Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a lovely day. The weather was fine, yet not so hot as to be uncomfortable, simply pleasantly warm with a light breeze.

Aziraphale and Crowley were making the most of the weather. Crowley was sprawled out on the large picnic blanket that quite frankly should not have been large enough to hold both the supernatural entities and the food. Of course, Crowley expected everything to be able to fit on the blanket, and so it did.

Aziraphale was gesticulating wildly as he talked; the two beings were deep in conversation and not even the forces of heaven or hell could interrupt them, or so they thought.

“I regret to inform you that you are quite simply incorrect, my dear boy.”

“Am not. I’m telling you, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Well I never.” Aziraphale made a face similar to that of the shocked pikachu meme. He had never heard anything quite so outrageous in his life.

“I was as surprised as you are. Funny how these things get lost in translation, don’t you think?”

“There’s nothing funny about it,” Aziraphale tried to argue, but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. The whole thing was just too ridiculous for words.

The two had arranged the outing beforehand, with Aziraphale finally making good on his word that someday they could go for a picnic. What with the not-pocalypse and trying to evade the forces of heaven and hell, their lives had been a bit hectic as of late, and they both felt as though they deserved a rest. They had (almost) single handedly botched an apocalypse, after all.

So far they had made their way through the variety of sandwiches and fruit. Or rather, Aziraphale made his way through them. At some point or other, Crowley miracled them some expensive wine, and they had been passing the bottle between them for the better part of the afternoon. They had not had enough to be drunk, simply enough to be pleasantly tipsy. All in all it was rather lovely.

Or at least that was until Crowley began to feel a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly alert, he sat up, causing Aziraphale to look over at him quizzically.

“Is something the matter dear boy?” He asked, a concerned expression on his face.

“I’m not sure,” Crowley replied, equally concerned. Was it some kind of divine intervention? Or a hellish one? He had hoped that the forces of heaven and hell would have given it at least a few years before cropping up into their lives again. Surely Aziraphale’s and his performance had been enough to make them keep their distance?

The feeling was growing, morphing into a tearing, burning sensation that he fought hard to suppress. He got to his feet, his hand clutched to his chest, attempting to stop the pain. By now that was what it was; pain. Angry red waves of pain that rushed over him and seemed to emanate from his very core. He didn’t know what to do. Six millennia and he had never felt anything quite like it before.

“Something’s wrong.” He fought to get the words out, looking over at Aziraphale desperately.

Aziraphale was beginning to become rather worried indeed. Something was definitely not right.

Crowley felt his chest constrict further, his lungs squeezing tighter and tighter as he fought to get air into them.

Inexplicably he began to rise in the air, his limbs thrown back from the force. His chest felt as though it had been doused in holy water, as though his flesh was sizzling and eating into his bones. Aziraphale’s face was contorted in terror and Crowley was sure the sentiment was mirrored on his own face.

Aziraphale continued to stare on in abject horror. Crowley was in pain, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He was frozen, unable to move, unable to help, unable to do anything but watch.

Suddenly Crowley disappeared.

Chapter Text

Crowley blearily forced his eyes open and let them adjust to the light. He was in a small, dimly lit room. Overheard a light buzzed on and off, only serving to perpetuate his inability to get a feel for his surroundings. He tried to get up off the floor but his limbs creaked in protest. He felt as though he had been hit by a ten tonne truck. His glasses were lying on the ground next to him, the glass cracked beyond repair.

Finally he managed to get to his feet and stretched out his muscles. Now, as Crowley used to be a snake, his muscles are rather more versatile than that of a regular human, or even more than that of a regular divine being. Therefore Crowley stretching out his muscles is something that is quite hilarious to observe.

Sam and Dean, however, did not find it particularly funny.

Dean tried to take in what had just happened, but found himself rather at a loss for words. The whole day had been a complete farce if he was honest.

———————————————————————

One day earlier —

They had gotten a call from Bobby talking in vague terms about some demonic activity in the UK that was linked to the case they were working on. Bobby told them to come as soon as possible, so they boarded the plane (much to Dean’s dismay and downright refusal on no uncertain terms) and endured the flight. Every time the captain announced upcoming turbulence over the speaker system Dean made a face similar to that of someone with bad constipation. It was safe to say he was not enjoying the experience.

Finally they landed in the UK, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief as his feet touched solid ground once more. They went to the address that Bobby had given them, unsure what to expect. Neither of them had any idea how this could possibly relate to the case they were on, especially as it was so far from home. Still, they trusted Bobby, and they knew that he would not have brought them here if it were not important.

The address they had been given was in a fairly rural location. It took several hours just to reach it, and it was so far off the beaten track that Dean began to wonder if it was even the right place after all. The only building for miles was a large shack which looked as though it had been abandoned decades prior.

