Chapter Text
The bell over the door rang as Maggie entered the bookshop of A.Z. Fell. Tall shelves crowded together, filled with books in every shape and size, from volumes that might crumble at a touch, to crisp new paperbacks. The scent of fresh brewed tea and hot chocolate infused the air, noticeable under the faint mustiness common to all used book shops. Books even filled the armchair, piled so high nobody could possibly sit down. A casual observer might theorize that the person who owned this shop didn’t want the customers to get too comfortable. Up to a week ago, they would have been correct.
Maggie glanced around, but didn’t see Mr. Fell anywhere. It wasn’t like him to be gone for long. He might keep the shop open as haphazard hours, but he was always there all the same. It almost seemed like he lived in his shop. But nobody on Whickber Street at seen the pale haired, eternally rumpled proprietor in a week. Instead, a short young person with dark hair stood against one of the bookshelves, reading.
“Hello? Is Mr. Fell in?” Maggie called out.
The young person yelped and dropped their book.
“Oh! Hello! What are you doing here? Come to buy a book, have you? Well, of course you have. This is a bookshop after all. Funny little things, aren’t they, books?”
“No, thank you. I just came to ask after Mr. Fell. Do you have any when he’ll be back?” Maggie smiled placidly at the stranger.
“Haven’t you heard the good news? Mr. Fell has taken a job back in Heaven!”
Ah. Another angel. Probably one of the angels in the shop when all of that strangeness happened last week. Maggie did not know what to do with the knowledge that her landlord was an angel, and more than she knew how to wait for Nina across the street to start a relationship.
“That’s very nice for him, I suppose. Do you have any idea when he will be back?”
“Back?” The grin slipped from the angel’s face. “Why would he be coming back?”
“Well, his shop is here,” Maggie said in the tone of someone pointing out a truth so obvious it shouldn’t even need to be said. “And he wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye, now would he? That wouldn’t be very nice.”
“Oh, right! Well, I’m running the shop now,” the angel said. “And I haven’t heard anything about him coming back. I’m sure somebody would have told me.” They paused. “Well, actually, no, I suppose they wouldn’t. But I’ve been here for a whole week. Just me and the books. In the bookshop. Which I run now. A human bookshop.” The angel bent to pick up the book they had dropped when Maggie came in. They dusted it off, leaving a smudge on their dress sleeve. “Somebody wanted a book yesterday. They tried to – pay me? Is that the word? -- but I’ve never used human money before or those little plastic cards and I may have panicked a bit so I gave it to them for free.” They tried to stick the book back onto a random shelf, failed, and gingerly lay it on top of the other books. “Do you think that was alright?” She looked at Maggie which a desperate sort of hope.
“You poor dear! Did Mr. Fell really leave you here without any instructions at all?”
“Oh, it’s fine! I’m used to working on my own.” The angel smiled like a porcelain tea cup faced with a charging bull — brittle, and on the verge of breaking entirely.
“That may be, but there’s nothing wrong with asking for a little help. Is there anything I can do?”
“That would be wonderful, thank you!” The angel radiated relief. “It’s just that I’ve never really spent any time on earth before this, so I’m really in a bit over my head. Not that I can’t handle this! I’m very grateful that the Metatron entrusted me with it.”
Maggie didn’t ask who the Metatron was. She suspected she didn’t want to know. “Alright. I’ll come around after I close up shop for the day. We’ll get you sorted out.”
The angel clasped their hands together fervently. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I can’t tell you how much this means to me, uh….”
“Maggie,” she offered, holding out her hand for a shake. “And you are..?”
“Oh, right, of course! I’m Muriel!”
“Well, Muriel, if you need anything in the meantime, I’ll just be over in the record shop next door, alright?” Maggie gestured vaguely in the direction of the shop.
Before she turned to go, Maggie asked one last question. “And Mr. Crowley, I assume he went to Heaven as well?”
“Mr. Crowley? You mean the demon?” Muriel furrowed their brow. “No, no I don’t think he did.”
“I see. Thank you, Muriel.”
Maggie walked out of the shop more worried than when she’d entered. Mr. Crowley had seemed so receptive when she and Nina told him to talk to Mr. Fell about how he felt. And it was clear that Mr. Fell felt the same way. She had a very bad feeling about this whole situation.
#
Nina wiped off her perfectly clear counter for the twentieth time and scowled at the afternoon lull. Only a handful of customers remained, spread around Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death with their single cups of coffee or plates of eccles cakes while they stared at their laptops. Without a stream of customers to keep her busy, she had time to think. And Nina did not want to think. Thinking circled back to Lindsay, and while she couldn’t say that she regretted the breakup – it had been a long time coming, really – that didn’t mend a broken heart.
