Archive of Our Own

Crowley was in the bookshop. You know the one. 

He was not there to stay, of course. Being there, it – it felt like the cruel press of Aziraphale’s pursed, unwilling lips against his desperate, pleading ones, and all he could feel was the angel’s trembling hand pulling him closer for a single moment before pushing him away, all he could hear was his voice trembling as he whispered out I forgive you, all he could see was himself turning his back with a deadened, flat don’t bother.

How cruel it was, the demon thought with a sadistic smirk curling the edges of his lips. How so very cruel, that the place that had been a refuge to him for so long, had been the very place that had brought about the worst of his pain.

(He meant the bookshop, of course. Not Aziraphale. Not the angel. Supreme Archangel, that was. Crowley felt a twisting feeling in his gut at any mention of the title, bile rising in his throat, his lip curling to reveal the fangs that he hadn’t been able to draw fully back ever since that day. Aziraphale? Not home. Not refuge. Not safe. Not any of those things. He only meant the bookshop.)

But as much as he physically couldn’t bear the thought of Aziraphale right now – as much as he completely and utterly hated him, loathed him, for what he had done, for abandoning him and leaving him alone when he had finally, finally been ready, after six thousand goddamn years, to present his heart on a silver fucking platter, only to have it be slashed straight through with a single breath of I forgive you, and be left with nothing but the bitter taste of unrequited love on his serpentine tongue – he, for some stupid, inconceivable, idiotic reason, still cared about the – the bookshop.

That was it. Only the bookshop. 

(Not Aziraphale. He did not care about his the angel; Aziraphale meant nothing to him. Nothing at all.)

The bookshop had always been a place of sanctuary for him because Aziraphale was there because it had quite a nice atmosphere, thank you very much, and Crowley quite liked the books because they made Aziraphale happy because they carried the weight of humanity’s history with them, and Crowley was not about to let them be not taken care of, just in case Aziraphale decided to come back just in case anyone ever needed them.

Crowley loved the bookshop. 

(Quite a hard thing to admit to himself, seeing what had happened the last time he had tried to confess his love.)

And so, there he was. Only a month after Aziraphale had abandoned him left, he had finally left his flat (he had dropped down to Hell and snarled in Shax’s sorry face until she had looked terrified, and that had both satisfied him and gotten him his flat back, as well as assuring that Hell would leave him the fuck alone), where he had been for most of the past several weeks besides occasionally going out to get wasted at bars, and he was back in the bookshop. He felt like a snake eating its tail. What was that called? 

Oh, yes – Ouroboros. 

Crowley was an Ouroboros, going in circles for all of eternity. Six thousand years, he had chased Aziraphale, and where had that gotten him? Getting drunk alone in a flat that looked more like a bloody prison cell, beseeching God, sometimes, when his dignity had finally bent in two and snapped, screaming until his voice was hoarse because there were no nightingales, and Aziraphale didn’t love him back, and now it didn’t fucking matter anyway, because he was gone.

Crowley thought all of this while being sprawled out languidly over the armchair in the main room, surrounded by books (how many had Aziraphale read, he wondered?), the angel’s desk where he had sat and pored over ancient texts for ever so long right across from him (Aziraphale’s journal was in there, too, Crowley knew, and he ignored the nagging part of him that wanted to grab it, to flip through the pages, to tear it to shreds until there was no longer a single trace of his love for the angel that could never be reciprocated). 

He hated this chair, he had decided, the thought breaking into his mind suddenly and abruptly. It was where he had been sitting when he had waved a hand and told Aziraphale to go and talk to the Metatron.

His limbs were sprawled out in a display of dominance that he did not feel at all, and he hid behind his dark glasses, yellow eyes dull and pale. He looked terrible, he knew, thin and drawn, his cheeks hollowed and his hair sticking up in the back in a way that suggested he hadn’t been taking care of himself properly. If someone assumed that, they would be correct.

Crowley had spent the better part of the past month curled up alone on the floor of his shitty, barren flat, letting his plants shrivel and die around him because he just didn’t care anymore, drowning himself in alcohol – going out to bars, sometimes, and making out with random, faceless strangers in bathroom stalls, because he could pretend that they were Aziraphale, and that was the only way that he could be okay, and it was terrible and awful and just another way to give himself the pain that he deserved.

He had barely even bothered with making himself presentable even as he had stormed out of his flat and to his Bentley (who he had yelled at for a good ten minutes after she had switched his cassette over to play Queen’s ‘Somebody To Love’, and promptly slammed the music player off with horribly shaking hands) on his way to the bookshop, because he knew that the person – or rather, angel – he was going to see would’ve give a rat’s ass about what he looked like. 

