And Then I Crashed Into You (And I Went Up In Flames) (4/7)
Fic title: And Then I Crashed Into You (And I Went Up In Flames)
Author name: paracaerouvoar
Artist name: skeptiik
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 26K and change
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for most of season four and early season five. Mentions of offscreen main character death and onscreen minor character death.
Summary: Jimmy Novak saw it all. The whole story. And he's ready to talk about it. Caleb Gallagher is listening to the only story that matters. The unfolding story of Dean Winchester, a hunter, and Castiel, an angel, the forbidden love set to a crumbling world background. Starting with being pulled from Hell, it rewinds through Dean's past before fast forwarding to the conflicting feelings they have for each other, building to a deafening crescendo in a fight to the death between hell disguised as Heaven.
Masterpost
Ast post
Chapter Three
Sam leaves, sneaking out as he does almost every night. We watch him leave and listen to the car engine roar.
We watch Dean sleep, his nose wrinkling as he battles hell in his dreams.
Castiel was given orders while we were in heaven. If Dean Winchester cannot fight off his dreams, how can he be expected to fight the apocalypse when it lands on his front step? It pains me to watch him like this, but it pains Castiel more, and we sit on the edge of his bed, praying he’ll wake up soon.
He jerks awake and spins round to eye us apprehensively. ‘Hello Dean. What were you dreaming about?’ We ask, a little harshly in my opinion, but since Castiel was given the new orders, he listens to me less and less.
‘What, do you get your freak on by watching other people sleep? What do you want?’ he grumbles, but we can see he’s glad to be awake.
‘Listen to me. You have to stop it.’
‘Stop what?’ he asks, confused. We touch two fingers to his forehead and he is gone, spiralling through the past. His past. Pre-Sam. Pre-him. 1973. The year it all began.
*Do you really believe he can stop it?* I say, breaking the silence in a too quiet room.
I’m met with more silence, until we follow Dean through Winchester history.
--
We arrive and watch Dean enter a diner, half collapsing into a seat next to a young man, with dark hair and darker eyes. They make conversation for a few minutes until Dean learns the man’s identity. They both leave, and Dean follows John Winchester round a corner, where he walks almost straight into us.
‘What is this?’ he snarls.
‘What does it look like?’ we counter, a question answering a question.
‘Is it real?’ he asks, after a moment of hesitation.
‘Very.’
‘Okay, so what? The angels got their hands on some DeLoreans? How did I get here?’
‘Time is fluid, Dean. It’s not easy, but we can bend it, on occasion,’ we say, simplifying the complex strings that need to be pulled for this to happen.
‘Well, bend it back or tell me what the hell I’m doing here!’
‘I told you, you have to stop it,’ Castiel repeats his earlier message, sounding more pissed than I’ve heard him before.
‘Stop what?’ Dean says, sounding almost as exasperated. ‘What, is there something nasty after my dad?’
A car horn sounds, and Castiel uses the distraction to evaporate into the sky. Dean shouts after us as we float along lazily, watching him.
*Watching over him* Castiel corrects me.
We follow Dean as he picks up John’s trail again, shadowing him to a car dealership, and watch as he persuades his father to buy the car he will eventually grow up in, a decade later.
We see when Dean finds his mother, ten years younger than he remembers, and even prettier.
We watch as Mary sneaks up behind Dean, demanding to know who he is. Castiel chuckles humourlessly at the look in Dean’s eye as he realises his mother was a hunter from a family of hunters. Hunting was in his blood. Always had been, even before the fire.
We’re standing outside, invisible to humans as we listen to the conversation between grandfather and grandson, a conversation they never got to have otherwise.
As he sleeps that night, we sooth his dreams, temporarily under the radar. I can feel Castiel’s tension loosening once he knows his Dean won’t be plagued by the nightmare of Hell.
Castiel perks up when I call Dean his. I’m not entirely sure why...
In the morning, we hang back, watching the farmhouse from a distance as Samuel Campbell approaches, Dean already inside and gleaning information from the widow.
A chill runs down my back when I see the look on Dean’s face at the mention of the yellow eyed man.
That night we watch from inside the Campbell house, as inconspicuous as we were outside. We’re visible only out of the corner of an eyes, a flash of colour when you blink...
Dean tells Samuel about the Colt, the gun that can kill anything.
*Can it kill angels?* I ask, wondering what happens to me if Castiel dies.
*Some angels* He answers. *Not Archangels*
*Can it kill Lucifer?*
More silence. We watch as Dean, a single tear tracking its way down his face, implores his mother to please, stay in bed. If I had control of my tear ducts, I’m sure a few tears would escape from me as well. Castiel remains stony faced and dry eyed, but inside his heart is breaking for his Dean.
He bristles again, at the mention of Dean being his. I mean it only as reference to Dean being his charge.
Is he reading more into it?
We drop in on him while he’s driving. We both take immense pleasure in watching him flinch as we greet him.
‘So what, God’s my co-pilot, huh?’ he growls, looking thoroughly pissed off. We just look at him, tilting our head again. ‘Well, you’re just a regular chatty Kathy. Tell me something. Sam would have wanted in on this, why not bring him back?’
‘You had to do this alone, Dean.’
‘And you don’t care that Sam’s tearing up the future looking for me?’
‘Sam’s not looking for you,’ we say, emotionlessly as possible. Dean doesn’t need to know that his brother is off doing...whatever he does when he’s with Her.
