XXII — An Unhinged Serpent
It can't really end like this.
Maybe he was an old fool, he decided as black crept in fast and close on his vision, narrowing his world further and further. Maybe he believed in happy endings. Ridiculous, really, when he thought about it, as he'd known the size of The Story—the original story, the first story—from the very start, and it had never, in any amount of interdepartmental memos or human-crafted books of religious prophecy, had a happy ending. Paradise on Earth, possibly, but in his mind, that was not so happy.
What was Paradise worth without Crowley?
But even knowing that, he'd entertained that ever-so-dangerous spark in the bottom of the box. He'd had hope. Looking at Crowley as they stood together at what was supposed to be the end of everything, and promptly tore up the final chapter and left more than enough room for a sequel, he'd let that spark burst to fire, a belief that maybe the light at the end of the tunnel was more than brimstone.
Maybe there didn't have to be an end to the tunnel at all.
Maybe now, maybe they had forever. The two of them, perpetually, until the laws that held the universe together dissolved and they returned back to the ether from which they were both birthed.
He shouldn't have been so quick to trust hope. But he'd always been quick to trust. Trust in Her plan, trust in Heaven, and he had suffered for that his entire existence, and he suffered for it now, bleeding out on the floor of Crowley's flat with Gabriel and Beelzebub watching him with clinical interest. He would pay for that trust with his life.
Bitterly, he wondered if it all would have turned out for the better if he had just Fallen somewhere along the lines, sauntered vaguely downwards as Crowley was so fond of saying. Though he didn't saunter. No, it would be more of a slow, carefree stroll, stopping to smell the flowers on his way to damnation. Perhaps he would have been a decent demon. He certainly had been a rubbish angel.
Beelzebub wrapped their hands around the hilt of the Archangel blade.
"What are you doing?" Gabriel asked, furrowing his brow in vague curiosity
"He's going to die soon; I want to kill Crowley while he's still conscious. Make him watch," explained the fly-demon with little inflection.
Gabriel's smirk was almost imperceptible, but there all the same. "That's...demonic."
"Obviously." Beelzebub began the process of tugging out the blade from where it was thoroughly entrenched in Aziraphale's internal organs, which he was currently deeply regretting giving himself. He couldn't, in that moment, through the blinding white hot agony, remember what on Earth had possessed he and Crowley to make themselves anatomically accurate.(1)
"It's fitting, though," Gabriel said, stepping aside so Beelzebub had a clear path to Crowley. He glanced at Crowley over his shoulder. "I mean, he's the reason for all of this. Have to give him credit though—tricking an angel into falling for him, even a monumentally stupid angel, that's pretty impressive. No one else has ever done it. But Aziraphale, you really should have known this would happen. Nothing good could come of it. But—" His eyes flicked back to Aziraphale. "You never really were any good at thinking about consequences, were you?"
"Go...go to Hell..." Aziraphale managed.
"Oh, I'm not going to Hell. I'm going back to Heaven, with your head on a stick. Crowley's too. That should get me my old position back." Gabriel grinned. "This is a huge win for me." He noticed Beelzebub's difficulty in prying the Archangel blade from Aziraphale's body, and his face dropped into something more taut, impatient. "Hurry up. He's soft. He won't last long once you yank that thing out."
Soft.
Soft.
Gabriel wasn't wrong, of course. He was soft, and would be the first to admit it—and he greatly preferred himself that way. Cozy quilts and a nice cup of tea, with a dash of honey. Cocoa on a rainy day, book in hand. An old coat kept in perfect condition. More recently, he and Crowley wrapped in warm sheets, all the better to kiss the demon wherever his lips could reach. Aziraphale lived for softness, for the gentle passing of days and the creature comforts that humanity had seen fit to invent, those beautiful, flawed, ingenious creatures.
But it was his appreciation for these things—his love for them—that defined him. His love, especially, for Crowley. Old and precious and so intrinsic to who he was. And his very last sight on this planet, the planet he had adored so, watched grow and change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, would be Crowley dying in front of him.
Crowley had saved him so many times. From the Reign of Terror to the Blitz, the American Revolution to the Mongol conquests, the trenches of World War I to the plague-ridden streets of Barcelona in the 15th century. Crowley had never been soft. Crowley was hard edges and glimmering scales, fluid, infinitely adaptable, carrying a paradoxically kind chaos with him wherever he went. So unlike Aziraphale, who was steadfast and unchanging, sometimes to his own detriment. Aziraphale, who dug in his heels at every opportunity. Aziraphale, who read all of the stories mankind had to offer—as opposed to Crowley, who had always been writing his own, with little interest in constructive criticism.
