Dean/Cas Big Bang - I Do(not) Want to Set the World on Fire 2/10
Part 1: Worldly Acclaim (I've Lost All)
Castiel and his group are sent to the Gates when there is a group attempting to live outside, in the House of Worship that Father and Michael came from, before Father created Lucifer and entered Heaven. The ones in the House are evil, horrible men and women, many of whom attempt to kill them or flee when that doesn’t work. Uriel kills the first group swiftly, with the others, under Gabriel’s leadership, taking down the rest and destroying their bodies in Holy Fire that doesn’t scorch the earth, showing that the sanctity of the House is, at least, still intact despite the intrusion and death.
Outside, Castiel sees the brown and destroyed land that had once been Earth, but is now desolate and harsh. He understands, now, why they are not allowed to return, why Michael said Father’s Signs were just fantasy and that their purpose was to remain in Heaven, guard the Gates, and wait out the destruction. Humanity destroyed itself once, it could be left to do so again.
Yet there are still talks, after they go out. Gabriel and Anna seem only to talk about the world outside, and the potential of the one that they found dead. Uriel, like Castiel, doesn’t see the point - the man’s body burned, so he couldn’t be as sinless as Gabriel and Anna believe. Lucifer’s thoughts that perhaps the revelation that Father had might, one day, come true if they are out there to lead the humans angers Michael. Other garrisons, and even Castiel’s own, become scared and worried at the division in thought. A few blame Gabriel for continuing to bring it up, but most blame Lucifer for not deferring to his elder brother.
At one point, the argument gets so heated and violent that everyone is afraid. Gabriel is hurt, and Lucifer is shoved into a Cage and not allowed out for weeks. Gabriel refuses to speak directly to Michael after that, despite threats to be thrown in the Cage as well, and Raphael appears angry at everyone but Michael, even going so far as to blame Castiel’s whole garrison for not being swifter in killing off the intruders.
One day the alarm goes off, and they race to find out who opened the doors. The Gates are in mayhem, and it takes too long to figure out who allowed them open, and who is no longer there. Lucifer is still shaken from his time in the Cage, but also glared defiantly at Michael, as if blaming him when news arrives.
Anna, Metatron, and Gabriel are all missing.
Castiel feels saddened by their loss, and is now even more aware of the corruptive qualities of the Wasteland. That one such as Gabriel would fall is horrifying to think. That a pure virtue like Anna would be corrupted is hard to consider. Somehow, something changed them from the outside, something that makes him corrupted for even venturing out, even to do their duty. He realizes at one point that Metatron has never been outside - he is kept inside, with the records that Father left before his death. He is always kept near Michael or Raphael’s side, so in a way, it only makes sense that there is a corruptive thing, as some believe, and that Naomi may be able to get out of them.
He promises himself that nothing will tempt him outside of Heaven.
--
When Dean was four, their home was attacked and Mom died. He remembers carrying Sammy out to safety, and the neighbors running out as well, either to defend against the attackers or to try to put out the fires. They lived in a sort-of community, and the fire had resulted in everyone going to the nearest place where they could be safe.
That had been a Vault - specifically, Vault 101.
Dean had hated it. One of the conditions was that he couldn’t talk about the outside, not to anyone. Dad had told him it was ‘safer’, even explaining that he’d come from a Vault before it’d been opened and he met Mom. This one, closed to the Wasteland after only the Winchesters entered, was something that reminded Dad of home.
Sammy loved the Vault, because it’s clean, and he believes all the crap about the Wasteland being hard and cruel and evil, when Dean knows it’s not, not always. As the oldest of the group, ahead by four years instead of only months apart, Dean is almost constantly alone. Stanley and the chaplain, Jim Murphy, do what they can to keep Dean busy, and Dad orders him to watch over Sammy and the others, until he messes up badly enough that Dad looks at him differently, and some of the kids taunt him about the incident afterward. After the GOAT, when he’s apprenticed to Stanley, he doesn’t spend as much time watching over Sammy, or even at home. It’s not much, for that time between his sixteenth and his twenty-fourth, when it all goes to Hell, but he does his best in it.
All that changes when Dad and Sam disappear, leaving no word for Dean. The resulting mayhem from Murphy and Caleb’s deaths and an increased radroach infestation means Dean, along with Jonas, has to kill a few guards, threaten the douchebag Overseer, and make a run for it. Jonas had gone one way, and Dean had gone to Megaton.
