In the early stages of the evening, Rowena MacLeod found herself wandering the corridors of hell. Her son was away on business, not that she cared, but she found herself bored without his company. So she roamed the halls in search of something to do. Eventually she found a small sitting room and decided read a book from the nearby shelf for a while over a cup of tea. Halfway in, however, her tea ran out. She sighed. She supposed she would have to go find some more. In her mind, reading without tea was just no fun. Having no concept of time passed, she went to find herself some more tea. She rummaged through the cupboards in the small kitchen, looking for her favorite cinnamon tea. She brewed herself a pot, not realizing that she was being watched.
When the kettle began to whistle, she poured herself a cup of tea, then set the kettle on the back burner. She cleaned up the rest of her mess and then went out to get back to her book. However, when she got to the doorway, something made her hesitate. A feeling she couldn't explain welled up inside of her. It was… what? Dread? Fear? Uncertainty, maybe? She dismissed the feeling almost as soon as it cropped up. She was a feared witch. She could handle anything. She straightened up, and went down the hall.
She was about three quarters of the way there when suddenly a man in a black suit leaped at her and shoved her into a nearby room. He quickly shut the door behind them. Rowena tried to pick herself up from the floor, but suddenly someone was on top of her, crushing her to the ground.
"What's your hurry, darlin'?" Said a smooth voice. She was about to say something when suddenly his lips were smashing against hers, and he was sucking all the air out of her lungs. She tried to push him off of her, but his grasp was iron clad. She tried kicking him off but couldn't get her legs underneath him. She tried to turn her head away, and gasped for air.
"Get… Off… Of… Me!" She wheezed.
"Not a chance." His hands were roaming over parts of her body, And trying to slide the sides of her dress down her shoulders before trying to hike it up her legs.
It was then, in a moment of terrible clarity, that she realized what was happening to her.
She was being raped.
"NO!" She screamed, fighting as hard as she could. She tried to knee him in the balls, but couldn't get any leverage under him.
"Come on, honey. Just relax. We're gonna take this nice and slow." He promised. He yanked her dress down her shoulders so hard she felt the fabric tear.
"Please stop." She begged before he was crushing her lips again. Despite herself she felt tears streaming down her face. Before she knew it he was pulling down her underwear.
Despite being in hell she found herself praying for someone to come and rescue her. Even the Winchester's would have been welcome. Or, even more desperately, she prayed for her son to be her rescuer, even though she knew he hated her.
Her prayers were seemingly unanswered. Suddenly he was inside of her, hurting her, and she gasped in pain. He slapped his hand over her mouth.
"Shhhhh. Be quiet. You're ruining it." He said, thrusting inside of her. She kept trying to scream, but he wouldn't let her. "No one can hear you in here." He said.
Irritated, she tried to bite his finger. But even her bite did not deter him. She had never felt more defeated or helpless. No one could hear her scream. No one would be looking for her. No one even knew she was here. She couldn't fight her way out. His grip was too secure. She kept trying to kick him unconsciously, but all the fight in her upper body went out of her. His hands squeezed her breasts, seeing that she was going on autopilot. When his hands left her wrists she sprang to life and tried to get up, but only succeeded in turning herself over onto her stomach. She reached out, trying to crawl her way out. But his weight was too much for her. Suddenly a silk tie was being wrapped over her mouth, so she couldn't scream.
And then, when she thought it couldn't be worse, he entered her all over again. But from behind this time.
Now she knew that the slight ray of hope she held was snuffed out. The fight was crushed out of her. Her fight was gone, so she just laid there and took it. The tears never stopped flowing. Her begging never ceased. She rubbed her face against the ground to try and move the tie to get it off and scream. But it was useless. His tongue traced over her ear, and she shuddered in revulsion. The thrusts became faster, and she felt her own body wind up despite her frantic attempts to get away. He came, and she did, too. No matter how much she didn't want to. When he was done, he whispered in her ear, "Keep your mouth shut."
Then, just like that, he was gone.
She pulled the tie off of her mouth and got up on shaky arms, feeling tears, unwanted and unwelcome but automatic all the same, stream down her face. She covered her mouth and felt herself shake with sobs. She felt, once and for all, defeated.
She was so enrapt with her sense of violation and panic that she didn't hear the door open, didn't see her son come in.
Crowley had spent a tedious evening dealing with Lucifer's followers. However, one had thought he was clever enough to sneak away, so he had personally gone after him, looking room to room for the offender. Now, here, he found his mother, weeping openly- something he had never imagined he'd see her do. He was so stunned by the sight of tears falling down her cheeks he almost forgot why he had come in in the first place.
"Mum?" He asked, weary.
Rowena jumped, startled. "Fergus. What are you doing in here?" She asked.
"What happened to you, Mum?" He asked.
"Don't worry about it." She said. She was too embarrassed to tell him what had happened to her.
"You're crying." He said.
"Yes." It was useless to deny it.
"Why?" He pressed.
