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Chapter Ten: Our Angels Are Different, Okay?

"Dammit. We'll need to call Cas," Dean cursed as he tried to help his hurt brother to his feet. Sam didn't cry out but the grimace of pain on his face said it all. The poison of the demon-turned-snake was eating through his flannel shirt, the skin below dissolving, bleeding and raw. It didn't seem to be stopping.

"Oh dear," the trapped angel said, for some reason seeming genuinely distressed, but not so much about the flames surrounding him. "Did Crowley spit at you? Really, Crowley," he addressed the snake admonishingly.

At this point it was all the demon could do not to reply with 'Well, they started it!', but his defensively coiled body language expressed it clearly enough.

Sighing, Aziraphale turned to the two humans again, the unhurt one having managed to get his taller companion onto his feet now. "Unfortunately, Crowley is rather venomous," he said in a tone that would have been more appropriate when explaining a bad habit a friend had at parties, "But if you put some holy water on it, the burning should stop. Or, if you let me out of this circle, I could heal it. Say, why are we trapped, incidentally?" he asked with a blink, unpreened wings flapping a bit uncertainly, like a dove that didn't quite know how it suddenly had come to be in a magic top hat.

Dean couldn't help but stare. The angel, and it had to be an angel, because there had been that customary angel-noise when he'd appeared and the holy water hadn't even fazed him, just like the holy fire was now trapping him – the angel was looking at them both completely clue- and guileless and that was just way too much Castiel that he had to shake his head to focus again.

"Why would you be helping us?" Dean asked, voice even rougher than usual and laced with suspicion.

"He'ss a bloody angel," Crowley piped up, snake eyes glaring. "Moreover, he'ss Azzziraphale. He would be helping you after you amputated one of his blesssed wingss," he grumbled. "Though maybe not after you sstole one of his bookss," he added after a moment of thinking.

"Really, dear boy, you are exxagerating," the blonde man said again, with an inflection that was a strange mixture between disapproval and fondness. To the brothers he added: "Though, honestly, if you could just release us, I could help your friend and I'm sure we could sort out this misunderstanding-

"Yeah, not a chance in hell," Dean cut him off. "Come on, Sammy," he said, suddenly sounding a lot more tender in those last words than when he had been addressing the angel and the demon that the contrast was jarring. He draped an arm of the taller one around his shoulders. "Let's call Cas, okay? He'll fix you up. We've finished here."

Dean was steering his brother through a door leading into a sort of corner office in the warehouse as he spoke, perhaps to offer them some privacy for tending to their wounds. Aziraphale watched them leave with some dismay, but Crowley noticed that his friend had seen the bottle of holy water that Dean had grabbed despite his words, and that seemed to cheer the angel up a bit.

xxx

"So now we're both trapped. Brilliant."

It was a little bit later, a few minutes after the two men calling themselves the Winchesters and apparently expecting everyone to know what that meant had disappeared and Crowley had reverted back to his human form. It was annoying to have no limbs. In the Garden he'd been happy to simply be on Earth, regardless of the body, but once Hell had commissioned him a human-shaped one, Crowley hardly had ever reverted back to the body of a snake if he could help it - he had a tendency to get kinks in his coils. At least his brief stint as his reptile-self had meant that he was no longer shackled, but, sadly, still imprisoned in the devil's trap, just as Aziraphale was confined to the ring of flames beside him. Crowley sat cross-legged, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands and was the very picture of moroseness.

"Did you get...burned? When they lit up the fire," Aziraphale asked, concern visible on every line on his face. Crowley gave him a tired smile.

"I'm a demon, angel. Flames stopped hurting me long ago."

Aziraphale seemed to exhale a little, before also settling down, his own wings once more disappeared now that there wasn't any immediate use for them. "How do they know all this, you think?" he asked, light blue eyes tracing the red lines surrounding Crowley, the angel's tone sounding just a tad bit unnecessarily impressed in the demon's opinion.

"They're hunters. Pretty sure of that now," Crowley said, not sounding very pleased with that conclusion.

"You keep mentioning that word. What exactly...?"

Crowley gave a wave. "Like the Witchfinder Army. Only American."

Aziraphale's eye brows rose. "These two boys are part of the Witchfinder Army?"

(Aziraphale had been too polite to say anything, but when he had met Sgt. Shadwell and poor, fumbling Newt the last time, he wasn't really sure they were actually equipped to deal with anything more supernatural than a garden gnome.)