Aziraphale wrapped his hands around the sharpened end of the Archangel blade, stopping Beelzebub from pulling it out of him. He held on with all he had left, which wasn't much.
Dean Winchester's words rang in his mind, "Don't you ever just want to go apeshit?"
"Admittedly, I've—I've never been...m-much a soldier," Aziraphale said shakily, blood tracing down the curve of his chin. "But...soft...soft doesn't mean...doesn't mean..."
Aziraphale pulled, tugged with his entire self, with every ounce of celestial strength that remained in his rapidly dying body, battling with Beelzebub for the sword impaling him. Because yes, hate was an awfully powerful emotion, as Gabriel had said. Hate could unite, could control, could kill. Hate could tear apart families and rip apart cities, level countries and corrupt utterly. Hate was almost insurmountable.
"Let go!" buzzed Beelzebub angrily, redoubling their efforts to rip the blade out through his back.
He looked to Crowley, frozen in shock. Sunlight streamed in the through the window, catching the red of his hair and setting it ablaze. Through the demon's sunglasses, he could barely make out the suggestion of the gold of his eyes.
There was something more powerful than hate, though.
Aziraphale ripped the weapon out of him by the pointy end, soaked in blood, three-edged blade slicing his hands to ribbons, but none of that mattered now.
Gabriel moved fast, no doubt with the intent to disarm him.
Aziraphale, somehow, was faster. He lunged up, flipping the blade around in his hands, and stabbed it into Gabriel's hip. Non-lethal, he hadn't forgotten their mission. It would hurt like sin, badly maim the Archangel, but not kill him. Jack would still walk free by day's end.
"Soft doesn't mean weak," Aziraphale said breathlessly, staring into the violet depths of Gabriel's eyes. Eyes that spoke of that hatred he'd mentioned. Cruel eyes. Surprised eyes as well. He hadn't expected this, not of Heaven's black sheep angel.
For good measure, Aziraphale twisted.
Time unfroze just as he collapsed backwards.
The world faded to black.
Crowley was not pleased that Squirrel had sent his mother with him.
"I can handle a few hounds by myself!"
"It's a pack of hounds, for one, and two, you didn't seem to be having much luck with them last I found you," Rowena pointed out primly, keeping track with Crowley's hurried footsteps. Insufferable wench. And he'd berate Squirrel later for seeing fit to subject him to the buddy system; he was not Moose, needing supervision wherever he went, lest he die a terrible death. It should be noted, Crowley thought angrily, that the one time he HAD died, it had been his own choice.
No one had ever successfully killed him. And no one ever would.
They passed through the movie theater doors. In the lobby, Londoners milled about. It took Crowley exactly three seconds to realize whatever miracle had been hiding the hounds had dissipated, at least to some degree. No one was screaming in abject horror, but people were surrounding the employees, pestering them with questions.
"Is this some kind of event? Why wasn't it posted on the cinema's Facebook? I would've brought my children!"
"Is it an adoption benefit? I've been looking for a puppy."
"My Gladys is allergic to dogs, this is unacceptable—Good Lord man, the dander, do you have any idea—!?"
Crowley shouldered through the crowd, inserting himself into the personal space of the nearest ticket-taker. "Which theatre did the dogs go into?" Crowley demanded. He didn't exactly flash his eyes, but the benefit of being a demon, you trip that lovely survival instinct in humans when you want to. Something in the back of their little monkey brains triggers, and they just KNOW—ah yes, top of the food chain, I see, yessir, whatever you want.
Or, they run. Fifty-fifty odds.
"Th-Theatre 3," provided the acne scarred youth, eyes wide as saucers. "Two o'clock showing for The Stray."
"Brilliant." And off Crowley went, Rowena tracking in his footsteps, and Crowley's bull-terrier hound not far behind.
Once in the theatre, it took Crowley and his mother very little time to locate the boy whom the hounds were so intent on finding; the Antichrist himself. Adam Young looked mostly as he was described in the book, and even if there had coincidentally been another young lad with gold locks in the front row, his three companions, clearly the Them, would have given away his identity anyways.
