Chapter Text
To make a gruelling, frustrating day more frustrating, the storm has reduced Crowley to a wet rat. It’s barely drizzling now, but a few sweaty hours walking back and forth from a moving truck to his new house in what was markedly not drizzle was enough to do him in.
His hair dryer and spare clothes are still packed. His low tolerance for gruelling, frustrating days would’ve never fit in a box to begin with. It’s been a stupid day in a town where his only friend is the bug in his kitchen he’s too much of a coward to throw out, and his new job, which is currently ‘starting over after getting brutally fired,’ involves a only little starting over and a lot of beverages of various natures to numb his apocalyptic thoughts. And he’s been criminally under-caffeinated since noon.
But the town is nice enough. The people are overly friendly, the air is suspiciously fresh, and the shops are what the brochure called ‘quaint and cutesy,’ but it’s nice enough. He’s starting to think he deserves a little bit of nice after - after whatever the fuck those last few years were. And look at him, throwing four letters words left and right without twisting his face and scrunching his nose! This is progress; this is something his therapist (a role currently filled by the bug in the kitchen, but again, this is a work in progress) would be proud of.
Crowley trudges past a quaint florist with slate tile roofing, a cutesy boutique with large feathered hats and beaded purses in the window (where is he? When is he?), and several more storefronts that fit somewhere on the scale but are decidedly not coffee shops.
Do they even sell coffee in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? Must do. If they don’t, Crowley will die before he gets the chance to unpack his Breville Barista Touch Impress Espresso machine.
After 20 extremely disheartening minutes, he’s made it down the whole of Main Street. The last shop on the block should be called Quaint To The Point Of Being Cartoonish Bakery, but is instead called Angel Cakes, which is somehow even worse. Sky blue painted bricks frame a white wooden door where the kitschiest and most… yellow sign Crowley’s ever seen reads Life is Sweet in overly enthusiastic cursive. And then - there’s a tartan awning. Yup. An actual, honest-to-god tartan awning.
He glances behind him in a last ditch effort, re-reading the signs he can still make out—The Bee Company and Foxy Loxy, which presumably and unhelpfully sell honey and… sexy hairstyles (again, where on Earth did he end up?)—just to be absolutely sure of the sugar-coated nightmare of a choice he’s about to make.
It’s unfortunately his best bet. People have coffee with their pastries, that’s a thing. The last time Crowley ate a pastry with his coffee was in his 20’s when his taste buds also thought cosmic berry vodka was a good idea, and the next time would be never, but people do it.
Tilting his head back with a sigh, he glares up at nothing in particular. A fat droplet drips off the awning and splatters onto his sunglasses, because of course it does.
Right. The day can only get better, and coffee is the first step.
There’s a jingle as the door creaks open. It’s weird inside, for a bakery. He has to navigate around tables piled with clutter to get to the register, the light in the pastry case is off, and the shop itself is lit with lamps, dim ones. It’s actually dim enough that he has to take his sunglasses off to read the scrawling cursive menu where it’s taped to the counter top and determine if this will be the last day of his existence or not.
And his life flashes before his damn eyes.
Maybe they just forgot to put it on the menu, maybe there’s coffee in the back somewhere. He leans over the dark wood at his waist and squints at the small window above the kitchen door, searching for literally any human being to ask. Is this place closed? Or is this someone’s house and he’s about to be arrested for breaking and entering? There are no hours on the door, maybe it is someone’s house.
No, that doesn’t make sense. No one has a pastry case and a menu in their house. The caffeine situation is becoming dire.
It’s becoming so dire in fact that hallucinations are starting. There must be something severely wrong with his synapses—using a bug as a therapist is definitely a dubious choice—because nothing on God’s green Earth can explain the… man suddenly bustling through a back door Crowley didn’t notice before.
The man is wearing a bow-tie; that’s the first thing Crowley notices. A tartan one, matching the awning outside and the general insane vibe of the place. The second thing Crowley notices is that he’s looking at the absolute prettiest man he’s ever seen: doll-like features framed by a white-blond curls, a hint of pink on a perfect nose, a smile so bright and so beautiful it must be fake.
