Quetzal – well, here we go! Sorry about the delay. Really good chappy this time I think, a new character shall appear and you will all sqwee I think. So onward, hope you like it.

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Chapter 8

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Dean landed on the grass hard, his wings bound by glowing bands. It had taken them nearly twenty minutes and more than a few nasty injuries to pin him down long enough to tie him up. He snorted, hoping it took the fuckers a while to heal. A brief glance around revealed him to be sitting in a massive clearing surrounded by trees that looked to be at least sky scraper sized. Smaller ones dotted the spaces between, with 'normal' sized bushes and such around them. It looked ancient and wild, but with a certain air that gave the impression that it was in fact laid out just right – not just growing wherever. Dean grimaced while squashing a bit of childish glee at the fact that he was very possibly in The Garden. Offhandedly he wondered how true it was that supposedly no human has stepped foot in here since Adam and Eve.

"Dean Winchester" Dean went still at the voice, the odd echo was certainly a new effect, but the voice carried an edge to it that Dean had already begun to associate with Gabriel. Cas didn't sound quiet like that. With that and his likely location, he had a good idea just who his jailer had dragged him to see. Dean pushed himself to feet and managed to not take a step backward at the sight that greeted him. He had always wondered just what an angel's true form looked like, or for that matter what an archangels looked like, but even with the strange little games of tag he had taken to playing with Cas in true form he'd never actually seen him.

Michael was what Dean could only call 'mountain sized' and honestly if he was remembering right he was supposed to be even bigger than that. Overall the angel looked…a lot more, well – normal then he'd have thought. He'd imagined that angels were just energy with a form a human couldn't define. What with the way everyone was always going on, but – well. The archangel may have been massive but he certainly looked like a living creature. The body looked vaguely like something you might get if you took a delicate long limbed wolf and made it moderately humanoid with elements that vaguely reminded him of Chinese dragons. The six massive wings were the same kind of semitransparent crystal that Cas's were, only Michaels were a sky blue shading down to white at the tips. His body was a lot more solid looking but the blue and cream colored fur that covered his form had a glint to it that suggested it was just as crystalline as the wings.

Dean blinked and craned his head up to get a look at Michaels face. Apparently the myths had gotten something other than the wings sorta right. Three heads stared down at him. On the left and right the heads resembled a lion and an elk? Not a moose, he thought curiously, the antlers were wrong for that – reindeer? Whatever, he turned his attention to the central head, which was by far the strangest. it looked vaguely like a human face, but it was a solid plain of crystal – like a mask. Ice white with glowing blue eyes.

Well, he'd seen stranger beasts, he figured. But down to business.

"What have you done to yourself?" Michael demanded leaning down to peer at him, or rather at the copper wings on his back. Dean glared up at him.

"I didn't do shit, you don't like it take it up with God, he's the one responsible for the wings." Dean spat. Michael reared back all three heads staring in shock.

"YOU LIE!" Dean flinched down in pain, the shriek making his ears ring.

"JACKASS!" Dean snarled, with a wrench he finally managed to yank his wings free, fanning them wide in an instinctive attempt to look more intimidating. "You think id lie about something like that? To YOU? How fucking stupid do you think I am?" Michael snarled at him. ok apparently this was the wrong conversation to have with Michael.

"Oh you're apparently stupid enough! Father would not come back for you after all I have prayed for him to return to us! To claim such just shows how foolish and desperate you are to try to stop fate! Now, I will ask again – what did you do to yourself?" Dean stared at Michael warily for a long moment.

"Even Gabriel agreed that it was God, the way that I changed could only have been him! Something about how the Grace I had from Cas changed or something." He finally said, Michael stared at him, the lion heads lips slowly curled back in a vicious snarl. Ah crap.

"GABRIEL DIED MILLINIA AGO!" he roared in utter rage the shockwave knocked Dean back into an ancient looking tree. Dean twisted back to his feet just in time to be smashed into the ground by a titanic taloned hand. Dean felt something in his chest twist a feeling like ice water in his vein surged outward and into the new wings. A flash of golden light blasted outward Michael shrieking as he was knocked backward.

