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Jim: How so? What makes you think that I've written myself into a corner?
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Chapter 38. Everybody's Fool
"It's a trickster," Castiel announced. Sam, Dean and Louise blinked and stared at him.
"What makes you say that?" Dean finally said.
"It's rather obvious. Tricksters are demigods that cause chaos wherever they go. There are plenty in mythology: Loki, Anansi, Mercury…"
"But how do you know it's a trickster?" Louise said.
"Tricksters target the high and mighty and teach them a lesson. They often have a very deadly sense of humour, depending on who they are targeting."
"Just desserts," Sam said.
"Yes. And you three were the biggest clue as to what it was. This trickster must have known that we were on its tail and played some harmless pranks on you to create discord and pit you against each other, rendering you useless."
Louise groaned, remembering all of the trickster's tricks against them. Sam's laptop had magically frozen on a porn site, which immediately made him blame Dean for using it, and then it had gone missing. Then, after Sam threatened to screw with the Impala – lo and behold! The car's tyres went flat and Sam's money clip had been found next to it. This had resulted in a massive fight of epic proportions that had culminated in Louise and Castiel escaping the room to get away from Sam and Dean's yelling. While Sam and Dean were at each other's throats, Louise was constantly trying to get them to calm down, leaving her frazzled and unable to concentrate on anything else.
"So what do tricksters look like?" she asked.
"They can look like many things. But their most common form is human."
"And who do we know who's been at ground zero the whole time?" Dean said.
"The janitor!" Sam exclaimed.
"The janitor that Cas and I never met because you made us stay behind so that we didn't look suspicious for having four people out there?" Louise said sceptically.
"Yeah, him!"
"Okay then. Lesson learned: it's always the janitor."
-LW-
"Sorry, I'm dragging a little ass today," the janitor apologised to Sam, Dean, Louise and Castiel as they followed him up the staircase. "Lots of sex, if you catch my drift."
Louise and Castiel looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, trying desperately not to stare at the janitor. Because he wasn't a trickster.
He was an angel.
'Why the hell's an angel pretending to be a trickster pretending to be a janitor?' Louise thought. 'Aren't they all flapping around upstairs?'
"We won't be long," Dean said, giving Sam a signal. "We just need to check a couple of offices on three. And we brought these two for a second opinion."
Louise looked at Castiel, who nodded.
"I don't think we're gonna need that equipment," she announced. Sam and Dean frowned at her.
"What d'you mean?" Dean said.
"Because it's not what we thought it was," Louise said carefully, trying not to look at the angel (who, she noticed, stared at Castiel when nobody was looking at him). "My partner and I were just talking. We think it's something way stronger, so we're gonna need different equipment."
Sam and Dean stiffened. The angel raised his eyebrows.
"More powerful than a few burnt fuses?" he said.
"Yep," Louise said. "It's more Cas' kind of thing than ours." If this was an angel then he could already see Castiel, so there was no point in beating around the bush. "He's a specialist, so I'd think he knows what he's on about."
Out of the corner of her eye, Louise saw the exact moment that Sam and Dean caught on. She also noticed the exact moment that the angel realised that he was busted.
"Well." Their surroundings melted away, replaced with the college's auditorium. "Guess the game's up, right?"
"Who are you?" Sam demanded. When Castiel opened his mouth, the angel snapped his fingers and Castiel was suddenly gagged with duct tape.
"Hey!" Louise said. "What gives?"
"I get how Cassie here could see who I am," the angel said, wagging a finger at a wide-eyed Castiel. When Castiel took a step forward, the angel telekinetically hurled him into one of the theatre seats and snapped his fingers to tie Castiel up tightly. Louise tried to run and untie him but the angel snapped his fingers again and Louise was thrown into the seat next to Castiel.
"Hey! Leave her alone!" Dean growled. The angel froze Sam and Dean to the spot easily.
"But how could you know, sweetcheeks?" he continued to Louise. "You're not an angel and no psychic is strong enough to see what we are without being burnt out. And even if you were psychic, you couldn't have sensed me because angels haven't been down here in so long that I doubt anybody even remembers what we feel like."
His golden wings weren't in a threatening position, which put Louise slightly at ease. Still, they weren't in a friendly stance either. Louise was certain that she should know who this angel was…something was niggling at her mind…
"Oh." The angel followed Louise's gaze to his wings and took a step back from her, his eyebrows raised. "Well. Someone's been a naughty angel, haven't they? Which one?"
