Torn and Saved
The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Inias and Samandriel prepared to depart. Matt said his farewells to his father, giving him messages to pass on to his mother and his girlfriend, and then he became Samandriel again. The two angels said goodbye to Sam and Dean, who handed them an old cellphone to 'keep in touch'.
The flight was shaky. Samandriel moved at half the speed he normally would have, heavily favouring his left prime wing. Inias kept most of his attention on the airspace around them, but more often than not he had to support his mate to keep him from falling out of the sky. The wound at his collarbone was clearly paining him. Thankfully they didn't have far to go.
They cruised low over the mountains, keeping below the flight-paths of the major airlines and using the EMF of human telecommunications to mask their presence. Not once did his mate complain, but Inias could read it in Samandriel's every desperate wingbeat—the need to stop for rest. He was at breaking point, but Inias had planned ahead. With a flick of his wingtips, Inias directed Samandriel down toward a deep valley between snow-capped peaks.
The roofs below them were those of a town called Jasper. Inias steered toward a nearby lake, its waters the milky green of fresh glacial meltwater. There, on the north shore, was a small log cabin. It had once belonged to his vessel's father, but had since been abandoned. The father had moved to Manchester and the vessel rarely had time to swan off to a cabin in the mountains.
Inias skimmed low over the lake and alighted on the dock that doubled as the cabin's back porch. Samandriel landed heavily beside him, trying to conceal a whimper. Inias wrapped a comforting wing around his mate's shoulders.
"Go inside. You can rest now. I'll put up the wards." Inias knew their souped-up hex bags—courtesy of the Winchesters—would only last so long. The sooner he put up angel warding, the better.
He started with the cabin itself, searing symbols and sigils into the center of the timber—deep inside each log, where no one could reach. He could still smell sizzling pine when he started on a second layer of defences. This time the sigils were gouged into rock, glassed into sand, and carved into trees. The circle enclosed the cabin, the dock, a stretch of the beach, and most of the open ground around them, including the gravel driveway. He also ground devil's traps into the bedrock beneath the doors and windows.
Once he was certain both circles of wards were impenetrable, Inias took wing, soaring around the circumference of the lake itself, adding another layer of wards. This circle enclosed the lake, a large section of forest, and approximately half of Jasper.
He returned to the cabin, listening to the hum of the wards as he went. Three layers would have seemed like paranoia to Hester or Rachel, but it meant that they didn't have to stay within the four walls of the cabin or worry whether they were still within the protective barriers. And this way, if one layer of warding was damaged, they had redoubts. What was it the humans said? Two is one, one is none?
Inside, the cabin looked many times cosier than the glorified shack the Winchesters had been living in. This cabin had been loved, and the thick layer of dust didn't detract. The door opened on a fully furnished kitchen and dining area, its dusty windows showing a grand view of the lake. Beyond the kitchen was a driftwood-banistered staircase and a comfortable living space with cushy furniture clustered around a large fireplace and heavy curtains framing bay windows with lake and forest views. Animal pelts acted as rugs and as blankets. There were antlers on the wall—Moose, Elk, White-Tailed Deer, Mountain Sheep.
Samandriel was milling around the dining table, swirling his grace over every surface and vaporizing the gathered dust. Most of the kitchen was already spotless. Inias stepped closer, brushing his fingertips over Samandriel's hand.
"You don't have to do that." He curled his wings around his mate. "I'll get it. You're supposed to be resting."
"I know," Samandriel sighed. "I just didn't want to sit around." His left wing drooped, the feathers brushing the floor. The marks on his forehead stood out more than they had the night before. He looked frail and drained.
Inias pulled him into an embrace, his arms looped gently but firmly around his waist, Samandriel's fingers winding into Inias' suit. They stood there in the chilly dining area, Samandriel's face buried in Inias' neck. Inias let his eyes slide shut, leaning his cheek against his mate's silky soft hair. They stood there for a long time, utterly silent. There were tears wetting the flesh of Inias' neck.
"I missed you..." Samandriel whispered.
Inias kissed Samandriel's temple. "Go relax. I'll get this place cleaned up."
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The cabin looked much nicer once the dust was gone. Inias cleared the first floor with a single sweep of his grace. Upstairs he took more time, inspecting the large bathroom, the study full of musty academic volumes, the wide bedroom with the bed inset into the wall and draped with furs and duvets. The window on the opposite side of it looked out over the lake—directly above the dock.
