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Jan. 24th, 2006 09:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Date: December 27, 1999
Setting: Tadfield Manor, Crowley's Room
Status: Private - John and Crowley
Summary: John gets what's coming to him.
Crowley led John back to his room in silence. Unlocking the door, he pushed the man towards the chair where Bel had refused to sit earlier. He bent to pick up the soul gem and scattered papers and placed them on the bed. Materializing a bottle of whiskey, he handed it to John and went into the bathroom to get cleaned up.
Once there, he stripped off his tattered shirt and medical pants, banishing them to obscurity, and looked at himself in the mirror. Not ready to deal with what he saw there yet, he gave himself sunglasses to hide the haunted expression in his eyes. After a quick clean, he dressed in a black t-shirt and black jeans and headed back into the bedroom.
He situated himself on the bed and picked up the gem. Holding it in his hands for just a moment, Crowley finally leaned forward and handed it to John.
"Here. This belongs to you."
Setting: Tadfield Manor, Crowley's Room
Status: Private - John and Crowley
Summary: John gets what's coming to him.
Crowley led John back to his room in silence. Unlocking the door, he pushed the man towards the chair where Bel had refused to sit earlier. He bent to pick up the soul gem and scattered papers and placed them on the bed. Materializing a bottle of whiskey, he handed it to John and went into the bathroom to get cleaned up.
Once there, he stripped off his tattered shirt and medical pants, banishing them to obscurity, and looked at himself in the mirror. Not ready to deal with what he saw there yet, he gave himself sunglasses to hide the haunted expression in his eyes. After a quick clean, he dressed in a black t-shirt and black jeans and headed back into the bedroom.
He situated himself on the bed and picked up the gem. Holding it in his hands for just a moment, Crowley finally leaned forward and handed it to John.
"Here. This belongs to you."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 08:27 am (UTC)To be handed a piece of jewelry was not at all what he'd expected, though. He blinked at the glowing bauble, frowning. It was beautiful, and obviously bore some sort of enchantment; but though there was a vague familiarity about it, he couldn't recall that he'd ever owned such a thing, let alone left it where Crowley would find it. "What's this?" he asked, the questions sounding rather stupid in his own ears. Brilliant, now my memory's going on top of everything else.
He accepted the thing, carefully--it looked fragile--and knew instantly without quite knowing how that Crowley was correct; this did belong to him. In fact, he had to clamp down on a powerful, entirely irrational desire to hide it away and demand to know where Crowley had got it.
Instead, his badly unsettled mind still lagging behind other faculties that had already recognized the thing, he closed his hand around it gently but securely, and looked to the demon for an explanation.
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Date: 2006-01-25 05:55 pm (UTC)"That's the claim to your soul, you idiot. Well, the third of it that belonged to Belial."
He leaned forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and peering at John over the tops of his glasses.
"And if you ever trade it away again, I will personally guarantee that you will have far worse things to worry about than an eternity in Hell..."
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Date: 2006-01-25 09:26 pm (UTC)Suddenly boiling over with too many wildly conflicting emotions to contain, he jumped up and started to pace frenetically, bottle in one hand, eerily glowing gem in the other. "But. How did...? I mean he, they wouldn't just..." He had never told Crowley about that particular caper, Belial certainly wouldn't have brought up such an embarrassing incident in casual conversation, and he couldn't believe Crowley would just mention in passing to a Crown of Satan that he happened to have access to a spell that granted free will.
It wasn't that small mystery that really dislocated his brain, though. It was that Crowley had just handed the thing over, calling it John's as though he wanted nothing in return. He had engineered this whole situation so that...what? John and Belial walked away with the things they wanted most in Creation, and Crowley got a 'Thanks mate, here's hoping your boss doesn't come down on you too hard for taking away his favorite toy?'
His vision blurred, and he turned away hastily so Crowley wouldn't see. "How'd you find out?" he asked hoarsely, completely incapable of putting into words what he really wanted to say. He wasn't certain the right words even existed. Thank you fell so far short of adequate it seemed almost an insult.
