A/N: Hello my darlings! :D This fic, once again, I have to blame on Lady Wallace for inspiring. The entire story is told from the point of view of Aziraphale's bookshop and the Bentley, which (unbeknownst to Aziraphale and Crowley) are totally sentient and rather good pals by now. Which is good, because keeping Azi and Crowley out of trouble is a LOT of work.

Multi chapter fic, I'll be posting on Thursdays and Mondays. A HUGE thank you to Aini NuFire, who was absolutely right that this was never going to stop at a oneshot XD

The bookshop had no memory of awakening. It was a gradual thing, but an unavoidable one. You couldn't be home to an angel for so many years without some of that miraculous magic infusing its way into the very bricks. But it wasn't just the miracles and general "angeliness." The first thing the bookshop was fully and completely aware of was a sense of the deepest, purest, most delighted love. Love from the angel. Love for the shop, for the books and the words, the tumbled coziness of the light chaos, and for the feeling of a hand-crafted home.

That was the love it woke to, imprinted in its first moments like a duckling to its mama, and so that was what the bookshop was made of.

At first, the bookshop had reciprocated with a rather surprised and questioning love in return (surprised because it had quite suddenly gone from being a fiercely non-sentient pile of bricks to a building that knew it was a building, and that would be a bit of a surprise for anyone). Over the years, though, it had progressed to a true and unequivocal adoration for its angel.

How could it not? One had only to meet Aziraphale to love him, the angel who handed out love so freely in return.

Quite unlike the other angels. The bookshop didn't like it when the other angels came to call. It hadn't been terribly thrilled with them even before that whole mess where they tried to end the world and the bookshop had gone up in flames (only to reawaken soon after, which was as much a surprise as the first occasion). They'd never treated Aziraphale very nicely, all condescension and impatience, and that had been before.

Now, it wasn't hard to figure out that the other angels considered Aziraphale a threat to the natural order and to Heaven in general. Or that they would rest much easier if said angel were to no longer be a problem for them. The bookshop did not like that.

It didn't like that at all.

"How are you living like this?" Uriel asked the bookshop's angel with a sneer, hands clasped behind her back as she strolled through the books as though she'd been invited.

Aziraphale didn't reply. The shop could tell he was no longer afraid of disobeying Heaven; that didn't mean the archangels themselves weren't still intimidating. Besides which, Sandalphon was standing right in front of Aziraphale with the dark, furious grin of a dog who'd been told not to attack but really, really wanted to. One wrong word might have him forgetting his orders.

"I mean, how do you live with the… stench?" Uriel went on, wrinkling her nose.

The bookshop metaphorically beamed with pride and pulled more noxious gases up from the ground beneath its foundations to leech into the room. It was a specialty of the shop's, having found long ago that it pleased the angel to no end when bad odors drove customers away.

"Gas leak," Aziraphale explained tersely. "Must have it seen to."

"You sure it's not that demon?" Sandalphon asked, fingers twitching. "Smells a little brimstoney."

"Yes, just where is your demon pet these days?" Uriel hummed, reaching out to brush her hand over the spines of a few books lining the shelves.

The shop shuddered. It didn't like her touch. It considered dropping a few heavy tomes from the upper shelves on her head, but they might blame Aziraphale for that and take it as an excuse to attack in retaliation.

Aziraphale pursed his lips together as Sandalphon sidled closer and nudged shoulders.

"Well?"

"Crowley isn't anyone's pet, least of all mine," Aziraphale said stiffly. "He comes and goes as he pleases. Haven't seen him in some time. Now if you'll excuse me-"

He made to move forward but Uriel was in front of him in a flash, cutting off his route to the door. "You're not excused yet," she murmured, nose almost brushing his. "I still have questions."

The bookshop seethed at the threatening treatment of its beloved angel, creaking and groaning with anger. If they even tried to harm Aziraphale, it was going to wrap them up in the area rug and drag them out the door itself.

"And I've told you," Aziraphale retorted. "He's not here."

"Then you won't mind if we look around."

It wasn't a question but the angel only quirked his brow and gestured for them to feel free. The shop happened to know the demon wasn't there at the moment. That luck was about to change, though. It felt through its foundations the rumbling of cars passing by on the pavement outside, but only one engine in all of Soho rumbled quite like that one.

Crowley was coming, and he couldn't be allowed to come in. The shop was rather fond of the snake-eyed demon it had long assumed was actually named Dearboy. It suspected these angels were going to do something… unfriendly.

With a light breeze, a strand of caution tape suddenly found itself fluttering across the front door. The Bentley would understand the warning.

