Hearts Are Made Of Broken Glass--chapter one--(Supernatural, Cas/Crow, PG-13)
Title: Hearts Are Made Of Broken Glass
Chapter: 1/?? (updating every Monday)
Author: pink_bagels
Genre: humour, drama
Pairing(s): Castiel/Crowley (eventually...kind of...), Dean/Crowley (eventually...kind of? o.O)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2700
Disclaimer: You kidding? I own nothing.
Warnings: Some spoilers for the seventh season and some deviation from canon at the end of the sixth.
Summary: Hell is no place for a brooding, guilty angel. So, Crowley sends Castiel on a crossroads mission. Big mistake.
hearts are made of broken glass--chapter one
He stood beneath the dim streetlamp, a thin veneer of mist collecting at his feet. The weather provided a strange observation. He was becoming increasingly aware that most of these encounters occured during specific conditions. Damp nights, poor lighting and an abandoned cross-section of road were all it took to create the perfect condition to purchase a human soul. Granted, there was a quality control issue that was in direct correlation to this, for the majority of sellers were inebriated half-wits, barely conscious of their own existance, let alone worth. It was no wonder Hell was filling up with morons, as Crowley kept complaining. The poorly lit crossroads were usually in the direct line of a nearby bar, and if even there was a ritual involved, a human being's wish to sell their soul always started as a drunken comment bantered among equally drunken friends.
Such as this young man standing before him, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulder length hair leaving his scalp in greasy, tangled strips. Henry Finkel couldn't be any more than twenty, and already he had sealed his fate, offering up his soul for the prescribed ten years of promised bliss--which in this case involved a case of beer and employment with a set of musicians called The Bay City Rollers.
"Seriously, man? I get to be their roadie?"
He didn't want to do this. First, because the thought of taking the soul went against everything he once stood for, and second because the youth was so insanely stupid. This alone predicted Henry's future as one of Crowley's CEOs, and again, the moron issue would arise, giving Crowley ample space to whine and complain ad nauseum over the lack of quality merchandise.
"You really should reconsider."
"No way, man! This is The Bay City Rollers we're talking about!" Henry's eyes were bright with roadmap excitement. "Those guys are set to be *legends*!"
He took in the young man's wilfull ignorance, his selfish adoration and, most of all, his utter, vapid misunderstanding of popular media culture. He gestured to him to get it over with, and Henry pounced on his lips, leaving the vile remnant of hot dogs and misspent dreams on his tongue. As he broke away, a tour bus drove past, stopping a few feet away from the crossroads. The passenger door opened, and the bus driver shouted out to the young man, "Hey kid? Wanna make a few bucks this summer?"
There were curtains on the bus, gaudy Scottish-styled tartans printed on orange polyester. None of the patterns had a proper clan attached to them. Yet another thing to piss Crowley off. This soul was destined to suffer.
"S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y...Night!" the kid yelled out a back bus window, waving goodbye to the sucker who bought his stupid soul. He remained beneath the dim streetlamp, watching as the bus disappeared into the mist. He shook his head, not understanding the purpose of spelling out a day of the week. Why not spell out the whole song if it was meant for learning English phonetics?
He took out his notebook and crossed out Henry Finkel's name. Three more to go and he would be permitted to go back to his grey, uncomfortable cell, where he could collapse into a dark corner and properly atone for the wrongs he had done. Unless, of course, Crowley called him up for yet another gin and tonic bitch session over his latest demon board meeting. Perhaps it was part of his penance to be such a good listener, but he couldn't help but feel guilty over the lack of real suffering he was owed. Or, the more he thought on it, this could be a rather clever ploy of Crowley's, lulling him into this sense of easy, bored comfort before hitting him broadside with a horrific torture session that Raphael himself couldn't devise.
Of course, that was ridiculous, because no one was better at torture than angels. Crowley knew this, he was sure. Which was why the King of Hell had placed him in this emotional queue line, letting him sit in the dark to brood alone, giv ing him menial tasks that were created solely to ease Crowley's own boredom. Tasks like this one.