It’s weird, to have a home and to, at the same time, be kinda a wanderer. Dean does what he can to help the people and places he finds while also doing what he can to try and find Dad. It’s what leads him to Three Dog and his protector, Loki. It’s what later lets him find Agatha and her student-protector, a kid named Kevin. It’s what sends him in to find Reily’s group and what has him coming back, helping her out with marking spots in the Wasteland or killing Super mutants and Talon Company men. It’s how he finds Charlie and gets her into Megaton, where she watches over Moira’s store (and Moira).
He’s trying to find Dad and Sam, so he can ask them what the hell happened. He wants to know why they can leave a place both of them loved but he can’t when he hated it. He wants to know why they didn’t tell him anything, why it was such a big secret.
More importantly, he wants to know what they’re trying to find. Wants to know why Sam ran and didn’t tell Jess - Dean hopes she and Amata managed to stay safe, no matter what Overseer promised. Wants to know what’s up with Dad and Doc Milligan - Dean vaguely remembers her from before the Vault, and there’s a kid about Sam’s age named Adam who doesn’t have a dad.
Dean wouldn’t fault Dad for it, not really. Adam’s fine, at least, and he also isn’t bitter about the possibility that he and Dean are related. Instead, he looks to it as an excuse to explore Rivet City and learn all he can. Dean, because he’s not using it, gives Adam his old BB Gun and teaches him how to shoot. That doesn’t go over as badly with Jodi Mills and Harkness (who is actually an android…which is also fine with Dean). Both see it as a way that the kids can focus or, at least, know what it’ll take to defend Rivet City. Adam and the other kids enjoy learning that, and playing baseball on the places of the in-tact flight deck.
It’s when he finds the Regulators that he runs into a woman with fiery hair and intense eyes, something odd on her back that makes him blink when he looks at her, unable to really focus. She tells him that he’s doing a fool’s errand and to give it up.
“If you keep going, you’ll end up killing them, and giving us their fingers.”
Dean glares at her, as best he can. “Only a few things around here are so black and white. I’m not going to kill them if I have a chance to talk to them.”
She shakes her head, as if he’s delusional. “It’s your funeral. They aren’t going to give you the same courtesy when you find them. The only way to stop them is to shoot first.”
“They’re family,” he argues back, angry at her and wanting to take off the coat, because if it means dealing with Anna then he’s out.
“No such thing. Not here, anyway. They always betray you. Family will always leave you, and not care about what you want, or when you’re hurt.” She sounds bitter, even to some of the others. “If they’re evil, it’s your duty to kill them, not try to make them see reason. They won’t. They’ll just hurt you again.”
Dean doesn’t reply, or argue back. Mostly, he’s just hoping that Anna can be proven wrong.
--
It’s getting harder and harder to justify the belief that Heaven is better than the Wasteland. After Lucifer’s first attempt to fight Michael, his insubordination turns more towards arguments, or attempts to work with others that might want to leave. He blames Michael for what happened to Gabriel, for Metatron’s disappearance. Lucifer seems displeased that Michael won’t consider their Father’s words, and is also even angrier at Raphael. Castiel still didn’t understand that motivation to leave, not until Michael had Lucifer sealed in the Cage.
The Cage itself is a way to discipline, but it’s also a horrible thing. For Archangels, it’s the only way to deal with those that are unruly and would cause problems, but it’s said to be similar to sensory deprivation tanks. Though Castiel has only dealt with Naomi and her methods, he shudders to think of what will happen to Lucifer, since there is no way to get him out without either convincing Michael or breaking into the Cage from above. Neither were a viable option for anyone, and the Cage was nowhere near the Gates, meaning if any of the others did want to break him out, they had to go into the Wasteland.
Their lives go on, the same as before but now with edges that get sharper of his brothers and sisters begin to feel odd stresses. Inias is the worst, though, but they all are after their second trip to the Gates.
The second time things come into the Gates, trying to make it a staging area or prison of some sort. The things are mutated and larger that the evil men that had come before, and far less intelligent. They had two young Humans with them, the two trapped and huddling near each other. Inias had gone to help protect them, see them safe and out of the Gates, at least, as they killed the insane and tainted things that are trying to destroy and taint the Gate.
Inias is able to calm the two as they finish off the remaining things, the group slowly walking back to look at them. The two had survived some of Uriel’s blast with minimal damage, Inias having protected their eyes but some general burns and signs of their Humanity still intact. To Castiel, that at least meant there was some hope for change, that perhaps Gabriel and Anna were helping in some way.
