The three of us bring Crowley to an old abandoned church that we found. We set up a devil's trap and restrain him in it. After that, Sam goes to confession to purify his blood, and Dean goes outside to the Impala. I stay with Crowley. This is the only chance I have to confront him for killing my mother.
I put my hand on the back of one of the spare chairs and drag it to the front of the devil's trap, never breaking eye contact with Crowley. I set the chair facing the opposite direction and straddle it so that the backrest is between my legs. My arms rest across the top of the backrest. For a moment, we just stare at each other. I'm somehow at a loss for words. I guess I never thought I'd actually come face-to-face with the demon that cut my mother's throat.
Crowley sighs. "Are you gonna say something or just sit there and gaze into my eyes?"
"Why did you kill my mother?" I ask.
He raises his eyebrows a little. "Just gonna jump right to it then," he says in an almost impressed tone.
"Why did you kill her?!" I repeat louder. "She never hurt anyone!"
"I know that your beef isn't really with me," Crowley says. His expression doesn't change and neither does his voice. "You're just upset that Daddy stole your wings."
I scoff and shake my head. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know that your daddy issues are far worse than you let on," he says. I try not to let my face drop. "I know that those 'two' boys you told Sam and Dean about in the beginning was really more like six or seven. And that was just the first year of high school, wasn't it?"
This time, there's no stopping my face from changing. My eyebrows furrow at him. "H-how do you know about that...?" I quietly say.
He doesn't answer my question. "I know that you spent far too much time looking for some little bad boy to fill that gap in your life." As he continues, his words seem to heat me up more and more. There's no way he could possibly know all this. "I know about the drugs and the alcohol and everything you really did in your spare time." My hands start to ball into fists, and my eyes start to swell. "But you lied about it all, didn't you?"
"Shut up."
"You lied to the Winchesters so that they wouldn't know what you really are."
"Shut. Up!" My angry tears start to slowly fall.
"You're nothing more than a dirty-"
"No."
"-little-"
"No!"
"-whore."
Finally, it's too much. "SHUT UP!" I stand up and flip my chair out of the way, charging towards Crowley. "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Before I really know that I'm doing it, I start wailing on the demon. Each punch creates a new cut on his face. That smug, ugly face.
Everything is red. Every time I hit him, he smiles, which only makes me want to hit him harder the next time. Furious tears stream down my face. He can't know any of those things. He can't! It's not possible. I've never told anyone about any of that.
I yell as I hit Crowley. Everything is too blurry for me to know what I'm yelling, but I know that I am. My voice is starting to strain. How long have I been hitting him?
Finally, I hear a voice behind me. "Cel!" Sam's voice. I hear him run towards me. "Celeste!" He grabs my shoulders from behind and yanks me off of the demon.
I kick and scream trying to free myself, but Sam is stronger than me. He wraps his arms around me from behind so as to restrain me, and after a moment, I melt into his arms. I fall to my knees crying, and he follows me down. He turns me slightly so that his arms are squeezing my shoulders and I'm crying into his chest. He puts one hand on my head and rocks me back and forth.
"It's okay, it's okay," Sam starts to pet my hair. "Shhh, calm down. Breathe." After a moment, I've finally stopped crying. Sam places his hand on my jaw and directs my gaze up. "You good?" He says. I nod, and he helps me to my feet.
"That was all very touching, really," Crowley says. When I turn to glare at him, I see that all the cuts and bruises on his face are gone. There's not even a scratch. "Bravo. Outstanding performance."
Sam puts an arm around me and leads me to the door of the church. I look down at my right hand to see my knuckles swollen and covered in blood. Sam leads me out the door to get first aid out of the car. When we're outside, we see Dean behind the open trunk talking to Cas. As we get closer, we're able to hear that they're talking about Metatron wanting to lock the doors of Heaven as well.
I can't help being worried about this. Metatron wants to lock up the angels. Does that include me? If not, will I ever be able to get my grace back once it's finished? And what about Cas? Despite everything, I don't want to lose him. We've come so far.
"If anybody needs a chaperone while doing the heavy lifting, it's Sam," Dean says. The open trunk must've blocked Dean's view of us when we came outside. Sam's arm falls from my shoulders as Dean continues. "And Cel has too much bad blood with Crowley for her to do it alone." If Dean really thinks that, then why did he trust me alone with him earlier?
"You should go," Sam says. As Dean turns around, I cross my arms, tucking my bloodied hand out of view. "Seriously."
"Oh what, and leave you two here with the king of Hell? Come on," Dean counters.
"We got this," I say.
"And if you guys can lock the angels up too," Sam adds, "that's a good day."
Dean hesitates. "Look, I... I'm down with sending the angels back to Heaven. Just 'cause they're dicks." Should I be offended? "But the demons? This is on us." He glances at me, then continues. "Start the injections now. If I'm not back in eight hours, finish it. No questions, no hesitation."
"Yeah," Sam says.
Dean gets something out of the trunk and looks at Sam and me. Cas hovers his hand over Dean's shoulder.
"Wait!" I say. I jog around Sam to get to Dean. I wrap my arms around his neck. "Be careful," I whisper.
He wraps his arms around my waist, returning the hug. "I always am," he says. He kisses my temple. Then I pull away slightly to kiss his lips.
