Chapter Text
Crowley glares at the coffee machine.
The coffee machine, clearly not considering him a worthy opponent, does not glare back, no matter the intensity of Crowley’s gaze.
It’s been a long week. Every week in the lead up to the release date is usually a long one, gah, not to mention the background talks of a brand new project. No rest for the wicked, as is the industry way. It’s this time of the year when Crowley spends his free time idly browsing LinkedIn and various tech job boards.
Not that he’s really planning on changing his job. The devil you know, right? Far less effort than endless job interviews and email chains.
So, it’s been a long week. And the coffee machine is broken. Of course, it’s already been replaced with a new one, but then thing is – the thing is, the new one is just as broken. Crowley wants to scream. He doesn’t. Instead, he bangs his hand against the top of the stupid machine and promptly winces in pain.
“Oh!” A voice from somewhere behind Crowley interrupts his miserable train of thought. “Are you okay, dear girl?”
Crowley flinches at the word, but he says nothing about it. He turns around and there’s a tight smile on his face. “I’m fine,” he grumbles. “Just–” He waves a hand at the machine. “New coffee machine. Broken piece of junk.”
“Let me?”
With a shrug, Crowley steps out of the way. “Be my guest.”
While the stranger approaches the counter, Crowley leans against a nearby counter and takes a look at him. He has blond hair, white almost, though it looks natural, unlike Crowley’s signature red. His clothes are something else – vintage, beige and brown and blue; and, most peculiar of all, he’s wearing a bloody bowtie. He looks horribly out of place against the white-grey walls of a modern game development office.
“And… all done! I believe your coffee machine is actually in a tip-top condition!”
“Tip-top… what?”
Crowley circles around the stranger and looks over his shoulder at the culprit. The coffee machine continues to be suspiciously quiet and so his gaze bounces between it and the man standing at his side. Perhaps sensing his disbelief, the stranger picks up one of the cups and places it underneath the muzzle. He smiles at Crowley and gestures for him to do the rest. Fine. One eyebrow raised, Crowley slowly reaches out and presses a few buttons on the touchscreen at the front of the machine. It whirrs and clanks and bonks and at last dark liquid pours out and into the cup.
Crowley exhales in relief.
“Consider me impressed,” he drawls. “You are a real miracle worker.”
“Oh, hardly.” The stranger waves off the compliment, though his cheeks appear to take on a distinct shade of pink. He takes a step back, putting some more distance between the two of them. “I worked at an office with this type of machine. They can be rather fiddly, so it’s no wonder you were struggling with it.”
“Well, either way.” Crowley picks up the cup, downs the coffee like a shot and immediately places it under the muzzle for a refill. The stranger gapes at him wordlessly. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“No need, truly.”
Crowley hums. “You new around here? Or are you remote? Dropped by to finally see our glorious office, did you?”
“Ah.” The stranger folds his hands on his round stomach and smiles politely. “The former. I quite enjoy these face-to-face interactions, far too much to give up on office work entirely.”
“Lucky if you got to choose,” Crowley mutters, mostly to himself. “I’m Crowley,” he adds, offering his hand for a handshake.
“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s hand is enveloped by one much thicker and warmer than his. “I’m a new writer. Well, consulting writer.”
Now that rings some bells. “So you’re that author everyone’s been raving about.”
“Dear me. In a good way, I hope?”
Crowley lets go of his hand and shrugs. “Mate, I don’t know. I don’t read and I’m certainly not consulted on these decisions.” Seeing a brief flash of hurt on Aziraphale’s face, Crowley sighs and continues, “But, you’re here. So you must be good.”
It works. Aziraphale’s face lights up in an instant, like a bulb with a far too high wattage. Crowley’s glad he’s wearing sunglasses. “Thank you, dear. Now, tell me, what do you do? Oh, I know! You must be one of the lovely women making art! You look like an artist.”
Two strikes, there. Women, immediately followed up by, so you must be making art. Bloody hell. At least he didn’t guess at QA. Or, worse, that he’s a producer.
With a blank look on his face, Crowley responds, “I’m a programmer.”
“You must excuse me, dear,” Aziraphale says, looking as though he does feel bad. “I didn’t mean to make assumptions. Lord knows I’ve heard enough of those myself.”
Crowley looks him up and down, making a rather clear point of it.
“Oh, yes, I know, but there really is–”
“There you are, Aziraphale, buddy, my man!”
