To die would be awfully big adventure. ~Peter Pan

The inside is plunged in darkness, moonlight only filtering through cracks and holes of the old wood. There's a moment of tense stillness... the length of a heartbeat. Maybe two. Then the planks of the ancient barn begin to rattle.

From one strained breath to the next, a lot of things happen at once. Wood splinters from several directions, starting an explosion of noise and light. That weird internal flashing of demons dying starts a strobe show in the dark. It's hard to follow much with the pressure of hanging partially upside-down, most of its just chaotic violence but Dean can hear the shuffling of wings, impossibly loud. Cries. Curses. Bodies colliding in the dark.

Just as his eyes are adjusting in the dimness, he's dropped the 5 feet to hit the cement on his side. Hard. After puffing out a breath, he shifts up onto his elbow.

"Hiya, Barbie." Gabriel smirks down at him looking more like an angel than he's ever seen him. With blood already coating his arms and one of those flashy blades in his hand… he doesn't look like a playful trickster. He looks like a warrior. He snaps and Dean's free of his bindings.

Twisting his wrists to test his ability to move them, he sighs, "Shit, am I glad to see you."

"Aw, I knew you had a thing for me. FYI, bodypaint is not your look," he swirls his pointer finger to indicate the symbol they drew on Dean's chest.

Gabriel glances over at Cas. He snaps and frowns when nothing happens. Tilting his head, Gabriel squinting at the bonds. "I can't touch those bracelets of his. Not with Enochian. Hangin' in there, Bro?" he asks, while heading to the table of bloody instruments.

"Obviously. Why does everyone keep asking that?" Cas says in annoyance.

Dean pushes to his feet and strides over to Cas. Without a thought to the bad timing or surroundings, he grabs his face and kisses him in needy relief. Even while Cas makes a small pained whimper from the pressure against his wounds, he pushes back into Dean as much as he's able in his restraints.

Gabriel whines, "Oh come on! I don't need to see that."

Smiling sheepishly against his lips, Dean kisses Cas once more quick before pulling back.

"Heads up, Dean-o." He tosses him his knife from the table. Dean catches the hilt, just as Gabriel gets jumped by two demons. He's torn on whether to go help, but Gabriel seems to be having no trouble dividing his attention between the two.

Just at that moment, Dean really takes a second to see all the damage and destruction at the other end of the barn. It's mostly a mayhem of shadows until a second later one of the angels lifts the tracker in the far corner and sends it flying across the space, taking out a cluster of demons and a portion of the wall. Moonlight floods in and he can fully see the amazing, awful sight. It's like something from one of those old painting hanging in Rome. Angels versus Demons.

"Whoa…"

Angels fly and barrel into several demons at a time. Black luminescent blades clang with silvery bright ones. Spinning whirling bodies of men and women… angel and demon. Grunting. Crying out. Dying. A large male grabs a petite black-eyed female by the neck and stabs her through the gut. Her eyes flash once, then he tosses her aside and moves on to the next fight. The good guys seems to be outnumbered three to one at least but the angel's are standing their ground. One, a lithe female with long dark hair, is whirling gracefully and holding off four demons at a time, managing to deliver a quick killing blow and keep moving. A dark-skinned male flies straight up with two demons hanging around his torso then rolls mid-air and dives hard at the ground.

"Dean!"

He quickly turns back to Cas. "Right, sorry."

After slicing off the first manacle and catching Cas against him, he reaches up and begins to cut the other when he's yanked back by a fist in his hair. His knife clatters to the ground.

"No!" Cas screams at him from his knees, reaching out with his one hand but he's still held to the wall by the other.

Another arm comes up in front of Dean's throat, cutting off his air. He reaches back and tries to grab onto his attacker, but gets a slice to his cheek. The black point of a demon blade near his face is all he sees. Alastair is mutters foreign words quickly and passionately behind him. He realizes the symbol is below them when it starts to glow faintly. Shit, he was still trying to do it. Right here and now with the angels and demons fighting and it wouldn't matter in a minute. Dean twists and fights and kicks to push them backwards with every ounce of his strength he's got but it's not enough. A demon would always be stronger.

