Chapter 17: When The Levee Breaks

The moment they got Sam safely locked up in Bobby's panic room, Eli ran upstairs, grabbed an old book and some ingredients from one of Bobby's chests, shoved them in her duffel bag, and started for the door.

"Where are you going?" Dean asked. His skin was sallow and he looked exhausted, and scared; they all knew it was only a matter of time before Sam started screaming.

"Out," she snapped, scooping up the keys to one of Bobby's many run-down cars. "I'll be back later," she said, slamming the door behind her.

Eli climbed into the rusty truck, threw her bag onto the passenger seat and drove straight to the nearest motel. She paid in cash, gave a fake name, and locked herself in the room.

Carefully she opened her duffel bag and pulled out the book and the ingredients she had grabbed: the herbs, the old coins, the small white animal bones. She placed all the items into small square cuts of cloth, flipped open her knife, and nicked her finger, just enough to let a few drops spatter in each bag. Eli sucked on her finger for a moment, then held her palm over the table, reciting words in ancient greek from the open tome next to her. The bulbs flickered in the room; wind flared and then died. Eli let out a shaking breath. All she needed to do to finish the spell was to bind them, but instead just left them sitting on the desk half-finished.

Now for the next task. Eli closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated.

"Castiel," she called, searching in her mind for the faint glimmer she could always find. "Castiel, I know you're ignoring me." She pressed her hand to her forehead, working through the building migraine the angel-summoning was giving her. "I'm persistent, you son of a bitch," she continued. "I'm going to keep bothering you until you get your ass down here and we talk!"

"What do you want, Elijah?" a tired voice asked from behind her. She whirled around, taking in his exhausted appearance, how his coat seemed a little more wrinkled, the shadows under his eyes deeper than usual.

"To talk," she said shortly. "Are you alone?"

"Yes," he said, a bit confused.

"Good." Eli turned to the squares of cloth on the table and began to bind them with twine.

"What are you doing?" he asked, walking up behind her. She could see his reflection in the large mirror mounted to the dresser. His head was tilted down but he wasn't looking at the bags; he was looking at her, with something akin to desperation in his eyes, like he was restraining himself, but from what she didn't know.

She finished tying the last one, then moved to place them at every window and on top of the door. "They're hex bags," she explained, turning back to him. "We're officially off the grid. No one can find us, no one can spy on us. Not even angels."

Castiel looked suddenly nervous. "And why do you find this necessary?"

"Because we need to talk, damnit, and I don't want to be looking over my shoulder the whole time."

Castiel sighed, as if unable to fight anymore. He sank down onto the bed, staring at the hands in his lap as if he didn't trust himself to look her in the eyes. "And what is it that you wish to speak to me about?" he asked flatly.

"Well first of all, what happened to you?" She sat next to him and touched his hand; he pulled away as if burnt. "What did they do to you up there?"

"It is not of import," he growled, standing and walking over to the mirror. He placed his hands on the dresser and stared into his reflection as if trying to divine something from it. Eli could see herself walking up behind him and touching him lightly on the shoulder. He jerked away again. "Don't touch me," he said in a strangled voice, hanging his head.

"Did they…" Eli took a deep breath. "Cas, look at me." He didn't move. "Please." Finally he raised his head, his blue eyes tortured. "Did they take you because of … us?"

"There is no us," he snapped, pushing away and beginning to pace the room, his trench coat flapping behind him. Eli sighed, almost more annoyed at this point than heartbroken.

"Yeah, I get that, but you didn't answer my question. Do they know?"

He stopped pacing and looked at her, then slowly shook his head. "No, it was not because of… that, though I think they had suspicions that something was … amiss."

"So they know nothing?" Eli asked, breathing out a sigh of relief.

"Nothing."

"Good," she said softly, before narrowing her eyes and hardening her voice. "Then why are you being such a douchebag?"

Castiel stared at her with wide eyes, then blinked fast, swallowing, as if finding it difficult to speak. "I will not give them cause to do to you what they did to me," he finally rasped. "I cannot take that risk. I can not... lose control."

"Can't, or won't?" she asked, but he didn't answer.

Eli sighed and walked over to the dresser, leaning against it with her back to the mirror. "Look, I get it, Cas, I really do, and it must have been horrible for you, I'm sure." He looked at the ground, his dark hair a mess of cowlicks sticking up from his head like splayed fingers. "I can't even imagine," she said in a gentler voice.

"No," he said grimly. "You can't."

"But what are you going to do? Avoid me forever?"

"Perhaps not forever, but whenever possible," he said, still staring at the stained carpet. "It would not be…wise for me to be around you too often."

"Why?" she asked. "I mean, things have changed, I understand that. You're on the straight and narrow again. But I am working with the Winchesters, and the apocalypse is on the horizon, and I…" She swallowed suddenly, trying to keep tears from spilling over. "I need you in my life right now, Cas, just a little bit."

"I cannot," he said, looking at her with pained eyes.

"I don't understand," Eli said, genuinely confused and hurt and trying to be patient. "I just want to understand this. If the angels don't know anything, then can't you be to me what you always were before? A mentor? A friend? Hell, if they think you've gotten too close to me you can always tell them, I don't know, that you have like a fatherly affection for me. That would do the trick. So why do we have to avoid each other?"

