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mia6363 . Went a bit longer than planned.
Title: The Deal
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Crowley, Gabriel. Crowley/Gabriel
Summary: Gabriel wasn't as dead as everyone thought he was. He was just busy getting his hands on something ...
Wordcount: 3562
SPOILERS: All the way up to 5x22
Warnings/Notes: Works on the idea that Crowley and Gabriel knew each other pre-apocalypse, and were friendly
Disclaimer: Not mine
The Devil was back in his hole. And, handily enough, had taken Heaven's General with him, which was all to the good, as far as Crowley was concerned. Bloody pissy bastards, the pair of them, not to mention that if Hell had to go through another six millennia or so of Lucifer's moping about his brother ... Not that that actually concerned him anymore. Not if he could help it. Hell was entirely someone else's problem now, and his only worry in its regard was how stupid the agents it sent after him were going to be.
Perhaps he should be grateful that between them, Lucifer and the Winchesters had cut a nice big swathe through the relatively intelligent demon population. Taking out Azazel, Alastair, Lilith and her handmaidens ... All the big bastards. Him and the Dukes were just about the only high-level monstrosities left, and you couldn't pry the Dukes out of their realms with a crowbar. As the apocalypse had proven. Crowley really loved his fellow demons' tendencies to be territorial. Six thousand years down the pit, carving out their dukedoms, and they'd gotten so attached that not even Lucifer's rising could convince them to abandon what they'd created. Pathetic, really. But oh, so very useful.
No. He shouldn't have to worry, then. Not from that side. The only demons currently up top with real hitting power were ... well, him. Just stay properly paranoid, keep a decent eye out, and he should be fine ...
Someone, someone he hadn't felt coming, someone who'd tripped none of his wards, reached over his shoulder to take his glass out of his hand.
Twenty seconds later, that same someone followed him across the four states he'd flung himself through on pure instinct. Crowley was just gearing up for another four when he recognised the helpless snickering of his pursuer. He turned in sheer, outraged disbelief.
Gabriel stood in the field, glass of scotch in hand, bent over pissing himself laughing. Gabriel. The archangel. The very, very dead archangel. Admittedly, with only a porno and the Winchesters' word on it, but Crowley'd seen the wing-shadows in the motel, and it had been Lucifer the stupid bastard had decided to pick a fight with, so it hadn't seemed all that far-fetched ...
"I'd accuse you of picking that shape to mess with my head, whoever you are," he growled, "but no-one would choose that ugly a mug just to get my attention, and I only know one angel with a sense of humour that puerile. You're supposed to be dead, you bloody bastard!"
Gabriel straightened, wiping his eyes, snorting intermittently. "Heya, Crowley," he breathed, shaking his head and holding out the glass he'd stolen as if it was a peace-offering. Crowley didn't take it. He wasn't that stupid.
"Dead," he said again, pointedly crossing his arms. "You're dead, archangel!" The point was an important one.
Gabriel bit his lip, shaking his head. "Really? Because I don't feel all that dead. Do I look it?"
Crowley growled, turning to stalk away. Physically, not through the shadows. He wasn't quite ready to end this conversation yet. He just wanted to look like he was. And right on cue ...
"Crowley!" The archangel jumped to his side, eyes gone all wide and pleading. Being about two years old at heart, the bastard never had liked being ignored ... "Sorry, Crowley. I'm not dead. I'm really not dead. See?" He held out a hand for Crowley to touch, test. Make sure. Which Crowley did, of course. With a few other little tests thrown in to make sure the archangel was who he said he was.
Which, somewhat shockingly, he was.
"So, what?" he grunted, still not looking at the bastard. Not sulking, though. "Daddy bring you back like he did the little fallen bastard?" He and Castiel had politely agreed to loathe each other. It suited them both.
Gabriel bit his lip, tilting his head slyly like he'd done something clever and wanted to be congratulated on it. Crowley braced himself. "Not exactly," the archangel demurred, smiling. "Didn't really have to, did He? Seeing as I wasn't really dead ..."
And there it was. There it was. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out that sly, hopeful face and doing his damnedest to shove the squalling burst of rage that clawed up his throat back down. Doing his best not to explode in the bastard's face ... Calm, Crowley, calm. You can do this. You can avoid killing him ...
"Not dead," he repeated tightly. "And how, pray tell, did you manage that one?" I saw your wings, you bastard, I stood over the place where you died, I fought a fucking apocalypse because of you ...
