Addictions are addictive
In other words I discovered Supernatural - a series I avoided for a long time because a fandom that has the term "Wincest" copyrighted frightens me a bit. I just finished watching season 5 and S6 and S7 are ordered (not yet out on DVD in Germany) and god do I love this universe.
The series has a lot of strong points but I must say what I like the most is the casting. if there is one thing the series gets right every frickin' time it's the casting choices. Guys with deep voices, child actors, who can act and look as if they could actually turn into the older versions of themselves and great guest stars...
Anyway where am I going with this?
Well there is fic behind the
Mercury is fast enough to dodge a bullet
Summary: The missing mistletoe should have been a hint, too.
A week after the final confrontation Castiel finally made time to wrap up some loose ends. He was needed in Heaven but he was needed on Earth, too - even if it was just for the fact that no one else would feel obligated to care.
Dean was with Lisa. They hadn't parted on the best of terms and Castiel regretted it, but a promise to an all-but-dead brother and heavenly responsibilities stood between them. There was nothing he could do about it but check in to make sure Dean and his new family were doing alright.
Sam was out of his reach. On the rare occasions that the angel still found himself praying to his father he prayed for the younger Winchester, who had willingly sacrificed himself to protect all Creation from Castiel's brothers.
Bobby could look after himself - although the angel feared he might have to look into the whole Crowley business sooner or later.
Which left Chuck - prophet of the Lord.
***
Castiel materialized his vessel inside the prophet's home.
“Chuck?”
The angel looked around the chaotic house. Everything in the living-room looked as if the man had just left. The computer was still on and a couple of pages were still in the printer. But the bottle of beer next to the monitor had stood untouched for a long time and a fine layer of dust covered everything - including the keyboard. He concluded that the man hadn't been here for days - probably since the day of Michael's and Lucifer's confrontation.
There was no sign of a struggle and no remnants of angelic or demonic intervention that Cas could tell. He let his eyes wander around the room but could find no clue as to what had happened to Chuck.
He was about to leave, when the last page in the printer caught his eye. He pulled out the sheets of paper and read through the prophet's account of their last battle not believing, what his eyes told him.
“Gabriel.”
***
With the blink of an eye Castiel was at the Stull Cemetery, Lawrence. He could see the tracks of their battle, the ground still shone brightly to his angelic senses at the place where the cage had opened. Cas turned his back to the blinding light and started to search the bushes for any kind of hint, any kind at all.
He searched for almost an hour, simply denying to give up when he finally found it. A small shred of paper under the leaves on the ground. It was too small a piece to read anything of significance, but Castiel was an angel - he recognized it as what it was: a part of a paper napkin with part of a restaurant or club logo. It had been touched by one of his brothers but it had traveled here by mortal means. Which meant his brother had walked here from a club in or near Lawrence.
Cas zapped from establishment to establishment until he found a strip joint which colors matched the ones on the scrap of paper in his fingers.
Entering the club he immediately saw him.
Gabriel sat at the far end of the bar cradling his cocktail and ignoring the beautiful woman at his arm. How far the archangel was gone, showed itself in the fact that he barely held his camouflage together. To Castiel's senses Gabriel's grace was clearly visible, leaking out around the aura of his vessel although the older angel obviously tried to keep it in.
Cas went over to the bar. His gaze had to be pretty intense since the lady fled Gabriel's side before he reached the two of them.
“We thought you were dead.”
The archangel's smirk was somewhere between self-contempt and satisfied arrogance. “That was the plan, kiddo.”
“Gabriel.”
Something of his feelings must have shown in his voice, the archangel looked directly at him and his face sobered up.
“Let's take a walk, Cas.”
Without his own contribution the younger angel found himself next to Gabriel at the shore of a lake a couple of miles away from the next human settlement.
“What happened? Dean and Sam told me that you died.”
Gabriel didn't look at him but started to scuffle along the beach, kicking up sand. Castiel fell into step beside him.
“I tricked Lucifer. It took an added level of subterfuge, because he knew I'd be lying. But his arrogance was soooooo huge - it was actually pretty easy. And I wasn't alone of course.” Gabriel started to hum 'I get by with a little help of my friends'.
