A/N: Written for a challenge on /r/fanfiction - write a story centered around the words "sparrow", "bend", and "choker".
Many thanks to Deejaymil and MaryPopNLockins for beta reading my story!
As angels go, Liriel was small potatoes. Not an archangel, not a seraph, just a cherub, and one of the least of those. Her title was "Sentient Being Judge, Fifth Class", which sounded lofty, but wasn't. She worked in accounting, totting up the good deeds and bad deeds done by sentient beings, but never made the decisions. She sat in on meetings, gave her reports, occasionally gossiped with other low-level angels during down time, and that was it. Liriel was of little consequence.
Sometimes she wished her existence was more exciting. But this was what Father had decreed for her, and she took some small comfort in that, and enjoyed watching the C'nitharians as they evolved. At first their deeds and misdeeds were easy to judge - actually pretty minor as deeds went - but as they became more and more intelligent, her job became more difficult. How to judge a C'nithi for mind invasion, which went against their God-given commandments, when it was done to rescue nestlings? It was, after all, a moral imperative to succor the innocent.
She whiled her eons away in this manner, watching the more important angels and archangels as they came and went. Most of them were involved with Earth, Father's pet planet, and humans, the beings that Father had decreed angels should love more than Him. All very well, but how could one love them when one never got to see them? Still, she dutifully kept "love for humans" as an abstract hovering in the back of her mind.
The archangels were grand. Their presence stretched across thousands of dimensions, incorporated stars and dark matter and wild energy. Uriel tended dark; his energy swarmed like buzzing C'nithi nestlings, his color flavor a deep velvet blue. Raphael was similar, but larger, with traces of flashing white. Michael was...well, he was never around where she could see him for more than a few moments, but he was an overwhelming, brilliant, burning white that made her flinch when she did see him. Lucifer had been like that, too, before The Fall. Sometimes she wondered what he looked like now, locked away in the pit. Then there was Gabriel. Everyone loved Gabriel, with his golden flavor and mischievous ways, tumbling through the galaxies, pulling pranks, folding the dimensions in ridiculous ways, always joyous. Then he disappeared too.
Liriel? She was mostly brown, filled with dust and brown dwarfs and tinges of dark matter. And small. She stretched across a few dimensions, not many. Easy to overlook. She liked it that way. She kept her presence small, gave her reports, spent time embodied in C'nithi, and did her duty.
Sometimes, though, she wished, deep down in the very depths of her essence, that her existence was...well...more exciting.
Things began ramping up on Earth. Plans for the Apocalypse were gaining ground, and the archangels darted everywhere, overseeing armies and convening strategy sessions. The coming Apocalypse was so demanding that all angels, no matter their status, were pulled from their regular duties and reassigned to Earth.
Liriel, who had grown accustomed to her C'nitharians, was shocked by her first glimpse of humans. They were so...stiff. They had four appendages sticking out from their trunks, plus a blobbish head bobbing on top. Their sexual appendages dangled, too, instead of being neatly hidden away until needed. They did have tendrils, which could have been interesting, but the tendrils were lifeless, clustered mostly in very specific places, and the focus of an astounding amount of human vanity. She could understand a C'nithi being proud of its sails, decorating them with jewels, and even found the latest trend - cutting the sail edges to produce a fringe, done by younglings - to be intriguing, but this focus on hair? It was confusing. Their souls, though, were practically indistinguishable from the souls of C'nitharians. That bit of similarity was reassuring.
She was finding it very hard to love the humans, but she did her best. She had to find a vessel, and after trying a few times, angelic voice quivering and faltering when she asked, and being rejected, she finally found a small, drab, timid young woman of deep faith, with thin, fine brown hair. It was like looking at her reflection in human form. This time, her angel voice neither quivered nor faltered, and the human said "Yes". After that, she found the experience on Earth much easier.
Her instructions were to watch over a crossroads demon. No matter how she felt about humans, seeing a demon possessing one was shocking. The oily black overlay, the blood-red webwork sparkling through, made her shiver. It was like an ugly imitation of what angels were in their true form, though much smaller. The crossroads demons were similar, but had a deep red overlay. Despite her distaste, she did as told, and shadowed the demon as it went about its business. Her demon, Janine, was tall and slender, her blobby appendages were nearly elegant, and her hair was an intriguing golden color that shifted and sparkled in the wind. It almost made Liriel understand hair. Almost.
