A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that 2010 turns out to be as fabulous a year for all of you as 2009 was for me. I've really had a lot of fun writing this series, and here's to hoping that you guys keep reading! Watch out though, this is one LONG chapter. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me
It was truly astonishing and more than somewhat frightening just how much harm could be done to the whole tapestry of Creation by just a single loose thread, unraveling across the entire cosmos and undoing the perfect works of the hands of Almighty God. A single drop of blood in the ocean didn't pollute the entire body of water, and yet one act of insurrection was enough to tear a jagged gap in the bond between Father and the Morning Star; a chasm amongst those of the same kindred that was unbridgeable by any wish for mending the trust that had already been broken beyond repair.
Before the fall, there had never been any sense of transgressions against God's divine law, although all of the sons and daughters of flame knew what their Father approved and disapproved of; as opposed to humanity, they were thoroughly informed of the difference between righteousness and that which was profane. However, as wise as the angels of the Lord were made, even they did not fully comprehend the consequences or the possibility of one of their own rebelling against their Creator. In their vast wells of understanding, evil was merely a word, a concept akin to a random term tossed into a newspaper article to up its reading level like "monumental", or "tragedy"; overused to the point of becoming banal and clichéd, true importance never known until true evil actually broke down the barriers of the purity in Heaven itself, giving way to a battle between brother and sister to the eternal death.
After being cast down from the Most Holy of Holy places, the fallen carved out their own realm in the emptiness below, creating their own kingdom where their champion the Prince of Darkness lorded over his fallen kin and brought into existence a new race of twisted creatures of sin to do his bidding. In his all-consuming arrogance and greed, Lucifer vowed to not only return and overthrow his Father from the throne, but to conquer the Earth as well; to prove that humankind was as worthless as he first declared and thus undeserving of the devotion of their heavenly counterparts and unworthy of God's merciful love.
In so short an amount of time, the Deceiver had been able to twist and distort the hearts and minds of man, turning them against the Lord and leaving the soldiers of righteousness in a timeless battle for the souls of the sons and daughters of the Earth.
Two large, creamy white colored wings beat mightily against the black smoke funneling out everywhere over the plain, splendor visible only for an instant as they arched away from the back of the slight figure, seeming too large and far too magnificent to be a part of this shabbily-dressed, dirty-faced young woman. Indeed the angels of the Lord had never before been compelled to take on any form other than their own, and yet to appear in the presence of mankind, their power was so great and unfathomable in the presence of man's weak minds and fragile constitutions that it was necessary for such holiness to be confined in cages of sinew, tissue, and skin.
The young man kneeling before the adolescent girl lifted his face, tears streaming from colorless eyes devoid of their irises. "Sister," the fallen angel within croaked hoarsely, reaching out one shaking hand. "Ramiel, please – be merciful."
"To everything there is a season," Ramiel answered quietly, leveling her blade at the other's throat. Her soul shone with the steel of steadfast determination, sharper than the holy weapon she held. "The time for mercy has passed; now all that remains is judgment from above."
Baraqel grabbed his former sister's hand in desperation, pleadingly, bowing over the small palm; salty droplets cut through the trails of blood streaming down the dark skin. "Forgiveness, sister, I beg of you. Our Father's love and grace transcends all-"
"Only the Everlasting has such power, fallen one," Ramiel interrupted. "And I do not speak for the Lord." Leaning forward, the angel lowered the sword and instead touched her vessel's chapped lips gently, almost kindly to the demon's forehead – the only measure of compassion she could express. Baraqel screamed, agony and horrified incredulity twisted into a single, long wail as he was driven from the suit of meat and bones and back to the depths of damnation and Ramiel caught the vessel's head as the young man went limp, carefully laying him on the ground.
There was no great shout of exultation, no victory cry as the young woman straightened, gazing around herself at the great multitude of those slain by her hand. Ramiel only felt a deep rooted sorrow stemming from her very core for she remembered once lifting a great many of these same souls from the swirling strands of chaos and oblivion, unfolding different dimensions of graces, soothing out many a damp and newly fragile wing. The angel of joy was not a foe to be taken lightly for Ramiel was anything but weak, and she was ever faithful to the Lord, to be sure – but even after so many years of struggle against those that had fallen, she still remembered the time when she once loved each and every one of them.
Heeoa od akele, aldi a-ai-om.
The edict resounded in Ramiel's mind and so the angel took flight, spreading her wings far across the destruction below and followed the sound of her superior's voice, appearing as a star speeding across the skies, nearly invisible to the mortal eye and yet enchanting to those who caught but a glimpse of the angel of joy's flight. She moved across hill and vale, through mist and shadow only to land in the middle of a barren wasteland, vessel's bare feet coming to rest upon ground dry and cracked, devoid of life.
"Cnoquol baloth?" she called out to her kin, voice echoing across the deserted wilderness – and received no answer. Instantly, Ramiel's wings snapped inward and folded against her vessel's back; she pivoted sharply and thrust herself backwards through space, putting a great distance separating herself and the approaching creature of darkness she sensed, grace thrumming with defensive revulsion and chagrin upon having been deceived into the demon's snare. "Belial."
"Hello, sister," Hell's Second Prince greeted pleasantly, his vessel's lips twitching upwards into a smile – and it was a handsome vessel indeed, but not even comely features molded from the dust of the Earth could hide the grotesque monstrosity beneath. Here was the brother who'd once been among the most beautiful and glorious of the seraphim; he was the fallen angel who spoke the first falsehood into man's ear, the demon who had introduced the sinful pleasures of the flesh, perverting love with the deadly tendrils of lust. Belial easily closed the gap between them, running appraising eyes up and down Ramiel's vessel. "And you look lovely, as always."
"Your flattery is poison, amma tliob." Ramiel's voice was soft; her movements were swift, sure as she drew her sword and Belial chuckled good-naturedly.
"What's this, Ramiel? Are you going to kill me with kindness?" the demon taunted, taking out his own blade forged of sulfur and sin, caked with the blood of his former kin and burnished with sheets of their shattered grace. "Well, come on. Let us play then, shall we?"
Brother and sister flew at each other, swords clashing against one another and sending up showering sparks of holy flame and hellfire, emitting forked tongues of lightening and the screams of those who'd already perished by their cutting edges that promised descent into the clutches of the Abyss. One fought for the honor and glory of her Father's name, whilst the other exchanged blows merely for the sake of slaughter and destruction, for wiping out yet another celestial being who dared to remain a part of that which he'd already forsaken. The demon attacked with raw strength and power, but the soldier of the Lord avoided and parried each blow with grace and fluid dexterity, bending wind and air to her advantage. Their dance was not a practiced one, for the pair had never engaged in combat before, but each step seemed intentional and preordained, choreographed in a way that gave the impression that the Almighty Himself had planned such an encounter – to what ends, still remained unclear. Day stretched its hours into twilight and began to dip hesitant strands into nightfall; there was no telling how long the struggle would continue and so fierce was the battle that neither participant had breath or ability to summon assistance.
