Candlelight
moonlustre

The reader receives a mysterious message from Crowley that takes her to a small hotel in the middle of nowhere—the place where they first met.

Smooth palms slid over the cherry wood mantelpiece as rain chilled the air outside, the droplets leaving a delicate pitter-patter against the windowpane only a few paces away to your left. It was hardly the New Year's Eve everyone had been hoping for—the drizzle thick enough to drench you to the bone in seconds, leaving you shivering within your skin as you hurried from the car to the hotel lobby only moments earlier. Candlelight decorated along bedside tables and dressers flooded the room with a glow of gold, and you would've felt almost regal if not for your dripping tresses and trembling knees. Yet the fireplace remained dry and unlit.

Your mind wandered to the burning text you'd received only an hour ago. You remembered the panicked urgency, the screeching of your tires as you swung your car around still vivid in your memory. You pressed your lips together in a thin line as you reread the string of words, short and precise, in your head, before your fingers fell from the wood to the black bag sat on the patterned bed sheets. Surely you had the right time, the right room? The sound of the zipper of your bag parting grated against your teeth, and you began your search for your phone—the little device as elusive as ever.

"Hello, love." Bent over, rustling through your belongings, you hadn't noticed the man dressed in black appear before you, and your heart leapt into your throat. Eyes big and scared as you lifted your head, alert at the presence, but your raised brows fell when the sight before you sank in.

Crowley was pressed against the magnolia walls, hunched over, his arm wrapped around his stomach and nursing his side. "What the hell happened?" Your voice shuddered, and the bag was forgotten as you leapt around the bed to Crowley's side. A million things ran through your head as your eyes danced along the demon's bloody figure.

"I think you mean 'what in hell happened,' darling," he stated with a pained but sarcastic smile. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth together.

You scoffed and laced your arm around his waist, careful to avoid the wound dripping into the plush, cream carpet before carrying him over to the bed. He smelled of whisky and sulphur, the scent filling your nose and almost overpowering the blood on his hands and clothes. Crowley pulled in a sharp breath as he sat down, the edge of the mattress dipping beneath your weight when you joined him, and his face scrunched, baring his teeth. This man—this demon—was still a mystery to you, despite your on-again-off-again relationship. He hid his flaws well beneath sarcasm and sass and Armani suits.

Crowley flashed you a suggestive look when you began to tug off the expensive jacket, his brow arched and his lips curled; the angle just right to hide the bulb of crimson blossoming in the corner of his mouth like a rose. "You know I like a woman who takes charge," he teased.

But you weren't in the mood for witty banter. While your love life (if you could call it that) was rocky, Crowley was still a good friend to you. Yet here he was, after leaving a message to meet him in a mid-range hotel, jesting as he bled on your favourite jeans. You hardened your gaze until you thought you were going to turn to stone.

"Hm, tough crowd." He rolled his shoulders and cocked his head as you shed him of his jacket, tossing it onto the floor without much care despite Crowley's reactions—acting as if you'd just thrown away a new born baby.

You rolled your eyes. "Oh hush, you can always get another. It's not like you buy them," you scorned, tangling your fingers around his tie to loosen the knot, and eventually throwing that on the ground as well. "I've got some supplies in the bag. Dental floss, vodka, that sort of thing," you rose up to pluck the bag from behind you, "take your shirt off while I get it all ready."

The demon said nothing, doing as he was told. It seemed you were the only one he obeyed without much protest. Why? You didn't know, and in moments like this, you couldn't say you cared. Instead, you ignored his grunts and winces to pull out a washcloth, half a bottle of vodka, a cracked box of needles and some dental floss from your bag, calmly arranging them along the bed like a surgeon preparing his tools. You'd done this too many times before, on yourself mostly, and a number of hunters you'd worked with over the years including the Winchesters... but never on Crowley (or any other demon for that matter).

The room was silent beyond the heavy splatter of muffled rain, making it easy to hear the weighted drop of a blood-soaked dress shirt falling to the floor. Slowly, you turned around, washcloth saturated in vodka and the view of Crowley's meat-suit before you, wide shoulders and hair-dusted chest bear. It was simple to gauge the size and depth of the wound now, and you frowned at the all-too-easily recognisable gash. You flicked your eyes up to Crowley, watching as he sank his teeth into his bottom lip in a slow motion that made you feel a little dizzy.

"Stop it." You dropped to your knees on the carpet, the feeling of damp jeans against your skin made you inwardly shudder. You etched closer to his side, leaving behind a little trail of crimson blotches, before applying the cloth to this gash with a pressure harder than necessary.

"Ff—ah!" Crowley flashed you a perturbed glance. "I see you're still angry."

"You know I'm still angry," you responded between clenched teeth to fight the urge to either lash out or cry.

"Yet you came when I called. I always did have that effect on you," he proclaimed with a grin. Your eyes remained fixed on the laceration but you could hear the jested pride in his voice, the glee that sparkled in his murky green eyes easy to envisage. But the statement rang true to you, despite his reference to something far more personal. And unwarranted. Why did you come? You were halfway to Utah, driving double above the speed limit for a case. But as soon as you read the words webbed together by Crowley's fingertips, you'd turned around without a second thought.

