Work Text:
Dean Winchester, Crowley thinks, was an inhumanly pretty man—one that makes for an even prettier corpse. It’s the eyelashes, perhaps. Incongruously long and distinctly girlish, fanned delicately against the hollow skin just under his eyes. Or maybe it’s the lips, contrasted with the crooked nose and cleft chin. They shine a little, despite the pale, bloodless cast to his face. Dean, it seems, was a man that knew how to moisturize.
His death bed suits him. The threadbare tartan duvet coordinates perfectly with his blood-speckled, grimy flannel. The undershirt is, of course, a ruin. The sheets beneath Dean’s body have long since soaked through, and Crowley idly wonders how deep the stain will penetrate into the mattress.
None of this is important. The true masterpiece is the man laid out on the bed. Crowley’s been keeping a close eye, these past few hours, and his progress is remarkable. It’s one of the most beautiful things Crowley has ever seen.
And so, Crowley approaches his bedside like a priest, here to hand out some unholy last rite. He runs his fingers over the clutter as he passes through the beige, musty room; strokes his finger over the cracked spine of a face-down book, traces the rim of an empty beer bottle, briefly taps the hilt of a knife.
As he approaches, photo frames peek out around the excess of bottles on Dean’s bedside table. He stands there, idly tapping a fingertip against the worn, lacquered wood, and peers at the small collection of photos displayed in mismatched, ugly frames. A round-faced child and a blond woman. An older man that looks a little how he imagines Dean might when he hits his forties. A teenager that looks remarkably like Sam. Two women that he swears he met, but whose names he can’t remember. He picks up another photo and inspects it. Bobby, with his arms draped around two gangly-looking boys.
“I never took you for the sentimental type,” he mutters. Dean says nothing. After all, he is dead. “I suppose we’re all full of surprises.”
Crowley sets the photo aside, and turns to Dean. “You know,” he continues, “I can see your soul. Lesser-known perk of the job. Fascinating thing, the human soul, but yours is particularly striking. So obfuscatingly massive. So bright it burns to look. Built like a metaphysical fortress.” He carefully uncurls one of Dean’s fists, and frowns at the dried blood clinging to his palms.
“Everyone wanted a crack at you,” he says, and carefully wipes Dean’s hand clean with the corner of his deathbed’s sheets. “Everybody wanted to see what you had hidden away in there. Practically a riot until Alastair stepped in.” Crowley wipes away one last stubborn smear, and looks up, towards the metamorphizing soul trapped inside Dean’s chest. The layers and layers of burning bright soul-stuff have curdled into wisps of thin black smoke. Something thin and starved lies there at the center of him, shuddering, trembling, and naked; on the cusp of taking its very first breath.
“I never lied to you. I want you to know that. When I suggested you take the Mark, I didn’t know this was going to happen. I wasn’t even sure it could. But now look at you,” Crowley says, and smooths down the front of Dean’s ugly, thrift-store flannel. “An overgrown butterfly, finally free to emerge from his chrysalis. And,” he continues. “I finally get to see the thing those stupid bastards have salivated over for years.”
Crowley reaches out and carefully wipes a smear of blood from the corner of Dean’s slack mouth. He leans in, just a hair. “Sam and Castiel won’t understand,” Crowley whispers, lightly brushing the blood-crusted hair away from Dean’s forehead. “They won’t see what I see. They’ll try to fix you.” He tilts Dean’s chin back, just a touch, to better see his face. “And you don’t need fixing, love. You’re perfect just like this.”
He sighs, and runs a careful thumb just under Dean’s eye, along the line of his girlish lashes. “The things we could do, you and I.” Crowley murmurs. “We could do anything. Anything at all.” And then, he presses the hilt of the First Blade into Dean’s hand, and he waits for this brand-new, shivering, stripped-bare Dean to open his eyes.
_____
Castiel was easy, is the thing. His hunger lay so close to the surface, just begging to be teased out and sated. But Dean was always different, from the very first time Crowley saw him. He held everything so deep inside it was practically invisible—trying to get a read on him was like trying to count sea cucumbers at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. And, truth be told, Crowley was never particularly interested by the hollow desires that occasionally flashed across Dean’s soul. It was all so pedestrian and ordinary. Even the deeper glimpses were nothing when compared to the things Castiel wanted—the things Crowley had desperately wanted to give to Castiel, before everything went to shit.
And yet. Castiel loves him. Inexplicably. He loves Dean the way a devotee loves their god, or an addict loves heroin. And sometimes Crowley gets curious, is all. He’s far too old for petty jealousies.
_____
It takes a very long time. Sam’s summons comes and goes. Sometimes, Crowley can hear him up and about—digging through cupboards, running water through some distant faucet, shuffling slowly down the hall. He never walks past the open door, though, or comes to see Dean laid on his deathbed. Too grieved, Crowley thinks. Too afraid to confront Dean’s pale, blue-tinged face and fingertips.
Crowley, for his part, watches Dean, sipping from a half-empty bottle of Jim Bean conveniently left open on the nightstand. And as he watches, the starved, shivering thing that lay at the center of Dean’s soul starts to breathe. It slowly, achingly uncurls and does its best to fill Dean’s too-big body; a particularly ugly moth painstakingly inflating its wings.
He wonders what sort of demon Dean will be. Cold and silent; wild and unchecked; a zealot with a penchant for idolatry. Compared to the blunt, brutal torturers responsible for creating demons deep in the bowels of Hell, the Mark is an eerily precise scalpel, scraping away all Dean’s extraneous human parts like a master potter trimming a half-formed vase. And Dean—cold, cruel, zealous, barely-restrained Dean—is the most perfect clay Crowley has ever seen.
