eyesofaserpent | Serpent Angel I am the one they adore

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stories unfold

Serpent Angel I am the one they adore

Who: Crowley and perhaps Aziraphale. Maybe some customers lol
What: Crowley is still frustrated by this universe.
When: Around 10am.
Where: Aziraphale's Bookshop
Rating: PG-13
Status: In Progress

The locks clicked open as Crowley walked into the bookshop, clicking back once he had closed the door. He had spent some intense weeks researching the barrier and came up with frustratingly little. Now all he wanted was a stiff drink and the company of his Angelic counterpart.

"Aziraphale! Get down here!"

He looked around the shop. It seemed the same as usual. A little dusty, the occasional cobweb, the uncomfortable feeling that led most people to leave Aziraphale's books alone.

He frowned and leaned on the desk. Was the angel even home?

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Julia had been exploring the city when she'd stumbled across the bookshop. She decided it would be worthwhile to see what sort of books the shop carried and who the shopowner was. She walked in.

"Hello?" she called out. One of her hands rested casually on her baby bump as she looked around.

Aziraphale was off in his back room, with a pile of books stacked up on the table and a single book in his lap. He kept glancing at it and frowning, because he wasn't sure what "For two pm is the hour of the biscuit, which must not be forgotten..." actually meant. Although, it was possible that what he had thought was part of a letter was actually a smudge, which meant...

But his thoughts were interrupted by Crowley's voice and he sighed, standing up and placing the book on top of the pile and making his way into the front area of his bookshop. He was glad to see Crowley (in the sort of way that he wouldn't really have minded not seeing him, at least not now, but didn't mind seeing him if it was unavoidable) and offered him a smile, but it quickly faded when he saw that they weren't alone. And now he'd have to go through all that hassle of having someone around who wanted things. He'd been doing so well, too.

"Hello?" He sounded rather unsure about that, concentrating more on ways to get her to simply leave so he could get very, very drunk. "Is there something you want?" Realising that he was probably being rather rude to the wrong individual, he glanced over at Crowley again and offered him another brief smile before returning his attention to the... the customer.

"Nothing in particular," she told him. "I was just curious about this shop. I thought I'd come in and take a look around. That is alright, isn't it?"

"Oh." Aziraphale was at a loss, frowning and glancing around and trying to work out why on earth anyone who wasn't him would be at all interested in anything his shop had to offer. Even Crowley didn't like it much, and he was something close to welcome. "I... I suppose it's alright, yes. Will you take a very long time? And... will you be wanting to... to buy anything?" The only thing worse than customers was customers who actually wanted to buy things. Aziraphale couldn't stand them. And he glanced rather helplessly over in Crowley's direction, wondering whether it was wrong to hope that the demon would come to his rescue.

Crowley grunted. He would be much happier if no one else had come in here. Why in the world did the shop have to be open this early. He crossed his arms and watched the woman with a scornful look.

Clearly Crowley wasn't going to be much help at all, so Aziraphale sighed and scratched at his neck, watching Julia for a moment or two before just clearing his throat awkwardly. "I'll just... I'll just be in the back, I think. If you need anything..."¹ With that, Aziraphale nodded and retreated quickly into the back room, sitting down and starting to think seriously about what he was going to do. People made him so thoroughly uncomfortable sometimes. He just didn't understand them, not at all. It wasn't even the slightest bit fair.

1. Funnily enough, the rest of that sentence was not 'Just ask me'. It was something more like "If you need anything, could you go as far away as possible from me and my lovely books, I don't want you touching anything because I need them all and don't you dare even think about buying anything. Please." Somehow, he didn't think that was particularly angelic and so kept quiet about it.

Crowley snorted, amused by Aziraphale. "I think that was angelic for 'Buzz off'. He's not fond of selling his books, so if you're quite done looking around, I need to lock the door."

"Oh, alright," Julia said, a little baffled. "Well...I'll just go." She began backing towards the door.

Crowley did not move as the woman backed to the door. As soon as the door closed after her, Crowley magically flipped the sign to closed and locked the door. He then stalked into the back room and flopped onto a chair with a somber sulk.

"She's gone."

Alice walked hurriedly down the street, glancing around for the bookshop she had passed a few days previous. Finally spotting it, she ran across the street to it (not bothering to look for any type of vehicle, as she assumed no one had one). She sighed tiredly at the 'CLOSED" sign on the front.

"Noooo!" she frowned and leaned her forehead on the glass. Not wanting to make the trip again, she dared to knock on the door almost violently. "Come on. Please answer." Alice said under her breath.

"Oh, thank goodness." It was entirely un-angelic of him, but Aziraphale had decided long ago that different rules applied when people were attempting to buy his books. Buy them, for goodness' sake. As if it was some kind of store... So he was incredibly grateful when his demon companion returned and informed him that they were alone again. And then there was a knock at the door and it sounded like something was about to get broken.

That, and not any desire to let anyone in, was the only reason that Aziraphale stood up and -- with a tired smile at Crowley -- made his way to the front of the book store again. "Please don't be so noisy, it's dreadfully disturbing and you might damage some-- Oh! H-hello, I wasn't really expecting anyone... this is rather a bad..." But that was dreadfully rude and Alice didn't really count as a customer, not as such, and so he hesitated only a moment longer before he opened the door and smiled slightly hesitantly at her. "If you're wanting to buy something, you'll have to come back later..."

