A/N - aww, so glad you guys liked Sam doing the wing-therapy! (YES, Sam is important!) And the car wash was a hit as well.
Here's the next one. A travel chapter. Took longer than I thought to polish this one up so it's technically Sunday now where I am, not Saturday anymore, but I'm sure it's still Saturday somewhere. :)
"One down, two farmed out, just three to go!" Dean said brightly as they headed out at dawn the next morning, en route to Florida. He was determined to sound hopeful, so he slapped the VW's huge, flat steering wheel with somewhat-forced enthusiasm, saying, "Next stop, Miami! This'll go easy. This one's just an air elemental!"
"Yeah," said Sam, "Just like the lightning one that kept killing us, Dean, if you'll recall, in Zion. And the snow-nado one that nearly destroyed the bunker. Air elementals are so easy."
"C'mon, Sam, don't be such a pessimist."
Cas spoke up, from just behind them, "The air elementals would be relatively easy if..."
Castiel stopped abruptly. And, after a moment's thought, Dean thought he knew why.
"If?" said Sam, "Why would they be easy?" Dean tried to whack his knee unobtrusively.
"Well..." said Castiel, "I just meant that it would be easier if they would talk to me."
Dean could almost feel Sam wincing.
A few seconds later, Cas added, "I'm sorry I won't be more help."
"Do not apologize," said Dean, and Sam added rapidly, "Cas, first off you are being a huge help. And secondly, it sounds like air elementals are pompous arrogant jerks. So who cares what they think."
"Yeah," said Dean, "Who wants to get talked to by an air elemental anyway? They're always so boring."
Cas said thoughtfully, "They do tend to go on and on about prevailing winds. And barometric pressure. And temperature fronts."
"See?" said Dean. "We're way more fun. Aren't we? I bet we know much better jokes, too. For example—" He paused, trying to think of a joke to lighten the mood, and said, "Okay, for example, why did the air elemental cross the road?" (He didn't actually have a punchline in mind, but was hoping one would come to him.)
"Oh man, this is gonna be bad," groaned Sam in mock dismay. "I can already tell."
"Wait, let me guess," said Cas. "I heard this kind of joke, last year, when I was on my own. Why did the air elemental cross the road... Let's see." He thought a moment, and declared confidently, "To start a hurricane."
This was such a completely ineffective non-punchline that Dean and Sam both cracked up laughing.
"Was that a good joke?" said Cas, looking at them both curiously.
"It made us laugh, Cas," said Sam, still chuckling. "So, apparently, yes."
"Why did the air elemental cross the road... To start a hurricane," repeated Dean, shaking his head. "That's actually weirdly hilarious for some reason, Cas."
"Well then, how about another joke," said Castiel. "Here's another type that I learned last year. A little girl explained it to me, and it's got a very precise sequence that you're supposed to follow. It always starts like this: Knock, knock."
"Who's there?" said Sam.
"An air elemental," said Castiel.
"An air elemental who?" said Sam.
"Um... an... air elemental," said Cas, now sounding a little uncertain. "It's... an air elemental."
They waited, but he said nothing more. Apparently there was nothing more to the joke.
Dean and Sam both broke up in giggles.
"That's how those jokes go, right?" said Cas. "Was that right?"
"Yes, exactly," said Dean.
Sam said, "Wait, my turn, I've got an excellent joke. Knock, knock."
"Who's there?" said Dean.
"To get to the other side!" said Sam, and both Dean and Sam were immediately lost in another fit of helpless giggles.
It all went downhill from there.
The jokes turned into a pretty good way to pass the time. They had a long haul ahead of them, another brutal all-day drive, all the way through Georgia and clear down the entire Florida peninsula. So when Cas requested, a few minutes later, that they explain the "crossing the road" joke more fully, Dean decided it was time to really launch into explaining the whole idea of jokes to Castiel.
And somewhat to Dean's surprise, Cas actually started to get a handle on it. By the time they'd reached Orlando, Castiel had mastered several dozen knock-knock jokes (and actually seemed to sort of get why they were funny), a good handful of chicken-crossing-the-road jokes, and they'd even made some progress at the classic how-many-to-change-a-lightbulb category.
Dean eventually got brave and decided to risk a very simple dirty joke: "Try this one, Cas. How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Cas frowned. "I don't know... four?"
