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I swear, I don't know what this is. I don't know what it is. SPN/GO crossover, but ... strange. Oh, this is so very strange. Also, possibly wrong.
Title: Shadow Play
Rating: Hard R
Fandoms: Supernatural, Good Omens
Continuity: Set just before SPN 5x10, 'Abandon All Hope', post-book for Go
Characters/Pairings: Crowley (SPN), Crowley (GO), Aziraphale, Alastair in flashback. Aziraphale/Crowley(GO), Crowley(SPN)/Aziraphale/Crowley(GO). In a sort of twisted kind of way.
Summary: Crowley wasn't completely sure there was a word for the ... almost reverence ... with which these two were regarded. A strange, detached worship, a pity and a hate, a virulent contempt and a desperate sense of possession. A lurid sideshow, save that it was revered. Crowley watched it now.
Wordcount: 2624
Warnings: Um. Um. Evidence of torture. Captivity. Sort of ... forced display? I don't know. Help?
Disclaimer: Not mine. Definitely not mine.
Title: Shadow Play
Rating: Hard R
Fandoms: Supernatural, Good Omens
Continuity: Set just before SPN 5x10, 'Abandon All Hope', post-book for Go
Characters/Pairings: Crowley (SPN), Crowley (GO), Aziraphale, Alastair in flashback. Aziraphale/Crowley(GO), Crowley(SPN)/Aziraphale/Crowley(GO). In a sort of twisted kind of way.
Summary: Crowley wasn't completely sure there was a word for the ... almost reverence ... with which these two were regarded. A strange, detached worship, a pity and a hate, a virulent contempt and a desperate sense of possession. A lurid sideshow, save that it was revered. Crowley watched it now.
Wordcount: 2624
Warnings: Um. Um. Evidence of torture. Captivity. Sort of ... forced display? I don't know. Help?
Disclaimer: Not mine. Definitely not mine.
Shadow Play
He watched them. Everyone watched them, though their audiences had grown thinner over the years. Only about a decade, on earth, but subjective centuries in Hell. They had become ... almost a tableau. Almost sanctified, if anything in Hell could lay claim to that title. But even demons needed their legends. Even demons needed ... whatever they were, whatever memory of a distant life they represented. Crowley wasn't completely sure there was a word for the ... almost reverence ... with which these two were regarded. A strange, detached worship, a pity and a hate, a virulent contempt and a desperate sense of possession. A lurid sideshow, save that it was revered. Crowley watched it now.
They curled around each other, loose-limbed and naked, sprawled with casual abandon. As if they thought they were alone, or no longer cared for what their audience thought. The taller of the two, thin and fluid, pared down to bone and the gleam of skin, traced pale fingers across his companion's stomach, a spool of words across the silence. Above their play, where his head lay canted into the other's shoulder, the threads sewn across his mouth gleamed in the firelight. His companion smiled at whatever secret the fleeting touch imparted, murmuring responses too soft to be heard, the white stare of his eyes staring forever into some abyss. One bound in darkness, the other to silence, linked only by the fragile thread of touch. And yet, between them ... in some strange way complete.
Once, a few years ago, Crowley had stood here with Alastair. Quite by accident, of course. He did try not to associate with the lunatic fringe. But for that one time, he'd stood beside Hell's chief torturer, and watched them.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" the other demon had purred. Almost wistfully, except that Alastair knew no such emotion. "One day, they'll be my masterpiece, you know. A climax. One day. Not quite yet. For now ... something to savour. The perfect balance, just at the point of transformation. A union on the point of sundering. Chastity on the point of plunder. Serenity ... on the edge of despair. Something on the brink of breaking, stretched across the edge ... A promise for my future, yes? Something ... to look forward to ..." And he'd laughed, low and rough and in a strange way lustful.