Dean accepts this and continues on another spiel, brain working fast. ‘Alright, if I do this, the family curse breaks, right? Mom and Dad live happily ever after, and, and Sam and I grow up playing Little League and chasing tail?’
‘You realise, if you do alter the future, your father, you, Sam, you’ll never become hunters. And all those people you saved. They’ll all die.’
There’s silence in the car as he drives, knuckles tight on the wheel. ‘I realize.’
‘And you don’t care?’ we ask curiously.
‘Oh, I care. I care a lot, but these are my parents, I’m not gonna let them die again. No, not if I can stop it.’
He tears his eyes from the road, but we’re already gone.
--
Caleb is scribbling notes down, the Dictaphone on the picnic table between the two men. His coffee, sitting on the bench next to him has gone cold as it sits there, undrunk.
‘I think that was when I realised that, for all his self sacrifice, and martyrdom, Dean Winchester was essentially a selfish man. When you look at some of the defining moments of his life before he went to hell, it’s clear as crystal. He was against his father selling his soul so he could live, because Dean couldn’t live without his father. He sold his own soul so Sam could live. Or did he sell his soul so he didn’t have to live without Sam? He was willing to kill thousands of people, not deliberately, but passively (which is almost worse, don’t you think) so his parents got the happy ever after he wanted them to have.’ Jimmy takes a sip of what had to be lukewarm coffee at best, icy sludge at worst.
‘But he didn’t, in the end. Otherwise, things would have been different. He chose all those people over his parents?’
Jimmy shakes his head sadly. ‘He didn’t choose...’
--
I watch as Dean jimmies his way into Daniel Elkins’ safe, retrieving the Colt. I watch as he negotiates his way past the loaded shotgun, promising that Elkins gets his gun back. He drives like hellhounds are on his tail all the way back to Lawrence and heads into the Campbell house.
Castiel knows what happens next, I’m sure he does. Samuel’s eyes flash yellow, and Dean loses a grandmother. They flash again, and he loses a grandfather. Out by the woods, they flash a third time, and he loses a father for the first time.
A fourth flash, and he loses his mother forever.
We land silently beside him as he watches the past shape his future, and bring him back to now.
He wakes up again, sitting bolt upright on top of the cover, he swings his legs off the edge and stares at his feet. ‘I couldn’t stop any of it, she still made the deal, she still died in the nursery, didn’t she?’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. You couldn’t have stopped it.’
*You knew that all along, didn’t you?* I add, and I sense him nodding. *Angels are real dicks, sometimes, you know that?*
He nods again, sadly.
‘What?’ Dean asks, incredulous.
‘Destiny can’t be changed, Dean. All roads lead to the same destination.’
‘Then why’d you send me back?’
‘For the truth. Now you know everything we do.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Dean snaps.
‘We know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don’t know is why, what his endgame is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.’ Dean snorts, he obviously doesn’t care.
‘Where’s Sam?’
‘425 Waterman,’ we say eventually. Dean moves fast, darting around the room to grab his leather jacket, his keys, the gun from under his bed.
‘Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean. And we’re not sure where it leads, so stop it. Or we will.’
Dean spins round and looks at us, anger permeating from every pore in his body. I can feel myself shrivelling under his glare, but Castiel stands firm, his face as blank as always.
He leaves us in the motel room, slamming the door on the way out, so hard the windows rattle, and the headboard bangs against the wall. We stand in the middle of an empty room. *You’re a heartless bastard, aren’t you?* I say simply, without malice or spite.
--
We don’t see Sam or Dean for over a month, busy as we are adjusting to having a partner down on Earth.
Uriel is a very different type of angel to Castiel. Castiel calls him a specialist, I call him creepy. He’s a cleanser, used for wiping smudges off a map, the smudges being towns or cities containing sinners. He says that it’s just his job, but Castiel remembers the glint in his eye when he would smite a town. No one smiles that much for a job that ‘has to be done’.
We take frequent visits to heaven, for more orders, and I meet Zachariah, a weasel faced angel that I take an immediate disliking to.
Two days before All Hallows Eve, Luke Wallace dies. A hex bag is found in his house. Later, a teenage girl dies. Another hex bag. We consult the list from Sitael. The raising of Samhain. We are given our final orders from heaven before we leave with Uriel to wait in the motel room the Winchester’s are currently inhabiting. As soon as we land, something feels wrong.
We search the room quickly and methodically and find a third hex bag, hidden in the wall cavity. Uriel is looking out of the window when the door opens, and the younger Winchester draws his gun, bringing it forward in an attack stance. ‘Who are you?’ he demands, but before we can answer Dean pushes the gun out of the way, instinctively defending us. The gun can’t hurt us, but he still pushes it out of the way.
‘Sam! Sam! Wait, it’s just Cas!’ Sam stands there, blinking. ‘The angel,’ Dean reminds him, before catching sight of Uriel, still looking out of the window, not acknowledging anyone. ‘Him I don’t know.’
Sam looks at us again, smiling faintly. ‘Hello Sam,’ we say, and he grins, ear to ear.
‘Oh my God, er, uh, I didn’t mean to, sorry. It’s an honour, really, I-I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Sam steps forward and holds out a hand for us to shake. We look at it, Castiel confused. *You’re supposed to shake it* I explain, and am reinforced by Sam shaking his own hand a little. Castiel finally puts his hand in Sam’s and they shake.
