A/N: I will be posting these every Tuesday! Thanks to everyone already enjoying this ^_^ Loreley, thanks for your review - watching their evolving relationship has been fantastic, especially in the later season (and the last couple of episodes!) so I'm glad you're enjoying this! ^_^ Cruelest Sea, I am so sorry, whenever I'm going back to add thanks to anonymous reviewers, I forget that I didn't answer you because your PM is turned off. So thank you, for this and all the reviews that you've left me over the last several stories! O.o
Our next scene takes us to season 7 in an AU after Crowley has learned that Cas is still alive. In this version, he didn't meet up with him at the Winchesters' place though. And he hasn't heard yet that our favorite angel is a few strings short of a full harp...
Crowley was not a happy demon.
For hell's sake, it was one angel, without even the protection of the intrepid Moose and Squirrel. How hard could it be to find one bloody angel?
Crowley stormed through the underbrush, swatting flies in a fit of ill temper as he went. If only Castiel had actually died when the Leviathan ripped him apart. How he could possibly still be alive was a mystery to the demon, but on the other hand, this was an unexpected windfall: now he could exact some real revenge on the turncoat.
Assuming, of course, he could ever find the sodding angel.
"Couldn't have picked somewhere dry to hide out," the demon griped under his breath. "No, no, let's fly off to the ruddy Everglades." Hell was hot; this was just miserable. Not to mention the alligators, which posed no threat to a demon but which annoyed him to no end. Even better, the swamp he was sloshing through was crawling with briars. Crowley was going to need a new suit, but if he killed the angel then it was worth every moment.
Still grumbling to himself, the demon rounded a bend in the marsh stream and came to a stumbling halt.
"Crowley?"
Crowley's eyes narrowed; there he was at last, sprawled on a solid piece of land amidst the swampy water. "Castiel," the demon spat out, hefting the angel blade clenched in his hand and brandishing it with vitriolic rage.
The angel propped himself up on his elbows, the tail end of his trench coat soaked with swamp water. His hair was mussed and for reasons unknown, he was all decked out in white. Most infuriating was the expression on his face: the daft, perplexed look that was vaguely surprised but not at all afraid. Crowley wanted the angel trembling in fear, damn it!
Striding forward with the intent of impaling Castiel right through his treacherous heart before he could fly off again, Crowley instead stepped straight off the firm patch of ground and tripped face-first into the marsh with a splash.
Oh, how he hated the angel.
"You scared it," Castiel complained as Crowley heaved himself out of the water with droplets streaming from his furiously gesticulating arms. "It flew off."
"What?!"
"I was watching a heron," the angel went on, rolling himself up to a seated position and sighing. "And you scared it away."
"…What?!"
"Uh-oh." Castiel froze, head cocked to the side slightly. "Leviathan. They've been following me." And then he was gone with a low woosh and the quietest flapping of wings. Crowley stared at where his quarry had just been, almost feeling the steam coming from his ears. What the hell had that been?
The demon was so distracted by Castiel's bizarre behavior that his final words didn't sink in until it was too late. Crowley felt the presence behind him and froze.
"Bollocks," he murmured. Slowly, dreading what he knew he was about to see, Crowley rotated on the spot and looked up at the two monsters looming over him with wide, grotesque grins. Leviathan. It didn't help that they'd copied the Winchesters, making them appear even more horrifying to Crowley than they already would have.
"Well, well," the Sam look-alike said with a smirk, reaching out to fuss with Crowley's collar. The demon didn't dare twitch. "Look who it is."
"You're that demon," Dean's clone said. He licked his lips. "The one who thought he could make a deal with us."
"Just on my way out, actually," Crowley informed them with a false sense of ease. "Sorry to rush off, gentlemen, but if you'll excuse me-"
"What's the rush?" Levi-Sam asked as he gripped Crowley's collar and hauled the demon closer. Crowley had to fight not to wince or flinch away. "Why don't you stay and chat?"
Levi-Dean leaned closer and sniffed, still looking too much like he wanted to take a bite for Crowley's liking. "Yeah," the monster growled. "We should definitely chat. The angel was just here, wasn't he? Where did he go?"
Trying to jerk away—unsuccessfully—Crowley glared at the two and gestured with the useless blade. "How should I know?" he demanded. "If you've a bone to pick with him, I'm afraid you'll just have to wait in line."
"Is that so?" Levi-Dean asked. His grin widened to a frightening degree. "See, Dick wants the angel alive."
