Chapter Text
Crowley.
The house was round, constructed from uneven stones and clay. Wind whistled through the gaps in the thatched roof, the only light a fire burning in the middle of the room. Through a hazy film of smoke, which made his eyes water and his face itch, Crowley noticed a wooden stool, three terracotta pots, and an unfinished mural on the wall – a geometric design in red and black tiles. It reminded him of interlocking hourglasses.
“I know why you’ve come.” Crowley turned around. A woman was kneeling on the dirt floor.
Crowley.
“What?” He canted his head to the side, rounding the fire pit. He couldn’t see her anymore.
“He already knows.”
CROWLEY.
In Mayfair, a forty-year-old medium woke up to an angry ghost standing over his bed. They were tall and dressed in black, short red hair slicked back and semi-translucent skin. Crowley jerked out of a dead (no pun intended) sleep, gasping for breath, and shoved the ghost away, hand sliding through their vest. A shudder worked its way down his spine and Crowley twisted out from under silk sheets, dropping his feet on the ground.
“Feeling guilty?”
“Shut up, Dagon.” Crowley rubbed one hand over his face, curling his toes against cold concrete. The dream was already starting to slip away but he could feel the smoke in his chest. “I told you to stay out of my flat.”
“I died here.”
“Not in this flat.” Crowley dropped his hands, glaring up at the ghost. He’d never met Dagon while they were alive - he prided himself on never talking to his neighbors – but he’d since learned they were a paper pusher in a prosecutor’s office. For the past three days, they’d been showing up at all hours of the night. Crowley had done his fair share of waking up with strangers, but not discorporated ones who kept tropical fish.
Dagon shifted their weight from one foot to the other. “I told you what I want.”
Crowley shook off the remnants of the dream and reached for his glasses, “Mmmyeah,” he drawled, getting to his feet and ambling over to the bathroom, each step dogged by the ghost who was getting worked up again, their anger prickling on his skin.
“You said you’d take care of it.”
“Sure did,” Crowley flipped on the light and reached for his toothbrush, running the bristled head under the water and grimacing at his own reflection, “But since I’m the one with the pulse, I get to dictate the schedule. I still have a life.”
Dagon’s watery eyes flashed, and they ground out two words between their teeth, “For now.”
“That a threat?” Crowley squirted toothpaste onto his brush, glancing up at the mirror. “Who helps you if I die, hm?” Rhetorical question, “Nobody, that’s who. Think smarter, not harder.” He winked at the ghost and, feeling smug, happened to glance down at his toothbrush. “Fuck!” The toothpaste had transformed into maggots, wriggling in between the bristles, and Crowley dropped it in the sink with a grunt of disgust.
Dagon smirked.
Crowley pivoted away from the sink to face the ghost, whose pointed face was still contorted into a smile when the medium hissed, “That. Was. A. Sonicare.” The toothbrush cost him a hundred quid. And now, even if he swapped the head out, he would always think of it covered in maggots!
“Keep your word, Crowley,” Dagon replied, unfazed by the medium’s indignation, “Do it today.”
“Fine!” He didn’t want to wake up to roaches in the fridge, or flies in the Bentley, and it was always trickier when they lived in the same building, “Can I take a piss first? Do you mind?” Crowley flicked one hand at the ghost, gesturing for them to get out of the bathroom. Dagon grumbled a colorful insult under their breath and vanished. The medium hesitated, then shouted after them, “TAKE THE MAGGOTS WITH YOU!”
And that was how he ended up with a twenty-gallon tank and four betta fish.
Crowley – despite being an unreliable sort - was planning to break into the flat. The police had left the fish there for two days, and he wasn’t a monster. Dagon’s trick with the maggots made him late for work, but he picked up the tank. A week later, satisfied in the knowledge that Crowley would take care of their fish, Dagon moved on. Crowley didn’t know what was on the other side, but he was glad to be done with them.
Now he needed a new place to live.
