entrancelogs | A key in the door, a step on the floor,

John can't really do all that much moving, but he's fairly decent with packing even partially immobilized. Most of his room's been tucked and packed, but for whatever reason, much of it appears to be gathered in order to be discarded. He's taking his clothes, his books, a few odds and ends, his desk, his batsuit, but ultimately, it's not much.

"Whatever's left can be picked up later," he says mildly, holding the door for the demon from the inside. He's already out of his shoes, his socked feet finding the smooth wood floor a different sensation beneath his feet compared to his own bettered floor. "This is enough for now," John declares as he closes the door behind Crowley and surveys the grouping of boxing along the hallway.

The room is sprawling and exceptionally large, but mostly a blank slate, like Wonderland doesn't quite know what to think. But it's an odd mixture of modern lines and old-world style, and Blake can't help but feel surprise at how at home he feels already. Interesting for a guy that came to Wonderland uncertain he knew the meaning of the word.

"Just wanna make some coffee, put away some books, maybe go to bed early," he adds with a smirk.

Crowley drops the box with the others. He'll get the rest of Blake's things tomorrow. It's better if he doesn't move too much at once, anyway.

He stands back to look at the space, as Blake's just done. It's nice--not quite his own taste and not quite Blake's, but a good compromise of the two and he looks forward to filling it with their things and letting their pets break it all just a little.

"You just want to christen the new bed." Crowley teases absently, eyeing Perdita and Nessa in the living room. He really hopes that Perdita won't eat Blake's stupid cat.

"Sit yourself down and let me make the coffee." He moves into the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Blake's still injured and Crowley's more than happy to take care of everything that needs taking care of, Blake included. It's strange to find himself enjoying that feeling of being needed, but he can't remember feeling like this before. No one's ever really needed him.

As a matter of fact, Blake does want to christen the bed, though maybe not quite in the way Crowley's expecting. He feels tired and sore and even if he's on the downslope of this injury, there's still a ways to go and John's not exactly kind when letting himself heal.

"Keep you comp'ny, if you don't mind," he says, moving into the kitchen and taking a seat. It's a massive room — almost as big as one of the kitchens downstairs — and its open layout pleases Blake in ways that he probably wouldn't share with anyone but Crowley.

He leans heavily on the counter, dragging a hand through his hair and absently looking after the animals. "Think we'll be pretty happy here. Kinda like it already," he admits, though there's a measure of sheepishness hidden somewhere in there.

"Yeah?" Crowley busies himself with the coffee maker, back to Blake, which is just as well because that way Blake can't see the little genuine smile that's made its way onto his face. He thinks so, too, of course. This place is nice and they're safer here. Whatever they'd been trying to ask Wonderland for, she'd delivered.

The coffee maker starts to make its soft, bubbling sounds and Crowley turns back to Blake. He moves closer until he's got his hands on either side of Blake's hips against the counter. "It's definitely safer. We're hidden and we're better off together."

No one will watch out for Crowley the way Blake will and, truthfully, no one will watch out for Blake the way Crowley will. He'd let the rest of Wonderland fall before he let Blake get hurt again.

Sandwiched in between Crowley and counter, Blake feels pretty safe, believe it or not. Dean could probably still come through the door and surprise them, but as it stands, the odds are pretty low that Winchester would go to all that trouble, and even lower that the two of them would be caught off-guard.

"You sure you haven't been brain sluggin' me all this time? How did you convince me to move in?" he teases, knowing full well what got them to this point. Leaning forward, he brushes his free hand down Crowley's chest, then grabs on to his shirt and pulls him in closer for a kiss. When he pulls back, he only does so by an inch or so and he doesn't even let go. "I'd say black magic if I didn't know better..."

Crowley goes into the kiss easily. The affection between them has become so natural, he wonders when he became capable of the act. The movements, the touches have always been an easy lie, but there's more truth than lie to the way he treats Blake.

"I think I might have just taken advantage of your frail state and moved your things without your permission." He grins. "I could throw some magic in, though, if you like."

And Blake might just feel something like an odd, invisible breeze in his hair.

