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Snitten - A Crowley Fic

Ty to my discord goblin squad for helping me get through this!!! <3 And esp to @flootzavut for helping me beta/giving me a lil confidence boost when I needed it. Who knows if the footnotes will work #ITried

Title: Snitten

Summary: A cat starts hanging out outside Crowley's London flat, he takes a bit of an interest in. But he doesn't care about it. Absolutely not. (spoiler: he does).

Teaser:

Link: Ao3

Yawning, Crowley slouched towards his flat, not bothering to grope in his jacket for his keys. Fumbling was for mortals, not for demons who could just use a simple miracle to achieve the same thing.

With a casual wave of his hand, he unlocked the door –then promptly ricocheted off it, having tried to push into the wrong one.

Glancing around to see if anyone had spotted him, he caught sight of a pair of small yellow eyes fixed on him, judging his mess up.

He hissed threateningly at it, intending to terrify it directly into Hell.

The eyes blinked back at him.

He frowned slightly and took a step back to better view the ballsiest little fucker he’d come across since leaving Aziraphale’s place earlier.

It shrunk back slightly into the shadows, but he managed to clap eyes on a tiny scrap of fur and bones that somewhat resembled a cat. It wasn’t any particular colour or pattern. It looked like a white cat that had rolled around in a patch of cat-coloured paint.

He stared at if for a minute longer, then flicked a scrap of chicken from the wrap Aziraphale had bought him at the park at it. He figured it had earned that much. It darted out, seized it in its mouth, then launched itself back to the shadows, chewing it up, eyes still fixed on Crowley, as though afraid he might take it away again.

Crowley gave it a vague salute, then shoved into his building through the right door and disappeared upstairs for a nice nap.

******************************************************************************

Though he was a demon, Crowley had relatively few genuine full-blown weaknesses. It just so happened that two of them collided on Sunday afternoons, with the flower market, and a little pop-up street vendor stall that made the world’s best (Crowley-verified) fish and chips.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, Crowley was feeling rather pleased with himself. He’d acquired a lovely little rare bromeliad to add to his collection, as well as the last special fish supper of the day. Life was good.

He returned to his building and, as he pushed into the door, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and turned to see the eyes of the vaguely-cat-shaped scrap from before watching him again. It seemed to have crept out of its hiding place at the sight of him.

“You really are a ballsy little shit, aren’t you?” he muttered to it.

It gave a tiny mew, as if in answer.

Glancing down at the grease-soaked newspaper in his hands, he tossed it down towards the corner. He was nearly finished, anyway. And it was litter! He was littering like a good demon should. If the cat-like-thing happened to eat it afterwards, that wasn’t down to him.

As he wandered into his building, holding the door open for the little old lady that lived in the apartment underneath him on impulse as he did so [1], he heard a quiet little rumbling purr start up behind him.

******************************************************************************

“I mostly find that Adam’s taste is quite fascinating, not to mention refreshing, the take of the youth, you know, but there are quite a few new novels I’ve found that don’t really make much sense to me at all,” Aziraphale babbled, trotting along at Crowley’s side as they wandered back to his flat for some wine, followed by more wine, followed by still more wine.

As They had decided that, in the wake of the apocalypse that never went off, they might change some of their age old traditions. This included Aziraphale sometimes coming over to Crowley’s flat for post-Ritz wine, rather than always retreating to Aziraphale’s shop[2].

“Like what?” Crowley said, frowning.

“Well there’s quite a lot of romance novels,” Aziraphale said, frowning and, to Crowley’s mingled surprise and delight, blushing, “Along with some that are decidedly, well, inappropriate,” he said, delicately.

Crowley’s smirk broadened at that, “Find a little Fifty Shades squirreled away in the back where the customers aren’t allowed to go, did you?”

“I most certainly did not!” Aziraphale blustered, looking affronted at the very idea, “I would never have anything so crude in my collection, thank you very much.”

“Too much of a prude, are we angel?” Crowley said, tilting his head to one side and favouring Aziraphale with an angelic smile on the lips of a demon.

