Days, it had been days and he could barely sleep. Even trying the tea that was urged on him by both Bobby and Lucifer he found he could only let the world slip from him for an hour at a time. And each time he woke up he felt as if he had been wasting time with something so selfish when Cas was suffering.

He knew Cas was suffering, there was no question in his mind about that.

In the kitchen he went, going to make more coffee. It was late, middle of the night and Bobby had gone to lay down after trying again to get him to do the same. Each time his head hit the pillow, his mind thought of all the things that could happen to an angel and he couldn't get his eyes closed. So, he occupied himself by dumping out the old grounds and getting a new filter ready. The grounds always smelled good to him, inviting, promising something better tasting.

He missed Cas's coffee.

"Sam."

He didn't respond to Lucifer, remaining resolute to his coffee-making endeavor as he heard the devil shuffle more into the room. Nothing seemed to work. Gabriel had no news, Dean didn't answer at all, and no spell work sparked to offer an answer as to what had happened.

It was his fault. If Cas had just been out by himself he would have been fine. There wouldn't have been a giant Winchester who attracted all the hostile things in the universe.

Lucifer was next to him watching as he flipped the machine on.

"Just don't. Don't need to hear it."

Satan looked down at his hands and Sam knew there was a lecture brewing in there about how humans needed things like sleep and food. Lucifer had learned first-hand how bad those things affected them when they weren't forthcoming as part of daily living. Too little, too late and he just put some bread in the toaster before washing out his coffee cup. Didn't need a lecture about how poorly he cared for himself. Wasn't like he had a whole mess of things to live for in this current minute anyway.

While his things were working on being done he went back into the study. It was a whirlwind of books and papers, spell work, ingredients, common and rare, piles of things, and all their failed attempts. Lucifer felt it might be a prince and Sam had been unamused after all this time to learn just what Azazel actually was.

Not that it mattered as it didn't make him any less dead.

"Did you come up with anything new?" he asked, knowing Lucifer had drifted after him.

Lucifer uncertain of himself was a hard thing to take.

"No. I'm still trying to find a way to combine something –"

"What good are you?"

There was little satisfaction in Lucifer falling silent, face turning down again as he rubbed his hands together in an absent gesture. A part of Sam was fracturing inside, fraying faster and faster and he knew he was breaking. All his rage, that constant anger in him that he managed on most days, even bad ones, to keep down was surfacing more forcibly

He found he was starting to care less and less as Lucifer remained silent.

"It should have been you," Sam said, his voice quiet. "Everything Cas is going through right now you deserve times a thousand for all the shit you've done."

Not the first time he had said it since Cas had gone missing. He knew Dean thought about it too, remembering the way his brother had stared at Lucifer. Some little part in him that was becoming quieter was whispering that Satan was just trying to survive but it didn't matter.

"Sam –"

Lucifer's voice was cut off when he just backhanded him. The force of the hit sent the man stumbling, a distant throb in his knuckles but little registered for the next few seconds. Catching the arm of the couch, Lucifer kept himself upright, still weak from illness and now the constant cycle of too little sleep and too much work. Skin pale in the light here and Sam hated that he was alive, that his cheek was showing an angry red mark across it. He hated that those eyes staring at him were resigned to this.

"You need to sleep."

"Really? After stripping it away from me for months you're going to lecture me about sleep? About how much humans just really need it?" He took a step forward, Lucifer remaining where he was. "You take and you take and you take, and now you want to tell me what to do?"

"Keep blaming me, Sam, if that's what makes you able to get on with it."

"You set it all up. All of it, from before I was even born."

"You're right, I did." Lucifer was fully upright, watching him, tense. "You don't hate me for that, though."

"Really? You know me, now?"

"The offers were there and all of you just picked them up on the way out the door. You hate me because I was –"

His fist connected with Lucifer's face hard, cutting off the stream of words, doing it again before Lucifer could even react fully and try to grab onto something. Again and again, that dull ache in his knuckles becoming a more persistent pain as Lucifer dropped to his knees, then all fours, panting before Sam kicked him in the stomach. Lucifer collapsed onto his side, eyes shut, hands up in defense that he barely registered as Sam rolled him onto his back, straddling his hips.

"All of this, from the very beginning, is because of you. Dean knows it, knows your just a waste. Gabriel knew it. Didn't shed any tears while you ranted and raved at us out in the field."

"Casting me back down." Lucifer's voice was hoarse, his breathing rapid and irregular, face red and already starting to swell along the left-hand side.

