Work Text:
January 10th 1900
Aziraphale was certainly peculiar, anyone who'd ever met them would be aware of that.
Part of his peculiar personality was his tendency to, seemingly out of nowhere, develop borderline obsessive interests for somewhat random things. Some of these obsessions lasted weeks, some lasted years and some even lasted decades at a time. Books (and everything that had even the least association to literature of any sort, for that matter) had been a overarching interest of his since he first got placed on earth. The late victorian era had always been one of his favourite years for literature and authors thereof, Oscar Wilde, The Brontës, Charles Dickens.
Of course he didn’t limit himself to only reading literature of the english language, even people like Gustave Flaubert or Selma Lagerlöf were some of his favourites, but there was always one he had liked more than any other. Arthur Conan Doyle. One late evening in England, Aziraphale had attended a dinner party with Doyle and a few other authors and playwrights who were very known at the time. Officially, he had been there as entertainment, playing the role of a magician (although this never quite seemed to go quite to plan. Oh well, at least he wasn’t a childrens entertainer) Really, he had been there to make sure everything was all and well, perform some miracles, and then leave. But, while there he’d started a wonderful conversation with an author about the book they were trying to publish ‘A study in scarlet’, a detective story. Aziraphale was immediately intrigued.
He loved Edgar Allan Poe, and detective stories in general, for as much as he loved a good mystery, he didn’t like mortals getting hurt, so fiction was a nice way to get the mystery of a crime without the actual harming of mortals. Some mortals choose to describe books as ‘high stakes’ or ‘low stakes’, but for any immortal being, any book could only be described as ‘no stakes’. Unless of course you were talking about the bible, which was not particularly thrilling for any immortal being to read. Angels because they’d lived through everything in it, and demons because they wouldn’t actually be able to get to the interesting bits before combusting upon touching the book (not being able to open a book usually being quite detrimental to ones enjoyment of said book).
Either way, Aziraphale was immediately enamoured by the fictional detective that was Sherlock Holmes. He'd read the first story eagerly, utilised his literary connections to help Arthur get it published, and then promptly read all stories that followed. The light blue first edition hardcover of ‘The adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ was one of the most precious books in his entire collection. Crowley, of course, knew about this. Aziraphale tried not to talk all too excessively about his interests, but at the end of the day, he knew Crowley didn’t mind, or at the very least, pretended she didn't.
November 10th, 1900
Aziraphale was sitting in a sofa in the very back of his bookshop, the steam of a hot cup of tea warming his hand as he reached over it to light the candle that stood in the middle of the table in front of him. It was quite a cozy setup he'd built for himself, a little wooden table infront of one of his store windows to place his cocoa, and, right infront of it, a beige sort of small sofa with an assortment of different pillows and blankets on top of it. Stacks and stacks of unarranged books where standing on the floor of the shop, waiting to be organized by Aziraphale. Crowley was sitting next to her on the sofa.
‘And you’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘’Course not. You blabber away as much as you’d like. I don't mind.’
Aziraphale had lit the candle now, and was about to blow out the flame but then promptly remembered the demon sitting next to him draped over the sofa. He reached over and lit the cigarette the demon had in his hand with the remainder of the matchstick, then blew it out. ‘Ah, thank you Angel.’
‘No worries my dear.’
Crowley could of course miracle the cigarette alight herself, but the curtains were open, and Aziraphale didn’t want to raise suspicion. Aziraphale already stuck out quite a lot in modern victorian society as it was. Not only were they behind fashion wise by a few decades, but they were also plagued by what they would call ‘Indecisiveness’.
Angels and Demons had the option to take on whatever form they wanted when they were placed on earth. They only had one body, one heart, one brain, but they could modify all the exterior (and, to an extent, interior) physical aspects of their human vessels perfectly to their liking. However, Aziraphale was indecisive. Crowley usually just did a coinflip on whether she should wear masculine or feminine clothing if he one day couldn’t decide, (sometimes he dropped the coin and decided on neither), but it wasn’t quite as easy for Aziraphale, leading her to either look bit like a particularly flamboyant historical figure from a few centuries ago, or a particularly masculine woman from a few centuries ago, depending on what day you visited the bookshop. Sometimes she got lucky, and was described by most people as looking 'a tad silly', but that is to be expected of the owner of any antique bookshop with strange opening hours.
