Unexpected Destinies Chapter 184
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: 3,246
Summary: In Heaven's library, Michael and Raziel finally find a clue to one of their questions.
PRESENT
Michael was slowly starting to understand the human expression of getting so frustrated that one could strangle someone. Violence was beginning to sound like a very attractive option just now and he almost wished that either Lucifer or Simiel would do something or have their demons do something simply so that he could go and smite someone. Just to work off a little pent up frustration. He had never been overly fond of inaction so the work of combing through the library for answers to the questions and dilemmas they were facing would have been sufficient to try his patience at the best of times, but now while there was so much at stake including the very lives of his beloved vessel and younger brothers, it was simply unbearable.
"Are you sure that you didn't remove any books, scrolls or information on this code from the library?" Michael asked his brother, not for the first time.
That was another human habit which he seemed to have acquired at some point recently. The false belief that asking the same question multiple times would somehow result in a different answer when nothing else had changed.
"Yes, Michael," Raziel replied calmly. "I am sure."
The fact that his brother wasn't reacting with either offense or annoyance did nothing to the curb this new habit of his. Michael supposed that his newly returned brother had probably long since gotten used to this human behavior from his time spent on Earth. The thought didn't sit well with him and he was mildly surprised to realize that a part of him actually felt jealous of Raziel for the experience. It was with a shock that he realized that he'd actually like to be able to experience the same. Though if that only would hold true only if he got to be around his precious vessel or not he didn't know. Still, it was not something which he'd ever expected to happen.
Now that Michael actually allowed himself to think about it, the thought was rapidly followed by a sense of bitterness. First at the fact that Father had chosen to confide in Raziel and not him, and second at the realization that he had never had that opportunity. As his Father's first, it had been his responsibility to look after his brothers and sister in His absence. So even if he'd ever had the inclination back then to think of such a course of action, he'd never have been able to indulge in it. Not like Gabriel had been able to.
The thoughts and sentiments were completely foreign to Michael and he wasn't at all sure what to make of them. He felt horror at the near blasphemy of it all but that was an instinctive reaction and luckily tempered by the knowledge that neither Castiel nor Dean had fallen from favor for indulging similar or worse thoughts. Still, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the thoughts or how to go about incorporating these new realities into himself. He would have to speak with Dean about them the next time that he saw his bond brother.
A slight sound from his brother had Michael whipping his head around. "Raziel? Have you found something?"
"It think so. It's not a key to the code, but it speaks of something which may be it," Raziel replied before offering him the tome. "Here, see."
A quick glance at the passage in question made Michael's hopes rise. In addition to what Raziel had mentioned, it also described how the cipher had passed from the hands of the line of Abel into the order of Jesus' disciple. After his first trip to the Vatican with Dean, he had looked into the tenants and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church in more depth than he had ever bothered to do before and therefore he knew the story of its origin.
"If the Vatican still has the key mentioned here, then this is excellent news, Brother," Michael stated, looking back up with a smile.
"To Dean then?" Raziel inquired.
"Yes."
/
The horror that Christian had felt upon first discovering that there was, in fact, a new grave in the Campbell family graveyard at the back of the compound property still lingered though he had left as soon as he had found the renewed tombstone with Samuel's name upon it. Throughout the entire frantic drive there he'd been desperately clinging to the idea that Simiel had been lying to him in a carefully calculated bid to get him to do something rash.
Lucifer lied after all, everyone knew that, so Christian had figured that the devil's right hand man (or woman in this case) would have no qualms whatsoever doing so as well. What was surprising was that it turned out that they had no trouble telling the truth either when it suited their purpose to do so. His phone was in his hand again but so far he'd been unable to work up the courage to actually make the call as he paced his latest motel room, far too afraid of what it would mean if Simiel had also been telling him the truth when she'd spoken of exactly how it was that Samuel had died. Oh, he wouldn't put it past his cousin to do something like that, Sam had told him more than enough about Dean for him to know that, but what really bugged him was why. Samuel had all but fawned over his oldest grandson in Dean's absence, so what had been the reason to get rid of him? Had Samuel finally started to see Dean Winchester for what he truly was when confronted with the reality of his grandson rather than some glorified construction of him that was half memory and half fantasy?
