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There were half a dozen strange, uniformed men in Aziraphale’s bookshop the first time Crowley dropped by spontaneously post-Apocalypse.
His first thought was that the men were of the unscrupulous sort, the kind who showed up sometimes and implied unsubtly that Aziraphale might be better off moving his shop somewhere else. Or that they might be angels, come to drag Aziraphale back to Heaven by his bowtie, only he had a hard time imagining the Archangel Fucking Gabriel in a polo exactly that shade of blue.
Either way, Crowley was ready to go down fighting.
“Angel?” he shouted, shoving his way into the bookshop past one of the strange men, who was dragging a ladder out. “Aziraphale!”
“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, appearing from behind a set of shelves. He had a mug of cocoa in one hand and a smile on his face, and he didn’t seem to be in danger, but looks could be deceiving. Crowley had been expecting some kind of attack on one or the other of them, in all honesty, since he and Aziraphale had pulled off their little switcheroo. Upstairs didn’t exactly let things like treason go easily, and Hell was arguably even worse.
“What’s this about?” Crowley hissed, his eyes darting to the windows at the left of the shop, where a man was up on his ladder prodding at the walls. “Are they from…” He flicked his eyes up to the ceiling.
Aziraphale followed his gaze and started. “Oh! Oh, no, dear,” he said, and then smiled wider. He seemed unduly flattered at the notion that Crowley might be concerned for his safety, and Crowley did his very best to convince himself that he was, in turn, insulted.
“Nothing like that,” Aziraphale said. He opened his mouth to explain, but someone knocked into Crowley from behind before he could.
Crowley turned sharply with a scowl on his face and a curse on his tongue to see another uniformed man with a toolbox in his hand. “You work ‘ere too?” the man asked, squinting.
Crowley drew himself up. “Do I look like I work in a bookshop?” he asked.
The man seemed deeply unimpressed. “Can’t tell all you bloody hipsters apart,” he said, and then turned his attention to Aziraphale. “We’re nearly done, Mr. Fell, just got to do a few tests.”
“Of course,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “We’ll stay out of your way.” He took Crowley by the shoulder and led him to the back room with more force than anyone would expect. “Would you like something to drink, my dear?” Aziraphale asked once they were relatively alone, and Crowley waved a dismissive hand, collapsing on the sofa.
“What’s going on, then?” he asked again, and Aziraphale shifted in place before setting down his cocoa and sitting across from him.
“You see, a lovely young woman called me on the telephone yesterday,” he said. “She seemed very, very concerned with the security of the shop, and kindly offered the services of her company to install an alarming system.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed. Telemarketers truly were one of Hell’s greatest inventions, it seemed, if they managed to get even to an angel. “So you’re getting an alarm system installed,” he said, and Aziraphale nodded.
“If you’re worried about security, can’t you just…” Crowley gestured vaguely, in a way meant to invoke the miracles of the Old Testament.
“I could,” Aziraphale said hesitantly. “I’m a little reluctant to perform superfluous miracles, though. After… well, after everything that happened in Tadfield. I don’t want to poke the sleeping bear, so to speak. So I’m trying not to remind them too much that I’m down here, at least for a little bit.”
Crowley hummed thoughtfully.
“I thought it might be time for an upgrade, as well,” Aziraphale added a little fretfully, glancing around at the worn, cozy interior of his bookshop.
Crowley had to snort at that. “Angel, you haven’t done an ‘upgrade’ since 1857,” he said.
The corner of Aziraphale’s mouth twitched. “Yes, well,” he said. “Sergeant Shadwell was able to pick the lock on the front door so easily, and that all turned out alright in the end, but I’d hate for a human to somehow get in while something occult is happening.”
“Suppose that makes sense,” Crowley mumbled, lolling his head back.
Aziraphale smiled and picked up his mug of cocoa, taking a sip. “Good, I thought so too,” he said.
At that moment, a terrible, whooping alarm went off, emanating from somewhere near the front of the shop. Aziraphale jumped so badly that he spilled cocoa all over the front of himself, and Crowley absently flicked his fingers to miracle it away before groaning.
“I guess these are the tests that young man was talking about,” Aziraphale said with a frown. Somehow, the volume of the alarm increased, and Crowley suddenly decided that he would very much like to take up Aziraphale’s offer of a drink.
