Dean looked at his counterpart. He was a man, just a man, fighting among demons and angels and gods… still, because he never gave up on those he loved. It was how he and Sam had ended up in this kind-of-succeeded world of his, looking for his mother who had been resurrected from oblivion by the very thing that this Dean's Cas had been so very afraid of – that the angel had been warned of by Death himself.

Dean wondered who'd made the better choice – he or his counterpart? His choice – or actually, Castiel's choice – had saved the planet, the only things haunting the Earth now being such ultimately small threats as vampires and werewolves. But the other Dean's world still existed as well, even though it had Lucifer haunting it and an other world's Michael trying to break through; against everyone's expectations, the Darkness had no destroyed it.

And the other Dean had saved Castiel.

Dean hit back another gulp of his still cold beer. He could not start feeling this hope – this doubt – now. The thought there might've been a chance to save his friend – it was selfish, and he could not allow himself to be. Not when Castiel had so selflessly sacrificed himself for the sake of Dean and for humanity.

Besides, it had been the other world's Cas that had let Lucifer out. His friend might have gotten better than he had been in a long time, but he still was not back to his old, powerful, confident self.

Dean held back a bitter chuckle. The least few years he'd often thought back on that alternate future Zachariah had shown him all the way back when the Apocalypse was still a thing. He remembered seeing a world gray and desolate, the human race nearly eradicated, Croats crawling all over the place and the Devil wearing his little brother, but the thing that still most gave him the creeps about that place was Cas' cynical giggle.

Wasn't it a bit ironic that he and Sam and Cas had managed to prevent everything else, but that it was Cas that possibly was more lost now than in any other alternate universe?

"So, what happened here? As far as we've seen, things have turned out alright."

Dean nodded. "They have." he agreed. Yes, aside from what happened to Cas, their world had turned out alright, and as that was all that Cas ever had cared about one could argue that Cas would think all was fine as well.

Selfless bastard.

"So you're still hunting?" the other Dean asked.

"Sammy as well. Guess he didn't want to leave me alone, even though he now finally has his chance at a normal life." Dean looked over at the other Sam with a small, grateful smile. Sam snorted in response.

"Or you two have finally figured out that there is no true escape to hunting – might as well kill some monsters and save some people while you're at it."

"Yeah." Dean said, "It's not like we've ever known anything else – at least I haven't, not really. Though, I think that if Lisa and Ben still remembered me things might've been different, but well… nothing to do about that now." He exchanged a short glance with his counterpart. From the shortened version of their apocalypse and everything that came after, things had only really begun changing after he had gotten into Purgatory – he gathered from the burdened look of the other Dean that he had let Cas remove Ben and Lisa's memories of him as well.

"And Cas?" Sam asked.

Dean sighed, and began the tale of a hero.

…

It stormed that night, the wind blowing the branches of the great oak tree against the windows and rain whipping on the glass.

Typical. It wouldn't do for the King of Hell to appear on a sunny afternoon, now would it?

Exactly as the clock on her night stand turned to 0:00 AM and lighting lit up the darkened motel room, the door slammed open and a man with a black suit and opaque red eyes stood on the threshold. He blinked, his eyes returning to normal, but not without an ominous reptilian sound accompanying the movement, and smiled.

"Hello, Amanda."

His voice was low and gruff, but his British accent was neat and oily. He looked like some sort of second-tier business man, but Mandy knew that was just a meat-suit. The demon beneath was namely the epitome of evil and vileness; for some reason, Amanda suspected Crowley would look like some sort of gigantic spider.

Maybe it was because he'd so expertly spun a web to catch well-meaning witches like her.

"Crowley." she nodded in greeting, then added, perhaps a bit cockily, "What are you doing here?"

There had always been something off with Crowley's smiles, but now it turned downright sinister. "Now, now, Mandy, I do hope you have not forgotten our deal, have you? I gave you and your lovely friends unlimited power, to do with as you please, and in return…"

"You would come in ten years time and drag my soul to Hell." Amanda finished softly.

"Exactly. Now I've come here to collect your debt." As he growled those last few words Crowley stepped inside, onto the doormat, and at once stood stock still.

