Chapter Text
Crowley had been drunk for a little over a month when Nina showed up at his flat. Quite literally. He’d only left the place when he ran out of things to drink, and even then, his only mission had been to get more alcohol. He hadn’t bothered to eat, he didn’t need to anyway. Eating had always been Azi— someone else’s favourite thing, and he didn’t want anything to do with someone anymore. Truly he didn’t. He couldn’t care less. He took care of himself, as he always had, and enjoyed life the way he wanted to. And what he wanted to do was drink until the room was spinning and when that wasn’t enough he’d blast music as loud as he could and jump around to stop his mind from wandering places he didn’t want it to.
“Whaddayawant?” he’d slurred when he’d finally dragged himself to the door and opened it.
She looked annoyed like he’d interrupted her afternoon and not the other way around.
“Here,” she said, shoving a cup of coffee at him, “It’s six shots of espresso,”—she looked him up and down—“Though I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”
He stared at the cup, trying to bring his vision into focus. Who was this person again? “Uuuuuh,” he said, momentarily nonplussed, and then, painfully, through his whisky-soaked brain, he remembered her. The damn barista. The one who’d convinced him that he needed to tell A— that he needed to talk honestly, to put his heart on his fucking sleeve, because that would make everything better. It hadn’t of course. It had broken everything. It had— nope! He was not going to think about that.
He pushed her outstretched arm aside, and shook his head making it spin even more than it already was, “Don’t want it, ah, bye-bye now,” he said, as he closed the door in her face.
Or tried to close the door in her face. She’d blocked it with her foot.
“Uuuugh, just leave me alone!” he moaned but didn’t stop her when she pushed the door open again.
“No.” She stepped into the apartment, looking around, clearly unimpressed, “Well this isn’t cosy.”
Crowley crossed his arms and glared at her, waiting for her to get to the point.
“You need to sober up… and take a bath,” she wrinkled her nose. Crowley rolled his eyes.
“I don’t neeeeeed to do anything,” he said, triumphantly raising one arm in the air to emphasise his point, but that brought his armpit close to his face and he couldn’t help but visibly react to the stench that met him. “Aw, okay, alright, I’ll shower. Happy?”
“No. But I’ll wait here while you do.” It was her turn to cross her arms and for a moment they stared at each other. Usually, any mortal subjected to Crowley’s orange glare would flinch and shy away, but Nina’s dark eyes just held his gaze in a calm but unyielding manner. He was impressed, but he still made a big show of groaning loudly, before sauntering off to the bathroom as if he was doing her a huge favour.
———
“Right!” he said when he returned, clean, dressed and —begrudgingly— feeling a lot fresher, “What’re you here for?”
Nina was still standing in the same spot, still looking very… solid. She held out the espresso again, “It’s cold, but you’d better drink this. There’s no point talking while you’re off your head.”
“Oh for the love of G— gin, I don’t need that, watch!” and with that he closed his eyes and willed all the alcohol to leave his system. He could feel the layers of fog that had been so tightly wrapped around his mind evaporate, leaving everything clear.
It was an instant relief and he opened his eyes, “See! All sobered up.” And then it hit him: He was all sobered up.
The pain, he’d been so carefully suppressing, welled up and punched him in the gut. He regretted not putting his glasses on first, because Nina clearly saw the look on his face and her expression softened instantly.
“I am sorry,” she said, gently placing her hand on his forearm.
Crowley needed a moment before he could reply. It took all his self-restraint not to crumple into that one touch of kindness.
“Oh, well,” he sniffed, forcing a carefree smile, “What’ya gonna do, eh?”
Nina nodded and gave him a knowing look, but she didn’t press the subject and Crowley was eternally grateful for that.
“Look, come to the coffee shop with me— I’ll give you free espresso shots all day, as many as you want… and you can judge people’s pretentious coffee orders with me,” she said, giving him a grin.
He thought for a moment and then shrugged, he didn’t exactly have anything better to do. And being sober alone didn’t appeal to him much right now.
“I’ll drive,” he stated, picking his glasses up from the table and putting them on, “And yes, I’m that sober,” he added before she was able to voice her protest. She just nodded and headed to the door.
A thought struck him as they walked down the stairs: “How’d you know where I live?”
“Your friend in the bookshop told me,” she replied and Crowley’s heart lept into his throat. “My… friend?” he asked, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
“Yeah, you know, the chipper one, who took over from Mr Fell? Muriel... something,” Thankfully, Nina was ahead of him on the stairs, so she didn’t see the way his face contorted as the disappointment hit him. “They come in for a cup of tea every morning, always reading a book.”
“Oh, yeah, that one… Wait, how do they know where I live?”
“Said they found your address on a scrap bit of paper.”
That was odd. Azi— the angel knew where he lived of course, but Crowley couldn’t think of a reason why he’d have written it down at any point.
