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“Crowley. Crowley. Open the door, Crowley.”
Crowley was surrounded by the luxurious, fluffy softness of multiple pillows and a down comforter. It was, if you’ll excuse the language, almost heavenly.
Strictly speaking, demons don’t require sleep. It gets in the way, see, if you have to interrupt carrying out Ineffable Plans to take a nap. Say an angel is busy thwarting evil and smiting wrongdoers, and a few time zones over the resident demons are sound asleep, entirely vulnerable to any heavenly enemies. Evil never sleeps, and neither does virtue.
Crowley, however, does. It may not be completely necessary, but he has perfected the art of sleeping. It’s one of the more appealing aspects of mortal humans. Bless them, they can’t go on too long or their minds will overheat. Never know which way is up, humans. They over think and over stress and drive themselves nearly to the brink of madness. Sleep is something like an emergency reset button for them; it straightens them out before they go completely bonkers.
“Crowley . Wake up! I made breakfast.”
“Couldn’t you have made breakfast at a more reasonable hour?”
“It’s ten thirty, and you would be in better shape if you hadn’t finished the entire series in one sitting. Wait til Hastur hears about your newest obsession.”
“He won’t. He’ll assume any show called Lucifer is propaganda created by your side, in much the same way they credit you with Charlie’s Angels. Besides, they don’t keep tabs on me much, what with the apocalypse postponed indefinitely.”
He buried his face in the comforter, relishing the warmth and utter relaxation and hoping Aziraphale would recognize a lost cause.
No such luck. “If you waste these eggs I will give your ficus fertilizer, Crowley, so help me god —“
“No!” Crowley roared, flinging his covers back. “He doesn’t deserve fertilizer! I keep telling him, he needs to straighten himself out and get a grip, this whole ‘yellow leaves’ business is completely unacceptable do not feed him fertilizer —“
Silence. Crowley tiptoed to the door, pressing his ear against the cold wood suspiciously. He couldn’t tell if the clinking noises were Aziraphale putting the eggs on a plate or rummaging through cabinets for fertilizer.
Crowley searched his room for some sweatpants and a robe, muttering bitterly. What a low blow. Threatening to coddle his plants in the name of breakfast.
Personally, Crowley was more of a midnight snack person. A tray of snacks, a good blanket, and some quality Netflix was more his jam. Not that he was opposed to breakfast foods, oh no. just the time of day they were ordinarily consumed. But Aziraphale was a morning person for better or worse. Up at seven o’clock, cooking breakfast by eight, and in his shop by nine. Or doing other angel things by nine. Whatever it was he actually did all day. Anyway, he was horribly fond of some Benjamin Franklin quote about the benefits of being an early riser (he read the almanac out loud every morning until Crowley ‘accidentally’ set it too close to a candle).
When Crowley entered the kitchen of their flat, Aziraphale was flipping pancakes over the stove. A bottle of fertilizer was placed threateningly close to the ficus. Crowley snatched it up and shoved it in the back of a cabinet, glaring at the angel.
“A very low blow,” he muttered. He poured himself a cup of black coffee and sat down, surveying the feast laid out on the table.
“What’s this?”
Aziraphale set a stack of pancakes next to the French toast and suddenly looked rather anxious and embarrassed. He fiddled with his apron string.
“Well, you know, we did talk about it at one point—a couple centuries ago, I think—but, well, it just never happened what with everything going on and I thought now might be a good time, with the apocalypse behind us and nothing terribly important planned for the next decade or so—“
Crowley stared. “Is today my birthday?”
Aziraphale still looked a mite bashful. “Well, we never got around to celebrating it properly when we first decided, there was that plague and then it was just one thing after another but I thought now, with nothing much going on, maybe it would be a good time to start celebrating—“
Crowley pointed his fork at Aziraphale accusingly, a piece of pancake dripping syrup from the end. “Don’t think this means you’re forgiven for your little stunt with the fertilizer. The last thing I need is you softening up those plants behind my back, undoing all my hard work and motivational speeches.”
Aziraphale sniffed disapprovingly. “I thought stress lowered life expectancy.”
“Not in plants. Those lazy bastards need encouragement to reach their full potential. Also, are you going to enjoy this feast or just stand there holding the sausages?”
“Yes, but we can’t take too long. I have a few activities planned for the day.”
Crowley grinned. “Birthday activities? Do I get a party, too? Will there be cake?”
The angel sipped his orange juice. “You’ll have to wait and see.”