Chapter 10
Dean spends way too much time picking out clean clothes. He also fusses with his hair.
He doesn't realize how bad it is until he nearly brushes his teeth a second time. He glares at Sam, daring him to say anything, but his brother's finally being as nervous as this stupid meeting deserves. What the hell had he been thinking of to agree to this? At least he hadn't suggested wearing suits.
It's a nice house, tidy-looking, with a build-up of fallen leaves that's normal and just makes the place look homier somehow. A typical working-class family home in small-town America and a totally foreign land.
This is a fucking bad idea.
"What if she's not home?" Sam asks suddenly. "She's a nurse. She does shift work."
"You checked with the hospital this morning," Dean reminds him.
"She could've been called in."
Rolling his eyes at Sam's nerves makes Dean feel better. Enough that he can walk up the path to the front door. "She's vacuuming," he tells Sam before ringing the doorbell.
'Hi. Remember that fling you had eighteen years ago with that wounded guy? He already had a family.'
'Hi. I'm your son's dad's other son and this is my brother Sam. Does that make you our step-mom?'
(Hell no.)
'Hi. I'm Dean Winchester; this is my brother Sam. We just found out about you and Adam, and I'm feeling really fucking jealous and betrayed, and totally unequipped to handle this.'
He drags in a breath, lets it out in a huff (does it again when the first time doesn't help) then raises his hand to the doorbell to give it another push. The door opens but only as far as the flimsy chain will allow. "Yes?"
She's tall…ish. And blonde. And her eyes are kind of blue. She looks tired and competent and she reminds Dean of Mom in some indefinable way. He knows why Dad was attracted to her. Why he…
"What do you want?"
'I want to not be here.'
He can't speak. Sam gives him a look before stepping forward into the silence. "Kate Milligan?" She nods. "I'm Sam Winchester. This is my brother Dean. We're John Winchester's sons… his other sons. Can we come in?"
She lets them in and leads them down a hall covered with family photos. Her whole ancestry seems to be displayed there, from men in high collars standing stiffly over women sitting tidily in long skirts to a bright picture of a solemn young man in cap and gown. Adam. Dean stops and looks at it. His interactions with his youngest brother had been… Not real actually, not anymore, but what he remembers hadn't been relaxed 'get to know you' times even when the kid hadn't been a ghoul.
He's got Sam's eyes.
That funny almost-brown-almost-green and Dean wonders if the color shifts according to Adam's moods the way Sam's eyes do. He recognizes his own mouth on the kid, and the shape of John's face. The hair color is the mother's. It's the only thing that says the kid had a parent different from his and Sam's.
"That's Adam. That's your brother." Her voice is way too close and Dean wonders how she got that close without him hearing her.
She gives him a nervous smile that's nonetheless filled with understanding. This is awkward for both of them, the smile says. His lips lift in response. This time when she invites him into the kitchen he doesn't stop.
"I never meant for anything to happen. Neither of us did," she says after she's got them set up with coffee and store-bought cookies. "I'd just graduated from nursing school when Joe brought your father to me. Injured on a job, Joe said. Well, I've known Joe since grade two. I know when he's covering something up and it didn't take me long to get the whole story out of him. Ghouls!" She gives an awkward laugh. "I didn't believe it, except there was your father, hurt and bleeding, and there was Joe, who couldn't lie to save anyone's life."
"Joe paid for my services. Not in money," she went on. "God knows he didn't have any to give away, him just a junior deputy. But he bought food and repaired my windows, things like that. He still does. I was his best man at his wedding." She laughs, "Shocked the hell out of his family, I tell you, but I never did like his mother." Her smile now is relaxed and open, and Dean can see the woman she'd once been. He can see why his father had… with this woman.
"He's dead, isn't he?"
They hadn't discussed who'd break the news to her.
Dean looks at Sam. Sam glares in refusal. "Two years now," Dean says. "Heart attack."
"My kind of heart attack or yours?"
