Hearts Are Made Of Broken Glass 11/13 (Crowley, Castiel, Dean, rated PG-13)
Title: Hearts Are Made Of Broken Glass
Chapter:11/13
Author: pink_bagels
Genre: humour, drama
Pairing(s): Castiel/Crowley (eventually...kind of...), Dean/Crowley (eventually...kind of? o.O)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2352
Disclaimer: You kidding? I own nothing.
Warnings: Some spoilers for the seventh season and some deviation from canon at the end of the sixth.
Note: This story did go on hiatus for a number of months, but I do think I've mentioned I'm a stubborn completionist--there's more done offline, so it will be finished :) Hope you enjoy it!
Summary: Hell is no place for a brooding, guilty angel. So, Crowley sends Castiel on a crossroads mission. Big mistake.
HEARTS ARE MADE OF BROKEN GLASS-chapter eleven
The lowest level of Hell was more cliche than Bobby expected, and both he and Sam, with the vile bag of putrescence between them, stepped out onto the melted shoreline, the glass rocks crunching beneath their weight. They should have been happy about the express reprieve the elevator had provided because the desolated loneliness of the place spoke of long, suffering years, the unforgiving, craggy, hot surface steaming its way through millions of miles. The lake of fire, such as it was, was strangely anticlimactic, its surface rippling with molten lava, a tortured scream extending long across the bubbling caps that were its waves. The white elevator doors shut behind them, and Sam winced. He touched his fingers where he had bumped his head on a beam in Bobby's basement, the bruise an ugly purple hue. "So where you do think Lucifer's cage is?" Sam dared to ask, sleeve at his mouth to filter out the burning sulfur that tainted the air.
"At the bottom of that lake, I'm guessing," Bobby said. His wide shoulders were pushed back as he pulled the burlap sack closer to the edge of the lake of fire. Sam asking that question put him on edge, and he was eager to just follow his own advice and get the job done. He didn't like the way Sam kept staring into the lake, as though trying to find the outline of that terrible place where his soul had been used as a red football tossed and kicked by not one, but two vengeful fallen angels. It was a soul scab Bobby sure as hell wouldn't have picked at, but Sam wasn't the type to leave anything alone. They had to get out of here and quick. "I feel like my feet are made of lead weights. Come on, son, help me out here."
"The sack seems lighter," Sam said, grateful, the iron tongs prodding it towards the edge of the lake. Both he and Bobby stood on either side of it, knowing what had to be done, but neither willing to do it.
"I'll take the bottom, you take the top, and we'll heave it over and in and stand back from the splash."
"I'm sorry, Bobby, but no. I am not touching that thing with my bare hands. Ugh, the*stink*!"
"I ain't got no magic wand, in case you didn't notice."
Sam gagged and made a face and after a few hesitating tries, he managed to get a good grip on the sides of the burlap bag while Bobby grabbed the two corner ends and heaved it up. It was suprisingly light now, and Bobby was worried the lack of leverage wouldn't send it good and deep into the lake, but no matter, the job was getting done and that was all that counted. "We'll toss it on three," he said. They swung it back and forth with as much force as both of them could muster. "One. Two..."
The cord holding the sack closed came loose and as the bag fell over the lake on 'Three' chunks of its contents rained down on the shoreline near Sam's feet. "Dammit!" Sam shouted, his palms wiping the slimey remnants from his jeans, only for the smear to make him genuinely sick. "Bobby, we can't just leave these pieces here, we have to pick them up and throw them in."
"Like hell I will," Bobby said, marching towards the elevator. "Did what I said I would, and I'm not sticking around any longer." He held the key to the elevator firm in his grip, and he cast a glance over his shoulder at Sam, who was still going after the little meaty pieces, tossing a few into the lake and losing sight of others. Bobby saw a chunk grow hair thin spidery legs and run off along the shore, a shred of flesh trailing behind it. It blindly scrambled across the rocks before falling into the lake and burning into ash. He quickly put the key into the lock and opened the elevator door. "Never mind, it'll take care of itself, get over here."
"We can't just leave these bits here, they could escape."
"Trust me, this is the very last stop for every damned thing, they ain't going nowhere."
It was a slow effort for Sam, the weight of his feet tugging at him until the glass sands decided they had a new victim to claim, the tiny pebbles cascading over his workboots, turning every step into a treacherous wade through quicksand. Sam stumbled, then continued onward, every muscle and sinew in his body pulling him towards the elevator where Bobby was already safely waiting inside. The doors began to close, and Bobby grabbed at it, trying to keep it open, but they continued to shut. Bobby's panicked face beckoned Sam to hurry, and with one, final push, he managed to fall into the interior of the elevator, but not before losing one of his workboots. The elevator door slammed shut on it, neatly hacking the empty boot in two.
