Chapter XII — An Unsavory Dimension
Dean, with Cas following close behind, dragged himself into the kitchen. Sam was poking curiously at some kind of weird little cake-type things, looking rough, but not nearly as rough as Dean, who felt a great deal like he had been chewed thoroughly, swallowed, and spat back out by an unspeakable eldritch monster. And given the tentacle-porn incident about a year ago, he had a better concept of what that might feel like than most people.
"Morning," Sam greeted blearily.
"Mmm," was Dean's stunningly articulate response. He shuffled to the coffee pot.
"Where are the others?" Cas asked, casting a glance around the otherwise empty kitchen.
"Crowley and Aziraphale? Haven't seen Aziraphale since last night. Crowley was wandering around a little while ago," Sam responded, running a hand through his hair and deciding on a raspberry filled pastry.
Dean poured himself a cup of coffee that was dangerously close to overflowing.
"And Jack?" Cas's brow furrowed.
"Haven't seen him yet. Is he awake?"
"Yes, I was in here with him before I went to wake up Dean..." Dean could detect the growing concern in Cas's voice.
Great. A Problem to start off the day. Because there always had to be a Problem. With a miserable groan, he chugged half his coffee cup in one go.
"Wait, Dean—" Sam said suddenly. "That might not be—"
Dean wretched the coffee out all over the counter, and partially his bathrobe. "What—THE FUCK—" he roared, slamming the coffee cup down.
"Crowley might've uh, he uh...kinda...it's a long story," Sam said weakly. "It was meant for me, if that's any consolation."
Dean stuck his head underneath the sink faucet, running the water cold in his mouth. Is nothing sacred? So he is evil after all.
"I can't sense Jack," Cas put in, completely unconcerned by Dean's now soiled taste-buds and newly blossoming inherent distrust of what had once been such treasured body fuel.
"He might've just gone for a walk," Sam pointed out.
"I can't sense Aziraphale or Crowley, either."
Dean pulled back from the sink at that. "You're saying all three of them are gone?"
"It...seems so."
Dean took the realization in stride. "Jack would've told us if they were just going on a walk." He looked meaningfully at Sam, then at Cas. "Someone say it. Someone say it, because this time, I don't wanna be right. I don't."
"You think they took Jack," Sam said, eyes darkening.
"There could be a perfectly innocent explanation," Cas reasoned with a faint shake of his head. "I feel as though we're good enough judges of character to have sensed ill intent from them by now."
"Yeah, well, we didn't sense 'ill intent' from you, and you were dicking around with the King of Hell behind our backs for two years. Sam and I are morons, in case you haven't noticed."
Dean could tell the comment stung Cas, and he regretted saying it, but the steadily building panic in his chest had thrown any tact he might've had out the window.
"Trusting people doesn't make you morons."
"That's exactly what it makes us. We let two ridiculously overpowered dudes from another universe walk around a bunker full of supernatural atom bombs and, oh yeah, the fucking ANTICHRIST, and didn't think anything would come of it. Thought they'd just solve all our problems and go home, no consequences." Dean threw the half motor oil filled coffee cup into the sink with barely restrained fury. "When are we gonna learn that there's always, always consequences? I should've known nothing would come that easy, not for us."
"Dean, look," Sam said, not seeming half as worried as he should have been, "to be honest, the two of them seem a lot more interested in each other than anything we're doing."
"Just because they're banging doesn't mean they can't be evil."
"You can't tell me you look at Aziraphale and see evil," Cas insisted.
"Cas, I know you wanna like the guy, because he's another angel that told Heaven to go to Hell, but it doesn't change the fact that they were here, and now they're not, and now Jack's not, so something is up."
"They're not banging," Sam put in, but he said it like it was something of urgent importance.
Dean just looked at him. "Is this really the conversation we need to be having right now?"
"No, Dean, what I mean is—I kind of, uh," Sam's cheeks took on an embarrassed blush, "walked in on them, last night."
"Gross," Dean said automatically, without any real feeling.
