Chapter Text
It was a dark and stormy night. The Demon lurking in the alleyway approved of the atmospheric setting. He was less approving of the way the water seemed to run down the back of his neck and somehow find a path all the way down to the insides of his boots.
He also failed to approve of the fact that the ‘dark’ part of ‘dark and stormy’ meant it was difficult to see who was entering or leaving the bookshop, especially when all the humans seemed to have umbrellas. He concluded that ‘dark and stormy’ was all very well for story books, but he’d prefer a relatively mild night, with light cloud and a nice bright moon to see by. He sighed, longing for the darkness and storminess to bugger off so he had a chance to dry out.
In the bookshop was another demon. He was not lurking. He was in fact drinking steadily and had been doing so for some hours. He was currently remonstrating loudly on the subject of the demon lurking in the alleyway opposite whom he, and his companion, had been watching for some time now.
Crowley, for that was the demon’s name, finished up angrily “they’re meant to be leaving us alone that’s all”.
His companion was naturally the more tolerant of the pair, which was understandable given his angelic nature. Actually, scrap that, angels are some of the most intolerant beings around. Aziraphale was more tolerant because he happened to be a nice angel, or a nice entity in general.
Crowley was not a nice demon, not because of any inherent characteristics of his own, but simply because demons were not nice. It was a rule. He was beginning to suspect he might be the unfortunate exception that proved the rule, but didn’t want to think about that just now.
Aziraphale said wistfully “I wonder what he wants”
“Why don’t you go and ask him?” his companion answered sarcastically, then seeing that he was about to go and do just that added “alright I’ll go”.
Outside Hastur hastily threw away the dog-end he’d been smoking, as he saw the door to the shop opening. This was it. As he stepped back into the alleyway so his quarry didn’t see him he bumped ever so slightly into a drainpipe and sent a deluge of water pouring down over his already soaked body.
He sighed again, his feet squelching in their soaked boots. It hadn’t even worked as Crowley had obviously seen him and was headed straight over. He was walking with a particularly irritating swagger, all the while grinning in a particularly irritating manner. Hastur thought briefly about setting him on fire, remembered Beelzebub’s injunction to ‘leave him alone’, and reluctantly parked the thought.
Crowley held a folded newspaper over his head, which seemed to be miraculously stopping all of the rain from reaching any part of him. “wotcha” he said in a particularly irritating way. Hastur growled at him. Crowley, obviously feeling the burden of conversation was on him, continued “anything I can do for you?”
“If you could just die that would be a start” Hastur offered mournfully.
Crowley shook his head tutting slightly “now that’s not very nice, you’ve been stood here for hours and that’s all you have to say for yourself, come on, what do you really want?”
The other demon took a deep breath, he might as well get it over with he thought “I want your h…”. He stopped. When it came to it did he really want Crowley’s help? Couldn’t he find another way round this?
He’d already thought this one through, many times, and had reluctantly come to the conclusion that he couldn’t do without it, so forced himself to continue. Not wanting to start the whole sentence all over again he just picked up where he left off: “…elp”.
Crowley was confused for a moment, until he remembered this was Hastur he was talking to. He took the time to piece together the two parts of his speech and managed to make a sentence that made sense, or at least it would have made sense if he hadn’t known who was speaking. “You want my help?!” he said disbelievingly.
The tall demon shuffled his feet then glared at him in an alarming way shouting “yes” and again stopping. Crowley waited in case there was more, but there didn’t seem to be
He decided to be reasonable “better come in then” he offered waving vaguely towards the bookshop and affecting a casual saunter in its general direction. After a moments hesitation the other demon followed him.
Inside was warm, dry and light. In short everything Hastur had been missing whilst standing in the rain. He was suspicious. When he saw the angel he was even more suspicious. “What’s he doin’ here?” he grunted at Crowley.
“This happens to be my bookshop. A better question would be what are you doing here” Aziraphale answered primly. Hastur jumped slightly at being addressed by an angel and looked somewhat helplessly at Crowley.
“Apparently he wants my help, although I don’t know what with” prompted Crowley looking pointedly at Hastur.
“Its a demon thing” he said still eyeing the angel warily “dunt wanna talk to him”nodding in Aziraphale’s direction.
