Sacrament (Perseides, Chapter 5 of 7)
Oct. 9th, 2012 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Sacrament (Perseides, Chapter 5 of 7)
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Cas; Sam, Bobby, Gabriel, Rufus, Balthazar, Lucifer, Michael, Zachariah, Uriel, Jody Mills, Ruby.
Warnings: Cursing. Sexual situations. Descriptions of violence, especially in later chapters. Some light hints of Sam/Ruby.
Word Count: 45,000 total
Summary: The apocalypse has come. Lucifer and Michael burned down heaven in their madness, and our own world has been rent in two. Much of the United States now roils in a state of constant warfare. When Sam, a fighter pilot working for the Michaelistas, is shot down over enemy lines, Dean, an ex-cop, risks everything to search for him. Both brothers find some help along the way from creatures they never knew existed.
Notes: This is set in a post-apocalyptic AU, but it is NOT the Endverse. The character of Al Swearengen has been shamelessly stolen, with love, from the Deadwood 'verse.
They walked rapidly out of the train station, two dogs sauntering at their heels.
“Thanks, Mister...?” whispered Sam.
“Crowley is the name. No mister attached,” sighed Crowley.
“Crowley,” repeated Sam. “Anyway, I didn't really relish going back to POW camp,” said Sam.
Crowley sighed. “My boy. You have no idea. They were not sending you back to POW camp. Else I wouldn't have bothered.”
“Where were they gonna send me?” asked Sam, a shiver going down his spine.
“Unfortunately, some bloody idiots who thought they could work an angel spell destroyed the friendly local POW camp. You would have been sent to Tucson. That train goes to what Uriel ever so properly refers to as an extermination camp.”
“Then the stories are true?” asked Sam.
“I do not know the stories to which you refer, so I can’t say, mate. So much the worse for the feathery types, if you get my drift. They go in, but they don’t come out again. Not sure what they’d do to humans, but I wouldn’t wanna risk it if I were you.”
“So. What are you?”
“Me, my boy?”
“Red-eye, or black?”
They had come to a stop around a corner behind the station. “Ah! So you’re not as idiotic as you look. That will serve you in good stead. Hold still now, and if you feel the need to vomit, kindly point it away from me. I just had this suit dry cleaned.”
Crowley put a hand on his shoulder, and then, man, demon and dog, they were no longer on the corner.
“Ellen! Ellen Ellen Ellen! How pleasant to see you!” gushed Gabe.
Dean looked around the Harvelle's roadhouse. Unlike what he could only think of as the creepy angel wings diner, this place seemed more on the level. The crowd was fairly sparse, maybe because it was the middle of the afternoon. When he, Gabe and Cas entered, the few patrons all turned around and stared, quite openly sizing them up, and then all went back to drinking
“You come to settle your bar tab, Gabe?” snapped Ellen, an attractive woman who looked somewhere south of 40 years.
“What’s a few drinks between friends?” pleaded Gabe.
“You see the sign above the door? It says bar. Not drinks on the house for freeloaders.”
“Such a snappy businesswoman. And little Jo!” he said, turning to the cute blonde girl who was waiting tables. “How very charming! You were knee-high to a grasshopper when last I saw you.”
“Two weeks ago?” laughed Jo. She wrapped Gabe in a hug. “And who’s this?” she asked, eyeing Dean and Cas.
“This is my idiot little brother, Cas,” said Gabe, grabbing a squirming Cas in a headlock. “And this is his friend, Dean.”
“Oh, where's he been hiding you, Cas? They grow them good looking in your family,” winked Jo, which made Cas, who had just struggled out of Gabe’s grasp, blush quite red. Dean grinned.
“You got news for me, Ellen?” asked Gabe.
“Nothing much. It's been quiet as a graveyard around here,” said Ellen. She slid a paper over to Gabe. Dean thought it must be a bar tab, until he glanced at it. It wasn't written in English. It looked like the weird Enochian writing from Bobby’s book.
“Aw, no news is good news,” grinned Gabe. He threw a significant look at Cas, and then the two of them wandered over to where a couple of guys were hunched over the bar. “Hey, anybody thirsty?” asked Gabe, draping an arm around the one guy's shoulder. “Drinks are on me.”
“Save it, buddy,” grumbled the guy.
And his good feeling about this place? Dean took it back. He was getting the heebie jeebies now. He made to walk closer, but felt Jo's hand on his arm.
“That's not very friendly, is it Cas?” asked Gabe.
“Get lost,” grumbled the guy.
“No, you get lost,” grinned Gabe. And then suddenly his hand was on the one guy's forehead, while Cas grabbed the other guy. Their eyes and mouths started to glow that with that weird light Dean remembered. And then, to his astonishment, while Cas and Gabe continued to hold them, both of them reared back, threw their mouths open, and began to belch an ugly, foul-smelling black smoke. The smoke billowed up, and then sunk back down to create a hazy pool at their feet. After a few seconds more, the black turned red. It shimmered, like ashes from a fireplace, and then dissipated.
The two guys collapsed, spasming a little, and then going still.
Still behind the bar, Ellen nodded, and a couple of other patrons hopped down from the bar and started to drag the guys out the back door.
“I thought you said no smiting!” Cas told Gabe.
“This was the exception that proves the rule,” Gabe told him.
“Thanks, boys,” said Ellen. “Those jokers had been hanging here all week.”
“Those were demons?” Dean asked Jo, who was still holding his arm.
“You new in town, buddy?” she grinned at Dean.
“They were possessed,” Cas told Dean, but Dean noticed he was staring at Jo while he spoke. “We expunged the demons.”
“Expunged, huh?” smiled Jo. “Gabe, you sure this one is related to you?”
“We are siblings,” explained Cas, which only caused Jo's grin to widen.
“He was dropped on his head as a fledgling,” said Gabe, ruffing Cas’ hair. “Probably by me.” Cas turned to Gabe, a glint of smiting in his eyes.
“Break it up kids,” grumbled Ellen.
“I'm here 'cause we need a favor,” said Gabe, now sidling up to the bar. “From a lovely woman.”
“Oh, can it, Gabe! What do you want?” Ellen asked, rubbing the bar with a towel.
“And after we smote your pests?” asked Gabe. He hooked a thumb at Dean. “This one is looking for a little lost brother.”
“Not so little, actually,” said Dean.
“How did he get himself lost?” asked Ellen.
“POW,” said Dean.
“There's a POW camp in this county,” said Jo.
“We think that's the one,” said Gabe. “But you know those location spells run up your long distance bill. I was wondering if I could try a small one some place safe.” Gabe looked around shrewdly. “Like, maybe, here?”
“Oh, hell no! You wanna stink up the place again, Gabe?” asked Ellen, rolling her eyes.
“It's not that bad,” said Gabe.
“Even the skunks ran away,” protested Jo, who was already holding her nose.
“C'mon Ellen,” urged Gabe.
“It took me a week to get the smell out of the upholstery last time, Gabe,” Ellen told him.
“Look, Ellen,” said Dean. “I just wanna find my brother. I came all this way to get him, and I'm not leaving without him.”
“He is speaking the truth,” said Cas. “He has already hijacked a police car and robbed a vampire tanning salon in pursuit of his brother.”
“He's … what?” laughed Jo. “You've been hanging around with Gabe too much.”
“That's why I need to find my brother and go home. Please?” Dean pleaded.
“A charmer, huh?” sighed Ellen. “All right, all right. I've got a storeroom in back. That's where they dragged those guys to sleep out the possession. Maybe this will wake them up sooner.” She inclined her head, and then Gabe was after her.
“Great, I have a good spell that won't cause much blowback,” Gabe told her.
“Whaddya mean, blowback?” Ellen asked as they exited through the back door.
“We will have Sam's location soon, Dean,” Cas told him.
“What did your brother mean by blowback?” Dean asked him. The both looked over to an old jukebox, which had just started up. Jo came over and pulled on Cas' arm. “Come on, dance with me,” she urged him.
“Uh,” said Cas, once again looking very flustered. “I'm afraid.... I don't dance.”
“It's easy! Come on, I've never danced with an angel,” she smiled.
“Maybe you could dance … with Dean?” Cas suggested.
“She wants to dance with you, twinkletoes!” Dean laughed, and then he laughed more as Cas actually looked down at his feet, presumably to see if they were iridescent. Dean gave Cas a shove off the stool, and he ended up in Jo's arms, where he literally gulped.
The back door slammed. “This whole place is gonna reek!” sighed Ellen. Dean turned back to face her.
“Thank you, Ellen,” Dean told her as she pushed a beer his way.
“Aw,” she said, waving a hand. “I owe that little son of a bitch, much as I don't wanna admit it.”
“Your place is sort of … out of the way,” said Dean.
“You're wondering what the hell we're up to,” said Ellen. “You can just come out and say it.”
“OK.”
“Before the war, this was a place for hunters,” Ellen told him.
“Something tells me you're not talking guys out shooting deer,” said Dean, opening the beer.
“Gabe tells me you spent your life in the East?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Dean told her. “Yeah.”
“Even before Lucifer, there were things in this world that most humans don't know about. That doesn't make them less dangerous.”
“Like the demons?”
Ellen nodded. “Vampires. Revenants. Wendigos. Ghosts. Some of us made our lives about keeping people safe. Of course, our kind ended up on Lucifer's most wanted list, along with the angels,” she said, nodding towards Cas. Dean glanced over. Cas' look of sheer terror had faded, and he now had a hand on Jo's hip, and they swayed together to the music.
Dean frowned, not entirely sure why he was frowning.
“Unfortunately, there's not a lot of us left,” Ellen added. “When and if this war ever ends, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do.”
Dean forced himself to tear his eyes from Cas and Jo and turn back towards Ellen. “How do you guys make it?”
“Gabe has helped us along.”
“I thought the guy didn't wanna get involved?” asked Dean.
“He acts like a circus clown, but he's different. Angels aren't like you and me. Hard to know what's going on inside from what they're doing. But you start to get a sense.”
“They're … different,” said Dean.
“So what's your story, Dean?” asked Ellen. “Am I right, or are you ex-service? Or a cop?”
Dean chuckled into his beer. “Is it obvious? Cop. Ex.”
“It's the way you carry yourself. Was Cas lying about you stealing a police car?” she asked, leaning forward on her elbows.
Dean flicked his eyes around to Cas and Jo, who were thick in conversation, and then told her, “No, that's about what happened, how I landed with Cas and Bobby. Sort of screwed that one up.”
