Chapter Text
Crowley had reached the stage of photo-editing where everything looked terrible and he was personally offended by all of it.
The laptop screen glowed accusingly at him from the coffee table, a grid of images waiting to be judged: rusted railings, cracked pavement, the underbelly of Brighton that tourists never bothered to photograph. He liked it that way. Cities looked more honest when you caught them unprepared – no fake smiles, no seagulls, no aesthetic ice cream. Just concrete and shadow and the quiet dignity of neglect.
He deleted three shots in quick succession and leaned back on the sofa, rubbing at his eyes beneath his sunglasses.
Yes, sunglasses. Indoors. He had been taunted about that many times in the past. He didn’t care; it went well with his bad guy persona.
The flat was far too bright for serious artistic suffering. Not exactly bright bright – the furniture was dark wood, cluttered with gothic minutiae of all sorts, including an ouija board and other witchy equipment. Crowley liked that part. But sunlight streamed in through the open balcony doors, illuminating an unreasonable number of houseplants that Crowley suspected were judging him.
Outside, the sounds of summer drifted in: seagulls screaming like they were being actively murdered, distant laughter, and the endless wash of the sea, smugly reminding everyone of its powerful, constant presence. At the beginning of the summer season, the air smelled of salt, sunscreen, and other people’s joy.
Crowley hated it.
He sighed, long and theatrical, and reached for his coffee – cold now, obviously – when the front door burst open with all the subtlety of a prophecy announcing the end times.
“Right,” Anathema, in a huge black sunhat, said brightly, keys clattering into the bowl by the door, “you’re coming out.”
Crowley didn’t even bother to look up. “No, I’m not.”
She kicked off her sandals and wandered into the living room like she owned the place. Which, irritatingly, she did. “You’ve been in here for three days.”
“I went out yesterday.”
Anathema shot him a deadpan look. “Please. You leaned onto the balcony for forty seconds to photograph a bin.”
“It was a good bin.”
Anathema peered at the laptop screen, hands on her hips. “Is that the underpass you photographed in London?”
Crowley took a defensive sip of cold coffee and immediately regretted it. “It’s a different underpass.”
“Mmm.” She reached over and shut the laptop with a decisive click. “Fresh air.”
“No.”
“Sunlight.”
“Actively harmful.”
“Human interaction.”
Crowley groaned. “I interact with humans all the time. Blah blah blah blah blah. It’s always a pain in the arse.”
She studied him for a moment, head tilted, expression softening in that infuriating way that meant she was about to be right. “You’re hiding.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re sulking,” she corrected. “You came to Brighton to ‘capture the true nature of the city’, and all you’ve captured is concrete and your own misery.”
Crowley stood up, all long limbs and sharp angles, a leather jacket slung over his shoulders despite the heat. “I like misery. It’s honest.”
Anathema rolled her eyes. “You like being alone until you don’t.”
Crowley spluttered. “That is not –”
“You get twitchy,” she continued blithely, grabbing her bag, “and then you get lonely, and then you get sad, and then you pretend it’s artistic.”
Crowley opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. He scowled harder, which only made her smile.
“And,” she added, turning towards the door, “you need to go for a walk.”
Crowley was very determined to protest. “I absolutely do not.”
“Yes, you do. On the promenade.”
Crowley stared at her like she’d suggested ritual sacrifice. “It’s full of people.”
“Correct.”
“And tourists.”
“Yes.”
“And children.”
Anathema gave him a reprimanding look. “Crowley.”
“And joy,” he finished darkly.
“Now get changed and come on. It’s an order. Chop chop.” She clapped her hands for emphasis. “And for the love of Satan, leave the leather jacket here. It’s over 30 degrees.”
Crowley sighed, but still followed her out ten minutes later in an oversized black band tee with the Queen crest, cargo shorts with chains, and platform trainers with spikes. His sunglasses were firmly in place, camera bag slung over his shoulder like a shield.
The heat hit him immediately, thick and golden, the sky stretched wide and offensively blue. Anathema lived just a couple of minutes from the beach, much to Crowley’s annoyance. He couldn’t understand how she could bear that omnipresent cheerfulness.
Soon they reached the promenade, buzzing with life – families, couples, dogs on leads too long for their own good.
Crowley was grumbling the entire time.
Anathema paused, then turned back to him with a grin that set off every internal alarm he possessed. “You know,” she said lightly, “you always say you don’t have a type.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t,” she drawled, strolling on as if they weren’t absolutely walking somewhere with intent. “It’s just… statistically fascinating.”