It was like her words set off an electrical charge in the room, sparking a fire that he had been trying so frantically to put out. Castiel was in front of Eli in an instant, looming over her against the dresser, and there was something in his face that she had never seen before, something that frightened her. She leaned back, her spine pressing into the mirror, and raised her hands instinctively. He caught her wrists, bringing his face in close to hers.

"Because," he growled, his grip digging into her skin, "I very much do not have a fatherly affection for you."

When he kissed her it was rough, bruising, almost angry, like the floodgates had opened and he couldn't control himself any longer. He pushed her onto the dresser, hard, so that her back was flush with the mirror, her legs wrapped around his waist, and gripped her hair, tipping her head back to gain deeper access to her mouth. After a moment he turned to her neck, trailing his lips and teeth against her skin.

She gasped when he bit her lightly, sucking on the place where her pulse beat wildly in her throat before moving to her collarbone and below. Her hands moved from his hair to his trench coat, shrugging it off with impatience, and then to his tie. He pulled back just long enough to remove her t-shirt; she lifted her arms and he pulled it over her head, running hot fingers along her sides, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes, wild and dark and almost alien. Then his mouth was on hers again, and she was fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, his pants, and they were falling onto the motel room bed in a pile of limbs and discarded clothes.

Afterwards they laid together, Eli's back against Castiel's chest, his arm looped warmly around her waist, his hand drawing lazy circles across her stomach. He kissed her shoulder lightly, feeling blessedly released.

"That was…pleasurable," he murmured into her ear with something akin to surprise. "I had no idea that there were so many nerve endings in the human body."

Eli let out a little laugh. "You and me both," she said, rolling over so that her head was curled on his bare chest. His heart thumped under her cheek, steady and smooth, like the ticking of a clock. His hips, so beautifully lean and narrow, locked into hers perfectly. They stayed like that for a long time, silent, wrapped up in each other's warmth. Finally, Eli lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "What are we going to do?"

He sighed, pulling away from her, his brow furrowed. "You must understand, I wish to be with you, I just…"

"Have your orders," she finished coldly, dropping her gaze. "Right."

"You must let me finish." He gently cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. "I do not know if we will be able to prevent the apocalypse. But until that day comes, I must do everything my superiors say, without hesitation, or they will cast me back into Heaven and I will never be allowed to come to earth again." He stared intensely at her, willing her to understand, trying to keep his mind focused on the subject and not on how lovely her face looked all flushed and warm in the darkness, her hair a mess of soft waves around her face. "And if they find out about us, we will be severely punished. More severely than you can imagine. I vowed I would not let that happen to you, and I will not break that vow. Not now." He was silent for a long moment, as if collecting his thoughts, then finally admitted, in a small voice: "But I am selfish. We may all die, very soon, and I do not want to spend my last days without you."

Eli closed her eyes, resting her forehead against his, feeling his breath on her skin. "So what does that mean?"

He hesitated, his hands tenderly tracing the line of her back, and when he spoke the words had a strange choking quality to them, as if he could barely stand to get them out. "It means that I will do whatever they ask of me, no matter if it is wrong. It means that a time will come when I will do horrible things, things that you will not understand, that you will think are cold and unfeeling, even evil. In the end, you will hate me for it." His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "That is the price we have to pay for these small momentary happinesses."

Eli opened her eyes; his were so very close and so very blue, shadowed with fatalism and weariness and resignation. She leaned in and kissed him, softly, one hand coming up to caress the too-human line of stubble across his jaw.

"I'm okay with that," she murmured, and kissed him again, harder, until he responded, moving against her until everything in the world disappeared except for them.

Eli could hear Bobby's voice as she entered the house and threw the car keys on a low table, kicking off her boots and hanging her jacket in the hallway.

"The news ain't good," he was saying, and Eli was surprised to hear how tired his voice sounded. Beneath her feet, Sam was howling weakly. "Fifteen-man fishing crew all stricken blind, cause unknown. New York, teacher goes postal, locks the door, kills exactly sixty-six kids. All this in a single day. I looked them up. There's no doubt about it: they're all seals. Breaking. Fast."

"How many are left?" Dean asked as she entered the room. He turned to stare at her, taking in her frazzled appearance, and Eli was glad that she had at least had the foresight to shower at the motel. "Where the hell have you been all night?" he demanded. "It's been hell here."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, grabbing a beer from a cooler on the floor and curling up on a chair. "I had things to do. How's Sam?"

"How does he sound?" Bobby asked angrily. "Sam is practically dying, we're almost all out of seals. Where the hell are your angel pals?"

Both of them turned to Eli. She shrugged, feeling incredibly guiltily. "Don't look at me."

Bobby sighed. "I don't know. It's just…" He trailed off.

Dean sat up slowly, his posture tense, as if he knew exactly what Bobby was going to say. "Just what?"

Bobby looked at Eli for help, but she was clueless, so he squared his shoulders and turned to Dean. "The apocalypse being nigh and all...is now really the best time to be having this little domestic drama of ours?" He directed his gaze pointedly down toward the panic room. As if on cue, Sam let up another pleading yell.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked dangerously.

