The King and His Fool
Crowley remembers the scent of each soul he comes across. Sour, stale, pungent, sharp, fetid, sweaty, acrid – he is certain he's encountered them all.
Hers is crisp and earthy, like the smell of the forest after it's just rained, with just a hint of sweetness. He remembers the first time he caught a whiff of it; it had taken all of his willpower to keep up the cool façade. In reality, all he'd wanted to do was to lay her down, spread her legs, and pound into her until she screamed. For a demon, there was nothing better than corrupting an innocent.
Now, as Crowley pinpoints her perfume in the torture halls of Hell, he no longer needs to hide the grin that spreads across his face. Seven paces, behind a door on the left, and there she is. The cheeky little thing that stole a few extra seconds with him during the kiss that saved her brother and bound her soul for Hell. One of his protégés, Mordecai, is digging into her stomach and scratching away at her ribs. She is screaming.
"Enough," Crowley snarls, disgusted by the demon's attempts. Rudimental. "Have you propositioned her?"
"No, haven't broken her in yet. This one's got balls."
"I know, I signed her." Crowley waves his hand. "Leave. I'll handle this."
Soon, there is nothing else but the metallic stench of blood in the air and the sound of her shallow breathing. "You signed me, huh?" She laughs hoarsely, not raising her head. "The gentleman in the suit, finding me in Hell. Who'd have thought?"
"I didn't have to look for long, pet. I only waited." He steps into her line of sight and watches her take him in. It's clear that Mordecai has been at her for a while. She's barely keeping her eyes open. "How long have you been here?"
"Years." She gulps. It is Crowley's turn to watch, now. The muscles on her abdomen are already stitching back together, a slow and painful process, merely part of Eternal Damnation. Seeing her eyes begin to tighten in agony, he lays his hand on her shoulder and speeds up the healing.
There. Nothing but smooth skin and the most perfect set of breasts he's ever seen. He is almost tempted to touch them, just a squeeze, but he reins himself in and tucks her chin between his thumb and forefinger instead.
"Why are you here?" she says, slightly more conscious of herself now that the pain is gone.
"I'd like to make you a deal, pet."
"Another one?"
He hums. "I'm offering to get you off the rack. No more torture, no more sharp knives and whatnot. In exchange…"
He trails his hand over her jaw and down the side of her neck, smirking when her lips part in anticipation.
"I'd like you to be my secretary."
He doesn't expect it when she laughs. He is certain that nothing of the sort has ever been heard in Hell before, nothing so light and sweet. She won't be light and sweet when he is done with her soul, he knows, but for the briefest of moments, Crowley allows himself a smile.
Then he places his hand on her forehead and stares, enraptured, as the darkness of Hell leaks into her soul, drowning out any light that could have remained. Her eyes had fluttered shut but when she opens them again, the whites are gone. Inky black replaced them and she is blinking; the rapid change from within can be a bit jarring, Crowley knows. But her body won't last. He doesn't wait long before taking her chin again, forcing her to hold his gaze.
"What would you like me to call you?"
"J-Jamie," she stutters, unsure.
"No, none of that nonsense. I've created you in my image now, pet." He strokes her jaw. "A different name. Something more fitting for the King of Hell's right hand."
A moment passes. Crowley is all too aware of her 'body' disintegrating before him, but he remains patient.
Suddenly, she grins.
"Noir."
And Crowley grins, too, because the scent of her – crisp and earthy and sweet – it hasn't left. And he knows.
The two of them will be magnificent together.
1.
Crowley knows that he's fucked as soon as the door to his office is pushed open with a bang. Lucifer supporters, at least six of them, stream into the room with black eyes screaming bloody murder. Crowley wonders how they got inside in the first place, if Noir was standing guard at her own desk – but then he recalls sending her out on a little errand. She won't be back for a while, and he feels some remorse in knowing that he won't be able to say goodbye before he goes into hiding.
At least, what he feels is as close to remorse as a demon can get.
"Good evening, boys." He keeps his eyes on the intruders, disappointed with how quickly the news of his betrayal had spread. He'd rather not smoke out of his vessel, and the only way he can possibly beat six demons in a fight is if he has a weapon. An angel blade. Which is in his drawer, which he is trying to open without catching their attention.
"Crowley, you little snake," one of them says, grinning wildly. "We never thought you had it in you."
"Oh ye of little faith."
He's nearly got it. He just needs to move his hand to the right angle so the handle can slip into his palm, and—
Before any of them can make a move, a single figure materializes in the threshold just past the doorway to his office. It moves towards the nearest demon and stabs him with an angel blade. He collapses to the ground and the other five are in motion.
