Chapter Text
Furfur was just about to say something about Shax “discovering a traitor in their midst” but couldn’t get the words out. He became distracted when he noticed a familiar figure creeping down the bookshop stairs.
It was a man. With a horrid pencil moustache. He wore a dark olive green coat with a red tartan shirt underneath. His lighter olive green pants were being held up with a brown leather belt that had a golden buckle. He was holding a cup of hot cocoa in Aziraphale's angel wing mug.
The man had hardly even noticed Furfur staring at him, he was too distracted trying not to spill his cocoa while going down the spiral stairs. The man snuck away behind a shelf and was now out of Furfur's view.
“The dark council will be happy with you, Shax. You've discovered a traitor in our midst.” Furfur was distracted. Should he look for the man? “Err.. I've just seen something that might be of interest. I'll meet you both back down there.” Furfur walked off, Shax and Dagon disappeared. He took himself to where he suspected the man went.
The man was sitting on the floor in a tucked away corner of the bookshop. He was reading books on ornithology and had a little notebook open with some pens and sketches of pigeons. It couldn't be. There's no way it could be him. Furfur continued staring. The man took a sip of cocoa and was wearing Aziraphale’s reading glasses.(1) He didn’t even notice Furfur standing right in front of him.
“Eugh. You still have that moustache.. Oi!” Furfur called out, to get the man's attention. The man looked up. God, that stupid pencil moustache. It was really him. He looked the same, but different. Different clothes. Different.. Well. Not so different. He just hasn’t seen him in a while. He didn’t wear pantaloons and a tunic anymore. He wore modern clothes. Dark, olive green coat over top a red tartan shirt with light olive green pants. His stupid, short black hair and pencil moustache. The man looked surprised, scared, but through all that, he looked relieved. Like when you get your headache to go away. Or when a baby stops crying on a plane.
It had been 800 years. 800 years since Furfur last saw his dear friend. Now, he was standing right in front of him. Nobody else remembered him. It had been far too long, he practically vanished from Hell’s history with their horrid organization system. The man’s files had been lost to time. There was nothing left of him in Hell except for Furfur’s memories. Furfur was angry he had lost him, but now he was glad he was back.
“Francisco. You. You’re.. You’re really here, right? Not some cheap trick by Azirapalala?”(2) He desperately hoped it was him. If not, it would be embarrassing. More than embarrassing. Humiliating. A humiliating thing to hope for. Demons don't make friends with each other. They hardly trusted each other on a good day, of which there were none.
“Francisco.. You..” Furfur smiled. He felt warm inside, good warm. Not burning in Hell warm. He was.. Happy. Relieved. Grateful. Cock-a-hoop! There were many words to say happy.
“Furfur.. You.. You came looking for me?” Francisco was filled with unbounded joy, like a flower blooming inside his heart. He dropped his book, and the stolen reading glasses. Francisco ran toward Furfur, and hugged him. Furfur hadn't had one of those in a thousand years. Furfur shook. He didn't know how to react at first. He hugged back, with shaky hands. They fully embraced each other and hugged for what felt like eternity.
There was a Furfur shaped hole in Francisco's heart, and a Francisco shaped hole in Furfur's heart. When they hugged, them being together was like two puzzle pieces fitting together. It was meant to be. Maybe it was ineffable, words couldn't be put to describe it. All that matters is they're meant to be there, at that moment, they deserved this.
Furfur and Francisco sobbed in each other's arms, smiling, laughing and crying all at the same time.
“How long has it been since you've gotten back??” Furfur asked.
“Err.. Let me think.” Francisco counted on his fingers. “A few months, give or take?” Furfur did not like this answer. Francisco was greeted with 2 hands to his throat.
“You idiot! You didn't think to tell me you came back first!? You came to this.. Bookshop!? An angel's bookshop no less? Are you consorting with Heaven!? Don't you know how understaffed Hell is right now!?” He choked Francisco, waiting for him to answer.
“Okay, first of all stop choking me—” Francisco managed to croak out. Furfur finally let him go. Francisco coughed and caught his breath. “Er.. Listen. I don't want to go back to Hell. Hell is horrid, and I figured you had.. Forgotten about me. I thought, ‘maybe he's better off without me’. I don't belong in Hell, I've only ever caused trouble and not the kind they like. Hell hasn’t even looked for me. I’m.. Forgotten. Earth has been wonderful to me, and I don’t intend on leaving. I've ‘gone native’, as they say.” He waited for Furfur’s response.
