A/N: Thank you so much for your well wishes. One exam down and three more to go, but this chapter was demanding to be written. No Gabriel or Belial (I know; I miss them too!) but someone else shows up. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Belial and Gabriel belong to me
"Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."
He moved quickly along the emptying hallways as fast as he could without accidentally running over someone, his broad shoulders and tall frame making him feel like a freakin' lumberjack amidst a sea of munchkins. The ridiculous sneakers he wore squeaked obnoxiously against the slick linoleum and he very nearly slipped, narrowly missing a head-on collision with a frantic-looking nurse wheeling a blank-faced man down toward the red glowing exit sign at the end of the corridor. Another attendant brushed brusquely past him, pounding footsteps sending splashes of water everywhere; as if everything wasn't already wet enough. Sam blinked away the droplets clinging to his eyelashes and tried to see clearly through the curtain of water raining down from the ceiling, inwardly griping about how it was always a fire alarm; why, oh why did it always have to be a stupid fire alarm?
"An immediate evacuation of these premises has been ordered. This is not a drill. Everyone is ordered to proceed to the exits immediately."
Probably because it was their best cover, that much was true; the sure-fire, go-to way for getting down and dirty with the supernatural while ushering unsuspecting, innocent bystanders out of the way like a herd of dumb cattle, mooing their confusion and stumbling about. Get out, get out, just get out of here! Sam wanted to scream maniacally (ha, so not funny) while waving his arms around because all of these people, some of whom were already a few cards short of a deck, really did not need to see the heavy-duty showdown that would be the process of getting Cas out of the funny farm.
Which, as of right now, was going just as well as literally trying to fumble through all the fragile pieces of hay for that needle. It was the Where's Waldo of trying to locate an angel among the crowd of people who all looked the same in their white uniforms and eerily deadpan faces, eyes glazed over in a manner very similar to individuals who'd been brainwashed in those movies about post-apocalyptic, totalitarian regimes lorded over by ruthless dictators who offered security and stability in exchange for all-encompassing control, a la Brave New World or 1984. And, to make matters even worse (as if standing here in stolen clothes and getting drenched to the bone while being propelled every which way in a sea of white wasn't bad enough) was the fact that somehow, the minute they stepped inside, his brother had decided to disappear.
"Evacuate. Repeat. This is not a drill."
Damn it, Dean. The younger Winchester swiped one hand across his forehead, raking back the hair plastered to his face by the steady shower from above, angry frustration rising up within his chest like smoke curling upwards from a slow-smoldering fire. He was mostly vexed at himself though, for not seeing it coming. Sam had hunted with his brother for long enough to know and recognize the warning signals of those times when Dean's head wasn't entirely in the game, when the elder Winchester was about to go postal against a demon who'd dared to step over the boundaries and so jumped from merely getting a load of rock salt in the face to being an evil son of a bitch who would soon be freakin' obliterated by the cold fury of blazing emerald eyes.
But then again of course Sam should've expected Dean to do this, to deviate from the plan, to dive heedlessly into the path of danger with tunneled vision focusing solely on his one goal. After all, this was Cas they were talking about. An angel of the Lord, the only one who wasn't a dick with wings, the renegade who'd given up everything to protect and follow after the two idiots who had somehow just between them both, managed to destroy the world. Their guardian (in a sense, anyway) and their ally. Their friend.
"Sam."
He blinked, head automatically whipping around to locate the speaker who'd just uttered his name, but no one seemed to be paying him a bit of attention. The younger Winchester's brow furrowed in confusion as he glanced around, not noticing the other until he almost literally tripped over her. His eyebrows nearly disappeared above his hairline as his mouth opened and closed several times like a fish, too stunned to even remember how to form proper words. What the hell?
She stood there, shorter than his waist and with her head tilted back to stare up at him, brown eyes wide and beseeching. "That way," she said imploringly in a tiny little voice that the hunter inexplicably heard above all the pandemonium in action all around him, as if coming from the other end of a long tunnel. Her lips were turning an alarming bluish hue, and Sam was momentarily distracted with worry about the possibility of the poor girl getting hypothermia due to the fact that she was barefoot and wearing nothing besides a thin white dress that hung on her skinny frame like a bed sheet. But then she was lifting a thin arm and extending it out in the other direction, pointing down the hall and away from the exit signs, against the stream of evacuees and deeper into the heart of the terrifying maze that was the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward. "Hurry!"
