My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by.

Reluctant as he is to admit it, Sam has to concede (to himself, at least) that Crowley’s arrival inside his own mind has changed things for the better. After that light had flashed in front of them in Purgatory, the world had twisted and dispersed before becoming one again; and Sam had found himself in the Impala. He’d been in the driving seat, but there had been no wheel. He’d barely been granted one panicked second to realize that before the car had started moving - all he could see outside the window had been a chaos of blowing snow - the car had skidded and turned on what was most likely ice, and Madison had screamed from somewhere behind him.

“Fucking drive, kid,” Benny had said, and Sam had looked up in shock to see that they were both there, in the back seat - a burly, badly shaven vampire and a frightened girl in a summer dress.

He’d ducked, trying to get to the glove compartment - maybe there was something in there he could use to grip the steering column - but just then, the world had exploded in light again.

“Are you okay? What did he do to you?” Dean had said, and there was the forest again; not Purgatory, thank God; just a forest, and Sam had known then that the light hadn’t been a light at all, but an archangel.

Not mine, he’d thought, with a hint of relief, and then he’d scolded himself, because Lucifer wasn’t his, wasn’t, in fact, anybody’s; he couldn’t be tamed, or controlled. He wasn’t safe. He wasn’t -

“He cut me -” he’d started to say, but here was the Impala again, because Madison was now gripping him, yelling into his ear - Sam, wake up! Sam, we’re going to crash -

And next, Sam had heard Cas’ voice -

“Sam, did Lucifer touch you?”

“He - he -”

- and the world had shifted again, because how could he talk about this to anyone, and especially to his brother? Because if Cas was there, then Dean was nearby; that’s how it went with them - and Sam couldn’t bear to explain it - how heavy Lucifer’s presence was (how necessary). That moment in the clearing, when Lucifer had moved closer and closer, and part of Sam had wished he would just do it, just claim him, because there was something deep inside him screaming out for Lucifer’s touch - something that had been created with one purpose, and one purpose only - to allow Lucifer within itself and surrender to his touch -

“Yes.”

But it hadn’t been the right place, or the right time, to say that word. Sam had closed his eyes, overwhelmed by shame and want, and had fallen hard into the car again, and the wind had been howling around them, and they were all going to die, they were going to crash -

And then, well, they hadn’t.

Because Crowley had suddenly appeared in the seat next to him.

“Enough horsing around,” he’d said, calmly, as if they hadn’t all been trapped in a car as defenceless as a toy against the storm raging around them, and next - next he’d conjured a steering wheel out of thin air, on his bloody side of the car, of all things, and -

“And who would you be?” Crowley had said, looking up at the rear-view mirror.

Sam had woken up to Dean’s voice again, had heard himself speaking in Crowley’s cultured vowels -

“Sam is not alone.”

- had reached for Dean, for Crowley, blindly, trying to tell them - trying to -

“Get him out. Get him out.”

But Dean hadn’t understood. Dean had been, in fact, as far away as a Fata Morgana (in another life, Sam had seen a documentary about it, sitting cross-legged on a motel bed as Dean got ready for a date - Will you be back before eleven? - Sammy, come on. - Before midnight? - Just go to bed, okay? We’ll have breakfast tomorrow, I’ll buy you waffles. - But where will you be all night? The movie theater closes at one. - And how do you know that? - I just know. - Well, don’t worry about me, I’ll be plenty busy.), and Sam had given up, had allowed Crowley to drive to car out of the blizzard, and in what was slowly becoming a completely different landscape - a Californian seafront (Santa Barbara’s, perhaps) bathed in soft light.

“What’s going on?” Madison had asked, from the backseat, but Benny had just opened the door and walked out as soon as the car had stopped. “Are we still in Purgatory?”

Crowley had been seemingly asleep by then, too busy, perhaps, to puppeteer’s Sam body in the real world to pay attention to the mess that was Sam’s mind.

Sam had relaxed back into the seat.

“No. We’re - this is my soul, I think.”

“This?” Madison had said, in a sceptical, prove it to me voice as she looked around her at the beaten down car; at the manicured gardens stretching into the distance.

“I don’t know how you can be in here with me,” Sam had said, omitting the obvious (that maybe they weren’t here at all - that maybe they were dead, illusions and ghosts). “But Crowley is a demon, and he’s possessing me right now, so -”

“Wait, what?”

“I know.”

