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It happens slowly, Crowley's death. Not the actual moment. That happens quick, like a knife slipped between two ribs. So sharp and whip swift that you barely know what's happening until you look down.
But then you look down. You look down and you see the handle sticking from your chest. And the pain and confusion seeps in slow as the blood fills your lungs, and you have an eternity to wonder and regret and wish before oblivion takes you. Until you have no time for anything at all ever again.
Crowley's physical death is like that.
What comes after though? That is infinitely worse. A barren void. Both inexhaustible and exhausting. An oppressive, crushing weight dragging you ever further down into insignificance.
But then - then - the cold fingers of death release their hold one by one, letting in tiny pinpricks of light as they dissolve away. Until Nothing becomes Something. Until what once was Empty becomes a little bit less.
The pain of it is, perhaps, just that much worse for it. But that's okay. It's a reminder. Proof of life.
Better than feeling nothing at all.
So there's pain, and that means life. And that's...good? He thinks. Pain seasoned with equal parts wonder and fear.
Wonder that he's back. Wonder that someone would bother. Wonder that anyone would care.
Fear that it can't last. Fear that it's one final joke the universe plans to play on him. Fear that he's out of his depth.
He was no good as a human the first time around, who's to say he's not going to screw it up this time too?
So he deals with it in the only manner he's any good at.
Bargaining. Making deals. Or trying to at least.
Trouble is, there's no one for him to bargain with. No one to whom he can plead his case for continued existence. (He doesn't call it praying. He won't. But what else is it when you beg in silence to an unknown entity that holds the power of life and death over you, with no hope of response?) Because no one claims responsibility for his return at all.
No. No he simply sparks back into being on the doorstep of the Winchester's humble abode in the middle of a rainy winter afternoon. Coughing up blood from a wound that's no longer there; chest heaving for breath, and the muscle trapped beneath his ribs pounding against its cage like it plans to escape.
Something it'll try again. Over and over, night after night. Week after week. As his spontaneous second (or third or fourth, because who's counting anyway?) life trudges on. Waking him up from broken visions of Nothing, bathed in cold sweat, with the familiar taste of ash and brimstone in his throat that no amount of whiskey can wash away.
So he bargains. Makes promises that he'll do better this time. That he'll try, if only he can avoid being sent back to that place of manifested Absence ever again.
The worry that he'll be tossed unceremoniously back into that place plagues him like nothing else ever has. It's a slow, insidious type of torture a former demon such as him can respect.
He doesn't swear to be good, because he doesn't believe he's truly capable of that. But he can pantomime, he thinks. He's spent enough years being foiled by the Winchesters to have a general grasp on the concept, even if his days playing at it before his death were sadly limited. And now, having been given shelter in their bunker, he has a front row seat to what Being Good looks like on a daily basis.
It seems to work, his bargain. He keeps breathing. His heart keeps beating. And he eases back into the world, to life, a day at a time. Learning what it means to be human; pretending he understands what it means to be mortal.
To be moral.
He trips up sometimes. Forgets why people (Other people. People he doesn’t know. People he doesn't like.) matter. Sam will shake his head at him, the lumbering oaf sighing that heavy dramatic sigh of his that Crowley is certain he practices in the mirror for optimal judgmental effect, and walk away.
Feathers and Luci’s brat are more patient with his mistakes. But being near them makes his skin itch. Reminds him of what he was for so long - what he no longer is - in a way that leaves him feeling vulnerable. Exposed. Which just makes him lash out like a cornered housecat.
And like a cornered housecat, he’ll skitter away as soon as the coast is clear; to whatever little dark, solitary place he can find so he can lick his imaginary wounds in peace.
He’s never alone for long though. Dean always finds him. And for all that Crowley sometimes chafes at his presence, he’s grateful for it too.
(But then, he’s hard pressed to recall a time when he wasn’t grateful for Dean Winchester. As even on the days when he was making Crowley’s life difficult beyond measure, he was also making it more interesting.)
Crowley can be alone when Dean’s there. Alone with his thoughts; with his confusion; with his uncertainty. And Dean will let him wallow, but only to a point. Dragging him up and out of the bunker when he gets too maudlin. To pool halls and bars, usually, or easy hunts with black and white answers, where Crowley gets to pretend that he has the faintest idea what it means to be good. But sometimes he just leads him outside. Away from the recirculated air that reeks of blood and sweat as much as it does of parchment and ink.
Dean will let him rant and rage on occasion too, something Crowley appreciates as much - if not more so - than everything else. Maybe because Dean calls him out on his bullshit. Every. Single. Time. And that’s something Crowley has always found refreshing. Demon, human, or somewhere in between.
At first Crowley’s not certain what Dean gets out of it. But as the weeks bleed on into months, he begins to suspect that what Dean gets out of it isn’t all that different from Crowley.
Space. A chance to sort himself out without anyone putting demands on his time. On his thoughts.
Someone who gets it.
Memories of hell a shared space between them, even if they are looking at it from different angles.