Crowley had shuddered, at the time, ice skating up his spine and revulsion twisting in his gut. Alastair had that effect. But later ... there were times, later, in the quiet moments ... when Crowley understood what he meant. Understood, a little, why these two had been left as they were, a strange and living work of art, a mummer's pantomime of corrupted purity. A grisly and oddly dignified memory of love.
They moved, beneath him. Slow, almost rolling, clockwork motions like a parody of life. But still so tender. So ... intense. The taller creature, the demon, the Fallen, rising dark and golden against his lover. The shorter, the blind remnant of what had once been an angel, raising a shackled hand to touch the other's face. To guide him close, guide him down, and press their lips together. So softly, close-mouthed, chastity enforced by the ridged lines of thread between the demon's lips, but ... something more. Gentle. Sweet. The angel softly mouthing, whispering kisses along the torn flesh, guided by taste and memory of a face he would never see again. The demon smiling, not with a mouth brutally stilled, but with the flash of golden eyes, and the whisper of a hand across the angel's knuckles, along the angel's jaw. Pooled around them, pale and frayed against the floor, their wings arched and shifted, their rustling the only sound in this silent shadow-play. Crowley watched.
It was ... unearthly. Untouchable. A strange glimmer of the divine, a luminous shadow cast against the walls of Hell, and no demon, not even the most depraved, the most profane, would touch it. Would spoil it. This echo of things forgotten, this whisper of things unearned. This silent glimpse of all they might have had, once upon a time, when even the worst of them had been innocent. It was ... their pilgrimage. Their scourge.
Crowley watched. This day in Hell. His last. The Gates of Hell had been thrown open. The Devil was in the game. Tomorrow, he made his choice. Tomorrow, he picked a side, and the only way he would see this place again was if they took him alive. He planned not to let that happen. He planned never to let that happen. Today was his last day. And he watched.
And then ... he acted.
The path down to them was tiered, steps carved into the rock of Hell. An amphitheatre, a mausoleum, a stage. Demons had gathered in crowds, once, only a few years ago. Too busy now. Too panicked and pained and grasping. His footsteps were the only ones to echo in the cavernous silence, his movements the only ones to catch an eye, beyond them. They didn't hear. They didn't look. They no longer cared who came to see them in their silent little world. They cared for nothing, now, except each other.
But they looked when he stepped past the barriers. Past the ring of seats, past the invisible line that marked the audience from the players. When he stepped onto their stage, they looked at him.
The Fallen turned, his hand slipping into the angel's, a finger flashing against his companion's palm to whisper to the blind man what he saw. Golden eyes, ancient and afraid, coldly vicious, protective, seared across Crowley's figure, passed over him and judged him in one fell swoop, and the Fallen surged upward into a crouch. An animalistic gesture, a serpent coiled to spring, and his wings arched above his back in proud, battered defiance. When Crowley stopped, only a few feet away, the Fallen pulled himself slowly to his feet.
The angel, still sitting calm and quiet at his lover's feet, squeezed the hand he still held, and smiled serenely into nothing. That expression seized hold of Crowley's gut more powerfully than any threat.
"What would you give me, if I offered you your freedom?" he heard himself ask. His voice sounded strange, as if coming from a distance. As if the silence had partially swallowed it, this thing that had no place in this world, in this play. "What price would you pay, if I told you I could let you go?"
The Fallen stared at him, something incredulous whispering over his face, something darkly sardonic flickering in his eyes. His angel smiled, suddenly, a real smile, bright and laughing as fingers moved against his palm.
"Nothing," the angel rasped softly, in a voice scarred and used. "We have nothing, my dear. There is nothing left to sell."
Crowley swallowed, oddly nervous. A demon speaking to something close to gods, to icons of something not meant to be touched. The power was his, was always his, but they ... were untouchable.
And yet ... he yearned. And he had come to act.
"And if I had something in mind?" he whispered, a broken, lustful thing. "If I had something to ask? Would you give it, if I guided you to the Gates of Hell, and let you go?"
