A/N: I owe you guys the biggest apology ever. It has been, well, ages since I last updated and I'm SO sorry but so much has happened in the past couple of weeks and it's just been extremely crazy.
I'm hoping to Chuck that there's still people way out in the distance that can hear my pleading calls of sorry and will come back and read Chapter 8.
Enjoy dear readers, enjoy :)
And thanks for all the reviews so far, as always you guys are made of awesome! :')
Chapter Eight
The Ice Begins To Thaw
The brothers have barely finished the last sigil when the walls start vibrating furiously, little bits of stone crumbling from the ceiling covering the whole church in a haze of dust. A high pitch screech pierces the air accompanied by the brightest white light either of them has ever seen and the brothers promptly cover their ears with their hands and strain their eyes to see past the tears collecting on their eyelashes.
"You think he's pissed?" Dean shouts over the continuous screeching and rumbling. His brother doesn't grace him with an answer simply grabs Dean's wrist and wrenches him out of the way of an ageing marble statue of the Virgin Mary that's hurtling dangerously towards his head. It lands with a shattering thud causing a mushroom cloud of dust to consume the room.
Coughing and spluttering, he thanks his baby bro and attempts to survey the scene to get a better idea of what they're dealing with here. However, through the dull white Dean can't see much at all. There's a black blob which he knows to be the broken piano over by the once-was alter but he can't make out much more save for a piercing red glow coming from the direction of the back of the church. He stumbles over fallen statues and overturned pews to the back wall and realises that the sigils are emitting this light. He studies them curiously: each one is standing out in a stark crimson contrast against the vast backdrop of white dust, the edges of them glowing with a fierce light and they seem to be pulsating, alive. It's eerie, to say the least.
Dean figures they must be doing their job though; if the angelic earthquake is anything to go by he'd say Featherbrains hasn't been able to get past them and in his pretty damn pissed off state he's using the scare tactic. Oh yeah, 'cause Dean's really quaking in his size 11 Doc Martins.
The colossal sound of stone crumbling overhead grabs his attention and Sam beckons him over to where Cas is lay sprawled out on the floor, a bundle of blankets and bandages. Gas lamps surround him, lighting him up and making his skin look even more sallow, the bloodstained bandages a harsh contrast against it. It becomes apparent that the tower is the source of the deep rumbling sound of falling stone and to Dean's intense fucking dismay, he realises that Cas' little camp site is set up directly underneath it.
Sam, brain as well as brawn, realises this before him; he's extinguished the gas lamps and is gripping two corners of the blankets underneath the comatose angel, motioning for Dean to hurry the fuck up with the realisation, already and grab the other two.
Dean swings into action as a tremendous bang erupts above them sending stone and more dust cascading down on them and leaving the ceiling with a nice jagged crack that threatens to give way any second.
Lifting the angel, who is a lot damn heavier with the added weight of almost every blanket that previously occupied Bobby's place, they move slow and steady over to the alter space, dodging falling statues and lumps of stone. The church is a real big mess and Dean's just happy that they didn't light any candles and that Sam put out the gas lamps 'cause he's pretty sure those withering velvet curtains would've gone up in flames faster than he could count to three and then they really would've been toasted, literally.
As it stands, Dean thinks they still have a fighting chance. Sure the church has the whole Apocalypse feel to it right now, what with the walls trembling like their freakin' freezing in the winter cold and the dust clogging up the air, but this is far from over . Dean thinks of it as a battle of wills; Raphael's gonna be keeping this up for a while but he'll get tired eventually, its gotta be draining a helluva lot of his energy to keep up the Shakin' Stevens act but there ain't a chance in Hell that he and Sammy are waving the white flag of surrender.
Surviving this is all about tactics and they've decided that their best option is to stay away from the left tower that's currently threatening to fall through the roof. They head for the vestry to the right side of the alter. Dean supposes the walls might be thicker and the roof has a better chance of holding out due to the lack of a tower on top of it.
Once inside they find the walls here aren't as affected by the archangel's tremor and the screeching sound is dulled considerably, the room is also larger than anticipated. Its square, wide and open, though various broken pieces of furniture clutter the space. Dean notices several old chairs strewn across the room, missing legs and backrests and a few old garments speckled about the floor. There's also a large alcove in the east wall with a ratty curtain pulled across it; he figures it used to be a bed back in the times of King Arthur or something roughly as far back in history as him and his round table, but from what he can see it's been most recently used as a storage place. Nonetheless, it's the perfect place to lay Cas down and the brothers lug him over, huffing and puffing with his weight and heave him into the alcove.
