"You gonna sit there all day?"
Crowley turned to face Nina with a scowl as she sat down across from him at a table in her own shop.
"Don't you have customers to bother?" He grumbled, turning his gaze back toward the window and the bookshop beyond.
"I'm on break," she said, tossing a thumb over at the small placard on the counter labeling her as being at lunch. "Besides, I'm bugging you, aren't I?"
"Piss off," he spat without any venom as Nina glanced out the window as well.
Nithael was visible from where they sat, still stacking books on the shelves as Crowley scowled and aggressively drank his coffee; grimacing when he found it was cold.
"You could just go talk to them, you know. Or talk at them, I guess. Never met someone so quiet."
Crowley grunted, obviously not wanting to and Nina sighed.
"Look. I get that you're jealous—"
"I'm not jealous," Crowley snapped.
"Yeah, your ex ran off after some promotion then made friends and sent said friend to run his bookshop. You're just upset you've been replaced."
"I've not—" He started to bellow before he ground his teeth and forced himself to calm down.
People were staring.
"I'm not upset. They're just some newbie who was scrapped and sent here to get them out of the way."
"Which is why you've been spying on them from my shop for the last few weeks," Nina pointed out. "All they do is putter around the shop, you know. They never leave, just stocking books from dawn to dusk. Muriel is the only one who steps out. They're a shut-in."
Crowley couldn't argue that. He'd been sitting in Nina's cafe for a few weeks from opening to closing and Nithael hadn't left the bookshop. Muriel had stepped out a few times to get groceries and keep up the act of being human. Nithael though, just stayed inside and organized the books. They stocked shelves, rotated stock, dusted, and cleaned. Then, at night they would sit at Aziraphale's desk and do paperwork. They didn't go upstairs to rest until the early hours of the morning and Crowley wasn't even sure if they did rest once they were up there.
A few weeks of watching that had him getting antsy. He started questioning Nithael and their goal. Did they even have a goal? Given they never left the shop, he wondered what they even knew about the world. Aziraphale's letter to Muriel told him they wouldn't know anything but Muriel didn't either and she at least tried. He was getting frustrated the longer he thought about it. Do they know how to live? With a groan, he heaved himself up out of his seat, throwing away his trash and storming out the door toward the bookshop. He couldn't watch this any longer.
The door to the bookshop opened with a bang, nearly sending the bell to the ground with the force behind it. Nithael turned toward Crowley with slightly hunched shoulders—the loud intrusion having startled them—but upon seeing it was him, they let out a soft sigh of relief and turned back to the bookshelf. What they didn't expect was Crowley to stomp right up and slap a hand across the books in front of them to prevent them from continuing to work. Striking yellow eyes narrowed in annoyance were locked onto Nithael's confused and slightly uneasy blue ones before Muriel came around the corner with a stack of books.
"Oh! Mr. Crowley, you're back!"
"I'm going to borrow this one," Crowley said, eyeing Nithael for a second before looking at Muriel. "Can you handle the shop alone?"
Muriel nodded, smiling brightly as Nithael looked between her and Crowley with the slightest hint of panic. They didn't like this. They had a bad feeling and when Crowley grabbed their wrist, jerking them toward the door and forcing them to drop their stack of books, they knew this wasn't going to be good. Crowley hauled them out of the bookshop and into the crowds of Soho, making Nithael stumble as they tried to resist and dodge the people they were nearly running into. Crowley wasn't paying any attention to their plight either, just dragging them along as he tried to think of the best place to speak with them.
He needed to figure out if he should bother trying to help them. No, not help them, per se but get them better acquainted with humans at the very least. Neither Heaven nor Hell needed another clueless angel blowing their cover on Earth and if Nithael was willing to learn things then perhaps they weren't entirely useless after all. They needed to get out and see the world, or some of it, at the very least. This was him doing that out of the goodness—Not goodness. I'm not nice—of his heart. Should we do a pub? Lots of people to interact with but talking requires more effort. Park is too open. Maybe just dropping them off in the middle of town and leaving them. Then, they'd have to interact to find out how to get back to the shop. Make them learn and be a bit mean in the process. They deserve it. They absolutely—
"W-Wait," Nithael choked out, breathing heavily as they tugged back to try and get him to stop.
He rolled his eyes but still came to a stop and hauled them off to the side of the sidewalk so they weren't in the way of people walking by. He didn't have time for this. They were either here to spy on him or they weren't and if he found out now that they looked down on humanity like all the other angels, then he'd run them out of town anyway he could. His patience for such things was gone after what he's dealt with the last few months.
