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Time passed. He got used to living in the bunker, taking Juliet on walks in the woods, playing pool with Dean, having started to correct the Men of Letter’s library with Cas.
He was finally ready to admit to himself that Dean was the best friend he’d ever made in his long life, and he and Cas were slowly making progress towards being friends as well.
It wasn’t the easiest life, but he wouldn’t have asked for anything different, even if every time they came across other hunters he had to explain himself anew, and most were much less trusting than the boys.
By far the worst meeting of this kind took place between him and Jody Mills.
He had been back for two weeks when she came running; he assumed Dean had told her he’d returned.
The first he’d heard of her arrival had been a door slamming shut and the angry demand “Where is he?”
“Jody, I told you – “
“I’m not a sheriff for nothing, Dean, I’ll be the judge of that.”
A few moments later, she was standing in the library; and Crowley, realizing what she was about to do, quickly moved so there was a bookshelf between them.
“Sheriff Mills” he called out. “While I do understand your anger, I must warn you that my reflexes are excellent, and my flight or fight response is always invariably the latter. I don’t want to hurt you”.
She stood there dumbfounded, staring at him as Dean hurried into the library.
“Good God... “changed” doesn’t even begin to cover it”.
“Told you. Can Crowley come out of hiding now?”
“I wasn’t hiding” he said, stepping once more into the open.
“Yeah, yeah, big guy. Hey, I said no treats in the library – “
And Jody was left to look at the piece of meat seemingly hanging in the air.
“What – “
“That’s Juliet. My hell hound. Juliet, that’s Sheriff Mills. She’s a... friend”.
The piece of meat was dropped onto the floor; Dean winced as Juliet welcomed their guest with a loud bark.
“You have a pet hell hound”.
“Should have seen her when we all thought Crowley was dead. Just hung around the bunker feeling sorry for herself.”
“I bet” Jody said carefully, looking at the thin air.
“What do I do? Do I have to do anything?”
“You could pet her” Crowley suggested, “She likes to be scratched behind the ears”.
“Of course she does”.
Carefully, Jody managed to do it.
“Letting me play with your puppy doesn’t make us square”.
“I know” he replied, honestly. He’d tried to kill her after all.
How well he remembered it, calmly sitting at the table, feeling the spell take its course.
“Would it help if I said I’m sorry?”
“Only if you actually were...”
“I am”.
She looked up from the nothing where he would have been able to see Juliet if he had still been a demon.
“You really have changed.”
“Just doing my best” he replied.
Then, to his surprise, she let her gaze wander up and down his body.
“Build up a bit of muscle too, haven’t you? And I bet the tattoos are new”.
He nodded.
She smirked.
“Still hot”.
And with that she left him and Juliet to stare after her.
That had been... unexpected.
She stayed with them for three days. Crowley had no idea whether she’d come any closer to forgiving him at the end of her visit, but she’d been rather nice to him, all things considered.
Not as nice as Garth, who dropped in a few weeks later, however.
Dean had begun to say “I should probably warn you that...” but then he’d stopped with a smirk.
Crowley soon learned why.
Garth was a hugger, and a very enthusiastic one at that.
Even if he had known, he would still have been surprised when, after greeting the boys and Cas with hugs, Garth turned around, exclaimed “Welcome to the team, Crowster!” and threw his arms around him as well.
“I...”
He reciprocated the hug, raising one eyebrow at a sniggering Dean.
“Your face, man” he said later when they were alone. “Priceless”.
He glowered at him.
“Don’t you dare call me “Crowster””.
He just grinned at him and winked.
Life went on. And if Dean now and then started throwing the nickname around when he called him Squirrel, there was no reason to mention it.
For the most part, he partnered with Dean when they were hunting, although Cas had already asked Crowley to accompany him several times.
Sam was the one member of their team who still seemed somewhat reluctant to embrace their new status, and he could easily understand why.
There were some wounds that didn’t heal as easy as others.
During a hunt for a banshee, Sam was thrown into a corner, and it was only through Crowley’s reflexes that nothing worse happened.
That night, he was up late reading an Enochian spell book.
The author had been an idiot; the carelessness he’d displayed in writing down what he’d heard was almost staggering.
With a stroke, he ensured that a spell “to find what was lost” would actually do what it was supposed to when cast.
Behind him, Sam cleared his throat.
The one thing he missed about being a demon were his old senses. No one could have snuck up on him in the old days.
He turned around.
“Moose”.
Sam gave him a weak smile and held out a glass of Craig.
“I thought we could talk”.
He nodded as he accepted the drink.
“Thank you for today”.
Crowley shrugged.
“You’re welcome”.
Sam sat down next to him and for a while, neither of them said anything as Crowleyy finished his work.
“I’m sorry” Sam finally blurted out. “I know I haven’t been... exactly welcoming. And you really did a lot for us when you decided to stab yourself to foil Lucifer... It’s just... You gave them the hell hound.”
Crowley didn’t have to ask.
Eileen Leahy.
