So Not An Angel! by DeansBabyBird
Chapter 10 Freaking Arch-Angels!
Bobby heard the familiar growl of the Impala's engine and he closed the book on ancient Aztec deities he was reading, rising stiffly to go greet his guests. The Winchester boys were always welcome at his outwardly unprepossessing, but highly fortified home, and his grizzled old face broke into a smile as he opened the porch door to see Sam uncoiling his lanky body from the driver's seat. Had he not known already from Sam's brief call, that as usual, they were in trouble, he would have been able to determine it from the fact that Sam was driving the old Chevy. It required something akin to near death to prevent Dean from taking the wheel and Bobby's anxiety hiked another notch when he realised that Sam was hastening to the passenger side and that Dean hadn't even managed to open the door. Damn, if the boy mustn't have gone and gotten himself smashed up worse than usual! He hurried down the steps to Sam's side as the younger hunter carefully eased open the door.
Bobby's first impression of the elder Winchester was that he had seen healthier looking individuals in the average morgue freezer drawer and he looked briefly at Sam seeing all his own anxieties mirrored in his wide brown hazel eyes.
"Well, Dean, you look like a whole truck load of crap."
Dean's pale face almost cracked a smile, but he knew he had only about enough energy left for one activity currently and if he was gonna talk, smiling was a luxury he couldn't afford.
"Good...see...ya too."
Dean's words were slurred and the effort of speaking made his head ache so he closed his eyes.
"We need to get him inside."
Bobby's soft voice held a serious edge and Sam nodded as he bent towards his trembling brother.
"Lemme help you, Sam."
The soft voice from the rear of the car was totally unexpected and Bobby started a little as the rear door of the Impala opened and Uriel emerged, only to wobble a little as his fragile leg threatened to give way. He threw his hand out catching the top of the car for stability as his startlingly pale eyes swept over his surroundings.
Sam smiled quickly at the angel and then glanced to Bobby, realising he hadn't even mentioned that they were bringing Uriel with them, let alone who he was.
"Bobby..."
Sam faltered, it was all so complex to explain and all he really wanted was to get Dean settled somewhere where he looked less like he was the principal attraction at his own funeral. He shook his head and sighed, tipping his head from the bemused looking old hunter to the angel.
"Meet Uriel. I explain it all later but can we just get Dean..."
Bobby held up his hand and reached into the rear of the car snatching up the angel's cane that he had noticed, and thrusting it into Uri's hand, he spoke urgently.
"You go open the door, son. Sam and I'll give Dean a hand up."
His tone brooked no argument and Uriel nodded once before limping as fast as he could for the porch steps.
"So how you wanna do this, Sam? Where's he hurting worse?"
Bobby was scratching his temple, his filthy baseball cap bobbing, as he looked at Dean's slumped form. Sam smiled, absolutely grateful for Bobby's pragmatic no-nonsense approach.
"It's his left shoulder and his ribs principally, Bobby."
Sam was in close to the open door of the car as he spoke, and he crouched so he was level with his drowsy brother.
"I'll ease him up, and then if he can stand well take one side each and walk him in slow?"
He looked up into Bobby's dark blue eyes, noting a healthy scepticism about the standing and walking bit of his plan.
"Okay, Sam."
Sam smiled, relived to have a plan in place and he turned his attention fully to Dean, gearing up for the undoubtedly painful implementation of the scheme.
"Dean?"
Sam placed his hand on his brother's forearm where it lay tightly pressed to his ribs and he was rewarded with a gasp of pain as Dean's green eyes shot open. Sam could see it took a moment for Dean to focus his gaze and he waited, his hand gently contacting his brother's cold skin, whilst he was sure Dean knew where he was.
"Gotta get ya out of the car now."
Dean nodded, and Sam watched him struggle to muster all the strength he has remaining for the coming ordeal.
"Might need...some help, Sammy."
Dean smiled weakly and Sam felt his chest tighten in response to his brother's rarely voice admission that he needed anyone.
"No sweat, Dean. Look this'll be easier if you let me lead, Okay?"
Sam paused, expecting the usual protestations of independence but none came.
"Sure, Sam, just tell me what to do."
Bobby listened to the soft exchange between these men that he had know virtually all their lives and felt the lump in his throat swell to the size of a pumpkin. He knew how much it took for Dean, the eternal protector, to admit his weakness and he felt privileged to be allowed in on their intimate conversation.
"Don't do anything, bro. Just try and relax as much as ya can and I'll ease you out of there."