Nina scowled at everything equally – the customers at the laptops, the couple chatting in the corner, the sapphire walls with their bright graffiti, the posters, even the espresso machine. She only let off her scowling when the door opened.
Nina put on her best “I am the proprietor of this shop and I will keep it together in front of the customers until it kills me” face. In walked the record shop owner from across the street. Nina was not noticing how Maggie’s cardigan clung to her generous curves, or how her bright scarf perfectly set off her eyes. Definitely not. Not so soon after the breakup.
“What can I get for you this afternoon? Skinny latte, or is it herbal tea today?”
“We need to talk,” Maggie said, a series of words that triggers a fear so universal you’d think it was hardwired into the species.
Nina held up her hands as if to block the blow. “I’ve told you, I need some time to get over Lindsay before--”
“Not about that,” Maggie interrupted. “It’s about Mr. Fell and his friend, Mr. Crowley.”
“Finally come up for air, have they?” Nina said, more fondly than she would have admitted.
“Mr. Fell is gone!” Maggie’s voice quavered. Nina made a show of looking through the window.
“Is he? Bookshop looks open from here.”
“He went back to heaven!” Maggie seemed to be trying to whisper, and failing. The man at the nearest table turned towards her and scowled. She lowered her voice as she added. “And he’s left Mr. Crowley behind.”
“Well, I’m sure that he knows what he’s doing,” Nina said. “Don’t see what it has to do with you or me.”
“You saw the way those two were. I just keep thinking about Mr. Crowley, all alone. He must be absolutely heartbroken.” Maggie said.
“That may be, but there’s nothing we can do about it, now is there?” Nina forced a smile. “Now, can I get you something to drink? Some eccles cakes, maybe?”
“I thought we could try to talk to him tonight, see if he needs some cheering up.”
Nina crossed her arms. “Didn’t we just tell them off for messing with our love lives?”
“But it’s not the same thing at all!” Maggie pleaded. “We’d just be checking in on him, that’s all.”
Nobody who had spoken to Maggie for more than a few minutes would believe that the record store owner was going stop there. “You know, I’m meant to be drinking myself into a stupor and moping about my ex, not helping a demon,” she hissed that last word, “deal with a breakup. If that’s even what happened.” Nina started making a coffee. If this conversation kept going, she needed something to fortify herself.
“People always say the best thing for a broken heart is to keep busy!”
“Yes, but those people are idiots.” Nina focused on making her coffee. She wasn’t going to fold on this. She wasn’t. “Do you even know where he lives?”
“No,” Maggie admitted. “Maybe Muriel does?”
“Who’s Muriel?”
“They’re an angel and they’ve taken over the shop for Mr. Fell. I offered to help them figure things out after I close up for the night-- Oh, shoot! I won’t have time to help them and also Mr. Crowley.”
Nina took a sip of black coffee. “Have you had many customers today, Maggie? Customers that pay you money?” Maggie shook her head. “Well, there you go. You can close up early, do… whatever you have to do with Muriel, and still have time to check on him.”
“Does this mean you’ll help me?” Maggie lit up like a golden retriever with a tennis ball.
“Against my better judgment, yes.”
“Thank you so much! You won’t regret this, I promise you.”
“Yeah yeah, go help your angel,” Nina said. “I’ll meet up up with you when I finish up in here for the day.”
Nina shook her head to herself as Maggie bounded out of the shop. That woman was going to be the end of her.
#
Crowley had been not drinking for several days. Sure, he’d shattered all his wine glasses shortly after he reclaimed his apartment from Shax, but he didn’t need a glass, did he? No, times like this, you could drink straight from the bottle. So why wasn’t he?
The last time he’d lost Aziraphale – thought he’d lost him, anyway, that all turned out a lot better than he’d expected – he’d gotten almost blackout drunk. Which was tough for a demon, but he’d really set his mind to it, and he’d gotten most of the way there. But now…
Now the wine just reminded him of the angel, and thinking of the angel reminded him of how he’d chosen Heaven. Again.
At his heart, Crowley was an optimist. Always had been. So while it had been hard to work up the courage to tell Aziraphale how he felt, what he really wanted, that had mostly been about finding the words, wanting to do it properly. But he’d never thought Aziraphale would walk away from him. Not like that. Not when he, Crowley, had finally – finally! -- put it all on the line like that.
So he sat, and he stared at a bottle of wine that he thought about drinking but couldn’t. If he’d been human, he would have had to get up – to go to the bathroom, to sleep, to eat. As a demon, Crowley didn’t need any of those things.