That was the only reason Crowley was in the bookshop in the first place (not because it was a place of peace or sanctuary or wonderful love, absolutely not, in no way whatsoever was it any of those things, it was a place of pain and cruelty and whispered forgiveness that made Crowley want to scream), for Muriel. He had found himself thinking of them after learning from Nina, who had come and tried to bother him to cheer up for a couple of days before he told her to fuck off one too many times, that they ran AZ Fell and Co now, haven been given the role by the Metatron. That they were there to take Aziraphale’s place, or something, as if anyone ever could.

(Crowley was pretty sure that they had really been abandoned by Heaven, but he would never have the heart to tell them that.)

So anyways, Crowley had come to give Muriel proper instructions on how to run the place the way Aziraphale would’ve wanted it the way it should be run.

He felt bad for them, in a way, he supposed. A bright, happy angel filled with naïveté, bubbling with inquisition all the same, always filled with curiosity and so many questions, always wanting to know more – yeah, he had been through that rodeo before. And it had ended with him Falling from Heaven, being one of the first of any being in the entire universe to experience pain – to the nth degree.

Crowley did not want that to happen to anyone else, let alone this pure of heart, sweet angel who only ever wanted to not be lonely.

It wasn’t that he really cared, per se, but he did feel a sort of . . . obligation, he supposed. To the bookshop, and to the poor, innocent angel who was kind, who was good and sweet and warm, who reminded him so much of Aziraphale that it physically hurt to look at them sometimes.

Crowley had come to the bookshop a couple of days that week, and had mostly just lectured Muriel on not actually selling the books, something that had taken forever to explain. Why?, they kept asking, and it took his entire amount of self-control to not snap and snarl out, I don’t know, why don’t you pop up to Heaven and ask the idiot himself? 

(“Because,” he had eventually settled on saying, rubbing his temples and counting down the minutes until it would be acceptable for him to go to the alcohol cabinet and get drunk on Aziraphale’s aged wine (the ‘Supreme Archangel’ didn’t need it anymore, did he?), “they’re special.”

Muriel’s brow had furrowed, their lips turning into a frown. “‘Special?’”

“Oh, it’s, uh – it means, like – important,” Crowley had explained in a tense voice, his jaw clenched so tightly that it hurt. “Something special is something you never wanna – never wanna lose.”

“So they’re . . . ‘special’ to . . . to Mr. Fell, right?” Muriel had pressed, tilting their head a little.

“Yes.” To Crowley’s chagrin, his voice hadn’t broken. He quite thought he deserved an award for that.

“Oh.” Muriel had frowned again, their voice confused. “Then . . . if they were special, why did he leave them?”

Crowley thought that his expression must have spoken louder than any words ever could have, because Muriel had rushed to change the subject, and they hadn’t mentioned Aziraphale after that.)

He hadn’t been going to the bookshop again for long, and he could never stay for very long, either, because it hurt too badly, and then he started feeling, which was just embarrassing, especially when he cried. Even when he was alone, he hated crying. It was weak. It was pathetic. 

Muriel had seen him cry, once. He had gotten drunk and passed out in the corner of the bookshop after giving them a long spiel about the deal with Maggie and Nina and the rain and the ball and the nightingales, and then he had thought of rain in the Garden and soft, feathered wings and leaning on a warm shoulder, and had drank enough liquor to kill a human and had cried and cried and Muriel had just sat with him, patting his arm gently, telling him he was alright even as they got confused when they began to cry themselves.

He had apologized afterward, and then they had said that they knew what he said about giving books away, but that they thought he could do with this one. And then they had handed him a book about scrying, because they had thought that it was crying.

Crowley had thanked them as seriously as he could, and then had gotten into his Bentley and laughed harder than he had done for weeks and weeks, and this time, when Queen came on over the radio, he didn’t do anything about it.

Those happy moments were fleeting, though. And always stained with the silenced song of a strangled nightingale, and the low murmur of an I forgive you. 

That day in the bookshop was a bad day.

Crowley, sprawled out across the armchair (the same chair where he had made his worst decision, to wave Aziraphale off and tell him to go, talk to the Metatron, what’s the worst that could happen?, and then the worst did happen, because of-fucking-course it did), was already slightly drunk, or maybe high, he couldn’t quite remember. It was what he did, now. It was easier than feeling. 

Muriel hadn’t been there, which was typical, because they were rather forgetful for an angel, something that was really quite irritating, but that couldn’t be helped. 

(Crowley had even gone out of his way to arrive a half hour late, and somehow they still weren’t there, the CLOSED sign swinging a little in the door from the whisking winds of a thunderstorm outside, straining against the windows. When it had happened for the first time, earlier in the week before, showing up to find them gone, he had sought them out, unbidden suspicion rising in his chest. 

He had found them observing a grocery store through a window.

