Dean sat in the large, industrial sized kitchen. He had his feet propped up on the lower shelf of the stainless steel counter while he watched Gabriel cook on the other side. He had the flames on the range turned up a bit high, seemingly for the spectacle of it. Dean drummed his fingers on the counter as he watched. There was much to think about. Cas had erased his memories, maybe out of devotion to him. Dean wasn't ready to think about what that one word really meant, devotion.
Gabriel had a large glass bowl in front of him. He cracked an egg into it, snapped his fingers, and the eggshell disappeared just as another egg showed up in its place. Dean was mesmerized. Gabriel did it again. "Wouldn't it be easier to just snap your fingers and have a whole meal show up?" Dean was enjoying the show, but he had wondered.
"Yes, but sometimes it is not about what is easier." Gabriel snapped his fingers again.
"What's it about then?"
Gabriel paused in his motions, leaned against the counter with his palms, hands empty. "Sometimes it is about the simple act of creating something. Giving life to something, supplying free will, or just making something different, or special, that is what it is about."
Dean raised an eyebrow and asked, "So you are making breakfast the old fashioned way, because you are engaging in an exercise in free will?"
Gabriel answered past a smile. "Not so much." He went back to the snap, crack, snap of his breakfast making. "It matters, making something yourself. The act of creation matters. If it didn't, you wouldn't be here." He was up to about a half dozen eggs, maybe more. He picked up a whisk and began the quick process of blending it all into a bright liquidus sunshiney yellow. "I don't get to make breakfast much. No real need for it. I enjoy doing this though, as it is creation in its simplest form. I am taking something that once was something else, and I am giving it new life, new form. Also, I am giving it to you, and you will consume it. You will gain from my creative efforts."
"You know it is just breakfast right?" They both laughed then. Gabriel reached across the counter for a bit of salt to sprinkle into the eggs. There was a large phallic pepper grinder, that he grabbed next. He cranked it a few times over the mixture until a film of flakes blanketed the top.
"If only life were as simple as scrambled eggs." Gabriel poured them into the pan, and began the process of stirring them as they cooked. He looked over at Dean then and said, "When one engages in an act of creation, it creates a sense of power in the creator. It gives one the feeling of vastness."
"I feel like you are not talking about breakfast anymore." Dean watched the cooking and realized how hungry he actually was.
"It is perhaps the reason that the darkness is problematic. It likely feels too vast right now. It is too close to creation. I imagine that it is confusing for an entity that was so tethered before." Gabriel looked wistful as he ruminated.
"You said before that the darkness wanted to feast on our memories. You made it sound like the darkness was our enemy, and now you are making it sound like it is a thing to be pitied. You should maybe make up your mind, because I'm having a hard time keeping up with my swiss cheese head."
"Oh, almost forgot." Gabriel snapped his fingers and a hunk of cheese showed up in his hand. "Ya like cheddar?"
"Sure."
"So, about the big bad darkness, I don't think that this is as simple as declaring it good or evil. Has it caused harm? Sure. Has its presence caused rampant destruction? Sure. However, it might be unintentional. It is not human, or even an angel, or a typical god for that matter. You should think of it as more of a conceptual thing. It is Chaos. In the stories, humans personified the idea of Chaos, even giving it in marriage to Gaia. It's not really something so tangible though. When the world was dark and deep, a mass without form, the beings that were, dove into Chaos and gave it form. Those of us that were present, brought light into the darkness, order to the chaos. It welcomed us." Gabriel scooped the eggs from the pan and onto a plate. He grated cheese over it and snapped his fingers. A bowl of rich red salsa appeared. He spooned it over the top.
"Why would it welcome you? You were destroying it." Dean leaned back to make room for the plate that Gabriel brought to him.
Gabriel slid it in front of him and took a seat next to him. He snapped his fingers and two mugs of coffee appeared along with a tray of sugar, creamers, and the requisite utensils. "We weren't destroying it."
"You weren't?"
"It was a more sensual act than that." Gabriel waggled his eyebrows a little.
"Eww, didn't need that picture." Dean scooped up a mouthful of food and hummed around the first glorious bite. The salsa really made it, but the cheese was amazing too. "This is good," he mumbled.
"That it is." Gabriel began adding pack after pack of sugar to his coffee.
"Thought that angels didn't like food, tastes like molecules or something." Dean nodded over at the coffee.