Louise didn't want to tell the angel anything about herself but she didn't think that something like this really mattered. She'd save her resistance for another question.
"Araqiel. Never met him, never want to."
"He always was a douchebag," the angel said mock-nostalgically. "You shouldn't be alive."
"And you shouldn't say stuff like that," Louise said bitchily. "So not good for my self-esteem."
The angel chuckled.
"But what I don't get is why Cassie here is running around with a nephil when he should have smote the crap out of you. Not to mention that he's falling! Baby bro, have you seen your wings?"
Castiel glowered at the angel over his gag. Louise grimaced; over the past few months since starting to fall, Castiel's wings had started to grow duller and duller and now he was starting to lose feathers. Louise didn't think it would be long before he was rendered flightless and the look of utter hopelessness on his face at times made her heart break. It was all their fault that he was falling!
Wait. Wings. Castiel had mentioned an archangel having wings the colour of sunsets…
"Gabriel!" she burst out. The angel went rigid. "You're Gabriel!"
"Go and shout it out for the world to hear!" the angel – Gabriel – snapped. "And better make sure that Heaven hears you too! I mean, it's not like I'm pretending to be a trickster for any particular reason!"
"So why are you posing as a trickster?" Sam said. Gabriel sighed and snapped his fingers, sending Sam and Dean staggering into seats and releasing Castiel from his physical bonds but still keeping him pinned.
"This all starts long ago, in a galaxy far, far away –"
"Quit quoting Star Wars," Louise said. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
"Sheesh! Bossy much? Fine, I'll give you the Cliffnotes version. My two oldest brothers were fighting. Raphie was on Mikey's side. Little Sari was trying to stay the hell out of everyone's business – not that that helped 'em in the end, not after what they did. And me? I had to put up with my brothers fighting time after time after time!"
"Preaching to the choir," Louise muttered. Sam and Dean glared at her. "What?"
"What you lot call the Apocalypse – Judgement Day, the end of times, whatever – that was Sunday dinner to us angels! And then after all the shit went down and Luci was locked away, I left. I couldn't take it!"
"So you ran away rather than facing your problems," Dean said. Gabriel whirled on him and Louise shrank back when his massive golden wings arced out in a threatening, dominating pose. Next to her, she noticed Castiel's wings immediately shrink in a submissive gesture.
"I had to sit back and watch my brothers try and kill each other!" Gabriel yelled. "And then I had to put up with little Sariel's whining because blah, blah, blah, ne fucked up and now all the angels hated nem and Gabriel, you're the big brother so do something about it!"
Sam and Dean looked a little confused at Gabriel's use of different pronouns. Louise resolved to explain when they got out of this. She blinked when Gabriel's wings suddenly dropped back into a neutral stance.
"Look, I really have nothing against you yahoos. And hey, I'll even turn a blind eye to the fact that this little lady shouldn't be alive and that Cassie's playing rogue with a nephil."
"I was ordered to spare her by Michael nemself," Castiel growled. "And when I was imprisoned and tortured by Naomi, Sariel saved me and warned me that I would fall if I chose freedom. My duty now is to assist Sam, Dean and Louise because they are my friends."
His dull black wings had puffed up angrily a little. Gabriel cocked his head curiously.
"Wow. Boy, do they have you on a leash, baby bro."
Castiel's wings expanded even further.
"They do not 'have me on a leash'. I chose to help them. They are the first beings to show me kindness and acceptance rather than indifference in millennia."
Gabriel whistled.
"Fine. Okay. Whatever you say, Cassie. Now listen up, you lot. Here's the deal I'm offering. You shut your mouths about who I am and let me move on. Or else I smite my little niece here."
Louise grimaced when she remembered that technically, Gabriel and Castiel were her uncles. She saw that Sam and Dean were very reluctant to let this archangel just walk away but they knew that they were backed into a corner; Castiel's blade wouldn't work on an archangel and he could just smite her before they even lifted a finger.
"Fine," Dean spat. "Get the hell out of here."
Gabriel held a finger up.
"Oh and you better treat my baby brother well. Falling's not something to be taken lightly and the fact that he's so loyal to you Three Stooges is the only reason I'm even doing this in the first place. Don't kick him to the kerb when his mojo gives out or treat him like a piece of crap or I'll bring down a rain of holy wrath on you. Got it?"
Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows before they could answer and extended his wings. He vanished with a rustling sound and as soon as he was gone, Sam, Dean, Louise and Castiel found that they were free to move from their seats.
