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"Are you absolutely bloody blind?" Crowley shouted into his headset. "There's red bits on the floor. They mark the bad places to stand. They do so very well, in fact. How fucking difficult is it to just not be there?"
The keyboard strained under his hands, the W and A keys nearly shattering under the pressure of his fingertips as Crowley directed his character in the game to weave between the red spots he was yelling about.
"Oi, listen here, mate," came a very Australian voice from one of his teammates, the most bold of the five he'd been paired with, who'd been the only one daring enough to argue back thus far. "This new encounter only dropped a few hours ago. It's not like any of us have done this before. Cut them some fucking slack, Frenchie."
"Right, you know I'm not from fucking France," Crowley began, ignoring the brief giggle this elicited from Aziraphale, who was sitting on a sofa nearby, nose buried in a book nearly half as ancient as they were. "I'm British, you absolute wanker."
That earned him a tut from Aziraphale, who certainly understood that they both felt awfully British a lot of the time, but neither of them truly were or ever would be. That made the statement a lie, and even six thousand plus years on, he still bristled whenever Crowley uttered a deliberate falsehood in his presence.
"And put yourself on push to talk, Asmodeus," said one of the others. "Your mic's been completely open this whole time, and just the ambient noise from your keyboard is enough to make me want to wipe us on purpose."
So. The Australian's moxie was giving a false sense of security to the rest of them, and now they were all thinking it was all right to speak up.
"I'll go push to talk as soon as you hit one of your bloody crits, Juicyloot," spat Crowley. "I don't even know where to find the setting for it, but I'm not worried. If I only have to do it once you play your character correctly, clearly it'll never need to happen."
His screen got a framing of blood around the edges, and three of the voices on his headset began to giggle. They'd all died in the game, as several of them had stood (deliberately, it seemed) on the same red patch to kick off an explosion that took them all out.
A vote to kick dialog popped up next, which rapidly passed with five votes in favor, and Crowley found his character standing, alone, in the graveyard.
"Bloody peasants," Crowley muttered, ripping his headset off and throwing it over his mousepad in disgust. "Trying to put all of them up on my back and get us through the dungeon, and what thanks do I get? Good luck trying to finish without the top damage-dealer," he continued to grouse, logging out with a snap of his fingers.
"My dear, you've been rubbing at your eyes for the last hour, and, if you will forgive my saying so, your mood and tolerance level have both precipitously dropped in that same length of time." Aziraphale's voice was soft, but insistent. "Perhaps the game will seem like more of a...fun...endeavor after a night's sleep?"
Crowley wanted to be annoyed, and felt himself briefly careen toward an impulse to take out the rest of his frustration on...well...not on Aziraphale, per se, but on what he'd said.
Unfortunately for his predilection to indulge his temper, he'd learned in the six or so months since they'd averted the apocalypse that Aziraphale was usually right when he made these observations about Crowley's state of mind and whether it was being adversely affected by fatigue.
He stretched, bending his spine and arms in ways his mostly-human corporation had never been designed to accommodate, appreciating the pleasure-pain sensations the movement sent through him. Giving himself over to a wide yawn (was he imagining the way his jaw seemed to unhinge itself, or was he actually going a bit snakey?) as well, he nodded, ignoring the pleased, indulgent smile that graced Aziraphale's lips.
"Go have a rest, dear. The game will still be there when you wake."
"Yeah," he agreed, in the least agreeable way possible. "S'pose they didn't deserve me carrying them, anyway." He got up, and began to walk toward his bedroom.
"Of course they didn't," Aziraphale said, setting down his book (after carefully marking his place with an equally ancient-looking bookmark) and stood to help guide Crowley to his bed.
"I can do it myself," Crowley growled, but without any real ire behind it.
"Of course you can, my dearest," Aziraphale agreed, placing an achingly sweet kiss on Crowley's temple as one of them (Crowley was too tired to be sure which) performed a miracle to replace his fashionable daytime outfit with his black silk pajamas. The floor was suddenly cold under his bare feet, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up under the duvet and fall unconscious. Possibly as a snake, which would sadly render his favorite nightwear unnecessary.
With one more lingering kiss, a taste of Aziraphale's lips that nearly had Crowley pulling his angel into bed with him, Crowley settled in instead. Snuggling into the pillow, he mumbled something incoherent about Australian paladins not knowing what was good for them, and then everything went black.