"He knows things," Levi-Sam added before Crowley could form the obvious follow-up question. The monster twisted his hands in the demon's collar, pressing inexorably down until Crowley couldn't stay on his feet any longer. He splashed to his knees in the marsh with a wince and a quickened heartbeat.
"Things about Heaven," Levi-Dean continued. "Things about how to get in. We didn't get a good enough look at his brain when we were in him before to get all the juicy details, but when Dick's finished with him, we'll know everything we need and more."
"Good luck with that," Crowley bit out, partly because he genuinely liked the idea of the angel being tortured and partly because these morons were never going to get a thing out of Castiel. "He doesn't have much of a head start. If you hurry, you can probably still catch him." Which means there's no time to kill ME.
The Leviathan didn't release him or move to hurry off, though. Instead, Levi-Dean licked his lips again, staring at the demon like he was a tantalizing morsel instead of the king of Hell. Crowley tried to pull away, really not caring for this, but Levi-Sam's grip was unyielding. He gulped, not looking up at the Leviathan that held him. If only he could disappear, but the Leviathan were stronger than him; the one holding him would just tow along and Crowley would be equally screwed.
"Don't worry," Levi-Sam cooed, grin stretching wide. "We'll get that angel. His turn is coming, but first… I don't know about you," he went on, addressing the other monster, "but this chase is making me hungry."
"We'll split him," Levi-Dean agreed. He reached toward Crowley, who closed his eyes in dismay.
But the bite never came. There was a sound of frantic flapping, so fast that Crowley didn't even have time to open his eyes when he registered the noise, before something grabbed him by the back of the collar and jerked. The Leviathan's grip was torn away as Crowley's stomach turned a backflip at the horrible sensation of flying and the nightmarish howls of the enraged monsters left behind.
By the time the demon felt firm ground beneath his feet again, he'd recollected his wits enough to stumble away as he whirled around to face his rescuer.
DAMN it!
"What the bloody hell was that?" he shouted, glaring at—of course—Castiel. The angel stared at him with the same dim-witted incomprehension as before, somehow baffled that Crowley would demand answers.
Raising the blade, the demon snapped, "What's your game now?"
"What do you mean?' Castiel asked, head cocked to the side. "Those Leviathan were going to eat you. They aren't very nice."
Understatement. "And why the hell would you care?!"
The angel stared at the demon, then finally shrugged. The depth of his indifference was starting to make Crowley uncomfortable. "I don't know," Castiel answered. "They're the enemy. You know what they say, the enemy of my enemy is-"
"Don't you dare," Crowley hissed, cutting the angel off as the furious scowl on his face deepened. "Of all the nerve! Don't you even think that word. We are not friends!"
This time, Castiel looked like he was trying to mull over a particularly complicated riddle, nearly provoking Crowley into acts of extreme violence. The angel shook his head, still regarding Crowley with a puzzled look, but he agreed,
"No. We're… we're not."
But the upward inflection sounded more like a question than a statement. Crowley teleported directly in front of the angel, point of his blade pressing up into Castiel's throat as he snarled,
"You really need me to spell this out for you? You're the bloody angel who betrayed me, I'm the demon you royally boned. We're not friends. I'm here to kill you, you feathery numpty!"
"Wouldn't you rather just play a game?"
The plaintive question sounded so hopeful that Crowley nearly screamed. Instead, he glared up at the angel shrewdly. Something, he decided, was off about all of this. What the hell was going on with Castiel, anyway? Not that he'd actually expected the angel to show any fear; he'd seen enough of Castiel under pressure to know that his victim was going to be stoic to the end, no matter how much Crowley wanted to make him beg for mercy. But this wasn't bravery.
"You're off your rocker," he finally realized. "Is that it?" Crowley sighed when Castiel only offered him an uncertain look in return. "You're bonkers!" he snapped in clarification. "Mad as a hatter! You've lost your marbles, you're daft, lunatic, insane! You, Castiel, are crazy."
"That's not a very nice thing to say," Castiel replied, heaving a sigh and shrugging his shoulders with total apathy to the blade still held at his throat. "But I suppose it's true. Not that I've seen Lucifer in a while, which is a blessing, of course. I don't feel crazy. Mostly, I just watch the bees. I had some honey. I would have given it to you as a token of apology for betraying you even though you're a demon. But I don't have it anymore because I gave it to the Winchesters instead, as a token of apology for betraying them. You understand that that betrayal upset me much more than what I did to you. Not that I'm not still sorry-"
"Stop… talking…" Crowley gritted out. He frowned, mulling over his next move. On the one hand, dragging Castiel back to Hell now and torturing him for the rest of time wasn't going to be a bit of fun if the angel was already a wet ball of fur. On the other hand, Crowley wasn't entirely opposed to accepting it as the best he was going to get, and moving forward with his plan.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to play a game?" the angel asked in earnestness. "I don't have any of them with me, but we could go back to the ward. They have so many games. I don't fight anymore, by the way."
