let the whole world feel it

The small pool of sour liquor left at the bottom of the glass, evading the probing of his straw. Crowley’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked, trying to draw the last of it up before he hissed out his frustration and pushed it away. There’d been looks when he’d first sat down and ordered the monstrosity but the moment his teeth had flashed in that feral sneer the bartender had scurried away to put it together. Like the glass with its wedge of pineapple squatting on the edge of it like a carbuncle on the arse of the place and its lurid pink umbrella now twirling disconsolately between his fingers were the ugliest things in here.

Hazel eyes ticked up to find the bartender again, not a demon. Not that one, but there were plenty in here. Stinking up the joint, reeking of one of the most powerful. Crowley lifted his chin, defiance in his eyes as he knocked his knuckles against the bar to summon the bloke up and get him mixing him another drink. Campbell’s would’ve been safer, the power Henrik and his girlfriend held enough to keep any demon at bay if one of them got a sniff of where he was and decided to pay a visit but that was bringing another shadow over them and he wasn’t willing to do that just to get morose over a bloody drink.

He was slow of course, crawling his way up the bar in a way that had him wanting to yank him them with his power. An invisible fist in that ratty fall of hair, that smug look wiped off of his face. As he finally got there Crowley sneered sweetly, lifting his glass to shove it at him. ”Another one, son, and a little less bitterness this time. On all fronts.” He plucked the slice of pineapple from the rim, crammed it in his mouth to take a bite as tall, dark and drugged up to the eyeballs got on with it.

Crowley sucked at the fruit, filling his mouth with the sour pulp before he dropped it on the napkin the Pineapple Screwdriver had been put down on in the first place. He wormed his tongue between his teeth, flicking a stringy chunk of pineapple free. If Lucifer’s luck held out one of the demons here would be calling in the cavalry before the bartender even sullenly dumped the second down in front of him. Big brass balls he’d had, walking in here in the first place, but it was about time he showed he had some.

Clucking his tongue lightly, Crowley glanced down at the umbrella twirling between his fingers and missed the buxom demon in very, very little sidling up next to him. He planted one elbow on the edge of the bar, half swivelling towards her. One dark brow rose, hazel eyes angling in the direction of where her hand lay against him. ”Hello dear.” he drawled lightly, not using his power to snap her fingers to peel them off of him. He turned into her a little more instead, his lips curling. ”I’d ask if you’d come to make a deal but something tells me you already did that at some point. Or were you just a very, very naughty girl?” Crowley leaned in himself, inhaling her skin just above her collarbone. This one had Lust’s reek all over her. Interesting. Lips curling as his glass hit the bar, he patted his hand on his thigh, like he was encouraging her to just hop up.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 593

There’d been plenty in hell ready to toady around the King once his arse had been on the throne. They’d cowered under Azazel’s rule, too afraid of the Yellow Eyed tyrant’s temper to dare to try anything. That pressure had been released by the Winchesters and in their droves they’d come. Boot licking sycophants, not ready to take the risk of putting their own arse on the throne but prepared to crawl to the former King of the Crossroads when he’d stepped up. Crowley the King. Crowley their new saviour.

Crowley now sitting in a place like this because his own bloody mother had seen writing on the wall that didn’t exist. Those who had been prepared to suck up were now long gone or turned by the return of their even more vengeful father. It didn’t matter that the Winchesters would probably soon have Lucifer back in his cage, only that his was the hand that would slap them down now. Only these isolated pools of demonhood left, those who hadn’t cared about the change in leadership in the first place. Those who had no idea what they were looking at.

Maybe this one wouldn’t go running straight back to the new-old rulers with word of his being there. There was no sense of conniving rolling off of her as she bellied up to him, literally, only that nose wrinkling scent of seduction. Soft human flesh grazing his knees, settling on him as he’d beckoned her with a pat of fingers still spotted with the sticky tang of pineapple juice. Crowley let them graze her hip as she settled in, thick thighs draped around his own, pinning him in place like a butterfly perfectly willing to be trapped while it figured its captor out. Fire and brimstone, sulphur, still a tang on all of that golden skin beneath the carefully applied scents of humanity. All the better to lure these saps in. Hazel eyes ticked up to hers, a snort going rough and low in his throat as she kissed his stumbled jaw. A trail of a mouth to his ear and he was dimpling fingertips into the rounded globe of her rump. ”Not a good little girl gone bad then … shame.” Not one who had passed through the hands of his people on her way down. Not even a fallen barbie doll, tainted by whatever she’d done up here the first time around. Demon born instead.

