HEATHCLIFF STUDIOS - STUDIO 2B - ALMOST SHOWTIME
It was still a half hour until they were on the air again. Crowley and Balthazar had been working the crowd as usual, but there was some commotion from the band pit again. Outside Her Syndrome had reclaimed their spot and banished the protesters to the front row.
Crowley was still wearing his romantic, informal costume from before, the idea being that his coat was still in the evil clutches of Raphael.
"Am I having a flashback?" Crowley asked, talking into his microphone so the whole arena could hear him.
"Nowhere else to plug in, boss," the drummer said. A tall, wiry guy who looked like he was left behind in a gas leak - kind of a standard of garage bands. "Can't play if we're not plugged in."
"The question is," Balthazar butted in, "would anyone know the difference?"
"Hey, we're kickin' ass out here," Levi said, "okay? Don't know what else you expect a house band to do."
"You could try learning more than one song!" Crowley said, trying not to laugh.
"That's the theme song," Noole protested.
"Limelight by Rush is our theme song?" He rubbed his shoulders as if feeling a chill, and shouted back over his shoulder, "Would someone close the refrigerator? You have no idea how bad our gas bill gets down here."
That got a laugh from the audience, but Crowley had thrown a coy little look back at Balthazar.
Of course. His bit. The one Balthazar had come up with to push shipper buttons, only now Crowley had hijacked it. That's why he wouldn't put on a new coat, it was all just a setup. He was being bit-napped.
It had taken all this payback from Crowley to make Balthazar start to appreciate how good he'd had it. He got to play the hero, be the one everyone loved and cheered for, all while Crowley did all the work and drew all the fire. So maybe he deserved to have his bit napped. But he didn't have to like it.
He took his coat off and put it around Crowley's shoulders, and a good portion of the crowd lost their minds.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dean were shuffling sideways through the second row, looking like a couple of sore thumbs. But even if Crowley had been looking for them, there was too much happening on stage - Q with the fans and whatnot - for him to notice.
But at some point, Sam felt someone grab his hand tightly: it was Cheyenne, who had been forced with the other protestors into the front row by the band.
"He that liveth and was dead!" she cried, looking like her brain was overheating. "He has the keys of Hell and of Death!"
Sam looked understandably panicked. He turned back to Dean but had lost him in the current of the crowd. "I'm not Him," was all Sam could ever say in situations like this. Jesus freaks had a thing about Sam and weren't quiet about it. It didn't help that everything she said was technically true.
Someone else got his other hand. "For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!"
Sam tried to shush them, "Shh! I'm not him!" and called back to the direction they had been moving before he got nabbed, "Hey!" Dean heard his voice and, with an equally panicked look, started fighting the crowd to get back to Sam.
"The Lamb Will Rise!" Cheyenne screamed. "The Lamb Will Rise! The Lamb Will Rise!"
All the other protestors responded by joining her chant, and it was so disruptive that it eventually got the attention of the whole arena, Crowley and Balthazar included.
"Finally," Crowley said, cutting off the chanting. "I thought we were gonna have to vamp all night waiting for you boys."
In a moment, Sam and Dean had been grabbed by Outside Her Syndrome, who were swarming them, followed by Moeko and Keiko, who decked the crap out of them and got a better hold.
Balthazar addressed the crowd, "Change of plans, everyone! We have some very special contestants here to kill us tonight. Hunters of all things supernatural, the Winchester brothers!"