“Are demons,” Madison had started, and she’d clearly meant to say, real; but then had shifted the sentence around, clearly deciding that this was her world now, and it was better to run with it. “Aren’t they dangerous? You know, evil?”

“Well, yes,” he said, quietly. “But Crowley -”

And, Jesus, that could have been the beginning of one long conversation, and this was not the time to have it. Sam hadn’t even been sure he knew how to have it. That he could explain what Crowley was, exactly. No, all in all, when Benny had started shouting, it had been almost a relief.

Ignoring all these things he couldn’t think about right now (including the fact that the girl sitting behind him could very possibly be his One True Love), Sam had half turned and opened the door - had seen Benny first, running towards them, his feet sliding and sinking in the soft sand -

“Go, go, GO,” Benny had shouted, and Sam had felt it before seeing it - the cold weight, the feeling of -

“Oh, God,” Madison had said, horrorstruck.

The wave was still on the horizon, but it was coming steadily closer. It was like a solid wall of water, and as tall as a freaking skyscraper, and it was clear enough that once it crashed down on the beach, nothing would remain - not the palm trees, not the luxurious houses on their left, and certainly not something as fragile as a 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

“Crowley,” Sam had said, but he’d already known there was nothing none of them could do.

They were inside his own mind; nothing here was real. The wave wasn’t the problem. The problem was -

Crowley had woken up with a sharp intake of breath, and, for the first time, Sam had seen fear upon his face.

“I don’t care what you have to do,” he’d said, and with a slight movement of his fingers, he’d seemingly pushed the wheel right in front of Sam just as Benny clambered in the back seat and slammed the door shut, “Just get us away from - from him.”

“Right,” Sam had said, trying for bravado, but Crowley had seized his shirt, his dark eyes almost black.

“You think I’m bad news - Sam, you have no idea what he will do to you - to all of us - you need to -”

But the rest of the sentence had turned to smoke and disappeared as the every dream and illusion had stretched and then slammed down on top of them and become reality again, and now Lucifer’s presence is stronger than ever and Sam is kneeling on a stone floor, his eyes on Dean’s.

“Lucifer is here,” he whispers, because, somehow, now his brother is here he can admit this; can remember that huge, threatening wave without passing out.

And there is nothing else he needs to say.

“He will not get you. I will not let him get you,” Dean growls, reaching out and pressing a proprietary hand on the back of Sam’s head; drawing Sam closer to him.

Sam takes a shaky breath and tries to get a sense of their surroundings. His memories of this house are blurry at best, but he’s well-trained. He and Dean seem to be hiding under the huge kitchen table - this means they’re in the North corner of the huge room (approximately twenty over forty feet). There is a wall of windows facing them, and a cavernous fireplace on the wall to their right. And, behind them, a series of cabinets; at least two of those contain dangerous items.

(Nothing that would work on an archangel, though.)

And then things get worse, because Sam starts to feel Lucifer again; in the real world, not inside his mind, that is, and everything is just too much.

He grips Dean’s shoulder tighter as Lucifer calls out for him, but he can’t block the smell of his voice - the pleasure spreading through his body as it responds to Lucifer’s presence.

“Stop it,” he grits out, speaking to himself, “Stop it, stop it -”

“I won’t let him touch you,” hisses Dean, fiercely; and then his brother is gone, and all that Sam can see of him are his legs, as Dean moves to the other persons in the room - two of them wearing scruffy jeans, and the third one a pair of elegantly pressed black trousers.

“Don’t you let him in,” he hears Dean say, but his mind is a mess now, because Lucifer is speaking to him (Sam, where are you? We had a deal, Sammy) and Crowley is also saying things, low, furious words tinged with panic (What are you doing? Get out of there!).

“Four archangels are needed to complete the spell,” says a voice which sounds both exactly like Bobby and nothing like him, and Dean scoffs.

“Yeah, you’re not doing the thing now, are you? So fuck off. Just tell me what the next ingredient is, and I -”

“Lucifer should take his rightful place among us,” says someone else, and is that Cas, and is Cas on Lucifer’s side?

Sam remembers how he prayed to the angel back in Purgatory, and tries to stifle the deep sense of wrongness and betrayal.

“What Lucifer should do is fuck right off. I don’t want that thing near my brother, you hear me?”