Dean, breathing raggedly, stared for a moment at the dazed archangel before bolting. Well, either he'd gotten a few more cool tricks or God had just saved his ass once again. Probably God. Dashing away he shot through the trees – trying to remember every bit of lore he could about the garden. If he was remembering right there were four gates. One on each side. No doubt they had been somewhere near the middle so it didn't really matter which way he ran, he'd find the wall eventually and a gate. Unfortunately said gates were guarded…

A few minutes later a massive wall came into sight over the trees, it towered even over the tallest of them. Dean paused to gawk at the sheer size for a moment before taking off again. A silver gate, large enough even for Michael to walk through with space to spare, came into sight off to the left. Dean grinned and changed course - a moment later he found himself eating dirt.

"Well well, what do we have here?" Dean snarled and twisted around, he knew that greasy voice. Zachariah cursed and nearly lost his grip as dean twisted under him wings tucked in tight as he made it to his back and tried to knee the shithead in the gut. Dean growled as Zachariah avoided the gut hit and slammed him back down. The smarmy fuck smirked down at him, wing wide above them. Dean shifted his gaze up to them a decidedly nasty idea forming in his mind. Zachariah would regret pinning him like this. With a hard wriggle he got his wings unpinned. Zachariah quirked an eyebrow up. "And just what do you think you're going to do, Dean?" Dean smirked up at him.

"I guess you didn't get the memo." He answered and snapped his wings upward, leading edge first and glinting like a blade. The natural curve of the wing brought them around perfectly to dig into the base Zachariah wings. The angel only had an instant to comprehend just how much of a mistake he had made before with a gush of silver blue blood his wings fell away from his back – burning to ash before they even properly hit the ground. Zachariah was frozen for an instant his face twisting into an expression of agony before Dean kicked out knocking him away. The landing jarred the angel out of shock but Dean was already moving when the first horrific howl of agony sounded behind him. Dean didn't bother looking back, he had at least a vague idea of what it meant for an angel to lose their wings. It wouldn't kill him, but Dean honestly didn't think the bastard deserved death.

Dashing away Dean reached the Gate in moments he wondered for a moment where the guard was, they hadn't left something theoretically that important to Zachariah – had they? With a snort he stepped through the open gate and got his first look at heaven. He barely even heard Zachariah's screams behind him as he tried to comprehend what he was looking at. It was like an Eschiser drawing on LSD. Right, Dean forced himself to focus and not stare blankly at the physics defying architecture. There was no way he was getting around this place on foot, but aside from his aborted practice not even half an hour ago, he had no idea how to fly.

Dean frowned and looked down, trying to trace one of the strange pathways that seemed to lead further down. Right, Heaven – seeing as he wanted to get out, well – out was down one way or another so he could probably get by with only being able to glide. He grimaced - fear of flying or dealing with Michael, not much of a choice there he thought, and spread his wings wide all the same before jumping off the ledge and shakily following the pathway below – wobbling unsteadily in the air as he carefully rounded a turn. When Michael finally recovered from Dean's attack and had directed Raphael to see to Zachariah, the path Dean had taken had reverted to its normal configuration. Leaving Michael with no idea that Dean was heading downward a completely different way than the path before him.

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Dean swore and ducked around another path dropping to the next one below as another group of angels shot across the area looking for him. He waited till they passed before spreading his wings once more and zipping away. He was certainly getting better at it. Nothing like a little motivation to get you going he thought sardonically. His gut still twisted if he got more than a few feet off the ground but he was managing.

Coming around a corner and into a plaza of some sort he paused, annoyed. The only path out was a massive rather foreboding building in front of him. Not that it really fit the normal definition of building. It was more like a massive sphere that hung in midair. The rounded platform he had come out on dropped away to the sides, the next lower path was what looked like miles below. Dean backed up from the edge hurriedly. Fuck, he was going to have to go back. He turned to head back to the nearest fork only to catch the barest edge of wing beats headed his way. He cursed and turned racing through the white stone entrance for the building.

Dean blinked at the sudden darkness as he stepped inside. Well, relative darkness. He could see just fine, but compared to the almost glaring brightness of the rest of heaven it was practically pitch black in here. He heard a commotion on the path outside and hurried further into the building. They must have been tracking him somehow he figured with a grimace. Hopefully they would think he had dropped down to one of the other paths rather than take the apparent dead end, and really – what the fuck was this place?

