DCBB fic - Are You There, Dean Winchester? It's Me ... God - PART TWO
MASTERPOST
***********************
PART TWO
***********************
~~~DEAN~~~
***********************
Upon the instant of his return to consciousness, the first thing Dean Winchester noticed was that his head felt like someone had forcibly jammed a watermelon three times the size of his skull through his eye sockets and into his brain cavity. Not a pleasant feeling to say the least.
The next thing he realized was that although he was awake now, he couldn’t even find the strength to open his eyelids, much less wiggle his pinky. His entire body felt like he’d been run across hot coals, and then drug behind a horse running the Kentucky Derby, and then maybe like a giant meat tenderizer had softened him up for the grill.
There was a soft pillow cradling his head, and he was sinking into probably the most comfortable mattress he’d ever experienced in his life. He should feel wonderful. Instead he wanted nothing more than to maybe jab a syringe of Morphine straight into his skull. His skin felt almost too tight for his body, too. Like there was something bigger inside of it that wanted to break free.
And seriously? Was it 120 degrees in this damn room? Because it’s fucking HOT.
“Dean? Are you awake?”
Castiel’s soft words washed over him, and could have sworn something inside his chest sighed happily without his permission. He forced his tongue to push past his lips and moisten them.
Fuck, his mouth was dry, too. Had he been sucking on cotton, for shit’s sake?
With way more effort than it should have taken, he convinced his eyelids to open far enough to see Cas’ worried face hovering over him.
Internally he wanted to mention the personal space thing again, but really, he was just too fucking tired to give a damn. He blinked a couple times and then nodded a little to acknowledge Cas’ question. Really didn’t trust his mouth or throat at the moment, to attempt speech.
Cas’ entire body seemed to slump a little in relief. For the angel to show an emotional response so readily was vaguely worrying. Or, would probably be worrying if Dean could convince his brain cells to come down from their ‘I just sucked up a zeppelin’s worth of helium’ high and focus. Instead he just found himself blinking stupidly at this friend.
“DEAN!?”
And crap, there was worry-wart number two. Sam’s forehead, followed closely by the rest of his face, pushed Castiel out of Dean’s line of sight. The Tower of Winchester looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and damn if there didn’t appear to be tears threatening to spill over. Dean closed his eyes. For Sam to have that look, not to mention the outright ‘fret’ that had been present in Cas’ face, it must have been bad. Whatever it was.
He remembered some angel slamming him down into the concrete. He remembered Raphael’s pointy bitch-boot jabbing him in the side. He remembered the warm feel of his own blood pooling around his head, and the cloying scent of iron and copper in the air.
Oh yeah. He also shoved an unknown weapon of Heaven into his gob like an oversized Jelly Belly. Nice one, Winchester. Way to fucking improvise. Although … considering their apparent current state of ‘not deadness’, maybe it had worked out okay after all. His back and head felt amazingly intact, as well.
Right. Down to business. He opened his eyes and licked his lips again, smacking them together with as much force as he could muster. Trying the universal body language translation of ‘stop staring at me and get me some fucking water to drink, you asshats.’ It must have worked because Sam got his ‘Ding! Ding!’ expression and shot off somewhere to the right. This left only Castiel in Dean’s current view of the world.
Castiel.
Castiel who had a little flush of heat across his cheeks and his mouth slightly open in a soft little ‘o’, with his gaze laser-locked to Dean’s lips. Aaaaaaand that’s a new one. Cas usually had no problem staring you right in the eye. Truthfully, he did it too often and too intensely. This was different. This was unsettling. This was … probably the face that Dean made when he was picking up a woman and imagining what her lips would look like wrapped around his cock.
The utter shock of that thought had him choking on nothing but air, and racked his body with great heaping sputtering coughs. Sam was suddenly there with a glass of cool water being held to his lips, and Castiel had instantly moved to the opposite side of the bed to raise him up slightly to drink. Dean downed the water in record time, then pushed away from Cas and flopped face first back into bed with a curse whispered on his lips.
“Dean?”
He waved a dismissive hand in Sam’s general area.
