Archive of Our Own ^beta

Presenting:

Richard O'Connell, a man on a mission

Aziraphale, ostensibly a bookseller

Crowley, something of a Deus ex Machina

The Doctor, temporarily present

The Complete  Works of Shakespeare, as the Complete  Works of Shakespeare

Tickets to Hamilton, the 12^th hour savers of the day

Honourable mention to

Richard O'Connell's wife, who exists

It was a hot, humid July afternoon. The birds were tweeting, the air was filled with the sounds of traffic[1], and Richard O'Connell had forgotten to buy his wife a birthday present. Again[2]. This would, perhaps, be less of an issue if he hadn’t realised one hour before her birthday meal, the day before she left the country on a business trip for two weeks. If he couldn’t stump up a gift today, it would be too late. Time was not on his side.[3]

The meal was at her favourite sushi restaurant in Soho at 6pm. The time now was 5pm. If, by some miracle, a shop should happen to be open, Richard would just have to duck in and buy the most present-like thing they had on the shelves. Please god, he thought, let there be a shop with something she'll like.[4]

Many people pray, every day.[5] Some people pray for wealth, for health, for another goal in the premier league, for more of this or that. It is difficult to say how many of those prayers are answered, particularly when they so often contradict each other, but on this occasion Richard O’Connell’s hasty thought was rewarded[6] with the sight of a dusty bookshop. The shop, at first glance, was open to the public, and above the door was a sign.

A.Z. Fell and Co.

Richard noticed a small placard on the door – he assumed the shops opening hours – and turned to inspect it, but the font was too small and densely packed so he gave up. Thanking whatever higher power had shown him the shop, he shouldered his way through the door.

The bookshop was not like other bookshops Richard had been to[7]. First of all, while it appeared to be a shop selling antique books, there were several shelves packed full of glossy expensive looking children’s books. For another thing, there were no other customers. C) the shop was filled with an overwhelming smell of damp and the feeling of being unwelcome. Fourthly, the shopkeeper[8] was standing artfully at the check out area.

“Sorry,” called Richard, ducking hastily into the shop and picking up the first book to catch his eye, “were you closing?”

The shopkeeper hesitated. “No, well that is to say, ah, not exactly?”

The shopkeeper – A.Z. Fell himself? – had clearly been hoping to knock off a bit early today. Richard, considering how much time he had to get to the restaurant, decided Mr Fell would probably still be able to do so. Inspecting the book he had snatched up, he shook his head and replaced it on the shelf.

“Were you thinking of buying a book today?”

Richard jumped out of his skin[9]. Fell had silently materialised[10] at his left shoulder with a frown and a cup of cocoa.

“Yes, ah, for my wife you see – it’s her birthday,” stammered Richard. The steely glare on Fell's face did not falter one bit, and Richard mentally categorised him from “nice, albeit a bit threatening" to “wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley". Antique booksellers were all the same, he thought, only concerned with the fate of their books[11].

As Richard turned back to the shelf, he realised that Fell was still lurking behind him. Ominously looming, even. The man seemed to be hardly breathing.[12] Richard wandered to another bookcase and barely suppressed a grin when he realised he was being followed. Honestly, all he wanted to do was buy a book, it wasn’t like he was going to do something terrible to it.

It was at that moment that the shop door swung open with a dull thud.  Saved by the bell, thought Richard with some relief. He took the opportunity to scramble away from the shopkeeper.

“Now this is more like it! There’s nothing quite like a good book, all the hopes and fears and thoughts and dreams of humanity, wrapped up in a bundle of pages. In a book, why a human could live forever in a good book.” The stranger grinned with a peculiar twinkle in his eye.[13] Richard, who had been tentatively peering over the cover of The Compleat Angler, hastily buried himself in a description of how the salmon is ever bred in the fresh Rivers (and in most Rivers about the month of August). What a shame, he thought, it isn’t even August yet.

“It’s not just that though, the smell of an old book-" at this the man paused, as though he had taken a moment to inhale the fragrance of old books and instead had been confronted by the fragrance of rising damp. Richard winced, but remained buried in the book.

“Ah my dear, I had no idea you had such strong feelings about books?”

Finally Fell moved away from Richard.[14] Perhaps the two men knew each other?

“Oh! You’ve changed your hair. And your suit! Not that I don’t like it of course, it’s just rather a lot to get used to. You always move so fast for me.”

The man smiled the smile of a man who wasn’t  sure if he’d forgotten someone else’s birthday or his own. “Yes, well, you know me. Always changing my hair from – er?”

“Ginger.”

“Ginger!”[15]

Richard privately reflected that the early days of a relationship were the most awkward and that he was actually quite pleased to be out of them. And was even more privately pleased that, for all the things he had forgotten, his own hair colour wasn’t one of them.

Fell stared at the other man expectantly.

