Chapter Text
He closed the door slowly, making certain the door wouldn't make its familiar creak and that his steps were soft as silk... For though there was no one in his home but himself, he felt as though his heart was about to escape through his mouth and his chest would burst at the slightest push or surprise.
He took his chest in his hands, the fabric wrinkling under the contact as a sigh escaped him... Why did he have to carry on like a girl from secondary school? But oh, it was exactly as Jane Austen's novels had foretold—again and again, his mind went in circles around red hair and brown eyes, around that husky voice and gentle smile...
Was this, perhaps, what he had been missing all these years? Could it be... that an entire lifetime of rejection and insecurity... was going to end in the so very gentle gaze of that astrophysicist?
He lifted his head and shook it, those old habits of his had never led him to love before, had never led him anywhere other than the inevitable disappointment of not being enough, of not wanting enough, of feeling... with whoever it was... that he was not enough.
His chest had ached for a person he had never known… it had been that way ever since he began reading their novels and understanding what love truly was. His mind tore at its own cortex trying to understand who he was thinking of. And perhaps his sudden infatuation was nothing more than a lifetime's worth of hope condensed into a single night, into the belief that something bound him to Anthony beyond that unexpected visit...
That night he went to bed feeling the autumn cold more keenly than ever, his feet frozen and wishing he could hold onto the bodily warmth of someone else. His head swirled with those inconvenient and utterly senseless dreams —was there someone, above all things, beyond all those urban legends and spiteful religions, watching him from on high and wishing him the very worst?
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. At least for a few hours.
That day Derek wasn't in—being the owner, he wasn't exactly the most diligent of workers, and he chose to spend his afternoons strolling or reading, or whatever it is a gentleman does in his retirement. So it was just Asa and his crossword, trying to make sense of whatever it was he was reading.
"Five-letter word, former name of legendary British rock band... synonym for grin..."
"Oh, that's gotta be Smile, I bet. Queen used to call itself that before they actually stuck with the one."
Asa startled rather undignifiedly when a husky voice cut through the silence of the bookshop. Warm eyes and a half-smile on the face of the man he had met yesterday. He swallowed against his nerves and smiled amiably, reminding himself how human interactions were supposed to go.
"Ah, it's... you. Sorry, I uh, didn't hear the bell ringing," he stuttered in place, trying to give weight to his words as he looked at the little bell above the door, over the other man's shoulder —trying to ignore how well his black coat emphasized his shoulders and waist and— God, how did someone his age maintain such an elegant silhouette?
Anthony glanced at him sideways, an amused smile on his face.
"Too engrossed in that, I bet. The bell did ring, unless it's my tinnitus."
He was so effortlessly charming. Asa was quite certain no one had ever looked at him like that, regarding his carelessness and his absent-mindedness with nothing more than a smile and an almost playful tone.
He shook his head, coming back to himself, and replaying the scene in his mind.
"So... Smile, you said? Didn't take you for a Queen fan..." he said with a smile of his own as he shifted his eyes toward the crossword, writing down "Smile" in a hand perhaps a touch more meticulous than usual. For no particular reason.
"What? What do you mean? I think I very much look like a Queen fan, excuse yourself." He looked almost offended, if it weren't for the shake of his head and the tilt of his eyes, his lashes brushing his glasses.
He took a breath and tried to steer the conversation toward safer ground, trying not to think more than strictly necessary about his eyes, or his hair, or his hands as they picked up one of the books on the table and leafed through it with great care.
"So uh, what did you think of —of the food? Of yesterday, I mean, at the restaurant?" He was quite sure he could have phrased that more eloquently, and wouldn't have given it a second thought if he didn't have to maintain the image of a cultured bookseller.
"It was very nice, I must say." A beat. He closed the book and set it back down. "I especially enjoyed the company."
Asa opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, trying to say something equally charming.
"Oh, yes, I enjoyed it as well, I suppose."