Inside Dean, an emaciated, monstrous skeleton of a thing twitches itself awake. Outside, Dean’s thrice-dead body opens its eyes. His eyes are black, Crowley notices. It’s funny—he was expecting red.
Dean sits up, mechanical and ungainly, and stares at Crowley for a moment. For two. He tilts his head to the side, just a touch, and wrinkles his brow, like he’s confused by what he sees. “Why are you here?” he asks. He doesn’t move, otherwise. Crowley isn’t sure if he quite remembers how.
Crowley had a speech prepared, is the thing. A second speech, technically. But then, the wisps of demonic smoke around Dean clear for a brief, shining, moment, and he sees the breadth and depth of the hunger that’s been hiding inside of Dean all along, and—well. “Come run away with me,” he says instead.
Dean laughs, and laughs, and laughs. It’s unsettling. His mouth hangs open, and his shoulders shake, but the expression on his face never wavers or changes.
“I’m serious,” Crowley snaps.
Some sort of strange, unnamable expression dawns on Dean’s face. “You meant it,” he rasps. “What you said. About—about me. And Sam. And Cas.”
“Every word,” Crowley replies, and surprises himself with his own sincerity.
Dean studies him, then. Crowley, for his part, allows himself to be studied. Dean runs his eyes over Crowley’s mussed, un-gelled hair, down his fresh-pressed lapels, and along the sharp crease of Crowley’s trousers, until he comes to the very tips of Crowley’s freshly shined shoes. He looks thoughtful, in a way he never has before. Crowley thinks this might be the first time Dean’s paid him anything other than passing consideration or annoyance.
“Okay,” he says, after a lengthy silence. “Whisk me off, Clyde. But we take my car.”
Crowley rolls his eyes. Some things never change, it seems. “Of course,” he says, and politely inclines his head. “Any particular destination in mind?”
Dean stands. He crosses the room and opens a closet so pathetically small that Crowley feels ashamed on his behalf. He rummages through the dull flannels and boring t-shirts, stuffing them into a well-worn duffel seemingly at random. When Dean finishes with the clothes, he starts with the weapons. He pulls a knife out from under the pillows, wrestles a shotgun out from under the mattress, and takes a pistol down from the wall. The First Blade is, of course, shoved unceremoniously through his belt, the hilt knocking against the small of his back.
“Not really,” Dean says. It takes Crowley a second to remember what they were talking about—he was too transfixed by Dean’s back pocket, half of which is ripped out and dangling uselessly, and further captivated by the threadbare waistband of his boxers, just barely peeking out where the knife stuck through his belt makes his jeans sag. Disgustingly provincial. Crowley feels a little like a girl in a cheap porno, waiting for the plumber to finish fiddling under the sink. “Besides. You asked me to run away with you. Think that means you owe me a good time.”
“And what is your definition of a good time?” Crowley asks. “It’s always business with you. I barely even know what you like to drink.”
Dean shrugs, and gestures to the empty bottles littering his room. “Ain’t that hard to figure out,” he says, and starts looking through the bottles—trying to find a beer for the road, Crowley realizes, and shudders in disgust.
For his part, Crowley takes in the sea of brown glass; cheap beer, all of it, interspersed by bottom-shelf whiskey. The perfect choice for a man who wears flannel the way a nun wears her habit. But there’s something strange about it. Something a little too dedicated in this excess—more religious than hedonistic. The bottles are placed too carefully, more like décor than the casual trash of a functioning alcoholic.
Crowley leaves the bottles where they lie and follows Dean towards the open door. Dean pauses at the threshold and turns back towards his nightstand. He stares at the photos neatly lined up behind the beer bottles on his nightstand, and for a moment, Crowley wonders if he’s going to change his mind. If, maybe, even this version of Dean truly does want to be fixed. But then, Dean walks over and gently tips each photo frame down, so the pictures are kissing the worn-out wood. He rips off the corner of a half-used notepad, hesitates, then scribbles something across the torn paper in big, sprawling letters.
“Come on,” Dean says, rough and low. And, so, Crowley whisks him away in the dead of night—or rather, sits in the passenger seat while Dean whisks himself. Between them a stale, open beer sits in the cupholder, and behind them a faint cloud of dust trails in their rear-view, shimmering in the half-light of the moon.
_____
Of course, Crowley is used to a bit of incoherence when it comes to the hungers of the soul. No human being ever really manages to separate their deepest desires into neat little categories—instead, everything bleeds together like ink dripped in water. It’s impossible to draw a line between a person’s desire for love and their desire for stability, or personal satisfaction, or sex. And for centuries, Crowley has been straightening these desires into something coherent and tangible, then offering it back to the soul in question. For a price, of course.
Dean, though. The shape of his hunger is twisted and strange. Crowley doesn’t quite know what to make of it. One red-tinged and foul-toothed limb could be bloodlust or regular lust, depending on which way he looks. There’s a sharp spur that looks a little like submission, and an oozing sore that looks like domination. The shape of it shifts; gaping wide one moment, towering and phallic the next. It’s incoherent—the mad, id-driven ravings of a lunatic. Yet it compels. It captivates. It’s practically begging for some semblance of structure and comprehension. And, well. Crowley’s always loved a challenge.
_____
There isn’t much to look at in Kansas. Corn stretches from horizon to horizon. In the distance, the dark shadows of windmill farms lurk; their red, blinking lights eerie and strange. Crowley hates looking at it. The mere sight alone is enough to bore him to tears.
Beside him, Dean drains the rest of his dusty road beer. Crowley watches his throat move; the jump of his adam’s apple and the long, careful flex of his neck as he swallows. There’s already a hint of scruff on his jaw, trailing down his neck—more than Crowley has ever seen on Dean’s face before. He likes it. Makes him wonder how it would feel to get Dean’s face between his legs.
