Happy Holidays, luinlothana!

[goe_mod]

Title: OPERATION BOOKWURM
Recipient: luinlothana
Rated: T
Pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley
Summary: After Armageddon’s come and gone, Crowley decides to sneak his book collection into the bookshop for safekeeping. Only Aziraphale can’t find out, or it’ll raise all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Commence OPERATION BOOKWURM.
Notes: Happy Holidays, luinlothana!

To most casual onlookers, Anthony J. Crowley, Mayfair, London, did not seem the sort of man who read. All it took was one look at him: all affected dark sprawl and permanently crossed arms and skintight clothes. He was rarely seen to smile, and who could tell what went on behind those sunglasses? Anthony J. Crowley, you would think, was the type of middle-aged man much more inclined towards, say, Ayn Rand audiobooks blasted obnoxiously from his sleek car at stop lights, or self-help podcasts, or slick magazines, like, say, Architectural Digest, or Food & Wine, or maybe even - and you wouldn’t know why this popped into your head - Snake Fancy. But he wouldn’t, you would think firmly and finally, read books.

This was wrong on several counts. ¹

For starters, Anthony J. Crowley was not a man. He merely looked like one. He was, in fact, a demon, and as such - along with his less-Fallen brethren - was sexless, unless he chose to make an effort.² Secondly, Anthony J. Crowley was not middle-aged. He was immortal, and had literal millions of years under his belt. Er, robe. Er, wings. And finally, Anthony J. Crowley, AKA Crowley, AKA Crawley, did, in fact, read.

He just lied about it.

Kept in the second most secure location in his flat was Crowley’s collection of books: some three dozen or so, enough to fill one shelf of a standard bookcase, or all of a sleek modern bookcase, the kind with more open space and steel than places for books, the kind that made Aziraphale simmer with righteous fury.³ The books weren’t on a shelf, though. They were hidden in a vault in the floor under Crowley’s bed, where no errant angels could possibly stumble across them and utter a smug little “Well!” smug hands on smug hips. Crowley’d never hear the end of it. And although the angel had only ever been in Crowley’s flat once - after the very end of things - hope springs eternal, and Crowley had often thought over the years the books were safer in their vault. Just in case Aziraphale had stopped by on his way through the neighborhood, and his gaze happened to skitter across them, irresistibly drawn to the printed word, like a moth to a flame.

A few weeks after the Armageddon-that-wasn’t, Crowley drank far too much in the bookshop with Aziraphale, a night that began with cocktails, continued well through several vineyards, and culminated in sambuca shots from a dusty, sticky bottle Aziraphale unearthed under his sink. “It’s a shame to think we almost - hic - didn’t get through this,” Aziraphale said, hefting the bottle.

“Yeah, a real shame,” Crowley said, but Aziraphale didn’t seem to pick up on it, just beamed at him, the force of all his teeth bared at Crowley. And Crowley - well. There were a lot of things Crowley thought it was a shame they almost didn’t get around to, end of the world and all. Like, like - like the London Eye. That was a safe one. He landed on it. “Eye,” he grunted out to Aziraphale.

“Your what?” Aziraphale said, and Crowley said, “London Eye.”

“London - oh!” Aziraphale’s face brightened. “Of course. We’ve never been there. Do you want to? Perhaps we ought to broaden our horizons,” he said. “With this new - freedom.” He looked almost giddy with it. Or the sambuca. Hard to tell, really.

Crowley grunted, then said, “Yeah.”

“Is there anything in particular you want to do?” Aziraphale asked, and there was the strangest look on his face as he swayed forward a little, and it looked as if he was looking at Crowley’s mouth, as if he was going to-

Aziraphale pulled back, abruptly, frowning a little, and made some sort of excuse, like it was late, and he had to do inventory early in the morning, and shouldn’t Crowley go get some sleep? And before Crowley knew it, he was shooed out the door and into the street like some sort of stray. Which he was, he guessed. He collapsed into the Bentley and it took him back to his flat and because he couldn’t sleep and he was thinking about Aziraphale, what else was new, he snapped his fingers to move the bed, and then he got down on his knees and took the steel plate out of the floor and pulled his books out. In the dim light of his bedroom they looked sad and insubstantial after the bookshop’s soft yellow glow and softly whispering books. Crowley almost felt bad for them. Part of the binding crumbled on one of them as he lifted them out and stacked them up.⁴ It wasn’t an optimal storage condition, Crowley thought. They belonged in the bookshop, really, where they could be cared for properly, and read by more than just him.

But there were problems with that. Crowley couldn’t just saunter into the shop with a box of books and drop them off - “Here you go, box of books for you, thought they could go on the shelf with yours, don’t go selling them now-” because that opened broader, deeper questions, very serious questions, worse ones than you’ve been reading all this time? No, Aziraphale would start asking things like what else are you hiding, and what sort of feelings are lurking under that cool black exterior, ⁵ and start to comment things like maybe you’re secretly Nice after all, and Crowley really, really didn’t want to have those conversations. Conversations like what he and Aziraphale meant to each other. Conversations like what their plans were now. Aziraphale’d shown no sign of wanting things to change after Armageddon, and Crowley (too fast too late never gets it right) was taking his cues from the angel. And if he started acting like he was going to move into Aziraphale’s shop, what happened if Aziraphale said no? Told him to begone, foul serpent? Changed the wards?

And part of it too was - well - Crowley didn’t have many things. He wasn’t a thing sort of being.⁶ But what he did have was precious to him, and if - well, it was morbid, but if something happened to him, those books would just be left to rot and moulder under the floorboards, through no fault of their own, and somewhere out there Aziraphale would be twitching - Crowley did not allow himself to think that if something happened to him, something could very well happen to Aziraphale too - knowing there were some homeless books somewhere, but not knowing where or why.

(And, too, it would be a bit of an apology for the #shelfie trend Crowley had started. Aziraphale hadn’t spoken to Crowley for nearly a month upon finding out about it. “It promotes vanity and avarice,” Aziraphale had wailed. “It’s a cheapening of the very things I stand for as an antiquarian bookseller!” Funny, Crowley thought that vanity and avarice were exactly what Aziraphale stood for as an antiquarian bookseller. Even with that, Crowley had caught Aziraphale trolling the internet looking at the hashtag and muttering occasionally over particular finds. Aziraphale would hunch over the keyboard, typing out messages, and very occasionally, Crowley suspected, working miracles that somehow left Aziraphale with new acquisitions from “some nice young woman in Piccadilly. Really, she didn’t even know what she had,” Aziraphale’d insisted to Crowley. "It’s much better this way. Why, she was going to put it in one of those little houses on the street for any small child to take or for some dog to urinate on!⁷ A first edition Shelley!” he’d moaned.)

So. Crowley owed Aziraphale one, in a book-related sort of way. And he had a small but precious pile of books to offload somewhere. And where did books go?

Bookshops.

The trouble was getting them there without Aziraphale noticing, because he’d be insufferable, knowing that Crowley’d been reading all this time. That Crowley had books. Good thing Aziraphale didn’t have to know. Crowley was a demon, a master of subterfuge and sneaking. Aziraphale had millions of books.⁸ He wasn’t going to notice 32 more.

