Hey omnii, it's Megan here, just checking up post bloodlines hoping everyone isn't too repulsed by it all (and by the placement...a filler in episode 20? Really?) Anyway, here's my absolute number one wish for the next few episodes. I loved Hannah (she was so cute) and hope she makes an appearance, and if the boys don't get their act together I'm going to punch someone.
I'm looking at you, Edlund.
Season 9 finale fic! Enjoy :)
There are warehouses all across the US coastline. Then there are warehouses all throughout the centre of the US, but the majority find themselves around at ports, sinking into the livelihood of the beach dwelling American. Of the a-typical city-slicker.
As much as he hated it, it was Police Officer Shurley's mission to go through these warehouses at his end of the bargain. There weren't that many, importing and exporting had started to pick up again and companies were reclaiming their lost land. But he still had to make his rounds, entering into the warehouse, shaking around his baton, yelling at whoever was in there to leave, that he had a gun, that he wasn't afraid to use it.
It was bad, because normally it was just homeless guys. Men and Ladies who'd fell on tough times and had nowhere else to go. But the council was worried about image, and the companies not using their warehouses and were planning to sell didn't want 'Bum' stretched across one corner of the floor, spelled out in raggedy clothes and mismatched possessions. So Shurley did what he had to. He did what payed the bills and kept his wife happy. He did what any normal man would do.
This particular warehouse was sleek and cleaner than most. It had foot traffic out the front door and had been out of commission for years, so Shurley entered on it, hand near to his extendable baton, other hand itching to close in on his handgun. The night blew through with a chilling breeze that seized at the aging cop, struggling to pull his jacket tighter around him.
"Hello?" He called out, opening the door. "I am armed and I am asking you to leave on the authority of the American State Police Force."
There was silence from within and Shurley took that as a notion to proceed. He walked in slowly and moved to where the switches for the lights were. He reached over and flicked up the light but there was no change, only darkness, only the drip drip drip of a busted water main and the occasional shrill whistle of the wind as it blew through the building. Shurley flicked on his torch and the beam cut through the darkness with an eerie sort of contrast. His light was all he could see, that thin beam that sliced through the air.
It was firghtening, if he was honest. But he'd not been sure that the light would come on, so the torch had been a reliable back up.
"Hello?" He called again, moving into the room, scanning the walls with his torch. "A reminder that this is private property, and under State and National law you have no right to be here without express allowance from the owner of said property."
The building shuddered as the wind picked up and Shurley scanned his torch through the room once again, the beam of yellow slicing through the black. But it all felt so meagre, the light. As soon as his back was turned, it was swallowed into darkness. If he held the torch away he couldn't even see the hand in front of his face.
He walked on slowly, his footsteps thudded at the same time as his heart. A nice, rhythmic, thump, thu-thump, thump. He could hear it in his throat, he could hear ringing in his ears whenever the wind died down enough for the silence of the place to steal over him.
He panicked, then, that he wouldn't be able to find the door again.
He swung around in his blind, irrational surge of fear. His light touched the silver steel of the door handle and he breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't anyone in here, and if there was, he'd find traces of them when he came searching again in the morning.
Three more minutes, he breathed to himself, letting the torch go limp in his hand, the light pulsating towards the dirty floor. Then you go.
He took a nice long steadying breath, steeling himself, giving him the You're a cop, be braver than this speech. Reminding himself of valour and in the darkness, his breath was invisible as it was in the light, and for some reason, this comforted him.
He righted his torch, turned around and there was a face, her face, all red as blood and eyes as bright and hungry as he'd ever seen them.
He stumbled back and his mouth thudded around the words. She was grinning, her teeth were white and her lips were red (and red and red) and she stepped forward.
He took a steadying breath, another one, and then stood up properly. "Lady, you shouldn't be here."
She frowned. "No?"
Her voice caught him. After popping out through the dark he expected her to be abrasive (or British) but it was normal. Like she was normal. Her face gave him chills but her voice reminded him that he was being an idiot. Jesus, Chris, get yourself together.
"This..." he glanced down and looked back up at her, who was watching him patiently. His voice was weak when he spoke next. "It's...it's, uh, private property, ma'am."
She looked confused. "Surely you can make," and then she grinned. Jesus she was terrifying. "An exception for little old me?"
Shurley opened his mouth three times before he got the words out. "Uh, no. No. I'm going to have to ask you and anyone else here to leave. If you need help finding somewhere to sleep, there are missionaries-"
She barked a laugh and walked forward, further into the light. "Church groups?"
Shurley couldn't talk, not with her so close. Not with every bone in his body screaming at him to run, to just leave her here. Because she was so large and dark and frightening and it wasn't fair. He just nodded and watched her warily, not daring to look her directly in the eye.
She lowered her chin and looked at him, with all the finesse of a huntress. "I don't think," her eyes flickered to black, stone and thick as an obsidian. "They'll take to me, don't you think?"
Chris swore and jerked back, his feet responding dully, tripping over and losing himself in the light. The torch fell from his grasp and fell along the floor, spilling light off along the ground. The woman disappeared. He fell heavily, glancing the weight onto his hand and knees. He span on his lower back and grasped towards the torch, spinning it in his hands, trembling with fear. His heart had once been a steady thud in time with his walk.
thud-thud-thud-thud-thu-thud-thu-thud
like the seconds counting down had sped up, like he was running towards death.