“M’okay, Sammy. Was just-”
Thinking. Contemplating. Considering. Imagining.
“-remembering.”
His overlarge little brother scooted closer, and even if Dean couldn’t see them, he knew the big Sammy puppy eyes were out in full force and chock full of concern.
“What do you remember, Dean?”
He grunted and shoved his face into the fluffy goodness of the pillow beneath him. Damn, what were these things made of? And could he possibly find a place to stash them in the trunk of the Impala?
“Remember shoving the little ball of light in my mouth. That’s the last thing I got.”
One of the two shifted on the bed, but he was so sleepy-tired-warm he couldn’t really register which one it was. He snuggled down deeper into the soft mattress. Must be a pillow top, too. Damn. Whoever’s bed this was knew how to live.
“Why was that the solution that immediately came to mind, Dean?”
Cas had found his voice. Glory Be and Hallelujah. Dean approximated a shrug, in so much has he could curled up on his side and trying to meld with the pillow.
“Dunno. Couldn’t think of anything else at the time. And the light was, like, really frantic to get away from Mrs. Bitchypants.”
“The light was frantic?”
That was Sam. Sounding a little fuzzy around the edges. Or maybe that was just Dean’s brain attempting to pass back out again. Is it legal to marry a mattress in the state of … wherever the fuck they were?
“No. That actually makes sense.”
Cas again, and seriously, they were taking up his bed time with all these pesky … words.
“You promised you would tell us what was going on when Dean woke up, Cas.”
Break your promise, Cas. You and your pouty little ‘o’ mouth.
“Do you not think it would be prudent to wait until your brother was more alert, and not contemplating the legal ramifications of marrying a piece of furniture in the state of Colorado?”
Sam choked on a gasp that was imitating a laugh, and Dean felt a tug of a grin on his lips. Castiel. Angel of the Lord. Bad Ass Mother Fucker and best comedic straight man ever. But seriously, stay the fuck outta my head, Cas.
Dean was slipping off to dreamland once more, when something … changed. There was a flutter in his chest. Like a moth bumping around a dim streetlight somewhere beneath his sternum. Agitated and desperate. There was a sudden taste of spice in his mouth, too. Almost like … ginger snap cookies.
He didn’t even remember moving. Funny how one second he was too weakened to even open his eyes, and the next he was surging off the mattress, knocking Sam to the floor and startling the hell out of Castiel. He vaulted off the massive oak footboard with one foot and landed squarely in the middle of the room, reaching forward with his right hand, fingers spread wide.
Just in time to grab Balthazar by the throat as he materialized into their presence.
***********************
~~~SAM~~~
***********************
Sam hadn’t even had time to attempt breaking his graceless fall from the bed before he felt his tailbone cracking against the dark oak floor. A soft cry of pain had flown from his lips and was about to be followed by a string of curses flung at this older brother, when the sight that greeted him upon his landing shocked him to silence.
Dean was standing in the middle of the cabin … grasping a stunned Balthazar by the neck. The look of utter shock on the angel’s face would have been comical at any other moment, as would the complete bewilderment on Dean’s. Sam’s gaze shot between the two frozen figures for what felt like several minutes before the world seemed to unfreeze and went crazy.
Dean flung himself away from the angel so violently that he knocked them both off balance. Balthazar merely staggered back a couple steps, but the hunter met the floor with a resounding boom. Sam’s tailbone sympathized instantly with his brother’s, and then of course, everyone began talking simultaneously.
“WHAT THE HELL? HOW DID I DO THAT?”
“Well, that was a FINE way to greet someone who is helping you.”
“CAS! WHAT THE FUCK? HOW DID I KNOW HE WAS GOING TO BE THERE?”
“Dean… please remain calm.”
“Are you even going to apologize? You could have killed me, you little prick.”
“CAS! HOW DID I KNOW AN ANGEL WAS GOING TO BE THERE?”
“Dean, I-”
“This is an expensive shirt too, you little shit. You could have torn it.”