It was a Thursday evening, autumn, when Crowley put his plan - code name OPERATION BOOKWURM, because Crowley was a master of wit and wordplay - into action. When Aziraphale called him up to invite him out - as he did with increasing regularity, as if some sort of great leaden cloud had lifted from above their heads, which, Crowley thought, it rather had - Crowley slipped his first accomplice into his jacket. It was a relatively inoffensive book, a slim gray-and-yellow volume of Chesterton poems that he knew Aziraphale already possessed. It would blend into the bookshop. Aziraphale wouldn’t even be able to spot the interloper, as he frequently had doubles and triples (and even quadruples) of everything.

So, like a murderer dragging along the ghost of his victim or a thief with the knowledge of his crime soon to be committed, Crowley slunk along to the taqueria Aziraphale chose for dinner, where he had to watch Aziraphale lick crema fresca off his fingers.⁹ The book digging into his stomach was entirely responsible for the strange chest-cramping lightness he felt while watching, and then Crowley had to skulk along to the chamber music performance Aziraphale wanted to see, where he had to sit next to Aziraphale, his fingers twitching as if he were the one conducting, absolutely enraptured. The book, Crowley swore, thumped in his pocket along with the bass, and after the particular end of a movement when the music stilled and the silence swelled to fill the hall the book thumped out an extra one-two beat loud enough that Aziraphale actually inclined his head the slightest bit towards Crowley as if listening. The seats were narrow, and close together, and their legs pressed together mid-thigh to knee to calf, and when Aziraphale got particularly wriggly his ankle would knock into Crowley’s or his elbow would brush Crowley’s arm on the armrest between them. After a particularly vivid knock-and-brush, Crowley froze, and very slowly, so very slowly the movement could barely be noted, pulled his arm back into his lap so that Aziraphale didn’t pull away entirely. Although the horns were thundering tremendously, he could hear Aziraphale make a little noise like a sigh, a noise that would be lost in the music if Crowley hadn’t been listening to him for thousands of years, and so then Crowley had to sit there and stew with that for the next forty minutes. When the music had ended, and the lights had come up, and Crowley’s ears rang with silence, Aziraphale turned to him, eyes bright, laying a hand on his arm, and said, “You will come back for a drink, won’t you-?”

Back at the shop - glasses forsaken, Aziraphale’s bowtie very discreetly loosened when he’d thought Crowley wasn’t looking, ¹⁰ dress coat changed for house coat, wine poured - Crowley started skulking around the shop for a place to hide his first victim.

“I knew I shouldn’t have taken you tonight,” Aziraphale said, watching him, as if he were a particularly troublesome pet. “Brass always makes you restless.” Although this was technically true, Crowley still sneered at Aziraphale, who pressed his lips together and sniffed in that little way that meant he knew he was right, and he would be reminding Crowley of it the second Crowley acquiesced that yes, in fact, he was a bit restless after all, and Aziraphale had been right.¹¹

When Aziraphale went off to get some nibbles, as he put it, Crowley lingered by a stack of nature encyclopedias on one of the front tables - which were as far as Aziraphale ever let customers get, so perhaps on the off-chance he did find it, he might assume it had given a passer-by the slip and slunk in here for sanctuary. As soon as Aziraphale’s heel turned the corner, Crowley reached for the stack, but, attempting to slide the contraband out of his pocket at the same time, and still refusing to let go of his glass, fumbled, knocking the stack over in an attempt to save his wine.¹²

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said in the kitchenette, and Crowley could hear him put the glass down and begin walking into the shop proper. By the time he rounded the corner, Crowley’d got the pile back together, leaning insouciantly against the table, gulping his wine, book of poetry burning a brand through his pocket. Even over the rim of the glass, he could see Aziraphale very clearly mentally shrug and decide to leave him to whatever strange thing he was doing. Still, Aziraphale watched him the rest of the night like - well, like some particularly hungry and vengeful hawk, eyes narrowed, head following him around the bookshop, so when Crowley returned back to his flat some hours later, it was as a thwarted demon (the first real thwarting Aziraphale had done in about a decade, unless you counted Armageddon and all). He flung the book back into the hidden vault with no small amount of irritation.

(The next day, Crowley managed to deposit the Chesterton on top of a towering pile of books on the microwave, the pile Aziraphale’d been meaning to get around to since 1983, when he had lugged the microwave in here in the first place and promptly stacked books on top of it.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called as Crowley removed the Chesterton, stacked it two books down, and put the other books back on top of it. “Coming, angel,” he called back. At the edge of the kitchenette, glasses in hand, he turned back around to look at the book, which was, he felt, staring after him. He dismissed the small pang that threatened to trouble him. The book was in better hands here, in a literal bookshop. Even on top of the microwave. And he could see it practically anytime he wanted, if he wanted such a thing. Heaven, he was in the shop two, three times a week now.

And then, after walking out the door at one in the morning - it had rained a bit while Crowley was in the shop, everything wet and dark and glistening, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his shoulders in, and began to walk across the street - “Crowley, wait!” he heard behind him.

Crowley turned around, deceptively casual, his heart hammering in his chest. “Yeah?” Aziraphale teetered on his doorstop, his face flushed, hair a little wild, as it got when he’d been drinking, a fuzzy little halo illuminated by the shop light behind him. He didn’t say anything, just reached out a hand to Crowley, and Crowley, heart nearly choking him now, stupid human thing, loped over to him. The streetlights glittered on the pavement. This was it. He was going to ask Crowley to come back, in to stay- Aziraphale held something out. “I think you forgot this.”

Crowley had to squint to focus his muzzy eyes as he pushed his sunglasses up. It was his book. The poor Chesterton. Found out already.

“S’not mine,” he said, stupidly.

“Well it’s not mine,” Aziraphale said. “I can’t think how it’s got in there.” He sounded a little peevish as he wriggled it at Crowley, and Crowley found himself reaching out to take it. He held it up before his eyes, pretended to study it.¹³ “Oh yeah. Yeah. Must’ve done. S’ for. S’for wiles. You know. Thankssss,” he said, shoving it back into his pocket, and beating a hasty retreat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Aziraphale called after him, a strange soft tone in his voice, but Crowley just threw a hand back at him, and didn’t turn back around. It was a cold and wet ride home, the streets slick and shining glossy as a black hole.¹⁴ Crowley glared at the book as he cut down Whickber Street. It seemed to shrink in front of his eyes. He tossed it into the passenger seat, then sighed. “Doesn’t want me around either,” Crowley said, and brooded the whole way home.)

≠≠

Crowley brought the Chesterton back to the bookshop along with his copy of Paradise Lost, the Blake edition, because he had once teased Aziraphale about the rather improbable color plate¹⁵ of the angel of the Eastern Gate until Aziraphale had turned puce and nearly dithered up to the ceiling. “I don’t know where he got that impression of me,” Aziraphale had said.

A little after noon, Aziraphale told him he had to pop over the road to check on one of his tenants, and would Crowley mind the shop for him? Crowley’s heart kicked up double time, but he just grunted, not looking up from his phone as he waved Aziraphale off. As soon as he could feel Aziraphale round the corner, he scrambled off the sofa, pulling out the two books and starting to circle. He briefly considered, then decided against the Poetry section. Same with Religion, and then with Philosophy. Finally, he settled on Biographies, as Aziraphale’d read his annual biography already, and wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. On the backside of the shelf, where Aziraphale spent little time - you had to turn your back on L-space to do so, a poor decision for any creature, ethereal or not - Crowley, glancing over his shoulder, found a gap in the books and, pushing them to either side, pushed his two books in. They brightened almost immediately, as if buoyed by the presence of the other books and the support of an actual shelf.