It's the little girl from the motel. What's her name? Joy, something or other? The questioning realizations spun lazily through Sam's mind like the lowest tumble dry setting on a dryer, each distinct thought more perplexing than the one that came before it, bewildering him into stunned speechlessness as he gaped at the other, trying to figure out how in the world she'd managed to get here and exactly why she was here in the first place. When he failed to move or respond in any way to her entreaties – maybe it was the cant of the falling droplets of water, or perhaps the angle of his downward gaze – either way, the little girl's eyes seemed to shift, changing from innocence and urgency for an unknown purpose into something ancient and unworldly, too serious and mysterious for her pinched face.
She spoke again; just one word, voice harboring quiet wisdom, the type that came from being advanced in one's years and having seen far too much, ringing with something that wasn't quite eternity and wasn't quite omniscience. Fire seared through the underside of his skin as she reached up to pull at his arm with an impossibly gentle touch. "Come." It was almost a command and all Sam could do was stumble after the slight figure, heavy feet sloshing around in the water behind pattering footsteps that barely seemed to stir the surface of the water.
"Evacuate. This is not a drill; repeat. This is not a drill."
Two weeks ago:
It had already been a week.
That was seven days, one hundred sixty eight hours, ten thousand eighty minutes, and six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds since the Winchesters woke up to find themselves up shit creek without a paddle; angel-less, hapless, and still utterly at a loss at what to do even after finding out just how FUBAR this situation was. Both of them had been working feverishly for the past three days in a manner that reminded Sam of those all nighters he used to pull around exam time while still at Stanford. This time around though, the only slave driver working them to the point of exhaustion and even beyond was the terrifying knowledge that Lucifer had managed to get his filthy paws on Castiel– and yet they had close to nothing, a great big pile of squat to show for their efforts.
Goddamn it. The elder Winchester sat on the edge of the bed and pushed away the compiled list of rental companies in a ten mile radius that rented out unmarked white vans, scowling in annoyance at the endless pages of aliases and fake numbers provided by those who needed the vehicles for other underhanded purposes. The inventory was longer than a shopaholic's credit card bill and Dean's wavering patience, already dangerously thin, was about to slip into nonexistence.
For God's sake, it felt like they were in some crappy procedural cop show that tried to make up for its countless plot holes with flashy montages of high-tech equipment and teary-eyed confessionals that were supposed to tug at the heartstrings but instead had quite the opposite effect, spurring the viewer into gripping his hair and nearly screaming out in frustration at the utter stupidity of it all. And Dean friggin' hated procedural cop shows. All the evidence they had was close to useless besides the fact that the white van had been heading somewhere west of the motel but who knew, the bastards who took Castiel could've made a u-turn somewhere. And even though Sam had been over every square inch of the angel's holy tax accountant uniform, they were literally no more than two steps away from square one. Dean wanted to bang his head against the wall. Repeatedly.
"Dean?"
But this wasn't a police drama where the storyline could be neatly wrapped up in forty minutes, bar commercials, with brilliant moments of epiphany or deus ex machina moments and the hunter turned away from where he'd been trying to burn a hole into the hideously ugly wall with his eyes (eggplant? Really? Who the hell paints their walls that color?), scowling at his brother. "What?"
Sam wasn't offended at the obvious irritability; or if he was he hid it well, choosing to ignore the curt tone and sighing heavily. "We're turning up nothing."
Well, no shit Sherlock, Dean wanted to snap peevishly, and nearly lobbed a pillow at his brother's head when Sam tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle an enormous yawn. His fingers were in fact already twisting tightly in the cheap cotton of the pillowcase when he took a good look at his brother; saw the dark circles curving like half moons under his eyes, the lines of frustration and fatigue tightening around his mouth. The poor kid was obviously tired, and Dean felt a pang of sympathy. They'd barely gotten the chance to recover from Jesse and the whole Antichrist being a sweet little kid fiasco when this mess had been dumped into their laps and if Dean felt guilty, he could only imagine the guilt that haunted his little brother twenty-four/seven. "We've gotta keep at it, Sam," he said wearily instead, scrubbing at his face with a hand. He felt stubble scratching against the heel of his palm and briefly wondered if he, too, looked like a train wreck. "Lucifer's not gonna be waiting around, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for us to make a break in the case." Break in the case? Oh Christ, now he was starting to talk like a cop too. This is just great.
"I know, but it's just that…"
Sam's shoulders made an odd jerking motion and he pushed away from the table, leaning forward to let his elbows rest on his knees, back hunched and huge hands wringing together. His brow tightened almost imperceptibly and anyone else would've let the matter drop by then, but Dean had practically raised the kid and knew Sam was trying to search in the Oxford English dictionary stored away in the back corner of his huge brain for the best way to put something. "Stop looking like someone just took away your dolls, Sammy. Just spit it out already."