“You had better go back outside then” replied the angel, but when it looked like both demons would simply up and leave he relented slightly “you could talk in the back I suppose”.
Crowley shepherded the very damp demon into the back room of the bookshop and turned to face him. “So, exactly what do you want help with?” he asked in a less than welcoming voice.
Hastur looked unsure of himself and, instead of answering the question, asked one of his own. “Why you in an angel’s bookshop then?”
“None of your business. Look, you lot are meant to be leaving me alone. What are you doing here and what do you want? Tell me or, or, well” Crowley floundered finishing up somewhat lamely “or I’ll do something you won’t like” thinking this needed stiffening up a bit he added “something you really won’t like” with a bit of a leer. Crowley wasn’t a natural at leering so it came out more like a cross between a sneer and a smirk. A snerk maybe.
The tall demon squinted, wondering why he was snerking at him, “told you, need your help” he explained.
Crowley sighed and looked defeated for a second or two. Clearly he hadn’t got the hang of this intimidation lark. The other demon just looked confused. He thought it could just be that Hastur was not bright enough to identify his somewhat ambiguous words as a threat. He tried again “you wouldn’t want something nasty to happen, now would you?” he asked with another snerk.
By now the other demon was thoroughly confused, between the odd expressions and the unfathomable words he was starting to feel dizzy. He answered as best he could “yes, I like it when nasty things happen. What were you thinking of?”
“let’s start again” offered Crowley, ignoring Hastur’s confused look he asked “what do you want help with?”
“It’s to do wiv angels” was the terse reply.
“Why is every conversation with you like pulling teeth?” came the exasperated response.
The tall demon looked much cheered by these words saying happily “I like pulling teeth”.
“No, not real teeth. Never mind” he added before Hastur had a chance to think about this “don’t you think you’d better tell me the whole story?”
“It’s Ligur” started Hastur and Crowley immediately began backing off stuttering a half apology half excuse, but the other demon continued “he’s back, but its ,well, its like he’s an angel now. I don’t know anything about angels - need your help”.
This was a little different to what Crowley had envisaged. Being honest with himself he had actually got no experience of talking to angels outside of his particular angel. Remembering his trip to heaven disguised as his particular angel, and the events that unfolded there, he didn’t think his angel was very typical of angels in general.
He wasn’t sure what to say. While he’d been thinking this the other demon had maintained a steady eye contact, a hideously unbecoming look on his face.
Hastur was trying to look appealing. It wasn’t something he’d tried before, looking appealing had never been a requirement in Hell, and he hadn’t quite pulled it off. He mainly looked confused, but as he quite often looked confused this didn’t really matter.
“What do you mean an angel? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone less angelic” spluttered Crowley, then remembering to whom he was talking to added “present company excepted”. Hastur seemed pleased with the compliment.
“Yeah, when the little Antichrist reset things he seems to have reset Ligur as an angel for some reason” he tried to explain.
“Can’t he just, y’know, be his natural self for a bit and, well, they’ll soon kick him out of heaven if he does that” suggested Crowley hoping this would be an end to it.
“Nah, they’re not letting anyone fall at the moment. Apparently he already tried it an’ even when it got really messy they said they wasn’t going to let Hell get the advantage” Hastur said sadly. Crowley didn’t want to think about what ‘messy’ activities the new angel had been getting up to.
They heard a cough from the doorway. It was the angel. Hastur predictably jumped a mile and let out a very loud shriek. “Wass he doin here?” he said as he finally got himself under control.
“I told you this is my shop and to be honest I think any conversation you have with my partner ought to include me” answered the angel in an exasperated tone.
“Partner!?” Hastur half screeched.
Crowley tried the leer/snerk again saying “yeah that’s right: *partner*. What you gonna do about it?”
The tall demon scrunched up his face in concentration. What was he going to do about it? Actually, did he need to do anything about it?
Always one to shirk work if he could, he threw out the challenge “ain’t gonna do anythin’ about it, an’ you can’t make me”. He leered, a real leer. Hastur was good at leering.
The angel was also confused: “I really cannot imagine why Crowley would want you to do anything dear boy”.
