On that nearly deserted beach, two men in neat black suits held another bloodied battered man in a trench coat between them. A middle age woman stared down at the beaten man.
"Castiel, why? Why are you doing this? Let us put the tablet back where it should be," she said stiffly.
"Where is that Naomi? With you? No, it must be protected," Castiel groaned, his eye swelling shut.
She crouched down, staring at the other angel in a sinister way.
"I'm just going to have to pull you apart, aren't I?"
Suddenly, with a wretch and a jerk the angel to the right of Castiel stiffened before bright, almost white light poured out of him. A second later, he crumpled pathetically to the ground.
"Hello, darlings," a silky sickening voice purred from behind Castiel. Naomi looked hard over his shoulder, rising to stand and glare at the newcomer.
"Do you like it?" the man clad in a fine black suit held up a silver gun, "I had my R&D people melt down one of your angel blades, cast it into bullets. Seems to do the trick," he finished with a self-satisfied smile.
"How dare you," she started, her hand rising with white light flickering between her fingers. The demons smile slipped from his face as he leveled the weapon at her.
"We've been here before, haven't we darling? Let's see who blinks first," her growled. Before he finished, his finger squeezed the trigger, but it was a second too late as the woman vanished with a flutter. The demon sauntered up to the man holding the beaten angel, staring down at him with mock sympathy on his face. He smiled and winked at the other angel, who looked away in disgust. Castiel was confused for only a moment before understanding dawned on his face.
"That's right, Cas. I got me an angel on the payroll. It's that kinda universe, these days," Crowley smiled even wider and quickly unloaded another shot into the side of Castiels stomach. The other angel dropped him and he sat clutching his bleeding gut.
"Just needed a moment to chat with my old business partner. After all, it will take a painful long time to bleed out from the gut."
"You can do whatever you want, Crowley. I will never tell you where the tablet is," Castiel choked out. His mind was flashing threateningly and he strove to keep it blank.
"I know, Cas. I know. Luckily, I don't believe you'll have to. I've been getting regular updates from my expensive friend here," he eyed the angel, "Naomi should have caught you out of the gate, seeing as lately she's been knuckles-deep in that melon of yours. But she doesn't know what I know... or who I know," and the smile on Crowley's face left Castiel's heart cold.
In the same moment, Crowley's cellphone rang. Smiling again, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the flip phone, answering it with a smile.
"Hello. The King," he spoke quietly as he walked away leaving Castiel with the other angel, Ion.
The door swung inward quietly and the five standing just outside it stared at one another, doubting the wisdom of just plunging into who knows what. Shrugging, Ron sidled his way in. They followed him and were met with an interesting sight. Towers of books lined every inch of this little apartment. Stacked higher than even Sam was tall, some seemed old, others new. But there had to be thousands of stories in this room.
"Who're you?" suddenly a middle age, curly haired portly man appeared from behind one of the stacks, leveling an old shot gun at them.
"Metatron?" Dean stammered. He turned to look at Harry and Sam. "This is Metatron? Him?" In a flash the man was suddenly blocking their path to the front door.
"Sit down," he gestured towards a ratty looking sofa and the five squeezed onto it, looking at one another curiously.
"Who sent you?" he questioned briskly.
"No one, we came on our own," Hermione started quickly. Sam was squinting like the room was hard to see and covering his ears from a sound none of them could hear. She was looking at him nervously.
"I'm Harry, Ron, Hermione, Sam, Dean," Harry said, pointing at each person in turn down the couch.
"Do you work for Michael? Or Lucifer?" he barked still pointing the weapon at them. Dean looked confused and unsure at the others on the couch.
"Michael and Lucifer? Are you kidding? Those dudes are in the deep fryer," Dean snapped looking at the little man. He looked confused.
"Yeah. We put them there ourselves," Sam half-shouted.
"What about Gabriel? And Raphael?" Metatron probed, still not convinced.
"Dead," Dean said. "You really don't know any of this?"
"I've been very careful," Metatron said, his finger still hovering over the trigger.
"Can...can you turn that down?" Sam shouted, holding his head like he was trying to keep it from flying apart.
Metatron wavered a moment, "Turn what dow— oh. You're resonating," and on that, he lowered the gun.
"Resonating? What does that mean?" Ron asked.
"You've undertaken the trials. You're trying to pull one of the great levers, aren't you? You're pretty far along, too. You get that far along, you start resonating with the Word. Or with its source on the material plane. With me," and the chubby little man smiled.
The gun finally down, careful conversation started. They discovered that, although Metatron was the scribe of God, he was just an angel, not an archangel. So when God went on... sabbatical, as he called it, the archangels stepped in and he had fled. He knew quite a bit and was afraid of what methods they might use to get that information. Dean had a hard time believing he could just shut himself up here and have no idea of what was happening in the world. Ron and Harry were very uncomfortable with the way he talked about humanity, like they were performing monkeys that he had enjoyed reading about over the centuries. Hermione steadily grew more and more concerned for Sam. After a particularly long shpeal from the angel, Sam seemed to snap.
"You know what? Pull the frigging trigger," he yelled.
"What?" Metatron asked shocked.
"Pull the freaking trigger, you cowardly piece of garbage," Sam growled.
"Whoa, whoa Sammy," Dean said but Sam was already rising and squared off against the little man. He grabbed the end of the gun and rested it on his heart.
"All the time you've been hiding here, how much suffering have you read over? Humanity's suffering! And how much of it has been at the hands of your kind?!"
"Stop. Stop!" Dean shouted, pulling his brother back.
"You want a story? Try Kevin Tran's story. He was just a kid. He was a good, straight-A kid, and then he got sucked in to all of this— this angel crap. He became a prophet, of the Word of God. Your prophet!" Harry yelled, trying to distract the angel and the brothers alike. Harry had gathered enough from the brothers conversations and from snippets with Kevin to know that he resented his role; a role that seemed to be Metatron's fault.