“Listen to me,” Crowley said through his teeth, after looking over his shoulder again. “You will not let this place catch fire. Do you understand?” The books made a soft whispering sound, as if they were trees in a slight breeze. Because books did listen, like when Aziraphale told one of his Bibles to lay flat, for Heaven’s sake, or asked the Lais of Marie de France to please stop trying to give him a paper cut every time he’d like to read one.¹⁶

When Aziraphale came back in, huffing slightly in irritation, Crowley was studying the Birding section - as far away from Biographies as you could get and not be in L-space - with every semblance of great attention.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called out. “Are you still here?”

“Back here,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale came around the corner, eyes narrowed in suspicion, bringing with him the cold fresh smell of clean outside air. Then he brightened. “Crowley!” Aziraphale said with delight. “Are you looking for a book to read? I have a rather interesting treatment of-”

“No!” said Crowley, rather quickly, not wanting Aziraphale to start looking through the stacks too closely. Aziraphale’s face fell, so Crowley hastened to add, “Just. Y’know. Making sure it’s all still here.”¹⁷ Aziraphale’s face, still disappointed, softened a little, a familiar look to Crowley, having seen it for millennia, each time doing something strange and awful to his chest.

≠≠

Three days went by, and Aziraphale didn’t say anything to Crowley about the books. All he did was call Crowley up and invite him to dinner the next evening, if he was free. Of course he was free. Crowley was always free these days, having been turned loose from Hell and gainful employment. Crowley showed up to the shop emboldened by the previous success of Operation Bookwurm, and, while Aziraphale was upstairs doing Satan knew what to get ready for dinner, Crowley slipped his copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s Collected Stories - which he had bought over in America in the nineteenth century, because he was in one of the stories¹⁸ - right next to Aziraphale’s copy.

“Ah!” said Aziraphale, and Crowley jumped rather nastily, turning, but Aziraphale was coming down the steps, hand trailing on the railing like some debutante. He hadn’t appeared to have caught Crowley. “So sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, strangely flushed, and Crowley was so chuffed with himself that he even swung open the Bentley’s door for Aziraphale and closed it after him.

Their days continued through the autumn and into the winter, with scarcely a day going by without the two of them seeing or speaking to each other. Aziraphale would call Crowley up for help with the word search, or Crowley would loiter up and down Whickber Street until Aziraphale would wave him in and say, “Crowley, perfect, I was just about to try this new little Greek place,, if you’d care to join me -?” And they’d go, and Crowley would drink a few bottles and watch Aziraphale put away a prodigious amount of lamb, and at the end, they’d agree Argus’ back in Crete was better, of course, you couldn’t beat the view-

“Or the smell,” Crowley suggested.

“Mmm,” said Aziraphale, nose wrinkling, and let Crowley steal the last bite of baklava off his plate as an award for a point well made.

Or sometimes Crowley would call Aziraphale up and say something like, “Going to the park, throw some ducks, fifteen minutes,” and Aziraphale would say, “Surely you mean throw food for the ducks, right, Crowley? Crowley?” But the angel would show up some twenty minutes later, ambiguity or no, casting benevolent glances on the lucky passerby as he strolled, hands clasped behind his back, a little fluffy tan ray of - well, something or other. Or they’d go to the Christmas market, where Aziraphale would fuss over every little thing and brush against Crowley’s side enough in the crowd that Crowley would offer his arm, and Aziraphale would slip his hand into the crook of his elbow, and Crowley would forget to breathe for the next thirty-eight minutes. Or they’d go see a performance, or the light show at Kew Gardens, or they’d sit around the shop getting absolutely hammered on New Year’s and when they each felt the great big universe clock tick forward another year they’d look at each other, Aziraphale’s mouth wet with champagne and it taking Crowley everything he had not to just sway forward and fall on Aziraphale like some sort of predator…and all the while they kept waiting, both of them, for the other shoe to drop, for Heaven or Hell to come down (or up) on them, but nothing happened. So they talked two times a week, then three times a week, then four, then it was more often than not Crowley was sprawled on Aziraphale’s sofa as the winter sun stretched in surprisingly rich and full in the mornings on his skin, heavy and warm, the familiar sound of Aziraphale bustling around meaninglessly, maybe humming something light, something that put Crowley right to sleep, where he would wake up just in time for lunch, or dinner, or a walk, or anything, really, that Aziraphale wanted to do.

And every week or so, Crowley snuck another book in and shelved it. Some books were easier to sneak in than others, like the 1987 exhibition book from the Salvador Dali Museum he slid into the Art section without much fuss. He and Aziraphale had gone together when they’d both been in America. Aziraphale hadn’t cared for it at all - surrealism wasn’t quite his thing - but Crowley had spent quite a bit of time with Breton in the 1930s and had rather enjoyed it. He’d gone into the gift shop to ostensibly mix up all the name souvenirs, leaving Aziraphale in the cafe to devour a croissant.¹⁹ Crowley had bought the book fair and square, and miracled it to his flat back in London, where he’d looked over it later and recalled in great detail the disgusted noises Aziraphale had made at, say, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, or The Persistence of Memory, which Aziraphale had just sniffed at, because how could Crowley explain that was exactly how time worked? It was a fluke that Dali had realized it at all, but still the painting always made Crowley’s fingers start to tingle, and made him want to start messing around with, say, the fourteenth century, to go back in time and hurry things up a bit.

On the other hand, Aziraphale found the Where’s Waldo 1993 Special Edition almost immediately, although fortunately he blamed it on Adam. The 1993 Special Edition was reputed to be the hardest Where’s Waldo in existence. One of Crowley’s, of course. Most people claimed Waldo was not in it at all, that it was simply some cruel joke on the part of the publishers. Others claimed that he had been in there, but had been removed in the proofs by some about-to-be-pink-slipped editor. More than five dozen professional Where’s Waldo finders (and a few amateurs) went mad looking for him. Suze Simmons, the Where’s Waldo World Champion, 1988-1993, claimed to have found him, but refused to tell anyone where he was, leading not a few people²⁰ to seriously misdoubt her.

(She’d found it, alright, one of the only three who had. Coincidentally, after her reported finding of it, she quit her job and moved to Cabo and seemed to have rather prodigious amounts of money.)

Aziraphale settled down to look through it, a cup of tea by his side. He had a bit of an advantage, with all those ever-vigilant eyes, and after a rousing argument with Crowley, based on the accusation that the angel was cheating, agreed rather petulantly not to use any more than the usual two. This resolution went quickly out the window after several hours, when, getting through the book once without finding the recalcitrant Waldo, he huffed in irritation and nearly threw it on the table.²¹ Eyeing it, Aziraphale reached forward suddenly and snatched the book, flipping back to the beginning, and Opened his Eyes.

Crowley smirked behind a copy of Snake Fancy, and flipped the page, and waited.

He knew when Aziraphale found it, because there was a sudden spike of angelic wrath that rippled through London. The Tube completely stilled for twenty minutes despite the best efforts of all available engineers; the milk for three blocks in every direction curdled; and a handful of the ducks in St. James Park (and some of the pigeons) decided, very rapidly, that perhaps they were the sort of bird who migrated after all.

Crowley, feeling Aziraphale’s Eyes on him - all of them - licked his finger, and noisily turned the page to “Five Signs Your Snake Secretly Hates You!” dogearing²² the page for future ideas. Just in case.