Gabriel's smile slipped a bit. The archangel was beginning to look a little worried. Good. Oh, very good. "Oh, you know me, Crowley," he said airily, waving a casual hand while he squinted at Crowley in concern. "Never where anyone expects me to be, never wearing the shape they expect ... and my brother never was all that smart, you know? And, well, I needed to be dead for a while, since the Winchesters and Kali between them blew my cover ... you understand, right?" A pause, and a very real worry creeping into his expression. "Right?"
"You didn't think to tell me this, I suppose?" Crowley said. Mildly. Calmly. Frighteningly. Gabriel flinched a little.
"Well, I didn't want you to have to keep the secret, not when you were all front and center, and there wasn't really time, you know ..."
"I thought you were dead. I fought because of you," Crowley cut him off. Quietly. "Hooked up with the bloody Winchesters because of you. Only supposed to give them the Colt, wasn't I? Never going to get actually involved, not frontline, but then, then I hear your little bye-bye gift, Casa Erotica of all bloody things, was that meant to be a joke, and I realise hey, my safety net just bought it, my friend just died, and now who the bloody hell is going to stop this mess, the Winchesters? And he left a plan, and he had to know I'd be listening, and yeah, hey, I can help with that. Find the Horsemen? No problem, and I'm gonna have to now, aren't I, because the one person I was counting on to help me when this was over just. Fucking. DIED. So my choices are either make nice with the genocidal maniac running loose, or stop by and do Gabriel's bloody job for him, because ain't no archangels gonna stand by me now ..."
He stopped. Pulled in a deep, desperate breath, fighting the fury clawing up his neck to manage it, and looked up to see Gabriel staring at him with a stricken expression. The archangel had gone dead white, and ha! Wasn't that funny. Dead white. Dead white. Get it?
"Crowley ..." the bastard said, very quietly. But Crowley wasn't in the mood. He wasn't in the mood.
"No," he said. Growled. Begged, except he had more pride than that. "No, because then I find out, now I find out, the fucking bastard never died. Just let me think he did, just let me waltz into the middle of the fucking apocalypse, alongside people who would literally stab me as soon as look at me, all while he was presumably swanning around in disguise laughing his bloody head off at the gullible demon. Who'll probably get killed, or bumped back down to Hell when this is over, and hey, that's all our problems sorted, isn't it? Last evidence of our little misdeeds as a pagan washed down the brimstone drain, nothing to worry about ..."
"No!" Gabriel snapped, reached out and physically hauled Crowley to him, hauled him up nose to nose, and Crowley blinked a little in shock at the raw horror staring out at him, two inches away. The raw pain. "No," Gabriel said again. "That isn't what happened, Crowley. I wouldn't ... I would never ... That is not what happened!"
Crowley blinked a him a little bit. He'd retort. Really he would. But it was sort of difficult when he was bodily pressed up against the archangel's face. Staring right down the barrel, as it were. Right into all that pain. He couldn't speak, looking at that. But he made a little noise anyway, vaguely inquisitive, just a prod for the archangel to continue.
"I knew you'd help them," Gabriel said, softly. "I trusted you. I knew you could help them, and more to the point I knew you could stay alive in the process. I needed to be dead, Crowley. There was something very important I had to do, and I needed everyone to think I was dead to manage it. But I couldn't leave them alone, not with my little brother lying in pieces somewhere, and I knew you'd help them. I knew you had an ear on them. You're too paranoid not to. I knew it. I trusted you for that. And I trusted you to survive it, too, trusted you to stay alive until I could come back. Until I could ... give you what I died to get."
Crowley stared at him, stared at the flush that crept up the archangel's neck. "What you died to get?" he asked, distantly. Gabriel grimaced, and waved a hand dismissively.
"Well, it seemed like the right time for it, you know?" he mumbled, letting Crowley go a bit, backing off a step so he could avoid meeting Crowley's eyes as he explained. Rambled. "Hell was open, after all. And wouldn't be closed again until the Winchesters managed to do something right for a change, so I knew I'd a fair bit of time, even if you were helping them. Time enough to go have a rummage around ..."
Crowley blinked. Hard. "You went to Hell?" he spluttered, aghast. Gabriel shrugged.
"Wasn't hard, actually. Castiel managed it, and they were ready for him. With Lucy up top, and half the population with him ... and I am the fastest angel in this or any other sphere of existence ... Plus, I was dead, so no-one expected to have to be on the lookout for dead archangels rooting around the filing cabinets ..."
Crowley stared some more. "That's ... that's not the point, you bloody idiot! What the blazes were you doing down there?" Of all the things he expected the idiot to go and do ... "Aside from anything else, if we'd managed to lock the Devil in while you were still down there ..." No. No, not thinking about that. Not thinking about. Gabriel dead was one thing. Gabriel dead and stuck downstairs with his very, very pissed off brother, the brother who'd already stabbed an angel killing blade into Gabriel's heart ...
