Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The year was 1845, and a man sat in the front row of a Soho theatre, a playbill in his lap, and a grin on his face. His name was Aziraphale Eastgate, and he was about to watch one of the most sought-after actors in England, Anthony J. Crowley, perform Henry V. He was a performer unlike any other, and Mr Eastgate positively beamed at the chance to see him. The tickets had been difficult to acquire, but friends in high places owed Aziraphale favours.

Crowley did not let down.

And Aziraphale was absolutely smitten.

Crowley had the most striking hair, burnished copper, and a good deal longer than most men kept it. It shone like a flame on the stage. His eyes were a light hazel, so light they looked almost gold, and when the light hit them just right, they seemed to glitter and glow. He was angular and handsome. He moved with such poise, that if you saw him on the street, you wouldn’t doubt for a second that he was royalty. The crown weighed heavily on Henry’s head, but not on Crowley’s.

As he watched, Aziraphale wished he lived in a different time and place, one where and when he might be able to both be with and be seen with a man like Crowley.

Thoughts like those said aloud or acted on were grounds for gross indecency charges and execution. Mr Eastgate, the foppish rare books dealer with the distinctive handwriting and the finely manicured hands, was already pushing it just by the way he presented himself.

So, he decided that he would settle for simply observing, and at times, dreaming.

He would have to make do.

Chapter Text

It was times like these that Aziraphale Eastgate thoroughly regretted ever picking up a book, much less trying to sell them. It had seemed like a good idea at first, spreading literature, helping people find rare books, books from their childhood, books that had only been printed a few times. He was good at it, too, hunting down stories no one else could find. It had earned him a great deal of notoriety. If you lived in England in 1845, and you needed an impossible-to-find book, Mr Eastgate was the first person you’d go to for help.

The problem with notoriety, though, is that it attracts other notorious people, people with money and status, and people like that tend to be less than pleasant. Take, for example, one Miss Charlotte Hamsey. The very instant he’d decided to close early, she’d come knocking, and Aziraphale, ever the optimist, had pulled the door open for her, hoping she might present a challenge worth staying open for. 

He quickly realized his optimism had been misplaced. 

"Yes, I am aware of the volume you're after, but I am afraid it doesn't exist." He ran frustrated hands through his curly blonde hair. About once a week there were people like Miss Hamsey in his shop, people with heads full of bricks and coin purses full of entitlement.

"Well, can't you look in the back? You've got a back room, haven't you?"

Miss Hamsey was a great deal taller than him in her heels, and her voluminous dress knocked into tables and shelves as she stalked through the shop, searching high and low (though mostly high, on account of her stature) for a book that had never been published. Aziraphale followed dutifully behind her, doing quiet little breathing exercises behind her back. Aziraphale was talented, sure, but he wasn’t a miracle worker, no matter how often patrons said he was.

"Yes, miss, I do have a back room, but that isn't the problem. Jonathan Everbury never published a 7th novel. He died before-"

The woman reached up and plucked a tome from the very top shelf, where Aziraphale kept books he knew he should probably sell, but really didn't want to (that’s why they were up so high; even he needed a step-stool to get to them). The words died in his mouth as she wrenched the book open, and the spine made a sickening crunching noise as the delicate, aged glues and threads gave their final bow. The book she'd chosen was a first-edition copy of Paradise Lost. Signed.

"Marion told me at her birthday party that she read 7 of his novels, and I refuse to believe..."

Whatever else she had to say faded into the background as Aziraphale watched in dumbstruck horror as a single page slipped from the book and fluttered to the floor. The woman either did not notice or ignored the escaped page. She was holding a book that was more than a century and half old with the care and kindness one might offer a penny dreadful. 

With all the restraint he had in him, he pulled the book from her hands, careful not to damage it further. If it wasn’t so rare and so beautiful, he might have beat her round the head with it. The most he could do without having the police set on him, though, was to set the book down, cross his arms, and frown. That man had a mean frown, the sort of frown you can’t help but shrink away from. It was like watching the sun dim. That frown could make anyone feel bad about themselves.

That is anyone with any understanding of social cues, which this woman, evidently, did not have. She shifted, inadvertently stepping on the page on the floor. Aziraphale’s heart pounded. The frown deepened into something approaching a grimace.

“Miss, I’m afraid I can’t help you, and it’s getting rather close to closing time.”

The woman glanced across the room at the grandfather clock against the wall and pouted. “It’s just barely 6. The sign on the door says you close at 9.”

“I’ve moved closing time up a few hours, then,” Aziraphale ground out through gritted teeth. He was normally a very chipper man, he really was, but he could practically hear the poor book crying out in pain, and the thought of that horrible woman being close to it (or him) for even a second more made his bones itch.

She swished away in a huff, the massive bustle on her dress knocking books off of tables as she went. She slammed the door behind her, and as soon as he’d (gently) placed the loose page back in Paradise Lost, Aziraphale rushed up to lock the door, lest she should change her mind and come back to chew him out like she so clearly wanted to. He leaned back against the door and took a few steadying breaths. The book was safe. The woman was gone. All was well.

And then he thought about the fact that the shop would open again tomorrow, and Charlotte Hamsey, or some other horrible toddler, Harlotte Chamsey, or what-have-you, could come in and knock over his neatly stacked books all over again. 

I quit, he thought. Twenty years of this. I’m finished. No one else gets to touch my books. Never again. He sighed. He had money, a flat above the shop (really it was two flats, but he’d sort of spread out across both), and more books than he knew what to do with. He could retire, and then die, happy. He would retire, he decided, right then. He wasn’t a spry man (a bit thick around the middle, and a little achy about the knees), but he had all the energy in the world at that moment. The rest of his evening was coming together already. He would get crepes, drink hot cocoa, repair Paradise Lost, and settle in to read for a bit, perhaps that new Dickens novel, The Chimes …

To start, though, he had to write up a sign to put on the door, something to signal permanent closure. He grabbed an ink pen and a piece of paper. 

At first, he wrote:

Permanently closed because you people are unbearable. Buy your books elsewhere.

This felt a bit mean, though. He tossed that paper aside and tried again:

Closed forever. I find you people unpleasant.

This still felt too forward. Finally, he settled for a note that simply read: 

Closed.

He’d have the marquis pulled down the next day, and the name scraped off the door the day after that. His shop would become his personal library, his own sanctuary, and he could enjoy his books in peace. Proud of his decisiveness (he was the kind of man who usually had to chew on choices for a while, like every decision was an overcooked steak), he marched to the front of the shop with his finely calligraphed “closed” sign. He was just about to stick it in the shop window when a man in a black hat, black coat, and dark glasses approached the door. He knocked - once, twice, three times - and seemed not to notice Aziraphale watching him from the window.

The sun was setting. With the fast-approaching dark, those glasses were impractical at best, suspicious at worst. Still, there was something about the look on the man's face, a bit sad, a bit hunted, that made Aziraphale set aside the sign. For the second time that day, he unlocked the door instead of closing early. When Aziraphale pulled the door open, the man's expression shifted. He looked like he'd been hoping the door would stay locked.

"Sorry, if you just closed up, I can go…" 

His voice was low, and a bit scratchy, his accent more common than his expensive clothes would suggest. He was gaunt, deathly skinny, but moved and otherwise carried himself like he was at the peak of health.

He was a mystery. 

Aziraphale loved mysteries. He had shelves full of them.

"Oh, no, I just had to clean up after my last customer. Please, come in!" 

The man nodded and stepped inside. He moved with a certain swagger, despite his clear anxiety. He looked around and made sure they were alone before he said, conspiratorially, "I'm looking for a book."

Aziraphale smiled. "Well, most people who come here are. Anything more specific?"

The man shifted his weight between his feet and looked anywhere but at Aziraphale.

"It's called A Year in Arcadia."

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. "Sir, I'm afraid that book is banned." It didn't need to be said why - anyone seeking it out would know. A Year in Arcadia had been banned for depicting homosexuals, in a positive light, no less.

"I know," was all the man said in reply. He wasn't resolute. He was terrified.

Aziraphale knew that fear and understood at once. 

He’s like me. 

Queer.

He gave the man a reassuring smile.

"Well, banned books usually present more of a challenge, but they can be acquired," Aziraphale said in a low voice. He was a rule follower, but when it came to books, he would happily bend the rules to the point of cracking and splintering. He believed few books were worth hiding, including books about people like him, and if he was right, this man. There was value in the written word, even if it made you blush or cringe, made you sick or sad. It was worth it. That was the point. Books make the reader feel. "Here, let me take your hat and coat. You might be here for a while. We have to discuss pricing and such."

The man hesitated and self-consciously adjusted his hat, which carefully concealed his hair. "I really don't think that's a good idea, for either of us." He jammed his hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a clip of banknotes. "This should cover it.”

Aziraphale nearly choked on his spit at the sight of the cash, far more than he’d ever asked from anyone, and even farther in excess of what he was usually offered for his work. “Sir, I cannot allow you to overpay like this.” Aziraphale gently pushed away the proffered hand and the stack of notes, but the man was firm.

“Then let’s just say I’m paying extra for discretion.”

“The discretion is free, I assure you.”

The man stepped forward, well into Aziraphale’s personal space, and pulled open the book dealer’s coat. He gently placed the banknotes in his breast pocket, his knuckles brushing over the fabric of Aziraphale's waistcoat, and Aziraphale’s breath hitched. “How soon can you have it?” the man asked, his voice low and tempting.

He stood close enough that Aziraphale had to tip his head up to look him in the face. “A week at the most,” he replied, swallowing thickly. The man smelled like spices and vanilla.

“I’ll be back in a week, then.”

With one last look (of regret? interest? anger? It was impossible to tell which), the man left. Aziraphale took a steadying breath, suddenly feeling much colder absent the man’s presence. He pulled the banknotes from his pocket, removed the clip (solid silver with a hand-etched snake design), and counted out the notes - £250. He looked out the window and watched as the man stalked into the distance, turned a corner, and disappeared into the night.

That kind of money was a year’s wages for most people, and that man had spent it on a single book. He traced his fingers over the designs in the clip, elegant, beautiful, and not the sort of thing you'd want to give away. Perhaps the man had intended to leave it behind as part of the payment, or perhaps in his haste, he'd forgotten to pull the notes from the clip. 

I'll just have to give it back in a week, and some of this money, too.

For the third time that day, Aziraphale went to the door and locked it, certain that, this time, he would be able to close early. He'd have to postpone his retirement for another week, but that was alright. He was helping a brother in arms.

For the third time that day, just as his fingers left the handle, there was a knock at the door. Not exactly upset, but certainly far from pleased, Aziraphale unlocked the door and pulled it open.

There was no one there. The street was empty. He poked his head out the door and looked this way and that, but there wasn't a soul in sight. Then he looked down and saw a small, cream-coloured envelope on his top step, which had not been there before. The book dealer picked it up, locked the door, and took a seat at his desk. The envelope bore no name or address and was sealed with wax. Gingerly, he pried it open and pulled out the letter, written on fine stationery. Also tucked inside the envelope was a train ticket.

He began to read. At first, his expression was dispassionate.

Then, his eyes widened. He reread the middle paragraphs several times. His breaths were shallow.

Finally, he reached the end, and the words seemed to tumble over each other and the room around him spun. He dropped the letter on the desk like it burned and leapt to his feet, the chair tipping backwards and clattering to the floor behind him. He gripped the edge of the desk for a moment to steady himself, and when, after a few seconds, his racing heart did not slow and his grinding teeth did not ease, he rushed to the back of the shop, leaving the letter and the train ticket abandoned on the desk.

The letter read:

Dear Mr. Eastgate,

I hope this letter finds you well. I've heard wonderful things about you and your talents, and while I've never personally taken advantage of your services, I'm certain those who have were satisfied. Good job.

There are more important matters at hand, though, Aziraphale. I've heard things about you, things that could give you a one-way ticket to the gallows. Not that a ticket to the gallows could be round-trip, of course…

Worse, yet, I have proof of your indiscretions. Letters, acquired from a "friend" of yours. 

You seemed very invested in him. 

He seemed very invested in selling you out. 

(Nice handwriting, by the way.)

I'm hosting a gathering at my manor in the country. Come, and the letters will stay safely tucked away in my safe. Refuse my invitation, and they'll be published in every paper in London, and you'll be the scandal of the decade. The choice is yours. I've included a train ticket with this letter.

I hope to see you soon. Don't forget your toothbrush.

- Lord Gabriel

Aziraphale sailed back into the room with a glass and a bottle of wine. He needed to calm down. He sat the bottle and the glass on the desk with shaking hands and didn’t bother to right the chair. Aziraphale knew who that “friend” was. He'd fallen into a sort of relationship with another Soho shop owner years ago, but when suspicious eyes were cast on them, they broke it off immediately and never spoke to each other again. The man's name had been Amos, and the two of them had agreed to destroy the love letters they'd stupidly risked giving each other. 

Aziraphale had burned the letters that very same night they came to their agreement. Evidently, Amos had not been quite so judicious. Aziraphale might have been flattered that Amos couldn't bear to burn the letters, if not for the blackmail. 

Selling someone out does tend to put a damper on any romance.

He poured himself a glass of wine and finished it at an ungentlemanly speed while pacing about the room. This went on for what felt like an eternity, as Aziraphale waited, and waited, and waited to be inebriated. Eventually, he finished the bottle, and Aziraphale teetered up the steps, not exactly happy, but also not able to focus on much, including the fact that his life was ruined. He flopped down on the bed, and when he rolled into his back, he could see the smoke stain on the ceiling from when he'd burned the letters in a metal bucket. He remembered feeling surprisingly impassive about the whole ordeal. 

It was the moment I accepted I'd be alone forever, he thought, his wine-addled brain finding brief, regrettable clarity. 

And now, I’m paying the price for ever having thought otherwise.

That night, as though his subconscious were mocking him, he dreamed of someone sharing dinners with him and giving him lazy, sweet morning kisses. The figure in the dream shifted back and forth between Amos and the actor, Crowley, who had shone so brightly on the stage.

Once, though, the figure shifted into a man dressed all in black, with bottomless pits for eyes and skin like the pages of a rotted book. The man handed him a letter. When Aziraphale opened it, he found the writing was illegible, but he knew, in the back of his mind, it had to be one of the letters he’d written to Amos. In the dark of night, the police came for him, citing the letter as proof. Aziraphale couldn’t read it. They certainly couldn’t. Still, they put him in chains and dragged him to the gallows. He tried to let go of the letter, to let it float away on the wind, but his fingers were vicelike around the paper. Nothing he did could pull it free.

He blinked, and he could feel the rope around his neck, and the letter in his hand.

There was a breeze. It made the old scaffold sway. The letter waved like a white flag, like a surrender.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t let go of that damn letter.

The hangman reached for the lever. Aziraphale closed his eyes, and then…

...weightless.

Aziraphale gasped into wakefulness, sitting bolt upright on the sheets, still fully dressed, save for his shoes, which he’d managed to kick off in his fitful sleep. He glanced at the clock, illuminated by moonlight. It was half 2, the train ride still several hours away. The idea of sleeping was worse than the idea of staying up, by far, since sleep might mean another trip to the gallows. 

Aziraphale laughed, though the sound wasn’t all that far off from a sob.

That’s how you get a round-trip ticket to the gallows.

In your nightmares.

Chapter Text

Exhausted as he was, Aziraphale did not sleep on the 6-hour train ride. Every time the gentle rocking and calming clatter of the train’s wheels against the rails lulled him into the beginnings of unconsciousness, he felt the rough scrape of the hangman’s noose against his throat, and he startled awake. He thought he might read, but he couldn’t focus. Equal parts exhausted and wired, his hand wandered into his breast pocket, where the stranger’s money clip resided. The pound notes were in his case, but he’d placed the clip back into his pocket before he left the shop. He couldn’t say why. He just wanted the clip with him. 

It was lovely. He liked it.

He pulled it out and found that, while he hadn’t the focus for reading, he did have the focus to trace his fingers over the fine designs etched into the clip. At first, he’d thought it was just one snake, curled many times around the clip, but it was really a whole nest of snakes, twining around each other in elegant knots; at the centre of the nest was a clearing, and at the centre of the clearing sat a lone serpent, isolated in a crowd, and curled into the shape of a letter C. It had to be one of the man’s initials. Perhaps he was a Christopher Something or Something Carter. Aziraphale realized he may never find out, now, and the poor man would never get his book.

And he’d paid so much for it.

Aziraphale turned his head to look out the window. Winter was approaching, but the first snow had yet to fall. That meant the trees were barren, but there was nothing to show for it. No frost, no Christmas joy. Just the complete and utter absence of life. He’d grown up in the country, and when he’d moved to the city to pursue his adoration of books, he feared he’d hate it. There weren’t trees in the city, or grass. The air was dirty, the people were rude, and it was an altogether unpleasant place to be.

Despite it all, though, Aziraphale had come to love the city. It was overflowing with life at all times. Day, night, summer, winter, it didn’t matter; there was always the endless buzz of life. The people were mean, but they were spirited. When they celebrated, they celebrated like they might not live to celebrate again. He loved the sounds of the city, the low background hum of horses and people, of life itself, outside his windows. 

There was no life here, on the train ride to his doom. He watched the hills bob past and tried not to think of what he would find at Lord Gabriel’s manor. He was hoping the man would just ask for money, but if he had a manor in the country, that wasn’t likely. No, Aziraphale was riding right into the lion’s den, and he hadn't a clue why. What use does a wealthy man have for blackmail?

Eventually, the train pulled into a mostly deserted station outside Durham, and Aziraphale tucked the money clip into his trouser pocket. He boarded a carriage, carrying his few bags himself. Even if he’d brought more, it wasn’t like there were porters anyway. Before the book dealer was settled in the carriage, it lurched forward, tossing him back in his seat, his head knocking painfully against the hard back wall of the carriage. As he mournfully rubbed the back of his head, he looked about the space and found that the windows were so dirty, that he couldn't see through them. He only knew they’d entered a forest by the dimming of what little light came through the dingy windows. He anxiously thumbed the money clip and tried not to slide around too much in the beaten, bare wood seat of the carriage.

When the carriage finally came to a halt some minutes later, Aziraphale took a deep breath (which did little to calm him) and stepped out onto the dead-leaf-laden circle drive in front of the manor.

Apparently, Lord Gabriel had been feeling rather modest the day he wrote his blackmail letter because to call his home a manor was a gross understatement. It was closer to a small fort . Aziraphale tipped his head back and found himself dizzied by the sheer stature of the building, which towered high above the surrounding forest. The carriage had seen better days, but the mansion had not. No, it was in its golden years, with its pristine cream siding, gilded accents, wraparound balcony, and skyward towers. It was beautiful. Aziraphale wished he were visiting under less dire circumstances.

Bags in hand, he traipsed up the steps. As he reached the top, his carriage pulled away, quickly replaced by another. He glanced over his shoulder and found it was just as ragged as his. 

The person who stepped out of the carriage, though...he wasn't ragged at all.

It was the man from the shop.

