One Bottle of Wine
Who: Crowley and Aziraphale
What: Monthly Drinking Session
When: Friday 28th January
Rating: PG
( A demon and an angel walked into a bar, stop me if you've heard this one... )
What: Monthly Drinking Session
When: Friday 28th January
Rating: PG
( A demon and an angel walked into a bar, stop me if you've heard this one... )
And so, at exactly twenty minutes after the decided time2, Crowley sauntered into the bookshop, taking his usual seat and putting his feet on the table.
"Angel."
1. 'Soiree' conjured up images of fancy evening-wear, grand music played by a fantastic orchestra, and plates of food with names bigger than the dish itself. The reality, he knew, would be him and Aziraphale, drinking many bottles of wine between them, talking bollocks. Any music would be Queen and the food would probably be a plate of half-stale digestive biscuits and perhaps if he was really lucky, a single custard cream.
2. Just because he was showing up didn't mean he'd have to completely stop being frustrating. He had to have some dignity, after all.
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A small white mat was laid out on the table already to protect the surface from boot scuffs and Aziraphale merely smiled.
"Right on time."
Sadly, no matter how prepared he was concerning Crowley, that didn't mean the predictions about the food were to be proven false. There was a small plate of rather soggy hobnobs2 and several bottles of a nice Chardonnay.
1. It was actually 4.12pm on a disappointingly rainy 17th of August in 6 B.C. that Aziraphale had learned this particular lesson and had made sure to adjust his sundial accordingly to save against future irritation.
2. Usually a hobnob was too high-class a biscuit for such a gathering, but the use-by date was tomorrow and they had spent rather too long in a damp cupboard, so their quality was lowered sufficiently for him to part with them here.
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He picked up a soggy hobnob between his thumb and forefinger, and watched it fold in on itself slowly before the loose half dropped pathetically onto the floor with a squelch.
"Biscuit tins exist for a reason, you know," he said conversationally, dropping the remaining pieces of hobnob back onto the plate and wiping the residue off on the side of the table.2
1. He'd seen it on a animal behaviour program once. Something with a woman and misbehaving dogs. He was certain the same logic would apply to angels, too.
2. And thus managed to stain the surface. That would serve the angel right for putting a mat there.
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"Be a dear and pick up what you've just dropped."
He smiled charmingly, his own tiny form of punishment for the demon dropping crumbs all over his floor. At least this way it would be Crowley having to pluck up the half-a-biscuit which by now would have accumulated at least three pieces of string and some dust.2
1. It was an interesting point to note that no polish or cleaning product ever claimed to be able to clean biscuit stains from polished wood. It was widely known, although not understood why, that this was one of the 0.0001% of stains that were utterly non-removable.
2. No matter how clean or well-kept a floor was, it was some part of the Ineffable Plan that any biscuit, chocolate bar or sandwich dropped on the floor would inevitably end with those items stuck to it within milliseconds.
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He reached over for his wine, resolutely refusing to acknowledge the charming smile of the angel.1
"Valentine's day is coming up."
1. He was aware he was creating an impasse, and one he'd likely lose. It didn't stop him trying, though.
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Smiling sliding away to a sombre expression, he nodded with a small wearied sigh. Contrary to popular belief, Valentine's Day was not a jolly holiday celebrated by people on Aziraphale's side. It wasn't a joyful expression of love at all, it was the cause of more divorces and break-ups than any other time of the year.
"Quite right, so it is."
1. There were five levels of charming behaviour, although he had never had to initiate the final one. Crowley usually caved at level three, and the one time he had managed to steel himself to level four he had broken out in hives.
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"You might want to lock yourself away in here," he said. "This place has a nasty habit of messing with people's emotions on Valentine's day."
1. He remembered the hives incident well, and didn't want to go back down that road again for anything.
2. Crowley mistook the rule for the length of time in which is was safe to pick up discarded food, rather than eat it. The thought of eating food which had been on the floor never occurred to him, he assumed only those poor people you saw on charity adverts were hungry enough to do such a thing, and they were allowed.
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After all, Valentine's Day was well known for messing with normally rational people's emotions anyway.1 It was actually the holiday Aziraphale enjoyed the least, even though there were at least seven2 that were supposedly ranked higher on Heaven's Bad Holiday Guide.3
"What happened last year?"
1. Much as that fateful motorway had been built with Armageddon specific designs in mind, it was no coincidence that the most emotionally charged day should fall on February 14th... which was well known among certain channels to be a Day To AvoidTM.
2. Most of these holidays had long past into obscurity and out of memory for the human race, not catching on very well. But Heaven never forgot, and there had yet been anything to knock Morris Dancer Day from the number one spot.
3. This was a horrible pamphlet written and distributed by Gabriel. Full of pictures of cartoonish frowning angels with speech bubbles of sayings too clichéd for even Aziraphale to appreciate.
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"You know Cupid's arrows? It was basically that," Crowley looked at his empty wine glass, then tipped it towards the angel1.
He waited patiently for his request to be fulfilled as he carried on.
"Faye shot me, and I spent about four days being completely infatuated by her. The bloody sneaky mare knew what she was doing, too."
1. A long-since decided gesture for a top up, without interrupting the flow of conversation by actually asking for it.
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"Why on Earth would anyone voluntarily invite your infatuation?"1
Sighing, he examined his elegantly manicured fingernails only to notice one of them had broken. Bother. It was just one thing after another in this place sometimes.
1. Whereas to anyone else that would be an insult, he was intending to pay his friend a compliment regarding his general annoyance skills.
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He sipped his wine thoughtfully, trying to move away from that part of the conversation. That could easily slip into Castiel territory, a subject he'd never feel comfortable speaking about again.
"Anyway, unless you want to be caught out by whatever it is next, you might want to make an avoidance plan," he paused, then added offhandedly; "There's a beauty salon in the castle, bottom of one of the towers."
1. Why ANYONE would actually seek out his company for anything in this place always confused the demon. He was abrasive and irritating on a good day, yet people still wanted to be around him. Of course, Aziraphale did this too, but he didn't count. He'd just built up a tolerance of Crowley over the centuries.
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"The effects don't usually spread to the town, do they?" He asked, already wondering if he could spend a pleasant day lost in one of his books.
1. Honestly though, if the demon didn't want his kinder side to show he should be a little more discrete about it.
2. Footnote two was removed due to copyright infringements on a published work that cannot be named. For security reasons, it cannot be revealed where in the text the footnote was originally placed.
3. The worst being that he was one of those dreadful biker boys who didn't wash their nails for a month and had names like Crusher or Beavis.
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He jabbed a finger at the angel1, before taking a swig of his wine.
"'Sides, those nasty buggers'd probably try to kill you or summat."
1. OR so he thought, he ACTUALLY jabbed a finger at a bookcase beside the angel.
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"Now, I am in full advocation of the evolution of language,1 but there are some boundaries that just shouldn't be crossed."
He paused, looking over his glasses2 at the demon for emphasis. "That is not evolution, that is being lazy with your ennunciation."
1. This was what was technically known as a lie. Aziraphale firmly resisted language change, and could be found still using 'thee' and 'thine' in 1915. Sometimes he still pined over the elegance of what he considered the long past peak of eloquence.
2. Of course, no angel needed glasses. Aziraphale wore them because they gave him a certain credence when dealing with publishing suppliers.
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"I think I'm allowed to be lazy. Sloth is a sin and and all, I'm merely encouraging it."
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Now there was an interesting thought to ponder, and it successfully distracted him from Crowley's woeful enunciation.
"Or would it?"
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