Chapter Text

For the first ten miles or so, Dean can almost convince himself that his brother is fine. Or, well, as fine as any of them are going to get, at any rate. And then - then Taylor Swift comes on the radio, and Sam doesn’t say anything when Dean doesn’t change the station. He just stares right ahead, the cuts and bruises on his face looking even worse now his skin’s a bit cleaner.

(That, of course, should have tipped Dean off: Sam had insisted they stop in the first gas station they’d seen, a run-down, depressing thing, had disappeared inside the bathroom for twenty-five minutes. When Dean had finally gone to get him, he’d found Sam standing bare-chested in front of the mirror, furiously scrubbing his skin clean with his wet shirt. There had been a time when Sam would have loved to talk about something like this - that’s all he used to live for - when Dean had gotten out of Hell (well: when Cas had pulled him out of Hell) and had started to sleep completely dressed, jacket and shirt and jeans and shoes, Sam had followed him around like a puppy, begging him to ‘talk about it’. Now, though, this is what he is. Someone who can’t wait two hours for a hot shower and strips down in a dirty, disgusting bathroom instead because the alternative is plain unbearable. So Dean hadn’t said anything. He’d just kept the door open, silently inviting Sam to get the fuck out of there, and then he’d fetched Sam a clean shirt from his own bag.)

So when Dean gets Crowley’s text (Run) the thought of sharing it with his brother doesn’t even cross his mind. Whatever Crowley wants now (and what happened to all that ‘team-up over’ garbage, then?), Dean will deal with it on his own.

Cas not Cas, Crowley texts next, and what the hell is he, drunk? Dean ignores the lurch of worry deep in his stomach and drives on.

“Wanna stop for dinner?” he asks Sam, when they’re about forty miles from the Bunker, and Sam is almost startled by his voice.

“Jesus, Dean,” he says, as though Dean has done something wrong; and then he shakes his head. “Let’s just - pick something up, okay?”

Dean glances sideways at him. This is his fault, he thinks. If they hadn’t split up - if Sam hadn’t been alone - if -

“Yeah, okay,” he says, forcing his eyes on the road again.

When they arrive at the Bunker, there are two large pizzas in the back seat. Sam, however, leaves the car without even glancing at them and disappears inside; and when Dean gets to the kitchen, he finds two bottles of vodka are missing (the very cheap kind; something Dean keeps around because he still can’t believe they have an actual, well-stocked infirmary now - a walk-in closet full of stuff they have access to, just like that). Which is not good, but, well. Being drunk never killed anyone. Probably.

Hell, he should know.

Setting the pizzas down on the counter, he takes his phone out and tries to call Crowley.

Who doesn’t answer.

And now Dean is seriously pissed (worried). He tries to call Cas instead, and it goes to voicemail. Dean doesn’t know what to say -

Hey man, where are you and We made it back okay, but Sam is acting weird and I miss you and Why didn’t you come back with me and Where are you and What are you doing and I need you here because I can’t do this on my own and Please come back to me and Cas -

- so he hangs up.

When the bell rings, about two hours after that, it sounds way too loud and a bit mournful. Cas never uses the bell - he has a key - and Dean has a feeling he knows exactly who this is, anyway.

Walking slowly, his mind in a sort of Why is this my life place, he drags himself upstairs, opens the front door.

Crowley is standing there, his face a palette of black and blue and red.

“May I come in?” he says, a bit impatiently, after he realizes all Dean can do is stare at his injuries. “I believe we have something to discuss.”

And so they talk - rather, Crowley explains and sneers and acts superior and turns his nose up at the cold pizza (but seems to know, and how the hell, that Sam is hiding some kind of fancy olives in the back of a kitchen cabinet, so he fetches those instead); and Dean, well. As soon as he hears what Crowley has to say, all Dean can do is drink. Because there is a lot going on, but Dean mostly hears the words Castiel and Lucifer and possession and dead and threat and danger and Castiel. He’s not sure how to piece them together, and the more he drinks, the less he feels like he has to, right now.

Which is nice and sensible, because, what the fuck? What can he even do?

(When will this ever end?)

