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sardonic-courtney · 3 years

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Crowley x Reader. We Met Before. Part 7/7

Summary: You end up living with Bobby after your parents die. You go to church and meet Priest Crowley and you end up getting along (if you know what i mean). A few years later when Bobby passes you move the the bunker with Sam and Dean and end up meeting Crowley again.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Warings: Mentions of death, Maybe spelling and language. Age gap.

Around 5000 words.

A little note before we start, this is a lonnnggg one. To be honest I didn’t want to separate it into 2 parts, but hopefully it doesn’t drag.....

A Confused Y/N, A Supportive Sam and A Oblivious Dean.

But no matter what crossed your mind, you would never have known what had been locked up right under your feet for the past 9 days...

**Crowley’s life after he left.

That month had been the best Crowley had in a long time, honestly, he was only supposed to be covering for that damned pastor for a week, but after some convincing, he managed to get 4. He would have stayed longer if he could, but unfortunately, duty called.

“Winchesters, bloody Winchesters. Always getting me tangled up in their messes.” Crowley muttered sitting on his throne.

It had been 2 months since he’d spoken to (Y/N). He felt guilty, really guilty, which was an emotion he thought had long passed him. He didn’t want to just leave her and not contact her. Especially after that last night. But also knew if he talked to her it would be too tempting to see her again, and he couldn’t get her messed up in the stuff that was going on right now. Not a chance could he put his princess in danger. So, he sent the occasional texts, which never got replied to, it hurt him, but nevertheless, he still messaged in hope.

Then 4 years later he deemed it safe to see you again, seeing as he wasn’t being constantly in the line of danger. But you weren’t at the church anymore, and after asking around had found out you had moved but failed to leave a forwarding address. He told his minions to keep an eye out for you, but nothing. He looked for you, but still nothing. It worried him, he hated feeling like you were either avoiding him or even dead.

Once again, the useless Winchesters stopped him on his search, to tie him to a chair. Of course, he could give up the information and resume… but where would the fun in that be?

*Back to present you.

You all reach the door, and Dean turns to you looking serious.

“I know if anyone can manipulate an answer out it's you, but please be safe and don’t rise to his games okay?”

“Dean, I’ll be fine. He’s locked up, what harm can he do.”

“Right of course. Just don’t like the idea of him…” but before he could finish you rolled your eyes.

“I know, now stop being so protective and open the door.”

He complied, turning back, and opening the door. Dean, followed by Sam walk into the clearing in the room, you still behind them. The light was already on, but your vision was blocked by the boy’s shoulders in your way. ‘honestly these two’ you thought, gently shoving their arms apart to walk forward.

That when you saw him. Sat in the middle of the room.

You froze a second, breath catching in your throat. He was looking down and hadn’t noticed you yet. But you had noticed him. Crowley.

But not your Crowley. No. This one was chained down to the chair like a criminal. Which you supposed he wasn’t far off from one. This one was the daemon you had heard so much about, who caused so many problems.

You tried to remember that when you called his name. “Crowley?” you knew your voice was as confused as you were.

His head snapped up; his frown replaced with a smile. A smile that you hadn’t seen for so long.

“Princess, what a pleasant surprise” he spoke in that same accent, it hadn’t changed a bit.

You were met with a mixture of feelings, fighting the urge to go over and hug him in case he disappeared again. But you didn’t dwell on those feelings and wouldn’t give in to your urge. No, you were with your brothers, and you were too confused.

Crowley, your sweet, charming, comforting Crowley. Was the king of hell?

Instead of thinking anymore, you did what you were best at, and pretended like nothing was different. You were here for information. That was all. All you needed was some clues to a case. No matter how strange it was for you, no matter how hard he would be to crack, that was what you were here for. So, you tried to mentally come up with a plan, seeming to forget all the ideas you had on your way down.

Behind you, Sam and Dean looked at each other, then at you. Watching you shrug and step forward into the design on the floor.

Much to Deans dislike. He noticed a slight change in your behaviour. You seemed less confident than you usually would, and he didn’t like it. Sam on the other hand just put a hand on his shoulder and muttered a “wait”.

You didn’t see or hear this exchange from behind you. You instead fought the urge to look at Crowley in the eyes. As much as you wanted to look at him, really look at him, you couldn’t not now, you knew it would just make the situation harder.

But that didn’t last long when his gravelly voice cut through the silence.

“Something you want love?”

It caught you off guard, made you look up at him, into his eyes for the first time. They brought a slight flutter of emotion through your stomach. God, you missed looking into them. Without thinking you spoke.

“Who is hunting hunters, and where can we find them”. Your voice was quiet and small, just above a whisper.

This made Dean look back at Sam. They knew this was never your tactic. Usually, you were slow, warming up to whoever it was. Then just as slowly twisting into their brain. You were never blunt. This made Dean question bringing you down here even more. He assumed you were scared. Assumed that you weren’t ready to handle being face to face with the King of hell and that stupid smirk on his face. Dean also knew that this ‘method’ wasn’t going to get them anywhere. So, he went to move, to tell you not to bother. But once again was met with Sam’s hand on his shoulder, slightly firmer this time, as he muttered a more determined “wait”.

Unlike Dean, Sam had been coming to a slow realisation. Studying both you and Crowley. He noticed the fact you called him Crowley, even though the boys had never mentioned his name to you. He also noticed the way he called you Princess, a name you had called Sam up about countless times. The way Crowley wasn’t mocking you or being rude. Sam was connecting dots, whereas Dean was assuming Crowley was just acting like this to wind them up.

Whilst this was going on behind you, you were still looking at the man in front of you, who had a small smirk resting on his lips. Not a cruel or mean one, but one that would go hand in hand with the slight chuckle he let out.

Crowley had missed you, seeing you standing here in front of him made him surer of that. He had been staring at you since he heard you call his name. He was taking you in. You had changed in some ways, your hair was different, your voice had changed slightly, you had a new style choice. Your outwards appearance definitely somewhat impacted by the Winchester no doubt. But you were still the same. The way you were slightly nervous around him was the same. The way you fidgeted under his gaze, the same gaze that made you whisper out that question, seemingly without thinking. He had seen that look before when you asked him things without thinking, which was what made him chuckle. You were still the same. So, he decided to play along.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he teased.

Out of a reflex, you repeated your previous question. “I uh, I asked what’s hunting hunters and where can we find them.” Straight after saying this and being met with that bloody smirk you mentally cursed yourself, coming to your senses. As if he would just…

“Vampires”. He replied casually. “A group of vampires, around 10 since I last checked. But I’ve been down here for a while so I’m unsure as to how many now.”

“Vampires? But the bodies aren’t drained, well not all of them why would…” you trailed off, they didn’t kill like vampires would, very little of the evidence found supported vampires.

“Exactly. If you want to kill without being caught, you kill in different methods. Helps throw people off their scent. As for where they are, no idea sorry. They more around a lot, but I could find out with just one call below”. He was still looking at you, no matter how many times your eyes left his, his remained trained on you. It made you feel both nervous and safe. “Anything else?”

You turned to look at the brothers, who were too shocked at the fact he answered you to give a proper reply other than Dean shaking his head no.

“No, that’s it I guess”. You replied turning to look back at him.

“So, I can get rid of these chains then?” he says shaking them around, “they are highly annoying.”

Dean butted in for this one. “Not until you make the call”. Dean didn’t like this. Why would he just give in so easily? Must be a trick, or a plan, or something else. He didn’t know what, but it was something.

Sam just stood there still observing the scene. He remembered the calls you two shared, and the man he had come to know through your descriptions. And in front of him right now wasn’t Crowley king of hell. It was the mysterious man you rambled on about until early in the morning.

“Right of course squirrel, just give me blood and it’s all yours,” Crowley said no longer smiling or smirking, taking his eyes off you looking directly at Dean.

Now, this was Crowley Sam thought. He didn’t know how to feel himself, and he couldn’t imagine how you felt. This is why he suggests “(Y/N) come to the library with me whilst Dean deal with this, I need your opinion on the case, enlighten of your new information.”

You just nodded and followed Sam upstairs.

“Wow, thanks guys” you heard from Dean as the door shut behind you.

You both arrive in the library and Sam looks at you and getting straight to the point asks playfully, “So, that’s mystery man?”

“What? How did you?” you were genuinely confused about how Sam could make the connection that quick.

Sam lets out a light chuckle. “It’s obvious.”

“It is?”

“Well maybe not to Dean, but as soon as he called you princess, I started to figure it out”.

You felt your cheeks heat at this. You were slightly worried about what Sam would say.

“How you feeling?” he asks taking a seat on the table, patting the space next to him.

“Honestly?” you say sitting where his hand was, “confused.”

“Well at least we know he wasn’t avoiding you because he was married”. Sam joked.

That was one of the hypotheticals you had come up with during a chat about why he had left and not contacted you. It was random but seemed like a possibility. He had to go home, back to his life, maybe a wife and kids. You hated the thought and it made you angry beyond belief to think it, but well there was always doubt. But as Sam just said, that was now gone, confusing you more. The realisation of why you hadn’t talked for so long sinking in, most of your anger leaving.

“Yeah, there is that,” you say with the best smile you could muster.

“Talk to me”.

“I just don’t know how to feel Sam. Like he’s here.”

“How did you feel seeing him again, after 4 years?”

“Shocked, happy. I missed him, honestly, I fought the urge to hug him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because it’s too weird. The last time I saw him we were hanging out in a hotel room saying goodbye and now he’s chained up in our basement. He’s not the same guy I knew.”

“Isn’t he?”

“What do you mean? He lied, he’s a daemon, not only the that he’s the king of hell. Someone who put your lives through hell, literally.”

“True, but I’m not so sure. He never outright lied to you, like you he just didn’t mention this part of his life. Plus that guy back there wasn’t the douche bag I know.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right it’s just…what am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you want to.”

“Why are you being so cool about this? You should be calling me crazy or lecturing me or, I don’t know something.” You waved your hands around a bit.

“I thought about it, and don’t get me wrong i don’t like him. But I know from the look on your face as soon as you walked in that room you still liked him. I saw the way your breath hitched and the smile you made when you caught his eye. I also noticed the way he was less aggravating when talking to you.”

“This is weird Sam even for us.” You sigh “Do you think there’s a chance he still likes me? God, I sound like such a girl” you laugh out.

You were worried. Not just for the obvious reasons, but also because the feelings you had been suppressing over the last years had suddenly returned, and it made you feel stupid for being like this. Sam understood though.

“I think there’s a very good chance. I saw the way he looked at you.” Sam nudged you causing you both to smile. “Just talk to him, if it’s the same guy it one of the things you two do best.”

“Yeah, I will, after we sort out these vampires. I can’t believe he just gave in.”

“Me neither, you must have him hooked” Sam suppressed a laugh as you rolled your eyes.

“Deans not going to like this.”

“No, no he is not.” Sam agreed, meeting your eye causing both of you to burst out laughing.

“What are you two laughing about?” Dean asked entering the room.

“Nothing” you and Sam stated at the same time, causing another stream of laughs to come out.

When the laughter died down Dean spoke up again, “Right okay…anyway I got the address. Their current place is only an hour away. In an abandoned bakery. But they have gained a few more recruits, now at around 14 of the bastards.”

“14?” you asked worriedly. That was a lot, and from past experiences, you knew that the numbers were always an underestimation. You didn’t like to deal with vampires, the thought of them brought up memories of your parent, plus their teeth were just creepy.

“Yep, what should we do?”

“Get it sorted today. It's only 1 pm now, we can pack our stuff and go there before they kill anyone else.” Sam suggested.

“We need a plan though.” You added.

“Yeah, the plan is to teach them a lesson about going around killing hunters,” Dean added, sticking to his no plan a good plan methodology.

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, “I agree with (Y/N) we need at least a basic plan”.

So, you all discussed a plan of attack for the next half hour. Debating what you needed to bring, how you were going to go about hunting them without being overthrown by all of them at once, deciding to stay in a group was a better idea just in case. Then you headed downstairs to the basement again to get the weapons. Crowley was still chained to the chair.

“So, can I go now?” Crowley asked, seeming annoyed at Dean.

“I suppose so.” Dean heads over and unlocks him, breaking the design on the floor and expecting him to vanish, which he doesn’t.

“When are we leaving?” Crowley asks looking at no one in particular as he flattens out his suit.

“We?” Dean asks, but before he could continue his thoughts Sam butted in.

“About 5 minutes, why interested in letting off some steam?”

You smile at Sam thanking him silently.

“Something like that” Crowley adds looking at you, as you pack some weapons into a brown bag.

Then without any more speaking, you find yourself in the back seat of a fully-loaded baby. To your right was Crowley. In front of you was Sam and driving of course way Dean. It is slightly awkward as the car made its way with nothing but the sound of one of Dean’s playlists playing loudly out of the speakers.

This is a great time for you to think, or more specifically worry about what was to come in the next few hours. ‘it’s only vampires nothing to worry about you try to tell yourself. ‘Sam and Dean have dealt with them plenty of times, sure there will be a lot but it’s nothing we can’t handle.

As you were in your head, Crowley was looking at you. He noticed your absent stare out the window, and your fingers fiddling with the hem of your shirt. The movement of your eyebrows as you thought and debated. He could tell you were nervous and on edge about something, about what exactly he was unsure.

Whilst you had been up in the library with the two Winchesters, Crowley had been sitting thinking. He could only guess at how big a part you had in this. Obviously, you were a hunter, but how long had you been? Had you been one when you first met? Did you hate him? Did you want to kiss him a much as he wanted to kiss you?

But sat in the car with you he only had one thing on his mind, what was up with you.

“Love you alright?” he whispered to you below the music so only you would hear.

“Fine” you whispered back not breaking your gaze out the window.

“Don’t lie”, wasn’t a demanding command, but at the same time, his tone told you do not argue.

You sighed and turned to look at him, noticing a genuine worry etched into his features. There it was again that feeling of security that made you want to open up. “It’s just remember how I said my parents died?”

“Of course, I do. That accident in a factory.”

“Right well, it was an abandoned factory, and it wasn’t an accident, it was vampires.” You paused, noticed he wasn't going to say anything and continued. “I guess I just don’t like the idea of vampires after that, they were great hunters you know, and they well. I just don’t want that to happen to anyone else… Plus, they are creepy.” You added on the end hoping to lighten the mood.

Crowley chuckled before looking at you, then slowly reaching for your hand, which you let him take. It was warm and it made butterflied cycle your stomach.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Then as an afterthought, he added more for your sake, “or those two.”

At that you leaned back in your seat, looking forward. Crowley’s hand still entangled with yours on your lap, as he lent into his seat as well. Sam saw this from the mirror and just smiled. Dean oblivious mouthed the words to the eye of the tiger, whilst driving along the bendy roads.

The fight was surprisingly successful. Overall, you had a few cuts and close calls, but it was over. Crowley had stuck keeping an eye on you the whole time, this not being his thing but keeping you safe any chance he got. all 4 of you stopped at a motel on the way back, seeing as it was late and safer to freshen up and sleep then make a drive back in the dark when you were all tired.

So, you pulled up to a motel and got a room. It was a room with one double and a single bed. The same as the three of you usually got. You called dibs on the first shower. After your shower, getting change into something comfortable, you left the bathroom to be met with Sam and Dean waiting. Dean headed into the shower.

When the water turned on Sam turned to you. “Crowley said he was popping back down to hell.”

You nodded not knowing what to say, you were tired and ready to sleep, although part of you was annoyed, he didn’t say goodbye you couldn’t blame him. He was unexpectedly gone for 3 weeks. You yawned, laying down on the single bed. “Goodnight Sam”

“Goodnight sleep well”

And you did. A few minutes after closing your eyes you were out like a light. Which meant you were the first one awake.

Stretching and clicking your back, thanks to the cheap mattress you opened your eyes to the dimly lit room, the source of light being the sun peeing out behind the blinds. Sitting up you look to your right seeing Sam and Dean still asleep on the other bed. To your left you see your phone, checking the time. 11 am. You slept in, and it felt good. Smiling you turned on the bedside light so you could see to get clothes out of your bag. You heard a groan from your right. Dean was up.

“Turn of the light,” he said covering his eyes.

You laughed at his childish tone, “Dean it's 11 I’m getting up whether you like it or not.”

But Dean looked at you the laughed.

“What?” you asked confused.

“Nothin’ just your hair munchkin. It's everywhere”

You rolled your eyes heading to the bathroom to get ready for the short trip back. Your mind kept wandering back to yesterday. Did this mean he was back? Were you two going to hang out again? Did he want to hang out? Was it bad how he still made you feel nervous and excited at the same time? Sam was right he had looked happy to see you.

A knock on the bathroom door snapped you from your thoughts.

“Sorry one sec.” you directed to the other side.

“No worries just letting you know we are dressed and ready to go when you are,” Sam called out.

**Time Skip**

You head back to the bunker, grabbing food on the way back. After getting back you put things away and then all sat in the kitchen, talking about the hunt.

“…the way you sliced his head clean of; I was proud munchkin,” Dean said.

“I learned from the best,” you said building up Dean’s ego before adding “so I guess I should thank you for being such a great teacher, Sam”.

Dean had an offended look and Sam smiled at you before the three of you started laughing again.

“It was weird though Crowley being there right,” Dean said thinking out loud.

That made you quiet, sending a quick look to Sam.

Dean being still oblivious continued, “I think he’s up to something, but it was kind of funny seeing him in the back seat of baby, he looked very out of place. I just hope he’s not going to make a habit of joining us”.

This time it was Sam who sent you a knowing look.

“I’ll be right back just going to grab a book.” You said slipping out from under the wooden table heading to your room to grab the novel you were currently halfway through.

Sam and Dean continued talking.

“I’m not the only one who thinks it's weird right? He must be up to something. Why else would he just give us the information?”

“I don’t know Dean. Maybe he just wanted to be let out so he could go back to do whatever he does.” Sam answered. “Don’t think too hard about it, your head might explode.”

“I won’t but something doesn’t seem right” Dean added before you walked back in, book in hand. You resumed your seating position and began to read.

Sam and Dean started talking again, this time about meaningless things. They tried to include you a few times before giving up as you were too into your book. Or so they thought, in reality, your mind was thinking about yesterday again, and then about before and what was to happen now. You had concluded there was nothing you could do. Deciding to follow Sam’s advice and do whatever felt right when the time came.

4 hours passed, time spent doing a few chores and watching a few episodes of a show you been watching, before being called into the kitchen once again by Dean. It was around 6 pm

“What’s up?” you walk to see Sam and Dean debating something. “Should I be worried?”

“Yes. This is a very concerning matter.” Dean said looking at you seriously.

‘What’ you thought. ‘what could he be on about’.

“what’s the matter now?” you asked.

“Dinner,” Sam answered rolling his eyes at his overdramatic brother.

“How is that a concerning matter Dean?” you say through a breathy laugh.

“Because I’m hungry and we don’t have any food.”

You moved past him to look in the cupboards. There was food. Pasta, rice, sauces. Then in the fridge, there was meat and cheese.

“Just because you can’t make anything other than burgers, doesn’t mean there’s no food Dean. There is loads.”

“I can make other things than burgers,” Dean argued back defensively.

“Really because you never have?” you tease back.

“She has a point dude” Sam adds further annoying Dean.

“Yes, I can, and I have…” Dean goes quiet looking to the right of you.

You follow to where Dean was looking and see Crowley stood about 3 meters away from you.

Dean groans “What do you want now?”

You stay quiet, as does Sam.

“Well seeing as business is now over,” Crowley says turning his body to fully face you. He has dressed once again in a black suit, looking smart. His hair slightly messy, his jaw and chin covered by a thin trimmed beard, and well he looked good. A smirk played on his lips as you met his face, he obviously hadn’t missed the fact you had been looking him up and down.

“Hello Princess, I missed you.”

At this, you couldn’t help but walked up to him and hug him. Head resting in the crook of his neck, your arms on top of his shoulders as he used his grip on your waist to pull you closer. He kissed the top of your head as you muttered an “I missed you too.”

This was a feeling you missed. But before you could get used to it a hand grabbed your arm, lightly pulling you back out of Crowley’s grasp. Accompanied by Dean’s voice. “Woah wait for a goddamn minute. What’s going on here?”

You looked down at the floor. “You uhh…You remember when you came over on my 18th?”

“Yes?” Dean replied unsure of where this was going.

“Well, the ‘friend’ I was hanging out with was Crowley.”

“Excuse me? You mean the guy you were dating?”

You didn’t reply, unsure how to put it. Sure, you went on dates, but you weren’t technically dating, were you?

Dean looked at you then Crowley, then back at you. Taking your silence and an answer. “Crowley? You were dating Crowley? That’s gross he’s like 100 years old, plus don’t even get me started on...”

Your bit your lip, still looking down. You knew Dean would react like this. it was understandable but it still stung. The tone in Deans lecturing voice made you feel small, whereas usually you would brush him off and tell him to shut up, now you had no response.

“Dean” Sam’s voice cut him off, saving you from even more of a lecture.

“What?” Dean turned to look at his brother. “Wait you gotta agree with me here. This is crazy and the fact she didn’t even tell us and, why don’t you look shocked?”

“Dude I knew” Sam stated.

“What, how?”

“It was kind of obvious”.

“What and you're just okay with this?” Dean was nearly speechless, you wished he were fully speechless, it would be easier that way.

“What can I say, man, he’s good to her.”

“He’s…. I’m sorry, has everyone lost their mind. Is this a trick? I swear is Gabriel here or something.”

“No trick Dean, it’s hard to explain, but it’s the truth,” Sam said simply.

Your wish had come true Dean was officially speechless. Looking from Sam to you to Crowley then back again. Crowley made his way over to stand by your side.

“Thanks, Sammy,” you say smiling at him.

Sam looked to Crowley then to you, with his brotherly grin on his face he said, “Go catch up, I’ll deal with him.”

Crowley puts his hand on your shoulder causing you to face him. “Seeing as you now know we can go anywhere. Where shall we go?”

“Anywhere?”

“Yes”

“Well, I do believe you promised me a trip to {D/P}.”

THE END

Little Extra:

Crowley pulls you into a kiss and you blip out of the room.

“Did they just?” Dean asks Sam.

“Yep”

“But why would?”

Sam chuckled leading his brother to sit down. “Common I’ll tell you about it”.

“She just kissed a bloody daemon… I think I’m gonna throw up”.

A/N... Well i guess that's that then. I’ve been going over this for the past like week debating if it’s the right ending or not but I can’t really see where else to go. I’m also not sure if I’m going to add another short shot after touching on their little trip to make up for the lack of ‘romance’ in this but we shall see. Thanks for reading guys.

#supernatural #Crowley Supernatural #supernatural x reader #crowley x y/n #crowley x you #crowley x reader #crowley #PriestCrowley #xreader

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jiejie-eonni-onee-sama · 3 years

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My boyfriend is back...

For the dearest @fandoms-are-my-friends-1321 💟💟

Hope you’ll enjoy the story!

TW: swearing.

It is a warm and calm summer evening, and (Y/N) walks down a London Garden, enjoying the perfumes and colors of the flowers around her.

She smiles while remembering the delightful afternoon she spent with Aziraphale in his bookshop. Despite their differences, the two often get along, and he always welcomes her in his charming shop with a steaming cup of tea and some pastries.

She should thank Crowley for introducing her to the gentle angel...

Thinking of Crowley, the female demon can not help but smile as she wonders about their date. Where will they go today? In a country around the world or in a secret place? He always manges to surprise her...

As she feels the soft wind on her skin, she hears a deep voice behind her:

"Going somewhere, beautiful?"

Surprised, the young woman turns around and sees Hastur, one of the Dukes of Hell, standing behind her, with a crooked smile on his cracked lips.

(Y/N) sighs: since a couple of years, Hastur never ceases to woo her, which pisses her off, most of the time. She might well say no every time he asks her out, he does not stop his courting.

Cringing, she asks:

"What do you want, Hastur?"

"Oh, why so stern with me? It's not because I am Duke of Hell that we cannot be friends!"

"We do not have the same conception of friendship!"

Hastur laughs, exposing his crooked teeth to (Y/N), who resists the urge to puke.

"You have some character... I like that! No wonder why you are Our Devil Lord's favorite!"

"Are you jealous?"

"Jealous? Me? Oh no, my dear: in fact, I am quite impressed that a young demon like you is already in Satan's good books. But you prove yourself being worthy of His attention!"

He comes closer, much to (Y/N)'s disgust, and resumes:

"But I'm sure there is another reason..."

"I'm impatient to hear it!" she says with irony.

(Y/N) shivers with hatred as he gently strokes her hair.

"Perhaps your beauty strikes him in the first place! I cannot blame him..."

Sickened, the young demon hits his hand and replies:

"Hands off, you jerk! Try to touch me once again, and I swear that you will regret it!"

"Come on, don't be so sissy! This is not like we commit a crime..."

"In your point of view, maybe, but I am already with someone!"

"Who?"

(Y/N) answers with a grin:

"You know my boyfriend, or should I say, you HATE him!"

"Wait a minute... You mean that you have a relationship with this filthy being named Crowley?"

"Correct!"

"How can you waste your time with this stupid and worthless creature?"

"I don't know... Should I list the reasons alphabetically or chronologically? Oh, wait, I know: I should emphasize the differences between you and him!"

"Like what?"

"Maybe, unlike you, he knows the convenience of a bathroom?"

The Duke of Hell snarls:

"I'm not effeminate like him! I'll never lowering myself at the same level as him!"

"He is far better than you!"

"I doubt it, my lovely... He will never reach my level!"

"For sure, but my fist would probably reach your face if you don't back off right now!"

Both demons turn and see Crowley, who seems enraged. If his eyes could throw flames, Hastur would turn into ashes!

"What are you doing here?"

"Preventing a brute like you harass my girlfriend!"

"Come on, Crowley! We both know that you don't deserve a girl like (Y/N)"

"May I fix your statement, moron? YOU don't deserve a girl like (Y/N): she is too good for you!"

(Y/N) was amazed by the anger within her lover: she never sees him angered to this point. He doesn't need to get mad at this point, so why now?

The answer strikes her: Crowley acts like that because he is freaking jealous! She never suspects him being jealous: of course, he is very protective towards her but jealous... What a blow!

Meanwhile, the two male demons still verbally fighting:

"Since when did you bother my girl? Answer me, you jackass!"

"I don't have to justify myself, you useless snake! I have the right to talk to (Y/N) if I'm pleased to do so!"

"Talking? Are you kidding me? You were trying to take her from me, you hypocrite!"

"So what? You should not have the honor to touch her!"

"Nor do you, you sick old pervert!"

"What happens here?"

Crowley, Hastur, and (Y/N) turns and notice the presence of Aziraphale.

"I heard you yelling. Are you okay?"

"Everything is okay, Azi. Besides this old creep who tries to woo my (Y/N)!"

"Mind your business, you despicable angel!"

"Sorry, sir, but when someone annoys my friends, I have to intervene!"

As Hastur is about to answer, a deep voice booms under their feet.

"HASTUR!"

The three demons freeze as they acknowledge the voice of their almighty lord, Satan himself. Even Aziraphale stays silent.

Shivering with fear, the Duke of Hell demands with a quivering voice:

"Yes, O my powerful King of Hell?"

"Instead of embarrassing my dear (Y/N), I command you to come back down here! You have some duties left, and I HATE when I am waiting for results! So, if you don't want to experience the same sufferings as sinners, you better come here RIGHT NOW!"

"Yes, my Lord! I arrive as soon as possible, Your Wicked Highness!"

"And don't offend Aziraphale! I don't need having God on my back because of your silliness!"

"Of course, my Devil King! Here I am!"

And immediately, Hastur disappears in a dark cloud of smoke. After that, Aziraphale takes (Y/N)'s hand in a reassuring gesture:

"Are you alright, my dear?"

"Yes, thank you, Azi. You don't have to worry..."

She glances at Crowley.

"My knight in shining armor was here to defend my honor!"

"And I am very good at it!" proudly claims the demon.

"I do not doubt it... I leave you there: if I remember well, you two have a date tonight!"

"That's right!"

"Perfect! I return to my books! Have a lovely date!"

"Thank you, Azi-dearest! See you later!"

"Bye, Azi!" waves Crowley.

As the angel leaves the garden, the young woman asks her boyfriend:

"Do you really needed to be enraged at this point?"

"Of course, I need to! This creepy bastard was annoying you!"

She smirks.

"Aren't you jealous, Crowley?"

"Me? Jealous? Never!"

(Y/N) rolls her eyes: among all the demons, her lover is probably the most stubborn!

"Crowley, you were at this close to kill him! You were pissed that he was trying to seduce me!"

