Work Text:
“Do you teach?”
The Tadfield Christmas Craft Fair had been running for hours. Aziraphale had been awake at 5am to get there for 7am to set up his two-table stall and display backdrop, and since Marjorie had texted him her apologies due to her bad knees suffering in the cold weather, he had been running the whole thing himself all day. He was tired, and harried, and no one seemed capable of reading the prominently displayed size 20 font price list, or of heeding his requests for adults to supervise their children around the stacks of handmade goods, and he was desperately in need of tea. And now someone else wanted his attention. At least he was selling well; not always a given at these events.
“Hmm?” he said, not looking up from the ledger where he was recording his last sale.
“Well, I was looking and … these are really great. You’ve got some interesting stuff. Never tried bookbinding, but I’ve always been interested, so I … wondered if you teach? Is it hard to do?”
Finally, Aziraphale turned towards the speaker, looked, fell in love, and lied, “Yes.”
There was…
He was…
Cool, was the first impression. Impossibly cool and handsome. A willowy redhead wrapped up in tight midnight black, something almost like a smile in his expression, and sunglasses on against the bright sparkle of the omnipresent fairy lights. They lit up the lenses like a constellation. Oh Lord. He had a tattoo. And painted nails. Aziraphale swallowed convulsively.
Yes. Yes to anything, anything at all this man wanted he could have.
Wait, what had he said yes to again?
The man gave an awkward little laugh. “Yes it’s hard, or yes you teach?”
“Ah – it’s…” Aziraphale looked down at the leather, cloth and paper-bound books spread across the table in front of him as though he’d never seen them before. “It’s not hard to get started, although it can be a little fiddly. And yes, I could teach you.” He never had taught anyone, but he’d been binding and restoring books professionally for years, it couldn’t be all that difficult to explain it to someone else.
“Great! Do you have, like, a workshop schedule or a regular class?”
Suddenly that sounded like a more complicated proposition than Aziraphale’s hazy thought of inviting the handsome stranger to his backroom, where all the work actually happened. Unfortunately his mouth did not get the “slow down” message his brain was frantically trying to send. “Workshop! Yes, er, next week, actually, at … Tadfield Arms, in the function room.” What on earth was he saying now? “I haven’t been able to confirm a time yet though, so I don’t have any fliers. Perhaps if you gave me your number I could let you know?” Smooth, Aziraphale, very smooth.
The stranger frowned, showing the adorable creases in his brow. He was older than he looked, Aziraphale suspected, and he had to admit that he rather liked that.
“Next week? Do you know which night? I’ve got my sister’s kid staying with me, so…”
“Oh, of course. I was thinking Thursday? Not to say I couldn’t change it, if the room’s available.” He had no idea if the room was even available on Thursday, but the Tadfield Arms didn’t do food, so the function room didn’t see all that much use. He might be lucky.
Now the man smiled. “Thursday would be great. These books you have here are amazing; I guess it takes a while to learn how to do this kind of work.” Most of what Aziraphale had brought along today were the easily-reproducible notebooks, all hand-bound in a range of finishes, ready to be embossed with someone’s initials as a personalised gift, but the man was indicating the larger, more unique works. Aziraphale had rebound a few of his personal favourites to show how utility could become art; a complete set of Austens bound in complimentary pale shades of leather, each with a cut-out silhouette on the front to represent the main characters; a thick Collected Works of Shakespeare with theatrical comedy and tragedy masks embossed into the surface; and, done especially for this event, a Lord of the Rings set with one of the iconic swords, Sting, Narsil and Andúril, done in gold leaf down each of the spines.
“I have been doing this for a few years,” Aziraphale said self-deprecatingly. “There’s beauty even in the simplest work, done well.” He turned a black leather-bound journal over in his hands before placing it back into its stack and squaring the corners neatly.
“Ngk. So, this is me.” The man pulled a card out of a back pocket that looked like it had been laminated onto him, and handed it over. The card was black with silver embossing, which said only Crowley, Stars and Serpents Art and a mobile number. “I’ve, er, I’ve got a stand here, too, down that way.” He waved vaguely towards a table a few yards down on the opposite side of the aisle, draped in velvet, with easels displaying original artwork and prints of what seemed to be swirling galaxies. There was a sullen-looking youth with long, dark hair sitting behind the table, staring at their phone rather than engaging with the browser currently flicking through a stack of mounted prints.
Aziraphale suddenly realised he had been within admiring distance of this Titian rock star all day, and had been too busy to notice. Not that he would have found the nerve to do anything about it, even if he had.
“Crowley,” he said, a little breathlessly, looking up from the card. “Is that Mr Crowley or is it a first name?”
“Oh, there’s a first name but I never really liked it,” said Crowley casually. “So just Crowley for me, thanks. And you’re Mr Fell?” He gestured towards the large sign behind Aziraphale’s head which declared the stand to be A Z Fell & Co, Book Binding and Restoration. “Or are you the Co?”
“I’m Aziraphale Fell,” he said, and offered a hand, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially, “there never has been a Co, not really, but I do think it looks better on the sign. More official.”
Crowley laughed. Oh, his laugh was musical! “Well, I’m very glad to have met you, Aziraphale. Let me know about that workshop time, yeah?”
“Absolutely!” Aziraphale’s brain was going to have a serious lecture for his unruly mouth and the trouble it had just got him into later on, but for now he pushed on cheerfully.
“I was, er, just going to get myself a coffee,” said Crowley, pointing up the hall towards Nina’s coffee cart which had been wheeled in for the occasion. “Don’t suppose I could get you one?”
The relief must have shown on Aziraphale’s face. “Oh, thank you! Tea?”
“Of course you’re a tea drinker, should have guessed,” Crowley said with a finger click. “I’ll be right back.”
He sauntered off through the crowd, a splash of darkness against the festive cheer. Aziraphale couldn’t help but stare.
What had he got himself into?
He had a phone number. Now he needed to make some calls, and fast.
