Chapter Text
The lack of a need to eat, drink, or maintain his body in any way a human would really comes in handy for wallowing in heartbreak.
It’s been eight days since Aziraphale left, and one week since Crowley decided the smartest thing to do would be to hunker down in the very place he lost his Angel and, well, wallow. And if that sounds indulgently masochistic, he is a demon after all.
Crowley is evidently attempting to fuse with the sofa when he hears a short knock at the door. It’s not the first interruption he’s experienced since taking up his back room residence, and they’re beginning to get rather irritating. He groans under his breath, flips over on the sofa, buries his face in the cushions, and does not dignify the intruder with a response.
The door cracks open nonetheless and the intruder enters.
“Get out, Muriel,” Crowley moans into the couch cushion. “I told you, back room’s off limits to–”
Crowley hisses as the blinds suddenly open, flooding the room with light. Interesting, he supposes, must be midday, but who could bother to keep track anymore?
“Yea, yea, up you get,” says a voice that’s distinctly less bubbly and gullible than Muriel’s.
Crowley fumbles for the blanket on the back of the sofa and pulls it over his head to hide from the light, but more so to hide from Nina. He pointedly ignores the wave of Aziraphale’s scent that engulfs him.
“You’re mean to Muriel and Maggie when all they’ve been trying to do is check up on you,” says Nina, seemingly ignoring Crowley’s brooding fit. “And you know they’re both too polite to barge in and talk some sense into you, so here I am.”
Crowley hears the sound of something being placed on the table. Curiosity gets the best of him and, fumbling for his glasses and sliding them on, he peeks his head out from under the blanket and ever so slightly turns over.
“Perk of getting dumped,” Nina says gesturing at the large coffee she’s brought for Crowley. “But I do have a business to run, I can’t keep giving these away,” Nina smirks at Crowley, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
She’s to the point and stern as always, and she isn’t walking on eggshells around him like he could tell Muriel had been doing all week.
Throughout the week, Crowley’s heard Maggie and Muriel out in the shop debating whether or not they should pop into the back room – despite his aggressive insistence that they do not – and each time they decide it best to leave him be. Crowley is sure they’d think him pathetic if they saw him in his current state, so intimidating them out of entering the room seemed the best course of action to prevent the angel and the record-seller from doing something as horrible as pitying him.
Something inside Crowley is touched that Nina decided to brave his venom and spit back with a bit of her own. She doesn’t pity him, she just seems vaguely tired for him, like she gets his situation on an unspoken level.
Crowley lets his guard down just a bit.
“Wouldn’t be much of a business if every sad bloke in town drank for free,” he quips back as he begrudgingly sits up, still enveloped by the blanket, and grabs the coffee.
“Yea, well. Maybe just the ones I like,” Nina sighs, as she settles into the armchair across from the sofa.
“Hmm,” Crowley hums, a nothing response to hide anything he may or may not want to say. Nina closes her eyes and leans back in the chair. After several minutes of awkward yet fairly comfortable silence, it becomes clear to her that Crowley has no plans to actually reply. Nina sneaks a glance at the clock. She doesn’t necessarily want to leave the peaceful – if not a bit depressing – back room of the bookshop, and she suspects Crowley, though he’d never admit it, is at least a touch grateful for the silent, unobtrusive company, but her lunch break is over in 8 minutes, and she hasn’t actually eaten anything yet.
She hears Crowley sip his drink, as close an invitation to speak as she’s gonna get.
“Listen,” Nina begins, with her eyes still closed and her posture still lax. She pushes on before Crowley can protest. “I’m not going to act like I’ve even the slightest understanding of your history with,” she doesn’t say Mr. Fell, “all that horror film business we dealt with last week. And I have no desire to. One night of it was more than enough for me.” She takes a breath and gets to her point. “What I do know about is being made to feel like you aren’t enough. It hurts, and you’re going to believe it for a while, but then one day you won’t. Friends tend to help with that.
“You’re only human. I think. You feel feelings and sometimes they get worse, but then it stands to reason that sometimes they get better. Coffee tends to help too.” She stands slowly from her chair, mentally preparing to leave the calm and enter the chaos of her own shop. “I don’t generally offer delivery though, so next time, you’re going to have to brave the outdoors and come pick one up yourself.” Nina gasps sarcastically, and Crowley looks unimpressed. When she peeks over her shoulder as she shuts the door on her way out, she swears she can see the ghost of a smile on Crowley’s lips as he lifts the cup to his mouth.