"We apologize for the inconvenience, but due to the Stay at Home Ordinance, Dawlings Realty is currently closed; however our agents are still able to answer most questions about our listings, though any sales will have to be coordinated with safety measures for all parties. Virtual tours are limited to properties which are in close proximity to an agent, and may not always be available. We do plan to reopen as soon as possible, and hope you are staying healthy and safe."
The latest iPhone went sailing across Crowley's office to smash against a wall and clatter to the floor in several pieces.
"Bollocks. Stupid pandemic, fucking up everything, what the Heaven am I supposed to do now?!"
He saunter-stalked past the large windows making up an entire wall-which were letting in a rare amount of sunshine, naturally-and stopped in front of the ruined phone. He glowered at it, as though accusing it of his misfortune, then sighed and restored it with an irritated snap of his long fingers. Scooping it up he quickly unlocked it and selected a recent number.
"Hello! I do apologize, but I regret to inform you we are not open, and most likely will be closed for quite some time!"
The gentleman's posh, yet pleasant voice on the other end sounded almost pleased about it, and not sorry in the least at the prospect of losing business.
"Angel, it's me. We've hit a bit of a snag on the cottage."
"Oh? What happened?"
"The whole bloody country's on lockdown is "what happened," and the Agency listing the property is shut down!"
"Hmm, yes, well, that is a bit of a problem...although surely you can call our Agent and see if we can work something out?"
"We didn't GET an Agent yet, remember? We only just decided on looking for a place, and then everything went to Hel-Heaven!"
"Oh."
Crowley grit his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, Aziraphale really was hopeless when it came to understanding the severity of a crisis. Unless it involved going out to dinner only to find "their" table being given away at the Ritz, especially when they had clearly placed a reservation some days before which the Maitre'D mysteriously had no recollection of taking, but clearly wrote down.
"Angel, I know you wanted to do this like" he gave a slight shudder "humans, but unless we use miracles we aren't moving anytime soon."
There was a long pause.
"Well. Nothing to be done then, except wait this out I suppose."
Crowley felt Aziraphale could have at least sounded a bit more disappointed, but the fact he had even gotten on board with the idea of sharing a place together was a welcome surprise he wasn't about to muck up, no matter how much he wanted to snap his fingers and make it a reality RIGHT NOW.
"Ah. Yeah. Shouldn't last much longer I would think, s'not like the plague, things should be back to normal soon enough."
He feigned a casual, unconcerned air with his tone, but his fingers twitched nervously on the arm of his flamboyant gothic throne. What if it DID last months like the news reports were starting to speculate? Would Aziraphale think he was "going too fast" and change his mind? Aziraphale's next words echoed that particularly gloomy thought.
"Well, it certainly isn't like the plague my dear, but it does seem to be the humans are treating it that way, and the latest reports say it could be months before things get back to normal."
There was a slight pause, and then Aziraphale continued on, with a notable tinge of sadness in his voice.
"It's such a pity, there was a new bistro I had hoped we could try, and all the theatres are closed down, even St. James' Park is restricting the use of benches as they aren't considered safe seating because they are less than two meters apart from end-to-end."
"I would think the spike in cases and number of deaths might have something to do with that Angel."
Crowley's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Oh! I suppose I sound a bit inconsiderate, don't I? Of course I feel simply awful for the poor dears, but we're immortal, and it's just so frustrating to be unable to go on outings together, don't you agree?"
Crowley was certain if he had a soul it would have completely left his body at this point in the conversation.
"Ngk."
"Sorry?"
"Uh. Yeah, I guessssss sssssso, but I don't mind sssssstaying in asssss much assssss you, Angel."
"Crowley, are you drunk?"
"No, why?"
Though now he desperately wished he had a drink, and with a thought and a click of his fingers, there was suddenly a bottle of Lagavulin and a glass on his desk; he hastily poured himself a shot, downed it, and then refilled it with a generous amount.