Samandriel was sitting in one of the deep windows when Inias returned to the living room. His head was leaned back against the cedar frame, his eyes shut, his wings canted to catch the warm, golden sunlight. There was a serene smile on his face, but it was clear that he was awake.
Inias crossed the room, dropping his vessel's suit jacket on the couch. He perched on the edge of the window seat, reaching out to squeeze Samandriel's calf. "There's a couch out on the porch. Would you like to sit outside?"
Samandriel's eyes opened. "What about the wards?"
Inias smiled. "I have a seven kilometre diameter circle under warding. Plus a second circle around this immediate property and a third inside the walls."
Samandriel smiled back, vaguely amused, but his face flushed with gratitude. "Paranoid, are we?"
"I knew you'd want to get outdoors."
The younger angel sat up, swinging his legs off the sill. He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to Inias' lips, and took his hand. "I would love to sit outside."
Inias led him out onto the back porch to where a modern, gunmetal grey couch with pale pine armrests sat facing the rickety dock and the cool, lapping waters of the lake. A bowl of wrought-iron grating held a modest pile of charcoal and Inias snapped a fire to life inside.
Once seated, Samandriel curled against Inias, absentmindedly toying with the ivory buttons on his vessel's white shirt. His hand was surprisingly warm against Inias' chest. His eyes were closed again, content, leaning on Inias' shoulder. His wings folded behind him and Inias curled one of his own around his slender mate, his cream-flecked chocolate brown plumage in stark contrast to the creamy white of Samandriel's.
Grey jays brayed in the trees as they huddled together. The scent of blooming vegetation drifted on the breeze, bees zipping past on their way between flowers. Samandriel snuggled tighter against Inias, fingers slipping into his shirt to brush the skin and hair beneath.
"So what have you been doing all this time?"
Inias met his gaze. "While I was in hiding?" He shrugged. "Running from Leviathans, cowering in dusty shacks, keeping as far under the radar as I could."
"Really? That's it? You just sat in a cabin, staring at the wall for weeks at a time?"
"I didn't have anything to do..."
Samandriel smiled. "You have to find things to do."
"Like what?"
He let out a soft chuckle, slipping his fingers further into Inias' shirt. "Read a book, play music, garden, swim..." he nuzzled into Inias' throat. "Mate."
"I don't think you're quite up to that yet," Inias hummed, stroking his wing against the plumage of Samandriel's. "At least one more day of rest."
Samandriel closed his eyes, smiling and huddling close. "So what are we going to do?"
Inias glanced around. "We have a boat."
"That we do."
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The boat wasn't the prettiest thing they'd ever laid eyes on. It looked like it hadn't seen a lick of paint in decades. But it didn't leak or capsize, even under the additional weight of four heavy wings.
They didn't go far. Samandriel still seemed shy of straying too far from the cabin, so Inias stuck to their bend of the lake. A couple of animals emerged from the trees as they passed close to shore: a cougar that cocked its head to study their wings before sauntering back into the woods and a bull moose that stared at them, chomping river weeds as they floated past.
Back at the cabin, Samandriel set about making hot chocolates and Inias rifled through closets, cupboards, drawers, and boxes looking for items that would provide them with some way of passing the time. He found a few old boardgames—Risk, chess, Monopoly, Pictionary, Life, Scrabble—a guitar in desperate need of tuning, a box of gardening tools with an unused hummingbird feeder, and some sort of electronic game system with 'Atari' printed on the side. Bookshelves in every room held enough books to keep them occupied for a while, and a fair collection of VHS tapes lay hidden in a cupboard near the television. The one thing the cabin lacked, it seemed, was a computer of any kind.
As evening fell they retreated to the bedroom, curling beneath the layers of furs and blankets. Samandriel buried his face in Inias' shoulder and Inias couldn't have described how wonderful it felt to wrap his arms around him. It had been well over a year since he'd shared a bed with his mate and they'd abstained for Larry's sake back in Montana. It felt like coming home.
He fell asleep with his nose rested against the crown of Samandriel's head. With their bodies pressed so close together, Inias could almost pretend he was back in their roost in Heaven, with the stars flickering over their heads. Everything was right with the world once more.
