![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Some light, soft angst, I think
Title: Interludes
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens
Continuity: Follows on from Home
Characters/Pairings: Bobby, Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel. Sam and Dean too, but they're taking their turn to be unconscious this chapter. Aziraphale/Crowley, Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel, mentions Bobby/Karen (his wife) and Crowley/female!serpent
Summary: The angels (and demon) get themselves sorted out while the boys rest and Bobby looks on in bemusement
Wordcount: 4950
Warnings/Notes: Crowley did more things in the Garden than tempt humans with apples, I warn you. Also, I tried to reconciles GO recorporations and SPN possessions, possibly badly. Just so you know
Disclaimer: None of it is mine
Alright. Maybe he was a little surprised about that last part. Also a little ... concerned. But neither Sam nor Dean complained, or even really noticed, falling in with barely a word and a angel apiece and out like lights in minutes. Dean maybe spared him a whole second of looking sheepish first. Sam didn't even bother with that. Castiel, of course, was out the whole time. Gabriel, though ... the archangel had stared quietly up at him from Sam's arms for a long, long minute, expression somewhere between worried and defiant and ... oddly fragile, silently daring him to make something of it.
He would have, of course. Probably should have. But he'd just walked up the stairs on his own two feet for the first time in months, and his boys seemed fine, if tired, and ... well, he just wasn't bothered right then. To be blunt. They were tired, he was happy, and nobody needed an Inquisition right this minute.
Later. He promised himself. Later.
Which left him and Abbott and Costello as the only conscious beings in the house. Which was fine, because he had a few questions for those two. An angel and a demon working together made him ever-so-slightly suspicious. An angel and a demon anywhere near his boys made him very suspicious.
An angel and a demon so obviously gay for each other it wasn't even funny showing up at the same time both his boys apparently decided angel boyfriends were the way to go ...
First though, he needed to pry the angel away from his books. Emphasis on pry. Given said angel's white-knuckled attachment to the shelves, he wondered if he should get the winch in outta the yard. Or, given the sub-vocal croons as the angel stroked and murmured over some of the older volumes, possibly a bucket of ice-water and a restraining order, shotgun not-so-optional extra. You know. Either or.
"You haven't a hope, you know," a quiet voice spoke up from a patch of sunlight under the window. Bobby blinked at the snake languidly sunning himself.
"'Scuse me?"
The snake smirked. Bobby hadn't known snakes could smirk, but there was no mistaking that expression anywhere. The snake smirked.
"Dearest! There's a 17th century copy of the Malleus Maleficarum here! Not to mention a copy of the Formicarius! 19th century, mind, and badly translated here or there ... Oh! The Pseudomonarchia!"
"Should toss that one," the snake commented idly. "I'm not even in it! What kind of demonic compendium doesn't mention me? Honestly!"
"One you doctored back in the 16th century specifically so it wouldn't?" the angel returned archly, in between humming happily to himself and petting the book in question. "You never liked being summoned, dearest. I don't see why you should complain now."
"Just get no respect, is all," the demon grumbled back, shifting his coils in a gesture that on a human would be a defensive crossing of his arms. "Humans never respect you unless you've got your name in a big, dusty book written by mushroom-snorting medieval madmen. Though I'd bet they wouldn't be near so respectful if they'd ever actually met the buggers. Any demon stupid enough to let himself be called up by that lot ..."
"Gets what he deserves, yes."
Bobby wondered if the angel was actually even listening. He had that air of someone carrying on an old, familiar conversation entirely on autopilot, so comfortable that no thought was needed whatsoever. The demon, too, seemed barely awake, lazing in the sun, mouth running on automatic. Back and forth, ebb and flow, two people so used to each other that they didn't even need to talk, as such. Just wanted to, for the pleasure of hearing the other's voice, for the comfort of knowing they were near.
For a second, he missed Karen so badly it hurt. For a second, he felt his hands curl into light fists, finger tingling with phantom pain. Not just physical, those pains, though he'd had that kind too, of late. People were wrong about that. Sometimes the deepest pains came from wounds that were never physical. The body remembered love. No matter who told you different. The body remembered who you'd lost.
"Coffee?" he grunted abruptly, turning towards the kitchen in a hurry, to hide the pain. Uncurling his aching hands, making them work, keeping them busy. Shoving the pain away. Putting on a pot without ever stopping to hear the answer. If there was one. Not listening, not thinking ...
"Mr Singer? Robert?"
The angel had followed him, expression soft and concerned, hands wringing gently in confusion. Bobby wanted to growl at him, tell him to go away, but ... he had his legs back because of this guy. For no better reason than apparently he was a 'good man'. A few manners maybe mightn't go astray.
"Yeah, sorry," he mumbled, mostly staring at the floor. At his feet. His feet.
"Did I ... I'm sorry, it's just books ... I can never resist, you know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend, not in your home."
Bobby blinked up at him, at a face full of genuine confusion and apology, and had to wrestle for a minute with a lifetime's worth of hunter's instinct that cried 'false!' at it. Because those instincts kept running up against something, some basic thing about this angel that pinged some deeper instinct again, and that instinct whispered 'safe'. This person is safe. This person will not harm you. And the hunter yelled back, 'whammy'. And the quiet thing said, simply, flatly, 'no'. Not this one. Not this time.
For the second time in his life, he didn't know which to listen to. For the second time in his life, the instinct he wanted to obey was not the sensible one. For the second time in his life ... he could do nothing except put off the choice, and hope it resolved itself in the meantime.
"Wasn't you," he muttered at last. "Don't worry about it. Wasn't you." He paused, shuffled, vaguely annoyed at how damn stupid this angel made him feel. Bastard had no right to do that, to just randomly up and heal him two minutes after meeting him. Should warn a body, if you're gonna do shit like that. "Uh. Coffee?"
The angel blinked a bit, then smiled hopefully. "I don't ... I don't suppose you have any tea, instead?"
Bobby gave him the fish-eye, but the hopeful look never faltered. "Don't think so. Sorry."
The angel's face fell for a second. Then he raised a hand, made an odd little 'lookee' gesture, and asked. "Then do you mind if I ... I've never really gotten the hang of coffee, you see ...?"