"I can't let this old dumbass wooing you without intervene!"

The female demon laughs:

"Oh by Satan, Crowley! You did not need to be as terrifying as Our Devil Lord to protect me!"

She cups his face between her hands.

"But I'm so glad that you're here to protect me. Thank you, my beloved!"

"Always there for you, my evil princess!"

The two kiss passionately. After the two lovers part away, she asks:

"So, where are we going today?"

"Ah-ah! This a surprise, my sweetheart!"

With a magic trick, he opens a void and asks her while offering his hand:

"Are you ready, my flame?"

"Always, my snake!"

As the two start their date, (Y/N) happily smiles as she enjoys her boyfriend's company.

Now, she is sure that if Hastur dares to try seducing her again, he is going to have trouble...

My boyfriend's back, and you're gonna get in trouble (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back)

When you see him comin', better head out on the double (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back) oooh

You've been spreadin' lies that you know were untrue (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back)

So look out now, 'cause he's comin' after you (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back)

Paris Bennett - My Boyfriend’s back

(Yes, I listened this song while writing) 😂

Thanks for the reading!

I hope you enjoy it!

Have a nice day! 🥰😘😍

#requests #good omens #crowley #hastur #david tennant #anya chalotra #ned dennehy

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holycatsandrabbits · 5 years

Text

“Crowley, my dear, have you been undermining the moral fabric of society?”

There was a slight tremor of laughter in Mr. Fell’s voice as he called out from the front of the bookshop.

Back in the shop’s seating area, Audrey was watching a guy named Sam do Mr. Crowley’s eye makeup, painting glimmering, jade-green scales that spread from his golden snake-eye contacts up to his eyebrows and then out over his cheekbones.

“What, today?” Mr. Crowley yelled back. “Nah, I’m off the clock.”

Audrey could hear Mr. Fell talking to someone. “And I can assure you that I haven’t been doing any, ah, undermining myself, so I’m afraid we can’t help you with your, er, complaint.”

There was a sound of stomping on the bookshop floor and an angry stranger appeared out of the stacks, followed by Mr. Fell, who looked some polite version of annoyed. He wasn’t supposed to see Mr. Crowley’s makeup until it was done, so Mr. Crowley quickly put on his sunglasses.

The angry man glared at them, and Audrey shrank down into her hoodie a little, curling her legs up under her on the couch. She liked to come to Mr. Fell’s shop after high school and hang out—the rainbow flags displayed outside had drawn her in—and this was the first time she’d ever felt uncomfortable here. In a quick and strangely graceful movement, Mr. Crowley rolled his chair so that he was in between her and the stranger. Audrey hadn’t even realized that the bookshop’s big armchairs had wheels on them.

“Look at what is going on back here!” the man snarled. “You’re corrupting the youth!”

“Oh, no, no, not at all,” Mr. Crowley assured him, relaxing back into his chair. “No corrupting going on. We charge extra for that.”

The man spluttered. “You are all going to Hell!”

Mr. Fell put his hands out and spoke soothingly. “That’s...unlikely. In any case, we have found that there is a way to deal with all questions about Heaven and Hell, and that’s simply to love. Love will never lead you off the path. If you—”

“It’s perversion!” the man exclaimed. “A man wearing make—” But the second that the stranger pointed toward Mr. Crowley, he suddenly clutched at his stomach. “Loo?” he groaned.

“It’s not for the public, I’m afraid,” Mr. Fell answered, sounding quite as if he were sincerely sympathetic.

As the man turned on his heel and ran out of the shop, Mr. Crowley snorted a laugh. He rolled his chair back over to Sam, careful now to face away from his husband as he set his sunglasses back down. “That was not very angelic of you.”

“You’re a bad influence on me, dear.”

“Right. I love how when you do something rude, it’s still my fault.”

“Oh, I love it too,” Mr. Fell agreed. He turned to Audrey. “I’m sorry. I hope he didn’t upset you too much.”

Audrey just shrugged, still somewhat withdrawn into her sweatshirt.

“Do you like makeup?” Sam asked her. “I know not everybody does. Believe it or not, I married a woman who never wears it.”

“How ineffable,” Mr. Fell remarked and Mr. Crowley made a snorting noise.

“I do, but I’ve never worn it before,” Audrey said, and Sam showed her a tray of eye shadows with so many blues that it looked like a painting of the sky. Finally the words she’d wanted to say for a while came tumbling out of her mouth, quite easily, even if they did carry the weight of her world on them. “I think I’m a girl.”

Mr. Fell gave her a very fond smile. “Oh, I’m so honored that you felt comfortable sharing that with us. Do you have a name you’d like us to call you, or would you like to stick with Jacob?”

“Audrey,” said Audrey.

“Very nice,” Mr. Crowley spoke up. “Classic name.”

Audrey felt a little warmer then. As Sam started showing her how to apply eye shadow, he asked Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell how they’d met. In answer they gave a convoluted story told with much bickering and shushing of each other. As far as Audrey could tell, the point was that their families hadn’t gotten along.

“We made a new family,” Mr. Fell said. “Right here.”

“My family’s been okay with it so far,” Audrey said. “It’s just—I feel so confused. Sometimes I wonder if God made a mistake with me.”

For a split-second, Mr. Fell seemed to almost transform in front of her eyes into something else, something huge and glowing and magnificent. “My dear child, you are in no way a mistake. People aren’t made just male and female, that’s too limiting for God.”

And then he was just Mr. Fell again, all in mild shades of cream and blue tartan. Audrey blinked, wondering if something was wrong with her eyes or the lighting in the shop.

“Even if your family’s supportive, you’re still welcome to be part of our family too,” Mr. Fell told her. “It doesn’t matter if you’re confused, we can just all be confused together. Things can be quite lovely that way.”

Mr. Crowley changed into a black suit with a black shirt and tie for their date, and between the contacts and the makeup and something else that Audrey couldn’t quite put her finger on, he almost looked more serpentine than human. When Mr. Fell saw him, he literally blushed.

As Mr. Fell was locking up, Sam handed the tray of blue eye shadows to Audrey and refused to take payment for them. “If you want any more lessons, we can set them up at the bookshop. There’s a really strong be yourself vibe here. Even for me, a straight, cis-gendered guy who does makeup for a living. It’s a safe space.”

Mr. Crowley laughed. “Of course it is. Belongs to an angel.”

As they watched the Bentley drive away, Audrey said, “You don’t really think—”

Sam cleared his throat. “That Mr. Crowley doesn’t wear contacts? That Mr. Fell is a tartan-wearing, super-gay literal angel who curses homophobes with diarrhea? Yeah, pretty sure.” He shrugged. “Like I said. Bookshop’s a place to be yourself.”

******

When my dad let us know that she was also my mom, this was our rallying cry: Let’s all be confused together! I can report that it has been, in fact, lovely. (Helps that our whole family is queer as a bus full of unicorns.)

Mr. Fell’s bookshop ficlets master post

Find me on Ao3: HolyCatsAndRabbits (Dannye Chase)

#Dannye writes #Good omens #ficlet #trans character written by daughter of a trans woman #queer characters written by queer author #outsider perspective #Mr. Fell's bookshop ficlets

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jinxthequeergirl · 5 years

Text

Out there (pt.3)

Crowley x Nephilim!reader

Summer: Crowley attempts to scare you out of the deal several times before things go down hill