A pounding headache was spiking Sam determinedly in the temples with each word. The three voices blended together into one jabbering, painful buzz of white noise in his head. Three grown men, some MUCH older than the other, bickering and yelling. Talking at each other, but not to each other. Honestly, it was enough to drive a sane man crazy. And Sam Winchester had long ago given up the ghost believing that he was anything that resembled sane.
“WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!?!”
He honestly hadn’t expected it to make a difference, but the others silenced instantly and turned to him as one. Two bore sheepish, if not slightly frantic, looks on their faces. The other was more along the lines of ‘you insignificant little bug… I shall squish you like a flea with my pinky’ … but what the heck. At least they were all quiet.
Sam rubbed his forehead and tried to convince the headache it had better places to be.
“Cas … can we PLEASE sit down and talk about this NOW?”
To his credit, Castiel just nodded and slowly turned and walked towards the large oak table in the middle of the kitchen. Sam and the others had no choice but to follow him, although Balthazar tagged behind slowly, dusting imaginary dirt from his precious shirt. Sam settled in the chair next to Dean and eyed his brother steadily. The other man had gone from practically comatose to sailing across the room in a matter of seconds, and it appeared to be catching up to him. Dean just looked weary. Exhausted in a way Sam hadn’t seen in a while.
Of course, he had no idea what he had seen in the last year or so, so who was he to really judge? He moved his gaze to Castiel sitting across from them, and there was a mirrored version of Dean’s exhaustion in the angel’s eyes. Even Balthazar was looking a little strained around the edges. Castiel sighed once before he began to speak in a very even-tempered voice.
“What I gave you in the warehouse … what you … swallowed-”
“And that was a ridiculously dumb ass move, by the way.”
Castiel sighed again, and Sam found himself echoing it.
“Balthazar, please-”
The other angel smirked.
“Sorry, Cassie, just pointing out what you’re obviously too far gone to.”
Dean growled something under this breath that may have contained the words ‘fire hose’ and ‘ass’ incorporated into the meaning somehow, but Sam was just trying to block it out. Obviously Balthazar got the point though, because his lecherous grin practically oozed with smarminess.
“Promises, promises, Dean-o my love … but we wouldn’t want to make Cassie jealous.”
Sam gripped Dean’s shoulder to keep his brother in his seat, and calmly turned back to Castiel … who was blushing. Castiel. Was blushing. Castiel, who had never blushed before during any of Balthazar’s implied jabs … was … now. Sam’s brain momentarily suffered from a blue-screen-of-death freeze up, and he had to reboot it into safe mode. Right. Will deal with this new revelation later. Much later.
Cas cleared his throat again, and it looked like he was practically vibrating in his seat with nerves. This did not bode well for Sam’s sanity.
“It … it wasn’t a weapon of Heaven that you swallowed-”
“Still a stupid move.”
“-WOULD YOU PLEASE LET ME FINISH!?”
Balthazar shrugged nonchalantly before crossing his arms over his chest and petulantly turning away from the table. Sam tried to send a “mental thumbs up” to Cas, but he wasn’t sure if it came across.
“It was something far more powerful and dangerous … to humans and angels alike.”
Sam fidgeted in his seat. Dean was clenching his hands into fists so tightly that white of his knuckles showed through. Castiel suddenly brought his own hands up to rest, palms Heavenward, on the table. He stared at them as if they were separate entities from his own being.
“You shouldn’t have been able to even touch it. I don’t … I don’t understand why I even thought to throw it to you … I should have … known better. I do know better … but at the time, it was all I could think to do. And it felt like … the right thing, somehow.”
The angel paused, and Sam felt the need to urge this conversation forward, he was done with beating around the bush with this. He needed to know what was happening to his brother.
“So those things … that Dean did …”
In his peripheral vision he watched as his brother’s gaze whipped from Castiel to Sam. His voice was edged with panic when he spoke.
“I did stuff? What did I do?”
“Oh, you did PLENTY, Dean-lad.”
“Stuff it, you dickless coward.”
“Au contraire, mon amour. I’m hung like a horse. Would you like to see?”
