Chapter Text
Crowley had never been so drunk before.
He’d been very drunk before, yes, but this time he was so gone that he thought he could see new colours or the very fabric of time. Wine didn’t have that effect on him, but this time he’d unearthed some absinthe that he’d had locked away in his flat for a special purpose for over a hundred years, and now he and Aziraphale had consumed all of it.
The bottle had probably originated from France. He might have gotten it from an infamous Parisian nightclub. If he was sober, he would remember that a short, sad fellow called Henri had given it to him and warned that the stuff was probably cursed because it was so strong that even he, a regular consumer of absinthe, couldn’t stomach it.
Of course, him and the angel being immortal beings, they could stomach it, but at a high cost. They were absolutely sauced.
Their reason had been a celebratory one: it was their first night of drinking together after having averted the Apocalypse, and since they could finally drink and enjoy each other’s company without having their bosses breathing down their necks, they had decided to go big.
In retrospect, maybe they shouldn’t have drunk all of the absinthe. Crowley had had to migrate to Aziraphale’s bed so he could lean against the sturdy headboard to ease his wobbliness. When he was able to focus his eyes on Aziraphale long enough to actually see him, he saw the angel lying face-down on the floor of his bedroom and touching his carpet fervently, as if he was finding some secrets there. He was glowing faintly, too, and the air smelled weird, like there was too much oxygen in the room. It felt as if his angelic form was leaking slightly out of him.
That wasn’t good.
“W’need t…,” Crowley tried to speak, but his mouth felt numb. “Nhgel?”
Aziraphale heard him speak and in reply just started giggling, but in a very unsettling way. The noise wasn’t exactly coming directly out of his mouth, but instead bounced around the room. Or maybe it was Crowley’s head that was bouncing. He tried to focus.
“Uhsssiraphle,” he said more insistently.
“In a minute, love,” Aziraphale replied slurrily yet cheerily, sounding like he was having a very different conversation on his own.
Crowley groaned in frustration. Funny little geometric shapes were floating around his vision, and he tried to wave them away as he dropped to the floor and crawled to where Aziraphale was.
“We have to sober up,” Crowley said right next to his ear.
“I can’t,” Aziraphale said, giggling uncontrollably again. He didn’t sound like he was having a fun time, it just seemed that he couldn’t stop reacting that way. “Help me,” he said amid his laughter.
“No, nooooo, focus, angel,” Crowley pleaded. “If we don’t sober up, the hangover tomorrow will prob’b’bly be so bad it’ll discop… disporco… discorporate us. We’ll die.”
Aziraphale shook his head. “Bad,” he replied, apparently remembering the time he’d last been discorporated. But then he frowned in apparent discomfort. “But I think we’ll have to risk it, d-dear, I’m too drunk to sober up.”
“I can do it,” Crowley said with determination and confidence that he didn’t have. He just really didn’t want to face the hangover that would come. “I’ll… sober up ‘s both.”
“If you’re sure,” Aziraphale mumbled and resumed picking at the carpet.
Crowley summoned up every power he had in him. This needed a real miracle. Shakily, he thrust his hands forward to help him, and hoped for the best.
He did something alright, and the effort it took drained him completely so that he climbed back up on the bed to rest for a little.
***********************
A beam of sunlight escaped from between the curtains and descended on Crowley’s face. It made him turn his face away in discomfort, which woke him up. His head felt empty and hazy, as is common in the mornings. And yet some instinct in him told him that something about his surroundings was unfamiliar. Something was wrong.
He opened his eyes and squinted. It was the light; he was fairly sure that he was used to better curtains that never let the light in when he slept. His eyes hurt a little from the blinding beam. Something in him yearned for darkness, it seemed.
To his relief he spotted a pair of sunglasses next to him on the bed and put them on.
Better.
Now that he could look around him, he saw that he was in a small, slightly stuffy-looking bedroom. The impression of stuffiness was partly caused by how brown-toned everything was, but also by how dusty and unused most of the room looked.
This wasn’t his house, he was quite sure of it now.
But what frightened him was that he wasn’t exactly sure what his own house was supposed to look like compared to this. That the haziness of waking up wasn’t leaving him like it should. His head still felt too empty.
He got up to a sitting position, and that’s when he spotted a very blonde man who was leaning his back against the side of the bed. The man looked like he had just woken up too, and locked eyes with Crowley just as he saw him.
“Er. Hi,” Crowley said tentatively.
The man on the floor was appraising him wordlessly, in clear confusion as well.