Agile fingers twirled about the handle of the sword, abruptly changing grip and slashed upwards; the holy blade sliced through polluted flesh forever tainted and rendered impure, producing gouts of blood that spurt forth from the deep wound. Belial howled out a curse, fingers scrabbling at the edges of the gash spanning the length of his vessel's torso as the man he wore pitched forward, landing heavily on his knees. The demon dropped his weapon and instead reached for what appeared to be a cask made of clay at his hip, swinging his arm forward and sending the contents toward the angel's form.
She reacted instinctively, wings springing outwards to wrap around her vessel and the fluid coated the pair of white beauty, disgusting viscosity seeping all the way through the appendages. Bewildered, Ramiel slowly lifted the matted feathers away, shaking her wings and sending forth dual streams of grace in an attempt to clean the semi-solid substance away, but to no avail. She turned her gaze upon her former brother, grimacing slightly at the drops of thick stickiness clinging to pinion feathers and sliding across the lengths of the shafts, to find Belial climbing slowly to his feet, a maniacal glint in his eye.
"I always did think you needed to lighten up a bit, dear sister." With that, the demon snapped two fingers together, flint struck against steel and he cast the blazing orb at the angel's oil-sodden wings.
Ramiel's piercing cry of anguish rent the grey sky in two.
The angel vacated her vessel, her true voice reaching up into the Heavens where her incinerating wings could not carry her and she fell headlong to the earth; the fire licking its way over the wings still attached to her back seared blackened craters into the ground. The stench of burning plumage filled the air as the angel writhed in the dirt, screaming unintelligibly for mercy as hellfire converging upon holy fire in the two blazing infernos seared thousands of nerves and tendons into uselessness, scattering ragged feathers and ash everywhere.
A calloused hand swept aside the lumpy pillow, picking up the single feather with careful fingers that ran meticulously over the barbs from base to tip, smoothing out the quill with amazing gentleness. Joy sat on the edge of the mattress, small little feet swinging thump thump thump against the bed as her round eyes peered easily past the thin motel wall, gazing into the neighboring room with rapt attention.
"-and the CDC shut down the basement level of the psychiatric ward because of asbestos problems; it's not used for anything now besides storage and so that's your best bet for getting-" A pair of hands stilled their earnest delineation across the blueprint unfurled upon the table. "Dean, are you even listening?"
"Yeah, Sammy. I'm all ears. Creepy, crawly underground tunnel. Gotcha." It wasn't entirely a lie, because after all, Dean had heard what his brother said; he'd been listening to Sam's elaborate strategy on how to break into the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward for the past two days, but at this current moment, the elder Winchester was a bit preoccupied with something a little more important, like where in the hell was he going to keep the only piece of Cas he had left?
Stupid uniforms. Why aren't there any pockets in these pants? Dean shifted his weight from foot to foot in the seriously tacky white sneakers the two of them had pilfered from the demon after disposing of the body. There was no way he was going to stick it in his shoe, because there was no way he could bring himself to step on it after seeing Zachariah casually shaking the ragged edges of bloodstained feathers off of the bottom of his black shiny oxfords- Damn it, no. Not thinking of that.
At least this was better than the last time the angel had landed himself in some serious hot water with a freakin' archangel, when he had stupidly decided to pull the martyr card (Guess that really makes Cas one of us now, huh? Self-sacrifice in the true Winchester way.). Of course that seemed counterintuitive, since this time around, they were tangling with the Big Bad Wolf and Bossman of all demons, Lucifer himself. Still, somehow, things seemed a bit less I've got seven whiny toddlers who are all screaming "mine" in the middle of the grocery store, oh my GOD type of hectic and a bit more like…controlled chaos. Kinda. Maybe.
Maybe…? Dean cast an uneasy glance at the front of the hideous white drawstring pants, and immediately grimaced. Yeah, no. The idea of sticking a fragment of a holy and pure celestial being down his pants was ten sorts of wrong and probably about a hundred sorts of profane. Plus, he really didn't need a ticket to whatever special Hell he'd be reserving himself a seat in.
Scratch that. This was a hundred times worse than before.
Sam sighed, staring at his brother's back, at the way the repaired shirt rippled slightly as Dean's shoulders tensed, as they always did when the elder Winchester was struggling with an issue of some sort (as it turned out, the same receptionist girl who'd been crushing on him from earlier just so happened to be really good at mending and stitching with no questions asked so long as he kept flashing a less-than-six hundred watt smile at her all while doing his best to polish off his rusty flirting skills). He knew the other was running on nothing but adrenaline and the double shot espresso he'd practically forced his brother to drink about an hour ago ("It's a two hour drive, Sammy. I don't need coffee, I am awake."). The very fact that Dean Winchester was even up at the ungodly hour of six o'clock in the morning was probably because the hunter had spent the entire night tossing and turning, getting up out of bed and pacing around, walking to the window, staring out at who knew what. "Dean?"
"What." Breast pocket, it is. Why the hell did the damn uniform have one pocket on the friggin' shirt and nowhere else? Talk about crappy fashion sense.
"Are you sure you're okay with this?"
Dean turned, jaw set tightly. "Sam, if you ask me that one more time, I swear I'm gonna-"
"Okay," Sam surrendered, holding up his hands before his brother blew a gasket, just another indication that the only thing going through Dean's head at this moment at about a hundred miles per hour was probably a whirlwind of emotions and high-strung tension. Honestly, the younger Winchester would've gone himself, if not for the problem of the uniform being a bit too narrow for his broad shoulders. "Got the ID?"
Hazel green eyes so very like his own rolled impatiently and the elder Winchester flashed the photoshopped name badge in his direction, a flick of the wrist. "C'mon man, we're burnin' daylight. Are we good?"
She scooted backwards onto the bed, leaning back and sinking into the pillows. Carefully, for the child's corporeal being was so very fragile in so many ways, Ramiel centralized her grace and slipped away from her vessel slowly, ever so slowly until the angel herself stood in the middle of the room, taking great caution in cloaking every single strand that wove together her faintly glowing soul. And as the Chevy Impala roared out of the lot, she painstakingly unfurled her wings and Ramiel prayed, silently beseeching her absent Father (to whom she still remained faithful) that the Righteous Man could rescue and deliver her little brother; hoping with every fiber of her being that her veiled guidance would be enough to aid Dean Winchester in saving Castiel when she herself could not.
