SOME PEOPLE HAVE REAL PROBLEMS--8/10 (Supernatural: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Crowley, Growly)
Title: Some People Have Real Problems
Fandom: Supernatural
Word count (total fic): 20,245
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None, really, maybe some Dean/Cas hints. Don't hold the lack of pairing against it, though--If you're a dog lover, you'll probably like this story...
Summary: When Crowley's meatsuit mutinies it's up to Castiel and the Winchesters to help The King Of Hell him get back into his favourite blood and guts condominium. What starts off as a seemingly easy assignment quickly turns into a drama about a dead dog and a haphazard pile of memories. Putting a leash on Crowley's body proves harder than expected.
Notes: Takes place after season five, AU afterwards--Sam was rescued from Hell in much the same manner as Dean. Otherwise it's canon.
This was written for the crowley_bigbang on livejournal. I didn't quite make it for the official track, so this is the unofficial posting :P.
"Let me guess. Our friendly neighbourhood drug dealer." Dean fired off a few rounds which were returned with expert precision. "Dammit. I hate getting into gunfights with humans. They hardly ever fucking miss." As if to prove the point a single bullet flew past and grazed Dean's ear. "Dammit!" He touched the injury tenderly with his fingertips, frowning over the spots of blood. "We better figure out something quick, Sammy. Demons and hell and fallen angels are our speciality, not a bunch of morons hopped up on death wishes and meth."
Another round of bullets flew past, one large blast leaving a massive hole in the centre of the couch. It was just a little too close to Dean's jewels for comfort. "Sammy, come on, think of something!"
"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted from behind the kitchen wall. Erin shot down a couple of gang-bangers brandishing machetes in the kitchen before turning back to Sam and Dean. "There's no other way this bastard could have found out where I lived!"
Bullets zinged through the air overhead while Sam and Dean huddled closer to the armchair resting on its side. Dean noticed the pattern it sported was of cowboys and large Oklahoma styled wagons from the turn of the century. 1970's curbside chic. "Sammy, I'm not sure, but I think we might both be in hell."
"I don't get this," Sam hissed, his rifle cocked and ready, but it was no match for the hand held magnums these guys were packing. "There's something really strange about this whole scenario and I'm not talking about the whole androgyny asexual thing."
"Dude, it doesn't matter what you think. It still weirds me the fuck out."
"Dean, I'm thinking none of this is about what we think it is." Sam's jaw set and he crouched low, edging towards where Erin was poised with the glock. "If O'Mally sent these goons on Erin's trail, it's not about what's in his pants. This is about something concrete."
"Such as?" Dean asked. He cocked his rifle and rock salt made a nasty dent in the crotch of an angry gang banger whose screams quickly dissolved into a whimper.
"We're dealing with humans here, Dean," Sam reminded him.
Dean openly cursed. "Fuck me," Dean said, shaking his head. "This is about money."
***
They were just going to have a conversation, this body and soul. After Castiel had left the bedroom, all hell had broken loose and the body, non-reactive and completely oblivious to all but its most menial tasks, opened the bathroom door for a repeat of its obsessive primping. Crowley, his patience at an end, watched him as he carefully began the process of neatening his thinning hair with a comb.
"We work better as a team," Crowley said to it. He lifted his head, feeling a swelter of pride at the way he'd filled out that body, made it live life the way it never had a chance or the courage to previously enjoy. All those bits of flesh he'd rendered with those hands, all those throats he'd crushed. It had been a pleasant run.
"I admit, perhaps I have been neglectful of you lately. I've been rather lazy since the apocalypse didn't happen. Perhaps I've lulled you back into your familiar sense of ennui without my knowing it. I admit, it was easy being housed by you, you don't pester me with questions or pleas for release, you don't ponder your mortality or the horrors of the hereafter. You have been, by all accounts, a most loyal and trusted servant whom I have been privileged enough to divulge all my most inner secrets to without recrimination. You have proven to be resilient, compliant, even harmonious in ethos. Despite your obvious inclinations to the contrary, your hand and mine haven't exactly been celibate." He gave the body an endearing smile, especially at the way that flicker of willpower clenched into startled wakefulness when the bullets began flying in the living room. Wonderful. There was now a chorus of carnage. Sam and Dean's curses filled in the spaces between gunfire, turning the whole bloody conflict into a musical.
