"Ah, Castiel. How nice to see you again"
The voice came from the shadows of the abandoned factory that Castiel had reluctantly visited, his jaw and fists clenched. Everything about what he was doing put him on edge, the thought that Dean wouldn't forgive him for doing this, even if it was to save his brother, lingered at the back of his mind. But they were family. Dean had said so himself that he thought of Castiel as a brother and this, Cas had learnt, was what family did for each other.
"I need to make a deal."
"What with me? Castiel I'm shocked. Is your little love toy not holding up too well with the loss of his beloved moose?"
"Crowley." Cas was impatient, his fingers drumming against his trenchcoat. He just wanted this over and done with.
"You're all work and no play, you know that? Now tell me, why would I make a deal with you, it didn't exactly end too well the last time. A man remembers something like that, Castiel."
"Because," Cas sighed, "I can give you this" Between his two fingers, attached to fraying lengths of string, Castiel held several glowing blue bottles. Angel's grace.
Crowley's eyes glinted: Cas' attachment to the Winchesters had taken him to lengths even he hadn't expected. Castiel was offering a lot more than Crowley had imagined, and in that piqued a curiosity of just how much he could have to gain from this offer.
"Sorry love, you've got to try harder than that"
Cas felt the dead weight of Crowley's words fall upon him. He stood there in almost a trance-like stillness until his brain finally processed what this meant, and then every voice in his head shouted all at once, his thoughts bubbling and spilling over with a new found rage:
"Crowley,"
His voice cut like razors, cold and sharp. His wings flared and expanded, towering around him. The fear, the hurt, the turmoil Cas felt was masked as from within him the pure essence of a warrior of heaven shone, brighter and hotter than the whitest star and a thousand times more deadly.
"These are my brothers and sisters. My elders. My superiors. Divine beings created by God. And I hunted them. I betrayed them. I close my eyes and I see my hand holding a blade to their neck, I see the wide-eyed terror in their face. I hear their screams in the darkness and their pleas in silence, and up until then I couldn't even imagine that they could be so scared as to humiliate themselves by begging. I subjected them to the worst fate imaginable, and I'm putting their only hope, and my only redemption, in the hands of the enemy. I've rendered their existence worse than worthless. I've stripped them from all glory, and in doing so endangered myself. I can't return home, because I am hunted. Hated, despised and wanted dead by my own family. I have nothing more to give than I have already offered."
The last few words has ripped through Castiel, ridding him of the last of his adrenaline. His body felt limp and his head light, yet he stood and he held his gaze, glaring down at Crowley like the inferior petty creation he was. Crowley, seemingly unfazed, smirked.
"Spare me the self-pity Castiel, if you will. Such a turn off."
"Crowley-"
"Cas. Can I call you Cas? After all, we've been through so much together. Remember the little deal we made not so long ago, Cas? The one where you screwed me out of 40,000,000 souls, left me fleeing for my life and gave Hell a hefty downgrade? See, a guy doesn't forget about these things so easily, and demons? Well, we're not the forgiving type. So we're making this on my terms, or not at all. What do you say, Cassy?"
Back in his room, Dean felt the loneliness pressing down on him. He spun the blade that he'd sharpened around in his hands, watching as the light caught the metal. It had always been his job to protect his little brother and he'd failed, and this time he couldn't fix it. Nobody could fix it.
Memories of Hell flicked through his brain, breaking his train of thought like shards of glass. He'd condemned his brother to an eternity of pain. Two months. Two months he had been gone, which, when you're down there, is more like twenty years. Twenty years of burning flesh and 20 years of torturous mind games that left you begging to be back on the table or standing over one yourself.
He tossed the blade on the bed, not caring if the maid walked in and saw it. Screw her. He really couldn't care less. As always before leaving the room, he slid the demon blade in the seam of his jeans, not bothering to convince himself that it was a precaution instead of an excuse to carve open a black-eyed bastard. He'd pretend not to gain pleasure from it, pretend to care about the vessel trapped inside, screaming for help. Pretend he didn't remember the satisfaction of torturing souls.
After downing his fourth whiskey in a row he called up the barmaid for another, even though his world was fuzzy at the sides and spinning with each movement of his head. He didn't care.
