I'm either mad or on fire, but either way I'm a machine who has managed to post way too much in the last few days. It is totally unintentional and I can promise you that it won't continue, although with another Hellatus coming up there isn't going to be a whole lot else to do I suppose.
Lazarus Rising.
Screams surround him, they are in him, on him, his own, others, filling his mind with an endless and terrifying cacophony. In all of it there is light, there is the sound of a voice that is at once soothing and terrible and he wants and he needs and it is all out of reach, a memory or a dream or a desperate wish of an escape that he would never deserve.
The sounds fade, change, push back and away from an awareness that is changing, moving, developing into something other than the strange other sensation that a soul experiences, deep, cutting, pain and emotion like he never knew when he had flesh and blood. It is muffled and muted, changed by blackness and stale air and the burn of lungs that are being filled for the first time in existence and yet not the first. It is a paradox, painful, new and out of the reach of his understanding.
His hands are groping blindly, searching for that which he knows is there, for a source of light and of answers. He finds it, new fingers closing over metal that is cool against the fresh heat of his flesh, not yet warmed by the sudden return of life and his digits, unused to obeying commands and functioning, fumble before they finally manage to produce that flicker of flame that lights this dark and airless world. A coffin.
"Help," voice hoarse, disused, never used, broken and tearing a hoarse cough from his lungs as he calls for help again and again, hand pounding on the lid of his prison as his mind races with the panic brought from knowing that he is trapped underground as dirt trickles and then crashes down upon him.
It is moments but it is forever as he pushes and fights his way out of the ground, stiffling, suffocating, crushing and when he is free he falls onto the grass, breathes clean air that tastes of trees and ash and sunlight instead of decay. He basks in the warmth of the sun and lets it sooth his still troubled mind and when he is ready, he gets to his feet and looks around him.
Apparently a small bomb went off in the neighbourhood. All around him trees are flattened and he is being watched, can feel eyes heavy upon him and it makes the hackles on his neck rise. He needs to find civilisation, needs to find friends, needs to find Sam. He needs to find himself and remember who he is and he lets the heat of the sun and the light of the day burn the last lingering remains of screams and agony from his mind as he walks and he searches.
By the time he reaches the abandoned gas station he is more thirsty than he has ever been in his life, which is saying something given that he is not sure whether before Hell should qualify in that statement or not. If it does qualify then this is to be expected, if it does not on the other had then it is truthfully a little pathetic. He does not care and is shattering glass and making his way inside without thought or care so long as he finds food and water. A phone and a way to get to his family come somewhat after that.
The first thing he does is drain a bottle of water right off the bat, cool, soothing and so badly needed after a long walk. His eyes fall on the newspapers still in the window even though this place has obviously been abandoned for hours, maybe even days and he has to wonder why that is. Still, he needs to know how long he was down there, how long really because even though it felt like an eternity, was an eternity, he has to know if time down there moves in the same way as time up here does. Looking at the date, time downstairs apparently moves faster and he feels his world lurch sideways a little when he realises that all of those years, all of those decades only really added up to ten months.
Sam has been without him for ten months. The need to find his brother once again becomes all the more urgent. Dirt still clings to him, however, dirt mixed with the sweat and grime of a long walk and he just needs to freshen up a little before he does anything else. A quick exploration of the building reveals a grimy bathroom and sink and he takes a moment to wash his face, scrub wet hands through his hair to dislodge the worst of the mud that clings to him, the dirt of his own grave.
He shudders a little at the thought and then rubs a hand lightly over the tight black of his t-shirt, fingers probing and prodding as he remembers the sudden shock of the bullet striking his chest. Curiosity wins out and he lifts the soft fabric so that he can look, can see the smooth skin of his chest and not even the scars of bullet wounds and ancient jobs remain. The only real blemish is the tattoo that still stands black and stark over his heart. There was a flash of pain, however, on his arm and though he does not remember injuring it he rolls the sleeve that covers the left arm up.
He finds a hand print, raised, burnt, raw and angry looking, branding him for all to see and he sucks in a breath as he covers it, his gut twisting with nerves and dread and he cannot look at it anymore, cannot face the memories of light and safe and love that comes with it. He forces his focus away, forces himself to think about what he should be doing, to leave the room and grab a bag which he then fills with the essentials, water, candy, Bust Asian Beauties. Next is the cash register, old and easily opened, he fills his pockets with all the change that he can because he knows that he will need it until he can get a couple of new fake credit cards sorted.