Bobby stared. "Whatever you want, man." The angel beamed, and miracled himself up a cup of tea, looking back to call over his shoulder.
"Will you join us, dearest?"
"Ssssleeping, angel!" the demon hissed back lazily. "Making nicccce isssn't my job, remember?"
The angel turned back to Bobby with a roll of his eyes. "Aren't we lucky?" he muttered under his breath, and Bobby cracked a grin without realising it.
"You love him," he said, flatly. Getting it out there. The angel blinked at him, faintly wary, beaming.
"I do," he said, equally simple, then flushed a little and shook his head. "Is it showing again? Crowley hates that." A faint smile, fondly tolerant. "Demons aren't supposed to love, you know."
"I know," Bobby said, watching the small flinch, regretting it a little. "Seems to love you back, though?"
Aziraphale smiled then. Deeply, truly. "Does it show?" he asked, richly amused, vibrant, and Bobby had to smile again.
"Yeah," he said. "It shows." It did. It went contrary to everything, everything he knew about demons, everything he expected of them ... but the quiet, happy ease between these two was as familiar as breathing to him, or used to be, and there was no way he could ever mistake it. None. "It shows."
The angel bit his lip around a smile, and leaned in conspiratorially. "Don't tell him," he whispered, close to Bobby. "He doesn't know he does it. Don't tell him." A tiny shake of the head, eyes sparkling a little. "It wouldn't be half so much fun if he knew."
Bobby hid a grin, and tucked hands that had begun to stop aching around a mug. "Secret's safe with me, angel. Secret's safe."
Secret wasn't particularly secret, maybe, but it was safe. Bobby remembered his own fair share of transparent pretenses, the little props to pride that held a man together, kept him going, kept him safe or at least less vulnerable. The little lies that everybody saw through and nobody mentioned because sometimes the lie was all that kept the pain or fear at bay. Oh yeah. Bobby understood that.
Secret was safe with him, alright. It was safe.
He was warm. Pressed in between two bodies, tucked against someone's chest, an arm curled protectively around his head, the other draped over his back. There were more arms, wrapped around the body behind him, which was ... strange. Very strange. Only the warm smell of Dean under his nose, the soft rise and fall of the chest in front of him, kept him from trying to move, untangle himself, see what the danger was. Only the little noises that meant Dean was asleep, at rest, not just knocked out ...
"Hey, little brother." The voice was soft, sleepy. Pressed against his back, warm behind him. Gabriel.
"Where are we?" he whispered, softly so as not to wake Dean. He turned his head, very carefully, leaning back a little to try and see his brother. Dean made a quiet noise of complaint, and Castiel stopped instinctively. Behind him, Gabriel snickered gently.
"Bobby's, bro," the archangel explained, wriggling an arm free of what was presumably Sam to catch Castiel's hand and worm his fingers through, thumb brushing soothingly. "Got here a while back. You were out of it."
Out of it. That was ... one way to put it. Castiel remembered. Remembered ... His hand tightened unconsciously, squeezed in remembered fear and desperation, and Gabriel's breath hitched, the smaller hand wrapping tighter around his, his brother pressing closer against his back.
"Did it work?" Castiel asked, carefully. It should have, if they were here, but if it hadn't, if they'd had to remove the wings anyway, if his Grace hadn't been enough ...
"It worked," Gabriel cut off the thought, voice sounding almost crushed. "It worked, Castiel. It ... It worked."
There was a silence, then, the weight of too many things hanging in the air, and Castiel didn't know how to deal with that. He'd never had to before. Except maybe once with Anna. Never had to pick and choose around unsafe things, never had to learn how to say a thing so it didn't hurt. Never had to feel, to connect. Never had something so fragile as someone's emotions mean so much to him. It had been simple, before. He'd been a soldier. Many things ... had been simple then.
"I'm ... glad," he said at last. Cautiously, into Gabriel's watchful silence. "I did not want ... I am glad it worked, Gabriel."
Gabriel made a little noise, something Castiel had no template for, and squeezed his hand. That seemed to be all he was capable of. Castiel squeezed back, and hoped it was close to what he was supposed to do here. More words seemed ... useless.
"Castiel," the archangel said at last. "I ... " He made a noise, frustration, self-amusement, fingers worrying against Castiel's palm. "I want to thank you. And I want to yell at you. I'm not sure which is stronger at the minute."
Castiel thought about that. "Yelling will wake Sam and Dean," he offered, after a second. Gabriel snorted.
"Point. But, little brother ... Alright. This is the one and only time in my life I'm going to agree with Dean Winchester, so I'll thank you not to mention it. Ever. But ... whether or not it seems to make tactical sense ... you are not expendable to us, Castiel. You're not expendable to me. Okay? So, in future ... I can afford to lose a few wings, rather than you. I may be ... psychotically attached to them, but I'd sooner ... At least consider it, will you? I know survival instinct isn't currently in vogue upstairs, but you could at least try ..."
Too many things to say. Again. For the first time, Castiel understood Dean's urge to make light of things, to say the first foolish thing to come to mind, because all other things were too heavy, sitting in his chest like physical things. But ... there were things Gabriel did not understand. Things Sam and Dean did not understand either, or even Aziraphale. Crowley ... well. That depended on whether or not the Serpent remembered, but Castiel thought he did. Thought he might. But Gabriel did not. And Castiel rather thought now would be a good time to explain.
"Gabriel," he said, very softly, eyes closed and face tucked into Dean's chest, hand curled tight against his brother's. "It is not that I am expendable. It has never been that. You need to understand this."
The archangel was quiet for a second. Actually thinking about it. Gabriel had come a long way, in a very short time. Castiel was almost proud, or would be, if he was any further along himself. "What is it, then?"
"I don't act because I think I am expendable," Castiel said slowly, pointedly. "I act because I think I am capable, Gabriel. Because I think these are things I can do. I may be the least experienced angel here. I may be the least powerful. But I am not a child, brother. And I am not stupid. I survived Hell. I survived the loss of my Grace, and managed to fight despite it. I survived openly defying Heaven itself. With help, yes, but I survived. I have been a soldier for six thousand years. I know how to judge risks."
Gabriel made a little noise, as if he wanted to interrupt, but Castiel cut across him. Quietly, even still.
