aaand chapter 2 is up c: r&r if you're feeling generoussss ~ 3 thanks for all the followers so far!
"No! Not Cas, man. Forget it."
The bolted door to the bunker shut with a reverberating clang, the rattle of plastic bags accompanying voices as they crossed over into the library. "Just hear me out." Sam strode alongside an adamant Dean. "I'm not saying we have to do anything, just find him. I mean, you want to find him too, right?"
"Not to kill him. Seriously? How is that even a suggestion?" Setting his two grocery bags on the polished table, Dean fished out the six-pack of beer, turning his head to shout in the direction of the next room. "Hey, prophet boy! Lunch time!"
Unwrapping his sandwich from the plastic, Sam glanced down at the bottle in Dean's hand and frowned momentarily, though he said nothing about his brother's eating habits. "We've been waiting around long enough, Dean. And yeah, it was because I was getting better, I get that. But we have to do something, before something else happens."
And neither of them asked what that something else could be because at this point, bad luck more or less followed them around like hounds and anything was possible. Crowley had probably gotten free, and neither Dean nor Sam was sure what his state was. They'd left him a hair from being completely purified, but hadn't gone back to check on him afterwards. Would he be changed completely, or not at all? That was something else to consider, another problem out of seemingly dozens they always had to contend with.
The sound of footsteps signaled Kevin's emergence from his workspace, looking just like he had in the days before he'd finished translating the trials. He was a sorry sight, bedraggled and like he hadn't showered since Castiel'd told him to translate the angel tablet, which might have actually been the case. The dark bags under his red-rimmed eyes had returned and he looked pale and sallow, ten years past his age. "Got you a sandwich and some fruit," Dean tossed a bag to him by way of apology, and Kevin muttered a soft 'thanks' before sinking into one of the plush chairs.
"Find anything?" Sam asked, gulping down half his bottle of water.
Kevin cleared his throat. "Something, I guess. I haven't gotten to the part about sacrificing a pure angel, but it's mentioned, so I don't think Raziel was lying."
"Awesome work, kid. Keep it up." But Dean couldn't help but still have his misgivings about this entire ordeal. He'd agreed to let Sam try again, but a big part of him was reluctant. Shit like this didn't ever get by with a free pass – there was always a catch, something they needed to give up. It had almost been Sam's life last time, and he didn't want to think about what this one wanted. On the other hand, he also knew how much this meant to his brother; half of Sam's enthusiasm wasn't even about closing the gates of Hell, he knew; it was about proving himself. Proving that even after listening to Ruby, freeing Lucifer, leaving Dean behind in Purgatory, giving into the addiction to demon blood, he could do something right.
"Which means we only have one option, which is looking for an angel who fits the bill," Sam argued, turning back to Dean. "Think about it. How many angels do we know who still follow Heaven's original rules? Hell, how many angels do we even know?" At least, ones that were still alive. But that wasn't their fault. Seeing Dean's frown, Sam continued. "I'm not suggesting we go at Cas with guns blazing, okay? He's my friend too, Dean."
"We don't even know where the damn guy is!" Dean set the bottle down on the counter and frustratedly rummaged in the bag for his burger, though even the thought of its bacon slathered greasy goodness wasn't really enough to lift his spirits. "How do we even find him?"
"Um, guys?" Kevin's voice drew the brothers' attention. "Ever thought about how the angels aren't even angels anymore? I mean, from what you've been saying, they're all human now, right? I don't know if sacrificing them would even work."
"Which is why you've gotta set to work translating that son of a bitch," Dean fired back with a smile, which quickly faded at Kevin's deadpan face, and he cleared his throat, biting into his burger.
"He has a point," Sam sighed, "but we can't just wait around for him to finish translating. We don't know how long that's going to take. No offense or anything, Kevin, but - " He paused when the boy waved him off dismissively, and turned back to Dean. "We're going to have to figure it out another way. Find another angel, or something. They fell all over, right? And from what Raziel sounded like, the whole other way to close the gates was pretty common knowledge. They'd know about it. And we might as well chase it straight to the source."
Dean lifted his head from his burger, still chewing as he looked at Sam questioningly. "Meaning?" he mumbled through a mouthful of food.
"Meaning we look for Cas."
If there was one thing Dean hated, it was when what was the most sensible thing to do was also his least favorite course of action. It didn't feel right to him, going hunting for Cas only to ask him if it was okay if they sacrificed him to close Hell. If his witness to the brief, weird, conversation between Cas and Naomi had been anything to go by, the guy had enough of his own problems to deal with. He wanted to look for him, sure, but just to make sure he was okay and wasn't dead like the other angels. The thought that he might be gone for good – no, he wasn't going to think about it. Cas had to be out there.
"He's the only one that fits, Dean." Sam leaned forward in his chair, sandwich in one hand and elbows propped on his thighs. "He was always talking about how he wanted to make Heaven the way it was, wanted to follow the old ways of God. That's the whole reason he even rebelled, remember?"
