-.._..-.._.._,.-.._..-.._..-.._..-.._
The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
_,.-.._..-.._..-.._..-.._
A Wandering Boy
Chapter 24
A Glimpse of Heaven
From Chapter 23
He was a good man and a faithful man, who cared for his flock and believed whole heartedly in the blessings of Heaven. He had seen the Angel standing under an oak tree at the side of the road and praised God for providing him with this reward for his faith.
Today the Angel had visited him and told him that was he had previously seen was a vision of the true Angel's arrival. They had gone out together to the oak tree by the Salvage Yard's driveway and his vision was proved accurate.
Now he wanted to pass the Good Tidings along to his flock. There is a Heaven, there are Angels, there is always reason to Hope.
Chapter 24
Early the next morning, which happened coincidently to be Sunday, Bobby Singer went to church. He enjoyed it. He had not attended a regularly scheduled religious service in years and he found it to be refreshing. The congregation consisted of families doing their duty by their children, bored teenagers and a scattering of true believers and Bobby who didn't fit neatly into any of the categories.
The true believers were all elderly, most likely the ones closest to God and storing up their Good Deeds to use as passage coin for Saint Peter. Bobby snorted at his thought.
He wasn't going to get any charitable points for that cynical idea. The old people were really trying to make it right with God. More power to them. Bobby's good deed for the day was removing his hat in the house of the Lord.
Pastor Gentry went there. He got up and gave them all the Good Tidings. He spoke of seeing an Angel on the road, standing under an Oak Tree. Bobby saw heads pick up all over the congregation and was grateful that the Pastor didn't mention exactly where that tree was. Bobby could envision clumps of people down at the bottom of his driveway on their knees around that damn tree, scaring away Bobby's more questionable visitors. It would be a lot like drunks avoiding the liquor store because there was a cop car parked outside.
The Man of God spoke reverently of how honored he was and how unworthy. He had been visited by an Angel of the Lord and was humbled by Heaven's Grace. The man absolutely glowed with the fervor of his faith.
Bobby was uncomfortable. Cas had explained at length how this visit by his twin was Not A Good Thing.
As the Hunter cast his eyes around the Pastor's congregation he could spot other members who were also made uncomfortable by the enthusiasm of the Pastor. After all, this was a church not a revival tent. A certain level of decorum was expected.
Finally the public display of faith was over and the doors were opened for the dispersal of the faithful. The Pastor stood at the open doors, shaking hands and dispensing blessings still glowing with the power of his message. Bobby hung back, determined to have a word with the man in private.
Pastor Gentry knew that Bobby Singer was waiting in the shadow of the sanctuary. If there was one person in the immediate area that the Pastor worried about it was Singer. The Pastor suspected the man of all types of not only heresy but blasphemy. Singer however might be the most willing to believe in the Pastor's Angelic visitation.
The Pastor shook the hand of the last of his departing congregation and turned to face Singer. He wondered if this confrontation could possibly be compared to Jesus confronting the Devil in the desert.
During the next hour Bobby steadily chipped away at the Pastor. All that the Hunter managed to achieve was Pastor Gentry's promise to conceal the location of the Oak Tree and to question Heaven's motives in sending the Angel Castiel to the Pastor. The idea that there was more to the visit than the simple rewarding of the Pastor for his faith took root in the Pastor's mind and grew. Bobby only hoped that the suspicion might be enough to cut down on the information leak from Earth to Heaven. But he doubted it. The Pastor struck back with even greater efforts to wean Bobby away from his heathen ideas.
They parted agreeing to disagree. The Pastor did promise not to complain to the angel, if it reappeared, about the suspected fortress of heathens down the road and Bobby promised not to shoot anyone who happened to show up at the Oak Tree. The Pastor also promised to call Bobby if the Angel came back. Pastor Gentry was hoping that Bobby might possibly be saved by direct Angelic intercession.
_,.-.._..-.._..-.._..-.._
The Angel Castiel reported to Zachariah that Pastor Gentry appeared to have some powers as a visionary and had seen Castiel beneath the Tree as a vision of the future visit. The Angels ignored or failed to understand the illogic of a vision of a visit prompted by the vision. They were not meant to understand circular logic because the mysterious ways of God were just as truly mysterious to angels as they were to men. Ignoring the snake eating its own tail they went with the vision was a vision of a visit prompted by a vison and let the whole matter rest in God's hands. The Angels, including Castiel, all went back to their day jobs.
