Gentlemen
by V

 

Crowley had turned up again around 1907, looking greatly refreshed and equally out of date.

"Where have you been?" Aziraphale asked. He'd seen neither head nor tail of Crowley (though he usually managed to keep the latter hidden, anyway) for nearly a century, which was a previously unheard of phenomenon. And Aziraphale couldn't remember a time when breeches like that were in style-- but then, it had been a rather chaotic century.

"Asleep," Crowley replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Asleep?" said Aziraphale. "But I thought evil never--"

"That is a common misconception," Crowley interrupted.

"Indeed?" Aziraphale was not impressed by this news, but then, Crowley seldom did impress him.

"Indeed," said Crowley. "The chaps Downstairs seem not to have realised it, though. You ought see the reports they've left for me."

"It was a busy century," Aziraphale murmured. He looked at Crowley. "But you ought to invest in a proper suit, now that you're awake. You look dreadful. They'll never let you into the gentlemen's club looking like that."

Crowley raised his eyebrows. "Gentlemen's club?"

Aziraphale patted the chesterfield. "You've missed a fair bit."

Crowley reluctantly sat down beside him. "Aziraphale," he said, in an uncharacteristically reasonable tone. "They invented gentlemen's clubs and you didn't bother to wake me up?"

"How was I to know you were asleep?" asked Aziraphale. He smoothed out a wrinkle in Crowley's trousers, just over the curve of his knee. "And if I had known you would turn up looking like this, I doubt that I would have bothered."

Crowley scowled. "What's wrong with it?"

"Apart from everything?" Aziraphale said, almost blandly. "Nothing at all." He paused. "But they still won't let you into a gentlemen's club like that."

 

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