He had stared at them, watching the wonderment and awe on their face at such a simple thing. It had made him smile, something that had nearly shocked him, because he couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled without Aziraphale.

He had left them alone. Who was he to break that illusion of beauty, of something to be adored?)

And so, finding himself alone in the bookshop once more, Crowley had deigned to let himself fall down into the armchair to wait for Muriel, because even if that was annoying and irritating and even if they reminded him a little too much of Aziraphale sometimes that it made him want to cry, he did still feel that strange obligation to help them.

He hated being alone in the bookshop. The silence, it – it wasn’t right, made him feel unsafe and exposed even as he hid behind his glasses. There always used to be records on, crooning out Freddie Mercury in the background because Aziraphale knew that Crowley had been friends with him and filling the empty space, but now it was silent, and all Crowley could hear was the broken voice of his angel, whispering I forgive you. 

Crowley growled, deep and guttural and animalistic in his throat, and he stood all at once, wobbling just a little with no Aziraphale to steady him with a hand around his waist. He paused for a moment, breathing air that he didn’t need through flared nostrils and feeling smoke begin to pour from him in waves, before he stumbled towards the back of the shop, treading the all-too-familiar path towards where the liquor cabinet was fitted snugly in between where Aziraphale had kept the tea and kettle. Two sides of a coin. 

(A coin that was spinning and spinning, deciding their fate over the course of six thousand years, until it had eventually clattered to the ground, out of sight, hidden forever, and no resolution was made.)

“There you are,” Crowley mumbled to no one, and if anyone had been around to listen, they may have thought he was drunk already from the way his voice slurred and hissed, the words running over one another. He knew that he shouldn’t be doing this right now, probably, knew that in all likelihood, Muriel would be back soon, and he really didn’t want to burden them with his stupid bullshit, but - 

He needed this. He needed it. He couldn’t bear it if he didn’t. 

The alcohol, it was easier than feeling. It was easier than continuing to be an Ouroboros, spinning in endless circles like an undecided coin, coiled around his own tail as he searched for a love that had never and would never be his.

(Realistically, he could get drunk without it, but this – it felt better. Maybe it helped him forget he was a Fallen angel for a few moments, just a few, as he collapsed onto dirty floors and bar counters and shitty, worn-down couches, head pulsing with the beginnings of a hangover that he didn’t recall he could make vanish, pained moans falling from his lips with no one to comfort him, no one to wipe his tears – and no one he wanted to do so.

It was a Temptation, he supposed, in and of itself, and one that he gave in to every time.)

Crowley wriggled his fingers, running a hand along the fine wood of the cabinet, before snagging a bottle of 1921 liquor, which was also a good nineteen percent straight absinthe, because that had been a big thing in the Roaring 20s. 

“Hel-lo,” he murmured to it as if speaking to an angel, his fingers stroking over the glass bottle. He brought it to his lips and wrenched the cork off with his fangs before stumbling back into the main room and grabbing that stupid fucking mug that Aziraphale had always loved so much, pouring the liquor into it with slightly shaking hands. 

The fact that his hands shook at all just spoke to how weak he was.

He tossed back the drink, letting it burn through him, coiling like fire through his body in a way that made him feel that same warmth that Aziraphale had always given him, if just for a moment. He wavered for a moment, staring down at that stupid, stupid fucking mug, at the angel wings poised in white, unstained ceramic, and then let it slip through his fingers, where it shattered to the ground, the wings tumbling underneath the couch while the rest of the mug broke into hundreds of tiny white shards at Crowley’s feet.

The demon smiled, fangs poking over his lips, propping his hands on his hips and barking a single laugh. 

For a moment. For a moment, it felt good. As if breaking a mug would do anything.

And then, because he felt bad (what kind of demon was he, that he felt all of these stupid, stupid, stupid emotions?) about Muriel having to clean it up even though they were a bloody angel anyways and because that had been rather childish of him anyways and Crowley’s mind made him picture Aziraphale’s expression, sad and disappointed, if he ever saw the pieces shattered broken across the floor, he kneeled beside the broken mug, a little shakily, and fixed it with a mere snap of his fingers. 

He held it in his hands, turning it over and over, thumbing over those stupid stupid stupid angel wings before placing it gingerly back down onto the small coffee table by the couch, resisting the urge to slam it down. He wondered, unwillingly, if Aziraphale’s wings were different now; more of that of an Archangel, perhaps, or a Seraphim. And then he stumbled back to the armchair, collapsed with limbs splaying everywhere, and raised the bottle to his lips, letting the burning liquid warm his chest and crash into his mind, making his head spin.

“Urghk,” he mumbled incoherently to no one, curling around himself and cradling the bottle to his chest, squeezing tightly. He was rather pathetic, wasn’t he? A mess. “Hrng . . .” Lovely, now he couldn’t even form proper words, and his eyes were burning again. He was just Falling further and further by the day, wasn’t he?

