Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Who's the liar now?” Crowley says slyly, and Dean scoffs.

He knows they’re supposed to be - fuck it, not friends, but some kind of allies now - doesn’t mean he wants a demon to be able to see through him the way Crowley does.

Apparently, though, Crowley is not interested in talking about Dean tonight. Thank God. Instead, he sips on his ridiculous drink, then sighs.

“She says I've gone soft.”

Dean laughs, looks at him sideways. “You have.”

“What?” he adds, as Crowley looks back at him. “Yeah, maybe it's all the human blood that Sammy pumped into you, you know? Maybe it's, uh - I don't know. I don't know. But the old Crowley, he would have come in here with hellhounds and demons, and he would have blown the roof off the joint. Now? You didn't want to fight. You wanted to talk.”

Crowley is still looking down at his hands, but Dean is no longer checking his movements, calculating his next move, a possible angle of attack. He’s past wondering when, exactly, he stopped seeing Crowley as a threat, and sometimes he thinks that may be a mistake. Not that he’ll live long enough to find out, so whatever. Instead, he closes his hand around his glass, starts talking again.

“And maybe I've changed, too. Here I am playing Dr. Phil to the King of Hell. Never saw that coming.”

He chuckles, but his heart isn’t in it.

“Maybe we're getting old,” says Crowley, in his usual dark and fatalistic tone.

“Never saw that coming, either.”

Dean was trying for humour, but the whole thing comes out wrong, and now it’s all shades of depressing. Better not to go there. He pours himself another glass.

“What is it, huh? Why you letting mommy dearest tie you into knots?”

“Because…” Crowley hesitates, glances at him. “We're family. Blood.”

Ah. So he’s playing that card. He thinks Dean can understand that fucked-up relationship, because, well. Better not to go there either. He’s running out of places to go to, really, but hey, what’s new?

“That's not the same thing. A wise man once told me, ‘family don't end in blood’ but it doesn't start there, either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them. Family's there through the good, bad - all of it. They got your back…even when it hurts. That's family. That sound like your mother?”

And now Dean is uncomfortable, and he’s given away too much, and Crowley is looking at him again in that way, that we’re the same, you and I look that Dean really doesn’t like. The last thing he wants right now is for anyone else to collapse. He’s the one dying, after all. Why should Sam, or Cas, or even damn Crowley fall apart as well? A hunter, a soldier of God, and the freaking King of Hell. No way they can fall apart. No way.

He glances at Crowley a bit covertly, and there it is, the beginning of that look on his face, the all-to-human everything is fucked-up look. He gets that enough from Sammy, thank you very much. Dean needs things to go back the way they were, and he needs it fast. He downs his glass, pours himself another one.

“This is the last time I'll see you, Crowley. It was stupid of you to come here. After tonight, you get away from me and you stay away, you get it?”

He keeps looking straight ahead, but he can feel Crowley’s shields going up, that quiet sadness swallowed up by a wave of sarcasm.

“That's harsh, Squirrell, after everything we've been through. After that night with the twins, and all.”

Night with the twins? thinks Dean, and a sudden memory flashes in his brain - pink lingerie, a cheap bottle of scotch, jazz music. He winces.

“Yes, it was that good. We both enjoyed every second of it,” adds Crowley, who hasn’t missed the disgust on Dean’s face.

He doesn't sound hurt. Of course he doesn’t. He sounds, thinks Dean, like his usual, smarmy self. Mr Drama Queen. Like nothing can touch him. But he’s right. For better or for worse, they built something, the two of them. Crowley can read him, but so can Dean. He knows Crowley. He's seen him break down during that whole blood business. I deserve to be loved. I just want to be loved.

Dean sighs, glances at Crowley, and the way the demon is twirling the white umbrella in his stupid girly drink makes him realize he doesn’t want to break this - this relationship between them. Not really. Not now.

“You don't understand,” he says tiredly. “I'm cursed.”

Crowley makes a little sound, between a sigh and a snigger.

“A curse. It's always something, with you Winchesters.”

“No, I mean-”

Dean stops talking. He hasn’t mentioned this to anyone, not yet. He’s planning on not, not ever. He’s been thinking, vaguely, to just disappear. Now Cas doesn’t have his mojo, it’d be easy. He’s given up. Why can’t they accept that-

“I know that look. Impending doom and approaching death. Cain got to you, didn't he?”

“He-”

But he can’t go on. He can’t even look at Crowley. He wonders, suddenly, wildly, where Sammy is. If things had been different, if the spell had worked, his last words to Sammy would have been those stupid jabs at French movies - an ongoing squabble, but also something Dean would regret. The idea that his brother’s interests and hobbies should be idiotic, not worthy of Dean’s time.

“And now you’re thinking about death again. God, you’re dramatic. Look, I knew something was up when you came out of that barn,” says Crowley, and there's again something in his voice, something which is almost kindness under that patina of scathing disapproval. “That's why I didn't kill you when you didn't give me the blade.”

He adds it an afterthought, as if the thing doesn’t matter at all, and Dean can’t help himself, because his first instinct is always the kick in the teeth and self-destruction. Always has been.

“Ah, that’s why? The goodness of your black, black heart? Not the scary, smity angel of the Lord, you mean?”

“Cas and I go way back,” Crowley replies, airily. “He owes me. He wouldn't hurt me.”

He pauses, then, stares at Dean for a long moment, and Dean finds himself looking back at him, and again he hears that distinctive British lilt in his ears, half-forgotten pieces of words. Let’s go howl at that moon. He remembers Crowley’s hand on his chest as he started breathing again, those first few moments of his life as a demon, when every sound and smell was so sharp Dean had been afraid he’d die just from the loud knocking of his own beating heart.

And as he looks at Crowley, Crowley looks straight at him, through him, and the demon’s mouth curves slightly downwards in a self-deprecatory way.

“But you would, wouldn't you?” he says in the end. “You would kill me.”

Dean doesn't reply and looks away.

“You would,” insists Crowley. “After all this time together. Squirrell, you break my heart.”

“I am hunter,” says Dean, roughly, keeping his gaze firmly anchored on the bottles behind the bar. “And you're a demon. The King of Hell, in fact. How did you think it was going to end?”

“Yet you tell me to run.”

It’s almost gentle, the way Crowley says it, and Dean doesn't say anything. He tries to smile, or scoff, or anything, but the soft words have exploded like a grenade in his head. He did tell him to run. He didn’t want to implicate anyone else, he hadn’t wanted to have a plan, and instead-

“I don't think it's me you're upset about. Come on. Spill the beans.”

Dean shrugs, takes a sip of scotch, moves for a refill and finds the bottle is empty. Bloody typical.

“Dean,” says Crowley, and it’s the way he says it, must be, because Dean just feels this - this enough with this shit feeling, this whathefuckever thing in his chest, and just shakes his head and starts talking.

“It's the mark. Looks like I won't be able to control it for much longer. I’ll lose it, and then - I dunno, ok? I’m supposed to kill people. I’m supposed to become some kind of - and then, at the end, I’ll come after you. And Cas, and Sammy. And then - and then I don't really know. I'll go to hell? Become a demon again? Things are a little hazy here, to be honest. You guys suck with instruction manuals.”

Crowley ignores his attempt at humour. Not that Dean can blame him. It was too little, too late. God, he sounded like a bloody girl. What's the point in complaining, anyway? Suck it up, Dean. It's what men do.

“So this is what's bugging you. Not poor old me. The angel, and Moosey.”

Dean shakes his head.

The bar is eerily silent around them. When Crowley takes his phone from his pocket and fiddles with it, the noise is much louder than it has any right to be.

“Thing is, Crowley, it doesn't matter if I want to kill you or not.”

“Cheers. I can really feel the love there.”

“I will try to,” continues Dean, ignoring him, “because I must, but I can count on you to run. I know that. I know that if I tell you to run, to stay away, you'll do it. You're a friggin’ demon. It's your skin first, right? You don't care all that much about me.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Is it something I said?”

“But Cas-”

Dean starts the sentence, and then falls silent. He’s not ready to finish that thought. He’ll never be ready. He’d sort of imagined he’d have time to figure it all out, but, well. Life is not fair.

“Cas won't,” says Crowley, with a touch of his old impatience, when it becomes clear Dean is not adding anything else. “Stay away.”

“No.”

“And you don't want to kill him.”

“Of course not,” scoffs Dean.
“Because you love him,” says Crowley, and Dean smiles, a bit lopsidedly, and looks sideways at Crowley again.