“I love your car,” Nina’s voice cut through his thoughts as they arrived at his Bentley. Crowley grinned. A genuine grin this time, the first one in over a month. “She’s a beaut, isn’t she?”
————
This was how Crowley found himself in Nina’s coffee shop, sitting quietly at a small table, watching the customers come and go, and feeling slightly less alone than he had done in a long time.
He enjoyed sitting quietly — it was something you got quite good at after a few thousand years. The angel had been good at it too. They used to sit for hours, side by side on park benches, on sandy beaches, on grassy hilltops, content to just be and watch the world go by. He wondered if there was much time for sitting quietly in heaven these days. Of course, the angel could still ‘watch the world go by’ in a manner of speaking, but there was something very different about watching the world from the outside. To truly experience it, you had to be in it. He knew this to be true deep down in his bones, but it was a concept they didn’t seem to grasp up above — or down below for that matter — they all functioned from a level of disconnect they couldn’t even see.
He’d sometimes wondered if God was having the same issue. God sees everything, sure, he wasn’t about to refute that, he’d been an angel once, after all. But seeing and understanding are two very different things. Maybe God was watching from a great distance, metaphorically speaking — not just earth, but heaven and hell as well. It would explain why heaven’s increasingly dubious dealings were going unchallenged.
That damned Metatron.
Supposedly, the voice of God. Crowley didn’t buy that for a second. He’d experienced his malice first-hand 6000 years ago, just for asking some questions, and he was under no impression that this malice had softened over time. He didn’t know what game was being played, but he was sure that one was. And the angel was now a pawn — a willing pawn, his mind painfully supplied — but a pawn nonetheless.
A familiar tension had built up inside him, an instinct to pounce, to fight, to protect.
No. The angel had made his choice. Even after everything Crowley had said — had finally, finally said out loud — he’d chosen to leave.
Nothing lasts forever…
Crowley shook himself, forcing his attention back to the coffee shop. One of the benefits of wearing dark glasses was that no one could see exactly where you were looking and he’d perfected the art of remaining expressionless while letting his eyes wander a room, watching people.
Right now, for example, he was watching Nina at the counter barely hiding her frustration with a particularly undecisive customer.
“What’s a macchiato?”
“Two shots of espresso with a small amount of steamed milk on top.”
“But what’s a cappuccino then?”
Nina visibly sighed.
“That’s one shot of espresso with more steamed milk and foam on top.”
The customer considered this for a while as if it was a big decision, oblivious to the line of impatient people forming a queue behind them.
“Don’t really like milk in my coffee,” they said finally and Crowley couldn’t help the snort of laughter that erupted from him. Nina looked over and shot him a look, before turning back to her customer.
“Look, d’you maybe just want a normal black coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
She gave a strained smile and cast a worried glance at the now quite long line of customers before turning to make the coffee. Crowley watched the queue thoughtfully for a moment and then sauntered up past the counter, addressing the next customer in line with mock cheerfulness:
“What can I do for you today, good sir?”
“I’ll have a, uh—”
“—a latte!” Crowley finished the thought for him, “Brilliant choice, coming right up!”
He turned to the machine next to Nina, who gave him a startled what-the-hell-are-you-doing look as she finished making her own coffee. Crowley just grinned at her and proceeded to make the perfect latte. She watched him for a moment and then went to take payment from both customers and serve the next in line.
They worked in sync for a while, every time a customer started to hum and haw about their order, Crowley would reach out with his mind and follow the customer’s longing to its natural endpoint and then say it out loud: “What you really want is a cappuccino with oat milk”, “Come oooon, we both know you’re craving a hot chocolate!”, “Espresso with warm milk on the side, right?” and so on, until the line was suddenly over, and all the customers were either sipping contentedly or had wandered off with their to-go cups.
Nina turned to him, “I’m impressed. You’ve done this before, I assume?” Crowley shrugged. “I’ve…dabbled, you could say.”
Then he made himself another mugful of espresso shots and wandered back to his table.
This continued for the rest of the day: Crowley would drink coffee, quietly watching the people coming in and out, and when the line got too long, he’d casually get up and resume his place next to Nina behind the counter, taking orders and making coffees until the line was gone and he’d return to his table.
Maggie came in a couple of times — she also got free coffee, Crowley noticed — and she’d talk quietly with Nina before heading back to her record shop.
When the final customers had left, Nina flipped the ‘open’ sign on the door, poured herself a decaf and joined Crowley at his table.
“Thank you,” she said. Crowley nodded to her and they sat in silence for a while sipping their respective drinks.
“Why did you come to my flat?” he asked when he’d drained his cup.
“I wanted to check in on you.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw you that day, when he left.” She paused for a moment, watching him, and was once again, Crowley was grateful for his dark glasses hiding his expression. “I wanted to check on you because I had a feeling that you’d need it, and that maybe you didn’t have anyone else to do that, you know, what with you being a demon and all.”
