{August, 2007}

Crowley was content and relaxed, with a glass of scotch in hand, watching Golden Girls on his newly purchased flat screen TV. But then suddenly, Rose looked a lot less like Betty White and a lot more like Hastur.

"Crawly." Hastur's voice came from the television.

"Ah, Hastur. I gotta say, high definition does not do you any favors, can see your ugly face way too clearly." Crowley replied, mildly annoyed that his favorite show was being interrupted.

"Lord Beelzebub demands your presence." Hastur tells him, ignoring the insult.

"What for? Another commendation?" Crowley asked.

"No, they need you for a special assignment." Hastur replied.

The demon groans internally, everything about this is just screaming 'disaster' to him. He almost wants to say 'no' or rather 'f**k, no', but judging by how serious Hastur sounded, Crowley knew refusing would be a very very bad idea.

"Ngk, alright, where and at what time do I need to meet with their lordship?" Crowley sighed, after downing what was left of his scotch.

"Here...now." Hastur said, before the TV glitches then cuts off.

Next, a large swarm of flies enter the apartment through a window that had opened on its own. Flies fill Crowley's apartment as the lights flicker on and off rapidly. The lights turn off completely for a few seconds, and when they turn back on, Beelzebub is sitting across from Crowley.

"Crowley." Beelzebub greeted coldly.

"Lord Beelzebub." Crowley replied.

"So, what's this "special assignment" Hastur was telling me about?" he asked them.

"You have been chosen by Satan himself to introduce the Antichrist to the world." Beelzebub told him.

".....heh?" Crowley said nervous and confused.

Beelzebub glares at him, with a look on their face that basically translated to, "Are you f**king stupid?".

"Uhgg. You remember Mary, right? And how she was chosen to carry and birth the son of God?" Beelzebub began to explain in a really condescending way, as if they were talking to a small child.

Meanwhile, Crowley kept his face neutral, not wanting his boss to know how incredibly anxious he was. He did not like where this conversation was heading.

NOT. AT. ALL.

"Well, it will be like that, but with the son of Satan instead of the son of God, and you instead of Mary." Beelzebub explained with an exaggerated smile that came off more passive-aggressive than genuine.

[KITTY INTERMISSION! (Sabrina sat in my lap while I was writing this scene)]

"Wait...you think I'm a virgin?" Crowley asked.

"Aren't you, though?" Beelzebub smirked.

"......well, that's none of anyone's business, now is it." Crowley mumbled, turning his head away from Beelzebub.

"Anyway, my point is you're going to be a surrogate for our dark master. Shouldn't be too hard, humans who can't conceive on their own do it all the time. Think of it as a pre-made bun, but it is in your oven." Beelzebub said.

"I know what surrogacy is, m'Lord. And not gonna happen, find some other "oven"." Crowley responded, leaving the room to go water his plants.

"What makes you think you have a choice?" Beelzebub replied sinisterly.

The instant Beelzebub snapped their fingers, Crowley felt the power of Satan wash over his whole body. He felt it so strongly that he fell to his knees, his head spinning dizzily. The feeling of having to puke was overwhelming...which wasn't a good sign at all, really.

When it was over, Crowley felt....different.

"What the f**king f**k did you do to me?" Crowley asked, his eyes wide behind his dark shades.

"I put a baby in you." Beelzebub said, standing in front Crowley.

Both of them scrunch their faces in disgust.

"Didn't care for the sound of that." Beelzebub grimaced.

"Feeling's mutual." Crowley grunted under his breath.

"I would never have...sex...with you." Beelzebub said, gagging on the word, 'sex'.

"Again, would not disagree with you on that." Crowley said.

Truthfully, having sex with anyone other than...a certain someone...sounded like a dreadful nightmare.

"Now, you take care of yourself, Crowley. If anything happens to the Antichrist...well, we don't need to find that out, now do we?" Beelzebub told Crowley, crouching down to his eye level, making a quite clear and overt threat.

