They walked, although Crowley sauntered more, really, out of the Ritz, feeling more satisfied with themselves then they had in the past six thousand years. It was an odd sense of satisfaction, the kind that pops up after one does something that few others acknowledge or appreciate despite it being, in one's own mind, at least, perhaps one of the greatest things accomplished in history. Because, essentially, that's exactly what they had done. And they loved it, because even though they lost their own sides, they saved the world, which they rightfully should be awfully proud about.
They entered the bookshop, and Aziraphale, after pausing for a moment, flipped the Closed sign in the window to Open. He hadn't been open much the past week, having being too busy saving the world. He felt a little guilty about it, despite not really wanting to sell the books at all, and determined he would stay open for at least several hours. Crowley took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his pocket, sitting in a chair that he thought looked comfortable, although after attempting to get in a comfortable position he found it most certainly wasn't. He decided the stupid uncomfortable chair was another one of Aziraphale's potential customer deterrents.
Speaking of Aziraphale, he stood over at a nearby shelf, straightening and organizing already meticulously straightened and organized books. He really was trying to figure out what to say to start a conversation because he found it to be rather intimidating when Crowley just stared at him. Unfortunately, everything he could think of the say, which truthfully was nothing, didn't sound right.
"I'm fairly sure the books are perfect, angel."
"Maybe you're right, but I really don't think they are... I mean, they really just do look...off."
"And they probably are. But reality was just entirely rebooted mere hours ago, you can't expect everything to be perfect. I'm sure they are, but no one notices it except you because you spend way too much time in here. You just have to get used to it and stop worrying."
Aziraphale sighed. Get used to it. There were a lot of things he needed to get used to now, the books, both the old ones and the ones that had mysteriously turned up after Armageddon stopped being one of the smallest things. The more major ones were things like not having to periodically report to Head Office and being able to spend time with Crowley without worrying about being caught. He wasn't sure if he could ever get used to not having to constantly check his shoulder when Crowley was with him, not after spending thousands of years doing so.
He turned to face the demon, and opened his mouth when he saw the chair. "Oh...ah, I wouldn't recommend sitting in that..."
Crowley tilted his head. "Just because it's so uncomfortable? Nah, I'm fine. I'll manage."
"No, er...do you, ah, remember that one night?"
"I've lived a lot of nights, you really have to be more specific." Crowley rested his arm on the back of the chair and immediately recoiled. "Ah! What is that? Why is it so sticky?"
Aziraphale nervously bit his lip as Crowley looked to him for answers, disgust written plainly on his face. He was silent for a moment before he remembered. And then he started to laugh.
"Really? Is this the same chair?"
Aziraphale nodded sheepishly.
"You should have gotten rid of it. You should have burnt it, honestly. Aziraphale, why didn't you burn this chair?"
"I'm not sure." He was in fact, very sure. That night was one of his fondest memories with Crowley, and he couldn't bear to get rid of the chair. Plus, it just looked so nice, and it really added something to the small shop that he was unable to explain with words. He had tried endlessly to clean it, to no avail. So he kept the chair in the corner, and no one had ever sat in it, except for the one elderly man who he had miraculously, perhaps with Aziraphale's help, not noticed the state of the chair.
Crowley knew he was lying. You can't be friends with someone for that long and not expect to begin to notice when they're faking something, especially with someone too kind to be a good liar like Aziraphale. Plus, Crowley was a demon, after all, giving him a natural ability to easily lie. And the best liars are always the best liar-sniffers.
But he didn't really care about what Aziraphale's answer was, because he knew that the angel was too sentimental about so many things, which is why he ran a bookshop that didn't really sell books. He removed his jacket and inspected it and the sticky splotches covering the back, and frowned because they would be a pain to clean.
The bell on the door to the shop jingled, and as Aziraphale turned to face the customer Crowley pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on to cover his eyes. He strolled into the back room of the shop, sitting on the small couch in the back room, after inspecting it for anything undesirable to sit in. He pulled out a bottle of wine from a cabinet and poured himself a glass.
He was nearly done with the bottle before Aziraphale entered the room.
"I do wish you had stayed out there," said the angel.
Crowley raised an eyebrow.
"They would have left much sooner if you did your intimidating glare thing. It took forever for them to leave."
"It was barely five minutes."
Aziraphale wrung his hands together. "Still, I really though they were going to ask to purchase something. They were just looking at so many..."
Crowley sighed. "Go fix the books, angel."
Aziraphale sheepishly left the room, a bit confused about how easily Crowley spotted how much the disarray of the books bothered him. He quickly organized them, straightening the ones on the small table and moving around the ones that had been picked up from the shelves. He paused for a moment before returning to the back room, and turned the sign on the door back to Closed. He felt bad because he had been open for a mere half hour, which really not the several hours he had promised himself, but he would open again later, he decided. It was his shop after all, and if he wanted to take a break after being open for only a half hour, he could.
He sat down in the back room in a chair across from Crowley. "You don't think I should sell the books more, do you?"
Crowley hiccuped and set the empty wine bottle down on the table in front of him. "No."
Aziraphale relaxed a bit at this. "Good. Because I really don't think so either."
Truthfully, Crowley didn't care so much about what books were sold and whatever. But he knew how heartbroken his friend was whenever he did sell a book, and he didn't like seeing Aziraphale being all mopey whenever he lost one of his precious paper children. So really, he determined, he did care about Aziraphale's books.
They spent the next several hours drinking and reminiscing on the past six thousand years, the best times and the worst. Crowley ranted about the fourteenth century and Aziraphale nodded and hmm-ed in all the right spots. He had heard this particular one of Crowley's rants countless times before, but he never got bored of hearing it. There was a new air of comfort around them, in the sense that they could just sit and chat like good old friends do without worrying about being severely punished or perhaps killed, a worry which always tends to put a damper on the conversation.
It was after midnight and nearing three when Crowley decided that he should really return to his flat as there were serval houseplants that were due for a scolding, and so he promised a very drunk Aziraphale that he would stop by as soon as possible before speeding off in the Bentley. Aziraphale, after frowning at Crowley's horrifically dangerous driving, opened the shop again. Just in case anyone was wandering the streets and felt like entering.