‘And I, you.’ Castiel tells him, and he smiles wider. ‘Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood.’ His smile drops. ‘Glad you see you’ve ceased your extracurricular activities.’
‘Let’s keep it that way.’ Uriel interrupts from his station on the other side of the room, and the Winchesters look at him.
‘Yeah, OK, Chuckles,’ Dean snarks, before turning back to us. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘The raising of Samhain, have you stopped it?’ Castiel asks, ignoring the question. *You’re being evasive again* I point out.
‘Why?’
‘Dean, have you located the witch?’ We keep on asking him questions, and eventually he folds.
‘Yes, we located the witch,’ he sighs.
‘And is the witch dead?’
‘No, but-’ Sam takes over, but Dean interrupts him.
‘We know who it is.’
We cross the room and retrieve the hex bag from the bedside table. ‘Apparently the witch knows who you are too.’ We hold it up to them. ‘This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn’t found it, surely one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where this witch is now?’
They exchange a look.
‘We’re working on it,’ Dean says eventually.
‘That’s unfortunate,’ we answer, with a regretful look at Uriel.
‘What do you care?’ Dean asks, hostile.
‘The rising of Samhain is one of the sixty six seals,’ we inform him, somewhat haughtily, I thought.
‘So this is about your buddy Lucifer,’ Dean starts, but Uriel interrupts him with a snarl.
‘Lucifer is no friend of ours.’
‘It’s just an expression,’ Dean defends himself.
‘Lucifer cannot rise.’ We cut in, before an argument starts. I get the feeling Castiel has been heading off arguments with Uriel for a while now. ‘The breaking of this seal must be prevented at all costs.’
‘Okay, great, well now that you’re here, why don’t you tell us where the witch is, we’ll gank her and everyone goes home.’ Dean throws his hands up, apparently intent on venting on someone.
‘We are not omniscient, this witch is very powerful, she’s cloaked even our methods.’
‘Okay, well, we already know who she is, so if we work together-’ Sam is formulating a plan when Uriel interrupts again, turning away from the window to face the rest of us.
‘Enough of this.’
Dean snaps. ‘Ok, who are you, and why should I care?’ he spits out. We decide to intervene. Again.
‘This is Uriel. He’s what you might call a... specialist.’
‘What kind of specialist?’ Dean asks, looking slightly worried. ‘What’s he gonna do?’
‘You uh, both of you need to leave this town, immediately.’ We try and placate him, knowing that what comes up next is going to be incendiary.
‘Why?’ he asks the question I didn’t want him to ask, and we have no choice but to answer it.’
‘Because we’re about to destroy it.’ We say, with finality. The brothers exchange a worried glance and my stomach hardens into a knot. Dean reacts first, rounding on us.
‘So this is your plan, you’re gonna smite the whole friggin’ town?’
‘We’re out of time, this witch has to die, the seal must be saved.’
‘There are a thousand people here,’ pleads Sam, and I turn to him.
‘One thousand two hundred fourteen,’ Uriel corrects, smug.
‘And you’re willing to kill them all?’ he cries.
‘This isn’t the first time I’ve... purified a city,’ Uriel answer. I suspect he’s deliberately choosing the most antagonistic words, pushing the Winchesters slightly.
‘Look, I understand this is... regrettable,’ we add in before Sam can counter Uriel by punching him in the face.
‘Regrettable?’ Dean echoes my words, disbelief written on his face.
‘We have to hold the line. Too many seals have broken already,’ I clarify.
‘So you screw the pooch on some seals, and this town has to pay the price?’
‘It’s the lives of one thousand,’ *One thousand two hundred fourteen* I correct angrily. I’m just as pissed as Dean is about this. He’s still ignoring me. ‘against the lives of six billion. There’s a bigger picture here.’
Dean snorts. ‘Yeah, cos you’re bigger picture kind of guys.’
‘Lucifer cannot rise,’ we repeat. ’He does, and Hell rises with him. Is that something you’re willing to risk?’ I can feel Castiel’s anger seething below me, above me, all around me. It’s everywhere, all consuming, like being at the heart of the sun.
‘We’ll stop this witch before she summons anyone. Your seal won’t be broken, and no one has to die.’ Sam throws his plea out wildly.
‘We’re wasting time with these mud monkeys,’ Uriel tosses the insult out offhandedly.
We turn away from Dean, not wanting to argue any longer. ‘I’m sorry, but we have our orders.’
The look on Sam’s face is heart wrenching. ‘No, you can’t do this, you’re angels, I mean, aren’t you supposed to... you’re supposed to show mercy.’ He sounds so childish and naive, not looking a day over his young years, his face younger than it’s looked since his girlfriend died. *THAT’S a puppy face* I notify Castiel *That’s what you look like every time you tilt your head.*
I sense the mental equivalent of a pout, before Uriel butts into the conversation again, twisting the knife in Sam’s faith system. ‘Says who?’
‘We have no choice,’ we sideline the conversation about mercy.
‘Of course you have a choice, I mean, come on, what? You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What, you’re both just a coupla hammers?’
‘Look, even if you can’t understand it, have faith. The plan is just.’ The Winchester and I snort with disdain at the same time.
‘How can you even say that?’ Sam asks, and I can tell Castiel is starting to doubt, to question, before he reminds himself that he doesn’t question orders. He obeys heaven. Indefinitely. And he says as much in his answer.