“There's always a use for guys like you, let me tell you,” said Ellen.
“Ah, after this is over, I may have to go work for Cas' stepdad at the scrapyard,” sighed Dean.
At the sound of a girlish laugh, Dean once again turned to look at Cas and Jo. He expected Cas had stomped on her foot or done any of a number of strange things, but instead Cas was actually leaning and whispering something in her ear. A private joke.
“I... Uh.” Dean put down his beer.
“Everything OK?” smiled Ellen.
“I think I need some air,” said Dean, who headed outside.
“Dean?” asked Cas as Dean passed by the dancing couple. Dean ignored him and stalked through the front door. He turned and walked around the side of the building, and then paced for a little bit for good measure, not quite sure what was wrong. There wasn't anything wrong. Then why was he acting like an idiot?
“Dean?”
Dean turned at the sound of Cas' voice. “What, Cas?” he asked distractedly.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I'm all right,” said Dean. “You through dancing?”
“Jo was asking about you.”
Dean stopped pacing and looked at Cas. “What did she want to know about me?”
“If we were.... You know,” muttered Cas, who seemed very interested in something on the ground.
“If we were what?” asked Dean.
But then Cas was directly in front of him, standing too close and staring in that weird way of his. Dean stood his ground, glaring at him. And even crowded in a little closer. And then Cas had caught him behind the head and was kissing him. Dean was just too damned startled to do much of anything for a long second or two, but then grabbed the angel by the shoulders, turned him around and pushed him, a little roughly, against the side of the building.
And then he leaned in and showed Cas what a kiss was really like.
They were both breathing hard when Dean finally drew back, his fingers still entwined in Cas' hair. “Wanted to wipe that stupid grin off your face,” he muttered. He frowned at Cas. “Didn't work I guess.” But then Cas had pulled him back and they continued, pressing their bodies together. I was like … well, it was a little like heaven. Dean ran his hands down the backs of Cas' thighs and lifted, and then Cas had his legs wrapped around Dean.
“Cas?” Dean muttered as he finally, reluctantly, broke the clench. His knees felt wobbly. “OK. OK. We're gonna need room if we keep this up.”
Cas tilted his head. “What about the car?”
It was Dean's turn to grin.
Sam lurched over, hands on his knees, but to his relief did not end up actually vomiting.
Breathing hard, he painfully stood up and looked around.
He was no longer outside the station. He was now inside something that looked like a large, teeming factory. One of Crowley's dogs nosed him, and he put a cautious hand out to scratch its muzzle. It smiled a goofy dog smile.
“I'm surprised he let you keep the hand. Grim and Barghest don't fancy a lot of people,” Crowley crisply informed him.
“Well, uh, thanks for letting me know,” gulped Sam. He had withdrawn his hand, but now the huge head was rubbing against him, and two very red eyes looked up, imploring him. Sam tentatively scratched behind the ears. “Uh, what kind of dogs are Grim and....”
“Barghest. Hellhounds. Raised them from pups!” bragged Crowley.
“Yeah, of course they are,” said Sam. “Hey, you never answered my question. Are you a red-eye, or a black eye?”
“No, I never did, did I? Come along,” said Crowley, who was now striding across the factory floor.
“So, this is … a munitions factory?” asked Sam, looking around.
“Yes, just one in my vast fleet of wartime enterprises,” said Crowley.
Sam noticed a row of people stuffing what looked like shell casings with salt. He remembered what Rufus had told him about using salt for ammo against demons. “So, your employees? They're human?”
“Right again!” said Crowley. “My work makes it a sad but necessary requirement that I keep a number of humans at my employ. As well as … certain other species.”
Sam nodded. Another group had caught his eye: they were painting arcane symbols on various weaponry. “You got a bunch of angels in here too,” he said softly.
“Nice job if you can get it,” said Crowley, who had paused before a glass door that said Business Offices. “And if you play your cards right, you can be the newest employee of Crowley enterprises. I've heard you're quite the card sharp.”
He burst through the door, Sam and the dogs behind him.
There were two very familiar faces in Crowley's office: Asmodeus the poker-playing demon was sitting with his feet up on what was presumably Crowley's desk. And Rufus was there as well.
“Sam!” yelled Rufus, who was out of his chair, hugging Sam. “God dammit! When you didn't make it back, we didn't know what happened.”
“Fucking Frank delayed me,” smiled Sam. “He'll be pissed I didn't use his train tickets.”
“We'll tell him when we find him. There's a lot of our guys unaccounted for,” said Rufus.
“You weren't kidding about a shitstorm,” said Sam. “Last thing I remember the wall was glowing, and then I woke up miles away.”
“You bastards destroyed the camp,” said Asmodeus. “I told you to be careful with those angel spells,” he told Rufus, who shrugged.
“You're lucky you got blown clear,” Rufus told Sam. “We leveled a good deal of the countryside too.”
“And I am out of my supply of fresh heirloom tomatoes,” grumbled Crowley, who thumped down behind his desk.
“If Asmodeus hadn't found me, I may have been stuck on that train to Tucson,” said Rufus.
“So, no offense...” said Sam, casting a glance at Crowley.
“I rarely let myself be offended by humans,” Crowley sighed.
“But, Rufus, we're working with demons now?” Sam asked.
“I don't think he likes us, boss,” laughed Asmodeus.
“My dear boy, you've always been working with demons,” said Crowley. “Do you think you would have been able to marshal your little prison break without my consent? But what is the harm in that? I am simply a businessman, trying to make my way during troubled times.”
“But you have humans here,” said Sam. “And... And angels.”
“I only keep them as long as they are useful. And as long as they annoy the shit out of Lucifer,” said Crowley, narrowing his eyes and pulling out a bottle of Scotch and three glasses.
“Where's my glass?” asked Asmodeus.
“Asmodeus, go out and pretend to be useful. Go walk the dogs!” Crowley said.
“They're not gonna bite me again are they?” asked Asmodeus, hopping reluctantly to his feet.
“Oh, most likely,” said Crowley, shooing them out.
“So,” said Sam, sipping at his whiskey. It was good stuff. “You’re the boss of the red-eye soldiers.”
“I prefer to think of my boys as, er, independent contractors. Rather than soldiers. Sounds so much more businesslike, don’t you reckon?” grinned Crowley.
“I don’t understand,” said Sam.
“I’m a demon,” explained Crowley. “You are entitled to your prejudices. But mark my words, we have endured and sometimes even thrived for a long time down here, alongside your kind. Then, unfortunately, the big man upstairs decided to take a powder, and now the less gifted of his offspring have decided to use the world – my world, dammit – as their personal monster truck rally.”
“Their .. what?” asked Sam, who was laughing despite himself.
“Big, bloated, destructive and worst of all, tacky!” huffed Crowley.
“Your big beef is that Michael and Lucifer have bad taste?” asked Sam.
“Is a tastefully appointed world too much to ask?” said Crowley. “That and a decent whiskey.” He poured them all another round. “As I have said, I have been alive longer than you can imagine, therefore I know that some day this will all be over. And if it is to end with a few of your kind, and a few angels, owing me a favor, than all the better.”
“This is all a deal to you?” asked Sam.
“What do you say, Rufus?” asked Crowley.”
“On the one hand, can’t trust a demon. On the other hand…” Rufus repeated with a laugh.
“Can’t trust a demon,” Sam finished.
Asmodeus stuck his head in the door, and the two dogs barreled in. “Boss, we just got a report of activity! Angelic.”
“What? Unidentified angels in my domain. Well, bears a look see.”
“It could be more people from the escape,” said Rufus, sitting up.
“Whereabouts?” asked Crowley.
“The camp.”
“Our old camp?” asked Sam.
“Not the POW one,” said Asmodeus. “The, uh … other one.”
“Oh. I shall go myself,” said Crowley, who suddenly seemed serious.
“Can we go with you?” asked Sam.
“Frankly, this ain't something you wanna see, Sam,” said Rufus.
“Why not?” asked Sam.
Crowley frowned at Sam. “No, let him come along. I think young Sam deserves to see what our angelic friends have in mind for his world.”
Cas' overcoat made a decent blanket.
“Damn,” said Dean, because he really couldn't think of anything else to say. Cas was lying like a contented cat on his chest in the Impala’s capacious back seat. “So this was the first time you tried this, you know, in a car?”
Cas raised himself on one elbow. He looked at Dean, and then looked away, seeming a little guilty. “If you mean relations, this would constitute.... This would be.... Not that I have not had opportunities....”
Dean gently grabbed Cas's face and brought him around to look at Dean. “This is your first first time?” he asked.
He didn't get an answer, just a sheepish nod. And then Cas was back, nuzzling his chest.
“Oh,” said Dean. He was silent for a while. Great, he thought, I've just corrupted an angel. Albeit, one who seemed awfully eager to be corrupted. “Cas?”
“Yeah?”
“When we get back, is Bobby gonna kill me?”
“Naw.”
“OK, that’s good,” said Dean, relaxing a little.
“Because Gabe is gonna kill you now.”
“WHAT?”
Dean glared down. He felt Cas spasm. Cas looked up. The grin was back. “Maybe he'll just smite you a little,” Cas told him.
Dean rolled his eyes. “You know, Cas, you and Gabe....”
“He can act like a big jerk. I know,” Cas said, shifting position slightly. His skin felt amazing. Dean caught him for another kiss. Cas frowned, and then continued. “Because Gabe is a big jerk. I tend to forget this during the interludes when we do not interact....”
“No! It.... Seeing you guys pal around, it makes me miss the hell out of Sammy.”
Cas blinked up at him. “Really?”
“You guys just remind me of us. I mean.... Well, you'll see.”
“Then perhaps we should cut short this post-coital interlude and see if my brother's location spell worked.”
Dean burst out laughing. “Let me find my pants,” he said, and they both rummaged around the floor for discarded articles of clothing. The majority of the time was spent on Dean un-knotting Cas' tie and tying it up properly: Bobby was right, he really did have no idea how to fasten it.
They both hurried back into the roadhouse. “Where the hell have you two been?” laughed Jo from the bar. “I'm still owed a dance.”
“Uh,” said Dean.
“Dean was demonstrating the advantages of sexual intimacy conducted in the back seat of a vehicle,” said Cas.
“What?” said Gabe, who had just come into the room.
“Uh,” said Dean.
Ellen threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Cas! Can I adopt you?”
“I have an adoptive father, thanks Ellen,” said Cas. He turned his attention to Gabriel. “Brother! What has happened?” he asked Gabe. Dean noticed for the first time that the ends of Gabe's hair were smoking.