The booming voice that interrupts them belongs to Gabriel – the creative director. Crowley sighs, already planning a strategic exit – you never want to get accosted by Gabriel, not under any circumstances. Thankfully, he’s always been the type of creative director who mostly stays hands off, letting the individual teams do their thing as they please, but, well. He’s also very talkative, irritating and horribly American.
There’s also the other matter – namely, that the new project is entirely Gabriel’s idea. Which means Aziraphale is going to be spending a lot of time chatting with the guy. Oof.
“It is so good to finally meet you in person–” Gabriel continues and Crowley takes this opportunity to slink out of the kitchen before he’s spotted.
He doesn’t say goodbye. He does make sure to catch Aziraphale’s eye, though, and mouths a silent good luck at him. Then he’s gone.
Back to the grind it is. Maybe it’s about time that Crowley called in a favour from that guy at EA. See if he can wriggle his way in there before the new project properly kicks off.
He won’t. But it’s still nice to daydream.
The next time he meets Aziraphale is, in fact, at the kick off meeting for the new project.
Crowley waltzes into the conference room fashionably late – not that he was trying to be late, but after a rather blissful week off work waking up has proven to be a tad difficult. So he got to the office late. Sue him.
To his satisfaction, when he pushes the door open, it’s in the middle of Gabriel’s speech, interrupting him mid-sentence. Crowley’s bound to get a slap on the wrist afterwards, but it’s still worth it to see the look of genuine annoyance on Gabriel’s face.
The room is packed. It’s a mix of people – presumably the new game team. Some of them Crowley recognizes – whether from his last team or other projects at the studio; while some of them are unfamiliar, most likely fresh hires or simply people Crowley hasn’t had the chance to work with yet.
Some of them, though, are the face of a revered writer of a religion-themed fantasy series, Grace of a Prophecy. Aziraphale Z. Fell.
(Yes, Crowley has done the bare minimum of googling the bloke after their previous meeting.)
As it happens, the only empty chair in the room is the one right next to Aziraphale.
While Crowley ponders the shortest route to Aziraphale, Gabriel’s voice gets his attention, “And this, for anyone unfamiliar with her, is our senior programmer on this project, Antonia Crowley. We’re very glad you’ve decided to grace us with your presence, Antonia.”
Crowley cringes inwardly at the repeated use of his deadname. Well, deadname to him, but not to anyone at the office, closeted as he is. Still, he’s always made a point of introducing himself as just Crowley, thanks, so clearly, Gabriel must be really pissed at the interruption to be Antonia-ing him so much.
“At your service,” Crowley responds sarcastically, saluting at Gabriel before he begins making the trek through the crowd of people. Some of them have opted to remain standing and so he has to squeeze past them before he can get anywhere near the empty chair. “Now go on, don’t let me keep interrupting you!”
Gabriel shoots him one more irritated look, but then carries on with the presentation. Just in time for Crowley to make it to his destination. He throws himself into the empty seat and sighs softly. Normally, this would be when he takes a nap, meeting be damned – as far as he’s aware, Muriel is going to be the junior producer on this one which means there’s gonna be a copious amount of well-written notes available afterwards. He can skip all the meetings he wants, then, no harm done.
But then he makes the mistake of turning his head. Aziraphale is already looking at him and smiling, that same bright and warm smile as in the kitchen two weeks ago.
“Hello, dear,” he says, soft enough not to disrupt the meeting. “I must say, it’s nice to see a familiar face.”
Familiar? They’ve met once and barely at that. “Haven’t you started here like two weeks ago?” Crowley asks instead. “I can’t be the only familiar face in this room.”
“Well, perhaps not the only one, but you know how it is. The onboarding alone took up most of my first week and after that…” His gaze flickers over to Gabriel. The current slide of the presentation is a white page, adorned with text in big, bold letters: GAME VISION. “I had to spend most of my time in meetings with Gabriel. Familiarizing myself with the documentation, overall plans for the game and so on. I’ve hardly had the time to meet the narrative team!”
“Bleugh. A week with Gabriel sounds like hell.”
Aziraphale doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to – the corners of his lips quirk up and that tells Crowley everything he needs to know. He grins back at him and then does a cursory scan of the people in the room.
“Over there?” he continues, nudging Aziraphale’s shoulder with his own and then pointing at a figure across the room, dressed in dark green. “That’s your gal. Anathema, she’s the lead narrative designer.”
