Chapter Text
Beginnings were never easy. It was like pushing a heavy wardrobe; first you had to struggle just to get it moving, but once it started sliding, it went as smooth as butter.
Some beginnings were harder than others. Crowley had learned that far too many times. He had also learned that the wardrobe analogy did not apply to many situations.
Starting the process that created the Universe had been childishly simple. All it took was pulling a lever, muttering a few words, and then watching in awe as young stars came into being.
Living in the new universe had not been especially difficult either. Crowley struggled, true, and grew irritated, and sometimes even afraid… but he had never carried the weight of existence alone.
Aziraphale had always been somewhere beside him. His anchor. It was enough for Crowley simply to know the angel was on Earth too - working in his bookshop, always willing to listen to him. He had never told Aziraphale how much he appreciated his presence. There had been no need; the angel was always there.
The wardrobe pushed itself along.
Crowley could never have predicted that he would lose him, and in such a cruel way too. Because Aziraphale had chosen to leave him of his own accord.
And for Crowley, that was the hardest beginning of all - the beginning of a life without Aziraphale, who had shut himself away from him in Heaven.
He had not sobered up in several good weeks. He refused to let his body clear the alcohol from his blood - whenever he felt sensation returning to his cheeks and his hands growing lighter, he would desperately reach for another bottle.
He had not slept since he had started drinking. Which was to say, since the beginning. He simply could not - whenever he closed his eyes for longer than a minute, images of Aziraphale flooded his mind. He saw the crow’s feet around those blue eyes whenever the angel laughed at his jokes. He saw his figure, the clothes the angel liked to wear. He saw that white hair, those ridiculous little bow ties Aziraphale wrapped around his neck every day.
Ever since he had stopped sleeping, he had also stopped pressing the brake in his Bentley. The car never slowed below ninety kilometres an hour, nor did it lose petrol, even when Crowley drove for four days straight without a single stop.
He only stopped afterwards because he needed more alcohol. Well, not exactly bought it; he stumbled into a shop, desperate as his body began to sober, and fled after stealing several litres of vodka.
He had been driving aimlessly for a month now.
He circled Great Britain, seeing beautiful places he could not bear to look at for more than a few seconds - if he stepped out of the car to admire them, he would instantly think that he wanted Aziraphale there beside him. That the angel would have loved the view. So Crowley stopped admiring landscapes altogether; he stared only at the road, only ahead… and whenever he started thinking, the car accelerated violently.
A month passed, and the demon was just driving into London. He had got drunk on cheap wine and taken the wrong motorway exit - if he could have turned back time, he would certainly have avoided London altogether.
As they drew closer to Soho, the Bentley stopped obeying him. The car, accustomed to turning towards Aziraphale’s bookshop, began steering itself in that direction. The shop was already just around the corner.
“Uhh…” Crowley buried his face in his hands, letting go of the steering wheel, which fortunately kept driving by itself. Wait. By itself? The Bentley only behaved like that in one particular place. “Oooo no. No, no… no!” Crowley grabbed the wheel, trying to wrench it away.
The Bentley fought hard. The car sensed that it could finally rest whenever the demon was at the bookshop. Cars had feelings too; and Crowley, driving nonstop for a month, had become unbearable.
Crowley snarled and forced the wheel around, smashing the front of the car through the window of the record shop. Bloody hell! He had destroyed Maggie’s shop - that strange blonde woman Aziraphale had adored so much. The Bentley remained entirely unscratched.
Crowley staggered out of the car, swaying and clutching his hands over his ears. Even the crash had not sobered him up. Everything hurt - and strangely enough, that pain felt more comforting than the one he had carried for the past month.
Maggie screamed as she hurried downstairs in her pyjamas. It was midnight - anyone would scream if their neighbour demolished their home. Other residents gathered in the street, and someone called the police. Crowley drained the rest of a bottle of vodka and climbed back into the Bentley, ready to drive away. Maggie ran towards him.
