My character or yours, confessing a weakness to the other
Adam wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to cobble together the necessary ingredients to actually summon the guy (he imagined luck mostly… and maybe he’d picked up something about summoning rituals along with the ability to strategise and fight as archangels do, albeit without as much mojo to reinforce any attacks) but really, one thing going right in his life right now was the least of his concerns because, as much as the guy he was summoning right now had seemed decent enough… well decent enough for a demon but the point still stood, he was still a demon and Adam wouldn’t have been turning to him unless he had no other choice… and, given recent events… it’d reached that point.
He looked at the hole he’d dug, hesitating for only a moment before dropping the box he’d cobbled together into the hole in the ground and moving the dirt to cover it, eyes skimming over the seemingly abandoned crossroads warily for signs of any possible assailants, thankfully spotting none, though that didn’t mean they weren’t out there somewhere...
He was drawn from his thoughts the sound of footsteps behind him, spinning on his heels to face the king of the crossroads himself and really thank god, provided the guy was actually still listening, for that really because if one of the other crossroads demons had shown up, Adam could imagine he’d have been more than a little screwed right now...
Not to say that Crowley himself wouldn’t screw Adam over just as much given half the chance but, at the very least, he knew the demon had a soft spot for humanity that the rest of his kind lacked... and he knew he had a better chance of coming out of all this alive as a result...
“I assume there’s a reason you summoned me here other than to stare off wistfully into the distance.” The sound of the demon’s voice broke through Adam’s train of thought, refocusing his attention on Crowley as he nodded, “Well then, how may I be of service?”
“You told me once that if I made a deal with you, you’d be able to help me control my abilities...” He hesitated for a moment, a part of his mind screaming at him not to do this, but the fire of the grace burning through his veins was enough to convince him to ignore the voice, he had no choice by this point, this had become his only option left, “Is that offer still on the table? And I mean that in a non-hypothetical sense this time.”
He could see the slightest glimmer of interest in the demon’s aura before the guy managed to mask it, refusing to allow himself to react as the demon stepped closer, “And what about your brothers? I can’t imagine they’d be all too happy if they found out I’d made a deal with their...”
“I’ve hardly seen them since this whole damn thing started out... and I’m pretty sure, if I got a hold on my powers, I’d be strong enough to fend them off... we can make that a part of the deal.”
The demon seemed to study him for a moment before finally asking, “Why now? What changed your mind?”
“Ever since this thing started, I’ve felt like nothing better than a time bomb, waiting to go off the moment someone mentions hell or pushes me into an enclosed space or allows me to sleep long enough for the nightmares to rear their ugly head and every damn day I can feel the wall in my head crumble a little more, break away just a fraction, one step closer to toppling and not a damn thing I can say or do to stop it... And now that the grace scar’s gone haywire, the walls are falling in my head faster than ever. You know what it’s like to see fires everywhere you go, hear screams that you know aren’t there, feel pain crawling under your skin like wildfire constantly burning away at you... and you’re still left with no fucking idea what’s triggering those memories, or how to stop it or even if it can be stopped and...”
Adam gritted his teeth against the onslaught of emotion threatening to build up as he continued, “At the same time my abilities are spiralling rapidly out of control and... I’ve roasted hell hounds alive with these fucking abilities. Blanked out mid fire and woken up to the smell of charred flesh and surrounded by its ashes and no idea how I reached that point beyond the fact that, whatever’s happening there, it’s me who’s causing that damage... I’m a fucking freak and I’m terrified of hurting someone, about hallucinating some memory from hell and aiming those abilities and just... wiping out some innocent person just because I was dumb enough to let an archangel of a fucking absent father fuck around with my head and... I can’t stop it, I can’t do a damn thing and I feel like I’m this fucking close to breaking and...” He swallowed around the lump in his throat, glowing white eyes fixing the crossroads demon’s red ones.
“And I’m tired, I’m so fucking tired of feeling weak... So tell me Crowley, do we have a deal?”
He didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful for the existence of demons than when, seconds later, he saw the nod in response.
