AN ~ Hi Guys! As I mentioned earlier (quite a bit earlier, sorry about that) I've recently gotten into Supernatural. I rewatched Swan Song the other day and noticed that Carver "Chuck" Edlund disappears at the end. Could he be God? Apparently I'm not the only one who thought this. Don't look at me I only started watching them in the last few months!

Anyway, part of me is amused by this idea and thinks it's cute. The other half of me is incredibly tempted to gut Chuck for treating the boys so terribly. Especially Cas.

That rage, plus a desire to see Cas' wings (which I shall reattempt in a different context because I don't like this version as much as I thought I would), plus NaNoWriMo drove me to write this. It's not my greatest but I figured I might as well put it out there, and tell you that there is almost certainly more, undoubtedly better, Supernatural fanfiction forthcoming.

Anyway.

CRUEL AND CAPRICIOUS

"He's gotta be around here somewhere." Dean looks around frantically, wiping the blood off his lip and drawing deep breaths while he can. It felt like he'd been running all day. His heart hammered in his chest as he looked around the storage yard. Every building looked the same; big, low, rectangular. Dark, and morbidly decrepit.

"They're messing with us." Sam shook his head, leaning over and bracing his hands against his knees to breathe better. "They should'a caught us by now." They should get out of there, both of them knew, but the Impala was miles away by now.

"They haven't," Dean panted, thinking wishfully at first, but as the words passed his lips they transformed into a strategy. He swallowed, returning substance to his voice. "They haven't," he repeated, "which must mean something. Maybe they're leading us to him."

"Dean-" Sam barely has the breath to correct his brother, but it doesn't matter because Dean instantly holds up a hand, hushing him. A small breeze washes over them, cooling the blood and sweat on their hands and faces. Window panes loose in their frames rattle. Nearby, a broken pipe whistles as the air passes through it. A crumpled Biggersons' wrapper tumbles across the floor.

Then it stops. Silence falls.

The Winchesters straighten and step towards each other, tightening their grips on their blades. They hush their breathing as much as they can. If they're about to get what's coming to them, they're putting up a fight. As their backs get nearer to each other, they slowly circle, looking out for any threat. Sam expects Dean to shout some sort of challenge to their pursuers, but he does not. As a tremor of fear runs down his arm and shakes his blade, Sam opens his mouth instead, but Dean's hand once again signals him to stop.

The wind starts again. It's very slight, he can only just feel it, but Sam cannot deny this time that something is not natural about it. He looks at the Biggerson's wrapper, studying it as it bounces and rolls a few inches along the concrete. He looks up, at the windows of the building in front of them. Though he can hear the windows shaking, the glass is still. The building next door is the same.

"Cas?" Dean asks, hesitantly.

Sam breaks formation, turning to look over Dean's shoulder. The windows in the building across the yard tremble in their frames.

"Cas!" Sam repeats, catching on. The windows shake, just for a moment, and the movement cuts out again.

"Hell," Dean breathes. He takes one final glance around the yard and then takes off in the direction of the shaking warehouse. Sam stays a few yards behind, watching his brother's back, glad he still has to conserve his breath rather than to point out the glaring fact that if Castiel could have, he would have appeared in front of them in that moment.

Dean enters the warehouse with his blade at the ready. He pans around; the roof is relatively high, and there's a bunch of abandoned crates and broken shelves around the walls, but there is no movement. At the back of the room though, hanging against the wall directly opposite him, is Castiel.

The angel's arms are tied at the wrist, trapped above his head, chained to the roof a few feet forward from the wall. His ankles are in cuffs, chained to the floor in what appears to be iron, engraved in sigils and warding magic. Between the chains, his body dangles like a Christmas ornament, draped in the shreds of a tan-coloured trench coat that is burned in patches and caked in red-brown. The angel's shirt, or what's left of it, hangs open; the tie has long since been thrown across the floor and forgotten. His head lolls forward, eyes closed, cracked and bloodied lips parted.

Dean lowers his weapon.