“Is this the place?” Sam asked, looking doubtfully at Dean.

“Must be,” Dean replied gruffly. In all honesty he was beginning to wonder if he had been sent on a wild goose chase after all.

They walked towards the shack, their footfalls interrupting the otherwise dead silence surrounding the place. The entire area was enveloped in a feeling of foreboding. Dean and Sam both got out their guns and held them tightly in front of them. The weapons helped to calm Dean’s nerves, but he was still apprehensive about what they were about to go up against.

Dean steeled himself and prepared to break open the door.

One.

He took a deep breath.

Two.

He prepared to swing.

Three.

He flung himself at the door and it came open with a loud crash. With a nod to Sam, he stepped inside the shack and came face to face with....

Absolutely nothing at all.

Chapter Text

“Is this it?” Dean asked, disappointment clear in his voice.

“Maybe we’re at the wrong place?” Sam asked doubtfully.

This was the only building for miles and miles, and Bobby had been very specific on the location. What he hadn’t been specific on was what exactly they were looking for. Dean knew that Bobby must have his reasons, but still, did he really have to leave them completely in the dark? In Dean’s opinion, Bobby definitely owed them an explanation, and he’d be damned if Bobby didn’t make it a good one.

“Screw this, I’m calling Bobby,” Dean said, his mind made up.

The brothers waited as the phone rang, once, twice, the silence stretching out uncomfortably between them. Finally Bobby answered the phone.

“So did you boys find it?” Bobby said expectantly, just as Dean drew in breath to go on a tirade.

“Find what?” Sam cut in. “Bobby, you haven’t even told us what we’re looking for, you just sent us to an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere.”

“Look, I don’t exactly know what it is, else I would’ve told ya. All I know is that it is ancient and powerful, whatever it is.”

“You don’t even know what we’re-“ Sam sighed heavily.

“Well can you at least tell us who told you about this “ancient and powerful” schmuck?” Dean interjected.

“A very old Hunter friend of mine got in touch, said that he knew your father. Short of it is, they had been looking for something together, and this guy has finally hunted it down. Said that handing it over to you guys would be the best thing to do, it being your father who first caught wind of it.”

“Well why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” Dean said, exasperated.

“I didn’t want you boys to get your hopes up thinking you’d be going on in your dad’s tracks and then finding nothing there.”

“But there isn’t anything here at all.” Sam said, looking around at the barren walls of the shack. The light flickered overheard. He looked at Dean, who shrugged his shoulders.

“Well did you ever consider that it would be hidden?”

“Hidden where?”

“Use your heads, you idjits. Surely you got something knocking around in those skulls of yours.”

“Where are we supposed to-“ Sam started, but Bobby had already hung up the call.

The two brothers stood for a moment in silence, both unsure what to do. Dean was the first to break the silence, turning to leave the shack.

“If we’ve got to hunt for this stuff then we better get some supplies,” he called back to Sam.

Sam moved to follow Dean out to the Impala. The whole situation was less than ideal, and Sam felt a twinge of anger at Bobby. Why he couldn’t have been open and honest in the first place was a mystery to him.

They grabbed equipment from the boot of the Impala, Dean loading the guns with the practiced ease of a hunter. As an after-thought, Sam grabbed a crowbar from where it lay nestled underneath the other tools.

Armed and ready, they headed back to the shack.

“Dean, how exactly are we going to find this thing, we looked all round the shack and there was nothing in there. It was empty.”

“Damned if I know,” was the response, gruff and resigned.

They began to search every inch of the small, ramshackle building, making sure no metaphorical stone was left unturned.

Sam stepped forward heavily to examine the far wall, and the floorboards creaked in protest. If it were a cartoon, a lightbulb would have lit up above Sam’s head.

“The floorboards!” He exclaimed, dropping to a crouch.

“You reckon there’s some kind of storage space under one of em?” Dean asked, moving away from the wall he had been painstakingly checking for hidden buttons or levers.

“Maybe. I’m not sure, but it’s just about the only place someone could hide something.”

Dean began to grope around on the ground. He swore loudly when his fingers hit a sharp snag. Looking down, he saw the nail sticking almost all the way up out of the floorboard.

“Hey, would ya look at that,” he said. “You got that crowbar?”

Sam came over with the crowbar and handed it to Dean. Dean carefully slid the crowbar into the small gap between the floorboards. The floorboard in question had definitely been moved. It creaked and groaned in protest as Dean shifted his weight onto the crowbar, then finally gave way.

