Fic: The Tribulation of Chuck (3/5)
Quick note: This chapter has been edited since it was first posted because I didn't think before typing a lame, ableist line of dialogue. Details are here for the offended or curious.
Title: The Tribulation of Chuck (Part 3/5)
Characters: Chuck, Cas/Dean, Sam, Missouri Mosely, Lucifer, Crowley, Jesus...etc.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/spoilers for season 4, sacrilege (no, really - see character list)
Word Count: 8700
Summary: In the wake of Lucifer's surprise party on the driveway, everyone is busy either planning heroic deeds or trying to ring a few gongs before the lights go out. In the case of Chuck, Castiel, and Jesus, "ringing a few gongs" roughly translates to "talking about feelings and watching The Breakfast Club." But Chuck still needs to play his prophet role for the team.
Note: Special thanks to psycocatgirl for extra involved beta reading during a busy week. She's basically the only reason this chapter is up. <3
Chuck had never identified so strongly with Popples before in his entire life - not even that night in college he spent stoned out of his mind and popping one inside out and back again for like four hours. Right now, standing across Missouri’s lawn from Lucifer himself, with Castiel beside him and visions of Castiel’s excruciating death playing behind his eyes, he felt as if everything in his body that could retract had retracted out of sheer terror. Any moment, the strain of all of it would flip him inside out. But he was pretty sure he wouldn’t turn into a surprisingly fun 80’s plush ball if it happened - he’d just splatter prophet bits all over the yard. And that was so not the comforting mental image he needed right now.
Stupid Popples.
Lucifer’s gaze started back across the crowd, passing over Castiel, and Chuck felt his body move. Almost instinctively, he edged in front of his friend.
“Aw,” Lucifer said, and tutted at him. “Such an adorable attempt at martyrdom. You must be the new prophet.”
“What’s it to you?” Chuck shot back, his voice trying its best to sound like a badass action movie hero. Oh god, shut up, pleaded his brain.
“Nothing, really,” Lucifer said, stepping over Anna’s body. “You’re irrelevant to me. Your friend, on the other hand…”
“The last time someone tried to get to him,” Chuck sneered, “he had to go through me first, and an archangel smote the crap out of him,” Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.
Lucifer chuckled. “I’m not here to hurt him - or any of you.”
Dean stepped forward, covering Castiel’s other side. For the first time, Chuck felt like they were on the same page. “What the hell are you here for, then?”
“Checking out the competition,” Lucifer said. His hands landed in the pockets of his jeans, and a smirk lit his face ominously. Chuck had used the word ominously a lot in his writing career - far more than was really called for - but this may have been the first time in his life that he knew the true meaning of it. “And what competition you are. Each of you weak, selfish, greedy, addled with neuroses, human whether meant to be so or not.” He spared a sly look at Castiel. “Thank you, boys. I needed a laugh after so long trapped in that cage.”
“Oh, great, gloating,” Dean said, crossing his arms. “Because hearing that from the bad guy never gets old.”
“Dean,” Sam hissed, “don’t taunt the devil.”
“Yeah, Dean,” Lucifer said, tilting his head. Chuck wondered if the head tilting was an angel thing. “You don’t want to burn bridges, do you?”
“Bridges?” Dean scoffed.
“We could be allies, Dean. Your brother, too. In fact-” Lucifer waved a hand diplomatically “-I might be willing to let your little ragtag team join forces with me, if you all agree to help me in my mission.”
Dean stepped forward, his arms dropping to his sides in full-on hero stance. “And what could you possibly give us that would make us want to help you destroy the world?”
Lucifer rolled his eyes toward the clouds and placed his fingers together like a bureaucrat contemplating a deal. “Okay, first off, I don’t want to destroy the world - I just need to do a little renovation. As for incentives, you would have the guaranteed safety of yourselves and your loved ones, a hand in restructuring the world to come, and first pick of the Raptured’s cars.” He raised his eyebrows at Dean, who glared. Lucifer shrugged, pulling something out of his shirt pocket. “Fine, you drive a hard bargain. Act now, and I’ll throw in a free keychain.”
“Hey!” Dean said. “That’s my keychain! I earned that! Wait-”
Lucifer dangled the object in the air. A small, bright orb swung from the keyring. Castiel’s fingers circled around Chuck’s arm, fingernails digging into his biceps through the hoodie fabric.
“Is that-” Dean started.
“One hundred percent pure angel grace, only one previous owner. Comes with a drastically lengthened lifespan and a Get Out of Pain Free card for the user.” Lucifer waggled the keychain, and Castiel’s grace made the shadows on the lawn dance. “This offer is only available for a limited time, kids. Going once-”
Dean glanced back at Castiel, who was wide-eyed and shaking.
“Going twice-”
“Don’t even think about it,” Castiel whispered, giving the barest shake of his head.
“No deal!” Dean shouted.
Lucifer dropped Castiel’s grace back into his pocket. “Well, your loss. Don’t say I never gave you a chance.”
“Oh, we’ve got a chance,” Dean said, and Chuck’s brain started yelling SHUT UP again, but this time not at himself. “You take a good hard look at these faces, buddy, because this is the team that’s taking you down for good.”
Lucifer laughed and surveyed the group once more, but this time, his smile faltered midway through. “Is that-no.” He stepped forward, ducking his head to get a better view of someone. “You’re kidding me. I didn’t recognize you before, through all the chaos, but-you’re the Christ child, aren’t you?”
Jesus stood on the front steps, one hand pressed against the side of the house like he was bracing to bolt.
Lucifer wound around the group and up the first step. His face broke into a grin. “It is the little Lamb! Boys, do you mean to tell me that this is the source of your swagger? He’s not at all like the stories - no sword and fire. No righteous hand to strike me down. Just an empty, corrupt human shell. Utterly useless.” He leaned in close to look Jesus in the eye. “My regards to the godless filth that broke you. They just made my day.”
Jesus swallowed hard, his fingertips turning white against the siding.
Lucifer backed down the steps, patted his shirt pocket, and gave the group the sort of smug look Chuck had only ever previously seen on frat boys and superfans pointing out plot holes in his books. “Enjoy playing with your little green army men, boys. I’ll be hanging out nearby, laughing at your expense, if you change your mind.” He raised his fingers over his head. “In four days, I’m burning this world to its foundations.” With a snap, he was gone.
The moment after Lucifer left, the yard went completely still. Nobody moved - nobody even breathed. Nobody except for Jesus, who took a stumbling turn up the front walk and sprinted inside, Crocs slapping against the pavement. As the front door slammed behind him, the demons crept out of hiding and about a dozen different conversations erupted outside, all of them at full volume.
“We are so very deeply screwed!” Crowley informed them all.
“Why didn’t I stab him?” Sam lamented, throwing his sword to the grass. “I should’ve-”
Dean swore. “The devil touched my keychain!”
“He got through the protective wards-”
“Are the neighbors going to notice a dead angel on the-”
“Four days? That’s not enough time to-”
Everyone seemed to be flipping into panic mode. One demon shoved Crowley, Crowley charged at him, Sam crumpled on the grass with his head in his hands, and Dean just swore, loudly and with a better vocabulary than Chuck had amassed himself. Their voices rose so loud that Chuck’s hands curled up toward his ears. A body hit the garage door with a crack.
Castiel grabbed Chuck by the elbows and said in his ear, “We need to follow Jesus.”
“Why?” Chuck said, shaking his head. “The guy deserves a good storm-off after that. Hey, Cas, I’m sorry about your-”
The remaining street lamps up the block flickered and burst, and the front porch light burned so bright it exploded, raining glass shards and dead bugs down onto the stoop. Chuck ducked and covered so fast he was a little impressed by his own reflexes.
“What’s doing that?” he cried from under his arms.
“Not what - who. Come on,” Castiel said, tugging Chuck up by the sleeve of his hoodie. Chuck protested, but honestly, he was halfway to a panic attack himself, and he welcomed the distraction. As they hurried inside, the door hung open behind them, spilling warring voices and the sound of a fist fight through the living room. The bulbs in Missouri’s vintage lamps made popping sounds and went dark as they passed.
“Where would Jesus be?” Castiel said.
“Den,” Chuck answered. “Probably hiding in the fort re-watching the reconciliation scene from Clerks. He’s watched it five times in the last day. It seems to calm him.”
Castiel yanked open the door to the den, and light poured out so bright that both of them had to shield their eyes.
Jesus was not watching Clerks. Jesus was storming around inside the small room, tearing pillows and blankets from the fort and hurling them at the walls. His teeth were clenched hard, his eyes streaming tears, and the two lamps in the room putting out more light than Chuck had seen since the archangel tore up his kitchen.
“Christ,” Chuck muttered, too stunned to catch himself.
Jesus grabbed a couch cushion from the load-bearing wall of the fort and wrenched it out of place with a choked sound behind his teeth. Lifting it over his head, he threw it at the wall clock, sending both toppling to the ground. Outside, the voices of the melee roared as if Sam’s entire demon army were trying to voice their opinions. Something clattered in the kitchen, and Chuck turned to see Missouri curling in on herself between the stove and the back door, cookware on the floor at her feet and her hands shoved hard against her ears.
“You need to calm him down,” Castiel said, pulling Chuck into the room with Jesus.
“It’s just a pillow fort,” Chuck said. His whole body wanted him to hide under the desk and rock back and forth. He was on his way there when Castiel pulled him back by his sleeve.
“Now!”
“All right, all right.” Chuck switched directions and approached Jesus, who was tearing the bed sheet roof off the fort. “Hey, Jesus,” he tried, laying a hand on the guy’s shoulder. God, the lights in here were bright. “It’s okay. It’s okay, man. Don’t let what he said get to you. Lucifer is a-well, he’s kinda built a career on being an asshole.”
Jesus’s fingers clenched in the bed sheet. He stopped throwing things but didn’t look up.
“Look, he doesn’t even know you. I know you, and you’re not those things, okay?” Chuck moved his hand tentatively, rubbing a circle between the guy’s shaking shoulders. “You’re not broken. You’re just having a rough time of things right now - and hey, who isn’t? Doesn’t stop you from being a good guy. And a good friend.”
Jesus let out a long breath. Without looking Chuck in the eye, he turned toward him and stepped into an awkward hug, his nose pressing against Chuck’s collar. Chuck wrapped his arms around him, trying not to wince at the fingers digging hard into his back.
Outside, the voices dropped away suddenly. Chuck’s heartbeat stopped thudding against his ribcage and slowed. He took a deep breath, and his whole body relaxed.
“What the hell did I just feel?” Missouri called from the kitchen, her voice wavering.
“Projection,” Castiel said, slumping against the door frame. “The bumper sticker says Jesus is love, but he could also be anger, sorrow, glee…panic…whatever will open the masses’ minds to the divine message. I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s not really in control of his abilities right now.”
Jesus shook his head against Chuck’s shoulder.
Chuck patted his back. “It’s been a rough night, buddy - for all of us.”
Castiel sank slowly against the door frame until he was sitting on the floor with his knees bent up toward his chest and his face in his hands.