He wore a black hat, black frock coat, and dark glasses with dark gold frames. His pants were tailored to be perhaps a bit too tight, but it suited him and made his long legs look longer still. He wore a black and grey paisley waistcoat and a blood-red cravat. It was all very expensive, even more expensive than the first time Aziraphale had met him. The man carried only one bag and slinked up the steps, without looking up. When he did look up, though, he met the book dealer's astonished gaze with matching surprise.

"What are you doing here?" they said at the same time.

The man pulled a letter, its wax seal broken, from his breast pocket. "Being blackmailed for being a homosexual. You?" the man stated simply. 

“Uh, well, um…” He couldn't imagine himself being so frank about it. Then he paled. "The book you wanted…is that his evidence against you? Are you here because of me?" He swallowed. "I'd never forgive myself if you were."

The man gave him a wolfish grin. "Oh, no, he's got something much worse on me. Come on, let's go meet our fates, shall we?" The man continued up the steps and Aziraphale walked beside him to the front door. 

The man, having a free hand, grabbed ahold of the enormous knocker, and struck the door three times, the calamitous sound echoing through the forest around them. Aziraphale took a subconscious step toward the stranger. The door opened at once. Wordlessly, the man who opened the door, a shabby, small man with a frayed coat and insect-like, beady eyes, took their bags and scuttled off.

"Fast runner," the man in the glasses muttered under his breath as he scanned the impressive entrance hall. 

Dozens of antiquated paintings, mostly of figures from Christianity, adorned the walls, and on the ceiling, they found a gorgeous, intricate, gilded wood carving of the Crucifixion. Mind you, it was gorgeous only in the artistic sense - it was well-composed and skillfully rendered, with tasteful choices in where to apply the gilding and where to leave bare wood, and the overall mood of the piece was very strong. In all other senses, though, it was hideous, stomach-turning, and one of the most horrifically gruesome things Aziraphale had ever seen. Rivulets of blood ran down Christ’s face, and there were little puddles of the stuff on the ground beneath the cross. His fingers were bent at odd angles, and the anguish on the faces of Christ and those who watched was nearly as disquieting as Aziraphale's nightmares.

The man beside him appeared to be having similar thoughts, as he and the book dealer both paused to look at the scene, then hurriedly dropped their eyes to the floor.

The man, looking a bit green, asked, “What was it that he did that got everyone so upset, again?”

“He told people to be kind to each other,” said Aziraphale mousily, realizing that they were standing on a Crucifixion, too, this one rendered in painted and waxed tile. He decided to try looking straight ahead, and fixed his eyes on the twin staircases in front of them, which led to a balcony overlooking the entrance hall. He half expected to see a live reenactment of the Passion at the top of the steps, too.

“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it.”

From deeper in the house, a man dressed all in white, from the tips of his collar to the tips of his shoes, stepped out onto the balcony. With his arms spread as wide as his smile, he greeted them. “Guests! I’m sorry for the delay. We were having some trouble backstage as it were.” Aziraphale was surprised to find that he spoke with an American accent and was a great deal younger than he’d expected. The man in white bounced down the steps with the spring of youth and shook both Aziraphale and the man in glasses’ hands without them offering. His hands were bone dry and quite cold. “I’m the butler, Mr. White. You must be Mr. Eastgate, and you are...”

The man in the glasses sighed and removed his hat.

His hair tumbled down, landing just above his shoulders. It was a vibrant copper colour. Aziraphale stifled a gasp.

Mr White smiled, toothy and fake. “...Mr. Crowley! Apologies for not recognizing you sooner. The rest of the party should be arriving soon, so why don’t you two come and have a seat in the parlor while you wait?”

Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley. I've been making small talk with Anthony J. Crowley. He bought (or at least tried to buy) a banned book from me. I have his money clip in my pocket, and...

...and I'm being blackmailed with him.

There was a time and a place for wheeling out the fainting couch, and he knew this wasn't it. 

Mr White began to move away toward the steps, but Crowley remained resolute, feet planted. Mr White turned back. “Something wrong?” the butler asked.

Crowley had been nothing but friendly up until that point, but that very instant, he turned ice cold. “I’d say so,” Crowley replied through gritted teeth. “I’m being accused of-”

“Mr. Crowley, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to answer any questions about tonight's proceedings, at least not until dinner.” 

“Well, at least we should be able to meet whoever owns this bloody mansion since he seems so keen on-”

The butler interrupted once more. “I’m sure this whole affair has made you very emotional, but I promise, everything will be explained.”

Crowley looked as though he wanted to say something more, but decided against it. “It better be,” Crowley hissed. He was a sight to behold. Standing so close, Aziraphale could observe him like he hadn’t been able to before, even sitting in the front row of the theatre. The way his jaw clenched, the calming breaths he took through his nose, the acrobatics of his eyebrows, the way he ran his hand through his hair when he was frustrated, a thousand enchanting little details. Watching him, Aziraphale could almost imagine that this was all a play, and he had the honour of watching Crowley perform again.

But it wasn’t. It was real.

“Oh, and I nearly forgot - neither of you has any weapons, right?” asked Mr White, all too chipper. "If you do, I'll just need to take them aside to inspect them for a moment, and then I promise to give them right back."

Aziraphale’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. "Give them back? Are you insane?"

"It's the host's policy, not mine. He likes for his guests to feel safe. Now, do you have any weapons?"

“Heavens, no! Who brings a weapon to dinner?”

“People who are being blackmailed,” Crowley offered, his voice low and dangerous. Aziraphale glanced down at the man’s coat. Would Anthony J. Crowley carry a firearm? He tried to imagine him holding a weapon, with all his angles and his bird bones. He might look ridiculous. He might look alarmingly handsome. Aziraphale couldn’t decide.

“Is it really blackmail if all you’ve been asked is to come to dinner?” Mr White asked, with an edge to his voice. Annoyance, or perhaps he was teasing. Aziraphale found this butler odd. Manservants were a notoriously closed-off breed of man, and yet this one had an uncommon sparkle in his eyes and bite to his tone.

“Yes, it is blackmail, and no, I don’t have any weapons,” Crowley growled. 

Mr White smiled. “Wonderful, then follow me.” He turned on his heel and made for the steps. This time, he didn’t turn back when his guests didn’t move.

Aziraphale and Crowley glanced at each other as if asking one another permission to follow. When neither moved, Crowley leaned in close, and in a low voice, he said, "Lord Gabriel, whoever he is...he could be lying, you know? We could just leave. I'll treat you to dinner instead if you like."

Aziraphale blinked up at him. "As much as I would love to say yes, if you honestly thought our host was lying, you wouldn't be here," he replied. His hindbrain noticed that whatever cologne Crowley used was quite lovely.

Crowley sighed. "Yeah, you're right…"

They moved together, walking side by side up the stairs. As they entered the main body of the house, the amount of garish, gory Christian iconography dropped off considerably, though there were still splashes of the Good Book here and there - Mother Mary on a shelf, Cain doing a number on Abel on a wall, but nothing as extravagant as the floor to ceiling Crucifixion in the entrance hall. They followed the butler to the very end of the hall, where he turned to the right and opened a door for them. The actor and the book dealer stepped inside, and without another word, Mr White closed the door behind them.

The parlour was small, but decadent, filled to bursting with finery. There was intricate wallpaper, blue with swirling golden designs, a parlour piano with hand-carved inlays against the wall, expensive mahogany chairs, and a black and blue chaise longue, which Crowley claimed all for himself. He stretched luxuriously, taking up the whole seat with his long form. Aziraphale settled into a chair next to him and glanced at the door. "Don't you think that butler is a bit odd?"

"Mmm, too friendly,” Crowley hummed.

"Yes, exactly! As if this situation weren't already strange enough," Aziraphale looked over at Crowley, "I mean, never in a million years would I have thought I'd get to meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances, but…"

Crowley rolled onto his side and craned his head to meet Aziraphale's gaze. For the first time since he arrived, he removed his glasses, revealing that it wasn't just the stage lights that made his eyes look like honey. They always looked like that. He asked, "You know me?" His unnatural eyes and hair, and his taste in clothing (mostly black) gave him a devilish look that the book dealer hated to admit he found charming.

"Well, of course, I do. You're one of the most well-regarded actors of the past decade. I saw you just last week as Henry V." Aziraphale smiled, remembering the sight of that man with a crown. "You were wonderful."

Crowley smiled and blinked prettily, an expression that looked foreign, but not altogether unpleasant, on his sharp face. "You think so?"

"What else could I think? You're fantastic. Haven't you noticed?"

The book dealer realized that the actor had turned a bit pink. "Ah, I'm just doing a job," Crowley said, eyes darting away. A sudden look of sadness crossed his face, and, lost in thought, he added, "It pays the bills."

"And it pays for scandalous books," Aziraphale teased, feeling a sudden and extraordinary urge to make that man stop frowning right that instant. 

It worked, and Crowley let out a snicker. They weren't friends, they barely knew each other, and Aziraphale knew he had no right to ask what thoughts had cast such a shadow on Crowley's mood, so he dropped it. Perhaps the man had been fishing for compliments, or perhaps he really had no sense of his abilities. Speculating served little purpose, though, so he tucked away those thoughts to be unpacked later, or never. With any luck, the whole situation with the letters and the blackmail would be resolved, and he'd have no reason to see Crowley again. That would be regrettable in the broad strokes, but he thought that the best possible outcome given the circumstances. He was never meant to meet this man - different worlds, and all that.

Well, there was the book, of course. He'd actually met him for the first time then.

A pause. A thought.

“I’m afraid I might not be able to get your book to you after all.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

“I’m a book dealer. That's all I think about.”

“Well, Mr Eastgate, perhaps being blackmailed will be your chance to take a break from it all.”

Against his better judgement, this made Aziraphale chuckle. “Please, don’t call me Mr Eastgate. It ages me terribly. Call me Aziraphale.”

“Bit of a mouthful, that.”

“My parents wanted to give me a Biblical name. They thought John and Saul were too boring, so they went for the name of an angel instead.”

Crowley scrunched up his nose. “I’ve never heard of any angel called Aziraphale.”

“The copy of the Bible we had at home was a misprint. Someone, at some point, decided to name the angel with the flaming sword in Genesis and, well…”

“No!”

Aziraphale laughed. “I swear it’s true. I tracked down what printing it was, too. I have a copy in the bookshop.”

“Have you got a flaming sword, too?”

“Oh, I think I’m flaming enough on my own, Mr Crowley.” 

Crowley laughed at this. He had a nice laugh. He smiled lazily up at the book dealer. “Just Crowley, if you don’t mind,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Well, I’m not overly fond of Mr and Anthony isn’t even my real name.”

“Stage name?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Crowley it is, then,” Aziraphale replied softly. He’d never felt so relaxed around another person before, especially not one he’d just met. It was electrifying.

The door swung open and Aziraphale glanced up. He frowned when his eyes landed on Mr White. Mr White frowned right back but quickly screwed up his face into an acceptable approximation of a smile. With a false chipper tone, the butler announced, “The rest of the guests have arrived and they’re seated in the dining room. Head just across the hall, and dinner will be ready in about 15 minutes.” The butler disappeared once more.

“I believe Lord Gabriel should hire a new butler. This one is just so unattentive, and far too informal. I can’t believe…” Aziraphale looked down at Crowley, who he found looking at him like he was the most interesting thing in the world. “Something wrong?” Aziraphale asked, begging his heart to slow as the actor watched his every move.

“Not at all, angel.” Crowley swung his legs onto the floor and got to his feet, all lines and hips. He shed his frock coat and slung it over his arm. Even his dress shirt under the waistcoat was black. He put his glasses back on, and crossed to the door, holding it open for Aziraphale.

Angel. His brain short-circuited. Clearly, the man was teasing him, because he was named after an angel.

That’s all it was.

That’s all it had to be.

Aziraphale also rose, but with half the style. He stepped through the door, and Crowley followed him out. They crossed the hall and stopped in front of the dining room. Two tall, carved wooden doors were all that stood between them and the dinner that had given Aziraphale nightmares so real he feared sleep. Being with Crowley for that short time, he’d forgotten to be afraid. It came back then, in full force, and the room wobbled around him. Crowley stepped beside him. Their shoulders touched.

“You alright?” Crowley asked, looking over his glasses at Aziraphale.

“No, but we can’t exactly turn back now, can we?”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Before they could lose their nerve, Crowley opened the door.

Chapter Text

The dining room was a great deal darker than Aziraphale had expected, lit less like a high-society soiree and more like a date. A long mahogany table, with seats for at least a dozen, occupied the centre of the room. Much like the rest of the house, there were paintings of Mary, Christ, and the rest of the gang all over the walls, and the space oozed with opulence. Seated at the table were 4 people:

A young woman with round glasses, tan skin, and an air of trouble about her.

A young man, also with round glasses, who looked like he’d much rather be anywhere else.

An older woman wearing a frilly purple dress and a frillier purple hat, who looked totally at ease, and sounded extremely drunk.

An older man in a shabby dress uniform, who watched the older woman with disdain.

No one sat at the head of the table, and no one seemed to notice Aziraphale and Crowley coming in, since they were all so deep in conversation. 

“I’m telling you, the shark just swept him right off the deck, and there went my fourth husband,” said the woman in purple, swinging her arms about as she spoke, nearly sending her glass sailing onto the floor. She was the only one sitting on her side of the table. Aziraphale couldn’t blame the other guests for avoiding her - her wayward limbs surely presented a health risk.

The young woman raised an eyebrow. “That sounds unlikely at best and impossible at worst if you don’t mind me saying, Madame Tracy.” As the butler had, she too spoke with an American accent. It was disconcerting, having all those Americans around. You could never know what they might do.

The seating arrangement was already lopsided, so, for the sake of symmetry and so she wouldn’t feel like people were avoiding her (which they were), Aziraphale chose to sit by Madame Tracy; he was pleased to find Crowley following close behind and taking the seat beside him. He’d half expected him to claim the head of the table as his throne.

“Well, then, Miss Device, what are you suggesting?” Madame Tracy crossed her arms with a huff and looked down her nose at Device.

Miss Device smiled impishly. “Are you familiar with Newton’s laws?”

“Excuse me? Surely Newton here follows the same laws we do,” said Madame Tracy. She looked fondly at the young man in the glasses. “Don’t you, love?”

The young man, Newton, looked away. “I think she meant Isaac Newton. An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an external force,” he recited. He looked to Device for approval in a way that suggested they already knew each other.

Madame Tracy’s smile dropped away at once. “Well, his laws must be wrong, because they’re suggesting that I killed my husband, and I absolutely did not!”

“What about the other three?” Crowley jumped in. All heads swivelled to face him as they realized that their number had grown by two. Their gazes mostly skimmed over Aziraphale, instead finding the actor. Recognition bloomed on all but one face. It was only the army man who looked at Crowley with the same disinterest with which he looked at Aziraphale.

"How dare-" Tracy started, but then, after a gasp, she exclaimed, "Oh, my goodness, Anthony Crowley! I saw you in Richard II! I had no idea your hair really looked like that!" Madame Tracy literally clutched at her pearls. Aziraphale might have rolled his eyes at her had he not gone through a similar bout of pearl-clutching earlier.

"And it looks like you dress like Lord Ruthven every day," Miss Device chimed in. "Your performance in The Vampyre was divine. That show is a personal favorite of mine." She took a sip of her wine. “I just so happen to have my copy with me. Maybe you can drop by my room and sign it.” She fluttered her lashes at him. Aziraphale's jaw clenched.

"I saw that one, too," added Newton. Thankfully, he did not flutter his lashes.

Does Crowley always play powerful men? Aziraphale thought of the way Crowley looked at him earlier, expression kind, with his chin resting on the armrest in an undeniably cute fashion. Perhaps a man like Crowley just couldn't sell cute to an audience, especially since he sold serpentine grace and kingly mien so well. Aziraphale also thought he'd quite like to see Crowley's Lord Ruthven (purely to appreciate the text, and definitely for no other reason). He glanced over at Crowley, who pushed up his glasses, probably so he wouldn't have to deal with making eye contact with the other guests. They (especially Device and Tracy) were practically drooling at the sight of him.

"Aye, who is this skinny man? He looks like he might snap in half if a breeze finds him," erupted the army man.

Madame Tracy was aghast. "Didn't you hear me? This is Anthony J. Crowley, the actor! Haven't you ever heard of him?"

"Actor? What kind of work is that, lass?"

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Lass?”

“I said what I meant, lass. Didn't anyone ever tell ye to get a real job?”

Crowley snorted. "Once or twice. Why? Do you have a real job?"

The older man gave his ratty coat a yank. "I'm a retired army sergeant, thank you very much. Sergeant Shadwell, you'll call me. That's a man's job, it is, not like that pansy, poncy prancing around you do," Shadwell pontificated. This drew under-the-breath insults from Crowley.

Aziraphale couldn't help himself, and said, "You said you were retired, didn't you?"

"Aye." Shadwell looked the book dealer up and down like lots of older men did, like they couldn't decide if they wanted to shoot him. He felt Crowley tense beside him.

"So, you don't have a real job. You're retired. You quit your man's job," Aziraphale accused, though his tone was much more evocative of a compliment. A few decades of herding the upper class teaches a man how to dish out a critique or a warning with a smile, so the duke or duchess in question doesn’t even realize they’re being reprimanded.

"I didn't quit!" Shadwell declared, incensed. Miss Device giggled into her wine.

"Oh, so you were discharged?" Crowley suggested, sitting forward with his elbows on the table. He was practically leaning on Aziraphale, but everyone was so focused on the entertainment that they didn't pay it any mind. Aziraphale paid it plenty of mind in their stead.

"You're just full of accusations tonight, you little-" Shadwell started to stand as he spoke, but just then, a set of doors along the back wall opened, and in rushed servers with carts of food. There was roast duck, baked salmon, and sauteed veal, rich soups, sweet and savoury pastries, and more alcohol than Aziraphale thought appropriate for such a small group. Their host had still not arrived, but Aziraphale thought that all the better. He’d rather eat his final meal without Lord Gabriel breathing down his neck.

It crossed his mind that the food might be poisoned, but he quickly dismissed this. If their host wanted him dead, he could have just had him shot on the train. Shadwell also seemed quite distracted by the food and forgot whatever abuse he’d planned to spew at Crowley. Aziraphale looked over at the actor and found him smirking as he reached for a bottle of wine. All but Crowley filled their plates and ate as happily as they could, given the circumstances. Crowley only drank. They broke off mostly into pairs. Aziraphale and Crowley continued to make friendly conversation (which the book dealer was still over the moon about), Shadwell and Tracy argued, and Miss Device ran circles around young Newton, who hopelessly flirted and couldn't physically handle the deft counter-flirts she fired back. They spoke as a group only once, when Tracy asked Aziraphale to introduce himself.

“You, there - what’s your name? You’re the only one that hasn’t introduced yourself,” she said, motioning haphazardly with her knife.

He leaned away as respectfully as he could manage. “Aziraphale Eastgate.”

“And what do you do, Mr Eastgate?” Madame Tracy asked. She gave her knife some purpose and poked at her food. She’d taken duck, but didn’t seem to care for it, and tried to make it better by drowning it in the nearest sauce she could find.