The brothers looked down at the small space underneath the floorboard. In it sat an ancient looking leather-bound book. Dean reached his hand down to pick up the book, and bring it out into the less than bright light, so he could get a better look at it.

It was old and faded, but the care that had gone into making the cover was evident. It was a deep red, and had gold embellishments on the corners. The pages themselves had a coat of gold leaf on the sides, lending itself to an impression of grandeur. Dean hesitantly wiped his hand across the cover of the book, revealing the title that had been obscured by years of dust:

‘How to trap the Devil’

Chapter Text

“How to trap the Devil?” Dean read from the cover of the book, shooting a dubious look over at Sam, who looked equally dubious.

“Is this really what Bobby sent us here to get?” Sam asked, staring at the book. It was definitely an extraordinary looking book, but the cover boasted of something impossible; a long sought after solution.

As long as humanity has been believing in a Hell, there have been those who sought to contain its denizens and bind them to an individual’s own will. For centuries desperate individuals have thrown themselves into rituals more dangerous than they could ever know, summoning demons and bringing their burdens down upon them; threatening at first, then finally begging and pleading, bartering with their own souls without truly knowing their worth. For some it was the death of a loved one, a child, a brother, perhaps a lover desperate to be reunited. For others it was revenge, perhaps not best served cold, but heated with the fires of brimstone and unleashed with vengeful fury. For many, greed was a much fickler master. They wanted money, or land, or power; the kind of raw visceral power that could topple a nation with a single utterance.

And in the end, they always did get what they wanted, for a handsome price, of course.

This was accepted, these were the lengths that some would go to. They had made their own choice and got what they came for. But to try and trap the Devil? What could possibly drive someone to try and bring the ultimate purveyor of entropy and destruction to Earth? Surely they did not think he would grant them clemency, or leniency? Surely they did not believe it would aid them in whatever quest they had set out to achieve?

Yet there it was, in bold letters on the cover, staring brazenly at the two brothers who stood together, peering down at it with growing curiosity.

Dean could already tell that this was going to be interesting.

Crowley looked at the two men standing in front of him and immediately decided that this was not somewhere he wanted to be.

One of the men looked to be built like a bear, towering threateningly as he stood. The other, while shorter, did not appear any less threatening due to the large amount of equipment that they had in their possession. They both were botharmed with a veritable arsenal and had the demeanour of two fellows who had missed the memo that the apocalypse was already over and done with.

Crowley gulped. It was not looking particularly good for him to say the least.

As a snake, Crowley had a long and colourful history of slithering his way out of difficult situations. It had started all the way back in Eden, convincing his superiors that he was doing his job and narrowly escaping the wrath of hell each time he encountered them. He had always fancied himself to be someone with somewhat of a silver tongue, able to “uhm” and “errr” and “ngk” his way out of every situation without any permanent damage being done to his corporation. True to form, Crowley attempted his signature tactic of brazenly tripping headfirst into danger without a second thought with the grace of a gazelle that has just tripped and fallen off a cliff.

“Urrhh… hi guys”

The two men stared at him as though he had grown another head.

Crowley began to shift nervously from foot to foot. After a second within which it seemed as though they used to muster courage, one of the men spoke.

“Are you…. The Devil?” the taller man whispered.

Well, that had certainly come out of left field. Crowley was confused to say the least. From the pentagram and demonic looking ritual symbols Crowley could ascertain that he had been summoned, but he could not for the life of him understand how. I mean Satan Below, how did these two humans even come across a legitimate summoning ritual beyond your run of the mill soul deal? Of course, there were plenty of humans who liked to claim that they dabbled in the occult, finding themselves pretty trinkets and waving them around whilst chanting meaningless incantations, but those were completely harmless. If they ever came face to face with a real demon Crowley was certain that they would turn tail and run faster than they could say “Crikey”. The other kind of humans who searched for the darkness beyond the mortal realm were a little more tricky. As opposed to their counterparts, these individuals were actually able to make contact with demons, attempting to bargain their souls away. Often they were full of disbelief, having never truly thought that what they were attempting would actually work, but still desperate and depraved enough to go through with what they had set out to do nonetheless. With both cases they shared one similarity; that they were fearful of the thing that stood in front of them.

These men were not. They were armed and dangerous. It seemed as though they actually had weapons that could harm demons and by the looks of things they also very much knew how to use them.

As the man spoke Crowley let out a gasp, the most terrifying realisation yet hitting him straight in the face.

They were American.

Chapter Text

As the brothers peered at the tome Dean began to get a bad feeling in the pit of the stomach. This did not feel like the kind of jobs they usually did. His job was hunting monsters, and he was damn good at his job, but anything to do with demons always put him on edge. Something about the way their black, soulless eyes bored menacingly into his really got to him. Or maybe it was the way that they donned the disguise of an unsuspecting human victim, forcing their way in and then discarding the bodies afterwards as if they were toys. It made his skin crawl.

