Chapter Text
Monday, September 20, 2021
The alarm went off on his mobile, happily blaring the classic rock station Crowley had set it up to. He grappled with the thing for a moment, before it was blessedly quiet again. Pale early morning sunlight filtered into his small bedroom, throwing the plants on the windowsill into contrast and illuminating strips of the floor. He checked his phone while shuffling around and stretching and found two messages from Anathema.
morning sunshine! first day!
u up yet? come on, will be fun!
He smiled. He could picture her excitement so well, even though they had only been colleagues for all of three months. It was lucky that she had accepted the lecturer position for organic chemistry at his university and left the United States behind for it. Her first day, she had introduced herself, in a brusque no-nonsense kind of way, asked about a thousand questions and invited herself to his lunch hour. They had been fast friends approximately one week later, not that he felt he had had much of a choice on the matter. She had made a place for herself in his life, and now she was so essential it was like she had been there forever.
Crowley felt her excitement infecting him despite his early morning daze. Today was the first day of the new semester. The campus had gotten rather quiet over the summer, it would be a relief to have the students come back. So much enthusiasm, so much fresh energy.
yes you pest just gettin ready
great! will leave in 10
They would be there early to set up, making sure the first years would have the best possible experience on their first day. His morning routine was almost done on autopilot and soon the coffee brewer gurgled and he was all ready to go.
Leaving now c u in 15ish
Crowley unlocked his bike from the fence out front and paused a moment before mounting, pulling his long hair into a ponytail so it would not whip around his face in the wind. It promised to be a nice day, in an early autumn kind of way. The foliage colourful, the air crisper and cleaner with a hint of the cold to come. New day, new semester. Good opportunity for a new start. After the summer he had had, he could really use one of those.
When Crowley rode onto campus, the bookshop, which had been on the same corner between an administration building and one of the larger lecture halls ever since he had started working at the university, caught his eye. There were colourful paper garlands fluttering across the front, a large poster proclaiming, "grand re-opening", the old sign missing. That was definitely new. It had been a Whitewings, but you could not tell that anymore. He also remembered that the shop had been closed over the summer. There was no new sign that could have informed him about the shop’s new name though. Crowley slowed his bike to a stop, put a foot down and tried to peer inside through the windows without having to get off the saddle. It was still dark inside, so he could barely see a thing. A blond, curly haired man in a waistcoat stood close to him, peering at the shop with a calculating expression.
"Did they change it somehow? Front looks mostly the same." He mused aloud. The other man started a bit and turned to Crowley. His eyes widened considerably.
"Beg your pardon?"
"The shop, did they change something? I mean I ride by every day but have not really been inside recently."
The man straightened. He had the palest blond hair Crowley had ever seen, a full head of curls and a round, almost cherubic looking face. He was dressed in an old-fashioned way, light blue shirt, beige wool trousers and jacket, velvet waistcoat. And holy shit there was a tartan bow tie. Crowley tried to suppress a laugh, the guy was clearly going for a rather outdated professor look, while being of roughly the same age as him. There were metal rimmed reading glasses dangling from the vee of the waistcoat and he would bet his doctorate degree there was an expensive fountain pen somewhere nearby, or an heirloom watch.
"Well yes, the shop is under new ownership and management and quite a few changes have been made." He looked pleased by this. Crowley couldn't fault him for it, he would appreciate an upgrade to the campus bookshop, too.
"Ah well, good for them, always found the place uninviting, just in a soulless office building kind of way, you know. Anything will be better than before."
The man’s face scrunched a bit in distaste. "Yes well, those large companies certainly have design templates that might not appeal to everyone." Crowley nodded and held out his hand. Balancing his coffee, in a reusable takeaway cup he had lost the lid of forever ago, with the other. The bold rainbow-coloured letters on it proclaimed (quite loudly) "I did it FOR SCIENCE".
"I'm Anthony Crowley, by the way, Chemistry department. Pronouns are he/they." The man took his hand in his own, soft one and they shook. Crowley felt an inappropriate amount of warmth sweep up his arm.
"Aziraphale Fell, he/him, pleasure to meet you, Mr Crowley." Crowley balanced the bike somewhat awkwardly with his legs and took his hand back to regain equilibrium. The man, Aziraphale , smiled politely at him and Crowley tilted his head, thinking.
"Just Crowley is fine. I swear I have seen you on campus before, what department are you in?" Yes, he was certain that he had seen those curls somewhere.
"Oh, no department, my dear, I am not a researcher or lecturer." My dear , Crowley thought, he is something else, isn't he?
"Oh, sorry to assume, might have thought philosophy or English Lit or something, don't really know a lot of colleagues from there. You with administration then?" Aziraphale chuckled, he seemed very amused by Crowley's fumbling attempts at conversation.
"Literature, well, you have the gist of it, this is my shop."
"Oh wow, nice, congratulations on the new shop. Thought I recognised you, but I guess not. Have you been on campus long?" Aziraphale's smile went sheepish.