“Mercury, Ganesha, Baldur - they're alive?”
Now Gabriel's smirk could only be described as full of himself as he wriggled his eyebrows. “Sometimes I wonder if his time in the cage has affected our brother's intelligence. He didn't even use mistletoe when he went after Baldur and still thinks he killed him. Anyone who knows anything about that annoying boy scout deity knows that.”
“But Lucifer surely is strong enough to kill a pagan god.”
Gabriel's mood swung from amused to annoyed. “Don't make the same stupid, arrogant mistakes our brothers fall for, Castiel. There are rules and not just our rules. Just because we're powerful doesn't mean we can ignore them,” he snapped.
Castiel lowered his gaze, chastised by his older brother. He wanted to ask more questions but thought it better to let Gabriel pick his own pace of telling his story.
“Their original plan was stupid, it wouldn't have worked. Besides I couldn't let them harm the Winchesters, could I? At that point it was a piece of luck really, that Kali had guessed my true identity - it made them listen closely. And when even Baldur agreed that my plan was the best to secure their continued survival, I had won them over. Mercury 'betrayed' us and brought Luci, so that he could 'kill' us all. No one tries to find and kill someone they already believe dead.
But the best part of course was my little goodbye letter to Sammy and Deano.”
Castiel had seen the film. Porn as Gabriel's last message to the survivors. He had watched it over and over again. The profanity of the sexual acts disturbed him, but it were the last words of his older brother and once he started he couldn't stop, because if he did the last tiny part of the archangel would be taken away from him.
“It was very … you.”
“I had fun recording it,” Gabriel admitted, “But the important part was, that those two chuckle-heads listened after they thought I died. They finally let go of their plan to kill Lucifer.”
“It was a futile plan from the beginning.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Completely unlike your plan to find Daddy.” He lifted his hand to stop Castiel's defensive reply and turned to fully face the younger one. “Those two stubborn idiots are too thick to recognize when something is impossible and because they are so incredibly, terribly, ingeniously human they do succeed where angels fail.” He paused gnawing his lip, struggling with his next words. “I … I couldn't, Cas. I couldn't let them kill our brother.”
The younger angel wasn't sure if the older just lost part of his control or if he let the younger see behind his walls, but the flare of love and despair that rippled through Gabriel's grace was unmistakable.
A part of Castiel wanted to turn away from his brother, wanted to reproach him for taking the cowardly road again, for forcing Sam and Dean to make the hard decisions, for making them sacrifice everything when it was the angels' mess to begin with, when he at least could have helped.
But he also remembered Gabriel's kind words when they had first really talked after the TV show incident. How Gabriel had been his one link to Heaven's blessing after he'd rebelled. The archangel was far from perfect but he had never fallen and his approval had meant much to Castiel especially after he and Anna ended up on different sides, after that devastating message from Joshua. So how could he turn from Gabriel now that the older clearly needed him?
“It's not in your nature.” Castiel stood closer to Gabriel, so that the shoulders of their vessels touched, so that their wings intertwined in that higher reality that they kept that part of their selves in.
“Weird isn't it? I do judge. I do punish the humans I find wanting. In the old days I often dealt out father's punishments and yet I can't stand the thought of a world without my brothers.”
“I do remember. I also remember that you were more merciful than most, certainly more so than Raphael or Michael.”
“They were different after Lucifer fell - but that was before your time. They weren't half bad back in the olden days. But things changed, not much more than 'dicks with wings' now as our friend Deano puts it.” There was an echo of that old mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he continued. “Not that he would think any different about me now - probably would have a couple of choice attributes to put to my name if he found out that I'm still around.”
“His little brother - both of his little brothers are trapped in Lucifer's cage and you could have stopped it.” Castiel couldn't quite keep the reproach out of his statement.
“Maybe but I doubt it. There was only one thing that could stop this apocalypse and that was Choice. Father's great gift to his most beloved children. I've been working on this whole free will thing for centuries now and still even a mere child could teach me about it.” Gabriel turned to his younger brother. “You're actually doing pretty well, especially considering how little practice you've got.”
“Thank you.”
“For what it's worth: I am sorry about what happened to Sam. Neither he nor Adam deserved what happened to them. And I'm sorry that you lost your friends.”
