[Supernatural] Powers that be
Title: Powers that be
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Balthazar, Bobby, Crowley
Rating: PG14
Wordcount: 5114 (fidipu)
Warnings: huge spoilers for the episode 6x20, gen, UST, angst
A/Notes: …I'M STILL HURTING. GUH.
- Also, this is my idea of what next episode should be (huh). So, yeah, not that much explicit lovin' goes on.
Disclaimer: Pretty lies to believe in.
~ Powers that be.
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Romans, 13:1
The stars were brighter, yesterday night, and the sky wasn’t really this black. Dean is sitting on the hood of the Impala, one leg folded under the other, nursing a beer in his hands and staring at the pitch of dense ink that is the universe above his head. He’s angry, he’s hurt in a way he’s starting to be too familiar with: his chest aches as if some giant, clawed arm was pinning him to the ground, and he just wants to start crushing things, maybe he wants to crush himself.
He’s thinking about so many things and none of them is really important, none of them is relevant. He’s thinking about his cellphone, he needs to plug it into the charger. He’s thinking he should scratch demons’ blood and holy oil off his boots. He’s thinking Sam is out of clean shirts, they should buy a couple more or maybe wash some, maybe that red and grey one which has been dirty for so many months it’d be almost sad and cruel to clean it up.
He’s thinking. He isn’t letting himself think about the latest news, though, the things that really matter, because that would be the fact that Castiel is really gone Bizarro on them. The fact that he’s in Castiel & Crowley Inc., now, and he honestly, actually believes he’s doing it for the greater good. Jesus fuck, kids who have read Harry Potter know that anyone fighting dirty for the greater good will end up being a Nazi power-crazed freak and there’s nothing cool or angelic or even slightly right with that. But then again, Cass probably doesn’t have any idea of who this Harry Potter guy might be. Of course, Cass never has any idea. He’s just so clueless about everything, and Dean is so angry at him because he’s so fucking blind.
There he is, he’s thinking about Castiel. Dammit, now he’ll never stop. Oh, well.
It’s just that this whole situation, it’s eating at his very guts. Dean can’t live like this, really. He can’t have his family turn up against him, against all that’s good and righteous in the world. Cass is Cass, he really can’t wake up one morning, figuratively speaking of course because angels don’t fucking sleep ever and maybe that’s why they are so damn messed up really; Cass can’t wake up one morning and decide to be a demon’s, no, the King of Hell’s BFF just because he thinks it’s the only way to save their arses, their world, their whatever. There’s always another way, and Dean can’t let his most favourite angel ever think otherwise.
Cass is his friend, Cass is, well, he’s family. Cass is Cass and Dean, God, Dean wants to help him and save him so bad it makes the handprint on his shoulder sting. Dean just cares, alright? And the worst part of caring is that you can’t simply stop just because people are assbutts who go get involved with nasty demons and start civil wars in Heaven. You don’t stop caring, not ever, not really, and Dean hates it because it would be so easy, you know? It could be over right now, it would’ve been over the exact moment Cass let that stupid Superman-to-the-dark-side joke slip out of his mouth. If only care had a switch, like a lamp, if only love and Dean’s brain and his heart and this terrible void in his lungs could just’ve been gone when he realized that yeah, Cass has been doing stupid arrangements and plots behind their backs with the dirties scum in the universe, it all would’ve been so, so much easier. But of course, that’s not how it works, and Dean is angry at God, now, he’s so very angry it almost scares him: he hates God for what he’s done, for the way he wanted it all to be. Always the hardest, no shortcuts, no happily ever after; it has to hurt, everything has to hurt like hell and how is that Good and Merciful? Sounds more like the work of a whimsical, cruel child.
So, Dean is just really angry because he’s just really hurt. He trusted Cass, he trusted him with all he had. If they - he and Sammy and Bobby - put all their fingers together, they wouldn’t be able to keep count of how many fucking times they entrusted Castiel with their lives. And they’re hunters, their very job trains them to rely solely upon themselves, not to run for the help of the first supernatural being they meet. But it was Cass, you know, the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition and all the crap, and he was there, he was always there, with those big blue eyes and his childlike fascination in the world, in them. It was Cass, dammit, how are you supposed not to trust a Cass?
And so they did because, really, it was natural, and it felt right. It was right. It would still be right, dammit, if only that feathered dummy kid hadn’t taken the wrong turn on the Universe Highway, bringing them and their fucking lives all the way to Wisteria Lane. Jesus.
But then again, it’s not really Castiel’s fault, or God’s, or anybody’s. Dean is on his third beer, so maybe he can find deep down in his chest the courage to admit that, honestly, he’s only so very angry at himself. That’s what he does, after all; he screws other people’s lives. He screwed up this time, too, with Cass, because he should’ve seen it. He should’ve seen the signs, the hints, the motherfucking way the angel was looking at him these days, he should’ve seen that. There he goes, Dean, diving head-first into the vast ocean of his hero issues: he thinks, I should’ve known. He thinks, he did all of this because of me. He got Sammy out of Hell because of me. He wants to stop the Apocalypse because of me, because of us.
And he’s right, if Castiel hadn’t met Dean or his brother and his surrogate family of Bobby, the Impala and the now fading memory of Ben and Lisa, he wouldn’t have rebelled, he wouldn’t have wanted to be a little bit more human. But Dean is also wrong. Cass fell for him in any possible way, not because of him. He really shouldn’t feel so responsible, so awful, but just like everything else, you can’t really switch guilt off and go be merry afterwards.
Dean is very angry at the tired, frowning guy he’d see reflected on the windshield of his Impala, if only he turned around a bit. He wishes he could grow an extra pair of arms on his chest so he could slap himself across the face properly, that’s just how angry he is. And disappointed.
And he feels lost, he doesn’t know what to do next. This is the typical situation where he’d call his father, or Castiel, for help. Awesome. He scrubs a hand through his hair, trying to get a grip on his own thoughts. He has to find a way to fix this, he has to.
Bobby comes to check on him after a while, and finds him still there, pale, almost shaking with anger, or maybe it’s tears and sadness and anger again he’s trying to choke back.
“Come on, son,” he says, brushing a hand over the Impala because he can’t bring himself to touch Dean, not really. “Let’s get inside, you need to sleep.”
