XIII — An Unending Lullaby
Aziraphale fought good and hard to shake the ice cold terror from himself, to try to pull his fragmented thoughts back into order after his near brush with—well, perhaps not death, but something similarly equivalent and debatably far worse. He had no idea what became of the angels that died in his own universe, but he hoped it wasn't like this, forced into eternal slumber underneath the thumb of this living Void. What an awful, spiteful, lonely creature. He didn't know whether to pity the Shadow, or hate it.
He supposed that it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was finding a way out...though prospects were not looking sunny.
The Shadow finally managed to contain itself, ceasing its laughter. Still wearing Aziraphale's visage, it halted over top of the four of them. His Crowley was at the bottom of the heap, and not sounding as though he was enjoying it very much.
"Can't. Breathe. Don't need to—but—still—" he choked out.
They all fought apart in a tangle of limbs, rolling away from each other with little grace, but Aziraphale kept a firm hand on his Crowley, not wanting to give up that contact. The demon was the only thing keeping him remotely grounded.
Oh, Crowley. He'd fought so hard to save him when it would've made far more sense to run and never turn back. He was overwhelmed by a wave of complete and total affection so powerful he didn't know what to do with it, so he just squeezed the demon's arm and helped him to sit up.
The King of Hell looked wildly between the three of them, green eyes sharp and shrewd. Aziraphale took in his aura in stride, and found it to be much more...menacing, than originally expected. He'd thought perhaps something that felt like his Crowley, but the King radiated a black-veined red storm, powerful and vicious, though not entirely sour. There was a lightness there, something that felt so distinctly like a soul that he couldn't deny its existence. So bizarre, like Sam's soul, which was as vibrant and human as ever, but tainted in a vague way by something strikingly infernal. The King's stood as a reverse; dark with a spark of something better.
The Alternate Crowley spoke in gravel tones, the accent of a Londoner: "If you're the rescue team, pray tell, who's going to rescue you?"
"Yeah, working on that," groaned Aziraphale's Crowley.
"You're working on jack-fucking-squat, kiddos. I don't know how much clearer I can be. Do you need me to draw pictures? Are words too hard? This is MY world. And unlike your God, I like to play with mine up close and personal."
The Shadow was upon them in an instant, yanking Aziraphale to his feet by the lapels of his coat. And then he was face-to-face with himself.
"What're you gonna do this time, Aziraphale? Crowley can't save you. And you've never been great at saving yourself. Pretty sad, needing a demon to hold your hand." Aziraphale shuddered away when the Shadow leaned closer to him, but there was only so much room to pull back under the Shadow's steel grip. "If I want you to sleep, you'll sleep, but now I'm thinking—if no one's sleeping at this slumber party, I could make things interesting. I could make them watch. Do all sorts of fun things to you. You must've wanted a human body for a reason, right? And I hear you can make those bodies do all kinds of crazy stuff. Especially once the limbs start coming off."
The being was so changeable, so erratic, so inconsistent in how it acted, what it wanted.
Or...maybe that was the only way in which it was consistent? It did seem to continuously come back to one thing: a great desire to sleep, and an inability to do so.
"Please," Aziraphale sputtered, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind, but he needed time to straighten it out.
"Please," the Shadow mocked, and that time he actually made the effort to perfectly imitate Aziraphale's voice. "Are you going to beg me not to hurt you? Do you think that'll work?"
"I wasn't going to beg!" Aziraphale shot back, his pride spurned. "Lovecraft wasn't the only one who wrote about you, you know. August Derleth touched on your existence as well—'the blind idiot god,' was his phrasing, if I recall correctly—"
Aziraphale broke off when the Shadow hit him so hard across the mouth it sent him sprawling.
"I don't care what humans wrote about me. I've never MET a human. I don't WANT to. They're tiny, and whiny, and messy," spat the Shadow, hovering over Aziraphale. Crowley was already at his side, getting him back to his feet, trying to position himself in some kind of protective stance in front of him. And while Aziraphale appreciated it very deeply, the Shadow did have a point: Crowley was always there, perpetually, to save him when he needed saving. That had been the constant thread of his existence, the cosmic irony that held his life together, to have the guardian on his shoulder be a Fallen angel.
"He's not wrong," acknowledged the Alternate Crowley with a faint snort. "Why not just let me go? It's these three that traipsed into your house without asking. I'm merely an innocent bystander—don't even know this lot."
"Oi, shut it!" his Crowley hissed at the other demon. "Not helping!"
