A/N: I am so sorry this took me so long to update, school has been hectic and honestly, this fic lost me for a bit and I was unsure how to get from Point A to Point B. But I have it all planned out and hope to update and publish more in the New Year. A million thanks to the people who stuck around and are still reading. Please leave a review if you can, you have no idea how happy they make me and I promise to reply to you as long as you're off anon. :)
John had seen many incredible things during his career as an army doctor; but nothing that he had experienced in Afghanistan could come close, in terms of unbelievability, to the dream-like scene that had unfolded before him only moments prior. John stood, slack-jawed, staring at the man who had just killed that, that – thing, with a single touch and now stood staring at the two Brits passively, gaze inscrutable as ever and appearing no more disheveled than his usual rumpled, homeless-tax accountant self.
John heard Sherlock pick himself up off of the pavement, wheezing as he did so from having the wind knocked out of him. Even as the doctor part of his brain worried over the possibility of his friend sustaining injuries from being flung into a brick wall, his overriding need for an explanation for the events of the past few moments eclipsed everything else as a few choice words exploded from his mouth, seemingly bypassing his brain completely to end with an emphatic, "What the hell was that?"
"That was divine retribution." Cas responded unblinkingly.
"But-but you just—and his eyes, they were black and then you just –" John broke off, pantomiming the light that had recently exploded from their suspect's orifices before ending with, "I shot him and he just kept coming like a bloody zombie or something!"
"Normal bullets don't work on them; you would have needed a weapon such as the Colt or a Kurdish demon-slaying knife to kill it." Cas replied, still as calm as if he were taking a midnight stroll through London instead of standing over the smoking body of a former murder suspect.
"I-I'm sorry, did you just say demon?" John reiterated, a smile of disbelief playing at the corners of his mouth, as if he expected the other man to burst into laughter and say Gotcha! However, Cas remained impassive, tilting his head a bit and speaking slowly as if John were daft, "Yes, I did."
Sherlock finally decided to join the conversation, moving slowly and holding his side, "What just happened?" As the words left his mouth, the trio heard distant police sirens; it seemed as if Lestrade had finally managed to track down the detective and his (now very dead) suspect.
Instead of answering Sherlock's slightly breathless question, Cas sighed and suggested, "Maybe we should continue this conversation somewhere we won't be interrupted." As he spoke, Cas stepped forward, touching each man on the forehead with soft, dry fingertips before either could move away. John closed his eyes as the strangest feeling overcame him; a combination of displacement and faint motion sickness that made his stomach feel as if it was competing for the gold in tumbling in the 2012 London Olympics, but which was over after a single disconcerting moment. John was momentarily discombobulated when he blinked open his eyes and greeted with the warm, familiar interior of 221B instead of the damp and dank walls of the narrow alley that he had been expecting.
The Winchester brothers stood by the fireplace looking at the newcomers with startled expressions; Dean's gaze darted to Cas and they appeared as if they were trying to communicate silently. However, John spent no time attempting to decipher the two men's loaded looks as he moved closer to Sherlock, who had begun to sway dangerously.
"Hey! Hey it's ok, I've got you." John soothed as he led Sherlock over to his chair and began to unbutton the Belstaff in order to get at Sherlock's side, which he had been clutching ever since the alley and which John strongly suspected were cracked, if not broken completely.
"Stop fidgeting and let me see," John admonished as the injured consulting detective feebly swatted at John's prying hands, resisting the doctor's ministrations as per usual and softly protesting. John, however, was having none of it, and threatened Sherlock with a call to Mycroft if he didn't stop being difficult and let John examine him. Sherlock descended into a sulky silence and finally allowed John to peel away his dress shirt and see the impressive black and blue splotch that now adorned his normally pale skin, like a mistake that someone had tried to erase but couldn't quite get the job done.
John was pulled from his mental diagnosis when he felt a presence behind him, spinning around to come face-to-face with the startlingly blue eyes of the man who had apparently transported them halfway across London in the blink of an eye.
"What's wrong with him?" Dean inquired pensively from somewhere behind an unnaturally still Cas. Not knowing what else to say, John answered the question in the voice of the trained medical professional he was, clearing his throat before laying out his hasty diagnosis, "From a cursory examination I can ascertain that he has bruised — possibly fractured — ribs, although it's difficult to say for sure without an X-ray."
As he addressed the brothers, John felt Cas' eyes pinned to him unwaveringly and when he glanced back, the other man was standing over Sherlock and reaching for his injury without John having any recollection of Cas moving past him.
"Oi!" John exclaimed in surprise and not a little bit of angry trepidation at the thought of him possibly injuring Sherlock further. But Cas laid his palm flat against Sherlock's side, and a moment later his friend let out a sigh of relief. When John pulled aside Sherlock's shirt, his ribs were miraculously healed, with no sign of the angry mottled bruise from only moments prior and appeared just as smooth and milky pale as usual.
John scrubbed a hand over his face, not even surprised in light of the events of what was quickly becoming the strangest evening of his life. "I reiterate," his muffled words came from behind hands that were still pressed into his face in an attempt to ground himself, "what in the bloody hell just happened?"
"I healed him," Cas' gravelly voice came from somewhere to John's right.
"How?" John asked wearily, bracing himself for whatever cockamamie explanation was to come.
Instead of answering directly, Cas replied, "I was introduced to you earlier as Cas; and while I am often addressed as such, my real name is Castiel and I am an Angel of the Lord."
"Castiel? As in Castiel, the Angel of Thursday?" Sherlock's baritone came from the chair behind John, who glanced over at him in surprise, unaware that he was even conscious or knew anything about something as seemingly frivolous as angels.
Sherlock answered John's unasked question with a simple explanation, "My mother was a pious Catholic and quite fervent in her veneration of saints and especially angels; as a consequence, Mycroft and I were required to memorize the names of every angel in the mythology."
"Violet Sherrinford-Holmes," Cas chimed in, drawing the confused looks of the other men in the room, with Sherlock appearing (understandably) astonished at the mention of his mother's name. Cas continued with a small, fond smile, "She was a kind, devout woman. She endured your father's unfaithfulness with the grace that distinguishes a woman of faith." Shocked silence filled the room at Cas' startling revelation, with the angel still appearing blissfully unaware of the bombshell that he had just dropped into 221B. Sherlock, when John managed to sneak a surreptitious glance at him, remained stoic and expressionless at Cas' words, with only a small stain of pink coloring his regal cheekbones.
Sam cleared his throat, an awkward but effective break in the tense atmosphere that had descended on the flat like a storm cloud. "So, angels, huh?" John continued the previous conversation, allowing Sherlock to regain his composure, "Don't suppose you have any proof?"
"Proof?" Sam exclaimed in disbelief, "Do you really need to ask that after Cas just instantly healed your friend and revealed… things he wouldn't know otherwise?" he finished awkwardly, but apparently satisfied that he had gotten his point across.
"He's right, John," Sherlock joined in the conversation, appearing to have gotten over whatever discomfort Cas had briefly caused, "There is no other apparent explanation that can readily explain what we experienced tonight. Unless further evidence proves them wrong, we must proceed with the assumption that everything these men have said up until now is true."
John felt like it said a lot about what his life was like at the moment if the unfailingly logical Sherlock Holmes declaring that he believed in angels and the supernatural in general was the least strange thing that had happened all day. "Fine then," he continued with a what-the-hell sigh, "where do we start the search for the King of Hell?"