Now that the semester from hell (somebody down There hates me), Christmas, and New Year's are all over, I've gotten back into my old habit of letting my brain vomit onto a page in the middle of the night.
Tonight's ponderment: How'd Crowley get that holy water, anyway?
~About Eleven Years Ago~
"Are you quite certain, dear boy?"
"Absolutely."
"What are you planning on doing with it?"
"I figured it would be useful in case of emergencies."
Aziraphale sighed and jammed a finger on the bridge of his half-moon spectacles. "I know you, Crowley. Whatever you're planning on doing is beyond the normal trickery and temptation of your kind."
"Relax, angel." Crowley swirled the wine in his glass with an air of disinterest. "I know what I'm doing. Besides, the only person I could really hurt with it is me."
"Unless there's an exorcism I'm unaware of."
"If there was, I'd be aware of it. And I thought you'd consider the purging of demons from poor human souls to be a good thing."
"Crowley," the angel's voice took on a warning tone. "What in Heaven's name is really going on? You show up to my shop at five o'clock in the morning, a time at which you're usually just going to bed*, blathering on about …I don't even know what, heading straight for the liquor cabinet, and then asking me for holy water, of all things!"
"All right!" Crowley threw his unoccupied hand in the air and brought it back down on the table, making Aziraphale's morning cup of tea jump and tip over. "If you must know, I got a call last night. It's that blasted kid again. Something went wrong, and I have the funny feeling I'm going to be on the receiving end of some serious shit. So I'm planning on taking out whoever it is that comes for me before they have a chance to drag me back.**" he growled. "Happy now?"
"No, but I guess it'd be worth it to have one less demon roaming the earth."
Crowley rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't worry too much. In terms of tempting, Hastur and Ligur and the rest who spend most of their time Downstairs tend to go after a single idiot for decades. They're completely lacking in finesse."
"Even so,*" Aziraphale said pointedly, choosing to ignore the fact that Crowley was essentially spelling it out for him that he was corrupting thousands of souls on a regular basis.
"So you'll do it?" asked the demon.
"I suppose, if I must." said the angel with an exasperated sigh.
Later that day, Crowley left the bookshop with a thermos full of holy water wrapped in newspaper and five plastic bags. He may have been reckless, but he wasn't stupid. One drop of the stuff might not only discorporate him, but kill him permanently.
He kept it in its temporary protective packaging in a kitchen cabinet until he could find somewhere safer to put it.
Aha, he thought. A safe.
It wasn't long before Crowley was in possession of a heavy-duty wall safe which he installed in a wall in the lounge of his flat hidden behind the original cartoon of da Vinci's Mona Lisa. He placed the holy water—transferred to a better, airtight thermos—along with a pair of rubber gloves and some tongs in the safe, set the combination, and replaced the picture.
When those bastards came for him, he'd be ready.
*Aziraphale still didn't understand, after years of knowing Crowley, that he slept because he enjoyed it and not because he needed to.
**In reality, he was doing it more to protect Aziraphale than himself. As of yet, Hell had remained unaware or their acquaintance, but the past few centuries or so being what they were, he and the angel had grown closer, much to his chagrin. He blamed his subconscious for making him want to protect his old friend.
***What he meant by this was 'I know you're not telling me the truth, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt not to do anything stupid as we are sort of friends.' The downside of this remark was that, for once, Crowley was in fact being honest.
Yaaaaay. I'm writing again.
Joy to the world. Reviews are nice.