"Something you cannot simply take?" a voice asked, sly and exhausted, bitterly sarcastic. Crowley started, a little, stared in something close to horror, close to fear. The words had passed the angel's lips. But they were not his, not in his voice.
"You speak for him?" he asked, aghast. Intrigued. He ignored their question for the moment. "You ... you give him your voice?"
The angel blinked, pale eyes staring at a point somewhere past Crowley's ear. He smiled, very gently. "Why not?" he said, his voice his own once more. "He sees for me. He gives me his eyes." He moved his hand around his companion's, a soft caress of thumb against scarred knuckles, and the Fallen stared down at him in possessive adoration. No. In love. "And you have not answered his question, my dear. Please?"
Please. Softly murmured, an encouragement, not a plea. A gesture of gentility, and that luminous dignity that clung around them. Crowley swallowed once again. But he could not pass up this chance. He could not leave this yearning unfulfilled.
"Not by force," he rasped, feeling his hands knotting unconsciously into fists, feeling the flush climb across his cheeks. But he had to continue. He had to ask. "I have plied my trade for centuries, I have begged, bribed, coerced and stolen, looking for what I want, but it can't be taken. It can't be forced. If I ... If I ask you, if I give you your freedom ... will you give it to me? Will you give me what I want?"
Something changed, then. Something rippled through them, across them, something intense and contemplative as they considered him, and he almost flinched. Almost curled away beneath hot golden eyes and a blind, pale stare that saw too much. Far too much. Something flickered through them, a curiosity that they had not showed for anything in this world since they were brought here, and a strange kind of pity that Crowley had never seen anywhere else. Something moved them, and the angel slowly stood.
"What do you want?" he asked, very quietly. Almost gently, and the Fallen at his side had stepped forward, just a little. A lithe and naked movement towards a demon, a controlled act of terror, and the head with those mutilated lips had tilted high, a silent sort of pride. Crowley felt his heart convulse, and reached out before he thought, stopping an inch from that pale skin only as the Fallen flinched, and quivered before his hand. He let it fall, and felt something wither inside him.
"Nothing," he whispered hollowly. "Nothing. Just ... a kiss." Yes. Only a kiss. Anything else was not his to touch, and even the most profane of his kind had understood that. He had been ... he had been so very foolish, to hope ... "A kiss, from each of you. And I will take you back to earth, and ... and never cross your paths again. I swear it. I promise." And it was odd, how his voice seemed to shake, how that oath carried all the weight his deals had not. It was odd, how little he cared.
They turned to each other, curved against each other, those hands twitching in silent communion as the Fallen stared at him, and the angel frowned into his black abyss. For a long moment, they were silent, statues carved in pain and shadow while they spun judgement between them on his request, and whispered the verdict on each other's skin. Then they turned once more, shoulder to shoulder, and looked at him.
"Yes," the angel murmured, with a gentle smile. "Yes," his Fallen echoed through him, with a twist of his bound mouth. They reached out, with the hands not held between them, and offered open palms to him, opened the circle of their play for just one moment. Just one request. And Crowley, stunned and desperate, reached out and stepped inside.
They curled around him, two forms naked in the shadows, pinned him between them with a strength he hadn't expected, with a strength he recognised with a flash of fear. But there was no anger to their terror, no vengeance to the press of their arms. Only an embrace, unlooked for, unasked for, and while they clasped one set of hands behind him, he felt himself curve into the others they rested on his face. Felt himself almost nuzzle the cool, pale palms pressed against his cheeks. They smiled at him, one with his mouth, one with his eyes.
And then the angel, blind and tender, turned his face and pulled him gently close. Then the angel reached up, and whispered softly across his lips. Mouthed murmured words smiling into his mouth, until he pressed close, and pulled Crowley in, pulled a demon in to drown, to tumble blind into the tenderness of a stolen gesture. The angel kissed him softly, and Crowley felt like weeping.
