"Comes to Dust" part three and Author's Notes

[tabaqui]

Continued from Part two.



Some time later - minutes, hours, years - the roar and the light and the solid, bone-crunching pressure of things not meant for the Earth faded away and Sam found himself flat on his back. Or, not quite flat. Something was under his shoulders and neck, something not terribly soft but not rocks and Sam eased his eyes open, hoping....

Hoping at least there wouldn't be agony, and there wasn't. There was only the soft glow of candles, and the wheeling stars overhead, and Dean peering down at him - Dean's thighs under his head. There was dried blood smeared sideways on Dean's temple, dust in his hair - in the lines at the corners of his eyes. Dean's fingers tugging absently through Sam's hair and Sam smiled slowly up at him.

"Are we dead this time?"

"Got lucky, Sammy. Made it again."

Sam breathed in, slow and deep - let it out on a long sigh. "Good, that's good," he murmured, and Dean laughed, soft.

"Yeah, I kinda like it, too."

Sam lay there for a moment longer, enjoying the rough caress of Dean's callused fingers on his temple, and then he started to ease himself up. Dean got his hands under Sam's shoulders and helped, and then Sam was sitting, his legs splayed a little, Dean's coat puddled around his thighs. He felt - light. Nothing hurt anymore, and he flexed his thigh experimentally.

"Oh, hey -"

"What, your leg?" Dean grinned at him. "He said he'd fix it."

"He - oh. Is he - where -?"

"I'm here, Sam."

Sam twisted around in the sand, looking up - and there he was. "Castiel...Cas, Jesus...."

"It's good to see you, too, Samuel." Castiel crouched down next to Sam and Sam did his best to not notice that the angel was naked. Still naked, and smeared with dust and oil and bits of bitterbrush. Sam reached out and put his hand on Castiel's shoulder, fingertips on the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Castiel's skin was warm - alive - under Sam's palm and Sam squeezed gently.

"Yeah, it's...God, I...I'm sorry I woke you. I know we said - that wasn't -"

"There is no harm, Samuel." Castiel's hand drifted up to rest lightly on Sam's chest and Sam felt his eyes slip shut for a moment - felt his heart skip and then settle, steady and strong. "Your need was great."

"Yeah. I just...you wanted to be at peace, Cas. You wanted to...rest."

Castiel let his hand fall - tipped his head to the side, studying Sam. And then he stood up, pulling Sam with him, Dean on Sam's other side until they were all three on their feet. The walls of the church were flattened - blown out, as if a bomb had gone off, and Sam supposed maybe one had. The pit was still there, though half-filled with rubble, and the whole area seemed to have been smoothed over by a giant hand.

"I feel as if I have rested long enough, Sam. I feel...refreshed." Castiel smiled at him then, slow and easy and happy, and it felt like.... Like bubbles in Sam's chest, tickling. Like a warm, heavy shaft of sunlight, warming him to his bones.

"You should, after the nap you've had," Dean said, and Castiel looked at him - looked around and up, breathing deep.

"How long have I slept? How long...has it been?"

Sam looked at Dean, who reached up and rubbed the back of his head, looking back at Sam with a slightly panicked look in his eyes.

"Well, you know -"

"Almost a hundred years."

Castiel looked over at Sam, a brief expression of surprise on his face, and then he smiled again. "I'm sure much has changed since we last saw each other. You'll have much to teach me."

"Yeah, we - huh?" Sam looked over at Dean, puzzled, and Dean just grinned back, slapping sand off his knees.

"Yeah, guess who's coming to dinner, Sammy?"

"But - I thought.... When we did this the first time, you said you were going to be the seal - you said you were going to keep Hell closed."

"I did. I was. But I was only the...watchdog, as it were. The true seal lay further down." Castiel walked to the edge of the pit, looking down into it for a long moment. "The Earth is the seal. The land itself. We said the words, and empowered the symbols, but the Earth itself holds the power. We merely...woke it up."

Castiel turned around, his arms spread out a little, his chin tipped back. The sky above them was taking on a very pale grey-green cast, the stars ever so slightly dimming. The sun was rising. "Here in this place, ancient man consecrated the ground to their gods and goddesses - to the living Earth and all things she gave life to. And then other men - men of my Father - dedicated it again, to Him." Castiel let his hands drop and walked back over to Sam and Dean, his feet scuffling a little in the sand.

"Again and again, this land - this place - has been consecrated, held sacred - imbued with energy and prayers and sacrifices. It is a holy place. We only confirmed that - woke it to full life. I am no longer needed here."

Dean nudged Sam in the ribs with his elbow, and when Sam looked at him, he pointed with a jerk of his chin. Sam followed the gesture to a tattered, parchment-looking husk that lay tangled in the altar remains. "Is that -?"

