Happy Holidays, Irisbleufic!
TWO short fics for the price of one!
Title: Gotta catch “Them” all
Rating: Gen I think? Has one swearword
Characters: Wensley, Brian, Pepper, Adam, Dog
Word count: 1439
Summary: The Them (as adults) play Pokemon Go. Chaos ensues.
“There’s a fucking Dragonite in our house. Come here right now, I don’t care what you’re doing. Bring Wensley.”
“Seriously?” Brian said, resting his phone on his shoulder while grabbing his shoes. It was a thick, sturdy thing, heavily covered in a bulky orange case, which Wensley recommended, stating that it would ‘protect it better’. The skeptical look on his face was as obvious as his phone case. It wouldn’t be the first time Pepper had tricked him when she just wanted someone to play Pokemon Go with.
Pepper nodded vigorously, as if Brian could see her through the phone.
“Seriously,” she confirmed. “Now get your ass over here, before Adam catches it and ends up with five of them!”
“Wensley!” he called. There was no reply. “Wensley. Wensleydale.”
“What?” Wensley sighed, poking his head through the doorway where Brian stood, shoes on, holding his ridiculous phone.
“Pepper said there’s a Dragonite in her house! Don’t you wanna come catch it?” he implored.
Wensley peered at his computer full of unfinished work, then over at Brian’s hopeful smile, and couldn’t resist.
“Fine,” he said, attempting to act annoyed. He wasn’t very good at it, a the hint of a smile creeping across his face. “she better not be pretending like last time.”
“Let’s go!” Brian exclaimed excitedly, watching as Wensley shoved a pair of trainers, bright white and seldom-worn.It was unusual for his friend to wear sneakers, but he’d decided that if Adam was might be there, he should be prepared for anything.
The Them, after the Apocawasn’t, had decided to stay together, because hey, if they could survive an Apocalypse, then they could probably survive anything. Besides, they didn’t want to turn into those sorts of friends, the ones who’d let their childhood memories wash away in a rain of paperwork and, when together, only could think to converse about the weather.
Perhaps it had been a little too much to live directly next to each other, but at least it made it easy to meet up. It really was just like old times, although, there really weren’t any old times. At least, not to the Them. To the Them, there was only time, moments and memories that were all now.
Brian knocked on the door excitedly, and Wensley shot him a glance, his previously suppressed smile now fully apparent. Brian always became very excited at the prospect of playing Pokemon Go, especially with the Them. Wensley fully concurred, though he secretly tried to deny it. He passed off his terrible, low CP Pokemon as the result of not playing enough, rather than not being very good at it.
There was also the fact that the servers mysteriously went down as soon as he tried to catch anything good. He suspected it had something to do with Adam.
Pepper answered the door, looking slightly weary. There were shadows below her eyes and a tired slump to her posture, yet her eyes were still alive with the sparkle that had never really faded. It was the gleam of ideas and speculation, shimmering with the thought of something new.
Pepper was seemed an odd choice for a partner. At first, she seemed the would be the sort that triggered mumbled office conversations, those that started and ceased at the blink of an eye.
She’s bloody crazy, people would mutter to each other. Don’t know why he’s with her, he could do so much better. She’d bloody bonkers. Crazy, to the max.
And yet, when they saw the spark in her eye, they almost felt envious. There was just something about her, that was, alright. Something about the shimmer in her eye or the way she laughed, that made them think, Adam is one lucky guy to have her.
It also could have been the fact that she could knock them out flat in a second. That too.
“Finally,” she said to Wensley and Brian, rolling her eyes with an exaggerated sigh. “I thought you’d never come.”
“We didn’t take that long,” Wensley countered. Pepper merely shook her head.
“It was still too long.” She grinned, unlocking her phone and waving it in his face. “Guess who has a Dragonite when you don’t!”
Still relishing her success, she walked inside, the two men following her.
“Got rid of the kids for today.” she chattered. “Birthday parties are the best.”