Dean follows him without a word, he’s kind of grateful to have someone telling him what to do. He feels tired, all of a sudden, like he hasn’t in years, but then they get into Bobby’s living room and all the books, all the dust and pieces of paper scattered on the floor, they give him an idea. Dean throws himself to the closest pile of old, rare tomes, he picks up one and skims the index, then throws it away. He has this heap of enthusiasm so clearly written all over his face Bobby really can’t tell him to stop, that he’s been up for a whole day and he should rest, they all should.
Instead, he walks to him and grabs a random book as well, one he hasn’t looked through in a while.
“What are we looking for?” he asks, staring mindlessly at a couple of illustrations. Dean barely tears his eyes off the page he’s pressing his nose into.
“A way to kill Archangels,” he says, as simply as that. Bobby sighs, closes his eyes for a moment and then nods.
Sam comes down a couple of hours later, he’s been sleeping but he looks more tired than ever, and finds them so deeply absorbed by their reading he doesn’t dare speaking up. He doesn’t need to, anyway. He just grins, goes to the kitchen to get a glass, pours some scotch in it and gulps it down to clear his mind, then he turns on his laptop and takes his usual seat on the couch.
Dean looks up, at some point, his brain smashing two hundred pages of information into tiny, edible bits, and he’s staring at nothing in particular, really, just the wall across the room, but Castiel is there, right there, because Bobby’s angel proofing of the house really has some serious flaws in it. So Castiel is there, unseen, he’s been for the last forty minutes at least, just watching them, because that’s what guardian angels do, even self-proclaimed ones. Even those who have lost the trust of the humans they hold dearest. Even those who start civil wars within their family in their free time.
Cass is there. He took a quick look to the books Bobby and Dean are reading, because he still doesn’t have a clue of how to properly look at Sam’s laptop, so he knows what they’re up to. He knows what they’re trying to do. And it saddens him so much it makes his fingers go numb, but maybe it’s the way Dean’s looking right through him.
Castiel doesn’t know why he feels so uncomfortable and sad and he just goes away, his feathers leaving a soft, inaudible sigh behind him.
*
They dig and dig and dig for a whole day, and nothing comes up. Dean naps for half an hour, at some point, but when he wakes up he feels so guilty he manages to scratch the ability to sleep away from his very DNA. Bobby goes comatose for seven hours and fifteen minutes, and then he’s brighter than ever, but not even that can help. Sam knows by heart all of Google’s search results for Archangels and Ways To Kill them and whatnot but, needless to say, none of them is actually useful. Sometimes they really don’t make any sense at all.
“The closest thing I got to an answer is, chop their heads off with a machete,” he sighs, tired, hopeless, maybe a bit dizzy from all the alcohol he’s been drinking. “But it was a guy talking about annoying goats in Montana, so maybe it’s not exactly what we were looking for.”
“Well, it makes sense,” Dean nods anyway, still reading some old as hell stack of dust. “I mean, maybe it doesn’t work, but it’d be fun.”
“Yeah, right,” Sam groans, and presses the heel of his hands into his eyes because, really, he’s exhausted. “Look, Dean, I’m afraid there’s only one way to deal with Raphael, and--”
“No,” Dean says, looking up from his book and glaring at his little brother. His whole face is like a warning, a big red sign that says, don’t, Sammy, don’t you dare. “Cass’ way is not the way, Sam. We don’t work with freaks.”
Sam sighs, gets up, looks at Dean and if he weren’t so tired then maybe he’d be disappointed.
“If I weren’t so tired, I’d be so much disappointed,” he says, infact, and Dean frowns. “I didn’t mean that, Dean, Christ. You think I haven’t learned anything?”
“Sorry,” Dean mumbles, but Sam doesn’t let him reel in his guilt all over again.
“What I was going to say, is that Cass told us what’s the only way we can deal with an Archangel,” he sighs, it’s still hard to think about their angel and force yourself to remember he’s quickly turning into one of the bad guys - no, not one of the bad guys, just one of the ethicless ones, like those children who grew up so fast and think it’s okay to use whatever means you have to, as long as your purpose is noble and good and whatever. “We need those... Heaven’s weapons.”
“Heaven’s weapons,” Dean repeats, flat. “We don’t know where they are, or even what they look like or how they work, and the only cerain thing is that it’s a bunch of stuff which might annihilate the universe if we were to use it wrong.”
“Yeah,” Sam nods, unimpressed. “It’s our best shot. Well, our only shot.”
“Alright, let’s go get Bobby,” Dean says, and he gets up and then throws Sam a huge, enthusiastic grin. He must be really tired. “We gotta go get our Inspector Gadget, Archangel Assassin edition costume.”
Sam rolls his eyes behind his back, but he’s kind of laughing, and follows him anyway.
*
Balthazar is a busy angel. He parties, he travels around the world and the time-continuum, he messes with the heads of people across the street just for the sake of amusement. He could be the closest brother to Gabriel, really, so he’s not very amused when the Winchester brothers and the old man who’s always with them these days summon him to an old, dusty farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, using a ritual God only knows where they heard about, Balthazar thought he’d destroyed all the fucking books with that particular information in it. And of course, just to spice things up, the three cocky humans have him trapped in a circle of holy fire.
“Just my idea of a funny Sunday afternoon,” Balthazar says, as soon as he realizes the situation, but his audience looks less than impressed. “Hello,” he tries, again, and waves a little. This earns him an unpolite snort from Dean.
“Cut the pleasantries, Balthazar,” Bobby says, stepping forward and is that a demon killing knife he’s holding? What does he think he’s gonna do with that? “You know why you’re here.”
“Well, yeah. I’m here because you three lot summoned me, using the instructions from that book over there, I’m guessing,” he replies, and he may be confined inside the fire but he can still blow little things surrounding him, he has enough power for that, so he snaps his fingers and the damn book is gone. Good.
“We have copies of that, you know,” Sam says, and Balthazar’s interior bluffing radar remains silent, so maybe he’s telling the truth. Damn.
“Alright,” the angel says, then, and he puts his hands up to highlight his surrendering intentions, that he doesn’t have any interest in killing them or tricking them or anything, he just wants to get back to his party as soon as possible. “I’m sure we can get to an arrangement. Tell me what you need from me, and I’ll do the possible to make y’all lads happy, for free. And for those copies, thanks.”
He hears a sarcastic little laugh coming from Dean, and turns around to face him. Dean is standing by the wall, has a finger pressed to it and he closes a blood sigil before stepping forward. Balthazar swears under his breath as he feels his powers suppressed and banished from his grasp.
