Chapter 21 - Somewhere in the Between
Crowley was starting to remember things.
Things like the smell of tanning leather. The prick of a sewing needle against skin. The damp heat of high summer in Scotland, the salt hanging in the air, a gift from the sea pushing against the cliffs.
Human things.
The hour between his fourth and fifth injection may have been the longest of his life, and that was saying something. He was high – oh, was he high – but not so much that it blurred his perception of time. Each second crept along, seemingly slower than the last. It was maddening.
He just wanted it to be over.
(No. Over meant death, over meant gone, and gone was unacceptable.)
He could hear Cas coughing, muffled and echoing through the halls of the bunker. He wasn't the only one who would soon meet his maker. Though if the whole 'leader of fallen humanity' thing was anything to go by, his maker was likely the last person he was about to meet...
His thoughts wandered, breaking apart and drifting, losing any semblance of sharpness. Being human hadn't been good for him. Forced to fend for himself since he was a child, abandoned by a mother who didn't want to be burdened with him. Trapped in what was more or less a glorified labor camp until he was sixteen, working for a pittance, getting tossed out on his ass when he was deemed no longer useful.
Crowley idly wondered if he had abandonments issues.
Demonic memories slowly began to overlap his human ones, and that was when things began to get truly horrible. Because it wasn't all the poor sods he'd put on his own rack that came into his thoughts, the murder, the bloody aprons and the metallic clack of a scalpel thrown onto a steel cart.
No. It was Hell.
His first time in Hell.
If he focused hard enough, he swore he could hear Fergus –(himself?) – screaming.
He couldn't say what it felt like... to be in pain for so long, that everything else was erased. To see the endless reaches of space and know that at the end of everything there was only horror and nothing... at least for him, anyway. To suffer without hope, without relief, as time stretched onwards to infinity... to lower yourself to the point of begging for death, only to be rejected by it time and time again.
Because it was too late. He was already dead.
Hopelessness, in the end, was all that Hell truly was. The absence of tomorrow. Just pain, and pain, and more pain... forever. He hadn't realized then, that they would make him a demon. He thought what he had in Hell... he thought it was all he would ever have.
That was what he felt, now. And this time around, there would no be Lilith to pull him off the rack, to smile at him with teeth that were too sharp and too white and say, "Oh, this one's special."
No one was coming to save him.
"More than halfway there."
He looked up. Sam was in front of him, blood-filled needle in hand. How hadn't he noticed him coming in? Or filling the needle, for that matter.
"You look pretty out of it," Sam commented, crossing over the outer line of the devil's trap.
"I'm clear as crystal," Crowley said, though it was a half-hearted proclamation. "Ever think I've just gotten bored of you?"
Sam ignored him. He bent over Crowley, syringe in hand.
"What are you going to do once he's dead?" Crowley rasped, because there was still time, still ways out, he just... he just had to find them.
He was bloody Crowley. He always found a way.
Sam paused, syringe hovering just a few inches from Crowley's neck. Crowley tried to keep his eyes averted, focusing on his shoes... but the blood was so damn close, he could practically taste it.
What King knowingly drinks from the poisoned cup, and likes it?
"Cas," Crowley clarified raggedly. "He's all that you have left. He can't have much time... a few days, give or take. A week if he's lucky, which we both know our dear Cas rarely is."
"Cas isn't going to die," Sam informed him in a matter-of-fact tone.
"He will. And then you'll have a demon for a brother, and a corpse for your bestest friend." Crowley tilted his head back, gazed fixed on Sam. "I might not be the only one putting a gun in their mouth, hmm? Wouldn't that be just the perfect poetic justice? Neither can live while the other survives, you know, that bit?"
Sam's fist clenched. Crowley hoped the hunter would hit him again.
You believe you deserve to be punished.
Oh, if anyone on the planet deserved a few more cuts and bruises, it was him. Sam had the potential to be an even better wind-up toy than Kevin, when pressed.
Kevin. He missed Kevin, sometimes.
