Just ten minutes into breakfast, Dean had already given up on trying to control his idiotic grin. He ate his pancakes with a ridiculous smile, drank his orange juice with a smirk and a wink at Melanie, and he even paid the bill with a cheerful little nod as he gave the waitress a larger tip than was required. He was on cloud nine, finally getting a taste of the joy he'd been deprived of all his life, and not even Sam's uncharacteristically antisocial behavior could dampen his mood.
Melanie tucked her hand into his as they walked the short distance back to their motel, Sam lagging behind with his head ducked down as if he was being stalked by his own personal raincloud straight out of a cartoon. Despite his declaration that Sam's secrets were no longer his problem, Dean couldn't help the tiny seed of worry in the pit of his stomach as he made note of his brother's odd behavior. He could sense Melanie's concern as well, and her frequent glances over her shoulder to ensure that Sam still followed behind made it clear that Dean wasn't the only one who thought something was off.
Nevertheless, he was determined not to let Sam's pissy attitude rain on his parade. He kept Melanie's hand in his as he unlocked the door to their room, calling over his shoulder that Sam had better know a quick and easy way to contact Ruby so they could get back on the road.
But all thoughts of summoning home-wrecking demons vanished from Dean's mind the minute he and Melanie stepped into the motel room. Cas and Uriel stood in the center of the room, Uriel's disdainful gaze fixed on the tangled sheets of what was clearly the only used bed in the area. Dean wasn't sure if he should cringe or smirk as he realized the angel had probably jumped to the worst possible conclusion about why a room for three contained one used bed.
But the awkward confrontation didn't last long. Dean had just opened his mouth to ask Cas what they were doing in their room, when he noticed that Melanie had fixed Uriel with the kind of glare that would've sent Dean scurrying beneath the bed in fear.
"Oh, how nice of you to finally make an appearance," she told the angel with a hateful smile, her angry sarcasm clear enough to even pull an arched brow from Cas. Uriel took a small step back at her words, his expression darkening as if he'd actually been hurt by her comment.
"What's going on?" Sam asked as he stepped through the doorway, but his question went unanswered as Dean glanced from Melanie to Uriel and then back again.
"Hang on, you two know each other?" Dean asked, and Melanie let out a frustrated huff. "He was the one to pull you out of hell, wasn't he?" Dean concluded when his question went unanswered.
"Sadly, yes," she told him, her gaze still focused on Uriel, and the angel's expression darkened once again. Dean's grip on her hand instinctively tightened as Uriel took a step forward; he wasn't eager to see how the blustering angel would respond to having his pride repeatedly injured by the human who owed him her life.
"Will someone please explain what is going on?" Sam repeated, his tone more forceful and agitated this time, and his words managed to pull Uriel's attention away from Melanie.
"You are needed," Uriel announced simply, and Dean felt Melanie tense beside him.
Uriel gave a tiny little smile in response to her reaction, and suddenly Tessa's insistence that this was all part of some sinister angel plot seemed infinitely more plausible. The three of them had just endured a hell of a night, at the angels' secret direction no less, and now they were being ambushed a mere eight hours later with new demands from up top. They weren't heaven's little soldiers, weren't mindless robots that would march to the beat of some communal drum, but they were being treated just like worthless pawns in a game that didn't seem to have any rules.
Instead, the angels operated with one obscure goal that they were expected to risk everything to reach, but with no knowledge of how to actually achieve success. And, the more Dean thought about it, the more it seemed like maybe Cas and Uriel didn't know, either. Perhaps they were all stuck in the same boat, working off of little to no knowledge and merely scrambling to make the best of things.
But no, that wasn't right. Uriel's little smirk made it clear that he had information the rest of them lacked. So maybe Cas was just being a good boy and mindlessly following orders, but Uriel knew what he was doing. And that realization only made Dean all the more wary of working with angels, no matter how much they claimed to want to save the world.
