First order of business is a big thanks to L Moonshade, Irken Invader, taoueriT, Voldy's pink teddy (God, I hold an inordinate amount of love for that name),TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel, and scrambled-eggs-at-midnight (cookies are a great motivator, aren't they?) for the wonderful reviews. I also extend similar thanks to everyone who favorited or added this to their alerts list. I'd name you, but I know that, personally, I sometimes favorite/alert something when I don't want everyone seeing what I read. So you shall remain anonymous… but much-loved.
Additional fandoms this chapter: 1408. (A short story by Stephen King, movie directed by Mikael Håfström – Mike Enslin, a side-character in this chapter, is the protagonist of both. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, either look the movie up on youtube, or view this character as an OC. He won't be essential to anyone's understanding, I promise.) And, if it can indeed be counted as a fandom, FOX news. (If this just made your eye twitch, I highly recommend reading the author's note at the end.) There's also a fair dosage of real life here. Hopefully that 'fandom' is comprehensible to everyone.
…Hopefully.
September 19, 2008
:::
A. J. Crowley – or just Crowley, as he preferred – had officially received the assignment from Hell.
This held something of a double-meaning for him. First and foremost, the assignment had quite literally come from Hell. Probably from the northeastern corner of the Ninth Circle to be precise, as that was one of the more well-to-do neighborhoods. Demons there tended to look down their noses at demons in less affluent areas and make snide comments about having larger backyard lava pools than their rivals. This meant that while the order had not from one of the higher-ups, it was still definitely from someone Crowley couldn't say no to if he expected to live very long.
Second, the assignment itself could safely be classified as hellish. Crowley could put up with just about anything, provided it took place in Europe. (There'd even been one brief experience with Vikings that he preferred not to talk about in polite company.) So far, his string of luck with assignments had been relatively good, and the past few years he'd mainly been allowed to work as a freelance agent. But apparently some officials thought he was falling down on the job and believed that inciting road-rage was not in itself evil enough behavior for a demon of his standing, and now saw it as their personal goal in life to make sure he was more active.
Unfortunately, this meant that his new assignment involved to corrupting a certain American politician. Crowley was at first confused by the whole thing – he had thought that his side had long ago proclaimed all of America to be a sweeping victory and set up headquarters in Jersey – but according to the brochure there had been some new releases of fresh souls, and they'd fallen behind. Doubly confusing was the idea that a politician existed anywhere in the world who hadn't already bought a ticket for the long black train. Apparently one had flown under the radar.
The politician in question went by the name of John Polston, and at first Crowley that he would be a decent individual and present a challenge with upstanding morals alone, but soon found that wasn't the case. How it was that a man as utterly devoid of intelligence and character had been elected to political officewithout the help of a demon was a mystery that Crowley didn't except to know the answer to anytime soon. The challenge was that Polston smiled his way through life, oblivious to temptation. Crowley's best attempts at provoking him to wrath or pride fell flat.
He did, however, uncover one thing that might lead Polston to neglect the trials of his neighbors, and that was the man's preoccupation with FOX news.
Day after day, Polston would sit, leaning in forward toward the TV at a forty-five-degree angle, as if waiting for something incredible to happen. As time went on, however, his posture began to droop, his expression began to take on a look of dashed hopes, and he occasionally gave theatrical sighs of longing. Crowley, having negotiated a position as Polston's closest advisor (or rather, only advisor), was forced to endure this on a daily basis. He soon determined that the occasional melodrama was the direct result of Polston's dashed hopes of seeing himself on the screen as regularly as he had been "back in the days of the election."
Crowley made no effort to sympathize. If he ever got back to Hell, he was going to recommend a new torture technique. He could picture it now. New souls would be herded into a room in which all of the walls were covered with television screens displaying the two, five, six, and seven o'clock programming for FOX. On repeat. Condemned souls would be broken in record time, and Crowley would be hailed as a hero and never sent back to this country ever again, lest he got any more ideas.
