Happy Holidays, macdicilla! Part 2
Dec. 12th, 2018 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeYour Assistance is Required - Part 2
*
It wasn’t easy. After all, when you’ve been murdered horribly and then stuck for over a century as incorporeal spirits with no pleasures of the world open to you beyond the occasional chance to relive one of your only happy memories, naturally you’re going to resist interruptions.
It didn’t help that the sort of physical, emotional, and deeply human passion these spirits were feeling as Charlotte twined Crowley’s fingers through Aziraphale’s was a foreign sensation to beings of angel stock, as intoxicating as it was unnerving. Crowley felt his head being drawn down to Aziraphale’s, his eyes staring into the angel’s, wide with terror overcome by hope, and he found to his horror that he didn’t want to resist.
Then Aziraphale reached up with his free hand and wrenched Crowley’s sunglasses away from his face. It might be over-optimistic to say that the spell was broken, but it had certainly been put on hold. ‘I do apologise,’ Aziraphale began in his own voice, before Anne interrupted him. ‘As well you might,’ she said, and Aziraphale shook his head. ‘Er, yes, well—Crowley?’
‘Present,’ said Crowley in his own voice. His arms folded across his chest with what felt like burning indignation. ‘Look, we’re trying to help you,’ he said. He felt his head shaken. ‘You can stop anytime,’ said Charlotte. ‘You’re welcome,’ Crowley snapped. The trance, or whatever it had been, was broken now.
‘We have a plan,’ Aziraphale explained. ‘We’ve conferred with our, er, our colleague, and we think we might know how to help you, but it rather hinges on your letting us take the wheel—’
‘Literally and figuratively,’ Crowley muttered.
‘—at a pivotal moment,’ Aziraphale finished. ‘We just needed to be certain that would be possible, and we thank you very much for your assistance in this matter, but now I’m afraid we’ll need you to quit our heads once more until the moment comes. If you would be so kind—’
‘It would be a great help to us to know the particulars, if you please,’ said Anne, in a tone as dangerous as it was prim and proper.
‘I’m not sure we can explain it without compromising the natural operation of causality,’ said Aziraphale.
‘How very convenient,’ said Charlotte.
‘Didn’t you promise Anathema you’d trust us?’ asked Crowley, annoyed.
‘Yes,’ said Charlotte. ‘Where has she gone?’
‘How are you getting on?’ said Anathema, wandering into the room as if on cue. ‘Newt says he’s on his way. If you ask me, it’s not the spirits killing Lady Cadogan’s tourist business, but the bloody awful mobile reception.’
‘Tourist business?’ asked Anne.
‘Oh, hello,’ said Anathema. ‘Yes, the present Lady Cadogan asked me here to sort out the problem of the two of you and James possessing her guests. I used to be a practical occultist and professional descendant, now I’m just the former.’
‘I thought you said Death himself called you to help us?’ asked Charlotte, and Crowley felt his eyes narrow suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ said Anathema patiently, ‘after I was possessed by James. I saw him, and he told me to seek out Aziraphale and Crowley here. They’re an angel and a demon who tried, rather ineptly, to avert Armageddon.’
Aziraphale and Crowley stared at her, aghast, until their heads forcibly turned in the direction of each other. Then, entirely against his will, Crowley burst out laughing.
‘Right,’ said Charlotte, between hearty guffaws. ‘If nothing else, we shall have something to talk about for the next hundred and fifty years we’re trapped here. What do you think, my love?’
Aziraphale’s hands reached out to clasp Crowley’s between them. ‘If it pleases you so, my dearest Charlotte,’ said Anne, ‘I shall not withdraw my agreement.’ Through Aziraphale’s eyes, she gazed up at Charlotte, who kissed her with Crowley’s lips.
After a moment both angel and demon became aware that they were once again free of human influence, and leapt apart as before, but with a split-second’s hesitance that not existed the first time.
‘Well,’ said Anathema, when the three of them were once again safely outside the library, ‘what should we do in the meantime? Explore the rest of the house?’
Crowley drew an unnecessary breath. At this moment he was only certain of one thing, and that was that he needed a drink. ‘An estate of this size must have a wine cellar,’ he said, glancing from Aziraphale to Anathema.
Anathema stared back at him. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to—’ she began, before remembering just who and what he was. She looked between them, questioning. ‘Oh. Can you just—’
Aziraphale nodded. ‘We can sober up when needed,’ he confirmed, and for the first time all day, Anathema relaxed.
‘I see,’ she said, smiling. ‘Can you do that for me too?’
*
‘The concrete dampens
With the crystalline snowflakes.
Engage parking brake.’
Newton Pulsifer nodded absently and parked Dick Turpin directly in front of the grand doorway, per Anathema’s urgent instructions. He shivered as the snow brushed his forehead. He laid a hesitant hand on the doorknob and pushed, and he was surprised by how easily it fell open. That was the good surprise; the bad surprise was that it was no warmer inside than out.
‘Anathema?’ he called. ‘Anathema?’
There was a distant answering chortle. It might have been Anathema, or it might have been a ghost. Not that Newt believed in ghosts, necessarily, but upon getting a look at the sum Lady Cadogan had offered Anathema, he had instantly abandoned any plans he might have been making to argue the point. He shivered again, wishing he’d worn a hat, even though he had never quite been able to pull one off.
‘Anathema?’ he called again, venturing further into the house. ‘Where are you?’
This time there was a faint shout in reply. ‘Down here!’ he thought it had said, and unless he was much mistaken, it had been followed by a hiccough.
Newt sighed and pressed forward, making his way towards what he thought might be the kitchen, following the sounds of two unfamiliar voices, one ssssstrangely ssssssybilant and one camper than a row of tents.
Crowley and Aziraphale sat next to each other, surrounded by bottles. Across the table, Anathema was working on her second and trying in vain to focus on them.
‘Ten-ssssssixty-six,’ Crowley was hissing. ‘Battle of Haystack-er, Hastings.’
Aziraphale nodded. ‘William the Conquest-Conker-you know the one. He must’ve been yours.’
Crowley shook his head. ‘All human,’ he insisted. ‘Kicked off three centuries of the King of England speaking French. Hell would never have come up with that.’ He paused. ‘What was I saying?’
‘Something about fish?’ asked Aziraphale.
‘Right,’ said Crowley. ‘The fish market.’
‘What about it?’ asked Aziraphale.
Crowley shrugged. ‘Good fish market.’
Anathema had long since lost the thread of the story and so, if they were honest, had Aziraphale and Crowley, but they had never had an audience before.
