Chapter VI — An Unpleasant Conversation
Aziraphale was able to follow Crowley's noticeable aura as far as the small town of Lebanon, Kansas, properly in the center of the state. However, once there, he found himself unable to pinpoint the demon's exact location.(1)
"Something's blocking me," Aziraphale muttered to himself, frowning in irritation. He was not used to his higher senses being stifled in such a way. Thankfully though, as aforementioned, it wasn't a terribly large town. Surely he could find Crowley in forty-eight—well, now about forty-seven—hours. He supposed the only thing to do was just go from place to place and ask if anyone had seen Crowley. It wasn't as if he was terribly hard to miss, especially in the midst of rural America. Crowley's flashy style just barely fit in the high-end neighborhoods of London. Here, he would stick out like a sore thumb.
Aziraphale decided a good place to start would be the local diner. After all, he was feeling a tad peckish.
He inquired with the hostess, both waitresses, and the line cook, to no avail. They had seen no one in Lebanon matching Crowley's description. Not completely surprising; Crowley rarely deigned it necessary to eat if Aziraphale wasn't with him. He would try the local bars next. Crowley seemed to seek out alcohol regardless of the company he kept.(2)
Aziraphale was finishing off his shortstack (complimented by a great deal of whip cream and strawberries) when the bell above the diner door rang, announcing the arrival of two men. Aziraphale glanced in their direction, and recoiled in shock, nearly choking on his strawberries.
What in the name of God are they?
On the surface, two human men. Both tall and stereotypically masculine, dressed in layers of flannel and denim. Ill thought-out wardrobes aside, it was their auras that disturbed the angel so thoroughly. The taller of the two, with hair down to his shoulders, appeared mostly human, but his entire aura was rimmed in dark. Oppressive, sucking, blackness. Like someone had taken permanent marker to an oil painting.
The shorter of the two had an even more alarming air about him. His aura was a complex mixture of infernal and ethereal influence, like a demon and angel had both hopped into the same skin and decided to have a battle over which would remain.(3) Surrounded by darkness, yet enfolded in light.
Well, this certainly seemed like a lead.
Aziraphale took his focus from his pancakes and honed in on the conversation the two were having when they sat down. Angelically enhanced hearing did have its benefits.
"Dean, are you sure you're okay with this?"
"Look, Sammy, I already had Cas go deep-diving in my brain for Michael memories before. This ain't my first rodeo."
Oh goodness. The grammar. Appalling.
"You don't know what he might, you know...unearth. When he extracted Gadreel's Grace from me, it was a horror show."
"Yeah, you're really psyching me up for this."
"I just want you to be prepared. We can look for another way."
"I'm not seeing another way. And if there is, the price is gonna be higher than this."
"And if this doesn't work?" countered the one called Sam.
"Then we're stuck with an ultra powerful demon for a roommate. This has to work, Sam."
Ultra powerful demon! Yes!(4) He'd found someone who had come in contact with Crowley. Two someones. But he had difficulty telling their intentions; it sounded as though they were trying to do something to Crowley. His captors, perhaps? But then, where was Crowley being held at if his kidnappers were out for a bite to eat?
The two men didn't resume their conversation until they'd been delivered their respective meals. "Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he did get stuck here," the taller of the two broached tentatively, the one named Sam.
"On what planet would it be a good thing?"
"He's strong, Dean. Maybe strong enough to take down Michael."
Michael...? Surely not the Archangel...
"The dude's like a thirteen year old with ADHD. And do you really think he'd help us?"
"I don't know. He's not like any other demon we've met."
Aziraphale smiled softly to himself. Oh yes. They were most definitely talking about Crowley.
"It could all be an act," Dean pointed out, absent any great deal of conviction.
"I don't think it is."
"...Yeah. Me neither." A deep sigh. "Look, let's just—we'll worry about what we're gonna do with him after we try getting the Archangel juice out of me. If that doesn't work, we'll go from there, but...it'll work, okay?"
"Fine. Do you still want that beer?"
"I'm just gonna grab a six pack on the way home."
"Okay."
The two devolved into much more mundane conversation after that. Aziraphale took a great deal of time to finish his food, wanting to time it so he could leave at the same time as the two men. When they rose from their seats and left a twenty on the table, he tried to subtly do the same. He threw a twenty pound note down, then quickly remembered himself and miracled it into American money. He watched the two men leave the diner and head for an automobile of an older make, one he was sure Crowley would have fawned over.
Once outside, Aziraphale heard the engine start. Upon honing in on the car, he was immediately overwhelmed with a wave of love so intense he had to brace himself against the diner's signboard. "Oh my," he exclaimed, hand to his chest. It was rare that he felt affection so intense for an inanimate object. Amazing. And convenient, as it would make the pair far easier to follow.
Ah. But the following part. Best not to fly in unknown skies, and he certainly wasn't about to chase after the car on foot...
Aziraphale calmly strode up to a nearby vehicle. A man had just emerged from the hardware store next to the diner with a small bag of goods, and was just about to pull away from the curb when Aziraphale knocked gently on the passenger side window. He rolled it down, watching him with cautious eyes.
