Chapter Text
Cas was trying to sleep. He’d cranked the heater before he climbed into bed, and pulled the thin motel blanket around himself, but it was still too cold in the room. A side effect of his failing grace, no doubt—along with the persistent headache, the tightness in his chest, and the way his joints ached every morning, it was as if a chill had settled somewhere deep in his bones and wouldn’t leave him alone.
He picked his head up and glanced at the glowing numbers on the clock on the nightstand. 3:47. He dropped his head again to the pillow, pressing his face into it and breathing in the musty smell. Exhaustion was another thing that had been plaguing him for the last several months, but for some reason sleep didn’t always come easy. Too many thoughts floated through his head: Dean was gone. Dean was alive. Dean was probably, if the lore he’d found meant anything, a demon.
Sighing, he turned over, so that he was staring up at the stained ceiling, wondering how the large vaguely butterfly-shaped blotch had gotten up there. Perhaps it was time to give up on sleeping for the night. Or perhaps—
He was startled from his thoughts by a three loud bangs on the door. A pause, then another bang-bang-bang. And another.
Cas swung his legs over the bed and pulled his robe around himself and tied it. He was puzzled. Who would be here at this hour? Sam had made it pretty clear during their last encounter that he wanted nothing more to do with him until his shoulder healed.
His heart leapt. Could it be Dean?
He padded across the chilly linoleum floor and rested a hand on the door handle just as it rattled again. Then he pressed his eye to the peephole, trying to simultaneously contain the hope bursting in his chest while also reminding himself that there was no point in getting his hopes up. It wouldn’t be Dean. Of course it wouldn’t.
It wasn't Dean. It was Crowley. Somehow, the sinking feeling that accompanied that discovery was far stronger than it had any right to be.
Cas pulled the door open, confusion climbing up through the weight of disappointment. Crowley was standing impatiently, hugging one arm to his chest. He looked ruffled.
“What do you want?” Cas asked.
Crowley huffed, haughtily taking in Cas’s bathrobe-clothed form, then pushing past him into the room and turning to face him. “Taking your time, were you?”
“I was trying to sleep,” Cas said, not sure why he was bothering to explain himself. “What are you doing here?”
"Dean is gone," Crowley said seriously.
Cas squinted at him, unsure whether this was the demon’s idea of a joke. “Yes. He is.”
For a moment, Crowley’s unflappable façade slipped, and Cas saw an emotion—fear, or regret?—slip across his face. Then the smug mask was back. “Not like you think, angel,” he said. “Believe me.”
“What does that mean?” Cas demanded, his patience wearing even thinner.
Crowley didn’t answer immediately. Instead, holding his left arm close, he eased himself into the creaky chair that accompanied the motel room’s tiny linoleum table. He gazed at Cas, and Cas returned the gaze, brow folding. He had the distinct sense that Crowley was playing with him.
“I may have been...apprised…of Dean’s whereabouts for some time now,” Crowley said finally, squinting at Cas as if not sure how this news might be received.
“What,” Cas said flatly. He hadn’t been this close to a lead in months, and yet now he felt frozen in place. Crowley had known. All those months and Crowley had known. He pressed his lips together and inhaled sharply through his nose, anger stirring in him. Crowley had known. Then Crowley's earlier words came back to him. "What do you mean he's missing? Where is he now?"
“Well if I know, he wouldn't be missing,” Crowley said irritably, but raised the hand of his good arm in a gesture of surrender. “Of course. You’ve got every right to be upset. But hear me out, because this is important."
He paused long enough for Cas to nod tightly for him to go on."
"I’ve actually been…with Dean…uh, not in the Biblical sense of course…”
Somehow, Cas had crossed the distance between them without being aware of even deciding to move. He grabbed Crowley by the collar, hauled him up from the chair, and slammed him against the near wall, making him yowl and rattling the print of a sunset hanging on the wall above. Despite his own weakness, Cas was able to pin him in place against the wall with his forearm across the demon’s neck. It took all the willpower he had not to pull back and smash his fist right into Crowley’s gasping face.
“I can explain,” Crowley said, when he'd caught his breath. He didn't seem overly surprised by Cas's actions, though Cas could tell that his pain, at least, was real. “Come on now. Cas. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
Cas barely registered his plea.
“Dean has been with you,” he snarled, shoving Crowley back against the wall again.
Crowley winced. “It was his decision not to contact you or the gigantor. Not mine.”
“His decision,” Cas ground out. “Crowley. What did you do to Dean?”
“I made him a demon,” Crowley admitted after a moment.
Cas smashed his fist into Crowley's face. His knuckles collided with the sharp ridge of bone under Crowley's cheek and he felt something crack, then stumbled back, numb. Crowley doubled over for a bried moment, swearing, but Cas ignored him. It as if the world itself had tilted slightly on its axis. His anger faded as a roaring sound filled his ears.
Crowley straightened, dabbing at his cheekbone tenderly before saying in an infuriatingly calm voice, “He was dead. I knew what would happen if I put the First Blade in his hands. So I gave it to him. Better than letting him rot, eh, or letting stupid Moose make a deal he'd undoubtedly try to take back later. I thought Dean and I could rule Hell together. Clean up the mess that my kidnapping and Abbadon’s little civil war left behind. Unfortunately, that’s not how things went.”
