Work Text:
“Oh, come on. It will be fun!”
“Fun? This?” Anthony stares doubtfully at the sign above the door. He’d agreed to an afternoon stroll. Some fresh air and sunshine. A coffee, perhaps. Not to … this.
“You’ve been toiling away on that article for The Astrophysical Journal all week,” Asa reminds him. “You’ve hardly stirred from your flat.”
“And you’ve been very good about bringing me cups of tea, and reasons not to off myself.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you.”
Asa loops his arm through Anthony’s. “You need a break from serious thoughts. You said yourself that they’re driving you batty.”
That’s Anthony’s excuse for certain recent mad behavior, and he’s sticking to it. When Asa had called him this morning just to check in, it had been so lovely to hear his voice. So nice to be someone who got a good morning phone call just because. Without even thinking about it, Anthony had ended the call by saying–
Well. No need to think about all that. Maybe Asa had hung up already. Maybe he’d thought Anthony had said something much more reasonable for a relationship at this early stage, like I love glue.
Maybe Anthony hadn’t revealed himself as the pathetic, besotted fool that he’s become since Asa Fell chased after him and handed him his own book.
“That’s true,” Anthony says, with great poise. He loves glue. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. (No pun intended.)
Asa smiles at him, a glint of mischief in it. “Let’s see what the divine Madame Tracy has to say about our futures, shall we?”
“Psychics are charlatans.”
“Well, yes. But they’re certainly entertaining ones. I wonder if she’ll have a crystal ball.”
Anthony tries to groan, but it turns into a chuckle. Defeated, he follows Asa through the shop door. They’re immediately met by dim pinkish lighting, the thick smell of incense, and the sound of a mystical panflute, probably playing on a CD called 32 Mystical Panflute Classics To Scam Gullible Customers To.
“Yeah, quick warning,” mutters Anthony, “I’m definitely going to laugh.”
“Don’t laugh! It’s rude!”
“Swindling people out of their hard-earned money – that’s rude. Laughing in the face of ridiculousness, that’s just sensible, isn’t it?”
Asa’s mouth curls in a slight smile. “Well, do try to keep it to a discreet giggle, will you?”
“No promises,” Anthony says, peering around.
The room is full of gauzy draperies and bead curtains and crystals and various sculptures in various degrees of undress. (A bit saucy, Anthony thinks, for a psychic.) In the back room, a woman is having a decidedly un-mystical phone conversation about how whoever she’s talking to forgot to pick up cat litter for three days in a row. It pretty quickly morphs into a conversation about how it’s hard for a woman to be in the mood for amorous activities when SOMEONE can’t even remember to pick up cat litter for three days in a row, and she doesn’t CARE if someone has gotten to an especially important bit writing their series of self-published novels about witch hunters. Self-published novels about witch hunters won’t clean the litterbox or give your wife a long-overdue good–
“Ahem,” says Asa politely. Anthony’s chest aches with fondness. “I said, ahem!”
The phone call abruptly ends.
“Who goes there?” comes the woman’s low, much less peeved-about-cat-litter voice.
“We do,” says Asa.
“Yep,” agrees Anthony. “Us.”
The divine Madame Tracy steps out into the dim light. She’s an older woman with unconvincing platinum blonde hair and an excess of sparkles, bangles, and eye makeup.
“Is she familiar to you?” Asa whispers to Anthony. “Has she been on television?”
Anthony shrugs, drawing a blank.
“I could swear I’ve seen her before.” To Madame Tracy, Asa asks, “Have you been on television?”
“Me? Bless you!” She stalks into the room like Kate Bush nearing her prey. “What a lovely couple! You’ve been together for a very, very long time, I see.”
“Strike one for the divine Madame Tracy,” mutters Anthony into Asa’s ear.
“Not especially,” says Asa, elbowing Anthony surreptitiously in the ribs. “As a matter of fact, today’s the one-month anniversary of our first date.”
“Is it?” Anthony pretends to realize.
“Or thereabouts. I, um, I haven’t been counting.”
“It is,” Anthony admits. “Or it will be. As of 6:37 PM.”