“I caught it around here,” she said vaguely, waving her hand in an unclear area of the room. “I’m naming it ‘takethatAdam’.” She grinned, typing it out.
“Is it still there?” Wensley asked, pulling out his phone desperately. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to catch it; his best Pokemon was 50CP, but he hoped that this might be his breakthrough.
Brian whooped delightedly as he caught it, then quickly cleared his throat and pretended he hadn’t said anything.
Wensley scanned around the room, trying to spot it...and there it was, on the screen, standing in front of him. He prepared to catch it, the Pokeball hovering on his thumb, when ..
Our servers are experiencing issues. Please come back later.
Wensley released a cry of frustration, nearly flinging down his phone in anger. Adam cackled as he swung out of his room. From the way he was holding his phone, Wensley knew that he had most definitely caught the Dragonite.
“Classic!” Adam exclaimed. “Gets you every time!”
Adam had definitely not lost his childlike manner. In fact, out of all of the Them, he had retained the most. One might say that he had not so much retained his childish manner, but rather, he had further developed it.
“Meanies,” Wensley said, trying to suppress a grin despite himself. He suddenly felt young again, reminiscing of the time that the Them had all jokingly made fun of his very studious-looking new glasses.
“I can’t believe you caught it!” he complained, turning to Brian. Brian merely smirked, looked up from his phone, then suddenly kissed Wensley.
“Does that make it worth it?” Brian said, when they broke apart.
“Not really. I’d still rather have the Dragonite,” Wensley muttered, cheeks red.
“Hello, we’re still here too!” Adam joked. “Let’s go. I think I saw a Pikachu down the road. It’ll be nice to have a sixth one.”
“Unfair,” Wensley muttered under his breath. Adam winked at him.
“You’re just jealous,” he said cockily.
They all got into Pepper’s car. Even Dog jumped in enthusiastically, wagging his tail in the back seat. Somehow, no one else suspected him of being the same dog Adam had owned all those years ago. Adam had taken care of that, whether he realised it or not.
It was messy and filled with rubbish, with crumbs on the seats and packets littering the floor. It made an ominous sputtering noise when turned on, but still somehow ran fine despite being extremely old. They all knew that Pokemon Go was really designed for walking, but Adam always deemed that pointless. It was far more fun, adventuring at speed, hair rustling in the wind, feeling as if they could live forever.
There was a little cutout car diffuser hanging from the rear-view mirror, which smelled sweetly of jasmine. It was a very nostalgic smell, one full of memories.
Pepper’s car had somehow become their Pokemon Go car. They hadn’t intended it to be, it just - happened. It made everything better, honestly, driving in a rattling car with the windows down, laughing at something silly.
When Adam caught the Pikachu, he did a silly victory dance, making Pepper laugh so hard she nearly cried. And Brian gloated when he caught each Pokemon, laughing at Wensley’s constant failures to catch anything. They all laughed at him, when he admitted that he nearly chose Team Instinct.
And though it seemed a good idea at the time, he was glad that he had changed his mind, so they were all in the same team. The Them were always a team; it was impossible for them not to be.
Even though Wensley had work to do, he didn’t regret playing one bit. It was so much better creating memories with the Them and taking a break from his adult life.
Honestly, he thought the Them would never really grow up. He didn’t feel a day older than eleven when he grinned at his phone and laughed with his friends.
Impossibly, when Wensley finally got home, as he looked through his Pokedex, there was the Dragonite, hovering there happily. He’d never caught it; but there it was.
That damn Antichrist. Always bending the rules.
It was better than any of Brian’s Pokemon, and oh, was it worth it.
Dear irisbleufic, I wish you all the best for the holiday season. I hope you like this fic!
Title: Don’t Point Your Finger at Me (unless you intend to use it)
Rating: Gen
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Word count: 1673
Summary: Sure, they were six millennia old divine beings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t ever get annoyed with each other.