Some days were brilliant as far as the heated emotions went. Some days were duds. Today was a dud. Bill O'Reilly had promised Juan Williams as a guest yet again – as if he didn't already live there – commenting a video clip from MSNBC that had been on loop for the last two days.
The video, Crowley would concede, was a bit odd. It was of a reporter being taken out by a drug addict who'd apparently taken PCP and convinced himself that he was a demon. The reporter had been commenting on the scene where a sixteen-year-old had been beaten to death for being gay, when PCP Guy ran out of nowhere and tore her arm off. The camera then jerked around for a while and there were a series of bleeps and when there was another clear shot, it was of PCP Guy holding the torn off arm over his head, howling, "Our father will rise!" at the sky and laughing like a villain from an old James Bond movie.
It was probably the most interesting thing that had happened on the news in two years.
Still wasn't great.
Crowley almost would have bought into it as legitimate, but from the way it was filmed, he didn't recognize the "demon" in question. He was also fairly confident that he would have been informed if the Apocalypse were scheduled for anytime in the near future. Unless it was like the time when Alistair's four-hundredth demon-day party had rolled around and only the 'really cool' denizens of Hell had been invited. Crowley had tried to pretend it didn't matter, but it still hurt.
"What do you think, Juan?" O'Reilly was currently saying. "I don't know, to me this is just more evidence that the nation's drug problem is completely out of control. Am I wrong?"
Juan Williams took a breath, looking down at his hands and sitting up in his chair. It was something Crowley had noticed he did when he was trying to seem more spontaneous, as if he was really thinking over what he wanted to say and hadn't figured it out a week in advance.
"Well, Bill…"
O'Reilly started talking again, indignant over the perceived government short-comings that hadn't made it more difficult to obtain drugs like this.
John Polston just nodded in solemn agreement. It was like living with a sheep.
There was an unnatural pause in the conversation on TV. O'Reilly had trailed off without a question because, for once, his guest wasn't trying to talk over him. A few seconds of silence ensued, the camera on Williams, who was still looking at his hands as if in prayer. But it was Crowley's personal experience that no one smiled like that while they were praying.
"Juan? You okay?"
The silence dragged on. The cameramen could be heard muttering in the background.
At long last, Williams lifted his head and opened his eyes.
John Polston blurted out what was in all likelihood the first swear-word of his life, an emphatic "Holy crap!" Crowley might have taken this as a sign of progress if it wasn't an understatement.
Williams's eyes had gone completely black. Pitch black, the color of ink or beetles or water at midnight. Those eyes found the camera. "This just in: it's the Apocalypse."
"Oh, come on!" Crowley blurted out, his worst fears confirmed. "They could've at least sent an email!"
O'Reilly said a few words that he probably shouldn't have said on live TV and Williams got to his feet, pacing around the usual interview table to be closer to the cameramen.
"Don't cut the feed," he said, holding up his hands. "This is important. Anyone who even thinks about flashing one of those technical difficulties signs…"
The main camera panned back to reveal that one of the producers was frantically pressing buttons from his glass booth. Williams frowned, then lifted one hand and flicked his wrist. The producer stopped moving, his neck suddenly twisted one-hundred-eighty degrees around. He slid to the floor.
Crowley thought this was a bit of show-boating on the anonymous demon's part.
John Polston actually fell out of his chair.
On screen, someone else made a run for it. Bill O'Reilly sat in the background, staring wordlessly at the proceedings, seemingly unable to comprehend what was happening to his show.
Williams drew ever closer to the main camera, moving at the pace of a man who had found his way into a pub on a lazy August night. "Sorry about that guy. Like I said, this is important. I need to get this message out to Samuel John Winchester. So if anyone knows him, make sure he sees this." He leaned closer to the camera, beetle black eyes magnified in the lenses. "We need ya, Sammy."
He looked over his shoulder at O'Reilly. "What did that one guy call it? Change we can believe in or something?"
