A/U - Sorry for the delay in posting. I had a major health problem the last couple weeks that is only slowly getting resolved (a super painful, pretty much crippling, migraine that began on July 30 and has still not stopped). After a ton of doctor visits and MRIs and other stuff, I'm on a pile of prescription pain meds now and am a lot more functional, but I have had to limit my laptop time a lot because looking down at a laptop seems to make it worse. (something something compressed occipital nerves blah blah) I do have a couple more chapters ready though.
And now... back to Sam and Dean. Who, last we saw, were running through a forest in the dark.
The drumming seemed thunderous, echoing all around them in the night. Sam and Dean sped through the forest, brushing past bushes, dodging low branches, racing past the enormous trees. The tree trunks seemed impossibly huge, some ten feet wide and wider. They sped through streams and rivers and past thick underbrush. Isolated sights and sounds leapt into sharp relief here and there: A paw print in the river mud. A big muscular yellow cat, slinking away. A low rumbling sound, almost blending in with the drumming, but the rumble was coming from a great dark thing meters tall that was just ahead. Elephant, Dean thought, that's an elephant. He got a clearer view as he sprinted up to its side. It turned its massive head and watched him.
It was shaggy.
No, that was a mammoth, actually, he realized, but he and Sam were already past it and the most important thing was to keep running. The drums commanded him to run, so Dean ran. Till his lungs were bursting, his heart was pounding.
Till at last he thought, Why am I running?
"Sam, why are we running?" he gasped to Sam. "Let's stop." They both straggled to a halt. Sam turned to look at him, panting.
"Did you see the saber-tooth cat?" gasped Sam.
"No, I just saw the mammoth," said Dean, leaning over to catch his breath.
"Mastodon," said Sam, between pants of breath. "That was a mastodon."
"You are..." said Dean, still gasping, "such a nerd. I really can't believe you sometimes."
"Why the hell were we running?" asked Sam.
Because I was riding you, said a voice. Because I wanted you to run, and you did. Because you are my beasts of burden.
Dean snapped his eyes open and discovered he was actually still sitting on the white plastic chair. He'd been on the white plastic chair the whole time.
Although... he was also, somehow, in the dark tangled forest. Sam and Dean were sitting side-by-side on the two white plastic chairs, but the chairs were now in the middle of an empty, starlit grassy clearing, millions of stars bright as diamonds overhead. The massive trees swayed around them, rustling in a warm wind.
Look at me, said the voice.
A man with jet black skin appeared in front of them, about ten paces away.
He was formidably muscled, his skin gleaming faintly in the starlight. He wore what looked like a very long loincloth, a stiff rectangular black panel that hung down to his knees, edged in red and decorated with complex patterns of blood-red beads. It was knotted around his waist with a blood-red sash.
In one hand he held a hooked wooden stick.
The wooden stick drew Dean's eye; there seemed to be something amazing about it, something powerful and menacing. It seemed difficult to judge its size, or even to see it clearly. It's older than the First Blade, Dean knew at once. He'd held the First Blade, of course; he'd experienced its pull, its eerie aura of power and antiquity. But one look at the hooked wooden stick and Dean knew, with absolute certainty, That's even older.
You bother me, the man said. The upper half of the man's face seemed all in shadow — Dean could not read his expression at all — but it became clear that he was not moving his mouth as he spoke. Rather, the voice seemed to be materializing inside Dean's head.
Why are you bothering me? the man said. You are not mine. You are nothing of mine.
"Elegua?" Dean managed to say. He added, "Sir?" It seemed worth a try.
Who are you to speak my name?
Sam cleared his throat and said, his voice remarkably steady, "We, um, humbly request your assistance. Um, we're seeking a friend of ours. He's an angel—"
An aaan-gelllll, hissed Elegua. One of the lesser beings. They live in boxes. They squeeze down into human form; they make themselves smaller than they are. They follow lists of orders... they shackle themselves to the commands of one long gone. They are merely slaves! There was only one of them that was ever worth anything to me, and one of his own brethren killed him! What do I care of angels?
"This one might be able to help," said Dean. "Creation's being eaten up. You must have noticed. The black things, the big spheres? They're destroying everything —"
Elegua raised his hooked stick. It was a sharp gesture, an unmistakable threat, and Dean fell silent.
It was YOU that did this, Elegua said. You and your brother both. We do know that much. It was you who have defiled Creation and splintered all my lovely roads between the realms. It was I who knit the realms together, I who built the roads, and YOU, YOU are the one who ruined it all. And you dare to ask MY help?