Warning: none

I suck at action writing I'm so sorry and this was supposed to be longer but I flippin ran out of room so yikes?

~~~~~~~

After what seemed like several hours of you going back in forth with yourself. you were stuck deciding if it was really a good idea to have left the house with a strange man, then again you would go further into the forest admiring everything you saw telling yourself that you never wanted to go back.

Crowley sat on a tree stump and watched it all unfold in front of him until finally you fell into the grass with a groan. He walked over to you and looked down at you eclipsing your view of the Sun.

"Listen, princess-"

"Y/n." you said

"Right, well ...it seems to me that you are having your own little internals battle here." he pulled you off the grass. "And what I'm thinking and hear me out.why don't we take you back? You give me my belongings and we part ways as unlikely friends?"

He have you your book and began leading you back the way you came. You stopped And turned to him pointing the book at him.

"NO! We made a deal here! And when I make a deal I NEVER go back on them. You got it?" he his hands in defense. "Alright. Alright ..."

Then another idea struck. "Hey are you hungry? Cause I just so happen to know this wonderful little spot not to far from here actually!"

"Really?" you fell into step beside him. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Sure! I promise you princess you'll love it there!"

You both walked in science for a bit before Crowley finally spoke again. "So what are you? If you were completely human I could tell but-" he waved a hand in front of you. "It's Just a whole mess of...I can't even tell."

"I...i...What I am is no concern to you now is it?"

He hummed in response as he continued on.

After a few more moments Crowley perked up. "Here it is!"

They turned the corner and Crowley opened his arms to a small building with a dirt path leading to it and a wooden sign outside it that read.

"The feathery wings?" you questioned as he looped his arm in yours and pulled you to the door.

"C'mon you can't tell me you don't smell that and want a taste of what they are cooking up in there!"

"I guess…" he smiled and pushed the door open. "WAITER! Your finest table please!"

Everyone in the room quickly turned that attention to the both of you. You instinctively stepped back behind Crowley. "Anthony there all demons!"

He smirked. "oh calm down! There the loveliest bunch of demons." This again was a lie. The feathery wings was a restaurant put on earth for demons to get away from hell. Some of the worst demons in hell came to it to forget there problems. But not just demons came to this place.

It was a particularly popular spot for a group of powerful beings out of work again.

"You!" someone from the back boomed as a glass slammed against a table. An extremely pale person stepped through the crowd. Their eyes were silver and hair was white.

"I know you!" three others stepped out from behind him. One with long red hair, one thin as a twig, the other...well it was hard for you to see any distinguishing feature on the fourth.

"Ah well if it isn't the horsemen! What a lovely surprise!" Crowley beamed. The four of them scowled. "It was a big mistake, you coming around here." the redhead said.

"Oi famine this the demon you was tellin us about?" the one referred to as famine nodded to a demons question.

Your grip tightened on your book and you took hold of crowley's shoulder.

"Anthony…"

He put his hands out making sure no one touched you and slowly backed away. "Listen boys I think me and my friend should be carrying on with our day so-"

You both winced when the door slammed shut. "Ya know we heard hasturs looking for you! Stole something pretty important huh?"

"Well I'm sure-"

"Them your probably in big trouble then?" asked death. Who you had only assumed was death upon learning that they were all the horsemen.

"Famine why don't You go fetch the duke himself?" he nodded and quickly vanished. "Anthony what did you do?"

"Really none of your concern now is it?"

You sneered at him but he was quickly pulled away from you. "He's mine! The sooner Hastur learns I caught the trailer the sooner I'm rewarded." a demon yelled holding Crowley in an arm lock.

"Anthony!"

Another demon pushed you out of the way in an attempt to grab him. Soon enough the whole room was fighting over him. "Hey! Hey!"

You tried to reach your hand into the mix to grab him But failed. You huffed finally grabbed a bar stool stood on top of it. And swing your book across the back of the head of who you had learned was war.

She stopped and turned to you. And everyone froze. "Can you bumbling bunch of idiots stop for a moment and let him go!?"

"Why should We do that cupcake? He's done much to deserve to be let free!"

War argued. Which Crowley in response gave a small nod in agreement too. You gave him a look of disbelief.

"That may be true...but I need him I know your a bunch of big baddies and whatever but just find it in what's left of your heart's and help me out here."

"Why?"

You groaned and lowered yourself down to sit in the bar stool. "Alright listen I'm not going to bore you guys with the whole story...so! Long story short I've lived my entire life in a house farther out past the forest here and This house has been surrounded by wall's. Big stone wall's that tower over the house you see."

The demon who was currently holding onto Crowley dropped him and moved forward to listen to your story.

"Why where there walls around your house?" asked pollution pulling up a seat. You stopped and noticed you had caught the attention of everyone in the room.

"Oh well you see my dad he's a little over protective of me. He built the home himself and told me that anything past the wall's was evil and would come for me!"

"If you couldn't leave the wall's why are you here now?"

You smiled and pointed at the demon besides Crowley. "Good question my friend. Well you see as a child I read lots and lots of books I have stacks on stacks of them back home and it has always been my dream to explore this world! Luckily for me Anthony back there-"

Everyone shot an inquisitive look back at him and he shrugged.

"He stumbled across my house I held him hostage and convinced him to take me and here we are. Please you have to understand I need this."

Everyone fell silent and thought. "If we let you go, what will you do?"

"Well everything I can!" You answered death. Crowley looked around at the lot of demons confused on Why they were so invested in. "Well your father is bound to notice you've left if he hasn't already! What's one thing you've really wanted from this trip?"

You thought for a moment. "Well I've always wanted to learn how to dance!...and I've once read about these things called fireworks! I would really love to see some!"

Everyone have you a warm slightly dazed look like they were in love with you. It was weird to see any lot of demons act like this. But something about honesty intrigued the group.

"I found them!" famine announced stepping into the room. Everyone turned to him. Crowley quickly got up and pulled you behind the counter.

A demon, not Hastur, not Ligur stepped inside first. They were smaller with an oddly large fly utop there head.

"Beezlebub…" Crowley muttered from beside You. You moved to peek over But Crowley stopped you.

"Where is He?"

Pollution apperened behind the counter next to the both of you. "Here." they pressed one of the floor boards and it opened up leading to a tunnel. They handed you a flashlight and smiled. "Go live your dream if that demon hurts you I'll handle him."

Crowley rolled his eyes and slid down into the tunnel. "Thank you!" You kissed pollution's cheek and followed Crowley into the tunnel clicking the light to life.

"That was...that was impressive didn't think anyone could just command a group of demons like that."

"I know right!" You said excitedly causing him to arch a brow. You cleared your throat. "I know." you said more cool this time.

"But anyways Anthony where are you from?"

"Oh no I don't do back story! I am however untreated in your story."

"There isn't much to tell."

He rolled his eyes. "C'm-" something echoed through the cave and you both stopped. "Crowley!" He quickly grabbed your wrist and started racing out of the cave.

"Anthony, what's happening!?"

"They caught up!" You both came to an abrupt stop as you finally made it outside. And there you were faced with a large cliff, a dam, and a cliff not to far across with what looked to be your only escape. You both glanced behind you and saw them coming closer.

"Who's that?" you asked pointing to Hastur who until now you hadn't seen.

"He doesn't like me." He responded.

Another demon appeared on the other side of beelzebub. "Who's that!?"

"Can we assume just for this moment that everyone about to show up doesn't like me?"

You huffed and shoved both the book and flashlight into his arms.

You grabbed a rope from the ground and an old mining tool quickly tied them together. While you did so Crowley did his best to fight them off.

He used the book to bat away some of the demons they brought along with them. You finished, swing it around a bit and launched it across the gap grabbing onto a wooden support for the dam. You pulled it to tighten it and handed the rope to Crowley before taking the book back.

"Go!"

"What?"

"Jump!" You pushed him, he quickly got the idea and took a running start. Just as he jumped from the cliff you flung the book at beelzebub.

And jumped wrapping your arms around crowley's shoulders. And you two swing across. Crowley laughed and spun around to face them on the cliff.

"You should see the looks on your-"

But of course just before He could finish the support beam you where using snapped.

And you both let out a cry as you went flying towards the ground. Crowley reached to grab you and after a few attempts of grasping the air, he finally caught your hand and pulled you into his chest.

Hastur and beelzebub raced to the side to watch both of You hit the ground.

As you two did you rolled out of crowley's arms getting the wind knocked from you.

"Quick don't let them get away!" You coughed a bit as you sat up. "Anthony…" You made your way to him and looked up at the dam. Which all supports where now snapping in half and crumbling to the ground.

"Anthony get up!" He groaned as you pulled him on to his feet.

The demons still attempted to climb down the latter in a rush, water began pouring from the wall of the dam ready to burst at any given moment and you looked around helplessly for a way out.

Your eyes finally landed on a small cave opening just ahead of you. You wrapped crowley's arm around your neck and placed a hand on his torso and helped him along. "C'mon demon! You can't die on me yet!"

You picked up the pace as soon as Hastur hit the ground. "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!" Crowley looked up to see that the dam had finally given out and with in that exact moment scooped you up and raced towards the cave.

The water came down hard and fast shaking everything in the small area. Rocks began to fall from above and Crowley quickly slid into the cave before rock's closed both of you inside.

He set you down and you both began to run as water started rushing in but found nothing but a dead end.

tagging:

@writer-of-camelot

@popbubblegumpop

@jaksfanficsaver

@delightfully-anonymous

@the-hufflebird-girl

@ibjessjess

@steampowerednightvaler

@dadzawas-eyebags

@redcresent

@lizzietheizzie

@bobfromfinance

#crowley x reader #good omens x reader

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dolphin-bouillabaisse · 5 years

Text

GO-ctober Prompt, 26

Inktober except without the ink, and with drabbles instead.

Prompt #26 - Dark

(previous | next | beginning)

(find it all on Ao3)

(Note: I tried to do a 5+1 thing, but it kind of didn’t work. Anyway. Here’s 5 times Crowley saved Aziraphale from trouble in the night, and 1 time Aziraphale returned to favour.)

Lindisfarne, 792

“I would find a different monastery if I were you.”

The voice was deep, reverberating off the hallway around the church's courtyard. Aziraphale, whose head was still half-stuck in the prayer he'd just finished inside the building, whipped around to see Crowley, leaning against a pillar.

“What are you doing here? This is holy ground!”

“Apparently not.” Crowley lifted one foot and shook it. “Guess just outside the church doesn't count anymore. Luckily.”

Aziraphale, his monk's habit skirting along the ground, quickly made his way to the demon. The sound of his feet echoed just like their voices had, alone in the empty gardens at nighttime, as the other monks had already finished their last prayers and retired to bed. God knows what would've happened if any of them had discovered Crowley in here, and Aziraphale was sure to let him know-

“Again, you should find a different monastery.”

He'd not even opened his mouth to scold him yet before being interrupted, and all he could answer with was a short grumble.

“I'm quite happy here, thank you very much.”

“Maybe.” Crowley shuffled his feet on the ground with a sigh. “But Hell is definitely not happy with this place. You know. Spreading faith to Northcumbria. They're going to find a way to cause trouble soon, I suspect.”

“You suspect.”

Another sigh. “Alright, I know. It's not my assignment, but -” Crowley looked at him, and Aziraphale almost wanted to believe there was kindness in those eyes, just a tiny bit of softness and care. It wasn't that hard to believe. “Stay away from sea-side monasteries, angel. At least for a while. Find yourself a nice holy place in-land.”

He'd not given him time to answer before he turned and left. Aziraphale stood for quite some time, wringing his hands, not unlike they'd just been clasped during prayers. He wasn't quite sure if he should really follow the advice of a demon, as much as he wanted to. He stared into the darkness where Crowley had vanished, the cold wind from the seaside a small howl through the night.

A year later, hearing the distraught story of the viking raids from the travelling visitors in his monastery deep in the English country side, he was glad he had listened during that night.

Glencoe, 1692

“You have to leave. Now.”

Aziraphale was still blinking in confusion, after something – or rather, someone – had shook him awake from his simple beddings of a blanket over hay. He stared up into very familiar serpentine eyes, surrounded by an also familiar, yet puzzling, uniform. A few more blinks, and he realised it was one of the military. He'd seen it around in the past few days, on the soldiers lodging with the local Clan (which had put him out of a room to sleep in, very rudely, as he'd only stopped by on his travels anyway, following a previous invitation the last time he'd been in Scotland). He'd not seen Crowley amongst them, though. Truth be told, he'd never seen Crowley in any military's uniform, and it made him feel worse than even being woken up as rudely as he had been made him feel.

“What are you doing here in this outfit-”

“Who cares? You need to leave. Pack your stuff. There's a horse outside. Go to Edinburgh, or Glasgow, or whatever. Leave the Glen.”

“Crowley!”

He was almost out of the small, broken down cottage before Aziraphale could call him, but he stilled and turned around anyway.

“What's going to happen?”

The demon sighed, and averted his eyes. “Nothing you can stop, angel. Please, you need to leave. As fast as you can.”

And with that, he disappeared into the dark outside the house. Aziraphale followed him soon after, indeed finding a well-fed horse waiting for him, and dared to look back only once as he rode out of the valley. The sight of a familiar shape, dressed in all red, standing on top of a small hill, and the glint of golden eyes followed him all the way out, even as the night's darkness and fog enshrouded the rest of the Glen.

News of the massacre travelled fast, reached Edinburgh long before he did himself, and overhearing the angry rant of a drunken man in the inn he'd sheltered in made him realise that the demon had, once again, been his saviour.

London, 1888

“What are you doing here?!”

The voice of the woman was barely a hiss in the quiet street, but Aziraphale recognised it all the same – or maybe because of that. Crowley, her crimson hair in long, messy braids on his head, an almost dishevelled dress on her feminine curves, stared at him, and even the shades could not hide the anger in her eyes.

“This is no place for an angel to walk around at night.”

That much was true – the area was as dingy as its inhabitants, who were quickly milling past them, trying to get to whatever it was they called home before the darkness of night had completely taken over the streets.

“Some horrible things have been happening here lately-” Aziraphale tried to explain, but was shushed again by Crowley's hiss.

“Exactly! So you shouldn't be here at all!” “I was trying to help-”

“Help? You're going to get yourself murdered, gentleman's outfit or not!”

She wasn't wrong, and Aziraphale was this close to agreeing and leaving, but Crowley's appearance made him stop.

“Are you trying to lure-”

“Never mind what I'm doing, angel. What you're gonna do is turn around, get a carriage, go home and not wander through the slums of London when it's getting dark anymore, alright?”

And with that, she'd turned the angel around, pushed him forward by his shoulders, and stared him down until he got into a carriage at the end of the street. He could feel her stare even as he drove on, the clomping of hooves echoing through the otherwise quiet night air.

The papers were full of the new murder next morning, barely a street away from where they'd met. Apparently Crowley had not been successful (or, in the eyes of Hell, maybe he'd very much been). Either way, Aziraphale was reminded again of the guardian demon he'd apparently acquired a long time ago.

Chicago, 1925

“You can't be serious, angel.”

The lady in a tassel-covered dress slid up onto the barstool next to him. Her red hair was laid in the most delicate curls around her face, and her hands held a cocktail glass and a cigarette holder as long and slender as her fingers.

“Never thought I'd find you in a speakeasy. And then you go and pick this one.”

Aziraphale's hand cramped around the whiskey glass in his hand. He wasn't exactly against the prohibition – Upstairs was quite enamoured with it, too blinded by the whole abstinence thing to see the broiling underbelly of crime coming with it – but then again he also wasn't exactly against a nice glass of whiskey, or any other stiff drink he'd come to love in his years on earth.

“What's wrong with this speakeasy?” He tried to act nonchalant, his eyes decidedly not travelling down the frankly obscene cut of Crowley's dress.

“The mob's not too happy with the place.” Her voice was quiet, even though the place was so loud with celebrations and music Aziraphale had barely heard his own voice while ordering. She leaned forward to him just a bit. “I've heard they're planning something. Tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Either way, we really shouldn't stay for the party.”

And with that, she'd downed her drink and his, hooked an arm around his elbow, and masterfully steered him out of the hidden basement.

The cold night air hit his face with force – he'd barely had half of his 'whiskey', which he was certain now was anything but, and he could already feel its effect. How Crowley could drink that, plus her own cocktail, and still grin at him as if she'd had nothing but tea, was beyond him.

“Where to now, angel? I know some far better places, where you definitely won't get gunned down for enjoying some spirit.”

“I think I'd rather head home.” He swallowed, remembering the myriad times Crowley had swooped in at night to save him from something or other, thinking about what else might happen if they stayed out this night. Not thinking, though, what might happen if they stayed in.

“Good choice.” She patted his arm, which she'd held all the way down the street without him even noticing. “Lead the way.” They strolled the rest of the way in silence, Crowley's heels clinking away on the pavement, barely interrupted by other drunken couples passing them and hollering as they disappeared again into the dark of the night.

Crowley was still doing her hair the next morning (a night on the settee in Aziraphale's living room did not help with keeping her perfect hairdo) when Aziraphale opened the freshly-delivered newspaper, only to have a photograph of the bar he'd been sitting at yesterday stare into his face, covered in blood. Good choice, indeed.

London, 1941

“How do you always know?”

They'd been drinking for a few hours now, after Crowley had very quickly agreed to the offered Thank You drink as he'd dropped Aziraphale off at the bookstore. They'd been catching up, so to say, and Crowley had sunk deeper and deeper on the sofa, and had a hard time understanding Aziraphale's sudden question.

“Know what?”

“About trouble.” Aziraphale was in his armchair, prim and proper and sitting up straight despite the alcohol, fidgeting with his glass. The night had revealed far more than Aziraphale would've ever expected, so finding out even more did not seem as daunting as it usually did. “You always know when I'm somewhere in trouble, and show up to get me out of it. How do you know?”

Crowley shrugged. There were so many points to contest, so many reasons to lie, so many unsaid things he was never going to say. It was hard formulating an answer.

“I'm a demon. It's my job to know about shady business. I'm more wondering about how you manage to stumble into trouble, without fail, every night I meet you.”

“I don't stumble- I mean- I'm not out looking for trouble, if that's what you mean.” Aziraphale protested, taking another sip. “Trouble just... finds me.”

And so did a certain demon, who was now staring him up and down with pulled down glasses, golden eyes searing into his skin (even as covered up as he was).

“If you say so, angel.”

“I do.” He cleared his throat, trying to clear away all these pesky thoughts, about Crowley in a church, Crowley at his side, Crowley with a bag full of books in his hand, Crowley coming to his rescue again and again and.... “Anyway, I feel I must thank you.”

“You really shouldn't.”

“I know. But you've been saving me from trouble for... as long as I can remember, I suppose.”

“No big deal.” Crowley shrugged again. “Not like I'm planning on it, you know. S'just happens.”

Aziraphale stared at his glass, empty for at least half an hour now, and wondered. About the many times the demon had shown up out of the blue, in the dark of the night, whispering some warning, pulling him out of harm's way, offering up ways to escape. About how little or how much he could've planned for all those times. About what it might mean if he had planned, had gone looking for him on purpose.

It was easier to refill his glass. There'd been enough revelations for tonight. Best to leave the rest in the dark for now, and think about them when he was clearer, and the sky outside brighter, and his sofa empty.

London, 2019

“What are you doing?”

Aziraphale's voice was stern, cold, angelic in that way that had caused humans to fear them for centuries. The demons' heads shot up, staring in complete shock at the glowing figure approaching in the darkness from the restaurant at the end of the road. He could barely manifest a weapon after dropping the takeout bag in his hands before they'd taken off, leaving behind the crumbled pile of black clothes and limbs underneath them on the street.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale's steps became even faster before he kneeled down next to him, pulling him up with more worry in his face than ever before, if that was possible.

“Angel.” Crowley answered, spitting out a bit of blood to the side. They'd not gotten that many punches in, luckily, but his glasses still sat broken across his nose, barely hiding the blue eye.

“I left you alone for five minutes!” He'd tutted at the demon pulling out a pack of cigarettes as they'd waited for their order. Now he wished he'd asked him to wait just a bit longer instead of ducking out of the restaurant for a quick smoke.

“Good thing you did, too. They were up for a fight, surprised you scared them away as quickly as you did.”

Aziraphale was already dabbing away the blood on his nose with a handkerchief. “We need to go home. We need to go home and set up some wards and-”

“Relax. They were just some thugs. Probably ran into me by accident, and decided to take a chance on the traitor.”

Aziraphale's look was scolding, icy. “We need to go home.”

Aziraphale almost brought out the full med-kit as soon as Crowley slumped down on the sofa. The takeout on the table would stay miraculously warm for another moment, just as it had sitting on the dirty street a while ago. He was far too busy to think about it as he poured disinfectant on some clean papertowels, dabbing it across Crowley's cheek. The demon hissed, but did not move (he was smart enough to know Aziraphale would pin him down if he had to).

“We should've gotten delivery.” He mumbled as he kept cleaning his face, scratched all over from being pushed into the pavement.

“Oh come on. Like we could've known that would happen. What, we're never gonna get takeout again just to avoid the tiny chance of being ambushed by some low-level idiot demons?”

“Isn't it your job to know about shady business? Did you not notice there were other demons around?”

Crowley looked at him, almost hurt (emotionally. He was clearly hurt physically). “I'm retired, angel. I don't do the whole shady business thing anymore.” “Right.” Aziraphale cleared his throat, only now realising how bad that had come across. “I guess trouble just found you instead of me this time.” He joked, trying to force a smile, failing. Crowley's was far more sincere.

“And you showed up to help me out of it this time. Guess we're even, then.”

“I really don't think scaring of some hoodlums one time makes up for the centuries of you saving my bum.”

“Yeah, probably not. Better repay me for that with other things.” He grinned as the papertowel swept past his chin one last time. Aziraphale thought of scolding him again, for not taking any of this serious, but decided to cave instead. He placed a soft kiss on his lip, careful not to touch the part where it had split.

“I fully intend to.”

They'd eaten their dinner by now (or rather, Aziraphale had), snuggled up on the couch, surrounded by soft lamp light as utter darkness crept in through the bookshop's windows, but Aziraphale's thoughts were still circling around the evening's happenings.

“Did you always feel this scared, too?” He mumbled, nestled against Crowley's chest, where he could feel the questioning 'Hm?'.

“When you showed up to save me. Or told me to get away.” He played with Crowley's fingers, interlaced with his own. “I was so scared seeing you on the ground like that.”

“Probably not. I didn't often catch you in the middle of it.”

“But you knew what could've happened.”

“Yeah.” Crowley freed one of his hands from Aziraphale's worried fidgeting to stroke through his hair. “That's why I made sure to get you away from it.” His voice was heavy, deeper than usual, and Aziraphale could read more in it than he'd said, more than he'd ever admit. He had been scared. He had been worried, each and every time. Scared that he might miss just one hint, one sign that could've brought him to the angel's side. Worried that maybe his warnings were not enough, that Aziraphale would be stubborn, that all his good intentions and help were for nothing this time. That he didn't guard him and save him well enough.

Aziraphale shuffled around, partly to properly hug him, partly to stare at him with as much adoration as he could possibly muster.

“You've always been there for me, haven't you.”

“Not like I could let you wander around at night alone. Earth can be a dangerous place for an angel.”

“Not if he has a guardian demon like you.”

Crowley barked out a laugh at that, scratching through white curls as Aziraphale laid his head down on his chest again.

The night outside would soon break into dawn, light rushing through the windows and into their quiet little space in the backroom. Aziraphale knew he wouldn't have to fear or worry about any news that would find him in the morning, like always, as long as his demon was by his side.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #prompts #october prompts #5+1

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tisfan · 5 years

Text

Ineffable Husbands Bingo

Title: Infernal Machines and Demonic Pigeons Written by: @tisfan & @27dragons Square: G5 - Lawn Mower Accident Rating: General Triggers/warnings: blood, accidental maiming of small garden animals, Crowley is disappointed with the lawn mower Tags: tadfield, post apocalypse, the Them, gardening Link https://archiveofourown.org/works/20338366 Created for: @ineffablehusbandsbingo Word count: 1,874

God, it was said, did not play dice with the Universe. She did, rather more frequently than strictly necessary, give people exactly what they wanted in such a way that they didn’t want it any longer.

Crowley was just staring up at the ceiling of the little cottage in Tadfield that he and Aziraphale had moved into following the Apoca-could-ya-not. Just to keep a closer eye on Adam. And maybe to avoid some of their fellow angels and demons who stood out like sore thumbs in even larger cities and therefore would be quite easily spotted in a little village like Tadfield. He was staring at the ceiling, trying to decide if the crack in the plaster looked more like a duck or a cow, thinking he was blessedly bored and what he wouldn’t do for a little bit of action, when Aziraphale shrieked from out in the garden.

It was the sort of shriek that meant something was very, dreadfully wrong.

“Crowley! Crowley, I need you right now!” His voice was rather higher-pitched than usual, full of panic and distress.

(more below the cut)

“I see you up there, having a laugh at me,” Crowley said to God as he rolled off the sofa in an awkward lump of too many bones and not enough muscle before bolting out of the house.

The scene was--

Bloody awful, and he meant that in every literal meaning of the words bloody and awful.

The grass, fresh cut and quivering with the need to please, was coated with blood. And feathers.

White feathers.

“Angel!” Crowley practically exploded into panic, arriving at Aziraphale’s side in seconds, looking him over for some sort of celestial wound. Angels and demons weren’t entirely able to be killed, but they could be destroyed. And Aziraphale could certainly be discorporated. Who knew what would happen to him, if he ended up going back upstairs now.

“Oh, Crowley, it’s just dreadful!” Aziraphale wailed. “Do something!” His hands were flailing, waving helplessly in the direction of the lawn mower, which had spatters of blood all around its edges, and a few mangled feathers trapped under the front wheels.

“You!” Crowley turned on the mower fiercely. Unlike Aziraphale, he had not been issued a flaming sword, but he could make do with a pair of summoned garden hedge trimmers. He didn’t exactly borrow any hellfire to make the blades drip with infernal glee, but there were a few volcanoes in the south Pacific that wouldn’t miss a bit of lava. “You had one job! One! Cut the grass! And you manage to bollox it all up? I am very disappointed in you.”

One might think that something like a yard tool, like the Flymo Easi Glide 330 wouldn’t be able to be terrified of a demon. It’s as if one might expect a computer to be nervous, or a camera to want to take a better picture. But anyone who’s ever cursed or yelled at or pleaded with one of their electrical devices can tell you; machines think. And they’re rather diabolical, at that.

What this particular machine was thinking was that the grass was much greener. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The mower started itself with a rumble and fled, spewing feathers and blood and grass clippings as it went.

“Where does it hurt, Angel?” Crowley, having dealt with the bad machine, turned a tender hand on his Angel, looking for the wounds.

“What? No, no, I’m fine, but look at this poor thing!” He bent and scooped up a pile of feathers from the lawn, holding it tenderly in his hands, and extended it for Crowley’s examination.

Upon closer look, it wasn’t a pile of feathers at all, but a bird, rather severely mangled, cut nearly in half by the mower’s blades.

“It’s a pigeon,” Crowley said, both of his eyebrows going up so high that he could rather feel them arguing with his hair. “Rather a lot of them around these parts, aye? Seen ‘em at the park, the kiddies feed them. Blasted waste of bread if you ask me.”

“I don’t know what it was doing in the grass,” Aziraphale said. Crowley got the impression that if his hands weren’t full of dead bird, he’d be wringing them. “I was just going along and suddenly...” He tipped his head and gave Crowley a faint little smile. “Can’t you fix it? I never meant it any harm.”

“That’s more your thing than mine,” Crowley said, vaguely annoyed now that there was no need to panic about that fact that Aziraphale’s wing hadn’t been torn off by the lawn mower. Speaking of which, the Easi Glide was all the way down in Hogsback wood by now, and they’d like to never see it again. Pity that. On the other hand, Crowley had obtained rather a lot of enjoyment from the act of purchasing it, and now he’d get to do that again. “I’m not supposed to go around bringing things back to life. Could get in a load of trouble that way.”

To be fair, Crowley didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing any longer. He wasn’t, technically speaking, employed by Hell any longer. But on one had yet stopped by with a manual. Or a new job offer. He and Aziraphale were keeping an eye on the boy, a familiar occupation, for lack of something else, and concentrating very hard on being Left Alone by the Forces of both Light and Darkness.

Aziraphale pouted at him, petulant and maybe just a touch disappointed.

“Miracle it up, Angel,” Crowley scolded. “For Sata-- for Heav-- for someone’s sake, stop being a wimp about a little blood.”

“I’m not being a wimp about the blood,” Aziraphale said primly. “It was just so awful, darling. I’m never going to be able to get the image out of my mind. And if I can’t picture her whole, then you know I can’t make it work.” He turned up the intensity of the pout. “Won’t you? For me?”

“Very well,” Crowley said, because he never could resist that pout. Or, not even so much the pout, but the beaming smile that happened afterward, the one that said Crowley had done something right. When God spoke, and said Let there be Light, Crowley liked to imagine that that was the moment that Aziraphale came into existence. The embodiment of that very first sunrise. “But you know, she’s going to take after me,” he said. He cupped the dead thing in his hands, little broken bones and mangled feathers. He imagined this pigeon shitting on the mayor’s car, right after he washed it. Of stealing the candle off some poor child’s birthday cake and leaving bird tracks in the frosting. This particular pigeon would be the very worst sort of bird, annoyingly loud, waking up people who worked the night shift by singing joyfully outside their window at sunrise.

And she would have babies. Dozens of eggs in a nest, hundreds of terrible, wretched pigeons. Smart, too. The sort that would figure up a way to take down anti-pigeon devices and leave them in the yards of the people who voted such measures into place.

A demon bird.

Or, to be more succinct: A pigeon.

It wiggled all over, flapped its wings and Crowley turned it loose. It shit on his jacket as he did so. “Ug! That’s gratitude for you!”

“Oh!” Aziraphale clapped his hands and smiled like the first dawn, and everything seemed just a little brighter and better, even the pigeon shit on his jacket. “Thank you, my dear.” He kissed Crowley’s cheek, blushing a little over it being such a public display. “Well. I think we’d best take a trip into town this afternoon, hadn’t we? I’ll need a new mower -- you didn’t need to frighten the poor thing so badly! -- and of course we’ll need a little roost for our new friend.”

“The mower upset you,” Crowley told him, trying to remember not to brush at the bird poo, since that would only smear it around more. The things you learned, living in Hell. Poo was sticky and smeary and the more you tried to clean it up, the worse it got. Crowley took the jacket off instead, folding it inside out and slung it over his shoulder. He could get a new jacket. “It obviously doesn’t belong here.”

Aziraphale gave him a look that was trying to be stern, but was far too fond and pleased to come anywhere near the mark. “Be that as it may,” he said, “try not to traumatize the next one so much, or folks will wonder why we need a new one every other week.”

“I’ll just tell them their mowers are rubbish,” Crowley said, taking Aziraphale’s arm and leading him back into the house where they could have tea and whatever little nibbly things Aziraphale had gotten to go with the tea. “And I’ll do it in that same sort of loud, complainish voice as if I were an upstanding member of the Tadfield Neighborhood Watch and they’ll jump to it.”

“Yes, dear, as much as you like,” Aziraphale said, patting Crowley’s hand before breaking off into the kitchen to put the kettle on and arrange a tray. “You’ll want to change before we go into town, I expect.”

Crowley didn’t much care for tea, or crackers, or little dainty chocolates. He liked fizzy drinks and terrible biscuits from corner petrol stations. He never needed to buy petrol, but he did like to stop at the stations. But Crowley did enjoy watching Aziraphale have his tea and his chocolate biscuits.

The doorbell rang, and Crowley sauntered off to answer it. It was tea-time and he was going to give the neighbor who rang the bell what for, because no one interrupted Aziraphale’s tea-time, and someone was going to have to learn the rules around here.