“You're fooling around with my baby brother?” Gabe demanded of Dean. His face, too, looked like it had been smeared with ash, and he smelled like smoke.
“It wasn't fooling, Gabe,” said Cas. “Laughter was kept to a minimum.”
“You won't smite me, will you?” asked Dean.
“Gabe looks like someone's already smitten him,” said Ellen.
“What happened?” Cas repeated.
“A little blowback on my location spell,” said Gabe, who violently shook his head. Suddenly, the smoking hair and ash vanished.
“Did you find Sam?” asked Cas. Dean hovered near.
“The POW camp is gone. Vanished. And Sam....” Gabe looked over at Dean. “Sam isn't anywhere.”
Dean felt his heart sink. “Did something happen to Sam?” he asked.
“No, nothing bad. Don't freak, Deano. But nothing … good. I got no information. He there but he's off the grid. It's strange. I've never seen anything like this before. He’s gotta be some place with some really powerful warding spells.”
“What do we do?” asked Dean.
“Which way is that camp?” Cas asked Ellen. He threw off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Cas, no wings!” said Gabe, grabbing him. “You can't just go buzzing over there! We don't know what's happening.”
“That is what I am going to find out,” said Cas.
“I am not having you get yourself killed,” said Gabe.
“I am not going to stand here while Dean’s brother might be in peril!”
“Wait,” said Dean, hoping to avoid another angelic feud. “How long is the drive?”
“It’s a couple hours,” Ellen told him.
“I know the way,” said Jo. “Let me go with you.”
“I don’t think I like that idea, young lady,” said Ellen.
“I can handle myself!” Jo protested. “And I’ve got angels!” Ellen looked dubious, but nodded.
“Let’s go,” said Dean, who was already on his way out the door, Cas at his side. Jo scrambled after them.
“Wait you guys! I need to grab some ice cream before I go!” wailed Gabe.
“Bring them back, Gabe,” Ellen told him, tossing him a sack of M&Ms. Gabe nodded, but then hurried after the rest.
“This is … sort of nice,” said Sam, who immediately realized it was a stupid comment. Wherever the hell Crowley had yanked him and Rufus, it was nestled next to a mountainside, and there was actually a cover of real forest. Sam hadn’t realized how much he’d missed trees, spending so long in the middle of a freaking desert wasteland.
“It’s hidden back here for a reason, kid,” said Rufus, who had conjured a real cigarette for the occasion.
“Yes, and it ain’t because the trees provide a pleasant atmosphere,” said Crowley. Grim and Barghest came romping up to him. “All clear?” Crowley asked the dogs.
“No,” said Sam. “Look! There's somebody here!” He held a hand over his eyes and squinted. Four people, it looked like.
“Fuck. Some hellhounds you turned out to be. Sic 'em!” Crowley ordered his dogs. Very suddenly, they changed from friendly mutts to the vicious barking beasts Sam had first encountered. They scampered across the clearing and disappeared into the trees.
“Wait!” said Sam. “Crowley! We don't know who they are.”
“They're no good, if they're around here,” said Crowley. “Oh, wait!” He sighed, watching Sam run off after the dogs. “He doesn't heel, does he?” he complained to Rufus. “I despise running!” he shouted, before taking off. Rufus flicked away his cigarette and took off after Crowley.
Dean heard the barking. “Get back,” Gabe said softly. Cas was instantly in front of Dean and Jo.
The POW camp had been a waste of time. It had been completely demolished. They had all sadly assembled back in the car when Gabe suddenly claimed he felt something, like the presence of other angels nearby. As they had approached this area, Dean noticed both Cas and Gabe seemed to get more and more agitated. Gabe refused to let Cas fly over the area, so they had all gotten out to have a look around.
Two of the biggest dogs Dean had ever seen came bursting out of the scrub.
“I hate dogs,” grumbled Gabe, jabbing two fingers onto the forehead of the first. It collapsed with a whimper. “Stand still!” he ordered the other one, which was now growling and snapping around him. He jabbed with his fingers, but failed to make contact.
“Want me to do it?” asked Cas.
“It's not easy!” Gabe protested. “This thing is fast.”
“Gabe, we don’t have all day,” sighed Cas, walking forward.
“Hey! Whose dogs are these?” Dean asked Jo.
“That’s a good question,” she told him, and they both looked around.
“Hey, look!” said Dean, spotting a well-dressed man emerging from the woods.
“Gabe! It’s a demon!” shouted Jo.
“What the hell did you feather-brains do to my dogs?” the demon demanded of Cas and Gabe. He had a slight English accent.
All of a sudden, Cas and Gabe were next to him, Cas yanking him up by the collar. Jo ran over across the clearing to them, and Dean was about to follow.
“Dean?”
Dean whirled around at the familiar voice, scarcely believing what he had just heard.
“Sammy,” whispered a disbelieving Dean.
“What the hell, Dean?” asked Sam, who had just emerged from the forest overgrowth.
Dean pounced on his brother. “Sammy! Oh, god, Sammy!” He wanted to hug him and never stop. But Sam finally pushed him away
“Dean, I-“
“You fucking idiot!” howled Dean. He swung at Sam, a blow Sam easily dodged. “Dumb fucking son of a bitch!” He swung again, but this time his fist was caught by a tall dark-skinned guy.
“What the hell?” asked Rufus.
“I’ll kill you!” said Dean. He lunged forward at Sam, but Rufus caught him and restrained him.
“It’s OK. Rufus, it’ s OK. This is my brother!” laughed Sam.
“This? Is your brother?” asked Rufus.
“Let me go! Let me go so I can murder him!” yelled Dean.
“Can we maybe leave off with the murdering?” asked Rufus. Dean nodded, and Rufus let him go.
“Dean is correct. They are quite similar to us,” said Cas, who was now standing nearby, still holding Crowley by the collar, watching along with Gabe and Jo.
“Except when I try to punch you, you usually forget to duck,” laughed Gabe.
“Whoa, they grow their Winchesters big!” grinned an obviously impressed Jo.
“Sam! Will you kindly tell our feathered friends to release me?” pleaded Crowley.
“Oh, yeah, let him go!” said Sam. “Let him go! He's with me. With us!”
“Your brother is consorting with demons, Dean?' asked Cas suspiciously.
“Look, Crowley is OK you guys! He saved my ass!” said Sam. Cas and Gabe exchanged a dubious glance and then looked at Crowley.
Cas released Crowley. “Angels are watching over you, dickweed,” Gabe told him.
“I will make a mental note of it,” sighed Crowley.
“OK, OK, let me explain, everybody,” said Sam. “This is Rufus,” he said, indicating Rufus. “He's my friend, and he just escaped with me. And he's human. And this guy is Crowley the demon, and he helped me escape for reasons I still don't fucking understand. And these are his dogs, who are … hellhounds,” he said, pointing to the still unconscious mutts. “And this is my brother Dean, who is an asshole sometimes, and is also human.” Upon which, Sam draped an arm around Dean.
Dean frowned. He gestured. “Cas and Gabe. And Jo.”
“Angels,” Gabe told Crowley.
“I’m not,” said Jo.
“Yes, I had peeked ahead to that part of the book, Miss,” sighed Crowley.
“And now please tell me what the fuck you're doing here, Dean,” said Sam.
“I, uh, came to rescue you,” admitted Dean.
“Cool! You are the greatest big brother,” laughed Sam.
“See?” Gabe told Cas. “That's how you should act towards me! Show some respect!”
“Does this mean you will begin acting respectable?” Cas asked.
“If we are quite finished with touching family togetherness,” said Crowley. “I came here for two reasons. I've obviously located the angels.”
“We can skip seeing the camp, Crowley,” said Rufus. “These kids don't need to see it.”
“See what?” asked Dean.
“Our good friend Lucifer had two camps in this vicinity,” Crowley explained. “There was the POW camp where Sam and Rufus were so recently guests. Thanks to their shenanigans, there is very little of that left to see. And then there was this one. This was for a very special group of people.” And here Crowley shot a look at Gabe and Cas. “It has been abandoned. But the structure, and, uh, the content, remain.”
“Where did everybody go?” asked Dean.
“Those that remained have been decamped to the newer, larger camp in Tucson,” said Crowley.
“What's in there, Crowley,” asked Sam.
“This is why I suggested you come. I would recommend you see for yourself,” the demon told him.
“Why?” asked Dean.
“I have my reasons,” said Crowley. “Can you kindly un-zap my dogs, first?”
“I will do it,” said Cas.
“Aw, it’s a sinch now, they’re not moving!” protested Gabe. He shrugged and went along in the direction that Rufus and Jo were no moving.
“Dean,” said Sam, as the two of them followed Gabe. “What the fuck. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?”
“Like I said, this is a rescue mission,” shrugged Dean.
“You got leave from the force or something?”
“Well, uh, not quite,” Dean admitted. “And I kind of stole a police cruiser in the deal.”
“Holy shit, Dean.”
“I was going crazy when I heard you were shot down!”
“I wasn’t technically shot down….”
“What?” asked Dean.
“Well, my wingman was shot down, and I landed to try and help him.”
“Sam! You dumb son of a bitch!” yelled Dean.
“No more punching! OK? Enough for the day,” laughed Sam.
“So how was prison?”
“It was actually OK,” said Sam. “Until we got the brilliant idea to escape.” They walked a few paces. “Um, the girl?”
“Jo?” asked Dean.
“She’s cute?” said Sam.
Dean looked over at his brother’s questioning look. “I just met her, actually. Yeah, she’s cute, but, uh….”
“What?”
“I think … there’s somebody else.”
“Wait. You think?” asked Sam. He and Dean stopped. They had just come to the gates of another camp. Rufus, Gabe and Jo had paused outside.
“Can I say I have a bad feeling about this?” asked Gabe.
Cas was surrounded by grateful and fully awake hellhounds. “I apologize for the misunderstanding,” he told them.
“I am certain you are forgiven,” said Crowley, who had also hung back.
“No, I am,” said Cas.
“You know what my dogs are thinking?”
“They are not terribly difficult to read. Unlike humans.”
“Or demons?”
Cas shrugged and started to walk towards the camp. But Crowley moved to stand in front of him. Cas glared.
“Castiel, is it?” asked Crowley. Cas nodded. “Your human body – it doesn’t look very old.”
“I will be the human equivalent of twenty-one years old this fall,” said Cas, puffing himself up a little.