Men had come a long way since the days of carrying clubs and sleeping in caves, dragging their knuckles through the dirt, and kidnapping those whom they viewed as suitable mates by force. Sure, nowadays the clubs and caves were exchanged for briefcases and four poster king-sized beds and the ropes with which the primitive man tied up his mate replaced with engagement rings, but one thing had remained the same and it was the simple inescapable fact that when a man saw a potential partner, he pulled out all the stops and used every trick in the book to make her his and his alone.
Some chose to be the Hugh Heffner type, with wine and song and recycling through girls month by month (also known as: the jackasses); others appealed to their own softer side buried beneath layers of ruggedness and machismo, making all sorts of weird and sometimes pointless sacrifices that dealt stunning blows to both his pride and his pocket ("Sure I'll carry your purse at the mall; of course I'll buy you that Tiffany's necklace"), and still others put on the façade of being the handsome prince astride the white horse, sweeping his intended off her feet with charm and promises that they ultimately failed to fulfill.
Silly boys. If they only knew that there were many types of girls in the word, many numerous different classifications of the female species – and for every up there was a down, for every north a south, for every ying there was a yang – then they probably wouldn't have to try so hard once they realized that somewhere out there, there was someone exactly right for them.
There were the sweet, innocent little white bread, Protestant girls who either married respectfully and always kept their adorable children in line or rebelled against daddy's wishes and ran off to Vegas with the boy in the black leather jacket on the back of his big black Harley. There were the simple, honest girls who spent their whole lives doing nothing for themselves and working for their parents and their siblings who in the end got their own happily ever afters with the rugged but kindhearted boy who invited her out to coffee and actually paid, and who let her drive his beat up old Ford pickup truck because she'd never had a car of her own. There were the tomboys, the girls who always hung out with all the guys but were never really able to get one to like her like that, and then there were the independent girls, those who set their noses to the grindstone and never asked for anything in their lives, not a boy to catch her or to pick up the pieces of her dreams when they shattered or a loving embrace for when the tears kept coming and just wouldn't stop.
And, of course, there were the promiscuous types, who pounced upon whatever fresh meat they could find.
Over the past few hundred years of her existence, Meg considered herself to be of the latter category and surprise, surprise; she fucking loved every second of it.
After all, there were just so many fun boy toys in the world, so many wild stallions to tame and ride until no tomorrow, so many flavors to sample – and she'd taken a bite out of all of them. The shy virgins who were all vanilla and cheap beer before she ripped their pretty little baby faces off (those idiot college boys really weren't as experienced as they thought), the porn stars who get a little boring after a while with their matza-like tongues (they probably learned how to fuck from a damn manual; their moves were all the same anyway), the eight-to-five breadwinners who sometimes just needed a break from the chaos of the nagging wife and the screaming kids and the moronic boss (who tasted like coffee and one too many licks of the envelope), and the married man who was just approaching that terrible seven-year itch that just desperately needed to be scratched.
Yes, she considered herself to be a professional at her art, a well-seasoned master, slinking throughout the dirty underbellies of the world while wearing different faces or sometimes just popping into some random girl's meat suit for a night that the clueless boyfriend would surely never forget – but never in her wildest fantasies (and boy, did they get wild) had Meg ever dreamed of getting the chance to taste an angel.
She might not have cared much about Azazel's idiot plan in the making, but Meg had to admit, having the ringing in of the apocalypse and the Prince of Darkness walking the earth was like winning the lottery; it was just so much fun. Not like being the only girl in a massive group orgy back in Greece during the festival of Dionysus type of fun or laughing in the faces of priests and their stupid attempts at an exorcism, but the type of fun she hadn't had in centuries – but the type of entertainment she'd had that time she slipped into the small town's Southern Baptist Preacher's daughter and then went and screwed daddy dearest senseless (what can she say? Meg knew she'd always had the hots for her own father; she was the freakin' poster girl for Freud and Jung's Electra complex).
But this…oh, this, this was so much better.
She had a thing for power too; it was true – after all, why else had she gone after Sam Winchester, that lumbering meathead? Maybe it had been intuition about Lucifer's true vessel (or maybe she'd just wanted a fun time. Besides, Sammy did have some huge hands…and you know what they say about big hands). But whatever the case, Meg never let anyone in on it but she'd always wanted to steal a fiery kiss from an emissary from above, drawn like a moth to the flame or an upstanding teenage boy and the tempting skin mags in the gas station's convenience store. Call it a dirty little secret, a guilty pleasure and her own personal masturbation fuel – but Lucifer had somehow picked up on it and far from how she thought Hell's Overlord would have reacted, he'd in fact rewarded her with her very own angel.
Meg loved her dear father so very much.
And what a toy he was! The blue button eyes actually lit up with tears (although they never fell, which was a bit of a disappointment), the pale flesh actually colored and bruised beautifully when she whacked him against the wall and floor and apparently he didn't like sitting in hydrotherapy tubs for hours upon hours. Didn't seem too big on getting zapped, either – which was really a shame, since that was one of Meg's very favorite games. And in any case, it was her job to make sure that Leonard got his proper treatment, right?
"Morning, angel," she smiled sweetly, running red-nailed fingers through her patient's dark brown rumpled sex hair that still seemed impossibly soft even though his special Heaven-infused steroids (or whatever the hell they called it) had been dampened by the Son of Perdition. As the clouded eyes rolled in her direction, Meg grinned prettily and tightened the leather strap across his chest another notch, wondering if she might actually get a scream out past those pretty, pouty lips this time.
And who knew? Maybe she'd even take the time to spend some alone time with the angel. After all, Meg mused as she turned the dial with a careless flick of her fingers, there had to be a reason why Belial was so intent on wanting to fuck little Castiel's brains out.
The sleek, black Impala slid smoothly into the empty parking space nestled between a junky, busted up Camaro that had seem better days (yeah, probably a hundred years ago) and an obnoxiously shiny BMW that just screamed I'm a major douchebag who's obviously compensating for something, motor rumbling low like the growl building in Dean's throat as he killed the engine and stared up at the prison that claimed a holy messenger of God as an inmate, at the fortress inside which his friend was trapped, at the mental asylum that had absolutely no business keeping an angel against his will…except the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward looked nothing like a prison. In fact, it looked a right sight better than a lot of the places the Winchesters had stayed in before, including a prison (or two).
And to tell the truth, that was what sent chills racing up his spine more than anything else, 'cause in his experience, sometimes under the most harmless appearances ended up lurking the toughest, most monstrous sons of bitches the hunter had ever met.