Michael came up, Raphael at his side, and paused, looking disgusted by the amount of taint left in the Gates, and unleashed his own power. That power tended to cleanse, but was a burning, fiery power as well. Without Lucifer to quell it, all of them had to avert their eyes and wrap their wings around themselves. Castiel is the closest to survive - others are killed or badly hurt, while Castiel’s wings are burned so badly they become black. Inias’ own are almost burned off, his back a mass of burns and scars as he attempts to save the two Humans from Michael’s fire.
The rest is a blur of screams from the Humans as they are burned, and from Inias and the others are they are either killed or pained. Castiel barely manages to hold back his own scream as his wings are scourged. When he slowly looks out, he sees no remorse on Michael’s face for the destruction, and Raphael looks almost pleased. To one side, Uriel appears shaken and angered by the cleansing, something Castiel never thought he’d see. Uriel hated the Humans above them, but now, that hatred seems pushed towards Michael and the deaths of their brothers and sisters.
He knows that they are pulled back by Michael’s threats and some strange word from Naomi, that makes them move even as some try to stay or even leave, and return to the large room full of operational chairs, to speak to her and the others.
Castiel, for whatever reason, is aware of what is going on as he sits, the Garrison that Naomi commands putting them into the chairs and attaching something to their head, a strange item pushed lightly into their foreheads. Inias and a few others who had been badly hurt, worse than Castiel, let out moans of pain and are shaking or fighting the word and the other garrison. Ion, putting on the piece for Castiel, looks angry and upset at them as he pulls Castiel’s head up a bit violently, twisting his hair as the ring and item are put on while Naomi is speaking to Michael. Something she says gets him to hit her, everyone going silent as Michael tells her, “Fix it” before leaving. Raphael, who Castiel thinks might try to help, instead smirks at her and says, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the challenge.”
Naomi says nothing, standing and motioning to her Garrison to leave before shaking her head. “Father is truly dead now.” She glances around the group, letting out a sigh. “The Watchers at the Gate will both destroy and create the Kingdom he spoke of.” She looked at Castiel, apparently understanding that he was awake and aware, and blinking in surprise before smiling. “I cannot fix what isn’t broken. Let’s begin.”
Part 3: Admission (and with Your)
Castiel and his group are sent to the Gates when there is a group attempting to live outside, in the House of Worship that Father and Michael came from, before Father created Lucifer and entered Heaven. The ones in the House are evil, horrible men and women, many of whom attempt to kill them or flee when that doesn’t work. Uriel kills the first group swiftly, with the others, under Gabriel’s leadership, taking down the rest and destroying their bodies in Holy Fire that doesn’t scorch the earth, showing that the sanctity of the House is, at least, still intact despite the intrusion and death.
Outside, Castiel sees the brown and destroyed land that had once been Earth, but is now desolate and harsh. He understands, now, why they are not allowed to return, why Michael said Father’s Signs were just fantasy and that their purpose was to remain in Heaven, guard the Gates, and wait out the destruction. Humanity destroyed itself once, it could be left to do so again.
Yet there are still talks, after they go out. Gabriel and Anna seem only to talk about the world outside, and the potential of the one that they found dead. Uriel, like Castiel, doesn’t see the point - the man’s body burned, so he couldn’t be as sinless as Gabriel and Anna believe. Lucifer’s thoughts that perhaps the revelation that Father had might, one day, come true if they are out there to lead the humans angers Michael. Other garrisons, and even Castiel’s own, become scared and worried at the division in thought. A few blame Gabriel for continuing to bring it up, but most blame Lucifer for not deferring to his elder brother.
At one point, the argument gets so heated and violent that everyone is afraid. Gabriel is hurt, and Lucifer is shoved into a Cage and not allowed out for weeks. Gabriel refuses to speak directly to Michael after that, despite threats to be thrown in the Cage as well, and Raphael appears angry at everyone but Michael, even going so far as to blame Castiel’s whole garrison for not being swifter in killing off the intruders.
One day the alarm goes off, and they race to find out who opened the doors. The Gates are in mayhem, and it takes too long to figure out who allowed them open, and who is no longer there. Lucifer is still shaken from his time in the Cage, but also glared defiantly at Michael, as if blaming him when news arrives.
Anna, Metatron, and Gabriel are all missing.
