... And All the World's a Stage (3/3, part II) (SPN/GO crossover, gen)
Title: ... And All The World's a Stage (3/3, part II)
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Characters/Pairing: Crowley-centric. In this part, Lilith, OFCs and OMC demons (Vivienne, Mariel and Tristane), Becky Rosen, Tyson Brady, Hastur, Death and Jesse Turner; Crowley/Lilith, Crowley/Aziraphale, Crowley/OFCs.
Rating: R.
Word count: 7747.
Warning: Disturbing, gory imagery involving children, major character death, sexual themes.
Note: This fic is set in a merged 'verse, with GO background and setting for the SPN Apocalypse plotline, with Crowley being the nexus of both. (Also, to see the footnotes, mouseover the link.) Spoilers up to SPN 5x21. Credit to occultebelta once again for the beta job, as well as dramaturgy.
Summary: May 2009 to Spring 2010; Crowley puts his plan into action and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. It occurs to him as Thursday morning arrives, sunlight graciously toeing the edge of his door, that in handing off the gun he has in fact finally made a decision. The sabotage is out of its planning stages, and now the future of the earth as they know it is in the Winchesters' hands.
Chapter 1: 1987 to 2007; how Crowley survived the aftermath of the Adam Young incident and rose to prominence beside Lilith.
Chapter 2: 2007 to 2008; Crowley sizes up the players and stacks his deck in preparation for the coming Apocalypse.
Chapter 3, Part I: Late 2008 to early 2009; Crowley's reconnection with Aziraphale raises a series of questions, and leads to its inevitable conclusion.
May 2009
All Crowley has left of Aziraphale is his parting gift: a checklist. There are over three-hundred seals, so it's said, but the angel dug up as many as he could find and put them on a checklist. The better to keep track of the Apocalypse with, he has to suppose, but at base it's completely absurd. A checklist of celestial proportions -- a checklist that could end the world. Horrible acts perpetrated by agents of Hell with a little tickybox next to them.
Aziraphale is better at keeping track of human news than Crowley is, always has been, but being King of the Crossroads has its benefits. Seals are breaking faster than Lucifer could have hoped, and demons are more than happy to crow in passing about them. Despite that orderliness is next to godliness, and the sentimentality of it all, he dutifully notes every last seal upon its breaking.
This time it really feels like the world is ending. Last time was a close shave, that edge of terror and near-death that reminds you that you're alive. A trial run, maybe. This feels more like the life-flashes-in-front-of-you, actually-going-to-die-this-time part, like the real thing.
Practice runs don't include real power, real deaths or real, inescapable consequences.
Sometimes it flashes through his mind at random, during a day, or it pops up as the first thought in his head as he wakes. You broke a seal. Sixty-six seals and he broke one of them. Sixty-five seals then Lilith dies, and he helped.
Every time he looks at the Colt he thinks about Bela Talbot, her drive to survive, no matter how many lives she destroyed in the process -- about Aziraphale, his million faces and his last, strangely angular face, immaculately-kept blond hair, and lips apparently made for awkward, desperate kisses -- about the terrible mess Vivienne and Tristane made of his carpeting.
Those four souls are just a handful of those he's sacrificed to remain King of the Crossroads and concubine to Lucifer's favorite hellbitch. He should feel worse about that, but he doesn't.
No. The problem is Lilith. Seeing Lilith is difficult. Seeing Lilith is necessary, to his career (such as it is) and to his sanity. Prophecy says he hasn't got much time left to enjoy her, and the idea is enough to jerk him awake from his sleep, and make every moment she's away and breaking seals intolerable for her absence.
It's down to her, really. Even fate knows that there's no prying her out of his soul. It knows he won't, he couldn't. The rumors haven't stopped flying since Crowley concocted a story about a Colt-wielding Aziraphale murdering the underlings and forcing him to make the deal at gunpoint -- half of Hell suspects he's still a snake in the grass ready to snap at the first opportune moment -- and they're not wrong. But they're not right, he's not a traitor to Hell, either. He's done more for Lucifer himself in the last twenty or so years than in the last two millennia.
That, if nothing else, proves it. He hates Lucifer, and more every day, but if it weren't for Lilith, every spare horrific and lovely inch of her, he wouldn't have done a sodding thing for the Morningstar.
And he has. Breaking a seal is apparently enough proof for the second-best Lucifer fangirl Mariel that he's 100% Hell-friendly. When she comes onto him, he doesn't bother turning her down. [17]
It's spring, bright and cheerful and sunny outside, all flowers and showers as the world ends. The sixtieth seal broke four hours ago, and he's still resting in bed lazily with Mariel, stretched out with his laptop open while she contentedly paints little nonsensical symbols on his headboard with the blood shed in the night's celebration.
Mariel breaks the comfortable silence after ten minutes or so. "You're being boring."
"Someone's clingy," Crowley returns, tempers it with a half-smirk in her direction, and taps the enter key to sign into the website in front of him. Her eyeroll barely registers. He doesn't have much longer to tip the Winchesters off about where he is -- prophecy could afford to be a little more specific on certain aspects of all this -- and the Supernatural fan community is likely his best bet. [18]
Of course, the fans are a bunch of inane idiots. They're humans. It's to be expected. But some of them are smarter than others.
"I miss Viv," Mariel says out of nowhere. [19] "Do you?"
"Sometimes," he admits. "I don't miss that blessed witch, though."
The little co-ed whose body Mariel's borrowing has the perfect face to express the disgust that she feels towards the demon formerly known as Tristane. "He thought he was funny."
"He was definitely not funny," Crowley confirms, and strokes her hair absently, with easy affection. The forum's abuzz about a theory from a delurking commenter about series 3, book 15, Time Is On My Side. He clicks, concertedly expressionless, and skims it. "What's the first thing you're going to do when Lucifer rises?"
"I want to make them run," she decides after a moment of thought. "I want to send a hellhound after any humans I can find and watch it tear them into pieces."
He's only half-listening, but he can't help a vague smile at the thought. Once Lucifer springs his cage, it'd really be a mercy for a human to die as a demon's entertainment, considering the alternative. "I haven't introduced you to Bishop, have I?"
That perks Mariel's interest. "Who?"
Crowley opens his mouth to answer her question but abruptly shuts it as there are definitely demons approaching his house. "Up. Clothes," he orders her, tersely, and shuts the laptop.
She looks blank. "What? Why?"
He pulls on his trousers and is halfway through buttoning his shirt before he bothers answering. "If you don't know already, I'm not going to bother telling you."
"Oh -- oh." Now she gets it. Good girl. "I'll go -- "
"Good idea," Crowley concedes, sparing her a glance. She's half-drunk off his blood and fumbling with her dress, and no one can say he's not a gentleman -- he zips it up for her. She rewards him with a kiss, and he pats her cheek before she vanishes.
There's no warning, as always, but he knows. It's Lilith. She's been in a frenzy, a bloodlust, a depression and a mania all in her burning insanity, and he drops anything to see her whenever she'll have him, even if it means he has to see her rend the world piece by piece because he's too cowardly to even attempt to spit in the face of prophecy.
He hopes she hasn't brought a project home tonight.
Crowley rounds the corner and he hears the click of her heels against the floor before he sees her, and the sound of what he thinks has to be the sort of luggage with wheels, until she appears at the end of the hall. She's dark and ancient and gorgeous in a long yellow dress and a meatsuit whose mouth is too suited to that terribly wicked-and-innocent smile of hers, teeth white and perfect and ready to snap. And she's got a stroller.
There's a second where he recognizes what she's pushing along in a pram like a proud mother, but then he accepts it. It's second nature. "Hello, pet."
"Sixty seals, Crowley." It's been so long that he's almost forgotten what her voice can do to him, chill him to his core, fear for his life, get him hard and send him reeling. All he can do is watch her approach. "We have to celebrate."
Her hand grazes his arm and he follows her to the bedroom. It doesn't occur to him to spare a glance into the stroller until she leans over and pulls a wine bottle from inside of it, and that's when he sees the two dead babies curled up inside. It's bizarre how they look like macabre porcelain dolls, a knife and two champagne flutes between them -- now that he thinks about it, it looks more like a demon's fruit basket.
"I had them picked special," Lilith starts, as he sits and puts some distance between himself and the dead babies. "For us. For tonight." She pours the wine -- no, not wine -- into the flute, and unable to resist the draw, drinks.
He doesn't resist when she finally pours him a glass of the blood, but it sits limp in his hand. "Why tonight?" he prompts her.
She's left lipstick marks on the glass as she hungrily goes back for more. The look on her face is always so humbling; no matter how hard he's tried, the ecstasy on her face mid-fuck doesn't even get close to the utter pleasure she wears now, sucking down baby blood. It's hard for her to even find words for a moment. "We're almost there," she says, and swallows, pensive as she tastes the blood again, like a fucking wine connoisseur.
What does she expect him to say? She sits and he can't help but move close, kiss her cheek and nonverbally beg for the slightest bit of attention. "I know," he says against her skin. [20]
"No rest for the wicked," she goes on, her fingers threading their way into his hair. [21] "Two more seals fall tomorrow." She takes the hand that's loosely gripping the cup and draws it to his lips. "I want you to come with me," she murmurs, barely audible.