Happy holidays, irisbleufic! Hope you like this one too
Crowley wasn’t even sure where they’d all come from. It almost seemed that Aziraphale somehow had the ability to invoke books from the nether; Crowley couldn’t see any other way that he could have so many. And they weren’t even books that Crowley liked, all crackling pages and ancient words. He liked stories with a plot, tales that were entertaining and funny and sinful. Aziraphale’s books were boring. He’d pick one up every now and then, read a few pages, then dump it, instantly disinterested. (Well, he didn’t really dump it - he placed it down nicely, or else he’d have had to bear the wrath of the angel.) He decided he had no use for their mundane verses.
It was alarmingly frequent that he would accidentally sit on one, too. It hurt. A lot.
Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was the hissing, or the eyes, or the tongue, or even the feet that made it too much - perhaps it was a combination. Aziraphale had never really liked snakes; ironic, now that he thought about it. He’d never considered Crowley to be a serpent, but when he saw him without his sunglasses, or when he cast a predatory look to a rodent, the angel remembered, that yes, Crowley was indeed reptilian. And honestly, it wasn’t even really the snake part that annoyed him the most (even though it was a little strange) - it was the fact that Crowley actually used his weird snake-like abilities. No matter how many polite remarks littered with ‘dear’ that Aziraphale directed to Crowley, he just never seemed to get the hint.
It was the tongue that annoyed Aziraphale the most. Sometimes, Crowley even licked him.
It was such a human peeve to have, Crowley knew. He knew that if he were going to be a charming tempter like how he wanted to be, he had to be good at talking to people. But honestly, as much as he tried to convince himself he was suave and personable, he’d never really gotten the hang of it. Aziraphale, on the other hand, constantly chatted with other people. Crowley would often meet up with the angel and find him nattering happily with someone: supermarket cashiers, random bystanders, anyone. And he never knew quite what to do. Usually, he would just awkwardly usher Aziraphale away, often earning a knowing look from whoever the angel was conversing with. Sure, he might have seemed rude, but hey, that was his job. And he could never really understand why the angel liked to chat with strangers.
At the bookshop, customers didn’t get any nice treatment. Instead of a nice, friendly chat, they got a lungful of dust and an irritated glower.
Their place was full of them. It looked like a garden, full of leafy green plants, on the shelves, in planters, practically everywhere.
And while it would be fine usually, it was the way that Crowley talked to them that he found a little odd. In fact, he felt sorry for the poor plants. Sometimes, when Crowley wasn’t looking, he would gently console them, whispering prayers and words of encouragement. He’d even rescued a few that had gotten thrown out, replanting them and hoping the demon wouldn’t notice.
It was rather unsettling to enter the room to find Crowley hurling threats at a particular green potted object. The angel supposed it was just part of his job, but it was still odd walking in to Crowley making death threats to his plant then turning around nonchalantly.
It also made Aziraphale realise that Crowley would have been better at the gardener job, based on how green and healthy his plants were.
He still felt bad for them, though.
Crowley, of course, regularly and painstakingly groomed each feather in his wings. It was part of his image. He couldn’t afford to be messy; they had to be utterly faultless, completely tempting, to do a job right. And it helped make one look more trustworthy, too. He’d found that humans went crazy for a sharp-dressed man.
Crowley wasn’t sure what sort of fashion they enforced in Heaven but, based upon Aziraphale’s wings, he guessed it was pretty lax. They were possibly the most unruly, messiest wings he had ever seen. Truthfully, he hadn’t seen a lot of wings, but he didn’t really need a comparison to know that Aziraphale’s wings were in desperate need of grooming.
And what annoyed him the most was that Aziraphale never let him groom them! The angel would always put him off, claiming to be busy reading, working, anything to make an excuse. People thought demons were the lazy ones - Crowley begged to differ.
Maybe one day, the angel would groom them. Crowley knew it wouldn’t be any time soon, though, and it annoyed the hell out of him.
To the angel, ‘one day’ could be in another few millennia.
