What Isn't And Came To Be
Chapter 1: Sorry, so, so sorry
"I come bearing other gifts." Crowley announced, flipping open the lid of the box he held and smiling.
Michele looked into the box.
"A syringe… mmm." She murmured tightly, her face pale, strained and unenthusiastic.
"Not just any syringe, Pet. This here syringe was made to extract angelic grace. The nasty stuff causing all your … issues, the stuff those winged monkeys pumped into you when you were just a wee tot.
The Grace that is slowly killing you.
Turns out, all things really do work for good, for you people."
The prophet just looked at him with wide green eyes.
"I need angelic grace," he continued, "to heal the rip, that — " he stumbled, on the edge of using the word abomination for Kelly Kline's unborn monster, knowing doing so would only start an argument "—child, you saved, made in the fabric of the bleeding universe."
The woman looked at him unmoving, like what he was offering wasn't everything she needed.
"Come on Kitten, it's win win. Time's short, we've got ninety-nine problems and only one of them's the Devil." He printed again. His impatience was beginning to show now and it annoyed him no end that the little twit wasn't showing any of gratitude he'd imagined she would.
"Look I won't lie, by all accounts the procedure is uncomfortable as…" He smiled at her, "… Hell, but I promise it won't kill you. I need you, don't I? Cross my heart and hope to die!"
Her lips twisted ruefully into a weak smile at that.
"I can't believe you are balking at a needle." He scoffed, thinking of all the needles and blood transfusions the woman had endured since she became a fully (or partially) fledge Prophet and ghost writer of the Winchester gospels.
"Moose and Squirrel need your assistance Pet. Think of the discomfort as…a sacrifice for the greater good, isn't that what you people live for?" He coaxed.
"Yes." She agreed softly and turned away from him a moment, her face still strained and unreadable. "But first… you need to wash your hands." She reached out then and took his arm, divested him of the bag of spell ingredients and the box containing the grace extraction device and placed them on the kitchen bench as she led him passed.
"Germs again?" He griped, rounding the bathroom door and strode towards the sink.
Stopped suddenly in the middle of the bathroom floor without meaning to.
Looking down in shock, he found himself standing in the middle of a devil's trap.
"You—!" He spluttered.
The prophet sighed unhappy. Gesturing towards the bathroom sink, out of reach, beyond the devils trap.
"Children's washable markers, I'm sorry… and it's not what you think.
I do want to give you the grace. But you … you've changed since we met, since you started drinking my blood.
It's my fault, Sam's fault. Kevin's fault. We've all infected you… with the things we care about. That's why you kept Mrs Tran alive, why you feel how you do about Dean, why you keep helping to solve the crisis of the week, and why you read stories and brought candy for my son."
He stared at her, was she right? Did that explain why he'd gone soft?
"You're more human now, a better man.
The grace extraction, you stopped… will stop." She blinked at him in that way she did when she was confused about how to communicate the future/past nature of her visions.
"You said it would be enough, but it wasn't. I guess I've grown on you." She looked at him sadly in a way that was almost fond. "…Or maybe it's because Johnny's 8, the same age you were when your mother abandoned you… you know what it's like to face the world without a defender...
I know you'd kill her, easy as anything, but they won't stop if you do, and it's my family, my people who are the ones that get hurt. It's always them who suffers most ….
I've seen so many futures, Crowley." She grimaced then a tear rolling down her cheek, it made him wonder exactly what she'd seen.
"You have to believe me," she begged smudging the wetness across her check with the back of her hand, "this is the best way."
"You're making no sense! I need that grace, to heal that rip, to get rid of the bleeding devil. I'm trying to help here!" He fumed wanting to strangle her for playing games, now of all times.
"I know you are, Crowley… I know you do, it's okay. Just… wait, okay… just a bit.
You'd interfere, but I can't let you.
All things really do work together for good.
…Sacrifice, it's necessary…and I, I can do this."
With that she picked up a yellow plastic duck from the edge of the bathtub and tossed it to him; turned on the bathroom extractor fan, and stepped out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, not giving him a chance to reply or argue further.
Trapped and furious, Crowley glared down at the yellow plastic duck the hobbit housewife had tossed him; in mockery? Thinking he wanted something to play with while he waited? So he didn't interfere? What the hell with? What was she up to?
Furious, he crushed the stupid yellow plastic thing in his fist, producing a maddeningly protracted squeak.
Above the rumbling rush of the extractor fan he heard a knock on the front door.
Then indistinct voices for a few minutes.
Pacing the limits of the devil's trap, he squashed the rubber duck repeatedly, fuming in humiliated frustration and decided he would give her ten minutes. Then, he was going to be forced to get inventive with the architecture.
His tricksy little hobbit would require chastising for this, of course she would. But she'd brought it upon herself with this foolish little prank.