"I did not offer you my Grace because I wanted to die, or thought if anyone had to it should be me. I offered you my Grace because I thought it would work. I thought I could free you without taking what is precious to you. And I was right. And will be right again." He paused, weighing his words, then said, very softly, very quietly. "There are things I cannot fight. I know that. But there are things I can, and ways around even when I can't, and I promise you I will find those ways. Every time. I can ... I can protect you, Gabriel. I can ... watch your back. I can. Trust me for that. Please."
The archangel froze, stiff and still, enough that Sam moved in his sleep, vague distress, and the form against Castiel's back moved as Sam pulled Gabriel instinctively closer, holding him tighter. Castiel felt his lips curve into a smile against Dean's chest.
"It's not ..." Gabriel whispered, muffled by Sam's 'octopus arms', still clinging to Castiel's hand awkwardly. "It's not that I don't believe you can, Castiel. It's ... I just ... don't understand why you want to." Quiet, nervous, and Castiel somehow had the impression that the archangel was very, very glad they were not in a position to look at each other right now. For some reason, people had trouble meeting his eyes in moments like this.
But the question itself -and it was a question, despite the phrasing, even Castiel knew that- the question itself was easily answered. Maybe easier, since he'd begun his travels with the Winchesters, maybe clearer to him than it had once been. Because family meant something now, meant more than comrades and brothers-in-arms. Family meant family, now. It meant Dean and Sam, and Gabriel, and Aziraphale and Crowley and Bobby. It had meant, for so little time, Jo and Ellen. It had meant Anna, so briefly, so terribly. It meant.
"Because you are my brother," he whispered, held close between Dean and Gabriel and Sam, into the morning silence. "And I love you."
And if the quiet sounds that followed were those of an archangel softly crying ... well. Castiel had learned there were times when silence spoke as well as words, and his hand never let go.
Sweet Manchester, he was maudlin now. And he hadn't even had a drink yet! But the world was warm, and dust motes danced, and Crowley lay on the carpet in a stranger's house, and felt distantly at home. Soft and sleepy and warm.
He was building up to the change. Nice and slow. Easy does it. Being a snake again was ... nice in its own way, and useful, and had done a lovely job of freaking out the two boys earlier, but he sort of missed opposable thumbs. He sort of missed fingers in general. And wings. And hair. And Aziraphale, but that was a different thing.
Point was, it was past time for him to scoop the angel up, rather than the other way around.
But the change wasn't that simple. Not this time. His old corporation had been good. So used to being manipulated up and down that it almost went on autopilot. The atoms in it had been thrown back into Hell and out again so many times over the millennia that sometimes Crowley swore the body remembered more than he did. The only one of its kind, except for Aziraphale's, and he'd been rather fond of it. He'd had it since Eden, for Someone's sake! Destroyed, over and over, every time Aziraphale or some human or ridiculous accident had discorporated him, and the baseline interface between Earth and Hell remade it for him, stuffed him back in, and pitched him back to Earth. It had gotten to the point where he almost knew every atom of his old body by name.
But then the last Apocalypse had happened, and Hell had, with extreme prejudice, shut down his department. The only demon on Earth with free access to a regenerating body, and they'd cut him off. Crowley wasn't even sure how. All he knew was that, climbing out of Hell that last time, barely two years ago, fresh from twenty years of Alastair and the quest of an insane angel, crossing the barrier had not, for the first time in millennia, granted him back his old form. He'd been forced to possess, for just about the first time in his life. Not for a job, but simply to survive.
Aziraphale had recognised him very quickly, after that. The empty voice on the phone cursing in every language ever known to man might have been a hint. Crowley had body-hopped across most of a continent before reaching that point, whispering in gullible ear after gullible ear, never staying more in any one longer than he had to. He couldn't bear staying. Though all of them had let him in, granted instinctive permission with a little hint here or there, he still couldn't bear the thoughts rubbing up against him, bear the dizzy spin of a human mind under his. He'd been alone in his head for millennia. It drove him crazy, listening to that.
And then, Aziraphale found him. Found him, and found him a body, too. Because Crowley had more advantages than Hell, Heaven, or anyone else who wasn't his angel knew.
Such as the fact that, while possessing his original body for the first time, a rather handsome male serpent, if he didn't say so himself ... well, there had been a lovely female in Eden, all ready for him, hadn't there? And the serpent inside him had rather liked her, and she'd had scales to die for, and Crowley hadn't yet completely mastered the art of controlling the serpent, and it was the first time he, or any other angel for that matter, had ever felt lust anyway, even lust that wasn't his own ... Long story short, he'd invented beastiality, adultery-via-possession, angelic sex and the first ten rules or so of what to do when the possessee takes over the possessor (which boiled down to allowing some time to panic and then enjoying the ride, really), all in one afternoon. End result, a lineage of serpents with quite a few metaphysical genes built in that perhaps the Lord had never intended them to have, though judging that was always a bit iffy. Ineffable. Something.
Possibly he should be slightly weirded out that he was currently in the body of his great-great-great-to-the-power-of-infinity grandkid. Well. Grandkid by proxy, anyway, but it still counted. Possibly he should be slightly weirded out that said grandkid had appeared to recognise him, when it let him in, in a distant, racial memory sort of way. Possibly he should be weirded out that he had a whole species of bodies available on the planet for him at any time, that no other angel but him could use, and no-one upstairs or down had even noticed.
Possibly he should be weirded out that his legacy to the world, aside from telemarketing, pedestrian terror and the M25, was a few billion very charming great-to-eternity grandkids with decent crushing capacity and a nasty bite.
On the other hand, he was still here, the body was rather comfortable, and his angel didn't seem to mind that he was slightly more prone to hissing in it that he used to be, and tended to carry a little more weight than before. It took him longer to transform it back up after a shift than his old one, but all in all, it still suited him, he thought.
And while back on the subject, actually ...
It was always odd, the sensation. Most angels went with human forms to start with. Even Aziraphale had had his premade that shape when the Big Guy sent him down. Crowley thought he was just about the only angel going for whom shapeshifting was a physical endeavour (with the possible exception of Gabriel, who'd hijacked a god, and one prone to shifts himself to boot). Like one big full-body healing sneeze, it was.
