Dean and Sam stared at the hamster, which Crowley had placed back on the table. She crouched down nibbling on another hamster treat she had snagged as soon as he put her down. Dean scratched his head, gave his brother a quizzical look, then muttered, "Damn. Sure doesn't look like much." The hamster paused her nibbling, peered up at him, and chittered. "Are you sure?"
Crowley heaved an exasperated sigh. "Darling. I was there when the transformation went down. Mother was impossible to live with for a week, she was so smug." He paused, thought a moment, then added, "Well. More impossible to live with." He tapped the open book with a finger, and Ollie scuttled over, crept up onto the book, and began her sniffing examination again.
Dean dropped into a chair, plopped his beer on the table, and watched the process with a skeptical look. "Look. Uh. Crowley, not that I doubt you or anything - " Sam settled into the chair next to him, snorting. " - but. Uh. So she was the leader of the Grand Coven. That was then, when she was...um...human, y'know? What use is she like this?" He waved a hand at Ollie, who had stopped and was now crouched up, grooming herself with her tiny paws darting around her ears and whiskers.
Crowley sipped his scotch and regarded the hamster with hooded eyes. "Oh, not to worry, Squirrel," he murmured. "My mother was just about to step on her like a rat - " Ollie's head darted to him, she paused her grooming, and she screeched. "Yes, yes, pet, I know," he crooned. "We put a stop to that right away, didn't we, little one! Yes, we did!" Dean rolled his eyes. He didn't think he could take this sickly sweet, cooing Crowley. It was...unnatural, dammit! Crowley's eyes flicked up to meet his. "So Olivette here owes me."
Dean swigged from his bottle, then pointed the neck at the demon. "Great. Dandy. So you've got a hamster who's in debt to you. Big whoop, dude. It's still a hamster."
It was Crowley's turn to roll his eyes. "You are a Philistine. You have no sense of drama. Or justice. It so happens that stuffed into that little hamster brain is all of Olivette's...extensive...knowledge of witchcraft." His grin was all teeth. "And it also happens that yours truly - " He gestured at himself with his glass. " - knows how to understand hamster speech. Ollie finds us the spell, she works with the Codex to interpret it, she tells me, and voila, we have the means to return Luci to the Cage. A highly desirable result. All because I had the forethought to keep Mother Dearest from squashing her like a bug." He dipped a small bow in the chair and flourished a hand, as if expecting applause.
Dean turned the thought over in his head. Okay, it seemed plausible. But...
As he drew in a breath to speak, Sam got there first. He had been watching Ollie with a distracted smile while listening, and now he looked at Crowley. "Wouldn't it be simpler to just transform her back?" he asked with a small frown. Dean pointed a finger at him.
"Point. Good point. Just what I was gonna ask. Seems kind of roundabout."
Crowley rubbed his nose and looked up at the common room's ceiling. "Ah. Yes. It would be." He looked back at the boys. "Much simpler. Alas. I don't know how."
Dean gave him a blank look. "Don't know how? Dude. Don't give us that. You're the King of Hell. Of course you know how." Sam nodded agreement, lips folded.
Crowley snorted and took an irritated sip of his scotch. "I'm a demon, Squirrel, not a witch. I don't know everything." It was obvious just how much it pained him to admit it. "I know some basic witchery, learned it at Mother's feet as a wee lad. But do remember, she abandoned me at age eight...she had hundreds of years to perfect her knowledge...time I spent moving up the ranks of demonhood. We are, unfortunately, stuck with Ollie as she is, which means it will be a slow process. One which only I can do, what's worse." He grimaced, glanced at Ollie, who had taken to scuttling around the table again, and frowned at her. He tapped the book again. "Come, come, Ollie, back to work."
It took days. First, Ollie had to decide which spell to translate, with no guarantees, Crowley warned them, that it would be the correct spell. He said they might translate half of it, only to realize it wasn't. Then Crowley and the hamster dug into the Codex, decoding the spell Ollie had chosen. It was a slow, laborious process, with starts and stops, here and there a few hours spent tracking through the Codex only to discover they had mis-translated, then back tracking. Crowley grumbled, muttered, cursed, scribbled translations on a legal pad, scratched them out, threw things, and drank a lot of scotch. Ollie, hamster-like, needed numerous breaks to sleep, to run in the hamster wheel in the cage that Sam had driven into town to get for her, and she ate constantly.
Dean and Sam traded off hanging out in the common room with demon and hamster, ready to help when needed, but mostly keeping a wary eye out for any possible betrayal. Dean passed the time babysitting him by cleaning weapons, Sam by searching through the accumulated Men of Letters lore.
Much to Crowley's irritation, Ollie took a shine to Sam, and spent much of her free time cuddled up on his chest while he idly ran a gentle finger down her back, or scratched at her tiny ears. He would watch this performance with lips folded tightly together, sniffing at the perceived betrayal. "After all, I was the one who saved her!" He grumbled to Dean once.
Dean snorted. "Poor baby." Crowley looked all injured innocence. "Aw, c'mon, man. You did it because you thought she'd be useful, not out of the kindness of your heart!"
"I never!" He laid a protesting hand over the item in question. "She's adorable! I couldn't stand the idea of all that cuteness turned into a bloody stain on my carpet!"
"Whatever. She likes Sammy. Deal."
But after all off the theatrics, there came a day when Crowley tossed the pen down, picked up the pad, read through the translation with narrowed eyes, and announced they had succeeded. He pulled out a handful of treats for Ollie as a reward. Sam, who was on duty, looked up and raised his eyebrows.
"All done? Great. Yo, Dean!" Dean didn't respond; he was curled up in an armchair watching Netflix with his earbuds in. Sam wadded up a piece of paper and tossed it at him.
Dean looked up. "Hunh?" Sam pantomimed removing the earbuds, and Dean complied.
"Done," Sam said, urging him over with a jerk of his head. Dean dropped his tablet on the table and headed over.
Crowley pushed the pages across the table at them. "We do have a slight problem with the ingredients, though," he said. Dean flicked an enquiring eyebrow at him. Crowley sighed, leaned back, and shoved his hands in his pockets with a sour expression. "Let's see...Sandalwood, myrrh, grains of paradise, chaga- these are all easy enough. Three freshly killed baby mice - "
"We can get those from the pet store," Sam murmured. "Though it feels different to kill them, rather than feed them to snakes..." Crowley slid a look at him, shrugged, and returned to the recipe.
"Not much difference, Moose. The end result is the same." Sam looked like he was going to protest, but Crowley held up a hand. "Ahem. To continue. One raven skull. An angel feather." He glanced up at Dean. "We've done that one before, there should be plenty in the right places, what with all those moronic angel fights. But then comes the kicker, boys." He paused to make sure he had their attention, and dropped the papers back on the table with an air of finality.
"Angel Grace."
He leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on the table, laced his hands behind his head, and waited. His words seemed to hang in the air. Dean's jaw dropped. Sam made an abrupt movement, opened his mouth, closed it, and frowned.
"Any great ideas?" Crowley asked.
Dean just shook his head, sinking down into a chair. "Well, shit," he said, his shoulders slumping.
"My feelings exactly," Crowley agreed, puffing his cheeks out, then huffing out his breath in one burst of irritation.
