Chapter Text
There is, for all of God's creatures given to the temptations of inebriation, such a thing as Too Much Bourbon. Amounts that would drive the most maudlin of romantics to shake a sad and sympathetic head, enough to make an asthmatic smoke like a chimney and wax sick and philosophical, so much the bourbon turns to ink and the Poets of Drunken Past watch, apprehensive from personal experience, over the secluded, heavy shoulder of whatever heartbroken fool had dared pick up a pen in such a state. Amounts that, if you just so happen to be the demon Crowley, you find yourself far, far too familiar with.
Unfortunately, the demon Crowley really only can ever be himself, nursing the age old wound of feelings best smothered; memories and thoughts best tucked into mental glass jars (holes in the lid, of course. He's a demon, not a monster.) and put away for much later, hidden and swallowed and buried and hoarded about like porcelain knickknacks of the soul.
Denial, at least of the ascetic variety, he's fairly versed in. Masochism is pleasurable to many. And if it hurts a bit too much to straddle that line, if it dips its toe into self punishment and pity and swan dives elegantly into pain, well.. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
He's been here before- not here at Whichever Bar specifically, it could be any bar, any city, any alcohol at nearly any point in human history. But here, wallowing, three thousand sheets to the ether, pen or quill or chisel or stick in hand. Confessing.
Pathetic.
The jukebox keeps miraculously playing incredibly melancholy, sappy music no matter who puts in a coin or what they pick. A few other patrons seem profoundly affected by this, sensitive souls lingering in the corners, unknowingly being spoonfed a heaping helping of dramatic, drunken feeling. Misery loves company.[1]
Ssshouldn't you have learned by now?
And where is Aziraphale tonight? Away, some assignment he seemed keen to take and a demon with nothing to drag him towards that destination for the purpose of the Arrangement, so Crowley is here and Aziraphale there and maybe if he could ever figure out how to keep his mood from infecting every blasted thing with a speaker within a block of him this jukebox wouldn't be taunting him the way it is. Might be able to hear something other than Freddie fucking Mercury in the Bentley for once, too.[2]
As it stands, however, he's too busy pouring ink over a sheet of paper, serenaded by helplessly syrupy bar rock, drunk enough to reject any advice from the Ghosts of Inebriated Romantics Past as they desperately implore him to reconsider tonight's half-planned exercise in desperate grand gestures. Instead he finds himself proud of what's flowing through him, from finger to pen to perhaps slightly damp paper, easier than he'd ever dreamed the words could be said and egged on by the snake that took up residence in his soul where Grace used to reside.
Sssee? Easssy as anything. Very sssmooth. Give that bassstard Oscar a run for his money, ressst him.
Not that Crowley is obscenely jealous of some long dead fop the angel befriended during that century's tantrum nap. Not that, of course.
No, of courssse not.
Soft, sibilant. Susurrus even. The mark of a masterful temptation is the gentle push, after all, the tickle of choice. No one knows this better than Serpent of Eden.[3]
The only thing now is how to do thisss. Can't be too conssspicuousss, no, plausssible deniability ssshould be a virtue ssshouldn't it?
And suddenly, it comes to him. It's abrupt and giddy upon arrival, like the coup de foudre that struck alongside 'I gave it away!'; it's mischievious, technically illegal, and has all the potential for a long running joke. Best of all, the bookshop is currently empty. The perfect time to strike, especially with his capacity to remember tonight beginning to blur into darkness.
Anyone who has ever veered over the edge of intoxicated and into the warm pit of blacked out could inform Crowley at this moment that this idea is, frankly, stupid at the most generous. He would not listen to you, not with such a convincing part of his very being slowly constricting his better judgement, emboldened by bourbon. The last deliberate call of the night he makes is to miracle himself in front of the bookshop's doors rather than directly inside amongst the shelves just in case the angel's wards have been braced in his absence. No matter, though. The doors open for Crowley as easily as they ever do, as if he belongs there just as much as Aziraphale does. It does not occur to him that this is more than just the luck of the Devil.
And if any patrons of the bar happened to notice him blink off the bar stool and out of existence just as the classic rock hit they've been trying to get the jukebox to play all night finally began, well, maybe they were just a little more gone than they thought they were and they might ought to sip this one rather than slam it.