Archive of Our Own

Scene opens with the Winchesters and the demon Crowley in what appears to be a season finale "let's kill off another scene-chewing supporting character" move. Very dramatic stuff!

While there are, at this point, no women in the room, the dramatic knives-at-throats (or whatever) tension is cut by a female voice shrieking "STAAAAAAP!" in a passable imitation of Susan Sarandon in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All three men are frozen in place. 

Sam, distressed, strains out the words, "I can't... freakin'... MOVE!" Dean, likewise, ever the 'best fwiends' sibling, Batmans out, "Yeah, me neither. What the Hell is this?" 

And the demon Crowley, who was in the PROCESS of being murdered--because that's going to happen in cannon, whether anybody likes it or not--smiles a little bit, despite still being choked about the neck by human hands wearing, I don't know, cursed spiked gauntlets or something. 

He very deliberately looks to his left, leading everyone else to follow his gaze. 

A woman with glowing hair, a WWII pinup's body, a discordant sense of fashion, and the unfortunate body language of a young Keanu Reeves, gives the demon a friendly sort of reverse-nod for a greeting. (Very 'Bill and Ted.')

In response to her entrance, the demon replies, "Well, THAT'S a fine hello. You know, I'm missing a good portion of my neck. You can't see because of these gauntlets, but I really could use a hand here. I don't suppose you happen to have an emergency first aid kit on you?"

The woman shakes her dead, like his concerns are a petty overreaction. "You'll be fine, F. I'll buy you a new neck."

Resisting the urge to start a side conversation, the woman takes a step back, adjusts her stance to show that she's making a Big Announcement, and starts to shout. "OKAY!!! I like to be amused! All three of you amuse me, so I'm putting an official stop to this fight to the death! SO STOP FIGHTING!!! THIS! FIGHT! IS! LAME!!!"

Dean seems simultaneously offended, confused, and maybe a little bit happy with the abrupt change in tone. "LAME?!? 'Not amusing enough?!?' Lady, I don't know who you are, but I HAVE to do this. If I don't kill the King of Hell, then he's going to-" Dean suddenly cannot speak, but with his mouth angrily closed continues to try to shout. Only shrill, muffled noises come out.

The woman scrunches up her face. She still seems emotionally removed from the situation, but also gently frustrated. "You can't GUESS who I am? How about... I'm older than God, I'm a very important principle in mathematics, and I'm Death's sister. Are these useful clues?"

She takes a moment to 'take a moment.' While she still seems primarily pleased with just taking a moment to interrupt--and ruin?--the final move of a no-punches-pulled chess game TO THE DEATH, she feigns exasperation, and sighs loudly. She pinches the bridge of her nose, as though recovering from eye strain.

"I... Okay. Guessing game. You-" she points at Dean, "You didn't guess, so your turn is over. And YOU!" She points at an increasingly relieved-looking, almost warm Crowley. The woman smiles like they have an inside joke. She continues. "YOU don't get a turn, Fergus, and no fair giving hints. So you! Kid! Your turn." She points to Sam, taps her foot, and bounces rhythmically just a little bit, humming the Jeopardy theme song quietly, to herself.

Sam looks stressed. His face, in exaggerated expression, shows that he must be fighting an internal, intellectual battle. Fighting to focus, to assess the situation for clues. "I... uh... Okay? Older than God?"

The woman shrugs, "Older than YOUR god, anyway. I mean, I'm kind of A god too, so I have to specify which one I meant."

Sam continues to wage his epic battle with the sudden pop quiz, and makes 'thinking' faces.

Dean's facial expression indicates that he just figured out who the woman is. He starts to gesture towards her with his head, starts to look between Sam and her urgently, and keeps trying to speak through a closed mouth. (Sort of a Lassie moment.) Sam tries to honor his brother's wishes, but no message is coming through. "What? I... I can't understand you, Dean." Dean almost shrieks, and the words "COME ON!!!" are nearly decipherable. At least, the tone, the notes and rhythm used for the word-sounds clearly mimic Job's classic, exasperated 'COME ON!' from the show Arrested Development. It's a quickly and effectively delivered pop culture reference, which all four 'people' in the room seem to take for granted.

Sam shakes his head and furrows his brow. "I still don't..." He moves his gaze from his 'best fwiend' brother, and looks at the strange woman. He adopts a proper 'Good Will Hunting' expression of confidence and triumph. "I think I got this. I smell... apples. Pretty sure that's apples. And the golden light, and the fact that it's a woman. Golden... Apples... Woman... Um."

While he talks, the woman wiggles more. It's not sexy wiggling, not bombshell wiggling. It just looks like she's trying to hold in some natural hyperactivity, like Johnny Rotten at the start of a Sex Pistols show. 

