Chapter Text
"Angels...they're falling."
And so they were. Thin beams of shining light, descending like meteors from the stormy black clouds that hung in the overcast sky, both beautiful and frightening.
Sam didn't know what the hell it meant.
A shudder ripped through his chest, and he sagged against Dean, boneless. Even though he hadn't gone through with rendering Crowley mortal, his very blood still burned, as if he'd been incinerated from the inside out. His head throbbed in a continuous beat with his heart, his limbs were Jell-o. His eyes blurred with tears. He could barely think through the agony.
Dean supported Sam, guiding him around the back of the Impala, then carefully laid him down in the backseat.
"Sammy?" Dean patted his cheek. Sam tried to focus in on his brother as best as he could. "Sam, just stay with me, okay? We're gonna get you help, I promise. Everything's gonna be fine."
"You d-don't know that," Sam managed, punctuating his statement with a haggard cough. A trickle of blood leaked down his chin. "You can't." He grabbed Dean's sleeve, his grip white-knuckled, unwilling to let Dean go, not now.
Not when the sky was falling.
"I can," Dean insisted, removing Sam's hand from his arm and squeezing it tightly in his own. "You hear me? I can. I'm not gonna let you die on me." Dean squeezed his hand once more before releasing it and making for the driver's seat. Before he could slide in, however, Sam remembered that they had a prisoner inside of the dilapidated church.
"You, me—we deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved! I just want to be loved..."
"Crowley," Sam choked, half-sitting up before collapsing back against the seat. "Go get Crowley. We can't leave him there."
"Like hell we can't!" Dean responded sharply, turning around to stare disbelievingly at Sam. "We're not taking that douchebag along for the ride, Sam. You didn't complete the trial—not that I'm complaining, but that means he's still the same immortal, evil son of a bitch he was when we dragged him in there. He's still Crowley."
"He's g-got my blood inside of him," Sam protested, voice trembling. "You didn't see him in there, Dean...part of him is human, part of him is...it's me. He's my responsibility." He knew he wasn't making much sense, but he had to convince Dean to bring Crowley with them. His foggy mind couldn't fully grasp why, but it had to be done.
"You're not responsible for his demon ass!"
"Dean, please," he pleaded weakly. He didn't know why it suddenly mattered, but as long as he had a say, Crowley was coming with them. "Please, just...just go back and get him."
Dean watched Sam for a long moment. Sam was half-sure that his brother would deny his request, but finally, Dean relented with a stiff nod, slamming the driver's side door shut before heading back towards the church. Sam let out a pent up breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding, and then let himself fade into blissful darkness.
If ever there was a time to hate the Winchesters, it was now.
Unfortunately, Crowley only had so much malice within him, and all of it was currently directed at himself, rendering him unable to fantasize about force-feeding the denim-clad nightmares their own innards, more's the pity.
Guilt. Remorse. Sorrow. Self-loathing. Pain—pain on a level he'd never experienced in the entirety of his long life, even after having been tortured by Hell's former best. He felt like someone had poured hot lava into his chest. His eyes were stinging with heat, and tears trailed down his cheeks, irritating his bruised and lacerated skin from where Abaddon had beaten him.
Hundreds of faces flashed through his mind.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Demons.
Monsters.
All dead—or worse—by his hand.
My God, what have I become?
He'd reveled in screams and bathed in blood, and he'd loved every damn minute of it. Bodies had writhed under his flames and blades, and he'd just laughed. He'd stolen, murdered, tortured—he felt bile rise in his throat at the vivid recollections playing out in his mind—he'd done whatever benefited him, no matter the cost, no matter how vile. He had paved his way to the Black Throne of Hell with the bodies of any who dared stand in his way.
At the time, he'd felt nothing other than cold, sadistic satisfaction. He was winning, after all. He was the apex predator. He cared for nothing but power and possession and the rush they provided. The ends justified the means, didn't they? As long as he got what he desired, all those trampled on the way were just casualties of a greater good. His own greater good, of course.
He was a demon. Icy. Unfeeling. Ruthless. Perfect. And now...
The spectacular remorse that gripped him surpassed all he had suffered in Hell. The storm inside of him that made him clench his hands so tightly that his fingernails were creating deep divots that drew blood, that suffocated him, scourging from the inside out—that was torture. Far more potent than any tool he'd every used.
Holy mother of sin, the things I've done...
"Time to go."
Crowley jumped in the confines of the chair, the almost-throne he'd been trapped in for the past eight hours. He raised his eyes, only to find Dean Winchester towering over him. Squirrel had his arms crossed, his comically shapely jaw set in a firm, rigid line. He hadn't even heard the hunter enter the chapel, so wrapped up in his own misery as he was.