"Son of a bitch," he whispers, sorrow and fury compressed into a sigh. He can feel Sam over his shoulder, pausing, taking it in.

Suddenly his brother surges forward, and Dean realises he hasn't moved in some time. He runs forward, pulling at Castiel's ankle braces, trying to find a weak spot. He hacks at the sigils with the angel blade, trying to marr them and break their hold – not that it seems it will do Cas much good in this state.

Sam drags over a crate and gets to work on the angel's wrists, sticking his blade through one of the links and wrenching it a few times until the taught chain snapped. Cas jolted forward and Dean instantly braced to catch him, but the angel did not fall. Instead, there was a violent tearing sound and another gush of what appeared to be wind, causing the windows behind them to tremble once more.

"What was that?" Dean asked, his arms still up to catch Cas, his eyes turned towards his brother. Sam frowned at Castiel's back, and then looked around. Looked up. His face dropped for a moment before he pulled himself together and jumped off the crate. Already dragging it to the side, he beckoned Dean to help.

It didn't take long for Dean to realise what his brother was doing. There were bars he had not noticed, crossing the room. They were made of a strange material; the colour was impossible to tell, he could only see them from this angle because of the way the light struck them. They didn't shine like metal, though; they shone like moonlight on water. They were probably angel-made.

Sam pulled hard, and felt something give. After a few more tugs he had apparently disabled the first giant pin, as Cas' bizarrely hanging body swayed to one side.

Dean ran across to the other side of Castiel, leapt and grabbed for the bar. His weight pulled it down immediately. It probably relied on sigils for strength, moreso than its own tenacity – especially since it did not appear to be physically fixed to the angel at all. The tearing sound that accompanied the breaking bar made Dean look up at the place it had been. There was an oddly viscous, black-ish goo seeping from mid air as if from a wound. He grimaced, his stomach turning; the bar must have run through Castiel's wing.

Outside, there was a flash of light – possibly a searchlight in the window, possibly something worse. Dean sucked in a breath. There wasn't time for feeling sick about it. Immediately, he started piling up the nearest storage junk to stand on so that he could reach the second, barely visible bar.

Sam, with an urgency matching his brother's, adopted Dean's technique for his second pin, and Cas gave a suffocated squeak of pain as his side crashed against the floor and he rolled onto his back. A jarring crunch accompanied the movement, and Dean broke the final pin as quickly as he could, not wanting to imagine the crippling twist of the angel's wing.

They ran to their friend as Cas lay on his back, gasping for breath, and resisting the urge to curl into the fetal position. He couldn't, the brothers realised: his wings were blocking him. Patches of the glistening blackish liquid began to form, moving sporadically as his broken, twisted, invisible wings fought an inescapable pain.

The search light came again and the Winchesters took a deep breath. No more than a glance passed between them and they were decided: Dean sprinted for the door, Sam scooped Castiel into his arms and ran after him, and they ran for the Impala as fast as they could.

Sam quickly dropped behind.

"Dean!" he called, stumbling. "Dean!"

Dean was already outside, crossing the yard, making a bee-line for the Impala which was parked outside the gates. He regretted not coming closer. In hindsight he would have traded the subtlety for a cleaner getaway.

Speaking of clean getaways – he heard the silence behind him and stopped, keys at the ready.

"Sam?" He turned, eyeing the space over his shoulder warily. Sam was nowhere to be seen. Distantly, he could hear Sam shouting. He cursed under his breath and ran back, tightening his grip on his angel blade and all but throwing himself back through the warehouse door – and almost ploughing straight into Sam.

Sam had resorted to all but dragging Cas through the door now his arms wrapped around the angel's chest, trying to haul him backwards into the yard. His shoulders, his whole back strained, but every time he tried it again it seemed the angel got heavier.

