"It's not exactly… practical," Dean said halfheartedly. "And it's expensive."
If he was being honest with himself though, he'd have to admit he was staring at the Buell Blast with every ounce of the naked lust Castiel was gazing at it with.
That was adoration, right there.
"I'd like very much to learn to drive one, Dean," Castiel said, lifting a hand as if to scratch at his new tattoo. Dean slapped it away. "The car is so…" Confining?
"It does get good mileage," Dean admitted, circling the bike. He wasn't even sure how they ended up here. He hadn't been paying attention and Castiel just—wandered, sometimes. He hadn't noticed how far they'd walked until he'd bumped into the guy, standing stock still and brick-like in front of this very store. Apparently, backseat of the Impala was out for him. He wanted a motorcycle.
"You do realize, these things are, they're pretty much death traps, right?"
Castiel flexed his recently-healed foot experimentally. "I'm sure I'll manage."
Sure you will. You'll break every bone in your body before telling me otherwise. "Well, all right then," Dean found himself saying. It was, after all, the first thing Castiel had mentioned wanting since he became human. Clothes didn't interest him; he stole from Dean's wardrobe. Sam had gifted him with an iPod, but Castiel had just copied the music Sam and Dean had onto it, and used it infrequently. He ate what was in front of him, ordered what Dean ordered until Sam's conditioning kicked in and he began eating salads instead. Dean had begun to wonder if he was afraid of finding out what he liked, personally. He'd wondered if all the curiosity Castiel had for humanity just dissipated, when he was forced to become one.
But here it was, a sign that Castiel wasn't totally depressed, that he was exploring things. Dean felt like cheering. "Heh, you with helmet hair," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Can't say it'll be much of a difference."
oOo
It didn't feel like flying.
Castiel had entertained the notion, briefly, but humans were poetical by nature, and it would be a cruel hyperbole, to say that riding a motorcycle felt like flying.
It did, however, feel good. Almost free, almost fast, almost in control. Castiel reveled in these feelings, their approximations. He enjoyed speeding on ahead of the boys to their location for hunts, leaving them to their car-conversations, their music and sniping and laughter. The Impala was theirs, and this, this was his.
The leather riding jacket was now more or less a permanent fixture to his outfit when he didn't need to impersonate for a case. He suspected—no, knew that Dean still kept the trenchcoat someplace. He seemed to think it some sort of symbol, pursed his lips and crinkled his eyebrows together when Castiel first laid it aside. Like it bothered him. Castiel knew that it was a symbol, too. But whatever it was, whatever the coat meant to him was something he couldn't bear to think about. Dean could keep it—it wasn't his anymore.
Yet despite himself, he began settling into his new life. He'd jog with Sam in the mornings, slowing down when the younger man began to struggle for breath, slowing down until their jog became a long, lazy stroll and they talked about meaningless things, making up new excuses every day on why they couldn't run. He discovered he liked ice cream, three creams in his coffee, and long, long showers that usually ended with his hands wrinkled, Dean pounding on the door and telling him to come out before he drowned himself. He found out he enjoyed movie nights, and popcorn, and shoulder massages. It was all very surreal.
But there was one thing. It needed to be addressed, and so he did it in the only way he knew how, a day after a surprisingly unusual salt-and-burn, a day after being reasonably assured of his physical and mental, if not social competency as a hunter.
"We need to go back to Oklahoma City," he said, fiddling unconsciously with the greasy remains of his burrito. Sam shook his head at him, chiding. "There are omens there which indicate supernatural activity."
"Tornados, right?" Dean said vaguely. He was poking at his own food, rearranging French fries into miniature teepees on his napkin before gobbling the structures whole. Infinitely more disgusting than what he was doing, Castiel mused.
He nodded. "They've been touching down in unusually large numbers this year; this is only the most recent occurrence. I believe these phenomena are connected with my brethren. We should go."
Dean's fingers went limp around his French fry. "Cas."
Castiel stiffened, bracing himself for impact. "Something must be done. I need to—we've been avoiding it, Dean. I don't understand why."
"Wait… how do you think that they're linked?" Sam said, interrupting the tense staring contest that had ensued between the two. Someone had to. "I mean, I thought an increase in the number of tornados was just a sign of climate change."
