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The bookshop was quiet, the way it always was in mid afternoon when the sunlight turned the dust motes into lazy, golden confetti. Crowley had dropped by under the entirely transparent pretext of “making sure you haven’t burnt the place down yet,” though in truth, he just liked loitering among the shelves and Aziraphale’s slow, absentminded humming.
Things between them had been perfectly, comfortably strange lately. After six thousand years of dancing around each other, they had found a rhythm that was half domestic, half catastrophic. Crowley thought of it as a sort of détente with a dash of romance. A miracle now and then, a bottle of wine, a quarrel about whether Milton or the Beatles better understood love, that sort of thing.
But the angel had taken offense—subtle, deceptively smiling offense—three weeks ago, when Crowley had teased him.
“You’re just too innocent for these sorts of things,” Crowley had said, smirking as Aziraphale fumbled to understand a double entendre involving buns and bakeries.
Aziraphale had laughed with him then, but there’d been a glitter in his eye—a tiny spark that Crowley, had he been more cautious, might have recognized as danger.
When the day of petty vengeance arrived, it began innocuously enough.
“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale called from behind the front counter, his voice light but tinged with that particular mischief angels shouldn’t possess. “Would you be an absolute darling and give me a hand with my candlesticks? They’re ever so *slippery*, and I’d really like them polished to a high shine.”
Crowley froze mid-step, coat swishing dramatically. “...Come again?”
Aziraphale turned to him with his most innocent expression, eyes wide and guileless as a Sunday-school painting. “The candlesticks, my dear boy. They need a good bit of *rubbing*. You always handle these things so efficiently.”
The demon’s sunglasses did nothing to disguise the way his eyebrows shot up. “You—you want me to polish your candlesticks.”
“If you’re not too tired, of course,” the angel added serenely, “I know how much *stamina* that can take.”
Crowley blinked, mouth parting in faint disbelief. “Right.” He tilted his head, half smirk, half plea for mercy. “You do realize how that sounds?”
“How what sounds, my dear?” Aziraphale asked with a tone of perfect perplexity. Then, before Crowley could respond, he tottered off toward the back room.
Crowley simply stood there a full minute, trying to realign his brain, before hissing quietly, “Oh, he’s *doing it on purpose.*”
Two days later, Crowley stopped by again—he told himself it was for the company, but his curiosity was gnawing too hard to resist.
Aziraphale was on a step ladder dusting the upper shelves, humming “Nimrod” under his breath like butter wouldn’t melt in his celestial mouth.
“Need a hand with that?” Crowley asked, settling his hands in his pockets.
“Oh, that would be marvellous,” Aziraphale said pleasantly. “I can never quite… *reach the top* myself. Be a dear and steady me, won’t you? You’re so much better at handling… *tall things.*”
Crowley turned scarlet under his glasses, his jaw tightening. “…You’re a menace.”
Aziraphale glanced down in mild confusion. “I’m merely saying you’re… steady.”
“That’s not what you’re saying, angel.”
“But it is,” said Aziraphale, smiling faintly now, that soft little smirk that was entirely at odds with his words. “You’ve just got a filthy imagination, my dear.”
Crowley made a choking noise and dropped his gaze to the floor, muttering something about “divine torment.”
By the end of the week, it had become a *thing*. Crowley braced himself before every visit, waiting for the next ambush.
This time, Aziraphale was setting out a small supper in the back of the shop. The table was neatly arranged—linen, two wineglasses, the works.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said cheerfully, beckoning him closer, “I’ve got a new bottle for us to enjoy. I’d love your opinion on it.”
Crowley relaxed slightly, until Aziraphale added, “Would you be so kind as to uncork it for me? I’ve always had trouble getting it to come out smoothly. You have such a *firm grip.*”
Crowley inhaled sharply and froze, hand suspended over the bottle opener. His voice came out a little strangled. “I—uh—what?”
“The cork, dear,” Aziraphale said innocently. “You know I’m hopeless with vigorous things, and sometimes I end up spilling everywhere. It’s quite embarrassing.”
For a full beat, the room was silent except for the faint ticking of the clock.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley said finally, his voice low and dangerously unamused, “if you’re *not* doing this on purpose, then I’m going to Heaven right now to file a noise complaint about your subconscious.”
Aziraphale blinked, all cherubic confusion. “Goodness, whatever do you mean?”
“You bloody well *do know what I mean*.”
“Really, Crowley,” he said, pouring the wine with exaggerated delicacy, “you do have such a suspicious mind. Perhaps you should relax. Sit down. Have a *taste.*”
Crowley sat, because of course he did, and downed the entire glass in one go.
It only got worse from there.
There was the time Aziraphale asked him to “help rearrange the stacks” and added that he “rather enjoyed watching Crowley slip things into tight spaces.”
Or the moment in the back room when he sighed dramatically, lamenting, “Oh, Crowley, my poor bindings are all worn out. Would you mind tightening them for me?”
By the tenth “accidental” innuendo, Crowley was approximately two miracles away from combusting.
Finally, one moonlit evening, the two of them were alone in the shop again—the candles flickering warm on the worn spines of first editions.
Aziraphale stood by the counter, polishing a teapot with slow, graceful movements that could only be described as *deliberate.*
Crowley, lurking near the globe like a cornered predator, had had enough.
“Angel,” he said lowly, “I’ve been very patient.”
“Have you, now?” Aziraphale replied mildly, still polishing. “That’s admirable.”
“Don’t—” Crowley pointed at him with one finger. “Don’t you dare sound so bloody *innocent.* You’ve been tormenting me for weeks.”
“Tormenting?” The angel pressed a hand to his chest, eyes wide. “Crowley, dear, that’s quite the accusation! I’ve been nothing but hospitable. Inviting you to *handle my things,* offering you *wine,* asking you to help me *climb higher.*”
Crowley made a strangled sound that might have been a growl, might have been a laugh. “You’re doing it again!”
Aziraphale set down the teapot and turned with the faintest of smiles—the sort of smile that didn’t belong in Heaven, at least not before a complaint got filed.
“Well,” the angel murmured, stepping close enough that Crowley could smell the faint sweetness of old books and wine, “you did call me innocent. I thought I might… practice being otherwise.”
Crowley blinked, absolutely powerless for the first time in millennia.
“So tell me,” Aziraphale went on softly, eyes glinting with pure, sanctified mischief, “am I improving?”
Crowley swallowed hard. “You’re going to be the death of me, angel.”
Aziraphale only smiled wider, hands folded primly. “Oh, I do hope not. I’d hate to have to clean up the mess.”
Crowley barked a laugh despite himself, leaning on the counter for balance. “You *are* doing this on purpose.”
“Prove it,” Aziraphale said sweetly.
Crowley’s grin was sharp and helpless. “One of these days, angel, I will.”
And as he slunk back into the shadows, trying to remember how to breathe, Aziraphale returned to his polishing with a look of saintly satisfaction—because, after all, petty vengeance was still vengeance, even when carried out politely.