Aziraphale wasn’t even quite sure what an ‘internet’ was, to be truthful. He had a computer, but it was old and slow, and he had only used it for taxes. He hadn’t actually had the chance to check out that ‘internet explorer’ thing yet, but he fully intended to eventually.
Crowley was always on his phone, sniggering at something random or playing games and blessing loudly when he lost. Aziraphale supposed it was rather involving, like when he was reading a book.
If he were that annoying, he’d make it a point to read only in private.
Sometimes Crowley would attempt to explain it to the angel, but he never quite got it. Aziraphale would often ask why Crowley even needed a phone, if he didn’t call anyone. It was a little frustrating, being around a demon who wouldn’t look up from his Candy Crush, save for a few annoyed exclamations.
Whatever it was, at least it kept him entertained.. Aziraphale thought that maybe it would be best not to find out.
Just in case.
Well, truthfully, not everything, but a lot of things. It was one of the perks of being a demon, Crowley supposed. You do one bad thing, and suddenly, you’re responsible for all the bad things that happen.
To be fair, it probably was a demon doing the bad things, just not Crowley in particular. Most of the time, anyway.
But Aziraphale blamed Crowley for so many things! Traffic, weather, pretty much anything. Hell, he even blamed him when red lights stopped them when they needed to drive somewhere.(Honestly, that was really annoying. Crowley thought the demon who invented red lights should get a commendation.)
Crowley tended to blame Adam Young for everything. It was his way of passing it on, and it worked well enough.
Aziraphale thought that Crowley just made them out of thin air - this was true, to a degree, but he’d never really thought about where they went. The angel always thought that they’d just dissipated afterwards, but this was not the case.
Until accidentally sitting on a pair, he hadn’t considered it. Crowley must have just left them on the couch. Big deal.
But the next day, when he’d found another pair sitting by a pile of books, he found that a little odd. And then the next, and the next, when he kept on finding glasses everywhere, he started to suspect that Crowley owned more sunglasses than he initially thought.
They just multiplied and multiplied. It was almost getting out of hand. There were as many sunglasses as there were books in the house.
Aziraphale thought that it was most likely Crowley was too lazy to look for his previous sunglasses, and made another. It was rather irritating, finding the shades in every nook and cranny of the place.
Still, Crowley put up with his books. He supposed he should be tolerant
It was loud. Very loud.
Aziraphale supposed this wasn’t Crowley’s fault per se, but there wasn’t really anyone else to blame. Crowley just shouldn’t have chosen that form of communication with Hell in the first place.
It gave him an awful fright every time he was peacefully reading, and out of nowhere Beelzebub’s loud voice filled the room.
Even when the radio was switched off, it could still turn on. Aziraphale had half a mind to burn it or dump it, just anything to get rid of it. But then, it was in his car radio too, so that wouldn’t work. And in the television.
Whenever Hell was (loudly) talking with Crowley, Aziraphale always had to bite back retorts to their extreme rudeness. Heaven would never advocate such talking!
(Well, except maybe the Metatron, but that was a whole other story.)
Aziraphale was very glad that he had stuck with the old fashioned way of communicating. While it was more complex, it was rather less bothersome.
Out of all the things that annoyed Crowley, this was probably the most annoying. Crowley was a serpent, for Heaven’s sake. He got very cold, very easily. He almost wished he could go back to the time when he’d slept for a century straight. Now he could barely sleep a few hours before waking up shivering.
He had sensibly suggested that they buy two duvets, so they could have a set each. It had taken a fair bit of persuasion, but the angel eventually agreed. However, even with two pairs, somehow Aziraphale still ended up in the corner of the bed, covers wrapped around him, while Crowley was completely bare.
He refused to put up with it any longer. There were other ways to keep warm.
Sure, they were six millennia old divine beings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t ever get annoyed with each other.
~end
Happy Holidays, irisbleufic, from your Secret Writer
Title: Gotta catch “Them” all
Rating: Gen I think? Has one swearword
Characters: Wensley, Brian, Pepper, Adam, Dog
Word count: 1439
Summary: The Them (as adults) play Pokemon Go. Chaos ensues.