The deaf hunter even he’d looked at with some kind of respect.
“I did”.
Lying would be of no use. He already had to live with what he’d done in the past few centuries.
“We had a deal. It was a good one at the time”.
He paused.
“Hess offered me the same one for America – the complete monopole on deals and being shielded from any attacks from the Men of Letters themselves” he finally added.
And foolishly he’d believed at the time that he could live with the Winchesters’ demise as long as he wouldn’t have to be the one to kill them.
Now, he knew how much he would have missed them because he had – for two whole years.
“It was a good deal” Sam agreed.
They again lapsed into silence.
Then, “Dean said you’ve been having nightmares now and then”.
“It’s only to be expected”.
He didn’t tell him that at the beginning, at camp, he’d regularly woken up most of the campers with his screams at night, that once he’d tried to simply stay awake until he’d almost dropped with exhaustion and Mary had forced him to lie down, that sometimes everything he’d done still came crushing down on him and he found himself unable to breathe.
Only Dean knew about that, and he’d apparently been discreet enough not to share every detail with his brother.
“I don’t expect your forgiveness” he said, empting his glass “for the simple reason that I know I will never earn my own. You’ve already given me far more than I could have expected. Goodnight, Sam”.
He left him in the library.
Sam avoided him again for the next few days, but that was only to be expected.
“He’ll come around” Dean told him one day; it was Crowley’s turn to make lunch (a task much easier, he’d found, as long as he was supplied with a stove and electricity) and he’d just entered the garage to ask Dean to tell his brother their meals were done.
“He was pretty cut up about Eileen”.
“I know. I don’t expect much, don’t worry”.
Dean sighed.
“I’d just like some damn peace in my own home, that’s all”.
“We aren’t fighting” Crowley pointed out.
Dean shook his head.
“What?”
“Sometimes I forget how human you are these days, that’s all”.
With that cryptic remark Dean left the garage, but not without squeezing his shoulder.
Eventually, Sam did stop avoiding him, and they entered a rather peaceful co-existence in the bunker. Crowley could easily live with that.
“Hey” Dean asked on one of their movie nights, “you still got liquorice?”
He held out his bag.
Sam frowned.
“How any of you can stand this...”
“It’s quite pleasant, Sam” Cas said, and Crowley added, “Trust me, I only accept the best”.
It was now quite as true as it had been when he’d ruled Hell, only these days, this was the best. Living in a small room in a secret bunker with three other serial killers.
“Oh, I know” Sam said.
The next day he sought Crowley out for an Aramaic translation.
He was playing fetch with Juliet in the woods behind the bunker.
“Dean used to do that a lot on his bad nights, you know” Sam said.
“Do what?” he asked, only half paying attention since Juliet had finally understood that “Fetch” did not mean “nibbling on the stick until it couldn’t be identified as such anymore”.
“Go out and walk around the woods with Juliet. When I asked, he just said “I miss him sometimes Sammy, you know how it is”.
Dean had never told him that.
Crowley had little doubt that Sam’s answer had been... rather incredulous.
“She’s a good girl.”
Sam smiled weakly.
“I know. These ghouls that one time... Say, can you help me with this translation?”
“Sure. I speak over two dozen languages”.
“Of course you do”.
“Don’t look so jealous, Moose. What’s the problem?”
He was indeed able to help, Juliet happily running circles around them.
Dean was in an extremely good mood at dinner; Crowley found out why later, when he was training his shooting skills at the range.
Dean stepped up to him.
“Knew Sam would come through eventually. Good shot, by the way”.
“I shot at least 53 demons right between the eyes in the other world” he replied lightly. “What do you mean?”
“Dude, it’s Sam. He doesn’t just share language with everyone”.
He doubted anyone outside their circle might have understood what he meant, but he nodded regardless.
The time came when Sam not only no longer avoided being alone with him, but actually searched his company.
Then, one day on a hunt, he said “I’ll check out the body. Crowley, you with me?”
There was only one answer he could give.
“No werewolf” he mused in the mortuary, “they wouldn’t have left behind the heart”.
“Yeah...” Sam said, sounding funny. He threw him a glance just to make sure – you never knew if there might not have been a witch with a grudge around the corner – but Sam looked alright.
A few weeks later, they met some other hunters on a case.
Crowley’s instincts were as good as they had ever been, and he immediately knew they were trouble.
There was just something sketchy about them.
But, with his human soul, he didn’t consider that instead of looking after the boys, he might be the one to need protection.
They were cleaning out a vampire nest – Roy was clearly in Dean’s line of sight and Walt was behind Crowley, so no danger for the others – when Crowley heard the hunter groan and whipped around.
Walt was lying on the floor, clutching his stomach; Sam had his gun in his hand, looking furious.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“He was the King of Hell...”
“He’s our friend” Sam hissed, looking at Crowley, who realized how narrowly he’d just escaped certain death.
Then, slowly, he repeated, as if talking to himself, “He’s our friend”.
It was Sam who paid the drinks that night; and Crowley understood.