‘Fish market?’ asked Newt, stepping into the cellar with a sense of dread quickly giving way to simple bewilderment.
Anathema brightened. ‘Newt!’ she called out, beckoning him. Then she turned back to the others. ‘Newt’s here,’ she slurred. ‘Time to do that thing.’
‘Do what thing?’ asked the man in sunglasses.
‘The thing you said,’ said Anathema. ‘You know. Make us sober. Snap, we’re all fine.’
‘Sober up,’ said the other man. He wore a tartan jumper even Newt would have had the sense to stay away from. He winced, sat up straight, and snapped his fingers at Anathema, who followed suit. A moment or so later, under their expectant gazes, the man in sunglasses sighed and did the same. Newt edged closer to the table and realised he’d seen them before, but couldn’t recall when or where. The man in the tartan jumper clapped his hands with a dramatic flair, and all of the empty wine bottles refilled themselves and resumed their places on the shelves.
‘Anathema,’ he asked, ‘what is going on? What just happened? Who are these people? And were you all just…just drunk, and then all of a sudden not drunk?’
‘In a word, yes,’ said Anathema. ‘You’ve missed a lot. Newt, may I present Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel and a demon respectively whom we last met shortly before the world didn’t end. Aziraphale, Crowley, this is Newt. Newt, I can give you the full story later, but right now we’re trying to send three spirits onward, and we’re going to need an assist.’
*
‘Crowley,’ Aziraphale began, shivering. The snowflakes were growing thicker, blanketing the ground. ‘If we only get one shot at this, as it were—’
James’ scream rent the air. Five minutes, Anathema had said, just enough time for her to arrange things.
Five minutes. One hundred and fifty years. Six millennia.
‘Yes?’ said Crowley, looking paler than Aziraphale had ever seen him.
‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to do it.’
‘Just do whatever you did before,’ said Crowley, not looking at him. He was glaring at Dick Turpin. ‘You know, when you took my sunglasses off.’
‘But I don’t know how I did that,’ said Aziraphale wretchedly. ‘I only wanted to see your eyes.’
Slowly, Crowley turned around. The wind howled, whipping through the magnificent groves. Neither heard it.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Aziraphale. ‘I realise that now is, perhaps, not the moment to admit it—’
He broke off. Crowley had laid a trembling hand his arm.
‘Well,’ he said in a low voice, ‘we only want to survive, don’t we?’
Aziraphale nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and Crowley flung the door open.
Anathema lay face down on the stairs. They crossed over the threshold, and then their minds and bodies were, once again, no longer theirs, and that was not Anathema—
‘James!’ they both screamed, in Charlotte and Anne’s terrified voices. They rushed to Anathema’s side, and Charlotte shook her with Crowley’s hands.
‘Please wake up,’ she begged. ‘Oh, James, please don’t be—’
Anne reached out with Aziraphale’s fingers, searching for a pulse, and Aziraphale could feel Anathema’s, but he knew that Anne could not.
‘Charlotte,’ she said, her voice brittle and hopeless. ‘He’s cold, Charlotte.’
‘No!’ screamed Charlotte, and in six thousand years it was hardly the first time Crowley had heard such a sound, but only once before had he come close to making it himself. Then he felt his head turn away from Anathema and his eyes narrow in rage as Charlotte stared at something he couldn’t see, but knew had once been there.
‘Anne,’ she whispered, ‘look.’ Aziraphale felt his head turned upwards.
‘String,’ she said, and then, ‘This was murder. And we’re going to be next.’
‘Not if we run fast,’ said Charlotte, and the despair on Crowley’s face gave way to grim determination.
‘Where would we go?’ asked Anne, gazing up at her wonder.
‘I don’t care,’ said Charlotte, ‘as long as I’m with you.’
Aziraphale’s head bowed, and his hands found Crowley’s. ‘All right,’ said Anne. ‘Let’s call a carriage.’
The next few minutes passed in a whirlwind of confusion as Charlotte summoned a servant who wasn’t there, but who had evidently promised a carriage right away, and a few moments later they heard the clatter of approaching hooves.
Crowley felt his hand seize Aziraphale’s as Charlotte and Anne rushed out the door. He could see Dick Turpin. Charlotte couldn’t.
And if he couldn’t direct her to it, he might never see Aziraphale again—
His free hand seized the door handle.
‘Pure December snow
Buries the dirt roads ahead.
Release parking brake.’
Crowley blinked. So did Charlotte. The quizzical look on Aziraphale’s face was at once Anne’s and his own.
Aziraphale recovered first. ‘As we told you before,’ he said in his own voice, ‘we’re here to help you. Carry on.’
The spirits looked at each other, and both angel and demon felt their heads nod. Crowley turned the ignition key.
*
Anathema didn’t hear the car pull away. She couldn’t have done, as ever since that Saturday it had run quieter than a mouse. But she was still psychic, and she felt the two spirits depart the premises. She rolled over onto her back and sat up, rubbing her bruised arms. Death stared back at her.
In all the excitement, she’d almost forgot about him. SO FAR, SO GOOD, he said, and vanished.
‘OK, Newt,’ she called. ‘You can come out now.’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Newt, hurrying in from the next room. ‘That—er, that looked painful.’ He extended a hand, and Anathema took it, allowing him to help her to her feet. She didn’t really need it, but it made him feel better.
‘It was,’ said Anathema, ‘but it won’t be this time. Ready?’
‘Not at all,’ said Newt. ‘The second step from the top, you said?’
‘Or maybe the third,’ said Anathema. ‘I’m not sure of the exact angle. Wherever you’d be best positioned to catch me before I hit the ground.’
They reached the second step. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘And then I take you to them?’
‘That’s right.’ Anathema climbed the remaining stairs and headed off down the hall, entering one of the bedrooms and then returning at breakneck speed, a stranger’s fear in her eyes.
Newt didn’t catch her, but he did break her fall.
‘Who are you?’ Anathema asked him, in the nominally male tones of a small child.
‘I’m, er, a friend,’ said Newt. ‘Are you all right? Can you walk?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Anathema. ‘You saved me, Mr...’
‘Pulsifer,’ said Newt, trying very hard not to think too hard about any of this. ‘Newton Pulsifer. Er…James, was it?’
‘That’s right,’ said Anathema cheerfully.
‘Right. James. I’ve been asked to take you to your sister Charlotte. Won’t be that fun?’ Newt cringed. He probably should have rehearsed that in his head, so as not to sound quite so much like a playground kidnapper.
