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Aziraphale didn’t cry easily. The few times Crowley had seen it happen, though, it felt to Crowley how he imagined it would to be doused with holy water.
This particular evening, Crowley had walked into the bookshop fully prepared to ask Aziraphale if he’d heard of the ridiculous human trend called mewing, but lost track of his train of thought the second he walked through the door. Aziraphale stood in the middle of the shop, shaken. He put on a brave face as usual, but there were unmistakable tears welling up in his eyes.
“Are you alright, angel? What happened?” asked Crowley, stepping closer.
“Oh, just… difficult customers, I suppose,” said Aziraphale with a forced smile. Crowley hated that.
He gave him a hug the second he reached him. At that, the few lone tears that had escaped Aziraphale turned into fully fledged sobs. He clung onto Crowley tightly, burying his head in his chest as he shook.
“It’s not a big deal, truly,” he said, which would have been much more convincing if he wasn’t currently been crying into Crowley’s shoulder. “It was just a human teenager. He and his friends just left. I should be stronger than letting the remarks of of someone like that get to me.”
“No, teenagers are pricks. What did he say to you?”
“Well, he and his friends were making quite the ruckus, and I asked him politely to keep down the volume in the shop…” his voice trailed off as he wiped another tear from his eyes. “He called me a cream puff. I’ve been called that before, it didn’t really get to me, but I gave him another warning and said if he didn’t listen, I would be forced to ask him to leave. When I said that, he laughed at me and told me all sorts of dreadful things.”
“…Like what?” Crowley asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.
“He kept telling me rather hateful things about my assumed sexual orientation. He… he called me things that I’m not quite sure I wish to repeat. And he commented on my weight. Said I should lay off the sweets. His friends all laughed at that one. He also poked fun of the way I dressed and talked. Perhaps the worst part was when he grabbed a book and kept threatening to rip the pages, which was just… frightful to think about. He could see how much that got to me, and he and his friends seem to think it was hilarious.”
“The audacity of that little arsehole…”
“Normally I try not to let things like that get to me, but he had hit some rather sore spots, and I… I think he could see that. So he kept pushing, calling me pathetic, and I simply couldn’t take it. The fact that I knew I should be stronger than to let the judgmental remarks of a few human teenagers affect me only made it worse, not to mention that I was attempting to remain calm and polite while they mocked me. When he and his friends saw that they had reduced me to tears, they simply laughed, put down the book, called me an overgrown crybaby, and walked away.”
The mental image filled Crowley with full-blown rage.
“Crowley, dear, you’re hugging me… rather tightly.”
Hearing that was the first time Crowley had noticed how tense his grip had become.
“Sorry, angel,” he said, loosening his arms and planting a gentle kiss on his forehead.
The two stood in silence for a moment before Crowley frowned in contemplation.
“You should’ve miraculously set their hair on fire.”
Aziraphale let out a loud gasp, momentarily pulling away from Crowley with a horrified look on his face. “Crowley! They’re children!”
Crowley shrugged. “Yeah. Obnoxious ones who made you cry.”
Aziraphale laughed, a bit of warmth returning to his expression. Crowley studied his tear-streaked face and his mussed hair, and suddenly felt a flash of warmth and love that would be far too embarrassing to admit aloud. So instead, he settled for something that was only marginally less embarrassing.
“I hope you realize that you’re the best partner I could ever ask for,” he said, looking down at him. Sincerity didn’t often come easy to him, but in this case, he was simply stating the truth.
“That’s very kind of you,” Aziraphale replied, speaking the words quietly into Crowley’s shoulder.
Crowley didn’t have it in him to get on him about the usage of the word kind. Not now. So instead, he said, “I really mean it. You know I’m not the type to make things up to reassure people.”
“No, I don’t suppose you are,” said Aziraphale with a small smile. “I suppose you truly do find me attractive, even if I am all of the things that the human told me.”
“Obviously. What, you think I’ve spent the past several years buggering you to be polite?”
Aziraphale couldn’t help but laugh at that, cheeks flushing red.
“Speaking of which…” Aziraphale began, tracing a hand along Crowley’s thigh.
At that, Crowley grabbed the angel by the collar, and they both became far too busy to focus on obnoxious humans or finishing the end of the sentence.
Crowley left the shop relatively early the next morning. He was on a mission.
All it had taken was a small demonic miracle to figure out the information of a certain teenager, and a quick stroll around Soho to locate him. That particular morning, the human was walking alone down the street, focused on his phone, oblivious of his surroundings. It was an empty street, and early enough that there weren’t likely to be many passersby. Lucky for Crowley. Unlucky for the human.
“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” Asked Crowley, walking up to him.
The teenager looked wholly uninterested as he looked up from his phone. He was fairly tall himself, and Crowley only had a couple inches on him. He must have been at least eye-level with Aziraphale when he’d been in the shop the other day.
“Matthew,” he said.
“Got it,” said Crowley with a practiced smile, “now, tell me, Matthew, have you ever been to that bookshop down the street?”
“Yeah, why?”
“What did you think of the bookseller there?”
“I thought he was a cream puff. Why, you know him?”
Crowley narrowed his eyes behind his glasses, trying his hardest to resist the urge not to destroy the twerp right then and there.
“I’m married to him,” he responded in as even a tone as he could muster.
That caught Matthew by surprise. “Really? Wouldn’t have thought you were… well, you know,” the end came out almost as a sneer.
Crowley ignored it. Negative comments like that about him didn’t bother him much. Negative comments like that about Aziraphale, on the other hand…
“How old are you, Matthew?”
He was tall, confident, seeming to stare right through Crowley’s glasses. “Sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” repeated Crowley, “and in all that time, you never once thought to consider that other people have feelings too?”
