go_exchange | Happy Holidays, miss

Title: Letters
Gift for:

miss_narla
from:

inabathrobe
Rating: PG
Summary: In which Aziraphale and Crowley burn letters and bridges.

Crowley was late.

Normally, this did not bother Aziraphale, but normally, Aziraphale was not worrying about his life. Frankly, this nonsense needed to stop. Heaven wouldn't stand for it; he wouldn't stand for it; decent ordinary people ought not to stand for it.

Aziraphale missed England. Badly.

He could not honestly provide himself with a good reason for his having allowed the demon to persuade him to leave. He suspected that it was a wile he had failed to thwart: some sort of infernal plan to make him enjoy cheese and wine and women and not be such a puritan.¹ France did not suit his temperament. France was not him. In fact, there was no place, he thought, that was less angelic than France at the moment, and if he were being honest with himself (which he always was in principle but far more rarely in practice), then he would admit that he had called this lunch meeting to tell Crowley that he was giving up: this was it, the end, caput. Crowley could have his damned France and like it, too.

He produced a large, ornate, gold pocket watch from a pocket in his waistcoat. Crowley was more than a quarter of an hour late. He snapped it shut and shoved it into his pocket in a fit of quite unheavenly temper. Where the hell was Crowley? Aziraphale wanted to go home! He sipped at the glass of wine he had ordered when he had arrived, emptying it after half an hour's intent restraint³. A server swooped in and refilled it. Aziraphale exercised rare and quickly depleting self-restraint and did not begin to drink it. Finally, after a good deal more waiting on Aziraphale's part, Crowley arrived. He handed something to the hostess who scurried over to Aziraphale.

This was just silly. They weren't school children; Crowley didn't need to pass notes. He snatched the card from the salver and read it carefully. It had been quite some time since he had had to decipher the cryptic chicken scrawl that was Crowley's handwriting when he tried to write Greek.⁴ The note read simply: "what do you think you are wearing?"

Aziraphale glared across the club at him. Crowley shrugged and gestured his frustration. The angel rose, and despite Crowley's look of horror, crossed to him. "And what exactly is wrong with my clothes?"

"Well," Crowley said, "for starters, they are likely to get us both killed."

Actually, Aziraphale grudgingly thought, he had a point there. "I hardly think—"

"They decry the excesses of the aristocrats in every newspaper in the city, and you thought you should dress like one?"

"I'm not dressed like an aristocrat! I am dressed in perfectly ordinary—"

"When was the last time you saw someone dressed like that?"

"The last time I was at court!" Aziraphale snapped.

"Keep your voice down, angel."

Aziraphale was on the defensive. He liked this coat, and he had paid no small sum for it only a few years before. He certainly had no plans for giving up wearing it. "You're overreacting," he hissed. Crowley laughed. "What?"

"You have a chapeau bras underneath your arm, don't you?"

"So!"

"Oh, Aziraphale. Come on." He threw a few coins at the waitress, willed them to be enough to pay for Aziraphale's glass of wine, seized the angel's arm, and dragged him out of the café.

"You're absolutely overreacting, my dear," Aziraphale said distractedly, hoping that being dragged over cobblestones was not going to ruin his perfectly kept shoes. Really, this was just absurd. His coat —admittedly silk with an elaborate pattern of birds and maybe a few cheap jewels sewn into it— was hardly remarkable, or well— He glanced around at the few passers by, realizing that they were beginning to garner no small amount of attention. Most of them were dressed simply in trousers and a neatly cut black frock coat, gently spattered with mud. Aziraphale decided that Crowley might have a point: he did seem to stand out a bit. He wondered if the peacock feather in his hat was overkill.

Oh dear.

"Do you think we ought to get out of here?" Aziraphale asked quietly in English.

"Yes," Crowley responded, "and don't speak English. We're at war against Great Britain, you know." Straightening his hat, the demon let go of Aziraphale's arm, gesturing for him to follow. He was, Aziraphale noted, dressed in surprisingly sobering shades of grey with the occasional accent of the tricolor. He smugly noted that Crowley wasn't wearing trousers, either; even he had maintained the aristocratic culottes. There were more stripes than he particularly wanted to see in any one place, and the tricolor was frankly dreadful. He had liked the Bourbon white, thank you very much. Oh, well, all this revolutionary nonsense was sure to die down in a few years. He only hoped that he would make it out of the horrid country without any inconvenient discorporations. Those were such a bother. Crowley's cravat, he noticed, had made no concessions to the plebeian spirit of the times. If anything, it was higher than ever before. Aziraphale's own cravat was somewhat more modest. A cold wind creeped over it, curling around his neck and sending a chill down his spine. Here was hoping that he got out of France with his head still firmly attached to his neck.

