This Strange Sweetness

Eden

Aziraphale wasn't sure how long he had been a Principality. Time hadn't been invented until a few days ago, or was it weeks, or decades? All of the bits pre-Time, creation of the angelic realms and the Earth and the First War, blurred together in his mind a bit. He was quite grateful for that. The War was quite unpleasant to recall, not to mention the Expulsion that followed.

The Garden was far more interesting. Things grew in the Garden, and one could eat things in it. Outside was the Wilderness, which was also quite interesting, but the Garden was more comfortable. It had the humans, nice young things that they were, and animals, and the Serpent.

Aziraphale knew quite well that the Serpent was a demon. That meant it was the Enemy, of course, but also that it was a sibling. It was also the only other being in the Garden that could talk. That meant it was valuable company when Adam and Eve were preoccupied with each other, which they were quite a lot lately.

Now, for example.

"I mean, what are they doing? That's all I'm saying," hissed the Serpent, its head extending down from the pear tree Aziraphale was sitting under. The Serpent had not in fact been saying anything at all, and Aziraphale had not been conscious of its presence. Aziraphale was beginning to realise that launching into conversations in the middle, as if the Serpent had been imagining the angel's part, was one of its idiosyncrasies. "They're not grooming each other, and they're not eating each other, so why do they keep pressing their mouths together?"

"I'm not sure, really," Aziraphale said. "It's called kissing. Something to do with making new humans."

"Weeping would be more traditional," said the Serpent.

"They seem quite happy." Aziraphale dubiously considered the humans. "They love each other very much, I can feel it. I mean, you don't have to weep to create new life. I," he added rather smugly, "was created out of pure and perfect ether."

"Good for you. Michael bawled me out. Do you think they'll get into trouble for kissing?" the Serpent asked hopefully.

"No, I don't. Whyever should they? She wants them to make new humans."

"Pity. I was told to get up here and make some trouble, but it's hard to think of much they can get up to in a garden."

"I'm sure She has thought of every consideration to thwart your wiles," Aziraphale said primly.

"Oh, come off it. I'm just doing my job, same as you. Gotta test them. Wonder why?"

"It's all part of the Great Plan." Aziraphale bit into another pear to signal the end of the conversation. He knew quite well that he was probably falling into the Serpent's lures by discussing the Plan in the first place. He thought about food instead. The pear was quite the most delicious thing he had tasted in the Garden so far. Sweet, and something pure and clean about it, the skin firm and the inside bursting with deliciousness. You could trust a pear.

"You've got juice running down your chin," the Serpent said in a tone Aziraphale didn't quite understand. Its tongue flickered out, tasting the scent.

"So I do. It's delectable. Want to try it?"

Aziraphale held out the fruit. The Serpent seemed to misunderstand because it flickered its tongue out again and sampled the juice on his skin.

Aziraphale felt embarrassed. He wasn't sure why. Embarrassment was a new emotion, and he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. He just wanted it to go away, and the best measure, he thought, spinning the half-eaten pear by the stem, was to pretend nothing had unsettled him. "Do you approve?"

"Very much," said the Serpent, and it uncoiled itself down from the tree and pooled in Aziraphale's lap. Only it wasn't a Serpent pooling in his lap, it was a vaguely Adam-shaped entity, with sharp cheekbones and robes that would have been angelic if they had reflected the light instead of absorbing it, and wide feathery wings. Only the eyes, yellow and round, reflected the other form.

All right. So the Enemy was sitting on Aziraphale's lap, arms over his shoulders, grinning into his face. No need to panic or smite or anything, and in any case he had left his flaming sword over on that tussock when he went to pick fruit, so a fight might not be the best idea.

Gosh, this form of the Serpent was pretty.

"Maybe that's what they were doing," said the Serpent, and leaned in. Its lips brushed Aziraphale's for a moment, and then a tongue slid into the angel's, tasting the juice, gone almost as soon as it entered. "Delicious."

"Oh," said Adam's voice, "did She make you a lover too, Aziraphale?"

"Absolutely not," Aziraphale said, shaking off his dazed feeling, and went to shove the Serpent off his lap. It was already gone, though, sliding off into the flowers in its snake form. Aziraphale could almost swear it was sniggering.

He could almost swear -- no, he knew. When Adam and Eve were together, he could feel the warm sweet swelling of their love, an echo of Her love, but somehow different in quality, different from the way they loved Aziraphale and he loved them. A love that was special to each other.

When the Enemy had kissed him, Aziraphale had felt a faint stirring of that same kind of love coming from it.

That was inexplicable enough. What was even less explicable was that his own heart had seemed to recognise the love and respond in kind. It made no sense. Had he known the Serpent before the Fall? What was its real name again? Surely, if he had loved the poor fallen creature, in a way different to loving the other angels who of course Aziraphale loved very much even if they could be a bit overbearing at times, Aziraphale would recognise it now.

It was going to worry him all morning.