The literature of man has many written beliefs on the nature of the universe. Some were obviously written for nothing more than human entitlement. The many different interpretations of the Bible, each serving a separate purpose than the one originally allotted to it, was one such example of this. But some were true.
The one that popped into mind right now was something by a German philosopher of the nineteenth century by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche:
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
When Castiel had first made his deal with Crowley, he had known exactly what he was getting into. Messing with Purgatory, making deals with the King of Hell… these things didn't come without cost. Castiel didn't have enough hubris to believe that he could beat Raphael without losing something, but he had a very long list of acceptable risks when it came to averting the second apocalypse. His life. His status among the other angels. His free will. He would throw it all away if he could just make this plan work.
One thing he hadn't considered losing -couldn't comprehend losing- was his own morality. How could an angel fighting for good lose his own moral compass? It seemed… impossible. Even when Castiel's methods turned less pure, and the casualties of the war grew, he had been convinced his way was the one that would save the world.
Lucifer must have thought something along those lines as Michael and God cast him into the cage.
Michael's thoughts couldn't have been very far off from Castiel's own when he raised Lucifer for the final battle.
For all that millennia, Castiel had gazed into that abyss as he fought for what he knew was right. God. Humans. Sam and Dean. Lucifer and Michael fell into the never-ending destruction and lost themselves, but Castiel remained true to himself.
For billions of years, Castiel had gazed unblinkingly into the abyss.
It was only as the souls of billions of monsters surged through Castiel's grace, shredding and burning as they went, that Castiel realized.
He'd blinked.
And he had been falling endlessly in the black abyss for a long time.
"You can't imagine what it's like. They're all inside of me. Millions upon millions of souls."
"Sounds sexy. Exit stage Crowley."
"Now what's the matter Raphael? Somebody clip your wings?"
"Castiel please. You let the demon go. But not your own brother?"
"The demon I have plans for. You on the other hand…"
"Oh Castiel. Your arrogance never fails to astound me. You think, just because you absorbed a few tarnished souls, that you have to power to eliminate me with just a snap of your fingers?" Raphael shook her head, taking a step towards the soul powered angel. "Hubris is unbecoming of an angel."
Cas's mouth curved into a grotesque grin as he matched her approach with a step of his own. "I couldn't agree more, Angel."
The very air was vibrating, growing brighter and sparking as the wills of the two angels clashed. The inevitability of death hit the Winchesters and Bobby like a truck, but they couldn't tear their eyes away from the burning light before them, even as tears began to form from the pain of having their eyes charred from their sockets.
"And that, boys, is our cue to go."
The familiar tug on Dean's insides ended with a rather unfamiliar collision against his back that sucked the air out of his lungs. His struggle to reclaim air didn't drown out the sounds of other bodies slamming with equal force into other objects nearby, or the familiar groans of his brother or surrogate father. A quick survey of the room revealed an unfamiliar kitchen with a rather moldy floor and suspicious spots on the rather neglected walls.
Something meant to say 'Everyone okay?' turned into "E'eynekay?" upon departure from Dean's oxygen deprived lungs, but the resounding groans assured him that at least everyone was breathing (sort of). And that just left-
"Bloody hell."
Dean's gun was up before he had even gotten off of his knees, pointed towards a blond man doubled over an unfamiliar table. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bobby's and Sam's guns similarly positioned.
Dean recognized the figure just as he groaned out a complaint. "Oh, put those useless things away, you blithering idiots."
His gun fell slightly, and his concentration lessened enough for Dean's blaring headache to come at him full force. To be honest, Dean wasn't sure if the cause was almost getting his eyeballs boiled out of his skull, or the smarmy dick in front of him.
Something in Dean knew he should be grateful to the angel for the rescue, but mostly he was pissed because his head hurt, his lungs still struggled to regain his breath, his back was spasming, and Sam's breathless voice was terrifyingly weak when he uttered the dick angel's name.
"Balthazar?"
"Yes yes. You're welcome, by the way, for the save."
At another time, Dean would have noted the breathless quality of the angel's reply, but at the moment his cocky attitude just made the hunter want to punch him in his face. "Where the hell were you?!"
"Oh, nowhere important, just bleeding out in a bloody fucking alleyway!" Balthazar's eyes flashed and he leaned menacingly over the table to glare down at Dean.