It’s a year and some change after his return that Crowley accidentally falls asleep in Dean’s room for the first time. The nightmares that dog his steps send him scurrying out of his room, in search of some place...safe. But rather than seeking out a bottle and an out of the way corner in the bunker like he is wont to do, his feet carry him to Dean’s door.
Dean answers his knock with a grunt, swinging the door open wide and allowing Crowley entrance with nary a word. The television on Dean’s dresser is paused on a scene of a show Crowley doesn’t recognize, the Netflix logo emblazoned in the corner.
Somehow Crowley finds himself sitting on Dean’s bed. Maybe it’s the lack of chairs in the space, or the fact it’s after midnight and it is by far a more inviting option than the floor. Or maybe it’s just that Dean gestures for him to do so, and an invite to Dean’s bed - no matter in what capacity - is not something Crowley is built to refuse.
So he ends up on Dean’s bed, watching a poorly acted, poorly scripted program on the screen. He slowly migrates back, towards the pillows, his feet lifting from the floor inch by inch as he does.
“Dude, take you shoes off.” It’s a command, not a request. Something Crowley may have balked at in days past, or even in the light of the sun at present. But laying on Dean Winchester’s bed watching Netflix in the dark of the night, visions of the bleak Empty he so fears tickling his mind, Crowley does nothing of the sort. Instead, he does as he’s told. Sliding them off and onto the floor at the side of the bed before settling back on the mattress to watch the show.
He wakes up before the sun crests the horizon - not that anyone can tell that sort of the thing in the windowless bunker, but Crowley’s internal clock is good at it’s job - still laying on Dean’s bed, the elder Winchester’s sleeping visage a scant few inches away. The sight makes Crowley’s heart once again attempt a messy escape from his chest.
Crowley stares, shock and wonder at the sight he’s been gifted holding him in place. Crowley watches as soft lips he’ll recall the feel of until his bones are dust and insanity all that’s left of his mind, part on an inhale. He watches as what he knows to be impossibly green eyes dart back and forth behind closed lids. He watches, and wonders what Dean dreams about.
But not for long. No. When Dean shifts minutely in his sleep, turning towards Crowley - coming dangerously close to making contact - Crowley flees. Sitting up and dropping his feet to the ground.
When he reaches for his shoes, he finds that they aren’t quite where he’d left them. Instead of beside the footpost, they’ve been slide beneath the bed. Tucked away behind the blanket draped across the mattress that both him and Dean fell asleep on. There they sit, next to another battered, but clean, pair of shoes belonging to the owner of said mattress.
The sight trips him up for a moment, but then Dean sniffles in his sleep and Crowley gets moving, grabbing his shoes and heading for his own room like a thief in the night.
Crowley tells himself it's not important. That it doesn't mean anything. That there's no reason to dwell on it.
But he does. His treacherous, oh-so-very human emotions clog up his brain with thoughts of it. After all, he's never fallen asleep next to Dean before. And Dean has certainly never done the same. Not in all the nights that they'd dallied about back when Dean had been a demon, and Crowley had been grasping at straws. They’d engaged in all manner of sin, but never something so naked as that.
It happens again three months later. And again a month after that. Then a week. Soon enough it's happening with alarming regularity and frequency.
He'll show up at Dean's door, ready with an easy excuse that Dean never asks for, and so Crowley never provides. Instead, Dean just lets him in, no questions asked. Door swung open, and shut with a click of the lock behind him, all in the time it takes Crowley to exhale.
Some nights they talk. Bantering about the idiocy on the screen, mostly. But sometimes it’s light anecdotes about life past, or discussing the last hunt, or lamenting the fact that Jack’s interest in cooking ‘family’ dinners has outpaced his ability to make anything remotely edible.
But mostly they sit in silence, watching whatever inane thing is playing on the screen that night. There’s no pressure for explanations. No expectation of confessions or demands for anything beyond simple companionship.
In fact, the only demand that is made, night after night, is that Crowley take his shoes off before putting his feet on the bed.
So Crowley does. Every time.
And every time, when he wakes up, he finds his shoes stowed in the same spot beneath the bed.
Next to Dean's.
It confuses Crowley almost as much as it warms his erratic heart.
They don’t talk about it, of course. Crowley doesn’t want to call attention to it, for fear that doing so will bring an end to, well, all of it.
And Dean, well, Crowley knows Dean well enough to know that there’s only two reasons why he wouldn’t bring it up. Either it’s so unimportant as to not warrant mentioning. Or... it’s the complete opposite of that.
Crowley also figures he knows Dean well enough to know which one of those choices is the more likely one, so he keeps his mouth firmly shut.
He’ll take ambiguity over clear rejection any day.
It goes on like that - month after month, night after night - Crowley spending more hours asleep in Dean’s bed then in his own - always making sure he’s gone before Dean wakes - until Crowley is celebrating a second rotation around the sun as a human. A day that comes and goes without fanfare, for all that the knowledge of it settles on Crowley like a lead shroud.
Two years, and he’s still no closer to figuring out why he was brought back, or how to make sure he doesn’t go back.