Fortunately for him, James’ birth and death predated the phrase ‘stranger danger’ by over a century. ‘Stepsister, but we don’t care,’ said James, waving Anathema’s hand dismissively. ‘But I thought she and Miss Anne went to see the vicar.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Newt. ‘We’re, ah, going after them.’
‘Oh,’ said James. ‘All right, then. Should I go and get my coat?’
‘We haven’t got time,’ said Newt quickly. ‘Don’t we need to get away from, er—’ He broke off. It had all been explained to him rather hastily, and he was having trouble remembering the details. If he was honest, he was more or less still stuck on the part where their companions were an angel and a demon.
‘My stepmother,’ James finished for him. ‘Oh, yes. Is she still upstairs?’
‘I think so,’ said Newt. ‘And I don’t think it’s that cold outside, anyway.’ It was a lie, and Newt didn’t generally approve of lying to children except perhaps about Father Christmas, but he couldn’t think what else to do. He gently lifted himself and Anathema to their feet and held out his hand. ‘Come along, then.’
‘All right,’ said James, slipping Anathema’s hand into Newt’s.
*
Crowley was not used to driving slowly, although the snow helped a bit. He wished that more would fall, and that Charlotte would quit turning all the way around to look behind them, even if a nineteenth century woman could hardly be expected to understand what a rearview mirror was for.
‘Do you hear something?’ Charlotte asked Anne, and Aziraphale felt himself freeze in fear. He couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was there.
‘Hooves,’ whispered Anne.
‘Bugger!’ Charlotte screamed, slamming Crowley’s hand against the steering wheel in fury. Anne shook Aziraphale’s head sadly, as though once upon a time she might have objected to the use of such language, but there were no such strictures left in her now.
‘We tried,’ she said, and Crowley’s hands clutched the steering wheel in a vicelike grip. He didn’t know whether he or Charlotte was doing this, and he didn’t care. Something was pushing against the driver’s side of the car. Something like the weight of several invisible horses and an equally invisible carriage, determined to dislodge Dick Turpin from the narrow country lane, its curves entirely too sharp.
He was shaking. It was one thing to know what he had to do, but quite another to be here and actually do it.
Charlotte turned to Anne, and Crowley’s hands found Aziraphale’s. Thank somebody, because he wouldn’t have been able to keep them away from the wheel otherwise. The phantom carriage pushed harder, and Dick Turpin, effectively driverless, skidded into the snow and tumbled, upturned, into the ditch. Aziraphale fell against the passenger door, and Crowley fell into Aziraphale’s arms, and they held each other.
They couldn’t hear the clatter of hooves, but they could feel them pounding against the driver’s side. The door should have been crushed and the window shattered, but they weren’t.
Anne and Charlotte stared at each other through Aziraphale and Crowley’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘I should never have suggested this. I should have acted rationally. I should have—’
‘No,’ said Anne. ‘No, my dearest Charlotte. I will not hear this. It is I who am to blame.’
Charlotte shook Crowley’s head. ‘You are too good, Anne,’ she said. ‘But the impulse was mine, and therefore, so must the fault be.’
‘But we would never have been reduced to such an impulse,’ said Anne, ‘had I not insisted upon appealing to my father. I should have known what he would say. The signs had been there for years, but I ignored them, in the foolish hope of being so, as you say, good.’ She pronounced the word as though it were laced with cyanide. ‘You knew better. You saw through him as you saw through your own mother. You warned me, and I ought to have known you were right. Had I just put my faith in you, who alone ever deserved it, perhaps I should not have failed you and James both.’
‘Oh, Anne, do not do this to yourself,’ said Charlotte, her voice breaking. ‘Yes, I saw through my mother, who was never anything but cruel to me in all my life. No great insight was ever required for that. No, my love. Cynicism and wisdom are not one and the same, no matter what I might have said on the subject to shock in high society.’
‘Cynicism may not be wisdom,’ said Anne, ‘but wilful blindness is surely the epitome of foolishness. That was my crime, and I cannot be acquitted of it.’
‘I love you,’ said Charlotte, ‘and if it will give you peace, I will say I forgive you. But I do not believe that you need it.’
‘And I love you,’ said Anne, ‘and if you wish it, I in turn shall grant you absolution that you in no way require.’
Charlotte nodded Crowley’s head, and Aziraphale and Crowley felt their lips drawn together once more. Their bodies pressed as close together as physically possible, which could never be close enough.
There was a knock at the window. Charlotte and Anne broke their kiss, and they gasped as one. Standing outside were Anathema and Newt.
‘James?’ cried Charlotte, gazing at Anathema in shock and, Crowley realised, hope. Judging by Anathema’s expression, James was equally delighted to see them. Newt looked less than amused at the state of his car, but he reached over and opened the door anyway, and James made his way inside. They moved to accommodate him, and he settled between them.
‘James,’ said Anne, ‘oh, James. We are so, so sorry.’
‘What for, Miss Anne?’ asked James.
‘Everything,’ said Charlotte. ‘We ought to have seen it sooner, and been cleverer when we did.’
‘We should have taken much better care of you,’ said Anne. ‘We should not have been not so wrapped up in ourselves.’
‘We are so sorry,’ said Charlotte. Crowley and Aziraphale noted the foreign sensation of tears welling in their eyes.
James shrugged. ‘That’s all right.’ He looked around. ‘This is a funny sort of contraption, isn’t it? Are we going somewhere?’
Charlotte and Anne looked at each other, and Anathema felt each of them take one of her hands. ‘Yes,’ said Anne. ‘Yes, I rather think we are.’
THANK YOU, said Death, appearing before them in the snow. IT’S ABOUT TIME.
‘All’s well that ends well,
From here to eternity.
Please turn car upright.’
*
‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, apropos of nothing, an hour into the ride back to London. ‘My dear, I am so sorry.’
‘What on Earth for?’ asked Crowley, trying to focus on the road, and absolutely not on anything else.
‘You know,’ said Aziraphale with evident frustration, ‘the real reason Azrael put this problem to us. The reason Anne related to me, such as she couldn’t have done to anyone else.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ said Crowley, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Not for all the trappings of Earth would he have looked at Aziraphale, but Aziraphale, of course, looked at him.
‘You don’t know?’ he asked, disbelieving. ‘How did you think I wound up discorporated?’
‘Know what?’ asked Crowley. ‘I assumed it had something to do with your shop having morphed into an inferno.’