"You injured, Balthazar?" Bobby's calm cadence broke the tension in the room and drew Dean's eyes to the angel's midsection, where, underneath his pale hand, his shirt was soaked with blood, and an ominous white glow shone.
Balthazar huffed. "Which answer is going to get me killed?" He asked sardonically.
Bobby rolled his eyes and set about checking the cupboards for some sort of first aid kit, grumbling all the while.
Dean huffed, finding his anger at the angel rather depleted. "Someone attacked you?" He asked levelly.
"Mmm. Castiel didn't like my conspiring behind his back." Now Dean could hear the pain masked under his nonchalance. And, as much as he hated the guy, he didn't think the pain was entirely physical. Betrayal was a painful bitch.
"He tried to kill you?" Sam asked, horror tinging his expression. As if the guy tearing his wall down wasn't enough to prove to Sam that he'd really gone off the rails.
Balthazar didn't answer for a moment, choosing instead to stare Bobby down when he approached with a basic first aid kit he had managed to scrounge up. The hunter's expression clearly told the angel to sit down before fell down, and Dean had to admire the angel's guts that he didn't immediately do what was implied. The old hunter rolled his eyes at Balthazar's reluctance and manhandled him into the nearest chair, so that he was sitting sideways and the hunter would have unobstructed view to both his front and back. Balthazar only put up a token resistance before he relented and slumped against the chair backing.
Brief struggle finished, he returned to their conversation with a sigh. "Tweedledum, if he had tried to kill me, I would be fucking dead." He grunted at Bobby's inspecting prodding, but didn't protest to the rough ministrations. "No, it's… it's more likely that he just wanted me off of the chessboard for the moment."
"There was something wrong with him. He didn't sound right. He didn't sound like he was… there." Sam said, shuffling on his feet and bringing Dean's attention to his little brother. He raked his eyes up his brother, probing for injury or any sign he was going to blow his top. The Sasquatch was a bit unsteady on his feet and dangerously pale, but didn't look like he was in immediate danger of spontaneous combustion.
It was fucked that that was the most attention Dean could spend on the guy at the moment. "He got the souls," Dean said.
Balthazar sighed heavily, sounding like the world was on his shoulders. "He got the souls."
"And now he's fighting Raphael," Bobby grunted, finishing with his patching on the angel's back and crouching in front of him to work on the exit wound.
Balthazar gave Bobby a curious look, before electing to look at a spot in the wall. "Yeah."
It seemed like there should be more celebration in that fact. Except, Dean remembered the Apocalypse. It seemed like there should be more celebration in Michael deciding to kill the devil once and for all then too. "So, it's the prizefight again." Dean shot angry eyes once again at Balthazar, but this time none of that anger was directed toward him. No anger. Just a longing wish that it was a different angel in his place. "Are they gonna nuke the whole planet, or just disintegrate half of us like Michael and Lucifer would have?"
Bobby gave up on trying to pull the angel's shirt free of the dried blood and just cut the majority of it off. Better visibility of the wound did nothing to help Dean calm the churning in his gut. The Cas Dean knew would never stab his brother in the back, betrayal or no.
"No, your precious planet is safe for now. Mikey and Luci had the potential to destroy your planet during their fight because they were of equal match. In this battle, Raphael is far under-classed. Castiel may not have been able to explode him on the spot, but he still won't have very much trouble beating him." Balthazar waved his hand vaguely, looking even more exhausted with each word. "And Castiel performed the ritual in the middle of nowhere so that whatever encounter they did have would not put too many people at risk. Not that it matters now."
That was foreboding. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"To be honest here, I wish the bloody idiot had blown up half the planet when he tried to take in the souls. It would have been better than what comes next."
"And how the hell is the extinction of an entire half of a planet better?"
Balthazar flinched, though Dean wasn't sure if it was because of Bobby's tender healing or a different reason. "You said it yourself, dumbwit. Castiel isn't Castiel anymore. Now, instead of exploding only part of the world, there's a power-mad angel with billions of monster souls in him probably telling him to disintegrate everythi- Enough prodding Old Man! I'm not some infirm soldier boy for you to play nurse to!" Balthazar shoved the older hunter away, but the action was barely strong enough to make Bobby rock back on his heels.
