AN: There will be some pronoun swapping in these earlier chapters, depending on the POV of the character. I hope it's not too confusing. Later, once characters are used to things, it'll be 'she' more often than not.
When The Levee Breaks
There was only so much of Sam's whimpering that Dean could take. His baby brother... damn Ruby. Damn her. His fist clenched at a wailing scream and Bobby's eyes were on him, full of sympathy and pity. It made him sick to the stomach.
Sam begged for the pain to go away. All Dean could think was that that sound had come from the same kid he'd tucked into bed every night. It was never their bed, technically. It was never in their home. But he'd done it. He'd turned off the T.V. at nine o'clock, even when he was old enough and sure as hell willing enough to stay up. Catch a little Beavis and Butthead...
They'd tracked and slaughtered everything that hell had to throw at them, including monsters from Reva-freakin'-lations. The apocalypse! And addiction... addiction was what did them in?
Dean pushed off the couch.
"Where are you goin'?" Bobby asked, a little too eager to see him up. The old man wanted Sam out of that basement so he could use him to finish the job. That was never going to happen.
"To get some air," Dean growled back, snatching his coat off the rack.
Outside, he paced the lot. He weaved through Bobby's blockade of mangled junkers. Not one of them would ever see the road again. They barely had any parts left to scrap. Empty, rusting shells of what they'd once been. Dean counted off the bodies in his head. A Lincoln Continental, '62. And that one, a Chevrolet, early '50s. They'd been proud, indestructible, and gas-guzzling in their day and now... look.
He really, really... hated to do this. "Cas!"
Dean waited. He watched the dark horizon, turning where he stood, in case he decided to show up behind him. He always did that. No answer, nothing but a dial tone. Well, not tonight, you slow prick. "CAS! Get your feathered ass down here! I need to talk to you! Now!"
The angel wouldn't give him the time of day anymore - hadn't since Jimmy died. Then he'd gone all cryptic on his ass. I certainly don't serve you. Just what the hell did that mean? He hadn't come by. He hadn't offered help. He hadn't gotten out of Claire. He had a lot of explaining to do and it'd been days. Dean was officially pissed.
He started pacing again, kicking up gravel and sand. "Don't you fucking ignore me. Not now. CASTIEL!" Dean shot the tool shed an accusatory glance. He popped his jaw. "Bird-brained, cowardly, cradle robbing, heartless, son of a BITCH!"
His foot caved in a backlight and then he was movingly wildly, just so he could feel the adrenaline. Cas had been his friend. And Dean hadn't had many of those in his life, not that he was so pathetic and desperate that he couldn't live without one. But it'd been nice, for once, to have someone-... other than Sam... The thought made what he had to say next turn to bile. His throat closed and he croaked. "I need you, man. Where are you?"
And still, nothing. But Dean didn't stop there. He called and he called. He rang the doorbell like a hungry fat kid on Halloween. He used every curse his ex-Marine of a father had ever taught him. He did everything but get to his knees and steeple his hands - no, the "angel" wouldn't get that.
It wasn't until Dean had given up hope that he did appear, under an old street lamp. Sioux Falls had forgotten to turn it off after Bobby bought the land from them. Now, it beamed down onto Castiel, casting dark shadows over his feminine brow and making his blonde hair look a sickly yellow. The button-down that had been tucked into her skirt now peeked out messily. She... he... looked exhausted.
Tough shit. "It's about damn time. I've been screaming myself hoarse for two and a half hours, Cas."
The angel grimaced. He'd been hearing it for two and a half hours. "What do you want?"
His voice was nothing like Claire's. Dean had heard Claire's and now he really, really wished he hadn't. It'd been all soft and girlish. Now it sounded like she had a sore throat. A symptom of the angel-virus. Sorry, no cure.
She was another civilian Dean couldn't save, another kid whose life had been ruined by Satan's cronies - and oh, she'd gone out swinging. And scared. And in pain. She hadn't deserved that. Maybe Cas was next on the list after Ruby. He hadn't decided yet but Dean was pissed enough to put a knife in him. "You can start with what the hell happened in Illinois."
Castiel sighed and stalked forward. "You were there."
"You couldn't have gotten there any faster? Goddamnit, Cas, I defended you!"
"I don't need defending." He turned his head, watching the house as if he could see inside of it with X-ray vision. "Or any more lessons in morality."
"Cut the crap, Cas." Dean's heart was pounding; he could feel it all the way up in his throat. This wasn't his angel. They'd done something to him up there. Twisted him all around so he'd play the part of the loyal general again.
Dean's lower lip trembled. "You were gonna tell me something."
Castiel closed his eyes. "It was nothing of import."
"You got ass-reamed in heaven." He put that big, fat elephant in the room right where it ought to have been. "But it was nothing of import?"