“Give me a hint,” Crowley begs.
Dean pulls a face. “Why?” he asks. “You’re the King of Hell. You’d know more about that sort of thing than me.”
“But it’s your good time,” Crowley replies, exasperated. They’ve been going in circles for hours, him and Dean. Each time Crowley thinks he’s gotten close to a confession, Dean clams up, or gets mean, or pretends he has to stop at the next gas station to take a piss, even though needs like those were burnt out of him when the Mark excised his soul. “It’s about what you like. That’s the whole fucking point.”
Dean taps his foot—he’s nervous or irritated, but Crowley can’t tell which. “What do you want from me?” he exclaims. “I’m a simple man, dude. I like bars. I like pool. I like sex. I don’t get why you’re so fucking obsessed with this.”
“Maybe I just want to make it good for you,” Crowley purrs, over-the-top to hide the kernel of sincerity below.
“Fuck off,” Dean says, scowling, but there’s no bite in it. He can see the barest hint of a pleased smile at the corner of Dean’s mouth, and his hand, laid casually across the top of the car’s bench seat, creeps an inch or two closer to Crowley’s shoulder.
_____
One of Crowley’s underlings accused him of having a type, once. Back in the aftermath of the Leviathan incident, Crowley was inconsolable. He drank his entire store of Macallan, paid a dominatrix to make him her pet for a month, and spent a week or two moonlighting as a torturer in the deepest depths of the pit. None of it helped.
And then, some ambitious, nameless lackey stuffed a freshly-broken soul into an attractive vessel, and escorted it to Crowley’s room. You like your playthings a little broken, is all he said. And the vessel—it looked a little like Dean. Green eyes. Full lips. Freckles. And, so. Crowley tore that poor little soul to pieces. He played with the vessel until it broke. He turned it inside out, until it would thank him for tormenting it, and beg him to hurt it when he was kind. And then it told him that it loved him, and Crowley killed it out of spite.
_____
Dean stops at a dusty, lopsided gas station. The awning above the pumps is tilted ever so slightly, and the gas prices keep flickering in and out of view on the sign. The cracked, half-disintegrated asphalt is so buckled and twisted that Crowley’s teeth nearly rattle out of his head when Dean pulls up to the pump.
“I’ll get gas,” Dean says, no-nonsense. “You go grab beer.”
Crowley salutes with a little more flair than necessary, and opens the car door with an almighty creak. A fly immediately buzzes over his head and tries to land on his pocket handkerchief.
“Get me a snack too,” Dean calls. Crowley tenses. This is a test, he knows, even if Dean doesn’t.
Crowley performatively rolls his eyes and wrenches the gas station’s door open. Dinky little shop bells clang overhead, harsh and grating, and Crowley is immediately assaulted by the smell of tobacco, sweat, and commercial-grade bleach. The florescent lights above his head buzz and drone. At the counter, an old man in a grimy employee vest dozes on a stool, his chin cupped in his hand. As Crowley watches, he snorts, shakes himself awake, and does a double take when he sees Crowley striding towards the refrigerators. Crowley doesn’t begrudge him. After all, his suit is probably the most expensive thing he’s ever seen.
“Can’t sell alcohol after nine,” the old man calls, once he spots Crowley headed towards a tower of Miller Light. Crowley sends him back to sleep with a flick of his wrist.
He skips the Miller Light, and picks out a six-pack of amber ale, a bag of beef jerky, and a box of cherry-flavored Hostess fruit pies. He walks out the door without paying, and leaves a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, tucked beneath the cashier’s limp, wrinkled hand.
Outside, Dean’s leant up against the Impala, his legs casually crossed. He’s cradling something in his hands—his phone, maybe. As Crowley watches, Dean turns it on, his face suddenly bathed in white-blue light. His face is drawn and severe, lit like this. Ghost-like. As though he hasn’t quite left death behind just yet. And he watches, as Dean takes his lower lip between his teeth and worries at it until it goes swollen and slick. Crowley wonders what he’s looking at. Dean’s thumb twitches, ever so slightly, until it’s hovering over the screen.
Crowley lets the door fall shut behind him with a loud, jarring crash. “I come bearing gifts,” he announces, and holds his offerings out to Dean like a penitent at the altar.
His eyes catch on the Hostess pies first, and his eyes light up with a simple, uncomplicated joy Crowley has never, ever seen cross his face before. “Oh, man, I used to love these things,” Dean says, ripping out the side of the box and immediately tearing a pie open. “We’d get them sometimes, back when I was a kid,” He mumbles, and nearly shoves the entire thing in his mouth on the very first bite.
For a single, glorious moment, Dean chews with a delight akin to ecstasy. It’s a gorgeous sight; almost too beautiful to look at directly. And then, his pretty face darkens. He coughs. Crumbs fly out, past his lips, and land on Crowley’s coat. And he leans forwards, hacking, and spits a wad of half-chewed pastry out onto the pavement.
“I can’t taste it,” Dean says, low, and brings a hand to his lips. It’s steady, Crowley notes. Perhaps abnormally so. “Why can’t I taste it?”
Crowley sighs. He hates complications. “It happens, sometimes. Being… remade,” he says, dropping the food on the cracked asphalt, “is no easy thing. It’s messy. Sometimes things get lost.” He raises his hand, ever so slowly, waiting for Dean to flinch, or turn his head away. To Crowley’s surprise, he doesn’t. Instead, Dean leans in when he brushes crumbs away from the corner of Dean’s mouth, and, for a split second, chases after that careful, gentle touch.
