Scene From An Alt!Dimension
Chapter 3: A World of Pains and Troubles
Summary: In that alternative universe, Crowley has found a place to belong, people who trust him, and a purpose. Unsurprising, then, that the Winchester brothers show up just in time to ruin everything. Alternative Season 13 "second to last episode" season finale the fandom and characters deserved. Third chapter of Scene From An Alt!Dimension.
It was a bright, blusterous day in the mountains along the western coast, a fortunately temperate winter having given way to a wet, windy spring. All around Crowley, the damp canvas of the tent that served as the rebel headquarters fluttered and flapped, and errant breezes slipped in to rustle and dislodge his work. The light that filtered in was soft and yellowed. A lantern worrisomely swayed above the table that was littered with papers, maps, correspondence, tattered pages of spell books, and the mangled anatomy of mankind's technological progeny, long defunct.
In the midst of so much heresy, Crowley could not have been more content.
There was work to be done here, and quite a lot of it. All of it crucial to the survival of what little remained of the human race in this cinereal dystopia. He had been correct in his assumptions that his services – his knowledge of the pre-industrial world, his expertise in administration and infrastructure, his vast experience with angels and the supernatural – were welcome among the rebel leadership. They had provided Crowley with the necessary resources, and he set to work constructing the means by which to save the world.
Now, after months of research, preliminary designs, experimental models, trial-runs belching smoky failure into his face, and countless other infinitesimally small steps forwards, Crowley was on the verge. Here was accomplishment. Here was purpose, satisfying and invigorating in the same breath.
"Necessity," Crowley muttered to himself as he stood, eyeing the latest sketch laid out on the table, fluttering corners secured with river rocks, "truly is the mother of innovation."
A triangular shaft of light cut across this latest design as the tent flap opened, and Castiel appeared, heralded with uneven fluttering that could have been either permanently damaged wings or just the wind.
"Crowley," he offered in easy greeting, glancing around at the other's handiwork. "This tent's begun to look like the set of MythBusters."
A pop culture reference made with ease. Crowley would never get used to it.
"If Savage and Hyneman ever attempted to merge magic and technology, I doubt they would've had much better luck," Crowley replied with a weary smile. "But I believe I've got it, at last." He tapped his latest blueprint with ink-stained fingers. "Look here."
Castiel moved to stand beside Crowley, arms crossed and lips silently performing the spell annotated in Enochian along the margins of the page.
Crowley watched the angel out of the corner of his eye, as always searching for similarities and variances.
Every time Crowley thought he had encountered every incarnation of Castiel - from insufferable soldier, power-hungry demi-god, hopeless dope fiend, to heartbreakingly optimistic human – another visage of the angel joined the cast. Somehow, the fact that Castiel existed in this world, when the Winchesters did not, was reassuring. Like at least, somewhere, someone got something right.
This Castiel was soft fleece wrapped around a steel blade. He was focused and charismatic, good-humored and maybe even a little charming, if scruffy and battered from years of living among the refugees of humankind. A patch covered his left eye, gouged out by a fellow angel's blade some years ago. He wore a dusty black jacket over a dark shirt and pants, almost melding into the shadows around him, and was weighed down by the same kit their fellow combatants carried: weapons, ammo, angel blade, short-wave radio, iron determination and the remorseless burden of hope. For all that, this Castiel stood straight and carried himself like the leader he had become in the absence of all other options.
And Castiel was a leader, no doubt about it. He bore his responsibilities with confidence and patience, and spoke with an air that both inspired and reassured. Creases around his eyes and mouth juxtaposed those of Cas, earned through disparate instances of fumbled good intentions, unavoidable mistakes, and continual loss. If he was plagued by similar doubts, however, it was evident this Castiel did not lack a sense of purpose.
He had found his place among the persecuted, insuppressible tatters of humanity. And in the great war between angels and mud monkeys, he had chosen his side.
So had Crowley.
"It will work?" Castiel turned an eager, smiling eye on his second in command.
Anyone else would have been perturbed by the intensity of the angel's stare, the way his presence edged upon against their own. Personal space, Crowley heard Dean mutter. He mentally brushed the voice away.
"I would bet my soul on it," he replied, quirking an eyebrow at the rebel commander. The significance of the offer was lost on this Castiel, of course, not knowing Crowley's previous allegiances. That Crowley was confident would be enough for him.
Someone's trust. What a priceless thing to have acquired.