Back when he had some pride left, Sam had felt humiliated in such moments - all those times he hadn’t been strong enough and Dean had had to protect him - God, that one time in Missouri he’d been pushed to the ground by the ghost of a six-year-old girl because he’d forgotten his iron club in the car - Dad had almost had his arm broken as a result, had been livid over the whole thing, and Dean had tried to defend him even though, at thirteen, Sam should have known better - but now such feelings are gone.

Sam knows he’s flawed and weak, but what he has come to learn is that his big brother is just as damaged as he is. They’re both humans, so that’s okay. Humans are messed up. And if he can’t fight this battle alone, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they win.

“You’re not in a position to -”

“We fought together, you and I,” says Dean, in that low voice which means he’s very angry indeed, “and maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, not anymore, but I don’t care. It fucking should.”

“We already know Luci can be weird around his toys,” says a new voice Sam should really recognize. “Why complicate matters? Let’s just move the party to a more appropriate location until -”

The house shakes again, and Sam doubles over in pain when Lucifer’s voice stabs his brain right through (Come out and play, Sam). It’s possible he yelled, because next Dean is there again, bending down to peer at him, and he looks angrier than Sam has ever seen him.

“Very well,” says a voice behind them. “Our last ingredient is the Holy Ghost. You have one week.”

And just like that, Sam finds he can breathe and he gulps down huge breaths of air, unable to control himself; unable to silence that voice inside him which says, It would be much easier if you just said yes - it’s what you were born for.

.:.

The second meeting they have in the old house turns out to be even less pleasant than the first.

Gabriel is not here, so no one has given any thought to cooking, and while there are more important things in the world than strawberry cupcakes, Dean finds himself missing them. Unaware he’s even doing it, he squeezes a bit of condensed milk into his coffee as Sam gives them an update about Purgatory.

“If Lucifer is topside,” he adds, and it’s only because Dean knows him so well that he can hear the slight hesitation around the name - the superstitious fear that even saying the word will bring the archangel right here, “it means the place has been destroyed. That’s what he said he’d do, anyway.”

“And Michael is - dead?” Jody asks, looking at Dean.

Dean stirs his cup and just nods. He still can’t believe all of that happened, like, yesterday, because the moment is already seared into his mind like an old scar - looking up from Cas’ body to see Adam on the grass, two black wings burned on either side of him.

“There’s still four of them,” says Claire, quietly. “Gabriel, Raguel, Lucifer and - and Cas.”

There is a moment of silence.

“I can’t believe Castiel was able -” starts Jesse, but then Donna slams her own cup on the table with such force they all look at her.

“I don’t give a fudge about all of that,” she says, and then makes a face when she realizes she spoke out loud; she seems to try and restrain herself for a second, but then the words just tumble out. “I think what we all want to know is, what is really going on? And why are you two smack in the middle of it? Vamps are one thing - no, Dean, I was okay with vamps, really, but this is - you knew about this and you effing didn’t tell us?”

“We didn’t exactly know,” Sam mumbles, but he’s lowered his eyes to the table.

Dean looks at him, then back at the nonthreatening woman currently shouting at them both, and is seized by the mad impulse to laugh - Sam has taken down demons and angels and fucking Leviathans, and yet here he is, defeated by a divorced police officer from Stillwater, Minnesota.

“You look at me when I’m talking to you, Sam Winchester,” says Donna, and Dean feels himself respond to the tone; gripping his cup more firmly in his hands, he bites the inside of his cheek and looks at her as well.

“Donna, we didn’t -”

“You knew enough,” says Donna, and now she’s leaning over the table a bit, unconsciously getting closer to Sam. “You knew your brother was effing cursed and you never bothered to tell any of us.”

“I knew,” says Claire, but Donna ignores her.

“You were told what removing the Mark would do, but you still went ahead -”

“I’m not letting my brother die,” says Sam, and this time he doesn’t look scolded - there’s the shadow of a mean thing on his face that Dean recognizes as guilt, but will probably look like anger to everyone else.

“Your brother is dead, you big lummox! And we are next, all of us!”

“Donna,” starts Dean, but she cuts him off.

“The Lord knows I ain’t done much good in this life, but there are three children in the other room, Sam, and they deserve the chance to - they deserve to grow up. They deserve to live. So you stop fudging lying to us and tell us the whole story.”

“There is no whole story.”

“Sam -” starts Donna, and Dean can’t help but noticing that no one else is even trying to control the situation, and why would they?

