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After a good decade and a half of solid pestering – up to and including tempting poor unsuspecting angels into innocent lunches only to stand upon the table like an absolute hooligan to demand the rest of the restaurant back him up on the matter [1] – Crowley finally persuaded Aziraphale to install a telephone in his Bookshop.
[1] Honestly, Aziraphale really can’t take that wretched demon anywhere, sometimes! Or perhaps he could, but he certainly wouldn’t dare to leave him there…
For his part, Aziraphale absolutely refused to countenance allowing such a contraption into his nice, quiet Bookshop. He had seen telephones in use, and they were loud, insistent things, full of people who wanted to disturb your nice quiet evening with their chattering, and besides! What if this was to become another method by which customers (Aziraphale shuddered to even think the word) might attempt to force him to part with one of his books? Aziraphale could head off a customer by way of his ‘Closed’ sign, or allow the Bookshop itself to chase them out if they were exceptionally difficult to dislodge, but how would he discourage someone who might be calling from, well, from anywhere? [2]
[2] Aziraphale is still very much in two minds about the Internets. On the one hand, communication and sharing are lovely ideas, but on the other hand… what if people were to email him for books? What if… what if word were to get around about the books in his Bookshop? These worries certainly find themselves to be well-founded, but thankfully Aziraphale is an angel with A Mission, and he is perfectly capable of rising to the challenge…
“Everyone’s got one these days, angel!” Crowley wheedled. “You’d think you’d move with the times every once in a while! You were there when they were invented for Satan’s sakes, and that was bloody decades ago!”
“Hmm.” Aziraphale rather pointedly brushed a bit of soot from his coat sleeve and refused to look at Crowley for a long moment. He didn’t say it aloud, that would have been cruel, but the words, unlike you, who missed it, because you were sleeping for nearly a bloody century and left me on my own over a silly little snit hung in the air like invisible razors all the same.
Crowley shifted a little, guiltily, but rallied rather well all things considered.
“Oh, don’t be like that, angel! I’ll even pay for it to be installed for you!”
Aziraphale entirely failed to see the point.
Crowley insisted that it was important for them to be connected (“What if we need to speak to each other, angel?” “Can’t you just come round to the shop like you usually do, dear? We might even have a drink while we do this… speaking.” Crowley had spluttered and flushed black scales all over his cheekbones and down to the tip of his nose, and Aziraphale smiled gently and absolutely had no regrets.)
Still…
It’s just that any idea which Crowley had set his heart on so thoroughly, even pushing past Aziraphale’s displeasure like this…
Well, it probably would turn out to be important, or useful, or at least become an inevitable and inescapable part of life on Earth which Aziraphale would have to resign himself to in an effort to fit in.
Like ’Modern’ English developing through the 20th century. Or Olives.
So Aziraphale spent a nice, long week dragging Crowley around every purveyor of telephones in London, giving full rein to his most exacting tendencies in order to pick out the most perfect, the ideal telephonic device to suit his Bookshop’s own particular taste, and then did indeed make Crowley pay for the thing. It only seemed fair, after all.
And then, because Aziraphale was, when faced with no other options, a responsible employee of Heaven’s Host, he sent a note Upstairs to tell them what number they could reach him on.
And then he sent another, much longer note Upstairs explaining what a telephone was, and what the numbers meant, and what constituted a reason to call him rather than drop by for a visit.
And then finally he actually took himself Upstairs on a little visit to give a rambling and slightly incoherent seminar on what the ‘telephone’ devices were doing on Earth. It was all very tiresome.
Thankfully, by the time all of this to-ing and fro-ing was over with, the archangels had collectively decided that on the whole they would far rather just walk into the Bookshop to see Aziraphale in person if a sharply-worded note wouldn’t suffice.
This may or may not have been Aziraphale’s whole plan. Who can say?
Rather less helpfully, although the degree to which this turned out to be true was not immediately apparent, the guardian angels – who despite numerous invitations to visit had long felt that expressing too much interest in Earth and Humans while the archangels could see them might result in suggestions that Aziraphale was replaceable on Earth and that would simply Not Do – collectively realised what a golden opportunity they had been presented with. Here, after all this time, was a means of asking Aziraphale questions about all the interesting, confusing, and exciting things the principality was always mentioning when he visited, without having to drag the older angel [3] Upstairs to see them, or doing anything risky like going to visit Earth.
[3] Owing to the distinctly… unorthodox manner in which time moves in Heaven, the age of an angel is measured in the breadth of the individual’s experience, rather than in the conventional passage of time. Despite being one of the last angels to be Created in Heaven’s Host, Aziraphale is far older than the guardians who seek him out, though still rather less old than his archangel colleagues. Aziraphale gives off the general air of a middle-aged uncle for a reason.
It was perfect!
It was not.
1.
Initially, things started off innocuously enough.
“Oh, um, hello, Aziraphale?” Cassiel’s voice tentatively wandered down the telephone lines to the angel one evening.
Aziraphale brightened.
He’d been feeling a little flat lately; Crowley was getting terribly keen on the new style of music going around, something with a great deal of energy and accompanied by bright, flashing clothing and some rather vigorous dance styles. Aziraphale was greatly in favour, obviously, of young people going out and enjoying themselves, and even more in favour of music which centred around happiness, joie de vivre and all-round pleasure in the company of others. He was significantly less interested in accompanying Crowley to any kind of event which required him to learn, be a party to, or indeed stand in close proximity of, anything such thing as a ‘duck walk’. Ducks were fine creatures with many wonderful attributes, [4] but their walk was not a thing Aziraphale wished to emulate.
[4] Long-time duck fans will doubtless be able to think of several such aspects immediately. They also make excellent listeners. [4.1]
[4.1] A fact which is immediately recognised and capitalised upon by a certain flaming sword in future decades; one needs to develop one’s information gatherers somehow, and flaming swords like to work with the best.
“Oh! Oh, hello there, Cassiel! How lovely of you to call!”
There was a soft sigh of relief, as if the Lieutenant were worried that he was doing something wrong to take Aziraphale up on his offer to call if there was anything he needed. Aziraphale experimented a little in sending Good Feelings down the telephone to him in case it helped.
“Hello, Aziraphale,” he repeated but more confidently this time, “I just wondered, well, I wondered if you might have a minute?” The note of tentative uncertainty was back.
“Oh, my dear Cassiel!” Aziraphale chuckled comfortably, throwing a pointed look towards his preferred armchair until it obligingly scooted across the floor for him to make himself comfortable in. “For you, I have any number of minutes! How might I be of assistance?”
Cassiel gave another relieved sigh and asked, “Well, you see, when you were Up Here earlier, you were telling everyone about that new book that just came out – The Partnership of The Ring? – and I just wondered, I think I might have missed something, but, well… What is a hobbit? Did… did Mother make another set of people again, and I missed it?”
For a moment, Aziraphale simply sat, frozen, furiously biting him lip against the gale of giggles threatening to spill out. Hobbits – The Partnership of the – Another set of people indeed! He really ought to speak to the guardians much more often, he considered, apropos of nothing, they were always far more endearing and unpredictable than he expected them to be.