"Climate change?" Castiel blinked at him, bewildered.
"Yeah, you know, like global warming."
The confusion evaporated off of Castiel's face, replaced with something strangely akin to disappointment. "I'm surprised, Sam," he murmured "That given your history, you can't tell immediately when explanations are invented to rationalize the supernatural. I'll pack up at the motel." He rapped his knuckles on the table twice before turning to leave.
Dean laughed openly at his brother's stricken expression. "He's lying," Sam muttered, eyes tracking the man across the diner. "There's no way. I wrote a paper—he's lying."
"Looked pretty serious to me," Dean said, when he could breathe again. He grinned at Sam lazily, the how-about-that,-Granola-Boy-what-does-your-liberal -education-amount-to-now grin.
Sam scowled, pushing his plate away. "In any case. We should follow him, before he goes running off to Oklahoma without us."
oOo
"I hate double-dipping places," Dean growled, stalking outside of the car to scowl at their motel of the evening. "It's unsanitary."
"We're on the other side of the largest city in the country, Dean. The likelihood of someone recognizing us is pretty slim. Besides, we're not going full FBI this time."
Dean grunted in agreement, nodding to himself when he spotted their room number, and Cas' bike parked nearby. "What are we going as, anyway? News reporters? Storm chasers?"
"I guess Cas'll fill us in when we get inside. He's already set up camp; probably has some ideas."
Dean made an unconvinced noise, pulling their duffels out of the trunk. "About that."
"What? You don't think so?"
"I think," the trunk slammed shut. "That he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. If what he's saying is actually going on… well, things that cause tornados like the ones this place has been seeing? That takes serious firepower. And if it's the angels… he's been talking warzone, man. It's like we're walking into a battlefield armed with a water pistol."
"Well what do you expect him to do?" Sam's hands lifted, made an aborted gesture. "It's not like he's going to watch his family kill each other and half the population while they're at it. I know we're looking into ways of depowering them, but. I mean. What do you wantfrom him?"
"…I don't know." Dean peered at their window. It was lit up; Cas must be waiting inside.
"What?"
"Take your freaking duffle, Sam. I'm not your valet."
oOo
"I don't want to go home!" Ramiel's pleading had taken a more insistent note over the past few hours. Harut might have let him be by now, if she had a choice.
She didn't.
It was so hard to find them, after they had fallen. She couldn't afford losing any she could locate, they were all needed. It wasn't her fault that Ramiel was one of the Watchers, not her fault he was still afraid of a return to Heaven.
"We've told you," she said, trying to make her voice gentle. She doubted it had much affect—Ramiel continued straining against his bindings, to the point where some of the other Fallen would occasionally step a foot forward, as if afraid he'd break loose. "It won't be the same. We can change Heaven when we return, we can rule differently if we so choose. I was cast out as you were, Ramiel. For the same reasons."
"You don't understand. I can't go back. I have a life here, a family—"
"What family, Ramiel? Just how many 'families' have you had since you Fell?" Harut crouched down, frowning over Ramiel's panicked yelp. "One. And we're going home. You must help."
But Ramiel continued shaking his head vehemently, a whispered name on his lips that Harut guessed was his wife's. After looking around the room, and finding agreement in the faces of the other Fallen, she pulled out her blade again. Ramiel's eyes went flat. He was tuning out on her, she realized, to avoid the pain. That couldn't happen.
"There once was an angel I knew," Harut said conversationally, running the flat of the blade lightly over Ramiel's arm, "Whose name was Naomi. She found out some interesting things about torturing angels. That one has to put up safety guards, sigils in the area to contain the raw force of the pain. Otherwise, an angel's scream would destroy everything around it."
She trailed the tip up and down Ramiel's face, which had gone slack. "It made sense. When angels lose control of themselves, they cause destruction. Raphael, when he lost his temper, was known to depower entire countries. You're no Raphael, but your pain has been nothing to scoff at."
And there it was. Ramiel's eyes flickered to life, panic knitting his eyebrows together. "You… you didn't…"
"There are no sigils, Ramiel. But what is the destruction of a city to us? We've seen the downfall of civilizations."
