Chapter Text
‘What did you do with the books, Aziraphale?’
The angel has the grace to look slightly guilty. ‘Well. You know I didn’t want to bring them with me here. Not all of them. The shop’s set up so nicely for them. Humidity control and-‘
‘Aziraphale. There is a monkey in my kitchen. What did you do with the books?’
A shuffling of wings. In the distance, Crowley can hear something that very much sounds like an orangutan helping itself to some cider and finding it lacking (Crowley’s been doing his best but the trees have been left to go wild for a few decades and one summer’s worth of intimidation had resulted in a few scant handfuls of apples.)
‘I might have left an L-Space connection set up between here and the shop, that’s all.’
Crowley rolls his eyes. ‘And you lectured me about improper use of miracles when we were-‘
‘That’s because that’s much better done the human way! You try building interdimensional portals between libraries with human things and see how far you get!’
‘Ok, ok.’ Crowley sighs and looks around. It is only one monkey, after all. Ape or whatever. ‘What about him? Is he safe here?’
‘The Librarian? He’s an old friend of mine, in passing. I should introduce you. And please don’t worry, L-Space is perfectly fine as a concept. You never noticed it at the bookshop, did you? I can promise you, it’s only dangerous if you misplace a book.’
He’s fairly sure Aziraphale slips a ‘mostly’ into the end of the sentence there.
The Librarian turns out to be a charming guest, once Crowley’s got past the fangs and the orangutan’s got a decent look past Crowley’s intrinsic snake nature and realised he’s only a demon rather than a cobra.
The first couple of hours pass in a whirlwind of talking about their respective homes and how magic works in both of them. Aziraphale makes dinner, of which the Librarian eats the banana splits and drinks the rum, and they carry on talking.
The Librarian prefers the wine to the cider though. At some stage, Aziraphale must leave to find another book to show him, because Crowley’s next memory is of translating the number of Oooks required for ‘A Wizard’s Staff Has a Knob on the End,’ and joining in singing the refrain with him, and the next memory after that is a lot more wine, a lot more verses being made up on the spot and Aziraphale doing a very bad job at hiding his amusement at the whole thing.