“Hi, Mr. Crowley!” The Them were clustered on the stoop, beaming up at him. Behind them, tied to what Crowley suspected was Dog’s lead, was the Easi Glide, motor sputtering somewhat resentfully.

“Your mower escaped into the woods,” Adam told him.

“My mower never does anything exciting like that,” Wensley added.

Pepper rolled her eyes, and Brian leaned to one side to peer past Crowley into the cottage. “I say, is that tea?”

“Indeed it is,” Crowley said. He glared at the mower, which promptly sprouted a petrol leak, soaking the sidewalk. “Mr. Fell might be willing to share some biscuits with you, if you all ask nicely.” He liked children, and the Them were top on his list of favorites. Of course, it wasn’t always a good thing to be the favored child of a demon.

On the other hand, they were also favorites of Aziraphale’s, and having a guardian angel sort of equaled things out.

“Tie the mower up outside, Adam,” Crowley said. “I’ll take care of it later.” That was a little more threatening. “Well, go on then, in you get, have some tea.” He stood in the doorway a moment longer, watching the mower shiver and shake. “Infernal machine. You get one more chance, and consider it a miracle. I’ve gone soft.”

That was all right, then. Aziraphale liked soft.

#ineffablehusbands bingo #crowley x aziraphale #lawn mower accident

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writingadream · 5 years

Text

Constellations

or: Two Idiots in Love Who Require the Apocalypse in Order to Confess Their Feelings (and Don’t Manage Even Then) (or: The Author Has Too Much Downtime in the Lab and Decides That This is a Good Way to Spend It, Apparently)

Crowley has loved Aziraphale all along, probably. Since that first time they met, by the Garden, when the first rain fell. When Aziraphale had given away his God-given sword and lied to Her about it, all to protect the humans. Crowley had looked at Aziraphale, then, and felt an all too familiar swooping feeling in his stomach. The sensation of falling. But unlike that first, fateful time, this one was subtly different – coloured with exhilaration rather than fear.

No less fateful, though. At least in hindsight.

Crowley has loved Aziraphale since the beginning. It has changed and grown over the millennia, of course, but it has always been there. What started out as a small seed slowly and oh so carefully unfurled its first little leaf, and has since grown and grown and is now in full bloom. A small speck of dust that has expanded into a massive galaxy with millions of stars.

Aziraphale doesn’t know, because he is an angel and Crowley’s a demon, and angels can’t love demons. They are, after all, hereditary enemies. So Crowley doesn’t say anything and doesn’t try anything, but cherishes every moment they spend together, every fleeting touch and every stolen glance hidden behind dark glasses.

—

Aziraphale loves Crowley, and he is not sure when it started. It came sneaking up on him so slowly and carefully and he cannot pinpoint when it began. He realised it in 1941, in the ruins of a church (and surely there is something ironic in that, with angels and demons and churches and falling bombs and destruction? Some sort of cosmic joke that he cannot quite figure out the punchline to). But with that realisation came also the knowledge that his feelings were not anything knew. They already existed, had nestled into his heart and slowly made their home there when he was not looking. It was only a matter of recognising them for what they were. Aziraphale realised he loved Crowley, and more than anything else he felt an overwhelming sense of Oh. Of course. That is was it is. Kind of how rediscovering an old book that you had forgot you read is like coming home to a place you did not know you were missing, but now that you are here it is so obvious and familiar, comforting and a little bit thrilling all at once.

Crowley does not know, of course, because Crowley is a demon and Aziraphale is an angel, and demons cannot love and even if they could, they definitely would not love an angel. So Aziraphale does not say anything and does not try anything, but he treasures every minute in Crowley’s company, every small smile that so few people get to see and every chance encounter that maybe is not as random as they like to pretend.

—

They go on like this, both equally oblivious to the other’s feelings, stumbling through years of near misses, of nearly giving in and blurting it out. Moments of maybe he feels the same followed by how could he possibly and I can’t risk losing him, because if I did I think the world would stop spinning. And so they don’t say anything.

It’s late at night and they’re in the bookshop, and they are not quite as drunk as most people would be after almost three bottles of wine, but they’re definitely not sober and Crowley’s glasses are off, lying forgotten (although not really, but the wine-induced fuzziness allows them both to pretend) on a table. And their eyes meet and lock and then eventually Crowley looks away, but not before he thinks he can see something so indescribably tender in Aziraphale’s eyes, something that looks very much like love. But when he looks back over at the angel, he’s very much not looking at Crowley, and the demon decides that it must have been nothing but his imagination, fuelled by six millennia of yearning and quite a lot of alcohol. He swallows and picks up his glass and downs what’s left in it, before opening the fourth bottle of the evening and throwing himself into a tirade on the first subject that crosses his mind. It turns out to be galaxies, for some reason.

(Because the stars are always on his mind. How could they not? He helped make them, after all.)

Specifically, he talks about how when two galaxies collide, there is so much empty space that most of the stars in them won’t actually hit anything, will just keep hurtling through the void of space unimpeded. And isn’t that fascinating, angel? he asks. (Doesn’t that say something about us? Constantly moving toward each other, but always missing? he doesn’t say. Because if he does, the things he’s been so careful not to say might just slip out.)

—

They are at the Ritz, where they had been informed upon arrival that a table had just (miraculously) become free due to a cancellation. Time is, quite literally, running out: there is two years and 27 days until Armageddon. Aziraphale has been counting, ever since the Antichrist arrived on Earth. He does not want to, but he cannot ignore the tally at the back of his mind, ticking off the years, the days, the minutes. It has been going for almost eight years, and still he has not managed to tell Crowley what he feels, cannot bring himself to get the words out. Because what if he does and he loses his best friend, the one being the in the whole of Creation that matters the most to him. The world might be almost over, but there is still some time left. And Aziraphale could never forgive himself if he did something to lose Crowley when there was still time they could spend together. (What is worse, he resolutely does not think, telling him and losing him, or not saying anything before it is too late? He does not think this, because then he would be forced to answer, and he really does not know.)

They have dinner, and they do not talk about the Apocalypse. (If they do not acknowledge it, maybe it will go away? That may have never worked on anything thus far, but there is always a first time, right?) Instead, Aziraphale tells Crowley about some lovely first editions he had forgotten he owned and had stumbled across in the back room, and a customer who came in the other day and would not leave until they had managed to buy a book, and really, Crowley, you should spend more time in the shop, as a snake, so you could scare away the people who come in, and it is a joke, mostly. (Here is what is not a joke: you should spend more time in the shop because whenever you are around, I breathe a little easier. You should spend more time in the shop, because whenever we are together, the world is a little brighter. But how could he possibly say that?)

Aziraphale talks, skipping from topic to topic. He looks around the room as he talks; at the other patrons, at the table in front of them, out the window. And at Crowley, as much as he can without making it too obvious how completely in love he is. And Crowley listens, and it seems like all his attention is focused on the angel, his whole body turned towards him (leaning forwards, as if he needs to be closer, as if he cannot quite help himself?). Aziraphale watches Crowley, and for a moment he thinks that he sees his own feelings reflected back in the way the demon holds himself. And he almost blurts out I love you, right then and there. But he stops himself, takes a deep breath that he technically does not need, because surely, he is only imagining things because he wishes they were there.

—

It is a week after the Apocalypse that didn’t. Almost a week since they successfully tricked both Heaven and Hell, and now neither party wants anything to do with them. A week of freedom, of not having to worry about the consequences of their actions towards each other.

And some things have changed between them, because of that. Some actions are a little more open, some words go a little less unsaid. But it is still tentative, stumbling, almost-but-not-quite-there-yet.

Crowley is reasonably sure, now, that Aziraphale loves him back. (Maybe. Probably.) He realised it there at the airbase, when the world was about to end and Aziraphale, holding a flaming sword, told him to come up with something. Because there was a confession of sorts, there. Aziraphale said “… or I’ll never talk to you again”, and it was the worst threat he could make. And in that, there is an acknowledgment of how important Crowley is to him, how important they are to each other. (It’s fitting, isn’t it? Crowley first falls in love with Aziraphale just after he gives away that sword, and realises the angel loves him back (probably) just after he gets it back.)

(The end of the world is, one might argue, the worst possible time to realise that the person you’ve been hopelessly in in love with for most of Creation might actually reciprocate those feelings. Then again, the chance of finally getting something you’ve been hoping is going to happen for the better part of six millennia might be just the motivation you need to try and make sure the world survives.)

(It works.)

So, for the last week Crowley has lived in hope, and no longer under the scrutiny of neither Up nor Downstairs. Now, there is only that small matter of maybe actually doing something about it.

Which, as it turns out, is a bit of a problem.

Perhaps he’s overthinking it.

(It’s very hard to stop overthinking, though, when it is all that you’ve been doing for thousands of years.)

The problem is that Crowley isn’t sure there are enough words (in any language he knows of, at least, and he knows more than most people) to properly express everything he feels. Because how can you contain all that in just a few syllables? It would be like trying to cram entire nebulas into a few grains of sand. The proportions just don’t match up. (He should know, he’s seen both up close.)

It is a week after the Apocalypse that wasn’t. An angel (more or less) and a demon (sort of) are sitting in a field in Oxfordshire. It is the middle of the night, and the sky is clear, and the stars are out (perhaps more of them visible than you would expect this close to civilisation, but the world has always been a little bit more around these parts). They are sitting on a picknick blanket (memories of another night, in a car, with neon lights rather than starlight, keeps looping in the back of Crowley’s mind. Have you caught up now? he wonders. Or am I still too fast?) and Crowley is pointing out constellations for Aziraphale, telling him about the stars that are part of them.

They have changed, the constellations, over time and between cultures and across the world. But the stars themselves are the same (mostly). We are like the constellations, he almost says. You and me, always being us, but in different configurations as time goes on. Almost, but he can’t quite bring himself to. Not yet.

What are we now? he wants to ask.

What does our constellation look like?

—

They are sitting on a blanket and Crowley is telling him about constellations. And Aziraphale listens, and maybe he looks at Crowley more than he looks at the stars being talked about (but it is dark, so who can tell, really).

Aziraphale loves listening to Crowley talk about the stars.

(Aziraphale loves listening to Crowley talk.)

(Aziraphale loves Crowley.)

There is really no reason to deny or hide it any longer. There is no one watching them. He just needs to say it. It should not be that hard.

(When did they get so close to each other?)

Crowley is saying something about how the stars have always been the same but the constellations they are in change.

Just like us, Aziraphale murmurs. Crowley falls silent, and it is first then that Aziraphale realises that he said it out loud. He turns his gaze down from the sky (where it had rested only briefly) and is met with yellow eyes looking back. (Crowley’s glasses are off, have been left in the Bentley. It’s too dark to see properly, he’d say if someone had pointed it out. The truth is, however, that they have been off more often than not this last week.)

Crowley swallows, and his whole body turns toward Aziraphale.

Yes, Crowley agrees. It comes out as little more than a whisper. The silence stretches between them, and neither averts their gaze. Aziraphale can see hope light up Crowley’s eyes, his whole face, a hope he can feel mirrored in himself. And then he cannot hold it back anymore.

You know, he says, I think I’m caught up now.

Thank you for waiting, he says.

They have, somehow, gotten even closer.

I’ll always wait for you, angel.

Impossibly close, now.

Neither of them knows who makes that last move, who changes the distance between them from close to none. And in the end, maybe it doesn’t matter.

#good omens #good omens fic #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #go fic #go ficlet #i actually wrote a thing???#this is what happens when i want to make something about these two but im at work and cant just take out my tablet and draw something #ive had a lot of time waiting for PCRs to run this week guys #i gotta spend it doing something #so here we are i guess #writings #my stuff

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crowley-fe11 · 4 years

Text

Safety Net

You're now chatting with a random stranger.

You both like ineffable husbands, and omegaverse.

Stranger: {Angels/demons have a built in 'safety net' for after Armageddon, to replenish the ranks so to speak. Aziraphale falls into the more omega side of things} Darling, I'll not be able to make dinner. Perhaps Saturday instead? A

You: Is there something wrong? C

Stranger: I'm just feeling a little under the weather is all. A

You: Is there anything I can get for you? C

Stranger: Oh no, no darling! Thank you. I wouldn't want you to pick it up though. A

You: Are you sure? I could get you some soup at least. C I really don't mind. C

Stranger: I'd not forgive myself if you became ill too, dear boy. A

You: Don't worry about me. Even if I do, I'm sure I could sleep it off. C

Stranger: You're far too kind to me, dear..A

You: Only to you, Angel. C

Stranger: I'm afraid I've not been entirely honest, dear. It's not a traditional illness but I fear you might catch it all the same. A

You: What's wrong? C Are you alright? C

Stranger: Oh of course. I will be in a few days anyway. A Well, it's quite awkward but- you know how animals have a need sometimes? A..biological need? A

You: Oh. C That safety net is still in place? Even if Armageddon didn't happen? C

Stranger: You know about it? Oh thank- someone. A It is. I woke up this morning to a rather curt, terrified visit from Gabriel. A

You: Gabriel terrified? Oh boy. C I think Hell has something similar in place... C

Stranger: He seemed rather hesitant too, didn't want to come too close. A Oh. That does make sense- they were expecting to lose thousands upon thousands of us. A

You: Well, of course. C I haven't felt any different if that's a concern. C

Stranger: That's what worries me. What if being near me triggers yours? A

You: To be honest, I wouldn't mind if I were there with you. C Though if you prefer I keep my distance, I will. C

Stranger: Well, I wouldn't want you to feel bad for anything, dear. A I'm certainly not a sire, let's put it that way. It /hurts/. I can't bare the thought of you being in pain. A

You: Angel, I'd want to be there for you however I can. C

Stranger: Truth be told, I want many things right now but being held sounds lovely. A Would you come over? If it happens, you can leave of course. A

You: Of course. Is there anything you'd like me to bring along? C

Stranger: Soup. And perhaps some blankets of yours. A

You: You got it, Angel. C I'll see you soon, alright? C

Stranger: Yes, please. Thank you, dearest. A

You: Of course, Angel. I won't be long. C

Stranger: Than you, dear. I'll leave the door unlocked. A

You: Thanks, see you. C

You: (Paragraphs alright?)

Stranger: (Yeah of course!)

You: Crowley immediately grabbed up the comfiest blankets he owned and rushed to his car to pick up some soup for Aziraphale. He couldn't stand the thought of the other in pain and alone, and so it wasn't long until he arrived at the bookshop. He pulled up and brought everything he'd promised with him as he let himself in, sauntering inside. "Angel, I'm here!" He called out as he took the cue to head upstairs. He couldn't blame Aziraphale for wanting to be comfortable, after all.

Stranger: Aziraphale paced nervously. He had dragged himself for a shower, letting out several rather obscene noises in delight at the hot water. He had dressed in comfortable clothes, completely unlike his normal outfit but the fabric of his usual pants and waistcoat had scratched his skin and been horrid so he had settled for a comfortable tee and slacks, darker than anything he was used to. He glanced over to the door that joined his apartment to the bookshop when the door chimed, a sigh of relief passing his lips. "Crowley!" Throwing th door open, he began to rush down the stairs, eyes widening when he saw Crowley on the landing. Oh. Oh /no/. "Hello.."

You: Crowley froze when his eyes landed on Aziraphale, looking so cosy, so beautiful, so /tempting/... Oh. "Angel..." He sighed, his knees going weak as desire surged through him. "I think you have to decide right now. I want to stay, I want to be with you..." His mind was starting to cloud with lust, and his clothes were starting to feel much too warm. "If you don't want that, I'll leave. Keep the blankets as long as you want. Please, just tell me right now." He couldn't bear overstaying his welcome if it meant getting more intimate when Aziraphale didn't want it. He had to leave while he had control.

Stranger: Aziraphale let out a soft, needy whimper. It was an omega response, his body burning even harder, temperature rising. He felt like only Crowley could soothe the burn with him, get rid of the ache in his hips. "Just- be careful. Gentle, at first, please." He imagined that as they got into things, it wouldn't matter so much whether or not he wanted gentle, his body would want and beg for everything Crowley wanted to give him. Reaching out, he pressed himself to Crowley with a soft sigh of relief "Please please- upstairs, bed."

You: Crowley just about melted at Aziraphale's answer, and he pressed a gentle kiss to the other's hairline. "Yes, I promise. I'll be good to you," he told the other as he pressed closer, breathing him in. "Lead the way, Angel," he urged him gently, as his arms were still full with blankets and the soup he brought. Never in his wildest dreams did he think this would happen, but he wanted to make Aziraphale feel good, wanted to feel him completely.

Stranger: Aziraphale nodded, a jerky, rapid movement of his head before he practically ran up the steps. All he wanted was Crowley with him, holding him. Pushing into him and..oh, no. The thoughts were getting worse and having him in such close proximity did him no favours. Reaching the bedroom, he held the door open for Crowley before letting it shut. He set the soup on his desk before grabbing the blankets fro mhis arms and finally, he had complete access to his demon. "Crowley.." He breathed, looking up at him with wide eys.

You: Crowley eagerly followed him up the rest of the way relieved when he the blankets and soup were out of his hands and he was free to embrace the angel, and he did so gently, stroking his cheek. "Aziraphale," he whispered as he met his gaze before slowly leaning in to press his lips to the other's, kissing him tenderly. Though soon enough, tenderness gave way to passion, which only seemed to burn more intensely within him, and he pulled the other closer.

Stranger: Aziraphale couldn't help himself, a soft groan leaving his lips when he felt Crowley's body pressed to his. The safety net was put in place to encourage angels to reproduce, to breed, for lack of a better word but he needed no encouragement when it came to Crowley. How long he had wanted this, how many nights he'd spent craving his touch like this. "You feel good.." He mumbled as they broke apart and he did. Like a soothing balm to his burning skin.

You: "That's good, let me help you feel even better," Crowley breathed, letting his hands run down the other's waist as he teased the bottom hem of his shirt up further, making sure that was alright before he took it off of him completely. "You're so beautiful," he told the angel softly, his hand caressing over his flushed skin. "I love you," he admitted. "I always have..."

Stranger: "You- love me?" Aziraphale stared at Crowley in astonishment, eyes wide before he felt tears brim. "I love you too!" He surged forward, pulling Crowley close. He began to tear at his clothing, far too consumed with the heat and lust. There was the most beautiful scent in the air, like fire and gunpowder, like oil and /the garden/. It took him a moment to realise it was Crowley.

#omegaverse #omega aziraphale #alpha crowley #Ineffable Husbands #ineffable boyfriends #ineffable husbands rp #ineffable boyfriends rp #go #omegle rp #consent

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sweetstrawberrykissesao3 · 5 years

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Hey who would you say is Crowley’s potential care givers are? Also what headspace age would you put him in?

Favorite Care Givers for Lil Crow

Aziraphale (Probably fan favorite)

He has the strong urge to be a total brat with Azira because the man is such a push over. He’s likely in his terrible twos around Aziraphale. With this caregiver I don’t really have to explain or try to reason why I like him as a CG for Crow, it pretty clear. While it’s one of the shorter answers it’s not because I like it less (It’s just the one that needs least explaining)

The angel has to deal with giant temper tantrums if he tries to say no (and Azira ends up always being a push over and giving in to the temper tantrum) spoiled baby boy for sure. Giant fighter of naps, but will be found fallen asleep in the oddest of places (because he tends to hide when Azira mentions the dreaded N.A.P word) It wouldn’t be uncommon to see Crowley do things like running around as Azira just strolls behind yelling at him to stay in sight and not to go too far on walks. At the end of the day after Azira manages to pull Lil Crow into his lap a bed time story is read. Half the time it results in Azira falling asleep half way though reading because he’s exhausted. Surprisingly this is the easiest way of getting Crow to fall asleep (sometimes Aziraphale will pretend to fall asleep) because Crowley will just cuddle and finally go to sleep. Aziraphale will pull him into a cuddle to read though out the day, even if he has to deal with a squirmy brat who claims not to want to read no “stupid” book. After a couple minutes he settles down... and then starts asking the questions (Why he do dat? Wat next?) Azira has learned if he wants to get Crowley to behave a little to start reading a interesting chapter book and hold the next chapter hostage for good behavior (of course though out the next hour Crow will be questioning what happens next in the book and what not)

Lucifer (Tied with Aziraphale with me)

First I need to explain why, since it’s not as clear as Azira. Biggest reason, the way he talks to Crow when not mad. HE CALLED CROW DARLING! I will never stop not believing that Lucifer doesn’t have some affection (not romantic) for Crowley. I personally believe Lucifer is the sheer reason Crowley is such a high up there demon. He’s not a duke or anything like that, but that’s because he’s seen as much higher than that. Beelzebub is only prince of hell because Crowley DOESN’T want to lead the demons. He has no interested in it.

Now why does Lucifer like Crowley? My headcanon is the way he fell. Unlike other demons who were corrupted in some way (for their desire to rule, to fight or etc) Crowley wasn’t fully part of the rebellion. He didn’t mean to fall. As an angel our favorite snake man had questions. He didn’t fall with a crash, but rather a slow painful fall, all because he was too curious for his own good. The short answer was God had placed a curse if you will on our Crowley. Every question, every disobedient his feathers would be burnt black. Slowly, as if that would make him stop. But, it had done the opposite made him question more, if god was so good why hurt him this way just because he wasn’t like the others? One day, when his wings were fully black, he tried to return back to Heaven from one of his sneaky trips out, to find he could no longer enter. He had been kicked out and he hadn’t even known it. With no where else to go, Lucifer was there for him.

Lucifer saw himself in Crowley, an angel unfairly punished. His only true crime had been wanting free will like the humans, Crowley’s was being too curious for his own good. Unlike other fallen angels his “fall” didn’t turn Crowley against god, didn’t make him want to destroy God’s work like many many demons before him. Crowley just wanted to have fun. And that’s what Lucifer promised him. He gifted the fallen angel with the ability to turn into a snake (which had the side effect of turning his eyes snake like when he was in his more human form) This form would help him keep hidden from God, and he would be allowed to do what he wanted on Eden. One day as he watched the humans, Crowley noticed something. Adam and Eve were pretty stupid. It wasn’t their fault. He watched them get hurt the same way over and over, but they never changed what they did. So he asked Lucifer about it, Luci reasoned it was because they did not know better, humans weren’t as smart as they were. The forbidden fruit, was the fruit of knowledge if Crowley got them to eat it, then they would be able to learn and be smart like they were. So he tempted Eve to eat the fruit. His only real be act of “evil”

Now that my little backstory is out of the way, lets talk about Lucifer’s relationship with Little Crow. Luci loves to spoil him, never EVER gets crossed with him for his questions. With Lucifer however Crowley is less of a brat, he doesn’t tend to have tantrums but when he does, Lucifer is able to be very firm with him. Surprisingly (or maybe not so shockingly) the first fallen angel is a great dad. He never punishes Crowley unfairly, his main forms of punishment is time outs or talking it out. If he’s mad Lucifer will try his best to calm down before dealing with Crow. Because he doesn’t want to be a bad parent like god was (in his opinion) Crow loves showing Lucifer cool human things. Lucifer himself loves seeing Crowley “evil” acts. Which most the time is just frankly adorable (Like when he made Halloween as a birthday gift, even though they didn’t really have birthdays. Halloween is still his favorite act of evil Crowley has done. Creating a holiday in which human adults are forced to buy candy for random children or else said children will try to destroy their homes... yes that was very amusing)

Lil Crow with his Papa Luci, is a very good boy (most the time) who just sometimes forgets the rules (he can’t help it) and ALWAYS has another question for his Papa (who in return always has the answers and never just tell him because god made it that way or scold him for asking questions) his age range is 1 to 2 years old.

Also Lucifer has 2 forms, one that is more human like and his “Satan” form. Which he only enters when he’s trying to scare demons (or humans I guess even) or when he’s very angry. If he’s too angry he will cause demons and (fallen angels in Crowley’s case) to be in pain. This isn’t something he can control and if it effects Crow, he will feel terrible about it later.

Madam Tracy (At least a aunt, grandma, or nanny)

First I love Tracy okay? She’s a doll and just so sweet. Second have you seen that room full of stuffed animals? You can’t tell me she doesn’t mommy a few of her clients that just need to be taken care of.

She has an odd effect on him, with her he can be a well behave 3 year old to an adorable 1 year old just depending on the day.

Tracy will NOT take Crowley’s misbehaving and is one of the few people who can get Crow to be a good little boy for her. Even if that has to involve spankings and a grumpy Crow who is only eating his Veggies so Tracy doesn’t get mad. Yes Tracy does spank little Crow. BUT, she makes sure to do it a proper way. Where she explains why he’s being spanked and never do it too hard or longer than it should and she will never spank any regressor while mad. She’s doesn’t believe in spoiling Crow. Instead he has a reward chart where he will only be allowed to get a new toy (or whatever) if he is a good boy and behaves.

She loves taking Crow out for walks and taking him on errands something other CGs would never think was possible. But, Crow knows if he doesn’t behave Tracy isn’t shy about giving him a spanking in front of the whole store. If he’s being too loud or “rude” with his words she’ll put his pacifier in his mouth for some hush time. Which is rather embarrassing or rather making him feel littler and shyer, which makes Crow behave right away. When they are out Tracy doesn’t need to use a leash (Unless he’s been very naughty and not listening before they left) because one of her rules is to hold hands while in public.

This all being said, Crow will break rules at times, sometimes instead of being punished Tracy will take his “big boy” privileges because clearly he’s too little to remember the rules. This is true a lot of the times. Around Tracy if he’s breaking rules he might just be too little to remember them he gets distracted and forgets the rules a lot when he’s on the younger side.

While she could be Crowley’s mommy I see her more as a aunt or nanny (most the time with Aziraphale being his main cg) If this is the case he loves his Auntie even if she’s more strict than his daddy Azira. Aziraphale on the other hand is just amazed to see Crow actually behaving for once. He didn’t even know that was possible. Tracy has tried to help Aziraphale be more strict but the angel doesn’t have the heart for it.

The reason she gets up here instead of other characters because I love Madam Tracy and she’s very important LOL even if she’s not a full time CG to Crow

Other Characters as babysitters for Lil Crow

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse only if his main cg is Lucifer,

Pollution / Polly as Crow would call them would be the babysitter who just gives Crow a Ipod to watch cartoons on and feed him junk food until Luci was back.

Famine and Crow do NOT get along he does NOT like this “stupid” head and will make babysitting him very hard. Famine tries his best to get the brat to behave. But, nether likes each other at all. (This being said Famine would never harm Crow when he’s little, the brat might be a brat, but he’s not going to hurt him) Famine will try however to dump Crow off to any of the other four if he can

War is pretty active with Crow, and will play with him. Of course these games are often play fighting with toy swords or toy guns. She’s pretty fun and his second favorite of the horsemen

Death is Crow’s favorite babysitter out of the 4. They are good at comforting him when he misses his Papa Luci (even if his face is a little scary) he likes cuddling up to his cloak which actually smells like flowers (funeral flowers but still) He also likes Death voice and likes him reading to him because it’s very soothing. They also play video games and Death is really good at it, but will also bring Crow’s character back to life because he’s very not good at video games.

Newton Pulsifer only if his main cg is AziraphaleHe’s a very silly man who is just as bad at babysitting as he is with computers, he’s read the books he knows what he should do. But, it never seems to work. But, that’s okay because Crow finds him funny and is willing to take pity help him.

Anathema Device only if his main cg is Aziraphale While she’s good at babysitting Crow finds her kind of boring. She can be good at playing sometimes but he prefers Newton cause he’s silly! (Luckily they often babysit together)

I DON’T use these characters as potential CGs (for Crow)

Dragon, Ligur, Hastur and Beelzebub because I personally believe they would be rather abusive and scary for Crow when he’s in his headspace. (Unless someone is able to change my mind) These demons have all shown distaste and disgust for Crow. Honestly I don’t think any demon likes Crowley in general (my personal headcanon is the only reason Crowley seems so high up in the ranks and people don’t just feed him to a hell hound by now is because Lucifer has a soft spot for the fallen angel)

Gabriel, or any Other Angels because the angels are pretty mean (Specially Gabriel) I feel like similar to the demons they would end up being rather abusive. I really don’t see any positive CG traits in them (Unless someone can change my mind)

or Shadwell.... because.....I don’t really like Shadwell? Unlike demons or angels I don’t think he would be abusive or anything, I just don’t like his character and don’t naturally have ideas to write for him. (I mean if someone brought me a really cute headcanon than maybe a there is literally no one else available babysitter but never his full time CG)

Or any Kid Characters... because it would be weird for all child character to be his CG (Now I’m not saying Little Crow can’t play with them. I have some cute ideas of Crow following the them into the woods trying to play with the big kids and them accepting his company because he’s just so eager to play with them like a excited little puppy.

#good omens #Age Regression #Agere #question #ask #answered

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softbookboi · 5 years

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Lovesick Schoolgirl (a snowbaz fanfic) Chapter 1

Summary: Baz is sitting in class and starts doodling all kinds of Snowbaz stuff in his notebook. When he’s snapped out of his musings and realises he’s doing it, he starts blushing. And then - curse his luck - the teacher calls on him to answer a question. He just starts blubbering and stammering and since Simon is there, its even worse. After class, he’s visited by Simon before he can sneak off to their room to take a nap and Simon insists of Baz telling what he was writing in his notebook because he thinks that Baz is plotting something. Baz refuses but Simon grabs it and before he’s able to open it, Baz lights it up on fire and then watches it burn to ashes. After Baz leaves, Simon becomes hell-bent on figuring out what was in that notebook.

Baz

I think I'm dying.

This lesson is so boring that I feel like watching Snow try to cast a simple spell without messing it up would be more interesting. (Of course, that definitely would be more interesting. Snow looks adorable when he’s trying hard to concentrate. He bites his lip, then sticks his tongue out, which looks so perky and dainty and cute, like a small child. I would be delighted to watch him try to cast a spell. Any spell.) (Merlin, could I get any more pathetic?)

I'm currently sitting in Miss Possibelf’s class, trying not to dose off. I normally quite like her class, she’s a good teacher and I get to see Simon try to cast spells, but today, the lesson (that I’ve already learned before), her ridiculous way of teaching it (she’s literally doing it so wrong that it’s going to take our class a week to master this spell) and the fact that I didn’t get enough sleep last night because I was down in the Catacombs draining rats for a long time (I hadn’t drunk in so long, I felt as if I were about to pass out) all combined together are making me hate this lesson.

I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open but I can feel the occasional magic drifting off of Snow which means that he keeps giving me surreptitious-but-not-so-much glances which are basically a siren to pry my eyes open for the rest of the class. I have a free period after this, I could go to my room and nap. But right now, I need to concentrate on staying awake and alert because the slightest little slip-up could send Snow on one of his absurd plans on making me reveal what I'm ‘plotting’ to him. Oh, that poor, beautiful boy.

I'm sure he was awake when I came back last night. I could recognize the pattern of his breathing as the one when he’s awake. He didn't say anything but I know the gears in his head were turning and he must've figured that I would be out drinking.

I can't really seem to believe that properly though. Whenever Snow deduces something related to me or my vampirism, I can't really seem to believe it. He infers that but still can't seem to infer the biggest thing that'll make killing me much easier.

I sometimes think about it. Him finding out about my feelings for him. The thoughts terrify me but he also might find them useful to him. He would know how pathetic I was and use that as a way to weaken me when we're at war with each other. (Of course, he's going to win either way. He’s the hero. I love him. I'd die willingly for him.) (But he doesn't need to know that.)