He cannot be sure if it is an attack or not when the television buzzes or the radio turns itself on, part of him almost wants it to be an attack so that he can get answers, so that he can find out how he got out of Hell, what pulled him out of the pit. Painfully aware that it could be demons, Dean does all that he can to protect himself on the short notice that he has been given, which is why it comes as such a shock when a sound pitched to shatter glass fills his ears. It is only a minute, a long minute, and then the sound is gone, replaced by eery silence and Dean wants nothing more than to get out of there, now, before whatever it is comes back.
First he needs to use a phone.
He tries Sam first and is not surprised that the number he memorised eleven months ago has been disconnected. After that he goes to Bobby, because his home number never changes. He is hurt, if unsurprised, that Bobby does not believe that it is him, does not believe that he has been raised from Hell and that the old hunter would threaten him. He does the next best thing, he hot wires the first car he finds and he drives.
SPN
Hecate is hunting when Gabriel finds her this time, and she always did look good in a hunting tunic with a bow and her dogs at her side. He grins and then shakes his head at the thought. He has been a pagan for far too long and he lets the image slide from his mind as soon as it appears, he'll spend some quality time with his girls later. They are somewhere in Africa, Gabriel does not really care about the exact location, and Hecate is calmly skinning the carcass of a gazelle, dogs sat in a large circle around her watching and waiting for their reward.
"There was a time when this would have been done for me," she comments, turning the obsidian blade in her hand ever so slightly. "My children of modern times are so much more squeamish." Gabriel does not really have a response for that and she smirks over her shoulder at him. "What news?"
"Dean Winchester is saved," he mutters sardonically.
"And what condition is his soul in?" Hecate tosses a leg to her hounds, smiles at the way that they yip and wag their tails before falling on the fresh meat. Gabriel looks away, he is no stranger to blood, but it has always been in the heat of a battle, in the smiting of the unrighteous and he is aware that even the role of a trickster god was chosen for him so that he could do what he was created for.
"I haven't seen it, Castiel's barely left his side," which really does puzzle Gabriel, this devotion to the human that the seraph has developed for a second time. Hecate rolls her eyes at him. "You told me to be careful," he reminds her.
"I felt the seal break, it wasn't like that the first time." A haunch is removed with a few deft cuts and slices, this one thrown to a lion that waits in the tall grass.
"Things change," Gabriel shrugs, "this time you knew it was coming." He is trying to sound nonchalant about it but deep down he is worried, because he felt the seal break the first time, he felt it break this time, but the pagans, the pagans should not have known anything about it until the angels chose to share. Hecate was taken by surprise the first time, she found out because she came across Castiel and Uriel attempting to prevent the breaking of a seal, one that unleashed a very serious rival of hers. She had not been happy and she had vented that displeasure loudly and viciously.
"Not this sort of thing," she shakes her head. "Gabriel, if you've made me a bigger part of this," she stops, slashes at the carcass again and another slab of meat is fed to the surrounding carnivorous wildlife.
"I haven't," he promises, and this is about the most truthful he is ever going to be with her. Hecate is no more involved in this now than she was the first time. The one thing that Gabriel needs her to do is to help him ensure that things go their way and he cannot do that with a demon attached to one brother and an angel to the other. "I need you to keep an eye on Dean," he tells her.
"No more favours," she snaps, putting her fingers to her mouth and licking the blood away from them delicately. Gabriel shudders at that. "I am not going to put myself in that kind of position, Castiel still belongs to Zachariah." She thinks for a moment. "Although playing with him would be fun," she muses.
"I'm not going to argue with that," Gabriel responds because he is the only one who has actually managed it and he remembers that moment with some fondness.
"Makes a nice change," she mumbles. "You're fairly useless, you know," she tells him after a moments silence and a snap of her fingers as she cleans herself up, "I mean, what use is an archangel who owes me so many favours when he can't even spy on his own people?" Gabriel does not answer, just raises an eyebrow and glares. She rolls her eyes at him again. "Fine, lets see how good a job Castiel did on Dean Winchester's grubby little soul."
The former archangel is not sure if he is happy or concerned about her cooperation, only knows that he is worried about the emotions being evoked within him at all.
