"You're not touting that drivel again are you?" came the obnoxiously smarmy Scottish voice and Dean laughed as Castiel startled away from the demon that had appeared just by his shoulder. The angel glared at him before moving over to sit down pointedly on the bed, jostling Dean with a wing. It was so childish and different from the Castiel in the hallway that Dean couldn't help but snort. The wing stayed there though, just behind his back, not touching, but heavy and warm and comfortable.
Kali and Crowley were squabbling, devolving into a fit of insults and name-calling like a bunch of kindergarteners. Gabriel was all but laughing out loud at the two of them, chin cupped in his palms as he leaned over the table. Sam seemed strangely fascinated, probably thinking about some anthropological phenomena of intraspecies rivalry. So it was really up to him if they were going to get anywhere in the next hour.
"You two," he said in his best big-brother-just-caught-you-sneaking-a-cookie voice. "Sit down and tell us what the hell you're arguing about."
Neither of them moved, but then again Dean hadn't entirely expected them to fold like a house of cards. But when both of them opened their mouths again at the same time Dean quickly cut it, "Kali. What the hell is a devil's gate?"
She was too refined to be smug, but if she wasn't she would probably be sticking her tongue out at the other demon. "Interdimensional travel is incredibly difficult. Angels, demons, humans, we are all essentially trapped on this plane of existence. And yet, somehow, the demons are managing to pierce through the veil. I believe it was one of yours that came up with the concept of Occam's razor. It makes far more sense for their to be one spot, a gate if you will, that opens up between the two worlds, through which all demons travel, than for each demon to manage to separately break out of hell."
"That makes sense," Sam said with his thinky face. Dean had gotten a GED and half his degree from a community college, but he'd learned that the things that made the most sense weren't always the things that were true.
"You got any proof?" he challenged.
"I've seen it," she said, chin tilted up in defiance, jaw clenching when Crowley chuckled.
"And why don't you believe her?" he questioned the shorter demon.
"Darling, tell them how old you were when you saw this gate to hell," he wheedled. When she didn't answer, he did it for her. "She was three. Barely out of her diapers. And even you apes with your miniscule lifespans don't trust the word of a three year old."
"I know what I saw," Kali defended quickly.
"And what did you see?" Castiel added solemnly, wings not moving an inch.
"It was... it was a gaping maw in the earth that glowed red with hellfire. The air reeked of sulfur and ash and the heat was so strong that I could not approach within a hundred feet of its edge." Dean shivered in sympathy with the haunted look on her face, eyes unfocused and wide. Whatever it was that she saw or thought she saw, that was genuine terror.
"Oh, do tell them the rest of your little story," Crowley sighed impatiently.
"It wasn't until I'd left, looking back over my shoulder, that I saw him, the first demon rising from the gate. He was hideous and wrong in ways that you can not possibly fathom. Just looking at him made me want to flee."
"Right," Crowley declared, cutting through the dark mood of Kali's words. "And thus we conclude the nightmare of a child."
"She doesn't seem like she's lying," Sam argued quietly.
"Oh, she's not. Kali here really does believe every word coming out of her mouth. Its not sincerity that is lacking, it's concrete evidence. Surely you learned about that in your fancy school, lawyer boy?"
"Well, she's been there right? Why can't she just show us where it is?" Sam suggested, but Dean already had a feeling in his gut that it couldn't actually be that easy. Because if there really was some giant seething gate to hell lying around, why hadn't anyone found it?
"I do not recall it's exact location. And I believe it has been hidden," Kali admitted, spreading her hands, bronze skin splayed against the black fabric of her skirt.
"Of course," Crowley crowed, small toothy smile lighting up his face. Sam slumped back into his seat, drumming his fingers against the wooden table top and Dean could feel his disappointment. The kid always got a little too excited.
"But I believe the prophet can locate it again," Kali declared casually, like it was the easiest fucking thing in the world.
"And how's that?" Dean asked, not at all expecting an answer he was going to like.
"I know the general location. And since a prophet was most likely the one to create and conceal it, another prophet should be able to reveal and destroy it."
Sam's fingers stopped their incessant beat and Cas' wing jerked forward, stiff flight feathers ghosting across his back. It sounded fundamentally ridiculous and not a little insane, but Gabriel was still grinning at the rest of them and for once Crowley wasn't coming in with some smart-ass retort.