“I own a bookshop. I specialize in finding rare books,” Aziraphale explained. Shadwell frowned but didn’t speak. Crowley gave the old soldier a dirty look.

“That’s how my second husband died!”

Aziraphale blinked. “Selling books?”

“No, no, love, he was crushed to death by a bookshelf.”

“I thought number two was beaten to death with a lead pipe,” Miss Device teased.

Madame Tracy scoffed and poured herself more wine. “That was my third husband, love, and he wasn’t beaten, that pipe fell on him when he was working on some plumbing.”

“In his study?”

Just as Tracy’s mouth opened to continue arguing with Miss Device, the main doors to the dining room swung open, filling the darkened room with light. “Good evening everyone. What are we talking about, hm?” said a familiar voice. The butler, Mr White, strolled into the room. He’d shed his white coat and went about only in his silver waistcoat (very unprofessional) and crossed the long room to take his seat at the head of the table (even more unprofessional).

"Beating people with lead pipes," Crowley replied.

Tracy gave him a venomous glare and amended his response. "Actually, we were speaking about Mr Eastgate's bookshop."

Mr White grinned. "Mr. Eastgate's bookshop? I've heard wonderful things."

Then it struck Aziraphale.

I've heard wonderful things about you and your talents…

He swallowed.

“Lord Gabriel,” Aziraphale whispered, eyes fixed on the man in silver and white, who took command of everyone’s attention with the same ease Crowley did.

“What was that?” asked the man in white, his tone teasing. The other guests looked around at each other. Only Miss Device noticed the panic on Aziraphale’s face. There wasn’t even an ounce of anxiety on her face. She nodded at Aziraphale.

He took that to mean, once more, with feeling.

“Gabriel. Lord Gabriel,” Aziraphale repeated, louder this time. “It’s you.”

Mr White grinned. "You got me."

The whole mood in the room shifted, from vaguely tense to bitterly cold. Looks of shock spread across every face, save Miss Device’s. 

"You better explain yourself right now before-" Crowley spat, but Gabriel raised a hand.

"Before what, Mr. Crowley? What are you going to do? Monologue me to death?” Gabriel said angrily. “I'll explain myself whenever and however I please.” He tried and failed to give an air of calm and control as he helped himself to some salmon. "It's not like you sinners have any right to tell me what to do, anyway."

"Sinners? What do you mean?" Newton asked, voice quavering. 

"Well, that's why you're all here.” When his guests only replied with confusion, he set down his knife and fork with a loud clank and leaned forward, elbows on the table and a bemused look on his face. “Don't tell me you didn't discuss your letters."

The guests reacted in several ways, all at once. Miss Device smirked. Shadwell and Newton's hands went protectively to their breast pockets. Madame Tracy rolled her eyes and went back to picking at her food (though, if you looked hard, you could see the worry in her eyes). Aziraphale and Crowley stared daggers at their host but left the letters in their pockets. Aziraphale didn't want to look at the wretched thing again if he could avoid it. 

The room was silent for an excruciating few seconds until Gabriel sighed and threw down his napkin. "If you're not going to talk to each other, then I guess I'll have to do the talking for you. You're all sinners. That's why you're here." He pointed across the table at Shadwell. "You. Mr. Shadwell, tell me about yourself."

"That's Sergeant Shadwell to you, young man," Shadwell said, but without much venom. By the ashamed look on his face, it was clear Gabriel had him routed. Whatever was in that letter was true.

"Mmm, nope, not anymore. No, you were discharged for profiteering years ago, weren't you? You were stealing weapons and selling them to the French, but you didn't work alone, and when your scheme was nearly found out, your partner in crime agreed to honorably discharge you to get you away from the prying eyes of the military police," Gabriel said all at once. The words cascaded out like water, and Shadwell sat further back into his chair with each passing second. "You're greedy, Shadwell, and a traitor." Shadwell stared at the table and did not speak. 

Gabriel was impassioned now. He looked at Miss Device. "And how about you, young lady? Would you like to tell them, or shall I?" 

She sighed, and glaring at Gabriel, she said, simply, "I'm a witch." She took a thoughtful sip of her wine. "Well, I'm a seamstress, but mostly I'm a witch."

"Listen to that honesty!" Gabriel laughed. "Of course, it would be the most deluded person here who's willing to come right out and speak the truth."

"We'll see who's really deluded by the end of the night, I'm sure," she replied.

"Is that a threat?"

"Depends on how good dessert is."

Gabriel gave her a charming smile. "Well, I look forward to your curses, Anathema."

She bristled at this. "Please, you know I prefer Miss Device." 

You know? thought Aziraphale. Whatever does that mean? He could tell by the look on Shadwell’s face that he was confused, too. Then the puzzle pieces slid together. Miss Device already knows Lord Gabriel.

Aziraphale started to become nervous. He could feel Crowley bouncing his foot under the table, and for a mad second, he considered reaching out to touch him, to try to ease his fears, because he knew they were feeling the same thing. They were on the edge of a precipice they’d both worked their whole lives to avoid. Crowley didn’t need to tell him that for him to know. He could see it on his face.

But they'd just met, and any closeness he felt with Crowley came from the practised hand of an artisan, an actor who could flow from conversation to conversation, from one social interaction to the next like water over rocks. It was his job to be approachable. He'd been trained to create intimacy with an audience of thousands of people at once. He'd seen it earlier, how he'd flipped from polite and charming with him to bitterly cold with Gabriel. They were acquaintances at best, so Aziraphale kept his hands to himself, and the two of them suffered in silence.

Gabriel cast his eyes to Madame Tracy. "And you, would you like to tell us all what you've done?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, maybe you've lost track. The list is quite impressive." Gabriel stood and wandered over to Newton, and placed a hand on the top of his head. "Perhaps Mr. Pulsifer's crimes of greed won't impress the rest of you, he just took some bribes, poor thing, but Madame Tracy? She is something else." Newton tried to duck out from under Gabriel's hand, but their host was firm. "Madame Tracy has killed 4 people, and you probably won’t be surprised to hear that they were all her husbands."

“Called it,” said Crowley, sipping his wine. When Aziraphale shot him a scandalized look, the actor only shrugged.

“That isn’t true!” cried Madame Tracy, but Aziraphale could see everyone’s expressions, and none of them was convinced. Even he, always looking for the good in people, thought she looked like she might have a trigger finger. “They were very accident-prone men,” she added, quieter.

“I think even the most accident-prone person would struggle to fall onto a knife backwards, Madame Tracy,” Gabriel fired back. Tracy had no reply.

Then, Gabriel trained his gaze on Aziraphale, and his throat went dry. Gabriel grinned, his teeth unnaturally white. “And then there’s the two of you, the actor and the book dealer. I thought you two might take a liking to each other.”

“And why’s that?” Crowley challenged, voice dripping with malice. Crowley knew perfectly well what he meant, but he wanted to be outed on his own terms. This warmed Aziraphale’s heart just a bit, just enough to keep his face impassive and his voice even.

“Yes, Lord Gabriel,” added Aziraphale, “tell us what you mean.”

“Are you really going to make me say what you two are?” spat Gabriel. Behind him was a portrait of Christ conferring with his disciples. Even the Son of Man looked uncomfortable watching Gabriel’s display.

Crowley shrugged. “Well, it’s not something people usually talk about in mixed company, but if you want to bring it up-”

This upset Gabriel. He stalked around the table and puts his hands on Aziraphale and Crowley’s shoulders, leaning between them to say to the group, “These two disgusting excuses for humans are homosexuals.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “These days, all I’m saying is...it takes one to know one.”

“Shut up,” their host growled. The look on Gabriel’s face was dangerous. 

Then again, so was the look on Crowley’s.

“Why are we here, then, Lord Gabriel? You’ve made it clear you don’t like us. Great. I could go find a bishop if I wanted to hear about the pits of boiling sulphur that are calling my name, but you decided to wheel us all out here for what? Dinner and a show? Are we just here so you can watch us squirm?” asked Crowley. While his voice was cool and confident, the tension in his neck and shoulders betrayed his discomfort. 

Gabriel grinned. “Dinner and a show? You’re closer to the truth than you realize.” His grip on their shoulders tightened, his fingers biting hard enough to bruise. “I brought you here because I want to see all of you suffer. Society hasn’t done enough to keep you in the slums. So, I, a man of God, have taken it upon myself to punish you properly.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Aziraphale asked, his voice small. He thought of the letter and his nightmares.

Gabriel leaned in close to the book dealer, but still spoke loud enough for the table, which stared at their host, rapt. “I’m going to give you a chance to escape. You all know I hold evidence of your indiscretions. If I were to release that evidence, I could ruin every one of you in a single evening.” Gabriel released Crowley’s shoulder to reach for his glass, taking a large gulp of the actor’s wine. “But what if I dangled the carrot instead?”

“Meaning?” said Miss Device. She was no longer confident and playful. She was angry.

“I’m not the only threat here. Everyone in this room could ruin everyone else, too. Can you let anyone leave, Miss Device? They might not burn people like you these days, but I don’t think you’d ever work again if it got out that you’re delusional enough to think yourself a witch. All it takes to ruin a life is a rumor.”

“So we blackmail each other?” Device suggested.

“None of you could pull that off. Look how easy it was for me to get you here. Could you do that? No, you’re all successful enough, you’ve got enough money, but you don’t have the power to pull off large-scale blackmail as I have.” Gabriel drained the rest of Crowley’s glass and finally released Aziraphale. The book dealer let out a stuttering breath as their host meandered back to the front of the table. Gabriel put his elbows on top of the high-backed chair at the head of the table and, one by one, made eye contact with each of them. “There’s another solution to the pickle I’ve put you all in.”

“We could all call a truce, promise not to tell,” said Aziraphale mousily.

“Oh, never!” proclaimed Madame Tracy. “I don’t know you from a hole in the ground. Why should I trust you of all people?” She looked around the table. “Besides, I’ve heard you queers might be spies. Can’t trust you.”

Aziraphale gritted his teeth and just managed to hold his tongue.

There was silence at the table as all their minds raced through the remaining options. Aziraphale was in the company of a profiteer and a murderer, and he realized he wasn’t sure he wanted to discuss anything with them. He thought of ignoring it all and leaving, and maybe accepting Crowley’s dinner invite, but Miss Device was a firecracker of a person, and he didn’t trust her in the slightest. She’d ruin him for a pound. She’d ruin him for a penny, and Newton would help. 

And then it hit him, and his heart slammed into his throat.

Gabriel had said it already - dinner and a show.

His mind scrambled for other options, but by the smirk on Gabriel’s face, he knew, that if they all really wanted their secrets safe, there was only one option.

“You want us to kill each other,” Aziraphale said, staring at the white tablecloth, unseeing. He couldn’t bear to look at Gabriel or the other guests anymore. “You want us to send our secrets to the grave.”

Gabriel’s self-satisfied laugh was all he needed to know he’d gotten it right.

“This is ridiculous!” Madame Tracy declared, throwing down her napkin. “Absolutely mad!” She pushed back her chair and collected her satin, drawstring reticule from the floor. There was something small and heavy inside it, pressing against the fabric, but Aziraphale couldn't quite tell what.

Gabriel didn’t even let her get to her feet before he told her, “All exterior doors and windows are locked, Madame Tracy. I had all but the front door key destroyed, and there are hungry dogs foaming at the mouth outside. You can leave this room, but you certainly aren’t leaving this building. I sent the wait staff away, too, all except for Mr. Hastur, so don’t go thinking you can ask them for help, either.” He patted his breast pocket. “We’re locked in. The front door has a deadbolt, keyed on both sides, and unless you can get a hold of the key that’s right here in my pocket, you aren’t going anywhere. You might as well stay and talk.”

She grimaced, and she shouted at him, “What’s stopping us from killing you, then? You’re the one who brought us all here, you’re the one blackmailing all of us and trying to get us to kill each other. Why shouldn’t we just kill you?” From her bag, she drew out a Derringer and aimed it at their host. Aziraphale thought back to the pitiful weapons check at the door. I promise to give them right back, Gabriel had said. Violence had been the plan all along. Aziraphale stood, prepared to run.

There was pin-drop silence for a moment. All the guests looked at Gabriel and waited.

Then the man crowed. “Madame Tracy, you read my mind.” Over his shoulder, he called out, “Mr. Hastur, would you mind stepping out for a moment?”

The doorman from earlier, who took Aziraphale and Crowley’s bags, appeared through a door, hidden in the shadows. “Yes, sir?”

“Turn down the gas, would you?”

“Of course, sir.”

The manservant disappeared, and moments later, the already dim gas lamps went so dark, that all that was left was the smallest pilot flame. The room was pitch black.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Nothing is stopping you.”

Several excruciating seconds ticked by. Chairs shifted. Breaths stuttered. Feet shuffled. Aziraphale dared not move, hands balled into fists at his sides. Then, there was a crash, and the sounds of broken china echoed through the room. Someone knocked into Aziraphale coming from his right side. One gunshot. Something heavy and metallic, no doubt the gun, hit the table. There was a great deal of scrambling, during which Aziraphale was grabbed by the arm and pushed aside by a bony hand. There was another gunshot. There was a thump, a grunt, and a scream. The gun hit the table once again. Then, everything quieted. 

Another minute of silence passed before Aziraphale dared to speak. “Is everyone alright?” he asked, voice trembling. His heart thundered in his ears.

“What do you think, you Southern pansy?” replied Shadwell.

“If I had a clear idea, Shadwell, I wouldn’t be asking,” Aziraphale retorted, this time with a bit of steel in his voice.

“That’s Serg- ”

“Oh, shut it,” Crowley cut in from Aziraphale’s left. Aziraphale allowed himself a small smile in the darkness. The actor was sharp as a whip, even in the worst of times.

Slowly, the lights came up. The table was a disaster. The centrepiece, a large candelabrum, had been knocked aside and replaced with the Derringer, which sat gleaming at the centre of the maelstrom of half-eaten veal and spilt wine. Several of the guests looked a bit worse for wear themselves. Tracy’s hat had landed in the lamb sauce, there was wine on Shadwell’s trousers, and Miss Device looked decidedly mussed (and miffed). Crowley, on the other hand, had come out of the whole affair smelling of roses, save for a bloody nose and a haunted look on his face. There was something on the floor, and Crowley couldn’t look away.

Aziraphale glanced down, and his heart dropped.

Lord Gabriel lay on the floor at Tracy's feet, face down. He instantly felt sick, and dizzy, but he couldn’t look away.

“Oh, God,” muttered Newton, who bolted immediately to go retch in the hall.

“Is he…?” started Aziraphale, but he couldn’t finish. He knew the answer. Their host’s pretty, white clothes were soaked through with blood, and it was obvious Gabriel wasn’t breathing. Still, Crowley crossed over to the body and knelt beside him. He gingerly turned Gabriel onto his back and found a bullet hole in the front to match the back. 

“I’m not a doctor, but…” Crowley said. He felt around Gabriel’s throat and then tried his wrist, too. With a sigh, he finished, “I think he’s dead.”

Madame Tracy whipped a handkerchief from her bag and dabbed at her eyes, even though she very clearly wasn’t crying. “How could this happen?”

Miss Device scowled at her. “You’re the one who pulled a gun, Madame Tracy.”

“Someone tore it out of my hands in the dark. It wasn’t me.”

“Likely story,” said Shadwell.

“You’re the one with wine on your pants! Clearly, you were the one who tried to wrestle it away from me!”

Aziraphale thought about this. He replayed the conflict in his mind: 

1. A crash, perhaps someone diving over the table.
2. A bump from his right side. Unless there was an Olympic sprinter with perfectly silent footsteps among them, this could only be Crowley.
3. Gunfire.
4. The gun, having been successfully divorced from Tracy’s hand, hits the table.
5. Guests fight each other for the gun.
6. Aziraphale is pushed away from the melee, mostly likely by Crowley.
7. The gun is fired again. 
8. The gun is dumped back onto the table.

Perhaps Tracy was right. Shadwell might have tried to get the gun from her, by diving over the dinner table, but Aziraphale’s gut told him he wasn’t the one to succeed. Crowley was.

So, did Crowley try to save Gabriel, or kill him? And who fired the gun?

Aziraphale looked over all the guests, all the potential killers, and found them in very different states. Crowley and Miss Device were the most lucid of all of them, looking around at the other guests with some amount of suspicion. Newton had just wandered back into the dining hall, looking a little pale and a lot afraid. Shadwell was red in the face with rage. Madame Tracy looked more annoyed than anything.

“It doesn’t matter what happened. He’s dead. Get the front door key and we can all leave,” Miss Device said. Crowley looked at her with dismay but nonetheless started to dig through the dead man’s pockets with a frown and a shake of his head.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, didn’t quietly accept what she’d said. He was appalled. “It doesn’t matter? This man was murdered! By one of you!” 

Shadwell slammed his fist on the table. “And what’s that supposed to mean? You’re accusing us of doing it? How do we know it wasn’t you?”

“I could never kill someone! What a horrible thing for you to suggest.” He crossed his arms, and then a thought dawned on him. “And someone pushed me away from the table. I couldn’t have reached the gun, even if I wanted to.”

“It was dark! You could be lying.”

“Yes, it was dark, so you are just as likely a suspect-”

“Excuse me,” Crowley said, a worried look on his face, but he was immediately bowled over by the other fighting guests. Gabriel’s body looked like it was enjoying the chaos, even in death.

Madame Tracy took a drink straight from one of the wine bottles. “I for one think it was Miss Device.”

Miss Device scowled. “Is that a joke?”

“Am I laughing?”

"You are the one who brought the gun! And besides, just because I’m an American, that doesn’t mean I go around shooting pe-”

“Folks, I really think we should just pause a moment and-” Crowley tried again, but he was ignored just as before.

"Or maybe you hexed someone, and made them shoot him for you," Newton suggested. Miss Device shut him down right away with a nasty glare.

Shadwell cleared his throat. “I still think book boy did it.”

“We were already over this, I didn’t kill anyone!” Aziraphale exclaimed. 

“Or perhaps the actor did it…” Shadwell fired back.

Crowley leapt to his feet. “Yes, actually, speaking of me, can I have your attention for a moment?” Crowley shouted over the din. Everyone froze.

“Did you do it, lass?” Shadwell asked suspiciously. “You look awfully excited.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “I look excited? I’m rooting around in a cadaver’s pockets and you think I look excited?”

“A murderer would.”

“I’m not a murderer, and I don’t look excited. No, I found something.”

Aziraphale took a step toward him. “What is it?"

"There's two things, actually. One of them is this." Crowley sighed. There was a note in his hand, fished off of Gabriel's body, and with a frown, he read it to them:

Dear esteemed guests, 

Look at that. You're all very predictable, aren't you? I called you all sinners and boy, did you deliver. I'm sure I scared you all quite a lot with all that talk of blackmail, but I promise, it gets worse. 

The police will be here in 24 hours. The blackmail materials are in the mailbox outside. It’s up to you to get out before they get here. You're sinners, and I'm making absolutely certain you're punished.

It occurred to me, though, while I was planning all this out over coffee one morning, that you all might agree with each other to wait it out, and try to reason with the police. Though I doubt it, that approach could work. It’s up to you whether you want to risk it.