“That's a first,” he says. “People always say it the other way round.”

Crowley smiles his half smile, the one he smiles before setting his hellhounds loose and drilling into angels’ brains.

“People don't know you. I do.”

Dean turns in his chair, then, stares at Crowley, and when he realizes the demon isn't joking, there is a flash of pure panic on his face - there and gone in a second.

“I'm not gay.”

“Of course not. You suck men's cocks in dark alleys because you're not gay. Because that’s something straight men do to join the straight men club.”

“I do not-” starts Dean, hotly, but Crowley interrupts him.
“Flagstaff, Arizona, June 25th, 1994. Lafayette, Indiana, May 8th, 1996. Salem, Massachussetts, January 23rd, 1997. Shall I go on?”

Dean can’t take his eyes off Crowley, can’t speak, can’t even feel his own heart beating. He can’t-

“I am not,” he says. “I do not-”

“I know you started for money,” says Crowley, and here it is again, that almost kindness. “To feed your brother when your jackass father forgot about the two of you. I know you liked it. Well, not always, but enough. And I know you still do it, for free, when you manage to get away from Moose for a few hours. You do know that it’s not healthy to be so close to your brother all the time, right? Codependent, a specialist would say.”

Dean is still staring at him. There is nothing, nothing he can say.

Crowley frowns, then flutters his hand in front of Dean’s face, as if waking him up from hypnosis.

“Hello? I am a demon. I am centuries old. I have seen and done everything there is to see and do. Are you under the impression that I find gay sex shocking?”

Dean shakes his head, like a boxer after a blow.

“How - how do you-”

“You’re hunters. You're the bloody Winchesters. I have been keeping tabs on you for a while. And in Hell, we specialize in blackmail and things, so when you send demons to do recon, they tend to bring back evidence that can be used against you. Part of the job, Squirrell. Don't take it personally. I didn't really care for that kind of intel - it was in the file, is all.”

Dean picks up the bottle again without looking at it, remembers it’s empty, puts it back down.

“Fine. Whatever. Make your point, then. Since you seem to have a point to make.”

“It’s really not the gay sex, mate. No, what I want to know here is, what are you thinking? What are you doing? Are you hoping anything will come out of it? That an angel can love?”

Love. It become something foreign and a bit dirty in Crowley’s mouth.

I deserve to be loved.

“I am not thinking anything,” says Dean, and he feels aggressive now, he feels mighty ready to punch this bastard and break his jaw against the counter, King of Hell or no King of Hell.

“You love him.”

Dean doesn't reply. His knuckles have gone white against the bottle. One swing, that’s all it would take.

“You know there’s not much you can get in return.”

“In return,” starts Dean, and he’s furious now, vicious. “That’s all you demons think about, right? And then you wonder why nobody loves you - yes, remember that? When you were snivelling in that church - that’s why, Crowley. That’s why people don’t love demons, because you think about what you’re getting in bloody return. I love him, okay? And I don’t want bloody anything in bloody return. That’s how love bloody works. It doesn’t matter if he loves me back, if he can love me back, or anything. Especially not now, it doesn’t.”

Dean knows he’s rambling, knows he’s just said something unforgivable, something he can’t forget about and can’t take back, and he’s desperately hoping Crowley will say something, anything, interrupt him, make him shut up, but Crowley is just sitting there, looking at him with that shit-eating half grin on his face and Dean feels the rest of it blurt out of him.

“It doesn’t matter, because I’m going to be dead soon. There’s no way out. And Cas won’t run, because that’s not who he is, and Sammy keeps egging him on, and they can’t - they can’t -”

There’s no more rage in him. All Dean can feel inside him are these two tugs, the wild panic (I’m gonna die - I’m gonna - die I’m gonna die) and the deep tide of love (I never told him - I’ll never see him again - I’ll not be able to protect him anymore) - they mix up somewhere inside his chest until all the space is taken up, and it’s hard to breathe and he can taste the bile on his tongue.

“So it doesn’t matter if he can - not when I’ll be -”

“Dean?” says a new voice, and Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, because it’s Cas’ voice, and it’s coming from Crowley’s phone, flipped open on the counter.

“I can love you, Dean. I do love you,” says Cas, and the words take a long time to travel to Dean’s brain - it’s a shock, a huge bucket of ice-cold water down his spine - Dean can’t acknowledge that, can’t say anything.

He looks down at the phone instead, shocked, then at Crowley.

“You called him?” he asks, incredulous. “You had him on speaker, this whole time?”

“Dean, can you hear me? Did you hear what I said?”

Cas is talking louder now, his mouth feels closer to the phone, like he did those first few weeks when he could see Dean’s soul and speak a billion languages and still he didn’t know how to use a bloody phone or even a pencil. The memory of it is enough to bring Dean to breaking point, and he shakes his head at Crowley.

“I can hear you, Cas. I didn’t know you were listening, that’s all.”

“Whoops,” says Crowley, and he’s grinning now, a full-fledged know-it-all grin and Dean is going to freaking kill him.

“Dean, where are you?”

It's Castiel's voice again. Dean forces himself to focus on it.

“Just some bar.”

“Why didn’t you leave a note? We came back almost one hour ago, and Sam was upset when he couldn't find you.”

“Wait, you’re at the bunker? With Sam? I thought Sam went to see some French movie.”

“Change of plans,” says a new voice - Sammy’s. “Come back here, we need to talk.”

“Son of a bitch,” mutters Dean under his breath, and he glares at Crowley before answering his brother. “Were you listening as well?”

“Listening to what? I was warding the dungeon against angels - we needed a place to store-”

Sam’s voice disappears abruptly.

“Wait, who else is there? This is not your number. Is - are you with Crowley?”

“Hello, Moose. Productive evening, was it? Don’t worry, your brother will be home in a jiffy.”

Before Dean can do anything, Crowley reaches over and flips the phone shut, interrupting the conversation.

“Hey!”

“I’m not paying to hear you and Moose bickering. I spend enough as it is to get coverage in Hell, you know. And I should go, anyway.”

He gets up, waves a hand in a careless gesture, and the bar is suddenly pristine again - tables and chairs back in their places, the pool table clean and happy and ready for a game, the balls already arranged in a neat triangle in the lower end.

“Wait - are you not - you’re not coming?” says Dean, and then he wishes he could take it back - because, really, what the fuck is he doing?

“Sweet of you,” says Crowley, and despite the sarcasm, there’s a kind of smile in his eyes. “I have some business to take care of, though. I’ll knock on your door in the morning, how’s that? So I can hear the cock-up plan those two morons have come up with, and turn it into something clever.”

“I-”

“Think you’ll manage to suppress your homicidal instincts for another day or so?”

“I-”

“Seriously, though,” says Crowley, interrupting Dean again, walking up to him, and now he’s standing too close, way into his personal space, just like Cas used to do before Dean chose to be an idiot and told him not to do that, “Talk to your boyfriend, why don’t you? True love is a rare thing, Dean. Don’t be a fucking coward.”

Crowley takes a step back, looks him up and down, then smirks.

“And get laid. You’re grumpy when you don’t get laid.”

And before Dean can say anything, before the heartfelt fuck you is even formed in his brain, Crowley is gone, has disappeared into thin air, and Dean has to swallow it back, and laugh around it when he realizes that his life is even messier than it was two hours ago. Will you look at that, he thinks, but his heart is not really in it.

I can love you. I do love you, Dean.

No. No, maybe, maybe for bloody once, things have gone slightly better instead of worse.

Let’s find out, he thinks, half nervous, half happy, as he walks out of the bar and into the dark night.

Chapter Text

“And what on earth are you wearing?”

Castiel looks down at himself. Crowley just stares at him in exasperated amusement as the angel tries to figure out what the problem is.

“My clothes?” he finally says, managing an almost neutral tone.

“I see that,” says Crowley, edging past him and inside the bunker. “I meant, why are you still wearing them? I was under the impression Dean would have ripped them off you by now.”

“Why would Dean-”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Cas. It’s way too early in the morning for that. Be a darling and get me some coffee.”

Cas looks at him quizzically, and this time he does look a bit offended. Good.

“I am not at your beck and call. If you want coffee, get it yourself.”

“Works for me.”

Crowley is feeling borderline cheerful today. His mother is gone, there is a Grand Sorceress-slash-adorable hamster in his office, Hell is firmly under his command again, and here he is, in the actual Man of Letters bunker, best pal with hunters and angels. And look at all these books and artefacts - won't they look much better on my shelves?

