(Untitled)
Date: April 14th, 2001
Status: Private (John, Loki, and Crowley)
Setting: Hospital Wing
Summary: Certain matters finally come to a head. No pun intended.
( John whistled quietly to himself... )
Status: Private (John, Loki, and Crowley)
Setting: Hospital Wing
Summary: Certain matters finally come to a head. No pun intended.
( John whistled quietly to himself... )
Except when they came to a stop Loki was pinned under the not-god who, to his surprise, was displaying a set of really cool claws. On almost anybody else Loki would have found them quite admirable, but this wasn't the time for claw-envy.
He wriggled and pushed a little testing his chances to slip out or push Crowley away. Unsurprisingly the not-god didn't budge and possibly hadn't even noticed. Either Loki was much too weak, or Crowley much too heavy. He'd have to talk himself out of this one and somehow save John as well.
"I want you to stay away from John," he snapped. "But if you want to kill me, go right ahead. It'd be really merciful of you seeing how I'm dying a slow painful death here. Your pantheon's really big on mercy, too, from what I've heard. Good way to earn points with the top egomaniac." He might find the separation into angels and demons completely crazy, but that didn't mean that he was unable to remember what their respective motivations were. "Ah, but then that's the other club, isn't it? What does your crew think of people who are merciful?"
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Damned if he was going to stand by and let Crowley filet somebody he and Ana and Bill were working so hard to save, though, even if Loki was running his mouth fit to practically invite it.
"Right. That is BLOODY WELL ENOUGH," he bellowed at the top of his lungs, almost startling himself with how effectively his own voice filled the small room.
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"Enough, what, John?" Crowley snapped. "Enough times this idiot has continued to believe whatever the fuck he wanted to without any proof and then share those assumptions with others as if they were true? Enough times he's sent War to stalk me for months and then attempt to kill me? Enough times he's destroyed my relationships for nothing more than one sarcastic comment I made a year ago?"
He turned back to Loki, furious. "John and I have been mates for eleven years. You have no concept of what we've been through together. If you could pull your head out of your own arse for ten seconds, you'd see with your own fucking eyes that I healed him. Why the fuck would I want to hurt him? If he wants to hang around shite like you for pity's sake, that's his own lookout, but don't you dare try to dictate our friendship."
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"Kill you? War was merely going to rescue the hostage!" Loki protested. "That stupid toy of hers doesn't even kill in the first place."
"I won't stand by and watch you hurt John," he declared stubbornly ignoring Crowley's words. "Or Ezra. It's bad enough that you have a poor innocent kitty in your power." It might have sounded much better, if he hadn't been lying helplessly on the floor.
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Hauling Loki up unceremoniously by his pajama collar, he gave him a small shake (that was a good bit more careful than it looked) and went on as he propelled the god back to his hospital bed, "Now you, listen up and listen good. Unless you've both been holding out on me, all Crowley's ever done to you is talk. You've been the aggressor every single time. How would you like it if somebody catnapped your pet, carjacked your prize possession, assaulted your dignity and wrecked your love life?" He snorted. "Shit, he's been a helluva lot more patient than I would in his place, I'd have kicked your arse for you a long time ago. He is not a threat to me or Chicago. Promise. And if you're looking for a demon to kill you, you picked the wrong one. So quit being so fucking paranoid and leave him and his cat the hell alone, savvy?" He stabbed a finger at the god to emphasize his point. "That means no siccing anybody else on them either. Or so help me, I will march you up to Adam and let him deal with you as he sees fit.
"And you," he rounded on Crowley without pausing for breath, "Yeah, you. You don't get to play the innocent victim here. Maybe you really didn't mean anything by that stupid crack, but did you ever actually try to bury the hatchet?" He made an exasperated gesture. "Course not, because you never do. You'd rather mouth off at a homicidal archangel, or threaten a god who's already convinced you're out to get him, and guarantee they'll start hitting below the belt. And if I don't wind up picking up the pieces, it's Ellie or Adam or somebody else. One of these days there won't be enough left to put back together, mate." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking from one friend to the other and wondering if any of this was sinking in. "I know, it's not your business to make nice, I get that. I really do. But there's an awful lot of maneuvering room between 'All is forgiven, let's hold hands and skip through the daisies' and 'Go fuck yourself and the six-legged horse you rode in on,' you know?
