(no subject)

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

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."

Comments

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley shrugged, which looked odd while his nose was still pressed to the mattress and he turned his head towards John.

"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?"

[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."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Figured," murmured Crowley. "Wouldn't blame you if you had. That's how the game is played after all." He sighed. "You get tired of it after a while..."

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."

[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."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley made a faint tired sound that could have been the beginning of a giggle, but clearly wasn't because demons didn't.

"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."

[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."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Maybe Crowley was drunk. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was in shock. Or maybe he was all three, because all he could think of to say to that was, "Daughter?"

[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."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I should have known it'd be something like that," said Crowley. "No offense, John, but I can't see you with the wife and kids and picket fence."

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?"

[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."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, tell me about it," yawned Crowley, closing his eyes. "Demons: Making Life More Interesting For Six Thousand Fucking Long Years." With that, he drifted to sleep.

[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.