"That was close," Sam said.
"What else is new?" Bobby hit the topmost button, which he figured would take him into Crowley's office and then a random door that would take him home. All he cared about right now was getting that jackass out of his basement so he could enjoy a cold beer in peace. Between Sam's near death experience and Bobby's sweating need to get back to his version of normal, neither of them noticed the tiny pair of shrivelled lips that had crept into the elevator with them, its saliva morphing into glistening insect legs that latched onto the hem of Sam's jeans.
***
"An angel named Daniel, huh?" Dean took another swig of his beer, his eyes steeled as he stared down at Crowley who was still trapped beneath the symbols above Bobby's desk, the thin, yellowed paperback perused with disinterest. Dean pulled up a chair, his company less than welcome but what choice did a man of his ruined calibre now have, with all of his secrets exposed, his life laid out naked in front of morons, like this one, who droolled in his sleep. "Cas and Balthie are taking care of business, I guess. Heaven can't have angels going around stealing people's paycheques. I can't believe you fell for that one, that's like getting sold a bridge or something. Got any swampland in Hell you're selling cheap?" He pointed at the symbols painted above Crowley's head. "Kind of weird, isn't it, how a guy's headspace can get in the way. You're sitting under all those squiggles and lines thinking they mean something. Well, guess what?" Dean smudged one of the symbols, the chalky substance getting caught under his nails. "I just used plain old acrylic paint that Bobby had lying around the shed. Not lamb's blood, like the spell called for." Dean gave Crowley a smug smile. "Guess you been faking it for so long you forgot what the real thing's supposed to look like."
"I assure you, there is nothing false about what I am capable of," Crowley warned him.
But the annoying smile on Dean's face wasn't so easily swayed, and as he took another gulp of beer Crowley had to admit the elder Winchester had a point. It hadn't been easy hiding his true self, keeping his soul hidden from other demons, his mind constantly working over what spells worked and how and who deserved this punishment more over that one, and it was an exhausting existence, one full of balances of cause and effect, with one act being redemptive while the same act by someone else was what sealed their fate in his dungeon. True, he'd been given the job on request, and the powers that came with it, but now all of it was brought into question thanks to Castiel's misguided attempt to do the right thing. If he returned to Hell now he wasn't sure he would still have the ability to move about the Earth as he was accustomed to, plucking out scavenging souls who sold their most treasured commodity to the highest bidder-Otherwise known as himself.
"I could test it," he thought. "While that little maggot sits in that armchair I could stoke up a fire in that fireplace, I could snap my fingers and turn Dean into a human candle that can burn either slowly or quick, depending upon my whim. A blue flame or a bloody orange cinderblock, it's all up to me."
He raised his hand, his fingers itching to give them a good testing.
"It couldn't have been easy," Dean said.
Crowley paused, hand stopped in mid-air. He dropped it to his side when Dean turned to face him. "What wasn't?"
"Making a deal like that. Giving up Heaven itself just to prove a point and not knowing what came next. I get it, dude. The universe is a bag of shit. Angels are dicks, and Hell is just a footnote in one long story about suffering and as for God, who knows what that Guy's up to, He's already picked up His last cheque and moved on. Doesn't leave the middle child, that being us, much to go on. But to give up Heaven, just to protest the whole mess-That took balls." Dean stared into the empty fireplace, the spent ashes impotent in thier damp, grey prison. "I'm guessing your angel Daniel knew exactly what kind of bargain he was making with you. Allowing that kind of evil into Heaven while he lets your soul head for the basement, that's a protest all its own if you ask me. I don't know about this martyr business, no one gave me the Cliff notes, but I'm thinking you did get a pretty good deal out of it in the end. You got a nice comfortable office, enjoy all the perks of the earthly plane and get to slice and dice the guilty all you want. Must be real cathartic for you, considering what being alive was like."
Crowley bristled at this reminder that Dean had taken an uninvited walkabout around his soul. "It has its moments," he admitted. "Watching you worry yourself sick over your darling little brother and the constant torment that doing battle with Lucifer's minions has created does put a rather pleasant spin on things. Like a romantic comedy, really. Very entertaining."
"Play the sarcasm card all you want, facts are you're just as human as I am inside." Dean narrowed his gaze as he stared into the empty fireplace. "Truth is, if I was given the same choice, I would have taken it too."
