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The first time Sarah asks her mother about Mr. Fell, she is sixteen years old. She's spending her summer working at the bakery - trying to get a feel for whether or not she wants to take over the family business when she grows up. Her sister is already on her way to Oxford and her brother spends most of his time looking at the stars, so if any of her mother's children will become the next-generation baker, it will be her.
Sarah likes baking. Has done since she was a little girl, hanging off of her mother's apron strings. The thing she doesn't necessarily like is the customers, the busy times, the espresso machine breaking or paying taxes or any of that rubbish. If she could have it her way, she would spend all day in the backroom, elbows-deep in dough. So, this summer she's working the till and helping her mother in the back, when time permits, which has put her in the position of actually noticing the regulars in a way she hadn't before, when she was only dropping in occasionally.
Not that Sarah hadn't noticed Mr. Fell. It would be impossible not to notice that unnaturally blonde hair, that unusually old-fashioned suit, and he's been coming by the shop for as long as she can remember. Longer still.
"Does Mr. Fell ever change his clothes?" Sarah asks, kicking her feet against the cabinets as she sits on the counter. It's early, yet, and the store won't open for another half hour or so.
Her mother fusses with the last few danishes. "I don't know that he does," she says, pretending to be distracted by poking a microscopic piece of dough back into place.
"Because," Sarah says, "he comes in at least once a week, but I've never seen him wear anything else. And I remember seeing him when I was really little, and he was wearing the same thing then, too."
"Mr. Fell is a particular sort of man," her mother says, putting the danish tray into the oven.
"You don't think it's weird?"
"Plenty of things are weird, love. Mr. Fell is a very nice man, and so the kind thing to do is to overlook any of his oddness."
"Okay," Sarah says dubiously, but a sharp look from her mother makes her drop the subject.
Mr. Fell is weird, is all, and her mother's caginess is even weirder.
Sarah asks about Mr. Fell again two years later. She's gotten to know the eccentric man fairly well - well, as well as she can, given that he seems to have a soft spot for her mother. Not that kind of soft spot, mind you, because Sarah is reasonably sure he doesn't swing that way, but he talks to Sarah's mother like he's known her since she was a little girl, even though that doesn't make sense. Sarah doesn't know quite how old he is, but he looks close in age to her mum.
Mr. Fell still hasn't changed his clothes since last time she asked.
"Mum?"
"Yes dear?"
"How long has Mr. Fell been coming to the bakery?" Sarah asks. She tries her best to sound like she's making polite conversation, mildly curious, but she's pretty sure it came out like a desperately wondering thing. Mr. Fell is just so weird, and no one ever seems to acknowledge it. Everyone's always just oh that's Mr. Fell, you know how he is, but no one ever talks about him. It's crazy, and it's making Sarah feel crazy. The man owns that weird bookshop that's never open and never seems to have any customers when it is, and somehow he doesn't go out of business operating in a very expensive neighborhood in central London. He looks like he hasn't changed his clothes for a hundred years. He's very friendly, but somehow that friendliness is very shallow, the direct opposite of an invitation to get to know someone better.
Her mother, concentrating on rolling dough, doesn't respond. In fact, her mother keeps not responding. Sarah focuses on mixing her cupcake batter and tries to decide whether she should push further or change the subject.
Then, her mother begins talking.
"I first met Mr. Fell when I was five or six. My mother brought me into the shop with her, and I was playing with a bit of paper when the strangest man came in. He had very blonde hair, and very old fashioned clothing. My mum picked me up and introduced me to him, in a formal sort of way. 'Diana, this is Mr. Fell. Mr. Fell, this is my daughter Diana.' He shook my tiny hand, and I remember that I grabbed his bow tie."
Sarah looks over at her mother, but her mother's focus is on rolling dough for the mini-pies she's making.
(Sarah's mother has been able to roll dough in her sleep for all of Sarah's life. Has actually rolled dough in her sleep, once or twice.)
Sarah frowns. "But... that sounds like he was an adult when you were a child. He looks like he couldn't possibly be more than five years older than you."
"He looks that way, yes."
Sarah works out the maths backwards - for her mother to be five when Mr. Fell was an adult, he would have to be at least fifteen years older than her mum. That's... possible, Sarah supposes. Some people age really well. Maybe Mr. Fell has some kind of very complicated skincare routine, like all the magazines say to do. It's possible.