He raised the hooked wooden stick again, and the trees seemed to draw apart. At once Dean realized his sense of perspective had been entirely wrong. Elegua was not a man-sized being standing ten paces away, no, not at all; he was something much vaster, infinitely huge, a creature the size of mountains. He was a thousand miles tall, and the hooked wooden stick was a scythe a thousand miles long, a scythe far older than that of Death himself, and it was swinging toward him—
Wait, brother, said another voice. It was not truly their fault. The lock was due to fail; they were only pawns. Let me look at them.
All at once Elegua was back to normal size: a man dressed in red-and-black, holding a wooden stick, in a dark forest. He lowered his hooked wooden stick and stepped back.
Dean tried not to gasp in relief too obviously, but he did draw a somewhat unsteady breath. He had to consciously try to relax his hands — somehow they'd clenched up into fists.
"Dean," hissed Sam. Dean risked a brief glance over at him and Sam gave a quick nod to the side. Dean peered past him, into the dark, and now he saw what Sam must have already noticed: There was a whole crowd of dark forms shifting around in the trees. It was impossible to make out any clear sense of shape; it seemed just shadows upon shadows, slinking over each other in the dark. But here and there there was a pair of eyes gleaming. And, faintly, there were sounds, too, blending into the soft sounds of the forest: a susurration of a river, a rush of an ocean wave. A clink of metal... a swish of straw.
"I think it's the other orishas," Dean whispered. Sam mouthed the words "No shit."
Then right before Dean's eyes a man materialized from the murky darkness just beyond Sam. Patches of light, dark and color seemed to fly together and... there he was, a person, stepping forward. This man also had dark skin, and had the leanly muscled look of a runner. He wore a short blue-and-yellow robe that was swathed around him, tied at the shoulders and waist like some sort of short, tunic-length toga. In one hand he held both a bow and an arrow; the other hand held something that looked like a floppy clump of straw.
The bow and arrow both seemed to have that same strange aura of Elegua's hooked wooden stick: something tremendous, something ancient. Even the floppy clump of straw somehow seemed menacing.
"Let me guess," said Dean, trying to keep his voice from wavering. "That's the First Bow?"
Yes, said the man.
"And the First Arrow, huh?" said Dean, tacking on a weak laugh. "And the First Clump of Straw?"
It is the tail of a bull.
This brought on a probably-unwise giggle. "Oh, right," said Dean, trying to bite back the laughter. "The First Tail? Of the First Bull?"
Yes.
"And what's it for?" Dean rambled on, unable to stop talking. "Spreads the bullshit?"
Sam elbowed him hard in the ribs, whispering, "Dean—"
It is a totem of the first animal I stalked and killed. The first animal to know man as a thing to be feared, the first to know man as a predator. The man made a small motion with the bull's-tail, swishing it in a little circle pointing at Dean, and at once Dean was shaking in terror. He knew he was going to die. He was going to die NOW, horribly, RIGHT NOW, he had to RUN—
The man strode up to Dean, and took a step closer, and a step closer. Dean was nearly in full-blown panic now, his whole body shaking, barely able to fight down a violently strong urge to leap from the chair and race away at full speed. His legs were actually twitching with the desire to run. He clamped onto his thighs with both hands and managed to stay seated.
Good, said the man. Very good. He was looming over Dean now, looking down at him from just a few inches away. You do not scare easily.
"The bull's tail spreads fear, Dean," hissed Sam. Oh, right. Sam had been reading that orisha book.
Yes, said the man. Fear.
The man was walking in a little half-circle around Dean's side now, inspecting him from all angles. The blue-and-yellow toga seemed dazzling from this close. It nearly brushed against Dean's shoulder. The bull's-tail brushed his other shoulder, very lightly, and Dean could not restrain a reflexive shiver that ran through his whole body.
"And here I thought Cas had personal-space issues," Dean managed to croak out. The man didn't even bother responding, but finished his inspection of Dean and moved to Sam. Dean saw Sam flinch, too, under the man's strangely unnerving gaze, though at least Sam didn't get brushed by that bizarrely terrifying bull's-tail.
Finally the man took a step away from them, and regarded them both in turn. He lowered the bull's-tail, and the sense of fear receded at once.
You are mine, said the man. You are both mine. I claim you both.
"Well... we're sorta our own, actually," said Dean, still breathing a little unevenly. He was finding that the reality of being "claimed" by one of these terrifying ancient beings was much more disturbing than he had been picturing. "We're not really up for claim."
To his surprise, the man grinned at this. You are definitely my child, he said to Dean. You are wholeheartedly mine. Glancing over at Sam, he added, Your brother, though... he could have taken another path. But I will accept him too.
Then he said, to Sam, You have something of the scholar in you. You have figured out my name. And my domain. What is my name?