It was fucking creepy, and creepy in a way he had never expected to run into in Heaven of all places. Wandering down another hall he finally got his answer as to just what he had stumbled across. Four cells lined the walls of a dead end hallway. Dean studied them warily. Given the scale of each cell it was fairly obvious what they were meant to hold. He wondered if this was where they had kept Cas while they were trying to 'reeducate' him. He wandered down the hall curiously glancing into the first two cells. Both empty. He considered them for a moment before glancing down the hall, given how big they were the other two cells were actually quite far away. Dean considered for a moment before walking the rest of the way down. The third cell he looked into held what he had half expected to find. A quick glance told him the other was empty. Looking back he considered the curled form huddled at the back of the cell. Most of its body hidden under a ragged wing that looked to be missing half its crystalline feathers, those that remained were cloudy and cracked.

"So, what did you do to end up in here? I thought angels who really fuck up Fall?" he asked, noting the massive silvery stains on the white stone of the floor. Angel blood. Somebody had been working this poor bastard over. The angel flinched violently at the sound of his voice and somehow shrank back further into the corner. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not even an angel, ok?" Dean called. After several long moments a single silver eye became visible between the shredded feathers. "Hey." Dean nodded to the angel, his copper wings fluffing up a bit as he tried to look a little less threatening. The eye stared for a long long moment.

"You're not an angel." The angel questioned. Dean had to stare for a moment at the sound of its voice. The angel sounded like he'd inhaled a few dump trucks worth of gravel.

"No," he finally answered. "I don't think whatever I am now has a name yet, but I was human." He shrugged. The eye blinked the wing shifting slightly bringing the angels face more or less into view. It was still kinda freaky, how an angels face looked more like a near featureless mask than anything else. He'd expected two eyes now that its face was revealed but a long crack cut through the mask bisecting the other eye. It was fairly obvious that the angel was partly blind.

"It has been a long time….since I saw a human." A second face, this one intact apart from a tracing of thin silvery scars peaked out from behind the one that had been looking at him. The delicate face of a deer studied him tiredly. The multiple heads thing was never going to stop being weird Dean grumbled to himself.

"How long have you been in here?" he asked after a moment, the angels eyes lost focus as he thought.

"One hundred ninety five thousand years, three months and sixteen days," he answered after a long moment. Dean's jaw dropped, not sure whether to be horrified or dumbstruck.

"What the fuck did you do?" he demanded, the angel flinched back – wing snapping back to hide his face again. A muffled sob reached Deans ears. "Ah, shit – sorry? …but seriously what could you do to deserve to locked up that long?" the angel shivered, the movement causing the sharp planes of the visible wing to briefly throw shards of light around the room like a disco ball.

"I ruined everything." It whimpered. Dean frowned dubiously – everything? That was a damn tall order.

"How so?" he asked. The angel went still, when he spoke again his voice was completely dead.

"I was commanded to protect Eden and not allow Lucifer entry, he tricked me, and corrupted the humans. Everything that came after was my fault." Dean stared at the angel for almost a minute, dead silent. He kinda wanted to be pissed. This, if this angel had done his fucking job none of it would have ever happened, but, the longer he looked at the broken creature wedged into the tiniest ball it could manage in the corner of the cell. All he could really see was Sams look of horrified terror when he realized what he'd done as light began to pour from the spiraling bloodstains on the floor of the chapel.

"I doubt it was your fault." He finally said. The angels shivering abruptly stopped.

"What?" its voice almost croaked. Dean sighed and shook his head.

"You might have been the first one that Lucifer really tricked. But you certainly were never the last. I've done just as bad, and I'll probably never manage to atone for breaking the first seal, but I'm still going to try." All three of the angel's heads came out from behind his wing this time, staring at him in confused shock.

"But…IT WAS MY FAULT!" the deer head weaved a bit in the air in confusion while the central masked one stared at him blankly. The third which Dean could now see was a wolf or something promptly buried itself back under the wing. "I FAILED!"

"IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT!" Dean snapped back causing the angel to recoil. "Did you let Lucifer into the garden knowing full well who you were letting in? Did you know what he planned to do?" Dean demanded. The angel shrunk back a little more.

"No.."

"Then it's not your fault." Dean said cutting the angel off before he could going into a rant about how he was so horrible again. "Now, if he tricked you again with you knowing now what he is, then it would be your fault. But as it is – it's on him, not you."

"But….father said." The angel trailed off as Dean snorted rudely.

"I couldn't care less what he said. It's not your fault. What it is, is your responsibility. And there's a big fucking difference there." Dean smirked at the shocked angel.

"How can you say such things about father?!" the angel squeaked, Dean rolled his eyes.