"I'm can't, Dean..." Only he looked like he really, really wanted to. "I'm sorry."
He scrubbed his hand over his face. "And I can't look at you - in her. It's wrong. Do you get that? It's wrong."
"I don't disagree that it is unfortunate."
"God, you're a dick these days."
"Did you call only to reprimand me? Or was there a reason?"
Dean felt like a kid. Cas was giving him the 'you wanna do this now?' look like he was a toddler throwing a fit in a grocery store. He wasn't a kid. He was a grown man who'd just smashed a car window. "Yeah!" Dean jutted angrily and then, dumbly, "no... You've been MIA for weeks, Cas. You couldn't leave a voicemail?"
His arms swung limply at his sides. "I don't know what that is."
"Then a letter, damn it! Let us know what's going on!"
"I have no news to give you. But I have not abandoned you." He stepped forward into his space and Dean stepped back. Cas felt more like an alien to him now than ever. Undeterred, Cas rasped, "You're worried for him."
Dean gave a hollow laugh. "Yeah. You could say that."
"You said you needed me."
Dean licked his lips. "Can he do it, Cas? Can he kill Lilith? End the apocalypse?"
Castiel stared for a long time before he turned his back to him. "He won't have to end it, Dean. We believe that it will be you who will deliver the final blow."
"What do I do?"
He looked over his shoulder. "Now you wait."
Apparently, twenty-four hours was all they'd needed. They beamed him up to this white parlor room that looked like it belonged in a French castle.
"How are you liking the new look?" Zachariah asked, motioning to the angel behind him. He turned and gave Castiel a once over as if to reaffirm his own opinion. His fingers pressed to his lips. "It doesn't read very five-star general to me, but eeeeh... it'll do. And soon we'll all be sipping pina coladas in Cabo anyway, right?"
They'd shoved Cas in some black dress. That was the angel uniform: lawyer black. Only he'd ended up with something sleeveless and v-necked and sort of hip-hugging and just different from the rest of them to piss Dean off. They were pissing Dean off a lot these days.
Zachariah put a hand to Castiel's shoulder and gave him a half-spin. "That is a bikini body if I've ever seen one. Really! I should have gone out and found myself someone with abs not made out of funnel cake." The angel laughed until he realized no one else got the joke. "Like... you, for instance." He gestured politely, weakly to Dean.
But Dean couldn't say a word. Because the last time he'd heard a line like that? It'd been from a demon. Suddenly, everything in that white room looked a little more cheap, felt a little less real. He and Cas stared. They both knew that it didn't matter what Cas was wearing or who had pointed out his perky little rear, Dean wouldn't look twice at it.
He should have known then that every line he'd been fed that night had been bullshit.
Zach offered food. He offered wine. He offered women and celebrities and the seven wonders and Cas, which was... gross. No, he'd answered emphatically. He gave Castiel his leave and he disappeared with a nod.
"What about a meet-n-greet with the cast of Gilligan's Island?" the angel tried again.
Honestly, all of it made Dean feel like a pig being stuffed for the slaughter. Just put an apple in his mouth already.
"You need help with the turkey, ma?" Jimmy pulled himself up out of a La-Z-Boy. Everything smelled like gingerbread and Mom's too-crips sugar cookies and he loved that - he really did. Football was on the TV and his dad snored soundly on the couch. Claire was at his feet. She'd just turned 11. In her hands was the DS she loved to play, a pale pink one, the same color as her nails. She worried her lip over some kind of problem in the game world. He could have smacked her on the back of the head for choosing to live in a screen, but instead, he gave her a pet and smiled.
Lights from the Christmas tree twinkled as he passed into the kitchen.
"Yes, please," his mother grunted, gray hair hanging in her face as she leaned over the oven. "It probably won't be any good this year."
"You always say that," Jimmy answered affectionately. "And it's always great."
She scooted out of the way for him and Jimmy just as the doorbell rang.
"That must be your sister," she fretted. "She's early. I told her not to come until six!"
"It's alright." After balancing the turkey dish on the oven burners, he went to get the door. It was still snowing. He idly noticed that it'd almost buried the reindeer decorations in the front yard. "She probably left early to beat the storm."
It never once crossed his mind that his sister and her children were dead. They'd been T-boned on their way to the elementary school. And his mom, too, she'd fallen on her hip. After a stressful year that'd all but destroyed his already cobbled-together marriage, she'd finally slipped his fingers. Dad had gone quickly. Stroke.
When he opened the door, it was his daughter that stared back at him. "Castiel," he smiled slowly. "You hungry? Mom made enough to feed an army."
The world couldn't end like this.
Dean paced the room. It'd been without its doors since Zachariah had admitted to being the king of all snakes. The angels wanted all the work to stop, he'd said. The angels didn't want to listen to God anymore. The angels wanted a permanent vacation in Eden because someone hadn't invited them the first time! Beach body, Cabo, Porky Pig - well, screw them!
