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Crowley found Aziraphale in the kitchen, staring blankly out at the rainswept garden. The electric kettle had turned itself off long enough ago to be cold again, and the teapot stood, still empty, beside it.
“What are you hearing, angel?” Crowley kept his voice light and quiet, threading it through what was most likely a flashback of some sort rather than just jostling Aziraphale out of it. His angel didn’t take kindly to being jostled in this state.
“The rain,” Aziraphale whispered. “On the roof of the ark.”
Ah. It was going to be one of those days. Crowley pressed his shoulder carefully against Aziraphale’s and waited.
A few minutes later, Aziraphale pressed back.
Crowley looped an arm around his angel’s back. “I think it’s time for a quiet night in, in the study, right?” When they bought the cottage, they turned the ‘study’ into a place that both of them felt safe. For Aziraphale, that meant plenty of books, a comfy armchair or two, and no windows for sunlight to enter and damage said books. For Crowley, that meant no open flames, a sofa long enough to sprawl out on, and no television or radio. (Nothing that Hell could hijack. His phone was safe enough, so far) Wards ensured that nobody else could enter the room. If they wanted to host in a book-filled room, they went to the ‘library’ which was open to all.
Aziraphale frowned, head turning slowly towards Crowley. “But we were going to go to that wine tasting tonight,” he said. “You’ve been looking forward to it.”
“Eh, there will be other wine tastings.” Crowley miracled up a glass of something that called itself wine, but tasted foul and had a kick like an entire mule-train. He handed the glass to Aziraphale who drank it straight down with questioning or complaining.
Which... On the one hand, Crowley was glad that Aziraphale trusted him enough to actually do that, and that Aziraphale felt safe enough with him to not pretend he was fine, but on the other, it revealed just how out of it Aziraphale was right now. Not that a mere one or even two glasses of even this stuff would do more for them than blunt the sharpest edges of memory.
Ugh, he thought, steering them both into the study, and pulling Aziraphale down onto the sofa beside him, the things I do because I love this angel of mine.
He ran down his mental list of tasks.
Get them both somewhere safe? Check.
Block the sound of the rain? He snapped his fingers. Check.
Refill Aziraphale’s glass. A flick of the fingers. Check.
Hold Aziraphale’s hand to ground them both. Check.
He pulled his phone from thin air, slouched deeper into the cushions, and occupied himself on social media. It took just under an hour, before his angel’s hand tightened around his, and his angel’s gaze actually focused on the wine he had been mechanically sipping.
“That,” he said, in something approaching his normal tone, “is appalling. Where did you come across it?”
“Ehh, somewhere on the continent,” Crowley replied. He was pretty sure it was Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition years, but those memories were hazy for a reason. He took the glass from Aziraphale, who was all too willing to relinquish it, and drained the remaining wine. “There, now we both have appalling taste.”
Azirphale pressed a kiss to Crowley’s temple, right on the head of his snake tattoo. “Except,” he corrected primly, “for our taste in partners.”
“Point.”
Aziraphale sighed, leaned in, and rested his chin on Crowley’s shoulder. “Dare I ask what you’re doing?”
Crowley grinned, sharp and vicious, then turned his head just enough to press a kiss of his own against the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Trolling bigots.”
Aziraphale blinked. “Beg pardon?”
“Making nasty people angry,” Crowley translated. “Want to join in? I’m sure you could justify some of these as righteous.”
“Oh?” Aziraphale's eyebrows darted upward. "In what way?"
Crowley flicked one thumb across Aziraphale’s knuckles and the other across his phone screen as he picked out some options. Trolling bigots had been one of the fastest and easiest ways to fill his wrath quota pre-retirement, not to mention it was fun to see how fast he could make them dissolve into spluttering rants. “These ones claim that the only form of ableism is insulting someone’s disability to their faces. These ones think they can’t possibly be bigoted in any way because they’re‘nice people’. And these ones are quite happy to destroy the lives of an entire minority as long as they get to celebrate their favourite book.”
Aziraphale hummed, gaze momentarily going distant again before he shook himself out of it. “I think this time,” he said, “I am simply going to - not thwart your wiles. I will be content to watch. You know I am not much for your unsociable media.”
“Social media, angel.” Crowley pressed his shoulder against his angel’s. “And you know that books are a kind of media too.”
“Yes, but books are printed.” There was a small, mischievous smile lurking on Aziraphale’s lips. “Although you are quite right, I prefer my old books to this new unprintable media.”
Crowley rolled his eyes and allowed himself an amused huff. “Now I know you’re playing up the ignorance. Bastard angel of mine.”
“You like that about me.”
“Could say the same of a lot of things about you.”
Aziraphale huffed his own laugh and let go of Crowley’s hand long enough to summon a bottle of good wine and a couple of clean glasses, He poured for both of them and then nestled back against Crowley’s side.
Crowley took his own glass, letting their fingers brush as he did so, and half-manifested a wing. It curled around Aziraphale’s shoulders, phasing through the sofa where necessary.
Then, mindful of the angel literally watching over him (over his shoulder), he used his oldest and most infuriating technique on the bigots.
He told them to be kind to others.