Cas comes down with a touch of the introspection. Poor guy.
Mary and Sam had enough on their plates as it was. That was why Cas, though perturbed by the development, had kept to himself the fact that he was slowly but steadily growing more and more ill at ease with every visit allotted him and his best friend. No matter how pleasant.
The person he absolutely hadn't bothered with that though was the one concerning whom all of his swirling, sinking, sullen feelings were felt. After all, it wasn't Dean's fault that angels were created to protect humanity; not to watch it languish in self imposed exile while another being threatened to use it to wreak havoc and destruction upon the remainder of the world.
He knew logically that he was being dramatic and that Dean had chosen this for himself and that the two of them were so much more than lucky to be able to visit and chat and share the occasional meal, but Castiel couldn't help it.
He could feel his own spirit bending and bowing under the weight of his responsibilities. Under the oppressive weight of those Enochian sigils in that Room that became harder and harder to enter every time Sam unlocked it for him. And harder and harder to leave again once he'd seen how well the man with whom he shared a profound bond had adapted to his new, potentially permanent life.
Biting back a sigh, Cas turned from the containment chamber and the sight of that most hated of prisons, knowing that he shouldn't allow himself to linger in the doorway, staring like a faithful hound missing its human charge. It wasn't becoming of an angel of the Lord.
...And if Dean ever knew that he'd developed the habit, the poor man would blame himself for every minute Cas had ever stood forlorn and fearful. Wishing- Praying for an innocent's freedom.
With a last look backwards, Cas took off for what it was he was supposed to be doing with his morning, shaking his head in an attempt at dispelling the clinging, crawling sense that something was very, very wrong in their little, secluded piece of heaven.
Having been told more than once that he wore his emotions 'on his sleeve', and that he was a terrible liar, he was always sure to give himself a moment between... feeling, and joining either at large Winchester. They were purportedly quite good at reading facial expressions and body language, and the last thing Cas wanted was to cause the two of them any more worry than they were already living every minute of every day with. What with all the trouble Michael had caused both their world and his own. And what a handful he'd been since his incarceration. How many times he'd...
Hm. Come to think of it, Cas thought with a glance spared back down the corridor he was following, Michael had not thrown a fit, nor made untenable demands of them, nor threatened to dismember any member of their group in... an uncharacteristic stretch of time.
Against his most ardent wishes, Castiel entered the dining quarters in a state of befuddlement. Brow furrowed deep and shoulders hunched in concentration.
"What's the matter, Castiel? Is it Dean?" Asked the mother of the two humans in the world the angel was closest to.
"Yes- No," he corrected, before anybody could jump from their comfy seat at the eating table. "Dean is fine," he assured at the twin looks of puzzlement.
Then, with a sigh, the angel joined the hunters and attempted to order his jumbled thoughts.
"Something about Michael, then?" Sam asked, ever concerned voice going taut around the edges.
Castiel grimaced at the astute query, knowing that there was no 'good' way to tackle this particular subject matter. Especially when Mary, a concerned parent, was present. So he decided to start with a little contextual perspective.
"Michael has been letting Dean out for all things human, mundane, and tedious and he has been doing so without a fight." At the slow but earnest nods, the angel continued. "I am concerned that Michael's behavior, as flawless as it has been of late, may be indicative of some far more sinister plot."
"Wait, so you're saying, based on too much good behavior, you think Michael's going to make a break for it?" Sam asked, face wrinkled in dismay.
"I'm saying I think things have been going a little too good to be true and that, sooner or later, something's going to give," the angel confirmed with a heavy purse of his lips.
"Huh, I hadn't thought much of it," started Mary, expression pinched, "but Michael stopped peaking out to give me the stink eye every time I come around."
"He does that with you too?" Sam asked, face reminiscent of incredulity.
"I thought he only sniped insults at me during our visits," Cas said half to himself as the other hunters exchanged a worried glance.
"Did this behavior stop for you in the last few days?" He asked as he felt his pulse push itself a hair above its standard resting pace.
"Yeah, I was surprised but Dean and me got through a whole game of chess the other day without even one insult from Michael," Sam said. As if not being insulted were a wholly impressive feat in and of itself.
"Same," Mary pitched in, eyebrows drawn, "he hasn't popped out to basically threaten me in... three days?"
The unsure measure of time did nothing to calm Castiel's mind as more and more of his worries seemed to line themselves up out in the open.
"This may be more imminent than I feared," Cas said as he tried to keep his heart from beating any harder than it already was. "I think that Michael may be purposefully avoiding the use of his grace and associated divine powers. I think that he is saving up his 'juice' for- for..."
"For something big," Sam finished for him when Cas found himself stumped.
"But what could he possibly hope to accomplish by saving up a little energy here and there? What's he gonna do while he's trapped inside that box you three built?" Mary asked with a rather angered gesture. No doubt frustrated by the sensitive nature of the topic.
"It's true, his powers can have absolutely no effect against another nor even the Room itself; the warding is as thorough as it can be," Castiel affirmed. "Truth be told, I pray that I'm blowing any possible negative outcomes out of proportion, but I have a feeling that-"
Cas's eyes widened a moment before Mary and Sam's. All three in reaction to a strange rumbling tremor that struck through the room and rattled the hearts in their very chests, somehow defying the quake's own barely perceptible nature.
The accompanying whine, high as a low quality dog whistle and heard just as faintly, brought the hunters to their feet.
With a shared look of mounting terror, the group vacated their luncheon and made for the only destination any of the three could think to go.
"The Room's intact," Sam observed as he skidded to a stop just inside the containment chamber.