Mistaking his silence for censure, Cassiel hurried to excuse himself. “I’m sorry! I – I really am, Aziraphale! I’ve just been busy lately, and I know I missed a few meetings, and I didn’t mean to fall so far behind! Please don’t tell Gabriel, he’s been telling me for years that I don’t pay enough attention, and I didn’t think it had gotten so bad, but I’ve missed a whole new Creation now, and I swear I’ll catch up, you just have to give me a few clues, I’ll do the rest of the research myself, I promise!”
Aziraphale, roused from humour by the sheer panic in Cassiel’s usually so calm manner, broke in as gently as he could.
“Cassiel, it’s alright! It’s quite alright, my dear, just calm down, there’s a good lad. Hush now. No need to work ourselves up about it, is there? Hush…”
Cassiel took several heaving gasps for breath. “But-”
“Now, now, you just finish breathing for me, there’s a dear.” Aziraphale shushed him firmly, kindly as he could. “I’m afraid there’s been a little misunderstanding, not your fault, no, don’t get worked up again, there’s a lad.”
Cassiel calmed a little further under the principality’s soothing coaxing. When he had truly got his breath back, he tried again.
“But you were talking about-”
“Yes, yes, quite right, Cassiel, but I promise you that you were quite right when you thought Gabriel was being an old fusspot –“ A choked sound of intermixed horror and humour reached Aziraphale, who coughed a little awkwardly for a moment before continuing, “not that we shall tell him so, of course, my dear, it can be our secret – but I do assure you that you’ve not missed anything worth worrying over, I promise. She hasn’t been making hobbits up in the back room behind your back, I promise you. No, this dear young man, John – well, Tolkien, I suppose you ought to call him, you don’t know him as well I as I do, my dear – but he has such a wonderful imagination, you know, and he rather made them up, you see?”
“What’s imagination?” Asked Cassiel, in one of the most ‘on-brand’ (not that Heaven has acquired such phrases yet) questions of all time.
Aziraphale sighed. “I – It’s making up things which aren’t, strictly, based in reality, my dear.”
“That’s lying!” Cassiel sounded quite scandalised.
“Oh, don’t be silly, my dear, of course it isn’t! They aren’t the same things at all! Imagination is one of the greatest gifts She ever gave humans, you know – as I understand it, things weren’t all ‘two legs and opposable thumbs’ in the ‘in Her image’ part of their creation. Ever so wonderful, the things they all come up with, no, my dear, the two things aren’t connected in the least!”
“Oh…” Cassiel didn’t sound entirely convinced of this.
Aziraphale sighed. “I’ll tell you what, Cassiel. Would you like for me to come up and give a little class about it? Just for anyone who’s interested?”
“What, really?” This was an enormous favour, Cassiel knew, because Aziraphale never gave classes, or workshops, or seminars, unless Gabriel teamed up with Michael and at least one other archangel and generally harangued him for at least one decade straight to force him into it. [5]
[5] This is, incidentally, how Heaven gathers its slightly patchwork understanding of such diverse topics as clothes, oysters, the fine tradition of scribbling in the margins of one’s work, and crossword puzzles. Aziraphale refuses to cover the topic of film, however, after some early confusion regarding the meaning of ‘art-house’.
“Oh, indeed yes! We can’t have you all thinking that imagination isn’t important, oh goodness me, no! Very good thing, a healthy imagination you know, where all the best ideas come from.”
“Oh.” Cassiel still sounded rather shocked, but willing enough to hear Aziraphale out about the matter.
“Yes, now let me see…” Aziraphale cast a glance over at his calendar – which was almost entirely useless for remembering appointments unless you understood his System, having been made very specifically to his own requirements by an extremely confused independent bookshop-and-publishing house in Chiswick four years ago. [6] It had quaint little pictures of the seaside around the British Isles on it, and had survived Crowley attempting to burn it to death six times so far. He was hoping that seven would be his unlucky number… “Yes, I should think… Hmm. Yes. 5 o’clock, next year do you all?”
[6] They have managed to maintain a good business through the change of times and revolutions in the publishing process. Aziraphale had been quite pleased with his calendar, going so far as to recommend the publishing house to Raphael, who had also commissioned a whole new calendar of her own for her appointment schedule. The business might have some of the oddest and oddly-specific clients in the business, but no one can say that they do not have a loyal customer base, and there is the additional bonus that they always win the drinking games at publishing conventions.
“Um. Yes. I think I can spread the word by then.” Cassiel considered, carefully.
“Not too far, of course,” Aziraphale remonstrated gently. “Gabriel will be dreadfully miffed after his workshop on Proper Grace Allotments went so poorly.”
Neither angel laughed at the memory. At all. Nor did either of them have a single thing to do with the… incident. Really. [7]
[7] It is just, ever-so-slightly possible that several of the members of the Seventh overheard Cassiel’s pre-emptive “Do Not Even Think About It” lecture to Kamael and had decided to use it as a checklist of behaviours to exhibit. Possibly. None can confirm it.
“Of course, Aziraphale.”
“Wonderful! Now, in the meantime, my lad…” Aziraphale had a quick rummage around on the nearby shelf, while the Bookshop helpful shoved likely-looking volumes into reach. “Yes, there we go! Now, I’ll just send up a copy of ‘The Hobbit’ for you to go and get yourself nicely caught up. Very good story, I think you’ll enjoy it.”
There was an odd sort of thwip of a book softly landing on Cassiel’s desk beside him. He glanced at a cover which looked to contain rather a lot of mountains and trees across it, with the still-bewildering words ‘The Hobbit’ in the middle and odd-looking runes running across the top and bottom.
“Oh! Um. Thank you.”
“I shall require it back when you are done.” Aziraphale added, quickly. There were limits after all.
“Yes, Aziraphale.” Cassiel hurried to assure him. You didn’t have to speak to Aziraphale long to be Very Clear Indeed that the prompt and pristine return of books was very important. “Straight away, I promise!”
“Excellent. Until next year then, my dear!”
Aziraphale replaced the receiver into its bracket and sighed a little. He knew this telephone contraption was a bad idea. He’d told Crowley so on several occasions. Oh, it was all well and good that the young people could ask him questions they were unwilling to take to the archangels, he was perfectly in favour of that, but still… A workshop! He, Aziraphale, had had this wretched device in his Bookshop for less than a year now, and already! A workshop!
It was just like Crowley to wile Aziraphale into allowing a new contraption into his life under the pretence of making Aziraphale’s life easier, only for said contraption to cause poor, busy angels nothing but trouble!
2.
The telephone rang, causing Aziraphale to give the device his most dubious looks. On the one hand, the caller might be Crowley, which would be lovely, especially if it came with an invitation to luncheon. On the other hand, well… then it might be the beginning of An Escapade. Again.
