Wednesday
A Good Omens fanfiction
Part Seven of Twelve
"Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically, to those who hardly think about us in return"
– T.H. White
The man whose account with their hardware store was registered under the name A.Z. Fell gingerly placed rope, pulleys, an excessive length of netting, and a long-handled shovel down onto the conveyor belt. They didn't clatter, the way they would if the more typical manner of customer handled them. They barely made any sound at all.
Mr. Fell smiled pleasantly at the employee ringing him up. "Good morning. Lovely day, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." He returned the smile, a bit shakily. "Will that be all for you today?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Find everything you were looking for?"
"Oh, I did, more or less. Thank you." A slight frown creased Mr. Fell's forehead. "Although, I was wondering... Would it be more prudent to purchase zip ties instead of quite so much rope?"
"Depends on the sort of project you had in mind."
"Now, now, you know perfectly well I like to keep my little projects private – it's personal." He glanced over his shoulder sharply, as if to ward off invisible spies. "I deeply appreciate this store being discreet on my behalf."
The sweating employee flashed back to a conversation he'd had with his manager just the other week – the last time Mr. Fell had been in. He'd flat out asked his superior, at Mr. Fell's departing back, in a low voice, "So. That guy. Chubby blonde in the black coat. Serial killer, right? We both agree that's what he buys all this stuff for?"
"Well, whatever he is, he's not a handyman – he's got lacquered fingernails, for God's sake."
"Think we should, like, call somebody? Turn him in?"
"Not if you want to keep this job, mate."
The crazy thing is, they were very nearly right about Aziraphale. Omit the fact that he only had the one victim, who always came back – sooner or later – and you had him pegged.
But you couldn't just let a serial killer know you'd guessed what he was about. That it was pretty damn obvious, really. That he might as well have a big neon sign pointing to himself, the way he went about it.
So, all the employee said as he rang him up – still smiling – was, "Certainly, sir, I understand – have a great Wednesday."
"Oh, I plan to."
Aziraphale still had a little time before he was meant to start getting things ready for Raphael, and he wondered, briefly, if the archangel ever noticed the effort he put into discorporating him.
After all, he could have just gone about casually poisoning Raphael's food and drink. That would certainly have been easier, left him with more spare time. Except, well, that seemed so inelegant, not to mention impersonal.
Cheating, really.
Besides, angels could be weirdly dicey about eating in general. You never knew when they were actually going to nibble at what was set before them or when they were going to magnanimously give it away to some poor soul or simply leave it untouched altogether, declaring it unfit. Aziraphale never really understood that; he always felt that if he were an angel still, he would have wanted to eat indiscriminately, to try everything that might prove scrummy. Why miss out?
Aziraphale parked the Ford Fiesta and, glancing in the back to be sure his purchases from the hardware store were still there along with the extra shopping in the brown paper bag and the bottle of milk, turned off the engine.
With a little sigh, he climbed out and – opening the back – took out the shopping and the milk before approaching the door of the closest building, number 473. He had decided to stop in to see an old – for lack of any better term – friend.
The demon tried to push the buzzer for flat #36A as quietly as he could; his friend's neighbour was rather unhinged and tended to shout obscenities at him as he passed in the hallway. He personally rather disliked that, though his friend insisted it was harmless, really, and she didn't mind so much – free advertising, she called it.
It didn't seem to make that much difference in the end, however, that he'd barely touched the button – it still rang loudly enough to wake the dead. Let alone one drunk old man who reeked of tobacco. Under other circumstances, Aziraphale might almost have felt sorry for the poor, delusional bastard. As things stood, he was rather irritated by him on the whole.
"Please don't be in..." he muttered, almost in an ironic sort of prayer, rolling his eyes and shifting the paper bag from one arm to the other. "Please don't be in, Sergeant Shadwell."
The door swung open and a friendly woman in a loose-fitting cardigan and plain skirt stood there. "Zira! Oh, it's so good to see you! You know, I was hoping when I got your call yesterday, you'd have a chance to stop by. Cleared my whole morning for you, just in case."
He beamed at her and waved the milk bottle since he didn't have a hand free. "Hello, Marjorie!"
