Take another shot of courage
Wonder why the right words never come
You just get numb
It's another tequila sunrise,
this old world
still looks the same.

“ - moron,” says Crowley, in exasperation.

He doesn’t even try to pull Sam back. He knows how to doors work: he built them himself (with his mother’s help, of course; but, then again, he’s more than paid the price for his mother’s selfless cooperation on this matter, so he has the bloody right to forget all about it). No, Sam is long gone. He was long gone the second he touched the door handle.

“Winchesters,” he scoffs, in the empty room. “No wonder they’re always fucking up -” he snaps his fingers, and now he’s standing in his throne room again, “- everything. Think first, act later. I mean, seriously, how hard can that be?”

The demon closest to him, a young black man with long hair, licks his lips nervously.

“I don’t know, your majesty. Very hard?”

Crowley sighs.

“That was a rhetorical question, Gary. I was expecting someone - any one of you, this isn’t a classroom, you don’t have to raise your fucking hands - to say Not very hard, sire.”

“Not very hard, sire,” says Gary, obediently, and Crowley sighs again.

The throne room is not its usual, dignified self. With his personal secretary and both his legates gone, the whole thing has turned into a messy, unfriendly place. Crowley had picked the men (well: demons) himself precisely because of their discipline and attention to detail, but apparently he’s still managed to underestimate the value of their work. He’ll have to find a solution, though, and fast. These working conditions are appalling. The blood wards haven’t been refreshed yet, and - is that a bra in the far corner? An orange bra?

Crowley forces himself to keep silent and sits down on his throne. The orange bra is not a priority. He has a pretty clear idea about what that thing outside is; also, there is no doubt it is the cause behind the sudden disappearance of most of his court. And as far as his own survival - well, that is an intriguing little mystery. Not urgent, though. No: the real priority here is to stop this (second) Apocalypse before it can fully unfold and swallow everything Crowley has worked so hard to build down here.

“I need a volunteer,” he says, in the most bored voice he can muster. “It is imperative that I speak to Dean Winchester, and I need one of you fine gents to find him for me.”

No one says anything. There are about thirty demons in the room - they are young, of course, but all of them are fully fledged, have tasted human blood, and some have even snatched and cooked their first infant - and yet they are all staring at their feet - a few are trying to look busy, eyes glued to the papers they are carrying.

Crowley has never been a student in his human life, thank goodness, but he has possessed children more than once, and his throne room, the throne room of the King of Hell, is again giving off this ‘middle school’ vibe that already set his teeth on edge more than once since he got back.

“If I have to pick somebody,” he says, very slowly, “I’ll be sure to skin both his hands first.”

Someone clears her throat: a blonde, pretty little creature (but that doesn’t mean much: everyone here is wearing borrowed clothes, so to speak).

“I will go, your majesty.”

“Good. Be advised that Dean Winchester will be armed, dangerous, aggressive, very possibly drunk and probably guarded by at least one angel. Approach with caution.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

The girl swallows, a bit nervously.

“And what - pardon me - what is the message, your Highness?”

Crowley taps on the armrest of his throne - one, two, three times.

“Tell him his brother is in grave danger, and that he should call me at once.”

There. If the prospect of poor baby Sammy in imminent threat of death does not push Dean to action, then nothing will. And it’s not an outright lie, either: the stupid git is in grave danger. He can consider himself lucky that he’s dead already - that will make him more difficult to spot, and a lot harder to hurt.

The girl is still standing there. Why on earth is she still standing there? Say what you want about angels, they make far better servants than this scum.

“What?”

“Your highness,” says the girl, and then she hesitates.

She turns around, and a second girl actually gives her a thumb-up. Seriously, when did this place turn into a Belieber convention?

“Your highness, if I may be so bold - is - is rescuing Sam Winchester really a priority right now? Or, for that matter, a wise course of action?”

Her voice is careful and neutral, but right underneath it Crowley can hear, clear as day, his mother’s lilting vowels: They made you their bitch, Fergus. He smiles, sweetly, and then he snaps his fingers.