“Certainly not!” Aziraphale said, looking surprised, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex in literature, or in life, when it’s well done.” Crowley choked on his milkshake. “That book however, not that it rates the name, is both atrociously written, grossly misogynistic, and woefully inaccurate on all of its subject matter.” He sniffed, delicately, apparently oblivious to Crowley’s bug-eyed scare of amazement, “Immortal I may be, but I don’t have time for such things.”

Crowley was still trying to recover from the shock of....All of that when Aziraphale turned to him, rather sharply, and said, “Why? You haven’t read it, have you?”

“Nope,” said Crowley quickly, and truthfully. He’d been vaguely curious about all the fuss, but it had never appealed to him.

His building appeared a second later, fortunately. As they stepped inside, he casually tossed the little bag of uneaten extras he’d brought with them from lunch into the alleyway over his shoulder.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, shocked, eyes boggling as though he’d just tossed the second antichrist into the side street.

“What?” he said vaguely, holding the door opening and trying to gesture the angel inside, to no avail.

Aziraphale remained rooted to the spot, staring at him with shock written across his face.

“You can’t just throw your litter in the street like that!” the angel chided him.

Crowley made a show of peering around the angel to the dropped bag, “Huh, look at that. I did! Okay, now that’s settled can we-“ he tried to usher them inside again but Aziraphale refused to budge.

“You see, it’s people-“

“Demons,” he corrected.

Aziraphale gave him the kind of look that left him with frostbite for the next week and continued, “It’s demons like you that make this world a worse place to live in for everyone!”

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, angel, but that’s kinda my job description,” Crowley replied with typical snark, “Now can we-“ he swept his hands with something close to desperation towards the door of the building.

“No! We certainly cannot!” Aziraphale said, and Crowley deflated with exasperated irritation. “Not while your litter is lying in the streets, polluting the environment.”

He strode pompously forwards and bent to pick up the papers. Crowley grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back, “Okay, okay! I give up, you win,” he dragged a hand through his hair, which was starting to get a little length to it again, “I’m feeding a cat-thing,” he mumbled, all in a rush.

“Pardon?” Aziraphale said, raising an eyebrow.

“There’s some little cat thing that lives there,” he said, jerking his head towards the alley, “If I have food wrappers when I come home,” which, of late, had been every time he came home, “I just sort of,” he gestured vaguely towards the dropped papers.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, in that excruciating way that told him he’d just done something the angel approved of, “That’s really rather sweet of you, you know,” he said, smiling.

“Ugh,” Crowley groaned, taking Aziraphale by the shoulders and attempting to steer him into the building to escape the agony of this conversation, “Okay, okay, I’m a terrible demon, you knew there was good in me all along, blah, blah, blah. Let’s go! Wine! Now!”

Aziraphale, with surprising strength, resisted him, still peering into the alley, “Where is the little creature?” he said.

“How should I know?” Crowley growled. You better fucking enjoy this, you little beast, given how much I’ve suffered for it. “I’m not its minder!”

He finally succeeded in shunting Aziraphale bodily through the door.

“I didn’t even think you liked animals,” Crowley said, as he used a miracle to cause the lift to simply be there on the ground floor waiting for them.

“Well ordinarily I’m not too fussed, I will admit. All God’s creatures are beautiful and worthy of love, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean by me at all times,” Aziraphale said, stepping neatly into the lift and holding the doors open for Crowley. “But I rather wanted to take a look at this one, since it’s managed to capture your eye.”

“It hasn’t captured anything,” Crowley growled.

Aziraphale just twinkled knowingly.

Blessed angel was insufferable.

“I do have one question, though,” Aziraphale said, shrugging off his coat as they stepped into Crowley’s flat.

Crowley made an exaggerated motion of hanging himself behind Aziraphale’s back then replaced it with a sickeningly saccharine smile when he turned to face him again.

“Just the one?” he drawled.