‘After I’d worked it out about the identity of the Antichrist, I contacted Up There,’ said Aziraphale, ‘before I attempted to contact you. I knew, deep down, exactly what would happen, and the bugger of it is that in my heart I wanted to tell you, to choose you and never look back, but my courage failed, as it were, at the pivotal moment.’ He paused. ‘I thought you knew. I’ve had to live with that every moment since.’
‘Car, steer yourself,’ said Crowley. He turned to Aziraphale. ‘You made up for it later,’ he said, willing himself to sound nonchalant, ‘with your realisation about the Great Plan not necessarily being so Ineffable. As near as I can tell, that was the only thing either of us managed to contribute in the end, and it was all you.’
Aziraphale shook his head. ‘You are very kind, my dear.’
‘Am not,’ said Crowley automatically. ‘But if it’ll get you to drop this, then you’re forgiven. Or whatever.’
‘Would theirs have been our fate, do you think?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘Had we been so isolated?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘We were so isolated.’
‘Precisely,’ said Aziraphale. ‘We owe our survival, and that of the Earth, to the fortuitous actions of others with whom we unknowingly shared a common goal. Alone, we surely would have lost.’
Crowley nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and you know that was my fault, right? Seeing as how I fled the hospital in terror? If I’d had the stomach to properly supervise things, maybe our original plan would have stood a chance.’
Aziraphale smiled. ‘Water under the bridge, my dear.’ He extended a hand, and Crowley took it. He had a question, but he would need more time to find the courage to ask it. He turned back to the road.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, holding hands, finally arriving in the first light of dawn. ‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale hesitantly, taking in the sight of what was definitely not his bookshop.
‘Come upstairs,’ said Crowley, having forgot to breathe an hour before.
Aziraphale nodded, looking as nervous as Crowley felt. The tension between them in the lift could have been cut with a knife, but then again, this is broadly true of all tension in all lifts, a fact on which Crowley had long prided himself. They entered Crowley’s luxurious flat and sat down together on the sofa, and Crowley waved a hand. Soon each of them held a glass of most excellent brandy, and the speakerless sound system was playing a soothing Vivaldi.
‘What did you mean earlier,’ said Crowley, with no small amount of trepidation, ‘when you said that you wanted to see my eyes?’
Aziraphale sighed. ‘You must know,’ he murmured, addressing the opposite wall. ‘I felt everything that Anne was feeling, and I must confess I was quite overcome. I had entirely forgot about the plan and all of that. I only needed, urgently, to know whether you were equally in thrall.’
Crowley leaned back, and removed his sunglasses. He set them down on the coffee table, and then he leaned forward, drew Aziraphale close, and kissed him. For having spent the last six thousand years not kissing Aziraphale, he found he was becoming quite used to it. After a moment or so he pulled back, opened his eyes wide, and gazed into Aziraphale’s eyes.
‘Does that answer your question?’ he asked. Aziraphale beamed, and then he kissed Crowley.
*
To any being neither occult nor ethereal, what happened next would appear ordinary, even artless. This is because any being neither occult nor ethereal would fail to notice the white-hot fusion of thought and touch, engulfing both angel and demon in an all-consuming sensation at once sacred, sinful, and entirely human.
What Crowley was thinking, and broadcasting with every desperate touch, was this:
Do you know what I do when I tempt people? I look into their minds, into their souls, and give them what they truly want. And right now, angel, every desire in your head is for me, and I beg you to let me oblige you. Wasn’t it your friend Oscar who said the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it? Yield with me. I want to give you everything you want. It’s my temptation too. I want you, Aziraphale.
And Aziraphale’s equally desperate thoughts, broadcast quite as loudly through his own hands, were these:
You once indicated to me that you could neither sense nor understand love. But we aren’t supposed to have free will, either, and look how that’s turned out. You are nothing short of a wonder, braver and better than you’ll ever admit and that’s all right, you don’t have to admit to anything. But I am determined to leave you with no doubt that I love you, Crowley, nor any confusion as to what it might mean, because no one deserves it more than you.
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, after they had collapsed against one another, ‘we’ll have to do that again sometime.’
It was several more moments before Crowley spoke.
‘We’re not done yet,’ he said at last. ‘It’s time you learned how to sleep, angel.’
*
One week later, Aziraphale and Crowley half-sat, half-lay curled around each other on the couch in Aziraphale’s back room, sipping steaming cups of mulled wine and staring, when they could take their eyes from each other, out the tiny, smudged window at a near whiteout of London. Between the weather and the closed sign, they ought not to have been disturbed, but nonetheless, the shop’s bell rang. Crowley arranged his face into his most practised glare, but dropped it when the customer lowered her hood and peeled the scarf off her face.
‘Hi,’ said Anathema, leaning against the doorframe. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ She drew an envelope out of her purse and held it out to them.
Aziraphale smiled warmly at her. ‘Do have a seat, Anathema,’ he said, nodding at an armchair across from them.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I won’t be staying long. This is your cut.’
‘Our what?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘Oh. Er, thank you, but we don’t really need—’
‘I know,’ said Anathema, ‘but it was a three-person job. Four if you count Newt’s part. Five, I suppose, if you count Death’s hints, but the point is that I couldn’t have done it without you. I just thought, you know, fair’s fair.’
‘Thank you,’ said Crowley, grabbing the envelope from her before Aziraphale could refuse a second time. It was true that they didn’t need money, but you never knew when it might come in handy, and as far as he was concerned, she was quite right that they’d earned it.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Anathema. ‘There was, erm, one other thing. I was wondering if you two might like to come round for Christmas dinner.’
Crowley and Aziraphale stared at Anathema, and then at each other. ‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale after a moment. For himself he saw no harm in accepting, but he didn’t want to speak for Crowley, and the demon appeared to be suffering from some sort of temporary stoppage of cerebral functions. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘that is very kind, of course. Obviously, we wouldn’t wish to put you out in any way—’
‘I should warn you,’ said Anathema, ‘that until this year I was too busy with nice and accurate prophecies to ever learn to cook a turkey, and I’m not sure the oven at Jasmine Cottage could handle it even if I knew how. So it’ll just be wine and Chinese take-away.’ She paused. ‘All the wine you like.’
At this, Crowley promptly recovered, and he didn’t need to verbalise his agreement for Aziraphale to pick up on it. ‘In that case, dear lady, how can we refuse.’
‘Just one condition,’ said Crowley. ‘Absolutely no ghost stories.’