"Well, like, Crowley was really angry about it this morning, and I didn't get it, because I just, kinda assumed they'd been together for a long time, maybe longer than we've even been alive, but I guess they're not? And he's um...like, pining. Or whatever."
"Is there a point hiding in here somewhere?" Dean asked tiredly. What did it matter what their relationship status was? They took Jack. They were up to something, and it wasn't anything good. It never was, not with demons or angels.
"My point is, he just...he seems more like a moody lovesick teenager than some plotting mastermind. And like Cas said, you really think Aziraphale's got a bad bone in his body? The guy's like a walking ball of sunshine."
"We've known them for TWO DAYS," Dean reminded the two of them loudly.
"And we spent last night trashed with them like we'd known them for years. You like them, that's why you're freaking out, because for five seconds, you let yourself actually like someone who isn't family."
"I'm freaking out because they took Jack!" Dean burst out, sick to death of the conversation. "We're doing a tracking spell. Or at least I'm doing one, if you two want to just sit here and hope real hard that we happened to meet the only two supernatural beings in the entire goddamn multiverse that don't want to ruin everything, go ahead."
He stalked out of the room, and wasn't surprised when Sam and Cas followed.
"We're not suggesting we do nothing," Cas said flatly. "Only that maybe we shouldn't jump to the worst case scenario."
"Our lives are one worst case scenario after another. Not gonna start second guessing that pattern now," Dean shot back. "Now stow it. We've got work to do."
When they arrived in what Jack called the Empty, Crowley found nothing but darkness.
Well, maybe not darkness, per se; he could see Jack just fine, as well as Aziraphale. But besides that, an endless void of nothing. Black. Featureless. Nothing.
His skin was crawling. "Feels...off."
"An understatement," agreed Aziraphale, though an intense, scholarly interest lingered in the angel's eyes.
"I wondered what it would be like," Jack said distantly. "Cas said it was like this, but...I don't know. It's hard to imagine nothing. But that's what it is."
"Outside the ordered universe, that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes..." Aziraphale quoted in something that sounded almost like wonder.
"No flutes," Crowley said, then made a face. "Lovecraft? Come on, angel."
"What? Ignoring the man himself, he was very good at what he did, with all the suffocating existential cosmic horror. Not something one reads for pleasure necessarily, but he could create worlds with skill."
"Bloody racist, though."
"Who better to write horror? He was afraid of anyone who wasn't exactly like him," Aziraphale reasoned.
Crowley just mumbled something inarticulate in response, then turned to Jack. "So. What do we do? How do we..." Crowley did air quotes, "wake Other Me up?"
"With Cas I just...kind of called out to him?"
"So, we, what? Just yell his name until the right demon pops up?"
Jack seemed distracted. "I guess so."
"Really well thought out plan, mate," Crowley muttered, then spun around in a circle, swinging his arms, "CROOOOOOOOW0LEY!"
"Pronunciation, dear," Aziraphale reminded him blandly, before calling out the demon's name himself. Jack joined their cacophony of shouts as well, though the other two were much more understated in their screaming than Crowley. He'd found he'd rather wanted nothing more to scream all morning, and this was a brilliant way to indulge that desire.
After a few minutes, Crowley eventually sagged, irritated. "How long do we have to go at this for?"(1)
Jack stilled. "I don't know. There's really no way to find him...I can feel all the demons and angels here, sleeping...but I never met Crowley. I know what he looks like from some pictures Dean has, but I can't tell which energy signature is his."
"Aren't you just the picture of helpfulness?" Crowley asked sarcastically.
"Crowley, he's trying to do something good, don't discourage the poor lad," Aziraphale chastised him, still pointedly not looking at him.
"Just because it's good doesn't mean it's not a waste of time." He took a deep breath and shouted again, "CROOOOOOOOWLEY! KING OF HELL! KING OF THE CROSSROADS! HELLOOOOOOOOOO! YOUR CHARIOT HAS ARRIVED!"