But you all know what I want you to do, and I, even in death, want to provide encouragement. If you kill, you win.

There's another key in this house. If someone were to find the key, eliminate the other liabilities, collect the blackmail materials, and run, they could get off scot-free. 

Wouldn't that be nice?

- Lord Gabriel

Even with his life in the balance, Crowley still managed to read the letter with practised calm.

Aziraphale closed the distance between them with a single step and took the note, then hurriedly read it. It wasn't that he expected Crowley to lie, but the evening was feeling more and more like a hallucination each second, and he thought it might feel a bit more real if he read it himself. He quickly realized he should have just stuck with Crowley's calm, collected reading, though, because the voice he gave the note in his head was straight out of his nightmares. 

Newton spoke up, eyes averted from the body. "Why was he talking about another key? What about the one in his pocket?"

"Well, I said I found two things. One was the note, and the other…" Crowley took his glasses off and scrubbed a hand over his face. "The key is gone. We're trapped."

Chapter Text

Newton was horrified. "B-but, he said he had it."

"He lied. Sorry," replied Crowley, sounding honestly apologetic. He replaced his glasses, which immediately started sliding down his nose, as they were wont to do.

Newton looked around the room in a panic. “Then we have to go find it. We can’t just stay here with a dead body and the police on the way.”

“Guilty conscience?” Anathema asked, clearly trying to rile him up even more. It worked, as the young man suddenly looked like he might faint.

“N-no! I could never do something like that!” 

Crowley sighed. “Will you all stop it? Newton’s right. We have to go find the key.” He chewed at his lower lip, the stress bleeding through his stolid exterior. “This place is enormous, so we’ll have to split up.”

The protests were immediate and uproarious.

“With a murderer on the loose?” shouted Shadwell.

“Sounds like he did it and just wants to be alone with someone so he can kill them, too,” Anathema suggested.

“Well, I won’t be alone with any of you!” cried Newton, reaching across the table to snatch up Tracy’s gun. Anathema looked more annoyed than anything but still took a step back from him. Tracy picked up a platter to use as a shield. 

Aziraphale’s heart stuttered, and very slowly, he took a step toward him, carefully avoiding Gabriel’s corpse. “Newton, I understand you’re afraid, but is the gun really ne-”

“Of course it is! There’s a murderer here!”

“Yes, and let’s not encourage them to do it again,” he replied, working desperately to keep his voice even. He rounded the head of the table and carefully approached the young man. He reached out to Newton, and put on the friendliest face he could (which was borderline angelic with its transcendental kindness). “Please, there doesn’t have to be any more bloodshed tonight. I’m sure of it,” he whispered, and gently eased the younger man’s fingers off the trigger, then pocketed the weapon. Newton looked back at him, wide-eyed and afraid, but didn’t fight him. He appeared on the edge of tears.

Aziraphale looked out at the group. “Crowley is right,” Aziraphale said, “we’ll never search this whole place before the police arrive if we search as a group. We have to split up. I know it’s not what anyone wants, but I think pairs would be best.”

Madame Tracy rolled her eyes. “I won’t spend any more time with you people if I can help it. Have a nice evening solving your little mystery, but I’ll be enjoying my final 24 hours alone.” She collected her bag, took one last large drink from her glass, and made for the door.

“You won’t be safe if you’re out in the house by yourself,” Crowley called after her. Aziraphale saw the pained expression on the actor’s face and felt a sudden pang of guilt for suspecting that he’d tried to wrest the gun from Tracy for his own devices. Would Crowley, of all people, really pull the trigger?

Tracy turned back to face them. Where Aziraphale had previously seen just the smallest bit of fear, he now saw resignation. “I killed four of my husbands. Do you think I can’t handle all of you?” she fired back. Having no reply that could trump admitting to quadruple homicide, they all simply blinked in her general direction as the door closed behind her. Where she went, none of them could know. 

Shadwell cleared his throat loudly. “I think I’ll be on my way, too.” He gave his coat a firm yank, as was his habit, only this time, it caused a tarnished button to pop right off and land on his plate with a sad little tink sound. He looked at the plate for a moment, considering fishing it out of his veal, but decided against it, straightened his posture, and marched to the door.

“Oh, come on, seriously?” said Crowley, exasperated. “It’s not safe!”

“I’m a soldier, lass! I don’t need a minder!”

And then Shadwell was gone, too.

Anathema’s eyes flitted between Aziraphale and Crowley. “I need some alone time to...gather my thoughts. I’m going to search the ground floor. Don’t follow me,” Anathema instructed. 

Newton, both shaken and stirred, waited for her to disappear before he, too, left the dining room.

Crowley didn’t even bother to say anything to them as they left. He took a napkin, dipped it into someone’s water, and dabbed at the dried blood under his nose. He lightly touched the break and winced. “I really wish I was drunk right now.”

“I don’t believe that would be helpful,” Aziraphale said, though, deep in his heart, he too wished he was a little tipsy. Perhaps his thoughts wouldn’t come so fast and so loud if he were.

“Who says I’m trying to be helpful?”

“You. You were trying to organize us. Herd the cats, as it were.” Aziraphale stepped toward him, and, as a consequence, closer to Gabriel. “He looks so peaceful.”

“I suspect I would feel pretty at peace, too if I knew how I’d die.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. “What do you mean ‘how’? There was no way Gabriel could know someone was going to shoot him.”

“Look at this.” Crowley knelt down and reached into Gabriel’s waistcoat, just as he had before, only this time, he pulled out a gun, a Pinfire with a gleaming white grip and beautiful patterns of ivy stamped into the metal. “If no one else had brought a weapon, I’ll bet you anything he planned on bringing this out.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell the others?” he whispered, suddenly afraid the other guests might be listening at the door, waiting to burst in and go right back to accusing them of things.

“Would you prefer one of those lunatics had it instead of me?”

Crowley looked down at him imploringly. Aziraphale reached for his wine, miraculously unspilled. “I suppose not.”

Crowley clearly didn’t like the feel of the gun in his hands, but he pocketed it anyway. Aziraphale watched as he did so, realizing with a start that there were powder burns on his palms. The book dealer reached out and took Crowley by the wrist, and held his hand in the light. Crowley tensed.

Aziraphale said, quietly, “I have to know…did you shoot him?”

Crowley looked from his hand to the book dealer, and where Aziraphale expected to see shock or anger, he instead saw only sadness. “No,” the actor replied, then softer, “do you think I did?” 

“It was dark, and you moved, and there are powder burns on your palms.”

Crowley appeared stricken and deeply worried. “I couldn’t let Tracy kill him in cold blood. It felt wrong, even though it was him. So, I tried to grab the gun from her. It went off in the struggle, but it was fired in the air. There was no way we hit him.” Looking over his glasses, Crowley’s sad, golden eyes sparkled even in the low light. He let out a pitiful laugh, little more than a puff of air. “I know believe me isn’t the most compelling argument in the world, especially from someone in my line of work, but it’s all I’ve got.”

Aziraphale watched him carefully. He saw the way the actor’s eyes searched his face as if he were looking for approval. He saw the tension in the man’s shoulders. Perhaps it was all a farce. Perhaps Crowley was lying to Aziraphale’s face, and the book dealer was too starstruck and smitten to notice.

Perhaps.

Aziraphale listened to the sound of his own heart for one, two, three beats, and then he spoke.

“I believe you,” said Aziraphale, and he watched as the tension flooded out from Crowley, who let out a genuine smile.

“Thank you. I just…” and the actor was lost for words. It was an odd look on him, not knowing what to say. “Thank you, angel.”

Angel.

Crowley was still smiling, and Aziraphale, feeling brave and a bit reckless (a murder mystery can do that to a person), decided to reply, "Of course, dear.”

Crowley choked on his spit, and only by the grace of God did he manage to keep himself from joining Gabriel in the afterlife. Aziraphale decided, as Crowley turned back to face him post-coughing-fit, glasses once again slipping down his prominent nose, that surprise looked quite good on the man. His acting was masterful, but the real thing, the man underneath the crown, was just as delightful. 

And all it took to get him to trip up was a bit of kindness. A little pet name. Aziraphale, feeling equal parts terrified and satisfied, made for the dining room doors, leaving the actor behind in stunned silence to catch up with him. Crowley quickly followed him out into the hall, his heeled shoes clicking satisfyingly against the polished wood floors. Crowley didn't question the endearment, which only made it all the more gratifying. It was fast, Aziraphale knew that. People who call you angel on day one are dangerous, joke or not. Wanting to call someone dear on day one is just as dangerous, perhaps more.

He knew he was being silly.

He also knew he was terrified, and the fact that Crowley could make him smile, and he could make Crowley blush in return was a welcome respite from all the adrenaline. He felt guilty, and foolish, but also excited. For just one moment, he didn't need to hide. For a lifetime, he'd kept almost entirely to himself, too afraid to even look at someone for too long, lest the police come to kick in his door. For the next 24 hours, there were no consequences. The thought made him sick to his stomach. It also made him smile.

At the end of the hall, they found two doors, one leading left, and the other right. With a shrug, Crowley went to the door on the left and turned the knob. It turned freely, and he pushed it open. Cautiously, he stepped through, and Aziraphale followed, sticking close by the actor. The room was dim. At once, Crowley started to feel along the wall by the door for the knob to turn up the gas. Aziraphale started working along the other wall, and as he moved, he could feel the weight of Tracy’s palm pistol in his jacket pocket. It was strange knowing he had a firearm on him. It felt unnatural.

Suddenly, the room got a whole lot brighter. He looked across the room to find Crowley with a satisfied smile and his hand on the dial that controlled the gas. They realized at once that they were in an enormous bedroom, with a solar at one end, a grand, hand-carved four-poster bed in the middle, and an archway leading to a bathroom at the other end. It was gaudy and extravagant, and almost exactly what Aziraphale had expected Gabriel’s bedroom to look like. That one area was as large as Aziraphale’s entire bookshop. Perhaps the most striking thing about it, though, was the mural that wrapped all the way around the room, depicting the major story beats of Genesis, and Crowley was standing right in front of Noah’s Ark.

Aziraphale stepped beside Crowley to join him in looking at the fine detail in the brushwork. Gabriel had to belong to old money to afford the absurd amount of fine art in the house, much less the house itself. It was just another piece of the wild puzzle they’d been thrust into. A mysterious American with a massive house in the woods in Durham with more power than a man like him should have and limitless money. Gabriel was also a man who was willing to die just to make some people he didn’t approve of squirm. It was insane. Gabriel was insane.

Aziraphale traced his fingers over the creatures on the Ark, and was shocked to find that the mural wasn’t just painted - it was textured, too, and made from a dozen different materials. The birds had fine feathers, and the horses had luxurious manes.

Aziraphale took Crowley’s wrist and pulled his hand over to feel the water, carved into cool stone and ground down to impossible, lifelike smoothness. Crowley looked surprised at first that Aziraphale was touching him (and Aziraphale had surprised himself with his impulsiveness), but then he, too, marvelled at the rich texture of the mural. It felt alive.

“How much did he pay for this?” Crowley asked, fingers tracing over the waves.

“And how did he even find someone who could do it? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Aziraphale felt Crowley begin to lower his arm, and he let go at once, embarrassed. Crowley said nothing, but he was smiling. Wordlessly, they moved on from the Ark and worked their way around the room. The chances of finding the key out in the open were beyond slim, basically paper thin, but it was worth looking anyway. All they could do was look, if not for the key itself, then for hints to its location. Gabriel had shown himself to have a flair for the dramatic; a man like him would absolutely leave clues. They searched shelves and tables, and Crowley even rifled through Gabriel’s silken sheets at one point, but even with a mystery to solve, they couldn’t help but find themselves distracted more than once by the beautiful, intricate, lifelike mural. They quickly realized that all the events were out of order, and some were missing. It was more like the artist had gone for the greatest hits than for telling the whole story. 

Aziraphale was pawing at a shelf full of different versions of the Bible, hoping to find the trigger to a secret passage like in the mystery novels he'd read, when Crowley asked him a question.

"What does Gabriel have on you? How did he get you out here?" Crowley asked as he rifled through Gabriel's desk.

Aziraphale paused, fingertips on the spine of one of Gabriel's many copies of the good book. He sighed, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Love letters," he replied quietly. "Nothing naughty," he quickly amended when he caught sight of Crowley's smirk, "but certainly incriminating."

"What was he like?"

Aziraphale wasn't used to speaking about this sort of thing so openly. He tried to look casual as he sorted through the Bibles. "He was nice enough." Aziraphale pulled a Bible from the shelf and thumbed through it. He thought perhaps Gabriel had slipped a note inside one of them.

"No, but what was he like? Tall, short, fat, thin, snarky, docile?"

It had been a few years since he'd thought about the man. Even in his dreams (his nightmares), the vision of him had been hazy. He struggled to conjure up his face in his mind. "He was tall and thin," Aziraphale finally said, "and charming. Perhaps not the most handsome, but he could make a room love him with just a few words."

When Aziraphale looked away from the shelf of Bibles and toward Crowley, he saw in the man's eyes what could only be interpreted as hope.

"What about you?" Aziraphale asked, keeping his gaze. 

"My journal. He paid someone to turn my home upside down to look for evidence."

"Oh, my."

“A bit of an understatement I’d say,” Crowley said through a laugh. “I’d just started it, too. I heard it helps to write, when, well…”

“...when you have no one else to talk to,” Aziraphale finished.

Crowley looked to be holding his breath. “Yeah,” he finally replied, barely above a whisper. “How do you manage? I never told anyone, because it would ruin me, but then I get Gabriel’s stupid letter in the mail anyway, and…” Crowley took a deep breath. He sat in Gabriel’s desk chair, slumped, limbs everywhere. He looked deflated. “I’m like the plague.”

“That isn’t true,” Aziraphale said, Bible in hand, stepping toward the actor.

“You know it is. You of all people know it is. We infect everyone we come near. We bring down everyone around us in a big ball of fire and scandal.”

Aziraphale crossed over to him and leaned on the edge of the desk. He looked down at Crowley, kindness in his eyes, and said to him, “No, that’s just it. That’s how I manage. I know that I’m not the problem.” He flipped through the pages. He knew what passage he was looking for. He’d seen it many times as a child. His fingers skated over the name Corinthians. He found the chapter, and the verse, 6:9. He placed the open Bible in Crowley’s hands. “This is the real plague. Not me, not you. This.”

“Funny for a man named after an angel to say that,” Crowley replied, tracing the hateful words on the page with the tip of his finger.

“Named after a misprint.”

Crowley laughed, a real laugh this time. “I suppose that’s fitting, isn’t it?” Crowley started flipping through pages. “A misprint in an otherwise perfect book.”

“You could say that,” Aziraphale said, and against his better judgement, he placed a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, as a sign of solidarity more than anything else. Crowley looked up at him, wonder in his eyes.

“You know, I think I’d like to come see that misprint sometime.”

“That’s twice now you’ve asked to see me again.”

“Yup,” replied Crowley, popping the p. Aziraphale had been right earlier. That was hope in his eyes.

The book dealer smiled. “I would be…” 

Aziraphale’s eyes cast down to the book in Crowley’s lap, the book dealer suddenly too flustered to meet his eyes any longer, and his gaze found something very odd on the page. “Crowley!” exclaimed Aziraphale, reaching desperately for the Bible. 

Crowley had flipped to the very beginning of the book, and there were markings that he hadn’t noticed before on the page, a whole section outlined in jet-black ink. 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “No, angel, you would be you. I’d rather we save the roleplaying for-”

“No, Crowley, look here, in the Bible!”

Aziraphale held out the book for him and pointed emphatically at the outlined section. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

The actor’s eyes widened.

“Why would he mark the section about Adam and Eve?” Crowley asked. “He didn’t make any notes or anything, just boxed it in. Did he think he was going to lose track of one of the most well-known parts of the Bible?”

“A fanatic like him? I’d be surprised if he didn’t have the whole thing memorized, which means…” Aziraphale trailed off with a smile.

“It’s a hint!” Crowley turned in his chair and put a hand on Aziraphale’s knee. “Let’s find Adam and Eve, then.”

Aziraphale’s heart thumped in his chest, and he felt alive, more alive than ever before; the actor’s grin and his hand on his knee lit him like a fuse. They both leapt to their feet and began scouring the mural for the Garden of Eden. After a few minutes, though, they realized that there was no such thing. 

“This doesn’t make sense. Why would he have all of Genesis except that? That’s got to be the most important part!” Crowley asked frustratedly, running his hands through his copper hair. “He’s got all the other famous bits.”

“Then there’s something we’re still missing,” said Aziraphale, the open Bible still in his hands. Aziraphale moved to the middle of the room and looked from story to story. There was Joseph and the Pharaoh above Gabriel’s bed. There was Noah’s Ark, and on the floor below it, a wastebasket. There was the construction of the Tower of Babel above Gabriel’s desk.

And then there was the bookshelf full of Bibles, and an idea struck Aziraphale like a murderer in a darkened dining room.

He turned to Crowley, buzzing with energy. “Help me move that bookshelf.”

Crowley didn’t question him, only nodded.

Aziraphale crossed over to the shelf full of Bibles, and together, he and Crowley shoved it aside, revealing a gorgeous rendering of Adam, Eve, and the Tree of Knowledge. There was the interpreter of dreams above the bed, the destruction of mankind above the wastebasket, the beginning of language above the desk, and the tree of knowledge hidden behind a shelf full of Bibles, no doubt Gabriel’s ultimate source of wisdom. Aziraphale reached up and traced his fingers over the lifelike leaves. Crowley also reached out, but not for the tree - for the serpent wound around its branches.

“Feels like real scales,” he said with a smile.

“Snakes are important to you, aren't they?” suggested Aziraphale as he tried to focus on how their discovery actually helped them. He’d hoped it would be more obvious. He scanned the marked Bible for more annotations.

“How did you guess that?”

“Your money clip,” Aziraphale replied distractedly; most of his focus was on the tree and the Bible. “Would you like it back?” Aziraphale added when Crowley didn’t reply right away.

Crowley blinked slowly. “You brought it with you?”

“Well, I brought the money, and it came along for the ride, but…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the clip, sans the bills. “I just liked it. It’s pretty.” He tried to hand it to the actor. “It also isn’t mine.”

Crowley pushed his hand away, though, and looked at the book dealer fondly. “It is now. Think of it as a gift.”

Aziraphale’s face went a bit pink and he dropped the clip back into his pocket as he began to read through the story of Adam and Even once more. He could tell Crowley was still looking at him, though, with that pleased, enamoured smile of his. Aziraphale turned a page and found yet another marked section: You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Though there was a box around the whole section, the word head was faintly underlined.

“Crowley, it’s something to do with the serpent’s head.”

Crowley looked thoughtful as he felt along the serpent. The creature’s mouth was open wide, fangs bared.

“Its head, eh?”

“Yes, it’s underlined.”

“Alright, then how about this?”

And Crowley pushed the tip of his right index finger into the serpent’s open mouth. There was a click, and the actor frowned. “Ugh, even that feels realistic. There’s little fangs, and it’s damp .”

