The man's face wasn't familiar to Sam, but he felt like he should have been. Standing with his hands stuffed in his pockets before the low railing, he seemed larger than he really was. Like if Sam walked up to him, he'd find he was as small as a young kid again, looking up at the adults by craning his neck and watching the bottoms of their chins.
The man turned, looked at him and smiled. It wasn't kind, but neither was it cruel. It was simply a twist of the mouth, an expression for the sake of an expression rather than to accompany some emotion.
His eyes looked dead and dark and he made Sam's stomach curl unpleasantly.
His eyes sparkled with more life than Sam could truly understand and it only served to confuse him.
The man looked away, back to the cliff and the rocks and the sea beyond the fence. His hands came out of his pocket and he jumped, pushing his body over the railing and walking closer to the edge.
"Hey," Sam called out, already reaching for the stranger's arm. He slipped out of Sam's grasp as if made from smoke. "Hey, you could fall."
"I already have," the man replied, staring at him with eyes that were dead and shining and dark; so dark. "I stood too close to the edge and I didn't watch where I stepped and I fell right off. I fell so far I lost anything and everything I possibly could, and then I lost some more. Then I was born again."
His mouth curled again, a parody of a smile. "I'm due for another. So it shall be until the end of time. I will fall and I will be stripped to nothing and I will be reborn again and again until it is time that I should be born no more."
He stood on the very edge of the cliff, his toes hanging out over empty air as his heels rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth. A strong breeze ruffled him – pushed his sway closer and closer to falling – and Sam wondered why he couldn't feel it on his own skin.
"Like a phoenix," the man continued and his grin was the first genuine one Sam had seen since he got here. "and now it is time for my end to bring my new beginning."
He threw himself into the air and Sam lurched forward. "Cas-"
"Yes, Sam?"
He blinked, looking over at the demon by the room's entrance. He had one brow arched, a small pile of papers held in his hands. Sam blinked several more times, looked at the room around him.
"Did you need something?" Castiel asked.
"No, just- No. Sorry. Got ahead of myself."
The demon frowned but he looked back at his papers and wandered to one of the beds. Sam looked down at his hands where they rested on the keys of his laptop. He'd been researching something, he remembered. He'd been researching it and he'd just…drifted off. Daydreaming.
Sam pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, scrubbing the tiredness away. He needed some rest, he decided. They all needed some, and as soon as this was all over they'd be able to have it.
Across the room, Castiel's eyes flickered black and half a shadow flitted across the room, away from the younger Winchester and back to the demon. He shuffled his papers and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before it was gone.
The building was tall, stretching several stories higher into the sky than its neighbors. The walls were pale gray, the windows large and shining in the noontime sun. On the lower levels, they could see employees scurrying about, unaware of all that would be happening in a few short hours. Dean almost felt sorry for them as he sat in the Impala across the street. He'd dropped Sam, Ruby and Castiel off at a motel and volunteered to do recon while they prepared things for the assault.
If Castiel's information was correct, Lilith was currently in a safe room on one of the top floors and as unprepared as the employees on the lower levels for any kind of assault. However Castiel had gotten the info, he'd done it more discreetly than the Winchesters' usual methods.
Dean wasn't sure what to think of that, but he'd decided not to worry about it until today's outcome was known.
He picked up his binoculars again and looked at one of the higher floors. There was less activity there, but several windows offered him a view of people sitting at desks and computer stations. Dean wondered where Lilith was in the maze – it was one thing Castiel hadn't been able to discover, unfortunately – and whether she suspected anything at all. It seemed almost too good to be true, that Castiel could find her so quickly and so easily when they had been searching with no results for much longer.
It didn't help that Castiel had been acting odd in their last hour of travel, shuffling around and wringing his hands almost constantly when he'd been still for the last few days. Dean thought that maybe it was because his host had been from Illinois, he remembered Castiel telling him that before, and maybe it was all some sort of delayed guilt from when he'd first taken possession months ago.
A demon who felt guilty. Who could've known?
As long as it didn't interfere with what they had to accomplish here, he wouldn't say anything. Thankfully, the only person who seemed more focused on catching Lilith than Dean was Castiel. The man's dedication was almost frightening at times; he was always awake and working before Dean even stirred and he continued working long past the times when even Dean had to admit he was too tired to function any more. He wasn't sure if the guy was even sleeping at this point.
Dean coaxed the engine to life and drove away, office building in his rearview mirror. One way or another, it would all be over by the next morning – for better or worse.
The motel room was a strangely calm flurry of activity when he returned. Castiel sat, as he had every night, at the small table by the motel's window, painstakingly jotting things down and making calculations. Sam and Ruby were near the far bed with an array of weapons spread out before them. Ruby was holding her knife, explaining something to Sam in low tones that wouldn't disturb Castiel.