“Castiel?” Chuck tried over Jesus’s shoulder. “If you want to, I dunno, talk about your gra-”
“I’m hungry,” Castiel interrupted, as if Chuck hadn’t spoken at all. “I’d like to eat.”
So he wasn’t even going to address the grace thing. Chuck’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, we can do that. What do you want?”
Castiel shuddered. “Anything but burgers.”
***
Having Castiel back was awesome. They fell back into their old BFF ways immediately, no effort required. Chuck got a boom box from the attic, and the two of them rocked out to Ace of Base at full volume in the den, playing leg guitar, drinking, and talking about all the cool things they were going to do when the apocalypse was averted. No one bothered them, and they were up all night making plans and mapping out road trips on the 1995 atlas from Chuck’s glove compartment, certain of their own survival. Because with Castiel around again, Chuck had an odd, sort of prophetic sense that everything was going to turn out just-
“Chuck, are you paying attention?”
-fine.
Chuck rubbed his eyes. Sam was glowering at him from across the kitchen table. Again. The guy was a champion glowerer. If making guilt-inducing facial expressions ever became an Olympic sport, he and Missouri could be Team USA. They’d clean up.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, even though it was anything but the truth. He’d been doing the internal narration thing again while the fearless leader was talking. Again. He couldn’t seem to stop doing that - and it wasn’t even accurate internal narration, it was happy-verse versions of the evening. No one to hear it but himself, and he was still lying. That seemed like the healthy, well-adjusted thing to do.
He glanced at the crowd in the kitchen. Directly around the table were the big players - Missouri, Crowley, Dean, and Castiel. Representatives of Sam’s eco-friendly demon army crammed in behind them, making the kitchen feel like the inside of a Polly Pocket compact. Chuck had dated a girl in college who collected those things. They were small. Like “How many of these can I fit up my nose?” small. Not that he’d tried. Because that’d be kinda weird and, uh, hard to explain to the emergency room nurse. Oh, hell. He was lying in his internal narration again.
Anyway. Apocalypse meeting.
“All we need from you is Lucifer’s location,” Sam said.
In front of the whole room, Chuck couldn’t say no. He nodded, staring at the table.
“We’re really going to trust the prophet as our informant?” Crowley scoffed. “Have you seen him? He still wears Looney Toons boxers.”
“Y’know what, I’m not gonna take criticism from a guy who doesn’t knock at the bathroom door,” Chuck shot back, half hiding his head behind one arm.
“And Tweety Bird of all characters! What are you, a twelve-year-old girl? Even Lilith wouldn’t-”
“We’re going to trust the prophet,” Castiel interrupted, his voice so firm that Crowley shut his mouth and raised his hands in mock surrender. Castiel cleared his throat and said, a little quieter, “He has an amazing gift, even among the prophets. He could pinpoint the location of stashed away liquor from a passing vision.”
A few of the demons made impressed noises, and Chuck guessed he was going to make some new friends the next time the booze ran dry.
“So, task force,” Dean said, planting his palms on the table. “All of us fight the lackeys, but when we get into Lucifer’s personal bubble, Sam and I need backup. In case Heaven tries to get in on the fray. Or to pick up the sword in case we fail.”
Chuck had heard the word “fail” about a million times in his life - mostly with an “-ing” or a “-ure” at the end of it and aimed at himself - but this one held a special kind of gravity. The kind of gravity that only came with euphemisms and uncomfortable pauses in a roomful of demons.
“It’ll be dangerous,” Dean said, the bravado back in his voice. “You’ll be taking on the devil right beside us. This is one of those world-saving hero missions that earns you a pep talk about glory and immortal actions, people. Show of hands - who’s in?”
The room went silent. One of the demons raised her hand, then faked out and scratched her ear instead. Dean eyed the room with his mouth drawn in a hard line.
Missouri gave a little laugh at the table and raised hers, too. “I have got to see Dean Winchester give this pep talk.”
Crowley raised one finger like he was ordering another drink. “Why not.”
Castiel raised his hand without a word, and Chuck’s stomach plummeted.
“Anyone else?” Dean called, searching the room again. His eyes didn’t even pass over Chuck. “All right. Task force, we’ll talk more once we’ve got intel. Bobby’s on his way down from South Dakota, and I got a hunch he’ll want in on this, too. Anyone who wants to stick around for Anna’s funeral, we’ll be burning her down at the end of the yard in twenty.”
***
Chuck sorta watched Anna’s funeral from the porch for about ten minutes. He couldn’t see much - it was all the way at the bottom of the slope of Missouri’s yard, and Sam had put up a bunch of sigils that cloaked the whole yard from anyone more than a few feet away, so the whole yard sort of shimmered like it was under a veil. In the next yard over, a little old lady pruned her rose bushes, totally oblivious to the burning body thirty feet away or the hordes of demons hanging out in their tents. It was totally a wizard trick. For all the neighbors knew, they could be hiding freaking Hogwarts under that veil.
The idea launched Chuck’s imagination into a debate with itself over who was scarier - Lucifer or Voldemort. Voldemort had the bad guy robes and the total lack of nose, which was Uncanny Valley material if Chuck had ever seen it, but Lucifer didn’t need a wand to do his evil, and he wasn’t, well, fictional. Except that until this past year, Chuck had kind of thought he was fictional, and what if Voldemort was real, too, and Rowling was just another prophet, and-from there on, it morphed into Stranger Than Fiction/real person fanfic crossover territory, and he had to end that train of thought.
Chuck gave up on squinting out at the funeral when Castiel started singing. He barely recognized the voice without a phat beat behind it - the song was some kind of hymn in Aramaic or Enochian or Angel Pig Latin or something, and it made his heart ache. Chuck had made a point in his life to specifically collect music that didn’t hurt his heart (with the notable exception of Sarah McLaughlan, but nobody had to know that), so when he started to get choked up, he left the porch.
A group of demons were watching TV in the living room, and they sounded like they were enjoying themselves, so Chuck pulled up a chair to join them. “What’re we watching?”
“Divine Design,” answered one of the demons, a fat man in a tweed vest. “Crowley’s convinced Candice Olson is one of ours.”
Crowley took a sip from a small silver flask. “The woman is single-handedly bringing back beige. If that’s not demonic activity, I’ll eat my Oxfords.”
Chuck wasn’t really much for interior decorating shows, but the demons MST3Ked the crap out of it, and he had nowhere else to be, so he stuck around. They got through a handful of episodes, and then a flamboyant man in a tank top came on the screen talking about paint colors. The demons started throwing candy wrappers at the TV, and Chuck excused himself to someplace slightly less wrathful.
That place happened to be the back porch, and for the first time since he’d been assigned the awful sleeping quarters, it was occupied when he got there. Occupied by a tangle of legs and a naked back he’d seen way too many times in visions.
Chuck sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hi, guys.”
Dean leapt from the couch, pulling a nearby shirt up to cover his bare chest. Modesty looked really weird on him. So did blushing. He backed into a stack of boxes, causing a minor avalanche of dusty paperbacks. A chorus of demon laughter rolled in from the back yard.
“Chuck,” said Castiel, who didn’t seem to mind being sprawled out half-naked on the couch in front of his friend. “What are you doing here?”
“I sleep here. The den got kinda claimed. What’re you two doing out here? I mean, besides the, um…” Chuck pointedly turned his eyes to the ceiling as Dean zipped up.
“‘S nothing you haven’t peeped in on before,” Dean muttered. “What are you looking for up there, adjectives? I could throw out a few for you.”
Chuck shook his head, ducking out into the back hallway. “No, y’know what, you guys go ahead. The place is all yours. I’ll just go see if Jesus will let me camp out on the floor in the den.”
“Wait,” Castiel called, pulling on his shirt. Passing Dean a whispered message and a kiss, he followed Chuck out into the house. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”
“You sure about that? Missouri doesn’t abide sexual tension at the kitchen table.”
“I’ll add to my morning to-do list. Dean understands.”
Dean didn’t look particularly understanding, wearing half his shirt and a frown, but Chuck wasn’t going to argue. Maybe he was understanding on the inside. “Seriously,” Chuck said, lowering his voice, “it’s your first night out of the green room. Enjoy yourself.”
“It’s my first night out of the green room,” Castiel whispered back. “Do you know how much time I just spent in a room with Dean Winchester? As much as I care for him, right now I welcome a reprieve. Dean has a limited stock of knock-knock jokes, and in the past few days, I’ve heard every one of them multiple times.”
Chuck had, too, but he didn’t want to trigger a memory of the experience by giving it a thought. “Anyway, I’m not sure Jesus will even let me camp out on the floor, much less put up with the two of us.”
“He’s Jesus,” Castiel said, knocking on the door to the den. When Jesus opened it, he extended his hand and said, “Hello. We haven’t been formally introduced - I’m Castiel, former angel of the Lord. Would you mind if we spent the night in here with you?”
Jesus took his hand for a quick, tentative shake, then opened the door wider to let them in. The sofa-bed was set up like it had been before the fort, but now with sheets neatly piled on one arm and extra cushions stacked on the floor. If Chuck hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought that Jesus had carefully disassembled the fort, not torn the thing apart. He’d cleaned himself up, too, changing out of the shapeless Bible chic stuff he’d been wearing and into a pair of cargo pants and a muscle shirt that had probably come from Missouri’s Pile O’ Nephew Stuff in the attic.
“See?” Castiel said.
Chuck dragged his feet into the den, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his hoodie even though it was probably too hot to be wearing a hoodie. “Yeah, well…I mean…”
Castiel narrowed his eyes. “You…don’t want me here?”
“No!” Chuck said quickly. “No, I do! I just-” He slumped against the door as it closed. God, why was he so full of fail? Thirty seconds alone with Castiel, and he was already starting to pick apart the threads of their happy reunion. He ran his hands back through his hair and gripped tufts of it like a crazy person on a sitcom. “Man, you’re the friend I always wanted when I was a kid. You have no idea. I was this tiny little nerd with an original Trek lunchbox, and I used to bring my action figures to school and make up stories about them exploring the alien planet of the cafeteria. I spent second through fourth grade eating at a table with the lunch ladies, because they were the only ones who never made fun of me.” He dropped his arms. “My parents didn’t get me; nobody did. I grew up feeling like I was the one freak kid that Professor Xavier had forgotten to send for.”
“I don’t understand,” Castiel said. “Charles Xavier only taught mutants. Seeing as your powers come from the Lord, you would never have been called. Unless God tweaks genetics to produce prophets.”
“I’m not talking literally,” Chuck said, “but this is a perfect example of what I mean, Castiel - you get me! You really do. You would’ve been right there with me in the cafeteria, sending Batman and Spock on an away mission to the napkin basket.”
Castiel sat down on the edge of the bed, right next to Jesus, who was watching them curiously. “I would have.”