“Maybe next time you can install some sprinklers so your shop won’t go up in flames if someone knocks over a bloody candle,” he grumbled, getting to his feet, and Aziraphale lightly smacked him on the arm as he passed.
“Too soon, my dear,” he said, and Crowley grimaced before pouring them both a glass of something strong enough to drown out the dreadful alarm noises.
Aziraphale and Crowley were possibly more than a bit drunk, and it was probably entirely Crowley’s fault. They had been out for dinner again, an occurrence that had become much more common since they didn’t have to hide their fraternization quite as much. And Crowley didn’t always eat a ton on their outings, but he did quite enjoy the fancy champagne they kept at the Ritz, and since Aziraphale had matched him glass for glass… he was perhaps a bit tipsier than he had intended to be.
“Will you give me a lift back to mine?” Aziraphale asked hopefully as he and Crowley left the restaurant, both staggering just slightly.
“Eh, sure,” Crowley replied. He gave Aziraphale a crooked, sloppy grin, his dark glasses slipping down his nose a little. Aziraphale smiled happily back, following Crowley to his Bentley and mentally steeling himself to miracle out of the way any unlucky pedestrians who they might happen across on their way back to the bookshop.
They both took a moment to sober up a little (a full champagne bottle magically appeared in the back room of Aziraphale’s bookshop) and then Crowley started the car and pulled away from the curb. It was drizzling a little, and late enough that the sidewalks weren’t too crowded, which meant that Aziraphale only had to miraculously save half a dozen people on the drive home instead of the usual scores.
Crowley parked, as messily and illegally as always, and shut off the engine after idling for a moment.
“Would you like to come in?” Aziraphale offered, fiddling absently with one sleeve.
Crowley shrugged and jangled his keys. “Sure, I suppose so,” he said nonchalantly. “I haven’t got anywhere to be early tomorrow.”
“Lovely,” Aziraphale said, pleased, and got out of the car. “I got a book in yesterday that I think you’ll appreciate, I can show you if you like.”
“Love books, me,” Crowley mumbled, but unless Aziraphale was sorely mistaken he was smiling anyway.
“It’s a Bible, and there are just the worst misprints in the book of Genesis,” Aziraphale told him as they headed up to the front door of the shop. “Especially in regards to the original sin. It’s quite rare, I still have it wrapped up behind the counter.”
“As long as they spelt my name right, this time,” Crowley said with a smirk, snapping his fingers to unlock the door before Aziraphale could pull out his keys. “Very insulting, that people think serpent is with an f.”
“That was just the typeset and you know it,” Aziraphale said disapprovingly. “As if you didn’t live through the invention of the printing press either!”
Crowley just laughed and pushed open the door to the bookshop. An earsplitting shriek rent the air, and both Aziraphale and Crowley jumped back in surprise. “For somebody’s sake!” Crowley exclaimed.
“Oh, dear, I forgot about the alarming system,” Aziraphale said unhappily, squeezing by the demon to get to the panel set into the wall just inside the door.
“Turn it off!” Crowley exclaimed, covering his ears. “Angel, why the hell is it so loud?”
“I don’t know,” Aziraphale shouted back, staring in consternation at the alarm panel. What in the world was his password? He tried a couple of combinations, but for whatever reason that seemed to enrage the technology further, and it did not get one whit quieter.
“Oh, for—” Crowley snapped, moving him aside with a surprisingly gentle touch and glaring angrily at the alarm. It abruptly shut off, leaving Aziraphale’s ears ringing.
“Thank you, dear,” he said a little weakly, blinking in surprise.
Crowley sighed heavily and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. “Please change the password to something you’ll remember, angel,” he said and then moved past Aziraphale and deeper into the bookshop.
“Right,” Aziraphale murmured, taking a moment to close the front door, waving to a few pedestrians who were staring worriedly at the shop as though they truly believed it was being robbed. “A password I can remember,” Aziraphale repeated thoughtfully, steadfastly ignoring the fact that he’d probably have to get someone’s help to figure out how to make such a change.
He shrugged, and hurried after Crowley, calling, “Dear, do you remember what year we began our Arrangement?”
Crowley was halfway to St. James’ Park to meet Aziraphale when his cellphone rang, the angel’s name on the screen. Crowley narrowly avoided hitting a young couple crossing the road at the wrong time, and then picked up the call.