The telephone continued, patiently, to ring. Aziraphale grumbled a little in a very unangelic manner, but reached out and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hello Aziraphale…”
To Aziraphale’s surprise, the voice upon the other end of his device belonged to Sachiel, an otherwise firm devotee of the written word. They exchanged notes as their preferred method of communication, and occasionally humorous little drawings which they mutually promised would never fall into the hands of an archangel. Ever. [8]
[8] Aziraphale has been slowly attempting to introduce into Heaven’s numbers an understanding of, and indeed a sense for, humour. It is slow going, but he feels that if anywhere in Her Creation were more desperately in need of such a thing, he has certainly not found it. That a popular topic for these early, pictorial efforts is turned out to be certain archangels was not entirely a surprise (after all, can you think of a group more filled with the inherently, yet entirely unconsciously, ridiculous?), but did result in several careful memos about the many benefits of developing a sense of caution along with humour. Not that most archangels actually understood humour – having missed the late-evening seminar series – and were therefore unlikely to grasp the nature of the jokes, but it was certainly best not to take any chances.
Sachiel sounded tried. Tired and a little exasperated.
“Hello, my dear!” Aziraphale tried his best to sound cheerful and welcoming. “Can I assist you in something?”
Sachiel sighed heavily. “Yes, please, Aziraphale. Can you please tell Jehoel to stop being a fish for the afternoon?”
Oh … Lord. It was going to be another one of those conversations, was it? Aziraphale supressed a sigh with great angelic effort and rubbed at his eyes a little. It would be unfair and untrue to say that the majority of the conversations Aziraphale had with celestial colleagues over his telephone began in such a manner, [9] but they undeniably made up a significant portion all the same. Aziraphale, to his great annoyance and entirely without his own permission had rather become a favoured source of conflict resolution among the ranks of guardian angels, who seemed to view him as having the stature and power to resolve issues without the terror of being Spoken To by an archangel.
[9] How could it when it was in direct completion with such strong contenders as ‘Um… Is this working? Ah…’, ‘Oh! Yes. Um. Aziraphale. Ah. I… I’ve forgotten what it was I wanted to ask you now. So sorry. Call you back when I remember…’, and ‘Hi! It’s only me!’, complete with absolutely no clues as to the identity of ‘only me’.
Being called upon by the calm and, frankly, dull members of the Second Regiment was, however, a bit of an unusual twist on the theme…
“I…” Aziraphale blinked. “A fish, dear? Jehoel?”
“An angelfish.” Sachiel supplied, in case the species of fish were the key point of puzzlement.
“I… I see,” said Aziraphale, who really didn’t. “Does he do this often?”
Another sigh. “Only when he gets overwhelmed by things. He says it’s relaxing, being a fish.”
Aziraphale supposed it might be; fish were tremendously dull creatures, after all, so they doubtless had very relaxing lives…
“But the expenses reports have to be in by tomorrow, Aziraphale, and I can’t do them all by myself! It’s not fair that he gets to slope off and splash about in water!”
“No,” said Aziraphale, who – as someone who also had a cherished friend who continued to think it acceptable to slope off and turn into an animal to hide away from his problems – rather thought his sympathies lay with Sachiel entirely right now. “I quite agree with you there, my dear. Very well, please take the telephone over to Jehoel’s …” he paused and then tried, “tank?”
“It’s a salad bowl, actually.” Sachiel grumbled, but she sounded much more at ease with things now that someone more senior was Handling Matters for her.
There was a brief pause, combined with some shuffling, and then there was a small splash followed by a suspiciously guilty sounding glubglub… glubglub.
“Jehoel …” Aziraphale began, putting as much stern disappointment into his tone as he possibly could.
Glub?
“Jehoel, Scribe of the Second Regiment…” Aziraphale intoned, sounding very much like everyone’s grandmother uttering the words ‘Now see here, young man…’ “Is this any way for a responsible angel to behave?”
Glub. This time the noise sounded rather sulky.
Aziraphale sighed. He hated having to tell the guardians off, he really did; Aziraphale rather felt that he was uniquely unsuited for reprimanding young people, he really did, [10] but sometimes needs must, and someone really did need to do something…
[10] Casual observers might think it odd that Crowley – who actually has a working relationship with plants (even if the plants themselves persist in being continuously ungrateful for his attentions, the impertinent brats) did not take up the position of gardener, while Aziraphale, who exudes warmth and comfort with every breath when moved in such a direction, did not push for the role of nanny. However, only two minutes into their own discussion on the scheme, both Crowley and Aziraphale agreed completely that this was a disaster waiting to happen, since bribery, plentiful miracles and shameless over-use of Improving Books are decidedly not childrearing techniques likely to meet with success. [10.1] Warlock really had no idea how fortunate a child he was…
[10.1] Unless the goal actually had been to raise the Antichrist in a manner to make him the ideal Antichrist rather than to avert Armageddon. In which case… well, even still, Aziraphale would probably not have been anyone’s best bet…
“Jehoel, is this any way to treat your friend? Just taking yourself off and leaving her to manage everything by herself like this? You don’t think that perhaps she might also like to hide away as, as, as some sort of animal, I’m quite sure, but don’t you think she would like to leave this to someone else rather than face up to it all?”
Glub…
“Quite. Now be a dear, Jehoel, and stop being a fish for a couple of hours, if you please, hmm?”
There was a slight pause, but at last there came a resigned, Glubglub.
“Thank you my dear.” Aziraphale smiled warmly down the telephone, before adding, “oh, and could you just put me back through to Sachiel for a moment, please?”
Glubglub!
“Goodbye to you too, Jehoel.”
There was more watery fumbling, but Sachiel’s voice came down the line again, “Thank you, Aziraphale, and I’m sorry to have bothered you like this.”
“Not at all, my dear,” Aziraphale answered, a little distracted as he searched for his coat and toed off his slippers before finding his shoes, “I’m quite sure that any crisis serious enough to drive Jehoel into his, well, his salad bowl is rather awful. Now you two just sit tight for a few minutes and I’ll be up in a jiffy! There must be something we can do about it all…”
“Oh, but you didn’t have to-“ Sachiel began, but Aziraphale had firmly made up his mind and besides, he had found even found his coat at last. There was simply no stopping him coming to assist his young friends now.
“Oh, stuff and nonsense, my dears! Just a tick, speak soon!”
He replaced the receiver into its socket with remarkable care considering all the trouble the wretched device caused him and checked his appearance in the small mirror kept beside the door for just such an occasion, before nearly bowling poor Crowley over as he hastened to leave the Bookshop.
“Everything alright, angel?” Crowley asked, looking a little perplexed. “You’re not usually in this much of a hurry.”
“Oh! Oh, Crowley, my dear, I’m so sorry! You’re not hurt, are you, dear? I’m afraid I really must dash, got a spot of bother – ah – Upstairs, you know?”
“Yes, angel,” Crowley’s tone took on a particular flavour when speaking of Heaven, and especially of Heaven calling upon Aziraphale. “I’m aware of which Upstairs you mean. What’s the problem, then? Did you not submit your report in the right typeface or something?”
“Oh, it isn’t mine today, Crowley, it’s… well, some of the younger ones, they’ve got a spot of bother around a deadline and-“
Crowley nodded. “Ah, deadlines. One of our ideas, I think, that worked its way upstairs. Can’t think why your lot bother with them really, ‘s not like time has much meaning in Heaven, is it? ‘S like Hell that way, though if you can get people to forget about that then stress goes through the roof, which is always good for a little low-grade evil if you’re running a little short on wiles that month, and of course then… there’s…” he trailed off, a little uncertainly, as Aziraphale’s face suddenly came alive with unholy enlightenment.