As he was speaking Sam braced his knee on the door sill and reached into the passenger side of the old car. He leaned in towards Dean and gently eased him forward so that he could get his long arms around his waist.
Dean felt the world spin as Sam slowly moved him into position and he gritted his teeth against the pain he knew was, for a few minutes, going to get worse. He let his head roll forward until it fell against Sam's prominent collar bone and closed his eyes as nausea threatened to have him hurl.
Not in the Impala, Dean Winchester! Hold it at least until you're out of the car.
Sam felt Dean's head thump against his shoulder, the prickly spikes of his dirty blond hair brushing against the underside of his chin. He could feel the race of his brother's heart as he pressed him to his own chest and he noted how fast Dean's pumped in comparison to his own.
"How you doing, Dean?"
Sam spoke to the top of his brother's bowed head and he was surprised when he heard a mildly pissed response.
"Quit stalling, Sam! Let's move. Don't want ...get caught...with ya feeling ...up...merchandise."
Sam laughed, marvelling that in spite of the circumstance his brother would try and make a joke to ease his concerns.
"Okay, on three, Dean."
Sam looked up at Bobby who stood ready to catch them both as he spoke.
"Watch his head as I stand up?"
The older hunter nodded his hand hovering to defend Dean from the hard metal of the door frame.
"One...two...three."
Sam tightened the strong muscles in his thighs and, clutching Dean firmly to his chest, began the struggle to extricate his brother from the car.
Dean was smaller than his giant of a brother but he was solid with muscle and lifting him as a dead weight; from an awkward hunched over position, was a feat that made even Sam sweat strong as he was. However, Sam knew that though it might pull on the odd muscle here and there for him, it was nothing compared to the pain it was causing Dean. He pushed the thought away, knowing that it had to be done, and tightened his grip on his brother's torso.
Pulses of fire snagged at every pain receptor Dean possessed and he bit back a cry, trying his best to hold it in knowing that his distress would make the job even harder for Sam. He curled his hand into Sam's jacket, hanging on desperately as the world bucked and span before his wavering vision, telling himself that it'd all be over momentarily.
Bobby rested his hand against the top of Dean's head as Sam swivelled his brother's sore upper body gently out of the car, and stood to his full height. However Dean's legs seemed to have forgotten the drill and Sam could feel his brother's legs buckling as he hung in Sam's tight embrace.
"Dean..."
Sam breathless voice whispered over Dean's hair, cutting through the white fire of pain in his compressed ribs and he started in Sam's arms.
"Try and stand up there, bro."
Dean opened his eyes, his head rolling back, and Sam looked into vast lakes of turbulent green.
"Not sure he's hearing ya, Sam."
Bobby voice betrayed his growing concerns as he crouched down and pulled Dean's feet by his jeans so they were centred under his sagging body and Sam was relieved to feel Dean take some of his weight himself. Bobby rose just in time to hear Dean mumble.
"God, does everyone wanna cop a feel?"
As they stood, Dean's blood pressure stabilised a little and the utter dizziness and crippling nausea settled to merely an undercurrent of imminent projectile vomiting, which was a minor but blessed improvement and Dean was able to look around slightly more alert. He looked at Bobby and smiled drunkenly.
"Nice night, Bobby, but I could murder a cup of that slop you call coffee. Shall we go in?"
Bobby's eyes narrowed dangerously and stepping aside he gestured with his sweeping arm in the general vicinity of his kitchen.
"Already bubbling in the pot for ya, boy!"
Dean tugged on the back on Sam's jacket, and indicating their chest to chest position said.
"Sam, we gonna tango in?"
Sam snickered and carefully turned his brother in his grip until he had Dean's good right arm across his own shoulders and a firm grip of Dean's belt in his left.
"Ready?"
Sam looked at Dean and watched his brother mask his obvious pain and lift his heavy head.
"Just waiting on the starting pistol, Sammy."
Sam shook his head; and taking as much of Dean's as he could started for the porch steps, Bobby bringing up the rear. The level ground was an ordeal in itself as each step that Dean made jarred on screaming nerves and grated at angelic partial reconstructions, but Dean sucked it up and pretended he was actually being some help to their forward motion. However, as he and Sam reached the base of the 6 steps to the porch door, Dean knew the time to fess up had arrived.
"S...Sam..."
Sam stopped short as he was raising his foot to the first step and looked at his sibling. He could see absolute exhaustion on a face so pale that even Dean's lips looked white.
"Can't..."
The word was a whisper and Dean felt Bobby at his side instantly.
"Put your other arm round my shoulders, Dean."
