Lower Tadfield Safehouse

Loki looked at Aziraphale. "How'd you like it if another manifestation of yourself was hanging around? He's just plain weird. Won't even drink mead! Can you imagine?"

He took a sip from his glass, savouring the taste. "I guess I'll have to find out soon if it's just a front he puts on, some kind of elaborate show, or if the New World really spoils a perfectly good Norse God that badly."

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"I rather liked mead the last time I tried it," Gabriel commented. "Though it would be odd having another version of myself 'hanging around', yes."

He carefully unfolded the napkin and spread it on his lap, smoothing out the corners, chewing on his bottom lip. "Perhaps it's just that one bad experience, but I've never been overly fond of the New World."

"Sir?" the waiter addressed Aziraphale. "Would you like to order anything to eat?"

Edited Date: Thursday, 11 March 2010 10:50 (UTC)

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"He may not like mead, but he does like other things, like insulting his host at breakfast," Aziraphale replied. "And like touching things he oughtn't. He's a stand-up fellow, a quality specimin of whatever he is."

Aziraphale didn't comment on Gabriel's musing, because he had only been to America a handful of times and didn't find it as distasteful as he felt he ought to have. That could remain a secret.

When the waiter asked him if he wanted anything to eat, he smiled up at him and shook his head. "No thank you, dear." He looked at his unlikely companions. "Does anyone want anything to eat?"

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"So that's... one slice of coffee cake, one chicken sandwich, and one lox on a poppyseed bagel?" the waiter read out their orders. Gabriel nodded, and the waiter disappeared.

"Loki isn't that bad, when you get to know him," he murmured, fiddling with a corner of the napkin.

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Loki nodded to the waiter, then looked at Gabriel.

"You're right," he said. "I really should try and get to know him some better, seeing how he's me and all that. Maybe I'll be surprised."

He should. No matter how things turned out between them, he should know very well who he was dealing with there.

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"I agree," Gabriel nodded. "It might be interesting, seeing how you're different from yourself."

He tried to imagine meeting himself. It was... an odd scenario.

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"It all depends on where you go," Barnaby said, swirling the melting ice around in his glass. "I've met some interesting people in America. Supernatural folk tend to congregate there like moths. I'm not sure why."

He thought about the difference between himself and certain human opinions about him, and he shook his head. "I, for one, am glad we don't seem to have the same rules when it comes to belief."

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"So am I," Gabriel agreed. "You're not a huge grotesque red thing with horns, a tail and a pitchfork, and I'm not a woman with a huge brass disc affixed behind my head, or a winged baby in a diaper."

The waiter arrived with their food, and began setting it out. "That was fast," Gabriel commented. "Thank you."

Edited Date: Friday, 19 March 2010 13:34 (UTC)

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"Congregate like moths?" Loki asked. "You mean like here?"

To Gabriel he said: "I'm sure you'd be one powerful baby, though! And at least you do have wings."

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"Thank you, Gabriel," he said, dry as dead grass. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me."

Barnaby thought about that one for a moment before replying to Loki. "A little," he conceded. "Not usually as concentrated as this manor seems to be, and... probably not for the same reason. I think the culture there just attracts them."

At Loki's other statement, he doubled over in a sudden and not at all suspicious coughing fit, narrowly avoiding knocking his glass over.

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Aziraphale sipped his tea, not saying anything and quite thankful that none of the humans knew who he was. He'd taken great pains to remove "Aziraphael" from any book on angelology he could, just for that purpose.

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Gabriel blinked. "Did you just..." He cast Baraq a suspicious glance. "I'm a warrior and messenger, not some cupid, and the form of a baby is hardly suited to my tasks."

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"Oh, you never know," Barnaby said in a peculiarly strained voice, even when he had straightened up. "Smaller form, less air resistance, could make you faster and a smaller target and so on."

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Gabriel had to admit that he could see the funny side.

"Indeed," he responded, the corners of his lips quirking up despite his best efforts. "With armoured diapers, I suppose. And we would also have an advantage when the enemy stops to laugh at the very menacing spectacle of an army of winged babies. Fear us, or be smote with a pacifier."

He cut a corner off his coffee cake. "Although sometimes it feels as if some of them do need pacifiers."

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"Don't forget the ability to distract with cuteness," Aziraphale pointed out. "There isn't much cuter than a baby with ickle wingses."

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Loki leaned back on his chair and grinned at the exchange. This was rather educating.

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He took a bite of bagel, enjoying the smoky taste of the lox. "You say that like you're thinking of someone specifically," he said to Gabriel.

To Loki, stumbling over the name of the giants, "What about you? Would the—the jötunn be any improved by reverting to infancy?"

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"Well, most of the Host was acting like petulant babies whose toys had been taken away, after a -" he paused, glancing at Aziraphael, "certain event some years ago. And Michael often makes me wonder how old he is, anyway." He grinned at Aziraphael. "So our main tactic would be distracting with cuteness?"

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"Not exactly a strategy that bodes well for success," Loki observed. To the demon he said: "I don't think it would be that much of a change, actually. We're tied in so closely with nature, and nature never grows up, don't you think?"

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"And that's why I appear as you see me now, instead of a winged baby tugging at your trouser legs or sitting in your lap with a toy sword and and demanding bedtime stories," Gabriel pointed out. "So you've not grown up, then?"

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"I initiated a paintball war in a hotel'l lobby," Loki pointed out. "Does that seem particularly grown up to you?"

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Aziraphale laughed. "A good paintball war never hurt anyone severely, I suppose. And better paintballs than bullets." He spoke from experience, after all.

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"Therein, the elixir of youth: A working relationship with the natural world, and welts from little gelatin capsules." He raised his glass in an ironic toast. "And I don't know, the bullets could be cork, or foam darts."

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"Lollipops," Aziraphale added. "They're quite good at reducing one's perception of their own age as well."

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