A/N
Hello. It's been some time again. I didn't write a Christmas Special this year - again. You'd think I had come to terms with the pace life goes by now but it still baffles me how each year seems to pass faster and faster. 2017 was a dramatic year personally and globally.

You all are amazing, you know that? You're all beautifully written stories that I wish I had the time to learn more about, inspiring and heartbreaking and breathtaking as you are. I receive comments from you that make me cry and make me squeal, and they make me want to pay you back with the best stories I can possibly deliver.

You mean a lot to me, and I want you to know that especially in this season, when all aren't fortunate to have warm, sincere get-togethers with family and friends. We've never met and we probably won't ever meet, but you mean a lot to me.

Happy holidays, everyone!
/Dimwit

who does not own any rights to nor profits from the Blue Exorcist or Supernatural franchise.

Meeting Dean Winchester was the coolest thing Shirou had ever done in his life – better than playing the whole Order Court for fools, better than hang gliding with his shahrokh familiar – and he had fucked it up in five minutes.

Many things can be said – and have been said – about stubbornness. Those who possess it pride themselves on it, and those who are subjected to it grumble that pride is a sin and damn if obstinacy shouldn't be one, too. There are two sides to every coin, however, and stubbornness can turn failure into success simply through refusal to give up.

Thus Shirou tailed Dean out of the house as he went to load the car for Chicago, and proceeded to fuck things up.

"Look, what happened back there was my mistake, okay? You guys don't have the same view of demons as we do, I know that." Had just been too starstruck to think of lying. "And I know this isn't back home. I know the rules are different. I'm not here to cause you any trouble, I swear, I'm just–"

"No one asked you to come." Dean finished securing the straps of the extra jerry can of holy water and stalked right past Shirou, heading for the storage shed across the yard.

"That doesn't mean I can't be useful." Shirou hurried after him, contemplating if there was a way of hurrying after someone without seeming too obviously desperate. "We work the same job – technically, if I'm from the 70's I've been at this for 40 years."

Dean didn't so much as snort at the attempted joke. Well shit.

"You wanna be useful?" A 20kg sack of rock salt was shoved into Shirou's arms. "Get to work, kid."

"It's Shirou."

A plastic bucket filled with shotgun shells clunked down at his feet.

"Get to work, Shirow."

"…never mind."

Shirou spent the next eternity on the stairs of Bobby's porch, prepping rock salt ammunition while mentally milling out bad and less bad icebreakers. His brain served him well when it came to delivering snarky comebacks, as it had been conditioned to do for years; this radical, novel demand to say something that would gain people's approval produced a reaction like asking a calculator to divide by zero. Meanwhile, Dean – object of teenagerly admiration and far-flung dreams – was right in front of him loading the trunk of the car, right in front of him, and Shirou kept stealing glances in some vain hope that Dean would make the first move.

Kind of like checking out a girl.

"Worse than checking out a girl." He picked up another shotgun casing and ignored the way the rock salt stung in every minuscule dry crack on his fingers. "There's millions of girls and one Dean Winchester."

The wooden stairs shifted and creaked. Shirou had always known Sam Winchester was described as "tall and muscular" in the series but seeing him in real life he was just… intimidating. A wall of muscle. A brainy little geek in a mecha suit of muscle. He must have weighed 100 kg or more – Shirou could feel the wooden boards bend under him when he walked past.

Dean halted his work when he spotted him approaching. Sighed. Rested his hands against the edge of the trunk.

"Let me guess: we're about to have a talk."

He didn't need to say more than that. Shirou got the message just from the look Dean sent him and muttered an excuse about going to see if Bobby and Cass needed help.

As it turned out, Bobby had been in the midst of explaining to a morally concerned Cass what occasional credit card fraud had to do with preventing the forces of evil from overrunning Earth.

"Good timing, kid: I got something I need help with and Castiel ain't gonna manage it on his own." Cass' troubled look became even more troubled. "Laundry. Judging by that coat of yours it's not something you do a lot." Bobby put his hands to the wheels and went ahead of them. "Haven't gotten around to installing a lift yet", he said over his shoulder, "so the basement is a li'l inaccessible."

Getting the laundry out of the tumble dryer and upstairs was easy; setting a new laundry was a challenge neither of them had been faced with before.

"This powder cleans garments?" Cass had poured a small pile of washing powder into his palm. He sniffed it. "Interesting."

"Uh-huh." Shirou eyed the front loaded machine with equal parts fascination and puzzlement. Eh, but what the hell. He had bluffed his way out of worse situations. "Just pour it in there so we can get it started."

"On the clothes?"

"Yeah." Shirou had only ever operated top fed washing machines. Honestly though. Front fed ones couldn't be that much different.

Then again – different time, different world. People here had satellite phones the size of cigarette cartons that could not only make calls but take photos and send written messages. Maybe they had just activated the washing machine's fire extinguisher function.

Shirou smiled at the thought, accompanied by a small huff. Cas gave him a weird look. Cas was weird on the whole. It had crossed Shirou's mind to tell him you were supposed to snort the washing powder up your nose, and he probably would have done it too.

"You're not from around here either, are you?"