Anathema grinned. ‘None whatsoever,’ she promised, ‘but I’d love to hear more about the Battle of Haystack.’
It wasn’t easy. After all, when you’ve been murdered horribly and then stuck for over a century as incorporeal spirits with no pleasures of the world open to you beyond the occasional chance to relive one of your only happy memories, naturally you’re going to resist interruptions.
It didn’t help that the sort of physical, emotional, and deeply human passion these spirits were feeling as Charlotte twined Crowley’s fingers through Aziraphale’s was a foreign sensation to beings of angel stock, as intoxicating as it was unnerving. Crowley felt his head being drawn down to Aziraphale’s, his eyes staring into the angel’s, wide with terror overcome by hope, and he found to his horror that he didn’t want to resist.
Then Aziraphale reached up with his free hand and wrenched Crowley’s sunglasses away from his face. It might be over-optimistic to say that the spell was broken, but it had certainly been put on hold. ‘I do apologise,’ Aziraphale began in his own voice, before Anne interrupted him. ‘As well you might,’ she said, and Aziraphale shook his head. ‘Er, yes, well—Crowley?’
‘Present,’ said Crowley in his own voice. His arms folded across his chest with what felt like burning indignation. ‘Look, we’re trying to help you,’ he said. He felt his head shaken. ‘You can stop anytime,’ said Charlotte. ‘You’re welcome,’ Crowley snapped. The trance, or whatever it had been, was broken now.
‘We have a plan,’ Aziraphale explained. ‘We’ve conferred with our, er, our colleague, and we think we might know how to help you, but it rather hinges on your letting us take the wheel—’
‘Literally and figuratively,’ Crowley muttered.
‘—at a pivotal moment,’ Aziraphale finished. ‘We just needed to be certain that would be possible, and we thank you very much for your assistance in this matter, but now I’m afraid we’ll need you to quit our heads once more until the moment comes. If you would be so kind—’
‘It would be a great help to us to know the particulars, if you please,’ said Anne, in a tone as dangerous as it was prim and proper.
‘I’m not sure we can explain it without compromising the natural operation of causality,’ said Aziraphale.
‘How very convenient,’ said Charlotte.
‘Didn’t you promise Anathema you’d trust us?’ asked Crowley, annoyed.
‘Yes,’ said Charlotte. ‘Where has she gone?’
‘How are you getting on?’ said Anathema, wandering into the room as if on cue. ‘Newt says he’s on his way. If you ask me, it’s not the spirits killing Lady Cadogan’s tourist business, but the bloody awful mobile reception.’
‘Tourist business?’ asked Anne.
‘Oh, hello,’ said Anathema. ‘Yes, the present Lady Cadogan asked me here to sort out the problem of the two of you and James possessing her guests. I used to be a practical occultist and professional descendant, now I’m just the former.’
‘I thought you said Death himself called you to help us?’ asked Charlotte, and Crowley felt his eyes narrow suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ said Anathema patiently, ‘after I was possessed by James. I saw him, and he told me to seek out Aziraphale and Crowley here. They’re an angel and a demon who tried, rather ineptly, to avert Armageddon.’
Aziraphale and Crowley stared at her, aghast, until their heads forcibly turned in the direction of each other. Then, entirely against his will, Crowley burst out laughing.
‘Right,’ said Charlotte, between hearty guffaws. ‘If nothing else, we shall have something to talk about for the next hundred and fifty years we’re trapped here. What do you think, my love?’
Aziraphale’s hands reached out to clasp Crowley’s between them. ‘If it pleases you so, my dearest Charlotte,’ said Anne, ‘I shall not withdraw my agreement.’ Through Aziraphale’s eyes, she gazed up at Charlotte, who kissed her with Crowley’s lips.
After a moment both angel and demon became aware that they were once again free of human influence, and leapt apart as before, but with a split-second’s hesitance that not existed the first time.
‘Well,’ said Anathema, when the three of them were once again safely outside the library, ‘what should we do in the meantime? Explore the rest of the house?’
Crowley drew an unnecessary breath. At this moment he was only certain of one thing, and that was that he needed a drink. ‘An estate of this size must have a wine cellar,’ he said, glancing from Aziraphale to Anathema.
Anathema stared back at him. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to—’ she began, before remembering just who and what he was. She looked between them, questioning. ‘Oh. Can you just—’
Aziraphale nodded. ‘We can sober up when needed,’ he confirmed, and for the first time all day, Anathema relaxed.
‘I see,’ she said, smiling. ‘Can you do that for me too?’
‘The concrete dampens
With the crystalline snowflakes.
Engage parking brake.’
Newton Pulsifer nodded absently and parked Dick Turpin directly in front of the grand doorway, per Anathema’s urgent instructions. He shivered as the snow brushed his forehead. He laid a hesitant hand on the doorknob and pushed, and he was surprised by how easily it fell open. That was the good surprise; the bad surprise was that it was no warmer inside than out.
‘Anathema?’ he called. ‘Anathema?’
There was a distant answering chortle. It might have been Anathema, or it might have been a ghost. Not that Newt believed in ghosts, necessarily, but upon getting a look at the sum Lady Cadogan had offered Anathema, he had instantly abandoned any plans he might have been making to argue the point. He shivered again, wishing he’d worn a hat, even though he had never quite been able to pull one off.
‘Anathema?’ he called again, venturing further into the house. ‘Where are you?’
This time there was a faint shout in reply. ‘Down here!’ he thought it had said, and unless he was much mistaken, it had been followed by a hiccough.
Newt sighed and pressed forward, making his way towards what he thought might be the kitchen, following the sounds of two unfamiliar voices, one ssssstrangely ssssssybilant and one camper than a row of tents.
Crowley and Aziraphale sat next to each other, surrounded by bottles. Across the table, Anathema was working on her second and trying in vain to focus on them.
‘Ten-ssssssixty-six,’ Crowley was hissing. ‘Battle of Haystack-er, Hastings.’
Aziraphale nodded. ‘William the Conquest-Conker-you know the one. He must’ve been yours.’
Crowley shook his head. ‘All human,’ he insisted. ‘Kicked off three centuries of the King of England speaking French. Hell would never have come up with that.’ He paused. ‘What was I saying?’
‘Something about fish?’ asked Aziraphale.
‘Right,’ said Crowley. ‘The fish market.’
‘What about it?’ asked Aziraphale.
Crowley shrugged. ‘Good fish market.’
Anathema had long since lost the thread of the story and so, if they were honest, had Aziraphale and Crowley, but they had never had an audience before.