≠≠

The next books - the Flemings, The Maltese Falcon, and that little book of Italian hours that Crowley had kept only because Aziraphale, absolutely sloshed, had drawn a rude picture of Gabriel in, and then had been so horrified when he’d realized that he’d sobered up for twenty years, and which Crowley kept as a reminder that the angel would break his own rules every once in a while, and if Crowley were just patient - all went off without a hitch.

On the other hand, it didn’t always work. Sometimes Aziraphale seemed to be able to tell he was up to something, and would follow him around the shop, plastered so tightly to him that Crowley couldn’t sneak a breath that Aziraphale wouldn’t know about. Or, sometimes, Crowley would be deep in a section, say, Poetry, 51 BC - 25 AD, about to slip Martius’ Book of Palms into the stacks, when Aziraphale would pop behind him like some sort of holy jack-in-the-box and startle the devil out of him.²³ Or Aziraphale would seem to sniff out the interloper, like when he found the George Braxt immediately. Possibly because Crowley had the bad luck, or lack of foresight, to place them in the Egyptian History section and then start a spirited argument about Nefertiti. “Really!” said Aziraphale, coming out of the section, thumbing through one. “I must insist-”

“Must be Soho,” Crowley said, shrugging. “S’in the air, you know how it is.”

“But these are American,” Aziraphale said, not lifting his face up from the first paragraph. He was even, Crowley noted with some satisfaction, licking his finger, ready to turn the page…

Crowley busied himself with making reservations at the Ritz, because the angel might be awhile. An hour and a half later Crowley smirked when the angel gasped audibly, eyes wide, hand over his mouth. “I knew it!” he hissed over dinner, although Crowley suspected he knew no such thing. Crowley himself hadn’t seen the ending coming, and he prided himself on guessing the endings right every time. A natural sense of sin, he had.

By now, Crowley had successfully gotten over a dozen books into the shop. It was almost, Crowley mused one day - Aziraphale having darted off to look at some book he’d been meaning to purchase that had suddenly become available across town, in some great multi-decade scheme Aziraphale had been working on that involved cultivating a friendship with a British Museum curate (that Crowley wholly disapproved of, having seen into the man’s mind, and knowing pure friendship was not what he was after), a series of forged letters, and a false mustache - it was almost as if Aziraphale wanted him to sneak his books in. Aziraphale had been leaving him alone in the shop once or twice a month, having told Crowley, rushing out on some such errand, that Crowley could stay, if he liked, that the bookshop was - and here Aziraphale had gathered himself up and straightened his shoulders and said that, after all, Crowley was welcome in the bookshop anytime, that he must know that, that the bookshop was, really, rather fond of him, after all - and then he had gulped, and hurried out the door, and hadn’t been back until dinner. But that couldn’t have been the case, Crowley thought, because it would have meant that Aziraphale knew about the books, and a quick trip around the shop showed that they were all still in the places Crowley had put them, except the Where’s Waldo book, which Aziraphale had resolutely shelved in the Demonology section with a sideways glance at Crowley.

In January, Crowley hid the following in Aziraphale’s shop:

A travel journal of Egypt, published 1886, found by accident in a Parisian bookseller’s stall and kept because Crowley appeared in the background of a photo on page 53. That hairstyle had been good on him. A first edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, complete with Dore’s engravings. A book of Marco Polo’s letters. The Tempest. When looking for a good place to deposit his copy of The Tempest, Crowley stumbled²⁴ upon a room hidden, evidently, from his prying eyes. The room was, theoretically, nestled upstairs between the bedroom - used for more book storage, where Crowley deposited the book of letters - and the bathroom. The room was a small, close space, with only a small ornate chair and three walls of shelves stacked with books, towering to the ceiling and starting to buckle under their own weight. And no wonder. The room reeked of lesser, long-dead human lusts fluttering from the books, near-smothered by the heady scent of angelic lust. Crowley took a sharp breath in before he could stop himself and his knees nearly buckled. He grabbed onto one of the shelves to keep himself upright, dislodging as he did so a small paperback with a lurid cover. Picking it up, he raised his eyebrows looking at it, and, setting down The Tempest, thumbed through it, mouthing a sentence or two to himself. Yowza. Was this what Aziraphale-?

Crowley poked around curiously. The books stretched back millennia, papyrus scrolls and small Roman books and even a rather filthy little cuneiform tablet. There was an entire bookcase full of the saucier books of hours. As Aziraphale would say, Good Lord. Crowley could even see from the fingerprints in the dust showing which of these volumes the angel had most recently been at-

When Aziraphale got back from the errand he had been on, he took one look at Crowley, drew himself upright, and narrowed his eyes. “Did you - have you been snooping around?”

“Course I was, angel. M’a demon,” Crowley crossed his legs and settled back on the sofa. “Why? Hiding something? Hidden staircases, secret rooms, that sort of thing?”

Crowley had deposited The Tempest in the Shipbuilding section back by the cellar door. He didn’t think Aziraphale would find it, so he taunted a little. Aziraphale turned a strange white color, then a vivid crimson.

“No! No. Whyever would you think that,” Aziraphale said, laughing rather nervously, and Crowley grinned at him. Aziraphale flushed delicately, dropping his parcels rather heavily onto his desk and sitting down, bent over them intently, shoulders up around his ears as the back of his neck reddened, tell-tale against his white hair and cream jacket.

Crowley figured it was best to high-tail it out of there on some imaginary errand, and so he did. The next time they saw each other neither of them mentioned it, but Crowley could feel it there between them, a great big heavy thing. So. Aziraphale wanted. Crowley had always suspected, had smelled it on him from time to time, but he’d always thought it was a vague cloudy intangible thing, like, say, Aziraphale’s love of humanity, or his respect for God. That night they went to a little cocktail lounge with low lighting and plush booths and slow jazz and there was a moment when Aziraphale leaned across the table and reached out, almost as if he was going to take Crowley’s hand, but then thought better of it, fiddling with the centerpiece instead. Crowley leaned back in his chair - Aziraphale looked down, and huffed softly - and kicked his legs out under the table to brush with Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale froze, then forced himself to relax. Crowley could see it in the three-centimeter slump to his shoulders. They spent the next three cocktails with their ankles brushing, and if everything in the room sharpened just a little, became just a little brighter, just a little more beautiful, well, it was probably just the alcohol. That was all.

≠≠

In February, Crowley charmed a larger Astronomy section out of the bookshop. The shop was willing enough to help him; it had always liked him, he thought smugly, ever since the time he stopped Aziraphale from knocking down the kitchenette wall back in 1832 to expand the main shop. Even with the shop’s assistance, it still took a considerable amount of time and monkeying about with space to properly enlarge the shop to fit Crowley’s Big Book of Astronomy. Although on the surface, the book was only the size of a rather large dictionary, in reality the thing was only slightly less dense than a star.²⁵ Aziraphale had given it to Crowley as a Christmas present in the early aughts. “Where’d you get this, then?” Crowley had said, because it featured a few dozen stars that hadn’t been discovered yet, and the publication date was 2014. Aziraphale had just smiled.

