The Book of Alternatives
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Author's Note: A concept for a ficlet which grew beyond its binding. And the most unpolished piece of writing I will hopefully ever publish here.
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The leather-bound book looked harmless enough. Laying on the table in the Men of Letter's library, nestled in its brown paper wrapping and twine, it actually looked rather intriguing. The handwritten note, scrawled on a corner of the aged wrapping in faded ink, only intensified the compelling nature of the otherwise nondescript book.
Should anyone recover this book, destroy it immediately. Do not open it. Do not allow yourself to be tempted to read even a single page. Do what I could not – set fire to the thing, and be done with it. The note was unsigned and undated.
"So let me see if I'm understanding your little predicament." Crowley narrowed his eyes and offered the Winchesters and Castiel a scrutinizing gaze. "From somewhere amongst the dusty – and frankly unappreciated – archives of this musty museum of supernatural lore, you lot uncover a book that obviously hasn't been opened in over a hundred years. And," he continued, astounded frustration evident in his voice, "not only did you unwrap the book that had a note on it explicitly saying 'do not open,' but you also want to read the book that says – explicitly – 'do not read'?!"
Dean looked like he was about to, stupidly, open his mouth.
"And," Crowley continued, barring an interruption, "not only that – you are also suggesting that the one who should read the book that you have been explicitly instructed not to read – should be me!" He stared at the three of them in exasperation. "No wonder you three are always on the verge of ending the world! This is absurd!"
The Winchesters and Castiel exchanged glances.
"I told you he wouldn't be of any help," Castiel muttered, giving Dean a pointed look.
Dean gave the angel a somewhat subtle shake of the head. "Dude. Not helping."
"Crowley, it's a fair trade." Sam insisted, only moderately irritated by the demon's reticence. "Obviously whatever this is, it's something of extreme value. Something dangerous, but worth keeping. You read it, you get to find out why that is. And yeah, there might be consequences. But," he shrugged his massive moose shoulders and smiled indifferently, "you're the one who keeps reminding us you're the King of Hell. Whatever happens to anyone who reads this – you can likely take it."
Crowley smiled like a viper. "I cherish your faith in me, Moose."
"We're trusting you here, man," Dean added. With arms folded, he didn't look entirely comfortable with the whole situation. "Okay? Whatever this is? It could be the sorta thing we need to keep outta the hands of – "
"Of the King of Hell?" Crowley asked sweetly.
"Yes!" And then, "No! That's not – Damn it, Crowley, will you just read the damn book?!"
Crowley cocked his jaw, and looked squarely at his favorite hunter with something akin to disappointment. "You know, when you said you were calling for a favor, I'd assumed it was something like you needed a handful of minions to use as cannon fodder. The release of a particular soul from Hell. A vial of fresh demon blood to do some ridiculous hunter ritual where you lot dance naked except for ceremonial flannel loincloths." He continued before Dean could protest. "Not to spare the three of you from reading some ominous," Crowley nudged the book with a knuckle, eyeing it warily, "suspiciously unwarded book."
The boys and Castiel exchanged glances again, and then looked back at Crowley, expectant looks on their witless faces.
Crowley sighed.
"Well? Which one of you is going to fetch me an armchair and a proper cup of tea?"
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Ensconced in the most comfortable chair in the bunker, with a moderately acceptable cup of tea on a side table, Crowley carefully cracked open the book.
The paper was brittle, fitting with the surmised age of the book by its brown paper wrapping. The text was neatly typed. The spine was still straight and stiff, some of the latter pages uncut, which Crowley found odd. But other than that, it appeared to just be a book. Which, in the world of supernatural objects and whatnot, rarely boded well. He turned to the title page.
The Book of Alternatives.
"So? What's it say?" Dean asked from across the room. Sam and Cas had already agreed it was best to give the demon some space, and had removed themselves to the map room.
"It says," Crowley answered smoothly, without looking up from the page, "if you wanted to know that, you should have bloody well read it yourselves."
"Okay, okay!" Dean turned away in impatience – and then turned back. "Wait – does it actually say that? Because, you know, sometimes with this supernatural stuff - "
Without raising the book from his lap, Crowley somehow managed to glare at him from over the leather-bound binding.
