A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
This story follows "Blood and Broken Glass," but it's not totally necessary to read that story first.
Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Sam finding out about Dean torturing souls in Hell; as a consequence, Sam and Dean are on the rocks again. In this version of events, Uriel features more strongly. This story is somewhat dark, though with a higher upstroke than "Blood and Broken Glass." Please enjoy.
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Prologue
Uriel landed silently in the small motel room, his entire essence contracting away from the claustrophobia of a human building, the crawl of his vessel's human skin, and everywhere the smell of them, the putrid reek of slow decay from creatures dying molecule by molecule. The room was pitch black except for a hazy glow filtering through coarse curtains, a strange shifting pattern of red and then yellow that fell across the low bed positioned under the square window.
The angel felt his grace curling in on itself as he surveyed the room of the one protected by the will of Heaven. Crushed beer cans and empty bottles littered the floor; yellow wrappers still wet with saliva and the grease of red meat lined the table, and clothing stained with sweat and dirt was heaped over both chairs. Uriel's lips twisted with disgust.
He moved slowly across the space, picking his way carefully through the refuse. He paused at the foot of the first bed, focusing effortlessly on the figure through the dark. Dean Winchester reeked of alcohol and blood. Oh, he had bathed with some combination of human chemicals, immersed himself in clear water, gotten everything off his skin—but his soul was another story.
Uriel let his human fingers contort until his hands tightened into fists. Heaven's chosen was bathed in the blood of souls, and that was not something so easily scrubbed away or forgotten. Uriel had been present when Castiel had raised him, had watched as bits of ash and rotted meat were sealed around the soul to restore it to human form, just another incarnation of decaying flesh. It sickened him, to see such filth retrieved from the pit where it belonged.
But the will of Heaven was absolute. Dean Winchester was saved, forgiven all his sins, declared clean, and under the protection of Castiel. He could see the lingering marks of the other angel's presence—the persistent feel of that powerful grace that gave Castiel the right to give orders, as well as receive them.
It was not the will of Heaven that he touch Dean Winchester. He wouldn't even wake him. Uriel let his wings stretch out a little, the power crackling through them making the curtains swing and static buzz on the television set. He didn't touch the sleeping figure, only let the shadow of his grace pass over the slack face, just enough to disturb the nightmares that Castiel had locked away. The human's features contorted as though in pain, his eyes darting suddenly and desperately beneath his lids. Uriel could almost hear the silent scream.
Dean Winchester would not wake now.
With measured steps, the angel continued to the other bed. The curtains were still swaying back and forth, throwing the changing colors of light across the second human's face. Sam Winchester was curled onto his side, one hand gripped tightly into the folds of the white sheet that covered his form. But he was as though bare before the angel. Uriel could see every scratch, every bruise, every scar, and especially every place that Castiel had touched this abomination. The angelic grace clung to him, so much stronger than a human smell or sense, reacting slightly to Uriel's presence almost as though it were trying to protect the demon half-breed.
Uriel's displeasure was a physical sensation in the stomach of his vessel, a churning of disgust and bile, nauseatingly visceral. The sickness of humanity all around him, and worse…he looked at the sleeping boy.
Sam Winchester was not protected by the will of Heaven. The boy had been there once—even Uriel remembered the stir that went through the ranks of angels when the thing had died and wound up at the gates, so to speak, a soul with shackles of demonic taint, so human and yet not.
Heaven had taken him then, but Hell would take him now.
Castiel's grace was a beautiful thing, a very pure thing, much like Castiel himself—one of the untouchable angels, so far above the rest of them, who in the eternal war had always faced the armies of Hell in his true form, who had never before worn a vessel because he had never been thrown down to toil among the human filth as Uriel had. He had seen that grace in battle, raised against the soldiers of the dark, and he had no choice but to respect it. And yet here was that same grace, wasted on a monster, slowly being consumed by one more sliver of human filth sucking that pure light down into its own twisted core.
Castiel was right that it did look human, that the demon taint was so deep it didn't roil off of Sam Winchester like the flames of hellfire. It didn't matter. Just the knowledge of what it was made Uriel's grace recoil.
He stepped up to the edge of the bed, until he was looking directly down at the younger Winchester. His wings were rippling at his back, consumed with the desire to smite, to erase, to make clean, but he forced them closed, letting a small smile settle onto the face of his host.
The hypocrisy of human expression was the one thing Uriel had found useful: the cruel smile, the soft harshness of truth, the sharp edge of false sincerity. He didn't dare defy Castiel and touch the Winchesters, but there were other ways. Duality was unnatural to angels, creatures created of single-minded celestial intent—but then, he had been sentenced to work among humans for a very long time.
It was time Dean Winchester got off his high horse, and Sam Winchester remembered his place before the angels.
Uriel bent down until he was sitting on the edge of the human's bed, and reached out the hand of his vessel; he wouldn't touch Sam Winchester with even the shadow of his grace. His heavy hand on his shoulder was enough to make the boy's eyes blink open in surprise. Uriel leaned forward slightly, towering over him, and appreciating the fear that immediately took hold of his features, the distant light turning his pupils a glassy red. He didn't even try to sit up.
"Uriel," he whispered—the stench of human breath wrapping around an angel's name.
"Sam," Uriel greeted, his lips turning up in a disgusted smile. "I think we should talk."