“How was it, then?” he calls over his shoulder as he walks into the kitchen.

“How was what?”

Crowley stops opening closets and turns around. Castiel is standing by the door. He looks puzzled and - unhappy? Crowley can’t be sure. Castiel looks unhappy most of the time, so-

“Look, do you want us to be girlfriends here or not? Because I’m getting a little tired of this Rainman attitude you’ve got going.”

“I do not understand this reference. I mean,” says Cas, catching himself, “I am aware of the fact that Rainman is a 1988 movie directed by Barry Levinson, but-”

“Cas.”

Crowley is trying very, very hard not to break something. How is it that he is surrounded by idiots? Seriously, how is everyone but him a goddamn idiot? It defies the laws of physics. How can the world even function? Granted, not that it functions all that well.

“Is Dean good in bed?” he asks finally, and manages not to grit his teeth - though it is a very, very close thing.

The angel looks more confused than ever.

“I wasn’t focusing on those specific memories when I put him back together.”

“When you put - Cas, I mean, last night. How - was - sex - with - Dean - last - night?” he asks, very slowly, enunciating every syllable.

And there it is again, the frown, the childlike blue eyes wide open. That’s Castiel’s trademark look, and it looks so natural on his vessel that Crowley, not for the first time and perhaps a bit uncharitably, finds himself thinking that this Novak guy probably had the brainpower of a tadpole.

“I did not have sex with Dean last night.”

“Why ever not?” says Crowley, just as Castiel is adding, “Why would I?”

They just stare at each other, and then Sam comes in. Now, here is a vessel that Crowley could appreciate. He must be back from his sanctimonious morning run, the muscles in his legs and biceps glistening with sweat. The hunter stops abruptly on the threshold, just behind Castiel, and frowns at Crowley.

“What are you doing here? Who let you in?”

“Good morning to you too, Moose. Good thing you’re here, maybe you’ll be able to clear one thing up-”

Crowley’s eyes switch to Castiel’s for a second, and he sees a minute no in them, just the smallest, inchoate bout of feeling. So whatever is up with these two, Sam does not know anything. What else is new, thinks Crowley, smiling at Sam with all the affection he can muster - perhaps not enough, but surely more than he should have for the bumbling idiot who got him addicted to human blood. Swiftly, he changes tack.

“How could you possibly think that you can come up with a good plan without me? What are you keeping from me? Also, do I have to find out the hard way?”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“There’s never an easy way with you, Crowley.”

“We freed Metatron, and took his Grace,” says Castiel, quietly.

He still looks - wrong, somehow, and Crowley is still trying to figure out why. He’s not dealt with many angels over the centuries - they pretty much kept to themselves before the whole Apocalypse debacle, good times - but he’s seen enough to know that Castiel is different. He is earthlier, somewhat, much closer to a human, practically contaminated by human feelings, even more than Crowley is - look at him now - he’s actually fretting, agonizing over this fatal blow he’s dealt to an enemy - unassailable soldier of the Lord, my ass.

“What do you want me to say? Well done? I think what we all want to know is, why would he still have his goddamn Grace? Isn’t he Public Enemy Number One, up there with Charles Manson and the Road Runner? Thought he would have been dead by now.”

Sam isn’t saying anything, but he looks like he agrees. He walks over to Crowley and takes some orange juice from the fridge. He smells of sweat and grass, and - very faintly - of his own blood. Crowley looks down, notices a slight graze on his calf, and does his best to look away.

“It is a terrible thing to separate an angel from his Grace.”

“Right. Forgot about that part,” says Crowley, forcing his attention back on Castiel, and, again there is that slight no in his eyes.

So, the Winchesters don’t know the source of his borrowed Grace. Interesting.

“Is it true some of your own survives? Did he tell you where it is?”

Sam pours himself some juice, drains it in one go and puts the empty glass in the sink.

“Cas is not telling us,” he says, and Crowley can read the inside of his head like a book, and, oh, you poor baby brother, trained to trust your elders and well aware you’re smarter than all of them put together. What a sweet, sweet conundrum. Behold the grudging loyalty, a house against itself divided.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with our celestial friend,” says Crowley, just so that Sam turns on him. Castiel looks miserable enough already. “You morons don’t have an ounce of sense between you - you’d want to butt in.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

And here is Dean, right on cue. He’s wearing the same clothes he was wearing the previous night - that hideous shirt, and jeans that look like he’s slept in them. Crowley can actually smell the booze on him even though they’re standing ten feet apart. Unlike Cas, Dean doesn’t look confused. He looks - harder, somehow. Crowley feels the exasperation mounting inside him like steam - does he have to do all the work here?

“What’s wrong with that, Squirrel-” he says, but he isn’t focusing on the conversation; he’s still watching curiously the way Dean is managing to stand very close to Castiel and yet not touch him at all, “-is that when an angel ingests Grace, he lights up. And since Castiel is swallowing back his own Grace, I’m guessing he’ll go nuclear. And that would make the both of you very, very dead. So just think about your problems, and let Cas take care of his own.”

“Oh, I think Cas is very good at that,” says Dean viciously, and then turns around and disappears.

Sam throws a questioning glance at Crowley, and then runs after his brother. They must be at the very end of the corridor when Sam catches up with him, but Crowley can still hear every word he says, and from the look on Castiel’s face, the same is true for the angel. They are not, after all, humans, even though the Winchesters tend to forget that.

“What’s up with you two lately?” Sam is saying. “You don’t talk to each other, you don’t look at each other, I don’t-”

“Stay out of it, Sammy.”

Sam sighs, and then his voice lightens up as he tries to joke. Crowley does the same when he’s out of his depth, but he knows it’s the wrong strategy around Dean, especially around this Dean, with his Mark and his rage and his deep-seated belief he deserves all of this.

“Come on, talk to me. Is there some sort of Destiel troub-”

The noise is so loud Castiel actually makes half a movement, as if ready to intervene, and Crowley raises his hand and signals him not to. Dean must have smacked Sam against the wall, but Sam can take it. He has the definite feeling that it's not a good idea to be near Dean at the moment.

“I fucking told you not to use that word,” hisses Dean, and then there’s the soft echo of his steps disappearing towards his room.

Next, Crowley hears a few choice curses from Sam, and then the useless yell - Dean has slammed a door already - the “I’m fed up with it. FED UP, Dean!” - and then Sam storms off as well. Crowley hopes he’ll do something for his grazed calf after his shower, because he’ll probably have to hang around them the whole day, and he doesn’t want to get distracted.

But first-

“Cas, what the fuck did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything,” says the angel, and now the tension is closer to the surface.

“He loves you!” says Crowley, exasperated. “You love him. And last night, thanks to my cunning and my selfless involvement, you both admitted as much. What happened after Dean got back here?”

“Nothing. We told him about Metatron, and then we had a conversation, and we went to sleep. It was quite late.”

“A conversation?”

“A conversation.”

“Bloody show me, won’t you?”

It’s probably a stupid idea, possibly the last stupid idea Crowley will ever have, and isn’t there a saying about cats and curiosity he should heed to? But, well, he’s past caring. Castiel is honourable, whatever his other faults, and has no reasons to harm him. Yet. Crowley opens his arms in invitation.

Castiel squirms for a few seconds - looks down, then to side; cocks his head, hears nothing (Moose still in the shower, a sulky silence from Dean’s room) - and he finally forces himself to walk up to the demon, puts two fingers on his old enemy’s forehead.

Crowley closes his eyes and almost drowns in the sudden wave of colours and shrill sounds. It’s like being inside a giant kaleidoscope- a kaleidoscope on crack - there’s light everywhere, halos of it, flashing from green to blue to yellow and back again. The internal monologue is starting to hurt his ears - he can understand bits of it, but Enochian is poison for his demon blood-

“Focus, you moron. I can’t see a damn thing,” he hisses, reaching up and closing a hand around Castiel’s wrist.

The colours fade slightly, and now Crowley is standing exactly where he was a second ago - in the bunker’s kitchen. He can make out Dean and Castiel sitting at the table, can see a mess of empty beer bottles on the counter behind them. The image is still a bit blurry, but, then again, Castiel is functioning on a half-drained battery; probably this is the best he can do. Crowley keeps his eyes closed and concentrates on the unfinished scene in front of him.