Sam delivered the classic deadpan answer: "Two."
Cas was silent, thinking.
"Get it, Cas?" said Dean. "Two mice? Screwing? In a lightbulb? You know, screwing?"
Castiel replied "But, Dean, their paws are very small. I think they would need more mice." This sent Sam and Dean into another pretty bad fit of giggles, especially when Cas added, "I really think they'd need four mice at a minimum."
It went even further downhill after that.
But it sure was a nice way to pass the time— and a nice way to take their minds off what might be awaiting them ahead.
The hours rolled by pretty comfortably, punctuated with more joke sessions now and then, and some music, some unproductive speculating about the Queen, and even some napping— Cas spread the mattress out in the back, and Sam and Dean started taking turns back there, flopping out for a lie-down in between driving.
When they finally pulled into Miami that evening, Sam had somehow gotten deeply engrossed in trying to explain the classic joke, "Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine." (Which Sam and Cas turned out to have some kind of history with, and which had somehow led Sam down a very wandering digression of explaining all possible puns, rhymes, and homophones that could possibly occur in the English language). Meanwhile Dean concentrated on trying to navigate his way through the Miami streets despite a pretty heavy rainstorm. The tail end of the last hurricane was still blowing by, and they were catching just the fringe of it.
Miami looked nothing like the last time they'd been here, during spring break last year, when it had seemed all college kids and beach parties. Dean found he was glad it looked so different now, so gray and rainy, because this way it wasn't reminding him too often about that previous trip. And, specifically, that Minoan mask they'd found here. That weird ancient mask that had turned out to control an actual minotaur, of all things, which had then attacked Castiel.
Quite a terrible series of events had resulted from that. They'd lost not only Cas himself, but even their memories of him.
But we got him back, thought Dean. We got him back in the end.
He couldn't help remembering the strange dreams he'd had during those months, when all his memories of Cas had been ripped out. All he'd been left with was a recurring dream of a little angel statuette with broken wings— the image seemed sickening prophetic now— wings that Dean had kept trying to glue back on to the angel. And there'd been one other thing in his dreams, too: a man, standing behind him in the shadows. A man in a trenchcoat, who Dean could never get a clear look at.
Dean suddenly felt acutely aware of Castiel sitting just behind him. Cas was saying to Sam, rather excitedly, "Oh, the two words sound the same! The number eight and the verb ate! I understand!" but all Dean could think about was that Castiel had a for-real broken wing now. Which Dean had tried his best to "glue back on." Cas was sitting just behind Dean, too, just out of view, like he'd been in all those dreams.
Dean suddenly found himself reaching back one hand till he bumped into Cas's left wing, and he took hold, gently, of the edge of the wing. He saw Cas glance at him in the mirror with a questioning look; but Dean couldn't think of what to say; so he didn't say anything.
Cas watched him for a moment and then pushed the wing more firmly into Dean's hand. He turned back to the pun-discussion with Sam, but kept his wing pressed firmly into Dean's hand after that.
Dean kept thinking, We lost him, but we found him. And I'm not going to lose him again.
He kept hold of the wing for the entire rest of the drive.
They finally found a motel for the night, and the next morning Sam and Dean both started calling around to boat-rental places all around Miami. The plan had been that during this brief break between hurricanes, they'd rent a powerboat and speed on out to the Bahamas themselves.
A boat was really their only option. Flying would never work. Beside the facts that Dean hated flying and Cas obviously could never have made it past airport security, there were no seats available anyway. All air travel in the USA had been pretty much in a permanent state of chaos during the endless hurricanes— all the East Coast airports had been closed more often than not, and thousands of stranded travelers were grabbing up the few flights that were available. A boat, in contrast, seemed much more feasible. Sam and Dean had both done a bit of futzing around on boats in their pre-hunting days. Especially Sam, who'd been living right on the Pacific coast when he'd been at Stanford, and had even gone out on offshore fishing trips with friends a few times.
Plus, the Bahamas were only fifty miles from Florida. Small boats made the crossing all the time. It was an open-ocean journey, to be sure, right across the vast strong current of the Gulf Stream, but even a relatively small boat could make the trip in a single day if conditions were good.
As long as they didn't get lost.