Below the serpent, with Adam and Eve on either side, a part of the tree’s trunk slid away, revealing a compartment set into the wall. Aziraphale peered inside. The back of the compartment was visible, but it appeared there was no bottom. “I can’t see where it ends,” Aziraphale said. With a disgusted noise, Crowley removed his finger from the serpent’s jaws, and the tree snapped shut in the book dealer’s face. Aziraphale flinched.

“Shit, sorry, are you okay?” Crowley asked, reaching out for Aziraphale at once.

“Quite alright, but it looks like one of us needs to keep it open while the other reaches inside.”

Crowley sighed and reached for the serpent again, but Aziraphale batted his hand away, without any real rancour. “After all that complaining? Let me,” he said. He stuck his finger into the serpent’s mouth. He, too, frowned. “Oh, that is unpleasant, isn’t it?”

The tree opened up once more, and Crowley reached into the compartment.

“It’s warm,” Aziraphale said, displeased. “Why is it warm? How is it warm?”

“And how the Hell did he use this stupid thing? You can’t tell me he did this every time he wanted whatever’s in here,” Crowley ground out, his side pressed against the wall, his entire arm jammed inside, up to the shoulder. Then he gasped. “Hang on, wait, I can just feel something.” He strained against the wall. There was swearing, and manoeuvring, and finally, a triumphant, “Yes!”

Crowley withdrew his arm, and when he was clear, Aziraphale freed himself from the serpent. In his hand, Crowley held a small, thin book, bound in soft leather, and closed with a strap and a lock. “Looks like a diary,” said Crowley, turning it over in his hands.

“It’s locked, though,” Aziraphale replied with a sigh.

“So?” Crowley marched back to the desk, pulled a letter opener from one of the drawers, and sliced clean through the leather strap. Aziraphale was scandalized. Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What? It’s not like he’s going to complain.”

“You can’t do that to a book!”

“I already did!”

Aziraphale pulled the diary from Crowley’s hands. “No more acts of violence against books in my presence.” Crowley rolled his eyes and tried to look annoyed, but it was a rather fond eye roll, and Aziraphale saw the whole thing.

The book dealer gingerly opened the diary, and Crowley looked over his shoulder to read. It started fairly tame, dated several years earlier. There were day-to-day happenings, boring, simple things like going to the shops or getting dinner with a friend. There were few, if any, mentions of religion, which struck Aziraphale as odd since it was literally all over the walls. Gabriel mentioned a wife, too, a woman named Sarah. There were entries dedicated to their wedding, and to their move to England. He seemed happy.

March 3rd, 1837

The nice thing about being overseas is you can’t run into anyone. It’s just Sarah and me, and this house, and the wind. She thinks it’s a bit too secluded, but I love it. I think we just need to grow into it. She’s already set up a studio for her painting, and I’ve got places on the walls set aside just for her work. She’s so talented. Watching her paint is like watching the stars - beautiful, and I find something different every time. The way she blows her hair out of her face, or the way she forgets there’s paint on her hands, and she always gets a bit of blue on the tip of her nose.

How did I find the loveliest woman in the world?

And then there was a 5-year gap in entries.

After the pause, everything about Gabriel’s writing changed, from the vocabulary to the subject matter, to even his handwriting, which became more severe, more precise. It was only after the gap that there was any mention of religion at all. 

December 5th, 1842, 

Every day I think of her, though I know I shouldn’t. She is a sinner and I am a man of God. I am above her, and people like her. Then, why, God, does she still permeate my mind? I can still smell her in my sheets, and almost hear her voice, calling down the hall for me.

And then I hear my sweet Sarah calling her name instead of mine, and I am made sick by the sound.

Fiend. Adulterer.

I found you, Lord, and then I made her pay for her sins, spilled her traitorous blood in your name, so why must I still think of her, every single day? Why, Lord? I do your work for you, Lord. Sinners great and small, I make them pay. The covetous and the wrathful, the vainglorious and gluttonous. The indolent and the envious.

But the lustful shall pay the highest price of all.

There were no more dated entries after 1842. The last thing written, which was added very recently given the darkness of the ink, was just three words:

Rip. Tear. Shred.

“Oh, God,” whispered Aziraphale, stunned.

“That’s what he said,” joked Crowley feebly. It was clear he was just as stricken as Aziraphale.

“His wife ran off with another woman,” Aziraphale breathed.

“And then he killed her. And that’s why we’re all here.” Crowley sat on the desk, defeated. “I thought finding God was supposed to make you a better person.”

Then, as if their nerves weren’t frayed enough, there was a scream, an ear-piercing, glass-shattering scream, in the distance. Crowley’s whole body went tense in an instant, taut as a spring. Aziraphale instinctively took a step toward him. They waited in silence, shoulder to shoulder, fingers brushing, eyes locked on the bedroom door. Only after several agonizing seconds of quiet did they dare speak.

“Sounded like it came from across the hall, didn’t it?” whispered Crowley very closely to Aziraphale’s ear.

Aziraphale nodded.

"What do we do?" Crowley stepped forward and turned to look at Aziraphale, terror in his eyes.

"We have to go look. She could be okay. She could have just been scared of something,” Aziraphale reasoned, feeling quite shaken at the thought that Crowley was looking to him to make this decision.

"Or she could be dead, and we’d be putting ourselves in danger," replied Crowley gravely. 

"I know that, but if she isn't, if she's hurt and needs our help, then we need to go."

Aziraphale watched Crowley, watched the cogs turn in his mind, and Crowley made his decision. "Come on," Crowley finally said. He jammed the diary in his waistcoat pocket, and quietly, they crept out of Gabriel's room.

Aziraphale peered down the hall toward the dining room, but there was no one there. The house was enormous; whether or not the other guests heard the scream and how long it would take them to get there, he couldn't know. Sticking close together, they crossed the hall and eased open the door, the door they hadn’t chosen before. It opened into a large study, with an enormous oak desk in front of a grand picture window. There was an ornate fireplace set into the far wall, velvet curtains, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, rich carpet, and in the very centre of the room, Madame Tracy’s dead body.

Aziraphale gasped. The room spun. His heart raced. Everything seemed to go out of focus as his breath quickened.

Crowley shifted at once to stand between Aziraphale and the body. “You’re okay, just look at me,” he whispered, leaning in, insisting that he be the only thing the book dealer could see.

It was too late, though. He’d seen enough. Madame Tracy was splayed out on the carpet with an angry, bloody mark on the side of her head. Her limbs lay at unnatural angles. There was blood on the carpet, on her clothes, and on an object that lay beside her head. Aziraphale crept forward to look at it. Crowley refused to move, but Aziraphale advanced anyway, shouldering past him. As the book dealer knelt beside her, a hand fell on his shoulder. Aziraphale looked back at Crowley. The actor was out of his element, but he was skilled at keeping a lid on his emotions, and that was exactly what the Aziraphale needed. He needed an anchor.

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley replied only with a nod. They were a team. That had been clear from the beginning, and Aziraphale needed that vote of confidence more than ever.

Aziraphale looked down and realized at once that the object beside Tracy’s head, coated in fresh blood, was a lead pipe.

He swallowed. 

“Miss Device. She teased Tracy about this exact scenario. Beaten to death in the study with a lead pipe…” 

Aziraphale took a deep breath. 

“Are you all right?” asked Crowley. He squeezed Aziraphale’s shoulder.

Aziraphale stood, but Crowley’s hand stayed in place. “Not really, but there’s not much to be done about that. At the very least, we have a suspect now.”

“We don’t know that it was her,” Crowley said, stubbornly stepping between Aziraphale and the body once more.

“I think it’s fair to move her to the top of the list, though, don’t you think?”

“Anyone who heard that conversation could have done it, anyone with a sense of humour, anyway.”

“The only way to know for sure is to find some sort of concrete evidence before everyone else comes and makes a mess of it,” Aziraphale breathed. He almost offered to look himself, but Crowley mercifully beat him to the punch.

“I’ll do it. You look green enough as it is.”

Aziraphale nodded and stepped away to lean against the unlit fireplace. There was a mirror above the mantle, and intricate, woven ivy carved into the marble. There were also specks of blood on the polished white stone. At first, Aziraphale watched Crowley pick through the scene, but he couldn’t bear it for long, and he quickly let his eyes close and his head tip back. He felt one of the carved leaves pressing uncomfortably against the back of his head, and then it felt as though the very floor were moving.

Because it was.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cried as the fireplace and the ground below it rotated, bringing the book dealer along for the ride. Before Aziraphale could react, he was in the dark, on the other side of the wall, all alone. He could hear Crowley calling after him, but when he called for the actor once more, it was clear the other man couldn’t hear him. Aziraphale, in the pitch blackness, felt all over the wall and the mantle, but he couldn’t find any sort of release or button. The fireplace was firm. There was no way back.

There was, though, a fine pinhole of light coming from above the mantle. Aziraphale pressed himself against the mantle and found that it was a sort of peephole, and he could see into the study. Crowley stood there, mystified, with some of Tracy’s blood on his hands from when he’d moved her head to study the wound. He called for Aziraphale once more, but it was useless. Crowley wouldn’t be able to hear his reply.

It was then that the other remaining guests, Anathema, Newton, and Shadwell, raced into the room, conspiracy in their eyes. 

“Oh, my God,” said Newton, suddenly very pale. It looked like he might go throw up again, but Miss Device grabbed ahold of his coat and held firm, keeping him rooted to the spot.

“You! You did it, you filthy retch!” Shadwell shouted, pointing accusingly at Crowley. 

Crowley was still staring at the fireplace, though. “Aziraphale. Aziraphale just disappeared,” he muttered, incredulous.

Miss Device smirked. “I’ll assume this is exactly what I think this is,” she accused, motioning toward the blood on his hands.

This got his attention. “First, that’s redundant, and second…what? I mean, yes, it is Tracy’s blood, but I-”

“Quit yer whining, and don’t move!” Shadwell stomped over and grabbed Crowley roughly by the arms. “That’s as good as a confession in my book.”

“Is this a joke?” Crowley was gobsmacked. He winced and grit his teeth when Shadwell wrenched his arms uncomfortably behind him.

Device raised an eyebrow. “Here you are, blood on your hands, standing over a dead body. I’m not entirely sure what other conclusion we’re supposed to come to, Mr. Crowley.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Besides, you were awfully eager to search Lord Gabriel earlier, and you were the one demanding that we split up. To be honest, I just assumed it was you.”

“This is a mistake. Please, just hear me out,” Crowley begged. Device was unfazed.

Anathema looked around the room, totally unbothered by the dead body. “By the way, where’s your little friend?”

Aziraphale watched as Crowley’s face fell. He knew they weren’t going to believe him, but the actor tried anyway. “I think the fireplace is a secret passage, and Aziraphale accidentally triggered it. He’s on the other side of the wall.” Aziraphale tried shouting once more, but no one could hear him. 

Shadwell tightened his grip and Crowley winced. “There he goes, making up stories,” Shadwell accused. “I say we get Tracy’s gun and take care of him, avenge the old girl right now.”

Newton raised his hand like he was in a classroom, and didn’t speak until Anathema elbowed him. “Actually, Mr Eastgate took the gun from me earlier, remember?” Newton said, his voice small.

Anathema stalked forward and dug through Crowley’s pockets. She leered at him when she found the Pinfire revolver. “Eastgate still has Tracy’s gun, but Mr. Crowley has this beauty,” she said. 

“That isn’t mine. I got it off of Gabriel earlier.”

“Yeah, right. We all saw you go through his pockets, and you’re telling me you just happened to miss this?”

“Why the fuck would I tell you people Gabriel had a gun right after one of you psychos murdered him?!”

“So you hid this from us?”

“Yes! To stop you all from murdering each other!”

Device wasn’t even pretending to listen to Crowley. “You’re covering for Eastgate. You two are going to kill all of us and run away to a little cottage in South Downs, aren’t you? The fireplace story is obviously a lie because you two killed her together. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Crowley’s eyes went wide. “Neither of us had anything to do with this, especially not him. We found her like this.”

“Sure you did,” Shadwell said, before dragging Crowley roughly out the door. Crowley resisted at first, but he was little more than a beanpole with legs, and Shadwell, despite being more advanced in age, easily wrestled him out of the room. In the struggle, Crowley’s glasses fell from his face. Shadwell, if he’d even noticed they fell off, did not retrieve them.

Anathema took Newton’s arm after Shadwell and Crowley had left. “We need to find Eastgate,” she said with great urgency in her voice.

Newton blinked.  “Well, maybe we could start by looking in the-”

“We? No, no, not we. Too slow that way. I’ll search this floor, you search downstairs.”

“But being alone is how Tracy-”

“Newton, please, you have to trust me on this. We can’t risk losing him in the house.”

Newton didn’t appear convinced, but let out a little, “Okay,” anyway, and then they left the room. They, too, did not pick up Crowley’s glasses.

Aziraphale’s heart plummeted as he watched them go. One of those people, Shadwell, Newton, or Anathema, was willing to fire blindly in a dark room. There was no knowing what they’d do in the light.

And then there was his predicament; he was trapped in a secret passage with no light and no way out. He tried in vain once more to feel for the trigger to spin the fireplace back around, but it was futile. In the dark, there was no way he’d find it. He felt around the walls, and he could tell that he wasn’t in a closed room. He was in a pitch black passageway.

Since he couldn’t get back into the study, the only way to go was deeper into the passage. 

With his hand on one wall, he stepped forward into the darkness.

Chapter Text

The passage was quite warm and got warmer the farther he went. Aziraphale was just a little surprised by this; he would normally associate hidden stone passageways with words like cold and damp and haunted. This particular passageway, though, was perfectly hospitable, if you ignored the total darkness, sense of impending doom, and the footsteps.

The footsteps?

He stopped walking. Silence. He’d been moving for several minutes, following the right wall with his hand, when he had the strange sensation that he was being followed. He reached into his pocket and found the palm pistol. He hated the way it felt in his hand, but he hated the fear crawling up the back of his neck more. With his right hand on the right wall, he turned and aimed the gun back toward where he’d come from. Still, silence.

“Excuse me? Is there somebody in here with me?” he asked, voice quaking. No reply. He thought of firing a warning shot, but he knew that was foolish. There was no knowing what the bullet might ricochet off of, and he very much didn't like the idea of dying alone in that tunnel by his own hand. 

He waited a moment longer, for breathing, or shuffling, or steps, but there was nothing. 

Just my mind playing tricks on me, he thought. Not satisfied, but having no other option, he faced forward and kept moving, following the right wall, though he kept the pistol in his left hand. It did not make him feel safer. The tunnel had had many twists and turns and alcoves. He had no idea how many entrances and exits he’d passed, but he knew, eventually, like in the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, if he stuck to one wall, he’d find the end for sure. There was, of course, the chance that, in his many minutes of wandering, another guest had joined him in the tunnels. Anathema, Newton, Shadwell…

There was no knowing, not until he found a way out.

Many more minutes passed before, to his great shock, he began to hear…

…voices. He could hear voices. Familiar ones, somewhat muffled, and in front of him, he could see a tiny pinprick of light. He stepped toward the light, hands out in front of him, until he hit a wall. He put his eye up to the peephole and gasped.

It was the parlour, the second-floor parlour “Mr White” had dumped them into before dinner. This time around, though, Crowley wasn’t stretched out like a cat on one of the lounge chairs but was instead tied to a chair. Shadwell stood over him with the revolver in his hand and a cruel look in his eyes.

“When I was in the army, lass, I learned some real mean ways of wringing answers out of sissies like you. Don’t think for a second I’m not afraid to use them,” said Shadwell. He'd removed his dingy coat, revealing a still dingier shirt underneath. He flexed nonexistent muscles.

“Don’t you mean ‘don’t think I’m afraid to use them?'” Crowley asked, even doing a first-rate impression of Shadwell’s distinctive Scottish brogue.

“That’s what I said!”

“It really isn’t.”

Shadwell pointed the revolver at Crowley, who, while clearly quite afraid based on the way he wrung his bound hands, performed absolute calm and nonchalance. This seemed only to anger Shadwell further, prompting him to pull back the hammer on the gun with a deeply unsettling click.

"You were pointing a gun at me that wasn't ready to fire? They really let just any idiot into the military these days, don't they?"

"You dare insult my decorated military career? You…you… queer."

"Oh, are we taking turns stating facts, now? Shall I go next? You're a fucking a-"

“You’ll be quiet, lass, unless it’s to confess!”

Again, Crowley imitated his accent. “Can you stop calling me lass, lass? Only very special people can call me-” 

But this time, the tease drove Shadwell over the edge. The old army man grabbed a fistful of Crowley’s shirt and pressed the barrel of the gun against his forehead. Crowley tensed, but the shot never came, for at that exact moment, Aziraphale’s fingers found a small depression in the wall. On instinct, he pressed it, and what he thought was a wall (but was now clearly the parlour’s piano) swung away, revealing him to the two men. Shadwell yelped, but Crowley could only grin.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathed, his pleasure evident.

“Hello,” Aziraphale replied, his voice small. He couldn’t help but return the smile. His voice turned steely when his eyes landed on Shadwell, though. “Let him go, right this instant,” demanded the book dealer. Shadwell did as told without arguing, which Aziraphale found a bit surprising until he followed Shadwell’s gaze to the Derringer in his hand. At once, almost embarrassed, Aziraphale levelled the weapon at him. "You will place the gun on the floor and step away."

Shadwell did as told, placing the gun at Crowley's feet, then moved toward the door. This suggested to Aziraphale that perhaps Shadwell wasn't a very good shot, or perhaps he was even afraid of guns, an observation that in his mind confirmed Crowley's suspicions - these days, they really do let anyone into the army. Aziraphale dropped the palm pistol in his pocket, and at once went to work untying Crowley. After a moment of picking at the ropes, Aziraphale found just the right place to pull, and they all fell away in a heap.

"Thank you," Crowley said as he rubbed at his sore wrists. He leaned forward to pick up the revolver Shadwell had abandoned at his feet. Very carefully, with the trigger half-pulled and muzzle pointed away from anyone important, he lowered the hammer without firing it.

Shadwell, puzzled, looked on from the other side of the room. "How did you know how to do that?"

"I've worked with prop guns before. You're bound to pick a few things up," he replied as he tucked the firearm back into his coat. Shadwell struggled not to look impressed.

There were footsteps outside, and then the parlour door burst open. In stepped Miss Device, followed by a very out-of-breath Newton. She pointed accusingly at Aziraphale. “How the Hell did you-?”

“Look,” said Newton, who reached past her to point at the piano. 

Her anger faltered. “Oh.”

Crowley stood, then helped Aziraphale to his feet (which prompted a quaint little “Oh, why thank you” from the book dealer). Crowley folded his arms and fixed Miss Device with a nasty glare. “Believe my little fireplace story now?”

“I’d be stupid not to, but I wouldn’t exactly say it helps your case.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Mr. Hastur is dead.”

Newton stepped past Miss Device and collapsed into a chair, looking thoroughly defeated. “I found him in the dining room, h-hanging from a noose over the dinner table.”

“Good God,” muttered Aziraphale. He looked to Crowley and found he’d blanched.