Apparently sounded like one too, if the clatter from the kitchen and the hurried rumble of feet was anything to go by. Aziraphale recognised the sound all too well, by now. But Crowley was too busy trying to hold his head together to be able to look up at him. Taking out a small base of demons had stretched his mind a bit far, and the shift left him feeling like his brains were trickling out his ears, between his fingers.
On the upside, he now had ears and fingers.
"Dearest! Dearest, are you alright?" Soft hands wrapped around his own, pulling his fingers away from his skull, lifting his hands gently but inexorably away from his face. "Crowley, dearest! What is it, what's wrong ..."
"Hurtssss," he hissed back, trying to open his eyes and scrunching them shut again rather hurriedly. "Sssstupid, too ssssoon ... Ssssorry, angel. Thought I wassss resssted enough ..."
"Oh, you bloody idiot," Aziraphale growled, letting go of Crowley's hands to reach down and rest one soft palm over his eyes, gentle despite the temper in his voice. "Hold still, Crowley, let me ... There. One hangover cure for shapeshifting demons who shouldn't need it in the first place if they were being careful, there you go ..."
The pain and hollow, stretchy feeling in his skull dissipated, a delicious little tingling sensation reaching down from between his eyes, through his head, down along his limbs and torso, tickling his toes and sparking in his fingers, curling lightly across the wings curled in the ethereal planes. Crowley made a positively indecent noise, noting that one for later, oh yes, Aziraphale was absolutely doing that again later, in private. Or in public. Crowley wasn't fussy there.
"Dearest? Can you open your eyes now?"
He smiled, a smooth curve on his lips, and opened his eyes. To sunshine and dust, and the flushed, concerned face of his angel. Aziraphale, looming over him again, kneeling on the floor and leaning close, blue eyes shining and lips right there ...
The angel squawked at him as he lunged, hands flapping in startled protest against his shoulders, but Crowley had been wanting to kiss Aziraphale ever since he'd felt the touch of familiar Grace in that factory, ever since he realised he was still alive, his angel was still alive, they were both still there and the Devil himself hadn't yet managed to kill either of them. He'd been wanting to kiss Aziraphale that whole time, and he'd be damned all over again if he was stopping now!
Then there were arms around him, pulling him close against his angel's chest, pressing tight enough to almost crush, just tight enough, and his angel was kissing back, fierce and desperate and terribly, terribly gentle. Aziraphale curled around him, held on for dear life, making little sounds in his throat, words in the quiet of their minds, silent between them, and Crowley leaned in and drank him in. Pushed a little tingle into the kiss, maybe, a little 'hangover cure' for good measure, a little thrill to make his angel shake against him and cry. Aziraphale didn't seem to object.
There was another noise, then. A more distant noise, a clatter and splash, something hitting the floor, and a strangled squeak. Crowley frowned a bit, then remembered.
The human. Bobby. Making coffee with his angel, and then ...
Aziraphale pulled away, reluctantly, pulling Crowley's lower lip with him for a little bit, panting as he rested his forehead against Crowley's for a second, regaining composure. Crowley opened his eyes, smirked at him a tiny bit, licking said lip pointedly with a tongue that was maybe still a little forked. The angel swallowed.
"My ... My apologies, Robert," Aziraphale managed, leaning back from Crowley, looking up at the old hunter standing gobsmacked in the doorway. "I'm sorry, we ..."
"Yeah, I can see," the human cut in hurriedly, eyes darting between them a little, resting with slightly protective suspicion on Crowley for a second, and the demon had to smile at that. Aziraphale brought that out in people. Even when he was behaving scandalously with a demon on the man's floor. He brought it out in people.
"Ssssorry," he hissed himself, entirely unconvincingly, and smirked when Bobby frowned at him, hard. The human almost opened his mouth, almost started to make a point about the danger of doing certain things with demons, maybe, the dangers of trusting something like him, and then ... Then the anger faded, and the human looked at him with a complicated mix of almost-pity, and amusement, and understanding. Which had Crowley frowning and wondering what the hell his angel had been saying all of a sudden.
"Don't worry about it," the hunter drawled, mouth curling a little. "I gotta check something out in the yard anyway. You boys don't mind me ..."
Aziraphale knelt up, flustered, blushing sheepishly. "No, Robert ... Mr Singer, really, there's no need, we wouldn't ..."
"Why not?" Bobby interrupted him, gently, flashing Crowley a sly look that had him sitting up, paying attention. This man might be something interesting after all. "Ain't no-one here got any problems, angel. You do what you like. Just don't get anything nasty on my books."
Crowley snorted, as Aziraphale straightened up out of his confusion in outright affront. "I would never," the angel began heatedly, genuinely offended, and then stopped as he took in Crowley and Bobby's expressions, the twitching amusement hovering under their twin facades. "Oh, shut up the pair of you!" He sat back with a huff, arms crossing on ancient instinct, pouting so ridiculously, so deliciously, that Crowley wanted to eat him up right then and there. He swallowed.
"Thanksss, Robert," he hissed, strained, never taking his eyes off his angel. "If you don't mind ..."
The man snorted expressively, and stomped back out towards the kitchen, and presumably the yard beyond. "Oh, sort yourselves out already. Clean up after, and don't wake the boys, though, I warn you."
"Clean. Wake boyssss. Got it." Crowley repeated automatically, barely even hearing the distant response, if there was one. Already leaning in, leaning closer, reaching up with his newly returned hand to turn his angel's face back to him, to trace that pout with his thumb and watch it soften. "Got it, angel ..."
And he did. Get it, that was. He got ... all of it.