The cupcake batter is done, so Sarah pulls the bowl from the mixer and busies herself in pouring and prepping, but her mind stays focused on the mystery. Honestly, she regrets asking, or at the very least she would rather her mother said the same vague hand-waving she had done last time Sarah asked, instead of introducing this new mystery and then not elaborating on it.
Really, actually, what the hell? How could Mr. Fell have been a grown adult while her mother was still a young child? The mix of confusion and indignation fuels her all the way through putting the cupcakes in the oven, at which point she turns around to find her mother waiting for her, a strange expression on her face.
"Are you finished?" she asks, and Sarah isn't sure whether she means with the cupcakes or the questions.
"Er, yeah. Sure."
Her mum nods her head in the direction of the office, and then starts walking that way, so Sarah follows. The office is really a glorified closet - just big enough for a desk and a desk chair, cluttered and dusty, with a collage of old photos on the wall. No one spends a lot of time back here. Sarah's mum takes the very oldest frame off the wall and hands it to Sarah.
"You know what this is?" The question is rhetorical, because obviously Sarah has seen the faded old picture a million times.
"It's the grand opening of the shop, back in 1902."
The figures in the photo are blurry, and the paper is yellow with age, but it's a generic grand-opening photo: a dozen or so people in old-fashioned clothing standing in front of the shop. Sarah's however-many-greats grandmother stands in the middle with her husband, beaming with pride. Her mother taps on the figure standing all the way off to the left.
Sarah blinks, but the picture remains the same. There, in this hundred-plus-year-old photograph, is Mr. Fell, wearing exactly the same clothes.
"No," Sarah says, wondering if this is some kind of prank. She looks at her mother (straight-faced and not laughing), and then back at the photo. Sarah has seen this picture a million times, but she's never noticed. Never had a reason to. Most of the people in the photo are the other shopkeepers from the block, so she's never had any reason to pay them any attention - they're all dead. Or at least they all should be.
"I don't... how...?"
"I don't know, love. My mother never told me very much either. Just that we always had to treat Mr. Fell kindly and not ask too many questions. I noticed him in this picture about fifteen years ago, and I don't have any more answers now than I did then."
"You really think this is him? That it's the same guy, not like, his grandfather or great uncle or something?"
Her mother sighs. "Like I said, I've known Mr. Fell since I was five years old. He's never looked a day younger than he does today, or a day older. When I was a child he seemed ancient to me. Every year I get older, and he stays exactly the same."
"That's impossible."
"I know," her mum says. "We've been very fortunate. This shop has been in the family for over a hundred years, and in that time, we've never had a fire, never seen a mouse. During the forties, every store on this block was reduced to rubble but ours."
Sarah has been waiting and waiting for a punchline.
"You think Mr. Fell has something to do with that?"
"We don't look gift horses in mouths, in this family. For as long as Mr. Fell has been a customer, we've been blessed. I don't ask questions."
Sarah has never been great at not asking questions, but she can try.
By the time Sarah is nineteen years old, she knows for sure that her destiny is in the family business. Going to university never really interested her - baking is her passion, and she can overlook the boring parts, so long as she's able to spend the majority of the time doing what she loves. She learns what she needs to know from her mother: not just baking, but how to keep the books, how to keep her regulars, how to keep the doors open and the lights on. Her mother has even mentioned the possibility of Sarah taking over the shop entirely for a few days a week, training wheels off, a prospect which excites and scares Sarah in equal measure.
For now, she's covering during the quiet times. Weekday evenings, early Saturday mornings.
Sarah keeps herself busy polishing the espresso machine when there's absolutely no one around. Wednesday nights are the absolute worst. She would have guessed that people would need a mid-week pick-me-up, but she hasn't seen a customer in over an hour, and she's been sighing dramatically about it for forty five minutes.
Not that there's anyone around to hear it.
The bell over the door jingles and Sarah whips around so fast she's afraid she might have sprained something.
"Hello!" she says, smiling brightly at the man in the shop.
Sarah has never seen this man before, that she can say for sure - he's tall and skinny, with unnatural dark red hair and a pair of dark sunglasses that cover his eyes entirely. Wearing sunglasses inside is kind of odd on its own, but it's dark outside. How can he even see?
"Hi," the man says, glancing at her briefly, before meandering over to the pastry cabinet.
"Can I help you find anything in particular?"
The man makes a face. "Do you carry any French pastries?"