She shouts, as though she couldn't stand waiting any more. "I'm CHAOS!!! Mathematical chaos! Or, more accurately, stochiastic processes. But I prefer go by Eris, because of all the gigs I've worked in human form, that was one of the most fun. Plus, easy to spell."

Sam looks confused. "Eris? The minor Greek goddess of discord and strife? How can you be older than God when legend says you had parents and a birthday?"

The woman pauses. A condescending look crosses her face, like she needs to explain adulthood to a small child. "The Greeks... I always liked the Old Greeks, but their legends can't be trusted as historical record. 'The writers all suffered from indigestion, you know...' But speaking of digestion!"

She appears to lose her train of thought. She changes subjects rapidly, without a good conversational transition. She looks away, her head moving quickly, like a cat that heard the walls creek. She looks back. She starts to shake her head.

Shaking her head with her eyes shut, as though giving up, she sighs again and grandly declares, "Fine, you can move again."

Dean shouts "OW!" in surprise, and both of his gauntleted hands spring back from the demon's neck, recoiling in mild-to-moderate hand pain. 

He barks, "WHAT just happened?!?" 

He gestures to a now obviously, profusely bleeding-from-the-neck (yet eerily untroubled) Crowley, while still looking at Eris. As Crowley slowly brings the end of his necktie up to his neck, carefully pressing it into the wound, Dean continues shouting at Eris in righteous indignation. "Is this some kinda joke?!? The goddess of discord just shows up, and now I can't finish killing this guy? ...Do you know what we had to go through to get these freaking gloves?!?"

Eris looks mildly frustrated. She asks, "You done?" and wiggles her nose like Samantha from Bewitched.

Dean looks at Sam, incredulous. "Did she just-?"

All four entities are sitting in a diner booth. The seats are red, the table formica, the world is dark outside the window. 

Sam finishes Dean's sentence, before recognizing the abrupt scene change. "-do that nose thing from Bewitched. She did."

The two humans are now free of any sign of injury, and the demon's neck has been tidily bandaged, though some blood can be seen seeping through the gauze.

Eris looks excited, like she expects a huge round of thanks. "Right?!? Sort of like watching Reservoir Dogs in reverse. We go from a big pile of murder to sitting cozy in a classic diner."

She gestures to the brothers, who are sitting on the booth bench across the table from her. "See, you got your 'friendly killers with a sense of honor,' there." She gestures to Crowley, seated to her immediate right, "You got your 'mutilated guy in a suit,' a real Tarantino classic." She gestures to herself. "And you got me! Played here by Mia Wallace's overdose scene in Pulp Fiction, maybe. I haven't decided. It's the wrong movie, but there you go. There really aren't as many female characters to work with."

Eris continues to display some real difficulty with sitting still, and keeps slouching. The demon seated to her right seems uncharacteristically comfortable with this, as though they've been palling around for ages.  

Initiating a quiet side conversation, Dean asks Sam, "Since when does that guy have any friends?" 

Sam shakes head and shrugs. "Maybe they're business associates."

On the other side of the table, the demon Crowley leans over the ever-slouching Eris, holds up the blood-stained end of his tie, and says, "While I AM grateful that you decided to show up at all, L, I think you owe me a tie. With interest, that's five ties. Where have you BEEN? Things do get a little harder when luck runs out, so where'd you run out TO?"

Eris tries to shrug this off nonchalantly, giving a thoroughly noncommittal series of hand and head gestures, to a silly early-Goldie-Hawn effect. "If I'd known you were in such hot water, I would've come here a lot sooner."

Breaking into cross-table conversation, Sam furrows his brow and asks for clarification. "If her name is supposed to be Eris, then why do you keep calling her Elle?"

In the classically condescending tone that we've all come to expect, Crowley answers the question while heavily implying that educating the humans in this instance is a laborious, but a charitable act. "Well, I used to call her LL, short for 'Lady Luck,' but we shortened the nickname to a single L in the 1990s, after Eris decided that Cool J could have the double Ls."

Eris smiles and nods cheerfully, to confirm his story.

Sam confirms what he heard, cautiously. "Lady... Luck? So, the goddess of discord is also in charge of luck."

Crowley pauses before giving a response. "How is this baffling? She's not... Okay, I get it. She's not strictly one ancient religion's goddess of discord. Like she said, she's more accurately classified the personification of mathematical chaos, or of randomization."

Eris interrupts, "Stochiastic processes. I just learned that that's the newest name for me."

He nods and continues. "So... Luck. She gets to choose to distribute luck, however she sees fit." He pauses, grimaces at the confused brothers across the table, and looks back at Eris. "Would you like to take over?"

She smiles graciously. "I'd love to."

She turns back to the Winchesters. "So, you've already met my sister, Death."