To Amanda's trepidation, Crowley did not seem to be shocked or angry about the Devil's trap. She'd hoped that, together with some nasty spells and hex bags she'd prepared, she could discourage the demon from further following her trail so that even though she could not kill him he would leave her alone. But instead he merely sighed in annoyance and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"I see you have made preparations for my arrival?" he asked sarcastically.

"You lent me all the power you could offer, and now you are gonna regret you ever did." she exclaimed viciously, praying to whatever god would still hear her that she could inspire some fear in the demon, but he showed nothing of the sort.

"I see." he said impassively. "I must say, I mourn for your character that you would turn your back on a deal like that. It's a disgrace." That was rich coming from the King of Hell, but the witch guessed deals were just something demons held sacred – else they wouldn't bother with them in the first place.

"But fortunately, I thought you might be stupid enough to mess with the King of Hell, so I made some preparations as well and brought a friend with me." the demon shrugged mockingly, "Just in case."

"Your hell hounds won't come in here – I warded the entire lot." Amanda tried to bluster.

The demon chuckled darkly, a deep sound coming from the back of his throat. "Oh, darling. It's not a hell hound."

Another flash of lighting lit the sky behind King of Hell, and Amanda thought she saw something behind him – something in the sky, feathered wings casting colossal shadows on the clouds.

"It's something so much better."

Searing light burned out her eyes, yet images echoed in her mind of a mouth with tusks and fangs and a thousand long, sharply barbed tongues, and white-blue eyes made of ice, pupils cuttingly narrow slits. Ribbons of fire cut up and pulled out her intestines, before what felt like two giant hands of stone took her rib-cage in a crushing grip and pulled it apart.

Through it all, Amanda screamed.

…

All that was left for Sam and Dean to go on was a corpse covered in third-degree burn marks, guts shredded and spilling out, a rib-cage vertically torn in halves and a tale of a storm and then screaming at midnight o'clock, exactly. Sam first proposed it might've been an angel, as the woman's eyes were burnt out, but as there was a Devil's trap under the doormat (among other, cleverly hidden sigils) and faint traces of sulfur on the threshold – most of it would've been washed away by the storm – it seemed to be that the woman, Amanda Pierce, was trying to get out from upholding her end in a demon deal and that the resulting fight had ended… nastily.

It was through the local police station that they managed to get a home address of an Elisabeth Elmayer, a good friend of Amanda's whose number had been first on the victim's emergency contact list. She lived in a town a few hours away, so they set an interview with her in the late afternoon.

"So did Amanda have any enemies that you know of?"

Elisabeth, or Lis, as she preferred to be called, raised her eyebrows as if they'd just suggested Amanda might've been abducted by aliens. "Well, she had an ex she didn't see eye-to-eye with and in the past two weeks she had been in an argument with her neighbors about the height of their fence, but somehow I doubt any of that has anything to do with any of this."

Sam and Dean glanced at each other. Point taken.

"Did she mention any thing odd that had happened the past month or so? Or did she start behaving weirdly?"

Lis shook her head.

"Did she have any unusual hobby's? Like, waterpolo, big game hunting, or… the occult, for example?"

She frowned, seemingly in thought, her fingers playing around the rim of her tea cup. "She did, in fact, have an interest in the occult – she was a wicca practitioner. She even took me and a couple of friends to a course once when we were all in college. But I don't see how this has anything to do with what happened to her; she was a stable, strong, independent woman – she wouldn't get involved in some kind of… shady cult, or whatever you are thinking." She actually seemed a bit offended at the suggestion on behalf of her deceased friend.

"It's just that we found some occult-y symbols in and around the room she died in, we wondered if she might've put them up or someone else did." Sam lied smoothly.

"You thought this might've been some sort of freaky, pagan ritual kill, that was what you were thinking." Lis said softly, nodding as if she understood. "If it is even possible for a human to kill someone that way, that is. I don't even want to start to imagine what could've been done to her to kill her that way."

She stared off, out of the window, trying to keep the emotion from her face. Sam and Dean respectfully gave her a moment to herself – even to veteran hunters like themselves a corpse like Amanda's was hard to stomach, they couldn't imagine what it must be like to a close friend unknowledgeable in the supernatural. When she seemed to have regained her calm, Dean leaned forwards on his knees and cleared his throat to get her attention.

"You said you joined her once for a… wicca course, was it?" Lis nodded, "Can I ask you, Mrs. Elmayer, can I ask you if you, or Amanda, believed in demons?"

