Crowley had spent the better part of the past eight months bouncing between being black-out drunk -- which seemed preferable to thinking, as thinking always led to remembering, which meant acknowledging the empty pit in his chest -- and wondering about that whole bizarre last conversation he and Aziraphale had, and the expression on the angel's face when he looked back, just before he got on the lift to Heaven.
Crowley always considered himself more on the astute side, as demons went, and forever ready with a plan. Usually, though, when it came to reading people's facial expressions -- much like remembering their names -- he just wasn't inclined to bother. Except when it came to his angel. His angel, he could read like the back of his hand. He'd been doing it for somewhat more than six thousand years, after all. Still, something about that whole morning had bothered Crowley whenever he was sober enough, over the past eight months. Like they'd been after two different exactlies again.
Yet, whenever he replayed that whole last conversation between himself and Aziraphale, nothing about it made sense. First off, Aziraphale never interrupted him whenever he said he had something important to say. Not like that. And what'd been up with all the hand gestures and that comment about misjudging the Metatron? Aziraphale had seemed... Crowley's eyes narrowed. His angel was a lot of things, but fickle wasn't one of them, and they'd had a long conversation about Aziraphale's opinion of the Metatron after Tadfield. No way would the angel suddenly think the corrupt Voice of God was on the level. Besides, the whole time Aziraphale was talking, the angel looked terrified right out of his bloody mind.
I need you.
The words, ripped from the painful past, shook their way through the demon, his response a visceral need to help. Pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes to keep himself in place, he hissed out, "Fer the love of...For fuck's sake, angel."
Just what the blessed Heaven had that look been about? That'd been Aziraphale's trust me look. The same one he'd worn in 1941, staring down that rifle. The same look that had finally convinced Crowley to let his angel drive the Bentley the whole way to Edinburgh alone. But it hadn't made any sense for his angel to give him that look the last time they saw each other. Aziraphale made it clear he wanted to go off to Heaven and leave everything they built together behind. Some nonsense about "making a difference." Nothing Crowley could say or do at the time was about to stop him. He knew, because he tried. In essence, Crowley had already played his own one-demon version of "Make an Arse Out of Yourself for Love" and lost spectacularly.
He wasn't particularly up for any encore performances.
What the bloody Heaven was he supposed to be trusting? Or was he just reading meaning into that final glance out of desperation to believe Aziraphale wouldn't just leave him alone like this?
Crowley ground the heel of his hand against his breastbone, as if that might get rid of the dull pain suddenly throbbing there again, after eight months of complete emptiness.
That whole first day and night after Aziraphale left, Crowley just drove around London, convincing himself he was wrong. His heart wasn't caving in. His angel hadn't turned him down. Hadn't cast him away. Whatever happened, it was just some nightmare he needed to wake up from. By morning, he'd so convinced himself of the fact that he drove to the bookshop. He'd been just about to get out of the Bentley when he saw that Scrivener angel he'd talked into arresting him -- Constable something or other -- through the window.
Reality had been devastating, and he didn't know how to deal with devastation. So, he did what he always did best, and replaced disappointment with alcohol. It always worked in the past. Alcohol was a great substitution for a lot of things – disappointment, loneliness, grief. He'd tried it in place of all of them, over the millennia.
It worked for eight months, barring Constable Whatsits's interruptions whenever they read about something they didn't understand -- which was bloody often, but he honestly couldn't say he minded, even if he growled at them to leave him alone. At least they -- and Maggie, who'd accosted him in the pub where he'd been drinking and staring at the bookshop several months ago -- cared enough to talk to him.
The rest of the time, he just drank. So much, the alcohol eventually blurred out everything else. Even the painful hollow in his chest. So why wasn't it working today? Since this morning, no matter how much alcohol he consumed, he kept getting this feeling. It was the kind of feeling like he suspected leaving the house having forgotten to put trousers on might feel. The nagging sense something was different. Not something wrong. In fact, he would dare say it felt more like something right in the world, which to a demon should be worrisome in itself.
Crowley couldn't put his finger on the feeling, but it crept higher in him as the day settled in, until it became this breath-stealing ache in his chest a short while ago, leaving him with the terrible feeling there was somewhere he should be.
The feeling he only ever got when... If you can hear me, come rescue me.
" 'Zrr'fale!" He bolted out of his seat faster than was likely wise, given the sheer amounts of alcohol he'd consumed. Clinging to the tabletop, he let the room steady itself, while the heart he assumed for months was now a crater began to pound against the inside of his ribs so hard he wondered if it, too, had grown wings.
Hands pressed flat on the table, he gathered his wits and willed the alcohol from his body. Heaven rot it all, he was going back to the bookshop. He couldn't explain it, but he was certain he needed to get there before everything really was too late.