Dean bundles the blankets around the angel, rolls one up and uses it as a sort of makeshift pillow to prop his head up. He brushes back the locks of dark hair that are clinging to Cas's forehead and feels for his temperature; the angel is stone cold and Dean's worry makes itself known in the pit of his stomach once again. He rubs his hands together to get some warmth in them before pressing them to the angel's face; Cas' skin is icy beneath his palms as he smoothes them over his cheeks, cupping them ever so slightly. "Come on Cas, open your eyes..." he breathes ever so slightly, sending a silent prayer up to whatever big guy there is up in the sky, begging him to make Castiel ok again.
Sam is pottering around the room, probably looking for something and Dean is sat next to Castiel's improvised bed on one of the many chairs that were scattered around the room – one that survived whatever went down here and is merely a little wobbly. He's biting his nails, a terrible habit he'd managed to give up a long time ago, back when he was a kid and resolved that nerves just didn't sit well with him, when he just up and decided that Dean Winchester wasn't going to be nervous anymore. As he sits there, chewing on his thumbnail, Sam trying to figure out a way to stop the rumbling and get the archangel to just fuck off already, Cas begins to stir. His eyes flicker open and closed, open and closed before they settle somewhere in between; Dean hasn't noticed because he's staring intently into nothingness. Castiel opens his mouth determined to get the hunter's attention. A groan escapes his lips and Dean's eyes instantly flick over in his direction, gaze landing straight on Castiel's own, relief rushing through them. For what seems like hours but is likely only a few seconds the two just stare at each other, Dean's face a vision of mixed emotions: guilt, anxiety, sorrow, relief: Castiel gazing back at him looking bewildered. He doesn't know what's happened, doesn't remember anything at all: cannot work out where on earth he is, what he's doing with Dean, why he's wrapped in blankets and lay in an alcove – nothing. The only thing he is entirely aware of is Dean sitting in front of him, a strange rumbling that seems to be reverberating throughout the room and the pain – endless amounts of unbearable pain that is coursing through every fibre of his body. Every muscle is aching, every bone damaged and every inch of his skin throbbing with bruises. His wings...he can't feel them at all, are they gone? How? Why? A hand reaches out to touch his face he flinches away violently.
Dean's face floods with pain, "Cas..." he chokes out.
"The pain...Dean it hurts..." It's all he can manage; even using his vocal chords hurts. Everything hurts. A tear escapes the angel's eyes, a broken sob flits through his busted lips and Dean really wants to reach out and touch him again, console him in some way but he doesn't know what to do, where to start. "Cas, what do you remember?" The angel shakes his head and looks him in the eyes, blue meeting green.
"Just...the last thing I can recall is doing shots of that awful alcohol with you and Sam..."
Dean's not altogether sure that's a good thing, okay so at least Cas can't remember the horrifying things that were done to him but Dean knows that he will eventually, the memories will creep up on him in some way or another, probably through nightmares – Dean's certain.
Suddenly, Castiel's voice is panicked, "Raphael! I can feel his Grace, Dean. He's angry, I must go to him." He starts to sit up.
"No!" The angel flinches again, eyes huge and scared, body tensed. "Shit, you can't go out there. He'll rip you to even thinner shreds than you're already in. We had to make a great escape but I'll fill you in when we're not currently mid-Armageddon, I promise. Just...please Cas, stay put."
Castiel nods and lies back down, body relaxing in relief as it meets the blankets again.
Dean sighs and calls over to Sam. The Sasquatch, who was previously rummaging through draws, rushes over, all floppy hair and gangly limbs, and starts asking Cas if he's alright – Dean tells him to save it, 'cause it's pretty obvious that Cas is nowhere near alright, not even close. The angel's eyes drift closed as he looks over at him and he smoothes his hand over his forehead before ushering Sam over to the other side of the room and beginning to fill him in on Cas' memory lapse.
"So he can't remember anything?" Sam asks, eyebrows scrunched up.
"Just the drinking."
"Wow..." The look in his eyes tells Dean that he has the same opinion on it as himself and he bites his lip. It's bound to become a real fucking pain in the ass at some point, Dean can feel it. But they'll have to put off crossing the bridge of Cas' memory problem for now because, as if on cue, Raphael doubles up the rumbling and the walls shake even more violently with the force of his Grace.
This time big chunks of the ceiling begin to fall, showering down on them, all white powder and dust and crumbled brick. It's like Armageddon come true and neither brother has any idea how to stop it.
