Interlude: Azariah

No sooner had Azariah pushed open the doors of the library than he was greeted by Sandra, leaning over the reception desk, leering at him.

"So? How was your date?" She emphasized the final word with what could only be described as glee. Azariah furrowed his brows at her severely.

"Stop." Shedding his coat, he made his way back behind the desk, hotly pursued by Sandra.

"Okay, but it was a date."

"It was not a date!" Azariah exclaimed (quietly), halting in front of the coat tree, "It was just coffee with a," he hesitated, hands paused in mid-air, before settling his coat on the hook, "…a friend."

"Right, but you don't want him to be just a friend? So it was totally a date. Or a pre-date, whatever you want to call it," Sandra folded her arms in a self-satisfied fashion, "You just don't want to be seen fraternising with a member."

"We are not fraternising," Azariah turned to face her, mirroring her folded arms, "and even if we were, there's no policy against it. I don't know what it was, alright? Maybe I did— maybe I do want there to be a date. I want to get to know him better. I just…" he trailed off helplessly, "There's something about him, Sand. I can't shake it."

"I know," Sandra smiled, genuinely this time, and reached out to squeeze Azariah's arm, "You've been hooked since he first came in the door, mysterious ginger in the dark glasses. I see how you chirk up every time he comes in! I only tease because I want it to work out, you know? I ship it."

"Whatever that means," Azariah patted her hand, then raised his eyebrows and put on a mock-serious voice. "Now back to work, eh, young lady?"

A month had passed since Crowley heard Aziraphale's laugh drifting through an open window in St. James's square. A month of searching, puzzling, agonizing, and existing in rooms that smelt of books. A month of the smell of Aziraphale, attached to a person who had no knowledge of being Aziraphale; who looked like Aziraphale, sounded like Aziraphale, laughed like Aziraphale, loved books like Aziraphale. A month of returning to his flat crushed after each day spent in the library without success, and retreating into books. Maybe Crowley thought he would find Aziraphale there somehow, he wasn't sure. Escaping into the print-on-page worlds inside their covers allowed him to detach from the fear of never finding Aziraphale again, while seeing him multiple times a week. The more time he spent in the library, the more time Crowley spent with Azariah, and it was a curious sort of pain. If Aziraphale had been a human, Azariah seemed exactly who he would be— damn it, Crowley repeatedly reminded himself, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand, is who he is! The librarian was a paradox. Was this what dramatic irony felt like from the inside? He knew something crucial about Azariah that Azariah did not, and it was scratching like a rat in his belly.

But it had been a month, and that meant Persuasion was due. Crowley had still not finished it. Plenty of other books had come and gone, but it stayed stubbornly at the bottom of the stack next to his chair. Lifting the precarious pile carefully, Crowley nudged Persuasion to the side with his knee. He picked up Persuasion and took it over to the door, setting it on the entry table there beneath his keys, so as not to forget it. It would be a shame to get a fine on the very first book he'd checked out. The copy in the Bentley's glovebox would just have to finally make its way inside. Glancing at the clock, Crowley crossed to his espresso machine and began the grinding, tamping, hissing routine of making a coffee. The library wasn't even open yet, and it wouldn't do to be hanging about outside when it did.

He watched the espresso form in the cup, first the dark, viscous body of the shots, and then the caramelly crema. Crowley had become quite the baristo over lockdown, but inevitably had always come back to pulling six mediocre shots into a cup when he actually wanted it to do something. But this morning, not for the first time in the last week or two, he cleaned the portafilter after its two shot pull. The hot water that had occupied the cup before the espresso had caused it to swirl and bloom into a long black, which Crowley now lifted and put to his lips. There was something settling about this ritual, more than simply creating a vat of caffeine. He sipped the coffee, allowing it to linger in his mouth and pass more slowly over his tongue before swallowing. Much like reading, Crowley was finding that he liked coffee more since he'd started getting it with Azariah.

They'd been to the café below the secondhand bookshop a couple more times since that first outing; once over another of the librarian's lunches, and once to get a cup to take away, as Crowley walked with Azariah to his bus stop at the end of a work day. Charlene had learned his name and his order, and greeted him in the same cheery tone as she greeted Azariah, starting on their coffees before they'd even made it across the room to her. Was this what it felt like to be a regular somewhere? The library was different; he was on a mission when he was there. But even though he'd only been to the coffeeshop a few times, Crowley felt like he'd been absorbed into it somehow. He did suspect Azariah had had a word with Charlene though; the second time they'd sat down over a lunch break, the cake had appeared with only one fork.

