Chapter Text
The Morning After
Network, they said. Put yourself out there, they told her. Show you’re a team player, let your colleagues see the real you. Work hard, play harder.
All advice Crowley wishes she’d ignored, gathered from a hundred and one puff pieces about climbing the corporate ladder. When she’d first read them, they seemed to make sense. Crowley wasn’t naive enough to think she’d be able to navigate the world of business without exercising a bit of charm, flirting here and there, having her number added to the whisper network—it was all part of the game, right?
If she was capable of fetching her laptop, or, for that matter, moving at all, Crowley would pull up every single chirpy, grating piece of ‘So You’re A Career Woman’ drivel from her bookmarks until her browser groaned under the weight of tabs, and then chuck the whole fucking machine out the window. Let your colleagues see the real you. Yeah, great idea. Perfect. No flaws.
She groans and rolls over, scrabbling with one hand at the bedside table for the bottle of water that should be there. But aside from a few scattered hair ties and a slightly tacky vibrator, the space is empty. No water, no Nurofen. Not even a half-drunk cup of cold coffee (and that’s the real confirmation that she’s fucked up—even Very Drunk Crowley usually manages to make herself a sobering espresso before she slumps into bed to sleep off the booze. She vaguely recalls that she was meant to buy coffee beans on her way home from work. So much for that.)
“Unghhhhh,” she moans through parched lips. There’s no-one to rescue her from her misery. No sympathetic flatmate, not even a grumpy part-time girlfriend to make snide remarks about Crowley’s bad decisions. Head throbbing, she levers herself up bit by bit, every tiny movement sending a wave of treacly pain through her limbs.
Shuffling across to the kitchenette (which, to be fair, is only four steps from her bed), head down and hair hanging in a knotted curtain around her face, takes an excruciating age. No clothes on, she notices vaguely, which at least tells her that she managed to get undressed when she got home. God, hopefully she’d waited until she was home…
She grabs a used mug from the tiny sink, not bothering to rinse it before she fills it and raises it to her lips. Some of the water makes it into her mouth, while the rest runs down her face and neck, and Christ, it is good. Has water ever tasted so good? She drains the cup, fills it again, and drinks until she’s in danger of throwing up. Remaining upright is fast draining her reserves, so she sits on the chilly floor, legs splayed before her, and begins to take stock.
There are bruises already blooming on her bony knees—oh, and more on her arms as well, circling her wrists as if she’d gotten…stuck in something? Or… Well, she’ll take a closer look at those later. Her feet are grubby, a sure sign that she’d taken her heels off to walk home. And there’s the unmistakable smell of her own stale arousal, a slight stickiness between her legs that explains the vibrator on the bedside table. She cautiously sniffs the fingers of her right hand and wrinkles her nose. Yep, looks like she made it home and immediately had a furious wank. Possibly more than one. At least, she considers, she’d stuck to solitary activities.
Oh gold star for Crowley, you didn’t fuck a colleague during your first week. Promotion in no time. She gingerly pumps her fist in the air in a silent, sarcastic cheer at achieving the absolute bare minimum.
But… had she tried?
Her head falls back against a cupboard door and she squeezes her eyes shut against the vicious morning light filtering through the window.
At first, there are only blurry bits and pieces. The beginning of the night is clearer, of course—an invitation extended by one of her new team (Sharon? Tracy? Edith?) to Friday drinks at the pub on the corner. Sure, Crowley had said. I’ll come along for one. She hadn’t even wanted to, not really—she’d been looking forward to a solid evening of slobbing around in her knickers (preferably with a trough of ice cream) after a week of having her brain fried with computer logins and training sessions and names, so many names. But Crowley had said yes to the pub, because that’s what all the articles told her to do. Cultivate friendships, seize opportunities to mingle. You never know who might do you a favour later down the track.
So, she’d gone along, trapped the whole walk there in a shockingly boring conversation about tropical fish with a nameless face from Accounts. And then, once they were inside, she’d escaped to the bar. She’d stay for one drink, and that would be that.
