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duck-in-a-spaceship · 1 year ago

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The Post Break-Up Box of Shame

WOO chapter two babey. This is it for this one, there's not gonna be a chapter three, but I might tack on some extra scenes! Tell me if there's anything else you want to see with this concept!!

Summary: Crowley's car is throwing fit, and the lesbians are here to save the day. As if he's going to let them.

Word Count: 2501

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Chapter 2: Some Bloody Conspiring

“Oh my, we were wondering if you two would be back,” Maggie was approaching him fairly rapidly, and Crowley made it his mission to approach the Bentley rapidly-er. “What on earth happened? Are you alright?”

“Oh yeah, just peachy.” The door of the Bentley, which usually swung right open on his arrival, was suddenly stuck. “Come on you little- oh here, take this.” Crowley shoved the box of plants at her, and Maggie struggled to grab onto them in time, lurching forwards slightly to take hold.

“Careful!” she insisted, adjusting her grip on the plants so they didn’t fall.

“Right, yep, sorry about that. Would you stop throwing a fit?”

“Excuse me! I’m-”

“Oh not you,” Crowley told her, waving a hand dismissively. “This blasted door won’t open. Although, while you’re here, we should have a little chat- aha!” The door to the Bentley suddenly popped open, and Crowley cheerfully swung it aside.

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you too, actually.” Maggie offered out the plants to him, and Crowley took them, shoving them in the backseat.

“Right, right. Yeah, Muriel, the new angel at the bookshop? They’ve got no clue what they’re doing, quite frankly, when it comes to human things, so you really don’t have to worry about rent. She tried to get me to take it to Aziraphale, but obviously he doesn’t need it either-”

“Yes, Aziraphale, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“-so you can just hang on to it,” Crowley continued, completely ignoring her attempted interjection. He shut the door of the Bentley. “In fact you could probably go get what you already gave her, just tell her I said it was alright or something, tell them it’s some sort of human thing.”

“Crowley, I’m not really worried about the rent. I mean, thank you and all but… well but really I just wanted to talk to you?”

He reached out past her to open the door of the Bentley, which would preferably be followed by the steps of getting in the driver’s seat and speeding away. Ideally with some Queen playing, not any of that loverboy nonsense, but some good old Bohemian, or a ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ for the road. All of this was prevented by the fact that the door would. Not. Budge.

“Why?” he asked her sharply, tugging on the handle. “Have some more winning advice to give?”

Maggie winced, looking at Crowley pitifully as he continued to struggle with his car. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well then?”

“No.”

“Well… well what happened? Maybe it’s not all a lost cause, you know?”

Crowley scoffed, gave up on the handle to turn and face her. “Not a lost cause, right. Hey, just wondering, have you seen him at that bookshop lately? Or anywhere, really? Nah, right? Seems lost to me.” He rapped on the window. “Do you at least want to open this, or are you going to continue to be difficult?”

He mostly expected the Bentley to stay quiet, maybe a small part expected the window to indeed roll down. What Crowley was not expecting was for slow, soft classical music to start playing from the speakers. “Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Hey!” some passerby shouted.

“Yeah, hey to you!” Crowley shouted back, looking up to see Nina crossing the street towards him. Maggie waved. He groaned. “Hello Nina, do you have anything large and heavy I could use to break-”

“No! I’m not going to help you throw your little tantrum out here.”

“Oh alright. Oh- great, thank you for that.” Crowley walked away, heading to try the trunk of the Bentley, which Maggie and Nina used as an opportunity to conspire.

“What’s gotten into him?” Crowley heard Nina ask, not at all quietly.

“Well,” Maggie started, at the very least trying to whisper. “He said it didn’t go well, when he tried to talk to Aziraphale.”

“Oo, what happened then?”

“I don’t know, he won’t say anything else about it.”

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing we can do then, hm?”

“Oh Nina, we can’t just ignore him. I know you know how rough heartbreak is, we should help him out.”

Crowley muttered a string of curse words at the Bentley, turning to whatever languages he fancied after he ran out of English ones. Nina sighed loudly enough for him to hear, and probably for all of heaven to hear as well.

“Crowley!” she shouted.

“What?” he demanded. The Bentley was still, no matter how hard he tried, refusing to let him in.

“You want to come inside and have something to drink?”

“Nah, I’m good. Was just heading out, really.”