Slowly, he stepped out of the car and raked an appraising eye over the large and rather impressive structure, at the little rows of multi-colored petunias lining the walkways leading up to the main entrance. The place really didn't look half bad; it was sort of a mix with the small-town inn's hominess and a freakin' mansion's square acreage. And yet there was something off about the place, something dangerous and secretly terrifying that made all of the hunter's internal warning alarms start blaring- Oh yeah, maybe it's the fact that the friggin' Devil is using this place as his own personal Guantanamo Bay. The fire in the pit of his stomach reignited and raced a roaring stretch up his esophagus, decided to take a pit stop in his chest and subsequently exploded; all of Sam's plans of entering discreetly by the underground basement level or whatever fled his mind and hazel green eyes narrowed into glints of hard emerald.
The car door slammed with much more force than necessary and the security cameras caught sight of the orderly striding across the parking lot with the look of a being possessed before the center set of double doors at the entrance of the psychiatric ward slammed open, revealing the man who'd impulsively burst in like the hero in an old Hollywood Western, Wyatt Earp with guns out and blazing, ready for the blistering shootout to the death behind the OK Corral-
-and no one paid him a bit of attention.
O-kay… Dean blinked, staring around himself at the one or two nurses milling about with their heads bent studiously over clipboards, at the rest of the staff who were locked up inside the cage-like "care center" on the other side of security glass walls and a desk from behind which they dispensed drugs at timely hours of the day, at the semicircle of dazed looking patients draped across the green vinyl couches like empty potato sacks in what seemed to be the common dayroom. Oh, this is just great. Now all I have to do is make sure not to get ganked by Nurse Ratched and we're good to go. The hunter began making his way down the sparkling white hallway with white walls rising up on either side and no wonder he was blending into the surroundings so well in the colorless uniform he wore. And now all of this had him wondering how on earth the idiots who designed the place expected the crazy people they housed to get any better in a place like this.
Stop it, Dean, a little Sammy voice in the back of his mind chastised firmly, and Dean could just see his brother's bitch face number forty-one; or was it twenty-six? Geez, the kid sure had a lot of them… One in four of all Americans are recorded as suffering from a mental illness per year, and that's just the ones who feel comfortable enough to admit themselves-
Yeah, yeah, shut up Sammy, he mentally groused and almost coughed up a bitter little laugh at the irony of talking to himself while wandering aimlessly around a friggin' psych ward. The elder Winchester's eyes jumped from the middle-aged nurse gently guiding a babbling man away from where he'd been serenading the wall ("Come on dear, let's get your medicine") to the group of less than thrilled individuals who sat arranged in a circle, presumably talking about their feelings ("And now I want everyone to close their eyes and imagine how they would react differently…") and what the hell, he was getting seriously freaked out. Dean shook his head hard; even he felt like his brain was slowly turning to a pile of mush, and he'd readily admit that between him and Sam, the both of them had enough problems to probably keep the world's top psychologists occupied for months – Mom dying in a traumatic experience, Dad turning into the toughest, most jaded SOB in existence and becoming more drill sergeant than father, Sammy running off to Stanford only to get the rug of normality jerked out from under his feet, neither of them had a conventional job (they hunted monsters, for Christ's sake!) and thus no steady income, who knew how much they drank – so yeah, throw the Winchesters into the loony bin and they'd fit right in, no sweat.
But not Cas.
Castiel, holy angel of the Lord and stupid tax accountant with no sense of personal space; Castiel the renegade who had rebelled against his dickhead brothers for the sake of saving the world; Castiel, who'd faced down archangels for Dean's sake; Cas, his friend. He was too holy, too pure, too freakin' good for this dark and ugly world that didn't deserve to have the light of the angel's presence and Cas just didn't belong anywhere on Earth, much less a goddamn mental hospital.
Ramiel shook her head with a sigh. Aside from apparently not knowing the meaning of acting inconspicuous and being markedly inattentive to detail when wrapped up in his own contemplation, Dean Winchester was also one very loud human. It was a wonder that men and women were unable to hear each other's thoughts; Michael's vessel was screaming his loud enough that they probably would've been heard loud and clear by every member of the Heavenly Host if not for the Enochian sigil carved into his ribs. Gently, the angel of true vision grounded the hunter's feet to the floor and used a current of air to lift his head, wiping away the film of desperation covering hazel green eyes to reveal the label of PATIENT FILE STORAGE stamped on the door directly to his left.
He was inside in less than an instant (after she unlocked it for him, of course) and Ramiel tightened the cloaking spell around both Dean and herself, watching as the hunter stood stock still for a second, unsure of where to start when confronted with the endless rows of file storage containers standing in front of him, trying to quell the imminent mini panic attack and his thoughts sounded out as if he were hollering at the top of his lungs. Shit, shit, shit; there're a lot of crazy people here. Okay, focus man. Cas…C, C, C- he's not gonna be in here under that name. It's not like he's going around saying "I'm an angel of the Lord" anymore. Wait…maybe he is. Well, fuck.
The elder Winchester turned sharply, heading for the "D" section, because maybe they men in the white coats had Cas here under "John Doe" or something and goddamn it, there were a lot of those too. His fingers moved clumsily as if dragging through quicksand or some of that gluey, god-awful porridge they served for breakfast in some diners he'd been to before as he tried to grab a stack of random files; one of them tumbled gracelessly to the floor and Dean swore quietly, gritting his teeth as he bent over to gather the scattered pages.
Stupid file, stupid butterfingers, stupid Leonard Dobson…oh, Christ on a cracker.
He knew the man in that picture; as cliché and girly as it sounded, Dean would recognize that sapphire gaze anywhere and next thing he knew, he was hitting his knees and grabbing the loose papers, bringing them so close to his face it was as if he was trying to let the information seep in through his pores, eyes flicking back and forth desperately. Soaking up words like undifferentiated schizophrenic and bipolar with violent tendencies, drinking in the lopsided, scrawled handwriting that declared Castiel to have fantastical delusions of grandeur, religious mania, and parental abandonment, the cold sinking feeling in the pit of his gut dousing out any previous fire of righteous anger.
Sure, Dean had never been to medical school or learned the fancy terms for any mental illnesses, but he'd seen the commercials for Zoloft and Prozac enough times and he'd watched Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which he did not cry at the end of, thank you very much) to know that all of this added up to one hell of a clusterfuck. And when he flipped the page to see Meg's new face smiling smugly up at him beside the words Attending Physician's Assistant, his stomach bottomed out and the elder Winchester sagged, leaning back limply against the filing cabinet.