There aren't enough weird words and expressions to explain how strange it is that they're both so comfortable with this. Beyond being emotional rejects, the both of them are hardly lovey-dovey romantic types. And yet the quiet moments are for introspection and gentle caresses and lots and lots of innuendo. It's pretty gross, but Blake actually doesn't appear to mind.

"You're askin' me if I want you to make magic? That's a loaded question," he muses, his fingers curling in Crowley's clothing. "Why don't we table the option, you finish that coffee, I'll get the books put away, and then we can circle back around for more discussion?" This is how he negotiates with the King of Hell.

Crowley chuckles and leans in to kiss Blake's jaw. Blake's not really that great at negotiating if this is his example, but he has an edge over most people when it comes to Crowley, because Crowley usually wants whatever Blake is selling. "It's only a loaded question if you want to break in the bed as much as I do."

He steps back to pull down two mugs. "Don't strain yourself with the books."

See, when anyone asks what it is about Crowley that Blake's really grown to appreciate, it's that goddamn restraint. He hadn't believed the demon to have any at all for a long, long time, but even Crowley got the picture that Blake's much easier to handle when he's not feeling pinned against the wall.

"I'll be careful," he assures, but he's already working his way out of that sling to give him a little more freedom of movement. If he's not challenging something, Blake doesn't feel like himself, clearly.

"Collection's gettin' pretty big for two guys with unlimited access to closets an' libraries." As he muses, he begins stacking books near a wall full of nothing but bookshelves. "Ever wonder why we keep 'em instead of just sendin' 'em back where they came from?" It's the same with their clothes, too, as if they're in denial where all of it came from in the first place.

Crowley pours them each a generous cup, milk and sugar to each of their specifications and that's another detail that's sneaked up on him, but he files it away for later. He's always been a details man. No one can hold that against him.

"I don't know about you, but I notate mine. That's why I keep them." Crowley's books are dog-eared to hell, with sticky notes on pages and even handwritten notes in more recent ones. He used to care about keeping the books in good condition, but after a while he'd gotten used to the disposable nature of most things in Wonderland. As long as they had the closets, Crowley could replace anything that fell apart, anyway.

"I think you might be a hoarder, though." He brings the mugs to the table, taking a careful sip from his. "Are you sure you don't want to grab the room next door for your clothes?"

Blake actually scoffs, he's so surprised by Crowley's words. The urge to throw a book at the demon is subtle but it's there... in the most loving way possible, of course. "Hey, now, I wear that stuff," he defends, but the reality is that he's come to rarely reuse anything. It's probably something of a sickness, but Blake's made his peace with that part of himself and he's not about to make apologies when Wonderland's so keen to provide.

"Never really got the hang of writin' in my own books, though," he adds, returning to that conversational tone they tend to maintain most of the time they're together. "Guess it goes back to not havin' too much of my own." It's certainly the reason that Blake keeps everything looking nice and new and as pristine as possible, save for those few treasured items that just look better with a little wear.

"We've got a lotta space to fill in," John says, content to lightly touch on most subjects. "Bela's gonna come over'n help me fill it up. You can make yourself scarce when that happens." Which is a bratty way to say he'd rather it be a surprise.

Crowley's intimately familiar with both menswear and Blake and he knows exactly how often Blake actually wears things, so that just earns him a teasing smile. It's not as if Crowley hates clothes, himself, although he sticks to a more monochrome palette these days and as a result has a smaller collection.

"Are you sure that's wise?" He raises an eyebrow. Bela isn't someone he mistrusts anymore than anyone else, but he's got no reason to have any real faith in her. There are people Crowley trusts to a degree, people like Natasha or even Bucky, whose head he's rooted around in. Bela's a little too much like Crowley for Crowley's liking. Then again, at least he knows that she'll always be predictable about her priorities.

"I don't want many people knowing where we are until this is resolved."

"Bela's got my back," he says simply, expecting that Crowley will judge the weight of those words for himself. In the years he's been here, Bela has been a mainstay. It wasn't until much later that he even realized she had any connection with Crowley's world, and by then they'd had a mutual friend in Jesse Pinkman, who even now remains incredibly important to John.

A couple books in hand, he drifts over to Crowley and takes up his coffee with the weaker side. It's going to take some therapy to bring everything back into sorts, but that's nothing for Blake who's almost always working on himself in one way or another.