“I have a problem.”
The people assembled around the pub table looked up from their drinks with levels of interest ranging from slight to none. “Is that meant to be news?” said Michael.
Aziraphale pushed on regardless. “I need your help.”
Sandy clapped his hands together. “Finally! Of course I’ll help you refresh your wardrobe, Az; it’s about time you did something about your look. You can take vintage dress-up too far, you know.” Sandy was wearing khaki chinos and a beige polo shirt; it was his favourite outfit.
“No, I-” Aziraphale took a moment to resettle the lapels of his Edwardian-recreation duster jacket and smooth down his velvet waistcoat. “No! I appreciate your enthusiasm, Sandy, but that’s not-” he huffed. “Not what I was going to ask. Are any of you free Thursday evening, at 8pm?”
Gabe, Michael, Sandy, Sara and Uriel all exchanged wary glances. “Why?” Sara said cautiously.
Aziraphale sighed. “I need you attend a bookbinding workshop I’m teaching upstairs in the function room here.”
This didn’t do anything to answer Sara’s hesitance. None of the other members of Aziraphale’s pub quiz team had ever expressed an interest in learning more about Aziraphale’s business. “So … why?”
“Because a very handsome man asked me if I could teach him how to do it, and I said I was holding a workshop next week, and now if the only people to show up are him and me he’ll realise that I lied about the workshop and I’ll look ridiculous and I won’t ever get to talk to him again.”
The quiz team stared at him for a moment, and then Uriel snorted a laugh. “But you are ridiculous!”
“I am aware!”
“And you did lie.”
“Yes, but in my defence, he is so very gorgeous that my soul may have left my body for a minute there, and when it came back, my mouth had apparently just kept talking and dug me into the hole without my knowledge.”
“But you didn’t manage to just … ask him out?”
“Couldn’t get the words out,” Aziraphale said weakly. The first conversation had been such a blur, he was amazed he’d managed to get a phone number, even if it was only for business purposes. Then Crowley had come back with a mug of tea and a black coffee for himself, and they had chatted for another few minutes about how busy the fair was and how each of their Christmas plans were coming along – nothing ground-breaking. In the end, Crowley had been summoned back to his own stall by a shout from the youth left in charge of it when a purchaser needed to pay by card, although Crowley had managed to pop back just before Aziraphale began to pack up for the day to buy a black leather-bound notebook. The last thing he’d said had been, “text me when you know, ok?” and Aziraphale had nodded, dazed, the words I’ve never seen a more beautiful man, please let me get to know you better and find out if you’re as wonderful as I already think you are stuck uselessly in his throat.
Michael shook her head in mocking disapproval. “I don’t think a lie is a very strong basis for a relationship, Aziraphale.”
“He looks like that Doctor Who you like,” he countered, and she blinked and reconsidered. “But with red hair. If you come along next Thursday, you can tell me afterwards if I’m wrong.”
She drained her G&T. “Well, I’m in.”
Sara shook her head. “I’ve got book club on Thursday; can’t miss it. I’ve actually read the book this time.”
“Oh, fair enough. Gabe? Sandy?”
“I don’t know, Az,” Gabe said. “You know how I am with hands-on stuff.”
“You don’t need to be good at it! I don’t like to call in favours, but remember when you got fired the week before you had a rent increase on your flat and you showed up on my doorstep with your whole life in a box? I’m not asking for anything difficult. Just an hour on Thursday.”
The rest of the quiz team pretended to think about it for a moment, but they were all very well aware that, as a pub quiz team, they would never win anything again if Aziraphale didn’t continue to lend his history, literature and music trivia skills.
“Yes, alright,” said Sandy.
Gabe nodded. “I’ll have to check with Bee, but I think so.”
“I’ll be there,” agreed Uriel. “But you realise that I will be laughing at you.”
Aziraphale sighed again. “I’ll deserve it.”
Christmas Fair Angel
Monday 09/12/2024 16:12
Aziraphale arrived at the Tadfield Arms early on Thursday evening with two large boxes of supplies. The room had been available, after his friend Marjorie had asked the landlady nicely, and promised a fruitcake and a complimentary tarot reading as thanks. When Aziraphale had tried to express his equal levels of gratitude and concern, she had brushed him off with a cackle. “You don’t think I’m going to miss this, do you? Funniest thing I’ve heard all year!” She’d even designed a lovely little poster for the taster session, and put some copies up around town, just in case anyone else wanted to come along. Aziraphale breathed deeply, and reminded himself that uncharitable thoughts were hardly in keeping with the festive season.
Accordingly, Aziraphale had brought enough supplies for ten, just in case, all from the stock of basic paper-covered journals he had half-made to replace the ones sold at the last fair. The paper was all cut and bound into signatures already, so it was only a matter of choosing and applying the covers and endpapers, which seemed like a reasonable expectation for a room of complete beginners, most of whom had no interest in the craft to start with. He dragged the tables around to form two opposing rows and started setting things out.
Marjorie arrived first, with two boxes of Tesco Finest mince pies, which Aziraphale took from her to place on a table in the corner that was already stacked with cups and the makings of tea and coffee on a tray.
“How are you holding up, dearie?” she said, air-kissing his cheek to save him from her lipstick.
“Rather nervous,” he admitted, “but I think I’ll be better once I start. Once he’s here.”
Michael and Uriel were next to arrive, with Sandy and Gabe just a few minutes after them, each clutching their preferred poison from the bar downstairs to help them through the experience. They lined themselves up in a row down one side of the room and looked around expectantly.
Aziraphale wasn’t expecting anyone else, so when the door opened again at 7:57pm, he bustled over immediately, only to be disappointed to find it was some members of the public, an American lady and a gangling fellow next to her, who introduced themselves with enthusiasm, and said they’d seen a poster at the library. Their arrival threw Aziraphale off so much, in the whole fuss of welcomes and coats and coffees and getting them settled, that he almost missed the door opening again, precisely on time.
