Sometimes, Aziraphale questions the grand, Ineffable Plan. He doesn't think Crowley would believe him if he heard this, but he does. Sometimes, he even goes so far as to think that, just maybe, God was wrong.
(In Aziraphale's defense, this was usually after a great deal of wine and in Crowley's presence.)
Little does Aziraphale know, he's not the only one.
It was so like Damien to choose a bar as a meeting place. When the fates of Heaven and Hell were to be discussed by two of said domains highest ups (or lowest ups, depending on your point of view), Damien chose a bar to meet in.
It was so typical.
It wasn't even a very demonic bar. Weren't you supposed to meet demons in demonic places?
Of course, Damien had never been typical. He was, in fact, very strange. And it wasn't like he'd always been a demon. Once, a very long time ago, he'd been an angel. Just like her. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, they were twins. At least, they'd been created at the same time.
But even family can end up on opposites sides in a conflict. Even Heavenly families.
Kayleena spotted her brother in a booth in the back and made her ways towards him, turning down five offers of drinks, two of dinner, and one far less discreet offer that ended in with a solid left to said offerer's solar plexus.
Damien watched that scene unfold with an amused expression, the expression of a demon who has done some tempting and seen excellent results. Or at least very amusing ones.
Damien did not, precisely, look like a demon. No more than Kayleena, as it were, looked like an angel. Kayleena looked like goodness and light and all things sweet and holy. Unless she had a flaming sword in her hands, in which case she looked like a really brassed off angel with an impressive wingspan and murderous intent.Her hair was long, but most angels still wore their hair long.She was tall, but most angels topped six feet. God liked his minions impressive. Her face was like the faces you saw in sculptures in the ancient temples. Slightly pointy, but smooth, beautiful, and serene. Hell, half the time she even wore white. Today, she was wearing a rather cute dress and a gauzy blouse, entirely in white, although a little shorter than Damien thought God would have liked it.
Damien did, however, have the appearance of being slightly demonic. He had a lean face, thick black hair always in his eyes, although that was done quite on purpose. Usually, however, he wore shades. His eyes tended to startle the humans. He was tall, lean, and rather handsome. It was the eyes, however, the eyes that were the most disturbing. They were a brilliant, dark, impossible green, with odd slitted pupils and the impression that he knew all your sins and would not hesitate to use them against you.
(For the most part, this was true. Of course, he was a demon.)
Kayleena - which was not, of course, her real name - often accused him of lacking moral fiber. His usual response was an eye roll and a "Duh." Spoken in a truly sarcastic tone of voice.
These were usually official meetings, half-hearted attempts at bridging the gap between Heaven and Hell. Mostly, they got extremely innebriated and debated all manner of things.
Kayleena slid into the seat across from his, rolling her shoulder to adjust the sword he knew she was wearing. It was invisible, of course. Even in this modern day and age, people got testy if you carried a sword in public. Of course, ever since the buggered Apocalypse, God was insisting his angels carry them. Just in case the Antichrist got them, or something. It was all really rather ridiculous in Damien's humble opinion. The Antichrist was sixteen, for fuck's sake. He was interested in girls and sex, probably, not incurring the wrath of God. Damien had been a Fallen Angel for millenia, and HE did not want to incur the wrath of God.
"How like you, Damien," she said drily. "This place is a dive."
He shrugged and tossed back another long drink of whiskey. "How angelic, Loki," he said mockingly, using the name that had been abandoned with her old job. "To look down on the amusements of the humans."
She stiffened in her seat. "I don't use that name anymore," she said coldly.
Damien swore at her. "You're still the same bloody angel," he snapped. "You still carry a great bloody sword, you still bow to God's every little whim, you're still an Angel of Judgement, and you're still a fence-sitting pain in my ass. Therefore, you must still be Loki. Or Gabriel in drag."
Kayleena - or Loki, if you prefer her ancient name - gave a groan and slumped theatrically in her seat. "Sh, don't say that. Knowing my luck, he'd hear you. And you KNOW what he's like."
