moragmacpherson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moragmacpherson) wrote2010-11-06 01:49 pm
moragmacpherson) wrote2010-11-06 01:49 pm
Fic: The Catch (2/3, Hard R, Supernatural, Reverse Big Bang)
Master Post
Part Two
Dean woke up with his body restored more and more often. The demons weren't pulling their punches at all, but so long as he remembers the impermanence and unreality of his situation, Dean can roll with it. It isn't pleasant but none of it is any worse than what he'd gone through during his first tour of Hell and he'd survived that; he can survive this.
For all of the other demons' efforts, Dean dreads nothing else more than Meg walking into the room and announcing she has news. Over the next several months Castiel's forces, weakened by their own civil war, remained locked in holding position just outside the Gates of Fear and Blood and just inside of the Gates of Bone and Flesh. Meg gave him the details on the gorier sorties. He had to agree with her in wondering why the winged-idiots couldn't seem to stop dropping their special swords, which demons could, as it turned out, use while in Hell. Four angels - none of them Cas, she would have gloated about that for days - had given their lives. Dean took comfort in the fact that the tally of demon dead grew at a much faster rate, and that Meg's temper when he brought this up got shorter and shorter each time.
On a positive note, she never mentioned Lisa or Ben or Bobby. Dean knew that the first thing Sam would have done after he figured out what had happened to Dean would be to make sure that Lisa and Ben were safe; given that Castiel and Sam were down here, Sam obviously had taken them to Bobby's. Up there Dean had only been missing for around a day or so and it would take the demons far longer than that to get through all of the protections on the salvage yard. Bobby was a real bastard when it came to that sort of thing. For now, Dean didn't have to worry about them, which took a lot off of his mind, and the difference in the passing of time meant he didn't have to feel too guilty about how much they were worrying about him.
This left Dean plenty of time to worry about his brother. As Meg had said at the end of her last little update, "For someone who said he never wanted to be the General of Hell's armies, Sam's sure getting in a lot of practice." Dean knew he couldn't trust everything that Meg had to say, that she had no compunctions about lying or or telling him only those pieces of truth which would hurt Dean the most, but the other demons, even the hulking idiot ones, talked too, and the stories were terrifying in their consistency. The legend of the Boy King was growing along with the number of his legions. After four months or so, Sam was the apparent ruler of a quarter of the dimension, lesser-demons and even some prominent lords and ladies of the realm flocking to his banner or becoming his allies.
One night Anthony, a demon-flunky who'd painted Dean's skin with acid a few weeks before, appeared in his cell. "I'm leaving to join your brother's forces," he whispered.
"Huh?" Dean had been zoned out and tried to collect his thoughts as he sat up.
Anthony knelt in front of Dean, keeping his voice low. "The Boy King is going to win this war and I have no intention of being on the losing side." Anthony lowered his eyes. "I have no illusions about the Boy King's mercy, but you're still human. I can't get you out of here, I'm not powerful enough on my own, but if you agree not to demand revenge for what I did to you when this is all over, then I will pass along a message to your brother, sir." The title was added almost as an afterthought before the demon raised his gaze to look Dean in the face. Dean blinked. This was a trick, could be a trick, had to be a trick. Anthony's brow furrowed. "Please, you must be quick, sir - I must slip away soon, before the Queen of Spiders realizes my plan."
Dean shook his head. "No, no message: anything I have to say to Sam I'll say to him myself."
Anthony frowned as he rose. "Very well, sir."
Dean groaned. "Listen- just, if Sam asks, he doesn't need to know any details about what's happening to me in here. They haven't broken me yet." The demon nodded before disappearing and Dean lay back down on the bench. He had no idea what had just happened, but he was pretty sure he'd handled it as best he could. If Anthony really was headed to join up with Sam, then Sam didn't need to hear the gory details of what was going on here and Dean hadn't exactly promised Anthony anything. If, however, it was a trick of Meg's, and Dean allowed himself a tiny moment of hope that it was, then Dean hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. Dean never saw Anthony again: whether that meant he'd escaped to Sam or that he'd been caught by Meg or that it had all been a trick, Dean didn't know, and Meg never brought the topic up. Then again, plenty of demons had disappeared from the Citadel since Dean had arrived as the multiple fronts of war continued to take their toll.
All Dean knew was that shortly after that night, Meg began changing her tactics with him. The first shift was one Dean had been expecting. Dusty, the branding-iron demon, led Dean to the doorway of a chamber with two racks and a soul already strapped to one of them: a pretty young blonde with enormous blue eyes and even bigger- well, maybe implants made it to Hell along with the soul. "You have two choices," said Dusty, his pointed teeth glinting in the torchlight. "Either you will torture this soul, or you'll be put on the rack next to her while I get to work and whatever I do to you, she will experience with three times the intensity."
Dean peered back into the chamber and shrugged. "Two things. One: she's in Hell, she must have done something to get here, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll be torturing her. Second: you know as well as I do that with one wave of your hand all the physical damage is going to be wiped away." He crossed his arms and smiled at Dusty, whose nose wrinkled in anger. "So, option number one it is." Dean strode into the chamber and cut her and burned her and ignored her screams and didn't for one moment allow himself to show any remorse for his actions, didn't shed a single tear even in private when Haley's pleas for mercy echoed in his head. Hell had been honing his acting skills, and they didn't make him do it again. Which was fine by him: wounds healed but memories remained and they would linger long after he left this place.
The next change, however, threw him for a loop. A couple of weeks after he tortured Haley, Dean woke up to find his cell had changed. He was no longer surprised to find his body restored, but it was a little alarming to wake up on a bed with an actual mattress, under some not horrible-feeling blankets, to find that his cell now included pea-soup green carpet and a small bathroom with no door. Also, his chains were absent, though the door to the hall remained magically-sealed shut and the false window still flickered with hellfire.
Dean took the opportunity to pace barefoot around the room several times before he tried the faucets in the bathroom shower. They didn't start pouring out human blood, just warm water that smelled slightly of sulfur. He let them run for a few minutes and when no gory change in condition occurred, he looked around the room, stripped, and took a quick shower. There wasn't any soap or towels but if he scrubbed hard enough he was able to get the blood off of his skin by the time the sulfur stink became too much for him.
He darted out of the shower - never knew who might be watching in Hell, where privacy and dignity weren't privileges accorded to the damned - and used one of the blankets from the bed to dry off. As he pulled his t-shirt and the loose sweatpants back on, he realized that though they were still only thin cotton, they were of better quality than the clothes he normally found himself dressed in here. For the first time since he'd arrived here he was neither too cold nor too hot. Dean eased back onto the bed, watched the window, and waited for the shoe to drop.
A few hours later, the door opened and a demon he'd never seen before walked through it with a tray of food in hand. "What's going on?" Dean asked but the demon paid him no mind, just put the tray on the floor and walked out. Dean grunted, hefted himself off of the bed, and walked over to the tray. Before this they'd always just shoved some kind of gruel down his throat while he was on the rack. He prodded the lumpy stew with his finger - no utensils had been provided - and inhaled cautiously. Thanks to the many occasions Dusty had used his irons to take out his frustration on Dean, Dean could have easily identified the distinctive aroma of cooked human flesh - this wasn't. He raised the wooden bowl to his face and touched the end of his tongue to the gravy. It didn't taste like much other than salt and warm, but after a few minutes he hadn't collapsed in convulsions and if it was going to turn his stomach, at least now he had a toilet to sit on. He picked up the tray and brought it over to the bed where he ate it all, not ashamed to lick the bowl clean. The cup of water smelled a bit of sulfur but he held his nose and drank it down. He laid back when he was done and waited.
For two days nothing else happened. The same demon brought meals at irregular intervals that made it easy to lose track of time. He didn't respond to the questions Dean tossed at him, and Dean didn't wake up in the torture chambers once. He didn't trust it, but it felt as real as anything could in Hell - some kind of frequent flier bonus. 'And on your second stay, after seven months you'll be treated to an upgrade for your loyal damnation'. He was still bored, nothing to do but exercise and pace and sleep and watch the window between meals and showers, but it wasn't like the couple of times they'd tried putting him through sensory deprivation either. He didn't let himself get comfortable, because that was the only reason he could think of for these new accommodations: Meg was softening him up for something and he couldn't let his guard down.
He actually jumped on the third day when the door swung open and Meg walked through. She snorted at his response as she waved her hand to slam the door shut behind her. Dean caught himself grabbing at the blankets while she leveled her brown eyes at him. "Hello, Dean."
"Hello, Meg." He wasn't squirming but he sure as hell wasn't going to stand up for her. Instead he straightened his back against the wall.
"I see you've settled in." Dean fought the urge to kick the covers off of his legs when she added, "Practically burrowed in, from the looks of it."
Dean shrugged. "I've stayed in worse joints than this. Of course, the vermin are bigger here."