“Is this the … bookbinding class?” and Aziraphale turned the full force of his beaming smile towards the door.
“Crowley!”
Oh good Lord.
His hair was a softer red than it had looked under the harsh lights of the community centre, the warmer lighting of the pub picking out autumn gold in the auburn waves. The sunglasses were still on, which was a shame, but the smile was charmingly crooked, so Aziraphale thought he could forgive him anything. There was an awful lot of black – a heavy wool coat and a deep grey scarf, and right at the bottom, some skinny calves in black denim and snakeskin boots.
“Hey, Aziraphale. Not late, am I?”
“No, no, right on time. I, er, I saved you a table,” he said, ushering Crowley past the row of his gawking teammates to the table immediately to the left of where he had set up his own example. Crowley shed the layers of outerwear and Aziraphale nearly bit his tongue to see him wearing a turtleneck with a leather waistcoat over the top of it. He looked good enough to take a bite out of, and Marjorie did not hold back her wide-eyed reaction when she thought he wasn’t looking.
“Right! Well, er – welcome everyone! Thank you all for coming to this, er, this festive bookbinding workshop,” and Aziraphale tried to shed his nerves as he got into the speech he had prepared in advance. He did his best to explain what they would be doing for the next hour, and tried not to stare exclusively at Crowley while he did so, but so many people in the room were making pointed eye contact with him, he took refuge in looking at the array of covers and end papers he had brought along. When he had stuttered his way through the brief introduction and invited everyone to come up and pick their preferred colour combinations, he sagged back into his chair.
The quiz team came up first and took whatever seemed appealing; Aziraphale had brought a good selection of Christmas-themed ivory, cream and gold specifically for them. The American lady went for something dark green and her partner chose an odd striped combination Aziraphale hadn’t been sure anyone would like. Then Crowley was leafing through the options thoughtfully.
“Not to be presumptuous,” Aziraphale said carefully, “but I did think you might like this one.” The paper he slid out from the bottom of the stack was deep navy blue, printed with a scientific representation of the orbits of the solar system. “Since … well, the stars in your artwork are quite beautiful.”
Crowley looked at him with an inscrutable expression before he eventually picked that sheet of paper up, along with a rich burgundy red cover. “Thanks.”
Before Aziraphale could really recover his good sense, Marjorie appeared and picked the most garish combination of pink and green that she could find. “If you don’t ask him out, I will,” she whispered with a wink, and he flapped his hands at her to get her to go back to her seat.
The lesson got underway, not very smoothly but at least well enough that it felt like a lesson. He went over to Crowley’s table whenever he could, but of course he couldn’t devote all his attention there. Gabriel managed to pull his signatures apart almost immediately he picked them up, and the new fellow (Norton, was it?) glued the endpapers to each other long before the glue pots were even supposed to be opened. Uriel was managing with surprising competence, and he was rather impressed until she told him that she had been watching tutorials on YouTube just in case his explanation wasn’t clear enough.
Crowley did keep smiling at him, though.
Michael caught his arm as he walked by and pulled him down to hiss at him. “He doesn’t look anything like Matt Smith.”
Aziraphale stared at her blankly. “Who … who’s Matt Smith?”
“That Doctor Who I fancy, your chap doesn’t look anything like him!”
“Not him, the other one, the –” Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t matter, never mind. Forget I said anything.”
The American lady distracted him for a while in a conversation about bookbinding that drifted into book repair, and as much as he would usually be delighted to talk about the care of antiques, he gave her a card and encouraged her to bring the volume in question by the shop for an appraisal, with one eye flitting between the clock and the rest of the tables.
Eventually, though, he caught Crowley’s eye, just in time to see something clearly not quite going right over on his table. Aziraphale excused himself and hurried straight over.
Crowley gave him a sheepish half-shrug, but not too much, because his fingers were glued to the endpapers. “It’s, ngk, it’s gone a bit wrong.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not so – oh, well, yes it has, but we can still fix it.” Aziraphale reached down, his arms either side of Crowley’s stuck one, trying not to think of this as the perfect excuse to get to touch those lovely artist’s hands. He focused on showing Crowley how to detach himself without ruining the paper, and clean up the excess stickiness neatly. How to peel the layers back without anything getting caught, and where to place his fingers to get things ready. (Crowley took instruction beautifully.) The deft twist in the wrist that would line everything up. How to apply pressure just so…
He got a little distracted there.
Fortunately, muscle memory was carrying him through the task well enough without the input of his brain. “And, ah … that’s how you use the folder.”
Crowley’s face was a lot closer than he had realised when the redhead turned to face him; Aziraphale could see his own flushed face reflected in the dark lenses. Crowley’s expression was vague and distant, as though he, too, was just now returning from being somewhere else entirely. “… uh-huh…”
“Az! We’re out of hot water, shall I – oh!” Marjorie realised too late that she was interrupting a moment.
Aziraphale remembered that he was supposed to be hosting the event. “Good idea, yes. I’ll, er, I’ll just go fetch some.” He grabbed the hot water flask from Marjorie and nearly ran for the door.
He was rather surprised when Crowley joined him in the back corridor downstairs at the pub, just a minute or so later, while he waited for the flask to be refilled in the kitchen.
“Hey. Um, thought I’d offer to help. Carrying things and that.”
“Oh, that is kind of you. There’s only the flask, though, it’s no bother.”
Crowley shrugged and stood next to him. The corridor was quiet, set away from the racket of what might have been a karaoke night in the main bar. Aziraphale rocked gently from his toes to his heels and back.
“Thanks for helping me with that, just now,” Crowley said after a moment.
“My pleasure. What I’m here for.” Aziraphale did hope he hadn’t made Crowley uncomfortable by being so close to him earlier.
“I’m starting to understand just how long some of your more complicated pieces must have taken.”
“Oh, well, you do speed up with practice,” Aziraphale dissembled.
“That Lord of the Rings set you had at the Christmas fair, with the swords, they’re gorgeous. How long did they take?”