Out of the Bobby's immediate proximity, the angel surged to his feet. Or, at least, he tried to. He made it about half-way out of the chair before all of the blood drained from his face and his muscles spasmed. His knees buckled, and Dean was barely able to lunge forward and lower him slightly more gracefully into the chair. When Balthazar was tentatively situated, Dean backed off slowly, one hand still raised in preparation to catch him if he decided to take a swan dive onto the floor.
The angel wasn't paying attention to Dean, or any of the hunters in the room, though. He stared down at the angry wound in his chest like he hadn't even realized it was there until that moment. His shaking hand hovered uncertainty over it, as if he was preparing to heal it but couldn't quite get enough energy stored up.
"You know the worst part?" Balthazar asked, for once devoid of any cocky humor. There was a painful guilt and horror in his eyes; present in his small voice. "He might have been able to beat the monsters if I had just been there. If I hadn't betrayed him like the backstabbing rat that I am, he probably would have had a reason to keep control of those souls, instead of letting them consume him. I'm his fucking brother, and I wasn't there for him when he needed me."
His trembling hands moved up to clutch his head, tearing into his hair and pressing into his eyes. None of the hunters moved, not even when the distraught angel uttered in a defeated voice, "I'm such a fucking idiot."
That sounded horribly familiar. Dean shook away memories of demon blood and hunting Lilith, and those inevitable doubts that if Dean had just been there then maybe Sam wouldn't have turned elsewhere for answers.
"Maybe we all should have been there," Sam spoke up. The brothers exchanged glances, and Dean knew that the same thoughts were running through Sam's mind. "Maybe we could have made a difference. But, at the same time, this was Cas's choice. It wasn't on us to help him do something we knew would end badly."
No one had anything to say to that, apparently.
Bobby huffed as he finished taping off the bandages for Balthazar's front. The older hunter stood with creaking limbs and a groan. "You shouldn't be in too much danger of keeling over and dying, now. Long as you don't do something stupid like trying to eat dirt, that is. Idjit."
Balthazar slumped into his seat, flinching as he jostled his injury and groaning. "I need a fucking drink." Wordlessly, Bobby offered the whiskey he had used as an antiseptic. The angel paused for a moment, surprised with the quick delivery, before he snagged the bottle. "Thanks, old man," he muttered
before taking a large gulp.
Dean had never thought of Balthazar as Cas's older brother. To be honest, he tried to avoid any thoughts about angels as Cas's family, because it usually ended with him wanting to punch several of them in their stupid faces. Balthazar included. But Dean couldn't not see it now; the protectiveness, the dogged loyalty, the guilt of a sibling that failed to protect their younger charge.
Fuck. Balthazar was a dick, but right now at least, Dean could sympathise with the guy. Even if he couldn't forgive Cas for what he'd done.
The bottle was suddenly mere inches from Dean's nose, and he jerked back, glaring at Balthazar incredulously.
"I would hate to be known as the drunk that never shares a drink," was all the angel offered in explanation.
As he accepted the bottle and took a healthy swig, Dean found himself sympathizing with a dick a little bit more.
A silence not quite tranquil but not quite awkward dispersed through the room as they shared the bottle between the four of them, taking the break they all needed lest they explode at the seams.
Eventually, Dean figured it had to be broken though. "Hey, where the fuck are we?" Come to think of it, they probably should have thought to ask that sooner.
"I wouldn't call it a safe-house so much as a dump no one would ever think to look in." Balthazar currently had the bottle of whiskey (tragically on its last few sips) and waved it around to accentuate his point.
Bobby snagged the bottle and and helped himself. "And why is that, Sunshine?"
"Ah, that would be because the house is haunted."
The three hunters all laid a hand on some form of weapon and look warily around the room. "In the literal sense?" Bobby asked.
Balthazar hummed an affirmative. He took in the tense figures of the hunters and groaned in annoyance. "Relax, idiots. We have an agreement. She's not coming near us as long as I'm here."
The hunters all exchanged varying looks of alarm and surprise. Eventually Dean just shrugged and moved on. "So. Does this place have a TV?"
Yes, it had a TV.
Dean wished it didn't.