It was, oddly, dark when Crowley awakened again. He reached for his mobile, smiling when he realized Aziraphale must have brought it to the bedside table to plug it in for him, and gaped at the screen. He'd been asleep for an entire day.
It certainly wasn't unprecedented for him to sleep in long stretches. Some of his prior naps were most accurately measured in decades, after all. Since they'd saved the world and finally felt free to confess their feelings for each other, however, Crowley had taken to spending as much time awake and with his angel as possible. This had to be the longest he'd blacked out since that first night after they'd switched bodies and pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
He lounged for a moment, luxuriating in the decadence of the 1500 thread count brushed cotton sheets his legs were currently tangled in, before deciding to rise and see what Aziraphale was up to.
Once he followed the noise to his office, though, he stopped short at the sight waiting for him.
Aziraphale was sitting in his chair, hunched over the keyboard. (Hunched! Perfect posture nowhere to be found, and without a single drop of alcohol present to loosen him up.) The headset was looped over Aziraphale's head, his curls messy and untamed as they escaped out all sides.
"Yes, yes, this is exactly what we needed to do!" the angel said, love overflowing from his voice as he spoke into the headset's microphone. "Everyone has done so well!"
Crowley noted, with annoyance, that Aziraphale was holding down the middle mouse button when he spoke. He'd enabled the bloody push to talk feature? How had he figured any of this out? He'd been his proper technophobe self the last Crowley had seen of him.
"Angel!"
"Yes, my de—oh, goodness." Aziraphale scrambled a little, quickly holding down the push to talk button again. "My fine fellows and gentle ladies, I'm afraid I'll need a moment's break before we press on into the final fight. I hope this won't be too terrible an inconvenience?" He waited for a moment for the responses, a beatific smile on his lips, and then spoke again. "Wonderful. Let's all take a five minute break, and then reconvene for that last encounter with fresh minds and bodies."
"Angel, what in the bloody blue blazes are you—"
"Well, you see...I became quite curious about this game of yours," Aziraphale began, standing up and brushing off his clothes as he crossed over to where Crowley was still frozen, gobsmacked, in the doorway.
Aziraphale was actually disheveled. Tie askew and trousers terribly wrinkled, a state he normally wouldn't deign to spend five minutes in. How long had the angel been playing, anyway?
"So you decided to try it out?" Crowley was trying very hard not to be annoyed, but if Aziraphale had used his account and mucked anything up, he was fairly certain he'd have to take a good, long walk to work out his frustration before coming back. "Sell off any of my gear, angel?"
"Heavens, no!" Aziraphale was clearly affronted. "I've set up my own account, of course. Your character name certainly suits you, but I could hardly feel comfortable running around with such a moniker attached to me."
"How did you... ever...figure out how to—"
"I used that marvelous Google you've been going on about! It's lovely, and I'm not sure why I didn't avail myself of it sooner. You ask it questions, you see, and there are answers just waiting for you."
"I know, angel. I'm the one who—" Crowley shook his head, deciding to cut himself off there. Getting stuck on how the angel had negotiated the account creation process certainly seemed to be burying the lede. "Never mind. Why are you still playing?"
"Well, it's a bit embarrassing. After you were off to sleep and I sussed out how to make my account, I decided to try that dungeon experience you'd been in."
"Oh, angel. I wish you'd asked me. That's a very complex part of the game. Would have been much better to start off another way."
"Yes!" Aziraphale laughed. "There certainly was quite the learning curve. I was very lucky to find a small group of like-minded individuals doing the quests that opened up the dungeon, and we came to an agreement to stay together until we'd all completed it."
"So that's what you're doing? You and some other players are still trying to hammer away at the opening fights?" Crowley could see that, and knew Aziraphale could certainly be stubborn enough to keep at it, even if it was nigh impossible that he'd figure out how to complete something so complex within his first hours of playing.
"No, no," Aziraphale said, worrying his hands together and looking uncomfortable. "It took some time, but the original five and I finished it after three hours of very hard work."
"Three hours? Aziraph—you—are you—" Crowley stopped, realizing he sounded like a pillock, stammering away like this. He'd been in that bloody dungeon for five hours when his group had given up on him. And Aziraphale, who'd never touched the game... any game...before, had finished it in three?