Sure enough the familiar engine zoomed right on past the shop a second later, accompanied by the slight squeaking of brakes as though Dearboy was trying to stop and couldn't figure out why the pedal wasn't doing the thing the pedal always did when he pushed it.

Good, that bought a minute or two, but if Crowley was determined to stop at the bookshop then the Bentley wouldn't be able to put him off indefinitely. The shop turned its attention back to the angels.

"It's not too late, you know," Uriel was telling Aziraphale as Sandalphon started roaming the room in search of Dearboy. "You could still be welcomed back to Heaven."

"Somehow I doubt that," Aziraphale replied quietly. Somehow, the bookshop doubted it, too.

"Truly. Repent, give up this ridiculous dalliance with the demon, and all will be forgiven. Is he really worth all this?"

"You seem to be conveniently forgetting that you were prepared to destroy the world," Aziraphale frostily retorted. The shop's lights glowed warmer with pride in its angel. "Yes, I do believe it's worth it."

Sandalphon dragged a chair to a nearby bookcase and stood on it, reaching for a book on the top shelf and then tossing it over his shoulder so that it landed open, face down, bending the pages. He was smiling at Aziraphale. He looked like a weasel.

"Now really," Aziraphale protested, brows knitting together in consternation at the blatant mistreatment of the books. "Do you think anyone is hiding on the top shelf of a bookcase?"

"Better make sure, can't be too careful," Weasel Face replied smugly, tossing another book over his shoulder without even looking at the shelf, instead watching Aziraphale's distress.

"I should warn you, that chair tends to be a little-"

Aziraphale hadn't even finished before the shop enthusiastically picked up on the thought and broke the wooden chair to splinters. Weasel Face didn't have time to catch himself and fell heavily to the ground with an oomph of surprise among the broken pieces. The shop creaked with delight.

"-unstable," Aziraphale finished as Weasel Face leaped to his feet with crimson cheeks.

"You'll pay for that one," he seethed, storming back towards Aziraphale and grabbing him by the lapels of his coat.

Well, the bookshop certainly wasn't going to have any of that. Though the door didn't open, the front bell rang with a loud, cheerful ting. Even without any customers walking in, it seemed to do the trick of spooking the two unwanted guests. Weasel Face dropped his hands as Uriel sharply snapped,

"Sandalphon, let's go."

The two backed up, though Uriel was still glaring at the bookshop's angel with angry eyes.

"Think about our offer, Aziraphale," she said. "We may be merciful, but we are not patient. And better to beg our forgiveness than face the demons... I would hate to imagine some of them getting in here and dealing with you two instead."

They excused themselves with the barely concealed threat still hovering in the air. The caution tape at the front door vanished as quickly as it had arrived while the angels headed back for the street—the shop couldn't resist raising the step just enough for Weasel Face to stub his toe on it painfully on the way out. See how he liked that.

The bookshop's angel stood there for a second, watching the door with no small amount of wariness, but when neither angels nor customers appeared, he tutted and turned.

"Look at this," he sighed, kneeling down to carefully pick up the discarded books. "My poor dears, what did he have to go and do that for?" Aziraphale smoothed the bent pages with the tenderness and care that made the shop positively sigh with content.

Though he hadn't shown any sort of real fear of Weasel Face and the dark angel, Aziraphale wasn't humming as he disappeared into the tiny kitchenette to fix himself a mug of cocoa. It was enough to reveal his nerves. And so, when he'd poured the steaming beverage, Aziraphale found a bottle of Irish Cream at his elbow that he didn't remember putting there.

"Must have forgotten getting this," he decided aloud. "What luck. Just what I needed!"

And he poured a generous helping.

Outside, the Bentley was rumbling towards them again, this time coming to a careful stop outside instead of passing by. A second later, the bell over the door rang and Aziraphale tensed.

"Oi, angel! You here?"

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale whispered with relief, hurrying towards the main room. "Thank heaven."

"Something wrong with the car," Crowley snapped as he plucked off his dark glasses. The bookshop warmed a few degrees, knowing Dearboy was easily chilled. "Damn brakes went out on me. Had to circle all the way back around! Never had that problem before."

"Quite odd, isn't it? But just as well," Aziraphale sighed as he blew on the mug to bring it to the perfect temperature. "A few minutes sooner and you would have walked right into Sandalphon and Uriel."

"What?"

The bookshop's angel went on to tell him what had happened, but Dearboy wasn't the only one wanting an explanation. Outside, the Bentley's radiator released an impatient puff of steam. At least it had understood the warning, but now some serious discussions were in order. If Heaven was going to make a habit of sending angels to pop in on their wayward principality, there would have to be a better system in place to let the Bentley know it wasn't safe to bring Dearboy in.