Baby blood. He absently notes the tag on the stroller where his gaze falls as he simultaneously tries to pretend he's anywhere but here and soak in every second of this. It could be the last time. He sips, opens his mouth, and drinks like it's nothing, like every step closer to becoming like her doesn't scare the fucking decency out of him.
"Good," Lilith pronounces, her hand warm and light on his thigh.
"I've got business," he mentions, belatedly; did he agree? He can't remember. She's done her usual spell or something, or he let Mariel have too much of him tonight.
"I know you're not interested in anything but your deals." Her tone isn't exactly withering, but it's close. Crisp, maybe. "Soon they'll all be ours anyway, Crowley. You don't need to work so hard."
Crowley drinks from his flute like it's anything and puts on the act. "Supply and demand," he says, frankly. "They're demanding, so we're supplying. Business is always good in times of trouble, and you, my pet, you have been up to some trouble."
Now she's smiling. "Always," she says, and the s closes on a hiss -- as he starts to smirk, she kisses him, hard. He can taste the blood in the corners of her mouth, the stickiness of her bloody fingers on his face and against his scalp. It's time like this, when he's drunk on power and desperation and snogging the fucking harbinger of the Apocalypse, that he really hates Aziraphale for being 100 percent right about him. He would kiss her in the wake of murder and hand her the flame with which to burn down the world as they've known it since the Fall, and he wouldn't apologize for a blessed second of it.
As she pulls away from him, he thinks, for the first time, really thinks about unloading the Colt in her face.
Her eyes are cold and white as he looks into her face and fuck. Prophecy. It comes down to prophecy. He hates prophecy, especially when it knows what he's going to do before he does, or worse, ignores his free will entirely. [22]
She puts a hand to his face, fond and cold and sinuous like she's always been, goading him and backing him further into the corner with every look and word and kiss. "Is something wrong?"
Crowley has to wonder if she knows. It's not out of the realm out of the possibility that she's toying with him in some elaborate game of cat and mouse, that she's known about the Colt all along. "Nothing," he lies sleekly. "Contemplating your proposition. I could use a break from the idiots on the sales floor."
"Please, Crowley. Pretty please." Lilith bounces on the bed and sets her empty glass aside, impatiently wresting his from his hand and tempting him onto the bed beside her. "Let's have some fun for once! There's always so much work to be done."
He can't deny her. Not in the situation she's in, the situation they're in -- no, the situation he's in. It's all about to be ripped away. Lilith is as good as dead, the world that he loves and hates all at once is about to be sunk into a sewer, and he won't have the angel's sanctimonious conduct to put up with until ten years' time. Right now is all he's got.
She guides his hands to her back and he unzips her dress, and once she slides the straps of her dress down her shoulders, he just knows, he fucking knows he won't be the one to pull the trigger. Vivienne was right -- Aziraphale was right, he was right. The Fall never ended. They were always headed towards this, the world just one long downward, self-destructive trajectory towards temptation and blood and All Pit, All the Time.
And it's all down to Lucifer and his fucking ego.
Lilith drips the blood down between her breasts and he gives in. It's not temptation now, it's addiction and fear and love that drives him to treat every second like it's golden and cherished because it is.
Days. It could be days, he thinks, as they watch the sun rise. He doesn't even remember the date until he sees his Blackberry and he knows, it's almost time. Thursday. Thursday is when she breaks the final seal, when Lucifer breaks out, when she's supposed to die.
"Sixty seals," he says aloud.
Lilith sighs and moves closer to take the phone from his hand, easily pitching it across the room (it bounces into a corner). She kisses him on the mouth; it's a different house, different furniture, and different bodies, but they might as well be the same demons in the same scene from 1998, a tableau of temptation. Pride and lust and you were always my favorite. "I know you like your pretty little planet," she says briskly, "but Lucifer loves it more than anybody. More than humanity. He'll... he'll cleanse it of their filth with fire and blood and then it's ours, not theirs."
"Mm," he says, non-committally. [23]
She doesn't look amused. "We've spent all this time slithering around at their feet, nipping at their heels," she reminds him, her mouth against his ear now, "just to lead them to the time when we take this world and form it in the likeness of our Father's image." He's trying to divert his attention but she forces him back with her hand around his chin. "This was always meant to die. The world is only just beginning."
Oh, he understands. "Of course, pet," he agrees, and lets her touch him, admittedly surprised by her sentimentality. [24]
She releases him and leans back on her elbows, and relaxes in this unusual way, really, like a lion dozing in the savannah sun. "Do you know?" she asks after a long moment of comfortable silence.
The misery's settled to the bottom of his stomach. There's no shaking it. "I know lots of things, pet," he says, barely ironic. He doesn't have the energy.
"I asked you a question, Crowley." Her fingernails press against his chin, and he meets her gaze, her white eyes cloudy and sharp with pointed anxiety. "Do you know."
She's barely pushing him at all, but he's so close to the edge with her now that he can't resist. "Yes," he forces out. "Yes. I know."
There's this flash of something in her eyes, like she's thinking about ripping out his throat as he's seen her do to a least a dozen demons who dared to think they could keep secrets from her. To his relief, it vanishes.
"Say it." The words are brittle as she snaps them out.
"And it is written that the first demon shall be the last seal," Crowley recites wearily.
Just on the edge of his mind he can feel her clenching around his willpower, and he's losing his grip. "Have you been working against me?" she asks, gently taunting and dangerous, like the soft brush of a snake's coils before its fangs take hold.
"No." Crowley finds words, finds himself, and speaks. [25] "No, never against you." [26]
"I know you, Crowley." Her words are almost as potent as his. "I know you never stop. I may not be your maker but I made you what you are today, and I know you haven't been sitting here fucking around for months. What do you want, who are you working for?"
Easy enough to answer. "The rise of Lucifer and defeat of Michael."
"No!" She forces it out from between her teeth and it doesn't need to be a scream to freeze him where he sits. "TELL ME THE TRUTH."
"It's the truth," he retorts and tries to swing his legs off the bed, but he isn't quick enough. She straddles him and pins him down, and even the King of the Crossroads can't fight fucking Lilith in her dark and furious glory.
"Say it, Crowley," she hisses, and once she's got his throat pinned against the down pillow, that's when it hits him, cold and awful -- she could tear him apart, rip him from this body and roast him alive, throw him back into the Pit or kill him on the spot, no mercy, no regard. "Tell -- me -- the -- truth!"
It's too much. "I did it for you," he manages.
Her eyes narrow and her head tilts to the side. "Then you want me to be happy," she says, all soft and baby-voiced. "So don't stop me. I want to do this, I've always wanted to do this. It's more than worth it."
"Is it?"
He hears it leave his mouth and fear drenches him in that instant. "Yes," Lilith retorts, and it's a snap like the clean break of a bone. She slams her palm against his forehead and he expects an exorcism for the split second before the images scald hot into him, through him --
the instant -- streaming tears nearly dry on her face --- when Lucifer, archangel aflame and glorious with a voice that bends her near to breaking, finally snaps the last hope and anchor inside her
And she is free and new and broken and hopeless and full of pride and wrath
His, every inch His.
She's crying when he recovers, the sobs mercilessly cutting through her. It's ugly and painful and resembles dry heaves more than anything else by the time she collapses against him. If this was supposed to change his mind, it hasn't. It's only strengthened his resolve.
"He would let you die to take this world," Crowley snaps off and oh it feels good to be honest and angry for once. [27]
Lilith's hands go to her face as she tries to compose herself. "We were all created for a reason," she says after a long moment. "This is mine."
Patience is a virtue, Aziraphale would say. "You're just a key in a door to Him, pet, think about this."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Her voice's gone soft, pitying, sentimental. He hates her for all the affectation of real emotion, real motive, real personality; she's the worst demon he knows simply because she's malice pure and simple, shameless, flawless destruction pointed at the Heavenly adversary, Lucifer's trigger to pull as prophecy foretold.
"It's love," Crowley says. [28] "I understand."
"It's fact," Lilith retorts, and leans forward, shoves his chin back to tilt his head against the pillow. "I'll die? So what."
He considers that. [29] "I don't want you to," he answers.
She nods to accept his answer, and releases him, comfortably settling beside him. "At least you admit it's selfish after all," she says finally. "I thought you might try to stand on principle."
"What, me? Never."
"Two of five left to break," she adds, offhand, her hand gentle on his face. "The new boss would like it..."
Crowley exhales, and keeps his face carefully blank. [30] "I'll check my schedule."
Lilith gestures with her hand and pulls the Blackberry through the air, to the bed. "You know," she starts, upon offering it to him, "your obligation ends with me."
"My obligation," he repeats.
"To the Crossroads. Once I'm gone, abdicate -- sleep another century. Or don't, because you're fantastic at it," she says. [31] "But you can walk away."
"I'll keep that in mind," Crowley concedes, and Lilith rolls her eyes, but kisses him on the mouth, fondly.
It's that kiss he remembers when a pillar of light bursts through the skies in Ilchester, Maryland three days later. It might have been wishful thinking to imagine that she'd visited him for more than sex and an assurance of a successor, but that kiss -- it felt like a goodbye.