A hallucination brought on by a severely under-caffeinated brain and a heart so lonely it creates dream men in questionable bakeries.
“Hello! Welcome to Angel Cakes!” The vision is speaking. “A new face. How refreshing.” The smile grows wider for some reason, and - do visions come with dizziness? Heart palpitations? Crowley’s losing track of symptoms. He might need to get a tiny notepad for the bug.
And how does the vision know he’s new around here? Well, he supposes his brain knows that, but why would it remind him? “Nnh?”
“It’s a small town, you see.” The vision is still talking and, worse, still smiling. “Everyone knows everyone.” There’s a bit of a pause, before a muttered, “Unfortunately.”
Crowley’s brain still has a sense of humour, at least. He huffs out something that lands just south of a laugh, and shakes his head, hard. A few droplets of water end up on the counter.
“Do be mindful of the water, it’s a vintage piece.”
Crowley blinks. Shakes his head again, harder. The vision doesn’t leave.
“This counter. It’s made from vintage pieces.” The… man ducks his head, hiding his smile against his chest. “I’m a touch protective of it. Of - of everything inside this place.”
Crowley is starting to realise a few things. One, he doesn’t give a fuck about vintage wood. Two, he didn’t even know vintage wood was a thing up until five seconds ago. Three, this probably isn’t a hallucination. “Uh. Uh-huh.”
“Well, where are my manners?” Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. The probably real and definitely prettiest man he’s ever seen wants to shake his hand. His clammy, horribly cold hand, because right, great, the wet rat situation. That’s just great. “I’m Aziraphale, owner of this fine establishment.”
The giggle that follows is so endearing Crowley almost whimpers. The hand is still hovering over the counter between the two of them, and Crowley remembers he’s supposed to grab it only when it starts hesitantly retreating, so grab it he does. Perhaps a bit too hard, judging by the surprised yelp he gets in response.
He needs to dive head first in a garbage bin.
“Hello there,” the man— Aziraphale says. Crowley rolls the four syllables in his head, marvelling at how pretty they sound. Even this man’s name is pretty. And his hand is soft. So, so soft and so, so warm. “May I know your name?”
Right. Gosh. He should start speaking in words and drop the grunts. And probably Aziraphale’s hand as well. “Crowley,” he croaks out. “Anthony Crowley. But just - just Crowley. Anthony is - blegh. And you’re right about the - newness. Yeah. I’m new. Very new.”
He should have stuck to the grunts.
“It’s a pleasure to welcome you, Crowley.” Aziraphale wipes his hand on his apron—tartan as well, which Crowley hadn’t noticed during the earlier meltdown—before sending him another angelic smile. His eyes crinkle at the corners, and they are very light. Hard to make out the exact shade with the dim lights, but they look somewhere between blue and green, pretty like the rest of him. “May I, uhm, is it too forward of me to offer you a treat? On the house, clearly. Since I’m offering.”
Coffee! The one surviving neuron in his brain fires up, and reminds him of why he’s standing here to begin with. Coffee. Blessed, scorchingly hot and much needed caffeine he still hasn’t found and definitely won’t find… here. Coffee! His brain screams again, proving that he might have two, maybe even four neurons working up there. He opens his mouth to tell the angel thank you, he definitely will be back, but now he needs to find an establishment who actually sells something caffeinated before he collapses on the spot.
But then the unthinkable happens. Aziraphale is still looking at him, somewhat expectantly, and he bites his bottom lip as he tilts his head to the side, blinking up at Crowley with those pretty eyes and - and it’s over. “Yes,” he tells him. “Yes.”
“Splendid!” Aziraphale claps his hands, wiggling a bit in place. Crowley replies, “Mmhrn.”
He ends up leaving with a slice of strawberry shortcake wrapped up in a pretty little yellow bow. Aziraphale tells him he can’t wait to see him again and touches his hand again as he bids him a good day, and Crowley probably blacks out after, because the next thing he knows he’s sitting at his table, surrounded by boxes, and bites into a sugary concoction that he hates almost as much as he hates himself. And still sans coffee.
His bug therapist is not too proud of him.