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One day, while Dirk is out in the evening getting a celebratory post case dinner with Todd, the world shifts.
He is on the sidewalk, looking up at the sky. He’s not quite sure why. All he knows is that the world sort of… trembles. Not physically. But something in the universe shivers and moves, and then just as quickly as it started, it stopped.
What it doesn’t stop, however, is Dirk’s knees from buckling a little, making him reach out and grab at a lamppost to steady himself. It’s sort of like stepping off a carousel ride, or putting on a pair of glasses that weren’t prescribed for you. Whatever the best thing to compare it to, Dirk feels dizzy.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Todd quickly grabs his other arm like he might need to support him. Dirk appreciates it. “Jesus, Dirk, are you okay?”
“What-“ Dirk grips the lamppost a little tighter. “What an excellent question.”
“Come on.” Todd helps him back up until they hit the park bench behind them. Dirk collapses on it heavily.
“Did you feel that?” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes like maybe if he does, the world will be normal.
Todd sits next to him on the bench. “Was it a hunch?”
“I. No. This was… different. The world…” Dirk slowly raises his hand and curves his fingers around, like somehow this will provide an answer for Todd, just sketching out a shape that isn’t even a shape. “Shuddered. And then… snapped back. Like it was. But it’s… not.” He leans fully back against the bench, tilting his head against the wall of the building behind them, closing his eyes.
“Are you…” Todd sounds at a loss. “Is it dangerous?”
“I don’t… no, it’s just…” he stops. “Quiet. It’s so…” He opens his eyes and sits up a little. Todd leans forward with him, clearly trying to look him in the face. He’s got that face on where he’s openly having emotions. He’s gotten a lot better at being in touch with his feelings, but sometimes it’s still a little tricky. The fact that the concern is so open on his face is a sign of how intense it is, and can’t help but make Dirk feel a little guilty. “It’s quiet.”
“We’re in a city, Dirk.”
Dirk watches the Seattle cars bustle back and forth, the people rushing around. Clearly none of them know what happened either. Maybe it’s only him. Maybe he’s going insane. Maybe that’s why it’s quiet. “No. The universe is quiet. There’s no… hunches, everything’s just… level. Normal.”
Todd’s giving him that long look that says he’s trying to make a plan. It’s one of the nice things about Todd. He’s a very nice, plan making person, whereas Dirk tends to fall down on the plan portion of things and run headlong into winging it.
“Okay,” he says finally, sounding still a little uncertain but determined. “All right, so, there’s avenues we can take, right? I mean, do you think it’s permanent?”
“No,” Dirk answers instantly. “No, it’s… I’m certain. I’m positive.”
“So maybe we should… go someplace, and figure something out.” Todd pulls a face, clearly not thinking it’s a suitable plan.
Dirk, however, thinks it’s excellent. Admittedly, not quite as much of a full fledged plan as Todd generally manages, but he’s also got less to go on than normal, and in any case, it’s certainly perfect for what he needs at the moment. “Yes. Yes, I want… to go back home, and watch the news.”
Home, for right now, is Dirk's apartment. Todd has his own, but he spends much less time in it, to the point where there is a change of clothes in Dirk's apartment for him. Dirk's got a particularly well loved red flannel blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Todd had very loudly said it might be a good idea, which is code for Todd wanting him to use it but not knowing how to express that particular burst of worry. Dirk thinks it’s nice of him, and a good idea. Sort of like one does when sick. Perhaps that’s Todd’s train of thought.
So that’s how they end up sitting on the couch in front of his TV, his tiny air conditioner going so Dirk doesn’t overheat from the blanket. Todd is sitting at one end of the couch, clearly watching Dirk intently but pretending not to. Dirk is in soft blue sweatpants and a shirt with a tea bag on it that says it’s a tea shirt that Amanda got for him, and he’s silently watching the news go by.
“Can you…” Dirk can feel the effect of Todd’s shrug on the couch. “I dunno. Does anything feel wrong?”
Dirk shakes his head. “It feels… just like it did this morning. But it isn’t. I think. I think it’s different. Different but parallel but now… pressed together. It wasn’t the same this morning, but now it’s become the same.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either.” He pulls the blanket a little tighter around him. “But it’s true.”