"-reports of a meteor in a Kansas fields. Inside the crater there is, apparently, a man. Footage from a bystander has been sent in. Please be advised, the imagery is disturbing."
'Disturbing' didn't mean much for a hunter, but even Dean had to admit the video of what used to be a man sent his stomach rolling. There was clearly nothing living in the broken shell, angelic or not.
"So that's it then. Raphael's gone," Dean broke through the disturbed silence of their group gathered around the small, glitching TV.
Sam and Bobby were nodding in agreement, though Sam looked a bit green when he did so. Balthazar remained staring intently at the TV.
Impatiently, Dean snapped in front of the angel's face. "Hey! Carol Anne! Wanna enlighten us what you're seeing there?"
Balthazar directed a glare at Dean that had him convinced he would break his hand, despite their moment of comradery over booze. Instead of bodily harm, he directed his attention back to the TV.
"Well, you hairless apes managed to create a recording system glitchier than Metatron's writing, so I can't be certain, but if I had to take bets, I would say Raphael is, in fact, not dead."
Dean wasn't sure if the hairless apes or the evil transformer had been dissed more in that sentence, so he chose to let it slide in favor of kicking a nearby lamp shade over and stalking away.
Distantly, he heard Sam ask, "What makes you think that?" and Bobby's helpful commentary of, "Guy looks pretty dead to me," but he didn't bother to contribute on how dead the guy looked. Because of course Raphael is still alive because of course there needed to be an extra layer of bullshit in their lives at the moment.
"Like I said, I can't see it very well through this, but there's no residue." The silence prodded Balthazar into sighing dramatically and elaborating. "When an angel dies, their grace explodes from the inside out. Very dramatic, very flashy. The majority of this grace is consumed in the explosion, before it even reaches the outside of the vessel. Still, there's residue left over; fragments of grace that stick around." The angel gestured vaguely at the screen. "There was sign of wounds, but no residue."
"So, what, Raphael escaped?" Sam summarized quite nicely.
Balthazar shrugged. "Or he was incinerated to the very last speck of grace. We won't know until he shows his ugly mug again."
"What about Cas?" Dean asked, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself enough that he won't want to punch the angel in the face.
He rubbed his eyes in a very human gesture and sighed wearily. "Honestly? He could be anywhere. He could be doing anything."
"Well that's nice and vague, thank you," Dean snarked.
Balthazar made an aborted movement to stand up from his chair before he settled for another death glare. "I figured anything more specific would be out of your capacity for thought," he snapped.
"Wanna quit your lovers quarrel and listen, Idjits?" Bobby interrupted, a large frown creasing his face as he watched the newest development on the TV.
"You people have been chosen to deliver my gospel. As you can see, I have saved you all from yet another threat. I have once again protected humanity from those that seek to do it wrong. I set out now, to save you from yourselves. The righteous and good, do not be troubled. For I am your protector, your savior. Those of you who do wrong, who serve the corrupt and become the corrupted, your retribution has come. Repent, sinners, for your new God has come. And I will not tolerate disobedience."
The image returned once again to the reporter, but it was already flickering off with no influence from the remote or controls.
The screen shattered in the next moment, and the hunters all looked to the angelic culprit. Balthazar ran his hands through his hair. "Fucking hell, Cas."
Alright all you Supernatural fans. I've never really liked season 7 too much, because I felt that they could have accomplished so much with Godstiel the villain for the first half of the season and Leviathan!Cas for the second half. This story idea originated from my Fic Sound the Bugle, which was a 3 chapter fic along those same lines. I then attempted to write a sequel to that, called Control. Some of you may be following Control.
Here's the deal. This fic is replacing both Sound the Bugle and Control. I'll be incorporating elements from both of them, but it's all going to be a more comprehensive story dealing with season 7, leading up to the circumstances in Sound the Bugle, and then going on to Control. I'm just re-writing it all because I felt I could do it so much better for you guys than I had been (you don't have to read either of them to read this. In fact, those other two fics will contain spoilers until I delete them).
However, I'm also a really busy individual, so there will probably not be frequent updates. Still, I promise to try.
The mature rating is mostly for language and maybe a bit of gruesome descriptions.
Please rate and review! I can't tell you how much it helps. In fact, looking at the reviews from past fics is what inspired me to continue writing.