And Sam doesn’t come out of his room. Despite his humungous size, he’s never been good with strong spirits - Dean knows he meant to knock himself out, and has no doubt that goal has been met. Dedication and hard work: that’s his brother, through and through.

(And he also knows Sam won’t talk about it tomorrow, because what good would that do?)

So he stays there and he listens to Crowley and he tries not to watch Crowley’s face, because the bruises and the cuts are healing already, a slow, sickening process which does funny things to his stomach, now heavy with dread and cheese and booze.

And when it all gets too much, Dean scowls and stands up.

“I’m going to bed,” he says, and Crowley looks almost hurt.

“Have you heard one word I said?” he asks, sounding like all the teachers Dean ever had.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it right now. And whatever the fuck you are,” Dean replies, gesturing vaguely at the bruises slowly disappearing from Crowley’s skin, “I’m human. I need to sleep.”

“Okay. Be like that. Don’t mind me. Don’t mind the end of the world,” Crowley says, all huffy, so Dean doesn’t.

He walks away instead; walks back to his room, every step beating a resounding blow on the inside of his skull (Cas - Cas - Cas). He knows he’ll get angry in the morning, knows how this works, but for now he’s just in shock. And terrified.

What if Lucifer -

No. He couldn’t. He can’t. Can he?

And why does Cas do these things? Why doesn’t Cas realize that Dean - that -

But, then again, Dean never told him, now, did he?

(Not clearly. Not when he isn’t delirious with panic and blood loss. And never the whole truth of it.)

This is not on me, Dean thinks, pushing his bedroom door open; but it’s way too early for rage, and, yes this is on him. Like everything bloody else.

The careful, diffident knock comes way too late for it to be polite, but Dean is still awake (of fucking course he fucking is, and what else is new) and curses to himself. Even though it’s ass o’clock in the morning and the room is almost completely dark, he can practically see Crowley on the other side of his door, all black clothes turned even darker by the bluish light in the corridor; and he’s not happy about it, not one bit.

“What?” he almost shouts.

“May I come in?” asks Crowley politely, as if this is some kind of Princeton social function; as if they’re not in the shitstorm they’re actually in - as if Dean hadn’t been trained to hunt demons his whole life and now -

(As if Dean had any chance, or even the will, to stop Crowley from doing whatever the hell he pleases.)

“For fuck’s sake,” says Dean, sinking back into his pillow, and Crowley comes in.

Dean hears him hesitate - he’s not bothered by the darkness, Dean knows as much (not that he’s ever asked, but everything Crowley is just screams I can totally see in the dark) - and look around. Not that there’s anything in this room that would surprise him. Two framed pictures of friends and family (nearly all of them now dead); a selection of weapons hung on the wall. A few DVDs, mostly Clint Eastwood things he picked up in gas stations.

“Charming,” Crowley says. “You really have an eye for home decoration.”

And then, before Dean can decide if he wants to answer that, the demon walks right to Dean’s bed and fucking sits down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dean asks, sitting up so fast he almost dislocates his whole spine.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were drunk enough to be okay with this.”

“This being what, exactly?”

Dean can barely make out Crowley’s shape. When Crowley turns to look at him, he can suddenly see, for a mere second, his eyes flashing - flashing red - and the sight is not comforting at all.

“A sleepover?” Crowley suggests, the innocent word turning into pure filth inside his mouth; and is that a demonic ability, or just a by-product of his British accent? Dean has never been sure, and has never been less keen to find out.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Crowley sighs.

“I want to stay in here tonight,” he says, slowly, enunciating the words very, very clearly. “Are you drunk enough to allow me to do so, or shall I fetch you the rest of that bottle?”

“There’s a third option there,” Dean says, his voice now dripping acid, “that you turn tail and you fucking sleep on the couch. Or, you know, in a hole in the ground. A coffin. A fucking blender. Anything.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Go away, Crowley.”

But Crowley doesn’t. He remains exactly where he is, on the very edge of the bed, his head slightly bowed.

“I swear to God,” starts Dean, but finds he doesn’t have the energy to finish that sentence.