Asa beams at him.
That must be a good sign. Perhaps Anthony accidentally saying The Thing earlier, freakish though it was, won’t be a dealbreaker after all.
“So you’d like to find out a bit about what’s in store for you two handsome gentlemen?” asks Madame Tracy winningly.
“Not really.”
Asa gives him a chiding look. “Yes please.”
“Yes, please,” Anthony corrects himself.
Madame Tracy gestures grandly at the nearby table, which does, indeed, have a crystal ball on it. “Here, sit. Make yourselves open to the psychic vibrations of this space.” Anthony makes a face at Asa; Asa’s mouth twitches with almost-concealed laughter. Who's the discreet giggler now? “And be careful in that chair. It tips.”
“Excellent,” Anthony says, stopping himself mid-lean-back.
“Get up,” Asa suggests. “Let’s switch.”
“You stay put.” Too chivalrous for his own good, that one.
“I find the spirits are more receptive to my call when you’ve paid ahead of time,” Madame Tracy adds, settling down opposite them.
“Is that so?” Anthony puts on a broad grin. “Funny, that.”
Asa makes a face of adorable disapproval at him, then obligingly slips Madame Tracy some cash.
“Wonderful,” purrs Madame Tracy. “Now, let me see those hands.”
Holding back a sigh, Anthony reveals his upturned palm. Asa does, too. Madame Tracy takes their hands in each of hers and stares down at them with great, rather put-on concentration. The panflutes panflute panflutishly in the background.
“Ah, I see,” she says. “Your life lines are both unusually lon–”
Then, abruptly, she drops both of their hands. Her posture slumps.
“Are you all right?” asks Asa.
She stares down at the table for a long moment.
“Crowley,” she says then.
“Yes,” Anthony says, surprised.
“You’ll have read his books,” reasons Asa.
“She really won’t have. No one has.”
“I have,” Asa protests.
“That’s true.” Anthony smiles at him.
“Crowley …” Madame Tracy draws their attention back. She’s lifted her head again. Her eyes look strange and far away. “And Aziraphale.”
“Aziraphale?” Asa chuckles. “Not quite – Asa Fell. It does sound similar–”
“Soulmates.”
“Aw.” Asa smiles at Anthony.
“Star-crossed lovers.”
“That’s fitting,” Asa says. “He’s an astrophysicist. Loves stars.”
“He’s a bookseller,” Anthony says. “And a Jane Austen enthusiast. Loves lovers.”
“Guilty!”
“Star-crossed lovers,” Madame Tracy goes on, not at all distracted by their banter, “who witnessed the very birth of the stars themselves.”
Anthony leans in. “What’s that, now?”
“The demon and the angel. Destined to be enemies, unable to resist the lure of each other’s company. Joined in curiosity and love for the world. Meeting again and again, despite knowing they shouldn’t. Unable to resist each other.”
“Oh my,” says Asa.
“All that wanting, all that yearning – how vast it was, and how frightening.” Her eerie gaze digs into Asa. Asa’s eyes are wide. Then she whirls around to Anthony. Anthony jumps. The chair almost tips. “You go too fast for me, Crowley.”
The words come out in a low, somber voice that isn’t at all like her own.
“I … what?” Anthony says, baffled.
He’s almost troubled by a flicker of – recognition?, before realizing that it must, in fact, be a flicker of worry for the woman having a violent mental breakdown in front of him.
“But you didn’t!” Madame Tracy slams her fists on the table. “Not really. You went at the exact right pace. All unfolded as it was meant to. All ended as it was meant to. All ended. All ended.” A bright dollop of red creeps out of one of her nostrils.
“Oh dear,” Asa says delicately. He reaches into his coat pocket. “I think you’ve got a slight … nosebleed.”
“You weren’t supposed to find each other again,” Madame Tracy intones, louder, blood pouring steadily down her chin and dripping into the folds of her sparkly scarf, “but you have. Your love endures through time, through death, through nothingness itself. Your love has rewritten the cosmos and freed all humankind from the tyranny of heaven and hell!”
