A/Ns: No one poked me this weekend to make sure I remembered what day it was! I can't decide if I am honored or neglected :D
Review Replies: I have still not gotten around to answering anyone yet, and for that I am very sorry! I still would like to, so it's on the to-do list for this week. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who comments or reviews, shares your thoughts or offers up encouragement, even when I don't always get back to you. I really appreciate every one of you that takes the time to 'pay' me for my work, if you will :)
Previously on TRSF… Sam woke up to Dean leaving their motel room in Lafayette, Indiana after they showed up on a case that turned out to not be a case. There was a knock on the door, Sam answered, and it turned out to be Ava Wilson, who seemed surprised to see him and tried to warn him he was in danger. Sam listened to her story about visions and his death, then left the room to call Dean. He had to leave a voicemail, since his brother didn't pick up. Meanwhile, Castiel awoke to Uriel helping him heal. He turned on Angel Radio and received Dean's prayers (warnings). He confronted Uriel about his plans to raise Lucifer, and the larger angel forced him back into a healing trance.
Chapter Reference – Cas's Panic Attack in Heaven: An earlier time in Heaven, Castiel and Uriel discussed Naomi and her memory tampering. Uriel confessed he had seen something like that happen to Castiel, in Egypt and again in Sodom. This realization that his mind had been tampered with sent Castiel into a panic attack, and he ended up fleeing Heaven to seek out Dean, Sam, and the grace in Dean's chest. See Chapter 54: Season 2, Chapter 21 for a refresher.
Chapter Warnings: Man, I am drawing a total blank for funny stuff here, damnit. Ava is unsuccessfully trying to get Sam to leave town, Sam is successfully heading right for his own death, Dean's already been there, done that, Rachel's pretty much ready to kill every human, and Cas is…well, Cas is just surprised to be alive.
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 59
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"Oh come on, why can't you just leave town?" Ava Wilson looked like she desperately wanted to stomp her feet up and down, but was holding back because she self-identified as a grown-ass woman. "Please? Before you blow up?"
"No, I can't," Sam insisted from where he was sitting once more on the edge of the mattress, tapping his cell phone into the palm of his hand, mind running a mile a minute and a hundred miles away.
Dean hadn't called back. Sam hadn't told Ava much when he'd come back into the room over two hours ago, just that his brother hadn't answered so he'd left a voicemail. But Dean was pretty good about answering his phone, and the fact that he hadn't... Sam knew he was out trying to summon an angel – not exactly the kind of thing you could take a call in the middle of – but no way that took two hours, with absolutely no available minute to check his phone.
Something about it all wasn't sitting right with the younger Winchester.
He needed to get dressed, get out there and figure out where his brother was. If Ava and her vision were right – that Sam was going to get himself blown up in some abandoned house – then someone was after him. That meant they could be after Dean, too. They could have already gotten to him and that's why he hadn't been able to call Sam back. His brother could be tied up in that abandoned house Ava had seen in her vision. Or he could be dead for all he knew.
Okay, so Sam was being a tad melodramatic. His brother wasn't dead, he just…wasn't answering his phone. Because he was summoning an angel. Which apparently took hours to do, on the one night another psychic showed up to tell Sam someone wanted him dead.
Great timing on that one, Dean.
"Oh, god, please? Please just leave? Why won't you listen to me?" The woman standing in his motel room looked beyond distressed. She'd passed stressed out and gone right into resigned despair somewhere after hour number one. Plus, she still wasn't sold on the idea that he wasn't crazy, which both irked and amused the younger Winchester.
"Because there's something going on here, Ava. I've got to figure out what." Sam climbed to his feet and grabbed his duffle bag from the floor, throwing it on to the bed. He needed clothes, first. "Besides, I'm not leaving without my brother."
Who would be calling back. Any minute now. Unless he was tied up and/or dead in an abandoned house.
"Do you remember that address, the one from your vision?" Maybe Ava's vision came true because Sam went to the address to try and find his brother. He knew about the trip wire now, thanks to Ava. He could avoid it and whoever had set it up in the first place.