He flicked the light up and saw her, break through the darkness and lean over him. With unbelievable strength she picked him up and held him, one hand around his neck and the other dangling by her side. He still held the torch and he could see the contours of her face, regal cheek bones and bottomless eyes. He gasped and scraped at her hand, but she was unmoved. He could feel his heartbeat picking up even faster, loud and terrible in his ears, the blood pumping through his body racing through his veins. Save me, save me, save me.
She cocked her head and smiled. "Now," she said, breathing easy as he stumbled for breath. "This won't hurt a bit."
She breathed up at him, but the breath wasn't clear as his had been. It seemed almost fitting that it spilled out of her in gaseous black waves, arching with an odd sort of beauty towards his open mouth.
Snap. He was sitting in the police station. Two FBI agents walked in. One with hair way too long to be a fed and the other shorter, with steely green eyes and a no-nonsense look about him.
"We're here for the Duval murder?" The taller one asked, smiling at him, flashing his FBI badge.
Fast-forward. He sat in the diner next to his wife. She was on her phone, talking to her company about one thing or another. He was drowning his sorrows in coffee.
She snapped her phone closed and smiled up at him. Her eyes glowed like cherries. "Sorry baby, I had to finish up there."
"That's ok," he'd said, smiling. "Somebody's gotta bring home to bacon, right?"
She laughed at him.
Behind her the two agents sat, close enough to have been brothers. The taller one looked upset, frowning into his salad. "Dean-"
"No, Sammy," he snapped. "Jesus Christ. I'm fine."
"You're not fine," Sammy insisted (Shurley was sure he'd said his name was Graham Ross). "Dean, please-"
"The First Blade, Sam," Dean said (who was supposed to be Lenny Kruger) and he wasn't looking at his partner, or his dinner, or the young, attractive waitress who'd been side-eyeing him for a while now. "That's all that matters. We find that bitch. We get the blade. This ends."
Sammy looked down at his hands. His shoulders said what his mouth wouldn't. This won't end. This never ends.
Fling forward and the agents are driving through town in their black, liquorice car.
They're smiling, and for some reason, the sight brings happiness to Shurley.
He blinks and he's back in the warehouse, suspended over the ground, Abaddon's face millimetres from him.
Abaddon? Where the hell did that come from? He'd heard of the name, might have been mentioned in passing during the time the priest had raved about the apocalypse and all the demons of Hell that were going to come up and devour their souls, but he couldn't be sure.
"Abaddon," he whispered, words coughed through strained lungs.
She smiled at him, her eyes were black and angry and God, if he didn't know better, worried. "Adios, Officer."
He felt her hand clench tighter, he felt the air cut off, he felt the darkness invade his sight.
His neck snapped, his flesh exploded, she threw him to the ground, unseeing, dead.
Abaddon stalked out of the warehouse and her shoes clicked on the ground. She needed to think. The first blade. Of course. Dean had taken on the Mark. He was gunning for her.
She made her way to outside the warehouse, where lights and the moon was more than enough light to see her, in a leather jacket and a stolen body.
Her eyes flashed again to ink and she smiled.
Abaddon got to thinking. She thought about the angel that Dean had had with him. She thought about what she knew of Castiel and all that he had become. She thought about Sam Winchester and how near death he was when she had come to intervene on the final Trial.
She thought about Dean and Sam and the Winchesters and all their messed up love for each other. She thought about Sam's shoulders and their hesitant smiles and all she had noticed during watching the memories of the dead police officer, who would be found the next morning by a worried squadron. About their trust.
And she thought about Crowley.
And she wondered if it was worth it, if she was on to something.
She closed her eyes and materialized away, the only sign that she'd ever been there a steadily growing puddle of blood coating the warehouses floor.
Castiel had taken Hannah into his confidence more than any other of the angels. She was sweet and kind and earnest, but she trusted him. She was foolish and naive, but no more so than any other of the angels who had spent all their time tending to souls and awaiting battle orders from corrupt angels. She was kind to Castiel and forgving and Cas couldn't help think that if all angels were like her, including himself, everything would be much more peaceful. Much more in line to what he had thought their purpose was.
But Hannah and all the others relied on him. He thought about what Metatron had said through Gabriel. That the other Angels couldn't handle Free Will. Castiel looked out to them worryingly. Because they couldn't. They couldn't. All the angels who could have been leaders were dead, with the exception of Morticae. But he was insane and cruel and had proved to be so when he'd killed Muriel. Cas had liked that angel. She'd been kind to him.
So few angels were kind at all, anymore.
Hannah sat with Cas in his motel room. The rest had gotten rooms where they could. Most shared and because none of them had to sleep, it was just a place for down time, where they could deal with the human emotions that their vessels had given them in peace.
"What's the plan?" Hannah frowned. "You want to kidnap one of Metatron's angels?"
"Some will know of his plan," Castiel said. "And it's not Metatron I want. It's Gadreel."
Hannah's face darkened, as all Angels did whenever the traitor was mentioned. She had more cause for hatred than he did, he had killed her brothers and sisters. Left alive only to be a plot device for Metatron's twisted story. "Why is that, Castiel?"
He felt weird whenever someone used his whole name. 'Cas' was synonymous with 'friend' and 'trust'. Castiel was the angel of the lord who'd freed Sam Winchester from the panic room and started the apocalypse. Castiel was the god who'd killed al those angels and consumed all those souls. Castiel was the ne who'd brought the Leviathans to earth and was the one who'd been manipulated by Naomi to kill Dean.
