I'm not scared of dying
And I don't really care
If it's peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near

When Dean wakes up, it takes him a while to even realize he’s actually awake. His head feels heavy, his body is cold, and everything just aches like a motherfucker. He tries to move his right arm to prop himself up and feels a wave of nausea deep in his stomach, so he gives up. He remains very still for another moment instead - if he can just stop the loud thumping in his head, then everything else will surely fall into place.

It’s only after a long while (well: what feels like a long while) that Dean becomes aware of an uncomfortable feeling - there is something scratchy and hard under his cheek. Blearily, he forces himself to open his eyes and is greeted by a depressing reality. Everything is plain normal, and he’s lying down on the floor of his crappy motel room.

“Son of a bitch,” he says, but only the vowels come out, all weird and distorted.

There is no way around it, though. Dean has been here (mostly drunk; sometimes comatose, or badly injured) often enough to be completely, painfully aware of how the thing works. And so he blinks, and yawns, and then gets his useless arms the right way around, in front of his face, and pushes down on them to support himself until he’s sort of kneeling. He doesn’t feel blank anymore - he now feels definitely nauseous, so great - but he’s not going to throw up. No sir. Instead, he’s going to stand up, walk to the sink and wash his face with cold water. And then he’s going to act like a functioning member of the human race and go get some coffee. Yes, that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

In a minute.

As Dean remains there on his hands and knees, trying to keep everything in his stomach (though, to be fair, there is nothing there which actually deserves to be kept inside his body), another thought begins to emerge. Sammy, on his knees in front of him. Sammy, bloody and crying. Dean tries to come back to reality, anchors himself on the ratty old carpet, because he knows that never happened. He never hurt Sam (I think it should be you up there - not her). He never hurt his little brother. This is just his mind, just the bloody Mark, playing tricks on him.

The world spins around him, and Dean keeps his fingers pressed into the carpet and lets it; and when everything is still again, he sits back on his heels, very, very slowly, and then he gets up. Some hideous pop song about lollipops starts to play in the room next door, but Dean, after the initial, instinctive burst of dislike, is actually happy to hear it, because it means - well, that the world goes on. That normal people are still out and about, doing normal people stuff. He feels he had the weirdest dream, some apocalyptic fancy. Instead, see, everything is fine. Just dandy.

“I’m fine,” he says, in the empty room, and his voice comes out all raspy. “I’m good.”

As he walks up to the mirror, he passes a hand on his face, wonders if he should shave. Lately, he hasn’t, because even the flimsy blade of a disposable razor would fill his ears with the shrill song of murder and blood, but, hey, maybe today it’s his lucky day. Some day is bound to be, right?

He washes his face with cold water, but when he straightens he doesn’t see himself in the mirror - Cas is there, his face cut and bloody, his tie askew. Dean almost yells out loud in shock - and then he remembers.

Cas - he almost killed Cas.

.:.

Crowley knows he shouldn’t behave this way; knows it’s undemony and unkingly. On the other hand, he’s quite alone in the rundown warehouse, so he has a right to be a little bitch if he wants to. Because, like, whatever.

And that’s why Crowley remains upright only for a few minutes - until he hears the engine of Castiel’s Continental starting outside - and then collapses against the wall and closes his eyes. Because, well, what the fuck was that? If he had a heart, it would explode out of his chest, right bloody now.

Of course, he’s been wondering about the angel for a while. Keeping tabs on people who threaten to kill you is a very healthy habit. Nothing wrong with it. And Castiel has always been so deliciously straightforward. All those I’ll be the one to carve out your heart; all those glaring looks and icy-blue stares. Crowley knows Castiel doesn’t have a sense of humour and likes to think his moral compass is perfectly on point - had been convinced, for a long time, of the fact that the angel wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. Of course, he’d still poked him and prodded him, because, hey, demon and badass and no sense of self-preservation - but the more Crowley poked and prodded, the more he wondered if he was seeing things clearly. Because, sure, Castiel had the ability to kill him, and probably the will, too, but he still hadn’t. Dean had stayed his hand, without (Crowley was sure about this) even shaping the thought into words. No, Castiel would always follow Dean’s lead, and so Crowley had grown lazy and complacent, had relied on Dean’s - friendship? It was a sort of friendship. Wasn’t it? In any case, it was something so strong that it had taken away those last shreds of cunning and mistrust Crowley had. A mistake, clearly. Because, as much as Crowley enjoyed poking and prodding Castiel, Castiel was a seraph, and seraphim were scary things. Terrifying things. Even when they dressed in oversized trenchcoats and looked at the world with baby blue eyes. When Castiel had taken his angel blade from the sleeve of said trenchcoat, Crowley had almost lost his lunch as well as his dignity.

