#doesn't even realise they've made a den of debauchery

[feralbutfluffy]

58: Muriel

Chapter 58 of Too Wise to Woo Peaceably

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Muriel slid the key into the lock and turned it with a satisfying click that they rather enjoyed.

They nudged the door open with their knee and wiggled their way inside, arms aching under the weight of a heavy crate of alcohol.

Things had got rather a bit out of hand at the off-license… 

But they didn’t think Crowley would mind! They gingerly placed the crate down just inside the door, setting off a jangle of clinking as the bottles settled themselves. Pulling on a bottle neck at random, Muriel tugged one loose and tucked it under their arm before moving deeper into the flat. It was curiously quiet.

They found the angel and the demon standing just inside the bedroom, Crowley leaning heavily on Aziraphale, the two of them silently taking in Muriel’s attempt at interior design. At the sound of their footsteps, Crowley turned his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Your handiwork, I take it?”

Muriel felt their face get very hot, like it might catch fire, and at the same time they felt-

nervous 

scared 

worried 

anxious

eager

excited

They placed the bottle just inside the doorframe and looked around, trying to see the bedroom through their eyes.

♢♢♢

Muriel had sent Aziraphale away earlier, hoping to give him time to talk to Crowley, and then they had sat on the bed, contemplating the dark, sleek angles, the emptiness of the room, everything cool and sophisticated and impersonal.

They had looked at the blood stains.

If they miracled them away, and replaced the sheets with similar, new ones, would that be enough? They thought of how Crowley had sounded when he had told her about sleeping, the way he had talked of it as if it were sanctuary.

'Great plan for a dreary month. Or a boring decade. Or a particularly rough century.'

Muriel tried to imagine Crowley wearily falling into this same bed with any amount of relief.

It seemed impossible.

Muriel thought of the way he had eyed the plants.

‘If plants have memories they’re unlikely to thrive in a room where some lunatic angel…’

Muriel wasn’t sure about plants, but Crowley certainly had a memory, and they suspected that what held true for plants might also hold true for demons.

Each time he lay in bed, he would probably be reminded of the stains. Even if Muriel removed them, he would still know. Every time he turned his head to the wall, he would be looking at the spot where his skull had cracked against concrete. Every time he swung his feet out of bed and placed them on the floor, he would be standing where he had been knocked to the floor, before he had been taken away. 

And it had only got worse from there.

Muriel felt their breath catch. Grief. Their heart felt swollen with it.

They stood and stepped away from the bed, trying to think of everything they had learned to love since being on Earth, so much of it from - or at least around - Crowley himself: from the simple loveliness of casual touch, to the way dust floated in sunlight, to almost-friendship, to the greenery of St. James’ Park, to fuzzy socks, to the padded booths at the coffee shop, to books, to reading books, to sugar crystals… 

They filled their mind with calmness, with warmth, and pulled at ideas, flicking their fingers down in the subtle gesture that drew power from Heaven.

The stain on the wall vanished, as did the black and gilt table that had careened into the wall.

The bare grey walls blanched to white, and then a sage and lavender haze crept over them, a fog made of watercolour splashes that had slowly cleared to reveal a dappled wood. Sunshine filtered through indistinct leaves, scattering impossible rays of golden light against the floor where it met the wall.

A walk in the woods, they thought, trying to infuse it with all the relaxation of a forest on a warm day.

They thought of Anne of Green Gables and the dust in the bookshop. A window appeared in the forest wall where there was no business being a window, and just outside it, the branches of an impossible tree swayed softly in an impossible breeze while inside the room dust motes twirled lazily, illuminated by the light. Muriel smiled, delighted. 

More gestures, more miracles. 

Muriel made short work of the concrete platform and the flat, stylish bed, banishing them elsewhere in favour of an enormous bed on a frame so low it almost looked like it rested on the floor. An ornate headboard of gilded mahogany dominated the space, borrowing details from Muriel’s recently departed chair and Crowley’s throne. 

An outrageously puffy duvet sheathed in golden velvet was heaped high with cushions and pillows and blankets in autumnal colours, each one with a different texture that invited the sleeper to touch, to hug the chenille and linen and silk and stonewashed cotton and cashmere to their body, to sink into the softness and drift into dreams. 

Crowley could burrow into it, if he wanted to. He could get lost in it, if he needed to.

Muriel’s hand patted thin air, and they looked up at the ceiling as clouds rolled in, thick and white. They narrowed their eyes and at the twitch of a finger, the clouds dissipated until they were nothing but pale painterly strands stretched across a pale blue sky.

They’d trotted down the hallway then, searching until they had found what they were looking for, and returned to the room looking extremely pleased with themselves. Their index finger moved, and suddenly there was a small, sleek bookcase made of polished wood, a matching end table, and a dark, soft, inviting wingback armchair. After a moment’s thought, they added a floor cushion.

They got to work stacking the published works of G.K. Chesterton on the bookshelf before adding the novels of Jane Austen. 

They placed The Extremely Big Book Of Astronomy on the end table.