He sighed, glancing at the next name.
The fact that it was buried between seven souls was not lost on him. The name leapt out from the page, taunting him. Fergus McLeod, of rural seventeenth century Scotland. A strange measure of trust was implied, especially considering how quickly he had reneged on his deal with Crowley over the souls of purgatory. An unhappy business all around, one could say.
Castiel pocketed his notebook, and marched into the mist. He had wanted to save this one for last, but curiousity got the best of him. What game was Crowley playing now, and how far was he willing to take it with his own soul at stake? Did he think Castiel was going to redeem him?
Probably.
Balls, as Bobby Singer would say.
///
Crowley impatiently checked his watch, noting that it was exactly five hours since he had sent Castiel on his first ever mission as a Hell employee. Most crossroad demons would have clocked in their progress reports by now (rife with spelling mistakes and netspeak. 'got a weenchister ran out of gas omfg dean runninn liek a looozer lolol ow he gut me') but Castiel was a new recruit so he was willing to let it slide just this once.
He hoped the fact Castiel was still stubbornly an angel didn't get in the way, what with him getting all empathetic and moral or some such rot. After the Leviathan debacle had finally been laid to rest, along with Castiel himself, all had returned to the same old, same old. Demons, Winchesters, blood, gore. A simple life, one he rather enjoyed. So, it was quite a nasty surprise for Crowley to find a remorseful, existential angel brooding in one of his dungeon cells. Castiel had decked it out in gloomy shadows and unpleasant scents, a rank decaying stench emanating from the brickwork in direct contrast to Crowley's usual spotless cleaning regimen. Crowley's Hell had a lingering PineSol scent, not rotted carcass innards. Castiel was opting for his own personal sensory Hell, customized himself and completely free of Crowley's subtle touch. Very disrespectful.
It irked him, that this miserable, backstabbing, fallen little sparrow would dare to think he would find sanctuary in Hell. He had resisted the idea when Castiel parked himself in the cell four months ago, but the angel simply refused to leave and all attempts to evict him proved fruitless. Crowley learned early on that threats of torture and emotional blackmail only served to make Castiel pleased with his choice of atonement.
He had defnitely proved a challenge. Crowley wasn't used to getting beings with a conscience slumming in his basement. It took some digging, and he eventually discovered that what bothered the angel most wasn't suffering so much as the lack of it, and it was this tactic Crowley opted to fully exploit.
So, gone were the rank smells and dark corners, gone were the bars of the cell and the chains, unlocked, that never held the angel captive. Crowley forced Castiel to do menial tasks around his office, such as making coffee or filing incident reports, and while the angel was thus engaged he purged Castiel's living space of all dreary misery and replaced it with a comfortable couch, a roaring fireplace, a well stocked wine bar and a 50" inch plasma TV that could be tuned into any Winchester channel his Heavenly little heart desired. His cell bars were replaced with a simple yet elegant Victorian manor house oak door. There was an adjoining mailbox on the wall beside it with the word 'Thursday' written across it in black letters.
Castiel would gradually undo this effort, rendering his cell back to the dank pit he longed for it to be, but Crowley always managed to clean it up back to high functioning glory by the first of every month. An inconvenience at times, but strangely satisfying, especially as he always did his best to outdo his last design. He found it kept his artful eye sharp.
His latest idea was outright suburbia, complete with open concept kitchen and a bedroom or two upstairs. It was a frivolous waste of space since neither demons nor angels slept, but he hoped to gain a certain satisfaction out of Castiel's pained expression when faced with this most basic piece of human normalcy: A proud, happy home painted in soft pastels and carefully colour coded furnishings. The front door could even have an alternate entrance, one right smack back onto Earth, in a location where lawns were perfect, and humans smiled and waved at one another to hide the pride and envy of loathing gossip bred between them.
Of course, even in happy surroundings a person can still suffer, and the long stretches of time that Castiel gave to this activity had to be minimalized. Giving him employment was a necessity. Since he wasn't a demon and thus not the usual dim lightbulb Crowley was used to dealing with, he had to give him work that was challenging enough to keep him occupied without being rewarding.
