Title: Crowley's Idea

Author: Bianca Valdez

Pairings: None

Characters: Anthony J. Crowley, Aziraphale

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Encompassing all ten season of Supernatural, and intended to be several years after Good Omens, though it does not include many spoilers for the latter story.

Disclaimer: Rights belong to Eric Kripke and Co. for Supernatural, while Good Omens belongs to Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett.


"Indeed, behind the scenes, Crowley had had a hand in most television." -Good Omens, pg. 66, 'Eleven Years Ago'


Crowley had, in his time on Earth (which was a considerable amount of time dating back to the beginning of Creation), come up with and carried out several hundred bad ideas which all, inevitably, lead to a human or several humans doing something which brought them one step further downwards. Many of these ideas had later been thwarted by a certain servant of Heaven, or at least matched with an idea of equal goodness.

It was all in the ineffable plan that this was how it was supposed to be, and that this was how it would continue to be forever. Things changed a bit after the Apocalypse-that-was-not-to-be, but Crowley continued to wile and tempt and Aziraphale continued to thwart and save.

There was, however, one idea that Crowley particularly prided himself on. It was a fairly recent, ten-year-old idea which had blossomed wonderfully into a huge base of emotional trauma. It had started in the United States and exploded outwards, consuming people's souls both figuratively and literally.

It was called Supernatural and it was a television show.

To be truthful, it hadn't been truly Crowley's from the get-go. A young bloke by the name of Eric Kripke and started it, some ridiculous horror series about two brothers in an old car.

Then Supernatural reached episode four, and demons were introduced.

Now, there are many, many, many playwrites, authors, screenwriters and poets who have tried to use the basic template of demonic presence in their works; these are, for the most part, wildly inaccurate. One of Crowley's least favorites, for example, was the Mortal Instruments series. The demons in that were made out as monstrous, gooey, tentacle-covered messes with no style and absolutely no finesse. It was Aziraphale who had discovered it in the first place, and had immediately shown it to his counterpart.

Azirphale was a kind-hearted being (it kind of went with the territory), but it would have taken the will of God himself to resist laughing at the look on Crowley's face.

Although even God might not have managed it. It was that priceless.

In any case, the only reason the obscure little show caught his eye at all was its accuracy. Sure, his eyes were yellow and not black, and fine, they'd stopped possessing people in the BCs, but who cared? It was close enough.

So Crowley took the reins and soon the boring old 'horror-show' became a full-out heart-throbbing throat-clenching lung-squeezing emotional phenomena. Teenagers and grown adults alike wept as Sam and Dean died for each other again and again and again, and gasped in horror as it was revealed that the thing that had killed their mother was a demon with yellow eyes….

Again, Crowley's input completely.

And then Dean went to Hell.

He was going to leave it there, he really was. The stress viewers were put through was so wonderful, he was allowed a day-pass back to the Pit, From which he had been banished after preventing the Apocalypse. But Aziraphale came to him one day, and the ensuing conversation went thus:

"Crowley," said Aziraphale. "My dear, you've been spending an awful lot of time on this American show."

Crowley smiled gleefully. "Yes, angel, I know. Have you seen it?" He tilted his head slightly and thought about his last statement. "Oh, wait, I forgot. You don't watch telly."

Aziraphale nodded uncomfortably and avoided Crowley's eyes behind their shades. "Yes, well…I was wondering if perhaps you intended for it to continue."

The demon raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" he asked. "And why would you care?"

"Well…" said the angel. "I'm noticing quite a lot of negativity stemming from its recent finale, and I thought perhaps you'd like to round it out nicely with, oh, I don't know, the brothers quitting 'hunting' and taking a nice vacation to England. They could get a house by the seaside, and Dean could marry the girl of his dreams and Sam could finally get that education he's been yearning for. Maybe they open up a book shop. Book shops are always good."

"You have been watching it, haven't you?!" said Crowley triumphantly.

"What? No, I haven't."

"Don't lie to me, angel, it's unbecoming of your species," Crowley said. "You know about what the boys want in life, you know their names, you know about hunting. You know about that cliffhanger I dangled at the end of season three. And I bet this isn't even about the trouble I'm causing the fans, is it?"

Aziraphale squirmed. "I may have….glanced at it. Briefly," he said.

"Briefly? Az, you don't get that much information from briefly."

Aziraphale shot him a look, its ferocity inhibited by the angel's peaceful-looking countenance. "In any case," he said delicately. "I was merely wondering how—"

"You wanna know how it endssssss?!" Crowley's snakelike grin stretched from ear to ear. In his glee he'd forgotten himself and begun to hiss, and his entire presence made Aziraphale look almost nervous. "Oh, that issss too good!" He doubled over laughing and Aziraphale raised his nose in the air in an attempt to look dignified.

"It's a fair question," he said stiffly. "It's hardly right for Dean to go to Hell and for the audience not to know how it ends."

Crowley hissed out a last laugh and looked up, his serpent eyes dancing with mirth. "Oh, angel," he said. "Don't worry. I've just had an idea."

And so, completely for Aziraphale's benefit, Crowley introduced angels into Supernatural.

Aziraphale was not impressed. Nor did he seem particularly irritated by it, which had been Crowley's goal in the first place. He liked to think he did annoy fairly well.

So, of course, he added the Apocalypse.

Again, the angel seemed not to care. Crowley soon learned, though, that Aziraphale was not as unperturbed as he seemed.

Crowley wasn't sure how his counterpart had done it, but he'd been sitting watching the telly one night (loud enough to wake the neighbors, of course) when something he did not remember influencing appeared in the show.

It was a crossroads demon. He was British, well-dressed, classy, and evil.