“It’s not my fault he’s so sensitive.”
“So you should just be able to say whatever insults you want without consequences, is that it?”
“I’m just saying that if someone said something like that to me, I wouldn’t cry about it.”
“Right,” said Crowley, feigning sincerity. “You sound very tough, Matthew. I’m sure you wouldn’t have any problem repeating exactly what you said to my husband to me now, would you?”
That seemed to throw Matthew a bit, and he didn’t look quite certain how to respond. Still, it only took a few seconds for him to resume his look of confidence, saying, “well… sure. I was just saying the truth. It’s not my fault he got offended over things that were true.”
“What things?” Said Crowley. His tone was a warning. Unfortunately for Matthew, he didn’t seem deterred.
“I said he was gay, which is true, isn’t it? And I said his outfit was stupid and the the way he talked was weird, which are both like objective facts. And I said he was fat, which he was. I only called him weak and a crybaby because he seemed to care so much about what I was saying. He almost burst into tears about the thought of a book being ripped in half.”
“Okay. Now, tell me, Matthew, because I’m just trying to understand,” said Crowley, expression cold, “how does any of that give you the right to humiliate him?”
“I wasn’t—“
“I’m not done. He was being nothing but kind and polite to you, even though you could clearly see you were testing his patience. When you noticed that you were making him feel bad, you could have dropped it there. It wouldn’t have been hard. Instead, you kept pushing. You just had to get a rise out of him, didn’t you? Admit it, you wanted to make him cry.”
There was silence from Matthew at that. He didn’t respond, looking away. After a few seconds, he looked back at Crowley, crossing his arms defensively. “What are you gonna do? Fight me? We both know who would win, gramps.”
Crowley laughed at that— he couldn’t help it.
“Look, I’ll give you one more chance, because my husband is a lot kinder than I am, and I know that’s what he’d want. But you’re on very thin ice, Matthew, so I suggest you choose your next words carefully.”
Matthew narrowed his eyes. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Oh, you should be.”
All it took was a snap of Crowley’s fingers for Matthew to transform from a human into the little rat that he was. Easy, really.
The rat darted in circles, squeaking loudly. “What… what the fuck is happening?” he managed to stammer out, tiny eyes widened in horror.
Crowley let out a toothy grin, watching silently as the rat frantically scampered around.
“What the fuck is going on?” Matthew repeated, words coming out quickly and worried, “How… how did you do that?”
“Oh, that’s not important. No use trying to figure out how I did it, because frankly, you never will. I think a far more productive use of your time would be trying to convince me to give you more mercy than you deserve.”
“What did you do?” he repeated, voice sounding more hopeless than it had only a few seconds ago.
“Well, just then, I turned you into a rat. Right now, I’m trying to decide whether to keep you like this forever or to take pity on you. Decisions, decisions…”
“Please! I’m sorry for what I said to your husband!” The last words still sounded more like a question than a definitive statement.
“Why? I thought you didn’t care what he thinks. After all, he’s just an old crybaby, isn’t he? A cream puff. He’s pathetic and weak. His feelings don’t matter.”
“I didn’t mean that!”
“Why did you say it, then?“
“I don’t know,” he stammered, “my friends were there, and I guess I was trying to impress them…”
“So you’re willing to make a kind stranger feel like garbage just so you seem cool in front of your friends? Sounds like you’re the pathetic one, Matthew, not him.”
“Yeah, I am,” he echoed, his voice quiet and weak. How different he now seemed from the confident figure that was staring Crowley down only a few minutes ago.
Crowley sighed, his anger fading into annoyance.
“You really upset him, you know. He doesn’t cry easily, despite what you might have implied. And seeing him like that broke my heart. You know why?”
He shook his head. Of course he did.
“Because I love my husband very much, Matthew. He’s kindhearted, clever, gorgeous, and the most important person in the world to me.”
“I’m sorry!”
“No you’re not. If you were actually sorry, you would have stopped when you saw him crying. But you’re not. You’re just a little coward who doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions.”
Tears were streaming down Matthew’s furry face now.
“How does it feel to have someone insult you to the point of tears, Matthew? How does it feel to know they get satisfaction from watching you cry?”
“Bad,” whispered Matthew, sounding for the first time like the child he was.
“That’s how you made him feel. You should have learned that lesson years ago. Empathy isn’t that hard.”
Matthew sniffed, more tears streaming down his face. “Yeah, I’m really sorry…”
“I still don’t believe you. But I’m going to give you another chance, if for no other reason than it’s what my wonderful, very compassionate husband would want. So you have him to thank, understand?”
Matthew nodded, opening his mouth then abruptly closing it.
“I’ll let you go, but I’m going to keep an eye on you. If you and your friends ever insult anyone like that again, I’ll know about it. And next time, I won’t be this lenient. Got it?”
Matthew’s little rat head bobbed up and down, looking up at Crowley with watery eyes.
“Good. You’re still young. You’ve got another chance, and the free will to change your mind and start acting like a decent person. Use it.”
“I will. I promise.”
Whether it was a genuine vow or just another thing he was saying out of fear, Crowley was unsure. Still, the very sentiment was all he needed to hear. At the end of the day, Matthew was a child. A hateful, cruel child, but a child nonetheless. Being turned into a rat forever was undeniably extreme, even if Crowley thought he deserved it.
He took one last look at the little rat standing below him before sighing and snapping his fingers.
Matthew looked around, a wide grin covering his tear-soaked face.
“Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you…” repeated Matthew, looking around with widened eyes.
“Don’t,” said Crowley, “just… remember what I told you. And go run off before I change my mind.”
It took no more than a few seconds before Matthew was completely out of sight.