Work Text:
Anathema walk into the shop with Newt in tow, “Good morning, Mr. Crowley. Good day Adam.” She smiled at each of her coworkers warmly, “hope we’re not terribly late.”
The lot worked at a perfume shop in Soho. Newt, Anathema, and Aziraphale worked as clerks while Anathema was the welcoming lady. Adam worked as the delivery boy, as he was still a teenager and unqualified to be considered for the position of clerk. Crowley has recently taken over as the owner of the establishment, as the previous owner, Shadwell, had fallen ill and left the shop to Crowley while he recovered.
Crowley smiles at the two and welcomed them into the shop, “oh no, in fact you’re just on time... Aziraphale however, now he’s late.” Crowley sat down on one of the display cases and waited to see if anyone knew of the man’s whereabouts.
“Oh, did he not call?” Newt asked dumbly. Crowley only quirked an eyebrow at this. “We visited to bring him some breakfast, he’s not feeling well and decided to take sick today.” He answered quietly before taking Anathema’s jacket to the break room.
“A sick day you say?”
“Yes, I’m not quite sure what he’s got... but if he’s staying home because of it, it must be serious.” He answered matter of factly before disappearing into the back room of the parfumerie, not paying any attention to his boss suddenly walking out of the shop with his coat in hand.
“Do you think we ought to go after him?” Adam asked as Crowley left.
“Better not, he seems set in what he’s doing. Open up and start the day without him is what I think we should do.” Anathema answered as she pulled open the curtains and made sure that everything was in order before they opened the doors to the shop.
~~~~~~~~
Crowley entered the apartment complex near the library and walked inside. He phoned Aziraphale’s apartment to be met with the voice of Aziraphale’s older brother, Gabriel. “Who is it?” He asked, seemingly annoyed.
“It’s Crowley, I run the parfumerie, may i see Aziraphale?” He polity responded. He heard a buzz and the door was unlocked.
Gabriel sat at a dinning table with a cup of tea in his hands, “don’t be long, he’s moping.” Crowley ignores him as he nears his coworker... employee? Crowley still wasn’t quite sure in the current situation, Aziraphale’s door and rapped upon it.
He heard shuffling behind the door and it was cracked open, “Oh, Mr Crowley” and the door was swiftly shut in his face.
Crowley opened the door for himself and entered Aziraphale’s room. He set down the paper bag that he had picked up on his way to the apartment, and walked to the man wrapped in blankets on the bed before him.
“Why are you here?”
“I- well I know that you’re sick, so I-“
Aziraphale shot up at that, “how would you know that I’m sick?”
“Newton told me, I decided that I should probably come to... check up on you!” Crowley finished his statement, nervousness to what reaction would come from the man before him.
“Oh I see, you wanted to see if i was reeeeally sick or if I was faking to get out of work!” Aziraphale came to his own conclusion as he pointed an accusatory finger in Crowley’s direction.
Crowley stood and sputtered, trying to find the words to disprove Aziraphale’s accusation. He was shocked when the man stood upon his bed and declared, “You want to know so you can go back to the shop and make a fool of me!” He jumped down and rushed towards the door, “well I assure you, I will not be taken for a fool!” He turned around and started rushing to find his work clothes while muttering to himself.
“Why would I ever-“ Crowley was once again interrupted.
“Do help me find my shoe, won’t you? I’ve only the one at the moment and I cannot possibly go to work and without the other.” He frantically searched the room for his missing shoe, hopping from place to place in search of the lost garment.
After a minute of searching, he was still unsuccessful. Crowley attempted to calm his french by reassuring that he wasn’t required to work that day. That did very little to comfort the frantic man.
Crowley found out very soon that “sick” was not truly the word he would use to describe Aziraphale’s current state of mind. No, something much more suitable would be “emotionally exhausted”. He discovered this when he realised that as Aziraphale grew more and more frustrated in his inability to find his missing shoe, tears of frustration and irrational anger began to spill from his eyes.
“You really must go to bed dear, you won’t be any help at the shop if you’re like this. With that said, the blond man began to openly weep into his pillow. Crowley stood in shock as Aziraphale began to pick himself up and wipe his eyes free of tears.
