In Heaven, there is a Desk.

Or, at least, the angels call it a Desk. It's far too small for that - though even calling it small might be an overstatement, as it was rather more like an end table, or perhaps a nightstand - and it was only ever called a Desk because it just wouldn't do to call it anything else.

It's also unlike any desk that has ever been seen in Heaven before. It's not metal or marble or glass, and, as was already made clear, it definitely wasn't big. Nor was it kept firmly out in the open, where anyone walking by would see it. Instead, the Desk sits tucked away in a corner near the lift down to Earth, not out of sight but certainly out of the way.

And yet it exists. And yet it is noticed.

It glitters from the corner of its little nook under the harsh light of Heaven, gleaming as the fluorescents shine against aged bronze handles. The wood, too, is stark against Heaven's antiseptic white, made of burnished wood so deep brown it would almost be black if there weren't a lighter tinge of red in it. (A few angels - lower-ranked ones, who didn't make a fuss and stayed nice and obscure in the middle of the Heavenly ranks - had passing conversations about that colour, trying to figure out just what it reminded them of. Some said soil, the brown colour of crumbly dirt on the ground. Some said soot, the ashy-blackish-brown trace left behind when fire ran its course. One said it looked like a cherry, when it was dark from age and just the perfect degree of sweet.)

It didn't matter what colour it was, though, any more than it mattered whether it was an end table or a coffee table or a nightstand. Rather, what mattered was a box, resting squarely on top of it, so big as to cover the entirety of its smooth surface and just barely stick out from its bevelled edges. Gold letters stand out against the box's surface, in a gently looping script that looks hand-done. Suggestion Box, it reads. Please don't hesitate to share!

The box is also quite undeniably empty.

– – –

It wasn't a nice day. Crowley hadn't had nice days since That Day - and yes, he was pronouncing the capital letters, but that was only because those particular words happened to deserve them - and he rather suspected that he wouldn't be having them again.

Twenty-seven days and eighteen hours.

Twenty-seven not-nice days, and then an additional eighteen hours of an equally not-nice day on top of that.

It felt like longer.

Admittedly, that might have been because there was very little for Crowley to actually do. There were his plants, sure, but he'd spent the first few days getting them situated back in his flat and yelling at them enough that their leaves hadn't stopped shaking sense, so he figured they were probably just fine without him for the time being. (He steadfastly ignored the fact that he'd been a little more lenient with them even than he usually was. He simply hadn't had the heart. It wasn't their fault they'd been living in a car. That was all his fault - surprise, surprise - and he might be a vengeful god, but he wasn't generally an unfair one.)

(He also steadfastly ignored the fact that things being just fine without him was becoming a common trend for his past twenty-seven days and eighteen hours.)

Then there were the days spent lounging on a park bench, staring at the ducks like they had answers to questions he couldn't voice, tossing them frozen peas (which, after two days, should have thawed but nonetheless had the good sense not to) and shouting at any of the never-subtle-enough diplomats who still couldn't grasp the concept of doing research and not feeding ducks bread. No one else noticed him because he wanted them not to, and the bench, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist from the moment he sat down to the moment he finally dragged himself back up. It took a while. His flat was just a little too oppressive right then, since he didn't much feel up to shades of dark grey, thanks very much.

And then… well. Then he'd gone to the bookshop.

He'd regretted that decision as soon as he'd made it, but he couldn't turn back, not with Muriel beaming at him from behind the locked door and already making to open it, not when he could see Maggie and Nina watching him from across the street, the former already striding for the door like she wanted to have a Conversation. (It was the era for capital letters, Crowley had decided. It gave the seemingly-endless slog of days some degree of personality that they wouldn't otherwise have.) He'd just ducked inside, ignoring the twist of his stomach at the sound of the overhead bell as he pretended he was just fine.

(Not that he was pretending. He was fine. He didn't need any bloody angel with his stupid white wings and his stupid pinky ring and his stupid, not-at-all-comforting tartan. He was totally, perfectly, 100%, tickety-bloody-boo.)

"Mr. Crowley!" They sounded entirely too energetic. His head ached. "Welcome back! I've been keeping very good care of the bookshop, like you said to do. I haven't sold a single book!" Their bright giggle of a laugh was unfairly happy. Crowley was in the mood for a rainstorm, not for brightly sparkling sunshine, thanks very much. "And I've been learning about being human, too. It's very interesting."

