Hi everyone! This is a short Supernatural/Blue Exorcist crossover that was supposed to be posted on Shiro's birthday last year, to match him turning 20 in TEotB. 8'D And I still haven't finished it! But what the hell, the first chapter is done and there will only be six of them, so here you go. I'll finish the other ones as time allows.

Remember how Shiro, in chapter 9 of Between the End and the Beginning, mentioned he's a fan of Dean Winchester? Well. This story is meant to be... We can call it an alternative take on Shiro's 20th birthday. Something that could have happened but didn't: or happened in a parallel timeline. (It's up to you to interpret it however you like as long as it makes sense to you. ^v^)

This takes place during the last three-four episodes of Supernatural season 5. You know, when they're chasing Horsemen rings to trap Satan and stop the Apocalypse. We'll be starting off with a familiar scene, to freshen up memory and give you an idea of where in the timeline we are, and then I'll go from there. Heads-up though: I make references to things that have happened recently to Sam and Dean in season 5, so the more you remember of it the more will you pick up on these references.

I obviously don't own neither Blue Exorcist nor Supernatural.

It was a day like any other day. Not particularly sunny and not particularly cloudy but that middle-ground limbo April was best known for; not quite warm enough to lose the jacket but not cold enough to wear it closed either. Life went on as life usually does, framed in all the minute detail that doesn't really matter until it's no longer there: the paint that flakes off the door little by little every time it closes, that one uneven tile in the driveway paving, the gentle background hum of electricity from lamps and household appliances.

It was a day like any other day. Then again, even those days held a certain value when the world was about to end. If days were a sellable item and you happened to have a few to spare, one could have made billions.

There so happened to be a man who could sell days – and a great many other things, too – and, as luck would have it, he was in the market to trade.

The catch, of course, being to find this man. In Crowley's experience he was always where he wanted to be, and always where nobody else wanted him to be.

One place where he was most definitely not was in Bobby Singer's kitchen – which was more of a relief than a surprise.

Crowley took the opportunity to glance around the place, now that he was there and all. It was quite a nice house, considering it sat in the middle of a car dump. It smelled of dust – quite a bit of it – and underneath that the smell of, ah, more dust, with a hint of human and metal and herbs. It was a rustique building, like a farmer's residence, and with a self-reliance about it that kept it firmly anchored to the ground. A shame, really. The house could have been so much more, he knew, when his eyes landed on the library beyond the kitchen. There was a regal touch to it, grained into the deep red wallpapers, dark wooden panelling, and the paintings in their gilded frames: a wish to be more than a farm house in the outback of society.

All ruined by this junk hoarder.

"Yea, I followed up." Ah, and the man himself: Bobby Singer, on the phone out in his library. Would be rude to interrupt. "Nasty omens, but none of it's Death with a capital D." Crowley made use of the pause to tuck his hands into his pockets and allow himself a mental pat in the back: he had arrived with perfect timing. "Well, just give me a ring if it turns into anything. And, Rufus... You watch your ass out there."

Crowley barely waited till the phone had been clicked off.

"Chin up. Cavalry's arrived."

He almost smiled. A hunter's reflexes on a man bound to a wheelchair he could barely manoeuvre: what a pitiful thing to behold.

Singer swivelled around fast enough, and Crowley found himself at the unpleasant end of a revolver. He could only hope this man was better than the moose and his handler. He had heard a good deal of Bobby Singer: the famed spider in the web. A man like him could be talked to, he hoped – reasoned with, that was the best possible scenario, but few hunters possessed the required faculties for that.

Oh well. People who can't be reasoned with can still be persuaded, and that was something of a specialty of Crowley's kind.

"Charming. That won't work on me. Name's Crowley. Maybe you've...?" he trailed off.

"You're Crowley?" Oh Singer had heard of him. He just didn't seem very impressed by what he saw.

"In the flesh – of a moderately successful literary agent out of New York."