“I didn’t think it would happen to you, though,” he continues. “I thought the Mark would be gentler.” He pulls out his perfectly pressed pocket handkerchief—a thing he’s never had the occasion to use—and wipes a stray string of spit off Dean’s chin. “I’m sorry,” he adds, belatedly. “It’s never easy, losing things.”
Dean says nothing in reply. He just straightens without a word and fumbles for the car door. His hand trembles, imperceptibly. Crowley leaves his offerings where they lie; the mini fruit pies spilling out of their torn box, the jerky flat and unopened, the cans of ale dented and slowly oozing liquor into a crack in the pavement. Dean starts the Impala as Crowley slips in, and peels away from the gas station before Crowley can buckle his seatbelt. Crowley carefully arranges himself in the passenger seat, crossing his legs just-so and sprawling his arm across the top of the bench seat. And, as they drive deeper into the dark, he can’t help but notice Dean’s shoulder, swaying just a little bit closer, until it just barely brushes Crowley’s dangling fingers.
_____
Dean picks a fight with a trucker in Salina, and nearly kills a cashier in Junction City. The Mark, Crowley supposes. Hungry for blood, or death, or something. And so, the next time they stop at some gas station in the middle of nowhere, Crowley makes sure one of his demons is there, waiting and ready to die.
Crowley watches it all through the windows. The brief tussle, the inevitable moment where Dean gets the upper hand. The penetration, when Dean uses his little knife to run the demon through. And he sees the look on Dean’s face, as the demon dies. He looks blissful, peaceful. Like he’s just had the best orgasm of his life.
_____
Crowley takes him to bar on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s a cheap tourist trap, but Dean still peers at the bold neon sign like it’s advertising something prohibitively expensive and forever out of reach. Saddle-Up Saloon, it says, Exit 224. The building is a squat little thing; styled after the rickety clapboard architecture popular in the days of the Wild West, but clearly built long after that particular era had ended. From the front, it passes well enough. The peeling gray paint and rough boards add a rustic charm that, if not wholly authentic, at least manages to sell the appearance of it. The illusion immediately falls apart once Crowley bothers to look at the building’s cinderblock side walls, halfheartedly painted the same gray as the façade up front.
The parking lot is bare dirt. Crowley sighs, and briefly mourns the mirror-shine polish on his shoes. Inside, the décor is on par with what he expected; horseshoes, old farm tools, mock-up vintage posters of cowboys with guns and lassos. Top 40 country music blares over the bar’s tinny speakers. There’s a pool table off in one corner, and a few dining tables in the other, but the real prize is the mechanical bull further towards the back. As they head for the bar, a giggling, obviously drunk woman wearing a bridal veil pitches off its back and lands, laughing, on the padded floor.
It’s not so busy, tonight. Most of the half-dozen barstools are free, and what few patrons remain are clumped around the mechanical bull, clutching plastic cups of beer in their sweaty fists. He and Dean claim two bar stools, side by side, and Dean immediately arches his back and raises his hands high, sighing gratefully at the stretch.
Crowley catches the bartender’s eye and asks for two whiskeys. He stares at Dean from the corner of his eye—appreciating the thin strip of bare skin Dean’s too-short shirt reveals.
“Is that why we came here?” Dean asks, nodding at the mechanical bull.
Crowley laughs, and takes a sip of his whiskey. Cheap, of course, and barely tolerable. “I thought you’d like it,” he says. “Do you?”
Dean looks out, towards the bull, and watches as its next victim briefly soars through the air and lands with a dull thwack. Crowley, for his part, watches the curve of Dean’s ear; the flex of his neck; the dull gleam of his hair. “Yeah,” he mumbles, barely audible over the music. “Yeah, I like it.”
And with that, he knocks back his whiskey in one long swallow. Crowley stares, unabashed, at his Adam’s apple in profile. Dean stands, so sudden and so aggressively that his bar stool screeches across the floor. Crowley raises his own cup to his lips, so Dean won’t see the smile on his face, and takes another careful sip, savoring at the burn. When Dean marches off towards the mechanical bull like a fresh-drafted soldier off to war, Crowley follows close on his heels, his whiskey sloshing dangerously in its plastic cup.
Dean swings up onto the bull and clenches the saddle between his thighs. It’s a mere moment or two before the bull starts up, but to Crowley, it practically feels like an eternity; the anticipation pulling at his sense of time like a confectioner pulling taffy. And then—oh, what a sight he makes. Rocking his hips, practically indecent. Raising his arms higher and higher as the bull begins to buck harder; arching deliciously every time the bull pitches forwards. Crowley hasn’t felt shame in a long, long time, but watching Dean now, he feels a little lecherous. A little perverse.
As he watches, Dean’s shirt pulls free from his belt and rides up high enough that Crowley catches a glimpse of his navel when the bull swings low. His hipbones are surprisingly soft—he’s not quite as cut as Crowley expected—and a thin trail of hair stretches from just under his navel and disappears down into the waistline of his pants. Crowley follows it down, to the button on Dean’s jeans, then lower, to the slight bulge below his zipper, and licks his lips.
And then, he looks up, and he catches Dean’s eyes. For a long, lingering moment, they stare at one another; Dean watching Crowley watch him. There’s something in Dean’s eye that’s almost familiar. Something hot. Something hungry. But the moment breaks as soon as it comes. The bull turns, sharp, and Dean’s gaze is pulled away from him.
It feels like Dean rides that bull forever. It feels like no time at all. Crowley briefly tears his eyes away to sip at his whiskey, and when he looks back, eager to see what other parts of Dean’s wardrobe might come undone, the mechanical bull is already slowing to a halt. The half-dozen women crowded around the bull cheer when the ride eventually ends. Dean, for his part, slips off the saddle like he’s been riding for years.
