A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There is a more detailed note about it on my profile, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
This story follows "Thanksgiving at Bobby's" and "Darkness Rising," but can be read as standalone. This story will be updated every day until December 25th (or possibly 26th if I come up with an epilogue).
Notes: Cas and Sam centric, slash and pre-slash. Plenty of Dean too, mostly in a humorous capacity. Please enjoy.
Special Note: One of my personal favorite chapters. I hope you all enjoy.
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December 20
Sam tapped nervous fingers against the rim of the black leather steering wheel, negotiating the Gerbers' minivan through late afternoon traffic. From the passenger seat beside him, Castiel watched the movement of the young man's feet, darting from the gas pedal to the brake, the vehicle jerking as Sam inched as close to the car in front of them as he dared and then backed off again, practicality and impatience warring in the stiffness of his white knuckles. A yellow light turned red abruptly and Sam slammed his foot down, their bodies lurching forward against their seatbelts as the car stopped too fast; Sam shot Castiel an apologetic smile, but his attention was focused on the road, his forehead furrowing as his fingers brushed the cell phone tucked into a cup holder. Castiel glanced at the silent phone before turning back to the passenger window, staring through the blue sweater and white scarf his reflection was wearing in the thick glass.
He and Sam had spent the afternoon at a holiday sale at a large department store, one whose logo was a star instead of a bull's-eye, searching for any sign of a bell around the store's thirty-foot Christmas tree decorated in red and gold. Castiel had been wary of doing any further shopping, but Sam hadn't tried to nudge him toward the dressing room once, only buying Castiel the white scarf when a security guard started tracking them through the store, perhaps curious why two men were walking circles around the Christmas tree. They had been completing their purchase at the register when Sam's phone buzzed in his pocket.
"Sam. We're idiots. Well, you're an idiot. I'm a genius. I have the answer to all our problems."
Dean's voice had been loud enough that Castiel could hear it through the phone as Sam cradled the device with his shoulder and finished counting out his cash. He waved off the bag the store attendant offered him and wrapped the scarf absentmindedly around Castiel's neck as he led the way to the door. "What problems?" Sam asked as the automatic doors swung open for them.
"Our bell problems!" Castiel could hear Dean's derision all the way through the phone, and it distracted him from fiddling with the tag still attached to his scarf. Remembering Sam's instructions about tags, he pushed it over his shoulder so that it hung in the back, and then followed Sam out onto the well-shoveled sidewalk. Dean's voice crackled in the chill air. "Here's what we do. We go back to the church, we get down there where the bones are, and we summon the crap out of Dolores Underwood. Then she tells us where the rest of the bells are and boom, done—just like that."
Sam's eyes had whipped up to find Castiel's, his features already worried as he pressed his free hand against his ear. "What? Dean, no—are you crazy? That church is…"
Castiel hadn't heard much more of the argument. Cars rolled past the front of the store one after the other, and they made it difficult to decipher what the older Winchester was saying; Sam never seemed to get out more than his brother's name or a few fragmented words before he broke off, presumably interrupted by the voice on the other side of the phone. It was only a minute or two before Sam was jerking the phone away from his ear and staring at the screen, the way Castiel had often seen him do when Dean hung up on him.
"Dean…Dean!" Sam tried once more, though the screen was already fading to black. When he looked up at Castiel, his expression was pinched, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he rifled through his jacket pocket for his keys. "Crap. We have to get over there before he does anything stupid and gets himself killed or possessed, or…worse."
Castiel had agreed. But the streets were snarled with slow-moving traffic, and they made their way across town at a crawl, Sam murmuring regrets about not learning alternate routes through the city under his breath. He had tried twice to call Dean, but the older Winchester had not picked up. Sam's jaw clenched as his brother's answering machine clicked on, Dean's voice tinny through the phone speaker, and he hit the button marked with a red phone before dropping it back into the cup holder, tightening his hands around the steering wheel. Castiel watched his shifting expression but was not sure what to say, so they made the rest of the drive in silence.
Dean had already arrived when Sam parked the van in front of a house just down the street from the church. The older hunter was bent double digging in the Impala's trunk, a canvas bag dangling from one of his hands on a long black strap, but he looked up as Sam clambered from the driver's seat and shut his door with a snap, his long legs closing the distance between the two cars in only a few strides. Castiel followed a step behind him, studying the façade of the church. It looked the same, windows dark and a thick layer of ice coating the front steps, but there was something different that he could not quite place, a strangeness that tugged at his focus and locked his blue eyes on the warping wood of the double doors. Something about the church felt familiar to him in a way that it had not the week before. Sam's voice distracted him before he could pinpoint what it was.