‘Because it comes from heaven. That makes it just.’
‘Oh, it must be nice, to be so sure of yourselves.’ Dean retorts, and Castiel replies with a barbed answer that stops him in his tracks.
‘Tell me something, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn’t you obey?’ He looks at us for a second, and I can tell he’s making a decision.
‘Well, sorry boys, looks like the plans have changed.’
‘You think you can stop us?’ Uriel looks them up and down, clearly not impressed with the ‘mud monkeys’. Dean heads over to him, standing only inches away, looking him directly in the eye.
‘No, but if you’re gonna smite this whole town, then you’re gonna have to smite us with it, because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of busting me out of hell, I figure I’m worth something to the man upstairs. So you wanna waste me, go ahead, see how he digs that.’
Uriel steps forward, closing the distance between angel and hunter. ‘I will drag you out of here myself,’ he literally growls at Dean, who just smirks.
‘Yeah, but you’ll have to kill me, then we’re back to the same problem. I mean, come on, you’re gonna wipe out a whole town for one little witch. Sounds to me like you’re compensating for something.’ He turns to us and pleads one final time. ‘We can do this. We will find that witch, and we will stop the summoning.’
Uriel starts arguing again, but Castiel holds up a hand. ‘Enough!’ We stare at dean for just a second too long, so he starts squirming ‘I suggest you move quickly.’
They do, taking the hex bag and disappearing out the motel door as quickly as they had entered. I can see why some consider them to be ghosts in the system. We watch them for a while, smiling as Dean finds his car covered in egg.
--
We’re in a park, waiting for revelation from Heaven. Castiel and Uriel are side by side as we watch the sun setting. Children skip past in Halloween costumes and Castiel watches them, intrigued. ‘The decision’s been made,’ we say, and Uriel’s brow furrows.
‘By a mud monkey.’
‘You shouldn’t call them that,’ Castiel replies levelly, but I hear the undertone in his voice, even if he does. Don’t call him that.
‘Ah, that’s what they are,’ Uriel waves it off with a flick of his hand. ‘Savages, just plumbing on legs.’
‘You’re close to blasphemy,’ we say, knowing that Lucifer fell because he had almost identical views towards his Father’s creations. Uriel sighs. ‘There’s a reason we were sent to save him,’ we add. ‘He has potential, he may succeed here.’
We sit on the bench next to Uriel, resting our elbows on our knees. ‘And at any rate, it’s out of our hands now.’
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ he counters, looking at us out of the corner of his eye.
‘And what would you suggest?’ we return, choosing our words carefully.
‘That we drag Dean Winchester out of here and blow this insignificant pinprick off the map.’
‘You know our true orders.’ We turn to look at him. ‘Are you prepared to disobey?’ He just looks at us in return, until he gets up and leaves, invisible wings taking him to heaven.
--
They didn’t save the seal. The witch died, Samhain rose, and the seal broke, the crack echoing around heaven like every breaking seal did.
I don’t know where Uriel is, but we’re following Dean as he wanders through the town, stopping at the park Uriel and Castiel had conversed in earlier. He sits on the bench, watching the sun set. We land next to him, silently, but without looking, he greets us. ‘Let me guess, you’re here for the I told you so.’
‘No,’ we say, and he looks around at us, before turning away again.
‘Well, good, ‘cause I’m really not that interested.’
‘I’m not here to judge you Dean,’ we say, and his brow furrows slightly as he turns back, looking us in the eye.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Our orders-’ we begin, but he cuts us off.
‘Yeah, you know, I’ve had just about enough of these orders of yours-’ he starts, but it’s our turn to interrupt.
‘Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever you told us to.’
‘Your orders were to follow our orders?’ he asks, incredulous.
‘It was a test, to see how you would perform under, battlefield conditions, you might say.’
‘It was a witch, not the Tet offensive!’ he snaps, sarcasm apparently being his default setting. Then his tone changes. ‘So I uh- failed your test huh? I get it. But you know what? If you would have waved that magic time travelling wand of yours and we had to do it all over again, I’d make the same call. Cause see, I don’t know what’s gonna happen when these seals are broken, hell I don’t even know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. But what I do know is, that this, here? These kids, the swings, the trees, all of it is still here because of my brother and me.’ He looks at his hands, his jaw set.
‘You misunderstand me, Dean,’ we say, our voice taking on a lower, gentler tone. ‘I’m not like you think. I was praying you would choose to save the town.’ He looks up at us again, and his face is tired, lines that weren’t there six months ago. *Hell does that to a person* Castiel reminds me.
‘You were?’ he asks, and maybe I’m imagining it, but maybe a little bit of the weight on his shoulders is, not gone, just being supported by someone else. Us?
‘These people, they’re all my father’s creations. They’re works of art, and yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal was broken and we are one step closer to hell on earth, for all creation. Now that’s not an expression Dean, it’s literal. You of all people should appreciate what that means.’ He looks at us and what little weight we were supporting for him dropped back on. ‘Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?’
‘Okay,’ he answers, shrugging slightly.
‘I’m not a…hammer as you say, I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months you will have more decisions to make, I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders Dean. I truly don’t.’
We watch each other for a moment, until Dean looks away, watching the children whose lives he saved earlier today.
Our cue to leave. When he looks back, we’re gone.