Dean leans forward. "I hate to break it to you, but Death is a dude." 

Abruptly, in Eris's place, is a tall, thin, older-looking man of stark, calm gravitas. His suit is black, funereal, and perhaps just a little bit too large. In a dry, naturally familiar voice, he leans forward and asks Dean, "Is this the look you were referring to?"

Dean, startled, recoils and exclaims, "Geez! What?!?"

Eris is back in her spot. She shakes her head dismissively. "We can look like whatever we want. That's her 'Horsemen' outfit, for getting biblical. But on a normal day, Death looks like a twenty-something goth girl from Hawaii, with either neon blue or neon red hair, black nail polish, and magenta eyeliner. You just saw her in drag."

Dean chuckles in spite of the situation. "That's actually pretty funny. So that guy was a woman in drag?"

Smiling, Eris looks at the ceiling and then back at Dean. "Yup. And when a natural force like death or surprise gets strong enough to be anthropomorphized, it develops a personality and a consciousness, almost like a side-effect. That's what a lot of the oldest gods are. That's what Death and I are." 

Sam, putting this together. "So, you're mathematical randomization, like Death is death."

Eris smiles. "Exactly!"

Dean, keeping up. "Like chaos theory, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, right?"

Eris pounds a fist on the table, making the flatware rattle. "ExACTly! Life! Finds! A way!" 

Dean nods, taking this in. "So, now, what? You just show up out of the blue to get in the middle of a fight that isn't yours? And if you're on Crowley's team, why didn't you show up sooner?"

The demon opts to briefly side with the human. He holds up the stained end of his tie again. "You know, he DOES have a point. Where've you BEEN? It's been ages, L."

Eris takes a deep breath, sighs it out slowly. She looks sad. "If I'd known you'd gotten yourself into such hot water, I would've been here sooner. But I was busy. I've spent the past five years as a series of cetaceans, physically representing different whales' and dolphins' chaos gods. I helped the LA orca pod kill sharks for sport. I helped some doomed porpoises make sure that documentarians filmed them from their good side, when being killed by poachers. And I helped the large baleen whales get about 80% of the way through summoning... Well, the closest human analog I can think of is Cthulhu." 

She points at everyone around the table, and continues. "You're ALL screwed if they get THAT going, by the way. You humans aren't the only ones with a dangerous Armageddon myth. Baleen whales are effing crazy. They do have a POINT, though, about just erasing everything... From a baleen whale perspective it makes a lot of sense."

"WHAT?!?" Crowley shouts back. "I just FINISHED helping the Wonder Twins here stop a frigging apocalypse, and now the WHALES have got one going?!? And you've been HELPING them?!? What am I supposed to DO with that information?!? I am a HUMAN demon. Strictly human. I don't speak whale."

Eris does her best to give a little pep talk. "Hey, if it's any consolation, I can't speak whale when I'm in human form, either." She tries, squeaks and croaks, unsuccessfully, before shrugging. "It doesn't work."

Dean takes a moment before rejoining the conversation. "You know, while I'm glad to know that the whales are attempting to release some Lovecraftian 'ancient ones' to destroy the world, you didn't actually answer my question. Why turn up NOW? And why intervene in OUR fight?"

Eris pauses, searching for the right words. A thought flashes across her face, she lets it go without speaking, waits another moment, and leaps into talking once another round of inspiration seems to hit her. "I... LOVE... you, guys... man."

The brothers are visibly bemused, the demon less so. Eris pauses to read their faces before continuing.

"I've been rigging the game in favor of all three of you, so I HAVE to make this conflict end in a stalemate. It makes sense, doesn't it? How could the two of you always seem to live in defiance of the odds, always winning the right games at the right time... Hell, why haven't you been caught for credit card fraud yet? I've basically given you a trust fund to help you destabilize an old religion, and the investment's paid off. And Fergus here," she turns affectionately to Crowley, "I've been messing with him since he was a human. But that's a long story."

She sits up, opens her napkin and lays her knife, fork, and spoon out carefully on it. "Now, I've been human for 25 minutes already, and I'm hungry. One of the best things about being human is the culinary arts. I'm ordering poutine, a strawberry milkshake, and a few beers." She addresses the three men at once, as she waves a waitress over. "You eating? It's on me."

Dean shrugs and rolls his eyes. At least this part of the situation is familiar. Always the angels and the gods bribing him with food. "Screw it. Bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a dark beer. A lager."

She's almost angered by the lack of participation. "What, nobody? Here."

Agitated, she grabs Crowley's hand and places it flat, palm-down in the center of the table. She takes his knife, grabs Sam's hand, forces the knife into Sam's hand and 'makes' him try to stab Crowley's hand. The knife blade curls. Eris shouts, "Try it again! TRY IT AGAIN!!!!! None of you can seriously hurt each other any more, so get stabbing and test this out before I get angry!"

