World on Fire Chapter 6: Omens, a supernatural fanfic

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay guys. Been swamped with work.

I don't know if I ever mentioned on ffnet how many chapters this will have - with prologue and epilogue, there will be 10 chapters total. :)

OMENS

while at the gates of paradise they beat us down some more
but our mission's set in stone because the writing's on the wall
I'll scream it from the mountaintops: pride comes before the fall
if the truth will set you free, I feel sorry for your soul
can't you hear the ringing 'cause for you the bell tolls

21 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL

You're gonna get me killed, and the funny part is… I don't even really care. Says something about the world, don't it? Or maybe something about me.

Her voice rang in his head, low sonorous notes that haunted him as the flames from the funeral pyre reflected in his eyes. Dean watched, expressionless, as the inferno devoured her body, searing fingers stretching towards the sky, towards him. He'd dreamt about her the night before, dancing in the fire, twirling with flames and leaving footprints in the ash of burnt remains and angel wings. Dean remembered looking into Risa's eyes and thinking maybe, when it was all over, that they could have something more real. But now she was gone with nothing but the barest of bones remaining.

Salt and burn.

What's dead should stay dead.

Those damn angels, those goddamn demons, all those monsters taking everything from him one soul after another. With cold, empty satisfaction, Dean thought… good. One less distraction. One less obligation to his humanity. Risa was better off dead, gone from this rotting cesspool, away from him.

Dean was ready to jump into that fiery abyss. To escape from morality's cloying grip. Strengths reversed, human desire submersed and purged. Every cell pleaded for that torch to pass, to hand over the destiny he'd been waiting for—just let him finish off this unbearable dirge.

No sense weeping over singed memories or impossible tragedies. No sense mourning scarred skin as it burned hot under the sleeve of his jacket. Set ablaze that darkness within, the voice whispered, archaic and primal. Grasp onto serenity, cling onto clarity. Fuel the flame. His thoughts became disjoined and warring until a dark calm engulfed the chaos.

There was peace after pain, let it be said.

Dean abandoned every promise. That former spark of hope would not be rising from the ashes this time.

There was love behind hate, they said.

But they were wrong. Filled with rage and vile thirst for death, cruel reality was consumed that day. Wooden heart spiteful and cold, Dean Winchester faded out from the world that was never meant for him.

one more monster crawled inside
but I swear I saw it die
can you save me from the nothing I've become
I abandoned this love and laid it to rest
now I'm one of the forgotten

Hael was motionless beneath the threadbare sheets, chest barely rising in time with her shallow breaths. There was a dusting of bruises beneath her closed eyes and her skin was unnaturally pale against the warm glow of daylight easing through the blinds. They'd set her up in a private cabin, one of the few still standing. It was otherwise empty and would serve as a medical recovery shelter until Hael was well enough to no longer require such measures. There was a tragic poetry to the notion that she had been Camp Chitaqua's first angel inhabitant, and was now also its last.

Though she didn't require sustenance or physical care, Castiel hated the idea of her being alone. She may have been unaware of her surroundings, but he was here at least an hour every day, sometimes more. He sat in a far corner of the room, just beside the window, his back starting to ache and the crick in his neck finally making him notice just how many hours he'd been here already. In his lap, Aubrey stirred restlessly, curling into a tighter ball. She made a quiet sound in her sleep, lips pursed into a fretful frown. Castiel lifted a hand, smoothing it gently over her hair. Aubrey seemed comforted, despite that he was merely going through the motions at this point, and her breathing evened back out.

Castiel turned his gaze back on his sister. Hael was lost to coma—hopefully one that was benefitting her. She needed much time to heal, and without any Rit Zien left alive to lend help, the road to recovery would be longer and more bleak.

By the placement of the sun, he was already late for his rounds. Wherever Meg was, she apparently wasn't concerned by his absence. Castiel wasn't even sure if her negligence bothered him. It should have. But… since Malachi's attack on the camp, he rarely felt much of anything anymore. It had only been a week, but surely his grieving period should have been over by now. He couldn't be certain if it was better this way or not—this numb, empty sensation or the feeling of utter heartbreak it seemed to alternate with when he wasn't paying attention, or when small eddies of emotion slipped past his well-constructed defenses so that he was left dry heaving in the bushes during a run. His body seemed to be betraying him lately, every emotion in general a terrible nuisance he couldn't shake.

Castiel's reflection inevitably shifted back to Meg and he set his jaw anxiously. There was a contemplative murk to his running thoughts, evidenced behind the dark tint his eyes adopted. He had more questions than answers these days. More doubts than he dared admit. There was a perpetual itch between his shoulder blades, a creeping ilk of unease that refused to permit him any rest, be it mental or physical. He rubbed at the skin between his brows, willing away the ache developing there.

A shadow fell over his face, his brow drawing onerously inward once his hand fell away. He had decisions to make, leads to follow up on. It left him with a hollow feeling inside, one that brought him further unease than he was already burdened with.

How exactly had he gone from trusting at the drop of a hat to trusting no one at all?

This was not the first time he'd had to make impossible decisions. He lost heart over the position he found himself in again, knowing that every time he was cornered in such a way, he'd made a disaster of things. As such, he had an innate feeling of dread inside that wouldn't die away. It resonated in his thoughts, smothering him with painful reminders and a dozen or so outcomes that were each more stressing than the last.

Before those thoughts could take an even more gruesome turn, Castiel rose from his chair, Aubrey cradled in his arms. He carried her to the bed, laying her down gently beside Hael. The child immediately nuzzled up against her friend, tiny hands slipping into black waves of hair as though a security blanket. Castiel offered the pair a final look, wishing he had the strength and power to heal them both in that moment. Knowing he was little more than a man—and a poor example of one at that—he left them, taking up his bow from against the threshold as he slipped out.

On the porch, he crossed paths with Jody Mills, who offered him a sympathetic look the second their eyes met. It wasn't pitying, which he appreciated, merely supportive in that natural way she had. The former sheriff, in Hael's absence, had taken on the mantle of caregiver to the children of the camp. She often visited the comatose angel, dropping in both for wordless support and to make sure that Aubrey was receiving the rest and nutrients she needed in her time of grief.

Jody was gentle with the girl, with his sister—in every way compassionate and kind. Castiel valued that devotion she bore to them both, and he genuinely liked the woman. Despite this, he couldn't find it within himself to offer much of a greeting.

"Hey, Cas," Jody said, understanding of his silence and taking no offense.

"Jody."

"Any change?"

Castiel shook his head, averting his eyes from her probing gaze. Jody was too observant, too perceptive of emotions—no matter how deeply suppressed. Castiel couldn't acknowledge such things right now. He had other matters, other responsibilities.

But Jody had yet to move. "Look, honey… I know you've taken a page out of the Winchester handbook on how to bury all that man pain, and that's okay. People grieve in different ways. But if you need anything… hell, I don't know. Just know that there are people around here who care about you."

There was something about the Mills woman. Something that made her company alone in many ways a comfort. Castiel could appreciate that, even if he remained avoidant of it.

"Thank you, Jody. I mean that."

Her lips quirked up. "I know you do." She gave his arm a quick squeeze and a swat, nodding her head for him to go on. "If you need a break, I can watch the munchkin the next few days. Gonna take her home with me for awhile, I think."

Castiel nodded, his eyes inevitably straying back over his shoulder into the cabin, taking in the sight of Aubrey nestled in against his sister. "That's… good. She needs someone who can look after her better than I can."

An arduous remorse crept over his shoulders, but Jody was already speaking through his haze of guilt. "I wouldn't sell yourself short. You mean a lot to that little girl. She needs you, even if she doesn't know how to say it." Jody jerked her head towards the steps, smiling a little. "Mosey off. Find that cranky she-devil and relax awhile. You deserve some peace after all this. If you weren't already taken, I'd lend a hand myself."

Her eyes sparkled at him, crimping at their corners, and Castiel allowed a meager smile to lift his mouth, knowing she was attempting to cheer him up. Jody brushed past him and he looked out into the day, the brief boost of spirit he'd felt falling away.

Was he? Taken?

Castiel didn't feel like he belonged to anyone right now.

all my heroes have now become ghosts
sold their sorrow for the ones who paid the most
all my heroes are dead and gone

"Eaohnvozi."

In the center of his cabin, amid rolled out blankets and burning sage, Sam sat in a lax position. His legs were crossed beneath his body, hands resting loose on his thighs as he concentrated deeply. His breaths came slow and controlled, his focus like a pinprick against the void as he gently cast out his awareness.

"Eaohnvozi," murmured Sam again to himself, concentrating on the life force that remained far away and out of reach.

You have a connection to him, said Zeke's voice in his thoughts. Somewhere near and yet not. Lost amid a flurry of distractions he worked to dissipate. Trust it. Use it.

Sam spoke the sacred phrase once more, waited, said it again.

He breathed in deep, holding the air in his lungs and channeling both patience and the flickering remnant of light still locked away somewhere inside him. With his mind, he touched it, sensing the ember of Creation, cradling the grace with a mental caress until he learned it completely. It became as familiar as the palm of his own hand.

In meditation, his sight was not limited. Not by any means. He could see beyond what he'd been able to even when he'd had the use of both his eyes.

An intense sense of calm gently took hold of his consciousness, warm electric vibrations spreading over his body from his legs upwards. His mind felt unbelievably clear. Absolute and nearly omniscient. Thought left him completely until all he knew was the grace. Of its own accord, his soul sought out the grace's owner. His mind became separate from him, from his body. It reached out across the distance, calling silently.

The beat of Sam's heart thudded slow against his ribs. The vibrations engulfed his body until it seemed almost to pulse. Energy he'd never felt before expanded in his chest, his physical body forgotten in his search.

Sam looked into the vast and empty wasteland spread out before him. He could see all around and all at once, driven not only by sight but by the very corporeal sensation of being able to feel everything around him with clarity and alertness beyond anything he had experienced in the physical world. Everything felt fluid, alive, and radiating different kinds of limitless energy.

The memory of his human senses seemed gray in comparison.

Sam mentally reached out, pressing against invisible barriers in search of Gadreel. To think the name momentarily impeded his carefully constructed process, as a surge of emotion boiled at his core, but Sam quickly discarded it, concentrating on that flow of ripples that became like a beacon to his mind's eye. He followed the patterns like a trail of maps laid out, each obstacle a new riddle he had to solve.

It became easier and easier, as effortless as breathing.

His pulse fluttered, senses pinpointing across timeless distances.

He found him.

Sam felt his consciousness seize hold of that iridescent configuration of light, surging forward, and—suddenly—he was Gadreel. He was looking at the world through the angel's eyes, seeing what he saw, how he saw, the things he felt. Wading through the eddy of shame and regret before him, Sam focused on what he was looking at.

An unremarkable room.

Decrepit. Falling apart in places. Dangerous to a human, not to an angel.

I need to be sure of your fidelity.

Suddenly, Sam found himself staring into the face of Metatron.

Paralyzed, stunned, horrified—fear and confusion abruptly gripped him. Sam retreated, pushed down against the vibrations, felt the feelings and the vision rapidly vanish, and awareness slammed back into him with jarring force.

Sam gasped, snapping out of the trace, completely alert and ramrod straight as his chest worked with heavy breaths. His heart pounded now against his ribcage unrelentingly as his mind reeled at what he'd seen.

Gadreel was working for Metatron?

Having no idea what this meant, Sam could only work to get his breathing back under control and chase that knowledge in hopes to link himself again to the angel, but his efforts ended now in vain. His concentration wild and errant with racing thoughts, he mourned the broken connection and knew it would be a long time before he'd be able to find Gadreel again.

all the places I've been and things I've seen
a million stories that made up a million shattered dreams
the faces of people I'll never see again

Kevin handed over the translations, awaiting his companion's verdict.

Over the past several months, he'd hit a wall translating the tablet into English. The worst of it was having to translate off memory and what few photos they'd taken of it, since the angel possessing Sam had stolen the tablet itself in his escape. After Kevin had done some digging in the bunker—which Dean had already chewed his ass out for having left the camp's walls on his own—he'd found an ancient codex linking the angel script to Proto-Elamite cuneiform and was able to translate most of Metatron's footnotes into Elamite.

Doodles, Dean had put in sourly, glaring at the result. Sam had regarded his efforts with no small measure of disillusionment, but with a much more open mind. Kevin was grateful. The task had taken weeks, and he'd slept very little throughout the process. Interacted very little with others. Because of it, he was going a little stir crazy and felt anxious for someone to appreciate what he had done.

Most of the extinct language was abstract, but he'd at least been able to decipher one phrase from the notes. Falling angels. Nonetheless, scholars had tried for centuries to translate Proto-Elamite into English and repeatedly failed. Needless to say, Kevin understood their skepticism.

No one can read it, he had told them, admittedly disappointed that he'd painted them somewhat into yet another dead end. Dean was already sulking away, but Sam looked at him thoughtfully, a clear idea forming in the midst of his consideration.

Maybe no one who's been human their whole life, he pointed out.

Now, Kevin waited with waning patience, shifting anxiously.

Castiel looked over the notes, wearing his usual concentrated frown as he scanned the markings.

"Anything?" Kevin prodded.

Cas actually looked angry. "No."

The prophet deflated. "I thought you'd be able to read it?"

"I can read it. I just know what it says, and it's a waste of time." Castiel shoved the papers back into his hands, turning away in aggravation as he made to leave.

"Whoa, hey!" Kevin scrambled after him, becoming indignant. "I busted my ass over this—there's gotta be something!"

Castiel ignored his protests, bypassing the prophet's disgruntlement in favor of a moody exit. "Obtain the ingredients. Heart of a nephilim. Cupid's bow. Grace of an angel. Unite, and smoke shall rise from the ashes, casting the angels out of Heaven. Nothing we didn't already know."

"Then why are you acting like a dick? You're obviously pissed. Maybe you weren't skipping through a field of daisies when I brought these to you, but you weren't this—"

"It says the spell is irreversible, Kevin."

The boy abruptly quieted, his countenance falling as Castiel rounded on him with a heated expression to deliver those words. "What?" Castiel didn't respond and Kevin shook his head. "You mean we're stuck with this new world order? The fuck?"

"However you want to put it, that's what it says."

"But you don't believe that?"

Castiel hesitated, his harsh expression softening some as he looked down at the young man. "I can't believe that. Metatron is a liar. I'm sure he lied in his notes."

Kevin's shoulders sagged and, with a sigh, he looked down in defeat. "You hope he lied."

A muscle worked in Castiel's jaw and he deliberated over what to say. "You could have just showed these to Meg," he eventually said, watching his company carefully. She and Kevin had been working together a lot lately. Meg often went on runs for him. She considered the legwork to be boring and often complained how she was stuck on babysitting duty whenever she'd been assigned to the boy.

Kevin shook his head. "I wasn't sure she could read them. I mean, you're the oldest person I know. Plus, you know… this is kind of your deal." He looked up at Castiel, something approaching sympathy hidden away in his eyes. He knew Cas loathed being reminded of the Fall, especially recently, and with… what had happened. Kevin felt a belated sense of guilt for having brought this to him in the first place—at least so soon after his friend's loss. Perhaps it was inconsiderate of him…

He'd been so locked in his own head these past few days that he hadn't even thought—

"Where is she?"

Kevin blinked at the deviation of topic. "Meg? Haven't seen her in awhile."

Castiel's eyes narrowed in that inimitable way he had, but the sight was almost intimidating now. Something about him was suddenly very dark.

Kevin balked under the unexpected intensity, not quite understanding the reason for it. "Hey. Meg's been really helping me out, lately. You should… go easy on her."

Castiel looked at him, quiet for a long time. "Why would I need to go easy on her? She's done nothing wrong."

"No, obviously, yeah. I just mean…" Kevin struggled over the inner workings of angels and demons, not for the first time. Meg had been in a pissy mood lately, too. She didn't outwardly complain, which was itself an oddity, but he could tell something was eating at her. And, since the snarky little demon really didn't have any other close relationships at the camp, or at all, Kevin had assumed her shitty mood was because of Castiel.

"You sent her on a supply run to Beloit," the fallen angel was saying. He almost looked like he was working something over in his thoughts, cogs turning behind that glacier stare.

"Yeah?"

"And she hasn't returned yet?"

Kevin shrugged, wondering if he should worry too. "I guess not. I'm sure she's fine."

Castiel knew that. Of course Meg was fine. He could feel it when she wasn't. There was dread in the pit of his gut that had him feeling stressed, but it wasn't the usual dread that came when she was in danger. He looked away grimly, boots grinding the dirt beneath his feet as he turned again to go. "She should be back."

"Cas—"

"Kevin," he snapped, and his voice carried a great deal of its old authority, startling the boy. "We're done here. If you're able to translate anything else, let me know."

Kevin shrank back a step and watched him go, feeling his nerves settle as the distance grew between them. He felt diminutive and chastened at the virulent brush off. A little sullen, too. "'Kay…"

Castiel may not have been an angel anymore, but he still scared the shit out of him sometimes.

And Meg… well, Kevin understood what it was to have people trying to keep you from doing what needed to be done. What it was to be suffocated and locked away because you're too valuable to lose. For well over a year, he'd had Dean—and in some cases, even Sam—breathing down his neck, forbidding him from missions beyond the safety of the camp's walls.

Too dangerous.

You're not ready.

Too young.

We need you.

You're a sentry, not a field scout.

Kevin inhaled deeply, letting the breath out in a long sigh. Meg would do what she needed to. So would he.

far away through the pain
I hear the angels calling
far away through the pain
I see my demons falling

Black and starless eyes stared out against the sight, taking in the distance and what surrounded the ghost town.

For the first time in almost two years after a hell gone topside and constant arid heat, there were temperature fluctuations. Electrical storms. Animal mutilations. Nature tearing itself apart in small ways in dreaded anticipation of what was to come.

Three short months, and Lucifer would rise.

The omens all around her painted a vivid portrait, provided a macabre backdrop to her actions that wreathed her tangle of dark hair in a stunning crown. She stood, baleful against what she witnessed and yet smiling down in cold satisfaction at her handiwork.

Easier to ask forgiveness, went the saying.

Unbidden, she thought suddenly of him. It startled her out of the militant focus, demanding her attention as clearly as if he'd been standing beside her.

ONE WEEK PRIOR

She hadn't been looking for him long—just long enough to start wondering where the hell he was. On her pass through the camp, she eventually spotted his bow and gear sitting outside the hippie lodge, of all places. Well… it was Ed and Harry's cabin, technically, but the place was often frequented by the dope smokers and pot farmers of the camp. Meg wondered what the hell he was doing there.

With a bewildered scowl, Meg's boots carried her up the rickety steps. She made a sour face at the beads hanging in the doorway and rapped twice on the jamb. "Knock knock, potheads." She stepped in and was met with an immediate wall of the flagrant odor—strong enough to make even her eyes water. "Mother of sin," she muttered, waving a hand in front of her face.

To her surprise, Cas and Ed Zeddmore were seated opposite the table from each other in the open entryway. Her angel's forearms were bared over the surface while Ed worked away with a needle. The faint, droning buzz explained the fresh ink at least on his skin—and the reason why Castiel was here, of all places. There weren't a lot of artists at the camp, even fewer of them tattoo artists.

