It was when Aziraphale set foot into what was once his home, that it dawned on him for the first time in the last days: His bookshop really was gone, covered in ashes. All his belongings became dust that flew around in the cold air. The roof was nearly gone, so was the beautiful staircase. But his heart broke a little more when he stepped into the kitchen and found his favourite mug shattered on the ground. It was nothing special, just a plain white thing with angel wings, but it meant much to Aziraphale for different reasons.
However, he did not have time to follow this thought, because with a loud cracking noise, one of the few bookshelves that were still standing tall came falling down right behind him. He didn't know if he should laugh in desperation, cry from defeat or just sigh, with a deep breath that made his whole body shiver and went from his head to his white locks. He choose the last option, and after he went through a wave of crushing sadness, that made his eyes water and his mouth go dry, Aziraphale stood there, in the middle of burned ruins, not knowing what to do. Of course he could just wonder it back to what is once was, but that just didn't feel right. It was not that possessing all those books meant much to him, their worth was of a different kind, one that could be only seen by smelling old dusty covers, letting fingers glide across freshly printed pages and listening to all kinds of different stories that are getting told. And that you could not just wonder, it would never be the same.
His gloominess got interrupted when the little bell above the entrance rang – somebody had entered the shop. Aziraphale was confused, as the fire destroyed almost everything, which included melting the little bell.
"Angel, nice scaffold you wondered there!", a voice behind him said. In an instant, Aziraphales face brightened up and almost all of his tenseness vanished right on the spot. He turned around.
"Crowley! What are you doing here?", Aziraphale said.
Of course he knew what the demon was doing here, but he wanted to her it again from his mouth.Crowley put his hands in his pocket and tried to look as smug as possible (he did not succeed, because standing in the ruins of what meant so much to his angel hurt him more than he wanted to admit) and shrugged.
"You wanted me to help you." He put his head back and gave Aziraphale a snakeish grin.
"So here I am now, Angel."He waved his arms around in a vague gesture and two bookshelves repaired themselves in seconds.
Aizraphale sighed.
"Oh, my dear..." He didn't know what to say, nor what to do with his hands, folding them across his belly.
Crowley started to saunter through the shop, which made some of the dirt on the burned wood floor disappear almost as if by magic. He stopped at the kitchen, because he stepped on the shards as well as Aziraphale did. His knees collapsed and he sunk to the floor, picking up the remains of the mug.
"Our mug", he cried.
"It broke", said Aziraphale in a flat voice.
It did not go unnoticed that Crowley said our instead of your. Yes, he was the one that gifted the mug to Aziraphale, but the angel did not know that Crowley too was so attached to it.
"But that's terrible!" Crowley waved his hand and all the parts that were shattered on the floor joined together, only thin golden lines showing where it once was broken.
"Oh, thank you. Thank you, my dear", Aziraphale said.
"Nhh", Crowley responded.
Aziraphale could not stop smiling – Crowley was here, in his bookshop, performing more wonders than he wanted him to and looking flawless while doing so. The demon got up without making a sound and smiled back. He had taken his sunglasses off before repairing the mug, so Aziraphale marveled at all the different shades of fiery gold that seemed to look directly into his soul. Silence fell over the both of them. Crowley took a step forward, hesitant, but with dedication to overcome this hesitance. He smiled wider than ever before at Aziraphale, whose mind stopped working for a moment. Then, he realized that he was just standing there while Crowley was slowly moving closer to him. Maybe, he thought, he had something in his hair that he wanted to remove, a piece of wood or flakes of pages. His raised his hand to his hair, only to find out that there was nothing there. Maybe Crowley was hallucinating.
Slightly, Aziraphale coughed and turned away, still smiling. Behind his back, he could hear Crowley sigh (which was because of enormous relief, he was sure of that), but did not dare to turn around and look at the demon again. Deep down, Aziraphale was afraid he might faint.
"What happened to the bell above my entrance?", he asked.
It took a while before Crowley answered. He mumbled: "Thought you might like to hear costumers approaching..."
Now, Aziraphale could not resist to turn around and shoot a glowing smile at the demon. He, on the other hand, looked a little bit helpless.
"Well then, Angel, should we start redecorating?", he said after a few seconds.
The angel straightened his jacket and nodded. Then he held one hand out to Crowley.
أنت تقرأ
How to date an angel
قصص الهواةAfter preventing the destruction of earth as we know it, Aziraphale and Crowley have a new task (mostly because Aziraphale asked nicely and Crowley just couldn't say "No" to his angel). So, of course, Crowley is trying to get Aziraphale to go on a d...