He licked his lips trying to decide on a suitable expression of his displeasure. The grace extraction would be a start, by all accounts it was rather unpleasant.
But then he was going to require something else. She needed to understand who the bloody top in this relationship was.
He couldn't have puss getting too big for her boots. Feisty was diverting, but this could be the first step towards rebellion, something which needed nipping in the bud tutu-suite.
Would the big 'g' allow him to turn her over his knee and spank her?Maybe it was better not to show his hand, Chuck had already intervened once and if she discovered that she was immune to physical repercussions it might be counter productive.
Maybe the husband? A small nonfatal (this time) accident. Something to incapacitate the bread winner of the Chadwick family. That might be a perfect excuse for her to need to supplement the family income playing nursemaid. For Mr Crowley, an old colleague, who'd found himself suddenly lumbered with wardenship of his infant nephew, Jack.
The perfect excuse to make his little pet more reliant on him and potentially drive a wedge between her and the husband.
Maybe he'd manufacture some sort of employment position for the husband later on, one requiring extensive travel… Crowley smiled down at the rubber duck in his hands.
He could see it now, how easily he would insert himself into her life, and become practically part of the family.
There was a real appeal to the idea, keeping his pet and the Nephilim close, under his thumb in some safe, gilded cage. Play at being the altruistic benefactor.
He could certainly stand to provide better accommodations than this hovel.
Not that she wasn't an adequate house keeper, the bathroom was clean and orderly, in a homely sort of way, it held signs of personality, and family, the basket of plastic boats and toys in the tub, the six tooth brushes arranged neatly on the vanity. Everything in it's place, except for the packet of children's washable markers and a bottle of mouthwash, balanced almost precariously on the edge of the hand-basin.
From the living room an English accented woman's voice snarled in fury, shouting about lies. Followed swiftly by a muffled impact, and a bitten off cry.
Then the front door slammed.
"Oi!" he yelled pacing restlessly inside the devil's trap, straining his ears for any indicators of the prophet's return.
"Oi!" He yelled again; eyes darting around the bathroom as his mind wandered back over the prophets disjointed words.
What the hell was the little twit up to?
Something moronically stupid to be sure.
His eyes narrowed.
The devil's trap at his feet was done in washable children's marker pen, why exactly had she mentioned that detail?
The bottle of mouthwash sitting on the edge of the sink drew his eye again. So out of place.
He gripped the rubber duck in his fist, making it squeak once more.
Then the setup hit him.
He tossed the duck at the mouthwash. It toppled off the vanity and rolled across the devil's trap, to hit his foot.
Unscrewing the cap, he poured the pungent mint liquid over the floor.
Watched impatiently as the Devil's trap holding him prisoner blurred and dissolved.
Slamming open the bathroom door he strode back through the kitchen, intent on giving his brat of a prophet some justified chastisement.
Stopped dead in the lounge doorway.
"Bollocks!"
The flat screen television on the wall was a starburst of shattered glass, below it lay his prophet in a spreading pool of her own blood; her breath coming in wet rattling pants.
"Bollocks!" He muttered again striding across the carpet, dropped to his knees and hauled the woman half into his arms.
"What did you do?" He demanded, shaking her roughly.
The prophet's weak hands pushed at his chest. She coughed wetly, spitting up a mouthful of blood, staining her cyanotic lips and the front of his suit with vivid splashes of red.
Green eyes focused on his, and her lips drew back in a bloody smile.
"Did nothing Crowley. Let her stab me. Knife was poisoned. I'm dying, you can't save me…"
"Don't be daft, stupid girl, 'course I can! You can't get away from me that easily, I'm the King of Hell."
One of her flailing hands caught his tie, pulling his face down closer, "you were King… not… not any more… Don't know what poison… Used up your contracts getting the rift ingredients… Can't possess me… Can't zap me anywhere. I won't make a deal… 'No matter how you play it you can't win.'"
He stared down at her in horror.
"No! No damn it!" He hissed, suppressing a shudder, half-remembered fragments of memory rose and reached out with strangling branches of a fate he couldn't escape.
He tried to transport her to the local hospital.
Whatever she'd done, it didn't work, and she was right about him tapping out all his damn contracts.
"I'm not being out-manoeuvred by a bleeding housewife." He spat the words down at her, wanting to shake her again in frustration, but she was already broken, and fading fast.
Stubbornly, he wasted time calling emergency services and tried to staunch the bleeding with his power.
"Ahh Crowley…" she coughed again and winced, "don't feel bad… you're only human."
She gifted him another bloody toothed smile, laced with something like pity.
"No, no I'm not, damn you!"
The hand that had been gripping his tie rose and cupped his cheek, smearing blood across his mouth as her thumb moved back and forth, like she was attempting to quiet him.