"Go?" he repeated hoarsely. He had dimly overheard the boys' melodramatic breakdown as to whether Moose should finish the trials or not, but he'd hardly been in a state to participate. But why would they free him? Why not just leave him here to rot for eternity, or just so easily kill him? Had this not been the inevitable end for years?
Either Crowley would die, or he would finally end the Winchesters. There was no other scenario.
Dean leaned down, and much to Crowley's surprise, the hunter slipped a small key out of his pocket and subsequently freed him of his restraints. Dean stepped back and scuffed his shoe along one of the spray paint lines just enough so that Crowley would be able to get out of the devil's trap.
"We're leaving. You're coming with us," Dean elaborated gruffly.
Crowley looked down at his hands, flexing them experimentally. He focused his energies to his right palm, with the intent to start a roaring flame as a test of his powers. A dull ember flickered for a moment, then faded.
"Centuries," he whispered, completely to himself. Humanity. It was the worst curse that the Winchesters could have laid upon him, and yet he couldn't even find it in himself to try to murder them for it. Maybe that was the real catch. The Winchesters hadn't killed him, no, but they'd butchered the only part of him that had mattered.
"What?" Dean asked, brow furrowed.
"It took centuries in Hell for anything human in me to die...in eight hours, your moose put it back," he explained in a monotone, still staring down at his hands, completely sodden in his self-hatred. But Sam hadn't put it all back, just enough to cut.
"Yeah, well, what can I say. We defy expectations. Now get it in gear." Dean tugged hard on the sleeve of Crowley's suit jacket, dragging him up and out of the chair. "Sam's hellbent on you coming with us, for some fucking reason."
Crowley wobbled on weak legs. Sweet Hell, everything hurt. Being a demon, his pain threshold was incredibly high. Now, however, his back ached from the hours of imprisonment in the chair. His neck smarted from the continuous injections he'd received from the younger Winchester, and his body throbbed due to his beating from Abaddon, Dean, and Sam, respectively.
"Come on!" Dean snapped his fingers in front of Crowley's face. "Curing you put Sam in a bad way, and the fucking sky is falling, and..." his voice faltered for a moment. "I don't have time for this shit right now, Crowley!"
Squirrel seemed at the end of his wits. And the sky was falling? Was the hunter waxing poetic, or had something far worse happened than just another episode of Winchesters' Landing?
Crowley walked carefully past Dean and out of the devil's trap, making his way slowly to the door with the hunter watching him like a hawk. He looked over at Dean, and for the very first time, he saw Dean as an actual person. Not just an obstacle in his way, or a means to an end, or a bit of cliched he-man entertainment.
Memories rushed through his mind, unbidden.
"What's the line? Saving people, hunting things—the family business. Well, I think the people you save, they're how you justify your pathetic little lives. The alcoholism, the collateral damage, the pain you've caused...the one thing that lets you sleep at night, the one thing is knowing that these folks are still out there, happy and healthy, all because of you, you great, big, bloody heroes! They're your life's work, and I'm going to rip it apart, piece by piece. Because I can...because you can't stop me...and because when I'm done, what will you have left?"
Sam had been begging for him to stop, chanting a steady stream of 'no's under his breath as his former paramour suffocated beneath him. Crowley had just smirked to himself, knowing that he'd found his trump card, listening to the desperate pleas over the phone with satisfaction as he patted himself on the back for another job well done.
He'd felt so bloody powerful, slaughtering his way through Moose and Squirrel's greatest hits. But where was his power now? He had all of the souls of the damned behind him, and he'd never felt weaker.
Together, Crowley and Dean stepped out of the confines of the little church and out into the blustering wind and rain. Crowley looked up, startled to see what appeared to be meteors cascading from the sky.
"What is this...?"
"Angels," Dean answered bluntly.
"The angels are falling?" Crowley asked, eyes widening. "How?"
"The scribe, Metatron...I think he tricked Cas into helping him with a spell that kicked all of the angels out of Heaven. Now they're coming down to Earth."
Crowley shook his head in awe. There were thousands of them, all raining from the sky, wreathed in flame. The Gates of Heaven had been slammed shut...
"Wonders never cease," he whispered, almost entirely to himself.
Dean trudged to his wheeled phallus. Crowley looked away from the sky above and sighed heavily, wiping at his face. Blood smeared on his sleeve. He was going to need a new suit.
Crowley took a deep breath, attempting to regain his composure. He would be damned (ha ha) before he'd let himself cry like an infant in front of Dean Winchester, of all people. He tried to center himself as best he could before tailing after the hunter.
Soon enough, he was in the passenger seat of the Impala. Dean roared down the peninsula, following a dirt road that led away from the church and along Lake Erie, hands tight on the wheel and a shadow over his face.
As they began their trip to God only knew where, Crowley turned around in his seat to look at Moose. The younger Winchester lay curled on his side, completely unconscious and looking rather the worse for wear. Crowley was blindsided by an unidentifiable emotion hitting him. Concern? Maybe. Or perhaps just indigestion.