Everything slows down, the moment seeming to last forever. Cas yelling and scratching at the ground to try and get to him. The arm of the demon from his nightmares tightens higher, forcing his chin up.

A final harsh word…

Then there's a quick jerk of motion.

A burning across his neck…

And he's finally let go.

Dean falls forward onto his shoulder. Someone's blood washes the floor below him, soaking his jeans. Light flares up from the floor but his mind doesn't process what it means. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing around him touches him anymore. Cold sweeps through him like a wave that will carry him away. A second, two seconds, and then his vision fades to grey and he only focuses on the sound of Cas' voice, calling for him. He thinks. Or maybe someone else. Doesn't matter. Over and over. So loud. Cas. And he knows it'll be the last sound he hears… his angel...

But he's wrong.

Warmth begins to fills his throat. It races down his neck, through his stomach to uncurl and course the length of his body. It eats at the cold and then chases it away like he's thawing from the inside.

A voice penetrates the grey fog. "Sorry, my baby brother's rather fond of this one."

A few seconds more and he's coughing hard, staring at the different kind of grey. Cement. He has to blink at the bright light emanating from the symbol underneath him until it starts to get duller and duller… until eventually it vanishes completely.

The hand, he only just realizes was there, releases his throat. Head spinning, he takes a few shaky breaths, and looks around in confusion. He should be… he's pretty sure he was dead. Or about to be. Alastair's nowhere to be found. Cas is slumped heavily on his knees in relief and weakness. Tears streak through the dirt and blood on his face. Dean finally cranes his head upward to see that Billy Idol V-necked bastard smiling down at him. Dean feels his neck cautiously but there's only wet cooling blood. No wound.

"You… uh, you?" He can't seem to get anything more intelligible out.

Balthazar pats his shoulder once, then hauls him to his unsteady feet and shoves him towards Cas. "Yes, yes. Saved your life, averted the apocalypse, stopped the ascension"

"You couldn't have made it before he slit my throat?" Dean grunts, barely resisting hugging the guy. Maybe later when there wasn't a battle out of Paradise Lost, he'd dish out a lot of hugs.

Picking up his knife, Dean quickly frees Cas before anything else can happen in the melee and holds him tight to his side. Cas latches onto him and closes his eyes, resting his forehead to Dean's temple. He allows himself a few seconds to enjoy this, the comfort of Cas' heat and familiar sweet scent pushing away some of the fear over what just happened. Okay, maybe they had time for this one hug.

"I was hoping we'd be back here far earlier, but convincing the cavalry of urgency was just hours of fun. Uriel was predictably no help. Once I knew where they took Cassie here..." Balthazar trails off, looking him up and down and gently grabs his shoulder. "You've looked better."

Cas finally pushes back from Dean and stands more solidly on his own. "It was necessary. And I will heal." Balthazar smiles with strain and nods.

His wrists are burnt and bloody from whatever that oil shit was. Dean checks his many wounds. They still look awful but at least the blood and blue light is only trickling now. And Cas said he'd heal. He had to believe that. Wincing in sympathy while Cas inspects a gaping hole, Dean asks Balthazar, "Thought you were dead?"

"So did they. Morons." Balthazar's smile turns grim as his eyes find the body of a dead angel lying on the ground with a burnt wing pattern of ash around his body. "Wings or it didn't happen," he sighs.

Glancing at Cas one last time, his brother turns and attacks the nearest demon with determined aggression.

Dean takes in their surroundings. Cas was already leaning into him a little more. He had to get him out of here. It was obvious he needed somewhere safe to heal. Hell, he shouldn't even be here.. when angels and demons were duking it out, how the hell was he gonna measure up?

Mentally planning their escape route through the fighting, Dean asks, "Gonna make it?"

"Yes," Cas winces. "You weren't supposed to be here."

"Huh?"

"They came for me. We planned for Balthazar to get assistance once he observed where they were taking me.. you weren't supposed to be here."

Dean frowns back at him. "So what, you were just gonna give yourself to them so you could- damnit Cas! What if they'd killed you before he could rally the troops?"

