Chapter Seven

Time flies when you're in Hell. You don't know how long you've been under Crowley's care, but each day seems further than the last and you quickly lose track of time all together.

You wake up one morning groggily to your dark bedroom. Flashes of memory of a fancy dinner, candles and elegance, a man in the shadows . . . you could almost convince yourself that you dreamt it all.

Crowley is leaning back comfortably in the dining chair at the table, thumbing through a thick leather book in his hands. He clears his throat and speaks to you casually, but not looking away from his text. "I am glad you're awake. I was getting rather bored listening to you snore."

You shuffle out of the covers, muttering under your breath that you don't snore. You sit at the edge of the bed and run your fingers through your tangled hair. "What have you got planned for us today?" you ask him.

Crowley raises his eyebrow above his cup of tea. You roll your eyes. "You're sitting there waiting for me to wake up. So have you got something planned for today? Or are you content to watching me sleep like a creep?"

Crowley grins wide enough for his eyes to crinkle at the sides. "I like to watch."

You roll your eyes even harder, so much your head rolls with it, but most of the movement is to hide the blush creeping up to your cheeks. Crowley settles into an amused smirk before setting down his cup and closing the book. "I thought today would be a decent day to take you back into my court. Not much will be happening today; nothing so exciting as last time. Perhaps we will get lucky and there will be nothing to do at all." He snorted through his nostrils. "Oh, what luck that would be."

"I won't have to wear what I did last time, will I?" Your tone is sarcastic, but the question is real. You don't ever want to wear that 'dress' again.

He shakes his head. "I have something a bit more refined in mind for today." He raises his hand up and snaps his fingers. The crisp sound conjures a classy gray blouse and black shirt that will reach your knees, hose and moderate heels. You look over the outfit with a cautious eye and determine that you won't look like a prostitute in this one, and neither will you be dressed for an elegant dinner with the king either. If anything, you'll be dressed as a sophisticated woman, all primed and ready for business. Like Crowley. And if you had to put a name to him, you'd say is less king more businessman anyhow.

You look over and he is smiling. You feel your cheek pulling at the corner of your lip, too. "Thank you, Crowley," you say with little thought.

He stands, his smile not faltering one bit. "I'll leave you to get dressed. In a few minutes, I will send Guthrie to retrieve you. See you soon." And in one swift motion, he bobs his head in a partial bow before disappearing. The whole time you spend dressing, you think over how much control he has over you. Over the way you dress, what you eat, what you read, what you do . . . but you think back at what all that feels like. It feels like comfort. He is taking care of you, you can feel it in the way he talks to you. That is a kindness. A courtesy. And it means the world to you to have a friend here.

A friend . . . in Crowley. That's not so bad


As you enter the throne room dressed in your designated uniform for the day, a calm expression has taken over your features. Last time you entered this room, you were angry, upset, sad, and scared. Not now. Now you have come to know what to expect from Crowley. He hasn't asked anything of you yet that was outside your comfort level and, against your better judgement, you've come to trust him.

He sits on his throne with a clip board in his hands with Guthrie at his side. Guthrie tries to summarize the contents of the missive before him, but Crowley just looks bored. His head is propped heavily on his hand. A long sigh heaves his shoulders and flares his nostrils. The sight of him makes you choke back a laugh, but the snorting sound that escapes you makes them look towards the entryway. Guthrie is annoyed by your presence, but Crowley looks a bit relieved behind his hand. He sits up in his chair and signs the forms below him, pushing them into Guthrie's hands and rising from his throne. He dismisses Guthrie with a wave.

Guthrie nods curtly and disappears in a puff of smoke.

"Thank god you're here," Crowley grins, "I thought I'd have to blow my brains out to escape all that paperwork."

You tilt your head and smirk. "I thought an obscene amount of paperwork was part of the job."

Crowley rolls his eyes. "Well, yes of course it is, but that does not mean I have to enjoy it. Guthrie handles a large portion of it, but there are a few things that the sovereign must endure." He puts his hand to his chest with the attempts of a humbling expression that only makes you roll your eyes, but there is a grin you can't shake.

He waves his hand over to the throne and ushers you to assume your role beside him during his duties. Once seated, the proceedings begin.

Crowley had been right after all: the day dragged on painfully slow. A few demons came in with inquiries on decidedly boring topics. A few supplicants had something interesting to say, though. One came to brag about the number of kills made this week disguising it as a progress report, and another entered only to say that "the project was still underway," and disappeared without another word. You asked Crowley about it, but all you got was a sideways grin and silence. You didn't push it any further. He wouldn't have told you more anyway.

A few hours later, Guthrie came in to inform that the line of supplicants was finished for the day and that there would be no further interruptions for quite some time. He shut the great heavy doors with a resonating thoom.

