Elsie Thomas did not want to be the little old lady who sat on her front porch in a rocking chair, knitting scarves and cooing at the stray cats of the neighborhood. She thought that she had done a rather good job of avoiding that way of life. Instead she would sit on the bench in the park, sipping on a coffee that was far too expensive, and shooing away any ducks or pigeons that were far too curious about the glitter and bobbles on her shoes. Elsie was very proud of the image she conveyed. In her glittering jewelry, trendy clothing, silver hair cropped tight to her scalp, and her prescription glasses in sharp cat eye frames, she felt she gave off the impression of a woman who could have very easily killed her husband for the money, but that it was far more likely that she had had a husband who worshipped the very ground she walked on until he was buried under it.
If you asked her, she would tell you that it was most certainly the latter. And if you persisted, she would fondly run her thumb along the ring on her finger and assure you it was mutual.
For those reasons she chose to believe that she was in no way a busybody. She was a sharp, inquisitive woman who happened to gather lots of information about those around her. Particularly, characters who seemed to be up to no good.
She saw two such characters now. It was late in the afternoon, the remnants of a summer breeze weaving its way through the trees. From her bench she could see the two men approach, one dark and lanky swaying along, the other prim and pale. The second man had a sort of dizzy smile on his face, his (friend?) wearing a matching grin, albeit more subdued. She frowned. It was hardly late enough in the day to be drunk, but they seemed too carefree to be anything but.
“It’s all still spinning,” she heard the taller man remark as they approached. “Look at it, angel, the world is still spinning!” Elsie felt her forehead crease. Yes, that young man was definitely drunk. That explained the way he was walking, lack of coordination and all. Hopefully his friend would be able to lead him home safely.
“It is, isn’t it,” the blonde man remarked, grin growing wider. He suddenly gasped as a paddling of ducks took flight from the pond.
“Oh look, Crowley!” he exclaimed. “They’re here too! I mean, they’re gone, but they’re here!”
Elsie grimaced. So this man was drunk as well.
“I know it’s like, it’s like nothing happened!” the lanky man, Crowley, said. “It’s like something changed, but, nothing at the same time.”
“Like New Year’s!” the shorter man (Angel?) exclaimed. “It’s like New Year’s!”
“How you mean?” Crowley asked.
“Well, the year changes certainly, the date and all,” Angel reasoned. “But it’s still just life isn’t it? A new year is different because people decide it is. They make resolutions and hope it will be better than the last go around.”
“I suppose that’s what we did too, isn’t it?” Crowley mused.
Angel smiled. “I believe we did, yes.”
Elsie watched the men’s backs as they began to walk further from where she sat on the bench and realized she had two options.
Option 1: Allow the two men to walk back home, or wherever they were going, where they could find some Aspirin and sleep off whatever alcohol was in their system. They couldn’t be that drunk (or too far under the influence of another drug) if they were still able to have a debate with each other. They were grown men, and she could trust them to take care of themselves without getting into too many shenanigans along the way.
“You know,” Crowley drawled. “If it’s New Year’s, we could celebrate like it’s New Year’s Day.”
Option 2: Figure out what the hell is going on.
Elsie grabbed her purse and tailed the two gentlemen.
***
She had been concerned that the two men were planning on setting off fireworks in a public space. That’s what she planned on telling any policeman who asked why she was following two strangers around. Fortunately, the two men were so wrapped up in their conversation that they paid her no notice.
“Well, did the world really continue, or was it reborn?” Angel had asked a few moments later.
“Continued clearly,” Crowley scoffed.
“Ah, but think about it. Adam changed it all didn’t he? He changed his lineage. So the whole world was based upon a plan in which he was to be the Antichrist. But he changed it so that that was never the case. So did the whole order of the world reset?”
Crowley stopped walking, looking at Angel with his lips parted and eyebrows raised far beyond the rims of his sunglasses.
“How the heaven did you just ask me that without having a complete breakdown?” Crowley asked.
Angel shrugged. “Well, I suppose I’ll do that too, eventually. But right now I’m alive and in good company.”
Elsie watched as Crowley worked his mouth a bit, attempting to form words as his cheeks dusted pink. Elsie tried to piece together all that she had heard. They were speaking in code, clearly, so they may not be as drunk as she had thought. However, that did bring up the thrilling potential of her having stumbled upon some sort of spy ring or mafia organization. The world ending must have been some sort of heist or take down of the government. But then, whoever was supposed to flip the switch had decided against it.