But then, then Castiel had stopped and turned away. And left.

And next, the noise had started - an irksome, high-pitch sound, something like a mosquito. Not that Crowley knows what mosquitoes sound like and why they annoy humans so much - there weren’t any on his farm, and demons do not perceive that sort of thing. Still, Crowley likes to think of himself as an educated man - he reads books, and watches television - so this had been the first image to pop into his mind.

And the noise has not ceased. And Castiel can change his mind and come back. Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and be a bloody king bloody again.

Scowling, Crowley straightens up, readjusts his tie and steps forward into nothingness -

- and into complete chaos.

His throne room is full of demons, demons running around, demons fighting each other, demons shouting, demons painting symbols on the walls. Crowley just stands there for half a second, taking in the mess, trying to find its cause, and then he sees a young demon scratching a rune into the wood of his throne.

“Not my chair,” he says, stepping forward, anger oozing off him, and, even though his voice wasn’t loud at all, all movement stops and everyone turns to look at him.

“Your majesty,” says someone, and this must be some sort of cue, because other people follow, a shy, overwhelmed chorus of ‘Your majesty, your majesty’ that sets Crowley’s teeth on edge.

“ENOUGH,” he booms, sitting down on his throne. “What has gotten into all of you? And will someone do something about this FUCKING NOISE.”

“You - you’re back,” stammers a demon in a blue suit, falling on his knees on the steps of the dais.

“Of course I’m back. Is this my mother’s doing? Has she been here?”

“You’re alive,” rasps a second demon, a wispy fellow with a goatee, and - wait, are those tears in his eyes?

“Why wouldn’t I be alive?” asks Crowley, and he’s not sure how he should be feeling (grateful for this sudden bout of devotion, annoyed that these mindless fuckers can’t survive two hours without him?).

“Everyone is dead,” says the first demon, still on his knees,and now Crowley is so much closer to losing it and just fucking blast everyone.

“That is blatantly untrue, Clegg. Granted, we are all dead, technically, but I still fail to see how it is relevant.”

“Everyone who was reborn before 1981 is - they are no more, your Majesty.”

“What are you talking about? I was made a demon, as you well know, in” 1723, he’s about to say, and then remembers this kind of information is too dangerous to be made public, and smoothly switches track, “the 1700s, and yet here I am.”

“It’s a miracle, your Majesty,” says Clegg, squishing his face against the floor, and the murmuring starts again - a miracle, a miracle - considering the hissing noise still in the background, it’s like being inside a faulty vacuum cleaner.

“You,” says Crowley, pointing at a young woman with a neat ponytail, “Come here. Explain.”

This demon is still young enough to hesitate, but Crowley will not punish her for that. First, he needs to know what the hell is going on.

“It started about ten minutes ago, your Majesty. The noise. And then - then most of your subjects just - disappeared. Nuttall, Helmers, the Young brothers - they all simply -”

She makes a helpless gesture with her hands.

“We sent envoys, your Majesty, to your commanders, because you couldn’t be found. None of them survived.”

“What are you saying?” asks Crowley, low and dangerous.

The blond demon takes a deep breath.

“Sire, most of your court, your generals, your lieutenants, the guardians of the deepest cells, and even many of the scribes - it looks like most of us are just - just gone.”

.:.

When Dean wakes up, it takes him a full minute to realize he’s awake. His body seems to be right there, in his motel room, but his head is like a concrete brick someone threw in through the window, a disconnected piece of garbage which just happened to have landed on top of his neck.