‘Fish market?’ asked Newt, stepping into the cellar with a sense of dread quickly giving way to simple bewilderment.
Anathema brightened. ‘Newt!’ she called out, beckoning him. Then she turned back to the others. ‘Newt’s here,’ she slurred. ‘Time to do that thing.’
‘Do what thing?’ asked the man in sunglasses.
‘The thing you said,’ said Anathema. ‘You know. Make us sober. Snap, we’re all fine.’
‘Sober up,’ said the other man. He wore a tartan jumper even Newt would have had the sense to stay away from. He winced, sat up straight, and snapped his fingers at Anathema, who followed suit. A moment or so later, under their expectant gazes, the man in sunglasses sighed and did the same. Newt edged closer to the table and realised he’d seen them before, but couldn’t recall when or where. The man in the tartan jumper clapped his hands with a dramatic flair, and all of the empty wine bottles refilled themselves and resumed their places on the shelves.
‘Anathema,’ he asked, ‘what is going on? What just happened? Who are these people? And were you all just…just drunk, and then all of a sudden not drunk?’
‘In a word, yes,’ said Anathema. ‘You’ve missed a lot. Newt, may I present Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel and a demon respectively whom we last met shortly before the world didn’t end. Aziraphale, Crowley, this is Newt. Newt, I can give you the full story later, but right now we’re trying to send three spirits onward, and we’re going to need an assist.’
‘Crowley,’ Aziraphale began, shivering. The snowflakes were growing thicker, blanketing the ground. ‘If we only get one shot at this, as it were—’
James’ scream rent the air. Five minutes, Anathema had said, just enough time for her to arrange things.
Five minutes. One hundred and fifty years. Six millennia.
‘Yes?’ said Crowley, looking paler than Aziraphale had ever seen him.
‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to do it.’
‘Just do whatever you did before,’ said Crowley, not looking at him. He was glaring at Dick Turpin. ‘You know, when you took my sunglasses off.’
‘But I don’t know how I did that,’ said Aziraphale wretchedly. ‘I only wanted to see your eyes.’
Slowly, Crowley turned around. The wind howled, whipping through the magnificent groves. Neither heard it.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Aziraphale. ‘I realise that now is, perhaps, not the moment to admit it—’
He broke off. Crowley had laid a trembling hand his arm.
‘Well,’ he said in a low voice, ‘we only want to survive, don’t we?’
Aziraphale nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and Crowley flung the door open.
Anathema lay face down on the stairs. They crossed over the threshold, and then their minds and bodies were, once again, no longer theirs, and that was not Anathema—
‘James!’ they both screamed, in Charlotte and Anne’s terrified voices. They rushed to Anathema’s side, and Charlotte shook her with Crowley’s hands.
‘Please wake up,’ she begged. ‘Oh, James, please don’t be—’
Anne reached out with Aziraphale’s fingers, searching for a pulse, and Aziraphale could feel Anathema’s, but he knew that Anne could not.
‘Charlotte,’ she said, her voice brittle and hopeless. ‘He’s cold, Charlotte.’
‘No!’ screamed Charlotte, and in six thousand years it was hardly the first time Crowley had heard such a sound, but only once before had he come close to making it himself. Then he felt his head turn away from Anathema and his eyes narrow in rage as Charlotte stared at something he couldn’t see, but knew had once been there.
‘Anne,’ she whispered, ‘look.’ Aziraphale felt his head turned upwards.
‘String,’ she said, and then, ‘This was murder. And we’re going to be next.’
‘Not if we run fast,’ said Charlotte, and the despair on Crowley’s face gave way to grim determination.
‘Where would we go?’ asked Anne, gazing up at her wonder.
‘I don’t care,’ said Charlotte, ‘as long as I’m with you.’
Aziraphale’s head bowed, and his hands found Crowley’s. ‘All right,’ said Anne. ‘Let’s call a carriage.’
The next few minutes passed in a whirlwind of confusion as Charlotte summoned a servant who wasn’t there, but who had evidently promised a carriage right away, and a few moments later they heard the clatter of approaching hooves.
Crowley felt his hand seize Aziraphale’s as Charlotte and Anne rushed out the door. He could see Dick Turpin. Charlotte couldn’t.
And if he couldn’t direct her to it, he might never see Aziraphale again—
His free hand seized the door handle.
‘Pure December snow
Buries the dirt roads ahead.
Release parking brake.’
Crowley blinked. So did Charlotte. The quizzical look on Aziraphale’s face was at once Anne’s and his own.
Aziraphale recovered first. ‘As we told you before,’ he said in his own voice, ‘we’re here to help you. Carry on.’
The spirits looked at each other, and both angel and demon felt their heads nod. Crowley turned the ignition key.
Anathema didn’t hear the car pull away. She couldn’t have done, as ever since that Saturday it had run quieter than a mouse. But she was still psychic, and she felt the two spirits depart the premises. She rolled over onto her back and sat up, rubbing her bruised arms. Death stared back at her.
In all the excitement, she’d almost forgot about him. SO FAR, SO GOOD, he said, and vanished.
‘OK, Newt,’ she called. ‘You can come out now.’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Newt, hurrying in from the next room. ‘That—er, that looked painful.’ He extended a hand, and Anathema took it, allowing him to help her to her feet. She didn’t really need it, but it made him feel better.
‘It was,’ said Anathema, ‘but it won’t be this time. Ready?’
‘Not at all,’ said Newt. ‘The second step from the top, you said?’
‘Or maybe the third,’ said Anathema. ‘I’m not sure of the exact angle. Wherever you’d be best positioned to catch me before I hit the ground.’
They reached the second step. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘And then I take you to them?’
‘That’s right.’ Anathema climbed the remaining stairs and headed off down the hall, entering one of the bedrooms and then returning at breakneck speed, a stranger’s fear in her eyes.
Newt didn’t catch her, but he did break her fall.
‘Who are you?’ Anathema asked him, in the nominally male tones of a small child.
‘I’m, er, a friend,’ said Newt. ‘Are you all right? Can you walk?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Anathema. ‘You saved me, Mr...’
‘Pulsifer,’ said Newt, trying very hard not to think too hard about any of this. ‘Newton Pulsifer. Er…James, was it?’
‘That’s right,’ said Anathema cheerfully.
‘Right. James. I’ve been asked to take you to your sister Charlotte. Won’t be that fun?’ Newt cringed. He probably should have rehearsed that in his head, so as not to sound quite so much like a playground kidnapper.