It was the civil thing to do, introducing oneself. Singer decided the best way of doing that was to put a bullet in Crowley's chest.

"Aah!" Messy. And painful. "I see you have heard of me." Reasoned with? Unlikely. Persuaded? Possible. "I liked this suit."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking out for Crowley", he responded with regained cool.

"Meaning...?"

Not one to mince words, either. Crowley narrowed his eyes. Had this been a matter of physical combat he would have been walking out the door on a red carpet of Bobby Singer's entrails. That was the entirely wrong tactic, though – thinking of this as combat. Enter the talk with the aim to win and Singer would dig his heels in and get them nowhere. Don't push, that was the trick: don't counter resistance with resistance. Go along with the momentum. Yield.

Speak the man's language, and he would listen.

"The boys are on to ring number three, but we still need number four. I'm here to help."

"You know where Death is?"

Yes. Singer listened. Hook, line, and sinker, he listened to every word because desperate times turn choosers into beggars. Crowley held his tongue a moment longer to let the bait sink further, allowing the hunter time to embrace the idea that there was hope to be had.

"No", he replied with amicable ease. "Haven't the foggiest."

Singer had his shotgun cocked and aimed before the words were even out of his mouth.

"Well then get the hell off my property before I blast you so full of rock salt you crap margaritas."

Well well. Quite the colourful inventory of words, once you coaxed him into actually speaking. If the fate of the world hadn't hinged on this man's cooperation, Crowley might have goaded him on to see what would come next.

"That's a mite unfriendly", he pointed out, hand raised. "Seeing as I could be getting you Death's location in about the time it'd take you to reload.

"You're just gonna chat some demons up and hope they don't recognize you?"

"God, no; that could get me killed. But there is this little spell that I know."

"That so…?"

Singer wasn't sold yet – not by a long shot. The question wasn't even a question, only a medium to carry the dripping sarcasm in his voice.

"Results are 100% guaranteed", Crowley continued smoothly, taking care to keep eye contact and not glance down at the gun barrel pointed at his person.

"Okay. Then why are you snake-oiling me?"

…what an awful customer.

"Well, it's a little bit... embarrassing." By now he was drawing it out for annoyance only, since Singer so pointedly refused to play along. "There's this... technicality."

"Uh-huh."

"Your blatant disregard for communication beyond two-syllable cues for me to get to the point, for one thing." But saying that would not help business. "I need a little something to get the magic going."

"And what's that?"

Three syllables. Progress.

"You make a wish. I can give you anything you want, mate – up to and including Death's coordinates. All I need is..."

Ding. The penny dropped at last.

"My soul", the old hunter finished in level tones.

"I've done more with less", he elaborated easily, trailing off on a minor detour to diminish the weight of the matter. "Let's just say when they're getting their Grammys they shouldn't all be thanking God." He paused, measuring how far the hook had been swallowed and if the time was right to reel in. "It's worth it, Bobby." Nudge his thoughts in the right direction, and then: "Think."

It was so easy. Singer's mind did as it was told, scampering off to all the reasons this deal was worth it. All the lives it would save – most notably the lives of the Winchester boys. Many sacrifices had been made for them. Good people, as Moose had so heatedly informed him. All to see Lucifer safely muzzled in his cage. With so little time one more sacrifice was nothing to debate: not if it got them what they had fought so hard and lost so many for. Singer knew that; Crowley could see the conclusion forming behind his eyes long before it came out of his mouth.

"Okay." Yes. A reasonable man, just as he had thou– "Here's my counter."

A reasonable amount of rock salt embedded itself with searing precision in Crowley's body.

"OW!" He teleported into the library, behind the lunatic with the shotgun. "Bloody hell! Feisty…!"

The lunatic who calmly wheeled himself around and held him at gunpoint again.

"Get out."

"I'll give it right back", he assured. Absolute bollocks, but Singer didn't need to know that. After ruining his suit twice since his tailor had gotten himself eaten, there was nothing Bobby Singer was good for other than obediently saying bloody yes to this deal.

