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Jim thinks Earth is pretty neat. For starters, there’s hot chocolate. There’s also the bookshop, and the sun, and clothes, and his friends, Aziraphale and Crowley. Aziraphale lives in the bookshop, and knows all sorts of very interesting and useful things, like where the feather dusters are, and how to fold a toga, and that you should not stick forks in the box called the microwave, and what is that doing in here anyway, infernal thing, Crowley, was that you?
Crowley does not live in the bookshop. Jim figures he must live in a bookshop of his own, somewhere else, although when he asks, Crowley says, “not even at gunpoint.”
“What’s a gun?” Jim asks Aziraphale, and Aziraphale tells him not to worry about it.
Three days later, while organizing books, he finds a strange metal object, short and heavy and cold to the touch. “Aziraphale?” he calls out. There is no response. Aziraphale is often across the street, where Jim is not allowed to go, or riding in Crowley’s car, that Jim is not allowed to ride in, or sometimes, in L-space, deep in the bookshop, where Jim is not allowed to go. It’s for his own good. 1 So he tucks the strange object into his toga, and keeps cleaning until Aziraphale walks in the door. Then, he pulls it out from his toga, and points it at him. “Aziraphale, what’s this?”
“Ah!” Aziraphale yelps, stumbling backwards and nearly knocking over a few books.2 “Ah! Jim, ah, no, don’t! Not the Austens! No, how about you, ah, let me just-” he edges close to Jim, and then quickly snatches the object away from him. “That,” he says, panting, “is very dangerous.”
“What is it? Why do you have it?”
“It’s a gun,” Aziraphale says. He puts it in his desk drawer and locks it, putting the key in his pocket. Then he straightens up. “Sometimes I need to defend myself.”
“No, no,” he says, and walks around Aziraphale. He reaches out to squeeze his biceps, then his shoulders. “It’s good. You’re meant for a weapon. You’re a natural soldier.”
“Oh, good,” says Aziraphale faintly.
“But it’s missing something,” Jim says.
“Well, it’s certainly not bullets,” Aziraphale says under his breath.
Jim squints at him. He sees a flickering flash - something red and roaring and hot - yes, he sees Aziraphale enveloped in flames, looking calm. Smug. Even as he watches, Aziraphale opens his mouth and fire roars out. He jumps back, but the fire’s not really there. Sometimes that happens. He sees things that don’t seem to be *here,* but they’re not really *there,* either. He usually doesn’t mention them to Aziraphale. Aziraphale doesn’t seem to like it.
He claps Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Fire!” he says. “It needs more fire.”
“I’ll, ah, take it under advisement, shall I?” says Aziraphale.
≠≠
Crowley doesn’t live at the bookshop, but he does spend a lot of time there. He’ll slink into the bookshop all hours of the day and drop down on the sofa, or pick at the books, or rearrange things when Aziraphale’s back is turned. He’ll nap for hours on the sofa downstairs, although Jim doesn’t think he’s really napping, because when he dusts around him, he’ll see a glint of yellow under Crowley’s glasses, like he’s watching Jim. Jim always waves when he sees that, and watches Crowley’s jaw twitch. It’s a fun little thing they have. It’s like a handshake! Jim has seen a lot of handshakes on the street outside his window. He has tried to give Aziraphale a handshake, but Aziraphale doesn’t seem to understand them.
Crowley’s so funny, and his yellow eyes are very cool. He acts like he doesn’t like it when Jim tells him that. Jim thinks he’s just shy. He understands shy. He doesn’t think he’s shy, but he knows that other people are, sometimes. Aziraphale’s not shy, even though he pretends that he is. It’s very interesting. He asks Aziraphale, once, why he pretends not to like Crowley, when he really does, and Aziraphale sputters, tells him it’s certainly no business of his, and then disappears into L-space to stock-take for six hours.
Crowley slinks into the shop then in that cool walk of his. Jim has tried to imitate it before a mirror, but Aziraphale had asked what was making all that noise upstairs, and could he please try to quiet down, unless he knew the answer for bestselling self-help book author of sevens? 3
“Where’s Aziraphale?” Crowley asks.
“He’s in L-space. Stocktaking. I’m not allowed to go in after him, even if I hear him scream.”
“Nah, he’ll be fine,” Crowley says, then studies Jim. “What’d you do to narc him off?”
"I asked why he pretended not to like you, when he really does.”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it. Gets him in a snit every time you ask that. Why’d you ask that? Out of curiosity?”
“Well, Mutt and his spouse across the road don’t pretend not to like each other.”
“Well, they’re married.”