"Up until the last few days I had zero reason to respect God. He got a few points in his favor in the last week or so, but there's a long way to go before I actually respect him." Dean answered with a shrug. The angel was quiet staring at him puzzled. Dean sighed. "Alright, look – what God said before is mostly irrelevant at this point. God left a really long time ago. He turned back up in the last few days long enough to turn me into whatever the hell I am now, and yell at Gabriel for his idea of flight training, and it was probably him that kept Michael from killing me a few minutes ago when I escaped. But at this point he's been leaving everyone hanging about what their supposed to be doing. The Host starting the apocalypse? Helping the demons trick my brother into freeing Lucifer from his own prison? That wasn't on his orders, their acting on their own now. Now, are you going to sit there and pity yourself or are you going to tell me how to get this cell open so you can help stop them from killing every last human on the planet?" the angel starred at him, dumbfounded.

"Father….left? They….they want to kill the humans? But…we must protect them! You aren't capable of defending yourselves that is why we must keep the humans safe! You are family!" the angel hissed. Dean blinked. Family? Had there actually been a point, where angels had honestly considered them…family? Amazing. Dean studied the angel intently as it muttered to itself distractedly, some of them had it would seem. The angels paused in his muttering and looked up staring at him. "You said that you escaped from Michael….yet father has – the few times he has returned, helped you?" at Dean's nod the angel shifted his gaze to the ground, thoughtful.

"It's pretty much just me, my brother, Castiel and Gabriel against everybody else in this situation. They rest of them are either all for it or too scared to speak out against Michael." Dean added, he smiled wryly. "Not the best odds – but if we don't win, well." Shrugged. The angel looked up, startled.

"Gabriel, is helping you? I heard he died" he asked blankly. Dean snorted.

"For the most part, and no he faked his death. He couldn't stand the way everyone else wanted to just destroy everything, he didn't want to fight – on either side, and so he left and hide. We found him a month or so ago. With my transformation he decided to stick around to see what happened. So…are you going to help, or just sit here?" Dean asked shooting a glance down the hall. He had been here too long they were going to figure out where he went. The angel was silent for a long moment. The Angel finally hissed softly to itself before nodding sharply and heaving itself painfully to its feet, several long strides brought it to the door. This close Dean finally got an idea of just how big it was. He may not have matched Michaels near mountain size, but he looked to be at least twice as big as Cas's previous description of his own skyscraper size.

"I will help." Dean grinned up at him.

"Good, so – what's your name?" the angel blinked surprised.

"My name? I..I am Gadreel."

"Nice to meet you Gadreel. Now let's get you out of here."

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Dean paced worriedly outside the little bar where Gadreels vessel apparently worked. They had stopped in some kind of little pocket dimension thing on the way to earth earlier so Dean could give Gadreel the whole 'heaven hell and the apocalypse 101' speech. That had been a long conversation. Actually busting out of Heaven had involved some dramatic explosions and the angelic equivalent of smoke bombs. Luckily Gadreel for all that he was worn down and injured was plenty big enough to pretty much just run the guards over on the way out. Not that hard really they were supposed to be keeping people out and watching for Dean, not for rouge angels knocking them all on their asses and making a run for it. Now here they were here at some little bar while Gadreel explained everything to his vessel and hoped the guy would say yes. Dean was actually pretty impressed with Gadreel on this – the angel had decided to tell the man the entire truth after hearing about how angels went about acquiring vessels normally.

Defiantly earned himself brownie points there. The world around him seemed to almost hiccup suddenly, Dean paused and turned to the door, waiting. A few moments later a man stepped outside, he looked mid-thirties or something a bit scruffy maybe but not bad really. The cracked and splintered wings folded carefully over his back glinted milky white and greyblue in the dull light.

"You two good then?" he asked. Gadreel nodded carefully.

"Yes. Once I explained what the Host was trying to do and that I planned to help stop them he was only too glad to render his assistance. I agree to allow him to remain awake for the most part as well – as he knows more about the world now than I do." Dean nodded. Well that solved a few problems. Gadreel was even farther out of the loop on, well, everything – then Cas had been. And Cas was pretty damn far out of the loop.

"Good, now for the hard part." He agreed and pulled out his phone. It had been at least two days since he'd been captured. Sam must really be panicking by now. The phone rang only twice before Sam answered it.

"DEAN! DEAN WHERE ARE YOU! ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?" Dean winced, glad he had been holding the phone away from his face, a button press later and Sam was on speaker phone.

"Yeah, I am fine. Little banged up but I got thrown into a tree by a really pissed archangel so I think I got off pretty damn lightly."

