Chapter Text
The smell arrived on a Tuesday.
Aziraphale Fell had lived above his bookshop on St. James’s Street for eleven years, and in those eleven years he had grown deeply attached to the particular quality of its silence.
Not a dead silence, not the austere silence of a library, but the warm, papery, slightly dusty silence of a place that had absorbed decades of thought.
The silence of shelves that groaned pleasantly under their own weight.
The silence that accompanied a cup of Darjeeling at quarter past ten, when the morning light came through the front window at precisely the right angle and struck the gilt lettering on the spines of his most beloved volumes, and everything in the world was, if not perfect, then at least tremendously agreeable.
He had not asked for anything to change.
He had, in particular, not asked for the premises next door, vacant for the better part of two years following the quiet collapse of an artisanal candle shop he had never patronised, to be taken over by someone who apparently believed that the correct use of an industrial-grade ventilation system was to funnel the entirety of one’s aromatic output directly into the shared wall of a Grade II listed building.
The smell was, objectively, extraordinary.
Dark and burnt-sweet, complex in the way that very good things sometimes were, threaded through with something almost floral that Aziraphale couldn’t quite name.
He would have found it rather wonderful, in a different context.
In a café, perhaps.
In a French market.
Somewhere he had chosen to be.
Here, it came through the walls as though invited.
He discovered it at precisely nine forty-seven on the morning of the fifteenth of April, when he came downstairs to open the shop and found that his reading corner, his beloved, carefully curated reading corner with its wing-backed armchair and the small table he kept specifically for his morning tea, smelled like someone had built a campfire inside a luxury hotel.
He stood in the doorway for a full thirty seconds.
Then he went and made his tea, sat down, and spent the next hour convincing himself it wasn’t that bad.
By eleven o’clock, when Anathema arrived for her shift, it had gotten worse.
Anathema Device was twenty-six, intensely competent, and almost entirely unbothered by the things that bothered other people.
She had worked at A.Z. Fell & Co. for two years, during which time she had reorganised the filing system, digitised a significant portion of the catalogue, and developed a theory, based on extensive personal observation, that her employer was the sort of man who had simply never been told no firmly enough.
Not because anyone had tried and failed, but because no one had ever really had the heart.
She walked in, inhaled deeply, and said, “Oh, that’s nice.”
“It is not nice,” Aziraphale said, from behind the front desk, where he was pretending to sort order slips.
“It smells like a very good café.”
“It smells like a violation.”
Anathema set her bag down, looked at him, and then looked at the wall that adjoined the new premises.
Through it, faintly, they could both hear the mechanical rhythm of what was unmistakably a commercial roasting drum, turning slowly.
“Have you been next door yet?”
“I have not.”
“Have you looked at what’s there yet?”
Aziraphale was quiet for a moment. “There is a sign,” he said.
“What does it say?”
He picked up one of the order slips, examined it with unnecessary focus, and said, “It says The Serpentine. It is,” he added, with the precise intonation of a man who had already spent an hour finding this fact personally offensive, “a coffee roastery.”
“Right,” Anathema said.
“They roast the beans on the premises.”
“Mm.”
“They are doing it now.”
“I can tell.” She leaned against the desk and looked at him with the gentle, slightly dangerous attention she usually reserved for particularly revealing astrological charts. “So what are you going to do?”
“I,” said Aziraphale, setting down the order slips with quiet dignity, “am going to write a note.”
The note took forty minutes.
This was not because Aziraphale was a slow writer.
He was, in fact, a rather excellent writer, precise and graceful and occasionally pointed in a way that surprised people who had made the mistake of judging him entirely by his waistcoats.
The forty minutes were because he wrote four drafts, each one slightly more restrained than the last, until he arrived at something he felt struck the appropriate balance between firm and civilised.
He wrote it on a piece of his personal notepaper, cream-coloured, with his initials in the top corner.
He used his good pen.
15th April
To the proprietor of The Serpentine,
I hope this note finds you well.
I am your neighbour at A.Z. Fell & Co., the antiquarian booksellers occupying the premises to your immediate left.
I write to bring to your attention a matter that I suspect you may not have considered, namely that your ventilation system appears to be directing a significant quantity of roasting fumes directly through our shared wall.
While I have no doubt that your product is of excellent quality, the cumulative effect of this upon a space that contains irreplaceable historical texts — several of which are, I must stress, exceptionally sensitive to environmental conditions — is a source of some concern.
I would be most grateful if we might discuss a possible adjustment to the system at your earliest convenience.
I am generally in the shop between nine and six, Monday through Saturday.
Yours with neighbourly regards,
A.Z. Fell
(Proprietor, A.Z. Fell & Co., Est. 1843)
He slipped it under the door between their shared rear entrances at precisely twelve minutes past noon.
By two o’clock, a response had arrived.
It was not written on notepaper.
It was written on the back of a till receipt, in red pen, in handwriting that tilted dramatically to the right as though it was always in a slight hurry and had never quite caught up with itself.
fell
cheers for the note. very formal. love the initials.
re: the ventilation — yeah, that’s just how commercial roasters work, sorry.
can’t really reroute the whole system for one wall.
the building regs actually say we’re compliant, if you want to check.
re: the books — fair enough but also: maybe don’t store irreplaceable historical texts directly against the wall if you’re worried about smells? just a thought. not a criticism.
it IS, for the record, excellent quality. come have a cup if you ever want proof.