The Night Before
The Dirty Donkey, Crowley decides, is as good an example of nominative determinism as she’s ever seen. The surfaces are grimy, the carpet suspiciously sticky, and the barman’s face positively equine. She’d managed to shake off the tropical fish guy, thank fuck, and the queue at the bar gives her ample time to scout her next move. Most of the clientele seem to be from Eastgate—the faces around her are vaguely familiar, although she can’t be certain who she’s actually been introduced to after the rapid fire tour on her first day.
Make a good impression. It was in all the books, all the blogs. Find the company MVPs, make sure they know you by face and name. As much as Crowley doesn’t particularly relish chit-chatting with a bunch of suit-wearing corporate types, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t take every chance that comes her way. Distinguish herself at Eastgate and she’ll be set up for life in a way her parents could never have imagined. And in the meantime, she gets to wear slutty little suits and heels, which, let’s face it, is a great look for her.
The Dirty Donkey is a London pub, with London prices—pints of craft ale that start at twelve quid, and wine that costs even more. But she spies her Old Reliable at the far end of the bar. Cheap cider, five quid. Drink in hand, Crowley scans the pub for more promising prospects than Tropical Fish Guy. There are the other new starters, Tom and Laura, chatting over in a corner, but she’s already met them both. Better to spend her one drink (and she’s determined to only have one) building rapport with some of the old guard.
The head of IT, Hastur something-or-other, is gurning at the end of the bar, waiting for his drink. Always good to have a friend in IT. She makes her way over, flashing what she hopes is a brilliant, charming smile.
“You’ve got lipstick on your teeth,” is the first thing he says to her. In fact, it’s the only thing he says to her. He briefly stares at Crowley’s chest, and then, before she can come up with something witty, or even scrub the lipstick off her teeth with her finger, he’s collected his drink and walked away.
Hastur: Slimy, rude. Breast-ogler. Crowley adds it to her mental organisation chart of everyone she’s met so far.
The Morning After
A buzzing sound comes from somewhere nearby. And then another.
Phone. Where’s her phone? Crowley hauls herself up from the floor with a groan and searches the cramped space, eventually unearthing it from beneath her crumpled blazer and blouse. She takes a deep breath and utters a silent prayer as she unlocks it. Please don’t let me have texted Molly. Or Justine. Or Kat. The most recent messages are a new conversation, all from an unknown number. She ignores them as she flicks back through her call history, and then the rest of her messages, searching for any signs of attempted booty calls, weepy declarations of love, furious tirades, or whatever else her drunk mind might have convinced her was a good idea.
“Thank fuck,” she says, clutching the device to her chest. Nothing sent to any of her exes, and no calls either. Small mercies. (A cleverer woman might make it a matter of principle—of personal pride—to block and delete the phone numbers of all the girls who’ve dumped her. Might even call it healthy.)
Even though she wants to crawl back into bed and sleep for the next month, Crowley forces herself to check the new messages from the unsaved number. As soon as she reads the most recent one, a chill runs up her spine, and she frantically scrolls to the top of the conversation.
Sent 1.02am: Tall drunk lady.
Received 8.35am: Good morning. I hope you’re not feeling too poorly. Do you remember much from last night? I have something of yours and I think I’d better drop it around and explain. Please let me know when you’re up.
Received 9.15am: This is Aziraphale, by the way. From work.
Received 9.27am: I’m actually just popping out for some breakfast, but I can come past yours afterwards if that suits.
Received 9.27am: I remember where you live.
Received 9.33am: Apologies, that last message sounded more threatening than intended.
Received 9.45am: Could you please reply to this message to confirm you’re alive?
Received 10.03am: I really would appreciate confirmation of the above.
Received 10.10am: I’m coming over to check on you. I’ll be there in an hour. Please reply if you see this before then.
Received 10.36am: I’m on the train. I should be there in 30 minutes.
Received 10.55am: Nearly there.
Received 10.56am: Please be alive.
What the fuck. Who is… Crowley peers at one of the earlier texts. Who the fuck is Aziraphale? And why do they know where she lives? The possibilities cascade down upon her, each like a mallet to her aching temples. Had she been flirting with this Aziraphale? Perhaps tried to lure her back for a drunken shag? (She assumes Aziraphale is a ‘her’, because a) Crowley wouldn’t try to lure a not-her back, and b) ‘Aziraphale’ sounds like the sort of name posh parents give their daughters when the neighbourhood is already full up with ‘Ariadne’s.)