Beelzebub leaves the way they came. And when they were gone and Crowley was left alone on his knees in the middle of his plant room, he began to laugh in distress.

"Hahaha! Nice joke everyone! Y-you got me! HAHA!" Crowley shouted in between uncomfortable fits of laughter.

Crowley wanted to believe that this was all one big joke. That Hell was pranking him. That none of this was real.

Would Hell even really trust him with something as important as the Antichrist!?

So, the serpent demon decides to just ignore it all. Pretend nothing is happening. That he's fine. That he's not "up the duff" with the son of Satan, the prince of darkness, the great beast that brings about the end of the world.

"I'm going to bed, gonna sleep for a solid week. And when I wake up, everything's gonna be a-okay, everything's gonna be absolutely dandy!" Crowley said, speed walking to his bedroom and crawling under the covers.

Crowley didn't sleep for a week, he slept for two and a half weeks. He would have slept for three weeks, but in the middle of that third week, the demon woke up suddenly in a cold sweat with an intense urge to vomit.

"Nnguhh, that was f**king grotty." Crowley groaned, resting his head on the seat of the toilet he never uses because demons don't need to use the restroom.

The only other time Crowley remembers throwing up like this was in the 50's. He and Aziraphale had gotten drunk and rode a rollercoaster for the first (and last) time. That had ended up in a very expensive dry cleaning bill because Aziraphale wouldn't let him use a miracle to fix the outfit he ruined.

"This doesn't mean anything." Crowley growled, forcing himself to his feet.

Standing up quickly like that only resulted in sending Crowley sprawling on the bathroom floor, nearly vomiting on himself. He lays there until the world stops spinning around him. Then he felt warm tears well up in his eyes.

"Nope. Nuh-uh, not crying. Demons don't f**king cry." Crowley muttered, squinting his eyes tightly to prevent the tears from falling.

This demon did, in fact, f**king cry. But only a little bit.

The crying only lasted a few minutes, because the sudden smell of food distracted him. His neighbor from across the hall had ordered tacos and now Crowley could only think about tacos.

"Just because I want tacos, doesn't mean I'm pregnant." Crowley tells himself as he gets dressed and leaves his apartment.

Another thing Crowley chose to ignore was that the Bentley refused to go even a tiny bit over the speed limit. Crowley finds the nearest Taco Bell and purchases two dozen tacos. He ended up eating six of them on the drive home, the Bentley expressing her displeasure of having crumbs inside her by playing "The Song That Never Ends" in a loop at a very loud volume.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'll clean up my mess. Just turn that bloody song off!" Crowley told his beloved car.

The simple act of using a miracle to clean the crumbs away tired him out, which Crowley stubbornly chalked up to just stress. Denial was one of Crowley's specialties; he denied the affect his Fall had on him, he denied being kind, he denied being nice, he denied he had a soft spot for a particular tartan wearing individual, and now he was denying that he was pregnant.

But for how long can he keep denying it?

"Ah, that's it. I'll just prove that this is all bullocks by taking one of those testing thingys." Crowley said snapping his fingers to miracle a pregnancy test into his hands.

"Now...how do these things work again?" he asked himself, staring down at the small device.

It took him longer than it should have for Crowley to remember how to use a pregnancy test. And when he did remember, he felt so embarrassed, he didn't know whether to smash something, cry, or do both.

"For Satan's sake, I've been around for 6000+ years, 12 minutes shouldn't feel this f**king long!" Crowley griped, pacing back and forth in his bathroom.

The beeping of the timer Crowley had set tells him that his 12 minutes are up. Shaking hands reach for the pregnancy test on the edge of the sink.

This was the moment of truth. The moment that Crowley was hoping would tell him that this was just a dirty joke Beelzebub and Hastur was playing on him. In his head, Crowley counted to three then turns over the stick.

And right there, clear as day was....two little bright pink lines.