Work Text:
He starts with Sense & Sensibility.
Every bookshop in London suddenly wakes on a Monday morning to find that stock of the book is missing. Shipments sunk. Warehouses on fire. Paperbacks mysteriously vanish from shelves.
Bootleg copies on the internet are wiped, and Amazon suddenly experiences a weird fault where the audiobook files are all erased. All very peculiar…
Crowley is leaving Waterstones Piccadilly (the sprinkler system just malfunctioned and destroyed the classics section in a freak accident, such a pity) when he starts to ponder why he started with that particular volume of Jane Austen’s works - coming to the conclusion that he has simply lost all sense, and is fresh out of sensibility. He wants to be done with feelings for at least the next millennia if he can possibly avoid them, thank you very much.
He then moves onto Emma. Meddlesome wench. What right did she have to stick her nose into other people’s business like that? To go around and convince people of feelings that weren’t there. To make them hope.
If she had been real, she’d definitely be downstairs with the demons. No doubt about it.
It’s when he’s obliterated Mansfield Park off the face of existence (and realises that no one even noticed the loss of that one) that he wonders whether this is working. This act of defiance. Rebellion. Pettiness. Because this emptiness doesn’t feel like the haughty demonic indifference he’s trying to give off but still feels rather a lot like lingering devastation…
Persuasion is a particular gift of his, so he sees to it that the novel is swiftly dispatched to see if that gets things back on track. It doesn’t.
Crowley feels a slight twinge of sadness at the loss of Northanger Abbey - he’s always been partial to a dash of the Gothic - when he realises there is only one book left on the list.
Pride and bloody Prejudice.
The one that started it all.
Crowley slips into the nearest second hand bookshop - a poor deserted little place - and sighs as he handles a copy of the cursed book as if it were doused in holy water.
“Look, it’s nothing personal Jane-y. You know I rate your work as a smuggler very highly. But I just can’t fucking stand to look at you and remember.”
“So that’s why you’re doing this then?”
Crowley spins around with the speed of a child who has been caught with their hand in the biscuit tin. Aziraphale is standing in the shop door assessing him. Eyes full of judgement, presumably.
“Doing what, angel?” A childish comeback, Crowley knows. But sometimes denial is a classic go-to for a reason. Can help bury a myriad of hurts.
“Obliterating dear Jane off the face of the Earth it seems.”
“I’m a terrible, fallen demon of Hell - am I not? Isn’t destroying things what I’m supposed to do? Fairly sure it’s what you get taught on your first day of demon school in between ‘Being A Fallen Angel: 101’ and ‘How to raise hell on earth for dummies. ”
“What are you doing, Crowley?”
“I told you. Being evil. Passing the time. Burning books. The usual. Nothing that would warrant a visit from the Supreme Archangel himself so off you trot on your merry way.” He tries to make the title sound like a dirty word as he waves his hand dismissively and leans against a nearby stack.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Which bit?”
“The evil part.”
“Well I guess you do know best now don’t you. The new job came with the perk of always being right, did it?” he spits the words out, disdain dripping from every syllable.
“That’s not fair.”
“There is a lot that is not fair in this world, Aziraphale.”
“Well, even if that were the case I don’t understand why poor Jane is having to suffer for it.”
“Because I can’t stand it!” Crowley explodes, flinging the book across the room violently.
“Every time I look at those damn books or see an adaptation on the goddamn telly it makes me want to rain down hellfire and bring about the apocalypse again so I don’t ever have to think of you or us or what might have been ever again.”
Crowley is breathing heavily, as if he just ran a marathon. And Aziraphale doesn’t do anything. His only reaction is a single, infuriating flinch.
“I wanted to hurt you. By taking something you loved away from this world. Just like you did to me when you left .”
Silence is such a weighty thing. Really takes up space in a room until there is no oxygen left and you can’t breathe, which is particularly disconcerting when you technically don’t really need to in an immortal yet corporeal form.
Without saying a word, Aziraphale moves to pick up the discarded paperback and holds it gingerly, flicking through the first few pages. “You know, Pride is a Sin. A deadly one at that.”
Crowley has a witty retort on the tip of his once-forked tongue about the ridiculousness of an angel lecturing a demon on sin when Aziraphale suddenly takes a step closer, “Some say it comes before the Fall.”
And in one fluid motion Aziraphale goes from being impossibly far away to pressing his lips against Crowley’s as he pushes him against the stacks.
The kiss is hard and soft and full of betrayal and longing and hurt and hope. It’s confusing and it’s wonderful. And Crowley knows it has the power to destroy them both if they aren’t careful.
He breaks the kiss and turns his back on his once dear friend, holding the back of his hand to his mouth where his lips still tingle with possibility and promise.
“What is this, angel? What torture are you devising for me now?”
“Oh Crowley dear boy, that’s not what this is.”
“Well explain it to me then. Because as far as I can tell nothing has changed since our last ill-fated encounter in a bloody bookshop.”
Aziraphale sighs, “I simply realised quite early on that it couldn’t be Heaven if I wasn’t with you.”
It takes a beat to register quite what he’s saying, and Crowley wonders if this is what the humans mean when they say time can stop in moments like this.
“I could have told you that. Fairly sure I did in fact.”
Tears begin to run down Aziraphale’s angelic face. “Is there any way for you to forgive a fool who made a mess of the first proposal? Will you give me a second chance now that I have gotten over my own prejudice and folly?”
Crowley moves forward until he is close enough to cradle Aziraphale’s face with his hand. “I thought I made it clear the first time, angel. My affections and wishes have not changed. I never wish to be parted from you, from this day on.”
Later as they walked back to a certain bookshop in Soho that evening hand in hand, Aziraphale was struck with a sudden gut-wrenching fear.
“Crowley, it will be possible to restore Jane Austen back to her former glory won’t it? Or is that something I will have to bear responsibility for over the course of our eternity?”
“For you, I’ll think about it. But I’m leaving Mansfield Park. Hardly seems worth the use of a miracle.”