He might not have loved her, but he had the chance. The Colt still rests in the bedside table, where it rested that night, and he let her leave.
Five more seals, fifteen innocent human lives and the end of the world, but he would have given more than that for one more day. Now he's alone in a motel, Lucifer walks free, and he's more alone than ever.
"Big mistake, mate," Crowley says aloud, lightly, as he types away on the laptop. "Because now I've got nothing and nothing to lose."
He hits send.
November 2009
Right about the time that Crowley decides that it's unlikely the Winchesters are ever going to show up, the post shows up on morethanbrothers.net.
Supernatural con? PLZ READ!
A convention. If only these morons knew just how useful they were. To be honest, he can't believe how well this whole plan's worked. He's always known that he's just that good, but Becky Rosen, bless her poor mad heart, took the bait hook, line and fucking sinker. It only takes a smidge of effort to set up a number of fronts from which to donate a fistful of dollars to the Supernatural series fan convention.
He's feeling very smug indeed when his Gmail account pops from a blank inbox to (1). It only takes a glance at the screen for his mood to instantly deflate. Becky Rosen. He opens it once he feels appropriately steeled for the oncoming storm of stupidity.
Hi AJ!
It's always SO great to hear from you; just wanted to say thx for the donation and all the great programming ideas! you are totally right btw, but I can't ban Fritz, it would be completely undemocratic and fandom is the most democratic place ever!! (that's ok, we can all have him to point and laugh at LOL! j/k)
Remember if you want to carpool, there's the sticky at the top of the forum!! GO GREEN! lol
E-mail me back okay? And don't forget I would be HAPPY to beta for you any time. We always love more writing (especially PWP)
Love,
Becky!
For a second he's left blinking, as though he's rammed his head against a wall or something equally unforgiving, but then he recovers, sighs, and begins to compose an e-mail in response. By the time he's cringed his way through the netspeak and convinces himself to hit send, his drink is warm and someone's ringing his doorbell.
"Humans," he says to himself, and goes to the door. It's probably something pointless, like the post or Neighborhood Watch. [32]
Crowley can vividly remember the last time he opened his door to see the bastard who's standing on his step now: 1987, he'd rigged a whole bucket of holy water to roast him and his mate Ligur before they had a chance to drag him back to Hell due to his massively fucking up the whole Antichrist thing. Obviously, it didn't work out the way he'd planned, which was not Hastur up and walking and showing up at his door.
"Duke Hastur," he greets him, dryly and condescending as he dares. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Please, they only call me that downstairs," Hastur says, and grins. "It's Brady now, Tyson Brady."
"Whatever you say, Saved By The Bell. Fancy a drink?" Crowley offers.
"Nothing sacred," Hastur -- no, Brady -- cracks; apparently he's a smartass now. He saunters into Crowley's house and examines the place. "How domestic. Got a ladyfriend staying here too?"
He eyes Brady distastefully as he tries to pick a bottle of something that wouldn't go to waste on this wanker, but won't insult him. Nothing comes to mind. "I can decorate my own place, thanks," he says, filling a glass with water.
"You always were too fond of this kind of thing. Forget the drink," Brady says, straightens his lapels and pops his collar. He's not wearing a tie. How quaint. "We're going out."
Crowley almost wants to make an excuse, but then he sees the Cadillac in the driveway. It's sleek, pale, fucking gorgeous, and the second that he gets classic car lust in full force, he realizes that it clearly belongs to a Horseman. Hastur is driving a Horseman's car. Safe to say he's somewhat obligated to play along. "Works for me," he says with a shrug, and follows him down the walk to the car.
"Let's go," Brady says to the driver, and snaps his fingers. The driver barely looks back at them, but Crowley knows he's a demon as well. Low-ranking. Scum, really. "So, Crowley! I was called in to check in on you. King of the Crossroads. See if there's anything we can give you to make your life easier."
"Hell wants to make my life easier," Crowley repeats, bemused at the very idea.
"Hey, Crowley." Brady gives him a friendly nudge. [33] Crowley sends him a warning look, and he goes on, unabashed. "Our Father owes so much to you. All he wants to do is repay that debt. Any way you want it, that's the way you need it, we get that."
Crowley raises a hand to stop Brady talking. "Journey? Really?" he has to ask. [34]
"I spent two years corralling a Winchester in the right direction," Brady informs him with an eyeroll. "It was hard not to hear the greatest hits in all that time."
Crowley sets a skeptical gaze on Brady. "You. With the Winchesters."
Brady raises a single finger. "One. One Winchester. Our Sammy. But keep that under wraps, I'm trying to keep it humble."
"Oh, you worked for Azazel, I wondered what got you so far up the ladder. Did you fuck him?" Crowley asks, casually needling.
"No," Brady retorts neatly, "we don't all need our cocks to make our way out of the Pit. What, no questions about the Winchesters? No gossip? I thought you were the biggest gossipmonger in Hell."
Crowley's eyebrows raise. "You heard wrong."
Brady goes on. "Not that you've been back to Hell in ... what was it, at least a few decades -- "
"Says the demon who's rolling along in a Caddy courtesy of the Horsemen themselves."
That gives Brady pause. "If you're jealous, the boss is always looking for volunteers," he adds.
"No thanks," Crowley says simply. "I'm good."
"You know what?" Brady asks rhetorically, and reaches into the car's mini-fridge to get a pair of beer bottles. Crowley accepts one, fully aware that it's probably dosed with holy water knowing his luck (and karma). "You are good. At your job, I mean. You're a very bad demon, and I don't give that compliment out lightly."
Oh for the love of Hell, he gets it now. It's a performance review. Crowley can't open the beer fast enough. "Cheers," he says dryly, and drinks.
"But," Brady goes on as he opens his own bottle with his precious little Ivy League hands, "there's always the rumors. Nasty little things, aren't they? They never fucking relent. It's all we hear downstairs. 'Oh, Crowley's going to turn any day now', 'Oh, Crowley won't be happy until he's King of Hell.' Do you believe that?"
There's really no point in lying, so Crowley cracks a smile and tells the truth. "Yes. They're demons. It's what they do."
"We're demons," Brady reminds him, and kicks back to drink.
Crowley swirls his free hand in the air to indicate the situation. "And look at us, clucking away like the hens we are."
"Point made. Look, we're here. Thanks, man," Brady says to the driver, and opens the door. "Come on, Crowley. We've got a reward for you."
The neon sign on the building says Lace, and the look on his face must be crystalline for once in his very long life, because Brady laughs the moment he sees it. "That's right." He pushes a roll of singles into Crowley's loose hand, and grins. "It's time to party."
The girls are all tits and ass and hairspray, and this is what Crowley both loves and hates about humanity. It's all about animal urges, whether they like to admit it or not, and they're more than willing to hurt and maim and exploit their fellow man or woman just to get that thrill they're looking for. It's a cheap and awful instinct, magpie and natural, but at the same time so incredibly human, because for every exploitative and nasty action, a human can turn around and play the B-side, compassion and love and insight.
Crowley doesn't have time to order a drink before Brady orders a round and a lapdance for him. The girl can't be older than 21, could be underage for all he knows, but her tits say woman and her hips say mother. He watches her hungrily as she dances, but once she's in his lap, it's fucking nothing. It's the same old motions that every woman thinks she created, but only one woman did.
Her.
By their third round, Brady is laughing at some line the stripper's shot back at him and Crowley can't shake the feeling like his teeth are on edge, like he can taste the absence of everything right about his life in this moment on the tip of his tongue. It's not that he wants something. It's that he doesn't have what he needs.
Obviously Crowley's sampling the vast array of women and demons at his beck and call. A demon as powerful as Crowley, he's got the vast array of people beneath him to choose from, men, women and demons who all want power as much as he wants an escape from the fucking trap he's in. It isn't that he hasn't tried to escape into sex and alcohol and revenge.
It's that it hasn't worked yet.
"Lilith," he says to Brady. The best lies are part-true, so he lets himself talk. "Fucking Lilith."
Brady is watching a brunette whose legs are wrapped fetchingly around the pole. "What about her?"
Crowley's watching her now, his glass halfway to his mouth as the stripper's hips move. You were my favorite. "He can bring her back. Can't he?"
Brady's gaze instantly leaves the girl as he stares, unbelieving, at Crowley. "That's what you want? You want that scary bitch back and walking this shithole? We're all better off, you know that."
Crowley can't let that pass. "Let me get this straight, Death's stable-boy thinks that Lilith is scary?"
Oh, Brady isn't happy. He hit a nerve. "Who told you that I was -- "
"No one," Crowley interrupts. "But using the company car, really? It's transparent. So to speak," he allows, and goes on. "A pale horse. I know cars -- ah, Brady. And I know the ins and outs of the Apocalypse better than you can imagine."
"About that," Brady says, a snap to his tone now. "Lucifer sent me with a message."
Crowley tries very hard not to laugh, but it starts to crack his facade until he's grinning widely and warmly condescending. "Lucifer... sent you?" he confirms.
"Yes," Brady says, defensive. "And watch your tongue, boy -- "
"Boy?" Crowley cuts him off. "I've been tempting since before you were teething, and don't forget it."