Donna is right. She’s finally saying what everyone - Ellen, Charlie, even Bobby - should have been saying all along. That there’s something wrong with him and Sam, and that all of it is, in the end, their fault. Because the worst of it is, even if Dean understands where Donna is coming from (they’d never told anyone about the Mark of Cain, not even Jody) he still disagrees with her, because that’s how big of an asshole he is (because Charlie had tried to help, and look what happened).

Still, he’s not about to say anything in his defence. He knows from long experience that sometimes it’s just easier to take a beating. Bring it on.

But then, Sam changes. His back get straighter, his eyes meaner. He pushes his hair behind his ear, an irritated, uncharacteristic gesture, and glares at Donna.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he says, and this time Crowley is not even trying to disguise himself; the voice is Sam’s, but the accent is British, and there is such venom in his words that Donna automatically reaches for a weapon before seemingly realizing there is nothing she can actually do. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. King of Hell, at your service,” he adds, extending one large hand across the table, but Donna shrinks back from it.

“Crowley,” Dean says, but the demon ignores him.

“Astounding how it happens, really,” he continues, reaching for the coffee pot instead and pouring himself a cup, “that those who are lucky enough to not matter at all never appreciate it. Because you don’t matter, Sheriff, and you should be down on your knees every morning, thanking the Good Lord you were born a fat, stupid policewoman and not -”

“Crowley, back down.”

Dean is on his feet now, and Crowley looks at him, seems to seize him up and decide he can take him - which is insulting, okay - before turning back to Donna.

“Do you know how many times Sam prayed to God? How many times he’s asked to be normal? To be spared all this?”

Jesus, shut up.

This is so cheap of Crowley - Dean doesn’t understand if the guy even has a plan, a goal in mind, anything, or if possessing Sam’s mind is turning him into the mindless, whatever bastard Dean knows very well Crowley can be - what he does know, though, is that Sam is still in there somewhere, and that he sure won’t appreciate this conversation at all. Not that he’s kept his faith private, exactly - Dean had caught him praying with his door open more than once, but still, it seems wrong to -

“Do you want to know ‘the whole story’, Sheriff? Is that what you want?” the demon insists, sketching quotation marks with his fingers and looking at all of them in turn - at Jody, her hand frozen on her gun; at Claire and Jesse, staring at him in horror; at Dean himself, slightly shaking his head no, because, fuck it -

“Sam Winchester was chosen by Azazel to be the leader of his demon army,” says Crowley, glancing back at Donna, pinning her with his black gaze. “And if John Winchester hadn’t beaten his kids into submission - if he hadn’t taught them to kill and be hurt and never ask question, or else - Sam would now be the Prince of Darkness. Which is a lot less glamorous than it sounds like.”

The silence in the room is deafening. Dean can almost feel his brother’s rage - can feel him pushing against Crowley, struggling to get to the surface again - but Crowley is completely in control. Dean knows him, and he recognizes well enough that nothing can sway him now.

Fucking drama queen, he thinks; but he also wishes he could believe what the demon is saying - that he could trust the protectiveness in his voice.

“When he came to learn of his destiny, Sam begged God to help him,” says Crowley, very quietly. “Only God wasn’t listening. I was. Sam knew he was special, knew he would be more powerful than any man ever to walk this Earth, and all he wanted was for God to take it all back. He begged God - he begged me - to take it all back. To make it not true.”

This, Dean had not known. Of course, he’d wondered, now and then, how long, exactly, had Crowley been watching them, but he’d never thought - never suspected -

“And I'll let you in on something, Donna,” Crowley adds, using her name for the first time; but now he looks beyond her, to the darkened landscape outside. “This is something I've never told anyone before. I am a demon, and I do not apologize for who I am, or for the things I have done. But when Sam asked me to make it all go away - If I’d had the power, I would have done so.”

Donna looks down at the table, and now she seems on the verge of tears, and Dean is about to get really angry. Taking a step towards Crowley, he starts to clap, slowly.

“That has to be the best fucking show I’ve ever seen you put on,” he says, as insultingly as he can. “And, remember, I’ve seen you sing both voices of Hotel California at the same time, so -”

“Dean, he’s gone,” says Sam, without looking at Dean.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Well, he’s not gone, but he’s - in here,” Sam explains, touching his forehead. He sounds tired and defeated, but, then again, aren’t they all? “I’m me again. For now.”

“Sam, I’m sorry,” starts Donna, but he shakes his head at her.