Maggie leaned to look over at him. “Seems like it’s still jammed. Maybe you should call someone, and come inside while you wait,” she offered.

Crowley sighed, leaning against the Bentley, fingers tapping against the side of the car. “You,” he muttered to it. “You are going to have to pay for this later, you understand?” The classical music fell on a slow decrescendo until it stopped completely. Crowley tried the door again. No luck. “Yeah,” he called over to Nina and Maggie. “Yeah, alright, lead the damned way.”

===

Crowley stared at the ceiling of the record shop, eyes scanning over the various posters pasted there. His fingers were loosely curled around a mug of coffee and bourbon (although it could really be more accurately described the other way around) where his hand was splayed on the rug next to him. It was a nice rug, really, good and soft, so long as you ignored the headache-inducing waves of color and design.

“Well… I think that was awfully brave of you,” Maggie finally spoke up, finishing the silence that followed his sad little tale.

“Yeah, real brave,” Crowley agreed sarcastically. “Not brave enough though, was it? Cuz he still ran off to heaven.” He dragged a hand down his face and let it muffle his speech. “Couldn’t seem to get away fast enough.”

Another silence, during which he didn’t bother to look over and see what Maggie and Nina were doing. Probably more bloody conspiring. He understood their frustrations now, with all the poking around in their love like (necessary as it was). Now that the roles were all flipped, he’d very much just like to be left alone.

“Well, maybe he just needs some time. I mean, Maggie and I are still figuring things out, taking things nice and slow, because I just ended things with my old partner. Maybe after all of your heaven and hell nonsense, he just needs a bit of a break.”

“Then he would’ve taken a little break instead of running off to be the archangel of heaven.”

“I know but-” Maggie tried to intervene, but Crowley had actually decided he had more to say on that matter, unfortunately enough.

“Heaven!” he exclaimed, sitting up suddenly, bringing the mug with him as he stood, half-full contents sloshing around. “I know he’s always had a soft spot for the bastards, but I thought we were moving on from the heaven = good, hell = bad nonsense. They’re all homicidal idiots, you know?”

Crowley spun around to face Nina and Maggie, unfortunately spilling a bit of his drink onto the aforementioned carpet. Ah well, probably no one would notice. They were both staring at him with blank confusion.

“Alright,” Maggie started, with enough forced optimism Crowley could tell she really had to hype herself up for this conversation. “Alright, we might not know much about heaven and hell and archangels and what all that entails, at least not as much as we might have thought, but we do know at least a little bit about relationships and you two need to talk.”

Nina nodded sharply. “Can’t solve anything if you aren’t on the same page. Or the same planet for that matter. Not entirely sure where heaven is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not here.”

“It’s not,” Crowley confirmed, leaning back on one of the record shelves. “Don’t worry,” he added glumly.

“Right, well since you seem to know where it is-”

“I’m a demon!” Crowley interrupted, spreading his arms out with dramatic flourish. More of his drink splashed onto the carpet below, which earned him a glare from both Niana and Maggie, so he waved a hand to miracle it away. “I can’t just go waltzing up to heaven just because I fancy a little chat with my mates, now can I?”

(Crowley, of course, very much could do this. He’d proved as much when he put on a very nice outfit, commandeered an angel turned police officer, and poked around in all their stuff. However, he was hoping Nina and Maggie would sort of just take his word on it, because he was really trying to drop this particular conversation topic.)

“Well I don’t know!” Nina exclaimed, and Crowley got the sense that they were getting a bit fed up with all this angel-demon nonsense. He’d drink to that– he was getting pretty fed up with it himself. “I don’t know if you can, I’m not particularly sure what an archangel is, or who this metatron fellow is, or what exactly happened at the meeting, or what has even been going on. I have no goddamn clue. But what I do know is that you and Aziraphale are clearly head over heels for each other, practically married, and you need to get up off your asses and do something about it.”

Crowley took a sip from his cup, drained the whole thing actually, and then placed it on one of the shelves, carefully balanced. He’d been gearing himself up for a good shout, because if Nina got one, then he felt like he’d more than earned it. Unfortunately, standing on that ugly, but very comfortable carpet, leaning against shelves packed tight with unsold records, looking over at the two of them, Crowley found he wasn’t feeling very shout-y. Just plain wasn’t in the mood for it, much as he’d like to be.

“I think it’s a bit too late for that.”

Apparently no one had anything else they wanted to add.

