Many souls had gone down to Hell, many souls had gone to Crowley. He had more than doubled his intake rate. Another fifty years, 300 some contracts, and still only half of the souls went to Hell.

Half of the anti-demon tools don't work anymore. It used to be because there was too much human… now there is just too much. So much of him that just like angels...sometimes the people he tries to possess just explode if they are alive.

He'd used that to get rid of humans on more than one occasion.

And I had helped make that happen. Over and over again. In so many ways. Knowingly. Unwittingly. Willingly. Forced. The memory of every time I had helped split me in two with torment and pride.

Then… it happens. The angels finally figure out what is going on. They try to stop him from getting more contracts, but there are too many options. They always miss one, and one is all he really needs. Of course...things eventually find a way. So one day we go to a deal and find an angel.

"Castiel. Good to see you. Like your new vessel." Castiel stands there, a tall Indian man with beautiful eyes that did not match the hardness in them. The trenchcoat was still there, but the suit had been traded in for smart slacks and a vest.

"Crowley."

"So cold. Didn't I save your life, at least twice?"

"You're taking souls, into yourself. You saw what happened to me, Crowley."

"And? You had leviathans. I just have souls. Souls that aren't yours, they're Hellbound, in more ways than one. Besides, they're magically delicious."

"Crowley, I'll give you one chance to let them free." I laugh, Rowena laughs. The angels thought they knew what was going on, they really didn't.

"The poor cherub. Go easy on him Fergus, he was a friend."

"Oh, you made mother laugh, she thinks I should go easy on you." Castiel stares.

"Rowena...is in there?"

"Chew Toy too, you know, the first one? Brown hair, mid height, angular but forgettable face?" Castiel keeps his face as blank as he can.

"How many Crowley?"

"Live ones? Just ….three." At this Castiel squints and frowns, confused. That number didn't track with the amount of contracts they had been keeping track of. I tense, was Crowley finally confident enough to let the secret out. The full secret? Sans the workings of course.

"You're lying."

"I'm really not. Tell him mother."

"He's really not Castiel. Just three in here. How are ye-" Rowena's voice comes out of Crowley's mouth and is cut off as he takes control again.

"See, right from the demon slash witches mouth." Castiel stares.

"I don't believe you. You're just mimicking her voice. Now let them go."

"The three? Well, Chew Toy and mother are staying, and the other is, well they just feel nice inside me. Wriggling around, trying to get free. Ever been to Japan? Like eating one of those little live squids, except the squid doesn't die for a year."

"Yes I've been to Japan. I've been everywhere. Let them go Crowley. All of them. Not just the three."

"Oh, you mean the other 143. Well...Sorry. I can't."

"Can't or won't?" Crowley and I chuckle at the line, a throwback.

"Actually, for once, I really can't. They're gone. But I'm not about to stick out my tongue so you can see I'm not hiding any."

"What do you mean 'gone?' Souls can't be destroyed."

"No but they can be changed, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, I've gained a few pounds." Cas still looks confused. Crowley sighs and snaps his fingers. A pile of yellow dust appears beside him. "Do you know what those are Cas? Check them." Cas looks at them and squints.

"They have the energy of a demon contract."

"Yes, and you know Hell, bit of a bureaucracy. We keep every contract, canceled or otherwise. So the fact that these are dust…"

Castiel stares, starting to understand but not wanting to believe.

"What have you done Crowley?"

"Cas, you know what I've done, and I will continue to do it until I feel like stopping, which I don't see happening. Now, since I'm not really mucking about in your business, just doing my job and then some, I'll leave you be if you'll do the same. Truce, in honor of the Winchesters. Who, I might add, are in heaven by my good graces alone. Rightfully, with what they've done…" Crowley shrugs. Cas stands silently.

"You ate them. The souls."

"So crass Cas. But….yes."