“No, you were right. Dean and I - well. We can be selfish.”

“Also jerks,” adds Dean, and, for a fleeting second, Sam smiles.

“You came back for me,” says Claire, in a small, determined voice.

“That was Cas,” says Dean, before he can think better of it; but then his eyes meet Jody’s, and he remembers that moment between them - how hard she’d gripped his arm (Dean - I hate to say this. I really do. But you need to man up. And fast.) - and pushes it all back.

It can bloody wait. There’s stuff to do.

“Well, Crowley was right on one thing. Maybe we didn’t ask for this, but now we’re in it, we need to fucking do something about it. I don’t trust the angels - never have. It’s time to take control.”

Sam almost laughs at that.

“Yeah? And how, exactly?”

“What about Metatron?” Dean asks, saying the first thing that comes to his mind.

After all, they need someone powerful on their side, and douche or no douche, the guy had seen God, had -

“Metatron won’t help us! He killed you, Dean,” says Sam, with a huff, but Dean won’t be swayed.

“Put Crowley back on the line. We need to talk to Bela.”

Sam gives him the glare of death, but Dean is past caring. With a frown, he gets back to his cold, way too sweet coffee and tries to look as if he knows what he’s doing.

.:.

“That was decent of you,” Jody says, out of the blue. “What you did back there. Sam and Dean can be idiots, and God knows they keep secrets, but they’re good people. They do the best they can.”

There’s too much care in her voice. Crowley shrugs it off as he keep walking forward, because care is dangerous, and it always come with a steep price tag.

“You have no idea,” he says, dismissively, but he’s pleased all the same.

“But, you know, it’s still hard for us to - accept all of this.”

Crowley turns to look at her then; has to look down, actually, because in this form he’s towering over her (which is actually nice, once you get the hang of it: maybe he could keep this body, after all).

Hey, I heard that, says Sam, and now he sounds pissed off. Crowley ignores him.

“I know. I was human once.”

“Yeah, but back then,” starts Jody, and then seems to check herself, as if afraid of being impolite, of implying that in the past people used to believe all sort of nonsense.

“There are questions we all ponder,” says Crowley, magnanimously disregarding the awkward moment. “We all want to think we mean something - until we see what meaning something entails, that is.”

Jody moves a bit closer as they start walking again, and Crowley knows she has questions, a lot of them; that she hopes Crowley has some kind of access to Sam’s mind, or that he knows Sam and Dean better than she does (which he does), because, Crowley can sense this perfectly well, there’s things she’s been wondering about the Winchester brothers for years. Crowley wouldn’t be surprised if one or either of them had ended up spilling his guts over a drunken phone call over the years, but, even if they have, Jody is too clever not realize that she doesn’t know everything (that she could never understand it). The years of abuse, the complex knot of guilt and anger and love that was John Winchester. Dean having to grow up too soon, and Sam not allowed to grow up at all. All the times they’ve beaten the shit out of each other (how they could never survive without each other). What happened to Dean in Hell, and it doesn’t count if he can only remember half of it. How Sam can feel when Lucifer draws close, the terror it inspires in him.

No, nobody could understand that.

And, of course, Jody is a good person. She will never demand this information from Crowley, because she knows it isn’t his to give.

“So, how are you planning to contact your - Bela?” she asks instead, her police training kicking in. “You’re not going to Kansas, are you?”

“It would take too long,” says Crowley, conveniently leaving out the rest of it - that he’s not taking a step outside this property, not until Lucifer is caught and (if possible) drawn and quartered.

They’re almost at the wards, and now Crowley knows about them, he can see them - a dome of light, as intricate as lace and as solid as Damascus steel. He should tell someone to keep tabs on that Claire girl, because if what he’s overheard is true - if she created this thing - then it’s someone he’ll want watched. And, why not, turned.

Careful to remain one step inside the magical protection, Crowley looks out in the distance and says the word.

“What are you doing?”

“You'll see,” says Crowley, well aware of how the call sounded to her (an unnatural, unsettling sound a human couldn’t possibly produce).

They only have to wait a few seconds before a patch of earth right in front of them starts to shake. Jody cocks her gun and points it at the commotion, but, of course, by the time the ground opens up with a quiet sob, there’s nothing for her to shoot.

“Who’s a good girl? You’re a good girl,” coos Crowley, and then he kneels as the huge Hellhound collides with him and starts to lick his face. “Yes, I know,” he beams. “Papa missed you too.”