His bag thumped loudly when Dean set down and the group looked at him briefly before returning to their respective tasks. Castiel shut down the laptop with a few swift clicks and stood. "Walk with me," he murmured as he passed, slipping out the door without another word.
Dean obediently turned and followed and he had to jog to catch up to Castiel across the parking lot.
"If things don't go well tonight-" Castiel started.
Dean didn't let him finish, interrupting with a loud, "It will be alright. It has to be."
Castiel didn't even look at him, just kept pacing by the edge of the asphalt. "I'm being realistic. If anything happens, I have a safe house we can retreat to. It's much better than anything you or your brother have prepared, completely off the radar as far as demons are concerned. It's safe there. We'll have time to regroup."
"Then tell me when we're running, because you're not getting left behind, Cas."
The demon paused in his pacing for half a breath before he resumed his walking. "If circumstances separate us, I don't want you left hanging and wondering where you can be safe. I want you to know this address."
"You couldn't say this in front of Sam and Ruby because?"
Castiel flinched and stopped his pacing again. He didn't pick it up again this time. "Old habits die hard," he said eventually. "I've been on the run for a while, Dean, and before that I lived in a place very different from what you're used to here. I'm not accustomed to…sharing information like this. If you want to tell your brother and Ruby, go right ahead. I won't."
The demon left then after pressing a paper into the hunter's hand and Dean watched as he walked down the block and turned the corner. He was out of sight soon and Dean was left alone in the lot. With nothing else to do, he went back to the room.
Sam and Ruby again looked at him when he walked in but Sam's look was one Dean was familiar with, not an outright question but curious nonetheless.
"Cas has a safe house for us in case things go south tonight."
Sam nodded, turned back to the arsenal and began picking out weapons, arranging them in holsters and bags. Ruby didn't, watched Dean for a few more seconds, and he had the feeling that she understood why Castiel had taken him aside more than he ever would. She stopped watching him eventually and packed her own things up.
Dean joined in and by the time Castiel returned, the sun was starting to drift towards the horizon and they were ready. Castiel grabbed his own things from the table and joined them in the car within minutes and they were off to face Lilith and her goons and whatever else fate had deemed appropriate for them to run into.
The drive to the offices was filled with chatter about entrance and exit strategies, plans and contingencies and anything that might be information they'd have to recall at a second's notice. Sam had been chosen to wield the demon-killing knife since he would have the best chance of getting close to Lilith if their plan worked the way they expected.
The drive felt both impossibly long and impossibly short, everything they'd been working towards coming to fruition. Dean would be lying if he said he didn't feel even a little anxious, even a little scared. If he was completely honest, he'd even say he was terrified; he'd seen the kinds of things people went through down in the Pit, had inflicted much of it himself, and if they failed there was no doubt as to where he and his brother would be sent for punishment. Dean would do anything to keep that from happening, would do anything to keep him from becoming the same thing he had been warped into again.
Then it was all over and they were splitting up – Ruby and Sam to the back entrance, Castiel and Dean to create a distraction up front – and this was really happening.
"Holy shit," Dean whispered under his breath as Castiel wrenched the front doors from their hinges with a quick tug of his hand. They were tossed aside with a jarring clank and Castiel stopped only briefly to survey the damage.
"Not very holy, Dean," he said, and then Castiel was trotting into the building. Had they not been under time constraints, Dean would have taken a moment to sigh. As things were, he simply soldiered on.
The floors were so empty it was eerie, their footfalls echoing down the tiled floors and their shadows stretching far where light from streetlamps fell through the windows. Castiel was fast, efficient, and scarily destructive. Dean hadn't expected it of the man – he'd always seemed so composed, prone to delicate machinations that would get deeds done.
Castiel proved to be the opposite. He seemed to take delight in ripping doors and desks from their places in walls and screwed into floors. He let out a near joyous bark of laughter when a water cooler erupted after a collision with the elevator doors, flooding the immediate area and ruining any unfortunate papers that got caught by the wave of water. Dean didn't even have to lift a finger and soon Castiel was searching for the stairs to the next level.
It was just as deserted as the first, but the one after it was sparsely populated with men and women who stood too still and moved to precisely to be human. It reminded Dean suddenly of just how normal Castiel seemed, tiny habits woven through his movements and twisted into his words that if Dean hadn't known better, he never would've suspected Castiel was anything but human.
Castiel's takedown of part of the small group was brutal in its speed and Dean wondered if it was a skill that could be taught and passed on once this was all over. Dean finished off his own adversaries quickly and he was panting from the exertion by the time they all lay still.
