#librarian!aziraphale

[leon-swedfinqs]

Harvest Omens -- AKA Mari is going insane

I should be doing my school work right now (disregarding the fact that it is almost 2 in the morning as I start writing this), however I have a lot of thoughts in regards to my partner and I's Good Omens Stardew Valley AU -- while I still love and regard my d&d au with my whole entire soul, this is currently our hyperfixation/idea fixation so a lot of the stuff we are doing/thinking about is in regards to this idea in particular and i am vibrating with so many thoughts and ideas that i cannot necessarily easily translate to the page or to a drawing and its driving me NUTS -- If you want to listen to the mad ramblings of frankly an insane individual /j in regards to their stardew valley x good omens crossover au of madness youre welcome to keep reading

To start, here are some portraits of the two main idiots I made using this portrait maker. It was a ton of fun to translate them into something more tangible to look at -- they do not exactly look like this, however, but this is the closest I could get with the maker so that is what I am working with. The main crux of why this idea came in the first place is because I started playing the stardew valley 1.6 update (which i cant do much of anymore THANKS UNIVERSITY :D) and subsequently playing this new update with the existing Stardew Omens mod, or well, the updated one by @counterklock (hi if you see this sorry for tagging just wanted to credit) which can be found HERE

So what exactly is the deal with these two? What is their place in the overall story???? I will say that there may be some similarities with the existing popular crossover fic "Untitled Stardew Omens Fic", however we generally have been trying to keep things purely original in this instance in order to keep these ideas purely separate. Don't want to step on any toes!!! (both the mod and the other au fic)

Start off with (at least in our writing so far) who I suppose is the main protagonist and who's perspective we get the most of -- Crowley.

Crowley in this story does work for the Joja Corporation, or as it can be interpreted, Hell (not that working for a capitalist organization wasn't already hell to begin with). The corporation wants to expand their business into new untapped markets, one of the most glaring ones being tight-knit rural communities much like Pelican Town. While there is a Joja Mart there, it doesn't earn enough of a profit as they would like. The biggest hurdle in this instance is the loyalty the members of the community have to each other and to their local businesses. This is where Crowley comes in, as he is the key player in their ultimate plan: the Rural Reliance and Trust-Establishment Initiative. What's the main goal? To infiltrate these communities, carefully gain their trust, and slowly dismantle their reliance on more local businesses and encourage them to utilize Joja products instead. In order to fully implement this initiative, they had to do a test run, with Crowley as their guinea pig.

Under the falsely made person as "the grandson of a well-loved community member who has since long past", Crowley is sent to live on a piece of property Joja secretly bought for this project and implement himself as a member of the local community. By acting as a community member and local farmer, he slowly shifts the townsfolks' reliance to be towards Joja products. Crowley, being a city person for practically his entire life, has a lot of reservations about "going up there and making some trouble" in the small rural community -- however, it does not seem that he has much of a choice in the matter.

It's safe to say that Crowley...fumbles his way through this assignment. And as a cherry on top, the assignment so far has been doing the complete opposite of what it was supposed to do. Instead of shifting the townsfolk to start using Joja more often, slowly yet surely this project has been drawing their employee (Crowley) away from them, their products, and their practices, as he gets a taste of life outside of that, and truly sees the extent of their malicious practices outside of a city setting. He struggles to farm at first, making a mess out of his first set of crops and desperately trying to grow at least one batch of flowers (because that is what he really wanted to grow in the first place), and often fails at being a consistent social presence within the community. Overtime, he starts to grow into a farmer that rants and vents to his crops, he develops a mysterious aura as he "becomes linked with the forest" and starts to befriend the local witch, and he finds himself falling head first into a crush on the self-imposed isolated, old-fashioned, overly kind librarian. He's a city kid that finally allows himself to relax, and through this allows himself time for self-reflection and personal growth (you can pry genderfluid!crowley from my cold dead fingers -- you thought this au crowley was cis/ Sike!!! he doesn't know that he is until later so its a surprise for him too)

Meanwhile, Aziraphale has been a member of Pelican Town for as long as anyone could remember. He grew up in this community, this place is truly his home. As a baby/young child, Aziraphale did live with his "mother" (a placement for god essentially), but one day she just...disappeared, and he was considered abandoned/orphaned. The saying "it takes a village" does truly apply to Azi in this case -- he grew up with the members of the community, being parents by nearly all of the adults, and experiencing his childhood with all of the local kids as his family. The community center, library, and local farm were his sanctuary, his true home. As members of the community he grew up in moved away and/or died over time, and the community facilities (such as the CC) slowly became decrepit and broken, Aziraphale started to lose those stable parts of his life. As he lost more and more of his support network, Azi became more isolated, a self-imposed social recluse. He made a home within the library, and isn't seen outside of it for long periods of time since.

He can be found outside every now and then, of course. Twice every season (except for Winter), Azi would go to the bus stop and have a quiet picnic with himself. Grandpa (or "crowley's gramps") was like a father/grandfather-figure to Azi -- he was the one who raised him the most, who taught him and actively took care of him. His death impacted Azi the hardest, as it was his last close personal connection that was finally lost. Having that picnic lets him feel close to the one who truly considered him family. Along with that, once a week in the late evenings (right before the store is to close), Azi can be found in Pierre's buying groceries. More often than not, this trip is on a sunday to allow him to pray to Yoba in the personal chapel. He could also be found, roughly once a month, in Gus's saloon purely because of the fact that the menu has "maki rolls" on the list.