She seemed genuinely surprised by the question, but that surprised quickly turned into a sour look. "As I said, agent, the wicca thing was just a hobby. And I don't like what you are insinuating here about one of my closest friend who has just died a horrible death, in fact, I find it a bit distasteful for you to suggest a demon had anything to do with this."

Sam just smiled his awkward smile that usually seemed to endear most late-thirty, middle-class woman, and Dean just tried to make his apology convincing enough.

A few minutes later Sam and Dean slammed their respective doors of the Impala closed behind them.

"So what do you think?" Sam started.

"I think a witch sold her soul for some power, tried to get out from the deal ten years later and the demon blew her up." Dean answered summarily as he turned around the car.

"Yeah, that's what it sounds like." Sam sighed. "Seems this case is closed, then. Though we might just as well hang out 'round here for a bit longer, see if anything else pops up."

Dean didn't protest, so Sam knew he agreed. After a few seconds of silence, Sam finally gathered the courage to speak out what had been ghosting through his mind since they found the Devil's trap.

"There was obviously a demon involved, but her wounds still looked very angel-y to me."

Dean kept his eyes on the road, but the frustration sounded clearly in his voice. "Her wounds looked like nothing we have ever seen before, Sammy. It could have been an angel, but it could just as well have been a powered-up ghost – or a demigod – or another witch, for that matter. What we know is that she'd been visited by a demon that night and that she'd been prepared for it, so logic tells us it was the demon that killed her."

"Yes, she'd been prepared to face a demon, but what if it was the fact that there was something there that was not a demon that caught her off guard?"

Dean kept silent, and stared rigidly at the road ahead. Sam knew he would not do anything to ease the tension, but it needed to be said. "Cas is still in Hell, Dean. He's been for over a year – and who knows how many Hell-years – and as far as either of us know he was far from alright to begin with."

Dean's hands clenched the steering wheel. "Cas had nothing to do with this, Sam."

"Dean, we have no idea what being in Hell will do to him –"

"Cas didn't do this." Dean cut off his brother roughly, "End of story. And if you dare to suggest anything else, I swear I'll throw you out of this car right here and not bother to come pick up your sorry ass when you finally get tired of walking."

Sam did not try to argue any further, but only because Dean's stubborn denial proved that his brother already had his doubts.

…

"Wait, Cas was in Hell?" Sam ignored the alternate Dean's snort at his question, "How did he –" Had he gotten out in this alternate reality? No, that is probably still a part of the story this Dean was telling them, the imperative question here was: "How did he get in there?"

"One big difference between your and my world: Cas never got into Purgatory." The other Dean told them, "Instead, as my version of you told me, after I was gone Cas flew off with no explanation whatsoever, and even though you prayed to him once in a while you did not do a whole lot of effort to find either one of us – and found a girl and a dog instead."

So this world's Sam had ran away too. Well, at least there was no reason that this world's Kevin hadn't escaped at the first chance he got – the kid and his mother were freaking criminal master minds, he dearly hoped they'd both survived in this reality – but apparently Cas had been in Hell, and Sam had had no idea.

The other Dean seemed to be able to read his guilt about as well as his own Dean did. "Hey, no hard feelings. That's years ago, and me an' Cas have done plenty of crappy stuff to make up for it. But yeah, Cas was in Hell. After I got back out from Purgatory and we picked up Kevin and his mother, we tried to get our hands on the demon tablet so we could close the Gates of Hell. We found it at an auction, but Crowley was there too, so it ended with a scuffle in which Kevin and his Mum escaped and Crowley got his dirty little fingers on the demon tablet – but with no prophet to read it. It was then that Crowley told us that he had Cas imprisoned and being tortured in Hell for the entire year – his payback for Cas breaking their deal on the Purgatory souls. He said that, after we'd defeated Dick Roman, Cas came looking for Meg and walked his crazy ass into an ambush. We didn't know if to believe him, of course, but needless to say that the plan to close up Hell was from the table."

"Damn." Sam's Dean cursed, "Hasn't the guy had enough already?"

Sam couldn't agree more, but he was afraid that in this story there was still a whole lot more to come.

…

The following odd three weeks had them moving on to other cases – not to forget this one, this was not one case either of them would easily forget – but in that time they rounded up a werewolf pack, put a spirit to rest and made no progress at all in finding Kevin and Linda Tran – which probably was a good thing, since it would mean Crowley wouldn't be able to find them either.