"Oshossi," said Sam. The name burst out of him as if he'd been waiting for permission to say it. "You're Oshossi, aren't you? I read about you. The blue-and-yellow. The bow and arrow, and the bull's tail. You're the orisha of the hunt."
The hunt, yes, and what else?
Sam hesitated, and ventured, "And... hunters?"
The man inclined his head in a silent nod.
I was the first hunter, said Oshossi, almost casually. You, both of you, are my natural children. And so I will help you.
Sam hissed to Dean, in a rather theatrical stage whisper, "Dean, Oshossi can find things. He's good at tracking."
Yes... said Oshossi. You seek something you have lost. You are brave, both of you, and you are hunters, both of you, and you are mine; and you seek something you have lost. Maybe I can help.
Dean felt a spark of hope, and, glancing over at Sam, he saw something hopeful in Sam's eyes as well. Apparently they'd passed Oshossi's little test with the bull's-tail. Maybe this was all going to work out.
Dean cleared his throat and began, "Um. Yes. We're looking for a friend of ours. He—"
And Dean remembered something.
He had the feather.
It was a risk. It was a terrific risk. Dean felt tremendously protective about the feather. But... hadn't the book said something about... the feather could be presented to the "elder races?" To confirm the feather-owner's identity?
"Can you... can you track an angel from... from one of his feathers?" said Dean. He heard Sam give a hiss of surprise by his side, but Dean had already extracted the feather from his pocket. He unwrapped the handkerchief and held it up, careful to keep a solid hold on it, and said, "This was his. He was an angel, and— "
The feather was instantly gone from Dean's hand. Dean had only been planning to show it, not to hand it over, but Oshossi was holding it now. The feather seemed to have simply teleported over to him. Oshossi was holding it in the same hand that held the First Bull's Tail, and he was inspecting it closely.
"I can't lose that," said Dean, his throat tight. "Just, uh, by the way, I need it back." A stray bit of text from the angel book drifted through his mind: I would have liked to have been your companion, but such was not our fate. "I, uh, I definitely need that back—"
Cassiel, said Oshossi, holding the feather up. It glittered in the starlight. This belongs to Cassiel.
"Uh..." Dean said. "His name's Castiel, actually—"
Cassiel was his older name, said Oshossi. The archangel Cassiel. He was renamed. What do you wish to know of Cassiel?
"Castiel," corrected Dean again, quite confused now. "His name's Castiel. And he's not an archangel."
Oshossi shrugged. Not anymore. He once was one of the seven archangels.
Sam said, slowly, "There were... four archangels."
There were once seven. He does not remember. But we do.
Dean and Sam looked at each other, wide-eyed.
Seven archangels?
Cas? An archangel?
"That can't be... right..." said Dean, but even as he was thinking it through, Sam muttered, at Dean's side, "What Hannah said." Dean glanced at him and Sam whispered, "He's always been different."
Sam's words seemed to echo in Dean's head.
Cas had always been different.
Sam was right.
Sam whispered, "Balthazar used to call him 'Cassie,' remember? Gabriel too."
And, oddly the only thought that came to mind about that was that Dean had once been pretty serious about a girl named Cassie. Pretty damn in love, to put it bluntly. Guess I got a weakness for Cassies, thought Dean, and with that thought he had confused himself so thoroughly that he could not seem to think at all.
While Dean floundered for a response, Sam spoke up. "We... uh... we need to find the, um, the angel that feather belongs to. The angel we know as Castiel. He might be able to help us figure out how to deal with the Darkness. Something about the Crown of Heaven? Do you know what that is? Or where it is?"
The Crown is destruction, said Oshossi.
"Yes, but if we just knew where it—"
The Crown tears apart, said Oshossi. He started to turn aside. We cannot visit the Crown. The Crown tears apart. The tapestry unravels. The knot is undone. The Crown is destruction.
"Yeah, okay," said Dean. "Destruction, got it." He took a breath. "Look, if you could just help us find where Cas is, uh, our friend, the owner of the feather there, that would be a huge help. So, like... is there any way you can tell us if he's in Heaven or Hell or in Purgatory, or the Veil? I mean, where he is exactly?"
At that Elegua spoke, a hissing susurration of a voice in the background. Oshossi turned to him with a calming gesture, and then looked back at Sam and Dean
Elegua asks, you wish us to search within four different realms? Oshossi was frowning. It seemed this wasn't a usual request.
"And Oz and fairyland?" added Dean hastily. "All those other weird places?"
The lesser realms as well?
"Yeah, the... lesser realms, if that's what they're called," said Dean, nodding. "Uh... Please? Sir? Sirs?"