“Well, that’s good news.” Asa passes a handkerchief across the table. “Here, now. Just hold that there, and tip your head up a bit. There. That’s it.”
“Can I get you something? Do you need …” Anthony casts around in his mind for something even vaguely helpful. “Water? A plant?”
Asa’s brow furrows. “A plant?”
“Plants are calming!”
“You expected NOTHING,” Madame Tracy thunders. “You sacrificed any chance of reward after millennia of longing and pain – sacrificed any chance of knowing what it was to finally retire from the fight and sink into the embrace you’d always yearned for, and you did it hand in hand! YOU DIED, WORSE THAN DIED – YOU CRUMBLED INTO DUST AND DRIFTED INTO OBLIVION – YOUR STORY ENDED. THE BOOK WENT UP IN FLAMES AS IF IT HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN. BUT HERE YOU ARE, TOGETHER AND FREE, UTTERLY EACH OTHER’S IN OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD. A LOVE STRONGER, EVEN, THAN THE MIGHT AND WILL OF GOD.”
Anthony and Asa both stare at her, transfixed. Anthony reaches, very slowly, for Asa’s hand. Asa squeezes back.
Do do doooooo! whines the panflute CD.
Madame Tracy seems, at last, to snap out of it. “And to think my sorry husband won’t even go pick up cat litter. Mind you, his witch hunter books aren’t half-bad. Neither are his moves in the boudoir, if I may be so bold.” She holds a hand out. “Nosebleeds cost extra.”
Anthony hands over the cash this time, numbly.
“Dearie me, you two.” Madame Tracy rests her chin on her hand and stares at them, not unkindly. “All that divine eternal frustration’s really not healthy. Thank heavens you’ve finally got ‘round to shagging.”
There's a long, weird stretch of silence.
“No arguments here,” Asa says then, and winks at Anthony.
Anthony finally, blessedly bursts into laughter.
***
“Is that a good sign for our relationship,” muses Anthony, “giving a psychic a nosebleed?”
“Well, it was certainly interesting. A fun anecdote for dinner parties.”
“Sure. Who doesn’t want to hear about nosebleeds at dinner parties?”
They stroll along the street, shoulders brushing, for a few steps before Asa reaches for Anthony’s hand. “You don’t go too fast for me. For the record.”
“I don’t?” Anthony asks, tense with hope. “I didn’t mean to. I just– I just said it this morning. I couldn’t not say it any longer. I know it’s too early, and we’ve only just met, and it’s weird–”
“Anthony?”
“And I swear, I’m usually much cooler than this. Well, not much, but a bit–”
“Anthony.”
“What?”
Asa glows at him. “I love you, too.”
“You do?” The whole world seems to breathe out around Anthony in a wonderful sigh.
“It’s funny; for the past month, I’ve felt–” Asa pauses, searching for the word. “Complete.”
Trust the bookworm to know just what to say. “Have you? Me too.”
“We’re not getting any younger.” Asa gives him one of those boundlessly kind smiles. “Why keep all that inside?”
“Well,” says Anthony, “I suppose because we’re reincarnations of an angel and a demon who’ve been clandestinely meeting and pining for each other since the dawn of time. That’ll engender a certain amount of repression.”
“Then thank goodness we’re free of all that,” says Asa, moving in closer, “and can just be a professor and a bookseller, hmm?”
“Certainly leaves more time for the important things,” Anthony agrees, taking Asa’s face gently in his hands.
“I know neither of us go in for anything woo-woo, but I could believe I’ve known you for a good, long time, Anthony Crowley.”
“Not long enough, though?” Anthony checks.
“Oh, never long enough,” Asa promises.
They kiss. Sink into the embrace they’ve always yearned for, some might say.
“I’ve just had a thought,” Asa murmurs, “for how to spend the rest of the afternoon.”
Anthony has a few thoughts himself. Still, some unshakable sense of decency makes him glance back toward the psychic’s shop. “Is it going to pick up some cat litter for Madame Tracy?”
“Ah.” Asa presses a fingertip to Anthony’s mouth, eyes bright with affection. “You must have been the angel.”