, and said it.
“Getting lazy, angel,” is what he’d said, in that light, ribbing admonishment. “Your roots are coming in.”
Have you ever said something, and known, deep in the pit of your stomach, before anybody could even react, that you shouldn't have said it? Have you ever felt that sinking feeling that takes hold behind your ribs, that drowns the air from your lungs, sending adrenalin through your veins poison-fast as you flounder in your own wake? That horrible, wretched feeling that makes you instantly want to take the words back?
Crowley did not have that feeling, and so plunged on.
“I didn’t even know your roots were that dark. You could just miracle them, you know.”
Aziraphale wrenched himself out of Crowley’s grip and flung himself up in the bed, so quickly that Crowley followed after him in the brief impression of danger. This was the accurate impression of his current situation, but upon finding no smiting archangel or damning demons, he foolishly flopped back onto the pillows. “All right, angel?”
The covers were thrown back, and by the time Aziraphale was crossing the floor he was already fully dressed, all the way down to his bow-tie. He stopped at the dresser to fix his cufflinks to his shirt. “I’m fine,” he said, voice stiff. “Just remembered I had several errands to run today, that’s all.”
“I thought we were going to hop along for some brunch?”
“I couldn’t possibly delay,” Aziraphale answered, turning to give Crowley that bizarrely formal smile he’d occasionally worn back in the Before Days, before the end of the world. The one that was intended to put some distance between them. It made him look like a French maître d’, haughty and unapologetic about it. Aziraphale would hate the comparison, but that was all right, because Crowley hated to see it. “I will see you tonight, I expect.”
To his credit, Crowley began to cotton on.
“Hey,” he said, propping himself up onto one elbow, stopping Aziraphale with one hand already on the door handle. “You sure you’re all right, sweetheart?”
“Tickety-boo,” Aziraphale said, which was Aziraphale-speak for not. At. All, and he left.
*
He came back several hours later with a bag from Boots, which he took into the bathroom with him. He spent another several hours in there, and Crowley, had he not, by now, definitely realised he’d fumbled their easy morning together, might have suspected him of getting up to something naughty.
As it was, he was not at all surprised when Aziraphale finally emerged, smelling faintly of bleach and the electrical zest of a cleaning miracle, with roots so brightly white they could have stood in place of the beacon at Alexandria.
“What’s for dinner?” Aziraphale said, bumbling into the kitchen as if nothing had happened.
Crowley may not have been a smart man, but he was no fool either, and only a fool could have failed to connect a seemingly harmless comment in bed that morning to a sudden departure and a vigorously re-brightened halo of hair.
“Angel,” he said softly, ignoring the question about dinner. He reached for Aziraphale, intending to soothe, or apologise, or—something—and was surprised to find him suddenly just out of reach.
“I’m in the mood for pizza, I think,” Aziraphale said, reaching for the takeaway menus. “Pepperoni? Or do you fancy more of a pesto situation?”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley tried again.
“I could do that pork belly and egg thing you like.”
“Angel, could you hang on a minute? I’m trying—”
Aziraphale turned to look back at him, eyes blazing, looking somehow both nauseous and annoyed. “I asked you about your pizza order, my dear.”
Later, Crowley decided, might be better, actually. Later, when the tummy ache had been soothed and the annoyance faded. Later, when they crawled back into bed, they could talk. In the dark, where things could be said more easily, and where Aziraphale was less likely to stand his ground quite so firmly, the stubborn old dove.
Yes. Later.
“The, er, egg thingy might be best, yeah.”
*
Crowley had not always had red hair.
In complete fairness, he had not really had hair for much of the time, before he fell. Bodies had only come into vogue in the last bits, after humans had gone through their initial designs. There had been a few false starts, before things had really settled, and the less said about the initial placement of mouths the better, but then hands had been invented and, of course, they’d caught on like a bookshop on fire.
Crowley’s first hair had been starlight.
This turned out to be damned inconvenient and not at all well suited to a corporeal form, so much the pity. After that Crowley had banished the starlight into his eyes, where things could be kept a little more restrained, and instead experimented with hair colours someone (Michael, who couldn’t sense a good time if it bonked her on the nose) had decided would not be naturally occurring in humans, just for the sake of being contrary—pink, violet, cerulean blue—before settling into a deep, rich, comforting brown. Like good, dark earth.
That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? The whole shebang they were up to. Earth.
Anyway, Crowley had fallen and everything had boiled and burnt and blazed for a good long while, and when he’d finally crawled back into a body after that, his hair had been red. The fires of Hell indeed.
Whether Crowley’d thought it was a sexier look—and whether he was experimenting quite a bit now, with sexy, now that angelic rules didn’t apply—was neither here nor there.
So his hair was red. And it had been red for a long time. And it was always red, because Crowley expected it to be red. He’d never had to deal with roots, or with regular haircuts, or with growth he hadn’t deliberately managed in a mirror.
The question was: if Crowley had never had to deal with any of that—why did Aziraphale?
*
They ate the damned pizza, which felt like some kind of betrayal because Aziraphale knew damned well that it was Crowley’s favourite. Crowley did not have many favourites, and he was certainly too cool to indulge in them very often, so he knew that Aziraphale knew that he knew that this was not an innocent pizza. This was a pizza of temptation.
Ooooh, forget all about his hair, this slice said, with its egg yolk smeared all over. Oooh, eat too much and nap too long after, it’ll be an indulgenccceeee, that slice said, the pork belly laid on thick and salty.
No, no, no, Crowley thought back at it, and he did not unhinge his jaw to gulp down his third slice because that would be undignified. I’m focused, here.
“All right, darling?” Aziraphale asked. He still had that tone in his voice, the one that spoke those pet names as sweetly as oleander. He gently nudged the remaining two slices closer, so subtly it might have been accidental. “I think I’m finished.”
“Tempting the tempter?”
Aziraphale only smiled serenely, unphased. “It’s your favourite, I know.”
Bloody flagrant, that’s what it was. There were very likely plans underneath that angelic smile, plans involving a heavy warm blanket on the sofa and a nice quiet evening with the fire crackling and absolutely no mention at all of Aziraphale’s freshly-bleached hair. But Crowley would not be deterred. There was something going on there, something unusual and potentially dangerous, and he needed to keep his wits about him.
One more slice wouldn’t hurt, though. And by the time they went to bed, which wouldn’t be for hours yet, he’d have digested enough to be up for conversation, surely.
“There’s only one left,” Aziraphale practically purred, when Crowley was swallowing his last bite of kale and egg. “Would be a shame to only have to put one slice in the fridge, and the egg is never as good the next day.”
Crowley manfully resisted. “Go on, you can have it.”
“Your favourite? My dear, I insist.”
And Aziraphale got up from the table with his own plate, bustling toward the sink, leaving that final slice with Crowley. He eyed it. He glanced at it. He studied it, intently, from the corner of his eye. He would not be fooled. Though, really. It was only one slice, and Aziraphale couldn’t be as devious as all that.
*
Digestion, in snakes, is a long process. It is a slow process. It is an exhausting process.
Two hours later found Crowley on the sofa, thoroughly conked out with, yes, a heavy, warm blanket and a fire crackling merrily in the grate.
Blasted angels.