It was imperative that they succeed in weaponizing the banishment sigil, turning it into a handheld bomb that could be lobbed at angelic combatants at will. The more advanced technology Crowley was currently working on melded these bombs with the few aerial drones Charlie had managed to restore, to fly into angel encampments. It would provide resistance forces with an unassailable advantage, and make the next stage in Crowley's plan obtainable.
Because this was just step one. Once they had the necessary combination of spellcraft, blood magic and technology, they would manufacture dozens of these grenades and drones, to equip select fighters from among Castiel's forces, who were currently preparing for the war's most decisive action. Both Castiel and Crowley – and Charlie, upon her return from special assignment among Bobby's forces – would be among them.
Step two involved using this new advantage for a singular purpose: retrieving the prophet and his tablets from Michael's grasp.
Kevin Tran. No matter the universe, the boy never seemed to catch a break.
The ever-present knife in his recently restored heart twisted at the thought of the prophet, both the one dead in Crowley's world and the one still alive in this one. He tried not to dwell on memories of Kevin, or anyone, really – nothing good could ever come of that. Nothing productive, certainly. Just more inadequate rationalizations and self-recrimination, more weeping when he was sure no one would see, and more sleepless nights of pacing the camp's perimeter, traveling down endless roads of what-if's and should have's, unable to sleep for the indescribable atrocities which populated his dreams.
With conscious effort, Crowley turned his thoughts from the wayward prophet and his plight back to the finale stage of his plan.
Once the tablets and their interpreter were safe within Castiel's care, they could discern the three trials necessary to close the Gates of Heaven. It would cost a life, no doubt, but a single soul was well worth locking Michael and his angelic army away forever.
Castiel and Crowley had spent countless hours debating who would make that sacrifice, their sessions often ending in heated arguments and forlorn separation. Ever dutiful, Castiel insisted on shouldering what was undoubtedly the most dubious honor in the history of the universe, short of Lucifer's own designation as God's favorite. There were obvious arguments against it, Crowley consistently pointed out. Castiel was the leader of the resistance, their bulwark against despair, the inspiration for whatever world would come after. Castiel always countered that the closing of the Gates ensured not only Michael's banishment, but his own as well.
"I'd much rather give up my existence," Castiel had reflected, with the same sad, defeated smile Crowley had seen so often on Dean's face, "than spend eternity imprisoned with the brethren I so willingly betrayed. This would be the conscientious thing to do."
"Not to mention self-aggrandizing," Crowley had snapped. That wasn't hypocrisy on his part. It was an attempt to steer Castiel away from making the same mistake.
Crowley had only briefly considered taking on the trials himself. What a grand gesture of atonement that would be. But the suicidal inclination brought on by consistent depression and outright rejection that previously plagued him had abated. And he didn't think it particularly prideful to believe he could be of more use to humankind alive than dead.
Castiel and Crowley had not come to an agreement on the issue, but there was still time.
The nephilim, with his foolhardy attempts at heroism, was buying it for them.
Even after nearly a year of being human, Crowley still struggled with the juxtaposing contempt and mournful sympathy the boy inspired in him. Jack Kline was undoubtable useful, keeping the angels engaged, obscuring Crowley's plans, and draining resources away from efforts to open another rift. But the nephilim had no real hope of destroying Michael's forces. The boy's only real asset was his undeniably immense, raw power. Beyond that, he was hobbled by his youth and his naiveté, his lack of experience and strategy, and what Crowley recognized instantly as a typical Winchester's dogged disbelief in his ability to fail. The nephilim believed if he only continued to push forward, with good intentions and vainglorious self-sacrifice, that somehow, against all odds, he would win. That his was a noble and just cause, and therefore, all would turn out right in the end.
So Crowley, and Castiel, had reluctantly agreed to do what countless generals had done throughout the long, bloody history of war. Allow the idealistic to throw themselves against the ramparts and distract the enemy, while they prepared the way for actual victory.
All they needed now was for Jack to hold out a little longer.
"That very well might work," Castiel crossed to the other side of the table, to observe a map pinned to the tent wall. He pulled out the pin representing the nephilim's forces, and moved it closer to Michael's stronghold, and the prophet, marked on the map. "But we will have to use what we have. Our timetable has been stepped up."
Bollocks.
"Why?" Crowley sighed in annoyance, "What's happened?"
