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When Sam asked her friends to come over to keep her company whilst she got wine drunk and cried about how she was going to die alone, she was expecting them to come with more alcohol, maybe some chocolate, and perhaps they would watch some thrashy reality TV on Netflix or something.
She wasn’t expecting this.
“Guys, can’t we just watch Selling Sunset?” She cradled a bottle of rosé to her chest forlornly as her friends giggled around her and ignore her as they continued what they were doing.
“This’ll be fun, Sammy, trust us,” Charlie finished drawing the wonky pentagram on Sam’s kitchen floor and grabbed another slice of pizza from the box as a reward for her efforts. Sam narrowed her eyes and decidedly did not trust Charlie, because even though Charlie was an excellent friend and endlessly kind, she was also an agent of chaos who exists only to bring mayhem and mischief to people’s lives.
Abi, meanwhile, was shovelling Doritos and salsa into her mouth at an alarming rate whilst Harper serenely sat behind her to braid her hair. “I didn’t think you believed in any of this anyway, Sam?” Abi says, except she says it around a mouthful of tortilla and salsa so it comes out more like “Uh di’n fink you b’leev’d in any oh fis en’way?”
A bit of Dorito flies from Abi’s mouth and lands next to one of the candles lit around the pentagram. Harper wrinkles her nose, but says nothing.
Sam sighs exasperatedly.
“I don’t,” she says, gesturing wide with her bottle of Echo Falls. “That’s why this is so dumb! Nothing’s gonna happen – so please can we go watch Netflix now?”
Charlie just cackled in response as she lit the final candle. Sam looked to Abi and Harper for some support, but they were looking more intrigued now that the mood was set.
Sam thought that maybe she should reassess her choice in friends.
“Okay – we all have to sit in a circle around it, and recite this Latin shit.” Charlie turned out the lights, and even Sam had to admit that her and Harper’s tiny messy kitchen that was currently swarmed with pizza boxes and wine bottles looked rather spooky in the orange glow of the flickering candles that Harper had bought home from one of her Primark hauls. And if they get nothing else from this whole experience, at least the flat smells deliciously of ‘Indigo Bay’ and ‘Pink Peonies’.
Still, she isn’t quite sure how her fun little “come and cry and get wine drunk with me” girl’s night turned into the beginning of a terrible horror movie – it just sort of happened, and what with Charlie’s unstoppable chaotic whirlwind energy, Harper’s general curiosity surrounding the occult and supernatural, and Abi’s tendency to go along with anything after a couple of drinks, Sam supposed there was no stopping this from happening.
Ugh. All she wanted to do was watch Selling Sunset.
Reluctantly, she shuffled into her place around the circle and the four girls hold hands as they listen to Charlie recite something in Latin.
(“I thought holding hands was for when you’re holding a séance,” Abi mumbles under her breath to Sam, who sighs.
“Don’t try to find sense in Charlie’s schemes, Abs – just console yourself with the fact that it will be soon all be over.”)
Charlie finishes her reciting, and throws her arms up in the air dramatically. Unfortunately, her hands are still interlocked with Sam’s and Harper’s, so they both have their arms yanked in the air too.
“Ow, shit!” says Sam.
“I apologise,” Charlie says, unapologetically.
“Now what?” says Abi.
Charlie looks into the distance dramatically. “Now – we wait.”
They wait.
Someone coughs.
They wait some more.
Sam thinks about how she kind of needs a wee.
They wait a bit longer.
“I don’t think anything is going to –” Abi is cut off by an ear-splitting bang!, and the room fills with dark smoke. All four girls are thrown backwards, and when they manage to blink through the smoke and get their bearings, they find that they’re looking up at a tall being dressed in all black.
