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It was early, by Crowley’s usual standard, as he sauntered into the bookshop. A few ‘customers’ were in the shop, regulars who would browse and look through books and know better than to importune Aziraphale to actually let them buy any. The angel himself was sitting at his desk, reading the morning paper. Next to him, the Times crossword sat, completely filled in. In ink, the smug bastard. Smiling fondly, Crowley sauntered over.
“Morning, angel,” he drawled.
“It’s half noon,” Aziraphale answered absently, not looking up from his paper.
“It’s morning in Greenland,” he countered.
“And time for a nightcap in Australia,” he said, finally looking up. Smiling, he added, “Hello, Crowley.”
“Angel. Anything interesting?” he asked, gesturing to the paper in Aziraphale’s hand.
They’d both been following the news a lot more closely since Armageddidn’t, and Aziraphale got a stack of papers from around the world every morning. Crowley just used his phone like a normal person, which delivered the news much faster, but he still sometimes felt like Aziraphale contrived to be more informed than him. Either way, they were getting their news from fundamentally different sources, and it never hurt to keep each other up to date with anything out of the ordinary.
“Nothing very interesting,” Aziraphale told him, shaking his head. “Some unusual weather patterns in the Indian Ocean, but nothing alarming.”
‘Nothing alarming,’ code for events that were probably not supernatural in nature or global in scope. Crowley nodded, filing that away and secure in the knowledge that Aziraphale would continue to keep his eyes on global weather patterns, despite this one seeming natural.
“Anything else?”
“Probably not. National World Weekly says a man in Brixton saw the face of Christ on his cheese toastie the other day,” Aziraphale told him, grimacing and rolling his eyes.
“Is that so?” he answered, clearing his throat and doing his best not to look guilty.
It wasn’t really surprising that, after so many thousands of years, the angel wasn’t fooled. “Crowley, what have you done?” he asked in a tone that an outsider would have mistaken for gentle.
“In my defense,” he began, resisting the urge to squirm. In my defense, I’m a terrible artist? That would never fly, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.
“In your defense?” he repeated, folding his arms over his chest.
“I wasn’t actually trying for that?” Crowley ventured.
“No? Just made sure his toastie burned in the shape of a long-haired, bearded man? Definitely not meant to be Yeshua at all,” he scoffed.
“Well, it wasn’t!” he protested. “I liked the kid; I wouldn’t use his face in vain.”
Aziraphale opened his mouth, looking ready to retort, then frowned and shut it again for a long moment. “Who, then?” he finally asked.
Crowley mumbled a quick response, not looking at him.
“Crowley?”
He winced, aware that he wasn’t going to get out of this without admitting to what he’d done. More loudly, but quietly enough that no nearby humans would hear, he murmured, “Manson.”
Aziraphale gaped at him for a long moment, then asked, slowly and carefully, “You gave someone a ‘divine vision’ of a serial killer?”
“I thought it would be funny! And he had it coming, the way he was treating his server.”
“You were bored.”
“I was bored,” Crowley admitted, shamefaced and waiting for the shouting to start.
Aziraphale was silent for a long moment, then he nodded sharply. “Right. Come on,” he directed, gesturing towards a shelf and heading that way.
“Wait, what? Where are we going?”
“You need a hobby. I have several books for hobbyists.”
“A… hobby?” Crowley repeated, frowning and following. Was this a punishment or an attempt at preventing future cheese toastie incidents?
“You know what they say about Idle Hands, Crowley. Now, let’s see,” he added, studying the volumes on the shelf. “How about origami?”
Crowley groaned, but knew better than to argue. Maybe next time, he’d show someone the face of Napoleon in their lunch instead…