"Sup, Meggers?" Ed murmured, barely acknowledging her presence as he concentrated on his work. From the couch in the back, Harry Spangler offered her a lazy salute, a bong hugged faithfully to his chest. Meg briefly recognized Maggie, Ed's sister. Spruce, and Ambyr as well—all scattered about the room. She remembered that the cabin next door had been one of the ones burned to a cinder, so all the little Ghostfacers appeared to be back under one roof again because of it.

That's kismet for you, the demon thought with salty derision. Meg plastered a smile on her face. "Well, ain't this a fabulous embarrassment of riches."

Castiel didn't even look up.

Meg raised an eyebrow, addressing the new ink. "Finding all new ways to rebel, are we?"

Despite the lighthearted jibe, she regarded the Enochian runes with somber eyes, identifying them as the names of each fallen sibling as they climbed along the inside of each wrist. Beside his hands, there was a scrap of paper with the same syllabary and Meg recognized Castiel's handwriting.

"This is what humans do, isn't it?" he said, tired eyes combing over the handiwork grimly. "Commemorate loss?"

Meg noted the bottle of alcohol beside him, pushing off from the jamb and crossing over to them with a shrug. "You need to be drunk for a tattoo? Didn't think pain bothered you that much."

Castiel's eyes didn't raise to meet hers. "I'm in mourning, Meg."

"I know, feathers," she muttered, reaching out and running her hand briefly over the back of his head, through his hair.

"All done, my man," Ed said, securing the last bit of dressing over his work.

"Thank you."

Castiel rose from his seat, abandoning the bottle of liquor and its remains, which Ed happily claimed and began chugging. He then tossed it over to Harry to pass around. The fallen angel brushed past Meg, stepping back out into the sun. She followed after him, catching his elbow and darting in front of him.

"Hey."

Castiel merely stared at her, saying nothing.

Meg felt unbearably transparent right then, and she shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I'm not good at this kind of shit."

"I know."

"Just… if you need something… tell me. Okay?" It was hard to look at him when she was being so willingly open, and she'd sooner stick her hand on a hot iron. Castiel nodded faintly, blue eyes skirting from hers as well. He was scruffier than usual, less put together too. Despondent and completely removed, even when he was standing right in front of her. Meg grabbed at the front of his shirt, tugging a little. "Want me for anything? I'm due for some bloodshed."

"No. Help Kevin. I have things I need to do."

"Alright," she muttered, narrowing her eyes a little. Ignoring how slighted she felt at his dismissal, Meg stood on her toes, giving him a brief kiss that he barely responded to. "Later, stranger," she said to his retreating back.

Meg shook the memory, reining her focus back in to where it belonged.

A studded boot crossed over another body, carrying her between them as though avoiding drops of rain. A bloody angel blade was gripped in her hand, a tight, malevolent expression claiming her face. As she passed over the last smoking corpse, Meg stooped low to regard the struggling demon at her feet.

"Look at you, all helpless."

Her lone survivor spat out a mouthful of blood, it's own eyes black and bottomless in the face of her eerie calm. "Bitch, when Crowley gets his hands on you…"

Meg's face split in a sinister smile, and she casually wiped the blood from her blade onto her companion's jacket. "I suppose that was meant to scare me."

The demon stared at her balefully. "You Lucifer loyalists," it snarled. "You think Hell can be ruled on chaos alone."

"Oh, come on," Meg purred, letting her tone drip superiority. "Chaos is what makes the fires burn strong, baby. Now," she began, deliberately sliding the tip of her weapon over its skin in a quietly menacing way. "Are you gonna be my little harbinger, or do I stick this fancy poker in your pretty meatsack's face?" At her fellow demon's mulish silence, Meg tsked. "Tick tock. I have a camp of sappy survivors to get back to."

It's glare was an almost physical blow and Meg dimpled sweetly in the face of it. "What's the message?" it muttered scornfully.

Meg's smile slowly fell, her visage becoming insidious and grave. "Tell your precious king of the crossroads that the new Queen sends her best. And you tell that smarmy dick that he'll be the first on Abaddon's list to eviscerate when Daddy comes home."

The demon absorbed the news, scowling up at her in loathing. "Go on then, whore. Back to those stupid head of cattle."

Meg rose slowly to her feet, black eyes burning down into Crowley's henchman with a chilling gratification. She brought her heel slamming down into its temple, effectively knocking it out. With dogged resolve, she turned on her heel, taking care to weave through the bodies she'd left in her wake.

All the while feeling abysmally at home.

Three months until Abaddon rose Lucifer. Three months for everything to fall apart in the worst way possible… or to fall into place, as she hoped it would. Meg was counting on the latter. She had to follow through, had to see it to the end, no matter what she felt and no matter what she had to do.

Everything had been set into motion.

a voice screaming from within
begging just to feel again
can't find who I am without you near me
you're the only one who saves me from myself
I'm not, I'm not myself
feel like I'm someone else
fallen and faceless, so hollow inside

22 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL

He was a scourge.

No more supply raids, no more weekly missions. He had one mission—be ready. Make war.

Two months until Abaddon rose Lucifer. Two months before the epilogue of this fucking cesspool played itself out. Two months until he buried that Blade into the last Knight of Hell.

Every day, every night, he was here—well beyond the borderlands. Finding what targets he could. Croats, demons, looters, volatile angels, it didn't matter. Whatever obstruction arose was quickly and brutally dealt with.

Over the last month, Dean had spent his waking hours killing what needed killing. When he'd taken his first life with the Blade, time itself seemed to stutter. It was like a wall of clarity washing over him, through him, setting fire to his veins. The Blade became an extension of him, perfect and terrible in every way.

Untethered Dean was reckless, immersing himself in one self-destructive tear after another. Without Sam, a brother to temper that brash savagery, it felt good to run full-throttle. All in, with no reason to hit the brakes. Caution didn't exist when Dean was on his own. It was who he was, what he was, how he operated. The adrenaline, the rush… it made him feel alive. Was the only thing that could these days.

There were rare moments when the adrenaline faded and realization hit hard to the point where he was left trying to strip the taint of evil from his body. Clawing at the stains with his nails in an effort to erase the blood however he could. Those moments became fewer and fewer as the weeks dragged on. Because the blood kept flowing and it felt good, it felt right, because he lived to spill it. He lived to bring death.

Cain said he was worthy. All he knew after that was that he was a killer and he would kill Abaddon. Dean hoped when that moment finally came… he'd finally feel worthy.

"Love the crazy bloodlust in your eyes," came a smooth, dark voice.

Dean tensed at the sudden, familiar tone. He hesitated, staring down at the decimated corpse at his feet before twisting the Blade out from its ribs. Turning, he wiped the splatter of blood from his face with the back of his hand. His shoulder was dislocated, he could tell. Could feel the shooting pain dull in the back of his mind, a tightness in his chest. For some reason, Dean thought it should have hurt more. He reached up, popping it back into place with a hard grunt.

"Hello, Dean."

"Crowley."

"I hope you appreciate my visiting you, and what exactly it's costing me to be out in the open like this." The demon dusted imaginary specks of dirt off his shoulder. Dean slowly advanced, knuckles splashing white against the hilt of his weapon in growing anticipation. Crowley eyed the move with distaste, but held his ground. "Now, now. Play nice. I come bearing gifts."

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

"Locations. To the whereabouts of some of Abby's lieutenants. More bodies for you to poke with your new toy. And not in the sexy way." Crowley held out a slip of paper that Dean eyed suspiciously and he smiled coolly. "You're welcome."

Bristling at the demon's audacity, Dean was curt. "And here I was having so much fun ganking your little pissants," he muttered frigidly, taking the paper and looking over it with skeptical eyes.

"Come again?"

The hunter eyed him pointedly. "Your little plant we ran into last month."

Crowley shook his head, affecting an oblivious attitude. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. My boys have all been on their best behaviors, keeping low. Attempting to evade… hiccups."

Dean's eyes narrowed malevolently. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Crowley lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "Believe me, don't believe me. Couldn't give a steaming shit."

Dean was silent awhile, staring down at the paper he held in his hand before he lifted it up, eyes burning into the demon across from him. "You think I don't know what this is?"

"It's a piece of paper, of which I've taken the time to scribe the names and locations of annoying bastards. A laundry list of things for the Blade's new master to kill, if you will. Do have fun."

"You want me to work for you," Dean derisively surmised. His glower was accusing and baleful and he clenched his jaw all the tighter. "Maybe you even want your own Knight of Hell."

Crowley smirked. "You're not as stupid as you look, male model. Although, you realize that in order to be a Knight, you'd have to be a demon. As grumpy and volatile as you are, you don't exactly fit the bill."

"Not happening, either way."

"'Fraid it's already happening, friend. Matter of time." The demon wore a smug smirk and his voice was soft like silky midnight. Crowley considered him, dark eyes examining him thoughtfully. "Haven't you noticed? The more you kill, the better you feel? The less you kill… the less better you feel? Come now—surely you must have known it inevitable once you took on the mantle. It's the bloody Mark of Cain."

Dean visibly reacted to the words, expression twisting darkly at the overtones. "I'm not working for you, Crowley."

Crowley smiled, the sight a dangerous one. "Maybe not right now, Squirrel. But soon enough that urge to bugger all and go take a howl at the moon is going to get to you." The King turned gradually on his heel, tossing a final farewell over his shoulder as he sauntered away. "Enjoy the apocalypse. I plan on starting my own when Wilma's in the ground. You might consider treating me a little nicer, since I'll likely be the only one left rooting for you when the curtains close. Tootles, Dino."

Dean stared down at his feet, a muscle working in his jaw. He became so lost in murky rumination that he startled a bit when Crowley's contemplative grunt indicated he had yet to leave.

"By the way…" The demon hesitated, and his expression was sly and knowing. "Tell Castiel he should be keeping an eye on that little pet of his. Can't imagine the nasty things she's been up to when he isn't looking."

Crowley was gone by the time he blinked.

The demon's parting words were left ringing in his ears and Dean absorbed it all, a million questions cropping up at everything he'd just heard. He looked down at his hands, covered in blood. It would be gone in a few washes, and the evidence of his actions would be erased, but the fact it had still been spilled struck him as being very poignant and morbid all at once.

if I told you what I was would you turn your back on me?
and if I seem dangerous would you be scared?
I get the feeling everything I touch isn't dark enough
if this problem lies in me

Hot water cascaded over him and Castiel bowed his head, letting it run off his face and drip down around his feet. He held a palm flat against the cheap plastic shower wall, inhaling deeply, his thoughts swimming and lost under the distracting flow. He focused on the steam, on the hiss of water that helped divert his mind from what was eating at him. Closing his eyes, Castiel tilted his neck either way, trying to ease the tension there.

His shoulder ached, his head pounded—the former thanks to a looter he was clumsy enough to miss with his bow earlier and thus ended up in a long physical scuffle with. He'd run out of pills again in the middle of a mission, the pain in his temples causing more than one slip up that day. He'd have a new scar in a month or so just below his ribs when the machete graze finally healed. He didn't even really notice the pain that came with it—just the throbbing in his skull and the ache on his heart that his fallen siblings left in wake of their death.

Castiel felt the phantom weight of the blade beneath his fingers as he used it to end his brother's life. He remembered Ezekiel staring up at him in gratitude, when all he could feel was shame and this sick, nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach that he still couldn't shake. He shuddered, the heat of the water doing little to stave off the tremors that clawed through him.

Hael had finally woken from her coma, but was nevertheless no better off than when she'd fallen into it. She was still in a great deal of pain—her vessel sluggish to heal itself and her grace too weak to piece itself back together properly. While her recovery was likelier than he'd first assumed—she was stronger than either of them had predicted, a fact Castiel was thankful for—it was taking too long for his peace of mind. He wanted her well again. He wanted her playing in the mess hall with Aubrey again. He wanted her to not be afraid again.

He'd told her Camp Chitaqua was a sanctuary.

Maybe he wasn't a liar for it, but he was certainly a fool to think any of them could ever be safe. Especially so near to him.

Castiel barely registered the soft noise outside the shower before the glass door was abruptly sliding open. The motion and loud rolling sound startled him out of his thoughts and he jerked his head around to see Meg standing there, already removing her clothes. He let out a riled breath, his heart rate settling back down to where it belonged.

"Meg, what—"

"You've been in here forever and I didn't want to wait anymore," she said smoothly, noting with mild amusement how he needlessly averted his eyes at the sight of her bare flesh as she stepped in. He'd literally fallen from grace in just about every way an angel could, been with her countless times, and yet he still harbored a gentleman complex. "Got back and couldn't find you. Decided to wash away my sins and here you are, trying to do the same."

Castiel sighed, but when he looked at her again it was in abrupt, serious concern. "What happened to you?"

His voice had risen a little in alarm because there were dark, bloody trails all over her smaller form, slowly becoming watered down by the shower's hot mist as she avoided the spray. Meg was nearly stained head to toe in splatter, a great deal of it her own as he could see the open wounds and the terrible gash running across her cheek now that he really looked at her.

He reached out, hand gripping gently under her jaw as he drew her closer. "You're hurt."

"I'm fine."

"Meg, you're covered in blood—"

"It'll wash." Her dark eyes rose to meet his as she eased under the spray with him. The scarlet tendrils began to weep down her lithe body, gathering at their feet in affirmation to her words. Meg wet her lips, shivering a little as the hot spray splashed against her still tender injuries. "At least I know you're alive in here. Almost thought you were avoiding me."

Her skin brushed against his and Castiel's eyes seemed to grow darker as they flickered between hers. "I wasn't avoiding you," he said in a quiet voice. Irrational fears flittered through his thoughts along with the wakening need he felt like a flurry of errant snow.

Is it snowing?

It's not snow. It's ash.

Pain shuddered through him at the reminder, his armor cracking. Castiel looked at her and saw how deeply her eyes searched his, felt the conflicting needs to both recoil and also cling to her all the more.

"Little hard to now, don't you think?"

He supposed she was speaking of having finally cornered him. And then he felt her fingers gently skim against his tattooed wrists, one and then the other, tracing the ink there that lay beneath his skin. The names of who he had lost.

His eyes as they retreated from her gave the impression of a reluctance to speak. And, when he did, it was slow and unsure—doubtful of himself and stripped raw with disuse and bereavement.

"Muriel," he murmured as her fingertip brushed the first name, surprising her. His head was bowed low, watching her touch as it found each Enochian rune, each angel who perished in the attack. "She was the angel of peace and harmony."

Of gardens and animals, and a teacher of goodness and unconditional love. She was a gentle angel, not a soldier at all, and she'd never hurt a soul in her life.

Meg's eyes drifted up to meet his, the question spoken there as her fingers slid a little higher.

"Azrael. The angel of passing and keeper of Heaven's souls."

He'd worked closely with Death, utterly neutral and compassionate. Azrael, his brother, was a beacon to faithful prayers which had no other angel assigned. He was proof that no human was ever intended to be alone.

"Theo," Castiel said of the next. "Protector of Creation. Patron of the wounded. " Theo had been a Rit Zien. A dutiful soldier and more dedicated healer. "Camael. Patron of joy and beauty. He was… he was the angel my Father sent to comfort Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Camael wept for days after the Crucifixion."

Meg gently took up his other wrist, and Castiel softly sighed. He was shut off, but even through the haze of pain he was surely experiencing, he couldn't help but open his heart when he spoke of his siblings.

"Amesha. Angel of truth and righteousness, of the divine. Jophiel. The angel of light and patron of artists and illumination. He was the guardian of Paradise and stood at the Tree of Life with a flaming sword. Brighter even than Michael's."

Jophiel had always seemed… tormented at having to banish Adam and Eve. It left the keeper stung in ways an angel should not have been able to be stung. Once, Jophiel had also been a companion of Metatron, their friendship often regarded with favor and esteem. It was painful to think that only two years prior, the angel was just another of many the Scribe had betrayed through the Fall.

"Temeluchus. Punisher of evildoers. An angel of battle."

Another faceless soldier who became something more in the name of freedom.

Meg's fingers slid over the last inscription, and Castiel's voice wavered.

"Ezekiel," he uttered softly, throat catching over the name. Dear friend and loyal brother. One of Heaven's first and last Guardians. A protector from the moment of his creation up until his last, dying breath. "Angel of transformation and fidelity… patron of forgiveness."

Castiel clenched his jaw tightly, closing his eyes against the diverse memories and inborn knowledge of these brothers and sisters. They were so much more than even their titles claimed—he'd seen each of them throughout the months as they safeguarded those at the camp, lent their strength and earned their keep. Played with the children and laughed with the men and women, even when there was so little to find joy in these days.

Meg's touch drifted then to the warding tattoo above his hip, sliding over the similar marks that spelled something so very different. "Why did you never get an anti-possession tattoo?" she muttered softly in the space between them, linking her fingers through his.

Her touch banished his thoughts completely and brought back a flood of memories of she and himself. They hadn't been intimate since the attack on the camp—Castiel failing to have the heart for it and being so distant she could barely get him to look at her, much less fall with her into their usual dance. "I don't know," he replied. The thought lingered in the back of his mind, and he considered that he might have some notion, but he buried it before she could realize it was ever there.

"You need to get over this."

Castiel's voice was starkly anxious. Low and rough in the face of her offering. "Don't."

Meg felt the strong, broad planes of his chest as he pressed into her and she softened against him when his hands lifted to seize her face in urgency. Sparks raced along every inch of her skin as he kissed her under the spray. She reached up her fingers to bury them in the hair at his nape, drawing him further down. Castiel's hands skimmed over her soaking form, settling over her hips and crushing her to him as rivulets of water poured down their bodies. His fingertips left trails of fire and heat across her wet skin, desire igniting in them both.

Meg arched into him, coaxing him closer though not really needing to. One hand surged back up to entangle itself in her drenched hair, tugging, needing more. She felt how his heart thudded hard in his chest against hers, how his other hand tightened at the small of her back, drawing her forcibly close. He breathed out her name, both a plea and a demand, urgent for her to cleanse his mind of what had left him this pitiful, suffering shell—wanting to be done with it all. His voice was fractured somewhere in the middle, but still so husky and intimate beside her ear.

Meg took him in with her eyes, seeing the pain in his face, considering how his wet hair looked almost black like that. She thought of his wings and closed her eyes, breathing in tremulously. "Take it, Castiel," she said in dulcet, smoky undertones. Her nails scratched along his scruffy jaw, spurring him on. Rousing the fire in him. Desperate for him as much as he was for her right now. She was fierce and meaningful as she took hold of the side of his face, refusing to let him withdraw and resist affection. "It's yours."

I'm yours, went the unspoken. However he needed her, desired her, she was there for the taking. He could lose himself in her, take comfort in her, bury his frustration and despair in her. She was his.

A soft groan in the base of his throat sounded and Castiel took the invitation. He turned his face towards hers, not even thinking, just needing. Bare skin to bare skin, nothing between them at all but everything they never said. Meg felt his worry and anguish as his lips found and pressed hungrily against hers. She kissed him back with her entire body, deepening their connection and transitioning the heat of her touch wherever she could. Water sprayed over them like rainfall in the fraught space as he crowded her against the wall of the shower, their mouths and tongues tangling. Castiel was frenzied in a way that was achingly adrift, and Meg was left torn between thrill and lament over the roughness and despair of his touch. He was with her and yet he wasn't.