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He'd given them nothing but his name and his vocation. Of that, he was proud. He'd repeated it like a psalm, over and over, and for a while it had worked. But he didn't know what he was supposed to do beyond that. What did you do when the pain was too much? What did you do when the repetition didn't keep you focused anymore?
"We've been over this, Mandi. All I want is a few names. I already have one; what harm could there be in giving me the rest?"
Samandriel wanted to spit in the demon's smug face. "I am a servant of Heaven. If you think I'll give you anything...!"
Crowley leered, disturbingly like the Cheshire Cat. "Oh, I think you will."
"Then you're a fool. Let me go now and I'll consider sparing your life." The bravado sounded great, but Samandriel suspected that his fear and exhaustion showed in his eyes. Even if he'd been let free of his chair he couldn't have stood. Not without help.
"Ooh," Crowley sneered, gesturing to the four burly demons by the hatch, who stepped in and shut the door. "I'm shaking in my boots."
"You should be. When Heaven finds me—"
"Blah, blah, blah." Crowley circled the chair. "Last chance," he warned, disappearing from Samandriel's peripheral vision.
"Go ahead. Kill me," Samandriel challenged. He wasn't sure if he really meant it, but it sounded like something a soldier would say.
Crowley's breath was warm against his neck as he leaned in close. "Oh, I'm not going to kill you. That would be too easy." He snapped his fingers and turned to the other demons.
The demons jolted into motion, the two near the door wheeling a lab cart to Crowley's side. Perched on the top of it was grey box covered in dials and switches and blinking electronic lights. Wires branched from the side, coiled around what looked like improvised wands and rods. Whatever the device was, Crowley had twisted it to a new purpose.
"There are many kinds of torture, little angel," Crowley snarled, flicking the red switch on the front of the machine. An uncomfortable prickle washed over Samandriel's skin. The two demons flanking the cart took up the wands and walked around to where Samandriel couldn't see them. Crowley hummed to himself, twisting one of the knobs about a third of the way around. The prickle became a droning buzz that made his hair stand on end. "You know what this is?" When he didn't get a response, Crowley continued. "It's a magnetic field generator. One of those little innocuous human devices that fellas in lab coats use to unlock the secrets of the universe." He smiled. "And now it's going to help me unlock some secrets of yours."
Samandriel scowled and kept his mouth stubbornly shut. Crowley didn't look disappointed at all. On the contrary; he looked delighted that the angel was resisting. He smiled that shark smile and nodded to his henchmen.
The world blurred, grey creeping in at the edges of Samandriel's vision. A high, tearing scream filtered above the howling buzz of tight, constricting magnetic field lines, like razor wire in his skin. It took a long time for Samandriel to realize that he was the one screaming. He tried to pull away from the searing barrier but no matter how he curled in on himself the field got tighter.
All at once, the pain stopped. The field dissolved, leaving him a shivering mess in the chair. His nerves were raw, and this time it was his nerves, not the vessel's. His wings drooped and he whimpered. He was utterly unprepared when the white-hot agony returned. The field twisted and warped his wings into unnatural positions and he felt bones crack. Crowley twisted the dial to the halfway point and Samandriel howled.
"Stop! Please, stop! I'll tell you what you want to know!"
Crowley held up a hand and the field vanished, the two demons stepping away. He leaned in close. "What was that?"
"I'll tell you the names," Samandriel sobbed. "I'll tell you the names, just please... please, stop."
Crowley smirked. "That's just what I wanted to hear."
Samandriel shuddered, sick with guilt at the betrayal he was about to commit. A tall, mocha-skinned demon produced a pad of paper and a pen. Crowley tapped the device and Samandriel gulped and cleared his throat.
"Luigi Ponzi, Justin Hurst, Dennis Adams, Krista Field, Aaron Webber, Maria Tate, Sven Engstrom."
The room was silent for a moment, aside from the sound of the demon's ballpoint. Once he finished, Crowley studied the angel."Is that all of them?"
"All the current possible prophets, yes. Aside from Kevin Tran."
Crowley's eyes narrowed. "Truth?"
"Truth." Samandriel wanted to cry.
The demon grinned. "See. How hard was that? Could've saved yourself a lot of trouble if you'd just spilled the beans earlier." He straightened his spine and Samandriel breathed a brief sigh of relief. "Jacob, if you could be so kind as to go retrieve our prophets."