“Is this really what Bobby sent us here to get?” Sam’s words pulled Dean out of his train of thought.

“I guess it must be. Do you think this thing is legit?” Dean asked, although he already knew that both he and Sam likely shared the same trepidation regarding the book.

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam replied doubtfully, clearly unsure what to think.

“Well I guess there’s only one way to find out Sammy. Let’s study this thing in the daylight, I’ll be damned if I can see anything in this dingy lighting.”

Sam nodded in agreement and the two made their way back out of the small shack and into the daylight. As they emerged, Dean squinted, his eyes already having adjusted to the dim lighting inside the shack.

They unceremoniously plonked themselves down onto the ground and Dean gingerly placed his hand on the ornate cover before slowly opening it.

The paper was a thick, coarse material, and the writing inside appeared to have been inscribed by an expert hand. Delicately, Dean traced his hand over the ancient lettering. It was excellent calligraphy, a skill Dean had once tried to pick up as a child but had never quite gotten the knack for, giving up after a few measly attempts to go and help his father and never revisiting the skill. He had always found himself impressed by the form of penmanship, even if he did not voice it for fear of not appearing masculine enough. The writing inside the book before him was truly impeccable.

As they pored over the ancient pages the sun slowly sank, giving way to the first tendrils of darkness that began to creep into the sky. As the night approached Dean closed the book reverently and the two brothers sat in contemplative silence, trying to wrap their heads around what they had just read.

—————————————————————-

A few things clicked into place in Crowley’s mind. The guns, for one thing. However, he was still left with a large number of questions and very little answers.

I mean, come on, how could anyone mistake him for the devil? Yes Crowley was incredibly suave and devilishly stylish (at the very least in his own head), but he was nothing like Satan. Satan was a great big bugger for a start. Red too. And absolutely no sense of style. Frankly Crowley was a little offended that anyone had gotten the two mixed up.

“Sorry, what?" He voiced, realising that he had not actually answered their question yet.

“Are you the..... devil?” The tall one repeated, trailing off at the last word, as though he had realised the absurdity of his own statement.

After further inspection Crowley decided that something about the man reminded him of a Moose. He wasn’t quite sure what it was though. Maybe the shoulders? No. The face? Not really. He was at a bit of a loss on the specifics, but one thing was for certain; that man was mooselike. He was sure that if he asked Aziraphale he would know immediately what Crowley meant.

Oh Satan, Aziraphale. The picnic. Suddenly he found everything flooding back to him and he reassessed just how inconvenient this entire situation was. They couldn’tve picked any other day to essentially kidnap him on, oh no, it just had to be the day he was planning something special for Aziraphale.

Crowley, as a general rule of thumb, was all about grand gestures. He would be the first to admit that words weren’t always his forte. Okay, maybe that was a teensy weensy complete and utter understatement. Crowley may be able to worm his way out of uncomfortable situations and convince his bosses that he was in fact actually doing work, but when it came to talking about feelings Crowley was completely out of his depth.

An apt analogy would be something akin to throwing a toddler who can barely walk into the deep end of the pool with uninflated armbands. As one can imagine, the result is not pleasant.

Therefore, sometime around the rise of the knights of the round table and the birth of the concept of chivalry, Crowley discovered that he was in fact a big fan of grand heroic gestures. And he was fairly certain that Aziraphale was a big fan of being on the receiving end of said grand heroic gestures. It worked out rather well really.

So today Crowley had planned a grand gesture for Aziraphale. They would have the picnic and wine, and then as the sun was setting Crowley would do something bold.

Or at least that was what was meant to happen. Until these two idiots went and kidnapped him for Satan’s sake.

Crowley huffed loudly.

“Do I look like the devil to you? It’s Crowley.”

“Cr-ow-lee?” The shorter one asked. “What kind of a name is that?”

“Crow-lee.” Crowley repeated with a scowl.

So not only had they pseudo kidnapped him, trapped him in a summoning circle and mistaken him for the devil they also couldn’t get his name right.

The situation was beginning to decline at a rapid velocity and Crowley was decidedly not here for it.

Chapter Text

Despite outwardly making a joke of the situation, in actuality Crowley was starting to become more and more worried about his fate. 

Even if the men seemed deeply confused and almost scared of him, they were still holding guns, which could most definitely leave him with a nasty amount of paperwork, not to mention stuck in Hell for Satan knows how long without a corporeal form. The queuing in Hell was a nightmare. 