"Okay," Ava breathed out, the word a little shaky. She ran her hands through either side of her hair. "Okay, you know what? No. Screw you, buddy! I came here to- to- I don't know, save your life, I suppose, when I should be at home addressing wedding invitations!"
She lifted her hands, one spread wide, the other pointing to a delicate, beautiful engagement ring. Sam's heart pinged for a moment, not only for this woman whose life was about to be – no, currently was – turned upside down, but because he had been her. A year ago, with an engagement ring of his own and someone waiting at home for him to come back to. Sam swallowed down the memory and turned away.
"Do you see this?" Ava continued, voice pitched in hysteria. She didn't notice Sam's discomfort, and carried on with her overly energetic bluster. "I am getting married in eight weeks, and I have a thousand things I have to finish before then. Instead of doing any of that, I drove out here to save your weirdo ass! But if you just want to stay here and die, fine. Me? I'm due back on Planet Earth."
Sam's phone dinged from the comforter beside his duffle bag. He picked it up, staring at a text from Dean. A message with nothing more than an address and the words, 'Sorry for radio silence found something'.
Six words. Just those six words; nothing about Sam's voicemail, a woman named Ava Wilson, or the fact that the younger Winchester was standing in their motel room with one of Azazel's special kids. Sure, it sounded like Dean, but anyone with Dean's phone could have just as easily scrolled through his text messages to pick up basic vernacular and syntax.
The hunter held the message out to Ava. "This the address?"
Her blue-green eyes widened, a watery sheen turning them into pools. "Oh god." Her wind-up speech about going home deflated right along with her composure. She looked up at him, those pools pleading. "Don't go. Please?"
"I have to," Sam answered, but paused as he pulled out a pair of jeans. He turned to her, looking the frustrated, frantic woman up and down with a sympathetic eye. She was freaking out, probably scared half to death, but she'd come here trying to do the right thing and was still standing in his motel room attempting to do just that. Sam gave her an encouraging and, what he hoped was calming, smile. "Look, I'll be okay."
"Yeah, sure you will."
He huffed out a vaguely amused breath of air. "I will, Ava. Thank you for coming here and warning me. But you need to go home, now."
The woman blinked, drawing back for a moment in pure surprise. "What? I- no…I don't...I don't think I should leave."
Sam's smile turned a little more brittle, but not because of her. All of Azazel's kids, at least the ones he'd met, were all something else. Kind or compassionate or brave or bold. Six months ago, it would have amazed him. Now, all he could think about were three dead bodies in Cold Oak and their friend in a hospital, muted for the rest of his life.
"I want you out of harm's way, Ava," Sam said, words firm and the conviction behind them even more so. He wasn't adding another body to that growing list. The hunter took a cautious step forward, telegraphing his movements loud and clear in case she rejected them. Sam knew she still wasn't sure about him. The feeling should probably be mutual, but everything in his gut told him Ava was telling the truth about who she was.
Instead of putting more distance between them, she just looked up at him with those big doe eyes. "What about you?"
"Harm's way doesn't really bother me." Sam offered a quirk of his lips and a semi-playful shrug. He settled an arm on her shoulder, a soft squeeze communicating his appreciation and his concern. "You did what you came here to do. You warned me."
"But…" Ava was shaking her head. She gestured to the phone in his hand. "You're walking right into my vision. I mean, this is how you die."
Sam squeezed her shoulder again before dropping his arm. "It doesn't matter. It's my brother."
Well, it could be his brother. He hoped it wasn't, but that text pretty much sealed the deal that it was.
"I- that…it should matter!" Ava protested. She let out a frustrated noise as Sam turned back to his pants, rifling through the bag for a shirt as well. "Maybe I could help. I may just be a secretary from Peoria, but there has to be something I can do!"
Sam paused, flannel in hand, to glance at her. Not in any sort of condescension, because secretary or no, that was a hell of an offer. One he didn't think she really meant, but appreciated anyway. Sam lowered his gaze, tossing the shirt onto the bed and starting to pull his pants on over his boxers. "You've done all you can, Ava. Just…just go back to your fiancé."
The word stung his heart like a perfectly formed barb, but it seemed to do the trick. Ava's resolve faltered, her right hand coming up to her left, twisting her engagement band around and around.