Fortunately for him, James’ birth and death predated the phrase ‘stranger danger’ by over a century. ‘Stepsister, but we don’t care,’ said James, waving Anathema’s hand dismissively. ‘But I thought she and Miss Anne went to see the vicar.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Newt. ‘We’re, ah, going after them.’
‘Oh,’ said James. ‘All right, then. Should I go and get my coat?’
‘We haven’t got time,’ said Newt quickly. ‘Don’t we need to get away from, er—’ He broke off. It had all been explained to him rather hastily, and he was having trouble remembering the details. If he was honest, he was more or less still stuck on the part where their companions were an angel and a demon.
‘My stepmother,’ James finished for him. ‘Oh, yes. Is she still upstairs?’
‘I think so,’ said Newt. ‘And I don’t think it’s that cold outside, anyway.’ It was a lie, and Newt didn’t generally approve of lying to children except perhaps about Father Christmas, but he couldn’t think what else to do. He gently lifted himself and Anathema to their feet and held out his hand. ‘Come along, then.’
‘All right,’ said James, slipping Anathema’s hand into Newt’s.
Crowley was not used to driving slowly, although the snow helped a bit. He wished that more would fall, and that Charlotte would quit turning all the way around to look behind them, even if a nineteenth century woman could hardly be expected to understand what a rearview mirror was for.
‘Do you hear something?’ Charlotte asked Anne, and Aziraphale felt himself freeze in fear. He couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was there.
‘Hooves,’ whispered Anne.
‘Bugger!’ Charlotte screamed, slamming Crowley’s hand against the steering wheel in fury. Anne shook Aziraphale’s head sadly, as though once upon a time she might have objected to the use of such language, but there were no such strictures left in her now.
‘We tried,’ she said, and Crowley’s hands clutched the steering wheel in a vicelike grip. He didn’t know whether he or Charlotte was doing this, and he didn’t care. Something was pushing against the driver’s side of the car. Something like the weight of several invisible horses and an equally invisible carriage, determined to dislodge Dick Turpin from the narrow country lane, its curves entirely too sharp.
He was shaking. It was one thing to know what he had to do, but quite another to be here and actually do it.
Charlotte turned to Anne, and Crowley’s hands found Aziraphale’s. Thank somebody, because he wouldn’t have been able to keep them away from the wheel otherwise. The phantom carriage pushed harder, and Dick Turpin, effectively driverless, skidded into the snow and tumbled, upturned, into the ditch. Aziraphale fell against the passenger door, and Crowley fell into Aziraphale’s arms, and they held each other.
They couldn’t hear the clatter of hooves, but they could feel them pounding against the driver’s side. The door should have been crushed and the window shattered, but they weren’t.
Anne and Charlotte stared at each other through Aziraphale and Crowley’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘I should never have suggested this. I should have acted rationally. I should have—’
‘No,’ said Anne. ‘No, my dearest Charlotte. I will not hear this. It is I who am to blame.’
Charlotte shook Crowley’s head. ‘You are too good, Anne,’ she said. ‘But the impulse was mine, and therefore, so must the fault be.’
‘But we would never have been reduced to such an impulse,’ said Anne, ‘had I not insisted upon appealing to my father. I should have known what he would say. The signs had been there for years, but I ignored them, in the foolish hope of being so, as you say, good.’ She pronounced the word as though it were laced with cyanide. ‘You knew better. You saw through him as you saw through your own mother. You warned me, and I ought to have known you were right. Had I just put my faith in you, who alone ever deserved it, perhaps I should not have failed you and James both.’
‘Oh, Anne, do not do this to yourself,’ said Charlotte, her voice breaking. ‘Yes, I saw through my mother, who was never anything but cruel to me in all my life. No great insight was ever required for that. No, my love. Cynicism and wisdom are not one and the same, no matter what I might have said on the subject to shock in high society.’
‘Cynicism may not be wisdom,’ said Anne, ‘but wilful blindness is surely the epitome of foolishness. That was my crime, and I cannot be acquitted of it.’
‘I love you,’ said Charlotte, ‘and if it will give you peace, I will say I forgive you. But I do not believe that you need it.’
‘And I love you,’ said Anne, ‘and if you wish it, I in turn shall grant you absolution that you in no way require.’
Charlotte nodded Crowley’s head, and Aziraphale and Crowley felt their lips drawn together once more. Their bodies pressed as close together as physically possible, which could never be close enough.
There was a knock at the window. Charlotte and Anne broke their kiss, and they gasped as one. Standing outside were Anathema and Newt.
‘James?’ cried Charlotte, gazing at Anathema in shock and, Crowley realised, hope. Judging by Anathema’s expression, James was equally delighted to see them. Newt looked less than amused at the state of his car, but he reached over and opened the door anyway, and James made his way inside. They moved to accommodate him, and he settled between them.
‘James,’ said Anne, ‘oh, James. We are so, so sorry.’
‘What for, Miss Anne?’ asked James.
‘Everything,’ said Charlotte. ‘We ought to have seen it sooner, and been cleverer when we did.’
‘We should have taken much better care of you,’ said Anne. ‘We should not have been not so wrapped up in ourselves.’
‘We are so sorry,’ said Charlotte. Crowley and Aziraphale noted the foreign sensation of tears welling in their eyes.
James shrugged. ‘That’s all right.’ He looked around. ‘This is a funny sort of contraption, isn’t it? Are we going somewhere?’
Charlotte and Anne looked at each other, and Anathema felt each of them take one of her hands. ‘Yes,’ said Anne. ‘Yes, I rather think we are.’
THANK YOU, said Death, appearing before them in the snow. IT’S ABOUT TIME.
‘All’s well that ends well,
From here to eternity.
Please turn car upright.’
‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, apropos of nothing, an hour into the ride back to London. ‘My dear, I am so sorry.’
‘What on Earth for?’ asked Crowley, trying to focus on the road, and absolutely not on anything else.
‘You know,’ said Aziraphale with evident frustration, ‘the real reason Azrael put this problem to us. The reason Anne related to me, such as she couldn’t have done to anyone else.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ said Crowley, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Not for all the trappings of Earth would he have looked at Aziraphale, but Aziraphale, of course, looked at him.
‘You don’t know?’ he asked, disbelieving. ‘How did you think I wound up discorporated?’
‘Know what?’ asked Crowley. ‘I assumed it had something to do with your shop having morphed into an inferno.’