But I still do like to think about him. It's impossible not to. He's always there. In front of me, beside me, behind me, alive and breathing and carrying on. It's impossible not to act like a lovesick little 3rd Year girl and think about his brown locks or his blue eyes or his cute, scrunched nose when he's trying to open up a box or something. How can I not? These are feelings and I can't push them down no matter how much I want. (I want to. I want to so bad.)

I hate imagining him coming near me with a soft look. Pulling me into a hug. Snogging me until I've forgotten how to function. Holding my hand. Loving me back.

I hate imagining this. So much. It just reminds me of the fact that Snow hates me. He will never love me. He’s not even going to be my friend, I ruined any chance of that when I started being a git to him in 1st Year. I was 11 years old! What was I supposed to know about feelings and that mushy gushy stuff? All I knew was that there was a beautiful boy with bronze locks and blue eyes holding out a hand to me, offering peace and unity between us...and a chance to be his friend. But the butterflies in my stomach and the remembrance of that I was supposed to be this boy’s enemy caused me to make irrational decisions.

Perhaps if I had become his friend I would've known all his abysmal qualities (not that he’d have any) and not liked him because of them. Of course, that would mean that I was a horrible person but still. (I am a horrible person, though. A monster. A vampire.)

The amount of time I spend thinking about what my life could've been like if I were his friend is just ridiculous at his point. It's not like there would be a big change. I would still have to fight him. But at least we would be a bit nice to each other, or at least not fight all the time. That would've been big for me, though. Anything with Snow is big for me.

I wish I had taken his hand. Merlin, I wish I had so fucking much.

All this thinking about Snow just darkens my good even more and I feel him staring at me right now, so I look over and give him my best glare. (Only the best for Snow.)

He gives one back and I imagine him smiling at me instead. Smiling at me with admiration in his eyes. Admiration. Love. I'm feeling lightheaded now and just want to go to my comfortable bed in my room and take a long and comfortable nap.

This is another side-effect of thinking about Snow like this. As cheesy as it sounds, it makes me physically ache because I know it won't ever be true. Ugh, I'm becoming a sap because of him. And I can't think properly.

Snow’s done this to me. Why do I love someone who’s made my all my self-preservation and control go to hell? Aleister Crowley, couldn't I have found some other boy - or girl - to love? Life would be so much easier. Everything would be so much easier. But, of course. Life is never fair.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling too horrible and pitying myself, I think about us. Me and Snow. Us. Dating. Getting married. Adopting children. That makes me feel better, of course, but then I'm feeling even worse later when I'm reminded of how unlikely that is. Correction: how impossible that is. But putting aside my threatening tears because of that, thinking about Snow and I dating really makes me feel better. No matter how unlikely it is, I like thinking about Snow waking me up in the mornings with kisses and calling me darling. Him and I dancing slightly to Elvis Presley and him holding me in his arms like I'm something precious. Him waking up early just to make me food. Him caressing my cheeks and telling me he loves me. Our wedding cards. The invitations. Our first child’s name. The engraved words on his tombstone (“thy freckles that sit upon thy golden skin are beautiful and marvellous”) (That's all I have so far.) (I'm quite shitty at old English.)

But if it were old English, then I guess we'd have to-wait.

”All I have so far”?

What does that mean?

I whip out of my musings of Snow and I and - Merlin - discover that I had been writing in my notebook all along. But not notes.

They're little doodles of what I was thinking about earlier and they're everywhere.

My whole notebook page is filled with them. They're near the corners, on the margins, some of them are even covering my previous notes.

I feel heat rushing to my neck and cheeks when I see a particular doodle of me and Snow kissing, surrounded by hearts of all sizes and “Snowbaz” written at the top.

Snowbaz? What is wrong with me?

My widened eyes explore the expanse of the contents of the page and when I see a tombstone of him, and underneath it, the inscription I was preparing for him, I look at myself from someone else’s point of view and realise that I'm acting like a lovesick person and get freaked out by own myself.

As soon as I see a small drawing of Snow with (once again) hearts surrounding him and a little speech-bubble beside him saying, “I love you, Baz. So fucking much, ” I practically slam the notebook shut and it makes a loud sound. A few kids sitting near me peer at me, curious as to what I just did and why I did it, including Snow.

I specifically ignore Snow’s eyes because I know I'm flushed harder than I've ever been. And I know that it's visible and that the students can see it because some of them are eyeing my cheeks now. I resist a look at Snow cause I don't wanna know what look he's sporting and just state straight ahead, hoping that people will get back to their own business.

But of course, my life has never been that easy.

They all seem to look away, thank God. But then Miss Possibelf eyed me up and down and decided to be the worst teacher ever. She asked me a question.

More specifically, she asked me what was the spell best for what we just learned.

I wasn't listening to what they just learned. I was too busy doodling Snow like a little girl. The thought makes me blush even more and now I'm stammering.

Stammering.

Holy sweet cheese, what has become of me?

I start blubbering too, just like Snow and I feel humiliated.

Basilton Pitch, stuttering and blubbering like an idiot.

I spent so much time creating a cool reputation of complete calmness in all situations. Always calm and collected. Always relaxed. But now all of that is gone and I'm left looking like such an idiot.

I look at the other students in the room and they're all looking at me with incredulous on their faces, obviously noticing my weird change in behaviour. I look at Snow and Crowley, his eyes are blown open and one brow is raised. That's my look. Snow is nailing my look. Oh my God.

He’s noticed my blush too because he's staring right at it. And then he moves his gaze to my eyes. We’re making eye contact and I feel my breath knocked out of my lungs because of those unexceptional eyes that are boring holes into mine, unveiling all of my secrets and deepest desires.

I quickly move my head away and look right to Miss Possibelf. “Uhh, sorry Miss, I-I don’t know the answer.”

She shakes her head and I swear I hear someone gasp a little.

“Alright, sit down then, Baz. And try to pay attention next time in class.”

Even Miss Possibelf looks a bit fazed by my sudden change. I sit down and avoid everyone’s eyes while Miss Possibelf once again drones on and on and on.

Snow doesn't look at me when I sit down. He looks forward and doesn't look my way the great of the lesson. I kind of want him to turn around so that I could see what his expression was and try to read it but I also don't want to because there will be no expression on that face which I want to see directed at me from him.

I still feel a few eyes on me when the bell ring and I practically gallop across the room before anyone else. I force my legs to move faster and take me away before Snow finds me and interrogates me, which I know he will, based on my behavior in the class and how he was looking at me.

But no luck on my part.

I was out in the hall, in front of the students now trailing behind me, trying to get to their next class. (They seemed to lose interest in me now. It was good but I was still terribly humiliated.) I was trying to get out of that place but somehow, Snow ended up in front of me. (I would say he came out of nowhere but that would be logically incorrect.)

He stood in front me, his eyes narrowed in a suspicious way, all trace of the look he was giving me before in class gone. His arms are crossed in front of his chest and he's swaying slightly on his feet, not like he's drunk but like he's trying to figure something out, considering by how he looks me up and down with a frown on his face.

I cross my arms too and glare at him. “What, Snow?”

He snaps out his daze. “What?”

“I said ‘What, Snow?’. I haven’t got all day you know. I have a life.”

He glares at me as well and then I sneer at him. It’s not as sharp as it was before because of the embarrassment but I don’t really care right now.

It seems that Snow does because he looks at me and raises a brow. Just like he did in the classroom. Merlin, how did he learn that? He must’ve practiced in the mirror in the room just to piss me off.

Well, if that's the case, then it worked. Not only am I seething at him for stealing something that was mine, but he has the audacity to smirk about it. That bastard definitely practiced it to piss me off.

He drops the look, unfolds his hands and then stuffs them in his pocket, obviously trying to look all cool and nonchalant and calm as I do. I’m ecstatic to say that this he doesn’t pull off that well. Of course, I love him. I would like him however he was but if anyone else were to see him like this - anyone who wasn’t in love with him - then they wouldn’t think that he looked cool. I decide not to tell him that and let him wander around school looking like this. I smirk at the thought.

He frowns, catching my smirk, but pulls himself together.

He, then, gets straight to the topic.

“What were you writing in that little notebook of yours?” he asks, voice icy with a hint of something undetectable.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I answer, now trying to be the calm and collected one. I try to walk past him but grabs me by the waist. My breath silently hitches and I pray he didn't hear it.

Lightly, he shoves me back in the position I was in. “You know what I’m talking about, you git.”

“I really don’t, Snow. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to my next class.”

Once again, I try to walk away but he pushes me back. I can tell a few people are eavesdropping on our conversation. I glare at them and they resume walking. When I turn back, Snow is looking at something between my fingers.

The notebook. Oh, bloody hell.

I was so eager to get out of the goddamn class that I forgot to put it back in my bag and just carried it. Ah, fuck.

He looks at me again and lowers his voice an octave which sends shivers down my spine. “What were you writing in the notebook, Basilton?”

Shit. He’s hardly ever called me by my full name. (It’s really fucking sexy.) He only does that when he’s desperately on edge. Ugh, did he somehow get triggered from me writing in a notebook in class? Although, if he does call me by my real name “Basilton”, then there’s always something horribly wrong. What’s wrong this time? The last time he used the full name was when he started following me everywhere in 5th Year.

“What do you think, Snow? Notes for class, duh. Didn’t think you were this thick, Snow. Maybe you’re just incredibly stupid, or have too many problems.” It’s a stupid insult and it barely counts as one, I know. But right now, I’m trying not to get a different type of problem in front of him that's caused by his low octave and the stare he’s giving me. A very different kind of problem.

“No, you weren’t. I saw you, Baz. Everyone saw you. You were writing something and then you slammed it shut like it was poison ivy. And then when Miss Possibelf called on you, you started stuttering and blubbering and you weren’t paying attention to her before. And you were blushing, positively way too much for a vampire."

I feel my cheeks redden at his last comment and force them to cool down. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a human too, you know. I blush too.” It seems like the wrong thing to say, but right now, I don’t really know what to say. “So, for Merlin’s sake, leave me alone. It was nothing but notes, Snow. And I merely dozed off a bit. I thought you, out of all people, would understand that since you have the most experience with it than any other 8th Year. Now, for fuck’s sake, I’m leaving.”

This time, I straighten my posture and force my chin up and bump into him while walking away. But he seems prepared for that, and snatches the notebook as I try to walk away.

I whip around in an instant, heart suddenly speeding up stupendously, and see him standing there with a glint in his eye and says, “I’ll find out what you’re plotting, Baz.”

His dialogue is so utterly ridiculous that it just makes me more angry.

He thinks I’m plotting something? The nasty git. What would I plot where I would have to make a fool out of myself in front of my classmates and blush horrendously too. And why would I actually carry it out? I have too much dignity and too good a reputation to do something like that. I’m not Snow.

I grit my teeth. “Snow...give it back.”

“No."

I lunge at him.

It’s half a fist-fight for the bloody notebook and people are watching us but I don’t care. I’ve dealt with worse before. And I can’t let him read what I wrote/drew. It would be too humiliating for a day. I would be outed.

I press hard on his shoulder to push him down and myself up when he holds the notebook over his head and easily grip its spine. He starts to tickle me, the wanker. I grunt, squirm and try not to giggle but it's hard, and he keeps tickling until I start to squirm a bit too much. And the he pushes me off him and my grip on the spine of the book is lost. He turns away from me, holding it tight in his hands.

Suddenly, I’m hit by a humongous wave of panic and nausea. Is he about to run away with it? Is he going to read it if he does? Merlin, yes, he will. I need to get that back.

I’m desperate to. I’m so desperate to get it back that just as he starts to turn away. I mutter a spell and flick my wand a but from my pocket and the notebook burns. Literally. It actually scorches until it’s just ash. A teeny bit of ash in Snow’s palm. Such a small amount that it’s not even overflowing from his palm. Snow and I both just stand and stare it at as it turns. When it finishes, there’s a heavy smell of smoke in the air that's quite similar to Snow’s magic, so I don’t know if it’s the burning of the notebook, his magic, or both.

I’ve had just about enough for today. Without looking at Snow, I turn around and just walk away without another look back.

Snow doesn’t call after me.

Simon

I just stand there and Baz walks away, speechless, looking back and forth from the ash and Baz’s walking figure.

Long after he disappears (to our room, he has a free period and so do I), I come to a final decision.

I gently sit down on the ground and slowly rummage through my bag to find a small bag the size of a hand. It can only fit the teeniest of tiniest things. (Penny gave it to me. Her roommate had given this to her and she said that she doesn’t want anything from Trixie.)

I softly open it, careful not to accidentally drop a bit of the ash in my other hand on the ground. I place all of the ash of the notebook into the bag and then lock it up tight.

I then get up and move to go to the library to study a bit (but I know I’m just gonna end up thinking about that notebook and Baz) and then after this period, it’ll be lunch so I’ll tell her about what happened in class and how I need her help to somehow find out what was written on that notebook.

I know it sounds really pathetic but I swear Baz is up to something. Something bad.

Something like that has never happened before in class. Or ever. And by something, I mean Baz losing literally all of his cool and blubbering and blushing in front of everyone. And that’s not even the whole thing.

Last night, Baz was out late and I’m 100% sure that wanker was down in the catacombs, draining rats. Ugh. He came back really late. After midnight. I waited up for him to see when he’s come back and when he finally returned to the room, I acted like I was sleeping. I think he knew that I wasn’t since my pattern of breathing had gone rapid and off-beat because Baz just kind of suddenly came in when I was starting to think that he was going to spend the night somewhere else. But where would he spend it, of course?

He had surprised me, and since my breathing was the only sound in the room, he must’ve heard it and figured I was awake. I’ve memorised his pattern of breathing when he’s asleep. So I can tell when he’s awake. Roommate thing. Not creepy. I’m pretty sure he’s memorised mine too so that it’ll be easier for him to drain me in my sleep.

When he came in, he just climbed onto his bed and fell asleep. Didn’t change, didn’t take off his shoes, didn’t brush his teeth. Just came in and dropped on his bed. I think he was probably tired from plotting all night while draining rats, the vampire.

This morning, in all the classes we had together and outside of classes too, I noticed he was quite tired. Well, why wouldn’t he be? He stayed out almost all night and barely got 4 hours of sleep. He’s probably insanely tired. He really should take a nap, which is why he went into our room, I suppose.

Anyway, I was paying a lot of attention to him, trying to catch a slip-up on his part. Like dozing off in class, so I could confront him about it and ask him where he was last night. Or not paying attention in class. These are things that Baz would almost never do. If he does do them, then it’s entirely un-Baz-like and that means he was doing something tiring like plotting. And these things are exactly what he did.

I caught him in the first lesson almost dozing off. His eyes were so droopy that you could barely see the wet pavement colour in them. (Baz’s eyes always fascinated me. They’re a mix a different tinges of grey. A little dark grey on the outside of the iris, morphing into a deep blue into the sclera. They’re a light hue of a storm perhaps in the middle of the iris and then descend into this dark black-grayish colour in the pupil. All formed together, it looks like a beautiful painting, something a very famous Normal artist might make. Like Picasso. I really envy his eyes, mine are just blue and that's it. Such a pity that those astonishing eyes got wasted on a berk like Baz. Though he is a handsome git. He has slight abs from playing football and he’s one of those guys who could pull off a manbun. Ugh, blighter.)

And then in the previous class, he started scribbling away in his notebook instead of paying attention to Miss Possibelf. I was already sure he was planning something because he was so engrossed in whatever he was writing that he didn’t even notice me stealing glances at him. And that's odd.

A few minutes after I looked away, I - actually, everyone in the class - heard a big slam. Like a notebook getting smacked shut. And we turned to see who had it and of course, it had been Baz. But that wasn't what surprised me. Baz was flushed. You could actually see the red in his cheeks, even if you were sitting far away from him.

This obviously shocked me because vampires can’t blush, can they? I guess they can a little bit, something that's barely noticeable. But Baz’s was noticeable. Easily noticeable. But then I remembered that he went to the Catacombs last night and since he stayed so late plotting, he must’ve also drunk a lot.

His luck was poor today. Oh, poor Baz. Just as the peers were starting to move on with the lecture, Miss Possibelf called on him to tell her (and the class) about a spell best for what we just learned. And since Baz wasn’t paying attention before, he didn’t know anything at all about what we were just studying. So he started stammering and shit. Like, getting flustered and not being able to form a proper sentence! He started acting like the way I acted, exactly like the kind of behaviour he gave me shit for!

This was good. Now, everyone was looking at Baz with weird looks and I kinda started feeling bad for him. If I were in his situation, it wouldn’t be that bad for me. But Baz had a cool reputation. He was the kid who knew the answers in class and was hot and athletic. Someone who oozing confidence. But then, all that went to hell a bit when he started stuttering. And he was also blushing very hard now. Like, his whole fucking face was red.

You could see his embarrassment from a mile away and I was too entranced in his flustered and blushing state to look away or put on a masked expression. He actually looked quite cute in this state and I could tell that a bunch pf the girls seemed to think the same thing. They were ogling Baz with lovesick looks, no doubt making him uncomfortable.

I was actually a bit more focused on his crimson cheeks, and when I looked up, I figured that I better take advantage of this situation. I practiced Baz’s signature expression in the bathroom last night. The raised brow. I did that to him when he looked at me and his eyes widened. Meanwhile, my eyes travelled over his cheeks once again, and I was left to wondering how...adorable they were. (Holy Mother of God, did I just call Baz adorable?!)

But when I once again looked up at him, I was stunned. And apparently, so was he.

We were staring deep into each other’s eyes and I was pretty sure that I had an awed expression on my face. And it just amazed me that even though this is the first time we’ve locked eyes in this type of way, it strangely felt...comfy. Homey. Familiar. And when I noticed Baz’s face, he looked the same. At least, I think.

And that's not even the worst part.

A few micro-seconds after that, I felt this thing in my stomach. It felt like my stomach was doing somersaults or had creatures in it that were flying around haphazardly, and were causing my breath to speed up like a race car.

Like butterflies.

I’m not stupid. I’ve felt that kind of thing before...with Agatha. I know what it means.

But I can’t admit it. It can’t be true. I can see why I would feel homey looking into Baz’s eyes (actually, I don’t) but this? Nuh uh. Not true.

Although...no! Not true!

But...it does make sense a bit, though. Just a bit.

I quickly looked away when I felt that. And Baz told Miss Possibelf that he didn’t know the answer. After that, I spent the whole lesson pondering over the...possibility. I didn’t dare sneak a glance at Baz, though. Not after the hunch I just had.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. How obsessed I’d been with Baz in 5th Year. How I find his smell of cedar and bergamot like home. And his eyes too. How I love the shade of his eyes and am almost always thinking about what shade the middle changed to this time. How I always felt a bit bad after our rows. How I stayed up last night to wait for him to come back!

Oh Merlin, was that just an excuse to wait up for Baz?

This all makes so much sense that it’s scary. I can’t possibly have feelings for Baz. Thats absurd. And he’s my enemy. And arch-nemesis. And we’re going to have to kill each other. (Hmph, I can’t fight him now. After discovering this.)

No. No, I’m wrong. I can’t be right. I’m probably too hung up on Agatha (even though I seemed quite fine the last few weeks) so now I’m just making up crushes. And even if I actually like Baz that way, it’s only a crush. It’ll go away.

(Although, I highly doubt a 7 year long crush is just a crush.)

The bell indicating that lunch has begun startles me out of my Baz-filled musings and I practically run out of the door to our usual table and sit down, waiting for Penny to arrive so I ask her help on what spell would help me read what was inside the notebook. At least what he wrote today.

I look over at Baz’s table.

He’s not there. He’s still asleep upstairs.

I fiddle with my jumper. This could be a Baz plot! To make me have feelings for him and then break my heart! It could be!

I need Penny’s help with this, desperately. I have to find out what was in that book. And I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard Penny say something about these types of spells once. That help you put together broken things. I’m not sure if it’ll work on something burned, but I have to try. I can’t just accept these feelings for Baz and try to hide them.

What if this actually is Baz’s plot? Oh my God. Please let it not be. I’m still not sold on the fact that I have feelings for Baz. That’s not really something you easily believe, especially when its your arch-nemesis who you lov-like!

Who you like. Not love.

As I was saying, I’m still not sure, but every moment that passes, I keep getting more and more convinced of this. And I’m going to have to tell Penny about this and ask her for advice.

Oh Crowley, that’s going be an awkward conversation. I am not at all looking forward to that conversation at all.

Maybe I’ll tell her later. When I’ve discovered what the contents of the notebook are. Yeah, that’ll be the perfect time to tell Penny.

And while I think about Penny, I see her walking over from her class to the our table and wave frantically. She gives me a puzzled look but then starts jogging to the table.

As she sits down, she asks, “What’s up?”

chap 2, chap 3 (last one)

4 notes · View notes

roonil-wazlib-at-221b · 5 years

Text

Angel: Part 1

Pairing: Sam Winchester x reader

(Italics are flashbacks)

You grasp the hem of your blouse and pull it just enough to see the blood stains on it, which makes you sneer angrily at the bloodied corpse on the ground.

“Impressive, but you wasted too much time showing off,” Naomi says. “Time is crucial, Y/N. This one will be more difficult. Will you be able to handle it?”

You twirl your angel blade as a response and she waves her hand. Sam steps out from behind a pillar, looking around wildly.

“Y/N, what’s—”

Your eyes narrow and you clench your jaw.

“Y/N, wait, let’s talk this through!” the hunter yelps, holding out a hand as you advance. You wave your hand and he crashes against the pillar and slumps to the ground. “Y/N, come on—this isn’t you—”

Naomi’s eyes narrow when she sees your feet falter.

You clench your fist and Sam gasps, doubling over as his ribs start to crack, one by one. He coughs and blood dribbles out of his mouth. “Y/N—”

You crouch by your ex-lover’s broken, crumpled body and raise your arm.

Sam smiles at you, his hand reaching out for you. He grasps your blouse, pulling you closer. “It’s fine, Y/N. It’s fine.”

Your hand trembles but stays in place.

Naomi sighs and rolls her eyes as your blade clatters to the ground. She snaps her fingers and Sam disappears, leaving you reaching out for nothing and looking around wildly. “Unacceptable, Y/N. I thought killing your vessel would make you more comfortable with it being your body—only yours—but apparently not.”

Cas shows up at the bunker with a bloody face, clenching his angel blade so tightly that he can’t let go immediately.

“Cas!” Dean scrambles to his feet. The yell brings Sam running and he skids into the room, a wild look on his face as he looks everywhere around the angel except actually at him, obviously looking for something.

“I found Y/N,” the angel grits out, collapsing into a nearby chair.

Sam looks at the ceiling and blows out a relieved breath. He’s so relieved he could cry. You’d disappeared nearly three weeks ago and nobody’s heard anything from you since.

“So then where is she?” Dean asks, looking up at the bunker’s door as if you’re just a few minutes behind Cas and you’ll walk through the doors wearing your traditional sweatpants and t-shirt.

“Not coming, hopefully,” the angel replies. “Just to be safe…” He waves his hand and for a second, all the runes etched into the bunker’s skeleton glow. “There. Now she’s warded out.”

“Why do you say that, Cas?” Sam asks, sitting next to him as he starts to heal his vessel’s injuries. “How’d you get hurt?”

“Y/N,” he replies, gritting his teeth. “She’s been reprogrammed.”

Sam and Dean exchange looks. They don’t know what that means, exactly, but Sam can tell that he’s not going to like it.

Dean sits next to Cas as well. “You’re gonna have to give us a little more than that, buddy.”

“Do you remember when Naomi was…” Cas looks around as if the walls will have writing on them for answers, but the only thing he sees are the familiar wardings.

“Controlling you?” Dean puts in and Cas grasps onto the words gratefully, as if they’ll erase what he did. Something that takes the blame off him for even a few moments is a relief.

“Yes. Well, if would appear she is still… taking angels’ memories and putting them through the vigorous training she put me through,” Cas says, wincing at the memory of all those Deans he’d killed.

“Y/N,” Sam gasps and drags his hand down his face.

“And she did this to you?”

Cas sits up straighter now that he’s fully healed. “Correct. I believe Naomi has been altering certain details of Y/N’s memories of you and Sam. Particularly Sam.”

“Why ‘particularly’?”

Cas raises an eyebrow at Dean. “Their relationship, of course.”

“But… Sam wasn’t the one who made her rebel!” Dean exclaims. “She rebelled long before Sam and I were born!”

You were one of God’s chosen, one of the particularly powerful angels that weren’t quite archangels but nearly as terrifying as them. You, in particular, had amassed a reputation for being ruthless and a skilled fighter as well as possessing an unusual amount of grace.

God had given you almost twice the normal amount of grace after multiple missions where you had rebelled, instead of punishing you. It had surprised all the angels and some dissent was spreading among the ranks as well as personal grudges toward you.

So you’d flipped everyone the bird, giggling as you ran away from heaven (with God’s blessing, not that anyone knew, because you were one of the few angels that didn’t just follow heaven and actively tried to protect the poor, pathetic humans), and killed all the angels, demons, and monsters that attacked you.

You’d stayed in the vessel of a poor girl that almost died during a cold night alone on a prairie for centuries, sometimes retreating into the back of her mind and letting her out to marvel at the improvements in technology, and took good care of her until she withered, wanting to rest in heaven, and you moved on to your second vessel, a girl that had been praying for protection from an abusive husband nearly twenty years older than her.

She’d died and you’d fled from your failed attempt at protection for one or two centuries before emerging again, quickly becoming known throughout the underground monster society as someone not to mess with. You weren’t a hunter; you never actively sought out a fight with a monster.

Your prey were human.

“Well, yes,” Cas says. “But she’s grown attached to him, and now he’s an obstacle in Y/N’s mind that Naomi has to overcome. You, Dean, are also one, but one that is significantly easier to clear.”

Sam puts his head in his hands and shakes it. “So what did Naomi do to Y/N, Cas?”

“Y/N has had to endure a rigorous training and recalibration of her brain. Unlike when Naomi tried it with me, Y/N is not to stay as far away from you as possible.”

“That’s sort of… dumb, especially if Sam and Y/N get together again,” Dean frowns.

“Sam, you are Y/N’s first mission after Naomi finishes her training,” Cas says loudly. “She’ll not take pity on you.” He gestures at his body. “The one thing Y/N has always prized over everything else is her mind and free will. Now that Naomi’s taken that away, she’s created a ticking time bomb that is hellbent on killing you, and probably anyone near you.”

“There’s a reason absolute monarchs are able to keep their power, and it’s not because their subjects are just that psyched about their rule. It’s all about the cavalry.”

Sam presses the demon knife harder against Crowley’s neck. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I have a bit of a personal guard that would be a bit displeased to see me gone.”

The knife flies out of Sam’s hand and into the grasp of a stunningly pretty girl with a ponytail wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants. She waves her hand and Sam sits down heavily onto a chair that had scooted across the floor on its own. She grins at Sam and steps further into the light of Crowley’s chambers so that he can see a blood splatter above the girl’s left eyebrow.

“I’d rather you not kill him,” you say in a clear, high voice that surprises Sam even though it matches your appearance. He can tell that you’re an extremely powerful demon already.

“And who are you?” he spits, trying not to visibly struggle against the force holding him down.

“That’s not very important,” you shrug and toss the knife to Crowley. He smirks at Sam.

“Are you going to kill me?”

You giggle and look at Crowley, who raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t say he was dumb!”

Sam grunts, offended but not willing to piss off this new threat even more.

“Honey, why would I kill you?” you ask. “I just don’t want you to kill Crowley. If you think demons are bad now, you should see them without a ruler. Besides, we have a few… arrangements.” An angel blade falls into your hand from your sleeve and Sam’s eyes widen.

“You’re an angel?”

“Well, demons can carry these blades too,” you say. “But yes.” You point it at his neck. “Now I’d like to speak with Castiel.”

“Why?” Sam asks suspiciously.

“Angel business,” is all you say. Without any work of his own doing, his body gets up and starts to walk out the door. “Bye, Crowley!” you call over your shoulder. “I’ll drop by sometime tomorrow, provided these imbeciles don’t take too long.”

“He won’t be going anywhere,” Crowley replies. “Bye, darling.”

Sam blinks and you and he are standing in the bunker by the world map along with Dean. When he can move on his own, he stumbles over to his brother, who holds an angel blade out threateningly to you. After a second, Sam draws a gun on you that won’t do any good, half-surprised when you don’t stop him from taking it out.

“Well, we haven’t exactly started off on the right foot,” you start.

“Sam, what’s going on?” Dean mutters.

“I have no idea,” Sam responds.

“Now, I won’t ask again: where is Castiel?”

“What do you want with Cas?”

You don’t respond. Instead, you mime throwing your angel blade, making both hunters wince. “Do you think he’d come if his precious humans were in trouble? Deadly trouble?”

“Look, all I can say is that if you don’t put that knife down you won’t be alive long enough for Cas to get back,” Dean barks.

You hold up your hands and let the knife fall down into your sleeve. “Fine.” Your eyes glow and both hunters wince. Nothing happens to them, though. When the glow fades, the smirk that adorns your face isn’t one that gives Sam a good feeling. “There, I’ve called him. Do you think his angel radio is on? He can turn that on, but he can’t quite…” You cock your head and flick your fingers to the side like you’re flipping a switch. “He can’t quite turn off the prayers directed toward him, and if the radio is off, he’ll only be able to hear you more clearly.”

“You still haven’t said what you want from Cas,” Dean says.

“I want to have a little chat with him.”

“If that’s all you want, I’m sure you won’t have a problem with wearing some angel handcuffs and staying in our dungeon until Cas arrives.”

You laugh and Sam flinches. “Oh, I do. I really do. See, I’ve heard stories about you two. The Winchesters . You pretend to be hunters, don’t you? You say you only want to help, but oh so many people—and I’m using that term lightly—have been burned by you. ‘Oh, wear these handcuffs until Cas arrives. Now wear them until you leave. Now, we need you and you don’t want to help so we’ll just lock you in the dungeon until you change your mind’.”

Dean shrugs and whispers to Sam, “She’s got a point.”

“Never mind that, just—” Sam puts the gun on the table carefully. “Dean, put it down.”

“What?”

“Just put it down,” Sam hisses. You watch the brothers with amusement. “We won’t be able to kill her before she kills us, so why piss her off?”

“God, Sam, every time,” Dean mutters.

“What?”

Dean rolls his eyes but puts the blade on the table as well. “Well, fair’s fair, bitch. Put your weapons down too.”

“Don’t insult me,” you snap. Sam and Dean take a step back. “I’m in enemy territory, of course I’ll be packing. Of course, I can’t really put all my weapons on the table, considering I am one.” You smile smugly. “Hey! That was good!”

Sam and Dean exchange glances.

“Sorry, Kara’s saying something.” You hold up a finger and turn away from them. “No, not now. Maybe later.”

You turn around, tossing your hair, and smile. “Humans, you know how they are. Always curious.”

Sam narrows his eyes. “You weren’t… talking to your vessel, were you?”

With a smile and a shrug, you confirm his suspicions. “You know, most of the angels you’ve met are completely bastards. They bury their bitches. Why?” You shake your head. “What is taking Castiel so long?”

Dean holds up a pair of handcuffs.

You roll your eyes but let the Winchesters put them on you. “Will Castiel be long?” you ask. “I’ve missed him oh so much.”

“Down to the dungeon, bitch,” Dean says.

You sigh and start to walk but stop abruptly when he tries to drag you. Dean tries to jerk you back into walking but can’t. “I’ve been very polite so far, Winchester. I’d hate to accidentally bring down this entire bunker on these handcuffs so I can do some more damage.”

Sam grabs Dean’s hand off your sweatshirt.

“Oh, can we bring a mirror as well?” you say conversationally. “It’s much easier to talk that way.”

“I think she’s insane,” Dean murmurs to Sam. Sam shrugs and grabs a mirror off the wall as they pass it. “Hey! Don’t give her what she wants, Sam!”

“Oh, Dean, you really don’t know anything about sucking up to people with more power than you,” you say, sing-song, and flash a smile over your shoulder at Sam like you know exactly what he’s thinking.