He blinks, trying to come back to himself, but all he can see is the non-stop massacre of the last few days - he can smell the sickly fumes of Charlie’s body burning, and the coppery sweetness of the blood back in that Louisiana mansion. When he blinks again, he can see himself, trapped on the hospital bed, can see his hands moving up, grabbing, smashing, breaking bones.

Dean feels the nausea swelling in his throat and forces himself on his hands and knees.

“I’m good,” he says, trying to convince himself.

And he is, he must be. This motel room is seedy and dirty, but there are no bodies here, no signs of violence. No Sam, either, so that horrible dream about Sammy on his knees, Sammy closing his eyes and crying, was just that - a dream. Isn’t the first, won’t be the last either, Dean chides himself. The Mark has shown him worse than his brother on his knees. Time to man up.

He staggers to his feet, closes his arms around himself to stave off this feeling of wrongness and cold. It doesn’t work. Nothing ever bloody works, story of his life. He opens his eyes again. Judging from the light filtering in through the thick curtains, it may be late afternoon already. Jesus.

Dean swallows down the bad taste in his mouth, walks to the sink and turns on the water, letting it flow until it feels icy under his fingers; then he washes his face, brutally, rubbing his palms against his eyes. He knows, in the back of his head, that he must wake up. That he is not awake enough, that he needs to be ready for what is to come.

When he stands up, water dripping down his shirt in cold rivulets, Cas is in the mirror, and Dean remembers at once, remembers everything, with a lurch of shock which turns his very being inside out, because Cas is bloody, his face cut and puffy, and Dean - Dean is the one who hurt him, the one who almost killed him.

.:.

Bobby is enjoying his fourth re-reading of Heart of Darkness when the noise starts. He hisses in annoyance and gets up from his plushy chair, walking to the radiator.

“Not you again,” he grumbles, exasperated. “I’m sure I fixed you two weeks ago.”

Just as he’s reaching his hand out toward the knob, there is an explosion behind him, and the force of it blasts him straight ahead, his head colliding painfully with the wall.

“What did they do?” yells someone behind him, and Bobby turns around, instinctively looking for a weapon.

Of course, there are no weapons, because this is a normal room, a room full of books and good scotch and photographs of happy people. Why would he have weapons in here, or anywhere? Without even realizing he’s given up any idea of defending himself, Bobby clutches at his head - it’s getting quite painful - and looks up at the person who seemingly blasted half his fireplace out of existence.

It’s a woman. Just a woman, a forty-something brunette in plain clothes. She could be a thoroughbred secretary, or some kind of hotel manager. There is nothing about her which says, I’m capable of destroying your wall if I don’t get my way, and Bobby is emboldened by this, even if he knows it’s a stupid move.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and then, again, he notices the noise, which is still as annoyingly off-key as it was before. “Can you make that stop, please?”

“The Winchesters,” says the woman, taking a step towards him, and now Bobby is seeing her better, and there is something off about her, something - and, boy, does she looks angry. “Dean and Sam Winchester. What did they do?”

“I still don’t know what you want,” says Bobby, because he doesn’t.

He’s never heard those names before.

And now the woman gets scary. Her brown eyes start to turn blue, and then bypass blue and shift to another colour entirely, an awe-inspiring, brick-shitting mixture of white and pure light. Two huge shapes, the skeletons of bird-like wings, appear on the ruined wall behind her.

“Hannah?” says a new voice, and the vision disappears - now the woman is a woman again, her non-descript suit a bit frayed in the corners.

“Let’s get a Virtue in here, and at once,” she says, and now she sounds both furious and scared.

Bobby blinks - he’s fallen to his knees without realizing it.

“Are you an angel?” he whispers.

The woman pinches the bridge of her nose.

.:.

The third time Dean wakes up, he feels even worse. His face is squashed against the dirty motel carpet, and the light of early afternoon is blaringly bright over his closed eyelids.

He rolls over, slowly and painfully, and sinks into the usual trap of half promises and profanities, a jumble of mental rant which goes on and on - because, really, he’ll never drink again, not ever, swear to God, not that God is actually around, the sick fuck, and also, Dean needs his drink, because the bloody Mark is spreading, dripping into his dreams, and why the fuck is he always the one to -

- but then, as he’s only just getting to the good part, another corner of Dean’s brain flashes up.

This is not real.