Another hasty look but Sam's jaw is still mulish. "Ours," Dean finally answers. He has to take another breath before adding the rest of it. "He did it to save me."
She covers his hand with hers, rough and callused, but kind. "That's a tough thing to live with." He wants to pull his hand away. He wants to turn his hand over and clutch hers. "I figured he was dead when he didn't send anything for Adam's graduation. Just a phone call the month before, saying things had gotten a little tense and he didn't want to drag it our way."
Suddenly the kitchen blurs and Dean hears an echo of a conversation he's never had. "That is some job you got, man." "If you're really gonna do this, you can't have those kinds of connections, ever. They're weaknesses. You'll just put those people in danger, get them killed."
He blinks and Kate's at the counter, pouring herself more coffee. She lifts the carafe, silently offering refills. Sam takes another cup but Dean says no. He's hardly touched his—it really could use some whiskey—and the thought of pushing more of that into his stomach has it roiling. She stays at the counter afterward, arms wrapped around her torso for comfort and defense.
"Your father told me a little bit about what he does… what he did. Mostly to explain the things he babbled when he had a fever. He told me about his wife, your mother, so I'd know right off that he wasn't staying. I was good with that. Then I discovered I was pregnant. I almost didn't tell him. I didn't want his kind of life in mine. I didn't want any child of mine to do what he did. I wanted my child to be safe."
The kitchen blurs again; his hearing goes fuzzy. "Do I get a say in this?"
"He tried hard to–" She pauses, searching for the proper words. "To be someone else when he was here. I was glad of it but it made it tough on Adam. He couldn't understand why his father couldn't just stay in Windom."
"He was protecting him."
"You never told him the truth?"
She looks at Sam and snorts. "What? That every movie monster, every nightmare he's ever had, is real? I don't think so." She pushes away from the counter and somehow Dean knows the meeting is coming to an end.
"I'll tell him about John, that he's dead. And I'll tell him about you, that he has brothers, half-brothers, and I'll even pass on a phone number, but I won't tell him what you do and I'd appreciate it, if he does call you, if you wouldn't tell him either. He doesn't need to think of you as some kind of romantic supernatural bounty hunters. Your father came to me with his guts practically hanging out so I know there's nothing romantic about it."
They can't do anything but agree to the terms and leave gracefully when she takes their mugs in clear dismissal.
"I'd tell you to be safe," she says at the door, "but I don't think it's a concept hunters are familiar with."
"How 'bout good luck, then?" Sam suggests.
"That I can do," she chuckles. "Good luck, both of you. I don't know whether to hope Adam calls you or not." Then she closes the door, shutting them out of her life, out of her son's life, and Dean has to blink away the image of her face smeared with his brother's blood.
"She's tough," Sam says and brings Dean back to the now.
"Yeah," Dean agrees before marching down the walk to the car.
"Are you okay?" Sam asks. "Did she remind you of Mom or something? Because you look pretty pale, man."
Dean stands near the Impala, comforted by its bulky familiarity. "You know how I was seeing the other time we fought the ghouls in the middle of yesterday's fight?"
"Uh, yeah," Sam mocks. "It was only yesterday."
"It's not just happening during fights now." He can't look at his brother. He doesn't want to know how much of a problem this is. If he can't differentiate between his realities…
Sam doesn't respond right away. He looks back at Kate Milligan's house and Dean sneaks a peek. His brother has his little frowny concentration-face on. "It wasn't a fight," he finally says, "but it was certainly high-stress." Fucking right it was high stress. "And it was in an environment you'd experienced, rather will—no, would have—experienced before, so it could be those two factors."
"Kind of like photo-shopping a new layer? Old memories on top of new."
"Sounds right," Sam shrugs.
"So don't worry?" Because Dean is worried.
"So as long as we don't do anymore hunts from one of your other futures you should be good. If it happens when you're driving then I'll worry."
