BUREAUCRACY IN ACTION

Notes

Kind of Plotville. It's actually Set-the-Stage for Smuttville-by-the-Sea

There are still a few weeks till Season 10 and I'll just use some pretext for more Crowley x Naomi interaction, without in any way trying to guess what the new season will bring.

Disclaimer

Supernatural is a television series, created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, distributed by Warner Bros. Television

Mention of the wonderful British TV show Red Dwarf, episode "Future Echoes"

Mention of Guardians of the Galaxy amazingly funny lines.

All borrowed, all duly acknowledged, I own none of them.

Tell Me

They never acknowledged that the words were spoken. For something like love you need something like a soul, and it would be in poor taste to point it out. Crowley was actually worried how much he enjoyed the idea of her love, even soulless as she was. Even that lucid part of him admitted it. Even that part did not believe that it was just a carnal reaction, an expression of gratitude for the pleasure and safety he provided. Then again, who's to say that's not how love starts?

They were both dressed, office-informal how their vessels found more appropriate. Meaning no tie for him and a slightly less severe looking shirt for her. They were having coffee, and pretending to be human.

"You are going to love Halloween," Crowley said, looking at Naomi enjoying her broad daylight human disguise.

She smiled at him over the steaming cup. Crowley regretted that they couldn't have more moments of peace. He wondered if they would get the chance to spend Halloween together. This one or any of the next two hundred Halloweens. He believed her prediction about their "love" lasting for another two hundred years. After she dropped that piece of information along with the other secrets about her past, Crowley had looked back and found the subtle clues of someone bending fate in his favour for about two hundred years before she got his soul back. The way they reacted to one another at their first real meeting. In her Mesopotamia. They were getting close to the moment that would bound them. He smiled on the inside at the memory of an old TV show. They had experienced "future echoes" Red Dwarf style. He almost wished he could share with her the wonderful works of art his deals had brought to the entertainment industry. All the Grammy winning music, all the cult TV shows and all the wildly popular ones whose creators had wanted their imagination to come alive so much, they had sold their souls.

"Do you have a plan?" she asked.

He heard the sigh of regret behind her words. All her body language was telling him that she wanted these peaceful moments to last... Longer? Forever?

"I have part of a plan," he said and when she burst out laughing he knew what she had done that summer.

"Don't tell me, don't tell me," she said, still laughing. "You have... you have twelve percent of a plan?"

He always loved making her laugh. Although he had nothing to do with the film itself. Those Marvel jerks were so freaking obsessed with superheroes and the battle between right and wrong they hadn't signed any of the contracts Crowley's underlings had offered along the years.

"It's more than eleven percent," he mumbled and she laughed even more.

Crowley looked away when the laughter stopped. He did not want to see the concern, sadness, weariness settling in, freezing her blue gaze.

"All right, Gamora, start talking. What are Lucifer's weaknesses?"

"It's a bit tricky now."

She said it with a tone of such diffidence it shocked him. Naomi always knew things. Naomi was the freaking intelligence division of the oldest damn organization that had ever existed.

"Why?" he asked, carefully not showing just how much he was freaked out.

"The rules say..."

"What rules?" he interrupted her.

"THE rules," she stressed the word and went on "say that an archangel can be killed by another archangel or an archangel blade. Castiel killed Raphael. Gabriel is gone. Michael is the only one left, and the time he and Lucifer spend in the Cage... even if Michael will fight... I' not sure he will win. Don't misunderstand me, Michael is a great warrior and a superb tactician, but... the Cage... for them... it's..."

"Moose is fine now," Crowley pointed out, in an inquiring tone.

"Moos...? Oh," she started to ask but she recovered. "Sam has advantages Michael does not."

"The soul," Crowley said.

"Yes. You have no idea what it took to get all of Sam out."

Crowley looked a little embarrassed. He had pretended that he was the one to rescue Moose. He had no idea what it took to get someone out of the Cage.

"So... that was complicated?"

Naomi looked at him with so surprised she seemed a little amused.

"Yes, Crowley. It was complicated."

"Tell me," he asked.

He knew that with all the information in the world, Naomi's mind was still unable to make connections as fast or as twisted at him. Granted, she had come close a few times, but if she told him how come Sam got out without the Cage opening for all of them, he might figure out how to close it again, with Lucifer shoved back in.

"Did you really think that once I accepted that Sam might have to jump into the Cage I did nothing to plan his return? Castiel was already tied to Dean from the first time he went to Hell. Blood ties are important, and the boys have shared so much of their lives, their souls are entwined. It was almost easy to tinker with Castiel's initial programming. Retrieve Sam instead of retrieve Dean. It wasn't as easy to build him up enough to get into the Cage and sneak only Sam out without getting them out, but I did it and he managed it."

"Why didn't you program Castiel to get Michael out, too?" he asked into her pause.

When her pause continued, he knew something bad was coming.

"Because something had to keep Lucifer inside. I knew Michael would survive. For a while."

"But not Adam," Crowley spelled out her shame.

She was ghostly pale. Her hands were trembling and he could see how close she was to breaking. The ultimate crime an angel could do. The thing that went against their core programming. To accept the destruction of a human soul. Crowley's mind worked fast. She had sacrificed a soul and chose not to rescue her commander to get Sam out. She was in a far worse state of corruption than he had expected. Corruption by humanity. Well, he could work with that. This angel was vulnerable to turning to the dark side. He hid these line of thought in that black box, indestructible part of his brain. He would take her into darkness one day. But that day hadn't come yet.