The girl’s head explodes, and the corpse staggers for one very long second before collapsing into black smoke.

“A legitimate query,” ponders Crowley, stretching back into his throne. “Any more questions?”

“I will find Dean Winchester for you, your Majesty,” says a second girl, approaching the throne.

She’s dressed like a hunter, jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt, and Crowley remembers, vaguely, a sideline project to expand his espionage network, months ago. He knows he assigned some of those spies to the hunter community, and that most of them got themselves killed. This girl - tanned and inked, with an elaborate braid crowning her forehead - goes by the name of Maisie, if he remembers correctly - could very well be the last of that team. How did she survive, then? Is she smart, ballsy or disloyal?

Crowley is a gambling man; always was.

“Excellent. Let me know the minute you find him - I want to know where he is and what company he keeps. And remember to watch yourself: these boys tend to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Men after my own heart, your highness,” smirks Maisie, and then she’s gone.

.:.

It’s been hours, days, or possibly weeks. The landscape around him has shifted from fields to forests, and then back to fields again. Castiel has taken no heed of it, and of the sudden darkness. For him, every leaf on every tree had remained just as bright as it was before. Day or night, there was no difference - he could still see everything, and everything was irrelevant. At first he drove, and when the car stopped working, he got out and ran. He’d not been using his Grace, and therefore he’d only been covering about eight miles an hour; on the other hand, he doesn’t need to rest, eat or sleep anymore, and therefore he’s managed to get quite far from the warehouse he barely remembers, hidden in a corner of his mind with a jumble of other lost pieces of his life (the smell of a leather jacket, his brother’s dying gasp, Sam Winchester’s desperate prayer, Claire’s smile and the feeling of her arms around him, a room exploding in white light).

Those memories are shiny and sharp like broken glass, and from time to time one of them pierces his mind while he runs, making him stumble with pain and longing, but Castiel always picks himself up and he always keeps going.

Other times, everything goes blank and he can hear the distorted sound of a woman’s voice calling out to him, shouting orders and instructions (Find him! Kill him!), her shrill voice descending into angry pleads (Come back! Obey!), but her words are as insignificant as the trees around him and the road under his feet, because the whole of Castiel’s consciousness, his past and future, is taken over by another voice, a man’s, and this voice is familiar and cherished and loved, and also scared, angry, and completely alien to him; and the man is repeating a single word in Castiel’s mind. Run, the man is saying, over and over and over again, and this is Castiel’s truth and law now. There is nothing else he knows, nothing else he remembers. He’s come across crashed cars and fallen trees: he’s jumped over them. He’s seen scared people, women covered in blood, men wandering aimlessly, glass and metal protruding from their bodies: he’s kept running, once pushing a child to the ground, stepping on the hand that had tried to grab his ankle.

And when Castiel sees the boy in the distance, he both sees him and doesn’t see him. His human eyes, Jimmy’s eyes, see the still blurred silhouette (faded jeans, a dark green hoodie, a mop of dark hair ruffled by the wind) and his Grace, his true self, perceives everything else (the colour of the boy’s unusual soul, the sheer power coming off him in red/loud waves) - and still, it doesn’t matter.

Run, says the man’s voice inside his head (a sudden stab, a sharp detail appears and disappears inside his mind - green eyes, looking at him, then down), and Castiel keeps running.

The boys is standing perfectly still, waiting for him in the middle of the road.

Right above them, the darkness is suddenly pierced by a greenish light - it is huge, majestic, there and gone in a second - Castiel sees it without raising his eyes to the sky, and something inside him screams in joy and awe, and then is silent.

The boy has seen the light as well, and now he looks warier. As Castiel approaches him, the boy moves to stand directly on his path and stretches his arms wide, as if to catch him in a hug.

Castiel crashes into him like a solid wall, but the boy doesn’t go down. He stands his ground against Castiel’s angelic force, his hands still outstretched, and now Castiel is close to him (too close) he can feel the boy’s peculiar, unclean presence - he pushes, tries to knock him to the ground, but the boy just smiles.