"Is he alright?" he found himself asking in an uncharacteristically quiet tone.
Dean glared at him distrustfully. "Why the hell do you care?"
"Humor me," Crowley pressed. "Is he alright?"
"No, no he's not," he snapped. "This last trial nearly killed him, and I...I don't..." Dean just shook his head, looking as if he was about to crumble. The Winchesters had watched each other die so many times, how had they not grown numb to it by now?
"You're not sure if he'll recover," Crowley surmised. "Where's your angel?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Dean said. "And it doesn't matter, Cas can't help him. He told us right before you killed Meg-" The emphasis on the words was not lost on Crowley. "-that Sam's hurting in ways that even Cas can't mojo away."
Crowley's stomach twisted in a painful knot at the thought of Meg. Demon she might have been, but she was curiously different. Oh, she was bad, there was no questioning it, there was no such thing as a good demon, but Meg had the potential for good. She was capable of it, which was far more than he could say for himself.
He remembered the seemingly endless torture sessions with Meg. The unspeakable acts that hadn't seemed unspeakable at all at the time. More of a hobby, really. He remembered beating on her mercilessly, relentlessly, a constant source of entertainment. Lucifer's little whore, then his pet to abuse as he pleased—now just another empty body. He hadn't forgotten the look in her eyes when he'd driven that angel blade through her heart.
He promptly rolled down the Impala's window. He leaned out, vomiting pure stomach acid onto the road.
Once he'd finished retching, he rolled the window back up and sagged against his seat, fighting the heat in his eyes back with all he had.
"You're not doing so hot," Dean observed casually, eyes fixed firmly on the road, seeming nonplussed by his state of disrepair. Crowley ran a hand through his hair, gulping as he closed his eyes and tried to take deep, steady breaths. "How far did Sam's blood go, anyway? You all feelings and rainbows now?"
"I'm fine," Crowley answered tightly. "Moose blood just doesn't agree with my stomach."
Dean's expression told Crowley that the hunter hadn't bought his lie. "Welcome to humanity, Crowley," Dean said, seeming terribly satisfied with his predicament.
Crowley glared daggers at him before shifting to lean his head against the cool glass of the passenger side window. His eyelids seemed unusually heavy. Was he tired? He hadn't been tired in hundreds of years.
Before he knew it, he had drifted off to sleep, the purr of the Impala's engine and the sound of the brothers' breathing in the almost silent car proving to be somewhat soothing.
For the first time in Castiel's existence, he heard nothing.
Silence.
Even when he'd shut off the angel radio, there had still been a murmur in the back of his mind, a constant flow. Now, there were no whispers. He could no longer hear the song of the Heavenly Host. He was no longer connected to the other angels in any way, cut off completely. Isolated.
The silence frightened him.
Castiel walked through the woods for an indeterminable amount of time, the crunch of his footsteps on the leafy forest floor his only company. He walked slowly, head bent up to the sky to watch the falling stars that were his brothers and sisters. He wondered if they would lose their Grace when the Gates of Heaven closed. Lose their Grace, just like him.
Of course, he didn't lose his, so much as it had been forcibly taken from him. Sliced out.
Even though Metatron had healed his throat, it still throbbed, and he could still feel the phantom sensation of the angel blade biting into his skin. Even worse was the fresh memory of his Grace leaking out of him, the tangible feeling of losing everything that made him an angel...it was burned into his mind. He had been robbed of all that he was, all that he had ever been.
He was human. Not just powerless like he had been rendered shortly before Sam had thrown himself into the Cage. No, he was completely and utterly human. He was a human who couldn't spread out his awareness to find out where he was, to find out where Sam and Dean were. He couldn't heal with the touch of his fingers, as he found out when he tried to heal a scratch he had received while walking through the forest. He couldn't fly, because he had been horrified to find that his wings were simply gone. The spots where they had once been ached horribly.
He was human. He was nothing.
After a span of time, the angels stopped falling, and the steadily darkening sky turned still and calm. He stopped craning his neck and let his eyes fix in front of him. In the distance, he saw lights, and he heard the rush of cars racing by. Hopefully, he would be able to find a payphone and contact Dean. He made his way there, shivering slightly and pulling his trench coat tighter around him. For spring, it was a chilly evening.
The source of the lights came into view. A large rest stop splayed out in front of him. Weaving through the trees and down a slope, he made his way onto the pavement of the parking lot and then into the rest stop itself.
An interactive map on the wall informed him that he was about fifteen miles south of a city called Sandusky. He was in Ohio. He had no clue why he had been dropped there, of all places, but so be it. He managed to locate a line of several payphones nearby, and he asked a portly older woman if he could borrow some change. She smiled at him, said that he reminded her of her grandson, then promptly gave him a dollar.
He punched in Dean's number and waited for the hunter to pick up his phone.