“That’s it! Crowley, my dear, dear, boy! You’ve quite solved my whole dilemma!”
He had? “I have?”
“Oh, quite, yes!” Aziraphale beamed at him, “I’ll be back by – oh, well, I should say ‘by tomorrow,’ how wonderful! Anyway, my dear, I meant to say; would you like to meet up for lunch?”
“Um.” Crowley kicked his brain back into gear after it had so rudely stalled in the middle of being praised by Aziraphale, for helping no less, “yeah, I expect I could free up some time…”
He trailed off as Aziraphale laughed gaily as if Crowley had been extremely funny, before he spun around to go trotting off down the street, waving enthusiastically behind him.
“Wonderful! Cheerio!”
Crowley sighed, and tried very hard to appear so utterly cool and hip that no one who happened to be looking would ever suspect that he was someone that other people would say ‘Cheerio’ to. A demon has to have a few Standards of his own to keep up, after all…
3.
Aziraphale had been deeply engrossed in his novel now for three days straight and so thoroughly detached from the world around him that the telephone had - from the sleepy irritation Aziraphale could feel seeping through the walls from his neighbours, and the highly unsubtle move by the Bookshop of turning off the table lamps next to his armchair – been emitting its shrill ringing for some time.
“Patience is a Virtue.” Aziraphale grumbled to the world around him, absently cranky at the interruption.
Beside his elbow, a fondly regarded, if not-yet published copy of Time and Again thumped from the nearby shelf, quickly followed by the utterly darling Forever, or a Long, Long Time, and finally the heavy thud of all three volumes of In Search of Lost Time.
Aziraphale tutted at it. “There’s no need for that tone, my dear. I’m going now.”
Going Nowhere Fast joined the tottering pile with what Aziraphale considered to be an unnecessarily stroppy tone.
“Oh, honestly…” Tutting about impatient and unruly Bookshops getting above themselves, Aziraphale warily approached the still-ringing telephone and eyed the receiver with some trepidation.
He sighed. “Buck up, Aziraphale, it can’t be anything too exciting…”
He picked up the receiver and tried to sound as if the delay in answering had been entirely owing to his having been interrupted in the middle of doing something terribly important and angelic.
“Hello! So sorry, I was simply in the middle of-“
“AZIRAPHALE!” Down the poor, innocent receiver came the battering-ram of noise otherwise known as Kamael’s Outside Voice. “I HAVE ADOPTED A DEMON! CAN I KEEP HIM? PLEEEEASE?”
"Oh good grief, Kamael,” Aziraphale muttered, exasperated. It was late, and he had not had a good cup of cocoa in several hours now. He was in no shape to deal with a wild, unsupervised Kamael right now. “Alright, where on Earth are you? What are you doing there? Where is Cassiel? What is all this about a demon?”
In a crisis situation – and with Kamael, in Aziraphale’s experience, it was always a crisis situation – it is always best to get all the pertinent facts gathered as quickly as possible.
“I’M AT THIS THING! THERE’S MUSIC! I THINK IT’S CALLED – HEY, YOU! YES, YOU WITH THE HAT AND THE NECKLACE – WAIT, ARE HUMANS MEANT TO BE NAKED AGAIN? DOES THAT MEAN I GET TO BE TOO? AWESOME – ANYWAY, WHERE IS THIS AGAIN? – AZIRAPHALE, IT’S CALLED WOODSTOCK! IT’S OVER ON TURTLE ISLAND!”
“Oh.” Aziraphale said, very carefully. “Kamael, I forbid you to disrobe in public. No, I don’t care if anyone else, or indeed everyone else, is doing it, you are absolutely not taking everything off, do you hear me? Poor Cassiel has had quite enough to deal with this month without having to wrestle you back into something approaching a respectable state before Gabriel catches sight of you.”
“GABRIEL’S A CLOTHES SNOB AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSULTED!” Opined Kamael, who was surprisingly articulate when being entirely correct.
“I shall pretend I did not hear that,” Aziraphale said, because he was a Very Responsible Principality, and not at all silently sniggering into his sleeve.
“AWESOME.” Kamael’s easy-going shrug drifted down the telephone wires unimpeded, before he returned to his main point. “AZIRAPHALE, CAN I KEEP MY DEMON? PLEEEEEASE?”
“Where in Heaven’s name did you even find a demon, Kamael?” Aziraphale rubbed his forehead and felt very lost.
“OH, THERE’S LOADS OF THEM AROUND HERE!” Kamael sounded largely unconcerned by this, although in fairness, Aziraphale acknowledged that even some of the more… unpleasant demons he had encountered over the centuries would probably consider an encounter with Kamael to be rather more trouble than it was worth.
“THAT’S WHY I’M HERE, YOU SEE! I WAS JUST VISITNG MELISSA’S FAMILY-“ Ah, Melissa… The crocodile Kamael had bonded with to only very slightly disastrous results in Heaven’s Archiving Department, and whom he had faithfully visited every year after Aziraphale had been called in to … assist in her relocation to someplace which was absolutely not anywhere near Heaven. “AND I SENSED ALL THE INFERNALS HANGING AROUND AND I WANTED TO HELP! BECAUSE OF YOU BEING SO OVERWHELMED THIS YEAR WITH EVERYTHING!”
Aziraphale had certainly had something of A Time of things lately, especially over in the States. Riots and protests happening all over the place, and of course Aziraphale wasn’t going to sit back and allow those fighting for an equal, better, fairer world to fight unsupported, no matter how poorly he expected his next physical would go once Raphael caught sight of his broken wing joints…
Focus, Aziraphale!
“Kamael, did I mishear you before? I thought you said something about ‘keeping one’?”
“YES? CAN I KEEP ONE, AZIRAPHALE? I’LL LOOK AFTER HIM AND FEED HIM AND KEEP HIM SAFE, I PROMISE!”
Oh Lord… “Kamael, you absolutely may not kidnap some poor demon, do I make myself clear? I don’t care what Sandalphon might have been saying in those seminars of his, they are still real people, and they have feelings and dreams, and you absolutely will not sweep one up off the street and drag them around with you! Honestly, Kamael! What in Our Lord’s Name made you think this was a good idea?”
“DUNNO…” Kamael’s bellow sounded sad and a little sulky, and Aziraphale absolutely refused to feel badly about making it so. “THERE WAS SOME KIND OF … SMOKE? AND IT WAS IN THESE REALLY PRETTY JARS. AND I SMOKED ALL OF IT. AND THERE WAS BOOOOOZE…”
Oh, wonderful. Aziraphale briefly considered hanging up the telephone and pretending he was no longer at home, but decided that this would be craven in the extreme.
“Kamael, I am afraid that your judgement is rather impaired… more than it usually is. Please find yourself a quiet spot to sit down in so I can come and get you, if you will?”
“OK.” Kamael certainly sounded biddable enough, but Aziraphale had known a wily serpent for too long to place anything resembling faith in such things. “CAN I BRING MY DEMON WITH ME?”