“Stop, and be healed,” he whispers, and it’s like flipping a switch - the man’s voice gets quieter, then is silent, and for the first time Castiel is aware of his surroundings - he feels/hears the corn fields around him hum in the breeze - he can taste the fear of the mice hiding in their burrows, and the quiet patience of the birds, waiting in the distant trees for a sun that, Castiel knows, is not coming out again.

“Time to be yourself again,” says the boy, and Castiel’s whole body jolts as Dean’s face swims to the very shore of his consciousness - he can see through Dean’s eyes, can see Dean’s hands in front of him, closed around a pool’s clue - he can see a man on the other side of the table, smiling at him - not a man, that is Gabriel - Gabriel -

Castiel breathes like a man drowning, and he tries to push Dean’s vision to one side - tries to come back to himself, to the darkness above him, to his mission and duty, to his Father’s love - for a moment, he is overwhelmed by it all - this body is a work of art, veins and nerves curving into each other, atoms as complex as a whole galaxy, and yet it is completely inadequate to contain his true self, and Castiel collapses on himself, panting, as he forces his Grace within the confines of his vessel and remembers what it is like to be human again; or, at least, to play at one.

When he finally manages to raise his head, his fists still clenched with the pain of it all, sweat darkening the collar of his white shirt, he finds the boy smiling at him.

“You,” he rasps, and he jolts his blade into existence.

“Me,” the boy says, and he claps his hands, once.

Everything goes smaller and fades to grey.

.:.

The green light flashes outside the window, and Gabriel smiles.

“What is that?” asks Dean, leaning against the glass.

It looks like those pictures he’s seen of the Northern Lights, but they’re way too far South for them to happen. He thinks. Not that he knows this stuff, it’s Sam who’ll know for sure - and, more to the point, who the fuck can be sure of anything, with the day turning into night and a whole long stretch of nothing all around them.

Because, well, in the end neither Dean nor Gabriel could be bothered to go anywhere. They had looked at each other, and then at the desolate wasteland around them, and they had just - given up, in a way, and walked into the run-down Mexican restaurant.

Dean had wanted to get blind drunk and get away from all of it for a few hours; Gabriel’s motives, as usual, were his own.

And this is why Dean is now leaning on his cue, his face pressed to the window, looking up at the green lights in the sky while Gabriel summons yet another plate of dulce de leche.

“Something you cannot fathom,” answers the archangel. “But it means help is on its way.”

Dean looks up, scans the whole section of the dark sky he can see, but the lights have gone.

“Help? You mean you help, or real help?”

Gabriel licks the sugar off his fingers, slowly, obscenely.

“I am here to help you, Dean. It’s not my fault you’re not imaginative enough to take advantage of it.”

Dean looks at him, then away. Apparently Gabriel has decided that, since he’s not allowed to crush the hunter’s bones to dust with his bare hands, he’s going to annoy him to death instead. So far, Dean has counted seven veiled or direct threats, three mentions to embarrassing memories he was sure nobody knew about (well: nobody but Cas, probably, since the damn angel has rebuilt him from scratch), and at least nine blatant flirting attempts. It’s gotten to the point he doesn’t even know which angle of attack is more unnerving.

“You want me to be imaginative?”

Gabriel only smiles and leans back against the table.

“Find Jody Mills.”

Dean didn’t want to think, about this or at all. He was planning on getting drunk; on passing out, if at all possible. He’d been hoping against hope that for bloody once he could just stay here, quite possibly forever, or, at least, for the limited time the world seemed to have left, and drink himself to death. And it was, credit where it’s due, a good plan, especially considering he’s already sort of dead (according to Gabriel, at least - archangel of the Lord, divine messenger, patron saint of diplomats and stamps collectors - Gabriel, who’s currently looking at him with fuck me eyes and fiddling with the top button of his shirt).

Instead, well, Dean has been doing this so long that he can do it in his sleep - he can do it when he’s drunk and he can do it when he really, really doesn’t want to do it.

