Bobby Singer's house, shortly thereafter
"Sam and Dean," Jensen told Bobby Singer, without preamble, "aren't coming back."
Bobby's eyes flashed. "I don't suppose you could say that into my good ear?" he growled.
"No, listen to me," Jensen went on, spreading his hands placatingly, "you think they're gonna find some…some spell or something to reverse this, right?"
"Wouldn't be the first time," Bobby nodded.
"Well, see, that's the trouble right there. It would."
Even Jared looked confused now. "What are you talking about?"
"Our world!" Jensen exclaimed, looking at the other two men in despair and disbelief that they weren't getting it. "In our world – where we come from – magic doesn't exist, don't you get it? Any spell, any magic crap they try is gonna fizzle like a wet firework. This reality has magic – it has monsters and Rugarus and all manner of awful, but where me and him come from? All just make-believe. All just TV shows and Kardashians and believe me, not one single drop of magic to be found."
"Oh, we got Kardashians too," Bobby said, "least, for another few years anyhow. Then," and his eyes glinted with a terrible satisfaction, "the Hellhounds are comin' for them…"
Despite his earlier anxiety, Jensen seemed fascinated by this. "Say, does Tom Cruise exist in this w-"
"So even if Castiel tries to pull Sam and Dean back," Jared cut in, "it might not be enough?"
Jensen shrugged. "I don't know. You wanna try calling that trenchcoated douchenozzle back so we can ask him? Y'know something, seeing that guy makes me glad we pulled every one of those damn pranks on Misha."
"Like the one with the pennies in his trailer…" Jared chuckled.
"Or that time you stuck the fish in his rental car. That was cold, man."
Both men became aware of Bobby Singer's eyes upon them. The air of nostalgia abated under that withering gaze. "And just when did you two become such experts?" Bobby said. "Last night you two were like babes in the wood, and now you're suddenly an authority on how magic works in different realities?"
Jensen bristled. "Hey, see how quickly you adjust when you find yourself in an alternate dimension," he snapped at Bobby. "Besides, Jared and I are the stars of the show. We're sort of a big deal. We even get script approval."
"Script approval?" Bobby echoed. "What in blazes does that even mean?"
"Well," Jared explained, "when the writers want to do a particular storyline, they have to check it with us to make sure we're OK with it. We care a lot about this show and these characters, you know. So because of that access, we know things."
Both men were unaware that every time they used words like show, a vein the size of the Danube was beginning to thud angrily on the side of Bobby Singer's neck. "Is that so?" he said softly. "What kind of things?"
Jared and Jensen both mulled this over for a moment.
Jensen snapped his fingers triumphantly. "Oh! Oh!" he said. "Like that Crowley isn't really dead!"
"That's right!" Jared agreed. "We bumped into Mark Sheppard at Wondercon last month – he's such a sweetheart, by the way…"
"Oh he is," Jensen nodded sincerely, "he's delightful."
Thud, thud, thud, went the Danube-vein. Thud, thud, thud.
"So Mark was all 'oh did you guys know all along Castiel and I were in on this whole grabbing the souls of Purgatory thing?' and I was like 'nononono Mark, honestly I think the Season 6 renewal kinda caught everyone off guard, so the writers are just making it up as they-'"
Thud, thud, thud.
"WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!" Bobby roared. "You expect me to believe that Castiel – the only angel who rebelled against the Apocalypse, is in some sorta conspiracy with a slimebag demon like Crowley to what, hoover up millions of monster souls?"
"Well…" Jensen blinked, "…yeah, we do."
"Well, I don't," Bobby shot back.
"So call our bluff," Jared suggested.
"And how do you suggest I do that?"
"Summon him. Crowley. You know the spell, right? You…" Jared snapped his fingers, "you performed the summoning spell in episode 4, didn't you? Weekend At Bobby's? Isn't that the one you directed, Jensen?"
Jensen fairly inflated with pride. "Well," he said with trowelled-on modesty, "if by 'directed' you mean 'knocked out of the park', I think you could say-"
The Danube finally burst.
Bobby Singer crossed the distance between himself and the two men in a heartbeat; quicker than he'd moved in years, in fact. He grabbed each man by the scruff of the neck and before either could react, he had them against the nearest surface, until his face was inches from theirs and they could see the rage in his eyes.
"Stop talkin' about damn seasons and episodes! You're talkin' about my LIFE here, do you understand that, either one o'ya?" he roared. "My hard, tragic as all hell life where the woman I loved became a monster and I had to put a bullet in her head! My life where I stabbed myself in the spine and spent a year in a wheelchair contemplatin' the best ways of killin' myself! So if you're right about all this bein' nothin' more than the whims of some hack TV writers, then you better hope to hell that I never meet any of 'em, you get me?"
