Chapter Text
Anthony J. Crowley was too nice to be in the mafia.
That’s the fact that he had quietly avoided for years, dancing around the truth like one dances on hot sand at a beach. He was charming, easygoing, and excellent at bullshitting – one of the best, in fact. It was something he prided himself on. It let him go modestly far in his career. Not too far as to attract the wrong kind of attention, just comfortably far. He was perfectly content to stagnate, just floating around in the middle of the pack, making enough to make ends meet.
Because he didn’t wake up one day and think, “I think today I’ll join a crime syndicate!”
He just hung around the wrong people.
And one day, he realized that there was no going back.
And one day, the fact that he had refused to acknowledge came around to bite him in the ass, as repressed truths are often wont to do.
And one day, he found himself pale, bruised, beaten to a bloody pulp, and dangerously close to crying if he weren’t running for his damn life.
All I did was ask a few questions. Is that really all it takes?
Yes. Yes it was. And he was never exceptionally bright, was he, he thought bitterly through short gasps between teeth. He sprinted down a narrow brick alleyway, hyperconscious of the pounding, coordinated footsteps behind him. Three sets now, he had managed to knock out the scrawniest one, but didn’t have a chance in hell of taking down the rest. He had to do what he did best – slither away.
Except he was fucking covered in his own blood and pretty sure he had a cracked rib. Where the hell was he going to go? At this point, his train of thought was nothing more than a panicked scream in the back of his head as his body struggled to keep him alive. He didn’t really even think about where he was going anymore, operating purely on instinct. He jumped at the last second over an overturned rubbish bin, crying out in pain when his ribs protested, but rewarded with the clanging sound of someone, probably Lig, kicking the metal and cursing loudly.
Crowley ducked, focused single-mindedly on his own panic and terror, into the break in the grimy alley wall, instinct propelling him past the square nook and through the nondescript, surprisingly clean red door. Unlocked. Closed it silently behind him, because five years in the mob teaches you how to do a few things.
Pointless, anyway, there’s no way they didn’t see me.
He only barely registered when he looked around the dimly lit room, realizing he was in the small back entrance of a bookshop. A very quaint, old-fashioned bookshop filled with clutter and dusty, peeling tomes, the kind that produced within Crowley a Pavlovian reaction of boredom from his limited time in school. His pulse thundered in his ears, and he looked around for witnesses to the intrusion, but the place was dead silent. That didn’t mean anything, though. Not everyone was stupid enough to fall into a cliché “Is anyone there?” upon hearing the noises after dark; the proprietor of the place could be readying a crowbar and rounding the corner any moment now. Crowley had to be silent, take a breath, and leave as soon as he could while managing to lose the grunts’ trail. He shook violently against the door and his hand came to clasp tightly against his bloody lips.
One-two. Try to breath. Oh, fuck.
His vision was so blurry from the tremors and the dormant tears that when the shadows moved in front of him, he froze. Couldn’t even spare the energy to flinch. When the figure stepped into his line of sight, Crowley faintly realized that he recognized the man before him.
Crowley knew the area, and knew it well – it was in his job description, after all. He had seen this man, always wearing pastel colors and a warm smile, frequenting local cafés and bakeries, chatting animatedly with regulars and workers, before returning to a deceptively small corner shop with such prime real estate that Crowley’s ‘family’ had placed it on their ‘to-do’ list. Hadn’t gotten around to it, yet.
The bookshop owner was tall, broad, and plump, with wire glasses, blond curls, and a baby-pink sweater vest. His face was round, cherubic, one of those faces that was timeless – he could have very well been in his thirties or in his sixties. Smile lines and heavyset dimples, thrown into relief with the dim light, casting shadows at his feet.
He wasn’t smiling. He was staring at Crowley with a piercing, calculating focus. Crowley was in the middle of waiting for something to happen, probably bad, when an awful bang from the front of the shop made them both start. Before he could do anything, though, the man swiftly crowded Crowley against the wall, one of his broad hands finding the small of his back, the other reaching over his shoulder and sliding three different locks into place. Crowley reached forward, still woozy, and his trembling grasp was met with the man’s hand.
At the front of the shop, the outside street lamps created the shapes of four fuzzy figures through the glass. Crowley had half a mind, and still could scoff internally at the lack of polish. They were clearly too stupid to find where Crowley had slipped in the back, and now what? They were causing a scene in the middle of the street? He had a faint tick of satisfaction that the higher-ups were going to lay into them for that. Except that they were now surely going to catch him.
The banging increased.
“We’re closed!” the man shouted firmly.
Crowley’s eyes focused. The man was- he was holding him up. A bloody, suspicious stranger who by all means broke into his shop, and the man was holding him steadily, with a straight posture and a calm conviction. He had no idea what was happening, only certainty that this was all going to go to shit any moment now – but despite his common senses, this man seemed like a calm during a storm, offering safety and protection. Like a guardian angel.