"No. I am an angel." Cas paused, exhaled a breath of thoughts too heavy to speak. "Or I was. My powers… I seem to have burnt out."

...Shirou wasn't quite sure how long it took for that information to pass from his ears to his brain.

"Angel…? As in up in heaven, wings and stuff?" Cass – a fucking angel – nodded. "Can I ask… questions?" He tried not to be too blatantly hopeful. Fate liked to punish those who were.

"You may ask, but be warned that I might not possess the answers."

"Is there a God?" It seemed like a simple enough question: angels would know, right?

Shirou's gut tightened slowly, a feeble attempt to keep itself from dropping out of his body: because Cass' eyes held doubt, not answers. The same doubt Shirou knew from days of nothing but distractions and nights that gnawed holes through his mind. He had hoped there was justice, if not in this life then at least after, when due punishment came to those who deserved it: but the idea that angels were no wiser than humans, that no God spoke even to the ones who were meant to carry out God's will…

"There is a God. Only…" Cass trailed off, but Shirou knew that look. "He is not what I thought He was."

"He betrayed you", he murmured. "Betrayed your trust in him." Shirou pretended to be fully absorbed by the revolutions of the washing machine, fully absorbed in dirty clothing that turned over and over, neverending circles, cycles, eras...

Is there a God, or is there just another Demon King playing masquerade?

"He… abandoned us." Cass pronounced the word carefully, in case it tasted even more bitter than betrayal. "This world that He created, and everything in it. I thought of Him as a father: a fearsome father, but a loving one." He joined Shirou in staring at the rhythmic motions of the washing machine. "Now I know He is a father who leaves His children to drift without guidance towards their doom."

Could watching a washing machine spin make your head spin as well...?

"Look…" He spoke? Shirou could not remember deciding to speak. But speak he did. "Maybe that's… the thing?" Cass did not understand. Shirou didn't either. His brain was making an attempt at those winning-people-over words and was tottering about it like a toddler on soaped tarp.

A toddler…?

"When you're a kid you need guidance", Shirou said slowly, feeling the thought come together and make sense, "but when you're grown up you take care of yourself. Maybe that's what God's doing? Maybe this is about his faith in you, not your faith in him?"

Cass took a few moments to piece together what Shirou was saying. Then he responded in a voice low and calm enough to peel flesh from bone.

"This is nothing like human children gaining independence from their parents. This is the end of the world. Only God can prevent it, and He won't."

And because Shirou was Shirou, and his brain was a suicidal piece of junk…

"Well you know what? Fuck God." If you can't persuade them the nice way, stick with what you know. It might not get them on your side but holy shit you get a fun look on their faces. "Come on, we've all thought that at some point – I think it at least twice a day. You might not be aware but you've thought it, too."

Cass rose from his seat swiftly yet deliberatly, like a predator in slow motion. Or an angel about to smite a blasphemer.

"I have never thought–"

"Well why're you here then? Hah?" Shirou discovered, to his mild dismay, that he was looking up at Cass even when standing toe-to-toe with him. "What's the point of sitting here with us petty mortals making plans to cage the Devil if you think God's the only one who can do it, unless some part of you at some point said 'you won't help? well then fuck you, I'll fix it myself' and ditched Heaven altogether? That's not you believing in God, that's you believing in you – in these humans – and that you can stop the Apocalypse." Looking into the eyes of an ages old entity felt like a Very Bad Idea, he realised when the stare-down competition continued. It felt like withering, like all the years he hadn't yet lived were washing out of his bones.

Then again, it wasn't the first – or last – bad idea he had. Nor was it the only time he had stared down an ages old entity.

"Looking to fall a bit further, Cupid?"

There had absolutely not been a Crowley sitting atop the washing machine moments ago, but the past is usually outshadowed by the demands of the present. There was a Crowley on the washing machine now, and he looked ready to demand.

A demon, strictly speaking, is just another salesman: when he doesn't conduct business, he loiters. Crowley was quite proficient in loitering, a talent matched only by his aptitude at snooping; unfortunately, Singer mastered in Hunting and paranoia.

Moving about a house where every interesting object might also be a lethal object was perhaps the most well-designed devil's trap yet, Crowley mused, trying to summon even an ounce of interest in the mundane things that – also – littered Singer's house as if garbage were abandoned kittens that needed to be rescued.

"Collect all kinds of lost-and-found, do you...?" Crowley plucked the picture frame from its place on the cluttered library desk.

He had seen it when he sealed the deal with Singer: a soul shorn by loss and desperate not to lose again – all these remnant keepsakes, all these abandoned kittens...

"Sentimental creatures, humans." Crowley put the photograph back down: Bobby, the Winchester kids, and two women that also had the air of Hunter about them. How very–

...his attention fell on a newspaper – today's, believe it or not – thrown on the desk next to the picture frame. Blaring headlines. The fear of swine flu had turned into an epidemic of its own, fanned by newspapers hoping to sell extra copies if their headlines tickled those reptile brain instincts enough.

Every salesman knows it is people's emotions you appeal to, not their intellect.

Every salesman…

Smoothing out the newspaper, Crowley read the headline again.