"Why here?" It was the closest you'd been to him in so long. Six months, was it? Eight? You couldn't recall. No wonder his actions, his voice and even his smell made you woozy. He was fine wine in a crystalline glass, and you a recovering drunk desperately pressed against the window of a high class bar. You looked up at him, longer than you had done since he arrived. His beard was longer than last time you met, speckled a little more with silvery strands. Dishevelled hair stuck out at all angles but was still the same you were used to. His eyes were the hardest to recognise. Tired, like they'd seen too much.

"No reason." His voice was gruff and hoarse, and your face hardened again.

"Last time you lied to me, I told you to get fucked, Crowley," you sharply threatened, and you pursed your lips together.

The demon laughed as best he could without aggravating his injury and brushed his hand along his jawline. "You did more than that, kitten."

"Well if you remember it so well then why do you carry on? Lie down." Satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, you lifted yourself up. The washcloth was discarded atop the messy pile of Crowley's clothes before you readied the sterilised needle and floss held daintily between your fingers.

Crowley had shifted to lie on his uninjured side, his head propped up by his hand, the mattress dipping beneath his elbow. A pert smile touched his lips. "Paint me like one of your French girls."

"I hate that movie," you blankly retorted, your nose crinkled in disgust.

You wasted no time tucking the needle beneath Crowley's skin, threading the laceration together with acute precision. The rain only swelled, battering heavily against the glass and creating trickling shadows along the walls.

"So an angel blade," you chimed with a forced smile, "and in Hell, no less. Do I even want to know the details?" Crowley peered at you like you'd gone mad, flicking between your hands tendering to his wound and your arched eyebrow, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of your lips. Answering his unasked question came naturally to you. "I've seen a lot of shit, Crowley. Figuring out that it was an angel blade that did this is easy."

He rolled his eyes and adjusted the angle of his head slightly, staring at the wall in front of him. "Abaddon's lot. Let's leave it at that, pet."

"And the text? You didn't send that because you were in trouble, did you?" He said nothing in return. "Come on. A nice hotel, New Year's Eve, candles... what the hell is this?"

You gave one final tug on the floss, tying it not too tightly into a knot and snapping off the needle with your teeth. Crowley pushed himself up to admire your work. It was clean, precise and almost even professional.

You were starting to lose your patience. You had a war of emotions battling within your head and your heart, your chest tight. You still couldn't decide whether you wanted to kick him or kiss him or push him out the window; to scream or cry. A part of you was angry at yourself for coming so readily when he called, like a dog to its own vomit; for cleaning him up so wilfully. But you missed him, missed his presence, his laugh, his wit.

You huffed. It was the only way you could breathe without the knot in your throat loosening, which would've only ended in you choking on your tears. "You're a demon, I get it. It's my own fault I fell for you; it was just sex after all. But what you did was low, even for you." Your voice was starting to break; your bottom lip quivered just enough to somehow make your eyes start to sting.

"I texted you to apologise," he murmured, barely audible in the thickening air. "I'm sure the Winchesters told you about their plans to close Hell's gates. Well their little venture gave me... time to think. I realised I owed you an apology."

His statement hit you like a kick in the gut and you started to tremble. The sheets beneath your palms suddenly felt rough like sandpaper, as though gold had turned to dust. Crowley hadn't moved, his back still facing you. It was like a weight had lifted itself from you and suddenly you felt as light as air. Never in your lifetime had you expected a demon to apologise, especially this one. Your eyes followed the freckles dotted along his skin like stars in the sky, creating your own little constellations in your mind. After placing the bloody needle still in your hands on the bedside table, cherry wood like everything else, you did something that took the two of you by surprise. Long fingers curled over Crowley's chilled shoulder as you closed the gap between you and the demon, the bed squeaking softly with the shifting weight, and gingerly you pressed your lips against his back.

"I can't forgive you." You rubbed your forehead against the place you'd kissed. "Not yet. But it's a start."

"I had intended on something a little more romantic. Hence the candles and the hotel—"

"The first place we met." The smile you gave was small but genuine. The thought warmed you more than the candles ever could. You shifted to rest your chin on Crowley's shoulder. "So if Abaddon's such a problem, why go back to Hell?"

"There was something I'd misplaced." He pushed his hand into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a spent bullet. The little bronze thing was tarnished and scratched, but easy for you to recognise as the bullets your own gun chewed through on a daily basis.

"Is that?"

"The first bullet you shot me with." A slight tinge of a smile grasped at his mouth.

You breathed out a laugh. "I thought you weren't sentimental?"

"I'm not."

You rolled your eyes, giving Crowley a hard, stern look. "What did I say about lying?"

Author's Notes
Written for the prompt 'kiss on the back'
for anonymous on tumblr. Had lots of fun writing this!
Inspired by 'Clean' by Taylor Swift and 'Morphine' by Lights.