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sentientsky · 1 year ago

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“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Nina asked. “The poor guy probably just wants his space.”

The other woman turned to look at her from up on the staircase. Maggie pushed a lock of blonde hair back behind her ear. “I mean,” she began, one foot positioned on the next step up. “We already have this.” She raised a travel cup of espresso in the air. “And after all, I think he could use some cheering up. It’s been like two months, right?”

Maggie sighed resignedly and followed her up the stairs. “Okay, if you say so…”

They walked for a couple moments before coming to a stop in front of an apartment. All the other doors on the floor were painted a pleasant blue, she noted. This one, however, was a deep, rich black. Of course.

From underneath the door, the women could hear music, something familiar and with a steady beat. Maggie raised her hand and knocked.

Still, the music played on. And still no one answered the door.

“He’s obviously busy, Mags,” Nina muttered. It didn’t escape her notice that the other woman flushed pale pink at the sound of the nickname. Nina’s heart spasmed a bit in response, and she had to force herself to focus.

“I just—let me try once more, and then—” Maggie knocked again.

A beat.

Nina was ready to ask if they could leave when the lock on the door clicked open of its own accord. Well, alrighty then. They exchanged a look, and then Nina pushed open the door.

Immediately, the onslaught of angsty pop music poured through the threshold. Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Nina noted. She herself had played the same song more than once as a young adult, often in the throes of a breakup.

The apartment itself was in complete disarray; papers and knickknacks strewn everywhere. Plants drooped sadly on the edges of the room. In the corner, a pile of CDs had been toppled over. Eccles cakes and half-chewed scones littered the floor.

There, in the middle of the living room (which certainly looked lived in, Nina noted), Crowley was sat on the floor, legs all akimbo and arms thrown across the seat of a rather uncomfortable looking sofa.

Maggie stiffened at the sight of him, holding the coffee cup between both hands now. The poor demon was dressed in boxer shorts and an ancient Queen t-shirt. His hair was bedraggled, brushing against his shoulders in loose scarlet waves. Juxtaposed to the devilishly cool “burnt out middle-aged rockstar” persona he embodied most of the time, this new appearance came across as particularly disheveled.

Nina hesitated, then took a step forward. The music still thrummed in her ears. “Crowley?” she asked, injecting as much kindness as she could into one little word.

Head lolling, the demon looked up at the two women before him. For once, he wasn’t wearing his characteristic glasses. Maggie made a little sound of surprise at the sight of the demon’s golden snake eyes. They were a rich yellow—the same colour as Mr. Fell’s walls, Nina silently noted. It seemed Crowley hadn’t slept in a century, (did demons even need to sleep?) his undereyes tinged a pale purple.

“Crowley?” Nina called out again. Maggie moved to stand beside her, leaning down closer to the demon’s level.

Without warning, Crowley’s eyes began to flood with tears and he crumpled into himself. Oh. Oh no. They’d made it worse, they’d certainly made it worse. Nina had said that coming here was a bad idea.

“That’s what Aziraphale used to call me!” he keened. His boxer shorts had ‘XO Gossip Girl’ emblazoned down the side.

“I mean, that’s your na—” Nina began, but then reconsidered and dropped into a crouch to pat the demon’s shoulder, voice hushed and soothing. “There, there. I know. It’s going to be alright.”

Maggie crouched beside her, and tried to offer Crowley the drink in her hand. He looked up for a moment, and there was a moment of recognition, his eyes scanning the takeaway cup. And then he burst into fresh tears once again.

“That’s what I ordered the last—” he made a little hiccuping sound. “Ordered the last time he and I went to your café,” he wailed. The poor thing was inconsolable; Nina’s heart ached for him. In between ragged sobs, Crowley extended his arm under the couch. There, it seemed, he had found a slightly droopy crepe that was…just shoved under the sofa. No plate, no nothing. Just crepe to floor. What the fuck. Don’t eat it, please don’t eat it, Nina chanted in her head.

He ate it, of course, still crying.

Kelly Clarkson finished singing, and the track switched. Now, a more upbeat tune rose through the apartment.

It’s Britney, bitch.

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you eat anything—” Maggie began, reaching down to pick up a crumpled twinkie wrapper from the floor. And then, without warning, Crowley brought a napkin to his mouth and spat out a congealed mass of saliva and half-chewed dough. He sniffed pathetically and bundled it into a tight ball in his hand before tossing it somewhere across the room.

“Oh…” Maggie murmured, placing the wrapper back where she had found it. “Oh no.”

Crowley looked up at the two of them with ragged eyes, glinting pale gold in the dim light of his flat. “Don’t even like the taste. But he likes ‘em, so…Who else is gonna eat’em, anyway? While he’s gone, you know? ‘S up to me” He sniffed again, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“Are you—” Maggie began, and her worried eyes flickered to Nina. “Are you drunk, Crow—Anthony? Have you been drinking?”

“And wha makes you think that?” he muttered. Nina cast her eyes around the room. Wine bottles littered the floor. The counters. One sat on the pedestal of a statue of an angel and a demon…were they supposed to be fighting, or…??

