"You think Bobby would notice--"

"Yeah," Dean interrupted.  "He would."  Not that it had stopped him from messing up everything in Bobby's cupboards, but hey, you leave a couple guys to reorganize your kitchen and you take your chances.

The smirk on Sam's face said it wasn't going to stop him either.  Shit was accessible now.  Didn't mean Bobby would be able to find it.

It would give him something new to be pissed off about, anyway.

The prickly feeling from the porch was pissing Dean off, so he figured he'd know.  Nothing to get your mind off the devil like an angel who couldn't fucking knock.  He'd thought appearing whenever and wherever he wanted was one of the most annoying things Castiel did.  Turned out being there and not appearing was worse.

Dean wasn't going out there.  He wasn't supposed to know, fine: he didn't know.  He could mind his own damn business.

He kept his mouth shut until Bobby rolled into the kitchen, muttering about fallen angels cluttering up his porch.  Sam looked up at the same moment he did.  "Angels?" Sam said.

"Fallen?" Dean said at the same time.

"Like they got nothing better to do," Bobby grumbled.

Dean and Sam turned for the door at the same time.  Dean walked right into the mess of glowing symbols on the porch because he wasn't sure he was supposed to see them.  When Sam froze in the doorway, though, he knew he'd screwed up.

"What's all this?" he said gruffly.  Like it didn't matter.  Like Cas and Anna could just write all over the porch with their silvery glowing crap and it wasn't weird at all.

"The names of the fallen," Anna said.

Sam stepped carefully onto the porch, standing between a big swirly thing and three circles that probably meant something in Angel.  "Uh, I'm guessing you don't mean dead guys."

"Angels," Anna said.

So last Dean knew, Castiel wasn't big on having his former boss around.  He didn't know what it meant that she was here now: good, bad, he couldn't even tell the difference anymore.  "Your name on this list?" Dean asked.

She put one hand on the railing beside her, tapping her finger against the wood even as she lifted her other arm to point at a support beside the newly installed ramp.  Sam went over to it.  "This is you?" he asked.

"That's Cas," she said.  "This is me."

The series of symbols on the railing was her.  The one Sam was looking at--

"Say again?"  Dean frowned at her, then at Cas.  "I thought you said it was a list of fallen angels."  Why they needed a list was beyond him.  Angels and their freaky ass ideas of fun.

"The list of the fallen may be able to track the course of the apocalypse," Castiel said.  He was staring at the other end of the porch.  The world sometimes felt like a giant game of "made you look," but coming from Cas it was enough to make Dean glance over his shoulder.

The name emblazoned on the far railing was scrawled larger than the rest.  Dean couldn't read it, but it wasn't like he needed to.  He didn't step back, even when Anna said calmly, "Lucifer was the first.  Michael will be the last."

"Wait, what?"  Sam's question pretty much covered Dean's feelings on the matter, so he kept his mouth shut while Sam added, "Michael?  Why?"

"Because Lucifer was first," Anna said.  Like it was so obvious they must not have heard.

"What do you have to do with this?" Dean asked, ignoring her.  "You're not on that list."

Castiel looked at him.  "I am on this list."

"Okay, this one," Dean said, latching onto the distinction.  "But not the fallen one.  The list of fallen angels," he repeated, in case it wasn't clear.  "You're not on that list."

Castiel just stared at him.

He came this close to asking if that sounded as stupid as he thought it did.  He figured he already knew the answer.  Anna spoke before he could ask anyway.

"I thought you told them," she said.

Castiel didn't look at her.  "I am cast out of heaven," he said, almost gently.  "You are aware of this."

No.  Shit.  There was something wrong with his brain tonight.  He couldn't even understand what they were saying.  Or why they were talking.  What they were doing here.

"But you..."  Sam sounded confused.  "When Anna fell--"  She must have turned to look at him, because he started over.  "When you fell, you were human.  He's not."

"I gave up my grace," she said.  "No more angelhood.  Getting it back made me an angel again, but it doesn't mean I've been forgiven."