"You didn't… you…"
"There were about twenty deaths. A woman and her child were pulled out of their car by the twister."
"No…"
But even for all that, even when Harut put in her everything, Ramiel wouldn't budge. He dissolved into a crying mess, begged her for death. It wasn't what she'd hoped for, and she pulled away in disgust. Marut, swathed in shadow, caught her eyes from across the room and they walked outside.
"Are you going to relieve him?"
It was a euphemism. To 'relieve' an angel was to strip their Grace away. It was what had to be done, when Harut failed to bring an angel to the cause. It was also the highest crime one could do against an angel, so unspeakable that it hadn't been done for thousands upon thousands of years.
Things were different now.
"We need soldiers more than we need Grace. We have so few."
"But we do need Grace, if there's any hope for pulling this off. I know how badly you want to go back, Harut. That's why I'm here. But you've got to recognize when you've lost a battle. Ramiel isn't going to take your side, no matter what your approach."
"What good would it be, if only a handful return to Heaven with us?" Harut said. "The power isn't the point. I'm not finished."
With that she walked away from him. She was in charge, after all, and it was her call to make. She'd made the calls before, too, though, and it was one of her decisions that had them cast out of Heaven in the first place.
oOo
Crowley was a salesman by nature, and while he hadn't necessarily gone undercover before, the amount of doublespeak and trickery involved bore definite relation to his previous employment.
"This is. Well." he said to himself, flexing the fingers of his new, female vessel. He figured Abaddon was a misandrist, and so had his favorite body stashed somewhere safe until his Mission was completed.
But demons didn't recognize one another based on what meatsuit they were wearing at the time. Crowley navigated through this obstacle with surprising ease; he was the son of a witch, after all, and it didn't take much to be able to rudimentarily cloak his true identity.
The rest of it, that would be the issue.
"I'd like to apply for an entry level position in security," he said, trying to keep his natural swagger down to a minimum. He didn't outrank the demon staring somewhat vapidly at him right now; at least not to that demon's knowledge.
"Any recommendations? Previous employment?" All standard questions; problem was, Crowley wasn't entirely sure how to answer them.
"Murdered my most recent employer," he made up on the spot. "He passed over me to a man when it came time for internal promotions, so I castrated him and made him eat his own testicles." The story definitely had feminist overtones. Crowley felt proud of himself.
"New demon, then." The demon Crowley was talking to, (Mudgett, he believed) yawned widely and shuffled some papers around before speaking again. "How'd you kill him, then?"
"Stabbed him in the neck," Crowley answered promptly. Best to sound quick and efficient; he really needed the job.
"Mm." Mudgett made a guttural noise in the back of his throat, fumbled with some more papers, knocking a good stack over before sighing and looking back at Crowley.
"You see, there's been a lot of confusion, lately," he said by way of explanation. "You may not know this, but there's recently been a regime change, and since that the paperwork's been all out of sorts. I haven't been getting any sleep. You said your name's Maddie McLean?"
Crowley nodded, and Mudgett began massaging his forehead, clearly distressed. "I can't find your papers. I can't find any of the papers on any of the demon recruits for the last six months, bless Abaddon and her—tell you what. I'll just give you the job now, probation period fifty years. I find your papers, good, we'll talk again if there are any problems. Now just—I need to pick these up…"
Crowley smiled a bit as he turned away. So far, so good. Now he just needed to find a way to get himself assigned to Kevin.
oOo
Castiel was to man the camera while Sam asked questions, Dean writing down notes and squinting in a very official manner at their 'witness' every thirty seconds or so.
"Would you say there's anything particularly unusual about the twisters that have been affecting the area?" Sam said, trying to look friendly rather than menacing. It was slightly difficult, especially since the meteorologist they were talking to, Mike Morgan, was significantly shorter than Sam, and already wore a harrowed look, as if he hadn't slept for days. They'd had to catch him at his home, and he'd answered the door with a hunted expression, clutching a mug of coffee even though it was just 3:00 in the afternoon. He'd then beckoned them in with a jerky, almost abandoned gesture, and forgot to invite them to sit down.
"They told me there wouldn't be any more reporters," Morgan said hollowly, pinching his thin nose. "I've been getting death threats for this, did you know that? And I didn't even say… Shit. Don't write that down. I'm just tired, can we do this tomorrow?"