‘After I’d worked it out about the identity of the Antichrist, I contacted Up There,’ said Aziraphale, ‘before I attempted to contact you. I knew, deep down, exactly what would happen, and the bugger of it is that in my heart I wanted to tell you, to choose you and never look back, but my courage failed, as it were, at the pivotal moment.’ He paused. ‘I thought you knew. I’ve had to live with that every moment since.’
‘Car, steer yourself,’ said Crowley. He turned to Aziraphale. ‘You made up for it later,’ he said, willing himself to sound nonchalant, ‘with your realisation about the Great Plan not necessarily being so Ineffable. As near as I can tell, that was the only thing either of us managed to contribute in the end, and it was all you.’
Aziraphale shook his head. ‘You are very kind, my dear.’
‘Am not,’ said Crowley automatically. ‘But if it’ll get you to drop this, then you’re forgiven. Or whatever.’
‘Would theirs have been our fate, do you think?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘Had we been so isolated?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘We were so isolated.’
‘Precisely,’ said Aziraphale. ‘We owe our survival, and that of the Earth, to the fortuitous actions of others with whom we unknowingly shared a common goal. Alone, we surely would have lost.’
Crowley nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and you know that was my fault, right? Seeing as how I fled the hospital in terror? If I’d had the stomach to properly supervise things, maybe our original plan would have stood a chance.’
Aziraphale smiled. ‘Water under the bridge, my dear.’ He extended a hand, and Crowley took it. He had a question, but he would need more time to find the courage to ask it. He turned back to the road.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, holding hands, finally arriving in the first light of dawn. ‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale hesitantly, taking in the sight of what was definitely not his bookshop.
‘Come upstairs,’ said Crowley, having forgot to breathe an hour before.
Aziraphale nodded, looking as nervous as Crowley felt. The tension between them in the lift could have been cut with a knife, but then again, this is broadly true of all tension in all lifts, a fact on which Crowley had long prided himself. They entered Crowley’s luxurious flat and sat down together on the sofa, and Crowley waved a hand. Soon each of them held a glass of most excellent brandy, and the speakerless sound system was playing a soothing Vivaldi.
‘What did you mean earlier,’ said Crowley, with no small amount of trepidation, ‘when you said that you wanted to see my eyes?’
Aziraphale sighed. ‘You must know,’ he murmured, addressing the opposite wall. ‘I felt everything that Anne was feeling, and I must confess I was quite overcome. I had entirely forgot about the plan and all of that. I only needed, urgently, to know whether you were equally in thrall.’
Crowley leaned back, and removed his sunglasses. He set them down on the coffee table, and then he leaned forward, drew Aziraphale close, and kissed him. For having spent the last six thousand years not kissing Aziraphale, he found he was becoming quite used to it. After a moment or so he pulled back, opened his eyes wide, and gazed into Aziraphale’s eyes.
‘Does that answer your question?’ he asked. Aziraphale beamed, and then he kissed Crowley.
To any being neither occult nor ethereal, what happened next would appear ordinary, even artless. This is because any being neither occult nor ethereal would fail to notice the white-hot fusion of thought and touch, engulfing both angel and demon in an all-consuming sensation at once sacred, sinful, and entirely human.
What Crowley was thinking, and broadcasting with every desperate touch, was this:
Do you know what I do when I tempt people? I look into their minds, into their souls, and give them what they truly want. And right now, angel, every desire in your head is for me, and I beg you to let me oblige you. Wasn’t it your friend Oscar who said the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it? Yield with me. I want to give you everything you want. It’s my temptation too. I want you, Aziraphale.
And Aziraphale’s equally desperate thoughts, broadcast quite as loudly through his own hands, were these:
You once indicated to me that you could neither sense nor understand love. But we aren’t supposed to have free will, either, and look how that’s turned out. You are nothing short of a wonder, braver and better than you’ll ever admit and that’s all right, you don’t have to admit to anything. But I am determined to leave you with no doubt that I love you, Crowley, nor any confusion as to what it might mean, because no one deserves it more than you.
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, after they had collapsed against one another, ‘we’ll have to do that again sometime.’
It was several more moments before Crowley spoke.
‘We’re not done yet,’ he said at last. ‘It’s time you learned how to sleep, angel.’
One week later, Aziraphale and Crowley half-sat, half-lay curled around each other on the couch in Aziraphale’s back room, sipping steaming cups of mulled wine and staring, when they could take their eyes from each other, out the tiny, smudged window at a near whiteout of London. Between the weather and the closed sign, they ought not to have been disturbed, but nonetheless, the shop’s bell rang. Crowley arranged his face into his most practised glare, but dropped it when the customer lowered her hood and peeled the scarf off her face.
‘Hi,’ said Anathema, leaning against the doorframe. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ She drew an envelope out of her purse and held it out to them.
Aziraphale smiled warmly at her. ‘Do have a seat, Anathema,’ he said, nodding at an armchair across from them.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I won’t be staying long. This is your cut.’
‘Our what?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘Oh. Er, thank you, but we don’t really need—’
‘I know,’ said Anathema, ‘but it was a three-person job. Four if you count Newt’s part. Five, I suppose, if you count Death’s hints, but the point is that I couldn’t have done it without you. I just thought, you know, fair’s fair.’
‘Thank you,’ said Crowley, grabbing the envelope from her before Aziraphale could refuse a second time. It was true that they didn’t need money, but you never knew when it might come in handy, and as far as he was concerned, she was quite right that they’d earned it.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Anathema. ‘There was, erm, one other thing. I was wondering if you two might like to come round for Christmas dinner.’
Crowley and Aziraphale stared at Anathema, and then at each other. ‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale after a moment. For himself he saw no harm in accepting, but he didn’t want to speak for Crowley, and the demon appeared to be suffering from some sort of temporary stoppage of cerebral functions. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘that is very kind, of course. Obviously, we wouldn’t wish to put you out in any way—’
‘I should warn you,’ said Anathema, ‘that until this year I was too busy with nice and accurate prophecies to ever learn to cook a turkey, and I’m not sure the oven at Jasmine Cottage could handle it even if I knew how. So it’ll just be wine and Chinese take-away.’ She paused. ‘All the wine you like.’
At this, Crowley promptly recovered, and he didn’t need to verbalise his agreement for Aziraphale to pick up on it. ‘In that case, dear lady, how can we refuse.’
‘Just one condition,’ said Crowley. ‘Absolutely no ghost stories.’
Anathema grinned. ‘None whatsoever,’ she promised, ‘but I’d love to hear more about the Battle of Haystack.’
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:59 am (UTC)