Meg pursed her lips. "Why, Dean, did you just call me vermin?"
"Sorry about that. Come to think of it, you have more in common with cockroaches." She rolled her eyes and he continued. "Fine, fine. You win. I have no idea what you're up to with this. What gives? You decide you like me or something, because it's a little late for that."
Meg shook her head. "I don't like this any more than I like you, but I'm afraid I don't have too many choices left." She tilted her head and sighed, staring at the window for a few seconds. "I've had to come to an understanding with the Boy King."
A chill ran down Dean's spine, the way it always did when she used that name for Sam. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" he breathed out before he could stop himself.
Meg looked down at her hands, picking under her nails. "It means that I've had to give in to some of his demands. One of which dictated how you were to be treated from now on." She bit her lips together. "You'll tell him, right? That I did this." She started speaking faster, spitting the words out. "That you got food and it wasn't poisoned or anything and everything else was fine: no more torture? Hell really doesn't get any better than this, you of all people should be able to say that."
Dean leaned forward and held up his hands. "What the fuck are you talking about? You're not fooling me for one goddamn second, Meg, I know you're not scared."
Meg's eyes flashed black and she shrieked at him, "I am never scared, Winchester!" Her fingers had curled into claws and her nails had lengthened. Dean braced himself as it looked like she was about to jump on him and rip his eyes out but she caught herself at the last moment, drew her hands down and smoothed them over her clothes. She tipped her head forward, staring at the ground. "Your brother will be here soon. You'll tell him that I did as he asked. Others have seen. Don't you lie to him, Dean: he'll know." With that final warning she jerked her arm and the door swung open allowing her to stalk out.
The door slammed shut and Dean was left alone with his very confused thoughts. He didn't dare to hope that she was telling the truth; he didn't let himself dread it either. There was nothing he could do until Sam arrived. Dean did catch himself pacing more frequently. He jumped the next few times that the nameless demon came by with the trays.
A week or so after Meg's outburst, after the exhaustion of constantly watching the door had caught up to him, Dean woke up when the door to his cell creaked open. He blinked a little as he tried to let his eyes adjust to the additional light before shielding them with his hand and groaning, "Sammy, that you?"
The figure stopped a few paces past the door that shut without him making a gesture. "Yeah, Dean, it's me." In the dim light Dean could see a tight smile on his brother's face as he shrugged out of his sweatshirt and dropped it to the ground.
Dean shot up to his feet and stomped across the room, still a bit groggy, and shoved his finger into the broad chest. "What the hell, man? You the Boy King now, because that's all I've been hearing about lately. What the fuck-" but Dean was cut off as he was grabbed by the throat and slammed up against the wall.
"Shut up, Dean." Sam's chest rose and fell against his own several times. He smelled of smoke and char. "It wasn't exactly a picnic getting in here, and we're not out of the woods yet." Sam's gloved hand fell from Dean's throat but before Dean could get another word in he felt himself being flung across the room by an unseen force and all the breath was knocked out of him as his gut pressed up into the edge of the bed and this was all happening too fast for him to keep up with and he felt his brother's weight press up behind him, pushing his face harder into the mattress and his knees apart, deeper into the rough pile of the carpet. "Gotta keep you safe, get what I came for. Gotta get this out of the way, Dean." He didn't stop jabbering as strong hands ripped the thin cotton of Dean's clothes off of his body and seized his flailing arms to stop his struggles, the heat pouring off of Sam's body keeping the chill away.
Dean kept shouting 'stop' into the mattress but the words were muffled by fabric that stank and tasted of sweat and the sulfur water Dean had been bathing in since it appeared. "It's the demons, Dean. They don't understand brotherhood or love. Just possession and control." Over his own protests Dean could hear the zip of a metal fly coming down and warm flesh rather than denim brushed against the back of his thighs while his heels lamely kicked into solid calves. "Told them not to touch you again, told them you were mine. And down here, you are so very mine." Dean heard a wet pop and then felt something he hadn't felt in ages, the sensation of slick, blunt fingers pressing into him, forcing themselves past resistant muscle. He bucked his whole body at that violation but couldn't push his brother's weight off, in fact pushed the digits in deeper and he couldn't fucking breathe to scream- "Stop that, Dean, relax. Things are different down here, the rules are different. I'm gonna change things now that I'm in control, but we gotta do this at least once." Despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Dean made himself relax, knew from his experiences with Alastair the damage that could be done if he didn't. He heard Sam's chuckle. "Much better, Dean." The fingers withdrew and something larger, hotter, pulsing with blood and need, pressed up in their place. Dean whimpered at the feeling of being split wide open, invaded. "That's it. Only gotta do it this once." Sam's voice choked off as he seated himself fully. "Course, if it doesn't completely suck, we can do it again," he grunted before he pulled out and thrust back in.
Dean took advantage of the next withdrawal to turn his head to the side, yelped at the in-stroke, but managed to gasp, "Aren't you worried about that thing I caught from the waitress in Dayton?" as teeth bit into the flesh where his neck met his shoulder.
He could feel hot breath huff against the back of his neck. "One of the perks of being the Boy King of Hell is immunity to that kind of thing."
Dean winced but now he could concentrate on saying, in an even voice, "I'll let Sam know about that. By the way, Meg, the waitress was in Tampa. Tap my shoulder when you're done back there so that I can go wash your filth off of my skin."
She stuttered to a halt, but it was still Sam's voice that replied, "Oh, you're good, Dean." She rocked back into him and he let her, no longer worth it to struggle now that he'd figured out the game. "Maybe even as good as you think you are," she whispered into his ear, and those were the last words she said.
Meg took her time finishing, didn't even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around, but he was long past caring by the time she tapped his shoulder, lay there limp until after he heard the door swing shut. His nose already full of the sulfur stink, he took his time in the shower, thankful that one of the few pleasures available in Hell was a seemingly endless supply of hot water. He wrapped himself in his towel-blanket and hobbled to the corner of the room furthest from the bed and the door where he slumped down and let sleep claim him.
When he woke up the bathroom, carpet, and bed were gone and his chains were back. At least they let him keep the blanket. Watching the flares of hellfire, he indulged himself briefly, let himself think about all the other things Meg had said about Sam that might be lies too, that maybe Sam really wasn't the Boy King at all. He didn't think about himself at any point; for now, he would remain nameless.
Crowley had managed to keep himself intact and relatively autonomous since the the Battle of Hastings - when his first taste of death had turned him off of the experience entirely - by cultivating an enormously complicated network of spies that allowed him to make informed decisions in almost any situation and, if the informed decision didn't work out, to deal his way out instead. He supplemented this one weapon by purging himself of all scruples, save for insisting that he survive every situation. Freed to maneuver, Crowley could then rely on his own clever, warped mind to find a way out any trap: physical, magical, or otherwise. Crowley didn't just inspire the Spanish Inquisition: he'd survived the bloody thing; Crowley could survive anything.
Even so, in his most private thoughts, Crowley had recently come to terms with the notion that he'd cocked this deal up royally.
"Evil. Fucking. Hell-bitch." The Boy King's skin had gone bone white. The courier swallowed and stepped back. Then the room fell into a moment of perfect still silence before the Boy King's head tipped back and he screamed "Fuck!"
It was a lovely, pitch-perfect note of wretched despair that rang through the room and Crowley took a moment to appreciate it before lunging across the table to grab any important papers and shove them safely into his case. Grand Vizier to the Boy King wasn't necessarily a bad position, unless your liege lord was in the mood to watch heads roll. And there one went. No great loss: a flunky who didn't wait until after breakfast to deliver the Citadel reports was obviously suicidal. Crowley didn't understand why Sam insisted on hearing every detail of Dean's torture even though the Boy King refused to press his petition to free Dean until he could do it at the head of Hell's Armies. If only Crowley could have laughed without being gutted - Sam's psychotic break was better than the Odd Couple: it was the greatest show in Hell.
His eyes flickered over to Sam, who'd managed to set his knife on the table without further casualties. Did he dare hope Sammy's masochist had beaten out the Boy King's sadist for once? Crowley was about to commend Sam's control when the Boy King's nostrils flared and the huff of air blew out every window in the room; shrieks from the courtyard marked each pane's razor-sharp landing. In this mood, the Boy King had no compunctions at all about playing ten-pins with a fresh head on every bowl.
The bastard kept rolling strikes, which was the only reason Crowley hadn't long since made himself scarce. Well, that and the fact that Sam had indicated that he found Crowley's head most useful right where it was - on his shoulders, in Sam's line of sight when possible. At the same time, the Boy King's explicit distrust and implicit threats counted among the highest marks of respect. Which was why Crowley didn't scramble for the door but grabbed the report away before Sam could read any more of it.