Sam sighed wearily for what felt like the thousandth time that day. He heard it echoed across the table, and looked up to meet Castiel’s startling blue eyes. For the briefest of moments, he felt like they were just an ordinary group of guys hanging out, and he should shrug his shoulders and tell Cas, “Big brothers… what are you gonna do, right?”. Then Cas would laugh, and they would sling back a beer and toast to their own misery. It was a nice feeling. A nice idea. Didn’t last though.
Balthazar cleared his throat and crossed his arms tightly across his chest before speaking. He for once sounded ever so slightly accommodating to their plight.
“Perhaps I should take over, Cassie dear.”
Castiel clenched his hands into fists so tightly that Sam swore he heard delicate finger bones snapping. The angel merely nodded his head in acceptance. Balthazar cleared his throat once more before speaking softly into the quiet room.
“What Dean somehow managed to gob down was Grace.”
Sam felt off kilter and dizzy for a split second. Like the sturdy chair beneath him had suddenly turned to paper and was threatening to crumple to the floor. Dean sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth in the chair beside him.
“Grace? Grace as in ANGEL Grace?”
Dean’s voice didn’t quite squeak on the words, but he’d definitely sounded as off balance as Sam felt. Balthazar simply nodded and continued.
“Yes and no. Now, normally you wouldn’t have been able to survive taking in this Grace … but somehow you did … and I have a couple theories about that.”
A memory shaped icon bearing a little exclamation mark popped up in Sam’s brain and he quickly double-clicked on the file.
“Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t he be able to survive this Grace? Dean was set to be Michael’s vessel, right? So he should be hard-wired to survive ingesting Grace, shouldn’t he?”
Balthazar pursed his lips and turned to meet Castiel’s eyes. Cas was looking decidedly uncomfortable with the entire conversation.
“Well … yes. You are correct in that sense. As a glorified meat suit your brother is ‘hard wired’ to accept the Grace of an Angel. Not to mention the fact that he’s walking around with fragments of Castiel’s Grace woven into every fiber of his being.”
At those words Castiel blanched paper white and Dean’s gaze whipped from Balthazar to Cas instantly, but the smaller angel didn’t meet his eyes. Sam was the only one who spoke.
“Wait … wait … so all this time … Dean has had some of Cas’ Grace?”
Across the table from him Balthazar rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.
“Honestly … you’re supposed to be the smart one, too.”
Sam felt his right eye twitch just slightly.
“Look … Sam … there was nothing left of your Dear Co-Dependant Pseudo Father Figure than the shredded ribbons of his soul and a three month old rotting corpse. What do you THINK Cassie knit him back together with? Elmer’s Craft Glue?”
Yup … his eye was definitely twitching now … and he was pretty sure he could get across the table in time to get at least one good punch in. Instead he attempted to steady his voice and stay calm. Dean was giving off nervous vibes in ripples and waves beside him.
“So then … if he’s already accustomed to Grace … why is this one so … why is it different?”
He remembered Castiel’s panicked cry when Dean had swallowed the little ball of light, and his fear when speaking to Dean in the warehouse. Not to mention the arguing with Balthazar over this being dangerous.
Castiel suddenly leaned forward, planting his elbows on the solid table, and covered his face with his hands. His voice was soft and delicate when he spoke, nothing like his normal gravel filled rawness.
“Because it was not the Grace of an Angel that Dean swallowed in that warehouse.”
The processor in Sam’s brain took that statement and ran with it. Not the Grace of an Angel. Not an Angel’s Grace. Not Angel’s Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace of … By the Grace of … and then the world seemed to tumble out from under Sam. He felt light-headed and nauseous and disorientated. Looking across the table, he knew that both of the angels in the room understood that he’d figured it out. The frantically mumbled ‘What? What? Sam? What?’ beside him meant that his brother had not.
By the Grace of … By the Grace of … It felt like he had a tennis ball lodged in his throat that wouldn’t move no matter how many times he tried to swallow it down.
“Oh my GOD.”
Balthazar chuckled mirthlessly across from him and tapped his own nose with a finger lightly.