O'Reilly nodded numbly. Crowley considered that he might actually be having a heart attack on screen. Now that would be sensational.
"Great. Yeah, Sammy, that's what's happening. There's gonna be change, alright. And you're gonna have to pick a side, soon. You can choose the side that leaves you and everyone else dead, or you can choose our side. Simple decision. Daddy doesn't like waiting, Sammy. And he's got big plans for you.Big plans." He straightened up. "Now, I think I'm running out of time. The cops are on their way, and Juan here just killed some guy on live TV. He's gonna get the death penalty. So, you know, I'll cut the feed now, before we get to see me being dragged off in cuffs."
He raised a hand.
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
:::
Crowley went for a drive.
He left John Polston back in his office to make some very frantic phone calls to people who would tell him what to do. This was another slight improvement. When Crowley had first gotten the assignment, John Polston probably wouldn't have realized that he should do anything to begin with. Maybe this cause wasn't totally hopeless after all.
Hands shaking slightly, still muttering oaths and curses under his breath, Crowley selected a Metallica tape from the glove box of his Black Bentley and shoved it into the player.
Weeeee areeeee the chaaaaampiiiiiooonnssss…
Fortunately, he was only forced to endure a few minutes of this before Freddie Mercury was suddenly speaking to him.
DON'T ACT SO UPSET, CROWLEY.
"I'm not acting upset. I am upset. When were you planning on telling me about this?"
WATCH IT, CROWLEY.
"When were you planning on telling me about this, lord?"
BETTER. HAVE YOU HEARD OF FACEBOOK, CROWLEY?
"I haven't logged on in a while."
DO SO NOW, CROWLEY.
He sighed and pulled over, then dug his iPhone out of his pocket and struggled with it for a moment. There was no doubt in his mind that this thing was one of his side's inventions.
ARE YOU ON FACEBOOK YET, CROWLEY?
"Just a second."
After struggling with the password for a moment, he found that he'd received an invitation to an event titled simply "Apocalypse."
"Location: Earth," he read aloud.
EXACTLY, CROWLEY.
"Begins September eighteenth. Start time is 'question mark'."
IT'S EDGY, CROWLEY. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN IT BEGINS.
"Well, the end time is also 'question mark'."
EVEN MORE EDGY, CROWLEY.
"I'm not sure that's how you use that wor—"
—And we'll keep on fiiiiighting… 'till the end…
Crowley sighed, replied to the invitation with 'Attending', and promptly tossed his phone out the window.
:::
When he returned to the office, John Polston was waiting in ambush.
"The producer's name was Robert Cahill," he said.
Crowley nodded. "Ah."
"He was from Texas."
"Ah."
"I think we should all take a staff fieldtrip."
"What staff?"
"You."
"No."
Polston ignored him. "I'm saying we should go to Texas to offer our condolences to Rob Cahill's family."
"I'm fine here, really. You go."
"Nah. I need you with me."
"You're not giving me a choice, are you?"
"No, I'm not. Get packed. I'm excited for this. It'll be an adventure. I've never seen Houston before."
"It's as good a place as any to dump your body."
"Great! I knew you'd agree!"
:::
Earth was a bit different than Castiel remembered it.
For one thing, every single household seemed to be in possession of time-loop boxes.
There also seemed to be a severe lack of trembling in the presence of Heaven's warriors, a deficit of Faith, and a surplus of those restaurants with large golden arches. The whole thing was a confusing mess, and it occurred to Castiel that his first order of business after dragging Dean Winchester out of Hell would be to locate a tour guide, someone who knew his way around these human contraptions and who wouldn't ask too many difficult questions.
And so it was that he found himself in a bookshop in Lancashire.
"I think the trench coat is a bit much," Aziraphale said.
Castiel didn't answer, just examined the back of a first edition copy of the Bilton and Scaggs Bible that had been sitting by the register. "Why didn't you return to Heaven with the rest of us when our Father called?" he asked.
"Ah… it's a long story."