"Just trying to make lemonade from lemons, darling. I'm nothing if not a self-preservationist."(1)
"All of you shut it," Aziraphale managed, wiping the blood from his lips and looking up at the Shadow. The creature made for him again, face twisted in anger, but Aziraphale held up a surprisingly steady hand. "Wait. Wait. I can help you."(2)
"Oh, I doubt that." He made to grab Aziraphale, but Crowley shoved at it, sending it backwards a few inches. It reared back up and wrapped its hand around Crowley's wrist, snapping it like a twig. The demon gasped and went to his knees, clutching his now useless right hand.
"Stop!" Aziraphale burst out. He could take abuse, he would take abuse from the dastardly thing, but he couldn't bear to see Crowley hurt. "You want to sleep? We'll help you sleep."
"I have been trying to sleep for two years," it growled in Aziraphale's face. "If I haven't figured anything out, some second-rate angel from another universe won't either. That's you, by the way. If you're wondering. The second-rate angel. Maybe third-rate. Who gives away a divine weapon to humans, anyway?"
"Let me try," Aziraphale insisted in a rush. "Just—let me see if I can't solve all of our problems, yes? Will you be happy if you can rest again?"
"This is some kind of trap," the Shadow said immediately, not even considering his offer.
"How? How could he trap you?" Jack demanded. "We can't kill you, we just tried. We can't leave. We can't do anything. What do you have to lose?"
Jack was a bright boy, when he wasn't being incurably stupid.
The Shadow still didn't look like he liked the idea. "You can't do it. It's not possible."
"Let me try," Aziraphale implored again. "I'm not from this universe. I may be able to do things you can't—or maybe you needed help, have you thought of that? Maybe this is something you can't do alone. And you are so very alone, aren't you?"
"Don't pity me, you pathetic little bird, and worse yet, don't humanize me," spat the Shadow. "No God made me. I was here first. And things were a lot better when I was completely alone, before all the angels and demons started getting killed, and their souls ended up with me because there was no place for them in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory." Something flickered in the Shadow's mimicked eyes, and he relented, "If you're going to try, then try. But if I don't like what you do, we're gonna find out what you look like without skin."
"Understood," Aziraphale nodded.
"Angel," Crowley called, and Aziraphale could tell he was going to say more, but he whirled, cutting the demon off.
"If this doesn't work," Aziraphale said, urgent but decisive, "I want you to know, Crowley—"
"No, no, don't! Don't jinx this with a sappy goodbye!" Crowley interrupted, but Aziraphale wouldn't be stopped.
"It was never for lack of wanting. Never."
Crowley's mouth fell open. Aziraphale wanted to say so much more—could have filled volumes with everything he'd never said to Crowley but should have—but this could be their last moment together, or at least the last moment that one or both of them had all the necessary parts to speak to one another. With the Shadow's love for silence, he suspected their tongues would be the first thing to go if it started taking pieces.
If he had to let Crowley know one thing, it was that his feelings were returned. So very deeply, and for such a long time, too.
Aziraphale turned back to the Shadow. "May I touch you?"
The entity rolled its eyes. "If you have to."
Aziraphale took that as the closest to permission he was going to get. With delicate care, he set his fingertips on the replicate temples, a light touch.
Around them, soft music burst to life, and Aziraphale poured what little miraculous potential he had left into the act. He had overdone it several times in the past twenty-four hours, pulling off far more immense acts of power than he was used to doing, but he prayed, desperately, that he had enough left in him for this. His most important task of all.
Gymnopédie No. 1 lilted its comforting strains through the vast black of the Empty, luscious chords and slow tempo. He'd always loved Satie. He let it flow and fill up the endless stretches of nothing, let it fill himself up, let it flow into the ancient being he'd connected himself to, with just one, overwhelming will behind it all: sleep.
The Shadow's eyes did flicker shut, but it remained awake.
Next came Venus, the Bringer of Peace, the second movement of Holst's The Planets. One of Crowley's favorites. Crowley had never clung to stories like Aziraphale had, but music, since its first whisperings on drums and wooden flutes thousands and thousands of years ago, had always enchanted the demon.
Aziraphale's somniferous magic was obviously working to some degree, because he heard a dull thump behind him, and a glance over his shoulder confirmed that Crowley had passed out, and was now spread flat on his back, sleeping peacefully.
"Jack," Aziraphale murmured, trying not to jar the Shadow from the relative state of calm he'd managed to achieve within it, "Keep our new friend awake, would you?"
He could see the flutter in the King's eyelids, affected similarly by Aziraphale's work. Jack steadied a hand on the Alternate Crowley's shoulder, keeping him standing.
He let Venus play out, moved on to Massenet's Meditation. The Shadow began to sway, gently, with the music. Aziraphale felt himself growing weaker, but he forced himself to stay upright, to keep pouring that singular command into the Shadow. When Meditation neared its end, Aziraphale let it shift into something new entirely, a melody forming in his own head. Something unique, something strange and a little dark but so incredibly hopeful, filled with love.(3)
Amidst the glockenspiel and violins, Aziraphale began to hum.
