At the Ritz.

Crowley stood in the man made jungle of green, leafy plants who didn't know well enough to be afraid of him and surveyed his prey. The Bird of Paradise to his right seemed a bit flashy for a cottage on the shore, but the Lilacs to his left said things about his predicament that he wasn't quite comfortable voicing at that particular point in time. He wanted to just get an N. exaltata Piersoni like the ones he had back at the flat, but a new period in his life* seemed to warrant something wildly different from what he'd grown comfortable with over the last several years.

The most important thing though, was that it should be something that Aziraphale would like, and outside of books that cracked when you touched them and hadn't seen the light of day in roughly 100 years, he didn't know where to begin. To be honest, Bibles didn't make very good plants, even when willed into a new shape. He wandered aimlessly between the rows and absently felt the leaves with the tips of his fingers.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He looked up from his intense study of the soil in the pot of a Kalanchoe tubiflora and wiped his fingers on his trousers. The owner of the voice was short, very thin, very blonde, and looked to be no older than seventeen. He remembered that Alex bloke's suggestion that every time you bought a flower from a florist they sucked a little of your soul, and tried not to chuckle at the girl. She hardly looked capable of taking, or even tarnishing a soul. Not that he had one for it to be in peril anyway.

“I'm looking for a bit of a housewarming gift.”

She smiled brightly and a vein in the side of his neck twitched. He'd already been in enough trouble that day. Maybe if he kept telling himself that trouble was the reason he was there in the first place the urge would go away. Crowley clenched his teeth. She beamed up at him expectantly. It wasn't working.

The bell on the door clattered against the glass and signaled the arrival of another customer to the store front. “Oh, one moment,” she said, and scurried off around an end cap of small, potted palm trees. He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned back to studying the flower. It would probably do best to just ask Aziraphale what he liked, but then it wouldn't look as if he'd put forth any effort, and you didn't just snap at someone who had recently survived the Apocalypse without properly apologizing.

This would be so much easier if he'd just said what he was thinking eons ago instead of venting all his frustration to some stranger in a pub. Not that he'd intended for Aziraphale to ever find out about that. Crowley supposed that the next time he ought to instill more fear in his drinking companions before confiding in them. At least then they wouldn't make any incriminating statements in his presence. But the question that Aziraphale had asked him hung over his shoulder and wouldn't go away. It was something he'd been soundly avoiding answering for the better part of two hundred years. Did he?





*It now being half a year PA (Post Apocalypse) and roughly three days BC (Before Cohabitation).

Ligur knocked on the door, but there was no answer. "I don't think he's here.*"

"Not here?" Hastur said snidely. "We have not seen him for weeks, where else would he be but hiding in there with his bloody plants?"

"I think this might have something to do with it." Ligur pulled a thick, double beveled business card off of where it was neatly pinned on the door.




"That flash bastard!" Hastur spat on the carpet and turned on his heel.

"Hastur?" Ligur hesitated. He rubbed his fingers over the raised letters on the card while he thought. He had to admit, it really did have a nice feel.



*This was a relief to Ligur, who wasn't in any hurry to find out if there had been a holy water sprinkler system installed on the other side of the door. It made him a little nervouse being that close to the door as it was.

*takes a sip of his tea*
*looks into it disparagingly*
*the tea quivers and turns into wine*
*takes a sip of the wine*
*smiles*

Now where could the angel be?