He's lying. Dean knows he's lying, but it still feels good to hear it. He nods, willing to be reassured. "Come on, bitch. Let's go to Bobby's." He winces. Sam's too old for their old insult wars, except that Sam smiles and says "jerk" happily in response.
Weird.
They're an hour on the road before Dean remembers that Ellen is alive. Ellen is alive. He is alive and, if he doesn't want his ass-whupped the next time they meet, he should probably let her know. It's easy enough to get Sam to make the actual call, and it helps that Jo picks up, but then Sam puts the phone on speaker so they can both talk anyway. They'd heard he'd gotten out of Hell but it doesn't stop it from getting emotional (he has to clear his throat a couple times) but nothing too sappy. When Jo finds out they're going to Bobby's she tells them to stay there until they arrive, "or Mom will have your balls."
It'll take them a couple of days to finish up their hunt, she says. Dean frowns and interrupts. "You're hunting with your Mom?"
"Yeah, for a while now," she answers happily. "Anyway, we're up here in Washington investigating some of the weirdest things I've ever heard of. I mean the haunted showers make sense, but the life-size suicidal Teddy Bear? That is just something else."
"The wishing well," Dean says before he can edit his mouth. "Look for a coin in the wishing well."
"You think the wishing well is real?"
"I think there might be something in there that makes it seem real, but wishes turn bad, Jo. You know that, right?"
"Yeah, I gotcha. A 'be careful what you wish for' thing," Jo says in understanding. "There's a wishing well at the Chinese place. What made you think of it?"
Dean looks at his brother in panic. Sam hardly looks better.
"I, uh…" Fuck, fuck, fuck. He'd always sucked at lying to Ellen, and lying to Jo is lying to Ellen by proxy.
"He's been having visions—flashes—since he got back from Hell." The lie slides easily from his brother's lips and Dean is once again reminded of Soulless Sam, who'd used people and family like pieces on a board.
"Hopefully they're of more use than your visions ever seemed to be," she says, to Sam and his brother snorts in rueful acknowledgement. "Okay, we'll go check it out but it's still likely to be a couple days before we can get to Bobby's, so you'd better not shift your asses until we get there."
Their voices overlap in agreement—timing just a little off so that they sound like echoes of each other rather than one voice. Dean's okay with that.
Another hour and they're pulling up at Bobby's door. Bobby is waiting for them and looking self-satisfied and Dean knows the old hunter has done it.
"It's translated?" is the first thing he asks once he's drunk the laced beer.
"No, but I figured out his system."
Sam frowns, either at Bobby's progress or the beer. It's hard to tell. "What do you mean 'system'?" Sam asks.
"Imbroglione was a clever bastard, I'll give him that," Bobby replies as they head into the house. Dean knows it's just his imagination but he can practically feel the protections lick over him as he crosses the threshold. He always has. "So clever that I'm pretty sure he was definitely the Trickster."
Since he already knows Imbroglione was one of Gabriel's covers, Dean doesn't pay much attention when Sam asks for more details. Instead, he tries to ignore the smell of cleaning solution and fresh baked pie because those aren't real, not yet, not ever. That future is gone. Or will be once they get rid of Lilith.
This would be so much easier if they could just kill her…
"He wrote the most important rituals in code," Bobby responds to an unheard question and pulls Dean out of his bloody daydream. "The surface layer is all the standard fluff: love spells, rituals to bring wealth, all that garbage. In between is what looks to be poetry and riddles and snippets of gossip."
"And that's where the actual rituals are?"
Bobby nods. "I found the spell I told you about: the one that uses the Four Horsemen? The ingredients are hidden in a love potion and, under the flowery crap, boil down to 'get their rings'. Combine those with the incantation I think is buried in a truly horrendous love poem, and once I've figured out the cipher, we'd have a spell that'll open a cage in Hell powerful enough to trap Lucifer himself."