Whether it was truly because he couldn't see that it was half buried in the dark, or the fates decided that these two should properly meet, regardless Crowley ultimately found Aziraphale through a lost book. "Anyone could've returned this book, surely?", "why didn't he even bother to go check to find the book?" -- is what many may be asking. For that, I present the following response: "They're gay and they can do whatever they want"

They're both complete idiots, but they're my idiots. I have thoughts about many of the other characters too and how they fit in this world (anathema -- witch, new -- previous walmart id, works with adventurers guild right now. adam and the Them just casually living in the valley), etc.etc. for other charcters, but I will not get into them now due to time and my own mental sanity. I want to make sure everything fits within the current lore as much as possible, while also not leaving specific people out and making them upset.

I have so much more I could say about this au, but alas I am tired LOL you may either ask or ill expand upon this post later teehee

[morbid-longing-picturesque]

it’s so funny how shocked and appalled crowley sounds whenever he says “do i look like i run a book shop” while dressed in a turtleneck and a blazer, yes king you do

[borninwinter81]

Library tour - Pratchett and Gaiman focused with some honourable mentions

Of course I've constantly had full bookshelves since I was a child, but I'd always wanted a room I could properly call a library. The house my husband and I now live in has 3 bedrooms, so as we're child free we've each taken one of the spare rooms to do with as we wish.

The majority of the furniture you see is thrifted (aside from the bookcases) and it was self decorated with a lot of cut corners-for example I decided instead of proper flooring it would be cheaper just to pull up the carpet and varnish the actual boards.

I spend more time in here than I do in our living room 😁

Gaiman stuff. Sandman alongside some Alan Moore, Preacher, Hellblazer, my signed copy of The Crow and one volume of Sin City. Two copies each of Ocean (one illustrated), and American Gods (original and authors preferred text). And of course one of my copies of Good Omens. Plus you can see the novelisation of Pan's Labyrinth sitting next to Neverwhere. Del Toro is another favourite fantasist of mine.

Pratchett stuff. Complete Discworld of course, and I'm slowly increasing my non Discworld Pratchett collection, my second copy of GO, the Paul Kidby illustrated edition (makes sense to have one living with the Gaiman books and the other with Pratchett). Soul Music and Hogfather are both signed, I met Pterry when I was 14 on the Hogfather signing tour.

The crocheted toy was actually from a pattern for a mimic I made (pattern by Complicated Knots on YouTube), but it's luggage-y enough that I put it with the Discworld books, Rob Wilkins' biography of Pterry, and a Librarian to look after everything, make sure the books don't get rowdy and take care of the L-space. I've had him since I was 18.

Specifically Good Omens stuff: a pair of felt plushies a friend made for me after S1 was released (@diedarlingsuk on Instagram), a pair of drawings I bought from a very talented 15 year old artist at a tiny comic con also after S1, (I'd credit her but I've no idea of her name or if she has an online presence), the script book, the TV companion, and an art book by the wonderful @mistysblueboxstuff, who I'm sure most of the fandom know and love. This contains all her GO art from S1 and S2.

Honourable mention stuff - I put above that I love Del Toro, so I've got to share the Angel of Death from Hellboy 2 as its one of my favourite things in this room. And its an angel, so that's kinda linked.

Made for me by another friend from clay on a doll's body and the wings on wire frames (@sids_workshop on Instagram).

Finally the Complete William Blake illuminated works, a guidebook to a Blake exhibition I went to, and Gustav Dore illustrated copies of Dante, Milton, Coleridge, Tennyson and Poe. I am a huge poetry nerd, and I think many GO fans would find a lot to interest them in some of these, particularly Blake and Milton.

I could go on, there's tons of other stuff I'd like to include but this post is fairly massive already and I wanted to try and stick to my theme.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

You know who I am thinking of :D (tweet)

[nicole-survivor]

Good Omens academic au

Crowley as the eccentric astronomy/physics professor at a university.

Aziraphale as either librarian or theology professor at the same university.

They meet and argue over the ineffableness of the universe. Crowley and Aziraphale have the same conversation about Earth that they do at the beginning of s2 ep1. They fall in love through arguments and academic debates adoring the other's intelligence. Everyone else around them [mostly students] is placing bets on whether or not they are together. Some say they're married others say they despise each other but ultimately they never find out that the professors are actually too emotionally inept dorks who love each other but think the other person doesn't care but they will take any contact they can get so they argue and debate about the same topics.

Maggie is the music student to whom Aziraphale is renting an apartment and Nina is the grumpy campus coffee shop owner.

[fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic]

Good Omens Fic Rec: Tales of Turning Pages

Every Tuesday, aspiring romance novelist Anthony J. Crowley pays a visit to his local library and the charming angel working there. Every Tuesday, Aziraphale Fell finds himself more and more intrigued by the curious stranger who turns his orderly life as a small-town librarian upside down .