Did Crowley have walk so fast? "My dear, where are we going in such a hurry—"

Crowley stopped in the next street, hailing a cab. "Watch the mud." If he had not been gasping for breath, Aziraphale would have pointed out that, really, wasn't the point of a cab to preserve his stockings from the ravages of the streets. "Oh, get in, angel." Aziraphale glared at Crowley and scrambled gracelessly up. The driver eyed him suspiciously. How ironic, Aziraphale thought, that Crowley of all people was the faithful patriot and he, Aziraphale, was the dangerous dandy. He collapsed gently against the back of the open-air compartment as Crowley settled beside him and the driver stirred the horses. "Well, at least running from the mob will get you some much needed energy."

"That isn't funny, Crowley."

Crowley shrugged. "Suit yourself. — 248 Rue Saint-Honoré!"

Pulling his slightly squashed hat out from under his arm, he attempted to straighten it, though he met with very little success. He groaned. He had just bought it, too. Crowley plucked out the peacock feather and flung it out the side of the cab. Aziraphale did not bother to argue, but simply rammed the misshapen hat onto his head. They sat in uncomfortable silence as the cab rumbled through streets, the occasional spray of mud making an enthusiastic leap for Aziraphale's boots. He suspected that Crowley might have been encouraging them. They turned into a momentous square, and Aziraphale twisted his face away from the sight of the towering guillotine in the former Place de Louis XV. The mud seemed redder here. The cab driver turned down a side street and soon pulled the horses to an abrupt halt in front of a large, rotting monastery. "Crowley, where are we—"

"My flat is on the other side of the street."

With some assistance from Crowley, Aziraphale climbed down, and the cab disappeared almost immediately after Crowley had shoved a few dirty francs into the man's palm. Aziraphale lingered in front of the entrance to 248, waiting for Crowley. He drifted over, knocking at the door. It was opened by a portly, red-faced woman who reminded Aziraphale mysteriously of Crowley's previous landlady in his little London flat. In fact, she looked a good deal like every landlady Crowley had ever had. Aziraphale wondered idly if there had even been a room to let before Crowley had come looking for one. "Citoyenne Bernard, I've brought a friend for dinner. Do you think you could spare a little soup?" Of course, Madame Bernard could spare something, anything, for Citoyen Craulie, such a fine, upstanding gentlemen, a republican through and through, and who was his friend? Crowley brushed off this question with artful tact. Monsieur Felle was hungry; they had been at the Convention since very early that morning.

At the back of the small house, Crowley led Aziraphale up a cramped, tightly twisting staircase. The angel felt a vague sense of vertigo, leaning inward. At the top of the stairs, Aziraphale had a very good view of Crowley's messy flat, two rooms whose floors were littered with crumpled papers and stacks of documents. The demon's desk was unseen, masked by the tremendous pile of correspondence. What Crowley spent his time doing was anyone's guess, Aziraphale thought. The people of France⁵ seemed to be doing very well on their own. He stooped and picked up a letter that had been thrown to the ground.

To Citoyen Craulie, a member of the Comité de Sûreté Générale—

"Give me that," Crowley snapped, pulling the paper from Aziraphale's hands.

The angel crossed his arms. "You're meddling," he said.

"Yes, I know I'm meddling. That's my job," the demon said, "and if I take a little time out of my day to save your sad skin, clad in ermine and sable—"

"It's only a bit of cheap silk from—"

"Aziraphale, please. They denounced you before Comsur," Crowley said, his back turned to the angel as he shuffled some papers into a neater pile on his desk.

The angel blanched. "Are you— are you quite sure?"

"Unless you know another Alphonse Felle, yes."

"Oh. Oh, dear."

"Don't worry. I defended you." Crowley swept all the papers on his desk into a pile and scooped them up. "That way, when the Committee sends us to the guillotine, we can go together." He smiled thinly at the angel, crossed to the empty fireplace, and dumped the papers into it. "Remind me to burn those before we leave. I booked us a passage from Calais to Dover. Convenient of you to ask me for luncheon today, Aziraphale. I think that buys us enough time to get out of the damned country without any miracles that are too large."

Aziraphale gaped at him. "Leave tonight?"

"No, actually —Can you bring the letters over here?— I mean to leave as soon as I can pack a suitcase —thanks—, preferably before Robespierre and Danton can draw up the warrants." He added the letters that Aziraphale brought him to the considerable pile in the fireplace. "If I didn't burn them, they would deserve it," he grumbled. "What I do for Downstairs, really—" He pulled a letter off the top of a pile, read it, laughed, and let it fall back to the floor. "I'd better get a commendation for this nonsense." Aziraphale stooped and picked up the letter.

Dear Antoine-Jacques,

I cannot help feeling that our acquaintance has been destined since the moment of my birth and that our meeting at the home of Citoyen and Citoyenne Desmoulins was not a simple coincidence but the meeting of crossed paths through Heaven. My dearest Antoine, if you would be so kind as to favor me with—

"Angel, don't read that drivel from Mademoiselle Lebas."