"We'd be very grateful," said Sam. "Sirs."
Oshossi turned to look at Elegua. This time they seemed to confer silently, in some sort of orisha-telepathy that seemed to involve stalking around each other and occasionally raising the hooked wooden stick and the First Bull's Tail.
After a long bout of mutual staring-and-gesturing, Elegua at last nodded, and Oshossi turned back to Sam and Dean.
Elegua grants your request, said Oshossi. To Dean's great relief, the feather abruptly appeared back on Dean's lap. Dean scooped it up instantly, clutching it close to his heart.
Oshossi added, My brother Elegua is not generally fond of the angels. But we do remember Cassiel. He is elder than some of us, and he was gentle with us when we were new. Ogun and I remember. And now another orisha, Ogun presumably, glided silently out of the trees. This orisha was dressed all in green-and-black, holding a machete in one hand and a knife in the other.
We remember him, said Ogun, nodding. We will search for him.
"Well, at least that can't be the first of its kind," muttered Dean to Sam, nodding toward Ogun's knife. "'Cause we've both seen the First Blade."
The blade you carried was not the first blade of all time, said Ogun, merely the first used to murder a brother. A jawbone makes quite a poor blade in any case. I carry the first obsidian blade in my belt; it is superior. He glanced down at the machete, and added, with a hint of a smile, Later I changed to iron.
"He's the orisha of tools," hissed Sam. "Of tool-making."
I am, confirmed Ogun, adding, And therefore my realm is the realm of humanity: the mortal Earth. So I will search Earth for you, and the Veil too, which rests upon the Earth.
Oshossi nodded, and added, My brother Ogun will search across Earth and within the Veil. I will search within Purgatory and Hell and the farther realms. Our brother Elegua agrees to search within Heaven, and he will also search within the lesser realms. Elegua also grants access to all his roads that connect the borders of every realm, so that we three may search for the archangel Cassiel in every place that we can. The other orishas will help where they may.
The massive trees stirred. There was a murmuring in the shadows, and this time tiny glimpses came into view. First just flashes of small things (a mirror; a tiny green plant; a patch of blue water; a spark of flame). And then entire figures: A young woman dressed in gold, gazing into the mirror. An older woman, dressed all in blue and white, a vast ocean wave raising behind her. A man holding a double-headed ax in each hand, flames dancing around his feet. A strangely terrifying figure entirely covered with straw, all the strands of straw trembling in an unseen wind. One by one they appeared, dozens of them standing all around the clearing.
The great trees became translucent, turning into silvery ghosts of trees, and through the faint trees there were now roads heading in all directions. Dozens and dozens of roads, twining their way toward infinite horizons... and all intersecting with each other right there where Sam and Dean were sitting.
There were three sudden streaks of bright color, three blurs that flew in different directions to the horizon. One was blue-and-yellow, one was red-and-black, and one was green-and-black. Oshossi, Elegua and Ogun; they had all flown away, faster than the eye could follow. One by one the other orishas disappeared as well, darting into the distance.
Dean blinked. The trees were back. The clearing was deserted. Only the giant looming trees still seemed to be keeping them company, and a few animals blinking in the dark.
Sam and Dean looked at each other.
"Holy shit," whispered Dean to Sam. They both looked around. They could still hear the drumming, and they were still seated on the ludicrous little white plastic chairs, yet all around them was a vast, dark wilderness, devoid of movement now.
Sam whispered, "What do you want to bet we're sitting onthe original crossroads? Like, the First Crossroads?"
"Not taking that bet," whispered Dean back. "Pretty sure this is the First Damn Everything. I'm certain that was the First Wooden Stick. We're probably sitting on the First White Plastic Chairs."
Sam gave a weak laugh.
And then they waited.
The drumming went on a long time.
There was a blur of color. Oshossi and Elegua and Ogun were all back in an instant, standing in a tableau facing the brothers. Elegua took two steps forward, brandishing his hooked wooden stick, and he said:
The archangel Cassiel, or Castiel as he became known in later days, is not within the borders of Hell. Neither is he within, nor upon, the River Styx. He is not inside Purgatory. Neither does he inhabit the Veil. He does not dwell upon the Earth. He is not within the borders of Heaven. My other brothers and sisters report he is not within the lesser realms.
And there he stopped. He stood a moment in silence, and then took two steps back, joining Oshossi and Ogun.
Oshossi nodded in agreement. He added, We did not find your friend.
We searched and did not find him, said Ogun.
Then the three orishas stood there in total silence, Oshossi and Elegua and Ogun side by side, still as statues, looking at Sam and Dean. Their faces seemed unreadable in the shadows. The quiet murmurings in the shadows were back; the other orishas must have returned as well.