Good on that Adam, Elsie thought. Whoever you are. Good on you for telling the world what for.
“It’s not the world’s birthday though,” Crowley finally managed. “So we aren’t going to make a cake or anything.”
“Well no,” Angel considered. “But we could celebrate a birth rather than a birthday.”
“And how do we do that?” Crowley asked.
“I believe the current tradition is to smoke a cigar.”
Ah, Elsie thought. Definitely mafia then.
Crowley shook his head with a touch of fondness on his lips and the two continued on their way, likely to a cigar shop. Elsie could not quite figure out who these two were to one another. They were clearly both members of some sort of organized crime, but neither seemed especially happy about it given that they were celebrating a failed scheme.
They must have been brought in through the family, she realized. They didn’t ask to be mafia members, they were just pulled into it.
They didn’t look similar enough to be related though. Didn’t members of the mafia have to be from the same family? Or was that a mob? What’s the difference between the mafia and the mob?
Elsie quickly shook herself from her thoughts as the two men slipped into the cigar shop, the taller man holding open the door for his friend. Afraid of being caught, Elsie chose to wait outside for the two men to emerge again. To make sure they weren’t up to no good of course.
***
They emerged from the cigar shop arguing.
“I’m telling you, they do something different for baby girls!” Crowley was saying.
Angel huffed. “I really don’t think they do. Then you would have to wait for the child to be born and worry about running around to the shops right after.”
Elsie watched as Crowley began to scan the street. His gaze lit upon a young woman walking past with a stroller.
“Hey!” Crowley shouted. “Hey, Miss!”
Elsie saw the woman begin to slow. “Yes, sir?” she asked uncertainly.
Crowley gestured to the stroller. “What kind of baby is that?”
“Crowley!” Angel admonished as the woman reeled back. “Terribly sorry my dear, you see me and my...um....we are having a bit of a debate. Is it traditional to buy cigars for the birth of a baby girl?”
The woman’s face softened. “Oh! Oh are you expecting a baby?”
Crowley snorted.
“Oh no, not us,” Angel smiled. “A, um, a friend of ours.”
“Well,” the young woman smiled. “That’s wonderful. Honestly people seem to be veering away from the gendered baby announcement stuff, but when my brother was born my father bought cigars, and when I was born he bought chocolates.”
Angel’s eyes widened. “Chocolates?”
The girl nodded.
“Well, thank you young lady, we’ll be on our way then,” Angel said, glancing to his friend before bidding the woman farewell.
“So, I suppose we have to go to buy some chocolates then,” Angel said to Crowley.
Crowley shrugged. “Nah, you’re right. It’s silly to divvy it up isn’t it, we can just do the cigars.”
“Now Crowley, we mustn’t change tradition.”
“Hmmm I thought this was all about new changes though?”
“Demon,” Angel muttered.
“Aziraphale.”
Crowley’s voice sounded fond, something in his smile surprisingly intimate. Elsie felt as though she was eavesdropping upon a confessional while Angel floundered a bit.
“C’mon, let’s go get your sweets,” Crowley grinned, swaying down the sidewalk.
Elsie stood to follow Crowley and - Aziraphale was it? Then why had he been calling him -
Elsie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, pressing a palm to her heart.
Oh she had found a good story to follow.
***
After following Crowley and (Aziraphale? Angel?) around for the better part of three hours Elsie found herself once again in a remarkably empty St. James’s park as the last dregs of sunset poured over the horizon. Over the course of the journey she had seen the two men brush hands twice, lapse into comfortable silence more times than she could count, and both had had their turn to blush a remarkable scarlet thrice over. As the two men slowed to a stop at the water’s edge, Elsie lowered herself onto a bench several meters away.
She felt she had puzzled the pieces together quite nicely. Here were two men clearly from feuding criminal organizations (the redhead’s story about being “collected” for affiliating with the enemy certainly sealed the deal). But somehow some fellow named Adam (Elsie couldn’t pin down which of their sides he was on) managed to find a way to spring the two loose. She wondered how they ever could have found one another. Perhaps one had been assigned to kill the other, but had a change of heart along the way. Maybe the softer looking fellow had saved his friend, that would certainly explain the “angel” business. Although she just couldn’t imagine him holding a gun.
