Unexpected Destinies Chapter 135
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,234
Summary: Raphael tries something different based on a prayer.
PAST
Ever since he'd first started spending time with Dean and Castiel, there had been one human voice that Raphael seemed to be unable to filter out as well as the others when it prayed to him. Well, if it could even be called prayer, he definitely didn't think that it was nearly respectful or reverent enough in order to be considered a prayer and yet it still reached him as such, no matter how much he tried to ignore it.
At first the prayers, and the human behind them, had done nothing but annoy Raphael, irritating him almost more because he couldn't filter them out than anything else. Over time, however, this had slowly changed and evolved into something else. He wasn't entirely sure what just yet, but it seemed that the more he got to know and understand Dean Winchester, the less the human female and her prayers bothered him. Yes, he still couldn't ignore her voice any better than before when she put it to prayer and yes, she still wasn't any more respectful or reverent, but it all no longer irritated him as it once had.
She was, disillusioned, Raphael believed the best word for it was. From the words and examples she used, it was clear to him that she was well acquainted with the human Bible and the twisted rhetoric it contained and professed to. It had taken him a while to realize that this signified that she had once been faithful and religious, the total opposite of what she at first appeared to be now. He hadn't seen this right away, mistakenly thinking that all humans were that familiar with their version of his Father's story and it had only been when he'd started observing humanity more closely with his brothers and Castiel's mate that he had learned otherwise. It had only been then that he'd even thought to look beyond her mere words to the feelings behind them or that it was even possible that she could mean the exact opposite of what she professed to.
That had been a particularly difficult lesson for Raphael to grasp. That humans could say the exact opposite of what it was that they actually meant. Oh, sure, he had always known about their penchant for lying or being otherwise deliberately untruthful, but that wasn't what he meant here. No, this was different, this was sarcasm he believed Dean called it. The word still made him frown, not sure if he fully understood it even now after all the time that he had spent with his brother's mate. It was a strange concept, so foreign to angels as to be akin to this privacy his hunter friend seemed to value so highly.
And that right there was yet another thing which was new to Raphael. Friendship. He's spoken with Michael about it at length a short while ago and even his brother didn't seem able to define it precisely despite the fact that Michael without a doubt viewed Dean as his friend. He was pretty sure that he did too, if he understood it properly. He hoped that Michael's vessel saw him that way too, which was an odd emotion for him, but it was a desire he experienced nonetheless. He had observed Dean with both Castiel and Michael long enough to wish to possess that same easy relationship with the hunter and to be able to touch him as deeply, making Dean's soul react as it did to his brothers.
Raphael couldn't help but wonder if those desires weren't affecting how he viewed the prayers from the human female who called out to him. She reminded him of Dean in certain ways, particularly in her tone and manner of address to him. The sarcasm that Castiel's mate so preferred was equally present in her words, alternatively full of confusion or bitterness in ways that he couldn't fully comprehend just yet but which he hoped to soon enough. The fact that he couldn't filter out her prayers like those of the other humans that beseeched him was now starting to intrigue him and make him wonder just who she was and what had happened to her to turn her from being someone who'd clearly been a faithful worshipper of his Father to the disillusioned skeptic that she was now. He'd mentioned her to Castiel once, hoping that his little brother would be able to provide some insight and he had been told that she couldn't have completely given up or she wouldn't be praying at all. Castiel had gone on to point out that perhaps she was addressing him in a desperate hope to have her doubts disproven somehow.
Those words had frightened Raphael in a way he hadn't been in a very long time. The mere thought that someone (human or otherwise) might be looking to him to save their faith in Father was almost too much. He wasn't the Lord, how was he supposed to help a human that had begun to doubt Father? It was an almost unthinkable task; a burden he daren't take and yet couldn't even think of refusing. The mere idea of him being responsible for someone losing their faith in Father, it was unbearable even if he couldn't even think of what he could possibly do to prevent it. To him faith and loyalty simply were. They were such an integral part of him that he didn't think that he could even exist without them. He'd always believed that angels couldn't exist without them, but then the unthinkable had happened when Lucifer had not only lost his faith, but had actually rebelled against Father.