"You were destroying everything. Not that you cared, all those years, and you couldn't give a shit."

"Not why you're mad." Lucifer's chest hitched and he let out a little laugh, some weird breathy sound that got caught up around them. "You're mad because -."

It was in his hands before he even registered that he had it out, the weight of his weapon, cold and steel at Lucifer's head. He was surprised the devil closed his eyes, surprised to find hands clutching at his shirt and he didn't know when that had happened.

Lucifer didn't want to die. A cold dread was flowing through him, Lucifer's battered face turned partially away from him. There was rage so deep in him that he wanted to reach out his free hand and close it around that throat and squeeze. The only thing stopping him was just who it had been the last time he had decided to strangle something that shared a home with him.

"You're mad because you're me."

The words were so quiet and breathy that he shouldn't be able to hear them but did all the same, scrabbling back, away from Lucifer on the floor till his back hit the chair in here. Weapon away, his hands shaking, his knuckles raw with a little bleeding.

Humans don't change, Sam.

They couldn't heal Lucifer. What he had done, just mindlessly beat on him when he was depowered and sick and Sam fought back the bile in his throat, feeling ill.

Cradling his hand to his chest he didn't look over as Lucifer worked at getting himself off the floor after a few minutes, feet stumbling into the kitchen. He was still shaking when he heard the water running and he hated the thought of Cas or Dean seeing him doing that. Hell, Bobby would have dragged him off but the old man was asleep, or had been, upstairs unable to stop him from his stupidity.

Humans don't change.

All his life he had fought to be the very thing he had become and he pushed back the sorrow over that as he heard footsteps back into the room, looking up when they stopped next to him.

Lucifer holding out a cup of coffee and a napkin with the toast he had put on an eternity ago.

Footsteps on the stairs, he didn't know how long it had been as he took the offered items, Bobby's boots stopping and Sam was sure he was taking in the scene.

"Kay, going to get something for the two of you and make you something better to eat, Sam." Bobby's voice was slow, cautious like he had expected this but still wasn't sure. "Keep the bloodshed down a bit."

Sam nodded, hearing Bobby walk away as Lucifer went over to where there was a chair by the main desk, slumping into it. Hands fumbling across some of the papers as reading glasses were dredged out, perched on Satan's nose and Same felt he should find it hilarious that the devil needed glasses to do his spell work.

Cas would expect better from him and he pushed away how the angel would be looking at him if he was here right now.

"Keep praying to them. The adopted one and your blood brother. Eventually, it might help."

Lucifer hadn't looked over to him, head down, wounded face turned away instead of thrown at him like a beacon of just how screwed up he really was. Because, damn, he knew he was screwed up, so much so, more so than he thought Dean ever really got, but he had been about to murder a helpless human on the floor of Bobby's study no matter what he had done.

Dean would have been ashamed of him and he tried to clear his head out, uncertain if he could find words to pray to either him or Cas now, after that.

~x~

He knew he was dying. All that held him together was the spell work etched into the stone beneath his palms. Magic older than any human language had forced a physical manifestation of one set of his wings. They lay limp, spread out and brutalized as he kneeled, almost collapsed onto the floor of this accursed place. Forbidden spell work, banished and forgotten since the Grigori and their evil had been washed from creation and Castiel did not understand how this creature knew it so intimately.

He wondered if it had been Lucifer who had taught it and if his fallen brother would even care.

Asmodeus had promised him death if he spoke of what he knew, shared the information that would reveal Michael's fractured state, how vulnerable his brother was. It was not that he thought Michael would fall here, but rather exposure to something like this would cause his brother to lose his humanity, that endless grief he carried that sparked his compassion. To lose that would unleash a monster that would shame even Lucifer's complicated plans of suffering and death.

Sam was praying again. It was the only thing he heard other than the demon. Sam was barely able to keep hope and Castiel knew that if the man saw the outcome no matter his rescue, all of it would be dashed. Yet, it strengthened him in ways to resist falling, a power in him to not give over his family.

Struggling, his exposed wings twitching – light forced to feel pain – he pushed himself up, getting to his feet. He did not scream as his essence dragged against the sharp surfaces, bleeding and festering, chains rattling as they dug into raw flesh.

The demon was mixing something but had paused in order to watch, unable to hide his surprise.

"So you still stand," Asmodeus said as he walked over, taking him in.

Castiel did not respond, staring resolutely ahead.