Of course, of course it had to be that bitch. Even now, with eyelids slammed shut, he could see the little harpy lurking in the corners of his mind, leaning over him (over Cas?) with that catty smirk as his muscles tightened in spasms, as his back arched and his eyes flew open to stare unseeingly at the faded, peeling green paint on the walls and the heaps of twisted scrap metal and junk, the upended wheelchair whose wheel appeared to be spinning in the flashes of light from the currents of electricity-
"The place actually has six stories; the lowermost level was used back in the fifties as mainly an experimental area where the quacks conducted lobotomies and electroconvulsive shock therapy…the CDC shut down the basement level of the psychiatric ward…it's not used for anything now besides storage…"
Sam's rambling about the psych ward's history and background information slammed back into his brain like a derailed train flying off the tracks; usually his brother took the place of the yammering teacher in one of those Charlie Brown cartoons that used to show on Sunday mornings but now was one of those times Dean was thankful he'd actually listened. Pushing himself up off the floor, he jammed the file folder back into its cabinet and burst out of the room, gazing wildly around the empty hallway for the stairs (which just so happened to be directly to his left, how convenient) and started all but sprinting down the descending flights, heart thumping against his ribs and pounding in his ears so loudly that he didn't hear the sound of rapidly beating wings following closely in his wake.
Ramiel wished to follow the hunter; she wished it with every particle of her grace, every fiber of her being – and yet the layers upon layers of Enochian warding magic covering the lowermost level of the hospital prevented the angel's entrance and thus all she could do was stand back as Dean skidded to a stop in front of the last barrier and broke easily through the caution tape, reaching out hesitantly to try the door handle.
Go, Dean Winchester. Go to my brother. The door swung open easily and Ramiel amplified the sound which was as clear to her senses as rolling thunder, bringing the shrill racket of a demon's cackling laughter to the elder Winchester's ears and Dean tore off down the hallway, heeding the angel's unheard entreaty and command.
"You are with me still, aren't you brother?" The voice was soft almost soothing, but thrumming with undercurrents of destructive power. "If your loyalty still lies with me, you will do as I say and leave the girl to her fun."
The slumped figure sat slouched in the leather chair, features slack and more gloomy than anything else as the he stared into the darkness of the room. The sun's rays from outside tried vainly to seep in underneath the floor length shades that remained closed, even at this hour of the day and the entire penthouse would have seemed deserted if not for the slight slosh of liquid against glass as a nearly-empty vodka bottle tilted back.
There was a slight 'ding' and a sliver of light cast a slight glow into the pitch-black of the apartment's interior as the elevator doors opened and Malthus stepped out nervously. He had only ever been up here once before but he could tell that the shadowed surroundings were still in impeccable condition, as opposed to last time, right after the news of a particular angel's death at the hand of the archangels, when the elevator doors had opened to what looked like Ground Zero and the Lord of lust sitting calmly at the bar, throwing back a shot glass of what apparently was the last of the alcohol. And there was a lot of it; Malthus knew well enough, because he had been saddled with the job of restocking it all.
Now though, he moved cautiously around the furniture that was all still in its correct placing and alignment (Belial was particularly finicky about the order of things, almost obsessively so and thus the burdens of his perfectionism fell to the lesser demon) and Malthus made it over to the chair facing the corner furthest away from the elevator without incident. As soon as he saw his master though, his fingers, which were clenched tightly around the package he'd been sent for trembled about as much as his voice. "Sir?"
Belial, Hell's Second Prince, the Lord of lust and Master of extravagance and all things decadent, looked like hell – and not in a good way.
Bottles of all shapes and sizes sat by the chair and within arm's reach, set up neatly in a straight line by Malthus's feet and lay in a haphazard pile on the other side, drained dry of their contents. A pair of socked feet led upwards to wrinkled dress pants and an untucked, halfway-unbuttoned silken shirt, all still soaked through with blood. Belial himself held the neck of a vodka bottle in his right hand and his left hand, which was being used to hold up his heavy head, extended outwards toward the other, all the while still staring rather glumly at the wall. "Leave."
Quickly, Malthus placed the packet of Dunhill cigarettes into the upturned waiting palm and did as he was told, departing as quickly as possible. On the way back down, he nervously stared at the display of buttons and wondered if the Lord of lust had finally lost it for good.
"Castiel will be yours soon enough. Trust me. You have my word."
Belial scoffed, placing the paper-wrapped cylindrical death stick delicately between his lips and snapped once, lighting the cigarette with the flame that ignited from his finger. Your word means less than nothing, Lucifer. The Prince of Darkness was an arrogant prick, and the demon girl Meg was nothing but a tool (he in fact remembered her when she started out; she'd never really been that spectacular of a student anyway). The very thought of that slut putting her dirty paws over his pure, innocent, unblemished Cas made Belial seethe in anger; he took a furious inhale of tar mixed with nicotine and in doing so shaved five years off of Thomas Hartley's life. How dare Lucifer reserve the right to rent the angel out at will?
His gaze traveled over to the firearm lying on the floor amidst the bottles, stretching out slightly to nudge the revolver slightly. Your loyalty for our little brother, Lucifer had once promised, many millennia ago, and Belial eyed the Colt, thinking back over the seemingly countless years that had passed since he'd discovered what he wanted – but he'd counted every single damn one of them since the first time he had Castiel in his grasp and took with neither shame, hindrance, nor resistance.
Castiel tore through the atmosphere, wings flat against his back as he plunged out of Heaven and down to the realm of Creation, shooting across the surface of the Earth and following the faint and weakened light of Ramiel's soul. All of Heaven had heard the angel of joy's tortured cry of all-consuming pain, and Castiel had waited impatiently for Heaven's foremost warriors to take flight, but for whatever reason, neither archangel nor seraphim had emerged from counsel and, in an impulsive and frantic gamble between his sister's life and the disapproval of his superiors, the lesser angel stole away, praying the speed he'd been lauded for would not fail.
It had been Ramiel who first welcomed him into existence after leaving the hands of God, it had been Ramiel who graciously taught him how to fly, who plunged her sword into the throat of one of their fallen brothers who'd tried ripping out Castiel's grace in the Great Battle for Heaven; he knew the angel of joy's soul apart from all others of the Host and had memorized the dimensions of Ramiel's beautiful grace which he could now feel fading, and fast.
Abruptly, he pulled up short; the wind biting at his face was nothing more than an annoyance as Castiel dove from an amazing height to land on the ground, immediately dropping to a half-crouch beside his sister's prone frame and the blackened, scorched skeletal frames that had once been wings. "AKELE!"
"Hello, Castiel."