Yeah, that actually made sense now that Christian thought about it. Well either that or the angels had felt threatened by the influence that Samuel had over his grandson and they had convinced Dean that the older hunter was against him or them. In that case they'd probably been able to manipulate his cousin into blindly falling in line like the good little soldier that Sam had told him Dean was.
Well, that answered one of his questions, but Christian tried to shy away from the other one. Because, really, he didn't care how far Michael and the other angels with him were prepared to go to follow God's original Apocalypse plans as he intended to derail things long before they got to that point. So it didn't matter how uncomfortable Lucifer's last words had left him or the fact that God might have intended for all of this to happen from the beginning.
Really, it didn't.
Christian punched speed dial two on his phone, suddenly not finding the prospect of speaking with Gwen and learning the truth of what had happened to Samuel nearly as daunting as it had seemed before.
"Christian?" Gwen questioned, her voice cautious and rife with disbelief.
The reaction was pretty much what Christian had expected as he'd outright ignored her initial attempts to contact him right after he'd left. The calls had stopped after a day or two of his ignoring them, but the text messages had lasted a while longer. A part of him had wanted to respond to them, just to try and make his cousin see reason before it was too late as he had always liked Gwen, but he'd known that he hadn't stood a chance against the combined focus of Samuel and Sam, not after all of his earlier attempts to get her on his side with smaller arguments had mostly failed.
"Why didn't you tell me that Samuel was killed?" Christian demanded harshly, not wanting to give her the chance to ask him about where he'd been or, God forbid, how he felt.
His only interest now was to learn the truth of what had happened. While Christian might have held out some slim hope of Gwen coming around before, despite all indications to the contrary, that hope was completely and utterly gone now. Not only had she not deemed it important to tell him about Samuel's death, but if Simiel was correct, well then she was completely lost to him forever.
Christian promised himself that he would make Dean Winchester pay for that; for ruining his family.
"I-" Gwen began, clearly caught off-guard before she took an deep breath that he could hear clearly over the phone before switching track. "Look, I'm sorry, Christian, I really am, but it all happened so quickly and there's been so much going on lately that it just slipped my mind."
"You're saying that you forgot?" Christian demanded, incredulous, before suspicion began to leak in. "Or did you know that I'd demand to know exactly how he died and you didn't want to tell me that?"
"Christian-"
"How?"
"It's complicated."
"No, it's not. Something killed him, physically ended his life, what was it? Or should I instead be asking who was it?"
"What do you know?" Gwen suddenly demanded, her voice turning hard and sharp. "Who told you?"
"So it's true then. Raphael did kill him and Dean made you think that it was for the best."
"No! Well, not the last. Dean was in no condition to make anyone do anything. He nearly died, Christian!"
"My heart breaks for him."
"That's enough!" Gwen thundered and Christian reared back automatically, not at all used to his generally mild mannered cousin reacting like this. "You weren't there, you didn't see! It was horrible, not only was he dead, but his actual soul was nearly completely obliterated. If Death hadn't come when he ha-"
"Death? The horseman?"
"Yes-"
"So now Winchester's got you not only working with angels, but horsemen as well. Doesn't that ring any alarm bells for you?"
"It's not like that."
"No? Then how come's Samuel's dead and Dean isn't? How come one of your precious Winchester's angels killed him and that's somehow okay? Christ, can't you see what's happening right before your own eyes, Gwen?"
"Samuel was compromised, he was a threat to Dean."
Christian snored. "Right, Samuel was compromised. Winchester can really make you believe anything, can't he? I never thought of you as such a follower or as so fucking gullible, Gwen."
With that, Christian disconnected the call and turned off his cell, throwing it away onto the bed in disgust. Compromised. The word echoed in his head and he felt his hands clench into fists as he started to pace the room once more. It was just as he'd thought, Dean was nothing but a puppet which the angels were manipulating at will. He wished that he could say that they'd had to make up some elaborate cover story in order to get anyone related to him to fall in line like that, but apparently all that had been necessary was a pretty face and a good lay and the angels had Dean eating out of the palm of their hands. Well he'd always known that bad blood bore true and Mary Campbell clearly had been nothing other than a rotten seed and her firstborn had inherited all of her weaknesses. He'd bet that this Castiel hadn't even had to try hard to get his cousin to spread them. A few coy glances and some pretty words had probably been enough and the rest had been a matter of keeping Dean sated.
