Chapter Text
The sudden feel of being pulled away from a busy afternoon of threatening his house plants was the last thing Crowley expected or wanted, still he had no choice but to go. Demons, as a general rule, weren’t creative but it didn’t take much in the way of thinking to realize that humans who wanted to summon demons were never up to anything good and it was in Down Below’s interest to answer when they called and to not make it difficult to accomplish, the most Crowley could do to discourage it was Monkey-Paw type tricks or otherwise turning on the summoner. As a result, Crowley was very fond of the age of reason and humans deciding not to believe in rubbish like that anymore as it cut down on incidents wonderfully. ‘Why couldn’t Down Below have listened when I told them active field agents should be exempt from summoning, just in case we were in the middle of something delicate?’ Crowley sulked as he felt himself pulled away by the occult energies. ‘I don’t even work for them any more, I should certainly be exempt.’ But the Summons apparently didn’t care about Apocalypses that weren’t, Crowley’s role in them or Below’s tacit decision to ignore Crowley’s existence.
‘They’re going to want me to do something horrible, something I’d have never thought of in ten thousand years. Then they’ll want to BLAME me for it,’ Crowley thought, setting himself to see the loopholes in whatever mess he was being dragged into. One of the many advantages of the Arrangement was the ability to give Aziraphale a heads up in the thwarting department if all else failed. The last thing Crowley was expecting was to material on consecrated ground. He yelped in shock as much as pain, feeling as if he was standing on live coals-
Not actually. Crowley could have walked across lava without scorching his shoes. Coals weren’t a problem for him, just churches.
“What sort of idiot summons a demon into a church!” he demanded irritably. Not just a church, he realized, a dry batismal font. Grey concrete, dim lighting in an infrequently used corner of a church basement, large enough for full immersion of an adult. The crack in the concrete held lingering traces of Holy Water, nowhere near enough to be fatal to a demon but the moisture in the dank basement wasn’t just water and it added another layer to the discomfort Crowley felt at being in a church.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you,” a young woman said stepping out of the shadows.
Crowley frowned in confusion, “I know you… You’re, the coffee shop? No, the Garden Shop- You work the register at the Garden Shop out on Winders Road. What in the name of… Somebody… are you doing summoning demons?!”
“It’s not like I’m summoning some random demon,” the girl replied with the slightest hint of hurt in her voice. “I’m summoning YOU.”
“And aren’t I the lucky one?” Crowley said, sarcasm so thick it was almost visibly dripping from his tongue.
The girl missed it entirely, she nodded eagar. “I’ve been watching you for ever so long,” she said. Four months technically, but that was a week longer than her longest lasting ‘love of her life’, and thus practically forever. They say time is relative, but time as measured by a teenage girl has absolutely no relationship to time as measured by an immortal demon.
“You’re not evil,” she continued a determined light that made Crowley’s skin crawl entering her eyes. “I’m going to help you.” Crowley had seen plenty of humans with Ideas, he had checked out the Spanish Inquisition after the commendation had arrived to name one case- There’d been more than a few Inquisitioners who would have earnestly sworn that they only wanted to help the witches they’d discovered… Even while standing a few feet from the pyre where the ‘lucky’ witch they were helping went up in flames. -And thus Crowley had an imminently sensible feeling of dread at the thought of becoming the subject of such an Idea. Unfortunately his florist didn’t seem to much care about what Crowley thought of her help. ‘But then what else is new?’
“Now if I did everything properly, you should have to do what I say,” the girl continued cheerfully.
Dolefully Crowley refused to confirm that she had… Not unless she asked him directly and then he’d have no choice.
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to do anything bad,” the girl assured him. “I just need you to stay there and- oh don’t make any noise. The new Pastor’s a modern sort and no one really liked getting soaked while they got baptized anyway so he just sprinkles water on people these days. Everyone but me has practically forgotten this thing’s even here. As long as you stay quiet and still, like I told you, no one will ever find you.”