“And in middle school, when my dad moved out for a while, you would’ve had me over to your place every weekend to distract me and read comics.” He was revising personal history again, writing freaking fanfiction of his own life, but he didn’t care. “And in eleventh grade, when Sandy Weems broke my heart, you would’ve taken it seriously even though we’d only been dating for a week and a half. And you’d’ve told me that smoking away the pain was a really bad idea, and I wouldn’t have ended up crashing my hatchback into a pond by the grocery store at 2am. Or at least you would’ve come by with a blanket to sit with me until the police took me home.”
Castiel smiled a little. “I would have.”
“And I wish you would have. I’ve never had a friend who would have until recently, and-” Chuck sighed, rolling his eyes up toward the boob light on the ceiling. “I have no idea what I’m doing. And I mean, that’s true for me on so many subjects, but this is the one I really screwed up. You’ve been so awesome to me that I want to make you the Mary Sue of my formative years, and meanwhile I lied to you, acted greedily, kept secrets, introduced you to truly horrible music…”
“Saved my life,” Castiel added.
Chuck shook his head. “And now that I know how wrong I was, I can’t even help you. I can’t get your grace back for you. I can’t protect you. I can’t even have your back in battle. All I can do is have the painful death vision with incomplete information. I appreciate you trying to spend time with me, but I have no idea why you wanna waste part of what’s probably your last few days on earth with me.”
The room was silent for a few moments. Then Castiel let out the most long-suffering sigh Chuck had ever heard and said to Jesus, “Has he been doing this low self-esteem crap the entire time I’ve been gone?”
Jesus pursed his lips and nodded.
“Come here,” Castiel said to Chuck. The prophet let go of the door and took a seat on the edge of the bed next to his friend. Castiel whupped him hard upside the head.
“Ow!” Chuck said, grabbing his head. That hurt way more than it looked like it should when Gibbs did it on NCIS.
“Idiot,” Castiel hissed, and pulled him into an awkward hug, with Chuck still holding his own head. “You think I’d still be here if I didn’t get something out of being around you? Aside from the glaringly obvious act of heroism you conveniently forget when you beat yourself up, you’ve saved me. Without you, I don’t know how I would have survived being human. It’s hard and messy, and everyone seems to be making it up as they go, but you reminded me that there were elements of this world worth celebrating. You showed me what it was like to have a friend who didn’t care about my rank or what I could do for them.”
“But I-” Chuck started.
Castiel squeezed him a little too hard for comfort, and his voice went low, almost vicious. “Aside from all that, you get me. I would have brought my own action figures to the cafeteria to go on away missions with yours, Chuck. And I would have been completely jealous of your lunchbox.”
Chuck swallowed. His head was sandwiched hard between his own hands, his nose smooshed against Castiel’s shoulder, and still, the words were more uncomfortable. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” Castiel said.
“You can, uh, let me go, then.”
“Not until I know you’re listening. Promise me you’ll stop beating yourself up like this.”
“This is emotional blackmail.”
Castiel squeezed harder. “Say it.”
“Fine! I don’t suck that much. You happy?”
Castiel released him, grinning. Chuck shook out his arms, which had started to cramp. He wanted to mutter curses under his breath, dismiss this obviously stupid conversation as a bunch of meaningless schmoop, and go grab the dregs of his whiskey from the back porch. But, to be honest, hearing things like that from Castiel made him want to believe them.
He thought of the first time Castiel had called him a good man, and how he’d wanted to believe it then, too. He thought of how it was that desire to prove those words right that made him throw himself on Zachariah’s sword. Maybe having a friend who believed in him had actually made him a better person. If that was the case, maybe he should just shut up and listen to the guy.
And in any case, he probably shouldn’t be a jerk about it around Jesus. Not that Jesus seemed to care. In the days that he’d been here, he’d dealt with swearing, insults, drunkenness, and demons - sometimes all at once - and had yet to take offense. Right now, Jesus was leaning back against the sofa, hands behind his head, watching the two of them with an awed expression.
“What’re you looking at?” Chuck said.
Jesus smirked and shook his head. Changing the subject, he reached for the next DVD in the stack they’d been working their way through: The Breakfast Club.
“Fitting,” Chuck said, popping the DVD into the external drive that was sitting at the foot of the bed. “We need more fat donut pie?”
Jesus pushed a Super America bag of donuts and fruit pies toward him. The guy had stockpiled.
“‘Fat donut pie’?” Castiel said, tilting his head.
That’s right - Castiel had yet to be introduced! Chuck clapped his hands and said over his shoulder, “Jesus, if you would demonstrate for our guest?”
Jesus smiled for the first time since before the oil was poured on the driveway. Grabbing a blueberry donut and a strawberry Hostess fruit pie from the bag, he popped both into the spare microwave he’d added to the fort the day before he tore it apart. Castiel stared hard at the objects on the tray inside, as if they might do something unexpected when heated. The microwave beeped, and Jesus pulled out the baked goods. He took a bite of each himself, then passed them to Chuck, who did the same.
“Fat donut pie,” Chuck said through a mouthful of fruit filling and sugar. Castiel stared hard at him - god, he’d missed that old angelic stare. “Yes?” he said, swallowing.
Castiel frowned. “I’m trying to decide whether you’ll die of liver failure or diabetes.”
“Don’t think we’ve gotta worry about that. It’s the one upside of the apocalypse.” He handed the sweets to Castiel, who took them with a suspicious look. “Eat.”
As the opening credits of the movie played, Castiel bit carefully into the snacks. His lips curled, and he licked strawberry filling from his chin, thinking way too hard for someone eating gas station food. After a few moments’ contemplative silence, he said, “It needs something. Missouri has sprinkles in the pantry.”
“Sprinkles!” Chuck said. “Of course! It’s always better when the donuts have sprinkles.”
Castiel fetched the sprinkles from the pantry, and the three of them stretched out across the sofa-bed, watching the movie and trying not to get sprinkles on Missouri’s spare sheets. It was past 2am at the tail end of the most stressful days in Chuck’s recent memory, one ally in ashes at the bottom of the yard and Lucifer’s boot prints next to the driveway, but settling in between Jesus and Castiel, Chuck couldn’t help being happy. Tucking his knees up near his chin to support his fat donut pie, he pushed thoughts of impending doom out of mind for the night and let himself smile.
***
The door creaking open woke Chuck. The face of the wall clock was too badly cracked to read from this angle, but based on the dim light flowing in through the window, he guessed it had to be just after dawn. From the entrance, Dean surveyed the room, made a surprised little “o” with his mouth, and closed the door again like he was excusing himself from walking in on his parents.
Chuck tried to sit up and found himself pinned to the bed by not one but two sets of foreign body parts. At his left side, Castiel was pressed against him, head and arm on shoulder and leg on leg, drooling against the fabric of his t-shirt. At his right side, Jesus had curled into a cozy ball, draping one arm across Chuck’s middle.
Chuck sighed. It figured. People had been falling asleep on him for years. An ex-girlfriend had once told him he was “snuggly,” which he was pretty sure translated to “roughly the size and consistency of a body pillow.” At least this time it was just Castiel and Jesus, instead of girls who’d shoved him into the friend zone for the platonic cuddling benefits.
Chuck played a quick game of sleeping people Tetris to extricate himself from the bed, dabbed drool off his shoulder with one of Castiel’s dirty t-shirts, and wandered out into the house.
Dean’s hair was framed in the glass panel on the front door. Chuck let himself out onto the front stoop to find the hunter leaning against the side of the house, nursing a PBR and watching the sun climb over the horizon.
“Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?” Chuck said.
“You should talk. I’ve seen what’s in your cupboards.”
For the first time in weeks, Chuck thought of his house. His poor, mangled house with the hole in the kitchen and the blood-spattered walls. All that had been in the cupboards when he left were a couple of bread loaves, some peanut butter, and a fifth of whiskey. Squirrels had probably gotten into the bread by now - if not the rest of it. He wouldn’t put it past the squirrels in that neighborhood to steal a man’s whiskey.
“Did you want something?” Chuck asked, switching gears. “I could wake up Castiel if you two were gonna-”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dean took a sip and studied his can. “So, tell me, Chuck - is he all right?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Dude, don’t play dumb. You know him better than I do. I’m just the guy he’s…seeing.”
“The word is ‘boyfriend,’ Dean.”
“Whatever. How’s he doing? With the grace news and everything.”
Chuck leaned against the wall next to Dean. “Well, he’s not talking about it, so pretty crappy, I think.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered into his can. “What do you do to help a fallen angel when his grace is being held hostage and the apocalypse is looming overhead?”
“We watched The Breakfast Club.”
“You nerds are The Breakfast Club. You’re Ally Sheedy, Cas is that kid with the flare gun in his locker, and Jesus is Emilio Estevez.”
Chuck scoffed. “I’m not Ally Sheedy. You’re Ally Sheedy.”
“I’m badass Judd Nelson. You’ve got dandruff and sticky lunchmeat problems.”
“Do not. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” Chuck watched Dean polish off the last of the can and crumple it in his hand. “Are you mad at me for not keeping Cas out of trouble?”
Dean chuckled. “Nah, man. That was a doomed mission to begin with.”
“He’s-” Chuck swallowed. “He’s probably going to die when you go up against Lucifer.”
Dean blinked hard at the horizon. “Yeah, he told me about that. You got any more details?”
“No. You’re gonna let him fight anyway, aren’t you?”
“Much as I’d love to put on the child locks in the car and make him wait it out in the parking lot, it’s not really up to me. Cas isn’t under anyone’s orders anymore. It’s one of the downsides of free will - can’t stop a guy from throwing himself in front of the train. Or sword,” he added, glancing at Chuck.
They stood there for a few minutes, watching the clouds around the horizon.
“Why is Jesus Emilio Estevez?” Chuck said, furrowing his brow.
“Community hero, pressure from an overbearing dad, doesn’t want to deal with all the expectations on him.”
“Ah.”
“You think he could really save the day if he wanted to? Anna seemed pretty convinced. Sam, too.”
“Maybe. He’s got a lot of power, and if he could get a hold on it-” Chuck shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not here for that. If we tried to force him into it, we’d be no better than the dickheads upstairs. And considering he’s supposed to win it for them, not for us, if he threw down with Lucifer, it’d probably end with Lucifer in a fiery lake and Heavenly peace broken out out across the land.” An ancient RV lumbered up the block and came to a stop in front of the house. “You think we have a chance without him?” Chuck asked, quieter.
Dean shrugged. “All I know is we don’t have any chance if we sit around with our junk in our hands.”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t- “After all the deleted scenes of junk in your hands in the Winchester Gospel, I would’ve thought you’d like to go out that way.”
“Prophet?”
“Yeah?”
Dean leaned over Chuck and patted him on the shoulder a little too hard. “Eat my shorts.” With that, he turned and walked down the front steps, headed toward the RV at the curb.
“Oh, I get it. That was a Judd Nelson line from-because we were just talking about-yeah, okay.” Chuck shut his mouth.
“Tell Cas to find me when he wakes up,” Dean called over his shoulder. “And get on that vision thing.”
