A/N Season 9 excitement is happening! I hope something similar to this happens this season. As usual, I don't own or profit from Supernatural.
Dean tried not to fidget as Castiel launched into full lecture mode. He was clicking through slides like a corporate lackey, and Dean imagined he knew why Charlie had been hanging with Cas for the past couple of hours. She'd made him a slide show. The guy was trying. He was guilty about the way Metatron had used him, and trying to make amends. Cas felt useless, now that he was human, so he was trying to help the only way he knew how—by sharing his knowledge of angels.
Only they already knew everything he was saying. Having Castiel say it out loud in his monotonous deep voice was only disheartening to everyone who heard him.
"The angels that were thrown out of heaven are relentlessly looking for vessels. That accounts for the profusion of spontaneous human combustion in the last few weeks, many of whom had their eyes burned out. These angels without bodies are incredibly difficult for us, as humans, to fight. Even I can't look directly at them, and an angel killing sword is useless if you can't get near them. Because most angels were never intending to leave heaven, they don't know the protocols for finding a vessel. Many are torturing people for their consent, and then it turns out they aren't true vessels and get burned out from the inside anyway—"
Dean interrupted. He had to. Being the closest thing they had to a general, he knew you don't just sit your troops down and tell them the worst case scenario and nothing else. Charlie looked like she was on the point of tears, Garth hadn't made an inappropriate comment in hours, Kevin was crying, and Sam was slumped in his seat, looking worse than he had in days. "Cas, thanks. I think we all know the negatives of the situation. The positives are that when they are in people, we can kill them. And most of them have found vessels, because attacks have gone down substantially. There's only been four human combustions reported in all of America this week."
"And they can't zap around," Sam said. Of course Sam had caught on to what he was trying to do, and he was backing Dean up. Dean allowed himself a moment of sheer relief that Sam was with him, even if his health still wasn't perfect. Soon he'd be well enough to hunt and they could do something about all this stuff. Sam alive was worth all the demons of hell having access to the Earth—and demons might come in handy, now there were so many angels around who apparently could care less about humanity. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
"And we're safe from angels here, right? I mean, this bunker is like, super-duper angel proof, right?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah," Dean said. "You're safe here, Charlie."
"It's not at all certain that angel proofing will work on these creatures," Castiel said. "There's no way of knowing what effect the burning of their wings had on the effectiveness of sigils—"
Dean held up his hand. "It would have worked on you, though, right? I mean, you could come in if we let you in, but when all the doors were closed, you couldn't find us."
"So it'll be safe now," Sam concluded, not allowing Castiel to finish his answer.
"Okay," Charlie said. "Cool. I mean, it sounds crazy to be afraid of angels, though, right? Aren't they supposed to be nice and grant wishes or whatever?"
"They're warriors of God, not leprechauns," Garth said.
"Leprechauns don't grant wishes. Fairies are dicks," Dean put in. "But Garth's right. You should think of angels as warriors—although, Cas, are they all warriors? I mean, Metatron said he was a scribe or a bureaucrat or whatever."
"There are many angels who are less able warriors, but all should be considered to have martial capabilities," Cas said, his face grim.
Dean sighed heavily. And now he'd reminded Cas of Metatron again. Not that that dick angel was ever far from Cas's thoughts—but he'd had moments, reminiscent of those when he'd been crazy with Sam's hell suffering, when he'd basked in the beauty and enjoyment of being human. Those were few and far between, and Dean worried that that cynical Cas he'd meet in the future would come true after all. And he'd give a lot to never hear Cas say "why not go get washed up for the orgy" again.
"All fairies aren't dicks," Charlie said. The expression on her face could only be described as smug. "Some fairies are pretty awesome. And hot."
Trust Charlie to concentrate on the important stuff. Dean spared a moment to be glad she'd accepted their offer to stay at the bunker while the crisis went down. He didn't know what he would have done if they'd lost another friend.
"Cas, do you think the angels will be hostile towards people when they find a vessel? What will they do? Will they try to get jobs and be productive members of society, or will they try to take out their anger at being thrown out of heaven on people?" Sam asked.
"Sam, I simply have no way of answering that question. It might be different for each individual. I know what I would do, but I can't predict what other angels would do—especially because I don't know what effect Naomi's manipulations have had on them," Cas said.
"Well, if you can't tell us what they're going to do, what's the point of this third rate lecture?" Kevin asked dryly.
Kevin's gotten pretty dark, Dean thought. He knew he had to stop Kevin's negativity, even though he sympathized with the sentiment.
"We just have to wait and see," Dean said. "And right now, this is the safest place for us."
Benny crouched in the thorny underbrush, hidden from view. The ghouls weren't paying attention anymore—maybe they'd forgotten the noise they'd heard. The wind was on his side, for once, blowing his scent away from the ghouls. He might be able to sneak away without encountering them at all.
It was not that Benny feared ghouls. Over the years he'd hacked off too many of their heads to be frightened of them, but he was flying solo for the first time in a lot of years.
After he'd come back to Purgatory without Dean, most vampires he met had some reason to hate him—mostly to do with him betraying them or killing their friends.
Or helping the Winchesters.
"I'm a disgrace to my kind," Benny muttered, echoing what he'd told Sam and Bobby. Even vampires who hadn't been personally offended by him hated him on principle—and Purgatory was the kind of place where most creatures stuck with their own kind, so he was going to be alone for a long time.
He thought back to the day he'd let Dean cut off his head, and couldn't bring himself to regret his decision. It wasn't exactly suicide when you were already twice dead, and changing the location of your afterlife was necessary to help out a friend, and Dean was that.
Even when things topside hadn't exactly met Benny's expectations—like when he'd learned the truth about Andrea—the fact that a person like Dean saw value in him had meant something. It had been a consolation, even when Dean hadn't wanted any contact with him, that a good man—a good human—thought he was worthwhile. It had kept Benny from feeding, but without anyone to hold him accountable, he probably wouldn't have held out for long.
Not in the long haul, and a vampire's life span was the very definition of a long haul. The days spent lonely and irritated with the lust for blood seemed to spread infinitely in front of him, and by human standards, he'd been around for a lot of years already.
So he was in Purgatory. And he fought, and fought. He didn't back down from fights, but sometimes, if it was possible, he walked away from them. Because he knew he was going to have to fight for a long, long time.
Forever.
Or at least until he got sloppy and found out where monster souls go when they die in Purgatory.
Benny slowly moved away from the bushes, but not slowly enough. A sudden feeling of dizziness dropped him to the ground, and he let out an involuntary cry as he fell. The last thing he was aware of was several ghouls crowded around him.
Well, now I'll get to see something new, Benny thought.
Oblivion wasn't as unwelcome as he'd thought it would be.
All was silence.
And then, it wasn't.
There was light, and the smell of humans. Food cooking, pine trees, clean laundry.
He was topside.
Benny looked around, trying to identify where he was—what was happening. He was lightheaded and his vision was still too blurry to identify anything about his surroundings except for the fact that he was inside a room—a dark room. He felt his hands, tied behind his back—the pain suddenly so much more real than it had been in Purgatory. He tried to move his legs and realized that he was tied to a chair.
So probably Dean hadn't brought him back, unless the way Dean treated his friends had changed a lot. Or unless he was really mad about Benny choosing not to return topside—but no, he'd know Dean's smell. Although he did smell humans, the strongest smell was other vampires, but it was no one he knew.
And that left him with no idea who would want him topside. Not a clue.
And nothing to do but wait.