Marjorie Potts – better known as Madame Tracy – was, very probably, the only occult dabbler in London who regularly chatted with an actual demon. She simply was not, herself, aware of this fact.
If she had, at any point, discovered her favourite visitor – the one who always paid double for her time and often brought nice little gifts and yet never laid a single manicured finger on her (except to pat her hand consolingly or to catch her if she tripped stepping over the threshold into her flat) or so much as asked her if she could bring up his dead great uncle to inquire about some inheritance or other – was in fact a Prince of Hell, she probably would have murmured, "Isn't that odd?" and then needed to sit down quietly for a few moments before concluding it was probably okay, being a demon, these days, just so long as you didn't force anyone to vomit up pea soup or talk about their mothers sucking cocks.
Frankly, Aziraphale preferred her not to know. There were some things a simple human mind wasn't equipped to handle.
"Are those all for me?" She motioned at the bulging paper bag and the milk. "I've told you before, I can get my own food and things – there's a shop near enough to take my scooter to."
"That old thing?" Aziraphale clicked his tongue disapprovingly, visibly pained on her behalf. "You'll have a wreck."
She gave him a look.
"Provided, of course," he conceded, "you ever get it up to a speed that wouldn't be out-distanced by a pedestrian walking."
"Well, stranger things have happened, dear." Her shoulders lifted into a shrug.
"This is getting a bit heavy," he said pointedly, looking down at the shopping and the milk.
"Oh, of course. Come in, come in." She held the door open a bit wider and stepped side. "Don't be a stranger, love. You go on ahead of me – you know the way."
They'd barely made it down the hall and up the stairs when the door across from Madame Tracy's flat banged open. "And what're ye doin' 'ere ageeen?"
"Hello." Aziraphale gave him a small grin.
"That's nae't an answer."
"Mr. Fell is my guest, Mr. Shadwell," Madame Tracy said meekly, lips pursed.
Scowling, Shadwell turned away, pressing one hand against his doorframe.
Aziraphale waggled his fingers under the hoisted paper bag. "Pip-pip, Mr. Shadwell."
And Shadwell mockingly muttered, "Pip-pip – great southern pansy," then – peering over his shoulder – looked askance at Marjorie and snarled, "Shameless hussy," before slamming it shut again emphatically. "Hoor!"
A special-order plaque reading Defy the Foul Friend (the Prince of Hell was fairly certain this was an error and it was meant to say Defy the Foul Fiend) made of badly tarnished silver rattled violently against the vibrating door.
"You shouldn't let him talk to you like that," Aziraphale said, more from habit than from any hope Marjorie might suddenly become inclined to stand up for herself; she liked Shadwell, and – apart from a little teasing now and again, which she said was good for him – wouldn't have nettled the 'poor dear' for the world.
He let himself inside, took off his leather trench coat, and began putting the food and milk away while she dutifully put the kettle on for tea.
"I've got you some sprouts." Aziraphale figured she must be very fond of them, even though he'd never actually seen them served in her flat, because it always smelled like boiling sprouts in here. "Some bread." He placed the bread down on the worktop. "Also some chocolate, a small bag of oranges, and a baked ham."
"You silly," she sighed, bringing the tea-things to the table and setting it just before the kettle began whistling. "You need to worry less about me and take more care of yourself."
"You're not as young as you once were."
"Oi, you're a charmer," teased Madame Tracy, pretending to pout as she turned off the stove. It made a puht, puht sound and the old kettle bounced two times in quick succession.
"You know what I meant." He made a mental note to buy her one of those shiny new electric kettles and bring it round next time he visited. "Have you ever considered moving out of here? Buying a nice little bungalow?"
"Oh, a couple of times," she admitted, with a shrug. Her eyes drifted to the door. "But I couldn't imagine leaving–"
Shadwell, of course.
"I couldn't imagine leaving," she repeated, as if that were the complete sentence, her finished thought. "That's all."
But he understood what she really meant, and she knew it.