A few minutes later, Aziraphale felt an absence underneath his fingers. He opened his eyes just in time to see the Shadow shrinking, melting into a black substance, until it dissolved back into the darkness surrounding them.
Aziraphale fell to his knees, gasping, head swimming. The music continued on without his influence, and he had no explanation for that.
Jack's hand was on his shoulder a moment later.
And then they were gone.
"Go grab something of Jack's from his room so we can get this thing working," Dean said, not sure whether he was directing the order at Sam or Cas, but it was Cas that departed the library.
Sam stared down at the table, and the bowl that sat upon it, filled with spell ingredients they'd haphazardly slapped together. Next to the bowl was a world map. If Jack was still on Earth, the locator spell would tell them exactly where.
"Dean," Sam said, brow furrowed in concern, "if Crowley and Aziraphale really did take Jack...what if they took him back to their universe?"
"Then we go back to the original plan, shake me down for Archangel Grace, work a portal spell, and go find him. Go get him back," Dean replied flatly.
"Do you really think we could stop Crowley and Aziraphale?"
"That's a dumb question. We've stopped every other goddamn thing that's ever gotten in our way. They're no different. Doesn't matter how strong they are." Dean tapped Michael's Archangel blade, where it was sheathed at his side. "This'll put 'em down. Plus, we've established they ain't exactly pros at fighting."
"But if everything else about them was an act, why not that, too?" Sam questioned, and Dean could tell his brother still wholeheartedly believed that Crowley and Aziraphale had nothing but good intentions. "Look, I'm just saying—"
He was glad Sam was still capable of that kind of optimism, but Dean had that burned out of him a long time ago. "Sammy," Dean cut across his brother, not harshly, but firm, "do you really think we were lucky enough to accidentally meet two randos from another universe who just solved all our problems, no strings attached?"
Sam sighed. "No, but—"
They were interrupted when three figures came crashing down spectacularly on the library table, smashing the bowl to bits in the process, with a great deal of flailing limbs, raven wings, and swearing. Black-and-red smoke poured through the room, and Sam and Dean reeled back in shock, watching the smoke swirl determinedly towards the nearest ventilation shaft that led to the surface.
Jack rolled off the table, barely caught by Sam before he hit the floor. And Jack was...smiling?
Aziraphale's head poked out from behind Crowley's wings. "I do believe we did it!" he declared with a proud grin.
"Was it waking me up from a nice nap?" Crowley groaned, bleary and annoyed.
"What..." Dean was at a loss. He pointed at Crowley and Aziraphale, then at Jack, then at the ventilation shaft, "...the fuck? That was a Crossroads demon!"
"Dean," Cas's voice called his attention to the hallway threshold, where the angel stood, wide eyed, clearly drawn back to the room by the sounds of commotion. "That was our Crowley."
Dean blanked. "Our Crowley's dead. He's been dead for years."
"Dean, that was him. I'm sure of it. I'd recognize Crowley anywhere—his aura is unique to him."
"Oh yeah," Crowley said, as if he'd just remembered. His wings folded back into the astral plane. Dean noted the demon was cradling his right wrist, which was swelled up to such a size that he could only assume it was broken. "We saved Other Me."
"And we saved Cas," Jack added with a bright grin. "Well—we didn't, not really—you two did." He turned to Aziraphale and Crowley, beaming at them. "Thank you so much—"
Crowley was off the table in a second, and with his good hand, he grabbed Jack by the throat and slammed him up against the wall. "You," he hissed, "are a lying liar who lies."
"I—I'm sorry—" Jack barely managed to choke past Crowley's iron grip.
"Whoa, whoa, Crowley, put him down," Sam said, stepping towards Crowley and Jack, hands raised. "Just tell us what's going on."
"You saved me?" Cas repeated, and he encroached on them as well. "Jack, what did you do? You didn't—please tell me you didn't—"
"Oh, he did," Crowley told them viciously, "an all expenses paid trip to the Empty! Lucky us! Never mind the fact that Aziraphale almost died."
Sam tried to put a tentative hand on Crowley's arm, but the demon's attention snapped to him just long enough to send him flying across the room, crashing into a bookcase with shocking force.
"HEY," Dean said loudly, and he drew his pistol, pointing it at Crowley. "Cut the shit out and explain what the hell happened, or I start punching holes in you, and I'm gonna assume you like that outfit enough to want to avoid that."
"Put him down," Cas tacked on, staring at Crowley, eyes just incrementally brighter than usual.
Crowley didn't seem deterred, but it was Aziraphale's gentle touch on his shoulder that seemed to break him out of his rage. "My dear...he meant well. He's just a child."