"Some molecules are better than others. I like the way that sugar is. I like the act of consuming." He paused a moment, then continued. "It is important that you get that I don't think that the darkness is evil. I think that it is causing mayhem and destruction, but the same could be said of you and Sammy, yet you are not evil."
"We don't cause mayhem and destruction. It just always seems to find us." Dean looked like he didn't really believe himself though as he said it.
"Keep eating." Gabriel gestured at the fork that Dean had set down. He scooped it back up and kept eating.
"So not evil," Dean added between bites. "Then what is it, because it certainly doesn't feel good?"
"It is a marred entity with a rich history."
"So, tell me about this rich history."
Gabriel took a sip from his mug then just held it between his hands as he spoke. "When the darkness was no longer formless, it was necessary to give it a connection to the things that it had been part of before, a link to creation if you will. So we tethered it to the earth. It became the barrier between the afterlife and earth. It is found in the spaces between Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Between Heaven and earth it is sometimes referred to as the Veil. Between the other realms there are too many names to list. Mankind was always more concerned with those regions, so they were more effusive in their naming."
Dean set down the fork and said, "So, the darkness acts as a gateway between life and death?"
"Just between the regions. It was also, part of all life. We must think of it as more than just good and evil, light and dark. It is part and parcel of all things living. It is in you and the earth and everything." Gabriel picked up Dean's plate and set it aside.
"Is it possible to reason with it then?"
"It is too vast for that."
"That's what she said," Dean laughed as he said it. Gabriel joined him.
"I walked into that one." He sipped from his mug again, and Dean did the same.
"So, if it is too vast to be reasoned with, then what can we do to tether it again?"
"Well, now, there's the question. It was first tethered to Lucy, the morningstar, the light. He was happy to be tied to this, to creation, until he wasn't. Then he passed it on to Cain, as you well know. This was too much for a mere mortal, but Cain did well enough. Actually, he was impressive. You saw the effect of the Mark first hand. It was all consuming, being tied to so much power. The creative energy of it would be enough to drive most insane."
Dean thought about the days past, the lingering images of violence now flooded his head. Why couldn't Cas erase those memories? "Are you thinking that I will have to take it back?" Dean moved one hand over the other to still the shaking that threatened to manifest.
"No. That would not prove helpful. You aren't strong enough, no offence, to wield that power again. It needs to be tied to something else, something that can handle the power without being corrupted by it. That will not be easy to do."
"If I took it back though, the darkness would be tethered, and all would be well, right?" Dean asked with a slight quiver to his voice.
"It would be tethered, but not all would be well. I have noticed that when you are in jeopardy, the world tends to suffer for it. Your brother and mine tend to react poorly to your troubles." Gabriel reached over in an awkward offer of comfort and patted Dean's arm.
"If you sent me away with the Mark, it might be okay."
"No, there will be a better way. It would be best if we could tie it to something a bit more powerful than Dean Winchester." Gabriel smirked and withdrew his hand from Dean's arm. "Perhaps we can find a way to pull the Mark back to the source."
Dean jolted a little with the words. They were too similar to what Metatron had said before, something about ending at the source or somesuch. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe we find a way to give it back to Lucy or something. Not sure how, but either he or Cain seemed like they were better choices for the job."
"I don't see how we accomplish this. It's not like anyone has the Mark anymore." Dean absently rubbed his arm now, feeling the slight phantom pain of what was once so horribly there.
"Hmm, that's not entirely true." Gabriel looked off into the distance.
'Uh, what do you mean?" Dean snapped his fingers in front of Gabriel to recall his attention.
Gabriel looked back at him with thinly veiled, mild irritation. "Don't be rude, Bucko." He cracked his neck as he stretched out and into a stand. "It isn't held by just one person, but it isn't like it just disappeared either. You said a witch removed the curse, right?"
"Yeah, Rowena. She's also the mother of Crowley, the current King of Hell." Dean got up then too.
"She is tied to the Mark now as are all of those that were involved in that spell. She pulled from Cas' grace to remove it from you, which connects her to all that have connections to his grace. She is trying to, I imagine, harness the power that comes with bearing the Mark. She is the reason that Cas is laid up in there. Each time that she tries to use her power for any big thing, it takes a great deal out of Cas. I'm not sure how much he can handle. She might have big plans though, and those plans might not take into consideration his safety." He stopped and seemed to consider for a moment. "Do you feel it when she hurts him?"
"No, but I was a little distracted."
"You would have noticed." Gabriel walked toward the door and Dean followed. He turned at the doorway. "I'm going to see what I can figure out. Why don't you go sit with Cas for a bit."