After being so perplexed by the whole obsession with hair, when she encountered the human preoccupation with sex (an amazing number of demon deals were about sex, in one way or another), she just blinked and shrugged. It was another inexplicable human thing. For C'nitharians, sex was an ongoing, everyday matter of dropping a trail of eggs for males to find and inseminate. After spending eons on Kithith being a C'nithi, she had that engrained in her essence. She couldn't imagine any counterpart in her previous assignment, aside from the instinctive need a C'nithi had to take newborns to a nest.
One day, the deals she observed became too much. She gathered her courage and broached the subject of demon deals with her supervisor, Floriel. "Why do humans make demon deals over such incredibly petty things?"
"Eh?" Floriel, incarnated in a pudgy, blobby human who sweated all the time, looked up at her from his desk.
"Why would someone sell their beautiful soul, turn it over to corruption, for such trivial things?! Money. Sex. Power."
He shrugged.
"Besides, aren't we supposed to try to help people? How am I supposed to stand aside and let these deals go through?"
Floriel sniffed at her. "Mind your business and keep shadowing your assignment." She frowned at him, then left. She did as he instructed, but it made her sad, and a bit scornful of the humans.
Shadowing Janine was interesting. Somehow, through a fluke of fate, she had been assigned a demon who was a rising star among crossroads demons. Janine's deals, while still made on the basics - money, sex, power - were with more and more important humans. Liriel followed her to meetings with her superiors, fading into the shadows and listening. Janine went through one superior, then got assigned to a different one, and then was bumped up yet again. Liriel dutifully followed, absorbing the differences in personality. The supervisors got more intelligent, but were still, at the end of it, just functionaries in a bureaucracy, like Floriel was.
She squashed that thought right away, astonished and ashamed at herself.
Then Janine was promoted once again. Liriel flitted behind her as she went to her meeting, as usual. It was in a restaurant (dear Father, one of those trivial demon deals had been about food!), with a gathering of demons, but also plenty of normal humans, so Liriel faded back into visibility and took a seat at a table near an alcove, hidden away, and watched.
There was a human female "dancing". She had drapes of filmy fabric that fluttered around her as she swayed. Watching this female, Liriel forgot her duties, the demons, everything, as she watched, entranced. The way the woman held the banners, trailed them through the air, made Liriel's heart ache - she was suddenly flying again through the green-blue skies of Kithith, watching her fellow C'nitharians soar and dive and float. Her mouth was slightly parted, her eyes shining, as she watched.
Liriel felt her vessel, small and brown and timid as she was, force the word "lewd" through her brain, accompanied with associated feelings of shame and disgust. The blood rose in a rush to the vessel's cheeks, and her borrowed hands instinctively came up to cover them.
This was perplexing.
Then it all made sense. Her vessel was feeling a sexual vibration from the dancer. How interesting. Liriel dismissed it, pushed the owner of her vessel back into the background, and basked in the comfort of this tiny flash of her previous home.
She suddenly felt like she was being watched. This ability for instinct to serve as a warning, alerting the person, was another characteristic unique to humanity. She glanced up, curious, and her eyes locked for a moment with those of Janine's new supervisor across the room. It was a very strange sensation. She had heard the phrase a few times over the past few years here on Earth, but now she knew that it was not a simple metaphor. Her eyes were really locked with his. She was unable to look away.
Her vessel's cheeks flushed again, and she was relieved when he broke contact.
As humans went, he was handsome enough beneath the burgundy, oily crossroads demon sheen, she supposed. Though without sails, how was she supposed to know? Dark hair, brown eyes set in deep sockets, pale skin, square chin, dressed in a formal type of black clothing that her vessel's knowledge informed her was very expensive. Unable to resist, she darted a glance at him again. He was watching, and his eyelids dipped, a tiny smile tilted the corners of his lips, and he lifted his glass to her.
Her vessel was in a panic, screaming Get away now!
Liriel was so unused to this attack of humanity that she bowed to the inevitable, fading into the shadows and flitting away.
It was all very mysterious.