Sighing, she threw down her cloth and stared at the swaying stranger.
"Look, you have to stop, okay? I'll call up a cab for you, or maybe you have a friend to make sure you get home alright?"
At the last comment Dean snorted, using his hand to motion for another drink, his barstool rocking slightly under his heavy, lopsided movements. Twirling a long strand of hair between her fingers, she smiled up at Dean.
"What, no friends? What's a guy like you-"
"Listen. I really haven't got any time for your sentimental crap, okay? You don't know squat about me so just can it and get me my drink"
Unfazed by his words, she just leaned in closer, the smell of the drink making her recoil slightly.
"You're right. I don't know anything about you, I don't even know your name. I'm Mariah"
"And I'm done with this conversation, okay? Just give me my drink or I'll find another place that will"
"One more. On the condition that you let me take you home. I get off shift in five minutes"
Within thirty minutes, Dean found himself positioned over the girl whose name he couldn't remember, fucking her as she clawed at his back. Because he didn't have to think about his problems this way. Because it was the only thing he was good at. Because he just wanted to lose himself. Because when he wasn't drunk and engaged in mindless sex, it all became too real.
The memory of hell still clung to him with claws as sharp as a Hell Hound's. He was jumpy, paranoid, neurotic. Each scrape was that of a Hell Hound's paw against the wood, each bark triggered an anxiety attack. He swore he could hear screaming when he glanced at the knife collection in his impala, the shrieking not stopping when he slammed the boot, or when he covered his ears. Not stopping until his throat was as coarse as sandpaper and he realised that they were his screams all along.
So he'd drink until he was calm, until he could think straight. And that's when the problems started. Because he'd think.
And think.
About Sam's eyes rolling as black as the empty night sky and how he couldn't protect him, couldn't save him from his own blind faith in anyone he met.
About the bruises blushing beneath his skin, spreading deep purple like a wine stain across his ribs and jaw; how his father would wake from a drunken stupor not recalling that he was the one that placed them upon his nine-year-old's body. Not caring to apologise when he did.
So he drank to forget that, forget everything. He went from bar to bar to bed. He ignored the worried calls of Castiel. There were days unaccounted for, and days he spent passed out.
One day he opened the door to Castiel with worry buried so far within him that it carved deep wounds on his forehead and formed bruises beneath his eyes, and that all lifted when he saw Dean.
And, just as soon as it faded, it returned only deepened.
It wasn't Dean. It was a shell of Dean, a broken, hollow shell. His eyes were red, dull and empty, his face twisted into a snarl. He no longer smelled of hot spice and leather but of alcohol, the smell so powerful it stole the air from Cas' lungs and curled around his throat, tightening it's grip whenever Dean opened his mouth to speak. But it didn't stop him, because when Cas was under the grip of the souls of purgatory, twisted beyond recognition, Dean still reached out. When he had stood amongst hundreds of corpses of Dean, slain by his own hand, Dean had still managed to pull through and save Cas when he stood towering over the real Dean. So he reached out. He tried to save him.
Dean was way past sober when he opened the door to Cas, and maybe that's why the angel's attempts were enraging him so much. He was clinging to him. His words were like bees around Dean's head, or maybe it was the booze causing the buzzing. But it was too much. He felt boxed in and he couldn't think, couldn't hear with this goddamn noise. He shoved Cas as hard as he could, the angel, not expecting the blow, crashing into the wall. The cheap furniture of the motel toppled over upon the impact and Dean was reminded of all the times it was his father standing where he was. He saw his own frightened face mirrored upon Castiel's.
And that was it. He didn't know if he was angry at himself, or Cas, his dad or the world, everything or anything or nothing it didn't matter because all he felt was a pure bubbling rage. He picked up the fallen table and hurled it against the wall, the single bed was overturned and he punched the wall, white and red mixing on his knuckles and trickling down his arm.
His breathing was laboured and fast, his screams at Cas sounded as if they were being ripped from his very core.
Dean was a hurricane destroying everything in his path, he was the eye of the storm.
But Cas refused to give up on the man he owed so much. Who gave him free will and taught him to use it.