Summary: A Demonic Love Story. They'd been together for centuries. Before they were Father Gil and Casey, they were Romeo and Juliet. Started out as a crack idea but is kind of…dark in a romantic way now.

AN: My professor would be so surprised (and probably horrified) if he ever found out what I was thinking of during his Shakespeare class last year. I mean, didn't Casey look like a vamped up version of Olivia Hussey's Juliet (1968 film version)? And the demon in her being lovers for centuries with the demon in the priest…Okay, only if Romeo had serious father-figure issues (which he probably did have, according to the professor mentioned above) or maybe some resentment against Friar Lawrence (and don't get me started on the thought-path "Lawrence" started me on) for getting them killed with his brilliant plan.

So basically, this is a Romeo and Juliet/Supernatural crossover story, but no one would ever go searching specifically for that category, so here it is. It references a few other pop culture things too, related mostly to R+J and Shakespeare's life and other works. Citations at the bottom.

Oh, and apologies to Mr. Shakespeare.

What's in a Name?

A Demonic Love Story

S-S

"A plague o' both your houses!"

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

S-S

Their love was difficult but it was real, just like that little blonde teenager said in her overly-sweet and highly inaccurate love song.

Shakespeare was a liar too.

Mercutio had cursed both their families as he lay dying in his friends' arms, mortally wounded during a duel upholding the fine tradition of a century's worth of feuding between the two noble families of Verona.

Noble, ha!

However blue their blood might have been, their hands were stained redder than those of any commoner's. Both families had bled, shed their blood, mourned their kin, for the sake of a long-forgotten disagreement, for the sake of pride and family honor.

A plague on both their houses, the Prince's kinsman had croaked on his deathbed, the bitter words rattling in his bleeding chest.

Shakespeare lied. There was no happy ending. They'd all died, the younger generation: Tybalt, Mercutio, Paris, and the two lovers who'd thought their love was worth every misfortune that would occur as a result of it. They'd died and taken the rest of their families and much of the city with them.

A plague. The Red Plague. Lady Montague had been the first to die from it, but she was far from the last, even with certain measures taken by the Prince.

Star-cross'd, ol' Shakey had called them in his "genius" of a play. That was right. They fell in love, and their whole world fell apart in an implosion of violence and death. Two noble families felled in one blow.

Juliet and her Romeo, they hadn't stayed to see the aftermath; they'd gone straight to Hell, like all good little suicides do. They'd been separated in the beginning, seeing how he'd arrived several minutes (Hell-weeks) before she had. They'd been tortured, taunted, flayed and twisted until they forgot who they were, who they'd been. Then they were tortured some more.

She gave in first, sensing that she had no other choice in order to survive, to thrive. He was brought to her, given to her, and she made quick work of convincing him to allow the darkness to take over, telling him, coaxing him to believe that it was the only way they could be together, that they'd be allowed to stay together. Forever, just like they'd always wanted.

They didn't know why they wanted to remain so close, together, but it was instinct, some subconscious emotion buried under the layers and layers of scarred soul. The other demons laughed and sneered, but they didn't care. They had what they needed to endure Hell. Each other.

Together, they roamed Hell, cutting a little here, burning a little there. His favorite was a poison, strong enough to kill twenty men; hers, a dagger plunged in the heart. It wasn't like the souls could have died, anyway.

But it wasn't all giving pain. They were on the receiving end as many times as they gave it. All the torturers had to do was separate them and tell them their partner had escaped Hell, and left the other alone to be gutted, sliced at, flayed. It worked every time.

They did get out sometimes, together. Their original bodies, having decayed in their shared tomb years ago, weren't fit to carry their diseased souls, so they got new ones. She liked young women, beautiful, dark-haired. He liked priests, especially the fatherly ones.

Inevitably, however, they'd get caught, and some trigger-happy hunter or witch-finder would send them back to Hell. Sometimes, they only caught one of the pair, which meant the other had to do something incredibly stupid to get exorcised so they could be together again in Hell, and then of course, try to find a way out, together.