"You 'suppose,'" Anthony scoffed. "And here I was trying to get you to dine with me again... But I 'suppose' I shall go find someone more willing?"
"No! No, that's not what I meant!" Before that unshakeable smile and the glint in his eyes, Asa felt his own composure falter. "Oh, you're teasing me, aren't you! You twit." He rolled his eyes, but felt the pressure in his chest ease, if only a little.
"Then I suppose you're up for it?" Anthony continued, scoffing out a soft laugh that sent sparks through Asa's stomach.
"I am! Where do you plan on taking me, then?"
"Oh, that's a surprise. I'll pick you up at eight?"
Asa nodded but stopped when he realized Anthony was about to leave, his eyes searching for his wristwatch.
"I'd better go, I'm giving a class in 20 minutes." He turned to leave, and Asa hated always being the one who had to catch up with him, but he came round from behind his counter and stood beside him.
"Ah, I was just wondering..." He tried to find the most formal way to ask this, but simply gave up and asked honestly. "Are you really not going to give me your phone number? What if something happens?"
Anthony looked at him and narrowed his eyes. "What? Can't go a few hours without speaking to me? That's rather forward, isn't it?"
Asa was finding this new banter between them very fun indeed, but he truly needed a way to reach him in case of an emergency.
"Oh, come on, you know what I mean. Unless you don't have a phone for some reason?"
Anthony rolled his eyes and marched over to the counter, taking the pen Asa had used a moment ago and writing his number in the margin of the crossword.
"There you go. Now don't miss me too much," he said as he turned swiftly around, one hand raised in farewell, leaving behind a phone number with an abnormal number of 6s.
Asa sighed, already counting the seconds until it was time for him to leave.
The Soho streetlamps blurred into warm halos in the gentle London drizzle as Anthony and Asa stepped out of the restaurant, almost slipping on the steep steps as both looked pleasantly flushed from three bottles of an overly expensive Pinot Noir.
"I am simply stating, Anthony," Asa said, his voice thick with a careful, slightly slurred precision as he took Anthony firmly by the elbow, guiding him away from the curb. "That you are an absolute muppet if you think Queen, or anyone for that matter, could even get close to Michael Bublé’s toes. It's all just… noise."
"Noise?" Anthony scoffs, stumbling slightly but leaning into the grip on his arm. He waves a hand dismissively toward the neon signs of Wardour Street. "It's genius, Asa. Freddie Mercury is a god. You're just a proper daft sod trapped in the nineteenth century with your… your dusty old romance novels."
"They are classics!" Asa protested, steering Anthony past a puddle with gentle but unyielding force. "And they possess something your modern rock bands entirely lack: decorum. And restraint."
"Right, because nothing says restraint like five hundred pages of yearning looks over a cup of tea," Anthony mocked, though a wide, looping grin breaks across his face. He looked down at Asa's hand still securely wrapped around his sleeve. "Where are we going anyway? Bentley's over there. Unlock it, I'm driving."
Asa stopped dead on the pavement, his expression shifting into one of absolute scandalized horror. "You most certainly are not! You are completely wollied, Anthony. You can barely walk a straight line, let alone operate a motor vehicle."
Anthony rolled his eyes in the pitch-black Soho night. "I drive better when I'm a bit... lubricated. Gives me sharper reflexes."
"It gives you a criminal record" Asa corrected sharply, though his eyes were dancing with amusement as Anthony muttered 'Already have one' under his breath.
"No. Absolutely not. I am confiscating the very idea. We are walking."
Anthony let out a dramatic, theatrical sigh, slouching his shoulders but offering zero actual resistance as Asa nudged him forward again, away from the parked car. "You're a tyrant, you know that? A posh, bookish tyrant."
"And you are a cheeky bugger who doesn't appreciate Jane Austen," Asa fired back smoothly, a satisfied smile playing on his lips as they walk side by side down the quiet, rain-slicked alleyway toward their respective flats. Asa found that the most logical course of action would be to take Anthony to his flat first, as he was the one who had got rather too swept up when both had decided the finest wine was a Pinot Noir —and apparently, nostalgia and lack of practice had turned him into a somewhat impulsive drinker. Strangely, Asa did not find this side of him as off-putting as he'd expected once he started slurring his words. For some reason, it made him tickle with endearment.