“You?!” she shouted, yanking open the car door. “Why would you wreck my shop?”
Crowley sighed - once, he could have fixed the wall with a tiny miracle. Now he was no longer a demon of Hell.
He could not stay here any longer.
“Listen… I’m sorry,” he muttered, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. “I… I didn’t mean… fu-ck, I shouldn’t be… here…” he mumbled, the last words spoken more to himself than to her.
“Crowley, are you… drunk?” Maggie asked, leaning closer to him. Tears streamed openly from her eyes; that bloody idiot and his substance abuse again! Six espressos, manipulating electricity, and now drunk driving!
Crowley growled without answering. Shame twisted through his entire body, mixed with humiliation and disgust.
Neither of them had time to say anything more; Crowley had forgotten how close the Soho police station was. Police cars surrounded the demon as he climbed out of his Bentley once more. He could not look Maggie in the eye.
Before her stood the image of a broken man. Crowley’s hair was greasy, his clothes filthy, his skin deathly pale, and the bags beneath his eyes so large they protruded beneath his glasses. Maggie suspected Aziraphale’s disappearance had a great deal to do with his condition. She had never imagined someone as arrogant and peculiar as Crowley would take Aziraphale’s departure so badly.
Perhaps they had broken up? Well, that hardly mattered now. What mattered was that she had lost her shop!
The police arrested Crowley, locking him into tight, freezing handcuffs. He climbed obediently into the police car; he looked at no one, his gaze fixed on the street exactly as it had been for the past month.
The first hour in the holding cell was almost pleasant. The demon lay on the metal bed and let the alcohol completely take over. He forced himself not to close his eyes. Not to drift off.
The second hour was far worse. Crowley was losing control; he could feel himself sobering up, seeing once again the images he was terrified of facing. He thought about Aziraphale again - and it hurt.
He could not bear it. When the guards looked away, once he was certain everyone was asleep, he slipped between the bars in the form of a snake. Somehow he found the exit in the darkness; human once more, he burst out into the street, breathing heavily.
He felt shame. He felt fury, sorrow, grief over what he had lost. He felt sober.
Coming back here was a terrible idea, he thought as he walked along the pavement. Maggie was still outside; together with Nina, she was keeping watch to stop anyone sneaking into the wrecked shop during the night and stealing everything.
Crowley took a deep breath. He had to apologise - she had done nothing to deserve this, and in a single night she had lost nearly everything. For once, the demon would do the right thing. The moment the women spotted him, they both stood up.
“Maggie,” he began, clearing his throat. He had not spoken this loudly in a month. “I’m truly sorry. I’ll get you money for the repairs, hire a crew, rebuild the shop within a few days…” he said, forcing himself to meet her eyes.
“I…” Maggie began crying again. “Oh, Crowley… I forgive you,” she replied, curling into Nina’s side. “We’d been planning to move away for three weeks already… your intervention finally gave us the sign that it was time to leave,” she added, wiping away her tears.
“I forgive you” rang unpleasantly in Crowley’s ears. He remembered all too well who had last spoken those words to him. Aziraphale had said "I forgive you too" - and then he had left. And now Nina and Maggie were doing the same.
Crowley stared at them silently. The women could not see his eyes; red, exhausted, growing steadily wetter.
“I’ll pay you back every penny. By the end of the week this place will shine again,” he said, lowering his gaze to the ground once more. He couldn't make another person leave.
“No, Crowley… I can’t afford to live here anymore. I don’t want to live here. Nina and I want to move to Tadfield, settle down in a little cottage…”
The demon felt his eyes burning. Well… it was not often he cried. This situation reminded him far too much of Aziraphale. He missed him so terribly.
He nodded to them, swallowed back his tears, and ran towards his Bentley. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and grabbed the bottle of vodka lying on the back seat.
That was the beginning of this story… and Crowley had not even tried to touch our proverbial wardrobe.