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Angels didn't need to sleep, as Heaven was ever-vigilant. Of course, Aziraphale could sleep if he wanted, but usually he didn't. He liked reading more, so there was at least the appeal of reading in bed that would call to him; sometimes he would dress as if he were about to go to sleep, and then spend two days reading a book series whilst propped up among the pillows.

Not in this hotel - not yet, anyway, even though the bed looked quite comfortable. He was far more distracted by other things. It was the middle of the night and he sat at the bar, a half-drunk Fiji at his elbow, and in his hands he was holding the phone the rather colourful receptionist had given him the other day.

For a moment Aziraphale had thought the woman was handing him a very sleek-looking explosive device, because if there was one thing he knew about phones it was that they didn't look like that. But no, it was definitely a phone. It had numbers on it. Purportedly, it could call people; but it also did a whole host of other things. Send electronic messages. Play music. Take pictures, even. In his first hour of using it, he managed to accomplish absolutely nothing, except accidentally turn the ringer off (and it took him even longer to figure out how to turn it back on).

He was getting the hang of it now, though, he supposed. But the phone's habit of correcting his words when he was playing around with the keyboard was enough to sorely try his very angelic patience. Regardless he hoped he survived the Apocalypse, because now he was really looking forward to leaving the twentieth century behind him.

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Aziraphale blinked. "Well, hard to say, really." They didn't exactly have a dating system in Heaven, but he figured he could at least time it from the year of Creation. Which meant... "Six millennia?" he guessed. "I mean, give or take a few years, but when you start to get that high up it all sort of rounds down for quite a while after."

Porthos blinked at the other man, swallowed his glass of wine, then let out a simple, "Right." The sort of 'right' that meant, 'right, so I've been talking with a madman for the last ten minutes (but hopefully that bit about the book is real)'.

Aziraphale just smiled. "You asked," he said, with a little shrug. After all, if he was concerned about humans believing him, then he wouldn't have made it very far in their world. That was actually part of what made it easy to pass unnoticed; even if he did say something strange, it was unbelievable enough that it was readily dismissed.

"How old are you?" he asked, politely, because he figured it would be fair to ask in return.

"Thirty-one," Porthos replied, his tone seeming to hint that that was the sort of answer one was supposed to make. The sane sort.

"Oh, that must be..." and then Aziraphale trailed off, and shrugged. "I have no idea what that's like, sorry," he apologized, cheerfully.

"You do look a bit like him, though. Dumas, I mean. Though you have a far better chin, if I may say so."

"Thanks? I think," Porthos stated with an uncertain frown.

He liked the thought that their story had been written by another black man, though.

"Worry not, I meant it as a compliment," Aziraphale replied. "Unless you'd rather have a weak chin? I'm sorry, I'm rather bad when it comes to standards of physical attraction."

Porthos couldn't help but laugh at the string of words, but it was too good natured a laugh to be mocking. "I'm doing just fine with this chin, not to worry." He wasn't Aramis, of course, but, well. No one could rival with Aramis.