Chapter Text
Crowley didn't read for pleasure. The idyllic pastime never captured his interest the way it had captured his angelic counterpart's. So how he came across the varied world of fanfiction was entirely by accident.
While he and Aziraphale remained somewhat at odds after the holy water incident of 1862, Crowley continued to keep tabs on the angel. After all, Crowley told himself, it was his job to monitor Heaven’s forces. He’d peek through a window at the bookshop to see Aziraphale, bespectacled and tea held in one hand, contently reading at his cluttered desk or on a stylishly tattered sofa.
On a day when he strolled by the bookshop for a peep, Aziraphale espied him.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale opened the door. “Is that you?”
“Aziraphale.” Crowley tried to act surprised, raising his eyebrows and leaning casually on the gleaming black cane he liked to carry in those days. “Aye, it’s me.”
Aziraphale’s face was alight with a wide grin. “Come in, won’t you?”
The invitation was so shocking, Crowley nearly over-leaned on the cane and fell. However, his feet seemed to carry him into the bookshop without his say-so.
The angel’s eyes shone. “What brings you by my shop?”
“Oh, this is your shop? Er, I was just walking by, really.” He caught sight of pencilled illustrations above Aziraphale’s desk, mostly of a thin human man with a pipe. Several others showed this same man with a second one, the pair often reclining in chairs or upon sofas. The second man wore a marvellous moustache. “What’s all this?”
“Oh, only the fabulous work of Sidney Paget. He illustrates those fantastic Sherlock Holmes stories. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of them?”
“Oh, I’ve been taking a lot of long naps.”
Aziraphale, with a charming alacrity, launched into an enthusiastic retelling of his favourite scenes. Despite their spat of some thirty years previous, Crowley’s heart warmed to hear the angel’s enamourment. Each tale centred around a clever detective and his steadfast doctor. Aziraphale offered to read them to Crowley, and Crowley accepted before he realised what he’d agreed to. As serial issues of The Strand arrived in Aziraphale’s hands (before they even hit the stands, as there might have been a minor miracle involved), he’d share them with Crowley, and while Aziraphale delighted in the stories, Crowley delighted in Aziraphale.
So when the great Sherlock Holmes, at the apex of his popularity, met his fictional death at the Reichenbach Falls, Crowley heard all about it.
“This can’t be happening!” Aziraphale exclaimed, clutching the latest copy of The Strand in his hands. “Crowley, this isn’t right.”
“Aziraphale, you know as well as I do that one constant on this planet is Death. It’s inevitable.”
“Yes, of course, but this is fiction. The author lives still, and this is his source of income. And you know income means a great deal to humans. You mean to tell me he’d willingly bump off his best character? He must have taken a severe cut in wages.” Aziraphale’s expression was the very picture of eternal devastation.
“It does seem strange he’d kill off such a popular character.” Crowley rubbed his chin.
Aziraphale perked up. “Do you think he might be under duress? Do you suppose someone’s locked the poor man away and forced him to write such balderdash?”
“Seems a bit extreme.”
“Could be a competitor! His cousin who writes, perhaps?”
“Don’t know the cousin. Maybe Sir Arthur Donkey just got tired of writing about the same bloody detective all the time. Probably killed him off to save himself the trouble.”
“Pish! Shame on you for suggesting such a thing. Certainly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would continue writing Sherlock Holmes if he could. What else would he write?”
“I don’t know. Dinosaurs? Always felt this world could use more dinosaur fiction.”
“Only a demon would say such a thing. I’m telling you, Crowley, I’m sorting this out. And don’t try to stop me!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” And he wouldn’t.
But, curious about the angel’s intentions, he would secretly follow Aziraphale to Upper Wimpole Street. Like many other London lanes, Upper Wimpole Street is a line of rowhouses bearing impressive limestone pediments, and corseted with wrought iron fences. It’s rather austere, with little vegetation and fewer birds. Lucky for Crowley, motorcars were becoming increasingly popular in London, and several sat parked along the kerb. He hid behind one closest to the angel.
Affecting a disinterested air, Aziraphale strolled up and down Upper Wimpole until one door opened, and a man exited one of the rowhouses. It must have been the person Aziraphale was waiting for, because he rolled his shoulders back, tipped his chin up, and approached the stranger with anticipation gleaming in his eyes.
Ah, Crowley thought. This man must be none other than the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And my, he wore a very magnificent moustache.
But the appeal ended there, especially when he whirled to face Aziraphale, shaking his cane.
“I say, are you following me?” The bristly man demanded of Aziraphale.