“Why don’t you just feed it tins of fish, rather than this convoluted sharing of your supper?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“First of all,” Crowley said, raising a long finger, irritably, “I’m not sharing with it. I’m throwing my fully completed, finished, and done wrappings in its general direction, and it’s scavenging from them. Secondly, I’m not doing that.”

Because then I’d have to acknowledge I’m actively looking after this thing and that is definitely not what’s happening here. I’m littering. ‘S not my fault it wants to tidy up after me.

Aziraphale just gave him another one of his knowing looks.

Crowley wondered two things simultaneously in that moment. The first was why he kept associating with this blessed idiot after all these years. The second was, if he threw Aziraphale out of the window in the plant room, would he be able to snap his wings into being fast enough to save himself from discorporation?

Rather than attempting to divine the answer to either of these questions, Crowley instead opened the first of many bottles of wine.

******************************************************************************

Supermarkets were definitely one of Crowley’s finer ideas.

Not only did they work to damage the souls of most of the population of the world over time with a slowly forming layer of plaque-like bitterness and irritation with the state of the universe, they functioned as an excellent microcosm of said universe.

Humans all reacted in a variety of strange but intriguing ways to supermarkets.

Some of them drifted around them like ghosts in a cemetery, part of them, but not really, without any idea of what they were doing, or why, they just did.

Some of them treated a trip to the supermarket like a military operation, complete with their lists, and pens, and dedicated ‘search and destroy’ method.

Some of them, meanwhile, took out their general anger and frustration with the state of their miserable lives on the rest of humanity that could be found on the unwashed aisles of Asda with an excellent display of yelling, gesticulating, and requests to speak with managers.

Then there were the poor sods that actually had to work there and deal with all this nonsense. Them Crowley almost felt sorry for. In fact, on more than one occasion, he’d slipped them the odd miracle, to help drag them through the day...And further infuriate those who saw the chilled section as their own person battleground against humanity.

Every now and then, there was an extra, hidden category of shopper in a supermarket: Crowley.

Technically he didn’t need to visit them. He didn’t have to buy anything, and generally didn’t bother to, either. Every now and then, though, he liked to grab a basket, wander up and down the aisles, soak in his terrible, terrible work, and see what interesting new things toppled into it along the way.

As When he returned home today, bags sitting neatly on the shelf in his kitchen with all the things that had dropped into his basket[3] he discovered something rather unwelcome.

As Cursing Aziraphale seven ways to Heaven and back, he realised there were several tins of sardines sitting innocently amongst the mix of old favourites[4]and strange new highly processed, deeply unhealthy, too cheap to be acceptable, things since last he’d been there.

Crowley couldn’t stand sardines. Aziraphale had put them on everything a few decades back, and it had driven him to distraction. For one thing the smell was disgusting. For another, there was just something distinctly...Unnatural about them. Squashed together, with their heads cut off, and their organs removed, but a variety of bones still in their bodies when they had no right to be there anymore.

“They’re soft, dear boy, you won’t even notice them!” Azirapahle had insisted, airily.

Crowley had.

It had put him off eating anything for almost a year afterwards, much to Aziraphale’s chagrin.

No. No part of his subconscious had bought this for him. That meant it must have bought it for...

“Fuck, shit, balls, no,” he growled at thin air, snatching up the tins and striding over the bin, with the full intention of throwing them out and pretending they’d never existed.

But. No. He couldn’t bring himself to do that either.

He almost hurled the tin through the window in the plant room, then, thought better of it.

Gnashing his teeth with every step, he stormed downstairs, wrenched open the door, peeled the lid from the can with the sheer force of his irritation, and dumped it into the alley without looking at it.

As the door closed behind him, he heard a purring as loud as the Bentley’s engine when she greeted him first thing in the morning, and had to work hard to keep the smile from tugging at the corners of his lips.

******************************************************************************

Humans were terrible.

Crowley had long since decided on this.

Or, to be fair, (damn Aziraphale was bad fucking influence, no doubt about that), humans had the immense capacity to be terrible. More so than any other being he had ever come across.