"What I'm getting at is that you are as trusted a creature as a man can get without being a dog. You can't tell anyone what you know and while you are testing me with the limits of what you can do without me, you still have a very real understanding that there is no real existence without me. I'm the hand feeding your desires and you'd be wise to lick it instead of bite it." Crowley gave the body a sardonic grin. "I suspect you'd rather like that. Salted, with a shot of tequila and a wedge of lime. Body comforts. I get it now."
Crowley's spell had nearly worked. He was so close to the body's ear he could feel the pulse of blood and guts rushing headlong through their automatic responses, making cells divide and forcing life to exist when it was supposed to have long expired. He was just about to make the leap from the mirror to the smooth cartilage and then towards the eardrum, which would need to be perforated, an unfortunate handicap, but one that could be patched up eventually, when the sound of Erin's panicked voice sprung the body into action.
"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted.
The body ran from the bathing room, showing a significant amount more human will than it had before. So, it had been hiding it, the sneaky brain dead bastard. Just wait until he got it back, what a lesson he'd give it!
Crowley crept along every reflective surface, hoping to get a good vantage point. He found a large mirror over the living room and got a good view of the Winchesters cowering behind a chair, the overturned couch reduced to a burnt out husk. Erin shot down two gang members brandishing machetes.
Crowley slid across the doorknob hanging loose from the front door. He gained a wide, distorted view in copper sepia of the interior, the image of a gold toothed goon throwing flaming mason jars full of gasoline well in his sights. Gold Tooth's hands were never empty. If he wasn't holding flames, the gold toothed jackass was holding a gun. He pointed it towards the living room, through the jagged hole that was now the front window, and before Crowley could utter a 'Bollocks!' in warning, he'd pulled the trigger.
Crowley's body staggered back. A large, crimson flood erupted from just below its left shoulder, spilling through the carefully chosen white shirt, its crisp lines soaking up the blood and spinning it into a clean, through and through wound that by all accounts was fatal. Except, of course, the body was only somewhat alive and this injury did little to prevent its constant, relentless need to exist. It approached Erin, who dropped the gun, a curse word spilling forth. It was all very simple, really. From doorknob, to mirror, to candlestick to reflective pool of blood, Crowley made his way straight through the front door and into the bullet wound.
Capillaries exploded around him as he expanded within the body, his essence pouring into every cellular crevice, every hollow bone and dried vein. The heart, long since abandoned, became fat with Crowley's energy, likewise the liver, the kidneys, the appendix and the upper GI tract. Crowley wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, he'd fill up this house with as much of himself as he could and damned if there wasn't a whole lot of him to go around.
Another bullet sped towards his head and Crowley held up his hand, stopping it with a touch of his power. He turned the bullet around and, to the fainting shock of Erin who lay prone on the floor at his feet, the bullet returned the favour to the gold toothed moron on the front lawn. A real bulls-eye, one that surely didn't miss, not with the speed Crowley had put on it. It cut through the drug dealer's skull like a quality meat cleaver, shearing his head into two neat pieces.
Castiel cleaned up the rest of the mess with a wave of his hand, corpses dissipating in seconds, the blood and guts scrubbed out of the walls and floors and ceiling, even the couch was brought back to its original state, only perhaps a little newer than before.
"Show off," Crowley said.
Dean and Sam propped Erin into the chair near the fireplace and did their best to make the position seem natural, Dean copping an exploratory feel notwithstanding...
"Dude, keep your hands to yourself!"
"You want to know as much as I do!"
"No, Dean, I don't!"
"Ah yes, Tweedledum and Twattledumber, humanity's finest. I must say, I'm very disappointed in this scenario. I had thought there was far more going on here than the usual mundane pursuits of money and power, and it's rather depressing that it's all the same old, same.." He frowned, his words not forming the way he wanted them to, his right eye experiencing a very annoying twitch that seemed to worsen the more he tried to talk. "...the same..."
