*before you read this, you MUST MUST MUST read "Love and Sad Cherubs" first. it is imperative to your true understanding of the plotline! (you'll find it in my account.)
I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL IN ANY WAY, ONLY MY OC - AUBREY MILLIGAN.
So it definitely was not a witch. They cleared that up hours ago. Sam had already scoped the victims' houses and vehicles; no hex bags. Also, witches were never so specific with their spells. Something told Aubrey that bringing on the plague wasn't their thing.
"Sweet," she drawled. "Blood, boils, locusts…"
Sam nodded his head, sighing. "Three of your more popular Egyptian plagues."
Aubrey dropped the case files onto the table and leaned back against her chair just as Dean picked up the jar full of locusts. "Yeah, but these guys ate their way out of a cop's melon," he said.
She shivered, wondering why they weren't so bloody. Though she supposed it was better for them; less gore and more work. "I don't quite remember that in the King James," she said, agreeing with Dean.
Sam shrugged, not looking up from his laptop. "Meanwhile, a kid named Christopher Birch was shot in the head last month after a vehicle pursuit," he said. "Hatch, Gray, and Colfax were the three officers involved, and they all filed the exact same police report."
He handed some papers to Dean, and Aubrey read it over his shoulder. "'Suspect exited the vehicle brandishing a firearm. We were forced to fire.'"
Dean set the papers down and exhaled heavily, putting the pieces together just as Aubrey was. "'Just a kid with no face and a planted gun'," he said, quoting Officer Colfax's words.
"Bunch of dicks." Aubrey shook her head. "So they pop the kid, plant the piece."
Sam pursed his lips. "Maybe Colfax is right," he said. "You know, maybe heaven has a hate-on for bad cops."
"So we're listening to the guy with the bug in his custard?" Dean retorted. He practically shoved the papers into Aubrey's hands—she only sighed—before standing up from his chair. "That's… that's the, uh… the theory you want to go with?" He made his way to the fridge and snatched a bottle of beer as Aubrey took his seat.
"Dean, angels got to have something to do, right?" Sam said, raising his eyebrows. "Now that we're post-apocalypse?"
"Yeah, maybe."
At the word angels, an idea had already popped into Aubrey's head and she had slammed her hand onto the table. Both brothers snapped their heads to look at her, surprised. She beamed, brandishing her finger. "We should call Cas."
Dean frowned. "I was gonna say the same thing—"
"You're kidding, right?" Sam piped up. He looked amused, and maybe slightly offended, by the idea of calling on their guardian angel for help. Aubrey was curious to know why. She shrugged and stared pointedly at him, watching him release a single, humorless laugh. "Aubrey, I tried," he said. "It was the first, and second, and third thing I did soon as I got topside. Son of a bitch won't answer the phone."
Aubrey looked to Dean, who only shrugged. "Well, let's give it a shot." She smiled and settled herself back down onto her chair, watching as the older brother closed his eyes and placed his hands as close together as possible. He started, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here."
She rolled her eyes. If these idiots always called on him like that, no wonder he won't pick up. "That was stupid," she told Dean.
"You're an idiot," Sam agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The older brother opened his eyes slightly and raised a finger to both of them. "Stay positive."
"Oh, I am positive." Aubrey sighed, thinking whether or not the angel would come if she was the one who called.
Apparently, the brothers were thinking the same thing. Sam hit her on the shoulder, forcing her to look up. She frowned. "Ow…?"
"You try calling him," he said.
"Why?"
Dean shrugged. "Well, chances are the son of a bitch will come down if it's his girlfriend calling for help."
Aubrey massaged her temples, getting impatient; although, she was sceptic about it as well. "And what makes you think that I'm his girlfriend?"
She glanced at the brothers just in time to see them share a look with each other, small smiles on their faces. "Just a hunch," Dean said, the smile turning into a full-sized smirk.
That doesn't make any sense. "Whatever." Aubrey rolled her eyes before closing them, knowing that the brothers wouldn't let it go. She sighed, saying, "Hey, Cas? You mind coming down here for a sec? It's your good friend, Aubrey." She heard Dean chuckling in front of her and she hit him once. "We kind of need some help right about now."