As well as one of the few people around that Crowley tolerates. He can’t say he’s friends with her – there is not a single person in the studio he would consider a friend – but with her, at least, he’s willing to exchange a few words during lunch break. Hell, he even once briefly entertained the idea of coming out to her, as Anathema has always been proudly and loudly bisexual, but he quickly deemed that idea too much effort. And weird, probably. After all, they aren’t friends. They don’t even work in the same department.
“Those two guys sitting next to her–” He gestures at the chairs to Anathema’s right. “That’s the Erics. Yes, they’re both called Eric. They’re writers.” He lowers his arm and turns to look at Aziraphale. “Might be a few more people on the narrative, but that’s the ones I recognize. Frankly, I don’t know half the people in this room.”
“You don’t?”
“Mhm, nope. This is a, a hodgepodge of people from all over the company. Some new hires, too. Worked with some of them, but definitely not all.”
“Admittedly, I’m not very familiar with how a video game studio operates. I’ve never worked on a game before!”
“Yeah, you don’t look like a gamedev type.”
“Oh, there's hardly a look to it, is there…”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. He gestures at the rest of the room. “Really? Look around you.”
The room is a sea of black fabric with an occasional hint of grey or white and, even more rare, a flash of actual colour – mostly in the form of graphic prints on t-shirts. Only a few people stand out as dressed in something other than t-shirts and jeans – Gabriel, in his tailored suit; Muriel, with her more… youthful attempt at formal wear; Anathema in her goth-y skirts and jewellery; and a couple other women also dressed slightly more proper than their male coworkers. Crowley, who doesn’t consider himself a part of either category, tends to aim for something in between, fashion-wise. Black, to blend in, but a bit more high fashion than a typical gamedev dudebro would wear.
For today, that means an extremely tight pair of black jeans paired with a nice, black dress shirt. His hair is the only flash of colour in that entire ensemble – long enough to reach his shoulders and currently tied back into a low bun.
All in all, Aziraphale, with his beiges and blues and vintage suits and bowties, stands out like a sore thumb.
Reluctantly, he admits as much. “Yes, I see your point.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll fit right in anyway,” Crowley reassures him. Then, he adds, loud enough that the surrounding people will surely be able to hear him, “After all, we’re all one big family!”
Too loud, maybe. Gabriel glares at him from where he stands at the front of the room. Crowley grins and gives him a little wave.
“Think it’s time for me to have a nap.” That, he whispers into Aziraphale’s ear, slumping into his chair to make himself more invisible. “Before our lovely creative director decides to kick my arse.”
Throughout the entire exchange, the look on Aziraphale’s face is hilariously unreadable.
“Riddle me this.” Crowley doesn’t look up from the apple he’s slicing. “What the hell does a consulting writer even do?”
Aziraphale stands at his side, holding a plate in one hand, three slices of pizza balanced precariously on top of it. The plate had originally been Crowley’s – or rather, Muriel had handed it to him, ignoring the protests he was putting up. Crowley has one rule when it comes to food at work, namely: no grease. He knows from experience that no matter how many times he washes his hands, he can still feel it there when he taps away on his keyboard. Easier to ban it entirely.
After the project kick off meeting was over, there came the most important part of the day – lunch. Michael, apparently the appointed lead producer on this game, took the stage after Gabriel, muttered something about morale boost immediately followed up by the word pizza and then the whole swarm of game devs migrated from the conference room to the kitchen.
Crowley’s always hated this type of ordeal with a passion of a burning sun. It’s corporate performativity at its peak, yet it seems to him he’s the only one who’s actually bothered by it. There’s a general buzz of excitement in the air and it’s exhausting. Crowley can’t find it in himself to share the enthusiasm of his younger colleagues. Rather, he dreads the work that’s to come, the pressure to deliver first prototypes and the endless negotiations with Hastur and Ligur that he’s bound to end up in. Last time, to decide who would work on which feature, they drew straws.
That turned out to be a bloody disaster.
So, as soon as he could, he escaped to the balcony, away from the hungry, chattering crowds. Aziraphale joined him not long after. Crowley certainly doesn’t mind his company.
“Well,” Aziraphale begins and pauses. Crowley looks up just in time to watch him lick sauce off his fingers. He tries, and fails, not to let his eyes linger on the view. “Primarily, I will be assisting with the wordbuilding, outlining the main narrative arc and helping the rest of the department work out any narrative kinks that might arise.” He finally lowers that dreadful, gorgeous hand.