"Look," he bit out in frustration. "You can't just keep yourself locked up in the damn bookshop or people will start to notice. You have to at least act human or get your ass back to Heaven where you belong, understand?"
Nithael kept their head bowed, slightly doubled over and gripping their pants in one hand and their chest with the other. Crowley ground his teeth together in annoyance.
"And stop it with this stupid silent act. You're not fuckin' mute. You shouldn't be making Muriel do everything in the shop with the customers. You should be talking to them too, learning about them, doing your damn job. That's what you were sent to do, isn't it? Spy on humanity and Muriel and me?"
Still, they were silent and he bristled angrily, losing his temper and grabbing a hold of their sweater in his fist; jerking them up to force them to face him with a million curses and foul words at the tip of his tongue.
"If you keep fucking ignoring me, I'll—"
His words caught in his throat as the fire that had welled up in him was suddenly put out at the sight of their face. Their azure eyes were wet with tears but full of panic, of fear as they quivered in his grip, unable to fully catch their breath. His yellow eyes snaked over their face in confusion as his mouth fumbled and his mind tried to wrap around what was happening. His grip loosened instantly, dropping them as they faltered back and nearly fell to the ground if he hadn't reached out and stopped them.
"H-Hey. Hey, hold on a second," he said, scrambling to stop what appeared to be a full-on meltdown or a panic attack. "Um… shit."
He looked around frantically as Nithael continued to struggle; breath hitching and body shaking before Crowley grimaced and brought his hand up to his lips. With a sharp whistle, the Bentley pulled up to the curb and he stuffed Nithael in the passenger seat before rushing to get in the driver's. Spitting curses under his breath as he himself panicked, he sped the Bentley through the town, dodging cars, buses, and anything else in his way while occasionally looking over at Nithael. Guilt swam in his gut as they remained curled in the passenger seat, doubled over with skin so pale it almost matched their blindingly white hair. Sweat slid down their neck and tears down their cheeks as they choked on air and gripped their sweater tightly above their chest.
Once Crowley had reached the park, he was quick to get out and pull them out as well. He hurried them as quickly as he could over to an isolated bench near the water, lowering them onto it and releasing them with fumbling hands, unsure of what else to do. He hadn't meant for this. Sure, maybe he'd wanted to scare them a bit, take out some misplaced anger for Aziraphale by harassing his intern or whatever Nithael was to him. Not this though.
"Deep breaths," he instructed, kneeling in front of Nithael with a stomach tight with guilt. "Slowly."
Nithael struggled to do as he asked but after a moment was able to breathe deeper than before, slowly calming from their earlier panic. Still, Crowley gave them more time to recover, getting up and looking around before spotting something not far off. Hoping it would help, he hurried over and was quick to return; holding out something to Nithael. Their still-wet, uneasy eyes shifted to the plain vanilla ice cream cone as Crowley shifted uneasily on his feet. He wouldn't apologize. He was terrible at that but this was his fault and even he knew he'd gone too far and needed to do something. He nudged the ice cream closer and slowly, Nithael reached out and took it, staring down at it as Crowley sat down on the bench beside them.
He glanced at them from behind his sunglasses, uncertain of what to say as they reached a hand up and swiped at their face to clear up any remaining tear tracks. If he wasn't confused about Nithael before he certainly was now. They'd just had a severe panic attack and he wasn't sure what the trigger had been. They'd been fine with him before so he doubted the fear he saw reflected in their eyes was fear of him. He wasn't sure what to do to get answers now though. He'd screwed up.
"You… You eat it," he said quietly, pointing at the ice cream cone Nithael hadn't touched as it began to drip. "It'll melt if you don't."
Nithael lifted the cone and hesitated only briefly before taking a bite of the ice cream. When tears welled up in their eyes again, Crowley stiffened and scrambled to try and say something. But what? T-They're crying over ice cream. How do I fix that?
"I-It's good," Nithael said before he could come up with something and they surprised him with a lopsided, wobbly smile. "A-Amazing even."
Crowley's tense shoulders relaxed as he stared at them in surprise. They were so… innocent. It made his heart clench for a multitude of reasons. They reminded him so much of Aziraphale. Not just their eyes but the pure joy he'd just seen over something so simple as food. It made his heart ache because Nithael had been dumped like garbage down here on Earth, left with nothing but vague directions—whether that was Aziraphale's fault or someone else's he still didn't know for sure. That, and his heart throbbed because when was the last time he'd seen something so… pure in an angel? Muriel had been close but this was entirely different.
"You…" Crowley started as realization began to sink in. "You don't know anything, do you?"