Length: 73,448 words

AO3 Rating: Explicit / Spice Level 🔥🔥🔥

Best for: Mostly Safe in Public, Human AU, Romance

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by foolishlovers

*Minor Spoilers* This is a very sweet AU! Crowley here is a non fiction author looking for inspiration for a romance book of his own. Aziraphale is a librarian who is more than a little eager to help! Full of awkward flirting, and the promise of a very tender romance ahead of them.

There are two points that I really loved about this story in particular. I love trans Crowley already, but I like that this was more of a background detail for him. It's not angst or hard, it's not an obstacle, it just is. We don't have any agonizing over it. It's a part of Crowley, but it's not a barrier to his life or his new relationship with Aziraphale. On Aziraphale's side, I really love how he is not a stuffy pretentious librarian. He makes it a point to read anything and everything. His joy in being able to recommend books to Crowley and others is infectious. It made me want to put down fanfic and read a novel....which is unlikely to actually happen considering I have a full on fanfic addiction.

The cast of characters here is really fun, though some moments I felt like I was listening to conversations that I wasn't apart of. There's some history and subtext, particularly with Anathema, that I felt like I had missed some context on. You can tell there's going to be a lot of love in this community. When the story ends, it feels like it's only the beginning for this entire group. You can tell are going to become so important to each other.

Mostly safe in public, a couple of explicit scenes but they are towards the end! This was a very nice light afternoon read!

Read it here, fic by foolishlovers

[ao3cassandraic]

Do you think the Librarian's ever wandered in The Bookshop via L-Space?

I think it a bit more likely that he and Aziraphale met up at the British Library. Aziraphale's bookshop is not actually a library -- per Word of Neil, I believe, Aziraphale doesn't want to lend his books or deal with people! -- so L-Space won't get the Librarian there.

I can totally see them bonding over the British Library Treasures Gallery (sorry, I can't link you to the BL's own website, it's still down after garbage humans hit the BL with ransomware), however. Aziraphale can do a small miracle to disguise the Librarian suitably, I'm sure.

If we take Berwick Street as the approximate location of the bookshop, it's about a half-hour's constitutional to the British Library. Certainly doable. It's not far from Regent's Park, either, so they might take in a Hwel Shakespeare production together.

[yeoldecryptid]

Maybe but not really Good Omens spoilers:

I’m starting to think that any obscure book references that can’t be stuffed into Lucien(ne)’s library are hid in Aziraphale’s bookstore.

[shoemakerobstetrician]

The Crow Road and Muriel in Season Three?

The Crow Road by Iain Banks is featured in season 2 several times. It’s part of Jim’s reorganization, we actually see the first page. Later Crowley gives it to Muriel, and we see Muriel reading it when she talks to the Metatron.

It’s about Prentice, whose uncle has disappeared, and how he uses the papers his uncle left behind to solve the mystery of his disappearance. People have suggested that this means that in S3 we will be looking for God, who seems to be missing in the present of S2.

Muriel is reading the book. Muriel has already helped them solve the mystery of what happened to Jim using her access to heavenly records. The Metatron has called her the ‘dim’ one, and has gone out of his way to make sure that she does not return to heaven. He knows the knowledge she possesses of heavenly records is valuable. Leaving her in charge of the bookshop wasn’t an afterthought, and calling her dim was a shrewdly chosen tactic to, hopefully, cause others to dismiss her.

I think Muriel is going to play a key part in finding out what has happened to God in S3.

Can I get a Wahoo for archivists and librarians?

An aside about trying to get the book:

I haven’t read The Crow Road yet, because it was virtually impossible to buy. I started trying the first week in August and have only just received a copy now, after having 3 orders get cancelled. The edition that is in the series is now listed on eBay for $50 and up. Barnes & Noble told me the book was out of print. We probably have at least 2 1/2 years before S3 comes out, I expect a lot of fans will be interested in reading it.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY could we please get an ebook of it? Iain Banks’ estate is leaving money on the table. I think if they did a kickstarter they could at least raise enough money for an ebook, (speaking out of my arse here), unless there are weird rights issues. (Maybe there is an ebook already, just not available in the states?) I found a pdf online before I found a different edition on eBay, but I’d much prefer to support the author’s estate if there were a legitimate way to do that.

ETA Apparently there is an ebook available, but Am*zon isn’t selling it in the states. I don’t know if I can buy it at .co.uk, or if I did if I could read it on my kindle. Has anybody tried this?

[theaceace]

A while ago I decided that my ideal Good Omens/Sandman crossover involved Lucifer giving the key to Hell to Adam instead of Dream during Season of Mists, and what the fallout of that might be. I don't think I'll ever manage to finish it, but here's the theoretical first chapter

The first thing any of Them knew about it was the fact that there were no mugs in the sink. This was not at all a common occurrence; despite Wensleydale’s fastidiousness, Brian's refusal to drink from anything other than directly from the milk bottle, and Pepper’s insistence on ‘supporting local businesses near campus’1, there was usually a precarious mountain of tea-stained mugs stacked up in monument to Adam's unfortunate sleeping habits. To anyone else, under normal circumstances, this might have been considered a good – even miraculous – change.

All of Them had come to develop a very healthy suspicion of both normal circumstances and miraculous changes.

“That's weird, right?” Brian said, balancing on one leg to idly scratch at his calf with his other foot. “I mean, it's not just me that thinks that's weird?” Pepper, who had thrown open the cupboards to check that the mugs were still in the land of the living, and hadn't been smashed or otherwise disappeared in a fit of pique or supernatural intervention, made a little uh-hm noise.