"...right. So here's the score." Fuck, he felt old. Putting two ancient immortals in their place like he was all responsible and wise or some crazy shit like that. Also, he badly wanted a cigarette, if only to kill the lingering nausea left by the vanished concussion. But now that he was well into his tirade, it also felt pretty damn good to get all this off his chest. "I have a philosophical objection to people dying of cancer, and Loki's been decent to me when I was in a bad way, so yeah, I'm trying to help him out. And just for the record, I don't do pity." He shot Crowley a reproving look before glancing Loki's way. "But everything Crowley just said about the two of us goes double for me. Neither of those things is going to change. Get used to it.
"Now clearly neither one of you thinks my judgement's worth spit, or you'd listen when I say the other one's not half the bastard you think he is. But if you actually give a rat's arse what I think or how I feel, you will negotiate a truce and stop making my life more sodding difficult than it needs to be. At the very least, you will bloody well not use me as the excuse du jour. Capiche?" He glared at them each in turn.
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He would never forgive Loki for all the crap the god had put him through. That would be letting him win, allowing him to continue to be the bully, putting all the people he cared about in danger for no good reason. Crowley knew he was irrational about the redhead when even hearing the stupid affectation of 'not-god' that Loki applied equally to angels and demons made him want to rip his ugly Nordic face off.
However, he could no longer ignore the fact that it upset John. That was the key issue here. Loki could die of cancer three times over and Crowley would hold a party, but he cared too much about John to do that to him. He hadn't realized the man had been so hurt by their feud but seeing as how John and Chicago were about the only things he had left, the demon wasn't about to jeopardize his last true friendship for the sake of his animosity.
Kicking himself for not remembering John's cancer and how that might lead him to feel some sympathy for the paranoid idiot, Crowley thought for a bit.
"Right," he said flatly. "You owe me a favour, Loki, even if your partner-in-crime ran off before fulfilling his. I'm cashing it in now. You will leave me and mine the fuck alone, and that includes Chicago, Aziraphale, Gabriel, Belial, John, and Ellie. You will not interfere in our lives in any way. You will not spread slander or gossip about us. You will not attempt to harm or save any of the aforementioned parties, nor enlist the help of others to do so. You will not take any of our property, you will not knowingly or unknowingly deface or destroy our property, and you will not attempt in any manner to 'improve' our property. In return, I will grant you and whoever your friends are the same courtesy, as well as continue to allow your access to John, so long as you refrain from harming him. Those are my terms for a truce. Accept them or refuse them, but know that if you accept them and subsequently break the contract, I will have no compunction about turning you over to Adam for judgment, and if you refuse them, the next set of terms may not be so generous."
The demon had the feeling his friend wouldn't like this negotiation, but he really was trying. He could stop fighting if the god would just let the fuck up already (not that he had high hopes for that) even if it was an effective channeling of his anger. Crowley would find somewhere else for it to go.
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"Hey wait a minute. I didn't cat- or carnap anything!" Loki protested. He hadn't even known where Odin had found the car, after all and the only thing he'd ever personally done to the cat was pick her up after the poor thing had fallen through the ceiling which had, of course, been all Newt's fault. As for love life, what love life? He hadn't even had a fuck in over a year.
That John would betray him to Adam hurt, but then Loki remembered that not so long ago he'd been determined not to get too close to John again just for this reason. John was Crowley's and he should have remembered it. Just what was it about the man that kept making him forget his decision to keep his distance?
On the other hand, could he have just stood by and watched just now? He hadn't even known Crowley was around. Clearly Gabriel and Anathema weren't there to help.
Didn't do pity? Ha, yeah right. Norse gods didn't do pity and where was Odin again? But Loki knew better than to challenge such a claim. He knew how people usually reacted to that and he still didn't want to lose John. Damn this fucked up situation!
"Bel... who?" Loki still hadn't met the whatever this one was, though it wasn't true that he didn't recognise the name. He needed to buy time to think, though. He usually did pay his debts and had been fully intending to fulfill his obligation to Crowley, but that was quite a lot of stipulations in return for one little ride in an albeit really cool car.