But finding a boat to rent turned out to be a much bigger obstacle than they'd expected. It seemed all the boat-rental companies had pulled their boats out of the water weeks ago, due to the storm surges. Many had even towed the boats pretty far inland to get away from the worst of the winds.
They searched for a rental boat unsuccessfully for two entire days, calling every marina within a hundred miles.
They were all starting to feel pretty worried about how fast time was slipping away when at last, on the morning of the third day, Sam jumped up from his motel chair saying, "Finally!", waving his phone in the air.
Dean cancelled the call he'd been about to place himself, and Cas looked up from the motel table, where he was adding new hurricane tracks to his maps.
"Finally struck paydirt!" Sam said. "Found a marina guy in Biscayne Bay. You know, the huge bay here in Miami. He seems desperate for some income, cause he's got storm damage to fix, and he's got a forty-footer kitted out for deepwater fishing. Sounds like a good solid boat. Got a shaded center console, and a galley and four bunks, down below. Also - he's okay with us taking it to Great Abaco as long as we leave right now, before the next hurricane comes. He says it'll make the crossing fine."
"There's gotta be a catch," said Dean.
Sam grimaced. "Yeah. The catch is, the boat was pulled out of water weeks ago. But for a mere triple the usual rental fee, plus boat-transport charges, he's willing to stick it back in the water tonight. We can take possession tonight, pack it up, fuel it, head out tomorrow morning."
"Grab it," said Dean.
And then, while Sam called the marina guy back, and Cas started packing up his maps, Dean checked the calendar on his phone.
It was ten days till the full moon, and the Bahamas were a full day's journey away. They'd be spending all day tomorrow on the water, and then who knew how long it would take to find the elemental-cowboy. Then a full day to travel back.
Damn, that's tight. thought Dean, staring at his calendar. Two more elementals after that. TWO.
Which meant that Dean, Sam and Castiel would have to find this Bahamas cowboy absolutely as fast as possible. And Great Abaco was an alarmingly large island.
They made a trip to a grocery store to buy snacks, water and groceries, picked up some beer, whiskey and tequila (Dean was determined never to go anywhere now without beer, whiskey and tequila at hand) and then stopped at a gun shop to stock up on ammo. By early evening everything was packed and ready; now they just had an evening to kill before they got hold of the boat.
So they swung into their new evening routine. The first part of the routine was Castiel's regular nightly appointment with the Sam Winchester Wing-Therapy Clinic; and the second part was his appointment with the newly established Dean Winchester Feather-Preening And Wing-Massage Spa.
The wing-therapy part went pretty well, with more stretching, range-of-motion, and a series of wing exercises. Cas managed to lift the wing up a few inches and hold it there for several seconds this time. Cas seemed a little sore, though (Sam's theory was that he'd overdone it a bit with the enthusiastic flapping at the car wash), so Sam wrapped up the session relatively early, giving him a pat-on-the-wing and saying, "Great job, Cas. All yours, Dean!"
Sam disappeared into the bathroom while Dean was getting Cas settled on his chair for part 2. Sam came out from the bathroom a minute later clad in his running clothes and he sat at the edge of his bed to lace up his shoes, saying, "I realized this might be my last chance in a while to go in circles. So I'm gonna head out and go in lots of circles." Dean snorted, and Sam added, "I'll have my phone, like usual, Dean. I have to place a call anyway."
Dean couldn't resist goading him a bit with, "That wouldn't be a call to Sarah, would it?"
"Um. Maybe?" said Sam, concentrating on his other shoe.
"You know," said Dean, "Maybe you better call Sarah right now just to tell her about the boat. Maybe Sarah might know something about boats. You better call and check."
Sam shot him a glare. "Look, I always call her after the PT. To report on Cas's progress."
"Right," said Dean, nodding innocently. "Gotta report on the progress. Every single day. "
"I don't call her every day, Dean," said Sam, tugging a shoelace tighter.
"You called her yesterday."
"Well, yeah," conceded Sam. "I had to talk to her about Meg."
"For half an hour?"
"Well..." said Sam weakly, "Meg is complicated."
Cas chimed in with "Meg has surprisingly complex behavior. I was talking about it to Sam last night and Sam thought he'd better call Sarah and discuss it with her."
Dean laughed at them both, and finally Sam just rolled his eyes and got up to leave.
