Chapter Text
Posted by Sergeant Angel Cake on October 31
London fogs have taken out all the stops for the end of October. They are more sinister than hip now, although still as suave as they can be, especially around street lights in parks. I think of light installations that turned Berkeley Square into a magic wood a year ago but somehow I never pass the place in my strolls this year. At least St. James’s Park is part of my today’s route, with its fog embracing the Royal Horseguards and turning the place into something almost ethereal. Ducks are as real as always though, getting realer and realer each year, so it seems. I throw them some Milo seeds – I’ve read it’s much healthier for them than bread. They make a lot of noise but I still discern the familiar sounds of footsteps above the racket. Here he is, more stylish than any fog can ever hope to be, wearing a black coat with a red collar. I still remember how tight it felt and yet how his clothes just made you smirk and swing your hips, just because, what the hell, you are the coolest thing in this town.
“What’s that you’re feeding to the poor buggers?”
“Milo seeds.”
“Are they on diet or something?”
“It’s healthier.”
“Oh go on. Let them live a little.”
With this he tosses something looking suspiciously like a crêpe into the pond. When the rackets subsides, he turns to me, his eyes concealed behind his shades, and asks nonchalantly.
“Any particular plans for tomorrow? How about the Ritz? Seems quite the weather for it.”
“Which weather is not for the Ritz?”
“Good point. Still. Can I tempt you to…”
“I am so sorry, but I will be busy.”
“Busy doing…?”
“Pumpkins.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s Halloween on Thursday, and I will be hosting a party for kids at the shop.”
“Will you now?”
“It’s the books, you see. I told you about it. Just William. They kind of… insist on my interacting with children more often. 11-year-olds especially.”
“They bully you, don’t they?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Anyway, could you perhaps… help me with pumpkin carving?”
“Why don’t you just miracle the bloody things? Or are you feeling like sticking a knife into something, angel? The bastard in you is getting restless?”
“I just want a quiet evening. Some time for contemplation. Perhaps a quiet conversation, too, if you would care to join me.”
“Sticking knives into pumpkins sounds good, actually. I could try that. Not so sure about contemplation and what was the other thing?”
“A quiet conversation.”
“That’s the one. How quiet are we talking here? Not whispering I hope?”
“You can be as loud as you like, Crowley.”
“Fine then. Round six?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Sharpen your knives, angel.”
With that he saunters away, the fog slithering obsequiously out of his way. I follow his silhouette with my eyes until it dissolves completely, wondering if I can muster the courage to steer the quiet conversation to what Jean wants us to discuss. Probably not. But what if I just try flirting? Perhaps it will work and we won’t have to go through all the embarrassing talking and couple therapy.
I still haven’t started thinking about some of the things Jean said. I don’t have the time: I have this kid party to organise, all these pumpkins to carve…
Next day the fog thickens to the pea soup consistency. I don’t get a lot of customers and the shop is feeling a bit drowsy. I have five large pumpkins delivered – I tip the handsome delivery man generously and arrange them on a long table I have placed in the open circular space in the middle of the shop. I dim the lights, then turn them all on again, then turn them off completely and light several candles.
Needless to say, I feel exceptionally silly, doing all that. But no need to tell this to myself – when Crowley arrives, he will surely tell me all about it.
Flirt with him, that is what I’ll try doing. Flirt. Right.
Flirt with Crowley.
It feels easier to find a place on Earth where a tsunami or an earthquake is happening right now and drag him there than sit here in the candlelit bookshop and attempt to flirt. Oh my God, here he comes.
The shop lets him in cheerfully: it has taken a shine to the demon. Crowley looks surprisingly casual tonight: as he pulls the coat off, there’s an old T-shirt underneath, with gothic letters forming the word “Geronimo”. He smirks as he takes it all in – the candles, the table and the pumpkins, but says nothing. Then he takes his shades off, picks up one of the knives I laid out and stabs it into one of the pumpkins, making me wince.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask him. “Nothing too scary, I hope? There will be kids here after all.”
“These kids watch films that would make you faint, angel. And even worse cartoons. Check out Happy Tree Friends one of these days. Though, on second thought, no, don’t ever check it out.”
I want to say something flirty but my mind is blank, so I start working on my own pumpkin. I have something very special in mind. I get a crayon and start applying the pattern I have designed for this occasion carefully. When I am only half done with this task, Crowley is already finishing his first pumpkin.