“You could get married!”
Crowley spends a long time choking, and has to mime to Jim how to do some sort of maneuver on him he calls the Hime-lick, and then says, hoarsely, “do me a favor, don’t say that to Aziraphale, yeah?”
“Jim?” says Aziraphale, coming out of L-space, winding up a ball of red-thread that’s tied to his desk leg. “What on earth is all the noise - oh, Crowley!” He beams, looks at Jim, flushes, smiles again.
Crowley glowers at Jim. Jim thinks this means he is supposed to go elsewhere. “I have to go organize dust motes,” he says, and points upstairs.
“Right, have fun,” says Aziraphale, not even listening, and he and Crowley stare at each other as Jim backs out of the room slowly. Neither of them pay him any mind.
≠≠
Jim likes it best when both his friends are in the bookshop. Sometimes Jim gets lonely when Aziraphale and Crowley go out. They go out a lot, and leave him in the bookshop. There are so many books in the shop, and books are pretty neat, but Jim has trouble paying attention past the first few lines. There are many, many clothes upstairs, and Jim likes those a little better. He tries them all on before the mirror, but eventually he runs out of clothes, and he’s still alone. He goes through the books. He dusts. There is so much dust! He tries to listen to songs, which convey information in a tuneful way, but he has trouble working all the machines. Once, he gets some sort of radio broadcast of some voices he recognizes, speaking sharply over each other. Something about it makes him nervous, and he turns it off.
Sometimes he goes to sleep, and sleep is nice. Aziraphale and Crowley are usually gone for a long time - hours and hours and hours. They don’t like it when Jim’s there when they get back, so he stays in his room upstairs. He can hear them down there, under the music. Low laughter, the exchange of their voices. It sounds nice. Sometimes he creeps out and sits on the landing of the stairs in Aziraphale’s plush robe and listens. None of it really means anything to him, but it’s nice anyway. He usually falls asleep listening to it.
When he wakes up, it’s bright and sunny out. He usually opens the window and leans out of it to feel the sun on his skin. It feels good. He drinks his hot chocolate and calls down to the people below, and usually, they call back. Another new day. Jim likes new days.
≠≠
Every night, Jim dreams something wondrous and strange.
The first time it happens he’s afraid, and lost, and confused. He thinks because he doesn’t know what dreams are. He’s not sure if he’s ever had one before. He’s in a place that’s not the bookshop. He knows it, because it doesn’t look like the bookshop. It doesn’t feel like it either, or smell like it. Everything is green and smells alive. Jim is walking slowly, and looking all around, at everything. There’s a stream running along the ground, and he crawls on his hands and knees next to it, looking in and seeing a beautiful spirit looking back at him. Then he gets bored of that, and stands up and begins to pick and try things off the trees and bushes. There are fruits, and berries, and all kinds of interesting things, none of them hot chocolate. Someone ought to make a hot chocolate tree, he thinks, and then he says it out loud, hands on his hips, proclaiming it to the wildness. “Someone ought to make a hot chocolate tree!” Then he grins, because surely someone is listening, and surely they will make one! It is an excellent idea.
Gabriel, says a voice, echoing all around and above and inside him. Where are you, Gabriel? Jim doesn’t pay this any attention, because he’s not Gabriel - although sometimes people call him Gabriel. He’s Jim. He likes being Jim. He likes being Jim, he thinks, better than he would like being Gabriel. It seems like people don’t really like Gabriel very much, which is sad for Gabriel, but not for Jim. Because people like Jim. Jim likes people, too, so it all works out! Gabriel, he hears again, you’re late. We’re all at the Tree of Knowledge, waiting for you.
Jim isn’t Gabriel, even though he feels something strange in his chest and stomach. Not like the hot chocolate at all. Very unlike the hot chocolate, actually. He doesn’t like it. It makes him feel bad. Also, his head hurts, like there’s something he’s trying to think of that he can’t quite get. Still, he thinks he might as well go to the Tree of Knowledge, whatever that is, and see what all the fuss is about.
Except he doesn’t know where it is. He walks around looking for it, but everything’s the same, and there’s no one to ask. It’s so lonely! “Hello?” he calls out. “Anyone? Aziraphale? Crowley?”
There’s a buzzing sound that gets louder when he turns a certain direction, so he turns and heads that way. It gets louder and louder as he walks close. Maybe it’s a miracle? They make a sound, he knows, based on what Aziraphale and Crowley did. They held his hands. It was nice. No one’s ever held his hand before, he’s pretty sure. He wants to do it again. He follows the sound, ducking under trees and through brush, until he comes into a clearing. There’s a thick, dark cloud hovering over a tree branch, and as he walks closer, he sees a person sitting on the lowest branch. Their head is nearly level with Jim’s. They are all dressed in black, and the buzzing seems to be coming from them, somehow. They have a little black hat on, set at a rakish angle.
