Chapter Text
Deirdre had been cleared out of the house after her interview, going to stay with her family in a hotel for the night. So when it was time for Aziraphale to detail his research for the cameras, he sat alone on the couch. Michael was filming again, and fortunately Gabriel was busy elsewhere. Crowley was there, though. Aziraphale ignored him, worried he might blush again like he had upstairs when Bee had yelled at them. Imagine, reading the animosity between Aziraphale and his nauseating co-worker as sexual tension.
Or perhaps Aziraphale ought not to imagine that. He did have a strict rule about not imagining Crowley doing anything at all.
“In my research,” he began, clearing his throat, “I learned quite a lot about this house. It was built in 1884 for a family who’d moved here from Chicago. The father was wealthy and hired people to work the farmland. When his family moved on, some of the farmland was auctioned off, but a farmer purchased the house and worked what was left himself. Their family owned the house until around 1930, when it passed to a third family. They are the ones who modernized the farm and the house over the years. Various outbuildings have come and gone— silos, a few barns, and so on, but the house itself is actually more or less the same, except that it’s a little larger, and now has electricity and plumbing. And then in 1979, they sold the farmland off, leaving just the house and a small bit of land around it. The house was purchased by the current owners, the Young family, in 2010.
“There were deaths here, of course, any house as old as this has seen some tragedy. As far as deaths actually in the house or on the grounds: two elderly women died in the house, at separate times. The flu killed a young man within these walls in 1918, and in 1962 a child died on the lawn after a fall from a tree, or possibly a barn. But the house did not begin to display signs of a haunting until after 1983. In that year, the house was owned by the third family, and their last name was Grover.
“In 1983, there was only one person actually living in this house, a man named Jacob Grover. He had taken over the farm from his parents, who had moved into town. It was presumably lonely out here, but that was to change, because Jacob, at thirty-seven, had met a young lady named Cathy, and asked her to wed. They planned a ceremony to take place here on the grounds in the spring of 1983. No pictures of the wedding survive that I could find, but a newspaper article says the place was decorated in red and white bunting and balloons.
“But things didn’t turn out the way Jacob planned, because the wedding was canceled. Unfortunately, the bride failed to show. She changed her mind at the last minute, and decided to wed someone else. Now, this would be a blow to anyone, but I suspect that living all the way out here by oneself would tend to exacerbate any feelings of abandonment. So there would have been a lot of negative energy in the place at that point, with the balloons popped and decorations torn down.
“But of course, these sorts of things do happen, broken engagements and canceled weddings, and houses aren’t usually haunted because of something that is rare but also in some sense mundane. I think the problem probably lay in Jacob himself. They say he went a bit mad with unrequited love.”
For the first time, Aziraphale looked away from the camera to the rest of the room and his eyes fell on Crowley, who was listening quietly, his arms folded over his chest. He was standing where he had been before, during the interview with Deirdre. Directly behind him was the staircase where whatever apparition Deirdre believed she’d seen— the man— had first been noticed. Aziraphale’s gaze moved from Crowley to the stairs, almost as if he were a little nervous that someone might be there. But of course, Crowley— all flash and black clothes and artfully disheveled ginger hair, dark glasses worn even indoors— was clearly not worried about it.
And neither was Aziraphale. He turned back to the camera. “On the day of what should have been his wedding, Jacob apparently wandered the grounds as people took down the decorations. When he got back to the house, he did a peculiar thing— he refused to enter the front door, and would only pass through the back of the house, or the door on the east side. Apparently, he swore he’d never walk through the front door again unless he was carrying his bride over the threshold.
“Now, when I was looking around earlier,” Aziraphale said, with as much annoyance as he could direct toward Crowley while on camera, “I noticed something odd about the door of the closet where Deirdre reported the family had heard knocking. That closet door is old and weathered, and had obviously been hung somewhere else before. I find myself wondering if Jacob did not remove his front door and put it into an unused closet after the failed wedding. Probably never wanted to see it again.
“As for Jacob himself, unfortunately, a few weeks after the wedding, he—”
A banging sound startled them all, loud enough to shake the house. Aziraphale turned shocked eyes toward the front door.