Dean takes a swig of beer, looks covertly at Cas. The angel is staring at the lightly-pulsating vial in his hands - Metatron’s Grace, thinks Crowley, and immediately starts to wonder where it has been stored. Angelic Grace always comes in handy.

“So, about before,” says Dean, and, oh boy, is this awkward. He clears his throat. “About what you said.”

“Yes, Dean.”

Castiel isn’t paying attention, Crowley can tell. He doesn’t blame him, either. He’s probably just seen the place Metatron hid his Grace in, and Crowley’s willing to bet there are all sort of tricky charms around it. Must be frustrating to be so close to one’s soul and essence and be unable to do a damn thing about it.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like that. Through Crowley, I mean.”

“Find out…?”

“Well.” Dean pauses, and Crowley is ready to smack the both of them. “What I said.”

“Oh. Don’t worry. I knew already.”

Ouch. So not the thing to say.

“You...knew?”

“I used to walk into your dreams, Dean. I was always aware of your feelings for me. I must admit that I find them confusing.”

Dean looks like he’s been slapped.

“Confusing?” he says.

Crowley hears the iron in his voice - hell, any idiot would - but Castiel’s focus is back on the vial.

“Human feelings are changeable,” he says, distractedly. “And sometimes it is hard for me to tell them apart. In the beginning, I thought I detected fear and lust, and also resentment; and then I decided I was reading you wrong. I do not think that fear and lust make a good combination, and why would you resent me when I had been the one to get you away from Alastair?”

Stop talking, stop talking bloody now, thinks Crowley, but he’s fully aware there is nothing he can do to change what’s going on. He knows this reality is just a memory, he can feel, a bit faintly, his real self - Castiel’s skin under his fingers, the angel’s touch against his forehead.

“It’s difficult to understand something so changeable,” Castiel goes on, still holding the vial as if it is the most precious thing in the whole world, “because angelic feelings are absolute.”

“No they’re not,” says Dean, sharply. “You told me yourself you had - doubts.”

“I wasn’t supposed to. It would have been better if I had not doubted.”

“Right. So what you said last night…”

Castiel finally looks up.

“There isn’t much I have done right since we first met. But I am still trying to honour my Father’s wishes, Dean. He created us to serve you and love you, and this is what I do. I have loved you since the day you were conceived in your mother’s womb, and I have loved you even when you were in Hell - forty years I fought to reach you, and my love for you sustained me. I thought you knew that.”

“You honour your father’s wishes,” repeats Dean, and Crowley can hear perfectly well that the word is not capitalized.

“Yes.”

There is a stretch of silence. Crowley waits with bated breath. Then-

“Goodnight, Cas.”

Dean gets up, makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet, grabs a bottle of whiskey and walks out of the kitchen.

There is a flash of colour-

And Crowley is standing in the kitchen again. He brings a hand to his mouth, tries not to throw up. The transition from memory to reality was abrupt. He looks up at Castiel and sees that the angel is pale - perhaps he should not have done this. The stolen Grace must be running low as it is. Castiel blinks and takes a step back, wrenching his hand from Crowley's grasp.

“You - are - a goddamn - moron,” Crowley says, as soon as he can safely open his mouth again, and closes the distance between them.

“I do not understand why Dean is upset,” says Castiel, stubbornly.

“You know, most of the time I am kind and loving and think you are faking this whole clueless, twatty look for some obscure strategic reason, but then you go and do something like this and I remember why I HATE ANGELS,” shouts Crowley, right in Castiel's face. “Good God, to think you people want to rule the world. Goddamn IDIOT.”

“I love Dean, and he loves me,” says Castiel, undeterred. “How can that be a problem?”

“Dean doesn’t give a damn about your angelic love for humanity! He wants something a bit more - personal, you sod.”

Castiel looks more puzzled than ever.

“My love for him is personal. I held his soul in my hands. I cherish every single part of him. I am sure he knows that.”

“Nobody cares about souls - Dean wants to have sex with you - how can you not see that?”

And the angel - the bloody angel hesitates. Crowley has never been sure about the angelic policy on lying, but he knows full well angels have lied to him before, and he can see it happening now, clear as day - the stoic look, the tight line of Castiel’s mouth.

“Angels do not-”

“Right,” says Crowley, because, really, he’s not going to stand here and allow this moron to finish his sentence.

“I do not-”

“Right,” Crowley says again. “So your little dalliance with that red-head was not-”

“I was human then. I do not experience those feelings anymore.”

“You mean you do not allow yourself to experience them.”

“I-” Castiel stops, scoffs in exasperation.

“I was there. You know, before. Before you lost your Grace. I saw the way you looked at him. Like he was the most precious thing in the universe.”

“He is,” says Castiel, “the Righteous Man. I have never seen a brighter soul than his.”

“That’s not what I meant. Enough with the goddamn souls, Cas. I saw you checking out his manly profile when you thought he wasn’t looking. Hell, you stared at him raking leaves for forty-five minutes - were you looking at his soul then?”

Castiel looks up, then away.

“I did not understand those feelings. I was not supposed to have those feelings. Human feelings are a dangerous weakness.”

“A bit late for that, isn’t it?”

There is a moment of silence, and then Crowley feels a sort of - of anger mounting in the bunker’s kitchen, wonders for a split second if he’s gone too far and he’s about to be blasted to smithereens, has a mere instant to realize he cannot use his powers inside this place, not fully, and then-

“Do you even remember what it was like to be human?” growls Castiel, and it’s like the last few years never happened, because here he is, a fully-fledged warrior of the Lord, soft and dangerous and vicious like a rusty knife. “Because I do. I was human, and I was alone - I was confused, I was in doubt, I was cold and hungry and it all hurt so much I wanted to die - and yet when Death came for me, I fought to stay alive - without knowing what I was doing - without any control over myself, over my actions, over my will and desires. You tell me I had sexual congress - I shared a bed with a woman I had never met before, I was blind and careless, I allowed her to take possession of my blade, and she used it to torture and kill me. So, yes - I want to feel what my Father ordered me to feel, and nothing more. I am not equipped to bear more. And why would I want to be? Human lives are-”

Crowley is still afraid, but he’s also angry, angrier than he’s been in a while. He feels the old resentment filling him like poison - he was born human, he died and was tortured, over and over, for years, until his soul lost all traces of humanity and he became a demon - and through all that, he never lost his capacity to understand what humans want, how they function, what they do for each other, and to each other - but there is nothing he can do about it now other than exploit it and profit from it, because he’s a goddamn demon, and here is an angel, a so-called creature of God - unlike him; unlike him - forever banned from the Grace of God because of a foolish choice he made when he was sixteen - love and forgiveness, sure, right - an angel who refuses to-

“You have no right,” he hisses. “You fucking coward. Of course humans are messy - of course humans suffer - your Righteous Man is suffering right bloody now, and you’re too much of a coward to do anything about it.”

“I cannot help Dean. Not like that. I cannot help Dean if I allow myself to be weakened by my love for him,” says Castiel, firmly, but there is something in his eyes, a fleeting hint of fear.

Crowley shakes his head.

“Don’t make this about him. Don’t you dare. This is about you, you spineless cunt. Do not stand there and tell me you have been honest with him. Do not dare tell me you do not desire him - angelic feelings, universal love - for shame.”

“I can protect him better if-”

“Dean doesn’t need your protection!”

They are shouting now, so it’s not a surprise, not really, when Sam walks in, still only half-dressed, a rifle in his hand.

“Crowley, step back,” he says, coming to a halt behind Castiel.

“You’re taking his side?”

Crowley is well aware he sounds like a four-year old girl, and he doesn't even care.

“I am not taking sides. I don’t know what you’ve been arguing about. I trust him, and I don’t trust you. That’s all there is to it. Now step back.”

Crowley looks from one to the other. He still feels furious, and more than that, he feels fed up with the whole thing. Bloody angels, bloody Winchesters-

“I’m washing my hands of you. All of you,” he spits. “Get out of my way, Moose.”

Sam steps aside, the rifle firmly pointed at him. Crowley can still smell the blood on him, and that makes him even angrier. How did he get into this mess in the first place? Team Free Will, as bloody if! A band of morons - nothing but trouble. How is it, he reflects, grinding his teeth, that a mother can be the most unreliable, untrustworthy, selfish and child-abusing bitch in the whole world, and yet she is always - bloody - right? Not fair. Not fair at all.

