Chapter Text
Crowley is lying on the sofa in the shop, Marche Funèbre playing on the gramophone, a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in hand. No glass, only the bottle. He does not need a glass when his only purpose in drinking is to forget. Forget what he said to Aziraphale. Forget the vulnerability he laid bare before the only person who truly knows him, only to be rejected like an old handkerchief, a thing without importance. His head is spinning, his body feels terribly heavy. It’s his sixth bottle. He does not want to feel anymore, he does not care to feel anymore. It hurts him too much. A sharp pain in his chest like the blade of a dagger planted there. There is no blood, no physical mark on his torso, only the memory of 6000 years of friendship, of laughter…of love lost, extinct in the space of a single decision: him or the only place he hates most in the world.
“Hmpf…” Suddenly, he turns his back to the void. The bottle slips from his hands, lands on the floor. Shattered. The ruby liquid spreads over the old wooden floor of the shop. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT!”
Suddenly, he drops to the floor and hurries to pick up the pieces of the wine bottle he dropped. “Ouch.” The glass slightly cuts his fingers. He frowns, sits fully on the floor, then lies down in the puddle of glass and wine. Slowly, he places his hand in the scarlet puddle, his head very close. His fingers stir the liquid and trace the letter A. He cracks a semblance of a smile. Sad. His lips tremble a little, as if he were cold. “You left me…all alone…I…all alone…” A tear escapes his eye, slides along his cheek pressed against the wood stained red, then along the curve of his nose and finally lands on his upper lip. It is salty, almost bitter. Yet he does not taste much; he is too drunk to truly taste anything.
His heart hurts even more and his body feels even heavier as he lies on the floor. He feels as though he can no longer move. In any case, he does not want to move. He wants to stay near the letter he traced on the floor, the wine Aziraphale kept in the back of his bookshop for special occasions—if one can consider their separation a special occasion, it is ironic—he wants to stay near him even if he has nothing left of him, that he abandoned him, that he feels betrayed, pathetic.
His saffron eyes wander around the shop from the floor. He sees the books scattered on the shelves, on the fireplace, on the desk, in short anywhere there is the possibility of placing something. One work in particular catches his attention: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. A force takes hold of his body and he rises with certainty, grabs the book with ardor and fervor. In one motion, he throws it against the wall, then quickly takes another and repeats the same movement. Again. Again. Again. And again. The pages yellowed by the years fly simultaneously into the air. A rain of paper falling very gently onto the floor of the shop.
A cry of pain seizes him, his voice broken. “WHY?”
Crowley raises his eyes toward the window. It is night, the sky is starry. The work of his creation before his eyes. “I miss you, Angel”
The stars were shining softly up there. They are beautiful, to Her image. Crowley looks at them peacefully, his knees on the floor among the pages of the books he threw against the walls. It is quiet, the gramophone has fallen silent. The only thing that resonates is the love he has for Aziraphale that resides within him and in this room. He hurts so much. It is unfair, loving without return.
⭐
A familiar sound rings through the shop: a bell. The alcohol is still aggressively going on in his blood. It could be a false alarm, a false hope; after all, when he is drunk his imagination tends to flare up and he knows it. He does not want to get his hopes up, so he does not move. He sulks on the floor, his body still too heavy to move.
“Crowley? Crowley, are you there?”
He recognizes that voice, but he does not feel like talking or being lectured by anyone right now.
“Crowley, I know you’re there, Muriel told me.”
Damn.
He nods in spite of himself, “Mmmh…” He lifts his eyes from the floor and catches sight of Nina in front of him, her eyebrows furrowed and her arms on her hips.
“Come on! Honestly! This is pathetic. What are you doing on the floor? Muriel told me you would probably be in a miserable state, but this, now this is really pathetic, Crowley.” She throws herself at his feet and grabs his arms, trying to lift him off the floor. “Come on, help me a little! I can’t lift a supernatural entity with a hangover all by myself. I’m capable of many things, but there are limits. Now, stop being a selfish child having a tantrum and put in some effort.”
“Put in some effort,” he says in a mocking tone while trying to get up. “I am NOT druuunk! Just a little loosened up.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, and I’m the Queen of England.”
“You could be!”
“Don’t be stupid.” Nina lifts his right arm and places it around her neck. Slowly, she guides him toward the sofa where he had started his evening yesterday. “There you go.”
Crowley settles into a strange position that nonetheless feels comfortable to him. His eyes are red and irritated from the night before. Nina notices and cracks a slight empathetic smile. Crowley notices and it annoys him.
“I don’t need your empathy, Nina, I’m a demon. Demons don’t deserve empathy. It’s part of a demon’s job description to endure apathy. Anyway, that’s all I deserve, apathy. Keep your pity to yourself, it won’t bring Aziraphale back to me,” he says drunkenly.
Nina is sensitive to what Crowley is going through. She knows that his heart is in pieces and that he is suffering. She, more or less, went through the same thing during her breakup with Lindsay.
“I know you’re hurting, Crowley, I know you’re in pain and that you wish it had happened differently. But you need to know that you are not responsible for Mr. Fell’s choices, and besides, pushing away the people who care about you isn’t going to make you feel better. Actually, I think you owe Muriel an apology for having kicked them out of the shop. They are hurt. I don’t think you realize the impact of your actions, Crowley. And I know you’re drunk and you probably don’t care, but know that we are here for you whether you like it or not. And you know me, I’m stubborn, so don’t think you’re getting away with it that easily.”
“Mmmh,” says Crowley. He knew that what Nina was telling him was relevant, that she sincerely cared about him, but it was just that he was hurting and blamed himself so much for not having managed to convince Aziraphale to leave with him. He knew that Aziraphale had the abilities to be the Supreme Archangel. That was not the point. It was just that no one up there saw what Crowley saw in Aziraphale. Everyone in Heaven hated him, saw him as the worst of angels, an angel without importance, practically vermin to be exterminated. “Shut up and die already,” Gabriel had told him. He had tried to erase him forever. Crowley hated Heaven with fervor. How could they want to kill his Angel? How could someone want to permanently erase his only reason for being? Just thinking about it was terribly painful.
Nina heads toward the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water in her hand. “Here, take this, it’ll clear your head,” she says.
Crowley grimaces. “Why water when I could have a coffee?”
“It’s not recommended to mix substances, Crowley. Besides, you are really drunk, so in my world that sounds even more like a plan to sabotage yourself.”
Crowley grows exasperated, he throws his arms up. Unhappy. “Come on! You’re exaggerating! First of all, I’m not that drunk, and secondly, your whole mixing substances story doesn’t apply to demons. I don’t know if you forgot, but I’m not human. If you had consumed the amount of alcohol I consumed, an alcohol-induced coma would have been waiting for you, not one hell of a fiesta!”
“I am very aware,” says Nina, “but you are currently under my supervision and I will not let you mix substances as long as I’m the one taking care of you.”
Crowley sulks, grumbles a little, then ends up gulping down the glass of water Nina had poured for him.
“You see, it wasn’t that difficult!” She takes the glass from Crowley’s hands and places it on Aziraphale’s desk. “I have to go meet Maggie and Muriel at the café. Take the opportunity to regain your senses and when you’ve got your head back on straight, you will apologize to Muriel. Like I told you earlier, you really hurt them and you owe them an apology. And before you give me one of your fake excuses like demons don’t apologize, know that I absolutely do not care and that I still expect you to give them one.”
The next moment, Nina is outside the shop. Crowley sobers up, a dry taste left on his tongue. “I still expect you to show up,” Crowley repeats in a mocking tone.