The Angels’ lot were usually the ones harping on about keeping paperwork in order and worrying about documentation, so it might have come as a surprise that it was something that Hell worried about at all. However, Crowley knew from experience that it wasn’t in the way that one might expect. 

The paperwork itself was thrown willy nilly into filing cabinets with no sense of organisation, left for the damp and perpetual mould to erode with time, the cabinets only ever opened again to throw in more paper on top of the pile. The queueing was largely caused by the fact that nobody had any real interest in doing their job in a timely fashion, even if the job was as simple as abandoning piles of paper. 

The demons on the corporations desk were notoriously awful at their jobs; almost as bad as the ones concerned with filing the newest of Hell’s denizens.

Perhaps there is some advantage to being part of the original fallen after all , Crowley thought with a heavy degree of sarcasm, pulling his lips into a mirthless smile at the idea.

“What are you smirking at, chuckles?” the one that did not look like a moose asked suddenly, pulling Crowley from the thoughts that he had once again got himself caught up in. 

The man’s tone was almost casual, as though he were telling a joke that Crowley was not in on. However, his hold on his gun was tighter than ever, knuckles white against the grip, and he seemed to have regained some of his composure after the entire Are you the devil? mix up, which meant that he was very much a threat.

In fact, he was a very threatening threat, and it was making Crowley nervous. He began to shift his feet from side to side once more, as he was prone to do when he was nervous. 

It seemed that he had been taking too long to reply, because the bear-like man was talking once again, tone just as casual, but the words sent a chill down Crowley’s spine. 

“You can stand there and not say a word if you like, that’s fine by me, but just know that we’ve got our ways of making demons like you talk, you understand?” 

At this, he fixed Crowley with a harsh stare, dark eyes promising to raise Hell, and Satan knows that was something that Crowley was already far too intimately familiar with. 

He gulped. “Got it, heard you loud and clear, boss.”

“You hear that Sammy?” The man said, this time addressing the shorter, moose-like man. “We’ve got a regular comedian on our hands.” 

Moose seemed to inwardly sigh at the nickname, even as he spoke aloud to agree with his companion. If Crowley had to guess, Sammy was not the man’s favourite nickname. 

Well, it wasn’t every day that opportunities were handed to him so perfectly gift wrapped. 

“So tell me, Sammy,” and well, Crowley may not have been only human, but he couldn’t keep the coprophagous grin off of his face, “What is it that you want from me, exactly?”

A beat of silence passed, within which he celebrated his victory, before he heard the cocking of two guns being levelled at him. Shit. 

Alright, not his smartest moment, but low hanging fruit was there to be grasped. 

Although, as the men glanced at each other, it became apparent that they were not actually sure what exactly they were going to do with Crowley. In honesty, Crowley wasn’t quite sure what the men had thought they were going to do if they actually managed to summon the literal devil in the first place, but it was becoming abundantly clear that the fact that he was not, in fact, the devil had thrown a significant wrench in those poorly made plans.

Ah well, he didn’t feel too bad for them. At the same time, it did little to calm his nerves. They hardly seemed as though they would be willing to let him walk free, and he was about eighty percent certain that their other go to option would be putting a bullet through his skull, and he was significantly less of a fan of one of those two options. 

“What do you think, Sam, should we exorcise the bastard?”

Normally, Crowley would have, at this moment, objected loudly to being called a bastard, but the man’s words had left him with far more important things on his mind than witty quips. 

Now, strictly speaking, exorcism did not work on Demons. There was some small caveats to that rule, such as if a demon was foolish enough to possess a mortal, but honestly any demon that did that in the first place deserved it for being so foolish. No, true flesh and blood Demons could not be forced from their corporations.

However, that did not mean that an exorcism would not hurt immensely. Incantations that are designed to rip one’s soul from one’s body tend to, as a general rule. Not to mention the genuine danger he would be in if these two turned out to be carrying authentic Holy Water, which, honestly… There was a very real chance of that being the case.

The stakes suddenly felt infinitely higher. 

“Come on guys, surely there’s no need for all that effort, just for little old me,” he tried, voice betraying his own desperation even as he tried to sound casual. 

“Oh I think there’s plenty need,” Moose intoned, eyes regarding him carefully. 

“There’s no chance I could get some refreshments before all of this exorcism business?” Crowley begged.The only way he saw out of this was to prolong it as long as he could. As ever, his go to method of prolongment was spouting utter rubbish for as long as he could, and he employed the tactic to its fullest effect. “A bite to eat, maybe a refreshing beverage? I’m feeling a little parched, you see, and-“

He cut himself off as he glanced back to the bear-like man who had turned around to pull something out from his bag and saw the clear vial that was now held in his left hand. 

Shit.