"I know that not twenty years ago you were a traitor to your own kind," Brady hisses, and Crowley's smile only grows at his irritation. Things haven't changed at all.
"Hey baby," a brunette in a g-string and pasties greets Crowley, and he returns a "Hello, darling" along with a big wad of cash.
"Mate, you need to lighten up," he says to Brady, who is distastefully eyeing Crowley like he's slithered too close to his ankles. "Now what's the man downstairs have to say to little old me?"
Brady finally relaxes once Crowley's indicated that the bartender is watching them, and crisply says, "Keep out of it."
"Is that the advice -- sorry, message, or just a tidbit from you?" Crowley checks.
"That's the message," Brady confirms tersely, and waves a waitress over. "Now shut the fuck up for the rest of the night, Crowley, I'm trying to have fun."
Crowley shrugs, self-satisfied as ever, and pulls out his Blackberry to check his e-mail. The date is set in stone, you guys -- November 20!! HOW AWESOME IS THIS? Love, Becky Rosen!
He doesn't resist the smile that comes to his face. Brady, Hastur, whatever he calls himself and whoever he's working for, he's not remotely smart enough to put it all together. Even Lucifer is too fucking ego-driven to suspect someone might play a long game against his angelic ass.
It's surprise enough when the lights flicker out in his house three weeks later, but he's ready.
"Go," he says to Mariel, and can't keep the smile from his face as he lifts his drink to his mouth.
Everybody plays the fool, some time
There's no exception to the rule, listen, baby
It may be factual, it may be cruel, but I ain't lying
Everybody plays the fool
Spring 2010
The first thing Crowley does after handing the Colt off to the Winchesters -- besides hope that they won't blow their brains out by accident or in a fit of pique -- is break Aziraphale's contract. He's already made the majority of his preparations, and in an economy like this, the Pacific Northwest is full of little cabins that are more than abandoned. It's time for all that planning to go into action.
He fires off one single message from his Blackberry before he destroys it, a private message the conspicuously bookish theory-happy account on morethanbrothers.net named Rafell.
Run. Now.
-C
Crowley isn't the sort of person who does much hoping, what he does is avoid and ignore and wait for things to go away, but there should be some sort of sign that Lucifer's been blown away. Two days away slumming in a house with water tinted brown from rusty pipes and leaves scattered across the floor is not remotely Hell, but he was never one to savor anticipation.
Anticipation is for optimists.
It occurs to him as Thursday morning arrives, sunlight graciously toeing the edge of his door, that in handing off the gun he has in fact finally made a decision. The sabotage is out of its planning stages, and now the future of the earth as they know it is in the Winchesters' hands.
He drops his head back against the thin mattress and grimaces at the paint peeling off the ceiling. On one hand, if you want something done well, do it yourself. On the other, better them than him.
Night falls. There's no sign of anything. The silence is much worse than whatever implosion or explosion he expected, and it hangs over his head like the fucking sword of Damocles until he finally just digs out his book of magic.
It's a balancing act is what it is, keeping enough protection on the house to keep Heaven and Hell from crashing through his door, but enough of a crack to allow the performance of any sort of magic.
"This is depressing," Crowley says to himself, and rolls his eyes as he ties off the hexbag and sets up the altar. "Should have kept the gun, 'least I can shoot straight -- " He lights the candles with a snap of his fingers and tosses a match onto the plate.
He was never very good at Enochian and it's a shot in the dark, but if he's lucky --
"You really didn't think this through, did you?" a crisp and apparently English voice says, and then Crowley sees him, skeletal thin and bemused as he looks back at Crowley. "This had better be good."
"Yes, hello," Crowley answers before the terror really sets in and that is Death, standing right there. "I take it Lucifer came calling last night?"
Death rolls his eyes. "Yes, he did. Is that all? Your Lord and Master does have so many plans for me, I had best get to work."
His eyebrows raise at that. "My Lord and Master," he echoes.
"Yes," Death says simply, and appraises him with his head tilted back just so. "Your days are numbered, Crowley."
"Well, you'd know," Crowley says, pithy as he dares in the literal face of Death. "Any way I can convince you out of killing me?"
"I said days, didn't I? I'll be leaving now -- Lucifer's to-do list calls." Crowley's eyes are watering with the effort of seeing the illusion of an anthropomorphic personification that his meatsuit's eyes can comprehend as opposed to the real Death, all darkness and shadows and the scythe at his side. It's a battle he's losing. "GOODBYE," Death's real voice rings out like funeral bells.
"Wait," Crowley blurts out.
Death is staring at him, plainly unamused. If he could, Crowley would honestly slap himself, but he's got something to say. "You could stop this."
"No. I can't," Death says, weary and impatient like a parent talking to a child, and vanishes.
Once he's alone, it starts to sink in that the Winchesters failed, Lucifer's still merrily strolling through God's Creation and Death, Destroyer of Worlds, has a to-do list from that pretty-winged fucker. "Fucking blessed bloody hell," he curses without a care for sense or anything like that, and flicks the candles out with a wave of his hand.
Just as quickly, Crowley vanishes to the crossroads just north of his house -- the other house, the house he'd lived in for months on end -- but the house isn't there. There's just a shell of a house, a fucking husk left from when Hell thought it would be hilarious to put the place up in flames. [35]
"You bastards," he says to the universe in general, seething and enjoying every second of it because this is just it, this is just the reminder he needed. This is what he'll throw back in their faces once he's won.
There's crime scene tape over the door, but no one is there -- no demons, no humans, nobody. It's just him walking down that same corridor the Winchesters tread before they took the gun that prophecy kept him around to deliver, the light from the pool dim and red as it reflects against the windows.
Red.
He goes to the now broken glass doors and opens them, distastefully stepping over the shards of glass that provided some demon with a few seconds' amusement. It's only a few more strides before Crowley can see what's in the pool.
At first he can't tell exactly what it is -- animal or human -- but then the bloated thing floats slightly in the breeze and he can see the face on it, or what remains of the face. Even though it looks like an overenthusiastic hellbitch took a bite out of him with human teeth, it's obviously Belling.
"Really now," he says, low and irritated. [36]
It just sort of makes sense when he hears low rumbling of a hellhound slowly waking up, and he rolls his eyes as he turns to see the hulking thing five feet tall and deliciously fucking evil.
Then he realizes, and he smiles. "Hello, darling."
The hound runs to him and nearly bowls him over; if it weren't for a wise sidestep on Crowley’s part he'd have wound up in the pool with Belling. "Look at how you've grown! Which one are you now..."
The hound sharply barks and nudges Crowley's side, and Crowley is smart enough to check the tags. "There you are, Bishop. Coming with Master, are we?"
One more enthusiastic bark gets him laughing, and he hauls Bishop back before he tries to turn Belling into a chew toy. A far-off howl gets him back to hiding, and he sends off into the nearby forest Bishop to happily roam, while he regroups.
It only takes a handful of months of eavesdropping for him to get the gist of it, and he's filled three composition notebooks full of ideas like some sort of madman [37] out of cabin fever or misguided helpfulness or really just for something to do, when there's a knock on his door.
It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and that's what's dangerous about it. No one should be able to find him, and that's why it really shouldn't surprise him who's there.
"Hi," Jesse Turner -- the Antichrist -- supplies, looking up at him like he's going to offer Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn or whatever it is the children are selling these days. Then he brandishes Death's sickle. "This is for you."
"For me," Crowley repeats. The Antichrist is giving him Death's sickle?
"Not for you. You can't use it. Ever. It's for the Winchesters," Jesse clarifies. "But not now. Later. I think." His eyebrows furrow. "You'll know when they need it, but for now you need to hide it. But because you're hiding, we thought it could hide with you."
Crowley mouths hopelessly, lost for words for once in his long, long existence, then says, "This is Death's?"
Jesse frowns at Crowley. "I took it from him. You're missing the point. I know you're a demon, but you're doing good. And if you keep doing good, then maybe you can have your friend back. Okay?"
Crowley just manages to get past the idea of taking something from Death when he realizes what he's just heard. "You have Aziraphale?" he dares ask.
"You can't have people," Jesse says reasonably. "I know where he is and I know he's your friend and I can make him better again. But I'm not gonna do it unless you help us. All right, Mister Crowley?"
That's a better deal than he's ever made, probably. "All right," he agrees, and shakes the Antichrist's free hand. Jesse thrusts the sickle into Crowley's free hand and says a polite "Thank you" before he vanishes from the step.
Crowley is left staring out at the horrible view from his stoop, and shuts the door, holding the sickle aloft as though it's radioactive. He buries it as deep as he can, walls it up in the basement, and rests against it once the job is done.
"It's all going according to plan," he murmurs to himself, and laughs, though it isn’t even remotely funny.
Whose plan is it when it comes down to it, he has to wonder?
... rings, he hears from the coin in his pocket, and pulls it out to listen more closely. Crowley examines the tarnish on the coin as he thinks of the dull flash of candlelight off of the ring on Death's hand, and flicks it in the air as he smiles like a snake.
"Tails," he hisses once he sees the coin in his palm, and laughs aloud, more satisfied than he could explain at even the slightest glance at the cosmic chess board. He gets it. "I win."