"Sam," Dean called as Sam was almost out the door. Sam turned to look at him, and Dean said, "All joking aside. Seriously. Do call Sarah. Tonight."
Cause who knows if you'll ever be able to call her again.
Sam knew exactly what Dean meant; Dean could see it in his eyes. Sam nodded, saying, "I will, Dean. Thanks. Oh, and... you could talk to... whoever you want to talk to, too." He flicked the very briefest of glances over at Cas, and headed out the door.
Dean gave Cas a light massage (a very light massage; Cas really was kind of sore) and moved on to the feathers. Just like Sam had apparently been thinking "last chance to go in a circle," Dean found he was thinking "last chance to help Cas preen his feathers."
So Dean got a bowl of clean water and a washcloth, asked Castiel to spread his right wing over Dean's bed, and got to work wiping down the feathers. Right wing first, then he'd do the left later.
One feather at a time, front and back. Dean was seated on the bed just to Cas's right, with the wing half-folded on the bed at his side, so that the big joint at the bend of the wing was resting just by Dean's knee. He started with the inside of the wing this time, working from the inside out, reaching over to the tertials at Cas's back to wipe each tertial down, top side and bottom side, running each feather gently between his fingers to smooth it out and then wiping it once more with the washcloth.
"Dean, I have to thank you once again," Cas said, as Dean finished up the tertials and moved on to the white secondaries. "I could never do this adequately on my own. I really am so grateful."
"No problem, bud. To be honest I kind of enjoy it."
"Well, I'm grateful just the same."
Dean reached over and ruffled Cas's hair with one hand, and then returned to the feathers.
They fell silent for a while, Cas watching a nature show on the TV while Dean concentrated on the feathers. He worked his way through the white secondaries, shifting a bit further away from Cas so he could spread the wing out a little more and really get at each feather individually.
Dean had realized he really did enjoy helping Cas with the preening. The feathers just plain felt good, for one thing— silky and soft, yet strong— and they smelled good, too. And there was a certain indefinable pleasure in just working his way along each feather methodically, taking his time, cleaning it as best he could. In an odd way it reminded him of washing the Impala. (Especially the black feathers.)
And there was another indefinable pleasure in seeing the effect it had on Cas.
Dean glanced at Cas now, checking Cas's breathing— slow and even now— and his expression— which had softened now, his brow smoothing, his jaw and mouth relaxing. Soon Cas was blinking slowly, his eyelids starting to drift shut now and then.
Dean grinned. Castiel had never said a thing about preening feeling good, but it was pretty obvious that it did.
Dean finished the last secondary on that wing, cleaning it to glossy perfection, and he moved further out, to the primaries. The first few primaries were actually white; only the outer ones, the longest ones, were black. As Dean worked his way from the white ones to the black ones, he noticed, for perhaps the thousandth time, how striking Cas's wing coloration was. The glittering black, and the shining white, and the soft dove-gray made an extraordinarily beautiful pattern.
Comparing the white feathers to the black made Dean remember something. He asked, "Cas, didn't you say once that you didn't used to have any black feathers?"
Cas said, his eyes closed, "Yes. My wings used to be all white."
"Like the illustration in the book?" Dean asked.
Cas opened his eyes and gave Dean a slightly surprised glance. "The Schmidt-Nielsen book that Sam has? Have you read it?"
"Well, all the parts about feathers, yeah," said Dean, feeling only slightly guilty as he said this, for this was almost true. Dean had looked at all the feather illustrations, definitely, and had rapidly skimmed... well, some of the text. The parts Sam had pointed out. (Any second now he was going to read the rest of the book— any second now. When this damn elemental thing was all over.)
Dean said, "The wings are all white in the illustration in the book. No black, and no gray either. Did your wings used to look like that?"
"Yes..." said Cas, giving Dean an oddly long look out of the corner of his eye. "Pretty much exactly like that illustration, actually. "
"So what happened?"
Cas paused for a long moment, still looking at Dean out of the corner of his eye, one of those eerie sideways stares he did sometimes.
Finally he looked away, folding one arm under his chin and glancing back toward the TV. He said, "Feather color can change for several reasons. If the root of the feather is damaged, the new feather, in the next molt, can come in black. Also, sometimes feather color will change if the character of the angel's grace has changed. There's a very deep blue that you see sometimes on angels that have rarely left Heaven; there's a brown barring that appears sometimes on those angels that administer, um, correction to other angels. There's a gold, too. Gold edging. That's the rarest. I've only seen that a couple times, and only on angels who have..."