“Ah, yes, they are a bit special, but I think the stories deserve it. They were a bit of a project, honestly, given I had to do everything three times, so they took a few weeks – in between other work, of course.”
“Wow. The way you did those swords on the spines, that’s really something.”
Aziraphale blushed. “Thank you. Ah, and thank you,” he continued, accepting the hot water flask from the bar staff who’d filled it for him.
They made their way back up the stairs, Crowley holding the doors open to be useful.
The rest of the session went by without much incident. Everyone managed to bind a basic notebook, with a greater or lesser level of neatness achieved, and everyone seemed to have had at least a little fun doing so, even if Sandy and Gabe had mostly been laughing behind their hands. Uriel’s cream-and-gold notebook was finished with military precision, Marjorie’s clashed with the same glorious disregard for the rules of the colour wheel as her eyeshadow always did, and the American lady had found time to add a stylish golden line around the edges. Crowley’s wasn’t perfect, but it held together, and he looked rather pleased and just a bit surprised at having managed to bind his own dark red journal.
“Well, thank you all for coming,” Aziraphale said once everyone had sheepishly shown their creations off. “You are welcome to keep what you’ve made tonight, and remember to secure it carefully under a weight for the rest of the night like we discussed to allow the glue to set up properly before you go cracking the spine. Do take one of my cards and come see me at a craft fair near you if you would like any more, and since it’s Christmas, there’s a collection plate over by the mugs if anyone would like to give a donation to the Friends of Tadfield charity who will be doing such excellent work with their community Christmas lunch for those in need again this year. If you like. No obligation.” He’d only set that up because that young Norton chap and Crowley had both tried to offer him money for the resources they’d used, and despite the money he’d put into the event, the idea of charging for what had started as a fraud had left him far too flustered to handle any other way.
There was a flurry of thanks and goodbyes from around the room. Everyone slowly collected their coats and bags and their precious new notebooks and filed down the stairs, the occasional clink of a pound coin or two hitting the charity saucer as they went. Gabe clapped him on the shoulder while he was tidying up and said, in what he probably thought was a whisper, “That wasn’t so bad. He seems nice. Hurry up and say something.” He wrapped himself up in his lavender scarf and walked off before Aziraphale could think of any way to respond.
Marjorie blew a kiss at him when she came over to say goodnight. “I’ve got to get back before the rain settles in, sweetie, but that was lovely, thank you. Crowley, would you mind helping Az with the tables before you go?”
“Yeah!” Aziraphale realised now that Crowley was still at his table, not even wearing his coat yet, just holding his notebook tight between both hands and looking at the spine thoughtfully. “Course I will.”
“Have a nice night, boys!” Marjorie gave Aziraphale a visibly showy wink and then dropped her own donation onto the plate and left in a swirl of heady perfume, taking the last of the refreshments with her.
Then there was just the two of them.
Of course, that didn’t mean that Aziraphale could bring himself to say anything. Crowley helped him move the tables back to where they usually were, and packed the leftover supplies into their two boxes (one for the papers, one for the tools and glue). Aziraphale kept smiling at him, but couldn’t think of anything at all to say, and he was terribly grateful when Crowley broke what would have become an awkward silence.
“Are you at the Oxford Fair next weekend?”
“Oh, the craft fair?” It was the next event in the craft seller’s calendar, and no more than a bus ride away. “No, I find that one a bit too busy for me. I’ll be in the shop instead, always lots to do there in the run-up to Christmas. With only two Saturdays left to go, people are always popping in for gift ideas.”
Aziraphale collected the pile of coins from the saucer and dropped them into an envelope for donating. Crowley stopped him to slide a tenner in as well, almost doubling what had been donated so far, and waved away Aziraphale’s fuss.
“Shame you won’t be there. I’ve got a stall myself, first time going as a seller, so I’ll see how I get on. I was hoping to see you … your, er, your LOTR books again.”
Crowley shouldered the door open and took one of the boxes from Aziraphale as they went down the narrow staircase, even though neither box was heavy enough to warrant the help.
Aziraphale was suddenly glad he was out of Crowley’s sight. “Oh, I don’t have those anymore.”
“They sold?” he said over his shoulder
“Er… no.”
“How do you mean?”
“I, er – I gave them away.”
“You – you gave them –”
“At the fair last weekend, I donated them for the raffle.”
They were stood in the hallway now, just by the large front door, and Crowley was able to give him the full effect of his wide-eyed stare, even with the sunglasses still in place. “The raffle?”
“Yes, they were raising money for a refugee charity, and I thought, well, in the spirit of the books really, if there is some good in this world, it’s worth fighting for and doing the right thing, so – well, there we go.”
“…huh.”
“Besides, if I’d tried to sell them for their full value, they would have been really rather terribly expensive, so likely they would have been stuck on my hands for a while and ended up with someone more concerned with the aesthetic than the story. Better like this, I think; they’ve gone to someone who’ll enjoy them. I know the lad who won them, young Adam, and he is just the right age to be discovering Middle Earth.”
Crowley seemed to get a grip on himself. “Lucky kid.”
Aziraphale pushed the door open and paused under the entrance porch to see the rain starting to come down now in earnest. “Ah, well; it is December. To be expected, I suppose,” he said to himself, buttoning his coat a little more firmly up to his throat and pulling his hood up.
“Right, let’s get these to your car,” said Crowley, hefting the box he was carrying.
“I walked,” Aziraphale said, gesturing to the little sack truck he had left by the front door when he had trundled over with the boxes of supplies earlier.
“Well, you can’t walk back in this, you’ll get soaked! Can I drop you off?” Crowley waved vaguely through the rain at a large dark car in the carpark outside.
“No, that’s quite alright. I have my trusty umbrella.” Aziraphale waved it robustly, while part of his brain shouted at the rest of him for turning down more time with Crowley.
“Honestly, I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go.”