‘Soooo. This Arthur guy. What’s he up to right about now.’
‘Oh yes, him. You see, he told me he was going to start writing again soon, but he didn’t really have any ideas, you know it’s so hard to come up with original concepts these days and..’ Crowley wasn’t listening anymore, Aziraphales voice trailing off in his head as he thought about how he could adequately repay the Angel for the gift he’d given her a few months prior.
Aziraphale was in the habit of giving Crowley these little gifts, little trinkets that she thought the Demon might take a liking to. And he always did, not only because they were very specific things she was sure he’d only mentioned once before, or things he didn’t even have to vocalise for the angel to understand their interest in, but because it came from a genuine place of caring on Aziraphales part. He knew he shouldn’t like it, really, but she couldn’t help herself. Either way, now she was trying to figure out and adequate way to repay the angel for his gifts.
He knew he had to give him something related to Sherlock Holmes in one way or another, that was inevitable. She would have given him tickets to go see the first ever theatre production of Sherlock Holmes, but they’d already seen it about 5 times, 4 of which were in the company of The Demon. Trying to explain to heaven and hell respectively why they had miracled their way around to New York five days in a row was no easy task for either of them, and although Aziraphale didn’t like lying, he found that it was very much worth it in this particular case. He suddenly felt something burning his hand, and quickly realised the cigarette had burned all the way down, now leaving him with the still alight end of it in his hand. She blew over it gently, and the cigarette immediately restored itself to it’s previous form. She took a drag from it, and brushed some cigarette ash off his black trousers.
‘Crowley!’
‘What?’
Aziraphale scoffed.
‘I so hate it when you do that. The window is open! Anyone could have seen you-’
Crowley waved a hand vaguely at Aziraphale.
‘Oh alright, calm down Angel.’
Aziraphale scoffed.
‘Of course you’d say that.’
‘Anyway, what was it you were talking about? The uhm- Gilette something?’
‘Yes! Doyle didn’t even get to write his own play but Gillette also-’
Crowley still wasn’t listening though. She needed to find something to give Aziraphale. Suddenly, and idea came to him. He knew what to give her.
‘-Can’t even imagen it. Right dear?’
‘What? Oh yeah. Yes. Yes of course.’
Aziraphale looked at her suspiciously.
‘You don’t seem to be very attenti-’
‘Sorry Angel I’ve got to go now. Uhm. Have to.. feed..my plants and.. Stuff.’
‘Feed? Your plants?’
Crowley stood up from his place on the sofa, clumsily making his way through the piles of books stacked on top of eachother around the bookshop, being very careful not to knock any of them over.
‘Uh, yeah. Feed my plants.’
‘Alright uhm- Bye then!’
But Crowley was already out the door.
She took a drag of the cigarette still in her hand, quickly walking down the cold streets of London to her apartment.
January 10th 1900
Aziraphale was sitting at his desk in the bookshop, reading and smoking avidly from a golden cigarette holder, a clearly very carefully made snake etching making it’s way around the pen like shape. Aziraphale usually didn’t smoke, but he couldn’t help picking up the beautiful cigarette holder when he saw it in a thriftshop. He immidiatly had an image in his head. It took a few years to build up the courage to ask Crowley to etch the snake into it, but when it was done, it was beautiful. He didn’t smoke often, but when he did it was only as an excuse to use the beautiful thing.
Suddenly, the door of his bookshop opened, a darkly cled slim shape making it’s way into the bookshop. Aziraphale looked up.
‘Oh, hello Crowley. I thought you had an appointment with that demon fellow today?’
‘Nope. Rescheduled.’
The demon shrugged off his long black coat and threw it casually on the sofa in the bookshop as he made his way towards Aziraphales desk.
‘Oh Crowley.’
Aziraphale said, and Crowley sighed and took his coat from the sofa, hanging it up neatly on the coat rack next to the entrance.
‘Better?’
Aziraphale smiled a little.
‘Much better. Thank you dear.’
Crowley walked towards the desk and sat down on it, sitting on the left of Aziraphale, only barely avoiding knocking over the small stack of books next to her. She now saw the cigarette holder resting in Aziraphales left hand.
‘Ha. Didn’t know you smoked, Angel. You never told me. And from this too.’
Crowley took the holder out of Aziraphales hand, looking over the design on it he’d made so many decades ago.