"I believe the body has other ideas," Castiel observed. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to awaken Erin and get an honest explanation of what has transpired here. It is my understanding the body has a very strong connection to this house, to Erin and to their dead dog, Galileo." He made a motion to wake Erin up, only to have Dean's hand firmly grasp him by the wrist, stopping him.
"What we need to do is just leave."
"There are questions that need answering," Castiel insisted.
Sam was the one who answered for everyone involved. "I hate to say this, but Crowley's right. It's just the usual stupid human crap. Greed, right from the word go. From what I can figure, Erin and O'Mally had taken down Golden Tooth out there and in the process picked up a wad of cash. When he made bail, he came back here looking for it."
Crowley was truly disgusted now. "That's it? That's what all this trouble was about?" He stared down at his shoes and the flesh and blood that was attached to them. "I ought to punch you hard in the stomach you dull as dishwater jackass!"
"I do not agree," Castiel said, frowning. "There was far too much emotion lurking beneath the surface for this to be only about finances. I believe the true problem was that the body thought Erin was in grave danger, which proved to be true. The body has been coming here for some time now, Crowley. According to Erin it made at least four other excursions here that you were never aware of."
"What?" Crowley grabbed the lapels of his stained shirt, clinging onto them with all his might. "What do you mean it's gone sleepwalking without me? Bloody hell, what has this thing been up to?"
"Walking a dog," Dean said, frowning, his mind gearing up for the big reveal, only to fall flat at the last second. "Forget it, I don't care anymore. Erin can go and put on a green striped bikini and i still won't know if he...she...it's a man or a woman. It's driving me nuts. Is it his money or her money? I don't know fucking know, man."
The body was still pulling from within, pushing Crowley's essence around and pinching him in odd places, like an ill fitting suit. It had once been so compliant and comfortable, this sudden mutiny infuriated him. He ought to pack it in and just dump it, maybe head into the nearest orifice of whatever is lying better, maybe even Erin, there. Or perhaps not, the whole androgyny gag can only run for so long before it gets tired and he had his own private recreational time to think of.
"Excuse me a moment," he said to everyone, and he dragged his feet down the thin hallway, towards the bedroom. "I just have to talk to myself for a bit."
Fandom: Supernatural
Word count (total fic): 20,245
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None, really, maybe some Dean/Cas hints. Don't hold the lack of pairing against it, though--If you're a dog lover, you'll probably like this story...
Summary: When Crowley's meatsuit mutinies it's up to Castiel and the Winchesters to help The King Of Hell him get back into his favourite blood and guts condominium. What starts off as a seemingly easy assignment quickly turns into a drama about a dead dog and a haphazard pile of memories. Putting a leash on Crowley's body proves harder than expected.
Notes: Takes place after season five, AU afterwards--Sam was rescued from Hell in much the same manner as Dean. Otherwise it's canon.
This was written for the crowley_bigbang on livejournal. I didn't quite make it for the official track, so this is the unofficial posting :P.
"Let me guess. Our friendly neighbourhood drug dealer." Dean fired off a few rounds which were returned with expert precision. "Dammit. I hate getting into gunfights with humans. They hardly ever fucking miss." As if to prove the point a single bullet flew past and grazed Dean's ear. "Dammit!" He touched the injury tenderly with his fingertips, frowning over the spots of blood. "We better figure out something quick, Sammy. Demons and hell and fallen angels are our speciality, not a bunch of morons hopped up on death wishes and meth."
Another round of bullets flew past, one large blast leaving a massive hole in the centre of the couch. It was just a little too close to Dean's jewels for comfort. "Sammy, come on, think of something!"
"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted from behind the kitchen wall. Erin shot down a couple of gang-bangers brandishing machetes in the kitchen before turning back to Sam and Dean. "There's no other way this bastard could have found out where I lived!"
Bullets zinged through the air overhead while Sam and Dean huddled closer to the armchair resting on its side. Dean noticed the pattern it sported was of cowboys and large Oklahoma styled wagons from the turn of the century. 1970's curbside chic. "Sammy, I'm not sure, but I think we might both be in hell."
