2620/Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows
Date of Scene:	28 September 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Castiel and Crowley come to an uneasy truce. For better? Or for much, much worse?
Cast of Characters:	Castiel, Crowley

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Castiel has posed:
The demon fueled pyrotechnics are a sight to behold, but they're lost upon Castiel, who has seen this and more besides over the eons he's existed. As far as spectacular things go, the temper tantrum is mild. He's seen entire cities wiped out on a whim because of a simple displeasure. In the scope of that? This was nothing.

When it seems that the demon might be ready to listen again, Castiel repeats himself, "You asked why."

There's a pause, an interminable pause as the angel waits until he's certain Crowley not only listens, but will hear him. "//That.// That is why I fell." The reason being that this time it wasn't just the machinations of hell working to bring about the Apocalypse. This time, Heaven was actively forcing the issue. And in-between the two?

Well, one of the reasons was asleep on the hood of the Impala.

Crowley has posed:
"Huh."

Much is contained in that one word. He looks down at Dean.

"Well. How ironic. It appears we share common goals."

It is mild, and it's over as quickly as it began at least. Crowley is abruptly on the ground, hands in his pockets, face twisted into a sour expression.

"What does Heaven want with him? Hell thinks he's the key to a very particular door."

He lifts his eyebrows, inviting Castiel to share again, his own brown and normal once more. He could just be a guy, shooting the breeze with a slightly less fashionable businessman while some drunk snoozes on his car hood.

Castiel has posed:
The faintest of gestures is given by Castiel. Not quite a shrug. Mostly a memory of one, the fabric of his trench coat giving the slightest of tensions over his shoulders, and then nothing more. "So it would seem," the angel agrees when the King of the Crossroads says they may share common goals. "We may at that."

The angel waits patiently for Crowley to resume a more neutral stance, the two facing off over the hood of the Impala, Dean a snooze between them. "What has Heaven always wanted of him." It isn't a question. "Are we talking in good faith now?" The irony of the question is not lost upon the angel now that he has settled into something more of his power. Less the human. More the angel. Still a Fallen gesture in a dispute as old as time.

Crowley is considered, Castiel's head a slight cant of consideration. Gaze narrowed down. Eyebrows a furrow. "You know the man. You tell me. What is his weakness."

It isn't precisely an answer to the demon's question -- unless you know what you're looking for. And then it begins to be all kinds of an answer.

Crowley has posed:
"His first weakness you can't use against him, because it counts as love. His second weakness? He needs people. His third weakness? He hates himself." Crowley's face twists in frustration. "A ridiculous lack of any real ambition, greed, ego, selfishness, malice. It's not that he doesn't do bad things, it's that his motives are never wrong enough. But."

He holds up a finger as the answer abruptly comes to him.

"He //does// have a little wrath problem."

People might assume, of all the seven deadly sins, that the sleeping man's problem would be lust. Crowley, though, rather thinks it's wrath. All that fury roaring around inside Dean Winchester could perhaps be exploited to offer just that tiny bit of corruption.

"I don't even need him so badly corrupted he'd be disqualified from Heaven," he adds. "He just needs to lose his status as a righteous man. Do that, and you'll kick the Apocalypse Plan right in the nuts."

Castiel has posed:
Castiel listens patiently while Crowley lists off Dean's faults and foibles. "His first weakness.." There's a pause while the angel mulls the list. "You do not see his love as a weakness to hold against him?" There's no note of surprise to his voice, but a brow does lift fractionally. "I would have thought it the prime lever. His entire life can be measured by that meter. Every act, every sin, every fall the man takes is at that altar. And you do not see it as a weakness?"

The angel gives an actual shrug. The gesture dismissive. "Semantics. It makes him vulnerable. Usable. I won't quibble what you want of him. If he falls, we all fall."

The canted line of his head increases as he asks, "How do you see his fall from righteousness as the answer?" It isn't the answer Castiel has. Though it is just as drastic in the long run. And even so, the angel searches for a measure less of Heaven's plan. It's just the road to Hell.. adages have beginnings. The angel has no plans of being that good intention.

Crowley has posed:
"Of course it's a weakness," Crowley says. "But by the //rules// any sin he commits for little Sammy, or any other love, doesn't disqualify him as righteous. I have made him commit all kinds of sins in the name of that one weakness, but it never works. Because the motives are always in the right place. It's downright nauseating."

But Castiel asks a fair question, and Crowley decides if he doesn't answer it the angel won't help.