That, and the hounds pestering him for pets.
"Adam!" called Crowley over the buzz of the cinema-goers clamoring at the sudden presence of dogs. What they were seeing, he had no idea, but no one was nearly frightened enough to have noticed the actual size of the hounds. Adam looked up, Dog in his arms, the picture of confusion.
"Who're you?" he challenged. "And why are all these dogs here?"
"And why are they so big!?" tacked on a boy who Crowley assumed to be Brian, if the smearing of popcorn butter on his cheek was any indication. Curious that he could see the dogs for what they were; he supposed that the Them's awareness of the supernatural would increase, after their run in with the Horsepeople, or just from their continued contact with Anthony and Aziraphale—who, for two beings supposedly trying to blend into the human droves, were incredibly bad at it, catching attention wherever they went.(2)
"Who I am doesn't matter, but who you are does, my adorable little Antichrist. The hounds are here for you; send them away, and they'll do as you bid." He hoped. If not, he and Mother were going to have to play dog catchers, and he didn't much like that idea.
"There they are!" yelled a voice from the back of the theatre. Crowley and Rowena turned; the source of the voice was the demon that had been de-handed during their earlier escapades in Hell, and had joined in on the chase when they'd fled. Hastur, Crowley was rather confident in guessing. He was accomponied by a barracuda-demon Crowley didn't recognize.
Hastur grabbed his counterpart's arm with his singular hand, black eyes widening. He pointed at Adam. "Dagon, it's him! The boy! Our master's son!"
"Not anymore," Dagon said, shaking Hastur off. "Not according to His Majesty. He's been disowned. Permanently."
"Do we kill him then?" asked Hastur, half-baffled.
"Obviously!"
"Adam dear," Rowena said, turning to the Them. "Now would be an excellent time to encourage your new pets to help."
"Help? How are they s'posed to help?" Adam demanded.
"By killing the people who just said they're going to kill you, idiot!" Pepper said loudly, pointing at Hastur and Dagon as they rushed down the steps. Pepper stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
The dogs sat.
Pepper pointed again. "SIC 'EM, BOYS!"
"Pepper, actually, maybe that's not the best thing to do in a crowded theatre—" Wensleydale argued tentatively, but the hounds were already off, even Crowley's new canine friend, apparently content to take orders from Pepper as well. Why, Crowley had no idea, but he wasn't one to look a gift hellhound in its large, slobbery, pointy mouth.
The dogs attacked. Crowley turned away. Rowena watched with a head tilted in interest. Bloody madwoman.
Hastur and Dagon's screams died off as they were discorporated, sent back to Hell sans their bodies.
The humans were starting to catch on that maybe something wasn't above-board about all this dog business, if the panicked shouts and people running for the door were any indication.
This was when Adam stepped in.
His eyes flashed red—not the luminescent gold of young Jack's eyes, something blood-red and frightfully powerful, a different energy all-together, though no stronger or weaker than Jack's, Crowley would say—and Adam's voice rang out in the theatre, "STOP!"
The humans halted, all of them, men, women, and children alike, and they turned, practically frozen in their obedience. The hounds, jaws slick with blood, looked to him as well. Silence fell in the theatre, with the exception of the movie still valiantly continuing in the background, the characters blissfully unaware of the events unfolding underneath the enormous screen.
Adam focused on the hounds first. "You've all got to stop being so hellish. It's scaring people."
Promptly, the many different shapes and sizes of hellhounds morphed into perfectly cute, non-terrifying dog breeds. Newfoundlands, Greyhounds, Samoyeds, Huskies, Golden Retrievers, an occasional Labradoodle, and one very fat Corgi.
"Smaller," Adam encouraged, though he seemed pleased they'd listened thus far.
And then the theatre was chock-full of puppies. Crowley's hound had obeyed the order as well, shrinking down to bite-size. Crowley sighed, knowing later that he would have to command the hound to grow bigger again, should it decide to continue padding in his footsteps, but for now, a puppy was acceptable. He scooped up the hound, carding a hand down its spine.
Pepper seemed to understand what Adam was going for. "It's Free Puppy Day!" she declared. "Everyone gets to take home a puppy, and they're all potty-trained and have their shots, isn't that right Adam?"
