To say that Aziraphale was aghast would have been the understatement of the century.

"Crowley! I can't believe it! This- this is despicable, how could you!"

There were tears in his eyes.

"Er. What?", said Crowley.

Judging from his confused expression he clearly had no idea what Aziraphale was talking about. Aziraphale held up the demon's bucket list accusingly and pointed at an item fairly far down.

It said: Win Pandemic on hard mode

"This isn't a game, Crowley!"

"Uh, yeah it is", said Crowley, still trying to understand what the Heaven Aziraphale was going on about.

"Did you put Pestilence up to this? Is that why they came out of retirement? People are dying, Crowley, I can't believe you would do this!"

The Penny finally dropped. Crowley sighed.

"No, angel, it's literally a game. Here, look."

He whipped out his mobile phone, made a few mysterious [1] wiping motions on the screen and then showed it to Aziraphale.

"It's just a game, angel", Crowley repeated softly. "You play a disease and try to wipe out humanity. It has nothing to do with the current situation."

Aziraphale stared at it.

"But... that's terrible!", he blurted out.

"Thanks. I got a commendation for it", said Crowley proudly.

The angel tut-tutted disapprovingly.

"Really, my dear", he chided Crowley gently, "Don't you think this is a little tasteless, even for you?"

"Oy, I made this years ago!", Crowley defended himself. "It's not like I knew we were due for an actual pandemic. They don't exactly tell me these things, you know."

"It's one of yours then?"

"Ugh, I guess? Maybe? I don't know. Honestly, who can even tell at this point."

Aziraphale conceded the point with a soft snort and turned his attention towards the game; tapping somewhat clumsily on the screen. A few months ago Crowley had finally dragged the angel kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century and persuaded him to replace his antique flip phone with a modern smartphone, but Aziraphale still didn't quite feel at home with the new technology. While he had worked out how to use his to his satisfaction, he had yet to grasp the concept that they all worked by and large the same way and therefore treated any device that wasn't his own with a healthy dose of suspicion. The game, however, was intuitive enough even for the luddite angel.

"Hm. I see", he said. "Well, this seems pretty straightforward. There are different illnesses and different settings of difficulty and you want to win it on 'hard mode', am I getting this right?"

Crowley swore he could hear the quotes. He rolled his eyes when Aziraphale wasn't looking.

"Yeah. Haven't for any of them yet, though. The stupid buggers never send their ships to Greenland", he groused.

"You can pick the country you start in though, can't you?", said Aziraphale thoughtfully.

"Yeah? So?"

"So just pick Greenland."

"Oh come on now!", protested Crowley. "That's cheating, that is!"

Aziraphale looked up bewilderedly.

"Really? Why?", he asked. "It's an allowed option."

"Nggg it just is, alright?", said Crowley, squirming under the angel's questioning gaze. "It's a matter of pride. Besides, there's still Madagascar", he added.

"Huh", said Aziraphale. "Oh well. Mind if I have a try?"

Crowley shrugged.

"Sure", he said. "Knock yourself out."

.

.

"You really are a bastard, do you know that?", grumbled Crowley. "Only a right bastard could win this. I bet you cheated and used Greenland."

"Oh, do get over yourself, will you", huffed Aziraphale. "It's not like this was hard."

"It's literally called hard mode, angel! Now shows me how you did that for fuck's sake or I'll never treat you to a cheesecake ever again!"

"Goodness. And here I thought you knew your way around 'computer viruses' ", said Aziraphale lightly.

Crowley squinted at him, trying to figure out if he was being had or not. The angel smiled at him. His face betrayed absolutely nothing.

.

.

[1] To Aziraphale at least