Crowley didn’t sit in on the séances. Tracy’s incense gave him a headache. But he trolled graveyards every other day looking for suckers – grieving families and friends - and sent them to her. He didn’t have to worry about the ghosts: he couldn’t get through one reddit thread on a park bench without being interrupted. They were drawn to him. He got enough information to make the séance convincing, then split the profits with Tracy.
But to afford a flat in Mayfair, he had to get a second source of income.
Crowley worked in advertising. It was a soul-sucking job with great pay, and the best part was that the building was new. Nobody had died there – no freak fires, no suicides, no murders. Crowley took a long lunch in Soho and spent most of it antagonizing Tarantino fans on Twitter. Glancing up as the waiter dropped off his check, Crowley pretended not to notice the dirty man in a trenchcoat glaring at him through the window. That was what the glasses were for. Not making eye contact with ghosts went a long way towards getting them to bugger off. The dead were singularly focused, but it drained energy to hold human form – let alone a conversation. Pissing them off was the best way to break their concentration: by ignoring them, mansplaining them (especially about being dead), forcing them to sit through powerpoint presentations, all tried and true methods.
Crowley stood up and worked his fingers into his back pocket to retrieve his airpods, shoved them in his ears, and left the restaurant. Hastur followed him for about half a block, talking at him. Then he started to yell.
“Oi!” Hastur had been haunting Crowley for months, hanging around west London where he set a fire that killed three people in 2008. He also managed to set himself on fire by accident. "I know you can hear me, you flash bastard!”
-IF I COULD MAKE THE WORLD AS PURE AND STRANGE AS WHAT I SEE-
Hastur popped in front of him, lurching forward, sallow face streaked in soot. Crowley’s jaw ticked in irritation but after forty years, he didn’t give them the satisfaction of flinching. Hastur was an idiot. There was nothing good waiting for him on the other side; he might as well stay in London. Crowley stepped through the ghost and crossed the street, waving a hand at an irate lorry driver. Hastur reappeared next to the Bentley, cursing.
Crowley pulled out his airpods, preparing for the inevitable confrontation with occult forces standing between him and his car. Suddenly, Hastur’s eyes fixed on something over the medium’s shoulder, strangling the words in his throat to a guttural squawk. Crowley tilted his head to the side, following the dead man’s gaze, but all he saw was a middle-aged blond in a bowtie standing outside a bookshop.
“Looking for a date?” Crowley was baffled by the reaction, giving Bowtie an appraising look, “He is out of your league.” On account of Bowtie being alive and Hastur being a dead arsonist and a creep. Crowley raised a brow. The ghost’s eyes bulged, nostrils flaring, and he disappeared.
Well. That was a thing.
Crowley decided to follow Bowtie around the corner, but he hadn’t figured out what to say to him. You scare ghosts often? Want to scare them together? I’ve got a Bentley and an all access pass to the City of London Cemetery… no, it’s not really a pass, it’s a bolt cutter… I don’t dig up graves, I don’t have the back for it anymore… or something. Bowtie wandered into a shop and Crowley misstepped, walking past it before he realized what he’d done. He backtracked, eyeing the faded name of the shop. Nice and Accurate Antiques. Bah. He hated antiques.
But he wanted to talk to Bowtie, so he braced himself for the worst and stepped inside. It took Crowley a few seconds to adjust to the lighting, and the fact that the shop was blessedly bereft of ghosts. It was spacious and clean. Shelves and glass curio cabinets lined the walls, with vases, lamps, cutlery, artwork, photographs, music boxes, ornaments, and a truly horrifying number of porcelain dolls.
Bowtie was standing over a collection of old books – right, because there aren’t enough of those in a bookshop? – and Crowley wandered over to the register, bending down to eye a display of jewelry under the glass. Clunky necklaces, charm bracelets, crucifixes, ugly broaches, and rings.
“Would you like to take a closer look?” Crowley stiffened at the proximity of the voice - the accent was different, it sounded American - jerking back to see a young woman smiling at him from across the counter. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to spook you.”