"Dean—what the hell, man? I was calling you."
Dean rolled his eyes as he stuffed a long reel of white cloth into the canvas bag. "Yeah. And I didn't pick up, because I didn't feel like getting my ear bitched off. Apparently there's no getting out of that." His green eyes tracked Castiel as he stepped up behind Sam, and then dropped back to the trunk, where he was working a box of thick matches out from under a few shotguns. "Look, I said you could just keep going with your shopping spree if you weren't on board. I can do this without you."
Sam scoffed, his arms folding over his chest. "No, Dean—I'm not going to let you go solo on this. That would be even stupider and more dangerous than what you're planning to do right now. I'm just saying that—"
"Yeah, yeah—I got it," Dean broke in, straightening from the trunk and slamming it closed. His eyes snapped between the two of them as he rested one hand on the slope of the Impala, the black paint fogging around the warmth of his skin on the cold metal. "Mega evil, big risk. Your concerns have been noted, okay? No worries—you're officially the loser little brother in horror movies who never wants to go into the haunted house because he's chickenshit, and I will be there to save your ass when and if that becomes necessary."
Sam's expression tightened as Dean talked—Castiel wasn't sure if it was the rising volume of his brother's voice or the step Dean took forward until he and Sam were toe to toe, exchanging stares. For a moment Castiel wondered if Sam would surrender, as he had so often seen him do in arguments with Dean; but then Sam shook his head and dropped his arms, one hand pausing to rub his temples before falling back to his side.
"I don't want my concerns noted, Dean," he said pointedly. "I want them addressed. I want you to acknowledge the fact that you have no idea what's going to happen if you perform a summoning ritual in a church where five nuns died, not to mention the poltergeist and the fact that this place was home to a seriously bad demon for over a century."
Dean shrugged under his leather coat. "I don't see that we've got another choice, Sam. If Bobby's right and the demon is actually sealed in these bells, we are utterly screwed if we don't track them down, and unless you are seriously burying the lede right now, seems like you guys didn't find anything while you were out scarf-shopping." Castiel glanced down at the white scarf around his neck and Sam pressed his lips together, but he didn't answer, and after a moment Dean went on, tilting his head mockingly to one side. "Yeah. Thought so. Which means we're three days bell-less. I don't know about you, but I can't take being stuck in this hippie town hunting bells for much longer. The sooner we finish this crap, the sooner we can put that two-story prison in the rearview mirror and never look back. Right?"
Sam looked down at his feet. Dean's voice had grown more intense as he spoke, a harshness creeping into the words that Castiel had not heard in some time, a brutalizing power that always reminded him of the pit and the flail; it was in his eyes as Dean stared at his brother, and then at the angel, daring them in turn to disagree. Castiel frowned as he remembered Sam standing in the kitchen, his hands full of cookie dough. Then Dean took a step back and slung the strap of the canvas bag over his shoulder, dipping his head in one biting nod.
"Right. Besides—if Dolores Underwood is really some badass hunter chick like Bobby said, she should be eager to help us out."
"She may not be able to," Castiel told him. Dean's sharp eyes shot back to him, but the angel only tipped his head, returning his stare evenly. "When I touched her bones, I felt that very little of her soul remained. Even if you are able to summon her, it's unlikely she will be capable of telling you what you want to know."
Dean scoffed and adjusted the bag strap on his shoulder. "Yeah, well, excuse me if I don't feel like taking advice from the guy who voted not to come here in the first place. Now are you girls gonna wait in the car talking about your feelings, or are you gonna come inside and help me clean up this mess?" He didn't wait for an answer before turning away and moving across the road with stiff, determined steps, each footfall breaking the ice brittle as fish bones between the cracks in the pavement.
Castiel looked up at Sam. The young man's eyes were still on the tips of his dark brown shoes, the only part of his clothing that Castiel remembered from before December, before the racks of the department store and a package of checkered pajamas. The angel lifted a hand to brush his shoulder.
"Sam," he said.
Sam breathed in hard, blinking as his gaze lifted to meet Castiel's. His lips twitched into a thin smile. "Better not let him get too far ahead," he murmured. Then he turned to follow his brother's path across the street, hands shoved down in his pockets. Castiel followed in the trail of his lengthening shadow.
