Warnings: My only warning is I chose a really weird tense and I don’t stick to it, but I think it mostly works...
His thoughts are on Crowley today, have been since a goddamn demon called him up speed dial, unknown number, and proceeded to woo him with promises of having exactly what he needs. It’s not the only way his mind goes, of course. He remembers another crossroads demon, another deal, remembers claws and teeth tearing through his flesh, but that pain had been relatively fleeting in comparison to what comes after. The last ten years of his life seem like a dream since then, sometimes good but often nightmarish, a very different kind of suffering because it had always seemed to come hand in hand with people to suffer for; good things that could be stripped away from him at a moment’s notice.
But Dean is at peace with himself in this beautiful new way, like a weight lifted, and for all the responsibility that Billie has placed on his shoulders, she gave him the news he needed to hear most: that he would die when it was his time, and most likely he’d die hunting, saving other people because that was what he wanted to do; what he chose.
He’s thinking of Crowley when they walk down the street, thinking of what that relationship had been, the flavour of his life given physical form, all ups and downs, mostly darkness. That wasn’t what he chose to be any more, and it wasn’t because, ultimately, Crowley was evil; he hadn’t been that to Dean for the longest time, even if Dean had never been able to find the words to tell him.
It was that Dean was just over demons in general.
Fuck demons. His whole entire goddamn life had been about demons. Right now the only thing he wanted was about as far from demonic as it was possible to get, off on some mission he’d been forbidden from joining. He was so wound up, frustrated with being cornered out of the game that he just wasn’t interested in listening to Cas’ excuses right now, and had placed that burden on his brother’s shoulders instead.
He’s thinking of Crowley when this asshole – this god damn fake – tells him he knows all about him, shoving cherry pie across the table like it’s a come hither. And when he explains that he’s the crossroads demon now Dean just about considers taking out his angel blade right there in public, ten minutes from the bunker, and in broad daylight jumping over the table and stabbing this guy to death.
That’s why they met here, after all, on this crowded street. Because Crowley’s the goddamn exception to the rule and this asshole knows it.
Okay, so maybe it’s a little bit about Crowley.
Sam doesn’t get it, of course. Sam thinks it’s just a general demon loathing thing. Sam whose entire life has been one demon thing after another, wants them to consider the possibility of taking this guy up on his deal. It’s almost laughable. Except Dean’s not laughing, and this guy keeps flirting, cocky son of a bitch, with absolutely none of Crowley’s charm.
When he touches his mouth, Dean’s mind drifts just barely, but not so far as to allow him to lose focus on the conversation. He remembers a thumb pressing against the corner of his own lips, his own demonic darkness drawing up to the surface in answer. When Dean remembers the experience he’s being consumed by black lust, pressing his mouth back roughly in answer to Crowley’s kisses as though to challenge him, threatening, mocking: Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted me to become? Drag me down to your level—is it broken enough for you now? Am I ruined enough now?
It was Crowley who’d thrown him out of that darkness too, who’d said that enough was enough and ensured that he was returned to humanity and pain and all the awful things he’d been running from for so long. He kind of hated him for that. Kind of loved him too. And he’d never thanked him.
This guy thought he could just slide in, take Crowley’s place, rule in his stead? No way. Dean was done with demons. Dean was done with his own darkness, and like it or not that was what Crowley represented: darkness, but with his own light at the end of the tunnel, coming closer in incremental shades of grey but black as night none the less. Didn’t he deserve that light now? Hadn’t he earned some peace?
He’s never going back: not to black eyes, not to nightmares, not to being consumed by a litany of sins. Summer of love? More like summer of lust, summer of not caring any more, summer of freedom that was never truly free, bound in burden by his continued self hatred. There are good memories, like any drunken vacation, but lack of inhibitions didn’t mean lack of regrets, and Dean was done blaming himself for the things he’d done.
Dean didn’t hate himself any more. He was free. He stood over burning bones and it was like standing over the pyre he hadn’t been able to make, setting Crowley free. As Sam ran his hands through his hair and fretted about how to clear up the dead immortal lying in the road, Dean warmed his fingers over the flames, and sighed down at them.