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Date: 2006-01-26 03:11 am (UTC)"You were so certain that you were going to Hell, so I figured you had to have done a deal... I just put two and two together, really. Someone in the records department owed me a favour and I had him look at your file. Seemed easy after that, except for that last bit, of course."
Exhausted, Crowley lay on back on his bed and watched John pace. He was glad for his friend, and for Belial, and he just hoped that this little stunt wasn't going to come back to haunt him.
"It was a clever bit of trickery, I'll give you that, but why all three? And..." what the bleeding buggering fuck were you thinking? "...why didn't you tell me?"
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Date: 2006-01-26 04:25 am (UTC)He glanced at Crowley, unable to keep the bitterness quite out of his voice, though it was in no way directed at his friend. "I actually knew before I cut the deal where I was slated to go, see. Had it on good authority that Heaven wanted nothing to do with me.
"Anyway, I didn't say anything to you because I'd already asked Ellie. I'd known her longer, and she owed me for keeping Hell off her back the first time. She said it was too much to ask, with Lucifer breathing down my neck." And she was right. "Any demon who tried to help me out was as good as signing their own death warrant. Almost asked you anyway, but I figured you'd just tell me the same thing."
He shook his head, choosing not to complete the confession: that he'd already known about Aziraphale at that point, and had considered forcing the issue using that information as leverage. But even back then I wasn't quite that much of a rat bastard. Not quite.
And now you could be as good as dead anyway, because you tried to help me out and I didn't know enough to warn you what could happen. One-third of my soul's not going to save me. It may just be enough to nail your coffin shut. Oh mate, I am so sorry.
"You seemed kind of preoccupied at the time, anyway," he added somewhat pointlessly.*
---
*For the reader's reference, this took place at roughly the time the Apocalypse was gearing up.
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Date: 2006-01-26 06:52 am (UTC)He rolled onto his side and rested his head on his hand. It figured that some fucking angel had told John that he wouldn't be allowed into Heaven, making him desperate enough to turn to Lucifer for help extending his mortal life. After the conversation he'd overheard on Halloween, Crowley suspected he knew who it was, but now that he knew Gabriel better, he suspected there was more to the story. Still it made him angry, which was good. He knew anger. Could deal with anger. It was better than despair at any rate. Or terror. Both of which he'd felt quite recently and could formulate no defenses for.
"And honestly, if you'd told me before Adam's birthday, I would have told you not to bother getting healed, but afterwards, well, who knows."
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:18 am (UTC)A half-formed thought he'd been harboring for some time crystallized fully in his mind at the same time, and he voiced it aloud before his worse-if-wiser self had a chance to chew it to bits.
"You're a better man than I am, Crowley," he said softly, and saluted him gravely with the bottle before taking a long pull.
Let Crowley take it as a joke or even an insult, if that made it easier to swallow. He meant every damn word.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:59 am (UTC)He flopped back onto his back, embarrassed at the attention paid to his 'good deed' and trying to find a plausible explanation for why he did it other than 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'
"And pass that whiskey over, will you. After today, I really need a drink."
Staring at the cuts on his hand, Crowley willed them to heal as he reached for the bottle. They did. Mostly.
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Date: 2006-01-26 10:47 pm (UTC)He seated himself on the edge of the bed a comfortable distance from Crowley, and started to reach for his cigarettes, only to remember that they were once again in his trench--which he'd left hanging in the surgery. "Well, dammit. Gotta stop doing that," he sighed. "Or quit smoking, one of the two...so, congratulations, you've accomplished the nigh-impossible. What are you gonna do now?"
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Date: 2006-01-26 11:34 pm (UTC)"I'm going to Disneyland. What the fuck do you think I'm going to do now? If Lucifer looked around at all during that debacle, then he saw me there. If he did see me then I'm just going to have to lie my arse off until Raphael Falls and then take the credit for that. Should get me off the hook for quite a few little stunts."