Adam seemed on the verge of telling Pepper even he couldn't promise that, but he nodded anyway. "Take whichever one you like! Except this one," Adam said, nodding down to Dog, who was happily nuzzled into his arms. Adam cast a brief glance at Crowley, and added, "And the one he's got. Can't have that one either."
Hmm. Perceptive child.
The humans broke out of their trance, cooing over the hoard of perfectly non-infernal puppies.
"And you're all going to be really good dogs, okay, and you'll be good to your families and love them loads," Adam said, a final command for the former hellhounds. Dog woofed his agreement.
Crowley and Rowena weaved through the delighted new dog-owners to the Antichrist and his friends.
"Well done," Crowley complimented. "They don't even seem to notice the dismembered corpses in Row F."
Adam shrugged. "They don't want to see it, so I won't let them," he answered, as if it was simplicity in itself. Adam narrowed his eyes at Crowley. "You're a demon, aren't you?" His gaze switched to Rowena. "And you, you're a witch like Anathema."
"Got it in one," Crowley said. "We're friends of Crowley and Aziraphale. You should probably come with us."
"Why would we come with you when you haven't even told us your names? Mum says not to talk to strange adults," Brian argued.
"Actually, Mr. Crowley and Mr. Aziraphale are really strange adults and we talk to them all the time," Wensleydale pointed out sagely.
"Name's Crowley. Note the pronunciation. I'm the King of Hell. This is Rowena, she's an insufferable, nagging—"
"I'm his mother," Rowena finished cleanly with a pleasant smile.
"Two Crowleys?" Pepper questioned.
"Oh, I get it, it's like how in our class there's Brian G, and then I'm Brian C. What's your last name?"
Crowley deadpanned. "Crowley."
"Crowley Crowley?" Wensleydale said, baffled.
"You can call him Fergus if you like," Rowena said, and Crowley briefly contemplated killing her.
"Mother, did we not JUST have this conversation?"
"You told me not to call you that, you didn't say anything about other people—"
"I hate you. Stop talking." Crowley turned back to the Them. "We need to go."
The Them were amicable enough, and the group of them, along with Dog and Crowley's new hound, departed the theatre.
"What's your dog's name?" Brian inquired, reaching down to scratch the hound's ear.
"Haven't named her yet." Crowley contemplated for a few moments, then decided, "I like Beatrice."
"Shakespeare again?" Rowena arched an eyebrow. "Better than Growley, I suppose."
Damn the Winchesters. Of course they'd told her about that. "Just because I'm consenting to your presence doesn't mean I won't kill you. It was a clever name."
"Do you have a cat named Meowley as well?"
"MOTHER—"
"A pig named Sowley," Adam added with a grin.
"Cow named Cowley," put in Wensleydale.
"Chicken named Fowley—" Pepper joined in.
Crowley groaned. "This is why I detest children."(4)
"Actually, we're not children, we're tweens technically, and Brian's going to be twelve next week cos he got held back a year—" Wensleydale began, but they were interrupted when the corgi hound ran in front of Crowley, tripping him up and sending him flat on his face.
Crowley peeled himself off of the ill-smelling floor of the cinema lobby to see the corgi giving Pepper an affectionate lick on the nose. Pepper smiled widely.
"This one likes you," Adam declared. "You should keep him."
"I don't know if Mum will let me—"
"She will," Adam cut across her. And he was right, of course. She would.
So the corgi came with them, bounding along with Dog and Beatrice as they rushed back to the flat. He could only hope nothing had gone pear-shaped while they were gone.
The flat turned into chaos the second time unfroze itself. Crowley took in the details in flashes.
Dean and Sam, reaching for their guns, "what the hell!?" leaving Dean's lips the second he could speak again.
Newt, ducking behind the counter. Anathema, knife in hand.
Gabriel on the floor, clutching his hip, growling in pain, blood seeping through the fabric of his pants, the Archangel blade buried there. Beelzebub trying frantically to tug it out.
And then Aziraphale, also on the floor, also leaking blood.
But a lot more.
And he wasn't moving.
And his eyes were closed.
Crowley moved with inhuman speed, at Aziraphale's side in a blink. "Angel? Angel!?" He grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him. Over his head, bullets flew at Beelzebub, fired by Sam and Dean. They stuttered and dropped to the ground, failing to get within a foot of the demon.
