(Untitled)

[anthony_crowley]

Date: January 24, 2001
Status: Private (Crowley, Gabriel, Belial, Adam)
Setting: Hospital
Summary: Crowley returns

Comments

[lordofthesouth]

In these last precious moments before he knew he had overstayed his luck, Belial drew Gabriel close, saving in his mind a picture of the angel's wonderful warmth. "I'll come back to you. I love you," he reaffirmed, voice shaking with the strength of his emotion.

He took a deep breath, pained, and stepped away from Gabriel, freeing himself of the temptation to stay and let the bastard come for him. He would fight and fight, but there was more than his own well being at stake if his battleground would be the Manor, and with all his centuries of existing beneath Lucifer's foul reign, he knew that bravery rarely got you anywhere.

Speaking quickly, his voice was like ice, jagged and sharp, "Listen, Crowley. This is what will happen: you'll follow me, and if you find me, I'll fight you. I won't kill you--he wouldn't have sent you on this whipping boy errand if he knew I'd kill you--but I'll make my presence known. He wants this to hurt both of us. All of us. That's his game. But I suggest you find me before he discovers that you're dragging your heels behind me, because what I'll have to do is far, far kinder than what he will do."

He stepped back into the shadows and was gone, running through darkness, away from everything he'd ever loved, and his tears burned.

[anthony_crowley]

Irritable, exhausted, hurt, frustrated at being the bearer of bad news, and not pleased to be the reason that one of his best allies was walking out the door indefinitely, Crowley snapped, "I know what I'm doing, damn it. Don't you dare condescend to me."

He'd been about to say more when Adam, displaying his unique brand of perfect timing, stepped inside.

[dontcallmegabby]

"That's all you have to say, is it?" Gabriel hissed, and his voice was ragged with a degree of disgust and animosity which he had had little cause to address the Serpent with before; had little cause now, in fact, and the angel knew that. He knew, rationally, that it wasn't Crowley's fault his world had just been so startlingly rendered. But his every limb ached, his eyes stinging with tears, as though he had just been plunged painfully into depths far too deep for his form to survive. And with no recourse against the Morningstar for all that had just come to pass, Hell's field agent seemed a convenient enough target. "All this, demon, all that's just happened, and you're worried about your precious pride being tarnished?"

He turned his back on the demon abruptly, forcing himself to stop. It was an unfair assessment, and furthermore, he was taking out his frustration on a demon who had quite possibly just risked his own existence to save Belial's. But it was too much to swallow in the space of too few breaths, and Gabriel couldn't decipher the mess of emotions that made the words sting in his throat.

But though he knew he should, he was saved from having to recant the words by the Antichrist's auspicious entrance.

Adam already knew everything that had happened, Gabriel was sure; in fact, Adam might know more about it than any one of them. But Gabriel couldn't bear to see the knowledge, the sympathy in the boy's eyes. He didn't want it. He felt far too vulnerable under the Antichrist's gaze as it was, and he wouldn't stand to have Adam see right through him to the pain that gnawed at his heart, not in this moment. So he nodded as Adam entered, with only the briefest of gazes in his direction, and, knowing Crowley would be looked after now better than the angel could currently manage, he left without another word to either of them.

[average_adam]

Adam's face was as impassive as he could keep it, his eyes neutral, but his heart ached for everyone involved in this little drama: Gabriel, Belial, Crowley, John, even Lucifer, lost as he was on his sea of madness and searching for the one being that presumably brought him joy. But compassion was never in the Antichrist's job description, thank Someone. Adam had always believed Jesus had had the harder task in that capacity. All Adam had to do was do, not feel, so he did.

After watching the archangel go, he approached Crowley's bed. "You wanted to see me?"

Crowley nodded and they bent their heads together in urgent conversation.