"I thought you had…"

"What? Become good? Cas, even Before you killed me, while I was only trying to prevent the use of the tablets, I was still A Fucking DEMON! I may have died to save the world, but it was also for me. I was bored, tired of dealing with the idiocy of demons and repetitiveness of winning then losing, then winning, then losing. But...you were in the empty, you know how it is. I had some good dreams, some nightmares, some ideas. So, no. I don't want an apocalypse, I don't want to rule the world, I don't want heaven. I just want to enjoy my job and all the benefits it...how did you get that?" Castiel was holding a greenish piece of rectangular stone. The demon tablet. "Did you kill my dog? Again! I didn't get cast as John Wick, but I'm sure I can pull off the performance!" Crowley steps forward, angry, but more than that he's using the anger as an excuse to approach.

"No. But she did puke quite a lot. I'm sorry about this Crowley, but I can't have anyone destroying souls."

"I'm not destroying them! I AM THEM!" Castiel ignores Crowley and gets a vial out of his trench. Crowley freezes. "Castiel, I don't know what you're about to do, but-"

"I'm sorry Crowley, but you leave me no choice."

It was the one thing worse than closing the gates to Hell.

He cancelled all the contracts.

…..

It's chaos and not just for Crowley. Whole countries go to shit. Crops fail. Rain stops. Celebrities fade into obscurity. Thousands of divorces, more deaths.

Crowley, the King of Hell, is angry. He lost thousands of contracts and also lost five rather personal souls that day. The white one he had just obtained, the one that had just disseminated into white sparkly mist, the pink one that was almost gone, his mother, and me. The rest...their contracts were gone, because their souls didn't exist anymore. However, that still left a demon juiced up with over 140 souls, and he is quite miffed. Perhaps it's because he is going through withdrawal. Perhaps it's because he can't find Rowena. Perhaps it's because Hell is in turmoil.

But…. It's Probably because I am in a holding room, in heaven.

I of course have no idea what's going on, except that I am in immense pain, being asked questions about the first contract. About Crowley. About his powers. About how in the Hell he was destroying souls. I might have answered some, right now I can't remember. I'm too addled to know. I wasn't even sure it mattered, with the contracts gone. Perhaps if they came back my actions during their 'hold' would terminate my contract, perhaps not. These were the fleeting thoughts between the moments of immense pain, I can't think or do much else except scream.

I do however notice when the pain stops and the angels leave. I notice that there are noises outside. I notice that there is a voice I know. A voice that makes me feel safe and terrified at the same time. Talk about ingrained stockholm syndrome.

I can hear when he knocks on the pearly gates, the reverberation echoing with alarms. I can feel when Hell comes to heaven.

"Heavenly host, I do believe you have something of mine."

"She is no longer under your thumb Crowley. The contract is-" There's more ruckus, and then silence. Complete, and utter silence.

And then an explosion. The floor cracks. Yells, screams, one I recognize.

"Stop being IDIOTIC INTERFERING CHERUBS! I've left you and your affairs alone for YEARS! I've been DOING MY JOB!" There was another loud boom. Silence. Then a knock on the door. I tense, not knowing who will enter, or who I would dread seeing more.

"Honey, I'm home."

"Crowley?" My voice cracks, with fear, lack of water, rawness, something. The door opens to reveal a battered being, smoke pouring out his eyes and ears, his vessel so broken it can barely contain his anger. He walks over to the table, and stops at the warding that guarded the box the tablet was in. It is powerful, ancient, and he can't cross it without a human soul to hide in. Even with all his power. This is Lucifer level warding. The angels were that concerned.

He frowns, and snaps his fingers to let me free. "Give me a moment darling." I can't move, I'm too battered. He looks back at me and frowns, then with a thought from him I am just outside the building. I watch as he glares at the wards, unable to pass, but seemingly more annoyed than fearful. Another snap…

And the building just...falls. The ground cracks, destroying all the symbols that keep him from getting close to the table. The table however, containing another ring of symbols, stands. He frowns, then shakes his head and tries to do it the old fashioned way. He goes to pick up the end of the table, so the box with the tablet would fall off and maybe dent a single symbol. But he finds he can't get any closer to that as well. He seethes, and the ground shakes once more, moving the box. It slides to the edge of the circle, and we can both tell that it's made of metal from the screech... so no denting.

And then an angel neither of us saw runs from behind the rubble.

There are sparks, the King of Hell twitches, red smoke is pulled back into his body so it can be pushed to the empty.