And then, because he was a disgusting, worthless creature who deserved nothing but to not feel (although maybe ‘feeling nothing’ was the best thing for him to do right now, something that just made his frown deepen), he tipped his head back and gulped back the rest of the liquor, the feel of it making him sigh with choked, strangled relief. 

It took a lot to get him drunk – he was a former prince of Heaven, after all – but, fuck, he had been drinking practically nonstop ever since that day (he had been so ready to confess, had finally been ready after six thousand fucking years, and all he had done was be a pathetic, weak, desperate little thing, and yeah Aziraphale fucked up and was a fucking idiot but he was still far too good for Crowley, and always would be), and he was pretty sure that he was permanently impaired, now. Especially with the added kick that was the absinthe.

(The alcohol helped. It was how he coped. He couldn’t feel, couldn’t ‘work through it’ as Nina had once so pointedly put it, couldn’t get fucking closure. He needed this, and to Heaven and Hell with it if that was pathetic. He was pathetic. He knew he was. He was a disgusting thing that deserved to be this hurt. Deserved to be hurting. Deserved to be left.

And the alcohol helped him cope with that, too.)

Crowley groaned a little, the bottle slipping from his suddenly-numb fingers and falling to the ground, rolling away a little. Crowley squinted at it, making a face, and then buried his face in the crook of his elbow, sighing out a trembling exhale.

To be honest, he had forgotten what he was doing here in the first place – all he knew was that he was in Aziraphale’s bookshop, and that it didn’t feel like home anymore, it felt like betrayal and cruelty and broken promises and the feel of that last desperate, awful kiss. 

The demon didn’t know how long he stayed like that, curled up in the armchair with his eyes squeezed shut and his head spinning and everything going floaty and far away, but he startled upward at the loud crack of thunder outside, accompanied by the roar of angry rain. It had been raining a lot lately. He wondered if it was because of him, then decided that he didn’t really have the wherewithal to care.

Crowley let out a low whine, suddenly regretting his choices to drink absinthe. His head was pulsing, and everything hurt, and he was going in circles like a snake Ouroboros or a spinning coin, spiraling into the stars that he himself had created, and then Falling and Falling and Falling, crashing into Hell – crashing into Hell, as his mind decided to make everything worse by fucking with him in the way that hurt him the most. Hurt that he was used to, by now.

Alcohol usually helped. But sometimes, like now, it just made it worse. Because fuck him, right?

“Crowley . . .”

It was Aziraphale’s voice, and Crowley just whimpered at the sound of it, cringing away and squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he could. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. He repeated that to himself like a mantra, shoving a fist into his mouth to keep himself from sobbing, shaking his head slowly, because it wasn’t real. 

And then Not-Aziraphale’s hand was brushing over his cheek, so gentle and kind and soft, and Crowley keened at his touch, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks even as he kept his eyes shut tight, because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he saw his angel’s face. 

The dream that was not Aziraphale but that felt like Aziraphale kneeled down beside where Crowley was curled up in the armchair, cupping his face in his palms and brushing his tears away with such care, as if the demon was something to be gentle with, something to revere, to adore. 

Unlike what his dreams usually consisted of (hatred, pain, hurting and crying and Falling and kissing so desperately that it burned against his tongue), this felt rather nice, and Crowley couldn’t suppress another pathetic whimper that crawled from his lips just as he once had crawled to stand at Aziraphale’s side. Never deserving.

The thing that felt like Aziraphale was murmuring sadly to him in a voice that sounded like Aziraphale’s, and Crowley wavered for a moment, trying to stop the Ouroboros from coiling, trying to stop the coin from spinning as he strained to listen, to get even a hint of Aziraphale’s voice that wasn’t a single broken I forgive you. 

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale’s voice was whispering, sad and filled with a strange kind of care that Crowley didn’t understand. “Poor darling. Oh, Crowley, I’m so sor –,”

“Don’t,” the demon grunted, yanking himself away from the angel’s (not an angel not Aziraphale not here not real ) and hissing between his teeth, swatting out a wobbly hand. “Fuck off . . . fuckin’ ssstupid alcohol . . . leave me alone, let me – lemme not think ab’t him for a minute.” 

A sob choked up Crowley’s throat as he forced out his words, and he curled tighter in on himself, reaching up to yank at his hair with shaking hands, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly that it hurt, preventing any more tears from leaking from the corners. “L’ve me al’ne . . .”

There was silence for a long moment, and Crowley let out a miserable, choking sob, burying his face in his hands as tears poured down his cheeks. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself, his body trembling. And then, probably the most coherent thing he would say all evening: “Fuck, what is wrong with me?” 