"We're only here to report on the tornados themselves Mr. Morgan," Sam said sincerely, taking the initiative to perch on a seat across from him. "Please. We have deadlines, and need to draw on your expertise."
It wasn't really a surprise when Morgan folded in on himself, sank deep into his hellishly expensive leather couch. Sam just had that power with people, the ability to gain instant trust.
"Fine. If it's just the tornados—not that other stuff." Morgan finally set down the coffee he'd been clutching, and gave Dean and Castiel an odd look, like he couldn't figure out why they weren't sitting, too. "It was the second wave of tornados to hit in two weeks," he said, closing his eyes briefly. "So many… some were just monsters. One flattened Moore. The one on Friday was 2.6 miles wide, an EF5—I've never heard of a tornado that big, there've never been tornados that big, it's the largest recorded. They triggered massive flooding —I just don't understand what's been going on this year. It's never been this bad. I live for crazy weather, that's why I live and work here, but—never this bad."
"Did the… did the tornados seem to have a point of origin?"
"The county line, just northwest of Will Rogers, is where we first saw them—Reed had a visual. God. And everyone started getting on the roadways, God. Least safe place to be, for a tornado. Twenty deaths. God."
There was a long silence after that, an uncomfortable one, and Dean found himself staring at the man, hunched over and defeated-looking in his fancy sitting room. It was sad in a way he couldn't place.
"Thank you, Mr. Morgan," Sam said softly, moving to stand. "We won't take up any more of your time."
"I'm sorry," Morgan said, looking up at Sam imploringly. "I'm sure you can talk with the others at the station, I just. Goodbye."
"We understand."
They exited the house, Castiel practically flying to where he'd parked his bike. Dean caught his wrist.
"Where are you going."
An impatient tug, and Castiel was free. He mounted the bike, pausing just before putting his helmet on. "To the county line," he said.
"Without a plan? Without even talking it over with us? Fuck, Cas, we can't even be sure it is the angels—"
"I know it is." He wasn't even looking at Dean, just staring straight ahead, like he was reading code in the air. At any other time, Dean would have supposed that was what he was doing.
"Okay. Fine. You can't just go running off without an explanation though, Cas. You know that's not how we do things, we've been over this." Dean could feel the authoritative note creeping into his voice, the I am the leader of this outfit, and you listen to me mentality kicking in. Castiel narrowed his eyes.
"One or more of my brethren have been causing natural disasters that have killed a score of people. They are quite possibly mad, or angry, or both, and I am going to stop them." His tone was brittle, challenging, and it made Dean's shoulders tighten with anger.
"Right," he said acidly. "Great plan. Are you even armed?"
"Of course." Castiel put his helmet on then, and roared away.
"Son of a bitch!"
oOo
Bitch. Inbred whore. Yeti's little slut. Speck of unwashed cunt cheese.
Crowley kept an internal monologue going as Abaddon spoke to him, a monologue that grew increasingly vulgar and creative as her list of orders dragged on. Shakespeare had nothing on him, when he'd been going for a while.
Crowley had considered just killing her, smashing her ovaries, the whole shebang because he'd gotten this far, after all. It had been remarkably easy to infiltrate the ranks of Abaddon's most trusted confidants—Crowley was spot-on about the misandry, and all it took was a few graphic unsolicited public torture scenes for Abaddon to promote him to the position he was looking for. Why not kill her then, when Luck was rooting for Team Crowley again?
Easy. Part of the reason it was so easy to disguise himself as a lower-class demon was the uncomfortable fact that he was one, that whatever Sam the debilitated Moose did to him had sapped away much of his former power and left him enfeebled as well as emotionally unstable. You just couldn't pit the equivalent of a newborn demon against one of the First Fallen, element of surprise or no.
So when it came to Abaddon's orders Crowley was willing enough to take it in the ass, for now at least, because he was going to steal Hell's National Treasure and that was worth it. And that, that would only be the first step, because Crowley knew full well he was the most cunning demon to ever grace Hell, and Abaddon's days were numbered. Crowley never stayed an underdog for long, and he had a deep, abiding faith in his ability to come out on top of things. So when the world turned right-side up again, Crowley would be ready and waiting to grind Abaddon and all of Hell under his heel, 'till they were so many bug-guts smeared over cosmic space, because Hell never did him any favors, and he didn't take kindly to the lack of respect.
