During the Course of Ruling Hell
Supernatural
Genre: Romance and Adventure
Rating: T
CrowleyxOC
Warnings: "Drug" use, mentions of violence, some actual violence in later chapters, allusions of a racy nature.
Chapter 1: Putrid Human Filth and Its Complexities
He wasn't sure when last he had been in a place like this, years, decades maybe. A few tables over was a mother breaking tiny baby-fist sized pieces of pastry for her curly haired son. The air smelled like baking and was more wholesome than any he had smelled in his memory. The boy gobbled them up and gave her back a messy, giddy smile. He wasn't sure when last he had been smiled at like that, decades, centuries maybe. Across the café a young girl sat on the edge of her m wicker chair, ignoring her father, nose pressed in a book with a rainbow and a fairie on the cover. The whole cafe had an air of companionship to it, like they were al in it together.
The only tables empty in the establishment were the ones next to him, he made them uneasy, he thought. He was watching them, he saw them glance up and around. A boy made eyes at a girl across the bright and sunlit room. They made casual eye contact, but not with him. When their eyes fell on him they slid passed. The little girl's father looked at her fondly, he couldn't remember when he had been looked at like that, centuries, ever maybe.
The King of Hell sipped his tea.
His stomach curled and rancor slithered through his veins like a virus, those veins still filled with human blood. Before he had been poisoned by the filth of human feelings he hadn't noticed how human eyes didn't settle on him. Or he had noticed it, but he had liked it. It had made him feel potent, the dirt roiling blips of light could sense the power that burned off of him and smelled of sulfur. But he had been ruined with the toxin of desire and wanted to smash his cup on the blonde varnished hard wood floor and hold that mother's chin steady so she could stop looking away from him. He wanted to smash them against the wall and throw the Mason jar vases at their squalid human heads and scream, 'Look at me!'
He squirmed in desperation. At once, livid with himself, furious at the Winchesters, and achingly lonely. He had tried to quell his need for company with that worthless slime Lola. But that had ended poorly. And hadn't been what he was after anyway. Well, the tumbles had been lovely. But he had not been satisfied. Honestly, talking to her had been a nightmare. She had stolen a body to die for but hellfire, she had the wit of a mollusk. He was getting restless. He considered walking to the bathroom and walking back. Just for some movement.
He took another sip of his tea. He was staring around at the other patrons. They dedicatedly didn't look at him. He nearly snagged the look of the girl in the corner, ogling at the boy in the other corner but she hurriedly turned away. How he wanted to crush her. It was like their gaze was tickling at his edges, he couldn't quite grasp it. He so desperately needed someone to look straight at him.
And then, one of them did
A girl. A young woman really, 25 maybe, he found it was harder and harder for him to tell. But she was of an age that if he were angling for her soul he would ask after a man or a career and not after children. And she was looking at him. Staring really. She had forgotten her cup and it was hanging in her fingers halfway to her lips. Her eyes dug into him and ripped through him. They were intense and boring through him. He shuddered a little. She didn't move. Her whole body was rigid and her eyes peered into him like spotlights. He felt like he did when he was in a demon trap. Confined, power stripped.
He may have been wrong about how badly he wanted this, it was unsettling. It should not have been. He was the King of Hell. She wasn't even particularly beautiful. Not homely by any means but a night ago he had been lying beneath Lola whose meat suit's beauty could have been used as currency. This girl, who had not yet remembered her cup, had muddy greenish eyes and straight dark hair and a jaw that was perhaps just a little too jutting. She was wearing a pleated floral dress that was moments from being covered in her coffee.
She finally seemed to catch up with herself and set the coffee down on the table where it splashed over the cup's thin rim onto the pretty table cloth beneath it. She made a half motion toward the purse that was slung across the back of her chair then stopped herself and remained frozen for a few more seconds, as though weighing her options. Stiffly, she turned back to her table and looked down at the book that had been, moments before, forgotten in front of her. She had her face set as though preparing for battle. Unmoving, she cleaved her eyes to the book and sat rigidly in her seat.