They waited for a long moment, Aubrey expecting a large gust of wind to enter the room and suddenly the angel in the trench coat would be in the room with them. But nothing came, and all three of them plopped back down onto their seats.
"It was worth a try…" Aubrey trailed off. Truthfully, it sucked.
"Come on, Cas. Don't be a dick," Dean piped up. "We got ourselves a plague-like situation down here. Do you… do you copy?"
She could have laughed at the bluntness of his request, but the situation was so depressing that she couldn't bring herself to do it. Dean opened one eye and scanned the room, even though the angel still hadn't come. She sat down and scanned the papers, though her mind was wandering to the last time they'd seen each other. It was during the case with the rogue cupid. She remembered how cold he'd acted towards her afterwards, and then she was driving, and it was the middle of the night, and the crash… Sam and Dean and Bobby still did not know about that.
"Like I said," Sam drawled from the other side of the room. "The son of a bitch doesn't answer—" He stopped abruptly. Aubrey looked up and her heart skipped a beat when she saw who was standing right behind him. And while the smirk on Sam's face fell, a large grin was slowly making its way up Aubrey's face.
Sam pursed his lips, looking to Aubrey. "He's right behind me, isn't he?" She nodded her head once, still not taking her eyes off the angel at the other end of the room. As Sam turned around, she couldn't help but to notice that her angel looked no different than before—except that he looked weary.
"Hello," Castiel said, with that same gruff voice Aubrey had gotten accustomed to.
And while she would have welcomed him back with open arms (and maybe a kiss on the cheek), Sam had other plans. "Hello?" he snapped.
The angel nodded his head once. "Yes."
"'Hello'." Sam threw his hands up in exasperation. Aubrey smiled slightly at his almost-perfect impression of Castiel's voice, and watched with amused eyes as the younger brother glared at the angel. "'Hello'?"
Suffice it to say, Cas looked confused. He frowned. "That is still the term?"
"I spent all that time trying to get through to you," Sam continued, ignoring the angel's question. "Aubrey and Dean call once and now it's 'hello'?!" Aubrey glanced at Dean, and they both shrugged.
Castiel sighed. "Yes."
"So, what, you—you like them better or something?" Sam looked pissed. Somehow, Aubrey couldn't blame him. But she was happier to finally see her guardian angel after all those months of hunting alone.
The angel turned around to face Sam, and tilted his head. "Dean and I do share a more profound bond," he said. "As for Aubrey…" She raised an eyebrow and watched as his original confidence crumbled ever so slightly. He cleared his throat. "I wasn't gonna mention it."
Aubrey frowned as the two brothers smiled lightly—even Sam, who still seemed to be pissed. But then Dean turned serious again and she lost her chance to get some answers.
"Cas, I think what he's trying to say is that… he went to hell for us," Dean said. "I mean, he really took one for the team. You remember that? And then he comes back without a clue, and you can't take five friggin' minutes to give him some answers?"
"If I had any answers, I might have responded," Castiel replied, and Aubrey sighed. She hated it when the boys started yelling at him. Sometimes, she thought they'd forgotten that he could smite them anytime. The angel continued, "But I don't know, Sam. We have no idea who brought you back from the cage… or why."
"So, it wasn't God?" Aubrey piped up, curious as well.
For the first time in fifteen months, he met her gaze. She resisted the urge to smile and waited for his reply instead. "No one's even seen God," he said. "The whole thing remains mysterious."
Sam stood up. "What the hell does that mean?"
The angel's eyes snapped back to the younger brother, all patience gone from his face. Aubrey wondered if he'd ever snapped at the boys before. "What part of I don't know escapes your understanding?"
