Happy Holidays, amaresu!
Title: Messing Around
Gift for: amaresu
Author: dicaxscriptor
Rating: PG 13
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
“Please, tell me you’re not spring cleaning.”
Crowley looked over his shoulder at the door of the bookshop, as if gauging the distance and how quickly he could cross it, or maybe wondering if he could take said door off its hinges and use it for a barricade. “Is it too late to make a break for it?”
“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured, carefully standing up from amidst several large piles of books. There was a smudge of dust on his cheek, a blue apron tied neatly around his waist, and he was brandishing a lavender feather duster far better than he’d ever handled his flaming sword. “Isn’t it a little ridiculous for a demon to be frightened of some housework?”
“Housework is one of ours,” Crowley pointed out, inching a little closer. “Besides, last time you roped me into helping you, we discovered a new species in the dust under your couch.” He shivered a little at the thought of sharp teeth and glowing red eyes that could’ve sent Hastur, Duke of Hell and slimy bastard extraordinaire, running to his mother. Actually, those dust bunnies had been even scarier than Hastur’s mother, and that was saying something.
“Perhaps they picked up some of Shadwell’s genes, from the last time he visited. Poor dears.”
“Aziraphale, I think you’d pet the Kraken if it came knocking at your door, and then offer it a cup of tea, and ask if it wanted one or two sugars.”
“That’s silly. Krakens do not drink tea.” With a much higher level of dignity than Crowley could ever have managed given the situation, Aziraphale handed over an extra brightly colored duster, of the variety purchased by housewives in corner stores all over the world. “Dust those shelves of children’s books, would you?”
“Are those the ones Adam left behind?” Crowley eyed the tall, worn old shelves. “Didn’t you used to keep cookbooks here? One from that pub in Pompeii before…well. Er. They had some great pastries there.”
“Adam replaced them. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Children’s books tend to sell a little better than ancient Roman cookbooks, you know.” Aziraphale tried to look as though he were the foremost authority on the subject, possibly because he was, though it wasn’t a particularly noted accomplishment.
“You’ve never sold a book in your life,” Crowley pointed out. “People messing around,” he added in a mutter, thinking of all the food he’d been deprived of nagging Aziraphale into making for him. “Shouldn’t happen.”
“Yes, but think of all the times people have been told that. Told they couldn’t invent penicillin, that they couldn’t sail around the world because it was flat, that they couldn’t fly. And then they asked themselves - but what if we do?”
“Well, that last one probably ended up off a cliff,” Crowley pointed out judiciously. The angel shot him a look that could’ve been sold at a high price to a weapons dealer.
“And what about those people,” said Aziraphale, “who said an angel and a demon could never do anything else but hate each other?” He picked up a stack of prophetic books, all with titles like The Endeth Offeth the Worldeth and 500 Ways to Survive the Next Apocalypse and its sequel, 500 Ways to Survive the Real Apocalypse Because the First Book Got the Date Wrong. Then he looked at Crowley.
Crowley shut up.
-----
“Angel,” he said later, as a tentative offering of peace, “come on, I’ll help you stack those.” He grabbed a little less than half the pile and trooped off manfully-well, you know-to the shelves, glancing at the top title. “More Wilde?”
“I enjoy Wilde.”
“Didn’t we all. Tale of Two Cities?”
“Classic. Remember that little café in Paris we went to back in 1789?”
“Yeah, shame it closed after they sacked the Bastille. Where’s the Arthurian Legend shelf?”
“Back by the mythology, dear.”
“And the couch?”
“In the back room, and you know very well even I’ve never been so pressed for space I’ve had to file something in a couch-oof.”
“You know, angel,” Crowley said speculatively, looking very calm for all that he had Aziraphale more or less pinned to the couch, eyes glowing, “for a bookseller, you can be very stupid sometimes.”
“For a demon,” Aziraphale said, “you can be very not so much of a bastard.”
They surfaced for air a while later, Aziraphale breathing hard and Crowley having given up on the necessity of breathing at all. In his world, lungs were another thing that happened to other people.
“So?”
“Apology accepted,” Aziraphale said.
-----
“You’re running low on original Shakespeare manuscripts,” Crowley called from the corner to which he’d been banished after several arduous attempts to return to the couch, or maybe even move upstairs. “Adam forget to return those?”
“Maybe.” Aziraphale sighed. “And it’s not like those just turn up out of the blue, clean as you please.” Crowley frowned. As a demon who took great pride in driving Aziraphale up the wall at least once a day, he didn’t like the thought of anyone else doing it.
“People messing around,” he murmured, and a thoughtful look crossed his face once, then decided to come back and take up camp. “Or, not people messing around.”
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale sternly, “I won’t have you being vague in my bookshop. I get enough of that from the books of prophecy.”
“I won’t do it in your bookshop, then.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Aziraphale began, before turning bright red and pressing his lips together tightly. Crowley smirked.
“Hopefully, we’ll be saying that later,” he said, “but I’ll be right back. I’ve got a telephone call to make, and the bill’s going to be huge.”
-----
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Certainly more temperate.” Crowley came bouncing back in a minute later, as much as a stylish demon such as himself could ever be said to bounce. Aziraphale thwacked him with the duster, sporting an air of righteous smiting.
“And where’ve you been for the past - er, minute?” Crowley brandished a sheaf of paper, covered in ink and scribbles and looking as though it ought to be held a tad more gently.
“Careful, angel, you’ll hit the original Shakespeare manuscript and then we’d be in trouble. Where do you file this one, then?” Crowley peered at the page. “Is there a shelf for plays full of useless plot devices?” Aziraphale enjoyed organizing his books in such a way that only he, and never any customer, could find what they were looking for in his shop.
“Which play?” Aziraphale came closer, a look of wonder on his face. “Crowley, you don’t tell me you stepped out for a minute and found…?”
“Macbeth. Have a shelf for blatant plot devices I could file it under?”
“I do have a shelf for ‘Ridiculously Fulfilled Prophecies’.”
“Ah. Carry on then.” Aziraphale trailed him to the shelf. “What?”
“Crowley, if you’ve gone and stolen that from some collector…”
“Nope. Got it off the Bard himself.”
“You’ve met Shakespeare?”
“About…five minutes ago, yeah. I tried to get Love’s Labours Won off him, too, but apparently that one’s staying lost and unperformed forever and for good reason. Something about otherworldliness, witches, that sort of thing. I decided not to pry. Could’ve been Hastur, after all. He always did have a flair for the dramatic. And maggots.”
“Crowley, dear, are you feeling all right?”
“Perfectly fine,” Crowley said.
“But you can’t have just - in five minutes.”
“Sure I can. Went with an old friend. Nice chap. I tried to buy a copy of Love’s Labours Won off him for your birthday. Didn’t work-even he didn’t have it.”
“I’m touched,” Aziraphale said, after a surprised look. “So he helped you find this manuscript where?”
“Call box.”
“He found the book lying around in a call box?”
“No,” Crowley said. “The time machine was in the call box.”
“Pardon me?”
“’S bigger on the inside.” Crowley flopped onto the back room sofa, looking mightily pleased with himself.
“Ah,” Aziraphale said, taking a sip of his hastily conjured tea, thinking he’d really rather not know. “And your friend? He’s not one of your side’s, is he?” The angel looked askance at the manuscript. Crowley snorted.
“No. I rather think he’s on his own side altogether. Now shut up, angel, and drink your tea before you spill it.”
“Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale said, and leaned down to kiss him with a rather soppy smile on his face.
Crowley couldn’t really find it in him to mind.