“You didn’t,” Crowley retorted, the flash of indignation smoothing out, “I don’t get spooked.”
She smiled wider, pushing her round glasses up on her nose, and he took a moment to appreciate the aesthetic. She wore a high-collared blouse with light blue lace along the neck and wrists, a riff on Victorian style, with long, dark hair pinned out of her eyes. Without another word, she unlocked the glass case and drew out the tray of rings, setting them down on the counter. A beat later, an instrumental version of 'Monster Mash' wafted through the air, and Antique Girl glanced towards the back of the shop, then back at him.
“Why don’t you see if anything speaks to you?” she suggested, “I’ll be back to check on you in a minute.”
Crowley watched her walk away. “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to steal something?”
“Nope,” she called over her shoulder, dark skirts swishing. Her suede boots didn’t click on the concrete.
Turning back to the jewelry tray, Crowley gave it a dismissive once over before the ring caught his eye. It was a signet ring, silver, with a pair of angel wings carved into the metal. There was meticulous attention to detail in the shaping of the feathers. Crowley reached for it – and so did Bowtie. Clean, manicured fingers nearly brushed his own, before twitching away. Crowley picked up the ring and looked at him. He had a soft face, pretty, lips parted in surprise. He was staring at Crowley, with a startled expression and glassy blue eyes.
“Are you… crying?” Crowley asked. Bowtie gasped wordlessly and looked down, running his finger under the wrong eye. Crowley watched the renegade teardrop slide off his chin, glancing between the counter and the blond, “Is this about the ring? Do you want it?”
Bowtie blinked at him, nodded.
This is weird. Crowley looked him over for a long moment, taking in the woolen slacks and the velvet waistcoat, the pressed blue shirt, the tartan pattern on his tie, and the delicate gold thread of a pocketwatch. He liked it.
“It’s not for free,” he replied, giving Bowtie a crooked smile, “Give me your number.”
“My number?” His accent was posh.
“Yeah, you know,” Crowley made a gesture with one hand, “For calls.”
“Ah,” Bowtie replied uncertainly, “I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a phone number?”
Bowtie stiffened, lips tightening in a distracting sort of way. “I don’t need one.”
Crowley narrowed his eyes. “That is the worst excuse I’ve ever heard,” he figured out what this was – he was being rejected, and not even in a convincing way, “If you don’t want to give me your number, just say so.” He wasn’t annoyed. This wasn’t annoying.
Bowtie didn’t say anything.
Crowley glanced down at the signet ring, rolling it between two fingers, and settled on his consolation prize. He held up the ring and said, “I’m keeping this, then. I saw it first.” He thought about putting it on, just to rub in the fact that he wasn't petty.
“Please,” Bowtie stepped closer to him, hands fluttering at his sides, “Could we make another arrangement?” There was a thread of supplication in his voice, casting about for a solution, “You could give me your number… and the ring.”
Crowley gave Bowtie a considering look, softening at the other man’s genuine distress. “Doesn’t sound like I’m getting anything out of this,” he muttered. Giving up his number and the ring, what was he left with? “I’m Crowley. What’s your name?”
Bowtie ignored his question. “Crawley?” he repeated the name, but the pronunciation was off.
“Crowley.”
Antique Girl chose that moment to walk back into the room, and when she asked who was planning to pay for the ring, Bowtie raised his hand. Crowley set it down on the counter, feeling around in his pockets for his receipt from lunch. He turned it over and reached for Antique Girl’s pen, and he scribbled his number down. He nudged the slip of paper under the ring. Bowtie exchanged a handful of notes with the girl, then picked up Crowley’s receipt and the ring, staring down at the numbers before shooting the medium a tentative look.
Crowley offered his most seductive smile, which wasn’t a smile at all. It was more of a smirk with a calculated head tilt that worked really well for him – usually. “Give me a call.” Then, so as not to ruin the effect, he turned and sauntered out of the shop. It didn’t occur to him until he was back at the Bentley that he never did get Bowtie’s name. It was the worst arrangement he’d ever made.