Contd: The Second Plan
Title: Interludes
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens
Continuity: Follows on from Home
Characters/Pairings: Bobby, Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel. Sam and Dean too, but they're taking their turn to be unconscious this chapter. Aziraphale/Crowley, Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel, mentions Bobby/Karen (his wife) and Crowley/female!serpent
Summary: The angels (and demon) get themselves sorted out while the boys rest and Bobby looks on in bemusement
Wordcount: 4950
Warnings/Notes: Crowley did more things in the Garden than tempt humans with apples, I warn you. Also, I tried to reconciles GO recorporations and SPN possessions, possibly badly. Just so you know
Disclaimer: None of it is mine
Interludes
It didn't take long for the boys to get settled upstairs. They were all but dead on their feet, as any idjit could see, so Bobby wasn't at all surprised when they commandeered the spare room, and the Trickster -Gabriel- magicked up a very big bed to fill it ...Alright. Maybe he was a little surprised about that last part. Also a little ... concerned. But neither Sam nor Dean complained, or even really noticed, falling in with barely a word and a angel apiece and out like lights in minutes. Dean maybe spared him a whole second of looking sheepish first. Sam didn't even bother with that. Castiel, of course, was out the whole time. Gabriel, though ... the archangel had stared quietly up at him from Sam's arms for a long, long minute, expression somewhere between worried and defiant and ... oddly fragile, silently daring him to make something of it.
He would have, of course. Probably should have. But he'd just walked up the stairs on his own two feet for the first time in months, and his boys seemed fine, if tired, and ... well, he just wasn't bothered right then. To be blunt. They were tired, he was happy, and nobody needed an Inquisition right this minute.
Later. He promised himself. Later.
Which left him and Abbott and Costello as the only conscious beings in the house. Which was fine, because he had a few questions for those two. An angel and a demon working together made him ever-so-slightly suspicious. An angel and a demon anywhere near his boys made him very suspicious.
An angel and a demon so obviously gay for each other it wasn't even funny showing up at the same time both his boys apparently decided angel boyfriends were the way to go ...
First though, he needed to pry the angel away from his books. Emphasis on pry. Given said angel's white-knuckled attachment to the shelves, he wondered if he should get the winch in outta the yard. Or, given the sub-vocal croons as the angel stroked and murmured over some of the older volumes, possibly a bucket of ice-water and a restraining order, shotgun not-so-optional extra. You know. Either or.
"You haven't a hope, you know," a quiet voice spoke up from a patch of sunlight under the window. Bobby blinked at the snake languidly sunning himself.
"'Scuse me?"
The snake smirked. Bobby hadn't known snakes could smirk, but there was no mistaking that expression anywhere. The snake smirked.
"Dearest! There's a 17th century copy of the Malleus Maleficarum here! Not to mention a copy of the Formicarius! 19th century, mind, and badly translated here or there ... Oh! The Pseudomonarchia!"
"Should toss that one," the snake commented idly. "I'm not even in it! What kind of demonic compendium doesn't mention me? Honestly!"
"One you doctored back in the 16th century specifically so it wouldn't?" the angel returned archly, in between humming happily to himself and petting the book in question. "You never liked being summoned, dearest. I don't see why you should complain now."
"Just get no respect, is all," the demon grumbled back, shifting his coils in a gesture that on a human would be a defensive crossing of his arms. "Humans never respect you unless you've got your name in a big, dusty book written by mushroom-snorting medieval madmen. Though I'd bet they wouldn't be near so respectful if they'd ever actually met the buggers. Any demon stupid enough to let himself be called up by that lot ..."
"Gets what he deserves, yes."
Bobby wondered if the angel was actually even listening. He had that air of someone carrying on an old, familiar conversation entirely on autopilot, so comfortable that no thought was needed whatsoever. The demon, too, seemed barely awake, lazing in the sun, mouth running on automatic. Back and forth, ebb and flow, two people so used to each other that they didn't even need to talk, as such. Just wanted to, for the pleasure of hearing the other's voice, for the comfort of knowing they were near.
For a second, he missed Karen so badly it hurt. For a second, he felt his hands curl into light fists, finger tingling with phantom pain. Not just physical, those pains, though he'd had that kind too, of late. People were wrong about that. Sometimes the deepest pains came from wounds that were never physical. The body remembered love. No matter who told you different. The body remembered who you'd lost.
"Coffee?" he grunted abruptly, turning towards the kitchen in a hurry, to hide the pain. Uncurling his aching hands, making them work, keeping them busy. Shoving the pain away. Putting on a pot without ever stopping to hear the answer. If there was one. Not listening, not thinking ...
"Mr Singer? Robert?"
The angel had followed him, expression soft and concerned, hands wringing gently in confusion. Bobby wanted to growl at him, tell him to go away, but ... he had his legs back because of this guy. For no better reason than apparently he was a 'good man'. A few manners maybe mightn't go astray.
"Yeah, sorry," he mumbled, mostly staring at the floor. At his feet. His feet.
"Did I ... I'm sorry, it's just books ... I can never resist, you know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend, not in your home."
Bobby blinked up at him, at a face full of genuine confusion and apology, and had to wrestle for a minute with a lifetime's worth of hunter's instinct that cried 'false!' at it. Because those instincts kept running up against something, some basic thing about this angel that pinged some deeper instinct again, and that instinct whispered 'safe'. This person is safe. This person will not harm you. And the hunter yelled back, 'whammy'. And the quiet thing said, simply, flatly, 'no'. Not this one. Not this time.
For the second time in his life, he didn't know which to listen to. For the second time in his life, the instinct he wanted to obey was not the sensible one. For the second time in his life ... he could do nothing except put off the choice, and hope it resolved itself in the meantime.
"Wasn't you," he muttered at last. "Don't worry about it. Wasn't you." He paused, shuffled, vaguely annoyed at how damn stupid this angel made him feel. Bastard had no right to do that, to just randomly up and heal him two minutes after meeting him. Should warn a body, if you're gonna do shit like that. "Uh. Coffee?"
The angel blinked a bit, then smiled hopefully. "I don't ... I don't suppose you have any tea, instead?"
Bobby gave him the fish-eye, but the hopeful look never faltered. "Don't think so. Sorry."
The angel's face fell for a second. Then he raised a hand, made an odd little 'lookee' gesture, and asked. "Then do you mind if I ... I've never really gotten the hang of coffee, you see ...?"
Bobby stared. "Whatever you want, man." The angel beamed, and miracled himself up a cup of tea, looking back to call over his shoulder.
"Will you join us, dearest?"
"Ssssleeping, angel!" the demon hissed back lazily. "Making nicccce isssn't my job, remember?"