Cas stopped, staring at the carpet. Dean looked at him, working the washcloth slowly down a long black feather.
After a moment Cas cleared his throat and went on, without finishing his original sentence, "The feathers at the base of my wings went that gray color after the Apocalypse. I wasn't sure why at the time, but later I discovered that's a sign of having exercised free will. As if, I'm not purely Heaven's tool anymore— I'm not purely white, that is— but something more Earthly; something in-between. Something more gray. Does that make sense?"
Dean looked over at the feathers at the base of Cas's wings. They were a delicate dove-gray laced with the little silver tips. The gray covered the whole base of the wing, and even extended onto the tertials (well, the tertials on the right side, at least).
Cas had turned his head to look directly at Dean now, and he asked, "Dean... just out of curiosity, what do you think of gray? As a feather color?"
Cas's wing tensed a little under Dean's hands, folding in slightly.
"Gray's a great color," Dean replied, trying to hide his smile. "It's classy. Subtle. It's really pretty cool."
And Dean meant it. He'd already kind of liked the gray, but now, looking over at the gray feathers now, thinking Gray is for free will, it seemed he'd never really noticed before what a very lovely color gray was.
"I think the gray's awesome, Cas," Dean said.
He felt Cas's wing relax, and Cas turned back to look at the TV. Dean grinned to himself again.
Dean moved on to the next black primary, and realized that Cas had forgotten to explain one thing. He'd forgotten to explain how his own primaries had changed color. So Dean asked, "How'd these feathers end up black, then?"
"Oh," said Cas, "That... was... feather-root damage. Just... some damage."
"What kind of damage? If you don't mind my asking?"
Cas was silent for a few moments, just looking at the TV.
He finally said, very casually, "Oh, I burned the edges of my wings once. That's all."
Dean gave a little huff of surprise. "How'd you do that?" He thought a moment, and asked, "Holy fire?"
"N-no... not holy fire..." said Cas.
But he didn't say what it had been.
Wonder where he could have burned them, thought Dean. It was starting to seem, though, that it might be something Cas didn't really want to talk about, so Dean was about to drop the topic... when a thought struck him.
Dean paused, looking down at the glittering dark feathers in his hands.
"Where'd you burn your wings, Cas?" said Dean steadily.
Cas glanced at him very briefly, and immediately looked away again.
"Well. Um," said Cas, looking down at the motel's shag carpet. "Well, they were burned in Hell, actually. I was trying to fly around a lot of hellfire. Hellfire doesn't kill angels, of course, not like holy fire, but it can wound us. What happened was... I had to bank and turn a lot, and there was hellfire shooting all around; there was sort of a... uh... a chase going on. And I couldn't quite maneuver like usual, because..."
Cas paused a moment, and went on, "Well, I was flying laden, and I had to keep my wings spread a bit more than usual. To maintain lift. So I wasn't quite as maneuverable as usual. I ended up being the only angel there who got his wings burned. Isn't that funny?"
Dean was studying Cas's face now. Cas was still looking at the shag carpet, staring down as if he were completely engrossed in careful examination of the carpet pattern.
Cas rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, cleared his throat, and added, "But I was fine. I survived. Anyway, on the next molt the feathers came in black. So, Dean, how about a movie?" He glanced up at the TV. "Maybe there's a movie we could watch? We could check the other channels."
Dean didn't budge. He was still studying Cas's face. Cas was not looking at him.
Dean said, "What do you mean, flying laden?"
"Oh...nothing," said Cas, rubbing the back of his neck again, and shifting his feet. "Just... I was carrying something. So..."
"What were you carrying?"
"So, how about a movie?"
"What were you carrying, Cas?"
Cas finally turned his head and looked over at him. A long, level look.
"You," said Cas.
Dean stared at him, and then stared down at the wing. At the long, black, shining feathers.
He ran his hands over the black flight feathers, one after another.
Dean said slowly, trying to take it in, "You burned your wings carrying me out of Hell." Cas had even burned the leading edge of the wing, Dean realized, for it wasn't just the primaries; almost half the leading edge of the wing was black too. Including the big joint of the wing, and even the alulas— Cas's nimble, clever little winglets.