“Oh, I? My good sir, I apologise. I only thought you look familiar. Are you perhaps the illustrious author and progenitor of the fantastic and daring Sherlock Holmes?”
“No longer,” the man huffed, and began to walk away.
“Oh, sir! I say. I’ve just read the latest issue, and I must inquire…” Aziraphale sidled up to the man, and in a low voice, asked, “Are you under duress, sir?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you being perhaps, blackmailed, sir? Has someone,” Aziraphale whispered loudly, “‘put the squeeze’ on you?”
Doyle had the audacity to look poleaxed. “I’m not sure what you mean, but if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”
“I mean your Sherlock Holmes, sir. Why else have you killed him?”
Doyle spun about, pugnacious and angry. “That issue’s not out ‘til the morning, how did you come by—”
“Oh, I work at The Strand, sir.” Aziraphale lied, and it surprised Crowley to see how quickly and easily it came to the angel. “But I am here to save you. Tell me, my good man, who has your tongue? Who’s cowed you into a corner? Tell me, and we shall rid ourselves of this fiend so you may continue with the thrilling adventures of our beloved detective!”
Doyle, of course, was flabbergasted. Not to mention outraged. “I hate Sherlock Holmes. I killed him. I killed him because brainless idiots like you clamour for mediocre pulp! You are everything wrong with this world! Mindless ninnies with astonishingly banal taste. You wouldn’t know great literature if I shoved the prose down your throat.”
Aziraphale, stunned, stood speechless on the pavement.
Crowley seethed, but remained crouched behind the tyre of the motorcar.
“I must set my mind to greater things. My skill is beyond that of a tawdry rag, and I will henceforth write only that of which I am worthy!” With that said, Doyle turned on his heel, and set upon his path down the pavement.
Crowley crept from where he hid and joined Aziraphale. Aziraphale, with his glimmering blue eyes and down-turned mouth, didn’t even question Crowley’s presence.
“Come now, angel,” Crowley said. “He’ll get his in the end. Demons do love to torture an artist.”
Aziraphale sighed, his shoulders sagging.
In the year to follow, Aziraphale’s despondency over his interaction with his favourite author hung over him like the pall of a graveyard. It annoyed Crowley to no end, as he preferred a little light sparring with the angel. Some lively banter, a microcosmic push and pull of their two sides brought level on Earth’s playing field.
He thought on what he referred to as the ACD problem. The ACD problem was this: Humans have free will, and there’s nothing Crowley can do to subvert it. His powers as a demon lie in temptation and influence. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or ACD, was a proud man with a deep-seated hatred for his beloved creation. Crowley can normally sympathise, being he’s been an unintentional victim of his own mischievous schemes, but the man’s treatment of Aziraphale negated any sense of sympathy. The likelihood of Crowley being able to either tempt or influence the man to continue his series wasn’t high—and neither was Crowley going to beg. No. He would plan something appropriately nefarious.
He was very glad when he learned Doyle believed in spirits. It took two years—between Crowley’s naps and his days of planning demonic chaos for humanity—for Crowley to learn not only was Doyle a member of the Ghost Club at Cambridge in his youth, but his beliefs continued to that day, as evidenced by his repeated visits to a reputed medium among the literary elite.
The medium was none other than Florence Cook, celebrated for her skills in automatic writing, table turning, and levitation. Of course, Ms Cook was a charlatan, but Crowley could appreciate an able conwoman. Doyle seemed enamoured with Ms Cook, despite his avid flirtations with Jean Leckie and his then-marriage to Louisa Hawkins. Crowley assumed it was the marvellous moustache that attracted so many of the so-called ‘fairer sex.’
This discovery of Doyle’s Spiritualist tendencies jump-started Crowley’s plan. He miracled up a shop right along Doyle’s walkway and adorned himself in a fashionable silk taffeta gown with a 6-panel skirt and very fine guipure lace ornaments. A fetching, flower-encrusted hairpin held his soft, red locks in a stylish updo. Around his neck went several necklaces, and bangles along his arm tinkled as he moved. He was the picture of loveliness.
Then he waited.
When Doyle went next on his walk, it quite surprised him to see Crowley’s shop. Painted gold lettering on the window proclaimed: “Madame Crowley’s.” Beneath, it said: “Seeking advice? Ask those who have lived full lives: The Dead.”
Well, Doyle couldn’t very well keep walking. He had to find out more about this sudden, strange little place. When he went through the door, Crowley put on what he thought passed for a winning smile, and welcomed him.