As of Sunday the 6th of January 2019, at precisely 5.46pm, in London, he decided they’d officially outdone themselves on the terrible scale.

Crowley had seen some shit in his time on Earth. He’d seen, and been credited for, the Spanish Inquisition. He’d seen the world war. Both of them. He’d seen every war that had ever taken place in this world.

But this, this surpassed it all. Because in all those cases, he’d seen humans taking out their cruelty and twisted imagination on each other. That was one thing. This was something else. Something utterly unforgivable.

He’d gone to the flower show, as usual, though he hadn’t picked anything up. A truly shocking display of leaf spots, white fly, and a combination of over and under-watering, had put him off making any purchases.

He had stopped off at his usual fish and chip vendor, though, because the fish and chips was always top quality.

Then he’d sauntered back home. Since losing her, he’d found himself much more appreciative of the Bentley, and so he let her rest on Sundays, and walked to and from the market.

Reflexively, as he reached the alleyway, he tossed the remnants of his fish supper into the usual spot before moving automatically towards the door.

Then he stopped.

From down the alley came the sound of loud, high-pitched yowling, and drunken shouts and laughter.

His eyesight easily pierced the puddle of darkness down the alley and saw a group of three large, drunk, twenty-something guys with hand-held fireworks they were throwing against the wall, terrifying the small cat-shaped-lump he’d been covertly feeding for the past couple of months.

With a low growl starting in the pit of his chest, quickly rising to his throat, he transformed himself into a snarling, black-scaled beast that truly deserved the title of demon.

Crowley was typically quite reserved. He preferred his human form, went out of his way to cover his serpent’s eyes to prevent alarming anyone. He disliked taking any other form, felt unlike himself, and afraid he might get stuck like that, which would be the worst.

But sometimes, sometimes, he relished it. Sometimes he sank into this form and relished every inch of it.

This was one of those times.

Stalking down the alley, he let the growl in his chest rise until it resembled thunder. His eyes glowed an evil red, and he licked his curved fangs as he advanced.

The guys took one look at him, screamed, and then, as one, bolted down the alley. To be quite sure, and also for a bit of devilish fun, he sent the remainder of the fireworks after them, smacking into them as they ran.

He cracked his neck out as he returned to his human form and crouched down to check on the kittenish-thing. There was a slight burn on its side, which he healed with a quick miracle. Other than that it seemed okay, just scared shitless. The little thing was still trembling, sides heaving, eyes bulging.

“’S’alright,” he mumbled to it.

It seemed too panicked to let him touch it, skittering away from him each time he tried, which he figured was fair. “Here,” he said, nudging his leftovers towards it, using a miracle to increase the quantity just a bit. “Those shits won’t bother you again. Promise,” he told it firmly.

It tentatively started poking at the newspapers, and he decided that was good enough, and slouched upstairs, cursing humanity as he went.

******************************************************************************

Crowley stretched and decided that he’d earned his monthly nap with all the evil he’d combated today.

Not that he was in the business of thwarting evil, kind of went against his whole thing as a demon, but, well, sometimes the humans went to places even a demon couldn’t condone. On these occasions, he figured it was his duty to step in, show them there were right kinds of evil, and wrong kinds of evil, and remind them of their place.

As He expected himself to be dressed in his black silk pyjamas[5]when he entered the bedroom for his nap, and so he was.

Yawning, he collapsed down onto the bedsheets which, by demonic miracle, were freshly washed and tumble dried, and smelled of jasmine and...Something else he couldn’t remember the name of but liked a lot.

As he settled himself down to sleep, there was a loud rumble of thunder in the distance, and the rain started outside, lashing against the walls of the flat.

Perfect.

A quarter of an hour passed and Crowley remained awake.

Half an hour passed, and still he hadn’t found himself in the comfortable embrace of sleep.

With nearly an hour gone into his attempt at sleeping, he sat up, frowning, and decided he needed to probe his feelings to understand why the fuck he was still conscious.