“What - what are you doing? Who are you talking to?”

Crowley looks from Juliet - as large as a bear, her black fur a painting of smoke and dark blood - to Jody, and sees the gun shake in her hand. If he wanted to, this would be his moment. He could summon the rest of the pack - he could take the house in five minutes.

You bastard, says Sam, and clearly Crowley has to work better at shielding his thoughts.

I said if, he replies, irritably.

“Jody, this is a Hellhound,” he says, as gently as he can, and in Sam’s voice, it actually comes out as pretty gentle. “I know you’ve heard - stories - but Juliet is actually -”

That thing tried to tear my throat out, says Sam, and, really, Crowley has had just enough of the constant commentary. This isn’t a Sundance movie, after all. He’s got work to do.

“- very obedient,” he insists, and Jody takes a step forward, the gun still pointed at the ground.

“Is it - is something really there? Why can’t I see it?”

“It is a demonic presence, and demons - think of them as a colour you can’t perceive, if you want.”

That was almost romantic. You got it from a book?

“Excuse me just a moment,” says Crowley, and he closes his eyes.

Only a second later, despite Benny’s ill-advised involvement, he’s managed to punch Sam unconscious and he’s back where he was - kneeling on the dry grass, Juliet’s muzzle drooling on his (Sam’s) jeans.

“Come down here.”

Jody looks back at the house, then holsters her gun and gives up, sitting down in the grass next to Crowley.

“Angel blades are pure Grace,” Crowley finds himself telling her, distracted by the way she’s looking up at him. “The more powerful the weapon, the more it is connected to God himself. An archangel’s sword, for instance, is even more deadly than the archangel himself - it’s tied to a place, not an entity.”

“A place?”

“Divine Grace is - is a place, not - it’s - I apologize. This is difficult to put into words.”

“Try,” she says, and Crowley sees it again - what he’d seen in the car, and even in the restaurant - what had stayed his hand the first time: this clever, fascinated curiosity of hers.

He breathes in, lowers his cheek on Juliet’s soft fur.

“You know how they say God is everywhere? That is factually - correct, in a way. Grace and Void are not -”

“Void?”

“It’s what we call the thing inside us. Inside me,” he clarifies.

“As in, empty?”

Crowley knows this, of course. He knows what the word means, and he knows it’s a good word, because this is what they all are - an absence of Grace, non-beings, more than anything else, but he’s still uneasy in admitting it to her. This is what annoyed him from the beginning - even as he’d been dragged to his death by Hellhounds - even on the rack, even in front of the rack - he’d always felt like something. Not himself, maybe, not anymore, and good riddance; but something. When his master had released him, he’d taken to haunt theology classes in the best universities of the world, trying to reconcile what he felt within himself with the stark reality of what he now was; and when he’d found it impossible to do so, he’d decided he would plunge on ahead and rewrite the rules.

“Void and Grace cannot be understood, but they can, occasionally, be bound to our control,” he says softly, ignoring her question. “And Hellhounds are the purest manifestation of Void on your plane of existence.”

He’s left the rest unspoken: the purest manifestation of his soul (such as it is) on her plane of existence, this is what he’d meant. And this is, apparently, what Jody understands.

“I wish I could see it,” she says, softly. “I spent too many years on the Force to believe in absolute evil, and - I don’t know, it seems that, even in this Void, there should be -”

“Beauty?” suggests Crowley, keeping his eyes on the dark horizon in front of him.

“Salvation,” she says, and this is when she reaches out her hand.

Crowley takes it, guides her fingers to Juliet’s nose for her to sniff and learn.

Friend, he thinks. Ally.

Juliet licks Jody’s palm, and Jody laughs at the sensation, probably at the absurdity of it - she still can’t see anything, after all.

“Go on. You can touch her now,” says Crowley, and Jody traces the huge silhouette of the Hellhound, the look in her eyes making it clear she’s trying to calculate how big it actually is and what kind of damage it can inflict.

“Her fur is soft,” she says, puzzled. “I was expecting -”

“As you said: salvation.”

This is something he could do again, he thinks; in fact, this is something he will do at another time, because now it’s urgent to send Juliet on her way.

“I need you to find Bela Talbot, Kansas Commander,” he says, using the Old Language. “She should be in Lebanon. Warn her that our Lord has come back. She will know what that means.”