‘Well it’s-..it’s-’’
‘You said it was a gift for a friend. Not that I mind you using it. I did spend a lot of time on it.’
Crowley took a drag from it. Aziraphale watched.
‘Well I..I.. uhm.’
‘You?’
Smoke poured out of Crowleys mouth as she said it, and the yet another puff of tobacco smell filled the air around them. Smoking was of course not particularly good for ones health, although this fact hadn’t yet been realised by most mortals. And although Aziraphale knew it was bad, inappropriate, even, he couldn’t quite help watching Crowley as he lifted the golden holder to his mouth once again. She looked so.. elegant, was quite a fitting word. He had long hair now, long enough to fall down her shoulders in a sort of majestic red waterfall. Yet another cloud of smoke rose from Crowleys mouth to the ceiling of the book shop, tilting his head upward, then turned her head to make eyecontact with The Angel. Aziraphale had to physically stop himself from saying antyhing that would be considered particularly undecorous for one friend to say to another, espacially in this century.
‘I..I simply forgot. Best not to let it go to waste though isn’t it?’
‘Mmhhm. Of course.’
Crowley held eyecontact with Aziraphale as he placed the holder back into their left hand, and the Angel blinked a few times.
‘Uhm, I, yes.’ He stood up, admittedly a little flustered, and rushed towards the back of the shop, breaking eyecontact with The Demon. ‘Anyway, dear boy, do you want anything? Some sort of pastry perhaps? I made croissants earlier today, perhaps you‘d like one?‘
‘Oh, sure. I- hrm, I did- actually come here to give you this.’ Aziraphale turned around from the cabinet he was rooting through, coming back to Crowley, who was now standing in the doorway of the bookshops backroom. He was then promptly handed a first edition of ‘A study in scarlet’, signed ‘To a dear friend - A. C Doyle’. Aziraphale was quite sure he ascended, although even that was quite an understatement. He might’ve had contact with Doyle during the years, but he never quite worked up the courage to ask him to sign anything for him.
‘Oh. I.. Crowley..’
The demon shifted nervously from one foot to the other, already feeling the control of her voice slip, it always did when they got nervous.
‘I’m ssssorry I didn’t check if you already had one in advanccced, if you do I can-’
Aziraphale looked into Crowleys eyes, and promptly put the book down onto the countertop next to him. They took one of Crowleys cold hands in both of their own.
‘Thank you, Crowley.’
‘Oh well I.. It was easssy really- I mean I-’
‘I appreciate it. Very much.’
‘You’re- Uhm- You’re welcome. I did plan something bigger, but things didn’t exactly work out as I expected them to.’
Aziraphale had now picked the book back up and was examining it absentmindedly.
‘Something even bigger? Now I’m certainly curious as to what you had in mind.’
Crowley walked into the room, and opened one of the cabinets inside it to take out one of the croissants Aziraphale had made.
‘Ah well It’s nothing to worry about really.’
She took a bite of the croissant.
Unlike most things Crowley told Aziraphale not to worry about, this actually was nothing to worry about. Crowleys big idea to surprise his Angel had been unachievable, even for an occult being. She had sent Arthur Conan Doyle a letter reading something along the lines of:
‘Dear Arthur,
I have a fellow who’s very dear to me who has somewhat of an obsession with Mister Sherlock Holmes. I know you have a very close relation to him, and I was wondering if I could perhaps set up a meeting between the two? My friend isn’t a very avid talker, so it is very much acceptable if Mister Holmes doesn’t utter a word while they’re meeting, my friend would still be very appreciative of his time.
Please do respond as soon as you humanly can,
-A. J Crowley.’
In conclusion, he might not have been listening to Aziraphale as avidly as he thought he was. And the letter he received back is something along the lines of:
‘Dear A. J Crowley,
I’ve read your letter, and I’m not trying to make you feel daft in any way, since it is a mistake made by many people and although I hate to shatter your hopes, Sherlock Holmes is, in fact, not real. So although it is quite impossible for me to give you a personal meeting with him, I can give you a signed first edition copy of ‘A study in scarlet’ which I’m sure your friend will appreciate very much. Correspond with an adress towards which I can send you the book and I promise to do so ‘as soon as humanly possible’.
- A. C Doyle
P. S, you certainly do have a very peculiar name.’