“Ah, good sir, pleasssse do come in, ssit down.” Crowley was alight with anticipation. “Do you ssseek advice? Are the dayss of humanity winding to a close while you sseek your purpossse?”
“Er, well, my good madam—”
“Madame Crowley, if you pleasse,” Crowley said as he batted his eyes, though Doyle wouldn’t see beneath the dark glasses. “Sit. Sit. I shall call upon the spiritsss and help you find the guidance you sseek.” Crowley sat across from Doyle and set his chin in his hands. “My, what a moustache. It mussst dazzle the ladiess. And the men.”
Doyle’s face reddened.
“Now, I musst tell you, I am the real thing, Ssir Arthur.”
“You know me?”
“I know everybody.” Crowley got down to business, half-dropping his disguise. “Eventually. Now, I do not use wires, I have no children hiding under my tables, and when I call upon the dead, the dead do listen.” It was true. Crowley can speak to the living or the dead, because, well, he’s a demon. “So you listen, and you listen well. Whatever words are spoken here are the truest you shall ever hear in your life, and if you do not heed them, Sir Arthur, then you’ll find yourself harried by the worst of demons.”
Doyle’s eyebrows raised, and his moustache trembled. “I daresay, Madame, there’s no need for threats.”
“We shall see.” Crowley grinned. It was terrible. Before Doyle could shrink away, Crowley snatched his hands. “Now, let’s see if I got this right.” Crowley rolled his head about his shoulders, and he intoned some words in Latin, though what he said was i similis uvae, which simply means “I would like some grapes.” Doyle, who could speak a bit of Latin, was about to inquire when Crowley went rigid, sitting tall in his seat, his fingers a vise grip on Doyle’s hands.
“I foressssee a dark future indeed,” Crowley hissed. “You create. Your sole purpose in life is to create.”
Doyle leaned forwards, eager to listen now. “Yes. Yes, it is! Writing is my greatest effort in life, my supreme privilege.”
“Yesss, it is a privilege. A privilege you’ve spurned and thrown away!”
Doyle reeled. “What? What say you?”
“Your greatest work has already passed you by, and at the height of its popularity, you dumped it down the rapids of the Reichenbach Falls.”
“You speak of Sherlock Holmes? It is insipid, prosaic! Hardly worthy of great literature! Certainly, I can do better!” Doyle cried.
Crowley pulled to his mind the image of his broken-hearted Aziraphale, dog-browed and beaten. Anger boiled beneath his skin, and his demonic power flamed in his eyes. He released one of Doyle’s hands to remove his glasses, showing him the golden irises now burning like the sun around his slitted pupils. His hair fell away from the posh ‘do, and writhed around his face like hellish snakes.
Doyle recoiled as far as he could.
“No,” Crowley said through clenched teeth. “You can’t do better. We will define your whole life in all the centuries to come by this work, the stories of Sherlock Holmesss. If you don’t wish to live in obscurity, you will revive him, and you will continue to write about him. Do you undersstand, Sssir Arthur Conan Doyle?”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not an easily frightened man, but he was mostly sensible. And faced with this creature, he could hardly say no. He trembled before Crowley’s horrifying visage. “I understand.”
“I’m glad we have an accord.” The flames receded from Crowley’s eyes and his hair coiled back on his head, inert and seemingly harmless. “Though you might consider some dinosaur fiction—not nearly enough, I say. Be on your way, won’t you? And don’t bother with Florence Cook. That old bat’s a crook.” He placed his glasses on his face and swept up from his chair, opening the shop door for Doyle.
“Er, y-y-es, thank you.” Doyle’s legs shook like fish jelly. “I’m much obliged to you, Madame—”
“Yes, yes, yes, now get out. Go. I’ve things to do.” Crowley urged the man out and slammed the door shut. He really had things to do, people to tempt, a certain Vladimir Lenin to introduce to a certain Leon Trotsky, and some dormice to release from Walter Rothschild’s home collection.
In the years to follow, the popularity of Sherlock Holmes skyrocketed. More importantly, Aziraphale was effervescent in his happiness upon the return of the intrepid detective. He read the stories to Crowley, and Crowley had to admit they were good. Crowley also got a good chuckle over Doyle’s publication of The Lost World (“Finally, some dinosaur fiction!”), and his later treatises on the “truths” of psychical phenomenon.
Crowley considered it a job well done. It was with genuine pleasure that he watched film adaptations of the books as they came into being, along with television series, a perennial favourite of his being the Granada Television broadcast. With no intention of ever doing so, Crowley became an avid fan of the detective and his doctor.