Damien nodded slowly, passing the bottle. Gabriel - the Metatron was his working name, the Voice of God - did NOT have a sense of humor. At all. And when someone impugned his dignity, he tended to whine. Or, as Damien liked to say, he went sobbing to his Daddy-shaped Creator. Not that God didn't know already, of course, but He was willing to punish someone every once in a while, just to make him stop whining.
Loki brushed her hair behind her shoulders. "What's this all about, Damien?" she asked. "You made it sound urgent."
Damien took another long pull of the bottle, which should have been empty long ago, then sat up straight and fixed his shades, taking on the mantle of Official Representative of Hell. "I have a message from Lucifer, the Morningstar, King of Hell, Father of Lies, Prince of Darkness, and Ruler of the Void."
Loki manifested a bottle of tequila. "Amazing how he thinks his titles will impress us," she murmured.
Damien ignored this. "The message is as follows: The King of Hell seeks to conceive another child with a human to better understand their kind. Since the originally Antichrist/Armagedon thing was such a fiasco, he seeks to understand the mortals. And he kindly requests the God keep his nose out of it, thank you."
Loki stared at him, eyes huge. Then she downed her tequila. And then most of his whiskey, too.
"I. Don't. Get. It," Loki snarled, beating her head on the dirty table in time with her words. "Doesn't he understand what that entails?"
Damien shrugged. He was watching the ceiling fan with the deep and thoughtless concentration of the extremely pissed. "Don't know," he said, like he didn't care. He probably didn't.
After all, he wasn't like most other demons. He was a Prince of Hell, second in the Dark Heirarchy only to Beelzebub, the Voice of Satan, and Lucifer himself. He had been Lucifer's right hand during the Rebellion.
But, then, the Morningstar had made it sound so easy, hadn't he? Made it sound like Heaven was already in the bag, metaphorically speaking. Made it sound like all they had to do was wave their fiery swords about a bit and look rather threatening, and then the Hosts of Heaven would simply give in and hand over the key to the Pearly Gates.
Well, they didn't call him the Father of Lies for nothing, Damien reflected bitterly, attempting to think his whiskey bottle full again. It was a lot harder than it should have been. He was too drunk to remember the whats of whiskey. He slammed the bottle down. "Fuck this," he muttered, flopping back in his chair. "I'm too pissed to drink any more."
Loki grabbed his bottle and downed it, then choked. "This isn't whiskey," she gasped, then doubled over coughing. "What the f - heck is that?"
Damien shrugged. "Don't know. Wasn't crazy enough to drink it."
Loki sighed and leaned back in her chair, forgoing the breathing process entirely. If the humans in the little Mexican dive had been paying attention, they would have noticed that the two people-shaped creatures in the corner weren't doing many human things. For one, they hadn't ordered a drink since they'd sat down, but they hadn't stopped drinking. For another, every once in a while you would catch the wavery, vague impression of great wings that seem to have sprouted from their shoulder-blades. A bright glow around the woman-shaped creature's head. Vague impressions of extreme good and absolute evil.
All right, maybe not the last ones. Damien was more concentrated wickedness than absolute evil, and Loki was good by default. She was an angel. The Angel of Judgement, right up there with God. After all, God was a very busy Person. You couldn't expect Him to Judge every soul that died. Which is why it was left up to her to Judge most of them. God just got the special cases these days.
How she missed the good old days.
Loki straightened in her chair, making a concentrated effort to sober up. Since angels have much stronger willpower than the average human, this was a successful venture. "I have to report this," she said grimly, and stood.
Damien staggered to his feet across from her, the alcohol leaving his system as quickly as he could make it go. It's harder to concentrate when you're drunk, after all. Even for a Prince of Hell.
"Let's go report the meeting a success, so I can listen to a few more of Lucifer's nutter schemes," he said.
Loki grimaced. "And then I can listen to the Metatron whine for a while."
He smirked at her and retrieved his glasses from the table. "Cheers."
Damien stood, gaping at his Lord with wide eyes. "Her? Why her?"
Lucifer folded his arms over his chest and glared like a petulant child. "She's perfect. What in the name of - of SOMETHING is wrong with her?"