It's too late…?

He picked the paper up, leafed ahead to the article advertised on the front page: swine-flu, demands of intervention… vaccine in development by Niveus… first batch to be shipped on Wednesday…

"Clever, clever…" Crowley snapped the newspaper shut, folded it in half. Eyes grim and paper in a firm grip, he stalked out of the library to assemble the Hunters.

Every salesman knows it is people's emotions you appeal to – and fear is by far the most lucrative one.

Castiel declined to join the little get-together, or so Crowley interpreted his adamant stone-walling. Granted, it was standard angel protocol: meet a demon, give it the silent treatment. Demons would try to trick you if you spoke to them, that was the official reason – and while that was undeniably true, it was equally true that angels were inept at witty comebacks and had a pride issue about it.

"Aaand: scene." Human sentimentality indeed: next time he would interrupt the Winchesters he'd bring air freshener. Singer and Stuart in tow, he walked up to the blues brothers and handed the newspaper to the one who was most likely to be literate. "There's something you need to see."

The rest flocked around the Moose like children eager for a fairy tale.

"Niveus pharmaceuticals – get it?" They didn't. Nobody did. They did look convinced that he was phrasing himself vaguely on purpose for the opportunity to declare them all idiots.

How perceptive.

"You two are lucky you have your looks. Your demon lover, Brady? V.P. of distribution, Niveus. Ahh yes, that the sound of the abacus clacking? We all caught up?"

"…Not really."

Stuart. Of course. The team mascot, as indispensible as sugar on Coco Pops.

"Pestilence was spreading swine flu." Good thing Moose had plenty of practice explaining things to idiots. "But that wasn't the real goal, just step one: this is the real goal. Pestilence's henchmen run Niveus."

"The vaccine is step two." Dean decided to speak. How lovely. He always had such valuable input to the discussion. "Only it's not a vaccine. You think–"

"I know." Better cut him off before he burnt out all four of his brain cells. "I'll stake my reputation that vaccine is stock-full of Grade A, farm-fresh croatoan virus. Which", he added, with an extra obvious look at Stuart, "is as close as you get to literally unleashing Hell on earth."

Now, this photo. These faces they were making right now. That, Crowley would have framed and put on his desk.

"Simultaneous countrywide distribution." Moose made a tight-lipped nod. Disappointed in himself for not piecing the puzzle together sooner? "It's quite the plan."

"They don't get to be horsemen for nothing. So you boys better stock up on… well. Everything. This time next Thursday we'll all be living in zombie land – unless our ace up the sleeve knows how to fix that, too", he added with another glance in Stuart's direction.

The boy chose to pretend that Samael's translation spell had suffered a temporary shutdown.

No one spoke when they loaded the cars. The sound of their supplies took up all the airspace: thumping into the trunk heavier than they were, readjusted more times than they needed, checked over more times than they could afford.

Checked over for that very reason. Once everything was packed, once there was nothing more to adjust...

"Alright, well…" Dean hid the tremor behind a smile that fooled no one. "Good luck stopping the whole zombie apocalypse."

"Yeah." Sam tried to sound like he believed that was possible. "Good luck killing Death."

"Yeah."

Not a good bye, not a good luck. What passed between the brothers then was too raw to be put in words, too frail to be exposed to a world that had taken enough already.

Shirou took great interest in a dozen tyres stacked a comfortable distance away. Such shape. Such craftsmanship.

"…Remember when we would just… hunt wendigos? How simple things were?" Sam sounded like he didn't quite remember it himself, as if wishful daydreams had taken on the shape of memories and momentarily fooled his mind.

"Not really." Dean tried, but the smile was wan with the many things that had changed since then.

A similar smile passed over Sam's features, briefly. Mirror smiles. Ghost smiles.

"Well, uh…" Sam fumbled for a moment when he grasped the demon slaying knife. He held it out to Dean as casually as he could. "You might need this."

"Keep it. Dean's covered." Trust Crowley to barge in between them. But Shirou's attention quickly shifted to the weapon he held up in place of the knife. It was a scythe – sickle, rather. A small, viciously curved sickle that… thrummed. "Death's own. Kills – golly – demons and angels and reapers – and, rumour has it, the very thing itself."

"Rumour?" Shirou raised his eyebrows. "You expect us to take on Death armed with rumours?"

"Got other suggestions, Mr. Usually-I-just-improvise?"

"That's what improvisation is about, isn't it? I'll figure it out when I get there." …hopefully.

"You're sending us to kill the Devil with the Colt again?" Dean crossed his arms and shot Crowley a look that demanded further explanation before he would consider buying this.

Crowley didn't so much as look at Dean; he was looking at Sam, with something that was supposed to resemble pity.

"Is he always like that? No wonder he gets on your nerves."

"Hey!"

"For your information: no." Crowley returned his attention to Dean with all the intensity of a welder. "This is nothing like killing the Devil with a man-made magical revolver. This was not made by humans." He held the sickle up, turned it slowly to reflect the light – but it never did. As if the blade was made of shadow rather than steel, it refused to even glimmer. "This is made with magic older than the world itself; if this can't put a scratch on Death, nothing can."