Thus, when the little issue of Balthazar's foray into time travel and mucking with the Titanic caused some residual contractural paradoxes, Castiel was perfect for the job. Not only could he be trusted to be discreet, he would also be efficient, morally conflicted over his role and, most importantly, bored.
The conversation that morning had been amicable, if not strained. Castiel's cell had been drawn into its customary grey hue (it was the end of the month), and the angel was suffering in the dark corner, putrescence strewn about him as he wallowed in his misery.
Crowley kicked open the cell door. brandishing the one act of comforting torment Castiel could never resist.
"Coffee," Crowley said, handing him one of the matching steaming cups. "No sugar. One cream."
"Thank you," Castiel said, taking it from him.
Crowley snatched a comfortable chair from the early Victorian period and sat down before Castiel, his own coffee carefully poised on its armrest. "You don't belong here."
"I must atone for what I have done."
"Having angels in my Hell is bad for business." Crowley sipped at his coffee and made a face. Black, but a little too heavy on the stevia. He was going to have to hex that smug Starbucks barista. "You are making my demon minions nervous and your tears are putting holes in my good carpet. I have said this more often than I can count, and I'm tired of reminding you. You are not a prisoner here. You have not been banished from Earth, though some may wish you were, nor are you struck from Heaven, though most of your brethren want to smite you. Which raises only one good question in my mind: Why am I the sucker stuck with you?"
Castiel glared at him with hooded eyes ringed in black, betraying the vast depths of his pain. Crowley felt a well of anger rise within him. Damn angel, that sealed it, Castiel was getting a hot tub, with a built-in stereo. 'Go ahead and try to suffer with that on your back porch,' Crowley thought. 'There's no way you are suffering for free on *my* time.'
"You can't kick me out of Hell," Castiel flatly informed him. "If I choose to be here, that is my own perogative."
"Oh no, there are no squatter's rights here," Crowley shot back. "As above, so below, my feathered friend. Everyone here has a job to do, and since you've decided to park your ass here, you're going to have to follow my one golden rule." Crowley nearly spilled his coffee as he shouted at a stone faced Castiel. "No one in Hell is on the dole!"
Castiel raised a brow, his expression impassive. "Just what kind of job are you talking about?"
"A clean-up operation, one that requires a slight amount of intelligence. Right up your alley, I should think, not so demeaning as cleaning toilets on the fourth level, but pretty close." Crowley took out a manilla folder he had tucked into his suit and handed it to Castiel. "Seems your friend Balthazar's meddling with the Titanic timeline has still left some residual paradoxes that need scrubbing out. Those are contracts that are to be filled, not many, just seven. They are to happen exactly as outlined in the descriptions, otherwise some pieces of this Earth's history may not fall into place." He gave Castiel's doubtful expression a careful study before continuing. "You wouldn't want your Winchesters to never be born, now would you? Mind you, I have to wonder at that. Maybe I should allow you some creative license with the canon material."
"I am not one of your demons. I will not negotiate contracts for human souls."
The pissy way he said this made Crowley's black heart sing. Pride going before the fall and all that, it seems the angel wasn't learning much of a lesson with his brooding. "I'm afraid, darling, that you have no choice. If you want to stay here, you're going to have to pull your weight, like everyone else. I'm not operating some masochistic spa here, Hell is a thriving business. Besides," Crowley smiled as Castiel visibly enjoyed his morning coffee, "this assignment is of great significance to me. As an upstairs member, I'm sure you understand that I would appreciate the personal touch that only you can afford."
Castiel raised a brow as he sipped his coffee. The putrescence stench had disappeared. Cinnamon. Won the little sparrow over every time.
"How so?" Castiel asked.
Crowley opted to remain cryptic. "I'm not at full liberty to say. You never know which walls might be listening in."
That had been morning, and naturally Castiel agreed, curiousity being one of his great weaknesses. Crowley checked his watch again, a feeling of anxious anticipation coursing over him. He was still here, he was still king, so any worry that the deal had fallen through for his own soul should have been banished. He still had on his pressed, expensive suit, excellently tailored, he still had his powers and fiercely ambitious nature. Nothing had changed, not drastically.
