This kind of got away from me. I had a wonderful beta Hanna, a.k.a. cas-on-a-flat-bread (she's on tumblr and she's amazing) who helped me guarantee you're reading the best possible version of this dribble there is.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, nor am I making any profit. All I gain is peace of mind. Erik Kripke is the real mastermind behind this wonderful world, and on his head be it.
Dean was exhausted, grunting in response to Sammy's, "G'night" and dropping onto his twin mattress, groaning as he settled into the groove of the worn out springs.
If Dean had allowed himself even a moment of introspection, he would have been thinking about what he'd told Parmida, the white witch that had helped on their hunt; his brain, on the other hand, could focus on nothing more than shutting down for a bit.
The way it all began was, like most things (at least according to Dean) all Sam's fault.
Sam had convinced Dean that Parmida would be able to assist on the case they'd been stuck on for the past week. The spirit they were up against was a long dead witch herself, definitely not a nice one, and had been powerful enough to manifest some juice from beyond the grave. Or urn, as it was, because wasn't that always their luck.
Parmida had promised to not only help track down the object the bitch of a sorceress was clinging to, but would shroud them in her strongest protection spells.
Turns out she wasn't lying even a little. Dean barely had time to watch in morbid fascination as an orange shot of magic rolled off of his brother's shoulder like water off of a feather when Parmida was shouting about the location of the object even as she went after it, Dean hot on her trail.
Sam, in his at least semi-impervious bubble, held the spirit back as best as he could, and Dean was tearing out the wall in the basement of the museum she had been killing from, finding a ripped brown and yellow scarf with smatterings of beads adorning it in a dust and dirt covered box.
Pouring the salt and lighter fluid, he lit it up just as Parmida had begun to scream. She was panting breathlessly when Dean turned away from the fire, the last of the evil witch's spirit turning to smoke right beside Parmida. Sam chose that moment to run through the door covered in dirt.
"You alright?" Dean asked, scanning her for injuries and finding none before turning to his brother. "And where the hell were you?"
"She almost collapsed a section of hallway around me. Sorry if I took my time," Sam snapped, bitchface shining clear through the brown and black smudged across his face. "Let's go." Brow furrowed and mouth pinched, Sam marched out of the door towards the exit while Dean chuckled at the puffs of dust coming off of him.
"You saved my life." Parmida's soft, slightly accented voice startled Dean a bit, still bone deep tired from this shitfest of a case.
"What do you mean?" Dean remembered she had been screaming. "Thought you were protected from her?"
Parmida smiled ruefully, blonde ringlets of hair that had fallen from her loose bun framing her face. Dean would always be wary of witches, white or not, but he had to admit there was something about this woman that made him feel warm. Like he was drinking some beers around a fire at Bobby's, surrounded by the people he loved. Which was… weird.
"The link of magic that connects all of us who practice it, good or not, runs deeper than most spells can protect. She was trying to tap into my light, tamper with it. It could have done any number of horrible things."
"Your light?" Dean questioned dubiously.
"Yes. I am an, as you call it, 'white' witch. There is an energy vibrating throughout the entirety of existence, far beyond what even our finite minds can fathom, and as a diviner of light I tap into that energy and pull from it, so as to achieve balance and harmony through the world."
Dean could almost smell the incense burning, imagined this bright, exotic young woman smoking weed topless during some kind of folk music festival, burning with passion for the pursuits of peace and love.
Annoyingly, it made him even more inclined to trust her.
"So I guess some witches really aren't bad," he acquiesced, hoping it was a sufficient enough an apology for the attitude he knew had eked from him throughout the hunt.
"Good and bad are relative terms; we all possess potential for both. That is why her tapping into my light would have been disastrous; I am quite strong. So you indeed saved my life from a fate far worse than dying. Chances are we won't meet again, so I would like to do something to repay you."
"I don't like favors," Dean said quickly, because how many times had he learned this lesson.
"It is no favor. I might have lost my mind, destroyed this entire building, this whole city, if she had succeeded. It may seem simple enough; you knew where the object was, you were practically burning it already, but my worst fear is…"
"Going dark side?" Yeah, that he could relate to. Dean had been face to face with himself as a demon, had watched his own hands strip flesh and muscle and bone from countless souls, saw who he could have become if Sammy hadn't overpowered Lucifer. He knew that fear intimately.
"Exactly. So tell me Dean, in your moments of intense selfishness what is it you crave most?" Her cinnamon eyes were wide, peering at him in a way that reminded him of Castiel, as if she could see his soul and it didn't repulse her. The warmth diffused through his system again.
"Part of me wants to say peace; for all the monsters to just not exist, for the things in the dark to stay there and for hell and all of its demons to fuck off and burn forever. For us to not have to keep fighting."
"And yet…"
"DEAN!"