Chapter Five
Author name: paracaerouvoar
Artist name: skeptiik
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 26K and change
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for most of season four and early season five. Mentions of offscreen main character death and onscreen minor character death.
Summary: Jimmy Novak saw it all. The whole story. And he's ready to talk about it. Caleb Gallagher is listening to the only story that matters. The unfolding story of Dean Winchester, a hunter, and Castiel, an angel, the forbidden love set to a crumbling world background. Starting with being pulled from Hell, it rewinds through Dean's past before fast forwarding to the conflicting feelings they have for each other, building to a deafening crescendo in a fight to the death between hell disguised as Heaven.
Masterpost
Ast post
Chapter Three
Sam leaves, sneaking out as he does almost every night. We watch him leave and listen to the car engine roar.
We watch Dean sleep, his nose wrinkling as he battles hell in his dreams.
Castiel was given orders while we were in heaven. If Dean Winchester cannot fight off his dreams, how can he be expected to fight the apocalypse when it lands on his front step? It pains me to watch him like this, but it pains Castiel more, and we sit on the edge of his bed, praying he’ll wake up soon.
He jerks awake and spins round to eye us apprehensively. ‘Hello Dean. What were you dreaming about?’ We ask, a little harshly in my opinion, but since Castiel was given the new orders, he listens to me less and less.
‘What, do you get your freak on by watching other people sleep? What do you want?’ he grumbles, but we can see he’s glad to be awake.
‘Listen to me. You have to stop it.’
‘Stop what?’ he asks, confused. We touch two fingers to his forehead and he is gone, spiralling through the past. His past. Pre-Sam. Pre-him. 1973. The year it all began.
*Do you really believe he can stop it?* I say, breaking the silence in a too quiet room.
I’m met with more silence, until we follow Dean through Winchester history.
--
We arrive and watch Dean enter a diner, half collapsing into a seat next to a young man, with dark hair and darker eyes. They make conversation for a few minutes until Dean learns the man’s identity. They both leave, and Dean follows John Winchester round a corner, where he walks almost straight into us.
‘What is this?’ he snarls.
‘What does it look like?’ we counter, a question answering a question.
‘Is it real?’ he asks, after a moment of hesitation.
‘Very.’
‘Okay, so what? The angels got their hands on some DeLoreans? How did I get here?’
‘Time is fluid, Dean. It’s not easy, but we can bend it, on occasion,’ we say, simplifying the complex strings that need to be pulled for this to happen.
‘Well, bend it back or tell me what the hell I’m doing here!’
‘I told you, you have to stop it,’ Castiel repeats his earlier message, sounding more pissed than I’ve heard him before.
‘Stop what?’ Dean says, sounding almost as exasperated. ‘What, is there something nasty after my dad?’
A car horn sounds, and Castiel uses the distraction to evaporate into the sky. Dean shouts after us as we float along lazily, watching him.
*Watching over him* Castiel corrects me.
We follow Dean as he picks up John’s trail again, shadowing him to a car dealership, and watch as he persuades his father to buy the car he will eventually grow up in, a decade later.
We see when Dean finds his mother, ten years younger than he remembers, and even prettier.
We watch as Mary sneaks up behind Dean, demanding to know who he is. Castiel chuckles humourlessly at the look in Dean’s eye as he realises his mother was a hunter from a family of hunters. Hunting was in his blood. Always had been, even before the fire.
We’re standing outside, invisible to humans as we listen to the conversation between grandfather and grandson, a conversation they never got to have otherwise.
As he sleeps that night, we sooth his dreams, temporarily under the radar. I can feel Castiel’s tension loosening once he knows his Dean won’t be plagued by the nightmare of Hell.
Castiel perks up when I call Dean his. I’m not entirely sure why...
In the morning, we hang back, watching the farmhouse from a distance as Samuel Campbell approaches, Dean already inside and gleaning information from the widow.
A chill runs down my back when I see the look on Dean’s face at the mention of the yellow eyed man.
That night we watch from inside the Campbell house, as inconspicuous as we were outside. We’re visible only out of the corner of an eyes, a flash of colour when you blink...
Dean tells Samuel about the Colt, the gun that can kill anything.
*Can it kill angels?* I ask, wondering what happens to me if Castiel dies.
*Some angels* He answers. *Not Archangels*
*Can it kill Lucifer?*
More silence. We watch as Dean, a single tear tracking its way down his face, implores his mother to please, stay in bed. If I had control of my tear ducts, I’m sure a few tears would escape from me as well. Castiel remains stony faced and dry eyed, but inside his heart is breaking for his Dean.
He bristles again, at the mention of Dean being his. I mean it only as reference to Dean being his charge.
Is he reading more into it?
We drop in on him while he’s driving. We both take immense pleasure in watching him flinch as we greet him.
‘So what, God’s my co-pilot, huh?’ he growls, looking thoroughly pissed off. We just look at him, tilting our head again. ‘Well, you’re just a regular chatty Kathy. Tell me something. Sam would have wanted in on this, why not bring him back?’
‘You had to do this alone, Dean.’
‘And you don’t care that Sam’s tearing up the future looking for me?’
‘Sam’s not looking for you,’ we say, emotionlessly as possible. Dean doesn’t need to know that his brother is off doing...whatever he does when he’s with Her.