Dean can feel Sam looking at him like he had at the motel when this first came up. He glances at his brother and sees a need to understand, to know everything. He gives a short nod—yes, that's the ritual they'd used—but he vows not to ever go into detail about it. That future is done, finished. It's never coming back.
"So banishing Lilith?"
"I think I've found it; still have to decode it."
"And?"
"And what?"
Sam clenches his jaw in frustration. "Is it going to work?"
Bobby rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and I'd know this because so many hunters have performed the ritual to banish the first demon Lucifer ever created."
"This is important, Bobby."
Sam is starting to loom and Bobby's getting his dander up when Dean steps between them. "It'll work, Sam." Sam's look clearly says that Dean can't know that for sure. "I do know that, Sam. Trust me, it'll work."
"Is that what your ghosts say?" Bobby asks into the heavy silence.
Dean frowns at Sam in accusation and the big sneak has the courtesy to hang his head in embarrassment. "Yeah. Everything indicates the ritual is the real deal."
Bobby stares at him in narrow-eyed assessment. Dean has no problem holding the old hunter's gaze, mostly because he's not lying. Finally Bobby nods. "All righty, then. I'd best get on with deciphering it. Help yourselves to grub."
Dean puts out a hand to stop him. "One more thing." He coughs, clearing the non-existent frog in his throat.
"How prepared are you for a demon attack?"
Dean's got his head buried in the Impala's engine when he hears the rustle of wings. At least it's some warning so, when Cas greets him with his usual solemnity, he isn't completely surprised, and doesn't bash his head on the hard metal of the hood.
"Hey, Cas," he replies as he straightens.
"What are you doing?"
"Fixing a few problems in the engine."
"And this helps you fight Lilith how?"
"Man's gotta take care of his wheels, Cas. Not all of us can zap ourselves where we gotta go. Here," he hands him the work light. "Angle the light over here."
Ever obedient, Cas stands, holding the light. Dean refrains from making beacon jokes… out loud. In his head he's snickering big time until the job makes him focus properly. He's nearly done, be a shame to mess it up now.
"Zachariah is not pleased that you seem to have stopped fighting."
"I could give a rat's ass about pleasing Zachariah," Dean mutters, though he's sure the angel can hear him just fine.
"The seals are still falling," Cas reminds him.
"I'm aware."
"You are not concerned?"
"Not unless we're at the last one already. That's the important one, right? Where all the players have to be in their assigned places." Dean looks up at him, watching his reaction but the angel looks honestly puzzled.
"This is more of your theory that the Garrison is not completely committed to defeating Lilith."
"Yahtzee," Dean confirms. Castiel blinks. Dean sighs and clarifies, "Right. That's exactly what this is. There's what? Six hundred some odd seals—"
"How did you—"
"Lilith only has to break sixty-six, but the only one that really matters is the last one. Running around like headless chickens isn't going to help anything."
Now the angel is frowning and Dean can see a growing anger in his bright blue eyes. In the moment before Cas steps into his space, Dean quickly inserts the final screw and gives it a quarter turn to keep it in place.
"My brethren are dying," Cas growls. "My brothers and sisters. Are you saying their sacrifice is useless?"
"I'm saying, the fight with Hell might not be the only reason your fellow angels are dying."
Castiel's frown deepens. "The two are not connected."
"Aren't they?" Dean asks. "Everyone except you has their own agenda for the End of Days. Things they want to have happen." The air between them practically vibrates with Cas' emotions and Dean is careful to stand in a way that won't provoke the heavenly soldier more. He's sorry he has to push this, but he needs the angel on their side fully and completely, the way he was in his ghost's memories, before the whole Purgatory thing.
"No," Cas cuts him off harshly. If he were human, his breath would be a rasp. "We wish to stop Lucifer rising. To keep him contained in his cage."
"Really? Because Uriel seemed like he'd welcome the fight. Kill a few angels, wipe out a shitload of humans." Before Cas can smite him or disappear in a non-corporeal feathery cloud, the angel tips his head. He's not concentrating on Dean anymore. "What?"