"You think I'm a natural-born idjit?"

"Quite the contrary." Smart people were natural-born pains in the arse. Time to try a different approach – a more straightforward one. Not so many polished words, not so many well-rehearsed phrases. "Look, you're right to be suspicious. But I'm your ally. Enemy of my enemy and all that. I need the devil back in his stock. In fact, my delicate arse depends on it." Crowley didn't need to act sincere when he said that. Every single word was excruciatingly true. "I promise you: temporary loan. I'll give it. Right. Back."

Crowley cast a sceptical eye about the damp basement Singer had put at his disposal. You'd think the hunter had moved part of the dump indoors, with how the air was saturated with the smell of metal, oil, and rubber. He didn't do much more than stand, other than staring vacantly at the summoning symbols he had drawn out on the floor. In a perfect world he would not have to do this. In a perfect world he wouldn't have to do anything at all, except occasionally wag his fingers to call on vast hordes of fearful servants. A brief, indulgent smile crept up on his lips. He savoured it as long as he could, knowing it wouldn't last long once he got started on this… Ah yes, there it was: every trace of smile and joy gone. Samael had that effect on people.

Samael was also, sadly, his only hope of pulling this off.

The King of Time was a man after his own heart, and that was not the kind of man Crowley wished to have dealings with. Normally he didn't have to, either. He didn't have the power to call beings from other dimensions of existence – once again, normally. Since Singer so kindly had agreed to wish for it, the spell to invoke the King of Time could be worked.

…he just had to take a deep breath before beginning his recital.

Crowley didn't know the meaning of the words he spoke. He only knew they were coarse against his throat, did things to the air he breathed that made it drag over his tongue like velcro hooks. His ribcage creaked, his blood gasped and shuddered; the words drained him, made his head spin. It's no small feat, to rip a thing from one dimension to another.

And yet it's thrilling. Thrilling like obscene intoxication and wild dancing; the air thickens, the lamplight flickers, the pebbles on the unswept floor quake and clatter like dead men's teeth.

Towards the end the spell almost chants itself. The basement writhes in birthing pain. Crowley's head is fluttering like the candle flames, the air is a living thing about to die, and then it comes. A soundless rush, a world torn open, a spell completed that strikes Crowley's ears like pressure at an altitude drop. He staggers. The world is mute; all he hears is the ringing inside his head, the void left by the words.

"Oh did you have to?"

It's not the smell of blood and sulphur that fills the basement: it is the sharp, pungent smell of nail polish.

"I was almost done!" Samael – Second King of Gehenna, Lord of Time and Space, God of A Thousand Names – frantically waved a splayed set of finely manicured claws at his face. Electric blue, manicured claws. "Do you have any idea how much precision it takes to get an even layer?!"

Crowley did, for reasons best left alone, know how hard it was to get an even layer of nail polish. His hearing had returned fully, too. Sadly.

The innocent of mind might have taken Samael's purple minidress for a long pyjamas shirt. They would have a harder time explaining away the knee high leather boots and vast expanses of green eye shadow, but might eventually have concluded it was some sort of Halloween getup. Add to that the long, blue wig and the verdict would most certainly veer towards some manner of masquerade costume.

Crowley was not exactly innocent of mind, nor did he have any illusions about Samael's innocence. By the time he had come to the conclusion that he would rather not know what kind of activity the King of Time had been dressing up for, it was too late.

"Fergus!" The nail polish vial was gone as if it had never existed. Samael beamed like a strobe light: in a variety of eye-catching colours, and painfully bright. "I didn't recognise you – you look so handsome!" He strode out of the summoning circle with his arms thrown wide and enveloped Crowley in a bony embrace. "How are you? Utterly miserable and desperate, as always?"