“Goodbye, Crowley,” he said, softly. “And thanks for everything.”
Coda 13x04: Sleep No More! (Castiel doth murder sleep!)
To read on AO3 (or find my other codas) please click here!
Once upon a time, but also before time, before the confluence of existence coincidentally created the concept of chaos, before duality and binary broke everything into two conflicting halves--there was nothing.
Except, well, that wasn’t really true, because even nothing couldn’t exist without the context of everything to exist alongside it, and this was before everything, and so therefore not really nothing either.
Nameless it existed and did not exist, because nothing existed to give it context, and so it was peaceful and simple and seemingly eternal, a blissful state of it that satisfied it immensely.
And then along came something.
Perhaps the duality came out of it’s thoughts. Perhaps it was it’s question What am I? that insisted on context, because the next thing it knew Duality existed, and so did Death, who waited quietly in anticipation until such time as this new Life could be extinguished.
Worst of all, though? Duality was noisy.
It contemplated Duality. The Darkness it rather liked. She seemed to like the quiet too. The Light was a smarmy little pest with ideas far above his station. The Light realized quite quickly the power that he had, and he indulged in non-accidental Creation. Silly goose. If he’d known how unpleasant the creation of Duality had been in the first place, maybe he wouldn’t have been so swift to create so many stupid things.
Duality did not like each other. Duality had constant fights about who was right and who was wrong, concepts among many others that made it’s head spin, and it began to realize just what it was, or rather what it had become now that something else existed. It became part of duality, whether it liked it or not, because duality was awake while it was asleep. Duality was everything, and it was nothing. Duality was full and it was Empty.
But that was perfectly fine, because while Duality was noisy it generally tended to stay well away from it, indulging itself in all of its awake things far away in the place which was full of everything. The Empty was quiet. The Empty kept itself to itself. The Empty did what it did best: it slept.
Duality did not sleep. Duality created and it destroyed, which was all very well until the Light created something it could not contain.
Cosmic power such as The Empty had, and which Duality (and Death) had been created from, was endless. The Empty had become half of itself when Duality came into existence, and now the Light was creating things out of its own cosmic power—things that could never be destroyed; things that were endless too. That was all very well when those endless things contained the tiniest fraction of power, something the Light called souls. The Light could build homes for those souls, and keep the cosmic power safe in perpetuity. But it also made powerful cosmic things and called them archangels, and those were a much bigger problem.
The Light only made four of these cosmic things to begin with. He named them Michael, Lucifer, Raphael and Gabriel. And then, when one of his things, Lucifer, was poisoned in the Light’s attempts to lock away half of it’s own Duality, it created even more things out of its own cosmic power so that it could fight Lucifer and his influence. And Lucifer, because he had no more restraint than his own creator, made even more even more things out of his own cosmic power.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
That was when it started. Some of the things killed some of the other things, and Death? Boy was it flummoxed. It could collect the tiny little souls of dead things and put them away in the Light’s storecupboards of its own power, but what was it supposed to do with higher concentrations of cosmic power when they died?
Simple. Death put them in the Empty.
What an asshole.
They were noisy. These parts of the Light did not belong here. They jostled about the Empty and were generally a nuisance, making everything much less empty than it had been before. Their existence was a blight on everything that the Empty thought he was, and when he complained to Death about it, Death just shrugged and told him to speak to the Light.
Which would be fine except the Light was missing.
That little upstart jerk! When the Empty caught up to him, he’d be in for it then! It had put up with a lot of crap over the years but this really took it to a whole new level.
But what to do about all the things? What was it supposed to do about them? They couldn’t carry on about the place making such a riot, the Empty simply couldn’t stand it.
So he made a deal with Death. Death would be allowed to put anything here it needed to – anything at all – so long as those things were all asleep. If they slept then they wouldn’t bother the Empty much at all. He liked sleep, and the angels and demons wouldn’t wake him up if they were dozing too. No. He would be content, so long as they were always sleeping.
So long as they were always sleeping, his deal with Death would stand.