“̹͓̪͠F͏O̦̞͉̼̲R̺̻͎͖̜͉͖ ̫̜̱̬͉̮̫͠W̻̪H͙AT̵̲ ̪̫̱R̠̦E҉̼̠͎̦̱͈ͅA͎̙S̡̰O̫͖N͇̩ ͉͕H̙̫A̹̜͇͝Ṿ̵̺̻͚̻̼̙E̥̘̺̩͟ͅ ̥͜Y̨͈̺͙͎̺O̤͍̬̱Ų̰̠ ̫D͈̥̹͎̦̥͕͟A͙̭̻̪̘̺͓R͈͔E͙̰D̤̟̥̻͓͕ ̸T̶̩̝̩̞͇̙̗O̗̼̼̤͔̥ ̵͈͇S̵̞ͅU͈̳̟͟M̲M͔O͉̠̣̠N̰̳̝̣ͅ ͇̺T̨̙HE ̢̥̯̣͉͓̗̘G͙̱R͉E͔̭̞̼̲̞̺A̹̜T ̩̭̲͚̮ͅͅA̦̟̜̻̯̠̭N̲̹̪͍̯D͇̠̙̹͓̥͜ ͕̫̩̙̖P̺̙̳̭̝OW̟E̗̟͙̲̣̲R̺͞F̩͍͕̦̫U̼̤̙̻Ḻ͉̹̩̟͎̲̕ ̺̟̰C̙̪̟̗ͅR̞̺̲ͅͅO͍̯̗͈̘̯W͚͙̪̺͙̥͝L͉̼̯̰͠EY̨͕̘̝̝?̶̟͈̹̰̼ͅͅ”̜̲ ̨̺
The voice rattles through the flat accompanied with a violent gust of wind that blows out the candles. In the darkness, Sam can make out two glowing yellow eyes. She looks away, looks towards Charlie, who is staring defiantly up at the… thing.
Sam silently begs Charlie not to say anything.
Charlie doesn’t notice.
“Uh… girl’s night?” She says, and Sam resigns herself to the fact that she is going to die, here, in her shitty kitchen in her shitty flat, drunk on shitty wine. When they all get to the afterlife, she thinks, she is going to kill Charlie.
There’s a moment where everything is silent and still, like everyone in the room is holding a collective breath.
But then – then the lights come back on, and before them in the centre of the pentagram is what looks like a lanky middle-aged man who is dressed like a washed-up rock-star from the 70’s. He’s holding a bottle of red wine in one hand and a glass (already filled to the brim) in the other.
“Girls night? Oh, hell yeah.”
Several frazzled introductions and one broken demonic sigil later, Sam found herself sat on the floor with Harper and Abi as the demon (Crowley, he said his name was) sprawled across their ancient couch like he owned the thing, and Charlie sat on the arm of the sofa, leaning forward eagerly as she listened to the newcomer.
Her life was so fucking weird.
“So, why are you sad?” Crowley tilted his head inquiringly towards Sam, who shook herself back into the moment.
“Huh?” she said intelligently, and Crowley gestured vaguely.
“Y’know, your friend here,” he gestured towards Charlie, who beamed. “said that you called everyone over to get drunk so that you wouldn’t be sad all by yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“So, why were you sad in the first place? What’s the cause for this anti-celebration? And what’s the cause of you ladies destroying my hope for a peaceful evening?”
At this, the girls shifted guiltily.
Abi places a hand on Crowley’s arm, “We’re sorry if you ruined your night – we truly didn’t think it would work—” Charlie interrupts her with I did!, but it goes ignored. “—and of course, you don’t have to stay. Not if you don’t wanna.”
Crowley looks down at the hand on his arm in bewilderment, and Abi quickly removes it. In all honestly, he’s feeling a bit out of his depth here – he was planning on having a nice, quiet evening with a new bath bomb he had recently gotten from Lush and a book that he stole from Aziraphale’s shop that Aziraphale is kindly pretending not to notice is missing. But now he’s been thrust into this situation, and granted – it could be so much worse, but he really does feel somewhat lost without his glasses.
“Oh, it’s fine – my husband is out of town so I didn’t have any proper plans anyhow.” He thinks of his bath bomb somewhat forlornly.
The girls perk up at the mention of a husband, and Charlie quirks an eyebrow. Or rather, she quirks where an eyebrow once lived, before she shaved them off in a fit of rage at the patriarchal beauty standards women are pressured to live by.