"What, you mean I'm miserable every time we meet?" What a ludicrous idea. "Well I can only say the opposite of you! Always enjoying yourself to the fullest!" Crowley's own state of utter misery usually factored into that. But shared misery is half misery, as some wise soul once said. So Crowley smiled and patted him in the back, and when the embrace broke he made sure to impart Samael's fair share: "It's good some things stay the same – brings a semblance of stability to this mess. Lets me sleep at night."

Samael might give the impression he was as consistent as a lottery spinner, but that was mere impression. There was always a reason, always a purpose, in everything he did. Why he avoided sleep was a secret shrouded in mystery, but one had to assume he did so for very good reasons.

The reaction was infinitesimal, but it was there: and it was immensely pleasing.

"Sleep? In this place?" Samael was too much of a gentleman to crinkle his nose. It was rather the room that crinkled around him, as if squirming in embarrassment at the scrutiny. "Dear dear, and I thought your suit was in bad condition. Prince turned pauper – indeed, how the mighty have fallen." His tone changed, then. "Was that why?"

"Why what?"

"You know what! You didn't come to my inaugural party when I joined the exorcist order!" Samael crossed his arms and looked accusing the way only Samael could: a curious mix of a petulant child and a mother catching said child nicking snacks out of the pantry.

"I didn't?" Crowley repeated with faux surprise. "My, how in the world could I have missed something like that? Oh right: I was stuck in North Carolina, arse-deep in a river, covered in mud and freezing my bollocks off dredging up gold for some half-wit barber's son from Tennessee who somehow caught wind of how to summon and bind demons."

The implication bounced off Samael's ego like an arrow striking a shield.

"Don't beat yourself up, old fellow. Sometimes things are simply beyond our control." Samael patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, the slight of not showing up magnanimously forgiven and forgotten. "You can still come to my 200th anniversary party in a few years."

Crowley doubted he would be able to attend that party, for reasons that would most likely be beyond his control.

"Gotta make sure the world's still here in a few years: which is why I called you, incidentally. We need to find Death."

"That so?" The smile Samael wore was so lathered in artificial sweetness it could well have come out of a candy wrapper. "I hear it's more common that Death finds you – but considering your options I completely understand."

Crowley's mind was briefly invaded by a hundred stupid viral jokes about Soviet Russia. He welcomed the interruption, actually: the option was to have his mind picture the many diverse ways Lucifer's torturers would invent to separate his muscles from his bones fibre by fibre. For eternity.

"Well luckily the world doesn't operate on internet meme logic", he picked up with his most amicable smile. "Thing is, this circus is running on a very tight schedule, and I need everything set and done before the final act goes on. You know about the cage. You know what it takes to unlock it. We've got the rings from War and Famine and the merry cowboys are on their way to collect Pestilence's. All we need", his hand gestured an introductory motion, "is Death."

"Ah, ah: all you need, is Death", he pointed out in a patronising voice that would have made Crowley grind his teeth if he hadn't already been pressing them together so tightly. "I have my own things to attend to. Charming as this universe of yours may be, it is not mine."

Samael had a way of doing that, yes. Of reminding you that he was Other. Nerve grating eccentricities aside, he was a being above and beyond whatever rules petty demons had to play and die by. There were stories told about Samael in Hell like the stories humans told of werewolves and ghouls: part fact and part fantasy, and no one to debunk what was what.

Information is valuable – very valuable. Crowley had spent more time than he would admit trying to sift the grains of truth out of those stories. Some of it was useful, some was not. Some of it had tipped scales that won him benefits, like this spell; some of it contained information that would be very… unstrategic to disclose, from a survival point of view.

There were some fantastic stories in that collection, yes. Some of them would go as far as claim that Samael had forged the keys to Lucifer's cage.

It probably wasn't true. The creator of those keys was unknown, and that opened up the field for speculation and the wild rumours that inevitably accompanied it. Those rings took the essence of abstract things and gave them shape, sentience, will: no demon could do that. The Essence of things was a realm beyond magic, as old as the world itself. To bend that Essence, to undo the work of God and open that cage: no demon could do that.