After a painful five minutes spent examining his own emotions, Crowley realised, to his mild horror and disgust, that he was feeling concern and something that felt an awful lot like guilt.

Groaning, the vague cocktail in his brain solidified into the image of a single scrawny, scrappy, dumb-coloured kitten shaped thing, soaked to the skin, cowering in some corner at the deafening rolls of thunder that were sweeping through the sky beyond.

No he told himself, firmly, he had already gone too far with the stupid thing. Scraps had turned into routine, had turned into tins of tuna, had turned into fully transforming himself in order to protect it. This was a line he wasn’t going to cross. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances, and for no reason would he ever-

He was already halfway to his bedroom door.

You he chided himself, as he miracled some shoes onto his feet, and a coat to protect his favourite pyjamas from the near-hurricane outside, are a pathetic excuse for a demon. The absolute worst demon that this planet, or any planet, for that matter, has ever seen.

He nudged his way out of the door of his flat, and took the stairs instead of the lift to punish himself for this hideous act of charity. Ugh. The word felt foul in his brain.

Turn around. Go back upstairs. Be worse than this. You can be worse than this. You should be worse than this. Stop this now before you do something that can’t be undone.

The door nearly threw him into the middle of next week with the force of it battering from his hand as he opened it.

He stumbled vaguely outside, instantly hissing in irritation as the wind slapped a wall of rain against his face.

Fortunately, within seconds, the cat-shaped thing had enough sense to emerge from its corner and trot as quickly as possible towards him.

If it hadn’t been quite so wet, and windy, and blessedly miserable, he might have paused to note how strange it was that this tiny, vulnerable, near helpless little scrap of life immediately associated him with safety. To the point that it ventured out in the middle of a brutal thunderstorm to run to him.

But it was wet, and windy, and blessedly miserable, so all he did was scoop it up and carry it inside.

The lift was waiting for them, and the doors opened as soon as he approached them. On the way up, he used another miracle to dry the vaguely kitten-like thing, because it was sodden, and disgusting, and he didn’t want it touching him like that, thank you very much.

Once they were inside the flat, he dumped it on the countertop in the kitchen and stared down at it. It stared right back at him.

It also looked as though he’d just stuffed it into an active socket. All its fur was standing on end, thanks to its miracle drying, which it didn’t seem too concerned by.

Frowning down at it, he miracled up a small box in the corner where it could go to relieve itself, then dumped two bowls on the counter. One he filled with water, the other he poured some more blessed sardines into.

The now much more cat-like thing stared at him with big yellow eyes, that were starting to look more and more like this own, as though it couldn’t quite fathom what was happening in this moment.

“Me neither,” he told it, flatly.

It crawled forwards and began to lap noisily at the water, sneezing a few times as it inhaled it up its nose. Apparently it hadn’t quite gotten the hang of drinking out of bowls.

Stupid little creature he thought, vaguely, patting it on the head.

It purred at him.

“Don’t get used to this,” he told it sternly, waggling a finger in its face, “This is not a permanent arrangement. One night only, so you don’t drown in that storm and that’s it, understand?”

It continued to drink, placidly.

Crowley was fairly certain that no other creature on Earth had half the disdain built in to its DNA as a natural fact of its existence quite like the cat.

He could have transformed himself into the demonic equivalent of Medusa and cursed its family for the next nine generations and he doubted whether it would so much as flick its tail at him.

All the same, he went on with setting his ground rules, “You eat, and drink, and shit, and sleep, and stay here,” he instructed, “You don’t go anywhere else in the flat. You so much as look at any of my plants, and I’ll drown you in the sink myself, save the thunderstorm the trouble. You stay here. All night. No exceptions.”

He considered for a moment, then miracle up a small folded blanket onto the countertop beside its bowls.

“Right here,” he said, pointing. Then, for good measure, he picked it up and placed it on the blanket to illustrate his point, “You got me?”

It blinked at him.