Crowley watches as the new arrival quickly deals with another two demons, nearly a blur with how fast she is moving. She is fending off attacks from two sides when Crowley notices the third demon hanging back, sneaking to catch her off guard. Crowley doesn't hesitate to throw the blade in his hand, watching with satisfaction as it sinks into his target. She doesn't take long to finish with the last two.
"Noir," he greets, a little breathless from watching her fight. "How did you know to come back?"
"News travels fast upstairs. And I've got keen ears." She casually wipes the angel blade on her thigh, the blood soaking into her pants leg. "I totally understand why you did it though, boss. No judgment from me. I'm your faithful servant."
Crowley rolls his eyes. "You understand, do you?"
"No, but I'm in no place to critic your life choices." She grins. "You better haul ass out of here before the cavalry comes. Wouldn't want you to ruin your suit."
"You're staying?"
"Well, someone has to manage your papers, right?" When he approaches her, moving to grab her arm, she flits away with a cheeky wink. "You really wanna play Tag right now?"
Vexed, he snaps, "I'll come back for you." And then he's gone.
2.
She doesn't like being called his secretary. So he calls her "my glorified assistant" instead, partly because she likes the sound of it and partly because he likes seeing her smile.
But for the life of him he can't understand why she – indeed, his glorified assistant, but also still a demon – would take a hit for him.
Or three, or four, or a dozen.
Her attacker had been older and larger, and she had been easily overwhelmed. When Crowley had returned from a visit to Moose and Squirrel, he found her lying prone on the floor and being held up by her collar by an unfamiliar face. Crowley dealt with the intruder quickly enough, but it is when she's propped up on the leg of a chair that he finds himself at a complete loss.
Her face is nearly unrecognizable. There's blood on her leather jacket.
"Sorry I got your floor all dirty, boss," she speaks through swollen and bleeding lips.
"Noir, you idiot, stop talking," Crowley hisses. Though his words are harsh, his touch is gentle as he takes her wrist and lets it rest on his palm. With her heartbeat pulsing slow and steady beneath his thumb, he concentrates until he feels the familiar tug at the back of his head. In the blink of an eye, the cuts and bruises on her face are gone and her breathing no longer sounds like a rattle.
"Thanks," she mutters, smiling.
"What did he want?"
"Something about finding your bones."
Crowley stiffens. "And did you tell him?"
He feels her stiffen as well. When she looks up, her eyes are ablaze with anger. "Do you really think I'd do that to you?"
He can't help it; he blinks, because it's the first time he's ever seen her angry with him. And then he lets out a little chuckle, which seems to infuriate her more. "You're a demon, pet," he says. "Just like me. What was I supposed to think?"
She lowers her eyes and mumbles a bit to herself. If Crowley were still human, he would have found the sight endearing. "I'm starting to think you did something wrong with that, actually. Turning me Dark Side. Made me too soft."
"And I've no idea how to fix it."
They are silent for a while. As usual, she is the first to crack. A grin spreads across her face, revealing pearly white teeth that aren't quite cleaned of her own blood.
"A not-demon," she says. "I like it."
3.
Something is wrong with Crowley. He had hoped that time would erase the effects of Sam Winchester's purified blood, but nothing is happening. Nothing he would describe as good, anyway. The damned feelings keep cropping up at the most inopportune of times and he's gotten into the unconscious habit of getting overly sentimental about things he wouldn't have given a rat's arse about before.
Most of the time, it's about Noir.
He can confess, without a shadow of a doubt, that he'd already begun developing a soft spot for her even before being injected with human blood. She was loyal to a fault and he enjoyed their banter, whenever he wasn't too high-strung. But though he liked the smiles that she seemed to have reserved just for him, they'd never made his heart rate pick up before; his breathing had never grown shallow during their prolonged staring contests, and his chest had never ached at the thought of her spending her days other than with him.
Now, it's as though the air grows thinner whenever she walks into the room.
Crowley can still remember the night he found her. Or, she found him. Everything that happened that day was such a blur.
He couldn't return to Hell, not with a price on his head and Abaddon still on the loose, and his followers scattered in the wind. He remembered ending up in some forest in the middle of nowhere – somewhere random, so Abaddon wouldn't know to look. And then she had popped up, looking so breathless and disheveled, and the human blood was still somewhat fresh in his system that the first thought that entered his mind upon seeing her was, Beautiful. And then relief. And then, miracle of miracles, happiness.
"How did you find me?" he'd asked a short while later.
She only shrugged. "Gut feeling."
She had been looking for him for a long time, apparently. It had been a while since he'd last seen her, and he felt so different, it was as though he was meeting her for the first time.
It didn't take long for her to figure out something was up. But she didn't know any better, and Crowley still had enough sense to know that telling her about the human blood would be a wrong move. So, they left it alone.