Crowley stands, a long-drawn-out sigh echoing after him as he stretches. He looks weary from sitting all morning. Pressing his hand into his lower back and bending backwards seems to help alleviate the stress pooling on his spine. You feel a twinge in your own back watching him, wanting to do the same. His spine cracks in a few places and he sighs again, this time relieved instead of tired.

"Oh, I am so glad that that's over," he says as he walks over to his desk at the edge of the room.

You sit in the chair, again not sure what to do with yourself. Last time this was the moment that he sent you away, but you don't want to go to your room just yet. It feels so good to be out and free to move wherever you want, but you sit in your chair unsure where to move. If you leave the throne room, will you find your way back? If you stay, will that anger Crowley?

Crowley shifts his weight from one leg to the other and catches you out of the corner of his eye. "You don't have to leave just yet."

"Reading my thoughts again?" you ask with a tilt of your head.

He glances at you with a half-smile. "I could stop, but would you want me to?"

'No,' your first thought.

He grins.

You blush.

He steps away from his desk to stand before you with an outstretched hand. "I have something for you to do if you like."

You take his hand and he leads you to a table at the opposite side of the room from his desk piled high with papers, most strewn all over the surface in no apparent order. "I need these looked at and, as you can see, I've got a stack of my own. Will you help me?"

You nod, and he guides you to the chair. It is much more comfortable than you chair beside the throne. This one has a padded cushion at the seat and back. You sink into it with a pleasant sigh.

For a long while both of you sit at your desks facing each other from opposite sides of the court room, the sound of shuffling papers and scratching of Crowley's feathered quill the only sounds to echo off the immense stone walls. You thumb through each contract with care. You are handling other people's fates, after all. The thought troubles you, you admit, but you remind yourself that you were not the one who made these deals and you won't be carrying them out. They would still be on this table if you weren't the one sitting at it. That is until you come across one that catches your eye. A man selling his soul for something selfish but sad.

In the silence of the room, you clear your throat and Crowley raises his head. "Do you have to send your hell hounds on every due contract?" you ask.

He looks down at the page he was on and answers you plainly. "No, not necessarily every one. My dogs take care of collections quite nicely, but they do tend to leave a mess behind." You grow silent and still. He glances up. "Why do you ask?"

"This contract. An eighty-year-old man diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor sells his soul for ten more years with his wife. The demon you've got on his case has kept tabs on him, because it says she died four years ago. His contract ends next week." A flash image of an old man feeble in his old age being torn apart by invisible hounds strikes to your mind. The fear he must feel . . . it hurts to think of it.

He stares at you for a long moment with an expressionless face. A slow inhale and exhale raises and lowers his shoulders and you watch closely, captively looking for any part of him you can read. Then, he looks down and shuffles the papers in his hands, picking up his quill, and continuing to write. "I will handle that one myself."

"Why would you do that?" you ask after recovering from a stunned pause.

He huffs as he scribbles. "I remember ninety. Not a good year for me. I suppose the man has gone through enough." Crowley tilts his head up to you and smirks playfully before returning to his work. "Perhaps you've rubbed off on me a bit too much."

You blink a few times. "Thank you, Crowley," you say gently. You try to hide the shock from your voice.

More prolonged silences between the two of you stretch on. It is a comfortable silence where you both can think and work in peace, but you grow tired of the same deals and the same selfish people doing a selfish thing. Deals made for career boosts, more money than they know what to do with, fame and glory, unabashed love. That last one somehow has lost its nobility for you.

You lean back in your comfy chair and gaze languidly at the man across from you. His crisp black suit remains wrinkle free as he drudgingly scribbles away at contract after contract. You think back and can't recall a time you ever saw it anything but pristine. Maybe that is a demon thing, or maybe just a Crowley thing. The man really is quite posh.

But he looks youthful, yet he claims to be older than ninety. "So how old are you?" you ask abruptly.

"Not polite to ask a girl her age." He sets his quill and glances off into space, ticking a few numbers on his fingers. "Three hundred and fifty-one this coming Spring."

"Wow! You're ancient!"

"Will you be asking my weight next?" he sighs exasperatedly.

You ignore his sarcasm and start doing a little math in your head. "So that means you were born in . . . in the 1600s?"

"1661."

"What was it like? To live so long ago?"

"Bland," he deadpans avoiding your gaze. You stare expectantly at him for a moment but he actively ignores you. But your interest is greater than your fear of pissing him off, so you get up from your desk and drag your chair across the room and set it on the other side of his desk, plopping down, folding your arms and leaning on his papers. He can't ignore you now. "What?" he asks annoyed as he turns his head over to meet your gaze.