Crowley sighed, this was getting silly. “Look Hastur, I have no idea what you think I can do about all this. I can’t make Ligur a demon again now can I? How exactly do you expect me to help?”
Hastur took this as a victory, his fellow demon was asking how he could help. That was good. He grinned happily. After a while he realised both the angel and the demon were looking at him expectantly. They seemed to be expecting him to think of something. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like thinking, it made his head hurt.
“Dunno” he answered sulkily.
“Oh, just go away will you? I can’t help. Aziraphale can’t help. You’re just gonna have to figure it out by yourself”. Exclaimed Crowley.
Hastur whined “I don’t know nuffin’ about angels. He’s all glowy and Beelzebub says he keeps tryin’ to be ‘nice’” (the word tasted unpleasant on his tongue). He carried on “and he can’t lurk!” As if this were the most heinous of faults.
Aziraphale looked on fascinated as Hastur, Duke of Hell, tried his ‘appealing’ look again. Feeling he needed to intervene before Crowley threw him out he said “there’s nothing you can do about the ‘being nice’ thing, that’s what us angel are: nice. Well, maybe not Gabriel… and um, I’ve got some doubts about Michael too actually…”
Hastur was grinning by now “so you’re not all nice then?”
Aziraphale looked a little upset, but admitted “I suppose not. Not really, that is. I mean Crowley here was always saying I was… well, I won’t repeat…”
“A bit of a bastard…” Crowley muttered.
Hastur snapped his head round and glared at the demon “what you call me?” he snarled.
“Not you dear boy, in point of fact I believe he meant me! The cheek of it!”
Aziraphale did, in fact, look very pleased with Crowley’s words. Somehow, despite being an angel of undoubted good character and kindly disposition, he liked to think that he was also a bit of a … ‘rogue’ is probably the word he would use, not being a fan of swearing.
The tall demon was taken off guard a little by being addressed as ‘dear boy’. He turned to face the angel and scrunched up his face in concentration.
“You’m an angel ain’t ya?” He wanted to be clear on this point. The obvious waft of holy energy, and the angelic looks, not being quite enough to make him certain. It took a lot for Hastur to be certain about something. Hell taught you to be highly suspicious of everything and everyone.
“Oh, well, yes, yes, of course I am. I think. Crowley dear, what do you think?”
The snake-demon nodded his head solemnly “definitely an angel” he pronounced with a smile at his companion.
“How do I talk to you then?” Hastur asked in a weird cross between curious appeal and angry challenge.
“I believe you are talking to me right now, aren’t you?” Aziraphale was confused.
“Yeah, but y’know. If I wanted to carry on talking to you, like more than just asking how to talk to you. What would I say?” This was getting too confusing. Hastur was considering leaving, he didn’t like confusing, it wasn’t his thing.
“Oh, you mean what do I like to talk about? There’s books of course, and, well, lots of things actually. Have you tried sushi?” Seeing the tall demon’s look of confusion he hurried on “or any seafood really, what about lobster?”
Hastur was shaking his head a genuinely confused look on his face. This whole talking to an angel thing was clearly very difficult. It seemed to require a lot of knowledge he simply didn’t possess. He tried his hardest not to set fire to anything, feeling this would be a bad move. Instead he asked “what’s a lobster?”
Aziraphale hadn’t, honestly hadn’t, planned for Hastur to ask that question, but seeing as he had, well it would be rude not to answer it. “Why don’t I show you, we can go for dinner at that lovely little seafood place - I was telling you about it Crowley, do you remember?”
Crowley glared at Aziraphale “…I remember saying I didn’t want to go. You know how I feel about seafood - all those eyes looking at you from the plate, gives me the creeps”.
“Oh but my dear, poor Hastur here needs our help and it would be so rude not to at least try to help him and I certainly don’t feel a verbal explanation of a lobster will quite suffice will it?” There was a twinkle in his eye. He had clearly decided that, whatever Hastur’s or Crowley’s preference in the matter he was going out for dinner and taking one or both of them with him.
The snake-demon glared at Hastur in a ‘I’d like to kill you’ sort of way that the other demon was very familiar with. Well, so long as he was annoying someone else, he was happy. He smiled in a way that showed off too many teeth that were just a little too sharp.