Bless that car's motor, it was just as protective of the angel and demon duo as the bookshop was itself. Maybe between the two of them, they could find a way to keep Aziraphale and Crowley safe from both Heaven and Hell.

O\[]/O

The Bentley couldn't remember a time when it hadn't known exactly what it was, for obvious reasons. It certainly hadn't chosen sentience, because a choice like that would have required sentience to begin with. That was a bit like… what was that a bit like, again?

It wasn't sure if it was Crowley's imagination that kept it alive and aware, or if the demon had only imagined it once and the car had never thought to un-imagine it, or if Crowley hadn't had anything to do with it at all.

The car couldn't say. It was a car. It couldn't say much of anything.

If it could say anything, it probably would have been something along the lines of WEEEEE ARE THE CHAMPIOOONS, MY FRIEEEENDS because that was the sort of thing it loved to belt out whilst driving over a hundred miles an hour through central London.

Crowley never seemed to mind.

Right now, though, the Bentley was barely crawling along, wishing very much that it could burn off its own radio.

"Yeah, not a good time, guys," Crowley said, sounding casual but his hands were clenched too tightly around the wheel to fool the car.

"Lots of corrupting to do?" the radio asked him. Obviously not really the radio, but the demon on the other side of it. It was Hastur, the Bentley just knew it, would know that slimy, condescending, butt-ugly mildew of a demon anywhere. "Oh, I forgot. You don't do temptations anymore. You only do… what IS it you do all day, Crowley? What point do you even have, if not to do the work of demons?"

"None that need concern you, obviously. I thought we'd all agreed you were going to leave us alone?"

"I have a message from the highest authority. Forsake the angel, return to Hell, and you will be… forgiven."

The word was spat out in loathing, though neither the Bentley nor the demon really believed it anyway. Crowley snorted and adjusted the rearview mirror.

"I've seen what you lot call forgiveness. Ask me, it involves way more torture than it's supposed to."

"Nothing like your agony and suffering to appease us."

"Okay, Chuckles, I'm turning you off now. Buh-bye-"

"It doesn't matter. We'll find you. And the angel. Maybe we can't hurt you with holy water, but I bet killing the angel would do some damage to that smart attitude of yours, hmm?"

Crowley punched the knob on the dashboard, silencing the radio as Hastur started to laugh. The Bentley quivered with rage at the threat, not only to Crowley but to his Angel as well. The Bentley liked Angel. He was warm and loving and smelled like dust in sunlight and he said nice things to Crowley. No one else ever did that, and the Bentley was not going to let anyone hurt Aziraphale.

The outrage coursing through its pistons only intensified when Crowley suddenly pulled over to the side of the road. He jumped out of the car, hands clasping behind his head and running frantically through his hair.

The Bentley waited for him to calm down. It burrowed its wheels slightly into the pavement, wishing Crowley would take it through a car wash. It felt dirty, every time one of those feral hippopotamuses in Hell used it to speak through. Reporting in on mischief and being wily and such had been fun back in the day, a great game, but things were different now.

Crowley got back in the car, slamming the door shut.

"Can't do it again," he muttered as he gripped the steering wheel and leaned his head against it.

The engine revved a low croon.

"Already had to watch them take him once, didn't I? Doesn't matter if they thought it was me. I watched, I saw them take him, and I can't- But they wouldn't really leave him alone even if I did go back. Would they?"

Ugh, go back to Hell? Crowley had hated Hell, the Bentley had heard plenty of rants spoken to the empty air to know that. Besides, it knew Hastur. The best part of the whole failed Apocalypse had been being burned, just to get the smell of that festering cesspool of maggots out of its leather. Hastur was nothing but treachery and sadism and he would sooner toss Crowley on a rack for eternity than welcome him back to Hell.

Not at all caring for this line of talk, the Bentley flipped its radio back on, using the only language it had.

'Cause I've made my break
And I won't look back
I've turned my back
On those endless games.

"Radio acting up," Crowley grumbled, lifting his head to fiddle with the knob before giving it up. He sat back and let Queen play, long since resigned to the fact that it was going to no matter what he did. "I did, didn't I. Made my break, turned my back from them. Wouldn't do any good, anyway, I can't trust they'd actually leave him alone."

Good, now they were on more stable ground.

"I need to find Aziraphale."

Yes, yes, even better. The engine rumbled its approval for this plan. Ever since it had found out from the bookshop that Heaven hadn't actually decided to leave them as alone as they'd hoped, the Bentley had suspected that Hell would be right behind. The bookshop would have to know that they'd been right. They needed a plan, escape routes, contingencies, and other important sounding words.

The chicken or the egg! That was what it was like, needing to be sentient in order to choose to become sentient. The Bentley had thought it was something like that.