"Your side of the family sucks," was the first thing Dean said to Castiel and Louise.
"Don't remind me," Louise said darkly.
-LW-
"Ugh, that's just nasty!" Dean said when they peeled back the bloody blanket to reveal the extremely mangled remains.
"Yeah," Sam agreed in a muffled voice, covering his mouth and nose.
"Looks to me like something was hungry," Louise said, trying not to hyperventilate. Because this looked just like a hellhound attack and she couldn't think about that and remember the time she'd died! "They identify him yet?"
"A research scientist at the college," Sam replied. "Guess where his office was? Crawford Hall, same as the professor."
"And right where Curtis had his close encounter," Dean said. "Grab that for me, would ya?" Louise slid a magnifying light over but Castiel stepped up and plucked something out of the man's mess of remains. Louise tried not to hurl.
"It appears to be an alligator scale," he announced.
"Alligator in the sewer? Come on!" Dean scoffed.
"Dean, it's a classic urban legend," Sam said. "I mean, it's not real but neither are aliens…"
The sound of barking suddenly filled the air. Louise whirled around, her heart pounding, but nothing was there.
"You hear that?" she said in a hushed voice. Nobody answered her and when Louise turned back, she saw that Sam, Dean and Castiel had disappeared and she was all on her own. "Guys? Where'd you go?"
In answer, the growling started up again but far louder. Louise whimpered and turned, backing up against the wall.
"What's going on? Go away!" she shouted. There was a loud howl and then the door burst open and a huge, dark dog with hellfire for eyes prowled into the room. Its flaming eyes were fixed on Louise, who was suddenly unable to move.
"HELP!" she screamed. The dog let out another howl and leapt straight at her. Louise dodged and whirled around to face the door but it was gone! Where was the door? Now she was trapped with the hellhound!
"SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
But nobody was going to help her. Louise was rooted to the spot as the dog pounced on her and then brilliant, white-hot agony burst in her leg and side. Louise shrieked and screamed as blood poured out of her wounds in streams, nearly fainting when she looked down and saw her organs glistening out of her abdomen, and then the dog's paw raked across her throat and she was coughing and choking on blood and oh, God, she couldn't breathe –
"NO!" Louise bolted upright in bed, panting and shaking and sweating. Where was the hellhound? What was going on?
"Are you okay?" Louise felt Castiel sit down on the bed next to her, his glowing white form making him stand out in the dark room.
"C-Cas! You're here! But you were gone!" Louise said hysterically.
"I have been here since you fell asleep, Louise."
Louise shook her head disbelievingly and ripped her covers away, running her hands over her body. Nothing. Not even a scar!
"But – the hellhound –" she whispered. "It was there – we were looking at the alligator guy – then you were gone – and then the hellhound came – oh, God! I was dying again!"
"It was a nightmare." Louise latched onto that low, gravelly, calm voice for comfort and closed her eyes, trying to anchor herself. "You were dreaming, Louise."
Louise felt her shoulders begin to shake and then, to her shame, tears began to slip down her cheeks. She curled up into a ball, still sitting, and wrapped her arms around herself tightly as she began to rock back and forth, her face buried in her knees.
"I had it under control!" she said in a muffled, choked voice. "I was f-fine! Then we s-saw that alligator guy…why am I s-so weak? I was over it!"
She felt Castiel shift closer and then stiffened when his arms encircled her rigidly and awkwardly.
"Is this appropriate for comforting someone?" he said. Louise let out a watery laugh.
"Yeah." She looked up and then, before she knew what she was doing, she was leaning into Castiel's side and sobbing quietly.
"You were repressing your memories of that event, Louise," Castiel said. "Something was bound to trigger them. I may not know much about humans but I do know that you must express trauma in some way."
Louise just cried harder, clutching at the lapels of Castiel's trench coat. When she finally managed to bring her sobs under control, she slumped against the angel, suddenly feeling weak and ashamed.
"'M sorry," she mumbled. "Being a baby. Shouldn't h've to put up w'th that."
"No. You were finally allowing yourself to express your trauma from that event. You should not feel ashamed, Louise. And I do not mind comforting you and helping you in any way that I can."
Louise chuckled darkly.
"Thanks, Cas," she murmured. She felt herself begin to drift off again but this time, she felt secure in the knowledge that her best friend was there, holding her and keeping her safe. The last thing she saw before her eyes closed were Castiel's dark wings, wrapping around them both and filling her with a sense of peace and security.