“There’s a fucking Dragonite in our house. Come here right now, I don’t care what you’re doing. Bring Wensley.”
“Seriously?” Brian said, resting his phone on his shoulder while grabbing his shoes. It was a thick, sturdy thing, heavily covered in a bulky orange case, which Wensley recommended, stating that it would ‘protect it better’. The skeptical look on his face was as obvious as his phone case. It wouldn’t be the first time Pepper had tricked him when she just wanted someone to play Pokemon Go with.
Pepper nodded vigorously, as if Brian could see her through the phone.
“Seriously,” she confirmed. “Now get your ass over here, before Adam catches it and ends up with five of them!”
“Wensley!” he called. There was no reply. “Wensley. Wensleydale.”
“What?” Wensley sighed, poking his head through the doorway where Brian stood, shoes on, holding his ridiculous phone.
“Pepper said there’s a Dragonite in her house! Don’t you wanna come catch it?” he implored.
Wensley peered at his computer full of unfinished work, then over at Brian’s hopeful smile, and couldn’t resist.
“Fine,” he said, attempting to act annoyed. He wasn’t very good at it, a the hint of a smile creeping across his face. “she better not be pretending like last time.”
“Let’s go!” Brian exclaimed excitedly, watching as Wensley shoved a pair of trainers, bright white and seldom-worn.It was unusual for his friend to wear sneakers, but he’d decided that if Adam was might be there, he should be prepared for anything.
The Them, after the Apocawasn’t, had decided to stay together, because hey, if they could survive an Apocalypse, then they could probably survive anything. Besides, they didn’t want to turn into those sorts of friends, the ones who’d let their childhood memories wash away in a rain of paperwork and, when together, only could think to converse about the weather.
Perhaps it had been a little too much to live directly next to each other, but at least it made it easy to meet up. It really was just like old times, although, there really weren’t any old times. At least, not to the Them. To the Them, there was only time, moments and memories that were all now.
Brian knocked on the door excitedly, and Wensley shot him a glance, his previously suppressed smile now fully apparent. Brian always became very excited at the prospect of playing Pokemon Go, especially with the Them. Wensley fully concurred, though he secretly tried to deny it. He passed off his terrible, low CP Pokemon as the result of not playing enough, rather than not being very good at it.
There was also the fact that the servers mysteriously went down as soon as he tried to catch anything good. He suspected it had something to do with Adam.
Pepper answered the door, looking slightly weary. There were shadows below her eyes and a tired slump to her posture, yet her eyes were still alive with the sparkle that had never really faded. It was the gleam of ideas and speculation, shimmering with the thought of something new.
Pepper was seemed an odd choice for a partner. At first, she seemed the would be the sort that triggered mumbled office conversations, those that started and ceased at the blink of an eye.
She’s bloody crazy, people would mutter to each other. Don’t know why he’s with her, he could do so much better. She’d bloody bonkers. Crazy, to the max.
And yet, when they saw the spark in her eye, they almost felt envious. There was just something about her, that was, alright. Something about the shimmer in her eye or the way she laughed, that made them think, Adam is one lucky guy to have her.
It also could have been the fact that she could knock them out flat in a second. That too.
“Finally,” she said to Wensley and Brian, rolling her eyes with an exaggerated sigh. “I thought you’d never come.”
“We didn’t take that long,” Wensley countered. Pepper merely shook her head.
“It was still too long.” She grinned, unlocking her phone and waving it in his face. “Guess who has a Dragonite when you don’t!”
Still relishing her success, she walked inside, the two men following her.
“Got rid of the kids for today.” she chattered. “Birthday parties are the best.”
“I caught it around here,” she said vaguely, waving her hand in an unclear area of the room. “I’m naming it ‘takethatAdam’.” She grinned, typing it out.
“Is it still there?” Wensley asked, pulling out his phone desperately. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to catch it; his best Pokemon was 50CP, but he hoped that this might be his breakthrough.