“No.” Aziraphale said, firmly. “I expect that the poor dear has Things to do this evening, and they do not involve being kidnapped by unknown and certainly very strange angels, like your drunken self, Kamael dear. Please put the poor creature down."
"WHAT?!” Kamael sounded really unreasonably scandalised at the thought. “AZIRAPHALE, NO! I MET THIS ONE ALREADY, HE'S NOT A STRAAAANGER!"
“What?”
Aziraphale blinked. To his knowledge, Hell’s agents had been remarkably fortunate in not encountering many of the guardians – and of course, Aziraphale hurried to remind himself, the guardians were fortunate not to have encountered much demonic trouble themselves too.
Certainly there had been a few dust-ups down the years, the odd skirmish, but Kamael wasn’t the sort of overly-enthusiastic troublemaker to seek demons out… except for…
Oh…
Oh no…
“Kamael…” Aziraphale began very carefully. “Please put young Nybbas on the line immediately, if you will.”
There was a brief fumble, during which Aziraphale could make out the words “HERE! ‘ZIRAPHALE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU! YOU GOTTA BE NICE, OR HE WON’T GIVE YOU A BISCUIT!” before the static cleared and a familiar, puzzled voice floated towards him.
“Um. Evening, Aziraphale?”
“Hello, Nybbas.” Aziraphale tried to sound warm and encouraging, and mostly sounded resigned. “I see that you are having an eventful evening once again?”
“Err… yeah?” Nybbas didn’t sound terribly sure himself. “I… He just came out of nowhere. He’s very… keen. And friendly. Um. Aziraphale… Do you know this guy?”
“Kamael? Yes, yes I do. I do apologise for him, Nybbas, I know that he can be rather… excitable, shall we say?”
“Yes.” Nybbas said, very carefully. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’d say… He seems like he listens to you though? Is that because of you being his boss or something?”
Aziraphale didn’t think he’d ever been accused of being anyone’s – much less Kamael’s – boss before. [11] “Oh, nothing so official, Nybbas, my dear, he just likes to talk things over with me from time to time, you know how it is.”
[11] If only because Heaven liked to forget his own status as being still (on paper, at least) in charge of the Fifth Regiment. The ink on that paper is very faded indeed, and Aziraphale may or may not have purposefully shoved it to the back of a drawer and ignored it, lest it result in more paperwork or something equally dreadful.
“Oh. I see,” said Nybbas, who didn’t sound at all sure of that.
Aziraphale swallowed a chuckle. “I wonder, Nybbas, if I might impose upon your time to watch over Kamael for a little longer? Just until I can get to your location and assume responsibility for him, I promise.”
“I… Sure.” Nybbas sounded relieved, but an element of wariness remained. “I don’t really have to – that is… He doesn’t actually get to keep me, does he? As, like, some sort of ‘spoils of war’ or anything?”
“Good Heavens, no!” Aziraphale was appalled at the very idea! “Dear me, where on earth do you think we would put a demon or two in Heaven, Nybbas? And what would we do with you all, besides! Goodness, no, the very idea! No, Kamael just gets strange ideas stuck in his head, that’s all, I promise. He’ll calm down once he’s sobered up…” he thought about it, before adding, in the full spirit of honesty, “marginally.”
“Oh. Good. I was worried.” Nybbas stated, unnecessarily.
“Quite.” Aziraphale aimed a pointed look at his coat-stand, who rustled irritably to be so disturbed, but consented to amble over to allow Aziraphale to retrieve his overcoat. “Shan’t be a moment, Nybbas, and then you can make your daring escape from Heaven’s clutches once more.” He trailed off, leadingly.
“Oh.” Nybbas sounded confused for a moment, before, “oh! Right. Yes! Yes, I’ll, ah, I’ll just keep an eye on this agent of Heaven’s, um, military might. And, um, plot my revenge.”
“Don’t over-do it, dear.” Aziraphale sighed, adjusting his cravat in the mirror before collecting his keys. “I’ll be there soon.”
He hung up the receiver at last, took a short moment to himself to regret the choices he had made in his long existence which had led him to this point – leaving behind his nice, comfortable armchair in the middle of the night to head out across the Atlantic ocean to assume responsibility for a drunken, intoxicated angel, after reassuring a demon in far over his head – before heaving one last sigh and stepping outside of his door.
These sorts of ridiculous escapades never happened to Aziraphale before he allowed Crowley to foist things like telephones upon him…
4.
Aziraphale was settling in for a nice, quiet morning filled with nothing more strenuous or troublesome than a bit of light dusting and a spot of tea-making, when the Bookshop started shuffling the oddest titles beneath his hands. Look Out, It’s a Dragon which had rather interesting, colourful artwork, but was a rather odd recommendation for an angel from his Bookshop, if you were to ask Aziraphale, though it presumably went well with the equally bright Look Out, Ladybird!
“Are we expanding the children’s section, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, trying not to sound a little off-put by the idea. He didn’t mind children dropping in, especially the local ones who knew not to run too wild around the place and risk upsetting the side-tables, but he wasn’t sure he was in quite the right frame of mind to handle a full reorganisation of the Bookshop’s layout today and if they were going to start properly catering for a much younger audience then Aziraphale certainly wasn’t going to stand for the young ones being shunted off into the corner. [12]
[12] Aziraphale himself might not enjoy being surrounded by too many of the little tykes making a ruckus in the place, but he was willing to overlook the matter on account of how Serious Book Buyers were even less keen and would therefore take their persistent efforts off elsewhere…
Crowley was very busy these days with a supposedly Top Secret Evil Mission involving roadworks, which Aziraphale was sure he would be much more irritated by if he cared even the slightest about roads. Happily for Aziraphale (and in later decades, deeply unhappily for Crowley), he did not care one single whit for roads of any sort, especially not these extra complicated versions, so Aziraphale was content to leave his demonic friend to play about in muddy fields in a silly jacket that flashed in the dark. It was probably good for him to have the additional exercise.
A generalised shuffling of the Bookshop’s interiors, blinds rustling, curtains twitching and rugs adjusting themselves seemed to indicate that, no, the Bookshop had no such major plans either.
“I see.” Said Aziraphale, who didn’t.
The sofa sighed.
Beware the Hoot Owl hopped from a shelf to nudge the angel’s wrist. He picked it up to ponder this odd conversation, but it was quickly followed by Beware the Night and Beware the Wild. Aziraphale sighed.
“Oh dear,” he said, and patted one of the wall-sconces to thank the Bookshop for its warning. “I do hope it’s nothing too terrible. I suppose there’s nothing I do to stop it?”
Several books all with the imaginative title of Unstoppable slid into line along a shelf at eye-line. Aziraphale sighed again.
“I see. Well, I suppose I shall have to wait and see who comes in then. I only hope I have enough biscuits in…”
He wandered into the kitchenette, muttering to himself about how often ‘doing the right thing’ interrupted a nice, long spell of ‘doing nothing’, and discovered a copy of Telephone Between Worlds propped against the kettle.
He snorted. “Wretched contraption. I ought to have known, I suppose.”
It was for this reason that when the telephone began to ring, somewhere around dinner-time, Aziraphale was not caught entirely off-guard.
“Yes, my dears, what is it?”