Crowley had been impressed. The book had been fairly exhaustive, as far as human understanding went,²⁶ and the photos were glossy, large, and beautiful. Crowley had expanded the book considerably, hyperlinking the photos to their real-life counterpoints, so one could go to, say, the moon, or Alpha Centauri, or the Horsehead Nebula, anytime one chose..²⁷

Despite his fairly tricky physics work, the book was rather massive, and so Crowley used a small miracle to keep Aziraphale busy in Ledes as he coaxed the bookshop to extend its Astronomy shelves another nine inches, twelve solar masses, and twenty-four light years. Using both hands,²⁸ he carefully fitted the book into place, and then, for good measure, he tweaked time, too, so that the book had always been there, so Aziraphale wouldn’t notice the sudden and graphic expansion to the shop.²⁹

The bookshop shot him a petulant look - time was tricky - so Crowley had to go around the shop praising little but crucial things, like the crown molding in the kitchenette, and the wine cellar that always kept the perfect temperature for Crowley’s favorite vintage, and that little dark nook just behind the door where Crowley lurked sometimes to scare potential customers off. The bookshop thawed a bit under the weight of Crowley’s praise, and stretched, and relaxed, settling with something like a low sigh near Astronomy.

Aziraphale came back after eight, harried. “You would not believe-”

Crowley would. “Tell me about it over dinner,” he suggested, and Aziraphale wilted. “Oh, but it’s so late-”

“Got a table for two, twenty minutes from now,” Crowley said breezily, as he’d booked it hours before, and at the end of the meal, the soft little sigh Aziraphale made, and his delighted smile, bestowed upon Crowley, almost made Crowley feel guilty.

Almost.

≠≠

In March, Aziraphale said, “Why on earth have I got two copies of Antony and Cleopatra?”³⁰

“You’ve got ten,” Crowley said, not looking up from Snake Fancy. “Two in Plays, one in Romance, one propping up the upstairs spare bedroom window, and two in History. You’ve got one that doesn’t exist yet, two that only exist in possibilities, and one, I think, in the wine cellar, under a Chardonnay.” He turned the page. A quiz. “Is Your Snake a Summer or a Winter?”

“Well, I don’t know which is mine,” Aziraphale said petulantly after a minute or two. Crowley - who was a summer, apparently - tossed the magazine down and went over to Aziraphale, who stood by Plays, the spring sunlight lighting the dust motes all around him like swirling stars. Aziraphale looked more than a little distressed. Crowley took the book from him gently, their fingers brushing. At his touch, the book fell open, its hinge worn by repeated opening to the same spot over centuries, to Act II, Scene II. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Crowley’s copy, then. It must have been the sudden head rush of standing up, or the brush of their fingers, or Aziraphale’s very distressed expression, because Crowley found himself admitting, rather stupidly, “This one’s mine. Must’ve left it by mistake.”

“You have Shakespeare?” Aziraphale said, and Crowley made a strange grunting noise. They both stared at the line, Aziraphale’s breath coming rather rapidly. Crowley felt the need to defend himself and said, “S’got a - bad hinge.” He chanced a look at Aziraphale, who was silent, staring at the page, his lips a little parted. Then he sucked in a little breath, chest expanding until it nearly touched Crowley’s fingers, they were standing so close. Then, without moving his feet, he turned - his twist bringing him into contact with Crowley’s hands, the soft nap of his waistcoat warm with his body heat against the backs of Crowley’s knuckles - and plucked the other copy off the shelf. In his left hand, it fell open to the exact same damning place: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. “No,” Aziraphale said, and tapped the book in Crowley’s hand, the book near vibrating with his touch. “That one’s mine. Look, it has my thumbprint from those scrummy turkey legs we³¹ had in - oh, was it 1701?”

“’03,” Crowley said automatically. They stared at each other, until Aziraphale blushed and looked down, and Crowley away.

“Must be a problem with the binding in that edition,” Aziraphale said brightly and falsely, and snapped the book shut quickly.³²

Crowley closed his own up and hung onto it, a little helpless. “I’ll just - take this home, should I?” he said. Another failure.

“No,” said Aziraphale, a little breathlessly, not quite meeting his eyes. “No, you might as well - well, I can fix that hinge, if you leave it here.”

“Right,” said Crowley, “Yeah, sure,” and when Aziraphale took it from him their fingers touched again, and there was a moment where they both held onto the book, staring at each other, and then Aziraphale tugged a little, and Crowley let go, and Aziraphale lay the book down carefully on his desk for future attention. As if it belonged there.

≠≠

After this, Crowley started moving things into the shop in earnest. Books, statues, a plant or two, which he told the other plants weren’t coming back.³³ He couldn’t figure out how to get the ficus into the shop unobtrusively; it was rather large and fairly self-important. Maybe if he-

“Crowley!” Aziraphale called him up that night while Crowley sat in his flat, staring at the empty place the ficus used to be. He was almost - strange; he was almost lonely without it. “Crowley, what is this doing in my bathtub?”

“Needed a bit of cleaning,” Crowley said easily. “Since when do you take baths?”

“Since when do I - Crowley, we’ve bathed together!”

“S’been awhile.”

“Yes, I suppose it has,” Aziraphale said, with a strange tone in his voice Crowley didn’t quite understand.

“Rome?” Crowley tried. “First century?”

“I was thinking Moscow, tenth, but it’s no wonder you don’t remember,” Aziraphale said, a little dryly. The gentle noise of sloshing water came across the phone. Crowley thought about Aziraphale in the bathtub, his skin wet and pink and shining where he’d scrubbed it. The little hedonist would have a glass of wine that never emptied, and some snacks, and a book. Probably a third copy of a twelfth edition.

Crowley cleared his throat. “So what’re you reading, angel?”

"If you really must know, it’s one of those mysteries that mysteriously appeared.”

“How odd,” said Crowley.

“Mmm,” said Aziraphale, his voice getting far away. There was a light sloshing sound in the background, the clink of glass on glass. Crowley gulped.

“Crowley, are you quite alright?” Aziraphale’s voice came back, close in his ear, and Crowley nearly jumped.

“Mmgh? Nuh. Yeah. Uh, why?”

“It sounded like that time you had swallowed that beef Wellington. Whole.”

“You said it couldn’t be done! Easiest fiver I ever won.”

“I never said you could unhinge your jaw!”

“Never said I couldn’t, either,” Crowley said, sullenly.

A pause. Crowley watched the traffic move through the city far below. Aziraphale did - Satan knew what, likely something wholly innocent and completely indecent - to make the water slosh again. Crowley shifted a little.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and his voice sounded strange, very near and low and urgent. “Crowley, I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s time we -” His voice faltered, and failed, lost to the distance between them.

“Yeah?” said Crowley, trying for nonchalant and landing on breathless instead. “Time we what?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath. Crowley could hear it, could practically smell the sandalwood bath oils, the jar of powder sitting on the vanity waiting for him to dry off. Crowley closed his eyes. He knew too much about Aziraphale. Came of knowing someone as long as he’d known Aziraphale. Satan, forever. As long as he’d known God. Longer, really, if you count length of time actually together and not just, y’know, time spent railing at an absent Mother.

“-forget it, really, it might rain-”

“What?” Crowley came back to the conversation.

“It was a foolish suggestion, Crowley-” Aziraphale sounded annoyed. No. Embarrassed?

“No,” Crowley said, “No, I want to hear it.” And then when Aziraphale just took in a testy breath, Crowley summoned all his courage, and said, “Please?”

A pause. “I thought,” said Aziraphale, sounding slightly mollified, “We might go for that picnic tomorrow.”

Oh. Oh. Crowley made a few sounds that were unintelligible even to him, and then, in a state of panic, managed to get out, “Yeah, no, sure. Picnic. Sure.”

“It might rain,” Aziraphale said, a bit doubtfully.

“Angel,” said Crowley, mustering himself. “I can guarantee you it won’t rain.”