Sam was back in the doorway looking even bitchier than before, his arms crossed and his lips in a pout (that Sam would never admit to; he was a grown up and he didn't pout).
"Whatdya want?" Dean asked, annoyed in a weird way because he wanted to hear his own answer to that whirlpool of a question.
"The hell, man. I've been waiting out there, I'm covered in this crap, I want to take a shower, and I'm starving, not to mention –"
"JESUS I'm coming. Fine. Just. Go to the car."
"Dean."
"Go, Sammy, I'll be right behind you."
Dean's hands were clenched tightly into fists as Sam stormed away, but he turned resolutely back to Parmida who had remained patiently waiting.
"And yet," she repeated, laying a hand over Dean's heart, "it's much simpler than all of that."
"Love." It came out firm and sure even as Dean felt his insides clawing to grab the sentiment back. Vulnerability was a tight fit on Dean, squeezing his throat like a vice. Where had that even come from?
He scoffed at himself, drawing away from the ethereal woman before him.
"But you know what they say. 'Can't buy me love', right? In my experience love spells tend to zombify its victim and I wouldn't want that and it's not like I have a choice with my lifestyle, anyway. Even if there weren't any more monsters or demons I'm not cut out for that shit. So forget it."
Dean turned to leave the room, noting that Parmida looked unfazed as she followed behind him, and she barely said a word as they drove her to the train station.
Guess he wasn't getting world peace as his consolation prize.
Parmida bade Sam a warm goodbye as she got out of the car, the behemoth of a man still glowering in the passenger's seat, wrapped in a blanket to protect the leather from the mess covering him. He gave her a quick nod and tight smile.
Dean turned to thank her again only to find her leaning through the window. Her lips landed softly on his forehead, and again that damn warmth spread from where her hand rested against his cheek throughout the rest of him. It was so damn powerful that he grabbed Sam's hand, barely registering the soft gasp his brother let out. Neither were sure how long they stayed like that, because it was over in a blink yet seemed suspended in the whole of time, and then she was walking away and the boys were left blinking slowly.
As if nothing had happened, they'd headed to the hotel room where Dean cleaned his weapons until Sam was done showering, hopping in for a quick wash. And then he was sleeping, not knowing enough to care that he'd changed his fate simply through the purity of his own soul.
And also because of Sam; it was all his fault.
"…and do you smell that, Cassie. Gabriel positively reeks; it'll only get worse when the giraffe comes to. I'm not even sure why you invited me here. In fact; I'm a bit of offended."
"What the hell?" Dean tried to move his face out of the pillow but it felt like some kind of weight was pressing his back down, and he let out a warning huff. "Okay. I'm gonna ask nicely. Who is pressin' on my back?" He kept his voice calm but fitted his hand around his gun, the feeling of being trapped putting him instantly in fight mode.
"No one. Get up and look for yourself, stupid. And get your brother to wake up. I need your brother to wake up," Gabriel's voice came from by Sammy's bed as he continued to mumble something about how Sammy could probably sleep through an orgy.
When Dean was finally able to sit up he realized the strange weight shifted with him. Something was on him.
"What's on my back?" he amended, reaching with his empty hand because whatever it was, it felt connected to him and –
"The fuck is going on? Cas? What the –"
Because now that he was taking in every detail he realized that everyone in the room had wings.
And by everyone that included Sam and Dean himself, as far as the mirror was telling him. Slowly he turned his head, eyes bulging as they took in the wing he was holding.
His hand met a sandy plush undercoat interspersed with coarser feathers in hues of rusty amber and shining gold, white and tan, dark brown, and random additions of ocean blue; they reminded him of the shorelines along his favorite fishing lake.
He tugged at them, eyes wide, barely breathing, and felt a sensation akin to an electric shock travel through the wings and zip down to his spine, through wing joints, fucking wing joints, only to land somewhere in his lower belly. The oil that covered his wings, a little thicker than the grease that would build up in his hair when he hadn't showered, seemed to grow a bit slicker, and Dean reached to lightly yank another chunk when a hand grasped his forearm.
"Don't." Castiel's voice reverberated throughout his bones, and Dean immediately dropped his hand, catching a whimper roughly in his throat. What the hell.
Dean turned his head towards his brother.
"Sam!"
No response, but Dean could hear him snoring.
Somehow the guy had slept through the angel conference and whatever else Gabriel had tried. Even Dean hadn't been as vigilant as usual. Something completely fucked up was going on. It was all made even worse by the supposed-to-be-dead Gabriel looming over his brother with a look on his face that was making Dean uncomfortable and oddly envious. Not of Sam, but of the hunger in Gabriel's eyes.
"Sam!" Dean roared, heart starting to beat against his ribcage.
"Wuzgoinon?" Sam jolted up, face landing only inches away from Gabriel's. And then Sam took a deep, slow breath through his nose. His eyes slipped closed and his mouth went slack.