"Charlie's returned. She reports another rift opened. It would seem Mary Winchester has been joined by her sons, Sam and Dean."
A sudden gust of wind rushed up against the tent, causing the canvas to roar and snap, as if to emphasize the significance of Castiel's statement. The lantern above swung wildly, sunlight burst in from the flap and from under the sides of the tent, as if the entire structure was about to morph into wings and carry them away. Meticulous plans and sketches, months of hard work and consideration, were swept up and tossed about the tent.
Crowley snarled and snatched the pages out of the air, his smoldering irritation enough, in another life, to blacken the paper where he touched it.
When the gust was over, he leaned against the table, head bent, eyes closed, and sighed. "Then we are out of time."
Castiel clearly hesitated before turning to face his friend. "I thought you'd be pleased," he said, with a rueful smile. The angel splayed his fingertips across the course surface of the table and tapped lightly, still searching for the right words. At last, he murmured, "To be reunited with them."
In the space of a breath, Crowley did a quick calculation.
Nearly six months now. Six months, he had been a member of the rebels' inner circle. All those months, working on their grand plan and the necessary combination of magic and technology. Months of the two of them, and occasionally Charlie, hunched over tables, or around campfires, or sometimes even crouching in slick, moss-choked caves as angel battalions flew over, reviewing schematics and spells. Nights lit by candlelight or accompanied by the buzz of generators chugging along on the last of their diesel. Days, catching snippets of sleep, dreaming of enchanted drones and surprise attacks and the backseat of the Impala. Wild jamborees where humanity's refugees gathered in boisterous revelry, in celebration of life. Quiet, patient hours of Castiel and Crowley, standing as they were now, in this tent wherever it might be pitched, working side by side. Misty dawns, when Crowley couldn't sleep and Castiel didn't need to, slouched in camp chairs at the edge of the rebel base, playing chess with hand-carved pieces, a gift from old Bobby Singer. Crowley could count on one hand the times he had indulged in a sip of the blinding scorch of Hellfire the rebels claimed to be moonshine – never enough to lose control, to let memories of torture, depravity, or twisted affection seep into his conscious mind.
Months of relearning how to wash and dress, to avoid injury and take care against sickness. Months of measly rations hastily scarfed, of hunger so sharp, he had been reminded of a desperate, ragged childhood on the moors, hundreds of years before. Months of learning to be human all over again, with everything that entailed.
Crowley could only guess at what point he had given himself away.
"You knew."
"Of course. The moment we met, I could see that you were from someplace else." Castiel looked even more apologetic as he added, "And I am, uh, familiar with the you that is native to this reality."
Crowley blew out a breath, and looked away. "Course you are," he mumbled.
"We collaborated in an attempt to prevent the apocalypse. It was an uneasy alliance, to say the least. Most demons were destroyed during the war between Heaven and Hell. Crowley – this world's Crowley – survived by pledging his loyalty to Michael. I suppose," Castiel added dryly, "you could say he now serves Heaven." He glanced upwards derisively, towards the pitched roof of the tent and beyond, to the baleful sky and into the ruins of Heaven. When he sighed, a light flutter sent the pages on the table and floor skittering away, as broken wings rustled in agitation, then settled back into place. "The abomination it's become, anyway."
Not for the first time, Crowley cursed the weakness of his new human existence. He ground his teeth and set his gaze, hoping to forestall the rush of emotions battering his defenses as the wind battered their pathetic headquarters.
Crowley had assumed, of course, that he existed in this world, somewhere. Through subtle inquiry and persistence, Crowley had managed to piece together most of the history of this reality, where its crippled timeline had slouched off like so much decomposing byproduct from the itinerary of his own dimension. It all traced back to those two well-coiffed, plaid simpletons, the Winchesters – or in this case, the lack of them. Crowley had existed long before then, so it was simple deduction to assume some incarnation of self called this dimension home.
But really, he'd rather hoped this reality's Crowley was dead and gone, at the end of some angel blade or hunter's knife. The last year had been spent facing up to what he'd been before the cure. What he'd done, even after it. The last thing Crowley wanted – needed – was to come face to face with that thing so incapable of recognizing or mitigating its own depravity, or to be reminded of how inadvertent his own redemption had been.
His trepidation over such an encounter was laced with the premonition of loss. Crowley cherished what he and Castiel had between them. The comfortable comradery and ardent friendship. The brotherly affection that allowed for frustration as well as fondness, that offered respite from the world's endless adversities and callousness. Crowley had always assumed that if Castiel suspected, even for a moment, his former nature and previous mistakes, their friendship would surely suffer.