“It wasn’t me,” said Shadwell as pulled his military jacket back on. There was no need to look tough anymore (and he’d caught sight of himself in a mirror, which had quite handily destroyed any illusion that he’d looked tough anyway). 

Anathema raised a hand, a silent request for Shadwell to be silent. “Let’s not start this again. Everyone here is going to say they didn’t do it, so let’s just save our breath. I think we all know our top suspects are Mr. Eastgate and Mr. Crowley.”

“What?” cried Aziraphale. "Are we really back on this?" He was a hard man to anger, but he felt his temper rising.

Anathema folded her arms and grimaced. “You two were the last out of the dining room.”

“It happened after we left!” Aziraphale's face was reddening.

“And you also just happened to find Madame Tracy’s body in the study?”

“Yes!” Aziraphale half-shouted, feeling more exasperated than he had in years. Foul words were threatening to burst through his angelic facade.

Crowley stepped protectively between Aziraphale and the rest of the room. “Now, hang on just a second. Aziraphale here-”

“Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with the fruit, lass?” shouted Shadwell.

The dam broke. “Will you shut the fuck up?” Aziraphale fired back, blood boiling. “You have done absolutely nothing of use the whole time we’ve been here. If you want to help, just sit there, and be quiet, and if you don’t want to help, then you can do just the same.”

Crowley turned to him, awestruck. “Very well said.” He spoke barely above a whisper. Aziraphale squared his shoulders and stood beside him, not behind him, which pulled a small smile from the actor.

Aziraphale addressed the room. “First of all, if we had been involved in Madame Tracy’s death, at least one of us should have blood splatters on our clothes, but neither of us does. Second, neither one of us knows how to tie a noose, nor do we know where we would get rope in this stupid fucking house. Three people are dead, and more will die, unjustly, if we go around accusing each other of heinous crimes without cause. Either we work together to save ourselves, or we all die. The choice is yours.”

No one had anything clever to say to that. They all stared at each other in silence. They were startled from their reverie when the grandfather clock on the back wall kicked up, chiming midnight. The fact that they were on a time limit came crashing back down on them. Sure, they wanted to isolate the murderer, but they also needed to find the key, and the clock was ticking. 

Aziraphale felt his temper easing, and calmly, he said, "I suggest we turn in for the night, and then we can search the house as one big group in the morning." Then, quieter, he added, "I see now that splitting up wasn't exactly the best course of action."

Shadwell, unconvinced of Aziraphale and Crowley’s innocence, frowned. "And how exactly am I supposed to sleep knowing there's a murderer…" he looked pointedly at Aziraphale and Crowley, "...or two hanging around."

Newton raised his hand again but spoke without Device's prompting. "I checked the rooms earlier. The doors and windows lock from the inside, and Mr Hastur already dropped off our things before he, you know…"

"Then that settles it," Device declared. "We'll all go as a group to the guest rooms, lock our doors, and call it a night."

She did not wait for a reply before she stepped out of the room. She simply expected them all to follow, and they did. Down the hall and then up the steps they went to the third floor. They followed Miss Device all the way to the back of the house and found themselves in a long hallway lined with guest rooms. Gabriel had even gone so far as to have their names printed on fine paper and affixed to their doors. Each room had a locked window (which would require a key to open from the inside), a wardrobe, a bed, a lounge chair, and of course, a Bible on the nightstand. 

Aziraphale, whose room was at the very end of the hall, was quietly pleased to see that Crowley was his neighbour on one side and that he had no neighbour on the other. The fact that there were secret passages in the home was upsetting in its own right, but to think the guest rooms might be connected was downright terrifying. 

“Sleep well,” said Aziraphale as he and Crowley approached their rooms.

“I’m sure I won’t,” replied Crowley with a smile, “but thanks. You, too.”

Aziraphale stepped into the room and immediately locked the door behind him. No one without a key or a battering ram would be able to get through that door from the other side. He traced his fingers over the walls and poked around the wardrobe, the bed, and the window, searching for buttons or release levers that might spring open a trapdoor, but to his great relief, he found none. For the first time that evening, he thought he might be safe. On his bed lay his case, unopened (or, at the very least, not obviously tampered with by Mr Hastur before his demise). He hadn’t brought much with him, since, of course, he wasn’t planning on a long stay. He changed into sleeping clothes and anxiously laid down on the bed, which was plush, and seemed fairly new.

The instant he laid down, though, he feared he hadn’t actually locked the door, so he stood, crossed the room, rattled the handle, and satisfied it was locked, laid back down.

But had he really twisted the knob enough to know it wouldn’t open with a bit more effort from a bad actor? He stood, crossed the room, turned the handle thoroughly, even unlocked and relocked the door, turned the handle again, and then laid back down.

“Hey, everyone,” shouted Device, causing Aziraphale to jump about a half mile into the air. “I’m turning down the lights in the hall. Good night, I guess.”

He watched as the light peeking under his door dimmed to almost nothing. All he had was his own lamp and the moonlight streaming through the window. He wondered what Crowley was doing on the other side of their shared wall. Pacing? Already fast asleep? He had no idea - he couldn’t hear a thing through the wall. Despite all the doom and gloom, some part of Aziraphale still glowed at the fact that he had managed to build any rapport at all with someone like Anthony J. Crowley. Their interactions were so easy, so natural. Aziraphale had never been the most confident of men, but with Crowley, he felt emboldened to be more, to take up more space. It was a lovely feeling. 

Aziraphale rolled over. The palm pistol lay on the nightstand beside the Bible. He felt himself beginning to fall asleep, the exhaustion brought on by the day finally catching up with him. I am in possession of a dead woman’s pistol, sleeping in a dead man’s house with their potential murderer(s), and my next-door neighbour is my favourite actor, and I think I might be friends with him now. And I think he may fancy me. Maybe a little. Potentially.  

He rolled over again. Maybe he wasn't quite so tired anymore. He stared out the window and watched the stars twinkle and the trees' leaves flutter in the breeze. The night was beautiful. He wouldn't see many more beautiful nights if they didn't find the key to the front door. He wouldn't see any if the murderer got their way. Just down the hall slept the person that had killed their host, and one of their peers. He couldn't help but think that it was Miss Device. She was by far the most outspoken, and the way she'd teased Tracy about the lead pipe at dinner, followed by the horrific way Tracy had died was extremely damning. She was always insisting that she be left alone, which meant she had no one to corroborate her whereabouts, and taken with the fact that she'd let slip at dinner that she already knew Gabriel...things didn't necessarily look good for her. He had no hard evidence that it was her, but the circumstantial evidence was beginning to weigh on him.

He didn't like assuming the worst in people. Hell, he knew that was why he believed Crowley so quickly. For all he knew, the person who killed Gabriel was not the one who killed Tracy. The gun went off twice. Crowley could be lying about the shots fired in the dark. After all, Crowley clearly had a fair bit of experience with prop guns. How much did those skills cross over into the real thing? There was no way of knowing, and that made Aziraphale's heart race. He felt his thoughts begin to drift to gallows once more. The man in black, the rope around his neck, the swaying of the gallows in the wind, only now, Crowley was by his side, and when the hangman pulled the lever-

Knock, knock, knock.

Aziraphale sat up with a start. His heart pounded in his chest. He looked out the window. The moon had travelled a ways down the curve of the sky - he'd actually managed to fall asleep for a few hours, and now someone was knocking at his door. If he had to guess, it might have been around 2 AM. It took him a moment to get his bearings and to remember that he was very far from home, and even farther from safety. His caller knocked again, each knock sending shivers down his spine. The first question that sprang to mind, of course, was: who is it? The second was perhaps a bit upsetting, though: do I take the gun to answer the door, or not? This was not the sort of question he was used to asking, or answering. He missed his bookshop. He missed his crepes and his hot cocoa and, if he was being absolutely honest, he missed his pigheaded customers, too. They were home. This was not.

"Aziraphale?"

It was Crowley. Aziraphale took a deep breath and crossed the room to answer the door. Slowly, he pulled it open. On the other side, he found the actor, clad in his night clothes (also black, go figure), looking like he hadn't slept in days. His hair was messy from an apparent attempt at sleep, and the poor man looked utterly defeated.

"Couldn't sleep?" Aziraphale asked softly, afraid he might wake the other guests.

"Tried, but all I managed to do was wrinkle the sheets. Couldn’t stop thinking that a murderer might come out through a trapdoor. I swear, I checked the room over half a dozen times for secret buttons and levers. I didn’t find anything, but I still don’t trust it."

Aziraphale smiled tiredly. "Well, if it’s any comfort, I did the same thing."

Crowley's eyes widened. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Aziraphale waved him off. "Oh, goodness, no. I think I was well on my way to wakefulness anyway."

"I shouldn't have knocked. I can-"

"No. Please. Come in."

Crowley hesitated. “All right.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help but think back to when they had first met. “I feel I’m having a bit of déjà vu,” he said as he moved aside to let Crowley pass. “We’ve been here before, haven’t we?” 

Crowley chuckled. “What, me knocking at your door?”

“No, you knocking and then immediately trying to run away.”

Crowley stepped in, and Aziraphale gently closed the door behind him. He turned up the lights a bit with the knob by the door. The room was washed with a warm, soft glow, much cosier than that awful house deserved. Crowley sat in the chair, and Aziraphale sat across from him on the edge of the bed. Crowley didn’t so much sit, actually, as melt into the chair. Aziraphale couldn’t help but wonder if the man might have been a snake in another life. 

“Can you blame me for wanting to run?” said Crowley as he situated his legs in the chair. “You’re a rather intimidating person.”

Aziraphale actually laughed out loud at this but quickly silenced himself with a hand over his own mouth. Quieter, he replied, “Me? Intimidating?”

“You’re so…friendly.”

“And that’s intimidating to you?”

Crowley shrugged. “I just think it takes a very special kind of person to be friendly to a complete stranger in a city like London.”

Aziraphale smiled. “All the more reason to be friendly as often as possible.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs anxiously. “And for the record, I think I was far more intimidated by you than you by me.”

“Do you still find me intimidating?”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley a moment, watched him put a lock of wavy red hair behind his ear, watched him shift leggily in the chair, watched the way he went to push up his glasses before remembering that he wasn’t wearing them, and then how he tried to play that manoeuver off as him simply scratching his nose. Aziraphale knew better, though. He’d seen the whole thing. He watched the way Crowley’s golden eyes watched him right back, and he wondered what sort of little details the actor might be seeing.

“No, I don’t think I do,” Aziraphale finally answered, then, softer, feeling a bit brave and a bit silly, he added, “I think I find you quite charming, actually.”

"Really?"

There it was again, that look on Crowley's face that looked strikingly like hope. That was terrifying. Aziraphale was in that room at all because of an entanglement with a man who, now that he really thought about it, didn't look too dissimilar from the actor.

People like them didn't get happy endings. They got the rope.

But he was telling the truth. He found Crowley extremely charming. They'd known each other not even 10 hours, and he knew he had feelings for him. He knew he would do foolish things just to see more of him. He couldn't say he was in love - even he knew it was too early for all that - but he could certainly say that, someday, he wanted to be. 

"Yes," Aziraphale breathed. "Really, truly."

Crowley stood, moving slowly and stiffly, like a bird-watcher approaching a particularly skittish specimen. He moved like he was afraid Aziraphale might take flight, and he'd never see him again. He stopped just in front of the book dealer, who looked up in awe at the way the moonlight made Crowley's eyes sparkle as the spotlights had so many days ago. Aziraphale dared not move as Crowley reached out to cup his face. He couldn't help but lean into the touch when the actor rubbed his thumb soothingly over his cheekbone.

"May I?" Crowley asked, a small quaver in his voice. He did not clarify his meaning.

"Yes,” was Aziraphale’s whispered reply.

The actor leaned down and captured his lips in a kiss. Aziraphale let out a little gasp and kissed him right back. Aziraphale took the opportunity to run his fingers through Crowley’s gorgeous hair, and his heart swelled when the actor hummed in pleasure at his touch. As they fell back, and Aziraphale took Crowley in his arms, and their luxurious first kiss cascaded into a second, a third, and so many more, each more delicious than the last, he realized that they just…fit. Every movement, every touch - it was easy. It was natural. Both had to admit they were just a little terrified, but both were far happier than they were scared. Wrapped up in one another, they felt totally at home.

They fell asleep in each other's arms, and it was the most restful sleep either of them had had in years. No dreams of the gallows came to him. Maybe it was partly the quiet of the countryside, but it was mostly the warmth and comfort of, for once, not being alone. Hours passed. Aziraphale was the first to wake when the first rays of sunlight peeked over the treetops. Crowley lay mostly on top of him, face buried in the crook of his neck, arms wrapped snugly around him. It was heaven. 

He felt himself dozing off again.

Down the hall, floorboards squeaked.

He was suddenly very much awake and alert.

“Crowley, darling, wake up.”

“Mmm.”

“No, really, I strongly encourage you to get up, dear.”

“Ngk.”

“If you don’t get up within the next…now, then someone will surely see you coming out of my room.”

Crowley groaned. “Shit.”

Crowley disentangled himself from the book dealer and, sleepily, they made for the door. Aziraphale cautiously poked his head out into the hall. When he was sure the coast was clear, he pulled his head back in to tell Crowley it was safe to go, only for the actor to draw him into a luscious, heart-pounding, weak-in-the-knees kiss before he could even speak. 

“You forgot to say ‘good morning,’ angel,” Crowley said when he broke for air.

An undignified “Ngk” was all Aziraphale could manage in reply before Crowley slipped out the door, down the hall, and into his own room. “Good morning, dear,” he added long after the actor was already gone. 

As Aziraphale dressed for the day, he found himself smiling, his mood dampened only by the gun on the nightstand. It still bothered him having it around, but he slipped it into his pocket anyway. He dared not leave it alone, where anyone might grab it. He crossed the room, stood in front of the door, and took a deep breath to prepare himself for the day ahead. They would be searching the house for the key as a group. They would only have until 6 that evening to find the key and get out before the police arrived, and he knew negotiating with the police could only go poorly. He reached for the doorknob and-

“What the fuck?!” said Crowley, his voice loud enough to bleed through the wall, muffled, but distinctly Crowley.

Aziraphale tore his own door open and stepped into Crowley’s doorway without a second thought. He found Crowley, dressed for the day, standing over his bed, the edge of his duvet in his hand. He turned and looked at Aziraphale when he heard him approach. 

“Look at this,” Crowley said, breathless. He stepped aside. In the bed, propped up on the pillow, was a copy of The Vampyre. “I was getting dressed when I noticed my bed was made, and I certainly didn’t do that before I left last night.” He dropped the duvet and reached for the book. “I think this narrows down our suspects a bit, doesn’t it?”

Aziraphale paled as he stepped closer. “Oh, Miss Device,” he said sadly. He hated to think the worst of people, but she was doing a bang-up job of making sure he had to. First the lead pipe, then the Vampyre. If she was hoping to get away with it, she wasn’t doing all that well at making that happen. Crowley flipped open the book. 

Written there, on the inside cover, were just two words: You’re next.

Crowley frowned as he looked at the message. “So, what now? We go pointing fingers?”

“We don’t know for sure it was her. What if someone is trying to frame her?”

“Could be.” Crowley frowned and flipped to the back of the book. There, in the lower right, in careful cursive, was the name Anathema Device. “Jesus, it’s even got her name in it.” He squeezed his eyes shut, a pained expression on his face. “I hate this all so much.”

Aziraphale reached out and smoothed his thumb over the actor’s cheek. “Me, too, my dear.” The actor melted at the touch, and some of the stress left his face.

“Thank you.”

Aziraphale smiled. “My pleasure.”

Out in the hall, they heard knocking, then Miss Device’s voice. “Newton, get up. I’m going to try to make breakfast.”

No response.

“Newton? Hello?”

Still no response.

Aziraphale’s hand fell and they both looked toward the door. Crowley put the book down on the nightstand, and together, they stepped out into the hallway. Anathema jumped when Aziraphale greeted her with a nervous, “Good morning, Miss Device.”

“Oh, uh, good morning, Mr. Eastgate,” she replied, also seeming quite nervous. She looked to Crowley. “You didn’t happen to hear any noises from Newton’s room last night, did you?”

Crowley gave an award-winning performance of I actually didn’t sleep in my own room last night, but telling you might get me in trouble, when he said, “No, not really.”

Miss Device knocked again, to no avail.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Aziraphale said, “do you and Newton know each other?”

Miss Device looked cagey but answered. “He and I became friends when he was working as a witch-hunter. It’s a bit of a long story.”

Crowley snorted. “It’s got to be.”

Device went back to knocking.

Two doors down, Shadwell poked his head into the hall. “What is that infernal racket?”

Crowley folded his arms and served Shadwell a mighty frown. “Mr Pulsifer isn’t answering his door.”

Shadwell frowned even harder. He was already dressed in his military jacket and trousers. Aziraphale wouldn’t be surprised if he’d slept in them. The old military man meandered down the hall, gave Newton’s door one disgruntled look, and then ran straight at it, shoulder first. Miss Device yelped and leapt out of the way, and all watched with absolute shock as Shadwell actually managed to successfully batter the door open. He had a bit too much forward velocity, though, and none of them (including Shadwell) had really expected him to get the door open. So, Shadwell, unable to stop himself, unceremoniously crashed to the floor in Newton’s bedroom with a thud. The other guests stepped inside, one after the other, and Aziraphale offered a hand to help Shadwell stand. Shadwell declined, choosing instead to wrestle himself to his feet with a nearby chair.

It became immediately clear, as they looked around the room, that Newton was gone, which was surprising considering that his door had been locked from the inside. Somehow, Newton had escaped a locked room, and they couldn’t forget that someone, possibly even Newton, had left the book in Crowley’s bed. Aziraphale turned to Crowley and watched him examine the room, watched the way his eyes bounced between pieces of furniture but lingered on the wardrobe, then flitted to the window.

“What are you thinking?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley anxiously ran his hand through his hair. “I think there’s something we missed about these rooms.”

Aziraphale thought back to their conversation the night before. “You think there’s a secret passage leading into this room.”

“There has to be.” Crowley crossed to the window. “Unless he jumped out the window, but even then he would need a key to-”

Crowley froze. His eyes were locked on something outside the window on the ground below. 

Miss Device was a smart girl. She put the pieces together quickly. “Newton,” she whispered, and she bounded across the room to stand at Crowley’s side, gazing out the window. “Oh, Newton,” she muttered tearfully.

Shadwell stayed in the chair, but Aziraphale joined the other two at the window. Newton lay on the ground below, broken and bruised from his three-storey plummet. At least the dogs hadn’t gotten to him. Crowley took Device by the elbow and guided her to sit on the bed, but Aziraphale stayed at the window, stricken with grief. Newton had been kind. He didn’t deserve this. What had his great “sin” even been? Taking bribes? Was that really comparable to murder in Gabriel’s mind? And it wasn’t like he was meting out justice because he really cared, he was just doing it because he was mad he couldn’t keep his wife happy.

Gabriel’s descriptions of her, of Sarah, had been lovely. He would have liked to meet the woman.