Crowley tapped his shoe on the floor, wondered if the Bentley would be out of its mood if he decided now would be the time to drive away. He really just wanted to take a long, long nap.

“So, um, what are you going to do now?”

That was a good question, sadly enough. Crowley was getting tired of good questions; he wanted some real shitty ones. Muriel was good at asking shitty questions, maybe he should go talk to them again.

Instead he pulled his glasses off, rubbed his hand across his forehead, and looked up to the ceiling. “Dunno,” he said. “Sort of had a plan there with- we were the plan, you know? We were always the plan. For the last couple of millennia, we had our own side. And then if there was nothing else to do, hell usually kept me busy enough. Now there’s just a whole bunch of bloody nothing.”

Crowley decided then and there that he didn’t care if the Bentley was ready for him, he just needed to get out of that record shop. He shoved his glasses back on. “Then again, I’ll figure it out, don’t really have much of a choice I suppose.” Crowley headed for the door, turning his back on them as soon as he could. They started conspiring immediately, he could tell, but they were getting good enough at it that he had no clue what they actually said.

“Crowley, wait!” Maggie called, just as his hand was on the door. Gah, so close.

“What?” he demanded, or well, half a demand, half a whine, as he turned around.

“Well, I was just thinking, since Aziraphale is, um, taking a little break from Earth right now, and Muriel doesn’t really know what they’re doing, maybe you should help run the bookshop.”

Crowley snorted. “Yeah, for sure. Real bookshop-ist, I am. Now, I’ve really got to get going, you know. Plants to water, ducks to feed-”

“Oh come on now,” Nina interrupted. She crossed her arms, just to prove some point. Crowley wasn’t really sure what it was, but he was pretty sure it was working anyway. “I’m sure you know all the little particularities Aziraphale had about the place. And someone has to make sure no one actually sells the books, right?”

Crowley considered that for a moment. Sure, he’d already told Muriel that she wasn’t actually operating the kind of bookshop that sold things, but that could only go so far. And he hadn’t even gotten around to mentioning the organization system, or how you had to treat books so you didn’t mess them all up, or what was off-limits and what wasn’t, and someone was going to need to replace the fire extinguishers every so often.

“Yeah, alright, I’ll think on it,” Crowley said, trying to convey in tone how much he was not going to think on it. (He was absolutely going to think on it.) “But if that’s all…” he trailed off, giving either of them the chance to interrupt. “Great, see ya around, thanks for the drinks.”

They both waved as he finally opened the door, each calling after him with their own goodbyes.

“Drive safe!”

“Stop by sometime.”

And as the door swung shut, Crowley looked over his shoulder to see they were already, indeed, conspiring.

===

The Bentley sat waiting for Crowley when he got back, and the door opened without a single threat, which was a welcome surprise. “Well, thank you, you dick,” he muttered softly. Crowley slid into the driver’s seat, and slammed it shut.

He just sat there for another moment. The plants were probably throwing a fit in the backseat, not at all happy to be back in the car after adjusting nicely to their cushy bookshop life. Crowley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, stared out at the road, watched as the rain began to trickle down. It left misty drops on the windshield, like stars, like alpha centauri, like the pillars of creation, like all those galaxies, oh so long ago.

Crowley groaned, let his forehead slam into the steering wheel. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glovebox pop open, and out spilled a wave of caramel candies. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, straightening back up. “I get it. I…” he sighed. “I miss him too, you sensitive old sot.” He sighed, dragged a hand down his face. “Alright, come on.”

The bell over the door rang out cheerfully, announcing Crowley’s entrance into the bookshop. Unsurprisingly, not much had changed since he was last there. Muriel peaked out from behind a shelf, their two hats still wobbling precariously on their head. “Oh, hi Crowley!”

Crowley put down his box of plants, and looked over at them. “Muriel, great.” He cleared his throat, grinned at her. “I’d like to apply for a job.”

#good omens #good omens 2 #fanfiction #duck writes #ao3 #i love making the bentley an actual character #it misses its other dad :(((((#again i might write a little follow up to this #i like the idea of muriel sitting crowley down and forcing him to do a job interview #before they're willing to 'hire' him #“i'd like to apply for a job”#“okay great! i'll see when i can fit you in for an interview!”#“what”#crowley's like YOU KNOW ME???#and muriel is offended he thinks she'd show FAVORITISM

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