It might seem strange that somebody who was classifiably stupid in the traditional sense of the term, the way Madame Tracy technically was, would have so much in common with Aziraphale, who was so obviously intelligent. But they'd quickly found they did. So much so that – somewhere around the point in time where he figured she'd realise he wasn't getting any older – Aziraphale had feigned his own demise, allegedly of a heart-attack, and turned up at her door – less than half a decade later, admittedly rather missing her reassuring presence – claiming to be the (previously unintroduced) son of the Zira she'd known in the good old days.
After murmuring, "Oh," once, very quietly, she accepted the new, 'younger' Zira with only three stipulations. One, wipe your feet before you enter, two, don't mind poor Mr. Shadwell, because his father didn't, so why should he, and three – the most important stipulation of the lot – sip your tea nice and slow and talk for as long as time allots.
The other demons were fully aware Aziraphale visited her, but they didn't care much about it. Being a Prince of Hell, they figured he could do what he liked. Besides, they weren't aware he was actually doing her any kindnesses, that he wanted friendly chatter, that he wanted the thoughtful advice of someone who wasn't a hellish pervert with supernatural powers and a diabolical mind. She was a sex worker. Regardless of the fact that she was starting to get up there in age, it seemed to them rather obvious what he'd be going to her flat for.
His fellow demons didn't have the same impression of Aziraphale that most humans meeting him initially did. It had been Madame Tracy who'd explained to Aziraphale exactly what humans tended to think he was – apart from intelligent and English.
"Don't be embarrassed," she'd finished gently, realising he was rather stunned by the implication, and that it was – going by his reaction – quite incorrect. "Your father gave off the same impression and, well, you're here, aren't you? People are funny like that. We always guess wrong about each other, when it comes down to it, don't we?"
After the shock wore off, Aziraphale squirrelled away this information and made a mental note to use it to his advantage if ever the opportunity arose. It was good knowing what people saw when they looked at him; it gave him an edge. He could easily envision twisting their preconceived notions to get his own way in a number of possible situations.
He was glad that she'd told him; it explained a lot of strange looks (as well as a number of unsettling propositions, often accompanied by a bloody lot of winking) he'd gotten over the years.
At least next time it came up, he'd thought, rather relieved, he'd know better than to simply frown unbecomingly and say, "For badness sake, what are you doing? Have you got something in your eye?"
Aziraphale left the kitchen and pulled out a chair as Madame Tracy followed and poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot. She hesitated at offering him the sugar bowl for his tea – sometimes he took it, sometimes he didn't.
"No sugar for me, please."
She nodded politely and spooned a couple lumps into her own cup.
"How have things been? Your knees still giving you trouble?"
Her mouth twisted. "Oh, a bit, they're not what they used to be – been giving me gyp. It's been rather hard to operate the table rapper, you know, but Mr. Shadwell was wonderful about banging on the walls and screaming at just the right time. Although, Mrs. Ormerod was wondering why her Ron was so angry that week." She stirred her tea. "But enough about me. What about you, then?"
"There's nothing new with me," said Aziraphale, spreading out his hands on the table.
"And how is Raphael doing?" She said it kindly, knowing it was a tender question.
Aziraphale – being a demon – hadn't been able to tell her what he did, and would have never mentioned, not in a thousand years, that he spent most of his time thinking up ways to dispatch someone – an angel – to another plane of existence. No sooner than he would have opened his wings in front of her. (He thought her reaction would likely have been a long scream, followed by a stint in the local madhouse, before coming back home convinced she was suffering from an iron deficiency.) But he'd told her what he could, though he knew he probably shouldn't even say that much – about any of it.
He'd painted them as rivals in a company that split ages before – always pitted against each other – and, if you thought about it, that wasn't exactly a lie.
He'd wanted to ask her because – even though he prided himself on never trusting anyone – he trusted her... You couldn't help it. She was that harmless. He'd wanted to ask her why he often felt so badly about how he was forced to treat Raphael, and why he felt even worse when Raphael barely noticed him or his efforts.
Sometimes Raphael seemed to look right through him.
For what it was worth, for all that couldn't be changed, for the all the camaraderie that was simply impossible between them, Aziraphale truly believed that if Raphael were replaced with another angel in his post on earth, he would be miserable, that he would inexplicably miss him and never be able to tell anyone, and Raphael – if the reverse were to happen – might scarcely even notice the demon's absence.