Shirou couldn't doubt him as much as he wanted to. Whatever power the sickle possessed it had an effect not unlike Samael's; an anomaly, a pulse, a presence that ever so slightly distorted the very universe around it.

"Just… Take it, Dean", Sam said finally. When his brother still hesitated, he spread his arms a fraction and let them drop back to his sides. "What else have we got?"

Wordlessly, Dean accepted the sickle.

"Excellent. So, shall we?" Crowley looked around at them as though he were a teacher taking his pre-schoolers on a class trip. "Bobby, you just gonna sit there?"

"No, I'm gonna riverdance."

"I suppose, if you wanna impress the ladies."

Weird looks settled on Crowley. The demon himself only seemed to enjoy the attention and drew the moment out as much as possible.

"Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Really wasted that crossroads deal. Fact: you get more, if you phrase it properly." So typical of demons. You had to wonder if their contractors ever died of natural causes before they got to the point of actually forming a contract. "So, I took the liberty of adding a teeny little Sub-A clause on your behalf."

Shirou tensed instinctively – they all did. When demons took liberties with people's contracts it was rarely to the benefit of the contractor.

Crowley weathered the suspicious glares with unflappable calm, turning his hands out in a gesture of unassuming innocence.

"What can I say? I'm an altruist." He turned halfway, as if to leave, then halted and glanced back at Bobby once more. "Just gonna sit there?" he repeated.

No way. Shirou stared at Bobby, at his wheelchair and at his legs. No way.

Demons could work miracles, yes. Theoretically. If they weren't snarky, self-absorbed pricks like Crowley.

They all stared as Bobby's foot twitched – hesitantly, as if it didn't dare try. As if it didn't dare believe. Then his other foot moved. Then, with a shaky breath that wanted the impossible to be real, Bobby grasped the handles of the wheelchair, and stood. The held breath left him: a sharp rush of air, of joy and disbelief, and something in his eyes that was alive like it hadn't been for a long time.

"…Son of a bitch", was all he could get out.

"Yes, I know", Crowley said matter-of-factly. "Completely worth your soul. I'm a hell of a guy."

Bobby agreed. Not verbally, but the look on his face said it all; he might even kiss Crowley a second time out of pure gratitude.

"Thanks", he murmured breathlessly.

"This is getting maudlin", Crowley muttered and turned. "Can we go?"

Shirou snorted, grinning knowingly at the back of Crowley's sweeping coat. Yeah, typical of demons.

Shirou approached it like one would approach the sacred altar of a… On second thought, he approached it with more reverence than he would have approached anything sacred of any kind. Dean Winchester's Impala was a thing out of legend. Even when it was right in front of him, and getting closer with each step, it wasn't really there. It wasn't really a car. It was a thousand tales and memories made solid: something he could see but not touch. Something that could be imagined but never physically real. Something… sacred.

"What're you waiting for?"

Shirou lurched back into the present. Dean had just opened the door to the driver's seat.

"Nothing." Shirou still took a moment longer than necessary to grip the handle of the back seat door. He was touching the Impala; he was going to ride the Impala; he was going to remember every second, every texture, every smell of that ride.

"Wrong door." Shirou looked up to see Dean halfway into the driver's seat – nodding at the shotgun door.

Shirou had to swallow hard, and fight down his pulse with a mallet, in order not to make an ass of himself before his idol.

"Sure thing", he smiled, and slipped his fingers into the handle of the front seat door. "I'm riding shotgun he's letting me ride shotgun Dean Winchester is letting me–"

"Why does Midget ride shotgun?"

If Shirou had had an actual mallet nearby he would have fit it squarely into Crowley's mouth.

"Midget didn't set me up to get my ass kicked by a demon, that's why", Dean clarified and gestured for Crowley to get in the back seat.

"I just gave Bobby back his legs – what did he ever do for you?"

"Not set me up to get my ass kicked: get in the car."

Looking cool had never been as difficult as when the three of them sped down the highway towards Chicago. What kept Shirou focused was vivid memories of Samael bouncing around Faust Mansion with his new Kamen Rider action doll like a squealing wind-up toy. That was not the impression he wanted to make on Dean.

But what should he say? Come on. It wasn't really like checking out a girl. He just didn't want to say anything too cliché, like admiring the car, or anything too sensitive like asking about his dad. Preferably it should be something funny. Something they both could relate to. Something...

"What's the story with Crowley setting you up?"

"Yes, what is the story?" Crowley inquired with something in between mockery and curiosity. "Everything went according to plan."

Dean huffed and muttered something under his breath before gathering his voice:

"The story is that we needed to find out where Pestilence was. So that asshole", he tossed his head at the back seats, "comes up with a plan to go to Niveus and negotiate the location out of their V.P in exchange for the Horsemen rings. Well howdy-doody: turns out the V.P doesn't want the rings at all and decides he'd rather spend his time playing human pinball. And that was the real plan. Using me as bait so he could lure the demon into an ambush." Dean glared at the backseat. "He just forgot to mention that small detail."

