Chapter Text
Crowley staggered into the bookshop. He tipped the wine bottle up for another drink, found it empty, and cast it aside.
“Where’s the bloody book?” he grumbled.
Muriel sprang from their chair, clutching their book to their chest. “Oh! Mr. Crowley.” Their brow furrowed. “Or should I be saying, ‘Back, foul demon’? I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s proper. Oh, but I did learn how to set a table for a proper human dinner from a book by an American named Emily Post. Human customs are so inter—”
“Yes, yes, lotta manners and nonsense.” Crowley waved both hands. “But I need the book.” He stomped across the room, nearly tripping over… well, he wasn’t sure what, because it looked like nothing was there, but obviously something had gotten in his way. “And another bottle of wine. Where does he keep the wine?”
Did. Where did he keep it. He’s gone.
Crowley’s shoulder banged into a bookshelf, and a book tumbled down onto his head. “Fuck!”
Muriel scampered over. “Can I help you, Mr. Crowley? Is there something particular you’re looking for?”
“A book. I need the bloody book.”
“We have a lot of books. Do you know the, um, title? Author?”
“Right.” Crowley braced himself against the shelf, sifting through the fuzziness of the alcohol for the memory. “Clerkenwell diamond heist.” He snapped his fingers. “Austen. That’s it. Jane Austen. Pride and something. Need to read it. Figure out what I did wrong.”
Muriel smiled so brightly Crowley offered down a curse of thanks for his dark glasses. “I’m sure we can find it! Um, do you know how these volumes are organized?”
Crowley tilted his head toward the shelf beside him, scanning a few titles. “Not a sodding clue. Sorry.”
“Oh. Well.” Muriel shrugged one shoulder. “How long can it take?”
***
Crowley flung himself into Aziraphale’s favorite armchair. He was appallingly sober, and now everything hurt again. It had never stopped hurting, to be honest, but it hadn’t been quite as stabby when he’d been drunk. Now it felt like knives through his heart and needles in his eyes, and something kind of bluntly pointed digging into his arse…
He jerked up and reached for the book he’d been sitting on, prepared to fling it across the room in disgust. Glinting gold letters mocked him. Pride and Prejudice.
“Aw, bugger me.” He rolled his eyes Heavenward. This was all their fault somehow. He just knew it. “Found it!”
“Wonderful!” Muriel appeared from between rows of books, lifting a bottle in triumph. “And I found your wine!”
“Oh, thank Satan.”
The angel’s eyes went wide.
“Er… Thank… God?” Crowley’s nose wrinkled. “Terrible choices all ‘round.” He beckoned Muriel closer. “Thank you .”
They blushed as they held out the bottle. “You’re welcome.”
Crowley popped the cork with a thought and took a long swig. “Ah.” He sighed and sank back against the seat cushions. “A pre-phylloxera Bordeaux. Those were the days.”
A memory flashed through his mind: Aziraphale, at a Paris cafe, sighing in pleasure as he sipped from a crystal glass, cheeks adorably flushed and lips stained red from the wine.
Crowley’s entire body went as hot as if he’d walked into hellfire. He downed more of the wine, then opened the Austen book and flipped to the beginning of the story.
“‘It is a truth…’ Hang on. I’m going to need pen and paper.”
“I can fetch you some!” Muriel bounded over to Aziraphale’s desk, rummaged around for a few moments, then returned with a pencil and a battered notebook. “Will this do?”
“Perfect.”
Muriel beamed.
Crowley set down his wine—temporarily—and tore a page from the notebook. “Muriel,” he addressed the angel. “We’re… almost sort of somewhat friends, eh?”
Muriel’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and then they gave a little bobbing nod.
“Right. So, I am going to write a very important letter here, and I am going to need you to deliver it for me. Just slip it right onto Aziraphale’s desk, hmm? He’ll be fine with that. New protocol.”
“O-of course. You would know… yes?”
Crowley gave them his best flirtatious smile. “Would I lie?”
“Well… you’re a demon.”
“Yes, but I’m not a very good one. Bad. Not a very bad one.”
Muriel chuckled. “That’s okay, then.”
“You’re such a dear. I’ll only be a moment.” Crowley scanned the first few lines of Pride and Prejudice again, then set pencil to paper.