Unexpected Destinies Chapter 194
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,165
Summary: The preparations mostly completed, the planning for the final confrontation begins.
PRESENT
"Ah, you're up," Sam said as he walked into the kitchen to find his brother finishing up his breakfast. "Good, right on time, Sleepyhead."
"Bite me, Bitch," Dean retorted.
Sam's eyes flickered down to the fresh bruises that were quite evident on his brother's neck. "Looks like someone already has, Jerk, and I wouldn't want to make Castiel jealous, now would I?"
From the subtle way his big brother's expression changed, Sam knew that he'd either said something wrong or inadvertently hit on something. Wait a second, hadn't Dean told him something about Castiel having a jealous streak? He'd never seen any evidence of that other than the way that the angel had reacted at the bar when that woman had come onto Dean, but then he really didn't want to either. He was just glad that his brother seemed content to not inform him of any details of what had happened last night, instead Dean just got up and took his dishes to the sink.
"More coffee?" Bobby offered them, topping up his own cup.
"Yes, please," Sam replied, snagging Dean's cup as well.
"What's up?" Dean asked, turning away from the sink and accepting the coffee with a grateful smile.
"I think that we have everything in order to denuke Lucifer and Simiel. Gwen was just giving Cas a call to see if the angels have collected everything that they had to get."
"Really? Already?"
"Yeah. I guess it's nearly show time."
"Crap."
Sam could get where his brother was coming from, this was Lucifer they were talking about here after all and there was a very good and real possibility that they wouldn't survive this particular confrontation with the devil, but on the other hand they really couldn't afford to wait either. Lucifer and his demons definitely weren't, attacking people and places with ever greater frequency and violence. Just yesterday one of the largest cathedrals in Europe had been destroyed in the middle of Sunday mass. The death toll was already horrifying and still expected to rise as scores of people were still missing, feared dead or trapped in the rubble. He'd had nightmares of it all last night, only instead of Christian, he'd been Lucifer's vessel and he'd been helpless to resist as the devil used his meatsuit to cause the damage.
"I got a report from Rufus this morning," Bobby began gravely. "Said he'd run into a demonic cult made up entirely of humans."
"What? Why?" Dean demanded, perplexed.
On some level it never failed to amaze Sam that his brother could still be surprised at the things that humans did. He'd have thought that Dean of all people should know what kind of evil and darkness was out there. A part of him treasured that naivety, though. It proved that despite all that had happened to his brother, that Dean still possessed some form of innocence. A bizarrely twisted and odd type of innocence to be sure, but still innocence nonetheless and he clung to it. He'd seen far too many hunters over the years who'd lost all of their innocence along with the ability to care and be compassionate and the results had never been pretty. His brother still had all three even if the ability to care had come under a lot of attack in recent years and had wavered greatly at times.
The direction his thoughts had taken made Sam smile a little, knowing that he would have thought of things very differently until just recently and he thanked God that Dean and Castiel had been able to both recognize and save him from what he'd been well on the path to becoming. He was under no delusions that he was completely free from his own inner darkness, but it was becoming easier and easier to recognize and resist. The latter due to the fact that the former allowed him to see why it was wrong to just give in and allow the darkness to influence him as he had unconsciously been doing.
"Don't know," Bobby shrugged. "But the reason they were carrying out ritualistic sacrifices of priests and church attendees was because they'd heard that the Dark One had risen and they wanted to pay tribute to their master."
"And what? Gain favor and power in return?" Dean demanded, incredulous.
"Something like that."
Dean snorted. "Monsters I get, people, however... people are just crazy."
Sam bit his tongue to stop himself from replying to that, not wanting to be the one to make his brother anymore jaded than Dean already was in other areas. He'd already been the cause of far too much of that as it was. A quick glance at Bobby and he fancied that he saw a similar kind of sentiment there in the older hunter's eyes.
"Come on," Sam said instead, heading for the dining room where he and Gwen had laid out all of the items that everyone had collected.
"Where's my coffee?" Gwen asked as they joined her.
"Uh."
Before Sam could get any further, Raziel, who'd been in the room vanished, only to return a moment later with two cups of coffee, one of which he handed to Gwen.
"Thanks," Gwen said, clearly surprised.