“Good,” he said, thinking he was doing pretty well at this whole one-night pet owner thing. “I’ll see you in the morning when I wake up and you’ve followed all those rules to a t. Make the most of this night, cat, you’re not getting another one.”

With that, he turned and sloped off to bed again, thinking that if he couldn’t sleep now he might scream.

Less than five minutes later, there was a small squeaking sound, followed by a soft flump, then loud purring.

The kitten, smelling faintly of sardines, crawled from the foot of his bed to the empty pillow beside him and curled up, the noise of its purrs now rivalling the thunderstorm outside.

Mashing his hand around vaguely, like a man who’s slept for a century and is trying to find the alarm clock that’s just woken him in the haze of grief, confusion, and deep hatred for the world and everything in it in that moment, Crowley found its small fuzzy body and patted it.

“You’re lucky I’m too tired to call up the roiling fires of Hell to damn you for disobedience right now,” he muttered thickly to it.

The cat head-butted his hand and increased the intensity of its purrs.

“You’re leaving in the morning,” he told it, firmly.

He almost managed to convince himself of that.

He was certain he didn’t manage to convince the cat for a second.

Blessed creature, he thought irritably, before he passed out at last.

******************************************************************************

Crowley’s flat had a kitchen because it had come with one, and because he’d never bothered to get rid of it.

A few months ago, though, he had accidentally sauntered into a cookery class at a local university. He’d found he’d enjoyed it, and had since accidentally sauntered into a few more.

Ever since, Aziraphale had been sceptical in the extreme that Crowley would cook, and then, even more so, that he could.

So, striving as ever to combat any and all notions of the adversary on Earth, Crowley had invited him over for lasagne followed by an Eton mess, all homemade by him.

As Going out of his way to look professional, he had invested in a new apron for the occasion[6]and had sat Aziraphale down in the dining room with a cup of tea and a new book he’d picked up at a Camden market to encourage him to stay out of the way. Crowley couldn’t work his magic with an audience, bless it.

He had just started rolling out the pasta sheets, when there was an interruption from next door.

“Ah, Crowley?” Aziraphale’s uncertain voice drifted through to him.

As “What, angel?” he replied, tersely, not pausing what he was doing, “If there’s a typo on your book, it wasn’t me this time, I swear[7].”

“No, no, it’s not that, the book is excellent, I do actually admire your taste on this one, it’s-” the angel babbled.

“Then what is it?” Crowley interrupted, exasperated.

“Well, it’s just that there’s something drinking my tea that isn’t me.”

Crowley cursed, abandoned his pasta, and strode out of the kitchen, hissing softly.

Aziraphale was sitting primly up in his seat, staring down at a small, furry creature, whose adorable little pink tongue was currently dipping in and out of his teacup.

Crowley marched forwards, scooped the offending little beast up and said, threateningly, “I will feed you to a hellhound.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, indignant.

“Not a big one, either, a little runty one, that’ll take its time with you,” he added.

It had the audacity to purr at him.

“So it’s supposed to be here?” Aziraphale said, peering interestedly at the little bundle in his arms, “I thought perhaps it had sneaked in without you noticing.” He awkwardly patted its head. It purred more loudly. “Oh!” he said, obviously charmed, “Sweet little thing, isn’t she?”

“D’you want it?” Crowley demanded, thrusting it at him.

“Oh no, no,” Aziraphale said, a soft little smile on his face, “I think she belongs here. So you took her in, then?” he said.

“No I didn’t,” Crowley growled, “I took pity on it, stopped it drowning in a thunderstorm one night, and the ungrateful little shit has refused to leave ever since.”

“Oddly enough,” Aziraphale said, using a quick miracle to clean the essence of cat from his tea and take a prim sip, surveying Crowley over the rim, “That’s rather how I feel about you after all these years, dear boy.”

The angel looked rather pleased with himself at this little bit of verbal sparring. Crowley just glowered.

“You need to be punished,” he informed it darkly.

“Oh no, please!” Aziraphale protested at once, “Not on my account. The poor little creature didn’t do any harm.”