“I could use your help in bringing order back to Heaven.”
“No.” Castiel flinched at the vehemence in Gabriel's voice. “Raphi is still there and you don't want us to clash. We just got rid of Michael and Lucifer and maybe, hopefully a couple of centuries in the time-out zone together will give them a chance to reconcile their differences. And you want the two remaining archangels to clash in another war? That's what started this whole mess to begin with. I won't have a part in this.”
Gabriel started to walk away from Castiel his shoulders set.
“If you were there, Raphael might see reason.”
“Hah! Believe me he won't. And when archangels fight the Seraphim and Cherubim, the Elohim and Ophanim they die.”
“And you think no one will die if you don't join, Gabriel?”
Gabriel stopped in his tracks. “No - angels will die no matter what I do. But I believe that less will die if I don't join. And your fight will be easier.”
Now the older one had Castiel completely stumped. “How will anything be easier?”
“Don't you see it, Cas? A clear cut: Raphael, who clings to the old ways, representing the past, on one side and you, the poster child for choice, for free will among angels, representing the future. Another archangel would clearly just muddle things up.”
“You talk as if rebellion against our father was a good thing.”
Suddenly Gabriel was standing right next to him, gently knocking with his knuckles against Castiel's head. “Hello anybody home here? - You never rebelled against or father, Cas. You made choices - after he clearly told you that he wouldn't make them for you. You might have stood up against the people higher up in the food chain, but that's what he wanted. Daddy brought you back from the not-existent. Two times. He doesn't do that for children who angered him. You. Are. His. New. Favorite. Learn to live with it.” He turned to walk away. “And for Daddy's sake let me drown my self-pity in a couple of Margaritas while I mourn the loss of the most interesting mortal playthings I've had in centuries.”
It's spoilery for "Changing Channels", "Hammer of the Gods" and "Swan Song", so if you've seen s5 you should be fine. If you don't know Gabriel - please don't read. It's Gabriel/Cas friendship and in my mind there's background Cas/Dean but it's as non-shippy as fanfiction gets really.
In addition - does anyone know a good spn fanfic archive (like Teaspoon for Who)? My google skills are not good enough to lead me to anything not ffnet or ao3.
The series has a lot of strong points but I must say what I like the most is the casting. if there is one thing the series gets right every frickin' time it's the casting choices. Guys with deep voices, child actors, who can act and look as if they could actually turn into the older versions of themselves and great guest stars...
Anyway where am I going with this?
Well there is fic behind the
Mercury is fast enough to dodge a bullet
Summary: The missing mistletoe should have been a hint, too.
A week after the final confrontation Castiel finally made time to wrap up some loose ends. He was needed in Heaven but he was needed on Earth, too - even if it was just for the fact that no one else would feel obligated to care.
Dean was with Lisa. They hadn't parted on the best of terms and Castiel regretted it, but a promise to an all-but-dead brother and heavenly responsibilities stood between them. There was nothing he could do about it but check in to make sure Dean and his new family were doing alright.
Sam was out of his reach. On the rare occasions that the angel still found himself praying to his father he prayed for the younger Winchester, who had willingly sacrificed himself to protect all Creation from Castiel's brothers.
Bobby could look after himself - although the angel feared he might have to look into the whole Crowley business sooner or later.
Which left Chuck - prophet of the Lord.
***
Castiel materialized his vessel inside the prophet's home.
“Chuck?”
The angel looked around the chaotic house. Everything in the living-room looked as if the man had just left. The computer was still on and a couple of pages were still in the printer. But the bottle of beer next to the monitor had stood untouched for a long time and a fine layer of dust covered everything - including the keyboard. He concluded that the man hadn't been here for days - probably since the day of Michael's and Lucifer's confrontation.
There was no sign of a struggle and no remnants of angelic or demonic intervention that Cas could tell. He let his eyes wander around the room but could find no clue as to what had happened to Chuck.
He was about to leave, when the last page in the printer caught his eye. He pulled out the sheets of paper and read through the prophet's account of their last battle not believing, what his eyes told him.
“Gabriel.”