Dean blinks.

Of course it’s real.

There is no answer.

Dean raises his head up, just a bit, wincing with the pain of it, of the deep thumping inside his skull, and then, slowly, carefully, he gets on his hands and knees.

This is not real. You lived this day before.

Shut up.

But it gets Dean thinking. You do not survive long in this job if you don’t trust your gut, and Dean’s gut is telling him there is something seriously off here. What is it, though? The motel room floor feels solid under his palms, the carpet coarse and dirty. Turning his head a little, Dean can see all his gear - his bag, a change of clothes, the butt of his rifle hanging off a chair. There is a pop song playing through the wall, something about lollipops. He can also hear, very faintly, a car starting.

Dean is about to get up - he badly needs some cold water on his face, and he needed it, like, yesterday - when that same feeling in his stomach makes him pause. So he stays where he is, though it’s awkward and uncomfortable, and he tries to think back. What the fuck is he doing here, for starters? Where is Sam?

Sammy on his knees, his face bloody, his eyes full of tears.

Dean grasps the dirty carpet with such strength his knuckles turn white.

That is not right. That did not happen. He did not -

He did kill something, though. A vampire? Two vampires, that’s it. And - and Rudy.

Oh, fuck.

And here is the nausea, like clockwork. Dean swallows it back, wishes for water again, swallows that back, too, and remains exactly where he is. There is a definite sense of wrongness - that business with the vampires - it doesn’t seem right it was only yesterday. But if it wasn’t, then what the hell…?

Dean has been around a lot, and in his experience there are only two things that can fuck with time: witches and angels.

Remember the song? It was playing two minutes ago, says the helpful part of his brain, and Dean shuts his eyes with a groan.

Lollipops. Son of a bitch.

And then: I thought that fucker was dead.

But it cannot be helped, can it, because he’s Dean Winchester and every day of his fucking life is a fucking nightmare.

“Gabriel?” he says, loudly, his own voice hurting the inside of his head; and then he waits, his breath catching in his throat, for the familiar flutter of wings.

.:.

Wait here, the woman had said, and Sam had seen no reason to disobey. The line was long, sure, but, then again, it had seemed well-organized. There was even a clerk keeping an eye on them, answering the occasional question.

Sure, the more Sam looks at it, the less it looks like this queue is actually heading somewhere, but, hey, that is hardly the point. Because, well, the point is - what is the point?

Sam frowns, confused. Why is he even standing in line? He doesn’t need to buy anything, or to sign anything, and surely there are better uses of his time than stand this corridor. The line seems not to be moving an inch, seems designed, in fact, to create that sense of helpless annoyance one always gets in these situations. And he isn’t the only one questioning things. After the high-pitched noise had started, and the clerk had disappeared, Sam had seen several people trying to move around, a bit sneakily - some of them moving to the front of the line, others coming towards the back, looking for a way out. Sam had looked at them idly. He had not been tempted to join them. It had been, in fact, foolish of them to move around. The only way out was clearly at the front of the line, and now those people had lost their place, through their arrogance and rashness. Sure, it is tempting to abandon the queue altogether and come back another day to do whatever he needs to do here, but, well. He’s already been waiting so long, he doesn’t want that to go to waste. Unless he has no reason to be here in the first place, in which case - because isn’t there something he ought to remember? He’d been in a car, probably on his way here, and then - had he been in an accident?

But no. Everything is fine. Yes, it’s irritating beyond belief to be stuck here, but, well. Irritating things do happen. And it’s just a line. It won’t be forever.

.:.

Dean sees the shoes first, and there is a wave of contrasting feelings inside him - a sort of relief, because, hey, he’s not crazy after all, but also a flare of exasperation - really, what has he ever done to deserve this? Can’t Gabriel find another plaything? Or, you know, actually stay dead, for bloody once?

He sits back on his heels, trying not to throw up, and then he looks up at the man in front of him.

Gabriel is still Gabriel. He has the same honey-coloured hair, a bit too long, and that same familiar smirk on his face. He still hasn’t said anything and Dean already wants to punch him in the face. It’s a miracle, really. God works in mysterious ways.