“So you won’t be doing any writing of your own.”
“No, I suppose not. I am here to consult, after all.”
Crowley hums. He pops a slice of apple into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “Bit of a shame, don’t you think?”
Aziraphale looks up at him from the slice of pepperoni he’s been eyeing lovingly. “Whatever do you mean?”
Crowley digs his knife into the fruit. He moves his hand slowly, careful not to cut himself. “You’re this big writer they brought on and what, you won’t even be writing?”
Aziraphale waves his plate dismissively. “I’m not a game writer, dear.”
“Sure,” he agrees. “But we’ve got people that are. They could polish whatever you come up with. Make it…” With the blade of his knife, he makes a vague circle in the air. “Game-y. Interactive! That’s the word.”
Aziraphale chuckles. “It’s sweet of you to suggest that, but I’m sure Anathema and her team have plenty of ideas of their own. They hardly need an… old fuddy-duddy like me to come steal their spotlight. In fact, I think it’ll be quite lovely to be able to assist them, rather than… star in the leading role, so to say.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. He looks at Aziraphale for a lingering moment and then shakes his head. “You’re weird.”
“Yet you continue to talk to me.”
Crowley can’t deny that he has a point. “You’re the most interesting thing that has happened around here since…” He frowns. His gaze wanders over to a group of smokers huddling in the corner on the other side of the balcony. “Oh, I know. Since Gabriel came up with that brilliant idea to make an escape room.” He snorts. “Lemme tell ya, that one crashed and burned spectacularly.”
Aziraphale pauses around a bite of pizza. He does not look amused. “That doesn’t sound… good.”
“Well, no,” Crowley agrees with no reluctance. “The entire team got sacked the moment the company realized the whole thing was an absolute bust. All their numbers were, like, deep in the red, never seen anything like that before. But, I wasn’t involved, so I only got to watch the whole thing go up in flames.”
Aziraphale tuts. He moves the now empty plate from one hand to the other. “You really are not filling me with much optimism, dear girl.”
“Not my department.” Crowley shrugs. “You want optimism, talk to Muriel.”
Aziraphale really doesn’t look reassured, though, the corners of his mouth curling down into the first hints of a worried frown. Crowley sighs, deciding to take pity on him.
“Alright, you want my honest opinion?” he continues. “This thing–” He gestures at the two of them, then at the group of smokers, all people on their team. “–this thing is gonna be fine. I mean, it’s your… average run of the mill fantasy adventure game. It’s not gonna win any awards, but people will buy it and play it and enjoy it and then promptly forget it. On the upside, though, our jobs will be safe.”
The expression on Aziraphale’s face doesn’t ease, though. “Oh.” Once more, he swaps the plate from one hand to the other and Crowley plucks it from between his fingers without a word. He turns away to place it on a low table that stands by the wall. “That sounds…” Aziraphale trails off.
“What?”
“Disappointing,” Aziraphale finally finds a word. “Doesn’t it? To work on something for so long, only to have people forget it.”
Hearing Aziraphale put it like that, and so earnestly too, Crowley’s suddenly hit with a strong and terrifying sense of I have been working this job for too goddamn long.
He swallows. He doesn’t lift his gaze from the apple and he’s glad the sunglasses make his expression generally unreadable.
“I’m sure people forget your books all the time,” he says eventually and immediately regrets it.
Aziraphale scoffs. “Yes, and I feel the same way about them.”
Right. Right right right. It’s time for Crowley to stuff a sock in his mouth and shut up. This is exactly why he’s never bothered to talk to any of his coworkers. Far easier to keep things nice and professional when you aren’t friends with people. Not that he’s friends with Aziraphale. He barely knows the guy.
“Look,” he says on an exhale. The last apple slice he offers to Aziraphale. “A huge part of this job is spending year after year after year churning out basic shite just to earn the company enough money so that you don’t get fired and then end up having to move to bloody Canada just to keep churning out even worse crap at some bullshit mobile studio that outsources half its shite to Turkey.” Alright, so it’s perhaps not the first time Crowley’s imagined this incredibly specific scenario happening to him. “It’s video games, Aziraphale, it’s not brain surgery. We’re not gonna change the world doing it.”
Aziraphale takes the offered fruit. He ponders it for a moment, then slowly lifts it up to his lips. Crowley watches as he bites off a chunk, as he chews carefully. He watches the way his throat moves as he swallows. The way Aziraphale licks his lips afterwards. He tries not to think about feeding Aziraphale apple slice after apple slice just to watch him swallow.