Sam looked pointedly at his brother, indicating Raziel with a little nod of his head but Dean merely smiled and shook his own head in denial. He scowled, convinced from what he'd seen that the newest archangel was sweet on his cousin. His brother had laughed when he'd first commented on it and had said that he was wrong, but Dean had refused to say why. This little stunt was just further proof as far as he was concerned. None of the other three archangels present had even looked like they were going to do what Raziel had done. Besides, of all of the archangels other than Castiel, he was beginning to think that he just might like Raziel the best. Sure, there was definitely something strange about the archangel (but then there was also plenty strange about every single angel that he'd ever met, Castiel included), but that didn't negate the fact that Raziel was much more human than even Castiel was.
"Do you guys have everything?" Sam asked, looking at his brother-in-law (and, yeah, that was still weird) who'd already moved to Dean's side.
Or had it been his brother who'd drifted towards the angel's side? He hadn't really been paying enough attention to know and these days it could really be either way.
"All that we still require is the Forbidden Blossom," Castiel replied before stealing a sip of Dean's coffee and pulling a face. "Excuse me."
His brother-in-law vanished along with Dean's cup and Sam was in no absolutely doubt as to just what Castiel was doing. He only hoped that the angel thought to bring back a supply of Colombian coffee beans to replenish the previous stock that had run out. He'd never even known that coffee could taste that good! All of this merely added to his conviction that Raziel was sweet on Gwen as it was the same kind of stunt that Castiel did for Dean all of the time.
"Thanks!" Dean beamed when his husband returned with a cup that smelled heavenly.
Sam saw his brother reach up to stroke what he was sure was one of Castiel's wings. Well it was either that or Dean had finally lost it and was stroking thin air, which seemed far less likely but not entirely outside of the realm of possibility either.
"The Blossom is nearly ready," Raphael said.
"So we should probably start coming up with a plan," Bobby stated.
"That would be wise," Michael agreed.
"What are the requirements for this to work?" Sam asked. "What needs to be in place for you to be able to do it?"
"Just that Dean and I are together and have physical access to Lucifer and Simiel."
"That's it?" Bobby questioned, surprised. "There's nothing else?"
"No."
"That's almost too easy," Gwen said, voicing Sam's own thoughts.
"Oh, it won't be, I can assure you of that," Raziel stated. "It's just not in the set-up that we'll hit the snags. No, that'll all be for Michael and Dean to deal with when the time actually comes."
"Because Lucifer will fight it," Sam realized.
"Exactly."
"That will indeed be the difficult part," Michael agreed gravely. "Not only will both Lucifer and Simiel resist with all of the power that they possess, but Dean and I will most likely be completely unable to defend ourselves from any other attack during the process."
"Okay, so we'll need to arrange for a defensive perimeter or someone to watch over you," Bobby replied, pulling a notepad and pen towards himself.
Sam frowned, not able to remember the older hunter going so far as to take notes during a meeting like this before, but then they'd never quite had one before the last time that they'd confronted Lucifer. It had been far more of a spur of the moment, or rather the situation, thing than anything else. Which was probably at least part of the reason why it had all gone so horribly wrong. They also had far more people involved this time, not to mention all of the angels that Castiel now commanded in Heaven, so greater organization was a must. Those extra angels would go a long way towards evening the odds a little, though he had absolutely no doubt that there wouldn't be countless demons joining the battle on Lucifer's side.
No matter which way you looked at it, this was going to get messy and Sam knew better than to expect that all of them would come out of this alive. The thought made him look at his brother in worry. Dean had in some way or another either bonded with or connected closely to everyone in the room and would therefore be the one to come out of this the worst. No matter who they lost, his brother would feel it, all the more so given how Dean tended to take any death as his fault regardless of the situation. So, really, there was just no way that his brother would come out of this unscratched.
And the worst thing? Well, Sam was under no illusions that Dean together with Michael were at the highest risk out of everyone present and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about that. The two of them would be Lucifer's number one target and even his own appeal to the devil would be nothing in comparison to the double opportunity that Dean and Michael would present. While he might be able to distract the devil before such a confrontation, during it he was a paltry second choice at best. Once the fight had begun he knew that Lucifer would not be interested in changing vessels as the process would leave the devil far too vulnerable, so his appeal would be relegated to that as ideal to have after the battle if Lucifer was victorious, but during the fight the devil's focus would be on winning it and everything else would be secondary.
