He grows tomatoes.
Well, he tries to. Crowley does not usually try to grow plants. He decides to grow them, and they obey. It's vendetta ad vengeance at once. But lately, nothing seems to obey his will. It's weak, that will, broken into smithereens just like his heart.
And he can't even take it out on his plants. That's because Crowley has mercy.
So he tries to grow tomatoes.
It's summer (the first summer without him) and he has lodged in an airbnb in the country, and behind an old ramshackle ram-shack he has made himself a little plot of land. Well - it's all God's stupidly green earth, isn't it. But this two by two piece of earth he claims for himself. He could have at least that, right? He looks up at the sky. Frowns.
Let me have at least that.
Aziraphale liked to do things the hard way. (He's still doing that, Crowley supposes, up there. Up there. He's not dead, but it feels like it. He's gone. Gone to Heaven. Not to a better place.) Aziraphale liked to do it properly, the human way, when it pleased him. Which was often, but not always. French. Nom de dieu de merde. Pardon his French.
Pardon his stupid everything.
Crowley inspects his tomato plants. He's trying to grow them the human way. Funny, that. He nurses them like he nurses his heart, and miracles won't do. He's tried.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow tomatoes, he thinks.
Raindrops fall on red and green: the plants and the vines and the tomatoes and his hair. It's August, it shouldn't be raining this much. It's been a shitty August. It's been a shitty year. Thirteen months and two weeks and one day, to be exact. Not like he's keeping count. Why bother?
There's a spot on one of the leaves, and Crowley's heart sinks beore it even had the chance to ever rise. It's only one tiny, dark, black spot, but he knows what it means. It means it's too late.
A horrible month. A horrible life. Not the right conditions to thrive. Disease, showing its ugly head, grinning. It's already too late. It's always too late. It would multiply and spread.
His soul is a tomato leaf.
Black as grief.
He's tended these seedlings, he's raised them, and planted them, too, and here they are before him tall and proud and still alive, and Crowley knows they are already dying. He can relate.
The sensible thing to do is to discard it all, be done with them. It's not worth the effort, technically, to keep them alive, but to Crowley it's worth it. It has to be. They are worh it. He is worth it. Stupid stubborn perseverance, stupid stubborn hopeful heart.
He isn't immune to foreshadowing. He looks up again. Angry, this time, bitter. A bit of surrender, too.
The rain drips and drops on his face.
He looks back down, snaps the sickly leaf off with expert fingers. Continues to tend to the plants, as he will until they inevitably die. He plucks a tiny tomato. It's so small, fragile, one of the first of a doomed harvest: but it tastes sweet.
Determined, Crowley continues his labor of love, patient as with all living things.
He is responsible for these vines.
Maybe, despite everything, just this once, he can nurture his heart back to health. (And maybe, just maybe, he is not human and does not do things the human way. When it pleases him. He's always been a rebel. Just a little miracle, a little bit of life-giving defiance. So small no one notices, not even us.) Crowley smiles.
He grows tomatoes.
.
This ficlet was inspired by Louise Glück's Vespers. May she rest in peace. "In your extended absence, you permit me use of earth, anticipating some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment, principally regarding the tomato plants." read the full poem here