“Hello,” Jim says, because he’s very happy to see someone.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” the person says.
Jim looks around. “I only just got here.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do,” he says. “Very much. But not as much as the bookshop.”
“The bookshop,” the being says.
“Do you know it?”
“I know of it.”
“I’m Jim,” says Jim.
“Jim?” frowns the being.
“That’s what they call me. Sometimes people call me Gabriel, but I don’t think I’m really him.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Aziraphale said I wasn’t.”
“Oh,” says the being, and frowns. They look troubled. They have dark makeup around their eyes4 and it makes them look as if they’re crying, but they’re not. Their eyes are nice. Jim likes their eyes.
“I like your eyes,” he says.
“Thank you,” they say. They smile. Their smile is nice, too, and Jim tell them that. Then he says, “I’m glad I’m not Gabriel. It sounds like he’s in trouble.” He points Up.
“It does,” says the being. “Do you know where he is?”
“No, do you?”
“No. I don’t think I’d be here if I did.”
“Is this the Tree of Knowledge?”
“No. It’s the Tree of Memory.”
“Wow,” he says, and then, “is there a Tree of Hot Chocolate?”
They think. “I don’t think so,” they say, and hop off the branch, landing lightly on the ground before Jim. “Do you want to go look?”
“Yes!” Jim says. “I would love to!”
They offer Jim their arm and he takes it. “Lead the way,” he says.
“It’s your dream,” they say.
“Dream?” he says. “What’s a dream?”
And then Jim wakes up. He’s in his room in the bookshop, which is not the green place, and it is strange. There’s a fly tickling his nose, and he bats at it. It flies away slowly, heading towards the window. He lays there, looking at it, and wondering how to get back there, and if there are hot chocolate trees, and if so, how the mugs stay on.
≠≠
It’s very strange, to go in between one place and another. First he asks Aziraphale how to get to that green place, and describes it until Aziraphale says, shortly, “You can’t. It’s all - walled off.”
“Oh,” Jim says. “Who did that?”
“Ah, no way to tell, really,” says Aziraphale. “Why are you asking this? Have you had a memory…?”
“What’s a dream?” Jim says, and so Aziraphale explains that dreaming is something you do every time you sleep.5 It’s like a book, Aziraphale explains, except it comes out of your mind, and they’re different, each night.
“So I won’t be able to go back to that place?” Jim asks.
“Likely not,” Aziraphale says. “But maybe there are other places you’ll like better?”
“I like the bookshop,” he says. “Maybe I’ll dream about the bookshop. What do you dream about?”
“I don’t,” says Aziraphale.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t sleep. Why don’t you ask Crowley?”
So he lurks around the bookshelves with his feather duster and watches Crowley dream. Crowley takes a lot of naps in the bookshop, which are like little sleeps, and so he must have a lot of dreams. Maybe they’re like short stories. Crowley’s feet twitch, and he mutters things, and once or twice he shakes his head. Once, he says Aziraphale’s name. Jim wonders what kind of dream he’s having. He wonders if he dreams about the green place.
“What do you want,” Crowley, not opening his eyes.
“I thought you were asleep,” Jim says.
“Evil never sleeps. Why are you watching me?”
“I wanted to watch you dream.”
“That’s not weird at all,” Crowley says.
“It isn’t? Good! Is weird bad?”
Crowley makes a noncommittal noise. “Out of you it is.”
“Okay. Then I shall not be weird!”
“Too late,” says Crowley. He sits up and crosses his arms. “Why do you want to watch me dream?”
“I want to know how to get back to the green place.”
“The green place?” Jim describes it. “Ah. You dream about that?”
“Just once,” Jim says. “I liked it.”
“Mmm, it was nice, wasn’t it. A real Paradise.” There’s a capital letter there. “Why do you want to go back?”
“There was someone there,” he says. “Someone I want to see again.”
Crowley leans forward, mouth open. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Jim says. “Do you know?”
“How would I know what you dream about?”
“Maybe you see them in your dreams, too.”
“Mmm, I doubt it.6 Maybe you should ask them who they are, the next time you see them.”
“I will do that,” says Jim, and bows, and begins to feather-dust his way backwards, to think more about dreams.