Then, the business with the antichrist child came about, and Crowley found himself partnered with Aziraphale to prevent the coming war.
It wasn’t until after that business finished that he finally watched the BBC Sherlock TV series. And Crowley found himself...flummoxed. While the show was exciting, the storyline left a lot to be desired. It was as if the creators themselves disliked Sherlock Holmes as much as Doyle did. (And still does, for that matter. The man is still cursing himself for ever writing the stories, so much so the demons don’t even bother to torture him. They just leave him in a locked room with a typewriter, and he spends his time alternately muttering or staring at the typewriter in abject, pitiable silence.)
Crowley couldn’t understand why the usual dynamic between Holmes and Watson was so misunderstood, so he researched the two showrunners behind the BBC creation. And that, that, my dear readers, is when he discovered the world of fanfiction. Enthusiastic fans of nearly every recent Sherlock Holmes adaptation poured whatever they could of their hearts and minds into the works, and many of them demonstrated such insight into the pairing that Crowley found himself penned up in his flat for weeks reading. He emerged for his usual tea with Aziraphale, but even then he found himself distracted.
And so, the previous 2,757 words of this story bring us to the present. Post-stopping-the-apocalypse-and-saving-the-world (and pre-season-two of a popular TV series borne of the minds of madmen), and Crowley is doing something no other angel nor demon has ever done before. He’s considering writing fanfiction.
“I...I could write this,” Crowley says aloud, his plants quiet and grateful for Crowley’s recent obsession—he spends a lot less time looking for their imperfections when he reads fanfiction. “I don’t have to harass the creators of a story—I can write my own version!” The realisation nearly knocks him over, and he has to sit in his chair.
But where to begin? It isn’t as if demons ever sat around and wrote...anything. This leads Crowley to a google search of the phrase, “writing advice.” One thing he sees mentioned time and time again is: “Write what you know.”
So, Crowley writes. He writes a Sherlock Holmes and John Watson story set in an alternate universe, where the detective must solve the case of...finding the antichrist and preventing the apocalypse. He brings life into the characters and the setting. Crowley creates.
Crowley sits in a small cafe, dressed in his customary black. He keeps his hair under a black beanie, and a blue scarf wrapped around his neck—customary coffee shop writer wear. His laptop sits open on the tiny table, a cup of cappuccino at his elbow. The baristas swear they see him drink from it, but he’s never in need of a refill.
He’s bent over his laptop, absorbed in a tricky bit of casefic for his story, when a familiar voice drags his attention to the counter.
“Cream on top of jam? For a scone? Where were you raised?” Aziraphale’s astonishment ripples through the air. “Jam is lighter weight than clotted cream, of course it goes on top. This simply won’t do!”
Crowley can’t help his smile, and says, without thinking: “Quit your fussing, angel. Just grab your scone and let the poor girl alone.”
The ‘poor girl’ is a woman of forty-three years, and she’s about one word away from tossing the scone at Aziraphale. She scowls at both of them and turns to the next customer.
Aziraphale, meanwhile, sends Crowley the softest, most glorious smile, the type of smile only an angel can achieve, one that’s heart-striking and heart-melting all at once. It’s so bright it’s as if he’s overexposed. He seems absolutely delighted to see Crowley, and it’s been like that since they saved the world together. Crowley goes weak-kneed, just a little, every time he sees it. He can’t claim the cold distance of a demon any longer. In fact, these days he’s feeling a little less devilish and a little more…human.
And he dares say it’s much the same for Aziraphale, who is a little more human, and a little less…ethereal. Something’s shifted between them, though Crowley can’t say what it is for sure. Aziraphale looks at him like that every time they see each other now, and Crowley can’t make heads nor tails of it.
(I could tell you what it is, but I wager you may have your own human inkling, haven’t you?)
“Crowley!” Aziraphale hurries to his table, scone forgotten on the counter. “What are you doing here? And what are you doing?” His eyes cast over Crowley’s clothing and the laptop. He leans closer and stage-whispers, “Are you incognito?”
“Uh, what? No. No.” Crowley shakes his head, though he has no idea how to explain. Shyness overcomes him, a dollop of self-conscious embarrassment, which is a foreign feeling to Crowley. What is he doing? He deflects. “And what do you mean, jam must always go on top? What if the cream is lighter than the jam?”
Aziraphale looks properly offended. “What kind of cream are you putting on your scones?”
“What if I use squirty cream?”
Aziraphale drops into the opposite chair, a hand pressed over his heart. “Crowley. Please tell me you haven’t.”
