Work Text:
A/N: Just a bit of fluffiness my slightly obsessed with Good Omens brain decided to shove at me.
No specific setting or time frame, so picture your ideal old timey village in your favorite time period where they’d likely burn a witch.
They just don’t do things in small measures, do they? the demon Crowley noted as he watched the townspeople gather anything that was even slightly flammable. One small comment. Wasn’t even directed at anyone, really. Just… tossed out there. Didn’t think anyone actually heard it.
Crowley sighed and stopped as a group of men carried a bedframe down the narrow lane, having a great deal of trouble maneuvering it around an awkward corner.
“Right. Would’ve made sense to dismantle it first,” he muttered under his breath as the frame crashed into the wall of a house, bounced into the building opposite, then hit the first wall once more. The men set it down to try and puzzle out their problem. Crowley rolled his eyes behind dark lenses and turned around to find another route to the small inn where he'd taken a room. He had to wait as villagers carrying more wood walked towards the village square.
“Mew?” Crowley looked down as a small kitten bumped against his ankle.
“Oh, hello.” Crowley bent down and carefully scooped the kitten up. He was rewarded with loud purrs and a head-butt to his chin. “Tempt you to a bit of dinner?” he asked the tiny tan furball. Louder purring was the kitten’s response. “Temptation accomplished, I assume? Let’s go see what we can find.”
A jug of wine and a bowl of stew is what Crowley found in the eerily quiet common room where, just a few short hours ago, he had managed to set a witch burning in motion. He settled the kitten on his shoulder so both hands were free, regretting it as soon as very sharp claws dug into his shoulder for security and stability. He grabbed the bowl and the jug and made his way upstairs to the small room he’d taken. Once there, he set the bowl on the ground, set the kitten in front of it, and snapped his fingers to light the small candle that sat on the bedside stand.
“Go on,” he told the kitten, who was staring at him with curiosity (or, with murderous intent–never could tell with cats.) “Eat it while it’s warm. Won’t be as tasty when it congeals.” The kitten blinked once before sniffing at the bowl. After a moment, a little pink tongue darted out for a small taste. After some chop licking and serious contemplation, the kitten heartily attacked the stew. Taking his glasses off and placing them on the stand, Crowley watched the little ball of fluff ravenously attack a chunk of meat.
“Y’know, sometimes I think the vague orders are the worst. Sure, lots of leeway, good chance to get creative…” He sighed, unstoppered the jug and took a long pull of the wine. “Don’t even take much effort, sometimes. Like today! All I said was ‘Weird, innit?’ Didn’t even put much suggestion into it. I didn’t even say what ‘it’ was!” he said in his own defense before taking another long drink.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched the kitten eat. After he was silent for a while, the kitten looked up at him and flicked its right ear. “No, you’re right… I’m blameless. For as easy as it was, one of ‘em would’ve come to it on their own.” As he spoke, the kitten went back to eating, so Crowley sipped his wine, aired his thoughts, and watched the kitten greedily scarf the contents of the bowl.
“Scary, really, that no one stopped and said ‘Maybe we should hear her out?’ Oh, no! From ‘weird’ to ‘burn her!’ with barely any in-between! ‘Course, even if someone had said it, and if they actually got the crowd to listen to her…” Another sip and another long sigh. “That mob’s mind was so made up they wouldn’t’ve believed her if she had said the sky was up.” Crowley thought about the way his softly spoken musing had rippled away from him, out across the lunch crowd in the common room in much the same way waves moved outward from a rock thrown into placid water.
The kitten, having had its fill of stew, sat back and began cleaning its muzzle. “Guess sometimes it’s just easier to let someone else do the thinking. Can get you into a lot of trouble, though, just following the crowd. All sorts of trouble. Believe me.”
The kitten flicked its eyes up toward the demon, and Crowley wanted to believe he saw empathy and understanding in that brief gaze. But, it was probably just the wavering shadows cast by the candle. One corner of the demon’s mouth quirked up in a smile as he watched the small cat fussily clean its toes.
“How’d your feet get so dirty that you’re chewing them off, hmm?” he wondered fondly.
