The thumps had been two bodies, Piper and Dani, thrown roughly against the floor. And the scream was Dalia, choking in mid-air. The witch was standing there, smiling, looking serene, and she was crying black goo, black goo was dripping out of her ears, out of the corners of her mouth, out of the surface of her skin. She didn't try to stop Dean or Cas as they dashed back inside to grab a loaded gun each, bullets filled with witch killing potion which they both pointed at her and began shooting, and shooting, and shooting.

There were holes in her dress and holes in her body that oozed black, and she looked as though she might be decaying, but still she did not die. She did drop Dalia, who fell to her knees gasping for breath, who Cas ran to to help out while Dean took both guns and began storming towards the witch, shooting every last bullet right into her, stomach, heart, head. Each wound oozed black and then began to heal, although her skin did begin to look flakey like rotting fish scales.

When he got close enough, she grabbed Dean's wrist and flung him with considerable strength and he flew through the open door of Piper and Dani's apartment which those two in turn had been thrown out of, hitting the wall across from it and sliding to the floor.

Dean knew the witch had made a mistake, now, because she couldn't enter the apartment, not with the hex bag hidden in the plant which Dean could see on the worktop as he began to scramble to his feet.

Wrong.

She stepped over the threshold and strolled right over to Dean who she grabbed in a vice-like grip. Cas dashed into the apartment, top half bare and still smeared with drying come, only to be thrown and pinned roughly against the wall.

'I knew he would come if I hurt you,' the witch said delicately. 'I knew you both would come if I began to hurt the ones you know. The perky, tall freak. Those rotten excuses for men who dress as women. The annoying baker and her corrupt friends. But you, it's you Castiel will always come to. I've been watching. And you're coming with me.'

Cas was pinned against the wall as Dean was knocked out by a single touch and dragged away. When Dean was out of sight, Cas fell to the floor and though his knees hit the ground hard and were aching, Cas ran desperately after the witch, but was she even a witch? as she dragged Dean up one flight of stairs and then to the elevator and got it as it began to descend to the tenth floor. Cas took the stars, running as fast as his legs would go, crashing and clanging and pushing past the people who had awoken and come out at all the commotion, taking two, three steps at a time to find the tenth floor completely empty, the elevator too.

'Dean,' Cas called desperately. 'Dean. DEAN!'

He dashed along both sides, but there was no response. He continued to call out, screaming, screams echoing through the building and he felt like he was trapped in a maze though it was just the same simple floor plan and people were coming out of their apartments but he didn't care; he pushed past the queens as they came out asking what was wrong, he pushed past the strangers, he even dashed past Hasdiel when he came along looking confused because Cas didn't have time for former angels right now.

'She took Dean,' Cas kept saying manically, as more and more people came from other floors to the see the crazy man on the tenth. 'She took Dean to the elevator and now he's gone.'

'Four,' said a voice behind him, and he turned to see Lexi the Supernatural fan, 'Two, six, two, ten, five, ten. You have to go from the lobby. Go.'

Four. Two. Six. Two. Ten. Five. Ten. It was the floor pattern from that elevator ritual. It made absolutely no sense, yet it made sense in the same; the girl from the elevator ritual got on at the fifth floor, and she accompanied the ritual do-er to the tenth.

The crazed creature that had Dean had ran up the stairs to the fifth floor dragging Dean like a rag doll, and she had taken the elevator to the tenth.

Castiel bolted into the elevator to take it to the lobby, repeatedly jabbing at the button to make it go faster despite knowing it wouldn't do anything. He wanted to scream, he wanted to claw his way up the elevator shaft because it would be faster than the speed at which the elevator went from floor to floor doing the stupid ritual that didn't make sense and wouldn't work and when it finally reached the last stop on the tenth floor he flew out and holy shit it actually worked.

It was dark and red and hot and out of the windows there were burning crosses in the sky, covered in rotting corpses. The floor was covered in rotting black goo, and Cas was completely alone. He dashed through the hallways and burst into apartments, all empty, until he entered the apartment that in the real world was owned by the drag queens, in this one still looked the exact same as it did in the real one, but without Christmas decorations and with a vile creature standing by Dean who was tied to a chair.

The door slammed shut behind Castiel. The lighting was red.

'Castiel,' the vile creature said delicately. 'At long last. My name is Gaidrel.'