Whoever she is, Aziraphale will be here in—Crowley glances at the clock—ten minutes.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”
It’s not fair. She only has pieces of the puzzle, and the rest of the prior evening is locked away in some Pandora’s box of awfulness. She’s naked and grubby and smelly and some heavy-footed creature is stomping around the inside of her skull, while her mouth tastes like she’s spent the last eight hours giving enthusiastic head to the bottom of the Thames.
Casting her phone aside—whoever this Aziraphale is, she can wait a little longer for confirmation of Crowley’s aliveness, because Crowley herself isn’t yet sure of it yet—she wobbles to the bathroom and turns the shitty eco-shower on as hot as it will go. No fear of staying in there too long—the hot water only lasts for six minutes. She stands like a zombie, feet splayed and back hunched so that the spray pours over her head. Just as the heat begins to wane she remembers to actually wash, frantically scrubbing her arms and knees and crotch with the shower gel that she remembers too late is the minty kind not designed for sensitive bits.
“Owowowowowow.”
Vulva burning, she escapes the shower and rubs herself with the towel that seems to retain more moisture than a sponge. Still it burns. She gives in to her hungover brain’s intrusive suggestion that the unpleasant tingling might stop if she can get everything as dry as possible. Back in her bedroom, she yanks her hairdryer from the top of the dresser and switches it on full force, tilting her hips upwards into the blast of hot air.
And then she notices herself in the full-length mirror next to her bed. Properly sees herself. A lanky, damp mess with bleary eyes and blotchy cheeks and tiny, frowning tits and a hair dryer pointed at her bits. Bruised legs prickly with week-old stubble because she shaved them for a corporate job that she didn’t even want but desperately needs. A lax belly that ought to be tight and toned for how skinny she is, but instead wobbles like a blancmange every time she moves, because that’s how age works, and she’s a decaying wreck of a thing, a skeleton with odd bits and bobs glued on to make the shape of a person.
One week ago, on Monday morning, she’d regarded herself in the same mirror with determined pride. The smart little black suit—an inspired mix of slutty and professional—and the neatly tied back hair had made her feel almost prepared, borderline competent. Even her attempt at make-up, which was really just a few rubbed in blobs of white-ish stuff to pale out her freckles and a bit of mascara, had seemed satisfactory. She’d only worn the lipstick on Friday, and that, of course, had been a mistake. Just like everything else in her life, it seems.
Crowley wants to crawl back into bed and cry. And then the doorbell rings, an obnoxious electronic sound that echoes throughout the building. Her studio is just a converted loft in a terrace, and there’s no real way to tell whether the person at the door is ringing for her, or for the tenants who live downstairs. But she suspects it’s for her. She goes to the window and tries to peer down, hoping it might jog a memory of who Aziraphale might be, but beyond a sliver of blonde hair and a broad, beige-covered shoulder, she can’t see anything of her visitor.
The doorbell chimes again, and Crowley swears as she digs through a pile of clothes that she thinks are clean. She finds a pair of leggings that give her an obscene camel toe but are soft enough for her prickling, hungover skin to tolerate, along with an oversized jumper that looks a bit like a tent but smells acceptable. The doorbell chimes again as her visitor presses it three times in row. It sounds frantic now.
“Fucking wait!” she swears as she searches for sunglasses. There is no way she is facing whoever it is, or any part of the day, without them. Ah, and there they are—the back-up pair anyway, which are exactly the same as her regular ones except for a scratch on the right lens. She shoves them on her face and combs her fingers through her wet hair, then plods down the stairs as her phone begins to buzz in her pocket.
Her first impression, when she reefs the door open, a snarl already on her lips, is that she’s been caught out by an especially sly Jehovah’s Witness. The man—for it is a man—standing on the doorstep is portly and dapper, dressed in some old-fashioned get-up that wouldn’t be out of place in a period drama on telly. But there’s no bundle of The Watchtower in his hands, and he does look vaguely familiar…
The man slumps in apparent relief at the sight of her, heaving a great sigh and patting his chest as if he might have been on the verge of fainting.
“Thank Heavens. I thought you’d choked on your own vomit,” he says by way of greeting.