And yet.
Crowley raised a brow, then his eyes to meet the angel's gaze, and inquired softly, "If that's the case, then why, for even a moment, would you trust me?"
He was completely unprepared for the smile Castiel offered him.
It was gentle, and sincere, just the corner of his mouth tugging up. And it wasn't meant for him. It was meant for a particular hunter who apparently didn't have the decency to be born in this reality. That was the only time Crowley had ever seen that smile on Cas' face. It was meant for Dean, and Dean alone.
But here, in this weary, broken world, that smile was for Crowley.
"Because if there's no room in this world for second chances, we may as well give up right now."
For a long moment, angel and former demon stared at each other, one with affectionate conviction and the other with cautious entreaty, the tent rustling gently around them.
"I hope you're right," Crowley said at last, forcing a breath past the brittle emotion that constricted his lungs. To steady himself, Crowley broke from his friend's one-eyed gaze and gathered the papers on the desk into neat piles, flattening out those he had carelessly crushed when snatching them from the wind. "It's why I'm here, after all."
"I know I should say I am sorry you could not find such affirmation in your own reality." Castiel remarked, adding with a slight shrug of his shoulders and roguish mirth, "But I'm not."
Crowley didn't expect what poured out of him next. Maybe, for the first time encountering empathy and able to be open about the subject, he needed to unburden himself. Like bitter bile, the words and their accompanying emotions forced their way up out of his mouth, and Crowley regretted saying them even as his soul felt purged in doing so. "There was nothing left for me there – just malice, brutality and spite, followed by admittedly-poor attempts at amends." His jaw worked, gnawing at the bone of his discontent. "I was your Crowley, once. I garbed myself in all the splendor and authority of Hell, wallowing in the depravity of it all. And enjoyed it, I might add. Nothing could touch me, nothing mattered. In my damnation, I was perfection."
And then came the Winchesters. Then came a scorching light that burned away the numbness and left Crowley raw to everything he had been and done. He had wanted to die, there, strapped to that chair with the cure coursing through him. He had wanted to simply end and earn reprieve through his absence in the world. Or, in his saner moments, to reverse it all, to drag the suffering and misery away from those he now saw as his victims and wrap it around himself, be buried alive within it. That would count for something, wouldn't it, Crowley had thought at the time. Forgiveness, he wondered later, was that obtainable? Redemption? No. Forgiveness? Hardly. The march of months had turned into years, and the lingering effects of the cure had cooled. That quiet insistence inside Crowley remained – the desire to be good, the need to be loved – but without some external influence, he had long known nothing would come of it.
"After the cure," his large, luminous eyes looked away, searching amongst the papers for illumination, comprehension. "I didn't know how to be anything better than what I was. And I certainly didn't get any help there." Yes, they had infused him with the semblance of humanity and their own dubious, often self-serving morality, and left him to rot. But even then, Crowley had understood. He had never needed the Winchesters to explain their animosity towards him. Crowley had tried to be better, regardless. What had they wanted? An outright apology? Couldn't Sam and Dean see - Crowley's pride had become the only bulwark against despair, against self-annihilation. Couldn't they have glimpsed behind the smirk and the snark and seen a man, confronted by his atrocities, barely holding onto his sanity? If he had given way, even a little – and for what? To be met with rejection, mockery, dismissal? Sam had granted him all that, in those few moments Crowley had confessed to a fault-lined vulnerability, with a hex bag in his pocket and a devil's trap buried in his chest. I thought, if I did…better. That it might matter. He had been so sure Dean, in the throes of his own darkness, would reach out a hand, offer absolution. But maybe if they had, the Winchester's own fragile sense of righteousness would have broken. Maybe they had needed Crowley to be a demon, for Sam and Dean to remain human. Maybe it wasn't as deep and philosophical as all that – maybe he had merely been a repulsive, self-pitying little monstrosity, barely cognizant of his sins.
"I wasn't worth saving, by anyone's standards. Even my own."
A flutter of canvas and wings startled him. In his reflect and rant, Crowley had almost forgotten Castiel was there.
"Suppose I'm just curious," he murmured, tempted to summon his old snark to hide his embarrassment, but resisting, "how many second chances do we deserve, in the end?"