"I told you, it wouldn't have worked if you knew. You're a hunter, not an actor: Brady would have seen through any mediocre performance you put on. And it worked, so what's the problem?"

"Have you ever pissed blood? 'Cause that, for your information, is a problem."

"Dude are you sure he's not Samael?"

"Who? Crowley?"

"Yeah – 'cause Samael pulled the exact same thing on me."

"You're kidding?"

"Not at all! Using-you-for-his-plans-without-telling-you-what-the-plans-are is his hallmark. I was on crutches for weeks!" Shirou's enthusiasm did not add up with being on crutches for weeks: he cleared his throat and reminded himself of the Kamen Rider doll. "So, there was this meeting: two factions of the organisation that didn't get along, and we needed them to get along. I wasn't a licensed exorcist at the time so he'd arranged for me to bunk with the wives and kids, 'cause it's one of those meetings that drag on for days since they never agree. And in the middle of the night: bam. Tengus swarm the place. I had to hold the building till the exorcists made it over to us with back up." Missions are never the same when you describe them. The details are never as sharp as the sounds and the smells the adrenaline has carved into your memory. "It ended well, no casualties – just like he'd planned it. It's textbook. If you have people who don't get along, give them a common enemy and force them to work together to make it through alive."

"Sounds like Crowley alright."

"Yeah they seem to have a similar sense of humour."

"Not exactly the word I'd use", Dean huffed. "Does he do that jump-scare thing, too? Appears behind you out of nowhere just 'cause he can?"

"All. The fucking. Time."

"Man." He shook his head like one too tired to care anymore. "Demons."

"Oh don't mind me. Just thought you might want to consider, if we focus on the present, that Samael is pulling the same move on us at this very moment." You could almost, but not quite, suspect Crowley of feeling left out of the conversation. "You don't know what you're supposed to do here; we don't know what we're supposed to do with you. All of us neatly kept in the dark so Samael can have fun."

"That's another thing about demons", Shirou grinned. "They love to play people: they hate being played."

"We're all in the same leaky tin can of a boat, in case that passed you by: though it seems I'm the only one worried about not having a rudder."

"If you don't like Samael's boat then maybe you shouldn't have struck a deal with him?" Shirou suggested cheerfully.

"That's what you get, working with demons." Dean grinned from ear to ear.

Stubbornness can indeed do many things for you. It can turn failure into success, despair into victory, or ridicule into recognition.

As often is the case, it's not what things can do but what things can't do that matters in the end. An hour into the drive to Chicago, Shirou had to acknowledge that stubbornness did not make carsickness go away. And while it was embarrassing to ask Dean to stop the car when they were smack in the middle of the most important task of their lives, he would rather let the world end than puke in The Impala.

"You gotta stop the car", he croaked, careful not to use any abdominal muscle force to speak.

"We all went to the bathroom before we left. You can wait till we're halfway. Gotta gain as much ground as we can here."

"Carsick", Shirou grimaced as a wave of nausea gushed through him. "Really carsick."

Dean didn't argue with that. Shirou miraculously held it in until they could pull up at a rest stop but he didn't more than open the door before it came out.

"Very professional", Crowley commented. "Just the kind of help one would expect Samael to send."

"Shut up: it's you guys' fault in the first place. I was never motion sick until he began teleporting me."

"Oh man teleportation sucks", Dean groaned. "I didn't shit for a week."

Shiro chortled and spat, rinsing his mouth as best he could with no drink at hand.

"Guess the effect varies from person to person."

"Or between teleporters. I got zapped by an angel. Didn't even know demons could teleport people, that could'a been useful in many–" Dean's voice died abruptly. After a moment of staring blankly ahead, he spun around and glared at Crowley. "Why didn't you do that when we were breaking into Niveus? Or when the fucking hellhounds crashed our hideout?!"

"Oh I'm sorry: I was under the impression that taking out supernatural creatures was your job?"

"'Cause he's a demon and demons are dickbags", Shirou filled in and pulled a cigarette out of his carton. For lack of water, smoke bombing the taste out of his mouth was the second best option.

"This is a no smoking flight, kid."

Shirou clenched his teeth. This was going to be a long ride.

"Can we give some credit where credit is due, please? If anyone deserves the title 'demon dickbag' it's the bag of dicks that sent you here."

"That doesn't make you any better, even if he is worse", Shirou returned. "I give him ten dicks out of ten – Dean, how would you rank Crowley?"

"He's a solid ten."

"Fine but Samael's scale is in horse dicks."

"I'm sure he'll be elated to hear that – now, if we can diverge from the fascinating topic of supernumerary genitalia for a moment, and spend that brain power on figuring out why you're here, we might actually have a plan for catching Death by the time we reach Chicago."

"I don't know if it really counts as 'figuring out'..." In the backseat, Crowley pretended hard not to soak up every word. "You're my favourite character in a series", Shirou glanced at Dean, "and this is my birthday – so… Yeah. Not really blow out the candles and make a wish but kinda; it's part of the reason. I don't know what I'm supposed to do but I know why I'm here."

"Wow. Sends his friend to the Apocalypse for a birthday gift." Dean nodded mechanically, as if the motion helped his brain process the thought. "I don't wanna know what he does to his enemies."

