“Now, now, no need to get upset, Mister . . . Fell, was it? We’re all learners here. That’s why I had everyone double the batch of batter, so you can all get plenty of practice to get the timing of the cooking right.”

“Ah, speaking of the batter,” said Aziraphale, grabbing the mixing bowl and showing its contents to the instructor. “Is the batter supposed to be so, erm, lumpy? And grey-ish?”

The instructor’s face strained in a way that people’s faces do when they very badly want to wince but can’t let themselves. “Erm,” they said, “not quite so lumpy and grey-ish, no.”

“Not to worry, Angel, you can borrow some of my batter!”

Aziraphale turned to the table at his left and shot Crowley a dirty look. The old serpent was quite cheerfully pouring a cup of batter onto the hot plates the class was using, spreading it evenly across the circular surface exactly as they’d been instructed to. “Crowley, for the last time, I do not need your help with this! Crepes are my specialty.”

“Eating crepes and making crepes are two entirely different worlds, Angel.”

“Let’s see yours, Mr. Crowley,” said the instructor, secretly glad for the distraction; Mr. Fell’s batter had looked utterly unsalvageable.

“Call me Anthony. Had some trouble with the first few, but I think I’ve got the hang of it.” Crowley presented a stack of wafer-thin, barely-brown, delicious-looking crepes to the instructor. Just the sight of it made Aziraphale’s mouth water.

The instructor tore off a piece of one and sampled it. A grin spread across their face. “Perfect! These are truly very impressive. Are you sure this is your first time making crepes?”

Crowley didn’t bother to hide his proud smile. “First time cooking anything, actually.”

“No kidding?” said the instructor. “Well, it seems I have a natural in my class! Keep up the great work, Anthony, and you may just be taking my job soon!” They and Crowley shared a laugh, before another student called them over and they had to bustle away.

Crowley shot Aziraphale a smug look. “The batter offer still stands,” he said.

Aziraphale only huffed in reply and turned back to his own table. He stirred the batter some more, trying to banish the lumps, to no avail. He looked at his sad, blackened stack of crepes and sighed. How had Crowley managed it, and so quickly? Perhaps he was miracling his way through it. But then again, Aziraphale thought as he looked around at the other students, everyone else’s crepes looked more or less right, so what was he doing wrong?

“Stirring the batter won’t help.” Aziraphale jumped; Crowley had come over from his table and was leaning over Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“And why not?” he said, aiming for indignant, but it came out sounding defeated.

“If it’s stirred, it’s stirred. Those lumps aren’t going anywhere. You probably added the dry ingredients after the wet ones, and that’s why it looks like that,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale turned to look at him curiously. “How do you know so much about cooking?”

Crowley grinned, and held up his smartphone. “Didn’t cheat with miracles. Might’ve cheated with Google.”

Crowley had been trying to explain Google to Aziraphale for decades now, and he was starting to understand parts of it. A little. He was still a bit stuck on what Google Plus was, but he reasoned that once Crowley managed to set up an account for him, as he’d promised he’d do several years ago, then he’d finally get the hang of it. Either way, he understood enough about it to know what Crowley meant about “cheating.” He doubted the instructor would be thrilled that their class was being supplemented by secondary sources.

“Well, I haven’t got any ingredients left, so I’ll just have to make do,” said Aziraphale.

“We-lllll . . .” Crowley started to say.

“No miracles, Crowley.”

“Fine. We’ll make do. Now, to really get an even spread, you’ll have to pour it like this . . .”

By the time the class ended, Aziraphale had a second stack of crepes that at least looked like crepes, and only tasted a little bit like shoe leather. The instructor gave Aziraphale a C.

“Well, it’s better than an F,” said Crowley, as he cleaned up his table.

“Or a G, or an H,” said Aziraphale, who did not understand how grades worked. He took another bite of one of the crepes from Crowley’s stack, which he was steadily making his way through after miraculously cleaning up his table in record time. “These really are delicious, Crowley. You ought to surprise me with a homemade breakfast one of these days,” he said, half-joking.

Crowley looked up from where he was trying to polish the table spotless. “Would you like me to?” he said.

Behind Crowley’s glasses, Aziraphale couldn’t spot a hint of irony in those serpentine eyes of his. “Well--that is, if you want to,” he stammered.

Crowley nodded. “I’ll come by the bookshop sometime soon, with a fresh batch.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale. Distractedly, he swallowed the piece of crepe he was chewing. “Jolly good, then.”

Crowley made good on his promise a week later, knocking at Aziraphale’s door with a heaping stack of positively stunning crepes. He’d made several batches in preparation to ensure this batch was superior, and unlike any demon before him, Crowley had figured out how to put love into his cooking. Those crepes were, by all accounts, some of the best crepes ever made on Earth, and every last one of them was eaten by an angel who was rather relieved that he’d never have to wander over to Paris just to satisfy a craving ever again.