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“It doesn’t have to be like this, Crowley.”
From his precarious hiding place beneath a medical exam table, Kevin Tran heard the angel Castiel utter those familiar words, a soft note behind his usual monotone. Kevin recalled him saying something along those lines in the last showdown between him and the King of Hell. He couldn’t help but wonder how come he always found himself involved in these situations.
Just like the last time, Crowley wasn’t swayed by those words. In fact, Kevin would go as far to say Crowley reacted rather worse, this time around. Instead of responding with a witty rejoinder – “It’s all very West side story,” which what? He was still confused about that one-- Crowley surged against the angel, gripping him by his trench coat and pushing him roughly. He didn’t stop until Castiel’ back hit the wall, perching the angel awkwardly on top of a table similar to the one Kevin was hiding behind. Cas’ hands found Crowley’s wrists as if by reflex but other than that the angel remained curiously unresponsive to the attack.
“You’re such a bore, you know that?” the demon hissed. “What do I have to do to shut you up?”
“You can kill me.” Castiel replied, with that unsettling monotone. From his angle, Kevin could see the angel’s bright blue eyes trained on Crowley with a placid serenity.
Crowley’s back, covered by a long, black overcoat noticebly tensed.
“Always so damn literal.”
There was a pause and Kevin's breath caught in fear when Cas’ head was suddenly smashed against the wall again. Crowley had moved his grip on the trench coat to the angel’s throat. Castiel’s hands remained resting on the table limply even though the pressure the King of Hell had on his neck was already making him struggle for breath.
“Maybe I should take your suggestion. Maybe I should get rid of you. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
Crowley leaned even closer to speak those words to the point Kevin wondered if there was any space at all left between them. He seriously hoped Castiel had a plan because the situation was looking uglier and uglier by the second. He was going to do that badass wing trick, smash shit around and basically own Crowley’s ass any minute now, right? Right? From his position beneath the table, he saw Cas’ eyes getting heavy leaded, because of the lack of oxygen, probably. Did angels even need to breath? Crowley certainly knew one way or another.
This is when things went from scary to scary and weird.
He saw the demons’ thumb that had been pressing on a point right beneath the Cas’ jaw, trace said jawline. That was certainly an interesting way to choke someone. Kevin’s eyes lowered on their own accord and he took in the scene as whole. He was in a very weird angle. Crowley’s back was mostly to him, and while he could see Cas’ face fine, given the angel had been basically forced to sit on top of a table, his legs had fell open and Crowley was standing, well, in between them.
Like Kevin said—thought—it was a weird angle and without context, from any angle it would look even weirder than it already did to Kevin. When his eyes finally left Cas’ knees to go up again to check on the angel he noticed his eyes had slipped shut completely now and Crowley was seemingly tilting his head—.That “West side story” line was beginning form a bizarre sense in Kevin Tran’s head when the lab’s door was kicked open and he would have jumped if he hadn’t been on his knees. Sam and Dean Winchester walked in with shotguns and just received an annoyed look from Crowley, over his shoulder, for their trouble. He let go of Castiel and in the next second he was gone.
Cas stared at the point Crowley had been with a faintly bereft expression before getting off the table he had been perched at, with more dignity than Kevin thought would be able to muster in two lifetimes. His blue eyes found Dean’s as they seemingly always did. The hunter’s typically hardened expression was even sharper in that moment and Kevin had never seen draw in gambling but he would bet his musings about someone walking in on Crowley and Castiel in that position, without the proper context, were accurate.
Thank God, he knew the truth.
The truth was: they’d been fighting. That was it.
Archenemies, those two were. And archenemies fought. Nothing weird about it.
Or at least that’s what he told Dean, later that evening, when he was pulled aside and inquired about the matter.
Kevin Tran knew the truth, though. It was all very West Side story.
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The End.