“It's definitely weird,” she agreed, staring at the cupboard, which was precisely as full and disordered as it ought to be. “But that doesn't mean it's, y’know, weird-weird. It could be normally weird.”

“Did anyone hear Adam get in last night?” Wensleydale asked, which was a very sensible question that neither Pepper nor Brian had thought to ask.

“He was still out when I went to bed,” Brian said, glancing at Pepper.

“He said he was going to the library,” she said, frowning. Wensleydale nodded thoughtfully.

“It is open twenty-four seven,” he mused. “Adam might still be there. Maybe he fell asleep in one of the quiet study rooms?”

It wasn't impossible, they all silently agreed, glancing around at one another. Who among them hadn't lost track of time in the unchanging fluorescent glow, only to wake up some absurd number of hours later with a pen stuck to their cheek and an embarrassingly large puddle of drool forming on the table2?

“Okay, well, I'll just call him,” Pepper said decisively after a moment. 

“His phone’ll be on silent,” Brian pointed out.

“Still,” Wensleydale said. “If it's on vibrate he might notice it. And even if it's not, he'll see it when he looks at his phone next. Go ahead, Pepper.”

“Already on it,” she said, and indeed her thumbs were flying over her phone. She tapped the button to put it on speaker, and held the phone in the centre of the circle of Them with an odd reverence. Together, they watched Adam's name and number flashed across the screen as the phone began to ring, before it cut itself abruptly off.

“I’m sorry,” started the robotic message, “the number you have dialled cannot be reached at this time. Please try again later.” The message cut off with a cheerful beep. A moment later, Pepper’s phone, rather less cheerfully, burst into flames. She dropped it onto the tiled kitchen floor, where it went right on blazing.

All three of the remaining Them stared at it in horror.

“Right,” said Pepper faintly.

“I think that might be weird-weird,” Brian agreed, a shade more faintly. Wensleydale, being the only one of Them who was not only concerned that Pepper’s phone was on fire, but also that her phone was on fire, started swatting at it ineffectually with a tea towel. 

“OK,” Pepper said, gathering herself, “Brian, give me your phone.”

“What? Hang on, I only got this last month! You can't go around seeing if that'll set other people's phones on fire just because yours spontaneously combusted, Pep, that's not fair.” Pepper, being somewhat more nimble, and considerably less indignant than Brian, used this opportunity to lean over and pluck his phone from the depths of his hoodie pocket. “Hey!”

“Here's what we're going to do,” Pepper said decisively.  In Adam's absence,  one of Them had to be the one making the decisions, and that one might as well be her. “You two are going to go to the library and check there, just in case. Maybe this is… coincidental weird-weirdness. Call me when you get there, let me know if you find anything.”

“And what about you? What are you going to do?” Wensleydale asked, giving up the tea towel as a bad job, and accepting the fact that the phone seemed to be burning itself out quite nicely on its own.

“I'm going to ask around, and email in sick for all of us,” Pepper said. “Maybe one of Adam's other friends saw something, or heard something, or… y’know,  something. Wens, call Mr. Young – he likes you the best, he'll be happy to speak to you, but don't let on just yet what's happening.”

“What is happening?” Brian asked, a little helplessly. Rather than admitting she had no more idea than any of the rest of Them, Pepper just shook her head darkly.

“Nothing good,” she muttered. “OK. Alright. Meet back here at, say, half eleven? If we haven't found anything before then, I mean.” Brian and Wensleydale both nodded, looking a little peaky, and glanced at each other. Wensleydale swallowed, and piped up with the question that was troubling them both. 

“And what do we do then, if we haven't found anything?” 

“Then,” Pepper said, with all the grim determination of a General sending her troops to their certain deaths, “we call the Witch.”

The first thing Anathema knew about it was that she picked up a stack of old magazines to throw away, only for a sheet of old parchment to flutter lazily out and come to rest on her shoes. She wasn't sure where old Agnes had ended up after her explosive exit from this mortal coil, so she glared first at the ceiling and then at the floor for good measure.

“I burnt that book for a reason,” she sternly told the page. The page, naturally, did not reply.

Anathema stared at it for a few long seconds, dithering. She wasn't a person predisposed to dithering, but had found in the last couple of years that it was nice to indulge oneself in a change of pace, from time to time. Still, having no natural talent for it, and being far more inclined to action anyway, she only allowed this for a brief time, before snatching up the page and casting a curious eye over it.

“Oh,” she said, swiftly followed by, “hm.” 

Then, “right.” 

A few seconds later, “what?” 

And, with hardly a pause for breath, “I see.”

Before finally, “oh. Oh dear.”

In the next room, from its perch on the coffee table, her phone started to ring.

(Halfway across the country, the first thing Constantine knew about it was that the demon she was attempting to banish back to the bowels of Hell laughed in her face. It stopped laughing with gratifying speed at the first splash of holy water, but it was enough to set her thinking.

Thinking, however, could wait until she'd downed roughly half her weight of Robbie's Secret Whisky Stash, and fallen face-first onto her sofa for the next sixty hours or so. 

Which was exactly what she did.)