"Demon's just a ghost." She murmured gazing up at him, mouth set in an earnest little pout, "ghost that chose… chose the wrong side… has a truckload of psycho-" she coughed again, spitting up more blood, wiped at her mouth with trembling fingers, "…psycho-logical scars and P…PTSD. You're not so bad, had a …wrong start on life… if you'd had a mother that loved you…" She swallowed thickly. "…Wish you'd had that…"
He ignored her words.
"The paramedics are coming." He told her gruffly, as he pulled up her shirt to examine the wounds in her chest and torso. Held his hands over the wounds trying to ascertain if the blade had been poisoned. He could feel the poison in her, feel it's rapid spread with his power.
He measured her weak pulse.
Her hand fell away from his face to ruck her shirt back down in a pathetic attempt at modesty, hovered trembling over her wounds as if trying to protecting them.
"Not killing me if 'm dying…'s not… not on yo-u." She rasped staring at him like it was important he understood, "…'s my choice! Get the syringe, take the Grace —All of it! Close the rift, lock himaway! Save my family. Please Crowley! Choose …right…" She was trembling now, shivering as her eyes blinked heavily, starting to lose focus from either blood loss or the poison.
He clenched his fist and drew the tin box to him with his power.
Prepared the apparatus.
"Such a waste!" He fumed, pointlessly, laying her out on the floor again.
He smoothed her hair back away from her neck, and replaced her fallen glasses on her face where they belonged.
Ran his thumb over the small hickey on her neck with a bitter clench of his teeth.
Felt his throat tighten traitorously.
She'd said her goodbyes.
"If you saw me falter, in one of your visions, it wasn't from sentiment, Pet. I had plans."
Her face called him the worst kind of liar.
"I saw Crowley… you're not all bad… we were friends I think. I wouldn't have done this …but… L-Lucifer … he wants me … Mmm..." Her forehead scrunched fretfully. "He'll killed you, I couldn't find a way out... I'm sorry. I tried and tried…
He'll kill you…" she rambled, "but first he wants to hurt you, bad. Make you beg… Crush your spirit…He'd 've tortured my family, an' Sam… 'n' Dean… broken us all.
Used me to turn Jack—
Lovedoes make us weak… and yet… Love … it can help us make the hard choices."She coughed weakly before continuing, lungs sounding wet and full.
"Lucifer wants to break everything. Burn the world… he's… he's insane…" Her hand groped for his. Gripped it with flagging strength.
"H-hurts Crowley… so cold… 'cept where t' poison's… spreading, tha' burns…." Her eyes blinked closed.
He fumbled open the box and sucked a breath past bared teeth.
"Sorry Love, it's going to get a lot worse when I do this." He muttered finding the correct position to sink the needle.
Her eyes fluttered open again, struggling to focus.
She bit at her lip and forced a humourless smile.
"What happened to demon's lying…?" She asked, plaintively.
It forced a shocked cough of surprised laughter and a pulse of yearning respect out of him.
Such a bleeding waste… why did she have to do this? …
Alright, okay, she'd come to mean something to him, more than he cared to admit, damn her! The fluffy little fool had grown on him and he hated her for it.
As if she knew all the things he couldn't admit, to either of them, she squeezed his hand once more before letting go and clenching her small hands into a fists.
"…O-Okay, do it."
She whimpered as he slid the needle into her neck.
Her wet rattling whine when he began the extraction was worse. Her whole body shuddered and convulsed against the grip of his power.
Baring his teeth and blinking furiously, Crowley forced himself to continue, sliding the plunger out, painfully, slowly. Drawing out the luminous swirls of Grace.
Her heartbeat had started to grow unsteady now, her failing breaths fainter.
Despite himself, Crowley stopped. Pausing to mutter reassurances and stroke a hand through the soft waves of her hair ~ As if she would ever want or need comfort from the likes of him. Foolish, self-sacrificing, Bloody prophet.
Then, the front door banged open, making her dimming eyes fly open, and try to focus; then widen in shock.
About time emergency services arrived!
"Mum?" A young voice called, and something small hurtled past him, slammed into, and plastered itself against the prophet's chest. "Mummy!"
The prophet whimpered, "Ohhhh no… oh no, no, no… Johnny… I didn't see this…"
Her arms lifted to encircle the boy as her pleading, horrified eyes met Crowley's above the child's head.
Fierce vindication flared in his core, a splutter of hope.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that she loved her children, more than anything.
He watched her rally by sheer will power, struggling to cradle the boy's face in her hands and stare into his eyes.
Green eyes. Mirrors of her own.
She breathed words of love to the child, trying fruitlessly to sooth him. Telling him over and over that she loved him, that she was sorry.
So, so sorry.