“This must seem so silly to you...do you remember last night?” Aziraphale asked softly. Crowley nodded his head, hanging onto every word that came from the blond man’s mouth. “Well, ‘dear friend’ never showed up...” Crowley’s heart dropped to his stomach at that sentence, “I waited until the cafe closed and still he didn’t come...” he sniffled pathetically and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, “he didn’t even write explaining himself...” a broken hearted sob ripped itself from Aziraphale and Crowley has to withhold himself from hugging the man before him.
Aziraphale had been involved in a “lonely hearts club” trade off. He wrote letters to anonymous lover who he had never seen, heard, or met. He didn’t even know the name of his so called “dear friend”. Crowley had discovered the previous night that he was, in fact, dear friend. Aziraphale did not know that however. The way that he would have known that dear friend was there was by a book on the dinning table with a rose signing the pages. Dear friend was supposed to wear a matching rose in his lapel to show Aziraphale that he was, in fact, dear friend. However, once Crowley realised that Crowley was dear friend, he ditched the rose and approached Aziraphale as Crowley. Aziraphale did not take the intrusion very well and the two bickered until Crowley left.
Crowley then began speaking without thinking before hand, something that had previously gotten him in trouble with Aziraphale, “Well, as a matter of fact... I- uh... I did happen to run into ‘dear friend’” he had already said it, and Aziraphale perked up at the sound of that. Well he supposed that he had to go with it now. “He followed me on my way home from our... run-in at the cafe... yes he tapped me on the shoulder... and I-well spun around and... and there was ‘dear friend’! Not at all like you had described to me... he was rather... what’s the word?” He snapped his fingers to buy himself more time to think about this imaginary man that he was making up for Aziraphale.
“Handsome?” Aziraphale offered hopefully.
Crowley nodded, “Well I suppose so, but it’s all based on the perspective you take...” Crowley winced at his choice of words. “He’s not particularly ugly, I suppose he’s simply... an acquired taste?” He stated finally.
“Anyway! He tapped me on the should and asked if I was seeing you and I assured him that... noooooo i was not seeing you, well not in that capacity, at the very least. And he told me that he was dear friend! Can you believe that! What luck I had! Oh and he uh, he assured me that he had every intention of meeting with you but uh....something came up, last minute m. So he had to leave without saying hello... buuuuut he will write very soon!” He finished his long winded story and watched Aziraphale carefully for a reaction.
He considered the story for a second before crying even harder, “he truly does care then!” He sobbed into his pillow and Crowley gave him an awkward pat on the back.
He suddenly remembered why he had come initially. He grabbed the disregarded paper bag and handed it to Aziraphale. “I got you something to make you feel better.”
Aziraphale opened it and he gave Crowley a watery smile, “you shouldn’t have...” he pulls out a carton of ice cream.
“It’s vanilla! I know that you like it, so I thought I’d bring you some to help you recover....” he faltered for a second before adding, “good friend told em that you liked vanilla best.” He smiled anxiously as the blond man opened the carton and spooned ice cream into his mouth. He was still heavily crying, but it was only silent tears at this point with a stray heavy breath here or there. For the most part though, he was calming down.
“This ice cream is oddly salty, I think it may be contaminated.” He joked as he ate another spoon full.
Crowley chuckled before retorting, “well maybe if you weren’t crying into it, it wouldn’t be so salty.” He quirked an eyebrow as Aziraphale held the carton to the side and brought the spoon to his lips from a very awkward angle.
Crowley say with him until he looked at his watch, “I really must go, Aziraphale. I’ll see you tomorrow?” He meant it as a statement, but it came out more as a question.
“Of course, tomorrow.”
“Farewell, Mr. Aziraphale”
“Good day, Mr. Crowley”
Crowley left the apartment after that and left Aziraphale to himself.
He put the carton on his night table and retrieved his pen and paper. He set out to write a letter to dear friend immediately. But as he was writing, all that came to mind was Crowley and his kind gesture of vanilla ice cream in a hard time. He smiled to himself as he wrote down the story of friends and frozen treats which would be sent to his secret admirer.
He signed the letter and shoved it in an envelope to bring to the post office later that day. He turned out the lights in his room and curled up in bed to finish his ice cream to pleasant thoughts of the blooming friendship between him and his boss.