Dean is a hunter at heart, and he has a plan.

“Jody Mills,” he repeats, slowly. “Can you find her for me?”

Gabriel rolls his eyes and disappears. The plate of sweets he was holding hovers in mid-air for a split second, then crashes to the ground.

“Bloody typical,” mutters Dean, his eyes on the broken plate and the ruined food, and he doesn’t even know what is typical anymore - Gabriel’s selfishness, his complete disregard for - for anything, really; or maybe Dean’s own reaction to this, his growing, overwhelming hunger to just gank this fucker, and what does this say about him, that killing things is his natural instinct? Even things who may not be evil, after all? Thing who promised they’d help?

He really wants to kill Gabriel, though. And after all he’s done to him - and look at him now, all smug - he would probably be happy to eat himself into oblivion, or even fuck Dean into next week, and forget the damn Apocalypse -

But Gabriel is on his side.

Dean closes his fingers more tightly on the cue he’s holding as Sam’s earnest, concerned voice echoes inside him.

Yeah, Dean, but you didn't. And that's what matters.

His demon brother; the better half of himself. Doesn’t God have a bloody sense of humour.

Dean stares at the plate’s shards for another second, then, without even meaning to, he smashes the cue against the pool table, over and over again, until he’s left with a half stake, pathetic and broken.

He’d told them to let him go. He’d ordered them to, begged them to.

He’d been ready to die.

Liar, says his own voice inside his head, and Dean, with a yell of rage, turns around and stakes the broken cue still in his hand right through the window - glass explodes around him, and Dean feels the welcome pain of thousands of little wounds blossoming on his face and arms.

Because Sam is dead. There is no way Sam is not dead. Gabriel said someone marked him, Dean, for dead, and that someone must be a Reaper, since Death is - is gone and Reapers are the only other creatures with the power to do that. Which means a Reaper took Sam. And if Sam were in Heaven, Dean would know. He’s got - hell, not friends, but allies, up there. Someone would have sent some kind of What the fuck? message. Someone would have thought to check on him, if only to demand he do something to fix this mess.

Instead, well.

Dean closes his hands into fists, feeling the shards of glass piercing his skin, reveling in the sensation, then he curses out loud, takes his phone from his pocket and scrolls through his contacts until 666 shows up. And he dials.

Nothing happens. The phone is dead.

Dean closes his ruined hand around it to anchor himself against the sudden burst of memories - hooks piercing his skin, the constant, dull pain of it, Alastair's smiles against his ear - and he breathes deeply, silencing the tears and the sobs.

“Crowley,” he whispers, though he knows perfectly well nobody can hear him, “if you hurt him, I will end you.”

.:.

Claire is busy preparing holy water grenades when the whole house shakes.

“What the hell?” asks Krissy, running into the kitchen, a knife in her hand.

“I don’t know.”

The house shakes again, but, in a way, a bit more gently, as if that first time was just a mistaken earthquake, and now God is patting the roof to apologize.

“Let’s go,” says Krissy, and Claire doesn’t agree with that, not really, not at all, because this is what always happens, in every stupid movie - the axe murderer is just there, but then someone else - someone like Krissy, she thinks darkly, with her tragic past and her pretty smile - says Let’s go, and everyone goes, and they all get chopped to pieces.

She doesn’t know how to say any of that without sounding like a baby, though, and if Krissy is not afraid, well, then Claire won’t be afraid. No way.

Krissy has simply opened the front door and walked out, so Claire grabs one of the finished grenades, just to be safe, and runs after her.

Outside, the world is still the same. Dark and cold and completely fucked up. The flowers are starting to wilt a little, but that may very well be Claire’s helpful imagination, creating yet another metaphor to anticipate everyone’s death.

Great.

“There,” says Krissy, turning towards her, waiting for her. “Do you see him?”

And Claire sees him, all right, but she nods at Krissy all the same. Checking if the things around them are real or illusory is one of the main rules of Protocol 5, and she didn’t even need to hear Donna explaining the whys and wherefores - it just makes sense.