"Thank you, ah, well, yes, you could say so. I worked for the company that owned the shop for several years, the last four of them here on campus before I bought the shop from them."
Crowley started, remembering the unkind things he said before. It was just like him to put his foot in it before he even properly met the man. "Ah shit, arg errrm, sorry about the bit with the soullessness, I mean, I bet it is a nice enough shop, the books are still books and all…"
Aziraphale raised his hand to stop his rambling. He didn't seem upset.
"No, no, you are quite right. Whitewings had certain regulations on how their locations had to look. I always found it lacked personality to be perfectly honest with you. Everything streamlined to make sales and send the customer on their way again, dreadfully straightforward. I endeavoured to make it more welcoming. I should think I made a good start on it."
His smile was definitely pleased now, soft and proud, his gaze drifting back to the shop. He had dimples, Crowley noticed. Round cheeks, nose with a slight upturn, and dimples . The smile crinkled the area around his eyes pleasantly, and the eyes themselves were very blue. Aziraphale really had a face for pleased smiles, Crowley wanted to run his fingertips over it.
Huh. That was a strange thought to have, his brain must still be booting up. He rebalanced and shifted his satchel a bit, then took a rather large gulp of his coffee.
Aziraphale sighed, still eyeing the front windows."Well, nothing for it, we will open without a proper sign, the new one will arrive when it does. For now, lots still to do, better put my bum into it."
Crowley's scalding coffee went down the wrong pipe, he spluttered and coughed, flinging the remains at himself and Aziraphale. He only missed him by a narrow margin. His own jeans got somewhat splattered.
"Oh dear, are you quite alright?"
Crowley's eyes were tearing up and his sinuses burned. He desperately tried to stop coughing and flailing, finally getting himself somewhat under control and rubbing his face on the sleeve of his dark grey henley. His coffee formed a sad puddle between his own and Aziraphale's shoes.
"Oh shit, sorry, that was close. I'm fine, just fine, sorry." His voice was a pathetic, wheezing thing. Aziraphale looked at him, still concerned.
"Would you like to come in for some water, dear? It would be no bother."
Crowley felt his face heat. How embarrassing. Making a spectacle of himself, just because this nice and somewhat old-fashioned looking bookseller had alluded to his bum. Which was probably not even a nice bum, not at all plump and round, perfectly fitted in those wool trousers, he wouldn't know because he had definitely not checked, no, sir.
"Ah, no. Really, it's cool, well, I mean, it's okay, I better get a move on, work and stuff, you know, no rest for the wicked! Congratulations on the reopening again. I'll see you around."
Aziraphale looked a bit confused and Crowley could not fault him for that. He pushed off hastily and did an odd sort of wave with the now empty cup before cringing about that, too and pedalling furiously ahead.
No rest for the wicked, really smooth, you idiot.
He pushed the moment from his mind, albeit with difficulty. It was a new semester with new students. He would have his work cut out for him today. And now he needed a new coffee.
~*~
Crowley was just demonstrating to a group of first years how much of the indicator should be administered to their sample solution when there was a shy, almost inaudible clearing of someone’s throat behind him.
He turned and saw a young student, lab coat and safety glasses in place, nervously shifting on his feet, exuding an air of deep awkwardness.
“Yeah?” he inquired casually.
“Dr Crowley? I, I am here, I mean, Dr Device sent me…” Anathema was working next door with another group of first years, going through their required lab experiments for organic chemistry and safety protocol. Their lunch date was in two hours, anything she wanted to know she could have asked then or just walked over herself. This was intriguing.
“Just Crowley. Yes, what does she want?”
The student blushed, he was clearly very much intimidated by him but the fear of displeasing Anathema won out.
“She said I should ask you for additional benzene rings from the supply.”
The students behind Crowley made vague huffing noises. Crowley stood there, baffled, the poor student looking like his ears would catch fire any moment now.
Crowley turned to the whiteboard next to him. He took one of the pens and scrawled a hexagon onto it, before looking back at the student and raising his eyebrows.
He looked back blankly. Crowley turned back to the board and added the circle inside the hexagon for the delocalised electrons.
“Like benzene ?”, he asked, leadingly. No response. “As in the molecule ?”, he tapped the molecular structure on the board. Then it finally seemed to dawn on the poor guy. He made an embarrassed squeaking noise, turned, and fled. Behind Crowley, his group of first years broke into laughter.
~*~
“Anathema Device, that was vicious!” Crowley dropped his bag and jacket into a chair at the little bistro table and flopped down in the one next to it. Anathema chuckled, raised her eyes from the papers she was scribbling on and pushed one of the two salad bowls on the table closer to him.
“Aw, come on, pranking the first years is always great fun. Used to do it loads at my last job. Here you go, got you extra peppers.”
Crowley leaned over to get a fork and gave her a stern look. “Should’ve seen the poor guy, almost combusting on the spot when he realised. But come on, Benzene rings? I thought you were cleverer than that.”
