Ohio was an insult, Crowley decided that the moment his expensive shoes touched cracked pavement soaked in old rain and newer blood.

Sam and Dean had threatened him: actually threatened the King of Hell—over a case that made no bloody sense. No demons, no hexes and no monsters worth naming. Just bodies chewed through like secrets gnawed down to the bone. Crowley had agreed out of spite, curiosity, and the faint thrill of watching the brothers squirm when the answer didn’t fit their worldview.

The town was small in the way small towns always were: quiet, judgmental, rotting gently beneath the surface. Crowley walked its streets after midnight, coat immaculate, senses open. He tasted the air; iron, fear, guilt. Human guilt was always his favorite note, it lingered, fermented, sweetened with denial. Whatever was happening here wasn’t Hell’s doing and that alone made it interesting.

Then he smelled you.

Not sulfur, not rot but something warm and wrong and alive. Hunger sharpened by shame, layered so thick it practically shimmered. Crowley followed it down a narrow alleyway wedged between a closed bar and a boarded-up storefront, the kind of place people avoided without knowing why.

The shadows were deep there, protective, intimate and in them, you.

You were kneeling, not crouched like an animal, not reveling like a demon. With hands slick, a mouth stained dark and a body lay at your feet, already abandoned by whatever grace it had once possessed. Crowley didn’t interrupt at first; he watched, he always did. There was an art to observation, especially when beauty presented itself unexpectedly.

And you were beautiful.

Not in the polished, soulless way demons preferred, but in something rawer. Fragile and human. The way you hesitated between bites, the way your shoulders shook like your body hated what it needed. Crowley felt something coil pleasantly in his chest; fascination, admiration. A spark of desire unburdened by morality.

He had been in Hell for centuries, now ruling it—he knew monsters. But you weren’t one, you were a tragedy that refused to die quietly.

You noticed him too late.

Your head snapped up, eyes wide, terror flashing before instinct hardened your gaze. Crowley stepped fully into the dim light, utterly unconcerned, hands relaxed at his sides. No weapon, no threat; just a demon dressed like a king witnessing something exquisite.

He could have killed you; claimed you, tried to get your soul. A hundred options flickered through his mind, and he dismissed nearly all of them with a bored mental wave. No, he didn’t want to own you. He wanted to know you.

Crowley tilted his head, smile slow and indulgent, eyes glinting with wicked delight rather than disgust. He felt no revulsion—why would he? Hell applauded far worse. What he felt instead was appreciation for the honesty of your hunger, the audacity of surviving without pretending to be good.

When he finally spoke, his voice was velvet and amusement wrapped around something sharp. “Well,” he drawled softly. “This is awkward… though I must say, you’re absolutely stunning like this. A beauty for the eyes of someone like me.”

He waited, utterly unafraid, already certain that Ohio was now worth the trip.

“Tell me, love—does the guilt come before or after you eat? I'm so very curious.”