Chapter Eight.
"…when and why did Chuck Shurley disappear from our sight?" Castiel called, suddenly zapping himself into the northern doorway which led from his little stone room.
"I desire answers. This is not a…" In his mind, he turned to Dean and muttered, looking pained, "…what is the word, when school boys tattoo each other and dip new initiates in alcoholic substances while hanging from their smallclothes?"
When he heard Cas speak in his head, Dean Winchester's fingers uncurled from his beer bottle. Then the glass container slid to the ground, shattering all over Castiel.
"Oh God DAMN Cas don't do that!" Dean stammered, brushing glass from the angel's heels and calves. "Don't step back, it's sharp. You'll cut yourself."
Then he gasped, wincing as tiny particles of glass stuck in his fingerprint ridges, cutting into him like microscopic blades.
Castiel paused only long enough to snap his fingers; then the glass was a bottle again. Then he grabbed hold of the door, pretending to sway for a moment while Dean Winchester mouthed the right word to him, the young man obviously grateful for the lack of splinters in his hand.
"..frat party. I need to know we are doing all we can to prevent what must not come to pass."
"Dude you sound like Gandalf," said Dean, who looked at Sam and smirked. Both men then began mimicking a long pipe-smoking motion, holding one hand out and tapping the other on the side of the wall or whatever was handy. Suddenly both brothers disappeared; zapped to God knew where by the belle of the ball. Of course, he'd taped the instructions to therir foreheads. Like a dutiful little archangel.
"Yes. I always liked him; very academic." Lucifer spoke now, eyeing Cas's belly as though something amusing would burst from it, cocking his blonde head and smiling through eyes of pleasant, cloudy grey.
"You shouldn't tax yourself," Lucifer murmured, weaving his upper body around Cas's big girth so he could slip by and enter the room. He touched the angel's shoulder, then knelt down and pressed an ear to the burgeoning flesh, "You and the Doctor are still connected. Any harm to you will, well… you know. On the other hand, the fetal hearts sound good and strong. Have you told him the sex yet, Cas?" He turned to the Time Lord and beckoned with a single outstretched hand.
"Why no, Lucy, he hasn't. Of course, I could have looked myself, had I a mind to have done." the Doctor replied, scratching his head and grinning, his deep green eyes boring pin prick holes in the Morningstar's back as he refused to take whatever bait the angel was dangling, "But I rather fancy the surprise. And if you step back from Castiel and my unborn child right now, I might be inclined to give you your sword back." He held up a gleaming honey colored blade that shone like a sunset in his hand. "Nice workmanship, by the way."
Lucifer froze, his hands nearly grabbing for the golden sword he kept hidden in his suit jacket befoe he caught himself.
"Ah, that's better. If I didn't know any better, and I don't," the Doctor prattled on, " I would almost think you intended to make an early withdrawal. Which would upset a great many of the beings in this room. You weren't going to do any such thing, were you Lucy dear?"
Lucifer frowned, his eyebrows knotting halfway up his forehead. " Uncle Metatron. For all those deserving, your hearts are large enough to hold creation, yet you still see conspiracy behind every stone, do you not? I intended, and still intend, my golden sword to Castiel. He needs to be able to protect the child, should something… unforeseen occur." He held out his hand, one naked hand upraised in supplication. The golden sword zapped out of the Time Lord's hand, appearing again in Lucifer's. "Why would I want to harm this little one, which sings so softly now beneath my brother's breast? You look tired, Castiel. And Uncle as well." Lucifer touched the alien's forehead, and the Doctor swayed beneath that touch but did not fall. "Sleep, Uncle. Please."
The Morningstar then brought his fist up, flew across the room, and shoved it into the Doctor's waist, just below the navel. The Old Man gasped for air, then crumbled onto the Lord of Hell's waiting arm. Almost instantly, Castiel paled and clutched at his stomach, his sagging body a lump of meat against the stone doorframe.
" I told you this was risky, Gabriel," Lucifer said as he let the Doctor slide down his leg and sink across the floor. Then he moved quickly to catch Castiel, whose eyes were rolling skyward even as the Doctor's fluttered wildly beneath auburn lashes. "…but the risk of not doing this will be greater. While they are sleeping, we should move the TARDIS. It is not wise to have all three in the same place-time, and far better they not know its location until Shub Niggurath's mess is cleared from the table."
Gabriel flipped his phone off and sighed. "They'll be sore at us, Lucy. I hope you know what you're doing."
Lucifer shrugged; it was a rhetorical gesture. "I always do. Do not look so upset, little brother. Uncle and Castiel are both resting comfortably. You know how stubborn they can be. They will benefit from this respite." He turned his shining blade over and over in his hands, noting his own reflection in the gleaming metal. His hair was pixie short, pallid, blonde… his face fair, like seafoam. And his eyes, too, were the color of the ocean. "Am I still beautiful, Gabby?" he murmured as he moved to conceal the sword between the Doctor and Castiel. "Father has been gone so very long."
Then he zapped himself away; appearing with a pallid, speechless Gabriel on the outside of the Doctor and Castiels' rooms.
His fingers moved, twitching forward only the slightest fraction until the click of locks could be heard from every ingress. Then he bit his finger, drawing blood, and pressed the wound to the last lock. A soft glow emanated form everywhere…
Lucifer sighed, sucking at the digit. "Very well; it is done. They are sealed inside. Soon the hour will be upon us. We should leave and let Cas and Uncle sleep."
Gabriel shivered when he saw the amount of blood he'd used to etch 696 Old Enochian sigils of highest warding on every door and crevice leading into or out of the little collection of rooms. "Wow, Luce… are you sure you used enough? I wouldn't want to think you'd been lax."
Lucifer grinned. "Shub Niggurath's little pets will have a hard time getting inside the TARDIS's defenses, let alone mine, and that is for the good. When the wards finally break, everyone will wake up. In the meantime, Chuck will soon be completing his task. He will use the Old Enochian Reverberant Trapdoor hidden in the stones of Nematon, and return here.
Michael walked up to them then, with Raphael close behind. Both archangels surveyed the wards Lucifer had placed, nodding to their brother with grim certainty.
"Brothers," he began, taking his place at one corner of the TARDIS while his brothers did the same. He ran a hand through what had once been Adam's sandy hair and frowned. "We go to war."
Then together with the TARDIS, the four archangels vanished, leaving the Winchesters, the Doctor, the Angel of Thursday, and every living angel or demon locked safely within that crashed Vimana, somewhere in the mountains of snowy Bhutan.