The older man looked expectantly at the failing Winchester but Dean didn't have enough breath to respond and Sam was left to explain.
"He can't, Bobby. We only just got that shoulder re-located and he can't lift it."
Bobby nodded, lifting aside Dean's jacket and seeing that his arm was strapped into his body.
"Huh!"
Bobby huffed, starting to get the measure of how beat up Dean really was.
"OK, then. Sam, Winchester wedgie it is."
Sam laughed and took stronger hold of the waistband of Dean's jeans as Bobby snaked his arm around Dean's waist from the opposite side similarly grasping Dean's waistband and between them they, as gently as possible, toted Dean by his pants up the steps and into the house.
SNSNSN
Uriel opened the door; as the determined but puffing trio of hunters crested the steps and approached the house, and he could tell that this was a scenario that had been played out before perhaps on numerous occasions. He marvelled at the casual ease by which each man played his part and he realised that all three were doing there damndest to minimise both the physical pain of the one of them injured and the mental anguish of all. It was an interesting interplay, the man injured bearing at least as much responsibility for downplaying his pain, as the others took to ignore his temporary weakness. The angel smiled thinking what a field day someone could have on the psychology of this complex relationship - Raphe would love it, and was only and was jarred back to reality of the situation when Bobby called his name. He let go the porch door and hobbled quickly behind them as Bobby called his name again.
"What?"
Bobby stared into Uriel's white eyes and felt something akin to a shudder of excitement run through him. The name was right and the eye colour and the boys had brought worse to his doorstep before now but still, no, couldn't be! He shook his head and focussed on the task in hand.
"Uriel, clear the stuff off that chair."
The older hunter tipped his head toward the office chair parked at the dining table with its mismatched companions. Like the table it was mounded with books, documents and the various paraphernalia of supernatural hunting and Uri parked his cane and hurriedly cleared the chair as Bobby and Sam all but carried Dean the last few steps.
Dean hung in Sam and Bobby's embrace and he knew that if either one of them were to let go of him at this moment he would crumple to the floor like a filleted chicken. He started to laugh at the image but quickly rethought the action as his wheezing breath threatened to turn to coughing and he could imagine how painful a single cough was likely to be. Thus he was immensely grateful when they lowered him gently into the old office chair and he was able to contemplate again a world that might one day stop spinning nauseatingly on its axis.
Bobby watched then as Sam, breathless as he was quickly cleared a second chair and indicated the limping angel to the chair before collapsing himself on a thick stack of ancient grimoires that bellied up to the table. Bobby reached for the coffee pot and poured the dark steaming nectar into thick mugs that he placed down before each man, pausing only to pass cream and sugar to Sam before he finally joined then.
Dean was immensely happy that his chair was the one with arms as it allowed him to slump casually against the handy restraints and thus prevent what he was sure would be an inelegant and inappropriate slide to the floor. That said though the floor, in the immediate absence of a soft fluffy bed, was beginning to look awfully appealing. He lifted his head and noted that sometime during the last few minutes whilst he was working on the complex multitasking that was involved in not throwing up and not shouting a Tourette's like barrage of pain related expletives, someone had landed a mug of restorative java before him. He inhaled the wonderful aroma of fresh coffee and reassured that it might just stay in his belly rather than reappear as wall decoration, stretched his hand toward the mug.
"So..."
Bobby looked from Dean's unfocussed green eyes to Sam's hazel-brown, stopping briefly at disturbingly bright white as he passed.
"I know you boys have to be in a shitload of trouble but you wanna give me a heads up on whether we are expecting any bad guys at the door immediately?"
Sam heaped sugar into Bobby's trademark bitter brew and chased that down with a half a cow of cream, ignoring Bobby's look of disgust and smiling as Uriel copied his move adding the other half cow to his own mug. He took a swig of the sweet and creamy ruination of the heavenly brew and enjoyed the warm slide if it down into his belly, before answering.
"No, Bobby, hopefully nothing following us for now, but we have a whole new set of questions that need some answers and we are gonna need your help for that."
Bobby nodded, watching how hard Dean's hand trembled as he raised the mug to his ghost pale lips.
"Okay, that can all be done in the fullness of time."
Bobby's voice was deliberately calm and neutral as he held Sam's gaze. There was a new lifetime of pain and worry painted on the deep brown landscape there and Bobby knew better than to push when practice had told him that patience won great victories with the Winchester boys. He would however have a more immediate answer for one question and Bobby turned his head slowly towards the stranger at his table, making sure Sam's eyes went with him. Sam took the queue and spoke apologetically.
