Disclaimer
Supernatural is an American television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television
I'm writing this for fun and I'm not making any money from this. The lines quoted from the show are in Italics.
All the truly great bureaucrats become bureaucrats after they had their time in the real trenches. This part of the story is meant as a bit of a prequel to what Crowley and Naomi are by the time we meet them in Supernatural.
This story is influenced vaguely by John LeCarre cold war era spy books.
In "Good Omens", Crowley's first incarnation was the snake from the original sin story. That's why I had Naomi call him "snake".
Open your eyes
"Which one are you?" Naomi asked.
Crowley wasn't sure if he was actually offended or he should pretend to be. It was unusual for an angel of the Lord not to see right through the meat suit and be able to identify immediately which demon was possessing a human. Puzzling because, for one thing, angels had a specialized intellect and almost unlimited knowledge, and for another, they didn't have enough spirit to spew a decent insult. That added up to the conclusion that this high and mighty lady-angel was somehow wounded. He was almost purring. Wounded… vulnerable… just the way he liked it.
Years later, in some unpleasant moments of sobriety, he had to admit that thinking of her in terms of "lady-angel" should have been a warning.
"Name's Crowley."
The complete lack of recognition on her face annoyed him, although it should have pleased him. Not knowing him meant underestimating him, and in that there was safety, there was the chance to use the element of surprise.
"Naomi."
She said it so quietly, her voice was barely above a whisper. He decided that there was nothing to gain if he admitted that he knew her.
"Honoured. Listen, I don't want to ruffle your feathers… even more… but you look like you could use some help. How about a peace accord?"
When he noticed her instant bristling, Crowley raised his hands in a mollifying gesture and added with all the apparent gallantry he could reasonably add to his persona.
"For the night, darlin', just for tonight," he drawled.
"I'm not making a deal with you," she said, almost softly.
In a human, that tone would be nothing more than the beginning of negotiations, a path to surrender. He didn't make the mistake to assume this was the case.
"Not offering one," he said and extended a hand toward her.
It looked for all intended purposes like a human gesture. Her response, apparently just as human - she accepted his hand and, without words, his truce for the night. Her touch was completely alien, absolutely unlike anything he had ever experienced. Like burning ice. Like… like nothing that was supposed to exist, nothing that could be bound by the laws of nature. It didn't seem to be this way just for him, he noted with some degree of satisfaction her slight and completely unnecessary intake of breath.
"Does it feel as good for you as it does for me?" he heard himself say in a lame attempt to shatter the awkwardness he felt.
"Shut up, snake!" she said.
"That might not be possible," he said. "Unless you want to seal a deal with me."
The comeback had come out of reflex, because it was actually true that he couldn't be silent. The implied suggestion that she might only silence him with a kiss was meant to make her feel uncomfortable. He always enjoyed making angels uncomfortable with more or less crass sexual innuendos, but this angel was very close. She was at eye level with him and Crowley noticed, their lips were aligned as well. He found it hard to control the urge to lean into an unsolicited kiss. He saw the spark in her beautiful blue eyes, a clue to an inner reaction that seemed to surprise her as well. When she spoke, her voice sounding very old and tired, undercutting the strangeness of her words:
"We might have to do that one day."
And with that, she did the unthinkable, she fainted. Crowley caught her and stared incredulous at the inert body. He extended his senses gingerly to try to figure out the extent of her wounds. He planned to corrupt her or get his first angel kill, but he did not like having no understanding of a situation.
Her grace seemed… dimmed somehow. In his dealings with other angels, foot soldiers in the feathered army, he had sensed their power, their grace, and he had always made note of their flaws. Now he had the opportunity to study an angel who was hurt. He took a leap of faith that she wouldn't destroy him once she regained consciousness. It would be very useful for him to know what was wrong with her, who hurt her and why. He decided to keep her safe so that he could learn more about the vulnerabilities of angels.
The best way to do that was to take her to his temporary residence without employing traceable supernatural means. His fondness for doing things the human way had helped him more than once. Neither demons, nor angels were very good at keeping up with the humans' technical progress.
Crowley carried her to his Bentley and drove to his hotel instead of teleporting with her in his room.
"Wake up, darling", he whispered. "Wouldn't look right if I carried you through the lobby".
He parked the car and changed her clothes with a snap of his fingers. Showing up with a nun, even an awake nun, would also look out of place. He surprised himself stroking her hair while he whispered her name.
"Naomi..."
He couldn't found any wounds, either physical or spiritual, but he was aware he had limitations when it came to beings of light. She opened her beautiful blue eyes and he noticed that she had a hard time focusing.
"Come on. You're going to be safe here," he said, wondering if it was true not knowing what had harmed her.
"You are... unexpectedly kind," she said.
"Yeah, don't get used to it," he told her when he was helping her out of the car.
She raised an eyebrow looking at the clothes she was wearing. An elegant evening dress, with quite a bit of cleavage and the wisp of silk around her neck, covering the blue veins pulsing too close to the surface of her skin and yet not covering her bosom.
"What? You have to blend in," he said defensively. "You should appreciate I chose something decent," he grumbled.
