bigapplesauce | You can't go home again [closed]

As much as he enjoys sleep, Crowley also really likes cities on the cusp between very late night and very early morning. The last of the drunks and partying twenty-somethings have trickled back into their homes, and save a few taxis making their way about on their own business, streaks of sodium-yellow headlights in the blue-brown night, the streets are nearly empty. The only people awake are people who have business being awake. It's a nice time to be up.

And so Crowley is, not really going anywhere, just walking, fag smouldering between his fingers. If pressed he might admit that he's doing some thinking, but would forbear to enumerate any further.

Passing by the huge stone edifice of the Natural History Museum, his eye is caught by someone who is doing an excellent job of looking like he's stepped right out of a self-consciously gritty comic book, loitering by the statue of Teddy Roosevelt in a leather trenchcoat, platinum blond hair slicked back, face faintly illuminated by the glowing cherry of a cigarette. Whoever he is, he's broadcasting as if in flashing neon letters, UP TO NO GOOD. And, well, Crowley can hardly resist that, can he?

As silently as he can, he snakes up behind the man, setting a shoulder against the plinth. 'Pondering a late night visit to the museum, are we?'

Spike jumps a little as a voice interrupts his thoughts. How the hell did anyone sneak up on him? He's usually aware enough of his surroundings that this sort of thing doesn't happen. That means that whoever this is is either incredibly quiet or incredibly sneaky. Or both. He's suspicious immediately.

Whatever he's expecting when he turns to look isn't what he actually finds. The man is tall and well dressed, looking more like he'd just happened to take a stroll around noon and had forgotten to go home than someone who had actually decided to come out at this hour. The sunglasses are what really throw him off. Does he think he looks cool or is he hiding something?

Spike throws a sneer in his direction. "Are you lost?"

Edited 2014-09-02 03:05 (UTC)

Like a bastard, Crowley grins. 'Nah. Just out for a stroll at,' he checks his ostentatiously expensive watch,¹ '4:30 in the morning like a completely normal, unsuspicious bloke, right?'

Just gonna hang that lampshade there, blondie. Because it's so very obvious you're up to something. Crowley doesn't know what, but he can see the opportunity to cause a little chaos like a beacon, whether by simply annoying the would-be burglar or joining him in his presumable breaking and entering.

Crowley grins again. 'You planning on doing anything, or are you just here to admire the facade?'

¹ Updated from his previous watch, which he'd quickly realised was tragically out of date in 2013. This watch, however, is similarly flash, ludicrously expensive, capable of telling time underwater, and possibly additionally in the vacuum of space.

"Admire my facade, arsehole." He's not exactly sure what he means by that, but it hardly matters. A moment later, he's walking away to go see if the basement window he remembers is still around the side of the building. By the time he does find it, he looks around to see if mr. sunglasses has followed, but he doesn't see him. Happily, he pulls the pry bar from his coat and crouches down to see if there are any alarms in place.

Crowley snorts at that stinging retort, leaning against the plinth and sucking down the last of his cigarette before flicking it away. Apparently Billy Idol here is under the impression that that constitutes a clever end to that brief conversation. He peers after the retreating blond head and flapping leather coattails, and decides that he's gonna do a good deed.

Or, well. Probably not a good deed, in the larger scheme of things, which would be allowing the would-be burglar to get caught. A smaller, more selfish and personally amusing sort of good deed.

He slouches silently around to lean against the wall where blondie's crouched down holding a crowbar and regarding a grated-off basement window very much as if he's got plans on knocking it in. 'You're not from this time period either, are you?' he remarks idly, and then smirks. 'You're not gonna see any alarms. Not that you'd be able to do much about 'em even if you could, unless you're packing some more impressive kit than that.'

Hi, Anthony J. Crowley, professional bastard at your service.

Hell, how does this guy keep bloody sneaking up on him? He huffs and looks up at the guy with a glare. Not from this time period either implies that he's a rifty, and Spike doesn't have a hard time believing it. Nothing about him says 'I belong here' at all. And he still can't get over the glasses. Definitely hiding something, he decides.

He really doesn't have time to dwell on strange men, though. He's wanted to get in and wander about for a bit before the first workers show up and get to work. He sets down the pry bar, but doesn't bother with standing. "Are you going to help or are you just here for the show?"

Edited 2014-09-24 02:01 (UTC)

In response to the question, Crowley just nods at the window. The grating lifts up on previously nonexistent hinges, the glass behind it gone, and he extends a hand in a showily generous gesture.

'Have at it.'

He's also, in that silent instant, disabled all the museum's alarms. In part because he's showing off, but also because it's a lot easier that way than attempting to do it manually. It's plain that this bloke's come through the Rift-- there's something about them that pings slightly differently on the metaphysical radar-- but whether or not he's familiar with supernatural forces Crowley couldn't say. Actually, come to that, he probably could, as a moment's more concentration on the man reads as... not entirely human. Not properly occult, not like Crowley, but definitely something slightly to the left of human.

Spike isn't particularly surprised by the show of power, but it does put him a little more on alert about the possibility of this guy being more insidious than harmless. He's got powers- in Spike's book, that usually means demon or witch, and he doesn't look like a witch.

