Series: Good Omens
Pairings: … nothing? I mean, besides Azi and Crowley's strange little friendship, but even that's pretty subsumed.
Warnings: Poor customer service. And, um, nothing else, unless you consider books or tea particularly deadly. Which, despite my firm and unwavering dislike of tea, I do not.
A/N: … and now I almost wish I'd thrown Kaito at Crowley instead, that could have been an interesting conversation. Set, er, before the book, because after the book there is every likelihood that Azi's bookstore would have actually had comic books, or at least a few more kid friendly ones. Hm. I'm probably one of those strange, stubborn people who would insist on becoming a customer, though maybe not for the types of books Azi kept before the failed apocalypse. Typo bibles? Not so much my thing.
Concerning my deadline: Yesterday's was late by literally a single minute. That sucks, but it's mostly on me. This one is nearly ten minutes late, but it's all FFN's fault, considering it wasn't letting me upload for the past half hour. So, URGH. This better not be starting a pattern for me.
Customer Service
Aziraphale had been trying to get rid of the boy for the last two hours now with no luck. When he'd first strolled in, door bell ting-a-linging behind him, Aziraphale had considered it a simple matter; black baseball cap pulled down over strange violet eyes (contacts, no doubt, he'd heard from Crowley lately that children were beginning to wear them for cosmetic reasons now, rather than medical ones), black bomber jacket with a silly little pirate insignia on his left shoulder and hands stuffed casually into worn, faded jeans. Clearly, he had lost his way to the local arcade or records store. Clearly, he was simply stepping in to ask for directions. Because, clearly, Aziraphale had nothing that the boy would want.
He didn't sell comic books.
"I don't sell comic books." He informed the boy stiffly, looking down his nose at him over a stack of dusty old leather bound tomes, and watched with no small amount of pleasure as the boy sneezed fitfully when he opened the top most book to peruse at his leisure.
"Good." He said, smiling in that easy sort of way that Crowley had of addressing people that he had just taken something from – be it a parking space, a dinner reservation at the Ritz, or simply the will to live – and was in the middle of convincing them that they were really better off without it, truly, would I lie to you? "I don't read comic books." And then he sneezed, twice, rubbing at his nose and chuckling abashedly under his breath. He apologized ruefully. "Sorry. Allergies, I guess."
Aziraphale's heart sank. Or at least, it would have if he actually had one. As it was he silently despaired. This boy was going to be difficult to get rid of, he could tell. Some people were just bound and determined to be customers. Although they were usually quite a bit older, slightly deaf, and mostly senile.
No one ever bought any of his books to actually read them, they were simply meant to look impressive on a bookshelf.
Aziraphale hustled over to an open accounting book on the other side of the desk that hadn't actually been used since the late eighteen hundreds and attempted to look busy. "We don't have any of those, those… Dusk books either. Or anything else even remotely popular. In fact, you probably haven't even heard of any of these books." He insisted, flipping testily through the crackling, yellowed pages of the logbook.
"Perfect." Was all the boy had said in return, and proceeded to disappear into the stacks for the next two hours.
More than once, Aziraphale found himself nearly forgetting the boy's presence in the shop, and each time he had contemplated closing up the shop and going round Crowley's place to see if he was up to an early luncheon, before the boy would sneeze, or set a book back on the shelves with a muffled thump and then he would remember. He had just begun to pour himself a cup of tea and settle himself down more fully to the book he had opened earlier in an attempt to dissuade the boy from looking around, and which had quickly caught his interest – Oh, he hadn't read this one in simply ages – when the boy emerged from the stacks like a wandering crusader coming home, tired and disheveled and more than a little dusty.
He came straight up to Aziraphale. "Clearly you don't prescribe to the Dewey decimal system." The boy said wryly, resting his elbows on the tabletop and leaning into Aziraphale's space, grinning widely. "Or any system at all, really. So I figured I'd ask you directly and make both of our days a little bit better." Aziraphale wrinkled his nose and the boy clarified. "By me finding what I want, and getting out of your hair." He pulled a crumpled note out of his back pocket and slid it across the table.
Aziraphale read the title scrawled messily across the piece of paper. He hesitated.
"I asked around." The boy said casually, leaning back against the front desk and pulling out a small, hand held mirror and a handkerchief. He proceeded to scrub his face clean as he continued. "And people said, for strange, interesting or rare books this was the place to be. They also said that it was open at all manner of hours, that the inside was dank, musty and dismal, and that the owner was more likely to treat you like a trespasser than a customer. But the thing is, I need this book. So much so that I'm willing to camp out here all day, to go through each and every book page by page if necessary until I find it. I'm only in Soho for a week. I'd like to see more than just the inside of this place. And I'm sure you'd much rather I did as well. So I'll tell you what. You find me this book, and I won't even try to buy it. Just give me a couple hours with it and then I'll give it back, good as new, and then you'll never have to see me again." He pulled the handkerchief away from his face and surveyed his handiwork before spiriting away both it and the mirror, thrusting his hand forward in offering and looking Aziraphale directly in the eye. "So what d'ya say? We have a deal?"
Aziraphale considered all the points of his argument thoroughly, eyeing his hand with no small amount of suspicion. "Fine." He said finally, shaking the boy's hand quickly before dropping it as if it were a snake. "I'll go pull up the book. And a chair, perhaps as well. I was just about to have some tea, would you care for a cup? Only, it's terribly rude to partake in front of someone without offering, and…"
"Thanks." He said softly, moving aside as Aziraphale came around the side of the desk and set off for the deepest regions of the shop.
"… was that a 'yes' to the tea?"
Crowley slithered in several hours later, observed the strangely cozy scene of Aziraphale and the boy – Kaito, he'd said, smiling, before asking what the A in A. Ziraphale stood for – sat down to tea and each with their very own book, heads bent down studiously over the texts and completely silent except for the turning of pages.
"Well." Crowley said bemusedly to himself, tilting his sunglasses down far enough to observe the strange teeter totter balance of good and bad deeds that the kid had going on over the darkened lenses before replacing them. "I always said he should start up a book club or something , but I never thought he'd do so with an international jewel thief." And then, with one more lingering look at the strange stiffness that had settled into the boy's shoulders at his comment, he helped himself to a cup of tea.