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“It was the day my grandmother exploded,” Muriel read, cheerfully, only to frown once they worked out what that meant. What? Were explosions still a thing? Muriel thought they’d all stopped around a million years after the Beginning. To think humans knew of primordial events – galaxies colliding, gases coalescing and erupting into something ethereal, the whole shebang. Muriel hadn’t been there in person, but they’d heard all about it. It sounded cool.
Cool was a rather nifty human word. They’d picked up on Mr Crowley using it once or twice. He was the one who’d given them this book about explosions. Quite a cool person himself, despite being a demon now. Muriel thought he was handling that rather well. They didn’t know how they’d ever survive down there, with the blood and gore and eternal fire and general abundance of Bad Things.
“I sat in the crematorium – wow, that’s a scandalous choice! – listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B Minor.” They had run into Unintelligible-Humanity-Specific-Reference One. No matter, they would just underline it so they would remember to look it up afterwards.
Muriel had reached the word ‘Nike’ (Unintelligible-Humanity-Specific-Reference Eleven), when a familiar red hue moving down the street caught their eye. Mr Crowley. Well, he was back jolly soon! Was he here to check on Muriel’s progress with the book he’d given them? They flushed, embarrassed that they’d only remembered to start it twenty minutes ago. They’d been far too busy the past couple days, conducting incognito reconnaissance of their surroundings, which involved walking down the street and trying not to make eye contact with the humans present.
“Mister Crowley!” they called from the front door. “Do come in!”
He spun around for a split second, and then turned himself towards his car, keeping his head down.
“Mister Crowley, I can see you’re there,” Muriel said.
Mr Crowley seemed to give in and strutted over. A few books fell off their shelves as he stepped into the shop. “What d’you want.”
“Well.” Muriel pondered this. “I just wanted to say hello to you. You did so kindly recommend me this book.” They presented the book. “The thing is… I’m not sure what eleven words mean so far. And I didn’t know explosions weren’t classified information anymore,” they added in a whisper.
Mr Crowley took his time to reply. Though his eyes were shrouded by his signature sunglasses, Muriel could swear they were sweeping across the bookshop, lingering on the dust-lined bookcases, the cosy wingback chairs, the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.
“Right.” He snatched the book from Muriel’s hands, the spine cracked open on his palm. “So, what d’we have here, Bach – hang on, did you underline this?”
“Yes!” Muriel smiled. “I thought it was a clever way for me to remember all the words I didn’t know.”
“In pen?”
Muriel’s smile became strained. “Is that what it’s called?”
There had been a fascinating object sitting on the desk when they’d come in; a short, thin rod with a golden nib, that emitted ink from its tip. It had excited Muriel greatly.
Mr Crowley’s lips thinned. When he spoke, he sounded scary. “He wouldn’t have liked that.”
It wasn’t like Muriel had had the opportunity to interact with him much, but the Mr Crowley they were used to didn’t at all sound grave or serious or forbidding. It was one of the reasons they liked him. A muck up in Heaven would have them severely reprimanded. A muck up in front of Mr Crowley would have them severely made fun of, but it felt good. It felt like having a friend, almost.
“I’m sorry,” Muriel said, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t mean to mess around with Supreme Archangel Aziraphale’s property.”
Mr Crowley’s lips trembled momentarily, and Muriel would have convinced themself they had imagined it, were it not for the sudden gust of grief that tore through the quiet bookshop. They gasped. It felt like they weren’t seeing the world quite correctly – the colours seemed duller, somehow, but there was a great deal of anger, regret, hatred, and heartsickness to compensate.
When Aziraphale does come back, I think we need a little us time. After all this, I think we are going for an extremely alcoholic breakfast at the Ritz.
Muriel hadn’t known it ran so deep.
“Mister Crowley,” they murmured. “Would you like a cup of tea? To drink?”
He stood there, holding himself a jot too tightly, keeping his expression a jot too plain. “Yeah, why not,” he said.
It ended with Mr Crowley having to make it, as Muriel wasn’t acquainted with a ‘kettle’ of any sort and had absolutely no clue where one might find a bag of tea. It turned out that teabags could not possibly be sold at bag-shops, as they were far too small to fetch any profit. Also, you couldn’t open them to keep things inside which seemed to defeat the purpose of a bag. Mr Crowley later informed them that the bags contained broken tea leaves.