“Got it in one, Sammy boy.”
PART THREE
***********************
PART TWO
***********************
~~~DEAN~~~
***********************
Upon the instant of his return to consciousness, the first thing Dean Winchester noticed was that his head felt like someone had forcibly jammed a watermelon three times the size of his skull through his eye sockets and into his brain cavity. Not a pleasant feeling to say the least.
The next thing he realized was that although he was awake now, he couldn’t even find the strength to open his eyelids, much less wiggle his pinky. His entire body felt like he’d been run across hot coals, and then drug behind a horse running the Kentucky Derby, and then maybe like a giant meat tenderizer had softened him up for the grill.
There was a soft pillow cradling his head, and he was sinking into probably the most comfortable mattress he’d ever experienced in his life. He should feel wonderful. Instead he wanted nothing more than to maybe jab a syringe of Morphine straight into his skull. His skin felt almost too tight for his body, too. Like there was something bigger inside of it that wanted to break free.
And seriously? Was it 120 degrees in this damn room? Because it’s fucking HOT.
“Dean? Are you awake?”
Castiel’s soft words washed over him, and could have sworn something inside his chest sighed happily without his permission. He forced his tongue to push past his lips and moisten them.
Fuck, his mouth was dry, too. Had he been sucking on cotton, for shit’s sake?
With way more effort than it should have taken, he convinced his eyelids to open far enough to see Cas’ worried face hovering over him.
Internally he wanted to mention the personal space thing again, but really, he was just too fucking tired to give a damn. He blinked a couple times and then nodded a little to acknowledge Cas’ question. Really didn’t trust his mouth or throat at the moment, to attempt speech.
Cas’ entire body seemed to slump a little in relief. For the angel to show an emotional response so readily was vaguely worrying. Or, would probably be worrying if Dean could convince his brain cells to come down from their ‘I just sucked up a zeppelin’s worth of helium’ high and focus. Instead he just found himself blinking stupidly at this friend.
“DEAN!?”
And crap, there was worry-wart number two. Sam’s forehead, followed closely by the rest of his face, pushed Castiel out of Dean’s line of sight. The Tower of Winchester looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and damn if there didn’t appear to be tears threatening to spill over. Dean closed his eyes. For Sam to have that look, not to mention the outright ‘fret’ that had been present in Cas’ face, it must have been bad. Whatever it was.
He remembered some angel slamming him down into the concrete. He remembered Raphael’s pointy bitch-boot jabbing him in the side. He remembered the warm feel of his own blood pooling around his head, and the cloying scent of iron and copper in the air.
Oh yeah. He also shoved an unknown weapon of Heaven into his gob like an oversized Jelly Belly. Nice one, Winchester. Way to fucking improvise. Although … considering their apparent current state of ‘not deadness’, maybe it had worked out okay after all. His back and head felt amazingly intact, as well.
Right. Down to business. He opened his eyes and licked his lips again, smacking them together with as much force as he could muster. Trying the universal body language translation of ‘stop staring at me and get me some fucking water to drink, you asshats.’ It must have worked because Sam got his ‘Ding! Ding!’ expression and shot off somewhere to the right. This left only Castiel in Dean’s current view of the world.
Castiel.
Castiel who had a little flush of heat across his cheeks and his mouth slightly open in a soft little ‘o’, with his gaze laser-locked to Dean’s lips. Aaaaaaand that’s a new one. Cas usually had no problem staring you right in the eye. Truthfully, he did it too often and too intensely. This was different. This was unsettling. This was … probably the face that Dean made when he was picking up a woman and imagining what her lips would look like wrapped around his cock.
The utter shock of that thought had him choking on nothing but air, and racked his body with great heaping sputtering coughs. Sam was suddenly there with a glass of cool water being held to his lips, and Castiel had instantly moved to the opposite side of the bed to raise him up slightly to drink. Dean downed the water in record time, then pushed away from Cas and flopped face first back into bed with a curse whispered on his lips.
“Dean?”
He waved a dismissive hand in Sam’s general area.