Aziraphale didn't respond. Crowley checked his pulse. For one single moment that seemed to extend onward into infinity, he detected nothing, but then—there, a thready beat, distant but hammering along. He'd been stabbed by the Archangel blade, it was the only explanation, he would have discorporated otherwise, which was a horrifying thought all by itself. There would be no new bodies waiting for either of them, not anymore.
But this was worse. This was so much worse. Because it wasn't Aziraphale's body dying, it was Aziraphale dying. Dying under his hands, growing colder by the second.
Gabriel screamed bloody murder when Beelzebub finally wrenched the Archangel blade from his hip. They rose to their feet in a rush, spinning on a heel to slash at Dean, who reeled back just in time to avoid losing most of the top of his head. Sam tackled Beelzebub down, wrestling them for the blade. Gabriel was struggling back to his feet, eyes glowing vehement purple, teeth gritted in rage.
"What did you do to him!?" Crowley shouted, jumping to his feet and whirling on Gabriel. "You bastard, what did you do?"
"Talk to the demon. If anyone asks, I had no part in this," Gabriel managed, sweat drenching his forehead. "Of course, no one's going to ask you, because you're going to be dead here in a second." His lips twisted in a smirk. "God willing."
Crowley launched himself at Gabriel, wings bursting out from his shoulders without him so much as lending a thought to the action. They barreled into Anathema, who'd been creeping up on Gabriel with the knife. They crashed down in a tangle of arms and legs, colliding with Sam and Beelzebub. This was a great deal like bowling, Crowley decided, only less fun (which was saying a lot) and the pins were a mixture of beings both natural and unnatural trying to kill each other.
More gunfire, surely from Dean, but Crowley couldn't be fucked to care, couldn't be fucked to care about anything—much less their promise to return an alive Gabriel back to Naomi.
It didn't matter if Beelzebub had done the deed. Gabriel had allowed it, probably relished in it.
Gabriel, who'd sneered at "Aziraphale" in Heaven. Don't talk to me about the greater good, sunshine. I'm the Archangel Fucking Gabriel. Gabriel, who'd rather burn Aziraphale than understand him. Burn the traitor. Burn the traitor.
Crowley had lost his glasses in the fray, and when he locked eyes with Gabriel, he could see a fear reflected there, no doubt shrinking in the face of pure gold murder. Crowley dug his hand into Gabriel's hip, fingers driving into his fresh wound, and the Archangel roared in pain, shattering every inch of glass, every light fixture in his flat, raining down shards on the lot of them.
Crowley punched Gabriel in the mouth as hard as he could. Blood spattered across the floor, and then Dean was wrestling him away, one hand fisted in the back of Crowley's suitcoat, the other holding the holy oil.
"We need him!" Dean reminded him gruffly. He splashed Gabriel with the holy oil, burning his skin, then tossed the decanter away with a clatter and jumped on the Archangel, armed with the angel cuffs. However, Beelzebub disentangled themself from Sam and grabbed Dean before he was able to follow through, making to throw him into the portal still glowing valiantly in the middle of Crowley's flat. Getting chucked through would of course burn the hunter into billions of ashes before spreading his atomic remains throughout every universe there was. Something to be avoided.
But thankfully, before Crowley could so much as move, Anathema let out a battle cry, and finally managed to stab the steak knife into Beelzebub, right between their shoulder blades. The fly-demon swore, dropping Dean, but blasting Anathema and Sam both away with a flail of their hand. Sam collided hard with Crowley's throne, head slamming against the hard gold of one of the armrests, and slumped to the floor, unconscious.
"Sammy!" Dean shouted, but he didn't go to his brother, instead returning to Gabriel to fight the angel cuffs onto his wrists. He caught an elbow to the jaw, and Crowley was sure he heard a crack.
Anathema had crashed into the counter when she'd been thrown, but she was back on her feet in a second, swaying, but not discouraged. "You're gonna have to do better than that."
Beelzebub grabbed Anathema by the throat, clearly unhappy with the recent stabbing. "I hate witchezzzz," Beelzebub buzzed, teeth bared. Anathema choked, trying to budge Beelzebub's arms, but their hold was firm. And Beelzebub still had the Archangel blade.
Newt, ever-chivalrous, grabbed the first thing he could—and that was one of the copper pots that dangled from a rack above Crowley's oven. He started whipping them indiscriminately in Beelzebub's direction, trying to distract the demon enough to buy Anathema time to wriggle out of the their grip. Unfortunately, it did little other than irritate the demon, and they pointed the Archangel blade in Newt's direction, no doubt intending to turn him inside out to stop the annoyance permanently.