The three of them all froze when they felt the sudden appearance of a presence behind them, something vague and malformed. Malicious, definitely, and Crowley should know, middle name might as well have been malicious, demon and everything. He could taste that kind of stuff on the air, when it came 'round.
"Will you...shut...up?"
Crowley and Aziraphale whirled around to look behind them; Jack was already facing that direction, staring with wide eyes at the newcomer.
The newcomer who looked...just like Crowley, minus the sunglasses.
"What the Heaven are you?" Crowley demanded. "Steal my style, will you? That's tacky."
His mirror self stared at him, unblinking—not that Crowley himself was much of a blinker, but this thing seemed unblinking in the much creepier way—a quiet rage in its features.
"Did you come here to die?" it asked in something that sounded somewhat like Crowley's voice, but absent any accent, far more nasally, impatient and thin. "Because the little king is sleeping, just like every. Other. Thing. Here. Except me. I don't get to sleep." He jabbed an accusing finger at Jack. "Not since he and his wannabe daddy woke me up. And now here you three are, to add insult to injury."
"This is the Shadow, I presume?" Aziraphale asked, deeply uneasy.
"Yes," Jack answered shortly, and Crowley could feel the terror rolling off of him. Oh, this was off to a great start.
The Shadow strode past Crowley and came to a halt in front of Jack. "So here you are. Let me guess, trying to break Castiel out of his deal? How were you planning to do that, Jack, hmm?"
Jack's eyes glowed their unnatural gold. "I think you know how."
"Deal?" Aziraphale repeated. "What deal? Jack, what is he talking about?"
Crowley wondered precisely the same thing.
Jack didn't answer.
The Shadow stared him down with Crowley's eyes for a few tense seconds before breaking away, snorting. "And you tricked these two idiots into helping you?" He flicked his attention rapidly back and forth between Crowley and Aziraphale, before coming to rest on Crowley. He took a few steps forward. "And you actually bought the story he fed you? A demon who can't sense deception...I expect that of an angel, they're all so...dense...but demons usually know better."
The Shadow reached forward, and Crowley tried to pull away, but the Shadow was too fast, reaching up and snatching the sunglasses off of his face. "But you're not a regular demon, are you? I can see inside that sad little head." The Shadow put on the sunglasses, but made a face of distaste. "Your eyesight is garbage to begin with, and you add these to it?" It clucked its tongue at Crowley. "So insecure, so disgusted with what you are. You love and hate yourself, make a mask of arrogance and apathy and hide behind it, when under it all you've always felt inferior. Not good enough for Heaven, not evil enough for Hell. Neither, less than either. Poor little Fallen Crowley—or Crawly. So desperate to escape what you are you even renamed yourself, even gave yourself wings, wanted so badly to still feel that spark of Grace that was ripped out of you. She doesn't love you, Crawly, that's why She threw you out. You barely even did anything. Maybe the Almighty was just looking for an excuse, huh? Just dying to chuck you out and close the gates behind you."
"It's Crowley." Crowley didn't flinch, didn't look away. Reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of Valentino's. Put them on. Yawned.
What could the Shadow say to him that he hadn't said to himself a thousand times?
The Shadow, a dark glint of anger in its eyes, snatched the sunglasses back off of Crowley's face, and promptly snapped them in half.
Crowley reached for his back pocket and pulled out another pair, and once again settled them in their proper resting place.(2)
A realization seemed to hit the Shadow, and it backed away slightly, grinning. "I'm just giving you the same old, same old, aren't I? The same riot act you read yourself anytime you dare to be alone with your own thoughts for more than five seconds?"
The Shadow morphed before his eyes, trading out blacks for shades of blond, blue, and beige—and bloody tartan. Crowley dimly registered Aziraphale's sharp intake of breath as the Shadow took the angel's form.
"Theeeeeeere," hissed out the Shadow, once again in a voice that was a rough approximation of Aziraphale's, but wrong and accentless, absent any natural cadence, so distinctly not Aziraphale, so distinctly inhuman.