“He thinks he can put demands on the table,” Dean says, clearly scorning him, and Balthazar straightens his back a little bit at that because he might be a sneaky bastard but he’s still an angel, and a proud one, especially when facing pitiful humans. “The way I see it, Balthazar, as of now we have the whip hand, and you’re bareback.”
There’s the oil trap flaming, and then the walls and the ceiling are covered in ancient sigils which that last symbol Dean just drew activated, and he points at it all, but it wasn’t necessary, because there’s something in his voice, something in his eyes that would’ve been enough in itself to persuade Balthazar that this isn’t time for jokes and tricks and dicking around.
The angel puts three and three together and it’s clear, they must know about Castiel’s recent acquaintances. That’s surprising, but not so much really. Balthazar wonders just how much the humans know about Castiel’s plans.
“Well, alright,” he says, secretly enjoying how upset these poor humans look about the news. Maybe his brother isn’t really that hopeless, then. “Tell me what you need, I’m listening. Kind of.”
“Heaven’s weapons,” Dean says, and that’s pretty straight forward even for him. Balthazar almost laughs at his face.
“You know I don’t have them anymore, darling,” he says, his tone that of an old elementary teacher affectionately pinching his favourite student’s chubby cheeks. “Your other angel friend took them, he’s planning to throw some nice fireworks show, up there over the rainbow, I’m sure you know everything about it.”
“Yeah, we know,” Dean growls, and he sucks so much at concealing his emotions it’s really amazing how he can be such a good hunter anyway. “We need to know where he keeps them.”
“How to get them,” Sam supplies, dutifully. Bobby is still pointing his little knife at Balthazar, it’s starting to be ridiculous. “How to take them away, how to make them work without blowing away the planet and ourselves in the process.”
“You know, the three of you, you’re really something,” Balthazar smiles. Dean narrows his eyes, doesn’t seem pleased by the compliment. “I mean, you’ve handled pretty big deals, Lilith, Lucifer, Michael, one by one you’re putting a cross over the whole cast from the Bible, and that’s amazing, really, but don’t you think you might be kind of pushing too much, now?”
“Stop talking bullshit and tell us what we asked,” Bobby says, and Balthazar sighs, he’s just trying to help, why do they have to be so rude?
“No need to get your blood pressure up, grandpa, though I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times before,” he says, almost apologizing, and Bobby just glares. “Look, boys, you don’t have to worry, okay? Castiel is doing fine. He has the Weapons, soon he’ll have a ton of souls at his disposal, he’ll win, alright? No Apocalypse, no crazy-ass Archangels with major God complex ruling over Heaven, just freedom. Utter and complete freedom, I’m quoting myself, and isn’t that what you wanted? Cass will give us that.”
“Is that what you think?” Dean says, stepping forward and almost into the fire. Too bad it won’t hurt him as much as it’d hurt an angel. “You think you’ll have your happy ending, when Cass has sold his soul to that motherfucking demon?”
“We are angels,” Balthazar observes, slightly baffled, not much mockingly so. “We don’t have souls to sell.”
“That’s not my point,” Dean snaps, and he should sleep some more, Balthazar thinks, he looks very stressed out. “My point is, how can you be so fucking naive to believe it’s gonna be alright? How can you trust Crowley? How can you think it’s legit to pair up with such a douchebag even for half a second!?”
“Are you still talking to me?” Balthazar asks, politely and with just a tiny bit of exasperation in his voice. “Because really, Dean, we’ve been there already. I’m not in love with you, I’m not Castiel, I’m not the one you want to tell all that shit to.” And he almost says, look over my shoulder, there’s that window, right above the horrible puffy couch, and he’s standing right there, outside, looking at you through the courtains with that sad puppy face of his own you can’t really see.
“Fuck you,” Dean mutters, clearly angry at himself for having lost it, and he pushes a hand to his face and sighs. He gets a gun out of nowhere, then, cocks it and aims at Balthazar’s forehead. Well, his vessel’s. “Now talk, nice and quick, because maybe you’re happy to let your friends screw up things and hang around with demons as long as it doesn’t make your fucking freedom any harm, but I’m not. And maybe your brains will work better, if we let some air in through a hole.”
Balthazar likes his new life, alright? He’s a fan of Epicurus, he met him and dined with him and they’re friends, very close friends even, so he’s not a complete jerk, he has some faint notion of ethics and morals and he knows the difference between right and wrong. He knows Castiel’s intentions are good, his plans for the future are probably the best thing that’s ever happened to Heaven. He also knows Cass has chosen the most effective tactic to make it all right, the one with the highest success rate, but he isn’t really sure it was the best decision to make. He didn’t speak up because, well, it’s Castiel, he’s a stubborn kid and he’s doing it all for Balthazar’s freedom too; but now Dean and Sam and Bobby are offering him a way to make amends, they’re giving him the opportunity to actually do something significant.
Balthazar wants to be free but he has learned that utter freedom is that of a blissful, incorruptible being exempt from wrath and benevolence alike, and we all are just so, so weak. He can only have the freedom of fragile, anguished humans, and the least he can do is to try and get the best out of it, so he tells them.
He tells them about Colorado Springs, the closest city to Heaven in America, and he tells them the combination to get into his storage. He tells them to be careful, he wishes them the best of lucks.
“You know it won’t be enough to handle Raphael, right?” he asks, when they’re about to wave him goodbye and leave him forever trapped in there. “You know that if Heaven’s weapons were enough to wipe that ugly bastard off of the face of the Earth, Cass would’ve done his cleaning lady duties by now, right? You know that even with all the power you can possibly gather together in any ethically acceptable way, you’ll still be like a juicy steak fighting a huge, hungry shark with a tiny toothpick?”
They just stare back at him, their faces blank, and then Dean smiles, confident and absolutely out of place.
“I like steaks,” he says, and Balthazar huffs.
“Unbelievable,” he says. “You are completely dumb.”
“Yeah, at least that we know for certain,” Bobby says, and the moment they’re out of the door Balthazar feels Castiel Disapparate. And then Crowley gets out of his hiding spot, smirking. He snaps his fingers and exstinguishes the flames, smudges the sigils into bloody stains on the wall.
“Thank you, Balthazar,” he says, and he’s sending a bunch of demons to Colorado Springs already. Balthazar makes a mock bow and smiles politely, hands in his pockets.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow morning, boss,” he says, and vanishes in a flicker of feathers, not quickly enough to miss Crowley’s dark, low chuckle.