Dean set the washcloth down on the bedside table, and slipped his fingers under the alulas, holding them up slightly to get a better look. They were solid black, shining black, all over.
"You burned your winglets too," said Dean softly.
"Yes."
"Cas... aren't these sensitive? The book said these are sensitive. It must... it must have..." Dean had to pause and swallow before he could ask, "Did it hurt?"
The alulas flexed, wrapping down over Dean's fingers, just as when Dean had been drifting off to sleep in the Tennessee motel. Dean ran his thumb over the slender black winglets, trying to imagine what they must have looked like when they were white.
Trying to imagine what it had felt like when they'd burned.
"It was worth it," said Castiel. "I never had any doubt that it was worth it. Actually I was just worried about maintaining enough lift. The primaries... well, I nearly lost flight control. It was a little dicey. But I got through...I got you through." He spread his alulas a bit, lifting them up off Dean's fingers and glancing over at them. "Afterwards I couldn't hold anything for a while," Cas said thoughtfully. "I mean, couldn't hold anything with the alulas. But they healed. And I still had all my tertials, fortunately, so everything molted back in fine. You know, when you first met me, a few weeks later, I was regrowing the damaged primaries. You must have noticed, didn't you? When I showed you my wings?"
Dean thought back.
He could still see it now, in his mind's-eye, as clear as if it had just happened yesterday: Castiel standing before him in that barn, doing that wing-raising move, the shadows raising up on the wall behind him (shadows cast from the etheric plane, where the wings had really been, Dean knew now). Those stunning shadows... They'd looked so impressive, so raggedly dramatic... impressive and ragged ... and... ragged.
Ragged.
Ragged, Dean realized. The wings had, in fact, looked ragged.
At the time, the raggedness had seemed kind of cool. He'd taken it, then, as an indication of the sort of rough-and-ready, no-nonsense, badass fighter that Castiel had turned out to be. A warrior through and through; a little roughed up, maybe, but ready to fight.
But now Dean knew that wings were not supposed to look ragged like that.
Castiel had been regrowing his feathers, after they'd been burned in Hell.
Dean couldn't speak for a minute.
"You never told me you got hurt," he said at last.
The alulas tightened slightly on Dean's fingers. Castiel said, "Dean, it was worth it. I never had any doubts then, and I never have had any doubts since. It has always been worth it. Even now, the tertials... even this was worth it."
Dean tore his eyes off the black alulas, and looked up at Cas.
Cas was looking Dean right in the eyes. He said, "I'm proud of the black, Dean. I've always worn it as a badge of honor." He was studying Dean closely now, and he asked, "Dean, can I ask you something?"
"Um," said Dean, still almost too rattled to think. "Um, yeah?"
Cas took a breath and asked, glancing around the room nonchalantly, "I was just wondering. What do you think of black? I mean, as a feather color?"
The exact same question he'd asked earlier about the gray.
"The black is, is, it's so, it's spectacular," Dean said, stumbling over his words a little, "It's my favorite. But, Cas. You've never... " He wasn't sure what he was trying to ask, and had to pause a moment to think, finally saying, "Have you ever wished your wings were still white? I mean, have you ever... you know..." His throat had gone tight now, but he managed to say, his voice cracking into a whisper, "Have you ever regretted it?"
"Not ever, Dean," said Castiel, folding the winglets tightly over Dean's fingers again. "Not ever."
Sam came back shortly after that, and soon the marina guy called to say the boat was ready. It was time to go.
They spent a few hours at the marina that night checking out the boat. Cas did a very thorough check for hex-bags and wild-calls, and Dean and Sam checked the hull, engine and everything else they could think of. Then Cas drew some protective wards and sigils in various places around the boat. Just in case. They loaded in all the gear— groceries and snacks, drinking water, weapons, clothes, towels, and various other supplies— and also a nice set of fake passports, in case they ran into any Bahamas customs guys, which Dean was dearly hoping would not happen. Sam spent quite a while fiddling with the boat's GPS navigation system, reviewing the charts, and studying various other boat gizmos— sonar, CB radio, an emergency beacon and more. They packed all the supplies away, and got some "go-bags" ready to carry to shore. Then they snatched a few hours sleep, Sam and Dean sleeping on the boat to guard their gear, and Cas sleeping in the minivan.