Crowley peered at her over the rim of his sunglasses. “Oh no. That word never ends well.”
“Soft-spoken and polite,” Anathema said. “Impeccable manners. Stubborn in a quiet, alarming way. Looks like they’d apologise to a lamppost if they bumped into it.”
“Anathema,” Crowley growled in warning.
It would have been menacing enough for anyone who didn’t know he had a heart of gold. So, in short, not for Anathema.
“Dangerously kind,” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard him.
Crowley snorted. “That is wildly specific. Sounds like you’re describing some middle-aged librarian.”
“Funny you should say that,” she mumbled, stopping abruptly.
Crowley nearly walked into her.
He clocked the van before anything else – the colour, for a start. That violently cheerful shade of yellow had no business existing on a street like this, even in summer. It was all soft edges and polished chrome, trying far too hard to be quaint, and then promptly ruining the effect with the tartan pattern slapped across its panels. As if someone had taken “nostalgic”, misunderstood it completely, and decided subtlety was for other people.
And then there was the top. A ludicrously oversized ice cream sundae bolted to the roof, a whipped swirl topped with sprinkles and chocolate sticks, flanked by brass horns with tiny golden music notes curling out of them – because apparently it wasn’t enough for the thing to look ridiculous, it also had to threaten to perform.
The colourful sign underneath the giant cone said:
SCRUMPTIOUS QUALITY ICES
Accurately served, est. 1990 (probably)
Crowley stared.
“…Scrumptious,” he said faintly.
Anathema clasped her hands. “Oh good, you noticed.”
“Anathema Device, you’re plotting something. I can smell it.”
She let out a faux gasp. “I would never,” she said, shepherding him forward. “This is a completely natural, destiny-free coincidence.”
From inside the van came a warm, flustered voice.
“Oh! Hello there, sorry, I’ll just be one moment – Anathema, darling, could you not lean on the freezer, it makes alarming noises –”
Crowley looked up.
And there he was.
An unbuttoned brown cardigan with rolled-up sleeves. A baby-blue Hawaiian shirt with clouds underneath. Kind eyes, an apologetic smile, a little smear of ice cream on his forehead – perhaps even in his unrealistically pale curls.
And to top it all off, a white, honest-to-God bow tie.
Crowley forgot how language worked. His brain unhelpfully supplied that the man looked like sunshine with a hint of vanilla.
Anathema leaned in and whispered, “You don’t have a type.”
The man in the van smiled at Crowley like the world had just quietly, kindly rearranged itself.
“Hello,” he said gently. “What can I get you?”
Crowley opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Get a grip, he scolded himself. Now. Don’t gape at this posh bloke.
He cleared his throat and stepped forward, already bracing himself. “Hi. Um. Mint chocolate chip.”
“Sorry?” the man said, leaning closer.
“Mint chocolate chip.”
“Mint chocolate… ship?”
Crowley blinked. “What.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” the man said earnestly. “We don’t have anything nautical, I’m afraid.”
Anathema made a noise that might have been a cough, but could just as well have been suppressed laughter.
Crowley wanted to strangle her.
“Chip,” Crowley repeated, enunciating carefully.
“Oh!” The man’s eyes lit up. “Chip. Right. Of course. For a moment I thought you said sheep.”
“I did not say sheep.”
“Yes, no, that would be a dreadful process… You'd have to be very committed to the concept,” the man agreed solemnly.
Crowley stared at him.
Then, against his will, he laughed.
It surprised both of them.
“Well then,” the man said, clearly delighted, “mint chocolate chip it is.”
Crowley watched him scoop the ice cream, neat and precise, handing over the cone like it mattered. Their fingers brushed briefly.
He felt it all the way down his spine.
“Anything else?” the man asked.
Crowley opened his mouth – then thought better of it. Blurting out the first thing that came to mind seemed… unwise. (That being: I’d also take your hand in marriage, cheers.) “No. That’s… that’s plenty.”
The man smiled at him. It was soft. Unassuming. Entirely dangerous.
With a cone in one hand, Crowley stepped aside, heart doing something unhelpful. He glanced back once – just once – as Anathema paid for her own ice cream (something dark; probably blackcurrant) with an expression of profound satisfaction.
“Bloody English accents,” Crowley muttered as they walked away.
For the rest of the day, Crowley couldn’t focus on anything except replaying the meeting with the man with the charming smile and unruly platinum hair.