He perused the five page record - more detail than normal for this particular incident and Crowley really needed to send them new directives limiting this kind of thing - flipping past the point where Sam had cut off their late-courier. Oh. He'd have to burn this spy as soon as possible: with descriptions like this he was never going to be rid of that mental image. Nasty business. He coughed and shook his head, tucking the report away. Cruel, twisted, and simple, but still: he'd been expecting something a bit more from the Queen of Spiders after three weeks of nothing. The packet also included follow-up reports of the aftermath; so far as Crowley could tell, after the rape Dean remained essentially Dean, if a bit quieter. Which would be a nice change.
He looked up at the Boy King, and the dagger he kept flipping in the air. Then next demon to walk past the door wouldn't live to regret it. Crowley couldn't help but feel that he was missing something. "Pardon me if I sound a bit callous, but exactly how is this crossing the line? Three months ago she kept him conscious for two hours while she reassembled his digestive tract on the table next to him."
The Boy King's fist was halfway to Crowley's jaw when it abruptly changed course and slammed against the table, sending plates and flatware shaking into the air. Crowley bit his lips together. Okay, perhaps not the most tactful reply he'd ever thought of; tact had never been his strong suit and human attitudes about sex hadn't made sense to him since before Victoria's reign in England. Pillage, rape; rape, pillage: it was all a bit 'to-may-to, to-mah-to', wasn't it? Then again, this was why Crowley had signed on for deal-making rather than the torture chambers - his knack lay in manipulating people with their short-sighted dreams, not their equally short-sighted nightmares. Watching Sam crumple in on himself, Crowley reminded himself to give nightmares their due credit. And then he tried to figure out how the hell he'd gotten here in the first place.
Back on Earth it hadn't been a horrible plan to start: he would play Virgil to Sam's Dante, assess the damage caused by the Queen of Spiders, and check out the new pups at the kennel. Given the chance, he'd pit a few ancient rivals against each other so that they'd take out the last vestiges of Azazel's old cadre and Crowley wouldn't have to. If he was lucky, he'd build up a little more power down in the Pit and solidify his primary position on Earth, which Crowley much preferred to Hell. Hell was miserable.
Unfortunately, misery was the Winchesters' natural habitat. So while Crowley tried to arrange a quick, stealthy rescue plan simple enough to withstand Winchester luck and general idiocy, Sam took on a grandiose title and decided that Dean could just sit tight on the rack while Sam started the revolution without him. Foresight, recognition of a world outside of their tiny, dysfunctional circle, and hints of a subtle, well-reasoned long-term strategy from a Winchester? When his brother was in immediate and ongoing peril? Surely no one could blame Crowley for being blindsided by this turn of events.
But he adjusted to his role as Grand Vizier to Hell's new Boy King as best he could. While shifting his plans to include the Boy King's conquest of Hell, Crowley realized he'd been a little too free with sharing information with Sam early on; had let it slip he had connections and informants, anticipating that the customary Winchester-thickness would filter out ninety-nine percent of the most relevant information before it made it past his ear drums. The Boy King, however, didn't just hear, he listened - and the prick was too bloody clever by half. Dangled the carrot of power just right so that by the time Crowley realized the threat there was no exit left. The Boy King depended on Crowley's information to win this war; Crowley depended on the Boy King's mercy to not kill him on a whim. One of those conditions was finite and the other one didn't exist, which gave Crowley some tight time constraints, but he usually did well under deadlines.
Further research, however, only made the outlook worse: Azazel's gift to Sam - the title of 'Boy King' - was one of the few royal titles in Hell that wasn't just self-styled grandstanding, but an ancient mantle which granted the bearer extensive powers and abilities. The situation became unbearable when Crowley failed to uncover the exact extent or ultimate source of those powers. Once again Crowley was well and truly buggered by Azazel's schemes. He might have felt a brief pang of sympathy for the Winchesters- but no, that was just an extra strong frisson of 'fuck me, I'm still in Hell,' where the title of 'Boy King' had remained vacant since Azazel killed the last one way back in the ziggurat days, long before Crowley's time. This consigned it to demonic legend and oral memory, which was only slightly more reliable than demonic written lore (where the authors had time to think their lies all the way through), which was to say: not at all. Crowley could only speculate that Azazel had won the title as death right, but that begged the question of why Azazel never assumed it himself. Most likely Azazel had entrusted an heir or two with the secret. This would be more helpful if Azazel's scions weren't all (with the possible exception of Sam) actively engaged in trying to kill Crowley. Thwarted at every turn, Crowley only remaining source of information was surreptitious observation of his taciturn, increasingly cruel and capricious liege lord.
And that honorific was never going to sound natural.
Sam shot to his feet and broke Crowley out of his reverie. He waved his arms around in a circle, paced twice across the room, before settling down to stare at the Citadel. They were deep in the heartlands, in the highest tower of one of Beleth's keeps, but the Citadel wasn't much more a grey smudge on the horizon. Sam rocked back and forth on his heels and elbows. Crowley could wait. "It's different," Sam said finally, sounding like he was dry heaving the words out. "She's using me against him."
Crowley controlled the urge to ask what else was new and waited for Sam to provide an actual explanation but the Boy King said nothing else while he stared outside. Gloved hands clutched the window frame hard enough to warp the stone under his fingers. Crowley's twitched at the sight: ever since they'd arrived in Hell the bastard never went anywhere without wearing the bloody things. They made him nervous: the minor, visible change that heralded all the others.
"What's with the poncy gloves anyway? Decide the hair doesn't make you look enough of a fop?" he had asked Sam with the casual sarcasm he could sometimes use as late as seven months ago. That had started as a good day: the Boy King had just accepted Marquis Decarabia's unconditional surrender on the fringe of the Latini Desert.
Sam had shrugged, drowsy and a little drunk, then drawn a circle in the air with his finger and replied, "Everything down here feels slimy to me."
Back then, Crowley had taken the 'slimy' dig personally, had spat on the ground to call bullshit: in the Latini Desert, any free moisture magically evaporated in seconds. "Is that right?"
Sam had sobered at that and looked down at his reports instead of answering. "So what else have you discovered about this angel-slaying Marquis?" Eventually one of Decarabia's minions spilled his guts - and along with them the fact that Decarabia had also been the demon personally responsible for subduing Dean for Meg. Then the Boy King called a special assembly so that he could slice open Decarabia's veins and let the demon feel his own blood boil away as he died. Which was fair enough, but then the Boy King selected and slaughtered thirty of Decarabia's former vassals at random - one for every day Dean had suffered. It had been early days yet and Crowley had still been surprised by the Boy King's casual acts of cruelty then.
The Boy King always insisted on a soothing bath after a good massacre, and that night, slumped over a sofa in Sam's room in his semi-conscious drunken haze, Crowley discovered that Sam removed the gloves before he stepped in the bath. Crowley had made a point of spying on bare-handed Sam at least once every few weeks to make sure nothing had changed, but the gloves never hid a damn thing other than knuckles, which weren't even embarrassingly hairy or horrifically scarred. It had been a bit of a disappointment, but secrets and lies - and especially secret lies - had their own currency. Crowley personally guarded Sam's bath chambers thereafter.
Sam had been a bit concerned at first. "This new habit of yours is both intrusive and creepy."
"Don't care," replied Crowley with a shrug. "Sacrifices must be made," he said as he stretched out on the sofa. "Half of Hell already thinks we're fucking anyway," he added and that at least had gotten Sam to start dressing himself with the bloody doors shut, much to Crowley's relief. Now Crowley was certain he was the only one who ever had the opportunity to peek under those gloves.
Crowley's patience in both protecting and trying to understand the ruse had culminated during treaty negotiations last week. Princess Plata of the Poison Tongue, mistress of one hundred and ten legions, had pulled Crowley aside. "It appears the Boy King En-fleshed is more powerful than even we had anticipated."
Crowley waved a hand. "He's had a decent run of luck."
"And some good advice," said the Princess. "Which so often goes unappreciated."
Crowley flashed his teeth in almost a smile. "Cagey demon like you, only a fool wouldn't pay attention to your words. I bet even old Modo himself pays you mind," and her alone, according to very reliable informants.
Plata folded her hands together. "Sometimes. Of course, Modo has not roused since Azazel's coup."
The King of the Crossroads had very precise, mind-boggling figures on how quickly Modo converted souls to demons. It seemed five thousand centuries in semi-retirement had only made the King of the Nine Hells meaner and more powerful. Crowley tried to keep his slight case of hero worship under control. "If he wants vengeance on Azazel's house he's going to have to hurry along before my lord finishes them off." Azazel's last remaining scions hadn't left the Citadel in weeks, since the Boy King sent Meg a fine gift of twenty chalices, all matched skulls from demons Azazel brought over. He'd done it all despite Crowley's protests that some of them were deft hands in the torture chamber and demons didn't just grow on trees these days, you know. Unless, apparently, you were Modo.