Still, there was an odd feeling welling within him, that something was off. Like a button missed on a shirt. Something just wasn't fitting properly.
He created a door in Castiel's cell and used it to enter a door in his torture lab, the dungeon sparkling clean and ready for use. Might as well get some work done while he was waiting. Purgatory might not be the aim this time, but making sure souls properly suffered with maximum efficiency was an ongoing work in progress.
A suburban house, that's what Castiel was getting. If he finished early he might be able to get a fully functioning kitchen in there before five-thirty. Perhaps it was a bit much, giving him seven souls, along with his own, to harvest, especially since Castiel had no such experience. He was bound to make some errors. The day was no doubt stretching before the angel in a cloud of torment, desperate souls clamouring over him in want, and the angel forced to acquiesce instead of hammering down judgement. Castiel was going to be a misery when he finally came home. 'Poor thing,' Crowley thought. 'Perhaps I should cook him dinner.'
"Crowley..."
He turned to see Castiel standing behind him, looking more rumpled and miserable than usual. So far so good. However, Castiel's trenchcoat was caked in black muck and thick rivulets of blood. His hands dripped red droplets onto the stone floor of the lab. At his feet was a large, burlap sack, its unknown contents twitching in agonized, tortured jerks.
No, Crowley did not like the look of that angel's ice-fire blue gaze, not at all. It was small to start, that little nag of fear that had clutched at him earlier, but it grew the longer Castiel stood in front of him, eyes wild with fierce sanctimonious victory. 'He's done something stupid,' the demon thought, a fact confirmed by the proud smile Castiel bestowed upon him.
"I've completed my tasks."
"Lovely," Crowley cautiously replied. He gave an uneasy nod to the twisting burlap sack. "What's that?"
Castiel stepped into Crowley's personal space. The air was downright crackling with his aura, the frightening intensity of the angel's emotion sending a shiver of terror down Crowley's spine.
"A bonus," Castiel said.
Chapter: 1/?? (updating every Monday)
Author: pink_bagels
Genre: humour, drama
Pairing(s): Castiel/Crowley (eventually...kind of...), Dean/Crowley (eventually...kind of? o.O)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2700
Disclaimer: You kidding? I own nothing.
Warnings: Some spoilers for the seventh season and some deviation from canon at the end of the sixth.
Summary: Hell is no place for a brooding, guilty angel. So, Crowley sends Castiel on a crossroads mission. Big mistake.
hearts are made of broken glass--chapter one
He stood beneath the dim streetlamp, a thin veneer of mist collecting at his feet. The weather provided a strange observation. He was becoming increasingly aware that most of these encounters occured during specific conditions. Damp nights, poor lighting and an abandoned cross-section of road were all it took to create the perfect condition to purchase a human soul. Granted, there was a quality control issue that was in direct correlation to this, for the majority of sellers were inebriated half-wits, barely conscious of their own existance, let alone worth. It was no wonder Hell was filling up with morons, as Crowley kept complaining. The poorly lit crossroads were usually in the direct line of a nearby bar, and if even there was a ritual involved, a human being's wish to sell their soul always started as a drunken comment bantered among equally drunken friends.
Such as this young man standing before him, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulder length hair leaving his scalp in greasy, tangled strips. Henry Finkel couldn't be any more than twenty, and already he had sealed his fate, offering up his soul for the prescribed ten years of promised bliss--which in this case involved a case of beer and employment with a set of musicians called The Bay City Rollers.
"Seriously, man? I get to be their roadie?"
He didn't want to do this. First, because the thought of taking the soul went against everything he once stood for, and second because the youth was so insanely stupid. This alone predicted Henry's future as one of Crowley's CEOs, and again, the moron issue would arise, giving Crowley ample space to whine and complain ad nauseum over the lack of quality merchandise.
"You really should reconsider."