Sam didn't hit him, more's the pity. Instead, the hunter stabbed the syringe into Crowley's neck, marking him for the fifth time. Sam shoved the needle deep, too deep, and Crowley let out an exclamation of pain, rather than annoyance, as he had after the previous shots.
There was a difference between feeling pain as a demon and feeling pain as a human. A world of difference. Unless wounded by a celestial or infernal weapon, pain was like... like the feeling of watching someone get disemboweled on TV. A phantom pain, less than even a second hand sensation. More of a psychosomatic itch than anything, really.
As human blood started to cancel out the demon blood in his system, pain became tangible, real. And he wanted it, if only for a distraction from the guilt, the terror... the goddamn humanity.
He wanted, needed an escape. If only a brief one.
Sam ripped the needled out. A drop of blood clung to its tip. Crowley stared at it as he felt the fifth dose rush through him. He swallowed, gritting his teeth so hard they ached, trying to keep himself under control, trying to fight the heat-fear-please-stop-help feeling.
A tear trailed down his cheek.
He was losing the battle, and he knew it.
Percentages, ratios, balanced and unbalanced scales... that was the name of the game, now. More human, or more demon? Which was he?
"I won't kill myself," Sam said, expression inscrutable. "I mean, I'll have the fact that you're finally dead to keep my going. I should be fine." He gave Crowley a tight, cruel smile.
Suddenly, he understood what was so special about Sam. Why every demon in the old hierarchy wanted a piece of him. Sam was good. Not Heaven's golden boy, like Dean, but still good, bred and raised to be brave, to be a hero, or at least what the Winchesters defined as one. If there was one thing, just one thing Crowley knew, it was that nothing made a stronger evil than something that started out good.
Take something good and right and corrupt it, and you've got a more powerful evil than you can imagine. Snap out the light, and what lies in the dark can be something truly terrifying.
Did losing Dean turn the light off, Sam?
But Crowley didn't say that. Instead, he said, "You're going to have nothing."
Sam didn't flinch.
"Just like you," the hunter countered.
Then, something flashed in Sam's eyes, but Crowley was too busy drowning in the human blood pumping through him to properly identify the emotion.
"How does it feel, Crowley?" Sam continued quietly, surprisingly calm. "Knowing that no one will miss you when you're gone?"
Sam left without another word.
Ronnie decided that it would be a hell of a lot easier to drive if she didn't have to keep pulling over to the side of the road while she succumbed to her visions. The intensity of them shook her to her core. Feeling Crowley's pain, his desperation, his fear and misery... she was thoroughly entrenched in his psyche, and at the moment, that was an absolutely terrifying place to be.
Ronnie wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, taking a deep breath and collecting herself. Juliet whimpered behind her. The hellhound pushed her nose into Ronnie's shoulder, as if urging her to get moving again.
"I know. I know," she muttered. "I'm driving as fast as I can. If you've got a problem with the visions, you're going to have to take it up with God."
Juliet growled at that.
"That's not a fight I think you're going to win, girl."
Ronnie put the Bentley back in drive, and she pushed the gas pedal almost to the floor. She couldn't afford to waste anymore time.
Dean was pissed.
Really fucking pissed.
"Um, I don't want to put a damper on your fun here, Winchester, but killing the help isn't going to make Ronnie come back," Laharl advised from a safe distance as Dean ripped apart Forfax's abdomen.
"He was supposed to watch her," Dean growled. "Did a pretty shit job of it, didn't he?" He drove the First Blade further up, more or less rending the demon in half. Blood poured out of Forfax's mouth. With a gasp and a crackle of orange lightning under his skin, he ceased to exist.
Dean let Forfax's corpse fall to the ground. His lip curled in disdain. The demon's lifeblood was going to ruin that import Persian Crowley liked so much, but if the King had a problem with it, he could bite him.
And Dean would bite back.
"Well, to be fair, none of us really saw the hellhound thing coming," Laharl commented nonchalantly.
