Chapter Text
Aziraphale was worried about Crowley. Not enough to spoil a day in Oxford, but enough to shadow all the time he spent there, performing Crowley’s assignment and his. A peculiarly complicated matter, this time, since they were supposed to be targeting different, but overlapping, groups of dons, graduates, and undergraduates who for whatever reason had remained in town during the Long Vac, poisoning or sweetening the well of Britain’s rising elite; plus a little blessing; and then he was supposed to go straight from here to Cambridge, to do it again. They hadn’t even tossed for this trip, as they had long ago divided some of their labor according to areas of expertise. Unless other factors came into play, Aziraphale did university towns, and Crowley did industrial ones.
Perhaps I should have insisted on a joint operation this time, Aziraphale mused, leaving behind the rowing club where the last of his marks and charges were enjoying themselves, one with a promising (for certain values of promising) political career in the process of being derailed and another thinking far more seriously about a future in academia than he had previously. Who, in the end, would be counted as a victory for whom, Aziraphale for one had no idea. He had spent all yesterday afternoon, last night, and this morning making the rounds, from the scholars using the Bodleian to the would-be decadents who, unable for whatever reason to travel to raise hell properly on the Continent, had settled in to do so in the most forbidden dives in town, and he needed some refreshment from the stress of inserting and extracting himself naturally and effectively from so many diverse social situations. He anticipated no problem: a walk along the river, a spot of lunch, a return to the Bodleian for his own purposes, and he’d be right as rain.
Crowley always returned from industrial towns wound up and on edge, and not, lately, in a fruitful way. Gone was the glee with which he had once greeted each innovation in technology, the spread of rail (“No more horses! And they’re black and they snort fire and they’ll go everywhere in no time flat!”), and all the exploitable corruptibility and disturbance arising from the ever-accelerating economic shift to capital, labor, and mechanization. Now on his return from such jaunts he buzzed, and drank, and shrugged, and sprawled, and fired off random conversational gambits as his brain ricocheted around the interior of his skull. Aziraphale had seen such phases before, and knew that at some point he would settle into a brooding black mood which would resist all Aziraphale’s skills in distracting him; and then he would hate himself for being such bad company; and then he would sleep for a month, or a year, and wake up his old self again.
Aziraphale knew the pattern, but was not resigned to it. Patterns, after all, could be disrupted, and anything a friend could do to shorten or skip the ugly bits must surely be done. He had been remiss not to realize before he left that it would do Crowley good to come to a town where the river ran clean, birds were the loudest noise, and children like those girls there ran laughing down the road, urging the adult in charge - a youngish, donnish, cheerful type with sidewhiskers - to hurry while he complained amiably of being nothing but a beast of burden.
Aziraphale sensed the demonic aura in the vicinity as the young man’s load of cushions, hamper, and umbrellas slipped free, and took care that his movement to assist blocked malice from approaching the little party. “Goodness,” he said, ensuring that the contents of the hamper had come to no harm as he handed it back, “they should perhaps have provided you with a packsaddle. Would you like a hand?”
The young man blushed to the tips of his ears. “Tha-thank you, I wouldn’t want to p-put you, put you out.”
“Nonsense, we’re walking in the same direction. A river outing, is it?”
It was, Mr. Dodgson taking Dean Liddell’s girls for a treat, in defiance of threatening rain, because - as the girl named Alice declared - if they didn’t do things when it might rain they would never do anything, a sensible attitude for an English child to take. The group was wholesome and sweet as a fresh batch of tarts, and Aziraphale took personal offense at the notion of a demon attempting to interfere with them. He saw them well-disposed in the boat (which the two older girls insisted upon rowing) and cast them off with a blessing for a golden afternoon they would remember happily for a long, long time. He then pulled in his own aura to minimal detectability (he couldn’t do it as well as Crowley, but he could do it) and went demon-stalking.
The demon looked more or less like an undergraduate, of the sort who will be sent down at the next opportunity, and Aziraphale found him on the footpath following the river, slouching along with his hands in his pockets, stewing in evident frustration. Aziraphale strode up alongside him, seized his elbow in passing, and swept him along with a stern: “All right, my lad, where is he and what sort of nefarious plot was that supposed to be in aid of?”
The demon squeaked, and Aziraphale Saw that his beast-aspect was a vole. “Who? What? I don’t know what you mean!” He leaned back and dragged his feet, trying to loosen Aziraphale’s grip.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, guiding him off the path to a more private location. “Oh, I suppose you have to try, but I assure you, deception is as useless as it is tedious! I know Crowley’s here, been trying to get a line on him all morning. It must be more serious than I thought, if he’s summoned minions, but you won’t win yourself any favor with him, by making me drag the information out of you.”