Madame Tracy had understood the dilemma at once. "Well, Zira, love confounds us all, one way or another. Fact of life."
Aziraphale had furrowed his brow, not quite sure what she'd been trying to say. And it wasn't simply because she wasn't usually one to use words slightly above her paygrade such as 'confounds', either.
"It's like me with my niece in Finchley – I took my scooter out there to visit her after a quarrel, and it didn't do very well, making all these noises, so I knew I had to take the bus the next time, and she wasn't even glad to see me... But I couldn't not go. Love confounded me. I had to see her, be sure she was all right. Make it pax between us.
"And then there's Mr. Shadwell." She'd shaken her head. "Sometimes I think I might as well be flicking bread pellets into a black hole."
Aziraphale had gotten it, then, and groaned, passing a plump hand over his face – it felt almost good to admit it. That he cared about Raphael, had perhaps always cared about the stupid archangel who was meant to be his bitterest rival, despite himself, and it didn't even matter.
"I think," he'd commented darkly, mulling this miserable fact over in his mind, "T.H. White had it about right."
"Who?" She'd blinked in a manner that would have been almost comedic if the shared moment wasn't so pathetic and sombre.
"Don't worry. Nobody you'd know."
And ever since that conversation, she always – very sweetly – asked how Raphael was getting on. She was the sort of person who tended to remember in rather good detail what was important to her visitors, regardless of the nature of that importance.
He said Raphael was fine, last he'd seen him, thank you. He could hardly tell her he was planning on having him run over by a Piccadilly Line Train later today. Much less that, in a strange way, he was rather looking forward to it.
The conversation drifted back to the earlier topic.
"You could," and before Aziraphale even finished saying it, he knew it likely wasn't true and felt doubly sorry for her. "You could invite Shadwell to go with you – they say two can live as comfortably as one."
She shook her head. "He'd never come with me." She forced a bright smile and handed him a tin with a picture of a happy golden retriever wearing a tartan bow-tie on it.
There were iced shortbread biscuits inside, and Aziraphale took one, nibbling on it even though it was slightly stale – the crumbs sticking to the inside of his throat, making him want to cough – and the coagulated white icing was so sticky sweet it left him feeling like he needed to brush his teeth immediately before they dissolved on him.
Madame Tracy paused. She looked confused.
"What is it?" Aziraphale asked, growing mildly concerned.
"I thought–" She shook her head. "Funny. But I thought, really thought, the phone in the hall was going to ring."
"Were you expecting a call?" He hoped her niece was all right – he couldn't imagine who else she'd be anxious about hearing from.
"No, dear, I'm all yours this morning – you've got my undivided attention – it's just a feeling; like somebody called yesterday, or perhaps earlier this week, so I knew they were going to call today. For Shadwell. His Witchfinder Army. Only it wasn't yesterday. Or earlier this week. Because it was Wednesday then, just like now." Bringing her teacup to her lips, she murmured, "Isn't that odd."
"Might have been last week," he offered helpfully.
"No, no, it wasn't – I had one of my gentlemen here last week and the phone didn't interrupt us once."
Aziraphale shrugged and choked down another crumby biscuit.
"Been thinking of getting a fellow out here to look at the telly – broken again, believe it or not." Madame Tracy's train of thought had drifted away from the phone, as if her mind couldn't handle focusing on that bizarre surety she'd had someone was going to call. "Getting nothing but snow."
Aziraphale briefly wondered if there wasn't just a little bit of real psychic-ness in Marjorie Potts after all. He pondered if it would be cruelty or kindness to give Raphael a sort of tip-off about her so the angels could broadcast some celestial interference, then decided it was moot regardless, because it would, albeit in a roundabout way, mean helping Raphael's side – something he wasn't allowed to do.
Demons had standards.
