Dean had been too worried to do anything. His half-finished dinner still lay untouched on the tiny round dining table in the kitchen, ever since he'd heard those little words, 'he's gone.' He wouldn't leave the angels bed sides as he absentmindedly watched the news. He stayed particularly close to Castiel.
"Last night, an out-of-the-blue meteor shower had left scientists baffled. No one had foreseen this coming, and we'll go to Carol for some insight. Carol?
"Yes, I'm here at the James K. Polk Astronomy Center, where we have been trying to get some answers. A few of the astronomers here accredit the beautiful star shower last night to a type of cosmic dust that is very hard to detect on some of their machines. If you didn't see it, you are missing out folks! It was definitely a sight to see, and a cosmic event that will probably not come around again in our lifetimes. For video footage and more, visit our website at..." the television image suddenly started to skew and roll along the screen, stretching to reveal static underneath.
"Dumb thing," Dean said irritably, reaching to turn the small television off. He was too worried to do anything, as his stomach twisted itself into knots. If Cas was dead, he would know, right? There would be charred wings, he was sure he'd somehow feel something... there was no way he could have died. I would have known, was what Dean kept repeating over and over to himself.
Along with the television's weird behavior, the lights started to dimly flicker. He already found this peculiar, and the room began to grow gradually hotter, and Dean wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead. Had Sam cranked up the heater or something? But no, his brother was in a shallow sleep on one of the armchairs. Dean realized it was beginning to get brighter as well, but not bright like the sunlight. This light was pure white, and brighter than anything he'd ever seen before...
He pieced things together just in time. "Oh, shit!" He said under his breath as he whipped his arm out to shield his eyes tightly. The whole room glowed with an almost painfully hot bluster of air, and it seemed to linger on for just a tad bit too long. Castiel had fallen quickly back to Earth after Calcifer's dismissal, and even as a full-grown angel he felt shaken up by the scene he had just witnessed. Brother fighting brother, new weapons that could pierce an angel's grace and poison them with Leviathan blood, or have an angel go up in flames in a matter of seconds... he could only imagine what Samandriel must be feeling. Castiel had felt his baby brother's mind go cloudy with fear after seeing Isiah's half-blown off wing. He had clutched tightly to Cas's chest on their jetstream to earth, burying his tiny head closer into his neck for protection. The poor thing, he'd already seen so much, witnessed so much in his short life- Castiel wished he could do more for the infant, who was probably already traumatized. It had taken a little while for him to even latch into Alfie's body when Castiel placed him inside, and he was in his true form in the room for a bit longer than he found comfortable. He deserved a good rest. Finally, Castiel sunk into the comforts of his human body.
When Dean felt that the heat had gone, he tucked his face out from his arm to look out with hopeful, green eyes. Alfie, or Samandriel now, was fast asleep again, and so was Castiel. The lanky dark-haired young man, Calcifer's vessel, had disappeared, probably quickly reclaimed by Calcifer. Sam woke up with a start from his sleep, jumping up immediately to come to Dean's side. If they were back, if they both hadn't died...
He saw Cas's eyelids flutter as he struggled to wake up. Dean was there within a second, staring hopefully into his sickly face.
Cas moved his lips lightly, but no sound came out. It was clear he was having a hard time trying to even stay awake.
"Cas? You alright, bud?" Dean asked, still overjoyed that he had returned and was relatively all right.
He nodded slowly, finally opening his eyes wider this time. "It's gotten bad. Up there." He graveled, shutting his eyes again for a moment. Sam and Dean both knew that look-recalling something you've just seen, something horrible... Cas just couldn't shake that scene he'd seen in that field of snow, the murders, the bomb, the blown off wing that had only been put up to protect the others...
"You mean- you went back to heaven?" Dean jumped to ask. He always wondered what it was like up there, he wasn't sure why he always had an intense interest in it.
"Samandriel and I, both. He will be very, very tired from the journey. I think you underestimate how young he still is. I should be fine in a few days..." His blue eyes looked almost like they glassed over for a second as he thought of other things. Castiel wanted to tell them so much more than he had the energy to right now: how many angels had accidentally fallen to earth from the intensity of the split, and how the network had tried to compensate in its wounded state by blindly recalling all angels back to war-racked heaven. How Calcifer had told him he would supply the last ingredient they needed, that closing off hell could finally become a reality... instead he tried to tell them as much as he could with as little words as possible. God, he was tired. "This split was inevitable. And now...now..." There was an emotion neither of them had seen on his face before. His eyebrows came down and together, and his lips were pressed tightly together. His chest did a slight little hiccup-type thing. Was he really going to start sobbing?