*
There’s a lot of funny things going around in Castiel’s head, right now. He feels guilty, mostly, and very much of a fool. He also wishes he could be by the Winchesters’ side as he usually is, not invisible but mindlessly invading Dean’s personal space, feeling Bobby’s exasperation for the boys’ recklessness wash over him like a downpour in the rain forest and wondering all the time what’s going on in Samuel’s mind. He mostly misses the stench of the Impala, which isn’t very much of a stench to him, really.
It’s very weird, anyway, but everything is weird, these days, so Castiel isn’t very surprised anymore. He’s starting to grow used to the conflict that is so typical of the human nature, he has almost accepted the costant uncertainty, he’s learning not to question his choices once he’s made them. He’s not very sure it’s the right thing to do, though, because really, every fiber in his being is screaming all the time for him to go over and over again all the steps he’s made from the moment he fell.
It doesn’t feel nice.
He’s scared, he’s lost. He feels the burden of free and responsibility and it’s like the whole Heaven has collapsed onto his shoulders. It hurts, it burns, and that’s probably because it’s true, Castiel has in his hands the destiny of the universe. It’s terrifying. No, that’s not enough; probably no word is enough, not even in Enochian.
Castiel wonders if this is what God feels. He knows it’s pride, he knows it’s a sin, maybe the most terrible of all, to compare oneself to the Lord Almighty, but still he wonders, he can’t help it. And he thinks that if this really is what being God means, then he can’t really blame his Father for leaving. He wants lo leave himself.
It’s just too much, and that’s because he doesn’t know the consequences of his actions, he can only presume, and hope, and pray and everytime he looks up to the sky he sees the stars are a little less bright than before. He’s scared, he’s really scared, but he can’t stop it anymore. He doesn’t want to, because no other way is better than this.
Was God this conflicted, when he had to create Evil in order for Good to exist? Did he think, it’s wrong, but I have to, because otherwise it won’t work? Does he ever look at his hands and ask himself, what have I done?
Castiel does that, all the time. He can’t stop questioning himself, even if he knows that if he could switch his conscience off it all’d be so much easier. But he doesn’t really want that. He doesn’t want to turn into Crowley, he doesn’t want to be free of responsibility.
He just wants to do the right thing. Maybe that’s what’s going to save him, or maybe not.
*
“You’re not actually driving to Colorado this carelessly, right?” Balthazar asks, annoying and scary, too, because he appears on the back seat of the Impala unannounced, and Dean jumps, startled, and almost manages to get them killed in a head-on collision with a truck coming from the opposite direction.
Bobby calls a second later, Sam answers the phone with shaky fingers and tells him they’re alright. Dean shouts that some douchebag Brit angels should learn it’s not safe to scare driving people like that, and Balthazar isn’t really pleased by the honoraries.
“I’m sorry, next time I’ll let you jump into Crowley’s traps without a warning,” he says, mildly offended, and Dean huffs, glaring at him through the rear-view mirror.
“You think we didn’t know you were sending us right into a trap?” he says, and Balthazar smiles.
“Well, Winchester boy, I’m very impressed,” and he even mocks an applause for them. “Now that you’ve passed this test, I am proud to announce you’re not dumb anymore, just bloody stupid!”
“Yay,” Dean growls, no enthusiasm whatsoever, and Sam coughs a little, twisting his upper body around so he can look at Balthazar.
“What do you want?” he asks, and somehow he’s not completely rude. It’s probably because of those polite puppy eyes, Balthazar thinks. “I mean, did you just tell us a bunch of lies, in there?”
“Of course not!” Balthazar says, outraged at the mere thought of him lying. That’s funny. “Heaven’s weapons really are in ColSpri, I swear. Crowley knows about your little altercation with Castiel, though he might have heard a slightly exaggerated version of it, but anyway, he knows you’re after the weapons and my guess is that he’ll break all Hell loose over the three of you, hoping that Cass’ll show up to save your sorry arses, and then he’ll take four birds with a stone, but that’s not why I’m here, of course,” and he smiles, wildly amused by Sam’s blank, shocked face and Dean’s practically exploding with rage expression. “I wanted to ask you guys something, if you don’t mind.”
“What is it?” Dean barks, and if he pushes a little harder with his foot he’ll tear a hole in the Impala right under the accelerator.
“I’m very curious,” Balthazar says, teathrically pensive. “You are actually driving into Crowley’s horde, an army of demons and nasty creatures lined up all over Colorado Springs for the very purpose of tearing you lot to pieces, that’s fine. Let’s pretend for a second you manage to survive the incredible amount of Hell ambassadors displayed out there, and imagine yourself putting your mortal, filthy hands on my weapons, alright? And then, in this amazing universe of unbelievable fantasy and divine justice where money grows on bushes and unicorns breed freely in men-forsaken lands and angels and hunters actually communicate with each other instead of intensely staring at one another all the time--”
“Dude, you lost me. I’m driving, get to the point,” Dean says, mildly annoyed and definitely blushing, and Balthazar smirks.
“Alright, sorry,” he says. “Not that I’d bet half a peanut on your team, but if you manage to get the weapons, what do you want to do with them? Because, you know, I wasn’t joking, before, when I said--”
“I know what you said,” Dean says, harsh. “I know. I know we’re just humans, blah blah blah, Heaven’s bling blings aren’t enough. We know. So what? We should just sit and enjoy the show of our Cass shaking hands and making deals with the Emperor Palpatine?”
“That’s what any human being with the faintest self-preservation instinct would do, yes,” Balthazar nods. “But you have proved many times already you wouldn’t find that word in a dictionary.”
“Exactly,” Dean says, and his grip on the steering wheel is so strong his knuckles are completely white now. “So, to answer your question, this is what we’re gonna do once we get those weapons: we’ll go upstairs and deep fry Raphael’s sorry arse, and any other feathered douchebag who thinks they can screw with our planet, and then we’ll hang out Crowley to dry. Sounds fair?”
“It sounds crazy, dangerous and impractical, and I think it’ll get you all killed in the most painful ways,” Balthazar says, and he’s being honest, which is a very rare thing for him, but the Winchesters, well, they manage to get the best out of him. Not that he’ll ever admit such a ridiculous thing, of course.
“Dude, tell me something I don’t know,” Dean laughs, and Sam snorts as well, amused. Balthazar stares at them, then at the road beforehand, the highway just a dark carpet unrolled into the night, and sighs.
“There’s a rat in the trunk,” he says, and then he’s gone, but Cass stays. Dean just keeps driving.