≠≠
Jim discovers that he can feel the sun everywhere if he goes on the roof and spreads out on a blanket naked, which is what he does for awhile until Aziraphale finds him. “Oh, for-” Aziraphale says when he stumbles on him.
“Hi, Aziraphale!”
“What on Earth are you doing?”
“I’m freeing my body from the constraints of clothes!”
“But you *like* clothes!”
Jim feels funny, like something’s rushing in his ears, and his eyes burn, and his head hurts, so much, and he says -
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”
And then it stops. Crowley’s come out on the roof behind Aziraphale, holding a bottle in his hand.
“What’s he doing on the roof?”
“Freeing his body from the constraints of clothes, apparently,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley - he’s done it again.”
“You should try it!” Jim says.
“Not with you,” Crowley says.
“With each other, then,” Jim suggests, and watches them both turn very funny colors. “What are you doing up here?”
“What am I - it’s my roof!” Aziraphale hisses.
“Ooh, is that a picnic basket? Neat.” Jim sits up and crosses his legs. Crowley winces. “I love picnics. What are we having?”
≠≠
Jim isn’t supposed to go outside, but one morning the mail person drops a package halfway down the sidewalk. It looks important. It probably is important, because Aziraphale always says anything shaped like that is a book, and books are always important.
Aziraphale isn’t here. He’s gone somewhere with Crowley. Something about a park. Jim isn’t invited. Jim stands for a long time at the windows, staring out at the package. People step over it. Someone pushes a stroller very close to it. A dog sniffs at it, lingering, before it is pulled onwards. Finally, someone kicks it. Jim can’t allow this to happen to one of Aziraphale’s things! So he looks around, and puts on Aziraphale’s coat for safety, and then he goes Out.
It’s very interesting Out. He’s been Out before. That’s how he got In. The air is colder, and it smells like so many things, and there are so many people! One or two of them bump into him. He walks along until he gets to the package, which has Aziraphale’s name on it. It’s a good thing he came Out. He picks up the package, and looks around very quickly. Then he goes back In, shutting the door behind him.
The package is waiting on Aziraphale’s desk when he gets back, and he doesn’t even say anything about it. Jim watches him from between the shelves, holding his feather duster, as Aziraphale opens it up, flips through a few pages and sighs in happiness, and puts it down.
So Jim went Out, and nothing bad happened.
A few days later, Jim goes down to the edge of the block, and the day after that, walks up one side of the street and down the other, saying hello to the people he sees every day from his window! Everyone is really nice, and there are so many thing to see, and smell, and hear. The day after that, he goes to the coffee shop, and gets a hot chocolate with some money he’d found in the till.
“I hope they’re paying you enough,” Coffee Lady says.
“Aziraphale lets me try on all his clothes. Do you like this one?” He gestures at the sweater he’s wearing.
“Takes all types,” says Coffee Lady. “Next person, please!”
He goes to the Dirty Donkey, because he wants to see a donkey, and is disappointed when there’s not one. When the man behind the counter asks what he wants, he tells them he would like one gin, please.
“Straight up?”
He considers. “Kind of sideways,” he says, thinking of how Crowley slumps down in his chair when he drinks. The man gives him an odd look, then goes to mutter with someone else behind the bar. Jim grins and waves. The woman comes over then with a glass, which is half-full, and has some strange things floating in it. “Thank you,” says Jim, bowing to her. He holds it for awhile, until he sees Crowley slinking down the street, and then he drinks the gin in a hurry. It is strange. It does something like the hot chocolate inside him, but even more, although it does not taste as good. It tastes a little like the cleaner he had found under Aziraphale’s sink in the kitchen. He feels a little funny when he walks back to the bookshop. Kind of excited and sleepy all at once. He gets in before Crowley sees him. Aziraphale doesn’t seem to have noticed. He goes upstairs and takes a nap, but just like Crowley says, he doesn’t have any dreams.
≠≠
Aziraphale has many beautiful and interesting books downstairs. There is a very large one downstairs, with pretty illustrations, that Aziraphale explains is something called the Bie Bel. It’s about, mainly, something called God.
“What is God?” Jim asks, and his ears ring, and he feels something strange in his back, heavy and hot.
“God is, ah, well, God, is the Almighty, our, ah, creator, and, ah-”
“She’s a real piece of-” Crowley says, and Aziraphale shushes him, grabbing his arm and pulling him away. “Can you excuse us, Jim.” Jim watches them go. They don’t go far. “He’s forgotten God!” Aziraphale whispers.
“Lucky bugger,” Crowley says.