"This was more important than me… than any one angel."

Dean glares at him in disbelief. He wasn't just any angel. Not to him. He was… more. Sometimes it felt like he was the only thing there was.

"But not more important than me, huh? You can go off and throw yourself to the wolves while I stayed at home twiddling my thumbs?"

"Dean.." he says, sighing in pain and Dean looks around for threats."If I could have avoided this… I wish I could have told you."

"Yeah yeah. Look, we'll have time for me to bitch you out up and down about this later. You hear me, Cas?"

Right now, he has to concentrate on getting out of here. But he'd be damned if they went through all this and just said goodbye. They would have a later. Him and Cas.

"Yes," he sounds too tired.

Dean tries his best to shuffle Cas around the outskirts of the fighting, heading towards the huge open hole in the barn wall.

"You see where our two favorite demons went?"

"No.. Balthazar threw Alastair off you to save you in time. Azazel, I have not seen since the beginning."

They're almost there. They're gonna make it. Maybe ten feet away and a body smashes into him out of nowhere, sending him falling backwards on his back. The demon that jumped him struggles to claw at his face, but stops in surprise when light sparks behind his skin. Dean jerks his knife out of its gut and pushes the body off. Looking around, he sees Cas kicking a demon off for only a moment before Dean has to pay attention to fighting off the next attacker. That one takes several minutes to get his knife arm free and deliver the blow. Getting to his feet, his heart sinks. Twisting, he realizes he's lost sight of Cas. Shit shit.. he pushes someone out of his way and scans the room again. Finally- fuck! No!. Across the barn, Alastair has him, holding him up by the shirt while he's talking, smiling, blade about to descend to his chest. Cas' face is shocked and he's not even trying to fight back. What's wrong with him? Damnit, he won't make it in time.

In desperation, he holds up his knife, waits a brief second to make sure he has a clear path, then throws it hard, just like his dad showed him.

It thuds perfectly right in his spine.

By the time he crosses the distance, the demon is on his knees, staring up at him. Shock is in those bugged out eyes, long face seeming longer with his mouth open.

"Told ya."

He watches the light go out with perverse satisfaction. And just like that… Alastair was gone, and this time he wasn't coming back. No matter how many times he imagined how this moment would feel… it didn't really change anything. Relief that he'd been in time was trumping any vindictive joy he might have gotten out of it. Dean turns back to Cas.

He's not looking at him. Or the battle. Not even looking at Alastair's body. He's staring down at his hands, but not really like he's seeing them. Like he's dazed or something.

"Hey.." Dean checks him over for some big wound to make sure he hadn't actually been too late, but it's just the same ones he cataloged earlier. They actually look a little better, no longer dripping. "Hey, Cas, you alright?"

Cas doesn't look up, but says softly. "No."

Then within a blink, he's gone.

"Goddamnit!" Dean pushes his way back towards the wall. Where the hell had he gone now? He's hurt, he's out of it or something and.. yeah he's an angel but they could die.. There were several burnt wing patterns around bodies to show that. He needs to find him. Gabriel's in the distance with his hand on a demon's forehead. Whoa, hadn't seen that trick before. Focus. He's gotta get his knife. It's still stuck in Alastair. He turns from chasing after Cas blindly and heads back to the body.

Alastair's still there but turned on his side. His knife is missing.

Shit.

Dean reaches down to pick up one of the silvery angel blades nearby so at least he has something. He hears his boots scuff almost too late.

Turning quickly, he throws a hand up and barely catches his dad's wrist in time. Azazel grits his teeth as they struggle holding onto Dean's weapon hand as well. The demon gains ground and pushes the knife ever closer to his chest. "You don't get to walk away twice, my boy…"

Dean grunts with the effort to keep his hand from completing that downward thrust. Yellow eyes flash in his father's face and he grins wider.

"You couldn't just die, could you, Sport?" he spits out the words with an ugly sneer. "For that... I want you to know, no matter how long it takes, I am going to find your little Sammy. It'll be slow, Dean. I'll rip the skin right off his body, make him eat it, then the muscle, then.-"

"No!" Dean growls and surges forward, not even feeling the knife stick him. His shoves his blade into his father's shoulder and he cries out in pain and anger.