Aziraphale noticed that this letter Crowley did not bother to take from him and he perused it at his leisure. When he looked up from it —after his third or fourth reading— he realized that the room was emptying before him. The better part of the papers was stacked in or near the fireplace, and the desk had been swept clean. Crowley was carefully packing a single suitcase with a few clothes and a set of handkerchiefs monogrammed with the initials AJC. "She's in love with you."

"Yes, I know."

"What will you do when you—"

"Flee to London?" He made a scornful noise at the back of his throat. "She'll find another tall, dark, handsome man to dream about. Maybe, she'll marry him." He laughed. "No, she isn't the sort of girl that men marry."

"Crowley."

"It's only the truth, Aziraphale. You know, she offered to—"

"Don't tell me." The angel balled up the letter in his hands and shoved it into one of his pockets, creating a large, unsightly bulge in the silk. "I'm sure she's a perfectly sweet girl."

"She really isn't. You wouldn't like her."

"You can't possibly know that," Aziraphale said huffily because Crowley was no doubt right. Aziraphale had no lost love for girls who wrote Crowley love letters.

Crowley shuffled a few more papers into the grate and then cursed himself a small fire. They burned quickly and brightly, warming the small chilly room and lighting up the December gloom. A creaking on the stairs warned them that Madame Bernard was bringing their soup. How she managed to get it up the staircase, Aziraphale thought, was a complete mystery. She bumbled in cheerfully. Would the citoyen like something more to eat? Did the citoyen need anything to drink? Was the citoyen's friend satisfied? Would he be staying for supper? Crowley answered a sharp non, non, non to each of her questions, brushing her off. She returned downstairs with a light of concern in her eyes.

They did not have much more time.

"Is there anything I've missed?" Crowley said distractedly, glancing about the room as he shut his suitcase.

The angel glared at him. "Yes, you've forgotten to let me pack my things."

"You'll have to leave your precious books here, or you'll be leaving your head here as well."

"You know, I think it's just silly that you—"

"Angel, how long do you think it will take you to acquire those books again?"

"I have a Voltaire first edition—" the angel began indignantly.

"And how long do you think it would take you to acquire a new body from Heaven?"

Aziraphale blanched. "Well, yes, dear, but don't you think you ought to say goodbye to Miss, um, Lesomething?"

"Her brother is close with Comsur. I'd like to keep my head, even if she wouldn't like to keep hers," he murmured, his voice muffled because his head was stuck in his closet. "You're rather hung up on her."

"I'm sorry; I don't receive post from women declaring that our love in fated by the stars."

Crowley snorted. "I wouldn't think so."

And what was that supposed to mean exactly? the angel wanted to know. Nothing more forthcoming, he pulled the letter from his pocket and began to read from the middle of it. "I cannot help but declare the following words for they come from the very center of my heart: I love you, I love you, I love you! —My dear, you're really quite an arse.— I hope that I may murmur them into your ear soon, that our hearts may join together as well as our bo — precocious, isn't she? —and that I may remain forever and most passionately yours. Please, please favor me with a kind and quick reply. —Did you send her anything?

"Your great admirer—"

"Oh, stop reading that, would you?" Crowley sounded as though his feathers had been ruffled. Aziraphale cocked an eyebrow. "Eat the soup." The angel settled down on the bed, bowl of soup in his hands, eating slowly. Crowley continued shuttling the papers into the already well-fueled fire, and Aziraphale watched his back. Finally, he stood, stretching catlike before the smoldering fire. He was silhouetted in the growing dusk. "Aziraphale, we need to go."

The angel made a face. "But my books—"

"—are staying here. I'll buy you a bloody bookshop if you agree to stop fussing."

The angel sighed, setting down the bowl of soup that had seemed reluctant to empty. He picked up Crowley's suitcase. "Shall we go?"

"You're forgetting your coat," Crowley said, picking the discarded article off his bed.

"I meant to leave it."

"Well," the demon said cheerfully, "you'll need it in England, won't you?" He walked over to the angel and draped the coat over the suitcase. He leaned in and pressed a brief kiss to Aziraphale's lips. The angel looked at his friend, not very shocked. In the twilight, he could not read the expression on Crowley's face, but he did not move as the demon leaned in again, kissing him gently and tasting of wine and tobacco and ashes.

"Let's go."

"But—"

"We're leaving it in Paris."

"Well, we'll always have Paris."

"Yes."

-

¹Aziraphale was right about at least one of these; Crowley did find his abstinence rather shocking, especially when the angel had been able to drink most humans under the table back in the good days.²

²Which, it should probably be noted, were ancient Babylon, but people knew how to party then.

³Well, Crowley did succeed on one of those fronts.

⁴1649, the last time they had bothered with revolutions.

⁵Or rather the lawyers of France.