disclaimer: spn fic inspired by a gifset i saw on tumblr. xD i can't show you the gifset yet cause that would give away the plot ;D

but yeah - (i'll try and actually keep this one going omg my life)

i claim no ownership of characters, etc etc. r&r if you are feeling kind. c: it helps keep me motivated if i know people are reading it. xD

For many years afterward, Dean Winchester would say it was like the best and worst meteor shower he'd ever seen in his life. Worst, because obviously they'd fucked up (again), and not only were the gates of Hell not closed, but Sam had come within an inch of dying, Castiel was who-knew-where, and for some reason, the angels had fallen from heaven, though for once Dean couldn't be sure that had anything to do with him. And it was the best meteor shower he'd ever seen because if there was anything that could outmatch the brilliance of an actual one, it was the sight of hundreds of flaming angels hurtling down from a night sky, lighting up the navy canopy like searchlights. And then Sam would promptly give him that look where he pursed his lips a little, frowned, and shuffled disapprovingly and Dean knew that he'd probably been a little insensitive.

Tight fingers gripped the wheel, both hands squeezing the life out of the poor leather like he only did when he really needed to go fast, a subconscious comfort even though he logically knew it would do nothing to make the Impala burn rubber any quicker. Dean cast a quick glance at his brother slumped in the seat next to him. "Sammy, you gonna be okay?" His voice was gruff, thick with poorly concealed concern.

"Yeah," came the raspy reply. "Just keep driving."

But he sounded like shit and Dean knew it, though he said nothing, just kept a stony gaze forward on the road barely illuminated by the beam of his headlights and tried to will Baby to move faster. Surprisingly, it was Sam who kept talking after a while. "You know… the hospital's not going to know what's wrong with me."

"Yeah, well they've got stuff to patch you up with, at least. We'll get you there and c – shit!" Practiced reflexes saved the bundle in the middle of the road from being hit as Dean swerved hard, tires screeching against concrete before they bumped to a stop. "… You okay?"

"What was that?"

"Hell if I know. Stay in the car."

Thankfully, for once Sam didn't protest, just groaned softly and shifted slightly against the leather while Dean climbed out the driver's door and closed it behind him, one hand on a gun hooked on his jeans as he slowly advanced towards the shape. Only when he drew closer did he realize it was steaming, whatever it was, wisps of smoke rising from it, and was motionless as a lump of coal. Then the moon outlined the folded edges of feathers in pale light, and Dean realized half the size of the lump was a wing, pale brown in color and partly draped over the humanoid shape. An angel. Swallowing thickly, Dean took his hands off the butt of his gun. Was it even alive, after a fall like that?

Suddenly, a brilliant glow kindled at the edges of the wings, glimmering at the tips, and Dean could swear they were shrinking. No, not shrinking… they were dissolving, the tips of feathers rapidly being eaten away by the bright rot, and the body came to life, twisting onto its back and letting out a long groan of pain. Before Dean's eyes, the light advanced farther, accelerating as it spread over the now stunted limbs, and that was when the delirious moans turned to shallow, tight gasps and then soft, sobbing screams. "Hey, hey!" Regaining his senses, Dean rushed forward, but as soon as he laid hands on the angel he recoiled with a hiss of pain, looking down at a brand of red across his palm. Great. Right, it was still red hot. "What's going on?"

The weakened angel turned over, agony etched into the lines of her face, a freckled, pale face fringed with tangled blond hair. Her wings were almost entirely gone now; just the stumps remained, rapidly devoured by the light and leaving nothing but stray feathers in its wake, drifting in sad patterns to settle on the pavement like snowfall, remnants of Grace and Heaven. Dean's eye caught one of the feathers and he bit his lip, turning back to the half-conscious angel. "Hey," he tried again, resisting the urge to reach out and try to shake her a little. "You okay? You alive?"

He didn't really expect a response, but one came. The angel opened her eyes, a blue of receding brilliance, and Dean had to remind himself that this wasn't Castiel. This was an angel he'd never met before, and he didn't know whether she was hostile or as dickish as the rest of them, though he comforted himself with the thought that even if she was, she wasn't really in a place to be hurting him. Hopefully. "… Winchester. You are… Dean Winchester. What… happened? Why am I – " Her face noticeably fell, and there was such baffled grief there that even Dean felt bad, even though he had no idea what happened. "… C-Cast out?" Her frail body gave a suffering shudder, as though just the thought gave her unbearable pain.