The kitten ignored him for a moment while it finished its grooming. But when it was done, it looked up at Crowley, gave a chirpy little meow, and with what could best be described as "tail wiggles of great determination”, attempted to leap up to the bed. It didn’t succeed; only got about two thirds of the way before it had to dig its claws into the blanket to keep from crashing back to the floor. Crowley gave the kitten a bit of support so it could scramble the rest of the way up. Once on the flat surface, it sat next to Crowley and waved one little paw at the demon, showing off its claws.
“Oh, very nice. I have those, too.” He held out a hand, which now sported long, sharp, black nails. The kitten sniffed at one curiously, chewed on it briefly, then decided it was perfect to rub its chin against.
“Ah, yes, the demon Crowley,” he murmured in a voice heavy with sarcasm as he flexed his fingers to scratch the fuzzy face, “serpent of temptation, tormenter of Job, and obvious terror to all creatures great and small.” The way the kitten leaned into the scratching, and the excessive purring it produced, was a good indication of just how terrifying it found Crowley.
“Good at keeping me humble, aren’t you? Even though…” He gave a rueful chuckle. “Can’t believe I thought…. I should have known you weren’t, of course. I mean, he can’t… Well, he can, but there’s likely a rule against it. There’s a rule against all the fun stuff, upstairs. I know, that makes no sense to you,” he said to the look of confusion the cat gave him. Do I… miss… Aziraphale? Must do, if I scooped up some random kitten that’s vaguely similar in color to the outfit he was wearing the last time I saw him. Great! Next I’ll be chatting with a snow-covered mountain because it reminds me of his hair.
The kitten decided it was time to climb up Crowley’s arm. The demon let it, wincing each time a sharp nail dug deep enough. He could have made it not hurt, but at least the physical pain made sense, unlike the weird ache that had settled deep inside for … probably been close to seventy years, since the last time he’d run into the odd little angel.
The kitten was very fascinated with the demon mark by his ear, sniffing and gently pawing at it, and at one point even running its rough tongue over it. That was a little too much for Crowley, so he picked the kitten up and set it on the bed beside him.
“You’d like him. Decent fella. ‘Course, he’s an angel; sorta has to be decent. But he’s not stuffy, like th’others. Insufferable bunch, that lot.” Crowley took another drink, then stretched out on the bed with one arm behind his head and the wine jug resting against his hip. “Him though? He’s different. He’s actually compassionate. Gave away a literal God-blessed artifact because he was worried for the humans whose lives I’d just ruined. I called him out on it, and it was funny, ‘cuz he knew he’d get in trouble if he ever got found out, and he wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing. Even now, he sometimes wonders.
“But, if he had to do it again, he’d do it the exact same because it was a good thing, a caring thing. Most angels, they just care about the big picture: are the humans behaving well enough or do we need to toss out another catastrophe to get them back in line? Is Hell getting too much traction with the mortals? Do we need to wipe a city or two off the map to prove our Heavenly point?
“But him? He cares about the moment, the right there and then, not so much the overall Plan. Least, not any more.” The kitten was pressed against his side, looking directly at him. “I made an angel– an angel!--question THE PLAN. He lied to the higher ups. That was his own decision, not mine! But, really, what else was he gonna do? Condemn children to death? Nah, not him. I couldn’t even do that, and I’m the bad guy.”
He swallowed the last dregs of wine and set the jug on the floor. “S’weird, really. I shouldn’t hope to run into him, shouldn’t enjoy spending time with him when I do. But, for all that we’re s’possed t’be enemies, he’s really the only being I enjoy talking with. Uh, no offense; you just don’t really have much to contribute, conversation wise.”
The kitten climbed up onto his chest and sat there, regarding the demon with one of those mysterious cat gazes that could mean anything from contentment to curiosity to plotting mass destruction. “S’not your fault, but in Her infinite wisdom, She decided the world would be better off if your kind couldn’t verbally boss humans around.”
“Mrrp?”
“’S true! Your lot would probably rule the world if anyone could actually understand you.” Crowley reached out and brushed the soft fur between the cat’s ears. “I’m glad you can’t tell anyone about this. And don’t you go gossiping to every other purring furball that I was nice to you. I’ve got a reputation to uphold!”
The cat blinked slowly.
“Okay, fine, maybe it isn’t an entirely earned reputation. Maybe I took a little credit for things humans did on their own, and yes, maybe I’ve done one or two things that weren’t exactly demonic in nature.” A lot more than one or two, honestly, and usually because Aziraphale somehow convinced him, whether through reason or just an imploring look that Crowley found hard to resist at times.