"Demons." His eyes flicker. "A whole troop of them."
"They're after Sam." Dean's already dropping the hood on the Impala and covering her with the tarp he'd spent hours drawing protective symbols on. He drops the last Blessed Stone on the edge of the tarp, gives a quick prayer that it's good enough. Cas is looking intently at him when he's finished. There's something angry in the angel's gaze but Dean doesn't have time to worry about it. "C'mon. We need to go back to the house."
Blue eyes focus on him but the angel doesn't move. "You were expecting this. How did you know?"
"Not now, Cas!" Dean hisses. He can practically see the angel settle ruffled invisible feathers. His glare promises more questions later even as he lifts two fingers to Dean's forehead.
Dean braces himself for the stretching-tearing-floating sensation that he associates with travelling Angel Airlines. Cas doesn't disappoint. When he opens his eyes they're in Bobby's living room. Both Bobby and Sam stare up at them in shock. "Incoming," Dean says (once he's swallowed his stomach back to where it belongs). "Sam, you need to get to the panic room."
"Dean," Sam, not unexpectedly, protests. It's Bobby who reminds him it was the only safe plan and that he'd agreed to it.
"Hurry," Cas comments as a long silver blade slides into his right hand.
"I hate this," Sam says even as he books it into the basement.
He's barely down the stairs before Bobby's front door is thrown inward, off its hinges and into the far wall. Into the open space stalks an average-looking man, mid-forties maybe, in a business casual suit. Only the eager malice in his pale eyes reflects his true nature. "Hello, honey. I'm home."
"Shit." Dean says because this wasn't supposed to happen again. No way, no fucking way. Of course, his little outburst pulls the attention to him. The demon smiles, low and mocking.
"Well, hello again, Dean."
"Alistair," Dean says and he knows he sounds… off.
"I wondered if you'd recognize me, since I'm wearing a pediatrician now. I should've known you would. After all we were so close in Hell."
"It was the smell," Dean replies. "Dress yourself however you want, you can't hide the smell."
He knows the goad is a risk because Alistair does not like to be mocked, but he needs to get the demon over the threshold and into the trap. It seems to be working—Alistair takes one step forward—but then he stops and glances up at the devil's trap permanently etched into Bobby's ceiling. He sneers and the plaster cracks, "Did you really think your little paint-by-numbers would be enough to hold me?" Now he moves eagerly into Bobby's house, confidence and arrogance oozing from him.
Dean backs up and circles to the right, bringing the demon with him: predator and prey. Dean doesn't like the comparison.
Good thing this prey has teeth of its own.
"Honestly?" Dean says. "No. But did you really think that was all we had in place?"
Alistair jerks to a stop. Enochian sigils are much smaller and easier to hide. All it takes is a little blood.
Dean wants to stab him—really, really wants to stab the bastard—but getting that close to the trapped demon would be a bad thing. Alistair is stopped, but not helpless, and he is one of the most powerful demons in Hell. At least that had been the rumor downstairs. All that means is that Dean can't stab him the way he wants to because he can't risk getting grabbed, so it's exorcisms all the way.
At least that was the original plan. Having Castiel here changes it. Completely.
The angel steps up behind Alistair's meat suit and runs his sword right through the throat. Red light flames out of the hole, around the blade. It grows until it's streaming from the body's mouth and eyes. It's bright and blinding and Dean can't close down the dark part of himself that fucking revels in it.
"Good-bye, Alistair. Sweet fucking dreams."
The moment of enjoyment doesn't last very long. Other demons are filing into the house. Bobby has the holy water and exorcism. Dean has the knife and the determination, but it's Cas who rocks it. The angel is a blur as he moves. His blade is like an extension of his arm, whirling, stabbing, and when he isn't using his sword he presses the palm of his left hand against the demon's forehead and somehow forces the demon out.