"It was quite challenging, as I said. I understood why you and your group succumbed to the pressure of it all once I'd experienced it myself."
The explanation came to Crowley all at once. He figured Aziraphale probably didn't even realize he'd been doing it, but there had to be some stray miracles involved here, didn't there? Crowley himself refused to use any himself, demon or not, because cheating to get something in a game ruined the fun for him. He was sure it would be an awful sting for Aziraphale once he saw what he'd been unwittingly doing, but Crowley couldn't see any way around telling him. The longer Aziraphale went without realizing he'd been cheating, the worse he'd feel once he knew.
"Listen, angel. I know using our powers is practically second-nature to us at this point, but you do understand that using a miracle or two isn't really on the up and up, don't you? All the other players can't just decide their characters didn't get hit with an attack, or magically make all their skill shots land."
Aziraphale looked as though someone had forced him to smell something rancid.
"Are you accusing me of using my innate angelic power to play a game unfairly?"
"I made it clear that I didn't think you'd do it on purpose—"
"I didn't do it at all! It took me quite awhile to learn all the keys one has to push to make one's character do things. I'll not allow you to take that away from me with your baseless accusations."
Crowley held his hands up, trying to broadcast his innocence and contrition all at once.
"Hey, so if you've finished the dungeon," he said, talking quickly as he tried to change the subject, "why are you still playing now?"
"It's embarrassing," Aziraphale said, leaning in. "The group I was with initially asked if I would be interested in forming a 'clan', I believe they're called, in the game. Apparently it's done for camaraderie, and to ensure you can easily play together again."
"Yes, of course," Crowley said, thinking of his own clan, Hellions of Asmodeus, and the load of whiners he was constantly having to kick out for being freeloaders.
"I agreed, as they were all so insistent, and we put out a call for other like-minded players to join us. When they broadcast the credo we penned together, we found so many people who'd felt unwelcome in other groups."
"And you took in every sad sack and bungler on the server, I suppose?"
The rancid-smell look returned.
"I certainly wouldn't call them that. We've found they're mostly players who require a bit of instruction or encouragement."
"Or instructions on how to cancel their accounts..." Crowley mumbled.
"I'll have you know that I have personally led nearly our entire clan through that dungeon, one five person group at a time. With someone experienced in the encounters and reliable healing—"
"Of course you're a healer," Crowley said, earning another sour look for interrupting.
"As I was saying, with the proper support and encouragement, my clanmates are all rising to the challenge admirably."
"So you intend to keep playing?"
Aziraphale looked thoughtful, and spared a quick glance over his shoulder, back toward Crowley's computer.
"It's quite nice, really..." Aziraphale said with a languid sigh, "to feel...useful."
"Oh," Crowley said, the word punched out of him when he saw the wistful look in Aziraphale's eyes. He knew very well that the angel hadn't let up on the blessings and his other minor forays into making human lives easier after the thwarted apocalypse put them both out of their formal positions. He hadn't realized Aziraphale was still feeling adrift, despite all the little niceties he doled out to the humans around him. "Angel...Aziraphale...you should keep playing."
"Do you think so? It's not silly of me?"
"So you thought it was silly of me?" Crowley said, arching an eyebrow as he leaned out with his hand propped on his hip, grinning at Aziraphale's cowed expression. "You did, didn't you?"
"Perhaps," Aziraphale allowed, his forehead crinkling adorably. "I couldn't be more apologetic now, though, my dear. I simply didn't understand the purpose of it all."
"And the purpose is...?"
"Well," Aziraphale said, looking thoughtful. "I suppose...connection? It's quite unique, these interactions where you're all being challenged together. So different than speaking to a person on the street or a fellow patron at a restaurant."
"Right," Crowley said. "I'm getting a shower, then."
"Why do you need—"
"S'pose I'll need to go out and buy a second computer now, so we can both play?"
The look of love and adoration on Aziraphale's face was enough, Crowley imagined, to chase the ever-present clouds out of the London sky and let the sun shine through.
"We'd be happy to take you through the dungeon, Crowley, as long as you obey the tenets of the clan while you play with us," Aziraphale offered, moving back to sit in front of the keyboard again, his hand hovering over the headset.
"We'll see, angel. We'll see."
Perhaps Crowley could ease back on his litany of rage for one measly dungeon crawl, if he really tried. Or, more realistically, if he simply 'forgot' to enable his microphone.