"See the heavenly lessons paid off on you, but don't worry, we'll break that pride."

It served no purpose to respond so he did not, keeping still as he waited. His thoughts went to Sam whose voice still echoed in him. Sam, who was so afraid of what he was that he tried to force himself into what he thought others wanted. Castiel missed watching him sleep, the way his soul reached out and held onto him, wanting him close. Awake, Sam pushed everything away, fearing loss, of being seen, but in the night he could be near him, know what Sam truly wanted. Sam had faith, had always had faith, and hidden in him was goodness – what Michael had always been able to see in him even under the thrall of demons.

His muscles twitched, his grace having been bleed out of him, only his form intact as his powers had been stripped away from him. What mattered was surviving, of being whole enough to see them one last time.

Asmodeus was coming to him again and Castiel could smell fear now. This thing that had once been a soul twisted under malice would never understand, could never again.

He knew that they would come for him, and he would fight to remain himself until that hour.

~x~

Even Sam had given up trying to pray to him, the only sounds he now heard were of creation itself as he flew, slipping in through a back door into heaven to keep out of sight. It was active up here, his little brothers constantly moving, Gabriel himself was sure to be somewhere in the maze of souls that slept and dreamed of times they found happiness and even peace. So many, billions, and it comforted him that even under Raphael's crazed rule so many found their way home, even if his brother's end game had been more for the power of heaven than the salvation of their wards.

He passed between the bounds of each heaven in the space that was nothing that only an archangel was allowed to tread. Only they had places that were outside of what the humans generated except for The Garden that forever thrived in the center.

Hers was the one he found first.

A part of him had feared even after he had awoken to who he really was that she had been obliterated by protecting him and Sam in that house, or worse, dragged to hell. But she was whole and here and Michael watched his human mother caught in one of her happiest memories, the day Sam was born. Still, in the hospital bed and gown, she was softly singing as Sam fed, his young form curled up against her side and asleep. He remembered that day, having been anxious and terrified and he smiled a little knowing that he'd had so much excitement that he eventually became exhausted from joy.

Dean slipped away from her to find what he had come here for.

Dad's was different and Dean frowned a little, not recognizing it at first as John was passed out under his coat on the couch, a bottle on the end table. It was a small cabin, somewhere out in the woods which could be many places and he tried to flip through his memories as to why this had been a happy place for Dad outside of him and Sam weren't visible.

A noise and he watched, as his eight-year-old self carrying a plate of pancakes, Sam clutching a card with too much glitter and bright markers. He remembered now. A hunt that took them out of the way and it was going to be Dad's birthday. Even at that age, he had known that something was upsetting the old man more than usual, Dad hadn't begun the habit of downing a lot of whiskey until much later in his life. To this day he wasn't sure what they had been hunting out here, only that Dad had eventually found a way to kill it and it had been taking kids.

So, in his infinite wisdom, knowing Dad's birthday was about to happen, he had pilfered a pancake mix from the store during a supply run and had gotten up early, Sammy in tow. Both of them had been tired, staying up to make that card and he remembered what that damn thing said because Sam insisted that people said that to each other and the kid knew his letters enough to have an idea if it was in there.

He watched his kid self-waking up dad who probably was more awake than asleep at this point, as he remembered getting a chair in the kitchen to stand on when he had made those, Sam being the overseer and worrier of the whole operation.

How long had Dad laid out here half-awake wondering what the hell they were doing?

"Dean?" Dad's voice was confused, still laced with the whiskey he was using to get himself to sleep, and Dean now didn't miss all the obsessive maps and notes clogging up the free surfaces of the rickety kitchen table or end tables out here.

"Happy birthday," his young self whispered, Sam half hiding behind him because it was a time when Sam was actually smaller. "We made you breakfast."

"And a card."

"You did, huh?"

Dean smiled a little as Dad hauled himself up, Sam's tone even at that young age had been huffy. And he knew why Sam couldn't help with the breakfast and it had been Dean's big idea. The card was mainly from Sam, hence the glitter and the highly excitable marker all over it because his brother, even at that age, had observed they didn't have a lot of joy and had wanted to give that.

"How'd you make these?"

Dad's voice may have still been sleepy but Dean stiffened for the next part. Dad had been pissed that he had stolen that little forty-cent mix and –

That wasn't it. He watched, confused because he remembered that Dad hadn't been able to look at him even though they'd had to steal before. It wasn't anger that made Dad look away and Dean stepped closer.