"I assume you're coming." Unless he plans on locking Spike in or he's just bored, he can't suss out any other good reason that he might open up the window. He takes a quick glimpse into the room and then slides in, landing feet-first onto an old tanker desk. The room itself seems like it contains mostly old files or maybe records. Paperwork of some kind. It's also dark, but the light from the window is enough for Spike to see by.

He hops down and turns back, pry bar in hand. The room isn't really what Spike had been looking for, but it's a good start. He recognizes similarities from the last time he'd been down here back in his universe.

'Natch,' Crowley agrees with a grin. 'Love museums. Even better when there's no-one there.'

He gets down on his haunches and swings down through the open window, hands on the crossbar of the grate, landing lithely on a big metal desk. It reverberates slightly with the force of his feet hitting it, and there's the squeak of a drawer as it shifts, but he's still reasonably quiet as he hops down. The window behind him is left restored to its original state; no reason for police-- or indeed any other hopeful breakers-and-enterers-- to get ideas.

'And I assume,' he continues on in an echo of the guy's remark, 'you've got some motive more interesting than plain old burglary for wanting to break into this place. What're we lookin' for?'

Spike is still cringing at the word 'natch' when the guy swing's down into the room and...Well, that move was entirely unnecessary. He'd almost suspect he was showing off if he didn't seem the type to make that sort of entrance as a matter of course. Spike raises his eyebrows in his direction for a moment before turning and making for the door.

"Nostalgia, mainly. Last time I was in New York I lived down here, but that was a few decades ago in a different universe." He expects the door to squeak as it opens, but someone must be taking care of the hinges. It opens with only the sound of the latch slipping out, and then the door itself bumping into a small stack of boxes lined up behind the door.

Beyond the door is much darker, and while he could probably manage, this will be a lot easier with light. He hmms and wanders out into the large open room dotted with crates large and small, half-created exhibits and various odd ephemera. It's strange being here, and with it dark like this, it almost seems familiar. Comforting, if also a reminder of what he used to be. He brushes his fingers against a wooden frame as he orients himself, then heads for the main entrance, guessing that's where the light is. "Got any demonic 'find the bloody light switch' powers?"

Sneaking into a museum for the sake of pure nostalgia is either remarkably idiotic or a rather pleasingly petty reason for breaking and entering, and Crowley shrugs, mouth pulling down at the corners in a 'well, all right, then' sort of expression. It's more interesting than thievery, at any rate.

The question, leading as it is, gets a lifted eyebrow, (presumably) unseen in the dark. Well, well. Crowley, of course, can see perfectly well; the room they're involves a lot of concrete floors and whitewashed walls, one featuring a giant tackboard covered with papers and clippings of newsprint, metal filing cabinets, crates lined up against the wall, as well something that looks a lot like a turn of the century dog sledge, complete with lines and harnesses. A few life-size plush malamutes lying next to it complete the impression of a half stored piece of some exhibit or other.

'That an educated guess?' he asks, 'Or have you heard of me?'

By way of answer, he clicks his fingers. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling immediately begin to buzz, flickering into life a few moments later.

Spike snorts out a laugh, "Should I have? I- oh, good." He looks around in the brighter room and grins, having pinpointed what he's looking for. He makes his way towards a tall filing cabinet on the other side of the room that's halfway blocking a door, not bothering to turn his head back as he speaks. "Where I'm from you'd either be a warlock or a demon. I suppose it could've been something else, with all the universes we've got mingling here. But it wasn't."

He kicks aside a stuffed penguin blocking the door and moves behind the filing cabinet to push it out of the way of the door. When he does, about ten years of accumulated dust escapes from behind the cabinet, making the air smell musty and sweet.

Crowley shrugs. 'Wouldn't be surprised,' he mutters. Not that he's done much of anything of note since he arrived here, bar one fight in Central Park, but Aziraphale seems to have acquired a nasty habit of telling literally everyone he meets about Crowley, and then wondering why Crowley objects to him telling random humans that oh, Crowley's not so bad, really, he's a big softie.

But that's interesting, and he cocks an eye at Spike. 'You've got warlocks in your universe, then, huh? That what you are? Or are there other flavours of occult where you come from outside of warlocks and demons? You're certainly not demonic, I can tell that much.'

His voice descends first into a wet cough, and then a sneeze, and then he banishes the billow of dust with a wave of one hand. He does not need that, thank you very much.

"Vampire. Reformed- if you were worried." He glances over at the cough, then smiles at the sneeze, vaguely amused that the dust would even effect the demon at all.

"The name's Spike, by the way." And there we have it, the door. He jiggles the handle, happy to find it unlocked. Simply turning the handle doesn't seem to do the job, so he sets his shoulder against the door and pushes. It gives and opens, letting yet more dust out into the main room, but once Spike sees what's inside, his shoulders slump a little.

What, in his day, had been an empty office, is by now a full office. It is a room that has taken the phrase 'junk room' and run with it to an extreme. There are boxes and crates obscuring half of the room, and the rest filled with obsolete technology and slowly decaying bits of exhibits long abandoned.

