[Good Omens] Envy the Subtle Serpent

Untitled Part 6

A cold, grey morning rolled over the rooftops of London's Soho, where an angel stood alone in a bookshop, cradling a telephone between shoulder and ear as a mug of tea went cold in his hands. The line rang several times before predictably heading to voicemail.

Hi, this is Anthony Crowley. You know what to do, do it with style.

"It's me," Aziraphale started over the sound of the beep, which promptly cut him off. He exhaled and tried again. "It's me. Listen, I'm not sure if you received my last message just now. I think the operator cut me off part of the way through. Anyway, I won't repeat it. I assume you've been listening, and it was just more of the same." He gave a tired sigh. "Look, I know you're probably tired of hearing your phone ring by now, so if you'd just pick up and let me know you're alright..." Aziraphale trailed off, eyes drifting toward the grandfather clock in the corner. It was half ten. "I've got to open up shop now, but I'll try again later," he concluded, lingering on the line a few moments longer before reluctantly ending the call.

It was the second in a single morning, and with the way things had been going, it certainly would not be the last. Following their argument the previous week, he'd given Crowley approximately forty-eight hours to cool off before the phone calls had started in earnest. So far, not a single one had been answered, though he suspected the demon had listened to them all as he left them. Either that or he was asleep. Aziraphale hoped for the latter.

Gathering his wits about him, Aziraphale drained his cup of tea with a grimace and gestured so that the sign in the window flipped to OPEN. Despite the fact that the damaged wards had been repaired and strengthened, he hadn't been back to the library since the day of the break-in. It somehow didn't feel entirely safe to leave, and so the bookshop had seen rather more regular hours than usual over the past couple of days as Aziraphale attempted to keep himself occupied.

He felt more secure this way, shut up among his possessions. Not only that, he gleaned a sort of placebo satisfaction in the occasional stern conversation with a customer, as if reasoning with a student about why they could not, in fact, purchase his signed edition of Maurice was a stand in for his unfinished argument with Crowley. At least these were debates he could win and feel good about. Or, not good, exactly. But not bad, either, which was how he had been feeling since the moment Crowley walked out the door and he hadn't gone after him.

He should have gone after him. Aziraphale knew that now.

At the time, he had told himself that Crowley wouldn't have wanted him to, that he needed space, that it wouldn't have made a difference if he had, but in hindsight he was not so certain. The more he reflected, the more he realized there were things he could have said that might have changed Crowley's mind, that might have made him stay. Which begged the question, why hadn't he said them? Force of habit, perhaps, so used to keeping the demon at arm's length that it had become second nature?

Aziraphale shook himself out of his reverie. It did no good to dwell on what was done. After spending millennia doing exactly that, he had learned to let the little things go, or to try his best to at the very least. All he could do now was wait for Crowley to forgive him as he always had and reappear in his life, however long it might take. Couldn't be longer than the last time, Aziraphale contented himself to think, although he was quite certain he didn't have it in him to wait another century if so. Hence the impatient phone calls.

Officially open for business, Aziraphale returned to the project he had begun several days ago for want of something to do: a small stack of manuscripts in lost languages that sat piled on his desk. He was attempting to translate the texts into English from memory. The work was slow and tedious, and for all his efforts he hadn't much to show for it; a notebook filled with crossed out lines and copious amounts of question marks. Initially, he had contemplated occupying his time with something a little more strenuous, such as clearing and dusting the shelves by hand (a task that Crowley frequently reminded him was long overdue). But in the end he'd decided against it, after cleaning the first shelf and realizing that his unoccupied mind was poor company to keep. So he read and reread, wrote and crossed out, until his attention inevitably drifted back toward the silent telephone or the bell above the shop door, hoping that at any moment either one of them might ring and signal Crowley's reemergence in his life.