"Hello to you too, stranger!" she smiled at Aziraphale's kind face, "I didn't know that you ran this place."

Realizing Angel was in some type of rush, she nodded and continued quickly. "Actually, I just want to give you a book. I don't want it anymore." She pulled out her new copy of My Life as a Teenage Fairy and handed it over. "I was also wondering if you had my book, I mean, the one about me. I just wanted to borrow it to read and then I'd one-hundred percent bring it back. I know you love your books." Alice giggled to herself

Crowley grumbled and waited for a couple moments before he followed Aziraphale into the shop. The angel was talking to some girl he didn't know. Admittedly, Crowley didn't know many people in this place.

"What's this, Angel? Secretly selling books now?"

Aziraphale couldn't help but keep smiling back at Alice, even while she continued to confuse him dreadfully. A book was a book, he supposed, but he studied the book she had handed him with a kind of cautious hesitation, because it really didn't look like any kind of book that he had around. But he took it anyway because a book was, after all, a book¹.

"I'm.. I'm not sure." Aziraphale hesitated. He was rather out of the loop and so wasn't sure what to do when Alice asked him if he had the book about her. She was a celebrity where she came from, then? Some kind of ruler? But she didn't seem like the regal type and so, thoroughly flustered, Aziraphale stepped back so he was slightly closer to Crowley. "I'm not sure. I can check, though..." He hesitated and glanced at his companion, before looking back at Alice again. "Some other time? I'm dreadfully sorry to be so rude, Miss Liddell, but it's just... oh..." Generally quite good at getting rid of frustrating customers, Aziraphale wasn't sure what to do when the 'customer' in question was an acquaintance and wasn't being particularly frustrating. So he just looked at Crowley again, feeling rather helpless.

1. At this point it must be noted that Aziraphale may have been drinking just a little before he was disturbed, and this observation was not nearly as obvious as it may seem. It might, after all, have been a very small bicycle. Aziraphale didn't want to rule out any possibilities.

Crowley smirked, seeing an opportunity to tarnish Aziraphale's reputation a little. He leaned over, his hand resting against the door jamb and lips inches away from Aziraphale's ear.

"If you'll excuse us, Miss... We were quite occupied before you arrived and I'd very much like to get back to our business. Aziraphale can help you tomorrow, maybe..."

By the time he was done, his lips were barely brushing against the shell of the angel's ear. This was terribly fun and he knew he'd get a kick out of Aziraphale's reaction.

Alice nodded quietly and smirked at the strange, dark man's appearance into her and Aziraphale's conversation, especially because of his closeness to the man. For all she knew, Aziraphale was mostly emotionally bare, but maybe she had just been of the wrong type.

"I can come back some time? I just desperately want to read my book. I cannot believe that I'm not real until I read it for myself."

Aziraphale remained entirely oblivious to Crowley's close proximity until he noticed Alice's smirk. It was only then that he glanced at the demon with a slight frown, shifting away. Obviously he'd misjudged the distances or something of the sort, and hadn't realised how close they were. The posibility that it was intentional never even occurred.

"I'm dreadfully sorry... It's not that we're in the middle of anything particularly important, but I do feel that I should give you more than half of my attention. And I don't want to be rude to anybody... Would I be able to come find you later? I'd like that. Assuming you aren't terribly busy, of course."

Alice continued to smirk and bit her lip, glancing at the other man. "Of course. You know where I live. I should be free all day unless Gail shows up, but he wouldn't usually come over without proper prior notice. Until then!" With that she turned on her heels and walks briskly down the street, on her way to the library to look for her book without Aziraphale's help.

As the door closed, Crowley snorted and slung an arm around Aziraphale's shoulder and turned him back to the back room.

"We have some drinking to do. I have found absolutely nothing that will help us get out of here."

Aziraphale kept gazing worriedly in the direction Alice had gone, frowning slightly. "Do you think she's dreadfully upset with me? I didn't mean to be rude... Do you think she thought I was rude?"

It took him a moment, but eventually he realised that Crowley simply didn't really care all that much and sighed, letting himself be lead into the back room again. "I don't think I can refuse that suggestion, though. It sounds rather nice."

Crowley snorted. "You haven't been getting drunk without me, have you Angel?" He loved picking on Aziraphale, even if it was slight.

"Oh, no, of course not. I've been too busy with other things." It was amazing how, although Aziraphale hadn't really been doing anything particularly important or time consuming, it still managed to be extremely... well, both important and time consuming. Or at least seemed that way. "It's been a while since you've been around." It was as close to an 'I've missed you' as Aziraphale was likely to get for now.

Crowley sank into a chair and leaned back resting his shoes on the table. He pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them on the table beside his snakeskin shoe covered feet looking perfectly at home in Aziraphale's back room. Perhaps too much so.

He looked up at the angel with a bit of a grave look. "Yeah... It has been. I was on a fruitless quest. I found nothing."

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Serpent Angel I am the one they adore

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