“You know this shop quite well,” Muriel commented, impressed at Mr Crowley’s dexterity with the kitchenette. They froze, then, noticing they’d just said something supremely stupid. Mr Crowley had probably spent a good deal of time in the bookshop.
Mr Crowley said nothing. He methodically placed the teacups on their saucers and gently blew over the top of them.
They drank them in silence on squashy armchairs. Muriel watched Mr Crowley carefully as he sipped on the drink.
“The last time I was here without him,” he began, suddenly, “I told Gabriel to jump out of a window and then made him hot chocolate. The time before that, this place was on fire and I thought he was dead.”
Muriel winced. “Fire? That doesn’t sound nice.”
“It wasn’t,” Mr Crowley said, quietly. “They won’t stop taking him away. From me.”
A heavy sadness came to rest on Muriel’s shoulders, like snowfall. It didn’t feel like it had originated from Mr Crowley. They didn’t have a word for it, but it was their own.
Mr Crowley guzzled down what was left of his tea and stood. He affected his usual bored drawl. “Spiffing chat. Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to fuck off.”
“Wait!” Muriel said, before he could run off. “Can I visit you?”
He snorted, humourlessly. “And why would you do that?”
“To chat!”
He gave them an incredulous look. “Sure. ‘Course. We’ll chat.” With a click of his fingers, he was out the door, bell tinkling after him. When Muriel next caught sight of their hand, it had an address written on it. As an afterthought, Mr Crowley had included “Never use pen in those books again or I’ll tell the entire street you’re not really a bookseller”. That was enough warning for Muriel.
It was a challenge, pressing on the doorbell with five different things in their hands, but Muriel proudly managed it. They heard several muffled power chords reverberate in the apartment, and then Mr Crowley was there.
“Happy birthday!” Muriel cried, shoving a cake in his face.
“It’s not my birthday,” Mr Crowley said, dumbfounded, then remembered himself with a shake of his head. “It’s never my birthday. I’m immortal. It’s – it’s the second of June, why in the name of Satan would it be my birthday?”
“I thought it would be nice to celebrate it,” Muriel said, grinning. “You’ve been on Earth for so long, yet you haven’t gotten the chance to celebrate a birthday, I think. It’s about time!”
Mr Crowley looked Muriel up and down. They’d tied three helium balloons each to their wrists, and had swapped their usual police inspector sergeant hat for a cone-shaped party hat. All in all, they felt satisfied with their research. “All right, get in before you go levitating up, up and away, you maniac.”
Muriel hurried in, still grinning in joy, and searched for a surface to put down the cake. What they found in Mr Crowley’s apartment was one tiny table littered with an army of glass bottles, most of them empty. Using what little miraculous power they possessed, they set the cake in the air.
They lifted up a bottle. “Were you getting drunk?”
“Try putting less emphasis on the K next time.”
Muriel crossed their arms. “Were you?”
Mr Crowley huffed in irritation. “Yes, I was. I have to tell you, it’s much less fun without him. Can’t stop crying, actually.”
Muriel frowned in concern and dropped their arms. Mr Crowley noticed this and scoffed.
“Don’t worry yourself about me. I’m being maudlin. Terribly human trait. Should’ve left this place when I had the chance.”
“Why didn’t you?” Muriel asked. They were genuinely curious. Why in the world would a demon refuse Heaven, when it was the best you could get?
Mr Crowley fell into a conveniently placed leather seat and exhaled through pursed lips. And like he’d read Muriel’s mind, he said, “Because Heaven isn’t Good. They say they are and they probably believe it too. But Good never meant exploiting your power. It never meant… ordering an angel to die because he refused to take part in ending the world. It never meant mercilessly killing people over and over again just because someone told them it was a jolly fine plan.”
“Heaven doesn’t… kill people,” Muriel said, defensively.
“Heaven doesn’t give a toss about people,” replied Mr Crowley, darkly. “But what am I doing, trying to convince an angel? It’s a losing game.”
Muriel hesitated. They couldn’t detect a hint of bitterness in his tone. Initially, they’d thought he might have made himself believe these uncharitable things about Heaven because he’d lost to it. He didn’t sound like he was thinking about that right now, though. He sounded… angry at wrongs committed.
