Re-emerging Into the Realm of Fanfic

[596spark]

This was for the Ficathon Walks Into A Bar, and it's actually the first fanfiction that I've written and posted anywhere in about three years.  Eek!

Title: At The Bookshop
Prompt: Crowley walks into a bar (well, a bookshop, in my case) and meets Willow (Good Omens/BtVS crossover)
Pairings: Crowley/Willow-ish, but not really.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2318

            The book was a collection of Enochian prophecies, written long before humans had walked the earth, and foretelling events that would happen long after humanity left.  Aziraphale had stumbled across it during the eleventh century, and since then it had remained safely locked away in whatever hole-in-the-wall he lived in at the time.  Currently, it rested on an inconspicuous bookshelf in the back corner of A. Fell’s Rare Books (since 6000 BC).  He didn’t think about it much - the prophecies were all nonsense, but the book was old and rare and he refused to get rid of it on principle.

            Outside the wind brought with it the promise of rain and a couple walked towards Aziraphale’s bookshop.  A young woman and an older man, obviously tourists, and obviously lost.  Aziraphale sympathized with them, and made a decision to give them directions should they ask, but otherwise be as unwelcoming as he could; he couldn’t have them stopping in and buying anything, after all.

            He turned his back to the door, waiting to hear it open.  When nothing happened, Aziraphale turned around in time to see his bookshelves and all his precious books blown apart.

*

            Crowley glared at the gray clouds that hung heavily in the London sky.  He had just washed the Bentley and it was not going to rain today.  He focused all of his powers on keeping the water inside of the clouds, at least until he got his car somewhere safe.  He relaxed as a single ray of sun filtered through, followed immediately by a flash of lighting, a roar of thunder, and a downpour of rain that Niagra Falls would have envied.  People on the street put newspapers over their heads and ran for cover in doorways.  Crowley hit the accelerator and sped down Oxford Street at well over a hundred miles per hour, driving towards Aziraphale’s shop.  There was no way that Crowley was driving across town in this weather just for one wayward nun.  In this sort of weather, Crowley liked to drink.

            When he arrived at the bookshop, however, Crowley’s mood worsened when he found his usual parking spot occupied by a small red convertible that screamed mid-life crisis.  Crowley created a new spot beside it, of course, but he made a point of glaring at the red car as though it personally were to blame for his misfortune.  A small dent appeared on the shining red door, and Crowley felt like he had won.

            “Tell me, angel,” Crowley said over the gentle tinkling of the shop’s door, “has Heaven started a new campaign against me?”

            No answer.

            “Aziraphale?”

            Crowley took a step further into the shop and something crunched beneath his feet.  He looked down.  It was broken glass.

            The shop was a mess now that Crowley looked at it.  Broken glass and torn-out pages littered the floor, the books that were usually so neatly stacked and precisely organized lay in haphazard piles, pictures had come off the walls and shelves had been overturned, and, worst of all, perhaps, was that the angel was nowhere to be seen.

            “Aziraphale!” Crowley said again, a bit louder.  He stepped over a fallen table and noticed that what had once been a collection of tales about a second-century apocalypse was now a book of blank pages.

            “Aziraphale’s gone out.”

            A red-haired girl with an American accent popped up from behind the counter.  Crowley jumped and nearly knocked over Aziraphale’s stone statue of an angel that served as a paperweight.

            “Can I help you with something?” the girl asked pleasantly.  Before the girl could stop him, Crowley rounded the counter and pinned her against the wall.

            “Who are you?” he demanded.  “Where’s Aziraphale?”

            She patted the hand that held her shoulder and Crowley lowered it against his will.

            “I’m Willow,” the girl said.  “I agreed to look after the shop while Aziraphale went out.”

            That was complete bullshit, Crowley knew.  Azirphale wouldn’t even let Anathema look after the shop, much less some strange American he found on the street.

            “And you thought it’d be fun to destroy it while you were looking after it?” asked Crowley sarcastically.

            Her eyes went wide and apologetic.

            “Well, you know… can’t make an omelet without destroying a few bookstores.”

            Crowley pushed her against the wall again.

            “Where’s Aziraphale?” he demanded.

            “I don’t know!” Willow said.  She looked uncertainly off to the side.  “He just disappeared.”

            “Disappeared?” Crowley repeated, and laughed.  “Disappeared?  Did you discorporate him?”

            “I don’t know what that means,” she said quickly, sounding afraid.  “We didn’t hurt him, though!”