"Er, no. Just what we have here. I mean, we do have other things, on other days, you know, in the morning, but not generally French stuff? Mostly just, you know, the usual... stuff."
Admittedly, talking to customers is not her strong suit. And something about this man makes her oddly nervous.
The man raises an eyebrow at her. "Why not?"
"...Why don't we carry French pastries?"
"Yeah."
"Er, well. Because. This isn't a French bakery?"
The man nods. He looks consideringly around the bakery, then at her, then at the cabinet again.
"You're young," he says. "You should have pretty decent neuroplasticity."
"I... suppose."
"So you could learn how to make French pastries."
Sarah laughs, at that. Why come to a non-French bakery for French goods?
"Sure, I could," she agrees, "but that would require going to culinary school in Paris, which would be terribly expensive, and there doesn't seem to be much of a point when there's a French patisserie two blocks away."
The man waves a dismissive hand. "No, that place is terrible. I want your baked goods, but French."
Sarah can't quite decide if she's exasperated or entertained by the whole thing. And as though the whole conversation wasn't weird enough already, she's never seen the man before. He's not a regular, which, admittedly, is a group comprised of very particular and finicky people. What does it matter if the French pastries this guy wants are made at this bakery?
"Well, are you offering to pay for me to go to school for it?" she asks, hoping to put a kibosh on this line of questioning.
The man shrugs. "Sure," he says, casual as can be. Like that's not an insane thing to say.
That stops Sarah in her tracks. She blinks, opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, and realizes that she truly doesn't have an answer ready for that so she closes it again. This man must be crazy, or he's trying to get a rise out of her.
"You're not serious," she says finally, after several eternally long seconds of her staring at the stranger and the stranger glaring at the pastry case. (Or at least Sarah thinks he's staring. She can't see his eyes, but the man seems to make expressions with his whole face to make up for it.)
"I am. Just... pick your... school, or whatever it is,” he says, waving his hand dismissively, “and then let me know and I'll take care of the bill."
Sarah blinks. "I have to apply," she says dumbly.
"So pick a good one, apply, and call me when you get in."
"If I get in," Sarah corrects. She's good, but spots in the best programs are terribly competitive.
"When," the man says firmly. He pulls a business card out of his pocket and extends it over the counter.
Sarah takes it, not sure what else to do.
Anthony J. Crowley it reads, along with a phone number and a little snake design.
When she looks up, the man is gone.
When Sarah tells her mother about it later, her mum is oddly blasé about the whole thing.
"If he's offering to pay for your tuition then you should take it."
"But it's weird !" she says. " He's weird. He has a snake tattoo on his face."
Her mum frowns. "What, like...." She gestures in front of her eyes, from cheekbone to cheekbone.
"No, it's here," Sarah says, touching the side of her face next to her ear.
"Oh, well, that doesn't seem so bad."
"But it's weird! What if he's in the mob or something?"
Her mother just tuts. "Why would the mob want you to make French pastries?"
"I don't know! Why does this random guy want me to?"
Her mother shrugs. "Gift horses," she says, like that's a sufficient answer.
"But this is crazy."
"I've seen crazier," she says with a smile.
And yeah, she has a point.
(Sarah ends up applying to the most prestigious pastry school in Paris, because if something hinky is afoot she may as well take full advantage. She gets in - which she honestly didn't really expect to - and then, after she sends the information to Mr. Crowley, she gets a call from the school the next day letting her know that her tuition has been paid in full, which she really didn't expect to actually happen. So she goes.)
Two weeks after returning from Paris, Sarah takes her first solo morning shift at the bakery. Long before sunrise, she stands in the kitchen, hands on hips, glad to be home, excited that she finally has this place all to herself. She looks over her list of pastries for the day, tapping her lip. Normally, her mother would put these in best baking order for her - but today, it’s her responsibility.
Sarah pulls out a pencil and gets to work, anticipating the prep time and cook time on each item, sketching out a plan for her next few hours. (Her mother does all this in her head, and Sarah will get there one day, but for now she’s doing it old-school.) She’s so caught up in planning, she doesn’t notice that there’s someone else in the room with her.
Doesn’t notice, until she turns towards the pantry and sees a familiar dark figure leaning up against the walk-in refrigerator. Part of her had wondered, in the time since their first meeting and today, if she had misremembered him. Surely he hadn’t been that tall, and that slender, with glasses that dark and an actual face tattoo. Surely his overall demeanor couldn’t have been quite as uncanny as she remembered. Surely the man wasn’t actually so discomfiting, like a bramblethorn caught in your sock, or a pull in your favorite sweater.