The RV door swung open, and Bobby stepped out. Dean greeted him with a clap on the arm and a grin. Chuck hung back, watching the heroes talk. When he saw words like “impending doom” and “devil” forming on their lips, he excused himself from the scene.
***
Missouri’s house had reached maximum capacity. Not that it wasn’t already there, what with the demons in tents in the yard, but having Dean and Castiel back seemed to be the tipping point. Someone occupied every flat surface - couch, chair, floor, back steps, whatever. Sam planned attack strategies from the kitchen table. Demons bogarted the living room and TV. Jesus hid in the den. Castiel and Dean, once they were both awake, went wherever they were needed - which was often with Missouri, who had taken to circling the house like the host of a party, carrying messages and making sure everyone was getting on all right. It wasn’t like she could go on running her psychic readings business, since Crowley had absconded to her parlor with Sam’s laptop for a Best of YouTube marathon before the world - and the internet - ended. Three and a half hours in, Chuck could still hear groans and laughter coming from the parlor - evidently Crowley’s marathon consisted mostly of dumb teenager injuries and American Idol wannabes. And, he could’ve sworn, some Lady Gaga.
The point was, anywhere that Chuck could’ve sat down to privately knock out a vision of Lucifer, someone had already claimed. Several someones, in most cases. Even the bathrooms, which humans and demons kept filtering in and out of like the best ride at Six Flags. Chuck suspected that, were it not for the whole “probably gonna be dead by tomorrow night” thing, Missouri would be ripping them all a new one for exploding her water bill.
The only person in the household who had any private space, bathroom or not, was-
“You wanna camp out in my bathroom?” Bobby said, standing in the door of his RV wearing a camping vest and a bemused look.
“Just for an hour or two,” Chuck said, holding up the day planner. “To write. Nothing else. I just need someplace private to work out this vision for tomorrow.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow at him but let him in. “Guess I need to talk to Sam about that ‘tomorrow’ thing, anyway.”
The RV smelled like 409 and the inside of a machine shed. “Thanks, Bobby,” Chuck said, sliding past the dusty kitchenette to get to the bathroom. “It’s good to see you, by the way.”
“You too, kid,” Bobby said, and shut the door behind himself. A moment later, the hinges squeaked and his face appeared around the corner. “Don’t touch anything or I’ll have your ass for my mantle.”
Chuck nodded and closed himself inside the bathroom. It was just as dusty as the rest of the old RV, but smelled strongly of lavender hand soap. He pulled aside the curtain for the shower compartment with a rattle, but instead of an empty basin to sit in, he found several shelves stocked with guns and ammo. The discovery made him want to investigate the rest of the RV for a moment - find out where else Bobby might have stashed surprise weapons - but the threat of becoming a mantle trophy stopped him.
Chuck sat down on the toilet lid, pulled his legs up under himself, and opened the day planner to the next blank page. He tried not to think about what he was doing, but as he pressed the pen to paper and flipped the “Lucifer” switch in his mind, his hand shook.
“You really thought you could save him, Castiel? Shame they took your good sense along with your grace.”
The blade made a white arc as it dove toward him. Castiel felt his breath knocked from him before the pain registered. But once it did, it was all he could feel: a single bolt of heat through the middle of-
Chuck’s stomach flipped. No. No, no, this was way too far along. Where was the “Skip” button? He gave the switchboard a mental shove.
Blood tasted strange. Castiel had tasted it a thousand times before, but never so much, and never without distraction, so he’d never noticed. It tasted metallic and organic, pennies and flesh. The combination fascinated him, although he couldn’t quite hold onto the thought as his mind fell toward the dark. How many things had he failed to notice since his feet first touched the earth? How much of God’s creation had he missed because he was so busy focusing on God’s plan?
Lord, he didn’t even know what grass felt like on bare skin-
Goddammit, NO. Chuck slammed his pen down on the sink and pressed his fists hard against his eyes. No. No freaking way was he going through this. In his mind, he kicked the switchboard several times. Taking a deep breath, he reached for his pen again.
Fitting that he’d die in a church in Lawrence, Castiel thought, watching his blood pool across the flagstone floor. Someone’s shout echoed across the chamber, but he couldn’t make out the voice. The light from the stained glass filtered in overhead, shading the bodies of his fallen companions in the blues and golds of the design.
A dove. The design was a dove. As his vision faded, Castiel almost laughed. Dying alone in a house of God under the wings of a dove.
Tears wobbled on Chuck’s eyelashes. He shook his head, sending them skidding down his cheeks. A church in Lawrence. A church with a blue and gold dove on the window. That had to be enough. God, please let that be enough. His chest constricted, and Lucifer’s voice bounced around in his head again, choking off his thoughts.
Then his breath. Chuck felt a panic attack coming on, and there wasn’t anyone around with a comforting hand on his back or a paper bag for him. As he struggled to pull in air, he searched for something else to distract him - anything else - hitting random switches on his mental switchboard. The first one that conjured up a scene was the “Dean/Cas” switch.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Dean, I’ve seen the upstairs of a house before.”
“Eyes closed, Big Bird,” Dean said, hands on his shoulders. Castiel shook his head but kept his eyes squeezed shut, letting Dean lead him forward. They stopped somewhere near the top of the stairs, and Dean said, “Now, you can look.”
Castiel blinked. This was Sam’s bedroom, but with candles burning along the windowsill. “This is Sam’s room,” he said.
“It’s ours tonight.” Dean pulled him inside and shut the door. “Took all the Funyuns the Super America would sell me, but Sam’s agreed to sleep downstairs.”
Castiel paused to assess the information. “This is our bedroom…and you lit candles.”
“I lit candles.”
“Why?”
“Man, you are so freaking dense sometimes,” Dean said, and pulled him into a kiss. Castiel laughed, the sound humming against his mouth. Dean cupped Castiel’s face in his hands and gave him a somber look. “I know I use this line a lot, but Cas…this might be our last night on earth. You wanna make the most of it?”
Between personal experience and his first year observing Dean Winchester, Castiel had heard that line enough to know exactly what it meant. He kissed the man back soundly.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Dean murmured.
“I’ll get the anal sex pamphlets from the car,” Castiel announced, and broke off the embrace to run downstairs.
Chuck leaned against the wall of the RV bathroom, relishing the ability to take a deep breath again.
Okay. So he had some idea of Lucifer’s location. This was what his visions had been coming to ever since the archangel had ripped through his house. He’d done his part for the team. He could tear out the pages about Lucifer, hand them to Sam, camp out in the den with Jesus while the cavalry rode out into battle, and help rebuild in the event that the good guys actually won. Or, worst case scenario, die blameless.
He’d done his part.
He was done. Finished. Finito. Out.
Chuck closed the day planner and twisted his fists in his hair, curling in on himself.
“What do I do now?”
***
When Chuck stepped back into the house, all heads turned to him. Judging by the expectant expressions, Bobby had mentioned his writing plans. The demons watching Shark Week looked up from a show about wicked bites. One jogged into the parlor and came back with Crowley and another demon in tow to watch him. The attention reminded Chuck of the one walk of shame he’d taken through his college dorm - which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that the girl had stolen his pants. He clutched the day planner to his chest, feeling so exposed he might as well not be wearing pants.
Missouri came out of the den, spotted him, and came over to meet him. “Chuck! Did you-” Reading him, she nodded. “Okay, then. Sam’s in the kitchen laying out plans.”
“Do you know of a church in town with windows like this?” Chuck said, pushing the image of the stained glass to the front of his mind.
Missouri snapped her fingers. “That’s St. John’s - it’s just on the outskirts of town. Got closed down last year - foreclosure, I think. I used to go some Sundays to hear my nephew sing in the choir.”
“So you know the grounds?”
“Better than Google Maps, which is what Sam was planning on using.”
“Good.” Chuck marched side-by-side with Missouri into the kitchen, where Sam and Castiel were hunched over a laptop, the angel sword, and an array of lore texts. Dean hung back by the counter with Bobby, arguing Bible semantics. Jesus stood at the microwave, watching something on the tray inside turn.
Okay, this was a bigger crowd than he’d been planning to address. Chuck straightened up to his full height, bolstering his will, and strode right up to the kitchen table. He slapped the day planner down on the table in front of Sam, cover-side up.
Sam peered down at the kittens frolicking on the day planner, then up at Chuck. His mouth dropped open and formed a slow smile. “You actually did it.”
“St. John’s church, just outside Lawrence,” Chuck said, nodding toward Missouri. “She knows the grounds. We move on this tomorrow.”
“You think we’ll be ready by tomorrow?” Bobby said.
“You think we’ll ever be ready?” Chuck countered.
“Good point,” Sam said, and typed something on his laptop. “Wow, that’s only about a mile and a half from here. Okay, guys, we’ve gotta get our facts straight and figure out a plan of entry.”
“One more thing,” Chuck said. The words caught a little in his throat.
“What?”
Chuck raised his chin, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. “That special task force that’s going for a face-to-face with Lucifer? I’m on it.”
“You?” Sam said, his giant forehead wrinkling.
“No,” Castiel started, rising from his seat. “You don’t have to-”
“No, I do,” Chuck said, cutting him off. “I had an epiphany in Bobby’s bathroom-”
“Whoa, whoa,” Dean said. “Too much information.”
“Not like that,” Chuck said.
“Bobby has his own bathroom?” Sam said, looking more interested in that tidbit than the quest in front of him.
“Anyway!” Chuck said loudly, raising his hands. “Castiel, I found Lucifer’s location by watching your death play out. You were bleeding out on a freaking church floor - alone. And I realized…knowing that, I can’t just stay behind and hope for the best.” He gave Castiel a stern look. “My life would suck without you. Kelly Clarkson sang that, but I don’t care - it’s still true.”
Castiel swallowed hard, his eyes wide. “Chuck-”
“And, y’know, a bro shall not let another bro walk into a hostile situation alone. I’m pretty sure that includes brutal, lonely deaths.” Chuck shook his head. “Maybe my vision’s wrong. Maybe we’ll win - hell, maybe I’ll be the tipping piece that lets us smoke the bastard-” he ignored a snort from Bobby’s direction “-but if we lose, Cas, I’m not gonna let you die alone.”
“So, what?” Sam said. “We strap you to Cas with a bungee cord and send you into battle?”
“I can fight,” Chuck said.
Castiel stared Chuck down. “You’ve never hit anyone in your life.”
“So give me a gun,” Chuck said, glaring back at him.
“You’ve never fired a gun.”
“BB gun, summer after eighth grade,” Chuck said. Leaning forward, he flattened his palms against the table and raised his chin. “And I held the arcade’s high score in Duck Hunt for four years straight.”
A loud ding broke the tension. Everyone glanced across the kitchen. Jesus stood with one hand on the microwave door, his eyes on the group and his jaw slack.
“You’ve had worse allies back you up,” Missouri said in the silence.
“All right,” Sam said, waving a hand. “Give the prophet a gun.”
TO BE CONTINUED!
Reference materials:
Popples - your child will love it!