"Are you sure?"
Sam straightened, buttoning his jeans and turning back to her. He scooped his long-sleeved shirt off the bed, starting to put one arm it. "Yes, I'm sure. Go home, Ava. You'll be safe there."
She glanced over her shoulder at the door, her car parked just a couple rooms down from this one. Hesitantly, she turned back to the man who towered over her as he adjusted the flannel, fixing the collar. "Well, just…promise me you'll call then. I mean, when you get your brother, just to let me know everything's alright."
That he hadn't blown up, is what she didn't put into words.
Still ringing her hands, Ava pushed past him to walk over to the nightstand between the two beds. He watched her scribble down her number on the back of the same paper Dean had left him. She ripped it off the pad and handed it to him, waving the thin sheet insistently when he didn't take it right away.
"Alright," Sam agreed, folding it up and tucking it into his breast pocket. "I promise."
Ava Wilson stood there awkwardly for another moment before she nodded – twice – and then moved past him once more, heading for the motel door. Before she could open it, however, Sam's voice stopped her.
"Wait. Here." In a last minute decision, Sam reached across the length of the bed, digging beneath his pillow for his hunting knife. Before turning back around with it, he grabbed the sheath from inside the duffle, making sure it was fully seated and snapped shut before Ava saw it. Sam held the blade out to her, handle first. As unthreateningly as physically possible. "Take this."
Ava blinked at the offered weapon, then at the man holding it. "Did…you just pull that from under your pillow? Dude…who are you?"
"Uh…" Sam's genius mind ground to a halt, utterly blank. What could he say to that, other than 'exceptionally prepared' which any normal person would only take as 'incredibly paranoid.' "I, uh, just watch a lot of crime TV. Home invasions and…you know."
"Uh-huh." Ava took a few steps back into the room, still eyeing the ginormous hunting knife with trepidation. "And, uh, why do I need the world's biggest knife?"
"For…home invasions?" Sam tried, smile about as weak as the attempted joke. He flopped the knife back and forth as she stopped a few feet shy of taking it. "Look, remember that guy I told you about? The yellow-eyed demon?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna forget a story that crazy in…ever."
Sam resisted rolling his eyes and instead held out the knife again, pointedly. "If he comes for you, if you end up in an old Frontier town with other kids like us…just…keep this on you, alright? For protection."
"Protection, huh?" Ava took the last three steps hesitantly, but did reach out and take the weapon. It was clear by her awkward grip on both hilt and sheathed blade that she had no idea what to do with it. "I told you, the only protection I need is from my future Mother-In-Law."
And when it came to Brady's mother, there wasn't a knife on the planet big enough for that job.
The younger Winchester smiled tightly, his expression closer to a grimace than anything else. "I know. Just…promise me, alright? Keep it on you."
The woman chewed on her bottom lip. She'd never even handled a Swiss Army knife, let alone a blade this serious. Well…pointy end goes into the badguy, she figured with more than a little self-deprecation and sarcasm. After a moment, realizing Sam probably wouldn't let the subject go until she promised, Ava nodded. She twisted to tuck the hunting knife into her purse, still hanging off one shoulder. Getting it in there was definitely awkward, given its size relative to the size of her handbag. Which seemed hilariously – hysterically – ridiculous if you asked her. Ava nervously rubbed the palms of her hand on her thighs, her skin mysteriously clammy and really happy to be free of that blade. "You'll…um…call me, right?"
"Yeah." Sam nodded, and Ava stood there awkwardly for another moment, unsure whether or not to believe him, before she abruptly turned and headed for the motel door again and, this time, her car. Beyond that was home and a sleeping fiancé.
Once she was gone, Sam grabbed his jacket, wallet, and called for a cab on the motel landline. Dean had taken the Impala and all their weapons (again, nice timing, Dean), but Sam still had his gun, a backup blade he always kept in his boot, and his lock-picks. That would have to be enough.
-o-o-o-
Heaven was stupid.
Nothing there made since. Dean had been in a hallway entirely comprised of doors with 'D' names. Dean. Dean. A third Dean. Then Deandra, another Deandra, a couple more Deandras (who the hell was named Deandra, anyway, and why were there so many of them?) and then the Deidres started (Dean wasn't gonna even get into that one). Until finally, Dean had come to that left-ward hallway and decided to take it.