The angel whirled around instantly, his own wings unfurling fully to shield his injured sister. Yet once his gaze fell upon the newcomer, Castiel's grace undulated in recognition of the terrible magnificence of the creature who stood before him, of the swirling flames and sulfur built upon layers of raw power and a face as beautiful as any of the Host – but it was the angry, grotesque stumps attached to the other's back that truly revealed his identity. "Belial."
His little brother had changed, that much was certain, Belial observed thoughtfully. Castiel's wings were no longer grey or muted, but a beautiful and splendid white; his grace shone through with fierce strength and at the current moment, a righteous fury. There was no doubt that the lesser angel had been studying under his superiors and with an inward scowl of disgust, the demon could tell that Gabriel had been instructing Castiel a good bit as well. However, his soul – oh, his soul – it was as pure as ever, gleaming out with more allure than his bewitching wings and Belial stepped forward with purpose for as opposed to what seemed like eons ago in Heaven, he now knew what he wanted from Castiel.
Castiel reacted instinctively, drawing out his sword and fire laced his infuriated declaration. "You will not touch her, fallen one."
Oh, that was truly adorable. Belial felt a smirk uplift the corner of his mouth and he pitched his voice in a low, soothing tone. "Would you allow me to touch you instead, my brother?" the demon inquired, drawing closer to the angel. "To hurt you?"
The answer was immediate and firm, although with the slightest bit of hesitantance. "Yes," Castiel said with resolve. It was evident he didn't know the full extent of Belial's meaning or intent, but the young angel knew that if it meant saving his sister, he would acquiesce and bear the consequences. So he bravely stepped away from his sister's form, steeling himself for the pain as the other approached –
And Belial grabbed his prey, one hand closing around the slender column of Castiel's throat and the other pressing hard against the back of the head, trapping the angel as the demon kissed his little brother fiercely, brutally and with savage ferocity; he savored the electric sweetness and the intoxication of purity, and Belial swore he could taste Heaven itself.
Castiel's grace flared in unparalleled shock.
The angel started to struggle in vain against the one who had once been one of the strongest and most powerful of his brethren; his wings beat frantically as he began to feel the demon's darkness bleeding into his grace, threatening to corrupt his soul. Twisting tendrils of fire encased his being and fingers stained by the foulness of sin grabbed at his wings, scorching the delicate feathers and Castiel tried to protest, mind reeling and Creation's light was dulling, the heartbeat of the Earth and the Song of the Host dimming the longer he remained trapped in Belial's hold-
Red fingernails clicked against the dial as the demon girl switched off the machine and admired her handiwork. The angel's frame twitched uncontrollably, aftershocks of receiving dangerously high volts of constant electric surges still running through his battered, tremor-filled body. Castiel's head lolled to the side limply, eyes struggling to focus on his tormentors because at least that was the one semblance of control that he could still retain, although he could find neither the breath nor the presence of mind to form the words that would curse the creatures back to Hell.
Camascheth…commah ds fifalz…
She was apparently speaking for her lips were moving, but he was still dazed, and unable to comprehend the muffled sounds and syllables that floated out of her vessel's mouth and danced in the air around her head. Castiel gasped for breath as the pain disintegrated into a million tiny pinpricks attacking each and every nerve receptor; he knew the cool rush of exploding throughout his veins and provoking him to irrationality was a result of the mind-altering medicines the demons had forced into him – not that the realization could stop their effects, or anything. The demon girl's mouth opened wide in slow laughter, spewing forth a cacophony of yellow and then languidly, unraveling like a spool of thread, she bent down and sealed her lips to his.
Castiel immediately went into a full-body all out convulsion and Dean felt the sour acidity of bile rising up in the back of his throat at seeing a demon defiling a holy and pure being of the Lord. The elder Winchester might've still been a little shady on the existence of a God who would allow the world and all of humanity to go down the toilet as it was, but he'd spent his entire existence, all thirty friggin' years of it (yeah, the other forty were ones he'd like very much to forget) playing the hero and defining his life in the rigidity of black and white – right and wrong, good and evil, oil and water, monsters and the innocent.
After the past year and a half, Dean's dictionary had expanded to include yet another few sets of categories that would never cross paths. While angels and demons were now pretty much the same to him (the friggn' douchebags), Sammy was now forever distinct from the stranger that was Lucifer's vessel (not to mention hideously ugly all white suits), Castiel had gained the distinction of setting himself apart from the rest of the angels, and Cas most definitely did not go with a demon. Least of all a skank like Meg.
"How about this: you watch, while I fuck him! I'll even save you a front row seat, old sport."
Belial's disgusting words had leached into his brain and were forever buried in the back of his mind, lewd sacrilege and blasphemy to the highest degree – but now, crouched here on the other side of a wall less than ten feet away and squinting through a hole in the wall like some peeping Tom, it was Meg who was mounting the table and straddling an angel right in front of his eyes, dragging her claws down Castiel's heaving chest and pushing the white shirt up to reveal a frame so woefully thin that Dean could count each individual rib, could see the hollow of the terribly bruised abdomen that made kids in Africa look like gluttons. Holy shit, Cas…what the hell did they do to you?
"Aw, can't get it up?" Meg purred, hands snaking beneath the waistband and – GODDAMN it! It was like a train wreck he couldn't tear his eyes from, the death of an empire – an angel's proverbial fall from grace and immersion into the murky depths of all things immoral and all too human. "Poor baby. And here I thought we were having so much fun."
Dean's nails bit into his palms as Meg leaned forward on top of her captive, propping her elbows up on Castiel's collar, and the hunter could tell one side had already been broken and was healing in completely the wrong alignment. The angel's blue eyes were panicked and clouded and Dean's heart just about leapt into his throat when he focused on the inside crook of Castiel's arms and saw dozens of the telltale pinpricks of needle marks marring the pale flesh. Oh, no. No, no, NO!
Castiel was high. Honest to God, freakin' stoned out his right mind.
The angel was pumped full of who knew what cocktail of drugs, and from the looks of the needle scars that had yet to heal and Dean knew what this now meant, he now knew where he'd seen that glassy look before and fucking hell, he still had five more years! It wasn't fair; he still had five years to change things before Cas became the hollow-eyed, bitter ghost of a man the hunter had seen in the future and he wanted to burst through the wall like the Incredible Hulk or something 'cause boy was he more than angry, wanted to strangle the life out of Meg right then and there because it wasn't fair. He would've saved Cas, he would've prevented all of that, Dean was sure of it…
"I've heard from Belial, you know," the demon drawled, walking her fingers up along Castiel's ribs like steps. "He just wants you to know that he's coming to pay his favorite little bitch a visit." She glanced up slyly, meeting suddenly terrified blue eyes with pure black. "Says he's got some special treatments he's just dying to try on you."