Castiel waited.
"Maybe I'll tell you later."
"I have time now."
"No, no, later. Definitely later."
Castiel had a feeling he wasn't going to hear the story later. He let it go. "It would seem that I am going to be on Earth for some time," he said. "I haven't been here for a while. I need a guide."
"A guide?"
"Yes. In just this short time that I have walked amongst mortal men, I have been witness to the strangest things…"
Aziraphale nodded understandingly. "That man on the corner's name is Jim. If you give him money, his monkey won't make those rude gestures at you."
"I was referring to the yellow arches lining the roads."
"…I'm afraid you've lost me."
"I suppose that's some sort of advanced lesson, then."
"Castiel, could you clarify this for me? Exactly how confused are you?"
"Very." He paused. "I thought that monkey on the corner was waving hello."
:::
Crowley began to view the End of All Things as a welcome reprieve.
They showed reruns of generic Factor episodes for a week. Other commentators replayed the clip again and again, analyzed it for any tampering, and said that yes, Juan Williams was going to a very quick trial for Murder-1, though no one could quite explain how he'd managed to snap a man's neck from three yards away and through a pane of glass.
Yet there it was. All on film for the jury to analyze. The defense attorney was trying to make a case for the insanity defense because Williams apparently couldn't remember any of it and kept blurting out things about "black smoke" and "demons." The nation's leading experts agreed that this was probably an indication of a mental imbalance.
A dozen other clips showed up over the next week, most shaky cell phone videos, all terrifying, all involving something that was more than just a little odd. A man jumped from a seven story window, landed face down on the pavement, neck bent at an impossible angle, only to get up a few seconds later, snap his vertebrae back into alignment, and continue on with his day. Three people with beetle-black eyes raided a liquor store. A petite high school girl began speaking Latin and Aramaic just before flinging her Spanish teacher across the room. The rough translation of the Latin was, "I am the one who dwells within", which caused a great deal of distress. The Aramaic translated to, "We are the bakery, the potato is ill," which was considerably less worrisome.
Crowley supposed that the upcoming end-of-the-world gave his colleagues unspoken permission to show off as much as they could before there was no one left to show off to.
He briefly considered getting in touch with Aziraphale and discussing all of this, but by that time they had arrived in Texas, the land where angels feared to tread. Crowley resigned himself to spending the rest of Earth's days staving off invitations to ride a mechanical bull.
It was guaranteed to be a somewhat less-than-glorious end.
When The O'Reilly Factor was finally back with new episodes, Bill O'Reilly himself was nowhere to be found and Laura Ingram (now there was someone Crowley would like to lead into temptation) was hosting instead. There was no flashy credits sequence, no pretense of neatly sanctioned off portions of the evening (Talking Points, Did You See That?, Pinheads and Patriots – nothing.)
Ingram looked extremely nervous. Her voice shook slightly and all of her usual bravado was gone as she wished "Bill" a speedy recovery and muttered something about the emotional distress that the family for the dead producer was going through, and how there was a fundraiser set up for them.
"And we've managed to figure out who Juan was addressing last Friday. Pull up that shot, will you?"
The picture went from Ingram's pale face to two photos of a young man, maybe twenty-five or twenty-four. One picture was a driver's license. The other was a mug shot.
"He looks like perfectly respectable young man," John Polston said.
"Samuel John Winchester," Ingram read. First one picture, then the other, was magnified so they got a rather drawn out look at his face. "Twenty-five-year-old Caucasian male. Six-foot-two-inches. Polston hair. Polston eyes. Last seen in Baltimore, Maryland. Wanted for evading the police, obstructing justice, grave desecration, accomplice to murder, and murder of a police officer whom he shot while fleeing."
"He looks like a despicable human being," John Polston said.
Crowley just looked at him wordlessly.
"If anyone has any information as to his whereabouts…" Ingram took a shaking breath. "…Please call the number at the bottom of your screen."