Though countless millennia had passed since that time, the anguish of the memory was as fresh today for Raphael as it had been back then. That had been his first experience with the fact that angels could be faithless and, unfortunately, it hadn't been his last. To this day, even with his now close relationship with Castiel, it was something that he still couldn't understand. How his little brother had been able to lose so much of his faith, to actually doubt Father as much as Castiel had done, and yet still be so favored by Him. He wasn't jealous (the mere thought of the way Castiel must have felt was enough to make him feel what he assumed came as close to approximating human illness as an angel could), just at a total loss to understand the situation despite all of his best efforts. Yet, somehow, it was and he didn't think that this was one of those situations where that knowledge was enough. No, this time he strongly believed that Father wanted him to fully comprehend matters and he couldn't. At least not yet.
Raphael was sure that he had felt more in past few, short years than he had for the prior few millennia and he wasn't sure that he liked it. Regardless of his feelings on the matter, the fact was that he now heard the prayers of one human woman whether he wanted to or not and she quite often challenged him and his Father in those prayers. The one he'd just received was no different. He didn't understand entirely what she was on about- there were far too many of those references and metaphors that Dean so loved to utilize in there- but she'd mentioned the Royal Library of Alexandria. He was pretty sure that it was in a negative light, at least as far as he and his Father were concerned, but it had reminded him of its existence. Although he'd never been there personally, he'd heard from angel that had that it truly was the large repository of human knowledge that it purported itself to be. And after the discovery of "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" in the Vatican, he couldn't help but wonder if such a large and known human library might not have possessed an angelic tome or two of its own.
With a thought, Raphael transported himself back to the time of the library's zenith, taking care to not only cloak himself from human eyes, but also to those of his angelic brothers and sisters. The last thing that he wanted to do at the moment was to draw any undue attention to himself, both because he knew how dangerous it was to mess with history and because he had no desire to explain his presence to the Michael of this time. Or to his past self for that matter. He knew that they wouldn't understand either his reasons or his mission.
Cautiously, Raphael slipped into the ornately carved and decorated building and sought out the man responsible for the curation and maintenance of the archive. As there were far too many scrolls for him to search through, he needed some guidance on where to start. When he found the man, he used his Grace to distract him and then probed his mind for anything particularly rare or peculiar about the collection. The fact that they had obtained some scrolls in a language no one had ever seen or heard of before sounded promising and he flew to the backroom where they were being kept in order for visiting scholars to study them. The separation gave him the opportunity to read them through in peace and perhaps there was something to be said for the privacy that Dean was always harping on about. It was nice to be able to conduct his task in peace without needing to worry about others interrupting him.
The thought vanished as Raphael came across a passage that shocked him to his core. The very idea it contained was something that he had never heard discussed before, indeed none of his brothers or sisters would have dared even consider it, and to see it not only mentioned here, but talked about in such a way as to provide the reader with the instructions on how to perform it was shocking. It was as he stood there, staring at the scroll in disbelief that he realized the error in his own logic. The mere fact that he was even holding and reading this scroll, written entirely in Enochian, was proof that at least one of his siblings had given the idea far more than just serious thought. And he knew exactly which one it was too.
Raziel.
There was absolutely no doubt in Raphael's mind as to the identity of the author as his brother's handwriting was far too distinct and familiar to him even if he hadn't seen his brother in countless millennia. The certainty did nothing to lessen either his shock or his disbelief though. Why would Raziel have done this? What had been his brother's motivation in creating this spell? It wasn't that he wasn't extremely grateful to Raziel as he knew precisely how happy this would make Dean or the strategic advantage it would give them over Lucifer, but he just couldn't figure out his brother's reasoning and that disturbed him. They had been close once, Raziel and him, and it hurt to think that he might not have known his brother as well as he'd always thought that he had. It was something which he would need to think about, but now was not the time, not when the others needed to know what he had discovered.