Crowley gives a little shrug of his shoulders and is about to respond when the woman at the counter catches his attention with her frantic waving. She indicates the plate with the scone at the counter.
Crowley gets the message: Get the scone, and don’t send Aziraphale over to do it.
“Seems this place agrees with me about jam placement, anyway.” He fixes his scarf.
“I heard this place serves excellent scones, but if this is their practice, then I’m not certain they could possibly—where are you going?”
Crowley has swung his legs out from under the table, and he strides over to the counter to retrieve Aziraphale’s scone. When he turns, it’s to his horror that Aziraphale has the laptop.
Heat rising to his ears, he delivers the scone to the table, places it at Aziraphale’s elbow, and then perches on his chair with every crumb of dignity he might scrape from the linoleum floor.
“Crowley.” Awe imbues Aziraphale's voice. “Are you writing a Sherlock Holmes story?”
Damn. “Uh. Well. So what if I am?”
“Can you just do that?” His friend’s eyes are wide with consternation. Panicked, almost.
Crowley gives a one-shouldered shrug.
“I’m doing it, aren’t I?”
“Crowley, I had no idea—why didn’t you say so sooner?”
Crowley can think of nothing to say. No reason, aside from his own ego and pride. He changes the subject. “Do you remember when Doyle killed him off?
“Oh, what a sad day that was. I was positively bereft. Shocked.” Aziraphale scrolls down on the screen, and Crowley’s fingers squeeze together with nerves. “Could you believe it was all a trick?” Aziraphale prattles on, oblivious. “To think the man capable of such deceit.”
“He put it right in the end.”
“Suppose that’s what matters. Come now, Crowley, you must let me read it! Please! You know it’s my favourite.”
“Uh, I…” Crowley grits his teeth. It’s not that he's ashamed of having written Sherlock fanfiction. Crowley does as he pleases, and it pleases him to write. And it’s not even so much that he’d written a story resembling their recent adventure against both the forces of Heaven and Hell. No. That’s all fine. The problem is this. Crowley had noted during his foray into fanfiction that readers craved intimacy between the leading characters. It worked fans into a frenzy over the internet. Compelled them to produce artwork of both an innocent and salacious nature, spurred them into creating playlists and video edits and crocheted dolls and illustrated stickers and all manner of paraphernalia hailing the amorous interpretation of the detective and his doctor. With that in mind, he inserted Sherlock Holmes into Crowley’s role as the demon, and John Watson into Aziraphale’s role as the angel. And further…
Crowley has written a romance.
“It’s really not very good,” he tells Aziraphale.
“Fiddlesticks! I know when you put your mind to something, you do your best. I’ve seen your houseplants. The healthiest and most lush to grace this earth.”
Crowley can’t help but preen at the praise. His plants are worthy. Usually.
But writing is different. There’s no putting the fear of God into writing. Only a discipline to sit down, write, rewrite, and write some more. Possibly stare and scream into a void. (The Boötes void works for Crowley.) Write again.
“Aziraphale—”
“Please, Crowley.” And how can Crowley deny his angel anything? Especially with those sad blue eyes, and the little pout of his pink lips?
Crowley pulls his gaze away from the angel’s pleading face. “Oh fine. You can read it.”
“Oh, excellent!” Aziraphale takes a nibble of his scone and leans back in his chair, his spectacles appearing on his face without his moving to place them there.
Crowley exhales gustily. “Do you seriously mean to read it here? Now?”
Aziraphale gives him a perturbed look. “When did you mean for me to read it?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Well, call me an eager beaver. I didn’t figure you for modesty. I daresay Crowley, the pink on your cheeks makes you look radiant! I’ll take the laptop with me, then? And report back once I’ve read it.”
Sweat, actual sweat, prickles across the nape of Crowley’s neck. His heart pounds like a moth bashing its exoskeleton against a lamp. Suddenly, the cappuccino doesn’t seem fortifying enough. He flicks his fingers over the rim, miracling himself some gin. “Yeah. Sure. That would be…swell.”
Aziraphale sticks the scone in his mouth, tucks the laptop beneath his elbow, and picks up his cup of cocoa. The ceramic mug changes into a to-go cup.
Crowley watches as Aziraphale heads for the door and then out, the laptop pressed between his arm and his side.
“Sir, you can’t leave with one of our…cups.” The barista stares in astonishment at the paper cup now in Aziraphale’s hand as he salutes them from the other side of the screen door, his face lit with a brazen smile.
“I could’ve sworn…,” she mutters to one of the other baristas behind the counter.
Resignedly, Crowley clutches his head with both hands and lets his brow hit the table.