He drops back against the pillow instead, and grits his teeth. The last thing he wants to do - the last thing he fucking needs, or deserves - is to stay awake the whole night and worry whether Crowley is going to kill him in his sleep; and yet, he did invite Crowley in (in the Bunker; in his bedroom). God, but he’s such a stupid bastard.

On the other hand, shouting at Crowley is a good alternative to thinking about Cas. Hell, smashing his own head against the wall is starting to look like a good alternative too, because now the anger is trying to set in, and Dean knows it’s unfair, but -

Jesus.

Dean is so fucking furious - they had it all under control, they’d figured out a way to push Lucifer back down - and that idiot - that useless, stubborn fucker -

“He killed my mum, you know,” says Crowley, out of the blue, and, mercifully, Dean’s thoughts get derailed.

“You mean he beat us to it. Too bad,” he says, bad-tempered, because, after all, it’s not like Crowley cared, one way or the other; he’d been on the brink of killing his own mother himself several times, had been enthusiastic about it.

But, well, Crowley doesn’t say anything to that. He turns to look at Dean instead, and, again, Dean sees his eyes briefly flashing red, before he turns away again.

“I thought you, of all people, would understand,” he says, quietly, and Dean is just about done.

Because this isn’t fair. Because it’s not the same thing, not by a fucking mile. So, first off, his own mom was killed by fucking demons; and she was kind and nice and perfect in every way and Dean can’t - sometimes he wishes he’d never met her at all - that Cas hadn’t brought him back in time, or anything, because it was way easier to go through life with the vague memories he’d had of her before (the smell of her apple pies; her voice; her dirty blond hair trapped in his fat little fist). He hadn’t needed all those other things. They had made his life so much shittier.

(But, yeah, that’s a lie. Shocker.)

And Rowena - Rowena was a calculating bitch. A cold, callous thing who’d abandoned her own son, and then tried to kill him (tried to kill them all) for good measure.

And Crowley has no right -

But Dean, unlike Sam, remembers that other Crowley. He can only just see him, through the glittering smoke that are his memories of his own demon days, but the thing is not forgotten (will never be forgotten; not the blood, and not the rest of it). Crowley is the guy who’d taught him to breathe again; to function without a beating heart, and to bear the sound of other people’s (of living people’s) beating hearts when Dean had found himself going hungry and rabid at the soft, ever-present dripping of it. He’d been the guy who’d never wanted to rule Hell in the first place (to be a demon, even). He’d enjoyed fussball and strong beers too bitter even for Dean’s new taste. He’d picked Dean off the floor when Dean had been too drunk to walk. He’d been his wingman, his partner, his friend. Dean thinks he remembers, very vaguely, Crowley look at him across a pool table; Crowley say, with a wide smile, ‘This is the happiest I’ve ever been’.

And this is why Dean sighs theatrically and then rolls to the other side of the bed (the cold side of the bed, Jesus), dragging all the pillows with him.

“You do not tell Sam,” he says, warningly, and next, Crowley is lying down on top of the sheets, still fully clothed, as if he’s forgotten how to pretend to be people.

“So, how do we feel about it?” Dean adds, when a full minute has passed and nothing has happened.

Crowley is so still it’s unnerving.

“I thought I’d be happy,” he says, slowly. “After all, I’d made my peace with it a long time ago. I was an orphan before I could even walk.”

“But?”

“It’s the what if which trips you,” Crowley admits. “If my mother had been - different, braver - if she hadn’t given up on me -”

“You’d have died of smallpox or some shit when you were seven,” says Dean, because he has a long history of saying the wrong thing and right now, yeah, he really can’t be bothered.

“She said love makes you weaker,” Crowley adds, disregarding Dean’s blunt statement. “What do you think?”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“This is the kind of thing you should ask Sam about,” he replies. “He’s the smart one.”

“Right,” says Crowley. “Good to see your lack of self-esteem doesn’t get in the way of comforting an old friend over his mother’s death.”

“You’re not an old friend.”

“Well, I’m lying in your bed - by your side,” Crowley points out, reasonably, and now Dean wants to kill him. “If I’m not a friend, then what am I?”