He dipped his head, taking another sniff, his nose trailing up the column of her throat. She wasn’t gonna like it if he really played at being Daddy. Envy wouldn’t either and he’d learned his lesson a long time around about pissing in the big hitter’s pool. You had to be a little more subtle than that, especially when you hovering at the top of a slippery bloody slope. Crowley hummed lightly, hands bracketing those hips but letting her roll as she tried to lure him in with lips and tongue and pretty words to make a demon’s heart beat faster. ”Oh my, my,” he crooned, his voice rough. ”’s been a long time since I’ve had someone pull the full Red Riding Hood act. Oh daddy, what big energy you’ve got.” It wasn’t just his meat suit she was feeling, he’d lay money on that.

Envy got that much in kudos from him, she’d trained her people here well enough. How to lure, how to flatter, how to wheedle. If he’d been any one of the saps in here he might’ve ended up in trouble in another way from her little performance. Instead Crowley was smirking as he lifted his head. He winked at her, both eyes going red in the moment it took. Teeth flashed along with them, bared for a moment before he leaned in to settle them over her carotid, he bit down lightly, just enough to let her feel the sharp edge of them, the scruff of his beard against her throat, the rasp of his voice. ”I’m your King. You still want to play tonight, love?” Your King. Not a deposed fool who’d been caught out by his own mother. The minute Lucifer and his lap dog were gone he’d be back in charge. A survivor, not the court jester.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 714

Even without the bite of her fingers into his shoulders it would’ve been obvious she hadn’t liked the comment. Crowley’s lips curled in that smug smile any who knew him would’ve been familiar with … and hated. The stink of over-confidence that had driven scores of lesser demons and weaker species to try and scrub it off of him. A shame he hadn’t been able to relive past glories in the stories of downfall, the pious and haloed heading, screaming, down that slippery slope towards the dark. That sudden sense of luxuriating in it once they realised what was the right side to be on in all of this.

The fingers he’d curled around that strong curve of muscle squeezed for a moment and then flicked in a light smack of chastisement against her rump. Once upon a time he’d have taken her apart for that sort of insolence, his position on the throne almost demanding it. He’d never been the sort of leader Azazel had been but he wasn’t weak, not even for curvy demons with the afront to climb all aboard their King. ”There’s somethin’ about a fall,” he admitted, his voice rough and close to her ear. ”Knowing someone took one, broke something in them doing it. Tarnished haloes darlin’, held up with horns.” He hummed low in his throat. You didn’t end up in Hell by doing everything right, the rules of the universe, stamped in place with God’s stroppy heel, dictated it that way. All of them had done something to earn their ‘final resting place’. ”Are you now?” There was an amusement that that, her pout reminding him of his own, that pride in their own glory.

He let her feel his, the nudge of his face into her throat, the huff of breath against that pale golden skin and the press of the tip of his nose against the spot beneath her jaw where that human heart still beat. Not gone then, not a dead shell just reanimated for fun of the demon inside. Crowley laughed huskily, the whine that spiled from her lips making it obvious she was willing to cling on to his power … and him … with those greedy clutching fingers. Some part of him still knew it was an act, despite her denial of the word. How many had she said it to before him? ”With a cherry on top?” he crooned, sinking his teeth into that pulse with a quick nip. Foolish he knew, a weakness that would leave him wide open for Lucifer to show up at the wrong moment and rip him a new one. There was no proof that he was among friends here after all.