While Eris shouts, Crowley takes his knife back and resentfully waves a hand over it, instantly repairing the damage. Eris sees and quietly apologizes. "Glad that worked out."

He responds quietly, "Not your NICEST gamble."

Her face softens. "It wasn't a gamble." Carefully, she leans in, lifts a corner of his wound dressing, and peaks under. She makes a little sound, a mixture of sympathy and disgust. "It really hasn't been your best day."

He shakes his head, and though still quietly, says with heavy emphasis, "No. It has not."

On the other side of the table, Dean experimentally tries to stab Sam in the arm with a fork. The fork curls like ribbon, but Sam still grabs his arm and exclaims, "Hey!" He tries to stab his brother right back, gets the same result, and soon the two of them are caught up in an increasingly playful knife fight, laughing and thoroughly unable to stab one another.

Quietly, to her friend, Eris says, "Still, not your WORST day, either." She gestures to the knife fight on the other side of the table. "Dinner and a show, eh?" Crowley gives a small gesture of nonverbal agreement.

They clink their empty wine glasses together without looking. It's a comfortable little gesture that's clearly grown as synchronized as an inside joke over the past few hundred years.

Breezily, quietly, the demon jokes, "They're like bear cubs, aren't they? They just look so playful and fun until they rip your throat out. You know I was one of the first ones to take them seriously?" 

Eris gives a quiet, nonverbal "Hmm." and a nod. She drags a French fry through the gravy on her plate, before setting it back down, plucking a cheese curd from the gravy and popping it into her mouth instead.

As the Winchesters slowly lose interest in being unable to injure one another, Sam looks across the table again. "Listen, I want to understand. I get that you were backing us, because you wanted us to topple biblical prophesies. I get that. Gods always scuffle over territory. And I suppose that I can see why you'd want to protect Crowley, at least while he played a role in that process. I mean, he WAS useful. But why NOW? Why do you have any interest in any of us NOW?"

She shrugs, "Why not? Favoritism isn't always about pragmatism. And-" she eats a fry, "I've never really been known for impartiality, once I get emotionally involved. Even doing my rounds as a series of cetacean gods, I'd still check in periodically, rigging things just a little bit in your favor. Not with everything, but it helped."

Still working on his hamburger, Dean interjects. "You've got a funny way of playing favorites. All the shit we've been through? What. You couldn't've just, I don't know, saved our mom?!? Or Bobby?!? Or any of the other people we've gotten close to?!? From what you're telling me, it sounds like you've been as absent and inconsistent as God."

She picks up another fry and points it at him, channeling Tarantino again. "Maybe even more so! Today was a sloppy exception. I don't typically do literal divine intervention. It's my job to just tweak the math to prevent the odds from always favoring the most logical outcome. Like adding +10 to a dice roll in D&D. Right? But today, I made it to the rumble incredibly late, so I just made myself visible, started shouting, and used physical force to stop everything. It was inelegant, I'm embarrassed, so I thought the best thing to do afterward was to take everybody out to lunch to explain things."

As she explained herself, Dean's anger started transitioning into calm curiosity. "Huh. So I might not ACTUALLY be that good at pool."

Eris smiles apologetically. "You definitely are not."

Dean takes a moment to look at his brother, who looks back before addressing Eris again, "So, if your typical expression of favoritism is just an invisible tampering with the odds, to stack things in those folks' favor, then what's this?" He gestures at both Eris and Crowley. "Was there some kind of a binding spell, or... I mean, seriously. It's weird."

Eris smiles and blushes. "Ah. The 64 Thousand Dollar Question. Fergus is a special case. We've got... An understanding. It's actually a pretty funny story, too. You wanna hear?"

Dean actually smiles, because he can see that the demon isn't entirely comfortable with the subject. "Sure! Why not?"

Sam shrugs. "I could go for a story."

She turns to her friend. "Do you mind if I tell them?"

In a sarcastic, though not unfriendly tone, Crowley replies, "What. Mind? Me? What could I possibly find AT ALL objectionable about it? Telling an HIGHLY personal story about me, to the people who almost KILLED me today?"

Eris responds, ending her question on a down note, so that it sounds like a statement. Pretending to fail to pick up on his sarcasm, she says, "So we're cool, then."

Mirroring her tone, he volleys back, "Your sense of etiquette's just as refined as it was at the start of the Trojan war." Upon saying this, he scowls at her.

Eris rubs her eye. "Fine. Maybe later." She sulks and continues to pick at her poutine. The silence grows increasingly awkward. The humans are staring at their plates, trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves. 

