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Aziraphale stared in baffled dismay at the blinking red light on his new handheld telephone. The screen bore an image of a rectangular bar with a thin red line across one end — that, apparently, being the only thing the abruptly recalcitrant object was willing to muster.
He pushed the On/Off button a few more times, futilely. He shook the device around in the air. He set it down on the desk, put his hands on his hips, and gave it a good, stern talking-to.
No matter what he did, the dreadful object simply refused to turn on.
He had just graduated to cussing at his phone in Sumerian when Crowley sauntered into the bookshop, then stopped, taking in the unexpected scene that confronted him.
“Hey. What’s up, angel?”
“This,” Aziraphale said ominously, jabbing an accusatory finger at the telephonic failure lying insensate on his desk, “is down.”
Crowley stepped closer, following the angel’s gaze, and reached out to pick up the phone. He pressed the On button, and the blinking icon reappeared.
“Ah,” he said, and nodded.
“‘Ah,’ that’s all you have to say?” Aziraphale glared at him. “Two weeks I’ve had this absurd, overcomplicated machine you talked me into using! Two weeks! And here it is, already broken! It won’t do anything other than show me that dull picture. Is that supposed to be modern art? This never used to happen with my old telephone. I knew this was a mistake, I told you it was, you just can’t trust any of this newfangled technology…”
“Whoa, whoa. Easy there.” Crowley put a hand on the angel’s shoulder. “It isn’t broken, angel. It’s just out of battery.”
“What?”
“That picture with the red line means there’s no battery life left. You just need to plug it in.[1] The phone came with a cable, it’s probably buried under Bibles or something. We’ll find it.” He pushed the key to summon the display again. “You said you’ve had this on for two weeks? The real miracle is that it lasted so long in the first place.”
“I didn’t do any miracles,” Aziraphale said. It occurred to him, belatedly, that he could probably have fixed this current problem with a miracle, if he’d thought of it. But anyway, he’d always have known the problem had been there.
“No, but it’s a smart phone. It was probably trying extra hard because it wanted to make you happy.” The demon’s expression went soft. “Trust me, I know what that’s like.”
“...Oh. Well.” Aziraphale blinked, the sudden change in tone having caught him off guard. “Well, I must say, you… you do a much better job of making me happy than this thing.”
The demon grinned. “Somehow, I get the feeling that’s a pretty low bar right now.”
“It is,” Aziraphale conceded. “And you gave me the thing, so that’s a serious point against you too at the moment. But even so. You still” — he flushed at the audacity of the declaration he was about to make — “make me very happy.”
“Oh. Mrgh.” It was the demon’s turn to be taken aback by the moment of sentimentality.
They looked at each other for a moment, sharing small smiles. Aziraphale found himself incapable of properly maintaining his previous bad mood with regard to the telephone. It was odd how Crowley could himself be immensely annoying when he wanted to be (and occasionally even when he didn’t want to be)... and yet, his presence always seemed to smooth over other annoyances.
“Anyway,” Crowley said finally, and cleared his throat. “Your phone is fine. I’ll show you how to plug it in so this doesn’t happen again. But in the meantime…”
He lifted the phone, held it to his lips, and breathed gently on it, just as he had once breathed life into a dead dove.
There was a moment of suspenseful silence. Then the phone vibrated, played a short tune, and the screen lit up.
Crowley handed it back with a flourish. “One resurrection complete. It’s a good thing you taught me how to do that for the Arrangement. Now, let’s go figure out where that charging cable went. What do you say to dinner afterwards?”