Rabid, cotton-mouthed parasite-ridden facsimile of a—
"That should be everything. You're dismissed, McLean." Abaddon flicked open an ancient golden pocketwatch, because apparently that was classy, and frowned. "Report back to me at o-dark-hundred hours."
Crowley smiled brightly, the plush lips of his new body stretching widely, violently over white teeth. "Yes, ma'am." And he sashayed over to Kevin's cell.
oOo
It wasn't so much plot twist as it was stupidity, Dean reasoned, when he found himself hog tied, for the umpteenth time, on the floor of a dirty abandoned warehouse. The recession must really be a bitch for real estate, he thought groggily when he came to, peering about reflexively for Sam. No Sam. Who knew where he ended up, in all the confusion upon arrival.
They all knew better than to get themselves into situations like this so regularly, Dean knew, but it was pretty much just as hard as it had always been to tail Castiel when he was in a hurry, and that had made them a bit sloppy, prevented them from strategizing, which Dean knew they should have done beforehand, and which he knew Castiel would normally have the presence of mind to think through. Frickin' Chess Master, Lead Strategist of Heaven had barreled straight into an unwinnable fight because he'd lost his head, and new human emotions or not, Dean was going to murder the bastard when they got out of this.
If they did make it out alive. Dean wasn't gonna make any bets, though, especially not when he could see what certainly looked like a fallen angel looming over Castiel, an entirely too interested look on her face and an angel-killing blade in her hand. Castiel had woken before Dean, was sitting up and staring her down with a ferocity that made him seem like the one with the deadly weapon. Deciding to play possum a little longer, Dean scanned the room. More angels, or so he presumed, but they were only vague shapes in the corners of the room and he couldn't get a definite number. The whole setup screamed cult, sent terrified little spasms up and down his legs. He began to fight against his bindings, but other than some indistinct shifting in the angels lining the dim walls, he didn't get much of a reaction from his captors. They were all focusing on Castiel.
"You're Castiel. The Castiel," the knife-wielding angel said wonderingly. Dean would have pinned her as Middle-Eastern, but the accent she spoke with bore traces of something he didn't recognize.
Castiel must have gotten used to infamy over the past few years. "I am."
"You're the one who started it all. Everything." The fallen angel began playing with the blade in her hands, and Dean's struggling grew more frantic. Where were his knives? No one ever took his hidden weapons off him; that was the entire point of concealing them. The most competent enemy Dean had yet run across in this regard was himself, in the future, and even then he'd been able to pry a nail from the floorboards and free himself.
No such luck this time.
Castiel was being a dumb fuck and had stopped responding to the angel, rule #1 when in hostage situation: always keep them talking, but it looked like she didn't need the prompting anyway. She just kept talking, all about bright-lit skies and destinies and wars, and Dean wasn't paying attention honestly, because he was focusing on a little something called escape.
"Why are you here? Is it to help us?" she asked, leaning down to peer into Castiel's eyes. Dean supposed he should be grateful they hadn't run into a faction of angels that just wanted to murder Cas, but this seemed more sinister, somehow. He couldn't put his finger on it; it was a concern for later.
Castiel turned his head to look at him, and Dean's heart stopped. No. Was he thinking…?
He wasn't. "No," Castiel said, not quite steadily, slight fractures in the word. The angel, for whatever reason pounced on that, and even Dean could see the fire of zealotry in her words as she replied.
"Because you can help, Castiel. When you helped cast the angels out of Heaven, you finally accomplished what others have been trying to do all along. Stopped the fighting there. Required everyone to band together, for a common cause. Gave us a chance to start over, when we return, and make things better. You can help with that. I know you have power; if you are with us, we will succeed."
"I can't help anyone, sister," Castiel said. Sister, because Castiel no longer had the ability to recognize who of the Heavenly Host he was speaking to. "Whatever power you believe I have, it is gone now."