Dean accepts this and continues on another spiel, brain working fast. ‘Alright, if I do this, the family curse breaks, right? Mom and Dad live happily ever after, and, and Sam and I grow up playing Little League and chasing tail?’
‘You realise, if you do alter the future, your father, you, Sam, you’ll never become hunters. And all those people you saved. They’ll all die.’
There’s silence in the car as he drives, knuckles tight on the wheel. ‘I realize.’
‘And you don’t care?’ we ask curiously.
‘Oh, I care. I care a lot, but these are my parents, I’m not gonna let them die again. No, not if I can stop it.’
He tears his eyes from the road, but we’re already gone.
--
Caleb is scribbling notes down, the Dictaphone on the picnic table between the two men. His coffee, sitting on the bench next to him has gone cold as it sits there, undrunk.
‘I think that was when I realised that, for all his self sacrifice, and martyrdom, Dean Winchester was essentially a selfish man. When you look at some of the defining moments of his life before he went to hell, it’s clear as crystal. He was against his father selling his soul so he could live, because Dean couldn’t live without his father. He sold his own soul so Sam could live. Or did he sell his soul so he didn’t have to live without Sam? He was willing to kill thousands of people, not deliberately, but passively (which is almost worse, don’t you think) so his parents got the happy ever after he wanted them to have.’ Jimmy takes a sip of what had to be lukewarm coffee at best, icy sludge at worst.
‘But he didn’t, in the end. Otherwise, things would have been different. He chose all those people over his parents?’
Jimmy shakes his head sadly. ‘He didn’t choose...’
--
I watch as Dean jimmies his way into Daniel Elkins’ safe, retrieving the Colt. I watch as he negotiates his way past the loaded shotgun, promising that Elkins gets his gun back. He drives like hellhounds are on his tail all the way back to Lawrence and heads into the Campbell house.
Castiel knows what happens next, I’m sure he does. Samuel’s eyes flash yellow, and Dean loses a grandmother. They flash again, and he loses a grandfather. Out by the woods, they flash a third time, and he loses a father for the first time.
A fourth flash, and he loses his mother forever.
We land silently beside him as he watches the past shape his future, and bring him back to now.
He wakes up again, sitting bolt upright on top of the cover, he swings his legs off the edge and stares at his feet. ‘I couldn’t stop any of it, she still made the deal, she still died in the nursery, didn’t she?’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. You couldn’t have stopped it.’
*You knew that all along, didn’t you?* I add, and I sense him nodding. *Angels are real dicks, sometimes, you know that?*
He nods again, sadly.
‘What?’ Dean asks, incredulous.
‘Destiny can’t be changed, Dean. All roads lead to the same destination.’
‘Then why’d you send me back?’
‘For the truth. Now you know everything we do.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Dean snaps.
‘We know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don’t know is why, what his endgame is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.’ Dean snorts, he obviously doesn’t care.
‘Where’s Sam?’
‘425 Waterman,’ we say eventually. Dean moves fast, darting around the room to grab his leather jacket, his keys, the gun from under his bed.
‘Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean. And we’re not sure where it leads, so stop it. Or we will.’
Dean spins round and looks at us, anger permeating from every pore in his body. I can feel myself shrivelling under his glare, but Castiel stands firm, his face as blank as always.
He leaves us in the motel room, slamming the door on the way out, so hard the windows rattle, and the headboard bangs against the wall. We stand in the middle of an empty room. *You’re a heartless bastard, aren’t you?* I say simply, without malice or spite.
--
We don’t see Sam or Dean for over a month, busy as we are adjusting to having a partner down on Earth.
Uriel is a very different type of angel to Castiel. Castiel calls him a specialist, I call him creepy. He’s a cleanser, used for wiping smudges off a map, the smudges being towns or cities containing sinners. He says that it’s just his job, but Castiel remembers the glint in his eye when he would smite a town. No one smiles that much for a job that ‘has to be done’.
We take frequent visits to heaven, for more orders, and I meet Zachariah, a weasel faced angel that I take an immediate disliking to.
Two days before All Hallows Eve, Luke Wallace dies. A hex bag is found in his house. Later, a teenage girl dies. Another hex bag. We consult the list from Sitael. The raising of Samhain. We are given our final orders from heaven before we leave with Uriel to wait in the motel room the Winchester’s are currently inhabiting. As soon as we land, something feels wrong.
We search the room quickly and methodically and find a third hex bag, hidden in the wall cavity. Uriel is looking out of the window when the door opens, and the younger Winchester draws his gun, bringing it forward in an attack stance. ‘Who are you?’ he demands, but before we can answer Dean pushes the gun out of the way, instinctively defending us. The gun can’t hurt us, but he still pushes it out of the way.
‘Sam! Sam! Wait, it’s just Cas!’ Sam stands there, blinking. ‘The angel,’ Dean reminds him, before catching sight of Uriel, still looking out of the window, not acknowledging anyone. ‘Him I don’t know.’
Sam looks at us again, smiling faintly. ‘Hello Sam,’ we say, and he grins, ear to ear.
‘Oh my God, er, uh, I didn’t mean to, sorry. It’s an honour, really, I-I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Sam steps forward and holds out a hand for us to shake. We look at it, Castiel confused. *You’re supposed to shake it* I explain, and am reinforced by Sam shaking his own hand a little. Castiel finally puts his hand in Sam’s and they shake.
‘And I, you.’ Castiel tells him, and he smiles wider. ‘Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood.’ His smile drops. ‘Glad you see you’ve ceased your extracurricular activities.’