"No way, man! This is The Bay City Rollers we're talking about!" Henry's eyes were bright with roadmap excitement. "Those guys are set to be *legends*!"
He took in the young man's wilfull ignorance, his selfish adoration and, most of all, his utter, vapid misunderstanding of popular media culture. He gestured to him to get it over with, and Henry pounced on his lips, leaving the vile remnant of hot dogs and misspent dreams on his tongue. As he broke away, a tour bus drove past, stopping a few feet away from the crossroads. The passenger door opened, and the bus driver shouted out to the young man, "Hey kid? Wanna make a few bucks this summer?"
There were curtains on the bus, gaudy Scottish-styled tartans printed on orange polyester. None of the patterns had a proper clan attached to them. Yet another thing to piss Crowley off. This soul was destined to suffer.
"S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y...Night!" the kid yelled out a back bus window, waving goodbye to the sucker who bought his stupid soul. He remained beneath the dim streetlamp, watching as the bus disappeared into the mist. He shook his head, not understanding the purpose of spelling out a day of the week. Why not spell out the whole song if it was meant for learning English phonetics?
He took out his notebook and crossed out Henry Finkel's name. Three more to go and he would be permitted to go back to his grey, uncomfortable cell, where he could collapse into a dark corner and properly atone for the wrongs he had done. Unless, of course, Crowley called him up for yet another gin and tonic bitch session over his latest demon board meeting. Perhaps it was part of his penance to be such a good listener, but he couldn't help but feel guilty over the lack of real suffering he was owed. Or, the more he thought on it, this could be a rather clever ploy of Crowley's, lulling him into this sense of easy, bored comfort before hitting him broadside with a horrific torture session that Raphael himself couldn't devise.
Of course, that was ridiculous, because no one was better at torture than angels. Crowley knew this, he was sure. Which was why the King of Hell had placed him in this emotional queue line, letting him sit in the dark to brood alone, giv ing him menial tasks that were created solely to ease Crowley's own boredom. Tasks like this one.
He sighed, glancing at the next name.
The fact that it was buried between seven souls was not lost on him. The name leapt out from the page, taunting him. Fergus McLeod, of rural seventeenth century Scotland. A strange measure of trust was implied, especially considering how quickly he had reneged on his deal with Crowley over the souls of purgatory. An unhappy business all around, one could say.
Castiel pocketed his notebook, and marched into the mist. He had wanted to save this one for last, but curiousity got the best of him. What game was Crowley playing now, and how far was he willing to take it with his own soul at stake? Did he think Castiel was going to redeem him?
Probably.
Balls, as Bobby Singer would say.
///
Crowley impatiently checked his watch, noting that it was exactly five hours since he had sent Castiel on his first ever mission as a Hell employee. Most crossroad demons would have clocked in their progress reports by now (rife with spelling mistakes and netspeak. 'got a weenchister ran out of gas omfg dean runninn liek a looozer lolol ow he gut me') but Castiel was a new recruit so he was willing to let it slide just this once.
He hoped the fact Castiel was still stubbornly an angel didn't get in the way, what with him getting all empathetic and moral or some such rot. After the Leviathan debacle had finally been laid to rest, along with Castiel himself, all had returned to the same old, same old. Demons, Winchesters, blood, gore. A simple life, one he rather enjoyed. So, it was quite a nasty surprise for Crowley to find a remorseful, existential angel brooding in one of his dungeon cells. Castiel had decked it out in gloomy shadows and unpleasant scents, a rank decaying stench emanating from the brickwork in direct contrast to Crowley's usual spotless cleaning regimen. Crowley's Hell had a lingering PineSol scent, not rotted carcass innards. Castiel was opting for his own personal sensory Hell, customized himself and completely free of Crowley's subtle touch. Very disrespectful.
It irked him, that this miserable, backstabbing, fallen little sparrow would dare to think he would find sanctuary in Hell. He had resisted the idea when Castiel parked himself in the cell four months ago, but the angel simply refused to leave and all attempts to evict him proved fruitless. Crowley learned early on that threats of torture and emotional blackmail only served to make Castiel pleased with his choice of atonement.
