A Good Omens/Monty Python's Life of Brian crossover
Author: Kathleen Anne
***
Crowley didn't much like the angel but agreed to meet with him for drinks anyhow -- at the very least he might do some reconnaissance work on what the blessed creature was up to, and then he could throw the occasional stick into the metaphorical wheels of the angel's progress.
Plus, Crowley hated drinking alone.
To say that Aziraphale didn't exactly fit into Judea was perhaps the greatest understatement in a long, sad history of understatements. He was too *fussy*, Crowley thought, too fastidious and the just the faintest bit stuffy. It wasn't until Britain had been invented that Crowley realized Aziraphale for what he was -- British through and through, as if being an angel were merely something he did on weekends and his afternoons off. In Judea, the shining folds of the angel's robes stuck out amidst the drab, and his veneration for everything connected to the written word made him the object of suspicion and ridicule. Vendors were afraid to sell to him because he refused to haggle and insisted on overpaying. It was enough to make any self-righteous demon sick.
Not that Aziraphale noticed things like that.
Crowley, on the other hand, had done very well for himself as a Centurion, which seemed to infuriate Aziraphale to no end. The angel had taken to huffing about "godless *pagans*" whenever Crowley was in the vicinity, and so Crowley wore the uniform around him as much as demonically possible, even going so far as to wear it during his off hours.
He always made sure to polish the chest-plate *extra* bright.
There were a lot of things about Judea that Crowley didn't like -- it was too bloody dry, for one thing, and the heat was stifling at best and excruciating at its worst. Sometimes sandstorms came whipping through, all howling winds and burning sand, and Crowley would be reminded of the Seventh Circle, the screams of the damned as the sand flayed at their skin. On those days, Crowley liked to see how drunk he could get in the shortest possible period of time, and he would even consent to allow Aziraphale to walk him home.
The one good thing about Judea: fig wine, and great quantities of it.
There hadn't been a good sandstorm in quite some time, but there had been a small series of gladiatorial games and sometimes those were just as bad. Crowley, in the spirit of civic duty, was obliged to attend; Aziraphale, the lucky bastard, was under no such obligation, and they were forced to meet up afterward to get raging drunk outside the wine merchant's tent in Vendor's Square. Unfortunately, the angel resisted the vendor's attempts to engage him in haggling -- when the man desperately offered to throw in a gourd for free, Aziraphale tried to pay the man, at which point the vendor promptly threw a fit and demanded that he be thrown out of the square. Crowley, who had been haggling for an overpriced bag of dates and so had his back turned to the whole sorry affair, was startled to find himself being called upon to bodily haul the angel away. Crowley sighed. *Duty*...
"Do I get to keep the gourd, at least?" Aziraphale said.
Crowley scowled, and poked him in the shoulder. "I should think not, you bloody do-gooder. Thanks to you, we don't get any wine."
"Oh." Aziraphale looked discouraged for a moment, chewing at his lower lip. "Well," he said slowly, "it is written that the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags."
Crowley stared at him. Aziraphale went pink all the way to the tips of his ears, and quickly changed the subject.
At that moment, a young man, scruffy and covered with a thin patina of sweat and dirt, came tearing around the corner, glancing fearfully over his shoulder as he ran. Aziraphale, too caught up in his earnest explanation of why Crowley should be arsed to care about the difference between the Judean People's Republic and the People's Republic of Judea, didn't see the boy; Crowley decided not to enlighten him.
The resulting collision was even more spectacular than he would have hoped -- there was a loud, satisfying smack of two bodies coming *hard* together, and then Aziraphale was sprawled out in the dust, rubbing the top of his head and looking rather bewildered. The young man went stumbling sideways after his rebound off the angel but recovered nicely, yelling a panicky "sorry!" over his shoulder as he scrambled away. Crowley watched the dust kick up in the boy's wake for a moment, before turning his attention back to Aziraphale. The angel was still rubbing the top of his head, but Crowley couldn't help noticing that the gesture was a trifle more theatrical than before.
"Ow," said Aziraphale.
Crowley snorted. "Oh, come off it," he said. "That didn't hurt."
Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, and held out a smooth hand for Crowley to help him back up. "Please?" he said, and when Crowley just stared at him he sighed, shook his head. "Never mind. I'll do it myself."
Crowley leaned against the wall, and watched as Aziraphale tried in vain to brush the muck off his robes. "You missed a spot," he pointed out, smiling blithely when Aziraphale glared at him. "Don't look so put out," Crowley said. "Donkey-apple is such a *lovely* color on you. Any idea who that boy was?"
"Brian, who is called Brian," Aziraphale said. "Nice lad, although his mum's a bit odd." He sighed, morosely twisting the fabric of his robe between his hands.
Crowley saw a splotch of dirt high up on Aziraphale's cheekbone, although the angel was too preoccupied with the matter of his robe to have noticed yet. "This is *never* going to come out, you know."
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Miracle your troubles away. It seems to work for that kid who hangs out with the lepers." He snorted, continuing, "What kind of a name is *Brian*, anyway?" and it was at that point that the smell hit them.
That was another thing Crowley didn't like about Judea -- the people all smelled like *feet* (except for the people like Aziraphale, but he didn't count, as he wasn't technically *people*). Aziraphale obviously smelled it too, because he stopped dead in his tracks, his nose wrinkling. "My dear boy," Aziraphale said, sounding dazed. "Do you *smell* that?"
"You'd have to be dead not to," Crowley snapped. There was a very large crowd of people advancing toward them -- Crowley could only assume they were the source of the smell, which seemed to be a densely-layered construction of dirt, unwashed person, perfumed oil, and, of course, *feet*. One of the crowd members, a young woman with flyaway hair, appeared to be brandishing a large gourd.
"We follow the Messiah!" she cried, and was immediately echoed by several of the people standing near her. "Know you where the Messiah is?"
"Messiah?" Crowley shot Aziraphale a blank look, but the angel appeared to be trying to adjust to the smell and was absolutely no help. "Can't say I do."
"But he passed this way!" yelled another, and that voice too was echoed rather enthusiastically by the rest of the group. They were beginning to give Crowley a headache.
"You mean that lad with a face like a startled cow?" he said, and winced as the crowd sent up a ragged cheer.
"Yes!" cried the gourd-woman. "You have seen the Messiah!"
"He went that way," Crowley said, jerking his thumb in the direction the boy called Brian had run off in. A brief stampede and enthusiastic shouts of "the Messiah!", and far too many bodies pressing against him as they rushed past. Moments later, angel and demon were alone again on the street, watching the dust settle in the wake of the crowd's passage.
"Goodness," said Aziraphale. "They smelled *awful*. I wonder what that was all about."
Crowley whirled on him. "You never told me that Brian was the Messiah!"
Aziraphale widened his eyes. They were clear and blue, and currently expressing a state of extreme befuddlement on the part of their owner. "That's because he's not!" Aziraphale said, and Crowley subsided a bit.
"Oh. That's all right then." They watched in silence as a few more followers straggled past. Some of them appeared to be waving sandals about, although Crowley -- who normally prided himself on being *particularly* good at idle speculation -- could not have hazarded the first guess as to why. He ran a casual finger along the handle of his sword, musing. "Has he been telling people he's the Messiah, do you think?"
There were, after all, laws regarding that sort of thing.
Aziraphale, who didn't miss the gesture, shot him a sharp look. "I don't--" he began, and in the distance they heard Brian scream, "I'm *not* the Messiah! Stop *following* me!"
"Ah." Crowley nodded. "I guess not, then."
Aziraphale, however, looked thoughtful. "You know, only a true Messiah would say he's not the Messiah..."
"Aziraphale?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Aziraphale shut up. In the distance, they heard an old man shrieking something about juniper berries; two more voices were arguing about whether they should be following the sandal or the gourd, and through it all the Brian kid was wailing that he was *not* the Messiah, and what was *wrong* with them?
Aziraphale looked at Crowley, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "You know," he mused, "sometimes I think I really dislike Judea."
"That," said Crowley, "is the most intelligent thing you've said all afternoon. Now let's go and get smashed. I bet if we tell the vendor the Messiah sent us, he'd give us ten percent off."
They passed no more gourds along the way, for which Crowley was thankful. There were only so many things a demon could take.