Crowley grabbed fistfuls of the other demon's coat, tearing them away. Anathema dropped to the ground with a gasp, massaging her throat. Dean rolled away from a now-cuffed Gabriel at the same moment, breathing hard and covered in a fresh layer of bruises.
Crowley yanked Beelzebub close. "You stabbed my best friend."
Beelzebub sneered, "So what if I did?"
"Well, now I have to kill you," Crowley told them.
They didn't seem shaken by the claim. "I'd like to see you try. You never had it in you. You've never been a demon, not really. Hell didn't burn enough Heaven out of you. You've always been wrong...err...right...never mind. Whatever a demon is supposed to be, you were the opposite of that. What I'm saying is you're shit at being a demon."
Crowley smiled with every single one of his teeth. "Oh, Lord Beelzebub, trust me—I'm all the demon I need to be."
And then, Beelzebub was gone, replaced with a single buzzing fly. The Archangel blade (and the steak knife) clattered to the floor.
Crowley pinched the fly's wings between two fingers. It buzzed furiously.
"I guess this won't technically kill you," Crowley said to the fly. "Just discorporate you. But you see, now you've made me angry. And I want you to think of this, every time you put a foot topside, that I'm up here. Waiting for you. And next time, I'll have holy water. You can ask Hastur...I'm a demon with a spray bottle."
He looked at Aziraphale on the floor, growing paler by the second.
He crushed the fly between his thumb and forefinger, cast it to the side, wiped his hand on his pants.
And then he went to his angel. He laid hands over the wound, closing his eyes.
"You can't heal that, it's from the Archangel blade," Dean told him, out of breath and crouching next to Sam, cradling his head and inspecting the wound along the back of his younger brother's skull.
"If I can discorporate a Lord of Hell like it's nothing, I can heal this," Crowley spat. "I have to."
"No, he needs to go to a human doctor, and hope like hell they can stuff his guts back inside of him before he dies," Dean told him roughly.
Crowley angrily snapped his fingers in Sam and Dean's direction. Sam's eyes opened instantly, and he let out a breath of relief. Dean's hand came back bloody, but with a quick inspection, he saw that Crowley had completely healed Sam's rattled brain. He'd fixed the hairline fracture on Dean's jaw as well, though Crowley doubted the hunter noticed through the adrenaline.
Crowley summoned every drop of power in him, just like he had in the Empty—and he put it all into Aziraphale's injury, muttering under his breath all the while—"please, please, I'm begging you, if You're up there, don't let him die, don't let him die, not after all this, I can't do this without him, please, please, please—"
He still prayed to Her. Now, and ever since he Fell. He never stopped. Some part of him, miniscule and sad and buried very very deep, believed that maybe, if he talked to Her enough, She would answer, someday. If She could just see he hadn't MEANT to Fall...he didn't want to tempt them to evil, no, just free them. Because what did it all matter without free will? Without the choice to do good, what did good matter?
He'd wanted it all to matter. He wanted meaning for the humans, for himself.
She had to have wanted them to stop it, The End. He refused to believe in an oversight that massive—She was all-knowing. She must've been aware, from the start, exactly what would happen when the dominoes were tipped over. She must have known he would Fall, he would tempt Eve in the Garden, he would meet the strange angel on the wall and think, s'pose this is as good a place to Fall as any and subsequently build an altar for Aziraphale within himself, lighting candles that would never go out, even when he wanted them to.
Maybe that was one of the things that had drawn him to the angel. If She knew about their friendship, all the time spent together over the years, and allowed it to continue without casting Aziraphale out or striking Crowley down, perhaps there was hope for him yet. If he was allowed near one of her creations, one of her angels...well, closer to thy God and all that.
She'd let them save the world, together. So surely it couldn't end like this? What was the bloody point of it all if he lost Aziraphale now?
Could She really be that cruel?
With a panicked flick of his char-black wings, he knew that yes, She could.
Crowley sagged, spent. Aziraphale's wound was still gaping, still bleeding. He had accomplished exactly nothing. Dean was right.