Now he was up to his neck in Humphreys, Hughes, and Hudsons. Why, in Hell or Heaven's name, would the H's connect with the D's? In what world did that make any sort of sense?!
A Winchester's world, Dean reasoned.
Anyway. Not his problem. His problem was Cas; he needed to find the idiot angel, but all these doors were clearly Human Paradises and not a place angels seemed to hang out.
(He'd opened one – just one – to investigate, only to bear witness something he could never un-see. Apparently, happy memories included happy memories. Also, Humphrey Beauregard the Fourth was very, very gay. Like, very gay. And into orgies. Which was not what Dean had expected from a man who died clear in the 1800s according to the date on his door (from what Dean was gonna guess was…Syphilis. Yeah, definitely Syphilis), along with being, as one could only assume from the interior décor and the name, very, very, very, very southern.
Gave a whole new term to the word 'buck.'
God, he needed soap for his eyes. And his brain. And his eyes. And his, just, everything. So, so much soap. Soap made from pure acid would be A-Okay by him.)
(This was Andy's fault. He'd been the one to start this. Dean was positive the kid was somehow to blame for the one door he'd dared to open in Heaven leading to more friggin' gay porn.)
He needed to get the hell out of these endless hallways. Especially since there was no way he was risking opening any more doors, which left him nothing but hallway. Endless, endless hallway. Dean needed to find the place with the angels. Wherever that was. Of course, him walking into a room filled with nothing but angels was gonna be the equivalent of Sam walking into a stripper joint just to order a salad. In other words, yelling "Look at me, I don't belong here!" at the top of his lungs and hoping to get a Caesar with tasty croutons out of it.
A bridge to be crossed (or straight up lit on fire) when he got to it, Dean supposed. Which he currently hadn't, cuz he wasn't gonna find an angel in these parts.
Which was the reasoning Dean would be giving anyone who might ask him later why he screamed like a little girl – "I didn't do it!" – shoulders hunched like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, when a female voice shouted his name with sound and fury. Dean barely had time to spin around before he was being tackled into the wall, pinned against the glowing surface by an irate angel.
He blinked at the familiar face.
"Rachel?"
"I told you to wait for me!" she practically yelled, one hand shoved against his shoulder, keeping him pressed to the wall, the other firmly on his wrist, which he'd started to raise in some futile hope of self-defense. "You couldn't wait one hour for me to find Castiel? You reckless, self-centered, suicidal-"
"Hey, I was waiting!" Dean asserted loudly in self-defense, raising his other hand up, fingers spread in pure innocence. "I don't know how I ended up here! I just woke up and-" he flapped that hand, flashing his fingers open and closed like jazz hands- "here I was! I figured…why waste it?"
Rachel released the human even as he shrugged his free shoulder in sheer nonchalance. Was…was he serious? This human managed to get himself killed within ten minutes of Rachel leaving him, and he'd just…woken up in Heaven, essentially realized he was dead, and his first thought was to break out and find Castiel himself?
Who was this man? Besides that point, how? That wasn't even supposed to be possible!
"So…did you find him?" Dean asked.
Rachel a raw noise that the human easily interpreted as annoyance – could practically see her ruffled feathers – but she did withdraw from his personal space. She composed herself, tugging at the ends of her blazer.
"I was searching for Uriel when I heard of your death and had to go searching for you instead."
Dean beat back the flash of guilt at those words. This was not his fault, he hadn't planned to die. But, like he said, he wasn't wasting it, either.
"Uriel?"
"I was hoping he would lead me to Castiel."
"Great. That makes sense." Dean clapped his hands together. "So where is he?"
Rachel tried not to be irritated by the human but failed. Mostly, she failed. "I got a quick sense of his location earlier. He was in the Paradises, adding credence to my suspicions that he is hiding Castiel in a set of human memories."
Dean tried not to snort. He tried. He, too, mostly failed. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, instead.
The angel eyed him for a moment, her explanation on pause, before she continued without comment. "He was in the G's. I know the approximate location. We will split up and search the rooms."