Castiel appeared to weight his words, then nodded in ascent.
"I've learned a lot during my time among humans. About them," Castiel quirked a brow and grinned in self-conscious amusement. "About myself. I have changed – more, I think, than I am consciously aware. My thoughts on humankind, and the angels, and the nature of existence are not what they once were. And I firmly believe that if someone wishes to change – to be better than they were, whether it is possible to achieve that or not – it is our responsibility to help them. Not to leave them to flounder. To see in them the potential for good. Even if they falter, and must try again, and again. And again. It's the imperfections that make the world – and each other – worthy of our every effort. That is what Lucifer and Michael cannot appreciate about humankind. Their fault is their perfection."
The angel cocked his head to one side in intense contemplation. That singular, sapphire eye stared into Crowley's soul, with its lacework of scars and frayed edges.
"It was the Winchesters," Castiel pronounced softly, "who failed you, Crowley. Not the other way around."
The wind rustled the canvas of the tent, as if in agreement.
As assertive and touching as Castiel's words were, Crowley had a difficult time imagining the affirmation to hold true.
"You don't know those two like I do," Crowley offered in response, with a rueful smile and tilt of the head. And then, to cast away the weight of their conversation, he gestured with the sweep of his hand at the latest sketch, as if to brush it away with the breeze. "Hardly worth anything now, all this. Likely, the boys've already found a way to win this war and set everything right."
Ah, well. What mattered was saving the day, not who did the saving, he supposed.
Castiel nodded, thought Crowley thought he saw exasperation in his friend's face.
"I do not know Dean and Sam Winchester, but they apparently do have a way of making a mess. Lucifer has been captured by Michael. It's not long before Michael opens a rift now, and escapes to destroy another world. Their small group has set off to save Lucifer, and will likely be captured or killed. We must bring the army to join them, or lose everything."
"What?!" Crowley stammered, his thoughts on souls and second chances scattered to the corners of his mind. "Why didn't you bloody well say so?!"
Fucking Winchesters. They couldn't have been in this dimension for – what – two, three days? And not only had they singlehandedly managed to smash all of Crowley's schemes, they'd set the stage for the very real possibility of two apocalypses! Honestly, how much damage could those two do?!
Crowley allowed himself his own infuriated, half-appreciative sigh and roll of the eyes.
Damn it. He'd missed those flannel-clad nightmares.
To his surprise, Castiel looked somewhat sheepish as he came around to join Crowley on the other side of the table. "We have accomplished a great deal together. And – " How was it possible a being of such divinity and antiquity could look as bashful and earnest as a schoolboy? It was perhaps the one countenance shared by the angel across dimensions," – I have enjoyed our friendship. I will be sad to see you leave with them, should any of us survive."
"I'm not going back, Cas." He couldn't help but employ the term of endearment so unfamiliar to the angel.
If he left, if Crowley returned to his own reality, what would there be for him there? How many years had he already wasted, lingering at the edges of the Winchester's circle, seeking reformation, seeking approval and belonging and purpose? They would never accept or forgive him. Mary Winchester's word from months ago came back to it. She had been talking about herself in that tirade of fault and failure. But she hadn't been wrong. He would never be family. They would never be able to see he was better than what he'd been.
And honestly, Crowley wasn't entirely sure that he was.
As if reading his thoughts, Castiel grew solemn. Straightening, he became the stern leader, the wise advisor, the angelic protector of all humankind. Which, suddenly, included Crowley.
Castiel placed a firm, reassuring hand on Crowley's shoulder.
"Can you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is, to school an intelligence, and make it a soul?"
Crowley narrowed his eyes and stared at the angel in befuddled annoyance. If it wasn't popular culture, it was literary references.
"Keats? Really, Castiel?"
Castiel smiled and nodded. "We are, all of us, more than what we are. Humans, angels, demons. We are all striving towards it, together." He patted Crowley's shoulder and turned to leave.
"Come on," Castiel shouldered aside the tent flap in one deft motion and strode out into the sunlight and a fresh gale. "We are the cavalry, and we cannot be late."
Thanks for reading, and sorry for the lengthy delay. I hope you enjoyed this alternative-alternative Castiel, a combination of End!verse Cas and Misha, with a good dash of stern rebel commander. Please leave a review – flowery praise, dismissive grunt, searing flame – or a kudos, as any feedback is much appreciated. The next chapter is already half written, and will hopefully be posted soon.