There is an eternity of silence where I think it might be over; where I am elated, scared, and sad. I feel ashamed of my own emotions. Confused and angry at myself, at the angels, at Crowley, I sit frozen to the spot and think of the possibilities if he actually dies, and what could happen if he didn't.

Then red smoke bursts forth, a storm more than a demon.

There is so much raging that I can't see the angel, the table, or the box. Just the King of Hell. A hurricane of a demon, circling, raging. Suddenly the smoke stops, and moves backward, rushing toward a point. To his vessel. The angel is gone, the metal table is bent, just enough to warp a single symbol. I do not know what happened to that angel.

Crowley frowns and swallows, his wounds slowly healing even as I watch, and once again tries to get close to the box. He can...but can't touch it. Suddenly I'm beside the table. He looks at me, waiting for me to do what was expected. I realize that Crowley can still be killed, perhaps two angel blades, a great artefact...In this state, it would kill Crowley. But soon...even that might not work. Maybe. He frowns at me.

"Darling. Rebecca. OPEN THE BOX!" I flinch, frozen in fear and unable to move. He sighs. "You have no idea what I will do to you if you do not open that BOX NOW!" I finally find my voice.

"Crowley, I'm sorry, but I can't damn all of creation for you." He stares at me as if I'm insane.

"All of creation? You think I want that!? Hell is a business, my business, I'm GOOD AT THAT BUSINESS. It requires a dichotomy! I don't want to run this prissy little garden too! To have Hell and heaven, Humans need to have free will. They need to choose to damn themselves, be tempted. If I rule the earth, I can't get that. What I would get is: screams, more paperwork, boring post apocalyptic scenery, no new innovation, no more scotch. BORING IS WHAT I WOULD GET. Now, open the box." I still hung back. "Darling...the devil you know is one that knows what he wants, and what he wants is for you to OPEN THE BOX SO HE CAN GET BACK TO HIS DAMN JOB AND THRONE." The ground shakes and I look around frantically for help. Everyone has fled, no one knows what I know. Then...then I look at the box and notice the biggest mistake of all time. If he just tips the table again...

"My patience is as thin as this veiled threat. If you d-"

"I won't. I can't Crowley. You think I want to be back in that prison with you?"

"You'd rather be up here, tortured by angels? Or fading into a ghost? Or even, if by a miracle, they let you go, sitting in your own heaven, unable to create things for other people?" He had points. Good ones. Still, on principle…

'It doesn't matter." He looks at me with such anger in his eyes that if I hadn't noticed that fatal flaw a moment ago, I would have opened the box. "Look at the front of the box Crowley." He pauses, looks at it, then at me, and for the first time ever I have confounded the King of Hell. He looks again, then back at me ready to push me to the depths of Hell, then does a double take. He stares in disbelief.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." With a wave, the table disappears, the box falls...and the lid pops off. It didn't have a latch. Whoever made this anti-demon box hundreds of years ago had deemed that a latch wasn't important. Now, the tablet lay revealed, on the dusty white broken ground. He picks it up, looks at it, and curses.

"We need a prophet, don't we Crowley."

"Well...I know where to find a dead one."

Summoning the ghost is the easy part. Getting it to work with us is another story. The young man is tall and gangly, his hair sandy and his eyes hollow. The real world equivalent of Kevin Tran.

"Hello Michael."

"Crowley."

"I'm sure you've noticed the problems happening. More ghosts popping up. Old ones reappearing."

"Why am I here Crowley?"

"Simply put, all the contracts are broken. We can't make new ones. There's an imbalance."

"Why would I help you?" Crowley sighs, shakes his head. I was thinking the same thing, for myself honestly. I have my entire soul back, for the express reason of Crowley not disintegrating it. He was down to the 10 ex-demon souls in his 'food pantry', if this takes too long...he needed to ration, and he didn't like it. I can see the sweat on his face, very slight, but there. He is going through withdrawal. For years he had at least four or five souls at any given time. The first day after his were taken, he said he took four right off the bat… then it took two years to figure out how to get into heaven, and at least fifty souls were incinerated by his smoke in the effort it took to get there. Another 20 kept him sane while he, a demon, was in a place that should have caused him to literally explode. Then another year and a half to find and summon Michael. He was down to ten, he only had two with him now, x demons, and they wear away faster than ones that had only ever been human souls. They wouldn't protect me. Crowley paces, and sweats.