A few hours later they were heading out of Miami's huge Biscayne Bay, with the boat's little GPS navigator plotting a neat course to Great Abaco Island. Sam got them through all the channel markers successfully and eased the boat into a pretty good clip as they headed out into the open ocean. A few other boaters were tooling around too, in the waters near Miami; but as Florida dwindled behind them and vanished over the horizon, soon they were all alone on a vast blue sea.
The water changed color to a deeper, darker blue when crossed into the deep Gulf Stream, the great northward current that swept right past the Florida coast and clear across the Atlantic Ocean. But conditions were good, with just some light choppy waves over long, slow swells. The swells weren't too bad, and it was actually a beautiful day. Their little boat sped along across the sea, and the chilly wind began to seem exhilarating, the speed intoxicating.
As soon as Miami disappeared behind them, Cas shed his backpack and shook his wings a little. He stood by Sam and Dean a few moments, watching as they discussed the navigation issues. Sam felt fairly comfortable with the navigation equipment, but the Gulf Stream could sweep little boats off course very easily, so he was keeping a close eye on the GPS and wanted to talk it over with Dean. While they talked over headings and course settings, Cas drifted away from them, into the wind, his feathers ruffling in the breeze. Soon he'd inched away up onto the forward deck, and the next time Dean glanced up, Cas was right at the front of the bow, where there was a sturdy bowsprit— a slender, but strong, narrow board that stuck forward right out over the water, framed by a waist-rail to hold on to.
A moment later Cas had stepped right out onto the bowsprit itself. He moved out to the very tip of it, leaning into the wind, gripping the rail at his waist.
He opened the right wing, and then the left, as far as it would go. And he stayed there, standing at the very, very, very front of the boat, with nothing around him but the wind. With both wings spread as far as they could go.
Feeling the wind in his wings.
"Man, what a sight," said Sam, shaking his head. "Look at those wings."
"Like Leo Dicaprio with wings," said Dean. "No, wait, forget I said that, cause we are NOT gonna be the Titanic."
Sam laughed, and said, "I was thinking more a pirate ship. He makes a hell of a figurehead."
"Aye-aye, Cap'n Sparrow," said Dean.
They both just stood there a while, watching Cas with his wings spread, leaning into the wind.
It was a few minutes before either of them got around to looking back at their little GPS route-plotter again. At which point they discovered that the little GPS had died. Its screen had gone black.
"What the..." said Dean. He tried turning it off and on. Nothing. He checked the backup GPS; it was dead too.
Sam throttled down, till they were just bobbing up and down in the vast empty ocean, and he helped Dean pull the GPS, and its backup, off their little brackets to examine them.
Cas was making his back toward them, saying, "Why have we stopped?"
"Our GPS just died," Dean said. "Oh, hell, look, Sam, the thing at the back that connects it to the boat battery is destroyed. Looks like someone broke it. It's just been running off its own little backup battery and of course the battery eventually died." He handed it to Sam, and Sam looked it over grimly.
Sam said, "Check the backup."
Dean picked up the backup GPS and realized instantly, from the weight, that it was just an empty box. The innards were gone.
Dean said, "God friggin' dammit. I knew this boat was too good to be true. The Queen's onto us. She must have wised up after the river elemental." He pulled out his cell phone, in a fond hope that maybe its GPS might somehow work. And actually it did work... except that the phone couldn't download the associated map. The phone was just showing their location as a cheerful blue dot in the middle of a completely blank gray screen.
"No cell towers in the ocean, Dean," said Sam. "Which means no map."
"I know. I just was hoping," said Dean wistfully. "Dammit! Somebody got to the boat. Before we got to it, I bet. But we checked the boat all over for hex bags!"
"And wild-calls," said Sam, sitting down on the pilot's seat looking at the GPS in dismay. "And everything."
Castiel was leaning closer and looking at the GPS as Sam turned it around and around, and he said, "It wasn't a hex bag or a wild-call. There was nothing magical here at all." Cas reached out and fingered the broken part. "Nothing was added; it was just that a small thing that was already there was broken. That's a very tricky sort of tampering to detect. This was cleverly done."
"And when we checked it earlier, it was working," pointed out Dean.