Oh, so many places. “I … I live right around the corner,” he said, the reluctance creeping into his voice. He really couldn’t accept a lift to go fifty yards down the street when the rain wasn’t any worse than he was used to, but after this he didn’t have any reason to see Crowley again.
“Oh.” Crowley’s face shut down. He adjusted his coat again and fumbled in his pocket for keys. “Well, thanks for tonight. I appreciate it; it’s been interesting.” He extended a hand in a way that felt distinctly business-like. “Might see you around the craft fair circuit some time.”
“Yes, of course.” Just ask him out. Hurry up and say something! “I, er – I don’t know if you’d be interested, Crowley, but –” Crowley looked up hopefully and Aziraphale lost his nerve. “I’ll be holding another workshop next week if you wanted to have another go?”
“Yeah? Yeah, that’d be great.” Suddenly there was a smile back on Crowley’s face. “Same time?”
“Yes, next Thursday, just the same.”
“Great! Might not get quite so tangled up in it next time,” he laughed.
“Wonderful! Well, I’ll … see you to your car, since I have the umbrella.”
Crowley tried to refuse, but Aziraphale just held the canopy out for both of them and waved a polite hand. They were at the car in a few steps. Crowley opened the door and climbed in to get out of the rain.
“Thanks, angel. Looking forward to next week.” He smiled again, the raindrops splashing on his dark lenses, and then closed the door to let Aziraphale get back to shelter.
“Angel?” he said to himself.
There was no point standing around a damp car park. Aziraphale clipped the two boxes in place and trundled the sack truck along under the umbrella easily, out of the car park and three doors down the street to his own front door. He had a key in the lock before Crowley had managed to do a three-point-turn in the car park and drive alongside. The fascinating man gave a wave through the window and disappeared down the road.
Aziraphale dragged himself and his boxes over the step and into the darkness of the bookshop foyer. He was going to need a mug of cocoa after all that. And he had to come up with a better plan for next week.
“Urgh! How am I meant to do this?” Crowley’s head hit the beer-stained tabletop, nearly knocking over Eric’s pint. “He is an angel, he’s a literal bloody angel, he’s never going to be interested!”
“You said that already,” said Eric, lifting his glass out of reach of Crowley’s dramatics.
“No, but, you don’t understand! I thought he was an angel when I met him and he was all blond and adorable and hilarious, but he actually is! He donated a whole hand-bound set of Tolkien to the charity raffle at that fair we were at, just gave it away! I got asked to put something in for the raffle and I gave them a print worth five quid! That must have been dozens of hours’ work for him, just donated! Because he’s nice, and kind, and sweet, and all the things I’m not, and I lied about being interested in bookbinding to have an excuse to talk to him. I haven’t got a shot.”
The darts team at the Four Horsemen, Tadfield’s other watering hole, wasn’t used to this level of emotional outpouring. They met up every other Friday, as they had for the last several years, purely to throw darts, heckle the pool players, and drink enough to unwind from their various busy and demanding jobs. All except Crowley, now, who had retired early from a good career in Marketing at the start of the year to make a go of art full-time, and so ought to be the one with the least work-week stress to drink away.
Hastur, Eric, Shaz and Fergie were not especially interested in Crowley or his angel, but if they didn’t do something, none of them were going to get to drink themselves into a post-work stupor in peace.
“Have you tried … saying anything?” Shaz said.
“That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. I went over to say hi, compliment his work, ask if he wanted a drink, and the next thing I know, I’m pretending that I’ve always wanted to try bookbinding and asking if he can teach me!”
“But you got to see him again, right?”
“Yeah. But there was a bunch of other people there, and we didn’t get much chance to talk. And when I offered him a lift home at the end, he didn’t seem keen, so I don’t know… I don’t even know if he’s single.”
Hastur slammed his empty pint glass down. “What you wanna do is go classic. You saw where he lives, right? So, stake the place out for a few days just to make sure he hasn’t got a side-piece, then show up with a bottle of something’, like scotch or somethin’, summat fancy, knock on the door and when he opens, tell ‘im I had a dream last night. You, me and a stick o’ butter. Wadda you say we see if dreams can come true? That’s how I met Ligur.”
That pulled even Crowley out of his self-absorption. They all stared at Hastur in stunned silence for a long moment.
“How’ve you been since the divorce, anyway, Hastur?” Eric managed in the end.
Hastur sniffed. “Can’t be doing with the dating scene these days; everyone’s so sensitive. I’m focussing on my career.”
“Probably for the best. Not everyone’s ready for the classic approach, y’know?” Fergie pulled a strained expression at the rest of the team. “I’ll, er, I’ll get you another. New round?”
They all nodded.
Eric decided to just move straight on passed that moment. “Look, mate, it sounds like he does like you. At least a bit. He told you about the workshop next week, right? So he can’t be, like, horrified at the idea of seeing you again.”
Crowley shrugged but wasn’t really ready to be made to feel better yet when he’d only got two drinks-worth of wallowing done.
The door swung open, and someone marched straight over to their table. “What’s up, fuck-faces?”
“Hey Beez. Where’ve you been?”
“What, I’m not allowed to have a life outside you guys? What we doing?”
“We’re trying to cheer Crowley up,” said Shaz. “He’s despairing of his love-life.”
“Oh yeah, that bookbinding fella, right?” Beez sat down backwards on a wooden chair and waved a hand at Fergie to get their drink added to his order.
“How did you know about him?” said Crowley.
Beez shrugged. “Small village. Grapevine. What?” When Crowley kept staring, they relented slightly. “I bumped into Gabe, he mentioned the bookbinding class. Sounded like you had fun.”
Hastur folded his arms across his chest smugly. “Crowley lost ‘is nerve.”
“What, you went through all that and you didn’t ask him out?”
Shaz patted Crowley’s shoulder in a way he knew to be deeply sarcastic. “He’s having a bit of a crisis, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, because Mr Legs-for-days here is always struggling for dates,” Beez snorted.