When he opened his eyes his pupils didn't retract in the light and Dean swore he could feel the air in the room get thinner.
The archangel seemed to take the entire thing as permission to reach right out and grasp both of Sam's dark auburn, blood red and gold laced wings before Sam let out a gasp and, like it happened all of the time, pressed his lips to Gabriel's in a sloppy, loud, deep sucking kiss.
"What the fuck is happening," Dean choked out, forearm still grasped tightly in Cas' hand as the lip locked pair disappeared.
It was a minute before the hunter could get his mouth working, and then he exploded."Where the hell did they go? Cas, tell me what the fuck is going on? And who the fuck is that guy?" Dean gesticulated widely to the angel next to Castiel before bringing a hand up to his hair and gripping just a bit too tight. He needed to ground himself.
Dean didn't know why the third question came out like it did; defensive and just a touch sharp. Hell, he didn't know why it came out at all; just another angel lackey Cas had brought along to this new clusterfuck.
But some blond smarmy guy with silver, sunset purple, sky and midnight blue wings, the one with the British voice that had awoken him (hadn't he mentioned a smell, because now that Dean thinks about it he smelled something), that called Castiel 'Cassie', was looking expectantly between the two of them like they were an entertaining play.
In short, Dean was put off by his presence for reasons he could continue naming, and a few he couldn't.
"I believe they are down the hall, third door on the left. It appears you and Sam have somehow been turned into a new genus of angel, or a rather old one; it may even be something between, we aren't quite sure yet. That is Balthazar, an angel I have had the honor of fighting alongside for many millennia, and a very dear friend."
Cas answered every question without hesitation, eyes pinning Dean to the spot. The hunger he'd seen Gabriel aiming at his brother was glaringly bright in the burning blue depths of the angel still holding on to him. Dean noticed that Cas' feathers, blue black, jade and shimmering, were quivering slightly. Castiel followed Dean's eyes and immediately released his hold on Dean's arm, stepping back a foot or so towards Balthazar. For some reason, that did nothing to improve Dean's mood.
"The dearest," Balthazar added in. Dean gave him a hard glare, but turned back to Castiel and gave him a nod to continue.
"I contacted him as soon as I felt the change. I sensed nothing malicious; you were actually sleeping quite peacefully. Then you and Sam simultaneously rolled onto your stomachs and manifested wings. We didn't want to awake or alarm either of you, as you both seem altogether unharmed."
"Glowing, even," Balthazar scoffed. "I'm off to do that research, since you asked so nicely. Ta."
Dean, glad to hear the angel's departure (how had Cas asked nicely, Dean wondered, vaguely bitter) sat quietly digesting as he stared at his new wings. The angels might not sense anything evil about this but they weren't always right; far from it, usually. Still, something that almost felt like reverence was rising in his throat as he watched the light make his gold feathers shine, reflecting in an almost blinding glint at just the right angle. He wondered what they would look like spread out across the sky.
They were solid under his fingers and ranged from a down that nearly matched the hair on his head to sharp, specifically positioned quills that went from brown like Sam's to an almost white, all the while gold danced in between.
"So I'm an angel," Dean said, breaking the silence and testing out the word. "Dean Winchester, angel of the freaking Lord."
Saying it loud made him kind of giddy. He felt like he was back in his experimental phase and he'd gotten the red cup at the party.
"Apparently, so I would be wary of further blasphemy, absent Father or not. I'm more than positive He had something to do with this, though not directly. Balthazar is off to speak with Parmida. This, of course, wasn't her doing. At least intentionally. No one has the power to do something of this magnitude unless it is written."
Always with that matter-of-fact destiny shit.
"It had to be her. God doesn't just get bored and decide to turn two people, especially when one of 'em is me, into angels. She offered uh, some kind of spell but I don't remember her doing it. And why turn Sammy, too? What's her end game? I want to talk to her myself." Dean stood and began pacing, sick of this ridiculous onslaught of emotion. He was angry, confused (which only served to make him angrier), uncomfortable (this weight on his back was doing strange things to his balance), and painfully curious. Not to mention worried, because what if she told this Balthazar guy about his… request.
Castiel was watching him carefully, obviously looking for the right words. But Dean wasn't quite done yet.
"And another thing; what's up with Gabriel being alive? And down the hall. With my brother?"
Castiel averted his gaze from Dean; Balthazar was right, the newly winged hunter was glowing and it was only increased in the storm of his indignation. He had to focus on helping Dean handle this entire situation and would have to ignore his instincts for, well, possibly the rest of time. That dark, doubtful part of him was positive that he would not get what he yearned for, had always seemed to yearn for when it came to the righteous man.
"I can only assume he came up with a mirage powerful enough to convince Lucifer, and you two, of his death. As for he and Sam, they –"
Castiel cleared his throat as he reached towards his already loose tie and tugged on it further, his body seeming to react to nerves in ways he'd only experienced when cut off from the host. With a dry tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, he forced himself to continue. "They seem to be mating."
