Scene from an Alt!Dimension
Chapter 6: Click Your Heels, Dorothy
Summary: In that alternate universe, the final battle between angels and humankind was fought and won. Now there are only a few loose ends to tie up – like how to get back home and save the world.
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"For it is only in recognizing the fact that our lives are limited, complicit, imperfect, and interdependent that we begin to understand what it means to live together in this world." – Roy Scranton, We're Doomed, Now What?
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The carnage of angelic conflict dissolved into the swirl of ash and pulverized bone kicked up by their boots as Dean and Crowley flung their sore and tired bodies across the battlefield towards the splintered wreckage of the clapboard church. Beyond the smoldering remains, vague shapes separated themselves from the grey surroundings to form Mary and Cas, stunned and still. And at the base of one of the spires, the tense silhouette of Sam Winchester, with something long and gleaming and black-bloodied in his hand.
"What the bloody hell have you lot gone and done now?!" Crowley coughed out, as he and Dean crashed into the tableau. The hunter ignored him, and ground to a halt several paces from his brother.
"Sam?" Dean took half a step closer, his tone cautious. "Sam, what the hell, man?"
The rigid form of Sam Winchester didn't respond. He stood with his whole body taut, massive shoulders raised, jaw clenched. His breathing billowed out in harsh gusts, like a bull preparing to charge. The Lance of Michael, held high and poised to strike a second time, shone with a righteous fury in his grasp. Deaf to the cries of the dying around him and his brother's vexation, Sam's entire concentration was locked on the crumpled form at his feet.
At the base of the spire, Lucifer lay dying.
The archangel lay with his back braced against the spire, one hand pressed against his mid-section. Blood, black in the dull light of this washed-out dystopia, seeped between his fingers. Lucifer stared up at the massive, furious form of Sam Winchester standing over him, his face contorted in pain and confused disbelief.
Well beyond the reach of the Lance, Castiel – their Castiel, with his slightly over-sized trench coat and tie invariably askew, looking for all the world like a lost tax account – heaved an infuriated and heartbroken sigh of defeat. "Sam," the angel ground out, "what have you done?!"
Crowley waited for the inevitable, for the unforeseen yet suitable ending of Lucifer, fallen archangel, creator of damnation, bringer of the apocalypse, and his personal arch nemesis for the throne of Hell.
A moment longer, and Lucifer was –
– not a belch of oily, black smoke, dissipating on the battlefield's faint breeze.
A collective breath held. And held. And then broke.
In the strangled stillness, Crowley heard his own ragged exhalation, Dean desperately swallowing air, Mary's own soft panting as anticipation strained and finally snapped. The intensity in Sam's shoulders eased, the tip of the Lance wavered. A soft, disbelieving sound escaped the hunter. Still, Lucifer sat slumped against the base of the spire, staring up at his executioner.
The Lance hadn't killed him. Not outright, anyway.
Lucifer appeared as surprised as any of them at his own continued existence. He looked down to his stomach. From beneath his fingers, a blackness that wasn't blood began to spread. It traced thick, ropey veins along the back of his hands, and already, dark tendrils edged above the collar of his shirt. He moaned, coughed, sputtering black goo.
He raised his eyes to Sam, still standing over him with the Lance half-raised.
"Sam," Lucifer sputtered, confused. "What are you doin', man?"
"What I should have done, when I first had the chance." Sam replied through a clenched jaw. Every muscle was tensed in fury, and his breath came in snorts, a lifetime of pain and resentment and self-recrimination alive in his eyes. "This has been a long time in coming."
"Sam, what the hell?" Dean demanded. "We need him! We need him to get the hell outta here!"
Events were transpiring a bit too quickly, and Crowley had far too loose a grasp of them. Certainly looser than the younger Winchester's grasp on the Lance. There was the certainty that Lucifer was of use to them; Castiel – this world's Castiel – had mentioned as much, in their need to rescue one archangel from the other. That he was missing pieces of information that might be crucial was unacceptable, unlike him, and now potentially ruinous. Lucifer was the embodiment of power and chaotic potential, a valuable and dangerous assert, if properly controlled. A crucial component in a world bent on destroying itself. And that assert, that potential means of survival, was about to be wasted in one wanton act of self-serving revenge.