‘Let’s keep it that way.’ Uriel interrupts from his station on the other side of the room, and the Winchesters look at him.
‘Yeah, OK, Chuckles,’ Dean snarks, before turning back to us. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘The raising of Samhain, have you stopped it?’ Castiel asks, ignoring the question. *You’re being evasive again* I point out.
‘Why?’
‘Dean, have you located the witch?’ We keep on asking him questions, and eventually he folds.
‘Yes, we located the witch,’ he sighs.
‘And is the witch dead?’
‘No, but-’ Sam takes over, but Dean interrupts him.
‘We know who it is.’
We cross the room and retrieve the hex bag from the bedside table. ‘Apparently the witch knows who you are too.’ We hold it up to them. ‘This was inside the wall of your room. If we hadn’t found it, surely one or both of you would be dead. Do you know where this witch is now?’
They exchange a look.
‘We’re working on it,’ Dean says eventually.
‘That’s unfortunate,’ we answer, with a regretful look at Uriel.
‘What do you care?’ Dean asks, hostile.
‘The rising of Samhain is one of the sixty six seals,’ we inform him, somewhat haughtily, I thought.
‘So this is about your buddy Lucifer,’ Dean starts, but Uriel interrupts him with a snarl.
‘Lucifer is no friend of ours.’
‘It’s just an expression,’ Dean defends himself.
‘Lucifer cannot rise.’ We cut in, before an argument starts. I get the feeling Castiel has been heading off arguments with Uriel for a while now. ‘The breaking of this seal must be prevented at all costs.’
‘Okay, great, well now that you’re here, why don’t you tell us where the witch is, we’ll gank her and everyone goes home.’ Dean throws his hands up, apparently intent on venting on someone.
‘We are not omniscient, this witch is very powerful, she’s cloaked even our methods.’
‘Okay, well, we already know who she is, so if we work together-’ Sam is formulating a plan when Uriel interrupts again, turning away from the window to face the rest of us.
‘Enough of this.’
Dean snaps. ‘Ok, who are you, and why should I care?’ he spits out. We decide to intervene. Again.
‘This is Uriel. He’s what you might call a... specialist.’
‘What kind of specialist?’ Dean asks, looking slightly worried. ‘What’s he gonna do?’
‘You uh, both of you need to leave this town, immediately.’ We try and placate him, knowing that what comes up next is going to be incendiary.
‘Why?’ he asks the question I didn’t want him to ask, and we have no choice but to answer it.’
‘Because we’re about to destroy it.’ We say, with finality. The brothers exchange a worried glance and my stomach hardens into a knot. Dean reacts first, rounding on us.
‘So this is your plan, you’re gonna smite the whole friggin’ town?’
‘We’re out of time, this witch has to die, the seal must be saved.’
‘There are a thousand people here,’ pleads Sam, and I turn to him.
‘One thousand two hundred fourteen,’ Uriel corrects, smug.
‘And you’re willing to kill them all?’ he cries.
‘This isn’t the first time I’ve... purified a city,’ Uriel answer. I suspect he’s deliberately choosing the most antagonistic words, pushing the Winchesters slightly.
‘Look, I understand this is... regrettable,’ we add in before Sam can counter Uriel by punching him in the face.
‘Regrettable?’ Dean echoes my words, disbelief written on his face.
‘We have to hold the line. Too many seals have broken already,’ I clarify.
‘So you screw the pooch on some seals, and this town has to pay the price?’
‘It’s the lives of one thousand,’ *One thousand two hundred fourteen* I correct angrily. I’m just as pissed as Dean is about this. He’s still ignoring me. ‘against the lives of six billion. There’s a bigger picture here.’
Dean snorts. ‘Yeah, cos you’re bigger picture kind of guys.’
‘Lucifer cannot rise,’ we repeat. ’He does, and Hell rises with him. Is that something you’re willing to risk?’ I can feel Castiel’s anger seething below me, above me, all around me. It’s everywhere, all consuming, like being at the heart of the sun.
‘We’ll stop this witch before she summons anyone. Your seal won’t be broken, and no one has to die.’ Sam throws his plea out wildly.
‘We’re wasting time with these mud monkeys,’ Uriel tosses the insult out offhandedly.
We turn away from Dean, not wanting to argue any longer. ‘I’m sorry, but we have our orders.’
The look on Sam’s face is heart wrenching. ‘No, you can’t do this, you’re angels, I mean, aren’t you supposed to... you’re supposed to show mercy.’ He sounds so childish and naive, not looking a day over his young years, his face younger than it’s looked since his girlfriend died. *THAT’S a puppy face* I notify Castiel *That’s what you look like every time you tilt your head.*
I sense the mental equivalent of a pout, before Uriel butts into the conversation again, twisting the knife in Sam’s faith system. ‘Says who?’
‘We have no choice,’ we sideline the conversation about mercy.
‘Of course you have a choice, I mean, come on, what? You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What, you’re both just a coupla hammers?’
‘Look, even if you can’t understand it, have faith. The plan is just.’ The Winchester and I snort with disdain at the same time.
‘How can you even say that?’ Sam asks, and I can tell Castiel is starting to doubt, to question, before he reminds himself that he doesn’t question orders. He obeys heaven. Indefinitely. And he says as much in his answer.