With his prize held close, Raphael took to flight and reached out towards the one human soul that he knew he'd always be able to find so long as it wasn't deliberately hidden from him. It still amazed him sometimes how brightly Dean shown and occasionally he still had a hard time believing that Castiel's mate was merely human. Before, when he'd first met the hunter, he had taken it as a sign from his Father that Dean was meant to be Michael's, but now he could see the error in his reasoning. If the sheer radiance and brilliance of Dean's soul had been simply to fulfill his role as the vessel then it wouldn't react the way it did with his brother's Grace, clearly remaining its own entity even as the two seemed to almost fuse in parts. Normally the souls of Michael and Lucifer's vessels would be engulfed and hidden from the outside world for the duration of his brothers' stay within their vessel. But not Dean, never Dean it seemed. The human's soul, while physically cradled within Michael's Grace was not so easily hidden from view, remaining visible even within the brilliance that was the first archangel.
Although he had not told either Michael or Castiel, Raphael found himself wanting to truly touch it. The brief contact that he'd had with Dean's soul had always been clinical and in times of dire need. Nonetheless they had been enough to entice and fascinate him and he wished to know what true contact between his Grace and Dean's soul would feel like. It was the first time he had ever desired to experience a soul like that and he wasn't sure what to do with it, the impulse felt so foreign.
Due to the heavy presence of other humans around Dean, and Michael apparently, Raphael landed outside of the building they were in and entered it in a human fashion. The inside was noisy, crowded and full of all manner of strange smells, some of which he recognized as human body odor and others as prepared food. The rest he couldn't immediately identify and had no particular desire to investigate at this moment. Instead he followed the light of both Dean's soul and Michael's Grace right to where the two sat at a small table near the wall.
"Heya, Raph," Dean greeted, looking up as he pushed his empty plate away. "Everything okay?"
"All is well," Raphael replied, taking the free seat furthest from where the humans walked the most.
Even though there was very little in the same plane as his wings, Raphael disliked the idea of humans simply walking through them and thus he pulled them as close to his back as was possible. The seat he'd chosen put him beside Dean and across from his brother who had a glass with ice and a cloudy liquid in front of him. He eyed it in confusion, not understanding why his brother gave in to such human desires.
"Don't tell me you want one too," Dean moaned.
Raphael raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You do not wish to push beverages or food towards me as you have with Castiel and Michael?"
"Sure, if you actually had any taste. However so far all I've seen is an appalling lack thereof in all angels, at least as far as alcohol is concerned. Is there really none of you that can appreciate a good beer? I swear it's all sweetness and girly frou-frou drinks with you angels!"
"He wished me to prefer the fermented wheat," Michael explained.
For once his first reaction of distaste seemed less to annoy Castiel's mate than to exasperate him and Raphael was amused at the change. The little human was fun to tease when he got riled up. It made Dean's soul spark and flare in a most entertaining manner that he was sure the hunter was completely unaware of.
"I see," Raphael replied, assuming from the way Dean muttered that he had not been as successful in hiding his amusement as he'd thought. "And what do you prefer, Michael?"
"A freaking coconut daiquiri!" Dean exclaimed, dropping his head onto his arm. "Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"You sought to tempt angels from their virtues."
Dean raised his head just enough to glare at him and Raphael had raised a wing and ran it backwards over the human's hair before he'd fully thought the action through. His friend squawked a protest before Dean froze, obviously have just realized exactly what he'd done, staring at him with wide eyes. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd done it either except that he'd known what manner of result he'd get and that he would enjoy it. And while Dean's soul had sparked just as he'd thought it would, he had been completely caught off-guard by the feel of it. He'd never had a human touch his wings before in any way whatsoever and to have it happen now was unlike anything that he'd ever imagined it would be. He'd reacted as he might with one of his siblings, but the experience was different from any of those times. There had been an electricity to the touch, he supposed, that was unlike the feel of Grace.