The first thing Aziraphale knew about it – though he wouldn't realise such for a few days yet – was the abrupt interruption of his quarterly book club3.

He'd been enjoying a rather excellent cup of lapsang souchong in companionable silence, a collection of poems that Oscar had enthused about but never committed to paper propped open in front of him, when the summons arrived.

“Lucienne. I must speak with you. Meet me in the throne room as soon as is convenient.” A momentary pause. “Please.”

On the other side of the room, primly seated on a velvet sofa, Lucienne, librarian of the Dreaming, quite deliberately did not sigh. She hardly had to – her silence spoke volumes. Marking her page with a delicate silver bookmark, she set the book to one side and stood, brushing at her immaculate waistcoat.

“I am so sorry,” she said, unsmiling but warm around the eyes. “I hate to cut this short, but –”

“Not at all, not at all,” Aziraphale replied, waving a hand and offering her as understanding a smile as he could muster4. He did, after all, have some notion of what it was like to work for an entity vastly more powerful than oneself, towards a cause that one broadly believed in but did occasionally cut into one's leisure time. “I gather it must be something frightfully important – you know, I'm not sure I've ever heard Lord Morpheus make such a polite request?”

That did bring a smile to his companion's face, small and conspiratorial, though still unflinchingly professional.

“As a matter of fact, since our Lord's return and his latest… trials, he has been making a considerable effort to show his appreciation to myself and the other residents of the Dreaming. Please don't misunderstand me, Lord Morpheus has always valued our work, but –”

Aziraphale nodded as she trailed off.

“He has, perhaps, come to realise that expressing his appreciation may be beneficial to both the work and morale,” he suggested. He didn't remember such tactics ever being successfully applied in Heaven, but they had worked a treat on dear young Warlock. It had been difficult on the poor boy, of course, to have positive reinforcement applied by two very different entities in completely opposing directions, but he had appeared to cope well enough with the confusion. Children were remarkably resilient that way.

“Exactly,” Lucienne agreed, apparently relieved that he understood. “You'll have to excuse me – of course, you're free to remain in the library as long as you like, and if there's anything else you need, just let the library know and one of the palace staff should be sent along to assist.” 

So what could Aziraphale do but hum and thank her, before finishing his cup of tea and taking his leave of the Dreaming, after which he failed to give the incident a single thought more for several days?

Well. There were, perhaps, many things he could have done – but, crucially, he did none of them, and so such hypotheticals really don't matter very much in the grand scheme of things, do they?

And the first thing Crowley knew about it was the shrill ring of Aziraphale’s landline jolting him out of a very pleasant nap.

“Whozzit?” He muttered from his place face-down on the sofa. “‘m gonna kill’m.”

“Oh, you'll do no such thing,” Aziraphale scolded as he bustled over to the phone. “It's barely midday, it's a perfectly reasonable time to call. Hello? A Z Fell and Co rare books, I'm afraid we're very much closed for the rest of – oh! Well hello dear girl! How lovely to hear from you – you know, I was just saying to Crowley the other day, we –”

“Who is it?” Crowley repeated, this time managing to include enough syllables to make it three clear and distinct words. Not that it seemed to matter to Aziraphale, who made a complicated but ultimately meaningless hand gesture towards him but otherwise didn't answer. 

“Yes of course I'm free to talk; anytime you need Anathema, you know that.” Which did at least answer Crowley's question. He blew out a noisy sigh and closed his eyes again. Might as well try to get a few more hours’ kip. Those two could natter like fishwives when they got into the swing of it.

“Adam? No, not since he popped ‘round last month during his reading week for a visit. Why do you –”

Aziraphale paused, and the silence stretched long enough that Crowley peeled his eyes back open. The angel had gone very, very pale, and the hand that gripped the phone was white-knuckled. Crowley frowned and pushed himself upright.

“You're quite sure?” Aziraphale asked faintly. Crowley's brows leapt up towards his hairline. “No, we haven't heard anything. Do his parents –?”

Slow and sinuous, Crowley unfurled himself from the sofa and inched towards Aziraphale, who appeared on the verge of shaking. It was, he had to admit, a little alarming to see. A chair that hadn't been behind the angel until a few moments ago5 let out a faint wumpf as he pushed Aziraphale down to sit on it. This close, he could hear the tinny echo of Anathema’s voice, but couldn't quite make out the individual words.

“We certainly haven't felt anything,” Aziraphale said. His free hand had curled around the arm of the chair – Crowley unpeeled his fingers and offered up his own hand as a sacrifice in place of the upholstery. “Neither of us get any word from, ah, the head offices anymore, as it were, but I haven't heard anything through any other channels, not that many of them keep in close touch these days. I don't suppose Agnes –?”

He paused to listen to her agitated response, lips pressed together. Crowley rubbed his thumb against the back of his knuckles, in the vain hope he might relax his grip a little. The little bones in his hand were in imminent danger of collision.

“Yes, yes, tell me now – I'll remember,” Aziraphale said with all the solemnity of a true vow. The tinny little echo of Anathema's voice came again, this time in a distinct rhythm that Crowley usually associated with poetry or prayer. Aziraphale nodded along, his brow furrowing the longer she went on, his own mouth shaping the occasional word as she went. 

Crowley, meanwhile, was starting to get a headache.