"The first seal of the Apocalypse," he says flatly, "is in Hell. In Alistair's territory, in fact. The only way it can be broken is if a righteous man is tormented in Hell. I got wind of a plan. They planned to kill his brother and force a deal to get him the moment he turned eighteen, the moment he could qualify as a man. I killed his brother and forced a deal first, when they were both still children. That put him under my protection. That means he shows up in my domain when he dies. It also means I can resurrect him as much as I want. At least until his bloody ten years are up. Then the rules force my hand, and if he's not corrupted the seal breaks anyway. It's easier if he's bleeding directly atop the thing, but 'a righteous man, tortured in Hell,' is the criteria, not 'a righteous man, tortured in Hell, directly atop the first bloody seal."

His mouth twists. "I thought-- ten years to corrupt a man. How hard can it be? I have sent him every temptation I could think of. He does the right things for the right reasons every bloody time. It would be supremely ironic were an angel to succeed where a demon has failed, but. I'll take what I can get."

Castiel has posed:
Ah.. yes. That. Castiel smiles, the gesture both graceful and awkward upon him. "So, not quite on the same side in this. But close enough. Yes. Sam." Castiel regards the man asleep upon the Impala's hood. "There are other righteous men," the angel observes, then moves along.

"Ten years. A pittance." Another of those almost shrugs is given before the angel still again. Absolute lack of motion but for the eyes which are animated, and the fact that he is speaking. "You fall upon the same sword I do. How to keep the man from choosing for the boy. You do know what they want of Sam, do you not?" The angel a patience while he waits to see where Crowley sits on this information. They have the seal between them now. If there is a space for the two to consider motives, consider means, consider a path walked in parallel if not together -- this is the place to find it.

Crowley has posed:
"There aren't many other righteous men who could sell their souls for any reason and still be considered righteous," Crowley says dryly. "Or who would. And mostly-righteous is not all-righteous. The former condition is far more common than the latter."

He does indeed keep Dean between them, the Hunter's prone form serving as the world's strangest negotiation table.

"Oh yes. I'm well aware what they want. They used Squirrel here to push him a little closer to it recently. Hell's general. Half human, so he can get around the rules; he forms the opening. Half-demon, so he can actually control the forces he calls up. All bad news."

His smile is dark. "I've been forbidden, via agreement, to go near the Moose."

Castiel has posed:
Castiel's gaze, too, falls upon Dean. The man sprawled like a kingdom between them. All that is missing are the flags and markers of battle. The chalk marks and lines delineating marching forces and places where troops have fallen back. The X's of battles lost and ground fallen away. Circles for tactical points of interest and attack. Instead, there is only stubble upon the man's cheeks, and an empty whiskey bottle thrown to the side; an uneven cadence of breath as he sleeps it off.

"You may be forbidden," Castiel says simply, the implication left wide open for interpretation. Without Sam, the battle may be moot. But without Sam.. Dean is a wildcard. There's that fine line there. Too much one way and the man openly welcomes Michael. Too much the other, he becomes the harbinger of all ends. Somewhere inbetween is where Castiel and Crowley stand.

"If he falls, humanity falls. They are.." His pause is not as long as some, but it is there, and when he speaks again, his gravelly voice is soft, filled with regret. "They are nothing more than an afterthought. Not even numbered in the losses that will fall that day."

Castiel's gaze is lifted from Dean to Crowley. "Give me a reason."

Crowley has posed:
There is an old adage in sales.

It goes something like this.

If the salesman says it, he's a liar.

If the customer says it, he's telling bedrock truth.

Give me a reason, Castiel says, and both of Crowley's eyebrows lift. His eyes widen just slightly, and he spreads his hands, half smiling as he turns away a little bit.

"I think you just gave yourself a reason," he says.

His head tilts slightly to one side, his smile tolerant and growing just a little bit. "Did you not?"

He backs up a few steps. "Sounds like you've just agreed to help me save the world, Castiel. Brilliant. I look forward to seeing how you use your unique position to cause a resolution for the greater good. As I accomplish things here and there? I'll be in touch."

Castiel has posed:
The barest inclination of head. The angel giving but a single word of assent, the sound a thunderclap between them: "Done."

And then he, too, is a motion away. One moment there, the next but gone. Nothing but the stir of wind gathering up loose leaves by the roadside; burnt out lights for as far as the eye can see, but for a single overhead streetlamp creating a circle about the sleeping Dean upon the hood of the Impala. The man's breath the even cadence of things he does not know may come to pass. Two unlikely guardians having sealed a pact to save humanity, accepting that their own falls may be the price to pay.