"They have a number of shared interests. Modo commends your lord's youthful enthusiasm and views on Lucifer." Princess Plata slanted her eyes from side to side. "Should I be able to confirm to Modo that Winchester's touch alone can cause a greater demon's final death - had you not supplied the spelled-gloves - and also that Winchester will never again consent to Lucifer, then Modo could be persuaded to involve himself." Plata nodded, looking at a point past Crowley's shoulder and Crowley turned to see the Boy King reply by tipping his head to the side. He turned back as the Princess sighed with an unattractive grimace. "And you, Crossroads King, will remember how receptive we are to sound advice, should your liege grow deaf in his meatsuit's age."
That was the prize: the escape route that Crowley had lacked since the Boy King's arrival. Always had to think two wars ahead in Hell, and a bird in the bush was better than none at all when your boss was a quasi-schizophrenic, emotionally unstable demi-god. If nothing else, Modo's inevitable betrayal should distract the Boy King long enough for Crowley to make it back to Earth. Where he could nap for a decade or so while things settled out down here.
A few vague non-denials had been sufficient to make Poison Tongue grant every other concession that the Boy King requested and then gift Crowley personally with ten legions, five thousand souls, and the deed to a minor property in the Wastes. All this, and the grand old royalty of Hell had been enticed to offer it by a version of the gloves rumor that was restrained compared to most of the other stories circulating.
Crowley had been quite pleased with his maneuvering, right up until the moment Plata had leaned across the table to whisper her true name's pledge, Amaymom, into the Boy King's ear. Cupping his right hand over her eyes, Sam had caught Crowley's gaze, smirked, and slid the tip of his left index finger down the side of his nose. An unmistakable grifter sign indicating... well, that was the trick, wasn't it? Crowley still had no bloody clue what Sam had meant. But it hadn't taken him long after that to realize that Sam might have been pushing him in this very direction all along. And Crowley was now complicit in the scheme and still didn't have an exit plan and the realization that Sam had somehow manipulated him disturbed Crowley on more levels than he liked to admit. Falling for another one of the Boy King's schemes would have been one thing, but that gesture had been pure Sam Winchester.
Unless Crowley was the one hallucinating, cracked under the pressure. No one else ever noticed Sam any more, everyone else just saw the Boy King. No, Crowley was certain about this, could tell them apart from across the room even in dim light.
Grand Vizier Crowley would have been far happier if Sam Winchester were his liege lord. Crowley preferred his liege lords some combination of absent, impotent, indolent, or thick, and the Boy King was none of the above. Everything had gone wrong once he'd shown up, for Sam and Crowley both. After crushing the Mountains of Dis, Sam Winchester should have marched straight to the Citadel all on his own and without so much as a fare thee well. He would have discovered that the reality of Hell grew less malleable as it approached the Citadel, rendering his powers far weaker at the vital moment only when it was far too late. Sam Winchester should have gotten himself captured and more likely than not have guaranteed his brother's eternal damnation rather than reignite the apocalypse. It wasn't a Winchester plan if the victory wasn't Pyrrhic.
A Winchester would have never returned to Malphas' dining room for a glass of sherry and then spent the rest of the night drafting letters to potential allies while his brother remained their insane nemesis' captive. But that's what the Boy King had done - he'd called the peers of Hell to court, and the peers of Hell had listened. They pledged their names to the Boy King's banner. And that sort of power - well, it made vaporizing mountain ranges look like a cheap party trick. By the time the court had closed, two months later, Crowley was no closer to understanding the Boy King, but had developed a healthy fear of his power.
His charisma alone could destroy worlds. The very best demons were cynical, vindictive, violent, treacherous, avaricious, intractable, calculating bastards; Crowley happily included himself in their ranks. The bad were even more violent and more stubborn, but also cowardly, stupid, and superstitious, while the worst were simply stark raving loony like Meg. As a rule, demons didn't play well with others. Add extended life-spans to the mix and as a result, with the exception of Malphas and Halphas, every surviving lord and lady of Hell had allied with and subsequently betrayed every single other lord or lady at least twice. Uniting any significant number of them should have taken decades even with Hell's depleted population. But a mere eight months after his arrival, the Boy King controlled more than half of the territory and nearly half of the demonic population in Hell. For every minion he slaughtered at breakfast, two replacements would appear by the afternoon. Even six months ago, Crowley would have called this balancing act of persuasion by terror and charisma impossible - but he witnessed everything from his position of relative immunity at the Boy King's left hand.
That same hand now pointed at the Citadel, trembling with emotion. "She was warned," he growled, an eerie combination of Sam's words and the Boy King's intonation, referring to the idiotic compromise they'd reached two months back. Unable to either accelerate the Boy King's plan or convince their demonic allies to fight alongside angels, Sam had sent Meg that ridiculous message full of threats and demands for Dean's treatment. It had been a tactical error on every level and Crowley had known it. But he'd allowed it because Sam needed something and he'd take Sam Winchester as his boss over the Boy King every damn day for the rest of eternity.
"Told her not to touch him, not to hurt him. She's got no idea..."
Crowley blinked: they hardly ever spoke in concert more than a sentence at a time. He still didn't understand the line, but Meg had evidently crossed it. An odd light sparked in his eyes and Crowley held his breath until Sam shuddered, his shoulders racking up and down as he collapsed into sobs.
This definitely wasn't in Crowley's job description. He took a few steps backwards and leaned against the wall, folding his hands behind him and waiting for Sam to finish weeping. This was just plain uncomfortable is what it was. After a minute he returned to the table and pulled the papers out of his case. If Sam was going to keep carrying on then someone had to keep the wheels in motion, and there were a number of offers on the table from fence-straddling peers which needed prompt replies if they weren't going to flip to Meg's side.
Eventually Sam's snuffles petered off and Crowley looked up. Look on his snot bubbles, ye mighty, and despair. He looked back at the papers but offered Sam a napkin so that he could clean up before anyone else got a look at that mess. His eyes rolled at the cartoon-ish nose blowing behind him but managed to compose himself by the time that Sam rejoined him at the table. Best not to dwell on that last bit. "Right then, so I think we should meet with-"
The Boy King wiped his hand across his face. "No, no more meetings."
Crowley frowned. "But-"
"No. This needs to stop. I can't leave him there any longer," said the Boy King, that peculiar glimmer back in his eye.
Crowley cleared his throat. "You had just said that we needed-" and now that glove was wrapping around Crowley's throat.
"What,” and he shook Crowley's head for emphasis with every word, “I said before doesn’t matter." The Boy King dropped Crowley back into his seat but Crowley overbalanced and fell to the ground. His liege lord loomed over him. "Things are different now." The Boy King grabbed Crowley by the collar and pulled him to his feet with one hand, while grabbing a map from the other side of the table. "You will send word to our allies that they are to assemble their legions here," and here he shoved Crowley's head down so that his nose pressed into the rallying point, "on the shores of Lake Cocytus, within three days time. I will not tolerate any excuses or equivocations. The time for games has ended."
He released his grip and Crowley stumbled backwards. He steadied himself, tried to regain a semblance of control. "They'll want more time than that."
"They can't have it. Tardy parties will be summoned by name and put on the front lines without their legions to protect them." The Boy King gave a mirthless laugh that made Crowley's stomach turn over. "And afterwards they'd better hope I'm feeling merciful." The Boy King arched his eyebrows, daring Crowley to challenge him.
Crowley still had some spine. "If we do this now-" but cut himself off as the Boy King's dagger levitated off of the table and flew into his face, stopping millimeters away from his eye. Crowley swallowed and watched the blade rotate in space.
"This is happening now." His voice lowered. "And before you say another word, understand that after this battle, you'll be the last demon left in Hell whose name I don't know. Which means you're about to be a lot more expendable. Don't you want to be on my good side?" Crowley didn't trust himself to say anything, just gave a tiny nod of assent. "Good. Make it happen. I'll go inform our host that we'll be leaving immediately." And with that, the Boy King strode out of the room.
Crowley stared after him for a short while afterwards, then straightened and went to go file the dispatches. Time, it seemed, had caught up to him. But that was no matter. There would be hundreds of them going out and plenty of confusion as the entire castle prepared to head to war. No one but the Boy King would question his decision to deliver the orders to Plata and Modo personally - and he wouldn't know Crowley had gone until it was too late.
Part Three
Master Post
Part Two
Dean woke up with his body restored more and more often. The demons weren't pulling their punches at all, but so long as he remembers the impermanence and unreality of his situation, Dean can roll with it. It isn't pleasant but none of it is any worse than what he'd gone through during his first tour of Hell and he'd survived that; he can survive this.