He had almost forgotten how strange the church had felt to him by the time they crossed the threshold—but the instant they stepped into the chill of the broken interior, Castiel understood what he had felt, and he stopped abruptly, his hands clenching into wary fists. The demonic energy was gone. It had been so strong, when they first came to the church, that he had felt it almost as a physical sensation, something slick like oil hanging in the air of this once sacred place, so far from sacred now that it felt more like Hell than the world of man. It had made him angry, or something close, to see what such evil had done to a house of worship, to sense the darkness that had taken root here so deeply that it had breached the walls. But it was gone now, utterly eradicated, not the slightest taint of demonic presence lingering in the shadows of the church. In its absence, the air felt stale, as if the entire structure had been sterilized. Castiel halted at the mouth of the center aisle, staring down the rows of ruined pews. He was surprised to find that Sam had stopped as well.
"Whoa." Sam's voice was barely a whisper, but the word echoed in the silent church, pulling two sets of eyes to his face. Sam's shoulders hunched up toward his ears as he pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. "What happened here? This place feels…completely different."
Dean had paused a few steps farther down the aisle, glancing back over his shoulder to study his brother—but at Sam's words, he rolled his eyes, hefting the canvas bag higher on his shoulder. "Yeah. Nice try, Sammy. That fake psychic crap isn't going to stop me this time."
"No, Dean—listen to me." Sam's tone was growing more urgent, and as Castiel watched his eyes flickered from his brother to the cracked rafters sagging over their heads, as if waiting for the roof to tumble down on them at any moment. Sam brushed a hand through his hair as his gaze dropped back to Dean. "You remember how I said there was serious poltergeist energy all over this place?"
Dean leaned one hand on the back of a pew, though Castiel noticed his eyes skimmed the dark curving wood before trusting his fingers to it. "Yeah, I seem to remember something about you playing chicken with a shit-ton of broken glass."
"Well…it's gone," Sam said, his hands flopping against his sides. "All of it. I can't feel…anything at all anymore."
"The demonic energy is gone as well," Castiel said. He stepped forward until he was even with Sam, and considered, for a moment, wrapping his fingers around the hand lingering against Sam's jacket pocket, over the lump of the smallest bell; but Sam's expression was worried, off balance, and in the end he refrained, wary of upsetting him further. Dean took a step toward them both and raised one finger.
"Okay—hold on a sec, John Edward and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Gone how? Poltergeists are nasty, territorial fuckers—they don't go anywhere without putting up a serious fight."
"I know," Sam replied with a shrug. "But I'm telling you, man—it's just gone. Last time, I felt all this malice and spite and…hatred here, and now it just feels…dead."
"Surprising that you can sense that," a deep voice mused from the direction of the apse. Castiel's wings were suddenly open, bristling at his back as he stared into the shadows at the far end of the church—then his eyes narrowed as a dark-skinned figure ducked the fallen crucifix and stepped out into the thin light, a smirk curling his lips. "Or perhaps, not so surprising—you aren't exactly normal, after all, are you, Sam Winchester?"
Sam tensed at his side. Castiel stared back into unfathomably dark eyes. "Uriel," he said. Uriel's lips twitched.
"Castiel," he greeted mildly. "It's been a while. I see you've redecorated."
Castiel glanced down at himself; he had almost forgotten that he didn't look as he always had, that the familiar suit and trench coat had been replaced by black pants and a blue sweater, and the white scarf Sam had wound around his neck. He looked up at Uriel again, remembering the last time he had stood opposite his brother angel, the slow burn of anger in those impenetrably dark eyes before Uriel had at last submitted, accepted his reprimand, and his gaze had dropped to the ground, his grace unsteady as flame within him—the mark that grace had left on Sam's forearm, a seared handprint from a grip so tight it had damaged the bone. Sam seemed to remember it, too; his right hand had strayed up to hold his left, gripping his arm where the brand had been. Castiel felt his wings twitch behind him.
"Uriel," he repeated, watching the way his subordinate's own wings flickered at the name on his tongue. Castiel narrowed his eyes. "What are you—"
"No, you know what? Fuck that," Dean broke in. His voice was angry, his face twisted in a snarl as he took a step toward the front of the church and swept his arm at the dark-skinned angel. "No fucking way. You get the fuck out of here before I come up there and make you."