“That’s what I thought. So, you don’t really remember it?” Crowley asked, pointing upwards.
Cas shook his head, his glare turning to a look more of puzzlement. He started to walk forward again, and Crowley blocked him.
“There’s no way in hell you’ll listen to me,” said Crowley, “because to you I’m just some grubby demon berk. But damn me, I’m gonna say it. You don’t need to go in there.”
“Why would I not want to enter?” asked Cas.
“Because angels can be bloody awful bastards, especially to their own kind. But Lucifer….” Crowley stared at Cas. “I’m a demon, meaning I don’t give a shit for your ethics. But there’s things I do, and things I don’t. And what’s in there … that’s things I don’t participate in.”
Castiel stared at Crowley, searching his eyes. “All right,” he finally said. “Your objection has been noted.” And then he stalked off towards the camp.
“Well, I warned the little shit,” Crowley muttered to the dogs.
One room contained just discarded clothing. It was very neatly organized, the coats here, hats there, shoes another place. The shoes were nicely divided into bins of men’s shoes, women’s shoes, children’s shoes.
Dean was holding a child’s shoe. He didn’t know why, but it transfixed him. It was a shoe for a little boy, and it had Batman symbols around it.
“Sammy, you remember that summer you thought you were Batman?” Dean asked Sam, turning the tiny shoe over in his hands.
Sam couldn’t bring himself to smile. “Yeah.”
“You found a bunch of my old comics. I don’t know how the hell we hung onto them, all the moving around we did.”
Dean looked up and saw Sam nodding.
This wasn’t the first room they had gone through. There was one that contained only pieces of luggage, all sorted by size. Dean had noticed one piece there had a little knitted tassel on the handle, something to recognize it by when it rolled off the baggage claim, he supposed.
There was also a room with things like eyeglasses, crutches, watches, and jewelry.
And one with hair. Red and brown and blond. There was some strawberry blond hair, Dean noticed, that was still braided in pigtails.
Sam and Dean looked at each other. Dean very carefully placed the small Batman shoe back in the bin, and they proceeded to the next room. Even before he entered, Dean realized there was something different about this room. He got a funny feeling, like you’d walked around on a rug and built up a lot of static electricity. He paused, and then entered.
It was amazing, for humans who had never seen angel wings before – Dean had only briefly glimpsed that pair in the dark outbuilding by that diner – the size and variety. Dean had always considered them, on the few occasions he thought about angels, to be white and sort of fluffy. But they came in as many colors as human hair colors, and yet more: there were some bright and gorgeous as peacocks, and some as psychedelic crazy as parrots. Interesting specimens like these had been carefully mounted on the walls. Others were neatly stacked on shelves: huge shelves, going up to the ceiling.
Dean tried to count, and then lost count.
And the power! It just seemed the room was filled with … magic, or enchantment, or something Dean didn’t even know what it was.
He went and hunkered down next to Cas, who was on his hands and knees in the middle of the room, hovering over the pool of vomit on the floor.
Jo handed Dean some Kleenex from a pocket. Dean reached over and carefully eased Cas back so he was sitting down on his heels, and then used the Kleenex to wipe his mouth. The angel’s eyes were red-rimmed. Sam sat down on the floor opposite Dean, on Cas’ other side.
“Who did this?” asked Jo. “Who could have done this?”
“Lucifer,” said Rufus. “This is his endgame.”
“This is insane!” said Jo.
“Has Lucifer just gone mad?” Sam asked.
“I hadn’t heard his sanity vouched for to begin with,” said Crowley.
“Yeah? Well, he’s clearly gone a few chicken nuggets short of a Happy Meal,” growled Dean.
“Gabriel,” said Cas. It came out as a raspy croak.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here, kid. I’m sorry,” said Gabe.
“Gabriel. We must do something,” said Cas.
“We can’t, Castiel! Don’t you understand?” said Gabe.
“Why can’t you?” asked Sam.
“What we are, Cas and I – we’re not angels any more! Not like they are, Michael and Lucifer.”
“I think Bobby mentioned something about it,” said Dean. “Nephilim?”
Gabe sighed. “To remake ourselves as humans, we had to give up some of our power. I thought it was best, for Cas and me. We weren’t going back to heaven. None of us were.”
“But Lucifer didn’t do the same?” asked Sam.
“No, no! Don’t you see? Lucifer and Michael, and the guys like that, they hung on to every scrap of power. Nothing matters to them any more but beating up on the other guy. And….” Gabe waved his hands around the room. “Every other being who gets in the way.”
“He will exterminate us! Our people!” Cas pleaded.
“He’s not gonna touch you. Not if I have anything to say about it. Come on,” said Gabe, yanking Cas to his feet. “We got Sam. Now we’re getting you out of here. And back with Bobby. Over the wall. Where you belong.”
“Gabriel. We have to do something!” said Cas. “We are obligated.”
“There’s nothing we could do?” asked Sam. “Gabe, I dunno what kind of powers you do or don’t have, but the other day at the train station, there was a cattle car full of people bound for … a camp like this. A bigger camp! And who knows how many are already there.”
“Sam, this isn’t our fight!” said Dean. “I’m sorry about all this, but you’ve already done enough.”
“See?” said Gabe, as if that were the end of it. “Dean agrees. We’re outta here.”
“So, you’re gonna take your brother back East?” Rufus asked, narrowing his eyes.
“He dwells in the Unincorporated Territories,” said Gabe.
“And what about when Lucy pokes his head over the wall?” asked Rufus. “You think he’s stopping here? You already said the guy’s nuts.”
“He won’t get far,” grumbled Gabriel.
“Ah! That’s precisely what Michael thought,” smiled Crowley. Gabe glared at him and stormed out, dragging Cas along with him. The rest followed, until only Dean and Crowley remained.
“Crowley,” whispered Dean. “These people – these angels….”
“They were almost certainly alive when this was done,” said Crowley, reaching out to softly touch a nearby wing. “It is thought that … harvesting them that way preserves most of the magic.”
“They’re magical? What, are they like big, sick rabbits’ feet or something?”
“Yes, they are thought to be talismans. If you could see magical power, which you can’t, being human, then you’d see this room positively reeks of it.”
“Why would Lucifer go to all this trouble and then just walk away?” asked Dean.
“Maybe he was in a hurry,” said Crowley. “But he is an angel, and there’s no predicting them.”
“So. You and the angel.”
“Yeah. Me. And an angel,” said Dean. He tipped up his beer into the glass, wondering for a while why no beer was coming out. He looked into the bottle. Ah! Empty!
“What?” asked Sam, leaning back and surveying a table filled with beer bottles.
“Sammy. I didn’t even believe in angels a couple weeks ago.”
“Does he believe in you?” laughed Sam.
“It’s just … strange. It’s been a strange couple of weeks.”
Sam’s features etched a wry smile. “Well, I guess I kind of dated a demon.”
“What?”
“Almost.”
“What the hell, Sammy? While you were in prison?”
“What? I was on release, and there was this pretty girl!”
“Would I have hit on her?” asked Dean.
“Totally.”
Dean squinted drunkenly at Sam. “Yeah, but see, that’s me, not you. I’m an idiot.”
“True. So, you’ve fixed it so you can’t go back East.”
Dean put his head in his hands. “Yeah, and if I go back to No Man’s Land, I get likely tossed back here by an angry, pitchfork-wielding mob of demons.”
“Pitchfork-wielding demons are always the best kind!” laughed Sam.
“Seriously, we need to get away from this Sammy. And now. Lucifer is a madman. You don’t do stuff like that, especially to your own kind.”
“Aren’t you two asleep yet?” asked Ellen, who had just come into the bar.
“Just need another beer, barkeep,” said Dean, holding up an empty bottle.
“Rufus once told me it’s somebody named Uriel running the camps,” Sam told Dean.
“Rufus? Not Rufus Turner!” said Ellen.
“Yeah. You know him?” asked Sam.
“He was one of our best hunters. I didn’t even know he joined up. He didn’t come back with you guys?”
“No, he decided to go back with Crowley,” said Sam, who seemed puzzled.
“Back to make salt bullets?” slurred Dean.
“Dean, the humans and angels he’s got there – he's keeping them out of one of Lucifer's camps,” said Sam.
“Well, great, then Crowley gets Demon of the Week award. Hurrah,” said Dean, waving an empty beer bottle.
Cas was lying on the hood of the Impala, looking up at the stars.
“Are you coming in or not? It’s getting cold.”
He scowled at his brother, and then looked back at the stars without replying.
“OK, you're still pissed,” said Gabe, hopping up to sit beside him. He gazed upwards. “You still like looking at the stars.”
“Yes, Gabe,” sighed Cas. “I still like looking at the stars.”
“And you like the cop?”
Cas actually broke into a brief smile, before he caught himself. Thinking about Dean.... It had been a horrible day. And he shouldn't be happy. “Yes, I like the cop,” he repeated. And the smile flickered again. He waited for Gabe to give him shit about it. That's what Gabe was good at.
Instead, Gabe said, “OK.” and was silent for a moment. “Cas. I want you to just … be happy. And live your life. That wasn't possible up there. Now, maybe I fucked up, bringing you down here, I dunno. But there wasn't anything left up there....”
“There may not be anything left down here,” snapped Cas, who immediately regretted it.
“You don't understand! I left behind everything! Everyone! Those people up there, our brothers and sisters, they were important to me. But I left them. So you could be OK. And I need to know you're OK. Or none of it was fucking worth it.”
Cas looked over, studying his brother in the moonlight. There was so little he knew about angels.
“Look, Cas,” said Gabe. “There's some stuff I didn't tell you about up there. Maybe I should have before now, I dunno.”
“What?” asked Cas, going up on one elbow. “What haven't you told me?”
“You still tryin' catch a falling star, Cas?” asked Dean. He slumped against the fender, next to Cas, smiling drunkenly at him. “We got cut off by a hostile barkeep!”
“Are you inebriated?” asked Cas.
“Thoroughly,” grinned Dean as Sam walked out behind him.
“Congratulations. I have heard that is very difficult to achieve when one is staying at a bar,” said Cas.
“Oh, get a room,” laughed Sam.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Dean, reaching over and pulling Cas down off the hood.
“You can barely stand upright,” said Cas, pulling a shaky Dean’s arm over his shoulders.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Sam. “Is it bats?”
Gabe was up off the fender. “Holy crap,” he said.
“What is it?” said Dean.
“I’ve never seen so many,” said Gabe.
“So many what?”