Gaidrel was a familiar name. Castiel had heard of the three banished angels, two of which unknown to humans; Gadreel, who had let the snake into the Garden of Eden, Gadriel, twin to Gadreel, who had once tried to claim himself a God and then Gaidrel, who hated humanity almost as much as Lucifer did. Castiel had never known what had happened to Gadriel or Gaidrel, all he knew was that they were gone before they made a lasting enough impact to make it into the Bible or even into whispers of any religion man followed.

'You're an angel,' Castiel stated.

'Yes.'

'Your vessel is rotting.'

'Yes.'

'You fell.'

'No.'

Dean was beginning to awaken. Castiel looked at him and dashed over to him, Gaidrel not stopping him. When Castiel touched the ropes that bound him, they burned, flaming like the crosses hanging in the sky outside.

'No?'

'I was banished here, Castiel,' Gaidrel explained, 'when our father discovered my hated of human kind. My brother Gadriel was banished similarly, into another world like this, where he is to be alone with other banished creatures and play games with humans stupid enough to try out the rituals to summon him. He is often known as the Hooded Man, who drives a black cab through another world and takes humans on a journey until they tell him to stop. However, he is not the Hooded Man, but a passenger that often gets in with the human passengers and tries to convince them of his Godly state and trick them into entering an alternate reality in which he will improve and collectively ruin their lives. However what I do, is … a little different.'

What the fuck was this crazy bitch talking about? Castiel looked at Dean, awake now, silent and looking pleadingly at Cas. Castiel kneeled by him, holding his hand but not daring to touch the burning rope again.

'What do you do?' Castiel asked, only because he knew that's what Gaidrel wanted to hear.

'I dwell in this lone dimension and visit those who do the elevator ritual and attack those who do it wrong,' Gaidrel shrugged. 'If they do it in pairs, or they look at or talk to me. I let them think they've made it back into their world by creating a veiled version of it around them, but inevitably I show up and kill them. Just for fun, usually, until quite recently.'

What the fuck?

'You see, someone in this building did the ritual after, apparently, some people she knows made some kind of … picture … about my ritual, and about one of the victims I killed by the name of Elisa Lam. Killing her was quite fun. I left her body in a water tank. I based it on a picture I'd heard humans talking about set in Japan. It was quite fitting given the race of my vessel despite me actually originally finding this vessel in Korea.'

The Elevator Ritual. The movie based on it. Lexi, Kat and Evan.

'Evan did the ritual,' Castiel realized. She had been the first.

'Yes,' Gaidrel confirmed. 'It was the first time someone had done the ritual since the event during which the angels fell, and as soon as I stepped out into this world on the fifth floor I sensed their presence throughout the land and my vessel's innards began to decay and excrete its rot. The presence of the angels made my vessel weak, a regular vessel I'm inhabiting rather than my actual self as it became when I first took it. So, naturally, I had to spook the one who had done my ritual and then step out into the world to see what the situation was.'

'And start killing people,' Castiel stated.

'Naturally,' Gaidrel commented. 'As soon as I stepped into the world I was overwhelmed with the thoughts and opinions of humanity, and I soon discovered what was going on in this building and that humanity had deemed it wrong and sinful. And since God is my father, and yours, I had to do his work and take care of the sinful behavior.'

'That's bullshit,' said Dean, talking for the first time. 'God doesn't give a flying rat's ass about what these people get up to, Cas told me.'

'That's true,' Gaidrel reasoned, 'but humanity deems it sinful, and humanity serves God. God wants us to serve humanity, and so I do so and in turn serve the version of God they have created, getting rid of the filth. And then you showed up, Castiel.'

'You're bat shit fucking crazy,' said Dean.

'God must loathe you,' Gaidrel told Cas, ignoring Dean.

'No,' Castiel said proudly. 'He doesn't. God doesn't care. It's the delusions of humanity that brought about that mindset.'

'Are you sure about that?' Gaidrel replied with a cocked eyebrow.

'I'm pretty certain,' Castiel nodded, 'and even so, if God did have the mindset, he would be wrong.'

'You would call your own father wrong?'

'Yes,' Castiel said decidedly. 'Freewill is more important than obeying someone none of us have even met. Forming our own opinions is more important than following someone else's.'

'Why are you so up God's ass anyway?' Dean asked. 'Didn't you say he banished you?'

'Yes, but he's still my father,' Gaidrel justified. 'You have to obey your father.'

'Bullshit,' Dean snapped. 'Listen lady – and I use that term loosely – I thought like that once. I did everything my dad told me to and it took years after he died for me to realize half of it was fucking wrong. You don't have to live like that.'