One more wrinkle in between the eyebrows and then Sam huffed a long-suffering breath; clearly he'd been wanting to say this for quite some time now. "Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult if we had a fresh set of eyes."
Dean was just about to ask how the hell they could get Bobby all the way out here from South Dakota when the man was in a freakin' wheelchair when he saw Sam's meaningful upward glance. There wasn't anything of interest on the ceiling, no "gullible" scrawled up there in black Sharpie or anything, but Dean grasped the action's meaning immediately and he gaped at his brother, incredulous. "The angels?" At Sam's nod of completely serious assent, the elder Winchester sagged against the bed's headboard, flinging a hand over his eyes. "Oh, that's great Sammy." So what if he was acting like a homecoming drama queen; what excuse did his freakishly smart little brother have for not being able to come up with anything besides the angels? "Why don't we just paint 'smite here' on our foreheads and hang giant targets on our backs?"
There was a sigh, then the scraping of the legs of the hard-backed plastic chair against the floor as Sam scooted closer, earnest to prove his point. "Look, Dean…I know that Cas isn't exactly in high standing with the rest of the angels right now-" Dean snorted derisively, but Sam continued, undeterred. "But we could at least try Gabriel."
"You mean the grade A douche bag who stood back to watch the light show as his brother was torn to shreds." Dean squinted at the younger Winchester, his expression insinuating that his brother had just lost his mind. "Cas is on Heaven's top ten most wanted list and now you want to whistle for an archangel and have the dick play Lassie?"
"You really believe that Zachariah was telling the truth when he said that?"
Blue eyes bored into his, as ancient and endless as ever, but as Dean stared intently into the gaze that no longer seemed to frighten, he saw something else: fear. Uncertainty. An entreaty that would never fly past the angel's lips but was as evident as the nose on his face- to Dean anyway, because he'd seen that look before, and on his own face at that, right after he thought he'd lost Sam to a knife in the back. "I need your help," Castiel said quietly, voice pitched low and if Dean didn't know better, he would've thought the timbre in the other's tone as one of desperation, "because you are the only one who will help me. Please."
He drew in a deep breath, deliberately avoiding Sam's questioning stare. "No, Sam. We're on our own."
"Face it Cas, it's not like any of your brothers give two shits about you and you know it." The expression of raw hurt that flashed across the usually stoic countenance was terrible, no matter how ephemeral and Dean instantly wished to take it back, but it was too late. The words were already out there and it didn't matter how true they were; it was painfully evident that they were devastating nonetheless.
In the silence that followed, Sam dolefully bent his shaggy head back over his laptop with a sigh of defeat and overall resignation, leaving Dean feeling like the biggest jackass in the world for shooting his brother's hopeful idea down. "Goin' out for some air," he mumbled, and was up off the bed and out the door in less than ten seconds, before Sam could offer up a response.
As soon as the door slammed, nearly hitting the elder Winchester in the back on his hasty and less than graceful exit (Dean had somehow gotten his legs tangled up in the bed sheets, otherwise he would've been outside in a second and a half), Sam slammed the lid of his laptop shut and leaned back in his chair, heaving a mighty sigh. And it wasn't his fault that he'd taken to sounding like a steam engine these past few days, exhaling out exasperated breaths every few minutes.
Dean was being an idiot. From what little he knew about Castiel's superiors, most of which stemmed from his own sparse run ins with Heaven's soldiers of holy wrath and from Dean's narratives (which were often peppered with obscenities), Sam was pretty sure that it was Zachariah who earned the title of being a grade A douche bag. There had certainly been nothing pious or virtuous about the way the bastard boasted about letting the world go to Hell, literally ("Maybe we let it happen, but we didn't start anything…right, Sammy?"), nothing even remotely angelic in his attempts at coercing Dean into handing himself over as Michael's vessel ("Keep mouthing off and I'll break more than his legs."), and something just downright ugly in the way he'd been gloating over the death of his subordinate. Sam knew that as far as saints and righteousness went, he wasn't exactly the epitome of or a wonderful judge of either, but he did know a bit about the dark side of the coin. Even a blind, deaf, and dumb idiot couldn't have possibly missed the nefarious quality of Zachariah's glee over seeing Castiel, one of his fellow angels, one of his brothers, reduced to nothing but scorch marks on a concrete floor.
"But dare you touch my brother, nay, dare you lay eyes upon Castiel again, I will lay waste to your soul."