"Shit!" he hears Sam curse as he narrowly avoids being crushed by a chunk of plaster. The two make their way over to the alcove, dodging the caving roof and falling bricks. Cas is trying to sit up again – Dean tells him to stay put, his voice low and warning as he scans the room and looks at his brother hoping to find a solution to the very bad situation they're in. No dice on Sam's behalf but Dean thinks he has the foundations of a plan, his brain is calculating rapidly, contemplating shacking up in the alcove with Cas until the archangel gets bored, working out how to slot Sam's stupidly long limbs in the confined space along with two other people. He has it, Sam will have to squish up in the corner and Cas will have to lay on Dean. He can't say it's the greatest plan in the world but if he has to shack up in a hole in the wall while under attack by a very pissed off archangel at least it'll be with his brother and his angel and it'll be warm and maybe they can play cards, Dean's sure he has a deck in the back pocket of his jeans, he can feel something digging into his left ass cheek...
Dean's brain finally catches up to him; his angel?
What the hell, his mind screams, am I thinking? Cas isn't my angel, hell, I don't even want him to be my angel, well, at least I don't think I do...shit, do I? 'Cause it's one thing to want to help the guy and break him outta his tower but to just, well, want him, I mean, I don't...really, I don't...
Dean's internal struggle with whether he wants Cas to be he's angel or not is abruptly snipped short by the sudden silence that cuts through the room. It all stops.
The shaking ceases, the plaster and brick takes its last tumble from the ceiling, crushing a number of chairs and a small table and the church is filled with silence, the blinding light of the archangel's power is gone.
The brothers turn to each other slowly.
"What the-"
"I don't know Dean. He's...I mean, is he gone?" Sam's face is bewildered.
"Yes." Castiel answers for him. "I can no longer feel his Grace."
Eyebrows crumpled, Dean takes off and heads for the main part of the church. He pokes his head round the door and looks off across the alter, at the pews and down the aisle surveying the damage: the place looks like a bomb-site; there's blocks of the ceiling crushing the benches, beams of the dawns orange light streaming through the roof and the room is covered in a thick blanket of white dust. Dean coughs; they aren't gonna be able to migrate back into this room even if Mary Poppins suddenly turns up and magics the roof back together and gets the pews upstanding again, he can barely breathe due to the dust particles clogging up the air. At least Raph finally took flight and they have somewhere to stay in the form of a vestry with a bed though – sort of.
"Dean!" Sam's deep voice slices through Dean's thoughts and he all but flies back into the room. Something is wrong; he knows this because Sam is cradling Cas in his arms and the angel has gone completely limp, his body flopping sideways and there's blood pouring from his mouth. Dean's there in an instant, taking over Sam's position and barking at his brother to get something to wipe the blood with. His hand reaches out and cups near Cas's mouth, catching the sliver of blood that slides down his jaw.
Cas' eyes flicker open. "Dean..." his voice is barely a whisper, "...healing."
It's the last thing he says before his body drains of energy completely, the blood stops flowing and he flops like a dead weight in Dean's arms.
When Castiel wakes he does so in comfort. His body is resting on a soft mattress that moulds to his body, hugging him securely from neck to toe, his head resting on a luxuriously plump pillow made out of feathers and a thick quilt with soft sheets is draped comfortingly over his limbs. His torso is bare, something he doesn't understand the reason for until he opens his eyes and looks down. A thick bandage criss-crosses across his chest covering, what looks to be, a large deep wound, judging by the pain emanating from it and the fresh blood stain that adorns the bandage. He presses a finger to the stain and watches as the blood bubbles slightly and makes a little squelching sound as it passes through the layers of bandage and gauze. A hiss escapes his lips milliseconds after, as the pain radiates outwards from the gash licking through his ribs and up into his throat and Castiel begins to panic because it didn't heal.
He specifically remembers healing himself in the church, when Dean was holding him and trying to stop his blood from pouring its way out of his mouth and his eyes were ablaze with concern. As soon as Raphael had left Castiel had called on his Grace and let it course throughout him and he thought it had done the job. Evidently though, something is amiss, either Castiel is all out of Grace or there is something about this particular wound that is different from the others and therefore renders his angelic power useless.
Cautiously he reaches within himself for his Grace and, when he gets a handle on it, focuses on the pain in his chest, trying his best to squash the feeling and close the wound, press the flesh back together. His eyes squeeze shut and he grits his teeth, concentration seeping through his veins, his face heating up but nothing happens. He puffs out a breath and tries again, mustering up as much energy as he can, as much Grace as he can but attempt number two goes just like the first and Castiel is left with an overwhelming need to throw something and curse at the air as if his inability to heal himself is somehow the fault of the room.
He pants hard, waits for his face to return back to a normal temperature and then sits up and surveys the rest of his body. There are a few other wounds: one to his right leg which looks particularly nasty due to the yellowish tinge to the edges of the bloodstain, two smaller ones on his inner thigh that are just scrapes compared to the other two, various scratches along both arms which vary in size and depth and one on his left cheek that isn't too serious. When he unfurls his wings fully and lets them spread throughout the room he notices two things: one, his feathers are back – good news, and two: there is a gigantic slice through the flesh in his left wing which radiates pain throughout him like nothing he's ever felt before – bad news, very bad news.
