[identity profile] anthony-crowley.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] neutral_omens
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."

Date: 2006-01-25 08:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John took the bottle, not bothering to disguise his gratitude, and wasted no time in washing the unpleasant taste from his mouth. The burn of the whiskey knocked down his stomach upset somewhat, and by the time Crowley came out of the bathroom (safely hidden away behind his sunglasses again, and despite knowing it was a wholly ridiculous and impractical thought, John took a moment to wish he'd just ditch the damn things once and for all; it was so much easier to talk with Crowley when he could see his eyes) he felt reasonably capable of dealing with whatever the demon had brought him here to say. Or if not, before long he'd be feeling no pain anyway...

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.

Date: 2006-01-25 09:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John felt every last drop of blood drain out of his face, and for one disoriented instant he thought he was going to faint again. "My...this is what he traded...?"

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.

Date: 2006-01-26 04:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John stopped his agitated pacing with an effort and stared at the gem, rubbing his forehead. He swallowed, remembering unwillingly the crazy, desperate logic that had been driving him there at the end, or what had almost been the end. "It had to be all three. It's...complicated, but in a nutshell, my lungs were disintegrating, I knew I was headed Downstairs, and I needed to make it such a pain in the arse to collect me when the time came that nobody would be in any hurry to see it happen."

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.

Date: 2006-01-26 07:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John looked at Crowley--cocky little baby-faced Crowley, who had a monster inside him and could still pull off such a breathtaking act of humanity; a Fallen angel who had just advised him, essentially, to have more faith--and was humbled. In that instant his world rearranged itself just slightly, his peculiar demon friend quietly shifting from the eclectic group of individuals labeled Us to a much smaller, more select group--those few who John not only tried to keep out of harm's way, but would give practically anything to do so.

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.

Date: 2006-01-26 10:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John paused momentarily, watching as the inflamed lacerations on Crowley's hand magically sealed themselves up and faded. Mostly. "Looks a bit nasty," he noted, nodding toward the injury before he handed over the bottle. "Might want to put something on it if it doesn't want to heal up." Even if it were perfectly innocuous (which, as a general rule, such things weren't, but John had no intention of asking) it was likely to make people speculate. And there was more than enough of that going on already.

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?"


Date: 2006-01-27 01:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
In point of fact, John was keeping his distance in part because he had indeed been hanging around with Belial too long (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/39961.html#cutid1), in part because he didn't want to lend even a whisper of credence to Ellie's speculations, (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/41999.html#cutid1) and in part because there was always the chance Aziraphale might come wandering in, and the angel had initially taken it the wrong way that John even knew Crowley. (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/16347.html#cutid1)

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."

Date: 2006-01-31 06:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John flushed slightly, though he knew the remark wasn't meant as a rebuke. If even Belial hadn't guessed that his ties to Lucifer ran so deep, there was really no way anyone else could have known. Didn't make him feel any better about not forseeing the possibility, though. Or about succumbing to a fucking flashback, of all things. What in blazes had come over him? If he'd let the bad shit get to him that way right along, he wouldn't have lasted a year in this business.

"Not that. This," he muttered, gesturing with the soul-gem. "None of us saw the other thing coming."

Date: 2006-02-01 06:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
...I snooped around in your personal life... John put his face in his hands and let Crowley finish speaking his piece, shaking with silent laughter. Then he nudged the demon with his elbow.

"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?"

Date: 2006-02-02 04:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
John snorted. "Course I thought about it. You think they call me the King of All Bastards because I spit on the pavement? Shit, it's not every day you stumble across something with that much blackmail potential. And do you have any idea how much some of my 'colleagues' would have traded for that information?"

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."

Date: 2006-02-02 05:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
"Ah, piss on the game," John sighed. "Nobody ever wins, not really. Might as well be playing hopscotch for all the good it does anyone."

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."

Date: 2006-02-02 07:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
"True, that. Here's to the ones worth bothering with, then." John raised the whiskey bottle slightly in acknowledgement and yawned again, thinking about Crowley's other observation.

"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."

Date: 2006-02-03 08:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
"Tefé, she's called. Big mess," John said quietly. "Complicated. She's not really mine...I was just on loan for the occasion. Owed the elemental a favor." He smiled faintly at the memory. Abby Holland had been so furious when he'd reclaimed his body just a little sooner than expected. Then again, Abby had always managed to find a reason to be furious with him. "Doesn't know who she really is, I don't think, or that I exist." He contemplated the ornate ceiling, still bearing subtle traces here and there of the extensive repair work that had been done on the old place. "I hope she doesn't. Ever."

Date: 2006-02-05 08:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
"Used to. Before I figured out humans could be just as bad." John shut his eyes, drowsy and no longer put off by his friend's proximity; Crowley was still just Crowley, after all. "A life without demons, huh? What a concept. Sounds bloody boring."

Date: 2006-02-06 09:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangeroushabits.livejournal.com
Fuzzily aware that Crowley had nodded off, John realized he was about to do the same and he should really get his arse up and vacate the premises. His limbs didn't want to cooperate, though; the mattress was comfortable, and so was Crowley's warm presence next to him. The solitude of his own room promised very little in the way of rest, and he suspected it was no accident that Crowley had wound up curled so close to him before he'd gone to sleep, either. (Close, but not quite touching. The demon knew him pretty well, all right.)

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.

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