"What kind of sick cosmic joke is this!?" Crowley exploded, head tilted to the sky. "Is this punishment? For what? For stopping it? If you're going to punish someone, punish me! He didn't do anything! The only thing he did was—he never did anything—he—he just loved me, and what's so wrong with that?" He spread out his arms, inviting retaliation from above. "If you're gonna kill someone, kill me! I ruined them all, every last one of the humans, I'm responsible for everything from the corruption of mankind to bloody Twitter—he doesn't deserve this!"
Dean grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. "You gotta get it together. He has to go back to Heaven," he nodded at Gabriel, who was seething on the ground, looking worse by the minute.
"Heaven?" Gabriel repeated, caked in sweat and blood and closer to human than Crowley had ever seen him. "Why are you bringing me to Heaven?"
"Not this Heaven, asshat. A way worse one. You'll have a blast," Dean told the Archangel.
"You're expecting me to leave Aziraphale—!?" Crowley burst out, but Dean interrupted him.
"Aziraphale needs a human hospital, and fast, or he's gonna die. I ain't gonna sugarcoat it. But you gotta get this bastard where he needs to go so we can get Jack and Cas here—and if human doctors can't save Aziraphale, maybe Jack can. But we can't get him back until we make the trade, and you're the only one who can go to Heaven."
"I—I think he's right. He needs to go to hospital, it's not far, I can take him in Dick Turpin—" Newt began, but Anathema shot him a look that indicated now was maybe not the best time to try to reason with Crowley. Smart girl.
"I'm not going anywhere without him," Crowley hissed.
"Every second we waste going ten rounds about this is another second he doesn't have. You gotta go, and you gotta trust us to take care of him," Dean said in a voice that brooked no argument.
"Trust you?" Crowley repeated incredulously. "Not with this. Not with him."
"We trusted you," Sam countered, rising from the ground with a grunt. "We trusted you with all of our lives."
"And me, Sam, and Cas? We don't trust anyone. Not easily. We trusted you to have our backs, and you did. Let us return the favor," Dean implored. "I ain't gonna let him die, AJ. I promise you that. And I don't go back on my promises."
Dean stretched a hand out to Crowley. Crowley stared at it.
Trust humans with a dying Aziraphale? Trust that when he returned from Heaven, Aziraphale would still be here?
"I've always saved him," Crowley said, numb and terrified, anger dying down to a low heat.
"It's our turn," Dean replied evenly. "I'm trusting you to get my best friend and his kid back. Trust us to keep your boyfriend alive. Seems like an even trade."
Slowly, Crowley grasped Dean's hand.
"I'm a demon," Crowley reminded him.
"I know. You'll kill me if he dies. Only fair." Dean squeezed Crowley's hand hard, then released. "Take Dick-for-Wings and get him where he needs to go, but snap us to the nearest hospital first, we don't have time to drive."
Crowley looked around the room. Newt and Anathema, ruffled and perhaps in shock from the knockdown, drag-out supernatural brawl they'd been involved in. Sam and Dean, sure and steady, but urgent all the same.
Four humans. Well, three humans and a witch. But basically all humans. And three Americans, for Hell's sake.
Crowley bent down close to Aziraphale, brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead. He let his hand rest on the angel's cheek.
"Angel, I need you to hang on until I get back," Crowley whispered, hoarse. "Okay? Hang on for me, and I—well, we never did have that picnic. I'll pick out a nice wine for us. We can go before the weather turns."
Crowley registered somewhere in the back of his mind that he was crying.
He pulled himself away from Aziraphale with gargantuan effort, and his eyes went back to the humans again.
"Don't fuck thissss up," he ordered. He waved a hand, and they were gone, reappearing with Aziraphale in the Emergency Room at the Royal London Hospital.
He snatched Gabriel by the collar and dragged him towards the portal.
"You'll pay for this," Gabriel growled, weak from blood loss and pain.
In a monotone, Crowley replied: "I already have."
1. Well, mostly accurate. Crowley was missing some key bones, but humans had so damn many, how was he supposed to keep track of them all?
2. The phrase, "act natural" was one Crowley and Aziraphale had both picked up centuries beforehand, and fundamentally misunderstood.
3. One could argue that being around Adam for her entire life had allowed some of his Antichristness to rub off on Pepper, and perhaps even Brian and Wensleydale as well; one could also argue that this was just Pepper being Pepper, and no one should be surprised.
4. The King of Hell did not, in fact, detest children, but something had to be said for keeping up appearances.