— A. Crowley (Proprietor, The Serpentine, Est. This March)
Aziraphale read it twice.
Then he went and stood in the reading corner for a moment, looking at the wall, which smelled richly and outrageously of someone else’s livelihood.
Then he went back to the desk and wrote another note.
This one took twenty minutes.
15th April (afternoon)
Mr. Crowley,
Thank you for your prompt response.
I note that you have read my letter closely enough to address each point individually, which I do appreciate, even if I find your conclusions somewhat breezy.
On the matter of building regulations: I am sure you are compliant. Compliance is not the same as consideration.
On the matter of storing the books elsewhere: the books are where they have always been.
The wall is where it has always been. It is the smell that is new.
I will not, I’m afraid, be coming in for a cup. I do not drink coffee.
With regards,
A.Z. Fell
P.S. “Est. This March” is not the sort of thing one includes in a professional correspondence. I mention this only as a matter of form.
The response arrived in under an hour.
Again, a receipt.
The handwriting was slightly messier this time, as though whoever held the pen had been entertained.
Fell
“compliance is not the same as consideration” — okay fair, I’ll give you that one
you don’t drink coffee??
what do you mean you don’t drink coffee
this is going to keep bothering me
— Crowley
p.s. “est. this march” is accurate and I stand by it
Aziraphale stared at the postscripts for longer than he intended to.
“Anathema,” he said.
She was shelving. She didn’t look up. “Mm?”
“The person next door appears to be,” he paused, considering his phrasing carefully, “insufferable.”
“Are you going to write back?”
A pause.
“Only to clarify my position,” he said.
Anathema had texted Newt before Aziraphale had even found his pen.
iMessage: Anathema → Newt, 15 Apr, 14:51]
Anathema: okay so. is your boss a tall ginger one
Newt: yeah? why
Anathema: he just sent my boss a note on till receipt paper
Newt: oh god
Newt: yeah he found the note from your boss this morning and he’s been in a weird mood ever since
Newt: like. a good weird? he keeps smiling at his phone
Anathema: my boss has not smiled once
Anathema: he’s been deeply offended for three hours
Newt: are they going to be a problem
Anathema: newt
Anathema: sweetheart
Anathema: no
By four o’clock, they had exchanged six notes.
By closing time, Aziraphale had received a small paper bag containing a single portion of medium-roast single-origin Guatemalan beans, which he hadn’t asked for, accompanied by a note that said, simply:
for a friend then. or a bin. your choice.
it’s called Anacafé. it’s the least offensive thing we do. floral. light. barely even coffee.
don’t say I never gave you anything.
— C
Aziraphale put the beans on the shelf behind the desk.
He didn’t throw them away.
Across the shared wall, in The Serpentine’s small back office, a man with dark hair and sunglasses he had not removed despite being indoors since eight this morning leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling with an expression Newt Pulsifer couldn’t quite categorise.
Newt had worked for Anthony J. Crowley for three weeks.
He was twenty-four, anxious by nature and helpful by effort, and he had taken the job because it was close to Anathema’s workplace and the pay was reasonable and Crowley, for all his terrifying competence, had never actually shouted at him.
“Boss,” Newt said carefully.
“Mm.”
“It’s nearly six.”
“Mm.”
“Should I lock up the front?”
“Yeah,” Crowley said, not moving. His fingers were drumming on the arm of the chair, slow and irregular.
He was looking at the ceiling like it had said something interesting.
Newt went and locked the front door. He came back.
He stood in the doorway of the office for a moment.
“The guy next door,” he said. “He seems… angry.”
“Not angry,” Crowley said. He tilted his head. Something about the line of his mouth was almost satisfied. “He’s affronted. There’s a difference.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Angry people want it to stop. Affronted people want to win.” He sat up, finally, and picked up the most recent note from the desk, which was written in that precise, graceful hand that had, if Newt was being honest, done something slightly alarming to Crowley’s face the first time he’d read it. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to keep writing back until he’s made his point.”
“Is that… good?”
Crowley set the note down. He picked up his phone. He looked at it for a moment and then set it down again.
“Go home, Newt.”
“Right,” Newt said. “Yeah. Going.”
He didn’t go immediately.
He pulled out his phone in the corridor and opened the Notes app and typed:
ARE THEY DATING YET (NO)
started: 15 April
Day 1. Six notes exchanged. Boss gave him free coffee beans. He doesn't drink coffee. Boss is smiling at the ceiling.
current status: neighbours
threat level: HIGH
He put his phone away and went home.
At A.Z. Fell & Co., Aziraphale was doing the last of the closing.
He moved through the shop in his usual evening ritual, checking the window latches, running a hand along the spines of the books in the front display case, turning off the lights in the order he always turned them off.
The smell from next door had faded with the afternoon.
It was there, still, but softer now, the way things are after a long day.
He stopped at the desk. Looked at the bag of beans.
Picked it up, turned it over.
The label was simple, hand-printed, and the roast date was that morning.
He put it back.
Then, because he was a man who understood the value of the last word, he got out his notepaper one more time.
15th April (evening)
Mr. Crowley,
I do not own a cafetière.
Yours,
A.Z. Fell
P.S. I looked up the Anacafé region. The soil conditions in Huehuetenango are apparently quite remarkable. I mention this purely as a point of geographical
He slipped it under the door, turned off the last light, and went upstairs to bed.
He was not, he told himself firmly, looking forward to morning.
He was, however, up earlier than usual.