“Dean Winchester, on his knees in front of me. Ah, the possibilities,” says the archangel, and that does nothing to make Dean feel more buoyant towards him.

“Right now, the only possibility is to throw up on you. Fix me, won’t you?” he growls, swallowing back another bout of nausea.

Gabriel shakes his head, as if annoyed at Dean’s rudeness, but he still takes a step forward, touches his hand, very briefly, to Dean’s forehead.

“There,” he says, and now he sounds bored. “Better?”

“Yes, actually,” says Dean, and he leaves it at that - he’s not about to thank this bastard, not when he was the one to stick him into another goddamn time-loop.

It feels good, though. It’s as if Gabriel’s touch has healed everything - not just the hangover, but the headache he’s been living with since - since -

Dean checks his arm.

The Mark is gone.

It’s such a shock, he doesn’t even realize he’s still on his knees in front of Gabriel, he doesn’t care there is this aura of Get it together, already, there’s stuff to do which comes off the archangel in bloody waves. No, Dean ignores all of that, passes his fingers on his own skin instead, slowly - it’s not possible - how is this possible -

“How did you do that?” he whispers, in complete awe.

When he finally looks up, Gabriel is not there anymore. He wandered off and sat down on the bed; he seems to have created a pile of sweets out of thin air and is now peeling the wrapping off a ginormous chocolate bar as if this is nothing - as if he didn’t just waltz in here, waltzed out of hell or whatever and bloody cured the Mark of Cain -

“Wrong question,” says Gabriel, touching the chocolate with his tongue, as if tasting it, and then discarding it and picking another one.

“Why did you that?” tries Dean, and the archangel rolls his eyes.

“Mmh...let’s not get into that, for now.”

Right. Back to normal, then. Except - there is something going on with Gabriel. Despite the smirk and the chocolate, he looks - different. Dean looks at him carefully, notices the elegant black clothes, the graceful way the archangel moves, can’t put his finger on what’s wrong, gives up.

“Why are you telling me to ask you stuff if you’re not prepared to give me any answers?”

“Better,” says Gabriel, in mock approval, and he sinks his teeth (his unnaturally white, almost pointed, teeth) into a glazed donut. “Try again.”

Dean gets to his feet, takes a step towards the sink, remembers he’s not supposed to go there, stops abruptly. Also, if there’s one thing he knows, is that if Gabriel wants to play, it’s always quicker to play along, so he decides to try again.

“What’s happening? What are you doing to me? And how are you even alive?”

“Those are three very different questions, and hey, you could look happier to see me.”

“I am not - I don’t care. Just bloody tell me.”

“Fine. You are dying, Dean.”

“Dying?”

Well, this is old news, really. Dean has been marked for slaughter since he accepted that thing on his arm, or, perhaps, he was destined to have a brutish, short life well before that; it’s quite possible, in fact that his early death was decided the exact moment his mother had walked into the nursery for the last time. It shouldn’t feel like such a shock, really, to be told something he knows full well. Only, for some reason, it does.

“Dying,” he says again, as if to convince himself.

“Yes. Only, you can’t die because, guess what, someone killed Death.”

“Someone killed - what are you talking about?”

Gabriel looks like he’s having the time of his life. He’s switched to popcorn now, and he’s being very decadent about it, sitting back on the bed, picking up kernel after kernel as if he’s tasting fine cheese.

“When I got to you, someone had already marked you, and that’s why I had to hide you, and quickly.”

“Marked -”

“And the safest hiding place is, of course, your own mind.”

“Okay, slow down. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it? Look in the mirror.”

Dean hesitates.

“Go on. It’s safe now.”

“Safe from what?”

Gabriel just smiles, so Dean shakes his head at him and does what he’s told. And the mirror is just a mirror. Showing his own face. And there, on his forehead, there is a cross, a kind of wonky X which looks like an old scar. Dean passes his fingers on it, nonplussed.

“That means you’re dead,” says Gabriel, cheerfully.

“But I don’t - what happened?”

And perhaps Gabriel feels Dean is more than ready to move from relief to confusion to downright murderous rage, because he sits up, shakes popcorn crumbs off his poncy black suit and gets serious.

“Are you ready to get back to reality?”

“Reality? Where are we now?”