The Prince of Hell turned to gape at the woman - GIRL - his Lord had chosen. He had remembered to scrape his jaw off the floor - figuratively speaking - so he wasn't frightening her with bloody great fangs. She was a slight girl, short and thin, with long, waving blonde hair and enormous eyes that peered out at life from behind glasses thicker than was probably healthy. She wore long skirt and a plain pink - PINK - blouse, and a little gold crucifix around her neck. Not inverted, or anything. Just a plain gold crucifix.
And there was a Bible in her purse.
And so Damien did one of the things that had gotten him kicked out of Heaven. He opened his mouth and said exactly what he was thinking. "Are you BROKEN?"
Lucifer growled at him. "Are you forgetting to whom you are speaking, Damien?"
"No, that's why I was asking," he snapped back. He pulled off his shades and rubbed his eyes. "Lord, she's a bloody Born Again. Granted, her parents are as loyal as they come - as your human followers come, anyway - but she's so Christian it hurts to LOOK at her."
"It wasn't OUR idea, Lord," said the woman on the floor, who happened to be the girl's mother.
"We raised her the proper way, Lord," said the man on the floor, who happened to be the girl's father.
Damien groaned.
Satanists were so embarrassing. If he ever found out whose idea they were, he was going to hurt them. Lots. For EONS.
"Look, whoever you are - " she ignored her mother's gasp - "I don't want to deal with this right now. I have midterms coming up, and I have to study." She turned to the door, only to find it blocked by two vaguely man-shaped creatures who looked like big, hairy maggots. She screamed.
She was easily ignored. They were used to the screams of the damned. One shrieking college student was nothing compared to that.
"Are you set on this one, then?" Damien asked, sounding resigned. He already knew the answer. The girl let out another shriek. He slipped his glasses back on, pulled out a cigarette and touched his finger to the tip of it. It lit instantly. One advantage of Hellfire.
Lucifer nodded firmly. "I wish to understand them, Damien," He said. He ignored his right hand's groan of protest. "How better to understand them than with one of their own?"
Damien started looking for a blunt object. For himself.
The girl got control over her screaming and spun to face the Prince of Darkness. "I don't WANT to be the mother of the Antichrist!"
"Well, that's good," Damien said. "Since we already HAVE one of those." A flat surface would work, too. Anything.
Lucifer let out a rather frightening snarl. That was, it was frightening if you hadn't seen it almost every day for the past six thousand years. Needless to say, Damien was used to it. He was currently contemplating the incapacitating properties of a wall.
"That child is no concern of ours," Lucifer snapped.
"Right," Damien muttered. The wall was mostly plaster. His head would probably go right through. And then he'd have to fix it.
So the wall was out.
"And how do I know you're demons anyways?" the girl demanded, obviously grasping at straws. Her parents were still prostrate on the floor.
Lucifer gaped at her. Damien's eyebrows appeared above his glasses. There was a moment of silence.
"What about Lenny and Squiggy back there?" he asked, gesturing at the two guards at the door.
She glanced at them and grimaced in distast. "Could be costumes," she said weakly.
Both guards looked insulted. Well, as insulted as a giant maggot CAN look.
Lucifer groaned, then swore in a language dead for about four thousand years. "Damien, show her."
"Me? Why me?"
Lucifer glared. Damien coughed. "Right. I'll get right on it, Lord."
He started unbuttoning his shirt.
"You have to be naked?" the girl demanded.
Damien glared at her. "Look, Princess, future mother to the hosts of Hell you may be, but I am NOT ruining a perfectly nice coat because you have belief issues, ok?" He shrugged out of coat and shirt, tossed his glasses on the pile, closes his strange eyes, and concentrated.
The outer feathers of his great blackened wings nearly touched the walls of the room, and it wasn't that small of a room. The girl just stared.
He had great blackened wings. Not true black, but a mixture of black, grey, and white. It was reminiscent of the different shades of smoke. Which is perfectly understandable, considering that was what had caused the staining of his wings. His eyes glowed red in his natural form, the green covered by a demonic, molten lava glow. His hair was longer, and wild, like he hadn't actually combed it in a while. It gave the vague impression of being afraid, like it knew that if it didn't do what it was told, it would be shaved off, and was threatened with this fate often. And there, just below his hairline, were two small black horns.