It probably wasn't true. Yet somewhere, deep down, Crowley believed it. Standing before Samael, he believed it. In his gangly shadow rumours came alive and became more than fanciful stories, became things that could easily coil around the essence of the universe and shape it at will; coil around bindings placed by God Almighty and pry them open. Because Samael was Other, and carving doors between worlds was his specialty.

Crowley licked his lips and tried to make it seem like he wasn't nervous so much as he was preparing himself to give Samael a lecture. He shoved his hands into his pockets and, as subtly as he could, positioned his feet wider apart.

"Look, Johann – or whatever you fancy calling yourself these days – you know as well as I do that the Apocalypse isn't gonna care where you draw the line between your universe and mine; it's going to domino its merry way across every dimension there is, and it's a bloody bad deal for anyone who likes to breathe the fresh air of mother earth, or breathe at all. And while the latter might not be a risk for someone as high up as you, we both know you enjoy this galactical lump of dirt far too much to let a vengeful Devil bully you off the playground." He paused, letting his words hang in the dank air before he lowered his voice and continued: "You like Earth just as much as I do, and our only chance to keep it in one piece is to get this bunch of gun-toting gorillas a rendes-vouz with Death."

"Not saying I'm not interested in seeing Satan back in his cage, Fergus. I have every reason to want him locked up." Samael's eyes roamed the basement room as he spoke, taking inventory of the items stored in there with an interest that was idle and sharp at once. When they at long last landed on Crowley, he knew what that gaze reminded him of: snakes. You could never tell if they were sleeping or if they were eyeing you for lunch. "But what makes you think I would know where Death is?"

Fairy tales, mostly. Rumours and gossip. Crowley shuffled his weight to one leg for a more comfortable stance. Not that there seemed to be one.

"Well, you know: part hearsay, part having an actual functioning brain – a not too common privilege these days." He rocked on his heels. Since when did he rock on his heels? Crowley ceased, reasserting his grasp on himself and on his voice. "You're the King of Time and you control space. Death flits back and forth across dimensions, back and forth in split seconds; back and forth, back and forth, gotta be literally in all places at all times. That does make me inclined to believe what I hear when little birds whisper that you and Death go… far back." He tipped his head forward, looking up at Samael for… what? Some trace of a hint to give away that his assumptions were correct?

Samael kept him waiting, wearing that pleasant fake smile of his. It annoyed him to be summoned, Crowley knew that. The idea that somebody could call on him like a common dog didn't appeal to his ego, and if he against all odds were summoned he would make sure everything else was on his terms: the talk, the pace, the deal, everything. He would reply when he felt like it.

"That we do", he admitted. "But tell me, what good would it do to lead the Winchesters to Death? It's not like they could overpower it – or even touch it."

"You'd be surprised what a functioning brain can accomplish. We've got that covered with this little gal."

Death's sickle: Crowley pulled it out of his suit jacket. A treasure like that was something you came by once in a lifetime, if you were lucky. He had been very lucky, one rainy day in 18th century Canterbury. Very lucky indeed; there was a covetous gleam in Samael's eyes when they wandered over the curve of the blade. It was dark and matted, an aged thing – how old, exactly, Crowley couldn't even begin to guess.

"Now that's something I haven't seen in an age! Where did you get that?"

"King of the Crossroads – has its perks. And stop drooling, would you? Gentlemen didn't drool last time I checked."

"You slept through most of the 19th century", Samael helpfully pointed out.

"There were gentlemen in the 18th century, too. And just so we're clear, this darling's not going into your collection; this, is going into Death's back", he clarified, slipping the sickle back into the relative safety of his suit.

Demons are an egotistical breed. They may have known each other since they were in the proverbial diapers but when personal gain is involved, old friendship doesn't mean jack squat. Crowley was well aware of that, as was Samael – if Death was of the same opinion Crowley didn't know, nor did he care.