For all of the other demons' efforts, Dean dreads nothing else more than Meg walking into the room and announcing she has news. Over the next several months Castiel's forces, weakened by their own civil war, remained locked in holding position just outside the Gates of Fear and Blood and just inside of the Gates of Bone and Flesh. Meg gave him the details on the gorier sorties. He had to agree with her in wondering why the winged-idiots couldn't seem to stop dropping their special swords, which demons could, as it turned out, use while in Hell. Four angels - none of them Cas, she would have gloated about that for days - had given their lives. Dean took comfort in the fact that the tally of demon dead grew at a much faster rate, and that Meg's temper when he brought this up got shorter and shorter each time.
On a positive note, she never mentioned Lisa or Ben or Bobby. Dean knew that the first thing Sam would have done after he figured out what had happened to Dean would be to make sure that Lisa and Ben were safe; given that Castiel and Sam were down here, Sam obviously had taken them to Bobby's. Up there Dean had only been missing for around a day or so and it would take the demons far longer than that to get through all of the protections on the salvage yard. Bobby was a real bastard when it came to that sort of thing. For now, Dean didn't have to worry about them, which took a lot off of his mind, and the difference in the passing of time meant he didn't have to feel too guilty about how much they were worrying about him.
This left Dean plenty of time to worry about his brother. As Meg had said at the end of her last little update, "For someone who said he never wanted to be the General of Hell's armies, Sam's sure getting in a lot of practice." Dean knew he couldn't trust everything that Meg had to say, that she had no compunctions about lying or or telling him only those pieces of truth which would hurt Dean the most, but the other demons, even the hulking idiot ones, talked too, and the stories were terrifying in their consistency. The legend of the Boy King was growing along with the number of his legions. After four months or so, Sam was the apparent ruler of a quarter of the dimension, lesser-demons and even some prominent lords and ladies of the realm flocking to his banner or becoming his allies.
One night Anthony, a demon-flunky who'd painted Dean's skin with acid a few weeks before, appeared in his cell. "I'm leaving to join your brother's forces," he whispered.
"Huh?" Dean had been zoned out and tried to collect his thoughts as he sat up.
Anthony knelt in front of Dean, keeping his voice low. "The Boy King is going to win this war and I have no intention of being on the losing side." Anthony lowered his eyes. "I have no illusions about the Boy King's mercy, but you're still human. I can't get you out of here, I'm not powerful enough on my own, but if you agree not to demand revenge for what I did to you when this is all over, then I will pass along a message to your brother, sir." The title was added almost as an afterthought before the demon raised his gaze to look Dean in the face. Dean blinked. This was a trick, could be a trick, had to be a trick. Anthony's brow furrowed. "Please, you must be quick, sir - I must slip away soon, before the Queen of Spiders realizes my plan."
Dean shook his head. "No, no message: anything I have to say to Sam I'll say to him myself."
Anthony frowned as he rose. "Very well, sir."
Dean groaned. "Listen- just, if Sam asks, he doesn't need to know any details about what's happening to me in here. They haven't broken me yet." The demon nodded before disappearing and Dean lay back down on the bench. He had no idea what had just happened, but he was pretty sure he'd handled it as best he could. If Anthony really was headed to join up with Sam, then Sam didn't need to hear the gory details of what was going on here and Dean hadn't exactly promised Anthony anything. If, however, it was a trick of Meg's, and Dean allowed himself a tiny moment of hope that it was, then Dean hadn't told her anything she didn't already know. Dean never saw Anthony again: whether that meant he'd escaped to Sam or that he'd been caught by Meg or that it had all been a trick, Dean didn't know, and Meg never brought the topic up. Then again, plenty of demons had disappeared from the Citadel since Dean had arrived as the multiple fronts of war continued to take their toll.
All Dean knew was that shortly after that night, Meg began changing her tactics with him. The first shift was one Dean had been expecting. Dusty, the branding-iron demon, led Dean to the doorway of a chamber with two racks and a soul already strapped to one of them: a pretty young blonde with enormous blue eyes and even bigger- well, maybe implants made it to Hell along with the soul. "You have two choices," said Dusty, his pointed teeth glinting in the torchlight. "Either you will torture this soul, or you'll be put on the rack next to her while I get to work and whatever I do to you, she will experience with three times the intensity."
Dean peered back into the chamber and shrugged. "Two things. One: she's in Hell, she must have done something to get here, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll be torturing her. Second: you know as well as I do that with one wave of your hand all the physical damage is going to be wiped away." He crossed his arms and smiled at Dusty, whose nose wrinkled in anger. "So, option number one it is." Dean strode into the chamber and cut her and burned her and ignored her screams and didn't for one moment allow himself to show any remorse for his actions, didn't shed a single tear even in private when Haley's pleas for mercy echoed in his head. Hell had been honing his acting skills, and they didn't make him do it again. Which was fine by him: wounds healed but memories remained and they would linger long after he left this place.
The next change, however, threw him for a loop. A couple of weeks after he tortured Haley, Dean woke up to find his cell had changed. He was no longer surprised to find his body restored, but it was a little alarming to wake up on a bed with an actual mattress, under some not horrible-feeling blankets, to find that his cell now included pea-soup green carpet and a small bathroom with no door. Also, his chains were absent, though the door to the hall remained magically-sealed shut and the false window still flickered with hellfire.
Dean took the opportunity to pace barefoot around the room several times before he tried the faucets in the bathroom shower. They didn't start pouring out human blood, just warm water that smelled slightly of sulfur. He let them run for a few minutes and when no gory change in condition occurred, he looked around the room, stripped, and took a quick shower. There wasn't any soap or towels but if he scrubbed hard enough he was able to get the blood off of his skin by the time the sulfur stink became too much for him.
He darted out of the shower - never knew who might be watching in Hell, where privacy and dignity weren't privileges accorded to the damned - and used one of the blankets from the bed to dry off. As he pulled his t-shirt and the loose sweatpants back on, he realized that though they were still only thin cotton, they were of better quality than the clothes he normally found himself dressed in here. For the first time since he'd arrived here he was neither too cold nor too hot. Dean eased back onto the bed, watched the window, and waited for the shoe to drop.
A few hours later, the door opened and a demon he'd never seen before walked through it with a tray of food in hand. "What's going on?" Dean asked but the demon paid him no mind, just put the tray on the floor and walked out. Dean grunted, hefted himself off of the bed, and walked over to the tray. Before this they'd always just shoved some kind of gruel down his throat while he was on the rack. He prodded the lumpy stew with his finger - no utensils had been provided - and inhaled cautiously. Thanks to the many occasions Dusty had used his irons to take out his frustration on Dean, Dean could have easily identified the distinctive aroma of cooked human flesh - this wasn't. He raised the wooden bowl to his face and touched the end of his tongue to the gravy. It didn't taste like much other than salt and warm, but after a few minutes he hadn't collapsed in convulsions and if it was going to turn his stomach, at least now he had a toilet to sit on. He picked up the tray and brought it over to the bed where he ate it all, not ashamed to lick the bowl clean. The cup of water smelled a bit of sulfur but he held his nose and drank it down. He laid back when he was done and waited.
For two days nothing else happened. The same demon brought meals at irregular intervals that made it easy to lose track of time. He didn't respond to the questions Dean tossed at him, and Dean didn't wake up in the torture chambers once. He didn't trust it, but it felt as real as anything could in Hell - some kind of frequent flier bonus. 'And on your second stay, after seven months you'll be treated to an upgrade for your loyal damnation'. He was still bored, nothing to do but exercise and pace and sleep and watch the window between meals and showers, but it wasn't like the couple of times they'd tried putting him through sensory deprivation either. He didn't let himself get comfortable, because that was the only reason he could think of for these new accommodations: Meg was softening him up for something and he couldn't let his guard down.
He actually jumped on the third day when the door swung open and Meg walked through. She snorted at his response as she waved her hand to slam the door shut behind her. Dean caught himself grabbing at the blankets while she leveled her brown eyes at him. "Hello, Dean."
"Hello, Meg." He wasn't squirming but he sure as hell wasn't going to stand up for her. Instead he straightened his back against the wall.
"I see you've settled in." Dean fought the urge to kick the covers off of his legs when she added, "Practically burrowed in, from the looks of it."
Dean shrugged. "I've stayed in worse joints than this. Of course, the vermin are bigger here."
Meg pursed her lips. "Why, Dean, did you just call me vermin?"
"Sorry about that. Come to think of it, you have more in common with cockroaches." She rolled her eyes and he continued. "Fine, fine. You win. I have no idea what you're up to with this. What gives? You decide you like me or something, because it's a little late for that."
Meg shook her head. "I don't like this any more than I like you, but I'm afraid I don't have too many choices left." She tilted her head and sighed, staring at the window for a few seconds. "I've had to come to an understanding with the Boy King."
A chill ran down Dean's spine, the way it always did when she used that name for Sam. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" he breathed out before he could stop himself.