The girl approached him slowly. This was not so much out of fear as out of the fact that she was admiring his muscular chest and broad shoulders. She stopped in front of him, and he looked at her calmly. Although even a calm look out of red eyes that glow like the fires of Hell - literally - is very disconcerting. She reached up and poked his horns. "They're cute!"
He slapped her hands away with hands that ended in long black talons. "Stop that!" he snapped, and tried to comb his hair over the horns. "They're EMBARRASSING."
The door guards made snuffling sounds almost, but not entirely, completely unlike laughter. A glare from Damien silenced them. Unfortunately, it didn't have the same effect on Lucifer, who was snickering.
He folded his arms over his chest, ignoring the way the girl watched the muscles in his arms flex. She seemed surprised by the fact that he HAD muscle. Had she expected that the wings opereated on a thought and a prayer?
The girl started to tremble. Then to shake. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the carpet.
Damien materialized another cigarette, wondering vaguely where his other one had went.
"Well," Lucifer said with a kind of optimism that made Damien's teeth hurt. "That went well."
Damien groaned. That wall was looking very inviting, after all.
The park was quiet. Of course, it was two o'clock in the morning. St. James Park was ALWAYS quiet at two AM.
Aziraphale threw bread to a few industrious night-ducks and wondered why Crowley had wanted to meet here so late. But the demon had sounded worried - almost frightened - and that worried the angel. Crowley NEVER sounded frightened. Aziraphale could remember exactly once when Crowley had sounded frightened in the last six thousand years, and that had been at the almost-Apocalypse. Of course, that had been when it appeared that Lucifer himself was going to rise from Hell and smite them both, so that was understandable, after all.
He wondered if Crowley had heard from his superiors. It had been almost two years, after all. It seemed that Heaven and Hell were pretending the whole embarrassing incident had never happened, and Aziraphale was quite all right with that.
He stood slowly, preparing to take a walk around the paths. Crowley would find him when he arrived. The beat of great wings stopped him in his tracks. He turned slowly.
There, on the path in front of him, was a pair of angels. Nor were they trying particularly hard to hide what they were. In fact, they weren't trying at all. They wore the ornate golden armor of the Host, and they carried flaming swords similiar to the one Aziraphale had once had.
The frying pan of suspicion snuck up and smacked the angel in the back of the head.
He was in trouble. Lots and lots of trouble. These fellows did NOT look friendly. "Erm. Hello."
"Aziraphale, Angel of the East Gate," the lead angel said. "We have come to take you to task for your fornincations with the demon Crawly."
"Crowley," Aziraphale corrected automatically, and then the frying pan of realization smacked him on the side of the head. He was starting to get a headache. "Fornications?"
"Deny it all you want, Aziraphale," the strange angel snapped. "We know of how you have tasted the sins of the flesh with the demon."
Aziraphale just gaped for a moment. And then another moment. In fact, several moments passed. Finally, the other angel got impatient. "Have you nothing to say for yourself?"
Aziraphale managed to rally. "Only that you are GROSSLY misinformed, my dear," he said loftily. He wondered briefly if that was a lie. Well, he and Crowley had certainly never done THAT. And he had never even CONSIDERED the demon in such a way. He grasped that thought by the throat, strangled it, and buried it in a shallow grave.
The other angel, the one who hadn't spoken yet, made a sound of disgust. A rather rude one. Aziraphale sniffed. "We should just kill him and get it over with."
It goes without saying that this statement rather worried Aziraphale. He hadn't done anything that was worth killing him over, had he? Usually they simply kicked the angel out of Heaven for such offenses. Not that there had been any such offenses since the Rebellion.
Both angels drew their swords. Aziraphale backed away and started looking around frantically. He could hold his own in a fight, more than, but he was unarmed, and they carried blessed swords. He was doomed.
The former Angel of the East Gate took a deep breath. He knew what those swords did to angelic flesh. He had done it himself, once upon a time. They wouldn't just destroy his mortal body. They would destroy his angelic one as well.
He straightened his shoulders and prepared for his fate. He would at least do himself the honor of going down fighting.
Never once did God cross his mind.