The next floor was near-packed and this time, Castiel didn't go for subtle. He let his footfalls announce his presence, clacking and echoing until all eyes were on him. He grinned, wicked, and with his eyes filmed over, Dean remembered just exactly what he was dealing with.
Castiel raised one hand and half smiled, half bared his teeth at the other demons. "Hello, boys and girls. Am I late for the party?"
"You!" one hissed.
All hell broke loose and although Dean got involved, things happened too quickly for him to do as much as he'd have liked. Castiel seemed to loom larger than he actually was, filled more space than was physically possible. His presence alone felt overpowering, an almost physical sensation that Dean hadn't experienced before. One by one, plumes of smoke left their host bodies and before they could escape, Castiel blinked and they burned in midair. It filled the floor with a horrible wailing, and after all was said and done, it was Castiel's turn to pant heavily, his eyes flashing between pitch black and an absurd blue, much brighter than his eyes normally were.
"Come on," he huffed after Dean had pushed himself back to his feet. "She'll be up there. We need to make sure Sam and Ruby have enough time."
The final flight of stairs they climbed was no different than any of the others. The walls were off-white, the stairs and dull gray. The most colorful thing in the stairwell was the railing and even that was only a drab burgundy. The door that waited was uniform.
Castiel crumpled it like a piece of paper and they walked onto the floor.
There were, oddly enough, no more demons on the floor. Even the floor space seemed bare, with the desks and cubicles only arranged by the windows. A lone chair sat in the middle of the room, and in the chair sat a woman with hair in a tight bun and eyes like coal.
Castiel's hands clenched into fists and the woman who couldn't be anyone but Lilith stared them down, lips pursed and nose wrinkled. Her gaze switched slowly between Dean and Castiel. It settled on Castiel a moment later.
"So. You," she said, eyes narrowing even further as Castiel crossed his arms.
Dean forced a smile despite his nerves. "Just can't keep us away," he quipped. Lilith looked at him and Dean suppressed a shudder. It wasn't just Lilith's part in his deal that made Dean feel so uneasy, but the complete lack of concern she showed. She certainly looked annoyed, disgruntled by their meddling, but worried? If she felt it, her poker face was perfect.
"You've made a mess of everything," Lilith sneered at Dean, practically spitting the words out. She looked at her fellow demon again. "You and Crowley have been thorns in my side for a long time but you just had to take it to the next level, didn't you. He's not supporting you any more, you know. Any help you were counting on from him won't come."
Dean felt even more nervous as Castiel's confident expression faded away and Lilith laughed.
"Still so confident in your plan, darling?"
Castiel shook his head quickly, frowning, and Dean clenched his jaw. Castiel had said-
"You're wrong. You're lying," Castiel added quickly. "He told me-"
"Exactly what I told him to tell you, little Castiel. Ha. I should've suspected from the start it was a bad idea to let him give you that name. I said it would just set you up for failure and would you look at what happened? I was right!"
"The fuck does my name have to do with this?" Castiel snapped.
"You mean he never told you? Crowley downed an angel when he came to us; take a guess at what it was called."
Castiel finally moved after that, but rather than rushing forward like Dean had expected, he took a tiny step backwards and shook his head. "No."
Lilith started her advance then, a slow march forward that Castiel matched pace for pace. Dean mirrored the steps too, retreating carefully to keep both demons within his line of sight. "Yes," Lilith said. "And look at how it's ruined you! Helping the Winchesters. Betraying your own – you're a disgrace, Castiel."
Suddenly, a phone started ringing, blasting a Queen song through the floor. Castiel stopped retreating and smirked. "Maybe," he acquiesced. "But at least I'm an effective one." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and rejected the call, tossing the device carelessly to the floor afterwards.
Lilith looked like she was about to ask what Castiel could possibly mean, but she never got the chance. From above, two shapes dropped down and pinned her, the ugly sound of breaking bone cracking across the room as she was downed. Ruby had her pinned in seconds, Sam crouched beside them, and it was only a matter of plunging the knife into her back before it was done.
When it was done, there wasn't even a tiny flash of light: just Lilith's body crumpled on the floor and four sweaty humans and demons standing over the corpse. The streetlights were on outside.
Castiel fell to his knees after a few moments of the group catching their breath, face blank and eyes trained on Lilith's body. Ruby gripped his shoulder, gave it a small shake. Castiel stared.
"We did it," Ruby said. "No more master plan. No more apocalypse. For now, at least."
"Yeah," Castiel whispered. "Everything's over." An expression flashed across Ruby's face too fast for Dean to interpret and then she smiled.