"Yeah," said Sam, "It was designed to fail later. Once we were out in the middle of nowhere." He looked grim. Glancing ahead at the empty blue ocean ahead of them, he said, "We'll never be able to get there without at least one of these working. We'll be swept north by the current and end up in the middle of the Atlantic. Well, at least we can probably find Florida if we just go the other way, but we're going to have to turn back."
"And then we'll never find another boat in time," said Dean. "We can't afford this kind of delay. Dammit, dammit, dammit." He gave a deep sigh, and said, "Well... at least the boat didn't blow up. They could've gotten to the engine, I suppose."
"I put several sigils on the engine last night," remarked Cas. "And on the fuel tank. Sigils against failure, sigils to encourage things to keep working. Just in case. But I didn't think of putting one on that little device. I'm sorry, Sam, I didn't realize it was that important. What does it do?"
Dean said, "Oh, it just keeps us from getting swept out to the middle of the friggin' Atlantic Ocean and dying a hideous death from thirst and starvation, that's all. No biggie."
"No biggie?" said Cas, puzzled.
Sam explained, "It's a navigation device, Cas. Helps us know where we are and set a course heading."
"Oh, is that all?" said Cas, brightening. "But, we can do that ourselves. It's easy. You're right, Dean, it's no biggie."
Sam and Dean both looked at him.
"What?" Sam said.
"Well, as long as you know what time it is, of course," said Cas. "Which we know. For example, at the time it is right now, and given today's date, and the elevation of the sun..." Cas walked back up to the bow, and right out onto the bowsprit again, where he took a moment to look all around at the horizon, and glanced at the sun for a long moment, squinting his eyes, judging its elevation.
"Great Abaco Island is that way," called Cas. He pointed.
Sam and Dean both automatically looked toward where he was pointing; just another featureless stretch of glittering blue water on the horizon.
"You sure about this, Cas?" said Dean. "Not that I'm doubting you, but, y'know, if you're wrong, then there's the horrible thirsty death."
"I'm sure, " called Castiel, looking back at them over one wing. "I've flown this section many times. And swam it a few times."
"Swam it?" asked Sam.
"I've taken whales as vessels. From time to time. Over the past million years. I've swum through here quite a few times, actually." He glanced around and said, "I think I might even be able to recognize the currents. Even with this human vessel."
Sam and Dean glanced at each other.
"He's taken whales as vessels," said Dean to Sam. "From time to time."
"Over the past million years," said Sam nonchalantly. "And he's flown this section many times. And swum it. But of course." He put the boat back in gear, and slowly pushed the throttle forward, revving the boat up toward its fastest speed.
From the bow, Castiel called back, "A little more to the right, Sam." He pointed again.
Sam turned the boat a little more to the right.
The crisis had magically been resolved, and the boat sped forward again, over the glittering water of the deep blue sea. Castiel spread his wings once more, pointing now and then whenever they needed to change their course. Sam seemed comfortable just following Cas's pointing, so Dean zipped up his coat against the wind and sat on a padded bench just in front of the console. He had a great view of the whole ocean from here, but he found himself looking just at Cas's wings, spread wide in the sun and the wind.
Dean sat there a long time, looking at the white, and the gray, and the black.
A/N -
Castiel was in molt in that barn scene in S4. He had a huge gap in the primaries of both wings - and that sort of gap in the MIDDLE of the primaries means a wave of molt is going down the wing. And his alulas were visibly damaged. (the left one looked dislocated, and both alulas were missing their feathers. I choose to believe there was also a second alula on each side, folded down on the wing.) It was the first thing I noticed during that scene - "oh, that angel's in molt, and look, he hurt his alulas." Ever since I've had the idea that Cas got hurt while flying Dean out of Hell.
(I'm sure the visual effects guys chose a ragged look just because they thought it looked dramatic. Artists sometimes stick that "ragged gap in the middle of the wing" look into a bird image without realizing what it really means!)
Next update: That Sunday chapter that I mentioned might or might not get done, but as always there will at least be one on Friday. (Yes, the chapters are "all written", but just in first-draft form; they still need an additional draft & polish!) Fieldwork is looming after that and my schedule is going to get erratic, but I'm going to try to stick with the regular-Friday-update schedule as much as I can. Wish me luck!
Let me know if there was a certain scene or a line that you liked! Thank you all so much for your support.