But Gabriel was smiling at him, all rich and amused again, the pain of a second ago gone like it had never been, and Crowley hated that about this angel. Hated it. The bastard couldn't keep one mood for more than five minutes, tops.
"Nah," he said, dismissing the thought. "Winchesters don't work that fast. They've got to angst about things for a while first. I was in and out in no time. Just one little thing to pick up, after all. No worries."
"What?" Crowley growled, exasperated. "What could be so important that you'd fake your death in the middle of a bloody apocalypse and take a daytrip downstairs just to get your hands on?" He'd known the bastard was flighty, but this was ridic...
He stopped. Stopped thinking, stopping moving, stopped breathing. Stopped everything at the sight of what Gabriel held out towards him, silently, hopefully. Stopped everything.
It didn't look like much. They never did, and this one was older than most, after all. From the old days, back when contracts signed in blood were considered elegant symbols. Back when you signed your soul away not with a kiss, but with a mark on a dotted line, and Hell took it away to keep it nice and safe while you spent the rest of eternity luring others into making the same pact in hopes of winning it back. The Crossroads deal. Mephisto's handshake, as they called it in the trade.
This one ... this one was old. The oldest Hell still had in this form, and Crowley knew that for a fact. Because this one ... this one belonged to the oldest Crossroads demon still in existence. This one belonged to the Crossroads King.
This one belonged to him.
"That's ..." he croaked, swaying on his feet. "Is that ... That's ..."
Gabriel reached out, with the hand not currently holding Crowley's bloody soul, and steadied him gently. The archangel looked concerned, and a little nervous, but also sly, proud. Like he'd done something truly applause-worthy this time.
He might have, if Crowley could remember how his hands worked to manage it.
"Fished it out of the filing cabinets, like I said," Gabriel grinned, easing Crowley down to sit in a heap on the ground. In a damn field, somewhere in Nebraska, and in his best remaining suit, but the demon genuinely didn't care this time. He barely even noticed. "Took me ages to find the thing. Right at the back. When you said you were old, you weren't kidding, were you? I'm surprised they'd invented parchment when you signed this thing!"
"Scribe," Crowley muttered automatically. Tax-collector, as it happened. He'd always been good at screwing people over for the sake of the managerial monolith ... "You ... That's my ... You stole it? Right out of Hell? You stole it?"
Gabriel bit his lip, shaking his head. "No, actually," he said, and Crowley knew this smile, he knew this smile so well. This was the smile when Gabriel had managed to screw someone over majorly. This was the smile when the Trickster won.
"What did you do?" he asked. Almost afraid to hear the answer.
"I bought it," the archangel said, smiling smugly. "Soul for a soul. All fair and above board. The soul of a Crossroads demon in exchange for that of an archangel. They all but jumped at the chance down there."
Crowley's vision whited out. "You ... You moron, you bastard, you stupid fuck, what the hell did you do that for ..."
"Hey, hey!" Gabriel shook him, shaking his head, smiling at the fear in Crowley's face, something soft and happy in his expression. "Not mine, you idiot. I'm not that stupid. But I suppose I can't blame you for thinking it ... It's what they thought too. Thought they'd be getting me, once I'd delivered this, and let me waltz right out of Hell with it. Morons."
Crowley blinked. "But then whose ..." He stopped. Shook his head. "No. No. You didn't. Tell me you didn't, Gabriel. Tell me you didn't." But the archangel was biting his lip, his grin threatening to split his face, and Crowley dropped his head into his hands. "You sold them the Devil, didn't you?" he muttered, barely audible. "You bloody nutter, you knew we'd put Lucifer back in his hole. An archangel in Hell, it'd count. If nobody named names, it'd count ... You sold them the bloody Devil, to get a demon out of Hell. You insane bloody lunatic ..."
Gabriel laughed. Threw back his head and laughed, the Trickster pulling the greatest bloody con in the history of cons, on the bloody Devil, no less, and all of Hell and bloody Heaven with him. And Crowley, and the bloody Winchesters, and if God-his-bloody-self happened to be sitting in shock somewhere right now too, Crowley wouldn't be the least surprised. Because it was insane, it was the biggest lunatic idea Crowley'd ever bloody come across, and Gabriel had bought his soul with it. Bought him ... bought him out of Hell, after more than two and a half thousand years. Bought him his freedom ...
