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“So,” said Aziraphale, speaking slowly and carefully, “let me get the situation straight. You lied to your houseplants, threatened them with grievous bodily harm, and told them you were going to destroy the plant that is now in your car because it grew a leaf spot.”
“Um,” said Crowley.
“But you don’t want to actually do it.”
“Ngh.”
“And so now you want me to get you out of this predicament. Which is entirely your fault.”
Crowley put on his most wheedling expression.[1] “Weeell, I mean…”
“That’s a yes, then.” Aziraphale sighed. “And it didn’t occur to you beforehand that maybe lying to your plants wasn’t the best of ideas?”
“I didn’t mean to lie!” Crowley objected. “I just… uh…”
“Just lied to them?”
Crowley glared. “I was going to say, I got caught up in the moment. And I didn't think I was going to have to follow through on it! I figured they’d behave, if I told them to.”
“Because you, of all people, know that once having been told to behave, no being would ever dream of doing anything else? No such thing as disobedience?”
“...Okay, yeah, touché.”
A long pause.
Crowley, implausibly, somehow managed to turn up the wheedling expression yet another notch. This was absurd. Really, where had the demon learned to extend his lip and flutter his eyelashes with such irresistible levels of pleading?[2]
And, as he had known he would do from the beginning, Aziraphale caved. “All right then, show me this plant of yours. I’ll find it a new home.” He paused and then, with a flash of premonition, added firmly, “Just this once, mind you!”
Though it occurred to him a moment belatedly, seeing the all-too triumphant glint in the demon’s eye, that that was the same thing he’d said the first time he agreed to a preliminary form of the Arrangement.
Oh well, he thought, as a still-smirking Crowley led the way out to the Bentley and the potted zebra plant waiting nervously in the back seat. Judging from the deep gratitude on Crowley’s face right now, Aziraphale rather suspected there might be an anonymously sourced old book or three showing up on his doorstep sometime in the near future. And there were, after all, worse fates than being a houseplant adoption agency.
Hm. He wondered if he could make space for a flowerpot in the back room.