The most important thing as far as Christian was concerned, though, was that it meant that he couldn't trust a single word that he'd been told about angels and the Apocalypse from Sam and Bobby. Who knew how long Dean had been under Castiel's thumb? For all he knew his cousin could have been the angel's bitch from the moment that he'd been resurrected, which would mean that everything Sam and Bobby had been told about angels and the Apocalypse was tainted at best and completely wrong at worst. So he couldn't trust any of it and he'd have to start from square one, which meant going back to the basics.
Even as he thought it, Christian was striding towards the rickety stand next to his bed. Just like every hotel or motel across the United States, it contained a copy of the Bible and that was as good a place as any to start.
As he settled down to do so, Christian had to forcibly push aside the devil's words as they continued to echo insidiously through his mind.
/
Dean had just finished changing the Impala's oil and adding antifreeze in preparation for the winter weather that was probably still a little ways off, when he heard the flutter of wings behind him. He glanced over his shoulder as he closed his baby's hood.
"Hey, Mike, Raziel," Dean greeted.
"Dean, we may have found something on the code," Michael replied.
"Really? What?"
"Our sources indicate that the key to breaking it passed into the hands of the Vatican when it was lost by your family," Raziel explained. "Michael says that you have contacts there."
"Yep, I do. Do we know what this key is called or what it looks like? Is it a book or scroll?"
"No, it didn't elaborate on the nature of the cipher."
"Damn, can't have things be too easy, now can we?" Dean muttered as he pulled out his cell before hesitating. "What time is it in Rome right now?"
"Nearly nine in the evening," Michael responded.
"That's not too late to call for something like this, is it?"
"It doesn't hurt to try," Raziel offered. "And if no one replies then we can just take you there anyway and you can tell them about it later."
Dean laughed. "Remind me to stay on my guard around you."
"Hey, you're the ones who say that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."
"Whoever thought that angels were innocent, cherubic and obedient needs to get his head checked," Dean muttered under his breath as he called the number that he'd been given.
"Mr. Winchester?" a male voice inquired as soon as the call was connected.
The form of address made Dean drop his head in lieu of a convenient wall to hit it against. Why did he even bother anymore? Really, it was perfectly clear that there were some things that he simply wasn't going to be able to change no matter how much he tried to do so. Even as he explained that they wanted to come over to look for something in the archives, he made a mental note to just drop this particular issue. Short of asking each new Vatican official that he came into contact with to simply call him Dean, there was no way that they were going to stop calling him Mr. Winchester and he felt exhausted just thinking about it.
"Are you ready to go now?" Raziel asked as soon as Dean hung up.
A quick glance at Michael showed Dean that his two bond brothers had been listening in on his conversation as his archangel now held the scrolls that they'd gotten from Michael Winchester, something which Michael definitely hadn't had in his hands before. So his friend had made a quick trip back up to Heaven during his call.
"Uh, let me grab a different shirt and see if Sam and Bobby want to come along," Dean replied. Raziel tilted his head to one side at this and the next thing that Dean knew, he was wearing a clean shirt and all traces of oil and grease were gone. He blinked in surprise but then smiled. "Thanks."
All cleaned up, that left just one thing to do before they left and Dean hurried inside. He wasn't entirely sure how a meeting between his brother and anyone at the Vatican would go, but he knew that if he just left, his brother would be in a snit for the rest of the week. And if there was a tiny part of himself that kinda wanted to show off to his little brother just how well he'd managed to cope on his own, well then he thought that he might just be justified in feeling like that after all of the shit that he'd put up with from Sam as of late. Besides, it would be a peace offering of a sort, just like when he'd taken his brother out to tell Sam about the wedding rings. After this the ball would be in his brother's court.
"Bobby? Sam?" Dean called out, entering the house.
"Library," Bobby replied.
"Done with the Impala?" Sam asked when Dean entered the room.
"Yeah, look, Mike and Raziel might have a lead for us on the location of the cipher for the code used in the scrolls," Dean explained. "We're about to head over to the Vatican to see if it's correct."