Dean nodded and wandered off to Cas' room. His phone buzzed in his pocket. "Claire,' he said to himself as he accepted the call and pushed the phone to is ear. "Hey there."
"Hey yourself. Gotta minute?" She was quiet, so he felt worry creep up under his skin.
"Of course. Is everything okay?" He entered Cas' room and sat with the phone pressed to his ear.
"No, everything is intense and I can't feel Cas when I pray. Is he okay?" He could hear a door close as she spoke.
"Cas is a bit unconscious. I'm working on it though. He's got it in his head that he is hurting the people that he cares about when he's awake. I'm trying to convince him that he is wrong via dreamwalking him."
"Oh." Her voice was a little closer to a normal volume now. "Did you try talking about the stuff that we discussed before?"
"What do you mean?" Dean thought back to what he thought was their last conversation, but he couldn't find anything important there.
"You know, about how you feel about him. You were going to tell him that you love him or something along those lines. That would maybe snap him out of this funk."
Dean looked down at Cas and tried to remember this conversation. There was nothing there to draw out though. "I haven't had that conversation. Not sure that it would help at this point." He sucked in a breath and asked, "So, you said that things there were intense?"
"Yeah, your brother is a nutter."
"Uh, how so?"
"He decided, with Jody mind you, that they would go off and kill Gadreel, a flipping angel."
Dean nearly dropped his phone. "What are you talking about? Gadreel is dead." Dean realized then that he was developing a personal mantra, and it was always a clarifying question.
"Yeah, well dead ain't what it use to be. Apparently, the only people that get to stay dead are my parents, because that's the kind of shitty universe that we live in."
"If it helps my parents are in the staying dead category too," Dean commiserated. "So, tell me why you think that Gadreel is alive, and what stupid thing my brother is up to."
"Okay, get comfortable. It's a bit of a story." Dean shifted about on the bed and rested his hand on Cas. Gabriel walked by and peeked in.
Dean said into the phone, "Just a sec, Claire." Then he pulled the phone from his face and asked Gabriel, "Anything up?"
"Nah, just checking in on him. It is strange how little my brother has learned over his years on earth."
"What do you mean?"
"You'd think that he would know that emotion is never so easily erased. Events, sure, those can be washed over, but the feelings. That is a horse of a different color." Gabriel leaned into the doorframe a bit.
"What makes you think that he didn't erase the emotions from those moments?" Dean asked.
"It's clear. When you sit with him, you touch him. Contact seems like a necessity for you. I believe that it comes from a place of affection. He couldn't erase that without erasing who you are." Gabriel moved back from the door then and added, "We can talk about it later."
Dean nodded to him as he left and then focused on the call with Claire. "So, I'm ready to hear the epic tale of Sam's Crazy Choices and the Now Living Angel Gadreel."
The ride to the burned out husk of Singer Salvage was silent and awkward at first. Kevin broke the silence. "I don't see why you want to save it." He let out a sigh as he tipped his head back on the low seat like he was a Pez dispenser. Claire watched all of this through glances in the rearview mirror.
"He isn't evil." Claire felt bad even saying it.
"He killed me Claire. What in your head constitutes evil?" He sounded like he was getting angry again. Alex still had her hand on Claire's arm, an anchor to calmness.
"I'm sorry, Kevin," she breathed out. "You didn't deserve that. We're likely too late anyway."
There was silence again as the truck bumped through potholes. Claire swerved around abandoned cars and other detritus that had found its way onto the road. Kevin broke through the silence again, "You didn't answer me before, Claire. Why do you want to save it?" He was quieter now, and his words weren't stoked by anger. There was a quiet wonder underlying the tone, and perhaps it was the wonder that made Claire answer.
"Everyone that I know, everyone that loves me, has committed insane acts in the name of just doing what they thought was the right thing." She glanced in the mirror and saw that he was watching her there as well. "Cas slaughtered his brethren in heaven supposedly to save humanity. This lead to a great many horrors for mankind. Sam unleashed the apocalypse. He didn't know that he was doing so, but look at how many people died because of him. Then there's Dean. I can't even begin to tell you all the things that I have had to forgive him for. I've lost a brace of parents in this world. My own mother left me in order to find my father. She spent years away from me that I'll never get back, but her intentions were good, noble even. They still lead to death. My father chose to sacrifice his own life to save mine. Imagine the guilt that I carry for that one. Plus, his sacrifice initially, although his intentions were good, lead to suffering."