It all means nothing to Castiel however, who cannot work out why on earth he can't heal these last few injuries, why these appear to be unique to the other hundreds of wounds, scrapes, broken bones and bruises that he healed up.
"Cas! Dude, you're awake!" Dean bounds into the room and sits on the edge of the bed, enveloping Castiel in a hug. It catches the angel off guard and all he can do is yelp and allow Dean's arms to crush him into his chest. "Man, I thought you were down for the count at one point, back at the church when you were spitting blood and then when we got you in the car and you just kept moaning in pain and I had to sit in the backseat with you 'cause that was the only way to get you to shut the hell up. Then we got you back here and set you up in Bobby's guest bedroom and you just...I dunno, went like a statue and then started freaking glowing and I really thought the Big Boss Man was calling you to heaven but then you stopped and, when I could see again, you'd just...yanno, healed. Well, mostly." He finishes his speech and gestures to Castiel's chest with a wince. "That looks like it needs cleaning and changing again."
Castiel hasn't spoken a word in comparison to Dean's hundred that are still spilling out of his mouth as he changes the bandages; talking seems to be Dean's way of coping with nerves, like he has to keep talking or his thoughts will take over and he doesn't want that to happen. Castiel does not know why.
"Dean," he winces a little as Dean's hand presses too hard on his cut. There's something that has been niggling in the back of his mind since he woke up. "Dean, Raphael will find me here."
Dean shakes his head, "He can't, Bobby found an old cloaking spell while we were in the church. It lasts for a few days, keeps the house and everything inside it off the radar."
Castiel processes this information with a frown, he has never heard of a 'cloaking spell' before - albeit he hasn't heard of much, what with him being imprisoned in a tower all his life – but a cloaking spell, he never would've thought it possible to escape Raphael's clutches, even for a few days. The feeling of freedom spreads warmth through his chest, loosening up the tense muscles and suddenly Castiel wants nothing more than to replicate Dean's hug from earlier but this time reciprocate it properly with his arms around the hunter, squeezing tight.
Another thing occurs to him; "The church where we were residing, how was it possible that Raphael could not enter?"
Dean's tongue is poking out from between his lips as he wraps the bandage expertly around Cas' torso, his warm hands meeting Castiel's bare back, causing goosebumps to spread across his skin and a shudder to pass across his back. Castiel swallows audibly.
"Sigils. Like them ones on the back of your door..." Dean answers distractedly, too engrossed in tracing a pattern of freckles on Castiel's neck, the bandaging is complete but Dean's hand came to rest on the angel's shoulder afterwards and, apparently got bored. The angel isn't complaining, it feels good and it's extremely soothing. Castiel doesn't understand what Dean's talking about when he refers to 'sigils on the back of his door' though but then something seems to occur to Dean and he carries on. "'Cept you've probably never seen them have you?" The angel shakes his head and Dean continues.
"They're like symbols that do stuff." Nicely put, the angel thinks; Dean couldn't be vaguer if he tried. He supposes he is quite busy tracing patterns on Castiel's skin which is causing the angels breathing to go shallow and his eyes to drift closed so he can make an exception for his lack of elaboration though Castiel is still very curious. He makes a mental note to ask Dean about this later.
"This 'Bobby' you speak of, is he a relative of yours?" Castiel's voice is barely a whisper.
Here Dean launches into a long story of how he came to know Bobby; he tells Castiel of his father and his friendship with the older hunter, of days when he and Sam were younger and they'd spend weekends and weeks over here at Bobby's house/junkyard and Dean would help him fix up old motors while his Dad was on hunts, how Sam would sit on the porch with the dogs and just laze around, soaking up the sun. Castiel listens, gripped as Dean's tale forms into that of a makeshift bedtime story and his voice takes on more passion as he talks about his childhood. More than once the angel asks him for details, always for more details because if Dean describes the feelings, the things that surrounded him when he was younger Castiel can close his eyes and imagine that he too had a childhood. If he concentrates hard enough he can almost feel the sun caressing his bare shoulder just how Dean describes in his story about a 5 mile hike he did in the rocky mountains when he was 15 and hunting a wendigo, he can almost taste the ice cold of a popsicle sliding down the back of his throat just how Dean describes in his memories of sneaking into Bobby's fridge on hot summer days when the older man wasn't looking.
It is a pleasure to listen to Dean's voice, hear Dean's laugh and the catch of a rare sob in his throat as he goes through the ups and downs of his life and Castiel is engrossed for almost an hour before his eyes drift closed completely and they don't open again until the next day.