So it would probably boost his chances of surviving the fight, but that was all that Sam could hope for. The knowledge grated as he wanted to be able to do something, to not just be another cog in the wheel, but he tried to force that desire down ruthlessly. It was exactly that kind of thinking combined with the sense of entitlement that he could still feel that had gotten him into trouble in the first place. And not just with Lucifer, but with Ruby and Lilith as well. The mere thought of how he'd been played so expertly (and the fact that he'd been completely blind to it too) was enough to give him the strength to push it down now.
He would not make the same mistake. Not again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice... yeah, no, just not gonna happen.
"We also need to consider where want to do this," Raphael stated.
"What do you mean?" Gwen asked, frowning.
"Unless we want to allow Lucifer to choose the battleground by going to him, we will need to choose a place and challenge him. The downside of this option is that it will mean that Lucifer will come prepared, bringing countless demons with him as well as Simiel."
"Meaning that it'll be a warzone," Dean realized.
"Putting it mildly, yeah," Raziel confirmed, his words belying the gravity of his tone.
"Fuck."
"And of course we can't choose somewhere like the old Wieliczka salt mine or any of the salt fields around the world," Sam said. "As Lucifer would never come if his demons couldn't follow."
"Not unless Michael and Dean were alone," Castiel confirmed and Sam saw the angel stepping closer to Dean at those words as if his brother would vanish to do exactly that.
Sam could totally get the sentiment though. There was just no way that he was allowing that to happen. Absolutely no fucking way.
"So we want somewhere isolated but which might still give us a slight advantage," Bobby concluded. "How picky will Lucifer and Simiel be? Are they very likely to refuse to show?"
"No," Michael replied quickly. "Pride has always been my brother's biggest weakness, so while he would not be stupid enough to come to somewhere inaccessible to his demons, he will easily believe that he can overcome a slight advantage on our part."
"Plus there is also the fact that he will not care if it costs him demonic lives to overcome that advantage," Raphael added. "Demons are nothing but a means to an end for him."
"He has gotten more cautious, though," Dean pointed out.
"There is no harm in attempting to get him to a more promising location first," Raziel said. "All it will do is alert Lucifer to the fact that we wish to confront him, but he would have known that we would do so eventually, especially now that he has started attacking and destroying places. Remember, he wants this fight because without it, he will never gain full control of Earth and he'll have to fight for each and every inch of it that he can get."
"I just wish we knew more about what he has planned."
Sam frowned at the words. It was not like his brother to be the one urging caution. No, Dean was normally the one to want to rush in halfcocked, with just the bare basics of a plan sketched out. So why was his brother acting so differently now? Was it just that experience was finally making him stop to think or had the close connections to both Castiel and Michael rubbed off some of the two archangels' own caution onto Dean? It wouldn't be a bad thing, he mused, but then he remembered what his brother had said about the Rite of Contressa and how Dean had been to see Lucifer completely enraged in all of his true form glory so that could be the cause. He shoved the thought aside immediately as it threatened to bring back far too many horrific memories from his time in the cage with both Lucifer and Michael.
The thought made Sam freeze in place except for his eyes which snapped over to look at Michael. He'd never really allowed himself to put two and two together before, always having other, seemingly more pressing, matters to focus on, but now it finally surfaced. The archangel standing here so docilely in the room with them and whom his brother now freely allowed inside himself on a rather frequent basis was the same one that he'd been trapped with in that damn cage and which he'd observed tearing into the devil and being torn into in turn. That was really a good thing actually as it meant that Lucifer'd had far less time to focus on him, but the realization was still stunning.
That was Michael. Or rather, that was the archangel as he truly was, not disguised and made to seem far more vulnerable and powerless through the meatsuit of Sam's aunt. It was quite shocking and something which had just never quite sunk in for him as it was so mindboggling and because not only had he really not wanted to think about his time in the cage, but there had also always been other things to focus on. Not to mention that Michael now wasn't acting anything at all like the archangel had been in Hell. It suddenly made him a little worried about how Michael was going to react when confronted with Lucifer once more, but then that was kinda what they wanted.
Well, if it wasn't for the fact that Dean would be along for the ride next time. It was something which Sam couldn't just let go, but he put it aside for now, deciding to speak with his brother about it later.
"Well I doubt that we're going to be able to learn any of that," Castiel said before turning to look at Dean. "Unless you think that Crowley would be able to obtain some information?"