“I told you. Inside your own mind.”

Dean looks at Gabriel through the mirror.

“But it’s not just the inside of my mind, though,” he says, slowly. “You had me repeat this one day. Why?”

“You picked it.”

“I don’t believe you. This is what you did to Sam - and where is Sam, by the way?”

Gabriel ignores that. He stands up, snaps his fingers, and the mess of discarded wrappers and half-eaten things on the bed disappears.

“Are you ready to face reality?” he asks again.

“Which reality?”

“The only one. I wouldn’t ask, since you seem all strong and strappy, but apparently there are some things -”

Gabriel is standing right behind Dean now, and Dean is trying to relax, because he knows he can’t fight off an archangel, not without an angel blade or holy oil, but it’s still difficult to stay still and keep his cool when Gabriel comes a bit closer, so close he’s now whispering in Dean’s ear, and Dean can smell the sugar in his breath.

“- some things you can’t bear thinking about,” says Gabriel, and, really, why does he feel so threatening - after all, he’s a slender dude, and almost a full head shorter than Dean - but there’s this bloody power radiating off him, and when he snaps his fingers, Dean’s heart skips a beat.

And then, Cas is in the mirror, and Dean’s heart skips another beat, because Cas is hurt - he’s bloody and unhappy and -

“What are you doing to him?” says Dean, and he half turns, grabs Gabriel by his stupid shirt, but even before the sentence has left his lips, he knows, he knows -

He’s the one who did this. This is a memory.

I don't want to have to hurt you.

I don't think that's gonna be a problem.

Dean holds on to Gabriel’s shirt for dear life as the rest of it comes flooding in - looking down at Cas, seeing, clear as day, the shape of his broken wings etched on the floor, feeling the savage joy in his heart - Dean remembers that last-moment switch, the blade quivering in some old book, two inches from Cas’ face. The feeling of disappointment welling up inside him, because he hadn’t, in the end, killed his - his best friend.

“I -” he says, but nothing else comes out.

“Yes. For some reason, this is what made you black out. Twice. My baby brother. Do you have a kink for blood, Dean? Or perhaps for fallen angels?”

Dean barely hears him. He’s struggling to even stay upright, because now it’s all coming back. He ganked two vampires, he was right about that. And he got Rudy killed. He invoked Death - he almost killed Sam - he killed Death -

There is a whoosh of air around them, and then the motel is gone. They are standing in an open field now, next to the Mexican restaurant where Dean -

And the world has changed. Something is very, very wrong. This is precisely the place Dean now remembers, but the sky is dark. Not completely dark, but -

There was the Darkness, a horribly destructive, amoral force that was beaten back by God and his archangels in a terrible war.

Dean looks up and takes it in. The closest thing to this he’s ever seen was a total sun eclipse, back when he was a kid. It scared the crap out of him then, and it does the same now. Everything is sort of dim, and there is absolutely no noise. No birds singing, no insects, nothing. No sun in the sky, no stars. He can see large strips of scorched earth where those twists of darkness emerged, but the holes themselves seem to have disappeared. Also, it’s bloody cold.

Gabriel clears his throat, and Dean, realizing he’s still holding on to his shirt, lets go and turns around. And sees the Impala, upside down in the mud. With a curse, he runs to it, kneels next to the car’s door yelling his brother’s name - but the car is empty.

“Where is Sam?” he says, turning back to Gabriel.

“I told him to stay away from you, but he didn’t listen.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He was gone by the time I got here, and since it looked like whoever took him would be back for you,” Gabriel says, sketching an X with his fingers, “I thought it safer to hide you.”

Dean turns back to the Impala and, without even meaning to, starts a mental list of everything that’s wrong with it - the windshield is gone, one tailgate has broken off - he goes as far as assessing the damage to the body before pulling himself together. The Impala does not matter. What matters is Sam, and Sam is gone. Dean closes his eyes, forces himself to ask the question.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. And I can’t find him. Those scribbles on your ribs - great idea.”

Dean grits his teeth. He does not want to trust Gabriel, and yet, somehow, he does. He may be a Trickster and a sick fuck, but he also fought on their side. Died for them, in fact. If he says Sam is gone, then Sam is gone. And if he says he can’t find him, that’s the truth. Someone must know what happened, though. It will be alright, somehow. It always is.

