Tempting Fate
K Hanna Korossy

"Excuse me, sire?"

He enjoyed the tremble of fear in his lackey's voice; that was as it should be. Still, Crowley gave the demon a benevolent smile because he was a good leader. "Yes?"

"There's, er, someone here to see—"

A slip of a girl in glasses pushed past the demon as if he weren't there. Crowley would've seriously reconsidered his security except he recognized her; nothing would have stopped her from getting in.

He sat up a little on his throne. "Ah, as I live and do not breathe, Atropos. Lovely to see you again."

The Fate gave him a look he could only describe as constipated. "Crowley. Stow the flattery—you know why I'm here."

He cocked his head. "To business then? I can respect that. But…no, I haven't the foggiest why you've deigned to visit me in my humble abode."

She took a step closer, her ever-present book clenched tight to her chest. "Gavin."

"My son? What about him?" he asked innocently.

"You pulled him out of the past, saved his life."

"Fathers do things like that for their sons. Or so I've heard."

Atropos glared at him. "You changed the past. Again."

Crowley sighed. "Is this about my sending demons back in time to try to exterminate Rowena? I did apologize for that, didn't I?"

"No."

"Ah." He paused. "Well, considering that slippery slag managed to elude my people, how do they say it? 'No harm, no foul'?"

More glaring; really, this Fate only had one setting. Clotho had been so much…softer. "Gavin was supposed to die on that ship," Atropos said.

Crowley shrugged. "So there was one less corpse in Davy Jones' locker, so what? Unless the fish that dined on his flesh went on to significance…?"

"Changing the past will change the future," Atropos insisted.

Crowley snorted. "Have you met Gavin? I don't think he'll make one stone's difference in the world, and I'm his father."

"He already has a girlfriend," Atropos pointed out. "And a job."

"In this job market?" Crowley found himself smiling a little in his pride. At Atropos' aggressive glasses-straightening, however, he sighed, rising to approach her. "You allow deals. Fatal possesions, on both sides. The Winchesters. Why quibble about one illiterate moron who's past his expiration date?"

Something flitted across the Fate's expression, something that made Crowley pay attention. "You don't think those were preordained events?" she asked, one eyebrow rising.

That knocked him back a step. He eyed the Fate, who was eyeing him back, but this was no longer a game. "Why come to me at all?" Crowley asked, no longer smiling. "Why not just off Gavin?"

The Fate actually shifted uncomfortably. "He's…shielded somehow. Like someone's protecting him. If it's you…"

Crowley widened his eyes, only half-pretending. "Don't look at me, darling. I haven't even seen the bumpkin since I rescued him. Kids are so ungrateful these days, aren't they?"

Atropos glowered.

"So if that's all?" Crowley asked pleasantly, clapping his hands together. "Sorry, luv, but I am a busy monarch. Shall I have one of my minions see you out?"

It wasn't necessary, of course. She was gone from one second to the next.

Crowley's smile slipped. Was God truly still in the picture? Hell had always been subjugated to Heaven, but it hadn't seemed like it these days. True, the Winchesters did seem to be in some sort of divine protection program, but there were prophecies and sacred writings about God winning the ultimate war against Evil. The idea that He was still around, pulling the strings, was very bad news.

Crowley returned to settled uneasily back on his throne. "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven," he murmured to himself.

At the moment, however, he wasn't completely sure about that.

The End