Something Different

Chapter Three

"Well, when you next see him, if ever, tell him he is a complete bastard for me!" Linda stated, for the fifth time that night as she paced from one end of the back room to the other. Aziraphale could feel the anger running off of her in waves and knew that Crowley would be in one unfortunate position if he decided to show himself tonight.

He wouldn't, Aziraphale knew. Crowley always stayed away until he calmed down. If he didn't one of them was more than likely to find themselves inconveniently discorporated and now...now there was a mortal in the mix. A person who wouldn't be coming back like he or the demon could.

"He knows he is a bastard. He prides himself on it actually. It's in his nature to be so, please try not to be angry at him."

"He threw scalding hot tea on me! It's a miracle I wasn't burnt!"

Aziraphale blushed slightly. Yes, he couldn't help but stop burns from happening as what had happened to her had registered.

So, something was definitely wrong with the demon, and now he had Crowley and Linda both angry at him for some reason or another. At least he knew the woman's reason. Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he would act like that. He isn't usually so...mean."

Linda turned to glare at him, and for one second he thought that perhaps she had turned into a demon in the short time since yesterday. If she was any angrier than she already was, her eyes would be a furious red and she would be breathing fire. "It's not you who needs to apologise. I will not forgive anyone until I get an apology."

Aziraphale's heart sank at that. Getting an apology out of Crowley was as likely as getting himself to burn down the bookshop. It just wasn't going to happen...at least, not without some help. "I will...I will go talk to him then. He probably isn't in any mood to be nice right now though. And he will need the talk to learn that what he did was wrong."

"Oh no! No helping him. Go talk to him all you want, yell at each other for all I care, but you will not tell him to come and apologise. He will do that on his own."

Sighing Aziraphale shook his head. "Then he won't apologise."

Linda looked unsure for a few minutes, but an icy resolve passed over her face and he knew she was about to say something he would hate to hear. "Then I guess that I shouldn't come around here any longer. Bye Arthur. I...I enjoyed your company, just so you know."

She left, the door slowly clicking behind her in a finality that made Aziraphale ache inside. Sighing again, he grabbed his coat from its normal place by the door and put it on. He might as well go have a talk with Crowley now.

It was getting colder. Autumn had just arrived and with it crisp breezes and even colder rain than normal. He enjoyed this time of the year, though Crowley hated it. He left with all intents of trying to persuade a demon into apologising to a human.

He had promised himself not to be angry with Crowley, that anger wasn't necessary and that there was definitely something wrong with the demon, but as soon as the door to the Mayfair flat opened after a few minutes of thumping it into near non-existence, the first thing he did was punch Crowley, hard, in the nose. A loud crunch signified broken cartilidge. Aziraphale didn't even bother thinking about thinking the broken nose better.

He didn't like to admit such things to himself, but right that minute he really wanted Crowley to feel pain, and if the bleary eyes staring at him with an agonised expression meant he had arrived at this goal, then all the better for him.

"If I ever see you again, it better be for an apology. To both Linda and myself. Other than that, I don't want to see you in my life ever again."

He left. It wasn't until he got home that cold dread filled him and he sat in his comfortably old armchair and worried about what he had just done. He wouldn't be taking it back now though, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to, if for nothing other than to heal the mess he had made of Crowley's face.

But one fact remained. He had not only lost Linda, but his...well there were no other words for it other than best friend, all in the one day. He refused to put the kettle on to boil some water. He was suddenly terrified that if anything warm was to enter his bookshop, the whole thing would go up in flames.

He had gotten a phone call from Linda a week after their fight saying that she was going away on business and that she wouldn't be back until the end of the month. Aziraphale could hear the lie in her words and knew that she was just giving him an excuse not to go looking for her at her house.

He had once, three days after their fight. He had knocked on her door for a half hour before he noticed that the blind had been pushed aside and she had been staring at him the entire time. He had turned around and gone back home. He had been torn on whether or not having a hot chocolate and reading would be a good idea, or if he should sit on the couch and cry the rest of the night. He did neither, instead he worked for a bit on his taxes. His computer hadn't been used so much in at least a year.

He truly wasn't expecting the knock on his door, just before he served himself some recently brewed tea, and was expecting even less the mess of a demon at his door. He tried to stop himself, but ended up snorting out his laughter.

"Yes, very funny," Crowley hissed, before pushing his way inside and towards the stairs leading to the first floor where he had a family room that was mainly used to store books in. It had a fireplace built in there. The demon planted himself in front of the fireplace, glared at it to ignite the wood inside and turned his back on the flickering flames.

"What are you doing here...and how did you get so wet?" he asked, his voice not as sharp as he wished it would sound. While he truly wished for an apology, Aziraphale had stopped being angry a while ago.

Crowley shrugged and looked towards where he was standing. "It is raining. I got caught in it."

Knowing full well that Crowley was ignoring the other half of his question, Aziraphale sighed, miracled his tea to the family room and sat in one of the chairs scattered about the room. Sipping the warm liquid helped calm him further and he sank into the chair comfortably. "You do realise that until I get an apology out of you, and Linda gets one too, I will pretend you don't exist, don't you?" After he figured out that saying that went against what he had just said, he frowned. "Well, starting now anyway."

"Yeah? Really now? So you wouldn't mind me borrowing some of your books and roasting them in this nice fire then would you? I can happily go about my job and perhaps have no interference from some fussy old angel. I could sing over and over, the same verse even. I can...I can...Aziraphale are you listening to me?"

True to his word, Aziraphale ignored everything the demon was saying, picked up the nearest book (one of his books on prophecy, but they hadn't been the same since getting his hands on Agnes' book) and opened it up to the beginning. It was always a good place to begin something.

For a while he forgot that Crowley was standing in front of him, regardless that every once in a while the demon would call out his name, or wag a hand in front of his face. It was the slam of the front door and the screeching of tyres that got him to realise that Crowley had finally left. He didn't imagine that he would feel so lonely without the familiar presence about.

Yet here he was, sitting on a chair that was barely used until the winter comes along, with a roaring fire, feeling like he had just lost his best friend. Perhaps this time he truly had.