You stop at the dungeon door and smile at Dean.

“What?” he finally snaps.

“Well, are you going to open the door for me? It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

Dean looks at Sam, who just raises his eyebrows at him.

“Fine,” he grits out and opens the door, even gesturing for you enter. “Sam, don’t give her the mirror.”

“Hmm?” Sam asks, handing you the mirror.

“Aw, Sam, so thoughtful. You know, if I have to kill you, I might even feel bad about it,” you smile and take the mirror. “I’d do it quickly, at least. Dean, you should be nicer to me.”

“Huh, wonder why I’m not nicer to the bitch that’s threatening to kill me and my brother!” Dean barks.

“Oh, please.” You roll your eyes. “That doesn’t matter at all, now does it?” You walk further into the dungeon.

“She reminds me a lot of Ruby,” Dean mutters, eyeing you with trepidation. You wave sarcastically. “You’re sure she’s not a demon? Just…” Dean pulls Sam out of their dungeon and shivers. “She gives me the creeps. She really reminds me of Ruby.”

“I mean, she has used a lot of angel powers, and her eyes glowed instead of changing color. You know? Plus, she walked through a bunch of devil’s traps.”

“Until Cas gets here, I vote we leave her be,” Dean says. “Like I said, she reminds me of Ruby.” In an attempt to lighten the situation, he jokes, “Make sure you don’t fall for her, Sammy!”

“Oh, trust me,” Sam says, “that won’t be a problem.” He’s not sure if that’s a lie. Dean’s right; he does seem to have a thing for monsters, and your attitude is something that, if you were a human, would have him stumbling over his words. Now, he’s not sure if he wants to learn more about you or kill you before you can say anything else.

Cas is waiting for them by the map. “Why was Y/N calling for me? She said she was here, which was obviously a lie, but I still had to check. Is—”

“Well, someone that says she’s an angel named Y/N is here,” Dean says. Cas’s eyes widen. “Sam, you alright?”

Sam shrugs. He feels a little punch-drunk. “I think I’m just tired. I guess trying to kill Crowley really takes it out of you.”

“You wanna sit this one out?”

Sam shakes his head. He doesn’t want to wake up and see Dean carrying yet another corpse out of the bunker. You haven’t done anything to them. Not really. And Dean’s already out for blood. “I’m fine.”

Cas asks, “If it really is Y/N, how are the two of you alive?”

“Well, Dean, how’d you break Naomi’s control over Cas?” Sam asks, leaning back in his chair so far it might tip. Honestly, he’s not even surprised the best thing in his life has turned to shit again. That’s just how it goes for hunters, right? Especially him and Dean.

“Ask Cas,” Dean shrugs.

“Dean and I have a… more profound bond, similar to the one you and Y/N share,” Cas says solemnly. “It is against an angel’s nature to break bonds such as those.”

“Great!” Dean sits up. “So, what? We do what you and me did? Drop Sam somewhere near Y/N? She’ll rough him up a little bit, but he’ll be fine, and then we’ll have Y/N back, right?”

“I fear Naomi has perfected her practice,” Cas says. “Angels are very persistent and constantly striving for improvement. As long as Y/N’s mission contradicts with her nature and her bond with Sam, she will be erratic and unpredictable. Destructive.”

“What do you propose we do, then?” Sam asks.

Cas looks at them solemnly. “Sam, I believe you should stay here as your brother and I track down Y/N.” It’s not an actual answer and everyone knows it.

Sam clenches his fist and has to strain not to slam it to the table; instead he lowers it so slowly they can all see that he’s close to breaking. When he speaks, it’s through gritted teeth. “Cas. What are you going to do?”

“Cas, we’re not—” Dean starts but Cas waves his hand and a television appears on the map, streaming a live newscast.

“Well, why is she so different from you?”

“I am… Y/N is much more rebellious than I ever will be,” Cas says, sitting up straight in his chair. “I used to be her partner. Some called me her handler. She left heaven when God did, just before Gabriel and Balthazar. No one really knows what she has been up to, because she kills all the angels that try to bring her back. Luckily, I was never assigned that mission.” He straightens his tie. “All I know is that Y/N primarily kills humans now.”

“Ah, so she’s a monster,” Dean nods. “No wonder she’s working with the King of Hell.” He stands up and grabs the angel blade he’d left on the table. “Well, let’s go kill her, yeah?”

“No!” Sam and Cas exclaim at the same time, both standing up.

“Why the hell not?”

“We don’t even know why she’s here!” Sam says. “Just wait a second, alright, Dean? Aren’t you curious why she didn’t try to kill us? Hell, she saved me from Crowley.”

Dean frowns. “You said you had him by the throat and she took the knife from you.”

“Never mind that,” Cas interrupts. “You will not be able to kill her, Dean. You didn’t… make her angry, did you?”

“Why does that matter? She’s in handcuffs, I’ve got an angel blade. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Y/N was one of God’s chosen,” Cas says loudly, effectively stopping Dean. “She’s got twice the ‘mojo’, as you would say. Those handcuffs won’t work on her, for she is almost an archangel. I, for one, would like to know why God never punished her for rebelling every time she did and why he gave her extra grace.”

“Why’d she bother with pretending that the handcuffs work?” Sam asks, standing up straight.

Dean looks at him.

They both bolt for the dungeon.

“Hey!” Cas yells after them.

You look around the motel room you’d woken up in, blood all over your clothes. It looks relatively clean and new, except for where you’d been lying on the bed. Blood stains the sheets in the shape of your vessel’s body.

You don’t know if that’s Kara’s blood or someone else’s. You don’t remember what happened at all. One second you were—

A splitting pain shoots through your head and you fall to your knees, gasping for breath and clutching your head. When you take them away, they’re bloody, but you’re not sure if your head is bleeding or not. The blood is all over you. It’s slowly drying and you almost panic, your brain conjuring up images of you being covered in Kara’s blood for the rest of your life.

You scratch at your neck when it itches, your finger catching on something that you pull too harshly. A necklace with a snapped cord flies away from your form, but you hardly notice as it hits the rough carpet with no sound.

You close your eyes and concentrate. The glow of your eyes can be seen underneath your eyelids, not that anyone’s watching you. When you open your eyes, your vessel is spotless and skin whole again. You’re not completely sure if your vessel was damaged, but it’s fine now, so it doesn’t matter.

“Do you remember what happened?” you ask the mirror above the sink. Your reflection doesn’t move after the question. “Kara?”

You wave your hand and your reflection does the same. “Kara, stop. Do you—stop mouthing what I’m saying!” The mirror shatters and you take a surprised step back. “Alright, sorry.”

You turn to the mirror above the writing desk. “Look, I’m really confused. What’s going on?” Still, your reflection is only showing you. “Stop!” You run your hands through your hair. “Stop—just talk to me! Are you mad at me?”

Your reflection just shows you. “Fine,” you mutter. “If you won’t come out, I’ll pull you out.” You reach deep down into your subconscious and yank whatever’s down there to the surface.

“Perfect,” you breathe and open your eyes. “Kara.” Your expression quickly turns back to annoyance and then to fear. “Where are you? Stop it! What are you doing? ANSWER ME!”

Before Dean can kick down the door, Sam motions for him to stop. He wants to hear what you’re saying now that you think that no one’s listening.

“It does look cool, doesn’t it? The warding gives me a headache, though. Don’t worry, I’ll let you out soon. I just need to speak to Castiel. Yes, our plan is still a go. Of course I’m not going to let them try and stab us. Well, I’m not doing it for you. An empty vessel would be awfully lonely, wouldn’t it?” You laugh loudly. “I suppose so. Not that I want a body. These human prisons are awfully… blegh.”

Dean and Sam frown at each other.

“Well, alright. Since Sam and Dean aren’t going to say hi first, guess we’ll make the first move.” The dungeon doors slide open and you grin at the brothers, your hands on your hips. You are definitely not in the handcuffs anymore. “Is Castiel back yet?”

Sam can’t take his eyes off your reflection in the mirror. Even as you speak, it doesn’t move. As he watches, it turns to look at him and flips him the bird, but you’re not doing that in real life.

“Now, now, Kara, be nice,” you scold. “She doesn’t like you, you know. Handcuffs can get uncomfortable.”

“Pound sand,” your reflection says in the mirror and sticks out her tongue.

You wave your hand and your reflection suddenly starts to reflect what you’re actually doing. “Kara’s a bit prickly. So, Castiel, you’re working with these two Sasquatches?” Cas sighs and holds up his hands as he enters the room. “You do know, in teams, there should be at least one person with a working brain?”

“Yeah, that’s Sam,” Dean growls, stepping closer to you and brandishing the angel blade.

“I bet.” You grin at him. “I’ve heard all about Sammy. Oh, let’s stop with the foreplay,” you say. Sam and Dean’s feet slide across the floor until they hit the wall. You grin at them as the dungeon’s doors shut, locking you and Cas together.

“Hey!” Dean yells, pounding on the doors. “Hey, bitch! Let us in!”

“Cas, you alright?” Sam bellows.

“Y/N,” they hear Cas say. “Let them in, please.”

“Goddamnit!” Dean thunders, hitting the doors so hard they shudder.

“I’ll not let some ants boss me around,” Sam hears you say. “You’re almost one of them now.”

“Says the one who keeps her vessel around because she’s just that lonely,” Cas retorts. Sam grimaces. That doesn’t sound like the sort of remark you’d appreciate.

You say something in Enochian that he can’t quite make out, but to Sam and Dean’s surprise, they hear Cas chuckle. “It certainly has been a while.”

“Ah, my old handler. This sure is a reunion.” There’s a thud, like two people hitting each other, but not hard enough for it to be a hit. Sam frowns. Could you and Cas be… hugging?

“You always did have a flare for the dramatic.”

“Oh, you flatter me.”

“Cas! You alright?” Dean yells.

“Tell your ants to hush or I’ll do it for you,” you snap. “This isn’t your business, now is it?”

“Why are you here, Y/N?”

“I wanted you to tell your precious pets to stop fucking up the world, but I gather from these interactions they think that they protect you more than you protect them.”

“I don’t control Sam and Dean.”

“Earlier this morning the Lotus Motel in Lawrence, Kansas exploded due to a gas leak,” the reporter says on the screen. “Thankfully, there were only five casualties.” She continues to speak but no sound comes out.

Cas looks Dean in the eyes. “This is just one of the sparks that could light the gunpowder.”

“You’re saying… Y/N?” Sam asks, holding a hand to his mouth. No. That couldn’t be you.

“Y/N is lost and confused. She has a mission for the first time in millenia, and that mission goes against her bond.” The angel sighs deeply. “Dean, come on. She may not sense us.” He reaches for Dean and they both disappear. Sam is caught mid-lunge across the map in an effort to be brought along.

“Damn it!” He shoves his chair to the side.

Dean and Cas are on the TV screen now, looking around the wreckage and speaking quietly to each other.

“You’re sure this was Y/N?” Dean mutters.

“Positive. Traces of her grace are everywhere.”

“Cas, man, I don’t know if…” Dean grabs Cas’s jacket. “Hey! Look at me, man! Are you really telling me that you’re going to kill Y/N?” He eyes the crowd nearby and lowers his voice when he asks, “You’re cool with that? After all we’ve been through with her? After all she’s done for us?”

“She didn’t do it for you,” Cas laughs, shaking his head. Laughing makes this seem less real, like they aren’t talking about killing one of Cas’s fellow angels, one of his sisters, one of his best friends. You’re a part of the Winchester family just like he is. “Dean, look at me. Do I look happy doing this?” He lifts Dean’s hand off his sleeve pointedly. “I would give anything for this not to happen, but if Naomi’s control cannot be broken, she will hurt more people.”

“So?” Dean nearly yells. “No offense, Cas, but if that were to matter before, Sam and I would have killed you! You do know what matters? In this life?” He pushes Cas in the chest. “You and Sam and Y/N are all that matter to me. I don’t care if that’s selfish or whatever, I don’t care.” He shakes his head. “Doing this will kill Sam. You know that.”

“You can’t really control humans,” you say in an agreement. “So I guess that makes you more human than angel.”

“You too.”

You laugh then, and Sam winces for an entirely different reason than the reason he’s been wincing. It’s not a happy laugh; it’s too high and too brittle and forced. “Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it be great to be temporary and not care about what happens to this world after you’re over? Humans are so, so temporary and silly. You know, Castiel, so many humans down here are obsessed with the ‘meaning of life’. It’s so, so funny.”

“There isn’t one.”

“Exactly! Well, not really. You see, these humans, these disgusting little humans have created a meaning to life. Did you know that? And aren’t you angels all searching for a purpose? If they would just come down and watch these little creatures… But no.” You giggle. “They’d all end up like me.”

“Killing people. And working with the King of Hell.”

“Ha! They all deserve it, Castiel. There’s only a few crimes that absolutely cannot be forgiven under any circumstances. I kill the offenders of those crimes, demons drag their souls down to hell, and once they’re demons Crowley personally executes them. None of them deserve to go to heaven. No, I’m not talking about that.”

“So what are you talking about?”

“Love, Castiel! It’s the funniest thing! The relationships these stupid humans make keep them happy in their heavens. It’s too bad angels can’t love or go to heaven. Don’t you see, Castiel? If the angels could see these humans, they’d either kill them or give up their grace to all become them!”

“So why haven’t you done either of those things?”

“I do go to heaven.”

Sam and Dean look at each other with surprise. “I’m sorry, did this turn into an episode of Dr. Phil?” Dean whispers. Sam rolls his eyes; he’s surprised for a different reason.

“I’m in the memories of every person I’ve ever possessed or saved,” you say. “That’s good enough for me.”

“I don’t know why you’re here, though.”

“I’m here to offer a deal.”

Dean yells through the door, “We’re not going to take any deal you offer us, you crazy bipolar bitch!”

Sam tries to tell him to shut up, but he can’t open his mouth. He grunts and taps Dean on the shoulder. Dean looks at him and realization dawns over his face as well. He starts to grunt and pound on the door.

“Relax, I’ll let you speak in a few minutes, but I don’t like to be interrupted,” you snap. “Alright, here’s my offer: I’ll go out and get all the Leviathans into Purgatory. Every single one. You like that deal? There’s only one catch: You and your little Winchesters leave Crowley the fuck alone.” Your voice turns sharp. “Everyone knows you are the only ones with even a chance of killing him and I don’t feel like negotiating with another demon bastard. Crowley, at least, is a gentleman.”

“That’s it?” Cas asks suspiciously. Sam feels the same way. That’s too good a deal, and nothing in their lives ever goes in their favor. There’s got to be a catch later on down the road.

“I’m sick of the world ending every year. Oh, and you boys don’t hunt me down for killing a few humans,” you say flippantly. “What do you say, boys? Wanna take my offer? It’s a one-time deal!”

The doors slide open and the brothers scramble to their feet.

“Why’re you helping us out?” Dean asks suspiciously. “Just to be nice?”

“Haven’t you heard, Dean?” You grin, a grin that a demon would wear proudly. “I’m an angel, aren’t I?”

“Y/N,” Sam whispers, bowing his head as he clasps his hands. “Can you hear me, babe? Listen, I know you’re confused and you’re hurting. I just want you to calm down, okay? I know what it feels like to have a messed-up head. I know just what you’re feeling.” His face crumples. “I’m so sorry that you’re hurting because of me.” He lets out a long, shuddering breath. “It’s okay. I just don’t want you to hurt anyone else.”

He stays quiet for a long time after that, maybe hoping for you to appear, but Cas had warded the bunker against you, after all. Maybe your lack of a response means you still have enough sense not to bring it all down in order to get to him.

Or maybe you can’t hear him.

Or maybe you do remember him.

“Y/N, if you can hear me, I don’t want you to feel bad, alright?” Sam checks his watch. “I’m going to go to our tree, alright? Tonight, at midnight. If you remember me at all, you’ll meet me there and we’ll sort this out. I promise I’m not mad about the motel. Swear. If you don’t remember me, then…”

Then you’ll meet Sam there, and your mission will stop conflicting with your heart.

Even if you don’t hear his prayer, you’ll probably sense his presence.

“Sam!”

Sam looks up at the sound of his name. “Sam, Cas has some news!”

“Yeah?” he asks, sliding into the room. Dean tosses him a necklace and he snatches it out of the air. It’s a silver wing on a leather cord. Dean had teased him mercilessly when he’d stolen it.

“That was the only thing not burnt at all in the building.”

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes

#sam winchester x reader #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfic #reader x sam winchester #angel!reader #castiel #dean winchester #reader insert #spn #spn fic #supernatural #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfic

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huntertales · 6 years

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Part Four: Back in Business. (We Need to Talk About Kevin S08E01)

Episode Summary: Two years have passed since the unexpected death of the reader. Sam and Dean Winchester have continued without their hunting partner, believing that she is gone forever. However an accidental run in on a college campus makes the boys wonder if someone they had lost has come back from the dead, the reader. Dean quickly realizes it’s her. But there’s one problem, she has no idea who she really is. Will the boys be able to get her memories back and figure out what happened? Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Word Count: 6,324.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

You managed to dry off most of the soapy water you accidentally got a taste of after Kevin jumped you and the boys, thinking you were the monster. You discovered why it tasted so bad when you asked them, leading them to figure out more about these leviathan creatures you heard about on the car ride here to Iowa. It turns out sodium borate, or Borax, a chemical compound found in most cleaning supplies, was what really hurt them. It was like throwing holy water in the face of a demon or cutting a shifter with silver. The stuff didn't kill them, but it was the only thing that hurt them long enough to fend them off.

The boys found out when Sheriff Jody Mills, who you had met a few years back while working a case in Sioux Falls, accidentally spilled a bucket full of cleaner while cleaning Bobby's cabin. It seemed sort of...comical to hear that a cleaning substance was the very weakness of something that sounded so powerful and intimidating. You couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle when Sam was the one who explained it to you while Kevin fetched some towels, but he didn’t seem amused as you were. You shrugged your shoulders and took the towel when Kevin came back. You felt like you dodged a bullet not being around while dealing with those pesky things.

"So, let's just recap what I've missed over the past few years. You're a prophet of the Lord who, unlike the last one we met, only can read these word of God tablet. Which is what you used to defeat these leviathans. And then you got kidnapped by Crowley, only to escape. Which I was told about, but not the fact that Dean got sent to purgatory. Thanks for the freaking heads up." You hissed at the older Winchester as you turned your head to give him a dirty glare. "And Sam apparently hit a dog. I’m guessing all of this happened in the span of last year. The year before you guys were dealing with this huge Dick?"

"That's what she said." Dean jumped on the opportunity to make a remark on your wording that wasn’t meant to be funny, more of an accidental slip of the tongue. Your glare didn’t change as Sam rolled his eyes from his brother’s childish tendency. The older Winchester thought he was funny. He directed his attention away from your annoyed expression and crossed arms to the familiar devil’s traps on the floor. “Who taught you all of this?”

Kevin took a few steps into the church and said, “I guess...God.”

"God taught you how to trap demons?" Sam repeated the younger man, finding his answer the least bit strange. The God you knew had been long silent. You had a feeling during your time away He didn't all of a sudden get a change in heart to help out one of his prophets defend himself against a bunch of demons. "Wait, wait, hold on. Crowley kidnapped you. I saw that. But then you left a message saying you escaped. How?"

“Well...First, he took me to a warehouse.” Kevin said, recollecting on the memory as he told you and the boys to catch the three of you to speed on what happened to him. “There was a tablet there, like the last one.”

"Wait, so there's another tablet? So another word of God." Dean suspected. You furrowed your brow slightly from hearing all this mention of all these tablets. From what you remembered Sam telling you about them, they were the spoken word of God written down for only a prophet to read. The first one they discovered was of the leviathans, you wondered what this one that made Crowley go through all this trouble into kidnapping Kevin and have him read it. "How many words of God are there?”

“I just became a prophet, like, a year ago.” Kevin said. His response made the ends of your lips stretch into a slight smirk from his bit of sass to the older Winchester.

“Well, did this tablet have a name?” Sam asked.

"'Demons.'" Kevin answered. Your eyes narrowed slightly in curiosity as you asked him what it said about them. "As far as I could tell...everything."

Kevin told you and the boys about what he could read from the tablet about demons under Crowley's supervision. He went on about how he couldn't read much, but what he read was something about hell gates. You didn't have a good feeling about the mention of the very thing you had dealt with once before. Way back in the day, when Azazel was still alive, his goal was getting over the red tape that Samuel Colt himself had put up himself to stop any demon from opening up a door. It seemed that it wasn’t the only one. You crossed your arms tighter over your body as you asked Kevin about these hell gates.

“There’s one in Wisconsin. The tablet told me how to open it. There were ingredients for a spell.”

“You showed the king of hell how to open a hell gate?” Dean questioned the kid before he could finish his story, thinking he knew the ending. “So that all the demon's in hell could come out at the same time?”

“What? No. I told Crowley I was opening up a hell gate, but I was reading from another chapter.” Kevin said. You had only known Kevin for all of ten minutes but you had a feeling from the story he told alone you already liked him. Your lips stretched into a smirk as he continued on. “How to destroy demons.”

Dean let out a chuckle as he broke out into a smile, “You son of a bitch.”

“Wait, Kevin.” Sam said, bringing up an important question. “Where’s the tablet now?”

“Safe.” The younger man answered.

Sam thought the information was a little bit vague, “Safe where?”

"Hey. As long as it's safe, okay?" You stopped the younger Winchester from demanding to know the exact location. "Were you able to read anything else off the tablet before stashing it?"

“Only the stuff about closing the gates of hell. Forever.” Kevin said. You found yourself letting out a quiet scoff from how your hearing failed you. You asked again what he said, wondering if your brain was fooling you, or if the words out of the prophet’s mouth were true. “Banish all demons off the face of the earth, lock them away forever. That could be important, right?”

You were stricken silent at hearing the piece of information that you could only dream about. And it took a lot to make you this way. You slowly looked over at the boys to see they were taken back as you were from hearing this. It seemed too good to be true. But it wasn’t. "Closing the gates of hell forever?" Dean repeated what he heard from Kevin, who stood there with a smile of his own. "Yeah. Yeah, that could be important."

While you were over the moon about hearing this sort of news that could change everything, you found it a bit odd that Sam wasn't enthusiastic as the rest of you were. Sam nodded his head to the doorway the three of you came in. You followed behind the boys, stepping out to the porch to give the three of you a moment away from Kevin. You weren't sure what was going on here, but you had a feeling the few years that you were away old feelings had risen to the surface, things that you thought you were long buried.

“Okay, if this kid is right, he’s sitting on a bombshell. Hell, he is the bomb.” Dean said. Sam put both hands on the banister and leaned forward. You noticed that he didn’t seem so thrilled about all of this. “What?”

“That.” Sam mumbled. “I mean, there’s no way that Kevin’s getting out of this intact, is there?”

"Well, I've only known the kid for all of five minutes, but from what I've seen he's doing pretty well for himself so far.” You said. You found the remark Sam muttered underneath his breath about getting out a tad bit off. “There’s no running from something like this, Sam. You of all people should know that.”

"Y/N's right.” Dean said, agreeing with your blunt truth in the matter. “Kevin’s in it, whether he likes it or not."

It seemed Sam found his brother's remark a bit funny as his lips twitched into a smirk before it disappeared. "So...free will, that's only for you?"

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Sam, we have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. We take Kevin to the tablet, he tells us the spell, we send every demon back to hell—forever.” Dean said. He thought that would be enough to get his brother back on board with this plan. But the younger Winchester still stared off into the distance with the same solemn expression. You had a feeling it wasn’t about putting Kevin in danger. “Every single bastard that destroyed our lives. Killed our mother, killed Jess. Y/N’s parents. And you’re not sure?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders and pushed himself up to a standing position, not wanting to discuss this matter anymore with either one of you. You watched as he headed inside the church again, leaving you and Dean by yourselves. You might have been gone for two years, but you would never forget how the boys interacted with one another. Something was off between the both of them. Had something happened that left them that made them act...off? Whatever it was, you were going to get to the bottom of it, along with a few other things while you were at it.

+ + +

You ambushed the older Winchester outside when Sam said he wanted a few minutes alone to talk to Kevin about something you didn’t ask about. You found Dean with the trunk popped open and him finding all sorts of things the three of you needed to prepare yourselves. You crossed your arms over your chest and slowly made your way forward to the man, walking until you were leaning against the side of the Impala and watched as Dean, in full concentration, gathered all sorts of things and shoved them in the same faded army green duffel bag you and the boys had been using for years. Your lips stretched into a smile when he looked up and saw you standing right next to him.

Dean thought you wandered out here to give the both of you some privacy. He returned the smile as he forgot what he was doing. However before he could lean forward and do what he thought you wanted, you stopped him when you promptly backed away from him and put your index finger just inches from his lips. “When were you going to tell me you were in purgatory?”

You raised your brow as you crossed your arms over your chest again, giving him the indication that you weren’t going to back out of this conversation until you got an answer. Dean let out a sigh. “Soon.” He said. Your expression showed him you didn’t believe a single world he said. “You just got back, sweetheart. I didn’t want to bombard you with everything while you were—“

“Supposedly dead? Well, here I am. What you’re not gonna do is coddle me. I might have been gone for two years, but I’m still the same person. Hell, I’m better. I'm the new and improved me. And....well, don't take this the wrong way, but you look like crap." You told the man. Dean found himself smiling at your blunt behavior he missed so much. You didn’t let that brief moment of happiness stop you from getting to the bottom of this situation. Your expression changed into a softer one as you asked him again. "What happened in there, Dean?”

You heard stories about the place and Crowley's desperate attempts at trying to find the place for the sake of the souls. But you didn't see it first hand. Dean contemplated for a long moment if he wanted to talk about it again. He knew you wouldn't stop bugging him until he told you just a little bit of the truth. “It was bloody. Messy. Thirty-one flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Hell, most days felt like three-sixty-degree combat.” Dean said. You listened to the story about what the man had been through over the past year. A blank, serious expression crossed his face as he recollected on the memory fresh in his mind. "But there was something about being there. Felt pure."

Purgatory was a place where everything wicked that you were taught to hunt ended up there, every monster you could think of didn't land in hell or heaven. They were sent to a place where it was nothing but nonstop fight for your life. And Dean was sent there after killing Dick Roman. You found his last words sort of...haunting, in a way. You didn't understand why he would find a place like that "pure" as he called it. To Dean, it was a place where he spent three hundred and sixty five days of his life running. He didn't sleep, he didn't eat. All he did was track down the monsters his father told him to kill. It was the thrill of the kill, winning the battle against the enemy.

"And what about Sam?" You asked him. "He apparently hit a dog..."

"Right." Dean cleared his throat, concentrating again on the conversation when he found himself drifting into his personal thoughts. “Short version of it: Sam hit a dog, met a woman named Amelia and retired from hunting for a year. Guess he needed a break from everything."

You furrowed your brow slightly from what you heard. You looked back over at the church where the younger man was currently in with Kevin, the prophet he abandoned for a year, talking. You wondered what about. Was he apologizing to the kid for abandoning him for all this time? In the beginning of hunting with the boys Sam was the one who wanted out of this lifestyle he known since he was a baby. He wanted college, a girlfriend and no monsters to fight. But he quickly learned that wasn’t possible after he had all of that taken away. So he stuck with hunting and saved people because that’s what he always known to do.

What made you upset was the fact that he left everything and a poor kid behind who was dragged into this mess against his will. Much as all of you craved a normal life, you knew it was time to get serious when lives were in danger. If Sam really saw Kevin get kidnapped by Crowley, why didn't he do anything about it? You let out a sigh as you thought about a question that made you feel slightly guilty over the decisions you made while in a bitter state. Would have things been different if you didn’t want to have a break from your life?

"Well, if Sam wanted out so badly, why didn't he leave Kevin with Bobby?"

You asked the question out of sheer curiosity, knowing damn well it was wishful thinking that things wouldn't have completely fallen apart while you were gone. You and the boys died what felt like a thousand times over again, but you didn't think the man you thought as your own father would ever be gone. Bobby was always there when you needed him the most. It seemed the mention of the older man’s name sent almost a pained expression on Dean’s face. You could feel your shoulders slumping when you knew. You seen that face before.

You could feel your heart suddenly stop as your eyes began to unwillingly water at the thought. But you didn't let yourself think it, you didn't let yourself believe that was such a thing. You quickly cleared your throat and sniffled only once before forcing yourself to think of another question, another person that you were missing here. All of a sudden you remembered Cas, the pesky angel who was the reason why you spent two years playing a different person, and much longer if the boys didn’t realize it themselves.

"What about Cas?" You wondered about the angel. "Where's he?"

"Purgatory. He got sent there with me when we killed Dick, together." Dean explained to you. You seemed rather surprised to hear the news. The last time you saw the angel you would have wished him dead and spat in his face. But time passed, and it seemed Cas had learned that power really wasn't worth all of it. "The wall in Sam's head collapsed after you were gone. And it was bad. Everything he went through in the cage came out. And he had a constant Lucifer on his shoulder 24/7. It got to the point where he couldn't sleep he was going crazy. Luckily...Cas came to the rescue. He really helped Sammy get better."

"God, if I knew things were going to be this bad..." You muttered, letting out a breath as you suddenly felt guilty over the choices you made. You looked up at the older Winchester with a solemn expression. "I should have been here for you guys. I shouldn't have wanted to get out—"

"Hey, you're back. And that's all that matters, sweetheart. Besides, I think we managed without you. Barely—but we managed." Dean said. You couldn't help yourself but smile slightly. You found yourself mindlessly playing with the ring on the same finger that you had almost lost, Dean noticed that it was the diamond ring that signified a life long commitment. "Remember Becky? Creepy number one fan of those books, dated Chuck Shurley before he dumped her?"

“What? They broke up?” You quickly looked up at the older Winchester with surprise at what you just heard. Dean found your reaction a little weird, prompting you to roll your eyes. “I set them up. I thought they were cute. And I thought it would somehow help with her unhealthy obsession with Sam."

"Well, it didn't. She had the brilliant idea of trying to sell her soul to a demon to make Sammy fall in love with her. The two of them were at some church trying to elope. It was hilarious." Dean said. You found yourself breaking out into a smile as you let out a quiet laugh from the thought alone. "I mean, she could have been the first Mrs. Winchester."

Your lips stretched into a smirk at the mention of a title that you were secretly thinking about for the longest time. You raised your brow as you wandered closer to the older Winchester and wrapped your arms around his neck. "Hmm. What a tragedy that would have been.”

"It sure would have, sweetheart." Dean whispered. You felt his arms snake around your waist, pulling you closer to him as humanly possible. Your eyes wandered away from the handsome face you loved so much and to the pair of lips you had been thinking nonstop about. You let out a giggle when you felt Dean lean forward, capturing you into a kiss that you had been wanting to do since you first remembered him. It was every bit romantic and mesmerising from the last time you shared a moment like this. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

“Long as I have, I bet." You said. You quickly pecked him on the lips before you dropped your hands so they were now resting on his chest. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart." Dean said. You felt a sense of happiness come over you at hearing three little words you didn’t hear very often from him. But each time it never ceased to make you feel overjoyed. You were about ready to get back to the church, thinking your heart to heart was over. Before you could move, you suddenly felt Dean's hands sneak a grab somewhere that made you let out a small gasp of surprise. "God, I missed this ass."

“Dean!" You hissed at him, slapping his hands away. You refrained yourself from smiling as you shook your head, attempting to make it seem like you weren't in the mood for his behavior. “It’s nice to know some things never change.”

+ + +

You headed back into the church and spent the next hour trying to occupy yourselves of trying to figure out what all of you wanted to do. Since you knew there was a way to close the gates of hell forever, you couldn’t just get the tablet. You needed time and a plan. However it seemed none of those things were going to be a possibility today. You were sitting on one of the pews when you felt something strange happen. You looked down at the ground when you felt what you believe was vibrations, and it was. Slowly it increased more until the entire floorboards were jumping out of place, destroying the devil’s trap Kevin had set up himself. You mentally cursed to yourself, knowing exactly who was in charge of this mess.