He can see, in the footprint of the room, where he had slept, and where the little desk had been, but too many years have passed in this universe since it was anything like that. He leans against the doorway, facing into the room, feeling a little silly. He's not even sure what his goal was here- a connection to his own universe, perhaps, or a bolthole in case things go badly at the flats.

Spike the vampire, now that is ringing several bells in Crowley's mind. He squints hard at him for several moments before bursting out with the energy of things suddenly remembered, gesticulating in Spike's direction with a finger. 'Ohhh, I remember you. That dream with the boats, yeah? Before I showed up here, with the, the, bloody what was it, the otter blood.'

Honestly, it probably isn't something Crowley would ordinarily remember, except that that had been the first dream he'd had in perhaps centuries, and certainly the first of the shared dreams that the Rift seems to hook people into. Spike seems to be having some kind of internal reaction to the storeroom he's opened the door onto, but Crowley a) is not actually massively interested, and b) is distracted by the oddity of running into the guy.

'Huh.'

At the mention of blood, Spike makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a moan. "Otter. the best I've found here is cow or pig. And not great, either."

He's still focused on the room, so it takes him a moment before the rest of what he'd had to say reaches Spike. When it does, he turns around to look at the guy, trying to jog his memory. Boats. Yeah, he remembers that. Sort of. Boats and blood and...oh right.

"Are you..." He distinctly remembers significantly more snake being attached to him than is currently attached. He finds himself looking down at the guy's legs, as if they might metamorphose at any moment into a long slithering tail. "Weren't you a Naga? Or whatever the hell snake demons are called where you're from."

That lifts Crowley's eyebrows. He's hardly a connoisseur himself, but good to know, should he ever need to earn this Spike's favour for whatever reason.

The question, however, just makes him laugh. 'You never heard of shapeshifting, mate? Though the snake'ssss in my blood, ssso to ssspeak.' He purposefully accentuates the hiss, baring his teeth to flash Spike a flicker of his forked tongue. 'I appreciate the recognition, though, gotta say. Seems so many people these days've forgotten all about Nagas. Bloody blow to the ego, that.'

He grins again, unable to quite resist it.

Well then. That's definitely a snake tongue. He's met demons with that particular feature before, but it usually came with scales or venom. On this guy it's just...strange. He did say shapeshifting. Maybe his real form is closer to something covered in scales. Looking at him, he can imagine it. Wouldn't be popular in the city, but not necessarily a bad look.

Spike turns back and pulls the door shut to the room. It's not the place he'd lived before, and it isn't a good prospect for the future either. "Hard to forget something that tried to squeeze me to death."

The door closed, he turns back, ready to give this room a better look-over. "So, should I just call you Naga, or have you got a name?" He smirks while leaning over to poke through a stack of papers. "Kaa?"

Yeah, that'd probably do it, Crowley thinks, eyebrows going up and mouth turning down at the corners in an expression that says, huh, all right then. 'That even possible? I mean, I'm fairly sure we don't have vampires in my universe, but all the fictional rules of what'll kill a vampire that I know of tend to involve more in the way of garlic and stakes through the heart than crushing.'

Crowley finds a rare space of mostly-bare wall to lean against, tucking one knee up and watching as Spike apparently decides that whatever he'd been looking for in the little storeroom isn't there. The Kipling reference gets a little snort. 'Trusssst in me?' he suggests dryly. 'No thanks. Anthony Crowley, but just Crowley'll do.'

"Probably possible, I don't know. Didn't want to stick around and find out." He continues sifting through papers, but there's really note much of interest here. Some forms, some more forms, a doodle of a mummy, some more forms....

Spike snorts at Crowley's impression, but a moment later, the name itself makes his head jerk up to look at the demon. Aziraphale had told him that his...whatever...lover slash friend slash mortal enemy went by that name.

"Nahhhh." He scrunches up his face, incredulous. This is the guy his nerdy posh employer is attached to at the hip? They're not exactly a matched set, unless you go in for the whole opposites attract thing. "Aziraphale's Crowley?"

'Oh, fuckssake,' Crowley sighs, deeply aggrieved. 'I don't belong to him. We're independent operatives!'

He needs to start meeting people before Aziraphale does so that he can be Crowley's Aziraphale for once, he thinks huffily. Except that then he'd have to ~tell them all about Aziraphale, which he's not exactly inclined to do. And not that he has any desire to claim ownership over Aziraphale either. Oi.

Belatedly, it occurs to him that this bloke knowing Aziraphale at all is supremely unlikely, and he swings around, brows furrowing. 'Wait, wait, how do you know Aziraphale?

"I'm his star em-ploy-ee," Spike says, grinning at Crowley's confusion. He's sort of surprised that Aziraphale hadn't found a way to mentioning him yet. He's been so excited by the idea of having him in the store. Or maybe it's just that he's excited about someone being around to scare people off while he sleeps in the back.

"He pays me to sit there and scare people out of his personal collection. Not a bad gig."

You can't go home again [closed]

HERE I AM FINALLY

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I'M SO SORRY I FAIL AT TAGGING HERE I AM LIKE TWO WEEKS LATER

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