Disclaimer: Refer to previous chapter.

A/N: Wow, reviews! I feel honoured! Thank you to all who reviewed and I shall persevere in making this a pleasant reading experience. Though it seems to be a little slow right now. Anyway: On with the story!

Something Wicked This Way Comes
#2: We're Off to See the Angel
By: Aries Draco

For a demon who enjoyed sleeping, Crowley was up sinfully early. It was alright in the sense that most humans considered being up at five in the morning a mortal sin so he wasn't doing anything wrong (or right, or something). Then again, getting up late was a sign of sloth. So what was the right time to get up in the morning anyway? After spending ten minutes pondering this, he abruptly remembered why he had spent an uncomfortable night on his leather sofa.

By half past five in the morning, Crowley was comfortably drunk. Vaguely, he thought about calling the angel. Right, he could just see how that would turn out.

"Hey, angel. Look, I've got one of my superiors up here and he wants a word with you. We'll be right over... once he decides to leave, of course. He's torturing some humans right now, I think."

There was probably something in the Arrangement about this. As he picked his way through his train wreck of thought, he heard a noise. Swiftly, he sobered up and hid the alcohol. Belial might be his superior but he'd be blessed if he had to share his collection. This was real alcohol, not something wished up and it always tasted better.

Instead of the demon, Crowley was greeted by two human beings. To his surprise and annoyance, the male began to ransack his fridge while the female started making coffee with the top-of-the-range coffee maker that Crowley never bothered to use. He briefly considered setting them on fire but they were Belial's, weren't they? Oh, bless it all!

Crowley faked a discreet cough. The girl, having set up the machine, turned to him with a bright smile on her face. Crowley cringed inwardly at the sheer happiness radiating from her.

"Hi, my name is Sarah and that's my boyfriend, Seth!" she said cheerfully. As if on cue, the guy sauntered over and sat down with a sigh.

"Hey, is there any real food in here?" he demanded. He was promptly whacked by his girlfriend.

"Be nice," she chided, brightly. Crowley was seriously considering the consequences of throwing her out of a convenient window and weighing it against the trouble he might get into. She turned to him. "Thank you ever so much for letting us stay the night! Your friend was such a nice person! Seth and I were originally planning to kill ourselves, like Romeo and Juliet, you know? My mom hates Seth for some reason but he's the only guy for me! So, anyway, you friend talked us out of it, told us we could try for a baby instead! Imagine that, a baby! If we had a baby, our parents will definitely have to let us get married and we can live happily ever after!" Crowley could practically see the exclamation marks. The guy at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Come on, Sarah," he muttered, casting a glance at the demon. "We've troubled them enough. Let's go."

The girl looked put out. Then brightened. "Well, bye!" she called as her boyfriend dragged her to the door. "God bless you all!" The door slammed shut. Crowley ran for the bedroom.

"Beli...al?" oooo, prettyangelkneelingonfloorwhatthehellamIthinking?!

Belial blinked. "You're up early," he commented matter-of-factly.

That did it. "You try sleeping on a designer leather sofa, then having your immaculate kitchen ransacked by gloom-and-doom-boy and his exclamation-mark-ridden psycho girlfriend, who, may I add, BLESSED us!" Crowley took a deep breath, then found out that it didn't work. "You stopped them from committing a mortal sin, in addition to everything! You might as well have married them and sent them on their merry way!"

"CROWLEY."

Imagine a thousand nails scraping against blackboard. Imagine the screams of all the souls in hell. Imagine the so-called music of a thousand death metal garage bands. Imagine every sound that ever raped the ear of mankind. Now imagine handing all the sounds over to a blind baboon for remixing. Got it? Right, now you have an idea of how Belial was sounding. Through a six feet thick wall. Made of lead. Crowley wasn't so fortunate.

In the space of the second Belial took to say his name in that voice, Crowley felt the voice. Unlike human beings, whose minds are programmed to protect them from unnatural things, he was a demon and in that instant, he perceived everything that the voice entailed.

Then, Belial was smiling again. "Oh, come on, that wasn't so bad," he laughed, voice back to normal.

It was. Crowley shuddered, pressing himself against a wall. Seeing that, Belial walked over and patted the demon on his head, pouting.