"Can I help you?" he asked roughly.
"My dear fellow, if it's not too much trouble, I need you to pursue that car—" Aziraphale pointed at the retreating black shape in the distance, "and quickly too, if you would."
The human stared at him. "What? No. Who are you?"
Oh, this was going to take all together too much time. They needed to get a wiggle on—there was no telling what kind of danger Crowley might be in. He let out a short sigh. "Apologies," he said, then snapped his fingers. The man unlocked the passenger door, and Aziraphale slid in, taking care to put on his seatbelt. "Now, about that car?"
"Right away," said the man in a monotone, thoroughly compelled. They pulled away from the curb and followed after Crowley's captors.
I'm coming, my dear, just hold on a little while longer.
Castiel entered the strategy room to find Jack alone, still examining Donatello and Kevin's notes. Crowley was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Crowley?" Cas asked immediately, not liking the demon to be out of sight for long. Yes, they'd established that he was staying put mostly to keep the four of them at ease, but it didn't change the fact that they were sitting on the single largest deposit of supernatural artifacts and information on the planet, and no stranger, much less a demon from another universe, should be let loose upon it without supervision.
"Um, I'm not sure. He said something about being bored and walked out," Jack said, not really paying attention to Cas.
"Jack, we can't—"
Jack looked up with a frown. "Cas, I don't think we could stop him even if we wanted to."
Cas said nothing.
"Right?" Jack pressed.
Cas breathed sharply out of his nose. "I'm going to look for him."
It was not difficult to find the demon. The bunker made it difficult to sense much of anything on the paranormal spectrum, but it also tended to be very quiet when not full of hunters, silent save for the hum of the bunker's machinery. When he heard rustling from Dean's room, he knew he'd found Crowley. Cas pressed in, opening the door and finding the demon cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by Dean's vinyl collection, the record sleeves all spread out in front of him.
"Crowley," Cas snapped. "You can't just welcome yourself to other people's rooms."
"What else am I s'posed to be doing?" Crowley asked, brandishing a copy of Quadrophenia at Cas. "Sitting here with my thumb up my arse?"
Cas sighed. The demon was erratic—seeming wholly unhappy to sit for more than a few minutes at a time, to devote any real time to any particular task. He needed constant stimulation by what he defined as 'interesting', and not many things seemed to earn that label from him. "Dean wouldn't want you in his room."
"Well, Dean's room is a lot more fun than Sam's. Does he do anything other than read?" Crowley blew a raspberry. "Can't say much for his taste, though. Does he listen to anything that isn't forty years old?"
"Dean says that all music made after 1979 sucks ass," Cas relayed blandly.
"What?" Crowley looked incensed. "That's—that's just objectively wrong, just purely on the basis that Hot Space and A Kind of Magic came out in the eighties. He's worse than Aziraphale, totally stuck in the past."
"You talk about Aziraphale a great deal," Cas pointed out.
"I—pshh—that's—no I don't," Crowley hand-waved him away. "Most certainly do not. Barely mentioned him at all."
"You bring him up in almost every conversation."
The demon colored around his cheeks. "Shut up." Crowley returned Quadrophenia to its proper sleeve, before placing it back in Dean's record crate. He jumped to his feet, circling Dean's room, picking up random things and turning them over in his hands.
"What exactly is he to you? Are you still allies, even now that your apocalypse has been averted?" Cas asked. He couldn't deny being curious about the demon's relationship with his angelic comrade. He, of course, could criticize very little when it came to working with demons, given the Purgatory Pact, and then all the times he'd worked alongside their Crowley for years afterwards. But he had never developed the fondness for Crowley that Dean had, and this Crowley spoke of Aziraphale with far greater affection than Dean ever mustered for the King of Hell.
"Allies..." the demon mulled over the word. He eyed up Dean's Purgatory blade, hung on the wall. "Flatmates, actually. Nowadays."
"You...live together?"
"You're an angel living with humans. Don't act so surprised."
"But you're a demon."
Crowley just shook his head, snatching the Purgatory blade off the wall and weighing it in his hands. "Guess angels are the same anywhere, hmm?"
Cas narrowed his eyes at the demon. "What do you mean by that? And put that down."
Crowley shrugged, experimentally swinging the blade. Cas flinched. "I'm a big scary demon," he imitated Cas's voice, "fear me mortals, for I am the architect of original sin."
"You are literally the architect of original sin."
"So?" Crowley asked, flinging the blade out when he spun on his heel to face Cas.
"Will you put that down?"
Crowley ignored him entirely, continuing on, "Is that so bad? Letting them see the difference between Good and Evil? Letting them choose?"
Cas remembered Gadreel, in that moment—when Cas had discovered who he truly was underneath his facade of "Ezekiel." Remembered how he'd had to be physically held back from killing him. You broke the world.
A bitter little smirk formed on Crowley's face. "Oh, you really don't like me, do you, Castiel?"
"You may have saved your world, but if you hadn't corrupted mankind to begin with, it wouldn't have needed saving."
