Work Text:
Crowley woke on the sofa in the backroom of the bookshop, limbs akimbo every which way. He stretched his too-many-vertebrae spine and slowly sat up, wiping his hands down his face and up into his hair. He wondered what time it was; or what day it even was. Then he remembered that none of it mattered anymore, not since the angel had left -- however long ago that was. Every day was the same boring monotony of just barely existing.
He'd stopped drinking himself into a stupor weeks … months? … anyway, a while ago. The demon had found it too bothersome to deal with the hangovers or remembering to sober up. [It had nothing to do with the fact that he had already drank every drop of alcohol in the bookshop. Obviously.] Besides, the little angel watching the place, Muriel, probably appreciated the lack of empty bottles all over the floor, and the back room no longer smelling like a distillery.
Crowley had just put his sunglasses on when the little bell over the bookshop door announced that a customer had entered. “We’re closed,” he called out. “We probably don’t have what you want, and we wouldn’t sell it to you if we did, so piss off.”
A familiar voice came wafting tentatively through the doorway. “Crowley?”
Fuck! thought Crowley. Fuck shitfuckfuckshit! What’s HE doing here?? The demon got up and headed quickly for the back door of the shop.
Not quickly enough.
Aziraphale practically ran through the doorway to the back room, calling, “Crowley, wait!”
The furious demon spun around to face his long-time adversary, fangs lengthening from his teeth and scales flickering into view over his skin. “WHY? What could the Mighty Supreme Archangel possibly want with the likes of ME?”
Aziraphale winced at the use of his title, and turned to keep the demon in view as Crowley slowly circled him, sizing him up like the predator he was. “Don’t call me that,” snapped the angel, “not you, and especially not in that tone of voice.”
Crowley put on the most over-the-top phony expression of surprise that Aziraphale had ever seen, flinging his arms wide in sarcastic supplication. “Oh, but WHY, your exalted and gloriousss SSSupremenesss, that’sss who you ARE, that’s what you CHOSE to be, to have all of those high-and-mighty Archangels sssquirming at your feet following YOUR orders …”
Aziraphale interjected, “Crowley, stop.”
“ … and it doesn’t MATTER that they tried to actually KILL you, and they would have SSSUCEEDED if it hadn’t been me there instead, they hated you enough for that but now they’ll bow and grovel and rush to fulfill your EVERY whim …”
“CROWLEY, THAT'S ENOUGH!”
“ … and I won’t be able to SSSAVE you anymore, not like at the Bastille or with the Nazis, because I can’t SSSENSSE YOU ANYMORE WHILE YOU’RE UP THERE, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’RE DEAD OR ALIVE AND YOU DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO LET ME KNOW AND I’LL NEVER KNOW AND …”
“Anthony,” said Aziraphale, quietly.
The sudden silence was almost deafening.
Crowley stood in front of the angel, breathing heavily from his tirade, almost fully snake except for limbs enough to flail about and pace the room. “Wot?”
Aziraphale could see even through the sunglasses that Crowley’s eyes were fully yellow. The expression of despair on his face resembled how he had looked in Tadfield when the Bentley exploded in a ball of fire. Oh, my poor demon, thought the angel. You care so very deeply, and I’ve treated you so abominably. How can I begin to make this right?
“Anthony,” asked the angel, “What do you want?”
With that Crowley’s legs gave out and he collapsed onto the floor, still barely human-shaped. He stared at Aziraphale, taking off his sunglasses and placing them on the floor next to him. He shook his head and gave out a sad, hopeless little laugh. “What do I want?” he repeated. “Imagine, you, the Supreme Archangel of Heaven, asking me, the Serpent of Eden, what I want?”
Crowley took in a deep breath and let it out. He picked up his sunglasses in order to give his fidgety hands something to do. He couldn’t look at Aziraphale for this, so he looked at the floor in front of him. “What I want,” he began quietly, “is what I thought I already had. I want this apparent fantasy that I’ve been living in to be actual reality, with the future I had hoped for. But, no,” he sighed. “Instead, I’m the laughingstock of Heaven, Hell, and everything in between. For Go—Sa—Somebody’s sake, the whole galaxy, the Universe, even.”
Crowley sighed again, stood up and put on his sunglasses.
“Well,” he said, “you’re not laughing. At least there’s that.”
And with that, the demon walked out the door.
Aziraphale just stood there, stunned. He heard the Bentley’s door slam, and the engine revving up. As it pulled away, the angel could make out a decidedly not-Queen song playing from the car’s radio: a strong guitar chord, a brief silence, and one voice screaming out to the universe –
“We won’t get fooled again!”