He had defnitely proved a challenge. Crowley wasn't used to getting beings with a conscience slumming in his basement. It took some digging, and he eventually discovered that what bothered the angel most wasn't suffering so much as the lack of it, and it was this tactic Crowley opted to fully exploit.
So, gone were the rank smells and dark corners, gone were the bars of the cell and the chains, unlocked, that never held the angel captive. Crowley forced Castiel to do menial tasks around his office, such as making coffee or filing incident reports, and while the angel was thus engaged he purged Castiel's living space of all dreary misery and replaced it with a comfortable couch, a roaring fireplace, a well stocked wine bar and a 50" inch plasma TV that could be tuned into any Winchester channel his Heavenly little heart desired. His cell bars were replaced with a simple yet elegant Victorian manor house oak door. There was an adjoining mailbox on the wall beside it with the word 'Thursday' written across it in black letters.
Castiel would gradually undo this effort, rendering his cell back to the dank pit he longed for it to be, but Crowley always managed to clean it up back to high functioning glory by the first of every month. An inconvenience at times, but strangely satisfying, especially as he always did his best to outdo his last design. He found it kept his artful eye sharp.
His latest idea was outright suburbia, complete with open concept kitchen and a bedroom or two upstairs. It was a frivolous waste of space since neither demons nor angels slept, but he hoped to gain a certain satisfaction out of Castiel's pained expression when faced with this most basic piece of human normalcy: A proud, happy home painted in soft pastels and carefully colour coded furnishings. The front door could even have an alternate entrance, one right smack back onto Earth, in a location where lawns were perfect, and humans smiled and waved at one another to hide the pride and envy of loathing gossip bred between them.
Of course, even in happy surroundings a person can still suffer, and the long stretches of time that Castiel gave to this activity had to be minimalized. Giving him employment was a necessity. Since he wasn't a demon and thus not the usual dim lightbulb Crowley was used to dealing with, he had to give him work that was challenging enough to keep him occupied without being rewarding.
Thus, when the little issue of Balthazar's foray into time travel and mucking with the Titanic caused some residual contractural paradoxes, Castiel was perfect for the job. Not only could he be trusted to be discreet, he would also be efficient, morally conflicted over his role and, most importantly, bored.
The conversation that morning had been amicable, if not strained. Castiel's cell had been drawn into its customary grey hue (it was the end of the month), and the angel was suffering in the dark corner, putrescence strewn about him as he wallowed in his misery.
Crowley kicked open the cell door. brandishing the one act of comforting torment Castiel could never resist.
"Coffee," Crowley said, handing him one of the matching steaming cups. "No sugar. One cream."
"Thank you," Castiel said, taking it from him.
Crowley snatched a comfortable chair from the early Victorian period and sat down before Castiel, his own coffee carefully poised on its armrest. "You don't belong here."
"I must atone for what I have done."
"Having angels in my Hell is bad for business." Crowley sipped at his coffee and made a face. Black, but a little too heavy on the stevia. He was going to have to hex that smug Starbucks barista. "You are making my demon minions nervous and your tears are putting holes in my good carpet. I have said this more often than I can count, and I'm tired of reminding you. You are not a prisoner here. You have not been banished from Earth, though some may wish you were, nor are you struck from Heaven, though most of your brethren want to smite you. Which raises only one good question in my mind: Why am I the sucker stuck with you?"
Castiel glared at him with hooded eyes ringed in black, betraying the vast depths of his pain. Crowley felt a well of anger rise within him. Damn angel, that sealed it, Castiel was getting a hot tub, with a built-in stereo. 'Go ahead and try to suffer with that on your back porch,' Crowley thought. 'There's no way you are suffering for free on *my* time.'
"You can't kick me out of Hell," Castiel flatly informed him. "If I choose to be here, that is my own perogative."
"Oh no, there are no squatter's rights here," Crowley shot back. "As above, so below, my feathered friend. Everyone here has a job to do, and since you've decided to park your ass here, you're going to have to follow my one golden rule." Crowley nearly spilled his coffee as he shouted at a stone faced Castiel. "No one in Hell is on the dole!"
