Brothers Keep Her

One Year Later (pt. 1)

Dean spent the first three months driving around the continental United States searching after every attempt to summon you failed. And Sam let him go. It would have done no good to try to convince him to give up; he could have talked himself blue in the face and Dean would have climbed into the Impala and driven away anyway. Dean couldn't understand why you would give up your chance at heaven to be Death, or why you couldn't say goodbye, but still he never opened up to Sam.

Nice to see you again, my friend. Crowley's surly voice stands the hairs on the back of your neck.

Billie bows out as you turn to face him. "Crowley. What brings you all this way?" You are used to seeing him pop up now and then. You hate that you have to let him take any souls at all, but you can't do anything when they choose to make those deals, or even those bad choices over and over again. Then again, you don't mind letting Crowley take the really dark ones - the people who dedicated their lives to terror and destruction. At least you get to guide their victims to the Gates.

"I happen to enjoy Toronto, actually. The food trucks are top notch. Have you tried the deep fried hot dog and purple rice?"

"Not big on hot dogs."

"Pity. The old Death was quite the connoisseur. Give it a try sometime."

"You came all the way up here to talk about a hot dog?"

"No. I was hoping to bend your ear for a moment, if I may." He's always played off the seriousness of the chaos down below like it was a wrinkle in his tie.

"Of course," you say, careful not to add I owe you one. He did, after all, tip you off to the asshole Reaper who abandoned Jonah. Thanks to Crowley, you were able to retrieve him and get him to the Gates in time, but the last thing you - or anyone - should ever do is give a demon the kind of power that comes with being in his debt.

***

It's been NINE AND A HALF months since you walked away from the bunker in the middle of the night, and Dean is in an old, shut-down factory building in western Kansas, standing over a summoning bowl. He and Sam are working a particularly puzzling case, and they realized they needed Crowley. "What do you know about Bellvue, Colorado?" Dean asks him.

"Who, me? Dean, why on Earth would you ever think I had something to do with your case? Or that I would even help you?"

"Shut it, Crowley, I don't have time for your bullshit."

"And I have time for yours? Lucky for you, I've got my hands full with Lucifer's mess."

Dean turns to leave. "Great. Useless as usual. You can go, now."

"I don't suppose either of you have come up with any solutions to our mutual problem?"

"We're working on it," Dean growls.

Crowley licks his teeth as he watches the Winchester walk away, still secretly harboring the bitterness of their falling out, and irritated that they can still successfully summon him at will. That kind of thing doesn't win him any points down below. He has a reputation to rebuild, so he decides to burn Dean a little bit. Any little dig at the Winchesters earns another morsel of respect from his court, and he knows Dean well enough to know exactly what to say. "She's doing rather well, you know."

Dean freezes mid-step and tenses nearly every muscle in his body.

"She's really taken to the role. You'd think she was born to it."

Dean's shoulders fall a little, but he doesn't look at the demon. "Tell her..." He stops. It stings that Crowley has been in communication with you over the last year. He doesn't know what to say because what he wants to say isn't what he's supposed to say right now, and he knows that.