In the Bie Bel are drawings of beings with wings, beautiful and large. Jim has seen wings on the small birds outside his window, little brown things, and larger ones, too. Some birds sing in the morning, and others at night, when Aziraphale and Crowley are too loud downstairs to hear them. Aziraphale tells him the birds in the book are called angels. One angel is particularly beautiful, dark hair and purple eyes and large white-and-gold wings. He stands on a rock and says something to the people down below. Jim traces the page with his fingertips, mouth open.
Crowley saunters behind him, holding a stack of books. “Wanker,” he mutters, under his breath.
The next time Aziraphale leaves, Gabriel goes down the street and asks that nice woman with all the daughters what a wanker is. There’s a lot of screaming laughter, and then a practical7 demonstration. “It’s something most everyone does, love,” the nice woman tells him.
“It must be nice to have so many sisters,” he says, “you can all share your clothes!”
They look at each other. “Hang on,” they say, “Dora’s not here, maybe-” they come out with a fantastic robe, red velvet and silk with a fur collar. “I think this is just your size.”
“For me?” They nod. “Thank you,” Jim says. “You’re the second person to ever give me anything.” For some reason this makes the girls look sad, so Jim puts it on. It comes to mid-thigh on him, and they giggle.
“You’re supposed to wear it with nothing underneath,” they say.
“Oh!” he says. He rubs the fabric between his fingers. “Aziraphale makes me wear clothes in the shop. He says he’s seen quite enough of me to last several lifetimes and he doesn’t want to see anymore this century.”
The girls shake their heads. “That Mr. Crowley’s turned his head,” the nice woman says.
“They like each other,” Jim says, “but you can’t say that to them.”
He wakes early the next morning and stands in the window in his new robe,8 drinking his hot chocolate. “Hello, wanker!” he calls out to the people below.
“Up yours!” A man calls back. He waves. A few other people laugh, and wave, and call him a wanker, too. He calls to two of the daughters below, walking arm in arm, and they wave to him, and laugh. One of them presses her lips to her palm, and then blows it up to Jim. Jim tries to catch it, and they shriek in laughter.
≠≠
Aziraphale and Crowley are out doing something when Jim goes back to the Bie Bel book and look at it. He keeps looking at the beautiful angel with the big wings. He wishes he had wings like that. Maybe he does! Aziraphale has a robe just like that, and Jim goes upstairs and changes into it, because maybe it will help him imagine it, and then he holds the book in his lap and thinks about wings.
He feels something heavy and warm on his back, pushing through his body, and it hurts a lot, and he’s about to yell, and then, bam! He has wings! He spends a lot of time looking at them in the mirror. They’re big, and heavy, and white and gold, just like the angel in the book! He spends some time playing with them, and making them look nice. He really does look better like this. When he hears Crowley’s car pull up, he goes to the top of the staircase in the bookshop, and practices his pose from the book, spreading his arms and wings wide. Oh, they’ll be so surprised when Aziraphale’s book comes to life!
Aziraphale and Crowley come through the door, Crowley very, very close on Aziraphale’s heels. Jim says, “Greetings, wankers! I am an angel of the Lord!”
“Ah!!” they yell in awe and wonder, clutching onto each other. Crowley grabs Aziraphale by the jacket and pulls him backwards, and there is a brief tussle at the door as they slap at each other. Jim holds the pose, beaming beatifically, arms and wings spread wide. He gets the feeling this is what he was made for!
“I thought you said he didn’t remember!” Crowley wails.
“He’s been reading the books!”
“Dangerous things, books are,” Crowley says. He resettles his glasses and stalks to the foot of the steps. “Jim,” he says slowly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m an angel of the Lord!”
“Yeah,” Crowley says. “You are. Why now?”
“I saw it in a book. And I have these wings, see? Nifty, aren’t they?” He tugs on one and splays it out.
“Lovely,” says Aziraphale, faintly.
“Stellar,” says Crowley. “Have you - remembered anything?”
“No. Should I have?”
“No, no,” says Crowley, hurriedly. “Why - why’d you call us wankers?”
“You called me a wanker. The other day. Remember?”
Aziraphale says, “Crowley!”
“Thanks a lot,” Crowley says.
“It’s alright, Aziraphale, we all do it.” Jim remembers at the last moment that he’s not supposed to have gone outside and talked to the nice woman with all her daughters. “I read it in a book.”
“You’ve got to keep him away from the books, angel,” says Crowley.
“I live in a bookshop! What, do you want me to send him home with you?”
“Not bloody likely,” says Crowley, and shudders.