And yet. Oh, and yet.
A new and headier adrenaline roared through Crowley's being, prickled along his scalp, breathed life back into his sore and ragged body. Ripe and fragrant and heady in comparison to the desperate, panic-inducing adrenaline of battle. It was the sweet taste of something that, with his restored soul, Crowley had thought he might never savor again.
It was victory.
Half sprawled in the dirt at Sam's feet, Lucifer was pathetic. He was defeated, wholly and without recourse. Here was the archangel who swirled wisps of souls around his celestial fingers and then twisted them into servile, demonic monstrosities. Here was the grand architect of the apocalypse, before whom all trembled or were crushed for their insolence. Here was the sniveling, short-sighted rejected choir boy who had sauntered into Crowley's kingdom and dared to sprawl across his throne. Seeing Lucifer now, like this, humbled and humiliated, his very existence held so carelessly by someone who so despised him – it was everything Crowley had ever wanted. A miserable, slow, long-suffering death.
Except that Lucifer had been impaled by the Lance of Michael. And even in the flush of long-awaited victory, Crowley could not ignore the implications – unpleasant as they were – of Lucifer's slow death. His approaching demise wasn't occurring as slowly as Cas' averted death in Ramiel's barn, a lifetime ago and an entire dimension away. But it hadn't been instantaneous, either. And that meant something, at least in regards to his value being higher alive rather than dead.
And wouldn't it be typical of the Winchesters – of all of them, Crowley included – to make an irreversible, fatal mistake just as it seemed they had won the day.
With far more will than he might ever have guessed he possessed, Crowley suppressed the blinding euphoria of victory and sought out clear-headed rationality and focus. It did not come easily.
As calmly as he could, Crowley forced himself to ask the assembled, "What do you mean, you need him?"
From across the distance, Mary shifted her gaze momentarily from her youngest son to the former demon. "Archangel grace," she replied, sounding cold and terrified in equal measure. "It's what opens the rift."
"And this," said a familiar voice at Crowley's shoulder, "is the last archangel in this reality."
The rough-cut, broken-winged leader of the rebellion had arrived unannounced. Castiel's singular, steel blue eye took in the scene – Sam with his weapon still raised, indifferent to everything around him; Lucifer, beginning to writhe at the base of the spire. Castiel appeared uninjured, covered in grime and dust and blood, like all of them, a well-used angel blade in one hand. Under other circumstances, Crowley would have been more cognizant of just how glad he was to see him.
Instead, he took note of the briefest glance Dean paid the angel, confusion carved into the creases as his eyes swept over this dimension's iteration of his favored angel. And then disregard, as Dean's attention returned to his brother, to the dying archangel and their last hope of escaping this reality and returning to their own. There wasn't time. There wasn't time for any of this.
Lucifer one-handedly braced himself against the spire and attempted to rise. He barely managed to get to his knees when a spasm wracked his body and he crumpled and slid back into the dirt. Tendrils of black veins slithered their way up his neck now, his breathing ragged.
"Sam," Lucifer gasped out, "we're on the same side here!"
"Shut up!" The hunter snapped, nerves drawn as tight as his grip on the Lance. "Just – just die already!"
With a steadiness that belied the situation, Cas inquired, "Where did you even find the Lance, Sam?"
That damned Lance. Crowley should have known they hadn't seen the last of it, even as their own Lance lay broken and safely stored somewhere in the Men of Letter's bunker. With both Michael and Lucifer in play, there was no conceivable way that the weapon crafted for one to destroy the other failed to become significant as events continued to unfold. In Crowley's experience – and especially in his experience working with the ill-fated Winchesters – that was just how the world worked.
"In the church. Behind the alter." Sam remained where he was, the weapon raised and pointed at the archangel. But Crowley could see his shoulders beginning to strain, the concentration and tension turning to frustration and impatience. He could see the wheels beginning to turn for Moose, unconsidered implications beginning to arise. The swift and just conclusion to half a lifetime of torment was slipping away in precious increments. "Michael. He must have – he must have left it behind."