"Can't say I know what's going on either. Angels fell, everywhere. What the hell happened upstairs?"

The angel looked straight at him, as if realizing he was there for the first time. But instead of answering, she merely continued. "… You tried to close the gates of Hell."

Dean gritted his teeth, his mind going to Sammy in the car, broken and battered, needing medical attention or some kind of attention, waiting for him. He couldn't take long. "Yeah, didn't really work."

Here the angel seemed surprised, if the slight widening of her red-rimmed eyes could have been interpreted as surprise and not just another reaction to pain. "Didn't… work?" But then, in a bright burst of the light that had been eating at her wings, suddenly they were gone, and the angel let out an ear-splitting shriek, writhing against the cracked concrete, curling in on herself, and Dean got the feeling that whatever was going on, he couldn't just wait around here. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Why…" she croaked, her voice sounding leagues away. "Why… my grace… why is it gone? Who took my grace?"

Dean, halfway to standing, paused at that, confused. "Your – your grace? Are you not an angel anymore? … Shit, your wings, they were – "

"Gone." Her voice cracked, and under the lonely moonlight she looked incredibly small now without them shrouding her body. "Human. I'm… I'm human now. Why is this happening?"

Unable to answer, Dean hesitated, grinding his teeth. Fuck, he couldn't just leave this angel – human? – lying here, waiting to be hit by a car. Fuck! Stooping down again, he tentatively brushed his fingers against her shoulder. Still hot, but not burning. "Okay, let's get you to the hospital too." Shit, they're not gonna know what the hell to do with her either. But he didn't know what else to do, and leaving her for road kill, now that apparently she actually could be killed by a car, didn't sit right with him. Sliding his arms under her shoulders and the bend of her knees, he hefted her up – alarmingly light – and started back for the car. Only then did he realize that she had fallen unconscious.

"… An angel?"

Dean had gone back to focusing on the road ahead of him, now wary for more angels to almost run over, but so far the road was clear and he found himself wondering where they had all fallen and where Castiel was. Had he taken a nosedive from Heaven too? Did that mean he had turned human too? The angel in the backseat looked in bad shape, and Dean wasn't really sure what turning human did to one of them. He remembered Anna – one of the many brief flashes of faces and names that they had seen and known, and had gone from their lives way too soon – and she had been fine after her grace had been taken, right? But she'd lost her memory, and evidently these guys still knew what was going on. Castiel had to be somewhere out there.

"Dean?"

Blinking, he looked over to Sam. "What? Oh, yeah. Turned human, I think. Saw her wings poof, and then she mumbled something about her Grace being gone."

"You think they get their angelic powers taken away when they fall? Become vulnerable?"

"I don't know. All I know is she looks like she got hit by an eighteen wheeler and she can die now, so we should keep that from happening. Then we can figure out what to do."

There was a moment's pause, and then Sam's voice was much quieter. "Well, we can't close Hell anymore."

"Right about that." He could feel Sam looking at him, but he wasn't going to look back, because their conversation in that worn out church still had its fingers wrapped tight around his chest and just remembering how his own brother had looked at him with genuine confusion and asked "so?" when he'd said he was going to die if he kept going made him feel sour and bitter inside all at once. Sam sounded like he was about to say something again, but at that moment there was a shuffling noise from the backseat, and both of them turned their heads to look at the shadow of motion.

"That you, angel?" Dean called, turning back forward to keep his eyes on the road. Sam frowned and eased himself up until he could sit up a little straighter, painstakingly dragging himself inch by inch until he was turned so he could see the angel's face as she opened her eyes.