"Any preference on how I organize the library?" Because that's way more important than whatever else is going on in Wonderland.

Crowley isn't entirely sold on Bela having Blake's back, but he also isn't in a great position to argue the point. There's an obvious eyeroll, though, because this is Crowley's maximum level of restraint.

"By subject and then alphabetical." He says it as if it's the most obvious thing. What other system would they use? Half of his books were about magic or mythical creatures, anyway, left over from his obsessive reading in preparation for the Jabberwocky.

"Where does she sit on a scale of demon!Dean to Natasha?" Dean being a murderous piece of shit and Natasha being someone Crowley actually trusts to have Blake's back.

There's no guessing how that scale's supposed to read so Blake takes a couple seconds to enjoy his coffee and consider his answer. He makes a noise and turns to head back toward the shelves.

On one hand, it's hard to find anyone that John trusts like he trusts Natasha, but there's a pretty decent reason for that. It's also hard to find people he dislikes as much as he dislikes demon Dean, but there's a pretty decent reason for that, too.

"On your ridiculous scale, guess I'd have to place her somewhere below Sam Winchester an' above Sam Yao."

"You seem to be confused about which Sam to trust more. Do you have a fever?" Or maybe Crowley's just biased because only one of them has tried to kill him and gone on about it at length. They might be getting along fine now, but Crowley remembers a time when he'd been locked in the Winchesters tragically unsexy dungeon.

"But alright. In a Sams-range. I don't find that particularly comforting for my own safety, but it bodes well for yours." He'll have to work on this system. There's clearly no way to standardize it when Blake's gone and filled his head with wrong opinions.

"Better than Castiel, not as good as Evie, right?" If he sounds entertained, it's only because this is quickly becoming a game to him.

Tossing a flat look in Crowley's direction, he reminds himself that the demon's just as fond of driving him insane as he is driving him wild (both very difference experiences), so he does what he can not to play too seriously into the game.

"Mm, you could say that." He tips his head and smirks. "But you could say 'bout anything, really. Doesn't mean I gotta validate it."

John finds he teases back a lot more often now, that he's had to tap into a typically latent part of himself to keep up. In a way he enjoys it because it makes him feel a little more alive.

"You trust me. Why're you givin' me shit over this?" he asks, every bit as fond as can be.

"Because I don't trust anyone else." The smile drops off his face and the answer is quick. He doesn't even have to think about it. This is fact. This is his life. Crowley trusts no one fully, because that's how he dies. That he trusts Blake as much as he does is a sign of the end, as far as he's concerned. It's the Crowley apocalypse.

"Because shit happens, people change and they can leave and come back wrong at any time." He moves away, back to Blake. "You could leave and come back with a knife ready for my heart. I could leave and come back a bloodthirsty monster. We can't predict these things and we certainly can't predict the people out there."

Blake sets down his coffee and places a couple more books on the shelf — more staging for what's sure to be a decently sized project completed over a length of time.

"So what if we can't predict things? We're kinda screwed no matter what, anyway. But you trust me, so trust me." He's going to protect Crowley as much as Crowley protects him, but it's necessary for the both of them to keep an open mind if they're not going to shut everyone else out completely.

"And it's not like Nessa won't be here to keep an eye on things," he adds, teasing the demon with the obvious but unspoken reminder that Perdita will be there, too.

Blake's words are difficult to hear, because he shouldn't trust Blake. It goes against everything he really knows to be true. He shouldn't, but he does. Blake is right about that. Crowley trusts him as much as Crowley is capable of trusting anyone.

"You trust too much." He's not sure if he's really talking to Blake or himself. "But fine... Bela. I'll make myself scarce, but I'm not waiving my veto power and Perdita is staying with you."

He doesn't think Bela will attack either of them, but he does know that Dean's not as dumb as he looks.

In the end it's the compromise that makes him think Crowley's come a really long way. Personally, Blake's come a ways, too. He knows he's not the easiest to deal with, that he's stubborn and frustrating, but that doesn't mean he doesn't learn and grow just like everyone else.

"Deal." He smirks. "Do we gotta kiss to make it official, or do I get a pass since I've got an in with the king?"

"The kiss is incredibly important." Crowley's smiling that warm sort of smile that few people ever see on his face. "Ceremony is always important."