"If it's fine, then what made that horrible noise?" Mary asked as she moved to visually clear the chamber of hidden threats. "Sounded like... like a smiting," she said as she finished her sweep. "I'd know; I heard a lot of them back on Apocalypse World."
"A-are you saying that an angel just smote inside that- that..."
"Yes," Cas confirmed, hating the way Sam's voice had shook. And the way his very nearly did in return. "Your mother is right, that was indeed the resonance of a smiting. An archangel's smiting, to be precise."
"But if he's alone in there and he knows his powers can't break him out, then what did he hit?" Mary asked, voice and face each a matching shade of dread by the end.
"Were it to be directed inward... the possibility does exist that an effective smiting could be enacted," Cas admitted, glued to the spot as he watched both hunter's faces pale before his eyes.
"...Dean's hurt?" Sam asked, gaze glued to the harsh silhouette of that most foreboding of doors.
"Judging solely by the strength of the shockwave? Badly." The only prediction Cas could fight past his gritting teeth. Not allowing himself to contemplate the sole alternative if he was wrong.
"Then what are we waiting for?" The youngest Winchester demanded as he tore at his shirt collar, liberating his necklace with a desperate sort of determination as he launched himself forward to wrench that blast proof door wide open. Then remembering safety protocol at the last, Sam snapped the port shut just as Cas found himself inside the space.
A space usually so devoid of the sort of miracles that clung to Enochian kind like peanut butter to jelly that it felt more mundane than the rest of the world, but which now reeked of an ancient, cosmic version of that smell humans knew as 'ozone'. Colored by an ever abiding overtone of righteous fury. Itself tempered with the sickeningly sweet clawing and cloying undertone of death.
The hunter forced himself to put one foot in front of the other as he gathered his reeling senses, barely able to tell up from down for the utter darkness of the Room. Michael no doubt having once again allowed the candles to either burn down or snuff out. Arguing that an archangel would never allow themself to rely on anything so primordial as 'fire'.
One more cautious, halting step though and the toe of his leading shoe caught against something heavy. Something heavy and human shaped and sprawled across approximately six feet of open floor.
Cas fell to his knees, hands trembling as they skittered for both the diaphragm and closest pulse point of the friend he'd nearly stumbled over in his haste. A friend he hadn't sensed the presence of until- still wasn't sensing the presence of even as he found evidence of life in the form of a heartbeat. Followed close by an exhale that just managed to warm the ear he'd near pushed flush against Dean's mouth in an attempt to hear... anything.
"Thank God," the angel managed as he willed himself not to fall to pieces. Relief threatening to overwhelm all of his blunted senses in one fell swoop.
"Dean?" He asked, knowing there would be no response. "Michael?" He asked with just as little hope.
Refusing to be victim to the stark and desperate hopelessness of his surroundings a single, terrifying moment longer, Castiel pushed against the Room's wardings with far more force than he'd thought possible for an angel of his lowly station. Winning a single, unobstructed glimpse of his friend's —as well as his heavenly relation's— condition. Reeling back on his haunches as both the crushing weight of those formidable wardings and that of his assessment hit him full on.
Without another moment spared, Cas yanked his own body to its feet and made for the door, determination in every move even as he bade Sam release him.
Once outside though, not bothering to shut the door behind him, Cas felt his shoulders drop as he looked the Winchester family in the frazzled faces and realized that he had no idea how to tell them what he'd just seen. No matter the situation's urgent nature.
"How is-"
"Dean's alright, right, Cas? Or-or you can heal him if he isn't?" Sam cut in, grabbing his mother's closer shoulder in a bid for support. For himself at least as much as for her.
"Dean is not in a good way," the angel said with a cringe, eyes almost refusing to meet the others' at how radical an understatement he'd managed.
"I thought," started a Sam whose darkening expression could only be described as 'lost'. "I thought Michael was..."
"Well, apparently, he wasn't," Cas refuted, feeling a sudden flash of anger at the painful position the archangel had put them in. Ashamed when he realized he'd allowed the emotion to reach his voice as well.
Regrouping, he straightened his shoulders and started over. "I can't heal him unless we remove him from this hellhole," he said with a gesture behind himself. "The warding is too powerful."
"But what if it's all part of Michael's escape plan? You said yourself he might try something," Mary said, voice calm though her hand visibly shook as it came to rest on Sam's high shoulder. Mirroring the one he hadn't removed from hers. "We take him out of there; he'll find a way to get loose and wipe out half of Lebanon with his pinkie."
"How bad is it, Cas?" Sam asked, voice barely above a strangled whisper .
"If Dean is to survive... we must move them. There is no other way."
For one tense moment, the reality of Cas's statement hung in the air like a thick smog, threatening to choke the breath from every lung as it clung to clammy skin and stung the eyes.
Until the senior member of their group broke the spell with a tight clear of her throat.
"Alright then," Mary said as she stepped forward and laid a hand on Castiel's arm. A gesture which surprised the angel. More used to an aloof sort of affection from the woman; not so much the outward and familial one's she reserved for her grown children.
Then, with a small, almost steady smile, the intuitive hunter turned to her healthy son and spake, "Sam, grab a rattle can; break out the lamb's blood. We have some work to do."
"Medbay, got it!" Sam said as he turned and took off at a run.
"We'll ward a stretcher and be back here with it asap," Mary assured as she backed from the chamber, not able to tear her eyes from the sight of the Room left so carelessly ajar.
"I'll stay with Dean and await your return," Cas assured as the mother slipped from his sight, leaving behind not but the sound of feet pounding against a hard, indifferent floor.
I think I was nervous about this particular chapter. I'm so sorry if that had something to do with the three month hiatus! Also: Sorry about the three month hiatus!
I genuinely hope that you've all had a wonderful summer and that this update helped make your day that special little bit better!