The answer was everything, of course, because he was, fundamentally, a broken thing. A worthless, pathetic thing. Needy and desperate, hideous and disgusting. Fundamentally, Crowley and Crawley and whatever, whoever else he was, he was broken. 

(Everything was wrong, and Aziraphale had made it right, and then he had left, and it was all wrong again. Shattering Crowley to pieces just as the mug with the stupid wings had shattered, except there was no one to piece him back together again. Striking the spinning coin, sending it into darkness, its answer never given, closure never presented. No one, nothing, nada, zero, no one loving Crowley, not even himself, not even him deserving it, never could, never. 

Hideous, disgusting, pathetic, worthless. Broken. Fundamentally, that was what Crawley was. What Crowley was. And what he always would be.

Really, how idiotic did he have to have been to ever have believed that Aziraphale could have loved him?)

Crowley winced as he cracked open his eyes, sticky with tears, and let out a string of mumbled swears under his breath as he saw - 

Nothing. 

The demon exhaled a long, trembling breath, letting his eyes slide shut once more. Of course Aziraphale wasn’t there, he had never been there in the first place. He knew that. Besides, even if he had been there, Crowley would have gotten angry, rightfully so. He – he hated Aziraphale, didn’t he? He was angry with him. He – he hated him. 

So then why was he so disappointed?

(He wondered if Aziraphale hated him, too.)

“‘M’not dealing w’th this,” Crowley slurred to no one in particular, before stumbling out of his chair and crumpling to the ground with a gasp, his useless legs trembling weakly under him. Tears crashed over him at the same time that there was a great boom of thunder from the storm outside that made him flinch, his entire body shaking pathetically.

He reached for the empty bottle that had rolled across the floor, grabbing it with weakly trembling hands and squinting at it, the image blurred, until it filled up once more, pure absinthe this time, because if he didn’t fucking get rid of his thoughts right now, then Aziraphale was going to come back, and he wouldn’t be able to bear it. 

Crowley raised the bottle to his trembling lips, his weak sobs spilling into the mouth of the bottle, but before he could tip the liquid into himself, there was the touch of a soft, gentle hand on his face, and he jerked away with a gasp, dropping the bottle to the ground with a loud thud that reverberated through his mind alongside his wildly beating heart, catching just a glimpse of the ethereal beauty crouching beside him before squeezing his eyes shut once more with a barely-stifled whimper.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, hard. “Not real. You’re not real. Stop, it hurts.” Crowley was crying in earnest again, the alcohol influencing the emotional rush, and he suddenly remembered the day when he had been sitting alone in the bar after the bookshop fire, coated with ash and smelling of smoke; when he had choked out, in a voice strangled with tears, I lost my best friend. 

And Crowley crumpled into Aziraphale’s arms, letting him hold him, because even if it wasn’t real, not in the slightest, it was – it was comforting. It was better than drowning himself in shitty alcohol, because it was Aziraphale, and fuck, he missed him so fucking much, and he was so angry but more than anything, he was just really fucking sad. 

 Aziraphale (not Aziraphale, his mind reminded him unhelpfully, and Crowley choked on a heaving sob, wishing more than anything – praying to the God Almighty, so desperate that it physically hurt – that this was real) held him, shushing him gently, his own soft tone swelled with tears. He shifted to press Crowley against his warm chest, holding him close, and then stood all at once. 

Crowley squeaked with surprise, reaching to cling to the angel instinctively, and he thought Aziraphale smiled, his lips just barely grazing Crowley’s forehead for a moment as if he had gone to kiss him but thought better of it. There was a pause, a moment of bated breath, and then:

“I’m so very sorry, my dear, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured to him, and that did it.

“Az’phale,” Crowley wailed, pressing close to him, great sobs swelling from his chest. He pressed further into Aziraphale’s embrace, burying his face into his soft, warm neck, his limbs falling limp in the angel’s hold, his mind fuzzy and disoriented as he thought that if he was going to dream of his angel, he may as well make it whatever it was that Nina meant when she talked about ‘closure.’

(For the first time since that day, Aziraphale felt like safety.)

Aziraphale let out a choking noise, his throat convulsing against Crowley’s cheek, and he seemed to not be able to help himself as he leaned to press a long kiss into the demon’s hair, making Crowley feel suddenly self-conscious about being so disheveled. 

“I’m here now,” the angel murmured into his ear, and Crowley shivered, grief stabbing at him in a way that was so painful it felt like he would discorporate at any moment.

Not for long, he thought sadly, and the thought made him curl further in on himself, clinging to Aziraphale. Never wanting to let go, even though he knew he would have to. His anger drained into weak neediness that made him feel even more pathetic, but somehow wonderful when Aziraphale fulfilled his needs with gentle kisses and soft, murmured words.