There was only one demon-killing knife between the three of you. Dean didn't think twice about giving his brother the knife for protection, which pissed you off slightly, but you had two hands to beat the hell out of however many demons Crowley sent your way. You pushed yourself up to your feet as Dean pulled something out from the duffel bag, a weapon that looked make shifted out of wood and stone carved to a sharp point. You furrowed your brow and cautiously asked what the hell that was, Dean replied it was purgatory. You quickly dropped your hand to your side, wondering if it was from the place, and how many people he had to kill with it.

Not too long after getting prepared for the worst, you heard the double doors being kicked wide open, revealing the two goons the king himself sent after you and the boys. How they managed to find you was a mystery. You stepped back and made your way over to Kevin when you saw two smiling demons, seeming happy to spot a few fellow hunters they heard rumors about.

“Dean Winchester. Back from purgatory.” The first demon spoke up, noticing right away the fellow oldest hunter of the infamous Winchester family was back. You narrowed your eyes slightly when you saw his gaze linger over to you. "Y/N Y/L/N, we all thought you were good as dead. Where they been hiding you all this time, sweetheart?”

“Needed a vacation after what your piss poor king did to me. Well...tried to do. Look at how that turned out. I know all of you missed me. I missed killing your asses. So come on." You taunted them, your lips stretch into a smirk. "I'll tell you what I'm gonna tell your boss when I see him: Suck it, bitches."

The demons didn't seem to find your welcoming words the least bit nice. You took another step back and watched as each of them charged forward, but before they could get close to you or Kevin, the boys attempted to take them down. Dean went after one as Sam attacked the other. You might have been out of the game for the past few years, but you weren't out of practice. The boys attempted to try and take down the demons before they could do anything stupid. However it didn't take much time until Sam found himself losing the fight when he was accidentally taken off guard, sending him and the knife tumbling to the floor.

You suddenly saw the demon coming in your direction, giving you no chance to defend yourself. But before he could lay a finger on you, Kevin acted quickly, grabbing a bottle of holy water and squirting it in the demon's face, giving you enough time to snatch the knife up from the floor. You quickly plunged the blade into the demon’s back, killing him instantly. You quickly looked forward to see that Dean was winning the fight, but barely. He had managed to slam the demon into a table, but the demon had his hands wrapped around Dean’s neck, squeezing the life out him. You raced forward and stabbed the remaining demon straight in the heart, making him release the grip around Dean’s neck, giving him a chance to finally breathe.

“My God.” You muttered, inhaling a deep breath from the chaos that had just unfolded right in front of your very eyes. You looked over your shoulder to see that Sam was back on his feet and Dean was catching his breath after nearly being strangled to death. “How did the both of you survive this long without me?”

"Hello, boys." Most of the time you were lucky enough to deal with some of the goons that Crowley sends over, thinking a few of his best were enough to take down you and the boys. But it seemed you were in the presence of royalty tonight from the familiar accent you heard from behind. You felt the grip around the knife tighten as you looked over your shoulder to see the demon you hadn't seen in two long years, since he got the idea to try and kill you. Your expression hardened in anger when you spotted a young woman behind him. However your attention only lingered on her for a moment before you looked back over at Crowley. “Kitten. My, it’s been a while. Hasn’t it? You're looking refreshed."

"Yeah. Two years off can really do wonders for a girl. And, of course, last time I saw your ugly face I wasn't looking my best. But thanks to your brilliant schemes I’m finally human. I never got to personally thank you for that." You said, giving him a forced smile. "I see the whole purgatory plan fell through. I hope Cas passed on my message."

“Yes. And what way of words you have. Frankly I’m glad you’re back in business. I was missing our witty banter we used to pass on back and forth. And speaking of, Dean. You’re looking… Well, let’s just say purgatory didn’t do you any favors.” Crowley tried his hardest to greet the older Winchester with a friendly compliment, but the demon found himself falling short. The demon looked around at the four of you, expecting someone in a trench coat to be around here somewhere, but it seemed Castiel was missing. “Where’s your angel?”

“Ask your mother.” Dean replied.

“There’s that grade-school zip. Missed it. I really did.” Crowley said. You rolled your eyes as the demon’s attention lingered over to the tallest Winchester. “Moose. Still with the pork chops. I admire that.”

“Let Channing go.” Kevin suddenly spoke up, demanding the young woman standing behind the demon to be set free. You furrowed your brow slightly, having a feeling she was someone that Kevin had personally known.

“That’s not Channing, Kevin.” Dean said. “Not anymore.”

“What an awful thing to say to the boy. Of course it’s Channing.” Crowley said, pretending to be offended at the accusation. He directed his attention to the prophet. “Kev. Last time we danced, you stole my tablet and killed my men. Tell you what. Come with me now, bygones. And I’ll let the girl go back to...what’s-the-point u.”

“He’s lying.” Dean spoke up, thinking he could see right through the demon’s lies that sounded too good to be true if they were. “You won’t get Channing back. She’s probably dead already.”

Crowley let out a sigh from the accusation, "Will you please stop saying that? Let the girl speak."

It took the snap of Crowley’s fingers for the real Channing to come out, reassuring all of you she was perfectly fine. She blinked, making the black eyes of the demon possessing her disappear, as the real her began to piece together what was going on. Her gaze went over to someone she recognized from the smile that stretched across her lips. “Kevin? What’s going on?”

“There’s a demon in you, and you're going to your safety school. But it’s gonna be okay.” Kevin tried explaining the situation to his girlfriend in the seconds they had together. Crowley found all of this boring, and with another snap of his finger, the demon possessing Channing was back front and center. It left Kevin with not many options left. “Okay. I’ll do it. Myself for the girl. But this ends. All right? No fighting, no nothing. It ends.”

“Can’t let you do that, buddy.” You said.

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Kevin questioned you. You gave him a look to show him you weren't the least bit amused by his sass, Crowley found the banter all too amusing as he let out a quiet chuckle. “I’ll grab my stuff.”

"Chin up, gentlemen.” Crowley reassured you and the boys. “I'm a professional."

"Professional at being a dick, maybe." You remarked back. “King of hell? Not so much.”

“This ain’t over by a long shot, Crowley.” Dean threatened the demon.

"Really, Dean, who writes your stuff? A marshmallow?" Crowley asked, not seeming to be the least bit amused. You rolled your eyes and tempted the idea of gutting the demon right here and now to get all of this over with. But you waited. Kevin was taking an awfully long time grabbing his stuff, and the demon was growing rather impatient with each passing second. He decided that after calling out the prophet's name twice he would see what was taking so long. However when he stepped in your direction, you tightened your grip around the knife and pointed it in his direction, showing you weren't afraid to use it on him. However it seemed the king had a trick up his sleeve. Suddenly the handle of the knife grew scorching hot, to the point where you dropped it. "Retract the claws, Kitten."

You opened your palm and examined the damage to your skin, forcing the demon to go on his way, Channing following behind. You rolled your eyes from the cheap trick he used on you as Dean picked up the knife to see if it was still hot, but it seemed that it was back to normal now. You and the boys waited for Kevin to finally come out with his belongings he'd been carrying around for the past year. However, as if you really think the kid was going to give up that easily, he had a trick up his sleeve to trap the demons long enough for the four of you to get the hell out of here.

“Guys, run!”

Kevin’s command echoed through the church, giving you and the boys the signal to do just that. You headed outside in record speed and headed for the backseat as the brothers swiftly opened up the front doors to the Impala. Kevin came out from the back he escaped from and joined you in the back. The four of you were off on the road, but Crowley wanted to make sure he left Kevin with some payback for what he did. The demon possessing his girlfriend disappeared, but it didn't leave Channing in one piece. Kevin watched as her neck twisted into an odd angle that you made you almost picture the snapping sound it made, and just like that, her dead body hit the ground. You gritted your teeth in what the poor kid had to watch unfold. You were going to get that son of a bitch, you thought. Even if it killed you.

+ + +

It was a day and a half drive until Dean thought it was safe enough for all of you to get some rest at a motel after stopping for gas. You wished that things could have ended differently back at the church, but Crowley knew better than to leave behind any survivors. It was one of the things Kevin was going to have to learn while being in this lifestyle. The people you love were going to get hurt. You checked all of you in with a credit card you found in the wallet that used to belong to Y/F/N. Heading back to the Impala with the room keys, you noticed that Kevin still had the same expression on his face since you were on the main road out of Iowa.

“Kevin?” You spoke the young man’s name in a soft tone. “How are you holding up?”

“Awesome. The king of hell just snapped my girlfriend’s neck.” Kevin answered your question, making you feel slightly guilty for asking. “How ‘bout you?”

You refrained yourself from rolling your eyes from his tone of voice alone. You shifted your gaze over to the boys, the three of you sharing a look of uneasiness at how things ended for the poor kid. He didn’t ask to be apart of this. Dean, however, wasn’t in the mood to coddle the kid. “All right, listen to me. I’m sorry about your girlfriend, I am. But the sooner you get this, the better. You’re in it now whether you like it or not. That means you got to do what you got to do.”

"Well, I think we could have approached that a little less blunt, but...Dean's got a point. You're in this situation. The best thing to do is keep your nose clean. I'm sorry about how things turned out. Maybe a good night's rest will make you feel a little better." You said. You outstretched your arm, giving Kevin the key to his own motel room. "Sam’s next door to you. Dean and I will be a few doors down if you need anything.”

Kevin snatched the key out of your hand and went on his way. Sam took the key from you with a smile and followed behind the kid, leaving you and his brother alone. You let out a faint sigh and looked over at the older Winchester. Much as this situation ended with a bitter ending, you were at least a bit happy you could spend the first night back to your old self with the man you loved. You lifted up the key room to show Dean and nodded your head to the motel. The both of you headed to the room and unlocked the door, revealing another run of the mill motel room with a queen sized bed.

"Weird to say this, but am I glad to see a motel room." You muttered, stepping inside the room as Dean followed behind. He shut the door and tossed the bags to the bed. You looked around the room to see that it was decently clean. "I'm gonna take a nice, long hot shower and a nap. We'll have dinner around six-ish?"

"Sounds good to me." Dean said. You smiled and leaned forward, pressing your lips against his before heading to the bag he packed you full of different clothes that were once Y/F/N. You didn't even want to know what the boys did with your old clothes. They probably got rid of them so they wouldn't have a constant reminder of you. As you were about to pull out some cleans and a clean shirt, Dean's phone started ringing. You furrowed your brow slightly and gave him a confused look, wondering who that could be. “Hello? Wrong number. Automated jackass.”

You laughed quietly as you bundled up the clothes into a pile. You made it a few steps to the bathroom before you found yourself stopping in your tracks. Something had been bothering you since last night. You wanted to ask when you mentioned his name, but you were too afraid to hear the answer. "Hey, Dean?" You heard the man let out a quiet hum as he looked over at you. You let out a sigh and forced yourself to ask the question burning in the back of your mind. "Is Bobby still alive?"

Dean flinched slightly at your question. He didn't answer you right away, but you had a feeling you knew from how he acted. He gestured a hand for you to come over. You sat on the bed with him as he wrapped an around your body, pulling you close to him, knowing this was going to be hard to hear. "He...He got captured while on a hunt. Dick Roman shot him in the head." Dean explained to you. The details of the situation made your eyes widen in horror as you inhaled a breath. Dean found himself smiling at the memory. "He didn't die right away. The son of a bitch fought for his life. Even after his death he helped us a few times. But...eventually me and Sam had to put him to rest."

You fell silent for a moment as you processed the information that you heard. You swallowed slightly as you realized the man you had viewed as a father figure passed away shortly after you did. At least, that's what he thought. He died thinking you were as well. You looked at the older Winchester as you tried to think about the kind of shenanigans Bobby pulled while being a ghost. But even the good memories couldn't stop the soul crushing reality that he was gone. Your smile slowly faded as your eyes began to glaze over with tears that you had been fighting off. Dean didn't say anything. He pushed you closer to him so your head was resting on his chest, letting you cry and mourn the loss of a man you thought would live forever.

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writingfromkitchenator · 6 years

Text

Crowley ~ Stop being...

Complete the Sentence 500 Followers Challenge

Requested by @everyjourneylove

You wouldn't have thought that a year could change much, or, not as much as it had.

After dealing with the Leviathans, after losing both Dean and Castiel to Purgatory, after Bobby's death, you couldn't cope when Sam asked you to help. You had never said no to them before, but this time was too much, you were tired and for the first time in your life, you ran.

For a whole year, you didn't hunt, didn't get involved in any sort of mess, no matter what signs you saw, you avoided it all without a thought, saw the world that you'd only ever dreamed of seeing and almost forgot about everything.

Then the dreams started.

They'd been awful, filled with blood and violence, with angels and demons and Sam and Dean. You tried to fight against it, content not to go back to hunting, but life wasn't going to let you.

Whatever was wrong, was bad.

Dean was always a mess in the dreams, struggling to look after a ever weakening Sam, who looked more dead than alive.

Castiel wasn't much better, but he was carrying something, constantly stressing over something to the point of looking drawn. He was being hunted and followed and he was running out of options.

Despite all this, it wasn't until another familiar face appeared that you knew you had to go back. It wasn't that you were a fan of Crowley, he'd hurt all of you before, but when you saw him, saw the King of Hell actually looking and feeling worried, you knew you had to go back.

As soon as you landed, you tried calling Dean, then Sam, then started trying their other phones, leaving a message on each one and getting more and more worried when they didn't answer. You didn't know where to start to look for them, didn't know if anyone was still around who would be able to give you any idea.

Then, driving late one night, you watched the sky light up, making you pull over and get out. Had you been normal, you would've thought a meteor shower, but you knew better, you knew something bad had happened, knew that these lights falling from the sky meant something.

One landed hard near you, so you geared up and followed.

There was a large crater, dust still hanging in the air, before there was a small whisper in your ear.

“Help me...please...”

There was a fading light in amongst all the dust and it didn't take much for you to realise that the angels had fallen.

“Please...”

You didn't know why, but you said yes.

Aphael, luckily, was too weak to control you and so was content to sit back and recover. You had little doubt she would've died had you not agreed, so you were glad to be able to help.

It was also her that then led you to Sam and Dean.

She knew your concerns, so when she heard the prayer go out, she told you and you followed and along the way, she explained what everyone was thinking what happened.

You got to the hospital just in time to save Sam and Dean from two angels, Aphael's angel blade coming in handy, even if she didn't approve.

The boys stared at you as you caught your breath.

“Good to see you guys answer your phones.”

It had been awkward to say the least, both Sam and Dean upset with you, but they still took you back to the bunker and gave you a room. They seemed hesitant at first, but eventually filled you in on what had been happening.

“Everyone always thought Metatron was a bit odd...” Aphael had said at one point, and you had to fight to keep your expression neutral.

You were glad to see that Kevin was alright through most of this, although clearly still stressing to much and getting too little sleep. When you said so, his expression turned grim.

“Well, you'd be like this too if you were a prophet and knew what they were keeping in the dungeon.”

“In the what?”

This one was all on Dean, who looked both annoyed and uncomfortable. “You don't need to know.”

“Dean, if you don't tell them, I will.” Kevin said firmly.

Sighing, Dean gets up. “Come on.”

The dungeon turned out to be a hidden room, enough out of the way that if you weren't really looking, you wouldn't have found it.

Slumped in the corner, staring blankly at the wall opposite was-

“Crowley?” Sam asked, turning to Dean. “Why is Crowley here?”

Dean took a moment, staring at Crowley, who didn't move, before looking at Sam. “I didn't know if you were alive or dead Sam, I needed every leverage I could get to get you back if I had to.”

“He's...human...”

It was as if the dreams made sense now as you looked at them. “So you did it? You closed the gates of Hell?”

“We think so,” Dean said. “But by all rights it was meant to kill Sam, almost did, and Crowley, well, Crowley is human as far as I can tell.”

You looked back at Crowley, who still hadn't moved. He looked awful, bloodied and bruised and...broken? You didn't know how right that was but you didn't like seeing him in the corner like that.

“Have you at least been looking after him?”

“He won't eat or drink,” Kevin said. “I've tried.”

“He needs healing.”

“Aphael you are not strong enough for that.”

“We cannot leave him like that.”

You let out a slow breath. “Bring me some things, I'll get onto it.”

“What?”

“I want to help, so bring me some things so I can patch him up at least.”

“We should be killing him.” Sam said, frowning slightly. “Not looking after him.”

You turned to Sam. “Can you seriously do it when he looks like that?”

Sam looked unsure. “The stuff he's done...” But he trailed off. “No...”

“Now you know my other predicament.” Dean said.

They brought you things to help and then left you alone.

You sat in front of Crowley. “Crowley?”

Surprisingly, he looked at you.

You gave a small smile. “Good to you're still alive in there.”

He rolls his eyes, but still remains silent.

“Now, that's unlike you, no matter what position you're in.” You said, looking him over, trying to see the worst of his injuries. “I don't suppose you'd let me patch you up?”

“No.”

You raised an eyebrow. “No? Aren't you in pain?”

He shrugs. “I'll deal with it.”

“Just let me help. He is being stubborn.”

“No, he's hurting in more ways than one. We need to keep this normal.”

“I don't like it.”

“Trust me.”

Crowley frowned at you. “Are you alright?”

The question surprised you but you smiled. “I'm doing well thanks, not sure how I feel about being back in things, but we'll see.” You shuffle closer. “Now, let me help Crowley.”

He shifts slightly. “No.”

“Crowley, if you are indeed human, then those wounds need cleaning,” You said calmly, knowing patience was needed with this. “Otherwise they are going to end up worse and you could risk, well, death in the worst case.”

“It'd be the least I'd bloody deserve.” He mumbled, breaking his gaze away to lean back on the wall. “Now go away.”

“No.” You said. “Crowley I think we both know where you'd currently go, should the worst happen. This is a second chance, even if it doesn't feel like it and whether or not you like it.”

“Y/N, don't get soppy with me,” He glared at you. “You hardly know what I've done, what I've seen, so don't pity me. By every right, the four of you should just kill me.”

“Yeah, good luck with that one.” You said flatly and moved forward again, within easy reaching distance now. “Now, let me help. It'll certainly make brooding a lot easier with a clear head.”

“I'm not brooding.”

“No?”

“I'm being melancholic, there's a difference.”

You chuckle. “Call it what you will, you still need me to help.”

You'd noticed the raw marks around his wrists and wanted to tend to those first, gently taking one hand.

“I could-“

“Hush, it may not be wise for them to know I have angel in my head yet.”

“It would make him feel better quicker.”

“Maybe, but I think he needs this.”

“How can you say that?”

You closed the angel out and focused, Crowley watching you as you pressed a damp cloth to his wrist, making him hiss and yank his hand away.

You look at him. “Stop being such a baby and just let me look at it.”

He frowns at this. “That stung.”

“Funny about that, wounds do that when you clean them.” You grabbed his hand again before he could move. “Now, hold still, the quicker we do this, the better.”

Crowley watched you, flinching occasionally, but mostly focusing on you. The boys never provided a reason for why you left, but they were clear that you weren't coming back, or so they said. Yet, here you were, now, and helping tend to him even though he'd tried to kill you. Whatever you'd done in that year gone, you looked better, stronger, more open minded, and he suddenly knew, if there was going to be one thing that he could hold onto throughout all this, it would be you.

#supernatural #crowley #short #drabble #500 followers challenge

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not-a-space-alien · 7 years

Text

Falling Hazard, Part 11: Feast (Reprise)

Series masterpost

On AO3

“Lord Maltha wishes your presence now.”

Whatever Maltha had done had worked; Crowley’s arm was completely better by the time Mammon summoned them down to dinner as promised. He was glad to leave the clinic behind once again.

They ran into no trouble on the way down this time. Mammon led them back into the ninth circle, through the antechamber, and into one of the entrances to the right of the throne room.

They emerged into an exquisite banquet hall, with a soaring vaulted ceiling, carved pillars, and an enormous, ornate wooden table with dozens of seats. Maltha was at the far end, seated at the head of the table. Noah was in the seat next to her; he looked to be sitting on a stack of phone books.

“Thank you for joining us,” said Maltha. “Please sit.”

The heavy chairs scraped on the stone floor as Aziraphale and Crowley took the seats closest to her. Mammon circled around to stand behind Maltha. Angelo remained standing, looking around unsurely.

“Please sit, Angelo. You are my guest as well.”

He did so.

“Maltha,” said Aziraphale. “Thank you very much for healing Crowley.”

“I take it you are doing better?” said Maltha.

“Yes,” said Crowley. “Thank you.”

They occupied only a small portion of the table. It was almost comical, to have only five people at a banquet in accommodations clearly made for much larger capacity. The huge room seemed inordinately quiet and hollow with just them, and so far the table only held empty platters and unused silverware.

“Um,” said Aziraphale, “will anyone else be joining us?”

“Perhaps eventually,” she answered vaguely.

Crowley looked around, gesturing to the table. “You aren’t going to invite any of your court?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Maltha mildly.

They sat there in the spooky semidarkness for a few moments, light from the burning torches casting strange, angular shadows across the room.

Crowley cleared his throat. “Maltha, now that we’re here, we’d like to talk to you about some things. You haven’t answered us very well in your correspondences by mail.”

Maltha held up one finger. The door behind her creaked open amidst a clatter of dishes. “It’s impolite to talk business during dinner.”

And so it went. A team of demons laden with trays of gourmet food appeared, dishing it out, serving wine, talking in hushed voices. When everything was laid out, they stood at attention at the wall.

Maltha took a fork and a knife in each hand, beginning the meal with the roast of some unknown animal in the center. “So, Aziraphale, Crowley, I heard you went on vacation recently. Tell me about it.”

They were forced to make small talk as though nothing were out of the ordinary. They told her about the trip they had taken around Europe and the Middle East. She did not seem fazed in the slightest when they told her they had witnessed the destruction of Temple Mount, and continued to chew while nodding as though hearing a good bit of gossip.

Maltha seemed genuinely interested in their story—not a big surprise given wandering had been her activity of choice upon first coming to love the Earth—and Noah seemed positively enthralled. Crowley thought maybe Noah had grown a bit bored down here, with Maltha doing all the work to keep him safe and things running smoothly.

“Maltha?” said Aziraphale. “May I ask where Beth is?”

This, and only this, was enough to make Maltha pause in the entire meal. She put her utensils down. “She is…unavailable.”

“Maltha,” Crowley reiterated. “Where is Beth?”

“Maltha, we’re friends,” said Aziraphale. “Please tell us what’s going on. It’s rather uncharitable of you to keep us in the dark.”

Maltha tapped her spoon on her dish. “I just wanted…just once to have a meal with you two again. To maybe have another feast like that one we all had together. The moment I got word that Satan had died and events were in motion, I knew I had missed the opportunity to spend time with you as equals on Earth like I wanted to. I thought we could have a nice meal without the stress of the impending apocalypse, or Heaven or Hell. Just us. But I can see you’re impatient. So let’s move on, then.”

She snapped at the wait staff, who busied themselves with removing their half-eaten meals immediately. The table was clear in under a minute, leaving only a wine glass at Maltha’s direction.

Maltha pulled Noah’s chair out for him and said, “Noah, why don’t you run off to bed a bit early today?”

“Aww,” said Noah. “But you’re going to talk about something really important.”

“And you’ll be filled in on the details later,” said Maltha, hauling him up so she could plant a kiss on his forehead. “Why don’t you see if the chef will give you a biscuit before you head out, hm?”

She set Noah down, and he scampered off. Maltha motioned to one of the attendants nearby. “See to it he gets to bed, will you?”

The servant disappeared after Noah, and the door boomed shut. A few servants hung back by the wall, rushing to finish the cleanup.

Maltha downed the rest of the wine in her glass, then set the empty goblet on the table. She focused on Aziraphale and Crowley, as though about to say something very important. “I’m going to be honest with you two, I have no idea how to raise a child. I have found myself filling many roles in my life. Healer. Warrior. Leader. And now I find myself in one few demons ever do: Parent.”

“Maltha,” said Angelo, who had barely made a peep throughout the meal. “If you are going to say something very private, would you like me to leave?”

“No,” said Maltha. “I think you deserve to hear this, too, Angelo. Please stay here.”

Angelo looked uncomfortable, as though he were sitting in a building he was not entirely sure was not on fire.

“When I agreed to take Noah down, I confess I didn’t think about the responsibility it would be to not only help him rule, but to raise him as well. The truth is that Beth was doing most of the heavy lifting raising Noah while I kept Hell in line. Noah is somewhere between demon, human, and angel, and I knew in my heart I would do an insufficient job alone, because I could not raise him to truly understand how to be human the way Adam is, which has been key to his success. If he were simply a demon like the rest of us, if he belonged solely to Hell, well…”

“We’d just have another Satan,” said Crowley.

Maltha nodded. “I want Noah to grow up to be different. I want Noah to grow up and be a merciful ruler, unlike his father. Which is why I do not want him to know what is going to happen tonight. I want to create a world in which he will not have to be as ruthless as I am.”

That did not bode well, Aziraphale thought. Not at all.

“Beth had a terrible, burdensome past she kept hidden. She used to have a child. It was a bit younger than Noah when it died, along with Beth’s previous partner.”

“Oh,” said Crowley.

“Beth’s life has been filled more pain than even I can imagine. And yet she always kept going. Nothing seemed to slow her down. Nothing destroyed her will to keep going, nothing overcame her resilience. But not even a human like her could fight against Heaven.”

“Heaven has done something?” said Aziraphale.

“They saw fit to stamp out such a spirit,” snarled Maltha. Then, with a wave of her hand: “So if you want to know where she is so badly, why don’t you ask your archangel friends?”

A piece of celestial parchment with Gabriel’s seal on it materialised onto the table in front of Aziraphale. He unrolled it to see that it read:

To the archdemon Maltha,

Yes, I’ve taken her. She is the deepest part of Heaven. You will have to destroy creation itself to get her back. Come at us with everything you’ve got.

-The Archangel Gabriel

“Wh-what?” said Aziraphale. “What is this?”

“The last time I saw Beth, she had gone out for a walk in the eighth circle with an escort of warriors. A few hours later, we found the bodies of her escort destroyed, and Beth was nowhere to be found. The next day, I received this letter from Gabriel.”

Aziraphale turned the letter over and over. The seal seemed real. It was Gabriel’s handwriting. “But Heaven can’t harm humans!” said Aziraphale. “It couldn’t have been Gabriel. Azrael is the only angel allowed to take humans into Heaven. Gabriel wouldn’t do that.”

“Let’s see just how far that obstinacy of yours will you carry you through the evening, Aziraphale,” said Maltha testily. “Apparently the story is that someone, somewhere prayed a prayer of mercy over Beth, and someone in Heaven found that enough pretence for a ‘rescue’ from ‘punishment’ in Hell, despite the fact that she was in Hell willingly.”

Aziraphale’s blood turned to ice. A prayer of mercy. It couldn’t have been the one he had prayed over their feast in his shop after destroying Agares.

…could it?

“I have never seen such a blatant attempt to antagonise me,” said Maltha. “Gabriel did this because he assumed I would become so enraged that I would start the war with Heaven. Those fools were so desperate to start the war that they struck right below the belt at me—the one in control of the antichrist, the only one in any position to conceivably start the war, even though it was an unconscionable violation of Heaven’s rules for treatment of humans.”

Something in the room trilled, and a small sphinx leapt up onto the table, ears flicking, roving around for leftovers.

“And there’s Toby,” said Maltha. “Hello, Toby.”

The sphinx tucked its paws under its body and loafed around on the table.

Maltha continued, “Heaven could not have done this on their own, though. Michael is the only angel who could lead an expedition that deep into Hell. Someone in Hell betrayed me and brought Beth up to where a party from Heaven could reach her.”

“Lord Maltha,” Mammon interjected. “On that topic, it might be a good time to bring in the rebel that I captured earlier.”

“Oh, good,” said Maltha. “You found their hideout like I asked earlier?”

“Yes.”

“And who did you capture?”

“One of the leaders.”

“Okay, bring them in, please.”

Mammon turned and lumbered off. Maltha closed her eyes and crossed her fingers. “Please be Jezebel please be Jezebel please be Jezebel please be anyone but—”

Duke Hastur’s voice could be heard echoing down the hall, angrily demanding release. Maltha groaned softly.

“Not him,” moaned Crowley. “Why is it always him, in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Mammon reappeared with her unhappy charge. His thrashing and cursing startled Toby, who skittered to the edge of the table to seek safety by Maltha. Maltha stroked the sphinx’s flank as Hastur was forced to his knees.

“Duke Hastur,” said Maltha, “welcome.”

Hastur managed to spit into her face.

An electrified, deadly silence fell over the room. The imps were all frozen as though Hastur had just activated a bomb.

Maltha paused for a moment before wiping her cheek with her hand. “I think I shall need more wine to deal with this.”

Three different servants rushed over to fill her glass.

“You would desecrate our master’s banquet hall by inviting traitors and angels into it!” Hastur shouted. “You are no queen of mine.”

Maltha had been occupied with taking great gulps of wine as he spoke, and she did not stop until she reached the bottom of her glass. She set it back down, where it was refilled instantly. She looked at Hastur, mentally turning him over and over in her head, as though he were an interesting insect.

“Duke Hastur,” she said, a toothy smile spreading across her face. “Do you remember the last time we spoke directly? Back before I took the throne?”

Hastur’s sneer did not disappear.

“Wasn’t it in Crowley’s flat?” Maltha snapped her fingers. “That was it. Crowley was asleep.”

“When was Hastur in my flat while I was asleep?” Crowley broke in, alarmed.

“And do you remember what I told you? Wasn’t it that if you bothered Aziraphale or Crowley again, you’d regret it?”

Hastur’s scowl deepened.

“And didn’t you carry Crowley down to Hell for torture with your own hands?”

“He deserved it,” spat Hastur. “He deserved it and more, and so do you.”

“Duke Hastur was among the group that tried to threaten your guests on the way down,” said Mammon.

“I suppose I should have guessed it would be you,” said Maltha. “Okay, Hastur. I have an ultimatum for you. I want you to apologise to Crowley.”

“Apologise?” said Duke Hastur incredulously. “As though we’re human children?”

Maltha downed the rest of her wine. “Very well, Hastur, I wanted to give you the chance to make amends because Crowley will be deciding your punishment, but if you’d rather be belligerent it makes no difference to me.”

Hastur’s gaze burned into Crowley angrily. The lesser demon slunk into his seat. “Wh-what, me?”

“I thought it would be fair, considering everything Hastur has done out of hatred for you.”

Crowley opened his mouth, then shut it again. He shook his head.

“He won’t do it,” Hastur laughed. “Because he’s a little bitch.”

“Hastur,” said Maltha in a cautionary tone.

“He’s Heaven’s little bitch who’s not good at anything but taking an angel’s cock and it’ll only be a matter of time before someone fucks him over again. When you’re expelled from Hell I’m sure whoever takes the throne next will use him as a little fuck toy, and he’ll probably like it.”

Crowley grew redder and redder. Aziraphale sputtered indignantly, but could find nothing to say. Maltha slammed her empty wine glass on the table.

“Hastur,” she said. “How…exactly…can I impress upon you the danger you’re in right now? My patience with you is running thin.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your patience. You’re weak. You stupid whore, you don’t even know how to interrogate prisoners properly.”

Maltha leaned back in her seat and threw her hand out over the armrest. Her staff materialised and dropped into her palm, and she tapped it on the floor. “It’s very unlucky for you that Crowley could not be convinced to pass judgement on you, because that means it falls to me, and you could probably guess which of the two of us is more forgiving. If you think my biggest flaw is that I’m too merciful, I can think of one excellent opportunity to start remedying that, and its name is Duke Hastur.”

The tip of her staff began to glow, black smoke wisping off it. Hastur fell silent.

“Suddenly he does not have such a foul mouth. Maybe if you’re done spouting off insults and slurs we can have an actual conversation. Now, you and Jezebel have been putting in all this effort to try and remove me and Noah from Hell’s throne. I want to ask you why. Please tell me, Hastur, what exactly do you not like about me? What’s wrong with how I’m running Hell?”

Hastur glared at her from the floor, hands tugging at his bonds. “You’ve gotten rid of all the torture.”