At the moment they were working a case in California, one that involved a woman burned mysteriously to her death – and far beyond, as Dean had coined it: she wasn't barbecued, she was the charcoal. Sam did not think it was funny (and neither did Dean, not really).

The husband, who'd discovered her, had known nothing of nothing, so now they were standing at the door of a good friend of hers who requested to speak to them. Dean rang the bell a second time.

"Miss Abrige, it's agent Jackson and agent Brown from the FBI. We met at Mr. Norton's the other day, you wanted to speak with us."

Nothing. Dean met Sam's eyes. Sofia Norton's door had been locked from the inside, that was why Terrance had initially been reluctant to force it open when he couldn't find her elsewhere. Not that he could have done anything to prevent it, according to the coroner's report she had died when he'd been at work.

Sam took out his phone and rang her number. After a second, they heard a faint echo sounding from within the home.

"Damn it!" Dean began banging loudly on the door. "Janice Abrige, if we do not hear anything from you the next five seconds we're going to break in here."

Dean did not bother to wait five seconds. After three, he whipped out his gun and shot the lock to shambles.

Sam and Dean barged in, gun in one hand, demon knife and holy water in the other. Sam had not known what to expect: a dead body, a hostage situation – but in the living room was empty.

While Dean went to check the kitchen, Sam located the ringing phone to the lady's bag on the couch. He opened it up and shut it off.

Theoretically, it was possible she simply went out and forgot her bag, but the car was still on the drive and really – a meeting with the FBI was nothing something that was likely to slip one's mind. Sam dreaded they soon would find Janice's dead body – another time they were too late, another life they failed to save. At least it was not someone they knew – considering all the creatures they had tangled with over the years, it probably was for the best that he'd left Amelia when he did.

What was that?

A small purple pouch was tucked away in the lady bag, beneath an empty water bottle, a small notebook, a wallet and other general junk. Sam reached into the bag and plucked it out.

"Dean!" he tried to call out, but his throat felt constricted and he ended with a gurgle. He desperately tried to untie the hex bag, but the lack of oxygen was already messing with his fine motorics and black dots started to dance in front of his eyes.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice sounded too distant, too far above him. This didn't make any sense – suffocation was not supposed to be so –

He didn't manage to finish that thought.

…

He was roughly woken up by a splash of cold water in his face. He inhaled deeply before he could focus on the bright red blot dancing away from him.

It was Janice. She went to the person tied to a chair beside him – Dean – and emptied the rest of the bottle in his face.

Dean gasped for air, and an iron knot of worry untied in Sam's chest. It had been a spell to knock them out, not aimed to kill them. That was good, that meant that perhaps everyone could walk away unharmed from whatever plot this was. For however briefly they had seen her at Sofia's and Terrance' house, Janice had not come across as an in any way nefarious person, if anything she'd seemed nervous. Though they'd been fooled by a pretty face plenty of times before.

"Janice Abrige." his voice still sounded a bit winded from the spell. "Glad to see you unharmed. We really were a bit afraid we'd missed you back there."

"You." Dean breathed beside him. He sounded affronted. "You're a witch too."

Only then Sam noticed the second woman standing in the back of the room: Elisabeth Elmayer.

Sam laughed a bit bitterly. "So I assume you do believe in demons after all. I have to say: you're a good actress, Lis."

"Yeah, we'd give you an Emmy, but we're a bit tied up at the moment." Dean joked halfheartedly, looking for a way out. His eyes fell on the Devil's traps around his and his brother's chairs. "We're not demons." Dean said.

"We didn't think you were," Janice assured them, "but you never can be too sure, can you?"

"So you're both witches, Amanda was a witch too, and Sofia too?" Sam asked. Janice nodded. Sofia and Janice didn't live far from Elisabeth's house, even if her wounds were different from Amanda's they should at least have checked Sofia's house for sigils or a Devil trap.

"We were honest when we told you we are best friends. Lizzie and Sofia knew each other from high school, the rest of us met in college. We were hall mates, the four of us, we followed the same courses, we gossiped together, we shared rituals, magic potion recipes and spells… I guess you hunters would say we're a coven, and technically we are, but that makes it sound too ominous, I believe. We're really just friends, who happen to practice witchcraft together."