She went to wipe a tear from her eye and he saw the tie that was from her mouth on her hand.
"What's that?" He asked. She quickly yanked the tie off, and when she turned to put it on the table, the open back of her dress was exposed, and he saw handprints and bruises there. When he saw the three of them together, it clicked.
"Mum… Were you… Did he…?" He couldn't even finish the sentence. But his mother's avoidance of eye contact said it all.
Crowley felt rage unlike anything he had ever felt before ball into his stomach and fan into a flame. His face grew red as a tomato and a vein in his head began to pulsate.
"Stay right here, Mummy. Don't let anyone in. I'll be back shortly." He said.
He skulked off, in hot pursuit of his mother's attacker. His vision tinged red, and he felt the heat and anger fuel him. Never before had he been so outraged. He hated his mother with a burning passion, and was angry at her for so many things, but no matter how much she angered him, she didn't deserve that. No woman deserved that.
It took almost an hour but he found him, the coward, and chained him up to the wall. Then, when he was good and subdued, he went back to get his mother. He found her sitting at a table in the room, hands clasping a cup of tea. She looked pale.
"I found him. He won't hurt you again." He vowed. Rowena smiled a bit nervously.
"I know." The words came out of her mouth but weren't certain.
Crowley looked at his mother, appraising her up and down. She was covered in so many bruises that he thought she might be able to call them a new dress if she had half a mind to. It sickened him to his core to see her so weakened. A voice inside of him kept saying that he should kill the bastard now and just get it over with, but his rational side kept telling him that that was much too easy. He grew upset very quickly when he heard his mother's comment.
"You think all this is your fault?" He asked in a soft monotone. He had to be sure of what he had heard in her voice.
He did not miss her almost imperceptible nod.
Rage, full and undiluted swept through his body. He gave his mother a smoking glare, and didn't miss the way she flinched under his imperious gaze. He took a breath to steady himself.
"Mummy, this isn't your fault at all." At that, her head snapped up. She eyed him warily. "He's the jackass with all of the problems and he took it out on you. Don't listen to a word he says. It isn't worth your time. I promise you." She smiled a little at that.
"You sound so grown up." She said, smiling. The smile faded when she thought of what she'd had to go through. He didn't miss the change in her demeanor, but thought she was having a flashback of some sort.
"It's alright. I'll protect you."
Rowena saw the fire light in her son's eyes, and it sparked something inside of her. A way of thinking that she had abandoned too easily in her youth. She had made excuses for his behavior long enough. No more. Crowley held a hand out to her.
"I won't let him get away with this, Mummy. I promise that he will never hurt you again."
"Fergus, you know better than to make promises you can't keep."
"I intend to keep this one."
"How?"
A devilish grin swept across his face. "Because we're going to kill him. Together."
Rowena looked up in surprise at that. The words almost made her want to laugh and ask her son if he was serious, but she could tell by the look on his face and the tenseness in his muscles that he was indeed completely serious so she held back a laugh. She knew if anyone could break Angus into a million pieces before helping him to meet his untimely end, it was her little boy. She smiled, and it made her son grin even more until he looked like the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland. After all, what else did she have to lose? She reached out to him and looped her arm through his and began leading him out of the room.
"You've got yourself a deal."
The impish grin only widened from there. "Perfect."
They went into the room arm in arm, mother and son united against a common enemy. In tormenting another, they found something unexpected: They found something to bond over. As Crowley took his revenge upon his mother's attacker, Rowena felt something new open up inside of her that she hadn't felt since she had last seen Oskar: Love. She had sworn that love was weakness, and that she would never be weak again, but she had just been as weak as she had ever been, and her son's unique display of love had saved her. Maybe, just maybe, she could learn to love him again.
So, when the torment was done and the demons were gone, mother and son sat alone in the room where the assault had taken place. Rowena knew what she wanted to do.
"Fergus, may I ask you something?"
He nodded, intrigued.
Rowena leaned forward. "I don't think it will be easy, changing things between us. It will take a lot of hard work and time. But I want to give it a go. So I'm asking you now, Will you give me a chance to try and be a mother for the right reasons instead of selfish ones?"
Crowley stared at her for a long time. With a glance into her thoughts, he saw that the sentiment was true. But the knowledge that he was giving her the power to possibly destroy him was terrifying. He pacified himself with the thought that he could look into her mind at any time to see if her motives had changed. It was absolutely foolproof.
"I will." The words came out hesitantly, a reflection of his inner turmoil. Cautiously, he stepped forward, and held out his hand. His mother smiled, but something about it was different than before. It was softer and kinder. She shook his hand, and pulled him into an embrace.
"I'm so proud of you." She said.
They were the words Crowley had waited to hear all his life.
From that day on, mother and son were bonded, and they learned how to be a real family. They fought, and argued just as before, but now they weren't looking for knives to hurt each other with. They were honest, but they found something between them that wasn't there before.
There was love- and that made all the difference.