“Crowley’s here?” The demon’s eyes grew wide with horror. “I didn’t know, honest, nobody tells me nothing!”
“Do you think I was incorporated yesterday? Everyone knows he doesn’t like lesser demons popping randomly around his territory, mucking up his too-clever little schemes. You wouldn’t dare show up in the vicinity of an active operation if you weren’t part of it.” He made a show of scanning the immediate area. “And he won’t be pleased that I blocked you. The sooner you make that my problem instead of yours, the better for you, Mr. -?”
“Myodur, sir.”
Heaven bless human manners! That trick had no business working, yet it almost always did. He couldn’t banish someone properly without knowing his name. “You may call me Mr. Fell. How nice to meet you. Now, Mr. Myodur, there’s no need for unpleasantness. Tell me your part in this and I’ll banish you, no muss, no fuss, and you can tell Crowley whatever story you like about how desperately you resisted me. I understand my banishments hardly hurt at all. If I have to put a truth geas on you to find out what I need to know, though, I’m not taking it off, and you can explain to your masters how I waylaid you on a public thoroughfare, till you’re blue in the face.”
“Please, I didn’t know, honest!” The demon went limp. “I’m not with Crowley! I’m assigned to ruin a family and I can’t make headway nohow, so I thought, let’s go exploring, find a weak spot. So I’ve been going around to all the kids that’ve left home, see what I could do with them. And this one, he’s my chance!”
“What chance could you possibly see for your sort of mischief in that lovely young man?”
“Are you joshing me? Little girls are the only people he’s comfortable with. Folks trust him with their kids.”
“And rightly so. I took a good look, I assure you - with the girls in his charge his Virtues are on high alert. You’d need intimate contact to tempt him to anything, and you - if you’ll excuse my saying so - are not someone folks would trust with their children, so an invitation to join the river party was hardly in the cards.”
“No, but he has a blank spot in his appetites, doesn’t he? All I have to do is get a touch of him, just once, slide a little Lust in there, point it at the girls - the rest’ll do itself!”
Aziraphale held the demon a bit tighter. “I see,” he said. “Well! Now I know you’re not with Crowley - composed as he is, entirely of faults, yet he wouldn’t tolerate anything so crude and slipshod” so disgusting “in an operation of his. Have you forgotten what your job is? You can ruin any number of lives, grafting sins onto people willy-nilly, but if you don’t engage their free will what’s it in aid of?”
The demon gaped, visibly reviewing the conversation in his head to discover how he’d come to have an angel lecturing him on proper tempting procedures.
“Well, I haven’t time to waste on you,” Aziraphale continued, giving him no time to gather his wits before snapping on a geas to make him feel violently ill at harming children directly or indirectly. Getting that undone should keep him busy for awhile. In almost the same motion, he placed his free hand on top of the demon’s head, squashing his hat, and transferred the arm grip from elbow to shoulder to apply more force. “My regards to your masters, Myodur. Off with you, and don’t come back.”
One good push, and the demon was on his way straight down to Hell, before he could register, much less protest, what was happening. Speed, Aziraphale’d found, was key. Banishments could get messy if you let the demon collect his wits enough to resist. Aziraphale took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped off the stickiness left behind before adjusting his sleeves.
“That’s an odd way to banish a demon,” said Uriel.
Aziraphale jumped. “Oh! Ah. Good, good afternoon, madam!” He tipped his hat. “I didn’t realize you were there.”
“I didn’t mean you to.” She was a bit overdressed for an Oxford summer afternoon; stylish in cream and gold, with a lot of lace and a fetching hat, all striking contrasts with her flawless brown skin. “Why not smite him?”
“Oh, but, smiting involves so much atmospheric alteration! With the weather in its current state, it would certainly bring on a storm, and ruin so many people’s days. No, no, smiting wasn’t called for. I’ve always found that a good geas and a gentle banishment are enough to keep most minor demons out from, out from underfoot.”
“I see.” Her level gaze and carefully modulated voice seemed to hint that “seeing” and “accepting” were not in this case synonymous. “And will that suffice when you catch up to Crowley?”