Nithael gave him the smallest of glances, eyes full of shame as they hastily turned them to their empty hands; the ice cream having been quickly devoured.
"No," Crowley breathed, shifting so he was facing them properly, leaning over slightly to see their eyes.
It's the eyes that are the windows to the soul. Never before had he seen something so true in his six thousand plus years of existence. Nithael was quiet but their eyes said so much.
"Seriously?" He asked softly, far too stunned by this revelation to do much more than bring a hand to their mouth in shock as they sank back to sprawl across the bench. "Damn. Damn them all, seriously?" He repeated, a hint of frustration seeping out. "Do they not teach you anything up there? They just throw you out and expect you to just work things out yourselves?"
Nithael remained silent and Crowley let out a heavy sigh, dropping his head back and draping his arm over the back of the bench.
"Hell. Fuckin' Hell."
They were both quiet for a minute before Nithael opened their mouth, struggling for a moment until they could get the words out.
"I-I read… about them."
Crowley turned his head towards them, listening.
"The books," Nithael muttered, twisting their fingers in their lap.
"Yeah, some of those are fiction though," Crowley explained. "Made up stories that embellish things. They can't teach you about humanity. Not properly. You've gotta get out and experience things, meet new people, that sort of thing."
They gripped their hands together tightly, drawing Crowley's gaze. I'm an idiot, he realized, having not thought that there was more than one reason why Nithael didn't leave the bookshop. A big, stupid moron.
"You're scared," he pointed out, wincing in remembrance of the fear he'd seen when he'd gone to yell at them earlier. "They're harmless, you know. Well, mostly anyway. Too busy fighting each other to bother with our people."
Nithael again opened their mouth to say something but closed it, grimacing as they tried to work things out. Crowley was patient, waiting for them and searching their body language to try and understand things himself. This was an angel who'd never left the safety of their desk. They were suddenly dropped into a right mess with a whole culture of people that they didn't understand and were expected to fit in and gather information for someone on top of it. Crowley hadn't seen it before because he hadn't been trying to. He was angry and frustrated and on edge because of Aziraphale and took that out on Nithael without a second thought. That was his fault, he'd admit, but the rest was theirs: Heaven's.
"It's okay," he blurted out, drawing their uncertain blue eyes toward his, forcing him to turn away and clear his throat. "Not… Not being used to things. You don't know any better so it's okay, really. Culture shock, right? Brand new world you gotta get used to. Noisy, chaotic, insane new world. You can take it slow."
Nithael shook their head, a hint of determination in their gaze. "I can't."
"Well, you can't exactly help anyone if you have a panic attack just for leaving the bookshop."
Crowley winced when his words made Nithael sag slightly, their eyes falling to the ground knowing that what he'd said was true. Mentally groaning, Crowley got to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Look. Humanity is… complicated. You're not going to be able to just learn everything in a day. You probably don't even know where to start, right?"
They shrank further into themselves as he hastily continued.
"So, I'll help," he offered, shooting them a look from over his sunglasses. "I'm kind of an expert anyway and… if you are here to… to help Aziraphale…"
He didn't want to finish that sentence. Not because of Nithael but because it would mean him admitting that he wanted to help Aziraphale. Help the idiot who left him for Heaven after thousands of years of them being partners. Being us. The small part of him that had doubts as to Aziraphale's reasoning had been growing louder since Nithael showed up.
Maybe Aziraphale had been threatened. Maybe Crowley had been threatened. Maybe Aziraphale was doing it to protect him. Change the world for them. Save the world so they never had to choose sides ever again. It was that small part of him that held out hope and despite his many efforts to crush it to pieces, it held fast. And now, this new problem.
Nithael looked up at him with those damn blue eyes that haunted his dreams of an angel with another face, and Crowley swallowed thickly as Nithael spoke in a breathy whisper.
"You'll… help?"
Crowley sighed and offered them a hand. "Don't have much of a choice, do I? Can't leave you like this as much as I'd like to." His eyes narrowed, trying to reinstill his demonic image in their head. "Don't go thinking I like you or anything, understand? I'm doing this for me. My reasons. Got it?"
Nithael nodded with the smallest hint of a smile and took his offered hand. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me," he grumbled, dropping their hand and leading the way back to the Bentley. "This is a one-time thing. I'm a demon, remember? I don't get all buddy buddy with angels and I sure as Hell don't trust you."
Nithael nodded, retaining the small smile as they climbed into the car and Crowley let out a long sigh, dropping his head on the roof of it and muttering into the shiny black metal.
"I hope I won't regret this."