It was nice, getting a little break from jet setting like this. Travelling the world was all well and good, but there was more to a bucket list than country hopping. Like cooking, for example.
Item #69 on Crowley's bucket list: Learn how to make the perfect coq au vin. [1]
The demon was proud to say that after several weeks of cookbooks, Youtube tutorials and plain old trial and error he considered his creations good enough to be eaten. Specifically good enough to be eaten by Aziraphale and that was a high standard indeed, for it was one of the angel's favourite dishes.
Crowley had invited Aziraphale over for dinner tonight at his temporarily re-inhabited flat. The angel was not due to arrive for another hour however, which gave Crowley plenty of time to sing along to Spotify at the top of his voice while he was cooking.
„I see what's happening here", Crowley hummed to himself as he was cutting the carrots, „Face to face with greatness and it's strange... You don't even know how you feel. It's adorable! Well it's nice to see that humans never change!"
Crowley grabbed a heap assortment of carrot peel and end pieces and threw it into the general direction of the bin, then brushed the second heap of orderly cut pieces from the cutting board into a waiting bowl.
„Open your eyes, let's begin", he sang, reaching for a large yellow onion. He tossed it playfully into the air - „Yes, it's really me, it's Crowley, breathe it in!" - and caught it with his other hand, already peeled.
The onion was cut in half and then expertly massacred into hair thin slices.
„Yes I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod!" – Crowley grinned to himself and shimmied – „When you're staring at a demigod!", he belted out at top volume.
Once he was done with the onion it too wandered into a bowl; ready to be sautéd.
„Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome! I'm just an ordinary demon guy", Crowley kept singing.
From carrots and onion he moved on to the mushrooms and bacon, before he – still happily shimmying – turned on the stove and put a generous helping of butter in the pan he had prepared.
„What's the lesson? What is the takeaway?", Crowley rapped along, word perfect. „Don't mess with Crowley when he's on a breakaway!" He used the butter knife to gesticulate menacingly at the cutting board, which immediately became sparkling clean again. „And the tapestry here in my skin is a map of the victories I win!"
Drumming his fingers on the counter Crowley looked at his phone for the time and then his check list. He didn't really need one anymore, but having one made him slightly less anxious. He was cooking for Aziraphale after all. „Look where I've been I make everything happen!", he sang, happy to see that everything was going according to plan, „Look at that tiny cool Crowley just tippity-tapping!"
With a grin and a flourish Crowley snapped his fingers at the abandoned butter knife, causing it to spontaneously break into an amusing tap dance with a fork. He swung around and reached for the flour.
„Hello, dear."
There was no record scratch. There should have been one by all accounts: Crowley had stopped so abruptly dead in his tracks that the flour bag's leftover momentum very nearly took it out of his hand and sailing through the kitchen door.
„Angel!"
„Hello", said Aziraphale again. He was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and looking at Crowley with a disgustingly fond expression. His eyes briefly flicked down to the apron Crowley was wearing, lips curling into an amused expression and Crowley felt suddenly very self-conscious about it. The apron was black and said 'kiss the cock' on the front in great big letters. It had seemed funny when he had bought it.
„...How long have you been standing there?", he asked, afraid of the answer.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson continued to serenade in the background.
„Oh, just a couple minutes, my dear", replied Aziraphale. "Didn't want to disturb you."
The angel was still looking at him with that pesky combination of adoring and amused. Even worse, he was cheerfully bobbing his head in time with the tune.
„You weren't supposed to be here until seven", said Crowley sullenly, putting down the flour.
„You said dinner was at seven", Aziraphale pointed out. „I thought I'd come by a bit earlier. Watch you cook."
The demon rolled his eyes.
"Fine", he grunted and waved a hand at his non-existing speakers.
"You're welcome, you're welc-", sang Dwayne before he was brutally cut off mid-word.
„Oh no, this was really catchy, my dear!", said Aziraphale with obvious disappointment, having been conducting an invisible orchestra with his finger for the last few beats, "Feel free to keep it on! You do have such a lovely singing voice, dear.""
The angel then raised his eyebrows and smiled at Crowley in a way so carefully crafted to look innocent and devoid of any trace of smugness that it made Crowley immediately suspicious.
"I wasn't aware that you were such a fan of animated films."
Crowley growled and shooed Aziraphale out of the kitchen.
.
[1] This had initially been item number fourteen, but then sixty-nine had turned out to be the rather boring resolution to „finally read Anna Karenina for someone's sake this is getting embarrassing" (He had started the novel in 1873, when it had first come out but never finished it). Crowley had skimmed through his list, snickered like a schoolboy when he found number fourteen and immediately switched their respective places on the list.