“Angels, Dean,” said Cas.
The sky was filled with angels.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Cas; Sam, Bobby, Gabriel, Rufus, Balthazar, Lucifer, Michael, Zachariah, Uriel, Jody Mills, Ruby.
Warnings: Cursing. Sexual situations. Descriptions of violence, especially in later chapters. Some light hints of Sam/Ruby.
Word Count: 45,000 total
Summary: The apocalypse has come. Lucifer and Michael burned down heaven in their madness, and our own world has been rent in two. Much of the United States now roils in a state of constant warfare. When Sam, a fighter pilot working for the Michaelistas, is shot down over enemy lines, Dean, an ex-cop, risks everything to search for him. Both brothers find some help along the way from creatures they never knew existed.
Notes: This is set in a post-apocalyptic AU, but it is NOT the Endverse. The character of Al Swearengen has been shamelessly stolen, with love, from the Deadwood 'verse.
They walked rapidly out of the train station, two dogs sauntering at their heels.
“Thanks, Mister...?” whispered Sam.
“Crowley is the name. No mister attached,” sighed Crowley.
“Crowley,” repeated Sam. “Anyway, I didn't really relish going back to POW camp,” said Sam.
Crowley sighed. “My boy. You have no idea. They were not sending you back to POW camp. Else I wouldn't have bothered.”
“Where were they gonna send me?” asked Sam, a shiver going down his spine.
“Unfortunately, some bloody idiots who thought they could work an angel spell destroyed the friendly local POW camp. You would have been sent to Tucson. That train goes to what Uriel ever so properly refers to as an extermination camp.”
“Then the stories are true?” asked Sam.
“I do not know the stories to which you refer, so I can’t say, mate. So much the worse for the feathery types, if you get my drift. They go in, but they don’t come out again. Not sure what they’d do to humans, but I wouldn’t wanna risk it if I were you.”
“So. What are you?”
“Me, my boy?”
“Red-eye, or black?”
They had come to a stop around a corner behind the station. “Ah! So you’re not as idiotic as you look. That will serve you in good stead. Hold still now, and if you feel the need to vomit, kindly point it away from me. I just had this suit dry cleaned.”
Crowley put a hand on his shoulder, and then, man, demon and dog, they were no longer on the corner.
“Ellen! Ellen Ellen Ellen! How pleasant to see you!” gushed Gabe.
Dean looked around the Harvelle's roadhouse. Unlike what he could only think of as the creepy angel wings diner, this place seemed more on the level. The crowd was fairly sparse, maybe because it was the middle of the afternoon. When he, Gabe and Cas entered, the few patrons all turned around and stared, quite openly sizing them up, and then all went back to drinking
“You come to settle your bar tab, Gabe?” snapped Ellen, an attractive woman who looked somewhere south of 40 years.
“What’s a few drinks between friends?” pleaded Gabe.
“You see the sign above the door? It says bar. Not drinks on the house for freeloaders.”
“Such a snappy businesswoman. And little Jo!” he said, turning to the cute blonde girl who was waiting tables. “How very charming! You were knee-high to a grasshopper when last I saw you.”
“Two weeks ago?” laughed Jo. She wrapped Gabe in a hug. “And who’s this?” she asked, eyeing Dean and Cas.
“This is my idiot little brother, Cas,” said Gabe, grabbing a squirming Cas in a headlock. “And this is his friend, Dean.”
“Oh, where's he been hiding you, Cas? They grow them good looking in your family,” winked Jo, which made Cas, who had just struggled out of Gabe’s grasp, blush quite red. Dean grinned.
“You got news for me, Ellen?” asked Gabe.
“Nothing much. It's been quiet as a graveyard around here,” said Ellen. She slid a paper over to Gabe. Dean thought it must be a bar tab, until he glanced at it. It wasn't written in English. It looked like the weird Enochian writing from Bobby’s book.
“Aw, no news is good news,” grinned Gabe. He threw a significant look at Cas, and then the two of them wandered over to where a couple of guys were hunched over the bar. “Hey, anybody thirsty?” asked Gabe, draping an arm around the one guy's shoulder. “Drinks are on me.”
“Save it, buddy,” grumbled the guy.
And his good feeling about this place? Dean took it back. He was getting the heebie jeebies now. He made to walk closer, but felt Jo's hand on his arm.
“That's not very friendly, is it Cas?” asked Gabe.
“Get lost,” grumbled the guy.
“No, you get lost,” grinned Gabe. And then suddenly his hand was on the one guy's forehead, while Cas grabbed the other guy. Their eyes and mouths started to glow that with that weird light Dean remembered. And then, to his astonishment, while Cas and Gabe continued to hold them, both of them reared back, threw their mouths open, and began to belch an ugly, foul-smelling black smoke. The smoke billowed up, and then sunk back down to create a hazy pool at their feet. After a few seconds more, the black turned red. It shimmered, like ashes from a fireplace, and then dissipated.
The two guys collapsed, spasming a little, and then going still.
Still behind the bar, Ellen nodded, and a couple of other patrons hopped down from the bar and started to drag the guys out the back door.
“I thought you said no smiting!” Cas told Gabe.
“This was the exception that proves the rule,” Gabe told him.
“Thanks, boys,” said Ellen. “Those jokers had been hanging here all week.”
“Those were demons?” Dean asked Jo, who was still holding his arm.
“You new in town, buddy?” she grinned at Dean.
“They were possessed,” Cas told Dean, but Dean noticed he was staring at Jo while he spoke. “We expunged the demons.”
“Expunged, huh?” smiled Jo. “Gabe, you sure this one is related to you?”
“We are siblings,” explained Cas, which only caused Jo's grin to widen.
“He was dropped on his head as a fledgling,” said Gabe, ruffing Cas’ hair. “Probably by me.” Cas turned to Gabe, a glint of smiting in his eyes.
“Break it up kids,” grumbled Ellen.
“I'm here 'cause we need a favor,” said Gabe, now sidling up to the bar. “From a lovely woman.”
“Oh, can it, Gabe! What do you want?” Ellen asked, rubbing the bar with a towel.
“And after we smote your pests?” asked Gabe. He hooked a thumb at Dean. “This one is looking for a little lost brother.”
“Not so little, actually,” said Dean.
“How did he get himself lost?” asked Ellen.
“POW,” said Dean.
“There's a POW camp in this county,” said Jo.
“We think that's the one,” said Gabe. “But you know those location spells run up your long distance bill. I was wondering if I could try a small one some place safe.” Gabe looked around shrewdly. “Like, maybe, here?”
“Oh, hell no! You wanna stink up the place again, Gabe?” asked Ellen, rolling her eyes.
“It's not that bad,” said Gabe.
“Even the skunks ran away,” protested Jo, who was already holding her nose.
“C'mon Ellen,” urged Gabe.
“It took me a week to get the smell out of the upholstery last time, Gabe,” Ellen told him.
“Look, Ellen,” said Dean. “I just wanna find my brother. I came all this way to get him, and I'm not leaving without him.”
“He is speaking the truth,” said Cas. “He has already hijacked a police car and robbed a vampire tanning salon in pursuit of his brother.”
“He's … what?” laughed Jo. “You've been hanging around with Gabe too much.”
“That's why I need to find my brother and go home. Please?” Dean pleaded.
“A charmer, huh?” sighed Ellen. “All right, all right. I've got a storeroom in back. That's where they dragged those guys to sleep out the possession. Maybe this will wake them up sooner.” She inclined her head, and then Gabe was after her.
“Great, I have a good spell that won't cause much blowback,” Gabe told her.
“Whaddya mean, blowback?” Ellen asked as they exited through the back door.
“We will have Sam's location soon, Dean,” Cas told him.
“What did your brother mean by blowback?” Dean asked him. The both looked over to an old jukebox, which had just started up. Jo came over and pulled on Cas' arm. “Come on, dance with me,” she urged him.
“Uh,” said Cas, once again looking very flustered. “I'm afraid.... I don't dance.”
“It's easy! Come on, I've never danced with an angel,” she smiled.
“Maybe you could dance … with Dean?” Cas suggested.
“She wants to dance with you, twinkletoes!” Dean laughed, and then he laughed more as Cas actually looked down at his feet, presumably to see if they were iridescent. Dean gave Cas a shove off the stool, and he ended up in Jo's arms, where he literally gulped.
The back door slammed. “This whole place is gonna reek!” sighed Ellen. Dean turned back to face her.
“Thank you, Ellen,” Dean told her as she pushed a beer his way.
“Aw,” she said, waving a hand. “I owe that little son of a bitch, much as I don't wanna admit it.”
“Your place is sort of … out of the way,” said Dean.
“You're wondering what the hell we're up to,” said Ellen. “You can just come out and say it.”
“OK.”
“Before the war, this was a place for hunters,” Ellen told him.
“Something tells me you're not talking guys out shooting deer,” said Dean, opening the beer.
“Gabe tells me you spent your life in the East?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Dean told her. “Yeah.”
“Even before Lucifer, there were things in this world that most humans don't know about. That doesn't make them less dangerous.”
“Like the demons?”
Ellen nodded. “Vampires. Revenants. Wendigos. Ghosts. Some of us made our lives about keeping people safe. Of course, our kind ended up on Lucifer's most wanted list, along with the angels,” she said, nodding towards Cas. Dean glanced over. Cas' look of sheer terror had faded, and he now had a hand on Jo's hip, and they swayed together to the music.
Dean frowned, not entirely sure why he was frowning.
“Unfortunately, there's not a lot of us left,” Ellen added. “When and if this war ever ends, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do.”
Dean forced himself to tear his eyes from Cas and Jo and turn back towards Ellen. “How do you guys make it?”
“Gabe has helped us along.”
“I thought the guy didn't wanna get involved?” asked Dean.
“He acts like a circus clown, but he's different. Angels aren't like you and me. Hard to know what's going on inside from what they're doing. But you start to get a sense.”
“They're … different,” said Dean.
“So what's your story, Dean?” asked Ellen. “Am I right, or are you ex-service? Or a cop?”
Dean chuckled into his beer. “Is it obvious? Cop. Ex.”
“It's the way you carry yourself. Was Cas lying about you stealing a police car?” she asked, leaning forward on her elbows.
Dean flicked his eyes around to Cas and Jo, who were thick in conversation, and then told her, “No, that's about what happened, how I landed with Cas and Bobby. Sort of screwed that one up.”
“There's always a use for guys like you, let me tell you,” said Ellen.