"Thank you," he whispered. Stunned, as it actually hit him. As he actually realised what Gabriel had done. Had done for him, for Crowley, and he'd just screamed the archangel out for betraying him, for selling him to Hell to hide Gabriel's past indiscretions, and all the while the archangel had been doing the exact opposite ... "Gabriel ... I ..."
The archangel pressed a finger over his lips, soft and gentle. "Like you said," Gabriel murmured. "You fought an apocalypse for me. Did my bloody job, right? Signed up with the Winchesters, and believe me, I'm fully aware that's a sacrifice for friendship no sane person should have to make." He smiled, shaking his head. "You picked a fight with all of Hell because I asked you to. Because you thought I'd died, and finished the job in my place. A quick trip down to Hell wasn't all that much trouble, in comparison. Really. And it did let me get one over on ... well. Pretty much everyone ..."
Crowley smirked despite himself. "Which naturally wasn't half the reason you did it in the first place ..." he muttered, grinning. Gabriel laughed.
"Naturally not," he agreed. "More like ... maybe a fifth?" A little grin. "Now, the half, that was something else. Half the reason I did it ... was because of what I was sort of hoping I'd get at the end? You know, between you and me?"
Crowley tensed a little. Not really afraid, not really, he did trust the archangel, sort of, mostly, but he was a Crossroads demon. He knew all too bloody well what someone could ask in exchange for a soul, and while he didn't think Gabriel would ask anything too terrible of him, well ... there wasn't a lot Crowley wouldn't do to get his soul back, and Gabriel had to know it.
"What's that?" he asked, very carefully. Keeping his fear to himself. He hoped. Gabriel smiled at him, soft for a second, before that creeping Trickster's grin snuck back, that flash of fire and mischief that Crowley couldn't help but appreciate, even if it was directed at him ...
"Well, usually when a Crossroads demon makes a deal for a soul, like this one here ... he seals it with a kiss, doesn't he ...?" the archangel asked, and that bright grin was blindingly hopeful, wry and laughing and full of real, genuine desire, the kind Crowley hadn't seen directed at him for his own sake in ... two and a half millennia, really. And as requests went ...
He leaned forwards, grabbing Gabriel's jacket and smiling sharply as the archangel looked at him in surprise. As if, despite it all, Gabriel hadn't actually expected him to agree, hadn't actually expected to get what he wanted. For all there was hope in that grin of his, there was fear too, and old pain, and disbelief that Crowley could possibly say yes, and Crowley determined then and there that that ... that needed fixing. Right now.
He was gentle, guiding Gabriel in. Far gentler that he would normally have been, but this wasn't normal. This wasn't a deal. Not really. This was freedom, and gratitude, and rather more genuine feeling than Crowley wanted to think about, and when he pressed their lips together it was with all the care he'd never shown anyone else, never been shown himself. It was gentle, as no other kiss he'd given had ever been. It was gentle.
And then it wasn't.
Gabriel tasted like light. Which was stupid, because nothing tasted like light, but Gabriel did, and mint, and sugar, because the bloody bastard had the sweetest tooth Crowley'd ever come across, and a whiff of brimstone, because he's just gone to Hell, to Hell, for Crowley's sake, and desire, Crowley always tasted desire, and fear, that was always there too, and love ... And there was nothing he could do with that, nothing he understood about that, so he simply groaned, and tugged the archangel closer, and put two and a half millennia of experience and more passion than he'd ever allowed himself to feel to good use, and thanked anyone that might be listening that neither demons nor archangels needed to breathe.
And if something trailed down between their pressed cheeks and stung against joined lips, something that tasted like tears ... well, Crowley could hardly be blamed for that. Wasn't his bloody fault the archangel was a lunatic, wasn't his fault he happened to love him ...
Gabriel didn't open his eyes when Crowley pulled away, after what honestly felt like an hour. Didn't open his eyes, didn't do anything except reach up blindly to touch his lips, and smile like the bloody idiot he was. While something warm and heavy and ancient vanished from his hand and settled in Crowley's chest for the first time in aeons, the archangel smiled like a loon, and licked his lips.
"I don't suppose," he murmured at last, opening his eyes to look dazedly at Crowley. "I don't suppose you've any other souls I could pick up for you? Or anything? You know, anything at all? How about mine? You want my soul? We could absolutely do another deal, right now, no problem at all ..."
Crowley put his hand over Gabriel's mouth, shaking his head helplessly, and grinned. "I've a better idea," he murmured, smiling at the hope in the archangel's eyes. "How about you shut up, get me a clean suit and somewhere more comfortable to sit -or lie- and I keep kissing you? How's that for a deal?"
If the grin that almost blinded him was anything to go by, Gabriel thought it was a great deal.