"My name is Raziel," she replied, her voice almost too soft to hear over the growling hum of the engine. The occasional passing streetlamp illuminated a sickly face, pale skin drawn almost unnaturally taut over the bones of her structure. She looked like a victim of anorexia, and the sunken shadows around her eyes gave her a haunted, ghost-like appearance. Sam swiveled back around briefly to give Dean a silent, downcast look that his brother recognized well. On hunts, they had developed a silent way of communicating 'I don't think they're gonna make it' when they didn't want to worry victims. He just set his jaw and put the pedal harder to the metal. "You must… not have found the correct angel. They are difficult to locate in recent times; much of Heaven has become… jaded."

Sam furrowed his brow slightly. "What? The correct angel for… what, exactly?"

Now it was Raziel's turn to look a little baffled, though her confusion was painfully innocent, a pure sort of lack of understanding that no human could ever produce, child-like in its naiveté. "Were you not talking of closing the gates of Hell?"

"Uh… yeah," Sam replied, ignoring Dean's obvious tension about the very subject. "And I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything about angels in that. Hellhounds, delivered souls, and curing demons, yeah. No angels."

"… Ah, the back path." Raziel relaxed noticeably. "How valiant of you, Sam Winchester… willing to give yourself to rid the earth of Crowley and his ilk."

"Doesn't matter," Dean snapped before either of them could say anything more. "Sam's not doing any of that anymore; neither of us are. Demons can have this stinking place for a while longer; Hell's staying open if it means my brother's got two feet planted firmly here, you got that?"

"Dean, wait." Sam leaned forward a little in his chair, frowning when Raziel closed her eyes and leaned back against the upholstery. "Hey, Raziel. You said this was a back path? You mean there's another way?"

For a few seconds, she was so quiet that Sam wondered if maybe she'd died, but then she let out a sigh. "You mean… you don't know? Didn't your prophet translate the tablet?"

"Uh, working on it. What's the other way?"

"Forget it, Sam. I'm not letting you anywhere near any more trials – "

"It's difficult… especially in these times." Raziel kept talking, but her voice grew quieter and quieter, and Sam swore she was getting worse. It had only been a few minutes, but now the passing bands of light shone over a bony face, skin stretched almost like parchment, barely covering what was underneath. Even her closed eyelids were thin, like he could see right through them if he looked close enough. "Sacrifice. You have to find an angel. One who still believes in the original ways of Heaven. A pure angel."

"The original ways of Heaven?" Sam knew he had to be economic with the information he asked for now; Raziel wasn't going to hold out for much longer. The hospital trip was going to be pointless for her. "… Raziel?"

Another long breath left her thinned and parched lips. "When our father… first created us. We were… made to be shepherds, Sam… to guide you… humans. Show you the right path. After… Lucifer fell, after so… so many ages, most of us have lost that. Many in Heaven do – or, did… I suppose – what they chose. There was war… chaos… where has our faith in the father gone, in his mission? Now… we all fight, and humans… your kind… they are simply cattle. Collateral damage. Angels… very few… care about humans anymore."

Sam swallowed, a thick motion that stuck in his dry throat and made him wince. They'd had a few too many run-ins in the past with angels who gave a rat's ass about people. "Raziel, do you know any angels who still… believe?"

"Give it up. We're not doing this again."

"But it's another way, Dean! We can still shut down Hell, for good. Why not?"

"Damn it, Sam, we already talked about this. I'm not letting you die, okay? Didn't you hear all that stuff I said to you back there?"

"Look." Shifting in his seat again, Sam sucked in a breath as the essence of the trials still burned inside him, like trapping a hurricane inside a worn leather sack. "She never said it would kill me. We can at least think about it." Dean looked unconvinced. "And if it does anything to me, anything… we call it quits, okay?"

Bright green eyes illuminated by the fluorescent light of another passing streetlamp revealed the fear that bubbled just beneath as Dean glanced at his brother. He wanted so badly to say no, refuse to even think about this; just seeing Sam like he was now… "You sure about this?"

"Promise. You with me?"

"You can barely do it with me. I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?"

Dean shifted his jaw, turning his face back forward. "… Soon as it goes south, no operation, got it?"

Instead of answering, Sam just looked back to the still form of Raziel in the backseat. "Raziel? Any angels you know who still follow the original mission?"

But they were met with silence. The combination of shock from the unexpected fall, having her grace ripped from her, and waking up human had proved too much. The angel was dead.