Crowley took note of his situation. Right. He didn’t know where he was, but it was surely someone else’s house. And he had woken up in someone’s bed. And there was a man in the bedroom with him. There was only one reason that he could think of that would lead to this.
But why didn’t he remember anything? Had they gotten drunk? And why were they dressed? Had they gotten drunk, then slept together, then dressed up and promptly passed out? Probably. That would explain why the blonde man was on the floor.
He didn’t want to ask the stranger if it was his house. It would make him look so stupid. However, he wouldn’t have even needed to ask; the man looked like he belonged there, what with his beige waistcoat that looked like it was from a different century, his bowtie that had come crooked and loose, and his overall look that somehow said both prim and stuffy at the same time.
“Hello,” the man finally replied, and pulled on his waistcoat to straighten it. Even from behind his shades Crowley could see that the man was blushing.
Neither of them clearly knew what to say, so Crowley decided to make light of the situation.
“So, were we drunk or what?” he said, trying to sound cool.
“Yes, must have been,” the man said, giving a little uncomfortable laugh.
It was weird how, even though at that moment Crowley could hardly remember much about himself except his own name, he still thought that the man on the floor was oddly… out of character for him. Why on earth would he have gone for someone like him? Not that he was ugly by any means. He looked kind of endearing, in his own way. But still, he looked like an innocent, old-fashioned professor or something. Like a man that didn’t do one-night stands. It made Crowley feel guilty, like he should explain himself to him, or apologise for having seduced him.
But apologising would make everything even more awkward. Crowley felt the need to leave right now, before he made things weirder by accidentally letting it show that he had no idea what was going on, at all.
“This was great,” he lied, “but I have to go,” he said, getting out of the bed.
Weird, he would have thought that if he’d gotten so drunk that he couldn’t remember anything he would also have a nauseating hangover, but he only felt a slight pang in his head as he stood up.
“Oh, of course,” the man said, getting up from the floor as well. “I’ll… I’ll walk you out,” he added, but he looked uncertain about what he’d said.
The man opened the door of the bedroom, revealing a short hallway with a couple of doors in it. He led them towards the door at the end of it but glanced around at the other doors as they passed them. Crowley frowned at his strange behaviour but didn’t have time to think about it because the man had opened the door and revealed a bookshop.
“Ah-ha,” the man said with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “Oh yes.”
“Right?” Crowley replied.
He looked around him as he followed the odd professor-looking man through the shop towards its front door. Something about the place overwhelmed him. It seemed much more familiar than the room he had woken up in. Scattered memories were trying to grab his attention, but he couldn’t grasp them because they had already reached the door and there was too much to take in all at once.
He felt an unexplainable urge to stay, but how could he, when he didn’t even know the man’s name?
“So, um, see you,” he said vaguely as they stood at the door and then, because he felt like he owed some manners to the man, he kissed him quickly on his cheek as he left.
Aziraphale stood like a fool at the door of his bookshop for about five minutes, just touching the tips of his fingers to his cheek and staring outside.
How had he ever ended up having a dalliance with someone as attractive as that man who had just left? It was beyond his comprehension. And so was his choice in the man. While he was very pleasing on the eyes, Aziraphale thought that he would have preferred someone who was more handsome in a convenient, dashing gentlemanly way, and not in a bad boy kind of way.
For this man had certainly looked like trouble. Dressed in all black and wearing sunglasses, and the way he swung his hips as he walked away, like he was up to no good… And he even had a snake tattoo on his neck! He looked like someone Aziraphale wouldn’t trust to enter his shop, let alone his bedroom.
And yet, he shivered at the thought of his lips on his cheek and wished he could remember at least something from last night.
How could he not remember? And even more alarmingly, how could he have gotten so drunk that he had lost most of both his long-term and short-term memories? Could one even get so drunk?
As he finally looked around the shop, he saw wine bottles strewn on the floor. He went around picking them up and was startled to see an empty bottle of what smelled like absinthe as well. There was no way the two of them drank all of that on top of the wine. Was it even humanly possible to drink that much?
Humanly. Humanly possible. Humans. Why did that word have a detached feeling belonging to it?
Starting to feel alarmed, he focused on his surroundings to ground himself. The bookshop had a comforting aura about it. Everything felt just right about it: the curved balustrades that went around the second floor; the skylight that let in bright yet soft and dusty beams of light into the middle of the shop; the scent of old paper and leather; the shining mahogany of the shelves and tables; the various knick-knacks strewn around the shop… He knew, from the moment he’d seen the shop, that it was his and had been for a long time. That was one point of certainty that he could focus on. Until he’d seen the shop, he hadn’t been so sure where he’d woken up in.