“You know, upon second thought, I’ve decided that I will not be needing any kind of beverage today, please and thank you, so there’s no need to bring that anywhere near me,” he babbled as the man stepped closer. 

Suddenly, there was a loud thud against the door and the splintering of wood as it began to crack. It was followed by a second thud of the door caving in, and there stood his Angel, in all his blazing, righteous glory, looking as though he was ready to smite down Heaven, Hell, and anything else that stood in his path. 

Crowley had never felt more relieved to see his Angel. 

“Dear me, I hope that door wasn’t too important,” Aziraphale fretted, staring at the splintered pile of wood that had once resembled a door, and there was little else Crowley could do but grin, because of course, of course Aziraphale would be worried about the door of all things in a situation like this. It was so very Aziraphale, to its core, and it made Crowley feel undeniably fond. He was just incredibly grateful that the Angel was here at all. 

Aziraphale turned, taking in the two humans in the room, who now didn’t seem to know quite who they should keep their guns pointed on, his eyes washing over them until they reached Crowley. 

Seeing Aziraphale’s face light up at the sight of him was almost worth the whole kidnapping ordeal. 

“Crowley!” the Angel called, and his voice was so soft, so fond, that Crowley felt himself melt. Pure elation rushed over him as he listened to the way his own name sounded as it left Aziraphale’s mouth, the way his delicate tongue curled across the vowels and twisted the consonants into something recognisable, as familiar to him as breathing.

“Alright, Angel?”

“Alright? You scared me half to death, disappearing like that,” Aziraphale admonished, tone stern as though he were scolding him, and Crowley felt himself pout like a sulking child. 

“Well it was hardly by choice, was it? It was these humans .” 

Honestly, he thought. You stop and apocalypse, save the world, and this is how humanity repays you. Ungrateful buggers, the lot of them. 

“And,” he continued, with a sudden desire to spill out everything that had happened and his feeling still more than a little hurt, “They call themselves demon hunters, but they’re terrible at their jobs. You know, they thought I was the devil. Me, the devil? And you know what else, Aziraphale? They’re awful hosts. They refused to get me any refreshments, they pointed their guns at me, and they even got my name wrong!” He was on a roll now, keyed up and seemingly nowhere close to running out of steam, and Aziraphale could tell. 

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said soothingly. “I can only apologise that I didn’t get here sooner.”

“ ‘s not your fault, Angel,” Crowley replied, mollified, because at the end of the day he could never be angry at Aziraphale. Especially not when the Angel had clearly come to rescue him as quickly as he could. The Angel had such a terrible habit of apologising for things that weren’t his fault, and Crowley was having none of it. 

It was about this time that the two men, who up until this point had been seemingly frozen, listening in on the conversation with some confusion, suddenly remembered that they were meant to be in control of the conversation, and deemed it apt to speak up.

“Who the hell are you?” the big one demanded at the same as the moose-like one asked “You know this demon?” 

Seemingly registering them properly for the first time since he had entered the room, Aziraphale regarded them in much the same way that a wolf would eye a gnat that kept buzzing around it. 

“Oh, American, ” he muttered under his breath. “That explains a lot.”

More loudly, he addressed the pair. “I am Aziraphale, and I am here to collect my, er, Crowley. I’m here for Crowley.”

“Your Crowley?” Moose asked, narrowing his eyes.

The Crowley in question waited for the denial, for Aziraphale to back off and shut himself away from the suggestion as he had done every time without fail for the past thousand years. 

Aziraphale was a creature of habit, and centuries of hiding their friendship from Heaven, from refusing to accept it, even in his own mind, had meant that he was quick to shut down any sort of spoken utterance of their friendship. 

Considering everything, this habit of his hurt Crowley quite deeply. However, Aziraphale would show that he truly did care with his actions, the small, kind gestures that he would go out of his way to perform, and with the way that he would arrive without fail to spend time with Crowley, but, like an apparition of mist in the air, it would dissipate as soon as anyone attempted to define it into something more solid. 

Therefore, he was shocked when instead of vehemently denying the suggestion, Aziraphale responded with a simple, curt, “Yes,” head bobbing to confirm the words.

Your Crowley?

Yes. 

The feeling that the words brought on was indescribable, and thus, Crowley did not try to describe it; instead he merely smiled to himself. 

“And what, you think we’re just going to let a demon free and hand him off to you?” The words were spat with a scoff, a silent challenge, even as the man let out a harsh bark of a laugh at the idea.

“Oh, I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Aziraphale replied, with venom dripping from his words and a blazing fire alight in his eyes, and Crowley had never been more in love. 