"Let me see that card, Sam," Dad was saying, having righted himself on the couch, the pancake plate on his lap. Dean didn't miss how worn he looked, even back then when he had some youth still in him, his eyes brighter than they should be. "Here," dad said, patting the couch on each side of him, "sit."

He watched as both he and Sam did, one on each side with Sam getting an assist, as Dad read the card with Sam doodles and Dean didn't remember this part at all. He remembered Dad being upset and Bobby coming later in the day to take them back to his house and he thought he had fucked up, made Dad not want him around.

"I love you two, too."

It was so soft and he didn't understand. He knew this was the soul of John Winchester, could see the mars from hell in it and Michael reached out to him, knowing that here a soul's memories wouldn't, couldn't lie.

"Dean?"

Dad's staring at him and the younger versions of him and Sam, along with their gifts, were gone. Instead, it was just John, looking up at him, eyes clearing as he began to awaken more and if he was smart, he would just send him back to sleep.

"Uh, heya," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to think of how to handle the next thirty seconds to not make this worse.

"I'm dead. I remember dying, that field with you after –" Dad was up, coming forward, looking panicked.

"Alive. I'm alive. Just…visiting."

The look he got at that was less than impressed with that answer, but he fumbled as he realized Dad remembered hell, he remembered everything far clearer up here than he would if he was still flesh and bone on earth. The mortal body had a way of softening the edges of a finite life, ease the burden so it wasn't a long continuous line.

"Really. Just making sure you and mom made –"

"She's here?"

"Just right down the way," he said, glad Dad had stopped in his tracks because he needed John to not touch him. It was bad enough that Dad thought he had just spirit walked on up here, being up here bodily was a whole other level of explanation. "She's remembering the day Sam was born."

The line of tension that made up his father loosened a little, the man leaning against the end table as if that was real enough to support anything. Dean didn't know how much to say as the terrible realization that Dad had known that mom had made a deal. He may not have known it was to save him in order for Azazel to have access to Sam but she still died ten years to the day after her parents in that supposed home invasion.

Dad was watching him and Dean knew he had given the game away.

"She was a hunter," Dean said, shrugging his shoulders.

"And you helped me buy that car." Something was dawning in those eyes and Dean took another step back, cursing himself that he hadn't thought of that little hiccup in the timeline, his mind-whammy at least half worn off. "You were there, I bought you coffee since I thought you were on drugs and you talked me into that car. How? How the hell did you get there?"

"Handsy angels with a point to prove." He ran a hand through his hair, uncertain of how much to share and not missing how wide Dad's eyes had gotten. "Wanted to show me that some things were fated or destined or what-the-hell-ever."

His laugh was bitter, he knew it, knew it would be before it even left him and Dad's closer.

"You met them, the angels? Did Sam, did hell –"

"No, he's fine. At Bobby's right now." Nursing Satan back to health, his mind added but he managed to keep the words inside him as something clicked over in his brain. "Did you know what was going on? Cause gotta say, you're not looking super surprised angels exist."

"Dean, I – I wasn't sure. A lot was rumors, pieced together lore and prophecies and demons lie. They always lie –"

"But they wanted Sam." A lump was in his throat and he wanted to fly, get out of here from this terrible confession that Dad had a clue, could've told him, even if he didn't buy it, thought the old man had gone around the bend. "Why you had to kill Azazel so bad at the end, wasn't it?"

"We did, though. We got through it –"

"I was already sold!"

Dean pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as he turned and walked away towards the crappy kitchen, staring out the grime smeared window at the snow just starting to fall outside. Silence between them and he should just put his father back to sleep, enough damage had been done. It wasn't important anymore but he leaned against the sink, wanting to at least see this part out since he had stayed.

"Yellow eyes, he snapped up all the kids like Sam and dragged them off, set them up in a battle royale. Got there seconds too late, died in my arms."

He cleared his throat, hearing his name as he shook his head until he felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned.

"You have a body," John whispered and Dean was stunned to realize Dad had started to cry. "How do you have a body here?"

Staring up at the rafters dressed with cobwebs and dust, Dean closed his eyes. He should run, he should just go but there was no longer anywhere left for him to go.

"I'm Dean," he whispered as he opened his wings, allowing his grace that was still whole to show.

The way Dad skittered back until he hit the wall, eyes wide was as strangely satisfying as it was sickening.