It was hard, the business of climbing out of Hell. They only managed it once every half century or so. It was enough, though, to watch a production of the thrice-damned idiot's play on one of their outings, and to watch their "epic love story" unfold on the stage.

Then they remembered. Oh, did they remember. He didn't like it. She thought it was kind of sweet, in an overwhelmingly human way. Still, she helped him set up some tragedy in the old scribbler's personal life. She hated killing kids, but they die anyway. She wasn't much older than young Hamnet when he…died in mysterious circumstances.

Children die. At least he didn't end up in Hell, or if he did, she never met him there. That should have been a consolation to his papa, but all it did was inspire him to write yet another play, this time an exceptionally gloomy one about a lovely young demon in their acquaintance who'd only killed his fratricidal uncle (and a few others in the process) out of revenge. Apparently, the insanity plea doesn't work in Hell's judicial system.

They'd heard about the demon Azazel's plan to raise an army, his plan of using a human against humans. The idea of it intrigued her. She convinced her only love, her only hate, to join her. It was easy to shift their belief of God to faith in Lucifer. Lucifer, the Light Bringer. Lucifer, the Beloved One. Lucifer, the Beautiful. God had abandoned them in their hour of need, but in Lucifer, there was hope.

When the gates of Hell opened, they were ready, she and her black-eyed lover. They rushed out through the gateway, crying out their loyalty to their lord, their master, their leader.

It was there that they, and the others, ran into a bit of a problem. Azazel, their yellow-eyed master, had fallen to a bullet shot from the legendary Colt, a gun that could kill anything. It was Dean Winchester that did it. His brother Sam, the Dark Messiah, the Boy King—he refused to step up and fill his predestined shoes. The demon horde had no general, and without a leader, the Big Plan fell apart.

The two of them went to ground, trying to get comfortable, but not giving too much away as to their true natures. She found a suitable meatsuit, a voluptuous barmaid named Casey, and he smoked into a paternal Catholic priest by the name of Gilbert, or "Father Gil," as he insisted on being called by everyone he met. He'd always enjoyed a good masquerade.

She had lunch with a prominent businessman about the benefits a few establishments could have on the economy of the town, how there would be people pouring in, bringing their wealth with them. And her dark-eyed darling…offered counsel to troubled members of his meatsuit's congregation.

They didn't mean to cause trouble. Well, they did, by nature, but it wasn't completely intentional. They simply caused trouble around them by simply being there. Kind of like a certain pair of brothers, who came into town, lured in by the possible "hunt."

He caught her, fair and square, did Dean Winchester. The man didn't live up to his reputation—he wasn't nearly as annoying as they said he was, and despite the fact that he'd killed Azazel, he was…likeable. For a human. He wasn't as stupid as they made him out to be either. They ended up talking philosophy and theology, for goodness' sake! So, she liked him.

That's why she told her partner not to kill the human. Maybe she should have let him do it—either way, it would have gotten them both killed. Sam Winchester, whom she'd been so eager to follow, shot her love, then turned around and shot her in the chest with the newly repaired Colt before Dean could stop him. Turned out maybe he'd liked her too. Didn't really matter anyway.

The only good thing to come of it all was that they were finally allowed to die together, like they'd wanted to in the first place, and this time, Hell wasn't waiting for them at the end of the tunnel.

Shakespeare said "there never was a story of more woe" than theirs, but the saddest thing about it was, it was all the work of humans. No helping hand by the devil here. They did it all on their own.

S-S

"For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

S-S

References:

-The song Love Story by Taylor Swift

-Romeo and Juliet by famed playwright William Shakespeare

-The Masque of the Red Death, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe (slight in-joke—see username)

-The life of W. Shakespeare, especially the death of his son Hamnet

-Hamlet, another play by Shakespeare

-Supernatural's Season 2 finale, Season 3 episode "Sin City," and a few details about Hell from Season 4

-Also, the wording of the summary ("Before they were Father Gil and Casey, they were Romeo and Juliet") is kind of a riff on a trailer for the movie Tristan and Isolde.