Their lips fell away from the other's only briefly before they met again in rising distress. They were both out of words, becoming impassioned and despairing and heavy and mindless. Castiel kissed her with grieved fury and a hunger borne out of desperation. He fell headlong into her spell with relief, feeling unworthy of her despite the absurdity, growling low into her mouth as guilt and shame at his own emotional weakness spiraled through him. He shut his eyes against the world so that all he could feel or think was her.

Meg's shallow, quickening breaths and quiet encouragements drove him mad, her voice a siren call he could deny himself no longer. Castiel crumbled, abandoning his resistance completely. With sudden, carnal authority, he gripped her thighs and lifted her up, torso molded to hers, her back sliding against the plastic shell. Satisfaction at his brazen ferocity after so long a drought stoked a heady fire, and Meg tightened her fingers in his hair with a wanton sound. Milky legs fastened around his waist, muscles sliding over curves. Castiel's thumb grazed the hinge of her jaw as he drowned her in another kiss, sloppy and unchecked, their mutual gasps swallowed by each other in burning passion.

Their kiss broke and Meg's head fell back against the shower wall, lips parting in another soundless cry as her hands fell to his drenched shoulders for support. Castiel buried his face down in the crook of her neck with a throaty sound, relief and need breaking over him as they met and moved against each other like waves crashing in the ocean. The steam around them made every inhale feel thick and substantial, water still streaming over them in a way that should have been cleansing but only brought further desolation to them both.

Meg felt how hungry and inconsolable he was through the unyielding way his hands held her, the powerful, fervent way he worshipped her and succumbed to every morsel of solace her presence could offer him. Increasingly feverish sounds splashed together beneath the spray from their mouths, drowning out what awaited them beyond this intimate space, this shell of solitude that for once kept them aligned rather than at odds.

Both were unaware of what the future held and would later count themselves fools for different reasons. But, in that moment, all they knew was the love and infatuation they couldn't resist in each other. In spite of what would eventually destroy them, they let passion sweep them away and gave shelter to the very thing that had damned them both in the first place, stacking their transgressions ever higher in willful ignorance.

Castiel's mind became a blessed blackout, the agonizing thoughts from before now only a distant buzz in the back of his head as he lost himself in her completely.

I can see the pain in you
I can see the love in you
but fighting all the demons will take time
and this is the last time
that I'm ever gonna give in tonight
are there angels or devils crawling here?

"Aren't you going to sleep? We just got back two hours ago."

Another meeting concluded, Sam was surprised to see his brother shrugging on his coat—heading towards the gate instead of his cabin. Nightfall was approaching in a few hours, which was a dangerous time to be outside the camp's walls. Not to mention that they had a ton of shit to take care of in the morning. Sam had been lobbying for months to locate some of the nearby demon nests for interrogation and mass exorcism. Something that could yield information and spare the host… like things had been before. He remembered the days of Yeager and Irv, even Risa who was incredibly green to such methods… Sam remembered in the beginning when they cured what hosts had been lost through possession. Those days were long past, and Sam wanted them back.

"Not tired," came Dean's automatic response, jarring him out of his thoughts.

Sam sighed, wordlessly admitting defeat in favor of a lecture. But then he caught sight of that primeval shape, feeling like a stone had landed somewhere in his gut. "Why do you have that?" he quietly asked, frowning faintly in worry and suspicion.

Dean barely reacted to the anxious tone, offering Sam a careless shrug. "Hockey stick that can kill anything? Handy to have around." He was surprised when Sam suddenly reached out, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey. How many times have we been around this block?"

Dean stared hard at his brother, not understanding.

Sam shook his head, looking vexed. "Magic that powerful comes at a price, Dean. And… right now, we don't know what that price is."

It was a predictable reaction and hardly worthy of much attention. He was accustomed to his little brother's hang ups and, really, who the hell was Sam to talk? "Really, Sam? I'm fine."

Spoken as though he found the entire conversation inconvenient.

Sam rubbed at the lower half of his face briefly in a gesture that came off as supremely harrowed. "Sure." His hand slapped down. "Of course you are." Dean was bristling now, and Sam rushed to pacify him. "Look, I'm not saying we bury the thing. I'm just saying we save it for when we really need it. Come on, man," he tried to reason. His brother seemed almost reluctant, maybe even reachable, and Sam doubled his appeal. "You don't have to have it with you all the time, right?"

Dean chuckled a bit, although his smile faded into a more unfriendly expression and his voice hardened a little. "Is this supposed to be some kind of intervention? Because I told you, I'm fine. If I wasn't, you'd know. Hell, if anything… it's made me better. Stronger."

Sam's eyebrows moved in together as his eyes narrowed. This was bordering on absurd. "Okay, well… not an intervention. I'm asking you. We're partners in this, Dean. We watch each other's backs—at least, we're supposed to." He wet his lips, trying to think of a way to get Dean back to the land of the sane, but then he was already being spoken over.

"You know we can't afford to screw this up. Anything to put a run in that bitch's stockings, right?"

"No, I know that. And I'm glad the Blade gives you strength, or whatever. But Dean, I gotta say… I'm starting to think the Blade is doing something else, too." He allowed that statement to hang in the air before driving his point home emphatically. "Something really fucking… twisted." He'd seen his brother use the weapon in the field. The sight was… unsettling to witness. Because Sam had been watching Dean fight his entire life, and in all that time he'd never seen Dean fight like he did when he had that Blade in his hand. His brother wasn't a hunter anymore. He was the incarnation of violence. Worst of all… he seemed to enjoy it.

Dean's forehead wrinkled up in suspicion. "Like what?"

Fumbling a little, Sam tried to voice the feelings of dread he harbored into clear words. "Like… I don't know… something to you."

Dean barked out a humorless laugh, already moving past him. "Alright, now it's an intervention. Don't embarrass yourself, Sammy."

Sam's expression became indignant at the terse retort and he hurried after his brother, getting angry now. "Would you just listen? We have to talk about—"

Dean rounded on him. "Here's the deal, Sam. I'm not apologizing for whatever shit you're about to lay on me. I'm telling you how it's gonna be."

Sam grimaced in vast frustration, closing his eye briefly against the obstinate wall staring back at him. "Dean… that Blade—"

"That Blade is the only thing that can kill Abaddon. And I am the only one who can use it." Green eyes drilled defiantly into the withering fortitude opposing him, almost daring his brother to argue. "So, from here on out, I'm calling the shots." Sam turned away and Dean chased the motion so that he was looking right at him. His hand fell almost reverently on the hilt of the First Blade. "Until I jam this Blade through that bitch's heart… we are not a team. This is a dictatorship."

Sam stared back at him hollowly. "Are you fucking joking?" he uttered flatly.

Dean ignored the abrasive tone, driving his point home with churlish resolve. "You don't have to like it, but that's how it's gonna be."

"Goddamn it, Dean, we've all lost people!" Sam shouted, frustrated beyond compare as his temper flared to the surface out of desperation. Incensed, he threw a hand out at his brother for harsh emphasis. "Risa's dead, and you're hurting, I get it—believe me! So is Zeke, so is Yeager, and Irv, and Matthew, and a dozen other people we loved. But you don't see Cas going off the rails, you don't see me looking for blood to spill, you don't see any of us going out picking fights just for an excuse to kill! This isn't about vengeance, Dean—this is about that fucking old bone!"

Dean said nothing, only turned abruptly on his heel to continue on in the direction he'd been headed.

Sam watched him go with increasing unease, frustration, and… resentment boiling hot in his veins. He threw a hand up in protest against Dean's silence. "What the hell happened, man?" he called after him, almost wearily. When they'd returned from Missouri, he'd been so sure he and his brother were on the same page. That they would work through whatever came at them. "I thought… I thought we were good?"

Dean gave no response. Within moments, Sam lost him in the darkness of the late hour.

take a good look at me now
do you still recognize me
am I so different inside
this world is trying to change me

From the bathroom, Meg could still hear the faint sounds of him dressing, putting away their wet towels, needing to leave something orderly, which she supposed was ironic given the emotional disorder they both were trying to get a handle on. Meg rang out her hair in the kitchenette sink, tossing it over her shoulder as she stared out into the day through the grimy window panes. There was little activity beyond their brief shelter, but the sight was still intimidating in a way.

Pulling on her boots, Meg deigned to give Castiel his space. Jeans and tank top already hugging her damp body, she crossed over to pull her jacket from the back of the chair, but something must have snagged. At her impatient tug, the chair came toppling over, crashing with a dull thud against the wood floor and sending both of their jackets sprawling at her feet.

Meg muttered a curse, stooping to pick them up when the orange bottle with the white cap caught her eye. Her fingers closed around it, recognizing it as his, but something made her hesitate before she could stuff it back into his pocket. Meg felt a sinking sensation and the awareness that something was amiss.

An errant, cold fury simmered at the edges of her disposition at what she saw upon her closer look.

"Try not to make a mess," came Castiel's worn voice.

Meg turned to see him stepping out of the bathroom, toweling his hair halfheartedly, donned in his jeans and a tee, skin still glistening. She couldn't even appreciate the sight of him looking like that.

Getting to her feet, she held up the offending find. "What the hell are these?"

At the demand in her voice, at the sight of that bottle grasped tight in her hand, Castiel instinctively tensed, his haggard expression falling flat. He hesitated, a tinge of nervousness pitting itself in him. "Pills. For my headaches." His voice rang hollow even to his own ears.

Meg's expression went cold with wrathful anger and she suddenly reared back and threw the bottle at him, hard, and he scrambled to catch it before it hit him. "Those aren't pain pills, Cas, they're fucking amphetamines!" The accusation hung heavy on the air, and she didn't give him any time to respond. "Who did you get these from?"

Castiel's gaze fell downcast. "It doesn't matter."

Inexplicable anger surged through her and Meg looked at him in sheer disbelief. "The hell it doesn't!"

He bristled defensively, eyes darting back to hers. "I said it doesn't, so it doesn't."

Indignance flared in Meg's veins. "Watch your fucking tone with me." Her outraged stare was icy cold. "You think I couldn't carve answers out of you if I wanted them bad enough?"

"I'm sure you could," Castiel all but snarled, his flagging voice gaining some volume. His temper flared and he hadn't been able to control it—wasn't sure he even cared to, and so the derisive remark slipped out.

Meg advanced on him and spoke with a hard, threatening tone. "Don't get pissy with me! I'm going to throw you through something big and heavy if you don't—"

Castiel reacted more harshly than he meant to and his snapping shout startled them both. "I can't afford mistakes, Meg!" The sharp, ringing tone stopped her short and he was sickeningly glad to have shut her up. Meg registered bristling surprise, and he ignored it. "I can't afford to be less than one hundred percent. I need these because they keep me fast, alert, and—"

"You're so full of shit." Meg shook her head, looking disgusted with him. "You don't even realize it. This is why you haven't had any appetite, why you can never sleep, the tremors you try to hide from everybody—all of it! Are you that fucking stupid?"

"I can't sleep because my family is dying all around me and I can't stop it!" he yelled in defiance. "I don't eat because I feel fucking sick because of it! This body is weak because it's human!"

"It's also a sign of drug addiction, you stupid shit!" Meg shouted, every stored up morsel of anger blasting out of her like a hurricane. She was furious, frustration boiling over, because suddenly she was seeing an alternate reality where she was not there and she was horrified by what she saw. Maybe once that sight would have appealed to her, but now the image just left her feeling gutted. How could he not see what was happening? How could he not care? This was not the Castiel she knew—what the fuck was happening? "Is that how you want to go out? Is it, really? Some piss poor OD in the middle of fucking nowhere?"

His hysterical laugh was haggard and devoid of any humor and it sent a chill through her. It scared the shit out of her. "No one cares that I'm broken. Why the hell should I?" he asked heavily.

"I care, dumbass." How dare he think otherwise. How dare he fill himself with poison when he already had her to drag him down. How dare he sound so dead inside!

"Why? You're a demon! Why the hell should you care that I'm doing this?"

That really pissed her off—mostly because she had no good answer for it. "Yeah, Cas, I know what the fuck I am. Do you even realize how pathetic it is, given that? For a fallen angel to have a demon for a sponsor? You know what… forget it. Pick yourself up this time," she retorted, turning on her heel and heading for the door. She had to get away from him before she really lost her temper.

Before Meg knew what was happening, he'd moved faster than she would have ever given him credit and was beside her again, fingers closing around her wrist and yanking her back. "I need you, Meg."

Meg whirled on her heel to look at him in accusation. "What the hell did you say?"

Castiel fell back, averting his eyes and looking more contrite than he would have ever admitted just then. More desperate and more frustrated as the seconds ticked by. He wore a strained expression, a desperate animosity lingering beneath the surface that was pungent. Everything about him raged with fresh despair, but at the same time silently appealed to her in a manner that beckoned her to drop everything and run to him. His voice had been crushed and afraid and accusing and full of a begging anxiety she couldn't stand.

"Answer me, Castiel."

"I said I need you!" he hissed out finally, both furious and cornered. He'd said it before and he couldn't help but think she derived some sick pleasure out of hearing him say it again. Castiel faltered, panicking internally even as outwardly he remained callous and cutting. "I am losing my mind. Everything is different and nothing makes sense and I can't bear it. I can't see like I used to and I can't feel like before—"

Meg closed in on him, punching her words at him in her own anger. "You mean feeling nothing at all? Is that what you want, Cas? To feel nothing? Is that why the pills and the drinking yourself stupid? Gonna get stoned off your ass next with Cheech and Chong in the pot den?" She was at her limits of patience, and all she knew was that he had better pull himself together before she turned tail. He might have been special to her, but he wasn't special for being miserable. They were all climbing the walls, his excuse was no different. He wasn't the only one who needed somebody, whose every thread of sanity hinged upon the person keeping them afloat. She couldn't keep him together when it was all it took to keep herself from falling apart now. He was her moral compass and he was broken. Her words were accusatory, a fresh level of desperate all their own. "I'm all for a bad boy, but I won't waste my time on a fucking tragedy." She needed this too—damn it, she needed him! How did he not see it? How had he let this happen?!

Castiel stared at her, heart on his sleeve. "We are a tragedy. You died, remember?"

The reminder was said as an accusation and Meg rolled her eyes. "And you're the epitome of heroic. I'm swooning." Her words were derisive and said with every intention of getting under his skin.

Castiel's dry, hollow laugh would haunt her for months to come. "I don't care what you think, Mara, I care that you're alive!" The use of the name startled her, though she didn't think he even realized what he'd said. More importantly, his words roused a living beast inside of her that silently snarled at his nerve.

"Don't call me that."

Castiel saw the way Meg flattened her mouth into a bitter, seething expression, but it was the disappointment on her face that truly, finally defeated him. He spread his hands. "Why the hell not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? I'm hapless, I'm hopeless—I'm all but useless, Meg! I can't believe you, of all people—"

"Just shut up. And sober up, you fucking child."

A muscle tightened in his jaw, his passion tempering into a low burn but losing none of its intensity. "I know what I'm doing."

Meg laughed, sharp and derisive. "Didn't our favorite moosekateer say that when he was chugging demon blood? Sound familiar?"

Castiel bristled, his temper surging to the forefront once more so that his next words were harsh and angry again. "I am not Sam."

His voice was a threatening growl, warning her away from the topic. Meg stared at him for a long time, heedless, her dark eyes renting an emotional hole through him. "Maybe you think I'm Ruby."

Castiel was taken aback by that, shocked into silence and not sure himself the reasons why. He contemplated her with an unrelenting, fierce nature… but was that hesitation and the beginnings of fear hiding in his eyes?

Meg was already continuing on despite his silence. "I go on runs for Kevin, and I got you breathing down my neck, looking into my comings and goings. You think I wouldn't notice? What the hell gives?"

Castiel dodged the questioning gaze, stalling, bridling out of alarm at her insight. "…You were late."

"I ran into Croats."

His eyes raised to look into hers unreadably. "That area has been Croat free for months."

"You think they don't come back?" When she received no answer, Meg closed in on him, pointedly demanding in so many words that he speak his mind. "A Croat can't go for a fucking walk to old stomping grounds?"

Her questions only made his expression all the more pained. He was almost reluctant to look at her—to see her at all. He'd never felt that way before and it worried him, confused him, agonized him. But he was afraid that if he did look at her he'd be afraid of what he saw there. "What that demon said about you…"

She knew he meant the demon they'd interrogated and killed while on the road, the knowledge only making her indignance rise as she lost her temper again. "Demons lie, Castiel!"

His eyes conveyed that that was precisely what he was dreading. He knew how she felt about him, was certain of it—even if that certainty continued to waver over time. But he was family to the Winchesters, to Bobby, and he had once betrayed them in ways unspeakable. "You also said that demons often tell the truth. Which demon are you, Meg?"

His question was not what she expected. It hit her like a ton of bricks, shattered parts of her she kept locked away, and almost made the room hard to breathe in. Gathering her defenses, Meg shook her head, affecting an incredulous repugnance and fitting it to her face. "Goddamn, what's with this demons being second class citizens shit starting up again?"

"They are."

"Excuse me?"

"They. Are." Castiel stared hard at her, needing her to explain herself because she deliberately wasn't. Why was she not? His trust was fracturing, and he almost felt like he shouldn't be around her right now and it was the strangest, most disturbing feeling he'd ever possessed. He wanted to rid himself of it completely and it was maddening that she didn't understand, that she refused to see it. "You're not like them, Meg. Not to me. But what am I supposed to think?"

There was a note of helplessness there that Meg forced herself to ignore. "You think I don't know what you're doing?" she snarled, noting his change of topic from the real problem at hand. She flattened her mouth out into an embittered expression and the disappointment on her face defeated him. Disappointment at what she saw, disappointment at his lack of faith in her. Disappointment that everything was falling apart and that she might lose the one good thing she had left. "You wanna follow me around looking for trouble where there is none, be my guest. But listen here… you'd better break this habit, or I'm gone. I have ten fucking years with you—ten. That's it. If you turn that into anything less because of that goddamn bottle, I swear, Castiel… I'll turn this camp into a graveyard. I'm not losing you for this. You're better than those pills. Start fucking acting like it."

Meg turned from him in a flurry of anger, snatching her jacket off the floor and marching for the door. She swung it behind her in a harsh slam that warned him not to follow.

The space she'd occupied felt suddenly empty and void. Now that she was gone, Castiel fought off a nosedive of emotion, certain the walls surrounding him would close in and choke him. He stared after her for a long time in anger before sighing heavily and sinking back into the couch, putting his head in his hands as a feeling of self-loathing sank deeply into his stomach.

He sat there for awhile, hands eventually falling into his lap as he regarded the bottle he still held there. Everything he'd said and done crushed down on him and he realized he probably didn't know what he was doing at all. Utterly bereft on every level, Castiel let his shoulders sag down further than they already had.

The verse, "do not let the sun go down upon your anger," circled through his mind long until the following morning and left him feeling guilty.

Castiel. Presider over wanderers. Patron of Thursdays and fallen kings. Angel of solitude and tears.

here by my side, an angel
here by my side, the devil
never turn your back on me again
here by my side, you are destruction
careful, be careful
this is where the world drops off

"Take your pills, Clarence."

Her patient sat, staring down at the Sorry! board with tired eyes. "They don't affect me."