"But now two of you are dead." Sam summarized.

"But now two of us are dead." Janice repeated in an empty tone. She'd crossed her arms defensively.

The sunny, flowery dress she was wearing stood in stark contrast to her grim face as she took a moment to order her thoughts.

"We are not centuries-old masters of magic, but we are not clueless soccer moms either. We know what's what and who's who, we know what we are doing – how to protect ourselves. We know who you are, Sam and Dean Winchester."

Sam strained against his bindings, but it seemed they also knew how to lay a decent knot. "What do you want from us?"

Janice raised her eye-brows. "Isn't it obvious? We made a demon deal ten years ago: all the power Hell could offer us in exchange for our soul. We thought we were being clever, because having so much power enabled us to form protections against any demons and hell-hounds so that we never would have to hold up our end of the deal. We knew our time was coming, and we know the spells Amanda and Sofia put up should have been sufficient to stop any demon who came at our doorstep – no matter how powerful – because our power comes from the King of Hell himself. But they still died! So yeah, we know you are the most formidable hunters in the States and we know that you'll probably wanna kill us, but if you don't, Crowley will, so we figured we'll take that chance hoping you might actually be able – and willing – to help."

"Alright," Sam looked at Dean to gouge his opinion, but it was difficult to read whether his glower was directed at Crowley or the witches. "I guess it's witches over demons, so we'll help."

Both witches seemed a bit stunned at that. Knowing most hunters, there was reason for them to not expect much cooperation, but Sam liked to think Dean and he were better than that. "You will?" Elisabeth asked from near the wall.

"You ever hurt an innocent?" Dean asked gruffly from his chair. Both women shook their heads.

This time Dean caught Sam's glance, and nodded at him decisively. "Then we will." his older brother confirmed.

…

It was warm outside; the sky wide and blue, an ordinary summer afternoon in Folsom, California. Perfect weather to summon the King of Hell.

Sam went through his mental checklist, again. They had no idea where Kevin and his mum were, so that was a secret they couldn't spill, Crowley already had the demon tablet and he most likely still had Castiel. The worst that could come of this was that Crowley killed Sam or Dean himself, and well, it was not as if they hadn't faced that threat before.

And at best this might actually be an opportunity to either free Castiel or end Crowley for good – if they managed to trap and bargain with him.

If only that wasn't such a big if.

A big plus was that this time they actually had back-up that could put up an effective fight against a powerful demon. In fact, the witches had transformed Janice's home in a true anti-demon fort, no hell-hound or demon should be able to find their way in unless they were summoned. And the summoning itself was also unlike any Sam had seen before: instead of compelling the demon to come it would drag Crowley forcefully from any plane of existence – right into the Devil's trap in the living room, were the warding was at its strongest and Crowley would be weakened almost to the point of being human. Unfortunately, Sam would not be able to replicate the spell or the warding according to the witches: the only reason they were able to do any of this was the very power Crowley granted them.

Leaning against the armrest of Janice's tan leather couch, Dean fumbled nervously with Ruby's knife. Crowley they could take. Dean had almost iced the King of Hell back at that auction, when he was inhabiting Kevin's mother. They were much better prepared now.

From what Sam had gathered from Lis and Janice, Amanda and Sofia should have been able not to kill, but at least to stop and exorcise Crowley. They'd had the exact same elaborate protections this fortress had, they'd had the exact same power Lis and Janice had. And yet they'd become burned, charred, crushed, torn apart, bodies on the floor.

Sam opened the solid wooden door of the large cabinet in one corner of the room. Inside he found books, board games and liquor, but he wasn't interested in any of those.

He procured the steel dagger he always kept with him from the inside of his jacket, and sliced open the inside of his arm. Dean's look felt heavy, but there was a sense of reluctant acceptance from his older brother. When Sam glanced at him, he averted his eyes.

It was just in case.

…

A few minutes later Lis and Janice had gathered everything they needed for the summoning, and preformed the ritual. The words were not in any language Dean recognized.

"Trwa ma eddir, sim meridenir aflagam bosh!" Lis threw the powdered aconite on the shedded snake skin and three white bunny feet (Really, witches! They said they'd never hurt an innocent!) and the contents of the bowl caught flame, spreading a lurid odour through the room Dean was not sure either he could forgive them for.