“Man, average height, slim built, dressed in black,” she says, dutifully, because this is part two of the rule: description. “A light around his head.”

Krissy had already been turning away from her, but she whips back at her last words.

“A light?”

“Can’t you see it? It looks like - oh, fuck it, it’s a halo.”

“A halo?”

Krissy is trying to sound wary, but the excitement is very plain on her thin face.

“Yeah, go on, be happy about it, because angels are so -”

“At least angels are angels, right? You can’t -”

“Yeah, and making friends with angels always ends -”

“So that’s not Castiel?” interrupts Krissy, and that shuts Claire up.

She looks at the man again - they’re too far away from him to see the expression on his face, but he’s definitely looking back at them - but she doesn’t feel anything. No recognition, no sense of connection. And she’d always sort of known when Cas was around, even before, even what she hated him.

“No,” she says, firmly. “And we can't even be sure he is an angel. Could be a trick, or something.”

“So let’s go ask him, then,” replies Krissy, and, again, Claire is left staring at her back in exasperation, trying to find the words to say, So not a good idea, and failing miserably.

“Yeah, like that always ends well,” she mutters in the end, but still follows the other girl through the dry grass - too tall and wild already - Alex was supposed to work in the garden yesterday, and apparently she didn’t. And it's not cosmetic, either - tall grass means the wards are more difficult to spot and maintain. Alex should know better.

The man is smiling at them, and now they are closer, Claire can see he’s quite attractive, in a wouldn’t trust him, like, at all kind of way. His hair needs cutting, but it has an interesting colour, and his features look all soft and perfect in the halo’s light.

Krissy walks up right to his face, because that who she is, but she has the good sense to remain inside the wards. Which, by the way, totally work, Claire can be proud of it, it wasn’t a waste of time reading all those books, so there. Unless this is a trick, of course, in which case they’re both dead.

“Ladies,” he says, just as Krissy says, “Who are you?”

He ignores that.

“Claire, it’s a delight to finally meet you,” he says, managing to sound almost sincere, and then winks. “Nice to know one is appreciated. I like my hair as it is, though.”

“You -” Claire splutters, and Krissy turns to look at her, her eyebrows so high they’ve practically disappeared from her face.

“So, we don’t even know if he wants to gut us or not, and you’re already daydreaming about him? God, you need to get laid.”

“I don’t -”

“I said, Who are you?” says Krissy, turning to face the stranger again.

“Would you be so kind as to confirm that Jody Mills is inside that house?”

“Answer the question.”

The man’s eyes follow Krissy’s fingers as her hand moves to her gun.

“Please. None of your toys can hurt me.”

“Really?”

Krissy feints and moves for the holy water instead, snatching it from Claire’s hand and throwing it at the guy.

“Really,” he says, catching it in mid-air. “And this is rude. If you wanted me to prove I am not a demon, you could have asked.”

Keeping his eyes on Krissy, the man brings his hand up and crushes the home-made grenade - there is a loud noise, somewhat muted by the wards - and the thing explodes all over him, drenching him. The whole thing was done, thinks Claire, in a very theatrical and dramatic way. And it is quite possible that the man exploded the grenade just so, that it was a deliberate choice, because somehow he looks now even better, all wet and disheveled, the area of scorched grass at his feet only adding to his general Mad, bad and dangerous to know flair. So, well: cute, smarmy, and a proper drama queen.

Right.

“It does need cutting,” says Claire, because now she has little doubt about the man’s identity, and she knows that sass is her best option.

Not that he is a man, of course. Not really. How did Cas put it? A celestial wave - and something about intent?

Because Chuck, well, he’s not always consistent plot-wise (or maybe the Winchesters’ lives are just that fucked up), but he is very good with characterisation.

“And why are you wearing that? It makes you look like your brothers,” she adds, her voice all sweet and sirupy, and the man smiles.

Krissy just stares at her.

“Is this - who is this?”

“Is Dean with you?” Claire asks, ignoring her. “Because that’s the only way you’re getting through these wards.”