“But you can’t always be evil, just like you can’t always be good. Sometimes an angel needs to break the rules, and sometimes a demon needs to follow them. Neither of us like it, but I think it’s worse for him. I mean, demons? We’re supposed to break rules, so in a way, following them is sort of rebellious. But angels? Annoyingly obedient, usually. Follow God’s laws and it’ll all be fine.” Crowley snorted.
“And just how did that work out for Job? Most devoted human on the planet, and he gets used as a pawn in some stupid game between Heaven and Hell! That’s when Aziraphale started to understand the way things really are; started to see that it’s not all black and white, right and wrong, good and evil.” Crowley sighed, and the kitten adjusted itself on his chest, getting more comfortable and beginning to purr.
The sound and the vibration against his sternum were soothing. Between that and the jug of wine flowing through his bloodstream, Crowley felt himself growing drowsy. He tried to move the kitten, since he’d never slept with another creature and did not want the first time to be with a cat. That’s when he discovered that cats could mysteriously increase their mass and become nearly unmovable.
“Really? This is how it’s going to go?” he asked the kitten, who just nuzzled its head under the demon’s chin and purred harder. Crowley acknowledged his defeat by saying “Okay, this is indeed how it’s going to go.”
It didn’t take long for the demon to fall asleep, kitten on his chest purring contentedly. But when Crowley woke up as the eastern sky blushed with the first hint of dawn, he was alone. He didn’t know how the cat had gotten out of the room, since both the door and the small window were latched closed, but cats were weird and tended to ignore the general rules of physics, so he didn’t give it much more thought. In a rather uncharacteristic move, Crowley picked up the wine jug and empty bowl from the floor and carried them downstairs, setting them on an empty table near the kitchen door, then he made his way out of town.
He was surprised to see the kitten sitting by the road heading eastward. The little tan fluff ball was gazing intently at the sky. Crowley tried to figure out what had caught its attention, but all he saw was one cloud gently drifting along.
“What, you trying to glower that cloud into submission?” Crowley asked. The kitten ignored him.
Crowley could hear the town waking up, sounds of excitement carrying through the air as the townsfolk prepared for their impromptu witch burning. Crowley growled in frustration; he’d hoped they’d have forgotten about it, or at least come to their senses after a good night’s sleep, but of course they hadn’t. To his surprise and slight amusement, the kitten growled with him.
“Humans,” Crowley hissed to the tiny feline, who was still staring at…whatever it was staring at. Crowley looked up at the sky, at that solitary cloud. It wasn’t much, but Crowley had worked with less. “You’ll want to find someplace high and dry within the next five minutes,” Crowley told the kitten. “Gonna be hard for them to build a fire in a downpour.”
It was a matter of a thought, a small bit of power, and a snap of his fingers (that part wasn’t actually necessary, it just looked cool), but soon that lonely cloud began to grow in size. It grew from an innocuous white wisp to an ominous dark mass. More clouds began rolling in, obeying the command Crowley’s power had issued. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as the wind began to lash at trees. The first few raindrops fell, fat and heavy.
Crowley thought he may have gone overboard, his anger at the humans for being so idiotically human had lent more force to the cursed thunderstorm than he had intended, but he didn’t care. Let it rain for forty days and forty nights if it would keep them from killing a woman who had probably done nothing remotely evil in her life, certainly nothing that warranted being burned alive by a group of morons with no critical thinking skills.
He looked down at the little kitten. “Thanks for letting me ramble last night. You’re a very good listener.” The furry little face turned up to him. “You really should go find someplace safe to ride this out, though. It’s going to get fierce here in a minute.”
Crowley gave a small nod of goodbye and turned away, ready to head on to the next town and whatever orders Hell might have for him. He didn’t get too far before something sharp dug into his calf, then his thigh, his back, and finally his shoulder. That something booped the side of his face and purred loudly in his ear.
“I didn’t mean me when I said someplace high and dry,” Crowley laughed as the kitten perched on his shoulder. The kitten purred louder and rubbed its head against Crowley’s cheek. “Fine,” Crowley sighed. “But keep those toe daggers out of my skin, would’ya?”
And so, with a storm brewing behind him, a kitten on his shoulder, and an angel not far from his mind, the demon Crowley moved on.