You say lightly, "I've never met a 351-year-old before."

Crowley rolls his eyes and tosses down the papers, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together over his front. "Fine. My hometown in Scotland was a dark and twisted place. My mother, a witch and foul woman, left me young and I was sent to the orphanage. I grew up, sold my soul, and died. Bland, as I told you."

You pause for a moment, taking it all in. You ask curious, "What did you sell your soul for?"

"Not important."

You tilt your head with a raised eyebrow but ignore his avoidance of the question. "You said ninety was a bad time for you. What happened?"

Crowley's face stiffened, his eyes focusing on the room beyond you. "I was turned into a demon at ninety-three. The process is painful and not something I remember fondly."

"So you lived to be ninety-three…"

"I lived to be sixty-three." He hesitated, shuffling his papers and looking away. "It took my soul thirty years to crack under rigorous bouts of torture."

You focus on your arms folded in front of you. He is quiet, and you decide you don't want him to elaborate. Instead you focus on how long he held out down in the depths of Hell before succumbing to this place. "Wow, you're one tough S.O.B."

His face lightens and a soft chuckle of laughter bubbles up through him. "Glad you think so," he grins. He leans forward off of his chair and continues to shuffle through his papers.

"How did you die?" you ask after a moment.

He sighs and shrugs his shoulders indifferently. "Alone, drunk in a gutter."

He tried to hide it, but you see it there: a twinge of pain. Dying alone . . . you can't imagine the loneliness. Hesitantly at first, you reach out and place your hand over his. "I'm sorry."

Crowley looks down at your palm pressed into the back of his hand. He tilts it around to join your palms, running his thumb gently across the soft flesh of your hand. "It happened ages ago. No need to feel sorry."

You match his gaze, both your expressions soft and open. "Still."

Just then, the great wooden doors to the court room burst open. You pull your hand away like lightning and jump back in your seat. A haggard-looking demon bursts in and scrambles over to the King. You realize you've seen this demon before.

"Jethro, what is the meaning of this?" Crowley says, pissed as he stands to his full height.

"Your grace," Jethro pants and bows hastily. "We have a problem. A big problem, sir." His eyes dart to you. He pauses.

Crowley waves his hand impatiently. "Well? Do you plan on telling me what this big problem is?"

Jethro stands tall and looks absolutely terrified. "Sir. My garrison is dead."

"What?

"Amon, Mara, Judas, and Sitri are all gone, sir. I've found their vessels stabbed with angel blades off crossroads. Each one had devil traps."

Crowley sighed frustrated. "Hunters," he spat.

"Not just any hunters, sir. The Winchesters." Jethro is still panting as you openly gape at him now. The Winchesters? That's the first time you've heard them mentioned the entire time you've been here.

Crowley eyes Jethro. "You're absolutely sure . . ."

"Yes, sir. When Mara hadn't reported back from the potential deal, I went to her last contract and found them packing their supplies and discussing their plans. They want to meet with you."

"Did you happen to hear why?"

Jethro nods. "Something about an artifact they need. A blade, I think they said. I heard Dean Winchester say himself that he needed it now and his brother sounded as if they needed you to get it for them."

Crowley nods knowingly and sends Jethro away with a hasty wave of his hand. Jethro nearly runs out the doors, pulling them shut behind him. Crowley paces across the court room rubbing at his chin, irritated and annoyed.

You give him space, but your mind is reeling. Sam . . . Dean . . . memories flood back and you feel your chest tighten thinking back on them. A sudden rush of longing to see them again pulls at you and you want to scream. You just want to see them, to feel their flannel shirts between your fingertips, to hear the Impala's purr again, to ruffle Sam's hair even though he hates it, to make Dean laugh, to see him smile again. You want them, you want to be with them and you want them here, even though here is the very last place they would want to be.

Crowley stops abruptly, throwing his arms up in agitation. "Oh, please for fucks sake say something!" His abrupt shout echoes and shocks you into shying away from him. Quickly, he straightens and rubs at his face. "Your head is too loud, love. Please, just say it out loud."

His eyes aren't fierce. He just looks tired again. You stand from the chair, but don't move any closer to him as you grip the back of the chair for purchase. "Can I see them?" you ask helplessly.

Crowley watches you intently. He stares at your face for a long moment without even blinking and you feel your skin crawl beneath his gaze. "I don't think that would be a good idea," he thinks aloud.

"Crowley, please. They're looking for you and are killing other demons to get the point across. They want to meet with you about . . . something, I don't know, they need to see you and all I ask is that I go too. I want to see them, Crowley. I want to see them because I want to stand there and look them in the eye when I ask why they haven't come for me. I thought I meant more to them than that." You take in a deep breath, shunning the crack in your voice, and draw your shoulders back. "I deserve that much from them."