But Crowley did.
Anthony J. Crowley brought the Bentley to a screaming halt and jumped out of the car. He was LATE. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have bothered him. In fact, he would have just went home and amused himself with the thought of his angel waiting alone in the park.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. HIS angel? Where the hol - unholy hel - heav - MANCHESTER had that thought come from?
So Crowley did what he usually did to thoughts that he didn't want to contemplate. He beat it about the head with a blunt object and kicked it out one ear. (The left one, to be exact.) He'd been having to do that alot, lately. Especially about Aziraphale. The thought would be back. And next time it would probably bring friends.
He raked both hands through his hair and headed for the duck pond. Fuck it. If he didn't want to think about it, he wouldn't and that was that. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
The sounds of a struggle interrupted his internal battle with his own head. Ordinarily, he would have ignored it, and this was what he set out to do this time. But a cry of pain reached his ears, a very familiar voice crying out in pain, and he couldn't ignore it.
Aziraphale.
Crowley started to run.
The fact that Crowley ignored his lower demonic impulses for the first time in his entire existence saved the angel's life. As it were.
There were two of them, and they were angels. Great, feathery white wings and ornate gold armor gave THAT away. Well, that and the great flaming swords, which they were using on Aziraphale.
It was about then that Crowley lost control over his human form. There was the sound of tearing cloth as his wings unfurled. His hands became taloned, and clenched into fists. Long, curving fangs became visible as his lips curled back in a snarl. A pattern of scales appeared on his skin, over his shoulders and chest as the tattered remnants of his shirt and jacket fell away. "Two againssst one isssn't fair, you know," he hissed, flicking his forked tongue out to taste the air.
Fear. Angelic fear was a wonderful thing. Delicious.
One of the angels spun to face him, letting Aziraphale's battered form fall to the ground with a nasty sounding thump. Crowley hissed. He spread his wings and took to the air easily. The two angels followed. That was good. Get them away from Aziraphale. Of course, it might have been helpful to have planned beyond that point, but he hadn't really had time.
Luckily, the lack of a proper spine came in handy, even when flying. He could do things in the air that even angels couldn't. He sent a brief mental thanks to Lucifer for making him a snake. Dead useful, that was. Sometimes.
Of course, all the evasive manuevers meant a lot of time spent in tight spots waiting for one of the strangers to make a mistake.
He was hoping they were idiots. It would make this so much easier.
They weren't idiots. But they were impatient, and that could be used to his advantage. One of them let out a war cry, brought up his sword, and dove straight at the demon. Crowley smiled, baring his fangs. "Keep coming, little angel." It was hard to hiss words with no silibant sounds, but he managed, anyway.
At the last moment, Crowley brought himself up to meet the angel in midair, bringing them together with a crash. He wrapped himself around the angel's upper body, giving himself a good angle at the neck. He opened his mouth, impossibly wide, and his fangs grew even longer, now apparently dripping with venom. His head reared back, and he sank those fanks into the angel's spine. The angel let out a shriek that set off the animals for miles around and plummeted for the ground.
Crowley pulled away and beat his wings to keep in the air. The other angel let out a cry and charged, holding his sword in a more competent way than the other one had. Crowley swore. NOW he was in trouble.
The angel brought up his sword, across his body so Crowley couldn't do to him what he'd done to the other one. Crowley twisted out of the way at the last moment, barely avoiding the blessed blade, hoping to use the stranger's momentum against him. But the angel twisted in the air, almost as agile as Crowley himself.
"Have you no shame, demon?" he demanded.
Crowley pretended to think about this for a moment, tapping one talon against a fang. "Hmm. No."
The angel's eyes narrowed. "You have already damned him."
Crowley stared at him for a moment, yellow eyes wide behind his shades. "What the hell do you mean, damned? Aziraphale's not Fallen."
The stranger let out a long, derisive laugh. "Did you not know, demon? Your...EXPLOITS have brought about his death. Tempting an angel, all in a day's work for you, I'm sure." He suddenly lashed out with his blade. Crowley dove to avoid it. "You have doomed him with your own flesh!"
