Chapter Text
Lay out a Ouija board and let it tell you hello. Let it tell you what the horror movies know, what the ghost hunters know, what the little girls at 284 Green Street know. (They will tell you there are four).
“It is nearly Christmas Eve,” Aziraphale is saying, unlocking his door. The alcove light above them is flickering and there is something that might be mistletoe tucked into a bit of the bookshop facade.
“We should do something special,” Aziraphale says, and on second glance it is just a bit of evergreen that an enterprising pigeon has stolen from a wreath.
“It is,” Crowley says, and takes a step back anyway, just in case, “we should.” Not yet. Not quite.
The bell above the bookshop rings with the weight of a hundred years behind it, the floors creak with the measure of a thousand footsteps.
There is an oil-stain on the carpet by the stairs, a pair of Crowley’s glasses in the register till. (This is the first one. This is the first kind. They call them residual hauntings.)
“How shall we celebrate, then?”
Aziraphale is hanging up his coat and Crowley’s too, mirrored opposites on a shared hook.
“We could stay in, watch a film, light a fire—“
These are the echoes of a life lived many times across many centuries. Over and over again. These are the ones that impress themselves into the floorboards of the house (they beat there. They bleed there). They leave that oil-stain on that carpet, the fingerprints in the dust along the bathroom windowsill.
These are the ones that remember what this building smells like dripping with fire. They remind him what is long since gone.
Maybe he is breathing too heavily. Maybe he is giving himself away.
“Oh. Oh—“
What they don’t tell you is that residual hauntings are tied to a place. They exist between the blanket-fibers on a particular bed and within the chipped porcelain of a soaking tub. They occupy the spaces between floorboards and live inside the spinal column of books.
“I’m okay,” he says, and it’s with a bit of a gasp, “that sounds nice.”
Crowley knows something about ghosts, he knows a lot about hauntings.
“I’m sorry— I shouldn’t have—“
“Angel,” he says, “I’m fine.”
When he leaves that night he lingers in the doorway with it shut behind him, stares up at that imagined bit of mistletoe. (This is the second one. This is the second kind.)
These are the intelligent hauntings. He knows these too.
These ghosts asks questions, respond to questions, are questions themselves. They hang around the bookshop until far too late— until he is sure he has overstayed his welcome and has enough mind to leave, yes, no, goodbye.
These are the ones that follow him out onto the street when he leaves the bookshop at three in the morning— some perversion of the holy trinity— and instead of heading home walks immediately to the all-night bodega and finds himself at the bottom of a bottle of something nearly undrinkable.
These ghosts follow him home and crawl into bed with him. They remind him what Aziraphale’s hands feel like on his skin as he touches himself. They make for strange bedfellows.
These are the ones that he can hear at night when his flat creaks like a ship missing the sea— the water in the bones of the building pulling out like a tide. A moon without a planet. You are missing from me.
They will meet up tomorrow and walk around Soho. They will wander in thrift stores and studiously ignore the sex shops. Aziraphale will say something about getting a few bottles of wine and they will make their way down the street like there isn’t an invisible thread tied between their fingers. Something holding both of their hands.
He won’t say it but Crowley will feel it when they pass the clearance aisle in a store and he catches a glimpse of white feathers in a pile on the shelf. He won’t say anything about the ghost that haunts the valves of his heart at something as stupid as novelty angel wings.
He will not say anything about how it haunts the tips of his fingers when Aziraphale is sitting across from him later that afternoon, at lunch, picking at a bit of bread. He will not saying anything about the one that haunts the passage of his throat when he tries to say his name so he just doesn’t anymore— just calls him angel instead.
Intelligent hauntings will make him save oyster shells and fired bullets. They will make him rescue statues from burning churches and jealously hoard borrowed shirts. They sleep in dark little attics. They cling to him at night when he is alone.
Crowley will drop a glass of wine and it will spill somewhere all over the parquet floor of the back room. He will become unseasonably irritated.
“I just— fuck, I keep fucking up today,” he will say, with enough vitriol that Aziraphale actually raises his eyebrows.
“It’s quite alright,” he will say, and the liquid will vanish with the snapping of a finger, “it’s quite okay.” (This is it. This is the third kind.)
And something about the way he says it— like he’s saying I forgive you— sends Crowley storming out onto the street and swallowing back the heat of frustration that burns in his throat, around the ghost that is still lodged there.
These are the garden variety poltergeists. A German word that Hollywood would have you believe means “noisy ghost” but is actually closer to meaning “racket ghost”. “Rumble ghost”. “Ruckus ghost”. Something loud and out of key. Something recklessly ruthless and violently out of touch. Something that smashes a bottle of bourbon against the wall of his fireplace and doesn’t care when it cuts up his arms.
It’s something that drives too fast and drinks too much and smokes too many cigarettes. It’s something that kicks open doors and has a hot-temper and lies about everything, always, but especially about his own emotions. It’s something that wears black, only black, because it’s the color he imagines his heart to be if you broke open his ribs, ripped it out of his chest.
It’s the thing that scares him when Aziraphale says certain words in certain tones of voice— it’s over. I forgive you. There is no us.
It’s something that probably frightens Aziraphale so he tucks it up into the corners of rooms and does not show it to him. It’s something he throws out onto the street and then comes back inside without.
Poltergeists don’t need forgiveness. They just need to burn themselves out and disappear. Exorcise themselves.
“Sorry,” he will say, and swallow down the small ghost that lives in his throat, “just… having a day.”
Aziraphale will smile and not understand, or maybe understand too much, and will pat the bit of sofa next to him.
“That’s fine. As long as you have it with me.”
Crowley will fit somewhere between bookshelf and angel, between armrest and arm. He will exhale the spirit in his throat through any number of controlled breaths and with the help of Aziraphale’s thumb rubbing circles onto the back of his hand.
He will eye-fuck the grooves that Aziraphale’s lips have stamped on the rim of his wine glass and not think about fire, not think about forgiveness. Will think instead of the thing holding both of their hands. Will think instead, you are not missing from me.
(This is it. This is the fourth one.)
These are the demonic ones. The inhuman ones. The elemental ones.
These show up at Aziraphale’s doorstep in a crisp black suit and take him out to dinner. These brush lazy fingers through his fluffy white hair and murmur sleepy words of thanks into his ear after too much wine. These haul that angelic white ass out of revolutionary prisons and burning churches.
These also show up in the scales on his skin one evening when he’s had far too much to drink and is too tired and the hold he has over this skin is shifting away to another one. These show up in the lack of white around his eyes.
Aziraphale will take his hand and maybe his whole body too— sling him in his arms like Ophiuchus at last, tuck him in to his own bed. He will kiss a few of the scales that run oil-black along his neck, his arm, his hand. He will lay down next to him and not sleep— watch instead as Crowley’s skin shifts in any number of beautiful and terrible ways.
He will wake up at some point in the morning when it is still dark out, maybe three A.M.— that perversion of the holy trinity— and find an angel watching him in the dark.
He will say something like, “I hope I didn’t ruin Christmas Eve.”
And Aziraphale will smile and let himself get pulled into a horizontal embrace.
“You didn’t,” he will say, “not at all.”
“Jesus was born in September anyway,” Crowley will mutter into the junction of his neck.
Demonic hauntings have the peculiar habit of stealing religious artifacts. The crucifixes will go missing. The bibles will find themselves gone. You will have misplaced those rosary beads.
Those things are too small though— not enough. There is really only one religious artifact that Crowley is interested in stealing, and it is already in his arms.