Crowley kind of agreed.
mia6363 . Went a bit longer than planned.Title: The Deal
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Crowley, Gabriel. Crowley/Gabriel
Summary: Gabriel wasn't as dead as everyone thought he was. He was just busy getting his hands on something ...
Wordcount: 3562
SPOILERS: All the way up to 5x22
Warnings/Notes: Works on the idea that Crowley and Gabriel knew each other pre-apocalypse, and were friendly
Disclaimer: Not mine
The Deal
The Devil was back in his hole. And, handily enough, had taken Heaven's General with him, which was all to the good, as far as Crowley was concerned. Bloody pissy bastards, the pair of them, not to mention that if Hell had to go through another six millennia or so of Lucifer's moping about his brother ... Not that that actually concerned him anymore. Not if he could help it. Hell was entirely someone else's problem now, and his only worry in its regard was how stupid the agents it sent after him were going to be.
Perhaps he should be grateful that between them, Lucifer and the Winchesters had cut a nice big swathe through the relatively intelligent demon population. Taking out Azazel, Alastair, Lilith and her handmaidens ... All the big bastards. Him and the Dukes were just about the only high-level monstrosities left, and you couldn't pry the Dukes out of their realms with a crowbar. As the apocalypse had proven. Crowley really loved his fellow demons' tendencies to be territorial. Six thousand years down the pit, carving out their dukedoms, and they'd gotten so attached that not even Lucifer's rising could convince them to abandon what they'd created. Pathetic, really. But oh, so very useful.
No. He shouldn't have to worry, then. Not from that side. The only demons currently up top with real hitting power were ... well, him. Just stay properly paranoid, keep a decent eye out, and he should be fine ...
Someone, someone he hadn't felt coming, someone who'd tripped none of his wards, reached over his shoulder to take his glass out of his hand.
Twenty seconds later, that same someone followed him across the four states he'd flung himself through on pure instinct. Crowley was just gearing up for another four when he recognised the helpless snickering of his pursuer. He turned in sheer, outraged disbelief.
Gabriel stood in the field, glass of scotch in hand, bent over pissing himself laughing. Gabriel. The archangel. The very, very dead archangel. Admittedly, with only a porno and the Winchesters' word on it, but Crowley'd seen the wing-shadows in the motel, and it had been Lucifer the stupid bastard had decided to pick a fight with, so it hadn't seemed all that far-fetched ...
"I'd accuse you of picking that shape to mess with my head, whoever you are," he growled, "but no-one would choose that ugly a mug just to get my attention, and I only know one angel with a sense of humour that puerile. You're supposed to be dead, you bloody bastard!"
Gabriel straightened, wiping his eyes, snorting intermittently. "Heya, Crowley," he breathed, shaking his head and holding out the glass he'd stolen as if it was a peace-offering. Crowley didn't take it. He wasn't that stupid.
"Dead," he said again, pointedly crossing his arms. "You're dead, archangel!" The point was an important one.
Gabriel bit his lip, shaking his head. "Really? Because I don't feel all that dead. Do I look it?"
Crowley growled, turning to stalk away. Physically, not through the shadows. He wasn't quite ready to end this conversation yet. He just wanted to look like he was. And right on cue ...
"Crowley!" The archangel jumped to his side, eyes gone all wide and pleading. Being about two years old at heart, the bastard never had liked being ignored ... "Sorry, Crowley. I'm not dead. I'm really not dead. See?" He held out a hand for Crowley to touch, test. Make sure. Which Crowley did, of course. With a few other little tests thrown in to make sure the archangel was who he said he was.
Which, somewhat shockingly, he was.
"So, what?" he grunted, still not looking at the bastard. Not sulking, though. "Daddy bring you back like he did the little fallen bastard?" He and Castiel had politely agreed to loathe each other. It suited them both.
Gabriel bit his lip, tilting his head slyly like he'd done something clever and wanted to be congratulated on it. Crowley braced himself. "Not exactly," the archangel demurred, smiling. "Didn't really have to, did He? Seeing as I wasn't really dead ..."
And there it was. There it was. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out that sly, hopeful face and doing his damnedest to shove the squalling burst of rage that clawed up his throat back down. Doing his best not to explode in the bastard's face ... Calm, Crowley, calm. You can do this. You can avoid killing him ...
"Not dead," he repeated tightly. "And how, pray tell, did you manage that one?" I saw your wings, you bastard, I stood over the place where you died, I fought a fucking apocalypse because of you ...