Castiel feels saddened by their loss, and is now even more aware of the corruptive qualities of the Wasteland. That one such as Gabriel would fall is horrifying to think. That a pure virtue like Anna would be corrupted is hard to consider. Somehow, something changed them from the outside, something that makes him corrupted for even venturing out, even to do their duty. He realizes at one point that Metatron has never been outside - he is kept inside, with the records that Father left before his death. He is always kept near Michael or Raphael’s side, so in a way, it only makes sense that there is a corruptive thing, as some believe, and that Naomi may be able to get out of them.
He promises himself that nothing will tempt him outside of Heaven.
--
When Dean was four, their home was attacked and Mom died. He remembers carrying Sammy out to safety, and the neighbors running out as well, either to defend against the attackers or to try to put out the fires. They lived in a sort-of community, and the fire had resulted in everyone going to the nearest place where they could be safe.
That had been a Vault - specifically, Vault 101.
Dean had hated it. One of the conditions was that he couldn’t talk about the outside, not to anyone. Dad had told him it was ‘safer’, even explaining that he’d come from a Vault before it’d been opened and he met Mom. This one, closed to the Wasteland after only the Winchesters entered, was something that reminded Dad of home.
Sammy loved the Vault, because it’s clean, and he believes all the crap about the Wasteland being hard and cruel and evil, when Dean knows it’s not, not always. As the oldest of the group, ahead by four years instead of only months apart, Dean is almost constantly alone. Stanley and the chaplain, Jim Murphy, do what they can to keep Dean busy, and Dad orders him to watch over Sammy and the others, until he messes up badly enough that Dad looks at him differently, and some of the kids taunt him about the incident afterward. After the GOAT, when he’s apprenticed to Stanley, he doesn’t spend as much time watching over Sammy, or even at home. It’s not much, for that time between his sixteenth and his twenty-fourth, when it all goes to Hell, but he does his best in it.
All that changes when Dad and Sam disappear, leaving no word for Dean. The resulting mayhem from Murphy and Caleb’s deaths and an increased radroach infestation means Dean, along with Jonas, has to kill a few guards, threaten the douchebag Overseer, and make a run for it. Jonas had gone one way, and Dean had gone to Megaton.
It’s weird, to have a home and to, at the same time, be kinda a wanderer. Dean does what he can to help the people and places he finds while also doing what he can to try and find Dad. It’s what leads him to Three Dog and his protector, Loki. It’s what later lets him find Agatha and her student-protector, a kid named Kevin. It’s what sends him in to find Reily’s group and what has him coming back, helping her out with marking spots in the Wasteland or killing Super mutants and Talon Company men. It’s how he finds Charlie and gets her into Megaton, where she watches over Moira’s store (and Moira).
He’s trying to find Dad and Sam, so he can ask them what the hell happened. He wants to know why they can leave a place both of them loved but he can’t when he hated it. He wants to know why they didn’t tell him anything, why it was such a big secret.
More importantly, he wants to know what they’re trying to find. Wants to know why Sam ran and didn’t tell Jess - Dean hopes she and Amata managed to stay safe, no matter what Overseer promised. Wants to know what’s up with Dad and Doc Milligan - Dean vaguely remembers her from before the Vault, and there’s a kid about Sam’s age named Adam who doesn’t have a dad.
Dean wouldn’t fault Dad for it, not really. Adam’s fine, at least, and he also isn’t bitter about the possibility that he and Dean are related. Instead, he looks to it as an excuse to explore Rivet City and learn all he can. Dean, because he’s not using it, gives Adam his old BB Gun and teaches him how to shoot. That doesn’t go over as badly with Jodi Mills and Harkness (who is actually an android…which is also fine with Dean). Both see it as a way that the kids can focus or, at least, know what it’ll take to defend Rivet City. Adam and the other kids enjoy learning that, and playing baseball on the places of the in-tact flight deck.
It’s when he finds the Regulators that he runs into a woman with fiery hair and intense eyes, something odd on her back that makes him blink when he looks at her, unable to really focus. She tells him that he’s doing a fool’s errand and to give it up.
“If you keep going, you’ll end up killing them, and giving us their fingers.”
Dean glares at her, as best he can. “Only a few things around here are so black and white. I’m not going to kill them if I have a chance to talk to them.”
She shakes her head, as if he’s delusional. “It’s your funeral. They aren’t going to give you the same courtesy when you find them. The only way to stop them is to shoot first.”
“They’re family,” he argues back, angry at her and wanting to take off the coat, because if it means dealing with Anna then he’s out.