Aziraphale doesn’t speak until he’s finished with the whole slice. “Not the world, no,” he says finally. “But couldn’t we at least change one person’s life? I suspect you, and many of your fellow game developers, have gotten your start by playing games…”
Crowley frowns at his knife. His fingers are sticky from juice. He rubs his thumb against them then brings his hand up to sniff at it. It smells sweet, sickeningly so.
He vows there and then to add another rule to his list: no fruit at work. Perhaps no cravings of any sorts, not until he’s home, away from equipment and inquiring blue eyes.
“Yeah, I did,” he admits quietly, lowering his hand. He wants to cross his arms, but he doesn’t want to get the juice on his clothes. “And look where it got me.”
Aziraphale’s eyes soften. “As far as I’m aware, you’re a senior programmer at a successful video games studio. That doesn’t sound bad to me.”
Crowley says nothing. The group of smokers walks past them and a couple of them say hello and looking forward to working together! to Aziraphale as they go.
They say not a word to Crowley.
“You don’t know anything about me, Aziraphale,” Crowley says and follows them inside. He heads straight for the bathroom sink.
The next morning, Crowley finds a bright red apple sitting on his desk. There’s a post-it note stuck to it. The words on it are written in elegant cursive, the sort that can only belong to one person in this godforsaken office.
For an optimistic morning. :-)
Crowley shakes his head. He picks up the apple, tosses it up in the air a couple of times and then heads for the balcony. Maybe his second food-at-work rule can wait another day.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
The noise of keyboard keys being struck over and over again rings out loudly in the silent bedroom.
Crowley sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed, his laptop in his lap. He’s bent over it, though every once in a while he shifts, straightening his aching back only to return to his previous position. He’s already a desk-dwelling creature, spending nearly eight hours of every work day hunched over his computer, so he’s well and truly used to the constant complaints of his abused spine.
“Aziraphale Fell, Aziraphale Fell…” he mutters to himself. “There you are, Aziraphale.”
The white of a Wikipedia page is a bright flash in the otherwise dark bedroom. Crowley scrambles to turn on dark mode (and silently thanks whichever brilliant soul finally decided to implement it) and then he looks over the text. He skims huge chunks of it – born in, son of, blah blah blah, leads a fairly private life, boring boring boring – until he gets to the bit that’s of interest to him.
Works.
First up are several long paragraphs talking about Grace of a Prophecy, Aziraphale’s most well-known series. That’s an immediate pass. Sure, the series sounds interesting enough – from what little Crowley has bothered to read about it, it seems to be a story of a bloke who’s actually half-angel, half-demon and who gets himself wrapped up in a big battle between Heaven and Hell. There’s some other fantasy creatures and Biblical characters, a long journey across Europe and Asia, big quests, romance subplots and so on and so on. It’s, of course, highly praised by both professional critics and casual readers.
It also consists of five books, each about 500 pages long. Crowley barely has the focus to read anywhere between 10 to 20 pages of design documentation. So, pass.
The next subsection of Works talks about Aziraphale’s various collaborations with other authors. That’s also a pass. Then, finally, is what Crowley’s been looking for all along – a big table containing all of Aziraphale’s published books.
Crowley scrolls through. Most of the books on the list relate to Grace of a Prophecy in one way or another – there’s the main five books, two compilations of short stories set in the same universe, and one standalone novel about some side character who… appears to be God? Maybe one day Crowley will get around to reading the series, then. Or at least watch an adaptation. There’s bound to be one eventually, surely.
Anyway. Besides Grace of a Prophecy, there’s a few other books listed. Various one-off novels; all the collaborations. Most of them are long, at least 300 pages, because Aziraphale is apparently a wordy writer (of course he is). There’s one entry, though, that’s much shorter.
Eden. The very first novel on the list. 198 pages, published under a pseudonym. Going by the year, Aziraphale was in his twenties then, if Crowley’s math isn’t wrong. It’s not – he’s far better at counting than he is at reading. Hence the programming career.
Eden, unlike most other books on the list, doesn’t even have its own Wiki page. To Google it is, then.
A few more searches later, Crowley finds an old listing on some independent bookstore’s page – to his surprise, Eden doesn’t exist anywhere else, not even on Amazon. The book is unavailable, but there’s a short summary still visible on the page:
Jophiel knows Earth. They remember the luscious garden of Eden, the sun burning their skin and the humans. So when they’re tasked with walking the planet’s surface once more, they don’t expect any surprises. That is, until they meet their new charge – a human artist willing to make them question everything they’ve always believed in. A queer story of love, belonging and an angel’s faith.