“Demons can get married?” Charlie asks, at the same time that Abi says “You’re gay?”
Crowley throws his head back and sighs dramatically. Sam knows how he feels.
“I mean, yes, I guess I’m gay, by human standards, but it all depends on your views surrounding gender, ‘coz I’m kinda fluid with that whole business, and if my husband presents as male most of the time but I sometimes identify and/or present as a woman, does that make us a heterosexual couple at times? I sure hope not. And yes – I’m married. And a demon. I’m a demon who happens to be gay-married, in not-so-holy matrimony.” Crowley pauses for a moment, before correcting himself. “Well, I suppose it’s holy on his part, being an angel an’ all.”
Sam blinks. Abi’s mouth hangs open, and even Charlie looks somewhat taken aback. The girls take a moment to process all this, whilst Crowley tries (and fails) to not think about his bath bomb.
It’s called Intergalactic! It’s space-themed! He tries not to let his grief show on his face.
Eventually, Harper breaks the silence.
“You’re trans?”
This question takes Crowley by surprise.
“Oh my God, Harper, you can’t just ask people if they’re trans,” Abi stage whispers, and Harper rolls her eyes.
Crowley hums a bit, having never really considered the question or the answer. “I suppose,” he says, “That if we’re using human terms, then that fits me fairly well. Or, actually, I’ve heard the terms ‘genderfluid’ and ‘non-binary’ thrown about now and then – I think those are probably more fitting, for me personally anyway.”
Harper nods approvingly. Being trans herself, it was always nice to see older trans people existing and living happy, fulfilled lives.
Even if those older trans people happened to be literal demons from the underworld.
Crowley spoke up before any of the girls could bombard him with any more questions about his identity, or his marriage, or anything.
“ANYway, you,” he points at Sam, who startles. “Never answered my question!”
“Huh?” Sam, bless her heart, has been entirely lost and unfocused ever since everyone decided that this demon was chill, so forgive her if she seems a little dense. She is, in fact, very intelligent most of the time.
Charlie nudges her with a toe. “Why are you sad, dummy. Tell the nice demon why you made us all come over with our finest bottles of wine.”
Abi frowns. “I thought you said that that bottle you bought only cost you a fiver?”
“What’s your point?” Charlie looks genuinely confused.
“Okay! We don’t need to have this discussion again,” Sam snaps. “This nice demon has asked me the same question twice, please just let me answer, Jesus fucking Christ.”
The casual blasphemy makes Crowley smirk. He waves his hand in a vague get on with it gesture, and Sam sighs with a weariness that Crowley last saw in a 14th Century milkmaid who had three children to take care of and a shit husband to feed.
Side note: fuck the 14th Century.
“Well, I guess it all started when –”
“When…?” Crowley eggs on.
“When I fell for a straight girl.”
Crowley winces sympathetically, and Abi pats Sam’s arm. Sam looks miserable.
“At least – I thought she was straight, y’know? Until – well, today she came out to me as bi. And I thought, ‘shit, now I have hope, she might be into me, oh my Gosh’, but—”
“She’s dating Sam’s sister!” Charlie blurts out, and Sam chucks the nearest thing at her, which happens to be a book.
“Ah!” Charlie picks it up and looks at the title. “Robinson Crusoe? Ugh, how dare you attack me with racist literature.”
Sam, in an act of incredible drunken wit, sticks her tongue out in retaliation.
“Your crush is dating your sister?” Crowley nobly attempts to focus the conversation yet again.
Sam lets out a noise that can only be described as a wail, and buries her face in her palms. She never asked for her life to be like an especially shitty L-Word subplot! Straight girls who say they’re going to ‘turn lesbian’ in the hopes of less drama have a serious lack of understanding surrounding the world of lesbian dating.
“If it’s any consolation,” Charlie says, voice dripping with faux-sympathy. “Your sister is the hot one.”
“I hate you,” Sam says, her voice muffled from where her face is still buried in her hands. Charlie grins, unrepentant.