But Sarah was dead, and so was Mr Hastur, and Tracy, and Newton, and even Gabriel himself. All gone.

With new resolve, Aziraphale turned to the room. “All right, there has been another tragedy, and now it is doubly important that we at least try to work together. I know we’re all afraid of the future, and of the documents in the mailbox outside, and one of us, maybe more than one of us, is a killer, but I don’t think it’s too late for us to call a truce.” 

He looked around at the other guests. Miss Device watched him from the bed, puffy-eyed and exhausted. Shadwell stared at the floor, and if you looked at him just right, you could see the events of the past day were finally getting to him. And then there was Crowley, leaning against the wardrobe, arms crossed, a look of fondness and care, of concern and admiration shining so brightly on his face, that Aziraphale briefly lost his train of thought.

Crowley spoke up. “We can find the front door key, hand out everyone’s personal documents, and run. Or even better, burn them all and sing campfire songs. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just try not to murder one another.”

“Very well said,” replied Aziraphale appreciatively. “Now, the first question to ask is, which one of you has the window key?” Silence. Aziraphale sighed. “I assumed it wouldn’t be that easy, but it was worth a shot. That means, then, that someone is lying, or Mr Pulsifer was the one with the key.”

“You think the boy killed himself?” Shadwell asked.

“Or he tried to jump to safety,” added Crowley.

Aziraphale swallowed. “I’m not convinced we can rule it out. There’s a chance he found the key and didn’t tell.” He looked to Miss Device, who had been alone more than any of them.

Aziraphale thought back to the tunnels. What if my mind hadn’t been playing tricks on me? What if those were footsteps I heard in the tunnel? He hated where his mind was going. With Anathema totally alone on more than one occasion, there was a chance that she had been in the tunnels with him. 

He tried to keep his face impassive as he spoke once more. “I say the best place to start is this room. Either someone unlocked the door, or we’re dealing with more secret passages. Search every inch of this room for the trigger."

Shadwell, as unhelpful as ever, simply frowned and said, “I’m not interested in your games, book boy. I’ve business in the privy.” And with that, he stood, marched out the door, and made for the bathroom.

“Prick,” Crowley muttered before he and Miss Device went to work. 

Aziraphale, though, wasn’t quite so eager for the man to be alone. “Don’t be long. It might not be safe,” he called after him, to no reply, which, against his better judgement, ruffled his feathers. He found himself muttering “Prick,” under his breath, too.

Crowley jammed himself under the bed, scraping the floor for levers or buttons. Device searched the walls, running her fingers over the moulding and between wall panels. Aziraphale found himself drawn to the wardrobe. It reached nearly to the ceiling and was extraordinarily heavy, or at least, it seemed heavy at first. He noticed at once though that, despite its weight, the wardrobe was clearly made of very soft, cheap wood. 

Aziraphale ran his fingers along the seam between the outside of the wardrobe and the wall and found that the wardrobe wasn't a normal, moveable piece of furniture at all. It was part of the wall. It wasn't heavy - it was simply nailed in place. He opened it and found it was empty. An empty, cheap wardrobe that was inexplicably built into the wall? It was too suspicious to ignore. He stepped inside and looked all around, running his fingers over the edges of the wood, but found nothing obvious. As he stepped out, though, he hit his head on the closet rod. It clattered to the floor. Miss Device jumped, and Crowley appeared from under the bed at once, covered in dust.

"Are you alright?" asked Crowley as he dragged himself out from under the bed. 

"Oh, yes, of course. Just hit my head is all," Aziraphale assured him. Crowley still looked worried as he picked up the closet rod. The actor handed it over. 

Aziraphale turned back to slot it back into place, but as he reached up, he noticed something: a small depression in the wall of the wardrobe where the rod sat. He reached up and pushed his finger into the depression. There, he found a button. He pressed it. 

At once, the back panel of the wardrobe slid away, revealing a small passage. There was a short bridge, probably an arms-length across, which ended at another wall. A few steps led down to the side.

“Miss Device,” Aziraphale said aloud, “I don’t believe you need to search anymore.” Soft, heeled footsteps announced her approach.

Crowley looked over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “How many secret passages are there in this damn house?”

“I’m not sure I want to know.” Aziraphale turned to look at him. “Be a dear and get me a candle, will you?”

Crowley blushed. “Yeah, sure.” Those pet names again. They really got to him. Aziraphale quite liked that power.

Crowley dashed away and returned within seconds with a lit candle in his hands. Aziraphale took it gratefully and shone it down the steps. It appeared there was a small crawlspace underneath all their rooms, no doubt connecting all of them. Aziraphale looked at the opposite wall in the passage and realized that it wasn’t really just a wall, but a wall with a wood panel and a small pull chain. He reached out and pulled it, and watched as, again, the panel slid away, revealing the inside of a set of wardrobe doors. 

“That’ll go into my room, won’t it?” asked Miss Device.

“I believe it will, yes.”

Aziraphale stepped through the passage, gently pushed open the wardrobe doors, and sure enough, they were in Miss Device’s room. Her bags were on the floor, her nightgown lay on the bed, and as they all stepped through, they found Shadwell frowning up at them from her chair. There was an Earth-shaking grimace on his face.

“Oh, fuck,” Crowley said when he saw the old army man’s hands. Shadwell held the copy of The Vampyre.

“You’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do, lass,” he said to Anathema. He flipped open the book and pointed accusingly at her name and the threatening message inside the cover. “I found this in actor boy’s room, no doubt put there by you.” 

Anathema backed away toward the nightstand, distancing herself from the other guests. Crowley stood resolute by Aziraphale’s side near the wardrobe, and Shadwell stood to block the main door.

“I didn't know about the passages and I don't have a door key, you moron.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, missy, because the boy didn’t follow the rules.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Will you stop calling me boy, I’m 40-”

“You weren’t in your own room last night, were you?” accused Shadwell.

A muscle in Crowley’s jaw twitched. “No. I called on Aziraphale last night to talk since I couldn’t sleep.”

“So,” Shadwell said to Miss Device, “it looks like we’ve got the killer right here.”

“Absolutely, we do not,” Aziraphale fired back. “We still don’t have an explanation for the window. She would have needed the key to the window to throw Newton out, and how would she have gotten that?”

Shadwell shrugged. “She must be working for Lord Gabriel, which means she knows where the front door key is, too.”

“Mr Shadwell, what you are spouting right now is no better than a conspiracy theory!” Aziraphale gave Shadwell a warning look. “Unless you can find the window key in this room, you’ve no right to accuse Miss Device of anything. It could very well have been Newton that left the book in Crowley’s room. Or even you.”

Shadwell grumbled something under his breath, an insult, no doubt. “Fine,” he said finally, “we’ll just have to search the room, then.”

Shadwell tossed the book to the ground and went to work tearing apart Miss Device’s things, starting with her bags. She shouted for him to stop but he only pushed her away. He rifled through the bags only briefly before moving to the nightstand. He yanked open the drawer and…

He sucked a breath through his teeth and reached into the drawer. From it, he drew a key. Quietly, he walked to the window and slipped it into the lock. It turned. Miss Device gasped.

“Someone must have planted it in here while I was gone, or in my sleep. It wasn’t there last night, I swear,” she said, but there was murder in Shadwell’s eyes.

“Your book landed in Mr Crowley’s bed.”

“Someone stole it from my room and put it there. It wasn’t me.”

“You were the one who joked with Madame Tracy about her husband, the one who was killed in his study with a lead pipe, and Tracy just so happened to die the same way.”

“Coincidence, I swear.”

Aziraphale stepped in. “Mr Shadwell, honestly, where would Miss Device have even gotten a lead pipe, of all things?”

Shadwell had an answer for this, too. “Like this key, it was given to her.”

“What are you talking about? No one gave me anything! There has to be someone else in this house, and they are framing me!” she cried.

There was a sparkle in Shadwell’s eyes, then. “At dinner. You already knew Lord Gabriel.”

She swallowed. “Yes. Yes, I did. I worked as his wife’s seamstress before she…passed.”

“So you admit it, do you?”

“I admit to knowing him, not to killing anyone.”

“Did you know he killed his wife?” the actor asked.

Shadwell swung round to face him. “Lord Gabriel killed his wife?”

“Yeah. We found his diary earlier,” replied Crowley, and he patted his waistcoat pocket to punctuate the point. “Murdered her after he found out she was having an affair.”

Shadwell looked back to Device. “Did you know, girl?”

Miss Device looked at the floor. “Yes.” Then, as tears began to well in her eyes, she added, “I was the woman she had the affair with. He told me I could live if I stayed silent. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, though.” She pulled out her letter from a fold in her dress. “I would rather die than help him in any way after what he did to her.” She held the letter out to Aziraphale.

“I can’t,” said Aziraphale, suddenly feeling far more sympathetic toward the woman.

“Please. I want you to.” She shook the letter, urging him to take it, and he did. He opened it gingerly, and Crowley leaned in a bit to read it with him. Aziraphale read the letter aloud.

Dear Anathema,

It’s time you pay for your indiscretions.

You know where to go. I’ve included a train ticket for you.

- Lord Gabriel

No mention of blackmail, or witchcraft. There was no need. She already knew the stakes, had known them for years. Aziraphale found her letter more frightful than even his own. He wanted to give the poor girl a hug, but Shadwell wasn’t having it. He snatched the letter from Aziraphale’s hand, and after one brief glance, threw it to the ground.

“The letter is nonsense. The girl is guilty.” Shadwell stalked toward Miss Device. “Now, where’s the front door key?”

“Shadwell, did you understand nothing that she said?” Aziraphale shouted. “You must see reason! Miss Device is right. The only way she could have gotten the key is if it was placed there, and if it wasn’t there last night, as she said, then we must not be alone in this house.”

“Shut it, book boy.”

Shadwell stepped closer, but Anathema could only back up so far. She would need an alternative, then.

From the folds of her dress, she pulled out a knife.

Aziraphale and Crowley both gasped, but Shadwell, ever so stupid, didn’t even flinch. “You forget I was in the army, girl.”

Shadwell lunged for the knife, and Miss Device fought valiantly not only to hang onto the blade, but also to stab him. Without a word, Crowley dove into the melee, too, and Aziraphale, terrified, followed. Crowley grabbed ahold of one of Shadwell’s arms and tried to wrestle him away from Device. Aziraphale was afraid of making the poor girl uncomfortable, but delicately grabbed her round the waist anyway and tried desperately to hold her back.

Unfortunately, what Anathema lacked in size, she made up for in ferocity, and with one venomous jab, she managed to stick the tail on the donkey.

Well, on a donkey,

The wrong donkey.

She had stabbed Crowley.

Chapter Text

Device, on instinct, pulled the blade out at once. There was horror in her eyes. It was clear to Aziraphale, at that moment, that she couldn’t have been the murderer. If that was what hurting others did to her, that look of total, absolute, unequivocal shock and fear, they would have known all along. She was no murderer, and in her guilt for harming Crowley, she dashed out of the room. Shadwell, proclaiming that they’d discovered the murderer, made chase.

It seemed to take a moment for Crowley’s brain to catch up with his body, and Shadwell and Device were gone before his mind finally reached the present.

“Fuck me,” said Crowley as he looked down at the blood soaking through his shirt. She’d caught him in the abdomen, his lower left side. He blinked hard, and his eyes trailed up to meet Aziraphale’s. “Ow,” he breathed.

Then he collapsed into Anathema’s chair.

Aziraphale fell to his knees at Crowley’s side. “Crowley,” he whispered desperately. “How do I help you? What do I do?”

“What do I look like, a doctor?” Crowley replied breathlessly. His head tipped back against the wall behind him, and his breaths came fast and shallow. He swallowed, pressed his hands over the injury, and closed his eyes. “I’ve been through worse, just…” He gritted his teeth and focused. “Just give me a moment.”

“Worse?”

“Got run through on stage once.”

“WHAT?”

“Got run thr-”

“No, I heard you, I mean who stabbed you? When?”

“My partner and I got a bit lost in the choreography. I advanced when I should have retreated, and he caught me with his sabre. That would have been, oh, 1830, I think. Good times.” He took a deep breath through his nose and looked down at the wound. “Actually, it was right about there that I was stabbed before,” he said.

“Is that good or bad?”

“I was told there really isn’t anything important there, and they pulled it right out.”

“I’m so sorry this happened,” Aziraphale whispered. He hated the pain he saw in the actor’s face. He would have preferred taking the blade himself if it meant avoiding seeing that look twisting Crowley’s handsome features.

Crowley shrugged. “Can’t say I really expected anything else from the murder house full of murderers.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “You have such a way with words,” he teased.

There was a harumph from the doorway. There stood Shadwell, arms folded, with a mighty frown on his face. “No thanks to you, the witchy lass got away, but if we can track her down, we can get her to tell us where the key-”

But he couldn’t finish his thought, for Aziraphale, suddenly and frightfully angry with Shadwell, rose to his feet, crossed to the old army man, and slapped him clear across the face with an earth-shattering, sound-barrier-breaking crack. 

Shadwell blinked and did not speak, which was all the better because Aziraphale wasn’t going to let him open his mouth again, anyway.

“That young lady, Mr Shadwell, is absolutely innocent, and if you can’t see that, then you are even more foolish than I thought. I demand that you find us some bandages. Now.”

Shadwell continued blinking a moment, mournfully rubbing his red-raw cheek, and then, without another word, turned and made for the restroom. He was back a minute or so later with a basket full of bandages and other first aid accoutrements. Shadwell did not speak and instead quietly sat the basket down at Aziraphale’s side and awaited further instruction.

“Now,” said Aziraphale, “we aren’t the only ones in this house. If Miss Device is alone, then she’s in danger. Find her,” he pleaded, and Shadwell, finally looking a bit guilty, nodded and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Crowley croaked. He reached into his coat and pulled out the Pinfire. He held it out to Shadwell. “Don’t die.”

Shadwell looked profoundly confused at the offer, but took the weapon anyway and left. Aziraphale started at once to peel away Crowley’s layers to bandage the wound.

“That was a good thing you just did,” he said as he shifted Crowley’s coat and undid his waistcoat. “He hasn’t shown you an ounce of kindness.”

“He’s an asshole, but that doesn’t mean I want him to die.”

Aziraphale started on the shirt buttons. “A philosophy more people should adopt.”

He pulled away the bloodied shirt to reveal pale skin, an angry stab wound, and an inch or so away, an old scar from his previous stabbing. The bleeding in the new injury, surprisingly enough, had already slowed considerably.

Crowley craned his neck to look down at it. “Hurts like hell, but it sure isn’t very deep.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” Aziraphale said as he delicately wiped away some of the blood with a bit of gauze. “Just a few stitches, and you’ll be as good as new.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Crowley said with a frown.

“Would you prefer she ran you through with another sword?”

“No, I mean…she wasn’t pulling her punches. With how hard she was swinging, she should have caused a lot more damage. It certainly felt like she’d put a lot into it.” Crowley’s frown deepened further still as he thought. Then, his eyebrows rocketed toward his hairline. 

He reached into his waistcoat pocket for Gabriel’s diary. He pulled it out, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but gasp. His diary had been partially in the way when Device stabbed Crowley. He could see it in the binding, where the knife had nicked the cover and sliced through the spine of the book - not enough to stop the blade entirely, but enough to at least stop her from injuring him far more than she had. He could see something else, though, too - something shiny. Aziraphale reached out for the book. The slice in the spine had revealed a small cavity in the diary’s front cover.

“Crowley,” he breathed.

“What?”

“The key. The front door key.”

Aziraphale prised open the book’s wound, and from it, he drew out the key, which sparkled a brilliant silver in the light.

Crowley’s eyes went wide with understanding. “‘Rip. Tear. Shred,’” Crowley quoted. “He wasn’t just talking about his wife. That was a hint. He was telling us to cut apart the book.”

“We had the key the whole time,” Aziraphale said softly in utter disbelief. His eyes flashed from the key to meet Crowley’s gaze. “We have to tell the others.”

Suddenly, there was a distant scream and one, two, three gunshots, then one, two, three more.

“Damn,” said Crowley as he started frantically doing up buttons.

Aziraphale put a hand on his knee, which stilled his movement at once. “I haven’t bandaged you.”

“There’s no time. We have to get down there.” Crowley winced as he stood, and winced further as he tucked in his shirt, then made for the door. He only looked back to take Aziraphale’s hand, and then they were off.

Quietly, quickly, they moved down the hall toward the stairs, straining their ears to hear anything other than their own footsteps and pounding hearts. The house was eerily silent. Aziraphale wondered what the house might have been like when Sarah was alive. How many servants would there have been? How much hustle and bustle? Would there have been parties? The house was enormous. It was the kind of house that deserved to be lived in.

Down the steps they went, hand in hand to the second floor, where they walked down the central hall, past the dining room, past the parlour, and out onto the grand balcony overlooking the foyer. There, on the floor, in the middle of a depiction of Christ on the cross, lay Device and Shadwell.

Aziraphale swallowed. He felt Crowley squeeze his hand. Aziraphale needed to see. Needed to know how they had died. 

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with that information, but he knew he needed it. 

Crowley allowed himself to be led down the steps to the ground floor. Together, they looked down at the bodies. It was clear by the ugly, blood-soaked gashes in their clothing that both of them had been stabbed, but the knife was missing. Sitting on the floor between their bodies was a small slip of paper. Aziraphale took a deep breath, then knelt to pick up the paper. He flipped it over and found fresh ink, still wet. Written in terribly familiar handwriting were the words:

Aren’t we having fun?

Aziraphale blinked. No, no there’s no way that’s his handwriting.

He read the short message again, and then once more after that. The sharp lines, harsh angles…

“Gabriel wrote this,” Aziraphale said, barely above a whisper.

Crowley’s eyes blew wide. He, too, read the message more than once. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

The silence in the room was oppressive. Aziraphale felt like he couldn’t think. The neurons wouldn’t fire. That note was absolutely written by Gabriel, there was no debating it, but there was, obviously, a massive cognitive hurdle that needed confronting for that to be true, which was the fact that Gabriel was extremely dead. Aziraphale’s eyes wandered around the room, searching for an answer, half wondering if he might spot Gabriel snickering at them from a dark corner. All around the room he looked, for answers, for something to bring him back to the present, for some hints at what had really happened to Device and Shadwell. Maybe the knife, maybe a trail of blood left by the murderer after they’d been shot, or bullet holes from the shots Shadwell had missed…

Bullet holes.

Aziraphale gasped.

“Crowley, look around. There aren’t any bullet holes.”

“Well, yeah, it’s pretty clear they were stabbed-”

“No, no, dear, in the walls, in the floor, or ceiling, or anywhere. Nothing.”

Crowley gazed around the space. “You’re right, angel.” He looked down at the book dealer, brows knitted in confusion. “Maybe Shadwell was just a good shot?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, we heard the gun fired six times. If the murderer had been shot six times, they surely would lay here with their victims.” Aziraphale frowned and chewed at his lip. “So, then, where did the bullets go?” He’d read plenty of mystery stories, but he couldn't recall any that addressed phantom bullets.

Then Crowley’s face lit up. “Blanks.”

“Blanks?”

