Note: IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIVE. Wow. I'm raising this fic from the dead, bitches. This story hasn't left me alone for years and I'm gonna have to write it out in order for it to leave me alone. Destiel OTP for life!

Act IV: Two Prophets, One Angel

"No answer," Sam said as he stowed away the cell phone. "Guy just won't pick up."

"Great," Dean griped as he steered the Impala. "Perfect. I love it when missing guys stay AWOL."

Sam peered through the windshield, ignoring Dean's raging silence. They were rolling into Kripke's Hollow, the market-low-end suburbs that Chuck lived in. The kind filled with threadbare retirees and dingy Fords. He wondered how many pervy ghosts and spectral meth addicts haunted the burnt remnants of their basement labs next to rickety playgrounds. They were a pain to exorcise since they seemed to retain their alternating rabid and empty moods even in the afterlife, but he and Dean had figured out that by promising them meth (ie. crushed rock candy) the spirits became docile enough to exorcise.

As they neared Chuck's address, the houses became more ramshackle. They could hear faint, erratic laughter once Dean had pulled up at the right house number on the street and killed the engine.

"Dean, Sam! Wherefore art my Winchesters?" A scarecrow cried, leaning drunkenly out a second floor window. The small figure's wild thatch of curly hair was recognizable against the overcast sky, as was the ratty bathrobe.

"Is that - is that Chuck?" Sam wondered aloud as they got out of the car.

"Yeah... and I think he started happy hour early." Dean stepped onto the scraggly lawn and just barely dodged a surprisingly-accurate splash of liquid arcing down from the window.

"C'mere! Lemme give you a shower!" Chuck cried, awkwardly waving a bottle in each hand.

A snort of laughter squeaked out from behind Chuck and someone else shouted, "'s good for you! Got olive - Palmolive - innit."

Dean and Sam exchanged looks.

"Screw all the teenyboppers," Dean said, glaring at the laughing prophet leaning out precariously from the ledge, "normal is great. Normal is underappreciated and we don't have any normal friends because they all freaking die."

"They're probably just checking to see if we're leviathans," Sam consoled.

"I am not gonna be golden showered by a couple of squirrely prophets," Dean proclaimed. "Chuck! Oh, Chuck, let down that soap - or I will climb up there and kick your ass!"

"No. No. No, no, no, no." Chuck punctuated every syllable with a spurt of foamy bubbles that plopped on to the brown grass a few feet away from Dean's shoes. "This is the last bottle of soap. It's mine. I'm not lettin' you levis take it, cuz I got nothin' else to test your levi-herpes with. Besides, it's m'last bottle. So c'mere."

"Chuck, just open the door! We're not leviathans, and we're not - infected with anything!" Sam yelled back.

"No can do," Chuck announced. He raised the bottle of dish detergent to his lips, paused uncertainly, then took a swig from the beer bottle in his other hand. "Kid saw you, or your levi-dopplegangers chomp on Castiel, so we need to be absofuckingtively sure you don't got 'em chompers in you. Not like that. I think."

"So... one of you can use the shower - don't mind the drain, I called the plumber a month ago - and if anyone's desperate, there's a hose in the backyard," Chuck offered sheepishly, opening the front door wider with a nervous chuckle. He shrank back as Dean and Sam shoved past him roughly into the dim foyer. Between the crazy running around he did to lock the Winchesters out of the house and the adrenaline from facing their wrath through a broken window, the prophet had partially sobered up pretty quick.

"That's mine. And so's that," Dean said, plucking the bottles of dish detergent and beer from Chuck's clutches. He promptly started finishing the beer after taking a cursory check of the label.

"What'reyoudoingthey'regonnakillus!" hissed a voice from the dirty laundry pile partially obscured by the sofa multitasking as a book shelf and coat rack.

Sam marched into the dim, shabby living room and hauled a swaying, shrimpy kid to his feet from behind the couch. Kevin Tran yelped and almost squirmed out of his grasp before Sam managed to sit him down on the book-strewn cushions with a firm hold on his wrist. With the other hand, he pulled a can of Red Bull from his coat pocket and pressed it into Kevin's hands.

"Kevin, I think Chuck made it really clear that Dean and I are not leviathans. Look, I still have soap on my hands. And my hair. And on my face. Point is, we're not leviathans."

Kevin contemplated the energy drink, the glassy look in his eyes starting to fade. "Y'know, Red Bull was linked to cardiovascular emergencies? Like, some guy had that thing... postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome... after drinking over the limit," he said, seemingly oblivious to the door creaking open and Sam sidling in, followed closely by Chuck. "I was living off this when I was studying for... but that doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if I have a heart attack, either, I guess... Just like it doesn't matter that I drank and I'm still a minor since my life is ruined." He ended his ramble by cracking open and throwing back its contents.