:::
The next day John Polston was in a terrible mood. He stomped around his latest hotel room/makeshift office, loudly and at length expressing his distaste for tiny bars of soap, for people who made tiny bars of soap, for the people who stocked hotel rooms with them, and for the people who allowed people to stock hotel rooms with them. He went on to make several claims as to what he would do if he ever found any of the aforementioned people and referenced several things that Crowley was pretty sure were physically impossible.
It was another sign of improvement. Sort of.
As a distraction, and mostly out of desperation, he flipped on the TV to the usual dreaded programming. Bill O'Reilly was back, though he was dealing with all his guests from a distance and seemed a bit twitchier than usual.
"…and joining us from Houston is Mr. Michael Enslin, bestselling author of books with such names as 10 Haunted Graveyards, and 10 Haunted Lighthouses. Welcome, Mr. Enslin. Thank you for joining me today."
"Thank you for having me." Enslin was an oily-looking man with dark hair and eyes that turned downward in a permanent air of skepticism and disdain. Crowley decided that he was probably the type of man who liked tiny bars of soap. "Call me Mike, please."
"Alright, Mike. Great. Let me ask you this… You go to all these places, these haunted hotels, haunted lighthouses, graveyards, uh…"
Enslin nodded and said nothing.
"Have you ever, you know, downplayed something that you've seen, or…? We've all read that you've never seen evidence of honest-to-God haunted activity."
"Right."
"I mean, obviously people want to believe these things, that they can communicate with departed loved ones and that there is life after death. Don't you feel that you're dashing their hopes when you write these sort of books?"
Enslin didn't flinch. "I've never had to downplay anything, Bill. I've never seen any irrefutable evidence of a haunted loca—"
"Not once?" O'Reilly interrupted. Crowley had once made a drinking game out of counting the number of times that O'Reilly talked over his guests, but had been forced to abandon it when unconsciousness loomed. "So everyone else who claims that they have – they're crazy?"
"I wouldn't say—"
"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're just at the wrong places at the wrong times…?"
"The first twenty times, there was doubt," Enslin said with just the faintest trace of annoyance. "But after that, it passed outside of the realm of reasonable coincidence."
O'Reilly waved a hand, looking down at his notes again. "Alright, let's move past that. We're talking about Armageddon here, and you claim that you… can prove it's not happening. Maybe that's something you want to share with the American public?"
"I never said prove—"
O'Reilly tried to interrupt again. Crowley caught the word "can't" a few times, but Enslin talked over him.
"—I said I could offer reasonable alternatives. And furthermore, I object to the word 'American'. Anything with the word Apocalypse stamped on it in bright red lettering immediately becomes a worldwide problem."
"Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. We have the largest viewing audience—"
"A fact I'm sure that Mr. Williams took into account before pulling that little stunt a few weeks ago."
Crowley blinked and sat forward. This guy was an asshole with a capital "A". Maybe he'd give O'Reilly a run for his money.
"One of my colleagues was killed, Mr. Enslin. You really want to call that a stunt—?" And suddenly O'Reilly looked wary. Probably thinking this guy could be another psychokinetic freak with black eyes. He went on hastily, "You still haven't said a single thing about why we shouldn't be afraid of the end of the—"
"The general public," Enslin said smoothly, "is open to the possibility of the Apocalypse, mostly as a result of the media frenzy revolving around… certain events. When people have something in their mind, like the Apocalypse, they can be convinced that every occurrence they see is a direct result of it. The power of suggestion is a well-documented—"
"You're going to tell me that Rob Cahill's death was the result of the power of suggestion?"
"I never said that."
"Then what would you—"
"Helmut Schmidt, 1996. Look it up. He filmed definitive telekinetic activity, proof of the potency of the human mind. He actually filmed a plastic cup moving across a table as the result of prolonged focus on—"
"A plastic cup?" O'Reilly was all but screaming at this point. Crowley had come to expect this at least once an episode. In his opinion, O'Reilly had started to lack conviction. "Rob Cahill's neck was snapped, Mike! You're trying to tell me—"
"It's more likely than the Apocalypse is."