"Damn it, Sam, stop talking like we're already planning to off him, okay? He's one of us. He helped us. We're not mentioning this whole sacrificing thing to him until we've made sure he's okay."
"No, yeah, of course," Sam lifted his hands, settling back against his chair. "I'm with you on that. Look, if he doesn't want anything to do with it, fine. We'll find something else. We always do, right? Maybe he'll know another angel we can use."
It still didn't sit well with Dean. He wasn't entirely sure why – he'd never had a problem with ganking angels before when he'd needed to. Zachariah, for example. But he'd been an asshole. Most of them were. But these angels who'd fallen… they'd turned human, all of them. And he couldn't get the look in Raziel's eyes out of his head completely yet, the fear when she'd looked around and asked him why she'd been cast out. God, it was like murdering a kid. Maybe that was the problem. They were too vulnerable now. He grabbed his beer again. "Yeah," he mumbled after taking a gulp, closing his eyes. "Okay, we'll look for Cas."
The few wandering travelers who had stopped at the gas station to fill up their cars didn't pay any mind to the man turning into the station from the street, seemingly unfazed from having walked however far he had gone on foot, though the weathered exhaustion in his eyes spoke volumes of weariness, the slight drag in his step betraying a tiredness he wasn't familiar with. The tattered ends of his dirty trench coat were splattered with mud, the fabric wrinkled from rain, threads coming apart in some places. Bright blue eyes had dimmed, narrowed against a glare of the sun he hadn't ever noticed before that blinded him, dark hair matted with dirt.
As he dragged himself toward the small station convenience store, a woman at the pump nearest him glanced at the ragged stranger from the corner of her eye and shuffled away warily, though this act of suspicion went unnoticed by its recipient.
The last few days had treated Castiel badly. After Metatron had stolen his Grace, he had been thrown back down to earth, and no sooner had he gotten to his feet than had the sky lit up with the fall of his brethren, hundreds of them hurtling down like shooting stars. He'd had yet to find any, but Castiel knew there was little hope for many of them. They would have lost their Grace as well because of Metatron's ploy, and if the impact hadn't killed them, the shock would have soon after. And if they survived that, exposure would rob even Heaven's hardiest angels of their lives if they had the misfortune to land in the vast wilderness. Maybe more than half of them had fallen into the oceans, where they would have perished within mere minutes.
Castiel had been fortunate enough to have been cast to an inhabited section of earth, near a highway. He retained enough of his sparse knowledge of the workings of humans to know how to hitch-hike, and in this sense he counted himself as one of the luckiest, who had had the opportunity to learn about earth before being forced to assimilate.
What he had not been prepared for were the difficulties that arose afterward. Recalling his escape during the Apocalypse, he had sought out a liquor store, but had found that without an identification of some kind, he was unable to purchase any. And without his powers as an angel, he could not simply force his way past the store man as he had last time. During his ventures hitchhiking, he had found a man kind enough to give him a bottle of water, but that had run out long ago and his throat was parched, scratchy with dryness.
A dying bell jingled weakly on his way into the store, prompting the man at the counter to look up from his phone in acknowledgement. Castiel didn't head for the rows stocked with various foods and snacks, though his now-human body was craving some form of nourishment. He knew he had no money to buy any of the items on display, and no way to earn money, for that matter. Hunger and thirst were human aspects of life he, along with weariness, had never had to weather before. And he was quickly nearing his wits' end. Metatron's plan had been an event he had not foreseen, something that had not been within the scope of his realization, and now he berated himself silently for his foolishness.
He approached the man behind the counter with the same stony face that he had always worn, for being of human makeup did not abolish angelic tendencies. "Do you have a phone?" he asked monotonously, his voice raspy with disuse, prompting the man to look up again.
"Yeah, just around the corner there," he instructed, pointing his arm behind him to a general area behind a row of shelves. "You got coins, man?"
"… No."
The man gave him a wincing look of sympathy. "Sorry, then you can't use it."
Castiel stood there for a few halting moments, before his desperation decided that he had no other choice. "Please. It's an emergency."
For a second the man looked as though he was going to dismiss him, but then his jaw tightened and he sighed. "All right, man. Don't go asking for too many favors though," he acquiesced, opening the cash register with a soft shhhk-ding! and fishing out a handful of quarters. Castiel murmured his genuine thanks before turning and walking down the aisle to where the man had pointed him. After slotting the coins into the machine, he dialed a number he had recently committed to memory. Holding the earpiece close, the fallen angel glanced behind and around him once before lowering his voice, so many years of care and caution warding him against any prying ears. "I need help."
A buzzing voice on the other end made him narrow his eyes, just slightly. "Yes. Things have changed. I had not anticipated – "
He paused again, waited as the voice spoke. "No. The plan will still work. I have an idea. I need to find Sam and Dean."
The voice rattled on for a little while. "Yes. And I will also require several bottles of water and a meal. Being human is… more difficult than I realized."
After finishing the call, Castiel gently placed the phone back on the receiver and exited the small store from the back door. Glancing up at another darkening sky, he sat down on an old bench beside the station to wait.