The last thing he needed was an archangel breathing down his neck while he pretended to look for someone not around to find. “Oh, Crowley’s not here this afternoon!”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Having, ah, well, you see, it is common, with assignments like this, for me to find that Crowley is sent on, on similar errands at about the same time, so it’s my habit, so to speak, to, er, to distract him. When I have to go out of town. Plant some false clues as to my own plans in his way, set up a harmless puzzle for him to solve, that sort of thing. Intellectual challenges are a great weakness of his - he has to show off how much more clever he is than anyone else. That way I get in first and, and steal a march on him, as you might say.” Don’t babble, don’t babble, it’s not as if she’s Gabriel, she only reports directly to him, only the second in command, not like she’s Sandalphon - “Myodur, of course, did not know this, and the prospect of annoying a higher-ranking demon distracted him enough to render him easy to deal with. So, ah, what, what brings you to this neck of the woods, if I may ask?”
“Random inspection,” said Uriel.
Aziraphale did his best to keep his expression pleasant and not expressive at all. “Oh! New, new policy, is it?”
“No, we’ve always done them,” said Uriel. “I got the short straw this time, and when I threw the dart at the globe it hit England, so you’re the lucky one. How would you say your mission is going?”
“Overall, I think, we’re doing tolerably well. We may finally be making progress on the public hygiene front, as described in my most recent report, but I’ve been disappointed so often it’s hard to say. Crowley keeps me busy of course -“
“No, I mean this mission. Here. Your assignment.”
“Oh! Well, that’s all wrapped up satisfactorily and I think, yes, so far so good. Time will tell whether the specific influences I’ve planted will pay off or not. Free will, you know, very tricky thing. And I’m so glad to have been here to intercept what that demon wanted to do to young Dodgson. I think we can count that as a, as a definite bonus, don’t you? Nice little win for our side.”
“Possibly.” Uriel had a small notebook in her hands suddenly, and an elegant gold pencil with which she wrote something in small letters. “I’ll have to discuss your interaction with that demon with Head Office, however.”
“Really? I, I don’t see why, it’s a tried and true technique, been mentioning it in reports for, well, for centuries -“
“Mm. But I don’t think your reports conveyed how chummy the technique is.”
“Chummy? I’m not, how could banishing him be considered chummy?”
“You took him by the arm, you spoke to him as an equal, you tried to cut a deal with him -“
“I beg your pardon! That deal was, was predicated on his being under the false impression that I thought he was working with Crowley. It was a ruse!”
“And yet you filled the terms of it, banishing him to Hell without hurting him.”
“That got him out of the way and cost me nothing!”
“Nothing? Is it nothing, to be known in Hell as someone who goes easy on demons? Who is willing to have friendly little chats with them, make deals, and give them business advice? Who fraternizes?”
“Frater -? Certainly not! I was only being com, commonly civil. Not to mention, it never hurts to apply a little influence. Where it might have some lasting effect. Did you hear what his plan was? It was dreadful! It’s incumbent on me -“
“It was an infernal plan. Of course it was dreadful. It’s not our job to critique how they do theirs, Aziraphale. It’s our job to stop anything they try to do.”
“Yes, I know, but there’s, there’s such a thing as nuance. I mean to say -“
Uriel closed her notebook. “I think you’ll find that what you’re calling nuance, Heaven calls wasting effort. Demons are Fallen, if you’ll recall. They can’t be redeemed. They don’t get an eleventh hour. Save your influences for the humans, and spend your chastisements freely on demons, and you won’t go far wrong.”
“But - in my experience -“ Her eyes, Looking at him, were bright and hard as jet beads on a mourning cloak. Aziraphale wilted. “I’ll, I’ll bear it in mind, madam.”
“See that you do. Gabriel may wish to speak to you on the matter, later. So, are you off to Cambridge? Since you’ve already wrapped up your business here?”
“I - yes, well, I was just, when I got distracted I was on my way to get a spot of lunch and, and check the timetables.”
“Timetables?”
“For the trains. That’s how I get about. Pinioned, you know. Can’t fly or do that teleporting trick. And lunch, in addition to being, being pleasant, helps me to, to blend in and get a, a human-eye view of the local situation. Where a spot of blessing or influence or, one of my favorite things is, large tips -“
“Since you’re done here I hardly think any of that’s necessary,” said Uriel. “I can fly you straight to Cambridge and observe how you work.”
“Oh!” Please no please no please no! “That would be, my goodness, much too kind of you, and and the presence of a lady changes the dynamic of encounters in this particular society - although of course if you wish to contribute some influence of your own, that would be -“
“I can remain invisible,” said Uriel. “I’d rather teleport you there and get this inspection over with than wait about while you play at being human.” She held out her gloved hands. “Let us be off.”
So much for Crowley’s Cambridge temptations getting done! But the presence of an archangel in town would surely count as a good excuse when he wrote his report? Maybe not adequate for the Serpent of Eden, though? What was his standing down there right now? Aziraphale swallowed, nodded, and took her hands.