After making the necessary arrangements, and hanging up, Crowley shot up into the troposphere to make certain of it, striking the Fear of Crowley into particular clouds that he didn’t like the look of. He returned to earth with ice crystals in his eyelashes and hair, numb fingers, and the clear understanding that it was not to rain tomorrow.

≠≠

When Crowley swung by the shop the next day, a little before noon, he found Aziraphale dithering around inside, an overflowing picnic hamper on his desk. “Angel,” Crowley said, “we really need all this?” At Aziraphale’s wounded look, he said, “just asking.”

Aziraphale frowned down at the two cheeses in his hands. “I’m not certain-” he said.

“Bring ‘em both,” Crowley said easily, and when Aziraphale’s back was turned, he deposited Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There in the Games section.

It was a - well, it was a nice day, really, the trees just starting to bud out, little dark knobs against the bright blue sky. Crowley sprawled out on the blanket that smelled like Aziraphale as Aziraphale unpacked the hamper, a task which took upwards of twenty minutes. “What’d you do, rob a Tesco?” Crowley asked with some amusement, and Aziraphale tsked at him. Still, when he was all done, Crowley opened and poured the champagne and they clinked their glasses together very solemnly. “To picnics,” Aziraphale said, looking down and up again, that coy little look he got sometimes, when he felt he was being very sly. “To picnics,” Crowley echoed, and drank the entire glass in one go to have a reason for the strange effervescent feeling in his chest.

“It’s been a very long time coming,” Aziraphale confessed, and Crowley made a strange noise around his throat full of bubbles. “I’m glad we’re here.” Crowley finally got out a grunt that meant Yes. Fortunately, Aziraphale seemed to understand.

After Aziraphale had eaten his fill, and Crowley had nibbled on a thing or two,³⁴ Aziraphale settled back and pulled a book out of the bottom of the hamper. It was one of Crowley’s, Crowley noticed instantly, a Kingsley Amis novel he had hidden in Aziraphale’s ridiculous collection of outdated clothing. “I swear I don’t know half my stock,” Aziraphale sighed. “Perhaps it’ s time for some ‘spring cleaning.’” He smiled at his own joke. Crowley froze, and Aziraphale seemed to notice, for he stretched out his legs and knocked his foot into Crowley’s ankle, then pressed. He opened the book, put a finger inside the first page, and looked over at Crowley. “You know,” he started, then stopped. “You’re welcome anytime at the bookshop.”

“Yeah?” said Crowley, because he knew that, even if he didn’t entirely trust it, didn’t trust Aziraphale not to get sick of him, or, or turn him away. Aziraphale watched him, a strange look in his eyes, one Crowley had seen before, like when handing over a bag of books, or over crepes, or once, not so very long ago, in a Satanic nunnery-turned-corporate retreat.

“Mind that you remember that,” Aziraphale said, a trifle testily, and dove into his - Crowley’s - his - book.

Crowley fell asleep halfway through the latest copy of Snake Fancy,³⁵ the sunlight bright on his eyelids even through the glasses, warm and gentle on his skin, the pressure of Aziraphale’s foot against his ankle rather relaxing for all that. He woke a while later, the air gone cold, the sun behind a cloud, as Aziraphale closed up Crowley’s - his - Crowley’s - book and stretched, looking sadly at the remnants of the feast. Then his eyes fell on Crowley, and he smiled. “Ah!” he said. “You’re awake. I’m not at all certain those magazines are good for you. They seem to encourage a certain amount of sloth.” But there was a fond little look on Aziraphale’s face that made Crowley all warm again.

Crowley yawned and sat up slowly. “S’all the reading,” he said. “S’boring.”

“Is it indeed,” said Aziraphale, not really a question, and the look on his face made Crowley squirm. Aziraphale mistook it for a shiver, because he said, “It is rather chilly, isn’t it. I suppose we ought to be going.” He got up, then offered Crowley a hand. Crowley stared at it stupidly a moment, then took it, their palms pressing together, Aziraphale’s warm and strong and firm, as Aziraphale pulled him up, effortless, Crowley feeling as if he were Rising-

Back at the shop Aziraphale shelved the Amis in with his modern English novels, as if it belonged there. He surveyed the shelf with no small amount of angelic satisfaction. “Finally,” he said, “Only - after, you know, everything - it almost felt as if it wasn’t my shop anymore.” He fiddled with the bottom of his waistcoat. “I know that’s silly. But, well, after the fire, and all that-” he gestured - “and Adam - not that I’m not very grateful - but it felt. Well.”

“And now it’s - what, it’s better?” Crowley said, because nearly two dozen of his books were lurking in Aziraphale’s stacks, unbeknownst to him, and Crowley felt - well he didn’t feel guilty, of course, because he was a demon, and demons didn’t feel guilt,³⁶ and it wasn’t like he was stealing, or anything, it was the exact opposite of stealing, really, demon was liable to get in trouble for a stunt like that, just giving books to angels-

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Strange, isn’t it? Now the shop feels - well, I’m not sure exactly what it is, but now it feels like home again. Now. I thought we might go out tonight?” he said, brightly, and Crowley, who had thought the shop felt like home from the very first moment he’d walked in the door in 1800, could only follow, helpless.

≠≠

A few weeks later, Crowley moved in his plant books, a small but carefully thumbed-through and spotless collection of horticulture texts, which included a slim little monograph highly sought after by the discerning collector. The pamphlet was sleek and black, its title - embossed in gold leaf - The Usefulness of Fear in Horticulture. Only six were ever printed. The publication was a bit of a mystery, the volume showing up unannounced on the printing press of a small press in Devonshire one morning. A fast, red-haired, black-garbed man had shown up to collect the copies, passing over a handsome sum of money to a rather surprised secretary, and then had sauntered off the property. Two copies had, apparently, slipped from his grasp as he’d gotten back into his sleek old car and roared away, and it was these two copies that were traded back and forth in the community for decades after. There were three larcenies, a kidnapping, and one rumored murder attached to the history of the books as they traded hands. Due to this, some claimed them cursed. Be that as it may, many collectors said, it was worth it: the tips had once brought one man’s great-grandmother’s Cereus repandus back from the brink of near death³⁷ and ensured another man a knighthood.

Crowley was vaguely aware of all of this, feeling occasionally a spike of wrath or avarice or despair attributed to his name out in the world. He was rather proud of the monograph, and brought it along to the shop. He brought along another plant, too, a croton that needed his closer attention. He was at the shop most days, and the thing was beginning to get carried away under his lax attendance at the flat, dabbling, so to speak, in petty crime and free love. Crowley plunked it down in the front window and spent the next five minutes giving it his sternest Shape-Up-Or-It’s-Landscaping-School-For-You speech. Aziraphale eyed them both from his desk, but said nothing.

