Tea With One's Self
.
A ficlet that grew beyond its Tumblr confines until it became its own fic.
.
.
Crowley didn't know why the Winchesters had called him and said he needed to leave his and Cas' search for Lucifer to come to the bunker, but he assumed it had to be important. It had better be, because as far as the usurped King of Hell was concerned, there was nothing more important than finding and re-caging the devil.
He was ill-prepared, then, to enter the bunker and find Dean and Sam in the library, both looking subdued and not a little anxious at his arrival. Dean, in particular, had a hard time meeting his gaze.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" He demanded. "This had better be important. No! It had better be world-ending, or potentially so!"
The elder Winchester searched for words. He tapped his fingertips on the table, cleared his throat. Crowley realized with a strange sensation in the pit of his borrowed stomach that Dean's gaze was uncommonly empathetic when he glanced at the demon. "We, um, we weren't sure if you'd want to know…" Dean cleared his throat again, and crossed his arms self-consciously. "Look, there was this rift that opened in the air, and someone…walked through it."
Rift? A rift that opened out of thin air? If that's what had happened – definitely in the category of potentially world-ending – why the hell did the hunter look like he'd sustained emotional damage of some sort? Crowley opened his mouth to rain accusations and inquiry down upon woefully-hollow Winchester heads when an all-too familiar voice spoke from behind him.
"Well, what do we have here?"
Slowly, Crowley turned around to stare at himself.
There were other possibilities, of course. Shapeshifter, skinwalker, manifestation of some sort. But if a rift from another reality had opened up and something – someone – had walked through it, there was no denying the most likely possibility. Crowley was staring at an alternative version of himself.
He meant to say something indifferent, or witty, or at best cutting. But all he managed was "Is that flannel?"
The alternative version of Crowley simply raised an eyebrow and glanced up and down his suit-clad self in equal judgment. This self, this other Crowley, was dressed in dark jeans of all things, work boots and what appeared to be a gray cotton t-shirt under an unbuttoned plaid overshirt under his jacket. He looked, for all the damned world, like a hunter.
And he was holding a tray bearing mugs of what appeared to be tea and a paper plate of cookies.
"I'll admit it's not Armani," this other self replied, "but it's comfortable and, more importantly, it's not blood-stained."
Crowley heard one of the boys suck breath in through their teeth at the cutting remark.
His other self pushed past him with a meaningful look, and trotted up the library stairs to where the Winchesters were waiting around the table, Crowley whipping around to stare after him.
"I'm rather disappointed in you two. Lipton? Honestly, Sam." This other Crowley raised a judgmental eyebrow at the younger Winchester as he handed over a mug. "I expected better of you than that. And nothing to accompany it other than mini Oreo cookies out of, if I had to guess, a motel vending machine."
"Yeah, well," Dean accepted the mug, sniffed it, and actually took a sip. Crowley felt his jaw fall open in amazement. He'd just been handed tea by a demon and the moron actually drank it. That tea could be spelled, or poisoned, or worse! And since when did Dean Winchester drink tea? Dean swallowed and made a 'not bad' face into his cup. "We make do."
The legs of his meatsuit feeling a little unsteady, Crowley climbed the stairs into the library and leaned against a column for support. This couldn't be happening. Oh, he was perfectly capable of accepting that an alternative version of himself had walked through a rift between worlds, that was no surprise. Crowley himself had tried to open the Gates of Purgatory, after all, and lay claim to that dimension of reality. No, it was everything else about the situation that flummoxed him.
This Crowley was wearing everyday clothes, and was completely at his ease around the Winchesters. And, apparently, was only too happy to make them tea.
His other self glanced over at him. "Would you care for a cup? After all," he smiled a little too smugly for Crowley's liking. "I know exactly how you take it."
The bloody cheek of the bastard!
"No! Thank you!" Crowley pushed off from the column and moved to stand at the table opposite himself. "What I'd like is for someone – not you – to explain just what the bloody hell you're doing here."
"Crowley – "
"Shut up, Squirrel!" Crowley snapped at the same time as the interdimensional intruder inquired with mild amusement, "Which one?"
Dean stuttered, looking between the two of them. Finally, he turned to Crowley at the end of the table and held up his hands placatingly. "Okay, look. This is weird for everybody, okay? But, Crowley here – " he thumbed over at the other, "says he's got intel that will help us with Lucifer, and Hell, and everything else."
"So you just – what?" Crowley snarked, "Popped over for a cuppa and to share a bit of enlightenment?"
"From the looks of things," Other-Crowey smiled around the brim of his cup, "you could use it."
"I'm not about to take advice from a version of myself that wears bloody Carhartt."
"Least I'm not such a pathetic bastard as to still be – "
"Whoa, whoa!" Dean spread his arms between the two of them, as though he might push apart two combatants about to start throwing actual punches rather than just barbs. "That's enough. It's not helping. And watching the two of you snark at each other, it's just…"
"Weird." Sam finished flatly, his nose scrunched up.
"We get it – you got issues." Dean pointed to Crowley. "With yourself. With – with…" He gestured loosely at the alternative version of the demon.
"With…Fergus?" Sam asked, attempting to be helpful. The other Crowley gave him such a searing glare that Sam actually looked embarrassed and a little uncertain of himself. The tongue-lashing cut like a whip.
