((In which evil is in the eye of the beholder, or in which Crowley has some shocking revelations about his motivations. Pre-slash.
Thanks to @pen-in-hand-mb for letting me bounce ideas off of her, and for helping to think up some of Crowley’s antics.))
The cemetery was dark and cold and for once Crowley was early. Drumming his fingers idly against a tombstone, he glanced around for any sign of Hastur and Ligur, the two demons with which he was meant to be corresponding.
Just outside the cemetery gate, his Bentley was idling, waiting patiently for the first possible moment of escape.
Checking his watch, Crowley realized why he did not make a habit of being on time for his meetings with Hastur and Ligur.
The waiting period was hell.
He fidgeted. It wasn’t that he was nervous, per say, it was simply that there tended to be nearly insurmountable creative differences between Dukes of Hell and, for instance, the sort of demon who might drive a vintage Bentley, appear to wear snakeskin shoes, and dedicate a corner of his flat to keeping a series of increasingly anxious plants alive. Crowley was never any good at family reunions.
A noise from behind made him jump. He managed to resume a neutral expression just as Hastur and Ligur rounded the corner of a sizable monument nearby.
“All hail Satan,” Ligur said, spotting Crowley.
“All hail Satan,” Hastur echoed.
“Ditto,” Crowley replied, nodding.
Hastur scowled. Not that it did much to change the expression on his face.
“Everything soldiering on below?” Crowley asked, rather brightly.
“Below is not the point of this meeting.”
“The point?” Crowley scratched at a place behind his ear. “Alright then. Let’s get on with it, shall we? I haven’t got all night.” Hell’s particular brand of accountability made him twitchy.
“Right,” Ligur said, cracking his knuckles. Of all the joys of corporation, joint cracking must have been foremost on Ligur’s list, judging by his endless pursuit of the form. Crowley chewed thoughtfully on his own lower lip as he waited for the full report.
“I have made a man believe that a dalliance with his wife’s sister will not be discovered. Within two years he will be ours.”
“I have put doubt into the mind of a devout man. Within a year he will be a shadow of his former self. And you, Crowley?”
Crowley smiled winningly at them. “An especially good one today,” he said. “Convinced another three celebrities to write tell-all memoirs.”
Hastur and Ligur blinked at him like two very confused oafs eyeing a particularly difficult maths problem. This was only half accurate. Crowley avoided maths.
“What good is that?” Hastur demanded finally, after a quick glance at Ligur to assure himself that the other demon was equally perplexed.
Crowley frowned at them. “What good? Millions of people will lose their spotless heroes when those books hit the shelves. And millions more, shopkeepers, will have to look at those smug faces, trying to remind the world of when they used to mean something.” Well, he could think of one shopkeeper who wouldn’t. He recalled the look of horror on Aziraphale’s face at the prospect, and felt the corners of his mouth turn up in an involuntary smile.
“That’s not real evil,” Ligur said finally. “Not of our stock, at any rate. ‘Ave you got anything else?”
“Of course,” scoffed Crowley, who prided himself on his ability to multitask. “What do you think of shops that only play elevator music.”
It had been a good idea. Aziraphale became unusually suspicious upon hearing it, and Crowley spotted him checking his vintage record collection with increased frequency, lest the albums go the route of cassettes left in the Bentley, but with a muted saxophone line instead of Freddie Mercury’s falsetto. Crowley laughed at Aziraphale’s fears over a glass of the angel’s rather good wine, of which he seemed to never run out.
Seeing the look of continued nonplussed irritation on the faces of the other demons, he chuckled cautiously. “I suppose you had to be there.”
“Crowley,” Hastur said, leaning in conspiratorially as though to tell a secret or offer advice. “You’re going to have to do better than that. What happened to the demon I remember from Eden? You did good work back then. Proper work.”
“Books with movie posters on the cover!” Crowley retorted.
Hastur huffed a sigh and rubbed at his temple. “Come on, Crawly. Real, proper evil. Surely you’ve got something.”
Aziraphale had thought the movie poster ploy to be among his most impressively devious schemes. Hastur seemed to have slightly different standards.
“Alright, alright,” Crowley held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll tell you about one of my most impressive projects. I’m really playing the long game here. It’s taken years of work.”
“Out with it, then,” Ligur growled.
“Have you ever wondered why everyone calls the MONSTER ‘Frankenstein’ instead of the scientist?”
Hastur and Ligur, who had briefly perked up at the word “monster,” deflated almost instantly. Seeing this, Crowley forged on ahead in an attempt to explain his reasoning. “Listen, boys. You’ve got to think about the engineering here. Every film. Every minuscule reference. Hell, every textbook I can get my hands on. It’s been bloody difficult, okay?”
But worth it, he thought, to see the delightful little cringe on Aziraphale’s face every time someone failed to properly identify Mary Shelley’s creature. Almost any effort was worth the benefit of gently teasing Aziraphale. It was a delightful hobby.
More than a hobby, in fact, he thought suddenly. There was nothing in his report to hell which didn’t serve the greater purpose of showing off to the angel.
Crowley felt his face begin to flush slightly at the dawning realization. He hoped the Dukes of Hell did not notice. Thankfully, they seemed too busy being absolutely disgusted with him for other reasons.
“You’ll be bringing down our averages again, Crowley,” Ligur warned.
Crowley found he did not care what sort of infernal maths went into documenting Hell’s productivity and risk assessments, but that he did care about getting out from underneath its most dogged actuaries.
“Alright. Sorry. Listen. One more for the road, then. My car’s been running this whole time. Burning away the firmament as we speak. Viciously, and with malice of forethought, tearing it to pieces. Does that help?”
He liked to keep the bar set low. Life was easier when Hell didn’t expect much from him.
Hastur and Ligur exchanged glances and grudgingly acknowledged this as Crowley’s most diabolical act in the past several weeks. “Fine,” Ligur grumbled. “We’ll add it to the report. But see you do better next time, Crowley.”
“Right. Sure. Of course.”
In point of fact, he already had some pretty vicious ideas about library cataloguing systems.
“Ta,” he said to Hastur and Ligur, and headed for the Bentley as quickly as it was possible to do while still appearing casual and not-at-all unsettled.
The radio was playing “Under Pressure” softly and Aziraphale was frowning at it.
“This was supposed to be Bach,” he fretted.
“It’s close enough,” Crowley said, smiling as he folded himself into the driver’s seat. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Angel. Fortunately, I made our dinner reservation for 'precisely when we feel like arriving.’” It was a standing reservation, and he never had to make any phone calls to procure it. It was also his favorite time to dine.
“Don’t worry, My Dear. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Excellent,” Crowley nodded. And then, “Angel, how do you feel about passages of text underlined in ink?”
Aziraphale shuddered. Crowley only smiled.
