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[oldbookshop]

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[oldbookshop]

[ Aziraphale could get huffy with Crowley for being the meanest and rudest, or he could feel very vindicated that he's now doubly right because aha, Crowley is laughing. And Crowley has a nice laugh. It always reminds Aziraphale of ducks, which is a net positive. ]

I dare say you've dabbled, yes. [ One or two. Indeed. ] Not to worry. Secret's safe with me.

[ Crowley twee about shorthand, confirmed (not confirmed literally at all). ]

[demonicmiracle]

So I've no need to worry about you sending word back to Hell that I've dabbled?

[Things that he didn't intend to sound like a euphemism but do kind of sound like a euphemism.]

[oldbookshop]

[ Pff. ]

Your hypothetical dabbling is very much not their business. I established that with all due panache.

[ Swoopy hand gesture. For the panache. ]

Dreadful conversationalists, anyway. You ought to be able to dabble to your heart's content in privacy.

[ As long as it lasts. But. No point thinking about it like that, really, no point. Not even in the same reality as that anymore at the moment. ]

[demonicmiracle]

[Oh, there he goes. The laughter that spills out of Crowley startles him a bit, honestly, but he can't help it when Aziraphale runs with the accidental euphemism that he's created and makes it worse.]

You can't talk like that in Santa's house, angel!

[oldbookshop]

[ ????

??????

Oh for fuck's sake. ]

Then don't listen like that in Santa's house, you menace!

[demonicmiracle]

Oh, it's my fault, is it?

[It is absolutely his fault, he's the one who started all this, back on a wall several thousand years ago.]

Blame the demon for everything, hm? That's how it's going to be?

[Aziraphale should throw him out.]

[oldbookshop]

I'm blaming you entirely. Wholeheartedly. Absolutely ridiculous, of all the--

[ It's so unfair. Aziraphale can try to lay out a trail of proverbial verbal rose petals for Crowley to no avail, but Heaven forbid he stumble into an accidental double entendre.

HUFF. ]

You know perfectly well what I really meant.

[demonicmiracle]

[At some later point he's going to realize he was just making masturbation jokes with Aziraphale, of all people, and is going to go bright red and need to have a lie down.

But that's later. Right now he's focused on being a menace.]

You've gone properly native, you have. Talking in double speak.

[oldbookshop]

If you're looking at comedy as a first new hobby, I suggest you look harder. You may just find it eventually.

[ He's so mad that he doesn't have a newspaper he can flick to be a dramatic bitch right now. That would really sell it. ]

[demonicmiracle]

[If Aziraphale's plan was to distract Crowley, it's a rousing success.]

Now there's an idea, I've plenty of material for a stand up routine. You reckon humans want to hear jokes about Hell?

[Please.

He's being stupid.]

[oldbookshop]

[ Plan? No. Has he benefited nonetheless? Yes. ]

You could probably net a few. [ He's known humans who would think it was a laugh riot. ] Maybe a bit inaccessible large-scale, though.

[demonicmiracle]

Too many in-jokes, I suppose.

[Humans would definitely find some of it funny, he's known plenty of them to be fond of morbid humor.]

I'll have to keep up the search.

[For a hobby, since apparently they've circled back around to that, and he can be okay with discussing it when it's kind of a joke.]

[oldbookshop]

A Sisyphean task if ever there was one. Not in misery, but in timeline.

[ He does a jazz hand for the nth time. He's going to be so respectful and not pushy about it. He's so powerful and restrained because there's plenty of time and so, so many options for Crowley to explore.

Humans are lovely like that. More things than anyone could possibly try or learn, and always coming up with something new. ]

I'll be keeping you updated on my embroidery when it gets underway, of course.

[ 100% literally going to put something so lopsided it's nigh unrecognizable on a handkerchief for Crowley and be So Excited to give it to him. And then probably forget about it as a hobby for twenty years. ]

[demonicmiracle]

Well, now you've gone and jinxed it.

[It's only a tease, but clearly evoking Sisyphus is a terrible idea when talking about completing a task.

He'll figure something out, of course, if only because it's Aziraphale that suggested it and Crowley doesn't want to disappoint him.

Yet another thing he's not going to think too hard about.]

Any ideas for your first project?

[oldbookshop]

I would never.

[ You just did but go off king, try to make that a flirt. ]

Oh, one or two. Possibly. Nothing elaborate to start. Just got to get into the swing of the basics first. Learn to make lines and all that. The "proper way."

[demonicmiracle]

[Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you squint) Aziraphale is capable of making anything a flirt when it comes to Crowley.]

I think they make kits now, with all the thread and some patterns and what have you. Must make it a lot easier to get started.

[He's already mentally starting an Amazon wishlist.]

[oldbookshop]

Do they?

[ That's delightful. Color him delighted. He loves when he thinks about how humans are always turning out something new and then he hears about something new they've done within five minutes. ]

Oh, that's nifty, isn't it? I hadn't really thought to see what haberdashers are up to lately.

[ Making things easier for beginners, apparently. Good for them! ]

[demonicmiracle]

[Internally, Crowley does a whole series of dramatic gestures as he weighs up whether to say what he wants to say, because it might be Too Much but it's also Aziraphale, who kind of seems to like it when he helps?]

I could — you know — help you look for some. If you'd like. Might be easier online for the moment.

[Wailing and gnashing of teeth etc etc.]

[oldbookshop]

[ All that wailing and gnashing of teeth and for what. For Aziraphale to look like his brain is only made of pleased exclamation points about it. Quality time AND he wouldn't have to be the one trying to figure out an internet??? Be still his technically unnecessary but still-beating heart.

In a very reserved, austere way, of course. ]

Would you?

[demonicmiracle]

[This is the exact response he was after, and yet he still fusses about it, at least internally, because it makes him feel all sorts of things he's trying very hard not to feel.]

Sure. [Like his heart isn't doing little pitter-patters about it.] Someone has to make sure you don't end up getting scammed, the internet's a dangerous place.

[oldbookshop]

[ And so once again... love wins. ]

I'd like that. These things are-- [ He leans back a little and makes an exaggerated hmm sort of a noise about it. ] Well, very much not my forte.

[ By his own choice. But you know. ]

Thank you in advance for the chivalry. [ He will thank him in real-time too. The open thanking economy is much better than it was a few months back, he thinks. ]

[demonicmiracle]

[Could he tease Aziraphale about being terrible with technology? Yes. But instead he's going to tease him about thanking Crowley, because that's the part that makes him uncomfortable.]

The definition of chivalry's changed a lot, has it?

[He's not being chivalrous, obviously.]

[oldbookshop]

These things do like to expand their borders over time. Gone a bit 'eye of the beholder,' perhaps?

[ Things he is willing to say in blatant interest of letting Crowley have plausible deniability without personally walking it back, should he so desire. ]

[demonicmiracle]

That's a surprising statement from someone who used to be an actual proper knight.

[Teasing Aziraphale really is the best alternative to acknowledging that he's doing something nice.]

[oldbookshop]

I'm still a proper knight. Technically. They never revoked it.

[ Ah yes, the best way to be anything. Technically. ]

If anything, I imagine that makes me an authority on the matter.