“Ah, after this is over, I may have to go work for Cas' stepdad at the scrapyard,” sighed Dean.
At the sound of a girlish laugh, Dean once again turned to look at Cas and Jo. He expected Cas had stomped on her foot or done any of a number of strange things, but instead Cas was actually leaning and whispering something in her ear. A private joke.
“I... Uh.” Dean put down his beer.
“Everything OK?” smiled Ellen.
“I think I need some air,” said Dean, who headed outside.
“Dean?” asked Cas as Dean passed by the dancing couple. Dean ignored him and stalked through the front door. He turned and walked around the side of the building, and then paced for a little bit for good measure, not quite sure what was wrong. There wasn't anything wrong. Then why was he acting like an idiot?
“Dean?”
Dean turned at the sound of Cas' voice. “What, Cas?” he asked distractedly.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I'm all right,” said Dean. “You through dancing?”
“Jo was asking about you.”
Dean stopped pacing and looked at Cas. “What did she want to know about me?”
“If we were.... You know,” muttered Cas, who seemed very interested in something on the ground.
“If we were what?” asked Dean.
But then Cas was directly in front of him, standing too close and staring in that weird way of his. Dean stood his ground, glaring at him. And even crowded in a little closer. And then Cas had caught him behind the head and was kissing him. Dean was just too damned startled to do much of anything for a long second or two, but then grabbed the angel by the shoulders, turned him around and pushed him, a little roughly, against the side of the building.
And then he leaned in and showed Cas what a kiss was really like.
They were both breathing hard when Dean finally drew back, his fingers still entwined in Cas' hair. “Wanted to wipe that stupid grin off your face,” he muttered. He frowned at Cas. “Didn't work I guess.” But then Cas had pulled him back and they continued, pressing their bodies together. I was like … well, it was a little like heaven. Dean ran his hands down the backs of Cas' thighs and lifted, and then Cas had his legs wrapped around Dean.
“Cas?” Dean muttered as he finally, reluctantly, broke the clench. His knees felt wobbly. “OK. OK. We're gonna need room if we keep this up.”
Cas tilted his head. “What about the car?”
It was Dean's turn to grin.
Sam lurched over, hands on his knees, but to his relief did not end up actually vomiting.
Breathing hard, he painfully stood up and looked around.
He was no longer outside the station. He was now inside something that looked like a large, teeming factory. One of Crowley's dogs nosed him, and he put a cautious hand out to scratch its muzzle. It smiled a goofy dog smile.
“I'm surprised he let you keep the hand. Grim and Barghest don't fancy a lot of people,” Crowley crisply informed him.
“Well, uh, thanks for letting me know,” gulped Sam. He had withdrawn his hand, but now the huge head was rubbing against him, and two very red eyes looked up, imploring him. Sam tentatively scratched behind the ears. “Uh, what kind of dogs are Grim and....”
“Barghest. Hellhounds. Raised them from pups!” bragged Crowley.
“Yeah, of course they are,” said Sam. “Hey, you never answered my question. Are you a red-eye, or a black eye?”
“No, I never did, did I? Come along,” said Crowley, who was now striding across the factory floor.
“So, this is … a munitions factory?” asked Sam, looking around.
“Yes, just one in my vast fleet of wartime enterprises,” said Crowley.
Sam noticed a row of people stuffing what looked like shell casings with salt. He remembered what Rufus had told him about using salt for ammo against demons. “So, your employees? They're human?”
“Right again!” said Crowley. “My work makes it a sad but necessary requirement that I keep a number of humans at my employ. As well as … certain other species.”
Sam nodded. Another group had caught his eye: they were painting arcane symbols on various weaponry. “You got a bunch of angels in here too,” he said softly.
“Nice job if you can get it,” said Crowley, who had paused before a glass door that said Business Offices. “And if you play your cards right, you can be the newest employee of Crowley enterprises. I've heard you're quite the card sharp.”
He burst through the door, Sam and the dogs behind him.
There were two very familiar faces in Crowley's office: Asmodeus the poker-playing demon was sitting with his feet up on what was presumably Crowley's desk. And Rufus was there as well.
“Sam!” yelled Rufus, who was out of his chair, hugging Sam. “God dammit! When you didn't make it back, we didn't know what happened.”
“Fucking Frank delayed me,” smiled Sam. “He'll be pissed I didn't use his train tickets.”
“We'll tell him when we find him. There's a lot of our guys unaccounted for,” said Rufus.
“You weren't kidding about a shitstorm,” said Sam. “Last thing I remember the wall was glowing, and then I woke up miles away.”
“You bastards destroyed the camp,” said Asmodeus. “I told you to be careful with those angel spells,” he told Rufus, who shrugged.
“You're lucky you got blown clear,” Rufus told Sam. “We leveled a good deal of the countryside too.”
“And I am out of my supply of fresh heirloom tomatoes,” grumbled Crowley, who thumped down behind his desk.
“If Asmodeus hadn't found me, I may have been stuck on that train to Tucson,” said Rufus.
“So, no offense...” said Sam, casting a glance at Crowley.
“I rarely let myself be offended by humans,” Crowley sighed.
“But, Rufus, we're working with demons now?” Sam asked.
“I don't think he likes us, boss,” laughed Asmodeus.
“My dear boy, you've always been working with demons,” said Crowley. “Do you think you would have been able to marshal your little prison break without my consent? But what is the harm in that? I am simply a businessman, trying to make my way during troubled times.”
“But you have humans here,” said Sam. “And... And angels.”
“I only keep them as long as they are useful. And as long as they annoy the shit out of Lucifer,” said Crowley, narrowing his eyes and pulling out a bottle of Scotch and three glasses.
“Where's my glass?” asked Asmodeus.
“Asmodeus, go out and pretend to be useful. Go walk the dogs!” Crowley said.
“They're not gonna bite me again are they?” asked Asmodeus, hopping reluctantly to his feet.
“Oh, most likely,” said Crowley, shooing them out.
“So,” said Sam, sipping at his whiskey. It was good stuff. “You’re the boss of the red-eye soldiers.”
“I prefer to think of my boys as, er, independent contractors. Rather than soldiers. Sounds so much more businesslike, don’t you reckon?” grinned Crowley.
“I don’t understand,” said Sam.
“I’m a demon,” explained Crowley. “You are entitled to your prejudices. But mark my words, we have endured and sometimes even thrived for a long time down here, alongside your kind. Then, unfortunately, the big man upstairs decided to take a powder, and now the less gifted of his offspring have decided to use the world – my world, dammit – as their personal monster truck rally.”
“Their .. what?” asked Sam, who was laughing despite himself.
“Big, bloated, destructive and worst of all, tacky!” huffed Crowley.
“Your big beef is that Michael and Lucifer have bad taste?” asked Sam.
“Is a tastefully appointed world too much to ask?” said Crowley. “That and a decent whiskey.” He poured them all another round. “As I have said, I have been alive longer than you can imagine, therefore I know that some day this will all be over. And if it is to end with a few of your kind, and a few angels, owing me a favor, than all the better.”
“This is all a deal to you?” asked Sam.
“What do you say, Rufus?” asked Crowley.”
“On the one hand, can’t trust a demon. On the other hand…” Rufus repeated with a laugh.
“Can’t trust a demon,” Sam finished.
Asmodeus stuck his head in the door, and the two dogs barreled in. “Boss, we just got a report of activity! Angelic.”
“What? Unidentified angels in my domain. Well, bears a look see.”
“It could be more people from the escape,” said Rufus, sitting up.
“Whereabouts?” asked Crowley.
“The camp.”
“Our old camp?” asked Sam.
“Not the POW one,” said Asmodeus. “The, uh … other one.”
“Oh. I shall go myself,” said Crowley, who suddenly seemed serious.
“Can we go with you?” asked Sam.
“Frankly, this ain't something you wanna see, Sam,” said Rufus.
“Why not?” asked Sam.
Crowley frowned at Sam. “No, let him come along. I think young Sam deserves to see what our angelic friends have in mind for his world.”
Cas' overcoat made a decent blanket.
“Damn,” said Dean, because he really couldn't think of anything else to say. Cas was lying like a contented cat on his chest in the Impala’s capacious back seat. “So this was the first time you tried this, you know, in a car?”
Cas raised himself on one elbow. He looked at Dean, and then looked away, seeming a little guilty. “If you mean relations, this would constitute.... This would be.... Not that I have not had opportunities....”
Dean gently grabbed Cas's face and brought him around to look at Dean. “This is your first first time?” he asked.
He didn't get an answer, just a sheepish nod. And then Cas was back, nuzzling his chest.
“Oh,” said Dean. He was silent for a while. Great, he thought, I've just corrupted an angel. Albeit, one who seemed awfully eager to be corrupted. “Cas?”
“Yeah?”
“When we get back, is Bobby gonna kill me?”
“Naw.”
“OK, that’s good,” said Dean, relaxing a little.
“Because Gabe is gonna kill you now.”
“WHAT?”
Dean glared down. He felt Cas spasm. Cas looked up. The grin was back. “Maybe he'll just smite you a little,” Cas told him.
Dean rolled his eyes. “You know, Cas, you and Gabe....”
“He can act like a big jerk. I know,” Cas said, shifting position slightly. His skin felt amazing. Dean caught him for another kiss. Cas frowned, and then continued. “Because Gabe is a big jerk. I tend to forget this during the interludes when we do not interact....”
“No! It.... Seeing you guys pal around, it makes me miss the hell out of Sammy.”
Cas blinked up at him. “Really?”
“You guys just remind me of us. I mean.... Well, you'll see.”
“Then perhaps we should cut short this post-coital interlude and see if my brother's location spell worked.”
Dean burst out laughing. “Let me find my pants,” he said, and they both rummaged around the floor for discarded articles of clothing. The majority of the time was spent on Dean un-knotting Cas' tie and tying it up properly: Bobby was right, he really did have no idea how to fasten it.
They both hurried back into the roadhouse. “Where the hell have you two been?” laughed Jo from the bar. “I'm still owed a dance.”
“Uh,” said Dean.
“Dean was demonstrating the advantages of sexual intimacy conducted in the back seat of a vehicle,” said Cas.
“What?” said Gabe, who had just come into the room.
“Uh,” said Dean.
Ellen threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Cas! Can I adopt you?”
“I have an adoptive father, thanks Ellen,” said Cas. He turned his attention to Gabriel. “Brother! What has happened?” he asked Gabe. Dean noticed for the first time that the ends of Gabe's hair were smoking.