"I'm only asking because of the hissing my dear, you typically don't unless you're a bit...well, I believe "knackered" would be the term."
Hearing the word "knackered" coming from Aziraphale caused Crowley to choke on a rather large gulp of scotch. Coughing and spluttering, eyes streaming, he forced out a hoarse reply.
"No...not "knackered," Angel...remind me..." he wheezed "...to...catch you up...on ssssslang."
"You are drinking though, aren't you?"
Crowley resented the slightly accusing tone Aziraphale had adopted, as he knew full well the angel was not above opening a bottle or three before noon himself; being able to miracle ones' self sober did have its advantages.
"What'sssss your point?"
"I suppose none, really, but I'd prefer you to be sober for this conversation."
"...fine."
"Thank you. Now, about the cottage, I didn't expect us to settle on the first property that we looked at, but perhaps this...pandemic, is somewhat of a blessing in disguise."
Crowely felt his heart sink at that, but forced himself to press on a bit.
"You've lost me, Angel."
"Well, now we have a bit of time to sort of...mull things over, and make sure it's what we both want, homeownership is rather a big step from simply renting an apartment or having an upstairs room for appearances' sake after all. There's the possibility of appliances breaking, yardwork, and property taxes..."
Crowley cut him off mid-ramble with a dismissive snort.
"Angel, we can take care of all of that with miracles, or have you forgotten that's how we currently deal with things like that now?"
"Well, yes, that's true, but I thought we might try living without miracles for a bit."
"Come again?"
"I thought it might be a good way to "lay low" as it were, what with us being our respective former sides' personna non grata."
Aziraphale said this in a cheerful conspiratorial tone, as though he were discussing a harmless prank and not the fact that in actuality most of Heaven and Hell would be more than happy to utterly destroy them, and were probably trying to figure out how best to accomplish this goal ever since the angel and demon had successfully averted The Apocalypse and stopped their planned war against each other. Gabriel and Beelzebub in particular were quite frankly pissed off, especially when they had to explain to their respective troops that the war was in fact NOT happening, thank you all the same for being ready to fight and gathering in force, but you can pop off now as you are no longer needed, ta!
"Angel, while I agree we need to keep ourselves from Heaven and Hell's notice, I don't think the odd miracle would be enough to call them down on our heads. Especially not if they're of a more domestic variety, Hell really doesn't give a fig about those types of miracles on principle, and I doubt Heaven will pay much attention to them as Gabriel is more likely having everyone focus on how to destroy an angel that can stand in Hellfire and breathe it through their mouth than whether or not you've miracled up a new shade of tile in the loo."
Aziraphale adopted a rather prim tone at this point, one he reserved for when he knew he was on the losing end of an argument but was stubbornly refusing to admit defeat.
"Be that as it may, I still think we should take as much care as possible to avoid undue attention. I'm sure Gabriel has had Sandalphon or Michael monitoring my shop for some time now, and I daresay your flat has more than likely had its share of prying eyes as well. Moving to a new location without using our powers seemed like a sound way of putting them off our scent for at least a little while."
Oh. So that was it, then. Aziraphale hadn't agreed to move in with Crowley because he wanted to, but because he thought it was strategy. No wonder he hadn't needed to talk up the South Downs as much as he had expected, Aziraphale had probably thought about leaving his shop at least a bit after the Not-Pocalypse. Which was fine, really, it wasn't like Crowley had been planning on surprising him with a special housewarming gift for the garden which he had salvaged from a certain church back in 1941. He still remembered the look of astonishment on his Angel's face...Aziraphale's face, not his, never his Angel, obviously, only a complete idiot would think they could ever be more than friends. Crowley was used to realizing he was an idiot, but it didn't make the hurt he felt any less.
"Right. Well, if your goal was to have them avoid noticing us, why'd you agree to the move in the first place? Bit noticable having two 'sworn enemies' suddenly sharing a cottage innit?"