Crowley had never met Michael, in either reality, but it didn't take a particularly cunning mind to know what the absent archangel had planned. Why fight your enemies, when you can turn them on each other? It was a move Crowley himself would have once employed, so he certainly recognized it now.
"Which means," Crowley cautioned, for what little good he expected it would do, "he likely knew you would use it to kill Lucifer. Making it impossible for us or anyone else to follow him."
Sam clenched his teeth against the rationality of this, against exhaustion and doubt. "We can find another way home."
Dean was reaching his own breaking point. "Yeah? And if we can't?!"
"It doesn't matter!" Sam shouted. "Dean, this is Lucifer! This is all because of him. All of it, our whole lives, our being here. It's his fault!"
For a moment, it looked as though Sam would stab the archangel a second time. Not that it was necessary. If the power of the Lance itself didn't kill him within a matter of moments, with his grace diminished from Michael's spell and very nearly human, such a severe stomach wound certainly would.
Apparently given up on begging for his life, Lucifer raised pleading eyes and stared up at Sam. The pale sun, which had been slowly rising over the battlefield, at last crested the crater and glinted menacingly off the tip of the spear. With his back to the morning sun, Sam was haloed in its ashen hue.
This, then, was to be Lucifer's end.
"Except it's not."
The fatal tableau was broken by Mary's soft voice. For the first time, Sam looked away from the archangel at his feet. His stance shifted, relaxed, the spear lowered. He gazed at his mother in painful confusion.
"It would be easy to blame someone else for all of this." Mary continued, a rawness to her voice. "It would be so much easier if all of this was some terrible story. With a villain," she gestured towards Lucifer, "who was responsible for all of it."
Mary took a step towards her son, and then another, hands open at her sides. She was, Crowley calculated, both a mother attempting to sooth her child and one warrior attempting to talk down the murderous impulses of another.
"But that would mean we don't have a say in our lives. That the choices we make don't matter."
Sam swallowed, hard, and shook his head, uncomprehending.
Mary took a slow breath. "Sam, it's not Lucifer's fault – or anyone's, other than mine – that I chose John's life over your soul."
If there was another angelic bombardment in that moment, none of them would have noticed. Dean actually balked, and took a step back. Sam stared at his mother, shocked, tears in his eyes. Mary herself looked like she was about to cry, but forced herself to go on.
"It wasn't anyone else's fault that I couldn't let Azazel have you, that night in the nursery. Or that I thought it would be easier to just give up. To fall through that portal and let you boys go on with your lives. Easier than facing your memories of the man your father became. Easier than continuing to fight with myself, to force myself to live in a world where I don't belong."
Across the distance that separated them, Dean let out a choked sound. "Mom – "
Mary ignored him, kept her eyes on Sam. "Lucifer," she continued, pointing at the fallen archangel, "he had a part to play, in all of that. In the life you've led, in my choices, in our being here. But he's not responsible for it."
The Winchester matriarch took a last, shaky step forward, and reached out to her son. She laid a hand on his arm, and when Sam didn't pull away, gently brushed his cheek.
"Sam," she smiled up at him through her tears. "You know better than anyone – having free will means no one is responsible for our choices except us. Killing him," she nodded towards Lucifer, who somehow managed to look even more pathetic throughout her confession. "It won't change the mistakes any of us have made. It would just be making another."
A fair assessment of the situation, Crowley surmised. And a conclusion he had come to himself in the course of the year, at least in regards to being responsible for one's actions. The Winchesters, however, weren't particularly well known for holding themselves accountable, only barreling without reckoning into the consequences. In Crowley's experience, nothing could sway a Winchester from that course.
Except, perhaps, another Winchester. That night in that church all those years ago, the night of the cure, had proven that. Crowley could only hope that once again was the case. They were out of alternatives.
From where he laid in the dirt at the base of the spire, Lucifer choked out a dry laugh.
"Free will?" He croaked with what sounded like heartbroken amusement. He laughed again, or tried to. What emerged was a sad, hopeless cough that wracked his body and left him near breathless. "Wouldn't that be something? You think my old man – world's worst writer and parent – would really allow for something like that? For any of us?" He huffed, and attempted to straight again against the spire. "Give me a break."
