Title: Supernatural Omens
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: There's Dean and Sam and Cas, plus Gabriel. Then there's Crowley and Aziraphale, who have fought apocalypses before. Maybe Team Free Will 2.0 has a better chance than anyone thought.
SUPERNATURAL OMENS
Chapter One: Unexpected Assistance
Before Dean could do more than stare in horror at what Zachariah had just done, Castiel managed to grab onto Dean's arm and transport both of them elsewhere.
The moment they arrived, Castiel collapsed.
"Cas!" Dean scrambled to the angel's side.
Castiel was unconscious, and looked distinctly battered. He was also glowing dimly, which Dean figured couldn't be a good sign.
"Castiel!"
Dean pulled the angel into his arms to examine him better. Cas's breathing was laboured, and when Dean checked, his pulse was only weak.
Dean glanced around, but the two of them were out in the middle of nowhere, without a single building or road in sight.
"Gabriel!" he called, hoping, but there was no sign of the archangel.
The two of them were completely alone, and Castiel was in a bad way.
"Please," Dean prayed desperately, "if there is a God out there, and you care about us at all, then we could really do with some help right now."
The next moment a dark-haired man in a smart suit stumbled into existence only metres away, looking rather dazed.
He looked up.
"What was that?" he demanded of the sky, in a British accent. "'Help them?' What kind of instruction is that? Haven't you ever heard of details?"
"Hey!" Dean called.
The man spun, took once glance at Castiel in Dean's arms, and swore.
"Oh, bloody hell!"
The stranger hurried over, his gaze all for Castiel. As he crouched, Dean got a glimpse of worried, golden eyes.
They weren't yellow though, but a genuine gold, that reminded Dean vaguely of spectacular sunsets and of the glint of his mother's wedding ring.
Focus, he told himself harshly. His brain was wandering everywhere.
"What happened to him?" the golden-eyed man demanded, fixing Dean with a fierce stare.
"Angels," Dean said hoarsely. "Who are you, anyway?"
The guy's face twisted.
"Angels did this to him?"
Dean got a glimpse of something dark and serpentine before all emotion was banished briskly.
"Yeah, a dick named Zachariah," Dean replied.
"Oh, I can see that," the stranger said darkly, examining Castiel with care. "He always was a little bastard. Should've been working for the other side, really. My name's Crowley."
"Crowley?" Dean repeated disbelievingly.
"What? It's better than being named 'The Covering of God,'" Crowley replied, putting a hand over Cas's forehead, and one over his heart. "You might want to look away for this."
And before Dean could quite do so, there was an explosion of white light.
Dean blinked away the spots in his vision to see Castiel's eyes waver open, and blue eyes fix blurrily on Crowley. Who, Dean was pretty sure after that display, was as far from a demon as anyone could get.
To Dean's surprise, Crowley promptly glared at the angel.
"You moron!" Crowley snapped, grabbing hold of Castiel's shoulders, and Dean would have stopped him, except that Castiel was blinking up at Crowley in surprise, and slowly-dawning wonder. "Do you have any idea what they'll do to you, you great big featherheaded idiot? The last angel that Fell got chased down and slain by half a legion!"
"Sachiel?" Castiel managed to rasp out.
Crowley sat back in a huff.
"It's Crowley," he said, somewhat sulkily, and Dean stared, because apparently Cas's mysterious saviour was another angel. Which Dean had kind of expected, given the white light, but still, flash bastards who weren't complete dicks were kind of new in the angel department. "I mean, honestly, Sachiel? Was Father feeling particularly uninventive that day?"
Dean couldn't help the snort. Part of it was just a kind of giddy relief that Castiel was alive.
Cas just blinked at Crowley in faintly disapproving confusion.
"You Fell to perdition."
"Well, obviously. And then I un-Fell."
"You what?" Dean blurted.
"That's impossible," Castiel said flatly.
Crowley rolled his eyes.
"You're going to argue about this the whole time, aren't you?" he asked, with slightly weary insight. "So I Rose. Just because it never happened before doesn't mean it can't."
"Wait, you were a demon?" Dean was rapidly growing even more confused than Cas, which was kind of an accomplishment. "I thought demons were humans who sold their souls."
"Most of them are," Crowley agreed. "I was one of the True Demons, though. The first humanity ever met, actually: I was the Serpent of Eden."
He said this with a kind of gleeful pride, like this made him unspeakably awesome somehow.
Castiel frowned.
"But you Rose," he said slowly, as though this idea was going to take some time to adjust to.