"That being said, you haven't disproved—"
"The burden of proof doesn't rest on me!" Enslin said, raising his voice slightly. "You're the one making this claim! You should be proving it to me!"
"You were invited on this show to—"
And they dissolved into incoherently shouting at each other until the commercial. Crowley pointed at the TV. It muted.
When John Polston had exhausted the topic of soap he moved on to tiny shampoo-conditioner bottles (though Crowley wasn't sure if he was more opposed to the idea of tiny bottles or the idea washing his hair at all) and when he'd exhausted that he moved on to super-thin toilet paper. Crowley nodded. That was one of the other side's inventions.
But by that point he'd just about lost all of his carefully measured patience and didn't think he could put up with anymore railing against the people stocking hotel bathrooms. He began perusing a brochure on local restaurants (since this was Houston, nine out of ten contained either the word "steak", "ranch", or "house" in their name), hoping that Polston would get the message.
He did, and ten minutes later they were seated in a corner booth of the nearest café, Barbecue Inn.
Crowley wasn't going to touch that name with a ten foot pole.
After the hot clarity of the streets, the restaurant was a dark as cave. The back-bar mirror picked up some of the street glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar, the tables full. The waitress who took their order looked as if she were one rude customer away from quitting her job and going off to raise chickens. Crowley looked at John Polston and wondered what the going rate of chicken farms was.
"What do you think, Anthony?" Polston asked after a long moment.
"It's Crowley. Please."
Polston ignored this. "I mean, about the Apocalypse."
Crowley shrugged.
"Yeah, me too. I say if it is happening, I'd better hope someone drops dead soon if I ever want to get elected."
Crowley smiled and fought back the urge to hiss. He felt that he could now safely count this project as completed, and hopefully he'd be back to England in no time.
(In coming days, he would look back on that moment as not only one of great good fortune and high-living, but also as one of painfully naïve optimism.)
With the light sound of bells, the door opened. Crowley didn't envy whoever had walked in, because the nearest waitress loudly snapped something about how he'd probably be waiting a long time until a table was clear.
Crowley glanced up.
Blue suit and tie. One hand shoved in his pocket, the other running through his immaculately cut dark hair. There was no mistaking it. That was Mike Enslin.
Crowley looked away quickly, hoping not to catch his eye, but apparently he managed to catch John Polston's attention instead.
"Isn't that that guy from the news?"
Crowley nodded. They both looked at Mike Enslin for a moment before John Polston got to his feet. "Hey, neighbor!" he called. "You want to come sit with us?"
Crowley inwardly groaned. Apparently Polston hadn't noticed that Enslin was kind of a prat.
Mike Enslin pointed to himself. "Me?"
"Yes, you." Polston switched sides of the booth, forcing Crowley into the corner. He had the discomforting feeling that he was on a date until Enslin took a seat.
"Thank you." Clearing his throat, "I'm Mike Enslin. Mike."
"I'm John Polston. Senator from Massachusetts."
Crowley got the impression that Enslin didn't entirely believe this.
"And this is my assistant, Anthony."
"My name is Crowley."
"Anthony Crowley?" Enslin repeated.
"No. Just Crowley."
"You were on the news," Polston observed, ignoring Enslin's confused expression. "For writing a bunch of books."
"Yes." Enslin helped himself to a breadstick. "I'm thinking about writing another one. 10 Haunted Cafés. Satirical, of course."
"Well, I'm pretty relaxed for a Republican, but I still don't know if I like that stuff. Satan, you know."
"No, no, I said satirical. Not Satanic. Satire."
"Yeah," Polston said, nodding, "satanical. Like Lucifer. That guy is messed up."
Crowley managed to pass off his laughter as a coughing fit.