"I can't-" he panted, "I can't do it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Dean scolded, though he doubted his brother would be making anything up at a time like this. He switched places with Sam, sliding his angel blade back into his belt as he wrapped his arms around Cas' chest and pulled. It would have been easier to drag the Impala out of a bog.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

At last there was the dreaded fluttering sound. Dean all but dropped Cas as the brothers drew their blades in unison, turning toward the sound. Metatron's bearded face smirked at them mockingly. He held out his hands – in one of which was a familiar small, paperbound book which he held open, its cover bent right around. Metatron gave a showman's shrug.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said. "What's the line? 'Hello Boys.'"

"Go to Hell," Dean quipped. Not his best, admittedly, but he had to focus some of the red that was clouding his vision.

"Maybe I will. I hear it's nice this time of year. Nothing like half-shredded souls to feed a weary author's mind. I'd invite our friend Cas but, well, once you go heaven torture you don't go back. I'm impressed actually. He held out a lot longer this time. He's dedicated to you boys."

"What did you do to him?" Sam demanded, stepping forward.

"Little bit of angel blade, little bit of holy fire. Sometimes both. Then there's these things, oh they're interesting." He turned his wrist outward, displaying the faint shimmer of one of the near-invisible wing pins. He began to pace a few steps to the side and back, flipping the bar nonchalantly and occasionally swinging it like a small sword. "They're made of the same material the Fates make their scissors out of. Some Norse artefacts use it too, I think. A bunch of the old religions."

"What is it?" Dean pressed.

"Mortalisation metal, if you like. Poison for long-lived or immortal beings. That's why you can perceive the blood – it's on the mortal plane, even though his wings are not. That's why you can feel the weight, too, and I doubt you'd have been able to fit him out the door if you managed to get him that far. The poison's in his system now. Has been for a few hours now. A bit longer and you'll be able to see every feather. Oh don't worry, it won't kill him – not by itself. The cuts, broken bones and burns might though. Unless his age gets to him first.

"The metal itself is not usually perceptible on the mortal plane – I'm surprised you two could see it at all. Maybe it's your stays in Hell sticking with you, or maybe I didn't quite take as much out of Castiel as I'd thought."

He stopped pacing, the near-invisible shard of mortalisation metal glimmering dangerously in his hand as he eyed the bedraggled angel at the Winchesters' feet. Spreading out from under Castiel's shoulders was what seemed to be, though it was impossibly dark for it, a shadow impression of twisted, shredded, near destroyed wings. Cas' frantic, shallow breaths squeaked as his barely conscious mind struggled to control the pain, and to stay awake. Sam and Dean stepped forward again, out of the shadow, and Metatron retreated a step, just not quite enough to maintain their earlier distance. It kept the boys on edge. Sam's lip twitched and Metatron suddenly laughed.

"You actually do that! That is amazing. These stories are fantastic."

"I'm gonna kill Chuck," Dean growled, mostly for Sam's benefit, but Metatron laughed anyway. And so did a new voice – well, it wasn't that new. Bristling, the Winchesters watched as Carver "Chuck" Edlund stepped out from behind Metatron, in an eerily crisp white suit.

"You might find that difficult," he said. Dean and Sam shared a glance, stunned beyond cognitive function for a moment. Then Chuck held his arm out straight, and let hang from his fingers a thin black cord, with a familiar, bronze-coloured pendant staring across the room at them, glowing with golden light.

[It's supposed to glow in the presence of God]

"You son of a bitch," Dean snarled, surging forward. "He believed in you. He had faith in you. He tried to follow you even when everyone he knew was dead or out to get him for it. How can you do this to him?"

"I did nothing, Dean. Castiel gets himself into plenty of trouble without my help. I'm afraid he's a little more human in that respect than I'd intended."

"Why don't you help him then?" Sam challenged.

"There are plenty of people in this world more deserving of my assistance. Castiel has had many more chances than most. He is reckless with his life."

"He is trying to do the right thing," Dean insisted, pacing as if it was only the promise of a swift and decisive defeat that kept him from attempting to tear Chuck limb from limb. The Mark on his forearm burned red hot, feeding on his rage and feeding it in return. "You are his father. You look after him. You answer his calls. And when he is lying – bleeding – dying on the ground in front of you, you get over your transcendental bull crap and you save him."