"Because Angels have to stop fighting angels," he said, looking at the papers in front of him with the plans for Metatron's angel's capture. he wouldn't look Hannah in the eye. "And it has to start somewhere."
Hannah smiled and placed her hand on his. "It does, Cas. You're doing the best you can."
Cas. He looked up and smiled at her in thanks. Perhaps she didn't know how much it meant to him, or perhaps she suspected. She was clever, they were all clever. That was one thing Raphael and all the other superior angels had forgotten. Something that Cas swore he wouldn't.
The door banged open and an angel ran in. Remington huffed in, eyes wide with shock, surprise, wonder.
"Castiel," he gaped. "We know where one is."
Hannah and Cas stood in unison. They gaped in shock, before Cas turned to his second in Command.
"Assemble five of the best fighters," he ordered her. Then he hesitated. "If they don't want to fight, find someone else."
She hesitated before nodding again. Then she headed out the door and Remington looked at Castiel in wonder. "It's starting, isn't it?"
Castiel nodded a little slowly, before picking up his phone and preparing to call Sam and Dean. "I think so."
Ennis watched as Sam and Dean climbed into the Impala.
Sam glanced out the window to where the man was standing outside his house, all alone, with only the engagement Ring hung around his neck for company.
"Do you think he'll be ok?" Sam asked, watching the young man worriedly.
Dean glanced out. "he'll be fine, Sammy. Quit worrying."
Sam sighed and sank into the passenger seat and Dean gunned the engine. They drove through Chicago and out of the city, towards New York and what Cas had said waited for them there.
The car trundled down the street at a soft, familiar pace. The boys were tired. Chicago was supposed to be a quick job, not some entirely new problem they didn't have time to deal with. It was so disheartening, to be so far along the road, beyond Lucifer and Michael and then Dick Roman, even the angel and demon problem was looking like it had an end. Looked like there was some light at the end of the road. Throw all the angels back in heaven, clam down the gates of Hell, kill Abaddon before she caused more trouble and somehow fix the Crowley Problem.
Ok, so they had a while to go, and it didn't help that God was literally working against them. How much power did Metatron have? Did he just see the world or was he creating it? Was his intrusion proof that Free Will had been an illusion all along.
Sam looked out the window morosely, the colours flashing by familiar, but new. No. He refused to believe that. He had to believe that there was a way to end Metatron and to finish this all once and for all.
"You ok?" Dean's voice was gruff. The tired words spelled themselves out hesitantly. Sam glanced over and ran a hand through his hair, felt his throat constrict and his eyes well up.
Ennis had been far from a distraction. A new hunter, prompted by his girlfriends death with two dead parents? Yeah, it hit close to home. It pretty much hit exactly home. But Ennis had it harder. Ennis didn't have Dean. Dean's arm against his in the church at her funeral. Dean waiting in the car while Sam cried at her grave. Dean watching him carefully, there to talk to after he dreamed of her dying, again and again and again.
It hurt that their relationship was so broken. When it had once been so good and pure. When they'd just been two boys in their dads car, chasing down their father, saving as many people as they could. Ghosts and shifters and werewolves and low-level demons. Jess's death fresh in their mind, Mary's killer still AWOL. Sam wasn't the psycho Demon's bitch, or Lucifer's tainted vessel, or the Boy With the Demon Blood. He'd just been Sam. Sammy. College boy.
"Not really," Sam admitted, tired of holding out. He didn't trust Dean, not like he once had, but he owed him his honesty. "Seems like the end of the road's even further away."
Dean was silent for a moment. "Man, I hate Chicago."
Sam scoffed a laugh. "Same."
Dean sobered. He didn't look at Sam, his eyes stayed fixed to the road spilling out in front of him. "Sammy, if it's any...look. I..."
He trailed off and his hands squeezed down hard on the impala's steering wheel.
"Thanks, Dean," Sam said softly, and let it go.
Dean settled back down and shifted his arm, the one with the Mark on it. Under his pulled up sleeve, Sam could see it. Red and inflamed and wrong.
Sam thought about Dean's face when he killed the vampire rescuing Alex, or his eyes when he was given the first blade. He thought about the power and how it had felt when he'd drunk Ruby's blood. It had felt strong and powerful. Wrong, maybe. But so good.
"Dean," Sam said slowly. "Are...are you ok?"
Dean glanced over, smiling, his eyes blank. "Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"
Because you never are. "I was just making sure." Because you don't have to be.
"Well, don't," Dean said, and his voice was tight.
Neither spoke for the rest of the trip.
"Sam!" Cas called out to them when the Impala pulled up outside the cafe Hannah had suggested they meet. It was small and out of the way, but the orange and green made it pretty hard to miss. "Dean!"
"Sorry we're late, Cas," Sam said, smiling at their friend as they climbed out of the Impala.
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "Traffic was a bitch."
There was a group of five angels gathered behind Cas. Three girls and two dudes.
Dean cast them a wary eye. "So, Cas, gonna introduce us?"
Cas blinked and turned to the huddling group of angels. "Uh yes, this is Hannah, Uriah, Beatrice, Rosemary and Romeo."
Sam started slightly and looked at the last Angel, who, with his Soccer-dad outfit looked like the last person you'd call 'Romeo'. "Wait, seriously?"
"I am aware that he is the male protagonist in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet," Cas stated, triumphant.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Thanks Horatio. Ok, who are we waiting on?"
"No one," Hannah looked around the group. "We're all here."