"I don't get this," Sam hissed, his rifle cocked and ready, but it was no match for the hand held magnums these guys were packing. "There's something really strange about this whole scenario and I'm not talking about the whole androgyny asexual thing."
"Dude, it doesn't matter what you think. It still weirds me the fuck out."
"Dean, I'm thinking none of this is about what we think it is." Sam's jaw set and he crouched low, edging towards where Erin was poised with the glock. "If O'Mally sent these goons on Erin's trail, it's not about what's in his pants. This is about something concrete."
"Such as?" Dean asked. He cocked his rifle and rock salt made a nasty dent in the crotch of an angry gang banger whose screams quickly dissolved into a whimper.
"We're dealing with humans here, Dean," Sam reminded him.
Dean openly cursed. "Fuck me," Dean said, shaking his head. "This is about money."
***
They were just going to have a conversation, this body and soul. After Castiel had left the bedroom, all hell had broken loose and the body, non-reactive and completely oblivious to all but its most menial tasks, opened the bathroom door for a repeat of its obsessive primping. Crowley, his patience at an end, watched him as he carefully began the process of neatening his thinning hair with a comb.
"We work better as a team," Crowley said to it. He lifted his head, feeling a swelter of pride at the way he'd filled out that body, made it live life the way it never had a chance or the courage to previously enjoy. All those bits of flesh he'd rendered with those hands, all those throats he'd crushed. It had been a pleasant run.
"I admit, perhaps I have been neglectful of you lately. I've been rather lazy since the apocalypse didn't happen. Perhaps I've lulled you back into your familiar sense of ennui without my knowing it. I admit, it was easy being housed by you, you don't pester me with questions or pleas for release, you don't ponder your mortality or the horrors of the hereafter. You have been, by all accounts, a most loyal and trusted servant whom I have been privileged enough to divulge all my most inner secrets to without recrimination. You have proven to be resilient, compliant, even harmonious in ethos. Despite your obvious inclinations to the contrary, your hand and mine haven't exactly been celibate." He gave the body an endearing smile, especially at the way that flicker of willpower clenched into startled wakefulness when the bullets began flying in the living room. Wonderful. There was now a chorus of carnage. Sam and Dean's curses filled in the spaces between gunfire, turning the whole bloody conflict into a musical.
"What I'm getting at is that you are as trusted a creature as a man can get without being a dog. You can't tell anyone what you know and while you are testing me with the limits of what you can do without me, you still have a very real understanding that there is no real existence without me. I'm the hand feeding your desires and you'd be wise to lick it instead of bite it." Crowley gave the body a sardonic grin. "I suspect you'd rather like that. Salted, with a shot of tequila and a wedge of lime. Body comforts. I get it now."
Crowley's spell had nearly worked. He was so close to the body's ear he could feel the pulse of blood and guts rushing headlong through their automatic responses, making cells divide and forcing life to exist when it was supposed to have long expired. He was just about to make the leap from the mirror to the smooth cartilage and then towards the eardrum, which would need to be perforated, an unfortunate handicap, but one that could be patched up eventually, when the sound of Erin's panicked voice sprung the body into action.
"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted.
The body ran from the bathing room, showing a significant amount more human will than it had before. So, it had been hiding it, the sneaky brain dead bastard. Just wait until he got it back, what a lesson he'd give it!
Crowley crept along every reflective surface, hoping to get a good vantage point. He found a large mirror over the living room and got a good view of the Winchesters cowering behind a chair, the overturned couch reduced to a burnt out husk. Erin shot down two gang members brandishing machetes.
Crowley slid across the doorknob hanging loose from the front door. He gained a wide, distorted view in copper sepia of the interior, the image of a gold toothed goon throwing flaming mason jars full of gasoline well in his sights. Gold Tooth's hands were never empty. If he wasn't holding flames, the gold toothed jackass was holding a gun. He pointed it towards the living room, through the jagged hole that was now the front window, and before Crowley could utter a 'Bollocks!' in warning, he'd pulled the trigger.