Crowley collapsed onto his couch. (Not His couch anymore, no. He'd given that up when he gave up his bookshop. And the Earth. And C- Well. Everything.) If he were a proper demon, he'd have glared… But, grouchy as he felt, he couldn't bring himself to glare at Muriel, and he'd long given up on being a proper demon, so he simply looked. That was alright, wasn't it? Just looking?

They looked better than they had the last time he'd seen them. Someone - probably Maggie - must have told them that the Constable uniform wasn't the right choice for Mission: Appearing Human, for it had been replaced by a notably more Earthly style: an intentionally casual blouse, a skirt, and a cardigan that made Crowley think, rather inexplicably, of an English teacher. (The knee-high socks remained unchanged.)

"Top marks on the whole human thing." He looked away, and he did a top-tier job of convincing himself that the heavily white, beige, and tan outfit didn't wrench anything inside him. He focused on the cardigan - blue, like a cloudless sky, or a particularly clean duck pond - instead. "Nice… sweater thing."

"D'you like it?" They laughed, pinching at it and then letting it fall flat again. "Thanks!" Another bright smile, and Crowley couldn't help looking away from it. (He knew it wasn't their fault he was in a sour mood, but he couldn't exactly help it either.) "Miss Maggie across the way gave it to me. Not that she wants to be called Miss Maggie, but I keep forgetting, and she doesn't seem to mind all that much. But she said it was cheery! I like that, I think. Cheery."

He nodded. "Yup. Good work. Very… Very cheery."

"She and Miss Nina-" They interrupted their own comment, then amended it. "Er, Nina, I mean. Anyway, they've been looking for you. And Mr. Fell, too. Either of you, really. Should I tell them you're her-"

"No!" The word erupted out before Crowley could stop it - not that he would have, but he still wanted agency over it - and with more passion than anything he'd said in the last twenty-seven days and eighteen-and-a-half hours. "No," he said again.

Muriel nodded. They looked somewhat taken aback, but accepting nonetheless. (They were always so accepting.) "Do-" They paused, bit back whatever they were about to say, and rephrased. "Might I ask you a question?"

It wasn't that Crowley was tired. He didn't do tired. He slept, sure, but never out of any need; it was a hobby for him, like book-collecting was for A–

And he used it to pass the time, rather than for any actual need. Because that was the problem with being a demon (or, well, not the problem, since there were far, far more than one, but a problem): there was so much time. Too much of it, really. It had been fine, when he had stuff to do - temptations, of course, and lunches and plays and so forth - but when he didn't? Time felt a whole lot longer then. He was always so aware, of every year and month and minute, of every second ticking by. (Twenty-seven days, eighteen hours, thirty minutes, and forty-two, forty-three, forty-four-)

So, when the nights got long and the decades felt endless and he'd had a fight with A–

And when he was bored, he would sleep, and the day or the month or the year or the decade would end when he was none the wiser.

But he was tired in the emotional sense that made everything feel so damn difficult, and he really, really, really didn't want to say yes.

He did anyway.

"Have you heard from Mr. Fell?"

The words slammed a great big weight down on the wall Crowley had very resolutely erected over the course of the last twenty-seven days, eighteen-and-a-half hours, and he found himself very much regretting the decision to visit the bookshop. (Not that he was really sure why he'd considered that in the first place. An instinct, probably. Feeling content? Go to the bookshop. Feeling bored? Go to the bookshop. Feeling unhappy? Go to the bookshop.)

Muriel shrugged their shoulders, the fringe of their cardigan rustling against their skirt. "I only mean… He's gone Up There, now—" They pointed upwards, eyes peeking in the same direction like even looking too harshly would be wrong in the eyes of the Powers That be. "—and I know he gave me this shop, and I'm grateful for it, really! But I was just… Wondering."

As much as Crowley very much didn't want to think about the question any longer than he absolutely had to, he couldn't help frowning. "You mean he's not talked to you?"

They shook their head, somewhat hesitantly. "Not really. I mean, I still send in my reports and all, and I hear back from Up There pretty regularly - standard stuff, like your report has been received and use fewer words next time and the like - but I'm just a Scrivener, and not even top-ranks but a thirty-"

Crowley was nodding before they finished the sentence. "37th degree Scrivener, yes, yes, I know-"

"You remembered!" They sobered. "But, the thing is, that's really not high enough to get direct contact with… Well, with the Supreme Archangel himself. So I was just- Just wondering, you know…" A shrug. "If he's okay?"