"Yeah, that's...what's left of it." Dean toed at the husk with his boot and it crumbled a bit, flaking away.

"What - what was it, Castiel?"

Castiel came to stand by them, looking down at the husk with an expression of mild sorrow. "He was Aniquel, one of the seven great Princes. He was the serpent in the garden, who seduced Eve."

"And a Grand Duke of Hell," Dean said softly, and Castiel nodded.

"He was once as great as any of my brothers, but his exile twisted him, as it did all of them. And he poisoned his own Grace with the essences of the Horsemen, warping himself into something...." Castiel sighed, and turned away. "He became Abomination."

Sam studied the husk for a moment. It was like a beetle's carapace, worn thin and nearly colorless, faintly stained a pale, milky amber along its length. It was subsiding into the earth as they stood there, and Sam stepped over it and went to Castiel - laid a hesitant hand on a naked shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

"So am I," Castiel said. "But it is done, now." He looked Sam up and down, and Sam felt a blush heating his cheeks. "You both appear to have suffered no ill effects of your time here. You are both well?"

"We're - we're fine."

"We're better than fine, Cas." Dean was digging around in the rubble and a moment later stood up with a little noise of triumph. He was holding Sam's undershirt, sweater and coat and Sam noticed for the first time that the cold was starting to seep back into the air all around them. He shrugged off Dean's coat and gratefully dressed in his own clothes - watched Dean pat down his pockets and make a little annoyed face when his holy water and oil flasks turned up missing.

"Damnit. Have to get the Smith up at Elk Mountain to make me new ones. Least I still got my six-shooter," he smirked, holding up the Colt. "Not that it helped. Another bullet lost."

"We don't usually need them," Sam said, and Dean shrugged - nodded - slid the gun away into his coat. There was a little noise behind him and he spun, his hand going for the gun again, but Castiel stepped up to him, his hand on Dean's arm.

"There is no harm," he said, softly. He looked into the darkness, his hand held out, and a moment later Malak staggered out of the shadows, shedding sand and bits of grass, bruised and scraped all over, his wings flagging. The long flights trailed behind him in the dust, and he looked -

"You look like the cat dragged you in and back out again," Dean said, but his voice was gentle.

"Dean - are you safe? I tried - Dean, I tried...."

"I know. You did good, Malak. You did real good."

Malak stood there, shivering - blinking up at Dean, his child's face smeared with dust and blood, his eyes huge. He looked at Sam - at Castiel - and froze, staring. His chin trembled a little and his wings rustled up, fanning out as if in fear.

"It is all right, brother. I won't hurt you," Castiel said, so softly, and Malak went to him, curling up close, his face hidden in Castiel's chest. Castiel hugged him gently, stroking the rough hair while Malak shuddered in his arms. Then he pulled carefully away, and wiped at his face with his knuckles. His wings lifted, but they were clean now - back to being a huge span of seen-and-not seen, feather and shadow and smoke. His bruises were gone, and he looked at Dean with a little smile.

"I will wait for you at home, Dean. My brother can protect you until then."

"Yeah, sure, Malak, that'd be - fine." Malak nodded - shot a long look at Sam and then a blinding smile at Castiel and then he was gone with a flick of his wings.

"Michael still protects you," Castiel said softly, and Dean sighed.

"I keep telling him to go home, but...I don't think he knows how."

"He'd just mope, anyway," Sam said, coming up and bumping Dean with his hip. He'd found his gloves in his pocket and was pulling them on, rubbing his hands together. "He's got a crush on Dean."

"Shut up, Sam."

Castiel actually laughed, and it was.... It was like sweet air and sunlight, fresh and bright, and Sam and Dean couldn't help laughing with him.

"We should return you to your friends. Dean told me how you came to be here," Castiel said.

"Yeah - Lena's gonna be pissed that we just left."

"Not like we had any choice," Sam said. He looked around at the ruins of the church one more time, at the bank of candles that Dean had probably righted and re-lit - at the heaped remains of the altar, the sacred space now useful for nothing more than desert mice and insects to live in. Remembering the day they'd found this place - this church. The day they'd decided that someone had to stand guard over Hell - had to be the Seal to keep evil from creeping back into the world. Remembering Castiel, exhausted and battered, heart-sick and lost. Left behind when all his brothers had quitted the Earth, longing for home but knowing - so very sure - that if he didn't stay, it would all begin again.

They had traced the symbols, the wards and sigils, the blessings and the bindings onto his body, wrapping him in power - wrapping up his own power, cocooning him in it - stilling him, heart and soul. And then they had wrapped him in the shrouds, and laid him to rest under the earth - under the altar.

They had said goodbye and walked away from their last link to the past - their last friend from Before, to start their own turn as watchers and guardians - keepers and protectors. To walk the earth forever, or until, perhaps, they felt they had earned...redemption. Forgiveness.