Chuck sighed and waved his hand. Immediately, Cas gave a huge gasp and rolled onto his side, heaving and spluttering. The shadow wings, with hints of feather texture visible by now, ruffled and flapped as they repaired themselves.

"Cas, you alright?" Dean asked.

"I'm fine," Cas growled, dark eyes full of seething rage and directed unwaveringly at Carver, and the windows trembled violently as he let his fury seep into the atmosphere. Dean stepped back as the shadows of wings towered above Castiel, the wrathful angel, as magnificent and terrible and demanding as they had been on the first night they had met. Feathers and bones straightened and grew as his wings spread, and soon the blood faded, as did the wings, from the mortal plane, but they left their impression in the viewers' minds. Castiel maintained his threatening glare. Wide-eyed with awe, Sam shuffled back to his brother's distance, to give the angel some space.

"Hello, Castiel," Chuck greeted calmy. "I believe you've been looking for me."

The rumbling hushed and the windows ceased their rattling, but Castiel's posture did not soften.

"I stopped looking a long time ago," he replied, his voice hushed. "Where have you been?"

"Observing," God replied. "Humanity is interesting. Especially these two. But you, Castiel, I underestimated you."

"And I believed in you. It seems we were both mistaken."

"Mistaken?" Chuck seemed offended. "I brought you back, didn't I? How many times?"

"Why?"

Chuck shrugged. "I like you."

"Why."

Chuck pursed his lips for a long moment, his eyes scanning the ground. Dean and Sam glanced at each other behind Castiel's back, wondering if they had seen the flash of regret, of empathy, they thought they had seen.

"Do you remember Job, Castiel?" Chuck asked.

The angel's frown deepened. "I do. I see now the way he was treated was cruel and abusive. I regret my part in it. If you wish to regain my sympathy or allegiance I suggest you cease this line of argument."

"I don't have to do anything to win your allegiance, Cas, I already have it. You are Job."

"That's rich," Dean scoffed. "I thought the point of Job was that you weren't allowed to lay a finger on him. Just screw with every other God damned thing in his life until he went crazy. Well I don't know if you missed it while you were off drinking wine and peeling grapes Mr Alpha And Omega, but Cas has been tortured, blown up, shot, stabbed, he's been to freakin Purgatory – don't you dare tell me you couldn't have stopped any of that."

"Of course I could have," Chuck replied gently. The slightest whisper of condescension made Dean bristle. "I could have stopped anything I like. Epidemics. Natural disasters. World wars. In theory I could stop all these things. Ceasing the activities of one little angel easily makes the list. But you know what? It turns out Castiel didn't need me to get through those things after all. Except for the blowing up part, give me that one, but otherwise the credit is all his. And yours, I suppose. He makes an excellent guard dog doesn't he? He's a fantastic soldier."

The gleeful animation on Chuck's face as he spoke boiled Dean's blood, which only seemed to amuse the god more. When Chuck turned his eyes back to Castiel, they were positively alight with amusement.

"I'm a cruel, cruel, capricious God."

He clapped his hands, and there was a flash of white. Sam and Dean shielded their eyes, and when their sight cleared, Chuck and Metatron were gone. Where Chuck had been, Cas knelt, staring at the previously prized amulet between his fingers.

Realising that the boys' senses would have returned by now, he stood up, but he couldn't quite face them yet.

"I don't suppose you want this back." His voice was hoarse. He held out the pendant backward over his shoulder, and Sam gently took it from him.

"You okay?" Dean ventured. Of course he did not mean exactly what he said. To think the angel was anywhere close to okay was ridiculous. But usually, confronted like this, Cas disappeared, presumably to some primordial garden or beach, to think it out. It was bizarre, and as such, worrying, that the angel was even still here.

"Before, when I – when I didn't know. I was just getting to be okay with that. Now…I know." Cas turned to face them. "Humans say that closure is a good thing. I don't agree."