“You– You can't just..You can’t do that! You can’t stay here. You’re not meant to stay here. You’ve been here too long. You need to come back. You’ve been gone 800 years, and–” Furfur couldn’t find his words. He wanted his friend back. “Francisco…” It was true. Francisco’s existence was practically wiped from history. His files are lost. He doesn’t have a place in Hell now. Even if he came back he’d be punished for going MIA for 800 years. “Francisco, what have you been doing for 800 years? You said you've only been back a few months?? What happened to you?”
“Err. Just promise not to choke me, or slap me, or whatever else you could possibly do to me that harms me in response to me telling you what happened.” Francisco asked. Furfur nodded and rolled his eyes, gesturing for him to get on with it. “So, I'm a great, big dragon right? Medieval times, I get a tad too confident and I get trapped in my cave by knights. Getting chased around and what-not made me feel, er, ‘tired’. So then, I decided I could deal with escaping later. Cus the entrance caved in on me, you see. Great big nap, I wake up, think nothing of it. I escaped. Well, not as a great big dragon, of course, but, like this, this form–” He rambled on about how he came to find Aziraphale's shop and how he even knew to come here in the first place. It was a scrambled story about him waking up, wandering into Aziraphale’s bookshop looking for a novel he’d been reading, then how Aziraphale and Crowley helped him adjust to the modern times. (3)
“You’re an idiot with as much brains as a sparrow.” Furfur decided against hitting him. “Why didn’t you just.. Summon me with the ring (4) I gave you?”
“Err. I lost it. It’s in the gold pile in my cave somewhere. I don’t remember where my cave is, though..” Francisco admitted shamefully. Furfur was reconsidering his decision about not hitting Francisco.
“So.. Instead of even making any attempt to contact me you just.. Ran off into an angel’s bookshop!?” Furfur was steaming. He was upset that Francisco didn’t even try to find him.
“I didn’t have a choice! If I did go back to you, you could’ve ratted me out to Beelzebub or somebody! I don’t want to be stuck in Hell. I explained this to you. My life has improved since I came back with Hell leaving me be. Aziraphale and Crowley both treat me well. Much better than any of our colleagues ever did, I must say.”
“So you’re saying your life is just on and better without me? You’re fine living a good life as long as it's not with me, then?” Furfur snapped back at Francisco.
“We both know that is not at all what I’m saying.” Francisco defended himself.
“Then what are you saying, birdbrain?” Furfur was thinking about just disappearing and going back to Hell right that moment. See how that would make Francisco feel.
“I’m saying well. What if.. Er. I’m proposing, maybe we don’t have to stay in Hell. Maybe you could stay here with me.. It doesn’t have to be in the bookshop, we could get a human house..” Francisco trailed off and awkwardly stared at Furfur’s eyes, trying to look at what his expression was.
“You’re joking, right? There is absolutely no way in Hell you’re possibly suggesting we stay here. On earth?” Furfur wanted to leave.
“Think about it, Furfur. Please. Think about how miserable you were in Hell! All you do all day is check people into eternal suffering. Do you really want your whole existence to amount to that? We could be here. Together. Have you ever stayed more than a day on earth? You’d love it, Furfur. Please.” Francisco was terrified. He was terrified of losing Furfur again. Terrified time would pass without them being together.
“I.. I need to think about this, Birdie.” In a flash, Furfur was gone. Not a trace of him left. Francisco’s hot cocoa had grown cold.
Francisco slumped against the wall behind him, and gulped down the last drops of his cold cocoa. There was nothing he could do. He could only pathetically wait. Wait for Furfur to come back, and answer him. If Furfur would even ever come back.
Francisco sat there for an hour or two until he finished the book he had been reading previously. He learned that humans had more misconceptions about birds than he realized. The pages of the book were annotated with a green glitter gel pen. One of the pages said, “Why are bird bones hollow? Well, it’s because birds need so much oxygen to fly that their lungs extend into their bones.” This was promptly crossed out, and replaced with, “WRONG! I got lazy, who has time to fill in the bones? I was more focused on their outer appearance.” written in messy handwriting. There were more annotations like this throughout the book. But there are so many, it’d be a mess to cover them all.