The angel turned back to Bobby with a roll of his eyes. "Aren't we lucky?" he muttered under his breath, and Bobby cracked a grin without realising it.
"You love him," he said, flatly. Getting it out there. The angel blinked at him, faintly wary, beaming.
"I do," he said, equally simple, then flushed a little and shook his head. "Is it showing again? Crowley hates that." A faint smile, fondly tolerant. "Demons aren't supposed to love, you know."
"I know," Bobby said, watching the small flinch, regretting it a little. "Seems to love you back, though?"
Aziraphale smiled then. Deeply, truly. "Does it show?" he asked, richly amused, vibrant, and Bobby had to smile again.
"Yeah," he said. "It shows." It did. It went contrary to everything, everything he knew about demons, everything he expected of them ... but the quiet, happy ease between these two was as familiar as breathing to him, or used to be, and there was no way he could ever mistake it. None. "It shows."
The angel bit his lip around a smile, and leaned in conspiratorially. "Don't tell him," he whispered, close to Bobby. "He doesn't know he does it. Don't tell him." A tiny shake of the head, eyes sparkling a little. "It wouldn't be half so much fun if he knew."
Bobby hid a grin, and tucked hands that had begun to stop aching around a mug. "Secret's safe with me, angel. Secret's safe."
Secret wasn't particularly secret, maybe, but it was safe. Bobby remembered his own fair share of transparent pretenses, the little props to pride that held a man together, kept him going, kept him safe or at least less vulnerable. The little lies that everybody saw through and nobody mentioned because sometimes the lie was all that kept the pain or fear at bay. Oh yeah. Bobby understood that.
Secret was safe with him, alright. It was safe.
---
Castiel woke up. He seemed to be doing a lot of that, lately. Spending time with Sam and Dean seemed to involve an alarming amount of unconsciousness. So much that he knew how to do this, now. Knew how to wake without moving, how to come back to himself and silently search for danger. And more recently, newer, knew how to feel arms wrapped around him, and realise he was safe. Very, very new, only days old, that knowledge, but Castiel was always a fast learner. And this ... this he wanted to learn. This he badly wanted to learn.
He was warm. Pressed in between two bodies, tucked against someone's chest, an arm curled protectively around his head, the other draped over his back. There were more arms, wrapped around the body behind him, which was ... strange. Very strange. Only the warm smell of Dean under his nose, the soft rise and fall of the chest in front of him, kept him from trying to move, untangle himself, see what the danger was. Only the little noises that meant Dean was asleep, at rest, not just knocked out ...
"Hey, little brother." The voice was soft, sleepy. Pressed against his back, warm behind him. Gabriel.
"Where are we?" he whispered, softly so as not to wake Dean. He turned his head, very carefully, leaning back a little to try and see his brother. Dean made a quiet noise of complaint, and Castiel stopped instinctively. Behind him, Gabriel snickered gently.
"Bobby's, bro," the archangel explained, wriggling an arm free of what was presumably Sam to catch Castiel's hand and worm his fingers through, thumb brushing soothingly. "Got here a while back. You were out of it."
Out of it. That was ... one way to put it. Castiel remembered. Remembered ... His hand tightened unconsciously, squeezed in remembered fear and desperation, and Gabriel's breath hitched, the smaller hand wrapping tighter around his, his brother pressing closer against his back.
"Did it work?" Castiel asked, carefully. It should have, if they were here, but if it hadn't, if they'd had to remove the wings anyway, if his Grace hadn't been enough ...
"It worked," Gabriel cut off the thought, voice sounding almost crushed. "It worked, Castiel. It ... It worked."
There was a silence, then, the weight of too many things hanging in the air, and Castiel didn't know how to deal with that. He'd never had to before. Except maybe once with Anna. Never had to pick and choose around unsafe things, never had to learn how to say a thing so it didn't hurt. Never had to feel, to connect. Never had something so fragile as someone's emotions mean so much to him. It had been simple, before. He'd been a soldier. Many things ... had been simple then.
"I'm ... glad," he said at last. Cautiously, into Gabriel's watchful silence. "I did not want ... I am glad it worked, Gabriel."
Gabriel made a little noise, something Castiel had no template for, and squeezed his hand. That seemed to be all he was capable of. Castiel squeezed back, and hoped it was close to what he was supposed to do here. More words seemed ... useless.
"Castiel," the archangel said at last. "I ... " He made a noise, frustration, self-amusement, fingers worrying against Castiel's palm. "I want to thank you. And I want to yell at you. I'm not sure which is stronger at the minute."
Castiel thought about that. "Yelling will wake Sam and Dean," he offered, after a second. Gabriel snorted.
"Point. But, little brother ... Alright. This is the one and only time in my life I'm going to agree with Dean Winchester, so I'll thank you not to mention it. Ever. But ... whether or not it seems to make tactical sense ... you are not expendable to us, Castiel. You're not expendable to me. Okay? So, in future ... I can afford to lose a few wings, rather than you. I may be ... psychotically attached to them, but I'd sooner ... At least consider it, will you? I know survival instinct isn't currently in vogue upstairs, but you could at least try ..."
Too many things to say. Again. For the first time, Castiel understood Dean's urge to make light of things, to say the first foolish thing to come to mind, because all other things were too heavy, sitting in his chest like physical things. But ... there were things Gabriel did not understand. Things Sam and Dean did not understand either, or even Aziraphale. Crowley ... well. That depended on whether or not the Serpent remembered, but Castiel thought he did. Thought he might. But Gabriel did not. And Castiel rather thought now would be a good time to explain.
"Gabriel," he said, very softly, eyes closed and face tucked into Dean's chest, hand curled tight against his brother's. "It is not that I am expendable. It has never been that. You need to understand this."
The archangel was quiet for a second. Actually thinking about it. Gabriel had come a long way, in a very short time. Castiel was almost proud, or would be, if he was any further along himself. "What is it, then?"
"I don't act because I think I am expendable," Castiel said slowly, pointedly. "I act because I think I am capable, Gabriel. Because I think these are things I can do. I may be the least experienced angel here. I may be the least powerful. But I am not a child, brother. And I am not stupid. I survived Hell. I survived the loss of my Grace, and managed to fight despite it. I survived openly defying Heaven itself. With help, yes, but I survived. I have been a soldier for six thousand years. I know how to judge risks."