He touched the spines of the books carefully as he walked around the room. Some of the books surprised him: he didn’t understand why he’d chosen those titles in his collection, such as the Richard Crompton books. But most of the others felt familiar.
He stopped in front of a small glass cabinet that held a first edition Oscar Wilde book inside. As he regarded it, he felt as if he’d had it from its birth, fresh from the printing press and presented to him as a gift from a friend.
But that couldn’t be. Even though he barely remembered anything about himself, he still knew the exact date when the book had been first published, and that was… a long time ago.
Oh my God, he thought out of nowhere. What if the mysterious man in his bed had persuaded him to take drugs with him and that’s why his memory was so empty? He looked like he could have access to those sorts of things.
Some instinct in him instantly told him that wasn’t the case. But how had he ended up in this condition? Why was everything so strange? And was there even anything he could do about it?
Crowley had wandered out into the streets without a plan of what to do next. He looked at all the people passing him by and tried to see himself as one of them. Was he like them? Did he have a job or a family to get to? Why did he feel so lost?
Not knowing where to go, he at least decided to get away from the bookshop so his lay from last night wouldn’t see him standing there all confused.
As he started walking, he noticed the coolest car he had ever seen parked right next to the shop. It looked like a vintage Bentley, and he wanted it. He peeked inside and didn’t see anyone sitting there. He tried the door handle. It was locked.
An elderly woman nearby shot him a suspicious look, which made Crowley realise he probably looked like a car thief.
Shrugging at the woman, he walked away from the car. He didn’t want to get in trouble right now.
The streets felt familiar. He knew he was in London, and he knew he lived there and had traversed these streets many times. In fact, the more he walked, the more he felt like he was tracing a route towards his home. But he couldn’t quite decide where he was supposed to turn next.
When it started to rain, he stepped inside a café for a moment and slipped into an empty booth discreetly, hoping the waitresses wouldn’t kick him out for not buying anything.
He wondered whether he had any money and realised he should try searching his pockets. He went through all of them and put the items he found in front of him on the table.
A set of two keys, of which one looked like a car key. A phone. Another pair of shades. A hair tie. And lo and behold, three 50 quid notes. So, he could afford to have tea. But strangely enough, he didn’t feel the least bit hungry. Maybe he could use it on some hotel, so he’d have a place to crash for a night or two before he remembered where he lived.
He picked up the car key and looked at it. What if the black Bentley was his? It was parked in front of the bookshop, after all. And it had almost beckoned to him. Maybe he could go see if it was still there tomorrow and see if the key fit.
He picked up his phone next and opened it to look at his contacts. He flicked through them and saw that he had quite a lot of contacts, and that some of them were the names of companies or CEOs.
“Jesus Christ, don’t tell me I’m a businessman, please,” he muttered to himself. Then he grimaced. Something in his mouth tasted slightly like rotten eggs for a passing moment.
Shaking his head, he continued going through the contacts. He was pretty sure the phone had some sort of function where it sorted the contacts by showing the ones he had called most often or recently on top of the list. He was quite bad at using his phone, which he deep down knew had nothing to do with his memory problem. He was just bad at it.
When he eventually found how to access the function, the phone gave him only two contacts as his most used.
Aziraphale
Sergeant Shadwell
He had no idea which one to pick, or whether it was wise calling either of them since he doubted he could just start a conversation by saying “Hi, do you happen to know who I’m supposed to be?” But, he reasoned, if he recognised their voices, maybe it would bring some memories back.
He dialled the Sergeant first. The phone beeped for such a long time that Crowley was sure it would just go to voicemail, but at the last second someone picked up the phone.
“Hi, it’s Crowley, I-“
”Yes? What’ye want?” a grumpy voice interrupted him.
Crowley faltered. He did sound very familiar, but he wasn’t sure how to place the voice. Had he worked with him on some sort of job or other? Yes, he was almost sure he had hired him to do something.
“Uh, I thought I’d check up on… work,” Crowley said lamely.
“Away wi’ ye, I’m retired now. Don’t try to contact me or my Jezebel for tha’ matter. If it’s happening again, we dinnae ken nothin’ about it and dinnae want to either. Goodbye.”
Crowley blinked. Shadwell had just hung up on him. When he tried to call him again, he didn’t pick up.
Right. So that wasn’t helpful at all.
He dialled the other number. It rang for a while as well, until…
“Hello?” a polite voice answered.
Crowley gasped silently and hung up the phone, dropping it on the table in his surprise.