"Possibly, though I think it unlikely given that he doesn't really take any risks," Dean replied.
"Well, you could point out that Lucifer will undoubtedly be careless with demonic lives," Gwen pointed out. "And not only could that allow Crowley to potentially turn some peo- uh, demons, but it is also extra incentive for him because if Lucifer takes that route, then he could overcome us through sheer numbers."
"Which would mean that Crowley has more chance of being stuck with him instead of us at the end of it all," Sam finished his cousin's train of thought. "It might work."
Dean sighed. "I'll give it a try."
The irony that it was him and Gwen pushing his brother to call Crowley now when they'd both protested speaking with him in the first place was not lost on Sam but it seemed like the right thing to do. He was hyperaware of how this could look though and therefore glanced quickly at Bobby and the angels to gauge their reactions. None of them seemed particularly pleased with this course of action but neither did any of them look disapproving either. Just slightly annoyed at needing the assistance of a demon. Taken together with his brother's lack of verbal objection, he assumed that this was really what he'd thought it to be and not yet another example of his judgment getting warped.
Why did it always have to be such a fine line between the two? Or was the fact that he thought so just another example of how far he still had to go?
Sam desperately hoped that it wasn't the latter though he secretly feared that it was.
A.N.: Ug, only I could get a head cold in the middle of a heat wave. Take my advice, don't try it, it knocks you for one hell of a loop!
Chapter 195
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,165
Summary: The preparations mostly completed, the planning for the final confrontation begins.
PRESENT
"Ah, you're up," Sam said as he walked into the kitchen to find his brother finishing up his breakfast. "Good, right on time, Sleepyhead."
"Bite me, Bitch," Dean retorted.
Sam's eyes flickered down to the fresh bruises that were quite evident on his brother's neck. "Looks like someone already has, Jerk, and I wouldn't want to make Castiel jealous, now would I?"
From the subtle way his big brother's expression changed, Sam knew that he'd either said something wrong or inadvertently hit on something. Wait a second, hadn't Dean told him something about Castiel having a jealous streak? He'd never seen any evidence of that other than the way that the angel had reacted at the bar when that woman had come onto Dean, but then he really didn't want to either. He was just glad that his brother seemed content to not inform him of any details of what had happened last night, instead Dean just got up and took his dishes to the sink.
"More coffee?" Bobby offered them, topping up his own cup.
"Yes, please," Sam replied, snagging Dean's cup as well.
"What's up?" Dean asked, turning away from the sink and accepting the coffee with a grateful smile.
"I think that we have everything in order to denuke Lucifer and Simiel. Gwen was just giving Cas a call to see if the angels have collected everything that they had to get."
"Really? Already?"
"Yeah. I guess it's nearly show time."
"Crap."
Sam could get where his brother was coming from, this was Lucifer they were talking about here after all and there was a very good and real possibility that they wouldn't survive this particular confrontation with the devil, but on the other hand they really couldn't afford to wait either. Lucifer and his demons definitely weren't, attacking people and places with ever greater frequency and violence. Just yesterday one of the largest cathedrals in Europe had been destroyed in the middle of Sunday mass. The death toll was already horrifying and still expected to rise as scores of people were still missing, feared dead or trapped in the rubble. He'd had nightmares of it all last night, only instead of Christian, he'd been Lucifer's vessel and he'd been helpless to resist as the devil used his meatsuit to cause the damage.
"I got a report from Rufus this morning," Bobby began gravely. "Said he'd run into a demonic cult made up entirely of humans."
"What? Why?" Dean demanded, perplexed.
On some level it never failed to amaze Sam that his brother could still be surprised at the things that humans did. He'd have thought that Dean of all people should know what kind of evil and darkness was out there. A part of him treasured that naivety, though. It proved that despite all that had happened to his brother, that Dean still possessed some form of innocence. A bizarrely twisted and odd type of innocence to be sure, but still innocence nonetheless and he clung to it. He'd seen far too many hunters over the years who'd lost all of their innocence along with the ability to care and be compassionate and the results had never been pretty. His brother still had all three even if the ability to care had come under a lot of attack in recent years and had wavered greatly at times.
The direction his thoughts had taken made Sam smile a little, knowing that he would have thought of things very differently until just recently and he thanked God that Dean and Castiel had been able to both recognize and save him from what he'd been well on the path to becoming. He was under no delusions that he was completely free from his own inner darkness, but it was becoming easier and easier to recognize and resist. The latter due to the fact that the former allowed him to see why it was wrong to just give in and allow the darkness to influence him as he had unconsciously been doing.