"Nor I," Castiel said quietly.  "Though my grace was never forfeit."

"That's why you're still..."  There was no way he could finish that sentence.  He didn't even know why he'd started it, so he just waved vaguely in Cas' direction and hoped for the best.

Castiel inclined his head.

"But why?" Sam asked.  "For helping Dean?"

Castiel sounded almost irritable when he said, "Not everything is about Dean."

"To disobey is to fall," Anna said.  "Everyone knows that."

Sam gave her that know-it-all tone right back.  "To fall is to sin," he said.  "You're tempted to sin, and you fall."

"Disobedience is the only angelic sin," Castiel said.

Dean couldn't take it anymore.  "Seriously?" he blurted out.  "You got thrown out for disobeying those dicks?  'Cause I gotta tell you, I would've kicked them out way before you."

"I questioned the lord's will," Castiel said, like that was all there was to it.  "This is unforgivable."

"You never fucking did that!" Dean snapped.  "You're all 'god this' and 'god that!'  The only thing you questioned is whether the damn archangels know what they're doing!  And if you want my vote, I think the evidence is pretty clear!"

"I do not," Castiel said, "want your vote.  Your opinion is known to me.  I made my choice, and free will is the one thing we are not allowed.  I accept the consequences."

"Well, I don't!" Dean shouted.  "Screw them!  You're better than any of the goddamn celestial circus!"

The rumble that followed was terrible in a silence he couldn't hear.  He didn't know it wasn't sound until Sam's voice cut through the quiet.  "Dean," he said.  "I don't really think that's helping."

Castiel, too, looked almost normal when his gaze flicked to Anna.  "I occasionally feel..."  He stopped, then tried again.  "I am not always insulted when he profanes the host of heaven on my behalf.  Is this another indicator of weakness?"

"No," Anna said, smiling back at him.  "That's loyalty."

Castiel seemed to consider this.  "It is something to feel gratitude for, then."

"I think so," Anna agreed.

Castiel looked at him.  For a long moment he didn't say anything, and Dean knew his mouth was gonna get him in trouble one of these days.  Finally, though, Cas said, "Thank you."

"I don't get it," Dean said.  He didn't know how to shut up.  "If you disobey someone who's disobedient, doesn't it, like, cancel out or something?"

He could've sworn Cas smiled.  "If that's true," he said, and he sounded as serious as ever, "then you may be the most obedient man to walk the earth."

Sam snorted.  "Something that could only be said at the end of days," he said.  "How does keeping track of the angels help us, anyway?  Isn't it better to, you know, avoid them instead of checking in with them?"

"It's the destiny of every angel to fall," Anna replied.

"So say the few," Castiel said, hands in his pockets as he stared down at the deck.

She shrugged.  "Even god's children grow up.  Some," she said, with an amused glance at Cas, "say they'll be forgiven."

"Who?" Dean said before he could think.

Anna gave him an odd look.  "The angels."

"All of them?" Sam asked.

"Once they've all fallen," Anna said.  "Yes."

"That doesn't make sense."  Dean looked from her to Cas and back again.  "I thought falling was unforgivable."

"For now," Anna said.  "But as the chain of command erodes, too many are placed in untenable positions.  You said it yourself: Cas is the strongest of us.  He followed every order he could until finally he had to choose between divine will and the archangels."

"It is not my place to interpret divine will," Castiel countered.  He glanced at Dean, then away into the darkness.  "I only presumed to recognize its absence."

"For which you expected to die," Anna said with a sigh.  "Sorry, Cas.  No one gets off that easy anymore."

"You're saying you can't follow orders," Dean said.  "One guy tells you to do one thing, another guy tells you to do something else, and you gotta choose."

"Choice is a result of free will."  Anna waved her hand at the ramp, where a whole group of weird shapes shone against the boards.  "Three more angels fell this week.  We're running out of space to write."

"Two of them helping me," Castiel muttered.  "I put them in that position."

Dean looked at him sharply.  Helping him do what?

"What is that percentage-wise?" Sam asked, frowning when Dean turned his glare on him.  "What?  Numbers don't mean anything in a vacuum."