"Okay, I get it." The hunter held up his hands in defeat. "Hey, you know what? What's the one thing you need when you're reading a book?"
"Quiet?"
"A sandwich. Imma go make you a sandwich." Dean grinned, offered two objectively unnecessary thumbs up, and bounded down the library steps.
Crowley watched him go, chewing the inside of his cheek, considering.
"None of that acrylic paint you Americans mistake for mustard, thank you."
Slightly less irritated, the King of Hell settled into to read.
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Almost four hours later, the uneaten sandwich still sat on the side table. With shaking hands, Crowley forced himself to close The Book of Alternatives. He grasped the book in both hands, as if to keep the worlds between its covers trapped inside. To keep himself from falling into them again. It wasn't easy. There were moments when he had wanted to throw the book across the room. And moments when he'd wanted to lean in, cross over the ink and paper boundaries between realities. Above all, Crowley wanted to keep reading.
Because this story – his reality – wasn't the one he wanted to be living.
Damn the bastard who failed to burn the book in the first place. Damn the Winchesters for having found it. And damn them for asking him to readthe bloody thing.
Crowley took a deep breath in an attempt to settle himself, and wiped at his damp eyes. He was immeasurably grateful that the boys had eventually grown bored and gone off to their own pursuits – Dean to his cave of Deanitude, Sam off for a jog, and Cas to commune with a television screen. He wouldn't have wanted them to see him like this while he was reading – vulnerable, a near-open book. He hadn't wanted to pause in his reading, look up at his Winchesters and Castiel, and see the painful disparity between what was – and the multitude of potential alternatives. The what-ifs and might-have-beens. And the equally bittersweet still-might-bes that were beyond his control, but not beyond his longing.
With a sigh, Crowley pushed himself to his feet and, still clutching the book in one hand, went in search of the others.
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"This gonna be a GoodReads review, or can you just SparkNotes this thing?" Dean drawled, leaning back against the library table with his arms crossed. "Of all the books in this library, why did this one end up on the Men of Letter's banned book list?"
"And why'd it take you so long to read it?" Sam added, with equal parts suspicion and genuine curiosity.
Crowley tried – and failed – not to imagine the four of them gathered around the library table together, having this discussion over bottles of root beer and a tray of oven fries. He'd have made chipotle aioli and bee sting bbq sauce, worn clothes more suited for the rough and tumble, and traded comfortable banter with Castiel across the table. Before this, Crowley had thought the cure was the worst thing the Winchesters could ever do to him.
He'd been wrong.
"The Book of Alternatives," Crowley said, "is exactly that. It's a collection of alternative realities, or maybe other worlds. Roads not taken, lives unlived." He dropped his gaze from the three familiar and indifferent faces to the book, heavy in his hands. "Turn the page, and yet another alternative timeline of your life reveals itself. The narratives are unrestrained by the page count or size of the book. Some of the stories spanned entire novels; others were mere vignettes. Some never ended so much as – " he hesitated, "as it was necessary to simply stop reading."
The Winchesters and Castiel were staring at him, wondering, waiting.
"We all wonder what might have been different, if different choices had been made. If Azazel had never set his yellow eyes on your family. If your mother had lived, or traded places with your father." While Dean and Sam shuffled in place, searching for emotionally stable ground, Crowley tipped his head meaningfully at Castiel. "If some other angel had gripped a certain soul tight and raised it from perdition. Or if you'd never agreed to our little Purgatory deal. All those potential happily ever afters, and all the tragedies that played out in some parallel timeline."
"The three of you? The lives you've lived and the people you've lost?" Crowley sternly leveled the book at the boys with one hand. "All you would do is drown in this. Best to abide by that rather ominous warning. Do not read this book! Do not even open it. Doyou," he asked fiercely, "understand?"
The library was quiet for a moment, as the weight of his words settled around them. Sam cleared his throat, looked to his brother. Cas, too, eyed Dean, with equal parts hope and apprehension. The elder Winchester pursed his lips.