As the silence continues to sour, Crowley does the charitable thing and speaks first. "Fine. I'm going for a walk. Have fun playing biographer." And he vanishes.

Eris looks at the empty space he left behind, and hisses, "Yesssss."

She turns to the two brothers. "So! I hear that YOU heard a version of what THAT man sold his soul for, right?"

Both men wince a little, in anticipation of what appears to be a growing 'TMI' moment. Sam answers like it's a guess, "Double... Digits? We heard?"

Eris nods matter-of-factly. "Right. But not out of some inferiority complex. He just wasn't taking things seriously."

She leans over the table, her weight resting on her elbows, her hands at gesturing height. Her face implies that she's about to share some phenomenally good gossip, that she's clearly proud to get to share. The Winchesters mirror her body language, getting drawn into the lark.

She begins.

"Right. So it was almost the 1700s and I was hanging out in Scotland because I like pubs that serve fried food." Everybody shrugs in agreement. "And in walks this severely agitated sonofabitch. I mean, he just REEKS of a MASSIVE midlife crisis. 'Reeks,' figuratively speaking. Actually smelled pretty good, if we're being literal. Like he was trying really hard to come off as kinda posh, actually. But the effect was ruined whenever he'd talk. Anyway, I distinctively remember overhearing the phrase, 'My wife and kid can bugger off. In fact, they can bugger EACH OTHER for all I care. I just need to get out of here. You see where that caravan went?'"

"And I was like, 'Oh yes, I am going to have fun with this one.' So I waved him over to my table, offered to buy him a beer but he declined, saying he was in a hurry. He explained that he was an artist and needed to see the world, so he bought a fiddle, practiced a bit, and now he needs to run off with a caravan RIGHT NOW before he throws himself into a well. And that's how I first met Fergus, and decided to make it a personal project of mine to mess with him. I knew a Crossroads demon socially, who was, like, LITERALLY located at a crossroads outside of town, so I have him the directions to that and told him that I thought the traveling musicians were parked out there."

The humans were making an effort to be polite listeners, but Eris could tell that the story wasn't riveting. She holds up her hands in a halt gesture, and does her best to assure them, "Trust me, the story gets better."

"So, he heads out with a fiddle and some travel gear, and instead of the caravan he finds my acquaintance Henry. And from there, I SWEAR I didn't make this up. So, Henry goes, 'I know you were expecting something else, but while we're both here, let's make a deal. I'll bet you your soul that you can't beat me in a fiddling contest.' And Fergus goes, 'No! That's stupid! Who would DO that?' And Henry tries again, 'But I didn't tell you what you'd get if you won! You could have anything your heart desires.' And Fergus goes, 'I don't care, it's stupid. I'm okay but I'm not great. I just started. If you want to compete, don't just pick some random stranger like that. Find a PROFESSIONAL who's already been working for years.' And he turns around and starts to walk away. But after a few steps he turns back around and he goes up to Henry, and he goes, 'What's your scam, anyway? My buddy Paul went into the clergy, and he gets people to give him lots of money to 'save their souls.'  But he doesn't try to BUY them because you can't make MONEY that way. It's stupid. Souls don't exist. It's a scam. So what are you getting at?' And Henry doesn't know what to say. But eventually, he goes, 'So, if souls don't exist, do you wanna just... I don't know, just hand it over?' And Fergus goes, 'No! If you're going to buy something off of me, whether it exists or not, I'm going to get a good deal out of it.' And Henry perks up. 'Sure! What do you want in exchange?' And Fergus goes, "How much do you have on you?' So Henry just empties out his wallet.' And Fergus, while counting the money, says, 'You're effing crazy, you know that?' And Henry shrugs happily, like he thinks he got a good deal, 'Hey, souls are expensive!' Fergus perks up at the word expensive, and decides to push this deal as far as it will go.'Yeah? How expensive is that pocket watch?' And he keeps going until he's got Henry's shoes, his jacket, his waistcoat, his ring, and he still keeps going. So, once Henry's just wearing his pants, socks, and innermost shirt, he asks Fergus, 'Anything else you want in exchange?' And Fergus is starting to run out of ideas, but he STILL keeps going, 'I... ah... I want to be able to live forever in some way or another... WITHOUT my soul, obviously. I'm selling that to you. And I want a horseless carriage that's powered by explosives, and I want to be rich but I DON'T want my wife and kid to find out. I want to actually be GOOD at this bloody violin but I DON'T want to practice. I want my feet to be comfortable, just all the time, no matter what I'm actually wearing on them. And you see where I'm missing a tooth? In the back, there? Yeah, a horse tried to kick me, and I fell over getting out of the way, and I cracked my face on a rock. So, I need that fixed. I want my tooth back, safe and sound. I want my jaw to stop clicking when I eat. And no back pain, alright? I don't care whether you have to numb my back or just fix it up right, but I've got a pinch back there and I've had it for years, and it's got to go. And when I drink, I want to stop getting heartburn the morning after. No heartburn, you hear me? None of it. No hangovers anymore, either. And I want to be protected from harm. I want to be lucky. Not necessarily so much that people think I've rigged things, I just want to know that I'm safe to gamble a bit more than I do now. And... I... Hang on. I want to get to travel. That's what I came here for, to join a caravan and hit the road. So, I want that. Travel. And I want to know things, without having to study. Let's make me fluent in French, Latin, Spanish, Chinese... I want to be able to go at least five minutes without blinking. I want to be able to hold my breath for AT LEAST ten minutes without passing out. On that note! I want to know how to swim. Bugger if I'm going to swim here, but I want to swim off the coast of Greece. I want to swim and... Bugger it, if I'm going to have to run around in swim gear, I don't want anybody underestimating me if it gets cold. Better add another three inches to my dick. Not that I NEED it or anything. But I might as well. I mean, you're already preventing me from ever getting back pain, right? So no worries there. And SPEAKING of my dick, alright, if I decide to go back to that pub and I decide to seduce the woman who gave me the bad directions, I want her to LOVE it. No point in having exaggerated genitalia if I can't show it off, right? Now, I don't need help seducing anyone. That's on me. Part of the fun. I like winning people over, and I'm good at it. But whenever I do, it's going to be the best they ever had. I want to know that if I get up afterward, tell her she was rubbish and that I'm never going to see her again, that it will just destroy her ego. I'd want her to feel like I've just told her she'll never see the sun again. Or whoever. Not just that woman. You get what I mean. I want to be the best SPECIFICALLY so that I can use it as leverage when messing with people, because who'd want to harm me if they're desperate to make me love them back? I dunno. Let me think on that one. But justification aside, if I'm having a cosmetic adjustment so that I never look cold ANYWAY, I want to be able to wield it in a way that can make anybody love me. Something like that." He pauses, running out of ideas.

