Chapter Text
Soho, London; a grim and grey evening.
A door, in the bookshop. It is dignified and wooden and looms quite large between dense packed bookcases.
Aziraphale was quite certain the door had not been there before.
Probably.
After all, this is his bookshop. He’d made it to be exactly as he needed, nothing less, and certainly nothing more. The door is superfluous, nonsensical, and shouldn’t even go anywhere, being set against the outer wall of the shop as it was.
Then again, the same was supposed to be true of his upstairs study, which he had had to enlarge to fit all his extra, too-important-to-be-kept-in-the-shop books.
So the door very well could be there-
Had it been open before?
Aziraphale cannot recall.
Perhaps there’s once more something ineffable afoot, or perhaps Crowley simply forgot to close the door behind him…
But why would Crowley use this door at all? He always used the front door, slammed it, even, much to Aziraphale’s annoyance.
Come to think of it, when was the last time Aziraphale had seen Crowley? Or spoken to him on the phone even?
As the thought crosses his mind he turns to look for his phone. Crowley was always bugging him to get one of those wireless, cellular devices like the demon owned. Claimed they’re much easier to operate, and far more convenient, because they’re not attached to a wall. ‘Well, how convenient is it really, to have to remember where you last left your phone, dear’, Aziraphale completes their argument in his mind.
It’s a discussion they’ve repeated for a few years now, ever since phones gained the ability to be wireless. Aziraphale maintained that it’s hardly any worse to have a phone attached to a wall, and always know exactly where the thing is.
Except today, it seems.
The little table on which his bakelite phone and little notebook always rested is replaced by-
Was that stain always seeping under the doorway? Through the crack in the door comes no light at all, and the stain that is seeping, creeping from underneath it almost seems to be a part of that same darkness.
How silly, Aziraphale wonders distantly, he has replaced his unmovable phone, whatever will Crowley say when he finds out. His gaze is absorbed by the tall door in his shop, the same way the darkness spreading underneath it sucks in all light…
Crowley.
Wasn’t Crowley here before, visiting him? His thoughts feel like they are hiking through deep snow, a struggle to reach any point at all. Certainly Crowley must have been here before, his glasses are lying there on a bookshelf…
Crowley wouldn’t leave his glasses behind, this Aziraphale knows. Unless- yes, he thinks, that makes sense. Crowley must have taken off his glasses to look beyond this door, it’s so dark back there, obviously one wouldn’t need sunglasses for it.
So where has Crowley gone?
Aziraphale shakes himself; he is an angel, a being of light and hope, whatever this door wants-
When did he walk up to the door?
Did he choose to move here?
(Was the choice made for him?)
Aziraphale takes a step back, twists away; some fresh air should set him to rights, it might be a grey London evening but he can still take a walk, just bring an umbrella-
It isn’t until he grasps the handle of the shopfront door that he realizes it isn't the shopfront door anymore-
As if watching a movie he sees his hand not-listen to his command to let-go-of-the-door, but instead twist the knob and open it, spilling the darkness it contained out and out and over him and-
With a gasp, Aziraphale wakes up.