Zachariah made a mental note to treat Pastor Gentry's future prayers more carefully. After all it was not his place to test God's plans. One Angel visit a century was more than humanity deserved. He knew from experience that humanity would most likely ignore the Pastor's message, truth or not. At least Zachariah had learned that if anything else came up the Angel Castiel would be on hand to take care of the problem.
_,.-.._..-.._..-.._..-.._
Sam Winchester woke to the smell of bacon and something burning. It was a heady combination of smells. He also woke to an empty bed for the first time in weeks. Reaching over for an early morning cuddle he found a cold and empty place where Cas's body was usually curled. It took a moment for his sleep drugged mind to remember that Cas was down in Bobby's panic room, hiding from himself. With a snort he threw the covers off and headed for the bathroom.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and brushing his teeth he decided to wait on his shower until he had tracked down the source of the burning smell. It would be pretty sad if he was in the shower just as the house went up in flames. He headed down stairs in his socks.
Once at the bottom of the stairs it was pretty easy to follow the smoke to the kitchen.
Jerry and Kerman had stayed over for a second night. Bobby had driven Megan back home after explaining, not completely coherently, that it was not a good idea for the little girl to stay overnight with her boyfriend. Ten years old or not there were just too many ways that plan could go sideways.
When Sam entered the kitchen he was greeted with the sight of three prepubescent boys attempting to get lunch on the table. Perhaps it was brunch, not lunch, because it appeared that Dean was going for pancakes. The kids had gotten creative and a couple of step stools had been shoved together in front of the stove, creating a stairway to get Dean comfortably up close to the hot grill.
He was standing on the makeshift platform in his P.J.s with one of Bobby's aprons tied around his belly. It made a lovely skirt but Sam was not going to go there; not in front of two other boys. A trash can sat beside Dean's feet with small puffs of smoke hovering over it. Sam assumed that maybe Dean's first batch of pancakes had not gone all that well. One of Bobby's extra-large frying pans sat one set of burners over, full of frying bacon.
"Good morning Sam," Dean said brightly when he noticed the man in the doorway. "We're making food for you and Cas and Bobby. I got bacon and pancakes almost ready and I'm pretty sure that Jerry will figure out that coffee maker thing any time now."
Kerman smiled up at Sam over a stack of dishes he was attempting to set on the table. Sam couldn't make up his mind which potential disaster to attend to first.
Just as Kerman's dish stack started to tilt forward Sam made a dive for the plates, Cas showed up behind Sam and went for Jerry who was about to pour water into a plugged in electric coffee pot and the front door slammed, indicating that Bobby was home.
As Bobby came around the corner it seemed to him like Larry, Moe and Curley had been reincarnated and were taking up residence in his kitchen. Sam came up off the floor juggling dishes, Kerman was staring like he was looking at an oncoming train. Cas had Jerry tucked safely under one arm and was pulling the plug on Bobby's coffee pot which was emitting sparks like a miniature fourth of July, Dean turned and grinned at the Hunter.
"Hi yah, Uncle Bobby!" Dean bubbled. "I'm making lunch. Do you want blueberries or chocolate chips?"
For some reason Bobby was reminded that the band on the Titanic continued to play as the ship went down.
_,.-.._..-.._..-.._..-.._
Peace and order had been restored. The six current inhabitants of Bobby's house sat comfortably around the table disposing of Dean's lunch. Some of the pancakes were just a touch burnt. Some of them were just a tad mushy. Overall Dean's plan had gone pretty well and now the boys were ready to spend the last hours of their weekend visit outside playing among Bobby's lawn decorations.
Kerman and Jerry's mothers most likely would never understand the appeal of wrecked cars to a boy but Bobby's was an all-male house and with the possible exception of the Angel, everyone understood. Bobby had promised the boys would be back home by sunset and the fun was proceeding at a breakneck speed as the kids tried to beat the deadline.
Listening with one ear to the shouts from outside Bobby related his visit with Pastor Gentry to Sam and his angel. Cas seemed to think that it had gone relatively well and he was ready to come out of the panic room. The only fly in the ointment was that Cas could never, ever, meet the Pastor. If Gentry was to discover a twin to his Angel visitor living with that heathen Bobby Singer Cas was sure that the alarm bells would be ringing in Heaven again. One visit from was enough.