His voice carried its usual low gravel, but it was softer. Subdued, even. Meg frowned, reaching up to wiggle the tiny paper cup in front of his nose. "Take them anyways, or they'll put you in solitary again. You don't want that, do you?"

Castiel shook his head. "No," he answered quietly.

Things were better with Meg. When he was alone, it was bad. Very bad. He didn't want to be alone in that tiny room again. He didn't want to be alone at all.

He obeyed her wish, swallowing the pills that had as much sway over him as a bee sting had on an elephant. He handed the cup back to her, and Meg smiled ruefully. "Don't you wanna crush it? Might make you feel better."

Castiel shook his head again, saying nothing more. He reached out, moving some pieces around on the board. He felt Meg's fingers ruffling gently at his hair, dark eyes studying his profile.

"Lucy still poking around in there?"

The angel hesitated, his shoulders tensing. His gaze drifted up from the table to the empty chair across from them, seeing something she could not. Faintly, he nodded.

Meg frowned. "What's he saying?"

"Nothing that isn't true."

Maybe he should just… go to sleep. That would be better. Better for everyone. No more pills, no more voice taunting him from beyond the cage. Meg would not have to deal with him as he was, he would have no more episodes that put everyone in the entire ward at risk, and he… he wouldn't have to feel this way anymore. He could stop it.

Castiel would lose himself to a deep sleep, and everything would be better.

a part of me is dead, need you to live again
can you replace this, I'm hollow and faceless
shadows growing in my mind
ones I just can't leave behind
I'm not strong enough to pay this ransom

The cello stood in the corner, the high polished sheen on the rich wood dulled by a layer of dust from disuse. He'd gone back to his home some short time after the angels fell to find it. It was a stupid thing to do, he knew that. But memories of practicing with his mom every day after school compelled him. His aunt now owned their house, after his mother had been missing for so long.

Mom.

Where are you?

Eyes flickering behind his lids, the question rose not for the first time in his mind.

It was sleep without dreams, which perhaps was better for how harrowing they could be. Without dreams, but with a proclivity for the brain to manifest fears, burdens, and memories best locked away in a vault and launched into one of the corners of the universe. Maybe… maybe he would ask Castiel the best black hole to fire it into, should he ever get the chance.

In such a vulnerable state, such nothingness was balm. Good nor bad.

No pain of seeing something unattainable, nor the bloody sights he would view while awake. Pure, unfettered rest. Like a rock. And a rock is what his body felt like as the old windup egg timer blared suddenly beside him, causing Kevin to jerk awake in a manner that was anything but peaceful.

The world around him was a gossamer blur that faded slowly into clarity. His eyes were all but crushed over with sleep, all function sluggish from the neck down. With some awareness, he realized he had passed out at his desk. The single illumination of his dark cabin was the sad little pillar candle flickering weakly beside him. The tablet's notes sat idly in front of him, somehow reaching out through the fog still gripping him.

Kevin sighed, running a hand over his scruffy face before reaching over and switching off the alarm. Errantly, his mind drifted and he considered a thought that had been plaguing him for some time. So long he'd entertained the idea of running away, of shedding his duty as prophet—a duty he had never asked for in the first place. Honestly, who would ever ask for this?

Ivy League university education... here I don't come.

Kevin shook the thought, just as he did every other time. People needed him.

You're family. After all the crap we've been through, after all the good that you've done… man, if you don't think that we would die for you…

Bolstered by conviction, Kevin set his shoulders, rising to his feet and taking up his weapon as a sense of purpose and belonging filled him. No. He wasn't going anywhere. Not in a million years.

The translation of the tablet would wait.

He had rounds to tend to.

and I will die alone and be left there
I guess I'll just go home, oh God knows where
because death is just so full and mine so small
I'm scared of what's behind and what's before

Everyone avoided the pissy demon tromping through the camp with a chip on her shoulder, affording her a wide berth. Her boots dug spitefully into the mud, the weapons on her back sporting a gory mixture of Croat blood and looter entrails. They were a dime a dozen and she may have purposely gone out looking for a fight. Her dark curls were a wild, tangled ribbon that whipped across her eyes from her pace and the vindictive wind that slapped against her. There was a storm about a mile out, and Meg had half a mind to go and lose herself in it. It would be a bad one, she could tell, and—frankly—she could do with some bad right now.

Mired in vile introspection, she didn't notice the body until she was crashing into it. "Watch it," Meg snapped, eyes slicking to black as she turned them to glare on the intrusion.

Charlie instinctively shrank back, holding up her hands. "Chill pill, Megara. You walked into me."

The demon scowled but hesitated, and her eyes begrudgingly returned to their human guise. "Where's Castiel?"

She hadn't seen him in her thundery walkthrough, had even stopped by Hael's cabin to see if he'd gone there. Her primary motivation for hunting him down was based solely on having more opportunity to tear him a new one, but a small part of her was almost starting to worry. It was well after nightfall, which was a poor fucking time to be outside camp walls. That, plus with the storm coming… if that idiot got himself hurt because he was trying to prove a point…

Charlie lifted a shoulder, appearing to be in a hurry. "Saw him earlier—looked about as bloody and bitchy as you do."

So. Cas had gone looking for a fight, too. And they said opposites attract.

"Lemme guess." The girl raised an eyebrow. "Trouble in fallen paradise?"

Meg's eyes went to her sharply, indignant. "Oh, is that what you think?"

"You're pissed at him. An idiot could tell."

Meg's teeth bared in a fierce smile. "How do you know it wasn't me who did something?"

Charlie clearly wasn't buying it. "Please. You think because I don't play for the boys' team that I don't know the look of one whose snuggle bear isn't sharing her honey?"

Meg frowned at that, relenting the issue. "Get him a message for me?"

"Can't. Headed out on another medical run to Clearwater. One of the kids is sick." Guilt played at the edges of her mind for having to ditch Kevin, but thankfully he'd understood. He'd even offered to go with her. The look on his face though when she'd told him how Dean probably wouldn't approve had sent him into a sour nosedive. Charlie didn't blame him. Dean might have been acting a dick, but the prophet's value was the most esteemed advantage they had at the camp. Charlie was all for defying Dean when the risk was small—busting Kevin out for small supply runs when the extra hand was appreciated. But a run to Clearwater in the middle of the night was too dicey. Donovan and Joseph would accompany her.

Meg's petulant stare combed the darkness around them, mulling over her thoughts. "Where is he now?" she uttered at last, thinking that maybe her company had a better idea than she did.

Charlie shrugged. "He sleeps, doesn't he?"

Depends how much shit he's clogged his system with that day, Meg thought derisively.

"Well, the sun's down and everyone's going to bed except the watchmen. I'm sure there's an Alan Moore joke in there somewhere. Check his cabin."

Meg narrowed her eyes at Charlie's somewhat condescending tone, electing to ignore it. "Run along then, Pebbles," she muttered, altering her destination on its course. She didn't glance back to see if the redhead had anything else to offer. Instead, she moved for their cabin, easing up the porch steps with careful footing to avoid any creaks.

It was dark inside, no light whether from the lanterns or what few candles they kept on hand. As she stepped in, Meg thought the empty domicile seemed cold and she shook the feeling. She was about to forget it and leave, but Charlie's words still hung at her ears in reminder and Meg sighed. Crossing over the distance of the room, she peered into their bedroom and was surprised by the sight.

Castiel was asleep.

Meg's shoulders sagged a little, some of her anger falling away at what she saw. She tried not to let her relief show, despite that the notion was foolish as no one could see her anyways. One of Castiel's hands was curled over the empty side of the bed, his brow drawn in a frown as he slept. For being so different, they really were so similar. Hardly as opposite as they liked to pretend. Castiel had refused to go after her, too—not out of stubbornness, she didn't think. But to allow her space. Or perhaps because he thought he deserved that empty spot beside him.

With Castiel, it was hard to tell.

Hell, maybe he was still pissed too. She knew she was. Although they were physically close to each other, Meg felt a world apart from him.

The urge to go to him was so strong. She itched to forego her own fury and surrender to that very urge. To slip in beside him, remind the ass that she was so pissed she couldn't see straight, but that he was stuck with her all the same, just like she'd promised. It was ridiculous, pathetic of her, and she knew it. The instinct to comfort him should have reviled her, but all it did was leave her torn asunder.

At least he was sleeping. She had to wonder if maybe he was trying to get his shit together. That she cared at all was unnerving. He'd been right, of course—a demon lecturing on the evils of drug addiction wasn't just borderline absurd, it was absurd. Earlier, she'd wondered how he'd let this happen to himself. The only explanation she could think was… because of her.

Meg sank a little against the hard jamb, fighting against the call of his warm presence that could be felt even across the room. As much as she wanted to just erase the board so that things could be like they were, something told her a storm was coming and that this was just the beginning.

She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, frowning to herself. She quelled that urge she felt, needing to distance herself. Needing the reminder that he didn't need her and she didn't need him, when it came down to it. Every time she forgot it, one or both of them ended up hurt. One or both of them was always disappointing the other, and the physical high she got from him was distracting and it changed nothing. Castiel wasn't the only one with an addiction.

They were good and evil. Angel and demon. Who were they trying to fool?

With so much distance between them, Meg felt like she was witnessing the end of something. The death of something not only between them, but in herself. Maybe it had to be over.

Mystified at the realization and dreading it with a surprising amount of conviction, Meg hesitated. She should end it, here and now. Before she begged him to let her back in. Before she excused everything he had done. Before her own detestable weakness could take over.

Before she changed her mind.

With barely a rustle of clothing, Meg disappeared from threshold of their room, from the cabin entirely. Being close to him was her downfall. It always had been.

She'd seen the pill bottle on the dresser, the sight of it motivating her retreat, stoking her anger back into place. She despised him in that moment—not only for the pills, or his lack of faith in her, but for ever needing her in the first place. For ever making her need him.

Tomorrow was a new day. Something had to go right, because today had been utter shit. Hopefully, the dawn would bring something better to them all.

as frail as we are to the feelings we show
as desperate as we are to time so we won't die alone
and over the shoulder goodbye
the look back that's frozen in time
we swore for the better
we swore for the worst but we failed
can we find it in our hearts to tear it apart
and stand under while it's falling down

Gadreel killed Kevin today.

No one saw it coming. No one except for Sam.

He remembered a feeling of panic jolting through him like an actual electrical surge and he sat up in bed with a start. Eyes wide, breath gasping, he already knew it was too late. Didn't know why or how, only that Gadreel was at the camp and that someone was about to die.

Sam flung back the sheets, grabbing the holy blade he kept by his nightstand, and burst out of his cabin, swallowing ground before his feet even left the porch. His heart jackhammered in his chest, stomach sick. Sam gained speed until he was at a dead run, rain spattering against his face as he tore through the camp, shirtless and barefoot. His lungs felt like they were going to tear apart with the effort and the fear. He had no idea where he was running to, but he followed the almost magnetic pull inside his chest, the ringing in his ears. Lights began turning on, the rest of the camp rousing seemingly on cue. Had he even heard a scream? There must have been a scream.

Too late, too late, said a voice in his head. But he had to try.

Run.

Faster.

Keep going.

Feet pounded against the earth. Heart beating madly, trying to keep oxygen flowing to his starved muscles, Sam's frantic chase led him straight to the main gate, where he saw two bodies lying motionless. A massive gap was torn into the nearby fence and Sam's heart dropped.

Fuck, he was too late.

Sam looked on the scene with abject shock, his gaze wide. Horrified devastation tightened his features as he recognized the body closest to him, feeling a gutwrenching, consuming sense of loss at the sight of the prophet lying there with his eyes burned out.

No… no. Not Kevin. Not Kevin. Not like this!

Sam let out a wretched sound that clawed its way up his throat, dropping to his knees and burying his face in his hands before dragging them through his hair. Kevin, their Kevin—smote like a demon, eyes ruined, death excruciating.

Sam felt a kneejerk phantom ache in his own ruined eye, uncovered in his haste to reach them. He turned inevitably then to the other body, watching it begin to stir, and his breath caught sharp in his throat.

"Meg?"

ONE HOUR EARLIER

"You seem bitchier than usual," Kevin offered, the silence of twilight getting to him.

With Charlie headed off on a two-day mission that night, and with Garth locked in some dingy cellar somewhere, there weren't a lot of other options. At least it afforded them a chance to talk. Or, it would have… if Meg was actually talking. He had to resort to weak insults to get her attention.

He could guess the reason for her moody reticence.

"How the fuck would you know?" Meg retorted, but the comment lacked any real venom, despite the edge to it.

Kevin merely raised an eyebrow, not the least bit intimidated.

Meg set her jaw, relenting the issue with a dismissive glance away. The kid had grown a backbone. She could appreciate that.

There was a time when the little demon scared the piss out of him. She still did, occasionally. Kevin often pondered if it was because of her or himself that she no longer did. "Talk to me about the runs," he said, leaning against the wall at his back, his weapon held loosely in his grip. The rain hissed around them, the usual nightly sounds faded to the background.

Meg sighed, tossing her weapon against the wall carelessly, taking a lean beside him. They exchanged a briefly furtive look until she was shaking her head. "Sorry, kid."

Briefly, she cursed her decision to stay and lend Kevin a hand when he'd been stuck on patrol duty alone.

Every way she turned, the walls were closing in on her. Everything she tried to do to escape the prison she was building herself seemed only to seal her fate further. Some horrible crescendo was on its way and she felt it but ran from it in whatever way she could, tried even harder to finish this terrible thing she had started. It was never supposed to be this hard. This was her element, this was who she was… if she could just finish it, if she could just have it end…

Kevin's lips pressed into a thin line, stress evident in the tense cut of his shoulders as he took that in. He was about to say something else until Meg went still as a statue and just as cold. Her eyes stared out unseeing, and Kevin couldn't fathom what could have set her so immediately on edge. Usually Croats and looters got a snarky retort out of her, not a Terminator pose.

"What is it?"

Those eyes narrowed against the dark distrustfully. Meg was already straightening up to her full height, firearm forgotten in favor of the angel blade she now gripped in her hand. "Stick close to me, shortstop," she ordered.

"Angel?" Kevin ventured, a tremor creeping along his spine. He raised his weapon, knowing it would do little good against one, but it was better than nothing.

"Smell ozone," Meg confirmed in a tight voice.

Without warning, a bright and terrible light tore through the thick fencing beside them, throwing both of them back under the force. Their hands flew up to shield their eyes against the assault, barely registering the form that was clawing its way through the thick iron bands as though they were rubber.

Neither recognized the face of the angel as it appeared through the wall with a final, violent shove.

"Kevin, stay back," growled Meg, planting her feet.

"Demon, I have no quarrel with you," it said. The male vessel it wore was gentle in speech, but the demeanor it held itself with bore a clear threat.

"Yeah?" Meg flipped the blade in her hand, the point now aimed downwards. "Then you picked the wrong place to pull a Hulk."

She was a flurry of motion, and the angel barely had time to assume a defense before Meg dragged it into a fight.

Over the past several months she'd been working to temper her anger and her blinding reflex to stab first and ask questions later, but she knew a hitman when she saw one. She didn't know who this angel was here for, but he wasn't getting any further into the camp than he already had. Not if she had any say in the matter.

"Meg!"

She heard Kevin at her back as the angel had little other choice but to meet her in combat. She ducked a series of brutal swings, hearing the wind whistle past her and rustle her hair. It was strong. Freakishly strong. She'd expected it to retain some injury from the Fall, but something had powered it up. Light exploded from the wound Meg tore into its shoulder and it gave a stifled shout, catching her next attack and nearly crushing her wrist in the process. It's grace burned hot against her, scorching her.

What the hell kind of angel was this?

Meg grimaced and cried out against the assault, twisting away and realizing she would need to rely on speed and not strength for this one. She was able to land two more hard hits before it had her by the throat. His other hand quickly turned the fracture of her bone into a full break and her blade went skittering away. Pain bloomed across her cheek as it struck her physically and simultaneously tore into her with psychic spears of grace. Meg struggled in spite of it, feeling something shatter in her leg when the heel of his boot bore down against the back of her knee, forcing her to her knees.

A flood of grace poured over her and she barely registered how abruptly it stopped when her attacker suddenly released her. Smoke twisting and contorting at the agony left behind by the invasion of light, she had only a second to take in the picture of Kevin cracking the angel upside the head hard with the stock of his weapon before darkness enveloped her.

It stumbled aside, stunned to see the boy charging after it with the demon's holy blade now in his hands.

With the element of surprise on his side, Kevin was able to drive the angel back as he fought against it. He may have been confined within the camp's walls, but with reclusion came hours spent in training. Teachers like Meg, Sam, Castiel, Ezekiel… he'd been sparring with angels since the Fall, learning their patterns, their fighting style.

He was more than a kid with his head buried in a book. He knew how to handle a gun now. And he damn well knew how to use a blade. This was his home, his family.

As long as he was alive, no rogue angel was gonna touch a hair on the heads of the people he loved.

Kevin's angry shout was the only warning Gadreel had before the boy was unleashing a series of quick attacks he barely had time to defend against. The demon had wounded him, quite badly too. An arrow of doubt and regret lanced through him because this boy, this prophet, had heart. He wore devotion like a badge of honor on his sleeve. He was truly, sincerely, fighting to save those he deeply cherished.

Gadreel had no intention of harming those close to the boy.

Although, through his next act, he would destroy those Kevin loved in the worst way possible.

Gadreel knocked the blade aside a final time, seizing the boy around the collar of his shirt in a stranglehold. The prophet put up an impressive struggle, and even through his next words, Gadreel could not quell the admiration in his voice.

"I am sorry, Kevin Tran."

The murmur pierced through the boy, briefly stilling him in a profound way, as though he understood. Expression twisting in remorse, Gadreel wasted no more time and reached out to lay a hand over the prophet's head.

Kevin immediately felt a rushing heat unlike anything he'd ever known, searing him from the inside out in ways both terrible and profanely righteous.

Under the intensity of it, he screamed.

He screamed and screamed, until he didn't anymore.

Moments before death, he'd wondered if he'd find his mom waiting on the other side for him.

A void embraced him in peaceful quiet.

in this life there's no surrender
find the strength to see this through
we are the ones who will never be broken
with our final breath, we'll fight to the death
we are soldiers

Head leant back against the distressed wood of Rufus's cabin, Meg sat with her eyes closed, trying to ignore the musty air and the annoying chatter of the brothers Winchester that carried from the floor above. She was on babysitting duty. Again. Of all the fucking luck…

She suddenly felt a presence in front of her nose. Assuming it was Castiel again, looking for new ways to snare her attention, she opened them with a resigned huff. However, at the sight of the purple gameboy hovering before her face, Meg scowled, looking up at the owner it was attached to with scathing disapproval.

"The hell are you doing?" she snapped, glaring again at the toy as though she could physically turn it to ash with enough hate. There was a time when she could have.

"You looked bored," the fidgety prophet offered lamely. New prophet, fresh from the press. Pretty averse to being a prophet. Absurdly concerned about his mom's car prophet. His eyes darted around before they fell sullenly on his shoes. Clearly he was thinking this was a bad idea and he was about to bolt.

Meg stared at him, eyes narrowed, before she snatched the thing out of his hand almost defiantly. "If you don't have Mario Kart, I'm setting it and you on fire."