"Don't know," Bobby shrugged. "But the reason they were carrying out ritualistic sacrifices of priests and church attendees was because they'd heard that the Dark One had risen and they wanted to pay tribute to their master."
"And what? Gain favor and power in return?" Dean demanded, incredulous.
"Something like that."
Dean snorted. "Monsters I get, people, however... people are just crazy."
Sam bit his tongue to stop himself from replying to that, not wanting to be the one to make his brother anymore jaded than Dean already was in other areas. He'd already been the cause of far too much of that as it was. A quick glance at Bobby and he fancied that he saw a similar kind of sentiment there in the older hunter's eyes.
"Come on," Sam said instead, heading for the dining room where he and Gwen had laid out all of the items that everyone had collected.
"Where's my coffee?" Gwen asked as they joined her.
"Uh."
Before Sam could get any further, Raziel, who'd been in the room vanished, only to return a moment later with two cups of coffee, one of which he handed to Gwen.
"Thanks," Gwen said, clearly surprised.
Sam looked pointedly at his brother, indicating Raziel with a little nod of his head but Dean merely smiled and shook his own head in denial. He scowled, convinced from what he'd seen that the newest archangel was sweet on his cousin. His brother had laughed when he'd first commented on it and had said that he was wrong, but Dean had refused to say why. This little stunt was just further proof as far as he was concerned. None of the other three archangels present had even looked like they were going to do what Raziel had done. Besides, of all of the archangels other than Castiel, he was beginning to think that he just might like Raziel the best. Sure, there was definitely something strange about the archangel (but then there was also plenty strange about every single angel that he'd ever met, Castiel included), but that didn't negate the fact that Raziel was much more human than even Castiel was.
"Do you guys have everything?" Sam asked, looking at his brother-in-law (and, yeah, that was still weird) who'd already moved to Dean's side.
Or had it been his brother who'd drifted towards the angel's side? He hadn't really been paying enough attention to know and these days it could really be either way.
"All that we still require is the Forbidden Blossom," Castiel replied before stealing a sip of Dean's coffee and pulling a face. "Excuse me."
His brother-in-law vanished along with Dean's cup and Sam was in no absolutely doubt as to just what Castiel was doing. He only hoped that the angel thought to bring back a supply of Colombian coffee beans to replenish the previous stock that had run out. He'd never even known that coffee could taste that good! All of this merely added to his conviction that Raziel was sweet on Gwen as it was the same kind of stunt that Castiel did for Dean all of the time.
"Thanks!" Dean beamed when his husband returned with a cup that smelled heavenly.
Sam saw his brother reach up to stroke what he was sure was one of Castiel's wings. Well it was either that or Dean had finally lost it and was stroking thin air, which seemed far less likely but not entirely outside of the realm of possibility either.
"The Blossom is nearly ready," Raphael said.
"So we should probably start coming up with a plan," Bobby stated.
"That would be wise," Michael agreed.
"What are the requirements for this to work?" Sam asked. "What needs to be in place for you to be able to do it?"
"Just that Dean and I are together and have physical access to Lucifer and Simiel."
"That's it?" Bobby questioned, surprised. "There's nothing else?"
"No."
"That's almost too easy," Gwen said, voicing Sam's own thoughts.
"Oh, it won't be, I can assure you of that," Raziel stated. "It's just not in the set-up that we'll hit the snags. No, that'll all be for Michael and Dean to deal with when the time actually comes."
"Because Lucifer will fight it," Sam realized.
"Exactly."
"That will indeed be the difficult part," Michael agreed gravely. "Not only will both Lucifer and Simiel resist with all of the power that they possess, but Dean and I will most likely be completely unable to defend ourselves from any other attack during the process."
"Okay, so we'll need to arrange for a defensive perimeter or someone to watch over you," Bobby replied, pulling a notepad and pen towards himself.
Sam frowned, not able to remember the older hunter going so far as to take notes during a meeting like this before, but then they'd never quite had one before the last time that they'd confronted Lucifer. It had been far more of a spur of the moment, or rather the situation, thing than anything else. Which was probably at least part of the reason why it had all gone so horribly wrong. They also had far more people involved this time, not to mention all of the angels that Castiel now commanded in Heaven, so greater organization was a must. Those extra angels would go a long way towards evening the odds a little, though he had absolutely no doubt that there wouldn't be countless demons joining the battle on Lucifer's side.