"Oh, I get it, you want to be part of the martyr club, do you?" Crowley grimaced at this in distaste. "Honestly, what a miserable pack of wankers they are. They sit around in a bar in Heaven swapping scar stories and it always ends in someone getting an eye forked out over a vat of whiskey. Not a one of them have ever heard of a cocktail, let alone a decent pair of threads. Oh yes, they are a wild bunch as our friend Castiel's brother so succinctly put it, just add loutish and foul and pigheaded to their list of attributes. Before you even ask, no...I haven't met a one of them. But you can hear them all the way down to the second floor of that Hades suburb, especially that section on the north side. They never sleep and there isn't a screaming guitar riff they don't like." Crowley raised a brow. "Come to think of it, mate, maybe you should join their party. You'd fit right in."
Dean frowned at this. "Those were martyrs partying?" Dean shook his head, remembering. "I was getting the guts ripped out of me and I remember hearing 'Eye Of The Tiger' over and over again. I thought it was just part of the torture. I used to love that song, and now it makes me dry heave every time I hear it. I don't get it, you mean there's some kind of hole in the roof over there and Hell can't fix it?"
"Do I look like an urban contractor?"
"I'm just saying. Drywall, beams and soundproofing, it's not rocket science."
Crowley stared at him for a long moment. "It's Hell, Dean. There's no love. There's no rockets. There's no drywall."
Dean was clearly wanting to argue an insane point, but luckily Bobby and Sam fell into the room, their clean up mission in Hell complete. Crowley happily bounded out of his seat and held open his palm, eager to get back to business. A good scrub up with bleach followed by PineSol and a few thousand or so cans of air fresheners ought to do the trick. Lots of Lavender Ocean Breeze to kick the stench out. First things first was to get back his key. Bobby looked pale and kind of sick, clearly the effects of a job well done.
"Good show, mate. Thanks for watering the plants. Hand her over."
But, as usual, nothing was quite that simple. Sam was still bent double, his palm over the injury on his forehead, the bruise pulsing and ugly as he dared to pull his arm away, revealing the pus lined slice that left a line of slime from his injury to his open hand. "Dean," Sam said, his eyes rolling back in his head as the bruise morphed into a set of thin, cracked lips, their grin lined with ugly yellow teeth. "I told Bobby. I told him we had to pick up all the pieces..."
Chapter:11/13
Author: pink_bagels
Genre: humour, drama
Pairing(s): Castiel/Crowley (eventually...kind of...), Dean/Crowley (eventually...kind of? o.O)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2352
Disclaimer: You kidding? I own nothing.
Warnings: Some spoilers for the seventh season and some deviation from canon at the end of the sixth.
Note: This story did go on hiatus for a number of months, but I do think I've mentioned I'm a stubborn completionist--there's more done offline, so it will be finished :) Hope you enjoy it!
Summary: Hell is no place for a brooding, guilty angel. So, Crowley sends Castiel on a crossroads mission. Big mistake.
HEARTS ARE MADE OF BROKEN GLASS-chapter eleven
The lowest level of Hell was more cliche than Bobby expected, and both he and Sam, with the vile bag of putrescence between them, stepped out onto the melted shoreline, the glass rocks crunching beneath their weight. They should have been happy about the express reprieve the elevator had provided because the desolated loneliness of the place spoke of long, suffering years, the unforgiving, craggy, hot surface steaming its way through millions of miles. The lake of fire, such as it was, was strangely anticlimactic, its surface rippling with molten lava, a tortured scream extending long across the bubbling caps that were its waves. The white elevator doors shut behind them, and Sam winced. He touched his fingers where he had bumped his head on a beam in Bobby's basement, the bruise an ugly purple hue. "So where you do think Lucifer's cage is?" Sam dared to ask, sleeve at his mouth to filter out the burning sulfur that tainted the air.
"At the bottom of that lake, I'm guessing," Bobby said. His wide shoulders were pushed back as he pulled the burlap sack closer to the edge of the lake of fire. Sam asking that question put him on edge, and he was eager to just follow his own advice and get the job done. He didn't like the way Sam kept staring into the lake, as though trying to find the outline of that terrible place where his soul had been used as a red football tossed and kicked by not one, but two vengeful fallen angels. It was a soul scab Bobby sure as hell wouldn't have picked at, but Sam wasn't the type to leave anything alone. They had to get out of here and quick. "I feel like my feet are made of lead weights. Come on, son, help me out here."
