imagine how its one question

beat in your veins, how you saw

with perfect clarity that moment

in which each of us chooses,

forever. Imagine that voice

far below crying: Come

back Come back

-Icarus, Rebecca Baggett

If there's one thing Dean Winchester hates, it's being told that he's irrelevant.

Now to be fair, anyone who is at all familiar with Dean Winchester knows that he hates quite a number of things. Hell, you don't have to be that familiar with him; anyone could pass him on the street, look at him, and go 'yes, that is the type of guy who hates things.' This list, for those who are interested, includes, but is not limited to: witches, hindering civilians, getting shot, dying, talking about sex with Cas, demon deals, himself, Turducken, (most) angels, and the New York Yankees.

But at least he's used to those. Irrelevancy, unimportance, not so much. After all, this is the guy who found out that he's the result of thousands of years of careful angel breeding, needed to give an archangel permission to start the Apocalypse, saves lives every week and has had some hand in just about every major disaster three years running. So, yeah. He spends a lot of time hating himself, hating everyone around him. But he's never been irrelevant.

Until now. And clearly, he's not taking it well.

Sam flings up his hands. "This is a job for the police, Dean. It's just a murder."

"Rude."

"How—" Deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Those calming strategies they tried to teach him in his various mental hospital visits. Count to ten, apply logic to the situation. (Of course, he'd brushed these off at the time—it was only later he thought they might have been more helpful for his brother.

"Oh, c'mon, Sam. All the phones going out? There's got to be—"

Sam can pinpoint the precise moment that Dean realizes that that argument is ridiculous. "I thought there might be a case too."

"Yeah." Dean falls dramatically back onto the bed, drama levels nearly toxic. "Ugh."

(And Sam checks his phone once again, just to make extra sure. No new messages. Service unavailable.)

Dean's right. Those random murders and disappearances being random? The nerve.

"Ughhhhhhh," Dean says again. Rolls over and buries his face in his pillow. "You want to find us another case? Since clearly I fail."

Sam snorts. "Chill. We don't need—"

"A gank a day keeps the cranky away."

Pause.

Dean opens his eyes. "It sounded better in my head."

"I hope so."

Sam snorts again. Sits down in a ridiculously molded plastic chair (who did they think sat in these? Grossly overweight old men with back pain?) and flips open his laptop.

Which tells him that a. his computer wants to install updates, please restart now or in four hours and b. Google Chrome cannot display this webpage. Please reset your router and try again.

"No cell, no wifi," Sam grumbles.

"It's the first-world apocalypse," Dean says. "Obviously the supernatural at work."

They're silent for awhile.

Well, at least until someone kicks the door in.

"Jesus Fucking—" Dean is on his feet in half a second, one hand on his gun, other hand on the motel pillow as though he plans on using it as a shield. Sam is already in motion when he recognizes he intruder, and that recognition doesn't make him at all inclined to stop the punch on his way towards the other's face. And then his hands are caught in a steel grip and he's bringing his knee up to—

"Can you call off your brother?" Benny drawls, moving slightly to get his genitals out of the line of fire.

"Dude!" Dean lowers the gun. "Dude. The hell—ever heard of knocking?"

Benny releases Sam, who takes a step back. Because if it came to a fight, he isn't sure whose side Dean would be on, and isn't that a thought he loves.

Someone with a nametag sticks his head in, glancing nervously from person to person, hopefully not noticing the gun—"Everything alright in here?"

"Yes," Dean says loudly. "Sorry. Uh, Denny here thought there was—is the door okay?"

It is determined that the door is not injured, they should be more quiet and Talk About Their Issues, and the presumably well-meaning man moves on before someone gets annoyed enough to deck him.

"I thought you might be in trouble," the vampire says when they're alone again. "Weren't answering your phones."

Dean sits on the bed again. "yeah, Traverse City is a communication deadzone. Doesn't seem to be anything though."

"Apologies."

They stand there, in an awkward triangle. Sam, fist still clenched, still prepared to fight. Benny, shrugging. Dean, looking from one to the other as though he's not sure who he's going to have to hit. In the interests of world peace, Sam drops the fighting stance. (Also in the interests of world peace, he does not drop the knife that he has behind his back.)

"I'm guessing you didn't stalk us just to check and see if we were okay," Dean says finally.