“Okay.” Todd’s got that game plan voice on again. “So, uh. So why don’t I call Farah, and we can figure something out, maybe it’s a case thing and we can-“
“No.” The word is quick to come out of Dirk’s mouth. He’s not sure why until his brain connects the dots. “No. No, I… I think I’ve got to make a call. One of my own. Um.” Dirk stands, taking the blanket with him. “I’m going to go… do that. I’ll be in my room.”
Todd frowns. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, I think it’s… better. To do it on my own. But, um. I’ll yell if I need you.”
“That,” Todd answers dryly. “I can believe.”
Dirk appreciates the veneer of normality.
His bedroom is very small, still. Dirk doesn’t have that much money. But it’s got windows, and it’s not the size of a closet. He’s got a nightstand in here and everything. He sits on his bed, pulling the blanket a little tighter, and leans his head back against his wall. He opens up his nightstand drawer. The top of the nightstand is always a madhouse of clutter, but the drawer is immaculate, a single book resting in it, a copy of A Murder is Announced, green with gold lettering.
He dials the call, looking down at the book.
“Hi, you’ve reached Anthony Crowley,” the smooth voicemail answers after a moment. “You know what to do, do it with style.”
“Why do you even have that message? I mean, it’s not like anyone except Aziraphale and I call you. S’stupid.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, something happened tonight. I don’t know what. The whole world just… moved, something changed, and I don’t know what it is. But you might. And I’ve got to call you, because if I call Aziraphale he’s going to give me an answer that will dance around whether it’s, you know, one of your things, and I just, I just need the straight answer on this one. Because I don’t know what to do, Crowley, I nearly collapsed on the sidewalk, if it wasn’t for Todd-“ he rubs his eyes, trying to stem the flood of panic. "So if you’ve got to say you’re only doing it to offset Aziraphale’s side getting something or other, do that. I don’t care. I just need to know.”
Dirk hangs up, but he doesn’t move. It’s not the first time he’s called Crowley. Admittedly, it’s not a thing on a timetable. He’s done so randomly over the years just to check in. Crowley is always more likely to pick up than Aziraphale, simply because Aziraphale isn’t used to consistently picking up. Aziraphale is always effusive and expounding on the latest collection of some author or another to come in, and he and Dirk can talk for several hours. Crowley is brusque and glib but will be up front with him as always about who he and Aziraphale really are, and the two of them usually only talk for about twenty minutes. Both are valuable.
It’s not the first time Dirk’s called him. But it feels like the most important.
He closes the drawer and heads back for the living room, where Todd quickly shifts like he was watching the TV the whole time and not keeping an eye on Dirk’s door.
“Hey,” he says. “How’d your phone call go?”
“He wasn’t there.”
Todd turns around properly then to look at him. “Is that bad?”
“He’ll call back.” Dirk’s completely confident. Not because of the universe, just because he knows Crowley and Aziraphale well enough to know Aziraphale will badger him into it. “Just have to wait. There’s a time difference and everything.”
“...okay."
Dirk sits next to him, tucking his legs underneath him.
“So, uh.” Dirk can’t blame Todd for sounding so uncertain. This is odd even for him. “Are you... good? Cause usually when you’re panicky you’re talking a lot and this is... new. So you know. Are you... what are you?”
Dirk takes a deep breath.
“Unnerved,” he answers, exhausted.
Todd’s quiet.
“You want me to get some hot chocolate?” he asks.
“I. Yes. I would like that.”
Dirk’s woken up by his phone vibrating in the couch next to him. He sits up, looking around blearily. Todd had slept on the floor last night, insisting it’s because he hadn’t felt like going downstairs to his apartment. Dirk knows better and thinks it’s sweet. He’s still asleep there on a couple cushions from the bed. There’s not much sunlight still although it’s coming in a little through the slats in Dirk’s blinds. Probably around seven or seven thirty. He gropes for his phone and answers it.
“H’lo?”
“My answering machine message,” Crowley says, sounding put out. “Is not stupid.”
“I mean.” Dirk’s voice is still scratchy from sleep. He pulls up his blanket with him, wrapping it back around his shoulders. “You know what to do, do it with style? Aren’t you a little bit old for that?”
“Shut up.”
Dirk leans the side of his head against the pillows. “What happened?”
“It’s...” It sounds like Crowley blows all the air out of his cheeks. “Complicated.”
“The world’s different. But it’s the same.”
“Yeah. There was a whole... thing.”