The archangel's declaration, as if from a lifetime ago, still made a shiver run up his spine, but it wasn't the threat of utter destruction and obliteration from existence at the hand of one of the most powerful supernatural beings known to humanity that struck Sam the hardest, but the fierce protection behind Gabriel's promise; a righteous anger he'd only ever seen in the blazing fury of Dean's eyes, heard in the timbre of his father's growl. It was unmistakable, undeniable, and although angels were supposed to be emotionless soldiers for God's will, although they weren't supposed to feel anything, the younger Winchester would defy anyone who said that Gabriel did not care about or did not love his little brother. And he was pretty damn sure that no matter what battle the archangel was fighting, he would drop everything if he knew that Castiel was in trouble of the worst kind.
Dean said no, the little voice of reason in the back of his mind offered timidly. And you know what happened the last time you went against what Dean said. Yeah, he knew, and it still haunted him at times. But still…It's the only chance we have of finding Cas, or even getting anywhere with this. Sam slouched in his chair, staring gloomily at the opposite wall. What other options did they have? It was a limited list that they'd already managed to exhaust between the two of them, and there were only so many times Sam could Google variations of "white vans in Prowers County" without going insane.
Wait a minute. Sam sat up suddenly, remembering the little odds and ends occult shop he'd seen tucked into the little cranny between the much larger café and thrift store on either side; there had to be at least something in there that had to do with summoning angels, right? Or at least angelic lore? When Castiel carved the protective sigil into their ribs, the angel had referred to the inscriptions as Enochian, and he was almost positive a girl he'd gone out with once at Stanford, a comparative religion major, had mentioned something about angels having their own language. He flicked a quick glance at his watch. Whenever Dean went off someplace to brood, the elder Winchester was usually always gone for at least a good half hour, and the shop was within walking distance. If he hurried, he could get there and back before his brother returned.
Don't do it, don't do it, reason chastised. You two just started trusting each other again, what'll Dean say if he finds out that you're sneaking around behind his back again? With a grumble, Sam told reason to stuff it and stood, grabbing his jacket off the foot of the bed as he slipped quietly out of the room. They didn't have to be alone in this.
"Praise him, praise him, all ye little children, God is love; God is love…"
From next door, the sounds of a little girl singing flitted through the walls, following the younger Winchester away from the motel and into the parking lot, voice thin and thready and yet so sweet that it almost brought tears to his eyes, the knowledge that even in the midst of the Apocalypse there were still those who knew nothing about the evils that lay beyond their doorstep; children who viewed the world in innocence and make-believe and beautiful faith, untarnished by the dark and ugly realities of the world.
The leather restraints dug into his wrists and lay strapped tightly over his torso and thighs, pressing deeply into the tender flesh underneath the thin cotton fabric that was still molten yellow and varying shades of purple, black, and grey, knuckle-shaped marks imprinted onto the pale skin. "G'morning, sunshine," came a voice from somewhere above him and then a shadow detached itself from the wall. Dancing lights swum in his line of vision; he could feel cold hardness at his back and as a fingernail ran a path down the side of his cheek, he tried to recoil from the touch but the only movement he could attempt was that of his head as a pair of beady orbs, cold and as dead as sin itself bent low toward his face, voice sibilant as the tempting serpent; mocking and merciless.
"Ready to start treatment for today, Leonard?"
The Creator of all the wonders of the universe and Father to all things had knit his angels from the cold fire that threaded together the cosmos, skillfully and methodologically, giving each member of the near-innumerable Host a name and purpose for existence; then He'd taken a handful of dust from the Earth below and shaped it in His likeness, breathing the breath of Life into the nostrils of Man. Everything that ever existed and would ever exist was a product of His hands, and held a tiny fragment of the pure light and beauty of the Most High.
It was by chasing after these particles of grace and holiness that Castiel searched for God, traveling all over the world and even to places unknown, seeking out the public places and most obscure locations that would make the amulet resting against his heart burn hot. The angel had stood in the middle of a town square in the Vatican, surrounded by tourists and pigeons and the sculpted representations of his kin and the saints of the Christian faith; he'd entered into the heart of a hurricane and felt the mighty ripples of majestic strength at its very eye; he'd flown past the highest mountaintops where the Earth seemed to touch the underside of the Heavens, remembering the first time his sister brought him here upon her back when his own wings had still been new and fragile.
He did not find God, but what he did find only solidified the conviction he held in the innermost parts of his being; the belief that his Father was still alive and out there, somewhere. In the tears that streamed down the weathered cheeks of the ninety-year old woman who'd spent her entire life in the rice patty fields of Asia praying for salvation, in the frantic but heartfelt whispered petition of the young man holding an automatic weapon while surrounded by the roughness of sand and death in a never-ending war, in the way the young woman held her friend close as she wept– it was here that Castiel felt the love of the Almighty the most.