Benny waves a hand. "En't gonna give me the benefit of the doubt?"

(Sam opens his mouth, fully planning to inform Benny that Dean gives him nothing but, that he gets more doubt than anyone deserves, but his brother's look says that a. he knows and b. he won't be able to say it without things getting even more awkward than they already are.)

(In the interests of world peace, he keeps his mouth shut. While cataloging the distance and time it will take to reach the machete.)

"What's going on, Benny? How'd you find us?"

Benny plops himself down in the chair Sam had recently vacated, leaving the youngest Winchester the only one standing. "'Ent too hard. You'd said you were going to Traverse. There en't too many hotels with that ridiculous car in the lot, and—" he grins, adopting a slightly more Midwestern accent. "Excuse me, ma'am? I'm looking for two men from the—we had a meeting. Someone said I should talk to, um…" he snaps his fingers a few times. "They had the name of some singing duo, I can't remember what—"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Ten points to Gryffindor. So?"

"Vampires. In Detroit. Thought you might be interested, if you weren't having any luck with your phone-blocking ghost."

"Hey, it isn't as ridiculous as it sounds," Sam protests. "I mean, it's something Crowley would find hilarious. There might still be—" but anything he says is pointless, because Dean is going to go. Sam knows it the second his brother opens his mouth, even though he hasn't said anything yet. He's going to go on the word of his vampire friend because He's My Friend Sam We Bonded In Purgatory You Don't Understand. (Of course he doesn't understand because what has Dean told him about Purgatory? About him and Benny or—hell, him and Cas? About a quarter of nothing.)

Sam doesn't have to, though. Sam could go off somewhere else with a connection to the outside world. Check on Amelia, find a real hunt—and Jesus he doesn't want to go back to Detroit (powerless, trapped in his own body, Bobby's neck snapping under his fingers-)

But Dean is going to go. Stranger Dean. But, hell.

At least Sam can keep an eye on Benny.

So he spreads his hands, shrugs. Looks only at Dean as he says, "Always looking to kill some vamps."

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?"

"Relax." Dean lowers his phone. "This isn't the most dangerous—"

"I was under the impression that we were in a hurry—"

"They won't pull me over, I'm not driving by a police car in liberalsville—"

"That was Seattle, and that was one time—"

"My god," Benny says loudly. "You two are as bad as…." He falls silent, presumably looking for an appropriate comparison.

"Fine." Dean shoves the phone at Sam. "Tell me when there's reception."

"Who're you calling?"

Dean turns the corner without turning on his indicator. "Cas."

Vampire breath on the back of Sam's neck. Ugh. He turns the phone off and on again, because sometimes that helps it find bars.

"I thought the angel didn't make it."

White knuckles hold the steering wheel. "He's back."

"How?"

Dean goes quiet. Looks at Sam, who, in a brilliant move of goodwill, tells Benny that "We don't actually know." (There's still no reception in this ungodly sunny, ungodly picturesque, populated part of Michigan, but hell, maybe it's a Michigan thing.

"Well, where is he now?"

They hit the highway.

"Nursing home," Dean says sharply. "He decided to stay behind—"

"Yeah," Benny says. "He seemed to like that idea."

"—and look after a guy who lived there."

A vein pulses in Dean's neck, the car speeds up, and Sam watches the speedometer pass eighty. He wonders at what point he should start fearing for his life. Flashes back to the racist truck, the crash where Dean died for the first time, the—

Chirp, chirp.

T-Mobile is available.

Sam hits the speed-dial, passes it over. And Dean slows to sixty.

Benny lets out a slow stream of air, halfway to a whistle. "These cars, man," he says. "Gotten a bit faster."

Sam snorts. "This car is over fifty years old—shouldn't be moving at all."

"You two shut up," Dean says. Then, "Cas?"

Cas says something indistinct, and Sam can't help but be glad when Benny leans back again.

Dean is laughing. "And they believed you?"

Mumble mumble mumble.

Sam wonders if this is a good idea, this constant contact. Telling Castiel where they are all the time. Because he knows that Dean, every time, is giving the angel the opening to come back, but it's still an opening for anything else. A set-up for destruction. It's not like telling Bela where they were wound up with a vampired-Gordon on their tail, not like they'd once met a creature that could call people in the voice of whoever he chose.

