"Do you think this is the end?" he asked quietly, not daring to look the man standing beside him in the eye. Voices in his mind were still telling him that he shouldn't be talking to this man, that standing here reminiscing with him was wrong, but over the past few years those voices had grown weaker; it still made him uncomfortable, but at this point, exactly who was there left to talk to?
"I doubt it," the other man joked, but it was clear he didn't mean it. There was a certain finality to the flames licking relentlessly at the night sky, to the smoke dancing gracefully up towards the point at which it dissipated into bleak darkness. He was still not quite sure why he was here. Perhaps, he thought, because this particular fire marked the end of an era that still seemed as absurd as fiction: a shaky, unsure yet undeniably definite alliance between hunter, demon and angel; an alliance that against all odds, that despite constant betrayal, threatening and double-crossing, had never seemed to fade; an alliance that would turn to legacy, then to legend, and eventually would become a bittersweet yet entirely forgotten memory in the world of blood and fighting that this very same memory had once emerged from. "You're thinking about bringing them back."
"No. Enough is enough. They're at peace now."
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you."
A quiet humorless laugh, then silence. A faraway gaze in impossibly old, impossibly blue eyes, and silence.
"I'm surprised the angels made heaven an option."
Silence. A deep sigh, a withering glare softened by grief. "I wouldn't take no for an answer."
"Fair enough." He looked at the angel beside him. "What are you going to do now?"
"Why are you here, Crowley?" He hadn't intended to make that sound so much like a snarl. He supposed he knew the answer, anyhow. They had all been through a lot together, and, despite constant suspicions that the demon beside him would eventually end up being the one to put the boys in this position, he couldn't deny the fact that Crowley cared. He could try to hide it- he did, in fact, very well- but it was indisputable. "Never mind."
"What will you do now? I doubt heaven will take you back."
"Do you ever stop talking?" He sighed again. "I don't know. I… I don't know."
Crowley considered replying, but for once in his life realized there was nothing left to be said. Instead he watched the flames; he watched the angel beside him, the angel whose face stayed mostly blank but whose eyes shone with more than reflections of the flames.
Eventually, the fire died out, and nothing was left but ashes, memories and two figures standing amongst the remainder of the smoke, one in a trench coat and one in black; two figures that looked at each other for what, unbeknownst to them, would be the very last time, before turning away and stalking off in separate directions.