When she reported to Floriel, he was dismissive, at least until she mentioned that Janine had called this new supervisor the "King of the Crossroads". Floriel was suddenly all attention, demanding she give him more details, calling in his own supervisor Shemazar. On top of the mysterious scene in the restaurant, Liriel found it all quite bizarre. Still, she went through the tale to the both of them, one more time.
Floriel and Shemazar looked at each other. Floriel fiddled with a pen. Finally, Shemazar turned to her. "This is extremely important, Liriel. We have been trying to locate this one particular demon for quite a while. So we need you to inform us the next time this Janine meets with him. We will need a specific location."
She nodded, wide-eyed.
As requested, the next time Janine met with the dark-haired man, Liriel reported where the meeting was, and thought nothing more of it. She did, though, make sure she was deep in the shadows when Janine spoke to him, to avoid any accidental eye contact. No need having her vessel panic again.
When she reported back to Floriel, Shemazar was there again, fretting. Their hand-picked follower for this special demon had not been able to locate him. Shemazar glared at her. "Are you sure you gave us the right place?"
"Yes!" she squeaked, trembling. He glared at her some more, then finally nodded.
"Very well. Next time."
Again Janine met with the king, and again Liriel reported the location, going so far as to open her essence so there could be no doubts about her information. And, once again, when she reported back in with Janine's side of the conversation, Floriel and Shemazar said that, even with her being so wide open, their agent hadn't found the king.
They tried a third time, with the same results.
This time, after the discussion, the almost-recriminations, Shemazar ended by watching her sourly for a long few moments. Just as she started to fidget, to wonder how they could blame her for this, he grunted. "Well. I suppose, since you are the only one who seems able to find him reliably, we will have to assign you to him."
Her vessel froze and panic rose. Liriel pushed the human feelings down; this was no time for such distractions. They were going to give her, Liriel, Sentient Being Judge, Fifth Class, this assignment?! They certainly didn't feel happy about it. But after eons, it seemed that she was getting a small amount of change. It was exciting. Her angelic essence expanded to absorb another nebula and one dwarf brown star exploded before she could calm herself. Floriel and Shemazar gave her a disapproving look. She blushed and stared down at the floor.
"None of that, now!" Shemazar snapped. She nodded meekly.
Crowley. The King of the Crossroads had a name, Crowley.
He had habits, like going to watch live theater and dance performances on a regular basis. She found the theater intriguing, and the dance amazing and heart-rending. It always reminded her of flying on Kithith, and made her much more willing to see humans as worthy in and of themselves, rather than just because Father had decreed it.
He was cold and shrewd and intimidating to his employees, but he rewarded initiative
He had a temper. He seemed to always be thinking of how to use information, demons, people to his advantage.
He had a lot of sex. Men, women, multiple men, multiple women, mixes. She was boggled. Her vessel squeaked like a mouse and made them close their eyes the first few times. After that, Liriel would discreetly remove to another room.
He was fascinating.
Her vessel always felt like a shtri around a c'flik - mouse around a cat, she needed to think in human metaphors! - when they were near him, constantly radiating this man is dangerous, and always on the verge of panic. He did something to her, that was clear, but what, exactly, was totally unclear.
And, though Liriel never said a word about it to Shemazar, who was now her supervisor, she had a sneaking feeling that he was as aware of her presence as she was of his. It was that pesky human instinct again, she thought. How could she know if what she reported was true, if he knew she was there, listening?
Big things were happening, that was obvious. There were hushed meetings with other demons, worried talk about Azazel and Lilith, and even Lucifer. This Crowley told the others that the Apocalypse was bad for business, bad for demonkind, that they were nothing to Lucifer. She listened, reported back to Shemazar, and wondered about Crowley's claims. Hadn't Lucifer made the demons? Why would he want to destroy them?
Every angel felt it when Lucifer was released from the Cage. Liriel assumed that every demon did as well.
She was frightened, oh yes, but also a little excited. She heard whispers of two human brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, bred to be vessels for Michael and Lucifer. Whispers that the end times were coming, that the final battle was close, that Paradise was near and Father would certainly return.
Wait. What?!
Father was gone?!
It shook her to her core. She had never seen Him, true. But, then, the higher ups didn't bother with low-level cherubs like her. She had always just...assumed that He was there, somewhere, directing things. If He wasn't, then how did the angels know they were doing His bidding?