"Mr. Crowley!" She just barely manages to stop herself from clutching at her heart like a grandma, but only just.
Sarah knew that she would come face to face with her mysterious benefactor sometime soon - but she wasn’t exactly expecting him to be here, now, at ungodly o’clock in the morning, looking as cool and unruffled as Sarah isn’t.
Mr. Crowley makes a face, eyebrow raising. "No. Don't call me that."
Sarah has been calling him Mr. Crowley in her mind for so long that she almost doesn’t remember what the full name on his business card actually was.
(That’s not true. The business card is burned on her mind, like their entire first meeting is burned on her mind - seared, as a definitive moment where Sarah’s life had changed for good.)
"Anthony?" she says, cautious, wary of sounding overly-familiar.
"No."
"...Tony?"
Mysterious benefactor gives her a look.
"Definitely not. Crowley. Just Crowley."
"Okay Just Crowley ," she says with false bravado, "what can I do for you?"
Sarah wants to ask how in the bloody hell did you get in here?! or what do you want? or please never come into my shop when we're closed again, but she knows that she shouldn't. Gift horses, after all. Even though the door was locked, even though she didn’t hear footsteps, or creaking hinges, she needs to just… accept that this is her new reality. She signed up for this, that day she applied to culinary school. Now she has to adjust her expectations.
(Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knows. She knows that whatever Mr. Fell is, Mr. Crowley isn’t. Wherever Mr. Fell goes, people smile, people laugh, the sun shines and babies coo. She tries not to think too hard on what Mr. Fell is because that way madness lies. But even still, she can feel the difference, between when Mr. Fell is around versus when Mr. Crowley is around. The air is different. Mr. Crowley is sharp, biting presence.
Crowley, she reminds herself. Just Crowely.)
The man makes a bitchy face at her Just Crowley but doesn't comment on that. "I'll keep it pretty simple,” he says. “Half a dozen chocolate croissants, boxed.”
Sarah blinks. "That's all?" She had been, well, not quite worried, but hovering somewhere between anxious and anticipatory about meeting Crowley again. Chocolate croissants seem a little... anticlimactic? It’s not like she thought she had sold her soul to him or anything quite so absurd, but she still thought he would ask for more than that.
"For now, yeah," Crowley says with a shrug. "Give you a little time to get settled before I get anything too crazy."
Sarah starts doing the mental calculations - she hadn't planned on making chocolate croissants this morning, but she could probably fit them in. Not any time in the short term, though, and she would feel rather awkward kicking Crowley out. He is her benefactor, after all.
"It'll probably take me a couple of hours, if that's okay."
"Oh, no, I don't need them now. Have them ready for me tomorrow morning. I’ll be by at say, 9 o’clock?”
“Of course,” she says, as though she could or would say anything else.
Crowley nods, and without another word, saunters out of the kitchen.
(Sarah doesn’t hear footsteps down the hall, or the door opening or closing, but somehow, she knows that he’s gone.)
Later, when she goes back to the office to close up for the night, she finds a neat stack of bills on the desk - far, far more than she ever would have or could have charged for a box of croissants. She thinks, for a second, about returning the money next time she sees Crowley. He did pay for her education, after all. But there’s a little voice in the back of her mind that says gift horses, love, and so she just puts the money in the safe, and calls it a day.
Knowing a (maybe) immortal or two ends up being kind of cool. It’s a little bit weird, and it’s not like Sarah can talk to any of her friends about it, but it’s a nice little fact tucked away in the back of her mind. There’s something bigger, out there, in the great wide world, and she has a tiny little slice of it here in her shop. She sees Mr. Fell and wonders if he knows Crowley; she takes orders for Crowley, who orders a series of increasingly-complicated French pastries, but always leaves a dramatic amount of money, and never makes unreasonable demands.
One day, eight months into Sarah’s return from culinary school and seven and a half months into her arrangement with Crowley, she gets an answer to at least one of her questions. She’s at the crepe-making station (newly installed, and wildly popular) when she hears the familiar voice of Mr. Fell. What’s a little less familiar is the overly-familiar tone he has. Normally, Mr. Fell is friendly with everyone he comes across, but there’s this tone he has that she hasn’t heard before.