Another hand touched him, softly, hesitantly. Slid between his cheek and the angel's, twitched them gently apart. Tugged Crowley out of that embrace, and pulled him around into another. The Fallen's golden eyes stared mutely at him, eloquent and afraid, wry and softly bitter, and the hand guided his lips to ones torn immobile, stretched into a hard, cold line and tasting quietly of pain. Crowley stiffened, afraid, almost appalled, and the Fallen let that line soften with a twitch, and nuzzled gently in lieu of a promised kiss. Chaste, and pained, and gently terrible. Crowley fell away, fell back, pulled himself from the cradle of their arms, and touched a hand in silent horror to his lips.
They smiled, so very gently, and bowed their heads as they cleaved together once again. Waiting for a verdict. Waiting without hope to know if what they offered had met his price, had won them freedom ... or only another act in the play.
Crowley stared at them. Watched them, saw them. A strange and frightening viewing of an old, familiar play, a player's insight to what had only been a watcher's fantasy. A touch of something untouchable, a taste of something rightly forbidden. Crowley curved away, and watched their shoulders fall. Watched their spines curve once more in silent defeat, and faces paint themselves once more in mummer's masks, the actor's only shield against the play. He watched them fall.
And tasted something so bitter, a blow so crushing it couldn't be borne. A feeling so terrible it couldn't be contained, and all at once he reached out once more. No watcher now, no player, but the master of the stage. The hand that held the keys. He reached out, the Crossroads King, and sold them the door to another stage, and the freedom to walk right through. Shackles snapped beneath his power, warding running like liquid under his fingers, dripping spent onto the floor, into the rock of Hell, and he loosed them from their bonds. Tore apart the false boundary of their stage, and granted leave for curtain-fall.
And then, unbidden, unable to resist, he reached once more for the Fallen's face. While golden eyes stared at him in stunned amazement, and an angel squeaked in shock as metal fell away. He reached out, guiding as he had been guided, and dissolved the threads with a touch. Unsealed that mouth, and tugged it forward, just the once, to steal the kiss he'd been denied. A moment of heat, a rush of fear and shock and hard, deadly fire, and he made himself pull back. Forced himself to pull away, and release them in truth.
A deal. He'd made a deal, and accepted the price. He was the Crossroads King, and his word was his bond. He had touched what could not be touched. It was enough.
He did watch them as they went away. Watched them as they staggered naked as babes into a world they'd forgotten, as they stepped outside their stage and entered a new and private play. He watched them as they turned, the angel's fingers pressed against his lover's unbound mouth, fingers playing in stunned delight between scarred lips and touching a forgotten tongue. He watched as golden eyes turned, so very briefly, back his way, watched them tighten in gratitude, and fear, and that strange and distant pity. He watched the angel and his Fallen walk away.
And then he closed his eyes, and put back on his mummer's mask, and turned his back on his last day in Hell. The End was Nigh, the Devil walked the Earth, the Heroes played the Fool, and now ... now it was time for him to play his part.
The Curtain never closes, save to open on another day.
Contd: Forfeit of a Kiss
He watched them. Everyone watched them, though their audiences had grown thinner over the years. Only about a decade, on earth, but subjective centuries in Hell. They had become ... almost a tableau. Almost sanctified, if anything in Hell could lay claim to that title. But even demons needed their legends. Even demons needed ... whatever they were, whatever memory of a distant life they represented. Crowley wasn't completely sure there was a word for the ... almost reverence ... with which these two were regarded. A strange, detached worship, a pity and a hate, a virulent contempt and a desperate sense of possession. A lurid sideshow, save that it was revered. Crowley watched it now.
They curled around each other, loose-limbed and naked, sprawled with casual abandon. As if they thought they were alone, or no longer cared for what their audience thought. The taller of the two, thin and fluid, pared down to bone and the gleam of skin, traced pale fingers across his companion's stomach, a spool of words across the silence. Above their play, where his head lay canted into the other's shoulder, the threads sewn across his mouth gleamed in the firelight. His companion smiled at whatever secret the fleeting touch imparted, murmuring responses too soft to be heard, the white stare of his eyes staring forever into some abyss. One bound in darkness, the other to silence, linked only by the fragile thread of touch. And yet, between them ... in some strange way complete.