She abandoned Crowley for one rotation of the planet while she considered the question.
Did He want the Apocalypse?
Or did they? The higher angels. The seraphim, the archangels.
She sat on a craggy cliff overlooking the planet's biggest ocean, vessel's elbows on knees, chin in hands, and stared at the horizon without seeing it.
Was the Apocalypse the right thing to do?
She had become begrudgingly fond of humans, after all. The Apocalypse would wipe half of them out, and she knew what a slender thread Judgment dangled by. Hadn't she been the one wrestling with questions of morals when sorting good and bad deeds for the C'nitharians? She had tried very hard to sort them properly, to weigh bad acts against good motives and vice versa, but she wasn't sure she had faith in her fellow Sentient Being Judges to be as cautious. What if...what if the ones judged worthy...weren't?
And was Crowley right when he told his conspirators about Lucifer actually wanting to wipe out all of humanity, demons included?
It was a lot to think about. Especially since she knew her superiors were worried that Crowley might interfere.
Was this doubt? Was she bending, being turned, the way...Oh, Father! The way Lucifer had been bent?
When she returned to shadowing Crowley, she was preoccupied, and thus careless.
There was one spot in his mansion that didn't have angel warding, a drain that led to the kitchens. It was her standard route when she went there. She knew he'd either be in the office, with its heavy, dark wooden desk, the Persian rug, the executive chair, or in his study, with the leather armchairs, the big television. She ghosted into the office, then, when she found no-one there, she flitted into the study, where she located him. She perched herself on the window seat, ready to watch, listen.
He sauntered to the liquor cabinet, poured himself some scotch, and sat down in his usual chair, swirling the amber liquid in the glass. Then he took a sip and looked right at her, a small smile tugging at his lips.
No. Really. Right at her!
She froze, and her vessel started gibbering about dangerous men and how they needed to flee now, run, run, run!
"Hello, little sparrow," he said. "So glad you finally decided to let me see you again." His smile grew, he waved a languid hand, and she felt something settle around her vessel's neck. "I couldn't do that while you were hiding, pet, but now..."
She spread her wings, preparing to vanish, to return to Shemazar and admit her carelessness and defeat, accept her punishment, go back to trailing small demons if she was lucky...
And couldn't.
"Around your neck, sparrow, is a choker, a very rare and valuable thing. It traps angels." He paused, took another sip, and grimaced. "Well. Some angels. Cherubs. Like you, darling."
Oh, Father, Father, Father! Help me!
No response. She was stuck, and in way over her head. She stared at the demon with wide, panicky eyes. "What - " Her voice was small and wavering. "What do you want with me?"
"First, I want you closer." He snapped his fingers, and she was sitting in the leather chair across the small table from his. She shrank back against the arm furthest from him and stared at him. He chuckled. "Now, now. I don't bite. Here, have a drink." She hadn't noticed, but he had poured two scotches. The second was on the table; he nudged it toward her. She transferred her panicked stare to the glass.
"I don't drink," she mumbled. It was probably poison. Which was okay for her, but her poor vessel!
"Tch. It's not poisoned, if that's what you're thinking."
She returned her trapped stare to him, carefully avoiding his eyes. Oh, dear Father! He can read my mind! Mind invasion!
"And, no, you little idiot, I can not read your mind!" he snarled. He dragged an irritated hand down his face and rolled his eyes. "You need to relax, sparrow!"
She pressed her lips together, and muttered sullenly, "If you can't read my mind, how did you know what I was thinking?!" She felt very small, very outmaneuvered, her vessel's heart was beating wildly, and she could barely breathe.
"Gah!" He waved his hands in exasperation. "Because you are such a bloody innocent that your every thought is practically written across your face!" He sighed, paused, then said, "Ahem. Let me give this another try. Hello, little sparrow, my name is Crowley. What is your name?"
She muttered, "Liriel." She really wanted to be back on Kithith right now, where she understood how the world worked.
"Hello, Liriel. Now that we have been properly introduced, I have a business proposition for you." Her eyes flew up to meet his in surprise.
No no no! her vessel screamed.