"The archangels are like a sample size," Anna offered.  "Lucifer, Samael, me, fallen.  Zachariah and Raphael are debatable.  But Gabriel and Michael haven't, not yet."

"Raphael fell," Castiel snapped.

Actually snapped, and Dean looked at him in surprise.  "Dude, I don't like him any better than you do," he said, "but just because he killed you doesn't mean he, you know.  Fell."

"You were supposed to kill me," Anna reminded Cas.  "You fell because you didn't."

Dean blinked.  "Wait," he said.  That had gone somewhere he hadn't expected at all.  "What?"

"He thinks our father abandoned us," Castiel said, not looking at him.  "What place is there for him in heaven now?"

"Hey, two steps back," Sam interrupted.  "You're an archangel?"

Dean had never expected to see heaven when he died.  It was still weirdly disturbing to hear Cas bar people from it, from his home, for--

"You think just anyone can get a human with child?" Anna asked.  "There'd be half-angelic babies all over the place."

The mental image was enough to shake all the rest of it out of his head.  Sam actually looked like he agreed with her, but Castiel muttered, "At the rate we're going, we could use them," and Dean could only stare at him.

At the rate we're going.  Numbers flashed through his head: six of my brothers died in the field.  Seven angels dead so far.  I killed two angels this week...  A sample size of how many, exactly?  What was it percentage-wise?  Castiel had never said, and suddenly Dean couldn't believe he'd never asked.

"You volunteering, Cas?"  Anna's dry amusement broke him out of his thoughts, and the look Castiel gave her made Dean wince.

"I don't know if you noticed," he said, "but Cas is a dude."

She didn't look impressed, but at least she was distracted.  "I hate to be the one to break it to you, Dean," she said, and all that amusement was turned on him now.  "Angels are genderless."

"Okay."  Sam sounded like they needed to move on, which, yeah.  They really did.  "So, you think that's representative?  Half the archangels, more than half, means--"

"Half the population of heaven," Anna said.  "Here on earth.  It makes sense; as hell empties out, heaven has to follow."

Dean snorted.  "Oh, yeah," he agreed.  "Totally makes sense.  I mean, why are we even discussing it?"

"Because you asked," Castiel said.

Like a lot of the things Cas came out with, there wasn't much he could say to that.  Sam asked, "So does it give you any kind of... I don't know, timeline?  That sounds bad," he added.  "Sorry."

"It is as it must be," Anna said, but she exchanged glances with Castiel.  "For whatever reason.  The upper echelons are deteriorating, the pace of the fall is accelerating.  All we can say for sure is that the end is coming faster today than it was yesterday."

"Great," Dean said.  "Peachy.  Anyone for a beer?"

Sam raised his hand.  Anna, to his surprise, raised hers as well.  Dean raised an eyebrow at her, and she just stared back at him.  "Okay," he said.  "Four beers, coming up."

The kitchen was empty.  He took a minute to yell for Bobby while he had the refrigerator open.  "Hey, Bobby," he called, rattling bottles like ringing a bell.  "World's ending, you want a drink?"

The shouted reply was muffled, but he could make out "piss off" perfectly clear.  "Suit yourself," he yelled back.  "We're not saving you any!"

He took the tops off out of habit.  And some kind of self-interest.  He figured angels could open their own damn beer, but maybe this way he would avoid the reproachful stare.  

Cas gave him one anyway when Dean tried to hand him the last bottle.  "I did not ask for beer," he said.

"Yeah, well."  Dean leaned on the railing next to him, setting the bottle down and clinking the neck of his own against it before lifting it to his lips.  "No one asked for any of this, so you might as well take the good with the bad."

"You guys drink beer?" Sam asked from the other side of the steps.  He and Dean were bracketing an entryway that had seen a lot of scary shit go by.  So far none of it scarier than they were.

Sam stood by the right-hand post.  Anna was on his other side.  She said "yes" at the same time Castiel said "no," and Dean smiled up at the night sky.

As he watched, another falling star burned across the horizon.