Supernatural and its associated characters belong to Eric Kripke (who should be reported for abuse and have his mind-children turned over to me!)
Author's Note: Sweet Father of Castiel...what has the Kripster done to my poor baby? If I don't see Cas in the next few episodes, I will personally hunt the man down and do something....UNPLEASANT! I am Cas-fangirl, HEAR ME RAWR!
He's caught in the fray, swirled into the mix of Heaven and Hell and gore spatters his face as he whips his blade across the throat of a man with yellow hair and pitch-colored eyes and this is how it's always been but he pities the vessel today. He whispers a prayer for its soul as he squares off against his next opponent, a petite redhead whose skin is burned and sloughing off, and manages to dispatch her with a sloppy jab through the skull. Something unpleasantly greasy oozes through the gap in the bone and pools against his hand; as he fights to pull the slick blade out of the girl, another demon falls on him, digging its fingers into the points of his shoulderblades.
He screams in pain as it drives him into the thick Oregon dirt, his nostrils filling with bloodied earth and a pool of unpleasantly mixed fluids, the combination of texture and scent making him gag. In the way of the alligator, he attempts a death roll, crushing his attacker underneath him; but they are unevenly matched in terms of weight and he is quickly flipped and thrust into the dirt again. Weaponless, he forces his wings out of tattered shoulders and instantly burns the demon's eyes out, feels the thick splatter of its melted corneas on the shoulders of his jacket. Its weight diminishes (as expected) and he finds his legs somewhere deep in the mud and tucks them underneath his body, prepared to roll back to his feet...and then there's a sharp bolt of pain and he can't find his legs anymore. He crumbles to the ground without them, fingernails sliding uselessly through the churned dirt as he tries to turn, tries to understand what has happened and heat floods in the small of his back and the weight returns and he shouts,"NO!"
He squirms in the muck, feels the blind demon's laughter as its fingers slide through the soft tissues protecting the thin rail of bone in his back--spinal cord-- and screams in agony as it snaps it in two. His face feels thick, heavy with drying mud and gunk; it fills his mouth. He chokes.
"CASTIEL!" His name quivers in the air, thunder in the mountains and a blade whistles through the fabric of reality and blood sprays Castiel's hair, the back of his neck. He gasps in relief and reaches for his grace, using it to knit together skin and muscle and bone; the battle slows around him.
"Oh Cas...brother, please..." A firm hand grasps the nape of his neck, slick with demon blood and he knows by the gentle whorl of the fingerprints and the beat of the heart that it's Dean Winchester, the same as he left him two months ago on the too-bright beach in his captive mind. And he groans because Michael's still in that body too, a second sun burning where there should be space and somehow he'd forgotten.
"Are you okay?" Michael asks, but Cas likes to think there's more Dean than archangel in his voice. Another hand catches Castiel's shoulder, rolls him very carefully onto his back (he can still feel his pulse against the skin, pink and tender) "Castiel!"
"Yes," Castiel replies, leaning forward and up until the cap of his skull touches the line of his brother's jaw and by barely extending his grace he can feel Michael flaming in Dean's skin and Dean only a hairsbreadth beyond that.
"Hmm." Michael's chest vibrates under Castiel's filthy palms, thoughtful and rough like the calluses on his vessel's hands. "Looking for something, little brother?"
Warmth spreads her gentle wings under his skin, light pink feathers scattered on the flesh of his throat, chest and ears and he tucks himself a little closer to Michael, as if the closeness can erase the question. With a sigh, Dean's fingers close over the sleeve of his coat and catch on the smooth fabric, and Michael's lips touch the very center of his forehead and somewhere in the smell of lightning and Glory there's the Impala and motel shampoo and Castiel has hope. Maybe Michael can tell, because his green eyes are sharp and hard with understanding when he rises up, the crown of his head collecting a circle of sunlight rather like a halo, and he pins Castiel to the earth with his Winchester eyes for the space of a human heartbeat.
"My work here is far from done, Castiel."