Crowley dashed through the room and flung the door open. “There’s nobody,” he called. “There’s nobody here.”
Gabriel came jogging down the stairs. “You did get that on tape, right?” he demanded of Crowley.
“Should’ve, yeah,” Crowley answered. “Got a camera set up.”
“All right,” Gabriel said. “Get it to Michael, she can see what we’ve got.” He turned to Aziraphale and scowled a little. “You okay, sunshine? Getting scared of the boogeyman?”
Aziraphale realized that he had a hand pressed to his chest. That was odd. Usually, especially when on camera, he maintained a very calm air. That was what he’d been hired for, to put a professional sort of face on the film, reassuring, capable. He let his hand drop. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Well, I’m going to watch the tape of your reaction,” Gabriel warned, “and I’ll make you re-stage that, if you looked half as terrified as what I saw.”
Crowley was there suddenly, holding a flash drive about two inches in front of Gabriel’s face. “Next time, bloody warn him, then,” he snapped.
Gabriel scowled at him too. “I didn’t set up any knocking. Probably the wind rattling the door in its frame. Whatever does it when the family’s here.” He went with Michael to view the tape on the computer set up on the dining table.
Crowley somehow ended up standing next to Aziraphale while they waited. This close, Aziraphale could see the snake tattoo beside Crowley’s right ear. It turned over and over itself but never quite became a knot.
Aziraphale wanted to say thank you for Crowley sticking up for him. Instead, he said, “One of these days he’s going to fire you.”
“Not if I got a good shot of that,” Crowley countered. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get to do your job in peace. Unless you get fired for getting spooked.”
Aziraphale turned to him in annoyance, but realized that Crowley was not looking at him with disdain, as Gabriel had. “Scared the f*ck out of me,” Crowley confessed, with a bit of a laugh. “Wouldn’t be surprised if Bee hadn’t done it. They were pretty pissed at us before.”
“Bee’s still upstairs,” Aziraphale said. “They’d have to come down that staircase there, and I haven’t seen them.”
Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Leaves Uriel then.”
Aziraphale scoffed quietly. “Uriel doesn’t have the strength. I swear that girl’s half incorporeal as it is.”
A bit of a smile crept over Crowley’s face then, and it looked odd there. Maybe Crowley smiled a lot, but Aziraphale rarely got to see it. “Guess it was the man, then,” he said, looking quite devilishly pleased.
“Yes, obviously,” Aziraphale snapped, not entirely sure why he was snapping. “You’ve solved it, good job.”
Crowley’s smile vanished, replaced by his usual half-scowl. “You know, you’re not better than the rest of us,” he said. “I don’t care how many pretty diplomas you’ve got on your wall—”
“I never said I was better than anyone,” Aziraphale protested.
“Oh, but you bloody act like it—”
“I am simply standing here—”
Crowley growled at him in frustration. “Then if you don’t mind, I’ll stand elsewhere.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Aziraphale assured him. This caused Crowley to stalk out of the room once more, and as promised, this was absolutely fine with Aziraphale.
oOo
It got dark a few hours later, in the way that rural places get dark, in a rather hazy, wobbly fashion. Aziraphale had stood by an open window and watched it come. Out here, there were no streetlights in measured distances, revealing straight sidewalks and orderly lines drawn on pavement, no colors in the depth of night, no traffic lights or reflective stop signs or restaurants still aglow.
The dark out in the country was an amorphous thing, entirely colorless, encompassing something unknowable. There could be stands of trees out there, fencing, gravel drives and overgrown ditches, hills or valleys— you couldn’t tell. The landscape could rearrange itself, or the house begin to float six inches above the land and you would be none the wiser.
Aziraphale was not afraid of the dark. He was not afraid of his job, even though it consisted of letting clients frighten themselves. He wasn’t even afraid of his own conscience.
The Centertown Ghost Investigations team never left a house to people who were still scared. Every time, after they’d found their “evidence,” Uriel would do her part— lighting candles, speaking in odd tones, casting her eyes heavenward while trailing graceful fingers over picture frames and piano keys. She might have been an intellectual lightweight, if you asked Aziraphale, but she could sell a story.