They glanced at the table. “What if I got drunk with you instead of you getting drunk alone?”
The anger was shocked off of Mr Crowley’s face. “What?”
Muriel brightened, convinced of the ingenuity behind this idea. “Yes!” They marched into the kitchen, grabbed the first bottle they saw, and walked back out.
“That’s vodka,” Mr Crowley said, and watched as Muriel proceeded to chug it.
The following hour found Mr Crowley wearing a party hat of his own and sobbing onto his slice of cake.
“I shouldn’t have left it so – hic – late!” he moaned, the tip of his nose catching some chocolate icing. “It’s all meaningless without him. Six thousand years, I’ve spent – hic loving him, and I wasted them all. Oh, Muriel, I should have kissed him in Rome! In the kingdom of Wessex! In Paris! Maybe then, he – hic – would have chosen me.”
“They refuse to promote me!” Muriel wept alongside him, verging on hysterical. “For centuries I have given them everything as a scrivener of the thirty-seventh order and what do I get back? Nothing! And then, suddenly, ooh, we think you’re sooo important and useful to us, Muriel, why don’t you go run a bookshop in London while we do all the important work?”
“Bastards, the lot of them,” Mr Crowley agreed.
Muriel shared a teary-eyed smile with him. “Happy birthday, Mister Crowley.”
He sighed, leaning back into his chair. “Sometimes, I wondered when my birthday would be if I had one. Seems silly. But nice. To make a big deal out of some little things.”
Muriel thought they probably nodded. They were beginning to feel quite warm and sleepy.
In the morning, they found themselves on a large, comfortable leather couch, wrapped in a blanket. It smelled like the bookshop.
The next time Mr Crowley visited the bookshop, he taught Muriel how to use the telephone very flippantly, as if they’d asked him to. He left his number written in pencil on a ‘post-it note’. Then he had to explain what a post-it note was.
He seemed to regret this decision, once Muriel began calling him twelve times a day on average.
“Will you stop shouting!” he yelled in his tinny telephone voice. “The lovely thing about technology is that you can use your inside voice and the person on the other end can still make out what you’re saying! Isn’t that just fab?”
“Sorry,” Muriel whispered. “But I’m in a bit of an emergency. There’s a… person.”
“A person?”
“A human person. She says she’s from next door? And she’s wondering what happened to a Mister Fell? I assume she’s talking about–”
“Oh, that’ll be the records one. Quick, is she blonde?”
Muriel turned and peered at the woman outside the shop. She waved to them.
“Affirmative.”
“Yeah, all right then.”
There was a pause.
“What?”
“What do I tell her?”
“Phwoar, I dunno. Whatever you like.”
“Can I tell the truth? Only I’m so good at doing that.”
“Go for it.”
Muriel carefully put down the receiver and opened the door with their sunniest smile. “Hello! Welcome to A. Z. Fell and Co.! I don’t think we sell books, but I can make you a cup of tea to drink?” They knew what a kettle was now.
“You’re a darling, thanks,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Maggie, by the way.”
“Muriel,” said Muriel. “That’s my name.”
Maggie studied them with interest. “Are you part of that Heaven lot?”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” cried Muriel in relief. “Someone who gets it! It’s such a chore having to act like a human all the time. It’s exhausting, how do you people possibly keep it up all day?”
Maggie shrugged. “Comes with practice.”
She didn’t seem surprised when Muriel confessed that Aziraphale had been summoned by Heaven to assume the role of Supreme Archangel. The part that surprised her was that he’d accepted the job.
“That’s not like him at all!” she said, red-faced. “He wouldn’t just up and leave Mister Crowley all on his own!”
Muriel chewed on their lip. The revelations they’d been forced to have about their workplace, and well, entire identity as an angel were less than pleasant. To think badly of a choice that the acting Supreme Archangel had made felt like treason. But whenever Mr Crowley let that insouciant facade crack the slightest bit, to reveal the hurt within, they felt only anger on his behalf.