It was a mistake. Those dark eyes somehow mesmerized her, took her breath away and made her heart beat wildly in a totally different manner than before. She couldn't look away, and that cursed blood-rushing-to-the-cheeks thing was happening again. And she felt very strange. The only thing she could think of to do was to squeeze her eyes shut. Amazingly, it worked. When she re-opened them, she focused on his nose instead, which helped. But, in the periphery of her vision, she could see that his smile had changed subtly, that his eyelids were drooping, and she realized, to her dismay, that the flushing and difficulty breathing and the wild heartbeat were still there.
She wondered if her vessel was getting sick. Maybe hysterical from fear? Or, no, it had to be the choker. It affected her, so that must be affecting her vessel. Which affected her again in a different way. Circular.
"A - a business proposition?" she squeaked, staring at his nose. He leaned forward and pushed her hair back behind one ear, his hand moving very slowly, softly against her skin, then trailing away. She was fascinated by the way the skin shivered at his touch.
"Why, yes, darling," he murmured. His smile was wide and lazy, and she found herself focusing on his lips, instead of the nose. "You see, little sparrow, I've known you were watching, and I let you watch and report back to your superiors. Kept them on their toes, no doubt." He stopped, eyes gleaming. "I could always have warded off that drain, you know," he added.
"Oh!"
"Yes, 'oh!', indeed. Now, I find myself in need of..." He paused. She wondered what he was in need of. The anticipation of finding out sent a strange thrill racing through her. Her vessel sent a pulse of exasperated irritation her way. Crowley's lips twitched in amusement, and she wondered again if he couldn't actually read her thoughts. If he could, it must be very confusing. She could hardly make sense of them herself. "In need of information." For some reason, she was disappointed. "About what the angels are doing, vis a vis this whole Lucifer-Apocalypse situation. What they know. Et cetera."
She sat back against the arm of the chair again, huddled up, eyes focused back on his nose.
"Oh." She must sound very stupid, she thought, repeating the same thing over and over again. "You're asking me to - to - spy for you!"
"Such an ugly word, 'spy'!" he protested with a small grimace. "Just an even exchange. Who says what, that kind of thing. Nothing very major, pet. What we call a quid pro quo around here. You give some, I give some, we all go away happy. Just...bending the rules a bit."
She blinked at him. He made it sound so innocent. Easy. How did he do that?
"I'm...uh...very sorry, but, no. I could never do something like that." Even though she had spent the entire planet rotation thinking about something similar. And why was she apologizing?
He seemed to stiffen. He watched her, face expressionless, for a few moments. Then, as if he had made a decision, he abruptly relaxed and smiled at her again. He leaned across the table to place a gentle finger on her lips. "Shhh. Just ponder it for a while. In the meantime..." His hand slid down to hers, and clasped around it. His hand was warm, firm. He tugged at hers. "I have noticed how enthralled you are by dancing. Now, I can't teach you to dance like a professional. That, my sparrow, is something that takes many years of extremely hard work to achieve. However -" He stood then and pulled her to her feet, drew her towards him. "I can teach you simpler dancing, such as...oh, the waltz." He snapped the fingers of his other hand, and lilting music filled the air.
Dancing?! First he wanted her to spy, now he was going to teach her to dance?! She blinked up at him, befuddled. He positioned her facing him, holding her hands lightly in his at arm's length. He started to explain the rhythm, and without realizing it, her feet started moving. He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "I - I think my vessel may already know this?" she quavered.
"Excellent!" He pulled her close, front to front, slipped an arm around the curve of her waist, fingers gently stroking her back, and they started dancing, bodies moving together as one unit.
Dancing? Well, no. Flying. Soaring. She closed her eyes and was back beneath the greenish-yellow sun, rolling together with other C'nithi, sails intertwining, diving into misty clouds and soaring out again, laughing with the flock. She reveled in it. And then she started weeping. The human reflection of her emotions was too overwhelming. She felt the joy and wonder in the body, but she also felt the infinite sadness of being yanked away, pushed into a world she neither knew nor understood.
The music stopped, he stopped, and she stopped perforce. She opened her eyes. He was frowning down at her.
"Normally, a woman doesn't cry when I'm dancing with her," he noted sourly.
"Oh!" He was...well, angry was too harsh. His pride was hurt, she decided. She stared at his chin, still avoiding his eyes, and tried her best to explain. "Kithith. I was back on Kithith." He raised his eyebrows, and she was clutching his shoulders, holding on as if she were drowning, head against his chest, her human body wracked with sobs as words after words tumbled out.