“M’okay, Sammy. Was just-”
Thinking. Contemplating. Considering. Imagining.
“-remembering.”
His overlarge little brother scooted closer, and even if Dean couldn’t see them, he knew the big Sammy puppy eyes were out in full force and chock full of concern.
“What do you remember, Dean?”
He grunted and shoved his face into the fluffy goodness of the pillow beneath him. Damn, what were these things made of? And could he possibly find a place to stash them in the trunk of the Impala?
“Remember shoving the little ball of light in my mouth. That’s the last thing I got.”
One of the two shifted on the bed, but he was so sleepy-tired-warm he couldn’t really register which one it was. He snuggled down deeper into the soft mattress. Must be a pillow top, too. Damn. Whoever’s bed this was knew how to live.
“Why was that the solution that immediately came to mind, Dean?”
Cas had found his voice. Glory Be and Hallelujah. Dean approximated a shrug, in so much has he could curled up on his side and trying to meld with the pillow.
“Dunno. Couldn’t think of anything else at the time. And the light was, like, really frantic to get away from Mrs. Bitchypants.”
“The light was frantic?”
That was Sam. Sounding a little fuzzy around the edges. Or maybe that was just Dean’s brain attempting to pass back out again. Is it legal to marry a mattress in the state of … wherever the fuck they were?
“No. That actually makes sense.”
Cas again, and seriously, they were taking up his bed time with all these pesky … words.
“You promised you would tell us what was going on when Dean woke up, Cas.”
Break your promise, Cas. You and your pouty little ‘o’ mouth.
“Do you not think it would be prudent to wait until your brother was more alert, and not contemplating the legal ramifications of marrying a piece of furniture in the state of Colorado?”
Sam choked on a gasp that was imitating a laugh, and Dean felt a tug of a grin on his lips. Castiel. Angel of the Lord. Bad Ass Mother Fucker and best comedic straight man ever. But seriously, stay the fuck outta my head, Cas.
Dean was slipping off to dreamland once more, when something … changed. There was a flutter in his chest. Like a moth bumping around a dim streetlight somewhere beneath his sternum. Agitated and desperate. There was a sudden taste of spice in his mouth, too. Almost like … ginger snap cookies.
He didn’t even remember moving. Funny how one second he was too weakened to even open his eyes, and the next he was surging off the mattress, knocking Sam to the floor and startling the hell out of Castiel. He vaulted off the massive oak footboard with one foot and landed squarely in the middle of the room, reaching forward with his right hand, fingers spread wide.
Just in time to grab Balthazar by the throat as he materialized into their presence.
***********************
~~~SAM~~~
***********************
Sam hadn’t even had time to attempt breaking his graceless fall from the bed before he felt his tailbone cracking against the dark oak floor. A soft cry of pain had flown from his lips and was about to be followed by a string of curses flung at this older brother, when the sight that greeted him upon his landing shocked him to silence.
Dean was standing in the middle of the cabin … grasping a stunned Balthazar by the neck. The look of utter shock on the angel’s face would have been comical at any other moment, as would the complete bewilderment on Dean’s. Sam’s gaze shot between the two frozen figures for what felt like several minutes before the world seemed to unfreeze and went crazy.
Dean flung himself away from the angel so violently that he knocked them both off balance. Balthazar merely staggered back a couple steps, but the hunter met the floor with a resounding boom. Sam’s tailbone sympathized instantly with his brother’s, and then of course, everyone began talking simultaneously.
“WHAT THE HELL? HOW DID I DO THAT?”
“Well, that was a FINE way to greet someone who is helping you.”
“CAS! WHAT THE FUCK? HOW DID I KNOW HE WAS GOING TO BE THERE?”
“Dean… please remain calm.”
“Are you even going to apologize? You could have killed me, you little prick.”
“CAS! HOW DID I KNOW AN ANGEL WAS GOING TO BE THERE?”
“Dean, I-”
“This is an expensive shirt too, you little shit. You could have torn it.”