"The sack seems lighter," Sam said, grateful, the iron tongs prodding it towards the edge of the lake. Both he and Bobby stood on either side of it, knowing what had to be done, but neither willing to do it.
"I'll take the bottom, you take the top, and we'll heave it over and in and stand back from the splash."
"I'm sorry, Bobby, but no. I am not touching that thing with my bare hands. Ugh, the*stink*!"
"I ain't got no magic wand, in case you didn't notice."
Sam gagged and made a face and after a few hesitating tries, he managed to get a good grip on the sides of the burlap bag while Bobby grabbed the two corner ends and heaved it up. It was suprisingly light now, and Bobby was worried the lack of leverage wouldn't send it good and deep into the lake, but no matter, the job was getting done and that was all that counted. "We'll toss it on three," he said. They swung it back and forth with as much force as both of them could muster. "One. Two..."
The cord holding the sack closed came loose and as the bag fell over the lake on 'Three' chunks of its contents rained down on the shoreline near Sam's feet. "Dammit!" Sam shouted, his palms wiping the slimey remnants from his jeans, only for the smear to make him genuinely sick. "Bobby, we can't just leave these pieces here, we have to pick them up and throw them in."
"Like hell I will," Bobby said, marching towards the elevator. "Did what I said I would, and I'm not sticking around any longer." He held the key to the elevator firm in his grip, and he cast a glance over his shoulder at Sam, who was still going after the little meaty pieces, tossing a few into the lake and losing sight of others. Bobby saw a chunk grow hair thin spidery legs and run off along the shore, a shred of flesh trailing behind it. It blindly scrambled across the rocks before falling into the lake and burning into ash. He quickly put the key into the lock and opened the elevator door. "Never mind, it'll take care of itself, get over here."
"We can't just leave these bits here, they could escape."
"Trust me, this is the very last stop for every damned thing, they ain't going nowhere."
It was a slow effort for Sam, the weight of his feet tugging at him until the glass sands decided they had a new victim to claim, the tiny pebbles cascading over his workboots, turning every step into a treacherous wade through quicksand. Sam stumbled, then continued onward, every muscle and sinew in his body pulling him towards the elevator where Bobby was already safely waiting inside. The doors began to close, and Bobby grabbed at it, trying to keep it open, but they continued to shut. Bobby's panicked face beckoned Sam to hurry, and with one, final push, he managed to fall into the interior of the elevator, but not before losing one of his workboots. The elevator door slammed shut on it, neatly hacking the empty boot in two.
"That was close," Sam said.
"What else is new?" Bobby hit the topmost button, which he figured would take him into Crowley's office and then a random door that would take him home. All he cared about right now was getting that jackass out of his basement so he could enjoy a cold beer in peace. Between Sam's near death experience and Bobby's sweating need to get back to his version of normal, neither of them noticed the tiny pair of shrivelled lips that had crept into the elevator with them, its saliva morphing into glistening insect legs that latched onto the hem of Sam's jeans.
***
"An angel named Daniel, huh?" Dean took another swig of his beer, his eyes steeled as he stared down at Crowley who was still trapped beneath the symbols above Bobby's desk, the thin, yellowed paperback perused with disinterest. Dean pulled up a chair, his company less than welcome but what choice did a man of his ruined calibre now have, with all of his secrets exposed, his life laid out naked in front of morons, like this one, who droolled in his sleep. "Cas and Balthie are taking care of business, I guess. Heaven can't have angels going around stealing people's paycheques. I can't believe you fell for that one, that's like getting sold a bridge or something. Got any swampland in Hell you're selling cheap?" He pointed at the symbols painted above Crowley's head. "Kind of weird, isn't it, how a guy's headspace can get in the way. You're sitting under all those squiggles and lines thinking they mean something. Well, guess what?" Dean smudged one of the symbols, the chalky substance getting caught under his nails. "I just used plain old acrylic paint that Bobby had lying around the shed. Not lamb's blood, like the spell called for." Dean gave Crowley a smug smile. "Guess you been faking it for so long you forgot what the real thing's supposed to look like."
"I assure you, there is nothing false about what I am capable of," Crowley warned him.
But the annoying smile on Dean's face wasn't so easily swayed, and as he took another gulp of beer Crowley had to admit the elder Winchester had a point. It hadn't been easy hiding his true self, keeping his soul hidden from other demons, his mind constantly working over what spells worked and how and who deserved this punishment more over that one, and it was an exhausting existence, one full of balances of cause and effect, with one act being redemptive while the same act by someone else was what sealed their fate in his dungeon. True, he'd been given the job on request, and the powers that came with it, but now all of it was brought into question thanks to Castiel's misguided attempt to do the right thing. If he returned to Hell now he wasn't sure he would still have the ability to move about the Earth as he was accustomed to, plucking out scavenging souls who sold their most treasured commodity to the highest bidder-Otherwise known as himself.