Dean stands up, brushes dry mud off his pants, looks at car for a moment longer. He feels an irrational pang of regret at the thought of leaving it behind.

He glances at Gabriel. The archangel hasn’t moved an inch - Dean remembers Cas used to do this, at the beginning, simply go still when no movement was required of him, and how weird it was, to see someone who never fidgeted, never even blinked - and it looks even weirder on Gabriel, the most human-like angel Dean has ever met.

“Can you - ” he says, moving his hand around, and Gabriel sighs.

“Do I have to?”

“Oh, come on, man.”

Gabriel snaps his fingers, and the Impala shudders and flips around, landing (rather gently) right in front of the restaurant. Of course, it still looks like Godzilla stomped on it, but hey.

“Do you want me to fix it?” adds Gabriel, seemingly reading Dean’s thoughts, and Dean recoils, an expression of pure horror on his face.

“No! Don’t even think about it. What do you even know about cars?”

Gabriel doesn’t even bother replying, just raises his eyebrows as high as they can go as Dean presses a proprietary hand on the car door. A car door all mangled and ruined, and a car door which doesn’t matter right now, because the world is ending and everything and everyone is bloody fucked.

“Okay. What next?” Dean says, turning his back on Baby.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“You were hoping I could tell you? So, what, I’m in charge now?”

“Yes,” says Gabriel, simply, and Dean finally figures out what’s different about him.

The archangel is - looks - new. What Dean met before was an angry, resentful creature, hiding that old rage under a thick layer of sarcasm and practical jokes, but what stands in front of him now is - well, ‘original version’ springs to mind. Of course, he’s still sardonic and annoying as fuck, but he seems almost - serene. Also, he’s immaculate - shiny hair, white, bright teeth, perfect suit tailored to a perfect body (which Dean hasn’t noticed, because he doesn’t bat for that team). And if Dean squints a little he can see, in and out of focus, the light around his head, the shape of two huge wings framing his sides, and what looks like a fiery hilt over his left shoulder.

“Don’t do that, please. It’s not polite.”

“Does ‘not polite’ mean it will burn my eyes out?”

“Perhaps. At this point, I’m not sure about you. What you still represent, and what you can bear.”

Dean ignores this, because it sounded insulting, and moves on to another pressing point.

“How did you find me, then? Since I have the runes on my ribs?”

“You are the Righteous Man. You gave yourself over to Heaven. I promised you my allegiance, and that promise still stands.”

“What?” asks Dean, but Gabriel looks as surprised as he feels.

“Before I died?” he says, insultingly slowly. “I said I’d fight for you. So here I am.”

Dean remains stunned for a moment, but it’s hard to get angry at Gabriel’s scorn, or to be displeased about this information in any way. So he has a scary archangel at his beck and call - about time something went bloody right for a change.

“What is this, then?” he asks, gesturing at the twilight around then.

“The Darkness,” says Gabriel, obediently.

“Great. How do we fix it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you fix it last time?”

“The Lord did.”

“Death said -”

“Yes, we were involved, but it was something my Father did which finally banished it. And I don’t know what that was.”

Dean rolls his eyes. Of course, things are never easy. Why should they be? His life has always been a series of disasters and catastrophes, why should it stop now?

Also, you caused this, says a voice inside his mind, but the voice has always been there, ever since he was a kid and Sammy would cry because he’d forgotten to feed him or change him. It’s always his fault, all of it, so Dean has learned to ignore the voice, because if he actually listened to it - he’s fucked up so much, he can’t - he just can’t -

“Can you get me to Cas?” he asks, and Gabriel shakes his head.

“I do not know where my brother is,” he answers, and Dean actually scoffs, hiding the sudden pang of panic - because it’s all piling up, now, this darkness around them, Death, Sam lost somewhere, and now Cas.

“Well, you’re just a mine of information, aren’t you? Good thing you’re on my side.”

Gabriel looks like he wants to say something very insulting, but in the end he keeps his mouth shut and smiles sweetly at Dean.

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“Anything else? Looks like you haven’t done zilch for me so far. And you just said you don’t actually know anything I need to know. So, what can you do, exactly?”