"So, I've laid down my terms: what about yours? What's the price of Death's coordinates?"

Honestly, he didn't want to know. Normally a deal would cost a soul, but there was nothing normal about this deal or its negotiators. Crowley had no soul to sell – well, frankly, he had nothing he could give up that would balance out the favour he was asking of Samael. That put him in the worst possible situation for negotiating: Samael could demand anything. Which he very well might, seeing as he was a man after Crowley's own heart.

Samael made a show of taking his time: stroking his beard, tapping a finger to his lips, staring off into space – giving Crowley ample room to imagine himself all the way to a heart attack.

"I know!" He snapped his fingers in delight as the answer came to him. "Bring along my trainee!"

Behind a vacant stare, Crowley decided that he had probably heard wrong, that Samael was joking, and the real response would come any minute.

It didn't. Partly because Samael had vanished and partly because Samael was a thrice-damned arse that made plans without anyone's knowledge and enacted them without anyone's consent.

Crowley's enthusiasm reached previously uncharted levels when Samael, this time in white suit and cape, returned with the intended "trainee": a scrawny little bookworm thing, with the slightly off features of a boy who has not fully grown into his adult self yet. As Crowley watched he wobbled unsteadily, clutching his stomach with one hand and Samael's cape with the other.

"Oh joy. Stuart Little joins the team."

The squirt in question gave a start. There was a faint ringing of magic in the air, a ripple of something Samael had done in the passing, as if working magic was something that could be done just like that. But although the boy had magically understood what Crowley had said, he hadn't understood what he meant – that much was evident from his confused stare.

"He's from the seventies", Samael explained, the way you would explain that your pet dog looks a little funny because its mother and father were siblings: the poor thing can't help it. "From my exorcist school. Shirou Fujimoto; Crowley. Crowley; Shirou Fujimoto", he introduced them with a chipper joy that made Crowley want to pull his beard out hair by hair.

"Explains the glasses." He was more convinced than ever that behind that pokerface, Samael was laughing like a bloody seagull: and more determined than ever not to let his own mood shine through. "Splendid. I'm sure he'll prove to be an integral asset in preventing the Apocalypse", he said with utmost sincerity, "almost as integral as knowing Death's coordinates."

Samael simply smiled, snapped his fingers, and handed him a paper slip with coordinates.

"Chicago. It's a shame, really", he added. "They have such good pizza in Chicago: you should try it before it's too late." And then, the hallmark one-eighty: "Well then! If you'd excuse me, I have nails to paint. Be good and have fun!"

Samael blew Crowley a kiss, then spun his cape like he was the goddamn Phantom of the Opera; the lights in the basement flickered unsteadily, and he was gone with an indistinct pop and a cloud of pink smoke.

Silence laid itself to rest over the cellar like a thick, age-honed layer of dust. Crowley stared blankly at the boy, trying to the best of his ability to second-guess just what the hell Samael had tricked him into.

"What're you lookin' at?" The kid's grunt carried a tone and a slurring of the words that clashed jarringly with Crowley's image of an East Asian bookworm.

"I'm wondering the same thing."

"Good news!" Crowley announced, striding into Singer's library with the confidence of a man who not only owns the place, but who owns everything within a ten mile radius of it.

Stuart Little trailed after him – aloof, almost, the way he threw glances left and right at the occult books and paraphernalia Singer had stacked on virtually every vacant surface in the room.

"We have Death on a silver platter." Crowley presented Singer the paper between index finger and middle finger.

Singer didn't take it. His hand was on the shotgun in his lap, and his eyes were on the new addition to the team.

"Who the hell's that?"

Ah, trust Singer to waste no words before cutting to the chase. As a matter of fact, Crowley would have very much liked to know the same thing. He would very much like to know what the hell Samael's game was, but nobody was going to indulge that wish of his. It might have grated on his nerves a little.