Crowley was unnerved and to be frank, baffled. He was certain he didn't know her. He knew he hadn't made a deal with her in the days he worked at the crossroads, he took particular pride in remembering every soul he had acquired. He thought that perhaps she had known his meat suit. But he had taken him years ago and she must be too young to have known him well. It was certain his meat suit didn't know her.
His instinct was to press further, to approach her himself. But he wasn't sure if that was the impulse of him as the ruler of demons or as a strung out blood junkie. Also, a bit, he was afraid of spooking her and her behavior had been odd enough that he was interested in keeping tabs on her for just a bit longer. She had looked at him without abject terror. The idea, embarrassingly, thrilled him. He sipped his tea and from the corner of his eye watched her twisting a ring around her left ring finger. It was an old ring, corroded and missing the main stone.
He wanted desperately to get her attention, or to talk to her. Of course, he wanted much more desperately to be able to write her off as unimportant human trash, but his steady indulgences of human blood made it impossible to be quite as cavalier as he would have liked. As unsettling as her staring had been, her dedicated avoidance of him was worse. Like stepping out of a bath that had been too hot into cold air. Her eyes remained fixed unblinkingly at the book before her.
The thing that was most disagreeable to him was the way she stared at him. It was neither in fear, as if she had recognized him for what he was, nor in an appreciative way, as if she had recognized his well manicured beard or perfectly tailored suit. Either of those were really what he had been looking for. But she had stared with open eyed shock like she couldn't quite come to grips with what she was seeing.
She glanced up from her book and, without subtlety, her gaze fled back to the table. Crowley realized he had been staring at her. He of course, had the right. He was the King of Hell; he stared at whom he pleased. And she had started it.
He raised his eyebrow at her when she glanced back and she seemed to come back to herself. She took a deep small breath went back to her book, reading it this time. She had shifted herself into something other. She had stopped looking so discomforted and had rearranged her posture into an elegant, slanted position that looked nearly regal. She could have sat on a throne like that. She would have looked good sitting on a throne like that. She tilted her head minutely. In the middle of a crowded room, with no prelude, she could give an order and he might have followed it. That ruffled him. He was ruffled. He had sunk many hours into creating that air of being so easily commanding. And here she was sitting like a queen in her sun drenched, repurposed art café. No, he corrected himself. She looked pompous, and anyone could look pompous.
Irritated that his foray into human interaction was going so oddly, he resettled his gaze on the other patrons of the establishment. He could have cracked his table in half. Their eyes just refused to look at him. He was a powerful and attractive man, there were entire genres of fiction about how he could meet a beautiful girl who understood him on every level by looking at her in a coffee shop. But those stupid mortal bugs didn't allow their gaze didn't linger on her either. Not that he expected people to have their eyes glued to her, passed being a reasonably well proportioned twenty something woman, she could never have made a living looking pretty. She was still sitting there looking like some sort of damned queen and their eyes only lingered on her briefly. As though paying her respects. He furrowed his brow and stood. He was the King of Hell and she was probably a communication major with a boyfriend who played video games in his boxers and a cat she took pictures with. He had once convinced a Reverend to sell his soul for a Camaro, he could convince a girl to stop making him uncomfortable.
He pulled out the chair opposite her and, in what he considered to be his most charming voice, he asked, "May I?"
Before he could sit she had slid her book back into her bag and risen.
"Sure, I was just leaving." Her voice was chilled and stiff. She swung the bag onto her shoulder and crossed the room briskly. With the tinkling of the over head bell, she opened the glass door and slipped out, brushing hastily passed the potted plants on either side of the entryway, slid out into the sunlight.
Crowley sat, put out. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to track her down. Pouring resources into hunting down a girl who had looked at him in a coffee shop seemed as though it should be beneath him. For the nth time he cursed the putrid human filth pounding through his heart. He stood and, regally, swept from the café himself. He had no intention of following the human speck, but as he passed through the doorway something caught his eye. On the potted plants outside the door, still struggling to perk up in the spring sun which still allowed for chilly nights, was a single budding bloom, precisely where she had grazed it.
A/N: Thanks for reading! This idea has been sitting in my head for awhile and I would love to hear if you guys think it's interesting! I'm hoping to have the next (longer) chapter up soon!