“You're fooling around with my baby brother?” Gabe demanded of Dean. His face, too, looked like it had been smeared with ash, and he smelled like smoke.
“It wasn't fooling, Gabe,” said Cas. “Laughter was kept to a minimum.”
“You won't smite me, will you?” asked Dean.
“Gabe looks like someone's already smitten him,” said Ellen.
“What happened?” Cas repeated.
“A little blowback on my location spell,” said Gabe, who violently shook his head. Suddenly, the smoking hair and ash vanished.
“Did you find Sam?” asked Cas. Dean hovered near.
“The POW camp is gone. Vanished. And Sam....” Gabe looked over at Dean. “Sam isn't anywhere.”
Dean felt his heart sink. “Did something happen to Sam?” he asked.
“No, nothing bad. Don't freak, Deano. But nothing … good. I got no information. He there but he's off the grid. It's strange. I've never seen anything like this before. He’s gotta be some place with some really powerful warding spells.”
“What do we do?” asked Dean.
“Which way is that camp?” Cas asked Ellen. He threw off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Cas, no wings!” said Gabe, grabbing him. “You can't just go buzzing over there! We don't know what's happening.”
“That is what I am going to find out,” said Cas.
“I am not having you get yourself killed,” said Gabe.
“I am not going to stand here while Dean’s brother might be in peril!”
“Wait,” said Dean, hoping to avoid another angelic feud. “How long is the drive?”
“It’s a couple hours,” Ellen told him.
“I know the way,” said Jo. “Let me go with you.”
“I don’t think I like that idea, young lady,” said Ellen.
“I can handle myself!” Jo protested. “And I’ve got angels!” Ellen looked dubious, but nodded.
“Let’s go,” said Dean, who was already on his way out the door, Cas at his side. Jo scrambled after them.
“Wait you guys! I need to grab some ice cream before I go!” wailed Gabe.
“Bring them back, Gabe,” Ellen told him, tossing him a sack of M&Ms. Gabe nodded, but then hurried after the rest.
“This is … sort of nice,” said Sam, who immediately realized it was a stupid comment. Wherever the hell Crowley had yanked him and Rufus, it was nestled next to a mountainside, and there was actually a cover of real forest. Sam hadn’t realized how much he’d missed trees, spending so long in the middle of a freaking desert wasteland.
“It’s hidden back here for a reason, kid,” said Rufus, who had conjured a real cigarette for the occasion.
“Yes, and it ain’t because the trees provide a pleasant atmosphere,” said Crowley. Grim and Barghest came romping up to him. “All clear?” Crowley asked the dogs.
“No,” said Sam. “Look! There's somebody here!” He held a hand over his eyes and squinted. Four people, it looked like.
“Fuck. Some hellhounds you turned out to be. Sic 'em!” Crowley ordered his dogs. Very suddenly, they changed from friendly mutts to the vicious barking beasts Sam had first encountered. They scampered across the clearing and disappeared into the trees.
“Wait!” said Sam. “Crowley! We don't know who they are.”
“They're no good, if they're around here,” said Crowley. “Oh, wait!” He sighed, watching Sam run off after the dogs. “He doesn't heel, does he?” he complained to Rufus. “I despise running!” he shouted, before taking off. Rufus flicked away his cigarette and took off after Crowley.
Dean heard the barking. “Get back,” Gabe said softly. Cas was instantly in front of Dean and Jo.
The POW camp had been a waste of time. It had been completely demolished. They had all sadly assembled back in the car when Gabe suddenly claimed he felt something, like the presence of other angels nearby. As they had approached this area, Dean noticed both Cas and Gabe seemed to get more and more agitated. Gabe refused to let Cas fly over the area, so they had all gotten out to have a look around.
Two of the biggest dogs Dean had ever seen came bursting out of the scrub.
“I hate dogs,” grumbled Gabe, jabbing two fingers onto the forehead of the first. It collapsed with a whimper. “Stand still!” he ordered the other one, which was now growling and snapping around him. He jabbed with his fingers, but failed to make contact.
“Want me to do it?” asked Cas.
“It's not easy!” Gabe protested. “This thing is fast.”
“Gabe, we don’t have all day,” sighed Cas, walking forward.
“Hey! Whose dogs are these?” Dean asked Jo.
“That’s a good question,” she told him, and they both looked around.
“Hey, look!” said Dean, spotting a well-dressed man emerging from the woods.
“Gabe! It’s a demon!” shouted Jo.
“What the hell did you feather-brains do to my dogs?” the demon demanded of Cas and Gabe. He had a slight English accent.
All of a sudden, Cas and Gabe were next to him, Cas yanking him up by the collar. Jo ran over across the clearing to them, and Dean was about to follow.
“Dean?”
Dean whirled around at the familiar voice, scarcely believing what he had just heard.
“Sammy,” whispered a disbelieving Dean.
“What the hell, Dean?” asked Sam, who had just emerged from the forest overgrowth.
Dean pounced on his brother. “Sammy! Oh, god, Sammy!” He wanted to hug him and never stop. But Sam finally pushed him away
“Dean, I-“
“You fucking idiot!” howled Dean. He swung at Sam, a blow Sam easily dodged. “Dumb fucking son of a bitch!” He swung again, but this time his fist was caught by a tall dark-skinned guy.
“What the hell?” asked Rufus.
“I’ll kill you!” said Dean. He lunged forward at Sam, but Rufus caught him and restrained him.
“It’s OK. Rufus, it’ s OK. This is my brother!” laughed Sam.
“This? Is your brother?” asked Rufus.
“Let me go! Let me go so I can murder him!” yelled Dean.
“Can we maybe leave off with the murdering?” asked Rufus. Dean nodded, and Rufus let him go.
“Dean is correct. They are quite similar to us,” said Cas, who was now standing nearby, still holding Crowley by the collar, watching along with Gabe and Jo.
“Except when I try to punch you, you usually forget to duck,” laughed Gabe.
“Whoa, they grow their Winchesters big!” grinned an obviously impressed Jo.
“Sam! Will you kindly tell our feathered friends to release me?” pleaded Crowley.
“Oh, yeah, let him go!” said Sam. “Let him go! He's with me. With us!”
“Your brother is consorting with demons, Dean?' asked Cas suspiciously.
“Look, Crowley is OK you guys! He saved my ass!” said Sam. Cas and Gabe exchanged a dubious glance and then looked at Crowley.
Cas released Crowley. “Angels are watching over you, dickweed,” Gabe told him.
“I will make a mental note of it,” sighed Crowley.
“OK, OK, let me explain, everybody,” said Sam. “This is Rufus,” he said, indicating Rufus. “He's my friend, and he just escaped with me. And he's human. And this guy is Crowley the demon, and he helped me escape for reasons I still don't fucking understand. And these are his dogs, who are … hellhounds,” he said, pointing to the still unconscious mutts. “And this is my brother Dean, who is an asshole sometimes, and is also human.” Upon which, Sam draped an arm around Dean.
Dean frowned. He gestured. “Cas and Gabe. And Jo.”
“Angels,” Gabe told Crowley.
“I’m not,” said Jo.
“Yes, I had peeked ahead to that part of the book, Miss,” sighed Crowley.
“And now please tell me what the fuck you're doing here, Dean,” said Sam.
“I, uh, came to rescue you,” admitted Dean.
“Cool! You are the greatest big brother,” laughed Sam.
“See?” Gabe told Cas. “That's how you should act towards me! Show some respect!”
“Does this mean you will begin acting respectable?” Cas asked.
“If we are quite finished with touching family togetherness,” said Crowley. “I came here for two reasons. I've obviously located the angels.”
“We can skip seeing the camp, Crowley,” said Rufus. “These kids don't need to see it.”
“See what?” asked Dean.
“Our good friend Lucifer had two camps in this vicinity,” Crowley explained. “There was the POW camp where Sam and Rufus were so recently guests. Thanks to their shenanigans, there is very little of that left to see. And then there was this one. This was for a very special group of people.” And here Crowley shot a look at Gabe and Cas. “It has been abandoned. But the structure, and, uh, the content, remain.”
“Where did everybody go?” asked Dean.
“Those that remained have been decamped to the newer, larger camp in Tucson,” said Crowley.
“What's in there, Crowley,” asked Sam.
“This is why I suggested you come. I would recommend you see for yourself,” the demon told him.
“Why?” asked Dean.
“I have my reasons,” said Crowley. “Can you kindly un-zap my dogs, first?”
“I will do it,” said Cas.
“Aw, it’s a sinch now, they’re not moving!” protested Gabe. He shrugged and went along in the direction that Rufus and Jo were no moving.
“Dean,” said Sam, as the two of them followed Gabe. “What the fuck. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?”
“Like I said, this is a rescue mission,” shrugged Dean.
“You got leave from the force or something?”
“Well, uh, not quite,” Dean admitted. “And I kind of stole a police cruiser in the deal.”
“Holy shit, Dean.”
“I was going crazy when I heard you were shot down!”
“I wasn’t technically shot down….”
“What?” asked Dean.
“Well, my wingman was shot down, and I landed to try and help him.”
“Sam! You dumb son of a bitch!” yelled Dean.
“No more punching! OK? Enough for the day,” laughed Sam.
“So how was prison?”
“It was actually OK,” said Sam. “Until we got the brilliant idea to escape.” They walked a few paces. “Um, the girl?”
“Jo?” asked Dean.
“She’s cute?” said Sam.
Dean looked over at his brother’s questioning look. “I just met her, actually. Yeah, she’s cute, but, uh….”
“What?”
“I think … there’s somebody else.”
“Wait. You think?” asked Sam. He and Dean stopped. They had just come to the gates of another camp. Rufus, Gabe and Jo had paused outside.
“Can I say I have a bad feeling about this?” asked Gabe.
Cas was surrounded by grateful and fully awake hellhounds. “I apologize for the misunderstanding,” he told them.
“I am certain you are forgiven,” said Crowley, who had also hung back.
“No, I am,” said Cas.
“You know what my dogs are thinking?”
“They are not terribly difficult to read. Unlike humans.”
“Or demons?”
Cas shrugged and started to walk towards the camp. But Crowley moved to stand in front of him. Cas glared.
“Castiel, is it?” asked Crowley. Cas nodded. “Your human body – it doesn’t look very old.”
“I will be the human equivalent of twenty-one years old this fall,” said Cas, puffing himself up a little.
“That’s what I thought. So, you don’t really remember it?” Crowley asked, pointing upwards.