Brian whooped delightedly as he caught it, then quickly cleared his throat and pretended he hadn’t said anything.
Wensley scanned around the room, trying to spot it...and there it was, on the screen, standing in front of him. He prepared to catch it, the Pokeball hovering on his thumb, when ..
Our servers are experiencing issues. Please come back later.
Wensley released a cry of frustration, nearly flinging down his phone in anger. Adam cackled as he swung out of his room. From the way he was holding his phone, Wensley knew that he had most definitely caught the Dragonite.
“Classic!” Adam exclaimed. “Gets you every time!”
Adam had definitely not lost his childlike manner. In fact, out of all of the Them, he had retained the most. One might say that he had not so much retained his childish manner, but rather, he had further developed it.
“Meanies,” Wensley said, trying to suppress a grin despite himself. He suddenly felt young again, reminiscing of the time that the Them had all jokingly made fun of his very studious-looking new glasses.
“I can’t believe you caught it!” he complained, turning to Brian. Brian merely smirked, looked up from his phone, then suddenly kissed Wensley.
“Does that make it worth it?” Brian said, when they broke apart.
“Not really. I’d still rather have the Dragonite,” Wensley muttered, cheeks red.
“Hello, we’re still here too!” Adam joked. “Let’s go. I think I saw a Pikachu down the road. It’ll be nice to have a sixth one.”
“Unfair,” Wensley muttered under his breath. Adam winked at him.
“You’re just jealous,” he said cockily.
They all got into Pepper’s car. Even Dog jumped in enthusiastically, wagging his tail in the back seat. Somehow, no one else suspected him of being the same dog Adam had owned all those years ago. Adam had taken care of that, whether he realised it or not.
It was messy and filled with rubbish, with crumbs on the seats and packets littering the floor. It made an ominous sputtering noise when turned on, but still somehow ran fine despite being extremely old. They all knew that Pokemon Go was really designed for walking, but Adam always deemed that pointless. It was far more fun, adventuring at speed, hair rustling in the wind, feeling as if they could live forever.
There was a little cutout car diffuser hanging from the rear-view mirror, which smelled sweetly of jasmine. It was a very nostalgic smell, one full of memories.
Pepper’s car had somehow become their Pokemon Go car. They hadn’t intended it to be, it just - happened. It made everything better, honestly, driving in a rattling car with the windows down, laughing at something silly.
When Adam caught the Pikachu, he did a silly victory dance, making Pepper laugh so hard she nearly cried. And Brian gloated when he caught each Pokemon, laughing at Wensley’s constant failures to catch anything. They all laughed at him, when he admitted that he nearly chose Team Instinct.
And though it seemed a good idea at the time, he was glad that he had changed his mind, so they were all in the same team. The Them were always a team; it was impossible for them not to be.
Even though Wensley had work to do, he didn’t regret playing one bit. It was so much better creating memories with the Them and taking a break from his adult life.
Honestly, he thought the Them would never really grow up. He didn’t feel a day older than eleven when he grinned at his phone and laughed with his friends.
Impossibly, when Wensley finally got home, as he looked through his Pokedex, there was the Dragonite, hovering there happily. He’d never caught it; but there it was.
That damn Antichrist. Always bending the rules.
It was better than any of Brian’s Pokemon, and oh, was it worth it.
Dear irisbleufic, I wish you all the best for the holiday season. I hope you like this fic!
Title: Don’t Point Your Finger at Me (unless you intend to use it)
Rating: Gen
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Word count: 1673
Summary: Sure, they were six millennia old divine beings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t ever get annoyed with each other.
Happy holidays, irisbleufic! Hope you like this one too
Aziraphale left books everywhere.
