Work 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 this place - ah, the memories. Also, there was such raw power coming from the boxes stacked outside the dungeon - Crowley fleetingly wonders if he'll ever convince the Winchesters to hold a garage sale. Probably not. A deal, perhaps?
This needs to be considered carefully and cunningly, and having an angel of the Lord looming behind him is not conductive to rational thought. Crowley sighs, a bit theatrically, and changes tack.
“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.
“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 Castiel, 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 proper vessel, one Crowley could get behind. Or, rather, inside. Too bad last time it was so crowded. No, Moose really is a thing of beauty. Look at him now, 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 twists his sentence around.
“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, scoffs.
“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, right. Sure.
“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, cheerfully, forcing his attention back on Castiel, and, again there is that slight no in his eyes.
So, the Winchesters had no idea about 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. Cas 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 hot 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 the angel, 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?”
“I didn’t do anything,” says the angel, but now the tension is closer to the surface, a bubbling, barely there simmer of shame and guilt.
“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 reason 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 fluid,” 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.”
“Because 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 free 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 you, he wants to - 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, almost 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 once 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 gutless 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.