"Well. For one, he doesn't help them break into Niveus." Crowley studied his manicured nails, not really interested in discussing the topic. "Or gives them their legs back." Absolutely not interested in discussing the topic.

"We have an eight hour drive ahead of us, and I'm gonna exorcise your ass if you don't shut up about Bobby's legs. He said thank you – what more do you want? You already got his soul!"

"In the worst thinkable way." Shirou grimaced inwardly. Alternate realities, fine, but what was wrong about good old blood and parchment for signing contra– "Oh that's why you gave him his legs." Shirou snickered around his cigarette substitute toothpick. When he caught Dean's confused look, he elaborated: "Hoping for another French kiss?" He sent a mean grin over the back of his seat. "Never would'a put bearded old hunters down as your type."

"Never would have put down a cocky smart-Alec as Samael's type. Oh, wait", Crowley smiled sweetly, "that's exactly his type."

The grin vanished from Shirou's lips. He had a good mind to put a blessed bullet in Crowley there and then, but – The Impala… Then Crowley's smirk grew even more satisfied with his reaction and you know what, The Impala had probably seen worse than a bullet hole in the upholstery.

"O-kay", Dean interrupted the glaring contest loudly, "I don't care what you two do in the bedroom as long as it stays in the bedroom. Focus, guys."

"The only thing I've done in Samael's bedroom is watch anime."

"With his libido? Please. It's a running joke in Hell that Samael rode Noah's ark, and we're not talking about the boat."

"Dude…!" Dean's face said everything.

"Did he?"

"Desecrate every species of animal named? Probably not, but you know him: gotta catch 'em all."

"No, I meant was he on the ark?" Shiro knew all about Samael's promiscuous orientation. But Noah's ark? He had been around that long? And he had been on it for what reason?

"Do I look eight thousand years old? Or do I look like a guy who would mock his superiors for banging anything that breathes?"

"How creative do you want me to get with what you look like?"

"I believe we just established that I'm a solid ten."

"What I'd like to know", Dean said loud enough to drown out anything Shirou might have responded, "is how an exorcist from the 70's, in another reality, knows that we even exist. Since you came here on special request and everything. How does that even work, unless Chuck's books somehow time travelled and… reality travelled."

"Timelines", Crowley said before Shirou had even a chance to open his mouth. "There's more timelines in the universe than either of us can ever hope to imagine. All different but containing more or less the same elements – like your average blockbuster movie. There's sure to be a Sam and Dean Winchester, in some form, in most of them."

"M-mh, what Samael said – sorta. With more words. Sam and Dean Winchester are characters in a series that runs in the Malak, a bi-monthly magazine the exorcist Order issues. It's what everybody talks about when they're fed up with writing mission reports. I think there's even a few illustrated comics with side stories, but they're released in the U.S. so I haven't been able to read them."

"Wait. Just wait." Dean left one hand on the wheel and used the other to halt any speech in the car while he struggled to put words on his new epiphany. "If we're some bi-monthly series in another dimension, does that mean books in our world could be real stories of real people in other dimensions?"

"Uh… I suppose?"

"Shit", Dean said profoundly to the windscreen. "I can never read Wolverine again. Or Deadpool. Or– Hey, what's the name? Our series in that newspaper, what's it called?"

"Supernatural."

"Aw come on! Even in an alternate reality? Why don't they ever come up with something cool, like Hellbeast Hunters? Or Fairy Fighters?"

"Excellent name", Crowley pitched in. "Doesn't make you think of a junior figure skating team at all."

"Luggage doesn't talk, alright?" Then a hearty chuckle broke through and lit up his whole face. "Wait wait, I know: Sanctified with Dynamite. That's the title of our series." Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel to some unheard rhythm, looking pleased with himself as he hummed a melody that sounded vaguely like "dy, dy, dynamite – hallelujah".

"Not Boobs, Bullets & Booze?"

"That's the director's cut, not the version they run in that exorcist magazine", he said with a knowing grin. "Alright but your series? If there were books about you, what would they be called?"

"Uuhhhh… Till the Next Goodbye, maybe."

"Oh man I'm glad you have the Stones in your reality, the 70's wouldn't have existed without– Hey. I know exactly what your series would be called." Dean turned his head and beamed at him with a childish delight that made Shirou want to burn the moment into his retina permanently. "I Kick Ass For The Lord."

"Uhh… I guess?"

The confused-but-agreeing look was not what Dean had expected. His beaming dimmed. Then he frowned: then he tossed an eye at Crowley.

"Dude what year did Braindead come out?"

"You're his brother, I expected you would know."

"You just got your eleventh dick, buddy." He returned his eyes to the road. "For the record I was hilarious right now. There's a movie called Braindead: whenever it comes to your reality you'll understand."

"Unless it's about something else entirely in my reality", he mused. "Like a junior figure skating team."

Dean chortled, and Shirou felt like he might have actually subverted the fuckup this time.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a demon was laughing himself to tears. It was not Crowley.

The miles rolled past beneath the wheels of the Winchesters' car, and the only thing the two nitwits in the front seemed to concern themselves with was fish stories and silly naming games. As if Samael – King of Mischief and Malintent – would use a deal of this magnitude to grant a blasted birthday wish.