“Um.” The voice on the other end of the receiver – certainly not alone, judging by the frantic whispers which Aziraphale could just make out a little further from the device – sounded stressed, and shifty, and slightly hysterical. “Aziraphale? We need your help.”
Aziraphale refused to sigh, because being the sort of person to whom other people looked when they were in trouble was an honour and a responsibility, and also because after spending half the day wondering about what was going to come crashing into his life from Heaven, he was actually rather invested in finding out.
“Yes, I rather thought you might,” he remarked, mildly. “Now, what is it that I can assist you with, my dears?”
“You need to come up here!” Blurts the speaker, whom Aziraphale strongly suspects of being Baraqiel from Armouries, which is… well, it’s something of a surprise. Armouries don’t generally have a reason to speak to Aziraphale, and Aziraphale in turn tries rather hard to avoid them, lest questions be asked about the small matter of his flaming sword which Aziraphale would prefer not to answer.
As if aware that she is stepping into unusual and unfamiliar territory, Baraqiel rushes onwards like a freight train. “Please, Aziraphale! We really need your help! I promise, the explosion in Development wasn't even that bad, like, it was barely anything worth fussing over-“ Aziraphale immediately doubts this assessment, and wonders if this is how Raphael feels all the time when Aziraphale tells her that his broken feathers and mangled joints aren’t the major cause for concern she treats them as. Probably. [13] “- but now half the team’s been in the Infirmary for hours, and Raphael was talking about how they’d missed their last round of shots and some of them might have sort of neglected to tell her about a few little accidents – but it wasn’t anything major, I promise! – and now we can't get them out of the Infirmary, and we don’t know when they’re coming back and, well, can you help us?”
[13] Definitely, but if there is one thing which everyone who knows him might agree upon is that Aziraphale isn’t always as self-aware about such matters as he should be.
Aziraphale blinks, a little wrong-footed, and somewhat torn between the urge to side with Raphael and insist that everyone in Armouries be checked over immediately for all the hidden ailments and injuries they are so clearly trying to hide, and reluctant recognition that this is exactly the sort of thinking Aziraphale himself engages with all the time.
It's all rather awkward, that’s for certain.
“I… Well, I…” He begins, but Baraqiel makes a desperate, harried sort of noise and Aziraphale’s protective urges come rushing to the fore-ground in a rush.
“Have you tried getting into the Infirmary through the supplies entrance under the fourth laundry chute?” [14] The words are out of his mouth before any form of respectable thought has a chance to touch them.
[14] Even heavenly robes need cleaning, after all; particularly those that find themselves in the Infirmary.
A flurry of movement on the other end of the line suggests that notes are being taken. “I thought that had been bricked up again?”
“Only officially, my dears. Somehow the work notice got lost after it was submitted and approved, and goodness me, you know as well as I do, the way Buildings is over-burdened, it’s frankly a miracle that more of these little jobs aren’t forgotten like that, goodness knows what would happen then…” Aziraphale bends over the receiver, thinking quickly. He ignores the thwap of the Bookshop dropping A Chorus of Disapproval down next to him. The Bookshop is a worry-wart through and through. It probably sides with Raphael about Aziraphale’s feathers. [15]
[15] If the Bookshop knew about some of the shameless lies Aziraphale told in the Infirmary himself, it probably would.
“That door’s not that big, is it?” Baraqiel hums, clearly thinking quickly.
“No, about yay by ike, I’m afraid. How big are your friends?”
Baraqiel hums again. “Hofniel and Kokabiel will be fine that way – psst! Maalik, you and Nakir take that route! Don’t get caught! – but we’re never getting Offaniel out that way…”
And that’s certainly true, thinks Aziraphale. Offaniel is – even by Heaven’s decidedly unfettered sense of proportions – extremely large for an angel. She won’t go through the windows either, even if someone managed to break one.
There’s only one thing for it.
Aziraphale really is going to have to go up there himself. He’s going to have to cause – he shudders a little to even think the words – a distraction.
*
Several hours later, Aziraphale staggered back into the Bookshop, his clothes a mess, his hair dishevelled and all over himself covered in a slew of feathers – some angelic, many avian, in origin.
It was fair to say, he thought to himself as the Bookshop fluttered about in concern, ushering his armchair over to greet him, and all but snatching the coat from his shoulders to be whisked away and liberally attended to by a clothes brush, that things had not, entirely, gone according to plan.
A small but varied display of books bearing the title I Told You So shuffled onto the nearest end-table.
“You did indeed, my dear.” Sighed Aziraphale, too tired and off-balance to put up much of a fight.
The Very Worried Sparrow came over to keep Worried Arthur company.
“Oh, it’s nothing, dear,” Aziraphale patted the side-lamp gently, “I shall be quite alright again once I’ve put my feet up and had a cup of cocoa, I’m sure.”
The books sitting next to him shuffled off, only to be replaced, along with the requested steaming cup, by a small but deeply touching stack; Safe Habour, Safe and Sound, The Last Safe Place.
“You’re a great comfort to me, my dear.” Aziraphale smiled gently. “I know that I shall always be perfectly safe, so long as I am here, in your care.”
Telephone Line, grumbled the Bookshop. Aziraphale tutted, but mostly just sipped his cocoa. It wasn’t really the telephone’s fault, after all. It was the easy access to Aziraphale which the device granted which so often was the problem.
Crowley, Aziraphale promised himself firmly, was going to buy him a very good lunch when he was done wandering around in fields, no matter what the demon thought!
5.
When the telephone rings, three days after the utter failure of an Apocalypse, and the even more complete failure of an extra-judicial murder attempt by his former colleagues, Aziraphale nearly jumps straight out of his shiny new corporation. [16]
[16] It’s not a bad corporation, of course, and it was very kind of Adam to make a brand new one for Aziraphale like this, and under such odd and doubtless rather trying circumstances and such, but… well. New corporations are rather like new shoes: no matter how well they fit in theory, they still take a while to break in properly. [16.1] Aziraphale still finds his Grace rubbing up against unexpected stiffness every so often, or else he keeps trying to compensate for those little dents and weaker spots which aren’t there anymore. He’ll get used to it, he’s sure. Eventually.
[16.1] The last corporation had, if Aziraphale remembered correctly, been just about nicely broken in and really comfortable sometime around Babel. He was preparing himself for several long and slightly itchy centuries…
The telephone is still ringing, even after Aziraphale has caught his breath, picked up the book he dropped, and absently miracle back together his favourite mug.
Bother.
He throws the device a thoroughly irritated look, but it remains unmoved, and so he answers it.
“Hello? A.Z. Fell and Co. Purveyors of Rare Books?”
“Principality Aziraphale,” begins a crisp, bland tone, “Guardian of the Eastern Gate. Wielder of the Unused Flaming Sword. Escape Artist and All-Round Nuisance.”
“Hello, Raphael.” Aziraphale responds, as cordially as he can. He’s not at all sure where this little chat is going, and he’d rather not cede any ground by saying too much too early.