“Your kind of thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“It...” Crowley’s silent for a moment. “Well, it was the end of the world. And then it wasn’t.”
“Oh. What kind of an end of the world?”
“Judgment Day, Armageddon, final battle between Heaven and Hell sort of thing. You know. Pretty... standard stuff.”
“Oh.” Dirk’s not sure how to feel about this. Relief, he supposes. It’s just a lot to take in all at once. “But it’s not happening anymore?”
“No.”
“You stopped it?”
“Well. Sort of. Not really. We had minimal involvement, actually. We did put an effort in, though. I had a tyre iron as a weapon.”
“Did it work?”
Dirk can practically see the face he’s pulling in his head. “Not particularly effective. But I liked it.”
“Well, I... appreciate it, I suppose.”
“I suppose you’re welcome.”
He tucks his legs up onto the couch. “How come I can’t remember it?”
“Because it didn’t happen, strictly speaking.”
“But it did happen.”
“Yes.”
“So it was...” he tries to parse it through. “It’s a new reality sort of stitched onto the old one. And I could feel it stitching itself together. So that’s what it was.”
“Yep.”
“Oh.” Dirk thinks about it. “The universe went quiet. Not quiet quiet, but like... there was nothing it wanted me to do.”
“Wouldn’t expect it to last. Hard resets never do.”
Crowley sounds tired. Dirk’s not used to him sounding tired. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, well, you know. Been a week.”
“But you and Aziraphale? You’re okay? The Bentley, the bookshop, everything’s in order?”
“They weren’t. And now they are.”
“And you and Aziraphale?”
There’s that silence again.
“Well, we’ve fixed it so no one’s going to come after us,” he answers, far too lightly. “Aziraphale and I are going to go and stop by the Ritz, he just ducked in to the bookshop for a few minutes, you know, inspecting.”
“I delayed your lunch?”
“Not really, didn’t even tell him you’d called.”
Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale. Which means Aziraphale didn’t need to talk him into calling him. He did of his own accord. Just because Dirk sounded worried. He swallows. “I’m sorry it was rough. And I know,” he adds before Crowley can start. “That you don’t like people apologizing to you or expressing sympathy. But I’m doing it anyway and you can bloody well smite me if you’re going to be an asshole about it, quite frankly, I really couldn’t give a shit at the moment.”
Crowley harrumphs.
“Did I call you? When it was all happening?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to me?”
“Yeah.”
Dirk tries to hoist a smile on his face even if Crowley can’t see it. Got to try and get back to the norm of being snarky with each other. “Don’t suppose you lied to me about it to try and make me feel better.”
“...yeah.” He sounds even more tired. “I did.”
That draws Dirk up short. “Oh. What... did you say?”
“Told you it was gonna be fine and that there were contingency plans. That sort of thing.”
“Oh. Thank-“
“Shut up, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s the sort of thing that gives me a rash.”
Dirk looks out the window. His little ornament of a cat is hanging there, one of the few things Todd was able to save before they went on the run looking for him. That and the book, and they’d found his records abandoned in his old apartment. That’s really all Dirk wanted, anyway. “Have you finally learned how to access your feelings?”
“I don’t have feelings.” Crowley sounds cross but more like himself. “I have annoyance and spite and nothing else. Besides.” He sounds a little defensive now. “I talk to Aziraphale.”
“Yes, but that’s different. Aziraphale’s Aziraphale.”
“Yeah, well. You’re all right.”
Dirk swallows. He doesn’t know why that means a lot to him. Well, he does. It’s the most honest he and Crowley have been with each other maybe since they were sitting on the curb outside his apartment, Crowley concerned and Dirk drunk. He just doesn’t want to confront it just yet. “You’re all right, too. And, um. I miss you guys. A bit. I mean. I’ve got a life here and I rather like it. There’s good people in it. I like them. But I do... like seeing you two.”
“You.” Crowley coughs. “Could always come back for a visit. Certainly might make the angel happy. I might even pop in for a moment or two.”
Dirk smiles, feeling a little tearful. “Just a moment, though.”
“Only a moment.” Crowley clears his throat. “Okay. That’s enough of this. I’ve had enough sharing and talking to last the next decade.”
“I’ve never had enough of talking.”
“Yes, I know, you’re a regular little motormouth.”