One of the women pushes closer. Her denim miniskirt doesn’t quite fit right—it’s ridden up, and bunches in the front—and her cowboy boots are clearly well-worn and scuffed. A pink polyester sash draped across her torso says BRIDESMAID in machine-embroidered cursive.
“Oh my god, that was incredible!” She exclaims, gesturing wildly, and beer slops out of the cup in her hand.
“Thanks,” Dean says, and pauses, waiting for her to say her name.
“Cheryl.”
“Thanks, Cheryl,” he says, and glances briefly at Crowley before he unsubtly eyes her from head to toe. “Bridesmaid, huh?” He reaches out and touches her sash. “This is nice,” he says. “Real fancy.”
“It’s from the K-Mart,” Cheryl replies.
Dean awkwardly clears his throat. “So, you uh—” he clears his throat again. Crowley wonders how he ever managed to convince anyone to fuck him. “You tried out the bull yet?”
She smiles, sly and cocksure, and more than a little drunk. “Not yet,” she replies. “But maybe you could give me a few pointers.” She looks Dean up and down, the same way Dean just looked at her. And then, she leans in close. “Besides,” she whisper-shouts, directly into Dean’s ear. “I hate the bride. You got a car or something?”
Dean tilts his head just-so, until his cheek rubs against hers and his mouth brushes the top of her ear. “Gimme half an hour,” he replies, low, “and I can get a room.” And with that, he snatches away Crowley’s half-finished whiskey, knocks it back, leads Cheryl out of the bar with a careful hand at the small of her back.
_____
The truth is, Crowley’d wanted to fuck him the first time he saw Dean in Hell. And again, when Dean sought him out on the surface. It was a base, animal thing and nothing more—the sort of passing lust Crowley has indulged for centuries. And Crowley knew exactly why he wanted him. Dean was pretty, and he was mean, and he reminded Crowley a little bit of his mother. But that faded, over the years, and in its place grew something Crowley doesn’t quite understand, and doesn’t particularly care to name. Fascination, perhaps. Or obsession. It’s just as well. For a demon, Crowley never cared for examining his own hungers.
_____
Crowley finds them a hotel—a run-down little thing Dean likely would’ve picked himself. He barely has time to hand Dean the key before he and Cheryl disappear into the room, already half-undressed before the door slams closed. After a moment, he hears the deadbolt slide home.
He sighs, and slowly sinks, until he’s sitting with his back to the door. He makes himself comfortable as he can on the cold, cracked sidewalk, and listens to the wet, slick noises inside. Cheryl laughs, high and breathy, and says something Crowley doesn’t quite catch. He hears Dean’s low, rumbled reply, and then a sharp noise—the bedsprings, squealing like a stuck pig. And then, the barely perceptible rustle of clothing, a short, cut-off groan, a quiet squelch.
“Do that again, baby,” she says, then cries out, short and sweet. The bed squeals again, just once, and falls silent. Cheryl’s gasping, cut-off moans rise in pitch and volume. Crowley shifts, and presses the heel of his hand over his fly. For a moment, he’s tempted—this would hardly be the first time he’s played the voyeur—but instead, he pulls away and clutches the doorframe.
He can’t hear Dean at all. He closes his eyes and concentrates. He presses his ear flat to the door, squashing his cheek and jaw against the peeling paint, but there are no low, rumbling exaltations underscoring Cheryl’s rather vocal pleasure. And then Cheryl cries out one last time, and her moans trail off into muffled, heavy breaths.
“Are you—?” Cheryl says. Dean mumbles in response, but he can’t quite make out the words. Crowley presses his ear to the door and concentrates. “—go,” he hears Dean say, and then Cheryl’s belt clinks.
Crowley vanishes himself down the street before she opens the door, and waits ten minutes before ambling back to their shared motel room. Inside, Dean lays on one of the beds, wearing nothing but his boxers. He’s on his side, his back to the door. He’s got his knees pulled up towards his chest, like a child, and his arm curled carefully under his head. His phone lies cradled in his other hand, Dean’s thumb hovering over something on the too-bright screen.
Dean curls further in on himself when he hears Crowley open the door. Some strange, unnamable sensation overtakes Crowley; like heartburn, or indigestion, and he’s filled with the sudden, bizarre urge to pull the sheets over Dean’s near-naked body and tuck him into bed. Instead, he walks across the room, his footsteps softened by the threadbare, dirty carpet, and carefully sits beside Dean. Crowley hesitantly reaches out, and presses his palm to the round of Dean’s shoulder.
“I didn’t even get hard,” Dean says, blunt. His gaze never leaves his phone. Crowley peers over his shoulder, too curious to stop himself. Dean has his contacts list pulled open. His thumb is, surprisingly, hovering over Castiel’s name. Strange. If he had to guess, Crowley would’ve thought it would be Sam’s name instead.
He won’t hurt me, Castiel had said, back when Dean was a frequent topic in their post-coital musings. At the time, Crowley thought his conviction was misplaced; one part lovestruck delusion, one part tragedy. Over the years, Crowley took a sick sort of pleasure in watching Dean disprove that particular belief of Castiel’s over and over again, and privately wondered when Castiel was finally going to learn his lesson. Now, though. Now, Crowley wonders if that devotion wasn’t as one-sided as he thought. If, perhaps, he and Dean have wanted the same thing for a long, long time.
“Didn’t even take these off either,” Dean continues, and snaps his boxers against his waist. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Crowley says softly. “You just wanted something else, didn’t you?”
Dean blushes, adorably, and turns further away, until Crowley can just barely see the soft curve of his cheek. He wiggles his foot, worming his way under the sheets, and drags the motel’s starchy duvet up until it covers his waist. Crowley strokes his thumb along Dean’s shoulder, and bites his bottom lip when Dean hums and twitches into the touch. The hunger inside Dean is so close to the surface, roiling and twisting beneath his skin. One last tug, Crowley thinks, and it’ll swallow him whole.