“Isn’t that…?”
“Hastur, yes. That’s a face that brings back memories, isn’t it? What are you doing?”
“You’ll see when I’m done.”
I keep applying the intricate pattern, while Crowley moves onto his second pumpkin. I am still considering possible ways to start flirting. The smell of pumpkin is permeating the shop, and Hastur-Jack is now blazing, provided with its own candle. The effect is quite spooky and I wonder whether all this was such a good idea.
“Do you happen to have some fake flies in the shop, angel?
“I can’t abide live or fake ones in here, Crowley.”
“Don’t you love all God’s creatures, great or small?”
“I do, with all my heart, just not in my bookshop. Anyway, is this one going to be Beelzebub?”
“Spot on. I’m on the roll. Well, I’ll have to conjure some up.”
“Although…” I say, struck with an idea, “Although, I think there is one in your ear.”
“One what?!”
“A fake fly, of course.” I reply, miracling one furtively and then performing a magician’s trick to get it out of the demon’s ear. I’ve been practicing my magic for the Halloween party. I am trying to do it all flirtingly now.
Crowley groans and puts his head down to the table, the knife stuck in Beelzebub’s head. I am hopeless with flirting, I have to admit.
“I’ll just make some cocoa for us, shall I?” I say quickly and escape to the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I hear him saying from the room. “Add brandy into mine. Or better still, add some cocoa into my brandy.”
When I come back some time later, Beelzebub-Jack is blazing next to Hastur-Jack, a big-eyed fly perching on her head. The fly’s eyes are glowing red. I place the brandy next to Crowley. I didn’t dare to add any cocoa into it. He seems to be working on the third pumpkin fiercely. I sip my cocoa, burn my tongue and then finally finish applying the pattern.
While I was in the kitchen, I used the old computer I keep in there for looking up recipes and googled some tips on flirting. One of them was “compliment the other person early in the conversation.” This I can do, I suppose. And it is still early in the conversation since we’ve hardly had any.
“You have a talent for pumpkin carving, Crowley,” I say rather self-consciously. “I never knew you had it in you. Very artistic.”
He casts a quick glance at me and goes back to his work. I notice that he is putting all the seeds and pumpkin insides on a plate rather than tossing it into the bin next to the table.
“What are you keeping those for?”
“Artistic purposes. As we talented artists do.”
“Oh. Can’t wait to see what you’ll make of them.”
He grinned.
“You’ll enjoy it.”
“Now that sounds ominous.”
“You bet.”
Keep your interactions short and sweet, was the next tip I read in the kitchen. Well, that was short, sure enough. Was it sweet? Erm… Sweet… ish. It will have to do for now. I really need to apply myself to the pumpkin if I want it done. The knife slips as I am making a hole in the thick skin. It cuts my thumb.
“Carving fingers now?”
“Just a scratch,” I reply and heal it immediately. Then I think I should have asked Crowley to heal it, but it’s too late. Another flirtatious opportunity is gone. Besides, he seems very engrossed in his project. I can see it is going to be Dagon. I make another cut in the pumpkin skin. More carefully this time. Then another. After a dozen more cuts I begin to get the hang of it and actually enjoy the process. Meanwhile, Dagon-Jack joins the other two. It has a snarl that boasts an impressive array of teeth. Crowley makes a large swig of his brandy.
“Are you slacking on purpose, angel? Want me to do all the work?”
“No! Of course not! I am just not as quick as you are. But I am getting there.”
“Well, I need this last pumpkin for my big artistic endeavour, anyway.”
Whatever it is he is doing with the fourth pumpkin, it is a very creative process that requires a lot of messing around, cursing and quaffing of brandy. From time to time he drops his knife dramatically and attacks the pumpkin with his nails – I notice they are long and sharp – I have never seen them like this before. At times I forget about my own pumpkin, mesmerised by Crowley’s maneuvers. Be bold, said another tip. Apparently, these tips were not tailored to angels entranced by a cursing demon violently (but artistically) plunging his nails into a pumpkin.
“You are the most amazing creature in this universe, Crowley,” I say when he picks up his knife again.
“Ouch!”
He puts a finger in his mouth and glares at me accusingly. Then he says this:
“Are you flirting with me or something?”
Right. Now I am utterly mortified.
“I am so sorry, Crowley. I’ll just do my pumpkin.”