Crowley's body staggered back. A large, crimson flood erupted from just below its left shoulder, spilling through the carefully chosen white shirt, its crisp lines soaking up the blood and spinning it into a clean, through and through wound that by all accounts was fatal. Except, of course, the body was only somewhat alive and this injury did little to prevent its constant, relentless need to exist. It approached Erin, who dropped the gun, a curse word spilling forth. It was all very simple, really. From doorknob, to mirror, to candlestick to reflective pool of blood, Crowley made his way straight through the front door and into the bullet wound.
Capillaries exploded around him as he expanded within the body, his essence pouring into every cellular crevice, every hollow bone and dried vein. The heart, long since abandoned, became fat with Crowley's energy, likewise the liver, the kidneys, the appendix and the upper GI tract. Crowley wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, he'd fill up this house with as much of himself as he could and damned if there wasn't a whole lot of him to go around.
Another bullet sped towards his head and Crowley held up his hand, stopping it with a touch of his power. He turned the bullet around and, to the fainting shock of Erin who lay prone on the floor at his feet, the bullet returned the favour to the gold toothed moron on the front lawn. A real bulls-eye, one that surely didn't miss, not with the speed Crowley had put on it. It cut through the drug dealer's skull like a quality meat cleaver, shearing his head into two neat pieces.
Castiel cleaned up the rest of the mess with a wave of his hand, corpses dissipating in seconds, the blood and guts scrubbed out of the walls and floors and ceiling, even the couch was brought back to its original state, only perhaps a little newer than before.
"Show off," Crowley said.
Dean and Sam propped Erin into the chair near the fireplace and did their best to make the position seem natural, Dean copping an exploratory feel notwithstanding...
"Dude, keep your hands to yourself!"
"You want to know as much as I do!"
"No, Dean, I don't!"
"Ah yes, Tweedledum and Twattledumber, humanity's finest. I must say, I'm very disappointed in this scenario. I had thought there was far more going on here than the usual mundane pursuits of money and power, and it's rather depressing that it's all the same old, same.." He frowned, his words not forming the way he wanted them to, his right eye experiencing a very annoying twitch that seemed to worsen the more he tried to talk. "...the same..."
"I believe the body has other ideas," Castiel observed. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to awaken Erin and get an honest explanation of what has transpired here. It is my understanding the body has a very strong connection to this house, to Erin and to their dead dog, Galileo." He made a motion to wake Erin up, only to have Dean's hand firmly grasp him by the wrist, stopping him.
"What we need to do is just leave."
"There are questions that need answering," Castiel insisted.
Sam was the one who answered for everyone involved. "I hate to say this, but Crowley's right. It's just the usual stupid human crap. Greed, right from the word go. From what I can figure, Erin and O'Mally had taken down Golden Tooth out there and in the process picked up a wad of cash. When he made bail, he came back here looking for it."
Crowley was truly disgusted now. "That's it? That's what all this trouble was about?" He stared down at his shoes and the flesh and blood that was attached to them. "I ought to punch you hard in the stomach you dull as dishwater jackass!"
"I do not agree," Castiel said, frowning. "There was far too much emotion lurking beneath the surface for this to be only about finances. I believe the true problem was that the body thought Erin was in grave danger, which proved to be true. The body has been coming here for some time now, Crowley. According to Erin it made at least four other excursions here that you were never aware of."
"What?" Crowley grabbed the lapels of his stained shirt, clinging onto them with all his might. "What do you mean it's gone sleepwalking without me? Bloody hell, what has this thing been up to?"
"Walking a dog," Dean said, frowning, his mind gearing up for the big reveal, only to fall flat at the last second. "Forget it, I don't care anymore. Erin can go and put on a green striped bikini and i still won't know if he...she...it's a man or a woman. It's driving me nuts. Is it his money or her money? I don't know fucking know, man."
The body was still pulling from within, pushing Crowley's essence around and pinching him in odd places, like an ill fitting suit. It had once been so compliant and comfortable, this sudden mutiny infuriated him. He ought to pack it in and just dump it, maybe head into the nearest orifice of whatever is lying better, maybe even Erin, there. Or perhaps not, the whole androgyny gag can only run for so long before it gets tired and he had his own private recreational time to think of.
"Excuse me a moment," he said to everyone, and he dragged his feet down the thin hallway, towards the bedroom. "I just have to talk to myself for a bit."