He felt the angel begin to move to carry him upstairs, up to the flat that no one had entered for weeks and weeks. Crowley tried to remember if he had ever been up there at all; he was sure that he had, but just couldn’t remember. He had spent so long going in circles, after all; less important things slipped through the cracks as he watched the coin spin on the head of his Ouroboros mind.

Aziraphale’s steady hands were hooked underneath Crowley’s legs and back, holding him close and firm (it felt so real, so real that Crowley could taste his lips on his, and it wasn’t bitter, but it was warm and familiar and wonderful and everything he had ever wanted), and Crowley’s face was pressed into his neck, breathing him in, crying into his shirt in a way that he never would’ve done, had this been real.

“Why’d’ou . . .” Crowley’s voice was slurred to the point of being incoherent, and he whined with frustration for a moment, trying to steady the spinning coin, to focus enough to speak. “Why’d you leave me, ‘Zira’hale?” He managed after a moment, his words mumbled and bathed in utter misery. He clutched to Aziraphale’s shirt collar with a trembling hand, tiny shaky breaths falling from his lips. “Hurtsss.” He stabbed at his chest with his hand, his head lolling to one side. “Hurts, here.”

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale breathed out, his voice shaking. He leaned down, as if to kiss Crowley’s forehead once more, but thought better of it, pulling back, his hands squeezing lightly. “I – I was – I was blinded, I didn’t –,” He cut himself off with a long exhale, his heart that he didn’t need pounding wildly, frantically, against Crowley’s side. 

“We can talk about this later, dear, when you’re more . . . coherent,” the angel continued after a moment, and Crowley whined as he felt himself being placed gently down onto Aziraphale’s uninhabited bed, which Aziraphale himself had only ever used for late-night reading. Aziraphale’s breath trembled as he smoothed a hand over Crowley’s shoulder before moving up to cradle his cheek, and Crowley thought, for just a mere, fleeting moment, that he felt the angel’s warm breath against his lips. 

“I will be back, my darling, I promise.” Aziraphale’s voice was earnest even as his words trembled, but Crowley just turned his face away, his entire body shaking pathetically.

“Doesn’t matter,” the demon mumbled, choking on his words. Still, he couldn’t help himself, and pressed weakly into Aziraphale’s phantom touch (because he wasn’t really there), his heart positively aching. Oh, he truly never learned, did he? “Not an’more. You’re gone, angel.” Crowley tried to spit the words out with anger, with malice, but found that he could not, and all that came with it was weary grief. “You left me.”

“I – I know.” Aziraphale’s voice was thick with guilt and sorrow, and Crowley wished more than anything that it was real. 

Hey, God? he thought, rather hysterically. Go fuck yourself. 

“I’m sorry,” the angel said again, and his voice broke. Crowley found himself going numb, and his eyes opened into tiny, tiny slits, only to close them again at the first sight of Aziraphale, because he knew, with every part of himself, that if he saw his angel now, he would not be able to fucking bear it.

“Doesn’ do nothin’,” Crowley growled out, even as the words trembled, even as a sob threatened to well up in his throat once more. He pulled away from the ghosting touch of his angel, ignoring the way that his skin seemed to scream out in protest, in longing for Aziraphale’s gentle hand on his cheek. Weak, needy, pathetic. Fundamentally. 

“Fuckin’ fuck off, Ang’zl’phale,” he rasped, grief and guilt and self-hatred surging in his gut. He needed alcohol. That would help. He needed it. He needed help. Azriphale could help. Aziraphale wasn’t here. Aziraphale was gone. Gone. He was alone. He always would be. 

This wasn’t real, as much as he wished, as much as he prayed that it was. Because if it was real, then -

(Then what?

He didn’t fucking know.)

Not-Aziraphale sighed quietly, his hands kneading at the covers that Crowley was half-passed out under. He pulled them gently up to the demon’s chin, tucking him in as one would a child, brushing an ever-so-gentle hand through his hair. Crowley suppressed a desperate, keening whine at the mere touch of his angel, his body trembling; he gasped, his eyes squeezing tightly shut, as he felt Aziraphale lowering his dark-framed glasses from his face, placing them on the nightstand. 

Crowley’s lashes fluttered for just a moment, and his heart jumped to his throat, his breath stuttering. He carefully and slowly cracked his eyes open, in a fleeting attempt to catch just a single glimpse of the achingly beautiful face that existed, now, only in his mind.

But when he opened his eyes, Aziraphale was gone, and Crowley was alone again.

Ouroboros, he couldn’t help but think, the thought bitter and filled with grief. Eating his own tail. Going round and round in circles. A single coin, spinning and spinning on the edge of the universe, angled just so in a way that means it won’t ever fall, stuck between paths, never changing, always tilting just before it falls. 