Right.

“This was a mistake.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

“Shut up. It was. I don’t even know why I let you in in the first place.”

Crowley takes a breath, and when he speaks again, there is a touch of his old malice in his mellow voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Would you rather be alone? I know you don’t do alone, Dean. And who else is actually here for you, then? Your brother?”

“Crowley, I swear to God -”

“Please. I could smell that cheap alcohol he drowned himself in from the top of the stairs. Or are we missing Cas, is that it?”

And now Dean is sitting up and turning around and readying himself for a full-scale brawl, and it doesn’t even matter if he can’t ever hope to win, because this fucker is not about to - to -

“How are things between you both, Squirrel? Made any progress? I remember you whining about -”

The first blow catches Crowley right on the nose, and Dean hears the satisfying noise of broken cartilage first, and then Crowley’s soft, annoyed curse. He reaches out, grabs Crowley’s expensive shirt as reality shifts around him - everything becomes a bit slower and a bit clearer, as it always happens when he fights, and there is also a kind of noise in his brain - rage and also a savage joy he knows he’ll be ashamed of in the morning (he always is).

But then -

“Again,” Crowley says, and he isn’t fighting back in any way; he isn’t even touching Dean, and Dean can’t -

His fist stops in mid-air.

“What?”

Because Dean is not sober enough to actually have planned anything, but he’d expected some resistance. He’d expected Crowley to pin him against a wall and beat the shit out of him (had sort of relished the whole concept, because he can’t deal with it right now - with any of it - and he’s promised Cas he won’t drink enough to pass out, not anymore, and this is the other option - something which had seemed perfectly sensible until Crowley had thrown it back in his face).

“Hit me,” says Crowley, his polished vowels a bit dented by the blood in his nose. “What are you, deaf?”

Dean lets him go, drags himself back to his side of the bed. His right hand moves towards the blade under the mattress, then stills.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, his heart beating way too fast, and now he feels sober again - more sober, actually, than he’s been in years - and he’s not sure he’s even talking about Crowley anymore.

Because he can suddenly see it, all of it - not only how pathetic they both are (a failed demon; a failed man), but everything else. He’s got two lifetimes under his belt, and nothing to show for it. His father is dead (gave his life for Dean’s), and Bobby is dead, and every friend he ever had is dead. His brother has collapsed into an ethylic coma and is now probably snoring softly in a room much like Dean’s - a bare, undecorated place with one wall full of weapons and a box of old toys and faded photographs at the very end of a drawer, because this is all Dean has managed to give him. And Cas -

God, Dean can’t even think about it, because this is the funny thing about psychopaths pretending to be idealists - Lucifer did it all, allegedly, for the glory of free will and independent thought, but as soon as someone disagrees with him, well, there it goes, free will can go fuck itself and thank you very much - and Cas - Jesus - whenever Dean thinks about Cas and Lucifer, it’s never about that little cemetery, no, all he sees is Cas as he’d been in that future which is now a memory. A badly-shaven, sarcastic man (not that Cas could ever be human, not completely, because even back in Chitaqua Dean had almost smelled it on him - this beauty and light and a heart so pure and constant it could never, ever belong to a human) who’d smiled and winked at him and then ran into a trap, straight towards his own death, because Dean had told him to.

And now Dean is breathing a bit too fast, and his fingers have twisted in the sheets so strongly it hurts, and he still doesn’t know how to let go.

And Crowley.

Dean looks down at this man - this thing (this almost friend) - in his bed, then away again.

There, but for the Grace of God, go I, says a voice inside his brain, and he sort of shudders, because it must be almost morning now, and the room is way too cold.

“Jesus,” he says, and Crowley sighs.

“You’re officially useless, you know.”

“Yeah,” says Dean.

It’s not like it’s news, or anything.

They remain where they are - Dean sitting with his head back against the headboard, looking up at the ceiling and wishing he could see the stars beyond it, and Crowley five inches from him, his arms now crossed behind his head, his eyes closed - until the silence stretches into something almost comfortable.