Meg looked down at her hands, picking under her nails. "It means that I've had to give in to some of his demands. One of which dictated how you were to be treated from now on." She bit her lips together. "You'll tell him, right? That I did this." She started speaking faster, spitting the words out. "That you got food and it wasn't poisoned or anything and everything else was fine: no more torture? Hell really doesn't get any better than this, you of all people should be able to say that."
Dean leaned forward and held up his hands. "What the fuck are you talking about? You're not fooling me for one goddamn second, Meg, I know you're not scared."
Meg's eyes flashed black and she shrieked at him, "I am never scared, Winchester!" Her fingers had curled into claws and her nails had lengthened. Dean braced himself as it looked like she was about to jump on him and rip his eyes out but she caught herself at the last moment, drew her hands down and smoothed them over her clothes. She tipped her head forward, staring at the ground. "Your brother will be here soon. You'll tell him that I did as he asked. Others have seen. Don't you lie to him, Dean: he'll know." With that final warning she jerked her arm and the door swung open allowing her to stalk out.
The door slammed shut and Dean was left alone with his very confused thoughts. He didn't dare to hope that she was telling the truth; he didn't let himself dread it either. There was nothing he could do until Sam arrived. Dean did catch himself pacing more frequently. He jumped the next few times that the nameless demon came by with the trays.
A week or so after Meg's outburst, after the exhaustion of constantly watching the door had caught up to him, Dean woke up when the door to his cell creaked open. He blinked a little as he tried to let his eyes adjust to the additional light before shielding them with his hand and groaning, "Sammy, that you?"
The figure stopped a few paces past the door that shut without him making a gesture. "Yeah, Dean, it's me." In the dim light Dean could see a tight smile on his brother's face as he shrugged out of his sweatshirt and dropped it to the ground.
Dean shot up to his feet and stomped across the room, still a bit groggy, and shoved his finger into the broad chest. "What the hell, man? You the Boy King now, because that's all I've been hearing about lately. What the fuck-" but Dean was cut off as he was grabbed by the throat and slammed up against the wall.
"Shut up, Dean." Sam's chest rose and fell against his own several times. He smelled of smoke and char. "It wasn't exactly a picnic getting in here, and we're not out of the woods yet." Sam's gloved hand fell from Dean's throat but before Dean could get another word in he felt himself being flung across the room by an unseen force and all the breath was knocked out of him as his gut pressed up into the edge of the bed and this was all happening too fast for him to keep up with and he felt his brother's weight press up behind him, pushing his face harder into the mattress and his knees apart, deeper into the rough pile of the carpet. "Gotta keep you safe, get what I came for. Gotta get this out of the way, Dean." He didn't stop jabbering as strong hands ripped the thin cotton of Dean's clothes off of his body and seized his flailing arms to stop his struggles, the heat pouring off of Sam's body keeping the chill away.
Dean kept shouting 'stop' into the mattress but the words were muffled by fabric that stank and tasted of sweat and the sulfur water Dean had been bathing in since it appeared. "It's the demons, Dean. They don't understand brotherhood or love. Just possession and control." Over his own protests Dean could hear the zip of a metal fly coming down and warm flesh rather than denim brushed against the back of his thighs while his heels lamely kicked into solid calves. "Told them not to touch you again, told them you were mine. And down here, you are so very mine." Dean heard a wet pop and then felt something he hadn't felt in ages, the sensation of slick, blunt fingers pressing into him, forcing themselves past resistant muscle. He bucked his whole body at that violation but couldn't push his brother's weight off, in fact pushed the digits in deeper and he couldn't fucking breathe to scream- "Stop that, Dean, relax. Things are different down here, the rules are different. I'm gonna change things now that I'm in control, but we gotta do this at least once." Despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Dean made himself relax, knew from his experiences with Alastair the damage that could be done if he didn't. He heard Sam's chuckle. "Much better, Dean." The fingers withdrew and something larger, hotter, pulsing with blood and need, pressed up in their place. Dean whimpered at the feeling of being split wide open, invaded. "That's it. Only gotta do it this once." Sam's voice choked off as he seated himself fully. "Course, if it doesn't completely suck, we can do it again," he grunted before he pulled out and thrust back in.
Dean took advantage of the next withdrawal to turn his head to the side, yelped at the in-stroke, but managed to gasp, "Aren't you worried about that thing I caught from the waitress in Dayton?" as teeth bit into the flesh where his neck met his shoulder.
He could feel hot breath huff against the back of his neck. "One of the perks of being the Boy King of Hell is immunity to that kind of thing."
Dean winced but now he could concentrate on saying, in an even voice, "I'll let Sam know about that. By the way, Meg, the waitress was in Tampa. Tap my shoulder when you're done back there so that I can go wash your filth off of my skin."
She stuttered to a halt, but it was still Sam's voice that replied, "Oh, you're good, Dean." She rocked back into him and he let her, no longer worth it to struggle now that he'd figured out the game. "Maybe even as good as you think you are," she whispered into his ear, and those were the last words she said.
Meg took her time finishing, didn't even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around, but he was long past caring by the time she tapped his shoulder, lay there limp until after he heard the door swing shut. His nose already full of the sulfur stink, he took his time in the shower, thankful that one of the few pleasures available in Hell was a seemingly endless supply of hot water. He wrapped himself in his towel-blanket and hobbled to the corner of the room furthest from the bed and the door where he slumped down and let sleep claim him.
When he woke up the bathroom, carpet, and bed were gone and his chains were back. At least they let him keep the blanket. Watching the flares of hellfire, he indulged himself briefly, let himself think about all the other things Meg had said about Sam that might be lies too, that maybe Sam really wasn't the Boy King at all. He didn't think about himself at any point; for now, he would remain nameless.
Crowley had managed to keep himself intact and relatively autonomous since the the Battle of Hastings - when his first taste of death had turned him off of the experience entirely - by cultivating an enormously complicated network of spies that allowed him to make informed decisions in almost any situation and, if the informed decision didn't work out, to deal his way out instead. He supplemented this one weapon by purging himself of all scruples, save for insisting that he survive every situation. Freed to maneuver, Crowley could then rely on his own clever, warped mind to find a way out any trap: physical, magical, or otherwise. Crowley didn't just inspire the Spanish Inquisition: he'd survived the bloody thing; Crowley could survive anything.
Even so, in his most private thoughts, Crowley had recently come to terms with the notion that he'd cocked this deal up royally.
"Evil. Fucking. Hell-bitch." The Boy King's skin had gone bone white. The courier swallowed and stepped back. Then the room fell into a moment of perfect still silence before the Boy King's head tipped back and he screamed "Fuck!"
It was a lovely, pitch-perfect note of wretched despair that rang through the room and Crowley took a moment to appreciate it before lunging across the table to grab any important papers and shove them safely into his case. Grand Vizier to the Boy King wasn't necessarily a bad position, unless your liege lord was in the mood to watch heads roll. And there one went. No great loss: a flunky who didn't wait until after breakfast to deliver the Citadel reports was obviously suicidal. Crowley didn't understand why Sam insisted on hearing every detail of Dean's torture even though the Boy King refused to press his petition to free Dean until he could do it at the head of Hell's Armies. If only Crowley could have laughed without being gutted - Sam's psychotic break was better than the Odd Couple: it was the greatest show in Hell.
His eyes flickered over to Sam, who'd managed to set his knife on the table without further casualties. Did he dare hope Sammy's masochist had beaten out the Boy King's sadist for once? Crowley was about to commend Sam's control when the Boy King's nostrils flared and the huff of air blew out every window in the room; shrieks from the courtyard marked each pane's razor-sharp landing. In this mood, the Boy King had no compunctions at all about playing ten-pins with a fresh head on every bowl.
The bastard kept rolling strikes, which was the only reason Crowley hadn't long since made himself scarce. Well, that and the fact that Sam had indicated that he found Crowley's head most useful right where it was - on his shoulders, in Sam's line of sight when possible. At the same time, the Boy King's explicit distrust and implicit threats counted among the highest marks of respect. Which was why Crowley didn't scramble for the door but grabbed the report away before Sam could read any more of it.
He perused the five page record - more detail than normal for this particular incident and Crowley really needed to send them new directives limiting this kind of thing - flipping past the point where Sam had cut off their late-courier. Oh. He'd have to burn this spy as soon as possible: with descriptions like this he was never going to be rid of that mental image. Nasty business. He coughed and shook his head, tucking the report away. Cruel, twisted, and simple, but still: he'd been expecting something a bit more from the Queen of Spiders after three weeks of nothing. The packet also included follow-up reports of the aftermath; so far as Crowley could tell, after the rape Dean remained essentially Dean, if a bit quieter. Which would be a nice change.