Chapter Text

If someone were to tell him his brother would die today, Sam would readily concede that feeling helpless, irritated and left out is really not a big deal. But Sam does not know how the day will unfold, and therefore all of that is a big deal. A big, uncomfortable deal, there’s the precise word for it: 'uncomfortable'.

It has been the most uncomfortable week of Sam’s life. And it turns out Sam has underestimated how annoying ‘uncomfortable’ is. With the life he’s had, he’s always chosen to focus on ‘painful’ and ‘threatening’ and ‘end-of-the-world crappy’. He would have gone for ‘uncomfortable’ any day - much better than the alternative, right? Well, actually - no. Not by a long stretch. Not that Sam wants to go back to other fun periods of his life - Lucifer stalking him, Dean being ripped to shreds by Hellhounds and the terrible high of demon blood pretty much top the list - definitely not. Not at all. But still, what is happening right now is not much better, because Dean is still cursed, still dying, actually, as is Cas, and on top of it all there is this thick layer of general unpleasantness and nobody seems to know anything about anything.

And Sam is fed up. Really, really fed up.

Mostly because Dean has attained unprecedented levels of bitchiness. He’s basically spent the past week cussing at Sam or drinking, or both. When he’s left his room, that is. He’s displayed zero interest in finding a cure, having any kind of human interaction or, as far as Sam can see, surviving at all.

And Sam hates him for it, not only because Dean is his brother and he loves him, but also for what this awakens in him - the viciously unwelcomed thought of what would happen if - because there is something very ugly living in the back of his mind and it’s whispering to him, and it is suggesting that his brother is the only thing keeping him, Sam, into this life; that without Dean, he could become the person he’s always imagined himself to become. The thing is dark and slimy, and it knows exactly where Sam could continue his studies, apply for a Ph.D.; hell, it can describe in puzzling detail the layout of his future office, the shiny plaque on the door (Professor S. Winchester). Sam hates the thing. He really does. And with Dean acting the way he is, well-

As for Cas - Cas has been in a bad mood as well, though he’s tried to be decent around Sam. He’s reverted back to angel mode - one-line sentences, smity eyes, downturned mouth - and he’s shrugged off his humanity one hundred per cent. No more puppy dog looks, no more stealing candy from the kitchen, no more half-smiles and occasional Star Wars quoting (always at the wrong moment, because this is something about human culture that Cas still doesn’t get). No, having him around has been no comfort whatsoever, because Cas just spent the entire week in the bunker’s library, practicing his best impression of a pod person.

Sam has stopped asking him about Metatron, and about his Grace. Talking to Cas when he doesn't want to talk to you is like trying to communicate with a particularly retarded pigeon. Or an owl, maybe. Something feathery, uncooperative and potentially, surprisingly badass.

And what Sam is hating the most about all of this is not even the loneliness and the cold waves of disappointment and resentment surging up from all sides - what gets to him, always, is this feeling of being left out. He used to feel that way as a kid, a lot, because he never managed to attend the same school for very long, and every couple of months he’d walk inside a new classroom and he’d be completely unaware of everything going on - who was nice, who wasn’t, who was crushing on whom, who was likely to try and steal his lunch money. And he’d always liked studying, really, but that had been another reason to worry - would the teacher start on a subject he knew nothing about? Would the other kids make fun of him because of it? Sam would spend hours worrying himself sick before starting in a new place, would stay up all night going over his books, repeating past lessons, fretting about what everyone would be like. Doing his best not to wonder how it would feel to have a real house, a doggie, and a Christmas tree in December. He’d learned it was better not to ask these questions, but he could not stop himself from imagining this other life, and what it would be like.

All in all, it had been a very long childhood.

And Sam isn’t stupid - he realizes that his love for research and his compulsion to know everything are partly rooted in his need to help out that child; he knows that sometimes he overdoes it. He knows he should get over those stupid memories, knows the fight Dean and Cas are having right now has nothing to do with him, but he’s still upset about it. His brother has been the one good thing in his life since - since forever, and the fact that Dean is shutting him out is really starting to get old.

So, all in all, it’s a good surprise when Dean comes out of his room one afternoon, almost clean and almost shaved, and pokes his head into the library.

“Let’s go,” he says, curtly, and Sam is so used to respond to this command that he stands up and grabs his phone before stopping in his tracks.

“Go where?”

“After Cas.”

“Wait, isn’t Cas-”

Sam looks around, and realizes, for the first time, that Cas’ desk is empty. All the books he was looking at have been stacked in a corner in a neat pile. The angel is gone.

“Where would he go?”

“It’s Thursday,” says Dean.

Which, Sam is about to point out, isn’t really an answer to anything. But Dean ignores him, walks on, takes his own phone from his pocket, fiddles with it.

“Come on, then.”

“Wait, what-”

“Come on, Sammy.”

Sam stares, but his brother is not even looking at him - he’s already out of the room, and Sam, cursing under his breath, follows him.

“Do you even know where Cas is?”

They are in the garage now, and Dean actually smiles - a very small, very distorted smile, but still - when he sees the Impala waiting for them in the corner.

“Parental control,” he says, showing his phone to Sam and moving to open the door. “I put a tracking app on Cas’ phone.”

“You - what?”

“Look, he’s been weird and fidgety this last week-”

“I don’t know how you would have noticed that - did you install cameras, as well? Because I haven’t seen the two of you in the same room for days-”

“-and it’s obvious what’s going on - he needs to get his Grace back-”

“Yes, and Crowley said it’s a very bad idea to be with him when he does-”

“Fuck Crowley,” says Dean, almost pleasantly.

He slides into his beloved car, starts the engine, and Sam has to hurry to the passenger side and climb in. He has the definite feeling Dean wouldn’t wait for him, not for this, whatever this is. As they drive out into the fading sunlight, Sam steals a worried glance at his brother, then has to do a double-take. Dean is smiling. It’s not a happy smile, or anything, but still. And in a way, it’s not even unexpected, because Dean is like a dog, or a baby (lately, a very scary and tantrum-prone baby) - just take him for a drive, and he’ll be fine. And, really, Dean seems - well, not cheerful, but almost functional.

Until the illusion is shattered, that is. Until Dean says, still in that artificial, pleasant voice, “Stop staring at me,” and Sam has to forcibly relax his hand on his knees because his first response to that kind of voice is to go get a shotgun.

And since shooting Dean is not actually an option, no matter how much of an annoying jerk Dean has been the whole week, Sam takes a deep breath and goes back to their current problem.

“Of course. Fuck Crowley,” he says, warily. “So, where are we headed?”

“Believe it or not, not very far from here. Remember that big-ass church they had to close down because the roof was leaking?”

“Why would I?”

Dean scoffs.

“And you’re supposed to be the smart one. Rule number one, Sammy - when something weird happens in your neighborhood, check it out.”

“Well, excuse me, but I’ve had more important things to do than checking out leaking roofs. Things like, finding a cure for my brother?”

“And how is that going?” says Dean, and, again, this is that pleasant voice implying he’s two seconds away from punching someone.

“Just - let’s not go there, okay? Just tell me what’s going on with Cas.”

“Well, funny thing about this church,” says Dean, drumming his fingers lightly on the wheel. “They keep calling in carpenters and city council employees, but no matter what they do, the next day there’s a pond emerging from the floor.”

“A pond?”

“Yep. I’ve seen a picture - very pretty.”

“Pret-”

Sam shakes his head, tries to clear it.

“But where is it coming from?”

“They don’t know. It’s just there. Guess when this started, though.”

“You’re not saying-”

“The day the angels fell.”

“So you think-”

“Yes. What else? Anna said lost Grace would look like something natural, right? And our common friend,” he adds, with something of an unnecessary emphasis on the word ‘friend’, “is the angel of tears, isn’t he? Didn’t you check all that crap when we first met him?”

“He is. So, water. Makes sense. So you think - and he’s there now?”

“I think he still doesn’t know how to get it back, but he can’t wait. Because he’s dying, maybe. Or he’s just an idiot. Hard to tell.”

“Dean-” starts Sam, but then Dean turns to look at him, and Sam doesn’t finish his sentence.