"The Vatican?" Bobby repeated in shock.
"Yep. So, you guys wanna come or what?"
"Yes!" Sam exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Hells, yes!"
Bobby snorted. "Do you actually need us there?"
"No, but you two were the ones who threw hissy fits the last time I left without telling you," Dean pointed out. "So this is your warning this time."
The term hissy fit clearly didn't sit well with the older hunter but Dean could see that Bobby knew better than to try and argue this particular point, muttering something about him being an idjit under his breath.
"You're not coming, Bobby?" Sam questioned in disbelief. "Really?"
"Some of us happen to like our privacy and prefer not to have it invaded by nosy busybodies," Bobby replied but there was an odd note to his voice and Dean frowned, suddenly wondering if his friend had been religious before his wife's death and just what religion Bobby and Karen might have followed back then. "Besides, someone has to keep sorting through these books for all of the other stuff that we're looking for."
"Okay," Dean said, figuring that now was not the time to pry. "I'll still be reachable by phone if you need anything. Come on, Sam, Mike and Raziel are waiting outside."
As he followed his little brother, Dean couldn't help but notice the slight spring to Sam's steps and he shook his head. Only his nerdy brother would get all worked up about going to meet a bunch of mostly stuffy old men and their collection of books and treasures.
"You need to get laid, dude," Dean teased as they stepped outside. "I mean like today."
"Dean!" Sam hissed in protest.
"Hey, I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em. How long has it been anyway? A month? Two months?"
"I'm not discussing this with you."
"More than two months? Really? No wonder you're jonesing for shit like this. You really gotta go out and get yourself laid, Sammy, this isn't good for you."
"Dean!"
"No, seriously."
"Are you ready to go, or should we give the two of you some time alone?" Raziel inquired, amusement rife in his voice.
Dean glanced at his newest bond brother, startled, but smiled when he saw the twinkle in those dark eyes. "Come on, back me up here, Raz. Tell him that what he's doing really isn't healthy. Or natural."
"No!" Sam protested loudly. "I'm not discussing this with an angel."
Dean laughed. "Dude, you have no idea what you're missing!"
Chapter 185
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,246
Summary: In Heaven's library, Michael and Raziel finally find a clue to one of their questions.
PRESENT
Michael was slowly starting to understand the human expression of getting so frustrated that one could strangle someone. Violence was beginning to sound like a very attractive option just now and he almost wished that either Lucifer or Simiel would do something or have their demons do something simply so that he could go and smite someone. Just to work off a little pent up frustration. He had never been overly fond of inaction so the work of combing through the library for answers to the questions and dilemmas they were facing would have been sufficient to try his patience at the best of times, but now while there was so much at stake including the very lives of his beloved vessel and younger brothers, it was simply unbearable.
"Are you sure that you didn't remove any books, scrolls or information on this code from the library?" Michael asked his brother, not for the first time.
That was another human habit which he seemed to have acquired at some point recently. The false belief that asking the same question multiple times would somehow result in a different answer when nothing else had changed.
"Yes, Michael," Raziel replied calmly. "I am sure."
The fact that his brother wasn't reacting with either offense or annoyance did nothing to the curb this new habit of his. Michael supposed that his newly returned brother had probably long since gotten used to this human behavior from his time spent on Earth. The thought didn't sit well with him and he was mildly surprised to realize that a part of him actually felt jealous of Raziel for the experience. It was with a shock that he realized that he'd actually like to be able to experience the same. Though if that only would hold true only if he got to be around his precious vessel or not he didn't know. Still, it was not something which he'd ever expected to happen.
Now that Michael actually allowed himself to think about it, the thought was rapidly followed by a sense of bitterness. First at the fact that Father had chosen to confide in Raziel and not him, and second at the realization that he had never had that opportunity. As his Father's first, it had been his responsibility to look after his brothers and sister in His absence. So even if he'd ever had the inclination back then to think of such a course of action, he'd never have been able to indulge in it. Not like Gabriel had been able to.
The thoughts and sentiments were completely foreign to Michael and he wasn't at all sure what to make of them. He felt horror at the near blasphemy of it all but that was an instinctive reaction and luckily tempered by the knowledge that neither Castiel nor Dean had fallen from favor for indulging similar or worse thoughts. Still, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the thoughts or how to go about incorporating these new realities into himself. He would have to speak with Dean about them the next time that he saw his bond brother.