He looked to Dean's face for comfort first, then Sam's, with large, watering blue eyes. They'd never seen him look so much like a little kid before. "And now...we must make our society whole again. And that means..." We must...kill all of the angels from the other side. There can be no going back now. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, not wishing to continue. Just saying it aloud would make the horrors that much more real, something that they ultimately would really have to do. What a horrible world little Samandriel was brought into. What he will have to do, what he has already had to go through...
Cas sighed deeply. His whole body felt horrible, his muscles felt bunched up in every spot and theyached, his bones felt like they'd been bruised, his throat was dry and sandpapery. He had an aching headache that was just beginning to push onto the back of his eyes. He turned onto his side and lifted the down cover so that it covered his face, until just a tuft of black unkempt hair stuck up from the bed. "I hope you don't mind if I rest for a while," He muffledly croaked out from under his burrito of covers. Dean laughed and patted a lump of covers that resembled a shoulder lightly. "Just glad you're back," He said, sighing with relief.
Angels are not meant to sleep. It did have to do with not needing to restore the body overnight, yes, but there was so much more than that. Imagine all the crazy a dream could rack up with millions and millions of years of memories that have never been sifted through in a good night's sleep. It could be enough to drive an angel crazy. But this time Castiel's mind was kinder to him, as if the frayed network he was connected to understood enough to keep him from going mad.
He was dreaming that he was standing on a high, grassy cliff that overlooked the expanse of a dark blue and gray stormy sea. Foamy waves that seized and sprayed with watery roars surged underfoot. When he looked closer, the white crests of the waves weren't water at all, but the white wingtips of drowning angels. The scene materialized as more and more, innocent, beautiful winged creatures were dying, drowing, being thrown onto rocks and dragged back to sea with hungry, stormy claws. More and more kept appearing, an ocean of drowned, beautiful people... the inky blue waters were coming closer and closer to him as he cried for his loss, his tears dropping like waterfalls and causing the whole ocean to rear up and meet him at the jagged cliffs.
Castiel tried to run away as great, dark waves started to slap onto the cliff face, spraying him all over with bone chillingly cold mist. The mist swirled into pinpricks of cold, flurries of snowflakes were spinning around him, a wave surged up over his head and crashed into him, going through him and chilling his body and his grace right through. The wave swept through him as if he were a ghost, but it tore out his precious stars that he kept tucked deep in his chest for safekeeping. "No!" Castiel called out, so forcefully that he knew his voice had probably transcended the dream. Tears streamed down his face. "I need those, I have plans for them...!" The wave went farther and farther away, the baby stars twinkling helplessly as if they were calling out to him, pleading to be rescued. "No," Castiel breathed in defeat as he sank to his knees, as greedy-looking, waterlogged angel corpses grabbed with hungry, clutching hands at the pulsating, innocent lights.
"Castiel. Castiel, open your eyes." He heard a familiar voice, a brother's. He looked up and away from the horrible scene into Calcifer's face, he was now wearing his human body again, but Cas could easily see beyond the layer of flesh and bone to the fair-haired, golden-eyed creature within. The man slipped him a vial full of clear water gently, sliding the glass into his palm, where his hand lingered for just a second more. "Please come home." His brother pleaded him. Castiel ached to be with his family, to help them when they got hurt, to pick them up when they fell. Oh, Isiah. What has this war done to such a brave soul?
The dream ended prematurely, as Cas woke with a gasp. It took him a second to realize he was not in the motel any longer, but stretched out in the backseat of the car and wrapped in a thin blanket. Something was wrong here, it was only him and Dean in the car.
"Where...where is Saman.." He tried to speak up, but he was so tired. His restless sleep had not helped very much. Still, he felt the cold glass of the vial in his palm. He silently slid it next to the ivory claw in one of the inset pockets, deciding not to tell now that he had the final ingredient. He or Samandriel would not be strong enough for such a dangerous activity. Dean's eyes fell on him from the rearveiw mirror.
"Great, you're awake. That must mean it worked." Dean said happily, as he kept driving. Oh, no. This didn't sound good.
"What worked?" He asked skeptically, panic rising in his chest. His baby brother needed him, now more than anything.
"Samandriel was doing that same thing from before, stealing your grace again. He looked like he wasn't getting any better, and you were getting worse, and we thought that it was a bad idea for him to be stealing all your energy like that. So, he's at the motel and we're trying to get out of range." Dean said, emphasizing the word steal too much, making it seem like Samandriel was trying to do something bad.