“No,” Crowley interrupted, “It has to learn its place.”

He carried it out of the kitchen and dumped it into a cot with high barred sides, meant for small human children. The conversation he’d had when purchasing it (since the one’s he’d miracled into existence himself hadn’t held it for more than the time it took to sneeze) had been truly nauseating.

Pointing a finger threateningly down at it he commanded, “You stay there and think about what you’ve done.”

It mewed softly at him.

Crowley returned to the kitchen.

Five minutes later, it had escaped its plastic prison, and climbed onto his shoulder to peer interestedly at the sauce he was making.

“You’re a demon,” he told it, conversationally, as it head-butted his ear in a gesture he’d come to interpret as affection.

Crowley checked his watch, “Huh, faster than last time,” he observed, feeding it scraps of meat from the pot in front of him, “Going to need to reinforce Alcatraz.”

It purred and nibbled his ear in a gesture he’d interpreted as ‘give me more food, I’m always hungry, if you were mortal I’d have no qualms whatsoever about eating your corpse if you died before me. If you don’t feed me right now, that will happen’. He kinda appreciated its moral outlook on life.

He gave it another scrap of meat.

As “Not a word to the angel,” he growled, “Got a reputation to uphold,” he said, starting to chop onions, “Can’t have it getting back to Heaven I’ve gone soft in my old age,” he sniffled[8].

“Ah, hello there little one,” Crowley jumped, and four sets of claws dug deeply into his shoulder to prevent their lasagne becoming distinctly more cat-flavoured.

Aziraphale had apparently drifted in from the dining area and was now tickling the little creature under the chin. It was uncertain, but not fleeing or trying to gnaw the angel’s fingers off, so that was an improvement.

“So what have you decided to name the little thing?” he asked evenly.

“It doesn’t have a name,” Crowley insisted, dumping his shredded onions into the pot and miracling his eyes back to normal, “I just call it ‘cat’ if I have to call it anything.”

“Cat is a very nice name,” Aziraphale said, blandly, plainly not listening to a word Crowley was saying.

“No, not ‘Cat’,” Crowley said, irritably, emphasising the first letter, “Just ‘cat’. No capital.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, in a tone of voice that meant he was agreeing with Crowley to avoid an argument but was going to carry on believing his stupid, wrong, angelic opinion anyway.

Crowley glared at him.

“First day of Spring on Wednesday,” he said, now hacking tomatoes into bloody red chunks, “Soon as that comes, it’s gone. That means you,” he added firmly to cat, still perched on his shoulder, poking it in its little furry chest to make sure it got the message.

“Just so,” Aziraphale said. Then he sighed and added, in a very long-suffering tone, which Crowley thought was pretty rich for someone about to eat the best thing they’d ever tasted, “Crowley, would it be so terrible to just admit that you’ve adopted this cat? It’s not the end of the world if you have, you know.”

“Yes, it would be,” Crowley said, scraping the tomatoes into the pot with unnecessary violence, “Because I haven’t.”

“Clearly,” Aziraphale deadpanned, watching the cat eagerly licking the juice from his fingers.

“Shut up and make yourself useful, angel,” Crowley growled, impatiently, “Set the table.”

“I’m your guest, Crowley,” Aziraphale reminded him, primly, “I think that means you’re supposed to-“

Crowley flicked his hand towards a drawer that shot open, nudging the angel smartly on the hip, “Cutlery’s in there.” Azirapahle opened his mouth to protest, but a cabinet door nearly hit him on the head and cut him off. Crowley snickered. “Glasses are in there. Figure you know where the wine is by now.”

Grumbling under his breath, Aziraphale trotted off to set the table.

Two stunning courses and a lot of wine later, Crowley and Aziraphale were sprawled on the couch. Crowley was sprawled properly¸ lanky body spread across two chairs, foot dangling off the end, jiggling vaguely in time to the music. Aziraphale was sprawled Aziraphale-y, slouching in an armchair the way Queen Elizabeth I with an over-tightened corset might have sprawled in it.