Cas shook his head, his glare turning to a look more of puzzlement. He started to walk forward again, and Crowley blocked him.
“There’s no way in hell you’ll listen to me,” said Crowley, “because to you I’m just some grubby demon berk. But damn me, I’m gonna say it. You don’t need to go in there.”
“Why would I not want to enter?” asked Cas.
“Because angels can be bloody awful bastards, especially to their own kind. But Lucifer….” Crowley stared at Cas. “I’m a demon, meaning I don’t give a shit for your ethics. But there’s things I do, and things I don’t. And what’s in there … that’s things I don’t participate in.”
Castiel stared at Crowley, searching his eyes. “All right,” he finally said. “Your objection has been noted.” And then he stalked off towards the camp.
“Well, I warned the little shit,” Crowley muttered to the dogs.
One room contained just discarded clothing. It was very neatly organized, the coats here, hats there, shoes another place. The shoes were nicely divided into bins of men’s shoes, women’s shoes, children’s shoes.
Dean was holding a child’s shoe. He didn’t know why, but it transfixed him. It was a shoe for a little boy, and it had Batman symbols around it.
“Sammy, you remember that summer you thought you were Batman?” Dean asked Sam, turning the tiny shoe over in his hands.
Sam couldn’t bring himself to smile. “Yeah.”
“You found a bunch of my old comics. I don’t know how the hell we hung onto them, all the moving around we did.”
Dean looked up and saw Sam nodding.
This wasn’t the first room they had gone through. There was one that contained only pieces of luggage, all sorted by size. Dean had noticed one piece there had a little knitted tassel on the handle, something to recognize it by when it rolled off the baggage claim, he supposed.
There was also a room with things like eyeglasses, crutches, watches, and jewelry.
And one with hair. Red and brown and blond. There was some strawberry blond hair, Dean noticed, that was still braided in pigtails.
Sam and Dean looked at each other. Dean very carefully placed the small Batman shoe back in the bin, and they proceeded to the next room. Even before he entered, Dean realized there was something different about this room. He got a funny feeling, like you’d walked around on a rug and built up a lot of static electricity. He paused, and then entered.
It was amazing, for humans who had never seen angel wings before – Dean had only briefly glimpsed that pair in the dark outbuilding by that diner – the size and variety. Dean had always considered them, on the few occasions he thought about angels, to be white and sort of fluffy. But they came in as many colors as human hair colors, and yet more: there were some bright and gorgeous as peacocks, and some as psychedelic crazy as parrots. Interesting specimens like these had been carefully mounted on the walls. Others were neatly stacked on shelves: huge shelves, going up to the ceiling.
Dean tried to count, and then lost count.
And the power! It just seemed the room was filled with … magic, or enchantment, or something Dean didn’t even know what it was.
He went and hunkered down next to Cas, who was on his hands and knees in the middle of the room, hovering over the pool of vomit on the floor.
Jo handed Dean some Kleenex from a pocket. Dean reached over and carefully eased Cas back so he was sitting down on his heels, and then used the Kleenex to wipe his mouth. The angel’s eyes were red-rimmed. Sam sat down on the floor opposite Dean, on Cas’ other side.
“Who did this?” asked Jo. “Who could have done this?”
“Lucifer,” said Rufus. “This is his endgame.”
“This is insane!” said Jo.
“Has Lucifer just gone mad?” Sam asked.
“I hadn’t heard his sanity vouched for to begin with,” said Crowley.
“Yeah? Well, he’s clearly gone a few chicken nuggets short of a Happy Meal,” growled Dean.
“Gabriel,” said Cas. It came out as a raspy croak.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here, kid. I’m sorry,” said Gabe.
“Gabriel. We must do something,” said Cas.
“We can’t, Castiel! Don’t you understand?” said Gabe.
“Why can’t you?” asked Sam.
“What we are, Cas and I – we’re not angels any more! Not like they are, Michael and Lucifer.”
“I think Bobby mentioned something about it,” said Dean. “Nephilim?”
Gabe sighed. “To remake ourselves as humans, we had to give up some of our power. I thought it was best, for Cas and me. We weren’t going back to heaven. None of us were.”
“But Lucifer didn’t do the same?” asked Sam.
“No, no! Don’t you see? Lucifer and Michael, and the guys like that, they hung on to every scrap of power. Nothing matters to them any more but beating up on the other guy. And….” Gabe waved his hands around the room. “Every other being who gets in the way.”
“He will exterminate us! Our people!” Cas pleaded.
“He’s not gonna touch you. Not if I have anything to say about it. Come on,” said Gabe, yanking Cas to his feet. “We got Sam. Now we’re getting you out of here. And back with Bobby. Over the wall. Where you belong.”
“Gabriel. We have to do something!” said Cas. “We are obligated.”
“There’s nothing we could do?” asked Sam. “Gabe, I dunno what kind of powers you do or don’t have, but the other day at the train station, there was a cattle car full of people bound for … a camp like this. A bigger camp! And who knows how many are already there.”
“Sam, this isn’t our fight!” said Dean. “I’m sorry about all this, but you’ve already done enough.”
“See?” said Gabe, as if that were the end of it. “Dean agrees. We’re outta here.”
“So, you’re gonna take your brother back East?” Rufus asked, narrowing his eyes.
“He dwells in the Unincorporated Territories,” said Gabe.
“And what about when Lucy pokes his head over the wall?” asked Rufus. “You think he’s stopping here? You already said the guy’s nuts.”
“He won’t get far,” grumbled Gabriel.
“Ah! That’s precisely what Michael thought,” smiled Crowley. Gabe glared at him and stormed out, dragging Cas along with him. The rest followed, until only Dean and Crowley remained.
“Crowley,” whispered Dean. “These people – these angels….”
“They were almost certainly alive when this was done,” said Crowley, reaching out to softly touch a nearby wing. “It is thought that … harvesting them that way preserves most of the magic.”
“They’re magical? What, are they like big, sick rabbits’ feet or something?”
“Yes, they are thought to be talismans. If you could see magical power, which you can’t, being human, then you’d see this room positively reeks of it.”
“Why would Lucifer go to all this trouble and then just walk away?” asked Dean.
“Maybe he was in a hurry,” said Crowley. “But he is an angel, and there’s no predicting them.”
“So. You and the angel.”
“Yeah. Me. And an angel,” said Dean. He tipped up his beer into the glass, wondering for a while why no beer was coming out. He looked into the bottle. Ah! Empty!
“What?” asked Sam, leaning back and surveying a table filled with beer bottles.
“Sammy. I didn’t even believe in angels a couple weeks ago.”
“Does he believe in you?” laughed Sam.
“It’s just … strange. It’s been a strange couple of weeks.”
Sam’s features etched a wry smile. “Well, I guess I kind of dated a demon.”
“What?”
“Almost.”
“What the hell, Sammy? While you were in prison?”
“What? I was on release, and there was this pretty girl!”
“Would I have hit on her?” asked Dean.
“Totally.”
Dean squinted drunkenly at Sam. “Yeah, but see, that’s me, not you. I’m an idiot.”
“True. So, you’ve fixed it so you can’t go back East.”
Dean put his head in his hands. “Yeah, and if I go back to No Man’s Land, I get likely tossed back here by an angry, pitchfork-wielding mob of demons.”
“Pitchfork-wielding demons are always the best kind!” laughed Sam.
“Seriously, we need to get away from this Sammy. And now. Lucifer is a madman. You don’t do stuff like that, especially to your own kind.”
“Aren’t you two asleep yet?” asked Ellen, who had just come into the bar.
“Just need another beer, barkeep,” said Dean, holding up an empty bottle.
“Rufus once told me it’s somebody named Uriel running the camps,” Sam told Dean.
“Rufus? Not Rufus Turner!” said Ellen.
“Yeah. You know him?” asked Sam.
“He was one of our best hunters. I didn’t even know he joined up. He didn’t come back with you guys?”
“No, he decided to go back with Crowley,” said Sam, who seemed puzzled.
“Back to make salt bullets?” slurred Dean.
“Dean, the humans and angels he’s got there – he's keeping them out of one of Lucifer's camps,” said Sam.
“Well, great, then Crowley gets Demon of the Week award. Hurrah,” said Dean, waving an empty beer bottle.
Cas was lying on the hood of the Impala, looking up at the stars.
“Are you coming in or not? It’s getting cold.”
He scowled at his brother, and then looked back at the stars without replying.
“OK, you're still pissed,” said Gabe, hopping up to sit beside him. He gazed upwards. “You still like looking at the stars.”
“Yes, Gabe,” sighed Cas. “I still like looking at the stars.”
“And you like the cop?”
Cas actually broke into a brief smile, before he caught himself. Thinking about Dean.... It had been a horrible day. And he shouldn't be happy. “Yes, I like the cop,” he repeated. And the smile flickered again. He waited for Gabe to give him shit about it. That's what Gabe was good at.
Instead, Gabe said, “OK.” and was silent for a moment. “Cas. I want you to just … be happy. And live your life. That wasn't possible up there. Now, maybe I fucked up, bringing you down here, I dunno. But there wasn't anything left up there....”
“There may not be anything left down here,” snapped Cas, who immediately regretted it.
“You don't understand! I left behind everything! Everyone! Those people up there, our brothers and sisters, they were important to me. But I left them. So you could be OK. And I need to know you're OK. Or none of it was fucking worth it.”
Cas looked over, studying his brother in the moonlight. There was so little he knew about angels.
“Look, Cas,” said Gabe. “There's some stuff I didn't tell you about up there. Maybe I should have before now, I dunno.”
“What?” asked Cas, going up on one elbow. “What haven't you told me?”
“You still tryin' catch a falling star, Cas?” asked Dean. He slumped against the fender, next to Cas, smiling drunkenly at him. “We got cut off by a hostile barkeep!”
“Are you inebriated?” asked Cas.
“Thoroughly,” grinned Dean as Sam walked out behind him.
“Congratulations. I have heard that is very difficult to achieve when one is staying at a bar,” said Cas.
“Oh, get a room,” laughed Sam.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Dean, reaching over and pulling Cas down off the hood.
“You can barely stand upright,” said Cas, pulling a shaky Dean’s arm over his shoulders.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Sam. “Is it bats?”
Gabe was up off the fender. “Holy crap,” he said.
“What is it?” said Dean.
“I’ve never seen so many,” said Gabe.
“So many what?”
“Angels, Dean,” said Cas.
The sky was filled with angels.