But that awe. The lock of those hazel eyes on his for a moment, up close, close enough to see his human eyes wink away, replaced by those ruby red orbs. Click your heels together, love, and think of something. That grin split painted lips as she leaned in. ”Surprise,” Crowley crooned. He shuddered beneath her as her eyes went black, what rolled out of her along with that revelation enough to have his meat suit bristling, stiffening under her. The two of them locked together, King and supplicant, caught in that cycle of what burned in her veins and sizzled in every molecule of air in the place. ”In the flesh,” he promised. There was no way they couldn’t have heard of his dethronement, even in this squalid little corner of the world. His name was still on her lips though, obscurity not yet erasing him from their world.

Crowley’s teeth gritted, his lips peeling back at the reminder in that cooing voice. Both hands slipped around her then, gripping with a bite of fingers that would’ve bruised if she’d still just been human. He tipped his chin up slightly so that the scruff on it was rasping against the tender skin of her own. ”They’d be wrong,” he growled. ”Sooner or later Daddy Dearest and his lapdog are gonna be chained up again. Their time came and went millennia ago.” They just didn’t know that yet.

Red Riding Hood had never comforted the Big Bad Wolf but this demon did now. She slipped hands into his hair, tightening then while her nails drew over his scalp. Shudders ran through him as he dipped his head into that curve of her neck. Squeezing around him like an anaconda, his hands pulling her in. Crowley dragged his lips over that tender skin before he latched teeth on again, an ounce of flesh caught between them. He tugged lightly before he let go, turning his head to scrape that stubble over her throat again. ”You gonna tell me you’re still loyal love? You gonna show me you are tonight? Give praise to your King?” not the pretender to the throne, not the demon tossed from it by his own bloody mother. The once and true King of Hell and all its black eyed little minions.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 837

None of them had ever believed he would hold the throne for more than five minutes. An upstart of a crossroads demon believing he was anything more than a salesman. If any of them had an ounce of imagination they might’ve seen it was just what Hell needed, but so many were cowed by years of Azazel’s iron rule, short sighted and bloody idiotic if you asked him. Just like his mother. Rowena had seen nothing but the power that was just beyond her reach because of her whelp’s position. She’d seen nothing but the Winchester’s rousting his ass off of that throne and Lucifer rising to take his place, with her help.

The thought of her succeeding and him being brought low soured his stomach faintly as he let his eyes flare red. Not the sickly yellow of the Princes of Hell. Something so much better that had the demon sitting on him reacting. Not just what he had been painted to be. Crowley was the once and future King and despite Rowena’s machinations Lucifer wasn’t going to stand in the way of him getting back there. He wasn’t isolated, not that way any of them believed, not when there were still demons like this one willing to bow to him.

Crowley’s lips stretched into a grin, the purr of her voice reminding him of times when none of his own kind dared to stand against him. He let her drawn away, straightening up to catch his hand in hers. ”Oh there’s places for demons like you in my court, love,” he promised, snorting as demon dark eyes filled in. A shocking contrast against that blonde hair. It should’ve been a warning for everybody in this place, all those fanged fools surrounding them now, but not one seemed to take a second look at them. A cluck of his tongue and he was tugging on her hand a little in warning. ”I know better than to over-look what someone can do,” he warned, splitting hairs over what he’d said earlier. There was an appeal to breaking the souls they still gathered in Hell’s coffers, in watching that light change in their eyes, what had once made them human breaking one crack at a time.

He hadn’t had the pleasure with this one but the promise on her lips brought on that shiver of anticipation. Letting her grip on him act as a tow line he shifted through those crowds of vampires, little knots of them gathered in the space, voices low as if he’d care what they were up to. Here and there other species practically glowed in the dark, little outliers in the old boys and girls’ club. ”A little demonstration, just what I need,” he crooned, his voice low as they disappeared through a door and into the space beyond. The inner sanctum’s inner sanctum. Away from prying eyes.