"It's Crowley, thank you very much. And I'm beginning to seriously reconsider my magnanimousness in having come here to help you lot, considering how well that's turning out. Perhaps I should just leave Moose and Squirrel and – " he gestured rudely at Crowley across the table, "his Majesty over there to the fate that you may, in fact, very well deserve!"
Sam huffed. "His majesty," he said, in a mockery of an upper-class British accent.
Crowley gave serious consideration to murdering the Moose.
His withering look must have conveyed that particular thought. With both Crowleys casting laser-eyed glares at him, the hunter coughed self-consciously and looked anywhere but at the two demons. This reality's Crowley turned his scowl on Dean as well, for good measure. Unlike his brother, however, Dean met and held Crowley's gaze.
There it was again – that damned softness about the hunter's expression. Dean glanced back at that other Crowley and something passed between them. A silent communication, the sort Dean normally only shared with Castiel, that feathered arse. The other Crowley's expression was one of determined challenge, Dean's one of hopeful uncertainty. And Crowley – this reality's Crowley – experienced a horrific realization.
This other Crowley and Dean shared an understanding, shared common ground. They respected and, even after only so short a time, trusted one another. Dean liked this other version of Crowley. And it went deeper than a simple change of attire. Dean looked at that Crowley and saw the man Crowley could be, and not the monster that the Winchesters persisted in perceiving their own Crowley as still being. This – this Crowley – he had earned his place among Team Free Will. This Crowley had made his own road to redemption, and was steadily walking down it.
And apparently, part of that involved coming to this alternative reality and saving the lot of them from some yet-to-be-named fate.
Crowley hated him. Hated him more than he hated Lucifer, than all of traitorous demonkind. He wanted to bind this other self to the rack and torture the hell out of him. Wanted to make him bleed, make him weep, force him to admit how very, very sorry he was for being what he was. Underneath that compulsion, Crowley had the very uncomfortable awareness that this other Crowley probably wanted to do the very same thing to him.
And worse of all, Crowley envied him. Even more than he hated him.
"Why," he forced out through clenched teeth in a rasp that he hoped sufficiently passed itself off as suppressed rage, "are you here?"
The other Crowley chewed over his answer. Dean, still mediating between the two, answered for him in a low voice. His eyes held emotions that Crowley simply wasn't willing to contemplate right now. Dean Winchester had never looked at him like that before. Like he bloody well cared.
"He's here to try and prevent you from ending up dead. Okay?"
"Dead?" Crowley's eyes swung from the hunter back to his other self. "Lucifer?"
The expression on the cheeky bugger's face returned to one of thoughtful restraint, like he was both holding back and almost enjoying himself. "Self-sacrifice, actually." Crowley's expression must have conveyed his disbelief at that possibility, because the other shrugged and added, "Attempting to save the world, or so I was told. Lucifer had a role to play, but it was bigger than that."
"And," Sam interrupted, glancing cautiously between the two. "You're going to tell us how to prevent that. Right? And how you found out about it – all this – in the first place."
"Well, now." The other Crowley rocked back on his heels, and smiled with self-satisfaction. "That is quite a story. Has to do with fractured core realities and alternative dimensions and rifts through existence. Television shows and online fandoms and Chuck being an unsurprisingly shitty writer who's really just another puppet made to dance via narrative strings."
Dean glanced at Crowley – his Crowley – and shrugged almost apologetically. "He, uh, he's already told us the basics. About what happened – what could happen – to you. To all of us. Please, man, just – just listen to what he has to say. That's all I'm asking."
"It was just the basics, for Rocky and Bullwinkle." Across the table, his other self – this supposedly better self – smiled at Crowley in equal parts commiseration and challenge. "But we – we are going to talk big picture."
Crowley thought about it. He thought about how he'd already considered that this latest showdown with Lucifer might end badly for him. He thought about how he'd already lost Hell and was now just chasing after scraps, how much he hated demons and Hell itself and – yes, alright – even being King. Crowley considered Castiel, waiting for him in the driver's seat of that pick-up truck – impatiently, no doubt. And the look Dean and his alternative self had exchanged moments before. What that look had said, what it had meant.
Putting aside all that, what was being offered was knowledge, and knowledge was power. His other self knew that, knew that's what would tempt Crowley. No matter the universe, no matter the version of himself, Crowley always did like to keep his finger on the pulse, to remain ten steps ahead. And to possess whatever knowledge this other self claimed to be offering? To learn of other lives in other versions of reality? How many people got that opportunity? If nothing else, he'd come away knowing that it was within him to take another road. To be whatever version of himself he wanted to be.
Crowley knew one thing already. As it turned out, he didn't look too shabby in plaid.
He reached down and picked up the mug still waiting for him on the table. The unpleasant smell of exceptionally weak tea wafted up to greet him. But his alternative self was right, damn him to Hell: Crowley's cup of tea was made exactly to his liking.
"Alright. I'm listening."
.
.
Crowley got the short end from everyone in this fic, including himself. I don't actually believe this is how Crowley – either version – would react on encountering himself. But I wanted to write a scene in which One of the Boys!Crowley snarkily offers canon!Crowley tea exactly the way he liked it. And to have the Winchesters enjoy mockingly refer to canon!Crowley as "HiS MaJeStY, ooohh!".
As always, thanks for reading.
The Demonologist In Denim