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Balthazar, Bobby, Crowley
Rating: PG14
Wordcount: 5114 (fidipu)
Warnings: huge spoilers for the episode 6x20, gen, UST, angst
A/Notes: …I'M STILL HURTING. GUH.
- Also, this is my idea of what next episode should be (huh). So, yeah, not that much explicit lovin' goes on.
Disclaimer: Pretty lies to believe in.
~ Powers that be.
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Romans, 13:1
The stars were brighter, yesterday night, and the sky wasn’t really this black. Dean is sitting on the hood of the Impala, one leg folded under the other, nursing a beer in his hands and staring at the pitch of dense ink that is the universe above his head. He’s angry, he’s hurt in a way he’s starting to be too familiar with: his chest aches as if some giant, clawed arm was pinning him to the ground, and he just wants to start crushing things, maybe he wants to crush himself.
He’s thinking about so many things and none of them is really important, none of them is relevant. He’s thinking about his cellphone, he needs to plug it into the charger. He’s thinking he should scratch demons’ blood and holy oil off his boots. He’s thinking Sam is out of clean shirts, they should buy a couple more or maybe wash some, maybe that red and grey one which has been dirty for so many months it’d be almost sad and cruel to clean it up.
He’s thinking. He isn’t letting himself think about the latest news, though, the things that really matter, because that would be the fact that Castiel is really gone Bizarro on them. The fact that he’s in Castiel & Crowley Inc., now, and he honestly, actually believes he’s doing it for the greater good. Jesus fuck, kids who have read Harry Potter know that anyone fighting dirty for the greater good will end up being a Nazi power-crazed freak and there’s nothing cool or angelic or even slightly right with that. But then again, Cass probably doesn’t have any idea of who this Harry Potter guy might be. Of course, Cass never has any idea. He’s just so clueless about everything, and Dean is so angry at him because he’s so fucking blind.
There he is, he’s thinking about Castiel. Dammit, now he’ll never stop. Oh, well.
It’s just that this whole situation, it’s eating at his very guts. Dean can’t live like this, really. He can’t have his family turn up against him, against all that’s good and righteous in the world. Cass is Cass, he really can’t wake up one morning, figuratively speaking of course because angels don’t fucking sleep ever and maybe that’s why they are so damn messed up really; Cass can’t wake up one morning and decide to be a demon’s, no, the King of Hell’s BFF just because he thinks it’s the only way to save their arses, their world, their whatever. There’s always another way, and Dean can’t let his most favourite angel ever think otherwise.
Cass is his friend, Cass is, well, he’s family. Cass is Cass and Dean, God, Dean wants to help him and save him so bad it makes the handprint on his shoulder sting. Dean just cares, alright? And the worst part of caring is that you can’t simply stop just because people are assbutts who go get involved with nasty demons and start civil wars in Heaven. You don’t stop caring, not ever, not really, and Dean hates it because it would be so easy, you know? It could be over right now, it would’ve been over the exact moment Cass let that stupid Superman-to-the-dark-side joke slip out of his mouth. If only care had a switch, like a lamp, if only love and Dean’s brain and his heart and this terrible void in his lungs could just’ve been gone when he realized that yeah, Cass has been doing stupid arrangements and plots behind their backs with the dirties scum in the universe, it all would’ve been so, so much easier. But of course, that’s not how it works, and Dean is angry at God, now, he’s so very angry it almost scares him: he hates God for what he’s done, for the way he wanted it all to be. Always the hardest, no shortcuts, no happily ever after; it has to hurt, everything has to hurt like hell and how is that Good and Merciful? Sounds more like the work of a whimsical, cruel child.
So, Dean is just really angry because he’s just really hurt. He trusted Cass, he trusted him with all he had. If they - he and Sammy and Bobby - put all their fingers together, they wouldn’t be able to keep count of how many fucking times they entrusted Castiel with their lives. And they’re hunters, their very job trains them to rely solely upon themselves, not to run for the help of the first supernatural being they meet. But it was Cass, you know, the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition and all the crap, and he was there, he was always there, with those big blue eyes and his childlike fascination in the world, in them. It was Cass, dammit, how are you supposed not to trust a Cass?
And so they did because, really, it was natural, and it felt right. It was right. It would still be right, dammit, if only that feathered dummy kid hadn’t taken the wrong turn on the Universe Highway, bringing them and their fucking lives all the way to Wisteria Lane. Jesus.
But then again, it’s not really Castiel’s fault, or God’s, or anybody’s. Dean is on his third beer, so maybe he can find deep down in his chest the courage to admit that, honestly, he’s only so very angry at himself. That’s what he does, after all; he screws other people’s lives. He screwed up this time, too, with Cass, because he should’ve seen it. He should’ve seen the signs, the hints, the motherfucking way the angel was looking at him these days, he should’ve seen that. There he goes, Dean, diving head-first into the vast ocean of his hero issues: he thinks, I should’ve known. He thinks, he did all of this because of me. He got Sammy out of Hell because of me. He wants to stop the Apocalypse because of me, because of us.
And he’s right, if Castiel hadn’t met Dean or his brother and his surrogate family of Bobby, the Impala and the now fading memory of Ben and Lisa, he wouldn’t have rebelled, he wouldn’t have wanted to be a little bit more human. But Dean is also wrong. Cass fell for him in any possible way, not because of him. He really shouldn’t feel so responsible, so awful, but just like everything else, you can’t really switch guilt off and go be merry afterwards.
Dean is very angry at the tired, frowning guy he’d see reflected on the windshield of his Impala, if only he turned around a bit. He wishes he could grow an extra pair of arms on his chest so he could slap himself across the face properly, that’s just how angry he is. And disappointed.
And he feels lost, he doesn’t know what to do next. This is the typical situation where he’d call his father, or Castiel, for help. Awesome. He scrubs a hand through his hair, trying to get a grip on his own thoughts. He has to find a way to fix this, he has to.
Bobby comes to check on him after a while, and finds him still there, pale, almost shaking with anger, or maybe it’s tears and sadness and anger again he’s trying to choke back.
“Come on, son,” he says, brushing a hand over the Impala because he can’t bring himself to touch Dean, not really. “Let’s get inside, you need to sleep.”