Then he, the angels, and the trees are gone, replaced by a sky purple and blue with clouds whose bellies are stuffed with rain and he tries twice to reach for Michael's presence but his brother is nowhere to be found: hiding from family who doesn't want him, the world, or Lucifer without Dean. He understands what it is to be unwanted, knows full well the sharp sting of rejection and betrayal; Uriel and Anael taught him these things late, but well. What he does not understand is how he can go back to shoveling through jobs with Sam and Faith and Bobby with nothing but the lingering smell and the fading warmth of Dean on his hands, and the latter's ghost pressed like a delicate, dying flower between them and the pages of the unwritten Gospel about a life none of them can experience with him.
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Dean Winchester is dreaming.
Michael is walking past the empty human vessels of his fallen and celestial brethren.
Dean Winchester is waking up.
Michael is pulling a satiny black feather out of the mud, still smashed into a print of Castiel's body.
Dean Winchester is reaching beyond his grasp, fighting to regain feeling and control of his hands; he's never touched an angel's wing before and the idea of touching even a piece of Castiel's fills him with child-like wonder.
Michael is pushing him back and remembering his little brother's eyes glowing in that too-pale, human face.
Dean Winchester is feeling anger, horror, and something else... something undefinably and equally human.
Michael is feeling. Michael is looking up and seeing Dumah, the silent brother, fall to the ground and the sound of his death is as noiseless as his life. Michael is shaping a sword out of the Father's Creation and listening to his brother, his favorite brother, laugh as ten, twenty...fifty demons fall on him and crush his vessel into the earth. Michael is fighting. Michael is losing.
Dean Winchester is screaming as a hand closes over the mouth that used to work for him and his head is pulled back and Lucifer, his vessel's face burnt and peeling, peers into his eyes and he sees what Michael sees; the photo negative of angelic grace, the polar opposite of all things good and clean and pure.
"Hello, brother," he says. And neither Michael nor Dean is entirely sure which of them he's speaking to.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Bobby pulls idly on the wheel of his chair, sends it spinning in a slow and lazy circle; the grounded version of an aerial nosedive. He's waiting for Castiel and Sam to finish up in the panic room, waiting to see Faith leave the half-open door into the basement because they're coming back up to share exactly what was or wasn't found this time and he's fairly sure he knows already but he wants to hear it from Cas. I found Dean. He slipped through my fingers 'cause I'm a featherbrained idjit and should know better than to stalk an archangel...something like that.
"Hey," Faith says softly, and he looks up from his lap and sees her pulling the angel into a more-than-friendly embrace. Cas leans out of it, looking sufficiently awkward enough for all of them and Bobby thinks about all the times he's heard Faith crying in the night when he's gone and feels a sudden surge of embarrassment.
"So," Sam says, limping to the closest chair and collapsing in it. "Dean's alive and fighting evil somewhere in Oregon."
Silence stretches between them, tight and quivering as they watch Castiel's face, more expressive now he's finally decided to let Heaven make some other sap its bitch and Bobby sees pain in the lines of his forehead and the unearthly blue of his eyes. That's not all there is...the silence stretches for another beat before each realizes Cas isn't about to explain exactly what happened in Oregon and Bobby pulls on a wheel again. He bumps into Sam's knee, brushes against the hem of Cas' hideous Colombo coat and crunches over Faith's battered Timberlands. He spins again, crunches over Faith's shoes and Cas's coat and Sam's knee. Spins again; Sam snags the handle of the wheelchair and jerks the brake lever by the left wheel down. Gone are Bobby's spinnin' days. Gone are his walking days, his hunting days, his useful days, his days spent playing the role of Dean's father and Sam's mentor.
"Gone," he whispers and Sam's head drops and Faith quietly reaches out and takes Castiel's hand and the angel continues staring at the ugly patterned carpet.
Sorry this one was shorter, it's more of a filler chapter until I can get to the good stuff. And by good stuff I mean plenty of Winchester whumpage... :)
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