Though the kiss is short, I can't help feeling a bit guilty for it. Crowley was right. I lied to Dean. Every second that I don't tell him the real truth about my past, I'm actively lying to him. I don't deserve Dean. He deserves someone who doesn't lie to him. Someone who is okay with him knowing every tiny detail about her.
When our lips separate, Dean rests his forehead against mine. "Take care of my little brother," he says.
I chuckle. "I will."
"Celeste, what happened to your hand?" Cas says from behind Dean. Crap.
Dean pulls away and takes my hand in both of his, inspecting it. "Jesus, Cel, what the hell did you do?"
I pull my hand away. "Nothing, I'm fine." He can't know that I blew up on Crowley. Especially because he already thinks I can't be trusted around him.
He snatches my hand back from my side. "Cel, this doesn't look fine," he argues. He gently pokes at my knuckles with his thumb, causing me to wince. I had to've broken a few of them.
Cas steps around Dean. He places two fingers on the back of my hand that still rests in Dean's. My wounds instantly vanish. Not even the blood is left behind.
I smile at Dean. "See! Told you I'm fine!"
He flashes his eyes up at me suspiciously. "Yeah. Right." He lifts my hand and presses his lips against my previously swollen knuckles. Then he looks over my shoulder at Sam. "Don't let her get too close to Crowley," he says. He looks at me. "God only knows what'll happen."
I turn around and look at Sam. I do my best to find an expression that says "please don't say anything." Sam gives me a look of pity. Though with how sick he looks, I can't tell if that's just his face or not.
Then he chuckles at Dean's comment, and I'm relieved. "I won't."
I let go of Dean's hand and turn to Cas. If they really are locking the angels away, this will be the last time I see him. I don't want us to part on bad terms. I step forward and thread my arms under his. My arms wrap around his torso, and I bury my face in his chest. He lays one arm across my shoulders and positions the other so that his hand is on my hair. I feel him rest his head on the top of mine.
"If I don't see you again after this," I start, "then I need you to know that I'm sorry. For everything. All the awful things I've said about you over the years, giving you the silent treatment, everything. I'm sorry."
His grip on me tightens. "You don't need to apologize. I deserved every bit of it."
I think about what I want to say for a moment. I know I want to say it, but I debate on whether or not it's an appropriate time to. I finally decide that the last time you'll ever see your father is considered appropriate.
"I..." I hesitate. I whisper the rest to ensure that only Cas can hear. "I love you... Dad." I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. I needed to say that to him at least once.
Cas lifts his head to place a kiss on the top of my head. Then we give each other one last reassuring squeeze before pulling away.
Dean and Cas disappear, and Sam and I go back inside the church. I draw Sam's blood, and Crowley makes a smart remark about it. After Sam injects him, he pulls me aside out of the demon's sight.
"Do you wanna talk about what happened?" He asks me.
I take a deep breath. I'm not sure if I'm ready to share all this. It's not that I don't trust him. It's that I was trying to forget it all.
I finally decide to tell him. "Crowley knew about my past. Things I've never told anyone." My gaze drops. "Not even you and Dean."
"Do you wanna talk about it?" He asks. "It might be good to finally get it off your chest."
I run my hands through my hair. "Okay."
I tell him everything. And I mean everything. I tell him about how many guys there have really been. I tell him about the alcohol. I tell him about the ecstasy and PCP. Everything.
All of it started my freshman year. I was having a hard first month. My boyfriend at the time introduced me to ecstasy. He said it would help me take my mind off everything. After that, everything spiraled downhill. It was one thing after the next. After I gave myself to that boy, he never spoke to me again. By my sophomore year, I had tried almost every drug you can think of at least once, and I was the school whore.
One night, near the end of that school year, I ODed. If my mom hadn't come home early that night, I wouldn't be alive. After that, I got help. I stopped drinking, and I bettered myself. I tried to anyway. I was still called the school whore, but that didn't stop me from sleeping with guys. But I spent my whole junior year clean of everything.
My biggest regret is being so ungrateful to my mom. I never got the chance to thank her for saving my life. Her getting off work early that one night is the best thing that ever happened to me. And I'll never get to thank her for that.
By the time I finish my story, I'm bawling into Sam's chest. Again. "I've never told anybody any of that," I say. "How did Crowley know any of it?!"
"Shhh, it's okay," his voice soothes me.
I pull away from his chest and look him in the eyes. "Please don't tell Dean," I say. "I'm not ready for him to know yet."
"Okay, but... Cel, he's gonna have to know eventually."
"I know. I know, I... I'll tell him when I'm ready, okay?" I plead. Tears start to fall again. "But I need to be the one to tell him, Sam, please, please don't say anything to Dean!"
Sam quickly reacts to my tears. "Okay, okay!" He frantically says, placing his palms on my jaw and wiping my tears away with his thumbs. "I won't say anything, I promise."
He's like the big brother I never knew I wanted. Maybe if I'd had any siblings, I wouldn't have done the things I'd done. Out of fear of influencing or disappointing them. Maybe if I'd had siblings, things wouldn't have turned out the way they have. Maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone growing up. Maybe Mom would still be alive.