Outside the window, the day is all shades of glorious. Mostly sunny, with a couple of fluffy white clouds, the kind you could imagine angels perching on, if you were not a Winchester and you could still imagine angels as plump naked children with harps. Instead, they are dicks, as Dean would say. And, sometimes, incredibly badass and loyal dicks, with the right amount of innocence and sass and eyes so blue you could drown in. Because, well, Sam is not actually stupid. He always had his doubts about this, and he heard enough of Crowley's and Cas’ conversation to fill in the blanks. So, well, he’s kind of guessed that for all his heterosexual pride and distrust of supernatural beings, Dean has gone and fallen for an angel. Not that, Dean being Dean, one can be sure of anything. But, well, one can guess. And here, here there is a horrible part of Sam that actually feels vindicated, because, well, all that bitchiness about Ruby and yet - and yet nothing, because Dean was right about Ruby, amends Sam immediately, taking control of his own thoughts again with a pang of shame, because Ruby was an evil, evil bitch. Cas, on the other hand, is Cas. He and Dean have been sharing this ‘deep bond’ for a while now. There has been a lot of staring over the years. From both sides. But, well, judging from last week’s conversation, Cas doesn’t want to go any further. Maybe he doesn’t experience feelings in the way humans do. Maybe he can’t have sex, for some reason. Or won’t.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asks, to distract himself from this train of thought, which feels disturbing and disloyal.

“We go in, we save the angel, we come out again,” says Dean, and he actually turns the radio on.

Sam turns it off again.

“Can you be a bit more specific?”

“Look, this Grace thing is bound to be hidden, somehow. There will be danger involved, because the world is bitchy that way. And Cas can be pretty useless on his own,” he adds, almost viciously. “So we go in and bail him out.”

And, again, all Sam can do is to keep his eyes glued on the landscape in front of them and keep his mouth shut, because really - how much of an idiot can Dean actually be? Sam knows what his brother is like - that cocky self-confidence, and his Tourette attitude to every danger and every monster they face, but - well, before he was actually smart about it, he would - plan, or something. Sam is so good in keeping his mouth shut he can actually feel his teeth grinding. Because, well, Dean has been a bit weirder (a lot weirder) since this whole Mark thing, but what he’s suggesting is basically suicide - to get right in the middle of some magical protection they know nothing about - to walk in on an angel who could blow up at any second-

“Got a problem with that, Sammy?”

“No,” says Sam, but it feels wrong, just plain wrong to encourage Dean, his brother, in this reckless suicidal mission, and he feels the right words under his tongue, But we should stop somewhere, do some research first, find out what is actually-

And before he can voice any of that, the wind raises, and all the fluffy white clouds suddenly stretch and darken, and they turn into stormy ugly things.

Dean leans forward, a frown on his face.

And then the noise starts, something a normal person could mistake for wind, but Sam knows immediately this is not natural - it’s a lonely, desolate kind of cry, and it just-

“What the hell?” says Dean, and he looks almost scared.

“Actually, no. That’s what angels sound like,” says a voice from behind them, and Dean almost swerves off the road, then glances up at the rear-view mirror, and Sam turns around in shock, and Crowley is just sitting there, as though he belongs, looking as bored and elegant as he always does.

“You know, when they are somehow - indisposed,” he adds, when he sees them both staring at him.

Dean goes back to their previous speed. Which was too fast. He’s still glancing up at the mirror every few seconds, and he’s about to be as angry as he can be.

“Keep talking,” he says, flatly, as if he actually expected Crowley to show up, and now Sam is uncomfortable, because how can Crowley just pop in whenever he feels like it (has Dean actually scratched off the demon-banishing sigils?) and since when are they actually friends with demons, that never ends well, and Crowley hates him, he must, after the blood injections and-

“Just keep driving. I’m sure you know where you’re going.”

“Have you cleared out the town?” Dean asks, pressing his foot on the gas, and, again, Sam just wants to jump in because what the hell?

“I have. You owe me for that, by the way. Keeping an eye out for stray angels is my job, but evacuating more than a thousand people is not.”

“Send me the bill,” says Dean roughly. “How bad is it?”

“Um, Dean?”

“The situation is...complicated. We’ll need to take a closer look.”

“Dean?”

“Why haven’t you already?”

“What part of ‘not my job’ can’t you understand?”

The wind is louder now, is starting to touch something inside Sam, like there’s something really, really wrong going on here. And the look on his brother’s face is just-

“Dean, what’s going on?”

“Shut it, Sammy. Crowley, I don’t care what your job is. Just go on ahead and find out how we can stop this.”

There is a loud sigh from the backseat, and then silence. The demon is gone.

“I called Crowley, okay? Before I came to get you,” says Dean, aggressively, his knuckles practically bloodless on the wheel. “Because I knew Cas was going to do something stupid. And he has. He’s trying to undo this - this thing, this spell, whatever the fuck it is - on his own, and-”

“Okay. Okay. I am not saying we shouldn’t help, I’m saying - Dean, Crowley?”

But Dean looks downright murderous now, and Sam decides to just shut up, thank you very much, because he actually likes his small intestine right where it is, all curled up nice and easy inside his belly. So he looks out of the window instead, watches the open countryside become a small town dotted with picket-fenced houses, tries to ignore the mounting darkness around them.

And Crowley was right - Dean seems to know exactly where he’s going. He gets them to the church on the first try, like he’s been here before, and when they get out of the car Sam sees the church is not really a church, it looks huge, sort of a cathedral, all big and tall and slightly run-down around the edges. And there’s something else he sees straight away: the town is, indeed, empty. Nothing is moving. At all. It’s actually creepy - there are no birds, no stray dogs, nothing at all. He turns around again with a slight frown and sees that Dean and Crowley are standing in front of the church. The huge wooden doors are closed, and Dean is pushing against them, to no avail.

Crowley does not glance at Sam as he joins them. He keeps his eyes fixed on Dean, and he speaks very, very slowly, as if repeating himself.

“It’s not very sophisticated. Just a tiny bit of blood magic. It’s runes, and someone has to step inside the circle and bleed on them to get them open. That’s all there is to it.”

“Bleed on them,” says Dean, and, again, Sam feels like he’s missing half of the conversation.

“So what is wrong, then? If it’s so simple?”

And, well, foolish to even feel this way, but here is Junior Prom all over again, because Crowley actually answers Sam’s question, but he ignores him; keeps looking at Dean, instead, in that careful, calculated way.

“It has to be human blood. Cas’ Grace has been so close to failing him completely, he probably thought he was as close to a human as he was ever going to be. Or maybe he’s just as much as a moron as I always thought and he decided to wing it. I really wouldn’t know. He’s your angel, after all,” he adds, and now he’s speaking directly to Dean, and his brother’s face has gone from stony to downright scary.

“Open that door, Crowley.”

“Are you sure?” says the demon, and these simple words, and the way they’re spoken, open a flood in Sam’s mind.

He’s been so stupid. So blind. Because all of a sudden it’s perfectly clear, all of it. The spell is activated by human blood, but, what did Crowley say, Cas will go nuclear when he gets his Grace back. Which means that whoever steps inside the circle isn’t expected to come out again. Such a spell would never work on a demon, of course, but an angel would think twice before sacrificing another life to save their own, and Cas would never consider the idea at all. Cas would rather die in there. And his brother-

Sam is such an idiot. He’s been guessing, tiptoeing around the issue, telling himself he’s gotten it wrong. He’s been so sure, so sure his brother would never look at a man, not like that, that he’d managed to brush off literally years of longing looks and broken-off conversations between Dean and his personal angel. Profound bond. Right.

Instinctively, he puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“There must be another way,” he says, and he has to raise his voice, because the wind is howling louder now, and still there is pain at heart of it, plain, raw, violent pain.

“Open the fucking door, Crowley,” growls Dean, and the demon puts his fingers against the wood and just pushes, and the whole gigantic thing comes off its hinges and caves inwards.

The church is a mess. All the benches have been blasted against the walls, the tall stone pillars are scorched and blackened, and in the middle of it all-

Sam blinks.

Cas is on the floor on his hands and knees, and all around him there is a complex arabesque of glowing letters. They criss-cross and dance around each other, glowing a bit in the gloomy room, and beyond the borders of the circle there is water - a large pool of clear blue water, lapping at the letters, trying to get in. Cas’ Grace.

“Cas!”

Dean starts forward, and Sam is about to follow him when Crowley places a hand in front of his chest.

“You touch that water, you die.”

“What? But then we have to-”

“Just you, Moose. Dean will be fine. For now.”

Sam ducks around him and follows Dean, remaining a few steps behind him. He sees his brother reach the edge of the pond, sees him hesitate.

“Cas!” he calls out again, and the angel raises his head, very slowly, seems to notice them for the first time.