It had to be due to the human soul, Raphael knew, but that knowledge hardly compared with the sensation itself. It was far stronger than what he recalled from his previous encounters with Dean's true essence and it made him want to do it again. It was a revelation, so powerful and all-encompassing as to make him wonder if he'd have realized the truth before if he'd only touched the Righteous Man's soul back then. It was an interesting if purely academic thought. It hadn't happened nor had it ever had any chance to as he'd seen the touching of any human soul as so far beneath him as to be inconsiderable. It shamed him deeply to think of how arrogant and prideful he had been and he could only thank Father that he had been given the chance to redeem himself.
Raphael did have to wonder, though, if the close contact that Castiel had experienced with Dean and the hunter's soul while raising it from Hell was part of the reason why his little brother had been able to see the right path when none of the rest of them had. It was an interesting thought.
"Dude," Dean finally said, still looking at him in surprise.
Raphael merely returned the look for a moment before glancing at his brother. Michael seemed more amused by the whole situation than anything though his brother did give him a knowing look and he scowled in return. He hated it when Michael did that as it showed just how easily his brother was able to read him.
"I have discovered something that you both will wish to know," Raphael finally stated, placing the scrolls on the table.
"Holy shit," Dean exclaimed, eyes wide. "Where on Earth did these come from?"
"The Royal Library of Alexandria."
"The Royal- hang, on, you mean the Library of Alexandria? Like the Ancient Greek one?"
"The Royal Library of Alexandria was actually in Egypt, Little One," Michael corrected, voice rife with amusement.
It was sometimes so easy to forget that Dean was new their world, Raphael mused. The hunter had slotted himself so fully into their existence that he occasionally forgot how foreign they must seem to Dean at times.
"As Michael said, it was in Egypt, but yes, it is that library," Raphael stated. "And these scrolls are part of a manuscript written by Raziel. Most of it appears to be missing, but among what is present is a spell which allows a vessel to retract their consent, thereby blocking their angel from possessing them without first reacquiring permission to do so."
Michael's eyes widened in realization. "This would keep Lucifer out of Sam."
"Yes, precisely."
Chapter 136
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,234
Summary: Raphael tries something different based on a prayer.
PAST
Ever since he'd first started spending time with Dean and Castiel, there had been one human voice that Raphael seemed to be unable to filter out as well as the others when it prayed to him. Well, if it could even be called prayer, he definitely didn't think that it was nearly respectful or reverent enough in order to be considered a prayer and yet it still reached him as such, no matter how much he tried to ignore it.
At first the prayers, and the human behind them, had done nothing but annoy Raphael, irritating him almost more because he couldn't filter them out than anything else. Over time, however, this had slowly changed and evolved into something else. He wasn't entirely sure what just yet, but it seemed that the more he got to know and understand Dean Winchester, the less the human female and her prayers bothered him. Yes, he still couldn't ignore her voice any better than before when she put it to prayer and yes, she still wasn't any more respectful or reverent, but it all no longer irritated him as it once had.
She was, disillusioned, Raphael believed the best word for it was. From the words and examples she used, it was clear to him that she was well acquainted with the human Bible and the twisted rhetoric it contained and professed to. It had taken him a while to realize that this signified that she had once been faithful and religious, the total opposite of what she at first appeared to be now. He hadn't seen this right away, mistakenly thinking that all humans were that familiar with their version of his Father's story and it had only been when he'd started observing humanity more closely with his brothers and Castiel's mate that he had learned otherwise. It had only been then that he'd even thought to look beyond her mere words to the feelings behind them or that it was even possible that she could mean the exact opposite of what she professed to.
That had been a particularly difficult lesson for Raphael to grasp. That humans could say the exact opposite of what it was that they actually meant. Oh, sure, he had always known about their penchant for lying or being otherwise deliberately untruthful, but that wasn't what he meant here. No, this was different, this was sarcasm he believed Dean called it. The word still made him frown, not sure if he fully understood it even now after all the time that he had spent with his brother's mate. It was a strange concept, so foreign to angels as to be akin to this privacy his hunter friend seemed to value so highly.