The man's smile widens, and he pushes back his wet fringe.

“Is Jody Mills really here?”

“She is,” says Claire, and the man snaps his fingers.

Krissy curses as Dean appears out of thin air in front of them, and Claire grits her teeth, because Dean looks even more unhinged than he did last time, and that’s saying something. He’s staggering a bit, as if he’s drunk - is he drunk? - and he’s bleeding, profusely - his face and arms are red and shiny.

Claire takes an instinctive step forward, and Krissy grabs her arm.

“Claire?” says Dean, and the his eyes focus a bit, shift to Krissy. “Krissy? The fuck are you doing here?”

Without a word, Krissy takes a kit from her pocket and throws it at him. Dean manages to grab it, but it is a very close thing.

“Prove you’re you.”

Dean shakes his head, as if to clear his thoughts, and turns to look at his companion.

“Dude, I didn’t mean - you could have -”

“I cannot devine your thoughts, Dean. And yes, I could have, but I didn’t. And don’t even think I’ll fix you - I’m not your maid.”

“Didn’t ask,” says Dean, irritably, and he passes a hand on his face, making it even more messy and sickening to look at. “It’s just a scratch, anyway.”

He looks more than hurt, thinks Claire; he looks wrong, somehow. Broken.

The man glances at her, then away.

“Take the test. I don’t fancy being stuck out here any longer than I need to.”

Dean looks offended by his tone, but gets on with it anyway. Holy water, silver, borax.

Claire and Krissy just watch as Dean makes a glorious mess of it all, but then they start to smile.

“Dean,” says Krissy, “Come on in.”

Dean discards the empty vials and steps inside the wards, the silver blade still glinting in his right hand. There is a weird whooshing sound as they stretch and close around him, but then he’s through.

“Good to see you both,” he manages, before Krissy drowns him in a fierce hug.

“It’s good to see you too,” says Claire, and she means it; at the same time, though, there is still something about him she doesn’t like at all. “Where are Cas and Sam?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” says the man, who is still standing outside the wards. “Claire, will you invite me in?”

Claire’s eyes flicker to Dean’s, and she waits for his reluctant nod before saying, very quietly, fear and awe suddenly tingling in her very blood, “Gabriel, ha-elyon, come in.”

Gabriel smiles at her - the light of his halo gets very bright for a second, almost blinding - and then he steps inside the wards.

.:.

“Finally,” says the formerly winged lady (Hannah?) with a sigh, and Bobby stops staring at her just long enough to notice another man entered the room, and then -

He does a double-take, almost strangles himself in the process.

“Balls,” he says, in complete shock.

John Wayne has just stepped through his ruined wall. Bobby looks him up and down again, but there’s no mistaking him - the square jaw, those ‘step out of my way, kid’ eyes - he’s even wearing the goddamn hat, and the handkerchief around his neck.

The man - John bloody Wayne - stops walking and looks around in disapproval.

And then he opens his mouth and he clucks - he fucking clucks, low and annoyed, half turkey and half chicken.

“Your equipment is on the way,” says the lady, as if the man - no way Bobby is going to accept this is John Wayne, no bloody way - has actually said something that makes sense.

The man still looks pissed, a trademark look Bobby’s seen in dozens of movies, but then his eyes fall on Bobby, and he seems to remember there’s a code of conduct when meeting humans (and this thing, whatever it is, is not human) - rules, and niceties, because, yeah, humans are weird that way. So he walks up to Bobby, tries to smile (manages to look a bit less pissed, but it could be a trick of the light), and then, a bit gingerly, he extends his left hand and fucking clucks again.

“Uh -”

Bobby really wants to wake up now, but he can’t, not really, not nearly enough. And the other choice, well, it’s to give up, because this is what you do in dreams, isn’t it? There’s crazy shit, and you go with it. Plus, the lady is not looking happy with him, as if he’s being rude or something.

“Hello,” he says, in complete surrender to the reigning madness, and he clutches the man’s hand with his left.