Ally Sheedy's sticky lunchmeat scene from The Breakfast Club (This is totally how Chuck ate his lunch in high school.)
Title: The Tribulation of Chuck (Part 3/5)
Characters: Chuck, Cas/Dean, Sam, Missouri Mosely, Lucifer, Crowley, Jesus...etc.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/spoilers for season 4, sacrilege (no, really - see character list)
Word Count: 8700
Summary: In the wake of Lucifer's surprise party on the driveway, everyone is busy either planning heroic deeds or trying to ring a few gongs before the lights go out. In the case of Chuck, Castiel, and Jesus, "ringing a few gongs" roughly translates to "talking about feelings and watching The Breakfast Club." But Chuck still needs to play his prophet role for the team.
Note: Special thanks to psycocatgirl for extra involved beta reading during a busy week. She's basically the only reason this chapter is up. <3
Chuck had never identified so strongly with Popples before in his entire life - not even that night in college he spent stoned out of his mind and popping one inside out and back again for like four hours. Right now, standing across Missouri’s lawn from Lucifer himself, with Castiel beside him and visions of Castiel’s excruciating death playing behind his eyes, he felt as if everything in his body that could retract had retracted out of sheer terror. Any moment, the strain of all of it would flip him inside out. But he was pretty sure he wouldn’t turn into a surprisingly fun 80’s plush ball if it happened - he’d just splatter prophet bits all over the yard. And that was so not the comforting mental image he needed right now.
Stupid Popples.
Lucifer’s gaze started back across the crowd, passing over Castiel, and Chuck felt his body move. Almost instinctively, he edged in front of his friend.
“Aw,” Lucifer said, and tutted at him. “Such an adorable attempt at martyrdom. You must be the new prophet.”
“What’s it to you?” Chuck shot back, his voice trying its best to sound like a badass action movie hero. Oh god, shut up, pleaded his brain.
“Nothing, really,” Lucifer said, stepping over Anna’s body. “You’re irrelevant to me. Your friend, on the other hand…”
“The last time someone tried to get to him,” Chuck sneered, “he had to go through me first, and an archangel smote the crap out of him,” Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.
Lucifer chuckled. “I’m not here to hurt him - or any of you.”
Dean stepped forward, covering Castiel’s other side. For the first time, Chuck felt like they were on the same page. “What the hell are you here for, then?”
“Checking out the competition,” Lucifer said. His hands landed in the pockets of his jeans, and a smirk lit his face ominously. Chuck had used the word ominously a lot in his writing career - far more than was really called for - but this may have been the first time in his life that he knew the true meaning of it. “And what competition you are. Each of you weak, selfish, greedy, addled with neuroses, human whether meant to be so or not.” He spared a sly look at Castiel. “Thank you, boys. I needed a laugh after so long trapped in that cage.”
“Oh, great, gloating,” Dean said, crossing his arms. “Because hearing that from the bad guy never gets old.”
“Dean,” Sam hissed, “don’t taunt the devil.”
“Yeah, Dean,” Lucifer said, tilting his head. Chuck wondered if the head tilting was an angel thing. “You don’t want to burn bridges, do you?”
“Bridges?” Dean scoffed.
“We could be allies, Dean. Your brother, too. In fact-” Lucifer waved a hand diplomatically “-I might be willing to let your little ragtag team join forces with me, if you all agree to help me in my mission.”
Dean stepped forward, his arms dropping to his sides in full-on hero stance. “And what could you possibly give us that would make us want to help you destroy the world?”
Lucifer rolled his eyes toward the clouds and placed his fingers together like a bureaucrat contemplating a deal. “Okay, first off, I don’t want to destroy the world - I just need to do a little renovation. As for incentives, you would have the guaranteed safety of yourselves and your loved ones, a hand in restructuring the world to come, and first pick of the Raptured’s cars.” He raised his eyebrows at Dean, who glared. Lucifer shrugged, pulling something out of his shirt pocket. “Fine, you drive a hard bargain. Act now, and I’ll throw in a free keychain.”
“Hey!” Dean said. “That’s my keychain! I earned that! Wait-”
Lucifer dangled the object in the air. A small, bright orb swung from the keyring. Castiel’s fingers circled around Chuck’s arm, fingernails digging into his biceps through the hoodie fabric.
“Is that-” Dean started.
“One hundred percent pure angel grace, only one previous owner. Comes with a drastically lengthened lifespan and a Get Out of Pain Free card for the user.” Lucifer waggled the keychain, and Castiel’s grace made the shadows on the lawn dance. “This offer is only available for a limited time, kids. Going once-”
Dean glanced back at Castiel, who was wide-eyed and shaking.
“Going twice-”
“Don’t even think about it,” Castiel whispered, giving the barest shake of his head.
“No deal!” Dean shouted.
Lucifer dropped Castiel’s grace back into his pocket. “Well, your loss. Don’t say I never gave you a chance.”
“Oh, we’ve got a chance,” Dean said, and Chuck’s brain started yelling SHUT UP again, but this time not at himself. “You take a good hard look at these faces, buddy, because this is the team that’s taking you down for good.”
Lucifer laughed and surveyed the group once more, but this time, his smile faltered midway through. “Is that-no.” He stepped forward, ducking his head to get a better view of someone. “You’re kidding me. I didn’t recognize you before, through all the chaos, but-you’re the Christ child, aren’t you?”
Jesus stood on the front steps, one hand pressed against the side of the house like he was bracing to bolt.
Lucifer wound around the group and up the first step. His face broke into a grin. “It is the little Lamb! Boys, do you mean to tell me that this is the source of your swagger? He’s not at all like the stories - no sword and fire. No righteous hand to strike me down. Just an empty, corrupt human shell. Utterly useless.” He leaned in close to look Jesus in the eye. “My regards to the godless filth that broke you. They just made my day.”
Jesus swallowed hard, his fingertips turning white against the siding.
Lucifer backed down the steps, patted his shirt pocket, and gave the group the sort of smug look Chuck had only ever previously seen on frat boys and superfans pointing out plot holes in his books. “Enjoy playing with your little green army men, boys. I’ll be hanging out nearby, laughing at your expense, if you change your mind.” He raised his fingers over his head. “In four days, I’m burning this world to its foundations.” With a snap, he was gone.
The moment after Lucifer left, the yard went completely still. Nobody moved - nobody even breathed. Nobody except for Jesus, who took a stumbling turn up the front walk and sprinted inside, Crocs slapping against the pavement. As the front door slammed behind him, the demons crept out of hiding and about a dozen different conversations erupted outside, all of them at full volume.
“We are so very deeply screwed!” Crowley informed them all.
“Why didn’t I stab him?” Sam lamented, throwing his sword to the grass. “I should’ve-”
Dean swore. “The devil touched my keychain!”
“He got through the protective wards-”
“Are the neighbors going to notice a dead angel on the-”
“Four days? That’s not enough time to-”
Everyone seemed to be flipping into panic mode. One demon shoved Crowley, Crowley charged at him, Sam crumpled on the grass with his head in his hands, and Dean just swore, loudly and with a better vocabulary than Chuck had amassed himself. Their voices rose so loud that Chuck’s hands curled up toward his ears. A body hit the garage door with a crack.
Castiel grabbed Chuck by the elbows and said in his ear, “We need to follow Jesus.”
“Why?” Chuck said, shaking his head. “The guy deserves a good storm-off after that. Hey, Cas, I’m sorry about your-”
The remaining street lamps up the block flickered and burst, and the front porch light burned so bright it exploded, raining glass shards and dead bugs down onto the stoop. Chuck ducked and covered so fast he was a little impressed by his own reflexes.
“What’s doing that?” he cried from under his arms.
“Not what - who. Come on,” Castiel said, tugging Chuck up by the sleeve of his hoodie. Chuck protested, but honestly, he was halfway to a panic attack himself, and he welcomed the distraction. As they hurried inside, the door hung open behind them, spilling warring voices and the sound of a fist fight through the living room. The bulbs in Missouri’s vintage lamps made popping sounds and went dark as they passed.
“Where would Jesus be?” Castiel said.
“Den,” Chuck answered. “Probably hiding in the fort re-watching the reconciliation scene from Clerks. He’s watched it five times in the last day. It seems to calm him.”
Castiel yanked open the door to the den, and light poured out so bright that both of them had to shield their eyes.
Jesus was not watching Clerks. Jesus was storming around inside the small room, tearing pillows and blankets from the fort and hurling them at the walls. His teeth were clenched hard, his eyes streaming tears, and the two lamps in the room putting out more light than Chuck had seen since the archangel tore up his kitchen.
“Christ,” Chuck muttered, too stunned to catch himself.
Jesus grabbed a couch cushion from the load-bearing wall of the fort and wrenched it out of place with a choked sound behind his teeth. Lifting it over his head, he threw it at the wall clock, sending both toppling to the ground. Outside, the voices of the melee roared as if Sam’s entire demon army were trying to voice their opinions. Something clattered in the kitchen, and Chuck turned to see Missouri curling in on herself between the stove and the back door, cookware on the floor at her feet and her hands shoved hard against her ears.
“You need to calm him down,” Castiel said, pulling Chuck into the room with Jesus.
“It’s just a pillow fort,” Chuck said. His whole body wanted him to hide under the desk and rock back and forth. He was on his way there when Castiel pulled him back by his sleeve.
“Now!”
“All right, all right.” Chuck switched directions and approached Jesus, who was tearing the bed sheet roof off the fort. “Hey, Jesus,” he tried, laying a hand on the guy’s shoulder. God, the lights in here were bright. “It’s okay. It’s okay, man. Don’t let what he said get to you. Lucifer is a-well, he’s kinda built a career on being an asshole.”
Jesus’s fingers clenched in the bed sheet. He stopped throwing things but didn’t look up.
“Look, he doesn’t even know you. I know you, and you’re not those things, okay?” Chuck moved his hand tentatively, rubbing a circle between the guy’s shaking shoulders. “You’re not broken. You’re just having a rough time of things right now - and hey, who isn’t? Doesn’t stop you from being a good guy. And a good friend.”
Jesus let out a long breath. Without looking Chuck in the eye, he turned toward him and stepped into an awkward hug, his nose pressing against Chuck’s collar. Chuck wrapped his arms around him, trying not to wince at the fingers digging hard into his back.
Outside, the voices dropped away suddenly. Chuck’s heartbeat stopped thudding against his ribcage and slowed. He took a deep breath, and his whole body relaxed.
“What the hell did I just feel?” Missouri called from the kitchen, her voice wavering.
“Projection,” Castiel said, slumping against the door frame. “The bumper sticker says Jesus is love, but he could also be anger, sorrow, glee…panic…whatever will open the masses’ minds to the divine message. I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s not really in control of his abilities right now.”
Jesus shook his head against Chuck’s shoulder.
Chuck patted his back. “It’s been a rough night, buddy - for all of us.”
Castiel sank slowly against the door frame until he was sitting on the floor with his knees bent up toward his chest and his face in his hands.