“No, of course, of course, I'll let you know the moment I think of something,” Aziraphale said, which perhaps wasn't the hastiest promise he'd ever made to the witch, but did still make Crowley's skin itch vaguely. “Yes – he's right here, would you like to speak to him?”

Ignoring Crowley's increasingly frantic head shaking, Aziraphale handed the phone over. Crowley grimaced, weighed up the pros and cons of just hanging up (pros: it would be rude, which as a demon was something he was rather fond of being. Cons: it would be rude, which would upset Aziraphale, who was already looking remarkably distressed. Also, he may not get to find out what was going on), before accepting both the inevitable and the phone.

“Yeah?” He said, trying his best to sound like he didn't give a single damn about whatever Anathema had to say. Anathema, who was very used to this by now, and swiftly climbing the ranks of living people well-equipped to both see through and handle Anthony J Crowley, did not bother mincing her words.

“Adam's missing. Last seen yesterday evening, as best we can tell. His friends are looking for him the human way and running interference with the university and his parents, in case it's something… esoteric. Also, I have a new prophecy from Agnes that I think is about him, but I haven't quite managed to figure it out just yet. I thought you might know something.”

Crowley's blood ran cold. Well. Colder.

Most of Crowley's knowledge about what to do to find a missing human was both theoretical and gleaned from procedural police dramas, and he suspected that the angel's wasn't much better, except that he could likely replace procedural police dramas with Agatha Christie first editions. They hadn't even managed to find the right antichrist until the day of the apocalypse, and he hadn't technically been missing.

“He's definitely disappeared?” He tried, perhaps a little desperately. “He hasn't, er, just wandered off for a bit and forgot to text?” That was a thing, wasn't it? You had to wait for a day or two before you could call someone missing, if they were an adult doing their own thing. He was fairly sure that was a thing.

“Pepper says that he didn't go back to their accommodation last night, and all of his notes and books were still at the library. She thinks he must have his bag and his phone on him, but no-one’s been able to get through to him.” Anathema sounded harried, and the sharpness of her tone set something bristling in Crowley, before he forced himself calm again. Aziraphale was hurriedly scrawling something on a scrap of paper, so fast that the ink flew and dotted his hands and sleeves.

“So do they think he was – what, grabbed?” Crowley tried to imagine the sort of thing that would be capable of grabbing Adam if he didn't want to be grabbed, and succeeded only in feeling vaguely ill.

“No, but they think he must have left in a hurry and none of them know why, or why he wouldn't have contacted somebody.” The somebody like you went unsaid but very clearly implied. 

“He didn't leave the stove on, I'm guessing?” Crowley asked hopelessly. Anathema did him the grace of ignoring that.

The problem, Crowley decided, was that there were simply too many places that Adam could have buggered off to to even begin narrowing the list down. He wouldn't know where to start. He wouldn't know how to start. There were very few places in the universe that Adam couldn't get into, if he put his mind to it. Heaven, he supposed, but that seemed very unlikely given that Adam's opinion of Heaven as a concept was ambivalent at best, and outright scornful at worst (Crowley was oddly proud of that, considering he'd had almost nothing to do with it).

“Fine. Well, did they find anything with his stuff at the library? A lingering smell of sulphur, a stray feather from, oh as a random example, an angel's wing? A helpful note detailing exactly where he was going and how long he might be gone for? A circle of runes burnt into the nearest flat surface large enough to walk through?”

“Oh yes, how silly of me, I completely forgot to mention the ransom note of newspaper clippings,” Anathema replied, so lightly that it managed to loop back around to scathing. “No, of course there wasn't anything there.”

Crowley dragged in a breath, and let it out so gustily that he almost missed the little um that came down the line.

“What?”

“Um. Well, actually.  Now that you mention it. Pepper did say that when she tried to call him, her phone sort of. Caught fire?”

Crowley blinked, which was something he didn't do often, and always felt a little bit weird about.

“It what?”

“Caught fire.”

“S’what I hoped you hadn't said.”

“Mhm. Shit?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and his laugh was so far from humour that he suspected it wouldn't even be visible as a little dot on the horizon. “Couldn't have put it better myself.”

The first thing Crowley did after hanging up was try to phone Adam himself. It was lucky that angels, and those originally of angel-stock, had a good head for remembering numbers,  though in this case it was made simpler by the fact that Adam had thought it was funny that every mobile number he'd had since he'd been gifted his first phone aged thirteen had ended with 666. He dialled quickly, and held his unnecessary breath as the phone began to ring. He glared down at the ancient landline, silently daring it to try anything so silly as bursting into flames. Whether because it feared a fate worse than fiery death, or just because it had no more reason to than at any other time it had been used, the phone did nothing more than ring. It then rang several more times, before a detachedly cheerful voice implored him to leave a voicemail.

Was that a good sign? Crowley honestly wasn't sure at this point. He made a note of it anyway, just in case.

Aziraphale groaned from his spot at his desk, and dropped his head into his hands.

“What?” Crowley asked. “What did Agnes have to say about all this?”

Aziraphale groaned again.

“Well that's half the problem,” he said. “Without any context it's almost impossible to be sure. Trying to decipher a prophecy before it's come to pass is like trying to derive meaning from –”

“From one particular needle in a stack full of other, identical and maybe just as important needles?”