That, though, was not all the angel found. Through the brightness of a child's beaming grin as she handed him a piece of colored chalk and asked him if he would please play hopscotch with her he discovered joy, gentle and freeing and innocent that was as such he had not felt in too long. Through the tired but genuine smile of the waitress who kindly offered him half of her tips when she heard he had no money, Castiel experienced the benevolence of selfless sacrifice and in the quiet, nervous smile of the girl who'd just an hour ago been servicing nameless, faceless men in dark motel rooms but ran for five blocks to attend Sunday morning Church service, he saw a love for God so passionate that the angel found himself humbled in her presence, Dean's amulet a warm ember against his heart.
And in the weight of Dean's arms around his shoulders as they exited out the back way of the disreputable establishment, in the gruff but affectionate growl of Bobby Singer's voice, and in the earnest fervor in Sam's words to the Antichrist, the angel discovered that humanity was immeasurably beautiful and it became evident why an all powerful God would treasure such imperfection so highly and keep mankind so close to his heart.
And it truly made Castiel wonder if, despite his disobedience, he was also still worthy of forgiveness and love.
He heard the surge before it assaulted his bound frame, felt the thrum of energy traveling through the lines leading to his body, and his back arched up against his bonds that suddenly felt like fetters of steely fire and ice and stone; sparks slithered along well-worn paths against the back of his eyelids and fizzled in a shower of words and voices that made no sense at all, chants and litanies from ages past wrapping around his weak limbs as they flailed uselessly. Now he understood why Dean had recoiled at the sound of his true voice, and why most humans were not made to withstand the glory that surrounded an angel's true form.
Shame would have eaten away at him then with the realization that he'd just referred to himself in the same regards as a human, if not for the next crackle of energy, even more forceful and terrible than its predecessor. The blazing pain raced across his senses and his nerves were sharp pinpoints of the needles that the demons kept pushing into his skin; trying to breathe stripped away all other functions and time was stretching, dilating across the spectrum of reality, going on and extending into forever in this one minute instant.
Everything passed by in muted color scheme, twisting shades of light and shadow and the brightness of noise from his perception, everything except the pain which was a steady constant, although the methods the demons employed were ever-changing, terrible and incomprehensible to his heavy mind. The edges of ragged bone grated against each other as he struggled vainly to twist away from the grapping hooks of razor-teethed agony attacking all of him like a hellhound, shooting through every appendage; his head banged hard against something solid and the cords in his neck stood out, his ribs heaved and it was worse than the crushing blows of fists, that faded into dull, throbbing aches. In contrast to the numbing cold that that nearly paralyzed his entire body when clawed hands with melting fingers had dumped him into the frigid water and left him there for hours upon hours, there was no desensitization this time around after the thousands of stinging and piercing burns and his teeth clacked together, clenching around a broken, begging sob because it hurt so much.
"Oh, does that hurt?" She was here again, the demon girl was cackling and her lips were moving, moving and peeling back away from her face and it was frightening, revolting, grotesque – "Scream then, you little priss. Scream to your God and see if He answers."
It was true that angels did not feel as humans did. Angels were staunch warriors of the Lord; their beings were pure flaming spirit, faith, trust, and loyalty as opposed to the fragile and so easily battered mortal constitutions of man. The sons of fire were indeed capable of love and devotion and kindness, of anger and frustration and wrath. But the longer Castiel spent on Earth, the more he began to understand the how and why of emotions; the more he himself gradually began to feel.
Human emotions were messy and chaotic and ambiguous, a confused muddle of unclear intentions and misguided actions, holding too much calculation at times or completely without reason upon others. Contradictory and unfathomable, it was a wonder why humans chose to feel at all. In Heaven, emotions of such inconsistency and simplistic nature had no place; angels' worship toward their Father was constant and steadfast, too complex for the feeble mind of man to comprehend but never as wild or potent or disturbing as the feelings humans professed to harbor for each other.
Love, in particular. It was the most precious gift of all, God's love; cleansing to the soul and a strengthening balm with the ability to soothe any ache or discomfort. Humanity seemed to have taken such a blessing and twisted it to define their own carnal desires and as a reason for the lengths of insanity to which they would go for its sake. At least Castiel had thought as much, until he saw the love so clearly evident between two brothers who would go to the depths of Hell and back for each other.
It was then, that for the first time, Castiel felt envy. If only his own kin would do the same for each other, for they were often too busy giving and receiving orders to realize that they were all brothers and sisters of the same family, with the same Father who counted them all as his children.