"You only brought five?" Dean asked, flabbergasted.
"Dean, chill," Sam muttered.
Cas looked a little shocked. "Yes, it is only one angel, Dean. I'm sure five will be enough."
Dean glanced at the assembled Flock. "These are your best fighters?"
"The best in their garrisons," Cas stated.
What he didn't say was that a lot of the angels fighting for him were pacifists, they didn't want to fight and saw Cas as the middle man between Bartholomew, who's followers had either died or joined Metatron, and Morticae, who was an idiot and a warmonger.
The angels trilled at the compliment and puffed up their chests, smiling and nodding at the Winchester brother's.
Sam nodded back, Dean watched them stony faced.
"So, where's this angel?" Dean asked.
"She's three miles from here," Hannah responded quickly. "Living in an apartment."
"Seriously?" Sam asked, frowning.
"Yes," Cas stated as if it were obvious. "Where else would he be?"
"I dunno, sipping vodka in the back of some bar?" Dean suggested. "What the Hell do angels do on their downtime anyway?"
Cas was silent, thinking. "Well, one time I...stood, still. For a very long time."
Sam nodded. "Profound."
Dean hid a grin.
"So, shall you lead the way?" Romeo asked Cas.
Cas glanced over. "Yes, yes I shall."
The group made their way through the town. It was to be a bit of a walk, and two miles out they split up.
Cas branched off with Hannah and the Winchesters and left Romeo to lead Beatrice, Uriah and Rosemary.
The groups parted ways and the day went on.
"So, where were you when I called?" Cas asked.
"Chicago," Sam answered tensely. "There's something bad going on down there, Cas."
"It's like a frickin' Soap Opera," Dean muttered.
Sam glanced at Dean, exasperated. "Monsters control the city. Five families. And there was this hunter-"
"I appreciate the effort, but I wasn't really that interested," Cas told him, not unkindly.
Sam realised that if it had been a few years ago, he would have been offended. But he'd been around Cas long enough to know that there wasn't meaning offence by that. Cas just said what he thought and treated honesty as something good and important. That's what struck Sam, about the time that he had sold them out to Crowley. That he had done what he had thought was right against his very will.
Sam just laughed. "That's fine, Cas."
Hannah, though, was interested. "What type of monsters?"
"Not Witches, thank God," Dean muttered.
Hannah winced. "Witches. They are awful."
"Djinn, Shifters, Werewolves...and a few other things," Sam trailed off, frowning and trying to remember.
Hannah turned to Dean. "Do you remember the last two?"
Dean gave her a look. "No. I literally couldn't care less."
Cas cast a worried look towards Dean and then a questioning one Sam's way. Sam shrugged and shook his head. He thought, maybe in the car, that the Mark wasn't affecting Dean as badly as it had been, but now, seeing him so grouchy, well, it spelt out a different story for the eldest Winchester.
Sam just worried that now, with everything that was happening, he wouldn't be able to pull Dean back like he had last time. The need, the desire for the thing, it deepened with every passing day. Crowley controlled Dean, and if he controlled Dean he controlled the board. Because the First Blade, with that in his hand, everything would be amplified, everything would be different. All those moods that had steadily grown worse and worse since Magnussen would just get bigger.
Was it painful? Sam wanted to ask. Demon blood burnt like a bitch on the way down.
But Dean wouldn't say, and he didn't want to make it about him, nor remind his brother of that particularly nasty bit of their history.
"Are we nearly there?" Hannah asked, who shrugged off the slight with surprising decorum. Sam was beginning to like the renegade angel. She didn't have the fight of some of the others they'd found, but there was a very comforting softness in passivity. In not wanting to fight. Sam thought that she and all the others who had joined Cas were very brave. Without him, for months, they were on their own. With no one to follow and no one to believe in. It was either fight against their principles and join the two warring angel sides, betray their kind and join Metatron or die. Hannah's friends had made the last one abundantly clear.
"We should be near now," Cas said, glancing at a street name, narrowing his eyes in concentration as he looked at it. The light was good but dropping. The car ride from Chicago had taken ages, most of which was spent in gridlock along the New York City streets. He nodded and turned back to the group. "Yes, only a few minutes away now."
"We go in first?" Dean asked, pulling out his angel blade and tucking it up his sleeve.
"That's the plan," Cas affirmed.
"Split up," Sam offered. "An Cas or Hannah with Me or Dean."
"I'll take Sam," Hannah said, a little too quickly that made Sam think that she was a little frightened of Dean, of his disrespect towards angels and his snark towards her.
"Fine by me," Sam said. "But I don't have an angel blade."
"This is a capture mission," Cas said, a little worriedly. "Things go right, you won't need one."
The block of flats was just off a main road, and smelt like Weed and Cat piss. Hannah and Sam took, of the three entrances, the one furthest on the left and Cas and Dean took the furthest on the right. This way they'd move throughout the building to the best of their ability.
"Will they be able to sense you?" Dean asked, looking to Cas.
Cas shook his head. "No. We're warded and despite that, our powers are hardly an inch of what they once were. We're...Neo out of the Matrix now."
Dean looked bemused and Sam laughed.
"Oh, Dean, they grow up so fast."
Dean grinned. "Just like Jody. It's a shame."
"I'm sorry, Neo?...is that some sort of...Pop Culture Reference?" Hannah asked, eyes wide, whispering the last phrase like they might castrate her for not understanding or something along those lines.