"Hey, Dean-o!" Gabriel's cheerful voice cut in suddenly. Dean grimaced, he certainly hadn't forgotten the fuckers little joke yet. "I hear somebody helped break you out, whose the unlucky bastard joining the team now? Maybe I'll finally have someone to complain about you two with!" Dean sighed, annoyed – but glanced at Gadreel. The angel nodded after a moment looking depressed.

"You're probably not going to like it, either of you."

"Who, me and Sammy? I'm sure regardless of which of my baby brothers you dragged down with you we'll all get along fabulously.

"I meant you and Cas, actually." Dean answered dryly. "And somehow I doubt you're going to be all sunshine and roses about it."

"Well, you didn't bring Zachariah, so it can't be too bad, kido. Heard what you did to him, can't say I like it but the little shit certainly deserved it."

"Right, it's Gadreel." Dean answered dead silence greeted this pronouncement.

"Uh, Dean? Who's Gadreel?" Sam asked cautiously. Dean smirked wryly, Gabriel must have a really funny look on his face right now.

"Gadreel is the angel that Lucifer first tricked to get into the Garden for the whole apple fiasco. He's apparently been locked up in Heaven this whole time being tortured for it." Dean didn't need to be able to see Sam to know the look of horror on his face.

"Dean." Gabriel was back it seemed. "Did it never occur to you, that maybe he was locked up for a reason?" Gabriel's voice was harsh. Dean snorted.

"Fuck that, just because he was the first person to get completely fucked over by Lucifer doesn't mean it's anymore his fault then it is when it happens to anyone else! You don't seem to blame Sam for being led around by Ruby and Lilith, and he ought to have known better!" Dean snapped back. Gabriel was quiet here, Sam cut back in.

"I think I remember that part of the story now, it never does really say what happened to Gadreel though."

"I wouldn't know, Sammy." Dean answered with a sigh shooting another look at Gadreel. "Is Cas there?"

"Yeah, he looks pretty pissed, so does Gabriel for that matter." Sam answered warily. Dean sighed.

"Great." Dean muttered darkly. "Alright, I'm staying with Gadreel for now, give those two some time to get their heads out of their asses, you can meet up with us later if they don't, alright?" Sam's sigh made him wince. "Sammy?"

"Yeah alright, but be careful – what if he's lying and he really did help Lucifer?" Sam pointed out, it was pretty reasonable really. Dean had learned long ago to trust his instincts though, and everything was telling him that Gadreel could help. He glanced at Gadreel only to do a double take. Gadreel's eyes were glowing a bit and wow did he look pissed.

"You listen to me boy!" Gadreel snarled. "I would never help Lucifer! After what he did? After what I am now responsible for because of him? You truly think I would help him? I never trusted him after he first spoke out against Father! That is why I was tasked with guarding Eden! Father knew no amount of convincing would gain him entrance if I was standing guard! That is why he had to trick me!" on the other end of the line Sam stared at the phone, a bit taken aback, he hadn't realized that Gadreel was listening. He was quiet for a moment before answering.

"Then you should know better than anyone why we need to be careful Gadreel." He answered quietly. Gadreel flinched a bit at this looking away from the phone. Gabriel starred off into the distance thoughtfully before glancing back at the phone his expression just a hair softer. Castiel was still glaring distrustfully. Gabriel glanced back at Cas and sighed. Cas glanced at him startled, they stared at each other for several long moments. Sam completely obvious to the silent conversation. Cas nodded shortly looking mutinous. Gabriel just smiled wryly and looked back to Sam.

"You can come over, neither of us is going to hurt him, Dean." Dean was silent for a moment before huffing in annoyance.

"Good, enough of this chick flick shit, where are you guys?" Dean demanded. Sam rolled his eyes.

"Same hotel as before, Chuck said we should stay in town."

"Alright, see ya soon." Dean flipped the phone closed and looked at Gadreel. The angel smiled tiredly and nodded before spreading cracked wings and flitting away dragging Dean along with him.

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Quetzal – nice, hu? Dean is a bit OC but he never really does the chick flick stuff willingly so I had to fish a bit to get that to work… Also you will notice that my Gadreel is a bit different than the one you're familiar with. Personally I thought he was way to well-adjusted for how many years of being locked up and tortured by the angel guarding him? Also the number of years Gadreel has been locked up is not random. It's when Homo sapiens first appears in the fossil record. It was a good number to work with.