"Ugh… stupid! …stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Aziraphale smacked his hand repeatedly into his forehead, narrowly avoiding stabbing himself in the eye with the perilously fine nib of the fountain pen clutched in it. Crowley leaned back from behind the bookshelf he had been reorganizing to look over at the desk where Aziraphale sat hunched.

"Whatsamatter?" he asked, brows quirking in something between concern and trepidation.

"Oh, nothing really," Aziraphale sighed as he turned about in his chair, though his tone said otherwise, as did the ink-stains that had spattered themselves on his waistcoat, "I just signed up for this writing… challenge thing, and I am completely, utterly, STUCK."

"Oh, well," Crowley tossed his pile of books aside and swiveled out from behind the bookshelf, surreptitiously miracling the ink stains away as he did so, "it can't be that bad. Just write whatever! No one will care, anyway your first drafts are practically polished anyway."

"Thank you Crowley, but when it comes to today's prompt, I'm running out of time and am simply irrefutably stupid." Aziraphale leaned back in his chair in a posture of despair, and flung his pen at the wall, where it stuck, vibrating.

"Now look here!" Crowley exclaimed, striding across the room in mock anger. Upon reaching Aziraphale's chair, he straddled his lanky legs until he was low enough to seize his face, and with both hands gently tilt it until their eyes met. "Angel," Crowley asserted, a wayward scarlet curl bouncing down to brush Aziraphale's forehead, "you're the smartest person I know. Now," as abruptly as he had come, Crowley straightened up again, and retrieved the pen from the wall, thrusting it at Aziraphale, "pick up a pen, start writing."

Doubtfully, Aziraphale took the implement. Crowley strode to his chair beneath the window beside the desk, and collapsed into it, legs dangling over the side. He looked at Aziraphale expectantly.

"…are you just going to watch me?"

"Oh no no no, no of course not." Crowley seized a book at random from the closest shelf he could reach and opened it to the middle. "I'm just over here reading. Don't mind me."

Aziraphale snorted, but turned back to his abandoned page. Slowly, excruciatingly, the words began to come to him. Crowley flipped pages now and then. The clever programming inside the electric candles that lit the bookshop caused them to dim in imitation of melting real candles. The clock thought better of chiming the hour after Crowley glared at it with a few seconds to spare. Aziraphale began to make frustrated noises intermittently as he wrote, and the smooth passage of his pen over the paper began to be punctuated by scratches. Crowley jumped out of his chair, and pattered up the stairs. He had been gone for a few moments when Aziraphale gave in and screeched,

"Stupid!" at himself once more.

"Stoppiiiiiiiiiiit!" Came the remonstrance from upstairs, and Crowley re-emerged into the main floor, bearing a white angel-winged mug. He reached Aziraphale's elbow and held it out. "The power of hot chocolate compels you," he asserted, before returning to his chair. A dissatisfied slurp signaled Aziraphale's acceptance of the offering, and the productive sounds of his pen resumed. As the angel worked, Crowley did attempt to read the book, but he found the medieval Italian slow going. Just because he spoke every language in the world didn't mean he liked them all, especially the outdated ones. His eyes began to droop.

"YES!"

Crowley jerked awake, and saw Aziraphale leap from his seat in triumph, shaking some pages over his head.

"I've done it!" Aziraphale crowed, "and with time to spare!" He pointed at the nearest clock, which read 11:56pm.

"Well done, Angel!" Crowley grinned, absolutely pretending he had been awake the whole time. "I knew you could do it." Then a thought crossed his mind, and he was compelled to speak it. "But… how would anyone know if you were late? I mean, are you sharing these things with anyone?"

"Oh, my— you're right, of course, I have to post it for it to count! To the INTERNET!" Aziraphale whirled back to the desk, and stabbed at the power button of his ancient computer. It made some sounds like a very old and annoyed bear waking up from hibernation, and lit up with a progress bar that looked as though it might take a year to complete. Aziraphale wailed.

Crowley, meanwhile, slid from his chair and faceplanted to the floor.