He wondered whether he was simply desperate for affection, or whether Anthony's sharp and fine-edged qualities had been quite enough to win him over entirely... But there was an element there he still couldn't quite grasp. Every time they were together, even drunk and foolish... he felt time slow down, as though his mind had been, all that while, trying to remember something important— storing each moment like a file, in case it might help him find an answer later on, as though it were combing through every neuron and memory of his life trying to understand why everything felt so...
"Feels familiar, doesn't it?" Anthony slurred, though he seemed somewhat soberer in the glow of the night, the wet pavement casting a halo of blue and red lights behind him, his steps having quickened as a drizzle threatened to worsen.
"Huh?" Asa answered, feeling suddenly vulnerable, the alcohol doing nothing to make it any easier. "Familiar... I... what do you mean?"
Anthony stopped dead, leaning against a wall beneath a balcony, effectively sheltering them from the rain, which was steadily gaining in intensity. Crowley's eyes looked almost crystallised as they stared at his own feet, reflected in the puddle below him.
Anthony shook his head, his eyes closing forcefully. "Nothing— I, uh... Just... you have a ridiculous face, Asa."
Asa lets out a soft, offended huff. "Charming."
"No, listen," Anthony says, leaning further against the wall, getting as comfortable as he could manage, his body jutting out at sharp angles as Asa stood before him, as composed as he could muster, while Anthony began pointing a finger at him.
"It's just... you're so incredibly predictable. It's like I've known you my whole life. Like I knew exactly what kind of wind-up merchant you'd be before you even opened your mouth." He scoffs at himself, waving a hand. "Which is impossible. Obviously. We just met. I'm just... the wine is talking."
Asa watched in real time as the conviction behind his words faded as he spoke them, as though they were an absurdity—a very strange thing to say to someone he had known for barely two days.
He then watched the way Anthony's own canvas shoes soaked up the water as a strange, imperceptible emotion crossed his face —a fleeting echo of that same comfortable and terrifying familiarity that felt ancient. As though that dynamic had existed for years, centuries, thousands of years.
When Asa looked up, that glint in Anthony's eyes had become something more searching, as though he were trying very hard to remember something. He marvelled at how he could read someone he had met forty-eight hours ago in such precise detail. He wondered how he knew that that particular expression was not one of irritation or discomfort, but of frustration.
"It isn't just the wine, Anthony," Asa said, his voice dropping an octave, losing its performative theatricality. He let out a breathless, uneven laugh as he truly tried to wrap his head around the whole ordeal. "And it's... it's incredibly odd, isn't it? If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's completely mad."
Anthony blinked, his hand still frozen mid-gesture, the alcohol-induced fog in his brain momentarily clearing at the sheer sincerity in Asa's tone.
"I mean," Asa continued, taking a slow step closer, his hands twisting the fabric of his coat pockets. "I know exactly the type of wine you prefer. I knew you would hate the music in that restaurant before we even sat down. And when you look at me like that..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely between them, his face tight with a mix of wonder and genuine fear. "It doesn't feel like a second dinner. It feels like... a continuation of something."
The silence that followed was thick with the rhythmic drumming of the Soho rain against the concrete floor. For a terrifying, beautiful second, the impossibility of the thought didn't matter. The universe felt impossibly small, reduced entirely to the narrow space beneath the balcony. Somehow, he felt a déjà vu.
Anthony swallowed hard, the sarcasm completely draining from his face. "Right. So... I'm not losing my mind then. Or we're both losing it together." He said it in an aloof tone, but the timbre of his voice and the way his eyes grew even more furrowed gave away that he was genuinely turning the thought over —that connection between them, that call from the universe binding them in a rhythm both familiar and unknown.