***
With the blink of an eye Castiel was at the Stull Cemetery, Lawrence. He could see the tracks of their battle, the ground still shone brightly to his angelic senses at the place where the cage had opened. Cas turned his back to the blinding light and started to search the bushes for any kind of hint, any kind at all.
He searched for almost an hour, simply denying to give up when he finally found it. A small shred of paper under the leaves on the ground. It was too small a piece to read anything of significance, but Castiel was an angel - he recognized it as what it was: a part of a paper napkin with part of a restaurant or club logo. It had been touched by one of his brothers but it had traveled here by mortal means. Which meant his brother had walked here from a club in or near Lawrence.
Cas zapped from establishment to establishment until he found a strip joint which colors matched the ones on the scrap of paper in his fingers.
Entering the club he immediately saw him.
Gabriel sat at the far end of the bar cradling his cocktail and ignoring the beautiful woman at his arm. How far the archangel was gone, showed itself in the fact that he barely held his camouflage together. To Castiel's senses Gabriel's grace was clearly visible, leaking out around the aura of his vessel although the older angel obviously tried to keep it in.
Cas went over to the bar. His gaze had to be pretty intense since the lady fled Gabriel's side before he reached the two of them.
“We thought you were dead.”
The archangel's smirk was somewhere between self-contempt and satisfied arrogance. “That was the plan, kiddo.”
“Gabriel.”
Something of his feelings must have shown in his voice, the archangel looked directly at him and his face sobered up.
“Let's take a walk, Cas.”
Without his own contribution the younger angel found himself next to Gabriel at the shore of a lake a couple of miles away from the next human settlement.
“What happened? Dean and Sam told me that you died.”
Gabriel didn't look at him but started to scuffle along the beach, kicking up sand. Castiel fell into step beside him.
“I tricked Lucifer. It took an added level of subterfuge, because he knew I'd be lying. But his arrogance was soooooo huge - it was actually pretty easy. And I wasn't alone of course.” Gabriel started to hum 'I get by with a little help of my friends'.
“Mercury, Ganesha, Baldur - they're alive?”
Now Gabriel's smirk could only be described as full of himself as he wriggled his eyebrows. “Sometimes I wonder if his time in the cage has affected our brother's intelligence. He didn't even use mistletoe when he went after Baldur and still thinks he killed him. Anyone who knows anything about that annoying boy scout deity knows that.”
“But Lucifer surely is strong enough to kill a pagan god.”
Gabriel's mood swung from amused to annoyed. “Don't make the same stupid, arrogant mistakes our brothers fall for, Castiel. There are rules and not just our rules. Just because we're powerful doesn't mean we can ignore them,” he snapped.
Castiel lowered his gaze, chastised by his older brother. He wanted to ask more questions but thought it better to let Gabriel pick his own pace of telling his story.
“Their original plan was stupid, it wouldn't have worked. Besides I couldn't let them harm the Winchesters, could I? At that point it was a piece of luck really, that Kali had guessed my true identity - it made them listen closely. And when even Baldur agreed that my plan was the best to secure their continued survival, I had won them over. Mercury 'betrayed' us and brought Luci, so that he could 'kill' us all. No one tries to find and kill someone they already believe dead.
But the best part of course was my little goodbye letter to Sammy and Deano.”
Castiel had seen the film. Porn as Gabriel's last message to the survivors. He had watched it over and over again. The profanity of the sexual acts disturbed him, but it were the last words of his older brother and once he started he couldn't stop, because if he did the last tiny part of the archangel would be taken away from him.
“It was very … you.”
“I had fun recording it,” Gabriel admitted, “But the important part was, that those two chuckle-heads listened after they thought I died. They finally let go of their plan to kill Lucifer.”
“It was a futile plan from the beginning.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Completely unlike your plan to find Daddy.” He lifted his hand to stop Castiel's defensive reply and turned to fully face the younger one. “Those two stubborn idiots are too thick to recognize when something is impossible and because they are so incredibly, terribly, ingeniously human they do succeed where angels fail.” He paused gnawing his lip, struggling with his next words. “I … I couldn't, Cas. I couldn't let them kill our brother.”
The younger angel wasn't sure if the older just lost part of his control or if he let the younger see behind his walls, but the flare of love and despair that rippled through Gabriel's grace was unmistakable.