Sam smiled. She was nice. Naive, perhaps, but nice. She would watch his back. "Uh, yeah."
"That's still faster than Cas caught on before Metatron zapped him with the knowledge of 40 year old man living with his mother," Dean assured her.
Hannah smiled hesitantly. "Uh. Thank you."
Cas frowned. "Really?"
"Dean, what is 'Space Jam'?" Dean mimicked. "Yeah, I'm sure dude. You were a total Pop Culture Virgin."
"We ready?" Sam asked, nodding towards the building.
Dean's face dropped into its recently typical 'Don't mess with me' bunch of grooves and shafts. "Ready. Cas?"
He nodded solemnly.
Sam turned to Hannah and she smiled, nervous, but nodded.
He lead her to the door as Cas and Dean readied themselves at their end.
Dean locked eyes with Sam. It was the thing, that sure, this was one angel, but this could be it. Blade through the heart, made of celestial intent or not it'll kill either of the brothers. And now they had higher powers watching each others backs. It was uncomfortable and wrong and strange and Sam wanted to be there, with Dean, but he knew that he shouldn't.
It was one angel and either might die. But Sam had hope, he'd always had hope, he'd been the one to see any sort of end to all of this. So they'd make it through this. Because they'd made it through worse.
Dean lead Cas through and they made their way slowly through the hall and to the stairs. The angel was likely to have some sort of alert system if someone like Cas or Hannah arrived, but they couldn't leave the angels, not with their strength.
"Dean, I need to speak with you," Cas stated.
"Not now, Cas," Dean hissed.
"No, it must be now," Cas said back, still quiet but loud enough for anyone with their ears on to hear. "It's about you. And Sam."
Dean fought off rolling his eyes. First Kevin, now Cas? Didn't they get that he had tried? That he had explained to Sam everything? That it was Sam's turn to apologise now?
"You need to fix it," Cas stated. "There will be no way we can beat Metatron and return the angels to heaven if you two are not on the terms you were when you averted the last apocalypse."
Dean swallowed and pushed out thoughts of that apocalypse. Pushed it as far as he could. "We're fine Cas. Now keep it down."
He lead Cas up the stairs, none of Cas's angel ESP sparking up yet, which wasn't surprising, considering there was only one room on the ground floor and it was a maintenance closet. Despite many other apartment buildings in the sprawling metropolis, this one only had four floors. Four floors and they were out of options.
Dean wasn't all that hopeful.
"It is not fine," Cas grabbed Dean's arm and turned him around, staring at him angrily. "You and Sam...Dean, you share a heaven. You're going to have to fix this."
Then Dean admitted something, something he wouldn't even say to himself. "I screwed up, Cas, ok? I screwed up and now everything has gone to Hell. I tried to fix it-"
"Have you apologised?" Cas demanded. "For letting Gadreel use his body without his consent?"
Dean hesitated. "...not exactly-"
"Dean," Cas implored. "Sam has been abused his entire life. First by Azazel, then Meg and Ruby and Lucifer. Me. It would mean something to him if the next hit came from you. It would hurt more than all of those other times combined."
Dean shook him off and tried not to let the angel see how much the words had affected him. "Fine. Whatever. Can we gank this angel, please?"
"Capture," Cas corrected.
"Wow, Cas," Dean snarked. "Don't let leadership go to your head."
"Shove it," Cas shoved Dean up and Dean was astounded at his strength. He'd forgotten how utterly strong Cas and all the other angels were. He knew how to fight them, don't spend any time pissing about, just stab the son of a bitch in the heart. Or the stomach. Metal made out of celestial power didn't agree with Angels. Didn't agree with demons. Didn't agree with anyone.
Dean smothered his stumble and lead the angel up the stairs to the first floor. There was old, mangy carpet on the stairs and across the way they could see Sam and Hannah, talking softly to each other, walking along to meet Dean and Cas in the middle.
Dean nodded to a passageway in front of them and Cas nodded. They turned in unison to where Sam and Hannah were and gestured to where they were headed.
The angel and boy nodded their understanding.
Dean felt the floor beneath his shoes, the air on his cheek, tickling the hairs he hadn't shaved. Everything was bright and clear, like it always was. His heart thumped and he could taste metal at the back of his mouth. Adrenalin slunk through him, razing his defences to the ground and building an empire of heightened awareness and sharp reflex.
He heard Cas's feet echo softly on the carpet behind him.
Then Cas stopped and placed a hand on Dean's shoulder. His voice was nearly silent. "Wait..."
The door flew off and Dean caught the brunt of it, slamming into his chest and sending him spinning across the hall into the opposite wall. He hit it heavily and slammed to the ground, hands jerking out to stop his head from hitting it. Cas was already up, but dazed, tipping forward after the retreating angel.
"Shit," Dean swore, gathering himself and pushing after her, the angel was possessing the body of a 'punk' chick, multi-coloured hair and studded pants. His legs trembled on the way down the hall, his body didn't respond fast enough. His head may have cracked on the wall as he slammed against the wall, but he didn't remember the crash vividly enough, which was probably bad. Very bad.
He flung himself around the corner and raced after her retreating figure as she made a mad dash down the stairs.
"SAM!" He yelled out to where his brother and Hannah had been looking. Nothing more than that, his brother would understand.
He sprinted down the stairs. Hell, where were the other angels? Cas's entente and then whoever would have been bunking with the runner?
"Dean!" Dean heard Cas yell after him but he was already on the ground floor and bounding after the angel. He hadn't realised how fast he was getting, how strong and forceful and there.