She caught him on the act about a week after that. She was so confused, and he felt so high that the words all but spilled from his mouth. He told her everything. Laughed. Yelled. Very nearly cried. He's sure that he'd even let slip some of his thoughts and feeling about her as well, but she said nothing of it. In fact, she didn't say anything at all.
She barely left his side after that, though. She made sure to ease the habit out of him as gently as possible. She kept him distracted. She kept him talking. Some part of Crowley, the demon part, was thankful. There were no more mushy heart-to-hearts, but the feelings remained.
Now she is standing outside of their shared motel room, speaking rapidly with someone on the phone. There is a crease on her brow and she's standing in the darkness, just beyond the glow of a streetlight. The both of them, on the run from Hell together. Her ferociously tracking down and gathering those still loyal to him, and him slowly coming to terms with being half-human. A technicality and a burden.
At the same time, he's desperately trying to figure out whether he wants to be fixed.
It occurs to him that it's not the first time he's entertained the notion of being in love with her.
4.
"Took you long enough."
"We came as soon as you called," Jervis stutters. "W-What do we call you?"
"King," Crowley snaps. As Jervis recoils and bows his head, Crowley switches his gaze to his assistant. "What about the other white meat suit?"
He can hardly believe it – perhaps he doesn't want to believe it; he can't be sure anymore – but there is something akin to envy in her eyes when Noir takes in the sight of three very nude, very dead bodies strewn about the living room. She snaps to attention, however, when he addresses her.
"Secured," she replies evenly. "We have another team and a witch removing Rowena's immobilization spell as we speak, sir."
His eyebrows rise a bit; she never calls him sir. "What's wrong, pet? You disapprove?"
She shakes her head, and his eye twitches.
"Speak."
Unexpectedly, she laughs – but it's a dry laugh. Forced. "Sorry, boss, I just can't take you seriously when you're looking like that."
"A woman?"
"Half-naked," she corrects.
Crowley's gaze lingers on her but he decides to leave it be, for now. But when he walks past her, he can't help himself; he stops and leans over to whisper in her ear, "Not the way you roll then, eh, pet?" He delights in the small huff that escapes her. To the side, Jervis is oddly captivated by the wallpaper.
.
Crowley smokes back into his original vessel a few hours later. Jervis wants to speak with him, says that it's urgent, but Crowley sees Noir standing about in the next room and he waves the demon away. "Later," he tells him, right before barking, "Noir!"
Her head snaps up and she quickly bounds into the room, making Crowley smile. If anything, at least she's still loyal. The thought of her betraying him causes a sharp spike of pain in his chest. He struggles to keep a straight face.
"I've got my dangly bits again. Can you take me seriously now, pet?" he asks.
She shakes her head and grumbles. "I can't believe you sometimes."
"Pardon?"
"You barely escape assassination, you're on the run from what might be the most powerful witch on Earth as well as an angel of heaven – and you don't call for help until after the orgy?"
His eyebrows shoot upwards. "Would you rather I'd called in the middle of things?"
"Dammit, Crowley! That's—" She purses her lips, takes a deep breath. "Do you know what they call me? The jester. The extra. The king's fool. And that's – that's fine, honestly. That's my job. But how… How can I do my job, properly, if you won't call me?"
Everything registers to him slower than it should. But it does, in the end, and there's a look in her eyes that he's only ever seen on fools who were willing to sell their souls for ten years of love, and, a handful of times, he's seen when he looks in a mirror. He thinks, perhaps a bit desperately, that she may return whatever screwed up not-demon feelings he has for her. She is, after all, a not-demon herself.
Before he's entirely sure of what he's doing, he's approaching her with slow steps.
He traps her chin between his fingers, the same way he did when he first dyed her soul black. Her eyes widen and her mouth falls open as she whispers what must be the words "oh shit" – as if she's done something wrong. As if he's about to hurt her. He just tilts her head up and fights for something to say.
There is nothing.
He settles for breathing in the scent of her, as crisp and earthy and sweet as it ever was, and capturing her lips with his. He hears her breath hitch in her throat, she's surprised, but soon her fingers are scraping against his scalp and the back of his neck, and her kisses have turned hard, and she's moving against him, with him, but he needs her closer.
Growling, he grabs her arms and spins them around. The door slams closed behind her back and Crowley reaches to lock it. As soon as he hears the faint click, he tangles his fingers within her chestnut hair and traces her bottom lip with his tongue, right before slipping into her mouth. She groans and writhes against him. His breath, in turn, catches in his throat in disbelief.
She hears it. She pulls away and trails her lips down his jaw, catching at his stubble. She stops at a spot just below his ear, nipping and licking and breathing. Hotly. He's so intoxicated – her scent thick in the air, her taste lingering on his lips, and the feel of her – he barely notices that she's removed his coat and unbuttoned dress shirt. Her hands slip over his chest, his stomach, up and down with her nails scraping his skin.
