Chapter Text
Everybody had shitty days; it was a normal part of being alive– the problem was Crowley had had this exact shitty day for a week straight. Except obviously he hadn’t. He couldn’t have because that was impossible. What was happening must have been be déjà vu or something. Still, it was uncanny.
The day that the ginger was stubbornly insisting on calling ‘yesterday’ went like this: Yesterday, Crowley had slept through his alarm and had gotten caught in a traffic jam despite doing his best to speed through the streets of Soho. He hadn’t been able to grab his usual morning coffee and had had to go uncaffeinated until his lunch break. (The horrors.)
That was when he made his way over to Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, where he had been getting his daily coffee on and off for the past five years. The shop was fairly crowded and the line had been a bit too long and Crowley had a bit of a headache, and really, nothing was going his way.
That was why the first time around, it took him a moment to process that the shop had hired a new barista. It was a man roughly Crowley’s age, with soft features and fluffy hair.
The ginger had ordered his usual (six shots of espresso; designing websites was a lot of work) and the new barista (Aziraphale, assuming his name tag could be trusted) bounced around, stealing glances at the ginger as he made him his drink.
It had been an accident, really. A miscommunication where Crowley, who was used to sprawling across tables and chairs, leaned over the counter, halfheartedly adjusting his turtleneck.
Aziraphale had leaned closer to hand him the beverage… and the drink slipped from his hands, spilling all over Crowley’s new jacket.
He had cried out, startled and instantly irritated. Because really, he had had a bad morning and this was exactly the kind of thing that usually pushed him over the edge. He didn’t yell at the barista, of course, but he did shoot the blond man a glare over his sunglasses.
Aziraphale, flustered and on the verge of tears, offered him up a handful of napkins which Crowley shoved away.
“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale exclaimed, his lower lip wobbling.
“It’s fine,” Crowley muttered, crossing his arms even through it was very much not. “It’s not as if this was a new jacket or anything.”
“I– I can buy you a new one?” the blond offered.
Crowley shook his head.
“Nah. Don’t bother.”
He had then proceeded to call in sick and spend the rest of the day in his flat feeling sorry for himself. Which happened. Really, everyone had days like that. But Crowley was now on his eighth rendition of this awful day.
He hadn’t even noticed the second repetition. No. He had thought it was the next day which was merely eerily similar to the previous one. It was only the third time his boss Beelzebub pulled him aside, using the same script of insults to critique his quarterly performance, that it hit him like a lead balloon to the head.
“Fuck my life,” Crowley had exclaimed. “I’m in a time loop.”
He probably should have been fired, or at the very least gotten in trouble for his outburst, but he didn’t, because the very next day, the loop reset. The ginger had been ditching work ever since, thinking things over.
Really, Crowley should be panicking. After all, what he was experiencing was downright impossible. But that wasn’t really how Crowley functioned. He needed some time to get over his lingering frustrations at first. Then, when when his head was clear enough to start asking questions (around day five), he was too curious to bother feeling scared or unsettled even though he was very much out of his depth.
Besides, for better or for worse, he had always been an optimist at heart.
So for now, the ginger decided to test the loop, particularly with Aziraphale. He felt bad for the way he had treated the poor barista before– the man was clearly new to his job and Crowley must have made him feel horrible.
And everyone made careless mistakes once in awhile. Crowley himself was something of an expert when it came to fucking up at work.
Anyway, Crowley was conducting some rather unscientific experiments involving returning to the coffee shop at different times and ordering different drinks from Aziraphale. (Only iced beverages, of course; Crowley wasn’t really interested in seeing if third degree burns would carry over from loop to loop.) So far the barista had spilled drinks on him every day, regardless of what he ordered.
The blond’s responses were all identical. There was the same bumbling apology. The same desperate handing off of napkins. The same offer to buy him a new jacket.
Crowley was going to give it up soon. The responsible thing, after all, would be figuring out how to escape the loop. But Crowley wasn’t in a particularly responsible mood at the moment.
That’s why today, on his eighth loop, he decided he was going to tell Aziraphale about the whole temporal situation. He would order a chai latte or an iced coffee and let Aziraphale spill it all over his jacket, the way he always did. But then, instead of getting annoyed, he would just grin as the blond got flustered and say exactly what he was saying as he was saying it.
He would watch the barista’s bright eyes grow wide, that cute little nose scrunching in confusion, and then he would lower his glasses and wink. And say something dashing, of course, like, “This isn’t my first time around, angel. Around the time loop, I mean. Cause I’m actually trapped in a time loop. Anyway, figured you should know. Want to have a picnic together sometime?”
Yes, Crowley thought that would be incredibly smooth.
It was one way to flirt, after all. An incredibly weird way that made sense to no one but him, but two loops ago Crowley had finally noticed that Aziraphale was absolutely adorable.
The first few loops he was too busy being angry.
Then during the middle ones he was flustered but more in a frazzled way than in a romantic one.
Now Crowley was ready to goof around a little. Maybe he would flirt more traditionally tomorrow– or on the next loop around, rather.
So he sauntered over to the counter, line be damned, and grinned at Aziraphale.
“Hey, angel. I’ll have an iced coffee today, thanks.”
He watched the man wiggle behind the counter, the tips of his cheeks coloring before he smiled and nodded.
“Of course, my dear boy. One iced coffee coming right up.”
Crowley fiddled with his sunglasses as Aziraphale mixed the drink, knitting his eyebrows together in an adorable display of concentration. Then he hopped back over to the counter, drink in hand.
Crowley smirked at the barista, bringing two fingers to tug at his turtleneck. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, his cheeks flushed as he passed the drink over with a trembling hand.
“Right, well there you go and–”
And the moment Crowley ran a hand through his hair, the drink slipped from Aziraphale’s fingers, falling inches away from the ginger’s cherished jacket. It would have stained the garment any other day, but Crowley had made a point of stepping out of what he deemed the ‘Pretty Angel Splash Zone’.
Crowley wiggled his eyebrows, ready to declare that he knew Aziraphale would spill the drink and had dodged it expertly because he was cool and timey wimey and knew that temporal shit was going down.
But Aziraphale didn’t apologize.
Instead he threw his head back and groaned.
“Fuck.”
Oh.
Well, that was new.