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Characters/Pairing: Crowley-centric. In this part, Lilith, OFCs and OMC demons (Vivienne, Mariel and Tristane), Becky Rosen, Tyson Brady, Hastur, Death and Jesse Turner; Crowley/Lilith, Crowley/Aziraphale, Crowley/OFCs.
Rating: R.
Word count: 7747.
Warning: Disturbing, gory imagery involving children, major character death, sexual themes.
Note: This fic is set in a merged 'verse, with GO background and setting for the SPN Apocalypse plotline, with Crowley being the nexus of both. (Also, to see the footnotes, mouseover the link.) Spoilers up to SPN 5x21. Credit to occultebelta once again for the beta job, as well as dramaturgy.
Summary: May 2009 to Spring 2010; Crowley puts his plan into action and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. It occurs to him as Thursday morning arrives, sunlight graciously toeing the edge of his door, that in handing off the gun he has in fact finally made a decision. The sabotage is out of its planning stages, and now the future of the earth as they know it is in the Winchesters' hands.
Chapter 1: 1987 to 2007; how Crowley survived the aftermath of the Adam Young incident and rose to prominence beside Lilith.
Chapter 2: 2007 to 2008; Crowley sizes up the players and stacks his deck in preparation for the coming Apocalypse.
Chapter 3, Part I: Late 2008 to early 2009; Crowley's reconnection with Aziraphale raises a series of questions, and leads to its inevitable conclusion.
May 2009
All Crowley has left of Aziraphale is his parting gift: a checklist. There are over three-hundred seals, so it's said, but the angel dug up as many as he could find and put them on a checklist. The better to keep track of the Apocalypse with, he has to suppose, but at base it's completely absurd. A checklist of celestial proportions -- a checklist that could end the world. Horrible acts perpetrated by agents of Hell with a little tickybox next to them.
Aziraphale is better at keeping track of human news than Crowley is, always has been, but being King of the Crossroads has its benefits. Seals are breaking faster than Lucifer could have hoped, and demons are more than happy to crow in passing about them. Despite that orderliness is next to godliness, and the sentimentality of it all, he dutifully notes every last seal upon its breaking.
This time it really feels like the world is ending. Last time was a close shave, that edge of terror and near-death that reminds you that you're alive. A trial run, maybe. This feels more like the life-flashes-in-front-of-you, actually-going-to-die-this-time part, like the real thing.
Practice runs don't include real power, real deaths or real, inescapable consequences.
Sometimes it flashes through his mind at random, during a day, or it pops up as the first thought in his head as he wakes. You broke a seal. Sixty-six seals and he broke one of them. Sixty-five seals then Lilith dies, and he helped.
Every time he looks at the Colt he thinks about Bela Talbot, her drive to survive, no matter how many lives she destroyed in the process -- about Aziraphale, his million faces and his last, strangely angular face, immaculately-kept blond hair, and lips apparently made for awkward, desperate kisses -- about the terrible mess Vivienne and Tristane made of his carpeting.
Those four souls are just a handful of those he's sacrificed to remain King of the Crossroads and concubine to Lucifer's favorite hellbitch. He should feel worse about that, but he doesn't.
No. The problem is Lilith. Seeing Lilith is difficult. Seeing Lilith is necessary, to his career (such as it is) and to his sanity. Prophecy says he hasn't got much time left to enjoy her, and the idea is enough to jerk him awake from his sleep, and make every moment she's away and breaking seals intolerable for her absence.
It's down to her, really. Even fate knows that there's no prying her out of his soul. It knows he won't, he couldn't. The rumors haven't stopped flying since Crowley concocted a story about a Colt-wielding Aziraphale murdering the underlings and forcing him to make the deal at gunpoint -- half of Hell suspects he's still a snake in the grass ready to snap at the first opportune moment -- and they're not wrong. But they're not right, he's not a traitor to Hell, either. He's done more for Lucifer himself in the last twenty or so years than in the last two millennia.
That, if nothing else, proves it. He hates Lucifer, and more every day, but if it weren't for Lilith, every spare horrific and lovely inch of her, he wouldn't have done a sodding thing for the Morningstar.
And he has. Breaking a seal is apparently enough proof for the second-best Lucifer fangirl Mariel that he's 100% Hell-friendly. When she comes onto him, he doesn't bother turning her down. [17]
It's spring, bright and cheerful and sunny outside, all flowers and showers as the world ends. The sixtieth seal broke four hours ago, and he's still resting in bed lazily with Mariel, stretched out with his laptop open while she contentedly paints little nonsensical symbols on his headboard with the blood shed in the night's celebration.
Mariel breaks the comfortable silence after ten minutes or so. "You're being boring."
"Someone's clingy," Crowley returns, tempers it with a half-smirk in her direction, and taps the enter key to sign into the website in front of him. Her eyeroll barely registers. He doesn't have much longer to tip the Winchesters off about where he is -- prophecy could afford to be a little more specific on certain aspects of all this -- and the Supernatural fan community is likely his best bet. [18]
Of course, the fans are a bunch of inane idiots. They're humans. It's to be expected. But some of them are smarter than others.
"I miss Viv," Mariel says out of nowhere. [19] "Do you?"
"Sometimes," he admits. "I don't miss that blessed witch, though."
The little co-ed whose body Mariel's borrowing has the perfect face to express the disgust that she feels towards the demon formerly known as Tristane. "He thought he was funny."
"He was definitely not funny," Crowley confirms, and strokes her hair absently, with easy affection. The forum's abuzz about a theory from a delurking commenter about series 3, book 15, Time Is On My Side. He clicks, concertedly expressionless, and skims it. "What's the first thing you're going to do when Lucifer rises?"
"I want to make them run," she decides after a moment of thought. "I want to send a hellhound after any humans I can find and watch it tear them into pieces."
He's only half-listening, but he can't help a vague smile at the thought. Once Lucifer springs his cage, it'd really be a mercy for a human to die as a demon's entertainment, considering the alternative. "I haven't introduced you to Bishop, have I?"
That perks Mariel's interest. "Who?"
Crowley opens his mouth to answer her question but abruptly shuts it as there are definitely demons approaching his house. "Up. Clothes," he orders her, tersely, and shuts the laptop.
She looks blank. "What? Why?"
He pulls on his trousers and is halfway through buttoning his shirt before he bothers answering. "If you don't know already, I'm not going to bother telling you."
"Oh -- oh." Now she gets it. Good girl. "I'll go -- "
"Good idea," Crowley concedes, sparing her a glance. She's half-drunk off his blood and fumbling with her dress, and no one can say he's not a gentleman -- he zips it up for her. She rewards him with a kiss, and he pats her cheek before she vanishes.
There's no warning, as always, but he knows. It's Lilith. She's been in a frenzy, a bloodlust, a depression and a mania all in her burning insanity, and he drops anything to see her whenever she'll have him, even if it means he has to see her rend the world piece by piece because he's too cowardly to even attempt to spit in the face of prophecy.
He hopes she hasn't brought a project home tonight.
Crowley rounds the corner and he hears the click of her heels against the floor before he sees her, and the sound of what he thinks has to be the sort of luggage with wheels, until she appears at the end of the hall. She's dark and ancient and gorgeous in a long yellow dress and a meatsuit whose mouth is too suited to that terribly wicked-and-innocent smile of hers, teeth white and perfect and ready to snap. And she's got a stroller.
There's a second where he recognizes what she's pushing along in a pram like a proud mother, but then he accepts it. It's second nature. "Hello, pet."
"Sixty seals, Crowley." It's been so long that he's almost forgotten what her voice can do to him, chill him to his core, fear for his life, get him hard and send him reeling. All he can do is watch her approach. "We have to celebrate."
Her hand grazes his arm and he follows her to the bedroom. It doesn't occur to him to spare a glance into the stroller until she leans over and pulls a wine bottle from inside of it, and that's when he sees the two dead babies curled up inside. It's bizarre how they look like macabre porcelain dolls, a knife and two champagne flutes between them -- now that he thinks about it, it looks more like a demon's fruit basket.
"I had them picked special," Lilith starts, as he sits and puts some distance between himself and the dead babies. "For us. For tonight." She pours the wine -- no, not wine -- into the flute, and unable to resist the draw, drinks.
He doesn't resist when she finally pours him a glass of the blood, but it sits limp in his hand. "Why tonight?" he prompts her.
She's left lipstick marks on the glass as she hungrily goes back for more. The look on her face is always so humbling; no matter how hard he's tried, the ecstasy on her face mid-fuck doesn't even get close to the utter pleasure she wears now, sucking down baby blood. It's hard for her to even find words for a moment. "We're almost there," she says, and swallows, pensive as she tastes the blood again, like a fucking wine connoisseur.
What does she expect him to say? She sits and he can't help but move close, kiss her cheek and nonverbally beg for the slightest bit of attention. "I know," he says against her skin. [20]
"No rest for the wicked," she goes on, her fingers threading their way into his hair. [21] "Two more seals fall tomorrow." She takes the hand that's loosely gripping the cup and draws it to his lips. "I want you to come with me," she murmurs, barely audible.