Crowley narrowed his eyes at the archangel, momentarily distracted. The others likely didn't think much of his words, but Crowley found the implications of the fallen angel's statement unsettling. Something that would need further consideration – if they all lived through this, of course.
A world with only relative free will. Crowley didn't much care for the thought.
Lucifer's breathing had become labored. Black veins crawled and writhed across every inch of his body, arching around the edges of his face. One eye was a swollen, inky mass. When he forced out words again, it was through a gargled rasp that dripped black goo.
"All I want," he panted, "is to tell my son not to ever let anyone – anyone – tell him what he is, or who he has to be. I should'a – I should'a told him that. I saw him in that church. Jack – I saw – " Lucifer choked, spit it out a glob of pitch into the grey dirt. "He needs to know. He needs to know it doesn't have to be for him – like it was for me."
After Sam, Crowley imagined himself to be the last person in all existence to feel an ounce of sympathy for the Devil. Regardless of how pathetic Lucifer looked. The dull aspect of resignation in Lucifer's eyes, the plea on his son's behalf, was undoubtedly a pitiful, desperate manipulation. Crowley could easily imagine the multitude of ways in which Lucifer's betrayal might play out if they allowed him to live.
And yet, with Lucifer dead, the Winchesters would be trapped in this dimension, perhaps forever. And their own world would be engulfed in the chaos and destruction that ruled this reality, caught between the self-glorifying devastation of an archangel and the well-intentioned, power-mad barrage of a near-omnipotent nephilim.
Crowley attempted to calculate the potential of such a rivalry over the world, but the thought was so unpleasant as to cause a near state of panic.
There wasn't a choice. To save the world, they would need to spare the Devil.
Crowley obviously wasn't the only one to come to this conclusion.
Dean slowly crossed the short distance and reached out to his brother, speaking softly. "Sammy, I know what you're feeling right now. I know – believe me, I know – how much you want Lucifer dead. How much we all do. But right now, we need him. He's our ride home, and we need to get home. So we can stop Michael, saveJack." There was a deep well of compassion for his brother in Dean's eyes, but also resolve. "We need him, man."
Sam gazed at his brother, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. Dean stared back.
Slowly, Sam lowered the tip of the spear into the dirt.
It should have been a moment of relief, if such a thing can be found in the midst of a battlefield strewn with the dead and dying. But Crowley was rightfully not prepared to celebrate as of just yet. At the base of the spire, Lucifer began to convulse in the final throes of agonizing death.
Sam released a sharp, soul-deep sigh, and hefted the Lance in his hands, as though weighing the worth of what he was about to do.
"You should be dead," he stated, his words ringing with a funereal finality. "This," he held out the spear, so that Lucifer, with his eyes nearly veiled over with black, might see some vague shadow of it. "This should have killed you. I don't know why – and I don't care why – it didn't. Because there isn't a speck of goodness in you, Lucifer. No matter how bad Michael is, you're worse."
Something unpleasant twinged inside Crowley then. The wounded, mournful thing that served as his soul whimpered.
You are a monster. Just like all the rest of them.
Crowley swallowed into the dull hollowness that had suddenly formed in the pit of his stomach.
"After we save Jack," Sam promised, "I will find a way to kill you."
A great, roiling gargle of tar choked off any reply Lucifer might have made. But he continued to stare up at the hunter, dull comprehension written into his face with a dribbling pen.
Sam's hands closed around the runework, where the power of the spear lay in its craftsmanship.
"I'm doing this for Jack. Not you."
And then Sam Winchester shattered the Lance of the archangel Michael.
An anemic glow emanated out from the broken ends of the spear, momentarily illuminating both Sam and Lucifer in its bleached incandescence. Crowley was forced to shield his eyes from the brilliance, and when he was able to lower his hand, Sam stood over a fully-restored – if still very nearly human – Lucifer.
The two stared at one another.
Crowley watched the convoluted consortium of emotions combust across Sam's expression, then ripple like thunder across Lucifer's querulous face. The impossible tangle of their relationship, further complicated by these last few minutes, was not something the former demon cared to contemplate. It was a dark mess of entwined and subsequently aborted destinies, reliance and abuse, an abhorrence and rejection of one another combined with an unavoidable definition through the other. Lucifer was Sam Winchester's near destruction and the reason for his existence. Sam Winchester was Lucifer's executioner – and now his savior.