A pounding headache was spiking Sam determinedly in the temples with each word. The three voices blended together into one jabbering, painful buzz of white noise in his head. Three grown men, some MUCH older than the other, bickering and yelling. Talking at each other, but not to each other. Honestly, it was enough to drive a sane man crazy. And Sam Winchester had long ago given up the ghost believing that he was anything that resembled sane.
“WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!?!”
He honestly hadn’t expected it to make a difference, but the others silenced instantly and turned to him as one. Two bore sheepish, if not slightly frantic, looks on their faces. The other was more along the lines of ‘you insignificant little bug… I shall squish you like a flea with my pinky’ … but what the heck. At least they were all quiet.
Sam rubbed his forehead and tried to convince the headache it had better places to be.
“Cas … can we PLEASE sit down and talk about this NOW?”
To his credit, Castiel just nodded and slowly turned and walked towards the large oak table in the middle of the kitchen. Sam and the others had no choice but to follow him, although Balthazar tagged behind slowly, dusting imaginary dirt from his precious shirt. Sam settled in the chair next to Dean and eyed his brother steadily. The other man had gone from practically comatose to sailing across the room in a matter of seconds, and it appeared to be catching up to him. Dean just looked weary. Exhausted in a way Sam hadn’t seen in a while.
Of course, he had no idea what he had seen in the last year or so, so who was he to really judge? He moved his gaze to Castiel sitting across from them, and there was a mirrored version of Dean’s exhaustion in the angel’s eyes. Even Balthazar was looking a little strained around the edges. Castiel sighed once before he began to speak in a very even-tempered voice.
“What I gave you in the warehouse … what you … swallowed-”
“And that was a ridiculously dumb ass move, by the way.”
Castiel sighed again, and Sam found himself echoing it.
“Balthazar, please-”
The other angel smirked.
“Sorry, Cassie, just pointing out what you’re obviously too far gone to.”
Dean growled something under this breath that may have contained the words ‘fire hose’ and ‘ass’ incorporated into the meaning somehow, but Sam was just trying to block it out. Obviously Balthazar got the point though, because his lecherous grin practically oozed with smarminess.
“Promises, promises, Dean-o my love … but we wouldn’t want to make Cassie jealous.”
Sam gripped Dean’s shoulder to keep his brother in his seat, and calmly turned back to Castiel … who was blushing. Castiel. Was blushing. Castiel, who had never blushed before during any of Balthazar’s implied jabs … was … now. Sam’s brain momentarily suffered from a blue-screen-of-death freeze up, and he had to reboot it into safe mode. Right. Will deal with this new revelation later. Much later.
Cas cleared his throat again, and it looked like he was practically vibrating in his seat with nerves. This did not bode well for Sam’s sanity.
“It … it wasn’t a weapon of Heaven that you swallowed-”
“Still a stupid move.”
“-WOULD YOU PLEASE LET ME FINISH!?”
Balthazar shrugged nonchalantly before crossing his arms over his chest and petulantly turning away from the table. Sam tried to send a “mental thumbs up” to Cas, but he wasn’t sure if it came across.
“It was something far more powerful and dangerous … to humans and angels alike.”
Sam fidgeted in his seat. Dean was clenching his hands into fists so tightly that white of his knuckles showed through. Castiel suddenly brought his own hands up to rest, palms Heavenward, on the table. He stared at them as if they were separate entities from his own being.
“You shouldn’t have been able to even touch it. I don’t … I don’t understand why I even thought to throw it to you … I should have … known better. I do know better … but at the time, it was all I could think to do. And it felt like … the right thing, somehow.”
The angel paused, and Sam felt the need to urge this conversation forward, he was done with beating around the bush with this. He needed to know what was happening to his brother.
“So those things … that Dean did …”
In his peripheral vision he watched as his brother’s gaze whipped from Castiel to Sam. His voice was edged with panic when he spoke.
“I did stuff? What did I do?”
“Oh, you did PLENTY, Dean-lad.”
“Stuff it, you dickless coward.”
“Au contraire, mon amour. I’m hung like a horse. Would you like to see?”