Baby blood. He absently notes the tag on the stroller where his gaze falls as he simultaneously tries to pretend he's anywhere but here and soak in every second of this. It could be the last time. He sips, opens his mouth, and drinks like it's nothing, like every step closer to becoming like her doesn't scare the fucking decency out of him.
"Good," Lilith pronounces, her hand warm and light on his thigh.
"I've got business," he mentions, belatedly; did he agree? He can't remember. She's done her usual spell or something, or he let Mariel have too much of him tonight.
"I know you're not interested in anything but your deals." Her tone isn't exactly withering, but it's close. Crisp, maybe. "Soon they'll all be ours anyway, Crowley. You don't need to work so hard."
Crowley drinks from his flute like it's anything and puts on the act. "Supply and demand," he says, frankly. "They're demanding, so we're supplying. Business is always good in times of trouble, and you, my pet, you have been up to some trouble."
Now she's smiling. "Always," she says, and the s closes on a hiss -- as he starts to smirk, she kisses him, hard. He can taste the blood in the corners of her mouth, the stickiness of her bloody fingers on his face and against his scalp. It's time like this, when he's drunk on power and desperation and snogging the fucking harbinger of the Apocalypse, that he really hates Aziraphale for being 100 percent right about him. He would kiss her in the wake of murder and hand her the flame with which to burn down the world as they've known it since the Fall, and he wouldn't apologize for a blessed second of it.
As she pulls away from him, he thinks, for the first time, really thinks about unloading the Colt in her face.
Her eyes are cold and white as he looks into her face and fuck. Prophecy. It comes down to prophecy. He hates prophecy, especially when it knows what he's going to do before he does, or worse, ignores his free will entirely. [22]
She puts a hand to his face, fond and cold and sinuous like she's always been, goading him and backing him further into the corner with every look and word and kiss. "Is something wrong?"
Crowley has to wonder if she knows. It's not out of the realm out of the possibility that she's toying with him in some elaborate game of cat and mouse, that she's known about the Colt all along. "Nothing," he lies sleekly. "Contemplating your proposition. I could use a break from the idiots on the sales floor."
"Please, Crowley. Pretty please." Lilith bounces on the bed and sets her empty glass aside, impatiently wresting his from his hand and tempting him onto the bed beside her. "Let's have some fun for once! There's always so much work to be done."
He can't deny her. Not in the situation she's in, the situation they're in -- no, the situation he's in. It's all about to be ripped away. Lilith is as good as dead, the world that he loves and hates all at once is about to be sunk into a sewer, and he won't have the angel's sanctimonious conduct to put up with until ten years' time. Right now is all he's got.
She guides his hands to her back and he unzips her dress, and once she slides the straps of her dress down her shoulders, he just knows, he fucking knows he won't be the one to pull the trigger. Vivienne was right -- Aziraphale was right, he was right. The Fall never ended. They were always headed towards this, the world just one long downward, self-destructive trajectory towards temptation and blood and All Pit, All the Time.
And it's all down to Lucifer and his fucking ego.
Lilith drips the blood down between her breasts and he gives in. It's not temptation now, it's addiction and fear and love that drives him to treat every second like it's golden and cherished because it is.
Days. It could be days, he thinks, as they watch the sun rise. He doesn't even remember the date until he sees his Blackberry and he knows, it's almost time. Thursday. Thursday is when she breaks the final seal, when Lucifer breaks out, when she's supposed to die.
"Sixty seals," he says aloud.
Lilith sighs and moves closer to take the phone from his hand, easily pitching it across the room (it bounces into a corner). She kisses him on the mouth; it's a different house, different furniture, and different bodies, but they might as well be the same demons in the same scene from 1998, a tableau of temptation. Pride and lust and you were always my favorite. "I know you like your pretty little planet," she says briskly, "but Lucifer loves it more than anybody. More than humanity. He'll... he'll cleanse it of their filth with fire and blood and then it's ours, not theirs."
"Mm," he says, non-committally. [23]
She doesn't look amused. "We've spent all this time slithering around at their feet, nipping at their heels," she reminds him, her mouth against his ear now, "just to lead them to the time when we take this world and form it in the likeness of our Father's image." He's trying to divert his attention but she forces him back with her hand around his chin. "This was always meant to die. The world is only just beginning."
Oh, he understands. "Of course, pet," he agrees, and lets her touch him, admittedly surprised by her sentimentality. [24]
She releases him and leans back on her elbows, and relaxes in this unusual way, really, like a lion dozing in the savannah sun. "Do you know?" she asks after a long moment of comfortable silence.
The misery's settled to the bottom of his stomach. There's no shaking it. "I know lots of things, pet," he says, barely ironic. He doesn't have the energy.
"I asked you a question, Crowley." Her fingernails press against his chin, and he meets her gaze, her white eyes cloudy and sharp with pointed anxiety. "Do you know."
She's barely pushing him at all, but he's so close to the edge with her now that he can't resist. "Yes," he forces out. "Yes. I know."
There's this flash of something in her eyes, like she's thinking about ripping out his throat as he's seen her do to a least a dozen demons who dared to think they could keep secrets from her. To his relief, it vanishes.
"Say it." The words are brittle as she snaps them out.
"And it is written that the first demon shall be the last seal," Crowley recites wearily.
Just on the edge of his mind he can feel her clenching around his willpower, and he's losing his grip. "Have you been working against me?" she asks, gently taunting and dangerous, like the soft brush of a snake's coils before its fangs take hold.
"No." Crowley finds words, finds himself, and speaks. [25] "No, never against you." [26]
"I know you, Crowley." Her words are almost as potent as his. "I know you never stop. I may not be your maker but I made you what you are today, and I know you haven't been sitting here fucking around for months. What do you want, who are you working for?"
Easy enough to answer. "The rise of Lucifer and defeat of Michael."
"No!" She forces it out from between her teeth and it doesn't need to be a scream to freeze him where he sits. "TELL ME THE TRUTH."
"It's the truth," he retorts and tries to swing his legs off the bed, but he isn't quick enough. She straddles him and pins him down, and even the King of the Crossroads can't fight fucking Lilith in her dark and furious glory.
"Say it, Crowley," she hisses, and once she's got his throat pinned against the down pillow, that's when it hits him, cold and awful -- she could tear him apart, rip him from this body and roast him alive, throw him back into the Pit or kill him on the spot, no mercy, no regard. "Tell -- me -- the -- truth!"
It's too much. "I did it for you," he manages.
Her eyes narrow and her head tilts to the side. "Then you want me to be happy," she says, all soft and baby-voiced. "So don't stop me. I want to do this, I've always wanted to do this. It's more than worth it."
"Is it?"
He hears it leave his mouth and fear drenches him in that instant. "Yes," Lilith retorts, and it's a snap like the clean break of a bone. She slams her palm against his forehead and he expects an exorcism for the split second before the images scald hot into him, through him --
the instant -- streaming tears nearly dry on her face --- when Lucifer, archangel aflame and glorious with a voice that bends her near to breaking, finally snaps the last hope and anchor inside her
And she is free and new and broken and hopeless and full of pride and wrath
His, every inch His.
She's crying when he recovers, the sobs mercilessly cutting through her. It's ugly and painful and resembles dry heaves more than anything else by the time she collapses against him. If this was supposed to change his mind, it hasn't. It's only strengthened his resolve.
"He would let you die to take this world," Crowley snaps off and oh it feels good to be honest and angry for once. [27]
Lilith's hands go to her face as she tries to compose herself. "We were all created for a reason," she says after a long moment. "This is mine."
Patience is a virtue, Aziraphale would say. "You're just a key in a door to Him, pet, think about this."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Her voice's gone soft, pitying, sentimental. He hates her for all the affectation of real emotion, real motive, real personality; she's the worst demon he knows simply because she's malice pure and simple, shameless, flawless destruction pointed at the Heavenly adversary, Lucifer's trigger to pull as prophecy foretold.
"It's love," Crowley says. [28] "I understand."
"It's fact," Lilith retorts, and leans forward, shoves his chin back to tilt his head against the pillow. "I'll die? So what."
He considers that. [29] "I don't want you to," he answers.
She nods to accept his answer, and releases him, comfortably settling beside him. "At least you admit it's selfish after all," she says finally. "I thought you might try to stand on principle."
"What, me? Never."
"Two of five left to break," she adds, offhand, her hand gentle on his face. "The new boss would like it..."
Crowley exhales, and keeps his face carefully blank. [30] "I'll check my schedule."
Lilith gestures with her hand and pulls the Blackberry through the air, to the bed. "You know," she starts, upon offering it to him, "your obligation ends with me."
"My obligation," he repeats.
"To the Crossroads. Once I'm gone, abdicate -- sleep another century. Or don't, because you're fantastic at it," she says. [31] "But you can walk away."
"I'll keep that in mind," Crowley concedes, and Lilith rolls her eyes, but kisses him on the mouth, fondly.
It's that kiss he remembers when a pillar of light bursts through the skies in Ilchester, Maryland three days later. It might have been wishful thinking to imagine that she'd visited him for more than sex and an assurance of a successor, but that kiss -- it felt like a goodbye.