“You don’t have to hide it from yourself anymore, you know,” Crowley says. “It’s different when you’re a demon. Hedonism and gluttony come with the territory.” Dean says nothing, but then, Crowley doesn’t need him to.
“You want something, you take it,” Crowley says. “Simple as that.”
Dean curls further into his pillow—reflexively ashamed, even though the capacity for such things is gone. Crowley moves to the other bed and lays down, ankles crossed and his hands primly folded over his stomach. God, he hopes this strange little escapade ends soon. If he stays here for much longer, the duvet is going to make his suit smell like cheap detergent and cigarettes.
From the corner of his eye, Crowley admires Dean’s bare back. He casts a lingering eye over Dean’s shoulders, the dip of his waist. As he watches, Dean’s arm flexes, shoving his phone under his pillow. He’s close, Crowley knows. He’ll call soon, if he doesn’t call tomorrow.
_____
“Cas wants to see me,” Dean says, low, as they drive down I-70. “At some hotel in Macon.” His hands are steady on the wheel, but there’s something unsure and awkward in his voice.
“By all means,” Crowley replies. “We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, would we?”
_____
It’s pouring rain, but Dean parks half a mile away from the motel, just in case. He tells Crowley to stay in the car. He presses his keys into Crowley’s hands, and tells Crowley to come get him if he calls for backup.
Crowley runs his index finger over the Impala’s dashboard, then rubs the pad of his finger against his thumb. It’s a little dusty. Crowley sniffs, and wipes his hand on the seat. He rifles through Dean’s cassette tapes, but, rather predicably, nothing is to his taste. He stares out the windshield, but there’s nothing to see—Dean, ever paranoid, parked in an alley, and the only thing of note is a covered dumpster with collapsed wet cardboard stacked against it.
Forty-five minutes after Dean left, he yanks the driver’s side door open and collapses into the car. And he’s—dear god, he’s beat to hell and back. His cheek is red and swelling, his lip is split and bloody, and as Crowley watches, a trickle of blood drips out his left nostril and falls onto his shirt.
“What the fuck happened?” Crowley says, sharp. “Did he do this to you?”
Dean says nothing. He turns the key, and flinches when the engine turns over. His hands clench on the steering wheel, until his knuckles go white and the vinyl starts to creak.
“I thought he’d be different,” Dean whispers, once they’re on the interstate. “I thought—he’s already seen. Before, in Hell. And again in Purgatory. I thought he’d see me here, too.” Dean sniffs, and furiously scrubs at the back of his head. “But he—god, Crowley. He didn’t even recognize me.”
“That’s always been Castiel’s problem, I think,” Crowley says, and lays a careful hand on Dean’s shoulder. “He looks and looks. And it’s glorious. Sometimes, it feels like he’s peered into your most dark and deadly abysses and come out the other side one part delighted, one part curious.” He rubs, gentle, and Dean slowly relaxes. Crowley trails his hand further; down to Dean’s elbow, up to his collarbone. “But when the chips are down, and you need him to see you? To really see you?” Crowley trails off, remembering how cold and unfeeling Castiel’s face was, years ago, in a white-tiled room far away from here.
“He can’t,” Crowley says. “He refuses to.”
Dean says nothing, but his face shines wet in the yellow, flickering street light. Rain beats down on the windshield, sonorous and soothing. For a while, Crowley lets the silence stretch. Dean stares at the empty road ahead of them with a fixed sort of determination; Crowley watches Dean. His nose is crooked—for the first time, Crowley wonders how many times it’s been broken. His ears, too, are lumpy and misshapen. If Crowley were to look at his bones, he wonders how many fractures he’d find there. He looks inward, too, at the tumbled-together mess of Dean’s hunger; a smashed-up dish with the pieces improperly glued together.
“I wasn’t lying, though,” Crowley says, after a time. “I see you.”
Dean blushes, deep, and ducks his head. After a moment, he scoffs. “Lemme guess,” he says. “You like what you see?”
“I do,” Crowley replies. Beside him, Dean still won’t lift his head. Crowley takes the opportunity to stare unimpeded. He notes Dean shifting side to side in his seat, his lower lip tucked between his teeth. His knee, bouncing nervously. His hands, toying with his jacket cuffs and the buttons on his shirt.
And Crowley ponders, for a moment, the way Dean leans in whenever Crowley touches him. He thinks about the careful way Dean won’t meet his eye; about the incident with Cheryl, when Dean couldn’t get it up for her but hid beneath the covers as soon as Crowley walked in the door. And, not for the first time, Crowley thinks about the way Castiel’s name has never been far from Dean’s lips.
He lays his hand across the back of Dean’s neck, heavy, but careful. He isn’t sure if this is precisely what Dean wants. But the second Crowley touches him, Dean lets out a gasp and a small, quiet sigh. He strokes his thumb over the soft, short hairs at the base of Dean’s skull, and Dean leans into the touch like a starved, stray kitten.
“Oh, I definitely do,” Crowley murmurs. He experimentally lays his hand high on Dean’s thigh, heavy and hot, and chuckles when Dean minutely shifts his hips, ducks his head further, and bites at his lip.
Crowley glances up and sees a bright blue sign. Motel 6, it says. Next Exit. “Take this next exit, love,” Crowley says, low, and smiles to himself when a dark flush rises on the tips of Dean’s ears. And then, he leans in closer, so his breath whispers over Deans ear and the cut of his jaw. “I think I’ve finally figured out your idea of a good time.”