There was a saying in this line of work: When you believe it, then you will see it.
People who convinced themselves they were haunted were not likely to suddenly start thinking rationally. They needed the pageantry. They had to witness the laying of the ghost. When they no longer believed there were spirits in their home, then they would stop seeing them.
The fact that the team took money for this service was perfectly justified, Aziraphale thought. They put in hard work and provided peace of mind. Aziraphale had been named for an angel, and sometimes he wondered if that was not why he had this bit of a side job: so that he could step in, as an angel would, and say Be not afraid.
But all of that was not to say that there weren’t… incidents that caused Aziraphale to be just a little bit afraid himself. Moments working with the team where things had tilted slightly to the left of center, making Aziraphale feel as if he’d inexplicably missed a step on a well-known staircase. It was a hazard of the job, he supposed. Spend enough time looking for ghosts and you might accidentally convince yourself you believe.
There had been two such incidents in the three years that Aziraphale had been working with the group. The first was before Crowley had been hired. (Aziraphale mentally divided his time with this team into Before Crowley and After Crowley. It was only logical, since Crowley’s presence had thrown everything into turmoil.)
The first time it happened Aziraphale had been sitting in a bedroom of a rather new house whose occupants had been convinced they were encountering spirits. Aziraphale didn’t usually have much to do during the actual investigations: he was there as liaison to the clients and font of knowledge gathered earlier, and so he was demoted to a sort of errand runner when the clients were not present. Perhaps unsurprisingly, rather than hang around and wait for orders, Aziraphale had found an unoccupied bedroom. He was looking through a photo album he’d come across, and he’d had his back to the door. He turned when he heard it open. But no one had been coming in. Instead, Aziraphale had seen, very distinctly, something dark and shadowy going out of the room, which meant, of course, that up until that point, it had been in the room with Aziraphale.
By the time the second incident happened, Aziraphale had learned better than to mention such things to the team, wishing to avoid the ridicule that he’d gotten over the shadowy creature sighting. (Of course, he had also learned better than to sit alone in a room while the team worked elsewhere in the house, even when he was tempted to do that to avoid Crowley.)
That second time, inside some fairly normal house, there had been a painting on the wall, hung above an upright piano. It was some sort of romantic fairy-tale piece of a knight standing beside a horse beneath a castle tower. The problem was, when they’d first come into the house, Aziraphale could have sworn that there had not been any sort of light at the top of the tower. But after night had fallen, he’d glanced up to find the painted tower had a yellow glow in the highest room. Aziraphale was tempted to ask Bee if they’d taken any photos earlier in the day that included the painting, but he was reluctant to say why. Surely Crowley would be the first to tease him. And so Aziraphale kept quiet.
The next morning, the light in the tower was off. And the knight was now sitting astride his horse, rather than standing next to it, quite as if he might have somewhere to go.
Aziraphale understood that these things were real in the sense that he’d seen them, but not in the sense of them being evidence of an actual haunting. There were surely so many explanations for what had happened, and Aziraphale made quick work of convincing himself to keep thinking logically. Aziraphale did not believe. And thus what he saw could lend no proof to any belief.
And so tonight, in Deirdre Young’s house, here in the living room with its sofa and yellow curtains, Aziraphale told himself quite firmly that there had to be a rational way to explain what he was seeing.
It was night outside the windows and dark on the inside of them as well, the team having turned off the lights in the house. Michael had her night-vision camera going and they were filming Uriel asking questions of supposed spirits. The night-vision made for lovely, spooky visuals of the willowy, graceful psychic, and so it was a staple of their reports. (Many people seemed to think that ghosts would be more likely to appear in the dark. The truth was, obviously, that in the dark, humans could see less clearly and imagine ghosts more easily.)
Michael was easy to spot, being with the camera, but the others in the group were shuffling through shadow. There was a trace of muted moonlight coming in through the curtains, just enough to let the eye pick up people when they moved about, but when they stood still, they disappeared again. No one spoke but Uriel, in that sort of melancholy fog-horn voice she had; appropriate, since right now the room was full of people in the gloom trying to avoid bumping into each other.