(Nothing ever changes, and Crawley stays alone.)

Crowley stared around the dark room, trembling and shaking, his mouth slightly parted, his pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. He inhaled sharply, a tiny, whimpering sound, and he broke.

He curled in on himself, beginning to heave great sobs once more, anger and grief and guilt and agony crashing down on him all at once as he became overwhelmed with emotion that he had been suppressing ever since that day – that day when he and Aziraphale had crashed together in that awful, terrible kiss, and Aziraphale had whispered, so brokenly, so desperately: I forgive you. 

(Don’t bother, Crowley had growled out, when what he should have said was, I love you.)

He said it now, whimpering into Aziraphale’s pillows and sheets, inhaling the last vestiges of his angel, squeezing his eyes shut and letting himself cry and cry and cry, because it didn’t matter anymore if he was pathetic or worthless or disgusting. Nothing fucking mattered anymore, because Aziraphale was gone.

“I love you,” Crowley wailed into the pillow, screaming himself hoarse and sobbing until he couldn’t breathe. “I love you, I love you, I love you, Aziraphale.” 

For six thousand years. Millennia. 

(Ouroboros.)

“I love you,” Crowley whispered to his angel and to no one all at once, desperately wishing that he had had the strength to grab the spinning coin, to choose his own fates, to tell Aziraphale just how much he loved him. 

Before it had been too late. 

(He thought that maybe, there had been the ghost of an I love you in return, breathed almost inaudibly into his ear, but if he let himself believe that, he thought that he would surely lose his mind, if there was any of it left to lose.)

When Crowley stumbled back down the stairs and back into the bookshop the next day – he hadn’t even had to miracle away what should’ve been a raging hangover, and somehow didn’t feel as if he had been at all intoxicated, which was . . . strange, given that he had drunk far past his tolerance level – he had asked Muriel, who had apparently gotten back a little later in the evening after he had fallen asleep, how he had gotten into Aziraphale’s bed. His memory from the previous night was fuzzy at best; to be honest, he was relieved that Muriel hadn’t been around, because Heaven forbid they see him like . . . that.

They had frowned thoughtfully before responding with an apologetic, ‘sorry, Mx. Crowley, I was feeding the ducks, I’m not quite sure’, and he had asked them with what?, and they had said bread in a voice filled with confidence, and there was a very nice distraction for the next couple of hours as he lectured them on feeding ducks frozen peas, because they were good for them and nutritious, thank you very much.

Crowley had decided to not dwell on the circumstances too hard, however. He chalked up the faint memories he had of Aziraphale to a – a dream, a hallucination, or – or a cruel act of Hell itself, perhaps. Far too cruel, to give him Aziraphale’s love only to tear it away. 

And it was torn away. Aziraphale was gone, Crowley knew that. He had left, leaving behind only the brush of a trembling hand around Crowley’s waist as he pulled him close for a single moment, the two of them interlocked in that awful kiss, only to push him away just as Crowley did the same.

(Aziraphale could never love him, anyways.)

Aziraphale was gone. 

Crowley knew this.

(Crowley ignored the fact that all of the alcohol in the cabinet had been replaced with lovely little sweets. He ignored the way that his glasses were folded neatly on the bedside table, not thrown haphazardly as he was known to do. He ignored how, when he stepped outside of the bookshop in the morning and laid eyes on the Bentley, she appeared yellow, for just a moment, before he blinked and it was gone. He ignored that the first song to come on the radio was Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, even though he chose to let it play, his heart aching, his breath catching with longing in his throat.

He ignored the hope that was trying its damndest to ignite itself within him, crushing that hope underneath his heel and trying to forget about it, because Aziraphale was gone. The other things had been purely coincidence. There had been no one to carry Crowley to bed, no one to wipe his tears away, no one to listen to him say I love you and say it back. He had been alone; he always was. 

Right?)

And things started to be okay after that.

Crowley wasn’t okay. He was so far from it that it was nearly laughable. But he wasn’t drinking himself into a stupor every day anymore (mainly because now, almost every time he tried, the drinks miraculously changed themselves into Shirley Temples, and because whenever he tried to say absinthe it came out as calming jasmine tea, something that he was going to curse Aziraphale for quite irritated about, but it must be a subconscious thing, surely). It rained less, and sometimes there was even sun, peeking through the clouds and reminding Crowley of an angel. 

The nightmares were still there, but most nights, he stayed at the bookshop anyways, curled up in Aziraphale’s bed battling the shame of it with a pillow pulled to his chest, and Muriel wasn’t the biggest fan of sleeping even after Crowley had taught them how, so they were always there to comfort him if he needed it. And after thousands of years of keeping everything under lock and fucking key, the demon was finally allowing himself to be comforted. It was shameful and stupid and embarrassing, but it was also wonderful, and Crowley supposed that that had something to do with what Aziraphale had always called ‘the mortifying ordeal of being known.’

