"Oh you have got be kidding me!" Dean hissed. He and Castiel were crouched down behind a jumble of crates and boxes hidden from sight of the huge Archangel to their left and above.
They had been tracking down a possible lead on Raphael's location. Raphael's vessel had been destroyed and his celestial grace form banished to the cage. There was absolutely no way he could return to heaven after that. His grace would be forever tainted by his time in the cage. The archangels were far from friends too so even if he did get out he would not survive long.
But yet here he was sitting on the edge of the roof of the warehouse legs dangling down and wings spread wide. As dean observed from a distance he couldn't help but admit his wings were quite beautiful. They were bright electric blue and each feather had silver tips. Intricate white markings ran along the underside of each wing.
"That's not possible." Cass mumbled and slumped down beside the older Winchester. The comment had snapped dean out of his inner ramblings.
"What? You okay feathers?" Dean asked concern laced in his voice. He and Cass had been together for a while now. Feathers was one of the nicknames he had created for his angel. At first it had been teasingly but Cass had grown to like it so it had stuck.
"Somethings wrong Dean… Raphael isn't on angle radio." Whenever another angel or archangel is within close proximity they are immediately telepathically linked to each other. It made battle so much easier when you didn't have to scream at each other just to be heard over the sounds of dying daemons.
"That's okay maybe he just tuned it out. Like you do." The hunter said shrugging.
"No. That's a power only I have evolved to have. Each angel evolves differently Dean." Cass hissed. He looked like he was physically in pain.
"What are you doing? You look like you got the shits."
"No, I am not constipated Consort."
"You're scared of him." Dean wasn't making fun of his lover, he was merely stating a fact.
"Yes. He is a lot more powerful and a lot older than I. Killing me would be like swatting a fly." Cass shuddered at the thought. His consort reached out a hand and ran it down his cheek tenderly.
"We'll be ok. We just need a plan to contain him." Dean dropped his hand to lace their fingers together. Cass shook his head and he seemed to snap out of it.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Your right." A deep breath "Do we have any blessed oil? If we can coax him into an area of our choosing we might gain an advantage."
"Yeah alright. There's some in the trunk. What about near baby? That storage facility? It's basically a big hallway. Close of some of it off and lead him in and we can set up a circle. I'll be bait and you light the circle with angel fire. Doesn't that strengthen it?"
"Yes that could work but perhaps it would be better if I was the bait. He has no care for you. However I am a wanted war criminal. The perfect offering to allow him into heaven again." Castiel took in another deep breath and took flight. Dean wasn't even able to get another word in and he felt as if that was the aim of Castiel's hasty departure.
Make sure he doesn't move consort. The circle is set.
The thought appeared in his head without him encouraging it. Over the last six months Cass had shown him how to use the tiny piece of grace inside of him to see an angel's wing and communicate with him.
He's still there. Oh fuck! Shit! He's gone Cass!
All that remained was a single blue feather edged in silver as it floated down to land in front of him.
He's here! Run dean!
Dean did run but he had a feeling Cass meant away from him and the circle. He took off across the street and down the block. The duffle bag slung across he shoulders smacked painfully into the small of his back. Cass couldn't fight the archangel by himself. What would Raphael do to him? He wouldn't be able to bear it if Cass died. The love of his life just gone. Just gone. He would cease to exist all because he wanted to protect dean.
The storage facility came into view and be vaulted over the fence not worried about cameras or guards. The only thing he was concerned about was Cass.
He could hear the banging and see the light spilling across the floor underneath the roller door. Dean lowered his eyes and slipped inside. If either of them had slipped into their pure forms it would be better if he averted his eyes. The body of a guard lay at his feet, his eye's burned clean out of his skull.
An invisible force threw Dean across the room and pinned him to the wall. His head smacked against the cold concrete and forcing him to open his eyes. He had thought there would be raw power being thrown around in the form of angel fire but it looked like Raphael had gotten the upper hand before Cass could light the circle. The archangel grabbed Castiel by the collar of his coat and threw his bloody broken body into the center of the room.
Castiel's arms were at oblique angles and his right wing seemed to hang limp at his side. Cass' wings were something of a real beauty. They were a dark, dark black but if you turned them towards the light you could see the colours shift and change from a green to a red to a blue. But now they seemed to be lifeless and they dragged when he was thrown across the room. Dean felt a deep primal anger surge through him when he saw that one of Cass's wings was shorter than the other. The culprit was a huge broken bone sticking out from between the feathers. Blood gushed out of it like a small river.
"Cass! Cass!" Dean screamed at his consort willing him to move, to fight and to win. Castiel's arms tried to push up from the ground but there was no strength left in him. Raphael just laughed and picked Cass up by his broken wing. His lover screamed out in pain as the broken bones scraped against each other.
"I thought rebelling would be enough for you Castiel. You would play soldiers with the Winchesters and eventually die but… You had to go that extra mile further didn't you? You had to go and mate with the dirty ape? When I returned to heaven I thought you have learnt the harm in your actions and come home but like a disobedient child, you had to cross the line to learn." Raphael snarled. The humour was gone from his face now and all that remained was the pure disgust on his face.
Dean continued to struggle against the force holding him to the wall. It gave for a moment and he managed to get his hand down to his belt to where his angel blade was. It was powerful enough to kill an angel so why couldn't it kill an archangel?
The force wrapped around his chest and pulled him towards the archangel. His throat ended up being crushed by the Archangels giant hand. He had less than a minute before he would pass out. Then he would be no use to Cass at all.
The angels head lifted and he dragged himself to his knees the best he could while Raphael had a hold of his wing.
"Please brother… Your quarrel… is with me… leave Dean out… of this… please…" Castiel managed to choke out through the blood and broken facial features. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his face. The entire right side was smashed in.
Only then did Raphael glance at Dean. He looked at dean as if he were an insect that he was about to crush. Then his hand unlatched from around dean's throat to paw at his face turning it this way and that. Recognition and rage clouded his features as his eye's locked onto his.
"You marked him with angel dust! You filth! If it were not for the other archangels I would kill you for that insult to our race!" He screamed in Cass's face.
"However," Rapheal continued, "The others think it be better to ground you rather than eliminate you. Let you live with the shame of what you did." He was calm now no longer screaming. Cass began to shake with fear as tears ran out of his good eye. The other was nothing but a mass of pulverised flesh.
"No! Please Brother!" Castiel cried out.
Dean went flying backwards colliding with the wall again. Raphael reached out with his now free hand and grasped a sword out of what appeared to be thin air. It was a huge terrifying broadsword that looked really heavy, yet the archangel wielded it as if it were nothing more than a butterknife. He let go of Cass's wing and with on sing downward motion the left wing was separated from Castiel's body. It twitched and wriggled like a lizard's tail might continue to move after it had dropped it.
"NO! CAS! LEAVE HIM ALONE MOTHERFUCKER!" Dean screamed insults and death threats at Raphael as he brought the sword up again for another swing. The screams and sobs from Castiel where the result of the worst pain he had ever experienced. Very few angels needed the punishment of being grounded. Gabriel had had his wings removed once when he was younger. He had been so close to death even an angelic healer couldn't tell if he was still alive. He had been conscious the entire time his wings were removed. They grew back of course but it was the shame of being grounded that hurt the most.
Raphael brought the sword down the second time Castiel tried to pull away this time but the sword still cut through the feathery appendage. Just further away from the join where wing met back. Raphael set Cass's wing alight with holy fire ensuring that they could not be re-attached.
"DEAN!" Cass screamed for him but there was nothing he could do.