BOBBY'S PLACE - ASSCRACK IN THE MORNING

Everybody, the whole happy hunting party, sat around Bobby's kitchen table. There was no more skirting around it. Sam and Dean told them everything. Just the facts, no fights, or Bobby would 'kick their skinny asses all the way to the outlet mall.'

And now everyone could make an informed decision. Put it to a vote.

"We're the ones it comes down to?" Annie asked. "We get to vote on the end of the world? Well, now I feel bad for not graduating."

"We don't know that it's the end of any world," Dean said, but wearily. Not arguing anymore.

"But it could be," Garth said. "Do we even have the right to decide that?"

"If what the other Crowley said was true," Castiel said, "we do. And inaction ends both worlds."

"The Devil is a liar," Rufus said, with a stern sort of certainty, like there was no debating that point.

"He might be," Frank said, "but from what I've seen? Crowley tells the truth. He just does it like a son of a bitch. What would he have to gain from ending the world? It's where he keeps all his stuff!"

"Not his world," Dean said. "Your world."

"Right, right," Frank said, waving it off. "I forgot, we're having our crisis across infinite earths."

"There's a chance he's lying about all of it. Or wrong about all of it."

"But he canceled the debt of a witch to send you here," Jody said. "If he just wanted to get rid of you, it would've been cheaper just to kill you when he had the chance. That means he's got skin in the game."

"Exactly!" Dean said. "Who doesn't love skinless Crowley?"

"Don't you think it's a little specific?" Sam asked. "We kill the other Crowley or we kill ourselves. You decide; I pull the trigger. He's willing to let us go, as long as the other Crowley - the one from this world - is dead and I'm the one to kill him. And that guy, Red, said that Crowley is the only known constant between our worlds."

"So you know what that means?"

The frustrated look on Sam's face said, 'alas, no.' Everyone was so wound up.

Bobby held up a finger, his eyes otherwhere in thought, "Wait... He wants the other Crowley dead? And he needs Sam to be the one who cacks him. But if Sam doesn't do it, the boys can't come back."

"You said he was visiting seers," Castiel said, getting a little excited. He was picking up what Bobby was putting down. "And killing them after so no one would know what they talked about. What if... it's not the worlds that hang in the balance. What if it's him? If this is about his destiny? Think about it: two Crowleys, in nearly identical realities. And one of them has to be killed by Sam. it might as well be the other one."

"So he sends us to do his dirty work," Dean said, thrilled to finish Castiel's thought. "Either way, Sam can't kill him."

"But then why is it Dean's choice?" Sam asked. "If he only needs me to kill Crowley, why send Dean at all."

"He knows you both too well," Castiel answered. "Leave the choice up to his assassin and he might save this world out of the kindness of his heart. But he knew Dean wouldn't."

Dean gave him a dirty look. "Came up with that pretty fast, huh?" he said.

Castiel returned him an equally pointed look. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"Whatever," Bobby said, "is that all the information we got? Anybody holding anything back?"

Dean forced a not-so-breezy shrug. There might've been a tear in the sky or something, but that could be, like,... global warming or something.

"What about the phones again?" Garth asked. "Your lines shouldn't work in this dimension. You don't exist here, can't have a carrier. If you're picking up satellite signals from the other world, that could mean they're so close we're about to smash."

"Or that there are identical satellites in both dimensions and phones ain't got brains," Rufus said.

As much as he wanted to make an argument against it, Sam felt like it was starting to make more sense. At least more than trusting Crowley. He could leave it up to democracy. "Okay," he sighed. "If that's everything, we'll put it to a vote. Show of hands, who wants to go after Crowley?"

Dean, Jody, Annie, and Rufus all raised their hands.

"And hands for finding another way?"

Sam, Bobby, Garth, and Frank all raised their hands.

Everyone who voted, all annoyed and together, groaned, "Cas!"

"It's a bigger decision than any of you are making it out to be," he said, sounding like a disappointed parent. "Can I have... a minute to think about it?"

"Just one minute?" Sam asked, snottily.

"Come on, Cas," Dean said. "You know it isn't right here. Do you trust me or don't you?"

"Dean, we're deciding the fate of the universe," Sam snapped, "not calling a dog to see who he comes to. Cas can make his own choice. Right, Cas?"

And now, in spite of that very true point from Sam, both brothers were looking at Castiel with big, soft, 'pick me' eyes.

Castiel was torn. And not just because the Winchesters are buttholes. This was his home. He had so much to lose. And he didn't feel like Dean's argument was convincing enough to gamble the universe on.

But... everything that had happened over the last few days... The machine at the mall, the tv show, the dead angels. Living out a mortal life straight into the ground. Was he really angry enough to end the world?

Yeah, he was.

"Dean's right," he lied, not up to making a lot of eye contact. "I think we should go after Crowley."

Dean had a subtle little celebration and Sam was mildly annoyed. In an, 'of course, Cas would pick Dean' kind of way. This wasn't his first gay rodeo.

But now Dean turned to Sam. "Satisfied, Screwy? We're goin' to Saint Louie. You do their Crowley, we get zapped home - with the Colt - and then you do ours. Happy, smiling faces all around."

Sam nodded; shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay, okay?"

He sighed. "I wouldn't hate to take the Colt home," he admitted. "And killing Crowley twice in one weekend would put a big, fat dent in my new year's resolutions."

"Oh, hell yeah!" Dean clapped his hands together, all perky and jazzed. "Let's carve this turkey!"

"We got a way in," Garth said, still a little bummed about losing the vote. "They've got trucks full o' merch going in and out of the studio on the daily. We get as close to the backlot as we can - outside the wink of CCTV - and intercept one."

"Who's gonna drive it?" Jody asked. "We're hunters, they gotta know all of our faces."

Sam smiled, all smuggy-smug. "They don't know Frank's."

Dean smugged with him, "That's right, nobody does."

"And I'd like to keep it that way," Frank said, "if it's all right with you."

"Weren't you the one who said they don't got the numbers?" Rufus asked. "That we should strike now before they grow their ranks?"

"They're gonna know!" Frank said, getting loud. "They're demons, you think they don't recognize their own? They'll clock me as human from a mile away and-.

"And they'll bring you in anyway," Annie said, "'cause the alternative is to let you go. That's when we blow the doors off the place."

"That's like asking them to kill us," he spat back.

"We do this at all, we're kicking in the hornet's nest," Dean told him. "And there's no way out without the Colt. But whoever drives the van will have it in their holster. It's the Golden ticket."

"Fine! If we're destroying the world anyway, I might as well be the mule in your little donkey show. And what about the rest of you? 'Cause I might be able to sneak the Colt in, maybe a few of you in some hilariously-shaped boxes, but there's no way I can get away with the rest. They don't make merch crates in," he gestured to Sam, "Yeti sizes."

"The Colt's all we need," Sam said. "Rest of us go in with the audience."

"And they'll clock you, too," Frank said, in an almost musical tone that said he'd given up trying to live through this.

"You forget that we're dead in this world," Dean said. "Sam and I know how to play cool. Long as we do, they won't see us coming till there's a bullet in Crowley's brain."