"Well, like the Witchfinder Army armed with more firepower and more actual knowledge, I think," Crowley said. He made a dismissive gesture. "'s a new world thing. Has to be, of course. It's all those guns they have and their violent telly. Ever since they started butchering each other, it was only a matter of time until they'd shoot something else than a human by chance and since then it's been open season over there," he grumbled. "Bloody yanks."

"I think the loose gun laws and a lot of the television shows were actually your idea, if I remember correctly?" Aziraphale suggested innocently. Yellow eyes glowered at him.

"Bite me."

xxx

"Damn. You okay, Sam?" Dean asked, with that usual edge of fear and urgency in his voice whenever something had hurt his little brother, and if laughing hadn't been painful, Sam almost would have had to snort at this nonsencial question that they mostly asked each other when one of them was currently dying. Instead, he only tried not to wince too much as he hit the floor.

"Ggh...Dean, it's not stopping...!" Sam grunted, raising himself up on his elbows where he lay on his back, head thrown backwards in pain.

The older Winchester cursed under his breath, trying to gently tear away the half-destroyed fabric of Sam's shirt and undershirt, watching the almost sizzling skin underneath it, and tried not to feel sick. The poison wasn't stopping. It was eating into Sam like acid and Cas wasn't there and Bobby wasn't picking up the phone and he didn't have the faintest idea what to do.

"Should I...try the holy water?" he asked. Though truth be told, he'd rather try to lick the goddamn poison out of Sam's wound before he trusted an angel that wasn't Cas.

"Can't, ah, hurt, right?" Sam groaned. "I'm not hopped up on demon blood at the moment, at least," he tried a weak smile, but it came out a grimace. "Try it."

"...okay," Dean said, and with a last look at his kid brother, poured the whole bottle on his chest. It occurred to him that Sam getting drenched during this 'vacation' was an altogether too common experience.

Sam hissed as the water made contact with his skin. But Dean could see that the sizzling stopped almost instantly.

"Well I'll be damned. It's working, Sammy."

"Hhhh-" Sam sucked air through his teeth with a hiss, panting as the last drops of water ran down the sides of his ribcage. "That's...good. Still hurts," he winced, as he tried to sit up, "But I think it's better."

"Okay," Dean nodded, now a bit weirded out that the angel they had just trapped had apparently spoken the truth. And not even demanded something in return for that information.

"Right." he said. "Get some first aid stuff from the Impala for that cutie mark on your chest. I'll try to call Cas again. He told us where this warehouse is, now he can damn well show up himself, too."

xxx

"Well, at least they let you revert back to your preferred form," Aziraphale said, smiling at Crowley as if the Winchesters had also brought them cake and asked whether they'd like a foot massage instead of trapping them in some bloody warehouse doing Go...Sa...someone knew what. Crowley realized with rising dread that Aziraphale was trying to cheer him up. His tone basically was the verbal equivalent of a hearty clap on the shoulder.

"Probably just worried that I'd spit poison at them again otherwise," Crowley tried to grumble, but couldn't summon the right amount of malice. But still, the forced shapeshifting had left him with a suit whose jacket and shirt were now completely torn to shreds in the back, and the fact that in between two American part-time lumberjacks and Aziraphale, who thought tartan was the height of fashion, it was now him who was the shabbiest-dressed individual, stung.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find you earlier, my boy."

Crowley shrugged. "I've survived worse," he tried to keep his tone and expression casual, but somehow also couldn't prevent himself from feeling glad that Aziraphale was here. They exchanged glances over their respective boundaries and Crowley couldn't help but wonder whether he might have been the first demon that ever had a reason to smile while in a devil's trap.

"Do you know why they imprisoned us?" Aziraphale finally asked, breaking the silence.

"No idea," Crowley said, glancing over at the angel. "To be honest, I'm not even sure they know. It's very confusing. At first they thought I had attacked them, can you believe it? Talk about a victim complex. I don't think they know Hastur even exists," Crowley said, running a hand through his dark hair, before his tone grew a bit more sombre. "But...what they are saying is that they're interested in you, because to them it looks like you made a deal with me, as in, with a demon. They...want to call on somebody they say might be interested in an 'angelic traitor'."

Their gazes met. Demons never said I'm sorry, and yet there was a forgiving expression in Aziraphale's eyes anyway.

"...I, I, mean, where do they even get off?" Crowly piped up when the silence stretched too long, obviously trying to find his footing again on the familiar surface of simple complaining. "Trapping us, torturing me, having the gall to suggest I was stalking them -!"

"They seem...scared," Aziraphale suggested. "You know what humans are like when they get scared," he added quietly.

