There was another rumble coming from the sky, and Aziraphale glanced up out of the window just in time to see a bright bolt of violent lightning cut through the rain. He shivered and and looked back down at his book; the sentences and paragraphs on the aged paper were his form of escapism. However, it was difficult to concentrate on the words when there was such a constant tapping of the cold, heavy rain against the thin window.
The rain poured in thick, frequent drops, and the clouds were dense and dark when not being lit up by flashes of electricity which the humans had named lightning. The fire in the cosy bookshop was flaming away, heat radiating off it and stopping the outside cold from seeping in from outside.
Aziraphale, who's eyes had once again strayed from the slow moving book, stared out at the unpleasant world, and was quite grateful to be inside. He thought back to the first ever storm, back in Eden, when he had sheltered Crowley with his wing. It was somewhat hard to believe that the angel and sleeping demon in the bookshop in this storm were the same as the ones in the storm in Eden. 6000 long years had passed, and many things had changed, although not their love for each other - even if it was expressed in different ways now. The angel absent minded-ly stroked his fingers along the sleeping snake's smooth scales.
The serpent wrapped around his neck was large and black, and very impressive. Each scale was perfect, none were uneven or loose, and everything down to the breath was strong and regular. Crowley's eyelids hid his fiery eyes, which were fearsome and stern, and glareful. Crowley rather enjoyed striking fear into people's lives, but Aziraphale could see through his demonic ways and find the kind Crowley that he loved so much underneath.
The demon right now, however, was not so fearsome, more... cute, as his small tongue hissed occasionally between breathes. The Principality smiled endearingly at him, before being distracted by another strike of lightning in the sky. He wondered why the weather was so terrible, but concluded that it was simply because this was England.
He was sitting on the small sofa in his shop, which was currently positioned near to the large window, with the serpent wrapped tightly around him. He enjoyed Crowley's company, even when he was in snake form. Aziraphale put his book to one side, officially giving up on trying to read it, and gazed out the glass window, which framed the weather. It felt cosy when he was inside and the weather was out.
As you might guess, all he saw was the rain against the window, and rain splashing in the puddles, and rain falling quickly through the air. No one was outside, because no one was crazy enough to go outside. Why on Earth would anyone leave their homes in weather like this? It wouldn't even bare thinking about. Across the road was a few other shops, but all curtains were drawn and blinds were fully closed. There was nothing interesting to see, so, instead, he reverted back to stroking the snake, hoping not to wake him, but to relax him.
Crowley hissed lightly in thanks, since he was already awake (how could he sleep through all this thunder and lightning?), but he was dozing as much as he could. The surroundings were loud with rain and the crackling of the fire, but otherwise, there was no other sound. It was peaceful in a way that was cosy. Until there was a splash from outside.
Aziraphale and Crowley both simultaneously looked up at the large window and saw a little area at the bottom where water had been thrown at it. The splat of water faded away within seconds as more falling rain covered it and washed it away.
How odd, they both thought. They wouldn't expect anyone to be outside to cause that splash in this type of weather. Crowley dismissed it and leaned his small head back down on his angel's shoulder. Aziraphale went back to examining the snake's beautiful scales upon seeing that Crowley didn't care. He always felt a little safer and surer when Crowley didn't care about it or agreed with him. Whoever had been there seemed to be gone.
"Hey!" Yelled a voice, which appeared in the window backing away from someone, although in a fun way, not a threatening one. The angel and demon inside the shop briefly examined him - he seemed to be a man, although it was hard to tell any other features through the soaking raincoat he was wearing other than the fact he was tall. He put his hands up to shield his face from another splash from someone else they couldn't see before kicking a puddle to splash the person back.
The other person appeared in the large window, they were much shorter and their coat was much blacker than the other's, which was a light grey. They kicked another puddle powerfully, sending water flying through the air towards to man.
They were completely soaked in freezing cold winter rain, and whether they were enjoying themselves or not Aziraphale was an angel and had to be kind and polite. The serpent hissed more aggressively when he stood up and made his way to the door, which decided to unlock itself very coincidentally. He opened the door, but stayed well inside the dry of his shop. The man splashed the shorter person again (luckily not one bit of water ruined Aziraphale's coat) before he realised the angel's presence and turned to face him.
