This day was not among Crowley's best days.
Firstly, he had banged his toe on the leg of a kitchen chair first thing that morning. Secondly, he had banged that same toe into a wall before even exiting the kitchen. Thirdly, he had carefully avoided hitting his toe again, and had instead banged his shoulder into the doorframe on his way out from the apartment.
And lastly, his most recently purchased cassette tape had finally turned into a Queen's Greatest Hits cassette; a fact that Crowley had become aware of as he ignited the engine of his car. He was expecting a soothing tune involving mostly bowed strings. Instead, he was met with an explosive scream of an electric guitar that had him pressing back against the car seat in shock and hissing threateningly at the source of the wailing noise – that is, before he realised that he could simply turn the volume down.
Crowley sat up properly, readjusting his sunglasses so that they sat on his nose again and not halfway down one of his cheeks. He shifted into first gear and the car crept onto the road as the now almost entirely muted Freddie Mercury stated that he was, in fact, not asking much. That is, if you want the truth.
After a fairly uneventful drive, Crowley was just turning the last corner, his sights on Aziraphale's shop, when the current guitar solo suddenly sped up dramatically in barely a second. The jumble of notes, previously known as one of the biggest hits of this decade, turned into a bloodcurdling high-pitched whirring befitting the depths of hell, punctuated by a rapid onslaught of equally high-pitched clicking noises.
Crowley's eyes grew wide in horrified realisation before he stomped on the brakes, and with a screech and a suspicious series of clanks, the car stopped and the engine died. Along with it died the hellish sound able to invoke panic in the hearts of the bravest of humans – and apparently demons.
Taking a couple of deep breaths, Crowley tentatively reached out and pressed the eject button. He could hear the tell-tale "click"… but the cassette was not ejected. He knew, of course, what this meant. He also knew that trying again would not amount to anything. Nevertheless, he pressed the eject button again. This time there was only a very faint click, clearly having no effect, and the cassette was not ejected. Just like what Crowley knew would happen.
He threw his head back and hissed irritably. Resigning to his cruel fate, he opened the glove compartment and retrieved what was known as a music lover's salvation – or maybe damnation would be a better word, considering who was wielding them.
Armed with a small torch and a long, thin screwdriver, Crowley leaned down low in front of the car stereo and began his rescue mission. There was a trick to it; you had to shine the torch at a good angle so that you were able to get the screwdriver into just the right spot and then carefully use it to prise the cassette free – all the while hoping that the tape had not gotten irreparably stuck. Crowley could not deny that his car was plagued by an obvious surplus of cassettes containing the songs considered to be Queen's greatest hits. Still, it felt a bit haphazard to cut the tape, so he would rather not unless in dire emergencies. He would just give the cassette a gentle nudge-
The cassette shot out of the stereo and would have hit Crowley squarely in the forehead had he not ducked in time. Trailing behind the cassette was the unwound tape, like the tail of a comet, though possibly quite a bit more tangled.
Crowley could feel the body of the cassette landing on his back, while what was meant to be the inner strings of semi-transparent engineering ingenuity settled on top of his head and his shoulders.
After blinking away the shock of the abrupt assault, Crowley straightened his back – and felt parts of the tape falling off his shoulders and settling around his arms. Big mistake.
He looked down at the tangled tape snaking its way around him and started picking at different ends of the obnoxious thing. It soon became apparent to him that this was, in fact, not the way to go about this problem.
He decided to trace the problem to its source – or housing – and reached back to get the cassette off his back. There was only one, additional, problem. He could not reach the cassette. It was stuck close to his upper back, out of his reach.
Upon discovering this, Crowley hissed again – he really would not be having the problem of not being able to reach behind his back if he was a snake – and promptly abandoned all reason and decided to follow his guts, pulling at random parts of the tape, blessing more and louder as his actions only made the tape coil tighter around his arms and face.
In the midst of his fierce struggle, Crowley did not notice the person walking up to his car and peering in through a window. Wriggling like a highly undignified worm, Crowley finally lifted his eyes, on his way to deliver an especially gruesome string of blessings to the person who invented these blessed cassette tapes. And he locked eyes with Aziraphale.
They stared at each other until Aziraphale opened the car door and stuck his head inside. "Are you wrapping yourself as a gift for me? How thoughtful of you!"
Crowley snorted. "Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing. And it's not even your birthday. You should feel honored".
"Quite so", Aziraphale smiled and reached forward to touch the tape. Immediately, the mess untangled and was sucked into the housing, which Aziraphale was suddenly holding in his hand.
Crowley smirked at him. "Now you're making your Lord heal cassette tapes? What's next?"
Aziraphale smiled and slapped him lightly with the cassette. "Hush you".