'Don't tell me anything to do with my father is wrong,' Gaidrel hissed. 'This is wrong. You are wrong. What goes on in this building is wrong. Those little friends I attacked to get to your attention were wrong. Men dressing up as women. Men living as women.'

'Men dressing up as women is a high form of entertainment,' Castiel justified, 'and those "men" living as women are women.'

'Cas, she's been living in her own world for God knows how fucking long. She's dumb as shit. This entire situation is dumb as shit. I'm tied to a chair by a crazy ass angel who sounds like some regular dick strolling in off the street and spewing rubbish. It's almost funny how dumb she is.'

'You're dumb,' Gaidrel retorted childishly.

Castiel looked from Dean to Gaidrel. He looked around the room with its red light and thought of the outside with its burning crosses covered in corpses. And then he looked at Gaidrel's overly angry expression, and it started to seem funny. She was just another dick, any old dick with those opinions, and she was so wrong it was practically funny.

Suddenly the lighting began to change, and the darkness lifted, and they were just sitting in a normal apartment. The ropes on Dean's wrists stopped flaming, and Cas was able untie them. Gaidrel looked very phased by this turn of events.

'You're stupid,' Castiel told Gaidrel.

'You're disgusting,' Gaidrel snapped. 'Who's ever heard of a gay angel? It's sickening.'

'I'm not an angel,' Castiel corrected. 'Not right now, at least. And even if it was it's not about what I am. It's about who I am. Dean made me realize that.'

'Well … he's stupid,' Gaidrel said weakly.

Her eyes started to leak black goo again.

'Dean is the most intelligent man I've ever known,' Castiel said while looking at Dean, Dean looking back at him. 'And you reflect the opinions of the most ignorant people there were on this earth. Dean, let's leave. We can just … come back later and kill her or find her in the walls she's been hiding out in and bugging people.'

'There's an angel blade in the trunk of my car,' Dean agreed, heading towards the door with Cas. 'Man, I can't believe the thing we've been hunting isn't even scary. It's just an idiot.'

'And petty, too,' Castiel agreed. 'Brainwashed.'

'Dumb as shit,' said Dean.

'No,' said Gaidrel. 'No, you can't leave.'

The evil ghost, witch, angel, who had seemed so intimidating at first now just seemed like a weak little girl with her skin falling off and black goo oozing out of her, dripping down her face from her hairline.

'Bye, bitch,' Dean offered sweetly, throwing his arm around Cas as he left.

Then Castiel stopped.

'How did you recognize me, anyway?' he asked.

'Your grace may be gone but your vessel contains traces that allows angels to identify you,' Gaidrel shrugged, sheepish, then fiercely added, 'you faggy cock-sucking freak.'

'Okay,' Castiel said flatly, 'bye.'

'No,' Gaidrel hissed.

She tried to follow them out of the door but as she lunged forward she tripped on her torn dress and fell forward. When she tried to stand up, her body began to crumble and burst, turning to the rotting black excrement of her decay.

'NO!' she screamed. 'NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!'

She was screaming until she was nothing but a rotting black pool of mush on the floor.

'That was weird,' Dean stated.

'Extremely,' Castiel agreed.

'So, wash up a little, grab a snack then go to bed? We've got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.'

'Sounds like a plan,' Castiel agreed, taking hold of Dean's hand as they headed for the elevator, Dean's arm having dropped from around him when they'd turned back to face the ugly gloop dirtying the carpet in the hallway.

By the time they did the reverse of the ritual, they were laughing about it.

'It was so anti-climatic!' Dean complained. 'I was expecting some epic boss battle. But she melted like the fucking Wicked Witch of the West.'

'Except she was an angel,' Castiel added. 'That, I didn't expect.'

'Neither did I,' Dean agreed. 'Aw, man. This is gonna be a sucky story to tell Sam when I get back to him. Mind if I say it was a witch, she pinned the guy I was hunting with against a wall and me next to him, but I still managed to shoot her while she monologued about how straight people are gonna take over the world?'

'Tell him whatever you want,' Castiel shrugged. He knew how it was. He knew Dean would never tell Sam the truth. 'Hype it up. Make it into such a big deal that it's as if you killed Hitler or something.'

'Oh, man,' Dean mused. 'Killing Hitler would be awesome. Grilled cheese?'

'With extra cheese,' Castiel requested as they entered their apartment.

It was as if nothing had even happened and their conversation took them through a meal and some time washing up in the bathroom – they shared some laugher about Cas taking on a homophobic angel bitch with a chest covered in come. When they went to bed they went quiet, and didn't talk much when they went to sleep.