"Sorry to bother you but you don't want to come inside do you? It is frightfully wet and cold out here." He said, as polite as ever. Crowley hissed at them for interrupting his time with Aziraphale and glared at them, feeling like he recognised them but couldn't quite work out where from. The smaller figure was completely hidden under a hood that was too big for them, but he had the odd feeling that they were smirking at his hiss.
"No thank you Aziraphale." Said the taller one in a voice they both recognised.
"Gabriel? Whatever are you doing?" Aziraphale exclaimed, surprised but still trying to stay polite — what was he if not polite?
"Bit of time out of Heaven once in a while doesn't do any harm... or much at least." He was surprisingly honest in his answer, but that was because he was in a good mood.
"Oh." Aziraphale replied, lost for what to say next. He noticed Crowley staring intently at something, and followed his gaze to land on the smaller and darker figure.
"We should... be off." Gabriel said, and the Principality he was talking to could guess the false-nice and sarcastic smile he was wearing.
Aziraphale smiled politely in response but couldn't help but wonder who the other person was and why Gabriel was there. The small figure with him hadn't spoken and seemed to be sulking in some way, or just didn't want to speak. In a strange way, they kind of reminded him of Crowley, who was currently slunk around his neck barely tolerating this. That was something; Gabriel would be wondering why there was a black snake around his neck. Maybe that would explain why he was still standing awkwardly at the door.
"Oh, er, about, umm," Aziraphale stuttered, before gesturing to Crowley.
"Oh, yeah, okay, I won't tell anyone if you don't." Gabriel said, before glancing at the other person and leaving. "Come on Bee." He said to 'Bee'. Aziraphale was left standing in his doorway utterly confused, looking like a madman. Crowley hissed even more aggressively at the departured beings. The small figure had followed and a buzzing which had been in the background left, although Aziraphale had strangely not noticed it when it had been there.
"That was odd." He said aloud to Crowley as he went back into the shop and shut the door behind him.
"Odd?!" Crowley repeated turning into his human form, though still around Aziraphale's shoulders which made him overbalance a little. "Angel, that was more than odd! Odd would be an understatement for that." He said, stepping onto the floor much to Aziraphale's disappointment.
"Oh." Aziraphale mumbled, rather feeling like he was missing something. "Who was the person with him?" He asked, hoping that that was it, and also that he wasn't making himself sound completely stupid.
"Beelzebub!" He exclaimed, his own confusion suddenly reflecting in the angel.
"What? Really?" Aziraphale was unsure whether it was really true. It couldn't be, could it? He suddenly had an urge to glance out the window even though the two were long gone by now. "Oh, so is that what he meant by the 'he won't tell if we don't' business?" It suddenly made a lot more sense... except it really didn't. It was pushing it enough for an angel and demon to be friends (or maybe more, but neither would ever dare say it in case anyone found out; by now, it was generally accepted they were friends, so friends they could pretend to be) but for an Archangel and a Prince of Hell, or a Lord to even just not be full on enemies was completely off the scale of mad.
Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale could see that his eyes were probably very wide underneath his shades. It was rather sad, the demon thought, that there had been such an interesting turn of events, (or discovery would be better, he never could decide on what words to use since there were just so many) because it meant that, now, a perfectly nice evening would probably be spent talking about it instead of relaxing in front of the fire... or maybe other things, who was to say?
"Whatever angel," he said casually, trying to grab the attention of the angel who was now overthinking it greatly. "Let's have some wine, shall we?" He said in his most tempting voice, although he knew Aziraphale probably wouldn't need tempting, and miracling up a bottle.
He never really knew what he would miracle up, so he started examining the bottle in his hand, sitting down on the sofa while he did so. Aziraphale sat beside him, so he opened the bottle, and they spent the next few hours drinking, like they had done many times before. Some things never change.
A/N
Wtf is my obsession with the ineffable husbands finding out about the ineffable bureaucracy?! I mean, seriously... anyway sooooooooo sorry for how slow the updates have been recently. This took ages to type because I broke my phone (although I literally just had the thought that I could've done it on my computer) I'm hopefully getting it fixed later today.
Here it is in case you care lol, say hi to my cat in the background. It doesn't even look as bad as it is here because it's turned off. I'm so stupid I dropped it when I was running lol.
Just asking, but the people who are reading this, do you prefer ineffable husbands or ineffable bureaucracy because I can write more of it or do requests if you want sooo..... anyway bye (word count: 1887) also sorry if there are any typos I can barely see what I'm typing.