His name was Crowley.

The second thing the real Crowley learned was that Aziraphale had no grasp on keeping a straight face. The gleam in his blue eyes and the smug uplift of his lips when Crowley entered the bookshop were enough to banish any thoughts of coincidence. Crowley had watched him suspiciously for the rest of the afternoon, until that evening and the discovery it contained.

Well, if he was going to be in this show, he wasn't going to settle for being a crossroads demon. So he wrapped up the Apocalypse, played with some nice character drama, hid Sam's soul, and smoothly turned his character into the King of Hell.

It was sly, yes. Pompous, definitely. But boy, did it feel good.

The outrage that season seven caused was phenomenal. Killing Cas was one of his favorite parts, outpassed only by Bobby's death. The pain he felt from the humans during the airing of that episode still sent shivers down his spine.

Season eight was the angel war, and Aziraphale was not appreciative. "Honestly, my dear," he had said. "Maybe you demons fight amongst yourselves, and maybe we have our little spats Upstairs, but you should know that we'd never wage war on each other." The indignant look on his face had sent Crowley into hysterics and he'd choked on his tea.

Season nine was so full of anger, what with the Winchester brotherly conflict, that Crowley couldn't face Aziraphale for three whole months. When they finally did meet, the angel had been vicious with his words in the way that only a keeper of books may know.

Crowley strolled through the park, whistling cheerily. He'd just witnessed a break up and tempted the girl into slapping her ex-boyfriend, and he was in a very good mood.

His good mood was spoiled by the tartan-clad angel that moved into his path.

"Crowley."

Crowley gulped. "Az."

"We need to talk about your show."

"It's not all mine, obviously," the demon said pointedly. "Putting myself in there wasn't my idea."

Aziraphale stared at him. "Crowley."

"Mm?"

"What are you doing with the Winchesters?"

"I'm not. I think you're confusing me from the show with me in real life."

"Crowley."

"Oh, fine," said Crowley. "What do you want from me? I'm a demon. I'm not supposed to play nice with my viewers."

Aziraphale crossed his arms. "Why is Sam distancing himself from Dean?"

The demon took off his sunglasses and wiped them on his immaculate suit (which was completely redundant, as a thought from either party would have cleaned them rather more effectively) "He's angry about Gadreel."

The angel continued to glare at him stubbornly.

"They'll make up eventually."

Not reaction.

"Angel, you have your Doctor Who, I have my Supernatural. We can keep out of each others businesses. It's part of the Arrangement."

Aziraphale glared. "Donna forgetting the Doctor wasn't my idea. Neither was Rose getting trapped in a parallel world, or Amy and Rory getting attacked by the Weeping Angels, and River dying wasn't me either."

Crowley held out his hands. "Sometimes the screenwriters do come up with ideas on their own, you know."

"So you had nothing to do with any of those?"

"We talked about this. I only nudged them a little bit. Actually, Donna was all them."

"Crowley!"

"What do you want me to do? I can't just have them hug and get over it!"

"Fix it. We're not doing tea until you fix it."

So Crowley fixed it. It took a while, but he fixed it. Sam informed Dean that he was lying all along, they made up, and then Dean died.

And then he un-died and came back as a demon.

And if anyone asked, the idea had come from the writers of the show, completely without Crowley's influence. This was not strictly true, but what sort of demon never lied?

Aziraphale didn't believe him of course, and thus they did not have tea at the bookshop.

To make up for it, Crowley turned Dean back into a human. He and Sam had a joyful reunion and went on an epic quest to remove the Mark of Cain.

Aziraphale must have been sticking his nose in somewhat, however, for Rowena was not his idea at all. Naturally, the rest of the season was filled with a rather infuriating power struggle between the Anathema-ish witch and the King of Hell.

Crowley eventually got control and had Sam lock her up. The angel was not pleased by this, and refused to speak with Crowley. This, in turn, sent the demon into a particularly bad mood, and it was this bad mood that killed Charlie.

If someone had said that Crowley regretted killing off the bubbly ginger, he would have replied so quickly in the negative that it would have sparked a good amount of suspicion. But demons are not supposed to regret anything, so the casual eye would merely assume that perhaps he was perturbed by the cold weather.

After Charlie, Crowley went on vacation and left the writers to their own devices.

He had, in the past, reflected on the levels of hellishness that humans managed to reach on their own, something that was evident in the Spanish Crusade and the Holocaust. But even he was shocked when he saw the season finale.

Sure, the Mark of Cain came off of Dean, and yes, both boys were still alive, but he doubted they would be for much longer. The entire scene leading up to the removal of the Mark left a bad taste in his mouth, the bit with the photographs particularly potent. And then….

Then they killed Death. They unleashed the Darkness, whatever that was.

And if Crowley walked dejectedly into Aziraphale's shop the next day and confessed that he wanted nothing more to do with the show, that was his business. If the angel made him a strong cup of tea with a bit of something extra drizzled in, that was their business as well.

When he recovered, however, he did have to admit that the year-long wait that sent several thousand fans into insanity was quite the stroke of genius.

But he would never tell Aziraphale that.


Supernatural will return in Autumn, 2015


Hello! This is a tiny little brainchild of mine that just sort of happened one day. It's short, yes, but hopefully enjoyable. Please drop me a comment and tell me what you think! And in case you were wondering, I am one of the several thousands fans sent into insanity by the year-long wait. I can't even handle it anymore.

If you're a fan of Supernatural, check out my other story! It's longer and not a crossover, but it does include the Winchesters meeting the Weechesters, and is rather fun to write.

Have a nice day/night/morning/afternoon/evening! Thanks for stopping by!