“Stay back,” he says weakly, and Sam can’t believe this is really his voice - it is barely there now, the pitch much lower than his usual sandpaper growl.

As Cas turns his head and looks at them, Sam sees he’s bleeding. The lower half of his face is completely red with it, and there streaks of blood on his shirt and coat.

“No chance,” bites back Dean, but he eyes the water a bit warily, as if unsure about what he should do next.

Then, before Sam can think about anything to say, Dean toes his shoes and socks off, and steps into the pond.

Nothing happens.

From Crowley’s cryptic warning, Sam was expecting much worse.

“What now?” he asks the demon, but Crowley doesn’t answer. He’s got this look on his face, like he’s doing math in his head, and at the same time he gives off a weird vibe - a twisted, sorrowful wave of complicated feelings.

“Dean, don’t-”

But Dean has reached the edges of the circle now, and he pays no heed to Cas’ weak order, and something in his voice fills Sam with urgent dread.

“What happens? If Dean goes through with it?”

“The spell breaks. That’s what happens. Aren’t you the smart one?”

“I meant - aren’t we too close? If Cas recovers his Grace? Didn’t you say-”

Sam falls silent and they both watch the scene unfolding in front of them. Dean is still walking towards Cas, a bit gingerly, trying to avoid, Sam guesses, the glowing letters on the floor. And the angel is still kneeling, but his eyes are following Dean’s movements, and he’s taking rapid, shallow breaths. Now they are closer to him, Sam has no difficulty connecting the weird wind around them to Cas - no trouble understanding exactly that what he’s hearing is the angel’s profound distress, his physical pain. He watches in horrified fascination as Dean gets down on his knees next to Cas, passes his fingers, once, very lightly, through the angel’s hair.

“Always the last to find out things, eh, Moose?”

Sam can’t even answer. There is such beauty, such love in the simple gesture - he’s not going to cheapen it by getting into a fight with Crowley. And because of the jumbled mess of his own feelings, he doesn’t fully realize what will happen next until things do start to happen and it’s way too late to stop them.

Dean unsheathes his knife and turns back to look at them.

“You keep my brother safe, you hear me? You owe me that, Crowley.”

“What? Dean - wait!”

And Dean looks at him, very fleetingly, and he smiles, the first real smile Sam has seen on his face for weeks, because this is not the childish, alcohol-fuelled joy from last week, and it’s not his brother’s burger-smile, his pie-smile. This is pure, clean love, it’s a smile that says, Everything will be alright, and Sam starts to run towards the runic circle in front of him, because it is not true, nothing will be alright, not when Dean is about to-

And Sam is tripped and falls down, Crowley crashing down hard on top of him. He tries to fight him off, but it’s like hitting a wall. He shouts and swears and turns his head to look back at Dean - he sees the naked blade in his brother’s hand-

“Hang on, Moose. This is going to hurt.”

“What-”

Crowley doesn’t even bother opening his shirt: he knows exactly where the tattoo is. He simply puts his hand on Sam’s chest and just pushes, and there’s a flash of scorching heat, and then the horrible, horrible smell of burning flesh - and Sam yells out in pain.

“Don’t fight it,” says the demon, and Sam has barely a second to react before red smoke erupts from Crowley’s mouth and everything disappears.

It’s like being knocked out - there is pain, and darkness, and perfect stillness, and then Sam blinks and finds he’s standing exactly in the same place - he sees the church around them, Dean and Cas in the middle of it - and Crowley, standing very close to him and managing to look a bit bored with it all.

Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. Things seems sharper now, clearer. The colours around him are different, and the sound in the wind now makes complete sense - it’s still not words, or anything like that, but Sam can now understand exactly how and why the spell is destroying Cas, and he recoils at the strength and maliciousness of it. Keeping his eyes on his brother, he tries and fails to understand what the hell is going on.

“What did you - did it not work?”

“Of course it bloody worked. Who do you take me for?”

Crowley points behind him, and when Sam turns he sees a second Crowley sprawled out on the floor, a blank, unseeing look on his face.

“Is this - how can you be - are we inside my mind, then?”

The demon cocks his head to one side, seems to consider the matter.

“Yes and no. It has to do with how the universe is shaped and how your soul’s electrical impulses travel through it. Or them, if you accept the chaotic inflation theory. Personally, I dislike the name, but as a theory it goes some way towards explaining why our joint consciousnesses can withstand whatever an angel can throw at us.”

This is so completely surreal, Sam can’t even-

“What?” says Crowley, and now he looks offended. “I had some free time in the 1950s, and happened to swing by Princeton to see what the fuss what about. I ended up living with Hugh and Charles for a bit, wrote a few papers with them, but then I got bored. Politics is much more down my alley.”

And now Sam changes his mind again, because suddenly he would give anything, anything, to get back to just ‘uncomfortable’. Suddenly ‘uncomfortable’ is perfectly fine - hanging around the bunker, Cas’ familiar presence in the library, Dean emerging for more whiskey every few hours - all that was just great compared to what’s going on now.

“Hugh Everett and Charles - Charles Misner?” he says weakly, because it’s much easier to focus on this, on the out-of-the-blue, weird-as-hell revelation that Crowley was in Princeton working on multiverse theory with two of the best physicists in history, anything other than-

“Dean, it’s too dangerous,” whispers Cas.

It’s barely there, not even a voice anymore, but Sam can now hear the way Crowley, freaking Crowley does, so Cas’ words carry easily in the darkening, cavernous room. “You could die.”

“So bring me back,” says Dean quietly.

“Something could go wrong. I could be weakened, incapable to revive you.”

“I don’t care, Cas.”

“Dean, I-”

And now Dean and Cas are looking at each other, and, really, Sam doesn’t know how he ever mistook this for anything else. From where he stands, he can only see Cas’ face, but there is something in those blue eyes, almost shining out of them -and then Cas reaches out and pulls Dean down into a kiss, a proper thing, a passionate thing - there is a tangle of hands, and their faces are so close together it looks like it must hurt. And despite everything, Sam still stares when he realizes that Dean - Dean is freaking kissing him back. They will, Sam decides, have a conversation about this, after, at some point, because there is no way Sam is not going to have a conversation about this with his brother - they’ve been together, they’ve slept in the same room, for all their lives - how could he not know that Dean-

“Need some bleach for your eyes, Moose?” asks Crowley from behind him, and Sam can hear the smile in his voice.

“You knew?” he asks him, but somehow he’s not even surprised.

“You didn’t?”

“I - I suspected. Sometimes. Sort of. But Dean has always been so-”

Sam looks for words and can’t find them. And he doesn’t want to stand here and talk feelings with the King of Hell, anyway, because Dean was always a sneaky bastard - he’s taken advantage of the kiss to cut himself without Cas noticing, and as soon as his blood drips on the runes the wind roars and stops, and the water rushes inward, coils around the two of them like a tidal wave-

An explosion of blinding white light, and Sam falls back against the pillar behind him, hits his head, blacks out for a second, and then he smells sulphur, a big, strong flare of sulphur, and he starts coughing.

“Is that you? Are you hurt?” he asks, turning around, reaching towards Crowley.

The demon is kneeling next to him. He seems a bit stunned, like he hit his head as well.

“I’m touched,” he says Crowley, and Sam still can’t read the blank look on his face, but his voice - he sounds - he’s trying to sound annoyed, but he sounds - awed, there is no other word for it. “That wasn’t me, he adds. I think it was - I think it was the Mark.”

“The Mark?”

“The Mark of Cain has a demonic presence, a life of its own,” says Crowley, a bit distractedly. “If Dean’s been hit hard enough, angelic Grace would melt it off him.”

Crowley’s words seems to take a long time to reach him. Sam can understand the only reason he’s survived the explosion is the fact he’s sharing his body (his soul?) with Crowley, but his mind refuses the take the next step.

“Hard enough?” he hears himself say.