Uriel tipped his head, a small smile touching his lips as his eyes surveyed the broken altar. "Colorful, if completely delusional. Though of course I would thoroughly enjoy watching you try." Castiel felt a flicker of impatience run through his grace, and Uriel's eyes came back to him, the smile disappearing from his face as they exchanged stares. "Unfortunately, I'm here on more important business. I bring a message, Castiel—and a warning."
His voice twisted around the last word; Castiel had spent long enough in the company of humans now that he recognized it as derision. It wasn't an emotion angels were allowed, but it didn't surprise him, because he remembered saying that exact word to Uriel before he raised his wings and disappeared back to the Winchesters, to tend to the burn of a powerful hand, and Uriel had always had a temper. His behavior was inappropriate, but what mattered was his obedience. Castiel held his eyes.
"What is your message?" he asked simply.
Uriel sighed, taking a few steps down from the altar until he stood on the floor of the nave. "All this time among humans, Castiel, and you still haven't learned to listen to a story. What is a message without context?" Castiel just watched him silently, and after a moment Uriel shrugged, one shoulder rolling up beneath the fabric of his heavy black suit. "Very well. I just thought you might be interested to know that this morning I was dispatched to ferry a human soul to the other side—a pious soul that had been trapped beneath this church for a very long time."
Castiel blinked. "The saint," he said softly. Suddenly he understood why the sterility of the church seemed so familiar—it was the same emptiness he had felt in the craters of cities Uriel had been sent to smite from time to time, the absolute obliteration of even the essence of whatever evil had warranted the destruction in the first place. Uriel smirked.
"Yes. Though there was so little left of her, I almost expected her to degrade along the way. Then I did some cleaning up, as long as I was here. You left quite a mess—the price of being powerless at the moment, I suppose."
Castiel felt his grace building inside of him, a dull glow to remind Uriel that the power he had called on when he warned the other angel away from Sam Winchester was still very much his—but Sam spoke before he could, the tall hunter squaring his shoulders as he took a deep breath.
"You did this," Sam said. "You got rid of the demonic energy, the poltergeist—all of it." His voice was soft and slightly wary, as if he doubted any action taken by the dark-skinned angel—but Uriel only took another step forward, the wood of splintered pews cracking under his feet.
"Feeling lonely, Sam? A little less at home without that familiar smell of brimstone?"
Sam flinched, and Castiel felt one wing snapping taut across his back—it flashed behind Sam and then curled around into the space between him and Uriel, and hovered there, the feathers crackling with grace and warning. For an instant, Uriel drew back. Then his eyes found Castiel's, and he tipped his head, incredulity and scorn clear on his features. Castiel knew for certain in that moment that the soldiers of God had never wrapped their wings around man, and that Uriel would never so much as consider it. The dark-skinned angel shook his head.
"I apologize, Castiel," he murmured, glancing at Sam's hand where it still gripped his arm. Castiel's wing twitched. "I wasn't trying to upset anyone," Uriel finished.
Castiel felt himself frown—but Dean had always been quicker, and he was apparently tired of waiting for answers. "You know what? Fuck you and your forked tongue," Dean snapped. He couldn't see Uriel's wings flare at the insult, but Castiel could, and he cautioned the other angel to let it go with his eyes. "Enough small talk. You said you had a message." Dean lifted his hands in an exaggerated shrug. "Well, you screwed our summoning idea straight to hell, so let's have it—what's the big report?"
"The host has figured out what demon is sealed within these bells," Uriel replied. His eyes flickered from Dean to Castiel and back, eyebrows lifting in invitation. "Would you like to know what it is?"
Dean worked his tongue against his cheek. "Not if it means talking to you for another five minutes."
For a moment, Uriel said nothing, only regarding Dean through dark, narrowed eyes. Then he started down the stone aisle with long, slow strides, stopping only as he drew even with Dean on the ragged red of the threadbare carpet. "You're very entitled, for a species that only crawled out of the mud a few millennia ago," he told him.
"You're a pretty big dick for a guy with no balls," Dean shot back, his muscles tight under his leather jacket. "Spit it out."
Uriel's lips pulled into a sneer. "Perhaps it would be better to show you. Here, Sam—catch."
Before Castiel realized what he intended, Uriel lifted his hand and released something, a spark of gold that hurtled toward Sam end over end. Sam raised his hands automatically to catch it, but the second he did he hissed and dropped it again, pulling his hands away as if in pain. He stumbled backward and Castiel caught him with an arm around his waist, and then reached out to catch the object, too, surprised to find a heavy golden bell resting in his palm. In the instant before his grace suppressed the demon taint that had made Sam flinch, he caught a glimpse of a shadow stretching away from the bell, the arc of scaled wings and ragged fur around a gaping black mouth—then the shadow vanished into the bell and Castiel's eyes snapped up, outrage blazing like a flash fire within him.