Dean blinked. "Oh," he said. He paused, unsure what to say.
This had to be wrong.
There had to be some mistake.
They must have messed up. Or overlooked something.
"Well," said Dean, "How thorough was this search? I mean, how much of all of those places did you actually look in? Did you just, like, buzz through, or did you really look everywhere?"
Oshossi frowned. We searched within all the realms, as we agreed. We searched everywhere we could.
"Well, you must've missed something," said Dean.
Oshossi's arrow was now pointed at Dean's heart.
There had been no apparent motion; Oshossi simply was in a new position now, without having moved. And in the new position, the bow was drawn and the arrow was pointed at Dean's heart, a black obsidian arrow-head shining in the dark. And, just as had happened with Elegua before, suddenly Oshossi seemed to be an immense giant, a being the size of a galaxy. The arrow seemed a galactic spear that spanned the universe... pointing directly at Dean's heart.
You doubt me? said Oshossi. My own child doubts me?
"No! No," said Dean. "Not at all. No, no doubt at all. Just was, uh, thinking out loud."
"No, sir," said Sam, and the arrow shifted briefly to Sam's heart. Sam added hastily, "Apologies, really, sir, we really aren't doubting you, Oshossi, sir, we just, um, we just... we haven't done this before."
"We aren't doubting you at all," said Dean. "Um, thank you very much. Thanks very much. We really appreciate you searching... uh... all those places for us."
In the next moment Oshossi was again standing relaxed, the bow loose, the arrow pointed at the ground, again without having actually moved. I forgive you your impudence and your pride. He flashed a smile. A little pride can be a good thing, in a hunter.
Then he was gone; and Elegua and Ogun were gone too, and the forest, and all the strange presences in the shadows. Sam and Dean found themselves blinking in the light of the fire in Marcos's living room, still seated on the absurd white plastic chairs. Marcos was still dancing in front of them, the three drummers were still drumming, and Cas's black feather was in Dean's hand.
Marcos glanced over at them and did an odd circular motion with one hand. In the next breath the drummers all ended on exactly the same beat. The three drummers immediately began chatting again, as if nothing had happened at all. One of them reached into the cooler, and began popping open some new beers.
"What the hell was that?" said Dean shakily to Marcos. Marcos looked at them and said, "Follow me."
Marcos grabbed some of the beers, exchanged a brief word with the drummers. Then he led Sam and Dean outside to the porch, had them change back into their own shirts, and handed them each a beer.
"What did you see?" Marcos asked.
Sam described the whole scene. Marcos made Sam slow down when he got to the part where the orishas had appeared, and insisted that Sam describe the objects the orishas been carrying, and the colors of their clothes, and report precisely what they had each said.
"Bow and arrow? Are you sure?" Marcos said. "And the third one had a metal knife and a machete? You're certain?"
"Yes, I'm certain," Sam said. "That's Oshossi and Ogun, right? I read about them."
Marcos nodded, and asked, "Did they find your friend?"
"No," said Dean. "Oshossi and his two buddies said they'd searched all of Heaven and Hell and Purgatory and Earth and the Veil, and the 'lesser realms,' all in, maybe, two minutes. So excuse me if I'm a little bit skeptical but I was just wondering if they might have missed something?"
"They took... two minutes?" said Marcos, his eyes widening. "Do you mean that literally? It felt like two minutes?"
"Yeah," said Dean. "I was thinking, maybe ten minutes might have been more reasonable? To search all of Creation?"
Marcos sat down heavily on a little wooden stool. He took a swig of beer, and stared out into the night for a while.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually.
"Sorry for what?"
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," Marcos turned to face them. "It appears likely that your friend is gone. If they did not find him in the places that they searched, then he is not there."
"No, I'm thinking it's much more likely that our dude in the toga missed something," said Dean.
"Your dude in the toga, as you call him," said Marcos, a little sharply, "is not only one of the greatest of the orishas, and the orisha of hunters, but also orisha of all lost things, AND he's the orisha of justice, too. Nobody can search for something like a hunter can, so he is the orisha to whom people turn when they are searching for something lost, or when they seek justice against all odds. His two closest friends are Elegua and Ogun. Between the three of them they are the best trinity of hunters in existence."
Marcos paused. Dean and Sam were both staring at him. Marcos took another swig of his beer and said, "For Oshossi to claim you as his own is a tremendous honor. I will hazard a guess that the two of you are accomplished hunters of some sort?"
After an uncertain pause, Sam and Dean both nodded.