There was more. In his bones, in his gut, in the shrivelled black core of his being, Crowley knew there was more.

It had been hours, but it might as well have been days, when they pulled the car over to a gas station a short distance from Galena. Between stretching his legs and resting his ears, Crowley made the terribly difficult choice to remain in the car. Let the hunters kick tires and talk engine performance.

The sickle might kill Death. It was a calculated guess because what else possibly could? Nonetheless, it was a guess. Samael had looked at that sickle like a dog looking at a broiler chicken: and Samael and Death went far back. So if Crowley had a feeling of nausea thrumming in the pit of his gut, well, it wasn't because he was carsick.

When an all-too-familiar howl pricked the hairs at the back of his neck, he realised it wasn't exclusively because of Samael's potential double-crossing either. And the hellhounds were close. Very close.

Dean and Stuart had time enough to freeze and turn their heads towards the sound before the hounds came barrelling through the treeline.

Twenty metres: Dean dropped the gas hose and lunged for the trunk.

Fifteen metres: Stuart had pulled his gun and fired as rapidly as the mechanism allowed.

Ten: Dean's shotgun rock salt only made them angrier.

Five: things were about to get messy, and Crowley had his preferred ways of dealing with messy things.

He teleported.

Crowley had been called a coward more times than he could count – which did nothing but prove how malicious tongues love spouting baseless insults. Crowley was a strategist, and as such he recognised that standing smack in the middle of battle was not a strategic thing to do. He'd rather sit a comfortable distance away and let someone else do the fighting for him – or, in this case, something else.

Finding a safe haven was harder than finding hair on eggs these days, if your name was Crowley and featured on a respectable number of Hell's wanted posters. Obtaining a hellhound had been one of the best decisions of his life, he reminded himself as he materialised in the ramshackle hovel that was his current hideaway.

"Here, boy!" He whistled, and was answered by the sound of claws against wooden floor and a heavy body bumping into furniture and door frames; size, no matter what humans told themselves, did matter. "Time to play."

Crowley suppressed a shudder when the beast came into view. Demons could see hellhounds: humans couldn't. That was one of the very few things Crowley envied them.

He reappeared at the gas station just in time to… see the last of the hellhounds felled by two large hounds he had never seen before. He knew what they were – oh yes. Every man and woman of Celtic descent had known what they were, centuries ago when Crowley had yet to be born and Fergus toiled through life as a mortal among mortals. They were creatures he had hoped yet not hoped to see, every Beltane when he glanced at the sky in case the bonfire light would catch the marvel of the Wild Hunt: the deathless huntsmen, and the ghostly, red-eyed hounds commanded by the gods of the underworld.

Crowley had never seen anything on Beltane. He had never seen anything that could explain what he saw now, when the hounds padded over to Stuart, white fur dripping with blood and red ears perched attentively.

Hounds waiting for the boy's command.

"Dismissed", was all Stuart said, and the creatures vanished in wisps of black smoke.

"You can control those things!?" The Winchester boy hung halfway inside and halfway outside the car, white as a sheet, and looked for all the world as though someone had picked him up and tossed him in like a manhandled rucksack.

"Only the ones I summon."

"Summon?! They're goddamn hellhounds!"

"It's just something we do in my dimension!" Stuart's face was pale and drawn, highlights of sweat catching the lamplight from the gas station. "It's – whadda-ya-call-it – familiar spirits!"

Familiar spirits. The Winchester boy truly had to be deaf, blind and bucket-headed to believe a human could bind the hounds of hell to servitude, in this or any other dimension. That simply wasn't done – and, Crowley had a prickling feeling that Stuart knew that, too. Summoning the hounds would account for the fatigue painted on his features: but not for the apprehensive tension in his voice.

Samael had found himself a remarkable toy indeed…

"Run along, boy. You know the way back", Crowley murmured to his own hound, and it took off through the landscape in leaps and bounds. Now, to break up this tedious shouting match...

"I was helping you! What did it look like I was doing?!"

"Witchcraft is what it looked like to me! I should'a known you were in cahoots with Crowley all along!"

There we go again, blaming everything on the demon... Crowley teleported, this time appearing between the two idiots suddenly enough to startle the both of them into stepping back.

"So", he clapped his hands together, "I ordered a burger and got a Happy Meal – and the surprise toy is", he buried his gaze in Stuart's, "a witch."

"I said I'm not a witch!"

"Aren't you?" Crowley teleported behind Stuart and snatched his wrist, forced it up for inspection and attempted to sound surprised. "This cut looks fresh. And look, there are scars from similar cuts in the same area."

"I summon familiar spirits." Stuart sounded like the pressure would crack his teeth any minute. "I'm an exorcist, it's part of my weapon arsenal."

"It's witchcraft." Golly, what did Samael teach his subjects these days? Crowley let go of his wrist. "Like any other weapon, it can be used in whichever way the wielder pleases; you use it to fight demons", he shot a glance at the Winchester, just to be sure his point got across. "Nonetheless, I think you owe us both an explanation as to why, of all things, you summon hellhounds."