"Uriel!" he barked. His anger shivered in his wings, and as his feathers flared the last shards tumbled from the stained-glass windows, smashing into fragments on the floor. "You weakened the seal on the bell."
"Momentarily," Uriel said.
"Unacceptable," Castiel snapped. "Sam could have been gravely injured. You have been warned," he finished, his wings flashing at his back.
Sam was staring at his hands. Castiel wished he could pause to check what the bell had done to them, or take them in his and turn them away from Sam, as he had beneath the church, hold them closely and stare into those wide hazel eyes until Sam's breathing was steady in his chest again. But he could do nothing but tighten his arm around the young man's waist, because Uriel was smirking at him, his grace ebbing and flowing within him in some unreadable emotion, and in his sweater Castiel did not even have a pocket to slip the bell into, had no choice but to keep it in his hand. And Dean had lost his temper, grabbing Uriel by the lapels of his suit and yanking them face to face.
"You son of a bitch," Dean growled. "I'm gonna rip your fucking wings off—"
Suddenly there was no sound from Dean except for a low choking, and the older Winchester dropped his grip, reeling back from Uriel clutching his throat. Castiel's rage flared in his chest. "Uriel!" he snapped again.
Uriel glanced at him, and then at Dean, and the hunter's throat opened with a gasp, Dean bending almost double with a fit of coughing. Sam slipped out of his hold, but Castiel only distantly registered him wrestling Dean into a pew and then kneeling down beside him, urging his brother to breathe—his attention was fixed on Uriel, narrowed blue eyes staring back into pits so dark they were almost black.
"Enough," Castiel whispered in his true voice. It was barely a shadow of sound, but still it sent a shiver through the stone floor, rattling all the fragments of broken glass. "Your business is with me."
"Then keep your pets on a shorter leash," Uriel hissed. A moment later he had recoiled, his wings drawing back to rest behind his shoulders as he lifted his hands in placation. "No. My mistake. I only meant to show you the creature sealed within the bells. Did you recognize him, Castiel?" Castiel frowned, searching his infinite knowledge for a shadow mouth of jagged black teeth; but Uriel only chuckled, a shrug rolling through his borrowed form. "Not surprising. It has been quite some time. After all, the Flayed Dog spent the last century buried beneath this church, sealed by a saint."
Castiel felt his eyes widen in understanding. In a pew away to his left, Dean cleared his throat and sat up straighter against the wood, still rubbing his neck. "The flayed what?" he croaked. Sam was still kneeling next to him, one hand on Dean's leg and the other open in front of him, as if the fingers were too ginger to clench—Castiel tightened his grip around the bell and fought down the urge to crush it to dust.
"Archosias," he said, almost to himself.
"One of the many monsters who crawl on their bellies beside Satan's throne," Uriel echoed. "He takes the form of a great wolf with the wings of a griffin, when he walks beyond Hell. Filthy half-breed," he added under his breath. Sam flinched and Castiel's wings stiffened at his back, but Uriel only raised an eyebrow. "The demon," he said softly. "Mangy creature. Sickening to look at, because he has been flayed almost to the bone, only patches of fur clinging to the skin around his black jaws."
"Whoa, whoa—flayed by who?" Dean demanded, a little of the old fire returning to his tone.
"It was a punishment," Castiel answered, staring down at the bell in his palm. "For daring to thieve from Satan's table. Satan took his repayment in flesh, a pound for every pound Archosias stole—but the demon's jaws are wide, and he had swallowed much, and by the time the debt was paid, very little was left of him." His gaze flickered up to find Uriel's, though when he spoke it was to the Winchesters, as he watched them fidget out of the corner of his eye. "He is malicious and spiteful, and eternally hungry, and he is very, very powerful."
"You understand why Heaven wanted me to pass a message to you." Uriel stepped forward until he was close enough that Castiel could pick out the line between his pupils and his dark irises, their shoes nearly touching on the faded carpet. It did not escape Castiel's notice that Uriel stepped around the presence of his wing. "Archosias is stronger than you, Castiel," Uriel told him, his eyes tracking to the wings behind his superior as they flickered once. "He is stronger than me. At full strength, it would take a holy army to return him to Hell. He is sealed, for now, his power cut into twelve pieces. But if you fail to retrieve all the bells and the seal breaks, you will not be nearly enough to stop him."