He'd flown through lightening storms, close enough to the forked tongues of electricity to feel their power resonating through his wings as they beat strong and sure against the winds and the rain, he had fought his way through the fires and legions of Hell, and yet all of it was so very different in the here and now, because he could feel. Because Dean had been the one who taught him how.
Now he knew pain as well, agony that was nigh unbearable and was nothing like he'd ever experienced before even when at the hands of Alastair or a misguided Sam, because this time around he was little more than a mere mortal and his body's involuntary and desperate response was wanting to scream and plead for release, be it by death or otherwise. And so for one crazy instant Castiel hated Dean Winchester, hated the stubborn and foolish pigheaded man who took and took and took from him and gave absolutely nothing in return, nothing save for the discomforting prodding of doubt and the erosion from his resolve in service and in carrying out the will of Heaven, who took everything from the angel who never asked for anything; hated him with a passionate fury – but only for an instant.
Curse God and die, little angel. Abandon Dean Winchester and forget your duties. Give yourself over to me and I will give you relief.
No.
But every single time, it got harder to resist and as the demon girl turned the crude machine's dial all the way up to four hundred volts and stood back to watch the show, Castiel thrashed and convulsed and bit through his lip, swallowing his own blood as his world shattered in cracks of electricity and a slowly unraveling thread. For in being human, he was weak.
"You can stop him Dean, but you need our help."
The smug bastard actually thought he was going to follow them like a little puppy dog; thought that he would willingly sign himself over as their personal bitch. How cute. Dean willed the fury in his chest to subside and spoke, voice a lot more collected than he felt. "You listen to me, you two-faced douche," he started calmly, quietly, almost. "After what you did, I don't want jack squat from you!"
"What I did?" Zachariah's mouth twisted up into a scowl, and he took a threatening step forward. "Why don't you and your brother take a good look in the mirror, boy!" He paused then, and peered a bit more closely at Dean's face, like the elder Winchester was a puzzle to be solved. "Oh…" There it was again, that shit eating smile that had Dean's fingers just absolutely itching to find something that would steamroll the dick's mouth out of existence. He remembered the last time he'd smashed the other's face in and it'd felt pretty damn good, too. "Of course. You mean this. Lovely display, isn't it?"
The angel spread his hands wide, casually scuffing the heel of his shoe through a feather-shaped scorch mark on the floor and scratch that, now Dean wanted to pound Zachariah's head into the concrete with his bare hands; his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles popped, one-two-three-four on either hand. "Regrettably, I can't take the credit for straightening Castiel out." A pudgy finger swiped through a bloodstain decorating a piece of twisted metal. "Raphael made short work of him."
"So, what?" His voice was a low growl. "You sons of bitches start gutting each other even before the war starts? Oh, that's just genius."
"Disobedience will not be tolerated," Zachariah replied snidely, drawing himself up to his full height and flicking his fingers once; the blood disappeared. Dean tried not to think about how the blood painting their immediate surroundings had once been pumping through the veins and arteries of an angel's borrowed meat suit, tried not to flick his eyes downward to see the blackened concrete spanning twenty feet on either side of them, charred shredded pieces of shadow. "And well, since Bible Camp's been closed for renovations, we decided to have ourselves a nice little Castiel-shaped bonfire right here."
From behind, Sam made an odd, choking sound of bitten off anger but Dean's brain refused to function; his mouth opened and closed several times and Zachariah chortled at the lack of an immediate smartass comeback. "You're gonna be the one with nothing to say when Gabriel finds out what you dicks did to Cas," the elder Winchester croaked finally, and Zachariah raised an eyebrow in obvious amusement.
"Cas, hmm? Cas…" He murmured, rolling the familiar nickname around his tongue. "That's cute. Did you put him on a leash and pat his head when he did tricks, too?" The angel chuckled. "Fetch, boy. Roll over, Cas. Play dead." The shiny brow drew tight together then, not in anger, but in complacent superiority. "And Gabriel? He was here, chucklehead. Had a front row seat, too."
Dean didn't remember much of what happened next; he was sure that he hollered something unintelligible but definitely utterly unfit for paper or record as he literally threw aside the slab of broken concrete hiding the sigil he'd drawn there earlier, tearing off several fingernails in the process but he didn't even blink at the pain as he completed the inscription; Zachariah, Twiddle Dumb and Twiddle Dumber vanished in blinding shards of light…
The light wasn't receding though, and it was just starting to get a bit worrying when Dean's body jerked abruptly, spastically for a reason totally beyond his knowledge or control. The hunter tried to will his limbs into submission but they seemed to be strangely detached from the rest of him; the light flashing, flashing, flashing in a really annoying manner and was beginning to bleed into his surroundings as Dean continued to convulse. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled this was exactly like that time he'd been stupid enough to electrocute that damn fugly Rawhead while standing in water, efficiently frying his own heart too.