"Perhaps," Asa smiled, though it was a small, fragile thing. The heavy gravity of the moment lingered for a heartbeat longer before his natural instinct to comfort took over. He reached out, gently patting Anthony's shoulder, the touch familiar enough to make them both ache. "But for now, let's blame the Pinot Noir. It's much safer."
The following days were a strange combination —dates with Anthony that were simultaneously exhilarating and nostalgic, his chest burning for two entirely different reasons, yet understanding neither.
Because one part of his chest brimmed with excitement, creating a fire not unlike that of Hell, whilst at the same time producing a void that grew more and more noticeable.
They hadn't spoken again of that 'familiarity' since that night in the rain, but Asa would be doing himself a disservice not to say it had become the elephant in the room. For every time one of them mysteriously remembered a detail about the other, something as personal as it was unusual, a quiet dysthymia crept over the conversation.
Where do we know each other from? their eyes said when they met, their hands finding shoulders and waists as easily as breathing. Because they had reached the point where it was obvious that something was connecting them, in the way Anthony knew what sort of crepe Asa liked, without knowing how he even knew that Asa liked crepes at all. Or the way Asa, despite knowing absolutely nothing about cars, could recognise in an instant that his was a 1934 Bentley.
And Asa had gone page by page through every one of his albums, had gone through every digital camera he owned, and had rung the few relatives he had left in what felt nearly like a manic episode, because they had to know each other from somewhere. Because that connection he might insist was the mythological red thread was increasingly taking the shape of a self-induced amnesia, and that theory only grew each time Asa saw in Anthony's amber eyes the same uncertainty, the same question, the same certainty.
He stopped and set down the books he was holding when he realised he had been sorting them by first name rather than surname, shook his head, and let himself drop into the armchair in the bookshop, a migraine threatening to shatter the minimal peace he had left.
He brought his hands to his face and traced the contours of his wrinkles, the faint layer of perspiration on his skin.
It was driving him mad. It was already quite enough having to deal with the sight of a handsome, intelligent, agreeable man… and now on top of that there was this... aura of mystery surrounding his past—their past.
Asa wanted to live in the moment, to savour the moments of tension he shared with him… but that mental thorn gave him no peace whatsoever.
This time he did hear the bell above the door, and managed to compose himself just enough to look proper and polite, a soft smile on his face as he watched one of his neighbours approach.
"Oh, hello there, Muriel, what brings you here?"
Muriel was a rather pleasant young woman, a bit aloof and sometimes... rather blunt. But above all else Asa could see that she was a good person, and he supposed that few things mattered more than that. It did strike him as odd to see her in his bookshop, as they usually ran into one another by chance at the neighborhood café or at some bar or supermarket— but the young woman didn't strike him as particularly bold when it came to reading.
"Hello. Um, I don't know why but I'm looking for a book."
Asa felt his brows furrow automatically.
"'You don't know why'?" He huffed, trying to make sense of her. "Well, are you looking for anything in particular?"
She perked up and tried to find the words, like something she was gathering in the moment rather than anything rehearsed.
"'The Crow Road.'" She looked to one side, as if trying to remember or gather any further words to the title. "Yes, 'The Crow Road,' I think that's it!"
Asa had no particular desire to pry into that young woman's mental exercises, so he simply sighed and rose from his seat.
"Ah, yes, I believe we have a few copies left..." he murmured to himself, trying to recall the exact position of the book amongst dozens of rows and genres. How curious, that his brain was perfectly capable of remembering one book amongst thousands, and yet not a person as apparently important as Anthony. Yesterday he had spent at least an hour looking up the symptoms of dementia, he was at that age, after all.
He found the book precisely where he expected it to be, but apparently his hands were much too anxious as they managed to get it out, and another book dropped alongside it.
"'Bleak House'? What's this doing in literary fiction?" He tutted to himself as he took both books in his hands, leaving the latter on his counter as he made his way back to Muriel.