"I will not allow that to happen," Castiel said. He glanced down at the bell, a heavy curve of middle tone, and then up at Uriel again, frowning. "Where did you acquire this?" he asked, tightening his grip on the ancient leather strap.
Uriel smirked. "Under the ice of the wishing pond, outside the public library." Castiel blinked and watched the other angel's expression widen to a full smile, something dangerously close to pride touching the corners of his lips. "There wasn't much left of the saint, but she was desperate to tell me the locations of the last three bells. Unfortunately, her mind was jumbled, and most of the words meaningless. But I did manage to solve one riddle. Consider it a gift."
"You know what would be a real gift?" Dean spoke up from the pew. Castiel turned to see that the older Winchester had pushed himself to his feet and pulled Sam up with him, their faces grave as they stood staring at the dark-skinned angel. Sam had one hand braced against the finial, but the other, his left, was buried in the fabric of his coat. Castiel pressed his lips together as Dean raked a hand through his hair. "How about you just tell us where the last two bells are," he suggested, shrugging far too casually for the sharpness of his eyes. "We'll lock this thing down and get Archon or whatever out of your hair before mass amounts of people have to die."
Uriel exhaled into a chuckle and cocked his head to one side. "If I had all the answers, do you think I would have wasted all this time drilling the facts of the situation into your thick little skull? As I said, she was…unstable. You're awfully weak creatures without your bodies to hold your souls in. Even those of you with pure souls," he finished, glancing at Sam. The younger Winchester didn't seem to notice.
"Well, you know what, Uriel?" Dean shot back. "You gave us the bell and the message—so how about fuck you very much, and you get your feathered ass out of here?"
Sam was still clinging to the pew. Castiel found he was having difficulty focusing on anything besides the white knuckles of the young man's hand, or the line of sweat making its way down from his brow, skirting the edge of his ear before it disappeared into his collar. He almost missed the flare of Uriel's grace as his brother angel turned away and walked back down the aisle, crushing flickers of stained glass under his black-soled shoes.
"I gave you the message. I still haven't given you the warning." A crack of thunder filled the sky above the church, incongruous with the thin snow clouds overhead; Castiel recognized it for what it was, a summons from Heaven, and Uriel stopped, turning back to face them with a small, deliberate smile. "Well. Seems I'm out of time, so I'll be brief. The saint was confused about a great deal, but she was very clear about one thing: the bells must be collected by midnight on the 25th of December, before the twelfth chime announcing the beginning of Christmas Day, or the seals will break and Archosias will be released in all his wickedness."
Castiel felt his brow furrow, but Dean was more vocal, as usual, taking a few angry steps down the aisle after the dark-skinned angel. "What the fuck is this, Cinderella? Nobody told us there was a time limit! The hell happens at midnight on Christmas?"
"The bells were forged on Christmas Eve in 1902, and finished at the stroke of midnight," Uriel said. "In this church, they were rung in the midnight mass bell choir for Christmas every year as the clock struck twelve. And Dolores Underwood sealed Archosias beneath this church at exactly midnight on Christmas in 1910." Uriel's dark eyes bored into Castiel's, his eyebrows lifting as he gave a miniscule shrug. "Twelve bells. Twenty-four days. Twelve chimes at the twelfth hour. The seals are weakening, Castiel, a little at a time. There is no mistaking when they will fail."
Thunder rolled through the sky again, shaking dust down from the rafters. Dean glanced up at the cracks in the ceiling. Then he shook his head and pinned Uriel's gaze again, staring heedlessly back into the angel's dark eyes.
"Fine—you know what? Go ahead. Up the stakes. Two bells in four days? Piece of cake."
Uriel smirked. "Tick tock," he said. Then the angel was suddenly gone, the wind of his wings sending a swirl of dust through the hollow church; Castiel felt the thunder ebbing in the folds of Heaven, the archangels appeased by the answer to their summons. Slowly he drew his wings behind his back once more, the metal of the bell cold against his hand. Then he glanced across the aisle and caught Sam's eyes, wondering what thoughts were spinning behind his solemn expression. Dean reached out with his foot and crushed a piece of stained glass into the carpet.
"Piece of cake," he repeated, nodding shortly. But as Castiel stared down at his warped reflection in the surface of the bell, he found himself unsettled, and he doubted he was the only one.