Muriel banished the stain from the floor with a grim nod and buried the polished concrete under a layer of soft, plush carpet, dense enough to make it feel like walking on a cloud, 

They made a space for Benedick and Beatrice, and then looked around, enjoying the peace of the room. 

They loved it!

But would Crowley? They worried at their lower lip, thinking about Aziraphale’s aversion to dust, and Crowley's clothes, and Crowley's car... They looked around, thinking about Aziraphale telling them about the first time he had met Crowley, about the stars-

They could see it in their mind’s eye, then, and it was so precise that one sharp flick of their hand made the entire room change so quickly it made Muriel stumble.

The bed, its contents, and the wingback armchair were unchanged. 

The forest was gone, as was the window. The clouds rolled back and disappeared. 

In their place, silk velvet coated the walls and ceiling in a seductively deep navy. It was studded all over with constellations and errant stars picked out in gold thread. The carpet darkened considerably to match.

The bookcase became something sturdy and old with gilded whorls carved into the corners. The end table turned into an antique, and the floor cushion softened and sagged. Great swathes of material - some thick and heavy, some chiffon-thin - draped loosely from one corner of the room across the bed to the wall, creating an asymmetrical canopy in analogous tones. Muriel hid filament bulbs in the folds, and the enveloping darkness of the room made their soft warm light look ethereal.

Muriel added tiny string lights somewhere near the ceiling, then threw themselves backwards onto the bed, lying in the pile of blankets and pillows and cushions as if it were a nest. They looked up at the fabric. It twinkled with tiny pinpricks of light that looked like distant stars, the larger filament bulbs gently illuminating the bed, their light diffusing through the layers of the canopy. It was perfect. Dark and moody, yes, but also lovely and comfy and relaxing. It was perfect. Or at least they hoped it was perfect!

They thought of Anne of Green Gables again.  

‘And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.’

Muriel had never dreamed before but it sounded lovely!

A flick of a finger placed Crowley’s decorative coiled snake on the bookshelf alongside a rubber duck made of brass. They crafted a tiny bowl of sugar crystals out of nothing and placed it on top of The Extremely Big Book of Astronomy. They placed three pairs of fuzzy socks on the end of the bed. They sighed contentedly.

Of Muriel’s many revelations from their time on Earth, touch had been one of her favourites.

Shoulder bumps and friendly nudges and high fives and handshakes delighted them, the spark of connection they could feel from the most casual brush of skin against human skin a shock to their system after thousands of years of barely even speaking to a soul. As a nod to that, everything in the bedroom yearned to be touched; the carvings, the contrast of texture between the smooth velvet and the hard gold thread, the cosy happiness of too many pillows and blankets made from too many fine things. 

The other favourite revelation had been friendship.

Crowley was dear to them now, filling so many roles. He was like a teacher, but also like family. He was a mentor, and also maybe a reluctant friend? He was mean sometimes, only not really, only in a funny haha way, and he liked sleeping, and being seen as dark and grumpy, and liquor, and ducks, and plants, and Aziraphale. Not in that order.

And he didn’t like being woken at six thirty.

They had tried their best to make the room something he would feel comfortable in, something utterly different to what it was before while still hewing to his general style.

They had gone back to Crowley and Aziraphale then, feeling nervous, and taken themselves off on a needless errand hoping they would have processed the redecoration in their absence, but now here they were, and it appeared Muriel might have arrived at exactly the wrong time, because despite Crowley’s raised eyebrow they both looked slightly slack-jawed with shock.

“Y- Yes?” Muriel stuttered. Crowley looked back at the room, his eyes roving over the bed before meeting Aziraphale’s in what Muriel understood to be a meaningful look.

What the meaning was, however… well, that was completely lost on them.

Aziraphale stiffened and pointedly pivoted away from both Crowley and Muriel, which they took to be a bad sign.

“Do you hate it?” Muriel asked. “I can change it back if you hate it!”

Crowley smiled then, a proper smile, one that slightly split his lip where it had been healing (ouch), but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“Don’t you dare. This is great!” He looked excited in a way that Muriel had never seen, and for a moment, even with the bruises and the wounds, they could - if they tried very, very, very hard - imagine Crowley squealing with delight.

He beckoned them over, and when Muriel got close enough he reached out and took their hand, making them jump. He was still smiling, his face bright with joy - which was quite unnerving but also lovely - and Muriel watched him with wide eyes, wondering if he was quite alright.

“Thanks. I mean it, Muriel. This room- Well, I was afraid... I was dreading coming in here. And this- Well, it's- It’s so bloody gorgeous it’s distracting...!" He meant it, Muriel could tell, but his smile faltered, and it was lopsided as he finished the sentence. "... And I needed distracting.”

There was fondness written all over his face, and Muriel thought they probably were friends now, actually.

“Have a gold star,” Crowley said softly, and suddenly there was a small, hard, heavy object between their hands. He pulled away, and Muriel uncurled their fingers.

In the palm of their hand was a solid gold ingot stamped with an M in the shape of a star.