Crowley drained his coffee. Glancing at a small monitor on the kitchen windowsill as he rinsed his cup, he sucked the breath in through his teeth sharply. The monitor was connected to a small weather station that lived on his terrace, and it was reporting that it was cold out today. Not cold enough to justify bundling up completely, but that that awkward cold between the end of autumn and deep winter that was horrendously difficult to dress for, and would chill you to the marrow if you weren't careful. As a cold-blooded being Crowley hated the cold, but he almost preferred proper winter to this. Often he simply stopped going out much, if at all, around this time of year, but that couldn't really be avoided now. Departing the kitchen, he pulled on first his black turtleneck, then the black jacket with its tartan under-collar, stuffing a pair of thin gloves into one pocket. At the door, he hesitated. There were a number of hooks screwed into the wall that he seldom used, but on one of them hung a wool scarf, of the same tartan as his collar. Aziraphale's tartan. Aziraphale's scarf.

Crowley had gotten used to the feeling of Aziraphale that permeated the jacket, even took comfort in it. But the scarf reminded him to so many more things, as his hand hung in the air above it: being dragged the Hyde Park by the angel for Winter Wonderland, and discovering that among all its absurdities it had alcoholic hot chocolate. The ringing of sleigh bells at the door of the bookshop, and Aziraphale bursting in, red-cheeked and grinning, arms full of gifts for his fellow Whickber street merchants. Pulling Aziraphale back from a kerb by the ends of the scarf before he stepped into the street and the path of an oncoming car, having become distracted by the Christmas lights above. Shivering in the queue for something festive or other as snow flurried down, stomping and complaining about the cold until Aziraphale had unwound the scarf from his own neck and wrapped it around Crowley's, still warm from its contact with the angel's skin. It was this final image that guided Crowley's hand to snatch the scarf from its hook as he pulled open the door. Aziraphale would want him to be warm.

Crowley had remembered to tuck Persuasion under his arm, but forgotten his keys in the waffling over the scarf, and couldn't be bothered to go back up and get them, despite the cold. Outside, he pulled on the scarf, tucking it high up under his chin and winding it twice around his neck before folding and tucking the ends neatly beneath his lapels. He might not wear a scarf often, but he'd spent enough time with cravats over the course of his existence to know how to tie one. Gloves on, hands thrust into pockets, he set off. By the time Crowley reached Picadilly Circus, he realized that he was still going to be early somehow, and made a detour, bypassing St. James's square to cross over to the park. He wandered down a familiar path in the brilliant morning sunshine that belied the chill, and saw that the area was devoid of both spies and ducks. Apparently they were all more sensible than him, and decided to have a lie in until it warmed up a bit.

"Good morning!" Crowley flinched, and looked over to see Azariah, strolling towards him from an adjoining path. "Oh dear, I do seem to have a tendency to startle you, don't I."

You don't know the half of it, Crowley thought, but merely gave half a grin and shrugged.

"Sorry, I was somewhere else."

"This is a bit early for you, isn't it?" Azariah asked, crossing the path to join Crowley, "Oh, that's lovely," he said, indicating the tartan scarf, "Hard to find them like that anymore these days."

"Oh, yeah," Crowley touched the scarf with gloved fingertips, "I, er, inherited it. Yeah, couldn't sleep this morning for some reason, so here I am. No ducks though, shame." He had, fortunately, mentioned the ducks to Azariah previously, so this was not a completely random utterance.

"Bit cold for them, perhaps," Azariah winked, "I shouldn't like an outdoor bath at this temperature either." Crowley guffawed, and turned back the way he had come. Azariah fell into step beside him. "On your way to the library?" he asked, nodding to the book under Crowley's arm.

"Yep, gotta give this one back already. I got distracted, but I'll finish it eventually, now that I've got my own copy."

"I believe in you." Together they made their way to the library, where Sandra and a couple of other library staff were waiting, sipping teas and coffees from paper cups and exclaiming about the weather. They all nodded an exchanged greetings with Azariah and Crowley as they approached, and the librarian pulled a heavy ring of keys from his coat pocket. Crowley had never been to the library right at opening time before, and felt briefly as though he were intruding on some sort of sacred ritual. But it was opening time, after all; he wasn't here out of hours, and no one made any sort of remark on his presence other than to comment, as Azariah had, that it was quite early for seeing him. Once inside, the staff members all scattered their different ways, and Crowley handed Persuasion to Sandra to check back in. Then he, too, set off into the library— not to start up his search again, but first to find a radiator to curl up next to for a while.

He found one in Science Fiction & Fantasy, a squishy chair next to it, wedged between two bookcases facing away from each other. This did happen to be the section Crowley was currently searching, but the radiator was too attractive to pass up. He pulled a book from a shelf at random and sank into the chair, flipping it open. It was there that Azariah found him, several hours later, curled up in the chair like a cat, all crunched in on himself with one hand in his hair and the other holding the book against his knees. The librarian smiled, and knocked lightly on the closest bookshelf to get his attention. Crowley's head jerked up, and upon seeing Azariah, he waved the book at him.

"Can you believe this is a children's book?" he hissed, and Azariah tilted his head slightly to see The Hobbit on the book's cover. "Only if this Tolkien guy was trying to traumatize the kiddies." Azariah chuckled.

