A/n I'm back with a new chapter. I'm glad you guys are enjoying this story, and I'm glad that most of my old followers stayed. I was afraid you guys would all leave which was stupid of me. You guys have been so supportive of me I was wrong to think you would be anything else. Well enough of that. Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites. everyone who reviews gets a sneak peek of the next chapter. Enjoy.

Ch. 3

A Deal With the Devil

"Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all." – Lawrence Hill

My throbbing knuckles did little to distract me from the unbridled rage coursing through my veins. Kevin had all but dragged me out of the 'dungeon' after I punched Crowley in the face.

"You shouldn't have done that." Kevin scolded me lightly after helping me back into bed and handing me an icepack.

"He deserved it." I hissed trying to bite back tears of anger and pain.

"Yeah, but," Kevin sat across from me tiredly. "Crowley doesn't forget stuff like that. He'll find a way to make you pay later."

And he was right. Crowley didn't forget any slights no matter how small. I'd seen no less than five years worth of television as proof. But I didn't care; I couldn't bring myself to care about the consequences.

"I don't care." I told Kevin bitterly.

"Maybe you should."

But Crowley's revenge seemed to be the least of my worries at this point.

He thought I was some sort of overpowered divine vessel. Which made no sense whatsoever. How could I be a vessel? For God no less, and in a place that shouldn't exist, none of Supernatural should be real and yet here I was. In the bunker with Kevin Tran and Crowley, I was in a place where creatures of the underworld and the heavens regularly interacted with certain humans. Where monsters roamed freely and grazed on the ignorant flocks of humanity. Where a select few fought back to protect humanity from said monsters.

It was illogical, impossible. And yet, here it was. And I was apparently a part of it.

No. I shook my head. I wasn't a part of it. Crowley definitely had me confused for someone, or something else. I couldn't possibly be the vessel he was speaking of. He'd mentioned powers; I had no powers. That in and of itself was proof that I couldn't be the being he spoke of.

"Is any of that true?" Kevin asked me when I didn't answer. "The vessel for god stuff?"

I shook my head. "Of course not, how could it be?"

"Well, you were pretty convincing for a moment." Kevin scratched the back of his neck. "How did you know that he would tell you all that stuff by playing along?"

"I've seen how he works for quite a long time." I shrugged. "How all of you work, really. It wasn't too hard to play the role of dangerous old thing after years of watching other dangerous old things do their stuff."

"But there is a vessel." Kevin said. "Crowley wouldn't make that up, it wouldn't make sense."

"There must be." I nodded. "And if there is, then I'm guessing that'll be the next being the boys are going to have to face. The new big bad."

"Big bad?" Kevin asked.

"Villain." I clarified. "Monster, Boss level at the end of a video game, battle of good versus evil. It happens every year at roughly the same time for you guys if the TV show is accurate with airdates."

"Or maybe not." I shrugged. "I'm not really sure how time translates here."

"That's really weird you know." Kevin said.

"What?"

Kevin grimaced. "That our lives; my life is all a TV show. It kind of freaks me out."

"Just think of it as reality TV." I smiled dryly. "Besides, you don't show up too often. I think to date you've only been in eighteen out of a hundred and eighty some episodes."

"One hundred and eighty!" Kevin's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, the show is on its ninth season. It's been following the boys' story since their dad disappeared." I frowned. "Or rather since Dean came and got Sam from college."

"Wow, you guys must really like the show." Kevin frowned.

I laughed. "You have no idea."

"But, why?" Kevin looked bewildered. "Horrible things happen to us all the time. To innocent people! Do you get a kick out of watching other people suffer?" Kevin asked bitterly.

"No! Not at all!" I defended. "That's not what the show is about. Yes there is monster hunting and yes people die…a lot. But that's not what draws us in."

"Then what?" Kevin demanded.

I bit my tongue as I looked for the right words. "It's about family. It's about two brothers who love each other and will always be there for each other. It's about sacrifice and fighting for everything that is good and right about the world. It's about saving people," I smiled. "Hunting things, the family business."

We sat in thoughtful silence while Kevin mulled my explanation over. He still looked slightly troubled by the day's events but there was little I could do to ease him. I myself wasn't too comfortable with the discovery of Crowley and what he had to say to me.

"Kevin," I started. He looked up. "Do you think the Men of Letters have anything on this 'vessel'?" I wondered.

"Probably," He shrugged. "They have something on everything."

"We should look through their library, their records." I told him. "Maybe we can find something about this vessel."

