Made With Love
Summary: Crowley finds a voodoo doll that Rowena made of him. Set during 11x09, "O Brother, Where Art Thou." Complete.
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The concept of "voodoo" dolls as represented here is not even remotely accurate to the Vodou religious practices in Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean. In Vodou rituals, brought from West Africa by enslaved peoples and merged with Roman Catholicism, dolls are used for healing, communicated with deceased loved ones, and in some specific cases to evoke minor deities, or pwen. They are not used for harm.
The "voodoo" doll as represented in popular culture is primarily an American invention, dating to the 1950s and disseminated by Hollywood. Like so many other aspects of world mythology and culture in spn, this representation of Vodou dolls is a bastardization. The voodoo in this fic is specifically referencing the in-canon concept of voodoo, and is no way accurate or related to the real-world Vodou.
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Among a clutter of buttons and notions and discarded scraps of cloth sits the voodoo doll. Made of beige-colored linen, and a cap of black felt for the hair, and a black silk suit. Crowley recognizes the material, the paisley pattern on the tiny tie. Somewhere in his palace, one of his suits must be missing a sleeve or a panel, if Rowena didn't cover up her misdeeds by disposing of the suit entirely.
His mother's sanctuary is a place of rich magic, plush fabrics, dark furniture, and booby traps at every turn. Crowley could have just as easily sent his demonic minions to hunt for anything of value among her shambled library, gaudy knickknacks, and magical anti-aging potions. Except they all would have ended up as explosions of demonic dust, or worse. And besides, Crowley had wanted to see for himself.
So while the Winchesters and Rowena prepare their little spell to gain access to Lucifer's Cage, to convince the archangel to help their merry lot defeat the Darkness, Crowley is here, in his mother's private abode.
Squinting down at this miniscule, uncharitable doll of himself.
He's not surprised, not really. Not considering the number of times and various ways she's tried to kill him. Employing voodoo doesn't seem her style, but perhaps the doll is only a small part of her much larger plan to harm, humiliate, and ultimately dethrone her son. Perhaps it is only meant as a passing fancy, for a bit of amusement in the evenings, jabbing needles in all his softest spots.
Crowley could have told her it wasn't worth the bother, other than her own amusement – this mother has already stabbed him where it matters most.
Crowley can imagine her, sitting by her fireplace in the evenings, a glass of blood-red wine at hand. It matches the color of her lipstick. Her sly, self-satisfied smile as she pulls the thread. The flash of the needle in the firelight. The motion of her stitching, seams coming together, something Crowley – Fergus – is intimately familiar with. The soft, sad acquiescence of the doll's linen skin. The lumpiness of the stuffing, causing the doll to sag slightly. He imagines she placed a rouged kiss gently on the forehead of his doll counterpart, before setting it down on her side table.
He is not sure if he should be flattered or infuriated with how much the doll resembles him. It is even wearing an expression of sullen dejection.
Despite himself, Crowley reaches down for the little creature. It is almost weightless in his hands. Its little arms and legs dangle as he lifts it, futile. The doll's head falls forward, a nod, acknowledging the pitiable-ness of its own existence. It exists only to suffer. How Crowley can empathize with this little bundle of cotton batting and thread.
Black button eyes stare up at him.
For a moment, Crowley considers placing the doll against his chest, and holding it close. Hugging it, so he might know what it feels like to be hugged, to be held. He wonders if he would feel the press of himself against his meatsuit's arms, around his back. If – for the briefest of moments, if only with himself – Crowley might find some small measure of unconditional comfort.
He considers throwing the doll to the ground and stomping on it. Tearing a seam in its side and slowly pulling all the stuffing out. Crowley thinks about all the monstrous, horrible things he's done. The way he's mutilated and tortured, murdered and enslaved and damned countless souls. The lives he's ruined, the families he's torn apart. Exerting on this small, defenseless version of himself every punishment he deserves, extracting retribution for all the pain and suffering he's caused.
He considers taking the doll with him. Crowley might sit upon his throne, needle and thread in hand, and stitch a different expression on the doll's face. Replace the black-eyed buttons with green ones. Unpick all the seams, unraveling his mother's work and the work of three centuries of cruelty and damnation, to see for himself the existence of that soft stuffing, buried inside.
Perhaps somewhere, there is a child that might love this doll. Perhaps they are in need of a small companion to carry around by its cloth hand, to crawl through tunnels and explore hedges in the backyard, to sit at the dinner table and nibble on toast crusts, to wave out the window with on long drives, and listen to bedtime stories together before snuggling under the covers and drifting off to sleep. The child's brave little companion would keep the nightmares and the monsters under the bed at bay. And it would be loved.
It is a pleasant thought, and nothing more than that.
Fingers clasped around the doll, Crowley gives the barest of squeezes, apologetic. It doesn't deserve this fate, but it is at least an end to its suffering. With a snap of his fingers, flame leaps to life in the fireplace. Crowley tosses the doll in. It smolders glumly, face down.
He doesn't feel a thing.
Crowley wonders dully whether Rowena will miss the companionship of the doll. That second, more compliant iteration that she so carefully crafted. Birthed without blood, a lighter burden than her son of flesh and blood. Perhaps, Rowena had found it within herself to even be pleased with her creation, this time. Crowley very much doubts it.
The artifacts and books in his mother's collection that are of value, Crowley snaps away to his secret vault, to review another time. Once the world is again saved from annihilation. There is no need for him to destroy or ransack the apartment. Rowena sensing her son has been here, has picked through her collection and desecrated her sanctuary, will be enough. And there is very little here of worth, anyway.
Nothing of his mother's was ever made with love.
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As always, thank you for reading.
The Demonologist In Denim