The world couldn't end like this.
Dean just wanted to take it all back. Sam could be an idiot sometimes. He was so like their dad, all unrelentingly obsessed. He didn't care if he turned himself into a monster so long as he got what he wanted, which made Dean want to spit nails. But Bobby was right. As tired as Dean was of chasing a brother who'd made it pretty damn clear from the start that he didn't give a damn about him... he was his Sammy. He gave a damn about him. He couldn't just stop.
He couldn't let his last words to him be - what they'd been...
And the devil sure as hell wasn't about to ride Sam's ass into the middle of this cataclysmic cockfight.
He'd try calling him.
"I'm afraid I can't stay long." Castiel stepped inside at his invitation. Her clothes were dry, untouched by a single snowflake. She didn't shiver. She didn't flush. He would have offered to take her coat, but... She took a moment to look appreciatively around the foyer. Her gaze stopped on an antique nutcracker. "Though, I do love holiday heavens. They are some of my favorites... Would you be willing to speak with me?"
"Sure, Castiel." He snorted before turning to guide her out back. "I'm in better moods these days."
They sat together on a porch swing. A mug of hot cocoa rested in Jimmy's hand and he rocked them with his heels.
"It's beautiful," Castiel finally said.
"Yeah," he sighed.
Her eyes drifted over to him with an understanding. "You and Amelia were separated."
"I had Claire on Christmas Eve. She had her on Christmas."
"You were surrounded by the people you loved."
He shot her another smile. "Still am. Just get to do it for a lot longer now..." After a beat, he asked, "What are you doing in my daughter?"
Her face fell. "I failed you. So utterly and completely, Jimmy Novak. You are owed an apology for the pain that I've caused."
His brows furrowed. There was so much he still didn't understand. "Why didn't you come?"
"I was ordered not to."
"I wonder why that is."
"My superiors had their reasons."
Jimmy rolled his eyes. If he were a betting man, he'd have put big money on one reason: destroy whatever was happening between Dean Winchester and Castiel. Dean wouldn't have anything to do with her once he knew what a heartless monster she was. He wouldn't trust her, not if he knew that she'd take a teenage girl without a second thought. Then they could stop conspiring behind heaven's back, right?
Typical.
Jimmy wanted to feel some sort of anger. His family had been plopped down in the middle of a war zone when the angel had explicitly promised that they'd be safe. But... he just couldn't get it up anymore. He was at peace, damn it.
"Is the world ending?"
"It seems to be, yes."
"You're not going to let that happen." The angel avoided his eye. "Castiel?"
"It's destiny."
"It's baloney."
"I realize you have a predilection for red meat, but-"
"What's gonna happen to the millions of families like us if this all goes down? Are they all going to die the way we did?"
Her eyes bore into his. He knew that to Castiel he was a Rubix cube that she couldn't solve. "What is so worth saving, Jimmy Novak? All the pain that you were put through in life. Now you have this. Peace. Isn't that better?"
Jimmy sucked in a contemplative breath. He rubbed his jaw and watched from the window as the living room flooded with his nieces and nephews. Castiel turned and watched with him. "You know, it took me thirty-five years to have my perfect moment, Cas. I didn't get many of them. My heaven's kinda small. Like an hour long VHS tape," he laughed. "There are a whole lot of people down there who have it a whole lot worse than I ever did. Some of them haven't had their perfect moment yet." The corner of his lips turned up as he watched his daughter hug his mom tight. "I would never take this away from anybody."
Castiel leaned her elbows into her knees. Her hair fell into her face. "There's nothing I can do. Sam is going to kill Lilith, and the end will be- inevitable... Regardless of right or wrong or motivations-"
"That's quitter talk. We shared a brain, Castiel. I'm pretty sure the general could have an ace up her sleeve if she wanted to have an ace up her sleeve.
"Jimmy!" his mother called. The older man stood and finished off his mug.
"You wanna apologize? Do it for me. Do it for my family." Then he went into the house and left Castiel on the porch in the snow.
"I'm guessing you're not here to help me," Dean spat before a hand slammed down on his mouth.
"Quiet," Castiel hissed back. "We're leaving."
"Seriously, Cas?" Dean thought he might just hurl in relief. Maybe then his heart would slow the hell down. "You're awesome. I've been trying to call, but-"
"You're out of your covered zone. Don't thank me yet, Dean. I'm the one who helped Sam escape."
He opened his mouth but no sound came out. He closed it again. "Why am I friends with you?"
The angel looked over at him with more emotion than he'd ever seen from him before. "Because I'm sorry. And I'd like to make up for it now."
Dean stared down at the offered arm before he took it, hand clamping down firmly. "Good enough for me, man. Let's show Zachariah where he can stick his Armageddon."