Bobby stood and walked to the window, his hands shoved deep in his blue jeans, his baseball cap tilted over his face as if to hide his eyes. "Well, I don't like this any more than you do, but Sam can kill demons. He's got a shot at stopping Armageddon."

Dean got up and followed him angrily. "So what? Sacrifice Sam's life, his soul, for the greater good? Is that what you're saying? Times are bad, so let's use Sam as a nuclear warhead?"

"He's got a point, Dean," Eli said quietly. Dean whirled on her.

"You stay out of this!" he shouted.

"Look, I know you hate me for suggesting it," Bobby said, drawing Dean's attention back to him. "I hate me for suggesting it. I love that boy like a son. All I'm saying is maybe he's here right now instead of on the battlefield because we love him too much."

Dean stared at him, and for one long, tense moment Eli thought he was about to throw a punch. Instead he grabbed his leather jacket off of a chair and marched from the room.

"Where are you going?" Eli called after him.

"Away from here!" he yelled, slamming the door behind him.

Dean spent several hours just driving aimlessly in the Impala, trying to temper both his fury and his hopelessness. He couldn't believe that both Eli and Bobby were against him, that both of them were willing to let Sam turn into a monster. Especially Eli. He had become fond of her over their months of traveling together, and he really believed that the pretty hunter had a heart, that she cared about them, both of them. There was something deeply betraying about her willingness to throw Sam to the wolves.

That night, he went outside and screamed himself hoarse, begging to talk to Castiel. He was determined to do anything to save his little brother, even if it meant signing up with the asshole angel brigade. He swore his allegiance to Heaven in Bobby's yard, surrounded by the gritty shells of old cars, feeling like a little chunk of his soul was pulled from his body as he said the words. He entered the house in desolation, Sam still weeping and screaming in the panic room, and lay down on the couch, feeling inexorably that things could not, in any possible way, get worse for him than they were at that very moment.

Something shifted quietly in the darkness, and he cracked his eyes open without moving his head. Eli was sneaking out, tiptoeing quietly by the sleeping men, her head a halo of yellow in the shadows. He watched her silently pull her jacket from the rack, slip on her shoes, and disappear out the door. Without thinking, he got up and followed her.

"What is it with everyone and sneaking out late at night?" he grumbled to himself as he climbed into the Impala. He was trying to stay calm, but inside he was freaked as hell. Eli had been disappearing a lot over the past weeks, always citing 'business.' He was reminded forcefully of Sam sneaking off to see Ruby. He tried to convince himself that whatever Eli was doing was surely completely innocent—she was half angel, for God's sake! She wouldn't be hanging out with demons or drinking blood or anything. She was probably just clearing her head, or doing research, or receiving orders from the angels.

The feeling in the pit of his gut deepened to near-sickness levels as he pulled to a stop across the street and watched her enter a motel. "What the hell is she doing?" he whispered. "Well, only one way to find out."

The room she had chosen was on the second floor and without accessible windows. He checked out the side of the motel and found an old oak tree that grew close to the building. Dean stared at it for a long moment, then hung his head.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered, before hooking his boot onto a gnarled limb and heaving himself up the tree. "God damn girl better be doing something nice and explainable, like binging on thin mints or watching a rom-com."

He stopped in front of the window and eased onto a sturdy branch. The shades were drawn, but on the very edge was the thinnest crack through which Dean could see what was going on. His eyes widened at the sight of who else was in the room. "Or meeting with angels…" he whispered, suddenly relieved. "Good girl. Just helping out with the end of the world. No scary shit for our Eli."

He was just about to shimmy back down the tree when he noticed what she was doing. "Hex bags?" he asked himself, watching her put them around the room. "What the hell are those for?"

Dean stared hard at the window, wishing he could hear what they were saying. For the first time he noticed that Cas' signature trench coat was draped across a chair, his tie and black suit-jacket folded neatly on top of it, leaving him to look strangely normal in his white button-down shirt. They were standing close together now, Eli saying something with an earnest, worried look on her face. Cas nodded solemnly and responded with something that seemed to make her feel better. Dean was getting uncomfortable and cold on the tree limb, the bark digging like daggers into his skin. He wondered how much longer this was going to go on.

Then Eli stepped closer and put her hand flat on his chest. Dean raised his eyebrows. "Woah, getting a little touchy-feely there, aren't we, Eli?" he muttered. He was surprised when Castiel responded by brushing a lock of hair away from her face with his finger.

He was really surprised when Castiel kissed her.

"What in holy mother of fuck fucking hell shit god damn what the fuck what?" Dean gasped, nearly falling out of the tree. He couldn't believe his eyes. They were making out. Eli and the stoic, heartless, manipulative angel he had just sold his fucking soul to were making out.

And then Dean got an eyeful of way more angel than he ever wanted to see. Way more.

"Oh no, oh god, my eyes," Dean moaned, pulling his gaze away from the window and clamoring clumsily down the tree. He ran back to the Impala; once inside, he pounded his forehead against the steering wheel.

"That's what I get for thinking my life can't get any worse."