Crowley tried and failed to swallow past the lump in his throat.
"That's all it takes to put you off-balance, doesn't it?" the Shadow gloated, tilting his head far to the side, stepping closer.
"Get away from him," Aziraphale said sternly, but he reeked of fear. Crowley could feel it; so could the Shadow.
The Shadow ignored Aziraphale entirely. "Poor little Crawly, in love with an angel. Your minds are open season for me, so loud, so wanting. He's all your worst fears all rolled up into one, isn't he? Him dying, him leaving, him rejecting you. You think of a million things a minute, you can never stop that racing, nonsensical brain of yours—but everything always comes back to one angel, doesn't it? Your angel. The hyperfixation to end all hyperfixations. Do you even want him to love you back? Or is this more fun for you, the pining, the waiting, because it keeps you from facing anything real. The real, real, real reality that he'd rather choke than touch you. That he doesn't even think you're capable of love." The Shadow leaned closer, and Crowley noted with revulsion that black ooze was leaking from its eyes, Aziraphale's eyes, stratosphere blue but so wrong in this stolen face.
"Crowley, don't listen to him," Aziraphale surprised Crowley by stepping between him and the Shadow. "He's lying. I can assure you of that much."
Crowley was paralyzed with dread. Because he could hope the Shadow had been lying about Aziraphale, but he hadn't been lying about Crowley—and now the words had been spoken, they were out there, and with mounting misery he realized that now this meant Aziraphale knew. He knew how he felt, and there was nothing he could do to take it back. It was like he'd kept so much in a safe for thousands of years, all labeled neatly with the angel's name, and the Shadow had figured out the combination on the first try, let the light spill in, ruined everything.
If they survived this, it would be the end of them, anyway. He was sure of it.
Crowley watched in dim awe as Aziraphale's eyes began to glow, bright, brilliant.
"Jack, I don't know what you've gotten us into—but I suspect either way, there's only one clear path."
Jack stepped closer. "You're right."
Crowley jumped when Aziraphale threaded his fingers through Crowley's, stepping so that he was side by side with him. "Here goes, my dear."
The Shadow just watched, face almost impassive, though the slightest suggestion of a smirk hung on its stolen lips.
In a rush, he felt a connection between he, Jack, and Aziraphale—mounting power joined as one, growing, expanding exponentially, powerfully. A star waiting to go supernova, poised on the edge of complete destruction. Just as it had yesterday when he and Aziraphale had restored Jack's Grace.
The Shadow just laughed. "Go ahead and try."
So, they did, and a strange but impossibly bright light filled the Empty, for the briefest of moments, and Crowley poured his entire will and imagination into the simple act of: kill it. Kill it dead.
The light faded.
The Shadow straightened the lapels of its mimicked coat. "Mmm. Tickled."
They all stared in horror.
"I'm NOTHING, you IMBECILES," the Shadow said, stretching out its arms triumphantly. "You can't kill something that isn't alive, you can't kill an absence of being, you can't kill nothing."
"That's a double negative," Aziraphale said dimly, staring off into the distance and clearly overwhelmed by panic. His grip on Crowley's hand tightened.
Jack stumbled away, shell-shocked. "No, no, that should've killed you."
"Well it bloody didn't!" Crowley snapped, teeth gritted, mind a mounting anxious scream of what now, what now, what now!?
"Now, we have a problem," the Shadow continued, "because I can't put Lucifer's spawn to sleep, and whatever you are," he indicated Crowley with a disgusted tilt of his head, "we don't have your particular kind in this universe, so I can't make you sleep, either...but the angel...well, he's got the same wiring that I'm used to dealing with, for the most part..."
"Don't touch him," Crowley tugged on Aziraphale's hand, positioning the angel behind him. He didn't know what the hell he could do—presumably he couldn't do anything—but...he'd think of something, wouldn't he? He always did.