The angel shivered a little when he put his palm at the small of her back, guiding her. He noticed her annoyance at the bright, exquisitely decadent luxury hotel.
"This is safe?" she asked, leaning as if to whisper something intimate in his ear.
Crowley did a wonderful job of not showing his reaction. This whole evening was becoming increasingly strange. His damn body was having a physical reaction to an angel! Maybe it was just a vessel to vessel sort of issue.
"Yes. You can trust me," he answered.
He didn't have time to be annoyed at how husky his voice sounded and how clouded his mind felt, because he had to steady her. Something was wrong with her and he wondered briefly if he was going to get his suit stained when her vessel exploded or he'd have time to teleport. At the same time, Crowley was asking himself serious questions, too. Why would she choose a vessel so unsuited to contain her? Was she in trouble, hiding from something? Was she on a mission of such urgency that she didn't have time to choose a more suitable body?
They were so close that he could see, again, her blue veins contrasting the white skin of her neck. He arranged the silk scarf to conceal this from the humans. She made a strange side, between a hiss and a sigh, when the tips of his fingers brushed against her skin. It took a lot of will power not to touch her again.
Once they were in his room, Crowley set her in his bed and began warding the room against anything he could think of. This, of course, on top of the layer of protection he already had for himself. When he was done, he poured himself a drink and waited for her to wake up or blow up. He had no compunction about removing all her clothes. He did it without touching her though. But then again, that wasn't out of a lingering sense of propriety, but self-preservation.
He watched her, learning as much as he could about the process of an angel getting comfortable in a new host. The new body seemed to resist. The writhing gave way to peaceful sleep. The veins no longer showed dangerously on her skin like blue and black tattoos. And a few minutes later, he heard her sleepy voice calling his name.
"Crowley?"
He didn't answer for a moment. She sat up in bed, her gaze scanning the darkness, looking for him. He had drawn a circle around the bed in Holy Oil while she was asleep, just in case he had to contain her. But Naomi didn't get out of bed. When she distinguished him among the shadows in the room, she knelt on the bed, facing him. It was a disturbing image to Crowley's demon eyes... this... praying pose.
"What hurt you?" he asked.
"Don't you find it difficult to inhabit a human body?" she said with a shrug. "The feeling of confinement. The reactions, the memories and weaknesses. And sometimes, even when they accept you, some part of them holds back."
"Not really. We take what we want. And make it our own."
He was almost lying. Some humans were more difficult to inhabit than others. He wondered what was like to have to ask for permission to be inside one. He preferred to ask forgiveness than permission. He was a daring devil and he was getting more daring all the time.
Sometimes it worried him that he was getting too cocky. Not everybody could be as stupid as he saw them. They couldn't all think only one or two moves ahead. He had been planning to get to the higher echelons of Hell for centuries. And he hated to admit, but he did have a virtue. Patience. He could wait for the right move without blinking, without taking his eyes off the prize.
"You know you're different, don't you?" she said apropos of nothing, and yet interrupting his thoughts almost as if she was reading his mind.
"Sure," he said with a smugness designed to cover up the apprehension.
"We can't see you," she elaborated. "All angels can see the true face of a demon, no matter the human they are possessing. But not you. Some of us can sense there's a demon in front of us, but not identify you."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Part of my duty," she said, closing her eyes, intense sadness in her voice. "You were a human, one of those we are sworn to protect. Angels feel pain for every human soul who gets demonized."
She was telling him too much, and she was almost straightforward which was unnerving him. This was not the sort of information given freely. Something was definitely wrong.
"But once we become demons, we're mortal enemies, right?"
He felt silly to ask something so obvious but the whole thing was unreal.
"It is our duty to fight for every human soul. Try to get it out of hell if we can."
"You? Would fight to save my soul?" he asked incredulous.
Naomi opened her eyes, searching for his gaze. Her beautiful blue eyes were sparkling. Were those tears?
"I would, if you still had one. Can't you tell?" she put a palm on her chest, over her heart. "You don't have your soul any more."
Crowley reeled at the notion. It was like an adult human learning that he was hatched from an egg and was actually a bird that had no feathers and walked on two legs. Demons were forged in hell, from human souls, tormented to the extent that they lost the humanity and remained sheer, malevolent spirits.
They stayed in silence for a while. When she spoke again, her voice didn't have even a remnant of that celestial self-assurance he abhorred, but always capitalised on.
"I am at an unusual point in the existence of an angel. I have a choice to make."
This was a good confirmation. Crowley ticked an imaginary box in his mind: angels have their actions programmed, therefore they can only react predictably. At the same time, he made a mental note: most angels don't have choices. Some, Naomi included, could choose. Danger and opportunity. He should identify as many of these mutant angels as he could. They would be so useful.
"I know you're gathering information for Lilith. You are helping her set the stage for releasing Lucifer."
He shuddered. He had been careful. They knew?! They, she knew about Lilith, knew about him learning about the seals, and worst of all she knew that he was involved!
"Yes, you should be worried," she went on. "But you're wrong to fear only us. Think! Best case scenario. You succeed, Lucifer – the most powerful of all the angels - is out of the cage. What does he want?"