"Actually, I think you've made a mistake," Melanie told Uriel, and Dean was pulled away from his mental reprieve as Uriel crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow in mocking inquiry.
"And what could we possibly have been mistaken about, Ms. Clarkson?" he asked, his lip curling into a slight sneer as he spoke her name. Dean got the feeling that if he hadn't kept Melanie's hand firmly in his own, she would have launched herself at the snooty angel and done some serious damage to his rather chubby vessel.
"You've seriously misjudged the people you're working with. You see, we aren't just brainless androids who unquestioningly follow whatever orders we're given. We don't work for you. We aren't part of your little cult of ignorance and misplaced loyalty," she told him, and Dean wanted nothing more than to give a 'hell yeah!' followed by the customary fist-pump. But Melanie was on a roll, and he didn't want to distract Uriel's attention from her brutally honest words.
From how she'd responded to their letting Ruby live, Dean had been under the impression that Melanie agreed with the angels and would want to help them do whatever was necessary to stop the apocalypse. But he'd clearly misjudged her—although she supported their cause, she was undoubtedly tired of them treating her like a tool rather than a human being.
"So if you want our help, you're going to need to do more than make unreasonable demands. We are not weapons at your disposal, ready to lock and load whenever you need someone to do your dirty work. We are people, with thoughts and feelings and lives. Maybe you can't understand that because your heart is three sizes too small. Maybe you do understand but you're such a sick bastard that you don't care. I don't know. But I do know that as long as you keep up this habit of forcing us to help you without so much as an explanation or a thank-you, you aren't getting shit from us."
A long silence followed Melanie's vehement speech. Sam looked impressed, and seemed to have been knocked out of his pit of despair— at least for now. Cas looked as if something he'd eaten wasn't agreeing with him, his face twisted in the kind of discomfort that Dean had come to associate with the angel's thinking cap; Melanie's words had clearly unsettled him. And Uriel looked…pissed? Furious? Wrathful? No adjective Dean could think of quite cut it. But he certainly looked as if he was due to explode into a fiery rage at any moment.
But to Dean's surprise and barely concealed alarm, Uriel's voice was shockingly calm when he finally did speak.
"We raised you out of hell for our own purposes," Uriel began, his voice low and so devoid of all emotion that Dean felt a chill run down his spine. That was not a normal human voice—there was a hint of something else there, something he supposed was technically angelic but sounded far too evil for such a benevolent adjective.
However, Melanie didn't seem to have felt the same effect of stunned terror, and she didn't hesitate before jumping in and interrupting the potentially homicidal angel. It only took Dean a moment to realize that despite Uriel's heavenly powers, perhaps he wasn't in fact the most frighteningly angry being in the room. Uriel's reputation and ego may have been on the line, but Melanie fought with the conviction of someone whose rights had been repeatedly abused and ignored. And hell hath no fury like a human unjustly abused.
"Yeah, well maybe that wouldn't be so bad if you could tell us what the fuck those purposes actually are!" she shouted, her voice strong and devoid of fear, and he heard Sam suck in a small gasp in surprise. Apparently his brother hadn't expected Melanie to speak so fearlessly either.
But her conviction just made it all the more clear how much being left in the dark infuriated her—this wasn't about her refusing to follow the angels, it was about her needing answers. The sooner Uriel realized that, the better off they'd all be.
"There are some truths human minds do not need to be plagued with," Uriel told her, and Dean let out a frustrated yet pitiless huff as Uriel practically signed his own death certificate. Sure, Uriel was the one with the flashy God-given powers that could burn out eyes, along with plenty of other gruesome things. But Cas had made it clear to Dean that Melanie was the indispensable asset that the angels desperately needed—if they couldn't please her, or even worse, if they turned her against them, they were screwed.
But before Melanie could go back on her pledge to help stop the apocalypse and ensure the world's demise because of a self-righteous pudgy angel with too much pride, Cas stepped forward.
"If I may, he wasn't actually talking about needing you in this case, Melanie," Cas told her respectfully.