“We all do- what?” asks Aziraphale, as if he doesn’t really want to know. Crowley, meanwhile, miracles a glass and bottle into his hand, and drinks two glasses hastily.
“You know, like-” he gestures.
“Oh - there’s no need for that!”
“You did ask,” Crowley says.
“Yes, thank you, Crowley! I asked for my former - Jim - to demonstrate wanking to me!”
“Learns fast, he does,” Crowley says. “Been doing a lot of that?”
“Sometimes,” he says. “Aziraphale, do you do it too?”
“Certainly not recently,” Aziraphale mutters.
Crowley stares at him. “Angel, you astonish me.” Aziraphale flushes, and begins to angrily stack books.
“Crowley?”
“Oh, yeah, loads of times,” he says, rather unconvincingly. “Regular wanker, I am.”
“You’re funny,” Jim says. “I love you. And I love you.”
Aziraphale looks horrified, and Crowley looks like he’s going to be sick. Jim smiles happily and spreads his wings and arms. “Go forth and wank!” he says, and then smiles at them. “There, did I do it right?”9
“Top notch,” says Crowley. “Have a gold star.”
≠≠
Jim doesn’t dream about the green place again, but he does dream about the white place. The white place is very different. He doesn’t like it as much. It’s enormous, and too bright, and there’s not anyone there, either. His footsteps echo as he walks through never-ending gleaming halls. He thinks he’s lost, but there’s not anyone to ask for sure. There are so many rooms, and so many doors. He has his wings, again, and a white robe trimmed in gold. He touches his wings for company. It makes him feel a little better, but not much. He doesn’t want to be here, but he doesn’t know where else to be, and so he keeps walking.
Finally he comes to a room that looks different from the others. The door is half-open, and there are things stuck all over the outside of it. He looks at them. They’re book pages, very large, with diagrams and drawings on them. He pushes open the door and walks inside.
One of the walls is a big window that shows space. There’s something throbbing at the middle of it, something that makes his eyes hurt, and so he doesn’t look at it for too long. Instead, he looks at the being in the room, who is leaning on one of the tables, chin propped on their hand, making notes on an enormous sheet of paper. It's the same being as in the green place! They look different, through. They’re in white, like Jim, and not in black. Their hair is long, too, and braided, and they’re hatless.
“Where’s your hat?” Jim says.
“I don’t have it yet,” they say. “Nice wings.”
“Thank you,” he says, and looks at them in delight. “Where are yours?”
“Long story,” they say.
“I’m supposed to ask you who you are,” Jim says.
“I’m———-” they say, Jim’s ears ring, and he rubs them as they stick their tongue out in disgust. 10“No, I’m not. Why are we here?”
“I don’t know,” Jim says, looking around. “I don’t think I like this place very much.”
“Nobody does,” says the being. “You should see the other side. It’s not better.”
“Ugh,” Jim says. “What’s going on out there?” he asks, because now things are happening in space. Exciting things! There are streaks of light and flame, collisions of stars. He gets the feeling that he should be out there. He gets the feeling that he’s late.
They come beside him and stand in the window. “There’s a war on,” they say glumly.
“War,” he says. “Do I like war?”
“I don’t know, do you?” They look at him sharply.
“I don’t think so. I think I’m supposed to, but I don’t think I do.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just…don’t. Do we have to go out there?”
“I’m afraid so,” they say. “Now’s when you threaten me with your sword, I think.”
“My sword?” Jim looks down to see there’s a sword in his hand. “Oh, no. I don’t think I want to do that.”
“You have to,” they say. “It izzzz written.”
“Well, unwrite it!” he says.
“I don’t do the writing. You’ll have to take it up with Her.”
“Maybe I will,” Jim says, drawing himself up. His wings flare out behind him, and he holds his sword. “And I’m going to tell Her exactly what I think of this-”
Jim wakes. The fly is back, crawling over his eyelids. He bats at it and it drifts, lazily, to the ceiling. “Are you giving me these dreams?” he asks.
The fly buzzes, and rustles its wings. He thinks that’s fly for yes.
≠≠
Aziraphale leaves the bookshop again to go somewhere very secret, and Crowley takes no time at all to fall asleep on the couch. Jim waits two hours, standing still and watching him from behind the books, before he leaves and goes to a clothing shop down the street. There are so many clothes! He tries on so many different things, jackets and skirts and shirts and pants. Jim looks good in clothes. It’s funny. A jacket will look so plain on the hanger, dark blue and boring, but when Jim puts it on, it just looks fantastic! Like this one. He smooths down the jewel-encrusted collar and turns to look at the back vents. The jacket’s a little short, he thinks, and it grows, and he nods in approval.