"Yes, I can see that." A thought occurred to Crowley suddenly and he lowered the blade, asking, "Wait. You've seen the Winchesters? They've seen you?"
"Well, yes. It seemed like an attempt to make amends was required, given the severity of-"
"And you're telling me they saw the blithering idiot you've turned into, yet you're out here on your own anyway? I'd have thought Sam and Dean would be keeping you under wraps for safe-keeping."
There was a longer silence this time as Castiel's expression drooped. His eyes shifted away from the demon and he shrugged, wringing his hands like a demented old maid. "I… I suppose it's better this way," he said. "Sam and Dean have so many important things to do. They shouldn't have to worry about me. Honestly I'm more likely to be in the way, than to be of any help. Besides, I, um… I broke Sam's wall. You know, the one that kept his memories of Hell-"
"So I remember." Crowley continued to regard Castiel, not feeling one bit sorry for him, of course, but still surprised he wasn't with the two morons. "So when you said you didn't see Lucifer anymore…"
"Oh, I took Sam's Hell scars," Castiel explained, brightening as though this were in any way a good thing. "It was terrifying. Obviously it must have just been hallucination, because the Morningstar is still locked in the Cage, but that faded after a while. Sam is whole now and that's all that matters. At least I was able to do that much. I think Dean's still angry with me, though."
Wonders never ceased. Crowley would have never been caught dead taking on that kind of burden, not for any reward. And Castiel's reward had been… to be tossed aside as a liability?
Again, the demon couldn't care less what happened to his enemy. The traitor deserved this. But he was still surprised, that was all. He'd have thought Dean Winchester would be a little more grateful for Sam being saved, and the return of his best friend.
But that was none of his business.
"In truth," Castiel confided now, "they might have been more open to me staying, but it seemed unnecessary to draw the Leviathan closer to them. I seem to be a beacon. On that note, I'm glad we got to catch up, but I should probably be moving on."
Crowley glared. "This isn't a reunion, it's an ultimatum," he snapped. The blade returned to the unconcerned angel's throat. "Say the magic word, and I might be willing to snuff you out quickly and mercifully."
"I remember that one!" Castiel exclaimed, looking proud of himself instead of frightened. "It's please, right? That word is magic?"
This was not satisfying in the slightest. Crowley had never been so disappointed at a revenge in all his life. Time to end this ridiculous encounter, and good riddance to the crazy angel.
"Forget it," he griped. "I'm just going to kill you."
Castiel sighed, expression mirroring Crowley's own disappointment. Before the demon could move to strike, though, his quarry had shifted away from him in a flurry of wings.
"No, you're not," the angel disagreed. He nodded to the angel blade. "And I don't think this is yours." He held out his own hand; the blade was wrenched out of Crowley's grip. With a flick of his wrist, Castiel sent the weapon disappearing into the ether.
Bollocks. Crowley felt the first flicker of uncertainty, now that he was weaponless and Castiel could easily smite him down. This was definitely not worth his time, and vacating the scene was now priority number one. Still, trying to save face, the demon pointed an accusing finger at Castiel and growled,
"Fine. I'm letting you go this time, just until you retrieve your marbles. Next time I see you… you're dead. Comprende?"
Another flurry of wings brought Castiel directly in front of the demon, and a ripple of fear paralyzed Crowley as the angel raised a hand. Instead of smiting him, though, Castiel merely patted Crowley on top of the head in what was probably the most enraging moment of this whole stupid day.
"Okay, Crowley," Castiel said with a smile, so patronizing and so unintentionally so that the demon almost wished he had been smote, rather than suffer this. But then Cas suddenly added, "I am sorry, you know. Even though you're a demon. And rude. I know we're not friends, but we did work together for a time. Truth be told, sometimes I'm lonely, too, so if you ever want-"
"I'm not lonely!" Crowley exploded, not about to listen to this. He was so done. "And I hope the Leviathan catch you. I assure you, they won't be nearly as merciful as me." As though he'd ever stood a chance at actually killing the angel, which he was realizing more and more had never been in the cards for him anyway.
Without another word, Crowley disappeared into the Void, wanting nothing more than to enjoy the comforting power of his Throne, where he could forget all about the stupid angel and no one ever accused him of needing friends.
Which he most certainly did not.