It was obvious how much letting Lucifer live cost Sam. It was there, in the stiffness of his shoulders, the shake of his hands that still grasped the broken pieces of the spear. Crowley had no doubt that while finally killing Lucifer would have brought the boy – the man – some measure of peace, sparing him had wounded something deep in Sam's soul.
There would, as with everything involving the Winchesters, be consequences.
Clumsily, still weak, Lucifer staggered unaided to his feet. He looked down at where the Lance had impaled him, the wound healed though his shirt was still soaked in blood. Then he raised his eyes, and met Sam's stare.
"Don't make me regret this," Sam ground out, still burning with fury but clamping down on rampant revenge.
Lucifer swallowed, nodded. There was something that might be mistaken for resolve in his eyes.
"Save my son, and you won't."
The hunter grunted, glared at the ground with a ruthless, mirthless smile. Without looking at his mother, he offered her the shattered Lance. Mary took it. Sam turned on his heel, brushed past his brother, and strode away, back towards the burnt remnants of the clapboard church.
The others let him go.
Around them, the sounds of the concluded battle resumed their resonance. In the distance was the wailing of the wounded, the occasional call for help, the shuffle as bodies of the dead were moved aside to search for the living. Those that could walk were still making their way towards the white tents fluttering at the edge of the valley. The immediate crisis of Lucifer and the Lance resolved, it was time to turn their attention to those around them, to the victory of the rebellion, and to what needed to be done next for the Winchesters.
Dean stared after the way his brother had gone. After a moment, he ducked his chin, nodded once to himself. It was a gesture Crowley had seen him make more than once, that grappling for emotionally solid ground. As one, Mary and Dean stepped away from the spire, putting distance between themselves and the weak-kneed, still-stunned archangel. Lucifer barely acknowledged their sudden absence, as he leaned a shoulder against the spire and sought to catch his breath. When Dean turned towards Cas, the angel joined the two to form a small circle of consultation.
Dean stared past the angel's shoulder, and Crowley realized – Dean was waiting for him to join them.
It felt good, foolishly so. Crowley allowed the small pleasure to warm him, work some of the ache out of tired bones and a mind threatening to cloud over with exhaustion. There would be the next challenge, and the one after that. But for this moment, he could enjoy the knowledge that he had a place and was welcomed in that small circle. After a slight hesitation, he made his way towards the Winchesters.
Castiel, looking even scruffier than Crowley had last seen him before the battle, fell in step beside him.
"How many did we lose?" Their ragtag resistance had been only a few hundred to begin with. The valley was heaped with corpses.
"Most." The angelic replied around a clenched jaw. "Of those remaining, the vast majority are wounded. And of the wounded, most will be dead before midday."
There was nothing to say in response to that. Crowley allowed for a quiet, anticipated grief to settle in his heart. They had both known the likely cost of this conflict, even with the aid of their blood magic missiles and drones bearing angelic banishment sigils into the fray ahead of the human combatants. And yet, foresight did not make the reality of it any easier, nor reduce the two leaders' prescient guilt.
"You should be at that makeshift hospital of yours, healing as many as you can."
"I should," Castiel agreed. "But then Sam Winchester impaled an itinerate archangel – the only means of going after Michael and stopping him – with what was Michael's Lance. I'm relieved I wasn't the only one who considered it prudent to intervene. Once I've provided you and your friends with a status update, I will return to help those I can."
"Not that I'd readily admit to it – three centuries later I'm still skilled with a needle and thread. I'll come with you."
The fallen angel glanced out of the corner of his good eye at his friend, and smiled knowingly.
Crowley wanted to ask what that was all about, but he and Castiel were joining the Winchesters, and the time for it had passed.
Castiel spared them all the discomfort of stumbling through introductions and immediately launched into a summary of their current status. Which was for the best, considering this reality's Angel of Thursday knew and cared nothing for Dean Winchester, a statement which in itself bordered on sacrilege. And if the habitual greeting of "Hello, Dean" was not in the offering, straight to business was the best course.