A little.

"Well, you know – all deals don't come with the 'have it your way' option. Sometimes you have to order the whole meal when you only want the burger", he explained with all the sarcasm he could fit in under that thin layer of joviality. "So: Death's coordinates", he placed the paper in Singer's lap, whereupon he indicated the boy next to him, "and the side salad: Shirou Fujimoto."

The look on Singer's face said he couldn't make heads or tails of this; it was somewhat consolatory.

"He's extra crispy", Crowley added with a smile.

Singer's next look had had enough of demon snark. He spoke to Shirou instead, ordering him to take a swig out of the bottle he was being offered. Holy water, if Crowley knew the old hunter right. Granted, he had known him for about five minutes and a kiss, but he had a good grasp on what kind of man Bobby Singer was.

Shirou passed the test without a word, handing the flask back to Singer and unceremoniously wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Mind telling me what's going on, kid?"

"I'm supposed to help you get Death's ring."

Another who didn't mince words. Splendid. These two would get along beautifully.

"You?" Singer had set the same diagnosis as Crowley: scrawny bookworm kid. "How?"

"Hell if I know", he returned with an untroubled shrug. "Usually I just improvise."

"What the hell is this, Crowley?" Singer snarled. As if this farce was his idea.

"An exorcist." That summed up just about everything he knew of Shirou Fujimoto. "From the seventies", he added with a helpful smile.

"You need some rock salt to help you cough up that explanation?"

"I have a better idea: save the rock salt for your enemies and start briefing your allies." He tapped the face of his none too cheap gold wristwatch. "Clock's ticking."

Singer looked like he wouldn't mind wasting that extra round of rock salt. Crowley deliberated whether he should push him just a little bit more or if it was better to resort to straightforward speech again when, casually, Stuart decided to speak up.

"About that: will somebody tell me what year it is? And who the fuck is Stuart Little?"

"Stuart Little?" Singer's whole face scrunched up with confusion.

"The English dude called me that." The boy tossed his head in his direction.

Crowley, in turn, exploded. Almost.

"I'm Scottish", he clarified in something similar to a conversational tone.

"Really? Sammy said you were English."

"I bet he bloody did", he thought, recalling all too vividly how he had raised his voice during his terse chat with the Winchesters under the street lights. He never raised his voice. Not since Samael had taken to doing mock imitations as soon as his accent came through.

But this boy had never met the homicidal Winchester Moose. He couldn't possibly have told the kid about his–

And then it dawned on him, with majestic disbelief, which "Sammy" little Stuart had been talking about.

"How do you know Sam?" Singer asked, but Crowley interjected before Shirou could reply:

"It's not that Sammy. And ladies? How about 'less talk, more action', hm?"

"Yea that would be nice", Singer snorted and shot him a pointed look. He did put his hands to the wheels, however. "To answer your question this is some forty years into the future for you", he informed their side salad as he wheeled back to his cluttered desk. "God knows what it is you're supposed to do here but if you're part of the deal that'll get us Death we'd better get you up to date. Get over here, Shirow."

"It's Shirou."

A/N

We never did get to know exactly how Crowley got a hold of Death's location, other than that it involved a spell of some kind. =P So I'm taking liberties with it. Also, Samael's costume is more innocent than Crowley gives it credit for: he's cosplaying Hibiki Non from Majokko Megu-chan.

You don't call Scottish people English for the same reason you don't call Canadian people Americans, or Irish people British. On that note, I hadn't noticed before how much more prominent Crowley's accent becomes when he's upset enough to raise his voice. He sounds rather comical. I could imagine him being aware of that and speaking in a lower voice just to sound more threatening and less like a Monty Python sketch. (It's either that or making tragicomic jokes about how everyone's voice pitch keeps dropping throughout the series until only elephants can hear them.)

Crowley's opinions about hunters in wheelchairs are his own, not the author's. Crowley is a demon and a dickbag.