Dean follows him without a word, he’s kind of grateful to have someone telling him what to do. He feels tired, all of a sudden, like he hasn’t in years, but then they get into Bobby’s living room and all the books, all the dust and pieces of paper scattered on the floor, they give him an idea. Dean throws himself to the closest pile of old, rare tomes, he picks up one and skims the index, then throws it away. He has this heap of enthusiasm so clearly written all over his face Bobby really can’t tell him to stop, that he’s been up for a whole day and he should rest, they all should.
Instead, he walks to him and grabs a random book as well, one he hasn’t looked through in a while.
“What are we looking for?” he asks, staring mindlessly at a couple of illustrations. Dean barely tears his eyes off the page he’s pressing his nose into.
“A way to kill Archangels,” he says, as simply as that. Bobby sighs, closes his eyes for a moment and then nods.
Sam comes down a couple of hours later, he’s been sleeping but he looks more tired than ever, and finds them so deeply absorbed by their reading he doesn’t dare speaking up. He doesn’t need to, anyway. He just grins, goes to the kitchen to get a glass, pours some scotch in it and gulps it down to clear his mind, then he turns on his laptop and takes his usual seat on the couch.
Dean looks up, at some point, his brain smashing two hundred pages of information into tiny, edible bits, and he’s staring at nothing in particular, really, just the wall across the room, but Castiel is there, right there, because Bobby’s angel proofing of the house really has some serious flaws in it. So Castiel is there, unseen, he’s been for the last forty minutes at least, just watching them, because that’s what guardian angels do, even self-proclaimed ones. Even those who have lost the trust of the humans they hold dearest. Even those who start civil wars within their family in their free time.
Cass is there. He took a quick look to the books Bobby and Dean are reading, because he still doesn’t have a clue of how to properly look at Sam’s laptop, so he knows what they’re up to. He knows what they’re trying to do. And it saddens him so much it makes his fingers go numb, but maybe it’s the way Dean’s looking right through him.
Castiel doesn’t know why he feels so uncomfortable and sad and he just goes away, his feathers leaving a soft, inaudible sigh behind him.
*
They dig and dig and dig for a whole day, and nothing comes up. Dean naps for half an hour, at some point, but when he wakes up he feels so guilty he manages to scratch the ability to sleep away from his very DNA. Bobby goes comatose for seven hours and fifteen minutes, and then he’s brighter than ever, but not even that can help. Sam knows by heart all of Google’s search results for Archangels and Ways To Kill them and whatnot but, needless to say, none of them is actually useful. Sometimes they really don’t make any sense at all.
“The closest thing I got to an answer is, chop their heads off with a machete,” he sighs, tired, hopeless, maybe a bit dizzy from all the alcohol he’s been drinking. “But it was a guy talking about annoying goats in Montana, so maybe it’s not exactly what we were looking for.”
“Well, it makes sense,” Dean nods anyway, still reading some old as hell stack of dust. “I mean, maybe it doesn’t work, but it’d be fun.”
“Yeah, right,” Sam groans, and presses the heel of his hands into his eyes because, really, he’s exhausted. “Look, Dean, I’m afraid there’s only one way to deal with Raphael, and--”
“No,” Dean says, looking up from his book and glaring at his little brother. His whole face is like a warning, a big red sign that says, don’t, Sammy, don’t you dare. “Cass’ way is not the way, Sam. We don’t work with freaks.”
Sam sighs, gets up, looks at Dean and if he weren’t so tired then maybe he’d be disappointed.
“If I weren’t so tired, I’d be so much disappointed,” he says, infact, and Dean frowns. “I didn’t mean that, Dean, Christ. You think I haven’t learned anything?”
“Sorry,” Dean mumbles, but Sam doesn’t let him reel in his guilt all over again.
“What I was going to say, is that Cass told us what’s the only way we can deal with an Archangel,” he sighs, it’s still hard to think about their angel and force yourself to remember he’s quickly turning into one of the bad guys - no, not one of the bad guys, just one of the ethicless ones, like those children who grew up so fast and think it’s okay to use whatever means you have to, as long as your purpose is noble and good and whatever. “We need those... Heaven’s weapons.”
“Heaven’s weapons,” Dean repeats, flat. “We don’t know where they are, or even what they look like or how they work, and the only cerain thing is that it’s a bunch of stuff which might annihilate the universe if we were to use it wrong.”
“Yeah,” Sam nods, unimpressed. “It’s our best shot. Well, our only shot.”
“Alright, let’s go get Bobby,” Dean says, and he gets up and then throws Sam a huge, enthusiastic grin. He must be really tired. “We gotta go get our Inspector Gadget, Archangel Assassin edition costume.”
Sam rolls his eyes behind his back, but he’s kind of laughing, and follows him anyway.
*
Balthazar is a busy angel. He parties, he travels around the world and the time-continuum, he messes with the heads of people across the street just for the sake of amusement. He could be the closest brother to Gabriel, really, so he’s not very amused when the Winchester brothers and the old man who’s always with them these days summon him to an old, dusty farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, using a ritual God only knows where they heard about, Balthazar thought he’d destroyed all the fucking books with that particular information in it. And of course, just to spice things up, the three cocky humans have him trapped in a circle of holy fire.
“Just my idea of a funny Sunday afternoon,” Balthazar says, as soon as he realizes the situation, but his audience looks less than impressed. “Hello,” he tries, again, and waves a little. This earns him an unpolite snort from Dean.
“Cut the pleasantries, Balthazar,” Bobby says, stepping forward and is that a demon killing knife he’s holding? What does he think he’s gonna do with that? “You know why you’re here.”
“Well, yeah. I’m here because you three lot summoned me, using the instructions from that book over there, I’m guessing,” he replies, and he may be confined inside the fire but he can still blow little things surrounding him, he has enough power for that, so he snaps his fingers and the damn book is gone. Good.
“We have copies of that, you know,” Sam says, and Balthazar’s interior bluffing radar remains silent, so maybe he’s telling the truth. Damn.
“Alright,” the angel says, then, and he puts his hands up to highlight his surrendering intentions, that he doesn’t have any interest in killing them or tricking them or anything, he just wants to get back to his party as soon as possible. “I’m sure we can get to an arrangement. Tell me what you need from me, and I’ll do the possible to make y’all lads happy, for free. And for those copies, thanks.”
He hears a sarcastic little laugh coming from Dean, and turns around to face him. Dean is standing by the wall, has a finger pressed to it and he closes a blood sigil before stepping forward. Balthazar swears under his breath as he feels his powers suppressed and banished from his grasp.