The music in the shop changes to the tune he hears a lot - in his head, on Aziraphale’s gramophone, outside in the streets. Everyday, it’s a getting closer - he sings along, and adjusts the sleeve length. Perfect!
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” he hears someone say from behind him.
He turns around. The person who is there does not fit the shop at all. In fact, he doesn’t know how they’ve been allowed in. They’re small, and dressed all in black, with a little black hat. They’ve got a fly crawling over their cheek, and it looks as if they’re crying darkness. They’re smiling, a little. No, they’re not. But they want to be. Jim can tell, somehow.
“Do I - know you?”
“Do you?” They smile, then, but they look sad.
Jim approaches. Closer, closer. He can see the two of them reflected in the three-way mirrors around them. They look good together. He looks at them, and again.
“No. Wait. I do know you. I see you in my dreams.”
“You dream?”
“I’ve been sleeping,” he says. “It’s something you can do to pass the time, and also, you can have dreams? They’re like stories, but you make them up. I like dreams. I’m not so lonely in them.”
“That’s because I’m there?”
“Yes!” he says. He puts his hands on their shoulders and looks down into their dark eyes. “Sometimes my dreams aren’t so great. They’re called nightmares. Do you know them?”
“I know nightmares,” they say. They grin. There is dripping black goo on their teeth, and flies, and then it’s all gone. Jim doesn’t think he’s supposed to like it, but he does. It’s exciting, and kind of cool.
“Great! So you know how they leave you feeling all - yucky and nasty and tight inside?”
“I do.”
“You’re not in my nightmares. Not usually. There was the one with the white rooms, and the War?”
“I have that one too,” they say. “Except I’m not asleep.”
“I like when you’re in my dreams,” Jim says simply. “Maybe you could come to my dream tonight? Or? Oh! We could get hot chocolate together? Do you know hot chocolate?”
“I don’t,” they say. They look at him as if they’re troubled. “Maybe later. I have to go.”
“No,” Jim says, looking at them. He feels bad. He feels like he’s having a nightmare. “Why?”
“I have to go find out what’s going on. I’ll be back.”
“Maybe I’ll see you tonight,” he says. “In my dreams.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” They look at him, and then they’re gone.
“So!” says the shop assistant, coming over. “What are we thinking about the jacket?”
“We’re thinking yes on the jacket,” Jim says. “And also, who was that here, just now?”
“Who?” says the shop assistant, turning around. “There’s nobody here.”
≠≠
“Crowley,” Jim asks, “What’s it mean when you feel like you’ve swallowed a bunch of flies here-” he rubs his stomach, “and like your body’s too small here-” he touches his chest - "and like all you can think about is one specific person up here?” He points to his head.
“Usually means I drank too much,” Crowley says. “Why?”
“I met someone,” Jim says.
Crowley’s eyes widen. Jim can see the yellow around the glasses. “You - you should really ask Aziraphale about this,” he says, and flees the bookshop.
“Aziraphale,” Jim asks, finding him at his desk, “what’s it mean when you feel like you’ve swallowed a bunch of flies here-” he rubs his stomach, “and like your body’s too small here-” he touches his chest - "and like all you can think about is one specific person up here?” He points to his head.
“What? Why do you ask that?”
“I met the person of my dreams,” Jim says.
“Here?” Aziraphale points at the bookshop.
“Around here,” Jim says, vaguely.11
“It could be love,” Aziraphale says slowly.
“Love,” says Jim. “Is that good?”
“Well, it’s not bad,” Aziraphale says.
“But I love you, and I love Crowley, and it doesn’t feel like this.”
“Different kind of love,” Aziraphale says hastily.12 “It’s in love, instead of love. Very different.”
“Iiiiiiin love,” says Jim, slowly. “In love. Like I’m In the bookshop!”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “A bit like that.”
“What do you do when you’re In love?”
“Do? I don’t do anything.”
“Maybe you should!”
“I mean, I’m not in love,” Aziraphale says hastily. “Humans! Now, humans are usually in love. Take Nina and Maggie, over the road.”
“Crowley tried to vavoom.”
Yes, he did. Well, we’ll be trying something different. Something guaranteed to work.” Jim waits. “We’re going to have a dance.”
“Oh!” says Jim. “Do I like dancing?”
“No,” says Aziraphale resolutely. Then, “maybe?”
“Oh. Okay, then!” He pauses. “Can I invite someone?”