Crowley shrugged back. It was a full-bodied thing, less of a conscious moment and more of a great heave of his corporation in a desperate attempt to keep himself from shaking apart in the process. "Wish I knew."

He sat in silence after that. Muriel went back to their books.

– – –

He snuck out, somehow, without Nina or Maggie noticing. (It was distinctly possible that he managed it only because he waited until their mid-afternoon rush and then darted off as quickly and unnoticeably as possible.) The Bentley was still sulking at him - she'd stopped her attempts to play A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Love of my Life and Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy and so many other pointed songs, but was suddenly refusing to play anything instead - and the drive back to his flat was a silent one.

He wasn't sure if he was glad of that or not.

The flat, once he'd reclaimed it from Shax, had been remarkably unchanged; once he'd gotten his plants back in and settled, he'd hardly been able to tell the difference. (It wasn't that the furniture had changed at all, but there was a faint scent of something Hellish lurking in the air that he couldn't quite get out.) She had never gotten the hang of food and drink, it seems - or, at least, never figured out all the wonderful perks of alcohol - so his stores were still untouched. It was remarkably, ineffably easy to pull out the miraculously not-dusty bottles out from their hiding places and crack them open.

He didn't stop until his internal clock read forty-nine hours, thirty-five minutes and he'd managed to drink about as much as he had after the Spanish Inquisition.

– – –

The sign on the desk has gained a line under the please, as well as three more exclamation marks. The words almost seem larger, too, despite no one being sure that they changed at all.

The suggestion box still stands empty.

– – –

Crowley woke up again to the sound of someone knocking on his door. (It wasn't really waking, so much as it was being dragged back to unconsciousness with enough unwillingness that he'd have carved channels into the floor to stop the journey if only he could have, but the end result was the same.) It was a very insistent knock - and could, were he less generous, be called a bang - that made it abundantly clear that the person on the other side would not take no for an answer.

He didn't have hangovers, as a rule, but that didn't change the fact that he kinda, sorta felt like he had one just then. And, while it was probably just psychosomatic, that didn't change the ache in his head as he pulled himself grudgingly back to his feet, or the nausea sitting firmly in the pit of his stomach. The overwhelming brightness around him, he attributed to the fact that he didn't have his sunglasses on, and he resolutely ignored the fact that the problem didn't suddenly cease when he put them on on his way to the door.

Any doubt about who was on the other side of his door shattered when, with another harsh rap-rap-rap on the door, Nina's voice wafted through from the other side. "Open up, Mr. Six-Shots-of-Expresso!"

At that time, Crowley couldn't really remember whether or not his flat door had a chain lock on it; regardless, it definitely had one by the time he opened it, such that the possibly-new-possibly-old chain was stretched to its fullest extent. "What."

"Grouch." The word sounded fond, though that might have been simply because Maggie was the one saying it. "No need to be rude."

She wasn't wrong, but he wasn't really in a mood to be polite either. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to help," Nina said, lifting a disposable cup with a flourish. "Looks like you need it, too, so…" She indicated the door and mimed it opening. "Let us in."

The urge to be obstinate was strong. The urge to go back to bed was stronger. "Whatever." The hallway to the bedroom was, he was pretty sure, much longer than it usually was. It certainly looked longer. He wanted to groan just looking at it. And so he pivoted instead, stumbling slightly on his way to his living room. A gesture, a snap, and his armchair decided that it was in its best interests to elongate, promptly becoming something Crowley refused to admit was a loveseat and instead called a couch. His "G'on. Do what y' like." came out muffled by the plush red cushions onto which he'd let himself face-plant.

The sound of footsteps, of a door closing. The clinking sound of a bottle rolling across the grey floor. Nina's voice, wryly commenting: "I think I was wrong about the six shots of espresso, actually. Should call him Mr. Six-Hundred-Bottles-of-Wine."

"Oh, hush, you." A rasp of cloth. "There are hardly six hundred." The sound of shoes slapping smartly against the floor, and then he was barely stopping himself from flinching as a hand settled on his shoulder. "Mr. Crowley? We've brought you coffee. And eccles cakes, like Mr. F-" A not-very-inconspicuous (even to Crowley's very limited peripheral vision) glance at Nina. "Er, well, just because they're meant to be soothing. And we can just… We can just talk."