Lunkhead demon number one suddenly made an appearance, wheeling in a tray of something and Meg hopped lightly off the table, nonchalantly waving her hand in the air. "But well, since he's not here yet and Daddy's given me the keys, how 'bout we have some fun?"
She wouldn't…she couldn't. No way could she…Lucifer didn't… Meg was nothing but a grunt worker, there was no way in Hell… But as his eyes took in the images that flashed by like still shots snapped from some sort of macabre Saw spinoff-
The white shirt getting ripped off of Castiel's skinny frame like wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
Lunkhead demon unbuckling the restraints and flipping Cas over, pinning the angel easily to the table.
Meg licking her lips like she was about to cut into a big, juicy steak as she selected one shining scalpel from the tray of tools and ran its blunt edge down the slope of the angel's back.
Two huge wings slowly shimmering iridescently into view like an image on a plasma TV screen, folded in against Cas's back, beautiful and breathtaking and whole, bearing no signs of former abuse-
-He freakin' knew.
An eternity had passed before the demon released him and Castiel fell backwards to the Earth, hard. His soul whirled in a mass of wild confusion, distress, and untamable fear. He'd indeed learned and trained hard in the art of battle and how to strike down the fallen, but this type of assault was far different from anything the lesser angel had ever been instructed in; it was consuming and destructive without doing so much as drawing a blade, infinitely more wounding and although Castiel knew his form bore no injury, there was something in those sparse, few moments that had forever changed about the lesser angel.
Belial looked down upon his cowering little brother, at his Castiel – grace fluttering at the edges, undisguised terror painting his soul a dark red like the crimson of blood the demon craved – and that was exactly what gave him pause. No, this wasn't what Belial wanted, at least not now. It was true that Belial wanted to possess Castiel fully, to gain complete and sole ownership over the angel's soul…but first, he wanted to take him in every sense of the word, to utilize the carnal pleasures of the flesh he'd learned, adapted as his own, and would set upon perfecting for the expanse of an eternity as the Lord of lust, until he could make his dear Castiel a part of that masterpiece, broken pieces of his soul, ragged wings, ravished flesh and all.
The demon reached out again and laughed, a deep rumble from his core when the angel flinched and tried to shied away; he caught Castiel with ease and cupped the sides of his face, dipping his head to taste of the finest elixir ever created, the most tempting of all sins for which Belial had ripped out his grace without a second thought, pressing lips to his brother's gently, almost chastely. "There," he smiled upon pulling back, "that's better, isn't it?" Castiel's eyes were even wider now, confusion magnified tenfold and fear mounting at a steady pace. Belial laughed, caressing the other's cheek. "I'll come back for you later," he promised, "but first, a parting gift."
The fingers that dug deep into his wings burned as they plucked out an entire handful of feathers and Castiel's back arched; he screamed aloud to the heavens above-
-and the angel thrashed wildly, muscles going into full out spasms as he tried to buck away (not that the table below or the demon pinning him down from above gave him anyplace to go) as Meg ran the scalpel in a jagged line across the wing stepping lightly from the base of the appendage all the way to the tip. She was actually walking on the wing itself, dragging the instrument behind her like a kid pulling along a piece of chalk, humming as she went. Blood welled up from the trench being dug through the feathers and nerves and tendons to match the other carvings that had already been dug, crimson stickiness instead of colored lines used to outline squares for hopscotch.
"Eleos, Abba, racham… ABBA!"
It was obvious the demons couldn't see the wings, probably just another one of Lucifer's safety measures to ensure that his hellspawn didn't get their eyes burned out of their skulls – but Meg was nothing if not creative. She'd stuck a trocar down in either wing through the longest flight feathers, driving them into the floor and plucking out individual feathers one by one with extracting forceps or tweezers and then wrenching out handfuls with nothing but her fingers until the floor looked like someone had plucked and slaughtered a couple hundred pure white swans with feathers longer than a grown man's forearm, then using retractors to pry the slight wounds until they were huge lacerations from which dripped steady streams of crimson.
Her favorite tool though, still had to be the scalpel and as she casually slashed and hacked away because it was all just a big game to her, Castiel writhed and cried out incoherently in a Babel of despair and bled away onto the floor and Meg whistled jauntily as she worked at carving up an angel of the Lord like a damn Virginia ham.
"I want you to see it when I ravage the one who defied both Heaven and Hell for your worthless soul…"
Dean knew this scene. He knew it all too well, had seen it emblazoned on the back of his eyelids because it was what he'd been doing for ten years straight, slicing and ripping random souls to shreds without the slightest hint of mercy. But the most shameful part of it was the knowledge of what would happen if Meg cut just a bit deeper, of how paralysis would set in and how at just the right angle, the victim would be screeching for death – because he'd done this before. No matter the context, no matter the slab of meat, they're all the same…Fuck no, goddamn it, no, NO- He tasted copper and realized he'd bitten through his lower lip and at the next howl of pain, Dean bit down hard on his own fist to refrain from screaming out his own cracking resolve.
"Pater!" Castiel shrieked, no thoughts of dignity or pride, only the enveloping destruction that was wrapping his human flesh in the throes of total agony, with no hope of relief. "'Abawun, rahmatullani!" All the sensations he would have felt in having his wings destroyed by Zachariah and holy fire was nothing compared to the arrows and darts of anguish that raked at his back; the operatic chorus of every single nerve on flame and screaming, screaming out as loudly as he was, his throat burned with thirst and he jerked and fought unseeingly, blinded by the white hot flash of the pain, pain, pain.
Meg bounced lightly off Castiel's wing and onto his back, relishing in the wild, primitive scream the action produced. The angel was all out sobbing, muscles spasming uncontrollably as the demon straddled the small of his back, leaning down and across the length of the smooth skin, bending her head down right next to his ear. "That's it," she breathed huskily. "Now how about you scream my name now, pretty boy?"
With that, she sat back and reached forward with both hands, feeling about until her hands grasped both wings securely at their bases, and pulled. The sickening sound of tearing flesh already weakened by previous abuse sliced through Dean's eardrums and he couldn't take it anymore; the coffee and bite of whatever breakfast remaining in his stomach hit the floor and he clapped his hands over his ears but the vibrations traveling through the air still seeped through, the noise of an overripe watermelon smashing on bricks as Meg threw her entire weight behind it and pulled for all she was fucking worth.
