THE PENTHOUSE - EVENING

Balthazar sat on the piano bench in the living room, glaring vague threats of death and foreign object insertion up at his interrogators: Shipley and Lydecker stood over him, effecting the cop-like authority that won them their jobs.

"The demons are still celebrating," Shipley said. "They keep saying, 'phase one'. But if you're trying to take over the world for all demon kind and you just killed all the angels, that's not really a plan with steps."

"Less 'phase one'," Lydecker chimed in, "more 'phase only'. It's us next, isn't it? Now that Heaven's out of the picture, Rowan & Martin are gonna whack all the demons."

Balthazar was too hammered to argue properly. "Are you blackmailing me?" he asked.

"No," Shipley said sternly, "we're not selling out our entire species just to save our own necks."

"Everybody calm down," Lydecker said, and added to Balthazar, "Also, I'm not with him in that regard. I love my neck - totally cool with selling out."

"Tom," Shipley said, "focus."

Lydecker whispered defensively, "I'm just saying, our entire species? Bit of a ballbag."

"Your lives for your silence," Balthazar said. "Now that you prats have revealed your malicious disloyalty, it's the only way out. Let me put it another way: right now, you two are smoke, shoved into bodies. But I can shove you both someplace a lot more interesting."

"Well," Lydecker began nervously, "they're expecting me at the orgy any minute, so if you two lads wanna chat without me...?" He started backing away.

Shipley caught him at his elbow and made him stay. His eyes were locked on Balthazar. "I don't know what your game is," he said, "but demons aren't gonna take this lying down."

"They won't know," Balthazar said wearily.

Shipley shrugged. "I figured out, and I'm not that smart. But if I was gonna wage war on Heaven and Hell, I'd have to be a lot stupider than I am now not to be scared of a revolution."

Through the haze of booze, Balthazar was monumentally pissed. Shipley wasn't backing down. Unable to leave, Lydecker was sporting an anguished expression, reminiscent of The View's co-hosts whenever a guest upset Barbara Walters.

Finally, Balthazar stood. His borrowed body wasn't bigger than Shipley's, but it didn't have to be to turn him into cat food. "What else do you want?" he asked, and by the warning in his tone, one more demand would see their heads ripped from their shoulders.

"I just wanna know if it's true," Shipley said. "Demons..." He was starting to get nervous himself. "I mean, you're an angel, you'd know better than we would."

Balthazar's eyes narrowed, but there was something amused in them. The guy just got done threatening an angel without batting an eyelash, but now he was near to sweating bullets. "What are you trying to say?" he asked, sounding more like his usual self.

"He wants to know if demons are capable of love," Lydecker said, rolling his eyes.

Balthazar smiled. These two were hilarious. "Aww. No wonder I always see you both together."

"Ha-ha," Shipley said bitterly. Why must everyone mock his spiritual crisis?

"Why ask me?" Balthazar said, his voice betraying something important. "Heaven's official word on the subject of demons-."

"I was hoping for something a little less official," Shipley said. There was a pleading note buried under all the dead serious.

Balthazar was getting a bit choked up. He knew damn well what Shipley was asking, and he was just drunk enough to answer. "I don't know if every demon is capable," he said. "It's not something everyone can feel, regardless of species. But, 'unofficially', it's distinctly possible. Whether the mind of a creature broken by torment can feel hope, enough to act on love,... has yet to be seen."

A moment passed between the three of them. Shipley was torn between pitying Crowley, Balthazar, and himself. And Lydecker, despite his mod snarkiness, had always been more of a romantic than he'd let on. In fact, he was exactly like Shipley in that regard. In their own demony way, they wanted to believe in a better world.

Balthazar had been carrying this little factoid around for years, and it was getting to the point where it was crushing him. He'd read Crowley's mind countless times, and knew the burnt, dead places, the parts ravaged by torture, from what was spared - or, more accurately, what couldn't be destroyed. Crowley still trusted easily. He enjoyed innocent things. And if he let himself get close enough to someone, love was his natural state. But there was no hope that his life could change for the better. No faith that someone he loved could ever love him back. And so much well-earned fear that his life as King was merely part of a slow-burning torment.

On some fundamental level, Crowley never left Hell.

Balthazar pushed past Shipley and Lydecker, headed for his own room. He didn't need two dopey stooges feeling sorry for him. Not when there was an orgy winding down.

Lydecker frowned at Shipley, arms folded. "Why? Why'd you have to ask him? That was horrible. It was like your haircut, only it was a moment, and you trapped us in it."

"I guess I thought the answer would be worth it," Shipley said.

"Was it?"

Shipley watched Balthazar's door close. "I'm not sure yet."