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Aziraphale trudged the last stretch up the hill to the mouth of the cave and braced himself. He could smell the demonic miracle from here, even through the wind and the rain. It smelled like Crowley. It smelled (his treacherous heart informed him) like home.
He lifted his head, composed his face, and walked inside. The stone floor beneath him radiated a cosy, miracled, warmth, perfect for an old snake who had never been fond of the cold.
He rounded a corner, and found his wily serpent in snake form, coiled loop on loop like a rather scaly basket. Something inside the 'basket' squeaked imperatively and Crowley's head shot up. He was grinning the sort of ultra-wide, jaw-dropped, grin that only a nervous snake would be capable of.
"Angel! It's not what it looks like!"
"Oh?"
"I was just having a nap - not a long one, only a month or three - and when I woke up, some cat had decided to have kittens in my sleeping nest!"
"You woke up," Aziraphale repeated, deadpan, "and you had kittens." His eyes gleamed with affectionate amusement as he rephrased the information to imply the demon's panicky over-reaction.
"Ohhh, shuddup," Crowley grumbled, but there was no bite in the words. He dipped his massive head towards the inside of his coils and Aziraphale took that as an invitation to join him.
There were three bouncing kittens and a rather scrawny mother in Crowley's protective coils. Crowley shifted position, lifting his upper coils into an arch so that Aziraphale could step through, and dropping them back with a thump once his angel was inside. "Will they be ok, angel?"
Aziraphale miracled up a plate of fish for the mother - she surely wouldn't care about the slightly off taste of miracled food, even if he did - and some extra milk for the kittens. "They'll be tickety-boo, dear." His hand settled on the nape of Crowley's neck, scritching it gently but absently.
"Are you taking them away from here tonight, angel?"
Aziraphale looked over towards the cold, windy, rainy night, and then around at the dry, warm cave. "You'll owe me for this," he grumbled, and Crowley felt the words vibrate all the way down his spine (and it was a very long way indeed).
"'Course."
Aziraphale sighed, carefully removed his old coat, and miracled it safely to one side of the cave. He rolled his head from side to side, rolled his shoulders as if working out some stiffness, and shifted into his own animal form.
Where the angel had been stood a bear with a shaggy coat the soft golden colour of Aziraphale's favourite waistcoat. He settled on the cave floor, filling most of Crowley's 'basket', and the cats all scrambled up to lie on his back, purring.
"Remind me," Crowley murmured, "why you don't do this more often?"
"You know perfectly well, Crowley." Aziraphale huffed, resting his fluffy chin on Crowley's topmost loop. "It's no good for reading books!"