They lapsed into silence. Crowley sincerely hoped Polston wasn't about to ask if Enslin for his vote if one of the U.S. Senators abruptly died. There were just so many ways that could be interpreted, and the author did seem like the type to turn them in to the police. Crowley didn't want to have to go through that again.
Their waitress sped over to take Enslin's order as well. "What'll-you-have?" she asked a bit breathlessly.
"I'd like a petite filet mignon," Enslin began, which was about the point that Crowley realized he was one-hundred percent batshit insane, "very lean. Not so lean that it lacks flavor, but not so fat that it leaves drippings on the plate. And I don't want it cooked – just lightly seared on either side, pink in the middle; not a true pink, but not a mauve either, something in between. Bear in mind the slightest error either way, and it's ruined."
The waitress dutifully wrote this down and smiled like someone who knew she wasn't coming back to work the next day. "…Okay! You wouldn't happen to know the going rate of chicken farms in the area, would you?"
"What?"
"Nothing." She walked off.
"So what do you think?" Polston asked. "For real?"
Enslin raised an eyebrow.
"About the Apocalypse."
"It's bad for sales," Enslin said, taking a drink of water. "Though the price of gold is going up. I'm not sure what part of 'end of the world' gold investors failed to comprehend, but I'd speculate that it was the part about the world ending."
Polston nodded. "I know where you're coming from. The cost of buying of people's votes is going through the roof."
Crowley slumped down in his seat and rested his head against the wall. Lovely. Perfectly lovely. Now he was going to have to spend the night crammed in a tiny cell with some local drug lord named Dirty Billy the Ranglin' Cowpoke. Or whatever sort of names Texan drug lords picked out for themselves. He wasn't entirely sure.
But Enslin didn't seem phased in the slightest. "That's the market for you," he said.
Their food arrived. Polston and Crowley's, at least. Enslin didn't ask, but the waitress, still with a pained grin stamped on her face, informed him that a team of specialists were working on his dinner in the back.
Crowley resolved then and there to ask her to marry him. They could get married in Vegas, then move to South America in a covered wagon and raise their children and teach them to ride llamas. Crowley had always secretly liked llamas.
They ate in relative silence, Crowley absorbed in thoughts of children with dark hair, good cheekbones, and a tendency to hiss when they forgot themselves.
Back in the reality of the diner, Polston occasionally stopped chewing long enough to ask some question about ghosts, ghouls, demons, and, at one point, "polt-y-geists, like that movie." Enslin answered with short sentences and long sighs, and halfway through his meal, he paused and looked up, as if having suddenly realized something.
"Oh! I knew I recognized your name. Crowley. Like Aleister Crowley, right?"
"No, like 'Crawly' but more socially acceptable."
Enslin lowered his eyebrows and looked at him critically. "I could swear I've heard that name somewhere else, too."
"Well, it's a popular name."
"Haven't we met before?"
"No."
"Are you sure? I'm good with names. Not so much with faces, but…"
"I'm sure."
"Not even in, say, Paris, 1793? The Reign of Terror?" Enslin's eyes flickered black.
John Polston paused with a bite of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth.
"Wait…" Crowley said slowly. "Let me guess. Ornias?"
"No. Paymon."
"Paymon! Of course! I didn't even recognize you."
"Well, new suit."
They shook hands. Crowley felt that maybe this trip to Houston had been a good idea after all. Running into a long-lost co-worker, and all.
Conversely, John Polston seemed to be having second thoughts. "You two… know each other?"
"In a manner of speaking," Paymon said, barely glancing at him before returning his attention to Crowley. "So what have you been up to? Where's that fellow you were having lunch with? An angel, right?"
"Oh. You noticed that? Er. He's back in England. I think. I don't know. Haven't spoken with him in a while. For right now I'm stuck with him." He gestured to Polston. "New assignment from Mephistopheles, I guess. He's a politician."
"I guess the other side got one under the radar, huh?"
"You've got that right."
John Polston just stared between them, wide-eyed.
Paymon shook his head. "People."