Once, a few years ago, Crowley had stood here with Alastair. Quite by accident, of course. He did try not to associate with the lunatic fringe. But for that one time, he'd stood beside Hell's chief torturer, and watched them.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" the other demon had purred. Almost wistfully, except that Alastair knew no such emotion. "One day, they'll be my masterpiece, you know. A climax. One day. Not quite yet. For now ... something to savour. The perfect balance, just at the point of transformation. A union on the point of sundering. Chastity on the point of plunder. Serenity ... on the edge of despair. Something on the brink of breaking, stretched across the edge ... A promise for my future, yes? Something ... to look forward to ..." And he'd laughed, low and rough and in a strange way lustful.
Crowley had shuddered, at the time, ice skating up his spine and revulsion twisting in his gut. Alastair had that effect. But later ... there were times, later, in the quiet moments ... when Crowley understood what he meant. Understood, a little, why these two had been left as they were, a strange and living work of art, a mummer's pantomime of corrupted purity. A grisly and oddly dignified memory of love.
They moved, beneath him. Slow, almost rolling, clockwork motions like a parody of life. But still so tender. So ... intense. The taller creature, the demon, the Fallen, rising dark and golden against his lover. The shorter, the blind remnant of what had once been an angel, raising a shackled hand to touch the other's face. To guide him close, guide him down, and press their lips together. So softly, close-mouthed, chastity enforced by the ridged lines of thread between the demon's lips, but ... something more. Gentle. Sweet. The angel softly mouthing, whispering kisses along the torn flesh, guided by taste and memory of a face he would never see again. The demon smiling, not with a mouth brutally stilled, but with the flash of golden eyes, and the whisper of a hand across the angel's knuckles, along the angel's jaw. Pooled around them, pale and frayed against the floor, their wings arched and shifted, their rustling the only sound in this silent shadow-play. Crowley watched.
It was ... unearthly. Untouchable. A strange glimmer of the divine, a luminous shadow cast against the walls of Hell, and no demon, not even the most depraved, the most profane, would touch it. Would spoil it. This echo of things forgotten, this whisper of things unearned. This silent glimpse of all they might have had, once upon a time, when even the worst of them had been innocent. It was ... their pilgrimage. Their scourge.
Crowley watched. This day in Hell. His last. The Gates of Hell had been thrown open. The Devil was in the game. Tomorrow, he made his choice. Tomorrow, he picked a side, and the only way he would see this place again was if they took him alive. He planned not to let that happen. He planned never to let that happen. Today was his last day. And he watched.
And then ... he acted.
The path down to them was tiered, steps carved into the rock of Hell. An amphitheatre, a mausoleum, a stage. Demons had gathered in crowds, once, only a few years ago. Too busy now. Too panicked and pained and grasping. His footsteps were the only ones to echo in the cavernous silence, his movements the only ones to catch an eye, beyond them. They didn't hear. They didn't look. They no longer cared who came to see them in their silent little world. They cared for nothing, now, except each other.
But they looked when he stepped past the barriers. Past the ring of seats, past the invisible line that marked the audience from the players. When he stepped onto their stage, they looked at him.
The Fallen turned, his hand slipping into the angel's, a finger flashing against his companion's palm to whisper to the blind man what he saw. Golden eyes, ancient and afraid, coldly vicious, protective, seared across Crowley's figure, passed over him and judged him in one fell swoop, and the Fallen surged upward into a crouch. An animalistic gesture, a serpent coiled to spring, and his wings arched above his back in proud, battered defiance. When Crowley stopped, only a few feet away, the Fallen pulled himself slowly to his feet.
The angel, still sitting calm and quiet at his lover's feet, squeezed the hand he still held, and smiled serenely into nothing. That expression seized hold of Crowley's gut more powerfully than any threat.
