Archive of Our Own ^beta

- And how do I know this isn’t a trap?
- You...don’t. That’s what makes it fun.

“Tell me again why I’m doing this?” Dean asked, tossing a shovel of moldy soil over his shoulder. It had rained the previous day and the ground squelched under his feet. Sam would notice his muddy boots once he arrived back at the bunker, and they’d tell him everything Dean had been up to tonight, but he’d let Dean brush him off the way he always did these days, because he didn’t really care anyway. And it wasn’t like Dean owed his brother an explanation, not when he was just doing his damn job. Even if it did involve the King of Hell.

He turned his head in time to see Crowley stepping to the side, carefully avoiding the shovel full of dirt Dean had sent flying in his direction. Crowley bounced up and down on the balls of his feet and grinned. “Because grave robbing is so old school.”

Dean rolled his eyes and brought the shovel back down to the grave in front of him. “Oh, fuck you.”

“Gladly.”

Glaring at the dark soil underneath his feet, Dean continued to dig. There were only so many of Crowley’s smug innuendos he could take, and he’d already reached his limit for tonight. It was beginning to make him antsy in a way that had nothing to do with the impatient throbbing of the Mark on his forearm.

“Because,” Crowley began again somewhere above his shoulder, “you’ve been going crazy ever since you touched that precious and needed to get out of the house.”

With ferocious energy, Dean attacked the soil at his feet and tried to block out Crowley’s needling insinuations, which were too close to the mark for comfort, pun intended. At this point Dean didn’t have many illusions left. He knew that something had changed the instant Magnus handed him the Blade. As far as metaphors went, feeling his feet sink steadily deeper into the mud and digging up a grave was pretty spot on for his present situation. Sneaking out tonight and meeting up with Crowley was the calmest he’d felt since, apart from those few gratifying moments where he’d let himself go by beheading that vamp or beating up Gadreel, and Dean wasn’t stupid enough not to realize that this spelled trouble. But that didn’t mean he’d ever admit it to anyone else, least of all Crowley.

When Dean refused to reply, his demonic partner in crime suggested in a silky whisper, “Or maybe it’s simply because you missed me.”

Dean snorted and ignored the shiver that ran through him when he felt Crowley’s hot breath on the sweat-damp skin of his neck.

“You’re no fun,” Crowley complained, drawing back, making Dean’s neck tingle with his absence. He sounded petulant. “Because there’s a powerful cursed object hidden in that grave which belonged to the greatest witch of all time, and if we don’t get our hands on it first, Abaddon will. I already told you! Need me to write it down for you?”

Dean spun around, pointing the dirty shovel at him. “Don’t play stupid, Crowley. What I wanted to know is: Why am I knee-deep in mud here, breaking my back doing all the hard work, while you’re just standing around like a nuisance? As always?”

“Excuse me?” Crowley protested, feigning offense. “I did most of the work here. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know that Medea’s amulet exists, or that this late Man of Letters found it, or that Abaddon’s after it!”

Dean flung another shovel of dirt at him in lieu of giving him the proverbial finger. This time Crowley didn’t manage to dodge it completely. With languid fingers he brushed the specks of mud off his suit. “Fine.” He sighed. “If you don’t like that explanation, how about this one?” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “I like to watch you.”

The heat in Crowley’s gaze took Dean’s breath away. He shrugged awkwardly and turned back to digging with renewed zeal.

Once he succeeded to spring open the coffin, Dean took out his flashlight and searched for the charm Crowley had mentioned. Sure enough, it lay in the dusty heap of bones, gleaming faintly when the bluish beam of light travelled over it. Dean pulled on a pair of leather gloves, before he carefully lifted the charm from the coffin and put it in the curse box he’d brought with him. Then he closed the lid of the coffin again and climbed out of the grave.

“Done,” he announced to Crowley, shaking the box like a cocktail mixer. He felt a little giddy and nearly at ease. It had been one of the most straightforward jobs he’d worked in a long time – finding the correct grave, digging up the coffin, finding the cursed object, securing it – but it left him with a feeling of accomplishment nonetheless. It was nice to know that he could still do something useful without messing it up.

Instead of acknowledging the successful completion of their job together, Crowley stared at Dean’s hands in distraction.

His scrutiny made Dean feel self-conscious. “What?” he asked.

Crowley looked up at him then. His eyes were dark and almost tender. “Suits you. You should always wear gloves.”

Startled, Dean lowered his gaze to his hands. He wasn’t unaware of his face, and what it could do –he’d tested it on dozens of waitresses and bartenders – but he’d never given the state of his hands much thought. “You have a hand fetish now?” Inside the gloves he could feel his palms become moist.

Belatedly, he realized that the curse box was slipping from his fingers. Flailing, he reached out for it, but Crowley caught it first. Then Crowley flicked his fingers, and the curse box was gone.

Dean stared at his empty hands, at Crowley’s complacent face, and back again. There was a sharp pain in his chest and he found it difficult to breathe. He forced himself to keep looking at Crowley, whose eyes were filled with an almost scientific curiosity, as if he was genuinely interested to see what Dean would do next. Life as a lab rat, Dean thought bitterly. A stupid lab rat. “Abaddon didn’t even know about this thing, right?” The words hurt in the back of his throat.

“No,” Crowley agreed.

Dean swallowed. No one had known about the charm apart from Crowley, and yet instead of taking it straightaway, Crowley had invited him along with lies that in hindsight were painfully easy to uncover. All for the chance of making a fool of him. “You played me.”

Something akin to disappointment flitted over Crowley’s face, but when he spoke next, his voice was as light and teasing as ever. “Darling, stop lying to yourself. You hang out with me because you like to be played.”

Dean glared at him in silence and thought that the moment he got his hands on the Blade again, he’d slam it right into Crowley’s non-existent heart.

“Come on,” Crowley tried again after a pause, “we had fun tonight, didn’t we?” His tone was flippant, yet something vulnerable resonated in its core that Dean couldn’t quite interpret, and he was too tired and frustrated to try.

“We had nothing,” he gritted out, and Crowley disappeared without a word.

*

As promised, Crowley led him to Abaddon and Dean took her out, slashing the Blade into her bleeding chest countless times after she was already dead.

For some reason, Dean didn’t make good on his promise and kill Crowley too.

Instead he let Crowley trick him, again.

This time round, Dean stared at the empty space where he’d vanished with something bordering on grudging admiration.

*

“I never lied, Dean,” Crowley confessed, gentle and earnest; a dark, insistent presence at his bedside.

Dean opened his black eyes up at him, and laughed.