Crowley's mouth twitched, his nostrils flared, and Dean could see he wanted to ignore the angel's quiet plea, but he did relent, setting Jack back on his feet and whirling away. Aziraphale caught him with a hand on his chest, then ghosted fingertips over Crowley's broken wrist, healing it instantly. "Please, calm down," the angel said, so softly that Dean could barely hear him.
"I almost lost you," the demon hissed back, just as quietly.
"But you didn't."
Jack massaged his throat, leaning against the wall. "Don't—don't be mad at him. He's right to be angry. I lied to him and Aziraphale. I told them I wanted to go to the Empty to try to bring Crowley back to life, but really, I...I wanted to try to kill the Shadow. I thought if I told them the truth they wouldn't help."
"Well you got that much right," Crowley snapped.
"Why would you try to kill the Shadow? I thought you got it to back off when it went after you in Heaven?" Sam asked, struggling back to his feet, watching Crowley warily.
Jack looked beseechingly at Cas. Cas grimaced.
"Oh, great, we're keeping secrets again. 'Cause that's always worked out so fucking well in the past," Dean said, throwing his hands up. How many times did they have to learn the same lesson before they finally stopped lying to each other?
"I made a deal," Cas admitted lowly, "to save Jack from the Shadow...I promised myself to it. That it could take me in his stead. But, it was conditional..."
"Can't wait to hear this."
"I had to be happy first," Cas continued, ignoring Dean's snide remark, "I had to...be content, and then it would take me to the Empty."
Jack's eyes were militantly directed at his feet. "I thought, with the way things were going...I was afraid..."
"That the Shadow would come for him," Sam filled in. "Why didn't you guys tell us this?"
"I made a decision. I accepted it. I was willing to face the consequences," Cas told them, unwavering. "I did it for Jack. I won't apologize."
"Of all the stupid..." Dean shook his head. "And, what? You actually managed to kill the thing? Isn't it like, pre-God?"
"We didn't kill the Shadow," Aziraphale provided, "we simply...gave it what it most wanted."
"Aziraphale put it to sleep. For the first time since I woke Cas up," Jack explained. "It won't bother us again."
"Okay, and how does our Crowley play into all of that?" Sam asked, confused.
"Before the primordial embodiment of the void decided to pay us a visit, Aziraphale and I were still under the impression we were on a rescue mission, not an assassination attempt, so we managed to get Other Me up. Consider it a bonus." The demon had seemed to cool down significantly, but Dean could tell he was still furious with Jack.
He didn't blame the guy. No one likes getting tricked.
"So..." Sam said slowly, then looked at Dean. "Not a kidnapping."
Crowley and Aziraphale wore matching expressions of bemusement. "Kidnapping?" they repeated in unison.
Dean rolled his eyes, but secretly, he was more than relieved to have been wrong about the pair. "I may have...assumed you guys turned traitor on us and took the kid."
Crowley squinted at him. "Why the Heaven would we do that?"
"I dunno. Figured it was one of those 'secretly evil' plot twist things," Dean said, already hearing Sam and Cas's joint I told you so in his head.
"So...the Shadow is sleeping?" Cas's eyes went distant. "I'm..."
"You can be happy," Jack said, smiling warmly at Cas. "As happy as you want to be. And no one will take you away."
Cas didn't seem to know how to process that, but a moment later, he pulled Jack into a very tight hug, wrapping his arms around the Nephil's shoulders and squeezing.
"You did good, kid," Dean said, and he clapped Jack on the back, as did Sam. "But you're still grounded for lying and nearly getting, uh..." he cast a sideways glance at Aziraphale and Crowley, "...getting our new friends ganked."
Aziraphale brightened significantly at Dean's phrasing. Crowley just rolled his eyes and repeated, "Grounded," incredulously under his breath.
It was at that moment that the bunker door opened with a creak. Footsteps could be heard from above, dress shoes on concrete. They all turned their heads to the top of the staircase.
Dean took in the sight. Identical meat suit. Wearing an identical suit-suit.(4) Like no time had passed at all.
"Hello boys." The King of Hell grinned wickedly down at them, spreading out his arms. "Back by popular demand."
1. The King of Hell had already resigned himself to having to do Quite a Bit of Evil should he manage to return to a physical plane of being, if he was ever to salvage his reputation after sacrificing his life for the bloody Winchesters. Even with his plans to renounce his position, he couldn't have the entire blasted world thinking he'd gone soft.
2. Remember, today is Aziraphale's day with the brain cell.
3. In another universe, the song Aziraphale is humming is known as Lullaby, by composer David Arnold.
4. If the King of Hell had learned one thing from his dear mother, it was to keep a spare body lying around.