Bitterness tinged every word, he couldn't help it, he'd finally dared to let himself hope, and now everything was falling apart like he knew it would, it always did, because he was a demon, and demons don't deserve good things or happily ever afters.
"I should think that would be obvious, we're both in their bad books, so it would make sense to have strength in numbers in case Heaven and Hell decided to actually work together to eliminate us."
"There's two of us. How exactly is that "strength in numbers" against a literal horde of demons and the entire Heavenly Host?"
"Oh, you know what I meant, and...and I...I don't want to think about us spending what little time we most likely have left alone. We've known each other for over 6,000 years, and I...I've grown accustomed to your company, and I would miss our discussions terribly if you were...no longer around."
Surely he had suddenly developed a problem with his hearing, because there was no way Aziraphale just said what he thought he heard.
"Crowley? Crowley, are you still there?"
"Ngk. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still here, Angel."
"I thought you'd hung up, did I say something wrong?"
No, you said everything right.
"No, Angel, sorry, must've hit a dead zone in the flat."
The lie was flimsy and surely even Aziraphale would see through it, being otherwordly had its perks, and not being inconvenienced by limitations of technology was one of them; if they wanted something to work it did, regardless of the impossibility, the Bentley being a notable testament to this fact.
"I told you those mobiles aren't all they're cracked up to be, a good, solid landline wouldn't have that problem."
Oh Angel. Never change.
"Mmm, I suppose, but mobiles are more convenient Angel, you can't go hauling around a rotary everywhere you go, now can you?"
"Now really, Crowley, I am perfectly aware of the difficulties that would pose, but isn't that what Ansaphones are for, to save recordings in case you've missed a call and can return it later?"
"Relax, Angel, it's a joke. I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers."
"I ought to hang up you know, it would serve you right, treacherous serpent."
Aziraphale's tone would best be described as "fond exasperation," though decidedly leaning a bit more towards the latter. Crowley focused more on the former, and tried to get the conversation back to main reason he had called in the first place.
"Serpent, is it? I ought to be in a garden then, hadn't I? As it happens, I know of at least one in the South Downs that also comes with a cottage, we can even make sure it has a library for your books."
"Oh really, Crowley, sometimes talking to you is simply impossible."
"Is not, I'll have you know I've been called a rather cunning linguist by more than one individual, and they were all quite impressed with my oral skills."
(The Lagavulin had already been refilled once, and was just about half again at this point; Crowley was rapidly approaching a state approximating two out of three sheets to the wind.)
"I find that rather difficult to believe."
Biting back an unwise retort of "I could show you sometime," Crowley opted instead to change the subject.
"Bet you're pleasssssed with the lack of cusssstomerssss, eh, Angel? No-one trying to actually purchasssse sssssomething?"
"Oh yes, it's been so peaceful! It's always been such a bother trying to make obscure business hours to dissuade more persistent customers, now putting up a "closed until further notice" sign is more than sufficient...you're hissing again, I thought you had sobered up?"
"M'not drunk, Angel."
He pointedly ignored the fact the flat screen telly had developed a twin, and the double image was now swimming in front of his slitted eyes.
"Crowley..."
"What'sssss ssssso important about me needing to be sssssober anyhow? Can't go anywhere, can't do anything, might asssss well drink."
Morose, he slunk over to his throne, intending to fling himself into it...and missing completely, loudly crashing into a painful heap on the floor. Lagavulin soaking his pants, the bottle having slipped out of his grip rolls away from him while he unleashes an impressive tirade of profanity, clanking to a stop when it reaches the desk. Crowley briefly allows himself to wallow in humiliation, before acknowledging Aziraphale's increasely concerned queries.
"Crowley? What's happened? Are you alright, my dear?"
"Fine, Angel. I'll call you back, yeah?"
"Of course, but what-"
Aziraphale looks in befuddlement at the receiver in his hand, dial tone signaling Crowley having hung up.