_____
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Or—well. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it. Dean is a little like a cliff; beautiful from afar, but hell to fall for. Crowley’s been in his orbit for years, for better or worse. He’s watched Castiel lose pieces of himself to please Dean—his faith, his wings, his pride. Crowley himself has already begun to lose things of his own. He’s softened. He’s handed Dean and his brother so many second changes and near escapes that it borders on ridiculous. He’s already got his toes hanging over the edge, he knows; any further, and the abyss will swallow him whole.
Dean is going to kill him, one day. If not true death, then ego death, or death of the self. But god, what a way to die. What a glorious, miraculous, rapturous way to die.
_____
Crowley doesn’t bother asking, the first time he kisses Dean. He pushes Dean up against their motel room’s peeling door, and shoves his tongue in Dean’s mouth. He’s not nice about it, but then, he’s pretty sure Dean doesn’t like nice, judging by the way he melts into it, draping his arms over Crowley’s shoulders. Crowley smiles against his mouth, a sharp, wicked thing, and shoves his thigh between Dean’s legs. His fingers find Dean’s belt loops, and he pulls Dean down, encouraging him to grind his cock against Crowley’s rain-splattered slacks. Dean moans, surprisingly high-pitched, and mindlessly works his hips.
Crowley pulls away from his mouth and kisses along his jaw, up towards his ear. “You know,” he whispers, conspiratorially, and runs his tongue up the shell of Dean’s ear, “Castiel and I used to do this, back in the day.”
Dean gets his fist in Crowley’s hair and tugs him back towards his mouth. Dean kisses him harsh, biting at his lower lip until Crowley can feel his pulse in the tender, swollen skin. And then, Dean pulls back, slow. His teeth scrape over Crowley’s lower lip.
“What was it like?” Dean asks, his voice a little rougher and higher-pitched than usual.
Crowley leans in and kisses him again. He lets go of Dean’s belt loops and gets ahold of his hips, encouraging him to grind down harder. “I could show you,” Crowley says. He worms his hand down, between them, and roughly cups Dean through his jeans. Dean groans, and his head thunks back against the door. “I could pretend to be him, too,” Crowley says, and deliberately pitches his voice lower, until he sounds a little like Castiel. “Would you like that, Dean?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”
Crowley smiles against his lips; a wicked, sharp thing. He kisses the side of Dean’s mouth, then his jaw, nudges the collar of his flannel to the side and sucks a mean, purple bruise at the base of Dean’s neck. His hands fiddle with Dean’s ill-fitting jeans—undoing his belt and his fly, then shoving his pants and boxers down his hips. Crowley bites at Dean’s neck one last time before he pulls away, and admires the vivid purple mark he’s left just above Dean’s collarbone. He looks down, at Dean’s cock, and bites back a laugh. He’s shaved his pubic hair practically to the skin—and recently, judging by the look of things. There’s a hint of razor burn lining the crease of his thigh. Crowley nudges Dean’s legs bit further apart, and runs his fingers over it. Dean shudders and whines, and a bit of precome leaking from the tip of his cock and smearing against his belly.
Crowley palms Dean’s cock, and works his way back up to Dean’s ear. “He liked it all sorts of ways, Rough and mean,” he says, and bites hard at the hinge of Dean’s jaw. “Soft and sweet,” he continues, and presses a gentle kiss over the bite mark he’d just left. Crowley strokes Dean’s cock, glacially slow, his grip too loose to satisfy. “But he liked being on his knees best,” Crowley says, and slowly kneels himself.
Dean’s cock is just as attractive as the rest of him. Cut, of course, and blushing pretty-pink. The head is already wet, practically dripping. Crowley jacks Dean’s cock a few more times, just to see it drip a little more. He rubs his thumb over Dean’s slit, then follows its path with his tongue. Dean’s hips twitch, and Crowley lets his cock rub over his lips, his cheek. He snaps his fingers, and immobilizes Dean completely. Crowley strokes his thighs, feeling the muscles strain under his hands, and presses his palm to Dean’s belly. Above him, Dean moans, loud and shocked and desperate.
“Please,” he begs. “Crowley, please.”
And, well. Crowley’s always liked begging. He doesn’t bother toying with Dean, anymore. He suppresses his vessel’s gag reflex and swallows Dean’s cock to the root. God, it’s perfect—just long enough that the head barely pushes into Crowley’s throat when he gets his nose pressed flat against Dean’s pelvis. Crowley lingers there for a moment, and swallows around Dean a time or two. Dean shudders and whines, his belly twitching against Crowley’s hand.
Crowley sucks him like that for a long, long time; taking him deep as he’ll go, then pulling back just long enough to play with his slit or suck on his balls. He takes Dean right up to the edge, but no matter what he does, Dean can’t seem to tip himself over. Instead, he just shakes against the wall, held up by Crowley’s magic, his weeping cock practically purple.
“You need more, don’t you,” Crowley says, and licks up the side of Dean’s dick. “Tell me. What do you need?”
“Hurt me,” Dean gasps. “Please. It—“ Crowley rubs at Dean’s razor burn, again, and Dean gasps. “It isn’t good if it doesn’t hurt.”
Crowley laughs, short and breathless. “No wonder they loved you down in Hell,” he says, and lightly scrapes his teeth over the head of Dean’s dick. Dean cries out, ecstatic, and the taste of precome floods Crowley’s mouth. He seals his lips over Dean, and swallows him down again. This time, though, he scrapes his teeth along the length of Dean’s cock as he pulls back, and Dean practically screams. Crowley loosens his grip on Dean’s hips, and laughs as Dean jerks his hips closer, towards Crowley’s face, and simultaneously cringes away.