“What are you talking about?” Cas growled.
“Dean, er, didn’t want to rule Hell,” Crowley said awkwardly. His face was already starting to bruise, but Cas felt no remorse. “He wanted to drink, experience the local wildlife from every angle--believe me you don’t want to know--and also to perform truly, truly awful karaoke every night. Didn't even want to kill anyone. I stayed with him, hoping he’d come around, but…not so much.”
“Where is he now, Crowley?” Cas ground out, not sure what to make of Dean’s demonic activities and deciding that he really didn’t want to ponder them too much.
Crowley gave a deep sigh and blinked slowly. More than anything, he looked tired. “Hell wasn’t nearly as stable as I’d hoped it would be, after the wicked bitch of the west turned half of my denizens against me. Apparently, they got tired of waiting for me to return from my ‘vacation’ to rule Hell, and decided to depose me. About two hours ago, they tried to kill me. I escaped. But they took Dean. Now, we’ve got to get him back.”
“We,” Cas repeated incredulously. There was so much wrong with that presumption that he didn’t know where to start. “Where did they take him, Crowley?”
“Hell, I presume," Crowley said.
Cas squinted at him for several seconds. “Why did you come to me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” Cas said. The fact that he was still contemplating whether he had the energy to smite Crowley for turning Dean into a demon meant that, as far as allies went, he had to be fairly low on the list. “If you want him back, don't you have demon allies?"
“Not that I’m sure I can trust,” Crowley said delicately, and Cas remembered vaguely that he’d been betrayed by a demon who had sided with Abbadon once before. “I assumed you’d want to find Dean. And that because you're so reasonable, you would be slightly less likely to kill me on sight than Moose. Anger issues, you know.”
"Why do you want to find him?" Cas asked. Somehow, he couldn't imagine Crowley being motivated by any of the emotions that were driving his and Sam's search for Dean.
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Obviously. If I'm going to have any chance winning Hell back, I'm going to need him. Having a Knights of Hell brings legitimacy to the regime, and so on."
Cas shook his head. “If we find him. Sam and I will cure him. I won't let you have him.”
Crowley waved a dismissive hand. “Thought you'd say that. Cross that bridge, and so on. As long as Abbadon’s supporters—don’t even know who’s riling them up, if you can believe it—don’t have him and the First Blade, I’ll be better off. So are you with me, or not?”
"What do you have in mind?" Cas asked cautiously.
Crowley’s face lit up. “Well. Assuming Dean is in Hell, I know how to find him.”
“How?” Cas said impatiently. For a moment, the thought slipped through his mind that it was insane to trust Crowley, and that perhaps he should dispose of him and then try to find Dean himself. But it passed just as quickly. He was in no shape to mount an attack on Hell like he had six years before, especially not without a garrison of angels at his back. If he was going to go in, he’d need help from someone on the inside.
“Yes. Right.” Crowley shook his head slightly, as if trying to marshal his thoughts. The smug mask seemed to slip again, revealing the face of a tired, hurt, and worried man. But it was back in place in seconds. “Well. In Hell, there’s a room of sorts, like those big security rooms they have in malls, where a guard can watch all the cameras. Of course, there aren’t literal cameras, but there’re spells and enchantments and so on that allow a bloke to see what’s going on in all corners. All we have to do is get in.”
He paused dramatically, making Cas wonder, “And how do we do that?”
“Well,” Crowley said, “As king I had full access. As…deposed king with an angel as a wingman" (he smirked) "we’ll have to take the back entrance. Lots of areas not often tread, by demons or anything else. Very Frodo and Sam sneaking into Mordor, if you catch my drift.”
The phrase sent several thoughts and images cascading through Cas’s head, which meant that it was a pop culture reference instilled by Metatron. He frowned briefly, sorting them out, then said, “I see. Like when Gollum led Frodo and Sam through Cirith Ungol to reach Mount Doom, intending them to meet their destruction by the giant spider Shelob.”
“...Right,” Crowley said, squinting at Cas in plain confusion. “In any case, we should be able to get past most of the nasties if we take a few ill-trodden routes. Once we’ve located Dean, we can find a way to free him. They won’t be expecting an angel, not even one whose batteries need a good recharging. It'll give us an advantage.”
Cas nodded, satisfied for the moment. He found that, as insane as it was to trust Crowley to lead him through Hell for simply the chance to find Dean, with no guarantee that they’d even be able to free him, or that Crowley wouldn’t simply try to kill him as soon as he didn’t need him anymore, the last few months without Dean had been so painful that there was really no question. Of course he’d go after Dean. Of course he’d follow a demon and risk everything he had.
The memory of standing over a bloodied Dean with an angel blade raised, as Dean choked out, “I need you,” sprang to his mind unbidden, as it did occasionally. But now, instead of the usual rush of mixed guilt and amazement that Dean actually needed him, he felt only one thing: a certainty that as much as Dean had once needed Cas, Cas needed Dean. Without Dean, his life was empty.
“Very well,” he said finally, eyeing Crowley. “How do we begin?”
“Well,” Crowley said, eyeing him back, “first things first, angel. Put on some bloody pants.”