“I think. It’s complicated. Angels and demons… both sides are… indoctrinated.” They squeezed their eyes closed and waited to be consumed by Hellfire. Nothing happened, and Maggie was still sat there, listening patiently. They sheepishly continued, “I think Supreme Archangel Aziraphale temporarily believes his duties to Heaven are more important than his relationship with Mister Crowley.”
Maggie sighed. “Let’s hope it’s temporary. Those two silly buggers deserve to be happy.” She took a sip of her tea and her eyes widened. “This is quite nice actually. Is it chamomile?”
Muriel couldn’t stop the smile that fought its way onto her face. “Yes! Isn’t it delicious? I’m so happy you like it!”
“You should let Nina try some! She’s the real tea pro. She owns the coffee shop opposite you.” Maggie was nice. When she smiled, her cheeks got little dimples. “Tell you what, why don’t you and Mister Crowley come by hers this week? Drinks on me.”
Thrilled by the invitation, Muriel phoned Mr Crowley straight away, after exchanging goodbyes with Maggie. They hoped he’d share in their joy. It would be just the thing to bring him back to himself again, they thought.
“Listen, Muriel.” And that was when the first alarm bells started ringing. Because Mr Crowley sounded deadly serious, enunciating each word with an energy they’d never seen in him. “I appreciate it, but I can’t. Not now. Not for a while. You need to understand.”
And somehow, the same crushing aura that had enveloped the bookstore that first day came surging up through the telephone connection, defying all laws of – everything. Only it felt stronger. So strong, in fact, that Muriel couldn’t move for a good thirty seconds, frozen in Mr Crowley’s debilitating misery.
“I can’t see you either,” he said. “It’s best if you leave me alone for some time.”
Muriel didn’t think. They threw down the receiver and scrounged for the vestiges of power that lay buried within them, no matter how miniscule they were. And the moment that miracle was within their reach, they shut their eyes and disappeared from the bookshop to land in Mr Crowley’s car.
He was quietly shaking in the front seat, face as white as a sheet. He didn’t even look up when Muriel hurriedly clambered forward from the passenger seats. He accepted their hug so easily, letting himself be wrapped tightly in someone else’s arms, even though Muriel knew they weren’t the person he wanted that from. It didn’t matter, because Muriel was the one who had shown up, and they held him as he cried into their shoulder.
Mr Crowley started coming over to the shop twice a week to read books with Muriel. It was difficult at first, since he insisted on having his loud rock playlists on in the background while they read, but Muriel didn’t mind, really, because spending time with Mr Crowley was cool as Fuck (try not to emphasise the K).
“Lady… Gaga,” Muriel read, squinting at the magazine. “Is she a child? You know, like, goo goo ga ga, that stuff.”
Mr Crowley frowned. “Good question. I’ve got no idea why she's called that.” He put it into Google. Muriel wished they had Google, but had been hard-pressed to find a single hint of twenty-first century technology in Mr Aziraphale’s bookshop. “You’re joking. She was inspired by a Queen song? That’s wicked.”
Maggie had accidentally popped in on one of their rock-slash-reading days once, wanting to have a quick catch-up with Muriel. It made Muriel giddy that actual humans liked them enough to want to have a catch-up.
“Oh, are you guys having a party! Why didn’t you say so!” She had paused, concentrating on the music playing. “Foo Fighters? That’ll be your taste, Mister Crowley.”
“Not sure Muriel’s jamming it out to Everlong yet, but I’m still holding out hope,” he had said.
So now, Maggie and Nina joined them whenever they could. On occasion, the gentleman from the comic book store would stop by too, because of course he was a classical rock fan, and he would sometimes bring along the man who owned the magic shop. And Mr Crowley could complain all he wanted about being forced into joining a veritable book club – Muriel knew he very secretly, in the deep, shadowy depths of his heart, was having a good time. Mostly.
They knew he still loved Mr Aziraphale. It wasn’t a love that could be replaced or forgotten about. To Muriel, it seemed like a love people would write stories about. Long, convoluted stories of epic proportions that Muriel wouldn’t be able to understand.
Mr Crowley had never mentioned whether he thought Mr Aziraphale would ever come back. They didn’t know how much he thought about it. But if someone were to ask Muriel, they’d definitely get a yes. From personal experience, they could confirm that Mr Crowley was a much more compelling option than Heaven.