Though, it was worth noting that with the arrival and inclusion of his alternative self, Cas' own shoulders had straightened under the drape of the perpetual trench coat, and his gaze wandered up and down the other, an unfavorable comparison being unavoidable. Crowley certainly sympathized on that account.
"While we've won the battle, we've suffered heavy losses." Castiel began, his gruff voice carrying a tone of authority unfamiliar to the Winchesters. "But we've also gained much from this victory. Fellow renegades among the angels are reporting that Heaven is in a complete state of anarchy in Michael's absence. And what's more – we now have the prophet, making it possible for us to close the Gates of Heaven. With Michael gone, such a measure may not even be necessary."
Castiel glanced at Crowley and smiled with something approaching his usual wiry humor.
"Your plan worked better than expected, my friend."
"Our plan," his second-in-command reminded him, a small grin slipping through the exhaustion and grief.
There was so much more to do. This was barely the beginning, Crowley knew. There were the wounded to tend, the dead to bury and mourn and remember. A base of central control needed to be established, defenses and counter measures against a retaliatory attack put in place, communications and networking with other human and cryptid resistance begun in earnest. There were operations to man and supplies to be sourced and distributed, logistics to be worked out. A world to be taken back, something – preferably better – made from the rubble. And somewhere within the midst of all of that, a bed where Crowley could lay his weary head down and rest, if only for one night.
To hell with no rest for the wicked. It was the good guys that had it tough.
Forehead scrunched and lips parted in that comically stupefied look of consternation, Dean glanced between the angel and the former demon. Crowley replied with a raised brow and a scoff.
"What?" He demanded, with a considerable dose of snark for good measure, "You think only you flannelled lot can save the world?"
To his credit, Dean accepted the reproach with the concession it was due. His attention turned to Mary, who still held the two broken ends of the Lance, and Cas, who looked worn and broken-hearted. In his hooded eyes, the scene in the church played itself out over and over again – the reopening of the rift, the feral energy emanating from the fire-eyed boy, the sense of failure. It was a testament to Cas that he had survived the battle that followed, that he was still on his feet.
"Yeah, well," Dean said roughly, "before we all go slapping ourselves on the back, we got another world in need of saving."
From behind Crowley came the assertive "Yeah, we do."
With steady, determined steps, Sam approached. If the moose had been having an emotional moment by himself, there was no sign of it. His expression was steel, and when he and his brother exchanged their customary assessment – "You good?" – Sam only grunted in affirmation. The hunter looked as though he was ready to barge back into his own reality and take Michael on all by himself.
Unlike his brother, Sam didn't offer much in the way of a reunion.
"Crowley."
"Sam."
If Sam noticed the lack of a moniker, the change of attire, or Crowley's rather obvious human condition, he made no acknowledgment of it.
"So," Sam inquired, "what's the plan?"
As the others took a moment to ground and orientate themselves with regards to the future, Crowley looked around the small group of people that, one year ago, he had thought he was sacrificing his own life to protect. Castiel – their Castiel – stodgy and staid and still with that stick up his feathered ass. Cas, who was decidedly not his friend – and yet with enough of an earnest endeavor, could be. Mother Mary, whose struggle towards holding herself accountable for her own life had only begun, but was no longer running away from the consequences. And Sam and Dean Winchester. Despite all their faults and failings, their occasional hypocrisy and perpetual hubris, they inspired something in Crowley. Enough to fight – and to die, and even to live – for them.
And then there was Lucifer.
The archangel remained by the spire, hesitant and hobbled by his near-humanity. A hand still pressed against his mid-section, an absence of intent penciled into his enfeebled form. He appeared to be watching them, half turned, out of the corner of his eye, his expression unsettled.
A deep loathing sloshed in slow, tempered circles in Crowley's stomach. The unintended possession of a fully-restored soul and a year to grapple with his own demonically-distorted emotions had done nothing to cull Crowley's contempt for Hell's supposedly rightful ruler. Lucifer was arrogant in his angelic entitlement, apathetic about challenges to his superiority, and petulant in his self-styled role as cosmic victim of prejudiced divinity. The power and authority Lucifer claimed by right of mere existence was the same power, authority, and right to existence that Crowley had spent every modicum of himself in accruing. Lucifer's existence, even with eons spent in the Cage, was one of wonton privilege, and Crowley's one of enduring subsistence. And for that, Crowley despised him.