The door was still swinging shut when he charged out of it, all the momentum and drive of a battalion at the siege of Troy. The angel was sprinting down the street and Dean picked up his speed, feet hitting the ground lightly and efficiently, he moved through the cooling, darkening air like he was flying.
Dusk, and people were walking around the streets, ready for a night out. The scrambled to the side as he trundled past, and moved for the angel, but less so. She might be strong, but he's a six foot something dude with his eye fixed solely on her.
Just as Dean reached her, Romeo leapt out and tackled her to the ground, blowing a punch across her cheeks. Dean stopped short and watched as Rosemary, Uriah and Beatrice held the struggling angel down, slamming binding cuffs on her wrists.
She looked up at him, eyes wide and pupils dilated. She looked like an animal. That shocked Dean into action, moving towards where she was bundled and helping hold down her legs while Beatrice snapped on another pair of cuffs around her ankles.
Cas appeared over Dean's shoulder, breathing a little ragged, bending down and looking at Metatron's page with an oddly intimate interest. Next came Sam and Hannah, bearing down like they thought the chase wasn't up. They slowed when they got near, watching like Cas and Dean as she slowly submitted to the Rebels attack.
"We're only gonna ask once," Dean said silkily, slamming his hand across her face, putting all those years of torture practice to good use. "Where is Gadreel?"
She laughed and spat the blood from her broken teeth up at his face. "You've asked me that more than once, pretty boy."
Dean laughed, joining in. Then he levelled their faces and the pretense dropped. He looked into her eyes, smiled and brought his hand across her face again.
Sam looked away and had to drop his eyes to the floor. God, this was so wrong. But Esther had proved difficult to persuade and they needed to know where Gadreel was. He had suggested extracting more of the grace when she had first shown hints at being a difficult customer, but Cas had adamantly not allowed it. It had shocked Sam, a little, when Dean had shaken his head and told Cas that it was Sam's choice.
That, more than anything, was the thing that had made him back off, suggesting a few more hours of interviewing Esther. Dean torturing though...everything that was happening with the mark was bringing out the worst in Dean. The worst that he'd been burying ever since he'd been pulled out of the pit.
"So you know where he is, bitch?" Dean demanded from across the room. Sam looked up and saw a shackled, bleeding Esther grin up at him. He felt his stomach tense and that old anger, the one he'd tried so hard to bury over the years threatened to make a come-back.
You don't just smile at his brother like that. Not like that. Not with murder in your eyes.
"Of course I do," she purred. "He'd Metatron's little pet, right? No body really trusts the waste of space. Good old New-Dad's got all of his new recruits on the job."
Dean made a face. "You know Metatron is literally your brother, right?"
She didn't look phased. "And?"
Dean smiled sarcastically. "Gross, honey. That's disgusting."
"I feel like he might be deviating," Cas murmured to Sam, who was standing beside him, watching over it like he felt every blow.
Sam shook his head. "He knows what he's doing. He's giving her a sense of...non-normalcy I guess. He won't be constantly mean. He'll be nice. He'll be relatable."
Cas looked at Sam oddly. "How do you know that?"
Sam shrugged. "It's what I do. Did. It's what we've always done."
Dean pulled out the angel blade and then, Sam saw it, true fear in the Angels eyes. Sam had to leave. He crossed the room and the door closed behind him with a thud.
Dean was taking a break half an hour later, washing blood off his hands and taking a bite to eat, maybe a few hours of sleep. Cas was proficient as any at interrogating people and so Dean had left him to it, the Angel of the Lord washing his sister's vessels blood off his hands with shaking resolve.
"Hey," Sam greeted, sitting across from him on the floor as Dean was polishing off a burger one of the angels had bought for him.
Dean nodded in greeting and swallowed his mouthful. His brother had been silent and watchful since Esther had been struck down. If Ruby and Meg were anything to go by, Sam had a thing for seeing the good in all people, especially women. Dean got that, he really did. It was hard to hate something that took the guise of something else that had needed to be protected for centuries. But Esther was the enemy. It astounded Dean a little, that Sam could be so protective over them when he'd had practically no feminine influence growing up. How does someone with a cocky older brother and a Dad with half an attention span end up so good?
How did someone with demon blood and the fate of becoming a vessel for the cruellest thing in Heaven, Hell, Earth and Purgatory end up so much better than Dean?
Dean was proud of Sam. And he could feel himself slipping away. Striking her, the angel, had felt powerful. It was a fare stretch away from holding the blade, God, a universe away from using the damned thing, but it was power despite that. It was now, sitting with his brother in relative safety that he saw that.
"Hey Sam, look..." he trailed off and bunched his hamburger papers into his hand. "You don't...don't feel obliged to...to watch, ok?"
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Watch, what? Esther and you?"
Dean looked up and met his brothers eyes. "Yeah. It's not fair."
Sam nodded slowly. Then he cleared his throat. "Ok. Just...why did you say, when I offered Gadreel's grace, that it was my choice?"
Dean didn't answer. He looked down at his hands and the burger in them and no longer felt hungry. No longer felt tired. Only ashamed, embarrassed. God, he was being such a girl.
He could feel Sam's gaze on him. His brother was watching him, two shots hope and three guardedness. "It was just an...odd choice of words."
Dean looked up. "Am I turning into you?"
Sam blinked at the question. "Sorry?"