And that right there was yet another thing which was new to Raphael. Friendship. He's spoken with Michael about it at length a short while ago and even his brother didn't seem able to define it precisely despite the fact that Michael without a doubt viewed Dean as his friend. He was pretty sure that he did too, if he understood it properly. He hoped that Michael's vessel saw him that way too, which was an odd emotion for him, but it was a desire he experienced nonetheless. He had observed Dean with both Castiel and Michael long enough to wish to possess that same easy relationship with the hunter and to be able to touch him as deeply, making Dean's soul react as it did to his brothers.
Raphael couldn't help but wonder if those desires weren't affecting how he viewed the prayers from the human female who called out to him. She reminded him of Dean in certain ways, particularly in her tone and manner of address to him. The sarcasm that Castiel's mate so preferred was equally present in her words, alternatively full of confusion or bitterness in ways that he couldn't fully comprehend just yet but which he hoped to soon enough. The fact that he couldn't filter out her prayers like those of the other humans that beseeched him was now starting to intrigue him and make him wonder just who she was and what had happened to her to turn her from being someone who'd clearly been a faithful worshipper of his Father to the disillusioned skeptic that she was now. He'd mentioned her to Castiel once, hoping that his little brother would be able to provide some insight and he had been told that she couldn't have completely given up or she wouldn't be praying at all. Castiel had gone on to point out that perhaps she was addressing him in a desperate hope to have her doubts disproven somehow.
Those words had frightened Raphael in a way he hadn't been in a very long time. The mere thought that someone (human or otherwise) might be looking to him to save their faith in Father was almost too much. He wasn't the Lord, how was he supposed to help a human that had begun to doubt Father? It was an almost unthinkable task; a burden he daren't take and yet couldn't even think of refusing. The mere idea of him being responsible for someone losing their faith in Father, it was unbearable even if he couldn't even think of what he could possibly do to prevent it. To him faith and loyalty simply were. They were such an integral part of him that he didn't think that he could even exist without them. He'd always believed that angels couldn't exist without them, but then the unthinkable had happened when Lucifer had not only lost his faith, but had actually rebelled against Father.
Though countless millennia had passed since that time, the anguish of the memory was as fresh today for Raphael as it had been back then. That had been his first experience with the fact that angels could be faithless and, unfortunately, it hadn't been his last. To this day, even with his now close relationship with Castiel, it was something that he still couldn't understand. How his little brother had been able to lose so much of his faith, to actually doubt Father as much as Castiel had done, and yet still be so favored by Him. He wasn't jealous (the mere thought of the way Castiel must have felt was enough to make him feel what he assumed came as close to approximating human illness as an angel could), just at a total loss to understand the situation despite all of his best efforts. Yet, somehow, it was and he didn't think that this was one of those situations where that knowledge was enough. No, this time he strongly believed that Father wanted him to fully comprehend matters and he couldn't. At least not yet.
Raphael was sure that he had felt more in past few, short years than he had for the prior few millennia and he wasn't sure that he liked it. Regardless of his feelings on the matter, the fact was that he now heard the prayers of one human woman whether he wanted to or not and she quite often challenged him and his Father in those prayers. The one he'd just received was no different. He didn't understand entirely what she was on about- there were far too many of those references and metaphors that Dean so loved to utilize in there- but she'd mentioned the Royal Library of Alexandria. He was pretty sure that it was in a negative light, at least as far as he and his Father were concerned, but it had reminded him of its existence. Although he'd never been there personally, he'd heard from angel that had that it truly was the large repository of human knowledge that it purported itself to be. And after the discovery of "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" in the Vatican, he couldn't help but wonder if such a large and known human library might not have possessed an angelic tome or two of its own.
With a thought, Raphael transported himself back to the time of the library's zenith, taking care to not only cloak himself from human eyes, but also to those of his angelic brothers and sisters. The last thing that he wanted to do at the moment was to draw any undue attention to himself, both because he knew how dangerous it was to mess with history and because he had no desire to explain his presence to the Michael of this time. Or to his past self for that matter. He knew that they wouldn't understand either his reasons or his mission.