“Castiel?” Chuck tried over Jesus’s shoulder. “If you want to, I dunno, talk about your gra-”
“I’m hungry,” Castiel interrupted, as if Chuck hadn’t spoken at all. “I’d like to eat.”
So he wasn’t even going to address the grace thing. Chuck’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, we can do that. What do you want?”
Castiel shuddered. “Anything but burgers.”
***
Having Castiel back was awesome. They fell back into their old BFF ways immediately, no effort required. Chuck got a boom box from the attic, and the two of them rocked out to Ace of Base at full volume in the den, playing leg guitar, drinking, and talking about all the cool things they were going to do when the apocalypse was averted. No one bothered them, and they were up all night making plans and mapping out road trips on the 1995 atlas from Chuck’s glove compartment, certain of their own survival. Because with Castiel around again, Chuck had an odd, sort of prophetic sense that everything was going to turn out just-
“Chuck, are you paying attention?”
-fine.
Chuck rubbed his eyes. Sam was glowering at him from across the kitchen table. Again. The guy was a champion glowerer. If making guilt-inducing facial expressions ever became an Olympic sport, he and Missouri could be Team USA. They’d clean up.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, even though it was anything but the truth. He’d been doing the internal narration thing again while the fearless leader was talking. Again. He couldn’t seem to stop doing that - and it wasn’t even accurate internal narration, it was happy-verse versions of the evening. No one to hear it but himself, and he was still lying. That seemed like the healthy, well-adjusted thing to do.
He glanced at the crowd in the kitchen. Directly around the table were the big players - Missouri, Crowley, Dean, and Castiel. Representatives of Sam’s eco-friendly demon army crammed in behind them, making the kitchen feel like the inside of a Polly Pocket compact. Chuck had dated a girl in college who collected those things. They were small. Like “How many of these can I fit up my nose?” small. Not that he’d tried. Because that’d be kinda weird and, uh, hard to explain to the emergency room nurse. Oh, hell. He was lying in his internal narration again.
Anyway. Apocalypse meeting.
“All we need from you is Lucifer’s location,” Sam said.
In front of the whole room, Chuck couldn’t say no. He nodded, staring at the table.
“We’re really going to trust the prophet as our informant?” Crowley scoffed. “Have you seen him? He still wears Looney Toons boxers.”
“Y’know what, I’m not gonna take criticism from a guy who doesn’t knock at the bathroom door,” Chuck shot back, half hiding his head behind one arm.
“And Tweety Bird of all characters! What are you, a twelve-year-old girl? Even Lilith wouldn’t-”
“We’re going to trust the prophet,” Castiel interrupted, his voice so firm that Crowley shut his mouth and raised his hands in mock surrender. Castiel cleared his throat and said, a little quieter, “He has an amazing gift, even among the prophets. He could pinpoint the location of stashed away liquor from a passing vision.”
A few of the demons made impressed noises, and Chuck guessed he was going to make some new friends the next time the booze ran dry.
“So, task force,” Dean said, planting his palms on the table. “All of us fight the lackeys, but when we get into Lucifer’s personal bubble, Sam and I need backup. In case Heaven tries to get in on the fray. Or to pick up the sword in case we fail.”
Chuck had heard the word “fail” about a million times in his life - mostly with an “-ing” or a “-ure” at the end of it and aimed at himself - but this one held a special kind of gravity. The kind of gravity that only came with euphemisms and uncomfortable pauses in a roomful of demons.
“It’ll be dangerous,” Dean said, the bravado back in his voice. “You’ll be taking on the devil right beside us. This is one of those world-saving hero missions that earns you a pep talk about glory and immortal actions, people. Show of hands - who’s in?”
The room went silent. One of the demons raised her hand, then faked out and scratched her ear instead. Dean eyed the room with his mouth drawn in a hard line.
Missouri gave a little laugh at the table and raised hers, too. “I have got to see Dean Winchester give this pep talk.”
Crowley raised one finger like he was ordering another drink. “Why not.”
Castiel raised his hand without a word, and Chuck’s stomach plummeted.
“Anyone else?” Dean called, searching the room again. His eyes didn’t even pass over Chuck. “All right. Task force, we’ll talk more once we’ve got intel. Bobby’s on his way down from South Dakota, and I got a hunch he’ll want in on this, too. Anyone who wants to stick around for Anna’s funeral, we’ll be burning her down at the end of the yard in twenty.”
***
Chuck sorta watched Anna’s funeral from the porch for about ten minutes. He couldn’t see much - it was all the way at the bottom of the slope of Missouri’s yard, and Sam had put up a bunch of sigils that cloaked the whole yard from anyone more than a few feet away, so the whole yard sort of shimmered like it was under a veil. In the next yard over, a little old lady pruned her rose bushes, totally oblivious to the burning body thirty feet away or the hordes of demons hanging out in their tents. It was totally a wizard trick. For all the neighbors knew, they could be hiding freaking Hogwarts under that veil.
The idea launched Chuck’s imagination into a debate with itself over who was scarier - Lucifer or Voldemort. Voldemort had the bad guy robes and the total lack of nose, which was Uncanny Valley material if Chuck had ever seen it, but Lucifer didn’t need a wand to do his evil, and he wasn’t, well, fictional. Except that until this past year, Chuck had kind of thought he was fictional, and what if Voldemort was real, too, and Rowling was just another prophet, and-from there on, it morphed into Stranger Than Fiction/real person fanfic crossover territory, and he had to end that train of thought.
Chuck gave up on squinting out at the funeral when Castiel started singing. He barely recognized the voice without a phat beat behind it - the song was some kind of hymn in Aramaic or Enochian or Angel Pig Latin or something, and it made his heart ache. Chuck had made a point in his life to specifically collect music that didn’t hurt his heart (with the notable exception of Sarah McLaughlan, but nobody had to know that), so when he started to get choked up, he left the porch.
A group of demons were watching TV in the living room, and they sounded like they were enjoying themselves, so Chuck pulled up a chair to join them. “What’re we watching?”
“Divine Design,” answered one of the demons, a fat man in a tweed vest. “Crowley’s convinced Candice Olson is one of ours.”
Crowley took a sip from a small silver flask. “The woman is single-handedly bringing back beige. If that’s not demonic activity, I’ll eat my Oxfords.”
Chuck wasn’t really much for interior decorating shows, but the demons MST3Ked the crap out of it, and he had nowhere else to be, so he stuck around. They got through a handful of episodes, and then a flamboyant man in a tank top came on the screen talking about paint colors. The demons started throwing candy wrappers at the TV, and Chuck excused himself to someplace slightly less wrathful.
That place happened to be the back porch, and for the first time since he’d been assigned the awful sleeping quarters, it was occupied when he got there. Occupied by a tangle of legs and a naked back he’d seen way too many times in visions.
Chuck sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hi, guys.”
Dean leapt from the couch, pulling a nearby shirt up to cover his bare chest. Modesty looked really weird on him. So did blushing. He backed into a stack of boxes, causing a minor avalanche of dusty paperbacks. A chorus of demon laughter rolled in from the back yard.
“Chuck,” said Castiel, who didn’t seem to mind being sprawled out half-naked on the couch in front of his friend. “What are you doing here?”
“I sleep here. The den got kinda claimed. What’re you two doing out here? I mean, besides the, um…” Chuck pointedly turned his eyes to the ceiling as Dean zipped up.
“‘S nothing you haven’t peeped in on before,” Dean muttered. “What are you looking for up there, adjectives? I could throw out a few for you.”
Chuck shook his head, ducking out into the back hallway. “No, y’know what, you guys go ahead. The place is all yours. I’ll just go see if Jesus will let me camp out on the floor in the den.”
“Wait,” Castiel called, pulling on his shirt. Passing Dean a whispered message and a kiss, he followed Chuck out into the house. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”
“You sure about that? Missouri doesn’t abide sexual tension at the kitchen table.”
“I’ll add to my morning to-do list. Dean understands.”
Dean didn’t look particularly understanding, wearing half his shirt and a frown, but Chuck wasn’t going to argue. Maybe he was understanding on the inside. “Seriously,” Chuck said, lowering his voice, “it’s your first night out of the green room. Enjoy yourself.”
“It’s my first night out of the green room,” Castiel whispered back. “Do you know how much time I just spent in a room with Dean Winchester? As much as I care for him, right now I welcome a reprieve. Dean has a limited stock of knock-knock jokes, and in the past few days, I’ve heard every one of them multiple times.”
Chuck had, too, but he didn’t want to trigger a memory of the experience by giving it a thought. “Anyway, I’m not sure Jesus will even let me camp out on the floor, much less put up with the two of us.”
“He’s Jesus,” Castiel said, knocking on the door to the den. When Jesus opened it, he extended his hand and said, “Hello. We haven’t been formally introduced - I’m Castiel, former angel of the Lord. Would you mind if we spent the night in here with you?”
Jesus took his hand for a quick, tentative shake, then opened the door wider to let them in. The sofa-bed was set up like it had been before the fort, but now with sheets neatly piled on one arm and extra cushions stacked on the floor. If Chuck hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought that Jesus had carefully disassembled the fort, not torn the thing apart. He’d cleaned himself up, too, changing out of the shapeless Bible chic stuff he’d been wearing and into a pair of cargo pants and a muscle shirt that had probably come from Missouri’s Pile O’ Nephew Stuff in the attic.
“See?” Castiel said.
Chuck dragged his feet into the den, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his hoodie even though it was probably too hot to be wearing a hoodie. “Yeah, well…I mean…”
Castiel narrowed his eyes. “You…don’t want me here?”
“No!” Chuck said quickly. “No, I do! I just-” He slumped against the door as it closed. God, why was he so full of fail? Thirty seconds alone with Castiel, and he was already starting to pick apart the threads of their happy reunion. He ran his hands back through his hair and gripped tufts of it like a crazy person on a sitcom. “Man, you’re the friend I always wanted when I was a kid. You have no idea. I was this tiny little nerd with an original Trek lunchbox, and I used to bring my action figures to school and make up stories about them exploring the alien planet of the cafeteria. I spent second through fourth grade eating at a table with the lunch ladies, because they were the only ones who never made fun of me.” He dropped his arms. “My parents didn’t get me; nobody did. I grew up feeling like I was the one freak kid that Professor Xavier had forgotten to send for.”
“I don’t understand,” Castiel said. “Charles Xavier only taught mutants. Seeing as your powers come from the Lord, you would never have been called. Unless God tweaks genetics to produce prophets.”
“I’m not talking literally,” Chuck said, “but this is a perfect example of what I mean, Castiel - you get me! You really do. You would’ve been right there with me in the cafeteria, sending Batman and Spock on an away mission to the napkin basket.”
Castiel sat down on the edge of the bed, right next to Jesus, who was watching them curiously. “I would have.”