"It wouldn't have been worth saving," Crowley hissed. "They'd all still be in the Garden. Just animals, really. I gave them the ability to question. Hell knows questioning Her didn't do me a fat lot of good, but them? Humans are different. When they decide they don't like something, they'll just go...'well, let's fix it then, shall we?'...don't see what's so wrong about that."
"It's in your nature to question God. You're a demon," Cas insisted, not sure what Crowley's point was.
"Wasn't always," Crowley replied with an artful shrug, giving Dean's Purgatory blade one last look before finally returning it to its spot on the wall.
"And when you were human?"
Crowley looked at Cas like he'd grown a second head. "Human? I'm not from this universe, Castiel. We don't turn humans into demons in my world. They spend eternity in Hell, all expenses paid."
"Then..." Cas's brow furrowed in confusion. "Where do your demons come from? Where did you come from?"
That same mirthless twist of lips. "We were angels."
The idea of an angel becoming a demon baffled him. Two extreme ends of the spectrum—how could an angel even survive the transformation? Their very essence was antithetical to infernality. Even the Fallen angels, those who had gone down with Lucifer, they were still angels, just...darker. None survived now, but Cas had fought a few, in the early days, and they were broken, hateful things...but certainly not demons.
"You...?"
"Oh yes. Not a good one, obviously, but I was an angel."
"Which angel?"
Crowley shook his head, sunglasses sliding just far enough down his nose to reveal a glint of his serpentine eyes. "Mm. Doesn't matter now, does it?" Those same eyes flicked to Castiel, and seemed almost as if they were looking through him. "Puts things into perspective though, doesn't it, Feathers? We've both got black wings. We both Fell. I just Fell a little further..." He snorted in amusement. "My wings are looking a sight better than yours though."
An angel. It was difficult to reconcile that knowledge with his image of Crowley. The Serpent. A demon, a creature of evil. "But Lucifer hated mankind. Why did you side with him in the Fall?"
"Well, he was charismatic, we'll put it that way," he continued to pace around Dean's room, stopping at his night stand to exam the pictures he had there. One of Mary with Dean and Sam when they were small, one of the boys and their father, one of Bobby, one of the brothers, Castiel, and Jack taken recently. "I didn't really go along with all that temper tantrum rubbish of his, but I was like him in that I didn't think God had it all right from the start. Some things seemed tetchy. All it took was me putting a few pointed things in the suggestion box, and, woosh, down I went, with all the others."
"And once you were on Earth?" Cas asked, unable to help his interest, now.
Crowley adjusted his glasses, picking up the picture of Dean, Sam, Cas, and Jack. "Took a liking to them. Couldn't help it."
"But you were aligned with Hell until the very end?"
Crowley shook his head. "Did as little actual demon-ing as possible, really. Hell's just easy to fool. Took credit for things the humans came up with themselves. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade got me almost a hundred years of peace and quiet, they were so happy with me. I never lifted a finger." He placed the picture back down, glancing over his shoulder at Castiel. "What about you, angel? You were with Heaven until the eleventh hour. Why did you Fall?"
"You read the books."
"Ehhhhh," Crowley made a so-so motion with his hand. "I skimmed."
Cas swallowed with difficulty. Their lives now didn't allow for a great degree of self-reflection. His thoughts rarely wandered back to those days of the first apocalypse, of constantly being on the run with Sam and Dean, scraping and scrabbling for any faint chance of being able to stop the End Times.
"It was Dean," Cas admitted quietly. "Sam and Bobby as well, later. But in the moment that I rebelled, it was for him. Michael would've taken his body and destroyed him. Used him as the gun to kill the world. I...couldn't allow that. Heaven was always Right, always Good, but to erase humanity for the sake of a war so pointless, that was Evil. I didn't know anything, but I knew that. And that is what drove me to give up Heaven."
"Just one human?" Crowley seemed vaguely surprised. He sashayed his way over to Castiel. "Being in love with a mortal. That's just asking for pain."
"I'm not in love with Dean," Cas balked at the accusation. "He's—he's my family. He and Sam and Jack."
"You didn't Fall for Sam and Jack. You didn't go to Hell for Sam and Jack."
Cas suppressed a rise of irritation. He was used to people implying things like this. "Dean is very special to me, but in a purely platonic respect."
Crowley just laughed. Loudly. "Oookay, Feathers. Whatever you say." He brushed past Cas. "Now come on. I hear the Winchesters stomping around. Time to get this show on the road."
1. Aziraphale teleported himself to Lebanon for two reasons. The first being that he was pressed for time and finding human transportation seemed a poor choice, and secondly, because he had absolutely no earthly idea how to drive a vehicle, and after spending so much time in the passenger seat of the Bentley, he had very little desire to learn.
2. Crowley usually did a good enough job of finding Aziraphale when he needed to, but throughout history, anytime he had needed to locate Crowley, he had almost without fail located him in the general proximity of a great deal of alcohol. How many times he'd found him at the Long Bar in Singapore, he couldn't be bothered to count.
3. Aziraphale would of course be horrified to know just how many supernatural beings had gone in and out of the revolving door of Dean Winchester's body.
4. By Aziraphale's standards, 'ultra-powerful' was a mite of an over-exaggeration, but he knew the demon would eat up the flattery.