Castiel raised a brow, his expression impassive. "Just what kind of job are you talking about?"
"A clean-up operation, one that requires a slight amount of intelligence. Right up your alley, I should think, not so demeaning as cleaning toilets on the fourth level, but pretty close." Crowley took out a manilla folder he had tucked into his suit and handed it to Castiel. "Seems your friend Balthazar's meddling with the Titanic timeline has still left some residual paradoxes that need scrubbing out. Those are contracts that are to be filled, not many, just seven. They are to happen exactly as outlined in the descriptions, otherwise some pieces of this Earth's history may not fall into place." He gave Castiel's doubtful expression a careful study before continuing. "You wouldn't want your Winchesters to never be born, now would you? Mind you, I have to wonder at that. Maybe I should allow you some creative license with the canon material."
"I am not one of your demons. I will not negotiate contracts for human souls."
The pissy way he said this made Crowley's black heart sing. Pride going before the fall and all that, it seems the angel wasn't learning much of a lesson with his brooding. "I'm afraid, darling, that you have no choice. If you want to stay here, you're going to have to pull your weight, like everyone else. I'm not operating some masochistic spa here, Hell is a thriving business. Besides," Crowley smiled as Castiel visibly enjoyed his morning coffee, "this assignment is of great significance to me. As an upstairs member, I'm sure you understand that I would appreciate the personal touch that only you can afford."
Castiel raised a brow as he sipped his coffee. The putrescence stench had disappeared. Cinnamon. Won the little sparrow over every time.
"How so?" Castiel asked.
Crowley opted to remain cryptic. "I'm not at full liberty to say. You never know which walls might be listening in."
That had been morning, and naturally Castiel agreed, curiousity being one of his great weaknesses. Crowley checked his watch again, a feeling of anxious anticipation coursing over him. He was still here, he was still king, so any worry that the deal had fallen through for his own soul should have been banished. He still had on his pressed, expensive suit, excellently tailored, he still had his powers and fiercely ambitious nature. Nothing had changed, not drastically.
Still, there was an odd feeling welling within him, that something was off. Like a button missed on a shirt. Something just wasn't fitting properly.
He created a door in Castiel's cell and used it to enter a door in his torture lab, the dungeon sparkling clean and ready for use. Might as well get some work done while he was waiting. Purgatory might not be the aim this time, but making sure souls properly suffered with maximum efficiency was an ongoing work in progress.
A suburban house, that's what Castiel was getting. If he finished early he might be able to get a fully functioning kitchen in there before five-thirty. Perhaps it was a bit much, giving him seven souls, along with his own, to harvest, especially since Castiel had no such experience. He was bound to make some errors. The day was no doubt stretching before the angel in a cloud of torment, desperate souls clamouring over him in want, and the angel forced to acquiesce instead of hammering down judgement. Castiel was going to be a misery when he finally came home. 'Poor thing,' Crowley thought. 'Perhaps I should cook him dinner.'
"Crowley..."
He turned to see Castiel standing behind him, looking more rumpled and miserable than usual. So far so good. However, Castiel's trenchcoat was caked in black muck and thick rivulets of blood. His hands dripped red droplets onto the stone floor of the lab. At his feet was a large, burlap sack, its unknown contents twitching in agonized, tortured jerks.
No, Crowley did not like the look of that angel's ice-fire blue gaze, not at all. It was small to start, that little nag of fear that had clutched at him earlier, but it grew the longer Castiel stood in front of him, eyes wild with fierce sanctimonious victory. 'He's done something stupid,' the demon thought, a fact confirmed by the proud smile Castiel bestowed upon him.
"I've completed my tasks."
"Lovely," Crowley cautiously replied. He gave an uneasy nod to the twisting burlap sack. "What's that?"
Castiel stepped into Crowley's personal space. The air was downright crackling with his aura, the frightening intensity of the angel's emotion sending a shiver of terror down Crowley's spine.
"A bonus," Castiel said.