"Oh, yeah."
Sam lowered his mug and looked for Bobby to Uriel and back again.
"Bobby, this is Uriel. He's...um...travelling with us for a while. We sort of teamed up with him and his brothers and...well...urm...they had to go sort something out and because Uri's knee is a bit of a problem at the moment he opted to stay with us."
Sam glanced quickly at the angel and saw an ironic smirk plastered all over the angular planes of his face, and Sam felt a warm pink flush creeping up his throat as Bobby looked straight through his stuttered story.
"Really, Sam."
Bobby's answer dripped with barely disguised disbelief, and Sam was surprised as Dean suddenly laughed loudly as he shakily placed his half emptied mug on the table.
"You wanna add something there, Dean?"
Dean nodded, nodding at his mug indicating he'd like a top up and Bobby leaned for the pot, pouring as the sleepy hunter began to speak.
"So, Bobby. I got abducted by a daemon. A bitch of a daemon called Mikey..."
Uriel looked up from his mug, a small cream moustache decorating his upper lip, and interrupted.
"Belial, actually."
Dean nodded to him; waving his hand weakly at his own lip a look of slight disgust on his face, and he continued, as Uriel absently wiped away the froth decoration.
"That's right, Belial and he and I spent a few, for me not so delightful days together."
He paused again, and Bobby looked straight through Dean's defensive snark to see vast plains of new terrors laid out behind his wide emerald eyes.
"Uriel and his brothers helped Sam and Jo to rescue me..."
Bobby held up his hand at that point, pausing Dean, his eyes on Uriel.
"Lemme guess... Your brothers would possibly be...Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Metatron?"
Uriel smiled at the names of some of his archangel brothers.
"Close but it was Raguel and Raphael actually."
Bobby couldn't help his old eyes widening slightly in disbelief.
"So you're telling me that three archangels..."
Dean butted in.
"Well four technically if you count Michael but then he was possessed by Belial and was beating the crap outta me as Mikey, so I guess you wouldn't count him into the saving me bit."
Dean looked at Sam for confirmation and the younger hunter nodded, pursing his lips thoughtfully, as he nursed his coffee mug.
"But Michael did help with the binding..."
Uriel was in midsentence when Bobby spluttered his interruption.
"There was a binding? You bound Belial? An actual binding of a major daemon?"
Uriel nodded, smiling at the older man's excitement, as he continued.
"Well yeah, although if Dean hadn't added his power into the binding it would have failed and..."
"Whoa! Stop right there, boy."
Bobby was on his feet his cap off in his hand as his other hand raked through his straggly hair.
"So you are saying that you are, in fact, an honest to God, freaking archangel?"
Bobby turned and looked directly into Uriel's strange, ethereal eyes and knew the answer even before the being answered.
"Yes, Bobby Singer. I am Uriel, Angel of the Light and keeper of my Lord's mysteries and freaking archangel at your service!"
The angel smiled as he spoke and Bobby felt himself suddenly rather light headed. He had hunted evil for longer than he cared to remember and he knew, with certainty, that things most people held as fiction were in fact grim reality, but in all that time he had never dare let himself believe that pure good existed to counterpoint it. It was a shock to say the least to suddenly find an angel at his kitchen table.
Uriel laughed then, used to the reaction in others who had learned the truth about him but somehow not anticipating it from this cynical old hunter.
"Have I shocked you, Bobby?"
Bobby stared clinging to the stubborn remnants of disbelief and looked over the angel's head first to Sam, who nodded, absolute belief in his hazel eyes, and Bobby felt his heart leap. Finally he looked to Dean who he knew would be the hardest man on Earth to convince of the actual existence of angels, and he saw belief there too and it was so humbling and frankly terrifying that Bobby felt himself wobbling.
Sam was on his feet in an instant and pushed the older man who was a second father to him down onto his chair.
"Look why don't we continue the explanations later when we have all had a chance to let this sink in a bit?"
Sam received nods of varying degrees of certainty and he glanced at the angel searching for a clue for an exit line. Uriel laughed and climbed to his feet.
"So who's hungry?"
Sam nodded realising that, in fact he was starving.
"How 'bout you, Dean? Hungry?"
All eyes turned towards Dean and he pulled himself a bit further upright trying to look less like a broken marionette. He thought about it for a moment and realised that it was days really since he had eaten and so far his coffee had stayed down.
"Yeah, I think I am hungry."
Bobby was on his feet instantly and Dean watched as hunters and a freaking archangel went about making his favourite Macaroni and cheese.
Chapter ends