Huh. Angels again? And a queer story…
Seems promising enough.
Crowley slams his hands down on the desk.
“I need your help.”
Anathema freezes, her hands hovering over the keyboard. She turns towards him slowly and raises one perfect eyebrow.
“You? Need my help?”
Without answering, Crowley glances at the surrounding desks. Known around the studio as the writers’ room – not to be mistaken with a writers’ room in the TV production sense of the term – this secluded section of the office is where Anathema and both of the Erics have always worked. Now, their desks are joined by a fourth one – Aziraphale’s. Though he was apparently given the choice of working anywhere he pleased, he opted to join the rest of the writing department in their tiny, cramped room.
For the moment, though, he’s not there. Neither are the Erics. It’s just Anathema, and Crowley. The perfect opportunity for a bit of a bookish ambush
“Yup,” Crowley responds. He grabs one of the desk chairs and rolls it closer to Anathema before plopping down in it. “I do.”
Anathema continues to stare at him suspiciously. “Normally I’d assume it was because someone fucked up and you need me to rewrite an entire quest last minute,” she says slowly. “But we’re nowhere near that stage of development yet, so what is it?”
Crowley sucks in a breath through his teeth, trying to think of how to word his request. His gaze wanders over to Aziraphale’s desk. There’s a stack of old-fashioned, leatherbound journals in the corner of it; a nice, wooden pen holder next to it. Two mugs. For a desk at an office, it looks cozy.
There’s no reason why he needs Anathema’s help, specifically, other than the fact that he’s a lonely bastard, Google has been of no help and he’s definitely not going to be asking Aziraphale about this.
Trying to look nonchalant, he leans back and crosses his arms. “How should I… go about acquiring a book?”
Anathema’s eyes widen and she looks torn between laughing and telling him to get lost. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“Ever heard of a bookstore? A library? Amazon, if you’re feeling up to cozying up to capitalistic bloodsuckers?”
Crowley rolls his eyes and groans. “Yeah, I have. And trust me, in this instance, I would’ve happily thrown my money at Bezos if getting that book off Amazon was even an option.”
Anathema tilts her head. Seems his words have piqued her curiosity. “You mean it’s not on there?”
“Nope,” he confirms. “It’s been out of print for ages, I think, and I’ve been looking all over online and I can’t find a single copy. Checked all the usual places, Ebay and so on. You’re the… the resident bookgirl, so I figured…” He waves a hand uselessly.
With a sigh, Anathema leans away from her desk and pushes her glasses up her nose. “You should’ve led with that. What’s the book?”
Crowley hesitates. Without any input from his brain, his eyes land on the two mugs on Aziraphale’s desk. He thinks of the post-it hidden deeply in his desk drawer.
Then, he shakes his head, thankful Anathema can’t see what he’s looking at. “It doesn’t matter, just tell me how you’d go about it.”
Anathema doesn’t let it slide. “Why the mystery?”
Crowley groans. “Just answer the question.”
“Am I even getting anything out of this?”
“The satisfaction of having helped a fellow coworker?”
It doesn’t seem like the type of thing that’d truly satisfy her, but she answers anyway, “I don’t know, Crowley, you said you already checked online, but did you take a look at the Internet Archive? There’s a chance someone scanned it and uploaded it on there. Or you can try offline – take a look around some used bookstores, you might get lucky. It really would be a lot easier to help you if I had any idea what book you’re looking for…”
Crowley drums his fingers against his arm. He really, really does not want to tell her. It’s late in the day and at this point in production, most people make themselves scarce early in the day – which means it’s unlikely that Aziraphale would walk into the room in the middle of them talking. Still, he can’t help but feel on edge, like Aziraphale is bound to jump out from some hidden corner and laugh at him for his strange and sudden interest.
But, really, what are the chances that he finds the book on his own? Next to none, he figures.
He lowers his voice. “Just keep it between us, alright?”
“Who am I gonna tell? The Erics? Aziraphale?” she asks and he lowers his head to look at her over the rim of his glasses. “Yes, alright, I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s…” Crowley sinks a little further into the chair. “Eden. I’m looking for Eden. Aziraphale’s first book.”