Cautiously, Raphael slipped into the ornately carved and decorated building and sought out the man responsible for the curation and maintenance of the archive. As there were far too many scrolls for him to search through, he needed some guidance on where to start. When he found the man, he used his Grace to distract him and then probed his mind for anything particularly rare or peculiar about the collection. The fact that they had obtained some scrolls in a language no one had ever seen or heard of before sounded promising and he flew to the backroom where they were being kept in order for visiting scholars to study them. The separation gave him the opportunity to read them through in peace and perhaps there was something to be said for the privacy that Dean was always harping on about. It was nice to be able to conduct his task in peace without needing to worry about others interrupting him.
The thought vanished as Raphael came across a passage that shocked him to his core. The very idea it contained was something that he had never heard discussed before, indeed none of his brothers or sisters would have dared even consider it, and to see it not only mentioned here, but talked about in such a way as to provide the reader with the instructions on how to perform it was shocking. It was as he stood there, staring at the scroll in disbelief that he realized the error in his own logic. The mere fact that he was even holding and reading this scroll, written entirely in Enochian, was proof that at least one of his siblings had given the idea far more than just serious thought. And he knew exactly which one it was too.
Raziel.
There was absolutely no doubt in Raphael's mind as to the identity of the author as his brother's handwriting was far too distinct and familiar to him even if he hadn't seen his brother in countless millennia. The certainty did nothing to lessen either his shock or his disbelief though. Why would Raziel have done this? What had been his brother's motivation in creating this spell? It wasn't that he wasn't extremely grateful to Raziel as he knew precisely how happy this would make Dean or the strategic advantage it would give them over Lucifer, but he just couldn't figure out his brother's reasoning and that disturbed him. They had been close once, Raziel and him, and it hurt to think that he might not have known his brother as well as he'd always thought that he had. It was something which he would need to think about, but now was not the time, not when the others needed to know what he had discovered.
With his prize held close, Raphael took to flight and reached out towards the one human soul that he knew he'd always be able to find so long as it wasn't deliberately hidden from him. It still amazed him sometimes how brightly Dean shown and occasionally he still had a hard time believing that Castiel's mate was merely human. Before, when he'd first met the hunter, he had taken it as a sign from his Father that Dean was meant to be Michael's, but now he could see the error in his reasoning. If the sheer radiance and brilliance of Dean's soul had been simply to fulfill his role as the vessel then it wouldn't react the way it did with his brother's Grace, clearly remaining its own entity even as the two seemed to almost fuse in parts. Normally the souls of Michael and Lucifer's vessels would be engulfed and hidden from the outside world for the duration of his brothers' stay within their vessel. But not Dean, never Dean it seemed. The human's soul, while physically cradled within Michael's Grace was not so easily hidden from view, remaining visible even within the brilliance that was the first archangel.
Although he had not told either Michael or Castiel, Raphael found himself wanting to truly touch it. The brief contact that he'd had with Dean's soul had always been clinical and in times of dire need. Nonetheless they had been enough to entice and fascinate him and he wished to know what true contact between his Grace and Dean's soul would feel like. It was the first time he had ever desired to experience a soul like that and he wasn't sure what to do with it, the impulse felt so foreign.
Due to the heavy presence of other humans around Dean, and Michael apparently, Raphael landed outside of the building they were in and entered it in a human fashion. The inside was noisy, crowded and full of all manner of strange smells, some of which he recognized as human body odor and others as prepared food. The rest he couldn't immediately identify and had no particular desire to investigate at this moment. Instead he followed the light of both Dean's soul and Michael's Grace right to where the two sat at a small table near the wall.
"Heya, Raph," Dean greeted, looking up as he pushed his empty plate away. "Everything okay?"
"All is well," Raphael replied, taking the free seat furthest from where the humans walked the most.
