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Bobby Singer is conflicted.
He's been becoming increasingly conflicted over the past few months, starting with the night Crowley showed up and took down a wendigo that had Bobby pinned and was preparing to make a hunter kebab of him. The demon had then produced a bottle of fine whiskey and the two proceeded to spend the evening chatting and getting drunk in a surprisingly amiable fashion.
It was roughly three weeks after that (when Crowley popped in and dropped off a book of demonic lore that he claimed was 'just sitting about the office collecting dust') when Bobby realized he wanted to fuck Crowley. Okay, he should have figured it out earlier, like when the demon gave him back his legs without being asked, or the first time he called Bobby 'Robert' and sent tingles up the hunter's spine, but this is all so new that he feels he should be given a break.
It's been fairly obvious from the start that the former crossroads demon would be more than happy to have a go, but the hunter never really paid that much mind since that seems to be Crowley's outlook on everyone he meets. It's only recently that it became apparent that Crowley might be up for more than just a go. And that's what makes Bobby nervous. That kind of commitment? He hasn't done anything like that since he was married.
And alright, there's been other women since Karen died- of course there have, she's been gone for years and he's only human- but those were all one-or-two-night stands with other hunters that were passing through. Something about the way Crowley looks at him all fondly, and keeps showing up unannounced with bits of information and useful tips and then standing there with his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet awkwardly tells Bobby that this wouldn't be some quick one-and-done roll in the sack. And, well, the other women have been- women. Not snarky demonic monarchs in male bodies. Somehow he's got it in his head that this final frontier- being with Crowley- would be flying in the face of everything he and Karen ever had together.
So he keeps it stamped down, keeps fighting the urge to close the space between them whenever he and the demon have their little moments and ignoring the fleeting look of disappointment on Crowley's face when he turns away. He snaps at Dean when he makes a snide 'when's the wedding, you two?' comment and pushes past Sam when he tries to have a heart-to-heart about what's really going on (Bobby's with Dean on this one- talking about your feelings doesn't do much good). He starts getting extra cranky and cross toward Crowley when he does show up, and growling at everyone else when he doesn't.
It goes on for a while, getting more and more frustrating, until the day Crowley comes up behind him while he's sitting at his desk, murmurs something about how the hunter looks awfully tense and starts rubbing his shoulders in a way that's both comfortingly domestic and shudderingly arousing. And Bobby snaps, which in this case means he turns and shoots Crowley in the head.
It doesn't kill the demon, of course, but it sends him flying backward covered in blood and bits of his own skull, the mood broken. Crowley stands up shakily, brushes himself off and says that Bobby's not a very gracious host and that he's beginning to feel that he's not wanted.
"You're not!" Bobby shouts, standing and balling his hands into fists. "Yer a bottom-feeding, sleazy piece of shit and I don't want you in my house! Hell, I'd kill ya if there weren't a dozen more just like you waiting in line!"
There's a long, horrible pause in the Singer household.
"Well," Crowley says, perfectly calm and blank, blood still masking half his face, "Message received; I'll let you get on with things."
And then he's gone and Bobby has never felt worse.
Scratch that, he feels about ten times worse when he turns around to see Sam, Dean and Cas standing in the doorway, alerted by the shot and looking at him like he's just drowned a puppy in front of them.
He can't take this. He pushes past them without a word, grabbing his jacket and heading out the door for his truck. He needs to get away, needs to take his mind off of everything. He needs to go kill something and make sure it stays dead.
Three hours later he's realizing the irony of that thought as he bleeds out on the floorboards of the abandoned house where a rugaru has been hiding, the monster dead a few feet away but having gotten its last blow in. He wishes he had the strength to reach his phone, but his eyes are already drifting shut.
He opens them again in a room that looks suspiciously like the living room sampler for some model townhouse. There's a couch and a chair and a coffee table and a few strangely indistinct paintings on the walls, and a window that appears to be looking out over a real-life version of one of Van Gogh's corn fields. On the table is a bowl of pristine apples he strongly suspects are made of something inedible.
"Hello Bobby."
He turns quickly at the voice behind him, gaping already because that can't be, that sounds just like-
"Karen?"
She smiles and it's really her, beautiful and radiant and careworn, just like he remembers her, down to the crinkles around her eyes.
Bobby takes a step, reaching out toward her. She pulls him into a hug and she's real and solid, and god he can smell her shampoo and the vanilla she used to put in her coffee. "Is this- Heaven?"
She shakes her head and steps back, crossing her arms. "No, it's more like a waiting room. I just snuck in here to see how old you'd gotten."
He laughs and she grins in return. Then her expression sobers.
"Bobby," she says, "We gotta have a talk."