“Why don’t you ask your friend the angel to come too?” Crowley asked in a snide manner, feeling that if he was to suffer an unwanted seafood dinner then someone else should be dragged along too.
Hastur panicked “I don’t have friends. Demons aren’t friendly. Besides I can’t ask him to dinner! What if he says no?!”
“I’m sure an angel would never be so rude as to just say ‘no’ - come on let’s find him and you can ask”.
Hastur was looking more panicked at this “I dunno where to find ‘im. He’s an angel. How’s I meant to find angels? ‘an even if I finds ‘im what am I meant to do then? I can’t just ‘talk to him’ that’s why I’m here - I need heeeelp!”
The last word was a wail, but Aziraphale was confused “but you must have talked to him before surely?”
“Not as an angel. Angels dunt talk to demons, they dunt like ‘em. He doesn’t like me”. There was a half-choked off sob at the end of the sentence that immediately got Aziraphale’s sympathy.
“How do you know he doesn’t like you if you’ve not even talked to him?”
Hastur looked shifty. Actually he always looked shifty, so it would be more accurate to say he looked *more* shifty. He mumbled something that neither of the other two could hear.
Crowley was still feeling impatient from earlier “spit it out!” he demanded.
The tall demon looked surprised, but then spat neatly on the rug in front of him. Whatever he had spat out opened its eyes and blinked at them, then, realising it was free, made a dash for the nearest bookcase and hid behind it.
The snake demon rolled his eyes, “not literally! I meant: tell us how you know Ligur doesn’t like you if you’ve not talked to him, and tell us now!”
Hastur sighed. “I asked Beelzebub to ask Gabriel to tell Ligur I wanted to see him”.
“Oh” Crowley was a little stunned - why would anyone trust Beelzebub to pass on a message? “What did Beelzebub tell you he’d said?”
“Nuffin. When I asked what he said Beelzebub said Gabriel said nuffin’ - so that means he dunt want to see me”. Their guest looked genuinely distressed at this.
“How do you know they even spoke to him?” Aziraphale asked curiously, having by now learned quite a lot about demons and their desire to be seen as untrustworthy, as well as knowing Gabriel fairly well. He wasn’t the sort to pass on messages from demons.
The taller demon, however, didn’t seem to have thought of this. “Y’mean they might have lied about it?” He asked as if the very idea was scandalising - a demon lie!! surely not. Then he smiled. It was an unfortunate smile, it made him look like he’d swallowed something rather unpleasant and was trying hard not to show it.
“So…if they lied then maybe he doesn’t hate me… so….” they could virtually hear the cogs turning in Hastur’s head “…so maybe he does wanna talk to me!” He finished triumphantly. Following it up quickly with another more typically paranoid thought “but if he wants to talk to me how come he hasn’t?”
Aziraphale pointed out mildly “well you haven’t tried to talk to him have you?”
Immediately on the defensive Hastur replied “I sent a message, what more can I do? I can’t talk to angels, wouldn’t know where to start. Only angel I ever spoke to is Michael and that was just to insult her”.
“You’re talking to *my* angel right now. Talking a blessed sight too much in fact. Why don’t you go away?” The irritableness had not left the snake demon who was also, truth be told, getting slightly jealous of the time Aziraphale was spending talking to the wholly unpleasant smelling demon.
He carried on “why don’t you go and find *your* angel and leave mine alone?”
“How?”
It was a fair question, but one that Aziraphale had an answer for. “I’ll pass a message on, you can trust me. I’m an angel”.
The demon shuffled his feet for a while, then said “go on then” but made no move to leave.
Crowley almost screamed at him “you got what you came for. Go. Now!!”
Hastur was nothing if not tenacious “only said he’d pass a message on. Well he’s gotta do it now ain’t he? Can’t go ‘til he’s done it. How’s I to know he really done it if I just go?”
An abundance of suspicion had replaced the previous ‘trusting Beelzebub and Gabriel to pass on a message’. To be fair, from the demonic point of view, it was reasonable: you shouldn’t trust anyone in Hell… or out of Hell really, just generally don’t trust anyone.
Aziraphale sighed and agreed he would go now to pass on the message.