Even though there was very little in the same plane as his wings, Raphael disliked the idea of humans simply walking through them and thus he pulled them as close to his back as was possible. The seat he'd chosen put him beside Dean and across from his brother who had a glass with ice and a cloudy liquid in front of him. He eyed it in confusion, not understanding why his brother gave in to such human desires.
"Don't tell me you want one too," Dean moaned.
Raphael raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You do not wish to push beverages or food towards me as you have with Castiel and Michael?"
"Sure, if you actually had any taste. However so far all I've seen is an appalling lack thereof in all angels, at least as far as alcohol is concerned. Is there really none of you that can appreciate a good beer? I swear it's all sweetness and girly frou-frou drinks with you angels!"
"He wished me to prefer the fermented wheat," Michael explained.
For once his first reaction of distaste seemed less to annoy Castiel's mate than to exasperate him and Raphael was amused at the change. The little human was fun to tease when he got riled up. It made Dean's soul spark and flare in a most entertaining manner that he was sure the hunter was completely unaware of.
"I see," Raphael replied, assuming from the way Dean muttered that he had not been as successful in hiding his amusement as he'd thought. "And what do you prefer, Michael?"
"A freaking coconut daiquiri!" Dean exclaimed, dropping his head onto his arm. "Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"You sought to tempt angels from their virtues."
Dean raised his head just enough to glare at him and Raphael had raised a wing and ran it backwards over the human's hair before he'd fully thought the action through. His friend squawked a protest before Dean froze, obviously have just realized exactly what he'd done, staring at him with wide eyes. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd done it either except that he'd known what manner of result he'd get and that he would enjoy it. And while Dean's soul had sparked just as he'd thought it would, he had been completely caught off-guard by the feel of it. He'd never had a human touch his wings before in any way whatsoever and to have it happen now was unlike anything that he'd ever imagined it would be. He'd reacted as he might with one of his siblings, but the experience was different from any of those times. There had been an electricity to the touch, he supposed, that was unlike the feel of Grace.
It had to be due to the human soul, Raphael knew, but that knowledge hardly compared with the sensation itself. It was far stronger than what he recalled from his previous encounters with Dean's true essence and it made him want to do it again. It was a revelation, so powerful and all-encompassing as to make him wonder if he'd have realized the truth before if he'd only touched the Righteous Man's soul back then. It was an interesting if purely academic thought. It hadn't happened nor had it ever had any chance to as he'd seen the touching of any human soul as so far beneath him as to be inconsiderable. It shamed him deeply to think of how arrogant and prideful he had been and he could only thank Father that he had been given the chance to redeem himself.
Raphael did have to wonder, though, if the close contact that Castiel had experienced with Dean and the hunter's soul while raising it from Hell was part of the reason why his little brother had been able to see the right path when none of the rest of them had. It was an interesting thought.
"Dude," Dean finally said, still looking at him in surprise.
Raphael merely returned the look for a moment before glancing at his brother. Michael seemed more amused by the whole situation than anything though his brother did give him a knowing look and he scowled in return. He hated it when Michael did that as it showed just how easily his brother was able to read him.
"I have discovered something that you both will wish to know," Raphael finally stated, placing the scrolls on the table.
"Holy shit," Dean exclaimed, eyes wide. "Where on Earth did these come from?"
"The Royal Library of Alexandria."
"The Royal- hang, on, you mean the Library of Alexandria? Like the Ancient Greek one?"
"The Royal Library of Alexandria was actually in Egypt, Little One," Michael corrected, voice rife with amusement.
It was sometimes so easy to forget that Dean was new their world, Raphael mused. The hunter had slotted himself so fully into their existence that he occasionally forgot how foreign they must seem to Dean at times.
"As Michael said, it was in Egypt, but yes, it is that library," Raphael stated. "And these scrolls are part of a manuscript written by Raziel. Most of it appears to be missing, but among what is present is a spell which allows a vessel to retract their consent, thereby blocking their angel from possessing them without first reacquiring permission to do so."
Michael's eyes widened in realization. "This would keep Lucifer out of Sam."
"Yes, precisely."
Chapter 136