He still thought he was fundamentally broken, disgusting, pathetic, blah blah blah, all that jazz. He didn’t know if he would ever stop feeling those things. But it was manageable. It was okay. He wasn’t, but he was getting there, maybe.

Having more friends than one angel who he saw once every hundred years was a nice added bonus.

He went out with Nina and Maggie a lot. Nina especially seemed to really understand him, despite her being a human with a lifetime that was comparable to that of the snap of a finger and him being a millenia-old demon with abandonment issues. Nina could relate to the second half of that, though, and kept trying to convince him to go to ‘therapy’, which was just, frankly, ridiculous. 

(The Bentley, or maybe it was Aziraphale, apparently thought otherwise, though, because whenever Crowley turned on the radio now, the ads that came on in between songs were specifically about therapists near Soho. Go figure. He was a demon, he didn't need any of that. Maybe. He would think about it.)

But besides that, Nina and Maggie were fun. Disappointingly, they hadn’t gotten together yet, and had made him promise to not meddle, but he saw the way they looked at each other. He recognized it, because it was how he had always looked at Aziraphale. 

He told them both one day, when he had gotten really drunk (not to cope, though, but simply . . . to have fun, to let loose, and he didn’t need it, it was just a fun night out with his friends even though Nina was the only one who got sloshed with him, and because he was on his way to being okay; every day, he got a little closer).

“If y’don’t tell’er,” he had slurred, almost indecipherably, leaning in close to Nina even though Maggie was right there, “you’ll regret it. an’ then when you do try, it’ll be . . .” He had just waved a hand around at that, making a face and a blegh noise, but they had understood.

(Crowley had seen them the next day, walking around Berkeley Square hand-in-hand, leaning on one another, and he had smiled. They still denied that they were dating, but what was a little blurred lines, eh? Crowley had done it with his angel for six thousand years, after all.)

And so Crowley went on living, and every day, he became a little more okay. 

Every day, walking into the bookshop felt a little more like home. 

Listening to Muriel ramble on about whatever ‘strange human thing’ they had learned that day (always, without a doubt, a completely normal thing such as a person wearing headphones or a leaf falling from a tree or a donut with sprinkles), drinking wine with Nina while Maggie raised a disapproving eyebrow whenever they got ridiculously plastered, exchanging stories amongst one another (the two women were always far more interested in his own, Maggie especially, since she loved history, and he was usually happy to oblige, unless it was about the fourteenth century), spending time on his own, re-familiarizing himself with the bookshop and with his Bentley, aggressively sitting splayed out in the armchair in the main room until he felt comfortable in it again, having successfully established dominance. All of it served to be what Crowley needed, replacing the alcohol and the breakdowns and the random strangers in bars, even if he had a taste of those things every once and again. Mostly, he was okay.

Every day, being ‘mostly okay’ seemed more and more like something that could maybe describe Crowley. But more importantly than that, every day, the bookshop seemed a little bit more like the home it had once been.

But something was missing. Some one, someone who Crowley couldn’t bring himself to forget. Because he loved him, and he always would. He would always love Aziraphale. He had loved him ever since he had first laid eyes on him, and he had never stopped, not for a moment.

And if that made him an Ouroboros, or a coin spinning along the edge of a galaxy – never ceasing, never changing – he was okay with that. 

(Every day, he became a little bit more okay.)

And then one day, out of the blue, that missing someone came back. Startling at first, and then, more familiar,  And the bookshop became home once more. Because that was where his angel was. And that was something that would last forever.

“Here to forgive me again?” Crowley had rasped, when he had seen him again.

“Oh, no, never – my dear, my darling . . . even if I fear I have no right to call you so.” Aziraphale’s voice was a tremoring whisper, and his eyes had been shining with tears. He had taken one tentative step forward, and then another, eventually closing the distance between them as he reached up to cup Crowley’s face in his hands, and then stretched to press such a gentle kiss to Crowley’s forehead that the demon thought he would burst into tears.

“I don’t mind it, angel,” Crowley croaked, his voice hoarse and shaking. His heartbeat that he didn't need fluttered in his throat, and he swallowed tightly as he reached up and drew off his dark glasses so that he could meet Aziraphale's gaze, hearing the sharp intake of breath that the angel choked out at the sight of the tears in his eyes. “Not at all.”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured brokenly, and somewhere in the distance, a nightingale began to sing.

“I am here to ask . . . that you would forgive me.”

A spinning coin sways to a stop. An Ouroboros uncoils, and slithers away. 

And still, forever marches on.