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This one is their third trip up north in as many days. Aziraphale has insisted, every single time, that they do not need to get a room, no thank you, he has what he needs now. That was the last time, really. They wouldn't need to drive back to Scotland again, he promises.
So--every time--after driving seven bloody hours to Edinburgh and seven bloody hours back--Crowley has dropped the angel off at his, the man's arms absolutely laden with more books than they went to the Festival to retrieve. Every time, Aziraphale dithers for a moment, Crowley waits patiently, and then drives off with hardly a word good night.
Every time, he gets back to his flat, shucks off his shoes--at least the first night--and miracles himself into pyjamas. He falls into bed. It's nearly two AM. He is, perhaps, floating on a cloud, absently daydreaming about the way Aziraphale's smiles seem to beam through the man's whole corporeal form, rippling through his shoulders, lighting up his eyes...
Then the phone buzzes.
Crowley rolls over, buries his head in the pillow, and swears.
He answers. Of course he answers.
"Right, buying the mobile was a mistake for you, I see that now."
"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry. Were you asleep?"
"Not yet."
"It's just that I was on the World Wide Web Site--"
"Oh lord."
"--and there's this volume of--"
"You said it was the last time."
"Oh," says Aziraphale, in a pout that Crowley just knows is entirely feigned, "you're right, I'm overstepping, aren't I? I'm sorry. It's just that this is the last day of the festival, and I don't know where I'd be able to find this particular volume--"
Crowley makes a noise which does not, in any language either divine or human, mean I'm putting on my shoes and already heading to yours and we'll be there by nine AM, but Aziraphale got the gist.
"Oh, thank you, dear. You didn't have to do this, you know. Any of it."
"Neh," said Crowley, which means I know and I am anyway and I love you despite your innate bastardry inconveniencing me every damn year when the book festival happens. It also means you deserve to be an inconvenience and you deserve to be a bastard, which is why I will drive you up and down the entire damn country for eternity to encourage this behavior.
It does not mean I also secretly enjoy our weird road trips and suspect you are working up to, one day, asking me to stay with you in the room I know you secretly booked because you don't delete your browsing history, but the first eight words, at least, are understood well enough.
He heads downstairs.
Last week he left a Vivaldi cassette in the car, just for the occasion.