Crowley had not moved from that chair in three days.
He’d lost his best friend, his only friend, the only being he’d ever been able to rely on since he fell. Aziraphale had been his world – he’d had lots of time to think it over, not drinking his bottle of wine, and he knew it was true. And he didn’t even have the clarity of knowing the angel didn’t love him back. No, that would have been simple, at least. A clean strike, knife straight through his heart. More deadly than holy water. No, Aziraphale had kissed him back. The angel kissed him back. He felt the same way Crowley did. Well, maybe not quite the same. If he did, he couldn’t have left. But at least in the same zip code.
No, Aziraphale loved him. Or at least, some version of him. A version that would be happy to trot on back to Heaven and pretend the last 6004 years never happened. That’s what the angel wanted – to turn back the clock, go back to some kind of imagined paradise. But paradise had never been real. Crowley had learned that lesson the hard way. It had shaped him into the being he was today. He could no more go back to Before, than he could drink holy water.
A muffled knock on his door sent the smallest ripple through the fog of his misery, but not enough to rouse him to move. If he ignored it, it would go away. Maybe if he ignored everything for long enough, all of it would go away.
The knock sounded again.
“Mr. Crowley, are you in there?” The speaker could have been a pre-school teacher. Or a museum tour guide.
Another voice, more annoyed then the first, said, “He’s probably not at home, Maggie. It was a long shot, anyway.” She spoke softly, but Crowley could hear her perfectly well anyway. Crowley made a complicated gesture with his hand.
Both voices exclaimed in surprise as the heavy door opened in front of them. Crowley let them come to him.
It didn’t take long, since he was only in the next room. The women surveyed the scene before them: a spacious concrete box, sparsely decorated with objects of high art. Crowley slouched in his chair, not looking at either of them.
“You have got to be kidding,” Nina said as she stared at the throne looming in the middle of the room. “Tell me you do not actually live here.”
“There you are!” Maggie said, in much kinder tones. In the absence of another chair — Crowley had never planned on having visitors when he decorated the place, so he’d never bothered to get more than one of anything — she settled for standing next to him, hands clasped in front of her. “We were worried about you, Nina and I.”
“I’m fine. You can go now.” Crowley’s tone of voice said something very different.
“I can see that,” Nina responded. She nodded at the open bottle of wine. “Is the wine helping, then?”
In a flat voice, Crowley said, “You know I could destroy you where you stand? Send you to the bowels of Hell?”
“Yeah, you could.” Nina replied. The rest— “but you’re not going to” — didn’t need to spoken to be understood.
Crowley huffed, but didn’t argue.
“We heard about Mr. Fell,” Maggie said. “How are you holding up?”
Crowley shrugged.
“Did you talk to him, though? Tell him how you feel?”
“Ngh,” said Crowley.
Nina turned to Maggie. “Do you think that’s a yes?”
“Probably, yeah.” To Crowley, Maggie said, “It’s okay to be sad. These things happen, and it hurts, but seeing your way through to the other side can bring a lot of healing, and understanding.” Or at least, that’s what she tried to say. Crowley cut her off somewhere between “okay” and “sad.”
“Don’t tell me what’s okay,” he said. “Just because you two saw us together, that doesn’t mean you know anything about it. About us.”
“No,” Nina said, “but maybe it would help to tell us about it.” She looked around at the dark, cavernous apartment. “It’s not like you have anything else going on at the moment.”
Crowley continued staring glumly at his unopened bottle of wine. It was a good vintage, too. Shame not to drink it.
“You at least need to get out the room,” Maggie said. “Stretch your legs some. You could come by the record store, music always helps me to get outside of my own head. Or the coffee shop! I’m sure Nina would be happy to make you up something nice.”
As a demon, Crowley ought to be offended by such blatant concern, especially from humans, but it wasn’t like there were a lot of people who cared about him right now. Or ever, if he were honest. It was always only Aziraphale.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I will.”
#
Maggie and Nina were not the first humans to discover angels and demons among them. Common reactions – towards angels and demons alike -- included pleading, bargaining, and abject terror. However, Maggie and Nina were the first to offer a demon love advice.
Neither of them said anything as they walked back to Soho, but they suspected they had rather bungled it.
“Why do you think he was staring at a bottle of wine?” Nina pondered. “It wasn’t even open.”
“Maybe it was comforting?” Maggie said.
“Did he look comforted to you?”
Maggie had to admit that he did not. “You were right. We shouldn’t have meddled.”
“But we did.” Nina sighed heavily. “The question is, what do we do about it?”
No answered revealed themselves, and they continued their walk in guilty silence before finally parting ways.