Dean winced at the idea, though not for any reason Rachel could discern or guess. But then he was nodding and looking around, so she didn't concern herself any further with it.
"Alright, let's go. Lead the way."
Rachel stared at the human, long enough for Dean to start wondering if she was gonna blink or just let her eyes get, all, like, dried out. What she was actually contemplating was whether or not to return him to his human Paradise. Taking him with her was nothing but an unnecessary risk. However…Rachel got the feeling she should not surrender him to Zachariah's men. Though she did not know why.
"You are a liability," she finally insisted, though even Dean could sense her hesitancy.
"You're wrong."
The angel blinked at the human's rapid-fire and, frankly, preposterous response. Dean stepped forward, bringing his face surprisingly close to her own. Rachel regarded the move – possibly a method of intimidation in his species? – with curiosity.
"Just point me in the right direction and I'll find Cas myself. If you're so worried about my dead weight than fine. Seeya."
Rachel's face flickered towards annoyance. She supposed the feeling of not handing him over to Zachariah was coming from the man's own blatant stubbornness. If he was this determined to locate Castiel, Rachel had a growing suspicion her friend and superior would be equally irritated to learn she left Dean Winchester behind. Knowing her commander as well as she did, Castiel would likely insist they immediately return for the wayward human. Which would prove troublesome if Zachariah located him first.
"Very well," the angel sighed. "It will be faster if we fly. I will carry you."
"Uh, yeah, no."
Dean immediately stepped back out of her space, putting himself against the wall once more since Rachel had never given him much space away from it to start with. She wondered if this action, too, was a human custom: to immediately yield intimidation upon success. It seemed…counterproductive to her.
With the wall pressed flush to his spine, Dean didn't have many other movement options – and he needed to move, apparently – than to slide awkwardly to his left a couple steps. He stepped into the hallway beside her, the angel turning to face him every inch of the way. God, she was as awkward as Cas had first been. Even more so, cuz she wasn't Cas.
"I'm good with walking. I've got legs, I'll use 'em. You should too, or you're gonna get flabby."
With that, he clapped his hands together and looked left and right down the hallway they were currently in. Rachel just stared at him.
"So…is it this way, or, uh, that way?"
-o-o-o-
"Angels do not get 'flabby.'"
Dean blinked at the woman walking alongside him, voice as stiff and taught as her posture. The defensive tone alone would have had Dean choking back a laugh if they weren't in a somewhat time-sensitive and kinda dire situation. Still, he had to bite back the snort that was desperate to slip free.
"You might not, but your vessel will."
Rachel gave him a sidelong glance, head tilting ever so slightly in a way that was just reminiscent enough of Cas to make Dean's chest ache. What was it with all the angels on his side pulling that move? Was it just the equivalent of 'I'm-actually-innocent-and-well-intentioned-unlike-the-majority-of-my-dick-family' in angelic body language? Or was it a thing that Cas had, like, taught his people?
"I am not currently in possession of a vessel."
Dean sorta tripped over his own feet and blamed a crack in the absolutely crack-less tiles they were walking across. He straightened back up and stared at the angel with incredulous eyes as they kept up the quick pace. "You mean you actually look like a middle-aged Martha with three kids and a minivan?"
The look Rachel gave him was something between 'I have no idea what you just said' and 'I am perfectly aware you just insulted me, you little ingrate', but what came out of her mouth, with a curious lilt and none of the sarcasm, was, "What do I look like to you?"
The human had to cycle through several inappropriate or not-as-funny-as-they-would-be-if-said-to-just-about-anyone-else responses and settled instead with the truth. "A middle aged woman named Martha with three kids and a minivan."
That look definitely shifted more towards the 'You're insulting me and I'm going to kill you slowly, ingrate' end of the scale. Dean shrugged, only a little apologetically.
"You look like a normal lady. Caucasian, about five seven, maybe, without the heels? You've got brown hair, green eyes." The hunter fidgeted as they kept up the quick walk, feeling more than a little odd describing to an angel what she looked like.
"The vessel I possessed when I spoke to you on Earth," Rachel confirmed, nodding.
Dean glared at her. "That's what I said."