Lis and Janice both cut their arms with an albast blade engraved with runes, then let their blood fall into the bowl.

"Se mejor da Fergus MacLeod, kichamesh agnosh!" Lis took the bowl from their altar, and quite unceremoniously dumped the still flaring contents into the Devil's trap.

Before the flames touched the wooden floor, they suddenly expanded into a man-like shape and turned a deep red – the unusual red of Crowley's smoke form. As the fire extinguished Crowley appeared, wearing his usual vessel, very disoriented and slightly smoky.

"What…" his eyes fell on Lis as she stepped out of the Devil's trap, "YOU! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"

"It seems like we trapped you, Crowley." Dean said cockily as he stepped forward, ominously swirling the demon knife around his fingers.

The disheveled King of Hell silently looked the hunter up and down, then straightened and dusted off his black business suit, his eyes still narrowed on the Winchester. "Squirrel." Crowley purred the nickname dangerously. "And Moose. What are you two doing with the Woeful Wenches of the West?"

"We're helping them with a little demon problem they've recently ran into."

Crowly stilled. "I see. I do hope you realize they have made a deal with me, which means this is none of your concern. If anything, you should be helping me with sending them to the next world, not trying to 'save' them."

Dean's lips formed an ugly sneer. "Well, as far as I can see, you're standing in a Devil's trap so you'll shut your fugly cake hole and free these two witches and Castiel 'less you want to end up as real minced Scottish demon pie."

"Ah, so that the next time you summon me you can simply kill me without having to worry about leaving loose ends." Crowley said with fake cheer.

"Something like that…" Dean muttered darkly.

"Well," his flippant smile didn't reach his eyes by a long shot, "in that case: thanks, but no thanks."

Dean clenched his teeth. He was perfectly willing in that moment to just thrust the blade forward and see Crowley lit up like a Christmas toy, but in no universe would he leave Castiel rotting in Hell. Luckily, Sam stepped forward to save the day.

"Listen, it's your power that enables Janice and Lis to summon you this way, correct?"

"What?!" Janice exclaimed, "Sam, if he leaves here alive and we are without our powers he'll just kill us!"

"Not if he nullifies the contract, he won't have a claim on your souls." Sam pointed out.

"That doesn't mean he won't kill us anyway!"

Dean greatly disliked Crowley's growing grin. "She does have a point there, Samkins." he barbed.

Lis placed a hand on Janice's arm, narrowing her eyes in a venomous glare directed at the King of Hell. Her words, on the other hand, were spoken to the Winchesters, "I understand you want to help this Castiel, whoever that is, but Crowley's not going to help you." She spat Crowley's name as if he was the most vile thing she'd ever laid eyes on, "So if we just kill him, we can maybe find another demon to free your friend later."

No, Dean would not leave Cas in Hell for a minute longer. But of course, why would Lis care about what happened to Castiel? She hadn't even heard of the guy. He took a fierce step towards her and pulled open his mouth to let her know what he thought about her idea, but Crowley spoke before Dean could form the words.

"Oh Lizzie. Always one for the direct approach, aren't you?" the demon taunted. It seemed that Crowley's dislike for the woman was born from more than just one ordinary failed cross-roads deal. This seemed personal. "You know, I was saving you for last, so you could watch your friends get dragged to the fiery pit before going yourself. Feeling all guilty for getting them into this mess. That should teach you playing with fire."

Dean swallowed a lump, suddenly feeling guilty for being ready to forsake these two women so easily. They did not know how important Cas was for him – for them – but neither did he know any of their history with Crowley.

He turned to the demon. All of this was his fault.

"The offer is still the same." Dean said lowly, menacingly, "Or you free Cas and these two women, or you die. If you don't do anything the next thirty seconds, you die."

Crowley regarded Dean silently; Dean wished nothing more than that he could wipe that smug, self-assured look from his face. The asshole was about to die, he did not have the right to be smug.

"You know Dean, in the first few weeks Cas thought you were going to save him. His brain was as leaky as a sieve, but he still remembered you and Sam – he was so sure his friends were gonna save the day. Because, what else are friends for?"

"Twenty seconds."