Chapter Text

Dean was beginning to feel significantly uneasy. The whole case had a sense of wrongness to it, something curdling in the air around them and causing it to go sour. He had thought that he’d been prepared for everything; hell, he’d gone into this ready to make the Devil himself bow to cold hard steel, but somehow he hadn’t been prepared for this.

If the demon (‘Crowley’, he mentally inserted mockingly) had been strange, then the newcomer was something else entirely. Affluence seemed to ooze from him like some kind of infectious disease, right from the tips of his perfectly manicured fingers, past the waistcoat that had gone out of fashion several centuries prior and was better suited to a cheesy period drama, and up to the white curls that settled themselves somewhere around the forehead region.

Surely that shade of white couldn’t be natural? Dean thought to himself. He was getting on in years, certainly, but not to the grey temples and walking stick extent. The choice of hair dye did little to dissuade the argument towards the geriatric though. Oh well, if the posh bastard wanted to make himself look old then it was no concern of Dean’s.

The more pressing concern was the fact that he had burst in through the door and now appeared to be threatening them. He didn’t look like a threat, and he had no visible weapons, but looks could be deceiving. He also didn’t look like a demon (he was far too polite for one thing) but the fact that he was here to collect the bastard in the black meant that Crowley must be one of his own.

Well, Dean was prepared. He’d seen every trick in the book and come out alive, and he’d be damned if he’d let this be the death of him. Dimly, he registered Sam responding to the new demon.

”Oh yeah, I bet you’d just like that, wouldn’t you?” Sam growled out. The demon took a step forward and both brothers tightened their grip on their guns. Dean kept his aim steady, barrel trained just above the eyes. Upon closer inspection, he decided that perhaps the posh one’s outfit was quite nice really. In an obnoxious sort of way. It almost seemed a shame to ruin it. 

“Now, now, gentlemen, there’s no need for all of this,” Mr Fancy Talk chided, tutting like a disappointed school mentor scolding silly children. “I’m sure that we can sort this out like the adults that we are.” 

“We’re not going to listen to a word from your filthy mouth, demon,” Sam spat. Fancy pants opened his mouth as though to speak, seemingly affronted, but Dean cut in. 

“Listen up, genius, we’re the ones holding the guns and this is how this is going to go. You’re going to step inside that circle right now or we shoot, capiche?”

”Aha!” The demon announced, as though he were about to perform a particularly titillating magic trick, “that’s where you’re wrong!”

The other demon in the circle had remained uncharacteristically silent up until this point. Now, he groaned loudly, pulling everyone’s attention back towards him. 

“Angel, they’ve got guns pointed at your head, now is not the time for heroics, alright? You and I both know that you don’t want the paperwork, so-“ he sounded almost beseeching, but the fancy demon remained resolute.

”I’m perfectly capable of handling this myself, thank you,” he insisted smugly. “I have a Plan!”

”Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” came the glum reply.

”Nonsense. Now,” his gaze suddenly turned itself back to Dean, razor sharp. “Where was I? Right, yes, that’s where you gentlemen are wrong!”

He snapped his fingers smartly, and Dean felt a weight lift from his fingers. Looking down, he found that his gun had vanished and he let out a snarl of frustration. 

“What the hell did you do, you bastard?” Dean growled, pulling a knife from the waistband of his jeans. Seconds later it was flying through the air in a neat trajectory towards its target, poised to hit, when- Snap

The demon snapped his fingers again and the knife vanished in thin air, inches away from his head. Dean cursed.

”I think that you’ll find that quite ineffectual, you know,” the smug bastard said in that stupidly posh voice of his and Dean’s hand stilled as it crept towards his second and last knife. 

Then: “Angel, there’s a bit of a problem,” came the voice of the first demon, strained and distorted as though it’s owner was trying very hard not to breathe. 

Dean watched as the gaze of the demon before him slipped away to focus on what was happening behind him. He watched his face fall, delicate features scrunching up and smug bravado replaced with a fear that seemed to cloud his vision. Slowly, Dean turned.

There, Sam stood, holy water in hand, towering above the figure that cowered in the chair.

”Oh, bugger.”

***

”So,” Crowley asked, five minutes later, after Sam and Dean had left the room once more, triumphant in the knowledge that they now had two demons captured, “ how’s that Plan working out for you, Angel?”

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“Look, Sammy, it’s simple,” Dean said firmly, fixing him with a deepening glare. 

“I just don’t think it’s that easy, Dean.”

”That’s what you always say.”

Dean sighed, frustrated that they were wasting time arguing over something which seemed to have such an obvious solution. It had been several minutes since they had tied up the second demon, several minutes since they should’ve ganked the two sons of bitches and been on their way, but here they still were arguing over the same problem. If anything, they were just going in circles, doing nothing more than wasting time, and it was making Dean antsy. 

