[ooc] DDD Application - WIP
Character: Anthony J. Crowley
Fandom: Good Omens
Character Notes:
History: Crowley, or "Crawly" as he was known back then, began 'life' as an angel. He didn't mean to Fall. He just hung out with the crowd and ended up not Falling so much as sauntering vaguely downward, which, in the end, turned out to be more or less the same thing as Falling. He was good at tempting people - a major failing in an angel but a good way to get work as a demon, and so with Earth newly formed and everything all nice and fresh, Hell sent him up to go and "make some trouble". And boy did he ever make some trouble. Under the guise of the Serpent, he found himself in the Garden of Eden, and there was some business with a Tree of Knowledge and some Forbidden Fruit, and what do you know but there went Paradise. One discussion with a certain angel later, and Crawly was left wondering what exactly had happened, and - perhaps more troublesome - if he'd somehow managed to do the Right Thing. (A demon could get in a lot of trouble, doing the right thing.)
A few thousand years later - quite a few of them, in fact - and Crawly had at some point decided that Crawly just didn't suit him. It was time for a new name and a new image. He'd been spending a lot of time on Earth, after all, and Serpents were a bit passé. Under the guise of a human, he set about doing what he supposedly did best - securing souls for Hell. Trouble was, he was growing rather fond of humans, and anyway, they were so much better at damning themselves. He got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition - and he hadn't even been there at the time.
Somewhere around 1000 AD, he and Aziraphale had come to a sort of Arrangement, because they were both far from home and only in passing contact with their respective superiors, and anyway they had more in common with each other than they had with anyone back home. They'd meet up every once in a while, compare notes, have lunch, and if occasionally one of them did the other's job for him, well, it was all getting done in the end so who cared how it got done?
Everything was going splendidly, or at least as nicely as it could be, considering the devilry humans managed to get up to, and things probably would have continued on nicely, except for one tiny little detail.
Okay, maybe not that tiny.
Crowley was summoned by Hastur and Ligur - two Dukes of Hell - who had a special package for Crowley to deliver: the Antichrist. He took the Antichrist to the Chattering Order of St. Beryl (a sect of Satanic nuns) and presumably, that would be that. The nuns made a mistake in switching out babies, however, and the Antichrist wound up getting lost in the shuffle, a complication that Crowley was blissfully unaware of, having buggered off as soon as the tiny little Antichrist had been delivered.
And after that, he panicked. Or rather, he didn't precisely panic, but he was very close to it, and so he sought out the one person on all of - pardon his French - God's green Earth who'd understand. Aziraphale. It took all the powers of persuasion Crowley, but he finally managed to convince Aziraphale that it would be a really, really good idea to try and thwart Hell's plans, and the two wound up overseeing the false Antichrist's upbringing. Crowley worried that the child was too normal; Aziraphale felt that it was his good influence on the child that kept him so normal. The truth came out at the false Antichrist's eleventh birthday party, when the Hellhound that had been sent to stay by the boy and protect him from all harm didn't show up where it should have. Or rather, it showed up where it should have, and everything else was all wrong.
Frantic - Crowley rather a bit more frantic than Aziraphale, in all fairness (albeit for good reason; he'd messed up, and Hell didn't go in for forgiveness) - the two of them set off to search for the msising Antichrist. Along the way they ran into Anathema Device - literally. Crowley hit her with the Bentley. One healed bike and a car ride later, and they got directions to their destination from Anathema, only to find that the Chattering Order had disbanded, being not needed after the birth of the Antichrist, and a fire had destroyed all the old records. Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale wanted the Apocalypse to happen - they both liked Earth far too much - but with their trail having hit a dead end, they were at a bit of a loss as to what to do.
They couldn't just search him out by using their occult (or, in Aziraphale's case, ethereal) powers, as the Antichrist would be shielded from detection by his own power, whether he realized it or not. The two of them came to the realization that they might need human assistance, and decided to contact their own separate organizations (which, it would later be revealed, was the same organization and was in fact not an organization so much as it was one Sergeant Shadwell, Witchfinder General).