Sam sighed wearily for what felt like the thousandth time that day. He heard it echoed across the table, and looked up to meet Castiel’s startling blue eyes. For the briefest of moments, he felt like they were just an ordinary group of guys hanging out, and he should shrug his shoulders and tell Cas, “Big brothers… what are you gonna do, right?”. Then Cas would laugh, and they would sling back a beer and toast to their own misery. It was a nice feeling. A nice idea. Didn’t last though.
Balthazar cleared his throat and crossed his arms tightly across his chest before speaking. He for once sounded ever so slightly accommodating to their plight.
“Perhaps I should take over, Cassie dear.”
Castiel clenched his hands into fists so tightly that Sam swore he heard delicate finger bones snapping. The angel merely nodded his head in acceptance. Balthazar cleared his throat once more before speaking softly into the quiet room.
“What Dean somehow managed to gob down was Grace.”
Sam felt off kilter and dizzy for a split second. Like the sturdy chair beneath him had suddenly turned to paper and was threatening to crumple to the floor. Dean sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth in the chair beside him.
“Grace? Grace as in ANGEL Grace?”
Dean’s voice didn’t quite squeak on the words, but he’d definitely sounded as off balance as Sam felt. Balthazar simply nodded and continued.
“Yes and no. Now, normally you wouldn’t have been able to survive taking in this Grace … but somehow you did … and I have a couple theories about that.”
A memory shaped icon bearing a little exclamation mark popped up in Sam’s brain and he quickly double-clicked on the file.
“Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t he be able to survive this Grace? Dean was set to be Michael’s vessel, right? So he should be hard-wired to survive ingesting Grace, shouldn’t he?”
Balthazar pursed his lips and turned to meet Castiel’s eyes. Cas was looking decidedly uncomfortable with the entire conversation.
“Well … yes. You are correct in that sense. As a glorified meat suit your brother is ‘hard wired’ to accept the Grace of an Angel. Not to mention the fact that he’s walking around with fragments of Castiel’s Grace woven into every fiber of his being.”
At those words Castiel blanched paper white and Dean’s gaze whipped from Balthazar to Cas instantly, but the smaller angel didn’t meet his eyes. Sam was the only one who spoke.
“Wait … wait … so all this time … Dean has had some of Cas’ Grace?”
Across the table from him Balthazar rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.
“Honestly … you’re supposed to be the smart one, too.”
Sam felt his right eye twitch just slightly.
“Look … Sam … there was nothing left of your Dear Co-Dependant Pseudo Father Figure than the shredded ribbons of his soul and a three month old rotting corpse. What do you THINK Cassie knit him back together with? Elmer’s Craft Glue?”
Yup … his eye was definitely twitching now … and he was pretty sure he could get across the table in time to get at least one good punch in. Instead he attempted to steady his voice and stay calm. Dean was giving off nervous vibes in ripples and waves beside him.
“So then … if he’s already accustomed to Grace … why is this one so … why is it different?”
He remembered Castiel’s panicked cry when Dean had swallowed the little ball of light, and his fear when speaking to Dean in the warehouse. Not to mention the arguing with Balthazar over this being dangerous.
Castiel suddenly leaned forward, planting his elbows on the solid table, and covered his face with his hands. His voice was soft and delicate when he spoke, nothing like his normal gravel filled rawness.
“Because it was not the Grace of an Angel that Dean swallowed in that warehouse.”
The processor in Sam’s brain took that statement and ran with it. Not the Grace of an Angel. Not an Angel’s Grace. Not Angel’s Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace of … By the Grace of … and then the world seemed to tumble out from under Sam. He felt light-headed and nauseous and disorientated. Looking across the table, he knew that both of the angels in the room understood that he’d figured it out. The frantically mumbled ‘What? What? Sam? What?’ beside him meant that his brother had not.
By the Grace of … By the Grace of … It felt like he had a tennis ball lodged in his throat that wouldn’t move no matter how many times he tried to swallow it down.
“Oh my GOD.”
Balthazar chuckled mirthlessly across from him and tapped his own nose with a finger lightly.
“Got it in one, Sammy boy.”
PART THREE