"I didn't scare you too bad, did I?" he asked innocently. His only reply was a whimper. "Oh, dear. Come on, now." Then, he smiled widely with the air of someone who had just had an epiphany. "I know what will make you feel better! You know that couple? They're siblings."

No response.

"I'll make breakfast?"

...

"Crowley, don't make me use the voice again," warned Belial. That did it. "Right, now that you're all better, I'll go make us some breakfast, k?"

It could have been a fatal mistake. After seeing Belial look, act and talk like a frikkin' angel, he had let his guard down, almost forgetting that Belial was a Prince of Hell. Princes didn't get their positions because they had the support of the denizens. They got their positions because people feared them.

Another five minutes passed before Crowley managed to compose himself. All the time he had been spending with human beings must have been rubbing off on him because he was beginning to think that he had hallucinated the whole incident. Or it could be because Belial was sending out waves of reassurance.

Right. The sooner they went to see the angel, the sooner Belial would be out of his hair. Once they were done with breakfast, it would be straight to the angel's. Breakfast. And Crowley realised that he hadn't had breakfast since some time in the seventeenth century, mainly because he was usually only up in time for lunch.

There wasn't much of a point in having breakfast, Crowley realised later. It wasn't that different from having lunch, just earlier. And it just spoilt your appetite for a proper meal. Crowley was busy deciding that he didn't like breakfast very much. He still didn't want to be busy thinking about what Belial wanted with Aziraphale.

They were in the Bentley. There had been some delay as Belial had insisted on donating a large amount of money to a nun and cleaning up a little street child. Said nun was later mugged and murdered and the kid? You don't want to know what happened to kid.

So they were in the Bentley, on the road toward Aziraphale's shop. Belial pulled a cassette out from his coat (he had returned to his angelic form), smiling at Crowley. "You don't mind, do you?"

Crowley shook his head. Why did he even bother asking? It was not like the lesser demon could say no. The tape began to play.

"Hey? What the...? How...?"

Crowley glanced over at the placidly smiling demon. He wouldn't...

"Hello, my dear," cooed Belial. "Don't worry about the situation you're in. In about a fortnight, you'll cease to exist. You should appreciate the trouble I'm going through to give you a pleasant demise, really."

The creature in the tape yelled some profanities that Crowley didn't realise existed. Belial calmly turned the volume down to nothing and began to whistle. While he had considered this idea before, Crowley had not been enough of a bastard. So that was the difference, huh?

And what would a helpless angel do when faced with a Prince of Hell?

Crowley calmly directed his thoughts away from that and directed the Bentley into its assigned parking space.

"So, this is it?" asked Belial, staring at the little bookshop. "How... quaint."

"I think I shall warn him before letting you in," began Crowley before he was waved off. Belial was staring at something up the road. Taking it as a sign of agreement, Crowley ignored the 'closed' sign and entered.

"We're closed!" came the angel's voice. Then, "Oh, it's you. What are you doing here?"

And Aziraphale appeared. Well, it would have been nice to think that he popped into existence out of thin air but all he really did was step out of the back room, shaking dust out of his hair. Since he had been carefully avoiding thinking about Aziraphale, Crowley suddenly found that he didn't have a prepared reply. Fortunately for him, the screeching of brakes outside the shop saved him from humiliating himself in front of the angel.

Both man-like creatures rushed out to see what was happening, Aziraphale because someone might have gotten hurt; Crowley because he had left Belial out there. They were just in time to see Belial patting a little boy on the head.

"Now, child, be careful when you're crossing the road, won't you?" he warned, smiling cheerfully. He waved the startled driver on, mouthing 'he's fine', then turned back to the boy, who was sniffling. "Are you crying?"

The boy looked up defiantly. "No. I'm a big boy and big boys don't cry!" he declared with the certainty that all six-year-olds possessed. Belial laughed softly, leaning down and whispering something to the kid. The boy brightened up, then waved goodbye while running off.

Aziraphale was staring with wide eyes. "Did they send another angel?" he wondered aloud. He was honestly puzzled and a little put out when Crowley started laughing hysterically. Belial just smiled.

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