"You should have seen his face when he finally realized you weren't going to come. That you didn't even know he was with me, that you didn't even care to check on him. But don't worry, he wasn't angry with you. No, it only made sense, that you'd hate him, after everything he had done. He believed you'd think he deserved the agony I gave him, that you were glad that he was finally getting what was coming to him, that that was why you would never come. And you know what else? He believed you were right to."

His breath hitched in his throat. "Ten seconds."

"It's only been a year and a half up here – but it's been centuries upon centuries where I put him. He's older than the earth itself, it takes some time to transform a creature like that – even one so damaged as he was. But slowly, eventually, he too was reborn – he forgot he ever loved you, and honestly, it was a blessing for him."

"Shut your filthy mouth, you son of a bitch!"

"Ah, ah, ah. No reason to be so unkind to Castiel's new best friend. Especially not when you took so little care of your so-called 'friend' that he went completely bonkers, entirely without my help. No, he is far better off with me – I at least appreciate the hard work he does for me, something his own old daddy wouldn't even give him – and you certainly not."

Crowley's words hurt as red-hot daggers in his chest, but Dean did not crumble beneath them – he couldn't afford to. He just said, "You're going to die." and pulled back the demon knife, ready to strike.

A sudden, high-pitched, ear-shattering tone popped his eardrums, and Dean saw all people around him falling on their knees with him. The windows of Janice's living room all spat at once, glass raining down around them.

The blindingly bright light suddenly shining from behind Crowley's back was the only warning Dean knew he was gonna get, and it was one he knew to heed. He turned his face away and closed his eyes tightly. The air around him seemed to thin as a faint smell of ozone hit his nose, static dancing across the small hairs on his arms. One of the witches screamed as her eyes burned out – though that must've been his imagination as it would've been impossible to hear her screams through the deafening tone.

He then realized the demon knife was still in his hand. Crowley should still be somewhere right in front of him, trapped in the Devil's trap. This was his chance.

He lunged forward across the floor to where Crowley should be, slashing his knife. He caught something – muscle, Crowley's leg? – he sliced through as the cross-roads demon wildly kicked him off. But Dean knew now where his body should be, his free hand grasped at Crowley's jacket, his other hand raising for a fatal blow – and then he was gone.

When one moment later the ringing stopped, Dean's first thought was that he'd gone deaf – and he was glad for the relief, though the shrill sound still echoed in his head. Then he noticed the absence of electricity in the air – the static, the thinness, the grace, whatever it was, the air felt normal again.

As he took a breath, the smell of ozone was replaced by the stink of blood, burnt meat and keratin.

…

The scene Sam saw as he opened his eyes he could have predicted from the stench hitting his nostrils, but still was hard to actually witness.

Both witches were as good as dead. Janice lay slumped against the far wall, her body blackened and opened up from her neck down to her hip-bone, the fabric of her red summer dress molten away and her insides still smoking and smoldering. Her eyes were two horrifyingly empty, burnt, bleeding holes.

Lis' burn marks were not nearly as extensive, but she lay motionless on her stomach with her body unnaturally arced, on top of a bloody smear as if she was roadkill that had been unceremoniously wiped aside. Her limbs all lay in awkward angles, she had an open fracture at her knee and judging from the blood leaking from underneath her torso one at the arm bend beneath her chest as well.

Lis was still breathing shallowly however, and Sam considered giving her the mercy of a quick death before realizing that would only send her to Hell sooner.

After seeing Dean sitting unharmed in Crowley's smudged Devil's trap, Sam's hand left the banishing sigil on the cabinet door and he crept hurriedly to Lis' side, murmuring meaningless comforts and fumbling for his phone. He went around her to see her face, catching her still whole pale blue eyes. He sat close and looked at her as he dialed the emergency number, hoping his presence might give her the littlest bit of comfort. But even before he could say a word to the man at the other end of the line, he saw the light leave her eyes and her breathing stop.

He finished the call.

…

The road was long, straight and empty. If Sam and Dean had an eye for the scenery at that moment they would have enjoyed the setting sun in their backs giving an ethereal glow to the iconic landscape of the Wild West, but their minds were miles away from the beauty surrounding them. Four witches, burnt and broken and ripped apart. A piercing ringing, a searing light. All gone the moment Sam pressed his bloody hand to the sigil…

They were dealing with an angel, alright. An angel working for hell. And what angel would let itself be captured by demons if not one that was already wandering the earth, vulnerable, his mind lost to his own guilt?