“And in middle school, when my dad moved out for a while, you would’ve had me over to your place every weekend to distract me and read comics.” He was revising personal history again, writing freaking fanfiction of his own life, but he didn’t care. “And in eleventh grade, when Sandy Weems broke my heart, you would’ve taken it seriously even though we’d only been dating for a week and a half. And you’d’ve told me that smoking away the pain was a really bad idea, and I wouldn’t have ended up crashing my hatchback into a pond by the grocery store at 2am. Or at least you would’ve come by with a blanket to sit with me until the police took me home.”
Castiel smiled a little. “I would have.”
“And I wish you would have. I’ve never had a friend who would have until recently, and-” Chuck sighed, rolling his eyes up toward the boob light on the ceiling. “I have no idea what I’m doing. And I mean, that’s true for me on so many subjects, but this is the one I really screwed up. You’ve been so awesome to me that I want to make you the Mary Sue of my formative years, and meanwhile I lied to you, acted greedily, kept secrets, introduced you to truly horrible music…”
“Saved my life,” Castiel added.
Chuck shook his head. “And now that I know how wrong I was, I can’t even help you. I can’t get your grace back for you. I can’t protect you. I can’t even have your back in battle. All I can do is have the painful death vision with incomplete information. I appreciate you trying to spend time with me, but I have no idea why you wanna waste part of what’s probably your last few days on earth with me.”
The room was silent for a few moments. Then Castiel let out the most long-suffering sigh Chuck had ever heard and said to Jesus, “Has he been doing this low self-esteem crap the entire time I’ve been gone?”
Jesus pursed his lips and nodded.
“Come here,” Castiel said to Chuck. The prophet let go of the door and took a seat on the edge of the bed next to his friend. Castiel whupped him hard upside the head.
“Ow!” Chuck said, grabbing his head. That hurt way more than it looked like it should when Gibbs did it on NCIS.
“Idiot,” Castiel hissed, and pulled him into an awkward hug, with Chuck still holding his own head. “You think I’d still be here if I didn’t get something out of being around you? Aside from the glaringly obvious act of heroism you conveniently forget when you beat yourself up, you’ve saved me. Without you, I don’t know how I would have survived being human. It’s hard and messy, and everyone seems to be making it up as they go, but you reminded me that there were elements of this world worth celebrating. You showed me what it was like to have a friend who didn’t care about my rank or what I could do for them.”
“But I-” Chuck started.
Castiel squeezed him a little too hard for comfort, and his voice went low, almost vicious. “Aside from all that, you get me. I would have brought my own action figures to the cafeteria to go on away missions with yours, Chuck. And I would have been completely jealous of your lunchbox.”
Chuck swallowed. His head was sandwiched hard between his own hands, his nose smooshed against Castiel’s shoulder, and still, the words were more uncomfortable. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” Castiel said.
“You can, uh, let me go, then.”
“Not until I know you’re listening. Promise me you’ll stop beating yourself up like this.”
“This is emotional blackmail.”
Castiel squeezed harder. “Say it.”
“Fine! I don’t suck that much. You happy?”
Castiel released him, grinning. Chuck shook out his arms, which had started to cramp. He wanted to mutter curses under his breath, dismiss this obviously stupid conversation as a bunch of meaningless schmoop, and go grab the dregs of his whiskey from the back porch. But, to be honest, hearing things like that from Castiel made him want to believe them.
He thought of the first time Castiel had called him a good man, and how he’d wanted to believe it then, too. He thought of how it was that desire to prove those words right that made him throw himself on Zachariah’s sword. Maybe having a friend who believed in him had actually made him a better person. If that was the case, maybe he should just shut up and listen to the guy.
And in any case, he probably shouldn’t be a jerk about it around Jesus. Not that Jesus seemed to care. In the days that he’d been here, he’d dealt with swearing, insults, drunkenness, and demons - sometimes all at once - and had yet to take offense. Right now, Jesus was leaning back against the sofa, hands behind his head, watching the two of them with an awed expression.
“What’re you looking at?” Chuck said.
Jesus smirked and shook his head. Changing the subject, he reached for the next DVD in the stack they’d been working their way through: The Breakfast Club.
“Fitting,” Chuck said, popping the DVD into the external drive that was sitting at the foot of the bed. “We need more fat donut pie?”
Jesus pushed a Super America bag of donuts and fruit pies toward him. The guy had stockpiled.
“‘Fat donut pie’?” Castiel said, tilting his head.
That’s right - Castiel had yet to be introduced! Chuck clapped his hands and said over his shoulder, “Jesus, if you would demonstrate for our guest?”
Jesus smiled for the first time since before the oil was poured on the driveway. Grabbing a blueberry donut and a strawberry Hostess fruit pie from the bag, he popped both into the spare microwave he’d added to the fort the day before he tore it apart. Castiel stared hard at the objects on the tray inside, as if they might do something unexpected when heated. The microwave beeped, and Jesus pulled out the baked goods. He took a bite of each himself, then passed them to Chuck, who did the same.
“Fat donut pie,” Chuck said through a mouthful of fruit filling and sugar. Castiel stared hard at him - god, he’d missed that old angelic stare. “Yes?” he said, swallowing.
Castiel frowned. “I’m trying to decide whether you’ll die of liver failure or diabetes.”
“Don’t think we’ve gotta worry about that. It’s the one upside of the apocalypse.” He handed the sweets to Castiel, who took them with a suspicious look. “Eat.”
As the opening credits of the movie played, Castiel bit carefully into the snacks. His lips curled, and he licked strawberry filling from his chin, thinking way too hard for someone eating gas station food. After a few moments’ contemplative silence, he said, “It needs something. Missouri has sprinkles in the pantry.”
“Sprinkles!” Chuck said. “Of course! It’s always better when the donuts have sprinkles.”
Castiel fetched the sprinkles from the pantry, and the three of them stretched out across the sofa-bed, watching the movie and trying not to get sprinkles on Missouri’s spare sheets. It was past 2am at the tail end of the most stressful days in Chuck’s recent memory, one ally in ashes at the bottom of the yard and Lucifer’s boot prints next to the driveway, but settling in between Jesus and Castiel, Chuck couldn’t help being happy. Tucking his knees up near his chin to support his fat donut pie, he pushed thoughts of impending doom out of mind for the night and let himself smile.
***
The door creaking open woke Chuck. The face of the wall clock was too badly cracked to read from this angle, but based on the dim light flowing in through the window, he guessed it had to be just after dawn. From the entrance, Dean surveyed the room, made a surprised little “o” with his mouth, and closed the door again like he was excusing himself from walking in on his parents.
Chuck tried to sit up and found himself pinned to the bed by not one but two sets of foreign body parts. At his left side, Castiel was pressed against him, head and arm on shoulder and leg on leg, drooling against the fabric of his t-shirt. At his right side, Jesus had curled into a cozy ball, draping one arm across Chuck’s middle.
Chuck sighed. It figured. People had been falling asleep on him for years. An ex-girlfriend had once told him he was “snuggly,” which he was pretty sure translated to “roughly the size and consistency of a body pillow.” At least this time it was just Castiel and Jesus, instead of girls who’d shoved him into the friend zone for the platonic cuddling benefits.
Chuck played a quick game of sleeping people Tetris to extricate himself from the bed, dabbed drool off his shoulder with one of Castiel’s dirty t-shirts, and wandered out into the house.
Dean’s hair was framed in the glass panel on the front door. Chuck let himself out onto the front stoop to find the hunter leaning against the side of the house, nursing a PBR and watching the sun climb over the horizon.
“Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?” Chuck said.
“You should talk. I’ve seen what’s in your cupboards.”
For the first time in weeks, Chuck thought of his house. His poor, mangled house with the hole in the kitchen and the blood-spattered walls. All that had been in the cupboards when he left were a couple of bread loaves, some peanut butter, and a fifth of whiskey. Squirrels had probably gotten into the bread by now - if not the rest of it. He wouldn’t put it past the squirrels in that neighborhood to steal a man’s whiskey.
“Did you want something?” Chuck asked, switching gears. “I could wake up Castiel if you two were gonna-”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dean took a sip and studied his can. “So, tell me, Chuck - is he all right?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Dude, don’t play dumb. You know him better than I do. I’m just the guy he’s…seeing.”
“The word is ‘boyfriend,’ Dean.”
“Whatever. How’s he doing? With the grace news and everything.”
Chuck leaned against the wall next to Dean. “Well, he’s not talking about it, so pretty crappy, I think.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered into his can. “What do you do to help a fallen angel when his grace is being held hostage and the apocalypse is looming overhead?”
“We watched The Breakfast Club.”
“You nerds are The Breakfast Club. You’re Ally Sheedy, Cas is that kid with the flare gun in his locker, and Jesus is Emilio Estevez.”
Chuck scoffed. “I’m not Ally Sheedy. You’re Ally Sheedy.”
“I’m badass Judd Nelson. You’ve got dandruff and sticky lunchmeat problems.”
“Do not. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” Chuck watched Dean polish off the last of the can and crumple it in his hand. “Are you mad at me for not keeping Cas out of trouble?”
Dean chuckled. “Nah, man. That was a doomed mission to begin with.”
“He’s-” Chuck swallowed. “He’s probably going to die when you go up against Lucifer.”
Dean blinked hard at the horizon. “Yeah, he told me about that. You got any more details?”
“No. You’re gonna let him fight anyway, aren’t you?”
“Much as I’d love to put on the child locks in the car and make him wait it out in the parking lot, it’s not really up to me. Cas isn’t under anyone’s orders anymore. It’s one of the downsides of free will - can’t stop a guy from throwing himself in front of the train. Or sword,” he added, glancing at Chuck.
They stood there for a few minutes, watching the clouds around the horizon.
“Why is Jesus Emilio Estevez?” Chuck said, furrowing his brow.
“Community hero, pressure from an overbearing dad, doesn’t want to deal with all the expectations on him.”
“Ah.”
“You think he could really save the day if he wanted to? Anna seemed pretty convinced. Sam, too.”
“Maybe. He’s got a lot of power, and if he could get a hold on it-” Chuck shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not here for that. If we tried to force him into it, we’d be no better than the dickheads upstairs. And considering he’s supposed to win it for them, not for us, if he threw down with Lucifer, it’d probably end with Lucifer in a fiery lake and Heavenly peace broken out out across the land.” An ancient RV lumbered up the block and came to a stop in front of the house. “You think we have a chance without him?” Chuck asked, quieter.
Dean shrugged. “All I know is we don’t have any chance if we sit around with our junk in our hands.”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t- “After all the deleted scenes of junk in your hands in the Winchester Gospel, I would’ve thought you’d like to go out that way.”
“Prophet?”
“Yeah?”
Dean leaned over Chuck and patted him on the shoulder a little too hard. “Eat my shorts.” With that, he turned and walked down the front steps, headed toward the RV at the curb.
“Oh, I get it. That was a Judd Nelson line from-because we were just talking about-yeah, okay.” Chuck shut his mouth.
“Tell Cas to find me when he wakes up,” Dean called over his shoulder. “And get on that vision thing.”
The RV door swung open, and Bobby stepped out. Dean greeted him with a clap on the arm and a grin. Chuck hung back, watching the heroes talk. When he saw words like “impending doom” and “devil” forming on their lips, he excused himself from the scene.