When she turned back to face him, he was drinking out of a curly straw. His cup read ‘MAMA NEEDS SOME WINE’. She sighed, and reached to ease it out of his hand. He pulled it out of her reach immediately, a disgruntled look clear across his face.

“Nooo, Az—Azira—a stupid angel gave this to me,” he all but hissed. “‘S vintage. 2004.”

The track changed again. Something slower, with a steady piano backing.

My lover’s got humour.

She’s the giggle at a funeral…

At this, tears began to form afresh in the corners of the demon’s eyes. Nina stood up, looking for the source of the music. She’d had her fair share of sad music wallowing, but this was becoming unhealthy, surely. Over in the corner, a fairly recent sound system stood sentinel. She pressed ‘pause’ and ejected the disk. “What’s with this music?” she called across the room.

In sloping handwriting, the CD read ‘bad bitches cry perpendicular to the floor’. Oookay then.

“‘S a playlist I made. But everything I play in that godforsaken thing,” he motioned to the stereo system, “eventually turns into music by this one Irish fellow.”

Nina wrinkled her brow in confusion.

“Jus’ like the Bentley. But more straightforward, I suppose.” He took another sip from his drink, and the two women watched on as dark red liquid carried up through the loops of the straw.

“This isn’t healthy,” Maggie began. “I know it’s hard, and it’s okay to be sad. But we can try baby steps, right? D’you fancy coming down to the café with us? Maybe sit and talk for a bit? Get some natural light?”

Crowley scrunched his nose and spat a piece of red hair out of his mouth. “M’ fine, really. Never been better. More independent, less—” he waved his free hand around vaguely, “mmgh…yeah, I got nothin’” He toasted them with his ridiculous white suburban mom cup.

“You’re crying right now. And how long have you been wearing that shirt?” Nina asked. The thing looked lived in. By a family of possums.

He looked down, squinting at wine stains that speckled the collar. “This is my best shirt.” He looked back up at them. “And ‘m fiiiine.” He reached one gangly arm across the length of the sofa and pulled out a pair of circular sunglasses. Putting them on, he peered up at Nina and Maggie. “See? Can’t even see the tears.” He smiled, but it looked more like a grimace.

“Oh, hon. That’s not…” Maggie began.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Nina murmured. “Do you…” she looked around the room. Was that one of Mr. Fell’s sweaters hung over a chair? What had happened in that fucking bookshop? “Do you want to talk about it?” she finished.

Three hours later, Nina realized her assistant’s shift was nearly finished. From what she understood, Mr. Fell had left (his husband? Boyfriend? Wife? Immortal life partner?) Crowley for a business promotion somewhere far away. Crowley, for his part, was perched on the edge of the couch, wrapped up in the angel’s sweater. He sniffled, and pressed on:

“...And then it was 1967 and I was in my Beatles phase of course, because who wasn’t, honestly. And the bastard shows up in my car out of nowhere with a thermos. So I’m freaking out a little bit—in a very cool, suave kind of way, of course—cause this is one of the first times we’ve seen each other since the magic show,” he turned, looking between Maggie and Nina. “I told you about the magic show, yes?”

“Yes, you did,” Maggie muttered.

“Several times. The one where he told you to shoot him in the face,” Nina interjected.

“Well,” he waved his hand around. “I didn’t actually shoot him. Scared the fuck outta me, but—oh, I still have the photograph, you wanna see?” He moved to stand up then.

Maggie motioned for him to sit back down. “That’s alright. We’ll see it later—”

And he was off again, “So anyway it was 1967 and he’s in my car and he’s got a thermos and I’m all like ‘Are we gonna drink soup together? Is that tea? Cocoa?’ but noooo, he gives it to me and it’s fucking holy water. And he tells me he doesn’t want me risking myself. And—” his voice grew louder, more emphatic, “And he says ‘don’t go unscrewing the cap’. And by this point my stomach’s all in wobbly-wibbly fluttery knots and ‘m asking myself ‘what the bloody hell are we’ and I hate it ‘cause I’m a demon, right? And angels aren’t supposed to make you feel all—” he made a ‘pbttt’ sound and mimed a butterfly with his hands. Nina and Maggie exchanged a look. “Yeah. And then he says we should go on a picnic someday. Or to the Ritz or something. I’m losing my mind at this point, because is he asking me on a date? ‘M I out of my gourd? So, like any normal, reasonable person, I say I’ll drive him wherever he wants because then that means more time together which means more time to figure out this fluttery feeling or whatever. And guess what he says.” He looked at the two women seated on chairs in front of him. “Go on, guess.”

Maggie shrugged. “Sorry, no idea.” Nina shook her head.

“He says,” he leant forward on the couch. “He says ‘You go too fast for me, Crowley.” The poor demon let out an anguished groan and his head fell into his hands. Maggie reached forward to pat him on the shoulder.

[It went on like this for some time. They eventually got him to go to the park where he inadvertently began a duck cult; that is, a cult whose members consisted solely of ducks. Not a cult of humans dedicated to worshipping ducks. That would be stupid.]

this silly little crack fic is brought to you by me and my good omens brainrot (neil im in your walls). if u want to read my more serious stuff, you can find me furiously scribbling away in this corner of the internet: x

(side note: this particular story was inspired by a hilarious post from @miss-americanbi)