Purrchance To Dream - Part 6 (Patreon)

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Companion prose written by my wonderful co-writer Calico! Enjoy!

***

He sees the cat every single day for the rest of the week. 

On Tuesday he keeps catching sight of it swanning around Whickber Street, getting fussed over by strangers; lounging in patches of sunlight and lifting its head when Crowley walks past. 

Crowley ignores it.

On Wednesday Crowley opts for a change of scene, heads towards the palace. Plenty of mischief to get up to in a palace, even without his quota. 

He isn’t sure how he winds up in the park, in the bandstand, instead. 

A light drizzle falls, and he takes shelter beneath it, scuffing his heel against the floor as he waits for the rain to ease up. 

He’s really not sure what brought him here. It’s not part of any of his usual routes. He doesn’t come here often and he’s perplexed as to what’s brought him here now - it’s not like Aziraphale is coming back any time soon to argue with him, or anything. 

He plonks himself down on a bench and grimaces, rolling the thought around his mind. He wouldn’t say no to a good argument. It’s been ages!

“Mrrp,” comes a small, hopeful voice. 

Crowley goes still. “Are you kidding me?” 

With a soft thump, the cat jumps onto the next bench along. Its sleek lines are a little rumpled, like it’s been hurrying. Preposterous. 

“You,” Crowley tells it, “are a stalker.”

The cat’s blue eyes widen as if it doesn’t know what that word means. Which… is probably the case. 

“A pest,” Crowley amends, and makes a shooing motion with his hands as he jumps to his feet again. “C’mon! Leave me to mope in peace.” 

The cat scampers over to him instead, hell bent on rubbing up against Crowley’s ankles like he’s got catnip in his socks. Crowley hops out of the way once, twice, a third time, and then feels far more foolish doing that and just stands there instead, grudgingly tolerating this insult of misplaced affection. The cat redoubles its rubbing, nuzzles his calf, a hint of a purr carrying up through the air. It’s almost… nice. 

“That’s it,” Crowley declares, loud enough that the cat startles and jumps away. “You’re just lucky there’s no witnesses, coming after my reputation like that…” 

The cat cocks its head at him. “ Mrrp !” 

“ Mrrp yourself,” Crowley retorts, and then hears himself and feels heat spread across his cheeks. That’s it: he’s out of here. 

He makes a break for it, striding through the drizzle, refusing to look back, even as one final, desultory little “mrrp” rings out. 

Cats! Honestly, give him a break. 

Not Crowley’s type of creature at all. 

On Thursday it rains heavily, and Crowley finds the cat skulking beneath an awning near his flat, with its ears flat to its head, as water streams down all around it, flowing in small tides into the gutter. 

“MEOW,” it shouts, over the noise of the water drumming onto the awning. 

Crowley raises his eyebrows at it. “Oh dear,” he says, cheerfully. “Does it suck to be you?”

The cat’s ears twitch even flatter and it bristles. Flinching at every splash and gust of wind. It’s still extremely white and fluffy, but the usually smooth halo of its fur has dimples where stray raindrops have matted the hair together, and its eyes look even huger than usual. 

It looks, not to put too fine a point on it, bedraggled. 

“Need rescuing, do you?” Crowley calls, not above a gloat. 

“MEOW!”

“Well… tough,” Crowley says, sauntering onward, impervious to the outraged cat’s gaze boring between his shoulder blades. 

All of Friday, the cat is ensconced in the coffee shop again. It has been given its own oversized corduroy cushion. It keeps sneezing. 

Crowley refuses to feel bad about it. Not one bit. 

Crowley takes himself out of London for the weekend. No pampered cats in the countryside, and plenty of chaos to cause by driving too fast down country lanes and leaving gates open. Doesn’t take much for sheep to get into trouble. Their own worst enemy, sheep. 

Crowley pauses, leaning on a dry stone wall tufted with wildflowers, and looks out at the bucolic scene stretching out into the valley below him. The fresh green of the field is studded with the white puffs of various sheep, drifting here and there like a collection of tousled clouds. 

It’s peaceful out here, quiet but for the breeze carrying across soft flurries of bleating, the occasional caw of an opportunistic corvid. Aziraphale would be pointing out the lovely weather, the assorted flora and fauna. Crowley catches himself taking a deep breath. 

The air smells… nice. 

Well, that clearly won’t do.  He rolls his eyes and then - fired by sudden inspiration - rolls up his sleeves.

A good couple of hours later, he stands back and dusts off his hands, surveying the scene with pride. To the last lamb, all the sheep have been flipped onto their backs, and the rural peace has been replaced by a confused chorus of bleating in every direction. For a final flourish, he clicks his fingers and a haybale smoulders into not-exactly-spontaneous combustion. 

Crowley huffs a laugh, rather delighted with himself. 

But the satisfaction of a job well done - or rather, badly done - fizzles out all too soon, as he imagines Aziraphale’s voice, quietly reproving: Really, my dear, was that necessary? 

…Ugh. 

Loathing himself, and all of sheep-kind—and above all certain angel’s infuriating gift for getting under his skin even from an entire celestial plane removed—Crowley clicks his fingers to flip them all the right way up again. 

And…? Demands the Aziraphale voice in his head. 

Crowley sighs and extinguishes the haybale. Then mentally retraces his steps and fastens the stupid gates all closed again as well. The few sheep that had already managed to get themselves wedged into ditches, or stuck beneath hedgerows, he returns unharmed to their fields with another click of his fingers. 

He hopes no-one from Hell has been amusing themselves watching this ridiculous display. 

He refuses to acknowledge the tiny part of himself that apparently still hopes Aziraphale is watching.