Dean looked at his left arm, which was basically in shreds, after his debacle with Juliet. His skin hung in bloody, torn strips, and his radius was snapped in half, with teeth indents deep in the bone. That hound of Crowley's had been a lot more than he bargained for. He was finding himself grateful for his newfound incredible pain tolerance.
"What was up with that bitch, anyway?" Dean demanded, frustrated. "She's Crowley's dog! Why would she help Crowley's prisoner escape?"
Laharl held up the hand that wasn't currently clutching the bleeding stab wound in his thigh. "Search me, man. It doesn't make any sense to me, either."
Dean sighed irritably as his left arm began to swiftly knit itself back together. "Now I have to call him, tell him what happened, and listen to him whine at me for letting her get away. Great."
Dean pulled out his cell, hitting Crowley's speed dial number.
"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life..."
Abba's "Dancing Queen" blasted from nearby, jarring Crowley out of an introverted haze. His eyes flew around, trying to identify the source of the sound... there. In the cabinet where Sam was keeping the blood (don't think about the blood!), his iPhone rested on the topmost shelf.
"Squirrel," he muttered. "You really do care."
The shelves were pushed apart a moment later. Gadreel stood in the gap, looking perplexed by the sudden noise. Ah. So he'd still been guarding the door outside Room 7B, just as Moose ordered. Gadreel narrowed his eyes at Crowley.
"What is that sound?" he demanded.
"Not much of a music aficionado, are we?" Crowley drawled, putting everything he had into not looking like a bedraggled, botched cross-species mess. "It's my phone. Apparently Moose didn't want me playing Candy Crush while I wait for my execution."
That seemed to just confuse Gadreel further. Oh, he remembered when Cas had been so oblivious. Before the reaper tryst, the convenience stores, the pimp mobile. The naive angels were always more fun to play with.
Gadreel, bless his heart, wandered over to Crowley's still-singing cell.
Crowley's lips twitched, almost smirking. He may get out of his current disaster, yet. Dean had called... so he must have been concerned, at least on some level. Hopefully enough to send some kind of rescue team to retrieve him. Or better yet, come himself.
Dean Winchester. My Knight of Hell in shining armor.
The Garden's former guardian picked up the phone and put it to his ear. "Hello? Who is this?" A moment later, with wide eyes, he uttered, "Dean?"
"Hello? Who is this?"
Dean stared at his phone uncomprehendingly. Once he had a moment to recover, he put it back to his ear.
"And just what the hell are you doing with Crowley's phone?" Dean asked shortly.
"Dean?" Gadreel seemed shocked to hear his voice.
"The one and only."
"I–" Gadreel started, but then cut himself off. "I am unsure of what to say to you, Dean."
"Answering my question would be a good start."
"Crowley is–"
"MAYDAY! SITUATION CRITICAL! CODE RED! SOS! SQUIRREL GET YOUR ASS TO THE BUNKER AND GET ME OUT OF HERE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING–"
Dean winced at the volume, pulling back from the phone as Crowley screamed his damn head off. The other demon broke off abruptly with a pained grunt. Gadreel must have hit him.
"Crowley is otherwise occupied," the angel said.
"Sounds like it," Dean remarked. He leaned against Crowley's desk, almost interested now. Just what had Crowley gotten himself into? "So, what's the game? Shake down Crowley for info? Ransom him off to me, or something?"
Gadreel was silent for a few seconds. "I believe Sam intends to kill the demon."
"So, revenge," Dean surmised. "That's boring."
There was a fumbling on the other end. The phone switching hands, most likely.
"Dean?"
Dean's grip on the phone tightened. It was the first time he'd heard his little brother's voice in over a month.
He said nothing.
"Dean..." He heard Sam drag in a harsh breath, racked with emotion. He could picture Sam's face perfectly in his mind: eyes darting around wildly, lips half-pursed in a grimace, adam's apple bobbing in a painful, difficult swallow, brows drawn together to form one furrowed, troubled line.