“Go ahead,” says Aziraphale, but he’s not really listening to Jim. He’s reaching for a book, opening it, beginning to hum, and side-step…
≠≠
That night Jim dreams again. In the dream he is in a gray place, someplace cold and dark. Cold is painful on his hands and face, and he puts his hands in his pocket. He has a very nice long coat on, and it’s thick and warm. He’s grateful for it. The gray place is silent, with lots of stone houses all around. There aren’t any windows in those houses. There are lots of things sticking up from the ground, too, with names, and dates. They’re almost like books, he thinks. He walks among them and looks at them until he comes to a tall statue of a beautiful angel with outstretched wings. He’s holding a cross, and a large tablet, and he looks over Jim’s head.
GABRIEL, says the statue base. Jim turns to look behind him to see what the angel is looking at. He sees the person from his dream, and also, from the clothing shop.
“You!” he says.
“Me,” they say. “I thought I might find you here.”
“Where are we?”
“We used to meet here.”
“I can see why,” he says. “Under the protection of this glorious angel, everything must be right.”
“Silly angel,” they say. They step close, and Jim feels the same thing he had felt before, even though he’s in a dream. The In Love feeling.
“You make me feel funny,” he says, very seriously.
“You make me feel funny too,” they say.
“I think that’s good.”
“It’s also a little bad,” they say, quickly.
“Okay,” he says, and beams. They reach out and put an arm around him. It feels good. He leans to rest his head on theirs. It’s a long way down. He has to squat a little. They rise on their tiptoes, so it’s okay. They meet in the middle, looking at the gray statue.
“We’re going to have a dance,” Jim says. “It’s for people who are In Love. Would you like to come? It’s not a dream. It’s real life.”
“Alright,” they say. They reach up on their toes, and then further. There is the rustle of feathers, the buzz of flies, and then their lips brush his cheek. It feels like he’s drank all the hot chocolate in the world. It feels incredible! He wants to feel like this all the time.
Jim wakes. He presses his fingers to his face. His body is doing all kinds of things right now. In the corner of the room, his new jacket hangs in the moonlight. A fly slowly crawls across it. Maybe he’ll wear it to the dance. Maybe the person from his dreams will be there. Maybe they’ll kiss his cheek again. Maybe he can even kiss their cheek. He would like that. He would like that very much.
≠≠
1. He almost goes in, once. He’s dusting the books when he hears his name. It’s funny, they say Jim, but it sounds more like Gabriel, which must be another accent or pronunciation. He follows the sound, winding through the bookshelves, to where they get narrow, and deep, and if you squint right, they go on forever. We can tell you what you’ve lost, the voice says. He’s about to step in when -
“Ga-Jim!” Aziraphale steps in front of him. “What are you doing?”
Jim peers between the shelves. “There’s somebody down there,” he says.
“There is absolutely no one down there, I assure you,” Aziraphale says, and puts a hand on his shoulder, steering him away. “How about a nice cup of hot chocolate, yes?”
Jim looks over his shoulder. So does Aziraphale. The next day there are painted lines on the floor that Aziraphale tells him he can’t cross, and so he doesn’t.
If there’s anything Jim’s good at, he knows, it’s following orders. back
2. The books, of course, know better, and so stay perfectly put.back
3. Jim had frowned. “Covey,” he said.
Aziraphale looked at the paper, mouthed some letters, tapping his pen, then made a face. He wrote it in. back
4. Jim knows makeup. Aziraphale has a lot of it to play with, but Aziraphale tells him it’s for professional magicians only. Maybe this person is a magician! back
5. Although not if you drink a lot, Crowley says, unless you drink too much gin, in which case, they get really weird.
“Aziraphale,” says Jim, “How do I drink gin?”
“Oh, you wicked serpent,” Aziraphale says, and then, “don’t listen to Crowley.” back
6. He does. Those are usually the nightmares, though.back
7. And very illuminating.back
8. Just like the girls told him to do. The fabric does feel nice.back
9. Noted as the Miracle of Soho, a wave of furious masturbation spread over three streets. It lasted approximately seven minutes, and everyone mutually agreed to never speak of it again.back
10. Jim knows disgust. Aziraphale had made the same face when he tried the cleaner-hot chocolate-chicken casserole Jim had made. . back
11. “Do you think it’s a human?” Aziraphale asks Crowley.
“S’better’n the alternative.”
“I’m not sure about that. Remember Nineveh?”
“Do I ever. Lovely date wine cocktails.”
“Not anymore,” Aziraphale says grimly.
“I wonder if-” Crowley says, and stops.
“What?”
“Nah. Nothing. Forget it.” back
12. “I hope,” he mutters.back