It was early spring and the light had that hopeful quality, a bright warm wetness to the air just under every sharp cold breeze. It was cold in the shadows, warm on Aziraphale’s sofa, and Crowley, after miracling up a particularly persistent Bookshop Extended Warranty salesman call for Aziraphale, deposited the books in the rather sparse Knot-Making section and settled down on the sofa. Aziraphale fluttered around the shop dusting - as he called it - or gloating over his treasures like an old dragon - as Crowley called it - when Crowley heard a little puzzled noise. He narrowed his eyes. He could just see, from his position on the sofa - Aziraphale pull a book out from the shelf and hold it up. Crowley’s Aesop, Crowley thought. A nasty little book with a demonic spirit he fully approved of. Crowley had shelved it in Philosophy, because Aesop, he thought, got Her better than anyone Crowley’d ever met. Aziraphale opened the book gently, broad fingers reverent on the spine, and Crowley, as Aziraphale turned the page, abruptly remembered the sketch of Aziraphale tucked into the pages, just a little thing done by Leo ages ago when he and Leo had been at that feast and come across Aziraphale, and he and Aziraphale had had some sort of usual banter, as a matter of fact Crowley didn’t even remember it, it was so commonplace, and Leo had made a little sound like Ah, and Crowley had looked at him and Leo was watching the two of them-

Aziraphale found the sketch at the same time as Crowley remembered it, because there was a sharp little intake of breath, a pleased little hum. Crowley sunk low, lower, practically all the way through the springs of the sofa, and, throwing an arm over his face, hurriedly pretended to sleep as Aziraphale’s footsteps sounded, fairly rapidly, around the corner. “Crowley-” he said rather insistently, and then stopped in his tracks and fell silent when he saw Crowley sleeping. After a pause, he resumed walking towards Crowley, slow and gentle, and stopped by Crowley’s head. Crowley hastened to breathe slowly. He felt, more than saw or heard, Aziraphale reach out towards him, some atoms between the two of them being rearranged, swelling with something that made Crowley’s heart race and his skin tingle, and then he nearly jumped anyway, because Aziraphale’s hand came to rest on his head and brushed his hair back very gently. Crowley went stiff with surprise.³⁸ Aziraphale petted him again, his fingers slipping through Crowley’s hair to scratch, lightly, at his scalp, and then brush gently at his temples. “My dear Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, very low, so low it might be only a passing car, a bird, something barely spoken at all. Crowley should open his eyes. Crowley should open his eyes and capture Aziraphale’s hand and, turning, press it to his mouth-

But Crowley didn’t move, and neither did Aziraphale, the two of them frozen in some sort of strange tableau Crowley couldn’t even open his eyes to look at without spooking Aziraphale, and so Crowley fell asleep with Aziraphale’s hand, soothing, moving through his hair, like he’d dreamed of for - for forever, probably. He woke up hours later to Aziraphale shaking his boot firmly, the bookshop nearly dark, the lamps on yellow and warm, their two reflections in the glass ghostly and strange. Crowley blinked, frowning. “Wake up, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and his face was strange and unreadable in the heavy shadows. “We’ll miss our reservation.”

“Alright,” Crowley said, pulling himself off the sofa and back together. The entire ride to dinner and at dinner he thought, muzzily, that it must have been a dream of some sort, some sick desperate demonic longing he’d thought up as he was falling asleep. And then he leant on his hand at dinner watching Aziraphale in the candlelight as the angel turned to look up at the waiter, the shadows falling softly, gently, on his upturned nose and chin and lips, and Crowley remembered he looked just like the sketch that Leo had pressed on Crowley, that Crowley had said, “S’a good likeness,” begrudgingly, and slipped it into his pocket, and Leo had watched him as if he knew how many times Crowley would take it out over the years after, how many times he would trace it with his fingertips in lieu of the real thing, and how often he would think of Aziraphale, and Leo, and everything Crowley had ever cared for without ever really meaning to. Caring was like that, it snuck into you when you least wanted it, and made you vulnerable, and soft, like a bug on its back, and then when somebody did something like pet your hair, or look at you like that in the candlelight of a ridiculously overpriced restaurant, your insides went to jelly, and you were absolutely, utterly, useless.

≠≠

One bright warm day in May Crowley sauntered into the shop with his very last and perhaps most treasured book. It was a small little volume, old as far as these things went,³⁹ tucked into his jacket pocket, and it throbbed audibly, like a guilty heartbeat, heard over the jingle of the door, the close of it in its frame, Crowley’s own footsteps echoing across the floor.

“Ah, Crowley!” Aziraphale said. “I’ve been wondering when you might come around again.” He seemed oddly nervous, fidgeting with his hands, a little breathless, pushing back from his desk and standing up.

“Miss me, angel?” Crowley said offhandedly, turning around to take his glasses off and land them on the horse statue he swore Aziraphale bought specifically to taunt him.⁴⁰ Crowley had fallen asleep just for a half hour on Tuesday, and had come to on the sofa some ten days later, an awful taste in his mouth and a crick in his neck that would’ve been fatal had he been human.

“I suppose I did,” said Aziraphale softly, taking off his own glasses and fiddling with them, before folding them and laying them gently on a side table as he approached Crowley. Crowley gaped at him. “You know,” Aziraphale said, watching him, “I’ve been doing a bit of redecorating lately. A bit of ‘spring cleaning,’ as it were.” He chuckled at his own repeated joke. Satan. That meant Crowley’d have to hear it for centuries, didn’t it.

“Yeah?” said Crowley, and then he realized what Aziraphale was saying. The books. Crowley looked around wildly in panic. From here he could spot a handful of them exactly where they should be - his Shakespeares tangled with Aziraphale’s. A new Horticulture section by, oh, the croton Crowley had brought in, set in the front window, as if the books needed the light too. None of them where Crowley had hidden them. “Aziraphale,” he started, and Aziraphale stepped close, closer, so close Crowley could feel his radiant heat like a big soft star, and then Aziraphale kissed him.

Crowley made a surprised sound as Aziraphale’s hands brushed his chest, pressing slightly on him, making him sway, his knees week, before sweeping up to the back of his neck, thumbs brushing his jaw as he kissed Crowley, soft and a little sloppy and with just the pressure of his teeth behind it, and Crowley’s hands landed on the angel’s hips and pulled him closer, closer, and everything else faded away, bookshop and sunlight and space and even time as they kissed, Aziraphale’s tongue brushing his, the faintest little smile Crowley could feel-

Aziraphale released him, leaning back slightly. “Oh,” said Aziraphale, sweetly breathless, his eyes sparkling, his cheeks flushed. His lips were very wet and shining in the morning sun and-

Crowley reeled him back in. Crowley was the one to let go this time, Aziraphale grinning giddily at him. Aziraphale’s eyes traced Crowley’s face, then darted over to something the angel was holding. Crowley frowned. It was-

It was Hamlet. The very first quarto, half the length of the later versions, with names and alterations unrecognizable to future readers. It was inscribed from Will to Crowley in miracles friendship be. Crowley had had it a very long time, and it had - he felt around - been in his jacket pocket all of a few minutes ago. Crowley gaped. “How-” he said.⁴¹

“Now,” Aziraphale said, a little sparkle to his eye, “If there are any more-?”

Crowley shook his head. Then, in case Aziraphale was disappointed, he said, “If you want more, I can-?” pointing at the door. He even started to take a step back, but Aziraphale pulled him back by his jacket. This fuzzy, fussy little angel, like a heavily-mossed stone, all softness and strength.

“That won’t be necessary,” Aziraphale said, and looked down his nose at the book like a true collector, opening it up, his firm gentle hands touching Crowley’s book, nearly caressing it, and how many years had Crowley spent imagining Aziraphale’s hands on this very book like so-? “Crowley, this is a lovely edition. How long have you been holding on to this?”

Crowley mumbled something that made Aziraphale’s eyebrows shoot up, and that little triumphant smirk come onto his face.

“Well,” he said, but Crowley found he didn’t mind it nearly so much as he thought he might. “I thought you didn’t like the gloomy ones?”

Crowley just shrugged, helpless.

“My dear,” said Aziraphale, eyes shining, and he pulled Crowley close.