Despite her carefree attitude, however, Crowley can sense something… negative, coming from her. Similar to how Aziraphale can sense when a person, place or thing is loved, Crowley has a knack for sensing the less favourable emotions in humans. And right now? He can definitely sense some jealousy coming from Charlie whenever Sam mentions this mysterious crush.
Interesting.
Crowley files this information away in his brain for later (or, rather than files it, he places it somewhere he swears he’ll remember later on, which inevitably he will not. Such is the burden of ADHD.). Right now, his priority is to somehow comfort this poor, heartbroken girl. Unfortunately, he has never been that good at comforting people.
“Damn,” he says. “That’s rough, buddy.”
Sam looks up at him and glares glarefully through her dark eyelashes. “If you’re not going to take my misery seriously, I would appreciate it if you would just leave me to wallow here in peace.” Crowley holds up his hands in mock surrender.
“Oh, no I –” he tries to think of what to say. Not that he’ll ever admit it, but heartbreak is a human emotion that he has had plenty of experience with. He thinks back to the worst times – the time where he felt like his still-beating heart had been pulled straight from his chest and thrown into a blender, where he felt like sleeping for a century, times that sounded like you go too fast for me and we’re not even friends and somebody killed my best friend!
He swallows. In these times, what would he have wanted someone to say to him? What would’ve made everything ache less?
He suddenly feels incredibly sorry for this poor girl, because he can only think of one thing that could’ve been said to make his heart ache a little less. Three words would’ve made everything better, but he can’t say them to Sam.
They have to come from the right person, otherwise they’re utterly meaningless.
He sighs. “I’ve been on this planet for over 6000 years, y’know? And like, I’m a demon,” he sticks two fingers behind his head to mimic horns. “So. I’m like, s’pposed to understand the bad emotions, but not the good ones. But you see! When you’ve been in a job as long as I have – well, was, I suppose, I’m retired now after all – you pick up on some things. Love and joy and hope – I’m not supposed to be able to feel them, but I –”
He breathes in.
“Listen. I’m – I’m not an expert. But I am old as shit, and I was in love with my husband for literal centuries before we even started dating, so that’s gotta count for something, right?”
The girls nod.
“Right. So, when I say that misery and heartbreak and sadness are necessary, believe me, yeah? Without these things you wouldn’t be human. It sounds corny, I know, but…” He pauses. He’s a lot drunker than he realised, which is the only reason why he says what he says next. “I’m not like other demons, y’know? I don’t fit in down there, never have, and I think – it’s not because I dared to feel happiness or hope or love, but because I learnt how to feel, well, like you feel right now.” Sam sniffs a little.
“What you’re saying is that we basically summoned the least demonic demon to ever demon?” says Harper.
Crowley takes a little offence at this (he was the bloody Serpent of Eden!) but doesn’t say let it show. After all, there are worse things he could be than the least demonic demon to ever demon (also, he very much approved of turning the word ‘demon’ into a verb, and he planned on incorporating it into his lexicon as soon as possible, knowing that it would annoy Aziraphale to no end).
“Pretty much. I would apologise, but you’re incredibly lucky you got stuck with me – if any of the others from below showed up then you’d all be very much dead right now.”
The girls look suitably terrified, and Crowley pours himself another glass of wine smugly. He sips it, revelling in the silence, before Sam speaks up:
“If you’re not going to kill us, or snatch our souls, or demand we give you our first-borns,”
“Pretty sure that’s witches,” Abi interjects, and Sam brushes her off.
“Whatever. If you’re not gonna do any of that evil stuff, do you wanna watch Selling Sunset with us?”
“Is that the show where beautiful LA people sell beautiful homes?” Crowley is right now being a bit of a bastard, for he knows exactly what Selling Sunset is. He has binged almost every show on Netflix, with some understandable exceptions (Riverdale being one of them – it’s just so, unjustifiably bad).
Sam nods enthusiastically, and Crowley grins.
“Darling, I would love to watch thrashy reality TV here with you and your weird friends.”