Francisco finally decided to leave his book corner. Instead of seeing Aziraphale, he saw a different angel. ‘Inspector Constable’ they called themself. They were dressed as a constable. But instead of the traditional black or navy-blue color these uniforms usually take, it was all white. Pure, unstained white. Even the hat was white as well.
“Oh. Inspector Constable. Do you know where Aziraphale is?” ‘Inspector Constable’, had been checking up on Aziraphale to investigate the 25-lazarii miracle performed to hide Jim (5) from Heaven and Hell. (6) They had been checking on Aziraphale and Crowley for a week now.
“He was promoted to Supreme Archangel by the Metatron! Isn’t that nice? Oh, and I’m sorry for lying.. But, I’m not actually Inspector Constable. I’m Muriel. And, the Metatron has entrusted me to take care of this bookshop while Aziraphale stays in Heaven!” Muriel smiled, holding a book called “The Crow Road”.
“Err. Excuse me? So you’re saying.. He’s gone? Where’s Crowley?” Today was just getting worse by the second. First, Furfur is gone. Now, the man who helped him get back up on his feet when he was lost in a world centuries ahead of him was gone too. Francisco frowned.
“Oh no! Of course not! He’s just in Heaven! Isn’t that great? He's the Supreme Archangel now!” They paused for a second. “Crowley? Hmm. I think I saw him get into his car and drive off after Aziraphale went back up to Heaven. The Metatron said he could be restored to be an angel, but I suppose he didn’t like that very much..”
“Oh.” Reality sort of set in for Francisco. Just a little. “Did the Metatron also tell you I was welcome to stay in this bookshop? Seeing as, I’m not really on Hell’s side.”(7) A half lie. The Metatron never mentioned Francisco. However, Francisco is not on Hell’s side. “Aziraphale also taught me how to properly run the bookshop.” (8)
“Oh! He didn’t! He must’ve forgotten. Well, It’ll be nice to have someone to help me with the bookshop! I didn’t happen to get your name.. What was it?” Muriel was actually quite worried about running the bookshop by themself. But, Francisco helped them feel less worried.
“Francisco.” He smiled. Francisco wasn’t offering to help care for the bookshop because of Muriel. It was because of Aziraphale. Francisco looked up to Aziraphale. Aziraphale is very important to him, and so is the bookshop. The bookshop was the first place of sanctuary for him after 800 years.
“Right! So! How do we take care of this ‘bookshop’ first?” Muriel grinned, waiting for Francisco to tell them how things are done around here.
“Er. Well. I guess, right now, we could be closed?” Francisco looked around at the slightly-destroyed bookshop. “That window’s broken.. And there’s foamy stuff with books at the base of the stairs. Also, Jim– Er. Gabriel. He’s gone now, so.. The guest room is vacant again.”
There were things that needed to be done. Crowley had tidied up a little bit before he left. He fixed the shelves, put the chandelier back, and covered up the angelic gateway. But, there were many things that were made a mess during Hell's attack on the bookshop. “We have to clean all that stuff up..”
Francisco paused and thought about the guest room. He used to stay there, then Jim, but now it's empty. He didn’t want to have that small room. “Oh, and Aziraphale said if there’s any guests they can stay in that room. You’re a guest, by the way. Aziraphale has me in his will to inherit this property if something happens to him.” Francisco lied. He just wanted the big room.. The mattress in the guest bedroom was lumpy and too short for him.
“I can teach you Earth things, if you'd like. You very clearly need help from someone . Did the Metatron leave you any instructions?”
“No.. Not really. He just told me to take care of the bookshop, but never said how.” Muriel replied. They were keeping a mental note of all the things Francisco was telling them.
“We can help each other out.. I get to stay in the bookshop, and you get help with your assignment. Yeah?” Francisco held a hand out for Muriel to shake just to seal the deal.
“Ummmm… Yeah! Sure!” Muriel shook Francisco’s hand. Francisco then started to help Muriel with cleaning up the bookshop.
bonus art for those who read this far !!!