Crowley turned his head to look at John, eyes flashing angrily behind his sunglasses.
"And if I survive all of that? Then... then I'm going after Beelzebub."
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Date: 2006-01-27 01:49 am (UTC)Mostly, though, he'd been too recently reminded of what Crowley was capable of becoming to be terribly comfortable in close proximity just yet.
"Raphael? You think he's going down?" he asked, surprised and slightly troubled. He had no love for archangels, but nothing in particular against Raphael either, in spite of his decidedly persnickety personality; at least he appeared to have some genuine concern for humanity. Crowley had never brought up the subject of Falling before, and John had known better than to ask, but it didn't take much imagination to guess it must be a horrific experience.
Still, if it would get Crowley off the hook, then so be it. It wasn't as though anyone was going to drag Raphael down kicking and screaming. If he did Fall, some good might as well come of it.
When Crowley brought up Beelzebub, he wanted to say, Crowley, no. Don't do it. Beelzebub's not like Belial, he's batshit crazy and unbelievably dangerous and you're already in enough trouble on account of me.
The words stuck in his throat, though. It wasn't pure selfishness (or at least, he hoped it wasn't.) It was the simple knowledge that everything Crowley had gone through to retrieve this one soul-piece would be pointless without at least one of the other two pieces. Whoever held the controlling shares, so to speak, ultimately called the shots. And if Belial had been Lucifer's unwilling lapdog, Beelzebub was his chief sycophant; without that three-way dynamic fueled by the hatred between the two lesser demons, John might just as well say he belonged to Lucifer and have done.
Anyway, he knew that if he had just made a statement like that, there wasn't much anyone could have said that would change his mind.
"Well. Little warning next time, huh?" He smiled crookedly. "I'm not sure I'll survive too many more shocks like that."
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Date: 2006-01-31 06:24 am (UTC)He returned to the topic at hand. "Yeah, well, I don't know anything for sure. It's just a feeling I've got. You should have heard him yesterday telling me what was love and what wasn't. Uriel wasn't best pleased either..."
Then he blinked. "Warn you? About what? I didn't know that He was going to show up."
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Date: 2006-01-31 06:42 am (UTC)"Not that. This," he muttered, gesturing with the soul-gem. "None of us saw the other thing coming."
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Date: 2006-01-31 06:37 pm (UTC)"Yeah, that'd be a friendly thing to do." His voice went up half an octave as he imitated himself. "'Hey John. I know you never told me about this, which I'm sure must have been just an oversight because you'd have no reason not to share, but I snooped around in your personal life and found out anyway. So, I'm going to use a gift you gave me and didn't particularly want me to share to try not to kill someone and get part of your soul back, but try not to be too disappointed if I can't, all right?'"
He rolled onto his stomach a foot nearer to John and pushed his nose into the duvet. It was easier than looking at the man's face even with the protection of the sunglasses. Voice muffled, Crowley continued.
"Aziraphale and I figured that it'd be less stressful to give you good news if it happened then to give you bad news that you'd have to live with forever. It's not great news while Beel still has part but it's hope and humans thrive on that crap, so there you go. Put it somewhere safe will you?"
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Date: 2006-02-01 06:26 am (UTC)"Yeah, I oughta pop you one for that, right after I go build me a concrete bunker to put the thing in. Nosy bastard. Dunno what's worse, that, or you figuring out the obvious and making me look like a moron." He shook his head. "I know I'm gonna regret this, but would you feel any better if I said I've been watching you pal around with the angel for, oh, about eight years now?"
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Date: 2006-02-02 03:54 am (UTC)"I... don't know how I feel about that. But we were just pals so you can't have seen much. Still dangerous, of course, but I'm still here so you clearly didn't do anything about it."
He eyed John from his low vantage point.
"Ever think about it?"