He might not have loved her, but he had the chance. The Colt still rests in the bedside table, where it rested that night, and he let her leave.
Five more seals, fifteen innocent human lives and the end of the world, but he would have given more than that for one more day. Now he's alone in a motel, Lucifer walks free, and he's more alone than ever.
"Big mistake, mate," Crowley says aloud, lightly, as he types away on the laptop. "Because now I've got nothing and nothing to lose."
He hits send.
November 2009
Right about the time that Crowley decides that it's unlikely the Winchesters are ever going to show up, the post shows up on morethanbrothers.net.
Supernatural con? PLZ READ!
A convention. If only these morons knew just how useful they were. To be honest, he can't believe how well this whole plan's worked. He's always known that he's just that good, but Becky Rosen, bless her poor mad heart, took the bait hook, line and fucking sinker. It only takes a smidge of effort to set up a number of fronts from which to donate a fistful of dollars to the Supernatural series fan convention.
He's feeling very smug indeed when his Gmail account pops from a blank inbox to (1). It only takes a glance at the screen for his mood to instantly deflate. Becky Rosen. He opens it once he feels appropriately steeled for the oncoming storm of stupidity.
Hi AJ!
It's always SO great to hear from you; just wanted to say thx for the donation and all the great programming ideas! you are totally right btw, but I can't ban Fritz, it would be completely undemocratic and fandom is the most democratic place ever!! (that's ok, we can all have him to point and laugh at LOL! j/k)
Remember if you want to carpool, there's the sticky at the top of the forum!! GO GREEN! lol
E-mail me back okay? And don't forget I would be HAPPY to beta for you any time. We always love more writing (especially PWP)
Love,
Becky!
For a second he's left blinking, as though he's rammed his head against a wall or something equally unforgiving, but then he recovers, sighs, and begins to compose an e-mail in response. By the time he's cringed his way through the netspeak and convinces himself to hit send, his drink is warm and someone's ringing his doorbell.
"Humans," he says to himself, and goes to the door. It's probably something pointless, like the post or Neighborhood Watch. [32]
Crowley can vividly remember the last time he opened his door to see the bastard who's standing on his step now: 1987, he'd rigged a whole bucket of holy water to roast him and his mate Ligur before they had a chance to drag him back to Hell due to his massively fucking up the whole Antichrist thing. Obviously, it didn't work out the way he'd planned, which was not Hastur up and walking and showing up at his door.
"Duke Hastur," he greets him, dryly and condescending as he dares. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Please, they only call me that downstairs," Hastur says, and grins. "It's Brady now, Tyson Brady."
"Whatever you say, Saved By The Bell. Fancy a drink?" Crowley offers.
"Nothing sacred," Hastur -- no, Brady -- cracks; apparently he's a smartass now. He saunters into Crowley's house and examines the place. "How domestic. Got a ladyfriend staying here too?"
He eyes Brady distastefully as he tries to pick a bottle of something that wouldn't go to waste on this wanker, but won't insult him. Nothing comes to mind. "I can decorate my own place, thanks," he says, filling a glass with water.
"You always were too fond of this kind of thing. Forget the drink," Brady says, straightens his lapels and pops his collar. He's not wearing a tie. How quaint. "We're going out."
Crowley almost wants to make an excuse, but then he sees the Cadillac in the driveway. It's sleek, pale, fucking gorgeous, and the second that he gets classic car lust in full force, he realizes that it clearly belongs to a Horseman. Hastur is driving a Horseman's car. Safe to say he's somewhat obligated to play along. "Works for me," he says with a shrug, and follows him down the walk to the car.
"Let's go," Brady says to the driver, and snaps his fingers. The driver barely looks back at them, but Crowley knows he's a demon as well. Low-ranking. Scum, really. "So, Crowley! I was called in to check in on you. King of the Crossroads. See if there's anything we can give you to make your life easier."
"Hell wants to make my life easier," Crowley repeats, bemused at the very idea.
"Hey, Crowley." Brady gives him a friendly nudge. [33] Crowley sends him a warning look, and he goes on, unabashed. "Our Father owes so much to you. All he wants to do is repay that debt. Any way you want it, that's the way you need it, we get that."
Crowley raises a hand to stop Brady talking. "Journey? Really?" he has to ask. [34]
"I spent two years corralling a Winchester in the right direction," Brady informs him with an eyeroll. "It was hard not to hear the greatest hits in all that time."
Crowley sets a skeptical gaze on Brady. "You. With the Winchesters."
Brady raises a single finger. "One. One Winchester. Our Sammy. But keep that under wraps, I'm trying to keep it humble."
"Oh, you worked for Azazel, I wondered what got you so far up the ladder. Did you fuck him?" Crowley asks, casually needling.
"No," Brady retorts neatly, "we don't all need our cocks to make our way out of the Pit. What, no questions about the Winchesters? No gossip? I thought you were the biggest gossipmonger in Hell."
Crowley's eyebrows raise. "You heard wrong."
Brady goes on. "Not that you've been back to Hell in ... what was it, at least a few decades -- "
"Says the demon who's rolling along in a Caddy courtesy of the Horsemen themselves."
That gives Brady pause. "If you're jealous, the boss is always looking for volunteers," he adds.
"No thanks," Crowley says simply. "I'm good."
"You know what?" Brady asks rhetorically, and reaches into the car's mini-fridge to get a pair of beer bottles. Crowley accepts one, fully aware that it's probably dosed with holy water knowing his luck (and karma). "You are good. At your job, I mean. You're a very bad demon, and I don't give that compliment out lightly."
Oh for the love of Hell, he gets it now. It's a performance review. Crowley can't open the beer fast enough. "Cheers," he says dryly, and drinks.
"But," Brady goes on as he opens his own bottle with his precious little Ivy League hands, "there's always the rumors. Nasty little things, aren't they? They never fucking relent. It's all we hear downstairs. 'Oh, Crowley's going to turn any day now', 'Oh, Crowley won't be happy until he's King of Hell.' Do you believe that?"
There's really no point in lying, so Crowley cracks a smile and tells the truth. "Yes. They're demons. It's what they do."
"We're demons," Brady reminds him, and kicks back to drink.
Crowley swirls his free hand in the air to indicate the situation. "And look at us, clucking away like the hens we are."
"Point made. Look, we're here. Thanks, man," Brady says to the driver, and opens the door. "Come on, Crowley. We've got a reward for you."
The neon sign on the building says Lace, and the look on his face must be crystalline for once in his very long life, because Brady laughs the moment he sees it. "That's right." He pushes a roll of singles into Crowley's loose hand, and grins. "It's time to party."
The girls are all tits and ass and hairspray, and this is what Crowley both loves and hates about humanity. It's all about animal urges, whether they like to admit it or not, and they're more than willing to hurt and maim and exploit their fellow man or woman just to get that thrill they're looking for. It's a cheap and awful instinct, magpie and natural, but at the same time so incredibly human, because for every exploitative and nasty action, a human can turn around and play the B-side, compassion and love and insight.
Crowley doesn't have time to order a drink before Brady orders a round and a lapdance for him. The girl can't be older than 21, could be underage for all he knows, but her tits say woman and her hips say mother. He watches her hungrily as she dances, but once she's in his lap, it's fucking nothing. It's the same old motions that every woman thinks she created, but only one woman did.
Her.
By their third round, Brady is laughing at some line the stripper's shot back at him and Crowley can't shake the feeling like his teeth are on edge, like he can taste the absence of everything right about his life in this moment on the tip of his tongue. It's not that he wants something. It's that he doesn't have what he needs.
Obviously Crowley's sampling the vast array of women and demons at his beck and call. A demon as powerful as Crowley, he's got the vast array of people beneath him to choose from, men, women and demons who all want power as much as he wants an escape from the fucking trap he's in. It isn't that he hasn't tried to escape into sex and alcohol and revenge.
It's that it hasn't worked yet.
"Lilith," he says to Brady. The best lies are part-true, so he lets himself talk. "Fucking Lilith."
Brady is watching a brunette whose legs are wrapped fetchingly around the pole. "What about her?"
Crowley's watching her now, his glass halfway to his mouth as the stripper's hips move. You were my favorite. "He can bring her back. Can't he?"
Brady's gaze instantly leaves the girl as he stares, unbelieving, at Crowley. "That's what you want? You want that scary bitch back and walking this shithole? We're all better off, you know that."
Crowley can't let that pass. "Let me get this straight, Death's stable-boy thinks that Lilith is scary?"
Oh, Brady isn't happy. He hit a nerve. "Who told you that I was -- "
"No one," Crowley interrupts. "But using the company car, really? It's transparent. So to speak," he allows, and goes on. "A pale horse. I know cars -- ah, Brady. And I know the ins and outs of the Apocalypse better than you can imagine."
"About that," Brady says, a snap to his tone now. "Lucifer sent me with a message."
Crowley tries very hard not to laugh, but it starts to crack his facade until he's grinning widely and warmly condescending. "Lucifer... sent you?" he confirms.
"Yes," Brady says, defensive. "And watch your tongue, boy -- "
"Boy?" Crowley cuts him off. "I've been tempting since before you were teething, and don't forget it."