"I– I don't know where your head is at right now," Sam pressed on shakily. "But... but it doesn't matter, okay? Not to me. Not to Cas. You're still family. Nothing changes that. Nothing." He paused, seeming to weigh his words. "I need you to come home. Please. I... I can't do this without you."
you can
But–
you don't need him
Dean ended the call.
Sam stared at Crowley's phone. CALL ENDED: 2:12 flashed on the screen. Gadreel hovered by his side, watching him with concerned eyes. He could feel Crowley's attention on him as well.
He wanted to throw the phone against the wall. But he couldn't, because he'd finally found it... the way to find his brother. He could trace the GPS in Dean's phone... he could find out where he was, he could go to him... he could...
He could bring him home.
Or at least try.
He took a steadying breath. "Gadreel," he instructed quietly. "Keep an eye on him. In ten minutes, I want you to give him his next injection. Okay?"
Gadreel nodded. "Alright." His lips drew into a thin line. "Sam... are you going to pursue your brother?"
Sam just looked at him. "Do you really expect any differently?"
"No, I suppose not."
Sam made for the door. He halted when he heard Crowley's voice behind him.
"Don't bother, Moose." Sam glanced at the demon over his shoulder. Crowley's entire posture was sagging. His chained hands hung limp between his legs. His eyes were bloodshot and glossed over with unshed tears. Just like last time. Crowley was a mirror image of that night in the church.
"Dean will come to you, I think," he continued raggedly. "You should be happy... your brother's going to be the last thing you ever see."
Gadreel wasn't as fun to taunt as Sam, if only because the angel didn't seem to have the same deepset anger issues that made up ninety percent of Moose's personality. Getting a rise out of the Garden's ex-guardian was significantly harder, and in his current impaired state, Crowley eventually gave up the steady stream of verbal abuse in favor of surly silence.
Gadreel quietly prepared syringe number six when the time came.
"I would not get your hopes up," the angel eventually commented. Crowley flicked his eyes to Gadreel's back. His vision was getting blurry around the edges, now. The world seemed to be tilting partially to the side, and what little color there was in the dungeon seemed oversaturated.
"What are you on about?" Crowley asked, and his voice didn't have any strength to it anymore.
"Dean. I do not believe he will come for you. He did not seem very concerned for your fate when we spoke."
"Don't pretend to understand our love," Crowley retorted. A bead of sweat slid down his temple. Dean would come. He would have to come.
"Demons cannot feel love, from my understanding."
Ha. Ha. Ha. Wasn't that just the winning question, though? Could demons feel love?
"I DESERVE TO BE LOVED! I... I just wanted to be loved..."
Well, demons could at least want love. Whether they could feel it or not, well, that was another matter entirely.
"Hurry up with that, would you?" Crowley asked irritably, not liking where their conversation was going. "Some of us have places to be."
Gadreel offered no response as he approached Crowley. The angel watched him intently.
"Want a selfie before you take me out?" Crowley snarked. "Rude to stare, you know."
"Apologies," Gadreel said. "I was merely..." He drifted off for a moment, seeing unsure of how to phrase his next words. "You have turned out to be more than I originally thought," he said at length. "I see in you, perhaps not bravery, but the potential for bravery."
Crowley glared at him with all the malice he had left in him. "Oh? And what happened to, 'for all your chatter, you will always be a coward'?" Crowley asked, doing what he thought was an impressive imitation of Gadreel's voice.
The angel's lips delved into a deeper frown than their usual resting position. "I called you a coward," he conceded. "But you fought me. A demon, fighting an angel, unarmed... for Sam's benefit, seemingly."
"Are you trying to compliment me, Gadreel?"
"No. I am merely stating that perhaps you are capable of being more than a coward."
"Don't count on it, mate," Crowley responded flippantly. What did bravery matter, now? All standing up for Sam had gotten him was a one way ticket to a human death, and then back to Hell. Back to the rack.
That was the end of whatever Gadreel was trying to get across, evidently. The angel injected the next syringe into his neck and pushed the sixth dose of human blood into him.