Aziraphale had sworn he’d never mention an incident to the team again, and yet for some reason he crossed the room to where he thought Crowley was standing. He wasn’t sure it was him until Crowley turned and then his face was faintly lit up by some gadget he was holding. Aziraphale found his fingers reaching for Crowley’s arm, fluttering there like birds at a window.
Crowley looked at Aziraphale in surprise. “What?”
Aziraphale took in a steadying breath. “Crowley, I wonder if you might do something for me.”
Crowley looked impatient now. “What?” he repeated.
“It’s just— there are six of us,” Aziraphale said faintly. “You, me, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, and Bee. Yes? Just— just six.”
Crowley swung his head around to look out at the room, and Aziraphale could see his brow crease. He wasn't wearing his sunglasses now, so presumably he could see as well as Aziraphale could. After a second, Crowley grasped Aziraphale’s arm firmly and carefully walked them over behind Michael.
On the monitor of the night-vision camera, the room looked quite different, a green swamp of stilled and moving bodies. For a moment, there was only the voice of Uriel asking, “Can you tell us how you died?”
And then Crowley’s voice, strained and quiet, his eyes glued to the night-vision monitor. “There are seven people in this room.”
Michael heard him and turned around. “What?”
But Crowley was already reaching behind them, his fingers fumbling at the wall like Aziraphale’s hand had at Crowley’s arm, until he found the light switch.
The room was suddenly blasted with full overhead light, and against the background of Gabriel shouting at Crowley, Aziraphale counted, and counted again. “Six,” he said.
Crowley met his gaze briefly before putting his sunglasses back on. Aziraphale got just a glimpse of his eyes. “There were seven,” Crowley said.
Bee jogged over to the camera. “Roll back the tape, Michael.” They all gathered around it to watch, back past the white-out of the overhead lights coming on, down into the sticky green shadows. Michael paused the tape and everyone counted heads appearing in the gloom. Bee put their finger on the monitor and counted again. “f*ck,” they said.
Gabriel straightened up. “f*cking neighbor or someone knows what we’re doing, wants to play tricks.” He walked over to the hall and shouted, “I’m calling the police, asshole! You’re trespassing!”
“Gabriel, don’t antagonize him,” Michael warned. “He could be armed or something, you never know. We really should just call the police.”
“It isn’t,” Uriel said quietly. They all turned to her, surprised. Unless Uriel was working, she seldom spoke. “It isn’t a neighbor,” she clarified. She turned her dark eyes on Aziraphale for a moment, giving him the kind of pleading look that the families did. Please believe me.
“How do you know?” Aziraphale asked, automatically.
Uriel wrapped slender arms around herself. “It doesn’t feel human.”
Gabriel made a groaning noise. “Yeah, camera’s not on right now, honey. Save it.” Michael had her cell phone out and Gabriel waved a hand at her. “Yeah, call them.”
Michael was raising the phone to her ear when an alarm went off on Crowley’s phone, a shrill beeping. “Temperature sensors in that bedroom with the old closet door,” Crowley said.
He was gone before Aziraphale could say anything, vaulting up the stairs. Michael started complaining about her call not going through, while Aziraphale watched Uriel move as far away from the stairs as she could.
Another banging sound came then, quieter than the earlier one, but they all fell silent anyway.
Knock, knock, knock.
Five heads swiveled together toward the front door, but it remained silent. Everyone turned the other way, toward the stairs. Aziraphale could guess which door they were hearing. “No wind up there, is there?” he asked quietly, and Gabriel looked at him with an unaccustomed surprise on his face.
Knock, knock, knock.
“sh*t, that guy’s up there with Crowley!” Bee exclaimed, and Aziraphale joined them in running for the stairs.
He didn’t set foot on the first step. Instead, Aziraphale’s shoe met grass, so unexpectedly that he nearly fell over.
“What in the hell?” Gabriel exclaimed.