            “We?” Crowley repeated.  As if on cue, a man stepped out of the back room, his arms laden with books.

            “Willow, I found the book now let’s -- oh.  Hello.”

            Crowley disliked the man immediately.  For one thing, he wore tweed.  For another, he was stealing some of Aziraphale’s most prized and dangerous occult books.  For a third, Crowley knew at once that the mid-life crisis mobile outside belong to this man and, for a fourth, instead of screaming in terror when Crowley’s sunglasses slipped, revealing his snake-like eyes, this man offered Crowley a cup of tea.

            “Would you like a cup of tea?”

            “No, I would not like a cup of tea!” Crowley snapped.  He tried to push Willow against the wall again, but found that his arms would not cooperate and only swung stupidly at his side.  “I want to see Aziraphale!  What have you done with him?”  Crowley stamped his foot like a child.

            “Well, I’ve got no idea where this Aziraphale is,” said the man, setting down his heavy burden of books.  “Willow?  Have you?”

            “No,” Willow said.  “Like I told… um, what’s your name?”

            “Crowley.”

            “Like I told Crowley, we showed up and Aziraphale disappeared.”

            “Crowley?” the man repeated.  He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt.  “Good lord, you really are.”

            Crowely couldn’t suppress a smile.

            “You’ve heard of me?”

            “I wrote a paper on you in college,” the man said.  He held out his hand.  “Rupert Giles.”

            Crowley didn’t touch his hand; he knew better than that.  Giles let his hand fall to his side.

            “Why don’t you sit down?” Willow suggested.  A wave of her hand and one of the overturned couches was upright.  Against his will, Crowley’s knees bent and he sat down.  The couch was hard; Aziraphale bought it expressly for the purpose of keeping his customers from getting too comfortable.  Willow folded one leg beneath her and sat beside him.  Giles disappeared into the mess and Crowley found that he was helpless to follow or stop him.

            “So, you and Aziraphale are friends, huh?” she said.  Crowley glared at her for daring to be friendly.

            “I’ll just take that as a yes.  And, being his friend, you know a lot about the books that he keeps in his shop?”

            “Nothing that I’m willing to share with you,” Crowley said.  Willow pursed her lips.

            “But if it was for something really important…”

            “Is it an Apocalypse?” he asked.  Her eyes lit up.

            “Yeah!”

            Crowley frowned.  He had not been expecting that.

            “It’s the Apocalypse?” he said slowly.  Willow nodded.

            “It is!  Maybe the real one, too!”

            Crowley rolled his eyes.  This wasn’t an apocalypse.  This was a religious nutjob with too much time on her hands.

            “I suppose you’re looking for Adam, then?” he said, trying to throw her off.  Willow looked confused, but Giles popped up behind the couch.

            “Adam?” he said, and Crowley knew that he’d said too much.  The old man was working it out, putting the pieces together.  If he got that book translated…

            “Adam Murray,” he said smoothly.  “Local occult expert?  Always talking about apocalypses and whatnot.  Right up your alley.”

            Giles frowned.

            “No, I’m afraid that it isn’t.”  He looked at the books and then at Crowley.  “Why are you here?”

            “Because I wanted to see Aziraphale.”

            “Ah.”  Giles considered this for a moment, and then looked at Willow.  “He’s going to try and stop us from leaving, Willow.  Make sure that he doesn’t.”

            “Okie-dokie.”

            Giles disappeared again.

            Crowley began to say that they couldn’t hold him there against his will, that he was more powerful than the both of them, and that he could corrupt them both so badly they’d be serving time in all nine circles at once.  But, before he could say any of this, Willow lunged at him.

            She pressed her body against him, her lips against his, her tongue forcing its way into his mouth.  She gasped when she realized that his own tongue was far more like that of a snake than of a human.

            “Demon,” he reminded her, trying to push her away.  But Willow had maneuvered herself so that she was straddling him, and Crowley could almost feel the magic coming from her that kept him from getting off of the couch.  Her hands held his face against hers, and he realized that he no longer wanted to push her away, or argue with her.  In fact, he was perfectly fine where he was.