"I thought prophets were supposed to be saving lepers and slaves. Why would they go around opening gates to hell?" he asked wildly, because this was his truth, the good men and women of God.
"I don't know. But the prophets marks were all over the gate," Kali said, shaking her head. "It was before my time."
"Okay," Dean nodded. "Okay. Let's go find this gate." Because if there really was a gate, and if he really could close it, he sure as hell was going to try, shut out those bastards that killed Jo's father and Bobby's wife. Hellish cockroaches that came one after another after another until his father's life and his brother's childhood were crushed under their ceaseless tide.
He could feel the fire building up just under his skin, the itch to end this siege being laid against their world. It was so much bigger than his problems with Michael and the freaking HAS that took two generations of Winchesters and turned them into criminals. And he turned around to demand Cas take him there, but the angel opened his damned mouth and said, "We should tell the other angels."
"What? Hell, no." Dean whipped around, the betrayal sharp and bitter on his tongue.
"They deserve to know. They can help, set up some sort of sweep, control the gate even if we can't close it. They can come up with a plan," the angel argued.
"You mean Michael can. Michael's network. Michael's plan," he spat out and ignored the flash of hurt that made Cas look down, blue eyes shielded by dark lashes. "How many times do we have to do this, Cas? We can't trust Michael. Even after everything, god-"
"Yes, exactly, Dean. After everything. He has experience, leadership skills. And he is powerful, favored by our Father, with the resources of every angel behind him. And what do we have? What are we?" And Dean could see the angel shrinking in on himself, cowed by the shadow that Michael cast all the way from Central.
"We are going to be the ones to fix this. We are the ones that Michael wants. He needs our help, you got that? That's why he's doing all this. He's scared, Cas, of us." At some point Dean had stood up, towering over the still-seated angel, and yet when Castiel fixed him with that certain eye that belied so much doubt, Dean felt like he was staring down a giant. Maybe it was the wings.
Castiel's gaze faltered first, and where Dean should have felt triumph, he only felt disappointed rage. Because Castiel was looking at Gabriel, waiting for his answer, his reactions, his thoughts when Gabriel wasn't so much better than Michael.
"No," Dean snapped, grabbing the angel's chin, forcing him to face forward again. "This isn't Gabriel's decision. This is your crazy ass tied mine. The prophet gig is a two-for-one kind of deal."
When Castiel just sat there, frowning up at him, he started to panic, because he couldn't do this on his own. He still didn't know the first thing about getting his superpowers to work and he sure as hell wasn't going to trust Gabriel or a bunch of demons. And Sam's ass wasn't getting within a hundred miles of this hell gate if he had anything to say about it. And there wasn't anyone else after that, so he needed Cas to have his back, to get them through this with his creepy staring and gross amounts of oversharing and his constant need to talk about the things that scared the shit out of Dean. Because the things that scared the shit out of Dean didn't seem to phase the angel one bit.
And then Castiel's hand was on his wrist, ripping it away from his face as the angel stood up before Dean had the chance to back the hell away so when Castiel growled, "Fine," he could smell faint tangerine scent of his breath.
"Ugh," Crowley groaned and Dean whirled away to glare at him. "You two are so melodramatic. Not like you could tell the angels anyways."
"What?" Dean asked and he got the sense that he was missing something.
"They um," Sam started, but paused to clear his throat. "They're saying you two murdered the Sheriff."
"That was demons!" Dean protested in horror, the grotesque image of Jody sprawled out all wrong against the desk after triggering the sprinkler system.
"The news article said that Castiel broke you out of jail and the two of you broke every bone in her body," Sam said without looking up.
"That's not true! You know I would never do that, Sam."
"Of course I know that," Sam scowled, looking at Dean like he had to have been dropped on the head a couple times as a baby. "But as soon as you show up they're going to pin first degree murder on you and I don't know what they do to rogue angels."
"Shit," Dean cursed and saw Castiel's pale face out of the corner of his eye.
"There are no rogue angels," he rumbled.
"You two blockheads really didn't know? What did you think they were pinning on you?" Crowley grinned disbelievingly at them.