“Yes. Well, I had better be going, lots to do. Never a good idea to cross your own timeline. Allons-y and all that!” With that final enigmatic comment, the tall man practically leapt out of the shop door as though all the hounds of hell were chasing him. [16]

Fell sighed.

“Oh, I did think we’d moved past all that.”

Richard sympathised. He really did. But his wife was waiting and the Complete Works of Shakespeare (leather bound, £15. A bargain if ever he saw it) would more than make up for his being a touch late for dinner[17].

“Never mind, eh. He was probably just feeling a bit touchy about the new hair, he'll be back once he’s had a chance to sulk a bit.” Richard smiled what he thought was a reassuring smile[18] and placed the book by the till.

Fell seemed to brighten at this, and some of the oppressive atmosphere lifted from the room[19].

“Oh, I do hope so! He can be so difficult about things like this.”

Richard nodded, firmly. Placing a crisp five pound note and a crumpled ten pound note neatly[20] on the counter, he gently placed the book in his satchel and left the shop.

Richard was struck by two things. The first was that the shop had been both strangely damp and strangely cool. The second was that the dark haired man in sunglasses and a brown suit was back, this time with red hair and a dark suit.

“Oh! That was quick. Look, I know it’s none of my business but I don’t  think he meant it like that, I don’t think he meant for you to dye your hair again. It just surprised him.”

The man stared. Richard stared back.[21]

“What.” He must have been feeling really hurt, if he was going around snapping like that. Poor man.

“Look, just take him out for dinner or something. It’ll all work itself out. He seemed pretty upset too.”

The man seemed, if anything, even more confused.

“Aziraphale was upset? He must have been, if he went and actually sold a book... alright. As I’ll never hear the end of it otherwise...” he clicked his tongue and held out one perfectly manicured hand. “Hand it over.”

Quite without meaning to, and almost without realising, Richard placed the heavy book in the other man’s hand. He tucked it under one arm and turned to walk into the bookshop.

The man hesitated.

“Fine,” he snarled, shoving a brown envelope he seemed to have pulled from nowhere into Richard’s chest, “have these instead. Bloody angel, turning me soft...”

The man again made to walk through the door, and again hesitated.

“Actually. I think I’d prefer it if you didn’t remember any of this -"

It was a hot, humid July afternoon. The birds were tweeting, the air was filled with the sounds of traffic[22] and Richard O'Connell was late for dinner with his wife. But at least he’d remembered to buy her a birthday present. She had always wanted to see Hamilton but they’d never managed to get seats before they sold out.

It must have taken a miracle to get such good tickets.

Fin.

[1] Largely composed of car horns and engines. If one listened carefully, one could also hear the ends of an argument between a vexed cyclist and an equally vexed pedestrian. The argument culminated in the words “keep walking, I bloody dare you!”

[2] That is to say, Richard had forgotten to buy her a birthday present for another year running, rather than multiple times in one year. The last birthday he had remembered unprompted had been in 2005. It wasn’t that he was inconsiderate so much as extremely forgetful.

[3] Time, ever a fickle creature, was very rarely on any mortal's side.

[4] Richard was not by any accounts a religious man. He had been known to visit a church, on a family holiday to Europe, or attend a Christmas service at the pressing of his wife. Nevertheless, he was a firm believer that if one were in a pinch it could hardly hurt to try a higher power. So far there had been no noticeable response.

[5] How many, precisely, is only known to one being. And she isn’t telling.

[6] Aziraphale, later, would argue that this wasn’t much of a reward at all.

[7] His wife had dragged him into many antique, second hand, and indie bookshops. He knew the drill.

[8] If pressed, Richard might have described him as “jovial". If pressed very hard, he would have said “the disgruntled expressions didn’t suit him nearly as well as the suit.”

[9] Figuratively.

[10] Probably figuratively.

[11] Antique booksellers were not quite all the same, although Richard had yet to realise how not the same some of them could be.

[12] Richard was wrong on both counts, Aziraphale being neither a man nor at that moment breathing at all.

[13] Rude as it was to speculate, something about the stranger struck Richard as being somehow very old and yet at the same time very young. He only realised he was staring when he nearly fumbled the book and was then recipient of a venomous look from Mr A.Z. Fell himself.

[14] This was lucky, as he had at this point exhausted all plausible interest in salmon farming and was now looking intently at a picture of a trout.

[15] Honestly, if he missed having ginger hair that badly all he had to do was dye it again.

[16] Figuratively.

[17] If 20 minutes was a “touch".

[18] It was.

[19] Unfortunately the damp smell lingered. As, presumably, did the damp.

[20] Firmly.

[21] It turns out staring competitions are much stranger when one party is wearing dark glasses.

[22] Largely composed of car horns and engines. If one listened carefully, one could also hear the ends of an argument between a vexed cyclist and an equally vexed pedestrian. The argument culminated in the words “on your bike, damn cyclist!”