Skin, flesh, bones and matter meshed together and then were flung sideways out of the metaphysical plane, across time and space and other mortal constraints into the place where impossibility dipped into the unknown, resurfacing with the wondrous and miraculous. But as of right now, Dean really was feeling neither, as his head slammed back and bounced off of something cold and hard with a metallic sounding 'bong', eyelids peeling back to see the black eyes of a demon looming above him, uniformed in a ridiculous-looking uniform of some sort-
"DEAN!" Huge, familiar hands were grabbing at his shoulders and something that tasted absolutely awful was being wedged in between his back molars; he rocketed upwards off where he'd fallen against the pavement of the parking lot, shirt and jeans now sticky with the can of root bear that had fallen and subsequently exploded, forehead nearly colliding with a really freaked out Sammy, who looked like someone had just taken ten years off of his life. "Dean! You looked like you were just having a seizure! What the hell, man?"
The elder Winchester blinked at his brother and spat out the pencil shoved between his teeth, breath still coming hard and fast, shaking his head as the flashback that slid into waking nightmare and apparently, a grand mal. Sam's hands were the only thing keeping him from wiping out on the pavement again while he attempted to sit up, limbs still shaking as he tried to come up with an adequate answer, but failing miserably because what. The. Fucking. HELL. Had just happened?
"Oh, the poor dear," Nurse Bertha cooed, kindly holding the door open for the two orderlies as they pulled the patient hoisted up between their muscular frames into the room. And Leonard looked awful indeed; he was limp and barely responsive, sagging heavily and with his dark head lolling down between the wings of his arms, toes scraping against the floor as he was literally dragged in, despite the fact that just one of the orderlies could've carried him in with probably one arm. He didn't move after the men dumped him on his cot, thin chest rising and falling unsteadily, face pinched and pale.
Dr. Keiser's personal nurse bent over her patient, smiling sweetly. "Poor Leonard had a hard day today. I think we wore him out a little bit." She brushed the back of her hand against Leonard's pale cheek; he didn't move. "Guess we'll just have to try again tomorrow."
As soon as the oblivious nurse and the demons filed out of the room, locking it securely behind them, the patient twitched. His jaw unclenched, uncontrollable tremors wracked his skinny frame as he slowly folded his legs into his chest in odd little jerky movements, arms curling around his knees, one arm moving slower than the other, painfully. "Abba," he whispered, voice weak and choked with the sobs he stubbornly refused to voice in the presence of his tormentors. "Father." There was no word in the divine language of the angels for the word "father", for angels were meant to be soldiers, comrades in arms with Almighty God as their Commander in Chief, and so Castiel bent his head away from the world and drug-induced hallucinations, lips moving soundlessly, mouthing out the Lord's name in desperate hopes that at least one language would receive a reply.
He had never before prayed for anything besides guidance, had never asked for anything for himself; but as a human he was selfish, and he wanted, he needed so very much – relief from the pain that twisted his weakening soul and undulated like ribbons of holy torment across this prison of flesh and skin stretching tighter of brittle bone, from the hunger that ate at him from the inside out, and a near craving for a touch of comfort. How long had it been since he felt anything apart from the pain? Day faded into night which turned again into day, and that was his only marker, the only constant. How could humans stand this, feeling so deeply for every day of their lives?
Suddenly, his head snapped up, the action jarring the fractured pieces of his broken clavicle but Castiel paid no attention to the throbbing ache, pain-clouded eyes focusing on the door, straining his ears and his quickly withering faith to their limits. Adgt t la…?
The act of moving to the door in and of itself was exhausting; as he was unable to walk, the angel was forced to crawl across the space that surely measured to no more than ten feet but felt like an expanse of eternity, moving forward on knees and one hand, dragging his heavy body along. Had he the presence of mind to asses his situation, Castiel would have been ashamed of the humiliating scene he must have presented, and surely Zachariah would have found it an amusing view. But at this point in time the angel's thoughts were on neither his superior nor his infinitesimal remaining sense of dignity but geared toward the desperate hope of feeling something else beyond the physical suffering emanating from the other side of the wall.
By the time Castiel leaned himself against the metal barrier, he could barely do anything more than press his forehead against the coolness, breathing out a plea: "Akele." Lifting a trembling hand, he pressed it against the door. "Mozod."
On the other side of the door, the small hands of a little girl lay flat against the sparse areas of the door not covered in the script of Enochian warding magic; lips pressed against the metal and an immeasurably sorrowful voice whispered into the stillness of the ward. "Castiel."