Gabriel's smile slipped a bit. The archangel was beginning to look a little worried. Good. Oh, very good. "Oh, you know me, Crowley," he said airily, waving a casual hand while he squinted at Crowley in concern. "Never where anyone expects me to be, never wearing the shape they expect ... and my brother never was all that smart, you know? And, well, I needed to be dead for a while, since the Winchesters and Kali between them blew my cover ... you understand, right?" A pause, and a very real worry creeping into his expression. "Right?"
"You didn't think to tell me this, I suppose?" Crowley said. Mildly. Calmly. Frighteningly. Gabriel flinched a little.
"Well, I didn't want you to have to keep the secret, not when you were all front and center, and there wasn't really time, you know ..."
"I thought you were dead. I fought because of you," Crowley cut him off. Quietly. "Hooked up with the bloody Winchesters because of you. Only supposed to give them the Colt, wasn't I? Never going to get actually involved, not frontline, but then, then I hear your little bye-bye gift, Casa Erotica of all bloody things, was that meant to be a joke, and I realise hey, my safety net just bought it, my friend just died, and now who the bloody hell is going to stop this mess, the Winchesters? And he left a plan, and he had to know I'd be listening, and yeah, hey, I can help with that. Find the Horsemen? No problem, and I'm gonna have to now, aren't I, because the one person I was counting on to help me when this was over just. Fucking. DIED. So my choices are either make nice with the genocidal maniac running loose, or stop by and do Gabriel's bloody job for him, because ain't no archangels gonna stand by me now ..."
He stopped. Pulled in a deep, desperate breath, fighting the fury clawing up his neck to manage it, and looked up to see Gabriel staring at him with a stricken expression. The archangel had gone dead white, and ha! Wasn't that funny. Dead white. Dead white. Get it?
"Crowley ..." the bastard said, very quietly. But Crowley wasn't in the mood. He wasn't in the mood.
"No," he said. Growled. Begged, except he had more pride than that. "No, because then I find out, now I find out, the fucking bastard never died. Just let me think he did, just let me waltz into the middle of the fucking apocalypse, alongside people who would literally stab me as soon as look at me, all while he was presumably swanning around in disguise laughing his bloody head off at the gullible demon. Who'll probably get killed, or bumped back down to Hell when this is over, and hey, that's all our problems sorted, isn't it? Last evidence of our little misdeeds as a pagan washed down the brimstone drain, nothing to worry about ..."
"No!" Gabriel snapped, reached out and physically hauled Crowley to him, hauled him up nose to nose, and Crowley blinked a little in shock at the raw horror staring out at him, two inches away. The raw pain. "No," Gabriel said again. "That isn't what happened, Crowley. I wouldn't ... I would never ... That is not what happened!"
Crowley blinked a him a little bit. He'd retort. Really he would. But it was sort of difficult when he was bodily pressed up against the archangel's face. Staring right down the barrel, as it were. Right into all that pain. He couldn't speak, looking at that. But he made a little noise anyway, vaguely inquisitive, just a prod for the archangel to continue.
"I knew you'd help them," Gabriel said, softly. "I trusted you. I knew you could help them, and more to the point I knew you could stay alive in the process. I needed to be dead, Crowley. There was something very important I had to do, and I needed everyone to think I was dead to manage it. But I couldn't leave them alone, not with my little brother lying in pieces somewhere, and I knew you'd help them. I knew you had an ear on them. You're too paranoid not to. I knew it. I trusted you for that. And I trusted you to survive it, too, trusted you to stay alive until I could come back. Until I could ... give you what I died to get."
Crowley stared at him, stared at the flush that crept up the archangel's neck. "What you died to get?" he asked, distantly. Gabriel grimaced, and waved a hand dismissively.
"Well, it seemed like the right time for it, you know?" he mumbled, letting Crowley go a bit, backing off a step so he could avoid meeting Crowley's eyes as he explained. Rambled. "Hell was open, after all. And wouldn't be closed again until the Winchesters managed to do something right for a change, so I knew I'd a fair bit of time, even if you were helping them. Time enough to go have a rummage around ..."
Crowley blinked. Hard. "You went to Hell?" he spluttered, aghast. Gabriel shrugged.
"Wasn't hard, actually. Castiel managed it, and they were ready for him. With Lucy up top, and half the population with him ... and I am the fastest angel in this or any other sphere of existence ... Plus, I was dead, so no-one expected to have to be on the lookout for dead archangels rooting around the filing cabinets ..."
Crowley stared some more. "That's ... that's not the point, you bloody idiot! What the blazes were you doing down there?" Of all the things he expected the idiot to go and do ... "Aside from anything else, if we'd managed to lock the Devil in while you were still down there ..." No. No, not thinking about that. Not thinking about. Gabriel dead was one thing. Gabriel dead and stuck downstairs with his very, very pissed off brother, the brother who'd already stabbed an angel killing blade into Gabriel's heart ...