Marcos said, "I thought as much. He would never have chosen you otherwise. And for Oshossi to team up with both Elegua and Ogun to assist in a search is... rare. And for them to take two entire minutes..." Marcos set his beer bottle down and clasped his hands in his lap. "Well. I have never heard of such a long time. Usually Oshossi finds things instantaneously, in less than a second. For it to take so long... with two other orishas searching... including Elegua, who really can open all the roads in Creation... and with the other orishas helping? Well, I suspect they must have searched several times. They do not lie; they are very literal. They will have searched where they agreed to search, and they will have searched very thoroughly."
Marcos looked back and forth between them. His eyes rested on Dean's, and Marcos's expression clouded.
"Dean," Marcos said, holding Dean's gaze. "I am deeply sorry about your friend. I can see that you cared very—"
"Let's get out of here, Sam," said Dean, plunking his beer can down on the porch railing. He stood and started walking down the porch steps, calling over his shoulder, "We gotta get a move on."
He strode down the front walk to the Impala. Dean was aware he should probably be saying something civilized to Marcos, that there were social protocols to follow and that he should be saying something like "thank you" or at least "goodbye." But there was such a flood of rage and despair rolling through him that all he seemed able to do was walk down the little path, his mind blank, his feet taking him toward the car more-or-less on autopilot. I ought to be cursing or something, he thought distantly. I ought to be weeping and cursing and crying. Or whatever people do. What do people do?
He ought to be cursing the orishas. Oshossi, and Elegua, and Ogun. And God, and Cain, and the Darkness. And Crowley and Hannah too. And the sky and the trees for good measure. And every last creature in the whole fucked-up universe.
But Dean didn't curse. And he didn't weep or cry. Instead he simply walked to the car. It seemed almost an out-of-body experience, as if he were watching himself from outside, a voice in his head narrating the scene as if for a documentary: There goes that useless loser Dean Winchester, his inner voice said.
There he goes, that hopeless puppet, that helpless pawn; there he goes, walking to the car, getting to the car. Watch him unlock the door. Watch him get inside and start her up. See how he revs the engine. As if anything he can do now can help fix the infinite damage he's already done.
As if anything he does matters anymore.
Dean revved the engine again, and again, gnawing at the half-healed spot on the inside of his cheek, waiting for Sam to finish his goodbyes.
Sam watched Dean walking stiffly away toward the Impala. The way Dean was moving looked all wrong. He looked, actually, a little like he had in Sandusky. Sam knew he needed to run after Dean, but it would have been unforgivably rude to walk away without at least thanking Marcos.
Not to mention, clearly it wouldn't be good to piss off the orishas.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, turning back to Marcos. "I apologize on my behalf of my brother. He's just... he's upset. Thank you for all your help."
Fortunately Marcos didn't seem mad. "Your brother is in tremendous pain," he said, watching Dean yank the Impala's door open.
Marcos turned to Sam with an inquiring look. Sam could only nod.
"And so are you," said Marcos.
Sam could suddenly barely speak. "Look... is what you said really true? Is Cas really..." He took a breath and managed to say, "Is Cas gone?"
Marcos gave a heavy sigh. "If he were findable, they would have found him. The orishas can move almost everywhere in Creation. I am sorry. I am very sorry." But then a rather puzzled expression crossed his face. "I do have one other message for you that I should pass on. While you were talking to Elegua and Oshossi and Ogun, my own orisha spoke to me."
"Your own orisha?"
"The one who claimed me years ago," said Marcos, a soft smile creasing his face. "Shango. He is orisha of fire, and he said to me one thing. He said..." He paused, the smile fading. "He said, they must go into the fire."
Sam waited, hoping there would be something more to the cryptic statement.
"That's all," said Marcos, reading Sam's expression. "Into the fire. That's all he said. I knew he was referring to the two of you."
"But what did he mean?" Sam said. From the street came the unmistakable noise of the Impala engine starting up.
"I don't know," confessed Marcos. "Shango is orisha of fire, after all, and he does tend to view everything in terms of fire sometimes. It might have meant..." He hesitated. "I rather think it might have referred to the pain that you both are clearly going through. Or... it might have referred to something else. I don't really know. I apologize; he can be cryptic." He added, with a sigh, "They can all be rather cryptic, as you saw. They don't mean to be, you know. It's mostly that we don't understand their language very well. They try to fit their thoughts into our heads, and it isn't always a good fit."
From the street the Impala revved loudly, its grumbling roar echoing down the street. That was Dean's signal for, I wanna go, NOW, Sammy; get your butt in the car.