"Yes," he exhaled in response, the word barely a whisper of breath and nearly inaudible, but still an acquiescence. The two of his kin on either side let him go and the lesser angel swayed unsteadily, slumping to his knees, too weak to stand.
Zachariah drew closer and reached out, one hand touching the side of his subordinate's face. "Good," he murmured, taking in the defeated posture, the ragged wings. "Your disobedience calls for repentance, does it not?" The lesser angel nodded; yes. "Should you not seek forgiveness?" Another nod, another mute sign of browbeaten acceptance. "Then prostrate yourself, and plead for my pardon."
At that, Castiel froze. There was no one in Heaven or upon Earth, no deity in existence, no presence in the cosmos who could deliver absolution besides YAWEH, God the Everlasting Almighty. Man was not made to bow before each other and so neither did angels worship their kin; only their Creator. What Zachariah was ordering was blasphemy to the highest degree, and in the courts of the Lord, surrounded by the Host of Heaven, most of whom also seemed perturbed or at least disquieted with the seraph's command. Shocked into speechlessness, Castiel could only shake his head, a dumbfounded silent refusal.
"Have you already forgotten your oath of obedience?" Zachariah's voice was sharp as a sword. The superior angel gripped a hold of his subordinate's left wing, crushing feathers and bone between his fingers, twisting the appendage mercilessly and with practiced ease. "Ca, DARBS."
Hardly able to breathe through the staggering agony, a whimper slipped out of Castiel's throat and several members of the Host, straight-backed in their resolve not moments ago, began to murmur their unease – and as Zachariah began to reach for the lesser angel's right wing, another wing descended from above, swatting the seraph's hand away with a sharp blow.
Ramiel's wings were not what they once were, scarred and tattered instead of a beautiful gleaming white, forever crippled as evidence of the savage cruelty of her former brother and Lucifer's second in command. But as the ragged and unsightly appendages wrapped protectively around the lesser angel it was not of her wings that all who were present took notice, nor of the fact that the eternally wounded seraph had descended into the lower orders of Heaven, but of the rage in Ramiel's soul.
The angel of joy was almost never anything but ebullient, full of the abounding grace and delight of the Lord. Naturally then, as her grace burned fierce and terrible in an all-consuming anger, the members of the Host cast their gazes downwards, cowed as their sister glared at each one of them in turn. "Would all of the Lord's servants stand aside to witness such disgrace in His hallowed halls?!"
"Peace, sister," Zachariah began placatingly, for the angel of joy's dominance outranked even his own – and Ramiel rounded on her brother with frightening swiftness.
"You abuse your authority, brother, and you shame yourself, Zachariah." Her voice, only ever uplifted in worship of their Father, thundered across the Heavens and throughout the firmament, with the righteous fury only a creature that knew of pure joy could exude. Stretching her ruined wings outward, Ramiel lifted her injured brother in her arms and disappeared.
Castiel made no sound of pain as Ramiel's healing fingers swept through his torn wings and around the frayed edges of his faith; he did not move or weep as her grace reached out to soothe his, hands running gently over the feathers, as gentle and tender as the first time she taught him to fly. The lesser angel was exhausted; he thought of his charge and Heaven's deception, of Dean Winchester and the end of all things for the rapture and of Paradise – and Castiel simply laid his head on his sister's shoulder with the weary acceptance of one who had once forgotten, but had been painfully reminded of his rightful place.
Bertha blinked at the sight of the little girl who couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, brown hair gathered in two pigtails and dressed in a darling little brown jumper. The child stood in the middle of the hallway, hands pressed against a door and as the nurse stood there, frozen half in wonder and half in fear, the girl turned her head and Bertha saw the tears shining on her pale cheeks.
When the nurse blinked again, the girl was gone.
A/N: I suppose it is a bit unfortunate that the creative part of my mind really starts to work when I'm supposed to be studying for finals. Hope everyone enjoyed Zachariah's surprise appearance. Kudos to everyone who figured out the connection between Joy and Ramiel! Don't get too attached to her though; that's all I'm saying.
Enochian translations:
Adgt t la – Can it be?
Akele, mozad – daughter of God, joy of the Lord
Ca, darbs – Therefore, obey
As for the favor I mentioned last time? Well, Christmas is coming up and if it wouldn't be too much to request, I'd ask for anyone who reads to drop a review, no matter how short or feeling; they're like candy without the whole gaining five pounds bit, and are helping me survive through exams. You guys are absolutely wonderful! Check back in about a week for the next chapter!