It’s perhaps not the best way to talk to an angel of the Lord, but, well, the world has ended, bloody again, so screw it.

“Off the top of my head, I master both pyrokinesis and conjuration, I can walk in time and dreams, create memories, kill every creature that walks this earth and a few who don’t, heal every wound and fly - spread my wings over the oceans and through the ice-cold galaxies.”

“Oh, and once I gave birth to an eight-legged horse,” he adds, just as Dean is saying, “Wait, you can fly?”

They stare at each other, then talk over each other again.

“You gave birth to - dude, gross.”

“Why shouldn’t I fly? I’m an angel.”

“Man, the angels were cast out of Heaven. They can’t fly anymore.”

“Cast...out?” asks Gabriel, and this may be the first genuine emotion Dean has ever seen him display - a naked, raw pain which seems to destroy his face from inside out.

Somehow, it makes it all too much. He almost killed Cas, and almost killed Sammy, and now both of them are M.I.A. and the world seems to have ended. Everything is plain wrong and fucked up, and Dean can’t take it anymore. Turning away from Gabriel, he starts to walk - he doesn’t even care where he’s going, as long as there’s alcohol there.

.:.

The noise has stopped. No one seems to notice this, but, then again, no one seems to notice anything. Sam finds himself fidgeting. There is something he should remember - something about Dean, about the Mark of Cain - the memory is just hovering out of reach, cracking his earlier sense of dulled content. Suddenly, things are not okay. This place is not okay. He doesn’t need to be here, he doesn’t want to be here. The line hasn’t moved an inch in the past - hour? Sam isn’t sure. His watch has stopped working.

A couple of men in front of him step out of the queue and start to walk forward, in that furtive way children have when they know they’re not supposed to do something. On impulse, Sam follows them, still trying to piece together how he got here.

He remembers yelling at Cas (Dean guessed!), remembers a sharp sense of desperation (I’m not going to let my brother destroy himself on a guess), and then getting into a car and driving.

And then Sam stops moving, because he can see the motel room now, can remember the ruin of it - the broken furniture, the empty bottles on the desk, pieces of a mirror all over the floor - can see the neat little note on the bed (She’s all yours). As he starts walking again, blindly, stumbling a little, everything comes rushing back. The restaurant. Death. Sam passes his hands on his body, trying to feel the traces of Dean’s blows - he’s sure his brother broke his ribs, he now remembers the pain of it - but everything has disappeared. Which makes Sam even more antsy. Healing means - either someone cured him (Cas, maybe?) or he’s - he’s -

The Darkness. The black smoke uncurling, covering the sky, crashing down on the Impala. And that woman’s voice, low and stern, You just wait here, now.

Sam starts running, overtaking the two people in front of him - he runs as fast as he can, and the depressing landscape blurs and softens - this corridor seems to be miles long, and there is no one here, the neatly dressed clerks have disappeared, and all that is left is the line of people, some waiting quietly, others grunting and checking their watches, and the thing goes on and on until - until there are two people appearing in the distance, and Sam recognises the closest one from his unusual haircut - this is guy who was in front of him, who decided to be smart and cut the line - this is the guy he passed ten minutes ago.

Sam comes close enough to be sure, then collapses against the wall, panting a little, a wave of panic crushing over him.

“This is Hell,” he says, just to hear the words out loud, to convince himself of the fact.

“Tell me about it,” says the woman in front of him, readjusting the square glasses on her nose. “I’ve been here since this morning and it doesn’t look like I’ve made any progress at all. Bad customer service,” she adds, shaking her head at Sam. “The management will hear about this.”

The management.

Sam freezes. He died. He is in Hell. And he tried to kill the King of Hell. Slowly and painfully, and gloating like an idiot all the way.

You're right. I am a monster. And I've done bad. I've done things you can't even imagine - horrible, evil, messy things. And I've loved - every - damn - minute.

Goddammit.

If Crowley finds him, he’s going to kill him - again. And this time, it won’t be a quick, painless death Sam will be able to forget about. This time, it’s going to sting.

Sam closes his eyes, a flash of the Cage burning against his eyelids, and turns to prayer.