"Yes, yes, I Rose," Crowley snapped. "Honestly, the only things thicker than angels are True Demons. It takes you half a century just to grasp the concept of clothes. I mean, Aziraphale still goes out in tartan and paisley jumpers, and he's been here six thousand years. Something like Rising? Who knows how long that'll take to sink into your skull."
"Tartan?" Dean can't help but ask.
Crowley made a disgusted face.
"And pink," he added gloomily. "Angels have no fashion sense. Except for me, of course." He cast an appraising eye over Castiel. "Although, his outfit isn't too bad, if impossibly clichéd."
"Hey, Deano," said a familiar voice out of nowhere, right behind Dean's left shoulder. "You rang?"
Dean almost levitated.
"Don't do that, Gabriel!"
"What?" Crowley slewed around to stare at Gabriel with huge golden eyes.
Gabriel stared back, just as wide-eyed.
Crowley finally let loose with a long sigh.
"Well, bugger."
"Sachiel." Gabriel's tone was jovial, but his eyes were hard. "Last time I saw you looking this angelic, you were trotting around at Lucy's heels."
Crowley grimaced.
"Don't remind me," he muttered. "Look," he said, more loudly, "following Lucifer wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done."
"No shit," Dean coughed.
"But that's past me now, alright? I Rose, I renounced evil, and so on and so forth. I'm a, what's the expression, white hat."
"Uh-huh," said Gabriel, not convinced in the slightest. "And you Rose how, exactly?"
Dean was startled to see a tinge of pink appear in Crowley's pale cheeks.
"A group of demons got hold of Aziraphale," he mumbled.
Gabriel's eyes widened, and he leaned forward in sudden interest.
"Oh-ho!" he said gleefully. "Is that how it is?"
"Oh shut up!" Crowley snarled. He folded him arms, and looked sullen.
"I don't understand," Castiel said. "Surely it is commendable that Sachiel would Rise in defence of another angel."
"Well, yeah," Gabriel said, while Crowley hissed 'it's Crowley!' in frustrated tones, "except I've just worked out who he is."
The finger Gabriel pointed at Crowley was playful. Crowley eyed it warily.
"You were the Serpent, weren't you? Which means that you and Aziraphale have been down here for the last six thousand years while everyone else pretty much ignored you except for a memo now and then. Six thousand years, with only the other for company… who can blame you for getting, you know, attached?"
"Oh, you –" The suggestion that Crowley made was both very vulgar and very graphic.
Gabriel just grinned.
"We're friends, for crying out loud!" Crowley said, looking exasperated. "I just… I just don't like admitting that I care about the sappy idiot, alright?" He glared at Gabriel. "Can we change the subject now?"
"You're kind of angry, for an angel," Dean commented.
"Oh, believe me, six thousand years of dealing with Hell's bureaucracy would make you angry, too," Crowley said dryly.
"How'd you end up here, anyway?" Gabriel asked. "Haven't you spent the last four hundred years or so in Britain?"
Crowley somehow managed to scowl and look smug at the same time.
"I had orders," he said loftily, but sounding a little annoyed about it.
"You what?" Gabriel's attention was suddenly focused on Crowley with the intensity of a laser beam. Castiel and Dean followed suit.
Crowley looked vaguely uncomfortable at the attention, but hid it well.
"You heard me," he said coolly, looking at them with speculative golden eyes that showed clearly that he was wondering how to use this. "So there I am, happily gluing pound coins to the sidewalk –" Gabriel and Dean both snorted " –when a certain Voice blares 'HELP THEM' in my ear, and next thing I know I find myself here, with a worried human and a beaten-up angel."
Dean glanced at Cas and Gabriel, not sure what to think of this.
Gabriel looked completely pole-axed, like someone had just hit him with a truck or something, while Cas was giving Crowley a blank stare, belied by the intense little furrow between his eyebrows.
"Anyway," Crowley said casually, straightening his suit, "I was due to meet Aziraphale at the Ritz at least ten minutes ago – shut up, Gabriel – and he fusses if I'm late, so I'll see you later."
With an airy wave, Crowley vanished.
"Well, now. That was interesting." For once Gabriel looked thoughtful.
"Indeed," Castiel affirmed.
"So, some demon Rose to become an angel again? How's that interesting?" Dean asked.
"Oh, trust me, it's interesting." Gabriel gave a little Trickster smile. "You know I should drop in on Aziraphale in the next week or so, see how he's going. It's been a while."
With a snap of his fingers, Dean and Cas were back in Dean and Sam's motel room, and Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.
Castiel swayed slightly, still not entirely recovered.
"Dean!" Sam exclaimed. "What happened?"
"Oh, you're going to like this, Sammy."