"Scared?! They wanted to pluck me like a blessed chicken!" Crowley scathed.

Aziraphale smiled mildly. "But they didn't hurt you with the angel blade, or the holy water until you attacked them. They weren't...needlessly cruel."

"...no," Crowley grumbled, crossing his arms and looking away, as if he wasn't even very happy about that concession.

"No," Aziraphale repeated, and then in a just slightly too cheerful tone added, "They would have likely found me less amenable to talking with them if they had tried it."

"Right." Crowley swallowed. It had been a while, but he had not forgotten the last time Aziraphale had once witnessed unnecessary cruelty...

"Did you look at their souls?" the angel asked.

"...not much," Crowley said reluctantly. "Like I said, I had a brief glimpse at the shorter one's, but there was...I think someone of your friends left a slightly overprotective mark on it. It hurt to look at it too long."

"Hmm," Aziraphale said. "I looked at them a bit, you know. They're both beautiful."

"Angel, you say that about every soul."

"That's because they are, dear boy," Aziraphale replied conversationally. "The older one is deeply protective of his younger brother," the angel mused, ignoring Crowley's 'yeah, thanks, noticed that', "and the younger one...well, there' a lot of hurt and suffering." Aziraphale said, sounding lightly unhappy.

Crowley only grunted. "Yeah, I should hope so."

"They have both been to hell, Crowley."

That made the demon blink. "Have they? I wondered..."

"That means that maybe we shouldn't judge them too harshly. I think they're trying to do good," the angel said. "I wish they wouldn't have rushed in like they did, but...well, you probably can't blame them for reacting the way they did to us. After all, we're not exactly the...most usual representatives of our species."

"Hmph," Crowley grunted, which was generally his choice of 'stop making sense, angel'-noise, and Azirphale left it at that and smiled.

Crowley finally looked away when the silence stretched too long and cleared his throat.

"...you think they're actually calling one of yours now, then? They'd have to be...praying for that, right? Are they?"

Azirphale tilted his head. His expression seemed to become a little farwaway, as Crowley knew he was trying to tune into the angelic overhead, the thousands and millions of prayers, wishes and pleas uttered every day and every night everywhere on the planet, trying to find just the prayer of the Winchesters...

Aziraphale frowned.

"Well?" Crowley asked again. "Are they?"

"Er," Aziraphale began, looking somewhat flustered. "I think they are, but what it mostly boils down to is repeated utterings of 'Dammit, Cas!', so I'm not sure that technically counts as pray-"

He stopped himself. And turned to Crowley with wide eyes.

"Wait...that couldn't possibly mean they're praying to...!"

xxx

"Okay, Cas, we've managed to catch the demon, and the angel you wanted, with no help from you, and now Alastair and another seriously powerful hell dude are on our asses and could come back any minute, so, if you're not gonna get your feathery bum down here right now-"

Sam looked on as his big brother was reciting the very special Winchester rosary, himself just having finished applying the bandages on the wound on his chest. Luckily, the poison had just missed the tattoo below his collarbone so at least he wouldn't have to worry about getting possessed if anything went awry after this. Dean seemed to be getting slightly ticked-off at this point, but it was just then that the already familiar noise that always sounded like a cross between the beat of large wings and the flapping of coat tails finally brought an end to their waiting.

"Dean," Castiel said in greeting. "Sam." Blue eyes seemed to focus on the younger Winchester's chest. "You're hurt."

"I'm fine," Sam waved him off, getting back to his feet. His skin burned, but by now he felt like he'd live. And it always let him feel a little better immediately when he could see his brother just simply relax when their angel entered any room. "How's the war going?"

"Difficult, but better," Castiel replied. "Where did you catch the traitor?"

"In there," Dean pointed at the door leading out into the warehouse and Castiel nodded, right before flicking a hand in the direction that let the door bang open, marking his entrance into the warehouse as he marched through with his trenchcoat flaring.

What Dean and Sam then couldn't see, was for the first time, a look of genuine surprise, and then of genuine fear in Castiel's face. What they could however hear, was first a simultaneous gasp of two people, then a moment of shocked silence, and then in the voice of the bookseller a very distinct:

"...Castiel? Young angel! WHAT on Earth is the meaning of this?!"

To be continued...

Hi there! Heh, another two weeks, another chapter - and also, just on the offchance that some of you *might* be fans of Doctor Who (I know, what are the odds, right?! ;p) I *just* so happened to upload a new crossover with the guy. If you were lacking in reading material, that is :p Hope you liked and if you read, please review! :D