“I’m on my way, angel, what is it?” he asked, turning down the volume of his music just a bit. “I thought we said three, am I late?”
“No, no,” Aziraphale was quick to assure him. “I just called to ask, would you mind stopping by my bookshop to pick something up?”
Crowley grimaced. “That’s not really on my way,” he said slowly, running a red light.
“Please?” Aziraphale asked hopefully. “It would be so helpful, and you’re the one with a car…”
Crowley sighed long, loud, and dramatic, just to let Aziraphale know exactly how much of a hassle this was for him, and then adjusted his route to take him to Soho. “What am I getting for you?” he asked.
Aziraphale sounded immensely pleased when he answered, “There are a few envelopes on the table in the back, if you wouldn’t mind getting them. I need to drop them in the post today, I was going to go to the post office after we’re done at the park. Just a couple of old reports to send to Heaven, to tie up a few loose ends.”
Crowley rewrote his plans for the evening to probably not include dinner with his angel, figuring that trying to mail something to literal Heaven would be more of a hassle than Aziraphale was accounting for, and simply said, “I didn’t know Heaven used snail mail.”
Aziraphale sighed deeply. “I’m not entirely sure they know about electronic mail, Crowley. And I certainly don’t want to go up to head office to hand anything in. They’ll get there miraculously, don’t you worry.”
“I wasn’t,” Crowley assured him. He blew through a stop sign and pulled up in front of Aziraphale’s bookshop, not even bothering to park at the curb. “I’m at your place, angel, I’ll see you in a bit,” Crowley said, Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love’ cutting off with the car’s engine.
“I’ll see you soon, Crowley,” Aziraphale replied, and his voice was painfully affectionate.
Crowley hung up and sat still for just a moment before getting out of his car, not even bothering to take the keys out of the ignition. No one in Heaven, Hell, or on Earth would dare steal his car. He hurried up the two short steps to the front door of Aziraphale’s shop, gesturing to the doors to unlock themselves before pulling one open.
And then, of course, the alarm went off.
Crowley strangled a yell of surprise and jumped back before cursing under his breath. “What did he make the bloody password?” he mumbled, stepping half inside the shop to poke at the alarm panel. Aziraphale (or Aziraphale’s influence, at least) must have fiddled with the blasted thing, it was unexpectedly resistant to his demonic suggestions to shut the hell up.
“Just my damned— blessed— luck,” Crowley snapped, giving up on trying to guess Aziraphale’s password. The angel had probably made it something meaningless, anyway, like the date he got his first edition copy of whatever book he was onto or whatever.
“Sir!” came a shout from across the street, and Crowley whirled around just in time to see two police officers rushing towards him. Crowley snarled wordlessly in frustration, and weighed his odds for ducking into the bookshop to get Aziraphale’s letters without getting himself shot.
“Is this your property?” one of the police officers asked. The other was eyeing him suspiciously, hand near the baton on her belt.
“Of course it isn’t my property, I wouldn’t run a bookshop,” Crowley blurted derisively, and then winced.
“So you’re breaking in, then,” the first officer said, and his partner had Crowley in handcuffs before he could blink.
“Eh?” Crowley said, and then tugged himself away, about three seconds from magicking away the cuffs and scaring the absolute shit out of these officers. “Why the hell would I want to steal books?”
“To sell,” the second officer said, as though she thought he was a complete and utter idiot.
Crowley very much resented that, and jerked his wrists apart, snapping out of the handcuffs. Both officers immediately went on guard, one pulling out a Taser and the other a baton. Crowley raised his hands placatingly, eyes on the Taser, ready to get rid of it too. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, I’m definitely not interested in stealing any boring old books,” he said with what he hoped was a charming smile.
“Crowley!” Behind the police officers, a figure in an off-white coat and tartan bow tie bustled over, looking unreasonably distressed. Crowley grinned at his savior, and then tried very hard not to show that he had been grinning.
“Sir,” one of the police officers said, but Aziraphale ignored her, brushing past Crowley and punching in the alarm code to shut off its abominable screeching.
“Thank somebody,” Crowley mumbled, his ears ringing a little in the suddenly abrupt quiet.
“Are you the owner of this shop, sir?” the police officer asked, and Aziraphale nodded.