And, to Dean's surprise, Cas's calmly spoken words entirely stopped Melanie in her tracks. She stared at the blue-eyed angel with wide eyes, her hand trembling in Dean's the same way Sam's had when he'd seen his first ghost at the age of ten.
Dean frowned at the two of them in confusion, unable to fathom why Melanie would have a such a strange reaction to Cas's presence. He was confident they'd never met before, but he couldn't help but feel like Melanie recognized him as she continued to stare. Cas stared right back at her with a curious expression, just because he was Cas and Cas liked to stare.
As the staring contest continued, Dean gradually became aware of the heavy silence that had descended upon the room.
Uriel's face had morphed into the text-book definition of 'what the actual fuck is going on', and Sam's expression was a mixture of discomfort and concern. The fact that Uriel seemed just as weirded out as Dean made it clear to him that this most definitely was not normal. And so, before things could get any stranger, he cleared his throat and introduced the two wide-eyed strangers.
"Melanie, this is Cas—he's the one who pulled me from hell. Cas, this is Melanie; you, uh, probably already know who she is," Dean told him, pausing to hold back a surprised laugh as Cas gave Melanie a little bow of his head.
"It's an honor to finally meet you," Cas said, and Dean barely held back a snort as Cas spoke in a manner that was unusually polite even for him. But Dean's amusement quickly vanished when he noticed the redness that had flushed Melanie's cheeks at Cas's gesture and words.
Melanie smiled at the blue-eyed angel as she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, and she glanced down at her shoes before hesitantly looking back up at him. Her gaze seemed almost shy, maybe even demure, as she looked up at Cas with that timid little smile. But why was that? Melanie wasn't shy. She was strong-willed and assertive and didn't take anything from anyone.
And she'd certainly never smiled at Dean like that.
Although it was stupid, Dean couldn't deny that this interaction between the two of them rubbed him the wrong way. He forcefully told himself not to dwell on it—there was no need to be jealous of Melanie and Cas of all people. Cas was…well, he was Cas! And she was his Melanie. Cas was just being weird, as usual, and Melanie was just being kind in the face of his weirdness. Nothing suspicious or alarming about it.
The longer he focused on how ridiculous it was, the easier it was for Dean to convince himself that he'd merely seen something that wasn't actually there. Melanie probably just wished she had a special bond with Cas instead of Uriel the Tubby Tyrant.
But despite his best efforts, Dean couldn't ignore how the thought of Melanie and Cas having a special bond immediately triggered and image of her naked and panting as Cas thrust up into her from below with darkened eyes and a hungry grin.
It was all Dean could do not to vomit up his pancakes right then and there. That was not what special bonds were about.
Dean was finally able to relax and clear his mind of such incredibly disturbing thoughts when Cas's attention focused on him once more. Dean held back a sigh of relief as Melanie went back to glaring at Uriel, who'd reverted back to his natural state of 'I am above everyone else in this room and would kill you all the minute I got the chance'.
"So then who do you need?" Sam asked in reference to Cas's previous statement, and Dean felt a small stab of guilt as he realized he'd nearly forgotten his brother was in the room.
"Seven angels, all from our garrison, have been murdered within the past week," Uriel explained instead of answering Sam's question.
"Ok, well it's not like we're the only ones who know how to fight demons. This one packs a pretty powerful brain-frying punch," Dean commented with a gesture towards Cas as he recalled the way the angel could kill a demon with a single grab to the scull. "Can't you guys look after your own?" he asked, and he did his best to ignore his nervousness when Cas gave a slight shrug and looked to Uriel.
"We don't know how they're doing it," Uriel explained with a grimace, as if it physically pained him to admit that he didn't in fact know more than anyone else on earth.
"So then what do you want from us?" Sam asked, and Dean saw Cas glance down at his feet and push his hands into his pockets. Something wasn't right here.