"Me and Sam are with Benny," Dean says. "Going after some fangs in Detriot."

Sam's thoughts have the voice of Amelia's dad—Sam and I.

Mumble mumble mumble.

"Nah, jut ord—what do you mean?"

Silence on their end. Sam wonders if they'll make it to Detroit after all, or if they'll end up driving to wherever Castiel is. Knows that Dean would have a plausible excuse, and Sam misses Amelia so much it hurts. Creates an ache in his chest and he doesn't know what to fill it with. It used to be that that ache was for Dean, but Dean's back, so why does it still hurt? Why can't he just have both of them?

And he misses her, misses her smile, the worry lines, her stories from the animal hospital. Misses that stupid time travel TV show she made him watch with her (and that had hurt too, because he remembered that Dean had liked it,) misses the stupid dog and how can he be happy to have his brother back and so sad at the same time? (And then he remembers that he did the exact same thing to Dean—came back without a soul and tore Dean out of his new life with Lisa, and even though Dean technically has a soul right now sometimes it doesn't feel like it because he doesn't know what Purgatory has done to his brother but he's horrible himself because it's not like he talks either so he deserves this, he does, he—)

"Sam? Sam? You listenin'?"

"Yes?"

Dean sighs. Apparently he's been off the phone for a couple minutes. "Benny, tell him."

Anything not to have to hear that ridiculous drawl for even longer. "No, no, I got it. We're killing vampires."

The Impala drops another two miles per hour as Dean snickers. "Right you are, Buffy." Pause. Then, "tell Spike back there to mass me some goldfish."

The three of them crouch below the window, glaring at each other. Silently blaming someone else for this change in plans.

"Those," Dean says carefully, "are not vampires."

Benny rolls his head around. "Oh, did you figure that one out yourself?"

"You said vamps," Sam hisses. And ugh, if he's going to accuse Benny of leading them into a trap— Dean so cannot deal with this right now.

"There were vamps," Benny snaps back. "Although now they seem to be lying in pieces on the floor."

One quick glance over the edge of the warehouse window shows that he's right. Nothing like the scene of a— Christ, there had been, what, thirteen vampires in there? A quadruple-time-triple murder plus one? (Even though it's not murder when it's vampires. He still has to remind himself of this.)

What's in there now is a— a something.They don't look human, although maybe they could be mistaken as such from a distance. If you were squinting and in a place where mohawks were common. They're made of— of a kind of darkness, slightly fuzzy around the edges.

Please don't let them have empty eyes, please don't let them have—

One of them turns around. Dean takes a second to appreciate that their eyes are not empty, but a sort of swirling, speckled color. And then he starts being concerned about the fact that there are two beings made of darkness with rainbow eyes that just slaughtered a baker's dozen of vampires without even—

"We should probably get out of here," Sam hisses.

"I'll drink to that." Benny half unfolds from his crouch. "Let's see if we can get to— Sam!"

Dean turns a second too slow because the fight has already started, because in the two seconds that they ducked below the edge of the roof one of the things has come outside and was wielding a knife dangerously close to Sam's throat and Benny has lunged and now Dean has his gun out and he's shooting. And it hits, so they're solid, but it doesn't kill them (and ugh, why can't there be demons, monsters, whatever, that can be killed by a gun? A piece of metal to the heart, that's pretty unpleasant, right? Is this just God's way of making their lives more like His own personal video games?)

(Out of the blue, he remembers Charlie's comment— the bad guys always need a special sword. Something like that.)

(And then he's busy trying to sucker punch and/or kung-fu one of the things.)

He gets a hit, turns halfway away, and Sam and Benny are putting up a valiant fight against the other one, and "A little help here!" his brother says, ducking away from that knife, that fucking knife, and then

The next thing Dean's fully aware of, they're all tied to chairs.

He doesn't think he's passed out, but there was a certain element of blurriness to the whole thing. The kind of blurry that comes when you've just severely gotten your ass kicked. And they're inside the warehouse. Concrete walls, random boards lying around for no apparent reason, a few boxes, the works. The only thing that doesn't make sense is the rolling chalkboard, but hey.

Nothing like the scene of a classic murder to get Dean slightly concerned. Then again, it could be worse. An office building, for example. Or Hell.