They were standing on the lawn in front of the house, just on the other side of the living room window. There was enough light from the house for Aziraphale to see Michael, Uriel, and Bee, and he could hear Gabriel’s shocked voice.
A cold breeze came up and cut through Aziraphale’s shirt to his skin. “Crowley!” he yelled, just as he felt the warmth of someone stepping closer, blocking the wind.
“I’m here,” Crowley said, sunglasses pushed up on his head. His skin looked even paler than normal, half in the lights from the house and half in the dark. “Front door was open. What are you all doing out here?”
Aziraphale couldn’t help it, he grasped Crowley’s arm again. “Upstairs—”
“Yeah. Somebody knocked on that closet door.”
“Um,” Uriel said faintly. “I think it was him.”
Through the window, they could now see a figure striding through the living room, pacing back and forth, his head turned away from them no matter which way he went. It seemed like somehow Aziraphale could feel his footsteps shaking the lawn.
Michael pulled her cell phone out and started filming the man. Gabriel was chattering excitedly: “...put something in our drinks, I bet! We all had lunch at that diner, they knew we were coming here, filming this, decided to give us hallucinogens, just wait if I don’t sue their asses…”
Uriel had a sickened look on her face, and Bee was being unexpectedly solicitous to her, rubbing one of her wrists. “Let’s go,” they were saying to Gabriel. “Come on, we’ll drive into town…”
“Is it him?” Crowley asked Aziraphale, still standing so close, with Aziraphale’s sweaty hand grasping his arm. “Jacob Grover? Whatever did happen to him? Tell me he left the house, moved on.”
“Didn’t,” Aziraphale said. “Never left. Died here. Weeks later. Tore the house apart, furniture smashed, top to bottom. And then—”
“How?”
“Shotgun. When they found him, he—”
“Let me guess,” Crowley said. “Didn’t have a face.”
Aziraphale shook his head.
Crowley sighed, and then he jerked his arm out of Aziraphale’s grasp. “All right. I know this is you.”
Aziraphale’s mind couldn’t quite make the jump to where Crowley was. “What?”
Crowley’s face was rigid with anger. “You know, you want me out of here so bad, you could have just had Gabriel fire me. Don’t have to scare the sh*t out of me, but I guess that’s right up your alley, isn’t it? All the spooky story sh*t you do. And you’ve got the whole team in on it, don’t you? Jacob Grover my ass, that’s some asshole you hired—”
“What?”
Crowley stabbed a finger toward the team standing on the lawn. “Come on, bloody Uriel’s a real psychic now? How dense do you think I am?”
“Completely!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “How the hell did I somehow pull the whole team through a wall onto the lawn?”
“What the f*ck do you mean, through a wall?” Crowley demanded. “I came down the stairs, you were all out here!”
“I mean through the damn wall, Crowley, we were in the living room and then—”
Crowley scoffed. “Sure. Only I didn’t see that, did I?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and somehow it made him look smaller. “Even had to touch me, didn’t you? Never done that before, and then twice today. Can’t believe I thought it wasn’t a trick.”
“A trick?”
Crowley’s tone was as biting as the cold wind. “I want you to stand here and tell me that you, Aziraphale Fell, believe that that man—” he pointed toward the house— “who’s currently walking around in plain sight, is dead.”
To his shame, Aziraphale could feel tears pricking in his eyes. “I don’t see,” he said, “why you claim you would listen to anything I would say!”
Crowley stood still a moment, and then he tilted his head, shrugged his shoulders, jerky movements. “You’re right, I don’t. I’m leaving. I quit. Keep the equipment, I don’t give a f*ck.”
Aziraphale’s hands fluttered, wanting to reach out to him. He opened his mouth, unsure of what he would even say, and then there was no way to say it, because Aziraphale’s next step came down on fuzzy blue carpet.
Aziraphale could scarcely take it in, the bedroom around him. Overhead light still on. Dusty desk. Crowley’s gadgets in the corner. Closet door— closed. Closed. The window— open. He rushed to it and pressed his palms against the screen. Downstairs on the lawn Crowley stared up at him in horror. And then he ran around the side of the house and disappeared into the dark.