“Er. Not yet.” It’s still on the cards, though. Crowley sways a little and grabs the door frame to keep from toppling over.
“Good lord, you look like the living dead. I don’t think humans are meant to be that colour,” he observes next, peering at her with interest. “I think we’d better get you some coffee.”
That idea, at least, Crowley can get behind.
The Night Before
Crowley gulps her cider quickly, hovering awkwardly at the bar—it tastes far worse than she remembers, but it’s cheap, and her first payday isn’t until next Thursday—and slips into the toilets. They’re just as grimy as the rest of the place, and she keeps her hands clear of the surfaces as she peers at the clouded mirror and rubs a finger across her teeth.
The lipstick was a bad idea. It’s too dark for her complexion, and even when she wipes the remnants off with a tissue from her purse she still looks as if she’s been sucking on raspberry sweets all day. The hum of voices and the clanking of glasses outside seems more tiresome than welcoming, and she sighs at the prospect of small talk with these relative strangers that she can’t quite think of as colleagues. Not yet, at least.
They come from different worlds, after all. Crowley had never envisioned a future for herself in an office, surrounded by grey walls and heterosexuals all talking about numbers and sales and targets and divisions. It had been a mark of pride for a while, shucking off the yolk of ambition that a few of her high school mates had shackled themselves to.
They’d gone off to uni with stars in their eyes, while she’d walked a hundred metres down the road and nabbed a job at the Goose and Greyhound, which netted her enough cash to, eventually, set off travelling for a few years. Back then, she’d been convinced that her school mates were the ones who’d missed the point, while she had the right of it. But a decade later, when her old chums were getting mortgages and going on holidays to Majorca, she’d had to rethink her outlook.
So she did the thing. Got the degree, moved to London, applied for everything under the sun that seemed vaguely related to the four year slog of business studies, and, after dozens of rejections and many more silences, she’d had one single offer—from Eastgate. It wasn’t exactly Goldman Sachs, mind, but it wasn’t bad either. Medium size global company, growing presence in the UK. If it meant Crowley had to develop a sudden passion for grocery stores and mid-tier retail, then she’d do it. And that meant she couldn’t waste opportunities, not even in her first week.
“Go out there and be nice,” she hisses at her reflection, shoving a few escaping strands of hair back into the lumpy bun she’d barely managed that morning.
As soon as she exits the toilets, she has to duck and weave around the bar to avoid catching the eye of Tropical Fish Guy, and she finds herself ordering another pint of bad cider so that she can survey the remaining company. There are a few little groups of people she recognises scattered here and there, and she picks one populated mostly by women—at least they won’t leer at her chest, or if they do, she can leer right back.
One of them is the finicky, buttoned up HR manager who keeps sending her email after email full of links to mandatory training, most of which seem to have been developed on the working theory that unless Crowley clicks through six thousand slides filled with chirpy stock images, she will find herself at the centre of a sexual harassment investigation in no time. Michael, she thinks the woman is called. HR people have to be appropriate, don’t they? It’s literally their job. She wanders over and awkwardly inserts herself into a gap in the circle.
“Hi,” she nods, and a few of the women nod back.
“Oh, Annie,” Michael says, her prudish face twisting into something that might be a smile, if smiles were particularly painful. “Have you finished the workplace etiquette training yet? There’s a second part due Monday.”
“Um. Not yet, but I’ve—” Crowley’s pretty sure she hasn’t even opened that one yet (she wonders whether ‘workplace etiquette’ has anything in it about not ogling breasts. If so, Hastur needs a refresher). Before she can summon an acceptable excuse, Michael has struck up another conversation.
“Of course, we want Milo to board like his father did, but it’s the distance, you see, and he’s so sensitive…” she says with a put-upon sigh. Crowley wonders whether Milo is a dog or a child. The group of women nod and coo like a pack of pigeons, and by the time Crowley picks up the threads of the conversation (it becomes clear that Milo is a child, and a particularly vile one by the sounds of it) there’s nothing for her to do except nod along as well. It’s not so bad. She’ll just finish this drink, and then she’ll make her escape—fuck networking. She can try again next week.