She watched as a flustered Sam took a step back, caving in, with Dean stepping up. "Cas, look, if Sam calls, you answer, okay? You wing your ass down here and you tell him, 'I don't know'." Aubrey shrugged, thinking the idea was sort of legit. "Just because we have some sort of a—a bond or whatever…"
"You think I came because you called?" the angel retorted, raising his eyebrows. Aubrey frowned, not appreciating his newly-found authority. He wasn't like this the last time they met. Had fourteen months really changed him that much? "I came here because of this," he said. Aubrey raised her head to find him walking towards her spot. She was confused at first, but then noticed that his eyes were on the stack of papers in front of her. She stood up and moved away, giving him space to pick some of the papers up, not even giving her a second glance.
She ignored the ache in her chest and made her way beside the two brothers, crossing her arms. "Oh, well, it's nice to know what matters," she muttered. Dean looked down at her questioningly, but she did not send him any sign of acknowledgement.
"It does help one to focus," Castiel replied, his eyes trained on the printed pictures and documents on the table.
"Wait, so—so, you and the halo patrol…" Sam trailed off. "You guys aren't the cause of these killings?"
"No." The angel shook his head. "But they were committed with one of our weapons. There's only one thing that could have brought this into existence." He looked up. "You call it the Staff of Moses."
Beside her, the brothers shared a confused glance. "The staff?" Aubrey asked. It did kind of make sense, though. The bible didn't really say where it went after Moses died, or maybe she just got bored and skipped a page; either one was possible, really.
"It was used in a dominance display against the Egyptians, as I recall." Castiel picked up the jar of locusts, rolling it over in his hands.
Dean scoffed. "Yeah, that one made the papers."
"But I thought the staff turned, like, a—a river into blood," Sam said. "Not one dude."
"The weapon isn't being used at full capacity." The angel raised his head. "I think we can rule Moses out as a suspect." Aubrey tilted her head. Did the guy even know that Moses was dead? She supposed he just thought that he'd somehow come back to life. They were hunters, after all.
Dean cleared his throat. "Okay, but what is… what is Chuck Heston's disco stick doing down here anyway? I mean, don't you guys put away your toys?"
Castiel frowned, walking around the table. "Before the apocalypse, heaven may have been corrupt, but it was stable. The Staff was safely contained. It's been chaos up there since the war ended." Aubrey stared at him, already having an idea on why he sounded so tired. "In the confusion, a number of powerful weapons were stolen."
"Wait," Dean started. "So… so you're saying your nukes are loose?"
"I'm afraid so." The angel sighed, turning around again and brandishing the jar in his hand. For a moment, Aubrey thought he'd drop it. He didn't. "But, you've stumbled onto one of them. We must find the weapon that did this." He raised his head. "I need your help."
Aubrey was all for it. She really was. She couldn't wait to get into another case with her supposed guardian angel. But, sadly, Sam was still pissed.
"That's rich," he scoffed. "Really."
That was when Castiel threw the jar to Sam. He caught it, thankfully, but the angel wasn't done. "Sam, Dean," he started. Aubrey wondered why he hadn't included her. "My 'people skills' are 'rusty." She bit back a smile at the quote-unquote gestures he was making with his fingers. "Pardon me, but I have spent the last 'year'—" Quote-unquote. "—as a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent. But believe me; you do not want that weapon down here. Help me find it." His voice dropped an octave, if that was even possible. "Or more people will die."
The siblings looked flustered. For a moment, they just stared at the angel, apparently surprised that he had snapped at them so early in the conversation. "Okay," Aubrey piped up from the back, clapping her hands once. "It's time to take a chill pill, guys." She glanced at Castiel, and he nodded once, not meeting her gaze.
"Well," Dean finally spoke up, making his way back to the table stacked with papers, his brother trailing behind him. "If the angels didn't pull the trigger, then that brings us back to motive."
Castiel frowned. "What?"
"Back to the case," Aubrey explained, offering a small smile. As soon as she did, the angel looked away. She rolled her eyes, but otherwise made no retort.
Sam set the jar of locusts on the table. "Right now, we got three dead cops," he said. "Only thing linking them is this." Dean handed him a newspaper article, one Aubrey had printed out.
She nodded in understanding, already having memorized the headline: "Father of slain suspect calls for investigation."
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