“Well, I think we’ve just about covered everything don’t you?” Aziraphale asked.
Crowley pulled the cigar from his lips, smoke slithering out in a lazy exhale. “Just about.” He passed the cigar to Aziraphale, his other hand patting down his jacket pocket. Aziraphale brought the cigar to his lips, sucking until the end flared vermillion.
“Here we are!” proclaimed Crowley, a narrow cardboard package in his hands. “Fireworks!”
“Crowley!” Aziraphale admonished with a puff of smoke. “We can’t set off fireworks!”
“Relax, angel. They’re just sparklers.”
Aziraphale frowned. “I believe those are also illegal to use in public spaces.”
Elsie could see Crowley roll his eyes from meters away. “How else are we going to celebrate New Year’s?”
Aziraphale remained unimpressed.
“C’mon, what if I hold it, hm? Then it’s all on me and I’ll let you throw out the stick so you’ll have technically thwarted me.”
Elsie felt her eyes widen. A mafia member wouldn’t care one wit about the legality of a sparkler. "Angel” must have been a policeman. Oh, how much more opposite could these two be?
Aziraphale let out a sigh that would have sounded much more put-upon if not for the smile on his lips. “Oh very well, if you insist.”
Crowley had forgotten the matches. Aziraphale shook his head warmly before holding out the still smoldering cigar. The two ends met in the middle, sparkler flaring to life in Crowley’s hand.
“You’re an accomplice now,” Crowley grinned, waggling the sparkler in front of Aziraphale.
Elsie expected Aziraphale to look affronted, to return to his earlier display of morality and scoff at Crowley’s antics. But to her surprise, and it seemed to Crowley’s as well, he only smiled softly. Eyes on Crowley, Aziraphale lifted his hand to wrap it around Crowley’s closed fist, the sparkler spitting gold above their joined hands.
“Gladly”, he said, and it sounded like a promise.
Elsie recalled a day in her youth, when she and her soon-to-be husband had been drunk on love and walking the streets of Paris. They had not been walking long before the sky had opened and rain had forced them to hide under the awning of a nearby jewelry shop. Elsie had grumbled about the rain, and how all of their plans for the day were ruined thanks to a hissy fit from the heavens.
“But look Elsie,” her husband had said. “The sun is still peeking through.”
“That’s worse, isn’t it? The sun being right there taunting you while it rains.”
“No, my love, see how hard the rain is falling? The mist coming up from the pavement?”
“I see it.”
“And see how the sunlight catches it? So it looks like gold dust?”
“I do, yes.”
Her husband had smiled, strolling out into the downpour.
“Get back here!” Elsie cried. “You’ll be soaked!”
“These are blessed streets now!” he had laughed. “The heavens opened up for rain but let a bit of heaven’s light fall down too!”
“You’re a fool,” she had said, fighting a smile. “You are a sopping wet fool.”
Then her husband had held out his hand, cheeks flushed from the cold. “Come into the light, Elsie,” he said. “And let us be blessed.”
Aziraphale’s fingers were still wrapped around Crowley’s hand. The two stood surrounded by a cloud of smoke from the cigar, their faces becoming hazy through the fog. The sparkler continued to glitter, the golden light reflecting off of the vapor. They still spoke to one another, murmuring so softly that Elsie could no longer hear. As she rose from the bench, Elsie saw Crowley cradle Aziraphale’s cheek in his hand before she turned towards home.
She wasn’t sure if it counted as Heaven’s light; cigars and sparklers didn’t seem Heaven’s style. No, this light was something entirely theirs.
Blessed, Elsie thought to herself. Nonetheless, it is blessed. ***
AN: My, it has certainly been awhile! I’ve just had that last image in my head for a bit and wanted to create it. Also, I learned that a group of ducks is called a paddling! Obligatory PSA to say smoking is bad for you! But I’m letting them do it because they are immortal.
To whatever it is that you are beginning, or continuing, or remaking; let it be celebrated.
Elsie "Toodles" Thomas dressed in a kimono and looking like a figure in a ukiyo-e print. She is shown blowing a quivering bubble, a longstanding symbol of the transient nature of life frequently used by pictorialist photographers.