"I've got to go," said Sam. "Listen, thank you, really, thanks." Another roar from the car. Sam stood and shook Marcos's hand, and added "Hey, could you, um, thank Oshossi for us? Or, you know, give him some gifts or whatever's appropriate? The books I was reading said it's important to give gifts. I don't want to piss him off. Or any of them, obviously. Could you thank him for us? "
Marcos nodded. He said, "Oshossi is very fond of sweet potato fries. I'll take care of it." Sam thanked him one more time and ran off the porch.
Sam had barely gotten into his seat before Dean was already slamming the Impala into gear. The Impala lurched forward before Sam even had the door closed; he barely snatched his feet off the ground in time.
Sam got his seatbelt on and then sat in uncomfortable silence as Dean charged the Impala through the nighttime traffic, running a few yellow lights a little recklessly and then wheeling sharply onto... route 290, westbound.
He'd headed them back toward Kansas.
"Dean, we gotta go east," Sam reminded him.
"Tell Jason to meet us in Kansas," said Dean. "Call him and tell him."
"He's already expecting—"
"Call and fucking tell him to bring the fucking car to fucking Kansas," snapped Dean, his voice like ice. "I'll pay whatever he wants. I'll give him a thousand bucks cash. I gotta get back to Cas's..." Dean stopped short, and didn't finish the sentence.
Cas's grave, thought Sam.
The Impala roared westward, the two brothers silent now. Sam spent the first few minutes just trying to decide whether to say anything, or whether to risk asking Dean any questions.
Dammit, dammit, dammit, thought Sam, leaning his head against the window. The reality of what they'd just learned had begun to sink in, and Sam's eyes began to sting.
Cas was gone.
Sam had been right all along, and Dean had been wrong. Cas was truly gone.
Why did I let him even have any hope? thought Sam, pinching the bridge of his nose. trying to press away the incipient headache that was already forming. Why did I let ME have any hope? I should've talked sense into him. I should've...
But Dean had been so terribly fragile. And lately he'd been doing so much better! He'd been pulling himself together. He'd been sleeping again. He'd even been eating again. He'd still been wrecked about it all, obviously, but he'd been getting at least within shouting distance of his old self.
And now this.
It was always dependent on being able to find Cas, Sam thought. And this was our best shot at finding him.
"Maybe Oshossi missed something?" ventured Sam at last, with a glance over at Dean. "Maybe the orishas don't really know as much as Marcos thinks they do." But that seemed unconvincing, even to Sam. The memory of that vast, ancient forest in the night was suddenly in his mind again. A shiver ran up Sam's spine; those three unfathomably ancient pagan gods had actually been standing right there before them, in that primeval forest (mastodons! saber-tooth cats!). Wearing those ancient-as-hell clothes (loincloths! actual beaded loincloths!). Holding those bizarre old archaic tools from the very dawn of time... Oshossi, the pagan Stone Age god of hunters, had actually claimed Sam and Dean, adopted them as his very own. Oshossi had even known Castiel... he'd recognized the feather immediately... he'd even known stuff about Cas that Sam and Dean had never dreamed of. (An archangel? One of seven? Sam had definitely not been expecting that little bit of trivia.)
It was almost too much to take in. (Archangel?)
But Sam knew, in his gut, that it had all been real. As real as it gets.
The road straightened out. They were getting well out of Chicago now, the traffic thinning out; it was nearly midnight.
We gotta talk about it, Sam thought. We gotta. I gotta know.
"Dean," Sam began, "We have to accept that Cas might be—"
"Don't," said Dean, in a very flat voice. "Don't. Don't say anything. Just don't."
"Dean—"
"He's got to still be somewhere," said Dean. "He's got to be. They must've missed something."
Sam fell silent. The car drove on.
Sam eventually called Jason, who turned out to be perfectly happy to bring Cas's car all the way to Kansas, in return for a peek at the bunker ("Always wanted to see that place! It's legendary!") It was a little hard to respond to his enthusiasm, but Sam tried to act grateful.
After another half hour of echoing silence, Sam finally reached over and turned the radio on. They were way out in rural Illinois now, and all he could pick up out here was country stations. They drove on for another hour, listening to one cookie-cutter pop-country hit after another. And then, past midnight, as they were nearing Des Moines, Sam flipped the dial and landed on a familiar scrap of melody:
Coming home... to a place he'd never been before...
He left yesterday behind him... you might say he was born again...
Sam flinched when he recognized it. "Rocky Mountain High," by John Denver. Sam was already starting to reach toward the radio to change the station when he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. Something batted his hand out of the way, hard, and then a tremendous noise nearly shattered his eardrums.
Dean had pulled his pearl-handled .45 out from the back of his belt, and had blasted the radio to smithereens.