“I expected that you’d cause trouble as soon as we sent you down there to Earth,” Raphael continues, her voice still bland and utterly scrubbed free of intonation or emotion. “I told Gabriel, I said to him, ‘Gabriel. Aziraphale’s just lost everyone in his whole flock but himself, don’t you think sending him off on his own is a bit of a mistake? Don’t you think this will all end in tears?’ And did he listen to me? Did he?”
Aziraphale feels one eyebrow quirk upwards. “I rather expect that he did not.”
“You’re bloody right, he didn’t!” Raphael still sounds unreasonably irritated about this dismissal of her opinions. Aziraphale finds that he can relate. “Just sent me off with one of those stupid smiles on his face and told me that She knew best!”
Aziraphale desperately wishes that he knew where this conversation is going…
“I often find myself leaning rather heavily upon a similar line of thinking, myself.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Raphael’s voice has found a Tone at last, but that Tone is not at all comforting to its listener. It is the Tone Raphael likes to use when she’s laying out some sort of groundwork before springing something terrible onto one. Like push-ups. “Even after – what’s that ridiculous euphemism Sandalphon used yesterday? Oh, right – ‘Recent Events’?”
“Yes.” Aziraphale says, very firmly. “Even after the near-miss with the End of the World, I still believe that it was all a part of The Ineffable Plan, and that She always intended for this to happen.”
Aziraphale’s had to stare rather a lot of his own personal Doubts squarely in the face over the past week, and it still stings in certain places to discover that he was wrong – or, more crushingly still, right – about certain things, certain people, all along. But he never doubted Her in all of this… mess. Not once. No matter what comments Crowley might have made – those even those were fewer and further between than might have been expected – Aziraphale refused to believe that anything which happened on that airfield, or even afterwards, could have taken place without Her approval.
“Good.”
Raphael’s voice rings, suddenly, with sincere warmth and happiness, and Aziraphale finds himself relaxing. It’s going to be alright. Raphael hadn’t been present at his – well, at Crowley’s kidnapping, truthfully – nor at the ‘trial’ and the attempted execution, and Aziraphale had very much wanted to believe that Raphael would not have stood for such a thing if only she had been present, [17] but he hadn’t been sure…
[17] As it happens, she’d been regrettably distracted at the time by needing to deal with a number of minor (and a fair few less-minor) injuries caused by the inevitable result of some damn fool giving the inhabitants of the Seventh Tower weapons in preparation for The Great Battle. In her own, private, revenge upon her siblings for this lapse in judgement – indeed for several coincidental lapses in judgement, if she were to be kind – Raphael dumped the towering stacks of paperwork inspired by the Seventh’s mayhem directly upon Gabriel and Michael’s desks, while Uriel and Sandalphon were assigned the tedious but necessary task of refilling her much-depleted stash of bandages.[17.1]
[17.1] If you are going to mindlessly follow the directions of others, after all, in Raphael’s opinion you can mindlessly do something useful.
Along the telephone-line, there is a creak of leather chair and the rustling of paperwork, and then Raphael’s voice drips with wry amusement, offered like an olive branch.
“You know, I have seen you pull some hijinks to get out of a simple centennial check-up over all these years, Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, but I really do rather think that foiling an Apocalypse and handing Heaven the mitten is pushing it a bit!”
The laugh which bursts out of Aziraphale’s chest catches him off-guard, and his knees shake with the force of it. “Well, I shouldn’t have liked to do things by halves, my dear.”
“Indeed not, it would seem.”
“It all had something of a sense of style to it, don’t you think?”
Actually, from everything Aziraphale remembers, the whole nightmare had been one big mess from beginning to end, but then again so much could be said of everything since The Almighty had spoken the immortal words; “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” And that had all rather worked out alright in the end, hadn’t it?
“And did I quite take Michael’s meaning correctly, Aziraphale dear, or was the stress of everything getting to her? Have you really befriended the Adversary, the demon Crowley, whom you have fought and battled against for lo these many centuries?”
“I…” Aziraphale blushed, “well, I… I mean… we’ve known each other for rather a… long… time…” He trailed off, feeling very awkward indeed.
“Really?” Raphael sounded a little shocked, a little scandalized, but in that delightfully wicked way which Aziraphale himself well-understood and rather enjoyed himself. “I mean, you have?”
“Oh yes,” Aziraphale smiled, delighted that he had a friend to talk to at last, to talk to about Crowley and giggle a little about it all. “It, well, we kept on running into each other over and over again, and it rather crept up on us, and then one thing led rather to another, and then Crowley was asking me to help him prevent the Apocalypse and I…”
“And you did.” Raphael sounded so soft, so filled with wonder… Aziraphale couldn’t remember the last time he had heard an archangel sound wonder-struck. It was a good sound.
“I can’t really take any credit, my dear. If I were being honest, I made rather a hash of everything I tried to do. Adam – the Antichrist – he was the one who really saved the day, him and his friends.”
“Well, the guardians have certainly not stopped talking about it since you cut the Quartermaster down to size and stormed out of Heaven’s Halls right before Gabriel started on his last-ever pep talk, that’s for sure.”
“Oh?” Aziraphale clutched the side-table closest to him so hard he heard something splinter which he tried to remember he would need to repair later. “Are… are they all alright? No one too disappointed or anything? All settling down again?”
Raphael snorted rather inelegantly. “Now, that’s certainly not how I would put it!”
“Oh?” Aziraphale felt his heart dissolve into a gluey, sticky mess which dripped to form a cold puddle in his stomach. “They… they aren’t alright?”
“Well, I suppose that rather depends on what you mean by ‘alright’, really. But no, I’d not like to say that they are ‘settling down’ or anything of the kind right now. Though of course, none of the others seems to have noticed, what with all the denying and lying they’re doing right now. Maybe they’ll notice something’s going on when the fire starts, maybe not. I shouldn’t like to introduce them to Reality at this late stage, really.” [18]
[18] This, of course, rather raises the question of whether the other archangels have ever been introduced to Reality or whether they’ve simply been awkwardly in the same room waiting for introductions and far too polite to introduce themselves.
“Raphael,” Aziraphale spoke very calmly and very carefully, and absolutely did not give vent to the frustration building where his heart was more properly-placed at all. “Raphael. What. Is. Happening. With. The guardians?”
“Oh,” Raphael returned to the topic, “it’s nothing terrible. Well, I rather expect you won’t think it is, anyway.”
“Raphael…” Aziraphale didn’t often growl - he thought it was an unseemly way to communicate, and lacked many things in elocution - but sometimes it really was the best, the only, way to speak to those who frustrated one.
“Well, I should stress to you right now that of course I know nothing of this at all,” Raphael paused significantly, “because they are all very sure that they are being very subtle and not blindingly obvious at all, and if pressed I expect for you to behave as if you are very surprised indeed, do I make myself clear?”
Something within Aziraphale’s spine, quite without his permission or conscious thought, relaxed, slightly. “I understand you perfectly, my dear.”
“Good. Because I rather think you’ll be getting a few… visitors. Soon.”
“Oh?” Aziraphale blinked, a little thrown. “Visitors, you say?”
“Yes. Sight-seers, you might say. Interns, perhaps. The kind that have been very eager for ever such a long time to come to see you, and mean to make the most of things, if you take my meaning.”
“Ah.” Aziraphale rather thought he did. “I shall make sure that I have adequate supplies of cake on hand.”