Dean eyed the book in the demon's hands. Then he lifted his eyes to meet Crowley's. And nodded.
"Yeah. Yeah, we got it."
Sam nodded in agreement, held out his hand for the book. "Okay, yeah. So, we destroy it."
Instinctually, Crowley tightened his grip on The Book of Alternatives. He might even have taken a step back. "That…is one course of action."
Surely the alternatives to destroying the book were equally countless. As Sam's eyebrows met his hairline and Dean's concerned inquiry faded into the background, Crowley experienced a rare moment of empathy – with whomever had scrawled that note onto the book's brown paper wrapping. The lives contained within the pages were all beyond his reach. And yet, so long as The Book of Alternatives was close at hand to read, he could live those lives vicariously, forever.
All it took was a turn of the page…
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A few pages over…
Crowley considered the leather-bound book in his hands, the note of caution scrawled across its discarded wrapping.
He'd found it wedged behind a bookshelf in the bunker's archives, while he and the others were emptying out the room. Renovating what had been the Men of Letter's bunker to serve as the headquarters of Mother Mary's Home For Wayward Sons & Daughters meant resources like those in the archives needed to be made more accessible, digitalized, and shelved in a proper library. They'd come across quite a number of curious items in the archives, but this book was certainly the most curious of them all.
"Dude. You're not going to actually read that, are you?" Dean inquired, halfway out of the room and loaded down with book boxes. Sam was already in the newly established library, arranging books according to Crowley's cataloging system, while Cas and Eileen sorted files, and Charlie and Kevin worked to digitalize everything. Somewhere in the bunker Rowena was – supposedly – cataloguing supernatural items and weapons with Meg. It was slow going, but teamwork made it possible.
"Wouldn't want to pull a Winchester, now would I?" Crowley joked. He levelled himself up off the ground, book in hand, and dusted off his black khakis. "Who knows what reading these pages might unleash?"
"Some kinda book-loving, soul-eating djinn." Dean tried and failed to contain himself. "A d jinn librarian. A librari-djinn?"
"A biblio-djinn?" Crowley offered, amused.
"Add it to the database," Dean declared, hefting the boxes in his arms and tottering his way out of what had been the archives. "After this load, I'm gonna take a break, throw some of that root-beer pulled pork you made onto a brioche. Maybe toss on some pickles, some cheese. All this hard work makes a man hungry. You coming?"
"Right behind you."
Crowley packed a few more items into boxes, listening as Dean's footsteps disappeared down the hallway. Then he reached over, picked up the book, and cautiously opened to the title page.
The Book of Alternatives.
After a few minutes, Crowley closed the book. He wasn't certain how many other worlds and alternative timelines the book contained, only that he wasn't interested in reading any more of them. The singular story, in which he self-sabotaged his own road to redemption, wounded the people whose respect and affection he sought, and ultimately sacrificed himself to close a rift between realities, was enough of a glimpse into the limitless potential of the narrative universe.
This story – his reality – was the one Crowley wanted to be living. The Book of Alternatives had nothing to offer him.
He returned the book to its brown paper wrapping. It was certainly an item of value. It would need to be properly catalogued, of course, with a relative description of its contents. Though not digitalized, obviously. And shelved in the special collection in the bunker's vault. Such an item could pose a danger to someone less content with their life. As a precautionary measure against susceptible Winchesters, Crowley wrote a note of his own on the book's binding.
As if the internet doesn't produce enough Supernatural fanfiction. - C
Tossing the book onto a stack bound for the library, Crowley turned off the lights of the nearly empty archives, and went in search of the others.
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This is not how I wanted to write this fic. I wanted to write it highly descriptive and sumptuous. I wanted to drag the reader down into the curled ink scrawled into the brown paper wrapping on the book, and even further down into the stories The Book of Alternatives contained. I wanted to drown you in a starless sky of alternative possibilities and parchment, and have you crawl your way to the shore only as the story came to a close. Unfortunately, this fic is a rough sketch rather than a rich tapestry. If you are intrigued or compelled by the idea of The Book of Alternatives, take it and make it yours.