Elspeth is organising her supplies, as meagre as they are, and Cas is sitting on her desk, joint lazily curling smoke towards the ceiling when it happens.

Cas yelps, his eyes roll back in his head and he collapses, sprawling out on the table, joint falling \ from his fingers.

Elspeth looks up and jumps over to him, checking his vitals, wondering if he's finally overdosed on something, when he its back up, breathing irregular and Elspeth can see his pulse pounding in his throat.

"Whoa," Cas coughs out, and then looks up at the ceiling for a minute, ignoring all of her questions. He rubs his hands together, and looks her in the eye. "Even though I'm Fallen, I still felt the kick that gave me."

"What gave you?" Elspeth asks, watching him rub the back of his neck.

"My brother, my second strongest brother, the Morning Star, has taken his true vessel." Cas laughs, and Elspeth hates it, knows that there could be a better sound coming out of that mouth. "Humanity has no hope," he declares, hoping off the table and throwing his arms up. "Humanity has no hope," he sings out, walking out the door.

Elspeth gulps and follows him, knowing that nothing good could come from this.

"Satan has taken his true vessel!" Cas screams it out at the top of his lungs, and people come to their doorways to look and see what he's calling out about. He shouts it again and again, and people start to trail after him. Elspeth realises that he's headed towards Dean's cabin, and her feeling of foreboding increases.

Dean opens his door and pokes his head out, looking for the source of the commotion. They get people screeching around camp more often than you would think, but after Dean shot the first few they stopped doing it so loudly, or at least not going anywhere near where Dean is or risk being shot.

Elspeth wonders if maybe Cas wants to be shot.

"Cas?" Dean calls out. "What are you saying?"

"Your brother," Cas calls back, and he sounds drunk, "Just said yes to Lucifer. So now he's riding around, and we're even more screwed than before." He laughs, and Dean can't help but look away from it.

"Are you drunk?" Dean asks him, face completely blank, and she wonders if .

"On power!" Cas yells at him. "You don't know how good it feels to have a the thrill of Grace rushing through me, even if it was just for a second! There are some benefits to being a Fallen angel!"

"Then why did you even Fall?" Dean asks, and Elspeth cringes from it, knowing that that was a low blow. There is a crowd gathering, coming to watch their leader and the fallen angel interact as they haven't in so long.

Cas draws in a breath and stares at Dean and Elspeth doesn't want to watch – she knows what's coming. She half turns, ready to leave, eyes sliding shut as she tries to deny what happening, but she stops, and turns again as a thought crosses her mind. She owes it to Cas to watch, to record this event in her memory, to care when no one else would.

Cas is looking desperately at Dean, and Dean is looking like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was standing, facing off against the ex-angel with an audience of the whole camp.

"Because I love you." Cas spits the words out, and even from behind Elspeth can see how tense he goes, how fear must cross his expression, and she imagines he smooths his face out, waiting for Dean's reaction, even as she can see the tension he's carrying in his shoulders and across his back.

Dean is looking at Cas, and his expression hadn't changed in the last minute, looking Cas dead in the eyes, and Elspeth thinks that maybe that makes it worse when he speaks next.

"I know."

Elspeth isn't Cas, cannot possibly know what it's like to be him or what he's feeling, but she would like to think that she has gotten to know him pretty well over the last year, and even from her own experiences, hearing that… She feels a crushing weight of fear and sadness in her chest on behalf of her friend.

Cas leans back a little, and Elspeth moves slightly so she can see his face. He has a confused expression, but it's quickly clearing, and Elspeth feels her heart break just a little when indifference and agony war over his face, indifference winning, but only just hiding the pain Elspeth knows is underneath.

"For how long?" Cas asks, slightly less meanly than before, but anguish is pulling his shoulders in, hunching his head and making his fingers twitch.

"No angel would Fall for just anyone Cas. But I knew before then."

And then Dean just walks away. Elspeth can hardly believe it. But everyone else is following Dean with their eyes too, so he must be.

Cas is shaking, and even from here she can see the shock taking over. She isn't really surprised when Cas lets out a heart rending scream that makes everyone flinch, and then sinks down to his knees to start sobbing quietly on the floor.

No one else moves, and some people start to move away. Before long the only people still standing there are Chuck and Elspeth. Chuck is watching, and Elspeth doesn't think she's ever seen such a look of disappointment on anyone's face, ever. But she knows that it's not for Cas, who is still crying quietly, but for Dean, and she has this weird feeling, like he's also disappointed in himself.

Walking towards Cas hesitantly, she kneels beside him, not knowing if her presence would be welcome. When she puts a hand on Cas' back, he turns towards her, wrapping his hands around her arm and bawling silently into her shoulder. She cards a hand through his hair and he cries harder.

"I'm sorry Cas," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."

Cas sobs harder.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Elspeth takes Cas back to his cabin. She doesn't know if he'll stay there, doesn't know if she will go there in the morning and find him in a pool of his own blood or dead because he had finally overdosed. She doesn't know if she will see him next coming out of someone's cabin, or foaming at the mouth, infected. She doesn't know if she'll ever see him again.

All she knows is that when she pulls out the shoebox from its hidden place in the cupboard and opens it, the feathers inside are still a complete, solid black.