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The floor feels right.
That’s what goes through Crowley’s head whenever he curls up on the floor of the bookshop.
The sofa won’t do; too many memories clinging to dusty, tufted upholstery. He’d sat there once and sprang to his feet as if electrocuted, his corporation overloaded with needle-pricking, drunken echoes of
my point is—
my point is…
(there’s no point)
— dolphins— tha’s my point
(there’s never been any point)
So the floor it is.
It’s good to be down low, anyway. Good to be hunkered down where he belongs, somewhere reliably firm that won’t go soft on him and where he can’t fall any further than he already has. There’s a tiny comfort in that; Sylvia got that bit right.
Some nights when his ear melds with the cool tile (pillow optional; why bother) the darkest reaches of Crowley’s brain tingles with a dangled invitation. An offer— not a threat— threaded with what might be genuine concern. But it’s the wrong voice coming from the wrong direction, it’s darling instead of my dear and Crowley doesn’t respond, never does; it’s a few millennia too late.
He gives it a passing thought once or twice before nausea overwhelms, and then colder, stark white porcelain rubs at his chin till Crowley forgets what it felt like scraping against Aziraphale’s jaw. Bile burns his throat and coats his tongue, vomit sticks to his teeth. He could wave a hand and snap the grime away, but miracles are a waste of effort.
why bother?
(So many wasted Efforts
All manifested for a holy ghost)
One by one, his remaining plants wilt past help. Crowley wonders if it’s because he’s not had the heart to keep them in line, or if they’re absorbing his depression vein by vein, sucking it up like chlorophyll sucks up the sun. His voice cracks with guilt when he attempts to scold them— it’s not their fault he’s pathetic.
He wishes he could sleep through this. He’s done it before, and Crowley’s desperate for an uninterrupted stupor for however long is left, but he can’t manage sleeping for longer than a day at most. Scotch helps until it doesn’t, and he can’t bear to touch the last bottle of the ‘21 CdP, not even to smash it to bits (again, pathetic). The walls keep closing in and the books have eyes Crowley aches to feel on his skin.
And when he does sleep, he always dreams.
His nose is still sore from getting dry-fucked by last night’s nightmarish escapade. The cloying scent of crepes, perfumed silk satin and moldy, damp stone lingers, the Bastille’s decaying dread of a living burial ground. Or maybe that’s just Crowley, now: a living burial. The dead walking the earth until it’s gone.
He’s even resorted to trying food again, because why not? It’s been ages, but it’s as unsatisfying as he remembers. His fingers slip and glint orangish with oil, the tips smearing gleaming blots over the dull floor. Crowley can’t resist drawing a rudimentary frowny face; pizza grease makes a decent ink, turns out.
He wonders what Leonardo would think.
Crowley discovers that rendered fat combined with cheap olive oil sticks to his cheeks like glue once it mixes with tears.
Everyone he has ever cared for leaves him; he should be used to it by now. Whether they die content in their beds, their passing eased by a miracle that was worth any potential consequence, or they fuck off Up to where he’ll never willingly go again.
Wherever they go, they always leave.
Crowley never gets used to it.
But the floor— bare, chilly, ground-in dirt from centuries past lingering in tiny crevices a mop can’t reach and frowning— never leaves him. No rug to be pulled out from under him, no chasm opening from below.
The floor is as close as Crowley will ever get to solid ground.
Until one day it rumbles and splits beneath his palms in another cruel reminder that nothing lasts forever.