His eyes lit up at that, a fleeting note of smugness there. Because of course he had fucking Mario Kart. What did the little monster woman think he was, an amateur?

Minutes later, Meg was cackling as she watched Castiel try to work the buttons, his expression working into an almost petulant pout. He looked completely ridiculous with the combination of those hospital scrubs, that face, and the way he was holding the damn toy.

"Tell me something, sugar… how the hell did you ever command an army?"

He looked up in frustration. "I'm not an idiot."

Meg laughed harder and she saw that Kevin kid trying to hide his amusement, too. "Angelcakes, you know every language ever spoken, you're older than time itself, yet you can't work a fucking gameboy."

Castiel frowned at her, the expression actually cute and not at all menacing. "You always make fun of me," he muttered.

"Give me reason not to, Grumpy."

He huffed, and then Kevin was hurrying over to him to lend a hand. Soon they were all laughing and fighting over which character they laid claim over. Kevin was never anyone other than Toad, which was weird if you asked Meg. Castiel worked through a few characters before he decided he liked Yoshi best, and Meg kept choosing Bowser as she terrorized the other AI characters on the screen.

Dean and Sam had poked their heads down at the trio from the stairs, planning interrupted by the sounds of horseplay before they each shook their heads. Neither even bothered to ask, and honestly neither much wanted to know what the hell they'd just stepped in on.

"A prophet, a demon, and an angel gone bonkers walk into a bar," muttered Dean under his breath, earning a dry chuckle from his brother.

When consciousness finally drifted back to her, slow at first as the blackness at the edges of her vision receded, Meg turned her head to see Kevin lying beside her, his eyes burned out of his skull. She bit her lip, partly because of the pain and partly because the sight hurt.

Fuck, she thought dejectedly. She closed her eyes, one of them already swollen shut, and heaved an agonized breath. She heard a voice then as the air stuttered in her lungs.

"Meg?"

When Dean returned to the camp, the hole torn into the wall left him with a sick feeling. But it wasn't until he heard the others talking that dread began to lay heavier and heavier upon him. That feeling soon manifested into ravening violence when the words he'd never expected to hear slammed against him like a battering ram.

Kevin Tran is dead.

Pain and rage knifed through him, lungs choked of air and the world sent spiraling around him. His fortitude frayed at the edges, something deep inside him reaching up and gripping. The hold was hotter than the brand of an iron, hotter than he remembered Hell itself being.

It whispered that he would find those responsible and make them pay. He would make them suffer.

All reason abandoned him at that insidious voice.

light a fire under my bones
so when I die for you, at least I'll die alone
you can put a man on trial, but you can't make the guilty pay
you can cage an animal, but you can't take away the rage

Sam stood before what small militia of men and women remained at Camp Chitaqua, the air of the cabin hopeless and bereft. With a heavy heart, his hazel eye scanned the faces of those he trusted most, of those who trusted him. He should not have been the one giving this meeting. It should have been Dean. It should have been his brother. The leader of the camp. The leader of these survivors.

But Dean was nowhere to be found.

Sam had gone looking for him after the news had spread, only to find his brother's cabin destroyed and empty. With little other choice, Sam stepped up, taking on his elder sibling's mantle.

His gaze slid to Meg, observing the tight way she held herself, the harsh cut of her small shoulders, the tense line of her mouth, and the way her dark eyes were rooted to the floor. He stowed whatever accusation and hurt he felt at her failure to protect the young man who meant the world to so many, needing to focus on what was most pressing.

"I don't know what to say," he said finally, letting out a dismayed sigh that shuddered through his broad chest. "Without Kevin, our link to the tablets is gone. Getting our fallen brothers and sisters home seems… lost." Sam looked to Castiel, who stood in another corner of the cabin beside Hael.

The young angel was pale and drawn, her expression gutted as she leaned against her brother for support. The shadows under her eyes seemed darker, heavier. She said nothing other than wordlessly taking Castiel's hand in her own, needing the contact. Castiel remained stone-faced and silent, his eyes clouded as he stared back at Sam.

The younger Winchester cleared his throat, speaking with new resolve. Urgent, decisive, assertive. "Our priority right now is finding Gadreel. It may seem pointless, after everything, but… maybe he took something from all of us, but we're not going to let him take anything else. He's going to answer for what he did to Kevin Tran. I want perimeter checks doubled every night. Where there were two men, I want four. I want sigils covering every inch of those walls—demon and angel warding both." He offered a glance to Meg, then to Castiel and Hael. "Whatever traps you place, give their locations to Meg and Castiel. Allow trapdoors for exit and reentries, but they're to be changed every night. Any angel looking for a place here is to be vetted by myself and Castiel. No exceptions. Any survivors or rescues are to go through me or Charlie." He nodded once at the redheaded girl, who had returned from her mission after the news of Kevin's death spread over the walkies. Survivor's guilt ravaged her lovely face, and Sam knew that emotional weight all too well. He offered her a transitory look of sympathy, hardening his countenance then to continue his briefing. "I don't care if they're four or eighty-four. If they're a stranger, they're to be brought to me."

Sam released a charged breath, looking a final time over these men and women now at his command.

"Are there any questions?"

A quiet chorus of "no" and "clear, sir" rose up, and Sam dismissed the small party.

As the meeting disbanded, Jody appeared before Castiel and Hael, her disheartened expression hardly able to smile at all, the gesture too weak and barely reaching her eyes. "I can take her," she offered quietly, extending her arms out to the wounded angel. Hael accepted the help, aiming a final weighted look over her shoulder to her brother.

Castiel said nothing, although his eyes conveyed what little assurance he could muster.

"Thank you," Hael was murmuring to the other woman.

"No problem, sweetheart. Let's get you some rest. I think that little ankle biter is already missing you."

Castiel had already tuned out their drifting conversation, his eyes falling on Meg across the room. She hadn't moved from her position since Sam had started the meeting, but she looked up when he appeared suddenly beside her.

Quietly, in a tight voice, he asked, "Are you hurt?"

The question was foolish, but he couldn't think of what else to say. He could see the damage done to her small body, feel it even as he looked at her—worse than when she'd ambushed him in the shower. There was a dark bruise dusting the side of her jaw that crept up her cheek and a terrible lesion torn into her temple that carried into her hairline. Other scrapes and violent marks speckled her visage and there were more, he was sure, hidden beneath her clothing. Not to mention the damage surely done to her smoke. Castiel saw how carefully she held herself, and when she'd walked into the cabin, there had been a painful hitch to her step. A fiery anger smoldered inside him that he tried to quell, a vengeance that called out for Gadreel's suffering for having not only taken someone dear to them all, but for hurting her in such a way.

Meg's gaze slid to his, a cold barrier staring back at him when their eyes met. "Nothing a bottle of booze or pills won't fix, right?"

Her voice was sharp like a blade against his effort to reach out. Castiel's eyes narrowed, a muscle tightening in his jaw. Frustration rekindled inside him at her belligerence and he wanted nothing more than to throw that iciness back in her face. "You're a hypocrite, Meg."

"I'm a demon."

There was an unapologetic slice to her whipcrack retort that only set him further on edge, his agitation becoming prevalent. "So you keep reminding me," he snapped in a low voice. If she was intent on giving him the cold shoulder, he could play that game. He knew she was upset—both because of failing Kevin and because of their earlier fight, but her need to fill every painful void with a smartass remark was beginning to wear on him.

Meg considered him with barely concealed hostility, visibly bristling at his poor effort towards reconciliation. "Are we gonna make up, is that what you think?"

Castiel's expression was tight, blue eyes locked irreverently on hers. "I don't think anything."

"That might be the first reliable thing you've said all week."

Castiel was the one to bristle now, and he turned away from her with checked animosity. "Fuck you, Meg."

She smirked at his scathing remark, both embittered and bolstered by it. "Look who grew a pair." Her head shook. "Find me again when you grow a brain, asshole."

Meg was impossible when she was feeling cornered, when affronted. There was no reasoning with her, no manner of cajoling her back to reason until she was good and ready to admit defeat—if she ever admitted it at all. Gritting her teeth, Meg coerced her aching muscles to move so as to spite him.

She turned away from him with malignant resolve, leaving him to stare after her retreating form in angry frustration.

"Hey, Kev! I brought donuts!"

Dean practically skipped down the metal stairs of the bunker, cardboard box tucked reverently under his arm as he muttered about the convenience store not having pie of any kind. When he saw Kevin, he abruptly slowed, smile falling away to something softer.

Kevin sat in his usual chair at the big table with the world map, but instead of translating a tablet or researching for a case, he simply lied there, face plastered on the smooth surface, his eyes closed. Dean's loud arrival hadn't even woke him, and, even from where he stood, the hunter could still see the big dark circles around the boy's eyes.

His black hair was tousled and his skin seemed a little gaunt in the light. It was obvious he hadn't had much sleep lately. Dean knew he was exhausted, but between he and Sam chattering in Kevin's ear about finishing translations and Kevin's own OCD about completing a task, the kid was downright burnt out.

The faster I translate the tablet, the faster I can stop all this, he had said.

That's when Dean started to think about Kevin's life for the first time. Not his prophet life with he and Sam in the bunker, but his student life. He was good, very good. Kevin Tran, Advanced Placement. And then the Winchesters roared into his life. Gone were those dreams, after that. Kevin's girlfriend was killed, his mother kidnapped and probably killed, too. Dean had never really wanted to attend college, but Kevin had. And now he was stuck here, sitting the dark, reading some shit instruction manual an angel wrote out a couple millennia ago.

Suddenly, Dean was angry. Really angry. He'd only known the life of a hunter, but Kevin—he'd had a normal life until the supernatural destroyed it. He'd never asked for it. Who the hell would ever ask for this?

Dean clenched his fists while staring at the boy's sleeping face. Even now, at rest, Kevin Tran looked haunted. Dean just wanted to give him his old life back.

Dean spied one of Sam's blankets draped over a chair in the dining area and he snagged it before carefully wrapping it around Kevin's shoulders. He transitioned into mother hen mode, sliding the glass of water aside and the many books on… Mexican folklore, of all things. Dean remembered a report about some strange murders down there but that wasn't his division. They had hunters in Mexico, too. Kevin must have tried to find something, anyway. Just like Sam, always trying to learn new shit.

As soon as Dean was sure the kid wouldn't wake, he gently set down the box of donuts in front of his nose, deigning to allow him the first pick and as many as he damn well saw fit to stuff his face with. Hesitating, Dean sighed, mussing the boy's hair gently.

"One day you won't have to deal with this shit anymore, man."

Maybe it was terrible what happened to Kevin Tran, but a person couldn't change the past. But maybe he could make the present a little bit better. Maybe the future would see these travails in the past.

After seeing as much as he did in his line of work, Dean knew that anything was possible.

There was hope for Kevin, yet.

Catalyst was the word.

Something dark and vengeful inside him stirred. Something carnal and deeply profane.

Pain and hatred meshed, intensifying what abhorrence he already harbored to the point where all he could see was through a red filter.

On his arm, the Mark burned hot.

the creditor rides with his men
the death of debtors, he won't forgive
they repossess his silver eyes
now in the potter's field, he lies

Realizing she was all but stomping away like an impetuous child, Meg steeled herself against the multitude of stares she was met with as she marched through the camp with a chip on her shoulder. She knew what many of them were thinking. Hell, she'd probably think it too if the situation were reversed. Despite this, the unspoken blame only further incensed her. She barely even registered how far she'd walked or that it wasn't long before she was casting back answering scowls against them, her eyes gone black and bottomless of their own accord as her tumultuous emotions got the better of her.

Nothing to see here. Damn vultures.

She didn't realize that, along with the looks of disapproval, there were also expressions of worry. Concern. But Meg didn't see those. In her haste and self-deprecation, she never would.

It took more effort than she thought to conceal the evidence of what she was. Halfway through her angry retreat, however, she felt a sudden prickle on the back of her neck. Warning bells sounded dimly in the back of her mind, her senses snagging over something dangerous. It was much different than when she'd felt Gadreel's presence. In fact, this feeling inexplicably terrified her.

Only one person had ever scared her so completely. Only one had ever awoken such a flight response.

It was the same and yet very different.

Before she could even question the nauseous pit of fear clawing behind her borrowed ribs, Meg was looking over her shoulder and then barely registering the sight of Dean Winchester, Blade in hand, before he was bearing down on her.

Meg instinctively leapt back, barely avoiding the hungry edge of his vicious attack that would have instantly killed her had she been a hairsbreadth slower to react. She yelped in surprise, in slight pain at the too fast movement of her narrow getaway. But Dean didn't let up. His face was twisted in fury, in bloodlust, and Meg realized in that moment that he was absolutely going to kill her.

Had he lost his fucking mind?

As quickly as it began it would end. Steeply off her game and too injured to put up any sort of fight, Meg nonetheless fought her damnedest to shake him loose. But Dean was faster, too fast, completely unreachable, and her broken body protested at the strain to escape and fend him off. Within seconds he had her on the ground by her hair, standing over her with the First Blade in a whiteknuckled death grip. There was already dried blood coated along its edge and she knew it would only be a matter of moments before hers stained it too. She thought she might have heard someone call her name, or perhaps that was her own voice lost in the struggle. Meg felt herself actually start to panic, regarding him with wide-eyed disbelief—too stunned and too afraid to even harbor any sort of fury.

Suddenly Dean was careening off his feet, ripped off of her and thrown aside until he was being grappled to the ground. For all her superior sense, it took Meg some time for her brain to catch up with what was happening and realize that Castiel was fighting Dean.

Holy shit, what fuck was happening?!

They were already back on their feet after hitting the ground hard.

The hunter reacted on instinct to the barrage of attack. Instinct that wasn't even his own, but the Mark's. Kill, it said. Isolate and destroy.

And so he was merciless, sights shifting to this new threat.

Dean gripped his weapon tight, fighting like he had no other choice. Castiel already had a knife drawn, and the two soldiers scuffled across the clearing with militant brutality. Fast, harsh blows were exchanged between them—Dean's resolve perhaps most terrifying of all because each strike he delivered was intended to be fatal.

The fallen angel was all about standing your ground in battle. Plant your feet, raise your blade. Interchange offense and defense according to your opponent and press advantage. Know when to fall back, be sharp, stay cunning. Every closed attack offered a separate opening.

Dean was the polar opposite, especially now with the Mark burning hot on his skin, searing away all rational thought until all he saw was red and a target to destroy. Where Castiel was constantly ducking and twisting, slipping in the spaces between an angry fist and the slice of a Blade, Dean was forcing his body into whatever tactical opening he saw or carving one out himself. Lately, Dean fought like he wanted to take the world by the throat and squeeze. He warred and raged like a beast, as much becoming a weapon as the piece of bone he held in his hand.

But this opponent was not his usual quarry.

Castiel may have lost his grace, but he was still a hell of a fighter and just as dangerous. Maybe more so than when he'd been an angel. His wrath now was human—volatile, uncontrollable, unpredictable. And he was pissed.

Their shouts and the sound of punches being thrown was heard through most of the camp and it wasn't long before a small crowd had gathered around the two men and demon, looking on in banked horror. The fight carried a short ways across the clearing, almost over as quickly as it began when the commotion alerted Sam and both he and Meg were throwing themselves into the middle of the fray to put an end to it in whatever way they could.

"DEAN!" Barely avoiding the fierce arc of the Blade, Sam unceremoniously piled against his brother to intercept him, getting rammed hard but managing to hold him back just barely. His arms cinched around Dean in a bear hug as he hauled him away from Castiel. "Dean, stop! Hey—hey! What the fuck are you doing?!"

Dean fought against him, murder in his eyes, shouting over Sam's shoulder as he shook his brother loose and ignored his frantic protests.

Meg had been restraining Castiel, a vicious string of Enochian flying out of his lips, but in a single deft move he threw himself in front of her like a shield as Dean charged them.

"Move!" the hunter snarled, just barely stopping himself from driving the Blade through his friend as Castiel appeared between them.

"No."

"Dean, goddamn it, that's enough!" Sam bellowed in his ear, locking an arm through his elbow and forcibly hauling him back. To the gathering crowd, he shouted for everyone to stay back.

Dean let out a nonsensical snarl as he fought to free himself. The two of them each had blood dripping from their noses and mouths from the dirty fight, other cuts and bruises already forming beneath the occasional smear of mud but ignored as adrenaline jackhammered through their veins.

"Get yourself under control! Put it down! Put the Blade down!"

Castiel held his ground as Dean's temper exploded outwards violently to the point where Sam almost lost his grip. All around them, the gathered crowd stared in shock and horror, not sure what to do in the wake of their leader fraying at the seams right before their very eyes. "That bitch is dead, Castiel, I swear to God—!"

"Fine," snapped the fallen angel in a big authoritative tone, some of that lost, latent power returning in his voice which they hadn't heard since he'd had his grace intact. "Kill me, and you may have her."

Dean was just as murderous as when he'd been standing over the demon, half-crazed and mad with rage, ready to kill her. "What, over your dead body? Is that it?!"

"If you think I'm being insincere—try me."

Castiel's rumbling deep growl was low and blacker than the darkness shrouding Dean's vision, blacker than the eyes of the demon he guarded or the wings Dean had once seen the mere shadows of. It only fueled Dean's anger, his pain, the inherent need to lash out. His expression went utterly cold with wrath and he fought harder to free himself.

"Kevin is dead because of her!" he roared.

"Kevin is dead because Gadreel killed him!" Castiel shouted back. "This is not Meg's fault—she tried to save him!"

"Well, she didn't. And now he's dead!"

"Kiss my ass, Winchester, he was my friend too!" Meg protested from behind Castiel, her own temper flaring. "You think I wanted this?" Her smoke recoiled from the very scent of the hunter, everything about him screaming wrong wrong wrong. It compelled Meg to make herself fucking scarce, but she held her ground too, refusing to move from Castiel's side.

"I think you know what I think," Dean snarled, his eyes dark and lethal in the face of her defiance. In his head, he was already playing out methods of escape. First, he would break Sam's arm and ground him with a backwards jab to the top of the knee. Castiel could be neutralized with—

"Jesus Christ," Sam murmured suddenly, the muted horror in his voice snaring everyone's attention.

All eyes followed his line of sight, falling on the deep, bloody tear across the front of Castiel's shirt and the ugly wound beneath. The fire in Dean's eyes tempered at the sight of his friend's blood, stunning him into silence as reality came slamming back into him. Slowly, his eyes crept to his weapon, seeing the fresh blood coating its blade.

Castiel's own rage became diluted as he lowered his chin to stare down at the damage, appearing almost dumbfounded by the sight. He'd felt a brief burst of pain during the fight, but had ignored it at the time, focused instead on containing the threat Dean had posed. Beside him, he heard Meg's breathless curse, felt her hands press against him in angry shock.

Dean's bloodlust faded as the realization of what he'd done slowly sank in, thrusting him back into control and grounding him in a way that was dauntingly abrupt. He lowered his weapon, stunned shame plaguing him as he took a moment to collect himself and regain his wits.

"—ean… Dean." His brother's voice broke through the fog in his head, and full awareness returned in a roaring hiss. The almost metallic, carnal ringing in his ears fell away, releasing him from its savage hold. The sudden loss of it was mourned in a way even he knew to be profane.