They split up. Aziraphale had Anathema's book, and Crowley was left feeling very alone, especially when, a few days later, he was contacted by Hell. They'd discovered his mistake. He was, to put it mildly, completely screwed. Hastur and Ligur were sent to collect him; he did the unthinkable. He'd kept a bottle of holy water in the apartment, just in case, and when the two Dukes of Hell came to collect he gave them a rather soggy welcome. Unfortunately, only Ligur was caught in the sudden shower of blessed water, which left Crowley to fend for himself against Hastur - which was better than fending for himself against Hastur and Ligur, but still wasn't the way he wanted to spend what might be his last day on Earth. He escaped Hastur by trapping him in his phone line, and proceeded to get the hell out, so to speak.
With Hastur occupied by being in the phone (demons and angels can discoporate at will, and Crowely had jumped into the phone line and then jumped out while Hastur was still chasing him - and then he'd hung up) Crowley got in his Bentley and headed straight to - you guessed it. Aziraphale. Only this time, the bookshop was, regrettably, on fire. Not that Crowley cared. He rushed in blindly to play the hero, only to find Aziraphale gone, but hey. There was that book that Anathema had left in the Bentley, that Aziraphale was supposed to have returned. He grabbed it and got out and, because there was really nothing else to do at this point, looked through the book.
Aziraphale's notes pointed him in the direction of Lower Tadfield, and with Armageddon on the horizon, he drove like a bat out of hell, catching the Bentley on fire in the process. (Long story short, he'd altered the road plans for the M25, turning into the sigil Odegra, which translates loosely to "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds", and the M25, being a roadway, was basically then transformed into a giant sort of prayer wheel, and now all hell had broken loose. Literally.)
Like Aziraphale, he managed to arrive in Tadfield just in time for the Apocalypse, and even went so far as to prepare to face Lucifer himself armed with nothing more than a tire iron (while Aziraphale, the lucky bastard, got that flaming sword of his back. Some people just have all the luck). Luckily for Earth, the Antichrist (who'd grown up to be rather human, without any occult or ethereal influences) averted the Apocalypse by simply not wanting it to happen, and that was that. Everything went back to normal, and Crowley's Bentley was even restored. (He hadn't wanted to restore it himself, even if he could, because it just wouldn't be the same.)
And what happened after that? Lunch, mostly.
Crowley will be joining the community at the same point in his timeline as Aziraphale, who is currently in the game.
Personality: On the surface, and for all intents and purposes, Crowley appears to be a stereotypical demon - mean-spirited, cunning, greedy, selfish, good at tempting people, and certainly very intelligent. And he enjoys what he does. If he were human, his motto would probably be "Live fast, die young", except he's a demon and therefore can't die. He's a bit on the lazy side, however, especially when it comes to securing souls for Hell. Why spend decades picking away at one soul when you can tie up phone lines and tarnish a few thousand souls all in one go? (He's particularly proud of the M25 for this very reason. It took years to do, but the end results were completely worth it.)
But it's impossible to live with humans for 6000 years without learning a thing or two. And Crowley, having abandoned being Crawly and wearing scales, has had 6000 years to learn about being human. He's more or less gone native - and in a manner of speaking, has learned Free Will. He dislikes Heaven and Hell equally - Heaven's boring and Hell's too exciting. And, for that matter, he doesn't believe that Hell is the source of all Evil any more than he believes that Heaven is a fountain of Good. People, he's found, are far more capable of extreme examples of "Good" and "Evil" than either Heaven or Hell could ever hope to be. And he likes people, which is rather a major failing in a demon. He's continually fascinated with the ways they find to damn themselves - he hardly has to lift a finger to do it.
He dresses and acts, or at least tries to act, like a stereotypical yuppie; he owns a 1926 black Bentley, dresses in all the latest fashions, has all the latest technology, has a tendency to use modern slang. Taxes and speed limits are something that happen to other people. He's all about style and looking cool. The only problem with this is that he is not in fact nearly half so suave as he thinks he is.