Crowley slaps at his balls, lightly, then harder when Dean makes a girlish, high-pitched noise. He scrapes his teeth against Dean’s cock again, and viciously tugs on Dean’s balls. Dean’s hips thrust harder, pulling away from Crowley’s grasp, which only serves to make it hurt more. Crowley digs his nails into the tender skin, careful not to squeeze too hard, and that, in the end, is all Dean needs. He comes down Crowley’s throat with a delicate, hoarse whimper.
Of course, Crowley has his own pants unzipped and his cock out before Dean’s finished. He strokes himself fast and hard, still swallowing around Dean’s cock. And then, before Crowley can so much as blink, Dean pulls his cock out of Crowley’s mouth. He shoves Crowley back, until he’s sprawled out on the floor, and gets one hand on Crowley’s cock and the other tight around his throat. He tightens his grip, on Crowley’s cock, on Crowley’s neck, and squeezes. Crowley chokes, and his cock jumps. Dean grins, something sadistic in his eye, and twists his hand around the head of Crowley’s cock. Crowley moans, low, and then Dean—he leans in close, and cuts off Crowley’s air entirely.
He lets Dean do it for a moment or two—after all, Crowley’s had centuries to explore his tendency towards sadomasochism. But then, Dean’s grip doesn’t falter, and Crowley starts to feel his pulse raging in his temples, his forehead, his face; his mouth wide open and ineffectually gasping. His chest heaves against his will. He taps at Dean’s hand around his throat, wordlessly begging him to let go, but his grip is like iron, or steel—immovable and cruel as a knife to the belly. The whole time, Dean keeps stroking his cock, hard and fast. The arousal and desperation rise simultaneously, until Crowley can hardly tell which he wants more: to breathe or to come.
Dean ruts against him, his cock already half-hard again. He smears Crowley’s own spit against his hip and pants, staring down at Crowley with something rapt and covetous in his gaze. And then, Dean presses even harder. He leans all his weight onto the hand he’s got on Crowley’s neck, forcing him tight against the floor, and Crowley feels a tendon in his throat pop.
“Just let me,” Dean murmurs, his eyes demon-black. His thumb strokes over Crowley’s red-and-purple neck, disconcertingly gentle when contrasted with the crushing pressure against his throat. “You like it, I can tell. Just let me.”
And then, Crowley catches a glimpse of his arm. Of the Mark, glowing bright enough to clearly see through both of Dean’s shirts. And at last, he panics. He snaps his fingers, but his magic slides over Dean like a droplet of water glancing off a puddle of spilled motor oil. His vision starts to go black at the edges, and the pounding in his head roars, and the pleasure coiled low in his belly climbs higher and higher, until Crowley can hardly stand it.
The blackness creeps inward. Crowley opens his mouth and prepares to smoke out, but then Dean’s other hand comes up and slaps over his mouth. Keeping him—keeping him inside. Crowley claws at Dean’s arms, then, but his vessel is weak and oxygen-deprived. The most he can manage is something akin to an aggressive caress.
“Yeah,” Dean breathes. “Just let go.”
And, god help him, Crowley does. The last thing he sees before everything goes black is Dean’s face, twisted with a lust so sadistic Crowley can hardly bear to look.
_____
And then, he wakes. Dean is still on top of him, but his throat and mouth are blissfully, blessedly free. The sheer euphoria of breathing nearly drives him to tears. He feels Dean’s hand on his cock, which is inexplicably still hard. The pleasure blends with the sheer ecstasy of breathing, and Crowley comes, the dual sensations melding into something intolerable and overwhelming.
When he comes down, Dean’s still tugging at his slowly softening cock, heedless of the hurt, hoarse noise Crowley makes. He’s got his hand at Crowley’s throat again—loosely cupping him, this time. Dean shifts on top of Crowley, straddling his hips. He nuzzles at the ring of bruises he left, tonguing gently at Crowley’s purpling skin, and thrusts his cock against Crowley’s belly. Crowley stares up at the ceiling, blank and dead-eyed. He winces when Dean starts using teeth, layering bruise on top of bruise. He lays there, his breath burning in his throat, as Dean rubs himself against Crowley’s hip and comes all over his belly.
Neither of them move for a very long time. Crowley is afraid to draw his attention, and Dean seems as sleepy and sated as a lion after a hearty meal. Dean falls asleep like that, eventually; his cock limp and damp against Crowley’s thigh, his hand laid possessively on Crowley’s chest, and his teeth held lightly to the side of Crowley’s neck—sated, for now, but still so, so hungry.
_____
In the wee hours, long before Dean wakes, Crowley sits outside next to their motel room. He stares up at the stars—the rain has stopped, and a few bright little specks shine through the spaces in the clouds.
He rubs at his throat. The bruises have gone past purple, and are well on their way to black. He could heal them, but he hasn’t. He doesn’t want to forget, just yet. Every breath aches and burns. If he closes his eyes, Crowley can still feel Dean’s hands on him, harsh and cruel. He can still see the look in Dean’s eye; the delight, the glee, the ravenous hunger. He thinks, again, of how Dean looked after he went to see Castiel; of the bruises and the blood on his face. He wonders how badly he must’ve hurt Castiel, in order to deserve it.
Crowley dials the number from memory, and presses his phone to his ear.
“Crowley?” Sam says. He sounds bone-tired and exhausted.
“Sam,” he replies. “I hear you’ve been looking for your brother.”
On the other end of the line, Sam’s breath catches. “You know where he is?”
“’Course I do,” Crowley says. His voice his hoarse, barely above a whisper. “He’s with me.” Crowley sighs, and tucks his chin to his chest. “I need you to come pick him up. He’s—” Crowley swallows, and massages his throat again. “To be honest, Sam, I think he’s going to kill me. And I’d let him,” Crowley whispers. “I’d—God, Sam. I’d let him do anything.”