They were on his sofa. She was in his lap. His arms were around her, stroking her back with long, slow strokes that both comforted her and made her very uncomfortable. She hated this human body, with its wildly contradictory feelings.
He was murmuring, "Shhh, shhh, shhh, sparrow. Hush now." He lifted a thumb to wipe the tears from beneath her eyes, and drew her closer, placing his lips on hers. They were warm, soft, gentle. She had no idea what to do; she thought he might be initiating sex, but wasn't sure, because none of this was sexual. What was she supposed to do? She knew one thing: her vessel was squawking, appalled. Words were drifting up, words like "virgin", "pure", "chaste". Crowley's mouth moved on hers, and her borrowed human body instinctively responded with movement of her own. When his tongue probed at her lips, pressing them open, she was curious and opened her mouth wide in return.
He chuckled against her, then pulled back, looking at her with amusement. "You are a very young angel, I gather."
She closed her mouth, bewildered. "Was I - was I doing it wrong?"
He hummed, one hand drifting to her hair, toying with it, running his fingers through it. For dead tendrils with no nerves, this action certainly provoked very interesting sensations and responses within her vessel.
His other hand curved to the back of her neck, fingers trailing across the skin there, then pulled her head closer. "I will teach you," he murmured into her ear, his soft breath sending shivers down her body. "Little bird, you have no idea how long it's been since I was given the chance to debauch an angel. I intend to teach you...everything."
He snapped his fingers and they were in his bedroom. Piece by piece, he began to remove her clothing, each removal accompanied by gentle fingers trailing across her skin, his mouth, tongue, teeth following in their place. Her skin was shivering, icy cold, then flushed hot, trembling wherever he placed his hands. Every nip of his teeth forced a small gasp from her. Strange heat rose between her hips, and she squirmed, trying to relieve it. He chuckled low in his throat, and for some reason, it only made it worse.
She began mirroring his movements, her hands fumbling with his unfamiliar clothing, her fingers hesitantly touching his skin in return. When she first leaned her head down to mouth his skin, drew her tongue across it, she was overwhelmed by his scent, his taste. She was obscurely pleased when she managed to make him throw his head back and hiss in a breath.
The change in the male sex organ was astonishing. From a limp, dangling thing that she always thought must be a nuisance for male humans, it had turned hard, curving up and away from his body.
Her world was contracting, her focus tightening. Forgotten were her other dimensions, her stars, her nebulae; everything in her universe was concentrated in this one room.
When he touched her breasts, part of her - the very tiny part that was still dispassionate, still curious - was astonished that these appendages could elicit such a response. They were for feeding babies, right? Why should they feel so sensitive, so tender? But then his lips were on her nipples, and the thought slipped away as her world contracted even further.
He pushed her gently back onto the bed, bracing himself on an elbow beside her, and his hand urged her legs apart. His fingers blazed a trail up her inner thighs, and she gasped as they came to a rest on her groin. Her body was secreting moisture. He dipped his fingers in, then began sliding them, warm, wet, slick, across the folds of her skin near the sexual organs. A bolt of pleasure shot through her, then again and again, and she moaned at the feelings, arching her body so she could get more. A strange tension was building up inside her body.
"I want - want - " She couldn't say, she didn't know, she just wanted.
"Tell me what you want, little bird," he whispered into her ear, then bit down on her earlobe.
She gasped, thrust her pelvis forward, and wailed, "I don't know!"
"Perhaps...this?" A finger slid into the opening of her sexual organs, began moving in and out. It felt amazing, but...
"More!" she demanded, voice trembling. He complied, slipping in another two fingers, his thumb still sliding back and forth against the amazingly sensitive spot at the top of her folds.
When he pulled his fingers out entirely, she was bereft. But then he maneuvered himself over her, pushed ever so gently, and his hard sex organ took the place of his fingers. Just a little bit. She growled, pushing forward, wanting more, but he held her hips still with a hand. "Gently, pet. Gently. This will hurt." He eased it in, and, oh yes, it hurt, but it also felt amazing. He eased out again, then back in, then started a rhythm.