With that, he released them. A heavy silence hung in the air. Both men looked as though they wanted to respond, but were at a loss for what to say. After a few seconds of waiting, Bobby snarled in contempt and walked out of the room, leaving them alone.
Later that day…
They'd tried. Bobby had to admit that. Since his outburst in the kitchen, the two idjits masquerading as Sam and Dean had actually tried to be helpful. There had been no more reminders of how fictional they all found this, only offers of assistance and sidelong apologetic glances. It was enough to remind him of the real deal – God knows those two could be morons enough when they put their minds to it.
He hoped they were OK, wherever they were. Even – he shivered – if it was Canada.
The last ingredient for the summoning spell was thrown into the mix. Bobby cast a readying glance at his companions, and went through the Latin incantations. By all rights, this shouldn't work; Crowley had burned up to a cinder, so a summoning spell for him should get the demonic equivalent of a dial tone-
There was a puff of light, a smell of sulphur, and-
"Well," said Crowley, standing smack dab in the middle of the room, wearing a bloodied apron and holding a pair of long metal tongs with something dripping off them, "this is awkward."
I'll be damned. They were right. Bobby felt his stomach lurch with the implications. He was angry enough at those two for treating his world like some fictional construct, but dammit, everything they'd said had panned out, including this.
"Little early for this particular plot twist, aren't we?" Crowley went on breezily, as though he hadn't a care in the world.
"You son of a bitch," Bobby snarled.
"Bobby," Crowley nodded his head, "a pleasure as always. I'd shake your hand but I appear to still be holding a Rugaru's kidney. Now, I should probably get back to work…"
It was then that he seemed to properly look around him for the first time, and notice that it wasn't just Bobby in the room. The self-styled "King of Hell" pursed his lips, snapped his fingers, and the bloodied apron was gone, replaced by his usual taste in immaculate black suits. He approached Jensen and Jared slowly, without any obvious signs of malice. In fact, he looked more like a dog investigating a potentially juicy bone.
"Uh…hey," Jensen said, a trifle nervously.
Crowley took a step or two backward to take in the two men before him. "Incredible," he said. "You look like Moose and Squirrel. You sound like them. You even smell like them. But you're not, are you?"
"Shouldn't he be trapped in the Devil's Trap?" Bobby said, with mounting anger once more. "You know, the one you two a-holes volunteered to take care of?"
Crowley looked up at the ceiling with an air of interest. He pointed. "There's your trouble," he said, with the tone of a workman pointing out exactly where your pipes had burst, "in the corner there, looks like someone's doodled a pair of tits instead of doing the Latin swirly bit properly. Very sloppy workmanship."
Bobby launched himself at Crowley, and was swatted aside effortlessly by the demon's telekinetic abilities with all the apparent effort of a fly getting trampled on by a boot. Flattened to the wall, all he could do was glare.
"Something I said?" Crowley inquired.
"Let him go!" Jared spoke up. It wasn't so much a command as a plead, and the weak tone didn't go unnoticed.
"No, I don't think so," Crowley replied. "The soul's rather gone out of our relationship. Sad, really. Now, if it were Sam Winchester asking me that – the same Sam Winchester who took out Lilith, who fought off Lucifer long enough to do a Triple Lutze into Hell – well, then I might have pause for thought. But it's not Sam Winchester asking, is it...Jared?
Of all the things Bobby Singer had thought to hear spilling from the demon's mouth, that was by far the least likely and the most horrifying.
"How do you know-?" Jared began.
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Indulge me a moment. You're the King of the Crossroads demons, future King of Hell if you please, and one day you discover through the cosmic grapevine that out there in the ether exists a plane of existence where all the pertinent, juicy information about how the future's gonna shake down right here on my particular home sweet plane is just lying around. Not hidden in scrolls or tablets that are written in obscure languages and need codexes for their codexes to be translated. Not cloaked in spells linked to dark and dangerous magics with terrible consequences for those who meddle with such primal forces. No no no. Available on sodding DVD and Blu-ray, no less! And you seriously think I'm gonna ignore that?"
Jensen looked like he was going to faint. "Are you saying you knew about…where we came from…all along?" he said.
"Please, darling," Crowley replied, "I'm hashtag #SPNfamily all the way. I'm a bit insulted I didn't show up until season 5, though. Oh come on, lads. Who'dja think you're talking to? Where d'you think that wanker Balthazar got the idea for where to throw Morecambe and Wise in the bloody first place?"
Jared sat down, heavily. He was pale. "You?"
"Me."
"Wait a minute," Jensen said, "if you know about our…dimension, our whatever, if you've been getting information from there, you must have a way to travel there and back, right?"
Crowley shrugged. "It's a fair deduction. You're a smart lad, Jensen. Smarter than Dean, anyway. Although that's like saying you're better at Twister than Stephen Hawking."