(Blood, screaming, screaming, his own, other peoples', bloody and organs everywhere and that bright light that never stopped, that made it look almost holy.)

He twists his wrists around, looking for give in the bonds. A chance to break free at the most opportune moment, after getting an explanation about what they were and what they wanted and the key way to stop it, as is their usual M.O.

So it's slightly terrifying to see that his wrists won't even twist.

"Uh, Dean?"

He turns to where Sam is tied to the chair next to him— Benny's a little farther down— and then continues looking up, and in front of— ah. Yes.

He clears his throat. "What the hell are you?"

Rainbow-Eyes look at him for a second, and then at each other. They don't speak, but fuck, their eyes are moving, just slightly, their hands and eyebrows making vague movements that carry a surprising amount of emotion.

We seem to have caught some meddling kids, the one of the left seems to be saying. What do we do with these?

The right one's eyebrows lower, eyes scrunch in, and he twitches his head towards the knife. Dean has the uneasy feeling that he knows what that means, and he looks to the other two. Hoping someone has a molotov or some other form of convenient escape they could utilize.

(And he's not terrified. He isn't panicking. He's calm and collected and rational, he's not sweating, he's not considering peeing himself. He's tied up, but that's just a normal day as a Winchester. He didn't come through Purgatory to die like this, without even getting any good punches in.)

(Also, if there's one thing he's learned, it's that unusual demons tend to have plans. Evil Plans. And somehow it always seems to fall on their shoulders to stop it.)

(Or start it. He should look into that.)

He turns to his brother. "Hey Sammy? You didn't happen to start an apocalypse while I was in Purgatory, did you?"

The Rainbows don't look away from each other, and yeah, that's probably how they're communicating. With all the nods in Benny's direction, and the more animated way their eyebrows are moving, they're probably arguing about his life. Or maybe just politely discussing. It's hard to tell scale.

"Not that I recall. You didn't go breaking any seals down there, yes?"

Dean wants Cas to be there, so that Cas can tell him that there was very little sea life in Purgatory. Except for that thing that he'd bet Benny five bucks was Cthuluhu, although they hadn't found further investigation to be necessary. But Cas isn't there, and Cas would never say that, anyway, because he'd know exactly what type of Seal Sam was referring to.

The thing on the left was facing him now. And Dean had the uneasy feeling that those freaky-ass eyes were staring, quite literally, into his soul. And not in a soul-mate, love-you-forever, I-understand-your-pain-now-here's-some-sex-to-make-it-better way.

It gestures, and Leftie moves to the right (so that way of keeping them apart is now out) and pulls forward the chalkboard. Begins writing, in painstakingly neat letters.

Winchesters?

"So you can't talk," Sam says slowly.

The one not writing gives him a look that— well, the closest translation Dean can come up with is No shit, then he gestures again to the board.

"Who wants to know?" Dean asks.

We have been told that if possible we should not kill Sam and Dean Winchester.

Oh, good. Demons that know their names. That always ends well.

"Why? I mean, I'm not saying we're these Winchester guys, but they sound like douchebags. Who's giving you instructions?"

The faces Benny and Sam give him are almost identical.

He gets the unamused face again.

"Worth a shot," Sam mumbles.

And his wrists are seriously starting to hurt. He doesn't like this.

But one of them is writing again.

We are the Galla.

That means exactly nothing to Dean.

"That means exactly nothing to me," he says. And sometimes demons get offended when you haven't heard of them, but these ones seem unamused. And he looks to Sam, who shakes his head, and then—

"As in the ones who led dead Sumerians to hell?" Benny drawls, seeming rather unaffected by the proceedings. It's a look they've all gotten down cold at this point. (Sam's current face, while appearing stoic, is actually 'I've been thinking and I can't find a way out of here so I'm going to look unconcerned' and Benny's is bored. And hell, maybe he is bored— but he's never been able to resist new creatures, either. Why he stuck with Dean, why he put up with Cas as well as he did. Hell, maybe this is fascinating.)

(After all, why should he be scared of dying? He knows where he's going. Not like Dean who might be going to heaven but more likely going to Hell where screaming pain burning and he's not going to give in, not this time, this is what he tells himself because he knows that he will because he always would.)