Her expression was one of anticipation and faint surprise —fascination on her face, far more than one might expect as a reaction to a book— but it wasn't going to be him who judged the sweet young woman. Perhaps a new fashion for reading had taken hold amongst young people!
"So, what brings you this newfound interest in books?" He tried putting on his gentlest voice as she handed him the money and he handed over the book.
"I had this dream yesterday," she began, eyes wide open. "I dreamt I was an angel, or perhaps a crow, but my wings were white." Asa tried not to judge the enthusiasm of her delivery, almost as though a kindergartner were speaking in her place. "Then a sort of celestial being found me in a bookshop, and I for some reason was wearing a police uniform, though it was white... perhaps it was just a nurse's uniform. Anyway, the gentleman handed me this book and for some reason I felt I ought to look for it in this bookshop specifically."
Asa wordlessly counted the money, his eyes wide but warm.
"Oh, that's... marvellous, dear. You know, dreams can be a way for our minds to enter our subconscious. Perhaps you were simply craving a good read!"
She tilted her head, then looked up at the sky in thought.
"I guess so, yeah," she said without much conviction, as though she had been hoping for an altogether different answer. "I hope I find the answer after I read it, though."
Asa watched her as she made her way out, the bell ringing, and a strange feeling settling in his body. He had always found it difficult to say goodbye to books —but something inside him was creaking with a sense of loss he couldn't quite account for.
Bah —but what were all these strange feelings? Was he going through a second adolescence? He most certainly could not face those mood swings again, let alone those strange and unfamiliar feelings he had been suddenly beginning to experience, without explanation.
Or well... they did have an explanation. It simply came packaged in wit and charm that unsettled him in more ways than one, he could almost feel the weight of those amber eyes pressing against his own...
His fingers picked up the book he had left on the counter a moment ago, running along the leather spine, and not being able to recall the last time he had laid eyes on it. Truth be told he had never been particularly fond of Bleak House, and Dickens didn't feature anywhere near his top one hundred favourite authors.
He opened the book intending to leaf through it and recall at least the premise, when his eyes met... nothing. Not a single letter, phrase, or ink mark on any of the pages. Not even the author's name on the first page.
He shook his head as he reached for his glasses —but no amount of short-sightedness could erase all the text from a book.
"What sort of joke is..."
And just as he was nearing the end of the book, a small rectangular piece of paper fell to the floor —a Polaroid. He could tell as much when he picked it up, before a small electric shock passed through his body and sent it clattering back down again.
Grumbling, he crouched down once more as his lower back gave a twinge and made him straighten up rather less gracefully than he'd have liked, whilst he attempted to examine it properly —without any electricity involved this time. What on earth had that been? —some sort of reaction between atoms of positive and negative charge? He recalled Anthony had mentioned something of the sort, the other day.
The photograph was mostly dark, it appeared to have been taken decades ago, and the only thing one could really make out was the silhouette of two men exchanging something between their hands.
One of them was certainly rather handsome: dark hair, dark glasses, a figure all sharp angles and black clothing. Almost a mirror image of...
He blinked. Once, twice.
His eyes moved to the man beside him: light hair, a top hat, and a smoking jacket, a man who could easily pass for his identical twin, the resemblance so clear it was legible even through the poor quality and darkness of the photograph.
He turned the Polaroid over, looking for a year, a clue, anything—and found a phrase written in a hand that was not his, yet in a prose that decidedly was:
"Where nightingales first wove their song amidst linens of flax and gold, the history of the world awaits its final course, bound fast between signatures that time itself could never fade."
The cryptic phrase filled nearly the entire surface of the back of the Polaroid, as his heart lurched and he tried once again to search his memory for when this had happened.
They were evidently neither young men nor children in this photograph, and Asa could not recall having worn his hair in that fashion since... never, actually. And that getup — he looked almost like a conjurer! And that had been an ambition he had never quite had the courage to pursue.
Asa shook his head, pocketed the picture and took his phone, dialing a number much too familiar for how little it'd been saved on his mind.