His face lights back up again, and he keeps going. "That, and, well, I've already got your pocket watch... Alright, I can ride any train anywhere at any time and I'll get first class seating and free food, and I never have to buy a ticket. And if I decide to take anybody with me, they get the same treatment, so I can come off like a big shot. In fact, I never want to have to pay for food. Ever again. And I want to get the best available seating in any restaurant I want, without ever making reservations. Like, if the restaurant's full-up, I need one of the dining parties to have to make a quick, unplanned exit so I get their table."

"Did I say that I want to automatically know every word in the English language? And I mean new words, too, whenever they get invented. I want to know ALL of them, immediately. And I also want to speak Greek and Italian, for the swimming. Right. So. Did get get all of that, Henry?' And Henry, I hear, looked so overwhelmed. He told me he actually had cotton mouth. But he was able to sort all of that out in his head, and with that there was a flash of writing all over Fergus, which vanished quickly. He assumed it was just his eyes playing tricks, or an allergic reaction. But it was gone quickly, so he decided to forget about it."

"And Henry walks up to him really awkwardly, and he goes, 'I just, um, need to kiss you on the mouth. You know, for the transaction.' 

And Fergus goes, 'Well, if THAT was what you were really after, I'd say I got one Hell of a deal! I would've snogged you for the boots alone. I can't imagine a man like me should be expensive. What, do you have bad breath, or do you come from one of those brimstone churches? No need to be shy, mate.' And he walks right up to Henry, real close, and just MAKES OUT with him for a while. 

Henry's actually mortified. He was pretty new on the job, and this was his weirdest night so far. But Fergus was still pretty young, and didn't pick up on the discomfort. Not like he does now, where he'll make straight guys kiss him for sport. I love when he does that! But anyway. 

So, when he figured that he'd probably snogged Henry seriously enough to make it a fair exchange for the money and clothes, he gives Henry a gentle pat on the side of his face, says, 'Not bad for an evening out. Where'd you get this jacket made? Stitching's exquisite.' Henry mews out 'London.' And Fergus says back, 'I wonder if Catherine made this? Never mind. I've got a pub to show off for. Take care of yourself! Maybe join the clergy, so nobody guesses you like men!' And whistling to himself, he heads back."

"It's only when he stops for a piss that he realizes what happened. So he takes it out, notices something different, puts it back, sits down, and shouts about five minutes straight worth of expletives. "HOW does that MAKE any SENSE?!? You CAN'T just DO that!!! Did I actually just SELL my SOUL?!? How the Hell could I even DO that when SOULS were invented by the church to scam people out of money?!? What the HELL just HAPPENED?!?!? WHO BUYS A SOUL?!?!? What could he even DO with it?!? What, teach it to plow a field?" 