"I was just going to go for a walk on my break," he said, indicating the outdoors with a thumb over his shoulder, "If you'd like to come?" Crowley glanced out the window above the radiator. It was still sunny outside. It was still sunny out there, but the daystar was not to be trusted when it came to matters of warmth. Still, it ought to be more bearable by now, so as loathe as he was to leave his radiator, he nodded and pushed himself up out of the chair.

"Yeah, sure."

It hadn't warmed up enough to ditch the scarf and gloves, but the temperature had eased enough that Crowley walked more freely as they left St. James's square, and headed back towards the park. His hands were still in his pockets, but in his usual lounging, sauntering fashion, not hunched up against the cold. And as they walked and talk, even the hands withdrew from his pockets, allowing his arms to swing and gesture animatedly with the conversation. Azariah laughed and bantered back at Crowley, and when they reached the part of the pond where they'd met that morning, he threw an arm out suddenly.

"Look!" The ducks were back, and together they practically skipped to the grassy verge. Crowley began to reach into his pocket, but Azariah beat him to it, pulling a packet of freeze-dried peas from somewhere in his coat. Delighted, Crowley took a handful and scattered them to the ducks, who fell upon the food with a cacophony of quacking and flapping. After a few moments of feeding the ducks, laughing at their antics, and making fun of the especially silly looking ones, they turned back towards the path, and Crowley retreated automatically to his usual bench. Azariah followed, and sat down beside him.

It took a moment for Crowley to realize what had happened. So many times he had sat on this very bench in this very posture: one leg bent, one leg stretched out; on arm resting on the bench's, the other stretched along its back, with Aziraphale seated on the other side, in a much more dignified fashion. It wasn't a large bench, so that even when they were all the way at opposite sides it was still companionable. But now, Azariah sat closer, within the reach of Crowley's outstretched arm, warm and alive and looking so like Aziraphale that Crowley thought his heart would break. At the same time, though, it seemed to swell, and a rush of confusion filled him. Crowley realized he had been staring, and looked away abruptly. To cover himself, he pulled the sunglasses from his face and busied himself wiping the lenses on the bottom of the turtleneck poking out from beneath his jacket.

"Anthony, I—" Crowley looked up sharply, meeting Azariah's earnest blue eyes from close range. Closer than they had been a moment ago. The librarian paused. "Is it alright?" he asked, "If I call you Anthony? I know you said—"

"Yes," Crowley said, the word a simple exhalation he didn't have to consider. He never went by Anthony, not ever, it was just a name he'd picked for convenience, but something felt right when Azariah said it. The librarian began to move, and a fraction of a second later Crowley found himself mirroring the motion without thinking; his eyes closed, he leaned in, feeling the warmth of Azariah's breath on his face—

"No!" Azariah's nose had just grazed Crowley's cheekbone when he leapt up, staggering away from bench, fisting his hands in his scarlet hair. "No, no, I can't—" Crowley's eyes were screwed tight shut, but he could not block out the images that flooded his mind: Aziraphale, crying out that he needed him; Aziraphale, begging him to come to Heaven; Aziraphale, turning away so as not to cry; Aziraphale's lips pressed against his own as he clung desperately to the angel, putting everything he had into the gesture of need, fear, and love. Aziraphale's hands on his waist, his back, first trembling, then firm. Aziraphale, hesitating, then mouthing the dreadful words, I forgive you.

"I can't—" Crowley repeated, turning wretchedly back to the bench to see Azariah, hands in his lap, looking down at them with an expression of hurt that sent a pang through Crowley, pulling him out of the onslaught of his own memories. He fiddled with his glasses, then shoved them back on. Taking a deep breath, he crossed back to the bench. "Listen, Azariah, Azi—" Crowley sank down next to him. "I—" he wanted to tell the truth, Lords above and below he had never wanted to tell the truth about anything more, but there was no way. He did the best he could. "I lost someone, not all that long ago," Crowley said slowly, choosing his words with care. "And it's been really difficult. We'd been… together a long time, and now he's gone. It's taken me a long time to— to come back from that, and I just— I can't—" Something was blocking Crowley's throat. He swallowed hard, but it did nothing to dislodge the lump that had formed there. Azariah reached out, and took his hand.

"You don't have to explain." He squeezed Crowley's hand on the bench, and looked up at him again at last. "I understand."

"You do?"

"Yes," Azariah glanced down at their hands, then back up. "Something similar happened to me. It's hard to think about, even, almost like there's some kind of wall in my head." His eyes took on a hint of confusion. The breath froze in Crowley's chest. But then the look cleared, and the corners of Azariah's eyes crinkled as he smiled slightly. "So I get it. I do."

Azariah might have been confident in his understanding, but Crowley's panic level was rising at an alarming rate. He felt dizzy, and the need to move, to get away from this situation, to hide, to do something was becoming overwhelming. He jumped up again.

"I'll see you—" reining in his impulse with all the fortitude he could muster, Crowley put himself back on the bench again. He let his hand drop onto Azariah's and his glasses slide down just enough that he could look over them into the librarian's eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay." Azariah said, softly. With a brief squeeze of his hand, Crowley hurried away.