Castiel shook off Meg's attempts to stow the sluggish flow of blood, meeting Dean's eyes unwaveringly with a glare of hellfire and damnation. "Don't you ever touch her again."

The words gradually reached him, making Dean bristle once more. He squared his shoulders, straightening to his full height. Vindicated conviction returned in a flooding torrent. "That thing you're protecting, Cas? The one that's gonna tear this camp apart? You may have forgotten what she is, but I haven't. Here's a free reminder." Dean's virulent glare transferred past Castiel's shoulder to the demon standing beside him. There was a cruel, twisted satisfaction in his eyes as he delivered his next blow. "Christo."

Meg hissed, her eyes reflexively snapping to black in reaction to the holy utterance.

Castiel's mouth formed a grim line, the exchange affecting him almost as much as it did her. Determinedly, he met the bulwark of Dean's almost manic authority with an impenetrable wall of his own, blocking Meg once more from view in demand for Dean's attention. "She's mine. That's what she is, Dean. Leave her be."

Dean stared at them both for a long time, the venom in his eyes never abating. Heart rates were still elevated from the adrenaline that had accompanied the argument, not to mention the physicality of what had just transpired.

Castiel saw how his friend's fingers tightened just a little more over the handle of the Blade, despite that it was lowered, and the fallen angel raised his eyes back to him in a clear, implicit threat, his hand going for his own weapon again. "Back off."

"Dean, it's over," said Sam decisively when his brother showed no signs of falling back. "I fucking mean it, man. Take a step back."

The words somehow reaching him, Dean roughly knocked away the hold still gripping him. His boots dug into the muddy earth as he turned on his heel to storm away. "Shut up, Sam."

The younger Winchester gaped after him for a long time, angrily, helplessly, before he moved to follow. But Castiel's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Sam, don't."

"He's my brother," Sam protested, somewhat indignant. Rampant distress seethed behind the hazel of his eye, the demeanor he carried heedless of any risk. He was going after his brother.

But Castiel's expression was rife with suppressed concern, and he shook his head slightly. "That's what worries me," he said gravely. He understood Sam's frustration, the need he surely felt to fix whatever was happening or to damn it all trying, but Castiel recognized the inherent danger and put an end to that avenue immediately. "Sam," he cautioned in a tight voice, unwilling to take any chances. "I'll handle it."

Sam looked taken aback, perhaps even stung by the words as he realized their full weight. He wanted to argue, because Dean sure as shit nearly put Cas in the ground not even two minutes prior to this conversation and the fallen angel was gonna go poke the bear?

What the fuck was happening to them all? How had everything come crashing down around them in a few short weeks?

Castiel started off after their leader, ignoring the firm grasp of Meg's fingers over his arm.

"Cas—" she started.

"Stay here."

His flat tone brooked no argument, and he was gone before she could stop him. Beside her, Sam was yelling for the crowd to disperse, citing a disagreement that had gotten out of hand. He knew no one believed him, but he was past the point of caring.

"Alright, that's enough! Get back to work!"

I watched you change into a fly
I looked away and you were on fire
I watched a change in you
it's like you never had wings

He'd been pining after her. There was no denying it.

Watching her from across the dirt road, he waited for their eyes to meet but they never did. If they had, he wondered what he might have said—with his eyes or his voice, it didn't matter.

Maybe that she was right. That she was right all along, as usual. How deeply ironic. Even as he tried to call out to her, the words lodged in his throat—out of stubbornness or pride or maybe even fear, he wasn't sure which. He didn't know how to fix this quickly crumbling situation and, as such, he said nothing.

And then he'd noticed Dean just a few strides back, and a wrong feeling slowly overcame him. As absurd as the notion was, it felt almost as if a bowling ball had dropped somewhere in his gut. He felt suddenly cold.

Castiel's head canted. His brow drew together in a deep furrow, warning bells going off in his head, though he wasn't sure why. That's when he'd realized that Dean was drawing the Blade.

The Blade.

Dean has the Blade…

Meg.

The Blade is drawn, HE HAS THE BLADE DRAWN.

What was Dean doing? What the fuck was he doing?

Panic gripped him.

"Meg!" he called out, his legs already moving, swallowing ground as his mind reeled and instinct took over. Suddenly, he had a purpose again. Suddenly, in that single moment, his mind was clear.

Castiel sprinted for her, the demon all he could see as stark fear became breathless horror.

He didn't want to kill Dean. He didn't, but PROTECT MEG was blaring through his skull like a siren, terror filling his veins and primal instinct throwing him right into the fray until suddenly he was fighting his best friend. Simultaneously, something balked wildly at the thought of harming Dean in any way. The need to protect warred chaotically in him like a star with no heavenly anchor, and he just knew that he must save them both, whatever the cost. Losing either of them would kill him in a way nothing else could.

And Dean… how much had been washed away from him already?

Castiel knew what the Blade meant. But he'd let Dean take on the Mark anyways. And now… now it was doing something to him. Castiel was as much at fault as any of them, Dean included. He had allowed this sickness to befall his friend, for reasons completely selfish and corrupt. He could have warned Dean about the Mark and what it would surely do. He could have warned them all and stopped Dean before he'd ever laid a hand on the First Blade.

I could have prevented this.

The notion haunted him. But Dean had no value for his own life unless he was using it to save other people or kill something that needed killing.

Which highlighted the main problem: would Dean have even listened?

It was doing something to him. That was the only reasonable explanation for everything. Their leader's humanity was at stake and it seemed there was nothing any of them could do but wait for the inevitable blast wave.

Despite this knowledge, the fury wouldn't quell inside him. It bolstered him, drove him, and Castiel felt the cold grip of wrath compelling him to put an end to this madness before it could even begin. Clean up your mess.

Meg.

Meg on the ground.

Meg afraid and his friend bearing down on her with a weapon that could have erased her in a single blow.

"Save it," Dean barked out, already sensing that he had company. He gave his shoulder an experimental roll, spitting out what little blood was still oozing from his mouth.

"No," Castiel ground out in reply, defiant of the kneejerk defense as he increased his pace to match the other man's. "I won't save it. You'll listen, or I'll make you listen, Dean Winchester. I don't care if I have to tie you a goddamn post." He saw that the Blade was away and he reached out, gripping Dean's shoulder tightly to face him head on. "Listen to me!"

Dean abruptly stopped, violently shaking him loose. "Get the fuck off me," he snarled.

"You are putting the people of this camp at risk. Do you even realize what's happening, you fool?"

"I went off on your girlfriend, and you're pissed. Spare me the bullshit."

The insult inflamed him. "Went off? If that's what you call what just happened moments ago—go off on her again and I'll put you in the ground. Do you hear me?" Castiel closed the distance between them, getting in Dean's face angrily and meeting his friend's unmovable glare. "You think you're the only killer here, Dean?" he asked in a quieter voice, though it was infinitely more deadly. "Touch anyone in this camp, and I won't hesitate. I promise you."

Abaddon be damned, he would not stand for another slaughter. He was furious on every level imaginable and he wasn't bluffing. God help him, he would finish what had been started in that clearing. Dean might kill him in the process, but he would not stand idly by.

Presently the hunter stood his ground, refusing to balk at the clear threat, although his furious disbelief was apparent. "Keep talking, Cas," he almost dared, his voice low and dark. The expression he wore was chilling.

"When I was possessed by leviathans, were you not willing to kill me?" Castiel doled back, not missing a beat.

"Maybe, but I'm not possessed."

"Aren't you?" Castiel hissed, reining in his anger but barely.

Dean hesitated at that, looking parts indignant and other parts restless. "You've got a lot to say for a prick with no mojo," he said softly, dangerously.

Castiel clenched his jaw, straightening to his full height. "You think this is just about what you did to Meg?" he demanded, incensed. "To me?"

Fleetingly, Dean's eyes drifted to the angry tear in the front of Castiel's shirt, the bloody reminder causing a flicker of guilt to ghost behind his eyes.

"Something is wrong with you, Dean!"

The angry outburst held an almost pitying note and Dean couldn't stand it. He remained silent for a short time, eyes void of any reaction. "Damn right something's wrong," he said at last, expression becoming more and more angry. "I got people I can't trust who don't mind their own business. And while we're on the subject of that little bitch, I've got some words for you, too."

Castiel bristled defensively, the fire in him smoldering. "Don't call her that."

"I'll call her whatever the fuck I please. She's on my property, in case you forgot. How many times have you called her that, anyways?"

"I have the right. You don't. And in case you haven't noticed, Meg isn't the one going around trying to kill people!"

"That we know of."

"Damn it, Dean," Castiel bit out, not in the mood or mind to argue over the matter. "She has been here for over a year and you only now lash out—now that you have the Blade! How does that not tell you something?"

"You're right, Romeo," Dean said in a cutting tone, spreading his hands in an errant gesture. "Maybe I really didn't give a shit that she was here, not at first. But things aren't adding up, man! They never have and they certainly aren't now—I mean, think about it! She's suddenly back and all for lending a hand?"

Dean's tone revealed how absurd he found such a thought and Castiel stifled the raging fire he felt to respond with as much calm as he could muster. "She helps because I ask, Dean."

The hunter shrugged, the gesture overdone and falsely agreeable. He began to approach Castiel and his tone was laced with deeply snide piousness. "Alright, fine. Say that's the case. What happens when you're gone? When she's finally off the leash?" At Castiel's stubborn silence, Dean shook his head angrily, wishing he could pound the sense back into the fallen angel's block head. "People are who they are, Cas! They don't change for the better—they don't change at all!"

"They can, and she has. She's not like that anymore," he insisted, hesitating then, looking his friend over in surprising remorse. Angry conviction tinged with despair. "And neither are you."

Dean tensed at that, knowing what he meant and forcibly ignoring the inference. "Say it all you want. But now Kevin's dead and we might have a Wonder Woman gone darkside."

The words were deliberately cutting, reminding Castiel of an awful time when he had been the one on the end of Dean's suspicions. Disappointment and mild aversion showed on his face.

"That was low of you."

"Was it? Well, pardon fucking me." Dean's already confrontational tone was growing more and more impassioned, riddled with judgment. "Cas, I know you try to be a good guy, okay, I do. You try. But you're either too dumb to see it or you're ignoring everything your instincts are telling you deliberately."

Castiel blinked, taken aback by the sudden implication and physically recoiling. Stricken, he shook his head."So… you not only think Meg has returned to her old loyalties, but now you think I may be helping her?" His tone was incredulous, indicating that he found such an idea to be ludicrous as much as he found it horrifying.

"It wouldn't be the first time you lied to me," Dean retorted acidly, with growing mistrust. "Or Sam. Or all of us."

Castiel said nothing, merely stared at his friend in wounded disgust. The look on Dean's face made him feel even lower than before and the accusation left him blindsided.

"She's a demon—still. Who the hell knows how she's even still alive or if something deliberately brought her back or if it's even her!" Dean's hand chopped through the air accusingly, the abhorrence twisting his features growing more and more pronounced. His voice punched through the air loudly, echoing slightly and drawing attention. "It's the apocalypse. Demons and Croats are everywhere and we're putting one up for free!"

"Is that what this has all been about?" Castiel asked, staying on high guard. "Her inexplicable reappearance?"

Dean was waiting with masked anger. "You tell me. I got a million fucking questions and no goddamn answers."

"It is Meg."

"How the hell do you know? You're not an angel anymore, Cas, you're a sorry sack of meat and bones just like the rest of us. You don't have the same instinct as you used to, especially with her—"

Castiel cursed his own panic and impulsivity that caused him to blurt out his next words. "I brought her back."

Only after the harrowed confession did he realize his mistake.

Dean blinked, staring at him dumbstruck before his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What?" he asked sharply, like he'd missed something or thought he'd misheard.

Castiel's face fell and he deflated, looking away briefly as he considered what to say and how foolish he was to have said anything at all. In his impassioned desperation to appeal her case, he'd temporarily forgotten the need to keep such a secret. "I brought Meg back. It was me."

Dean's face was like stone, hot fury meshing with trace confusion as he fought to puzzle out just what Castiel was saying. "Before or after you lost your grace?"

The demand was posed soft in growing anger, Dean's voice and visage darkening. Castiel didn't answer, his eyes skirting away guiltily as he recognized how this would end and how he'd backed himself into a proverbial corner.

"How the hell did you… no." Sour confusion quickly fell away as realization dawned over Dean's face, which lost most of its color. Green eyes bored into his friend's face in shock and dismay and, looking like he'd been punched in the gut, Dean blinked several times as his voice went whisper-soft. "No. Oh, you stupid son of a bitch, no." His stunned voice was filled with audible dismay, and Castiel immediately regretted ever opening his mouth.

"Dean."

With a hollow expression, Dean rubbed the back of his head, alarm and righteous fury surging to the surface. "Who owns you?"

"Dean—"

"Answer the fucking question!"

Castiel glared silently at him awhile, a muscle working in his jaw. "Abaddon."

Dean's hysterical bark of laughter was filled with horrified disbelief. "Jesus Christ," he said, running a hand over his mouth and throwing his gaze up helplessly at the sky.

Ire rose defensively and Castiel couldn't bite back his churlish retort. "You have no right to judge me, Dean. You have done the same, and worse."

Dean wasn't listening. "I knew it. I fucking knew it!"

He paced now back and forth like a caged tiger, raging in silence, livid, fuming, terrified, gutted, murderous. Just how stupid was he to miss it? Was he perhaps so angry with Castiel all the time because deep down, he'd always known the truth of what his friend had done? Dean reeled. He'd seen Meg die with his own eyes, for fuck's sake. He had to have known what Castiel surely bartered away to get the demon back. He'd always known, because how could he not? It was right in front of his fucking face, this whole time.

"You don't even see it, do you?" he spat, practically berserk. In both disbelief and superiority, Dean bore down on the other man with harsh condemnation. "How she has you wrapped around her fucking finger. Did you learn nothing from Sam and Ruby?"

Temper molten hot at the continuous insults, the judgment, Castiel gave Dean a reproving glare. "Meg is not Ruby."

Dean's reply was immediate and severe, devoid of forgiveness. "No, you know what? She's worse. Meg made everything personal. Every life taken, every drop of blood spilled. She did it because she could! And you know it! You've seen it, first hand!"

"She did it because she was ordered to," Castiel insisted imperatively, regaining some of that fire and conviction. "Ruby followed because she believed. And you're right, it is personal. To me. Meg stays, I stay." Dean opened his mouth and there was an angry retort ready on the tip of his tongue, but Castiel cut him off. "You are no part of this, camp leader or not. If Meg goes, you'll have lost me as well. I'll go with her, Dean. I mean it."

"You little shit. I have a say because her being here puts people at risk! Her being alive is threat enough!"

Castiel's response to that was scathing. "And since when have you cared about collateral damage?"

Dean had no response for that, much less a rebuttal. It was a sock to the gut that he had no choice but to ignore. "She's still a demon. And one day—hell, maybe even years from now if she hasn't already—she's gonna turn on you. On all of us. The world's in the shitter, her team is winning. Do the math."

"She won't."

The hunter's voice was low and threatening. "Cas."

"Dean. I said she won't." At Dean's silence, he went on. "Either you trust me, or not."

Dean gave no response for a long time, and the deliberateness of it slammed into Castiel like a wall of bricks. Dean appeared satisfied with the result as though it had been his motivation all along. "The greater the trust, the worse the betrayal—ever think of that?" the hunter questioned, shocking him all over again. "No, Cas, I don't trust you. Not any more, and sure as hell not like I used to."

That stung. "Well, it's mutual, I assure you," Castiel all but growled. "And maybe you're right. I trusted you once, and look where it got me." His friend looked offended by that, expression twisting up indignantly, and Castiel lost it. His powerful, loud timbre echoed through the grounds in accusation of his own. "Look at me, Dean! If Meg wasn't here right now, can you imagine what I might've become? I am barely holding it together as it is! I am fallen. Do you even comprehend what that means to an angel? Because you couldn't possibly. Meg has helped me in ways I could never have managed on my own!" He was a trainwreck now, he couldn't bear to think how far he would have plummeted if not for Meg being there to keep him on his feet.

But Dean looked sick. "She feed you that line of bullshit?"

"Meg doesn't control me," Castiel said in a harsh, argumentative voice. "I do what I do because I love her!"

The outburst startled even him, yet once the shock wore off from Dean's face, all the hunter looked was repulsed. "You're fucking unbelievable."

"She's killed demons, Dean—you've seen it!"

"Lilith willing died so that Lucifer could be raised, Cas! They'll do anything for him!"

"You're wrong." Castiel shook his head, his voice falling faint. "You couldn't be more wrong."

"Yeah, I hope to God I am. You think because her own kind hates her that she's trustworthy? Other demons hated Ruby and she was the most loyal of all of them. She's got you so off the reservation, man—"

"I am not the one who doesn't see how far lost I am. You want to be my enemy, Dean, so be it. I'll protect her. And I am trying to protect you." Castiel looked at Dean with an openness and anxiety and quiet fury that was hard to get away from. "Don't make me choose between the two of you. Don't make it so I have to be looking over my shoulder. I don't need that, and neither does Sam." Castiel's expression was rueful, appalled. "At least Meg wants to be saved. Sometimes I don't think there's any hope for you at all."

Dean felt something sharp and cold dig its way under his ribs at that, every one of his worst assumptions about himself ringing true in light of the accusation. Nonetheless, he brushed it aside with bitter determination, knowing he still held the winning hand. He spoke in a soft, measured, treacherous voice. "You mean you haven't been looking into her little disappearing acts? I can't be the only one. She might have you acting like a lovestruck moron, but we both know you're smarter than that." Castiel's frown fell in favor of a cornered expression and he didn't answer, lips forming a grim line. It was clear he hadn't been expecting such a low volley, and his silence alone was answer enough. "We always wondered why Abaddon never attacked the camp. Why would she need to when she's had a spy here the whole time?"

Castiel's chest constricted in a pang of unease. "Meg was going on runs for Kevin."

"Was she? Well, we sure as hell can't ask him now, can we?"

Castiel hesitated at that, hating himself for it. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out as he visibly struggled to come up with a response of some kind.

"Who the hell's to say that Metatron and Gadreel aren't working with Abaddon? And who's to say Meg isn't working for Abaddon?" Dean let his statement hang for a moment to send guilt unfurling through Castiel, fixing him with an insolent expression at the default response that followed.

"She's not."

"You know that? You really trust her as much as you say?"

Castiel's expression was hard, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes flickering between Dean's. The fracture there was prominent in its barest simplicity. Infinitesimal but glaringly loud. "Of course I do."

Dean looked at him, seeing right through it. Anyone else could have missed it if they weren't looking. The hunter shook his head slowly, like he'd snared him exactly as planned. "You've been playing little house on the fucking prairie with her for almost a year. And you just fucking hesitated." Dean pressed the petty advantage and basically sneered at his friend, taking savage pleasure from the reaction. "If anyone was going to trust her, it'd be you. And you flinched, Castiel."

Castiel was already backtracking quickly—anger at himself, at everything, cropping up for having fallen for Dean's trap. "She's given everything for me."

Some of Dean's anger fell away, a spark of actual true empathy igniting behind the veritable wall of checked fury that surprised even him. "We all believed Ruby, man."

"You're wrong."