Sam flattened himself against the door, gasping. Dean just kept driving, looking perfectly calm. His left hand was still on the wheel, steering the Impala smoothly along the highway; his right hand held the smoking pistol, now aimed up at the roof. Last Sam had known, the .45 had been in the glove compartment; Dean must've gotten it out when Sam had been talking to Marcos.
The radio was destroyed.
The Impala purred along. Apparently the bullet hadn't hit anything critical in the engine. Whether by luck or by careful aim, Sam didn't know.
Sam was still pressed against the door, thinking fast. What was Dean's next move going to be? The three best options were clearly: A, just talk Dean down; B, grab the gun out of Dean's hand; C, grab the steering wheel and the gun, simultaneously. Sam was gearing himself up to tackle C when Dean clicked the safety on and set the .45 down on the seat between them. He even angled it carefully so that the barrel was facing safely forward.
Sam snatched up the pistol the second Dean's hand lifted off it. He ejected the magazine and checked the chamber. Yup, there was a live round in the chamber, ready to go. Sam cleared the chamber; it was a routine move he'd done thousands of times when cleaning their weapons, and he was amazed to find that his hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, putting the magazine and the stray bullet in his left jacket pocket. The pistol, once the barrel had cooled off a little, went into his right jacket pocket — the side farthest from Dean.
It took another minute for it to sink in: Dean had shot the Impala. Dean had damaged the Impala. He'd destroyed the radio. Sam eyed the wreckage out of the corner of his eye. The tape player was toast, too.
There would be no more music.
Sam swallowed and said, keeping his voice as level as he could, "Do you have any more guns on you right now?"
"Nope," said Dean coolly.
"Any other weapons?"
"No."
Another long minute went by. The dark Iowa fields glided past, the stubbly brown October fields faintly visible in the occasional streetlights.
"Don't worry, Sammy," said Dean. "I wouldn't do anything while you're in the car."
"Dean," began Sam. "Please—"
"Sammy," interrupted Dean, almost gently, "I cannot talk about this. I really can't. But I will get you back to Kansas. I promise."
A/N - I know this is a grim place to leave it. I will try my best to get the next chapter written.
A few other points:
- My apologies to any orisha followers out there who may notice I've gotten some things wrong. I've been as true to the orishas I can given the restrictions of the fic plot. Ogun, btw, was not going to be part of the scene, but in real-life lore of Brazilian candomble, Ogun often accompanies Oshossi and Elegua when they search for things, and it didn't seem right to leave him out. The forest scene and sensation of running are based on what some of my friends have told me they've experienced. But some other things have been slightly altered for the fic or have been changed a little to parallel the God/angels mythology of Supernatural. Any errors or changes are my own but once again I will say I have nothing but respect for the orishas. I should also acknowledge the other orishas who appeared briefly: Oshun, the woman in gold with the mirror, is the orisha of freshwater, rivers & lakes; Yemanja, the one dressed in blue and white, is orisha of the sea and is a mother figure; Shango, the one with flames at his feet, is the orisha of the sun, fire, and thunder; and Omolu, who was covered all in straw with his face hidden, is orisha of disease, health, life & death,. Numerous other important orishas were not depicted due to lack of space. (PS - in Brazilian Portuguese all of these names are written with an "x" in place of "sh", e.g. Xango, Oxossi, Oxun.)
- In real-life lore, "Castiel" is indeed considered to be a synonym of "Cassiel", with Cassiel being the more commonly used name. And "Cassiel," in turn, does indeed turn up on some old lists of seven (not four!) archangels. For a long time I was sure the canon show was going to use this fascinating bit of lore and reveal at some point that Castiel is really an archangel, and that that's why both Gabriel and Balthazar call Castiel "Cassie." I thought it even seemed pretty clear, in the canon show, that Castiel is in some way quite different from other angels. (He clearly is treated by God in an unusual way, what with all the resurrections. He is treated differently, too, by the other angels, who often seem to flip back and forth between worshipping him and fearing him. And we learned, at one point, that Naomi altered not only his recent memories, but also some of his memories from Old Testament times. Who knows how far back that memory-altering might go?) Anyway I ended up developing a headcanon that there was some sort of mysterious, major Heavenly crisis back in the long-ago past that most angels either won't talk about or have had wiped from their minds, a crisis that perhaps involved not only the fall of Lucifer but the death or "brainwashing" of 3 former archangels who ever since have thought they are regular angels... never remembering what they really are.
Thank you for reading! If there was something that you liked, please drop me a line to let me know what it was.
I'll get the next chapter up soon. Also - I may not be able to reply to comments like I usually do, for a while anyway, because of having to severely limit my laptop time. But please know I read and cherish every single comment, now more than ever.
Thanks for reading. Hope you are enjoying the story.