“Of course, how else would I know the alarming system code?” he said a bit stiffly. “You can go, there are no more problems here.”
Both police officers turned and walked away with no further questions, and Crowley turned to Aziraphale with eyebrows raised. “Wouldn’t obstruction of a police investigation be a point against your side?” he teased.
Aziraphale huffed. “There’s no need for an investigation, there’ve been no crimes,” he replied.
Crowley tried for a smirk. “That can change.”
“Are you alright, my dear?” Aziraphale said instead, coming down a step so that he and Crowley were face to face.
Crowley scoffed. “Of course. Now that your Klaxons aren’t ringing.”
He squinted behind his glasses. “How’d you get here so quickly, anyway?”
Aziraphale looked away. “I forgot to tell you that the alarming system was on,” he said, already turning to go inside, presumably for his reports. His voice was quiet, muffled, when he added almost as an afterthought, “And I thought you might be in trouble.”
Crowley just smiled slightly, and followed the angel into his bookshop.
Aziraphale didn’t need to sleep, and if he wanted could technically metabolize alcohol in an instant, but it took actual effort to convince his corporation of that sometimes.
Which was why he was slumped over, mostly dozing against a snoring Crowley’s shoulder when the alarming system in his shop began to shriek.
They both jerked awake violently, Aziraphale with a gasp and Crowley with a spluttered curse, and jumped to their feet. “What is going on?” Crowley snapped, staggering and clutching at his head. They had managed to accidentally fall asleep without sobering up, and Crowley was probably experiencing the first hangover he’d had in decades.
“I don’t know!” Aziraphale replied, distressed. “ I believe someone’s trying to break in! Why else would the alarm be going off?”
“Why else— why else would it be going off?” Crowley repeated incredulously. He had taken his glasses off earlier, and his snake-like pupils were narrow and slitted with irritation. “Because it’s stupid, angel!”
Aziraphale shook his head, trying to focus, but before he could say anything Crowley stalked past him, disappearing into the main room of the shop. A moment later there was a loud, metallic crunch, as if something had been utterly obliterated by the force of an otherworldly being (or, alternatively, punched by a hungover and cranky demon).
The alarm shut off abruptly.
Crowley returned, shaking out his hand. “Fixed your blessed alarm system,” he grumbled, flopping down on the couch again and covering his eyes with one hand, legs stretched out in front of him.
“Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale sighed resignedly, slowly sitting back down next to the demon.
He made a mental note to call the alarming company in the morning, and decided to figure out later how to explain why exactly the alarm was in dozens of pieces. That was a problem for tomorrow.
Crowley and Aziraphale were in the middle of tea with Anathema and Newt when Crowley’s cell phone began to ring, buzzing violently in his pocket.
“Who is that, dear?” Aziraphale asked when Crowley pulled out his phone, cutting himself off in the middle of regaling the younger couple with a story of his time in the Edwardian era. Crowley shrugged, staring down at the unknown number. The only people who called him were Aziraphale and the various denizens of Hell, and Hell hadn’t made contact in months.
“You should answer it,” Anathema said, and Crowley gave her a sharp look.
“Is there a prophecy about this?” he asked testily. “The Serpent shall answereth the call of darkness even once the world hath been savéd?”
Anathema rolled her eyes. “I’ve gotten a good instinct about things, after a while, that’s all,” she replied.
Crowley made a face and got up from the table, stepping away as he answered in case it really was the Forces of Hell on the other end of the line. He’d rather not have Aziraphale listen to him get whatever dressing down Beelzebub had surely wanted to give him since everything that went down.
“Anthony Crowley,” he said in a low voice, answering the call just before it went to voicemail.
“Oh, hello?” the person on the other end said, and they sounded far too flustered to be a demon. “Ah, is Mr. A. Z. Fell there?”
Crowley paused. “Uh,” he said intelligently, and then headed back to the table. “Angel,” he said, squinting at Aziraphale. “Phone’s for you.”
Aziraphale blinked in surprise. “It is?” he said. “I can’t imagine why.”
Crowley held it out for him and then sat a little huffily back down in his chair.
“Hello?” Aziraphale said, tentatively holding the phone to his ear. “Yes, I’m Mr. Fell… Yes… oh. Oh! …Yes, we’ll be back in London tonight. Thank you very much.”