A shift had taken place and Castiel couldn't pinpoint it, but he felt it and it made him suddenly unsure of everything, unanchored and vulnerable and trapped.

Dean looked at him, a morsel of that old superiority returning. "Who are you trying to convince?"

Castiel's face was hard and his emotions were in turbulence. He felt the need to disprove what Dean was saying at all costs, felt like if what Dean was suggesting were actually true he might perish from the wretchedness of it. With forceful tenacity, Castiel hung onto the things he knew were good in himself, and most of all good when connected intrinsically to Meg. She had not ruined him. She had built him up and given him things he had never had before in all of time: hope, peace, stability, a sense of belonging, and of all things love. The admission stunned him, even silent and inward as it was. Despite this… Dean's accusations and doubting words struck him hard—to the point where his own doubts, his own fears, his own self-loathing came howling back. Castiel didn't understand. He knew Meg had sacrificed the unthinkable for him.

Dean could not be allowed to be right. He simply couldn't.

Because Dean was broken. Dean was crumbling. If he was right, what hope did any of them have?

"There is no one I need convince. I believe her. That's all that matters."

Dean clenched his fists at the baseless reply and his next words were harsh and angry again. "Fact of the matter is… she could betray us tomorrow and you still wouldn't be able to do what needs to be done. Well… I can."

It was like a switch had flipped, his friend reeking once more of deadly power barely checked. Castiel tensed, feeling the weight of his weapon nearby and ready should he need it.

"You won't," he said.

"Or what?"

The dark mirror was not lost on him. Once, he had spoken those very words to Dean, and the hunter had replied with the same threat as he did now.

"Or I'll stop you."

Dean sneered in resentment as he looked off, chuckling darkly to himself, apparently too revolted to even look at him. Without another word, Dean turned and left, effectively ending the dispute and severing what little friendship they had retained.

Castiel was embittered, sorrowful, resigned. Even as the tension bled from his shoulders, he felt defeated all at once. Another person turning their back on him. It was nothing remotely new to him, but it truly pained Castiel by principle. Dean, of all people, was supposed to understand. They had been closer, once. Brothers, even. How had that fallen apart? Where was the Dean he remembered? Where was the man who introduced him to cheeseburgers and rock music? Where was the Dean who was his friend? Seeing him now, so far from the man who had laughed at the image of an angel in a brothel, Castiel felt that the cost was too high.

They were losing Dean. They were losing the man who loved pie, the man who sang off key, the man who treated his car like a beloved child, the man who held onto hope when there was none, the man who pushed through the pain, who never gave up on family, who always strove to do what was right, who did everything out of love. The Righteous Man.

The Mark was corrupting him. Polluting his goodness, burning away everything that made him who he was. Leaving nothing but a killer in his place.

Hopelessness ate at him, reminding Castiel that nothing and no one was safe from the world they now lived in.

This world that was burning them all alive.

Even through his anger, his frustration, the utter dejection, Dean thought of a different Cas. Freshly fallen and following he and Sam around like a lost puppy, trying to make sense of everything. Fucking up so badly at his first use of a microwave that Sam had needed to rescue him. Marveling at the growth of facial hair and having Dean noogie his bristly cheek jarringly before he'd tossed a can of shaving cream at him with a rankling word about becoming a mountain man. Learning that, for some fucked up reason, he really liked putting mustard on just about everything.

Fallen Castiel was also clumsy as hell, at least at first. A memory of the dude running straight into his back and then scrambling backwards to right himself with none of his angelic composure rose in Dean's mind. It was weird to see Castiel moving sort of like he was unbalanced, like there was a weight missing from his back that he expected to be there. Dean knew abstractly that Cas had wings before the Fall, because he'd heard them flapping enough in the last few years to at least be aware, but it was hard to imagine them having any kind of substantial weight when all Cas had been to his human eyes was a Jimmy Novak shaped wrapper.

But that wasn't Castiel anymore.

Castiel was colder, angrier. He was a soldier again, and a disillusioned, reckless one at that. He was also harboring something they all knew to be evil.

Dean couldn't abide that. He wouldn't.

I've watched you change
I pulled off your wings
I look at the cross then I look away
give you the gun, blow me away

14 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL

It was no argument they hadn't had before.

"Let me bottom line it for you. You're the only friend I got, man. And to see you with her—after everything she put my family through? It fucking hurts. It's fucking low of you."

That surprised him. For a long time, Castiel was stunned into silence at the brutal honesty, visibly stung with remorse. His eyes fell away and scanned the ground rapidly, as though he were trying to find an answer. "I… have no excuses for you, Dean. I've tried living without her. Even you must admit, despite your disapproval, I'm better for having her. She is trying to make amends. She'll never say so, but she is. I'm… sorry for what she's done in the past. I am, truly. But you forgave me. Perhaps you can forgive her?"

Dean shook his head no, sighing. "This isn't you, man."

Castiel bristled at that, getting defensive. "Don't tell me who I am. You don't know the first thing about becoming another species." He took a charged pause, thinking hard. "What else can I say to you? Should I apologize again?"

His friend stared at him hard, frustrated and roiling with inner turmoil. He thought of saying something more but bitterness got the better of him. "You know what… you're always sorry. Doesn't mean shit and it never has."

Dean began walking away, and Castiel called out to him in alarm. "Dean—Dean!"

"Do me a favor and don't bother, Cas."

Castiel stopped in his tracks, staring after him almost angrily now. "And what about you, Dean? What about the things you have done? Throughout your life, in Hell—this past week even? Don't be a hypocrite, you are better than this!"

Dean stewed a bit and the cold fury seemed to leave him. "Maybe I'm not."

Really, that had been the beginning of the end.

we were caught up and lost in all of our vices
in your pose as the dust settled around us
where do we begin?
the rubble or our sins?
does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

22 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL

"You think Metatron has been on earth?" Sam wondered at Meg's virulent summary of what she suspected. Knowing the answer but testing if she did.

"Well, Gadreel can't get to Heaven. They must be communicating somehow. Why waste the effort of the spell when the little booger can float down whenever he wants?" Meg shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable and still hurting. She looked like she would need to sit down soon. "I'd bet anything that Gadreel being all supercharged has something to do with him, too."

So... Metatron was trying to play God?

As to Gadreel… Meg had already told him how the angel had seemed unstoppable during the fight, to the point where it was completely unfeasible. Castiel had reported earlier that Gadreel was a common angel—not an archangel nor a Seraph.

"He and Metatron are probably using the tablet to power up," Sam muttered, almost to himself. They'd seen what touching the tablet had done to Cas, and so the possibility was not unheard of.

Meg nodded her agreement, grimacing a bit. Her knees shook and Sam reached out a hand to steady her. Meg appeared embarrassed by the gesture, scowling away at nothing. "Your brother's a fucking psychopath," she muttered, looking her size for once. Smaller, vulnerable. Despite her words, Sam knew her turmoil had little to nothing to do with Dean.

"Forget Dean. What the hell is going on with you and Cas?"

"Beeswax, Moose. Mind your own."

Sam bristled, his grip on her tightening. "Goddamn it, Meg, I'm serious."

"How about you worry about the bigger problem?" came the snapping retort, and she met his stare defiantly.

A muscle clenched in his jaw, and he knew exactly what she was referring to. "Dean's my brother," he pointed out. There was a darkness, a warning, nestled deep within the words, advising Meg to drop the issue.

She shook her head. "I never asked you to pick sides, Sammy. Just that you open your eyes."

Something about his demeanor changed. "Meg, I don't have a problem with you. But as far as I'm concerned, there aren't sides to pick. There's one side, and that's where I'm sitting. Dean's a fucking mess, but he's family." Sam wasn't always happy with the side he was on, but he wasn't moving either. Dean might have been barreling towards the dark at breakneck, horrifying speeds, but he wouldn't go into the dark alone. "And you don't call me Sammy."

The demon's features softened a bit in begrudging acknowledgment, and Meg regarded him with something akin to respect. "You're a good brother, Sam. Even if your brother's a giant prick. I always kind of admired that about you." She'd seen inside the younger Winchester's mind—every thought and fear. Even at her evilest, Meg hadn't been able to look on him with anything other than reverence.

Sam was scared shitless of whatever was happening with Dean. But it didn't matter. Nothing came between a Winchester and his brother. They may have fought like dogs, but at the end of the day, they would die for each other.

Sam frowned, his expression unreadable. "I may disagree with him. And, yeah, he may be a prick. But like I said… he's my family and most of the time he's all I've got."

Meg considered him, her own expression opaque and inscrutable. "And Castiel's mine."

Sam poured silently over her words, trying to get a read on her. Cas was his family, too. The difference was that Cas was all Meg ever had, he supposed. He wondered what it had taken for Meg to admit that. He finally spoke, after a short pause. "I don't care how you treat Dean. I don't care what you say to me. But if you betray Castiel, Meg, I'll kill you."

Meg said nothing, regarded him silently.

"He trusts you. Don't ever use that against him."

Trust was just another word for love, they said. The notion burrowed inside her, dismantling her and every preconceived wall she'd carefully constructed. Feeling disconcertingly laid bare, Meg scarcely noticed when Castiel appeared beside them shortly after the hunter's appeal.

"Hey," Sam muttered, quickly becoming concerned and looking his friend over. "Where's he going?"

Castiel's expression was stern, foreboding, anxious. "I don't know."

Sam frowned. "What happened? You okay?"

"Fine," Castiel muttered back, pressing a hand over the jagged tear in his shirt, fingers coming away sticky with his own blood. He grimaced a bit, wiping it off on his jeans. A trickle of blood still ran down his temple too from a cut at his hairline, not to mention the eddy of other little cuts and bruises he sported.

"Yeah, because either one of us is buying that," Meg retorted, masking her worry with contempt.

Castiel met her eyes briefly, looking like he wanted to say something but refraining. Instead, he turned to Sam. "I need to talk to you."

Meg watched the two of them walk off, feeling slighted at the avoidance. Insecure, of all things, and the realization infuriated her. She'd assumed his distance was because of their earlier fight over the pills, but his deliberate and continued reticence had her more restless than ever. Meg was at her wit's end, scrambling for purchase at the cliff's edge of her mind. The stress gnawed at her cool composure, making her feel threadbare and mired. Something was up with him. Something was wrong.

When they were alone, Sam turned to him expectably, anxiously. "What is it?"

Castiel wasted no time. "Does Dean seem different to you?"

Sam barked out a bitter, grisly laugh, looking harried. "You think?"

"Sam, I'm serious."

The younger Winchester considered him, his expression falling. "Yeah," he admitted. "Even foregoing whatever the hell just happened back there… he seems to be amped up lately. You know… on edge. Even before Malachi attacked the camp. After Cain, he seemed… I don't know. Different."

"Effects of the Mark," Castiel surmised grimly.

"What else?"

"He does seem angry. I mean he's always a little angry—well, you know." Sam nodded at this and Castiel apprehensively went on. "But now, it seems like…"

Sam appeared uneasy. "More."

"Yes." Castiel frowned, shaking his head. Vaguely self-conscious of what he said next. "He… he thinks Meg is following Abaddon and perpetuating the raising of Lucifer. And that I'm helping her."

Sam stared at him, expression unreadable but not unkind. "Are you?"

Castiel balked at the sincere question, hurt filling his features. "No."

Sam nodded his head. "Okay," he said in earnest. "That's all I needed."

The tension seemed to abate from his friend's shoulders and Castiel unwound some, clearly relieved but still anxious. "Meg… she's not…"

Hesitantly, he looked over his shoulder, a part of him longing to go back. He needed her, needed to see for himself that she was unharmed, but he simply couldn't. Abruptly overwhelmed, he remained grounded, stuck, angrily torn.

Sam took a step forward, meeting Castiel's eyes meaningfully and laying a hand over his shoulder. "Hey. Relax. Let's figure out priority one, which is my brother. Tell me what you know about the Mark and the Blade."

"I know very little of the inner workings of it," Castiel admitted with regret. His face showed utter distaste and slight panic. "I just know what it can do. What I've seen it do."

Sam blew out a breath, running a hand over his face. "Alright. So, what do we do?"

Castiel looked up with a clenched jaw and tension-filled expression. "I don't know, Sam."

keep dodging lights, like a thief in the night
the sun will rise and expose all our lies
so why deny that you and I lead different lives
the rivers from your eyes can't change my mind

21 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL
MISSOURI BORDER

Throwing two hunters, a fallen angel, and a demon into a confined space for hours on end was not the best idea they'd ever had. Nearing the end of their journey, an ominous anticipation settling over everyone at what could possibly await them upon finding the Blade, they'd pulled off road for supplies and food. Dean was being even more abrasive than usual, particularly to Meg, to the point where even Sam's temper broke and he was raising his voice. Frankly, at that point, no one really blamed each other for their individual outbursts. It was cramped and stuffy in the jeep and the sun burned hot above their heads, making everyone sweaty and miserable.

But Dean's rants continued on even after they'd filled their empty stomachs with food and drink. At one point, however briefly, Sam even joined in. It was understandable, what with the threat of Lucifer hanging over their heads. Castiel didn't blame them for their edginess, but when Dean ordered him to "watch her," as he'd tromped off with his brother to one corner of the building and left he and Meg to theirs, Castiel bristled.

Beside him, Meg scowled. "When this is all over… haircut and I are going to have a little chat about manners."

Castiel heard the banked threat there, and he regarded her grimly. "Don't listen to him."

"Super hearing, genius," Meg muttered, trudging off in search of weapons. "Kinda hard not to."

They moved along the aisles, intermittently crossing paths as they did so in the small sporting outlet.

"I understand where they're coming from."

That stopped her short. "What?"

Castiel read the indignance in her voice and offered her a meager smile. "I didn't say that I agree. But I get why they're worried. Logically, you should too."

Meg faced him head on, crossing her arms over her chest. "Enlighten me." It seemed almost a challenge, and Castiel already regretted the conversation even before it could begin.

"Abaddon wants you."

To his surprise, a lopsided grin tugged at her mouth as she arched a single eyebrow at him. "Who doesn't?" she asked, grinning wider at him. There was something playful about it that he wished he could appreciate. "I'm sexy and I know it."

Meg kissed his cheek as she brushed by, swatting his backside in the process. Castiel sighed. "You know what I mean."

"Don't be a worrywart. She's not going to get me. How many times we gonna have this conversation, anyway?"

He'd been bringing it up a lot lately, ever since that demon spilled its guts on Abaddon's game plan. Ever since that night he carved into her back.

"Abaddon is persuasive, in ways that involve pain. The worst kind."

"So am I," Meg snapped—all previous playfulness void from her tone now. Her voice was like a whipcrack, her power licking at his skin as a reminder, even as far apart as they were standing now.

Castiel read the insolence there for what it was, feeling a guilty sense of remorse. "You think I don't trust you?"

"Do you?"

That she needed to ask brought him sadness. "I wouldn't have given my soul for you if I didn't." Castiel knew it was a lie even as he said the words. He'd have brought her back either way. "Sometimes you make me question my sanity, but I do trust you. Implicitly."

Most of Meg's fiery temper abated, her mouth pinching into a thin line as she regarded him. "Yeah, yeah. You're just saying that to get into my pants," she muttered, halfway teasing him as she turned on her heel to head back to the jeep.

"Hey." Castiel reached out, snatching her hand in his, holding her back. He waited until she met his eyes, smiling a little. It was that boyish one she hated and secretly adored. "I know you're more than smoke and thorns. More than what you let people see, than what you pretend to be. And… Meg, you've always seen more in me than anyone else ever has. More even than myself. You're what I want, and you always will be."

"Sometimes I think you're an idiot for trusting me."

"Me too," he admitted, offering her a crooked smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Meg twined her fingers thoughtfully through his, experimenting over the feel of them and liking what she found. "You're the only one that does, really." His eyes were vivid and startling and Meg tensed as Castiel bowed his forehead to hers. She let out a soft, anxious exhale and shut her eyes for a moment, wrangling the errant emotions scattered throughout her. The way he leaned into her, dependently and yet not, providing an anchor she could soften into and rest beside for just a minute… it reminded Meg of why she was fighting. "Kind of nice, knowing that there'll always be someone willing to stick their neck out for me."

Her quiet statement touched him and devastated him all at once.

In a silent promise and a deep yearning, Castiel hesitantly tipped his chin forward fractionally to press his lips to hers in a simple, soft, quiet kiss that lingered. A kiss he felt almost guilty to give but helpless not to initiate. "I'll save you," he murmured against her mouth, meaning what he said.

For a moment, everything felt right and as it should be and the touch of her lips made him feel less ineffective for however long a moment. He felt her responding to his touch, craning her neck forward to him to push her lips against his more fully and then brushing her nails against his cheek.

"Did I ask?" she breathed into him.

The words slid over his mind, a teasing rejoinder when spoken. Later, though, it would eventually come to haunt him.

Castiel looked down at where her hands joined with his and instead of reassurance he felt a thick, dreadful sense of doubt. At the time, he assumed it was because he doubted himself and his ability to protect her. At the time, he believed a lot of things.

find a way to let grace remain
the ruthless way the sirens sing
the dark cityscape becomes our grave
there has never been so much at stake
what takes years to build takes seconds to fall
my heart fuels the fire, then becomes the flame
I stood around to watch you fall
ashes to ashes

23 MONTHS AFTER THE FALL
RED RIVER, NEW MEXICO

I do trust you. Implicitly.

How then did it all fall apart? How did they get to where they were now… to where he was now?

The quaint kitchenette filled suddenly with light from the generator out back as the backdoor opened and a grizzled man stepped in. He had a sack slung over his shoulder full of supplies, and another with the day's harvest. This home was less picturesque than his previous one, slightly rundown and not quite so intimate. He had a new mantle as well, but the same photograph adorning it as before.

Turning, raised an eyebrow at the sight of Castiel sitting at his dining room table.

The fallen angel was utterly silent, just outside of the light and wreathed a bit by shadow. Cain noted the stringent hostility rolling off his visitor like smoke, a calm storm that bore no threat to him, but was powerful all the same.

"I suppose I should feign surprise."

Castiel's head canted a bit, his expression one of apathy. "We're both too old for games, don't you think?"

"True," Cain remarked in concession. He set down his belongs and took up a seat across from his visitor, sharp eyes combing studiously over him. Castiel reeked of something dark, smothered in harrowed thought, and he bore the quiet wrath of a man at the end of his rope. In his passing observation, Cain also noticed the marks of a fight that were nearly faded; over his company's face, hidden beneath the clothing he wore. That one in particular caught his attention. Intrigued, the demon's eyes narrowed. "I sense my Blade's handiwork over you."

The question there was unspoken, although Castiel said nothing. He sat in absolute silence, blue eyes cold and searching of his host's face. There was the inkling weight of desperation nearby, simmering beneath the surface of fortitude.

"How did you find me, Castiel?"

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not, but I admit…" Cain sat back in his chair, thoughtful. "I'm a little curious."

Castiel's voice was clipped, flat. "I've watched you throughout the years. I've seen the nightmares you've wrought. I know your patterns, your tactics—better even than most. I may no longer be an angel, but I do still remember how to be one. How to cast a simple spell."

Cain's mouth tipped in a passing smile that reeked of someone appreciating their enemy's ingenuity. "The spell you used to find me was by no means simple. I'm impressed. Although," here, Cain's tone took on a pensive edge, "your memory is not the sanctified vault you would believe it to be."