Witnessing the archangel brought low, diminished in angelic grace and at their conditional mercy, caused a spiteful, greedy curl of pleasure in Crowley. But something else slithered up from underneath that pleasure, wringing resentment and an instinctual denial from this final victory over the Devil.
Not a speck of goodness in him, supposedly. And yet, not immediately dead, impaled upon the Lance.
In Lucifer's expression, Crowley could detect a disgustingly familiar inclination as the archangel observed the Winchesters and their consortium of allies. He could only imagine how many times his own expression had so blatantly betrayed him, when Crowley had been the one hovering around the edges of the hunters' plaid and denim huddle, their solid backs a barrier to the commiserative warmth around which they gathered. He remembered all too well what it was like to be despised by the only people he considered significant – and for that to actually mean something to him.
It's preposterous, of course. Not even worth considering. And if, by some inconceivable development brought on by his son and this brush with humanity, it was a possibility – Crowley was unwilling to even consider it.
What Crowley had gone through to earn inclusion among the Winchesters, to receive their acceptance and respect, to better himself – for their sake as well as his own – Lucifer could never attain such redemption for himself. Never. At his core, Crowley was a realist, an existential nihilist. He was all too familiar with the injustice, the outright indifference, of the world. And even he could not conceive of so ludicrous, so intolerable, so unforgivable an offense as Lucifer containing within himself the potential to be even remotely capable of becoming something better.
With a deep inhalation, Crowley forced himself to swallow the swell of bile on the back of his tongue.
None of that mattered. What mattered was that previous efforts to control Lucifer, confine him, diminish his powers, or terminate him entirely had either backfired or failed. If Lucifer was now susceptible to emotional manipulation, if the aspiration for his son's affection could be harnessed, it might be the means by which to temper the threat Lucifer posed. No better way, after all, to irrevocably defeat an enemy than by making them an ally, even if the good will and regard that evolved out of the manipulation wasn't wholly mutual.
Hell, it had worked on Crowley.
Resentment and an unexpected, begrudging empathy wrestled with one another. He recollected Castiel's words regarding second chances, and whom exactly had failed whom when it came to his own redemption. He eyed the archangel warily at the thought.
Whether or not Lucifer now contained within himself the capacity to be better, Crowley's willingness to shepherd that spark ultimately said more about Crowley's tenuous grasp of morality than it did about the archangel. Even if that "better" was only marginally so, and in service of saving Lucifer's son from becoming his father. And now being wholly in possession of his own internal compass, no longer reliant on or subservient to the Winchester's code of moral conduct, Crowley admitted to himself that he could not – would not – abide by their flawed and self-serving philosophy.
Crowley could not base his humanity on the monstrosity of someone else.
And ultimately, however much he held Lucifer in contempt, in his near-human state the archangel was now as dependent on the Winchesters as they were on him – to get home.
"Okay – " The clap of Dean's hands echoed jarringly in the dull, ashen morning settled over the battlefield. The hunter jerked his head dismissively towards the morose form of Lucifer, still lingering by the spire. "As soon as Dorothy over there gets even a thimble of grace, we make him click his heels and get us the hell out of here."
He nodded at his brother. "Sam. When the rift opens – and we will get it open – you and mom go through first. Last thing I want is to blow the whole reason we came here in the first place. Me and Toto –" he jerked his thumb from himself to Cas " – will jump through after you."
Hitching a ride back to literal Kansas on the heels of their very own wicked witch. Leave it to Dean Winchester to make the perfect pop culture reference. It was enough to make Crowley crack a wan smile.
"Guess that makes me the Tin Man," he groused jokingly. "How apropos."
Mary cast him a knowing, almost smug look that Crowley could not quite bring himself to be irritated with. "So – you're coming back with us?"
"Whoa, hey! Am I missing something?" Dean's riled glance ricocheted off his mother to the former demon, and back again. "Why the hell wouldn't you be coming with us?"
Crowley hesitated.