***
Missouri’s house had reached maximum capacity. Not that it wasn’t already there, what with the demons in tents in the yard, but having Dean and Castiel back seemed to be the tipping point. Someone occupied every flat surface - couch, chair, floor, back steps, whatever. Sam planned attack strategies from the kitchen table. Demons bogarted the living room and TV. Jesus hid in the den. Castiel and Dean, once they were both awake, went wherever they were needed - which was often with Missouri, who had taken to circling the house like the host of a party, carrying messages and making sure everyone was getting on all right. It wasn’t like she could go on running her psychic readings business, since Crowley had absconded to her parlor with Sam’s laptop for a Best of YouTube marathon before the world - and the internet - ended. Three and a half hours in, Chuck could still hear groans and laughter coming from the parlor - evidently Crowley’s marathon consisted mostly of dumb teenager injuries and American Idol wannabes. And, he could’ve sworn, some Lady Gaga.
The point was, anywhere that Chuck could’ve sat down to privately knock out a vision of Lucifer, someone had already claimed. Several someones, in most cases. Even the bathrooms, which humans and demons kept filtering in and out of like the best ride at Six Flags. Chuck suspected that, were it not for the whole “probably gonna be dead by tomorrow night” thing, Missouri would be ripping them all a new one for exploding her water bill.
The only person in the household who had any private space, bathroom or not, was-
“You wanna camp out in my bathroom?” Bobby said, standing in the door of his RV wearing a camping vest and a bemused look.
“Just for an hour or two,” Chuck said, holding up the day planner. “To write. Nothing else. I just need someplace private to work out this vision for tomorrow.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow at him but let him in. “Guess I need to talk to Sam about that ‘tomorrow’ thing, anyway.”
The RV smelled like 409 and the inside of a machine shed. “Thanks, Bobby,” Chuck said, sliding past the dusty kitchenette to get to the bathroom. “It’s good to see you, by the way.”
“You too, kid,” Bobby said, and shut the door behind himself. A moment later, the hinges squeaked and his face appeared around the corner. “Don’t touch anything or I’ll have your ass for my mantle.”
Chuck nodded and closed himself inside the bathroom. It was just as dusty as the rest of the old RV, but smelled strongly of lavender hand soap. He pulled aside the curtain for the shower compartment with a rattle, but instead of an empty basin to sit in, he found several shelves stocked with guns and ammo. The discovery made him want to investigate the rest of the RV for a moment - find out where else Bobby might have stashed surprise weapons - but the threat of becoming a mantle trophy stopped him.
Chuck sat down on the toilet lid, pulled his legs up under himself, and opened the day planner to the next blank page. He tried not to think about what he was doing, but as he pressed the pen to paper and flipped the “Lucifer” switch in his mind, his hand shook.
“You really thought you could save him, Castiel? Shame they took your good sense along with your grace.”
The blade made a white arc as it dove toward him. Castiel felt his breath knocked from him before the pain registered. But once it did, it was all he could feel: a single bolt of heat through the middle of-
Chuck’s stomach flipped. No. No, no, this was way too far along. Where was the “Skip” button? He gave the switchboard a mental shove.
Blood tasted strange. Castiel had tasted it a thousand times before, but never so much, and never without distraction, so he’d never noticed. It tasted metallic and organic, pennies and flesh. The combination fascinated him, although he couldn’t quite hold onto the thought as his mind fell toward the dark. How many things had he failed to notice since his feet first touched the earth? How much of God’s creation had he missed because he was so busy focusing on God’s plan?
Lord, he didn’t even know what grass felt like on bare skin-
Goddammit, NO. Chuck slammed his pen down on the sink and pressed his fists hard against his eyes. No. No freaking way was he going through this. In his mind, he kicked the switchboard several times. Taking a deep breath, he reached for his pen again.
Fitting that he’d die in a church in Lawrence, Castiel thought, watching his blood pool across the flagstone floor. Someone’s shout echoed across the chamber, but he couldn’t make out the voice. The light from the stained glass filtered in overhead, shading the bodies of his fallen companions in the blues and golds of the design.
A dove. The design was a dove. As his vision faded, Castiel almost laughed. Dying alone in a house of God under the wings of a dove.
Tears wobbled on Chuck’s eyelashes. He shook his head, sending them skidding down his cheeks. A church in Lawrence. A church with a blue and gold dove on the window. That had to be enough. God, please let that be enough. His chest constricted, and Lucifer’s voice bounced around in his head again, choking off his thoughts.
Then his breath. Chuck felt a panic attack coming on, and there wasn’t anyone around with a comforting hand on his back or a paper bag for him. As he struggled to pull in air, he searched for something else to distract him - anything else - hitting random switches on his mental switchboard. The first one that conjured up a scene was the “Dean/Cas” switch.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Dean, I’ve seen the upstairs of a house before.”
“Eyes closed, Big Bird,” Dean said, hands on his shoulders. Castiel shook his head but kept his eyes squeezed shut, letting Dean lead him forward. They stopped somewhere near the top of the stairs, and Dean said, “Now, you can look.”
Castiel blinked. This was Sam’s bedroom, but with candles burning along the windowsill. “This is Sam’s room,” he said.
“It’s ours tonight.” Dean pulled him inside and shut the door. “Took all the Funyuns the Super America would sell me, but Sam’s agreed to sleep downstairs.”
Castiel paused to assess the information. “This is our bedroom…and you lit candles.”
“I lit candles.”
“Why?”
“Man, you are so freaking dense sometimes,” Dean said, and pulled him into a kiss. Castiel laughed, the sound humming against his mouth. Dean cupped Castiel’s face in his hands and gave him a somber look. “I know I use this line a lot, but Cas…this might be our last night on earth. You wanna make the most of it?”
Between personal experience and his first year observing Dean Winchester, Castiel had heard that line enough to know exactly what it meant. He kissed the man back soundly.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Dean murmured.
“I’ll get the anal sex pamphlets from the car,” Castiel announced, and broke off the embrace to run downstairs.
Chuck leaned against the wall of the RV bathroom, relishing the ability to take a deep breath again.
Okay. So he had some idea of Lucifer’s location. This was what his visions had been coming to ever since the archangel had ripped through his house. He’d done his part for the team. He could tear out the pages about Lucifer, hand them to Sam, camp out in the den with Jesus while the cavalry rode out into battle, and help rebuild in the event that the good guys actually won. Or, worst case scenario, die blameless.
He’d done his part.
He was done. Finished. Finito. Out.
Chuck closed the day planner and twisted his fists in his hair, curling in on himself.
“What do I do now?”
***
When Chuck stepped back into the house, all heads turned to him. Judging by the expectant expressions, Bobby had mentioned his writing plans. The demons watching Shark Week looked up from a show about wicked bites. One jogged into the parlor and came back with Crowley and another demon in tow to watch him. The attention reminded Chuck of the one walk of shame he’d taken through his college dorm - which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that the girl had stolen his pants. He clutched the day planner to his chest, feeling so exposed he might as well not be wearing pants.
Missouri came out of the den, spotted him, and came over to meet him. “Chuck! Did you-” Reading him, she nodded. “Okay, then. Sam’s in the kitchen laying out plans.”
“Do you know of a church in town with windows like this?” Chuck said, pushing the image of the stained glass to the front of his mind.
Missouri snapped her fingers. “That’s St. John’s - it’s just on the outskirts of town. Got closed down last year - foreclosure, I think. I used to go some Sundays to hear my nephew sing in the choir.”
“So you know the grounds?”
“Better than Google Maps, which is what Sam was planning on using.”
“Good.” Chuck marched side-by-side with Missouri into the kitchen, where Sam and Castiel were hunched over a laptop, the angel sword, and an array of lore texts. Dean hung back by the counter with Bobby, arguing Bible semantics. Jesus stood at the microwave, watching something on the tray inside turn.
Okay, this was a bigger crowd than he’d been planning to address. Chuck straightened up to his full height, bolstering his will, and strode right up to the kitchen table. He slapped the day planner down on the table in front of Sam, cover-side up.
Sam peered down at the kittens frolicking on the day planner, then up at Chuck. His mouth dropped open and formed a slow smile. “You actually did it.”
“St. John’s church, just outside Lawrence,” Chuck said, nodding toward Missouri. “She knows the grounds. We move on this tomorrow.”
“You think we’ll be ready by tomorrow?” Bobby said.
“You think we’ll ever be ready?” Chuck countered.
“Good point,” Sam said, and typed something on his laptop. “Wow, that’s only about a mile and a half from here. Okay, guys, we’ve gotta get our facts straight and figure out a plan of entry.”
“One more thing,” Chuck said. The words caught a little in his throat.
“What?”
Chuck raised his chin, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. “That special task force that’s going for a face-to-face with Lucifer? I’m on it.”
“You?” Sam said, his giant forehead wrinkling.
“No,” Castiel started, rising from his seat. “You don’t have to-”
“No, I do,” Chuck said, cutting him off. “I had an epiphany in Bobby’s bathroom-”
“Whoa, whoa,” Dean said. “Too much information.”
“Not like that,” Chuck said.
“Bobby has his own bathroom?” Sam said, looking more interested in that tidbit than the quest in front of him.
“Anyway!” Chuck said loudly, raising his hands. “Castiel, I found Lucifer’s location by watching your death play out. You were bleeding out on a freaking church floor - alone. And I realized…knowing that, I can’t just stay behind and hope for the best.” He gave Castiel a stern look. “My life would suck without you. Kelly Clarkson sang that, but I don’t care - it’s still true.”
Castiel swallowed hard, his eyes wide. “Chuck-”
“And, y’know, a bro shall not let another bro walk into a hostile situation alone. I’m pretty sure that includes brutal, lonely deaths.” Chuck shook his head. “Maybe my vision’s wrong. Maybe we’ll win - hell, maybe I’ll be the tipping piece that lets us smoke the bastard-” he ignored a snort from Bobby’s direction “-but if we lose, Cas, I’m not gonna let you die alone.”
“So, what?” Sam said. “We strap you to Cas with a bungee cord and send you into battle?”
“I can fight,” Chuck said.
Castiel stared Chuck down. “You’ve never hit anyone in your life.”
“So give me a gun,” Chuck said, glaring back at him.
“You’ve never fired a gun.”
“BB gun, summer after eighth grade,” Chuck said. Leaning forward, he flattened his palms against the table and raised his chin. “And I held the arcade’s high score in Duck Hunt for four years straight.”
A loud ding broke the tension. Everyone glanced across the kitchen. Jesus stood with one hand on the microwave door, his eyes on the group and his jaw slack.
“You’ve had worse allies back you up,” Missouri said in the silence.
“All right,” Sam said, waving a hand. “Give the prophet a gun.”
TO BE CONTINUED!
Reference materials:
Popples - your child will love it!
Ally Sheedy's sticky lunchmeat scene from The Breakfast Club (This is totally how Chuck ate his lunch in high school.)