"Oops," Chuck muttered from the door. He'd managed to pull on pants and wrap his bathrobe tighter around himself so that his chest wasn't bare anymore. "I just thought... y'know, Asians look young for their age, so I thought he might be legal and he was screaming - just thought he could do with some calming down, y'know?"

"Where's Cas?" Dean interrupted, ignoring Chuck completely and focusing on the sad university hopeful hunched on the bed. He ignored the kid's downcast and slightly crumpled expression - he could feel his patience being chewed down to the bone. "Kevin, you said he took you guys to some room? And that he left you there until he flew you here - so how do the leviathans factor in?"

"Start at the beginning," counselled Sam.

Kevin bit the inside of his cheek, then peered up at them from beneath his shaggy black hair. "They looked just like you," he said, staring wonderingly from Dean to Sam, "it's why I didn't freak out when they grabbed me when the angel warped us from Sucro Corp. And it was dark in that warehouse. That's where Castiel took us right after the 'splosion. But as soon as he saw you guys, he just started wailing on you - well, them - and I didn't know what the hell I should do. He - Castiel - pushed... actually, he threw me into the wall of a shipping container." He grimaced a bit and continued, "he told me to get in there - the container - and then your faces just became these huge mouths-"

"Filled with razor sharp teeth," Dean filled in, grimacing at the picture in his head of rolling-marbles Cas, fighting alone against two leviathans barehanded and only in his trench coat and hospital scrubs. Practically naked.

Kevin nodded. "I got into that container as fast as I could - except it wasn't a container, it looked like a huge, fancy gold hotel room. In a shipping container. It reminded me of one of those sustainable eco-housing projects, except it doesn't make sense since the inside was bigger than the outside. Like the TARDIS, except classier. And it didn't have that weird vacuum sound-"

That stirred a memory. "Did it have a plate of your favourite food on the table?" Dean asked. "Like, absolutely the best food you ever had in your life?"

"Actually, yeah," Kevin answered, absently bending the can in his hands, "tasted just like my mom's paella. Do you know where she is?"

Dean and Sam exchanged glances, then promptly avoided looking at each other.

"Honestly, Kevin," Sam said, "we think Crowley scooped her up when he cleared the building. Dean and I had to scram out of there pretty fast, so we're not sure, but um... it's our best guess."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded resignedly. "I figured."

The short, awkward silence that followed was cut by Chuck. "So, uh, what happened next? Before you and Cas got here, I mean."

"Not much," Kevin continued, "I holed up in that room for I don't know how long. I was so bored; there's nothing to do in there besides eat the same food over and over. Eventually Castiel showed up, told me that we were going back to Earth, told me to tell you guys not to contact him except for in an emergency, then left me here."

"Dean, was that-?"

"Yeah, heaven," Dean answered Chuck. "Maybe even the same room I was kept in, years ago."

"Did he say where he was going?" Sam asked Kevin. "Was he okay?"

Kevin frowned, turning the crumpled can over and over in his hands. "I don't know. He had red and black stains on him. He didn't look so hot. But everything happened so fast, after. He just wanted me to pass on that message and then we were out of there in a flash and in Chuck's the next, and he left right away."

Sam frowned, his forehead creased into its customary wave pattern. Chuck had sometimes written that Sam's forehead could be his personal billboard if Sam would learn to spell anything else besides 'A' on it. "Why would Cas leave a defenceless kid with Chuck? I mean - no offense Chuck, you're not exactly-"

"Armed and dangerous? Batman? All of the above? Yeah, I hear you," Chuck agreed. "Which is why it was really great to see you guys and catch up - wow, can you believe a whole twenty-five minutes flew by? Well, don't wanna keep you tied up, sure you're on a very important hunt right now, so thanks for stopping by-"

"Whoa, Chuck, what's the rush?" Dean asked as he pointedly ignored Chuck's shooing motions. "Are you saying that you don't have a guardian Superman anymore? Cuz that's gotta be the only reason Cas stuck Kevin here with a squirrely hermit like you. Y'know, a two-prophets-one-archangel kind of deal, but without a tub. Or the poop."

"Eurgh, could you please stop talking?" Kevin begged. "I think I've got PTSD from watching that."

"Yeah, try living with him," Sam muttered with a wince. "He ambushed me with that video."

"The point is, I'm not sure if I have a guardian angel anymore," Chuck said, anxiously running his hands through his wild curls. "I haven't been seeing as much as I used to. It's more like flashes - but they're still focused on you guys. I haven't been able to write as much, which, truth be told, means that I'm sort of really a lot behind on bills and things... but when I do get visions, I crank out the pages. No peep from the holy strobe light. So, y'know, I'm probably not super useful right now which is why you guys should probably find somewhere else to go..."