"I could test it," he thought. "While that little maggot sits in that armchair I could stoke up a fire in that fireplace, I could snap my fingers and turn Dean into a human candle that can burn either slowly or quick, depending upon my whim. A blue flame or a bloody orange cinderblock, it's all up to me."
He raised his hand, his fingers itching to give them a good testing.
"It couldn't have been easy," Dean said.
Crowley paused, hand stopped in mid-air. He dropped it to his side when Dean turned to face him. "What wasn't?"
"Making a deal like that. Giving up Heaven itself just to prove a point and not knowing what came next. I get it, dude. The universe is a bag of shit. Angels are dicks, and Hell is just a footnote in one long story about suffering and as for God, who knows what that Guy's up to, He's already picked up His last cheque and moved on. Doesn't leave the middle child, that being us, much to go on. But to give up Heaven, just to protest the whole mess-That took balls." Dean stared into the empty fireplace, the spent ashes impotent in thier damp, grey prison. "I'm guessing your angel Daniel knew exactly what kind of bargain he was making with you. Allowing that kind of evil into Heaven while he lets your soul head for the basement, that's a protest all its own if you ask me. I don't know about this martyr business, no one gave me the Cliff notes, but I'm thinking you did get a pretty good deal out of it in the end. You got a nice comfortable office, enjoy all the perks of the earthly plane and get to slice and dice the guilty all you want. Must be real cathartic for you, considering what being alive was like."
Crowley bristled at this reminder that Dean had taken an uninvited walkabout around his soul. "It has its moments," he admitted. "Watching you worry yourself sick over your darling little brother and the constant torment that doing battle with Lucifer's minions has created does put a rather pleasant spin on things. Like a romantic comedy, really. Very entertaining."
"Play the sarcasm card all you want, facts are you're just as human as I am inside." Dean narrowed his gaze as he stared into the empty fireplace. "Truth is, if I was given the same choice, I would have taken it too."
"Oh, I get it, you want to be part of the martyr club, do you?" Crowley grimaced at this in distaste. "Honestly, what a miserable pack of wankers they are. They sit around in a bar in Heaven swapping scar stories and it always ends in someone getting an eye forked out over a vat of whiskey. Not a one of them have ever heard of a cocktail, let alone a decent pair of threads. Oh yes, they are a wild bunch as our friend Castiel's brother so succinctly put it, just add loutish and foul and pigheaded to their list of attributes. Before you even ask, no...I haven't met a one of them. But you can hear them all the way down to the second floor of that Hades suburb, especially that section on the north side. They never sleep and there isn't a screaming guitar riff they don't like." Crowley raised a brow. "Come to think of it, mate, maybe you should join their party. You'd fit right in."
Dean frowned at this. "Those were martyrs partying?" Dean shook his head, remembering. "I was getting the guts ripped out of me and I remember hearing 'Eye Of The Tiger' over and over again. I thought it was just part of the torture. I used to love that song, and now it makes me dry heave every time I hear it. I don't get it, you mean there's some kind of hole in the roof over there and Hell can't fix it?"
"Do I look like an urban contractor?"
"I'm just saying. Drywall, beams and soundproofing, it's not rocket science."
Crowley stared at him for a long moment. "It's Hell, Dean. There's no love. There's no rockets. There's no drywall."
Dean was clearly wanting to argue an insane point, but luckily Bobby and Sam fell into the room, their clean up mission in Hell complete. Crowley happily bounded out of his seat and held open his palm, eager to get back to business. A good scrub up with bleach followed by PineSol and a few thousand or so cans of air fresheners ought to do the trick. Lots of Lavender Ocean Breeze to kick the stench out. First things first was to get back his key. Bobby looked pale and kind of sick, clearly the effects of a job well done.
"Good show, mate. Thanks for watering the plants. Hand her over."
But, as usual, nothing was quite that simple. Sam was still bent double, his palm over the injury on his forehead, the bruise pulsing and ugly as he dared to pull his arm away, revealing the pus lined slice that left a line of slime from his injury to his open hand. "Dean," Sam said, his eyes rolling back in his head as the bruise morphed into a set of thin, cracked lips, their grin lined with ugly yellow teeth. "I told Bobby. I told him we had to pick up all the pieces..."