Crowley takes a long time thinking. His face stays stoic and unreadable as he openly stares at you. When he finally breaks the connection, he turns and starts pacing again. He moves his hand around as he speaks. "What you don't understand is that the Winchesters and I are in a very tricky predicament. Dean is . . . well Dean is a problem. As ever, but a very big problem and would be worse if it weren't for me. I can't give him what he wants. Not personally. And he knows this, him and Moose, but they persist. I know where they want to stick that blade and it won't be in me, I assure you! No, I can't afford to give him the blade yet, but he will just keep killing until I do . . . which of course will just make the situation worse. So you see, love, it isn't as simple as ring them up and schedule a meeting. I can't have my people call his people if he keeps killing them off before I can get the message across."

"So why not send someone you know he won't kill to give him this blade?" you ask calmly.

He pauses. His back is turned to you and you see his shoulders sag and his head hang low. He thinks for a moment – the expansive room deathly quiet and at the same time buzzing – when he turns and closes the few steps between you. He brings his hand up and cups your cheek, his amber eyes soft and sad. "But would you come back to me if I sent you?"

Lost in the softness of his expression, you place your hand over his. "Of course I would." You run your fingers along the back of his palm. "Don't you trust me?"

He shakes his head. "No, not even a little."

You smile, and it feels as genuine as the beating of your heart. "Smart man." To your surprise, he grins, the beginnings of a laugh dying away at the tip of his tongue. Grasping at a swift moment of bravery, you trace your hand up his arm and lace your fingers at the back of his neck. "Let's make a deal, then," you whisper just before your lips brush his.

You kiss him slow and soft, running your fingers at his neck through the short black hairs at his nape. His hands come to rest at your hips and his mouth begins to move against yours. He is slow and gentle and you think it to be a night and day difference compared to your first encounter. He pulls at your hips until you are flush against him, his hands running up your back pulling you closer still.

Then he breaks contact at the lips alone. He breath unfairly even as he asks, "Would you truly fly back to me, little bird? I must admit I've grown rather fond of you." His fingers trace soft circles on your cheek. "I fear I'll lose you."

"I won't be going anywhere you can't find me." You smile and reach into your pocket, pulling out the small gold coin you used to hate. He takes it from you. Flipping it over in his palm, he looks back at you with all seriousness and pouted lips. "You'll be able to hear me every step of the way," you assure him.

Crowley smiles. "No secrets between us, eh love?"

"Never have been." You take the coin from him and walk over to his desk, fumbling around the drawers for what you are searching for.

You come back to him with the coin secured around your neck from a thick black cord. He nods with approval. "It suits you." Then, his face grows still, his brow scrunched in thought. "If we are going to do this, I want this to be the last time I have to send you away. I want to put you to the test."

You furrow your own brow and tilt your head up to him. "What do you mean?"

He takes your hands and in a flash you are in a in a darker space than the throne room. You step back, feeling the crunch of gravel beneath your feet. A pine scented flourish of wind musses your hair and a shiver runs down your spine. Outside, I'm outside! You look up and for the first time in you don't know how long, you can see a starry sky. You think you may cry.

Your head swivels this way and that. You take in as much as your eyes and ears can see of this lush dark forest when you spot an unusual building not far away. Dropping Crowley's hands, you take a few steps closer to examine. It's a tall concrete structure with a barred door the looks of like would be found on storm shelters. Nothing is getting in that door that isn't supposed to.

You turn back to Crowley standing in the same spot, unmoving but for his eyes watching you. He jerks his chin to the structure. "I'll be honest, I don't want you to go in there. Those denim-wrapped nightmares will take you from me."

You glance back. Sam and Dean are in there? After all this time, all the waiting and hoping, they are just behind a heavy iron-clad door, securely tucked away and impenetrable. You turn back to Crowley. "This is my test?"

He nods stiffly and holds up a finger on his right hand. "I will give you one day. Do with it what you please, but know that at the end of tomorrow, I will be coming for you."

You frown worriedly. "Why are you giving me so much time? Aren't you worried I'll run away?"

He smiles sadly. "What is it they say? If you love them let them go, I believe. That way when they come back, it's real."

You laugh half-heartedly and cross the path between you to take his hands in yours. "What sappy movies have you been watching?"

Crowley mocks offense. "I'll have you know that I am a whore for rom-coms." He smiles down at you, his eyes heavy lidded and so soft. He raises your hands and places a gentle kiss on your knuckles. "I will come for you. I promise."

He lowers your hands, allowing you to go. You lean forward to kiss him on the cheek. "See you tomorrow," you say and turn to walk down the gravel path. In a swift rush of wind and sulfur, you know he's disappeared.