The man shakes his hand very enthusiastically, up and down, for about a minute, and then catches the lady’s eyes, and, at her nod, he lets Bobby go.

“Bwok,” he says, turning to look at Bobby again. “Bwok. Bwoook?”

“Bwok,” Bobby replies, and then does his best to walk backwards and disappear into the wall.

Right. As if.

“Here it is,” says the lady from beside him, and then someone is forcing him to sit down on the couch, keeping him still, and Bobby’s vision is invaded by dozen of coloured cables as he feels a sort of helmet being adjusted on his head.

“Hey, wait just a goddamn minute,” he starts, but now John Wayne is kneeling in front of him, and he tinkers with the cables before bwoking, once again, a serious, calm expression on his honest face, as if he’s bloody reassuring him, and then -

Light. Noise. A sharp pain against his eardrums. The room dissolves and reassembles into a white space, and Bobby finds himself standing in the middle of it, bloody John Wayne staring down at him, keeping him still.

“Who the fuck are you?” says Bobby, “And what is going on here?”

That freaking angel, Hannah, walks into his field of vision.

“Do you know who the Winchesters are?”

Bobby has been trying to bat away John Wayne’s hands, but at that, he stops and stares at her.

“Of course I bloody know who they are.”

“Has his memory been restored, then? Does he know everything?” asks Hannah, turning to John Wayne.

He presses two fingers against Bobby’s forehead, a fleeting, graceful movement, most unlike the body he’s inhabiting, and then clucks seriously and nods.

“You clowns took away my memory?” asks Bobby, but somehow, he doesn’t even need an answer to that - he remembers it now, dying and waking up here, he remembers Cas tumbling into existence, their search for Metatron - all of it (or, most of it - how could he even tell?).

“It was the most prudent course of action,” says Hannah.

“You had no right -”

“We had every right. You acted against our rules -”

“Fuck your rules!”

Hannah frowns in irritation and - is that disappointment? - then turns to look at the other man.

“Thank you for that, Hadraniel. I can take it from here.”

John Wayne clucks again, and Bobby finds himself getting even angrier.

“And what’s up with him? What have you done to him?”

“We haven’t done anything to him,” answers Hannah, surprised. “This is Hadraniel, prince of the Virtues, and he’s been kind enough to restore the memories you lost.”

“The memories you took, you mean. And why the hell does he look like that?”

“This vessel is perfectly adequate. Virtues embody -” starts Hannah, but Bobby’s mind is finally waking up, and he can connect the dots on his own now, thank you very much.

“- unshakeable virility,” he says, and, really, this is basic stuff, the very first book he read about angels after Cas appeared in that barn and turned his world upside down. “Yeah, that Greek writer, Dionysius - he mentioned that. Virtues are supposed to keep order in the cosmos, aren’t they? Bang up job, man,” he adds, turning to John Wayne, and, really, the guy looks so much like his cowboy counterpart that Bobby can’t even tell if he’s proud or annoyed or completely indifferent. “And I thought Raphael was supposed to lead them.”

“Yes, well, Raphael -” says Hannah, tersely, and Bobby lose her next words as a sudden weight of knowledge and memories drops inside his skull and sits there, pressing against the bone and feeling as heavy and uncomfortable as undigested food.

“Of course,” he says, a bit absently. “Congratulations. And what about the clucking thing?”

“Virtues are not accustomed to taking vessels -” starts Hannah, and then she stops, abruptly, and crosses her arms. “We’re not discussing theology, Bobby Singer. I need to know what the Winchesters did.”

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Hannah frowns again, starts to look downright dangerous, but Bobby is not impressed.

“Aren’t you people supposed to be omniscient? Then I’m sure you know exactly what I did - in fact, I remember you do, because you punished me for it.”

“It is not,” says Hannah, taking a step closer, “about what you did.”

“Dean was dying,” says Bobby, refusing to back down. “And at this point you should know Sam would have done anything to save him. As would I, for that matter. And Cas.”

There is a flicker of expression on Hannah’s face - regret? annoyance? - which is there and gone in a second. She stares at him, hard, then shakes her head.