The angel regarded him again, sidelong, before nodding once more – just a single, sharp bob of her head up and down – this time in concession. Dean wanted to roll his eyes, realizing that because he had not, literally, said those words in that order to her, she hadn't connected the dots. God, angels, man.
"As I said, I am not currently possessing Sonya Salomaa." The angel took a sharp right, practically cutting into Dean, who was on her right and ended up muttering under his breath to give a guy some warning next time. He opened his mouth to ask why she looked like her vessel then, but Rachel cut him off. "I can only assume you are viewing Heaven through the limits of your previous body."
The hunter stared at her. "Huh?"
"It is your human perception. You are incapable of translating what you are seeing into anything that makes sense to a soul used to viewing its surroundings through human eyes." When he just continued to stare, she sighed. "Basically, your current existence has only ever experienced the world through light waves translated into readable data by your severely limited human brain-"
"Hey, watch it, lady."
"-and your soul, which can see much more than your human eyes ever could, doesn't know any other way to tell you what you're seeing." Rachel concluded her (frankly insulting) explanation with a firm nod, like she'd solved cold fusion.
Dean was caught between glaring and admitting that that sort of made sense.
"So…what am I actually seeing?" He both did and did not want to know. Of course, curiosity won out as he looked around the endless hallways of white, white, and more white. And then Rachel. What did an angel's true form really look like? Dean had always sort of pictured Cas as a big, flowy, rainbow ghost the size of the Chrysler building.
Like those underwater aliens in The Abyss. Shiny, elegant, even goddamn pretty. And also utterly capable of eradicating life as they knew it, should they feel like it. Yup, definitely Cas in a nutshell, that one.
"If you were to embrace that you were nothing more than energy now? No body, no physicality, no eyes to see or brain to process?" Rachel gave him that sidelong look again and this time Dean did scoff at the judgement there. She didn't think he could do it. Well. He'd show her. Uh…if he felt like it. Later. The angel returned her gaze to the hallways, gesturing that they were taking the next left before she took it, this time. "You would see Heaven as it truly is. I have two faces, five limbs, and thirty-two eyes."
Dean didn't make the turn, stuttering to a dead halt and staring after the angel.
Rachel stopped when she realized her charge had and turned to look at him, blinking serenely. Like she was doing it all on purpose. "Oh, and a single pair of wings."
"What, some angels have more than just one?" Dean joked weakly, voice kinda cracking at the mental image her words had conjured.
She tilted her head to the side again and Dean resisted the urge to rub at a chest he apparently didn't actually have right now. Friggin' angels. "Of course. The Archangels have three."
"Three wings?" Dean pulled his head back, frown on full and eyes all squinty. Now she was definitely pulling his leg. He hadn't thought Rachel was capable of humor, to be honest. "How does that even physically make sense?"
"Three pairs," the angel corrected, that look sliding from judgmental to impatient. She gestured for the hallway. "We need to keep moving. Especially if you insist on walking there."
Dean started moving again, passing Rachel as quickly as he could and still reasonably call it a walk and not a run. He refused to look at her, to picture what she actually looked like past his human perception, despite the several times his eyes and brain tried it. And he definitely, definitely, absolutely wasn't thinking about what Castiel must really look like.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. He was good with the human woman and trench-coat wearing man, thank you very much.
Walking alongside him once more, the corner of Rachel's lips twitched. Dean didn't know if he'd said it aloud or, because he apparently didn't have a mouth and was just a ball of cosmic energy, it even mattered. Either way, she'd clearly heard him, because she shrugged one shoulder in as close to amusement as he'd seen her yet.
"Like I said. Limited."'
-o-o-o-
When he woke, Castiel was very surprised to do so. He had not expected to ever wake again. Or to be alive at all.
He was bound – coils of Uriel's grace pinning his wings to his main mass with his limbs all tangled together – and in a different Paradise then before. He seemed to be further into the memory, as well. His view of the doorway out to Heaven was obscured from his current position on the ground, behind a piece of furniture. The memory of humans and the one this Paradise belonged to moved about him, heedless of his presence.