A slight sound from his brother had Michael whipping his head around. "Raziel? Have you found something?"
"It think so. It's not a key to the code, but it speaks of something which may be it," Raziel replied before offering him the tome. "Here, see."
A quick glance at the passage in question made Michael's hopes rise. In addition to what Raziel had mentioned, it also described how the cipher had passed from the hands of the line of Abel into the order of Jesus' disciple. After his first trip to the Vatican with Dean, he had looked into the tenants and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church in more depth than he had ever bothered to do before and therefore he knew the story of its origin.
"If the Vatican still has the key mentioned here, then this is excellent news, Brother," Michael stated, looking back up with a smile.
"To Dean then?" Raziel inquired.
"Yes."
/
The horror that Christian had felt upon first discovering that there was, in fact, a new grave in the Campbell family graveyard at the back of the compound property still lingered though he had left as soon as he had found the renewed tombstone with Samuel's name upon it. Throughout the entire frantic drive there he'd been desperately clinging to the idea that Simiel had been lying to him in a carefully calculated bid to get him to do something rash.
Lucifer lied after all, everyone knew that, so Christian had figured that the devil's right hand man (or woman in this case) would have no qualms whatsoever doing so as well. What was surprising was that it turned out that they had no trouble telling the truth either when it suited their purpose to do so. His phone was in his hand again but so far he'd been unable to work up the courage to actually make the call as he paced his latest motel room, far too afraid of what it would mean if Simiel had also been telling him the truth when she'd spoken of exactly how it was that Samuel had died. Oh, he wouldn't put it past his cousin to do something like that, Sam had told him more than enough about Dean for him to know that, but what really bugged him was why. Samuel had all but fawned over his oldest grandson in Dean's absence, so what had been the reason to get rid of him? Had Samuel finally started to see Dean Winchester for what he truly was when confronted with the reality of his grandson rather than some glorified construction of him that was half memory and half fantasy?
Yeah, that actually made sense now that Christian thought about it. Well either that or the angels had felt threatened by the influence that Samuel had over his grandson and they had convinced Dean that the older hunter was against him or them. In that case they'd probably been able to manipulate his cousin into blindly falling in line like the good little soldier that Sam had told him Dean was.
Well, that answered one of his questions, but Christian tried to shy away from the other one. Because, really, he didn't care how far Michael and the other angels with him were prepared to go to follow God's original Apocalypse plans as he intended to derail things long before they got to that point. So it didn't matter how uncomfortable Lucifer's last words had left him or the fact that God might have intended for all of this to happen from the beginning.
Really, it didn't.
Christian punched speed dial two on his phone, suddenly not finding the prospect of speaking with Gwen and learning the truth of what had happened to Samuel nearly as daunting as it had seemed before.
"Christian?" Gwen questioned, her voice cautious and rife with disbelief.
The reaction was pretty much what Christian had expected as he'd outright ignored her initial attempts to contact him right after he'd left. The calls had stopped after a day or two of his ignoring them, but the text messages had lasted a while longer. A part of him had wanted to respond to them, just to try and make his cousin see reason before it was too late as he had always liked Gwen, but he'd known that he hadn't stood a chance against the combined focus of Samuel and Sam, not after all of his earlier attempts to get her on his side with smaller arguments had mostly failed.
"Why didn't you tell me that Samuel was killed?" Christian demanded harshly, not wanting to give her the chance to ask him about where he'd been or, God forbid, how he felt.
His only interest now was to learn the truth of what had happened. While Christian might have held out some slim hope of Gwen coming around before, despite all indications to the contrary, that hope was completely and utterly gone now. Not only had she not deemed it important to tell him about Samuel's death, but if Simiel was correct, well then she was completely lost to him forever.
Christian promised himself that he would make Dean Winchester pay for that; for ruining his family.
"I-" Gwen began, clearly caught off-guard before she took an deep breath that he could hear clearly over the phone before switching track. "Look, I'm sorry, Christian, I really am, but it all happened so quickly and there's been so much going on lately that it just slipped my mind."