A part of Castiel wanted to turn away from his brother, wanted to reproach him for taking the cowardly road again, for forcing Sam and Dean to make the hard decisions, for making them sacrifice everything when it was the angels' mess to begin with, when he at least could have helped.
But he also remembered Gabriel's kind words when they had first really talked after the TV show incident. How Gabriel had been his one link to Heaven's blessing after he'd rebelled. The archangel was far from perfect but he had never fallen and his approval had meant much to Castiel especially after he and Anna ended up on different sides, after that devastating message from Joshua. So how could he turn from Gabriel now that the older clearly needed him?
“It's not in your nature.” Castiel stood closer to Gabriel, so that the shoulders of their vessels touched, so that their wings intertwined in that higher reality that they kept that part of their selves in.
“Weird isn't it? I do judge. I do punish the humans I find wanting. In the old days I often dealt out father's punishments and yet I can't stand the thought of a world without my brothers.”
“I do remember. I also remember that you were more merciful than most, certainly more so than Raphael or Michael.”
“They were different after Lucifer fell - but that was before your time. They weren't half bad back in the olden days. But things changed, not much more than 'dicks with wings' now as our friend Deano puts it.” There was an echo of that old mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he continued. “Not that he would think any different about me now - probably would have a couple of choice attributes to put to my name if he found out that I'm still around.”
“His little brother - both of his little brothers are trapped in Lucifer's cage and you could have stopped it.” Castiel couldn't quite keep the reproach out of his statement.
“Maybe but I doubt it. There was only one thing that could stop this apocalypse and that was Choice. Father's great gift to his most beloved children. I've been working on this whole free will thing for centuries now and still even a mere child could teach me about it.” Gabriel turned to his younger brother. “You're actually doing pretty well, especially considering how little practice you've got.”
“Thank you.”
“For what it's worth: I am sorry about what happened to Sam. Neither he nor Adam deserved what happened to them. And I'm sorry that you lost your friends.”
“I could use your help in bringing order back to Heaven.”
“No.” Castiel flinched at the vehemence in Gabriel's voice. “Raphi is still there and you don't want us to clash. We just got rid of Michael and Lucifer and maybe, hopefully a couple of centuries in the time-out zone together will give them a chance to reconcile their differences. And you want the two remaining archangels to clash in another war? That's what started this whole mess to begin with. I won't have a part in this.”
Gabriel started to walk away from Castiel his shoulders set.
“If you were there, Raphael might see reason.”
“Hah! Believe me he won't. And when archangels fight the Seraphim and Cherubim, the Elohim and Ophanim they die.”
“And you think no one will die if you don't join, Gabriel?”
Gabriel stopped in his tracks. “No - angels will die no matter what I do. But I believe that less will die if I don't join. And your fight will be easier.”
Now the older one had Castiel completely stumped. “How will anything be easier?”
“Don't you see it, Cas? A clear cut: Raphael, who clings to the old ways, representing the past, on one side and you, the poster child for choice, for free will among angels, representing the future. Another archangel would clearly just muddle things up.”
“You talk as if rebellion against our father was a good thing.”
Suddenly Gabriel was standing right next to him, gently knocking with his knuckles against Castiel's head. “Hello anybody home here? - You never rebelled against or father, Cas. You made choices - after he clearly told you that he wouldn't make them for you. You might have stood up against the people higher up in the food chain, but that's what he wanted. Daddy brought you back from the not-existent. Two times. He doesn't do that for children who angered him. You. Are. His. New. Favorite. Learn to live with it.” He turned to walk away. “And for Daddy's sake let me drown my self-pity in a couple of Margaritas while I mourn the loss of the most interesting mortal playthings I've had in centuries.”
It's spoilery for "Changing Channels", "Hammer of the Gods" and "Swan Song", so if you've seen s5 you should be fine. If you don't know Gabriel - please don't read. It's Gabriel/Cas friendship and in my mind there's background Cas/Dean but it's as non-shippy as fanfiction gets really.
In addition - does anyone know a good spn fanfic archive (like Teaspoon for Who)? My google skills are not good enough to lead me to anything not ffnet or ao3.