The Morning After
“So, er. I actually didn’t catch your name last night. My apologies,” says Aziraphale (Crowley assumes it’s Aziraphale, at least) as they walk up her street towards a little cafe brimming with weekend visitors. Well, he walks. Crowley shuffles, lifting her feet the bare minimum required for forward momentum.
“’S Crowley,” she manages.
“Right. Crowley. For some reason I thought it was ‘Annie’, but you rather told me off—“
Ah, shit. So she’d been that level of drunk.
Crowley turns to her new companion, squinting through her dark glasses. Ugh, he’s all blindingly bright and cheerful, it’s worse than staring directly at the sun. Who the fuck wears waistcoats on a Saturday? Why is his hair so stupidly pale? Who the fuck is he?
“Yeah, er. It is, actually. S’ry if I was… Prefer Crowley, though.”
“Crowley it is, then,” he says with a sunny smile. Or is it a smirk? She grimaces, but the prospect of coffee—just a few agonising steps further—keeps her going. Once she’s had coffee, she’ll shake the smirky bastard off and retreat to her gloomy little studio to nurse her hangover in private.
“What would you like? My treat,” says Aziraphale when they reach the cafe.
A good thing, too. Crowley didn’t think of bringing her purse. Anyway, she doubts she’s capable of even entering the throng of chattering customers without passing out or throwing up.
“Big. Huge. Black. Strong,” she requests. Aziraphale nods primly, as if this is a perfectly normal coffee order, and leaves her swaying on the footpath outside.
Christ, who is he? She recalls snippets of his creepy messages—from work, he said. So he’s a colleague, apparently. And he has something of hers. Fuck, what if it’s her purse? She didn’t even look for it, had just assumed it was somewhere in her flat. But in that case, why wouldn’t he just hand it over and scuttle the fuck off, good deed for the day done? If he’s nicked a tenner out of it… Not that she can remember having a tenner to nick.
“Ughhhhhrhhghhhhhhhhharrrgh,” Crowley groans (the noise feels sort of nice in her throat, so she lets it go on for a while, and a startled pair of latte-sipping Yummy Mummies quickly push their buggies further away).
What if he wants some kind of reward for returning her purse? Ha! If that’s the case, he’s shit outta luck, because Crowley’s pretty sure the last dregs of her overdraft were scraped dry, courtesy of too much disgusting cider. Why, oh why hadn’t she just gone home?
“Here you are. Careful, it’s hot.”
Aziraphale presses a cup into her hands, and regardless of her misgivings, Crowley really does consider kissing him (God, she hadn’t kissed him, had she? Under the right light, he might look like a sort of posh butch type, with those little cupid-bow lips and long lashes. In the harsh light of day, though, he is indisputably a man-shaped being, albeit a reasonably well-groomed one).
“Thanks,” she says, quite sincerely, bringing the cup straight to her lips. “Ohhhhh owowow, fuck! It’s fucking hot!”
While Crowley’s tongue sizzles and crisps into a shrivelled husk of charred, black flesh (that’s what it bloody feels like, at least), she thinks Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Well, fair. Still, she’d much rather enjoy her blisteringly painful coffee in peace. Time to get rid of her new friend.
“Tho—Chrithst that thtingths!—you th—said you had something of mine?”
A flicker of something ominous passes over the funny little man’s face. He glances around, and then points over the road, towards the park entrance. “I think it might be better if we find somewhere to…er…speak privately. Over there?”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The Night Before
And that had been that, hadn’t it? Crowley had finished her drink, smiled, managed to interject a cheery ‘have a good weekend!’ into the circle of gossipy women, and left the Dirty Donkey at a sensible time, hardly an hour after she’d arrived. Except…
“Oh, hello! It’s Annie, isn’t it? You’ve just started, haven’t you? I keep meaning to come and introduce myself.”
A pretty, soft-looking blonde appears in her path—the sort of pretty, soft-looking blonde that Crowley finds it entirely too difficult not to pay attention to. And this pretty, soft-looking blonde is beaming at her and giving her a twinkly little wave with her perfectly pretty, soft-looking fingers.
“Oh, yeah, hey. Annie, yes, me.” Crowley points to herself, just in case there’s any confusion.
“It’s so nice to meet you, welcome! I’m Maggie, from Records Management. We’re buried down in the basement, so I haven’t had a chance to come and say hello.”