"Possession and intention to distribute," Castiel muttered, glaring at the carpet.
"Oh my god, you really are quite dull, aren't you?"
"Hey!" Dean roared, "Back the fuck off." So yea, the full scale manhunt was probably a little much for some drug charges, but it's not like the two of them were watching the nightly news and Cas' cell was only getting the alert notices, not the full reports. And frankly, the what hadn't been nearly as important as the why.
"Touchy." Crowley scrunched his face up in distaste, like Dean was some gnat that had the gall to splatter itself on his windshield. Which was fine, because this wasn't the demon that mattered.
"Where's this gate?" he demanded from Kali who had pushed herself off the cabinet she'd been leaning against to walk over to Sam, and more specifically, Sam's computer.
"Somewhere in Italy. May I?" she gestured at the laptop, which Sam quickly handed over. A few tapes of the keyboard and she'd pulled up a satellite view of the entire country. "We flew from Rome. It wasn't that far, just over two hundred kilometers. I think it was more South than North, so that limits our search to this arc here." She cut a swath across Italy, about where the ankle of the 'boot' would be.
"Alright, let's go," Dean nodded, memorizing a few of the town names to use as markers in his head.
"Wait, Dean," Sam said, grabbing his arm. "How are you even going to know if you've found it? You're not exactly powered up yet."
"Well we'll just do a fly-by first. If we find something, great, we can work from there. If not, we can always go back when I get my mojo working." Besides, Dean wasn't going to sit around waiting for something that may or may not happen. "So first, we gotta drop Sam off somewhere safe," he said, turning to Gabriel who hadn't said anything since the mention of the devil's gate.
"What?" Sam squawked, all offended and pissed. "Dean, I can help you with this!"
"Yea sure, Sherlock. You can provide tech support, but last time I checked, you're the only one without super special flying abilities."
"I don't see you sprouting any wings either," Sam said, which would have been perfectly valid a month ago.
But now, Dean could just sling an arm around Castiel's shoulders and slide himself under one massive wing with a smirk. "Well I got a pair on rent to buy, so I'm covered."
"I could take the moose," Crowley offered with a smile that Dean did not like one bit. The twitch in his brother's cheek suggested he had similar misgivings.
"Thanks, but no thanks," Sam said drily. "But Gabriel..."
"No can do, Samu. That's somewhat of a no fly zone for me. You kids are doing great. Definitely the right direction." The angel gave them a wink and two thumbs up like some overly enthusiastic game show host.
"What-"
"But I've got my own load of demons to deal with. In fact, I've had two of my less urgent and frankly, less attractive, charges on hold for the last fifteen minutes so I've got to run before the boss has me out of a job. Call me when you get back and want to work out the whole prophet of the lord schtick. Toodles!"
"What the hell?" Dean screamed after him, but the angel was long gone. Castiel's shrug pulled his attention to the fact that he still had his arm around the angel's neck, practically touching the gunmetal grey feathers, sleek and just shy of shiny so they weren't flashy like Gabriel's or gaudy like Michael's.
"Gabriel has never exhibited the same level of pride in his work as most other angels," Castiel explained, but it didn't make much sense to Dean. Since when did an angel not care about a yawning doorway to hell? And wasn't Gabriel the one who brought them into this in the first place?
"Right," he said, though nothing really was in this scenario. He unwound his arm from the angel's shoulders and sat down across from Sam.
"I need you to do some research for me. Find out anything you can on a devil's gate and how we can close it. That way, if we find it, we'll have some idea of what to do. You got that?"
His brother didn't even have to open his mouth for Dean to read the 'I know what you're trying to do' off his face, but to his relief, his brother just grumbled out a, "Fine," that was so bitchy it would have put Baby Jane to shame.
"And hey! You get to go to Thailand! You always said you wanted to travel the world."
"Right, and hiding out from the authorities while supporting your fugitive brother is the best way to live out your dreams," Sam drawled.
"That's the spirit!"
"Before you dump me in whatever shady hellhole you've got lined up, mind if we grab a bite to eat? Bela wasn't exactly eager to get me dinner."
"Yea, sure!" Dean grinned, because getting food was the least of the sacrifices he'd make to keep Sam safe and, if not happy, only mildly pissed. "Who's up for burgers?"