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Date: 2006-02-02 04:30 am (UTC)He dearly wished he had a cigarette to keep his hands occupied, and crossed his arms on his knees instead so they wouldn't fidget. "I dunno though. I think of London as my town, but it was pretty obvious you'd both been here a helluva lot longer. It would've been like..." he gestured vaguely, "...flying a plane into Big Ben, or blowing up Westminster Abbey or something. Some things just oughtn't to be messed with." He smiled suddenly. "Anyway, your little gentlemens' agreement was a better dig at all the Powers that Be than anything I could ever come up with. Seemed a shame to bollocks things up for everybody."
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Date: 2006-02-02 05:00 am (UTC)Crowley rolled onto his back, put his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling again.
"You know, we never intended for all that to happen. We were just sick of fighting for no reason other than we were told to. But then we had a lot in common. And no one else to talk to who would really understand."
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Date: 2006-02-02 05:34 am (UTC)Deliberately, refusing to be put off by his own stupid insecurities, he leaned across Crowley to swipe the bottle back, then scooted to the foot of the bed and stretched out across it. "Yeah, I hear you. I mean, not that I do understand, I suppose, the way you're talking about. But most of the people I've known in the business are gone now."
The whiskey had set him up with a nice warm buzz by this time, and it coincided perfectly with the crash from his earlier adrenaline high. He covered a jaw-cracking yawn. "Can't tell anybody else or I'll wind up back in Ravenscar, or they'll get sucked in and drown." Like Kit almost did. "Any road, far as I'm concerned you two have got more sense on your worst day than the rest of those knuckleheads put together. Fucking lot of shit-for-brains hypocrites. Stop me if I start to repeat myself." He took a swig of whiskey. "On second thought, don't. It bears repeating. Wankers."
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Date: 2006-02-02 05:39 pm (UTC)"I think you understand pretty well. Much more so than most people. At least you accept the fact of our existence. I've always been surprised that humans seem to live in a state of permanent denial about that. Not that I'm one to speak, I guess, but I'm allowed to be a hypocrite. Comes with the territory."
He grinned.
"And you're right. They are bastards. But now some of them are my bastards."
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Date: 2006-02-02 07:53 pm (UTC)"It's a survival mechanism," he said finally, "the not believing. Once you know it's all real, it's almost impossible to leave it alone, and humans who get mixed up in the supernatural tend to wind up either dead or fucked up beyond hope." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Christ, look at my family. We've always been into the shit, it's in our genes or something, and we've paid for it."
He started ticking off points on his fingers, reciting the familiar litany with clinical detachment. "Dad killed my Mum and brother, he's in Hell, Cheryl's a drunk, I am what you see before you and Gemma's well on her way to upholding the tradition. Oh, and my biological daughter is the world's first human plant elemental, wrap your brain around that one." He chuckled. "We're practically poster children for willful ignorance. A normal, sane person who saw the shit we got up to today would do the reasonable thing and either lose their mind or pretend it never happened. I was just born with more stubbornness than sense."
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Date: 2006-02-03 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 08:04 am (UTC)He leaned over the man to snatch the bottle back, laying very near him without actually touching, not admitting that he found needed comfort in the warm closeness of his friend, and drank down another several mouthfuls.
Gesturing with the bottle, Crowley asked, "So, do you ever wish you didn't know about this kind of shit so you could have that? A life with no demons in it? Where no one's chest has to get torn open so that he can be allowed to fall in love?"
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Date: 2006-02-05 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 09:43 am (UTC)The hand that held his soul-gem was resting on his chest, and he fingered the bauble absently. Its smooth surface had warmed in his grasp, and it had that soothingly familiar feel of a precious thing long since given up for lost and then unexpectedly found again.
Not found, though. Returned. And at no small cost. Half-formed nightmare images of friends lost to his own pride or fear or stupidity flitted across John's fading consciousness, driven back by a muttered curse and a wordless vow that it would be different this time--that Hell wasn't going to take this one no matter what claim they thought they had.
He fell asleep with his arm draped protectively around Crowley's shoulders, only distantly aware of the fact. Fuck how it looked, anyway. Sometimes it just wasn't worth worrying what anybody else thought.