It was all he could feel, it was all that was real and he didn't know if he was an angel of the Lord or a man out of his mind, he didn't know if there was an individual named Dean Winchester who needed to be protected, didn't know if his name was Castiel or Leonard or if he had no name at all- but at this point, it didn't matter. None of that mattered; nothing mattered except the merciless blades digging into what which was a part of him – wings, back, skin, who cared – he hollered out in languages he couldn't remember ever learning to a Father he'd never seen before and all that quickly, his mind was cracked and he was gone.
The room exploded in light.
Oh SHIT! Dean immediately hit the floor, pressing against the dirty grime coating the concrete that probably hadn't seen a drop of water for at least fifty years – and it was a good thing too, because the next thing he knew, there was a hole about ten feet in width being punched through wall directly next to his head and through the haze of dirt, dust, and rubble, the hunter could see the bloodied hamburger meat-like version of Castiel's wing, torn to tatters from top to bottom; from the next room he heard Meg's wild scream and rose to his knees to see her ducking and covering her head as surgical tools flew this way and that, obviously having been thrown off the angel's back…
…the angel who was on his hands and knees in the middle of the room, entire frame shaking with raw energy and power too great for his mortal, corporeal being. His nearly destroyed wings phased in and out of sight, flickering once or twice weakly like a light bulb on its last wire; Castiel's head lifted and his face was wet with blood, his mouth opened in a dying croak for someone who would never answer. "ENAY-DLUGAM-RIT-TELOCH-SAISCH-"
"…until those pretty blue eyes can't see straight, until he loses his voice begging for mercy."
Gabriel's wings beat furiously against the winds and practically rearranged the air currents of the Earth in his haste to get to his brother, streaking on far ahead of his two brothers following behind, scattering the Host in his wake who parted readily for the messenger of the Lord.
He had been in counsel with the Michael and Raphael concerning Ramiel's capture; the latter two wished to capture Belial in order to execute their former brother, for he was the most dangerous and powerful of all the fallen, after Lucifer. The time they tarried truly was not long for the angel of joy was indeed a highly regarded member of the Host. Gabriel could feel Castiel's burning desire to assist Ramiel; he had always been particularly close to the angel of joy in a way that the archangel did not begrudge – but his attention had been diverted for a mere moment and returned to find the lesser angel gone.
Then came the second cry to break through the boundaries of Heaven that day and Gabriel tore through the firmament, fear for Castiel curdling his soul, hurtling down to the terrestrial globe upon which his brother was trapped somewhere, in pain.
He slipped past the door that had somehow been left unlocked (Meg and her lackey had probably been too busy licking their wounds to pay attention to protocol) and crept into the room, invisible fingers tightening their already vise-like grip around his lungs and as soon as he saw the angel, Dean's façade of a calm and steadfast resolve withered; he took to a knee beside the bed and felt something akin to the time Sam had collapsed into his arms, bleeding out thanks to a knife in the back. Cas…
The angel lay flat on his back, strapped down to the bed with restraints so tight that they were practically forcing him into the bed beneath – and crushing his crippled wings into both his back and the steel springs of the bed frame digging through the mattress's thin foam. His eyelids were slammed shut but his chest rose and fell unsteadily and far too fast; he was clearly conscious, but lost and adrift in a world of suffering.
Dust and rubble billowed out in all directions like an atomic bomb far before its time as Gabriel touched down to the dirt. His silver eyes did land upon Ramiel lying in the dirt and soot of her own wings, her soul so weak that it was barely alight – but he left her to the other two archangels. Michael's emerald gaze was keen and sharp; the Lord's most formidable warrior did not even touch the Earth as he scooped up the angel of joy in his arms and spirited their sister back within the gates of Heaven as fast as possible, followed closely by Raphael, whose expertise in healing would be needed direly. But Gabriel's primary focus was upon a smaller figure curled in a heap on the ground, none so grievously injured as Ramiel, but whose soul was now evidently tarnished with the understanding of true evil.
Castiel shuddered, trying to gather his bearings, but at the slight wind that ruffled the feathers on his wing that were still in disarray, the lesser angel bolted upright, sensing another presence. An arm, pulsing with power and strength wrapped around him from behind and the angel instantly buckled – the demon had made good on his promise and had come back to capture and possess his soul – but he was a warrior of Heaven and he would not give into Belial's perversions and twisted lechery so easily and he fought uselessly but with all his might.
The hand that landed upon his shoulder sent fireworks of blinding, noiseless white sparking up across his vision and Castiel jerked involuntarily; the touch fell away instantly. Through the hallucinations and the pain, through the delusions and memories that melded together, he thought he heard a single voice calling out through it all, a whisper of comfort and solace to which he reached out with both hands and stretched out his ragged wings to cling to with all that he was.
"Cas…Cas…Castiel."
"Castiel." The voice thrummed through his senses and through the darkness of uncertainty and hopelessness cluttering his soul. "Castiel." It was familiar and quiet, tender and soothing, ever-patient and yet full of sorrow and regret for a reason he couldn't quite comprehend, breaking through the panic. "Castiel, little one. Castiel."
Gabriel.
He turned slowly, hardly daring to hope – but yes, it was the messenger archangel – and yet Castiel stepped away. Gabriel would not dare to call him brother now, not after how his soul had been defiled with the touch of the unclean; he did not deserve the other's love, not anymore. And even more than the sight of his sister on the verge of death, even more than Belial's assault, the thought of Gabriel forsaking him had anguish twisting his soul.
But the notion slipped away the next moment as Gabriel moved forward swiftly, having read his soul easily, wrapping his arms and wings tightly around Castiel, just…holding him, simply an elder brother holding his little brother close as Castiel clung to him tightly, soul finally unfolding from its tightly clenched knot of fear and strangely human emotions that ran strong and frighteningly so. "Castiel," the archangel murmured again. "Little brother."
"Cas," Dean whispered, amulet swinging loosely from his fist and as he placed it in the angel's spastically twitching hand, the fingers closed around both the necklace and the hunter's hand; something that sounded suspiciously like Gabriel slipped from Castiel's throat like an exhale. Brother.
A/N: Well, I…um. That's it; I'm really all out of words. Please drop a review!
Translations ('cause there are a whole bunch)
Enochian - Heeoa od akele, aldi a-ai-om (Sons and daughters of light, gather amongst us)
Cnoquol baloth (oh you servants of righeteousness)
Amma tliob (cursed creature)
Camascheth commah ds fifalz (all these words have "unknown meanings")
Enay-dlugam-rit-teloch-saisch (Lord-give-mercy-death-brothers-)
Greek- Eleos (mercy)
Hebrew- Abba, racham (Father, mercy)
Latin- Pater (Father)
Arabic- 'Abawun, rahmatullani (Father, pity)