"Who – who –"

"Who am I? Hell if I know anymore, cause don't feel like Dean or Michael," Michael said, walking forward a bit, watching Dad look for the exits as if he could escape properly into the mainland of heaven. "Let me guess, the part you had said that Satan wanted Sammy and Michael wanted me and there was going to be some big old battle on earth and you, at least, had some kind of fortitude to not want that."

"Bloodline," John got out and Michael smiled a little.

"Yes, you are mine, Mary's is Lucifer's and here we are, all the machinations and prophecies except it got stalled out along the way."

"And Dean?"

Michael shook his head, amazed that Dad still seemed laser-focused on him after all that time he felt like he was just a piece of furniture.

"They asked me, Sam and Bobby, why Father created me. Told them, I don't know, which was the truth. Doesn't matter really, just that I tended to everything. And when Lucifer pulled his stunt, I had to tend to that too, couldn't save him so got to lock him up for safe-keeping till the proper killing time rolled along. After that –"

His voice was stuck, the horrible pieces that he could just faintly touch that showed him enough to know he didn't want to know more. Some movement, Dad had unstuck himself from the wall but instead of running screaming out the door he was coming closer, wary as all hell, but still listening.

"I couldn't have death," he said, voice soft now, "as I still had my Lucifer problem. So instead, I was separated from my grace and reborn as your firstborn son, where I got to live the whole saga all over and fail once again."

"Dean." Dad's voice was hesitant like he wasn't quite sure he had the right name but felt he needed to use it all the same. "I thought you said you had –"

"Not that. Luci's not a threat, currently a disgruntled human." He swallowed, not sure if he could but he might as well tell. Everything else in the galaxy up and knew what St. Michael the Archangel had done to start the big showdown and he found he couldn't look at Dad anymore. "Sam wasn't the problem, I was."

"You?"

"I started the ball rolling, broke in hell, broke the first seal. It was me that was the threat, made Sammy break bad till he managed to find his way home. Go ahead and say it."

"Say what?"

"Should have been stronger, better. Shouldn't have done it."

"You were in hell."

"Didn't make you break."

"I –" John just stopped and Dean finally looked over, taken off guard by the fact that Dad's face was a mess of confusion and sorrow at this point. "You can tell, with what you are, if I lie to you, right?"

He opened and closed his mouth, unsure of where this was going when Dad took his hand, placed it on his chest where his heart would be if he was still living. Dean could feel the agony of hell locked up in there, the deep grooves carved in there and he knew what Dad was trying to say.

"When they didn't get what they wanted after it happened, they kept me separated from the rest as a bargaining chip because they were going after you next. It's why I was free enough to escape, it's why I fought to get to you and Sam."

Shaking, Dean walked a few paces to the wall, leaning against it before sliding down as he felt everything in him give out. Any rage he'd had was gone, only an endless emptiness, and he didn't know how to get up anymore as Dad crouched down beside him.

"Why this place?" he asked because it had to be asked as to him this wasn't a good memory to have cycle through.

John sighed and sat, leaning up against the wall with him. "Do you remember celebrating my birthday at all outside of this? You'd tell me 'happy birthday' but this, you did this with Sam just because you loved me."

Dad's voice choked and he couldn't look up, staring at the floor.

"I meant what I told you that day. Never meant to leave you like that, never meant to have you dying and I just thought if I could stop it, you and Sam would be okay. What I've put you through -"

He shook his head but Dad had moved, cupping the back of his neck, bringing him close. All his mind could supply him with was that he was doing what he had been trained to do in hell on earth, that horrible realization that Alastair was laughing in the void that dead demons slumber in.

"Dean."

There had been so many times that he had thought he would punch his father in the face if he ever saw him again after yellow-eyes, demand to know why it was him, only him, left with the bag, why it was his sole responsibility.

Sitting next to his father's soul, all he felt was anguish and grief. All he did was fail: Sam, Cas, Dad, Gabriel. He was the one in the end who couldn't hold it together.

Dad was getting him to come closer and Dean allowed it, feeling what hell had done, feeling what Dad had done to himself. He breathed in, Dad still smelled like he always did, whiskey and aftershave and gun-oil, the way Baby did after all this time and he slept on the front seat sometimes waking up sure Dad would still be with him.

Dad was whispering to him, about how he was a good boy and all he could feel was the weight of hell around his neck, the feeling of his own blade cutting away at his essence.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Dean. It's okay."

He broke in his father's arms, ugly and loud, as Dad stroked his hair, realizing he could hear the choir with Gabriel's voice calling for him.