If it got too bad, he could broadcast a sort of demonic interference of his own and eliminate the middleman. Most likely, it wouldn't get bad at all – by Madame Tracy's age, most psychics without an outlet for their backwards perception of time would have already lost their shit or become full-blown alcoholics, and Marjorie was so bloody normal, comparatively. This was the first thing she'd ever said that had even so much as turned his thoughts in that direction, and he'd known her for decades. Indeed, the very worst you could accuse Marjorie Potts of being was a bit dim; there was nothing the matter with her temporal focus beyond that. Probably it was just a full moon coming up – or something.
"Not that it matters," Madame Tracy went on. "It's Wednesday. There's nothing good on Wednesdays. Case in point, they're thinking of switching Marvin O. Bagman's show to Wednesdays, since ratings dropped. I still miss that nice man he replaced – the one who liked plants and talked about health food a lot. Raphael Antonius."
"Oh, yes, me too." Aziraphale bit his lower lip, trying not to grin. She never had realised that his Raphael from work and Raphael Antonius whose books she owned – though the Prince of Hell had never actually seen her read any of them – and whose television programme she used to watch – pardon the term – religiously were, in fact, the same person.
There had been a short period of time when Aziraphale would actually pop over here – usually on Fridays – just to watch it with her.
Probably because the host was an archangel, it was the only show the Infernal Authorities below were incapable of cutting into to deliver a message through. Aziraphale convinced himself that was why he liked watching it – despite the fact it was so bloody trite and dripping with a message of celestial goodness and sunshine and happy bluebirds and all that shit – because he was so overworked and starved for a guaranteed break.
Madame Tracy would make him extra foamy cocoa, topped with heavy whipped cream and sprinkles, and he'd usually bring a couple packages of Jammie Dodgers.
One time, Aziraphale had been sitting there, a knitted afghan across his lap, a warm feeling spreading through his stomach after drinking his cocoa, a bluebottle fly buzzing softly around one of the pink-shaded lamps, and he thought – a little bitterly – that humans had something, here, he'd never have. This could be their normal. This was their life. Just eating Jammie Dodgers at a friend's place, the blue light of the telly flickering across their faces, while the afternoon sun dipped behind the horizon on a bleary day.
So many humans lamented this – wanted something more, thought their lives were boring, would literally – in many cases – sign a contract with the devil to get out of it.
And there he'd been, as the credits for Raphael's talk show rolled and the picture of the queen came on for a programme-free hour before the early-evening game shows started up, thinking, this wouldn't be that bad. That if time stopped here, and he just relived drinking cocoa with Marjorie over and over again, it mightn't be the worst thing ever.
Shadwell could have this life, this cosiness, if he ever pulled his head out of his arse long enough to walk across the damn hallway. All he'd have to do was swallow his pride and he could be as comfortable as the day was long. Stupid man.
Humans were idiots. The lot of them. And angels weren't much better.
Not that Aziraphale was lonely or bored, no, he had plenty to keep him occupied at home – at his Mayfair flat – he didn't need to be there, but it was nice.
"I hate to ask, you know I enjoy having you here," Marjorie cut into his thoughts suddenly. He realised then she'd been talking the entire time and he'd missed most of it. "But... Aren't you going to be late for work?"
Aziraphale blessed under his breath. He took out some money from his pocket and set it on the table.
She counted it out slowly and tucked it inside her cleavage. She'd noticed Zira tended to look concerned (and a little offended) if she didn't show any interest in the money, or in counting it, and she hated to disappoint him.
Slipping his arms through the sleeves of his leather trench coat Aziraphale watched her, knew she was only making a long show of taking the money for his benefit, and twisted his expression into one of forced satisfaction. His eyes drifted involuntarily to a framed picture that usually was in another room, which might have been moved when Madame Tracy did some cleaning earlier in the week.
A sepia photograph of her when she was young.
The demon could still vividly remember that admittedly dull – yet somehow impish – face in colour, the way it had looked in person.
How did humans change so quickly?
Sometimes he truly wondered if the overseeing of making their short lives miserable – the way he was meant to, the way he pretended he relished doing – really was such a glorious occupation after all.
The startled demon almost crashed the Ford Fiesta into the side of the curb, slamming down on the brakes just in time, his sunglasses falling off his face and landing in his lap with a dainty plop.
The archangel Raphael was walking down the street, looking, well... It was hard to describe.