“He thinks he can put demands on the table,” Dean says, clearly scorning him, and Balthazar straightens his back a little bit at that because he might be a sneaky bastard but he’s still an angel, and a proud one, especially when facing pitiful humans. “The way I see it, Balthazar, as of now we have the whip hand, and you’re bareback.”
There’s the oil trap flaming, and then the walls and the ceiling are covered in ancient sigils which that last symbol Dean just drew activated, and he points at it all, but it wasn’t necessary, because there’s something in his voice, something in his eyes that would’ve been enough in itself to persuade Balthazar that this isn’t time for jokes and tricks and dicking around.
The angel puts three and three together and it’s clear, they must know about Castiel’s recent acquaintances. That’s surprising, but not so much really. Balthazar wonders just how much the humans know about Castiel’s plans.
“Well, alright,” he says, secretly enjoying how upset these poor humans look about the news. Maybe his brother isn’t really that hopeless, then. “Tell me what you need, I’m listening. Kind of.”
“Heaven’s weapons,” Dean says, and that’s pretty straight forward even for him. Balthazar almost laughs at his face.
“You know I don’t have them anymore, darling,” he says, his tone that of an old elementary teacher affectionately pinching his favourite student’s chubby cheeks. “Your other angel friend took them, he’s planning to throw some nice fireworks show, up there over the rainbow, I’m sure you know everything about it.”
“Yeah, we know,” Dean growls, and he sucks so much at concealing his emotions it’s really amazing how he can be such a good hunter anyway. “We need to know where he keeps them.”
“How to get them,” Sam supplies, dutifully. Bobby is still pointing his little knife at Balthazar, it’s starting to be ridiculous. “How to take them away, how to make them work without blowing away the planet and ourselves in the process.”
“You know, the three of you, you’re really something,” Balthazar smiles. Dean narrows his eyes, doesn’t seem pleased by the compliment. “I mean, you’ve handled pretty big deals, Lilith, Lucifer, Michael, one by one you’re putting a cross over the whole cast from the Bible, and that’s amazing, really, but don’t you think you might be kind of pushing too much, now?”
“Stop talking bullshit and tell us what we asked,” Bobby says, and Balthazar sighs, he’s just trying to help, why do they have to be so rude?
“No need to get your blood pressure up, grandpa, though I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times before,” he says, almost apologizing, and Bobby just glares. “Look, boys, you don’t have to worry, okay? Castiel is doing fine. He has the Weapons, soon he’ll have a ton of souls at his disposal, he’ll win, alright? No Apocalypse, no crazy-ass Archangels with major God complex ruling over Heaven, just freedom. Utter and complete freedom, I’m quoting myself, and isn’t that what you wanted? Cass will give us that.”
“Is that what you think?” Dean says, stepping forward and almost into the fire. Too bad it won’t hurt him as much as it’d hurt an angel. “You think you’ll have your happy ending, when Cass has sold his soul to that motherfucking demon?”
“We are angels,” Balthazar observes, slightly baffled, not much mockingly so. “We don’t have souls to sell.”
“That’s not my point,” Dean snaps, and he should sleep some more, Balthazar thinks, he looks very stressed out. “My point is, how can you be so fucking naive to believe it’s gonna be alright? How can you trust Crowley? How can you think it’s legit to pair up with such a douchebag even for half a second!?”
“Are you still talking to me?” Balthazar asks, politely and with just a tiny bit of exasperation in his voice. “Because really, Dean, we’ve been there already. I’m not in love with you, I’m not Castiel, I’m not the one you want to tell all that shit to.” And he almost says, look over my shoulder, there’s that window, right above the horrible puffy couch, and he’s standing right there, outside, looking at you through the courtains with that sad puppy face of his own you can’t really see.
“Fuck you,” Dean mutters, clearly angry at himself for having lost it, and he pushes a hand to his face and sighs. He gets a gun out of nowhere, then, cocks it and aims at Balthazar’s forehead. Well, his vessel’s. “Now talk, nice and quick, because maybe you’re happy to let your friends screw up things and hang around with demons as long as it doesn’t make your fucking freedom any harm, but I’m not. And maybe your brains will work better, if we let some air in through a hole.”
Balthazar likes his new life, alright? He’s a fan of Epicurus, he met him and dined with him and they’re friends, very close friends even, so he’s not a complete jerk, he has some faint notion of ethics and morals and he knows the difference between right and wrong. He knows Castiel’s intentions are good, his plans for the future are probably the best thing that’s ever happened to Heaven. He also knows Cass has chosen the most effective tactic to make it all right, the one with the highest success rate, but he isn’t really sure it was the best decision to make. He didn’t speak up because, well, it’s Castiel, he’s a stubborn kid and he’s doing it all for Balthazar’s freedom too; but now Dean and Sam and Bobby are offering him a way to make amends, they’re giving him the opportunity to actually do something significant.
Balthazar wants to be free but he has learned that utter freedom is that of a blissful, incorruptible being exempt from wrath and benevolence alike, and we all are just so, so weak. He can only have the freedom of fragile, anguished humans, and the least he can do is to try and get the best out of it, so he tells them.
He tells them about Colorado Springs, the closest city to Heaven in America, and he tells them the combination to get into his storage. He tells them to be careful, he wishes them the best of lucks.
“You know it won’t be enough to handle Raphael, right?” he asks, when they’re about to wave him goodbye and leave him forever trapped in there. “You know that if Heaven’s weapons were enough to wipe that ugly bastard off of the face of the Earth, Cass would’ve done his cleaning lady duties by now, right? You know that even with all the power you can possibly gather together in any ethically acceptable way, you’ll still be like a juicy steak fighting a huge, hungry shark with a tiny toothpick?”
They just stare back at him, their faces blank, and then Dean smiles, confident and absolutely out of place.
“I like steaks,” he says, and Balthazar huffs.
“Unbelievable,” he says. “You are completely dumb.”
“Yeah, at least that we know for certain,” Bobby says, and the moment they’re out of the door Balthazar feels Castiel Disapparate. And then Crowley gets out of his hiding spot, smirking. He snaps his fingers and exstinguishes the flames, smudges the sigils into bloody stains on the wall.
“Thank you, Balthazar,” he says, and he’s sending a bunch of demons to Colorado Springs already. Balthazar makes a mock bow and smiles politely, hands in his pockets.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow morning, boss,” he says, and vanishes in a flicker of feathers, not quickly enough to miss Crowley’s dark, low chuckle.