Gears turned behind Crowley’s eyes. “It’s a special kind of bullet. Well, not really a bullet. Sort of a bullet. You fire the gun, but nothing comes out. It makes all the noise a gun normally does, but no one gets shot.”

Aziraphale pondered this. “No one gets shot…”

Gabriel had been shot.

Or, had he?

Aziraphale started toward the dining room. Crowley followed at once. “Where are we going?” the actor asked.

“Dining room. I have a theory to test.”

Back up the stairs to the second floor, they went, then down the hall and through the double doors into the massive dining room. The lights were still low, just as they’d been left. Mr Hastur, evidently cut down by Newton, lay on the dinner table. Aziraphale averted his eyes and focused on the floor. As they rounded the table, Aziraphale found what he was looking for, or, rather, didn’t find what he was looking for. 

Gabriel’s body was gone.

Crowley stared at the spot where their host had once laid. “Oh,” he said. “No.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, stricken. He looked at the floor, and all around the walls. “Two shots were fired in here with Tracy’s gun, and there are no bullet holes here, either.”

Aziraphale then drew the palm pistol from his pocket and pointed it straight at the floor. He closed his eyes, turned his face away and pulled the trigger. He didn’t like the feeling. A loud BANG echoed through the room, and Crowley jumped. Their ears rang from the volume. The book dealer turned back and looked at the spot he’d fired at.

No sign of any bullet.

Crowley took the gun and opened the chamber, then traced his thumb over the rounds. “Tracy came with a gun loaded with blanks?” 

“The weapons check, darling. Gabriel replaced her bullets with blanks.” The pieces were starting to fall into place. “That was Gabriel’s plan all along. That’s why he turned the lights down and brought his own gun full of blanks.” He looked deep into Crowley’s eyes and watched the story begin to come together for him, too. Still, Aziraphale felt the need to say it all aloud, to make it real. “His plan the whole time was to fake his death, to pretend that he’d been shot at dinner, then kill all of us himself.”

Crowley deflated. “And the whole time, we were supposed to point fingers at each other. And hate each other.” He swallowed. “And we did. We did exactly what he wanted.”

“Beautifully, I might add,” came Gabriel’s voice from right behind them. 

Gabriel took Crowley roughly by the arm and dragged him aside. Aziraphale moved to pursue but stopped dead when their host produced Miss Device’s knife and held it to Crowley’s throat. Aziraphale’s breath stuck in his chest, and his feet stuck to the floor, scared any false move might cause Gabriel to act.

“Hello, Lord Gabriel,” Crowley drawled, leaning back uncomfortably to keep the knife as far from his throat as he could manage without leaning into Gabriel. With one hand, Crowley held the Derringer. With the other, he applied pressure to his stab wound, which was bleeding again.

Gabriel grinned. “Here we are, boys, so close to the end.” Gabriel still wore his fake-blood-soaked waistcoat. It gave him a crazed look.

Crowley squirmed. “You, know, I checked your pulse myself and you were very dead. Care to explain?”

“A special poison in just the right dose slows the heart but doesn’t kill. It was hard to get, but I have connections. Worked like a dream. That, and a bit of pig's blood, and I was as good as dead.”

“Aren’t you clever…” Crowley muttered.

“Let him go,” said Aziraphale softly. 

Gabriel laughed. “Oh, you’ve asked nicely, so of course, I’ll let him go,” he teased. He applied some pressure with the blade. Crowley swallowed, and a trickle of blood started down his neck. 

“Why don’t we just jump to the good stuff, yeah? Hand out the rest of your divine justice, and you can go and have a nap,” Crowley said, his voice strained. “You said ‘dinner and a show.’ Why bother with the show?”

He’s stalling, Aziraphale thought. Either he’s hoping to come up with an idea…

The book dealer could hear his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

…or he’s expecting me to come up with something clever.

“I could have just poisoned your wine, or had you shot on the train, but I'm not really doing my job if I’m not forcing you to confront your sins. I’ve given you a chance to realize the error of your ways.”

Crowley winced. “Yeah, about that. I hate to tell you, but I think I might have gotten a bit gayer, actually, in my time here, but points for eff-”

The actor drew in a sharp breath as Gabriel pressed harder still with the knife. Gabriel spoke low, his voice dangerous. “You two have the most egregious sins of all, well, you two and Anathema. The three of you needed to suffer the most, so you lived the longest. Really, I meant for Anathema to die last. That's why I worked so hard to frame her, so she'd really suffer before the finale. But then she attacked me in the foyer, and my plans for her…accelerated a bit.” Gabriel’s eyes landed on Aziraphale. “I think it fits, you two being the last to die. You didn’t just refuse to admit your sins, but you indulged in them, in my house.”

“Because we care for each other,” Aziraphale breathed. Crowley’s face turned soft, but Gabriel’s turned poisonous. The book dealer persisted. “We care for each other, like you cared for Sarah.”

“She’s an adulterer, a sinner-”

“But you loved her. Still do, if your diary is to be believed. Every day, you think of her.”

Gabriel’s posture stiffened. The pressure of the blade lessened. He squeezed his eyes shut, a look of great pain on his face. “She was the most wonderful person I’d ever met.”

“And you couldn’t understand why she would hurt you. So, you asked God to give you an answer.”

Gabriel shook his head, eyes still closed, enormous sadness written all over his face.

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked ever so briefly down to the Derringer, still clutched tightly in Crowley’s hand. No real bullets, so there was no way Crowley could shoot Gabriel. It wouldn’t get hot enough to burn Gabriel if fired. It was very loud, though. Held even an arm’s length away, it had been too loud. Fired right by the head, though…

Crowley made eye contact with Aziraphale. Aziraphale scratched a false itch on his face and made a small trigger-pulling motion with his pointer finger. Just by the look Crowley gave him, he knew he understood.

“Gabriel,” Crowley started, “we don’t want you dead or anything like that. We’d just like to talk without all the knives and guns and things. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Gabriel’s eyes flashed open. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t like murder? I feel like this isn’t complex,” Crowley said. 

Aziraphale gave him a stern look and corrected course in his stead. “You aren’t upset at us. You’re upset at Sarah, so put the knife down and we can talk about that. No one else needs to be hurt.”

Gabriel’s expression turned hard. The bit of sympathy and humanity they had coaxed out of him withered. His voice deathly calm, he told them, “You’re right. I love Sarah. I did what was best for her. I killed her because I love her. And I definitely won’t be wrong for killing you.”

Right then, Crowley brought the palm pistol up and placed it against Gabriel’s face, then fired. The extraordinary volume was enough to send Gabriel reeling to cover his ears. He released Crowley at once, and Crowley, also dazed by the enormous sound, tumbled forward. Aziraphale reached out to catch him and drew the actor safely into his arms. Gabriel wasn’t done, though. Enraged, ears ringing, he lashed out after Crowley. Aziraphale, thinking quickly, threw the two of them to the floor, and Gabriel careened toward the spot where they’d just been. They all hit the ground with a thump and a groan.

Crowley winced as he sat up, and placed a hand back over his wound. All the movement wasn’t helping with the bleeding or the pain. Aziraphale helped him sit up but froze when his eyes landed briefly on Gabriel. Gabriel was also slowly picking himself up, but something was wrong.

He’d landed on the knife.

Their host drew himself into a kneeling position, the knife lodged deep into his abdomen.

“Oh, God,” Aziraphale whispered. He looked to Crowley, who appeared conflicted. Aziraphale couldn’t blame him -  he felt much the same, equal parts horrified and, what? Pleased? He hated to call it that. Relieved? More accurate, perhaps, but it still felt cruel.

Gabriel didn’t speak for nearly a minute, only breathed and gritted his teeth as his blood soaked through his clothes, for real this time.

Finally, he turned his head and looked at his remaining guests, a look of absolute exhaustion on his face. “A priest once told me there would be a great war between Heaven and Hell, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could get a head start. Help the angels out.” He looked at the portraits on the wall, pondered the actions of the angels he found there. “I don’t think that’s what I did. I don’t think it worked. I didn’t help them enough.” He turned to Aziraphale. “You’ve got the key, right?”

Crowley pulled the key from his coat pocket and held it out.

“That’s the one,” Gabriel said. He reached into his own trouser pocket and pulled out a book of matches. “If I can’t help on Earth, I suppose I’ll just have to help elsewhere.” He pulled out one of the matches and struck it against the underside of the dinner table. Then, without even looking, he flicked the lit match onto the table. The wine-soaked tablecloth caught easily, and Aziraphale and Crowley stood and backed away from the growing flame. Gabriel didn’t move. “Run,” he said to them, eyes sparkling in the flames.

“We can’t just leave you here!” Aziraphale cried.

“So, you’ll rescue me? And then what? Tell me, Mr. Eastgate: what exactly are you going to tell the police happened here? I’m the richest man for miles. No one would believe you even if your story were airtight and waterproof.” The growing flames threw eerie shadows across his face. “At least I get to go out a martyr. So, go. You’ll face the music someday.”

Crowley shook his head. “No. That would take us having done something wrong, and we haven’t.”

Aziraphale looked up at him. They were both terrified, but at that moment, there was a bit of resilience in his heart. “He’s right. We have no music to face. Only songs to sing. You aren’t a martyr, not even a little. You’re a murderer. I think it’s you who has something to pay for.” He swallowed. “Crowley, dear, help me drag him out.”

Crowley hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. We aren’t like him.”

Crowley took a deep breath, then nodded.

Together, they stepped toward Gabriel, and despite his fighting and his shouting to be left inside the house, they dragged him out the front door and down the steps as the mansion went up in flames behind them. All of it, every trace of everyone and everything inside was destroyed - except for the three of them, who watched from the circle drive.

“I can destroy you,” Gabriel babbled, but Aziraphale wasn’t having any of it.

“You’re not the richest man for miles anymore, Lord Gabriel. You just made sure of that. You can’t hurt us.”

“I’ll blame the two of you for this, say you broke in, attacked me, set my house on fire.”

Aziraphale, exhausted, could only muster a small laugh. “What police officer would believe that an actor and a book dealer managed to pull that off? You lose, Gabriel. Goodbye. For your sake, I hope you don’t breathe in too much smoke.”

Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale. He offered a small, tired smile, and his hand. Aziraphale took it, and shared that smile, and the two of them made off down Gabriel’s long driveway, leaving their host shouting after them as the fire he’d foolishly set raged on.

The year was 1847, and a man sat in the front row of a Soho theatre, a playbill in his lap, and a grin on his face. His name was Aziraphale Eastgate, and he was about to watch one of the most sought-after actors in England, Anthony J. Crowley, perform in The Vampyre. There had been whispers all over Soho for weeks that the Anthony J. Crowley was returning to one of his most well-loved roles for a limited engagement, and Mr Eastgate was there for opening night. The public wasn’t totally sure who was funding the endeavour, but they were paying the actors handsomely, and somehow, they’d put up enough funds for the tickets to be free to the public. It was extraordinary. 

Aziraphale smiled privately as his neighbours whispered about the play’s mysterious benefactor, knowing full well that the mystery man was him.

Rumour had it that Crowley had turned down his rightful payment for the role. Aziraphale and Crowley would, of course, joke about this at home, saying that Crowley was acting in exchange for the right to live in Aziraphale’s building. They were “neighbours.” Above his shop, there were technically two flats, with a shared kitchen and living area, but separate bathrooms and bedrooms and such. No one needed to know that one of the bedrooms, in fact, had no bed, and held only Aziraphale’s most treasured books and Crowley’s many, many scripts. No one needed to know that, in fact, they shared a bed. They shared many things as “neighbours.”

It was a risk. It was always a risk, but it was worth it.

After Gabriel’s mansion burned, the first thing they did was move Crowley into Aziraphale’s apartments. About a week after it happened, a story about the burned mansion turned up in the paper, with no mention of any of the guests who’d been inside - there was nothing left. The building had collapsed in on itself. There was nothing to save. No proof that awful night had even happened. 

Gabriel had turned up in Durham proper, bloodied and stinking of smoke, and by sheer chance, a friend of Miss Device had reported her missing to the Durham police. Since Gabriel had Device’s knife, he was implicated in her murder. No one believed his ramblings of sinners and blackmail and secret passages.

Aziraphale and Crowley would not speak of the events of the house for an entire year. Even once they did begin to work through the memories and the pain, they found they could only speak about it a little bit at a time. Eventually, though, by the time The Vampyre was set to open, those old wounds had mostly scarred over. It still hurt, thinking about the other guests, and they were sure it would hurt forever, but every day the magnitude of the pain diminished. They were grateful they had each other, and as their pain eased, their love blossomed.

Aziraphale rarely dreamed of the gallows anymore. At times, a stray sensation of swinging scaffolds and chafing rope would come to him in his dreams, but at the very moment he found himself gasping into wakefulness, he would feel Crowley’s arms around him, and everything would be okay.

The shop did, in fact, stay open, and somehow, the pretence of being “neighbours” kept them safe. (Many, many years later, at the publishing of A Study in Scarlet, they would joke that all a man needed to do to have a husband was simply convince the world that they slept in separate beds, and everything else would be excused). Fans of literature and of theatre alike frequented the shop, either to take advantage of Aziraphale’s incredible skills or to have a chance at speaking with Crowley. When Crowley wasn’t at the theatre, he was stretched out on Aziraphale’s couch in the shop. When he was asleep, he was dead to the world, and guests knew not to prod him, but when he was awake, he would talk to the guests, tell them about his life, his time on the stage, his time off the stage.

It was in these moments in the shop with total strangers that Aziraphale heard about Crowley’s life before the theatre for the first time. That moment in the parlour, 2 years earlier, in an evil manor house in the woods, still stuck in his mind. That flash of sadness at being complimented for his performance. It was heartbreaking then, and a full two years later, it still hurt to think about.

Aziraphale first heard the story, or at least parts of it, standing at the top of the steps heading from their home into the shop. The shop was closed, the door locked and the shades long drawn, but he heard voices, Crowley’s and a stranger’s, a woman’s, filtering up from between the shelves. 

“I just don’t know what to do…” said the woman, her voice thick with tears.

“Carry on,” Crowley replied. “You carry on. That’s all you can do.” There was a shuffling of fabric.

Slowly, Aziraphale crept down the steps, avoiding the creaky ones and watched covertly from behind a shelf as they spoke. 

Crowley was hugging the woman. She looked maybe 19, and terrified, her face stained with tears, eyes red-raw from crying. Crowley pulled away, but kept hold of her shoulders, stopping her from looking anywhere but at him. He looked at her fondly, with a parental sort of cast to his eyes.

“I was thrown out at 17 when I was… caught. When I was thrown out,” he said, “I had nowhere to go, no money in my pocket, no family or friends who would take me in…nothing. The one thing I did have, though, was a damn good memory.”

The woman chuckled. “A good memory?”

“Yup. Ever since I was a kid. I think I was just born that way. And I tried every job I could think of that used it, because just short of headbutting a steam engine, it couldn’t be taken from me.”

“So you became an actor.”

“So I became an actor.” He paused and shifted to take her hands in his own. Aziraphale felt tears pricking in his eyes. Crowley was also beginning to tear up, just a little. He gave her the kindest smile Aziraphale had ever seen. Crowley had a few false starts as he fought back tears, before he managed to say to her, “I was thrown out for something I was born with, and I made my name with something I was born with. Find a way to celebrate yourself, and you will survive.”

“Thank you,” the woman whispered. “I love her,” she added, her expression caught somewhere between longing and horror.

“Perhaps she loves you, too. Perhaps you can celebrate each other.” Then, he gave her a wry smile. “What have you got to lose?”

The woman chuckled. “Not much anymore, I suppose.”

“It’ll be hard, if you go to her, if you try to bring her with you.”

There was new pride in the woman’s face. “If she is willing, then it is worth it.”

Crowley smiled. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

The woman nodded.

“Angel, can you come down?” Crowley called.

Aziraphale smiled at the endearment and crossed to the front of the shop. “I’m afraid I’ve been listening a moment,” he said, somewhat guiltily. Crowley looked a bit sad, but the woman smiled. He held out his hand for her to shake, and she took it. “Aziraphale Eastgate,” he said.

The woman looked between the two of them, and her smile widened to a grin. “You two are…?”

“Quite,” Aziraphale replied. “It isn’t easy, but it’s possible.”

“How did you meet?” she asked.

Aziraphale and Crowley looked at each other for a moment, not totally sure how to answer. After Crowley shrugged, Aziraphale went with, “He wanted to buy a book from me, and things…happened.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“It’s complicated,” Crowley added.

“Very complicated,” Aziraphale emphasized. 

The woman looked between them, and with new resolve, she stood. She shook both of their hands and wiped her tears. “I must try,” she said.

“All I can ask is that you be safe,” Aziraphale said. The woman nodded, gave both of them a hopeful smile, and left the shop. The bell on the door jingled after her, and the shop was left in silence. 

Aziraphale sat beside Crowley in his usual spot, all the way to the right. “You never told me that story,” he said. Crowley was a fairly closed-off person, and to see him so vulnerable was profound. While cheerleading that woman, he saw openness in him that he hadn’t even seen in their time together. He’d felt a flash of perhaps jealousy, or frustration, but looking at the expression on Crowley’s face now, one of deep pain, he knew those feelings were selfish. Crowley wasn't hiding things from him. Crowley simply hadn't been ready to tell that story.

Crowley took his usual place, too, shifting to lay on the couch with his head in Aziraphale’s lap, feet bunched up against the opposite armrest. “Are you upset at that?”

“Heavens, no, dear.”

“Thanks.” Crowley chewed at his lip a moment, then looked up at Aziraphale. “As long as we’ve known each other, you’ve trusted me.”

“Of course, I have.”

“No, but even in… the house, you trusted me. And you called me by the right name. And you were kind to me.”

Aziraphale ran his fingers through the actor’s hair. “It’s what you deserve. You deserve trust, and kindness, and compliments.” Aziraphale paused. “My compliments make you uncomfortable, don’t they? Especially back then.”

Crowley looked away. “A bit, I suppose. I love my work, but it’s always just been a means of survival for me. I mean, it’s good that I’m good at it, and it is very special to me, but it’s always felt like a responsibility. Like I always need to work to survive, and not because I love it.” He took a deep breath. “I only ever found it because I was in pain.”

“But your work doesn’t need to be painful. It’s like you told that girl. It’s a celebration of you.”

“Oh, I just made that up for her sake. I was lucky it sounded clever.”

“My darling, we both know that isn’t true. You are clever. And talented. You helped me find my voice. I won’t dare let you go on without yours.”

Crowley looked back at Aziraphale, then, his golden eyes full of love. “Thank you.”

“You thank me a lot.”

“Well, you do a lot for me. I can’t help it.” Crowley sat up and scooted in close to Aziraphale. He took his face in his hands and smiled. “If you’re sick of me saying 'thank you' all the time, though, I can think of a few other ways to show my appreciation.”

And as Crowley closed the gap between them, and covered Aziraphale’s lips with his own, Aziraphale realized, finally, that he wouldn’t have to settle for dreams anymore. At least for a little while, he wouldn’t have to “make do.”

He could simply…be.