Dean's eyes widened as his jaw dropped, but not a sound came out for almost half a minute.
"Mating? Like, call-of-the-wild Discovery Channel mating? My brother isn't an animal!"
"No, he isn't. As I said, you are both a form of angel now. It's either something new that we'll have to put a name to, some angel-human hybrid that God left room for –"
Dean opened his mouth to interrupt but Castiel held up a hand, causing Dean's mouth to snap shut. That was new.
Castiel raised a brow, eyes taking on that deep pooling promise of something just out of Dean's reach, before the older angel shook himself and continued.
"The witch wouldn't have been able to cause this sort of metamorphosis. That has led us to believe that what she did was somehow pre-ordained. If so, that leaves the possibility of Celephilim open."
"Celephilim?" Dean's head was spinning because while he may not remember Parmida actually casting a spell, he did remember the answer he'd given when asked for his most selfish desire. How could that have led to this? None of it made sense.
Castiel's voice was breaking through the buzzing thoughts swarming Dean's mind, and not for the first time he found the angel's rumbling tone soothing, even if he was monotonously spouting facts.
"The Celephilim are a naught spoken of sect of angels that existed before the Celestials and Cherubs. Almost like the Leviathans, the Celephilim were a test run. They were very…"
"Powerful?" Dean asked, perking up as he realized that hey, this might have other perks besides wings.
"Human."
"Human?"
Castiel rolled his eyes at Dean's repetition, having noted it was something he and Sam did back and forth sometimes and considered a sign of affection. Usually the idea gave him a feeling of comfort, that he and his charge had gotten to the point of easily shared camaraderie. Friendship. But right now was not the time, not the time at all, for his skin to tingle in delight at the soft look of confusion Dean was giving him. He would need to figure out a way to stop his mind wandering, and quickly.
"They felt love. Most importantly, they were Alphas, Omegas, and Betas, and their love was somewhat "animalistic" in its mating rituals. It was also pure, relying on the base instinct that both mates would have to ensure happiness in the other. They even had forms closely resembling what would eventually be the homo erectus. But then something went wrong, and God cast them from existence and spoke of them no more."
Dean let out a low whistle, sitting down slowly on the bed and testing his wings out. Castiel seemed to be finished and watched Dean stretch and fold his new appendages. Every time Dean would rustle his feathers Cas' would twitch in the smallest of ways, but Dean saw it.
"Think I could see your true form now? Hear your voice?"
Cas' gaze landed firmly on Dean before his mouth thinned and he shook his head.
"That's been enough for one day. You should get some rest. Don't try to do anything more than shifting your wings. We'll give it one more day and then tomorrow we'll test your abilities."
Dean heard Castiel's words for what they were; something more than suggestions, but less than orders. It didn't escape the hunter that he hadn't answered either question, but he let it go, head still spinning. He knew sleeping was probably for the best; hell, it would give him some time to ignore this new development in what could only be his and Sam's lives. And truth be told his body was oddly aching and he knew he would need to rest again.
"I just woke up," he reminded Cas; because no way was he just gonna give in. He was still Dean freaking Winchester.
"You have also just shifted into a completely new form on a molecular level. You need rest."
"What about Sam?" He still wasn't totally okay with the idea that his baby brother was being ravaged by an archangel regardless of their new DNA coding or whateverthehell.
"Didn't you hear me?" Cas' tone sounded strange. Sad. "They are mates. Gabriel will do anything in his power to ensure Sam's happiness and well being. Your brother is most assuredly being taken care of. He is probably resting now. You may have only physically manifested wings, but you are no longer human Dean. At least not fully."
Dean felt his stomach twist at that. He was no monster, was as far from a demon as you could probably be, and yet he couldn't help but think his dad would consider him unnatural. Not to be trusted. Not human.
"Dean, please stop worrying. We will figure everything out. Even a reversal; I'll put the spell together myself, if need be. I promise."
Cas looked almost guilty, and it gnawed at Dean's already sore stomach. He laid back down, not thinking twice before he was sprawled on his back, and he realized a minute too late that his wings –
"They're going through the mattress," Dean whispered, mostly to himself, but Castiel heard.
"They aren't actually on this plane of existence. You always have them, but other people won't see them, just as you couldn't see any of ours. They'll pass right through them, unless of course you call them forth. That's not recommend, because they are delicate when they're exposed here. As I said, we will test your powers and limits over the coming days."
Castiel's voice had softened as Dean's eyes drifted shut, and he gave himself a moment to look his fill.
"What would I do without you, Cas?" Dean slurred tiredly, and without conscious thought was reaching for the angel, his fellow angel, before the healing need for rest pulled him under and Cas was gone.