"You can send us back!" Jensen went on.
Crowley frowned. "And why would I do that?" he asked.
Jensen looked taken aback at this. He glanced at Jared for help. Jared shrugged.
"We don't belong here!" Jensen said. "Any more than Sam and Dean belong in our world!"
Crowley laughed at this, as genuine a laugh as Bobby had ever heard from him. "Oh this is priceless," he giggled delightedly, "are you telling me that those two dingbats are currently running amok in your dimension? Ten'll get you one that the body count's already piling up. Those two could start a bloodbath on Sesame Street."
"Alright," Jensen said quietly. "What do you want, Crowley?"
Bobby, until now stunned from the impact against the wall, found his voice again. "Don't be a damn fool, son," he managed weakly.
Crowley smiled a razorblade's edge of a smile. "Now you're talkin' my language," he said.
"I won't let you do-" Bobby began, trying to break free.
"Quiet on the set!" Crowley snapped, and gestured. Bobby slumped down the wall, breathing but unconscious. "Now…you were saying?"
"So how's this work? Just like on the show?" Jensen said nervously. "You…you want our souls or something? Is that it?"
Crowley considered this. "As interesting a metaphysical conundrum as that would be," he said eventually, "I'm gonna have to pass. Souls from your dimension have a sort of strange, metallic aftertaste anyway. Incompatible with our systems, you might say. Besides," he added cheerfully, "Mr Ackles here is already stones-deep in hock to some rather sinister Sicilian gentlemen, so I'm not even sure your soul is yours to give away, is it?"
Jensen laughed dismissively at this. It was not one of his greater performances. "You're crazy," he said. "He's crazy."
"Uh huh," Jared said, in a tone that suggested Crowley was not crazy.
"Oh come on, I only say that Mafia stuff for kicks," Jensen protested. "It's all exaggerated. I've had some business dealings with an Italian consortium that has ties to overseas holdings."
Crowley snorted. "Yeah, holdings people underwater."
Jensen cleared his throat. "So if not souls, then what?" he said, not changing the subject at all.
"Tell you what," Crowley offered, "rather than the usual boring old contract and kiss in exchange for ten years and all that old bollocks, let's mix things up a little. I'm the Devil in these here parts, and traditionally I'm meant to be a sucker for a wager. So I'll make you two a little bet. You win, I facilitate the swap between you two and your Vulcan goatee-sporting counterparts. You lose...and all four of you stay right where you are, forever. Sam and Dean get the salaries and the trailers, and you get the shapeshifters and the Lamias. Peachy?"
"Deal."
"Deal?" Jared choked.
"Better idea?" Jensen asked him.
Jared opened and closed his mouth. "I…no, I guess not," he admitted.
"What's the bet?" Jensen asked.
"Oh, it's simple," Crowley purred. "Sam and Dean are presumably having to pass themselves off as you two. And I bet it's going juuuuust swimmingly. I want you two triple-threat sophisticated Hollywood actor types to prove you can do better than those two backwoods Bigfoot lookalike competition winning simpletons. So the deal runs thusly: I give you a list of ingredients for the dimensional transference spell, and you two go pretend to be Godzilla and Godzooky and go get them. If you play your Sam and Dean roles convincingly – and allow to me to stress for the purposes of fair play, convincingly - you win. I mean, how hard can it be, right? You play those two Neanderthals eighteen hours a day, six days a week, forty weeks a year. What's a day or two more?"
"That's it?" Jensen asked. "We just go get some ingredients and pretend to be Sam and Dean while we do it?"
"That's it."
"Deal!"
"Hold on a minute!" Jared protested, looking at Jensen warningly. "Have you forgotten the lives these two lead? The dangers out there? You seriously want to go running into that?"
"Come on, man," Jensen pointed out, "he's right: we're the experts. Plus everyone already believes we're them anyway. This'll be easy. And we've got Bobby!"
"Aha," Crowley held up a finger and coughed. "Actually, no. A few little preconditions to keep this interesting: strictly no praying for help to Trenchcoat and Interesting, Captain Beardface stays here unconscious and hog-tied til you come back – don't worry, I've put a little something in his drink so to speak, he won't die of hunger or thirst, he won't even come to – and you agree to me wiping his mind of this whole incident afterward. After all…" and he grinned, "…spoilers, sweetie."
With the safety net of Bobby and Cas removed, suddenly this mission seemed a little more daunting than before. Jensen hesitated.
"Limited time offer," Crowley said, in a bored tone of voice, tapping an imaginary watch. "Course you're welcome to rely on Moose and Squirrel using magic in a place where magic is impossible…"
Jensen and Jared looked at one another. They nodded in unison.
"Let's do this," Jensen said.
"Splendid," Crowley said. "Then as they say in the biz: Lights, Camera, Action…"