Fergie slid another pint onto the table by Crowley’s empty hand, and he seized it gratefully. “’m not good enough for him,” he mumbled.
Beez took a sip of their bottle of Newcastle Brown. “Isn’t that for him to decide? Look, it has recently been drawn to my attention that just because you know yourself to be the scum of the earth, it doesn’t mean everyone else thinks it too. Would you at least text him? Doesn’t have to be the best come-on ever, just express an interest in him. Say thanks for the workshop.”
Crowley slid slowly down his bench seat until his eyes were just level with the tops of their pints. “I’ll think about it.”
Christmas Fair Angel
Sunday 15/12/2024 13:47
Aziraphale let his nerves get the better of him on Thursday, with the consequence that he had been tucked into a quiet booth in the main bar of the Tadfield Arms for over ten minutes when he finally saw Crowley walk in. He was wrapped up in his black wool coat and grey scarf again, this time with an old-fashioned fedora perched on his auburn head, a concession to the terrible weather. And sunglasses, in defiance of it.
He looked like an incredibly stylish mafia hitman. Nothing at all like any man Aziraphale had been on a date with before.
Not a date, he reminded himself. Possibly not a date, anyway; he’d find out soon enough.
Aziraphale waved at him in the doorway and carried his empty tea mug back to the bar to meet him there. “Good evening, Crowley!”
“Hey, Aziraphale, hi!” Crowley looked flustered and relieved in equal measure, but perhaps that was just the escape from the harsh weather outside. There was an awkward moment where Aziraphale weighed up a hug or a handshake, and settled on a smile instead.
“I got us a table by the radiator,” he said, and Crowley grinned at him.
“Perfect. Can I get you a drink? Er, another tea? Do they do good tea here?”
“Not especially, I just needed to warm up.” In point of fact, Aziraphale had needed something to drink that wouldn’t get him tipsy before Crowley even arrived, and therefore had subjected himself to an over-steeped mug of Typhoo.
“Well, I think I’ll take a look at their whisky selection for warming purposes.”
“In that case I’ll have a sherry.” Aziraphale went back to the table to make sure no one else tried to encroach on it while Crowley flagged down the barstaff. One man – Mr Brown who had a shop on the High Street – was circling the empty chair with a pintpot of bitter in hand, but Aziraphale made pointed eye contact and he quickly decided against trying to butt in.
“Terribly sorry, Edwin, but not now,” Aziraphale said coolly, and his voice warmed considerably when a sherry glass appeared in front of him. “Thank you, Crowley!”
Crowley shed his wintery outer layers and deposited them all on the spare chair at their table; underneath there was more grey and black, all of it skin-tight and eye-catching.
Aziraphale very pointedly looked at his glass. “So, what is it that’s brought you out early tonight?”
“I had a delivery to make,” Crowley said, and swirled his tumbler of whisky. “I sold one of my larger pieces, an original, at the weekend, and after I’d run that down to Oxford for the buyer it hardly seemed like it would be worth it to go back to the studio for an hour before your workshop.”
“Where’s your studio?”
“Mayfair Road, in that old barn which was done up as business units?” Aziraphale nodded in recognition. “I had a space in my flat before I got that – I’ve always painted, whether or not I had room – but I do some work with oil paints these days, and they’re not easy to live with.”
“Ah. No, I can imagine. Some of the antique restoration work I do in the shop can involve some rather noxious scents. There are days when good ventilation is essential.”
“Do you live above the shop, then?”
The conversation meandered on, covering the very safe topics of their respective businesses – yes, Aziraphale had a flat over his shop, and while antique books dominated the shop floor, he was so very loath to sell most of them that the cottage industry of hand-bound notebooks had taken over both the backrooms; no, Crowley did not sell many original pieces, given the cost and size were prohibitive for most people, but prints in various sizes were selling very well. Crowley refused to be drawn on the matter of what he had done prior to taking up art full-time, only saying that it had been a waste of an Art and Illustration degree, and that he was glad to be done with the commute. He then asked all about the antique in Aziraphale’s shop, with the result that, half an hour later, Aziraphale was learning that Crowley had never read Jane Austen.
“Oh, my dear boy, you absolutely must!” he said, laying a hand on Crowley’s arm briefly. “That is, if you want. Austen is a delight, but I know the older writing style can be a little … impenetrable if you’re not accustomed to it. I read so much pre-twentieth century literature that I’m rather used to it.”
“I know what you mean. Whenever I see a Shakespeare play, it always takes me a minute to get my ear in.”
He likes theatre. Aziraphale wiggled happily in his seat, and adopted a mock-censorious expression. “Then I suppose you’ll say your favourite Shakespeare adaptation is the Lion King.”
Crowley shook his head. “10 Things I Hate About You,” he said, not missing a beat, and Aziraphale giggled.
Their glasses were empty. “Let me get you another?” said Aziraphale, and although Crowley hesitated slightly, he did nod, and so Aziraphale went to the bar, coming back with brimming glasses and a bag of crisps.
“You look rather far away,” he commented as he sat down.
Crowley seemed to come back to himself. “Hmm, just thinking … Forbidden Planet.”
“Your favourite adaptation?” Crowley nodded, and this seemed honest and intentional in a way their earlier conversation had not. Crowley had chosen to share something. “It is a classic,” Aziraphale agreed. And of course he likes the one set in space.
“It’s a great reimagining of the Tempest, but those early sci-fi movies … they’re all grappling with such big questions, y’know? What does it mean to be human, what makes a monster monstrous?”
“How do we avoid destroying the world, or does progress make that inevitable?”
Crowley nodded. “Exactly. Always find that kind of storytelling interesting. And,” he took his sunglasses off, carefully folding them and placing them on the table in front of him, keeping his eyes down, “I’ve always had a fascination with the stars.” He looked up, and Aziraphale saw two beautiful mismatched whisky-bronze eyes, one with sparks of gold around the edge of the iris which scattered like stars, and one with a corona around the pupil, the glow around a total eclipse.