"You're saying that you forgot?" Christian demanded, incredulous, before suspicion began to leak in. "Or did you know that I'd demand to know exactly how he died and you didn't want to tell me that?"
"Christian-"
"How?"
"It's complicated."
"No, it's not. Something killed him, physically ended his life, what was it? Or should I instead be asking who was it?"
"What do you know?" Gwen suddenly demanded, her voice turning hard and sharp. "Who told you?"
"So it's true then. Raphael did kill him and Dean made you think that it was for the best."
"No! Well, not the last. Dean was in no condition to make anyone do anything. He nearly died, Christian!"
"My heart breaks for him."
"That's enough!" Gwen thundered and Christian reared back automatically, not at all used to his generally mild mannered cousin reacting like this. "You weren't there, you didn't see! It was horrible, not only was he dead, but his actual soul was nearly completely obliterated. If Death hadn't come when he ha-"
"Death? The horseman?"
"Yes-"
"So now Winchester's got you not only working with angels, but horsemen as well. Doesn't that ring any alarm bells for you?"
"It's not like that."
"No? Then how come's Samuel's dead and Dean isn't? How come one of your precious Winchester's angels killed him and that's somehow okay? Christ, can't you see what's happening right before your own eyes, Gwen?"
"Samuel was compromised, he was a threat to Dean."
Christian snored. "Right, Samuel was compromised. Winchester can really make you believe anything, can't he? I never thought of you as such a follower or as so fucking gullible, Gwen."
With that, Christian disconnected the call and turned off his cell, throwing it away onto the bed in disgust. Compromised. The word echoed in his head and he felt his hands clench into fists as he started to pace the room once more. It was just as he'd thought, Dean was nothing but a puppet which the angels were manipulating at will. He wished that he could say that they'd had to make up some elaborate cover story in order to get anyone related to him to fall in line like that, but apparently all that had been necessary was a pretty face and a good lay and the angels had Dean eating out of the palm of their hands. Well he'd always known that bad blood bore true and Mary Campbell clearly had been nothing other than a rotten seed and her firstborn had inherited all of her weaknesses. He'd bet that this Castiel hadn't even had to try hard to get his cousin to spread them. A few coy glances and some pretty words had probably been enough and the rest had been a matter of keeping Dean sated.
The most important thing as far as Christian was concerned, though, was that it meant that he couldn't trust a single word that he'd been told about angels and the Apocalypse from Sam and Bobby. Who knew how long Dean had been under Castiel's thumb? For all he knew his cousin could have been the angel's bitch from the moment that he'd been resurrected, which would mean that everything Sam and Bobby had been told about angels and the Apocalypse was tainted at best and completely wrong at worst. So he couldn't trust any of it and he'd have to start from square one, which meant going back to the basics.
Even as he thought it, Christian was striding towards the rickety stand next to his bed. Just like every hotel or motel across the United States, it contained a copy of the Bible and that was as good a place as any to start.
As he settled down to do so, Christian had to forcibly push aside the devil's words as they continued to echo insidiously through his mind.
/
Dean had just finished changing the Impala's oil and adding antifreeze in preparation for the winter weather that was probably still a little ways off, when he heard the flutter of wings behind him. He glanced over his shoulder as he closed his baby's hood.
"Hey, Mike, Raziel," Dean greeted.
"Dean, we may have found something on the code," Michael replied.
"Really? What?"
"Our sources indicate that the key to breaking it passed into the hands of the Vatican when it was lost by your family," Raziel explained. "Michael says that you have contacts there."
"Yep, I do. Do we know what this key is called or what it looks like? Is it a book or scroll?"
"No, it didn't elaborate on the nature of the cipher."
"Damn, can't have things be too easy, now can we?" Dean muttered as he pulled out his cell before hesitating. "What time is it in Rome right now?"
"Nearly nine in the evening," Michael responded.
"That's not too late to call for something like this, is it?"
"It doesn't hurt to try," Raziel offered. "And if no one replies then we can just take you there anyway and you can tell them about it later."
Dean laughed. "Remind me to stay on my guard around you."
"Hey, you're the ones who say that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."
"Whoever thought that angels were innocent, cherubic and obedient needs to get his head checked," Dean muttered under his breath as he called the number that he'd been given.