It occurs to him that she's wearing too much. He snaps his fingers.
"Crowley!"
He chuckles low in his throat, knowing that she doesn't really mind. He leans down to lick her throat, her collarbones, her breasts, lower, lower…
Kneeling on the ground, he throws both of her legs over his shoulders, pinning her against the door and making it so that he's the only thing keeping her from falling, and swipes his tongue from her opening to the top of her clit. She shudders against him. He does it again, and again, and then he just rolls that bundle of nerves around with his tongue.
He dips his head and mouths her cunt, pushing his tongue into her opening and lathering her juices. A demon starved. A demon eating his fill. A demon thirsting for more.
"Shit, Crowley, fuck – oh, fuck…"
She comes. Once, twice. The third time, her screams are reduced to sobs and little whines. She's so wet that she's dripping from his chin. He could have stayed there devouring her until the end of his days, but he's vaguely aware of her pulling at his hair. When he stands, her legs tremble and her hands fumble as she removes his belt and unbuttons his pants. He pushes them down, kicks them off, and pushes her against the door again. He grabs the backs of her knees and lift her off the ground, spreading her wide and guiding himself up and in—
Crowley grunts into her hair, scarcely believing how hot and wet and tight and perfect she feels around him.
He pulls out and in again, and stars dance before his eyes. Past the rapid thumping of his heart in his ears, he can hear her whimpering, begging him to move faster. He complies. Anything. Anything for her.
When she comes again, squeezing around his cock, almost painfully, he follows her into oblivion. Literally blind with ecstasy and roaring into the room. And when he regains his senses, she is planting kisses on his neck and stroking his back. She's still pulsing around him, and he within her.
They fall gracelessly to the ground, Noir releasing a breathless little laugh as she burrows closer against him.
"Crowley."
"Hm?"
"I… I'm…"
His heart falters. Fear and hope, at the same time.
"I'm really happy you made me that deal."
"Which one, pet?"
He feels her smile as she plants another soft kiss on his neck. "Both."
5.
Crowley, the King of Hell, reduced to become the Fallen Angel's favorite dog, placed in a kennel riddled with all kinds of wardings to keep things in and out. There were two guards on constant watch outside, whenever Lucifer wasn't around, and even more circling the compound. For all of Noir's loyalty and willpower, even Crowley doubted that she would manage to get him out of this one.
He was wrong.
One moment he is lost in thought, torn between accepting the inevitability of his situation or continuing to fight and strategize – and the next she is entering the room, panting and a bit bloodied, but no worse for wear. On the floor behind her are the bodies of his two guards.
She kneels in front of his cage and pulls something out of her pocket. Crowley doesn't get the chance to inspect it; she's moving quickly, and she keeps glancing over her shoulder.
"Noir, where did you—"
"Sh."
"But how—"
"Not now, boss," she snaps. It's the sharpest statement he's ever heard from her, so he obeys. He does want to escape, after all. He won't be able to do it alone.
When they are before the door that stands between them and the rest of the compound, she glances at him and offers a little grin. "We'll have to fight our way out. You up for that, boss?"
She slips an extra angel blade out from her sleeve and hands it to him. He smirks. "I've been wanting to do this for ages."
.
It takes a while, but somehow they manage. Crowley's a bit more battered than her. She offers to do the transporting, but he shakes his head and quickly grabs her hand. He takes her to one of his secret lock-ups in Michigan, explaining that he needs to grab something before they can look for someplace safe.
He shouldn't have stalled.
When he returns to her, it's to find Lucifer standing behind her holding an angel blade to her throat.
"What do we have here?" Lucifer digs the blade deeper. Her skin breaks and blood trails down her neck. "The wannabe king. And his bitch."
There's a smile on his face, the kind that was and had always been familiar to Crowley. The smile of a dog with a bone.
Lucifer tells him that he owns Crowley. He owns him, but he is yet to break him. This, he says, will rid Crowley of his last inch of defiance.
Without another word, he pulls his arm back and stabs the angel blade into Noir's gut.
Her eyes flash and her body goes limp. Noir, with her soul of crisp and sweet earth, is gone.
6.
She left a note for him. In Hell – somewhere she knew only he would find, because she knew that she wouldn't make it. Crowley wanted to scream. On an unremarkable piece of paper, with words scribbled in unremarkable handwriting, she said: Keep those jukes up, boss.
.
There's something gut-wrenchingly poetic about avenging her by killing himself. During his final moments in the Other World, as the last molecules of his soul disintegrate, he swears he can make out the smell of rain and pine needles.
And then, all at once, there is nothing.