And that's what we did for the next three days. We tore through pages and pages of information with little luck. It was on the fourth day that everything began to change.

I was starting to worry when Sam and Dean hadn't returned with Castiel. I chalked it up to not having a proper understanding of how much time actually passed during that episode and the one before. What with time jumps and all to cut out the hours of travel between states, I might have miscalculated.

Kevin and I were having some top ramen for dinner when it started; a raging fever of a hundred and six point five degrees.

It hit me like a freight train. I thought that I was dying. But I didn't.

Kevin took, or rather carried, me back to my room and brought me about a dozen plastic bags filled with ice. He then proceeded to cover me in them in an attempt to cool me down.

He switched out the bags every three hours in an effort to keep my body temperature down so that my brain wouldn't fry.

"Maybe I should call Sam and Dean." Kevin had said worriedly when my fever didn't lessen the next day.

"N-No." I shivered. "T-they have t-to find C-cas." So Kevin didn't call the boys and the fever didn't leave me. It was a couple of hours later that the nature of the fever began to change.

Instead of feeling like my entire body was being broiled, the heat moved to my bones and then the surface of my skin.

I wasn't prepared mentally for what happened next.

One by one my bones clicked and grinded, expanding inside of my body. The pain was unbearable and my agonized screams reverberated throughout the entire bunker.

"Sam! Something is happening to Avery! Please, call me back!"

That was the fifth message Kevin had left in the last three minutes. The boys, for whatever reason, weren't picking up their phones. Finally my bones stopped shifting and then my skin began stretch and bubble along the surface. The sight must have been horrifying because I heard the sounds of vomiting at one point in my pain-induced haze.

Kevin didn't have much of a stomach for this life.

An hour later my skin stopped stretching and sliding around me. The next part of the metamorphosis involved the delicate structure of my organ systems. I could feel them changing inside of me twitching, shrinking, growing, moving. And finally the heat stopped, the pain stopped. And not just the new pain from the transformation, but all of the pain I'd been feeling since those people came for me at my house.

My arm no longer throbbed and neither did my ribs. I checked my abdomen for the bruise that I'd been sporting since that day and it was nowhere to be found. I probed my hairline for the tiny fissure on my forehead but there was no proof that I had ever been cut there before.

"Kevin?" I called, my voice was a hoarse whisper and almost unrecognizable. "Kevin!" I called again, louder.

There was a set of hesitant footsteps outside my door, which paused after a moment.

"Kevin, water. Please." I begged. My mouth felt bone dry like I'd been lost in the desert for months with out water. I heard him scurry away and then return. The door opened slowly.

Kevin gasped and dropped the glass when he saw me.

"Kevin!" I complained. I was so thirsty and the idiot had dropped my water.

"How did you— you're not—?" Kevin sputtered as I swung my legs over the side of my bed. The room spun and my limbs felt strange and disproportioned. Kevin took a step back when I finally managed to stand.

"I think," I started when my limbs didn't collapse beneath my weight. "I think I'm okay now." I moved to pick up the broken glass and Kevin flinched.

"What's wrong with you?" My voice still sounded funny. Slightly deeper than I was used to hearing, but I chalked it up to not having had anything to drink in a while after being severely dehydrated.

"Y-you're—" Kevin sputtered into silence.

"Spit it out why don't you." I demanded my patience starting to wear thin.

"You changed." He finally managed in a trembling voice. "You really are that thing Crowley was talking about aren't you." He whispered. "The vessel."

"What are you talking about!" My impatience transformed into unbridled panic. Kevin floundered and I pushed past him towards the bathroom. I fumbled with the light switch. When it finally turned on I gasped as well.

I was…different. I didn't look the same at all. I looked…older? Tears sprung to my eyes and I cursed. Violently. I cursed and I threw the first thing I could get my hands on- the soap dispenser- and threw it at the mirror.

"What is happening to me?" I cried hopelessly into my hands. I sank to the floor and wept. I heard Kevin come in for a moment and then leave again. He probably didn't know what to say to me.

I wouldn't know what to say to me. Time passed and the tears finally stopped. More time passed and I dissected my situation.

I was alone. My mother was dead, my father left us two years ago so he no longer even counted as family. I had no friends who would truly miss my absence. Lucy would be off to med school with little or no thought about us. She was always so ambitious.

So yes, I was alone. And apparently the vessel for the divine being many called God. The Roman Catholic one, I'm guessing.