"Oh no no no. You need to learn your lesson. I'm taking the angel. Not killing. Taking. Because if I kill him, whatever's left thereafter would waft on back to his home universe. And that doesn't sound like much of a punishment, if you ask me." He turned his head sharply, an unnatural angle, to look at Jack. "And I WILL come for Castiel. He'll pay for waking me up. He'll pay for all eternity."
Crowley backed up further against Aziraphale, blindly reaching out his other hand, pressing it to the angel's chest and pushing him away from the Shadow, anything to gain distance. "You won't."
"Watch me."
Aziraphale let out a terrified gasp behind him. Crowley turned, and Aziraphale, from the knees down, was sinking into the darkness. Crowley grabbed Aziraphale immediately by his right arm, and Jack was there seconds later, wrapping both hands around his left.
"What have you done?" Crowley demanded of Jack in a hiss that didn't even vaguely suggest anything human.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Jack said, tears in his eyes, "I didn't—I thought we—I thought we could stop it."
"You've got Lucy's hubris," the Shadow said, watching on, viciously pleased.
"Crowley," panic bright in Aziraphale's eyes, brighter than Crowley had ever seen before in 6,000 years, because this—this was something greater than both of them. Not that they hadn't faced that kind of thing before, but this was an entity contained by nothing. No rules, no God. No Ineffable Plan. This was the darkness upon the face of the Earth in the beginning, this was Void, absent Form. "Crowley, Crowley," the angel repeated his name over and over with increasing urgency, clinging to him. "Crowley don't let it take me!"
"Just hold on!" Crowley growled, digging in his heels into—into absolutely fucking nothing, because there was nothing here, this WAS nothing, but he dug in anyway and willed there to be ground or dirt or gravel or anything under his and Jack's feet as they pulled ever harder on Aziraphale's arms. Were he human, they would have ripped his shoulders out of his sockets by now. "I won't let go, Aziraphale, just hold on!"
The Shadow smiled that curling, twisted mouth, the pilfered mouth of his angel. Aziraphale had a slow spreading smile, that began and ended with his eyes, the crinkling of the skin beside them and the brightening of the blue within. His was a smile of childlike wonder or unabashed glee, sunlight warmth and genuine joy that only something like Aziraphale could feel so wholly. Crowley had wanted that smile for years, thousands of them, actually. To be on the receiving end of it, to be able to feel as Aziraphale felt—to feel without restraint. To love without restraint.
Crowley had, once.
But he didn't remember that time so well now. Times when his wings were white, rather than raven black. Times when he had a different name. Maybe even a different face. He wasn't sure.
More black leaked from the Shadow's eyes, streaking down its cheeks. "You can't save him," he chimed in a sing-song voice.
"Watch me, you cunt," Crowley spat, and he lashed his wings out in a rush, in hopes of gaining more leverage with which to free Aziraphale from the Shadow's grip.
"Crowley, he's slipping," Jack warned, complete dread in his words.
A twitch of the Shadow's black-stained cheeks, and he laughed. That laugh that did things with the angel's vocal chords that never should have been done.
"Should we start taking bets on who will let go first?" the Shadow asked, still, still laughing.
Aziraphale was sucked in up to his chest now.
"Crowley—" the angel choked, eyes swimming with unshed tears.
Not here. Not now. Not after everything. Not in a place like this.
He had lost Aziraphale once. Facing a few hours before the end of the world without his best friend had been horrible. But now he was facing down eternity, infinity, absent the other half of his intrinsic being.
Crowley had watched the universe's creation, and several other galaxies besides. Had watched stars burst to life, even created a few himself. Watched whole nebula bleed into existence, strokes on canvas, dust and light and beautiful colors. There hadn't been color before that, and once it had been wrought into existence, he'd fallen in love with reds so quickly, blues and yellows—he might've been the one to call them primary colors first, he wasn't sure. Things were so faded in his memory of that time, recollections covered in cobwebs. Doomed to never recall every intricate detail, every second of that perfect and painless stretch of time before the start of Everything.
She'd made the sun. She'd made the planets to orbit the sun. So critical to all life, the center of it all, and all these little hopeful rocks circling it, eternally, until the day they didn't.