There is silence for a while as we both work, the smell of pumpkin becoming the new fog. I find my way through it, I put my mortification and yearning into my carving. I use several different tools apart from my knife, I make a curve and then another, I scrape the inside of a curve and then another, and then a dozen more, and then another dozen, until the pattern flashes out and drags me on through the process as if it had the will of its own. It is quite relaxing actually, as well as fulfilling. By the time it’s done I’m almost calm.
Crowley’s Jack is also finished. It’s horrible in a fascinating way but I can’t understand what it is exactly. It’s like someone’s face, melting. All the seeds and pumpkin insides form a kind of foam on it.
“What is it, Crowley?”
“Ligur. As I saw him last – burned away in the shower of holy water.”
I feel existential dread enveloping me, making me almost sick.
“See?” Crowley says. “You’re soft. Stay away from Happy Tree Friends.”
But all I can think of is that this could have happened to Crowley. I feel dizzy and light-headed. Then I get a grip on myself and put a candle inside my own Jack.
“And what in heaven is this? A Celtic pattern, okay, I get it, but what’s the whole thing supposed to be? Some kind of cooking pan?”
“It’s… I tried to… well, it’s… the Holy Grail.”
There is silence. Crowley stares at the Grail. It doesn’t take him long to see what the pattern is actually made of. It’s not just Celtic knotwork. It’s snakes, weaving in and out of those knots, forming them with their long bodies. Multiple intertwined repetitions of the design of his own tattoo.
“Angel…” he starts but he doesn’t go on. Have I rendered him speechless for once?
The candle inside the Grail is burning brighter now and the effect the knotwork of light and shadow is producing is stunning. Enlarged clusters of the intertwined serpents immerse the whole bookshop in their flickering dance. The four Jacks stand as silent sentinels to this miracle. After a long, eloquent pause Crowley speaks at last, breaking the shadow-filled silence.
“Four Demons and the Holy Grail. Quite a title, eh?”
“Indeed. I’d read a novel with that title.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a Monty Python film. But whatever you say, angel, a novel’s fine.”
He sounds subdued, somehow.
“Anyway,” Crowley says, looking away from me, casually. “You can flirt with me, if you like, angel. I don’t mind. Or… we could simply fuck.”
Mortification floods back and turns to consternation. I freeze. Then my mind starts racing. I think back to the sessions with Jean, the noises, the whispers, the rustles, the sensation of presence, the feeling of something missing when I got a lift from Ola. So this is what his invisible presence feels like, when he doesn’t want me to know he is there. He has been…
“Have you been following me, Crowley? When I was going to Wales?”
“From the very first session, obviously. Did you think I would let you have all the fun?”
I put my head down into my folded arms on the table. Turn me into the sixth pumpkin, someone.
“And what fun it was!” the demon continues relentlessly. “That sketch was particularly good. I stole it to put it up on the wall next to the Mona Lisa.”
Burn me in hellfire, please.
“So rather than talking to me, as your therapist urged you, you decided to go for flirting, eh? I must say your flirtation skills are not up to scratch. Ligur’s lizard was better at chatting people up.”
“Crowley, please…”
“What would your next move be? Hmm, what was it – sensate therapy, scheduled sex? That sounds promising. Let me see… I am free in middle of the next century. Are you available, say, in February 2150?”
I do not attempt to reply. I had this coming, so endure this I must.
“By the way, I cursed that silly tap you blessed.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“I dunno. Out of spite? Demons don’t need reasons.”
Then something clicks in my brain. Jean, Otis, tap, Ola, her Swedish dad who happens to be a Jack of all trades, fixing stuff other people break. These two families should get together – complement each other, heal and unite. The cursing of the tap was a blessing in disguise. It is clear as day. As a sunny day on the walls of Troy. I’ll do it what I need to do to bring it about when I get back there. But right now…
Be bold. Bold as Hector and come what may. What is there to lose?
“Will you go into couples therapy with me, Crowley?”
That is when he gets serious. Another scary thing to witness. But I am being bold.
“No need, Aziraphale. I’ve got it all sussed. I’ve been thinking a lot this October.”
“Really? And…?”
“And it’s quite simple, really. Just as Jean said – we do it when life gets too apocalyptic. Like, really unbearable. But she’s wrong about “justifying”. We don’t need to justify it to ourselves. We need the effect it has on us – we need it to last. That is all.”
“I am not sure I follow.”