He kicks a rock, HARD, and should have broken at least five bones in the doing, but the 'no foot pain' demand had already started working.

And after that he stands back up, takes that piss he'd stopped for, and starts to take additional inventory. He has a full set of teeth again, his feet and back don't hurt--they actually feel great--and he's able to talk to himself in the languages he asked for."

"So heads back to the pub, takes the same chair at my table, gives a looooong sigh and says, 'I'll have that drink now.' Smooth, right?"

"His original plan had just been to mess with me. But when he realized how badly I'd messed with him first, he decided that getting information from me was a higher priority than getting revenge."

"So we sat around, and I explained what I am, and what Henry is, and what the standard 10-year contract is, and what people typically have to do to get a job like Henry's, and what the standard market worth of a soul is--or was, at the time--compared to the things he agreed to trade it for."

"He started with, 'Well, for one thing, I made him give me his shoes, his coat, his pocket watch, and all the cash he had on 'im, but when he ran out of stuff to hand over, I just started saying anything I could think of, off of the top of my head.' So I made him try to remember the full list of terms, and I was laughing really hard when he got to the part about swimming. But when he kind of embarrassedly explained the, 'and that girl from the pub' part, I was like, 'Stop talking right there. I want whatever that is. The best they ever had?!? That sounds FUN!' So we ran off to my room, and I decided that he was officially my new favorite human. Definitely.

And I was more fun than he'd had in a long time. I mean, you could just tell that he was going to waste in his small town, all that wit with no audience. So we kept swapping stories the next day, and pretty soon I'm helping him cheat at cards, and he's sharing the new free first-class train benefit with me, and we just screw around Europe for a while. We go swimming in Marseille. 

He sends his family postcards, telling them that he was drafted into the military. And when we got back, his family was pissed because they looked into it and there were no military records on him at all. I'll skip the details, but after he died at the end of the contract, I helped him.

I pulled strings, I rigged improbable things in his favor, and here we are. And when he GETS BACK, I hope he REMEMBERS TO BRING ME SOME RECREATIONAL DRUGS because I WANT TO HAVE SOME FUN ALREADY!"

Sam and Dean take a little while to process Eris's overlong, rambling story that mostly consisted of the longest grocery list in soul-sales in history, as of the late 1660s.

Dean talks first. "So you're telling me that Crowley knows every word in the English language."

Smiling, Eris nods. "Yup!"

Sam carefully phrases a delicate guess. "And you've taken a unique social interest in him, specifically, because about 3% of what he sold his soul for was to entertain you?"

Eris beams. "Yup! It was mostly just a coincidence, but it really worked out. I think he'd meant it to be revenge, like make me want to just follow him around afterward, so he could reject me afterward in some crushing way."

"But we ended up getting along. I mean, we're both petty, vicious, impressively selfish, we violently overreact to small insults, but we'd spend every second of existence enjoying the finer things in life, inventing new forms of hedonism, and indulging in socially inappropriate wordplay, if we could. And we do get pretty close, when we can take time off from work."

Eris hadn't noticed yet, but her old friend had already reappeared in his seat. "We 'violently overreact to small insults,' do we? Ah, Eris, did you give the whole laundry list of demands that I gave, back when I thought that souls were just some financial scam? I couldn't sit here for that."

Eris nods matter-of-factly. "I even tried to get your old accent right, from before you went Eliza Dolittle on us and got elocution lessons. Anyway."

The demon addresses the two humans across the table, looking like he's trying to save face. "And the bit about the fiddle contest, it WAS stupid. And the song they wrote later? THAT was stupid. All of it is stupid. Bad salesmanship." He turns to Eris. "When I was out, I picked up some presents for you. You're right, Luck being back in town IS a special occasion. So, what would you like?"

Eris wiggles in her seat like a child on her birthday. "I would like... How about a nice cocktail of 1880s surgical meds?"

"Opiates?" He asks, for clarification.

"A small mountain of them." She turns to the humans. "Don't ever do this. I'm not even wearing a meat suit, I'm just impersonating human form, so I can get away with a lot. Sometimes, I overdose and die, and then Fergus and I have to come up with a plan for the body before it fades away. All good fun." 

Crowley reaches into an interior jacket pocket and produces a handful of pills, which he carefully places into her eager, outstretched hand. Eris also reaches into his jacket interior, produces his flask, and uses it to wash the pills down. As she chugs, he exclaims, "Hey! I didn't actually give you PERMISSION to take that!" And a short game of keep-away is played before she hands the flask back to him. 

As he tucks it back into his jacket, he says, "Thank you," with just the lightest hint of friendly resentment. 