She was pushing him back towards a chair. Not a thing like the throne back at the warehouse he’d commandeered. That place was grotty, the demons who holed up there with him like rats on a sinking ship growing fewer and further between on a daily basis. Crowley sank back on the thing, dipping his chin to watch her kick off her knees and kneel at his side. He hummed lightly, his hand sneaking out to twist into that mass of blonde hair. Lips curled, eyes rolling up to fix on the door as he heard someone passing on the other side of it. Entertainment? A demonstration for the blonde? He was willing to bet she’d relish the idea of showing off for him. ”Why don’t you come on in mate? Skulking in corners ain’t polite. Now.” There was a slight bite to his voice, turning it ice queen cold. There was a rattle of the door knob and then it was being pushed in, a hulking thing that looked like more an ogre than a vampire standing on the threshold. Crowley glanced down, offering Hannya a half smile. ”This one of yours?” A member of the club, a necessity to get in through the door but like so many other institutions, there was an inner circle and then there were the hangers on, the leeches, ready to feed whenever they got their parasitic jaws latched on.

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It was no real throne. Only a single demon knelt at his knees now but it was something better than the rundown warehouse he’d been forced to retreat to when his own mother had pulled Azazel out of the Empty and had triggered a landslide of the foulest luck for him. Lucifer walking the earth again, Azazel grubbing along at his heels, the two of them slowly carving his own loyal followers away from him until he was sure those he did have left would bolt at any time. Nobody wanted to be on the losing side, himself included, Crowley thought with a flash of teeth as he stroked his hand over the blonde hair of the demon who’d come crawling to him. If he could get Lucifer out of Sam and talk the Winchesters, including that wily old rat Bobby Singer on his side, maybe they’d have a chance to stuff Lucifer back in his cage and put Azazel down there with him. Papa and Son reunited and stuck with each other for an eternity, perhaps he’d toss Rowena right in there with them. Three rats to tear each other to bits.

The bloke hanging around at the door to the room had broken through the absent minded train of thought. A thumb circled at the demon’s temple, fingertips stroking lightly over her meatsuit’s scalp as he called the man in. He could hear the foot falls creep inside, hesitant but still moving. ”Oh, we both know you’ve got some love,” Crowley crooned lightly. ”Followin’ you ‘round in here like lost puppies, just hopin’ to nip at your shoe laces. You’ve got ‘em all marked out, ready to come whenever you crook a finger at ‘em.” There’d been no pride in her dismissal of him though.

Crowley lifted his other hand, using it to crook a finger over his shoulder to gesture the man in closer. Hannya was already rising up, wrapping herself around his legs, one hand over his knee, a thumb brushing back and forth like he was a fretful child needing to be soothed or maybe his temper had preceded him and she expected some sort of bloody explosion of temper. ”You don’t want him to be anybody important?” he asked, with the wing of a brow. Sycophants had their place, even if it was just a glimpse of bared flesh that had them sinking to their knees in front of you ready to offer up anything that’d earn them a smile or a pat on the head.

Humming lightly, Crowley did just that now, his hand sliding down to give her a light pat against one painted cheek, watching her lips skim over his knee while the door behind them slammed with that whisper of something in the air. Chuckling, Crowley took a glance over his shoulder at the bruiser standing there. Looking like the bouncer in a cheap London club. Leather and denim, hulking, maybe something not-human about him for him to be down here instead of in the club proper but not immune. A gesture of a single finger and Crowley had him slamming down on the ground at his other side, a dull thud of muscle, bone and flesh hitting the floor. ”He looks like a biter to me. Open your mouth for the lady, son…” Crowley clacked his own teeth together, a flash of white in the gloom. The man flinched slightly.

Grinning, Crowley hooked a finger under the demon’s chin, stroking lightly to bring her gaze up towards him. His pet getting one of her own. Layers of loyalty exactly what he was gonna need to make it through this without ending up in Lucifer’s hand, demon chum for the biggest shark out there and him currently without a bigger boat. ”D’you want him to be yours? I can make him be. They all want somethin’ and I think this one definitely wants to nibble on that line you’re throwing out. What do you want son? Tell me and I’ll make it happen for you.” The guy swayed in, stiffening for a moment as Crowley’s eyes flashed red. ”Her.” A whimper that sounded almost comical from the big man before he shuddered and started to try and scramble away, fear getting the better of him for the moment like he wasn’t in the presence of creatures who saw that weakness as something to chase down. Predators always did.

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