From that point on, dinner was much more enjoyable. Paymon, it turned out, had been on assignment at the Mexican border for a few years, and was currently taking a week's break in Houston before resuming the job. Crowley told him that he was doing an excellent job. John Polston twitched a little, but otherwise remained frozen in his seat, apparently unable to comprehend the scene unraveling before him.
"So you saw Valafar's little stunt on the news, then?" Paymon asked.
"That was him?"
"Yeah, he's gone rouge lately."
"Who's this Sam Winchester person?"
Paymon choked on the water he was drinking and took a moment to recover. "You don't know?"
"What?" Crowley regarded him warily. "Was there a status on Facebook…?"
"Well, no. No. It's just… I thought everyone knew. He's the one who's going to… you know, open the gate. For the Boss."
"Satan?" John Polston whispered.
"Yeah," Paymon said, off-hand. "Satan. "Are you going to eat that breadstick, or is it just up for grabs?"
Crowley found that his opinion of Sam Winchester had just plummeted into the negatives. "I'm not so sure about this whole apocalypse business," he said after a moment, handing over John Polston's breadstick when the man himself failed to respond. "I mean, I like it, in theory. Power to the—er, to us." But in practice, I'm not so sure."
This protest was apparently as incomprehensible to Paymon as it was to most demons. "Our moment of eternal triumph awaits us," he said, furrowing his host's eyebrows.
"Eternal. Yeah."
Crowley sincerely doubted that many demons – or angels, for that matter – had taken into account just how long eternity would be. It sounded like… well, like an eternity. Of filing paperwork and tormenting the souls of the damned and generally being very boring. Crowley suddenly had an overwhelming urge to hurry back to his hotel room and curl up in a corner.
"You don't seem happy," Paymon pointed out. Then he seemed to reconsider it. "Er. Well, triumphant? Victorious? I'm not sure what we're allowed to feel on this front…"
"I'm, er, whatever I'm supposed to be feeling, I'm sure I'm feeling it," Crowley said hastily. "I'll pick up the check."
And ten minutes later, he was indeed back in his hotel, curled up in a corner, contemplating what was sure to be a highly unpleasant eternal triumph.
Another five minutes later, he realized that he'd left without wiping John Polston's memory. Oops.
He shook it off. It didn't matter anymore. Only one thing mattered now.
If Valafar could just 'go rouge' without repercussions, then there was no reason why he, Crowley, couldn't do the same. He'd just have to be very careful to avoid turning on the radio.
His new, self-appointed assignment didn't involve tempting the un-tempt-able. It was far simpler. His new assignment would be to find Samuel John Winchester and stop him from opening that gate at all costs.
This is one monster of an author's note. Not totally essential. Feel free to ignore.
I feel as if I have to make an attempt to avoid offending someone. So here are several points I'd like to clarify.
~Political notes: FOX News is a conservative-slanted 24-hour news station. Because I am referencing a conservative station does not necessarily mean I am a conservative. Nor do the various jabs I make at it mean that I am a liberal. (I tend to take jabs at everything. On a more serious/sad note, in the current media environment making a claim as to my political standing one way or the other would be foolish to the point of suicidal.) FOX News is the easiest for me to write because it's so… characterized… and because my one of my family members watches it constantly, so I get a good amount of exposure anytime I'm in the vicinity. If the mere mention of Bill O'Reilly or the snarking thereof causes you to become ENRAGED!1!™, then I strongly suggest you read something else. (Not that I'll be bringing it into this tons, but, you know...)
~If by some miracle or selective obliviousness you haven't noticed, I am an American. As such, I find Americans in general to be acceptable targets. Self-deprecating humor is my forte. Along those lines, Texas is a beautiful state. I don't want to "pull a Stephanie Meyer" and insult a place I've never been. I have been to Texas and would go back in a heartbeat.
~John Polston is now an OC. For people who've been with this story from the beginning, I'm sure you remember a time when he was not – but I feel more comfortable taking artistic license this way.