Sometimes the host is alive, but most often the body drops into a lifeless heap on Bobby's hardwood floor. Still, the angel's method has a better survival rate than Ruby's knife, and Dean will feel bad about that later. Right now he's just going to give the fucker an extra twist and let it pop inside its meat suit a little more.
"Dean, drop!" Bobby calls and Dean ducks as instructed, blade withdrawing with a warm splash of blood. The blast of rock salt pushes a demon, sneaking up behind him, right over his back. Not one to miss an opportunity, Dean sinks Ruby's fancy etched blade deep into the body and watches the demon inside her flash and die.
He shouldn't like it as much as he does.
Whatever guilt he would feel at killing innocents (if any are still alive) is buried under the powerful fizzing in his blood. Adrenaline, life or death, power, revenge: it's all part of the cocktail racing around his blood, as addictive as any drug or demon's blood. If this is what Sam felt like with Ruby… Maybe he should be more understanding.
Then suddenly he isn't in Bobby's house fighting demons. He's in a barn, or a warehouse, someplace that isn't now. He blinks to clear the overlay from his vision and that moment's disorientation makes him vulnerable. He's plucked from his position on the floor and tossed into the bookshelf in the corner.
Ow, ow and fucking ow.
At least his vision clears. Just in time for him to see a demon in a big, bearded dude's body reach for him. The demon's hand is Sam-sized and fits easily around the important part of his neck—the part he uses to breathe. The demon squeezes. Dean chokes.
"Let's see you protect your brother when you're dead," it growls at him.
Dean's dropped the knife—he really should tie that thing to his wrist—but he's not completely helpless. He digs around in his pocket for the flask he keeps there. He nearly drops it when the demon shakes him by the neck when Bobby shoots it full of rock salt. It was a nice try by the older hunter, but that doesn't make Dean breathe any easier. He fumbles with the cap, dropping it unseen onto the floor. He tosses the liquid up into the demon's face and is rewarded with a tightened grip on his neck that nearly makes him black out. Then the pressure is gone. The demon is grabbing its face, screeching against the pain.
Dean drops, searching both for a full breath and for the demon-killing knife. He gets the one but not the other. A huge foot connects with his ribs, lifting him with physical force this time and throwing him back into the bookshelf. He drops and dozens of heavy hardbacks fall on top of him. He thinks, 'Bobby should put all his stupid books in one room, away from the fighting.' Then he thinks, 'this really fucking hurts.'
The boot manages to catch Dean right where Sam's knife had gone in. Angel-powered healing or not, it has been only three weeks; only twenty-some odd days to recover from a serious injury.
Why the hell does he do this shit?
There's a pained yell from the basement. "They're trying to get into the safe room," Bobby says, even though Dean doesn't need the play-by-play.
"Sam Winchester belongs to us," the big demon declares with a smirk. It fades into a red-white flare as Cas' blade penetrates its throat.
"This level is clear," Cas says as the body collapses to the floor. Unseen wings flutter and the next thing they hear—aside from Dean's muted groans—is the sound of demons dying in the basement.
Bobby's hand is under his arm, hauling him up. It doesn't make him feel better. "We should go help," the old hunter says.
"You go," Dean waves him on. "I'll follow." His voice, already scratchy and rough from the damage he'd done to his larynx in Hell, sounds like glaciers cracking. Feels like it too.
Bobby takes him at his word, or maybe he's just anxious to get all the demons out of his home. He hurries off and Dean leans on the cabinet and tries to take a controlled breath. Cracked ribs and bruised muscles, he self-assesses, with the possibility of pinkish pee to add the final bit of joy to his job. It's odd how cynical he feels after having talked to his future ghosts, especially Dead Dean the First. He used to believe—to hope, but it's nearly the same thing—that what they did had them firmly on the side of the righteous.
Since meeting the angels—surely the most 'righteous' things God ever created—and realizing what a bunch of lying assholes they are, he's had a different view. He and Sam do this because they can, because they were trained to it and they know how, but he's not sure anybody would appreciate it even if they knew, so who the hell are they risking their lives for?