Then he turns back to her, produces a quarter from thin air, holds it in his mouth carefully, like it was a sewing pin, and gently takes her face into his hands like he might kiss her. Instead, he head-butts her forehead hard enough make a conking sound. "Ow!" He exclaims, grimacing and recoiling, even though he'd been the one to initiate the act. 

The coin held in his lips had vanished during the head-butt. Eris starts to fish quarters out of her mouth and stack them on the table. Her mouth never appears full, and she never seems to gag or feel physically uncomfortable, but she produces about $5 in change before it stops. 

She smiles. "I love that trick."

Crowley gestures over her shoulder. "Jukebox. No point in taking drugs without music."

Eris nods rigorously in mock-serious agreement. "I concur." 

She slides out of the booth, puts on Johnny Cash's 'I've Been Everywhere' and starts dancing like she's alone in the room. Crowley watches her thoughtfully, almost meditatively, for a few moments before deciding to strike up conversation with his two nearly-mortal enemies. "Seeing as how we've been forced into a truce, we might as well make small talk. Did you talk about how she started the Trojan War? Someone failed to invite her to a party, so she got mad, tossed a beauty contest trophy in the party, and waited.

So she has 'for the prettiest one' engraved on a golden apple, sends it in as a gift. This starts an on-the-spot beauty pageant, in which three major Greek goddesses strip totally naked and attempt to bribe the impromptu judge, Paris of Troy. He decides to give the apple to Aphrodite, because she decided to offer a good-looking married woman, Helen of Sparta. Having won Helen in a contest that she wasn't actually aware of at the time, Paris drags everybody into war."

He raises an eyebrow. "So you can imagine what happened in the 1920s when she first learned that there had actually been speakeasies in operation for three years BEFORE she was invited to one. I'll give you a hint: Dust Bowl."

He turns back to watch her dance. "So while I'd want to bring the goddess of chaos and discord to parties ANYWAY, for obvious reasons, I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for doing so as consistently as I have." He pauses and covers both of his eyes with the palm and fingers of his right hand. "But of COURSE she flakes off, turns herself into a whale for five years, and completes 80% of the steps needed to summon sodding Cthulhu. I know we hate each other, but I don't suppose I could convince you two to do something about that?"

Dean clears his throat. "I don't speak whale, either."

"Right." The demon looks at an empty spot on the table, takes a deep breath, and produces an antique blow dart kit from another internal jacket pocket. As he opens the kit and starts laying the pieces out carefully, he gives a short explanation. "Never give the goddess of chaos a bunch of illegal drugs, unless you have a way to stop things from getting out of hand." He pauses and looks up, to make eye contact. Defensively, almost disgustedly, he adds. "Well don't look at me like THAT. This was her idea originally. She-" 

He looks at Eris, curses under his breath, and shoots one of the darts at her as quickly as he can. Her right arm was unraveling into a rainbow of flying butterflies, and had already been dissolved in this way up to the elbow. When the dart hit, she started laughing like a guest on Jackass (as though getting hit with an antique blow dart is the most fun in the world) and sat down hard on the floor. By the time her ass had hit the ground, her right arm had reappeared. She spins around and gives her old friend two thumbs up and shouts, "Good catch! Just got a little distracted!"

She struggles to reach the dart, which was stuck in the small of her back in an odd location. She succeeds in removing it, and almost immediately starts to nod off on the diner floor, in front of the jukebox. She puts her feet up on the appliance and stretches out her spine and her arms, before reaching her hands out towards her old friend, waving them lazily. "Darling?" She asks as loudly as she can. "The dart gun's done the trick, my dear. Would you help me climb off of the floor before I fall asleep down here?"

The demon climbs out of the booth and walks over to her, but instead of helping her stand up, he climbs down onto the floor and lays on his side to facilitate conversation. Eris beeps him on the nose with a finger. "You're my favorite person. Do I ever tell you that?"

Affectionately, he replies, "I'm not a person and neither are you."

She moves her eyes to the humans at the table before resuming eye contact with Crowley. The Winchesters are holding a side conversation, but keep looking over, looking surprised and a little confused. Eris tells Crowley, "You know, I don't think they've ever seen you be nice to anybody before."

Crowley beeps her on the nose, mirroring her gesture. "Typically, I don't GET to be nice to anybody. You're the only one left without major strings attached, and that's because you barely exist. You're barely around, and when you ARE, all you want is parties and companionship, which is good, because that's the closest thing to honest friendship that I can afford to have these days."

Eris rolls over into her back and looks at the ceiling. "There ARE strings. I treat you like a vacation spot and you cultivate my good mood like tending a garden, and as a result I give you favoritism that lets you cheat the odds. But I like our arrangement."

She rolls back over to her side and the two friends make virtually the same smile at one another.

~ End ~