No, he was definitely suffering from a loss of blood. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from clinging to the soft fabric of the man’s sleeve like a lifeline, knowing it would likely be the last pleasant thing he could ever feel.
The banging was halfhearted, now, before the two men could hear a brief, angry exchange, muffled by the glass. Then, the heavy pattering of several sets of shoes going running off into the night. Then, silence, except for an awful, clattering, bone-chilling wind that scraped the insides of Crowley’s head and shook him like a leaf. The man turned to him, his expression strange, one that Crowley couldn’t recognize. He pressed the one large hand on Crowley’s back toward him, lifting a little, reaching up to pry the hand clamped over his mouth away, with some effort after it was proven that the muscles were tensed and seemingly locked in place. They locked eyes for a moment after Crowley’s face was fully exposed, before the man seemed to appraise him fully for the first time, that confusing expression on his face intensifying.
“Hm. Are you quite all right, dear?”
After hearing the man shout, Crowley registered his voice was posh, prim, but warm. He couldn’t answer, just kept staring at the grip his hand had on the soft pink sleeve in front of him.
“Of course you aren’t – breathe, there, just breathe, you’re hyperventilating. Let me get you a blanket, I rather think you might be going into shock.”
Ah.
The wind that was tearing into the silence was Crowley’s desperate pants for air. And at once, he recognized the expression on the man’s face as concern.
When he turned to pull away, Crowley’s fingers tightened instinctively on his forearm, reached forward with his other hand to grab the man’s shoulder without thinking. Don’t go, he thought, Please. He braced himself to be torn into or tossed onto the floor.
“Ah. Hm. I see. Well. Can you breathe for me, dear? Try to sync your breaths to mine. Listen to my breathing, see if you can’t do that for me. Here…”
The man breathed exaggeratedly, one-two, a steady pace. Through a painful, confused fog of understanding, Crowley could do this much. He obeyed, slowing down, until the howl of his lungs quieted to an uneasy rhythm. He could think a little clearer now. Right now, he was thinking about panicking, and watching his blood drip steadily onto this stranger’s floor.
“Erm,” he tried, cringing at how weak and pathetic his voice sounded in his ringing ears, “Th-Thank you.”
“You’re certainly welcome, although, as I’m sure you might be aware, I would indeed like an explanation.”
Crowley stared at his own fingers, loosened them from their iron hold on the man’s shirt as he came back to himself in that moment. He crossed his arms across his chest, almost trying an instinctual step away from the man until realizing his back was still pressed against the door, with the man’s hand gently resting on the small of his back. Which he made no move to pull away, even as Crowley looked uncomfortably at the floor and fidgeted. He blurted the first thing that came to mind.
“You’re not safe.”
“I’m sorry?” The man laughed incredulously. “I rather think that it is you who’s not safe, am I wrong?”
Crowley sighed, which came out as more of a wheeze, then a cough, spattering droplets of red onto the man’s front.
“Ah, s-shit, I’m sorry, I need… I need to go.”
He needed a few things, one of which was to go find a place to patch himself up without putting himself either in the debt or the ratting out of a kindly civilian. He struggled to stand up straight and failed when the man grabbed his wrist with a surprisingly strong hold-
“Oh no, I don’t think you do. Go where, exactly? Out there, where those men were looking for you?” He sounded like a cross parent, almost, and a hysterical laugh bubbled its way to Crowley’s throat.
“I can take care of that myself.”
The man raised a single blonde eyebrow, looking him up and down. Crowley’s face burned.
“Who are you to- to- anyway, it’s my problem, not yours! Just- let me go, and I’ll be out of, out of your hair, and-”
He interrupted Crowley’s stuttering with a single finger that silenced him immediately. He looked concerned again.
“You need medical attention, dear boy. I cannot, in good conscience, simply send you on your way.”
Crowley hissed.
“I’m not going to a hospital.”
He tutted, smiling gently. Crowley looked up and met the man’s gaze. Cornflower blue eyes, crinkled at the edges and singularly focused on him. Now he knew he was in trouble, because he had never in his life described a color as cornflower.
What even is a cornflower, anyway? I think I have a concussion.
“Who said anything about a hospital? I have a first aid kit in the back room.”
He could feel those eyes boring into his face, even as Crowley stared determinedly at the floor, not able to spare the strength to even meet the man halfway. He was too drained for shows of dominance. He swayed slightly, again, and this time the man planted both hands firmly on his shoulders and hoisted him upright with surprising strength.
“That settles it. I’m going to help you, my dear boy, and then you’re going to stay here and tell me what happened.”
Crowley nodded. Swayed.
“I’m going to pass out now.”
And lost his vision as he toppled forward into a soft embrace.