Work Text:
Crowley always liked the rain, at least until recently. It reminded him of a certain person that he had always pretty much liked, even loved, but he wouldn't admit that out loud. Not again. Not after the last time. Because now Crowley was alone. Not literally alone because he had Muriel, who also lived in the bookshop now and those noisy humans that always interrupted his sleep telling him to eat even though he didn't need it. And that was exactly what he was doing, sitting in Aziraphale's bookshop, on a rainy day with a plate of eccle cakes in front of him. And he couldn't cry because he had two humans and an angel in front of him. Yet he found himself, with wet cheeks and burning eyes that dripped the kind of salty water that became almost familiar to him, wondering if Aziraphale also cried, sulked, and suffered as he did. He felt a pair of hands rub and pat him on the back, but those were not the hands he longed for. They weren't the hands that, across the centuries, shared so many furtive touches with him, scared of being caught "fraternizing", terrified of admitting something as simple and mundane as a friendship, too brainwashed to embrace retirement, too hooked to the closest thing to a toxic partner than an immortal being can get. Crowley felt like he was reviving his first moments right after the Fall because, for the second time, it wasn't his fault. He never asked more than questions and was wronged in waiting for answers. A suggestion box back then and more recently an offer, "You and me, what do you say?". Both followed by the same putrefact concept, forgiveness. "May you be forgiven" back then, as a show of mercy, and "I forgive you" later in time, which sounded more like rejection than an apology. So Crowley cried, remembered and cried some more.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the XIV century, Crowley confirmed that time was indeed relative and a century (if slept through) could go as fast as the bat of an eye. That's why, following that theory, even though Crowley felt like he cried for a couple minutes now he could see that it was dark outside and that he was physically and literally alone in the room.