Azazel's falls to a knee. He steps forward to jam it home but hesitates when he hears his father's voice. "Dean, please!"

In the time it takes him to think about it, Azazel flashes him a smug smile and yellow eyes and with a roar of black smoke.. he's gone.

Coughing and taking a breath, John gasps deep.

"Dad?!"

"Why didn't you kill him! You had an opening!" he shouts then falls forward, hand bracing himself up on the cement.

Typical.

Dean gets down on his knee to help him sit.

"Yeah and it woulda killed you too!"

When Dean pulls his hand away, it's covered in blood.

"He already did."

"Dad?!" He mind is slow to catch up and figure out what's happening. Blood soaks his dad's shirt fast. It begins to pool beneath them. All that shit with Azazel trying to get Dean to pick someone. Cas or his dad… he'd already made sure John Winchester wouldn't be surviving this game.

"You can't…" John groans and closes his eyes. "You can't pull back next time."

"Hey! Fucking angels! Anybody! Get your asses over here!" Dean yells frantically. None of them even glance their way, attention on their own fight.

"Dean," he calls his attention back. "What it said…" he looks back down at his dad. Gasping faintly. "You're a good son…"

Dean briefly thinks of all the hateful things Azazel said. Agitated, his dad clings to him with white-knuckles, struggling to get a lot of stuff out. "I was.. was… you had to be strong. I- I had to.. "

Swallowing the hurt and isolation from his father through these past years, Dean looks him in the eyes and says, "We're good, Dad. I understand."

Nodding weakly, he smiles and calms…starts closing his eyes. Dean holds his father with his knife out but there's no further attack. The battle is dwindling down to the last few straggling demons who haven't fled. When Gabriel gets to him, he takes a moment to stare down at his father before shaking his head. Dean nods and stays there a few minutes more, holding his dad like they never held each other when he was alive.

Castiel searches through the battle outside. He hasn't seen him yet, but he has to be here. Somewhere. Castiel stabs a demon that comes at him and immediately goes back to searching the tree line where a few angels are attacking demons that had tried to retreat. There. Flying in a blur, he's within a few feet from him suddenly.

"Uriel!" he spits out with such emotion it hurts.

Pushing a demon off his blade, Uriel turns and stares at him. Stock still, they face each other.

"Deny it," Castiel says with pain in his voice, eyebrows wedging together. Alastair's venomous mocking words repeat in his head.

Uriel lifts his chin and takes a second to look around. Everyone is involved in their own conflict., but the demons are only fighting two for every angel now. Soon it will be over.

"Betrayer!" He accuses with disgust.

"To whom, Castiel?" Scoffing, Uriel cleans his blade on his shirt and steps over the dead demon. "Do not speak of things you know nothing about."

"You were helping them free Lucifer!"

"I was helping them free our brother." He steps closer with a hand up, as if beseeching him to understand.

Castiel shakes his head in disbelief.

"It would have been better, Castiel. He would have lead us, truly lead us. None of the bickering and squabbling. No longer watching over our father's aborted creations. We would have been so much more…"

"And the humans? We are supposed to be protecting them. How many innocents were killed for this? How many would have been killed?"

Uriel's lips press into a grim line. "There are no innocents, Brother."

"I am no brother to you." He takes a breath that feels like a sob as he fists his hands and makes himself ask the rest. "Dean's mother was innocent. You.. you told them where they were, didn't you?"

Uriel sighs with rolls his eyes. "Dean Winchester… Of all the humans festering on this planet, why did you have to choose that one?"

Alastair's words circle his mind, making the bile and blackness rise inside him. Uriel found John Winchester, the hunter they wanted with the son they needed. Uriel told them where to find Dean. Uriel found Dean… because he had followed him. It was Castiel's fault. Everything.

"I'll tell them." He squares his shoulders and makes himself stand straighter."Michael, Raphael, Bartholomew, all of them!"

Uriel chuckles low, shrugging his massive frame. "And who are you to them? A rebellious little runt who defiles himself with a human..." Shaking his head slowly, he flips his sword in his hand. "I'll try to make your end quick."

