Chapter Text
Aziraphale was having a boring day. In an odd moment of self consciousness, he started to feel stuffy in his own bookshop. Can you believe it? His own personal heaven began to feel uncomfortable. So, as any sane person would do, he decided to go to the park and feed the ducks.
Once in the park, he found a nice shady bench, not occupied by shady people, in order to sit down and feed the ducks bread crumbs. To Aziraphale’s dismay, not a single duck paddled round to taste the morsels he had laborily thrown into the water.
Aziraphale began to feel lonely. It was shockingly similar to the uncomfortable feeling he had felt in his bookshop. If a change of scenery wasn’t the problem, maybe he was hungry. In a slightly embarrassing moment, he tasted a few of the breadcrumbs he had been feeding to the ducks. They tasted like breadcrumbs. Well that's a relief.
“You know, you shouldn’t really be feeding that to ducks.”
Aziraphale jumped. Behind him, and to the left of the bench, sat a man under a tree. He wore all black, which blended him into the shadow, and was reading a coverless book (a slight disappointment because Aziraphale couldn’t tell what he was reading).
“Good Heavens, You frightened me.” He went to wipe off some invisible mess he had caused when he had jumped. “Well what should you feed them?”
The man under the tree seemed to be in deep thought as he looked over the pond. “Peas.” He said simply. To Aziraphale's confused aura the man barely elaborated with a gesture. “Read it in an article.”
“I suppose that makes sense. Bread is manmade and peas are more natural and healthy. Plus I suppose some bread has egg in it and that just seems cruel.” In his mini rant, he crumpled the paper bag of crumbs and put it in his pocket. Despite the crusty dilemma, Aziraphale was still happy to see two ducks finally paddle to his bread crumbs and begin snacking. However he was distracted enough to not see that the man had slithered next to him on the bench.
“So. What's a well distinguished man such as yourself doing at the park? Alone… feeding ducks… sighing every 3 seconds.” Aziraphale looked at the man with a scrutinizing eye. He had fiery red hair, a snake tattoo on his cheek, and wore impossibly dark shades. He had all the characteristics of one of the shady people he had been trying to avoid. But for some reason, Aziraphale felt like he could trust him.
“I’ve just been having a sort of wet day-”
“Wet?”
“Yeah, like a washcloth with nothing to clean, and it’s just heavy from the water so it droops on the-”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, go on.”
“Well it's been like that. So I closed my shop early and decided to get some fresh air. What about you?” Aziraphale looked to the man in response, but once it got awkward (which was very quickly since the man wasn’t looking back at him) he looked down at his hands.
“Well.” He said, sort of lazily slouched on the bench. “I was supposed to meet someone here,” The man paused to look at his watch and Aziraphale suddenly felt very uncomfortable. “But that was 2 hours ago so I don’t feel bad abandoning them anymore.”
Aziraphale felt pleasantly confused. It was a curiosity which he didn’t need filling and actually was quite comfortable with it remaining a mystery. Out of politeness he still asked, “Do you have a mobile? Perhaps you should call them.”
The man shook his head. “Naaa. I don’t carry one on me because it's not really necessary for my kind of work. Do you have one?”
“No. Me neither. It’s just not useful.” For a second they sat in that strange silence: of having something in common with a stranger, but having no way to comfortably forward the conversation. “Hold on! Did you say two hours? You must be starving!”
“Not necessarily-” The man mumbled, unsure how to say he didn’t really eat food.
“Allow me to take you to a late lunch. I myself haven't eaten since breakfast (It was now around 2), and it would be nice to enjoy some company during a meal.” Aziraphale stood from the bench expectantly and to his delight, the man followed after him. It turns out he was actually rather tall. “Oh, this will be exciting. It seems like forever since I’ve had company. I hope you like crepes.”
They had fallen in step together on the park path, but Aziraphale had stopped both of them quite suddenly. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I forgot to ask your name?”
“It's Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley.”
They shook hands.
“I’m Aziraphale. A. Z. Fell.”