Gabriel made a little noise, as if he wanted to interrupt, but Castiel cut across him. Quietly, even still.
"I did not offer you my Grace because I wanted to die, or thought if anyone had to it should be me. I offered you my Grace because I thought it would work. I thought I could free you without taking what is precious to you. And I was right. And will be right again." He paused, weighing his words, then said, very softly, very quietly. "There are things I cannot fight. I know that. But there are things I can, and ways around even when I can't, and I promise you I will find those ways. Every time. I can ... I can protect you, Gabriel. I can ... watch your back. I can. Trust me for that. Please."
The archangel froze, stiff and still, enough that Sam moved in his sleep, vague distress, and the form against Castiel's back moved as Sam pulled Gabriel instinctively closer, holding him tighter. Castiel felt his lips curve into a smile against Dean's chest.
"It's not ..." Gabriel whispered, muffled by Sam's 'octopus arms', still clinging to Castiel's hand awkwardly. "It's not that I don't believe you can, Castiel. It's ... I just ... don't understand why you want to." Quiet, nervous, and Castiel somehow had the impression that the archangel was very, very glad they were not in a position to look at each other right now. For some reason, people had trouble meeting his eyes in moments like this.
But the question itself -and it was a question, despite the phrasing, even Castiel knew that- the question itself was easily answered. Maybe easier, since he'd begun his travels with the Winchesters, maybe clearer to him than it had once been. Because family meant something now, meant more than comrades and brothers-in-arms. Family meant family, now. It meant Dean and Sam, and Gabriel, and Aziraphale and Crowley and Bobby. It had meant, for so little time, Jo and Ellen. It had meant Anna, so briefly, so terribly. It meant.
"Because you are my brother," he whispered, held close between Dean and Gabriel and Sam, into the morning silence. "And I love you."
And if the quiet sounds that followed were those of an archangel softly crying ... well. Castiel had learned there were times when silence spoke as well as words, and his hand never let go.
---
The sun was warm against him. Nice and warm against his scales, and the dust in the carpet was soft and smelled of books. Smelled like his angel. Well, possibly like his angel after a few bottles, admittedly, but close enough to count. Books and bottles and sunshine, and the soft chink of cups and the murmur of his angel's voice from the kitchen. The world was warm, like that. The world was always warm when Aziraphale was near.Sweet Manchester, he was maudlin now. And he hadn't even had a drink yet! But the world was warm, and dust motes danced, and Crowley lay on the carpet in a stranger's house, and felt distantly at home. Soft and sleepy and warm.
He was building up to the change. Nice and slow. Easy does it. Being a snake again was ... nice in its own way, and useful, and had done a lovely job of freaking out the two boys earlier, but he sort of missed opposable thumbs. He sort of missed fingers in general. And wings. And hair. And Aziraphale, but that was a different thing.
Point was, it was past time for him to scoop the angel up, rather than the other way around.
But the change wasn't that simple. Not this time. His old corporation had been good. So used to being manipulated up and down that it almost went on autopilot. The atoms in it had been thrown back into Hell and out again so many times over the millennia that sometimes Crowley swore the body remembered more than he did. The only one of its kind, except for Aziraphale's, and he'd been rather fond of it. He'd had it since Eden, for Someone's sake! Destroyed, over and over, every time Aziraphale or some human or ridiculous accident had discorporated him, and the baseline interface between Earth and Hell remade it for him, stuffed him back in, and pitched him back to Earth. It had gotten to the point where he almost knew every atom of his old body by name.
But then the last Apocalypse had happened, and Hell had, with extreme prejudice, shut down his department. The only demon on Earth with free access to a regenerating body, and they'd cut him off. Crowley wasn't even sure how. All he knew was that, climbing out of Hell that last time, barely two years ago, fresh from twenty years of Alastair and the quest of an insane angel, crossing the barrier had not, for the first time in millennia, granted him back his old form. He'd been forced to possess, for just about the first time in his life. Not for a job, but simply to survive.
Aziraphale had recognised him very quickly, after that. The empty voice on the phone cursing in every language ever known to man might have been a hint. Crowley had body-hopped across most of a continent before reaching that point, whispering in gullible ear after gullible ear, never staying more in any one longer than he had to. He couldn't bear staying. Though all of them had let him in, granted instinctive permission with a little hint here or there, he still couldn't bear the thoughts rubbing up against him, bear the dizzy spin of a human mind under his. He'd been alone in his head for millennia. It drove him crazy, listening to that.
And then, Aziraphale found him. Found him, and found him a body, too. Because Crowley had more advantages than Hell, Heaven, or anyone else who wasn't his angel knew.
Such as the fact that, while possessing his original body for the first time, a rather handsome male serpent, if he didn't say so himself ... well, there had been a lovely female in Eden, all ready for him, hadn't there? And the serpent inside him had rather liked her, and she'd had scales to die for, and Crowley hadn't yet completely mastered the art of controlling the serpent, and it was the first time he, or any other angel for that matter, had ever felt lust anyway, even lust that wasn't his own ... Long story short, he'd invented beastiality, adultery-via-possession, angelic sex and the first ten rules or so of what to do when the possessee takes over the possessor (which boiled down to allowing some time to panic and then enjoying the ride, really), all in one afternoon. End result, a lineage of serpents with quite a few metaphysical genes built in that perhaps the Lord had never intended them to have, though judging that was always a bit iffy. Ineffable. Something.
Possibly he should be slightly weirded out that he was currently in the body of his great-great-great-to-the-power-of-infinity grandkid. Well. Grandkid by proxy, anyway, but it still counted. Possibly he should be slightly weirded out that said grandkid had appeared to recognise him, when it let him in, in a distant, racial memory sort of way. Possibly he should be weirded out that he had a whole species of bodies available on the planet for him at any time, that no other angel but him could use, and no-one upstairs or down had even noticed.
Possibly he should be weirded out that his legacy to the world, aside from telemarketing, pedestrian terror and the M25, was a few billion very charming great-to-eternity grandkids with decent crushing capacity and a nasty bite.