For a rare moment, Crowley had Dean's agreement. He felt almost as tainted as when Singer was back up walking.

"Those things are death on four legs", he muttered. "And arguably the most terrible demons around that are still weak enough to be subdued. Pretty handy to have around when you're an exorcist."

Words, words, but no answers – the boy definitely sounded like an acquaintance of Samael's. Which was something Crowley, coincidentally, had been dying to ask.

"Your magic: did you purchase it from Samael?"

"My summoning? No. Born with it."

Crowley searched his face long and hard for any trace of anything hidden...

"I'll be damned – twice." Shoving his hands in his pockets, Crowley could but rock back on his heels and quirk the kind of semi-awkward smile a salesman wears when he tries to congratulate someone who has landed a better bargain than he has. "A Natural witch. Samael must have pissed himself with excitement. Well then." He turned around and attempted to head for the car in a carefree manner. "I'll have my usual suite, if you're filled up and ready for Chicago."

Shirou kicked himself mentally. Threw some punches, too, for good measure. The relaxed, comfy feeling from before was blown away like autumn leaves, and the sharp, frost-lined twigs of winter was a pretty good metaphor for the current atmosphere.

"Guess we should get to Chicago before the storm hits." He didn't dare more than a furtive glance at Dean: for all he knew he might be left right there on the curb.

"Get in."

Shirou absorbed the words like a whiplash. Closed his eyes. Held his breath. Opened them again.

"Fucking idiot..." He grabbed the handle to the back seat – he'd rather have Crowley's sass than a cold shoulder from someone he actually–

"Shotgun, kid." The door to the driver's seat was open, but Dean had yet to enter. "Where I can see you."

Shirou let go of the handle.

"Fucking idiot." He sank down in the front seat without looking at Dean. "I'm technically old enough to be your dad; can you stop calling me kid?"

"Can you stop being called a name I can't pronounce?"

"Try Stuart", the demon piped up from the back seat.

"Stuart…?"

"Stuart Little. Fits, doesn't it?"

Dean caught the reference, apparently: and apparently, Shirou's screw-up had shifted the balance so badly that Dean would even laugh at Crowley's jokes.

"Who the fuck is Stuart Little?"

"It's a–"

"Seriously?" Crowley levelled a deeply disappointed look at Dean. "I thought you were an older brother; teasing is part of the job description."

The Impala hummed to life, but it didn't immediately roll out of the gas station. Didn't immediately continue towards their destination, for that winter cold had filtered into Dean's fingers and kept them still.

"Things are a little different in this family." His hands clenched the wheel then relaxed, a spasm waking the muscles from whatever paralysis had struck them. "What about your folks?" he asked gruffly, as if speaking was another thing his muscles were reluctant to do. "They exorcists, too? Or witches."

"My parents are dead", he responded, feeling no desire to continue this conversation. "I have no siblings."

If anything could kill a conversation, it was talking about your dead parents: something Shirou trusted Dean knew, too.

The only sound in the car for the rest of the hours till Chicago was the radio playing music Shirou had never heard of.

A/N

For Miko1st, who wanted to know if Shiro can use his summons in this universe. ;)

This episode was named Two Minutes To Midnight in the show, which might have made my heart flutter briefly with the sentimental winds of youth. It only seemed fitting to name the chapter with another bit of lyrics from the same band.

Malak – Hebrew for angel, which means "messenger". (I am so imaginative. TvT)

Cwn Annwn/hellhounds – those who read The End of the Beginning know I pretty much equate the two, although the mythology around them differs on a few points. But I am definitely taking liberties when I speak of Crowley's past and Beltane. Beltane is one of the times of the year when fae and other supernatural creatures are thought to be most active. The Cwn Annwn varity of hellhounds that Shirou summons are a Welsh legend, which is associated with the Welsh equivalent of the Wild Hunt. I doubt that Crowley, as a Scotsman, would have the same idea of what the hounds of the Wild Hunt look like: usually they're black, and the red-and-white varity seems to be an exclusively Welsh thing.

Bladiblah – parallels between Supernatural and Blue Exorcist
Can we take a moment to imagine that Crowley adopted Mephisto's methods of screwing people over after a humiliating first-hand demonstration? After that breaking-into-Niveus episode I just couldn't stop thinking of how similar they are. And I am talking about canon Mephisto, even though Shirou's example obviously isn't canon. The way he played Izumo to get to the Illuminati was basically the same pattern Crowley used to get Brady!
"You and your sister are both alive and safe, the Illuminati base is destroyed, and we obtained valuable study samples of their research: what are you so upset about? It went like clockwork!"
"Not for me, you son of a bitch!"

Oh, yeah: when they finally capture Brady, and Dean is beaten within an inch of his life, all Crowley has to say about it is "That's what you get, working with demons." It begged to be thrown back in his face. This is another one off my Things To Do list.

As for the reason Crowley so kindly added that clause about Bobby's legs in the deal, it's just a dumb idea that got me snickering when I rewatched the episode. (And Crowley is so cute when Bobby says thanks and he's allergic to that much emotion.)