Castiel's brow quirked at that, but he didn't comment. Instead, he sat up, his boots dropping onto the floor from where he'd had them propped to give the appearance of being relaxed. "I have questions for you."

Cain said nothing for a long time, cold eyes meeting his stare unwaveringly. "What makes you so sure I'll answer them?"

"I didn't really bring anything to threaten you with. Consider yourself my last resort."

"Hail Mary?" Cain suggested in a quiet huff, seeming amused by the irony. "Daft of you, but again… I'm impressed." He settled back, silent for a beat. "Don't they wonder where you are right now?"

"They think I'm looking for angels."

"Deceptive," Cain remarked. "And yet here you are, holding counsel with a demon. You've been here before, haven't you?"

It wasn't accusatory, it wasn't antagonizing. Simply curious. Cain allowed the temperature to drop around them, all the same. As the guise of normality fell, the room darkened some too. Above them, the light flickered briefly.

Castiel had no response to that, a shadow crossing over his eyes, a muscle working in his jaw. "You know what it's doing to him. The Mark."

"Yes," Cain acknowledged. "I warned him."

"How do we stop it?"

Cain marveled briefly over the tenacious obstinacy in the biting tone, appreciating the doggedness even despite his knowledge of how it would quickly fall away. "Easy," he replied, gravely sincere. "Burn off the Mark and throw the Blade into the deepest ocean. Allow Abaddon to live and your cities to burn, and you will save your friend."

Castiel's eyes became clouded and cold at the words, darting away as he absorbed the news. Cain tilted his head, considering.

"But you have a personal vested interest, don't you?" When he had the fallen's attention once more, he went on with solemn deliberation. "You want Dean to kill Abaddon, more than the others do and for more than the simple gratification of seeing her dead, so you allowed him to receive the burden." Blue eyes colder than his own pinned him, razor sharp. "I see her claim on you, Castiel."

Cain watched his company tense impatiently, satisfied he had nicked a nerve. Castiel afforded him a penetrating look, expression cynical and haggard.

"I am not afraid to die."

A mirthless smile. "No. No, you're not. But it isn't your own soul you're so in knots over. Is it? It's hers. Always hers." By his look, Castiel already knew what he was going to say, though the reluctance he wore was flagrant. "Being evasive won't get you those answers you were looking for. Speak why you really came. You're here, after all. You may as well." Cain rose from his chair, crossing over to his refrigerator to retrieve a beer. "Would you care for a drink?"

Castiel wordlessly accepted the offering, silent for a long time as he stared into the condensation that pebbled along the glass surface. When he finally spoke, there was a catch to his voice, almost indiscernible. "Abaddon told me that, if not for me, Meg would have become a Knight. Is that true?"

Cain considered his answer. Whether or not he should indulge his visitor at all. As he reclaimed his seat, he replied. "Yes." The word was delivered tonelessly, void of inflection and Castiel was snared by it, waiting for what would follow because the look Cain wore said there was more. "It was also because of you that she was slated to become one. If all as gone as designed."

Suddenly anxious, Castiel frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Cain's eyes narrowed contemplatively, his tone almost wondering. "Exactly how much did those angels rob of you, Castiel?" At his company's uneasy silence, he went on dimly. "There's a reason, even while human, that you are able to move mountains to save that demon. Have you never thought why?"

It was all he could think about lately.

Cain took a slow draw from his bottle, shaking his head. "Never wondered why you were so drawn to each other? How you know her name? How you can somehow see the face she wore when her soul was pure?"

Castiel had always thought it a byproduct of his powers as an angel. Inherent knowledge. He'd clearly been wrong, if the sinking feeling in his gut was of any indication.

Cain's smile was tight, rueful. "Not even Abaddon knew what you two were."

His pulse quickened, a sense of dread washing over him. "And… what are we?"

"Bonded."

Castiel's frown fell in favor of a completely shocked expression.

"You were assigned as her guardian. Your mission surely died with her at the crossroads, although I think it was terminated long before that. Even still… the two of you meeting six years ago was hardly by chance."

Castiel felt physically ill. "Then what was it?"

His faint tone evidenced his fear of the answer. His eyes had fallen away and he scanned the tabletop rabidly, mind reeling in alarm. His grip tightened dangerously over the bottle and, for a moment, Cain wondered if he might actually break it.

"Lucifer arranged the encounter, knowing the connection you two bore. He saw the mark of the bond on Amarantha's soul, so buried beneath smoke and darkness that it was almost impossible to see. He intended to use her to corrupt you. Knowing your reputation, I assume he wanted the infamous Castiel for his cause."

I don't understand why you're fighting me, of all the angels. I rebelled, I was cast out. You rebelled, you were cast out. Almost all of Heaven wants to see me dead and if they succeed, guess what? You're their new public enemy number one. We're on the same side, like it or not, so… why not just serve your own best interests which in this case just happen to be mine?

The devil smiling as Meg appeared from the shadows.

Time to change your mind?

Castiel's quiet horror doubled. Mouth gone dry, the room around him seemed to spin. With an abject sense of dismay, he tried to find a reason why she would keep this from him, a reason that wasn't horrible. He tried to rationalize and excuse the possibility of betrayal in his mind, tried to ignore how much sense it all made now. He resisted the very idea, recoiling from it in stunned despair even as he knew there was no other explanation.

Do you ever wonder if maybe you were supposed to be on the other side?

Her voice, speaking those very words to him. A sudden, gutwrenching thought came to him then, and he wondered if any of it had been real. Doubt and grief consumed him and Castiel had to work to get out his next words. "How… how did he even know to look for it?"

"Loyalists, I'm sure."

Uriel, he thought immediately. His shell-shocked whisper pressed timidly against the treacherous quiet. "But…?"

"Why remove you as her guardian? I expect it was around the time they started digging. Learned her name was written in the Book of Hell. So they erased her from your memory." Cain's recollection was somber; averse in a strange, kindred way, and his next words were weighted by muted veneration. "You've gone off script so many times, old friend. But the affair between the two of you is what changed everything. She was the first domino. Even deprived of her, you became more and more defective throughout the years. It was stunning to watch. Curious, even admirable."

Real emotion slipped into the demon's words as he took a moment. When he spoke again, his low, rough voice was heavy with reverence.

"You see, Castiel… it's not how you two are alike. It's how you are not. Angel, demon. Grace, soul. Light and dark. There is something… powerful in the knowledge that two unlike creatures are so easily magnetized. Some would call it Fate. Others call it manipulation. Point of views may change, motives may change, but… ultimately… no matter what side of the war you're fighting on, it can always boil down to two soldiers unwilling to kill each other. Sometimes I wonder if that was God's intention all along."

Blindsided, still reeling, Castiel wondered faintly, "Why would you tell me this?"

He looked dazed and Cain regarded him watchfully. "Isn't that why you came?"

"I… shouldn't trust you."

"Maybe you shouldn't, but you do believe me." Cain's eyes narrowed briefly in a grave expression, something indiscernible lurking in that glacier stare. Quiet authority rang throughout the small room in careful instruction. "Trust no one, Castiel. If you hear anything I say, heed that. Abaddon has ways of deception that make the Devil's seem like childplay. Think hard on what you think you know. Chances are, she has you tangled in so many misdirections that you're looking left when you should be paying attention to what's right in front of you."

Castiel gathered himself with some difficulty, rallying the shattered pieces of his fortitude. "If we lose… all is lost. Everything will be for nothing," he insisted in deepening dismay, though some of his cold resolve had returned. He arranged his face into stone, submersing what anguished aversion he felt beneath a thick layer of almost sinister grit. "We're going to destroy her. We have to."

Cain nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the opaque blue staring back at him. "Don't tell me what you're going to do. Show me."

The challenge there was unspoken, and a silent understanding passed between them.

Even as Castiel rose to leave, his eyes clouded over before departure, punctuated by the fraught tension in the air around them and the unyielding sense of lingering distrust.

"It's strange… in all my time spent watching humans… the two of you…" The fallen angel hesitated, stoic and terse. "I never once saw Abel talking to Lucifer."

Cain matched his even stare. "There was a lot you didn't see, old friend." He gave a final, parting nod, effectively demolishing any further rebuttal before it could arise. In his shadowed expression was a grim trace of camaraderie. "I'll be watching. Goodbye, Castiel."

I was never one for pretenders
everything I tried to be
just wouldn't settle in
I'm only a man with a candle to guide me
I'm taking a stand to escape what's inside me

He should have read his father's journal.

Maybe he'd been afraid to. Maybe he'd been a coward.

You weren't at Kevin's funeral.

Kevin was dead. Dean could argue that the kid wouldn't have given a shit if he had been there to watch him burn.

He ducked the errant swing, rising up and burying his weapon in the chest of his attacker. There were others, of course. Dean pivoted and twisted, slipping through cracks in the armor in a violent dance. He beheaded one, gutted another. He tightened his grip over the bone, the sweltering Mark beneath his sleeve ruling his every move. He was glad for it.

The first time he'd touched that Blade, Dean knew he wouldn't be stopped. He would take down Abaddon, and anything else he had to. Anyone else he had to.

It wasn't a hero thing. It wasn't.

It was just… calm.

Dean knew. And he had to go it alone.

You could have killed your best friend! Sam's voice was loud in his head.

He was a time bomb. A powder keg. And he was about to explode.

Gotta go it alone, Sammy.

A feeling of gratified self-loathing sank deeply in his stomach. It had been tolerable and acceptable for some time. The need to deceive and kill and punish those he deemed unworthy in the shadows. There once had been a time when he'd found it abhorrent, barely able to stand himself.

But Dean embraced it now, fully. It was his purpose. He knew that to be true.

This was real.

Blood splattered across his face, wetting his eyes and mouth. Dean sliced open the chest of another victim, another captive of his Blade. He faced another on brute strength alone, savoring the buildup, waiting until his opponent was too dazed and beaten to offer any more fight. Dean buried the Blade into its sternum, all the way out the other side. He removed it with a twist, casting the remnants aside.

He supposed there was a part of him that wished he could see the end of these deep, dark hours that seemed to be changing him, warping him, dragging him down. The hopeless futility he sometimes felt down to his bones, down to the deepest part of him that was his flickering soul. A part of him—the part that gaped in horror at what he'd done to his friend—might have once hated who he was becoming.

Abominable.

That part of him fell away amid the bloodlust and carnage he wrought. There hadn't been an attack on the camp in over a month—so petrified were looters and monsters of the man with the old bone declaring Hell on the borderlands.

Some horrible crescendo was nearing closer and closer.

He had to finish it. He had to be ready.

Kill the bitch.

He was doing the right thing. The last Knight of Hell had to die.

His misdeeds, the depravity, it all bled away until his vision tunneled red, red, red.

So many believe him a hero. Even as a part of Dean knew and recognized that he was becoming something else. All around him, a storm surged. It may have been more omens, but by the look in the eyes of those he gutted and tore into it was much, much more.

You play the hero, but underneath the hype… you're a killer. With oceans of blood on his hands. The voice skipped, unbidden, through his thoughts, a one off remark of an angel that refused to lay down her weapon and join the camp. She had vowed that she would never owe her life to Dean Winchester, that she would sooner die than share sanctuary with a monster. Sam and Castiel had only just barely stopped him from killing her. At first, he'd hated the angel for spitting his own worst fears right in his face. But he was saving people less and less these days, succumbing more and more to everything that assured him he was bred for violence and nothing more.

The Blade made him whole. It filled the void that had been missing all his life that he could never quite seem to fill or puzzle out. It stirred something prodigious inside him, something wretchedly venerable. He was poison, he was toxic… but there were things that needed poisoning. Dean was too happy to supply the venom.

For so long he'd been a desperate, wounded animal crying out for help, too afraid to just end it all because his death needed to have a purpose and serve some greater good. He was chained by mission, utterly paralyzed and lost due to his inability to perform what he'd once believed to be his only reason for existing.

Saving people.

But no.

That was not his purpose.

This was his purpose. With a vile shout, Dean cut himself a fresh path. The soles of his boots became sticky and wet with blood.

There was a buzzing under his skin, a prickling discomfort that mounted mounted mounted, and the Mark burned. Constant and throbbing, as insistent as a physical scar, and just as difficult to ignore.

So… he didn't ignore it.

But he ignored other things—the warnings from Cain whispering inside his head, Sam's pained expression, the hurt and betrayal in Cas's eyes, the half empty bottle of jack he'd hidden under the table in his cabin during meetings—as if no one could smell the alcohol on his skin, seeping out of every pore. His father's second journal he'd cast into the safe only to lock away from his sight so he never had to look at it again.

At all costs, his father had said from beyond the grave. The words had jumped out at him, startling him. Terrifying him more than anything… angering him more than anything. He'd stopped reading after that. He stopped listening to the counsel of those he trusted.

Dean ignored it all.

He stabbed through another demon, his weapon sliding through flesh and bone like butter. He cast that one aside, savoring the burst of brimstone as it was extinguished. The others faltered and looked at him with a new light in their eyes.

Fear, Dean thought, enjoying the realization. Feeding off of it.

The more you kill, the better you feel.

With sick satisfaction, he tore into the names on Crowley's list with a vengeance, not caring that the once King of Hell wanted them dead but relishing the feel of the Blade slicing through them all the same. For that brief, accelerated moment, it allowed him to forget everyone who had died because of him. The list was endless, lives lost as a result of his actions or inaction. Bad choices. Wrong calls. Or simply because they stumbled into the blast zone that surrounded him. Targets tacked on their backs because they had the misfortune to believe in him.

The world didn't need any more of his good intentions.

Dean, enough! You need to calm down! rang Sam's voice again in his head, begging him to stop. He pictured his brother with his hands up in a defensive stance, closing in on him, and Dean's fingers were white as they clenched around his weapon. Suddenly, he was furious.

Calm down?

Metatron was winning. Abaddon was winning. They were on the losing side again and people were dying.

Put down the Blade.

It wasn't Sam's voice that time. Not even his own. Dean wasn't sure whose it was and it didn't matter because it was ignored.

Blood. Everywhere.

Dean, stop!

Little brother was surprised?

Why?

You don't have to have it with you all the time, right?

Mine.

It belonged to him. And he belonged to it.

I'm starting to think the Blade is doing something else… something to you.

Stronger.

Stupid brother, so distracted, so innocent, such a fool to believe in him. To his sudden horror, Dean began to see Sam's face on those he killed instead of the faceless monsters he was used to tearing his way through. Worse, it didn't stop him or slow him.

Blood on his hands now.

Risa is dead. Kevin is dead. Zeke is dead. Hell, maybe Sammy's dead too. Cas sure as hell might as well be.

Serves them right for ever trusting in him.

Dean relished the life draining away at his hands. Through his fingers, over his shoes. He yelled against them, in spite of them, the carnal ringing in his ears like a holy choir.

Nearly killed Meg. Good. Hurt Cas, Cas was hurt. Sam scared of him. Kevin dead. Risa dead. Everyone dead or hurting, hurting then dead. Everyone is going to die, everyone was going to leave.

Pain terrible pain unforgiving pain.

But Abaddon can't win.

Dean hoped when the moment came that he would feel worthy. That the word would finally fit. That the success of this final kill would numb all that came before.

Worthy.

Mine.

The Mark consumed him, became him, ruined him and made him new. It was raw magnificence on clear display and, even beneath the blood, Dean felt righteous. He felt whole.

He shouted against the creature he fought now, the whites of his eyes visible around murderous green in his struggle to overpower his opponent.

It was almost too easy.

It was horrible, it was perfect.

Stronger.

Arcane supremacy pumped through his veins, the Mark on his arm burning hot through his sleeve, making the fabric sizzle. Suddenly the beast was beneath him, his Blade primed over its throat. He was stronger than every beast now, mightier than the thing that once could fracture his bones with hardly any effort.

It fought against its end, struggled in vain and clawed at his unrelenting weight and steelier resolve. Dean bared his teeth in a snarl, a growl building in his throat from deep within him.

Anger became him.

"LOOK AT ME, BITCH!"

The beast had no obedience to him, he had no claim to it, but the thing could not ignore the thundering command all the same. Authority too potent, it had no choice but to obey. A moth hovering at the edge of the flame, the creature's eyes slid to his—defiant, terrified, awestruck.

With a brutal, finishing move, Dean heaved down against the Blade and shoved it through the beast's flesh, its jugular, throat, spine. The head severed, the last of his victims dead and gone.

A deafening silence permeated the air, that carnal ring whispering against him once more in a tender caress.

Dean stared down into the frozen face contorted in agony.

The wind had stopped.

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed. You should try not to hear them.

Dean listened for them, reveling in the dying echoes.

Need to kill. Need more.

The prodigy of Cain now stood alone in a wasteland of death and destruction. Ground strewn with bodies that had been hacked and slashed apart. The earth was stained red with the blood of the slain. No demon, no monster, no raider had survived the massacre. Every last soul and claw had perished in one man's war against Hell.

His blood no longer boiling in his veins, Dean was… relieved. Satisfied. Vindicated. A feral grin began to curve his lips. He was ecstatic. He was—

When Cain killed Abel, he became a demon.

Dean opened his eyes, not even realizing they'd fallen closed, lips stretching to show teeth stained with blood as dark, obsidian black pupilless eyes met the world.

You can't escape me, Dean. You're gonna die. And this? This is what you're gonna become!

Demon.

from dust to dust we go
sick I am of fighting alone
the blood I taste, my own
so if there's nothing left to hold
let the angels take a soul

JOHN WINCHESTER'S SECONDARY JOURNAL
CLOSING NOTES

The more I find, the less and less I believe of free will.

Everything's pointing to an ending I can't bear to witness. I have to stop it.

I can't have the boys looking for this Blade. Dean most of all can't be allowed to ever know of it. At all costs, no matter the cost, he must never know.

Dean will become the vessel of Michael, or he will bear the Mark of Cain. That is what these findings tell me, what fate has told me, what my gut is warning me. Sam will either become a monster, or a martyr. No matter his path, Dean must and will kill him. No matter where I look, no matter what details I try to alter, my sons will destroy each other.

Just as it is written.

Well, I won't have it. I'll rip up the fucking ending. All of it.

I'll leave them with freedom and choice, and they'll never have to know. They'll never know a goddamn thing. As long as I'm around, I can stop this nightmare from happening.

Dean… son. If you ever read this, and I hope you never will or that these signs were wrong all along… you don't have to be a monster. You don't have to give everything and lose yourself in the process. Don't be like me.

Look after Sammy.

That's who you are, Dean. That's who you'll always be. No matter what's down the road, no matter what may try to tear that purpose out from inside you, fight it. You fight it tooth and nail, son.

Kick it in the ass.

a monster, a monster
I've turned into a monster
a monster, a monster
and it keeps getting stronger
everything I touch isn't dark enough
can I clear my conscience, do I have to run and hide?
I never said that I want this, this burden came to me
and it's making its home inside

TRANSLATIONS

Enochian:

"Eaohnvozi." / Vessel.

Author's Note: Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long! Oofta! Although, luckily for both you little darlings as well as much, the majority of the next several chapters is already written and just needs to be organized and polished.

Please review! For no other reason than my own selfish desire to be praised or condemned. ^_^