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"I want my angel back," Crowley suddenly says and rolls his glass of whiskey as if expecting to find all the answers in it.
"What?" Sam can’t help but ask.
King of Crossroads looks tired of everything at once: of existing, of fighting, of having to do something every day. Of having to put up a façade. He takes his time and Sam expects him to say it’s some kind of a joke so he can finally snap at somebody already because it’s the end of the world as they know it, and the demon talks nonsense.
But then said demon starts talking and his voice is hurt and broken at the edges.
"I want Aziraphale to never have listened to me, to never have thought it was a good idea to stop the Apocalypse. I want to go back in time, I want to change the past, I want to stop it all without him even knowing. I want Adam to be safe. I want to be able to come to a certain bookstore in Soho and I want it to be open. I want my life back - all that stupid little things that made me seem to be human. I want rendezvous at Ritz, I want to feed ducks at St James Park. I want it back."
"What are you talking about?" Sam inquires because it doesn’t make sense.
"Don’t you get it, Moose?" the demon mocks and there’s emptyness behind his words instead of cockiness and it’s wrong, it makes Sam itchy, it makes him feel sorry, it makes him feel as if the demon in front of him has lost someone important, someone close.
"I want revenge," Crowley snarls. "I want to show them what’s Hell really like. I want to stop their stupid plans, I want there to be agony and burnt wings because every damn time I close my eyes all I see are wing-shaped ashes at the wooden floor.”
Sam stares because he’s lost enough people to know how it hurts, how the feeling never leaves.
"Do you understand now? You make choices and you pay for them. You make choices and they lead to consequences. You make choices and you make mistakes. And then you realize that it’s all the same in the end. You realize it wasn’t worth it.”
"Who’s Aziraphale?" Sam asks carefully as if afraid the demon will stop talking.
Crowley laughs until the sound dies in his throat, until he can’t think straight and then he tells Sam a tale about a demon with a spark of goodness inside of him and an angel who was just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.
Sam doesn’t interrupt and then Crowley tells him a tale about the price being too high for a certain angel, about being late.
Crowley tells him a tale about Fate being a bitch, about a dead body and burnt wings on the wooden floors.
Crowley doesn’t need to tell him a tale about losing hope and wanting revenge. Sam knows it by heart now.