Sam blinked - shivered, pulling his coat closer around his body. It wasn't about forgiveness, anymore. It was about...duty, affection. Love.

"How did he - Aniquel - get out?" Sam asked over his shoulder, but Castiel didn't answer. Another voice did, from the far side of the pit, and Sam twitched in surprise.

"Sstorm, Sam. It was the storm. I told you." Slink crept out of the rubble, his cob-web hair tangled with grasses, dulled with dust. His body streaked across with blood, glimmering lines in the candle light.

"Slink -"

"The storm broke something free. Magic, energy, old, old souls.... They're still here. Can't hide forever. They touched something. They broke something." Slink sidled closer, tail hanging limp - arms tucked tight around his ribs. "Should be home, when it storms, Ssam. Should be safe."

"You know I can't always," Sam said softly, and Slink blinked and looked past him - flinched a little, and Sam felt Castiel come up beside him.

"It's all right, brother," Castiel whispered, and Slink sank down onto his haunches, tears suddenly running free from his eyes, streaks of mercury-shine against his darkness.

"I tried to - I kept - I protect him. I do. You can't...I won't go."

"I don't ask it of you, brother," Castiel said, and Slink looked at Sam again - stood slowly and edged a little closer and then closer still, until Castiel's out-stretched fingertips rested lightly on his forehead. "Be comforted," Castiel whispered, and Slink shuddered - sighed - twisted away and darted past Sam, his palms brushing across Sam's arm.

"Mine, he hissed, and then he was gone.

"That wasn't creepy at all," Dean said, and Sam snorted.

"Better the Devil you know," he said, and Dean grinned and turned to Castiel, who was looking a little lost.

"Cas, I need a bath, a meal and a drink, and not in that order. You wanna beam us up?"

Castiel smiled at Dean - at Sam - and lifted his hands. "I do."

"Don't say that at an altar," Sam said.

"And can you beam on some clothes? Think of the children," Dean said.

"You have not changed at all," Castiel said, and then his fingers touched Sam's forehead and the church - the moon-cold sands of the Dust Bowl - were gone.

Michael and Lucifer met with the shock of worlds colliding, each riding the wrong vessel - each fighting for a control They could not believe they were losing. Each crying out in horror and despair as the Grace of God was stripped from Them, scattering to the aether. As They became Their very essences - the most basic part of Themselves: passionate desire, an endless, tireless need to protect.

Love and jealousy would come later, learned over years. But as the last of Their powers - Their celestial beings - sleeted away, four lone figures were left. Two nothing more than shells of their former selves and two....

Two with a mote of Grace lodged deep in their souls. Grace that would sustain and protect them - propel and enliven them. Grace of God, angelic power, life everlasting.

The Earth, torn and burned and shaken to her core, settled again, the sea rushing in where it had been pushed away, the land settling back onto bones that had broken and slid and tumbled. Everything forever changed. The Heavenly Host saw that it was good, and retired in ranks to a higher place, leaving the atmosphere aching with the cessation of their voices.

The last smokes of conquered demons eddied away, sinking into nothing, and the fires of Hell began, one by one, to go out.

And Sam and Dean Winchester...woke up.

Author's Notes

Something I don't normally do, but I felt this story deserved them. With sincerest apologies to ignipes, we have two angels falling to earth like meteors, and hitting in the Salton Sea, Californa, so hard they create a crater hundreds of miles wide.

But it doesn't wipe out life as we know it, or plunge the planet into a nuclear winter. We'll call that the Miracle of Fiction. :)

But what it does do is destroy a lot of the southwest of the country, pulverizing California, Nevada, most of Oregon and some of Washington, most of Arizona and some of Mexico and quite a bit of the Pacific sea-floor.

The Rim where we first see Sam and Dean has crept up to the south-west tail of the Grand Canyon, and that's the Colorado River falling over the edge like an American Angel Falls.

New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and a bit of southern Colorado have become the Dust Bowl, and all of Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as some of Arkansas have become a vast, malarial Delta.

No one knows what's happening east of the Mississippi, and Canada has become a forbidding, dense and frozen forest.

Hole-in-the-Wall I envisioned as a cave, or cave system, in the Timpanogos Cave National Monument in Utah and Sam and Dean's lodge is located along the Flaming Gorge in Wyoming.

The oldest church in the US - and the site of even older American Indian sacred ground - is the San Miguel Mission in New Mexico.

Malak is 'angel' in Arabic.

Using the supposition of horses traveling at approximately thirty miles in a day, we get this:
Ten days ride from the Rim to Hole-in-the-Wall.
Seven days ride from Hole-in-the-Wall to Sam'n'Dean's lodge.
Eight days ride from Sam'n'Dean's house to Steamboat Springs/Mama Lena's.

Thanks for reading!