The light fades, but the smell of sulphur still lingers, and just underneath there is the fainter trace of burned grass. The silence is so profound and complete, everything so still, that for the first time, Sam notices that neither Crowley nor Cas are breathing - and, as he realizes that, he becomes aware of the deep, deafening silence coming from his brother. Because Dean is lying on the floor, one arm reaching out towards Cas, his head thrown back - Sam can see the side of his neck, and there is no pulse there - Dean is - Dean is-

And before Sam can think about anything, before the huge wave cresting behind him can come down and drown him, there is a roaring yell of pain and loss, and the huge cathedral fills with light once again. Forgetting that he is not supposed to look, Sam shifts his gaze to Cas, and he sees the angel changing and growing before his eyes. The familiar silhouette of Jimmy Novak is still kneeling on the floor, its trenchcoat and blue tie looking ludicrously out of place now, because behind it, or maybe from it, a pillar of light is rising. It explodes out of Jimmy Novak’s body, it twists and turns in agony, and Sam has to cover his ears when the booming sound of desperate yearning gets so loud it will surely be heard from miles around them, flatten every tree and every house in a fifteen-mile radius. So Sam covers his ears, not that it does him any good, but he can’t tear his gaze away from the wondrous sight - it’s the most beautiful, awe-inspiring, and bloodcurdlingly frightening thing he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he knows, he feels it in his bones, that he will never see anything like this again. This, he knows, is the unfolding of Cas’ true form. Blinding light, huge wings which fill the entire cathedral with wind and thunder, and a gigantic body, a hundred feet tall - Sam can’t make out the lines of it, it’s way too bright, but he sees he’s still crouching, kneeling over his brother, the wings coming down the shield his body-

“He’s losing control,” says Crowley, gritting his teeth.

Like Sam, he’s staring at the figures in front of him, though he’s brought a hand up, in front of his face, and he’s shielding his eyes.

Sam can’t react to his words - too much is happening, and there is such divine grace in the angel in front of him that Sam can’t do anything, can’t really think, he can only stay where he is and wait to be blown away by the sheer strength of it.

“He’s losing control,” repeats Crowley. “He will bring down the damn roof on us.”

Crowley points upwards, then glances at Sam, sighs in exasperation, crawls closer to him and grabs his chin, forcing him to look up, up towards the beams of the roof, half cracked and filled with light.

“What - what happened?” Sam manages to stammer and he closes his hand on Crowley’s shoulder, trying to wake up, to ground himself.

“He couldn’t bring Dean back. Your brother’s soul is beyond his reach, and he’s going crazy with the pain of it. Stupid moron,” he adds, as an afterthought.

“So Dean is - he’s really-”

Sam cannot finish this sentence. He knew this was a possibility, he’s known this was a possibility since he was twelve and he saw a vampire sinking his teeth in his brother’s neck, and Dean dying, the curse of the Mark, that’s all he’s been thinking about for days, weeks, but still-

“Not necessarily,” says Crowley, a bit shiftily.

And just like that, the spell is broken. As it happens during the worst, most difficult hunts, when he feels close to the brink, Sam is able to focus, push everything in the background. He’s still aware of the figure of light behind him, feels its divine presence in every inch of his body and soul, but he turns his face to the demon in front of him and sets his jaw.

“What do you mean?”

“You can make a deal. With me. Right now.”

Dean would kill him, Sam knows this. He’s certain of it. If there’s one thing he knows about his brother, this is it - what’s dead stays dead. No more deals with demons. But this is not just about death, thinks Sam, this is about giving his brother a chance to fully live, and even more than that - there is something heart-wrenchingly wrong about how it all went down - Sam knows full well angels have a tendency to be dicks, that in a way, they are no different from demons - but, all the same, it doesn’t matter who they are and why they act the way they do - now he’s been blessed to see Cas’ true form, there is something else that Sam knows with absolute certainty: this pain devouring him has to stop. Angels were not supposed to feel, to experience loss, and if Sam doesn’t do anything, this - losing Dean - it will destroy Cas, burn him to the ground. And God would never forgive Sam for allowing this to happen. Never. Hell, Sam would never forgive himself.

“What do you want?”

“You both can live your lives, I promise you that. I won’t come after your souls, I won’t kill you or harm you, and I won’t claim you for Hell after you’re dead. I’ll leave you free to make your own choices.”

That’s no answer at all, and Sam asks it again, aggressively, hurriedly.

“What do you want?”

Crowley hesitates, looks sideways.

“I want your blood,” he says, bluntly.

“My - my blood? How would that work?”

“We don’t have much time,” spits Crowley, pointing at the scene unfolding in front of them. “It will not harm you, I can promise you that. Can you trust me?”

And this is a stupid question, isn’t it, because the answer is, the answer must be, no - no, I can never trust you, because you’re a demon, you’re the King of Hell, and it’s your job to cut me open and flay me alive. And it’s right where it should be, on the tip of Sam’s tongue. It really is. But then he makes a mistake - he looks into Crowley’s eyes, and suddenly there, right there, is the other side of it all - every time Crowley has saved their lives, how he healed Bobby, and he tried to stop Cas from blowing himself up, and mostly, mostly the way he looks at Dean, and even, sometimes, at Sam himself, that long-suffering, fond look. Crowley’s had thousands of opportunities to kill them both, and he’s never done so. Crowley has protected them from his own kind; his own blood. And Sam knows he has bad instincts, knows demons are his destiny and his weakness, but he’s not ready - he will never be ready - to lose Dean.

“And you will bring him back?” he says, roughly.

“I will. Come on, Sam.”

It’s the way Crowley uses his name, and it could be a salesman’s trick, it may very well be, in fact, the first trick of the book, but Sam doesn’t care. His instincts are bad, but his heart has always been in the right place, and that will have to be enough.

“Yes,” he says, “Do it,” and he reaches out, fists his hands in Crowley’s shirt, closes the distance between them and crushes his lips against the demon’s.

It feels weird, of course it does - the beard against his skin, the low chuckle, the slow smile. Crowley puts one hand behind Sam’s head, almost gently, teases his mouth open, nibbles his lips; and when he licks them, only just, Sam shakes his head and wrenches himself free.

“That’s far enough,” he says, his heart beating fast.

“Sorry. Demon,” answers Crowley, smiling widely; and then, keeping a firm hold on Sam’s arm, he turns around, starts to get up.

“OI!” he shouts, but there is no reason for him to, because the first, faint moan from Dean is enough to change everything.

Before Sam can blink, there is no more wind, no more light. There is only Cas, kneeling on the floor, reaching out, tentatively, towards Dean, and Sam hears his brother’s voice, very soft and a bit rough.

“Was that you, with all the yelling? I thought I’d asked you to keep the volume down, Cas.”

“Moron,” says Crowley, almost fondly, as Cas reaches out, touches Dean’s face with a shaky hand, lets it fall again. “Should have gone in for a kiss. No sense of timing. At all.”

“Speaking of which,” says Sam, and he gets up as well, turns around, because what is happening between Dean and his angel feels very, very private, “You should get out.”

“Should I?”

“Now, Crowley.”

“You’re no fun,” pouts the demon, and Sam almost blacks out, staggers, and the next second he’s himself again - weak and shaken, but whole.

He steadies himself against the pillar and looks down at Crowley.

“Care to explain the details now?”

“Let’s get out of here first. All this excitement - I feel I need a glass of something.”

“Um-”

“Stop fretting, Moose. It’s a win-win situation, really, when you think about it. On the long run, you won’t have any of Azazel’s blood left inside you, and I - I will probably become a bit stronger, and bit more human. A good scenario for everybody, all in all.”

Sam is about to ask why on earth Crowley would want to become more human, but just then Crowley turns away from him again, looks at the two figures hugging on the church floor, and Sam keeps his mouth shut. Demons can’t love, not fully; Ruby had told him as much. And maybe it didn’t matter to her, but Crowley is not Ruby. He’s much smarter, for one. Maybe, possibly, and this is the dark and slimy thing in Sam’s mind talking, only now it’s not dark or slimy anymore -it’s just this fluffy, warm feeling, because everything is alright with the world, surely, and there could be even a possibility, Sam muses, to grab a beer with Crowley, discuss Hugh Everett’s theories properly with him (God knows Dean is useless for this, and even Cas can never quite grasp the point of things) - there’s this paper which has been sitting in a folder of Sam’s laptop, collecting dust. It’s about Purgatory, really, but has been phrased as a research on ‘the moral implications of a Tegmark-model multiverse’. It could become a good proposal for a Ph.D., with the right addenda and revisions.

“Another victory for Team Free Will,” says Crowley, dripping sarcasm, but there is a certain softness on his face as he looks at Cas and Dean slowly getting up, unwilling to let go of each other’s hands.

“What do you, say, matching t-shirts too much?” he adds, turning towards Sam.

“Let’s go grab that drink,” says Sam trying, and failing, to sound stern and distant. “I’ll buy the first round.”