"What would you give me, if I offered you your freedom?" he heard himself ask. His voice sounded strange, as if coming from a distance. As if the silence had partially swallowed it, this thing that had no place in this world, in this play. "What price would you pay, if I told you I could let you go?"
The Fallen stared at him, something incredulous whispering over his face, something darkly sardonic flickering in his eyes. His angel smiled, suddenly, a real smile, bright and laughing as fingers moved against his palm.
"Nothing," the angel rasped softly, in a voice scarred and used. "We have nothing, my dear. There is nothing left to sell."
Crowley swallowed, oddly nervous. A demon speaking to something close to gods, to icons of something not meant to be touched. The power was his, was always his, but they ... were untouchable.
And yet ... he yearned. And he had come to act.
"And if I had something in mind?" he whispered, a broken, lustful thing. "If I had something to ask? Would you give it, if I guided you to the Gates of Hell, and let you go?"
"Something you cannot simply take?" a voice asked, sly and exhausted, bitterly sarcastic. Crowley started, a little, stared in something close to horror, close to fear. The words had passed the angel's lips. But they were not his, not in his voice.
"You speak for him?" he asked, aghast. Intrigued. He ignored their question for the moment. "You ... you give him your voice?"
The angel blinked, pale eyes staring at a point somewhere past Crowley's ear. He smiled, very gently. "Why not?" he said, his voice his own once more. "He sees for me. He gives me his eyes." He moved his hand around his companion's, a soft caress of thumb against scarred knuckles, and the Fallen stared down at him in possessive adoration. No. In love. "And you have not answered his question, my dear. Please?"
Please. Softly murmured, an encouragement, not a plea. A gesture of gentility, and that luminous dignity that clung around them. Crowley swallowed once again. But he could not pass up this chance. He could not leave this yearning unfulfilled.
"Not by force," he rasped, feeling his hands knotting unconsciously into fists, feeling the flush climb across his cheeks. But he had to continue. He had to ask. "I have plied my trade for centuries, I have begged, bribed, coerced and stolen, looking for what I want, but it can't be taken. It can't be forced. If I ... If I ask you, if I give you your freedom ... will you give it to me? Will you give me what I want?"
Something changed, then. Something rippled through them, across them, something intense and contemplative as they considered him, and he almost flinched. Almost curled away beneath hot golden eyes and a blind, pale stare that saw too much. Far too much. Something flickered through them, a curiosity that they had not showed for anything in this world since they were brought here, and a strange kind of pity that Crowley had never seen anywhere else. Something moved them, and the angel slowly stood.
"What do you want?" he asked, very quietly. Almost gently, and the Fallen at his side had stepped forward, just a little. A lithe and naked movement towards a demon, a controlled act of terror, and the head with those mutilated lips had tilted high, a silent sort of pride. Crowley felt his heart convulse, and reached out before he thought, stopping an inch from that pale skin only as the Fallen flinched, and quivered before his hand. He let it fall, and felt something wither inside him.
"Nothing," he whispered hollowly. "Nothing. Just ... a kiss." Yes. Only a kiss. Anything else was not his to touch, and even the most profane of his kind had understood that. He had been ... he had been so very foolish, to hope ... "A kiss, from each of you. And I will take you back to earth, and ... and never cross your paths again. I swear it. I promise." And it was odd, how his voice seemed to shake, how that oath carried all the weight his deals had not. It was odd, how little he cared.
They turned to each other, curved against each other, those hands twitching in silent communion as the Fallen stared at him, and the angel frowned into his black abyss. For a long moment, they were silent, statues carved in pain and shadow while they spun judgement between them on his request, and whispered the verdict on each other's skin. Then they turned once more, shoulder to shoulder, and looked at him.
"Yes," the angel murmured, with a gentle smile. "Yes," his Fallen echoed through him, with a twist of his bound mouth. They reached out, with the hands not held between them, and offered open palms to him, opened the circle of their play for just one moment. Just one request. And Crowley, stunned and desperate, reached out and stepped inside.
