I watched him drop his hat on the kitchen table and smiled in spite of myself. I hadn't been human for centuries, and I'd long since forgotten what it felt like to want someone. Yet this simple man, albeit brilliant, charismatic, and wonderful, had reminded me what it at least felt like to have hope. To have hope that I could feel that again. I had spent almost all of my time in hell cursing myself and those around me for my stupidity. How could I sell my soul, the only thing I had, for something as pathetic and meager as I had? I was angry, but I had resigned myself to the eternity of slavery I had contracted myself to. This was all until I met him. I met him, and grew to know him, and loved him above all else. If only they knew in hell, I thought to myself.
The tired man rubbed the back of his neck and shut the book he had been scanning thoroughly just moments before. In these quiet moments, no one knew him. No one, except for me, and he didn't even realize I was there. He glanced at the assortment of phones hanging on his wall and picked one up before thinking better of it. Wait until the morning, I urged him noiselessly. Rest now. Take care of yourself.
I watched him trudge slowly up the stairs and wanted more than anything to follow him there. Maybe I could invent a catastrophe so I had reason to be visiting. No, I chided. Go back to hell.
I'd been a demon far too long, I realized. Only old demons have such soft hearts.
On the long way home I reminded myself of all the reasons I should never visit Bobby Singer's house again. You can never love him. He will never love you. You don't get a happy ending. You can't bring him into your world. Of course, he was already in my world, but he didn't need to see this side of it. Bobby was on the side of the angels, and my role was forcibly assigned to the other half. I hated demons, I hated my miserable existence, in fact I hated everything that wasn't the precious moments I stole away to glance into his life. I didn't want to pry. I didn't want anything except to know that he was okay.
Upon my return to the pit I was bombarded with the usual questions about alphas and purgatory. As King of Hell, I would need to answer them eventually, but for now I wasn't ready to return to my life. I brushed them all off, trying to keep the mental image of him unlacing his boots fresh in my mind.
"Word on the Winchester boys," someone shouted. Not them. Those damn Winchesters were the last things I wanted to deal with, but they always proved to be a menace. I needed to deal with them immediately. The demon who shouted stepped forward at my gesture. "We know of their location, and we have a plan to lure them out. All we need is the bait. We were thinking the old guy, Bobby…"
Before he could finish his thought my fingers were around his throat and all onlookers were separated from us by a wall of fire. The blind rage I felt at his suggestion overcame my rational mind, the mind that told me none of these scum could know about Bobby. My nails dug into the demon, and he gasped for air, the stunned look plastered on his face. "If you ever threaten Bobby Singer again I will make sure you are tortured like you've never even witnessed here in hell before I kill you. Do we understand each other?" I let him squirm in my grasp for several moments before releasing him and letting him sputter out a yes. "The girl, Dean's girl. And her son. Use them as bait. Do as you've planned, and make sure they can't worm their way out of it." They all stared as I walked away, but what could I do? There was nothing for me to say; they knew what they'd seen and that was all.
Everything seemed strangely clear as my hatred for that demon rushed out of my body.
I had been many different things in my human lifetime, and as I demon I was many more, none of which I was proud. That moment might have been the one redeeming second in my thousands of years of being. I was nothing, and it was fine for me to hate everything I'd ever been, but if I could protect Bobby, from here on out, then maybe it was worth it. If I could protect Bobby Singer, the only good man I'd ever known, and the only love I'd ever had, then I'd try my damnedest to keep him safe.