I was in a strange place, or rather dimension, reality, whatever you wanted to call it, alternate universe, if you will, with people who weren't supposed to exist as they were. They were supposed to be men who came in from nine to five, more or less, pretended to be someone else, and then went home to their real lives. These people were not the ones I'd come to know.

What was I going to do next? I stood up and washed the tears from my face with cool water. With new resolve I decided to go to the one person who I knew to have information on what I was.

I was going to speak to Crowley.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" Crowley cocked his head when I pushed back the cabinets that had sealed him away from the rest of the bunker. I'd sawed of the cast on my arm with a kitchen knife since I no longer needed it.

"I need you to tell me everything about what I am, this vessel thing." I demanded.

"Believe me now do you?" Crowley smirked. "You look different. Have you done something with your hair?" He mocked and I gritted my teeth.

"Yes, I believe you. Now tell me," Crowley cocked an eyebrow and I sighed and added, "Please."

"Now that's better. Unfortunately, not much is known about you. Just some rumors floating around, stories." Crowley said silkily.

"What kind of stories?" I asked.

"Ah ah ah." He tsked. "What's in it for me?"

"My undying gratitude." I answered deadpanned. I didn't have time for this.

"Not good enough." Crowley growled losing all playfulness. "I want assurances, I want out of this hole and out of these chains!" He shook his hands, which caused the chains to jingle as if to add emphasis to his words.

"I can't promise that." I said indignantly.

"You want answers don't you?"

I nodded.

"Then make it happen!" Crowley hissed.

I ran my fingers through my hair, what he was proposing sounded suspiciously like a demon deal. And those were dangerous, very dangerous. If I was going to deal with him then I had to be very careful.

"Fine." I acquiesced. Crowley sat back as if in surprise and then smiled. "Now that's more like it."

"I'll make a deal with you." I offered. "If you tell me everything you know about my situation then I'll free you, but you have to also include in the deal that you won't try to harm me, Sam, Dean, Castiel, anyone close to us for any ulterior motive after this. You also can't hurt us indirectly."

"Is that all?" Crowley drawled.

"No," I crossed my arms. "Also no fine print." I sneered. "Everything I just said is the agreement. No secret clauses or loopholes; and no selling souls. My soul is not on the table."

Crowley pursed his lips. "The scales seem very unbalanced, love. I don't think I'm getting my money's worth."

"By all means, Crowley. Refuse my deal." I smirked. "Every second you wait you lose more and more followers to Abaddon. Soon, you'll be as insignificant as before." His face started to slowly turn red. I had him on tilt. "King of Hell indeed." I sneered for extra measure.

"Deal!" He hissed.

I smirked and went to shake his hand, but it was his turn to smile. "No love, that's not how these things work."

And I knew what he meant.

"Pucker up buttercup." Crowley popped the 'p' in buttercup and then shot me a sinister smile. I quelled my unease, leaned in, and closed my eyes. I didn't know what I expected the kiss would be like, but it wasn't expecting what it was. It was…scratchy. His unshaven face was prickly and uncomfortable and his lips were cold.

As soon as it started it was over. There was no crash of lightning to signify that a deal had been struck. I didn't feel different. But when Crowley leaned back and I opened my eyes to look at him I knew something had changed. We were bound to the agreement. And he relished it.

"Now darling, about these chains."

I pulled away and examined the heavy iron chains that held him captive. They were medieval looking with heavy locks but otherwise pretty simple key mechanisms. The reason they were so effective was because of the engraved wards. Crowley couldn't remove the shackles even if he had the keys.

Judging by that fact I knew that they keys should be close by.

I rifled through the file cabinets, which were bursting with documents. They were labeled alphabetically. I paused my search for a moment when an idea struck me. I quickly thumbed through the tabs until I reached 'k' and then continued and stopped at 'keys'. I pulled out a set of old iron keys on a thick loop.

"Bingo." I grinned proud that I was able to figure out.

I returned to Crowley who was picking at his fingernails with a bored expression on his face. After a few moments of trial and error I found the right keys for the right locks and the chains started coming off one by one. I was about to turn the last key of the last lock when I heard movement behind me.

"Hey! What are you doing!" Sam growled launching himself at me. I unlocked the last shackle and Crowley grinned his eyes turning red. He flicked his fingers and Sam was tossed into the opposite wall.

"You said you wouldn't hurt them!" I said angrily.

"I won't," Crowley rolled his eyes. "Moose is fine, see?" Sam struggled to his feet and glared. Dean and Cas rushed through the door armed and Crowley winked at me. "Time to go. Tootles." He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

"Hey!" I screamed at the empty air. "We had a deal!" In moments Dean was on me pulling my hands behind my back.