            Images flashed unwarranted through his mind - himself and Aziraphale throughout the centuries, Adam and his family in Lower Tadfield, Hastur and Ligur in Hell, even forgotten things, like talking to a group of lower demons outside the gates of Eden in a language that would only exist for the original occupants of Heaven and Hell --

            Crowley realized what she was doing and with an amazing force of will threw her off of his lap.  Willow hit one of the few bookshelves that was still upright and it toppled down on top of her.  She pushed it off as though it were nothing and got to her feet.  If Crowley had been able to get off of the couch, he would have run.  Her eyes were black and something about her was… more than dark, more than dangerous.  More than enough to scare a demon who had been around long enough to see the very worst of humanity.

            This girl wasn’t human.

            “Idiot,” she said, rejoining him on the couch.  She put her mouth against his ear.  “You need to pay attention, Crowley.  You and I are on the same side.”

            She stood up.  Her eyes weren’t black and she looked like the same girl who had just stopped in to rob a bookstore.  Crowley gaped at her.

            “Wh-what are you doing?” he asked, struggling to free himself from her magic.

            “Gathering intel,” she said.  She picked up another of Aziraphale’s ancient texts.  Earlier it had been blank, now the pages overflowed with flowery, medieval writing.  Willow tucked it under her arm.  “Thanks for the help.”

            She headed towards the door.

            “Witch!” Crowley roared after her, tugging at his bonds.  “Get back here and let me go!”

            Willow ignored him and stepped lightly onto the wet street.  The rain had stopped and the sun shined through the clouds.

            “I hope you’re happy,” he heard her say to Giles as they climbed into his convertible.  “I had to kiss a boy!”  Giles chuckled and the engine roared as the car peeled away.  Crowley kicked out one leg and sent a book spinning across the floor and into a wall.

            He had two options: he could wait for Aziraphale to return, if Aziraphale did return; or he could discorporate himself and hope for the best when Hell assigned him a new body.  Neither option was particularly appealing.

            “Bloody stupid angel,” Crowley growled, twisting around, trying to free himself from the invisible bindings.  “Trusting anyone who walks past his shop…”

            “In my defense, Crowley, they did attack while my back was turned.”

            Crowley froze.

            “Aziraphale?” he said carefully, cautiously.  “Where are you?”

            “Here, unfortunately,” said Aziraphale, sounding wretched.  Crowley looked around and noticed the usually blank eyes of an angel statue of Aziraphale’s desk were glowing.

            “You got discorporated?” Crowley asked.  The statue sighed.

            “I’m afraid so.  It was exciting, really.  That charming young lady burst in here, all possessed, blew out all of the electricity and threw me right out of my body.”  Crowley could have sworn that the statue’s look grew more severe.  “Then she… she did something to the books.”

            “Do you know which one they were looking for?” Crowley asked.

            “A book of fourteenth century Enochian prophecies.”

            “Angel, if they somehow manage to translate that book --”

            “Yes, I know,” Aziraphale sighed.  “But there must be a reason that they want it.”

            Crowley thought back to something Willow had said.

            “A book of Prophecies?”

            “Yes,” said the statue.

            “Prophecies about things like Armageddon?”

            “Theoretically, I suppose that -- wait a moment, Crowley, what are you thinking?”

            Crowley didn’t answer.  He focused his mind entirely on standing up, but found that he couldn’t.

            “Say, Aziraphale?”

            “Yes?”

            “Can you travel in your condition?”

            “I suppose I could.  Why?  Where do I need to go?”

            “Anathema,” Crowley said.  “Or someone who can break the witch’s spell that’s holding me here.”

            Aziraphale began to laugh.

            “This isn’t funny, angel!”

            “You can’t break the spell yourself?”

            “No!”

            If the statue could have, Crowley felt sure that it would have given him a kind but patronizing look.  The light of its eyes brightened and then faded noticeably.  Crowley stood up.

            “Aziraphale?” he said.  “You all right?”

            He rubbed his wrists and walked to the counter.

            “I believe they’re calling me back to Heaven,” said Aziraphale, as though he were merely noting that the rain had stopped.  “Crowley, do try and prevent Armageddon, won’t you?”

            Crowley began to say that of course he would, when the light from the statue flicked out and Crowley’s demonic senses told him to get out of the bookshop before Heaven did something Heavenly and smote the hell out the place.

            Crowley got in the Bentley and drove towards the airport.  He didn’t look back to see that the bookshop no longer stood.

Comments

[kate]

Oh, this was delightful. What a great take on the prompt. I've only read the very opening of Good Omens (I know, I know! /o\) but it is very easy to see everyone in this just perfectly.

[596spark]

Thanks so much! I was absolutely terrified about posting this, so it's very nice to know that someone enjoyed it!