Taking stock of his condition, Castiel realized with a pang of dismay that he was worse off than before he'd been forced into the second healing trance. He did not know if that was because very little time had passed – he had no way of judging how long he had laid unconscious – or because the healing trance itself had been damaging. Castiel had never before heard of a trance being used as an attack. He was uncertain of the ramifications of a non-consensual healing.
He also did not understand the point of his brother attacking him in such a way. Why had Uriel left him alive? Why attempt to further heal him? Perhaps his brother did not want to kill him where it would be so obvious or so quickly discovered. Perhaps Uriel and Malachi had plans to take Castiel down to earth and kill him there, and stashing him away in a Paradise under a healing trance was merely a holding pattern until they could accomplish this.
Due to the coils of his brother's grace firmly wrapped around him, binding his grace as surely as they bound his physical form, Castiel could do nothing but wait to find out.
He felt so very foolish. Miserably so. Dean had warned him about this very thing happening, and yet Castiel still trusted the wrong angel. They were his family. His brothers. Though it pained him now to see the truth behind that familial term Uriel used in their last conversation, the larger angel had not been wrong. They had once been brothers in arms. Castiel had fought alongside Uriel more times than he could count. Perhaps more times than he wanted to count. While the two of them had their differences when it came to the manner in which they performed their duties, how they interpreted their father's words and superiors' orders, the two angels fought well together. They worked well together.
Did they not?
Were all the memories Castiel had of working beside his brother false? Implanted in his mind to cover countless times just like this, when he had discovered Uriel's true nature and rebelled against it? After all, Castiel's memories of their mission in Egypt, in Sodom and Gomorrah, were incorrect and he and Uriel had worked together then. Was it possible all his memories of his brother were false? Could Uriel have been a traitor all along, and Castiel was the one who caught him, countless times? But then, why was it Castiel who was punished? Castiel whose memories were removed and replaced to be something they were not?
The angel's injured, pale grace lost what color it had left, leaving him a quivering puddle of liquid light. Ugly grey and dull, pooling on the carpet of a dead human's precious memories.
How could Uriel be in the right and Castiel the one disciplined?
Overwhelming emotion collected in Castiel's chest, pushing at his insides, expanding his damaged grace, making him feel like the skin he didn't have was too tight. The swirls of his grace began to churn and toss together. He felt vaguely nauseous. Castiel was not used to such devastating sensation; he did not know what to do with it. Panic was not an acute experience for him, not really, but this was reminding him of the last time he had been in Heaven. The last time he had started to feel as though the walls were closing in. The last time he had felt like something was wrong with him.
How could Uriel be right and Castiel the one built wrong?
"He's not right," the smaller angel spoke aloud. The sound of his own voice was bolstering in the quiet, and so Castiel said it again, "Uriel isn't right."
Even if it turned out that Castiel was wrong – that this was not the path God wanted him on, that he was disobeying – that did not make Uriel right. Castiel may not know what his path was supposed to be. He may be 'winging it' as Dean and Angela would say. But he knew that raising Lucifer was not right. Uriel was not right.
Strengthened by the revelation, Castiel's determination to escape his brother's confines increased tenfold. Unfortunately, there was still very little he could do while bound, and he had yet to conceive an escape from his fetters. It was possible to find the door back to Heaven while restrained, using what he could physically see, rather than sense it with his grace, but it would take time. Worse yet, he was in no condition to be walking about Heaven. Even if he did manage to escape either the bindings around his wings or around his legs long enough to actually fly or walk the hallways, his grace was still quite damaged, and Castiel feared he would not make it far. Especially when he no longer trusted himself to recognize friend from foe.
Still. Those were not reason enough not to try. If he could find the door, perhaps he could find a brother not aligned with Uriel or Zachariah who would be willing to assist him. He had to try. For Dean.
Castiel attempted to get himself upright. It was difficult, between his injured grace, weakened state, and bound position. But he had to try. He needed to get back to Dean, to apologize for making him worry, for not listening, not heeding his warning. And to warn him about the extent of corruption in Heaven, something Castiel feared even Dean might not realize the true depths of.
Castiel had to escape. For Dean and Sam, for the coming Apocalypse, and the world.