He comes up behind Blake at the bookshelf to lean over his good shoulder. "I have it on good authority that I'm an excellent kisser." The authority being himself, of course. Blake usually knows better than to actually encourage Crowley's narcissism.

"Sounds like you're tryin' to convince me," John muses, relaxing into the contact. "Just who is this good authority? So I know what I'm workin' against here." This is, of course, only going to lead to Crowley saying something that's bound to make Blake uncomfortable, but sometimes he doesn't mind a little of that if it means the demon has something extra to chew on.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" His noses brushes Blake's skin, gentle and intimate. "A demon doesn't kiss and tell."

Reaching around, he hooks a finger under Blake's chin to try to pull him in for a kiss. He's only teasing, of course. Blake gets most of his better kisses these days, in part because he doesn't make many deals and in part because when he does, he cares more about the deal than toying with people. Besides, asking Bucky for a kiss had seemed downright suicidal.

To be fair, when it's Bucky, it might be worth the suicide mission. But then again, Blake has a ridiculous fondness for the soldier, in no small part thanks to their time in Storybrooke. The fact that he was able to pull so many people into his inner circle thanks to that event speaks volumes in his opinion.

"Aren't you just the epitome of truth an' justice," he very nearly coos, closing the rest of the distance to take a kiss that's already being offered.

"And love and friendship." He smiles into the kiss and his free hand moves down to grope Blake's ass quickly before he steps back. "I'm going to take a shower. Let me know when you want to break in that bed."

It's several hours before Blake finds himself too tired to organize the books. He's made a decent dent in their collection, but not a whole ton of it has made it up on the shelves yet. Nevertheless, John's shoulder is screaming at this point and he's having a hard time convincing himself to go on.

He makes his way into the bedroom, tugging off his gray t-shirt along the way, dropping it bedside in a manner not typical of Blake. But he's hurting now and he can always deal with that later, after he's had some rest.

Crowley is there with a book, the cat is curled up on the corner of the mattress, and Perdita snoring softly in the corner. Of course, right now he's going to try to sneak into bed without the prescribed therapy because that's what he thinks he can get away with.

Crowley notices the way he throws the shirt. He's not one to mind a little mess, but it really isn't Blake's style and now his attention is far more on Blake than the book in his hands. Blake gets away with a lot, but Crowley's never been one to let Blake get away with not taking care of himself.

"You're not going to bed yet." He lowers the book to his lap. Anyone else might assume that Crowley's looking to break in the bed, but there's always time for that later. Right now, he's concerned about Blake's arm healing correctly. As usual, he tells himself that it's because he misses the athletic sex of pre-injury days. You can't have athletic sex with an arm in a sling.

Undeterred by the comment, Blake slides into the bed like a languid cat, his arms outstretched in front of him until they disappear under his pillow. With his body stretched out, it's probably clear why he's not interested in putting his shoulder through the motions, because the muscles on the left side are obviously tighter than the ones on the right.

"Sure feels like I'm goin' to bed," he shoots back, his face pressed down into the mattress. He has an inkling of what he thinks Crowley's getting at, but he's not about to bring it up in case Crowley's suggestion they're going to have some good, old-fashioned sex instead.

"Oh, does it?" He puts the book aside on his bedside table and leans over Blake. "Because it looks suspiciously like you're not doing your stretches and I can't imagine John Blake not taking care of himself, can you?"

Leaning down, he kisses the back of Blake's shoulder. "Sit up. I'll make it worth your while."

As far as he's concerned, one day's not going to make a difference and he does take care of himself. Maybe he takes care of himself last, but that doesn't mean he's entirely shy of that ability.

Blake grumbles and almost doesn't go through with it, but eventually he pushes up to sit back on his legs. "Better make it worthwhile 'cause it's gonna hurt like a bitch." It's a minor complaint, really, but he's not particularly looking forward to it, anyway.

Leaning forward, he grabs up the instructions from the bedside stand and flips through them with a huff. "It's like... eight pages. Can we skip to the end?" He's not going to make this easy.

"No and if you're going to be cranky, I'm going to spank you for your trouble. Don't think that I won't." It's an idle threat, of course, unless Blake doesn't want it to be. Between the two of them, it wouldn't even be the kinkiest thing they've done.