"I don't mean the hair, or whatever," Dean gestured to his brother and hoped Sam didn't see his hands shaking. "I mean..." Jesus. "Ruby. Lilith. The whole energy drink thing."
Sam closed his eyes briefly. Dean was wondering if 'energy drink' was a step too far, but when Sam opened his eyes, he was smiling. "Energy drink?"
Dean smiled a little meekly. "All I could think of."
Sam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "No, Dean. You're not turning into me."
Dean glanced up sharply and softly frowned. "Wait, what?"
Sam looked at him openly and Dean saw all of it. The boy he'd raised, the boy he could read better than anyone else could read anyone in the entire world. Sam looked at him and there was such clear determination, such defiant spark. "I won't let you. You would have been there for me. You were there for me. Any time I decided to realise that I would have felt less alone. I won't let it."
I won't let it. I won't let it consume you, overtake you, become you.
Dean smiled, and Dean believed him.
It was in the wee hours of the morning that Esther finally cracked.
"So," Dean said steadily. "What were you doing off on your own, anyway?"
Esther glared up at him. "None of your business, rodent."
"Rodent," Dean nodded. "Good one. So, seriously. You won't spill about Gladys or Daddy, so tell me. C'mon. I won't tell anyone else."
Esther's gaze could have killed. "Scouting mission, if you must know."
"Yeah, see," Dean paced in front of her, holding the angel blade casually in his hand. Esther watched it with silent trepidation. "I don't know if I believe that. For one, you've lied since you got here, and two, someone, or at least something would have tried to rescue you by now."
"What if I told you God expects us to get out of our own messes?" Esther hissed.
"What if I told you that Metatron would come looking for you, because he doesn't have enough angels to spare?" Dean countered.
Esther hung her head. She laughed, low and guttural. "Well, that second part is certainly not true."
"Am I gonna have to play Cluedo, or are you gonna spill?" Dean asked, leaning against a wall.
Esther glared at him. "You're a buffoon."
"You're avoiding the question," Dean told her. "You wanna hear what I think? I think Daddy cast you out. I think you're Lucifer 2.0. I think that you did something wrong and now you're being punished."
Dean bent down so that they were face to face. "Am I right?"
She glared at him, with all the strength she had. "No."
Dean smiled and moved away from her. "I knew it."
Esther looked desperate. "You're not. He wouldn't."
"I am, and he did."
Esther tightened her hands into fists. "I will kill you. I swear it."
"No, I don't think you will," Dean said. "Esther. You're terrified. C'mon. He's awful and you only served him because it was either with him in Heaven or with the low-lives down here on green-pastured Hell."
Esther didn't say anything.
"You want this to stop? No? You want the world to be ruled by some pretentious douche who treats his fellow angels like children?"
Esther sat unmoving.
"You want him to rule earth? You want to be part of the messed up story he's got planned?"
A rock, swamped by sinking moonlight through the window behind her.
"You actually want him to be the next God? For all eternity?"
Esther looked up slowly and Dean saw her imagining what he'd painted for her. Years and years of Metatron as the front-runner. Years of Metatrons word over the initial word of God. Metatron controlling Angels, controlling humans. Maybe, eventually, controlling Hell.
"No," she whispered and looked at Dean. "Oh God. No."
"Drop the act, Esther," Dean advised. "You're way more likable when you're an actual sane human being." Dean frowned. "Angel. Whatever."
Esther looked at Dean desperately. "Dean, I help you find Gadreel, you kill me."
Dean frowned. "Kill you?"
"Dead, bam, never coming back."
Dean found himself nodding. "Sister, I think you've got yourself a deal."
"Why Gadreel?" Sam asked Cas as they sat outside the room where Dean was with Esther. She wasn't screaming, but they could hear muffled conversation from outside the doors. Hopefully it meant they were making some progress. "You hear her. He's not trusted. He's a slave. I can remember. He needs so desperately to go back to heaven, he'd do anything."
Cas looked at Sam a little sadly. "I remember seeing Gadreel when Metatron kidnapped me. He..." Cas hesitated. "He looked like I did."
"You did?" Sam asked, bemused. "When?
Cas looked away and towards the far wall. But he was unseeing, locked in memories. "When I was considering disobedience."
Sam raised his eyebrows and looked at Cas more carefully. "Wait, really?"
"Yes, really," Cas said. "I recognised it. I saw it in Anna before I never saw her again. Until five years ago, of course. I saw it in myself when I fought the archangel off from Chuck. When I banished Zachariah. It's not the natural state of an angel, Free Will. It leaves a stain on an angel. You can't ever wash it out and you can never go back."
"But..." Sam thought about Kevin and all the other people dead at the hand of the angel. "Gadreel?"
Cas nodded slowly. "It might be hard to believe, but to Gadreel and to every other angel, Metatron is not a just God. He is not even a god. He is an Angel playing as the deity and it's unnatural. Esther was following out of fear-"
"Wait, what?"
"-and I can bet that most of the other angels were as well."
"Esther's one of the half-good guys?" Sam demanded. "What?"
Cas carried on. "Not even Raphael deigned to call himself God. I did, and look where that left me."
"Dead," Sam agreed.
Cas frowned.
"I mean, you were dead," Sam corrected hastily. "For a bit. After the god thing."
Cas nodded slowly. "Right. Yes. I was."
Curiosity got the better of him, and it was something Sam had been wondering for a while. "Cas, do you...do you remember what happened after you died?"
"Which time?" Cas asked, which, had it been anyone else, would have probably been an attempt at humour.