He takes a seat next to her on the couch, nervously expecting her to warn him of the coming Apocalypse 2.0 or Ragnarok or something. She places her hand on top of his, takes a deep breath, and looks into his eyes.
"When are you gonna get around to properly asking out that demon fella you've been seeing?"
Bobby sputters in shock, stares at her. "I- what? There's no-"
"Oh, please, Bobby." She waves a hand dismissively. "If you think I haven't been keeping tabs on you, you've gone more senile than I thought."
He just keeps staring. "But-" he manages, "But he's- I'm- I can't!"
"Because he's a demon? Hon, you and I both know this isn't a Ruby situation. Come on, it's 2012, think progressively!" Karen urges.
"But," Bobby looks down and then back up, meeting her eyes. "But I thought it would be like- you know..."
"What, 'betraying my memory'?" She shakes her head again, eyes bright. "Bobby, I want you to be happy. I don't want you to be alone forever because you're scared of hurting my feelings, or that you'll somehow lose me." She touches his face gently with one hand. "I'm dead, sweetheart. I want you to live."
He realizes that he's crying, and Karen wipes the tears away with her thumb, leans in and kisses his cheek before pulling back and adding, "Besides, if you don't man up and jump that poor demon's bones I'll lose a bet I've got going with Ellen Harvelle, and then I really will get mad and haunt you."
He laughs through his tears, and she smiles one last time, says, "Go on, now," and pushes at his chest and he wakes up gasping on the floor.
"Come on, damn you, breathe! Breathe you stubborn moron!" A voice above him commands, hoarse and panicked, and there's pressure on his chest forcing his heart to beat. Bobby coughs and cracks his eyes open, already knowing what he'll see. Sure enough, the king of Hell is crouched over him, jacket gone, clothes dusty and bloody, looking more worried than the hunter's ever seen him.
"Robert? Robert!" Crowley shouts, wide-eyed and relieved and inches from the human's face, hands still hovering over his chest, curled into compression position. He cups Bobby's jaw in one hand, the other hovering over the freshly-healed wounds on the man's torso. "Can you hear me?"
Bobby makes a garbled noise of acknowledgement and blinks several times, vision clearing. Crowley clutches at the shredded remains of his shirt, and Bobby realizes that the missing jacket is draped over him, blood-soaked. "What the bloody Hell were you thinking, you stupid- you idiotic bastar-"
Crowley doesn't get to finish that insult because Bobby grabs him by the back of his neck and yanks him into a kiss.
It's not a very good one; it's brief and rough and sort of coppery and Crowley pulls back quickly, red-faced and shaky and says, "Er, Bobby, you know this was a freebie; this isn't a deal-type situation-" And then Bobby is kissing him again, more firmly and more confidently, fingers dragging through the demon's hair and digging into his scalp until he opens his mouth in a moan and Bobby takes advantage and deepens the kiss, rolls them over so that he's on top and nestled between Crowley's legs on the floor.
Finally they part, panting and clutching at each other like teenagers, and Bobby grins down at the flustered demon. "Hi."
"Hi," Crowley replies, returning the grin, arms locked around the human's waist to pull him close and it's pretty obvious that both of their trousers are getting a bit on the tight side.
"So maybe we should continue this back at the house, where there's a bed and no dead rugarus," Bobby says conversationally.
"What, mangled corpses aren't a turn-on for you? Shame," Crowley huffs a laugh, then bites at his lip and glances away. "Thought you didn't want me going anywhere near your place, what with me being filthy Hellspawn and all."
The hunter reaches up and strokes a thumb down the smaller man's cheek. "Sorry about that; I was kinda frustrated earlier." He grinds against Crowley a bit, watches him squirm and his eyes flutter. "I'm sorta hoping you can help me out with that."
"Yes please," Crowley says breathlessly, arching against him and raising a hand to snap them back to the house. Bobby stops him for a moment, curling his fingers around the demon's.
"And afterward we're gonna go out for dinner and lay down a few ground rules, because I don't want you bringing a dozen Hellhounds into my yard every night no matter how 'housebroken' you say they are."
The grin that lights Crowley's face makes Bobby wish he'd done this ages ago, but the past is the past so he leans in to kiss him again as they flick away to land in the hunter's bed. Later they will drag themselves downstairs and avoid making eye contact with the boys, and then they will go to dinner (in Crowley's favorite restaurant, Café de l'Homme in Paris which requires reservations two years in advance but Crowley has a table permanently reserved) and Bobby will complain that it's too fancy and he'd rather just have a beer and some pizza but Crowley will say that he's allowed to spoil Bobby as much as he likes, thank you, and Bobby will find that he's really okay with being spoiled, but will still insist on paying the tip so he doesn't feel like Crowley is his sugar daddy (and then he will point a finger at the smirk on Crowley's face and cut off the remark before it can be made).
And they'll be happy.