Disclaimer: I own nothing

Author Notes: Written originally for an SPN Cuddle Comment Fic Challenge, for kijikun.

REAP AND SOW, TOGETHER

Crowley didn't demand much from life. Heaven on Earth for him was staying far away from the blunderings of the Winchesters and living with plenty of the finer things he was owed for his tireless work trading souls. He knew what he liked and woe on anyone who got in the way.

Anna had been a surprise. A fallen star gasping for her light when he'd found her. She hadn't shived him with that pretty blade of hers and that was a kindness. Crowley had repaid her by vanishing her away from the pool of blood he'd found her struggling in during a truly poetic rainstorm and away from the few mortals actually noticing something could be dying and that they were missing the chance to record it and show their friends.

Crowley always repaid his debts.

That was months ago now. And here she was, almost fully recovered, a little pale maybe and weak. She had her fire though, and fire was exactly what it was, no matter what the angels chose to pretend otherwise. It was tempered under her skin and sizzling if anyone was smart enough to look. Crowley admired it, and her determination to see things done. And the way she had with humour and words, like she could untwist his and make new shapes out of it. Who knew a creature of heaven could be so eloquently devious?

So Crowley enjoyed her company. They both had their day jobs – he was keeping under the radar, but doing a little soul business on the side, she was doing reconnaissance to make sure the Winchesters weren't going to break the world a spectacular second time and checking out her leads on dear old Dad – but they always found themselves together when the sun sank away.

Not that any of his associates - a great number dubious and many claiming righteousness - would ever discover this. They'd sell him out to the nearest high-ranker with a taste for angel and blood sport. He valued the life he had and hers.

He was marked. She said it hadn't been deliberate, but there it was, a hand-print scar on his chest. He wasn't exactly thrilled about it. At least she'd been accidentally considerate enough to put it somewhere he could easily cover up. Anyone with power enough would sense it though, that link between the two. Anna had smiled at him, amused at his indignation, and gone to make more toast. Crowley didn't protest when she curled up next to him, melted butter on her fingers and a song on her lips that wasn't a bit angelic. Learned from her human days apparently. It entertained him no end to hear such things from an angel's mouth. If she was that any more.

She muttered scripture under her breath every day, whether she was out of the world or not. Crowley knew as much as any snotty choirboy. It paid to do research. Anna was almost amused at the derisive inflections he gave to her sacred words and the explanations and meanings he had for every story. Sometimes she laughed. She never asked him to stop.

Sleep was another story. She liked to wrap her arms and wings around him, pressing her hand to the mark she'd put on him. Crowley wouldn't say it aloud, unless under other words that she could shuffle through and that was a game she played well, but he found it somewhat soothing. Oh, her touch burned, make no mistake. Angel and demon would always be a damning combination.

But it was a good burn, and that Crowley was entirely familiar with. He welcomed it, held on tight to it in the dark every night. He reckoned she did the same. And those wings of hers, tattered and trailing flame at every lick of his skin. He could see them slowly mending, pinpricks of exquisite pain against his flesh. Sometimes she gasped with the agony and he didn't let her go. Simple as that. But to everyone else, not so simple at all. Crowley's speciality.

Slate and rain piled high above them and there were souls for Crowley to coax out of their owners. Anna would tell him to give them back. She'd plan like any demon worth a drink and conversation with, that tricky blade at her side, and with a smile for Crowley, no matter how twisted up it got.

Crowley didn't demand much. But he knew what he liked, and woe on anyone who got in his way.

-the end