Maggie is wearing a twee little retro cardigan over a button-up dress that pinches in at the waist—the sort of thing Crowley could never in a million years pull off, and nor would she want to, but it suits the other woman to a tee. Maggie’s plump (kissable?) lips bear a coat of expertly applied lipstick, none of which has migrated to her brilliantly white teeth. Crowley wishes she’d double-checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror earlier. She resists the urge to wipe her face.
“Nice to, er, meet you, too. I’m, um—well, I’m in the Ops and Logistics bit, third floor? I think? They ought to hand out compasses to navigate that place.”
It’s a lame joke—as far as buildings go, Eastgate’s London office is fairly standard, Crowley suspects—but Maggie giggles nonetheless, bobbing her head.
“It’s a bit of a maze, isn’t it?” she says. “By the way, I love your hair. It’s the most gorgeous colour, such a vivid red!”
“Oh, thanks. Yeah, grew it myself.”
“I bet it looks stunning when you wear it down…” Maggie’s wide, blue eyes sparkle mischievously. “I’d love to see it, someday.”
Wait, is that flirting? Is that allowed in the workplace? But the Dirty Donkey isn’t really the workplace (though there was that line in the sexual harassment training: Sexual harassment can occur at off-site work functions, and outside work hours, for example, during social gatherings of a workplace nature). But what if it’s welcome? What if Crowley would quite like to be sexually harassed by a pretty blonde with soft-looking hands?
“Maybe I’ll wear it down sometime,” she says with a grin, which seems a solid bit of ground between mild flirting and breast ogling. Hastur, take note.
Maggie giggles and—oh, is that a blush? Surely that’s a blush—and takes a sip of her drink. Rosé, by the looks of it.
“Um, I’m not sure if you were leaving, but if you wanted, there’s a table of us over there—just a few people from Records and IT, they’re all ever so nice, and I know they’d love to say hello.”
Crowley blinks. “Leaving? Me? Nope, not leaving. Psssshhhhh, not me. Not even late, is it? Like, TGIF, right?”
Smooth, Crowley. Smooth.
But Maggie giggles again, and Crowley is kind of enchanted by how easy it is to make the woman laugh. She points at the bar. “Er, I was about to get another, can I get you something?”
“Oh! I mean—thank you, that would be lovely. Just the house rosé, if that’s okay?”
Crowley waves her hand—is it okay? Of course it’s bloody okay, don’t spare a thought—and saunters back to the bar. The house rosé costs £9.55, which isn’t ideal, but who really cares at this point? She has some bread in the freezer, a few tins of beans, some rice. Not like she has anything else to spend her money on.
Maggie shuffles aside to make room at the booth, and Crowley slips in beside. Oh, and there’s a thigh pressed against hers. That’s promising (could be sexual harassment? Nah, probably fine).
“Thanks so much, Annie!” Maggie tips her glass to Crowley’s in a little ‘cheers’. “So, this is…”
The introductions take a little while, and Crowley’s not entirely sure she could reliably repeat each name back: there’s a nervous guy from IT who chuckles in a sort of hee-haw fashion, and a middle-aged man in Records Management who just seems happy to be there, and a pretty woman from the Design department who spends more time making eye contact with Maggie than Crowley would like. A couple of others join the table, so that they’re all squashed against each other, but no-one seems to mind.
For the first time since she’s started at Eastgate, Crowley feels a little bit at home. It’s a dingy pub, but it’s a pub—and if anyone knows pubs, it’s her. The conversation flows, little questions and anecdotes volleyed across the table. They even ask Crowley about her background, so she tells them about her years behind the bar, and the time she went to Australia and worked in a vineyard, and how she’d gone back to uni in her thirties to make something of herself.
“That’s so wonderful, I’m ever so jealous! I wish I’d travelled more,” Maggie laments.
“I went to Australia, once,” the cheerful Records man says. “Only had two trips to hospital! The doctors said they’d never seen anyone bitten by a snake and a spider at the same time. Quite extraordinary, they said.”
Someone buys another round (Crowley’s grateful—she promises she’ll buy a round next Friday) and the conversation continues. Her ears prick up at the Eastgate gossip—it’s the sort of thing, after all, that she ought to be paying attention to.