Hastily put together deals like this usually contained all sorts of loopholes and tripwires and normally Loki was a master at finding them, but even his mental abilities weren't what they used to be. Better to take this slow, step by step. In fact there were a number of problems here.
"I owe you one favour, not-god," Loki reminded the demon. "Not a whole list of them. Out of gratitude for the things John has done to me, I'm willing to extend it a little, but not beyond what's reasonable."
"Most of all, the stipulation not to unknowingly deface or destroy is unacceptable. It's impossible. If I don't know that something belongs to you, or that I am ... perhaps about to sit on it, I can't prevent braking it no matter how much I try." That was reasonable enough, wasn't it? "Second, Gabriel is my doctor, so unless you can provide a replacement, you will have to allow me contact with him as well." He hesitated for a moment over the thought of Ellie, but they weren't that close. It was nice to talk with her when she came in here ...
Came in here? Now there was a thought. It meant giving up on the cat, but weak as he was there wasn't much he could do for her anyway.
"In fact, I'll make you a counter offer," he said. "I promise to stay away from all your friends and property as long as they remain outside the hospital wing. Once they come in here, though, they're fair game. In return you stay away from me and leave the rest of the manor animals alone."
He thought it sounded like a good offer when really there wasn't anything he actually needed to do. He was too weak to leave the hospital wing anyway and if, by some miracle, he actually survived this after all he had no reason to stay at the manor so all he'd have to do was avoid Crowley's chosen ones on his way out. Odin had left. Uriel had left. They'd always been a family of vagabonds.
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It would be fine if Loki upheld the bargain. Crowley would simply tell his friends the situation and then it would be up to them to decide what to do. As for the animals, that was easy, too. Chicago was the only one he could tolerate and vice versa.
The demon turned to John. "Happy, now?"
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"It'll do," he grunted. "Just to clarify, though--I'm not anybody's pet human. The only person who dictates who I do or don't hang around with is me." He raised his eyebrows expressively. The same applied to everybody else on Crowley's list, of course (minus the human bit,) but they could defend their own honor. "Now, since that's out of the way--not that anyone asked, but I tripped over a sodding rat on my way in here and hit my head on the way down. Nobody's fault but mine and the rodent's." He carried on quickly, knowing full well that it was no mystery how a rat could have got in there and not wanting it to start another round of arguments, "So I'm gonna go find the little bastard and corral him before he gives Anathema the vapors, and then see if this place has got any Pepto-Bismol, awright? I'll be back, Loki. Try and get some rest, the cursebreaking's coming up soon.
"And Crowley--thanks." He smiled slightly, not wanting to leave the impression that the demon's speedy appearance had gone unmarked or unappreciated--or the concessions he'd made, either.
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"Agreed," he told Crowley gravely. Never let on when you're triumphant. Better leave the opposition with the impression that they forced you into all the concessions you were able to make. "If you can convince them tho stay out, I'll never even talk to them." Well, hopefully none of them would be at the reception when he left.
"Sorry about Ratty. We've been trying to re-capture him, but he's terribly shy." Should he be feeling guilty about it? It wasn't like he had any power to control the rat. "He didn't mean any harm, though. Don't hurt him."
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The demon turned and followed John out the door, but steered him into another of the hospital's rooms before the man could begin his search for the rat, the Pepto, or Anathema. "And you're not doing jack shit until I check you over for real, pet human or not. That was a nasty crack and I want to make sure I didn't miss anything."
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On the other hand, it was always a bit of a let down to come into the hospital wing and find that the injured party was Constantine. Again. And Crowley, too, this time. What a day for Anathema to be gone during her shift...
"Honestly," he said, with the particular dry affect that he liked to think he saved just for choice members of the Constantine line. "Glad as I'm sure each of you is to have found that one special fiend he so deserves, have you no place better to carry on than on the spare hospital bed?"
Surreptitiously, he checked Constantine over only to find no injury on the human's part, though Crowley's signature was all over him. Much as Crowley himself seemed to be, at the moment.
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But then his expression grew serious. "Yeah, you're fine now. A little dehydrated, though. Try not to hit any more doorknobs with your head."
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