Nothing like himself, that was for sure.
Or, perhaps, the opposite – perhaps he looked more like himself than Aziraphale had ever seen him look before.
His clothes – while still consisting of suit-pieces that might have been normal wear for angels, under other circumstances, if they'd been lighter in hue – were all solid black; his distinctive long red hair was gone, cut super short; and he wore a pair of dark sunglasses of his own.
Aziraphale couldn't help it; he was gawking as the window wound down and Raphael approached the car, grinning like a serpent.
There was a strange, almost demonic aura sparking around him. From one of his hands swung a large, tan bookbag Aziraphale immediately longed to know the contents of.
This was all most unexpected.
"Er... Get in, angel." Aziraphale tried to sound confident, like he didn't notice the change – but Raphael wasn't an idiot, he could see the utterly shocked way he was staring at him; he was hardly being subtle, with his charcoal eyes doubtless gone as big as a pair of saucepans.
The ginger eyebrows above the dark sunglasses lifted teasingly at him. "You can't seriously expect me to make it that easy?"
"Suppose not." There was a twinge of relief spreading in Aziraphale's chest – some sort of hope, stupid as it was, that nothing had changed and Raphael's new look didn't mean anything in particular after all.
But Raphael did get into the car, plopping down onto the passenger seat and tossing the tan bookbag into the back, despite what he'd just said, and Aziraphale – still shocked and trying to think fast despite his brain feeling like it was turning into a big fat piece of demonic grey mush on him – instinctively reached for the tire iron under his own seat. Under other circumstances, he probably would have driven off first and parked some place – even if it was just temporary – before trying something like this. In his frazzled state, though, he barely remembered to make the locks go down.
"That was so easy it was sad," Aziraphale began, swinging back around to face Raphael with the tire iron clutched in his plump hand. "You know, you really could put more effort–"
"I am." Now pointing the handgun at his head – somehow stealthily retrieved from the glove compartment – Raphael was grinning even more widely; with those sunglasses, something behind them faintly glowing, striking that pose, he sort of looked like a demonic version of James Bond. "Putting forth more effort, I mean. Now, be a good little demon and toss that tire iron in the back seat."
A little shakily, Aziraphale complied. It clanked. "I say, Raphael, that is my property. That gun belongs to me."
"I'm borrowing it, then, aren't I?"
"Between you and I, my dear, I thought your lot disapproved of guns."
"Call it a moral argument."
"Ah. Well. Still. We both know you're not actually going to–"
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not." He leaned forward, the handgun now so close to Aziraphale's nose it nearly grazed it. "Ask yourself. Do you feel lucky?"
No, he didn't – not particularly. "Not very sporting of you."
"You were about to hit me in the face with a tire iron – we're a bit beyond sporting, angel."
"Fair point." He paused. "Hang on. Did you just call me–"
"Never mind that," growled Raphael, tilting his head. "Here's how it's going to go from here on out – you drive where I tell you, do what I tell you, and I won't blow your brains to kingdom come and splatter discorporated demon goo all over the interior of your car. Now then." He motioned with the gun. "Do you and I have an arrangement?"
"I–" he choked.
"If you agree, just nod and place your hands on the wheel."
"But, my dear fellow–"
"Or you could take your chances with the hours of delightful paperwork down below."
"It seems I have no choice." Still looking at Raphael, nodding slowly, he lifted his hands and placed them on the steering-wheel.
"Oh, and close your mouth." He took one hand off the gun and – leaning over – patted Aziraphale's cheek. "You're not a bloody codfish."
Aziraphale's gapping mouth snapped shut.
"Good. Start driving."
"T-to where?"
"Mayfair. You know where. Your place."
"You're one of the good guys – you're supposed to be the nice one!" he snarled, putting his foot down on the gas and zooming forward, furiously blaring the horn at a clueless pedestrian who'd stepped out off the pavement at the wrong moment and had to throw themselves backwards to avoid getting run over.
And Raphael just kept on smiling. "You really believe that?"
For a chilling – somehow excitingly freeing – moment, Aziraphale honestly was not sure one way or the other.
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.