“Well. Yes, now that you mention it,” Aziraphale turned to face him, wide eyed. “I just don't understand! There's been nothing for years, no movement from either side, no interest in Adam whatsoever. What could have possibly changed, and without either of us noticing?”

“I mean, are we sure it was Heaven or Hell? There's lots of other things out there that might be interested in the antichrist.” Not many that would be capable of hiding themselves from both an angel and a demon, and vanishingly few that would also be capable of persuading Adam to go with them. Unless he wanted to, of course, but Crowley was trying not to think about that too much. Would it be the better outcome for everyone involved? Possibly, but he wasn't willing to bet on it. Certainly not when he would be betting Adam's life, or mind, or general wellbeing6.

“But surely we still would have heard something. I know neither of us keep up with the latest news bulletins, but I hardly think any plans of this sort of scale would be quiet.”

It was a fair point. They each had their contacts among the various communities on this and a few other planes of existence. Not that either of them got out much these days, but it didn't take too much effort to send a letter here, or listen to an ominous whisper there. But, as Aziraphale had quite rightly pointed out, there had been nothing.

“Right, and I'm guessing you haven't accidentally been sent any golden post-its?”

Aziraphale shot him a look so withering that Crowley suspected it may have been used as a weapon of righteous smiting a time or two, back in the day.

“Of course not! I don't hear from Heaven any more than you do from Hell. Less, I should imagine. It's not as though my lot ever thought to take out advertising space in the middle of your new radio plays with the fancy name, or start keeping in touch via electronic mail.”

Resisting the urge to point out that they’re podcasts angel, not radio plays, we've been over this and I know you remember what they're called, I know you're doing this to me on purpose, because Aziraphale had, once again, made a very good point. Even if he wasn't aware of it.

"Huh. Yeah. Hang on – maybe Hell sent something out. Lemme check."

Crowley wove his way around the piles of books in a fashion that probably would have looked hurried on anyone else, but on him looked mostly like the room had rearranged itself to minimise the number of steps required to get to the door of Aziraphale's office.

"Let you check? Check what, Crowley, I didn't think you were, ah – what's the phrase? Connected to Hell's net-works anymore." 

Perhaps one day Aziraphale would manage to drag himself into something resembling the twenty-first century, Crowley mused glumly. If the off-white plastic box humbly masquerading as a computer on his other desk were any indication, it wouldn't be before the world once again tried to off itself. He tapped the enter key impatiently a few times until the screen lit up, something that came as a terrible shock to the computer – which was, until that very moment, both switched off and unplugged. Crowley, who had never plugged in a single appliance in his life and didn't intend to start now, hadn't bothered to check. 

Brilliant things, computers – except for when they weren't.

Despite its age, the computer in question had a healthy appetite for its continued existence, and so at Crowley's impatient prompting, navigated itself to Gmail without any of the ponderous delays it usually employed. Aziraphale was particularly forgiving of ponderous delays, as they provided an ample excuse to refill his mug of tea. Somehow, it suspected the irate demon wiggling the mouse wouldn't be quite as keen on a page that loaded just slowly enough to pop the kettle on.

The thing about Hell was that they wanted to give the impression that they were always aware of your every move, no matter what plane of existence you happened to be residing in at the time. It wasn’t true, of course – Crowley knew that better than almost anyone – but that didn't stop them putting in a reasonable amount of effort to maintain the illusion. Mostly it was just a bit of a hassle, but at times it could come in handy. 

Like now, for instance. Hell wanted its agents on Earth to feel just as surveilled as the poor buggers still Down There, so as well as just butting into whatever you happened to be watching or listening to anytime they wanted your attention, they'd also made sure you could access every one of your emails, memos, and warnings from any service provider anywhere in any world. A bit unnerving, perhaps, but useful for any demon willing to get a bit creative7.

It was also a relatively impressive feat, given that Hell itself had only just managed to install dial-up a couple of years immediately prior to the world not-ending. Crowley'd only stuck his head in once or twice in that time, but the noise had been God… had been Satan…

It had been Someone-awful.

"Mm, I'm not, technically," Crowley replied, stabbing at the keyboard.

There was no technically about it. Crowley had been removed from Hell's mailing list, so to speak. His account had been wiped out, and it was mostly luck, a few miracles here and there, and currying favour with the then-pre-teen antichrist8 that had kept him from being wiped out right alongside it. 

It was, then, fortunate that every demon in Hell had been assigned a username with the same standard formula (rank, hyphen, circle of Hell, hyphen, name) as well as the same password (HailSatan123!, no hyphens). It was also quite fortunate that Crowley was the only one capable of figuring out how to change the password9. He'd been keeping tabs on Hastur's account since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't; partly to stay in the loop, and partly to laugh at the ongoing chain between Hastur and Dagon as they argued over who would get to claim the soul of, as they put it, 'that Nigerian prince feller'.

The computer, having a better sense of self-preservation than most of the human race, accepted both username and password with remarkable speed, and only one single pop-up box that politely enquired if the user might like to save their password for their own convenience and improved experience in the future? At Crowley's pointed handwave, the box promptly vanished, and he was – as the hackers said – in.