Raphael tittered, gently. “You had better warn this Crowley of yours too, I expect.”
“Oh, I rather suspect that I shall do nothing of the sort.” Aziraphale smiled, just a hint of wickedness in the corners of his lips. “I don’t get many opportunities to surprise the wily old serpent. It’ll be good for him.”
Raphael burst into a joyful cackle of laughter at this, delighted and merry. “Oh, Aziraphale… How in Heaven we ever thought we could keep you contained, I can’t think!”
“Thankfully that’s not your job anymore.”
“No…” Raphael sounded a little wistful at this, a little regretful too. “No, I suppose it isn’t.” Then she brightened, “I wonder if Crowley is prepared to take on such a large responsibility?”
“Oh, I rather think he’ll tell you that he’s been doing it for years already, if you were to ask him.”
“Good. I’m glad that you’re not alone anymore, Aziraphale.”
Aziraphale heard the echo of a worry Raphael seemed to have carried for longer than he had ever realised. He thought about his answer very carefully, balancing the urge for reassurance with the wisdom of information.
“Living here on Earth for so long…” he began at last, “I can safely say that I was never all that alone. Not really. There is always someone out there ready to talk, or to listen.”
“So cryptic, Aziraphale,” Raphael sounded a little pleased and rather a lot intrigued. “Perhaps I shall have to see for myself one of these days.”
“You know where the Bookshop is, my dear, if you ever fancy dropping by for a chat.”
“Hm…” agreed Raphael, “maybe I’ll surprise you, one of these days, and follow the guardians down.”
Aziraphale was in the middle of agreeing politely, when he suddenly got a vivid image of Raphael meeting Crowley, and swapping all manner of embarrassing stories. Raphael clearly heard the moment when the horror hit him, and laughed loudly before hanging up on him.
Aziraphale sat there for a long moment, listening to the dial-tone in mute horror. On the one hand, there were – it seemed, somehow – people in Heaven who still wished to keep in contact with him after all he had done. Even visit him.
On the other hand, one of those people, it would seem, was to be the Archangel Raphael, tyrant of the Infirmary of Heaven.
Aziraphale never thought he'd get good news from that contraption... and he still hasn't.
+1
"Here, my dear," Aziraphale practically growls as he hands Crowley the telephone receiver. "I do believe that it is your turn."
"Um." Says Crowley, confused. Cautiously, he raises the receiver to his ear. "Yes?"
"CROWLEY!!!" A voice, too loud, too slurred and much, much too ... enthused to be recognizable to its poor, hapless listener, assaults the demon's ear. "CROWLEY, MY MAN!"
"Excuse me a moment." Crowley blurts out, wrong-footed into politeness. He turns from the unknown voice to Aziraphale, who is looking... not smug, not exactly, but actually rather righteous. As if Crowley were getting his comeuppance for some unknown misdeed. "Angel? What the fuck?"
"It's all your fault, Crowley," Aziraphale states, implacable. "You were the one who insisted I have the wretched contraption installed, you know. Now you can deal with the young people once in a while."
"What...?" Crowley whispers. He honestly has no idea what the Hel- no, what the Bookshop - is going on here.
"CROWLEY?" The voice reaches out from the phone to grab his ear impatiently. "YOU THERE, CROWLEY?"
"Yes." Crowley admitted.
"AWESOME! HEY! HEY, GUYS! CROWLEY'S THERE, HE'LL KNOW!"
"Will I?" Crowley asked Aziraphale, faintly panicked.
"Oh, I expect so, my dear." Aziraphale smiled encouragingly. Now that Crowley was submitting to the reality of taking the strange call, he seemed perfectly willing to help however he could. "Generally speaking, the questions aren't hard."
"CROWLEY, ARE YOU STILL THERE?"
"Yes." Crowley hissed, trying to sound impatient rather than worried.
"AWESOME! CROWLEY, DO FISH SLEEP?"
"What?"
"FISH, CROWLEY, DO THEY SLEEP?"
"Um." Crowley said, wondering why he was being asked about fish - who were fantastically boring creatures even before there were other animals to compare them to. On demonic-instinct, he considers bare-faced lying, making up something truly outrageous and convincing a drunk angel or three of its veracity, but the far-less drunk angel right in front of him clearly knows him far too well;
“Don’t even try it, you wily serpent,” Aziraphale whispers to him, looking equal parts exasperated, fond and stern. “If I were you, I should take this as a very great compliment that they consider you so knowledgeable about the world.”
“Isn’t misleading people in their false beliefs and assumptions my old bosses’ work, angel?” Crowley growls back, ignoring the ‘CROWLEY?! CROWLEY, ARE YOU STILL THERE? I DON’T KNOW, VALAC, I THINK WE LOST HIM! CROWLEY?!’ coming from the receiver.
“Nonsense, my dear. I’ve always found you to be really quite remarkably knowledgeable about all manner of things on Earth in all the time we’ve known each other,” Aziraphale smiled at Crowley so gently and so full of trust and warmth, that Crowley found his treacherous mind obediently reaching out into even its darkest and dustiest corners to seek out an answer which might impress its audience. “I know that as an angel I have rather a lot of faith, my darling, but I can assure you that the vast majority of my faith is placed firmly with you, in all things.”
“Angel!” Crowley hissed, blushing furiously. “Can’t go around saying things like that…”
Aziraphale’s smile turned a little cheeky, as if to say Just you watch me, demon.
“Answer the nice angels about the fish, dear,” is all he says, however.
Right. Fish. Fish who sleep. Or do they? Crowley rummaged around some more in his memories, looking under every folder labelled ‘Fish’ which weren’t exactly plentiful, because damned if Crowley gave a single demonic (or indeed any other sort of) damn about bloody fish!
Sleeping, though, sleeping was a thoroughly worthy subject to know about. "No. They're not mammals, so they don't do the sleep-thing like sensible creatures. They just sort of... rest."
"HA! PAY UP, ZADEKIEL! I TOLD YOU THEY DON'T SLEEP!"
From beyond the extremely loud, and now very triumphant, voice came the wild cheering of what sounded like an entire bar of really quite drunk people. Possibly drunk angels.
Suddenly, and quite without his own permission, Crowley felt old. He was old, of course. He'd been around since long before the Beginning of the world, and at over 6000 years by now, the old girl was no spring chicken herself. But he rarely ever felt old. But now, here he was, getting drunk-dialled for fish facts.
Crowley was about to ask if there was anything else the caller desired to know, but he was abruptly disconnected.
Aziraphale handed him a large whiskey and smiled. "There you go, my dear. Now you've got the first one out of the way, it's all much less unnerving."
"First one?" Crowley felt as if he had taken a sharp drop, missed a step or something. All wrong-footed and breathless with shock.
"Hmm." Aziraphale nodded and patted his arm kindly. "Don't worry, my darling, I shall handle the questions about mating habits, shall I? That was never really your strong point was it, Crowley?"
Crowley felt his cheekbones flush with scales for a moment. "Are you ever letting that go, angel?"
"Probably not," Aziraphale smiled impishly. "Honestly, Crowley! 'You've still got one of them,' indeed!"