Crowley sputtered for a moment, nearly fallling out of the air before righting himself. "What the bloody FUCK are you talking about? You're not making any sense!" Then his eyes went even wider, and he gaped at the angel, his mouth hanging open, baring his fangs. "You're NUTS."
The angel swept out with his sword again, and THAT required some tricky last nanosecond manuvering on Crowley's part. Then he just kind of went back to hanging in midair and gaping at the stranger.
The angel looked uncomfortable. "Do you HAVE to do that?" he snapped, making another thrust with his sword. "You look like an asphyxiating garter snake!"
Crowley hissed, and was about to say something cutting and emotionally scarring about looking like a giant fairy when a decidedly sweet and angelic voice cut into the fray. "Samael!"
The angel - Samael was Crowley's guess - froze, and managed to look supremely guilty. Crowley felt it was safe for a moment to look around at who was going to kill him now.
Hovering in the air about forty feet above their little aerial battle was a female angel. Definitely an angel. The giant white wings were a definite hint. Another hint was the flaming sword. The glowing golden nimbus around her head wasn't so much a hint as an anvil.
The clothes were a bit strange, but Crowley supposed even angels had a right to dress how they wanted. Of course, he didn't think pale blue halter tops with a design of snowflakes, blue jeans, and tan boots with hells were QUITE was God had in mind.
A second later, the other angel registered. Not his friend Samael of the righteousness, but the one with the newcomer. This one looked like a kid. He had short blond hair and the kind of fresh-scrubbed face that you saw on kids on after school programs. He held his sword like he didn't quite know what to do with it.
Crowley glanced back and forth between his self-righteous friend and the two newcomers. Samael looked terrifed.
The frying pan of memory smacked him in the face. "Loki," he hissed.
The Angel of Judgement glanced at him, then smiled radiantly. "Hello, Camael."
Crowley just gaped at her. It had been a very long time since he'd heard his angelic name used so casually. "Er. Hi."
Crowley went back to peering intently between Loki and Samael. The other angel with Loki - the one who looked about twelve - was completely forgotten. And apparently, neither the kid nor Crowley were registering on Loki's personal radar. "You're to be taken before God Himself, Samael," she said, managing to sound as ominous as an angel can. Which is pretty freaking ominous, Crowley noticed. Aziraphale never sounded that scary.
Samael somehow managed to look her in the eye. "I have done nothing wrong!"
"Nothing WRONG?" Crowley shouted, losing his temper - what was left of it - completely. He gestured at where Aziraphale lay bleeding on the path. "Nothing WRONG! What has Aziraphale done? What sins has he committed that required - that required THIS!"
Loki dove down next to him and placed a restraining hand on his arm. "Calm yourself, Crowley," she murmured. "You have committed many sins, Samael. You have attacked angels who have done nothing. You have went against God's commands. What have you to say for yourself, Samael?"
Samael used his sword to point at Aziraphale's form. Crowley hissed at him. "That angel - as undeserving as he is of that name - has lain with a DEMON!"
"Oh for heav - for he - for bleeding F -" The hand on his arm clamped down, and Crowley bit off the word. "He hasss bloody well not," he hissed instead.
Loki sighed and rubbed her temples. She sheathed the blade down her back and planted her hands on her hips. The great fluttering feathery wings rather ruined the image of authority, but you can't have everything. "Go home, Samael."
He vanished in a flash of light.
Crowley was already on the ground. With a gentleness that surprised himself, he gathered Aziraphale's upper body into his lap, cradling the angel's head in one hand. The fine golden hair was matted with blood. Crowley stroked the hair back from the pale face, and watched Aziraphale's eyes flutter open. He heard Loki and the other angel land nearby, but he resolutely ignore them.
Aziraphale raised one hand and clumsily tried to pull of the demon's sunglasses. "I think I'm dying," he said, almost absently.
Crowley pulled off the shades himself and narrowed his yellow eyes. "You're not dying, angel. I won't allow it."
"Neither will I," Loki said dryly, kneeling on Aziraphale's other side. Aziraphale didn't even look at her. He stroked a hand over the side of Crowley's face and smiled slightly. "Thank you," he murmured, and lost conciousness.
TBC...