Or maybe this is just another form of selfishness. He doesn't want to die in four years, or two. He doesn't want to die in ten or twenty. He doesn't want that for Sam either.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! What happened to me? Oh my God!"
Oh, hey, look: a survivor. Exactly what they're fighting for.
In the end there are five survivors out of the twenty or so demons that had attacked. There would have been more if they could've stopped the bleeding, but Dean had been well-trained and aiming for vital organs was automatic, plus the host bodies obviously didn't have that Dagg-Whatsit thingy to help them heal. All they could do is make them comfortable.
Sam is off talking to the survivors, helping them 'transition' or some psycho-babble bullshit thing like that: calling loved ones, arranging to get them home. He and Bobby are taking care of the bodies. Castiel was giving the perimeter a quick check, making sure there were no lurkers waiting to catch them unaware. Before he'd taken off, he'd given Dean an evil look that the hunter couldn't interpret as anything other than a threat. Now the angel's back and glaring at him from the side of the room.
"You know," Dean says as he looks through the pockets of another one, "if we try to burn all these, it's going to be one hell of a fire. Won't somebody notice? You're isolated, Bobby, not invisible."
Seventeen bodies. Seventeen people who'd had some weakness a demon could exploit to get inside. Desire for their neighbor's car—or their neighbor's spouse. Anger at their boss, laziness, the occasional petty thought, or in other words, they'd been human. Average, ordinary humans getting through their days as best they could.
"I know, but it's not like we have a great deal of choice here."
Dean swallows back a sigh. They'd have families somewhere, people who would worry about them. People who'd put up posters and go on TV and talk about how their (wife, son, sister, brother, father) had been a good person and hadn't had (drug, legal, money, health) problems. Nothing to explain why they'd walked away from their lives. Never knowing that they hadn't walked away, that they'd been taken.
"I will take them."
Dean looks up at Cas. "You'll–"
"I will take the bodies and place them in areas where they will found. So their families will have peace."
Dean has to look away from that too-bright gaze. He clears his throat. "Thanks, Cas." A cough. "I appreciate it."
Castiel stares at him and Dean can't tell whether it's anger or exasperation he sees in the angel. "You have been lying to me, but you are still a good man. When I return, we will talk." Then there are wing sounds and the angel, and the bodies, are gone.
Dean looks up to see Bobby's slightly amused gaze. "Lying? To an angel? Tsk, tsk."
"I'm not. Technically, I just haven't told him everything so that's not lying," Dean fumbles. Bobby's eyebrow goes even higher and Dean can hear the silent 'moron' in the movement. His jaw clenches. "It's for his own protection."
"Oh yeah, because that argument always works so well on grown-ups. How old are angels again?"
"Shut up."
Just then Sam walks through the door, carefully propping it back up on his way. It's not much of a threshold but it's what they've got. November in South Dakota without a door. It's like an Urban Dictionary definition of cool.
"Saw the last one off on the bus. Good thing you had Valium." He rolls his eyes to indicate how much fun it had been to peel the survivors off and send them home.
"Maybe they can convince themselves it was all a drug-induced nightmare," Dean suggests. "People are pretty good at deceiving themselves."
Sam snorts in agreement. "I think most of them are gonna try." His brother stares down at the floor. "Where are the, um, others?" The bodies, he means. He was going to help carry them out into the yard.
"Castiel took them."
"I have placed them near emergency response locations in each of their home cities. As they no longer have wallets or valuables–" Castiel stares at Dean in disappointment "–they will likely assume robbery was the motive."
"It's still better than demon possession, Cas," is all Dean says.
"It is also marginally better than lying to your allies. You knew this attack would happen; you were prepared." Dean thinks about denying it but Castiel is stalking towards him and it's obvious the angel's temper is close to the surface. "You used Enochian wards and traps that you should not have known existed. Even if you had been so informed, the only written record of them extant on Earth is in a collapsed underground repository in southeast Turkey. I doubt you have had a chance to travel there since the last time we spoke."