But Gabriel was smiling at him, all rich and amused again, the pain of a second ago gone like it had never been, and Crowley hated that about this angel. Hated it. The bastard couldn't keep one mood for more than five minutes, tops.
"Nah," he said, dismissing the thought. "Winchesters don't work that fast. They've got to angst about things for a while first. I was in and out in no time. Just one little thing to pick up, after all. No worries."
"What?" Crowley growled, exasperated. "What could be so important that you'd fake your death in the middle of a bloody apocalypse and take a daytrip downstairs just to get your hands on?" He'd known the bastard was flighty, but this was ridic...
He stopped. Stopped thinking, stopping moving, stopped breathing. Stopped everything at the sight of what Gabriel held out towards him, silently, hopefully. Stopped everything.
It didn't look like much. They never did, and this one was older than most, after all. From the old days, back when contracts signed in blood were considered elegant symbols. Back when you signed your soul away not with a kiss, but with a mark on a dotted line, and Hell took it away to keep it nice and safe while you spent the rest of eternity luring others into making the same pact in hopes of winning it back. The Crossroads deal. Mephisto's handshake, as they called it in the trade.
This one ... this one was old. The oldest Hell still had in this form, and Crowley knew that for a fact. Because this one ... this one belonged to the oldest Crossroads demon still in existence. This one belonged to the Crossroads King.
This one belonged to him.
"That's ..." he croaked, swaying on his feet. "Is that ... That's ..."
Gabriel reached out, with the hand not currently holding Crowley's bloody soul, and steadied him gently. The archangel looked concerned, and a little nervous, but also sly, proud. Like he'd done something truly applause-worthy this time.
He might have, if Crowley could remember how his hands worked to manage it.
"Fished it out of the filing cabinets, like I said," Gabriel grinned, easing Crowley down to sit in a heap on the ground. In a damn field, somewhere in Nebraska, and in his best remaining suit, but the demon genuinely didn't care this time. He barely even noticed. "Took me ages to find the thing. Right at the back. When you said you were old, you weren't kidding, were you? I'm surprised they'd invented parchment when you signed this thing!"
"Scribe," Crowley muttered automatically. Tax-collector, as it happened. He'd always been good at screwing people over for the sake of the managerial monolith ... "You ... That's my ... You stole it? Right out of Hell? You stole it?"
Gabriel bit his lip, shaking his head. "No, actually," he said, and Crowley knew this smile, he knew this smile so well. This was the smile when Gabriel had managed to screw someone over majorly. This was the smile when the Trickster won.
"What did you do?" he asked. Almost afraid to hear the answer.
"I bought it," the archangel said, smiling smugly. "Soul for a soul. All fair and above board. The soul of a Crossroads demon in exchange for that of an archangel. They all but jumped at the chance down there."
Crowley's vision whited out. "You ... You moron, you bastard, you stupid fuck, what the hell did you do that for ..."
"Hey, hey!" Gabriel shook him, shaking his head, smiling at the fear in Crowley's face, something soft and happy in his expression. "Not mine, you idiot. I'm not that stupid. But I suppose I can't blame you for thinking it ... It's what they thought too. Thought they'd be getting me, once I'd delivered this, and let me waltz right out of Hell with it. Morons."
Crowley blinked. "But then whose ..." He stopped. Shook his head. "No. No. You didn't. Tell me you didn't, Gabriel. Tell me you didn't." But the archangel was biting his lip, his grin threatening to split his face, and Crowley dropped his head into his hands. "You sold them the Devil, didn't you?" he muttered, barely audible. "You bloody nutter, you knew we'd put Lucifer back in his hole. An archangel in Hell, it'd count. If nobody named names, it'd count ... You sold them the bloody Devil, to get a demon out of Hell. You insane bloody lunatic ..."
Gabriel laughed. Threw back his head and laughed, the Trickster pulling the greatest bloody con in the history of cons, on the bloody Devil, no less, and all of Hell and bloody Heaven with him. And Crowley, and the bloody Winchesters, and if God-his-bloody-self happened to be sitting in shock somewhere right now too, Crowley wouldn't be the least surprised. Because it was insane, it was the biggest lunatic idea Crowley'd ever bloody come across, and Gabriel had bought his soul with it. Bought him ... bought him out of Hell, after more than two and a half thousand years. Bought him his freedom ...