"I know that not twenty years ago you were a traitor to your own kind," Brady hisses, and Crowley's smile only grows at his irritation. Things haven't changed at all.
"Hey baby," a brunette in a g-string and pasties greets Crowley, and he returns a "Hello, darling" along with a big wad of cash.
"Mate, you need to lighten up," he says to Brady, who is distastefully eyeing Crowley like he's slithered too close to his ankles. "Now what's the man downstairs have to say to little old me?"
Brady finally relaxes once Crowley's indicated that the bartender is watching them, and crisply says, "Keep out of it."
"Is that the advice -- sorry, message, or just a tidbit from you?" Crowley checks.
"That's the message," Brady confirms tersely, and waves a waitress over. "Now shut the fuck up for the rest of the night, Crowley, I'm trying to have fun."
Crowley shrugs, self-satisfied as ever, and pulls out his Blackberry to check his e-mail. The date is set in stone, you guys -- November 20!! HOW AWESOME IS THIS? Love, Becky Rosen!
He doesn't resist the smile that comes to his face. Brady, Hastur, whatever he calls himself and whoever he's working for, he's not remotely smart enough to put it all together. Even Lucifer is too fucking ego-driven to suspect someone might play a long game against his angelic ass.
It's surprise enough when the lights flicker out in his house three weeks later, but he's ready.
"Go," he says to Mariel, and can't keep the smile from his face as he lifts his drink to his mouth.
Everybody plays the fool, some time
There's no exception to the rule, listen, baby
It may be factual, it may be cruel, but I ain't lying
Everybody plays the fool
Spring 2010
The first thing Crowley does after handing the Colt off to the Winchesters -- besides hope that they won't blow their brains out by accident or in a fit of pique -- is break Aziraphale's contract. He's already made the majority of his preparations, and in an economy like this, the Pacific Northwest is full of little cabins that are more than abandoned. It's time for all that planning to go into action.
He fires off one single message from his Blackberry before he destroys it, a private message the conspicuously bookish theory-happy account on morethanbrothers.net named Rafell.
Run. Now.
-C
Crowley isn't the sort of person who does much hoping, what he does is avoid and ignore and wait for things to go away, but there should be some sort of sign that Lucifer's been blown away. Two days away slumming in a house with water tinted brown from rusty pipes and leaves scattered across the floor is not remotely Hell, but he was never one to savor anticipation.
Anticipation is for optimists.
It occurs to him as Thursday morning arrives, sunlight graciously toeing the edge of his door, that in handing off the gun he has in fact finally made a decision. The sabotage is out of its planning stages, and now the future of the earth as they know it is in the Winchesters' hands.
He drops his head back against the thin mattress and grimaces at the paint peeling off the ceiling. On one hand, if you want something done well, do it yourself. On the other, better them than him.
Night falls. There's no sign of anything. The silence is much worse than whatever implosion or explosion he expected, and it hangs over his head like the fucking sword of Damocles until he finally just digs out his book of magic.
It's a balancing act is what it is, keeping enough protection on the house to keep Heaven and Hell from crashing through his door, but enough of a crack to allow the performance of any sort of magic.
"This is depressing," Crowley says to himself, and rolls his eyes as he ties off the hexbag and sets up the altar. "Should have kept the gun, 'least I can shoot straight -- " He lights the candles with a snap of his fingers and tosses a match onto the plate.
He was never very good at Enochian and it's a shot in the dark, but if he's lucky --
"You really didn't think this through, did you?" a crisp and apparently English voice says, and then Crowley sees him, skeletal thin and bemused as he looks back at Crowley. "This had better be good."
"Yes, hello," Crowley answers before the terror really sets in and that is Death, standing right there. "I take it Lucifer came calling last night?"
Death rolls his eyes. "Yes, he did. Is that all? Your Lord and Master does have so many plans for me, I had best get to work."
His eyebrows raise at that. "My Lord and Master," he echoes.
"Yes," Death says simply, and appraises him with his head tilted back just so. "Your days are numbered, Crowley."
"Well, you'd know," Crowley says, pithy as he dares in the literal face of Death. "Any way I can convince you out of killing me?"
"I said days, didn't I? I'll be leaving now -- Lucifer's to-do list calls." Crowley's eyes are watering with the effort of seeing the illusion of an anthropomorphic personification that his meatsuit's eyes can comprehend as opposed to the real Death, all darkness and shadows and the scythe at his side. It's a battle he's losing. "GOODBYE," Death's real voice rings out like funeral bells.
"Wait," Crowley blurts out.
Death is staring at him, plainly unamused. If he could, Crowley would honestly slap himself, but he's got something to say. "You could stop this."
"No. I can't," Death says, weary and impatient like a parent talking to a child, and vanishes.
Once he's alone, it starts to sink in that the Winchesters failed, Lucifer's still merrily strolling through God's Creation and Death, Destroyer of Worlds, has a to-do list from that pretty-winged fucker. "Fucking blessed bloody hell," he curses without a care for sense or anything like that, and flicks the candles out with a wave of his hand.
Just as quickly, Crowley vanishes to the crossroads just north of his house -- the other house, the house he'd lived in for months on end -- but the house isn't there. There's just a shell of a house, a fucking husk left from when Hell thought it would be hilarious to put the place up in flames. [35]
"You bastards," he says to the universe in general, seething and enjoying every second of it because this is just it, this is just the reminder he needed. This is what he'll throw back in their faces once he's won.
There's crime scene tape over the door, but no one is there -- no demons, no humans, nobody. It's just him walking down that same corridor the Winchesters tread before they took the gun that prophecy kept him around to deliver, the light from the pool dim and red as it reflects against the windows.
Red.
He goes to the now broken glass doors and opens them, distastefully stepping over the shards of glass that provided some demon with a few seconds' amusement. It's only a few more strides before Crowley can see what's in the pool.
At first he can't tell exactly what it is -- animal or human -- but then the bloated thing floats slightly in the breeze and he can see the face on it, or what remains of the face. Even though it looks like an overenthusiastic hellbitch took a bite out of him with human teeth, it's obviously Belling.
"Really now," he says, low and irritated. [36]
It just sort of makes sense when he hears low rumbling of a hellhound slowly waking up, and he rolls his eyes as he turns to see the hulking thing five feet tall and deliciously fucking evil.
Then he realizes, and he smiles. "Hello, darling."
The hound runs to him and nearly bowls him over; if it weren't for a wise sidestep on Crowley’s part he'd have wound up in the pool with Belling. "Look at how you've grown! Which one are you now..."
The hound sharply barks and nudges Crowley's side, and Crowley is smart enough to check the tags. "There you are, Bishop. Coming with Master, are we?"
One more enthusiastic bark gets him laughing, and he hauls Bishop back before he tries to turn Belling into a chew toy. A far-off howl gets him back to hiding, and he sends off into the nearby forest Bishop to happily roam, while he regroups.
It only takes a handful of months of eavesdropping for him to get the gist of it, and he's filled three composition notebooks full of ideas like some sort of madman [37] out of cabin fever or misguided helpfulness or really just for something to do, when there's a knock on his door.
It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and that's what's dangerous about it. No one should be able to find him, and that's why it really shouldn't surprise him who's there.
"Hi," Jesse Turner -- the Antichrist -- supplies, looking up at him like he's going to offer Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn or whatever it is the children are selling these days. Then he brandishes Death's sickle. "This is for you."
"For me," Crowley repeats. The Antichrist is giving him Death's sickle?
"Not for you. You can't use it. Ever. It's for the Winchesters," Jesse clarifies. "But not now. Later. I think." His eyebrows furrow. "You'll know when they need it, but for now you need to hide it. But because you're hiding, we thought it could hide with you."
Crowley mouths hopelessly, lost for words for once in his long, long existence, then says, "This is Death's?"
Jesse frowns at Crowley. "I took it from him. You're missing the point. I know you're a demon, but you're doing good. And if you keep doing good, then maybe you can have your friend back. Okay?"
Crowley just manages to get past the idea of taking something from Death when he realizes what he's just heard. "You have Aziraphale?" he dares ask.
"You can't have people," Jesse says reasonably. "I know where he is and I know he's your friend and I can make him better again. But I'm not gonna do it unless you help us. All right, Mister Crowley?"
That's a better deal than he's ever made, probably. "All right," he agrees, and shakes the Antichrist's free hand. Jesse thrusts the sickle into Crowley's free hand and says a polite "Thank you" before he vanishes from the step.
Crowley is left staring out at the horrible view from his stoop, and shuts the door, holding the sickle aloft as though it's radioactive. He buries it as deep as he can, walls it up in the basement, and rests against it once the job is done.
"It's all going according to plan," he murmurs to himself, and laughs, though it isn’t even remotely funny.
Whose plan is it when it comes down to it, he has to wonder?
... rings, he hears from the coin in his pocket, and pulls it out to listen more closely. Crowley examines the tarnish on the coin as he thinks of the dull flash of candlelight off of the ring on Death's hand, and flicks it in the air as he smiles like a snake.
"Tails," he hisses once he sees the coin in his palm, and laughs aloud, more satisfied than he could explain at even the slightest glance at the cosmic chess board. He gets it. "I win."