He sits next to Blake on the bed, reaching for the papers so that he can walk through them with Blake, methodical and thorough. Reaching for Blake's arm, his hands are gently and steady.

"The sooner you do the exercises, the sooner you can sleep, sweetheart."

As Crowley takes charge, John's quick to let go of the urge to be too much of a little shit. He's not cranky — though he wouldn't mind a spanking — but he is tired and frustrated that the healing has been so slow. Just as long as can be expected, but too slow for his tastes.

Following the demon's direction, Blake goes through the motions, but he's not entirely willing to just sit back and stay quiet.

"You've gotten pretty patient, y'know." He smirks. "That mean you're ready for kids?" John knows that the topic could go sour, but he has a feeling Crowley will understand where a question like that might come from.

He scoffs, hands guiding and helping Blake's movements. "Parenthood didn't suit me the first time around."

There's a discomfort when his mind moves easily from Gavin to Kevin, a boy he'd probably been a better father figure to and he'd once cut off Kevin's finger. He'd only ever done Gavin exactly one kindness and it had been too little too late.

"I think I'll stick to dogs if it's all the same to you. Never really had much in the way of parental example."

Even if Blake were so inclined, he doesn't see children in his future. There's no retirement from the life of a vigilante, even if it appears that Bruce found his way out.

"It's all the same to me," he says, voice soft. He's not often prone to fits of fondness unless it's Crowley or kids, but he doesn't feel like he's got to have both to feel secure and fulfilled. He likes the idea of children, don't get me wrong, but only in the way that a person does when dreaming of things entirely out of reach.

Leaning in, he places a kiss against Crowley's jaw and then nuzzles into his neck, inadvertently pausing in the task at hand. "—but don't forget the cat."

"The cat can stay, too." He hums, smile crossing over his face. "Animals are easier than kids. Trust me."

Momentarily, he rests his head against Blake's. "Does Batman have room in his busy life of acrobatic crime-fighting for children?"

It's an honest question born from honest curiosity. Crowley wonders if Blake's thought about it. They've talk about their childhoods and he's seen some of Blake's firsthand and he wonders which way that had driven Blake. Crowley only ever had his whore of a mother and she'd walked out on him the first chance she'd gotten, but Blake's parents had actually loved him. Maybe that's why Blake seems so capable of the emotion and Crowley suspects that even as a human he hadn't been.

"No," he says, almost too quickly. But he has thought about it, perhaps too much. "Don't think so." The addition is softer, maybe a little more forgiving. He doesn't have to be on the defensive, not with Crowley, but sometimes he still feels that kneejerk urge to clam up completely.

Almost as if he's ready to be an adult about his therapy, John goes back to the exercises, his head dropping to stretch the muscles more.

"Couldn't see myself ever puttin' kids in that kinda situation. Doesn't seem right." Days away, nights away, never a moment to breathe. Even when he was training it was non-stop, and from what he'd learned from Bruce, it's as mentally punishing as it is physically. He's not sure what he'd have left to share with children after all that. Not to mention the looming inevitability that he won't come home.

Crowley's hands are firm as they move over Blake's skin, fingers massaging into his muscles as he moves. Sometimes he thinks it's such a waste that Blake's given so much of himself away to others. In Wonderland, at least, Crowley's seen him take a measure back, but he knows Blake well enough to know that that's not the case back home. Blake doesn't let himself want much, let alone have it. It's such a contrast to Crowley's taking nature, but then Crowley never had a damn thing he didn't take for himself.

"You'd be a good father. Better than I was." His voice is low, almost as if he's just thinking out loud.

In all fairness, Blake doesn't think it's takes a whole lot to be better than Crowley at being a father, but that's because all he's ever heard is how awful he was at it. In reality it feels like it's another one of those half-truths, because when River was around Crowley sure acted a hell of a lot like a guardian of some sort.

"Kids make sense," he offers with a shrug. "Maybe that'd help me be decent at it, I dunno. Doesn't matter." He's not about to change his mind, after all.

Turning away from Crowley, he raises his arm and reaches it behind his shoulder, mostly reaching for the place between his shoulder blades. It's not pleasant and it forces John to take short breaths. "Pressure?" A stunted request, but a small amount of tension's necessary to help extend the muscles and tendons.