"Well any demon that can kill angels might be a bit too much for us to handle," Dean admitted, metally patting himself on the back for not pretending to be able to handle more than he actually could. In other words, for being nothing like Uriel. Of course even if he admitted he couldn't do everything, that was no guarantee the angels wouldn't try to make him do it anyway.
Melanie looked to Sam at Dean's words, and Dean fleetingly wondered why his comment about them not being strong enough had prompted her to glance at his little brother. He made a mental note to ask her about it later.
"We do have a tool that might offer some insight into how our brothers and sisters are being killed," Cas tentatively offered, and Dean wished he could ignore the shiver that surged down his spine. Cas had never been one to beat around the bush, so why was he being so hesitant and cautious now? Something was definitely going on, and the more Cas's discomfort grew, the worse Dean knew things were.
"What kind of tool?" Melanie asked skeptically, and when Cas didn't answer, Dean wondered if perhaps the three of them were about to be murdered right here and now—only a betrayal that cold could make Cas look so guilty.
Uriel didn't answer, but instead looked to Cas. That little bastard, Dean thought as it became clear that Uriel wanted Cas to be the one to speak the hard truth. Alistair," Cas finally admitted with a heavy sigh and a desperately shamefaced expression like a puppy who'd just peed inside—and right in the middle of his master's bed, no less.
Dean could feel Melanie tense beside him, and he gave her hand a squeeze as he ran his thumb back and forth in what he hoped were soothing movements. Dean knew what Melanie was thinking, why she was so on-edge and grew more visibly upset by the second. He knew she'd come to the only logical explanation for why the angels had invaded their motel room.
But Dean ignored the truth Melanie had already accepted, pushing it away and denying it as he told himself that it wasn't definite until one of the angels actually said it. But a moment later Uriel opened his mouth and confirmed the agonizing truth.
"He's the reason we've come to you, Dean, his student. We need you to make him tell us how our brothers and sisters are being killed so we can prevent it from happening again. So we can have a chance at fighting back."
"You're our best hope," Cas added, his tone sheepish and regretful as he kept his gaze focused on his shoes the way a puppy averts its master's gaze as it awaits punishment.
Dean glanced over at Melanie, and he forced away the surge of utter self-loathing as he took in her expression of horrified disgust. With one look, Dean was entirely confident there was no way he would ever torture anyone again. Let what he'd done to Melanie be his last act of cruelty, the final chapter in the story of his experience in hell. There would be no epilogue entitled "Alistair".
"I won't do it," Dean told Uriel, not bothering to hide the choked affect his tight throat and slightly watering eyes had on his voice. If there was one thing any man was justified in getting choked up about, it was being asked to revisit a horrific and twisted period in his life. Being asked to do the unspeakable— again. No matter the cause, no matter what was at stake, Dean wouldn't—he couldn't—bring himself to do it again.
But instead of giving a huff of annoyance at his response, Uriel just gave a sly little smirk as if he'd actually hoped that would've been Dean's response.
"Who said anything about asking?" Uriel said as his slimy smile spread into a grin.
And then Melanie's hand vanished from his, Sam disappeared from his side, and Dean found himself staring through a window into a room where Alistair stood chained to a metal pentagram.
We must oftentimes take matters into our own hands
When humans forget their place
Forget that their true purpose
Is not to think or choose or "live".
They serve the Almighty, just as we do.
And nothing can stand in the way of our glorious purpose.
A/N: So, there you have it! Melanie meets Cas for the first time and things get a bit awkward as she recalls inexplicably seeing him the night before...Before anyone gets too excited, Cas isn't going to serve as competition for Dean- Melanie is true to her man, despite the fact that another dude showed up in her head during sex (it'll make make sense farther down the road)
Next chapter: Alistair and Dean get some alone time to reconnect, and Alistair gives an interesting explanation for why Melanie so thoroughly enjoyed her rough and dirty night with Dean. It's going to be a Summer Lovin' Torture Party (not really- that's just a reference to the song Lemonworld by The National)