Anathema chuckled. “It's a perfectly organic molecule, don’t be mean. I almost gave him a little basket, too, to fetch the benzene rings." She sniggered. "He gave me a right stink-eye when he returned. He was just too nervous around me to use his brains before. It was a good icebreaker. Can’t have them all cower before me for months before they are able to do real work in my lab.”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t think of another way to do that. But be aware that you fired the first shot, I don’t know if you are prepared for my retaliation.” He smirked at her, gesticulating with his fork, dropping lettuce. Anathema laughed.
"Oh, good, a proper workplace feud, I shall destroy you."
Crowley smiled. If she wanted shenanigans, she would have shenanigans. He would think of something. And worst case, the old 'water-filled nitrile gloves in your work drawers' were a classic Crowley was historically fond of employing. That would be fun.
Anathema was quirky and witty in all the right ways, from her occult magazines ("it's just so funny how they get the science wrong!") to her billowy dresses in jewel tones that peeked out from underneath her lab coat (those might be a safety issue, he now realised). It was just so good to have a colleague like that now. He had never really felt the need to be friendly with the rest of the department, nothing more than polite conversation and professional exchange. But this was friendship, and he wasn’t sure he was really equipped for having friends.
"Anyhow, how was your weekend? You visited family, right?"
Anathema nodded. "Yes, my grandmother Agnes. Now that I am located so much closer to her I couldn't wait to stop by. I figured the next weekends would be much busier, so I went before lectures started again. It was nice, I love her cottage, it’s quiet out there. What did you get up to?"
Crowley shrugged. "Yeah, well, not much, resting up I suppose, bit of this and that, ran into Luke…"
Anathema gave him a sharp look and he tensed.
"As in, your ex-boyfriend Luke? That Luke? How? Why?"
"It was not on purpose! It was just at the supermarket! He said hi, we talked, I have known him forever, Ana, I just couldn't ignore him."
"Crowley, you told me enough about your relationship that I feel that this is a bad idea."
Ah, well, she really had earned the right to an opinion there. One time in early August, he had felt morose because of their recent break up. He had thought he should get a strong drink to help, had felt worse after having had quite a few and had called her. Knowing her all of four weeks. He really might be a bit pathetic when it came to Luke. She had listened to him regardless and he had finally had someone to talk to. To unload about the last three years of his life, dating Luke.
And he knew she was right, talking to him was a bad idea, it brought stuff back up.
"Crowley, " she sounded much more sympathetic now, clearly reading his thoughts on his face, "from what you told me, he isn't a person deserving of your time. It's not like you made the mutual decision to split and stay friends."
She touched his arm. While it was nice to be known (all that gut spilling he had done seemed to have that effect) he really did not want to think or talk about Luke anymore.
"Yeah, yeah, it's not like I forgot what he's like. 't was just a coincidence. Probably won't happen again, which is good, great, so, new semester, new start, I should think. Anyhow, did you see that the bookshop is reopening?" The look on her face told him that she was not impressed with his change in topic.
"All I'm saying is don't let him get you down again. And don't be stupid and let him back into your life." Her eyes really were piercing, how unnerving. Then she sighed.
"Ok, now, what was it about the bookshop?"
~*~
The afternoon was a flurry of activity and when the last group had been ushered out of the lab and he had made final checks (all gas lines off, glassware cleaned, everything properly stored, supply rooms stocked and locked…) it was dark and late and his head swirled with new names and faces. He was bone tired but elated after a day of hard work well done. And the next day, he would get to do it all again.
He got his bike from the rack and mused about dinner options while riding across campus. There were still people milling about and he weaved between them, going slower than normal. When he came across the bookshop for the second time that day, a new shop sign had been installed. It was simple and timeless in design and read "A.Z. Fell" in black letters next to a pictogram of a stack of books. When he had recounted his coffee mishap of the morning to Anathema, she had laughed at him quite raucously, which he had found very rude.
The lights were still on inside the shop and Crowley stopped and chanced another look. He remembered the interior from a previous visit some years earlier. The white shelving and polished white floors were gone. The floor was dark wood parquet, the equally dark shelves arranged in a way that left a little nook that Crowley could inspect from his spot outside. There was a cream-coloured rug, a small table and chairs and a brass and green table lamp that would fit in a classic library. He saw a wingback armchair further inside and more rugs. Everything was absolutely stuffed with books, but in a systematic way. It looked warm and cosy and in a lot of ways like the opposite of the shop that Crowley remembered. It was barely comprehensible that it could exist in the same space as the sleek monstrosity that had been there before. The one that had desperately wished to be an apple store but unfortunately found itself selling books instead.
It was an entirely fitting image with the bookseller he had met this morning. A little old-fashioned, not even trying to be on trend, and somehow a lot more welcoming for it. The thought left a complicated feeling in his chest.
Shaking himself a little, he pushed off again and made his way home.