So when Crowley Fell to Earth, he picked his sun and orbited forever after. His anchor. His source of light, of life, of warmth, because without it he was afloat in the endless, unforgiving stretches of space, with nothing.
Crowley could not, and would not, lose Aziraphale. His sun. His blazing star.
Crowley redoubled his efforts, drawing from wells of power within himself, ones he hadn't even known existed. "If you take him, you take me too!" he declared, the entire force of his being behind the statement. "You can put Aziraphale to ssssleep, but not me. And I'll annoy you for the resssst of eternity, you basssstard! I'll never sssshut up! I'll be ssssinging you Queen b-sssssides until you wissssh you had actual earssss you could sssslice off," his sentence degenerated into little more than hisses.
Aziraphale looked up at him then, and he could see a break in the angel; from a desperate, clinging fear, a silent plea of Crowley please you've always saved me don't leave me alone here don't let it take me into something entirely different, something like, go, go, there's no stopping it, don't lose yourself here, let me go, let me go, save yourself.
Aziraphale started pulling away from him. Crowley clamped his hands down all the harder, fingernails biting into the flesh of Aziraphale's hand and wrist.
"Crowley, you and Jack must run," he told him firmly, and there was that brave angel, the angel on the wall, the angel with doubts, the angel who gave humanity the chance to fight back.
"Get bent, angel. I'm never leaving you."
And then, Crowley drew a deep breath, and began to sing—loudly, and offkey: "DON'T YOU MISFIRE, BABY, FILL ME UP—WITH THE DESIRE TO CARRY ON—"
He saw the anger bubbling in the Shadow's mask of Aziraphale's face. "Shut up."
With a minor miracle, he made his voice all the louder: "DON'T YOU KNOW HONEY, THAT LOVE'S A GAME—IT'S ALWAYS A HIT OR MISS—SO TAKE YOUR AIM—"(3)
"Shut up shut up shut up!"
You've known nothing but the silence and the dark for all time. That's all over now. No more beauty sleep.
If there was one thing Crowley knew how to be, it was loud and flashy.
Fireworks started bursting off behind him; firecrackers, roman candles ignited by no one, fountains, any kind he could conjure up in his mind. Every color, every sound, hissing, whizzing, popping.
And he kept on singing.
"GOT TO HOLD ON TIGHT—SHOOT ME OUT OF SIGHT—"
The Shadow covered its ears. "SHUT UP, YOU ANNOYING LITTLE—"
Crowley looked away from Aziraphale just long enough to see a single finger tap on the Shadow's shoulder.
The Shadow turned.
"Hello darling."
And was squarely punched in the face.
The Shadow toppled to the ground with a thump. Behind him stood a man—no, a demon, Crowley quickly sensed—on the shorter side, with a close-trimmed beard, neatly brushed chestnut hair, and dark green eyes. He was clad head-to-toe in a fine all-black suit that Crowley could've pictured himself wearing, complemented by a gray paisley tie.
Forgoing any introductions, the demon skidded to his knees behind Aziraphale, hooking both arms underneath the angel's armpits and adding to their efforts.
Finally, finally, Aziraphale started to budge.
With the Shadow scrambling back up, falling for the momentary distraction, and the added help of Crowley's wings beating furiously, they were succeeding in freeing Aziraphale.
"Get us out of here, Jack!" Crowley yelled, and with one final gust of wind and flap of his wings, the four went flying backwards.
But nothing happened.
They collided together in a heap. And they stayed right where they were.
The Shadow howled with laughter.
1. Make no mistake, the Demon Crowley had enough pent up angst to scream for the rest of this universe's lifespan, and then some—but he would at least need a throat lozenge.
2. Since Armaggedidn't, Crowley has kept no less than ten pairs of sunglasses on his person at all times. He had great fun finding new hiding places for all of them. If you grabbed him by the ankles and shook him, the results would be...interesting.
3. It should be noted here that Crowley is many things. A good singer is not one of them.