On the other hand, he was still here, the body was rather comfortable, and his angel didn't seem to mind that he was slightly more prone to hissing in it that he used to be, and tended to carry a little more weight than before. It took him longer to transform it back up after a shift than his old one, but all in all, it still suited him, he thought.
And while back on the subject, actually ...
It was always odd, the sensation. Most angels went with human forms to start with. Even Aziraphale had had his premade that shape when the Big Guy sent him down. Crowley thought he was just about the only angel going for whom shapeshifting was a physical endeavour (with the possible exception of Gabriel, who'd hijacked a god, and one prone to shifts himself to boot). Like one big full-body healing sneeze, it was.
Apparently sounded like one too, if the clatter from the kitchen and the hurried rumble of feet was anything to go by. Aziraphale recognised the sound all too well, by now. But Crowley was too busy trying to hold his head together to be able to look up at him. Taking out a small base of demons had stretched his mind a bit far, and the shift left him feeling like his brains were trickling out his ears, between his fingers.
On the upside, he now had ears and fingers.
"Dearest! Dearest, are you alright?" Soft hands wrapped around his own, pulling his fingers away from his skull, lifting his hands gently but inexorably away from his face. "Crowley, dearest! What is it, what's wrong ..."
"Hurtssss," he hissed back, trying to open his eyes and scrunching them shut again rather hurriedly. "Sssstupid, too ssssoon ... Ssssorry, angel. Thought I wassss resssted enough ..."
"Oh, you bloody idiot," Aziraphale growled, letting go of Crowley's hands to reach down and rest one soft palm over his eyes, gentle despite the temper in his voice. "Hold still, Crowley, let me ... There. One hangover cure for shapeshifting demons who shouldn't need it in the first place if they were being careful, there you go ..."
The pain and hollow, stretchy feeling in his skull dissipated, a delicious little tingling sensation reaching down from between his eyes, through his head, down along his limbs and torso, tickling his toes and sparking in his fingers, curling lightly across the wings curled in the ethereal planes. Crowley made a positively indecent noise, noting that one for later, oh yes, Aziraphale was absolutely doing that again later, in private. Or in public. Crowley wasn't fussy there.
"Dearest? Can you open your eyes now?"
He smiled, a smooth curve on his lips, and opened his eyes. To sunshine and dust, and the flushed, concerned face of his angel. Aziraphale, looming over him again, kneeling on the floor and leaning close, blue eyes shining and lips right there ...
The angel squawked at him as he lunged, hands flapping in startled protest against his shoulders, but Crowley had been wanting to kiss Aziraphale ever since he'd felt the touch of familiar Grace in that factory, ever since he realised he was still alive, his angel was still alive, they were both still there and the Devil himself hadn't yet managed to kill either of them. He'd been wanting to kiss Aziraphale that whole time, and he'd be damned all over again if he was stopping now!
Then there were arms around him, pulling him close against his angel's chest, pressing tight enough to almost crush, just tight enough, and his angel was kissing back, fierce and desperate and terribly, terribly gentle. Aziraphale curled around him, held on for dear life, making little sounds in his throat, words in the quiet of their minds, silent between them, and Crowley leaned in and drank him in. Pushed a little tingle into the kiss, maybe, a little 'hangover cure' for good measure, a little thrill to make his angel shake against him and cry. Aziraphale didn't seem to object.
There was another noise, then. A more distant noise, a clatter and splash, something hitting the floor, and a strangled squeak. Crowley frowned a bit, then remembered.
The human. Bobby. Making coffee with his angel, and then ...
Aziraphale pulled away, reluctantly, pulling Crowley's lower lip with him for a little bit, panting as he rested his forehead against Crowley's for a second, regaining composure. Crowley opened his eyes, smirked at him a tiny bit, licking said lip pointedly with a tongue that was maybe still a little forked. The angel swallowed.
"My ... My apologies, Robert," Aziraphale managed, leaning back from Crowley, looking up at the old hunter standing gobsmacked in the doorway. "I'm sorry, we ..."
"Yeah, I can see," the human cut in hurriedly, eyes darting between them a little, resting with slightly protective suspicion on Crowley for a second, and the demon had to smile at that. Aziraphale brought that out in people. Even when he was behaving scandalously with a demon on the man's floor. He brought it out in people.
"Ssssorry," he hissed himself, entirely unconvincingly, and smirked when Bobby frowned at him, hard. The human almost opened his mouth, almost started to make a point about the danger of doing certain things with demons, maybe, the dangers of trusting something like him, and then ... Then the anger faded, and the human looked at him with a complicated mix of almost-pity, and amusement, and understanding. Which had Crowley frowning and wondering what the hell his angel had been saying all of a sudden.
"Don't worry about it," the hunter drawled, mouth curling a little. "I gotta check something out in the yard anyway. You boys don't mind me ..."
Aziraphale knelt up, flustered, blushing sheepishly. "No, Robert ... Mr Singer, really, there's no need, we wouldn't ..."
"Why not?" Bobby interrupted him, gently, flashing Crowley a sly look that had him sitting up, paying attention. This man might be something interesting after all. "Ain't no-one here got any problems, angel. You do what you like. Just don't get anything nasty on my books."
Crowley snorted, as Aziraphale straightened up out of his confusion in outright affront. "I would never," the angel began heatedly, genuinely offended, and then stopped as he took in Crowley and Bobby's expressions, the twitching amusement hovering under their twin facades. "Oh, shut up the pair of you!" He sat back with a huff, arms crossing on ancient instinct, pouting so ridiculously, so deliciously, that Crowley wanted to eat him up right then and there. He swallowed.
"Thanksss, Robert," he hissed, strained, never taking his eyes off his angel. "If you don't mind ..."
The man snorted expressively, and stomped back out towards the kitchen, and presumably the yard beyond. "Oh, sort yourselves out already. Clean up after, and don't wake the boys, though, I warn you."
"Clean. Wake boyssss. Got it." Crowley repeated automatically, barely even hearing the distant response, if there was one. Already leaning in, leaning closer, reaching up with his newly returned hand to turn his angel's face back to him, to trace that pout with his thumb and watch it soften. "Got it, angel ..."
And he did. Get it, that was. He got ... all of it.
Contd: The Second Plan