"Who are you?" He accused. "You working for Crowley?"

"Get off of me!" I growled trying to rip my wrists out of his hands.

"Who are you!" Dean yelled again.

"I'm Avery, you dumbass!"

Dean reeled back in surprise and I managed to pull myself free. I panted heavily from my struggle and Dean's face fell back into a glare, Castiel and Sam flanked me so that I had nowhere to run, not that I would.

"Schizophrenia," Dean snarled. "You really had us going, didn't you?"

"You think I'm lying to you?" I asked indignantly.

"No, we know you're lying to us. Four days ago when we left you were fifteen!" Sam growled angrily. "Now we're back, you're ten years older, and Crowley is gone!"

"Where's Kevin?" I demanded. "He was here with me, he knows the truth."

"Oh we spoke with Kevin," Dean said. "Imagine our surprise when he tells us that you're some kind of ancient vessel for God."

"That's- I didn't-" I floundered looking for an explanation. "I found out after you guys left," I finally managed. "I got sick! Kevin called you guys a million times. We thought I was dying!"

"Well, maybe it was better if you did!" Dean yelled at me. "Then Crowley wouldn't be in the wind!" He kicked over the table and I flinched fighting back tears. My heroes would rather see me dead. Sam's eyes softened for a moment when he saw me bite back tears but it was gone and replaced with disgust in seconds.

"You said you made a deal," Sam started coldly. "With Crowley. What was the deal?"

"Screw you." I whispered angrily, I hated that my voice trembled when I said it but felt an alarming wave of satisfaction when it seemed to make the Winchesters angrier.

"We should have done this the second we found you," Dean growled stepping towards me.

"Get away from me." I trembled. He pulled out a strange flask from his pocket and unscrewed the lid. I didn't know what it was but I had no intention of finding out. I turned to Cas who had remained silent throughout the entire ordeal. He was giving me a strange yet calculating look. Like he was trying to figure me out.

He and Sam were still blocking the door and I didn't know where to turn. I saw the knocked over chair and tossed it at Dean with all my might. He batted it away easily but it was all the distraction I needed. I rushed passed Dean and elbowed Cas in the gut when he tried to grab me.

I was so close to freedom I could taste it. But before I could take one step out of the door there was a hand in my hair yanking me back. I yelped in pain as I was thrown to the ground. I laid on there stunned when something liquid was thrown on my face. It stung like nothing I had ever felt before. Like a million paper cuts dipped in a vat of lemon juice.

"Ah! What is that?" I yelled in agony.

"I knew it!" Dean growled his face filled with rage. "Look at her eyes!" He yelled at Sam who looked very ashamed by whatever the hell Dean was talking about. I tried wiping the offensive liquid off of my face but only succeeded in spreading the pain to my hands.

Dean pulled me off of the ground roughly and righted the chair I had thrown at him. He forced me down and started shackling me to it much like Crowley had been before I freed him.

"What are you doing?" I complained squinting past the pain and struggling with the shackles at the same time.

"We have ways of getting information from demons." Dean smirked menacingly.

"Demon? I'm not a demon!" I yelled at him, now he was the insane one.

"Tell it to the holy water." He sneered dousing me again with the liquid. I screamed and yanked at the chains instinctively trying to wipe my face, but they only allowed my hands to reach my chin and I had to bend over to reach my face.

"You're making a mistake." I said through tears. "Please." I begged.

"You have an hour to decide if you're going to cooperate." Dean threatened. After one last glare they left the room and I was alone.

I sobbed openly once the door had closed and yanked at the chains violently to no avail. I screamed for help, I begged for anyone to come rescue me, but none came. I knew none would come. My hour was soon almost over and my wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding. I knew there was nothing I could say to prove my innocence so I did the last thing I could.

I shut down.

I had done it several times when the depression, an unfortunate side affect of my schizophrenia medication, took hold of me. I refused to eat, to speak, to do anything besides sleep, drink water, and go to the bathroom.

Sooner or later I'd die of starvation or illness, whatever came first, and I'd be free of this world forever.

With this new conviction my crying stuttered to a halt. I took a deep breath and buried every emotion but the suffocating sadness down and waited for the door to open.

P/n So what do you guys think? Better? Worse? Leave a review and let me know. Everyone who leaves a review gets a sneak peek of the next chapter. Until next time.

-Lucy