“I am sorry about the angel,” says Crowley, in the end, his voice back to normal. “But, well. He learned how to think for himself by watching you. What did you expect?”

“Yeah, that’s not helpful,” says Dean, and he wonders at it - because the anger is definitely gone, and even the pain is some kind of undefined ache for now - there is something stronger underneath it, keeping it at bay; a kind of undying, fiery warmth.

Because Cas is strong. Cas will make it out. It doesn’t even matter why Cas did what he did, and if he was right in doing it. Cas will always find his way back to Dean, whatever the cost.

“You know you’re an idiot, right?”

“Yeah, still not helpful.”

But, well, there’s no point in pretending this isn’t real. Because Dean knows Crowley cares about him, in some weird, twisted way (if he has to be honest with himself, he’s known for a long time, and, yeah), and now he’s here, and Dean knows him well enough to see the guy is scared and broken and in need of some kind of help.

A demon who hates Hell. A hunter who’s friends with monsters. A bad joke is what they are, both of them.

If Dad knew, he would have a fit.

Then again, who cares?

“I don’t remember ever sharing a bed with anyone,” Crowley says, out of the blue, after they’ve been silent for so long Dean can almost kid himself he’ll fall asleep any minute now, even if he’s still sitting up and he’s now so cold he doesn’t want to move, much less sleep.

“Dear God,” he replies, passing his hands over his face, then dragging the blanket over his legs, “is this your line? Are you about to get weird?”

“You know, this is normally the moment I’d say, Do you want me to?, but tonight I really can’t be bothered,” says Crowley after a full minute, the words completely emotionless.

“That’s a relief,” Dean mutters, but Crowley just ignores him, talks over him.

“Don’t you realize what Lucifer can do?” he asks. “He will flatten us. You. Me. Everyone. And at this point, I’m not even sure I care anymore.”

“Of course you do,” says Dean, because this is what you say.

“Well, maybe I don’t.”

That was so childish, Dean has to squash the sudden impulse to kick Crowley in the shin.

“That’s what we do, man. We fight the good fight, and we keep doing it until -”

“Aren’t you tired of your own bullshit?”

“It’s not -”

“No, I mean it. You have to say this crap to Sam because of all this warm and fuzzy whatever that’s between you two, and God knows you try to keep that angel alive because you know you won’t survive without him -”

“Crowley -”

“- but you’ve never lied to me, not really. So don’t start now, because I promise you -”

“I don’t know, okay? Is this what you want me to say?”

The room is so dark, and the demon beside him is so silent - not breathing, not fidgeting, just like Cas - that Dean has the sudden, unsettling feeling he’s talking to himself, even if Crowley’s last sentence is still ringing in his ears.

“And I'm not,” he starts, glancing down at the still shape on his right, and he’s about to add something about Cas, the usual knee-jerk reaction he has around Sam when Sam gets superior and obnoxious and starts hinting at things, but, well, he really can’t.

So Crowley knows. And Sam, apparently. And, well, every angel he’s ever met. So what?

“I’m human,” he tries again, changing track, “which means, that, I don’t know, there’s something there which won’t let me quit. I really wanted to, back when -”

But there’s a whole list there - Dad dying on him and Sam dying on him and Bobby and Ellen and Jo and Charlie and Cas walking into that lake and also the Mark preying on his every thought and turning his brain and heart a bitter, angry red - and what’s the point?

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he says instead. “She was wrong, you know.”

This is all he can say, because saying the actual words out loud - Love doesn’t make you weak, and you deserved to be loved, anyway - well, that would turn this into a fucking romance novel, and no thank you.

But Crowley understands. Of course he does. He’s ten times smarter than any of them.

“You should sleep,” it’s all he says, after another moment. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

I’m happy we can be friends, is what that means; and also, I hope Lucifer won’t come here tonight and kill us all, because, yeah, their lives are that fucked-up. But, hey, Dean will take it.

“Yeah, do that,” he says; and then he slides down so he can be a proper human and lay his head on a goddamn pillow and pulls the sheet and blanket right up to the tip of his nose.

This is a bit more comfortable; he’s a little warmer now, and yeah, he could actually sleep.