Crowley wasn’t even sure where they’d all come from. It almost seemed that Aziraphale somehow had the ability to invoke books from the nether; Crowley couldn’t see any other way that he could have so many. And they weren’t even books that Crowley liked, all crackling pages and ancient words. He liked stories with a plot, tales that were entertaining and funny and sinful. Aziraphale’s books were boring. He’d pick one up every now and then, read a few pages, then dump it, instantly disinterested. (Well, he didn’t really dump it - he placed it down nicely, or else he’d have had to bear the wrath of the angel.) He decided he had no use for their mundane verses.
It was alarmingly frequent that he would accidentally sit on one, too. It hurt. A lot.
Crowley was sometimes too much like a snake.
Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was the hissing, or the eyes, or the tongue, or even the feet that made it too much - perhaps it was a combination. Aziraphale had never really liked snakes; ironic, now that he thought about it. He’d never considered Crowley to be a serpent, but when he saw him without his sunglasses, or when he cast a predatory look to a rodent, the angel remembered, that yes, Crowley was indeed reptilian. And honestly, it wasn’t even really the snake part that annoyed him the most (even though it was a little strange) - it was the fact that Crowley actually used his weird snake-like abilities. No matter how many polite remarks littered with ‘dear’ that Aziraphale directed to Crowley, he just never seemed to get the hint.
It was the tongue that annoyed Aziraphale the most. Sometimes, Crowley even licked him.
Aziraphale talked to strangers.
It was such a human peeve to have, Crowley knew. He knew that if he were going to be a charming tempter like how he wanted to be, he had to be good at talking to people. But honestly, as much as he tried to convince himself he was suave and personable, he’d never really gotten the hang of it. Aziraphale, on the other hand, constantly chatted with other people. Crowley would often meet up with the angel and find him nattering happily with someone: supermarket cashiers, random bystanders, anyone. And he never knew quite what to do. Usually, he would just awkwardly usher Aziraphale away, often earning a knowing look from whoever the angel was conversing with. Sure, he might have seemed rude, but hey, that was his job. And he could never really understand why the angel liked to chat with strangers.
At the bookshop, customers didn’t get any nice treatment. Instead of a nice, friendly chat, they got a lungful of dust and an irritated glower.
Crowley was obsessed with his plants.
Their place was full of them. It looked like a garden, full of leafy green plants, on the shelves, in planters, practically everywhere.
And while it would be fine usually, it was the way that Crowley talked to them that he found a little odd. In fact, he felt sorry for the poor plants. Sometimes, when Crowley wasn’t looking, he would gently console them, whispering prayers and words of encouragement. He’d even rescued a few that had gotten thrown out, replanting them and hoping the demon wouldn’t notice.
It was rather unsettling to enter the room to find Crowley hurling threats at a particular green potted object. The angel supposed it was just part of his job, but it was still odd walking in to Crowley making death threats to his plant then turning around nonchalantly.
It also made Aziraphale realise that Crowley would have been better at the gardener job, based on how green and healthy his plants were.
He still felt bad for them, though.
Aziraphale’s wings were always messy.
Crowley, of course, regularly and painstakingly groomed each feather in his wings. It was part of his image. He couldn’t afford to be messy; they had to be utterly faultless, completely tempting, to do a job right. And it helped make one look more trustworthy, too. He’d found that humans went crazy for a sharp-dressed man.
Crowley wasn’t sure what sort of fashion they enforced in Heaven but, based upon Aziraphale’s wings, he guessed it was pretty lax. They were possibly the most unruly, messiest wings he had ever seen. Truthfully, he hadn’t seen a lot of wings, but he didn’t really need a comparison to know that Aziraphale’s wings were in desperate need of grooming.
And what annoyed him the most was that Aziraphale never let him groom them! The angel would always put him off, claiming to be busy reading, working, anything to make an excuse. People thought demons were the lazy ones - Crowley begged to differ.
Maybe one day, the angel would groom them. Crowley knew it wouldn’t be any time soon, though, and it annoyed the hell out of him.
To the angel, ‘one day’ could be in another few millennia.
Crowley was perpetually on the internet.