"Mr. Winchester?" a male voice inquired as soon as the call was connected.
The form of address made Dean drop his head in lieu of a convenient wall to hit it against. Why did he even bother anymore? Really, it was perfectly clear that there were some things that he simply wasn't going to be able to change no matter how much he tried to do so. Even as he explained that they wanted to come over to look for something in the archives, he made a mental note to just drop this particular issue. Short of asking each new Vatican official that he came into contact with to simply call him Dean, there was no way that they were going to stop calling him Mr. Winchester and he felt exhausted just thinking about it.
"Are you ready to go now?" Raziel asked as soon as Dean hung up.
A quick glance at Michael showed Dean that his two bond brothers had been listening in on his conversation as his archangel now held the scrolls that they'd gotten from Michael Winchester, something which Michael definitely hadn't had in his hands before. So his friend had made a quick trip back up to Heaven during his call.
"Uh, let me grab a different shirt and see if Sam and Bobby want to come along," Dean replied. Raziel tilted his head to one side at this and the next thing that Dean knew, he was wearing a clean shirt and all traces of oil and grease were gone. He blinked in surprise but then smiled. "Thanks."
All cleaned up, that left just one thing to do before they left and Dean hurried inside. He wasn't entirely sure how a meeting between his brother and anyone at the Vatican would go, but he knew that if he just left, his brother would be in a snit for the rest of the week. And if there was a tiny part of himself that kinda wanted to show off to his little brother just how well he'd managed to cope on his own, well then he thought that he might just be justified in feeling like that after all of the shit that he'd put up with from Sam as of late. Besides, it would be a peace offering of a sort, just like when he'd taken his brother out to tell Sam about the wedding rings. After this the ball would be in his brother's court.
"Bobby? Sam?" Dean called out, entering the house.
"Library," Bobby replied.
"Done with the Impala?" Sam asked when Dean entered the room.
"Yeah, look, Mike and Raziel might have a lead for us on the location of the cipher for the code used in the scrolls," Dean explained. "We're about to head over to the Vatican to see if it's correct."
"The Vatican?" Bobby repeated in shock.
"Yep. So, you guys wanna come or what?"
"Yes!" Sam exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Hells, yes!"
Bobby snorted. "Do you actually need us there?"
"No, but you two were the ones who threw hissy fits the last time I left without telling you," Dean pointed out. "So this is your warning this time."
The term hissy fit clearly didn't sit well with the older hunter but Dean could see that Bobby knew better than to try and argue this particular point, muttering something about him being an idjit under his breath.
"You're not coming, Bobby?" Sam questioned in disbelief. "Really?"
"Some of us happen to like our privacy and prefer not to have it invaded by nosy busybodies," Bobby replied but there was an odd note to his voice and Dean frowned, suddenly wondering if his friend had been religious before his wife's death and just what religion Bobby and Karen might have followed back then. "Besides, someone has to keep sorting through these books for all of the other stuff that we're looking for."
"Okay," Dean said, figuring that now was not the time to pry. "I'll still be reachable by phone if you need anything. Come on, Sam, Mike and Raziel are waiting outside."
As he followed his little brother, Dean couldn't help but notice the slight spring to Sam's steps and he shook his head. Only his nerdy brother would get all worked up about going to meet a bunch of mostly stuffy old men and their collection of books and treasures.
"You need to get laid, dude," Dean teased as they stepped outside. "I mean like today."
"Dean!" Sam hissed in protest.
"Hey, I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em. How long has it been anyway? A month? Two months?"
"I'm not discussing this with you."
"More than two months? Really? No wonder you're jonesing for shit like this. You really gotta go out and get yourself laid, Sammy, this isn't good for you."
"Dean!"
"No, seriously."
"Are you ready to go, or should we give the two of you some time alone?" Raziel inquired, amusement rife in his voice.
Dean glanced at his newest bond brother, startled, but smiled when he saw the twinkle in those dark eyes. "Come on, back me up here, Raz. Tell him that what he's doing really isn't healthy. Or natural."
"No!" Sam protested loudly. "I'm not discussing this with an angel."
Dean laughed. "Dude, you have no idea what you're missing!"
Chapter 185