It was tempting, as it always was, to take the time to sift through the near-countless unread emails to find something fun. The latest update in the exchange with Dagon (the subject line of which now had too many Re:s to be readable, but no doubt chronicled precisely how close they each were to securing the soul of the next in line to the Nigerian throne for their lord and master) was right there, bracketed by countless – pointless – memos from low-level imps, and a call for any last-minute rota swaps from Andromalius. Not that any swap requests would be entertained, much less honoured. Hard to swap shifts when you were always working, and utterly unable to escape.

"Well?" Aziraphale asked, having abandoned his heavenly patience at the door. Even the computer shuddered a little. Crowley, not to be outdone by a piece of hardware and also rather more certain of his place in Aziraphale's good graces, decidedly did not.

“Hold your bloody horses,” Crolwey muttered. “It's not like the idiot has any sort of organisational system. Or any sort of system at all, come to think of it.” He scrolled a little more, scanning in a way that he would never, under any circumstance, admit to being frantic. Aziraphale rested a hand soothingly on his shoulder, which he thought was a little rich, given the angel's reaction to Anathema's call.

In fact, his not-frantic scrolling was fast enough that at first, he glanced right past the innocuous little email that had been sent out to everyone from an email address that was, even to Crowley, incomprehensible, and whose subject line simply read: get out. He might have written it off as chain mail, of the sort that hadn't been seen anywhere except Hell for approximately ten years, and promised a grisly fate if one didn't send it on to at least twenty of one's dearest friends and family, were it not for the abiding sense of dread that filled him when he hovered the cursor over it10.

By definition, as a demon, Crowley wasn't meant to be put off by abiding senses of dread. In fact, he was meant to be not only drawn to senses of abiding dread, but also frequently responsible for them. 

Despite this, Crowley found himself hesitating long enough that Aziraphale noticed.

“Do you think that's–?” He asked, trailing off as Crowley swallowed hard and opened the email. They both read in silence11, the dawning horror of its contents creeping up on them rather like a spider in the shower – that was to say, a moment of peace before they truly registered just what they'd seen, followed by an immediate rejection of any reality where this could be allowed to happen, particularly while one was already in so vulnerable a state as nudity, or having just received word that the antichrist was, once again, missing.

“That,” Aziraphale started, before taking a shaky breath and trying again. “That does at least explain what Agnes was on about with that bit about the Tempest.” He cleared his throat, which did absolutely nothing to help the situation, and continued, “I should probably phone Anathema back. Be a dear, and pop the kettle on, won't you? I think I could do with a strong cup of tea.”

Crowley nodded distantly, and made no move to get up. In the kitchenette at the back of the shop, the kettle obediently clicked itself on, having assumed (rightly) that Crowley wasn't quite up to the trip just yet. Instead, he just stared at the screen through blurry eyes and tried to pretend this was all just a bad dream. 

Hell is empty, he thought morosely,  reading over the email that was, for all intents and purposes, an eviction notice, and all the devils are here.

Meanwhile, some six miles away as the raven flies12, a young man slouched his way into a pleasant London pub just in time to miss the lunch rush.

1 Here, the reader may wish to substitute ‘supporting local businesses’ with ‘attempting to flirt with a local barista over poorly-roasted coffee and soggy pastries’

2 Adam was the only one among Them that had never succumbed to the tempting lure of the library's sleepy clutches, a point all of Them were working hard to ignore

3 Though to call it a book club was, perhaps, a generous exaggeration. For the most part it was two like-minded individuals enjoying a cup of tea in mutual, silent appreciation. The occasional discussions regarding fine literature and unusual misprints were a pleasant addition rather than a requirement 

4 a more understanding smile had never before, nor since, been mustered

5 the chair in question was a rather hideous paisley, which left an unpleasant taste in Crowley's mouth but would serve to cheer the angel when he was again in a fit state to notice such things

6 And, by extension, lives, minds, and wellbeing of the rest of Creation

7 Crowley, exclusively 

8 A simple enough endeavour for Crowley, as there is very little difference between a pre-teen antichrist and a pre-teen human, and functionally no difference at all between a pre-teen human and a demon

9 As well as the only one that had managed to switch on the spam filter

10 Not to be confused with the generally abiding sense of dread felt while one was generally checking one's emails

11 Aziraphale just a touch faster than Crowley,  though the difference was so slight as to be effectively negligible 

12 Which is not quite as direct as the crow flies, particularly if the raven in question is new to the job and easily distracted (not to mention still unpracticed at flying against the wind) but still a sight more direct than a magpie making the same trip

[leon-swedfinqs]

Dumbass new farmer heard that the local librarian really likes tulips, so he desperately tried to grow them and took the whole season to do so instead of focusing on making a profit

[archivistsandlibrarians]

[ditch-lily]

I have nothing of substance to share but here my fav outfit of the last few months..

double denim?? no. how about double plaid

[theeminentlyimpractical]

I may have made a mistake getting into a fandom where half the AUs have a main character as a librarian, only to make him the worst kind of intolerable book-as-object-worshipping librarian who clearly never actually took a RBMS class and whom Ranganathan would have gladly thrown out an airlock, had airlocks existed in 1931.

[clonerightsagenda]

The Librarian from Discworld losing to Aziraphale on a bracket for archivists and librarians perfectly illustrates what is wrong with most of these tumblr polls.