Kevin interrupted, "He really did love you. He thought that being Castiel's vessel would lead to salvation for a world that was on the brink of total destruction."
"How would you know?" She grated out past clenched teeth.
"I was a prophet. I saw what they were thinking and doing. All of that is still cluttering up my brain even now. He loved you more than anything in all of the world. He left some of that behind for Cas. Now, Cas loves you in a similar way."
Claire gripped the steering wheel tighter and tried to send out a prayer to Cas again. She still felt no response. "Like I said, everyone that loves me, everyone in my life, has done something horrible and destructive. Nevermore…"
"His name's Gadreel," Kevin interrupted.
Claire continued, "Gadreel, when we found him at the tree, he gave us something good. He gave us comfort in the form of memories. I think that he wants to atone too. He is sad and hurt. I don't think that he even wants to live, but in the last so many days he has lived to defend us from the darkness. He has put himself in harm's way without a pause. It has to mean something."
Kevin did not speak again. He just sat in the back staring off at the dark world that surrounded them. Alex finally spoke, "I did unspeakable things before." She shifted in her seat and looked back at Kevin. "Do you think that I should die too?"
"You didn't kill people," Kevin replied.
"You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, but it'll be a lie." She looked down and away from him. Claire kept glancing at each of them, taking it all in.
"It's not the same when it's self-defense," Kevin countered.
"True. It's not." Alex sucked in a breath and looked back at Kevin adding, "It was never really self-defense. I was bait. I went to dives, dark alleys, and other assorted places to find men for my family to feast upon. I was raised by vampires. I lead countless men to their deaths. I watched them writhe under the forms of my so-called family as they slowly sucked and bit away their lives. I did it many times, knowing full well that they would die. I cared at first. Later, I didn't care at all. It was a task that was done by rote." Her hand fell from Claire now and gripped the seat between them. "So, if today we are taking out murderers, I think that you had better add me to the list. Lord knows that I deserve it, and that there is nowhere near enough time left in the world for me to fully atone for my sins."
"It's different." Keven was staring at her as he said it. The tone in his words though showed that he was thinking about what she said.
"It's really not." Alex leaned against the window, which placed her far from Claire.
Claire said, "No one dies today." She reached out to Alex and touched her. "You are not a murderer. We all have pasts we need to atone for. You don't get to check out on me yet."
Alex looked back at her, but she did not look like she planned to comply. Claire turned her attention back to the road ahead and saw the turn to Singer Salvage. There was light coming from the location, which she thought boded well. He's alive. She wasn't sure why, entirely, he had come to matter so much. Maybe it was the absence of Cas that caused her to transfer some of her affection. Maybe though, it was something in the way that they met. He gave her something good and beautiful to hold onto once more, her family. It was an offering that did nothing for the world at large. It was just a gift. He had done something horrible, and yet Kevin was here. She could almost push that act aside, because to her he was not dead.
She could see them in the yard. Sam and Jody were standing over Gadreel. His wings were spread out wide around him. His chest had been cut, and blue-white light was seeping from it. It offered up a glow to the space around it. It was the light that she had seen from the road. Sam and Jody looked up at their approach. Claire stopped the truck in a slide of gravel. She jumped from the truck as it shuddered off. She ran to them and threw herself on the ground beside the bird.
"You can't kill him." She settled her hands over the wound in his chest, trying to stop the flow of light from the wound.
"It's okay, Claire. I'm ready to be done. The others have been told to protect you in my absence. You will be important, I think. You will be the tether that brings them back." He wasn't making sense.
Claire watched his eyes close and then turned to Sam. "You have to help him. He can't die like this. We need him." She was appealing now to whatever she thought would convince him.
"He's evil Claire. You have to trust us on this. You don't know what he has done. He was responsible for Kevin's death. He possessed my body and made me kill him. He made my hands do that. He did it for no righteous reason. He had no purpose in his actions beyond blind obedience to a megalomaniac. There is nothing good here."
"He saved us from the darkness. He has been watching over us. He gave you a glimpse of Jess, just because. He's trying to do right. We need to let him." She looked down at him and saw him open his eyes. They were dark as the eternal night that surrounded them.
He spoke to her, quiet and with sincerity. "You, Claire are too forgiving. I don't deserve your sympathy."
She pressed her hands to the wound even more and then Alex was on the other side doing the same. "Today, we all get a little mercy." Alex looked up at Jody and Sam. "I told Kevin in the car, that if we are killing murderers today that I need to be added to the list."