"Gahh– bloody hell," Crowley gasped, whole body tightening as the new blood rushed to join all that had been injected before it. There had to be more human blood in him than demon, by now. His heart beat thump-thump-thumped in his ears, and he hated how necessary it suddenly felt. Everything inside him felt necessary, felt... attached.
His smoke was dwindling, shrinking, a snail that had been salted. He could feel it... he was being trapped in his vessel. No exit. No way out.
Not trapped. He is you, now. Or he will be soon.
Fear gripped him. He sucked in oxygen that he was going to actually need soon, and his hands gripped the arms of the chair so tightly that a chip on the left armrest gouged open his ring finger and drew blood. Blood. That's what it always came down to, wasn't it?
Gadreel turned to leave, probably to guard him from a greater distance. Before the angel could reach Room 7B, Crowley shouted after him, "Wait!"
Mercifully, Gadreel stopped. "Demon, whatever you have to say–"
"Help me," Crowley interrupted him. "Help me, help us, help ourselves. Get me? These two are a dead end, Moose and Castiel. Quite literally in Cas's case, and Sam doesn't give half a damn about you. You're a means to an end to him, nothing more. I told you, they'll use you up, and when Cas isn't around to protect you anymore, you'll be truly bollocksed, my friend. There'll be a noose around your neck faster than you can say 'snake in the garden'. You've got one chance, one, and that's me."
It was his last gambit. If Dean wouldn't come for him, then the hulking idiot who let Lucifer ruin the universe was his next best shot.
"Do you truly think I will fall for your tricks?" Gadreel asked tersely.
"It's not a trick," Crowley hissed. "I'm telling you the truth. I'm the only one in this bloody hole in the ground that will tell you the truth. I'm not Metatron, I'm not Team Ill Will, I'm the King of Hell, but I keep. My. Deals. I won't lie to you." He lifted his hands, chains clinking together. "Let me go. There's no place for you in Heaven, or here with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit. But Hell? There's room for you there. I'll repay the favor in spades."
"I would never help someone like you."
"You–" Crowley broke off, calming himself, trying to make his aggravation less obvious. "You worked with Metatron, for sin's sake. He's the dodgiest bloke in Creation, and that's coming from the King of dodgy blokes! You killed for him, but you won't help me? Even if it means saving your own skin? I can do things for you, Gadreel. Give you a new life. With what you've done, you'll always be chasing redemption, and you'll never get it. With me, with Hell? You can be who you are. You can be accepted."
He saw something waver in the angel's eyes.
Yes, yes!
"I am accepted here."
Crowley let out a vicious laugh. "As if you believe that!"
"Wouldn't you say it's better to seek forgiveness from above, then to hide somewhere that my sins have no bearing?" Gadreel challenged.
My God, he's a thick one. "You do realize who you're talking to, yeah?" Crowley rolled his eyes. "You can't find forgiveness. Forgiveness? It's... it's a joke. A sick, cosmic joke, that makes you think if you feel sorry enough, it will change what you are." He scoffed. "Hate to break it to you darling, but we are what we are, and in the end, we're all monsters... some are just a mite more literal."
"Forgiveness is real. Castiel has–"
"He hasn't, and if you think he has, you truly are as stupid as you look," Crowley cut across him. "It's pointless trying to earn forgiveness from people who don't know how to give it."
Gadreel went quiet, just watching Crowley.
"What? Did I hit a nerve? Look, the vessel's not that bad–" Crowley tried to ammend.
"I pity you."
Crowley blinked, taken aback. "What did you just say?"
"I pity you," Gadreel repeated. "You'll die believing that no one can become better... that no one is capable of change."
"People don't change." Not for the better, anyway. It wasn't possible.
I tried.
"I believe you're wrong," the angel said simply. "I know I can change. I already have begun to do so. There is always hope... at least for those willing to chase it."
Gadreel turned again, walking away from him.
"Goodbye, Crowley."