He looked up at the Boy King, and the dagger he kept flipping in the air. Then next demon to walk past the door wouldn't live to regret it. Crowley couldn't help but feel that he was missing something. "Pardon me if I sound a bit callous, but exactly how is this crossing the line? Three months ago she kept him conscious for two hours while she reassembled his digestive tract on the table next to him."
The Boy King's fist was halfway to Crowley's jaw when it abruptly changed course and slammed against the table, sending plates and flatware shaking into the air. Crowley bit his lips together. Okay, perhaps not the most tactful reply he'd ever thought of; tact had never been his strong suit and human attitudes about sex hadn't made sense to him since before Victoria's reign in England. Pillage, rape; rape, pillage: it was all a bit 'to-may-to, to-mah-to', wasn't it? Then again, this was why Crowley had signed on for deal-making rather than the torture chambers - his knack lay in manipulating people with their short-sighted dreams, not their equally short-sighted nightmares. Watching Sam crumple in on himself, Crowley reminded himself to give nightmares their due credit. And then he tried to figure out how the hell he'd gotten here in the first place.
Back on Earth it hadn't been a horrible plan to start: he would play Virgil to Sam's Dante, assess the damage caused by the Queen of Spiders, and check out the new pups at the kennel. Given the chance, he'd pit a few ancient rivals against each other so that they'd take out the last vestiges of Azazel's old cadre and Crowley wouldn't have to. If he was lucky, he'd build up a little more power down in the Pit and solidify his primary position on Earth, which Crowley much preferred to Hell. Hell was miserable.
Unfortunately, misery was the Winchesters' natural habitat. So while Crowley tried to arrange a quick, stealthy rescue plan simple enough to withstand Winchester luck and general idiocy, Sam took on a grandiose title and decided that Dean could just sit tight on the rack while Sam started the revolution without him. Foresight, recognition of a world outside of their tiny, dysfunctional circle, and hints of a subtle, well-reasoned long-term strategy from a Winchester? When his brother was in immediate and ongoing peril? Surely no one could blame Crowley for being blindsided by this turn of events.
But he adjusted to his role as Grand Vizier to Hell's new Boy King as best he could. While shifting his plans to include the Boy King's conquest of Hell, Crowley realized he'd been a little too free with sharing information with Sam early on; had let it slip he had connections and informants, anticipating that the customary Winchester-thickness would filter out ninety-nine percent of the most relevant information before it made it past his ear drums. The Boy King, however, didn't just hear, he listened - and the prick was too bloody clever by half. Dangled the carrot of power just right so that by the time Crowley realized the threat there was no exit left. The Boy King depended on Crowley's information to win this war; Crowley depended on the Boy King's mercy to not kill him on a whim. One of those conditions was finite and the other one didn't exist, which gave Crowley some tight time constraints, but he usually did well under deadlines.
Further research, however, only made the outlook worse: Azazel's gift to Sam - the title of 'Boy King' - was one of the few royal titles in Hell that wasn't just self-styled grandstanding, but an ancient mantle which granted the bearer extensive powers and abilities. The situation became unbearable when Crowley failed to uncover the exact extent or ultimate source of those powers. Once again Crowley was well and truly buggered by Azazel's schemes. He might have felt a brief pang of sympathy for the Winchesters- but no, that was just an extra strong frisson of 'fuck me, I'm still in Hell,' where the title of 'Boy King' had remained vacant since Azazel killed the last one way back in the ziggurat days, long before Crowley's time. This consigned it to demonic legend and oral memory, which was only slightly more reliable than demonic written lore (where the authors had time to think their lies all the way through), which was to say: not at all. Crowley could only speculate that Azazel had won the title as death right, but that begged the question of why Azazel never assumed it himself. Most likely Azazel had entrusted an heir or two with the secret. This would be more helpful if Azazel's scions weren't all (with the possible exception of Sam) actively engaged in trying to kill Crowley. Thwarted at every turn, Crowley only remaining source of information was surreptitious observation of his taciturn, increasingly cruel and capricious liege lord.
And that honorific was never going to sound natural.
Sam shot to his feet and broke Crowley out of his reverie. He waved his arms around in a circle, paced twice across the room, before settling down to stare at the Citadel. They were deep in the heartlands, in the highest tower of one of Beleth's keeps, but the Citadel wasn't much more a grey smudge on the horizon. Sam rocked back and forth on his heels and elbows. Crowley could wait. "It's different," Sam said finally, sounding like he was dry heaving the words out. "She's using me against him."
Crowley controlled the urge to ask what else was new and waited for Sam to provide an actual explanation but the Boy King said nothing else while he stared outside. Gloved hands clutched the window frame hard enough to warp the stone under his fingers. Crowley's twitched at the sight: ever since they'd arrived in Hell the bastard never went anywhere without wearing the bloody things. They made him nervous: the minor, visible change that heralded all the others.
"What's with the poncy gloves anyway? Decide the hair doesn't make you look enough of a fop?" he had asked Sam with the casual sarcasm he could sometimes use as late as seven months ago. That had started as a good day: the Boy King had just accepted Marquis Decarabia's unconditional surrender on the fringe of the Latini Desert.
Sam had shrugged, drowsy and a little drunk, then drawn a circle in the air with his finger and replied, "Everything down here feels slimy to me."
Back then, Crowley had taken the 'slimy' dig personally, had spat on the ground to call bullshit: in the Latini Desert, any free moisture magically evaporated in seconds. "Is that right?"
Sam had sobered at that and looked down at his reports instead of answering. "So what else have you discovered about this angel-slaying Marquis?" Eventually one of Decarabia's minions spilled his guts - and along with them the fact that Decarabia had also been the demon personally responsible for subduing Dean for Meg. Then the Boy King called a special assembly so that he could slice open Decarabia's veins and let the demon feel his own blood boil away as he died. Which was fair enough, but then the Boy King selected and slaughtered thirty of Decarabia's former vassals at random - one for every day Dean had suffered. It had been early days yet and Crowley had still been surprised by the Boy King's casual acts of cruelty then.
The Boy King always insisted on a soothing bath after a good massacre, and that night, slumped over a sofa in Sam's room in his semi-conscious drunken haze, Crowley discovered that Sam removed the gloves before he stepped in the bath. Crowley had made a point of spying on bare-handed Sam at least once every few weeks to make sure nothing had changed, but the gloves never hid a damn thing other than knuckles, which weren't even embarrassingly hairy or horrifically scarred. It had been a bit of a disappointment, but secrets and lies - and especially secret lies - had their own currency. Crowley personally guarded Sam's bath chambers thereafter.
Sam had been a bit concerned at first. "This new habit of yours is both intrusive and creepy."
"Don't care," replied Crowley with a shrug. "Sacrifices must be made," he said as he stretched out on the sofa. "Half of Hell already thinks we're fucking anyway," he added and that at least had gotten Sam to start dressing himself with the bloody doors shut, much to Crowley's relief. Now Crowley was certain he was the only one who ever had the opportunity to peek under those gloves.
Crowley's patience in both protecting and trying to understand the ruse had culminated during treaty negotiations last week. Princess Plata of the Poison Tongue, mistress of one hundred and ten legions, had pulled Crowley aside. "It appears the Boy King En-fleshed is more powerful than even we had anticipated."
Crowley waved a hand. "He's had a decent run of luck."
"And some good advice," said the Princess. "Which so often goes unappreciated."
Crowley flashed his teeth in almost a smile. "Cagey demon like you, only a fool wouldn't pay attention to your words. I bet even old Modo himself pays you mind," and her alone, according to very reliable informants.
Plata folded her hands together. "Sometimes. Of course, Modo has not roused since Azazel's coup."
The King of the Crossroads had very precise, mind-boggling figures on how quickly Modo converted souls to demons. It seemed five thousand centuries in semi-retirement had only made the King of the Nine Hells meaner and more powerful. Crowley tried to keep his slight case of hero worship under control. "If he wants vengeance on Azazel's house he's going to have to hurry along before my lord finishes them off." Azazel's last remaining scions hadn't left the Citadel in weeks, since the Boy King sent Meg a fine gift of twenty chalices, all matched skulls from demons Azazel brought over. He'd done it all despite Crowley's protests that some of them were deft hands in the torture chamber and demons didn't just grow on trees these days, you know. Unless, apparently, you were Modo.
"They have a number of shared interests. Modo commends your lord's youthful enthusiasm and views on Lucifer." Princess Plata slanted her eyes from side to side. "Should I be able to confirm to Modo that Winchester's touch alone can cause a greater demon's final death - had you not supplied the spelled-gloves - and also that Winchester will never again consent to Lucifer, then Modo could be persuaded to involve himself." Plata nodded, looking at a point past Crowley's shoulder and Crowley turned to see the Boy King reply by tipping his head to the side. He turned back as the Princess sighed with an unattractive grimace. "And you, Crossroads King, will remember how receptive we are to sound advice, should your liege grow deaf in his meatsuit's age."
