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“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s distressed shout had the demon leaping from their bed and racing down the stairs instantly.
“What? What is it?”
Crowley stumbled into the kitchen, hair in disarray, hastily donned shirt slipping from one shoulder. He looked very fetching, but for once Aziraphale failed to notice.
“Crowley, that malodorous stench. Where is it coming from?”
The demon sniffed cautiously, frowning in annoyance. “A smell? Really? I thought you’d been struck down some terrible malady, screeching away like that.”
“I did not screech,” Aziraphale huffed, taking out his handkerchief and holding it dramatically in front of his nose. “Anyway, that smell is enough to make anyone feel ill. What is it?”
Eventually they tracked it to the drains. Crowley applied a quick miracle to ensure the pipes of the bookshop were sparklingly fresh and Aziraphale expressed his gratitude by taking him back to bed.
Crowley thought it had been worth the rude awakening after all, until they ventured downstairs later on and discovered the smell was back.
The problem was not the bookshop pipes at all — some inept humans digging up the street outside had done something to the sewage pipes, causing the nasty smell. Unfortunately, repairing it seemed to be beyond them.
“It’s not malicious, angel,” Crowley said wearily one evening, after Aziraphale had gone on another long, slightly drunken tirade, about how he was sure malfeasance in the local council was to blame for the whole debacle.
“It’s their malpractice which has caused the malpositioning of the pipes,” Aziraphale said firmly. Crowley wondered if he should try to explain that the local council were not the people who did the physical work on the pipes, but decided discretion was the better part of valour and merely topped up Aziraphale’s wine glass instead.
He was a demon. He was maleficent, not stupid.
Aziraphale became increasingly disgruntled by the whole thing — one might even have called him malcontent. Distressing smells as a means of preventing customers making a purchase were one thing, but malodorous emissions invading uninvited were quite another.
“It’s intolerable.” Aziraphale said one evening. “The odour was so strong this morning I couldn’t eat my croissant.”
“Unacceptable,” Crowley agreed, “we can’t have you becoming malnourished.”
Aziraphale glared, but Crowley hardly noticed. If the situation was interfering with Aziraphale’s enjoyment of food then enough was enough. He pulled out his phone.
“Angel,” he said later, when Aziraphale had flushed the toilet and run the taps to “wash through the drains” for the third time that evening. “I don’t wish to malign you in anyway, but don’t you think you’re becoming a little…obsessive? We’re not maladapted for the situation; why not turn off your sense of smell?”
Aziraphale huffed. “Because I don’t want to. I want to be able to smell nice things. You, for example.”
There was a pause while Crowley tried not to blush. Unfortunately the lack of answer only seemed to irritate Aziraphale further.
“Your malingering is infuriating. Doesn’t the smell annoy you?”
“I’m used to malodorous environments. Hell doesn’t exactly smell like a rose garden.”
Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Be that as it may, can’t you do something to help?”
“Like book us a cottage in the countryside to get away from the stench?”
“Well, yes. That would be…” Aziraphale trailed off, eyes narrowing as he glared at the infuriating demon. “Are you mocking me?”
“Nope.” Crowley sprang from the couch and made a grab for his discarded jacket. “Can’t have you feeling maltreated, angel. I’m whisking you away for a holiday filled with sun, sea, and other things beginning with S.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, earning him an eyeroll from Aziraphale.
“For goodness sake, Crowley.”
“What?” he squawked, feigning innocence. “I thought you’d be pleased!”
Aziraphale tried to look severe, but his expression was already softening.
“Oh, very well, I take back my comments about your malingering. A holiday will benefit us both.” Crowley looked smug, until Aziraphale added, “Just so long as that other S word isn’t smell.”