He could stay here for ages. He could ask it of Crowley, and he knows that he would reluctantly get his wish. But he only holds on a little longer, memorizing everything about this moment in the case that things don't go well. He reaches out, and touches feathers gently as if they might burn him.

"Just until morning then," he says, turning his cheek to kiss some feathers. In the moonlight they look almost blue, and he thinks these are the feelings that artists paint, that writers write.

He barely makes any more sound, just basking in this embrace, his possible last days on Earth and he wouldn't want to do anything else with them.