And apparently Castiel was remembering some of what Dean had mentioned to him, sparingly, of these types of confrontations. Dean could see him testing the give of the rope around his wrists, making as if to break his thumbs to escape. You've got to finish it before the swelling starts, and it's your last option, because there's no way you can shoot or fight after doing something like that, Dean had told him. This was looking increasingly like a last-options kind of situation. Where was Sam?
Dean decided to draw some of the attention away from Castiel. "What do you mean, when we return?" he asked. The angel ignored him in favor of fiddling more with the knife; he didn't illicit so much as a rustle from the shadowy figures standing to the side.
"We don't need your Grace, Castiel. We need you, a soldier, a leader. Together, with us, we can wrong the past. It's possible now to cleanse the corruption that was in Heaven. We can storm the Gate, destroy Metatron, rewrite the rules. You don't need your Grace, Castiel, for that. You can use another's."
She pulled out a bottle then, filled to the brim with a glowing substance Dean found beautiful at the same time he found nauseating. "This can be a gift, Castiel. You can come with us, never have to be human again. You can follow us, and make right your errors."
The worst part was, for a second Dean didn't know what he'd do. He had no idea, if Castiel would just nod, take the Grace and leave. Again. He saw Castiel's hands still from struggling against the rope, and prepared for the worst.
"Where did the tornados come from?" Castiel said instead, tone so commanding that Dean mentally reminded himself to tell him later that you don't make demands when you are tied up.
The angel hesitated, then looked at Castiel straight on. Steady, strong. The gaze of a general.
"An angel who would not come to the cause. He is, as of now, physically unharmed, and free. This is his Grace."
Castiel shook his head. "No," he said. Then louder, "No. I do not know how you propose to re-enter Heaven, but I cannot join you. Nor will I, ever. Grace is not ours to take, persuasion does not occur when one is tied up and threatened."
She snarled then, flashed her knife down to make a long cut down Castiel's arm. "I haven't made any threats yet," she snapped, voice carrying easily over Castiel's hiss of pain. Her eyes flicked over for the first time to Dean, and he had to consciously fight his instinct to recoil from it. For a moment she lost the look of a general, and all Dean saw was a cornered rat, ready to lunge at someone's throat.
"What is the real reason, Castiel," she said lowly, returning her attention to the bleeding man in front of her. "I've heard your story. This is nothing compared to what you have done, and it was almost justified then, too. There is no nobility, in times like this. There is success, and the means by which we achieve it. I need men."
"Find others."
"What reason do you have for avoiding this? You're broken, Castiel, you're human and I can see you dying, even now. What is it? Is it this farce of a human family you've conjured up for yourself? It's a lie, Castiel, and I should know—"
Castiel spit in her face.
Dean's eyes widened, and he forgot what he was doing, because Castiel. Spit. In. Her. Face. And she had a knife.
Dumb son of a bitch.
He didn't get much time to worry about the repercussions of that though, because Sam, their very own Deus Ex Machina came charging in, double angel blades whirling in a frenzy, yelling and rolling around so that he looked like five men all at once. Apparently it was only Dean's worry that made him incompetent, because Sam appeared to have avoided abduction. The angels by the walls backed off or into each other in confusion as Sam roared in; whatever army was being built up was obviously still untrained, unused to each other.
Dean heard a scream of pain from nearby, and Sam was cutting their bonds, drawing a sigil on the ground and chanting, before the room filled with golden light and they were suddenly someplace else.
"Thank you, Henry Winchester," Sam gasped, as Dean registered they were in a parking lot. He heard a wet sound and a clatter as Castiel sucked in a breath next to him. Turning around, he saw the nameless angel's blade had been stuck in Castiel's arm, and he was now in the process of tearing his shirt to staunch the bleeding.
Before he could even move a muscle to help though, Sam's breath stuttered and stopped, and he fell to the ground spasming.
"Sam? SAM!"
A/N: Now, this story is implausible first and foremost because no one but Mark Sheppard can be Crowley. It's just not right otherwise. But, I feel my credulity might be restored if I kill off both Harut and Abaddon soon. xD Thoughts?
Also, a moment to thank all my awesome reviewers! You light up my world like nobody else, the way that you review gets me overwhelmed, and when you PM my profile it aint hard to tell you don't know, you don't know you're beautiful!