Outside Omens

John considered the youthful, ethereally beautiful Gabriel on the screen speaking Christopher Walken's deranged lines with his melodious voice, and said decisively, "Now that is just fucking disturbing."

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Zatanna just stared, completely losing track of the dialogue for a minute. "Wow. Pretty smokin' for a celestial messenger boy." She paused a minute, and smiled an odd, distracted little smile. "That Crown of Seductions must be quite the hottie, too, huh?"

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Just for laughs, Crowley changed Simon to look like Belial (http://img230.echo.cx/img230/7804/1davidsmith7jz.th.jpg). He was going to change the cop instead, but that scene of him being handled by Lucifer was too disturbingly close to reality to contemplate.

"He's a bloody fantastic snog, too," he grinned.

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Zatanna's jaw dropped, and she looked from the figure on screen to Crowley and back again, eyes wide at the implication and the imagery it evoked. "...oh."

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John suddenly developed an inexplicable fascination with the living room ceiling, rubbing distractedly at his face. "Well, yeah," he said, the words slightly muffled as though he was halfway trying to stop them from coming out, "he is. Kind of surprised you remember, though."

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The demon laughed. "Oh, ta, mate. The first time is a little fuzzy, but I remember the other (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/38559.html#cutid1) occasions (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/42594.html#cutid1) quite vividly."

It took a second or two before the other shoe dropped and Crowley's expression mirrored Zatanna's. "You too?" he asked in a choking voice. It wasn't clear whether he was suppressing horror or laughter.

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John somehow managed to look embarrassed and smug at the same time, pointedly not looking at Zatanna. This whole conversation was no doubt going to come back to haunt him after Crowley left for the evening. "I never did get around to telling you about Michael's laptop, did I? Remember the mildew problem they were having in the lobby from the sprinkler malfunction a while back?...Let's just say Belial devised a unique strategy for throwing a royally hacked-off archangel off a saboteur's trail."

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"I'll just bet he did," retorted Crowley, knowing full well what sort of strategies Belial tended to devise. He didn't quite follow how the sprinklers had to do with the laptop or Belial, but he'd get the story eventually. "I imagine the trick was getting him to stop strategizing..."

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"Well, I managed to distract him when he paused to gloat," John said with a chuckle, not elaborating because he'd already been lectured once about getting hurt in the mad chase (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/39961.html) that had led up to that bizarre rescue. "Hold on a minute though, there were two other times? Christ, what's he doing, trying to set a record?...What?" he added, grinning lopsidedly as he caught sight of Zatanna's incredulous expression. "It's just Belial, luv, you'd have to meet him."

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"Belial," Zatanna repeated, blinking owlishly. She'd heard the name before, from John and from several other sources, but certainly not in any context even remotely like this. In fact, though he'd never been very forthcoming with details, she was fairly certain John had named that particular Crown as a mortal enemy at one time.

She resolutely refused to dwell any more on the notion of the two of them...or of Belial and Crowley...or Gabriel...or any combination of the four...because there was only so much a girl could take, dammit, and John by himself was challenge enough. "This Manor place must really be something else."

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"It is just Belial," Crowley agreed. "A snog and a grope is pretty much just a polite greeting. Wouldn't go farther without the Snob's permission, though... I think."

The demon looked significantly at John. By way of explanation, he said, "Well, the negotiations for a particular item were fairly heated. And he wasn't with Gabriel yet..."

Crowley had almost had to sleep with Belial to get John's soul piece and they had exchanged sigils not long afterward. Even something as simple as signing a contract with the Crown could be an erotic experience. Although imagining John kissing him... Crowley shook his head.

"It really is. And that's without even mentioning Adam."

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"Adam, he's the antichrist, right?" Zatanna nodded. The only other thing John had told her about Adam was that he was a "nice kid" and he protected everyone at the Manor. She suspected he'd only said that much to reassure her that he wasn't going to get killed hanging around with an unprecedented gathering of powerful supernatural entities, any one of whom could squash him like a bug if he annoyed them too much (and John being John, that was pretty much a given.) She wasn't sure whether it said more about John that he expected her to consider Satan's son a reliable protector, or about her that she did, just because John said so.

Crowley's reference to an item caught her attention, not only because of the emphasis he placed on the word but because of the way John tensed momentarily at the reference, his eyes flickering away from them both for just a second. She wondered if it could have anything to do with the panicked call she'd gotten from him months before, and the strange, urgent questions he'd asked. She also knew better than to ask about it when he was reacting in this way; getting information out of John that he didn't want to share was like pulling wisdom teeth. So she let it be, listening and piecing things together as he talked with his friend. Some other things she'd been wondering about for a while now were already beginning to come clear.

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