He was tired; tired of the situation, tired of Bobby’s unhelpful advice, and right now? He was damn tired of this conversation. 

Exasperated, he clenched his fists open and closed, grounding himself in the motion. 

“Okay, what do you think we should do then?” Sam asked, not rising to the bait. He looked resigned though, face scrunched into something that said that he didn’t really want to get into this right now. Well, that made two of them. 

“Exactly what we always do. This is just like any other job; we find the demon, we ice the bastard and then we move on! There’s nothing more to it than that.” 

Without really meaning to, he had slipped into shouting. Carefully, he lowered his voice back to a biting whisper, just in case the demons could hear him through the wall. He didn’t want to tip them off about what they were planning, although, really, it didn’t matter anyway because the only thing they should be planning was putting a knife in them and blowing this strange town. Hell, the whole damn country if he could help it. 

“Come on, Dean, this isn’t like any job we’ve done before,” Sam interjected, turning to face the door. He jerked a thumb towards it as he continued, “Do you really think that those are ordinary demons in there? They’re not like any demons I’ve ever seen before.” 

“So, what? We just let them go? Leave them here? That what you’re saying?”

”Obviously that’s not what I’m suggesting, Dean! I just think that there’s more going on here and I don’t think we should rush into anything, that’s all.”

Dean sighed again, scrubbing a hand across his face and massaging his fingers into the corners of his eyes. Nothing about this made sense. Not from the start, not now, and he would still much rather shoot, or in this case, knife, first, and ask questions later. 

“Oh yeah, let’s just wait for more of their little pals to show up, that’s a real bright idea.” 

Sam gave him another one of his resigned looks. This time though, it was definitely tinged with annoyance. It was the kind of look that said really? and are we actually going to have this argument right now? and Come on, Dean, you know that I have a point.

“We have no idea if there are any more of them,” Sam said, and it was the first thing that Dean found that he could agree on.

”Exactly! We have no idea! Every second we’re wasting here having this conversation, every second those sons of bitches aren’t dead, we’re putting ourselves at risk. Everything about this stinks, and I ain’t just gonna wait around for more of them to show up and turn us into mincemeat.” 

With that, he gripped the knife tighter and turned to go back into the room. The whole thing was beginning to give him the heebie jeebies. Hell, the posh demon had clean snapped his gun out of the air, and that just wasn’t normal. 

He was used to demons and used to the ways that they used their meat suits as playthings. Ever since he was a kid he had pored over the pages of his dad’s journal, read it cover to cover absorbing everything he could about demons and the other horrors that lurked between the pages. It made for terrifying bedtime reading, but he had absorbed it all, mentally cataloguing every note on demons before he had even left highschool. Since then, he had grown a lot, seen a lot of things that made the journal look like light reading, but this?

No, this was something else entirely, and the whole thing made him more nervous than he would ever like to admit. He still couldn’t shake the way that the affected bastard had vanished the gun. He hadn’t even blinked, hadn’t even batted an eye, hell, he had simply laughed and snapped his fingers like it was some sort of magic trick. 

Could he do that with people? Just snap his fingers, or give someone a glance and then vwoosh, someone’s life gone, snuffed out just like that? It was a sobering thought, and while Dean was certainly no stranger to death, it didn’t make the idea of it any easier. Even more sobering was the idea that he might have been holding back. 

He was pulled from his thoughts by Sam’s fingers clasping around his wrist, tugging him back from the door and back into reality. 

“You’re not listening to me!” Finally, Sam was starting to lose his cool as well. He levelled a glower in Dean’s direction and pressed on even as Dean opened his mouth to speak. “We don’t know how many of them there are, or how powerful they are, anything. But they’re our best source of information right now. I say that we talk to them. It’s better that than killing them and losing any information they have.”

”I don’t like it,” Dean said instinctually. He yanked his arm back away from Sam’s grasp harder than he needed to. Sam’s fingers loosened easily, letting him go and leaving him with his own wrist held awkwardly against his chest. 

“Come on, Dean,” Sam cajoled, and really, Dean decided, it was unfair that Sam could still sway him after all of those years of growing up from being a scrawny kid with puppy dog eyes. “It’s the best opportunity we’ll have,” he added. 

Dean found that he didn’t disagree, necessarily, much to his own annoyance. He still didn’t like it, though. 

“Alright,” he said, finally, grinding out the word like it personally wrong him. “But we make it quick, capiche? Any sign of any funny business we gank them and get the hell out of dodge.”

Sam nodded, serious. Dean did one last check of his remaining weapons, and then rested his hand against the door that separated them from the demons. 

“Come on, Sammy, let’s raise some hell.”