One of them nods. The other continues writing.

Call the angel.

"Who?" Sam asks.

Castiel.

Dean's vocal cords seem to have trouble working because the last time Cas got caught up in and they spent all that time running from—

"We ain't got a clue whose Christmas tree feathers is sittin' on."

"Yeah." Sam nods. "He left us awhile back."

The look they get, Dean's pretty sure, means we know you have ways of getting in contact with him. Do so now.

Dean swallows. "He didn't want much to do with us. I doubt he'd come. Why don't you just pray for him yourself?"

Pause.

"Oh, right. You can't talk."

Yeah, definitely not amused. Probably a bad idea to annoy the deadly deadly Galla demons, and "has anyone told you these bodies are starting to smell, by the way? Do you smell?"

He's pretty sure the chalkless one just rolled his— her? Its— eyes at him.

"What do you want him for?" Sam asks.

No response.

"What I think," Dean says, because once he's gotten his ability to snark back he's going to go out full blast because he's not going to betray Cas, not again, "is that if, hypothetically, someone wanted to chat with an angel— we'll call him… uh, Casti….mmy Nova…manuel, they could maybe write it down, let…. Castimmynovamanuel's hypothetical acquaintances go, so they could maybe tell Castiwhatever what the Galla things wanted so that he could decide whether to parley with them himself. I mean, if they're not out to hurt him."

"Yeah," Benny drawls. "Otherwise, a fella might think that you're just trying to get him in here so you can set fire to that ring of holy oil."

He's used to angels, which appear and disappear at will. These things, they just move fast. The next blink one of them is holding that rather unpleasant looking knife to Benny's throat, and is pressing down, and Benny tries to lean backwards but he can't move and then Sam flings himself forward (apparentlysomeone had figured out that 'perfectly timed escape plan' thing) and Dean wishes he could pull a Black Widow and pulverize them with the chair but he can't do more than shout— and fuck, maybe that'll work, because they don't talk, maybe they don't like noise, so he yell something at them and and the one still at the chalkboard looks over, but doesn't do anything more than narrow its eyes and rap at the words again.

Call the angel.

Dean grimaces. "I will not pray for Castiel to walk right into a trap set by Galla things." Because at least this way Cas will know they're after him, he can—

"There's no need."

Fuck.

The second Galla pauses, from where he has Sam pinned, Benny at knife point, and stands. Steps away from them, as though it was some sort of signal.

"Cas," Sam says, "It's a—"

After months spent in close proximity, Dean thinks he's gotten a lot better at reading Cas's expressions. This one, he's ninety-eight percent sure, is I'm not an idiot, I obviously wiped away some of the holy oil and/or used decapitated vampires as handy bridges before making my presence known.

And then both Gallas are running at him and he's dodging, he's spun out of the way and grabbed Benny's chair and disappeared and Dean's started to get righteously indignant before he's back and they're all moving so quickly and he can barely see and there are lights and he has a mouthful of carpet and is pretty certain that he's just pulled all the muscles in his back and legs.

And then thump, thump, and Sam is sprawled next to them and Cas is cutting through the ropes on his hands.

His stomach hits the floor, and nothing has ever felt so good.

He takes a minute to breathe before asking the obligatory— "what the fuck?"

Castiel grimaces. "Hello, Dean."

He wants to laugh and hug him and get piss drunk and a back massage all at once. But he doesn't. Instead, he stands, and looks around a rather standard-looking hotel room. "Where are we?"

"New Zealand."

Dean could have fit at least forty grapes in Sam's mouth. "What?"

Cas waves a hand, then brings it up to stop the bleeding that has started in his nose. "The Galla demons can only move across earth. They cannot appear and disappear. They'd have to get on an airplane."

Dean decides that bitching about the Impala and all their stuff would be ungrateful. (Clearly he's grown as a person.)

"So, angel." Benny rubs his wrists. "You want to explain why demons out of Sumerian mythology are after you?"

Gotta love it when the pagan gods get involved. But this can't be weirder than anything else this year. And maybe these ones won't eat people.

"I really do," Cas says. "But I cannot."

"What?"

"I don't know."

Dean walks to the window, looks out at the New Zealand sunlight. It looks a lot like American sunlight. "So there's some new fuckery up," he says. "Must be Wednesday."