“Will you tell Aziraphale that I say hello? And that I hope he’s alright? And that I’ll call him this week?”
He sniffs. “Potentially.”
“Thanks.”
“And by the way, I know you’ve got good people, Aziraphale’s told me all about you.”
Dirk rolls his eyes. “You know all about me.”
“All about your life now.” There’s something entirely too smooth and smug in Crowley’s voice that cannot possibly bode well for Dirk. “Farah and Amanda and Todd.”
There it is. “I don’t know what the necessity of that tone is.”
“I’ve found something to embarrass you. Which is surprising, considering there’s so much to embarrass you with due to your general way of being and you refuse to be ashamed of any of it, but this will do the trick and by Satan I am going to utilize it.” Crowley puts on a flowery voice. “Does he have lovely eyes?”
“How’s courting Aziraphale going? 6000 years been enough or are you going to play it century by century? Maybe see how it goes in the next millennium?”
“My business is mine, human.”
“And mine is mine, so don’t start any shit.”
“Did Todd teach you to swear like that or-“
“Did you ever stop wearing red things or are you still utterly lacking in subtlety?”
“I look great in red. Are you still wearing that awful yellow?”
“Better to be bright in my choice of colors than staggeringly obvious.”
“Wouldn’t know, I’ve never been obvious.”
Dirk grins at the cat ornament over the window. “You’ll tell Aziraphale all the stuff I said you should tell him?”
“Yes, fine, okay.”
Dirk takes pity on him. He’s already talked about feelings enough today. “You should go so you can get your lunch.”
“I was about to hang up on you, anyway, so you don’t have to tell me what to do.” The phone abruptly goes dead. Dirk drops it onto the couch and smiles for a few moments. He looks down over at Todd to see his eyes open as he silently watches him from the floor.
“How long were you awake for?” Dirk asks.
Todd shrugs. “Caught the tail end of the conversation,” he rasps. “So are we good?”
“Yes. It was an over there problem, sort of. Now it’s not anyone’s problem. The universe just… gave me the headsup.”
“So you’re gonna be okay?”
“As okay as I ever am, I suppose. Although really, okayness is relative, isn’t it? I mean-“
Todd grins at him from the floor. “Your words have come back online, huh?”
“They did, which I’d think you should take as a good sign, thank you very much, Todd, a little less attitude there.”
“Not capable of it.”
“Yes, I’m well aware.”
Todd shifts a little, readjusting his head on the pillow. “So?”
“So what?”
“So who was that?”
“Ah.” Dirk considers it. “Well, I can’t tell you everything, because it’s not… really all mine to tell, I suppose, and I’d have to ask them first. But when I was younger and… going through some things, I started working at a bookshop. I still keep in touch with the owner of the shop and his friend. That was his friend. They….” Dirk thinks about it. “They’re very much like family, I suppose.”
“And they know all your-“ Todd waves a hand. “All your weird shit, too?”
“Mmm, yes. With some weird shit of their own.” Dirk pulls his blanket up a little, smiling fondly. “They’re good people, even if one of them is thoroughly unwilling to admit it. You’d like them, when we meet them someday, you’ll see.”
Todd blinks, clearly startled. “You… want me to meet them?”
Dirk feels himself flush. In his defense, he’d never had family before and doesn’t talk about the after a fashion one he has. It hadn’t occurred to him right away the potential significance of offering to introduce Todd to them. “Um. Well. If you’d like.”
“Yeah, I, uh. I think that could be… good. I’d like to meet them if… yeah. I’d like.”
“Oh.” Dirk beams. “That’s… neat.”
Todd grins, looking up at the ceiling. Dirk looks off at the cushions, trying not to go too red.
“Crowley taught me how to drive,” he blurts out. “Well, he taught me the principles, anyway. Wasn’t any actual driving but he told me everything I needed to know.”
“Huh.” Todd thinks it over. “So he’s the one I have to blame for every time you almost kill me in a vehicle?”
Dirk lets out what is probably the ugliest snorting noise he’s ever made. He claps his hands over his mouth and looks at Todd, hoping he didn’t hear it somehow, but no dice. It’s all right, though, because Todd starts laughing hysterically, doubled over on his position on the floor, looking seconds from wiping tears from his eyes. Dirk starts laughing himself, too relieved and happy at the lack of Armageddon and the presence of a laughing Todd to do anything different.