That night, when he first stumbled upon Eden’s existence, he spent the next several hours trying to find anything and everything about it. As it quickly turned out, there was very little to be found – certainly no way to get a copy of it. Apparently, the book was an absolute commercial flop and even now, with Aziraphale’s new found fame in the literary world, no one wanted to pick it up and re-release it.
Which is how Crowley’s found himself here. Mumbling its title to Anathema.
“I thought you didn’t read,” she says idly. She turns away from him and begins rummaging around in one of the drawers.
“I don’t,” Crowley grumbles. “It’s… I just… Nghk– I figured it’d help me with the game if I knew what the hell he’s written before. You know?”
Anathema briefly ceases whatever it is she’s doing and looks over at him over her shoulder. “And you had the brilliant idea to start with his worst book? Why not Grace of a Prophecy?”
The truth is, Crowley doesn’t care about any of the books, Grace of a Prophecy or Eden. What he wants is to get to know Aziraphale. And what better way to get to know a writer than by reading their books?
Well.
Some would argue there are far superior ways, like talking to him like a normal person, but whatever. Crowley would rather start with something a little less high stakes than talking.
Not that he’s going to tell any of this to Anathema. At least the working together thing is as good an excuse as any.
“Well, I– for one, it’s not a bloody series of a bajillion books with a bajillion pages each, way faster to read–”
He trails off when he sees what Anathema is holding out towards him. He’d recognize that yellow cover anywhere.
Eden, by Ezra F.
“Oh.”
“You can borrow it,” she says, waiting until he takes it. “This book is actually why I wanted him on the team.”
Crowley’s eyes are trained on the paperback. He doesn’t lift them even when he speaks. “I thought you said it was his worst book–”
“Commercially it was a failure,” she confirms. “The critics ripped it to shreds. But…”
She doesn’t finish and Crowley doesn’t prompt her to do so. Carefully, he begins to flip through it, page after page. It’s clearly an old copy, battered at the edges, water stained, dusty and most likely re-read multiple times.
He skims through the text. His eyes don’t hang onto any word in particular, he merely traces the shape of the letters, their feel, some of the names that pop up repeatedly. Jophiel. Angelo. Jophiel again. Jophiel and Angelo.
Eventually, he pauses to read.
“I always believed God would be on my side,” mused Angelo.
In this garden, shielded by the leaves and the fruit of the apple trees, Jophiel felt as though they could finally voice their doubts.
“So did I.”
He flips a couple more pages.
Jophiel stood in front of a mirror. Their eyes lingered on its golden frame, the intricate wooden carvings. They ran a hand over it, feeling out the imperfections. It must’ve been a work of many hours, of calloused human hands they were now so familiar with.
They never looked their own reflection in the eye. Sometimes they wished to banish the mirror from existence and leave only the frame behind.
Crowley swallows thickly. He closes the book and his grip on it tightens.
“But most of the reviewers were middle-aged straight men and I think they missed the point of it,” Anathema resumes once she has Crowley’s attention. “It’s… well, perhaps you’ll see what I mean once you read it.”
Yeah. Crowley already has a pretty good idea of what it is he’s gonna see.
While searching for the book, he stumbled upon one positive mention of it. A single blog post, hidden deep in the fourth or fifth page of his Google search. Written by an anon, the post talked at length about how the book had resonated with them – about its realistic depiction of internalized homophobia in a religious setting; about Jophiel’s discomfort with the Earth, with Heaven, with both humans and angels and even with their own body.
They never looked their own reflection in the eye.
Crowley had his mind made up as soon as he read the summary, but that post just cemented it for him. Screw Grace of a Prophecy. The real key to Aziraphale’s mind is Eden.
Crowley clears his throat, hoping to keep his emotion under wraps. “Gabriel went along with this?” He gestures at the book. He can’t imagine Gabriel reading something like Eden, let alone enjoying it enough to bring Aziraphale onto the team.
“Eden?” Anathema asks. “Oh, no, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even realize it exists. Fortunately for our new consulting writer, Grace of a Prophecy is a lot more palatable to the general public.”
Crowley nods. That’s certainly explained some things.
“I’m gonna…” He gestures vaguely at the book, then at the door. His grip on Eden tightens once more.
“Just bring it back when you’re done. I don’t have any spare copies lying around.”
Crowley nods without saying anything. His throat feels tight and he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack. He stumbles to his feet and is out of the room before Anathema has any time to change her mind – or before anyone notices him carrying Aziraphale’s book around.