“...And you know how I feel about crepes, of course, but trust me when I say that this place has the best you’ll find on this side of the channel,” Mr. Fell is saying to someone, though Sarah can’t see because she needs to focus on her batter. “If you don’t like them as much we can go back to Paris next time, but I do want you to try these. They’re really very good.”
If Mr. Fell gets a response, Sarah can’t hear it, lost in the noise of a busy Sunday morning. She finishes up with the crepes she’s making, and then steps out from behind the machine and walks over to the register. The cashier, Michelle, steps aside as soon as Sarah starts hovering at her elbow. She knows that Mr. Fell is one of their regulars, and she knows that the owner or the owner’s daughter will always take his order, if they’re available.
“We’re really very lucky,” Mr. Fell says just as Sarah looks up at him, “that Sarah here actually went to culinary school in Paris. Finding authentic French pastries in London was nearly impossible before that. There were others that came close, of course, but nothing was quite the same.”
Of the however-many-billions of people on earth, Crowley looms behind Mr. Fell like a shadow.
“Mmmm,” Crowley agrees absently, looking anywhere but at Sarah, “very lucky.”
“Hello Mr. Fell,” Sarah says. She actively avoids looking at Crowley, who appears to be busy inspecting the new crepe station with unnecessary fascination.
“Good morning Sarah,” Mr. Fell says in that affable way of his. “This is my….” He pauses, a little befuddled, like he has never had to introduce Crowley before and doesn’t quite know how to finish the sentence. He looks over at Crowley, now very studiously looking at the espresso machine that has not changed since that first time he was here, then back to Sarah, slightly pained. “This is my - ah - friend, Crowley.”
Crowley casts Mr. Fell a sidelong glance, like friend is not how he expected to be introduced.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Crowley.”
“Just Crowley.”
All of a sudden, the reason why Crowley wanted this pastry shop to sell French pastries becomes overwhelmingly clear.
“What can I get for you?” Sarah asks, looking back to Mr. Fell. The less time she spends trying to pretend she doesn’t know Crowley, the better.
“I think it’s a crepe kind of morning. One with whipped cream, I think, and one with strawberries.”
“Of course, Mr. Fell! I’ll bring it to your table when it’s ready.”
The shop is busy, and all of the tables are full, but miraculously Mr. Fell’s favorite table by the window just became available. Pouring the crepe batter onto the griddle, Sarah tries to remember if she has ever seen Mr. Fell sit anywhere other than that table, and comes up short. It’s always available when he’s here. Or… it always becomes available, when he walks in the door.
Sarah brings out the crepes - to Mr. Fell, who is grateful, and Crowley, who is awkward - and then retreats back behind the counter to surreptitiously watch them.
What she learns is this:
- Crowley, for as often as he purchases pastries from Sarah herself, certainly doesn’t seem to actually eat them. Rather, he just sits there, head propped up on one hand, watching Mr. Fell with a lovestruck expression.
- Crowley is Very Clearly and Obviously in love with Mr. Fell.
- Mr. Fell is far brighter and more animated around Crowley than Sarah has ever seen when he’s been in the shop by himself, talking between bites and positively beaming at Crowley’s form slouched across the table.
- Mr. Fell is Very Clearly and Obviously in love with Crowley.
When Mr. Fell swaps their plates, leaving the empty in front of Crowley and taking the second crepe for himself, Sarah sets about making two coffees: one sweet latte, and the darkest blackest espresso she can wrangle out of the old machine. They haven’t asked for drinks, but it just seems like the right thing to do at that moment, and she’s learned to trust her instincts when around these two.
She takes the drinks over to the table herself, placing the latte in front of Mr. Fell and the sludge in front of Crowley.
“Oh! Thank you, Sarah, I was just thinking that I should have ordered myself a drink, and here you are! You must have read my mind.” Mr. Fell beams up at her. Then, to Crowley, “you just can’t get service like this anywhere else. I told you that you would love this place!”
“On the house, Mr. Fell, as long as you bring your friend back another time.”
Sarah leaves them to their private conversation, humming Killer Queen on her way back to the till. Maybe Crowley will drink his coffee, and maybe he won’t, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Two decades and many thousands of French pastries later, Sarah’s daughter asks, “mum, how long has Mr. Crowley been coming to the bakery?”
“Just Crowley, dear. He hates to be called Mr. Crowley.” Sarah takes a moment to consider her answer, wiping her hands on her apron in the meanwhile. “It’s a bit of a funny story, really…”