The panes of the windows rattle slightly as he approaches the hunter. Dean plants his feet to face him, even though he can practically see Cas' wings rustling in agitation. "You knew about Sam Hain, and the importance of stopping him. You knew about the ghouls that threatened your half-brother before he was in danger." Now he's so close that Dean can feel the puffs of air he releases as he speaks.
"You were aware of the political machinations of my superiors and my brethren when I, who am surrounded by them, was in the dark." He lifts an imperious hand, forestalling any argument Dean might make on that point. "Your soul was changed when I brought you up from Hell but nothing that would explain all of these." He leans forward and stares at Dean, as if trying to pull the truth out through his skin.
Dean clears his throat nervously. "I've, uh, met your brother Gabriel. We talked." Just because it was in another life time doesn't mean it's a complete lie.
Behind Castiel, he sees Sam's mouth close with a snap that should've been audible even across the room. His brother is screwing up his face in an angry version of 'what the fuck' so Dean tries to tell him, silently, to trust him.
"Gabriel has been missing for millennia," Cas says and drags Dean's attention back to his immediate problem. He doesn't back off, so the hunter is forced to tilt his head down to see his face.
"I know." A quick swallow to moisten his dry mouth. "We thought he was a trickster god when we first ran across each other."
"That was two years ago," Sam interjects on cue. Good boy. Cas whips his head around to stare at Sam, who visibly flinches. "We stabbed him with a wooden stake—"
"Which should have killed him," Dean adds.
Sam nods, "Right. It should have. If he'd actually been a pagan trickster god. Except he showed up last year. Kept, um, kept killing Dean in order to get me to accept–" He has to take a breath. "Accept Dean going to Hell."
"Why did he reveal himself to you? Why didn't he go to Michael or Raphael?"
"You're kidding, right?" Dean blurts out and Castiel's eyes narrow dangerously. "Because all they want is the Apocalypse. They want Lucifer out of the box so they can fight, and then Michael will kill him, or you know, be killed. Gabriel doesn't want that. It's why he took off; he couldn't take the fighting anymore."
"You're saying that he's been helping you, all this time."
"We've learned a couple things from him." It's the closest he's come to an outright lie and he's sure Castiel is going to call him on it.
This time Bobby saves his ass. "He wrote a book with a method to banish Lilith back to the deepest parts of hell. But," the hunter adds in disgust, "he layered so many puns and riddles and nonsense onto it, that I'm not sure you can call it help."
Castiel considers what they have said, gazing at the roof looking for divine inspiration, before declaring that he has to tell Zachariah. "If Gabriel is working to stop the Apocalypse, then it's my duty to inform the Garrison. I'm sure they will be glad of the assistance."
"Don't get your hopes up, pal," Dean mutters. Castiel glares but says nothing so Dean continues. "And Gabriel isn't going to be too happy with having his cover blown either."
"It was he who chose to become involved in the affairs of humans. It is a logical outcome that the Garrison would become aware of his activities."
"Yeah, well. As long as he doesn't come back and smite us." It's a joke… mostly. Castiel gives it the attention it deserves, which is to say that he disappears in a flutter of invisible wings. They wait, frozen in place, until they're sure he won't be back right away and that none of his asshole relatives have taken his place.
"The Archangel Gabriel?" Bobby asks first. "Really?"
"Yeah." Dean tries for a disarming 'gee shucks' smile, but neither Bobby nor Sam look mollified.
"We can't handle an archangel, Dean."
"Besides, the ritual calls for a plain old angel. That's several steps below an archangel in terms of age and experience."
"And power," Sam concludes. "You're gonna get killed. Again."
"We're not going to use Gabriel," Dean assures them.
"Then Cas–"
"No!" Dean's gut roils at the mere suggestion. "Just no. We're not going to kill Cas."