Sam snorted, not budging an inch. "What's your deal? You're more... twitchy than usual."

Chuck threw his hands up in exasperation. "You're all freaking huge, gallumphing magnets for apocalypse-level trouble! Literally! It's bad enough that I'm a prophet, but keeping another prophet here is tantamount to storing gunpowder near open flames! So I would appreciate it if you guys moved along because as sad as my life is, I like to live on a daily basis!"

Dean shot Sam a look, and Sam immediately knew he wouldn't like whatever Dean would say next. "Too bad, Chuck, you're all we got as a safeguard and we can't drag a kid along with us. How about we divvy the duties? Sam, you can point whatever we got in the trunk at Chuck and see if the lightshow starts - I mean, don't actually kill him, as loud and annoying as he is right now, just try to kill him enough so that the angel starts to head over from the outfield. And I'm gonna try to call Cas."

Dean ducked out of the door before the rest of them could dispute his fair directions. He had faith in Sam - he wouldn't die. And wouldn't actually kill Chuck. His plan was great.

Two hours later and Dean was back and holed up in the guest bedroom. It smelled a bit like the Chinese apothecary where he'd picked up some of the spices along with a faint, musty undertone of old gym socks. It had been a pain in the ass to clear enough floor space among the odds and ends Chuck had amassed over the years into the small room, but it was worth it to lay out the spell.

The Enochian sigils were scrawled in chalk around an urn full of dried herbs and spices. He had had to drive to the next town to find a Chinatown, along with a few hippy healthfood stores that carried the spell ingredients. In the end, it'd be worth it if it could really summon Cas from wherever he had shot off to.

He lit the four tea light candles and dropped a lit match into the urn. "Cas? Castiel...?" he whispered uncertainly.

Flames plumed up from the urn, sparks and glass showered down as the ceiling light burst. The room plunged into darkness as streetlights outside blacked out.

Dean blinked, surprised at the speed of the signs. He had expected to be ignored again. Like all his calls and prayers had been for the past two days, ever since he'd woken up in that sterile laboratory room he'd flung every spare thought he had into unanswered prayers. Sure, they weren't the most sacred, but they were all one hundred percent heartfelt. He was pretty sure that it was the thought that counted, right? Even if some of them started with 'HEY ASSHOLE'.

Tension and anticipation thrummed through Dean. He bounced on the balls of his feet, eagerly glancing around the dim room, expecting to see the overly-literal angel of the Lord suddenly appear with a rustle of wings and maybe a faint glow if he was pissed since he had warned them not to call (he can suck it, Dean was done embodying a clenched fist). Cas's last words to him in Sucro Corp rang in his head and Dean could hear the apology in his goodbye.

Despite the betrayal and all the frustrations, Cas had redeemed himself long before their talk in the cabin in the woods. Secretly, Dean had never and could never turn his back on him. Cas was one of the two people Dean orbited around in his tiny and ever-shrinking solar system - not quite a friend, but something like family. He never peered too close at that elusive label because Cas should be family after everything he had sacrificed for him and Sam; but he never saw him through a brotherly lens.

He pushed those thoughts back down as the darkness in the room deepened and the scars on his shoulders started to tingle. The static smell of ozone permeated the room and Dean had a split second to savor it before white light seared into his eyes.

Dry heat scorched his skin like a flash fire and an instant later Dean was blindly knocked back, sailing into the hard wall. Pain lanced up his back as he hit the doorknob and he fell, slapping onto the floor as his ears filled with a reverberating roar. He could feel the adrenaline jangling through his nerves and his pulse drumming in his head as he scrambled for purchase on the ground, tasting panic and feeling like a blind cockroach floundering in the middle of nuclear ground zero.

His vision fizzed back in patches, just in time to see a tall figure wrapped in writhing arcs of lightning hurtle down to him. His lungs flattened as the figure straddled his waist, a large hand pinning him down at the sternum. In a flash, Dean could see his face in high-definition: Cas. Cas with wild, electric blue eyes, the wrath of heaven blazing on his face, lightning arcing out from his back and rippling through his pitch-black hair and down the arm holding an angel sword, coiled to plunge right through his feeble human rib cage.

He didn't care about any of that. All thoughts of shouting for help and safety concerns were suspended in that moment. All Dean could do was stare up at the angel and fucking marvel at how alive and awe-inspiring and almost beautiful Cas was; that he was imprinting his hot hand into Dean's chest and he was real.

And he didn't have the time or the thought to reflexively hide anything from himself any longer. Cas's blazing entrance had blown the lid off. He locked his eyes to Cas's brightly shining eyes, peripherally noting that the razor-sharp point of the angel sword was cutting through the air to his chest and felt everything clicking into their right places.

Of course he was never a friend or a family member. Cas had always been different.