“I can see why.” The words breathed out of him without permission, but Crowley’s deliberate expression softened slightly. Something shimmered in the air between them, the thrill of possibility. Aziraphale knew with sudden, bone-deep certainty that if he leaned forward then across the table to seize Crowley’s lips in a kiss, the darling man would return it gladly, but it wasn’t time yet. There was still something to discuss first.
Aziraphale let himself lean back in his seat and smile, as though he was perfectly relaxed and casual. “Always been rather fond of West Side Story, myself.” Crowley laughed, and they were back to their comfortable rhythm.
“So, I’m guessing you’re a theatre guy?”
“I am, as often as I can be.”
“What’s your favourite thing you’ve seen? Not, like, the best acted play or the most impressive production, I mean the one you enjoyed most.”
Aziraphale hummed while he opened the bag of ready salted. “I suppose … The Importance of Being Earnest. I must have seen five or six different productions of it, and it’s always a delight.”
“There’s a new one in the West End now, isn’t there?”
“Yes, I’m hoping to get tickets in January when the Christmas sales have calmed down. How about you? Your favourite show.”
Crowley rubbed his chin, but it was obvious he already knew his answer. “Rocky Horror.”
“Of course it is! Who doesn’t love that! You know, I was in a student production of Rocky Horror, in my younger days.”
Now he looked delighted, and laughed. “Fantastic! Were you playing Brad?” Aziraphale shook his head. Crowley gave him a once-over. “Rocky?”
“Hardly, but thank you for not guessing Riff-Raff. I was Dr Scott.”
Crowley leaned forward over the table. “Tell me you have pictures.”
“Sadly, my university days predate the selfie, so I think all I have is something grainy which was printed in a newspaper.”
“I was in a student Rocky Horror Show too,” Crowley hissed conspiratorially.
Aziraphale blinked at him, but the answer was inevitable. “Frank.”
Crowley turned himself sideways in his chair and cast his legs – his ridiculously long legs – over one arm, toes pointed. “That sweet transvestite. It was the last straw for my parents, but fortunately they’d already put me through university, so I did alright on my own.”
Aziraphale’s mouth pulled in sympathy; he remembered all too well himself what coming out had been like in the nineties, but there was no need to bring the mood down now with shared stories of rejection. He picked up his sherry and clinked it against Crowley’s glass in solidarity, and Crowley seemed to understand the sentiment.
“Do you have pictures?”
Crowley flustered. “One or two. Probably. In a box somewhere.”
Aziraphale used the hand holding his glass to gesture to the unreasonable length of leg draped across the chair. “Do they even make stockings for legs that long?”
“That feels like an answer you’d find out on a third date,” said Crowley, and winked.
Oh, that was the last straw. How on earth was he supposed to keep his head around this gorgeous man when he kept flirting so charmingly? “Crowley, there’s something I –”
“Hell!” Crowley sat up straight all of a sudden, looking suddenly contrite. “I hadn’t realised the time, angel; your workshop is supposed to be starting in ten minutes. I, er, I guess you’ll want to set things up? Hope I haven’t kept you too much.” He looked around, just now realising that there was no evidence of the large crates of materials around. “Did you take the boxes upstairs already?”
“Ah. That is what I wanted to say.” Aziraphale fiddled with his signet ring. “I didn’t bring any boxes tonight. The only person I invited here this week is you. There’s no workshop.” Crowley’s brows lifted and his jaw relaxed. Aziraphale plunged on. “There wouldn’t have been a workshop last week if you hadn’t asked about me teaching. I’ve never taught before, and I wasn’t planning to start. But when you approached me … I organised the whole thing just to have an excuse to see you again.”
This confession made Crowley’s lips twitch, but although nothing in his expression seemed negative, Aziraphale still couldn’t be certain of his response.
“So, all those people there last week…”
“My pub quiz team, mostly,” Aziraphale admitted. “And Tracy works in my shop part time since she retired. I am sorry – that I wasn’t upfront, I mean; I haven’t ever stooped to deception to spend time with someone before. And I now I feel like I’ve tricked you into having a drink with me under false pretences. I can still teach the workshop if that’s what you want, I brought enough supplies with me for that,” he gestured to the satchel resting on the unoccupied portion of their table, “but if – you’d rather not see me again at all, now that you know I made the whole thing up, I – I understand that, too.”
“Aziraphale.” Crowley leaned forward and placed his hand deliberately over both of Aziraphale’s, to stop them worrying at his ring. “I have never wanted to learn bookbinding in my life.”
As the meaning behind the words sank in, Aziraphale began to smile.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think what you do is gorgeous and amazingly creative, it’s just not something that’s ever interested me. I had been eying you up all day at the craft fair; I came over to deliver some cheesy chat-up line asking if you were the Christmas angel missing from my tree, and you were just so beautiful – I panicked, and when I opened my mouth, what came out was not what I had planned. So, er, I guess we’re as bad as each other.” He gave an awkward shrug, but they were both smiling now.
“It seems we are.” Aziraphale cleared his throat.
“In that case, and in the interests of clarity, can I buy you dinner some time, Aziraphale?”
“I’d like that.” The smiles grew broader.
“And as for right now, would you like another drink?”
“I would. But if you’d like to go somewhere a little quieter for that, I have a rather fine twenty year old single malt in my shop, just down the street.”
The pub had been getting louder as more people filtered in, but there was a perfectly-timed blare of feedback from the karaoke machine being set up in the corner. They both winced, and Crowley knocked the last of his whisky back. “Sounds perfect, angel.”
They bundled up in all their warm layers; it wasn’t far to walk but the night was cold and drizzly. Aziraphale held his umbrella aloft for both of them, which necessitated they walk quite close together, and Crowley placed his hand on the small of Aziraphale’s back to bring them closer still. His pulse was pounding now, excitement and exhilaration that Crowley was interested in him, wasn’t just there for the tuition, and had taken the confessed misstep calmly in his stride. And was coming home with him. It didn’t mean anything was going to happen, of course, and Aziraphale was not much in the habit these days of bringing random men home from the pub with him, but this did not feel like the early phase of a one night stand. All that laughter and chatter and common ground in their conversation earlier – no, this felt like it might be something more.