Two years, and he still thinks he rather sucks at this whole ‘Being Good’ thing, though he’s making progress. (He hasn’t been on the receiving end of one of Sam’s epic judgmental sighs in six solid days.) Slow, tedious progress, but progress all the same.
Not that time or progress helps with the nightmares at all. No. No, the only thing that seems to help alleviate those is the presence of one unfairly attractive hunter sleeping nearby.
It’s the dawn of the morning after said two-year anniversary when everything changes.
Crowley’s soaking in the sight of Dean, peaceful in sleep a hand length away, allowing himself a few precious moments of silent adoration before he has to sneak from the bed. He heaves a sigh, wanting to hold onto the moment longer, but being too much a coward to take the chance of getting caught.
(There’s a vague feeling of loss for the centuries of his life when he’d take whatever he wanted with no thought as to something as mundane as consequence, but he can’t quite bring himself to wish to be back in that time again.)
He’s only just begun the process of rolling from his side to his back when he freezes at the feel of fingers grasping at his wrist. His gaze swings to the location of the touch, his traitorous heart thundering away in his chest as he’s forced to admit that yes, that is in fact Dean Winchester’s hand holding him in place.
“Dammit, Crowley. Just once can you stay put? Be nice to get a full night’s sleep for a change.”
And because Crowley is the epitome of articulation at four in the morning when the man he’s been in love with through life and death and rebirth is touching him skin to skin for the first time since said death for a reason not related to impending doom, he says: “Pardon?”
“Sleep, Crowley. I want to get some. And it’d be a hell of a lot easier if you stopped with the nightly walks of shame.”
It takes a monumental effort to pull his eyes away from where Dean’s fingers are encircling his wrist, but he manages. Sliding them up to Dean’s face, trying to read the look he’s being given by the pale light of the dimmed television.
If Crowley were a less pessimistic sort, he’d think it was almost fond. Annoyed, but fond.
But pessimistic or not, Crowley can’t ignore the fact that Dean is actively holding him back from leaving, and is complaining about him having done so in the past. Crowley’s messy human emotions set his heart racing, his blood rushing. The point of contact between Dean’s fingers and Crowley’s wrist the source of the most intense physical sensations that Crowley can recall since he donned a mortal coil.
Despite his physiological response, Crowley’s mind manages to cling to his sense of self-respect enough to stop him from doing something as embarrassing as declaring his everlasting love or something equally ridiculous. “Hardly a walk of shame, Squirrel.”
Dean’s eyebrows lift towards his hairline. An action that when combined with the sideways position of his head illustrates the lines of age that have begun to carve their way across his forehead. (A fact that - if anything - makes Crowley find him even more attractive.) “No? What else would you call tiptoeing outta here before sunrise every morning in your socks?”
“Being considerate?”
An exasperated chuckle escapes Dean. The sound gravel-rough with sleep, and all too-pleasant to Crowley’s ears. “Considerate would be you keeping your ass in bed for a whole night.”
Crowley chokes on his next breath of air. “You want me to spend the night here?"
“I haven’t kicked you out, have I?”
“Well, no, but, falling asleep watching D-list eighties movies isn’t the same thing as you wanting me to stay.”
“You think if I didn’t want you here, I’d have let you stay here one night, let alone a hundred?” The question is punctuated with an almost imperceptible brush of Dean’s thumb over Crowley’s pulse-point. The action - simple as it is - sweeps away the vast majority of Crowley’s lingering doubts.
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“Good. Glad that’s settled. Now, sleep.”
Crowley swallows down the questions clawing at his throat, and nods his head. He’s rewarded with a soft smile from Dean. Green eyes holding Crowley’s gaze for lingering moments before sliding shut on a sleepy exhale of air.
Dean doesn’t let go of his wrist.
They don’t talk about it in the light of day. Not that Crowley really expected they would. But there’s a distinct shift in their interactions as they move about the bunker. Dean drifting into Crowley’s orbit too often for it to be accidental. Crowley’s head and heart make sure to scream out at him every time it happens, just in case he wasn’t paying enough attention and might miss it.
The internal screaming is made even worse every time Dean smiles or laughs or breathes in his general vicinity.
Dear Mother of Sin, but Crowley feels like a sap.
How he manages to make it through an entire day of pretending that his perception of reality hasn’t been fundamentally altered by one Dean Winchester, he has no idea. (Jack’s attempt at making meatloaf a la mode for dinner helps, he suspects.)
After, Dean heads to bed earlier than usual. There’s no pointed look in Crowley’s direction. No sense of invitation to join him. Nothing at all out of the ordinary.
Crowley follows after him an embarrassingly short time later.
Dean lets him in, as always.
(In retrospect, Crowley can admit that should have been one hell of a clue.)
This time though, when Crowley ends up on the bed with Dean it’s more than just his shoes that join Dean’s on the floor.
So yes, Crowley's death is slow. The slowest in the universe. It begins the moment he first agrees to help the Winchesters, and ends the moment he finally figures out where it is he belongs.
And after that...well, after that, Crowley truly starts living.
~End.