Jody came down to her knees next to Alex and cupped her cheek in her hands. "You are not a murderer, Alex."
"I am. I let you believe that because I don't want you to see the worst in me. I killed people though, and you gave me mercy. You made me want to be better." She looked down at Gadreel and asked, "Why did you seek us out."
"I wanted to help. This was where I was needed." Kevin came down to a squat at his head as Gadreel spoke.
"Why were you needed?" Kevin asked.
"I need to protect Claire and Sam." His eyes drifted closed for a moment then he looked at Kevin again. "I never said it to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to you." He closed his eyes again. Kevin stood up then and paced away a few steps.
Sam got up and walked to his side. He handed him the angel sword. "Well, you wanted to do this. I guess you've earned the right." Sam sounded like he was uncertain.
"You don't want to do this now." Kevin looked at him then back at the others.
"I will if you don't want to. He has earned this." Sam looked back at them now too.
Kevin walked back with the sword. Claire moved between them further shielding the creature. He slammed the sword down into the earth at the creature's head and said, "There's been enough death." He stalked back off to the truck. "Take me home."
Claire reached down and gently scooped up Gadreel in her arms. She whispered down to him, "Will you be okay?"
He blinked at her and folded his wings to his chest. "I'll be better."
"I'm sorry," she whispered as they moved to the car. "I tried to get here faster."
"It doesn't matter. Good things came out of it." He closed his eyes again.
Jody came to her side and rested a hand on her back. "I'm sorry, Claire. I believed that he was dangerous. I didn't want him to hurt you. He had already been in your head, Sam's too. I know what can happen when something with power gets in a person's head. I was worried about what would happen if he lived."
She looked at Jody then and said, "I would worry more about what would happen if we made him die. We shouldn't be in the business of killing things that aren't doing any harm."
"Like I said, I thought that he was going to do harm." They walked on and Claire gave Jody a merciful look that seemed to end the conversation. She got into the passenger's seat. Alex got in the back. Kevin wandered off with Sam to the other car. Alex leaned over the front seat as Jody backed out of the yard. Jody reached up and around in an awkward hug. "I love you, Alex."
Alex closed her eyes as they drove on. Jody kept her arm around her as they went. Claire sat quietly with Gadreel on her lap, hands pressed to his wound. She prayed, not to Cas, but to a god that never answered. Heal him. Let him atone. Let us all atone.
They stood in the yard with the officer and the mother of the prophet. There was palpable tension, but she had nothing to be worried about as she stood there. They had no power that could be used against her.
She had told them why they were there. Charlie stood at her side as if they were on the same team. They weren't. Charlie would betray her in an instant. She could feel the darkness here in a way that was different. It was like cotton. She could feel the press of it on her soft and a little suffocating. The light was maybe worse.
She looked up at the swirling light of the creatures that flew around the rooftop. Her eyes came into a squint. The distant sound of a vehicle broke through their silent waiting. She considered her sales pitch. After all, Sam would be unlikely to view her as any kind of ally at this point. There was a truck that pulled into the space first. It was followed closely by a car.
They came to a stop a few feet from them. Sam was out of his car in an instant, holding his hand back as if to keep the others from emerging from their vehicles. They emerged anyway. Headstrong bunch. They always tend to gravitate toward each other those types.
"Hello Sam." Her words were laced in honey sweetness. She dragged out the syllables and curled up her lips into a wry smile.
"Rowena." Sam's eyes were angry as he said it. He was looking at Charlie. "What have you done? Who is she, and why does she look like Charlie?"
"Hello Sam." Charlie sounded less like her current self and more like her old self. There was a softness to the greeting. Sam raised a rifle at her chest.
"Like I said, what have you done?" Sam glared at Rowena, the words grit and gristle as he spoke. "Answer me!"
Rowena smiled as he aimed the rifle at her now. "I come bearing gifts, Samuel. Let's go inside and discuss our present situation like civilized people." She narrowed her eyes at the gun and added, "If I wanted to hurt you, you'd be dead already. In case you hadn't noticed, I've been rather helpful where you've been concerned." She made a grand sweeping gesture to the front of the house and added, "Shall we?"
Review, Fav., Follow, Rec.
Hey all. Hope you enjoyed that little bit. The next chapter will have more Dean and Gabriel conversing. There will also be more of the drama with Rowena and the Wayward Bunch. Let me know if you are still with me. Thanks for reading.