They mounted the two steps in front of the shop door and squeezed in tighter to both keep dry while Aziraphale battled the old key into the lock and turned it. He turned to face Crowley to wave him in first, but the man was suddenly much closer than he had realised, his face scant inches away in the dim light under the umbrella’s arc. Something stirred against Aziraphale’s hair and he realised Crowley’s other hand, the one not now migrating from his lower back to his hip, had come up to brush a curl away. Before he knew how, the hand holding his keys had fastened itself to Crowley’s lapel and dragged him even closer. Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered shut as they both moved in for the kiss.
It was everything he had been hoping for.
Softness layered with heat. Passion tempered with hesitance. The unfamiliar and the deeply known. Crowley’s mouth moved against his like a promise, and Aziraphale let himself open up to the desire to know more, to dare, to taste. It was wonderful.
At least, for a minute or two. Kissing in the rain was all very well for a romantic idea, but the practicality of balancing the umbrella and satchel while trying to keep everything dry soon made Aziraphale loose his grip on Crowley’s lapel and reach blindly for the door handle instead. They stumbled through still clinched, and Aziraphale did his best to collapse the umbrella by the doorway without losing a moment’s contact with Crowley’s soft, delicious lips. The satchel was dropped next, and the keys, and then they both had two hands in play. Crowley managed to unbutton Aziraphale’s overcoat and slide his hands inside, and when Aziraphale shrugged it off to drop onto the ground, Crowley slid inside his coat. Aziraphale couldn’t make much headway in removing Crowley’s outer layers, since his hands were so determinedly wrapped around Aziraphale’s waist, but he did succeed in throwing away the hat and scarf and opening the buttons to get his hands onto Crowley’s solid chest. And all the while, they kissed and kissed and kissed.
Crowley seemed very much in favour of this development, from the whispered moan Aziraphale heard breathed against his lips, and pushed against Aziraphale so that they both took two halting steps towards a bookcase, and pressed against him there. This was immediately much better, and Aziraphale was quite put out when the loud intermittent beeping sound he had been hearing since the door opened finally cut through the fog of his libido.
“Blast, the alarm!” Aziraphale wriggled away to dive for the alarm controls behind the counter, and only just entered the code in time to stop the cacophony from starting up. He hit a power switch while he was there and the shop was suddenly illuminated with the soft glow of the desk lamp and the glittering LEDs on the Christmas tree. He looked back at Crowley with six whole feet between them now and something sizzling between them caught full flame.
Crowley was shoved back against a bookshelf now, his own coat stripped off, and Aziraphale took advantage of the position to kiss across his jaw, over the delicate tattoo by his ear, and down along his neck. Aziraphale gave a breathy laugh as he remembered something from earlier.
“I can’t believe you were going to ask if I was the angel for your tree.”
“Hey, I never claimed to be good at sounding suave,” Crowley said, his voice pitching up as Aziraphale found a particularly interesting spot near his collar bone. “And now we’ll never know if it would have worked.”
“Coming from you? To my shame, I think it would.”
Crowley’s hands seemed everywhere, but eventually they settled one on Aziraphale’s arse, holding him tight against Crowley, and the other in his hair to continue their kiss. Aziraphale could not hold back the punctured moan that broke when Crowley used his grip to grind himself against Aziraphale’s thigh, and they could surely both feel their mutual and growing interest in this development. Then the hand that had been in Aziraphale’s hair dragged down between their bodies, skimming over the curve of his body with unmistakable aim.
Aziraphale’s stomach chose that moment to rumble, quite distractingly.
“Crowley, darling, wait.” Crowley pulled back to admire the delightful sight of a pink and ruffled angel trying to catch his breath. “I really must insist you buy me dinner first.”
Crowley moved his hands back to PG-13 territory, and Aziraphale took a step back. “Sorry; I don’t mean to go too fast. I just got a bit lost in how good you feel. Dinner. Absolutely. How’s tomorrow night? I’ll get us a table somewhere fancy, anywhere you want to go.”
“Oh, no, I meant – well, tomorrow night sounds marvellous, and I’m sure I’ll like anywhere you pick, but – what I meant was, have you eaten?”
“Tonight? Er, not much, didn’t really have time.”
“Nor have I. I was going to order something from the Indian restaurant around the corner when I got back. And my stomach seems determined to remind me of that.” There was another gurgling sound, harder to miss. Aziraphale felt the heat between them, which had ramped up with fantastic but unexpected speed, simmering down again to a much more sensible level.
“Well, I won’t let my angel go hungry, not when that’s so easily fixed.” Crowley pulled his phone out and swiped over to the local restaurant’s page on his food ordering app; of course he already had it in his favourites, it was his local, too. “Pick whatever you like,” he said grandly, offering Aziraphale the phone.
He chose a main, as did Crowley, and poppadums and rice to share, and Crowley scanned his thumb print to confirm payment. “That’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Aziraphale stepped away a little further and unscrewed the bottle of whisky he had left out on the table by the tall Christmas tree to await his return, in preparation either to drown his sorrows or toast his success. “Perfect. Sorry to, er, pour cold water like that, but I would have been distracted, and-”
“No, no. No apologies for having basic needs. Or standards.” He took the glass from Aziraphale and breathed the scent of peat and old wood. “Just hope I meet them.”
“Right now, you’re setting them, dear boy.” Aziraphale looked him over hungrily as Crowley blushed under his gaze. Their glasses clinked. “No need to rush ourselves tonight, I think. Let’s eat our dinner and drink our whisky, and I’ll give you the tour. And then later, when you have all my focus, and if the mood takes us … maybe you can find out what it’s like to have an angel under the tree.”