Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Crowley was not a natural born thief. He had in fact been jittering around the bookshop for a good twenty minutes, trying to summon the nerve to steal a single book. Finally, when he'd taken a nice deep breath, he shoved the book inside his jacket.

“OI!”

On reflection, maybe the thin, faux leather jacket had been a bad look for today. It really didn't do much to conceal a solidly built hardback, and now a burly and very pissed off looking man was bearing down on him. Since when did musty old bookshops come with security guards?!

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” The man had grabbed him by the shoulders now. Fuck indeed.

Crowley's face paled as he tried to think of a way out of the situation. It really wasn't looking good.

Then some kind of dazzlingly beige creature came swooping in.

“Derek, please get your hands off my new assistant.” The apparition gently shooed away the offending hands on Crowley's shoulders.

“Do come along, dear. I want to explain the seventeenth century filing system.” Now Crowley was being ushered into the back of the shop, as the strange man called over his shoulder “Be a love and mind the shop for me, Derek. I won't be but a minute!”

“So sorry about that. He's ex TA, gets a bit excitable sometimes. Lovely man though, he has the most delightful bone china collection!”

They drew to a halt in the back room, and Crowley found himself being lightly dusted off post-scuffle. He still hadn't spoken a word.

“Well, no harm done! Now let me see what you have there...” The man-shaped being (Crowley was feeling very uncertain about reality right now) gently took the book from his hands.

“Oh dear... It's not very valuable, I'm afraid. You're really not very experienced in this, are you?”

There was a long pause, before Crowley realised it was his turn to speak.

“Uh... No.”

Well that was certainly worth waiting for. Excellent defence. No way the man would be calling the police after an explanation like that.

“It has lovely colour plates, but I'm afraid the spine is quite severely discoloured, and have you seen the dogears on some of these pages? I really only keep it because the flowers are so pretty. You wouldn't have got much for it at all...”

“I... I wasn't going to sell it,” Crowley confessed. As if that was even believable.

But the man's face started practically glowing. Angel. That was the word Crowley's brain had been searching for. The man looked like an angel.

“No. You weren't, were you? Now, you sit down on the sofa here, and I'll brew us a pot of tea. Back in a sec!”

And then the angelic man left the book on the coffee table, and disappeared through another door. Did he want Crowley to steal it?

Fuck. What the actual fuck? Crowley had no frame of reference for this. What the hell was he supposed to do now? In the absence of any better ideas, Crowley sat on his hands and tried to take up as little space as possible.

“Well now. I thought some Ceylon might perk us up a bit.” The angel set down a tea tray, replete with tea pot,¹ milk, two mugs and a plateful of jammy dodgers.

“I'm Aziraphale, by the way.” The angel (or apparition; Crowley was keeping an open mind) held out a hand.

After Crowley had awkwardly extracted a hand from under his bony arse, he shook hands with Aziraphale the angel.

“Crowley. I'm Crowley.”

“Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, my dear. Now, in actual fact I use several filing systems. Please don't tell the customers though, I don't want to give them too much of an advantage. Fiction from the 1840's to 1870's is kept on the shelving immediately to the left of the till, unless if it is valued over £50. Modern is managed continentally, with the better authors on the higher shelves. Now-”

“What.”

“I'm sorry, should I slow down?” Aziraphale looked mildly concerned.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The job! If you're to be my new assistant, you simply must understand at least the basics of my categorisation... Unless if it would be better if you didn't?”²

Crowley let the utterly confused expression on his face speak for itself, meanwhile Aziraphale poured the tea.

“Well, dear, I did tell Derek you were my assistant. And I simply abhor lying.³ So you will come back tomorrow at around eleven-ish, won't you? Better make it quarter past.”

“You open at eleven?”

“Oh heavens, no. Elevenses is the mark of true civilisation. We can have some of that lovely lemon and poppyseed cake I bought today. Do say you'll come back?”

“Uh... Yeah.” How was Crowley supposed to do anything other than abjectly agree to anything this angel said?

“Splendid.”

Aziraphale handed him a mug and a jammy dodger. That's when Crowley noticed the other man's mug had fucking angel wings on it.

Crowley didn't usually believe in signs, or angels, or tartan tea cosies so hideous that even his nan would have distastefully disposed of them at the nearest charity shop. But the universe really couldn't put it much clearer: tomorrow he would be coming back to work at AZ Fell and Co.