Sam shrugged. "All the times."
Cas shook his head. "There's no afterlife for angels and demons, Sam. We're given strength to last in this life."
"You believe that?" Sam asked, unconvinced.
Cas shrugged. "It's what we were always taught."
"Yeah, to keep yourself remembering that you're killable," Sam said. "But, I mean, c'mon. You're source isn't exactly reliable."
Cas chuckled softly. "No, no it isn't. I don't know, Sam. I don't know where I go after I die. I don't know where I'll end up."
"You don't have any suspicions?" Sam pressed.
Cas shook his head and sighed. "I just have to hope that it'll be better than here. Better than this world at least."
Sam thought about his heaven, the one he shared with Dean. Soul mate. It was so intimate and terrifying that they'd never brought it up again. That Heaven had been full of broken memories and only brought back the knowledge that they'd never feel those sorts of things again. That they'd just live in that world of past tense until the end of eternity.
"Human life is going to feel like the blink of an eye when I'm dead," Sam realised suddenly, and the size of infinity threatened to overwhelm him. "In heaven."
Cas was amazed by Sam Winchester. How sure he was that they'd pull this off, that they'd find some way to restore heaven. He was so full of hope, he was so human. "Your human life will not be forgotten, Sam," Cas assured him. "it'll be your clearest, most prized possession."
Sam looked young, younger than Cas had ever seen him when he looked at the angel. "You're sure?" His voice was weak, pathetic perhaps. Say it once, say it a thousand times. Sam Winchester was so human.
"Positive," Cas said, without a moments hesitation.
Human. Sam Winchester was human. Not the Boy with the Demon Blood. Not the vessel for Lucifer. Not abomination or Monster or freak. He was a boy with a brother and the whole world on his shoulders.
Esther had promised that Gadreel was going to be in LA in two days. He was to put up sigils attracting angels and then slaughter all of them as a job for Metatron. He seemed to have to do that sort of thing a lot, Sam reflected. It didn't line up with the bruised, tattered angel he remembered possessing him.
In the Impala, Dean and Sam were going alone and Cas and his angels would drive over in a mini-van. Neither brother had been able to keep a straight face when they watched all the angels of the lord clamber into the back of a bus and set off across the country.
They'd burnt Esther's and let the ashes float across through the wind.
Dean drove. Dean always drove, but Dean was also exhausted. The two brothers took turns sleeping and driving, only stopping for Gas, food and Nature's call. Sam huddled into his seat as soon as they got into the car and Dean woke him six hours later, barely able to keep his eyes open.
Sam drove next, a solid 10 hours before they took a break and Dean wanted back in to the drivers seat.
Then they were alone and awake. Sam wasn't tired enough yet to fall asleep and Dean was hypnotised by the road running in front of them, nodding his head along to the music playing.
"I say, a bad moon arisin', I say, troubles on the way."
Dean glanced over at Sam and sighed. "Look, Sam...I just want you to know that...I'm sorry, ok?"
Sam felt himself pause, rewind and scan through Dean's words. Sorry? Finally, was he saying sorry? Was he sure, though? Did he deserve more? Did he deserve a why?
"Don't go out tonight, it's bound to take your life."
"It wasn't my choice to make," Dean said slowly. "I should have..." Let you go.
Sam shook his head. "No, it wasn't your choice-"
"But," Dean looked over sharply. "Just because I regret it does not make it ok that you wanted to die, Sammy."
Sam looked down and his voice dropped. "I was going to save the world forever, Dean."
"I'm not talking about that," Dean insisted. "Where is the upside to me being alive. You remember that?"
Sam didn't say anything.
"I thought so."
"I say, Hurricanes are blowin'. I know, the end is comin' soon."
"Sammy," Dean looked over at his brother desperately. "You deserve to be alive, alright? You deserve it more than anyone."
"No," Sam shook his head. "No I don't Dean."
Dean let out an exasperated breath. "What, you forgot that you already saved the world? You forgot that you already made up for all the shit you were manipulated into doing? You have Sam. You've done enough. You're allowed to be selfish."
"Me not dying means that a lot of other people died," Sam stated calmly. "Abaddon has been farming souls. Abaddon has been making an army out of souls and I could have stopped her."
"Hey," Dean snapped. "This is not on you, Sam. You've done too much good to blame yourself for this."
"Hope you have got your things together, hope you are quite prepared to die."
"I..." Sam was silent then, for a long stretch, just looking out the window as they drove. "I'm sorry I told you...those things."
Drag through the mud... you are certianly willing to do the sacrificing as long as you're not the one being hurt
Gadreel and Sam's words overlapped and Dean felt all the pain and misery over it like it had just happened.
"I was trying to level with you, but it was cruel. And excessive."
Dean watched the road for a few minutes an didn't speak. Then he smiled.
"Bitch."
Sam's heart rate picked up and he tried to look nonchalant, glancing over at his brother like his world hadn't just been made. "Jerk."
Dean leant forward and turned up the volume and the car sped on, chasing down Gadreel, finishing this once and for all.
"Don't go out tonight, it's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise."
My aim was to make it as realistic as possible, but this, as of Tuesday, is an AU *everyone cries*
I'll try to do the next few chapters as episodes, episode length as well. Swell.
(I thought I might do something funny like instead of Dark Moon Rising I could have gone like *NETFLIX VERSION and then spelt out the words to Back on the Road Again or something but no that would have been way too weird.)