“You found the books,” Crowley said into Aziraphale’s hair.

“Of course I found the books,” Aziraphale said, a little offended. “But - why?”

“I knew they would be in good care,” Crowley mumbled. “I can take them back, angel, if they’re in the way.”

“Absolutely not, Crowley. They belong here. That is,” Aziraphale said, and pulled away to look at Crowley “I mean-” he looked under his eyelashes at Crowley. Crowley gulped and nodded and Aziraphale smiled then, a pure ray of starlight, the brightest and most beautiful thing in the universe.

“Come here,” Aziraphale said, drawing him over to the sofa and pulling Crowley down next to him, until they were pressed side to side, as close as Crowley’d ever dared to dream. “Tell me how you got this wonderful edition,” he said, low and close, and so Crowley did. He told Aziraphale everything, just like he’d always wanted, as Aziraphale’s books - their books - looked down on them, and rustled quietly in approval, feeling themselves to be in rather good company indeed.

≠≠

1. Well, except for the Snake Fancy. Gift from Hell, and, as such, unable to be canceled. He’d tried. It had started coming a little after 4004 B.C. with some very confused letters attached to it, and would come, Crowley figured, well after the apocalypse was over. Something about a lifetime subscription, which was a bit more of a threat when you were immortal.

He had almost become fond of the magazine. back

2. Whether or not he was making an effort at this exact moment was none of your business. back

3. One of Crowley’s. He’d been proud of those. back

4. A mile away, Aziraphale picked up his head and narrowed his eyes. Someone, somewhere, was mistreating a book. Somewhere close, well within the grasp of his angelic powers. He made a quick holy gesture,* and, satisfied, returned to his book.

*Some ten minutes later, when Crowley stood up from the floor, he stubbed his toe on the steel plate. He blessed just about every deity he could think of, just to catch the one responsible, but somehow missed the mark entirely. back

5. Never mind that Aziraphale would certainly say no such thing. back

6. Unlike Aziraphale, who had actually, accidentally, been made the patron saint of clutter in 1532. back

7. Crowley didn’t point out that the little free libraries were a little too tall for your typical dog to reach, unless they got enterprising, or you held them up for it. Now there was an idea. back

8. Literally, thanks to the L-space addition he’d applied to the Multiverse Library Board for in the ‘90s and received.*

*He’d thought it was his winning personality and perfectly crafted bookshop that had netted him the acceptance. Crowley’d had to grease several hands and threaten to sever a few others. Apparently one third of the board had something against angels, and another third had something against blonds.

It was some of Crowley’s finest work. back

9. And for all the angel’s impeccable manners, Crowley had never once questioned why the angel always did things like this.

The dear boy simply couldn’t take a hint, Aziraphale sighed to himself. He shot Crowley a coy look under his eyelashes. The demon was nearly gaping, draped halfway across the table to stare at him. But how to give him just the tiniest little push…? back

10. Crowley was always looking. back

11. Never mind that Crowley would never say such a thing, but he certainly would intimate it, and that was good enough for both of them. back

12. Really, to keep his wine from splashing on the books, and, as a result, save his corporation from angelic smiting. back

13. In reality, he glared at it. It shuddered slightly. back

14. Which were, in fact, shockingly glossy. It is the best way to identify whether something is a black hole and not merely an angel in a foul mood. back

15. Aziraphale. back

16. And they spoke, too. It was why Crowley refused to go in the Romance section, because all the books said was Tell him, you coward in a voice audible enough to be heard from the street. back

17. He had done that, actually, on his first trip back to the bookshop, whole, in Aziraphale’s body. He had stalked the stacks, trailing his fingertips through the dust on the shelves, making sure Adam had put it back right.

He had. Not only were the books all in their proper places, and the statues, and the ephemera, but all the little hidden things were there too. The little cat statue from Egypt they had both admired in the market. The agate from Rome he had left rather carelessly in Aziraphale’s villa because he’d thought the angel might like it. The absolutely odious pastel-and-lace valentine (“Be my Valentine”) Crowley had slipped into a book of poetry back in the nineteenth century that Aziraphale, rather improbably, still had not found.* All of these things none knew of or visited except Crowley, he thought, based on the dust. All were there, in their right places, perfectly restored.

* Not true. Aziraphale had found it a week later, his hands trembling as he smoothed his fingers over it, feeling the difference between the lace and the page behind it. Then, suddenly, he pressed it to his chest so hard he thought his beating heart would tear it in two, and then very carefully replaced it between pages 70 and 71 where he had found it. back

18. No, he wouldn’t say which one. back

19. Really, there were only so many times a demon could be expected to watch Aziraphale lick his fingers and make that little noise. back

20. Read: all of them. back

21. Up in the troposphere, pressures started to rise. back

22. Aziraphale winced. back

23. He dropped the volume on his toe and had to hold in a curse the entire time Aziraphale stared at him, eyes strangely bright, as if holding back laughter. back

24. Stumbled isn’t the right word. Crowley spent twenty minutes sniffing it out. He could feel it on the edges of the other plane, and after he worked it out, he metaphorically pried his fingers in the edges of the doorframe and pulled it open. Not so metaphorically, his fingers got pinched, and he sucked on them as he pushed the door open. back

25. Crowley had compressed it into a sort of celestial zip file. back

26. They still hadn’t found the amusing-shaped nebula he and Beelzebub had done over in the Western quadrant. No, not that one. The other one. back

27. The hyperlink to the black hole in the center of the Milky Way had very nearly gotten away from him. It had been a nail-biting twenty seconds (or eight million years, technically. Time got a bit funny there, for a while). back

28. And lifting with his back in a jerking, twisting fashion. back

29. Ah. That explained that. back

30. It had gone over well, the play. Crowley and Aziraphale had seen it three times at the Globe, and each time, Aziraphale had stiffened, and colored slightly beside him when that line was spoken, but had said nothing. The last night Aziraphale had skittered his eyes over to Crowley, and after the play, when Crowley had invited him back to the room he was renting, just for drinks and a discussion of business, you understand, strictly a work thing, Aziraphale had stammered, and given Crowley his guilty look, and said no, no, he really ought to be going- back

31. Not we. Just Aziraphale. Crowley’d had to watch Aziraphale eat the whole thing, then lick his lips, and his fingers, mouth shining with grease. The ox rib all over again. Crowley’d had to go for a dunk in the Thames to get his mind on something else, like cholera. back

32. Crowley winced. back

33. Which he hoped was true. back

34. Or, well, swallowed whole, really, and he couldn’t tell if Aziraphale’s look was judgmental, or - back

35. The “Where Should You and Your Snake Go on Vacation?” quiz. Crowley passed an amusing ten minutes quizzing Aziraphale, and then arguing with him - “Come on, angel, you have to pick one of the four answers, s’multiple choice-”

“They’re not very good choices,” Aziraphale had sniffed, but they had finally gotten to the end of the quiz and determined that they should go to Rome. Aziraphale’d looked quietly interested. back

36. Well, except the Big One. back

37. Actually, it had been post-death. The Fear of Horticulture, previously known as the Fear of Crowley, had caught up to it at Cerberus’ Gates and hauled it back, as it were, screaming. back

38. As he was so naturally loose and boneless, he merely became almost human. back

39. Though, of course, not in comparison to Crowley. back

40. He had. back

41. “Mr. Dawkins’ pickpocketing classes, 1838,” Aziraphale said, a little triumphantly. The angel would never cease to surprise him. back