Crowley's hand finds Blake's skin again, pressing with gentle and practiced care. He thinks maybe he has learned some things from Blake, but he hasn't ever really wanted to try to be gentle before. It's not that he's never had a single care for another human being, even for a demon king that's unrealistic, but Blake's wants and needs are different from what Crowley's used to providing.

"Deep breath. Relax." His voice is soothing, like the voice me might use when handling an injured dog. "Your arm's doing a lot better." It's a relief to see Blake getting better, even if it's not as fast as he would have liked.

"You don't think it might be the fact that you're a warm and caring person who's willing to put others first?"

John's forced to think about it for a second, mostly because he's busy breathing through that tension. It's true enough that he's getting better — it hurts less and less by the day — but that doesn't mean he's not pushing his own limits as he's so apt to do.

"Mm, no." He tilts his head to one side and then the other, testing how everything seems to work together. "I'm a—" There's a hesitation there but he figures if anyone deserves his thoughts, it'd Crowley. "—a tool. I think." And what better way is there to explain him? Blake doesn't even feel like he has his own motivations anymore, just ones he's adopted from elsewhere. Things here in Wonderland are a little different, but when it really comes down to it, others come first because that's what serves as a mission statement.

"But I'm okay with that," John adds, figuring he should clarify. "'Cause it's necessary, y'know?"

A sad look crosses Crowley's face, if Blake bothers to catch it. He'd been a shit father and that is what it is, but he doesn't like the idea of just how much Blake is comfortable forgoing of his own wants. Try as he might to teach Blake to be kinder to himself, at the end of the day, Blake remembers none of it when he goes home.

"I'm sure that seems like a convincing justification. It's what drove Sam and Dean in all of their best life decisions."

He leans in, hand moving from Blake's arm to his chin, trying to catch a quick kiss.

"Circumstances change. Lives change. You're not a tool."

Really, Blake knows that Crowley encourages a bit of selfishness, but John's not sure he can bring himself to give up too much of what he's worked so hard toward. It's maybe a dead end for a life with a family, but how many lives and families would he ultimately be saving by sacrificing what appears to be a normal life (something Blake's beginning to suspect doesn't even exist).

"Means to an end isn't always a bad thing. Bein' a tool like this isn't a bad thing, either. Maybe if I didn't have a choice, or if I thought someone was puttin' thoughts into my head, but..." He'd thought of it all on his own.

Feeling as if he's about done, Blake presses a kiss to Crowley's cheek and snatches up the instructions, tossing them aside much like he'd tossed his shirt. "It's bedtime now, right?"

Crowley smiles, impossibly fond. "Yes, dear."

Pulling back, he gets up and starts to unbutton his dress shirt. He wouldn't mind turning in, himself. The more he gets in the habit of sleeping, the more he enjoys it. Mostly, he enjoys waking up next to Blake, if he's honest, in a warmer bed than he ever had when he'd actually needed to sleep.

"Lie down. I'll get the lights."

Obediently, John does as he's told and stretches back out on the bed. Already he can feel the difference between the before and after and not for the first time he's glad Crowley's around to talk some sense into him.

"So good to me," he murmurs, and sometimes he can hardly believe it. It's absurd, isn't it? And no matter how many times the King of Hell admits it's just a selfish act, Blake always finds a way to look back and see that it's truly selfless in the grand scheme of things. What does Crowley really get out of being so careful and caring other than more worry than it's worth?

He watches the man until the lights rob him of the image and then John relaxes into his pillow, expectantly awaiting some very serious spooning.

"One day you'll wise up," John adds, a certain amount of self-deprecating amusement finding its way into his voice.

Edited 2015-05-17 01:28 (UTC)

With a soft chuckle, Crowley slipped under the covers next to Blake and reached for him in the dark.

"Unlikely, at least until the sex gets boring."

But of course Crowley's already moving to spoon Blake and pressing kisses to the back of his shoulder and neck. He doesn't think he'll wise up, because this is a new level of stupid for him. He's spent his time in Wonderland on a slow descent into madness, but he doesn't think he's doing much better in his own world.

A key in the door, a step on the floor,

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