SPN
When it gets right down to it, Dean's reunion with Bobby does not go quite as well as he had hoped that it would. Then again, he has been dead for ten months, in reality he does not think he should have expected the old hunter to react in any other way. He does, however, relearn a valuable lesson. He relearns that it does not do to upset Bobby, for he has many sharp and pointy objects and few qualms about attempting to stick them into the people he believes deserve it. Up until the moment Dean was able to prove he was himself, the oldest Winchester son fell into that catagory.
It is a relief to know that is no longer the case.
His reunion with Sam goes, if possible, even worse. He had expected Bobby to be suspicious, to try and stick things in him even, but Sam? On one hand, he had thought that turning up with Bobby in tow would have been enough to convince his brother that this was the real him, the him that had died in a parking lot ten months ago and he is trying so hard not to think of that as a century in Hell because those memories need to stay locked quite safely where they are. On the other hand, and there is one of those in this argument, the only person he and Bobby can both think of who is obsessive enough to find a way to pull getting him out of the pit off, would be Sam, the man that Bobby is currently restraining as he tries to shove a silver knife in Dean's throat. In all honesty Dean is already getting tired of people trying to stick things in him.
Bobby manages to talk Sam down and the brothers stare at each other for a long moment before catching each other in a rough hug. Still, Dean cannot help but feel an apprehension in all of this and it is not helped by the presence of a fourth person in the room.
"So you really managed to get out," Ruby hisses and she has not even bothered to change her meat suit in the almost year since Dean saw her. She does not stick around, much to the hunter's relief, just grabs her jacket from the back of a chair and glares at Sam for a long moment. "Don't forget those demons are still in town," she reminds him a little spitefully. "I'll leave you to the family reunion."
"You still hanging out with her?" Dean demands as soon as Ruby is out the door and he is a little saddened by how quickly all of this is turning into a fight.
"It's not like that, Dean, I was passing through and Ruby came to warn me, that's all," Dean wants to believe him, wants to believe the earnest expression in Sam's eyesbut he cannot help that cold curling in his gut that tells him that something here is wrong, something is so far from right with Sam and he wishes he knew what it was.
"Alright, Sammy," he nods instead and lets the matter drop, sees Bobby eye him suspiciously but let the matter go and Dean does not want this to turn into a fight on his first day out of Hell, but he needs to get answers and Sam may be the only one to have them.
"How did you do it?" Sam asks. "How did you get out?"
"Like you didn't do this?" Dean snaps and Sam shakes his head.
"I tried everything, okay? I tried the Trickster, I tried the Devil's Gate. Hell, Dean I tried to bargain but no demon would deal, all right? You were rotting in Hell for months. For months, and I couldn't stop it. So I'm sorry it wasn't me, all right? Dean, I'm sorry," there is a moment of awkward silence.
"Don't get me wrong," Bobby says finally, "I'm gladdened that Sam's soul remains intact, but it does leave us with a sticky question."
"If Sam didn't pull me out, then what did?" Dean finishes for him.
SPN
Sam Winchester has seen a great many things in his life ranging from the usual, to the strange to the down right bizarre. He has seen horrors and evils that most people could never have imagined because he has spent his whole life hunting monsters, demons and things that go bump in the night. He had thought that there was nothing left in the supernatural world that could truly shock him. Turns out that he was wrong because even with all of the horrific things he has seen it is the very fact that it is something unseen that burnt out Pamela's eyes that scares him.
It is because of that incident that he wants information, he needs information, and he promises himself that the demons from the diner earlier in the day are going to be the ones to give it to him one way or the other. He would feel more comfortable about going in if Ruby were with him as back up, if he had not had to lie to Dean almost as soon as he got his brother back so that he could do this. Ruby is out of contact, however, and Dean is out of the question since he has no idea of the things that Sam is now capable of and no real capacity to understand them. Sam does not really want him to make that discovery either so he chooses to go it alone.
His conversation with the demon goes about as well as he expected it to, better if he were to count the fact that all but one have been killed and the eyes of their meat suits burnt out in a manner horrifyingly similar to Pamela. Something big this way comes and whatever it is, it is enough to frighten a demon. That in itself is cause for concern.
He sends her back to Hell and then spares a thought for the woman she possessed. It is almost a relief when he realises that she is dead.