"Don't w'nna talk." Talking against the cushions was and continued to be a bad idea. Crowley was pretty sure that a piece of lint had found its way into his mouth, which was proving remarkably uncomfortable. (It promptly found itself combusting, leaving behind a taste of something like burnt popcorn and something like charcoal.) "Don't eat."

He thought he could see Nina raise an eyebrow. "That a demon thing or a depression thing?"

"'M not depressed." That would probably be a lot more convincing if he weren't still plopped on the armchair-turned-not-a-loveseat with his head buried as far as it could get to drown out the light and sound and breathing. It would also probably have been a better course of action to deny the demon thing first. "O-or a demon."

Nina tsked from the corner. "Liar."

"Oi-"

Nina didn't let him get through the word before interrupting, a laugh in her voice even if it sounded more like words. "Oh, don't even. We already know."

Maggie, somewhat grudgingly, nodded. "It's true, I'm afraid. That Muriel is a dear, but they certainly aren't the best liar." At Crowley's slightly lifted head and assessing look: "Oh, don't look at us like that. We've been giving them pointers."

"That's us: the pointer givers." The words might have sounded sharper if they were directed at Crowley, but they were directed at Maggie and, thus, sounded remarkably soft. (Nina would have killed him if he'd said it aloud, demon or no, so he didn't.) "So. Take your coffee before I throw it at you, and then sit up. We've got pointers to give."

"Don't want pointers." He sat up anyway, regretting the decision as the world spun around him and Maggie's hand slipped from his shoulder. Lying down was, by far, the best decision he'd made in a long time; sitting up was… well, no, it was nowhere near the worst, but it was pretty damn bad.

"Too bad." Nina didn't sit, but she walked closer to Maggie, still sitting on the couch to Crowley's right - there was symbolism there, he was sure of it - and hovered behind her. The coffee was unceremoniously shoved into his hand, and then his fingers were, with odd gentleness, wrapped around the cup. "Spill."

"Not much to say."

She shrugged. "Say it anyway."

"He left." There was a finality to those words, a devastation Crowley couldn't hide despite millenia of masks and hiding and lying. "I talked to him and I kis-" He broke off, but, judging from the expressions he could barely make out from the corner of his vision, they knew what he'd almost slipped up and said. Knew the significance of it. "He left. That's it."

The memories slammed forward, the scene replaying in front of him. The too-lengthy period of time during which Aziraphale had been talking to Metatron, the anxious tidying and rearranging and plotting as he tried to piece out what, precisely, to say when the angel got back. His plans dissolving as Aziraphale hurried back into the bookshop, news bursting from his lips before Crowley could say much of anything. That damn job offer, and the bloody enthusiasm with which it was relayed.

Everything that came after.

One of the others said something. He was too far gone to know which. "Left to… to Heaven?"

He smiled, but it was a half-hearted thing. Wry. Wretched. "Figured that out too, did ya?"

Maggie shrugged, looking vaguely helpless, but it was Nina who nodded. "Yeah."

Crowley nodded. "Then yes." He tried to say something - though he wasn't sure what it was he was going to say - and the words burbled out in a smattering of consonants. His next, more successful attempt was more bitter than he'd intended, but it seemed to be the day for the unexpected all 'round. "He's off to become Supreme Archangel of Heaven now." He downed the coffee in one go, ignoring that it was scalding in favour of good flavour and high caffeine. It was damn good coffee. "Thanks."

Maggie took it back, looking down as though not comprehending that it was empty before handing it over to Nina. "Best get another, Nina, dear. I do think we might need it."

The word dear plucked at something that Crowley wasn't thinking about, that he had resolutely been avoiding thinking about for the past too-many-hours, too-many-minutes. (Perks of his nap, though: he had absolutely no idea how long he'd been asleep and, thus, absolutely no idea of how long it had been since That Day.) Sitting up was still not particularly appealing; face-planting into his definitely-a-couch sounded far better. And so, with a solid "ngk" of a groan, he did.

"Actually…" Maggie shifted - he could feel it in how the cushions moved as she did - and let out an odd, almost world-weary sigh. "Better make that two."