"Heaven is in turmoil. I know, I caused it. It would be very easy to go up and take a stroll. Wander through the various personal heavens, maybe take a soul or two. Now, do I need to say more?"

"I can't read the tablets Crowley."

"Maybe, maybe not. But we have one here and you've read them before. So, how do we break this little...lock, they put on my contracts?" Michael sighs.

"I can barely remember yesterday Crowley."

"The words of those tablets were Burned into your Soul. I saw it. Felt it. I will find it if I have to take you apart! You will remember them or read them; or be a memory yourself." Michael sighs again. I watch all this from a fresh meat suit, two days old made by Crowley himself, and shiver. Crowley had left me out here, outside of my prison, saying he wanted my help, taunting me. We both knew he didn't want to harbor my soul in case he destroyed it, his favorite toy.

I shouldn't be helping. I shouldn't be here. But I have nowhere else to go. Heaven meant lonliness or torture. Hell...well if I was down there Crowley would find me. Earth…

Crowley leans close to the circle containing Michael.

"Can. This. Be. Fixed?" Michael sighs one final time, and then begins to talk.

"Yeah. It was meant as a reset, or punishment, not a 'be all end all' like closing the doors."

"How do we fix it?"

"Uhm...You're not gonna like it."

"Don't. Care."

"The first ingredient, is a soul that was willingly freed from Hell."

"Fine. Next?"

"Liquid Love."

"Which MEANS?"

"Uhm…" Michael shakes his head. "I think...A tear from a mother for her child."

"Fine. And?" Michael frowns.

"It's hard…"

"And so was Micheal Jackson at Disney World! On with it!"

"A demon who… has done a true altruistic deed." Silence reigns.

"...Bollocks."

Crowley searches Hell for months, looking for a demon in a needle stack. The freshly turned. The old. The ambitious ones he sent to work in the pit. The generals from his new army. Nothing. I had an idea...or two. I didn't say anything for months, kept quiet as the world crumbled and rebuilt itself. Kept quiet as another soul melted away. Kept quiet as Crowley began to get bored, irritated. Kept quiet as I walked beside him and noticed more and more glances being thrown in my direction, like a vampire trying to go cold turkey.

It happens on a Thursday. He decides he needs a fix of more than canned soul food...and home I go. He finds my ideas, and I pay dearly for keeping them from him. For a week I pay dearly. I feel bits of myself being torn away as he breathes slowly sitting in his chair at his California office, feeling everything I feel, not caring what it is because he is finally getting a fix that wasn't just dulled fear and regret from x-demons or paranoia from canned souls.

"Oh, the things you do to me, Chew Toy. If I thought you wouldn't die...but...maybe it's time."

The problem is...I'm not sure I mind that anymore. Knowing that I would just cease...I think I am ok with that. Maybe. I don't really know. But it'd be interesting to finally be able to hear his thoughts until I just...became them. It might be nice, to be someone else. I mean, he still hadn't told me what happened to those souls, how that worked. But whatever happened, it'd be interesting.

After that he lets me back out to help him.

We search the rogue demons topside. Many had come home when they heard the trouble. The King of the Crossroads, current King of Hell, was fucked. His system didn't work. Not without contracts. It was back to old temptation. However, we find one who didn't return. In Wyoming. At a hospital. Who is taking care of his mother.

It's a bust. He was keeping her alive to torture her. She was in constant pain from a degenerative disease and would be fine with painkillers... If the demon hadn't been switching them out. However, it worked with the second idea.

It was the usual 8 hour process, left unfinished, but it took its toll. That night, the demon unplugged his mother from life support. Crowley probably made quick work of the demon, and traps it easily.

The other two were easy compared to that, sadly.

A mother, crying for her kidnapped child. Took a day apparently.

And a random soul from the line taken out and put in a jar. Crowley had no qualms about that. The job took what the job took. However, it didn't take me.