"You don't understand." Castiel said suddenly, desperate. He was so little, he was so tiny,weak and frail, he needed that extra grace. "Turn the car around. Now." He ordered so fiercely and in such a deep voice that it almost scared Dean.
"What are you talking abou-" The city lights up ahead suddenly started to block into black, in succession, until every single building was pitch black. The car slowed to a stop. They both stared ahead with wide eyes for just a second. Dean didn't say anything as he quickly banked into a U-turn. His phone began to trill. "Dammit," He growled, and snapped it open.
"I...I think something just happened." Sam said on the other end, in a kind of panicky voice.
"Yeah, no shit Sherlock," Dean said as he floored the pedal and the engine rumbled even more loudly than usual. It wasn't long before the car slid back into the motel lot. Castiel jumped out right away and sprinted to the room, who was followed by a guilty Dean.
He burst into the room and went right up to the sleeping teen, and curled him into his arms. Right away misty white grace tugged from his chest and began to seep into Samandriel. These two just couldn't seem to grasp the concept that Samandriel wasn't as he appeared. He looked like an older teenager, but in reality he Cas could only see him as the wide-eyed, innocent little two-year old he'd held hands with in heaven. Samandriel sighed and his body relaxed a little as he snuggled closer to his older brother's chest.
"Don't ever do something like that without my consent again." Castiel almost growled, protectively holding his little brother as a heavy flow of grace went between the two beings. Now looking up, he was able to survery the scene. All the outlets looked as if they had exploded, with bursts of black coloring the walls and carpets. In seeking out an energy source, he'd unintentionally pulled from the wall sockets and caused a massive blackout. There was a large crack leading from Samandriel's arm out along the walls and finally splintering up the window. Wallpaper had started curling off the walls in horizontal twists, as if there had been gusts of spinning air.
Suddenly, Cas felt an overwhelming burst of irritation and anger. "You don't understand! You need to see how bad the situations has become! Why can't you open your eyes?" He felt angry tears spring to his eyes. The two brothers were staring at him wide-eyed at his uncharacteristic outburst. They both felt pretty guilty, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, they didn't want to just sit by and watch Cas slowly be drained of life. After two days they had had enough as he looked like he was growing weaker and weaker. They only had to separate them for his own good. Cas read their thoughts and understood, they were only concerned for him. But he could not afford a slip up like this again.
"In heaven, I received the final ingredient." He said slowly, looking at both of their faces in succession. Dean tensed up, looking extremely surprised. "You mean to put the stopper in hell?" He asked, surprised it had been that easy. He came to realize that Cas had done everything single-handedly and extremely efficiently ever since they got the spell. It was obvious that he needed to turn his efforts to helping out in heaven. But there was no way this whole ordeal could be this easy. Something itched at him deep down, saying that this powerful spell must have a catch- and a bad one at that.
As if he read his mind, Castiel spoke up. "I am afraid of the repercussions," Castiel said hauntedly, staring into Samandriel's face again. He had done some thinking, and he realized the true meaning of the spell. The hellhound's claw was a piece of something that represented how vile creatures of hell were. The skeleton key of a righteous man would be a piece that represented the worthwhile traits of humanity. The water from the three streams, the essence of the universe, the liquid that possessed all knowledge of any realm, would be able to differentiate the two, be able to recognize the clear lines between good and evil, earth and hell. It would then see the mistake it was that hell was open, polluting such a good world, and the three ingredients would in combination lock the evil away. But that one line, the seal is the heart of the one who survives... did that really mean that only one could survive? And what did it mean by heart, did it mean the tangible object, an emotion, or did the whole last line have an entirely different meaning?
Cas narrowed his eyes in thought. It was crunch time. Things were going by so fast, angels were dropping like flies, unable to turn their attention to an earth overridden with demons. Heaven was Castiel's priority, but they were so close, he could almost taste the demon-free world. Time was wearing thin for the already overworked angel. The gates must be sealed, soon, no matter the state he and Samandriel were in. Cas felt the glass vial and claw clink together in his pocket. They suddenly carried a very heavy weight.
Hi! Sorry if this chapter was sort of short. I have big plans for the next chapter, which might be the longest chapter in this whole story, so bear with me! Next chapter is on the way soon, and is definitely not a filler. I already have this story planned out all the way to the end, but I might also incorporate suggestions! Please leave a review, I love reading them :)