“No such thing. Not here, anyway. They always betray you. Family will always leave you, and not care about what you want, or when you’re hurt.” She sounds bitter, even to some of the others. “If they’re evil, it’s your duty to kill them, not try to make them see reason. They won’t. They’ll just hurt you again.”
Dean doesn’t reply, or argue back. Mostly, he’s just hoping that Anna can be proven wrong.
--
It’s getting harder and harder to justify the belief that Heaven is better than the Wasteland. After Lucifer’s first attempt to fight Michael, his insubordination turns more towards arguments, or attempts to work with others that might want to leave. He blames Michael for what happened to Gabriel, for Metatron’s disappearance. Lucifer seems displeased that Michael won’t consider their Father’s words, and is also even angrier at Raphael. Castiel still didn’t understand that motivation to leave, not until Michael had Lucifer sealed in the Cage.
The Cage itself is a way to discipline, but it’s also a horrible thing. For Archangels, it’s the only way to deal with those that are unruly and would cause problems, but it’s said to be similar to sensory deprivation tanks. Though Castiel has only dealt with Naomi and her methods, he shudders to think of what will happen to Lucifer, since there is no way to get him out without either convincing Michael or breaking into the Cage from above. Neither were a viable option for anyone, and the Cage was nowhere near the Gates, meaning if any of the others did want to break him out, they had to go into the Wasteland.
Their lives go on, the same as before but now with edges that get sharper of his brothers and sisters begin to feel odd stresses. Inias is the worst, though, but they all are after their second trip to the Gates.
The second time things come into the Gates, trying to make it a staging area or prison of some sort. The things are mutated and larger that the evil men that had come before, and far less intelligent. They had two young Humans with them, the two trapped and huddling near each other. Inias had gone to help protect them, see them safe and out of the Gates, at least, as they killed the insane and tainted things that are trying to destroy and taint the Gate.
Inias is able to calm the two as they finish off the remaining things, the group slowly walking back to look at them. The two had survived some of Uriel’s blast with minimal damage, Inias having protected their eyes but some general burns and signs of their Humanity still intact. To Castiel, that at least meant there was some hope for change, that perhaps Gabriel and Anna were helping in some way.
Michael came up, Raphael at his side, and paused, looking disgusted by the amount of taint left in the Gates, and unleashed his own power. That power tended to cleanse, but was a burning, fiery power as well. Without Lucifer to quell it, all of them had to avert their eyes and wrap their wings around themselves. Castiel is the closest to survive - others are killed or badly hurt, while Castiel’s wings are burned so badly they become black. Inias’ own are almost burned off, his back a mass of burns and scars as he attempts to save the two Humans from Michael’s fire.
The rest is a blur of screams from the Humans as they are burned, and from Inias and the others are they are either killed or pained. Castiel barely manages to hold back his own scream as his wings are scourged. When he slowly looks out, he sees no remorse on Michael’s face for the destruction, and Raphael looks almost pleased. To one side, Uriel appears shaken and angered by the cleansing, something Castiel never thought he’d see. Uriel hated the Humans above them, but now, that hatred seems pushed towards Michael and the deaths of their brothers and sisters.
He knows that they are pulled back by Michael’s threats and some strange word from Naomi, that makes them move even as some try to stay or even leave, and return to the large room full of operational chairs, to speak to her and the others.
Castiel, for whatever reason, is aware of what is going on as he sits, the Garrison that Naomi commands putting them into the chairs and attaching something to their head, a strange item pushed lightly into their foreheads. Inias and a few others who had been badly hurt, worse than Castiel, let out moans of pain and are shaking or fighting the word and the other garrison. Ion, putting on the piece for Castiel, looks angry and upset at them as he pulls Castiel’s head up a bit violently, twisting his hair as the ring and item are put on while Naomi is speaking to Michael. Something she says gets him to hit her, everyone going silent as Michael tells her, “Fix it” before leaving. Raphael, who Castiel thinks might try to help, instead smirks at her and says, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the challenge.”
Naomi says nothing, standing and motioning to her Garrison to leave before shaking her head. “Father is truly dead now.” She glances around the group, letting out a sigh. “The Watchers at the Gate will both destroy and create the Kingdom he spoke of.” She looked at Castiel, apparently understanding that he was awake and aware, and blinking in surprise before smiling. “I cannot fix what isn’t broken. Let’s begin.”
Part 3: Admission (and with Your)