Title: Air Signs
Author: wren10514
Crossover: Highlander/BtVS/Good Omens/Doctor Who/Stargate: SG-1(/AtS if you squint)
Summary: Some people need a place they can go to indulge their air sign.
Prompt: #54 Air
A/N: My first entry for the crossovers100! Crosses just about every fandom I'm likely to use over the 100 stories in one fell swoop Hopefully all the characters are recognisable… Feel free to tell me you have no idea what's going on…I'm a library junkie – I will go into libraries and pick up random books that take my fancy for fun learning, but then I'm an air sign
Air Signs
Down a normal street, across a busy road, passed the better known colleges of Cambridge, through a medieval garden and over an ivy-soaked stone bridge there is a library. It is part of one of the colleges (though no one is entirely sure which) and is run by a devoted, if remarkably unorganised, librarian (though no one is sure when the pleasant middle-aged man took up residence). Of those few students and members of the public who find this little corner of literacy fewer still stay as this is the land that Dewey and his decimal system forgot; the books randomly, if lovingly, scattered across acres of shelves. Anyone looking for answers had better go elsewhere – this is not the place for you. The librarian remains the caretaker of the binds and pages (if not the catalogue) the steward of knowledge that those few (those very few) left undaunted by the haphazard scattering of reading material are free to indulge: whatever they find to interest them for as long as they desire.
"Tea for you, Rupert."
"Hm? Oh yes, thank you."
"Physics Rupert? I didn't think you were all that interested in mathematics."
Rupert sipped his tea, sighing softly as the caffeine fed his brain.
"Oh I'm not normally, but, you know, it always does to try something new, yes? That's the fun of coming here – you never quite know what you'll know when you leave that you didn't know when you came in."
The librarian took the book from the young student's hands, slipping it onto one of the shelves under the counter without looking to see which one.
"Did you know that there are actually creatures that live on volcanic vents deep under the ocean? No oxygen at all and yet they're somehow alive…"
The librarian smiled, "Gods wonders are never ending aren't they?"
The young man scoffed. "God? I never thought you were that type, old chap. You'll be telling me you believe in demons next. Quite absurd, I'll believe it when I see it."
Before he could stop himself the librarian fervently wished that insufferable Wesley Wyndam-Price would do just that.
"Hi, can I check this out?"
The librarian looked up from his latest acquisition.
"I'm sorry Dr. Jackson, the books here are for reference only."
The scientist frowned. "That's irritating. I was just reading a great chapter on fitting new light fixtures and was hoping to have it with me when I tried it out. Never mind, I guess I'll just get Sam to give me a hand. See you later."
"They're under the lilies!"
"Miss Rosenberg?"
Willow glanced dazedly up to see the friendly face of the librarian, his hand paused in mid-air, shaken off her shoulder when she startled.
"You fell asleep Miss Rosenberg."
"Huh? Oh, call me Willow. I'm sorry I was looking at the pictures, the paintings…the pictures of the paintings and reading and then…"
"Here," the librarian pushed a cup of strong coffee into her hands. "Actually I came over to ask if you wanted this. I bought it by mistake and wondered if you might like it," he smiled angelically, "I can't abide mayonnaise."
"That's great thanks! Giles said this was the best library around!"
The librarian beamed. It was nice that Rupert still thought of him…
The man had been slinking around the library for hours now. The librarian had watched him pick up book after book only to put them down minutes later. He had never seen someone stay in his library without finding anything so long. It was tempting to just give him the book he truly wanted just to make him stop pacing round and round the room.
Suddenly the man the man snatched up a book in the middle of a nearby shelf and sprawled in one of the comfier chairs, feet up on the table, and settled in to read. The librarian was only slightly surprised to find him reading just the book he would have recommended. He thought he'd seen him somewhere before – of course that had been over four thousand years ago, but this librarian was one who would not argue with the ineffable nature of such things.
The door rattled as a thin, bespectacled man in a long coat and brown suit swept into the library.
"Nice place you've got here." The man announced the tiniest hint of a Scottish burr barely detectable under his accent. "So what's the deal? People come here to get lost in knowledge rather than find anything right? A whole 'the experience of learning is the object of learning' thing right?"
The librarian nodded mutely.
The man beamed again, shrugging off his coat and hanging on the rickety, disused coat stand by the door.
"Perfect! Time to indulge in the most powerful thing in the universe."
If his wings had been out Azriphale would have preened. So few people appreciated his library.