“Hmpf,” was all Crowley could think to say in response.
“Where did he go?” she asked, “Mr Fell, I mean.”
Crowley stood up and did a big stretch, “He went to heaven.” Somehow he managed to make the word heaven sound like cesspit.
Nina’s brow furrowed, “He died?”
“What? No, no. He’s an angel, remember? He can’t die, well, he can, but not in the way you understand it. Get discorporated, yes, eliminated from existence, yes, blasted into smithereens and scattered among the stars, yes, eternally tortured, memories wiped, manipulated into insanity, yes, yes, yes. But die a normal death, like you mortals do from illness and old age? Nah. Anyway, he’s not any of those things. He’s very much alive. He’s just taken a promotion. A sudden and extremely suspicious promotion and that was more important to him than— well, it was important to him. And he left.”
“Even after you told him—” she started to ask, but Crowley cut her off before she could finish the question. He couldn’t bear to hear it spoken out loud.
“Yup.”
“Oh.”
“Yup.”
“The drinking makes sense now.”
“Yup. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go back home and do some more of it.” He took a deep, exaggerated bow, and turned to the door.
“You should come back tomorrow,” Nina said from behind him, “Free coffee. And I could use your help.”
He paused for a moment, without turning around and then shrugged, “Nah, I don’t work here, lady.”
He left before she could respond.
————
He was surprised when he found himself parked outside ‘Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death' the following morning, once again showered and sober. Nina gave him a knowing smile and a nod as he walked to his table with as much swagger in his step as he could manage.
He’d just finished his first coffee when Muriel came in, book in hand, and ordered a cup of tea. They gave an excited little jump when they saw him, “Oh! It’s you!”
“Mmhm,” he said, turning away, which didn’t have the intended effect, because they came over and pulled up a chair next to him. They were wearing a beige cardigan over a yellow t-shirt and the whole outfit was topped with a small straw hat. It wasn’t an entirely hideous look, so presumably, they’d had some help putting it together.
“Have you read this one?” they waved Pride & Prejudice in front of his face. Crowley scowled. “Why does everyone read Jane Austin all of a sudden?”
“Because she’s brilliant! This one is all about this couple, except they’re not a couple in the beginning because they’ve both got too much pride and they assume the worst of each other. That’s why it’s called pride and prejudice, see? I’m only halfway through, and Elizabeth has just rejected Mr. Darcy’s declaration of love, but I skipped ahead and read the ending, just to make sure they sort it all out.”
“You’re not supposed to skip ahead,” Crowley muttered.
“Why not?”
“Spoils the book.”
Muriel looked thoughtful for a moment as if they’d never considered that before, and then they gave a little shrug, happily opened the book and settled down to read.
They stayed there for about an hour, reading and drinking tea, occasionally giggling or gasping at the story. It wasn’t endearing —of course it wasn’t— Crowley wasn’t the type that found things endearing, so clearly it couldn’t have been. But still, it felt comfortable. That he could concede.
When Muriel finally closed the book, they beamed at him, “This was brilliant, I usually sit all by myself but this was better. Will you be here tomorrow as well?”
Crowley grunted in response and Muriel gave him a bright smile, waved at Nina behind the counter and bounced off back to the bookshop.
Nina met his eye and shrugged. It was hard not to like Muriel.
The rest of the day went very much as the first. Crowley helped when it was busy, and sat when it was not. This time he even helped clear a few tables, though he purposefully didn’t clear all the tables, he didn’t want Nina to think he worked there.
After closing they sat together for a bit, Nina ranked the top three rudest customers of the day which Crowley found delightful.
“I’m going to the cinema with Maggie later if you want to come?” she offered, as they both got up to leave.
“Nah, you kids have fun.” This earned him a wry smile.
“Alright, see you tomorrow then,” she said, without any hint of a question in her voice. Crowley scowled at her.
But he did come back the next day and the next day and the day after that. It became a routine. He’d sit with Muriel every morning as they read — their taste in books varied wildly, though he did notice a surprising amount of philosophy — He chatted with some of the regulars, his favourite by far was Mrs Sandwich who never stayed long but always had time to give him a grin and a wink as if she knew something he didn’t. And he helped Nina when the place was busy.
Even Maggie made a habit of stopping by his table to exchange a few words whenever she came in for a coffee. She was very soft and it reminded him of someone else. He used to scoff at softness, but from day to day he saw the way her softness could smooth out Nina’s hard edges. He also noticed how Maggie seemed to time her coffee breaks perfectly, so she always walked through the door whenever Nina needed cheering up.
In a way, it was a very mundane existence. But it was bearable, which was a big improvement to his previously drunken state. There was something about the ebb and flow of customers, the quiet conversations and the way Nina, Maggie, and even Muriel to some extent, treated him so casually as if he belonged there.
And then one day, Muriel came in holding a little ceramic figurine of a small blue gecko, and Crowley dropped his cup.