Where Aziraphale is cynical, Crowley is boundlessly optimistic. He honestly believes that everything will turn out alright in the end. And on top of that, he's almost hopelessly soft-hearted; for all that he acts the part of demon, with Aziraphale to act as his conscience - and possibly because of his angelic beginning - he's been known to indulge in occasional acts of not-entirely-evil. He's shown several times to be grudgingly merciful, or at least to not cause as much trouble as he's capable of causing, though he'd never be so crass as to outright admit it.
And, let's face it. This is the guy who was willing to go up against Lucifer himself armed with nothing more than a tire iron.
Other: Like Aziraphale, Crowley has several powers that he can use. He can shapeshift, though he doesn't like to, as he worries that he'll forget how to turn back to his favorite shape - human. (However, being a demon, he cannot change his eyes. They remain yellow with black slitted pupils, hence his tendency toward wearing sunglass "Even when he dunt need to".) He can stand in the rain without getting wet. He can (and does, at one point) breathe life back into things that have died - possibly an ability left over from the time he was angel. He can't die in the normal sense, though if his human body gets killed, he has to get a new one from Hell, so he tries to not die as much as possible. He can see in the dark, and can more or less wish things into being. Basically, he can more or less shape the world around him to his will, although small things are easier than large things. For example, it's relatively simple to turn bad wine into good wine, or to get a casette player in a jeep than it is to convince a flaming Bentley that it's a whole and perfectly working vehicle.
It's implied that the snakeskin "boots" he wears are not in fact boots at all but are in fact boot-shaped snakeskin feet. He doesn't blink much, and he has a tendency to hiss when he forgets himself. He's not very fond of the cold. Like Aziraphale, he doesn't need to eat, breathe, or sleep - although he rather enjoys eating and sleeping. He has wings, although they're usually tucked away, and because he comes from angel stock, they are no different from angel wings.
[Voice - Message for Aziraphale]
Come on, come on, come on, pick up, angel! This is important! Think of the most important thing you've ever thought of and then multiply that by ten thousand and that's not even close to how important this is. This is end of the world important. The end of life as we know it important.
[A long pause.]
Oh, for Go-- for Hea-- for someone's sake, answer your phone. I know you're there. You have to be there. You're always there. What are you doing? Don't tell me you're out. You're never out. Where are you?
[Another lengthy pause.]
No, really. Okay. Look, just call me back, yeah? Do you even check your messages? I mean, do you even know how? No, alright, I'm coming over. I'll be there at six.
Ciao.
[And what is it that's so earth-shatteringly important? Casting choices for a new Bond movie, naturally.]
Third Person:
Crowley stared in disbelief at the screen of his computer, which was currently obstinately refusing to believe that it was supposed to be shut off. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He frowned, and snapped his fingers again. Once again, nothing happened. He continued to stare at the computer screen. The website with the pictures of cheery ducks continued to not go away. Crowley muttered a blessing under his breath and poked at a few keys on the keyboard, and the ducks stayed right where they were.
For a moment, he wondered if someone from Down There was behind this, but there wasn't anything particularly demonic or even hellish about the ducks, apart from the fact that they seemed to have taken over his computer and were refusing to give it back. He tapped his fingers against the edge of the desk, and wondered if he ought to call Aziraphale, but he dismissed the idea on the grounds that if he couldn't figure out how to fix it, there wasn't a snowball's chance in... well, you know... that the angel would be any help.
It was about that time that he remembered that humans tended to put things like power buttons on their appliances, and after a few minutes of searching he managed to find it. With a triumphant grin, he jabbed a finger down onto the button, and--
Nothing. The screen didn't even so much as flicker.
He muttered under his breath again and pulled the chair out from the desk - it had never been used - and sat down, and it was about then that Crowley realized that just because something looked cool didn't necessarily mean it would be comfortable. He frowned again, and a moment later, the chair had obligingly become more bearable to sit in, which was a relief.
Once again, he turned his attention to the ducks, and now there was a space to enter text on the screen. He thought for a moment, and then typed simply, Hello?