Dean drags his father out of the burning barn. The Angels set it ablaze after the fighting finally stopped. Death and blood clung to the air, making him cough into his shoulder. When he's twenty feet away, he finally slumps onto the ground, setting the body of his dad beside him. He stares at the blood, his slack face, his leather jacket he let Dean wear once when he was 11. They had been out bowling with his mom. She was only 3 months pregnant with Sam… Sam. Jesus, he's gotta tell Sam. He's gotta go to Ellen's. He's gotta-

A sharp cry has him to his feet and stumbling towards a crowd of angels. They started gathering in a loose circle around something. Someone. Fighting. There's still a demon left?He can see past them that's it's that asshole Uriel, yelling downward at someone.

"You are damaged." His arm descends to punch someone. "You are weak." He kicks them on the ground. "And you are inferior." Panting from exertion, he looks up and calls to the on-lookers in a louder voice.

"Our brother has been driven mad. Demons have tortured him. Corrupted him. Broke him. Now he turns on us."

Dean pushes close enough to see who he's talking about. Cas. Groaning with his eyes closed and on his back. Uriel sighs and grips his blade tighter. What the hells going on? Panicked, he realizes there's no Gabriel… no Balthazar. It's only a bunch of unfamiliar stony faces watching.

"Demons have already killed our brother; it's time to end his suffering." He looks down, "I really am sorry… "

"Hey!" Dean yells, without a plan in his head. "Leave him the fuck alone!"

Uriel turns back to see him and his whole face blankets with hate. "You." He growls the word. Stepping over Cas' limp body, he stomps forward. Shit. Angels step away from Dean and he clutches his knife. It won't be enough. "I am finally going to-"

With a harsh cough, Uriel's mouth falls open in shock. He looks down at the tip of one of those silvery blades poking out of his chest.

"No. You're not." Castiel whispers into his ear and pushes him away.

As Uriel falls, the angels all collectively gasp and take several steps back, a few taking to air. An outline of burnt ash spreads to show wings. Several more show up to stand around while the ones in flight take off towards the angels back at the barn.

He locks eyes with Cas, not having a clue what was going on or what might happen next. The angels around them make no noise as they all stand too still, watching but not making a move toward either Uriel's body or Cas. For a moment, Cas' eyes flick past him and he realizes he sees his dad. Brow pinched, he barely gets out the whine, "Dean…" before he collapses. He tries to rush forward, but two of those silent bystanders grab his arms and keep him there.

"Get off me!"

Balthazar is suddenly brushing past him and bending to Cas. Then Gabriel appears at his other side. They each put an arm under his. He looks up dazed and seemingly surprised to see them. He begins muttering frantically to Gabriel, words tumbling out of his mouth with his eyes shut.

Still tugging futilely to get his arm free, he notices Michael walking towards their little group. He's giving orders to an angel he calls Hester. "Consecrate the ground and ensure all the hosts are incinerated completely."

Coming to a halt only a foot away from him, he takes his sweet-ass time evaluating Dean before nodding to the angels holding him. They release him instantly but stay in his path. Without even glancing toward his father's body, Michael crisply says, "I am sorry for your dead."

"Shove your sorry up your ass. Is Cas alright?" He tries again to go to him but is stopped by a firm hand on his chest. "Fucking move it or lose it, buddy." It's almost painful to stand there calmly and wait for another goddamn nod from Michael to make this blank-faced bastard step away.

"Castiel is no longer your concern. You will not see him again, Dean Winchester. In fact, I doubt you will ever see another angel in your lifetime," Michael says looking at both Gabriel and Balthazar then nods at them.

"No, wait!"

Gabriel gives him a regretful, shrug before picking up a now unconscious Cas, slinging him over his shoulder and kicking into the air. Balthazar easily picks up Uriel's lifeless body and follows, only looking back at him for a quick second.

"You can't just-"

Michael's gone by the time he turns back.

Within a few moments, each angel takes to the sky and from one breath to the next, he's left alone next to a burning barn. No angels. No demons. No Cas. And a dead father.