"Stop thinking about it. What's done is done. So, Castiel got Sam out. But not all of Sam. Didn't you know that? I thought you said you planned the thing," he prompted.

"I knew," she interrupted him, reacting exactly how he expected to his needling. "I contacted Death. Paid the price he asked so he would get Sam's soul out when the time came."

"That explains a lot," Crowley said. "I know Death and I could not understand why he would bring back Sam's soul. He could've gotten his ring back at any time. Michael junior isn't exactly a genius and Death knows everything. Not to mention that he failed the bet. So the old skull and bones isn't getting soft."

Naomi clenched her jaw, and Crowley had to ask.

"What was the real price for Sam's soul?"

"Servitude," Naomi said.

"Whose?" he asked but went on realizing the answer. "You? You served Death?"

Naomi turned to look at him annoyed.

"Why did you think I didn't do anything before Castiel was unhinged? And before you twist the knife in the wound, I know I'm responsible for a lot of what happened to him. Once we chose him to save Dean, his fate changed."

Now that the subject came up, Crowley was itching to know who else had been in the running for that job. Judging by her reaction to Dean getting the Mark of Cain, he was surprised she hadn't been the one to go into Hell after her "son". He watched her take a deep breath and regroup.

"I did Death's bidding. I did simple Reaper jobs and I did complicated tasks. I carried souls into Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. It was a very interesting... learning experience."

"You learned how to open the Cage," he assumed aloud.

"I learned where were the clues about how to open it," she corrected. "As you can see, I couldn't do such a good job as Death himself, and instead of getting Michael out, I broke the door open."

There was something about her, something a bit off in her body language. She wasn't lying to him, but she was hiding something. That was a shock!

"Naomi," he began, his tone mildly interrogative, no threats implied. "What aren't you telling me?"

She bit her lips. That was not usual for her. Shyness and shame and shiftiness, all expressed in that hesitation.

"The things I knew about the Cage. About what would happen to Michael and Lucifer inside. About how to get Sam out, a piece at a time, without breaking him apart. Brokering a deal with Death. I'm not that powerful, not that smart and not that sneaky without a little help."

"But I wasn't the one to tell you any of that..." Crowley said, but his voice trailed off while his mind worked.

He knew that a lot of Naomi's sneakiness came from his own influence, from her plans with Michael, and from...

"Gabriel," he said.

"Yes. But he's not around any more. Or at least, I couldn't find him. And I tried, I really did. While you were busy with Abbadon, and while the Winchesters and Castiel were dealing with Metatron, I was looking for Gabriel to help me save Michael. That's why I was so stupid about Metatron. Didn't you see that I didn't even manage to retrieve the tablets before you found out about them? I was looking for Gabriel, for ways to get Michael and Adam out of the Cage without releasing the one entity that was actually meant to be in there."

Crowley looked at her and the need he felt to spank her now was only vaguely sexual. He couldn't believe that she could be so stupid. After all the stupid things she did so far (okay, the first stupid thing wasn't real because she didn't get killed by Metatron as she made everyone, including himself for a while, think. But the Cage thing was very stupid), he was still shocked.

"So, you could've prevented some of the irksome events that have unfolded in the past few years... if you had paid attention. If you bothered to rewire Castiel a bit more, he would've gone back to being a regular soldier. No opening Purgatory. No Leviathans. No me learning of the tablets. No Winchesters reading the tablets and damn near turning me human. No me being chained in their freaking basement like a..."

"It's really not all about you," she interrupted just as his voice was beginning to rise to the the level of bellow that was so much part of his interaction with his frenemies.

He felt like smoke was going to come out of his ears. Although, if he had to be honest, which he always was with himself, he didn't regret anything. Out of all the mess, he ad emerged on top. His kingship was more stable than ever before. Even with Lucifer around, almost no one had defected. His powers were greater. His allies had been more thoroughly tested. Their weaknesses were more closely known.

"And you still didn't find him. Your mentor."

Naomi shook her head. He finished the story for her.

"And you decided to bust open the Cage."

"When Dean..." her voice broke. "I ran out of time. We'll find a way to deal with Lucifer. But to reverse the effects of the Mark... time is of the essence."

"You were more than happy to indulge me, and yourself, last night," he said just to see her reaction.

She blushed. She stuttered.

"M-Michael n-needs time to heal."

"Moose and Squirrel and their feathery friend are working on it," he assured her.

They finished their coffee in silence. Then went for a stroll in the beautiful gardens of his manor. Silence stretched, without becoming uncomfortable.

"Crowley?"

He looked at her.

"I still don't believe Gabriel is gone," she said.

"About that... I have some ideas," he confessed.

He watched Naomi light up at his words. He could see her stifle an urge to hug him. Oh, this damn soul-to-angel bond thing had to stop! He couldn't go around hugging her all the time she looked like he was Santa, he thought while he did it.

When the hug turned to a kiss and the kiss turned to having sex with her, fully dressed, against the trunk of a tree, he realized that he had a whole lot of ideas. He had several leads about Gabriel already. Ever since that revelation that the entity he had met as the Trickster was actually Brother Gabriel, he never believed that guy could be killed.

They were going to follow the leads and find the missing archangel to help them tip the scale. And most certainly, they were going to have fun on their way.