The tall demon with the paper nodded and exited the room without a word, two more towering, thick-set henchmen shouldering in to replace him.
"We had a deal, Crowley..."
"Yes. Of course. How could I forget?"
The two demons returned the rods to the hooks on the cart and backed away. Crowley patted the machine like it was an obedient dog, then cranked the settings to max and flipped the black switch. The field hit Samandriel like a tidal wave and he convulsed, his scream rising to a pitch that no animal on earth could hear. Almost as soon as it hit him, Crowley had shut the device off. When the throbbing in his ears eased, Samandriel could hear the demon laughing.
"Sorry, Mandi. It's just so hard to stop when you're having fun."
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Inias woke in the wee hours, Samandriel twitching and whimpering next to him. He had been about to roll over and go back to sleep, but he couldn't ignore the broken, terrified sounds. He propped himself up on an elbow, watching his mate in the throes of his nightmare. A cold sliver of dread settled into his gut. His sleeping mate begged and pleaded with some remembered tormentor, sounds of distress raw and ragged in the quiet room. He was about to wake him, consequences be damned, when Samandriel jolted awake with a wrenching scream. Unsteady wings clawed at the air as he thrashed. Inias dodged the flailing limbs and gathered his mate against himself, soothing him with gentle touches and soft murmurs as he had so many times since rescuing him.
"GEH COD, HOATH," he whispered as Samandriel latched onto him, drawing a shaking breath. "GEH COD." He ran a hand through his mate's sweat-damp hair. "It was just a dream."
Samandriel shivered, letting out a choking sob. "I wish that were true."
Inias swallowed. "Memories?"
His mate nodded, huddling as close as he possibly could, and wept into Inias' shoulder, shaking violently.
"Tell me." Inias kissed Samandriel's cheek. "Get it off your chest."
"It's nothing," Samandriel stuttered, fingers gripping Inias.
"It didn't sound like nothing." His heart ached as he tipped Samandriel's face so that they were nose-to-nose. Tears dripped down his cheeks. "Tell me."
A broken sort of sound came out of Samandriel, his voice brittle. "Please, Inias. Please don't be angry with me."
"Why would I...?" Worry wormed into Inias' mind and sat, curdling, at the back of his throat. He'd spent enough of his life battling demons to know the kinds of things they did to captives. The possibilities were too terrible to contemplate. How it hadn't occurred to him sooner... He fought the instinctive rage that sizzled up from his gut. "What did they do to you, Samandriel."
There was a long silence, Samandriel's chin quivering in Inias' grip. "It's not what they did..." he whispered, sucking in a shuddering breath. "It's what I told them..." A few wracking sobs overtook him before he continued. "I told them the names of the Prophets... the pain was too much. I couldn't... I couldn't take it... I'm so sorry, Inias. Please... please forgive me."
Inias cradled Samandriel as he wept, rocking him back and forth and folding his wings around them both like a tent. The worry in his chest wouldn't subside until he knew exactly what had and had not been done to his mate, but the feeling wasn't the sickening twist that it had been a moment ago. "It's all right. You weren't trained for this." He kissed the soft spot at the corner of Samandriel's mouth. "What sort of mate would I be if I blamed you for breaking? No one should have expected that of you. You wouldn't expect me to be able to tend the Garden."
They remained still, huddled together, for a long, quiet moment. Samandriel's wings shimmered slightly in the moonlight, his eyes sparkling. Inias sighed, content just to watch him. His mate was beautiful, truly beautiful. He was like crystal and fresh snow and the light of dawn, pure and radiant and perfect; a star that had dropped out of the sky and become an angel. And he was Inias'. It felt like some kind of divine privilege that so beautiful a creature had chosen him over all the others.
"IN," Inias whispered, weaving his fingers between Samandriel's.
"DE," Samandriel replied, fluttering his wings between them. "PAID." Then, squeezing Inias' hand, he murmured: "A TOANT G, Inias."
"A TOANT G, Samandriel," Inias replied as they both drifted back into sleep.
Enochian
GEH COD (geh-heh koh-deh): You're safe
HOATH (hoh-ah-teh): Love [as a term of endearment]
IN (ee-en): Mine
DE (deh): Yours
PAID (pah-ee-deh): Always, forever
A TOANT G (ah toh-an-teh geh): I love you