“Someone said Gabriel was going to come tonight. He never does, though.”
“He’s the big boss, right?” Crowley asks.
“Yeah,” Maggie nods. “When Eastgate set up a London office they sent him over to run it. He’s very… Well, he’s very American. Nice, though!”
“I was in his office again last week,” the IT guy says. “He doesn’t really understand emails, you know? Keeps asking me to send them to another department, but I explained that if they were sent to his email address…”
The work chatter continues. It’s okay, really. Not so different from her colleagues at the various pubs she’s worked at. Perhaps people are just people after all, and Crowley might fit in with the corporate drones. It’s turning into a reasonably pleasant night, all in all.
“Just need the loo,” she says, squeezing out from the booth. Technically, she should offer to buy a round now—it’s probably a bit rude not to. But her overdraft won’t stretch that far, and she decides that she’ll just buy a pint for herself and another glass of wine for Maggie on the way back. Bit pointed, but hey, she’s not getting any younger.
The Dirty Donkey’s bathroom seems less offensive than the first time she’d ventured in. Crowley checks her bank balance on her phone—oof—and then regards her reflection for a moment. Bits of her hair have escaped, but it looks wind-blown and sort of pretty. She gurns in the mirror, baring her teeth. Lipstick-free, thank Christ.
“Do you want to, like, hang out? As in, not here?” she tries.
Nah, too weird.
“Hey Maggie, want to see my bedroom?”
Too full on.
“So what do you get up to in your spare time? Can I join?”
Still kinda creepy. Also a very real risk of inviting herself to something awful, like mini-golf.
“Don’t s’pose you’d fancy another drink after this? Just you and me?”
Yeah, that’s alright. Classy, even.
She repeats the mantra in her head as she gets their drinks (very nearly asking the dour barman out in the process), and when she turns around, Maggie is right there, beaming at her. That’s convenient. Quick, what was the line?
But Maggie’s smile falters as she spots the drinks in Crowley’s hands.
“Oh, I didn’t realise you were— I’ve actually got to go now, I’m so sorry! Really, I would stay, but I’ve got this dinner thing, and, um. Well, I’m already running a bit late, otherwise…”
“Oh, right. No, that’s fine. Totally fiiiiine.” Crowley drags out the ‘fiiiiiine’ just to reiterate the point. Of course it’s fine. Why would it not be fine? She plasters her most ‘it’s fine’ expression on her face, and Maggie’s smile reappears.
“Well, it was lovely chatting, anyway. Um, see you next week?”
“Yep, for sure. Next week.” Too late, Crowley remembers to wish the woman a good night, but Maggie’s already heading for the exit.
The Morning After
Crowley trudges along behind Aziraphale as he leads her into the little park. It’s part of her aspirational running route, although she’s only managed a handful of morning runs since she moved into the neighbourhood a month ago. Has it always been so green? And sunny? Crowley wishes she could dial up the tint on her glasses by a few clicks.
“Oh, over here, perhaps,” Aziraphale says, leading her across the grass to a vacant bench. She notices that it’s set well away from the path and the rest of the Saturday morning crowds. Which doesn’t seem like a good sign.
Still, melting onto the bench is preferable to standing. She slumps down while Aziraphale perches beside her. The temperature of her coffee has dropped to ‘searing’ rather than ‘molten’ and she takes a greedy slurp.
“How are you feeling?
“Like absolute shite. Wish I was in bed.”
“Oh dear. I thought that might be the case. Er. How much do you actually remember from last night?”
Crowley’s patience is worn thin, and the day is far too obnoxiously nice to tolerate a moment longer than she has to.
“Look, you said you had something of mine. Thanks for the coffee and all, and sorry if I was a drunk twit last night, but just…can you just give it to me so I can go be horizontal? Please?”
Aziraphale sighs. “Very well. Hopefully… Well, best to just, er.“
He shuffles, retrieving something from his pocket. It’s a small plastic carrier bag, hardly big enough to hold anything. Well, hopefully that means her purse is back home, safe and sound. He hands it over, and Crowley opens it up, peering inside.
“And before you jump to any concl—“
“What the fuck?”