They knew it was really over when Castiel stepped out of the bedroom that morning in a trench coat and suit.

'I don't want to go,' Castiel said quietly.

'Neither do I,' said Dean.

But they had to, so they packed their bags.

They took snacks for the road and they took their equipment and weapons. Dean packed up his stuff and Cas packed up his; some things to sleep in, his spare trench coat outfit, his toiletries, his books and three of the pictures from the mantle, from the days he and Dean got to spend as boyfriends who were writers and the supernatural horrors they faced were just fiction. The rest of the photo booth pictures from the fridge, and the magnet that held them there.

Dean left with everything he came with, and Cas left with more, yet next to nothing.

But they both left with sinking feelings.

They left their furniture. The unfinished season of Friends they'd rented. They would never get to finish the show. They left all of Cas's clothes. They left their lives, they left their case, and they left without saying goodbye so they wouldn't have to explain where they were going or what the hell last night had been.

They left, driving away from the city, and they didn't stop for more than rest stops until they had to stop for the night in a motel where they shared a bed and held each other all night, barely sleeping, unspeaking.

They arrived in Kansas the following evening, at another motel, likely the first of many Cas would stay in. Dean gave him money and Dean went with him into his room, and they had pizza and sat next to each other on the bed.

'So what are you going to do now?' Dean asked Cas, who looked glum, far more glum than he'd seen him in a while; he looked like he had before the case had even started.

'Watch the news,' Castiel shrugged. 'Monitor happenings that could be hints at something bigger happening. Get back … to the main issue at hand. The angels. Go to crime scenes I think might be important. You use fake names in reference to music artists, right?'

'Right,' Dean agreed. 'Got any names in mind?'

Castiel frowned. He cast his mind to the radio, the radio that often played back when he was an assistant store manager.

'Beyoncé?'

Dean almost choked on his pizza.

That was his Cas.

That was his Cas.

'Good for you, Agent Beyoncé,' Dean said encouragingly while secretly hoping Cas never used that name.

'You could stay the night,' Castiel offered suddenly.

They'd already decided it was best of Dean just drive the extra two hours to the bunker tonight. Just two hours. Cas would be so close, yet so far, and they'd already decided it best if Cas move around little, never stay in the same motel, maybe not even the same state, for too long.

Dean was losing him, but he'd already had to come to terms with that.

Temporary, temporary, it was all just temporary. It had always been just temporary.

'I can't,' Dean said quietly. His voice almost broke.

'I understand,' Castiel nodded.

Before he left that night, Dean did a few final things for Cas. He gave him money. He found out the numbers of the best food places around. He even stole him a car. And then he kissed him goodbye before he drove off, kissed him, but he wanted to cry.

And he did cry. He let his tears drip as he drove back towards the bunker, his heart pumping in his throat, and he let his tears drip as he turned around half way towards it, and began plowing back towards the motel, but he couldn't give a fuck. His eyes were dry by the time he got there and bangaed on Cas's door.

Castiel answered, dressed for bed and looking glum. His face lit up when he saw Dean, and Dean was very glad to admit that it did; he'd been reluctant to think of Cas's face as having lit up back when he'd first showed up with his "I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend" line, but it had then and it did now.

Dean didn't see what it did next, though, because he stepped forward and kissed Cas and they tumbled back into the room, closing the door behind them and landed on the bed.

Afterwards, when they were naked and growing cold, Dean said, 'you're not staying here. You're coming back with me, Cas.'

'What about Sam?' Castiel asked. 'What are you going to tell him? Hasn't the whole theme of these past weeks been a sort of "don't tell Sammy" day in and day out thing?'

'Forget about Sammy,' was Dean's determined reply. 'I can't let you stay here, at least not alone. We'll figure something out man, I don't know. We can find you a closer motel we can both stay at, or I can sneak you into the bunker and just … act natural. I don't care. But I need you with me, man You know I do.'

'I'd rather be with you,' Castiel admitted. 'But right now I'd like to put some clothes on. I'm freezing.'

'Your nipples make that loud and clear.'

Castiel laughed and covered his chest with his arms, hiding his cold-hardened nipples from Dean's sight.

They climbed into the bed in the motel once they'd both gotten soe clothes on, eager to warm up, and fell asleep without talking that night, both pensive and trying to figure things out. Castiel knew Dean was still reserved and was afraid of telling Sam the truth, and he was okay with that for as long as Dean needed him him to be. He buried his face in Dean's chest as they lay face to face and just hoped that one day Dean would be able to tell Sam and finally be free to be himself without fear.