Work Text:
Crowley was sitting in his flat thinking over his latest narrow escape. He really had had to think quick on this last job. He hadn't meant for things to spiral the way they had. He blamed it all on it being a job that was too easy for him, that's what had led to distraction and things just sort of went pear shaped after that.
It wasn't from lack of experience. He had done this sort of thing plenty of times, especially since the beginning of the industrial age. It wasn't really his style but you don't just decline an order in hell.
Hell had sent out a blanket order for each demon to cause havoc by getting Person A in any business deal to backstab Person B and ruin an otherwise amiable partnership by any means necessary.....and if the venture happened to fail in a few years, well, all the better.
Crowley had gone to America for a time and had been sitting at the bar doing some thinking drinking, trying to come up with something clever without actually causing too much harm when a middle aged man came in and sat down next to him. Unfortunately for Crowley, he turned out to be the chatty type. Crowley would have simply snapped him away to anywhere else had he not said one crucial thing fairly quickly.....he was working on a new business deal and he came here to think. This might be the very thing Crowley needed. However, he groaned when he heard.....after very much dialog, mind.....that the man was brainstorming for an image for a new kind of toilet paper. Rubbish.
"It will be known for it's softness, but it still has to be strong. So what is the softest, yet strongest, thing you can think of?" The man had said around a drink. "It has to be appealing, adorable even. Something that people would naturally gravitate to." He took a long drink.
Crowley wasn't paying much attention anymore. He was only catching a word here and there. What the man had described only served to remind Crowley of a certain angel back in London. It had been quite a while since they had seen each other. He would never admit it, but he kinda missed the angel's company now that he was thinking about him. But what the man had described had only made him think of Aziraphale. The angel was soft, yes, but in the best and most adorable ways. Yet he was the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, so Crowley knew that underneath the angel was very strong as well. And Crowley had never seen a more appealing corporation. And everyone seemed to somehow sense Aziraphale's good nature and would unconsciously go to him.
"Soft as...." the man (Crowley never paid enough attention to get his name) was saying trying to coax out more ideas. "Soft as...."
"An angel." Crowley said absentmindedly
Bugger.
Crowley didn't realize he had spoken it aloud until the man froze, then in one fell swoop got all animated with excitement. He downed the rest of his drink in one go.
"Yes!" He exclaimed. "That's it!" Try as Crowley might to talk him out of it, the idea stuck.
The worst part came when hell got wind that it had been Crowley's idea to name something after an angel. It had taken all his smooth talking skills to convince them that it was actually a clever joke; that he, of course, intended to name the thing you wipe your ass with after the angels. No one in hell really got it since they didn't really understand what toilet paper was....or what it was used for (and Crowley was not about to explain that to them!)
And to top it all off, business was booming. To say that Crowley had gotten severe punishment for 'drawing humans attention to angels' would be an understatement. Now, the only thing salvageable about his dignity in the situation was if he could keep a certain angel from finding out......