“Listen, angel. We do not need to separate sex and love: one is just the material manifestation of the other, whatever, not the point. The point is… we need to stretch it. People have short lives – with a fair chance of avoiding major crises or armageddons. They are in a hurry to make love – and too right they are: they haven’t got long. We, on the other hand, have the fucking millennia and the whole harvest of pain and destruction She, in Her infinite wisdom, has dumped on us. Making love is the only remedy we have, powerful enough to fight off the horror of it all. If we do it more often… well, who knows – it might just stop working. And then what, when another crisis strikes? What will we resort to as the ultimate salvation? Pumpkin carving? It is not bad, I admit, but I’d rather have you in the moment the world is closing in on me."
I look at the Jacks in their orange shadow-dance and then at him, reflected fires flickering in his amber eyes.
“Do you mean that if we do it more often, it will lose… the effect it has?”
“Exactly. And it’s quite some effect, innit? Don’t you… still feel the heat of that night, after the Non-Apocalypse? It is swirling inside me even now.”
“I do feel it, Crowley.”
“Well then. Why would you want it more often? Why would you risk losing it?”
Why indeed? And isn’t it the same question Jean wanted me to mull over? What is it that I want?
I guess I want to know, deep down. And a millennium is so long you can’t keep up this knowing.
It’s not what I say out loud though.
“Perhaps… perhaps… the thought of waiting for another millennium scares me. I mean, it made sense before, but now… The time of crisis will come again, surely, but are you absolutely sure that love-making would lose its power if we did it… say…”
“Once in a century?”
“I was thinking, perhaps, a decade…”
“You are one lecherous angel,” he grins and then suddenly his wings open wide, nearly catching fire on the candles. “And quite a tempter. Aren’t you? How can someone who sucks at flirting be so good at tempting?”
“I have the best teacher ever.”
I open my wings too – I have a hunch I am going to need them soon.
“Tell you what. If you catch me, you can have me. Today. I’d say we need it – we are both having a crisis right now, aren’t we? A new kind of crisis. What do you say?”
He kicks off and hovers in the air. The shop opens its door immediately, ready to do his bidding.
“What… now? Through London?”
“Above it, silly. There is just the right kind of fog for erotic hide-and-seek. Are you in?”
All kinds of doors open and close inside me. There’s dizziness and there are sparks, there’s a ship swaying and a fire-breathing mountain, all floating by. What if he is right – and we need to make it stretch, or else..? Be bold, said the tip. And another said, don’t take it too seriously.
“Are you in, angel? I haven’t got all night.”
Am I overthinking this or not thinking enough?
“Are we partners, Crowley? Are we a couple?”
He rolls his eyes – his magnetic, volcanic eyes full of sparks. I know my eyes are wide open as I take him in, hovering there against the open door. He is the most amazing creature in the universe.
And I remember being this creature. I remember looking into my own eyes and feeling the pull of black wings behind my back. We are too intertwined, and we are a couple, and if he is in, I am in.
“You can have a 3-minute start, demon.”
“Is that so? Whole 3 minutes? You’ll never catch up.”
“Fair enough, our existential remedy will be safe then. Off you go!”
He flaps his wings dramatically several times and then is gone with a whiff. I look at the four Demons and the Holy Grail and tell them to behave. Then I ask the shop not to let anyone in and keep an eye on the Jacks. Then I step outside and breathe in the chilly, damp air of foggy London. I spread my wings and kick off. I have a new ability that Crowley doesn’t know about yet: I can feel his presence now, whether he wants it or not, just as he can mine. There is a trail of invisible sparks in the fog that I smell rather than see. It leads south. I follow it, gradually gaining speed. For a while the speed becomes the only thought I have and then I see a silhouette in the fog ahead. Moving not too fast for me and not too slowly. Just exactly the right existential speed.
Exactly the right rhythm.
Comments under the post
Captain Dragon Scaramouche: All right, soldiers, Angel and Demon Writing Army has completed its mission. Celebration operation tonight, as planned.
Sergeant Tattoo: Hurray! I’ll bring some tricks and treats. Guess what my Halloween costume will be.
Sergeant Angel Cake: I bet it will go well with mine.
As_Era_Failed: Well, I’ve enjoyed this little history of the world in six fucks, as well as the other Angel and Demon Army stories. Not that angels and demons really do it this way, but as long as you guys are happy. Keep having fun.
Sergeant Angel Cake: Well, thanks. Do you know “the way they really do it” then?