“I do not know how, but the Darkness has been released. If we do not move fast, the whole world will be consumed by it.”

“The Darkness?”

“Do you know where angels go when they die, Bobby Singer?”

Bobby wonders at the abrupt change of subject, and he really, really wants to know more about the Darkness, and this business about the end of the world, but in his experience when Bad Guys start talking and giving away information for free, the best course of action is to nod along. And what she’s about to volunteer - Bobby hasn’t been obsessed with it, of course not - there was always too much to do to lose sleep over beings who are not even human - but he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t been bugging him. Because this sudden appearance of angels in their lives just made sense, in a way. It spoke about symmetry and order, things Bobby had been resigned to let slip through his fingers, to never know again - for years, he’d been living in a world where demons were real, where Hell was real; a world without goodness, without angels or Heaven. He’d been sure he was alone, and doomed to fight, like everyone else, an unbalanced fight; and this sad state of affairs, Bobby is almost certain of it, is the reason why Dean Winchester has unravelled his whole life. Yes, Bobby had been bitter and sort of content with his bitterness - until a little boy’s feet had appeared in his range of vision as Bobby was on his back under a 1966 Pontiac; until that high, clear voice (Bobby can still hear it, nor trouble, every time he wants) had said, What does this do?

It had been three days, that first time. Exactly three days, while John had disappeared after something or other. Bobby barely remembers what Sam did, and sometimes he feels stupidly guilty about it; but, then again, Sam had been little more than a toddler. Children that young - Bobby had never been good with them.

But Dean -

“No,” he says, and he waits for the answer.

“Angels are defined by our Father’s Grace and Love. We are what He made us, and we exist to serve Him. If one takes that away, only Darkness remains.”

Bobby is not sure he agrees with that (what about Cas, and his rebellious ways?), but he's read enough about free will and medieval philosophy to know he won’t win a debate about this. It can be argued that God willed Gabriel to be a dick, or Balthazar to fuck anything that moved; it can also be argued that He let that happen for a reason. It is very, very hard to shape a consistent argument for the existence of true free will - people doing things without the will, or even the knowledge, of God; without some kind of divine interference. And Bobby is not about to try it now, not when discussing angels with an actual angel.

“The Darkness is pure evil; however, despite what most of you seem to think, evil is not -”

Hannah struggles for a moment.

“- not an active force,” she says, frowning. “Evil is not defined but what it does or what it is, because it is nothing and it does nothing. Evil, in its purest sense, is the lack of divine Grace. Most demons, and all monsters, of course, are devoid of Grace. And, as for angels -”

She stops again, as if the very words pain her.

“When we are killed, it is not our souls that get taken away, because we have no soul. Instead, our Grace is completely stripped from us, and therefore we Fall - we Fall into the Darkness.”

Bobby likes angels for what they represent (hope; balance), not so much for what they actually are. And, really, he doesn’t care for any of them except Cas, and even Cas - he’s mostly terrified of him, what he can do, what he chose to do, and why. He’d been meaning to have a serious conversation with Dean about it all, but was always too much of a coward to just do it, and now it’s too late. No, mostly, he has not sympathy for the angels who got killed on his watch - never met most of them - but seeing Hannah explain this thing right now, seeing the expression on her face - it’s wrong, that’s what it is. Wrong that any immortal being should die, and wrong to -Bobby can’t explain it, exactly, but something about the way she described this Darkness thing makes his skin crawl.

“Sorry about that,” he says, because that’s all he can say.

“And now the Darkness has been unleashed upon the world again, and our fallen brothers and sisters with it.”

There is a long stretch of silence, and then Hannah speaks again.

“I do not know how we can defeat it. But I know one who will. I can sense his presence as he flies over the world, searching his way back to us.”

Her voice is shifting, from prophecy to veiled threat, and Bobby suddenly feels exposed, vulnerable, and before the half-formed Balls! can even take shape inside his head, Hannah speaks again.

“Will you help him, Bobby? Will you say yes to him, and save the world?”