“And?”

“And that’s supposed to be the point of Hell! What’s the point if there’s no torture?”

“I got rid of the torture at Noah’s explicit direction. It distressed him very much. And you know, I find it very interesting that out of all the changes I’ve made, the one about torture has drawn the most dissatisfaction. But only from the higher-ups. The imps and lesser demons all seem to like it very much.”

“The imps haven’t lost any limbs in a while,” Hastur scoffed. “What kind of demon lord doesn’t even torture their underlings? Satan wouldn’t have been so easy on them.”

“I find it noteworthy that the imps in the ninth layer have actually made efforts to alert me to threats to my safety, which is something I understand they never did for Satan.”

Hastur cast his stormy glare on the imps lurking at the periphery of the room, and they scuttled out of sight.

Maltha tapped her staff. “Okay, so you don’t like the lack of torture.”

“Lots of demon don’t.”

“I never said they did. What else is there, Hastur? What have I done to displease you so much?”

Hastur sulkily searched around for a moment. “You lock your enemies in the dungeon until you think you can trust them instead of torturing them. You’ve got most of the other archdemons locked up, including Beelzebub. And now you’ve got me tied up like some imp.”

Maltha put her head on a fist. “Honestly, Hastur, you’re obsessed with the fact that I don’t torture people, and then you complain that I’m mistreating my prisoners.”

“Well, it’s different when it’s the higher-ups! It’s one thing to lock up some imp, but quite another to hold a prince of Hell captive!”

“You seem absolutely obsessed with the treatment of imps, Hastur. Has it never occurred to you that imps have just as much individual character as you do?”

“What are you on about?” said Hastur. “No imp has ever done anything important!”

Toby hissed.

“An imp killed the archdemon Agares,” said Maltha, half-amused.

Hastur’s face contorted into anger. “That doesn’t count!”

“Of course it doesn’t. How silly of me.”

“This is what I’m talking about!” shouted Hastur. “It has to be that human woman! She’s got your thinking all strange-like! You didn’t used to go on about nonsense like imps being people!”

“I have learned,” said Maltha. “It’s something you could stand to do every once in a while, Hastur. All right, let’s try this a different way. You were loyal to Satan, correct?”

“Yes,” said Hastur. “None of you can say the same. Our Lord Satan—”

“A simple yes would have sufficed,” said Maltha with a wave of her hand. “Now, the son of Satan is the next logical ruler, correct?”

“Yes, not you!”

“If we think very, very hard, we might be able to think of a reason why Satan’s twelve-year-old son with no experience in Hell at all would need someone to help him.”

“You’re not helping him!” said Hastur. “You’re manipulating him! By now he should be bathing in the blood of his enemies!”

“All the changes I’ve made to Hell have been explicitly at Noah’s direction,” said Maltha. “This is his doing.”

“Never!” said Hastur. “Not my master’s son! Anyone of Satan’s blood is noble and fearsome and—”

“Maltha,” interjected Mammon, who seemed to have made a command decision that the present conversation was going nowhere. “I brought Duke Hastur out because when I captured him, I learned something about what happened to Beth.”

Maltha’s feathers flared out and her pupils contracted.

Hastur’s expression took on a noticeable change, and he said, with mounting unease, “Untrue. I had nothing to do with the fate of that lowly human.”

Toby hissed. Maltha’s claws slowly raked the wooden table.

“Isn’t it interesting,” said Maltha, “that someone who would willingly become of the consort of an archdemon would be deemed a pure and good enough soul to be granted entry to the Heavenly Kingdom?”

“Isn’t that what all humans want?” said Hastur. “To go to Heaven?”

“Which would require someone in Hell to bring her up high enough so that Heaven’s agents could reach her. It’s almost like somebody pulled some strings to move her about on purpose. To anger me.”

“Well, I wish I had thought of it, but it wasn’t me.”

Toby flattened his ears and hissed.

“It was you!” Maltha thundered. “You sold me out to Heaven!”

“You needed to be taught a lesson!” Hastur raged. “The ruler of Hell can’t be soft and preoccupied with things like love! You’d let Heaven trample all over us! You’re weak! Soft!”

Maltha’s face contorted into the most frightening expression of anger anyone in the room had ever seen. “Soft? Soft? You don’t get to call me that like it’s an insult after what you did to Beth.”

Maltha stood. The fear on Hastur’s face indicated he knew he had finally crossed a line past which he could not return.

“You despicable, vile creature.” Maltha’s staff threw off tongues of black flame as she crossed the room. “You irredeemable, absolute piece of garbage. You’re lower than any imp.”

“L-lord Maltha,” said Hastur as Maltha reached him and put her staff on his shoulder. “I beg you to be merciful.”

“Sorry, but I can’t give you any mercy, because that would make me soft.”

Maltha wound up and swung her staff like a baseball bat, hitting Hastur’s head with an audible crack. The force was so great that Hastur’s head detached from his body, flapping over and thunking onto the ground with enough momentum that his body sprawled out several feet away.

Maltha stood there over his body, shaking with anger, breaths like growls.

Aziraphale, Crowley, and Angelo looked at each other, eyes wide.

Maltha took a moment to compose herself, her face returning to a blank mask. Her staff disappeared with a wave of her hand, and she snapped at an imp against the wall. “Dispose of this.”

They fearfully acknowledged her order and dragged Hastur’s body and head out of the room. Maltha strolled back to her seat, hiding her face in one hand.

“Are you all right?” said Crowley.

“I guess that answers that question,” Maltha laughed. “I was wondering how Gabriel got ahold of her.”

A cigar materialised onto the table, and Maltha took it and lit it up. Nobody dared tell her Hell was a no-smoking zone.

Smoke trailed from the cigar as Maltha took a drag, as though trying to calm herself.

“Now, then,” she finally said. “Duke Hastur is dead, and we can move on to more important things.” She gestured to the parchment still laid out on the table. “I received that letter from Gabriel the day before the Temple was destroyed. I wrote him back and told him no war that destroys Creation would proceed under my command, even if remaining peaceful was at great personal expense to me. I told him I would not destroy the Earth. Ever.” She took another drag of the cigar and exhaled a lungful of smoke. “The next day the Temple fell and—surprise!—the war was on anyway, without my consent.”

An imp came up and whispered something into her ear.

“Oh, yes, good,” said Maltha. “Go get that special drink from the kitchen, would you?”

The servant scampered off. Maltha returned her attention to the table, stubbing her cigar out with a sigh, as though she had not gotten to enjoy it enough.

“You were going to let Heaven just get away with what they did?” said Crowley.

“Sitting around doing nothing during all this chaos doesn’t seem very you,” said Aziraphale.

The servant returned with a jug and began to pour something into Maltha’s goblet. The liquid was dusty white, and it seemed to glow faintly.

“Thank you, Yulera,” said Maltha.

The servant retreated to the wall, still holding the jug and watching the conversation with interest.

Maltha examined her goblet, then picked a feather off the rim. “Oh, I’m not doing nothing,” she said. “I have, in fact, formed a pact with a group that has promised to help me get Beth back. Apparently, Beth was taken into Heaven without actually dying. Which means she is not technically dead, and still has a corporeal form that can be removed from Heaven with her consent.”

She lifted the goblet and took a sip. An expression of intense disgust overcame her features, but instead of setting it back on the table, she turned the cup bottoms-up and gulped it down.

“What’s that you’re drinking?” said Crowley.

“This is the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted,” said Maltha. “How much of this do I have to drink?”

“I was told the whole jug, lord,” said the imp.

She scowled and held her cup out for a refill. They watched in confusion as she audibly gagged, but forced herself to keep drinking.

“But back to the pact,” Aziraphale prompted. “With whom was it, exactly?”

Maltha tipped her glass to get the dregs at the bottom. When she removed the goblet, there was a corner of a feather sticking out of her snaggle-toothed grin. “A faction from within Heaven itself.”

“What is she doing?”

Abraxas idly played with her sword and answered, “She was having dinner with Aziraphale and Crowley and that other angel, what’s-his-face, wasn’t she?”

“She knows we’re all out here waiting, right?” said Paula. “That we’re on a bit of a timetable here?”

“I think she’s telling them what’s going on,” said Abraxas. “It’d be important for Angelo to know, at the very least. It’s a good thing he’s here. It’ll make things go a lot easier when Michael comes down.”

“Yeah, if Michael doesn’t try to kill the poor guy again,” said Paula. She stood on tiptoe and looked through the crack in the door to see into the dining hall. “They’re all still in there. Is she trying to recruit Aziraphale? I thought she had given up on that idea. And it’s a bit late now, innit?”

“Crowley might want to go.”

“Crowley just got his arm melted off in Heaven. I don’t think he’ll be eager to go back there without a very strong motivation.”

A servant approached the pair with a crystal goblet and tried to hand it to Abraxas. “Hm?” said Abraxas. “What’s this?”

“It’s the...” the servant said, struggling to find the right words.

Abraxas turned to him fully now. “Oh! It’s that? It’s the liquid version of the angel dust spell?”

The servant nodded. Abraxas took the goblet from him. “Great!” She held it up to the light, the liquid glowing faintly with bits specks of light. “Ooooh, neat.”

She raised the goblet to her lips. An expression of intense disgust overcame her features. “Ew,” she said. “This tastes like I’m eating hair. How much do I have to drink?”

“I was told to make sure you drink the entire glass,” the servant said.

Abraxas grimaced, then continued trying to choke down the distasteful concoction.

“Geez,” said Paula. “If a little guy like you has to drink a whole glass, how much does Maltha have to drink?”

They eventually lost track of how many glasses of that hated drink Maltha consumed. She was pounding down whatever was in that jug with as much as vigor as she normally took alcohol, except every sip was accompanied by a heave and a gag. It obviously took a great deal of willpower to force it down her throat, and yet she kept going as though her life depended on it.

“You’re saying a group from Heaven has allied with you?” Aziraphale pressed.

Maltha put her hand on her mouth, closing her eyes. She swallowed. “Yulera, how much is left?”

“We have two more jars in the kitchen.”

“How much is left that I have to drink?”

The servant peered into the jug. “Looks to be about two glasses, lord.”

“Excellent,” she huffed.

“Maltha,” said Aziraphale. “Focus. Please. There’s a group in Heaven that’s broken away?”

“And quite a large one, too,” said Maltha.

“And they allied with a demon? What you are saying basically amounts to a second rebellion, Maltha. That many angels helping you go against Heaven.”

Maltha peered at him from over her goblet.

“Maltha?”

“Let me ask you a question,” said Maltha. She took another sip. “That day that Crowley’s field agent counterparts all showed up in your shop and pledged loyalty to you—did it never occur to you that your angelic neighbours might have done something similar if given the opportunity?”

Aziraphale stared at her.

“When Victoria raged about how unfair Michael’s fate was, when she cried because she was so scared for him—did you think she was the only one? When Kyleth warned you to stay away from Gabriel because she considered him dangerous—did you think others did not see that? When Olivia said she was so fed up with Heaven’s bullshite she would be willing to openly disobey—did you think you were the only angel capable of actually doing so?”

“The pact you made with them,” said Crowley. “Their end of the bargain would be to help you get Beth out of Heaven. And your end of the bargain would be—”

“To help them rebel!” Maltha crowed, throwing her hands up in the air giddily. “A good old-fashioned rebellion, a coup, the likes of which Creation has not seen since good old Lucifer himself rose up and decided he should be in charge instead.”

Aziraphale slammed his hands on the table stormily. “Are you mad? That’ll never work. Have you forgotten how the last rebellion ended? It resulted in the creation of an entire race of wretched fallen angels and Hell! Imagine what is going to happen this time!”

A giggle vibrated in Maltha’s throat. “What’s going to happen this time is we’re going to win, Aziraphale. Because the last time, who was the one to overpower the leader of the rebel angels and cast them into Hell?”

“M-Michael…” said Angelo.

“Michael can still be deployed to defeat you,” said Aziraphale. “He hasn’t fallen yet. It’s not going to happen.”

Maltha pointed to Angelo, curling her finger, inviting him.

“He is going to fall,” warbled Angelo. “They sealed his sentence this morning.”

“What!” exclaimed Aziraphale.

“No way,” said Crowley. “No way. Raphael had such a flimsy case. You’re telling me that worked?”

“It was never about Raphael’s case,” said Maltha. “Raphael was only using that as a smokescreen to hide the fact that he had consulted with me.”

Aziraphale processed this for a moment. “Raphael…consulted with you?”

“Yes. I had the chance to diagnose Michael from our time together in your bookshop, Aziraphale.”

“..Diagnose? Is he sick?”

“…Honestly, Aziraphale.” Maltha distastefully drank more from her goblet. “Yes. His aura was a broken, jagged mess. His connection to Heaven and the pull to his duty is destroying him. Did you think he was right as rain as he was driven mad by hunger to kill in your bookshop?”

“Well, n-no, not really,” said Aziraphale. “It obviously caused him a great deal of distress, but that’s just who he is.”

Maltha sipped again. “Yes. It is, in fact, who he is. Michael was designed from the very beginning to be the Sword of Heaven. He was designed for it, and part of that role was his crucial part to play in the apocalypse. And when it kept getting pushed back and pushed back, he began to deteriorate. He was never meant to survive the war. He was intended to be a bomb that would ignite to destroy Hell.”

Aziraphale stood. “That’s not true. I refuse to believe that.”

Maltha took Toby’s shoulders and stood him up, using his little paw to wave at Aziraphale. He let out a faint mrrow, but did not hiss.

Disgruntled, Aziraphale reseated himself, disquiet growing.

“Raphael shared this information with me when he came down,” said Maltha. “Together, the two of us were able to work out a diagnosis. The only two options for Michael seemed to be either to become a mindless killing machine and be consumed by the war, or decay in peacetime and fade away. But we laid plans for a third option.”

“Falling,” said Crowley.

Maltha held her goblet out for a refill, then continued to drink. When she set her glass down, she said, “Do you know what actually happens when an angel falls?”

“You’re removed from the Book of Life,” said Crowley quietly. “And permanently cast out from Heaven.”

“Your old identity is erased,” said Maltha. “You are reborn. Without the baggage of whatever your angelic role was in Heaven. You become divorced from your intended purpose. When Michael is cast out of Heaven, his fate will be re-written. He does not have to participate in the apocalypse. He can continue living, and be freed from his bloodlust. He will become someone entirely new, someone who is not bound to Heaven and what was making him sick and warping him.”

“And conveniently be put under your command,” said Aziraphale darkly.

Maltha grinned. “Now imagine that. Maltha and the archangel Michael, against Heaven together. Isn’t that just such a pretty image you could paint a picture of it? You feared Michael, when he fell, would destroy the Earth, but his anger will be let loose back on Heaven, not on Earth.”

“Michael isn’t going to be so quick to turn on Heaven, even after he’s cast out,” said Aziraphale. “He values loyalty. He won’t listen to you.”

Maltha waved her hand on the table, and an enormous stack of papers appeared. “But he will,” she said, “because I will be giving him the opportunity to do something he has wanted to do for a very long time.”

They peered over at the papers, shuffling through them. They were all forms, partially filled out, all stamped with DENIED.

“What are these?”

“All 6,000 of Michael’s yearly requests for re-assignment on Earth.”

They both looked up at her in amazement. “The other archangels have kept it very well hidden exactly how much they abuse Michael,” she said. “They never let him out of Heaven. Every instance Michael has left has been against their wishes, and he has been punished for it every time. Even though they’re the same rank, should have the same power—Michael was never given any control, not even over himself. He would without fail try to protest that they’re the same rank, and the other archangels would find ways to manipulate him anyway, regardless of what he wants. I think Raphael is the only one who ever argued that he should be allowed to do missions on Earth like he wanted to. Michael is an attack dog, and they never hesitated to pull that leash when he got out of hand.”

Angelo suddenly stood, looking very red. “Who told you this? How did you find this out?”

Maltha looked the little angel over knowingly. “Some of Michael’s most loyal warriors are here with me. They know what is happening.”

“Vincent…” said Angelo.

Maltha nodded. “Vincent was the first warrior to break away, but others followed soon enough. As news began to spread that Gabriel was the one who had destroyed the Temple, the rebellion grew with it. The ranks of angels here with me in Hell ready to turn against Heaven include field agents, principalities and warriors who want to save the Earth, along with angels from among Michael’s ranks who were on board with Raphael’s plan to save him. Michael will be met by a company of his closest friends and allies as soon as he falls, arriving in Hell an honoured guest.”

It all made sense now. Raphael’s rabid insistence on Michael falling despite that Michael was the brother who Raphael loved the most. Raphael was prioritising Michael’s personal well-being over his function as a weapon. He could never admit that for fear of being thrown out himself as a traitor, because Heaven couldn’t afford to lose him if they were to win the war.

Which might explain why Gabriel was so desperate to start to the war that he would order angels to destroy the Temple. If Michael was dying, it was now or never. But instead of relenting and putting Michael back on the front lines, Raphael had dug his heels in and fought even harder to get Michael out of Heaven and away from the war that would kill him. Against the unified forces of Uriel, Gabriel, and Metatron, who were willing to sacrifice Michael.

Which would also explain why Victoria reversed positions so suddenly. She fought to defend Michael in both cases. All Raphael would have to do would be to take her aside and share that Michael would die unless he fell, knowing she would take his side but keep his motivation a secret. Learning that Michael would only survive if he fell would be enough to make Victoria do a one-eighty if she was also putting Michael’s well-being first.

Which, given her tearful visit over smashed teacups with Aziraphale, she definitely was.

“Okay,” said Aziraphale. “Fine. Michael is going to Fall, and it’ll save his life, and he’ll be on Hell’s side. That doesn’t—”

“Sides,” said Maltha. “You’re still thinking in terms of sides.” She slammed her hand on the table. “There are no sides anymore, Aziraphale. You can cling to the idea that Heaven is your side all you want, but if you look deep down inside yourself, I think you’ll realise you’ve been on your own side all along, working for your own self-interest, and everything else was just to dress it up to make yourself feel better. Good vs Evil. God’s will. Ineffability. None of it means anything to you, unless it’s convenient for it to do so.”

Her words cut him inside. He was angry. He gestured wildly. “Okay, fine! But what exactly are you going to do? The war is your only option for getting back at Heaven, and you’ve made it quite clear you don’t want to destroy Earth!”

And here Maltha’s face broke into a smile that showed a mouthful of canine teeth. “Why, we are going to go into Heaven using the angel dust spell and punish the archangels directly, of course.”

Aziraphale sat in stunned silence.

“They think themselves safe in their fortress. A demon, no matter how powerful, cannot conduct an assault on Heaven directly, and so would need to go through the Earth to get to them, through the war. Or so was their logic. And they wanted to watch me rampage from a safe distance, while others bore their suffering for them, as the natural order has always been. No more.”

“But the angel dust spell would never work for something like that!” said Aziraphale. “When Crowley used it, it rubbed off at the slightest provocation! You could never take part in combat with that on! This will never work! This is suicide, Maltha!”

Maltha listened with her eyes on the ceiling. “Aziraphale. Please give me some credit. We have been making modifications to the angel dust spell. You used the version Agares had—which would have never worked for her for her purposes. While Raphael worked in Heaven, we’ve been busy down here doing intensive testing with angel feathers. And we’ve made a new version of the spell.”

Maltha pushed her goblet towards them. Aziraphale and Crowley peered into it, to see…

Bits of feathery down floating in it.

“You’ve made an ingestible version,” said Crowley.

“Our experiments so far show this version takes about half an hour to kick in, but it provides the same protection,” said Maltha. “And the effects last a few hours.”

She took the goblet and drained it, then held it out for a refill.

“That’s all, lord,” said the servant.

“Thank somebody,” said Maltha. “Then I think we’re ready.”

“You can’t do this, Maltha,” said Aziraphale. “You can’t storm Heaven.”

“Aziraphale,” said Maltha, “I am only going to explain this to you one time. There are currently three threats to the Earth’s continued survival. And their names are—” She held up a finger. “Gabriel.” Another finger. “Uriel.” A third finger. “And Metatron.” She closed her fist. “Raphael has no strong opinions about the war. Victoria just wants Michael to be safe. And Azrael does not care about anything going on in Heaven. If we eliminate those three, the Earth will be safe—forever. No war, ever. And you find yourself suddenly morally opposed to the idea of eliminating those who would do the Earth harm—why? Because you did not think of it yourself?”

“You think you can just walk into Heaven and destroy half its archangels?”

“What exactly is stopping us?”

“Heaven needs those three to function. If you kill them, it will throw Heaven into the kind of chaos Hell is in. That Earth is in.”

“Then so be it,” said Maltha.

“So be it?” said Aziraphale. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

“Let her do it.”

Aziraphale turned to look at who had spoken. It was Crowley.

“You!” said Aziraphale, aghast. “I-I-! Let her do it?”

Crowley’s gaze fell to the table, away from him.

Aziraphale, enraged, looked from Crowley to Angelo for support, but the other angel wouldn’t meet his eyes either. Seething, in inner turmoil, he tried, “God won’t let you. You’ll be killed. This can only end in disaster.”

“God has not found it appropriate to intervene on any of our behalves for millennia!” Maltha raged. “He has not seen fit to stop us up to this point! Why should He take action now? I’m sure not even this will prompt Him to deign to acknowledge me!” Maltha threw her goblet, and it shattered on the floor. “He thinks He is so far above us, too good to take care of us, we’ll make Him notice!”

The tone in Maltha’s voice and her action startled Toby, who bolted from her lap and streaked out the door. Aziraphale’s heart was beating in his throat. “You’ll be killed. All of you. Or something worse, something worse than falling that hasn’t been invented yet. You think—you think you can do something like this? What gives you the right? The nerve. The arrogance.”

Maltha was staring at him now. “Aziraphale….did you know? That is exactly what He said to me.”

Aziraphale stopped, unease growing in his stomach. “He…?”

“’The arrogance.’ He said that exact phrase to me, right before He cast me out of Heaven.”

Aziraphale flushed red. Crowley was staring at his lap.

“I-I have half a mind to go up to Heaven and tell them you’re coming!” Aziraphale burst out.

Maltha leaned her head onto her fist. “There it is. The reason why I didn’t tell you what was happening down here in Hell.”

Aziraphale’s mouth tried to form words, but nothing came.

“This is the problem, Aziraphale. You’re very intelligent. But you do not think. You act on impulse. And you worry about the consequences later, when it’s too late to take anything back.”

Impulse. Listening to Crowley talk about the Earth had been enough to convince him to save it. Trying to push Shadwell out of the circle, then madly body-hopping to try and get back down to Earth regardless of the consequences. Stabbing an archdemon through the chest after being told not to. Making a deal for asylum without consulting Crowley first. And what he had just done in his anger, in his fear.

Maltha continued, “And that is precisely why I waited until you were here, where you couldn’t go running off to Heaven on a whim, to tell you what was going to happen, because it was of paramount importance this plot be kept under wraps until it was ready to be deployed.”

Aziraphale hid his face in his hands, regaining his seat.

The door creaked open. A demon with red hair slunk into the room. “’Scuse me,” she said.

“You!” Aziraphale shouted, his chair scraping back as he leapt up. “You little bitch! I told you not to give the angel dust spell to anyone! And you gave it to the one person you knew would make use of it to harm Heaven!”

Abraxas shrank back. The door pushed open further, this time by an angry hand, and Paula appeared, moving herself in front of Abraxas. “You focking arsehole,” said Paula. “I gave the spell to Maltha. Not her.”

Aziraphale looked back and forth between the two of them.

“You thought this was Hell’s plan?” said Paula. “You think we were tricked by demons into betraying Heaven? This is our doing. We initiated it. We decided to rebel. We just needed someone powerful enough to take on the archangels to help us.”

“You’re a traitor.”

“Come on, Aziraphale,” said Paula. “You know this has to happen. Maybe you haven’t come to terms with it yet and just need some time, but you know deep down this was a long time coming.”

A third figure muscled them both out of the way, and a warrior stuck his head into the room. “Lord Maltha,” he said, “what Abraxas was trying to say was that Michael could fall at any moment, and time is beginning to run out. You need to get into your armor and prepare to move out.”

“Right,” said Maltha. She stood and began to make her way across the room. “So what’ll it be, Aziraphale?”

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I won’t allow it.”

She clucked her tongue. “I was afraid of that. Then it can’t be helped; you’ll have to stay here until we’re finished.”

“You’re going to keep us prisoner here?”

“I’m glad you caught on so fast. Mammon, please escort Aziraphale to a holding cell.”

“You’re going to keep us here by force?” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Maltha, this is—this is not how you treat your friends!”

Mammon’s snout bumped Aziraphale’s back, and he whirled around, looking indignant. “Don’t you touch me!”

“Let’s go.”

“I’m still a heavenly soldier,” said Aziraphale, reaching his hand into the aether and grasping the hilt of his sword. “And you will not—”

The second the blade became visible, Maltha practically teleported to close the distance between them, smacking the weapon out of his hand with such force that it flew across the room. Her enormous clawed hand gripped his wrist tightly, drawing five small streams of blood.

“You will not, Aziraphale,” said Maltha, a throaty, whispered threat. “Do not even think of it. All the pieces in this chess game have been arranged precisely. It will not all topple down because of the ignorant indignation of a principality offended because I hurt his feelings.”

“This is about more than my feelings, Maltha.”

“You will have an eternity to see what I’m doing, Aziraphale, once the Earth is safe.”

Mammon herded Aziraphale towards the exit. Maltha came back to the table, where Angelo and Crowley were still sitting fearfully.

She put one hand on the backs of each of their chairs. “Crowley,” she said, more gently, “I would like you to stay here as well. We’re going to put up wards, and Mammon is going to come back down here to hold the ninth layer while we’re all gone. You’ll be safe.”

Shakily, without a further word, Crowley stood and followed Mammon.

“And Angelo,” began Maltha.

“You’re just going to use him,” Angelo wept. “That’s all anyone ever does. I won’t let you.”

“Angelo,” said Maltha, softer now. “I’m not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. Part of the entire point of these angels’ rebellion is they thought he deserved better. They would not let me, even if I wanted to force him. But you know him better than any of us. What do you think he’ll want to do with his newfound freedom?”

Angelo looked down. “Rebel,” he said.

“Would you like to come up with us? Would you like to see him?”

He nodded miserably.

“Then come on.”

Meanwhile Aziraphale had been forced into the antechamber, and when he came out he saw them, the rebel angels. All decked out in shining armor, weapons ready, some with half-plucked wings. He was shocked to recognise most of them. His principality neighbours. The group of fourteen angels Michael had chosen to accompany him in Aziraphale’s shop. Some of Camael’s, now Victoria’s, soldiers. Almost all of the powers under Michael. Olivia and Kyleth were right at the front; Kyleth gave him a sheepish wave when he came out.

“Traitors!” he shouted. “All of you! God will smite you! Think about what you’re doing!”

Kyleth put her hand down.

As soon as Maltha came into the room, Vincent stepped forwards and said, “Lord Maltha, we’ve brought your armor. Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes,” said Maltha.

She held out her arms and let a warrior strap on her breast plate. Another knelt to fasten greaves onto her legs.

“Look at yourselves,” said Aziraphale. “Helping a demon prepare for battle.”

“Now I see why you didn’t fall in the first rebellion, Aziraphale,” said Maltha, still holding her arms out, not looking at him. “I had always wondered. You see the injustice, and you question, and you want it to be better. But you’d rather be comfortable. And it’s easier to say they’re traitors than to admit you should be standing where they are.”

Aziraphale said nothing, watching as they fastened hinged armored plates to her wings.

“Mammon,” said Maltha. “Please take him into the holding cell in the Northeast wing. I don’t think Aziraphale wants to watch any more.”

“Yes, lord.”

Whether he had finally been shamed into silence, or he was just tired of yelling, Aziraphale kept quiet as he was led out.

An angel came over with her helmet. “He’ll come around,” he said.

“I hope he will,” she said, rubbing her finger along the helm of the helmet. “And I just hope he will forgive me. Nobody from Heaven ever has much forgiveness in them.”

An angel came over with the final piece, the blackened crown Satan had worn for millennia. “Would you like to wear the crown, lord?”

Maltha looked from the helmet to the crown.

“No,” she finally answered, accepting the helmet. “I’m not doing this as Maltha Queen of Hell. I’m doing this as Miriam, the royally pissed off archangel who never does as she’s told, back for another rebellion against the Heavenly Kingdom.”

Her armored wings swept behind her like a cape as she turned to lead the way out of the ninth circle of Hell.

The ceremony for casting an angel out of Heaven took place in an impressive golden room, the architecture of which was centred around a podium upon which sat one of the most important holy artefacts in existence: The Book of Life, a volume so huge and complex that any human looking at it could barely comprehend it.

Aziraphale would be far more than weak-kneed if he had ever seen it. He never had, and he was lucky for that, because the only circumstances under which he would have laid eyes upon it would be if he were to be cast out of Heaven.

In another universe, maybe, in another timeline. But not in this one.

It was not Aziraphale, but Michael sitting the judgement seat in this time and place. And Uriel stood opposite him, at the podium behind the book. Gabriel, Raphael, Victoria, and Metatron were seated behind her in a half-moon shape at their seats at the bench. Azrael’s seat was empty, because Azrael was quite rude and always ignored his summons, but he had already given them what they needed to proceed without him.

“I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me,” said Uriel, throwing her hands up. “I can’t pass judgement on someone who isn’t even aware of what’s going on.”

“Raphael,” said Metatron, “Please remove some of the drugs you have given Michael so that he can actually witness the proceedings.”

“Michael may become violent if I do that.”

“He is restrained with binding sigils. Not even he can break those.”

Raphael hopped down from the dais, approaching the pit below to put a hand on Michael’s head. Michael looked up at him with dull eyes.

His eyes began to widen as he realised where he was.

“I’m so sorry, brother,” said Raphael.

“Raphael,” said Michael, voice hoarse. “You said you were going to help me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Raphael.”

“I’ll meet you down there,” Raphael whispered to him, and put a small kiss on top of his head. Michael watched, the confusion in his eyes turning to desperation.

Raphael regained his place next to Uriel.

“Raphael,” said Michael. “You can’t save me?”

“This will save you,” said Raphael.

Michael’s eyes flew across the line of archangels, none of whom looked very happy. Victoria was in full-blown tears already.

“Uriel,” Michael said. “Please don’t.”

“We shall begin now,” said Uriel. “This meeting of archangels in the Judgement Hall of God convenes regarding the fate of the archangel Michael.”

“Uriel, wait.” Michael tried to stand on wobbly legs, but what remained of the sedatives held him back, and the holy guardians in the room gently pushed him back into a kneeling position. “This is just to scare me, right? To get me to listen to you like you’ve always done? This isn’t real, right?”

“This proclamation has been agreed upon by the archangels Uriel, Metatron, Gabriel, Raphael, Victoria, and Azrael: that we are united against our seventh member, the archangel Michael, and declare that his crimes are too numerous and too heinous to be allowed to stand.”

“N-no!” cried Michael. “I said I was sorry. I’ll behave. I’ll do whatever you say. Uriel, I’ll cut my hair.”

“Therefore,” continued Uriel, absolutely stone-faced, “Heaven decrees the archangel Michael belongs in the company of the beasts of the Pit, and not with our Heavenly Father.”

“Gabriel,” said Michael, tears streaming down his cheeks, “you can take my body back. I’ll give it to you. I won’t see Angelo anymore. I’ll stay in Heaven by the throne room where I’m supposed to be. I’ll stay right there.”

“It’s far too late for that,” said Gabriel. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had just done what you were told from the beginning. You bring shame to your station, and to all of us, you damnable creature.”

Michael’s gaze swung to Metatron. “I’ll do what you say,” he sobbed. “Please don’t cast me out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Metatron, I won’t question the ineffable plan anymore. I’ll kill every demon I see. I will.”

The Metatron refused to meet his eyes. “What use are you now?”

Victoria had her hands on her face to try and hide her tears, but her racking body gave it away.

Uriel lifted her hands above the Book of Life, and it glowed faintly, flipping open of its own accord, thousands of pages whirring too fast for the eye to see, until it slammed open to Michael’s page.

“I’ll be good,” Michael warbled. “I’ll obey. Don’t cast me out. Please.”

Uriel took the corner of the page. “This is the end,” she said, voice more quiet. “We are truly on our own path now. You will never step foot in Heaven again, Michael.”

She tore the page out. Michael flinched as though the action caused him pain.

“And I want to be clear that I have no sympathy for you whatsoever,” said Uriel. “Those who would defy their fate deserve exactly this. You all may share some sentimentality about this, but I would rather see Creation shatter and every deviant angel be cast into the Pit than see any of this foolishness that has wrecked the Ineffable Plan continue.”

Uriel held the page up, that thread of creation that dictated Michael’s entire being. The page upon which his destiny as the Sword of Heaven was written. Michael’s wet eyes followed it desperately.

“Burn,” Raphael said quietly. “Be free.”

“And you’ll burn with the rest of them,” said Uriel.

A tongue of flame appeared at the bottom of the page, racing up it.

“On this,” said Uriel, “the sunset of God’s creation.”

#good omens #my writing #my good omens fanfic

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