"Thank you," he whispered. Stunned, as it actually hit him. As he actually realised what Gabriel had done. Had done for him, for Crowley, and he'd just screamed the archangel out for betraying him, for selling him to Hell to hide Gabriel's past indiscretions, and all the while the archangel had been doing the exact opposite ... "Gabriel ... I ..."
The archangel pressed a finger over his lips, soft and gentle. "Like you said," Gabriel murmured. "You fought an apocalypse for me. Did my bloody job, right? Signed up with the Winchesters, and believe me, I'm fully aware that's a sacrifice for friendship no sane person should have to make." He smiled, shaking his head. "You picked a fight with all of Hell because I asked you to. Because you thought I'd died, and finished the job in my place. A quick trip down to Hell wasn't all that much trouble, in comparison. Really. And it did let me get one over on ... well. Pretty much everyone ..."
Crowley smirked despite himself. "Which naturally wasn't half the reason you did it in the first place ..." he muttered, grinning. Gabriel laughed.
"Naturally not," he agreed. "More like ... maybe a fifth?" A little grin. "Now, the half, that was something else. Half the reason I did it ... was because of what I was sort of hoping I'd get at the end? You know, between you and me?"
Crowley tensed a little. Not really afraid, not really, he did trust the archangel, sort of, mostly, but he was a Crossroads demon. He knew all too bloody well what someone could ask in exchange for a soul, and while he didn't think Gabriel would ask anything too terrible of him, well ... there wasn't a lot Crowley wouldn't do to get his soul back, and Gabriel had to know it.
"What's that?" he asked, very carefully. Keeping his fear to himself. He hoped. Gabriel smiled at him, soft for a second, before that creeping Trickster's grin snuck back, that flash of fire and mischief that Crowley couldn't help but appreciate, even if it was directed at him ...
"Well, usually when a Crossroads demon makes a deal for a soul, like this one here ... he seals it with a kiss, doesn't he ...?" the archangel asked, and that bright grin was blindingly hopeful, wry and laughing and full of real, genuine desire, the kind Crowley hadn't seen directed at him for his own sake in ... two and a half millennia, really. And as requests went ...
He leaned forwards, grabbing Gabriel's jacket and smiling sharply as the archangel looked at him in surprise. As if, despite it all, Gabriel hadn't actually expected him to agree, hadn't actually expected to get what he wanted. For all there was hope in that grin of his, there was fear too, and old pain, and disbelief that Crowley could possibly say yes, and Crowley determined then and there that that ... that needed fixing. Right now.
He was gentle, guiding Gabriel in. Far gentler that he would normally have been, but this wasn't normal. This wasn't a deal. Not really. This was freedom, and gratitude, and rather more genuine feeling than Crowley wanted to think about, and when he pressed their lips together it was with all the care he'd never shown anyone else, never been shown himself. It was gentle, as no other kiss he'd given had ever been. It was gentle.
And then it wasn't.
Gabriel tasted like light. Which was stupid, because nothing tasted like light, but Gabriel did, and mint, and sugar, because the bloody bastard had the sweetest tooth Crowley'd ever come across, and a whiff of brimstone, because he's just gone to Hell, to Hell, for Crowley's sake, and desire, Crowley always tasted desire, and fear, that was always there too, and love ... And there was nothing he could do with that, nothing he understood about that, so he simply groaned, and tugged the archangel closer, and put two and a half millennia of experience and more passion than he'd ever allowed himself to feel to good use, and thanked anyone that might be listening that neither demons nor archangels needed to breathe.
And if something trailed down between their pressed cheeks and stung against joined lips, something that tasted like tears ... well, Crowley could hardly be blamed for that. Wasn't his bloody fault the archangel was a lunatic, wasn't his fault he happened to love him ...
Gabriel didn't open his eyes when Crowley pulled away, after what honestly felt like an hour. Didn't open his eyes, didn't do anything except reach up blindly to touch his lips, and smile like the bloody idiot he was. While something warm and heavy and ancient vanished from his hand and settled in Crowley's chest for the first time in aeons, the archangel smiled like a loon, and licked his lips.
"I don't suppose," he murmured at last, opening his eyes to look dazedly at Crowley. "I don't suppose you've any other souls I could pick up for you? Or anything? You know, anything at all? How about mine? You want my soul? We could absolutely do another deal, right now, no problem at all ..."
Crowley put his hand over Gabriel's mouth, shaking his head helplessly, and grinned. "I've a better idea," he murmured, smiling at the hope in the archangel's eyes. "How about you shut up, get me a clean suit and somewhere more comfortable to sit -or lie- and I keep kissing you? How's that for a deal?"
If the grin that almost blinded him was anything to go by, Gabriel thought it was a great deal.
Crowley kind of agreed.
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