Cas had always loved the rain. He would stand for hours on end, simply staring out at the grey, foggy scenery as the droplets pelted the window. Deep blue eyes would follow them as they raced down the glass, melding into each other and chasing identical copies of themselves across the flat surface. Every so often, he would lift his hand to press it against the pane, fingers splayed out, spread against the cool glass. He would hold it long enough so that the negative space between his digits would fog up from the difference in temperature before letting his hand fall back to hang loosely at his sides, the smallest of smiles on his slightly chapped lips.
When Crowley would finally get his attention and question what exactly was it that kept him at that bloody window and not in bed doing much more enjoyable things, the angel would answer with nothing more than
"I like it."
Crowley would grumble and roll over, tugging the sheets over his body, drawing a low chuckle from the angel. His gaze would sweep back to the outside world for a few more moments before slowly turning and padding silently over to the bed, crawling up under the covers and pressing against the demon, murmuring teasing apologies until the other finally relented and pulled him close.
Angels didn't have tombstones. You could bury the vessel, but it wasn't really the same. For all intents and purposes, every angel that died was thrown into a mass grave, their names and roles forgotten. There was no angel graveyard. Time passed, life moved on, and eventually they were forgotten.
Crowley had made sure that his angel was never forgotten.
After Cas had gone down, Crowley snapped. At least, momentarily. He ripped apart everything in the vicinity, painting the trees and rivers with blood. He slaughtered angel and demon alike, trying to quell the pain and anguish with rage. He'd knelt down by the angel, bloody and battered, cradling the other's expired vessel in his arms. He cursed in every language he knew, spouted spells and begged and pleaded for the first time in his existence.
And then the rain had began to fall.
He had watched in horror as it began to wash away what remained of his angel. It started with the blood, small streams of pink disappearing into the sand forever. Eventually, the steady fall over time would erode the body that he held, dissolving it to nothing more than the sand that he knelt on.
He drug the body close and buried his face into the other's neck, feeling emotion that he didn't even realize existed. It was worse than what he had endured to become the thing that he was. It wracked his form, causing it to ache and spasm and react in ways that seemed so incredibly human. But he didn't care. This was the last time that he would be able to hold his angel; to touch him in a physical sense. He clung to it as long as he could, until he saw the rain drops begin to erode the dark ash on top of the sand.
He had forced himself to stand, stepping back and reaching forward with out stretched arms, palms open and pointed toward the angel's body. He pulled from every area he could, channeling everything he had felt toward the other and everything that he was feeling now into one, huge, incinerating blast. It ripped through him from his core, exploding from his fingertips and palms and filling his vision with fire.
He wasn't sure how long ago that had been, now. Time moved so slowly without Cas. He still felt the ache of the other's loss, but did his best to keep himself busy. He seemed to be able to scrape by… until it would rain.
Every time the rain fell he would go back to this spot. He would stand where Cas had fallen and watch the rain fall on the glass.
When he had blast the ground with fire, the extreme heat of the flame had caused the sand to turn to glass; encasing the ash of the angel's outstretched wings forever. The surface with smooth, save for the wing impressions that the force of the angel's death had caused. Flecks of ash still remained, the black and grey making the wing's detail stand out.
It was beautiful. And heartbreaking. And the only thing he had left.
He sometimes thought about what Cas would say if he could show him all of the effort he had gone through to keep this small memory alive. He could almost see it in his mind's eye. Cas would stand next to him, the rain plastering his dark hair to his face and neck, trench coat soaked through and dripping. After a while, he would turn to look at Crowley, blue eyes finding his, the corners of his lips turned up in the faintest ghost of a smile.
"I like it"