Only a few days before, he had stood in that tent with Castiel, scheming over spellwork and tiny copper-winged wiring meant to bear the weight of an uncertain future. Crowley had sworn to his friend – to himself – that he would not leave with the Winchesters. That there was nothing left for him in that other reality. Or so he had thought.
Relinquishing Dean's questioning stare, Crowley looked to Castiel.
How could he possibly abandon this world? This reality, with its multitude of needs and continuing cascade of chaos? Beyond throwing off the yoke of Heaven and dismantling Michael's reign of tyranny, there was the semblance of civilization to rebuild. Administration, infrastructure, collaborative networks of small communities rising up out of the debris to share resources and knowledge and stories and hope. And there was a place for him here, in this alternative dimension, amongst all of that.
With his one blue eye, Castiel stared at Crowley – into him. Then the fallen angel and leader of the resistance raised an amused eyebrow, crossed his arms – and cocked his head in an utterly familiar gesture. And he smiled, knowingly.
Damn it, those had better not be tears Crowley felt forming in the corners of his eyes.
He and Castiel stared at one another for a long moment, more passing between the two than words could properly express. Understanding, and gratitude, and grief, and a farewell that was likely weeks away.
This world, even with its discord and dilapidation, would find a way forward. However long and difficult the road ahead, it had been eased by Crowley's contributions. And there was still more he might offer, before he and the Winchesters vanished back through the rift. There was still time to scheme and plan alongside this reality's Castiel and Charlie and Bobby, while Lucifer regenerated enough grace to carry the six of them across universes.
And after all – this world was now in a much better position than their own.
Their reality was on the verge of utter annihilation. Again. And saving it was going to be difficult, and messy, and likely not every one of Team Free Will would survive yet another round of heroics. Michael, Jack, Heaven, Hell. And the Winchesters, though there was little doubt they would ultimately be victorious, should not have to drive down that dark road alone.
Maybe his world – and this broken, embattled family, of which Crowley was now a part – did need him, after all.
"Well, we all know you're completely at your wits end without me." Crowley rolled his eyes over to Dean, quirked an eyebrow. "Can't imagine what trouble you lot would get into, fumbling about on your own."
A flannelled shuffle of long-accustomed irritation and weary affection rumpled around the knot of familiar, beloved faces. Sam huffed, Cas narrowed his eyes in consternation. Dean opened his mouth to no doubt make some sloppy, half-hearted retort. And Crowley just smiled.
Whether they ever reopened a rift into their own world or not, Crowley was finally where he belonged.
.
.
Four years ago, a rift opened up at the end of Season 12.
This fic germinated from that heartbreaking season finale. We lost Crowley, in a seemingly absurd and unexpected manner. It didn't make sense, it didn't fit with his character, and it felt like a betrayal by the writers of the fandom's love of the character and of the actor who portrayed him. And it required rationalizing, hence the second chapter in which Crowley and Mary discuss their core reasons for doing what they did: as a noble means of escaping their mistakes, and the accompanying hopelessness, while also making a last grand gesture by which they would be lovingly remembered.
Most of Season 13 did not make a lot of sense to me. Why would Castiel have been so different in a dimension where the timeline had deviated only recently? Why shoehorn Gabriel into this season, for no discernable purpose other than fan service? Why kill off Lucifer in such an unsatisfying fashion, after so much character development this season? Why introduce both archangel blades and Michael's lance when one archangel-killing weapon would do? Especially if they only destroyed the one in the canon!dimension but the one in the alt!dimension was still in existence. Why move from an epic battlescape to the mundane dimension for the season finale?
*Season 14 spoilers* Jack finally going darkside in Season 14 was extremely narratively unsatisfying. I was so disappointed in the spn writers that Jack had to lose his soul to become the threat the boys always feared he would be. As if people with souls can't become the worse versions of themselves, and those without souls are forever doomed to be evil – spn writers, I think you're missing the moral of your own story.
Fortunately, we have fanfiction. It has taken far too long to finish writing this alternative ending to Crowley's road to redemption, carried on in an alternative dimension. Thank you so much to everyone who has been along for the ride. Kudos and especially comments are always appreciated!
Thanks for reading,
The Demonologist In Denim