Juliet looks up at him, her dark red eyes looking more serious they have any right to be, and then she’s off, and Jody is almost thrown backwards by the shape of the huge dog turning on its haunches and running away.

“So that was a Hellhound,” says Jody, getting back to her feet and trying to sound unfazed.

“Well, the phones don’t work,” says Crowley, getting up as well. “I would have called a wolf, but they’re considerably slower.”

“A wolf?” she echoes, and, again, she forgets to mask her awe.

“Give me some credit,” he smirks down at her. “I am the King of Hell, after all. You think I can't control a wolf?”

.:.

Dean has been in the bathroom for only a minute when Cas appears in the mirror behind him.

“What the -” he growls, turning around.

“Working with a demon is unclean,” Cas says, only, well, his voice is all wrong; clipped and to the point.

Dean allows himself to take him in - the stylishly messed hair, the black suit - and shakes his head.

“Yeah, like you’re the one to say that. How’s Lucifer, then?” he asks, but the sweet sarcasm in his voice ends up dripping back in his own throat and making it hard to breathe.

Cas doesn’t even seem disturbed. He looks right at Dean, but, in a way, through him, the way one would look at a crowd when waiting for a train.

“And there is nothing Crowley can offer you. Metatron is dead.”

Okay, this is unwelcome news. If it’s true.

“I do not lie, Dean.”

“Stay out of my head.”

Cas has no answer to that. He just resumes his staring, and Dean feels himself becoming more and more unnerved.

“What happened, then?” he asks, and Cas starts to answer before the sentence has even left Dean’s mouth, because, yeah, that’s how much he’s staying out of Dean’s mind.

“Lucifer,” he says, simply. “I saw the body myself.”

Dean takes a step back until he feels the edge of the sink pressing into the back of his thighs. He doesn’t know what he feels, exactly, other than outmaneuvred and defeated, bloody again; like someone who holds no cards and is about to be pushed out of the game.

“And you’re here to, what, gloat?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as tired as he feels.

Cas frowns.

“I can feel you longing for me. It’s very distracting,” he says, as if discussing the weather.

“I am not longing for you,” Dean growls back, because, what the hell?

He’s not - he hasn’t - has he?

“You are longing for me right now,” says Cas, and now he sounds almost puzzled.

He takes a step forward, and Dean presses back into the sink.

“And you need to stop that. You mean nothing to me.”

Dean clenches his jaw.

“Yeah? What are you doing here, then?”

The question hangs in the air between them, but while it scorches Dean to the bone, it seems to have no effect on Cas, who simply shrugs.

“I am not here. My wings are broken, Dean. You are the one calling me here, and you need to stop.”

Dean doesn’t understand this answer at all.

“I don’t want to stop,” he says, very quietly, and then he thinks, And I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

He thinks he sees something like regret on Cas’ face, but when he reaches out and tries to touch the angel - to seize the expensive fabric of his suit, to grasp his arm and force him to understand, to - to come back to him - he finds himself closing his fist in mid-air.

Cas has vanished. It’s like he was never there at all.

Dean turns around with a sigh. He checks the mirror, but all he can is his own face staring back at him, pale and haggard.

God is lonely, says a voice inside his mind, and Dean thinks this is something Metatron may have told him once. He doesn’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. Not really.

He doesn’t even know how he feels about Metatron’s death. He should feel - vindicated, perhaps; or even triumphant. He’d hated the guy, mostly for what he’d done to Cas, but now he’s dead, it’s like the world has been tipped into an even more dangerous imbalance than before. The guy had seen God, after all; he’d talked to Him and for Him and now he’s gone, so is their last thread towards, well - anything that isn’t chaos and destruction.

Dean opens the tap, splashes some cold water on his face.

He will not give up.

He’d asked Cas to just come back, and he’d implied, hadn’t he, that he would keep fighting as well; that if Cas chose to live, despite everything, then he’d -

And he will keep fighting. It’s what he was born to do (brought back to life to do). Sam will never forgive himself if they don’t manage to fix the world, and Dean won’t allow it - this is their fault (his fault), all of it, and if there’s even a snowball’s chance to make it right, then nothing else matters.

Gritting his teeth, he walks out of the bathroom and back to the kitchen.

“Where’s Jesse?” he asks, and Donna looks up from her empty cup.

“Do we have a plan?” she asks, trying to sound as if she hasn’t cried.

“We’re breaking into Heaven,” he tells her. “And we’re doing it right now.”