He set the phone down on the table, and Crowley tapped the screen to hang up. “Who on earth did you give my phone number to, angel?” he asked, giving Aziraphale a hard look.
Aziraphale wiggled a little uncomfortably, and then said, “The alarming system company. They needed a cellular phone number, and you know I don’t have one, so yours was the first I thought of.”
Crowley sighed loudly, but couldn’t find it in himself to start an argument. It was a nice day out, the mid afternoon sun warm on his face, and despite his earlier protestations it wasn’t so horrible seeing Anathema and Newt again. “What’d they want, then?” he asked instead. “Did your alarm go mad again?”
“Again?” Anathema asked, clearly sensing a story.
“It goes off randomly all the time, startled the living Heaven out of me last time I fell asleep over there,” Crowley grumbled.
“If it’s malfunctioning, I can take a look at it if you like,” Newt offered genially. “Have a go at fixing it.” Anathema just patted his hand sympathetically.
“It wasn’t malfunctioning this time,” Aziraphale said, and gave Crowley a strangely triumphant look. “Someone tried to break into my shop, and the alarm stopped them! So it does have a purpose.”
Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Huh.”
Aziraphale just smiled, satisfied. “More tea, my dear?”
Crowley was in an absolute tizzy when he came into Aziraphale’s bookshop one morning in late September. Aziraphale was busy making it as difficult as possible for a customer to buy one of his books of seventeenth century poetry when the demon burst in, utterly incensed.
“Angel!” he shouted, letting the door slam behind him. “My flat was broken in, was that your lot?”
Aziraphale gave the customer in front of his a tight smile and firmly pulled the book out of their hands. “I’m afraid this volume is no longer for sale,” he said primly, quickly squirreling the book behind the counter where it would be safe and sound. “Maybe you have better ways to spend your day than browsing in here?” The customer left after that, in a huff, and Aziraphale turned his attention to Crowley, who was waiting impatiently with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“I’m sorry, dear, what’s the matter?” he said absently, bustling across the room to return the book to its proper shelf.
“My flat!” Crowley exclaimed again, following after him. “It was broken into! Can’t imagine it was my side, they’re convinced I have holy water in the emergency sprinklers set to go off if they come in. So it must be yours!”
“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale said calmly, taking Crowley by the shoulders and holding him still so they could make eye contact. “Heaven didn’t break into your flat,” Aziraphale said. “In all honesty, I don’t think they know where you live, and if Gabriel doesn’t know what pornography is, he certainly doesn’t know how to use a phonebook. Besides, don’t you have warding against celestial and demonic... trespassing?”
Aziraphale had found that one out the hard way a few years back, when he had dropped by to water Crowley’s plants while Crowley was otherwise occupied in Hell.
Crowley’s face twitched, as if he had forgotten about that. “I do, yeah,” he admitted grudgingly.
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Well, then, don’t you think it must have been humans?” he pressed. He realized abruptly that he was still holding Crowley by the shoulder, and quickly let go, taking a minute step back.
Crowley hummed noncommittally. “Suppose so, I guess,” he said. “Whoever it was broke the lock on the door, stole some of the human money I’d conjured earlier, and angel, they stole my statue!”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows crept further up his forehead. “The statue of the angel and the demon... eh...”
“Wrestling,” Crowley said firmly. “They’re wrestling. And yes, that statue.”
“Must have been humans, then, I don’t think Heaven would much care for your taste in art,” Aziraphale mumbled.
Crowley made a face at him. “I’d expected you to be a little more sympathetic,” he said.
Aziraphale patted him on the arm. “I feel so, terribly sorry for you, dear,” he said earnestly. “I can’t imagine how distraught you must be.”
Crowley just sighed, and Aziraphale could see his eye roll even behind his dark glasses. “Anyway,” he said, and then trailed off, hesitating.
“Anyway?” Aziraphale prompted.
The next words out of Crowley’s mouth must have been about as much fun to say as chewing glass, if his pained expression was anything to go by. “Anyway, I... dropped by to get the number of your alarm system company. Must be Hell’s invention, with how damned annoying your thing is all the time, so it’d probably work better for me.”
Aziraphale ignored the justifications, the hedging.
He just beamed at Crowley, and then turned to the counter to get the telephone number.