She rocked back and forth, trying to match him. But she was inexperienced, and found herself pulling away at the wrong time, and his penis popped out with a wet, sucking sound. He chuckled again. She could feel the laugh vibrating against her chest. "No, no, no, little bird. First time. Let me do everything." He slid into her again, and she obediently stopped her rocking as much as she could. He thrust faster, harder, his hand still stroking between her legs. The tension in her built and built. Her world contracted so completely it consisted of only him and herself, and all she could comprehend was the intense physical sensations.
It was like a collapsing sun, she thought distantly.
Then, like a collapsing sun, everything exploded in pleasure. She screamed, he growled, thrust again, and she could feel the sex organ twitching inside her. He gasped, collapsing down upon her body, and they laid there a few moments, panting and sweaty and very, very fulfilled.
Her body twitched again with another small explosion. And again. Then all the strange tension was entirely gone, the body was completely relaxed, and her world opened up again. She stared at him, wide-eyed, and said faintly, "Now I understand why humans would want to sell their souls for sex."
He cocked an amused eyebrow at her. "Good sex, sparrow," he murmured. "The world is full of humans who have only experienced bad sex. Alas for them. But it does make my demons' jobs very easy."
She reached back for her multi-dimensional essence. To her dismay, she saw that she had exploded numerous brown dwarfs, and a few of her nebulae had tangled together and were glowing. This would be noticeable. She flinched beneath him.
"Hmm?"
"I...They will know," she mumbled, flushing, looking anywhere but at him.
He smiled lazily. "God, in his infinite wisdom, sees every sparrow's fall. The angels? They won't notice; their heads are too far up their asses. Don't worry."
He was right. When she reported back to Shemazar and Floriel, not a word was spoken about her changed essence. She was insulted, but relieved.
Over the months, she reported on Crowley's meeting and movements. When she was with Crowley, she reported the angels' plans and strategies. It was a strange balance. She thought perhaps she should feel shame, but she had already started the process of disillusionment before her first encounter with him.
After the first gentle experience, he introduced her to the joys of sex in all varieties. Rough sex. Oral sex. Anal sex. Bondage. Sex with more than one person. She reveled in it all. She looked up the definition of "debauch", and was amused. Her vessel was no longer shrieking every time she was near Crowley. This amused her, too.
She continued to be irritated by her superiors' inability to see the changes in her. Their blindness to that made her explore their blindness to other things. She might be "fallen", according to their definition, but their arrogance, their narrow mindedness, their dismissal of others was much worse. She would never let these angels judge good or evil like she had done on Kithith: they would be unable to care.
She became aware that there were a few other angels who were as dubious about the Apocalypse as she was. Not many, but some. She started a mental list.
One day, Crowley showed her his latest acquisition, an antique gun. It was a magical thing; she could see the distortions in reality arching around its barrel and the bullets meant to be used by it. "Now this pretty item..." he said thoughtfully, holding it up and sighting down its barrel at the opposite wall. "This could be our answer to Lucifer." She looked at it with a frown. Yes, magical, but magical enough? She wasn't sure. Lucifer was an archangel, after all.
A few weeks later, he told her he was setting a trap for the famous Winchester brothers. He invited her to watch him maneuver them into using the gun against Lucifer.
She huddled on the window seat, arms wrapped around her knees, and pondered the idea. Finally, she shook her head. "They have a guardian, an angel, Castiel. He is a warrior. I won't be able to hide from him. Best if I'm not here."
He glanced at her and shrugged. "Your choice, pet. They'll be here soon."
She started up, nervous about Castiel. "Then I should go."
He pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss. "Come back tomorrow. We'll celebrate."
When she returned the next day, there was no need to search for her special entry point. The mansion was rubble. Angel and demon tracery laced over the ruins. Dead bodies were strewn throughout the grounds. The place was crawling with police.
Crowley was nowhere to be found.
Stunned, she returned to Shemazar, began her report. He waved her to a stop. "Enough. Crowley is now the business of more important angels. He tried to have Lucifer killed. We have hunters on his trail, and he won't last long. You are being reassigned to Floriel. Go talk to him." With that abrupt dismissal, he turned away.
She walked out of his office, still stunned. She didn't report to Floriel. She went straight to one of the doubting angels on her list, Anna.
Her fall was complete.