They curled around him, two forms naked in the shadows, pinned him between them with a strength he hadn't expected, with a strength he recognised with a flash of fear. But there was no anger to their terror, no vengeance to the press of their arms. Only an embrace, unlooked for, unasked for, and while they clasped one set of hands behind him, he felt himself curve into the others they rested on his face. Felt himself almost nuzzle the cool, pale palms pressed against his cheeks. They smiled at him, one with his mouth, one with his eyes.
And then the angel, blind and tender, turned his face and pulled him gently close. Then the angel reached up, and whispered softly across his lips. Mouthed murmured words smiling into his mouth, until he pressed close, and pulled Crowley in, pulled a demon in to drown, to tumble blind into the tenderness of a stolen gesture. The angel kissed him softly, and Crowley felt like weeping.
Another hand touched him, softly, hesitantly. Slid between his cheek and the angel's, twitched them gently apart. Tugged Crowley out of that embrace, and pulled him around into another. The Fallen's golden eyes stared mutely at him, eloquent and afraid, wry and softly bitter, and the hand guided his lips to ones torn immobile, stretched into a hard, cold line and tasting quietly of pain. Crowley stiffened, afraid, almost appalled, and the Fallen let that line soften with a twitch, and nuzzled gently in lieu of a promised kiss. Chaste, and pained, and gently terrible. Crowley fell away, fell back, pulled himself from the cradle of their arms, and touched a hand in silent horror to his lips.
They smiled, so very gently, and bowed their heads as they cleaved together once again. Waiting for a verdict. Waiting without hope to know if what they offered had met his price, had won them freedom ... or only another act in the play.
Crowley stared at them. Watched them, saw them. A strange and frightening viewing of an old, familiar play, a player's insight to what had only been a watcher's fantasy. A touch of something untouchable, a taste of something rightly forbidden. Crowley curved away, and watched their shoulders fall. Watched their spines curve once more in silent defeat, and faces paint themselves once more in mummer's masks, the actor's only shield against the play. He watched them fall.
And tasted something so bitter, a blow so crushing it couldn't be borne. A feeling so terrible it couldn't be contained, and all at once he reached out once more. No watcher now, no player, but the master of the stage. The hand that held the keys. He reached out, the Crossroads King, and sold them the door to another stage, and the freedom to walk right through. Shackles snapped beneath his power, warding running like liquid under his fingers, dripping spent onto the floor, into the rock of Hell, and he loosed them from their bonds. Tore apart the false boundary of their stage, and granted leave for curtain-fall.
And then, unbidden, unable to resist, he reached once more for the Fallen's face. While golden eyes stared at him in stunned amazement, and an angel squeaked in shock as metal fell away. He reached out, guiding as he had been guided, and dissolved the threads with a touch. Unsealed that mouth, and tugged it forward, just the once, to steal the kiss he'd been denied. A moment of heat, a rush of fear and shock and hard, deadly fire, and he made himself pull back. Forced himself to pull away, and release them in truth.
A deal. He'd made a deal, and accepted the price. He was the Crossroads King, and his word was his bond. He had touched what could not be touched. It was enough.
He did watch them as they went away. Watched them as they staggered naked as babes into a world they'd forgotten, as they stepped outside their stage and entered a new and private play. He watched them as they turned, the angel's fingers pressed against his lover's unbound mouth, fingers playing in stunned delight between scarred lips and touching a forgotten tongue. He watched as golden eyes turned, so very briefly, back his way, watched them tighten in gratitude, and fear, and that strange and distant pity. He watched the angel and his Fallen walk away.
And then he closed his eyes, and put back on his mummer's mask, and turned his back on his last day in Hell. The End was Nigh, the Devil walked the Earth, the Heroes played the Fool, and now ... now it was time for him to play his part.
The Curtain never closes, save to open on another day.
Contd: Forfeit of a Kiss
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