WOW! An update in the same year! The same season even (for me. It's still summer). It was even last month! Shocker! Here you go.
Hidden Wings
Mikkal
Chapter Five
Dean
Not too long ago, if you would believe it, Sam Winchester died quite violently with a knife in his back, his brother-not-brother screaming his name so desperately it didn't matter they weren't related by blood or marriage, they were brothers damnit. At this moment, though, in a NCIS office in Washington, DC Sam Winchester was very, very much alive.
That was because of one very simple thing, his brother sold his soul to the devil in return for Sam's. Usually, that deal lead to ten years with the living before the hellhounds came for you and ripped you to shreds to reach the glowing and too-bright essence that made you, well, you. Dean Winchester, formally and formerly Alec McDowell, was to only receive one year. You see, Hell was on a schedule and, I guess you could say, so was Heaven.
The brothers spent nine months on a frantic search for an answer to their problem. Dean could not go to hell, he just couldn't. Every which way they turned there was nothing, not even their coveted second father Bobby Singer was at a loss.
By the tenth month, exactly two before Dean was to be hunted down, Dean had given up hope.
On the first day of the eleventh month Dean started the transition into hell. Before the hellhounds even began to sniff you down you had to feel fear—more fear than you would ever imagine. Dean began to see the ghouls and ghosts in their ever glory, the image they didn't show even to Hunters, he began to see the true form of demons when they were in possession of a meat suit and the flaking skin of a woman who was selkie. He could feel the burn of hell as it encroached on the living before the burn of heaven chased it away, but the fear of heaven was equally as frightening.
The seventh day into that eleventh month came a meeting that would be written in the books for the millenniums to come. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, Angel of Thursday, and Official Guardian of Dean Winchester (Sam has a separate one), came to Dean in a storm of rain and wind about six months before the grand design said to have it fated.
As the grand design (as so aforementionedly mentioned.) wrote it, Dean was to go to hell in less than two months and break the first Seal (a Righteous man to shed blood in hell, though Dean would tell you he wasn't righteous as either Alec or Dean, there are the words of the Lord to tell you that were are just plain wrong). Breaking this Seal would start the Judeo-Christian Apocalypse.
When Dean's deal was made, Michel, the Soldier of God and eldest brother to the forsaken Morning Star Lucifer, was all in favor of the Apocalypse. He had read his Father wrong and thought the Lord had grown tired of his greatest Creation's chaos and blatant disregard for themselves and each other and Him. He thought his Father gave consent in his silence.
His Father most definitely did not.
So Dean Winchester was Saved before he actually needed Saving. The grand design was scribbled over with a permanent marker so no one could know what it use to be and re-written in pencil because the Winchesters in every form had a tendency not to follow the rules.
And, besides, there was more than one way to start an apocalypse—the "a" is just not capitalized in a majority of the cases.
Saving Dean ahead of time had its costs, though. In order to rid the hell-taint and the demon-hold from the Righteous man Castiel had to lose a little part of himself. Dean had to lose a little part of himself as well.
Castiel gained the parts of Dean that were already tainted and Dean gained the parts of Castiel that weren't. The Angel was more than just an angel, not any less. And the Righteous man was more than man, not any less.
Sam knew of his brother's past not long after that. The only other person (person being the keyword here because Angels were more than persons, they were, for the lack of a better term, beings) who knew about this whole rigmarole of a mess was Victor Henriksen—the least likely of men to know and, yes, he is alive and well and did not die when that police station blew up. He's too good for that.
(More on his awesomeness later)
Dean had a faint connection to the Angel Radio that blared in his head every second of every day of every year. It wasn't something he could turn off. It was bearable most of the time, but sometimes, when important things happened (or when any Archangel liked to speak up (he blamed Gabriel most of the time but Michael was really, really loud)) he got a migraine.
As a transgenic he didn't get headaches, not even the shakes like most of the X-5s (as was their designation) because he was smart and stayed with Manticore so they could fix it. He was perfectly fit until he got shot (or a bomb placed at the base of his skull) then he wasn't perfectly fit but he was again eventually.
As a Winchester he went through things he hadn't even been able to imagine (it's laughable now that he thought Manticore and the Breeding Cult were the two ultimate bad guys in the story).
It boggled the mind everyday.
As fate had it, Dean was sitting deep in his little couch in the apartment he shared with Sam. Castiel was there, so was Gabriel, Michael was off doing something snotty because even thought he'd been shown the error of his ways (with a giant scolding from God Himself (or, collectively, for the mortals, known as Chuck Shurley who didn't know when to keep his mouth shut)) Michael was still a little bit of a douche.
Gabriel snapped his fingers. "Fae!" He exclaimed. "They could be descendants of a Fae-Human combination. That would explain the ability to breed out a weakness to a certain virus, the Fae were weird about what they got sick from. It would explain why they have powers."
"Traditional Old Fae have been lost to this world for centuries," Castiel said, on the other side of the argument. At this point Dean was convinced the two brothers just liked being on difference sides of petty arguments.
"Who knows how long the Breeding Cult's been a breeding cult," Gabriel argued. "Just long enough. They're probably the reason the Fae are gone! Didn't want some stuffy supernatural creatures getting in the way of their genocide."
"Is it considered genocide?" Dean wondered absently. "I mean, it's the deliberate killing of a large group of people. This is a bit more than a large group of people."
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "If you're going to be weirdly outro-spective then I'm going to leave."
"Leave where?" Castiel asked as Dean hummed (the aftermath of migraines always put him through a loop).
"Stalk Sam, probably," Gabriel said nonchalantly.
"I don't think outro-spective is right," Dean said as he moved from sitting to lying down, pushing his face into the cushions of the couch. "Don't let anyone see you," he told Gabriel. "And try to tell Sam what we have so far."
"One, we have one so far," Gabriel snarked. In a flutter of wings he was gone, Dean didn't even have to look.
"He has a point," Castiel's voice came from the general vicinity of Dean's left.
Dean stuck a hand out and waved it, trying to smack the angel away like he was some flying pest (which he was…sometimes). "He has a stupid point," Dean muttered. "One is better than none. Now let me sleep."
"Fae would not be powerful enough in this diluted form to chase Alphas or kill Angels, no matter how lower those Angel's are," Castiel said instead of shutting up.
Dean groaned. "Maybe they're different Fae. I still don't understand why the Breeding Cult is going after them in the first place. What does that do for them anyway? And don't get me started on the six year gap between the fall of Terminal City and Max—Suzanne—actively seeking us out again and the news reporting it. Now, please, Cas, let me sleep."
Castiel actually fell silent and Dean drifted off into an uneasy sleep, the faint buzzing of angels in his ear (but not really in his ear) and the presence of another, quieter, angel hovering over him awkwardly.