Aziraphale wasn’t even quite sure what an ‘internet’ was, to be truthful. He had a computer, but it was old and slow, and he had only used it for taxes. He hadn’t actually had the chance to check out that ‘internet explorer’ thing yet, but he fully intended to eventually.
Crowley was always on his phone, sniggering at something random or playing games and blessing loudly when he lost. Aziraphale supposed it was rather involving, like when he was reading a book.
If he were that annoying, he’d make it a point to read only in private.
Sometimes Crowley would attempt to explain it to the angel, but he never quite got it. Aziraphale would often ask why Crowley even needed a phone, if he didn’t call anyone. It was a little frustrating, being around a demon who wouldn’t look up from his Candy Crush, save for a few annoyed exclamations.
Whatever it was, at least it kept him entertained.. Aziraphale thought that maybe it would be best not to find out.
Just in case.
Aziraphale blamed Crowley for everything.
Well, truthfully, not everything, but a lot of things. It was one of the perks of being a demon, Crowley supposed. You do one bad thing, and suddenly, you’re responsible for all the bad things that happen.
To be fair, it probably was a demon doing the bad things, just not Crowley in particular. Most of the time, anyway.
But Aziraphale blamed Crowley for so many things! Traffic, weather, pretty much anything. Hell, he even blamed him when red lights stopped them when they needed to drive somewhere.(Honestly, that was really annoying. Crowley thought the demon who invented red lights should get a commendation.)
Crowley tended to blame Adam Young for everything. It was his way of passing it on, and it worked well enough.
Crowley had way too many pairs of sunglasses.
Aziraphale thought that Crowley just made them out of thin air - this was true, to a degree, but he’d never really thought about where they went. The angel always thought that they’d just dissipated afterwards, but this was not the case.
Until accidentally sitting on a pair, he hadn’t considered it. Crowley must have just left them on the couch. Big deal.
But the next day, when he’d found another pair sitting by a pile of books, he found that a little odd. And then the next, and the next, when he kept on finding glasses everywhere, he started to suspect that Crowley owned more sunglasses than he initially thought.
They just multiplied and multiplied. It was almost getting out of hand. There were as many sunglasses as there were books in the house.
Aziraphale thought that it was most likely Crowley was too lazy to look for his previous sunglasses, and made another. It was rather irritating, finding the shades in every nook and cranny of the place.
Still, Crowley put up with his books. He supposed he should be tolerant
Radio broadcasts were interrupted at random times.
It was loud. Very loud.
Aziraphale supposed this wasn’t Crowley’s fault per se, but there wasn’t really anyone else to blame. Crowley just shouldn’t have chosen that form of communication with Hell in the first place.
It gave him an awful fright every time he was peacefully reading, and out of nowhere Beelzebub’s loud voice filled the room.
Even when the radio was switched off, it could still turn on. Aziraphale had half a mind to burn it or dump it, just anything to get rid of it. But then, it was in his car radio too, so that wouldn’t work. And in the television.
Whenever Hell was (loudly) talking with Crowley, Aziraphale always had to bite back retorts to their extreme rudeness. Heaven would never advocate such talking!
(Well, except maybe the Metatron, but that was a whole other story.)
Aziraphale was very glad that he had stuck with the old fashioned way of communicating. While it was more complex, it was rather less bothersome.
Aziraphale stole the blankets in bed.
Out of all the things that annoyed Crowley, this was probably the most annoying. Crowley was a serpent, for Heaven’s sake. He got very cold, very easily. He almost wished he could go back to the time when he’d slept for a century straight. Now he could barely sleep a few hours before waking up shivering.
He had sensibly suggested that they buy two duvets, so they could have a set each. It had taken a fair bit of persuasion, but the angel eventually agreed. However, even with two pairs, somehow Aziraphale still ended up in the corner of the bed, covers wrapped around him, while Crowley was completely bare.
He refused to put up with it any longer. There were other ways to keep warm.
Sure, they were six millennia old divine beings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t ever get annoyed with each other.
~end
Happy Holidays, irisbleufic, from your Secret Writer