Cat was curled on Crowley’s chest, rising up and down gently in time with his breathing.

“Well, I suppose I’d best- Oh” Aziraphale hiccupped and broke off, “Excuse me. I’d best get back to the bookshop.”

“Want me to sober up and drive you?” Crowley asked, vaguely, making no move to begin the process of doing either.

“No, no, don’t worry yourself, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, waving a hand, “The walk will do me good.”

As “You’re going to walk to the end of the street then miracle yourself right back into the shop, aren’t you?” Crowley said, shrewdly[9].

“Of course I am. Who do you take me for?”

Crowley snorted.

Aziraphale tottered, a little unsteadily, but impressively so, over to Crowley, and patted cat on the head. “Now you be good,” he told it, in his best approximation of drunken sternness, “And look after Crowley for me, alright?” She blinked at him. Crowley glared at her, since she never got anything like that level of acceptance from his requests.

Aziraphale patted her on the head again then, for good measure, patted Crowley’s head too, and bobbed towards the door.

Cat yawned, stretched, flexed her claws, then comfortably began to knead at Crowley’s apron. He hadn’t taken it off all night, feeling it was only right he have a constant reminder to Aziraphale just where his dinner had come from.

“Wednesday,” he told it, sleepily, “You’re gone. Enjoy this while you’ve got it, it won’t last.”

Cat purred, somehow insolently.

Crowley stroked her vaguely behind the ear in that place she liked, and fell asleep.

******************************************************************************

Cat did not leave on Wednesday.

******************************************************************************

Footnotes:

11- Crowley did not, as a rule, make a habit of holding the door open for people. He figured that he had to at least try to be demonic some of the time, and he did this, by and large, by refraining from the many little trappings that contributed to what society deemed ‘polite’. In doing so, he raised the general irritation levels wherever he happened to be.

An exception was made for Mrs Coal.

For a start she was ancient, Crowley was at a 50/50 toss up right now that she pre-dated him. And she’d been ancient when he moved into the building.

For another thing, he was almost certain that if he ever let the door close on her face, something would smite his existence from the face of the Earth faster than he could blink.

And finally, demon he might be, but he had some standards, contrary to Aziraphale’s typical belief. Even demons like Hastur or Ligur would have flinched at the idea of closing the door on Mrs Coal.

There was a power to little old ladies Crowley had long ago decided not to trifle with.[return to text]

2- On the strict condition that Aziraphale said nothing to his plants, since it had been proven with time he couldn’t limit himself to simply saying nothing nice. [return to text]

3- Except for the small bag of groceries sitting on Mrs Coal’s doorstep. [return to text]

4- Tetley teabags, Digestive biscuits, and a six pack of irn bru. This is not typically found in supermarkets in England, but present with his shopping all the same. [return to text]

5- They were trimmed with a fine edge of red lace, and had been a Christmas present from Mrs Coal some years ago. Crowley had never, in his life, received a gift and felt the compulsion to buy the other person something in return. He figured if they wanted to buy him a gift, good for them, didn’t mean he wanted to buy them something in return. Mrs Coal had found new slippers, a thick woollen blanket, and a hand-knitted hot water bottle under her tree from him that year, however. [return to text]

6- It was black with fire licking up the edges, and had ‘Hot as Hell’ printed on the front, which Crowley had found amusing. [return to text]

7- There had been a time when Aziraphale had refused to accept books from Crowley, owing to the frequency of, typically inappropriate, typos that didn’t exist in any copy the demon hadn’t gotten his hands on. [return to text]

8- Crowley had been distinctly aggrieved to discover that being a demon did not mean he was immune to the plague of onion tears that he had unleashed upon humanity several centuries earlier. He’d thought it would be really funny to give humans a foodstuff they couldn’t prepare without crying all over it. He’d thought right. Until he had to prepare it himself. Onions were in fucking everything, there was no escaping the little buggers. [return to text]

9- As shrewd as one could be after three bottles of wine. [return to text]

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