‘Because it comes from heaven. That makes it just.’
‘Oh, it must be nice, to be so sure of yourselves.’ Dean retorts, and Castiel replies with a barbed answer that stops him in his tracks.
‘Tell me something, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn’t you obey?’ He looks at us for a second, and I can tell he’s making a decision.
‘Well, sorry boys, looks like the plans have changed.’
‘You think you can stop us?’ Uriel looks them up and down, clearly not impressed with the ‘mud monkeys’. Dean heads over to him, standing only inches away, looking him directly in the eye.
‘No, but if you’re gonna smite this whole town, then you’re gonna have to smite us with it, because we are not leaving. See, you went to the trouble of busting me out of hell, I figure I’m worth something to the man upstairs. So you wanna waste me, go ahead, see how he digs that.’
Uriel steps forward, closing the distance between angel and hunter. ‘I will drag you out of here myself,’ he literally growls at Dean, who just smirks.
‘Yeah, but you’ll have to kill me, then we’re back to the same problem. I mean, come on, you’re gonna wipe out a whole town for one little witch. Sounds to me like you’re compensating for something.’ He turns to us and pleads one final time. ‘We can do this. We will find that witch, and we will stop the summoning.’
Uriel starts arguing again, but Castiel holds up a hand. ‘Enough!’ We stare at dean for just a second too long, so he starts squirming ‘I suggest you move quickly.’
They do, taking the hex bag and disappearing out the motel door as quickly as they had entered. I can see why some consider them to be ghosts in the system. We watch them for a while, smiling as Dean finds his car covered in egg.
--
We’re in a park, waiting for revelation from Heaven. Castiel and Uriel are side by side as we watch the sun setting. Children skip past in Halloween costumes and Castiel watches them, intrigued. ‘The decision’s been made,’ we say, and Uriel’s brow furrows.
‘By a mud monkey.’
‘You shouldn’t call them that,’ Castiel replies levelly, but I hear the undertone in his voice, even if he does. Don’t call him that.
‘Ah, that’s what they are,’ Uriel waves it off with a flick of his hand. ‘Savages, just plumbing on legs.’
‘You’re close to blasphemy,’ we say, knowing that Lucifer fell because he had almost identical views towards his Father’s creations. Uriel sighs. ‘There’s a reason we were sent to save him,’ we add. ‘He has potential, he may succeed here.’
We sit on the bench next to Uriel, resting our elbows on our knees. ‘And at any rate, it’s out of our hands now.’
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ he counters, looking at us out of the corner of his eye.
‘And what would you suggest?’ we return, choosing our words carefully.
‘That we drag Dean Winchester out of here and blow this insignificant pinprick off the map.’
‘You know our true orders.’ We turn to look at him. ‘Are you prepared to disobey?’ He just looks at us in return, until he gets up and leaves, invisible wings taking him to heaven.
--
They didn’t save the seal. The witch died, Samhain rose, and the seal broke, the crack echoing around heaven like every breaking seal did.
I don’t know where Uriel is, but we’re following Dean as he wanders through the town, stopping at the park Uriel and Castiel had conversed in earlier. He sits on the bench, watching the sun set. We land next to him, silently, but without looking, he greets us. ‘Let me guess, you’re here for the I told you so.’
‘No,’ we say, and he looks around at us, before turning away again.
‘Well, good, ‘cause I’m really not that interested.’
‘I’m not here to judge you Dean,’ we say, and his brow furrows slightly as he turns back, looking us in the eye.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Our orders-’ we begin, but he cuts us off.
‘Yeah, you know, I’ve had just about enough of these orders of yours-’ he starts, but it’s our turn to interrupt.
‘Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain, they were to do whatever you told us to.’
‘Your orders were to follow our orders?’ he asks, incredulous.
‘It was a test, to see how you would perform under, battlefield conditions, you might say.’
‘It was a witch, not the Tet offensive!’ he snaps, sarcasm apparently being his default setting. Then his tone changes. ‘So I uh- failed your test huh? I get it. But you know what? If you would have waved that magic time travelling wand of yours and we had to do it all over again, I’d make the same call. Cause see, I don’t know what’s gonna happen when these seals are broken, hell I don’t even know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. But what I do know is, that this, here? These kids, the swings, the trees, all of it is still here because of my brother and me.’ He looks at his hands, his jaw set.
‘You misunderstand me, Dean,’ we say, our voice taking on a lower, gentler tone. ‘I’m not like you think. I was praying you would choose to save the town.’ He looks up at us again, and his face is tired, lines that weren’t there six months ago. *Hell does that to a person* Castiel reminds me.
‘You were?’ he asks, and maybe I’m imagining it, but maybe a little bit of the weight on his shoulders is, not gone, just being supported by someone else. Us?
‘These people, they’re all my father’s creations. They’re works of art, and yet, even though you stopped Samhain, the seal was broken and we are one step closer to hell on earth, for all creation. Now that’s not an expression Dean, it’s literal. You of all people should appreciate what that means.’ He looks at us and what little weight we were supporting for him dropped back on. ‘Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?’
‘Okay,’ he answers, shrugging slightly.
‘I’m not a…hammer as you say, I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months you will have more decisions to make, I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders Dean. I truly don’t.’
We watch each other for a moment, until Dean looks away, watching the children whose lives he saved earlier today.
Our cue to leave. When he looks back, we’re gone.
Chapter Five