That was the prize: the escape route that Crowley had lacked since the Boy King's arrival. Always had to think two wars ahead in Hell, and a bird in the bush was better than none at all when your boss was a quasi-schizophrenic, emotionally unstable demi-god. If nothing else, Modo's inevitable betrayal should distract the Boy King long enough for Crowley to make it back to Earth. Where he could nap for a decade or so while things settled out down here.
A few vague non-denials had been sufficient to make Poison Tongue grant every other concession that the Boy King requested and then gift Crowley personally with ten legions, five thousand souls, and the deed to a minor property in the Wastes. All this, and the grand old royalty of Hell had been enticed to offer it by a version of the gloves rumor that was restrained compared to most of the other stories circulating.
Crowley had been quite pleased with his maneuvering, right up until the moment Plata had leaned across the table to whisper her true name's pledge, Amaymom, into the Boy King's ear. Cupping his right hand over her eyes, Sam had caught Crowley's gaze, smirked, and slid the tip of his left index finger down the side of his nose. An unmistakable grifter sign indicating... well, that was the trick, wasn't it? Crowley still had no bloody clue what Sam had meant. But it hadn't taken him long after that to realize that Sam might have been pushing him in this very direction all along. And Crowley was now complicit in the scheme and still didn't have an exit plan and the realization that Sam had somehow manipulated him disturbed Crowley on more levels than he liked to admit. Falling for another one of the Boy King's schemes would have been one thing, but that gesture had been pure Sam Winchester.
Unless Crowley was the one hallucinating, cracked under the pressure. No one else ever noticed Sam any more, everyone else just saw the Boy King. No, Crowley was certain about this, could tell them apart from across the room even in dim light.
Grand Vizier Crowley would have been far happier if Sam Winchester were his liege lord. Crowley preferred his liege lords some combination of absent, impotent, indolent, or thick, and the Boy King was none of the above. Everything had gone wrong once he'd shown up, for Sam and Crowley both. After crushing the Mountains of Dis, Sam Winchester should have marched straight to the Citadel all on his own and without so much as a fare thee well. He would have discovered that the reality of Hell grew less malleable as it approached the Citadel, rendering his powers far weaker at the vital moment only when it was far too late. Sam Winchester should have gotten himself captured and more likely than not have guaranteed his brother's eternal damnation rather than reignite the apocalypse. It wasn't a Winchester plan if the victory wasn't Pyrrhic.
A Winchester would have never returned to Malphas' dining room for a glass of sherry and then spent the rest of the night drafting letters to potential allies while his brother remained their insane nemesis' captive. But that's what the Boy King had done - he'd called the peers of Hell to court, and the peers of Hell had listened. They pledged their names to the Boy King's banner. And that sort of power - well, it made vaporizing mountain ranges look like a cheap party trick. By the time the court had closed, two months later, Crowley was no closer to understanding the Boy King, but had developed a healthy fear of his power.
His charisma alone could destroy worlds. The very best demons were cynical, vindictive, violent, treacherous, avaricious, intractable, calculating bastards; Crowley happily included himself in their ranks. The bad were even more violent and more stubborn, but also cowardly, stupid, and superstitious, while the worst were simply stark raving loony like Meg. As a rule, demons didn't play well with others. Add extended life-spans to the mix and as a result, with the exception of Malphas and Halphas, every surviving lord and lady of Hell had allied with and subsequently betrayed every single other lord or lady at least twice. Uniting any significant number of them should have taken decades even with Hell's depleted population. But a mere eight months after his arrival, the Boy King controlled more than half of the territory and nearly half of the demonic population in Hell. For every minion he slaughtered at breakfast, two replacements would appear by the afternoon. Even six months ago, Crowley would have called this balancing act of persuasion by terror and charisma impossible - but he witnessed everything from his position of relative immunity at the Boy King's left hand.
That same hand now pointed at the Citadel, trembling with emotion. "She was warned," he growled, an eerie combination of Sam's words and the Boy King's intonation, referring to the idiotic compromise they'd reached two months back. Unable to either accelerate the Boy King's plan or convince their demonic allies to fight alongside angels, Sam had sent Meg that ridiculous message full of threats and demands for Dean's treatment. It had been a tactical error on every level and Crowley had known it. But he'd allowed it because Sam needed something and he'd take Sam Winchester as his boss over the Boy King every damn day for the rest of eternity.
"Told her not to touch him, not to hurt him. She's got no idea..."
Crowley blinked: they hardly ever spoke in concert more than a sentence at a time. He still didn't understand the line, but Meg had evidently crossed it. An odd light sparked in his eyes and Crowley held his breath until Sam shuddered, his shoulders racking up and down as he collapsed into sobs.
This definitely wasn't in Crowley's job description. He took a few steps backwards and leaned against the wall, folding his hands behind him and waiting for Sam to finish weeping. This was just plain uncomfortable is what it was. After a minute he returned to the table and pulled the papers out of his case. If Sam was going to keep carrying on then someone had to keep the wheels in motion, and there were a number of offers on the table from fence-straddling peers which needed prompt replies if they weren't going to flip to Meg's side.
Eventually Sam's snuffles petered off and Crowley looked up. Look on his snot bubbles, ye mighty, and despair. He looked back at the papers but offered Sam a napkin so that he could clean up before anyone else got a look at that mess. His eyes rolled at the cartoon-ish nose blowing behind him but managed to compose himself by the time that Sam rejoined him at the table. Best not to dwell on that last bit. "Right then, so I think we should meet with-"
The Boy King wiped his hand across his face. "No, no more meetings."
Crowley frowned. "But-"
"No. This needs to stop. I can't leave him there any longer," said the Boy King, that peculiar glimmer back in his eye.
Crowley cleared his throat. "You had just said that we needed-" and now that glove was wrapping around Crowley's throat.
"What,” and he shook Crowley's head for emphasis with every word, “I said before doesn’t matter." The Boy King dropped Crowley back into his seat but Crowley overbalanced and fell to the ground. His liege lord loomed over him. "Things are different now." The Boy King grabbed Crowley by the collar and pulled him to his feet with one hand, while grabbing a map from the other side of the table. "You will send word to our allies that they are to assemble their legions here," and here he shoved Crowley's head down so that his nose pressed into the rallying point, "on the shores of Lake Cocytus, within three days time. I will not tolerate any excuses or equivocations. The time for games has ended."
He released his grip and Crowley stumbled backwards. He steadied himself, tried to regain a semblance of control. "They'll want more time than that."
"They can't have it. Tardy parties will be summoned by name and put on the front lines without their legions to protect them." The Boy King gave a mirthless laugh that made Crowley's stomach turn over. "And afterwards they'd better hope I'm feeling merciful." The Boy King arched his eyebrows, daring Crowley to challenge him.
Crowley still had some spine. "If we do this now-" but cut himself off as the Boy King's dagger levitated off of the table and flew into his face, stopping millimeters away from his eye. Crowley swallowed and watched the blade rotate in space.
"This is happening now." His voice lowered. "And before you say another word, understand that after this battle, you'll be the last demon left in Hell whose name I don't know. Which means you're about to be a lot more expendable. Don't you want to be on my good side?" Crowley didn't trust himself to say anything, just gave a tiny nod of assent. "Good. Make it happen. I'll go inform our host that we'll be leaving immediately." And with that, the Boy King strode out of the room.
Crowley stared after him for a short while afterwards, then straightened and went to go file the dispatches. Time, it seemed, had caught up to him. But that was no matter. There would be hundreds of them going out and plenty of confusion as the entire castle prepared to head to war. No one but the Boy King would question his decision to deliver the orders to Plata and Modo personally - and he wouldn't know Crowley had gone until it was too late.
Part Three
Master Post
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I love Sam, but I'm not sure I ever bought him not wanting this one some level.
I loved the little demons scamping around and sucking up to Dean. Hee! And Meg being suddenly scared of Dean -- heehee!
OMG, you gave us surprise!noncon!almost-but-NOT!Wincest! I am pleased. :)
I enjoyed the Crowley POV a lot too -- I haven't read much of that.
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And yeah - Crowley. I'd been incorporating the new canon as I'd written, but I'd already made up Crowley's backstory by the time 6.04 aired, and between my desire to hold onto the Spanish Inquisition line and the fact that show picked up on the True Names thing and went a whole other direction with it - I decided they were signs from the gods that I maybe as well accept my AU reality. But I loved writing Crowley - it was fun to have a character who wasn't necessarily *bad* but definitely wasn't human. Glad to hear you agreed! Thanks again for putting in the time and effort to leave such detailed
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I am SO GLAD that I didn't read your warning for it because not knowing it was coming or what was really going on during that scene made me sit up and spill my coffee!
(Which is a good thing! Not many things make me spill my precious coffee!)