"Getting pretty slick there, Sam. Better all the time," Ruby saunters out of the kitchen, her face showing that she is just as troubled by the demon's words as Sam is.
"What the hell is going on around here, Ruby?" He does not expect her to know, does not expect a helpful answer, but part of him is really hoping for it all the same.
"I wish I knew," she shrugs, making her way to a nearby table and stepping around the corpses like they somehow offend her. "I can tell you that it wasn't a demon though. Human souls don't just walk out of Hell and back into their bodies easy. The sky bleeds, the ground quakes. It's cosmic. No demon can swing that. Not Lilith, not anybody. I've never seen anything that could do this." He joins her.
"So what now?" He asks.
"I don't know. We wait and see what they throw at us I guess," and given that Ruby has apparently always had a plan up until this point, Sam is not entirely reassured by her words. "My main concern is Dean."
"Dean?" Ruby has never exactly been his brother's biggest fan, in fact Sam would not be at all surprised if she had cheered upon discovering that he had died, but he finds it a little worrying that his recently resurrected brother is at the fore of her mind.
"You going to tell him what we've been doing?" She presses and he understands.
"Yeah, I just gotta figure out the right way to say it," Ruby stares at him. "I just need time."
"He'll find out eventually and if it's from anyone but you, he's going to be pissed."
"I know, I'll tell him, but this psychic stuff... he'll be pissed anyway," he shrugs.
"We're not going to be able to do what we need to with him around, Sam," there is a weight to her words. "I know you just got him back, but maybe you should stay on your own path."
SPN
Castiel is well aware that he should not have revealed himself to the demons who taunted Dean Winchester. He is also well aware that the angelic involvement with the hunter is supposed to be kept as quiet as possible until the last moment. He deserves to be reprimanded but that does not mean that he would not do it again.
Part of it is down to simple frustration and confusion, both are emotions that he has never experienced before and that very fact is increasing the intensity of them. Dean is the Righteous Man, Castiel, himself, held him and returned him to light, life and glory, rebuilt him from dirt and bone. The man should be able to hear the angel's true voice, should be able to perceive his true visage. Instead the hunter cowered in confusion and fear and that had hurt in a way that Castiel had been shocked by. To a degree, attacking the demons had alleviated that.
The other part of it is also tied to the fact that Castiel remade Dean, because the angel feels that it almost makes the human his. It is a dangerous thought and one that he hopes no one in the Host manages to pick up on. One of the demons threatened Dean and destroying it became his sole focus in going into that diner. Once they were dealt with, however, he had another task, the chore of locating and taking his vessel.
Being confined in something so small is disconcerting, even though it is necessary so that he can move unfettered on this Earth and converse with Dean. The human needs to hear his orders, but the angel is reluctant to approach at this time, with the vessel so new and the memory of the psychic still fresh in the minds of all. When the hunter calls, however, he cannot stay away.
The air of the barn is thick with protective warding and sigils, and he thanks his Father that there is no Enochian wards among them, the two men inside armed to the teeth and all around him light bulbs are exploding and guns are being fired. At the expression in Dean's eyes, Castiel realises that the hunter does not remember him, does not remember the moment that stretched as an eternity even in the blink of an eye as he wrapped a broken soul in grace and returned it to the beauty of his Father's creation. He supposes that it is too much for the human mind to comprehend as he pulls the iron blade from his chest and turns to subdue Dean's companion, studying the older man for a moment until turning his attention away.
Even time spent entangled with this mortal soul, understanding Dean's scepticism because the man has seen nothing in his life to make him believe that such a thing as an angel exists, Castiel realises that he does not understand the man at all, cannot understand the man. Dean is a mass of waring contradictions, relieved to be saved, convinced that he does not deserve it. Wanting good things to happen but always waiting for the other shoe to drop. A humourous voice to cover a heart broken by years chasing evil, cynical and yet wanting to see the innocence and naivety of the world continue because no one should have to see the things that he has. Not even the shadow of Castiel's wings, a proof that it is exhausting for him to provide, can help to calm the confusion that the angel finds with.
"Why would an angel rescue me from Hell?" Dean demands and Castiel can admit that the man's cynicism is warranted in this case.
"Because God commanded it, because we have work for you," and somehow, Castiel cannot help but feel satisfied by the shocked awe that appears on Dean's face for just a moment.
Artemis