The angel had not yet leveraged himself into a seated position, trying to brace his mass against the back of the upholstered furniture, when the sound around him shifted tellingly. The noises of the memory – of the life in a living room held precious to one human soul – became dull and muted and the sounds of Heaven became loud and encompassing.
Someone had opened the door to this Paradise. Uriel had returned.
Castiel froze, back pressed to the couch at an awkward, half-slumped angle. He raised his bound limbs above his head, prepared to attack. Footsteps landed, soft and mostly silent, along the carpet. The angel could feel them almost more than he could hear them. They moved slowly, cautiously around the far edge.
Uriel must know he was awake. He must have sensed his return to consciousness, monitoring him still. The thought, which Castiel had once found comforting, now sent shivers through his grace.
Something metallic was moved, a light screeching as something hollow but made of metal moved across the floor. Castiel tilted his head to listen, but he could not make out what part of the human memory had been adjusted. Then the footsteps resumed, more readily this time.
The sounds of Heaven beyond remained strong and Castiel blinked in surprise. His brother had left the door open. The angel took the equivalent of a human breath, first in realization and welcome relief. Then deep and calming, forcing the churning of his grace to settle. Uriel had left the door propped open for some reason. Which meant Castiel had one chance to overtake the other angel and make it to the door. He could lock Uriel inside the memory and find help.
One chance, and it was a slim one.
A shadow moved along the side of the carpet to his left and Castiel readied himself. He gathered his legs beneath him, prepared to launch himself at his brother as soon as Uriel rounded the edge of the couch.
-o-o-o-
The cab idled about a quarter mile from the listed address, which happened to be in the middle of nowhere. The driver glanced around, then at the meter, and then his fare in the backseat.
"You sure this is where you wanna get out?"
Sam dug through his wallet for a couple bills, reaching over the front seat to hand them to the guy. "Yeah, this is good. Thanks."
He climbed out of the taxi, shutting the door and watching the driver hesitate, then shift into reverse and start backing down the single-lane paved road they'd found themselves on for the last thirteen minutes of the drive.
Middle of nowhere. Perfect for a trap, especially one involving a grenade.
Sam took a deep breath, pulling out the note from his brother and checking the back, where he'd scribbled down the address beneath Ava's phone number. 5637 Monroe Street. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if this was just what she had seen him do in her vision, before Sam pulled out his phone and hit the first speed dial. Dean didn't answer, the call ringing until it went to voicemail, and Sam hung up.
The hunter started down the dirt road, towards an abandoned house that was supposedly up ahead and on the right. A house that better have his brother – alive – inside.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A/N: Way nicer cliffhanger this time, no? Like…two baby cliffhangers. Itty-Bitty-Cliffies! I don't think I will ever top the killing-Dean-via-Sniper-Gordon cliffhanger again. All other cliffhangers shall look so small and gentle in comparison from here on out XD
(Actually…there is one more planned waaaaay down the line that might just top it, but we've got a long way to go for that one ;D)
Fun Fact #576: Dean definitely tried to picture Rachel's thirty-two eyes as being entirely contained on her two faces when, in fact, her eyes are all over her body and wings. XD Poor Dean. Thirty-two eyes on just two faces *would* be a creepy sight. Spider angels. On eye steroids.
Fun Fact #577: Although I have seen several artistic renditions of angels with eyes all over their body before, it was a Supernatural Fanfic (of which I have not been able to find again, unfortunately) that really got me to embrace it here. In that one Cas had multiple eyes, many on his wings, and the author put in one line, one incredible line, about how Dean always got annoyed when Cas wasn't looking at him when he talked, but what the human didn't understand was that Cas was *always* looking at him, just not always with the two eyes Dean could see. I *loooooooved* that line and appreciated how the author fully embraced angels as being 'other.' So that was the inspiration for all the angel eyes in TRSF :) If I ever find that story again, I'll add it as a note.
Up Next: Dean is not happy to be stuck opening more Paradise doors ('Please don't be more gay porn, please don't be more gay porn'), Castiel is fighting for his life, tackling that douchebag Uriel straight outta Paradise and back into Heaven, and getting rescued by his own charge (not necessarily in that order), while Gordon's setting up shop (and by that, I mean grenades. He's setting up grenades).