*
There’s a lot of funny things going around in Castiel’s head, right now. He feels guilty, mostly, and very much of a fool. He also wishes he could be by the Winchesters’ side as he usually is, not invisible but mindlessly invading Dean’s personal space, feeling Bobby’s exasperation for the boys’ recklessness wash over him like a downpour in the rain forest and wondering all the time what’s going on in Samuel’s mind. He mostly misses the stench of the Impala, which isn’t very much of a stench to him, really.
It’s very weird, anyway, but everything is weird, these days, so Castiel isn’t very surprised anymore. He’s starting to grow used to the conflict that is so typical of the human nature, he has almost accepted the costant uncertainty, he’s learning not to question his choices once he’s made them. He’s not very sure it’s the right thing to do, though, because really, every fiber in his being is screaming all the time for him to go over and over again all the steps he’s made from the moment he fell.
It doesn’t feel nice.
He’s scared, he’s lost. He feels the burden of free and responsibility and it’s like the whole Heaven has collapsed onto his shoulders. It hurts, it burns, and that’s probably because it’s true, Castiel has in his hands the destiny of the universe. It’s terrifying. No, that’s not enough; probably no word is enough, not even in Enochian.
Castiel wonders if this is what God feels. He knows it’s pride, he knows it’s a sin, maybe the most terrible of all, to compare oneself to the Lord Almighty, but still he wonders, he can’t help it. And he thinks that if this really is what being God means, then he can’t really blame his Father for leaving. He wants lo leave himself.
It’s just too much, and that’s because he doesn’t know the consequences of his actions, he can only presume, and hope, and pray and everytime he looks up to the sky he sees the stars are a little less bright than before. He’s scared, he’s really scared, but he can’t stop it anymore. He doesn’t want to, because no other way is better than this.
Was God this conflicted, when he had to create Evil in order for Good to exist? Did he think, it’s wrong, but I have to, because otherwise it won’t work? Does he ever look at his hands and ask himself, what have I done?
Castiel does that, all the time. He can’t stop questioning himself, even if he knows that if he could switch his conscience off it all’d be so much easier. But he doesn’t really want that. He doesn’t want to turn into Crowley, he doesn’t want to be free of responsibility.
He just wants to do the right thing. Maybe that’s what’s going to save him, or maybe not.
*
“You’re not actually driving to Colorado this carelessly, right?” Balthazar asks, annoying and scary, too, because he appears on the back seat of the Impala unannounced, and Dean jumps, startled, and almost manages to get them killed in a head-on collision with a truck coming from the opposite direction.
Bobby calls a second later, Sam answers the phone with shaky fingers and tells him they’re alright. Dean shouts that some douchebag Brit angels should learn it’s not safe to scare driving people like that, and Balthazar isn’t really pleased by the honoraries.
“I’m sorry, next time I’ll let you jump into Crowley’s traps without a warning,” he says, mildly offended, and Dean huffs, glaring at him through the rear-view mirror.
“You think we didn’t know you were sending us right into a trap?” he says, and Balthazar smiles.
“Well, Winchester boy, I’m very impressed,” and he even mocks an applause for them. “Now that you’ve passed this test, I am proud to announce you’re not dumb anymore, just bloody stupid!”
“Yay,” Dean growls, no enthusiasm whatsoever, and Sam coughs a little, twisting his upper body around so he can look at Balthazar.
“What do you want?” he asks, and somehow he’s not completely rude. It’s probably because of those polite puppy eyes, Balthazar thinks. “I mean, did you just tell us a bunch of lies, in there?”
“Of course not!” Balthazar says, outraged at the mere thought of him lying. That’s funny. “Heaven’s weapons really are in ColSpri, I swear. Crowley knows about your little altercation with Castiel, though he might have heard a slightly exaggerated version of it, but anyway, he knows you’re after the weapons and my guess is that he’ll break all Hell loose over the three of you, hoping that Cass’ll show up to save your sorry arses, and then he’ll take four birds with a stone, but that’s not why I’m here, of course,” and he smiles, wildly amused by Sam’s blank, shocked face and Dean’s practically exploding with rage expression. “I wanted to ask you guys something, if you don’t mind.”
“What is it?” Dean barks, and if he pushes a little harder with his foot he’ll tear a hole in the Impala right under the accelerator.
“I’m very curious,” Balthazar says, teathrically pensive. “You are actually driving into Crowley’s horde, an army of demons and nasty creatures lined up all over Colorado Springs for the very purpose of tearing you lot to pieces, that’s fine. Let’s pretend for a second you manage to survive the incredible amount of Hell ambassadors displayed out there, and imagine yourself putting your mortal, filthy hands on my weapons, alright? And then, in this amazing universe of unbelievable fantasy and divine justice where money grows on bushes and unicorns breed freely in men-forsaken lands and angels and hunters actually communicate with each other instead of intensely staring at one another all the time--”
“Dude, you lost me. I’m driving, get to the point,” Dean says, mildly annoyed and definitely blushing, and Balthazar smirks.
“Alright, sorry,” he says. “Not that I’d bet half a peanut on your team, but if you manage to get the weapons, what do you want to do with them? Because, you know, I wasn’t joking, before, when I said--”
“I know what you said,” Dean says, harsh. “I know. I know we’re just humans, blah blah blah, Heaven’s bling blings aren’t enough. We know. So what? We should just sit and enjoy the show of our Cass shaking hands and making deals with the Emperor Palpatine?”
“That’s what any human being with the faintest self-preservation instinct would do, yes,” Balthazar nods. “But you have proved many times already you wouldn’t find that word in a dictionary.”
“Exactly,” Dean says, and his grip on the steering wheel is so strong his knuckles are completely white now. “So, to answer your question, this is what we’re gonna do once we get those weapons: we’ll go upstairs and deep fry Raphael’s sorry arse, and any other feathered douchebag who thinks they can screw with our planet, and then we’ll hang out Crowley to dry. Sounds fair?”
“It sounds crazy, dangerous and impractical, and I think it’ll get you all killed in the most painful ways,” Balthazar says, and he’s being honest, which is a very rare thing for him, but the Winchesters, well, they manage to get the best out of him. Not that he’ll ever admit such a ridiculous thing, of course.
“Dude, tell me something I don’t know,” Dean laughs, and Sam snorts as well, amused. Balthazar stares at them, then at the road beforehand, the highway just a dark carpet unrolled into the night, and sighs.
“There’s a rat in the trunk,” he says, and then he’s gone, but Cass stays. Dean just keeps driving.