No matter which way you looked at it, this was going to get messy and Sam knew better than to expect that all of them would come out of this alive. The thought made him look at his brother in worry. Dean had in some way or another either bonded with or connected closely to everyone in the room and would therefore be the one to come out of this the worst. No matter who they lost, his brother would feel it, all the more so given how Dean tended to take any death as his fault regardless of the situation. So, really, there was just no way that his brother would come out of this unscratched.
And the worst thing? Well, Sam was under no illusions that Dean together with Michael were at the highest risk out of everyone present and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about that. The two of them would be Lucifer's number one target and even his own appeal to the devil would be nothing in comparison to the double opportunity that Dean and Michael would present. While he might be able to distract the devil before such a confrontation, during it he was a paltry second choice at best. Once the fight had begun he knew that Lucifer would not be interested in changing vessels as the process would leave the devil far too vulnerable, so his appeal would be relegated to that as ideal to have after the battle if Lucifer was victorious, but during the fight the devil's focus would be on winning it and everything else would be secondary.
So it would probably boost his chances of surviving the fight, but that was all that Sam could hope for. The knowledge grated as he wanted to be able to do something, to not just be another cog in the wheel, but he tried to force that desire down ruthlessly. It was exactly that kind of thinking combined with the sense of entitlement that he could still feel that had gotten him into trouble in the first place. And not just with Lucifer, but with Ruby and Lilith as well. The mere thought of how he'd been played so expertly (and the fact that he'd been completely blind to it too) was enough to give him the strength to push it down now.
He would not make the same mistake. Not again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice... yeah, no, just not gonna happen.
"We also need to consider where want to do this," Raphael stated.
"What do you mean?" Gwen asked, frowning.
"Unless we want to allow Lucifer to choose the battleground by going to him, we will need to choose a place and challenge him. The downside of this option is that it will mean that Lucifer will come prepared, bringing countless demons with him as well as Simiel."
"Meaning that it'll be a warzone," Dean realized.
"Putting it mildly, yeah," Raziel confirmed, his words belying the gravity of his tone.
"Fuck."
"And of course we can't choose somewhere like the old Wieliczka salt mine or any of the salt fields around the world," Sam said. "As Lucifer would never come if his demons couldn't follow."
"Not unless Michael and Dean were alone," Castiel confirmed and Sam saw the angel stepping closer to Dean at those words as if his brother would vanish to do exactly that.
Sam could totally get the sentiment though. There was just no way that he was allowing that to happen. Absolutely no fucking way.
"So we want somewhere isolated but which might still give us a slight advantage," Bobby concluded. "How picky will Lucifer and Simiel be? Are they very likely to refuse to show?"
"No," Michael replied quickly. "Pride has always been my brother's biggest weakness, so while he would not be stupid enough to come to somewhere inaccessible to his demons, he will easily believe that he can overcome a slight advantage on our part."
"Plus there is also the fact that he will not care if it costs him demonic lives to overcome that advantage," Raphael added. "Demons are nothing but a means to an end for him."
"He has gotten more cautious, though," Dean pointed out.
"There is no harm in attempting to get him to a more promising location first," Raziel said. "All it will do is alert Lucifer to the fact that we wish to confront him, but he would have known that we would do so eventually, especially now that he has started attacking and destroying places. Remember, he wants this fight because without it, he will never gain full control of Earth and he'll have to fight for each and every inch of it that he can get."
"I just wish we knew more about what he has planned."
Sam frowned at the words. It was not like his brother to be the one urging caution. No, Dean was normally the one to want to rush in halfcocked, with just the bare basics of a plan sketched out. So why was his brother acting so differently now? Was it just that experience was finally making him stop to think or had the close connections to both Castiel and Michael rubbed off some of the two archangels' own caution onto Dean? It wouldn't be a bad thing, he mused, but then he remembered what his brother had said about the Rite of Contressa and how Dean had been to see Lucifer completely enraged in all of his true form glory so that could be the cause. He shoved the thought aside immediately as it threatened to bring back far too many horrific memories from his time in the cage with both Lucifer and Michael.
The thought made Sam freeze in place except for his eyes which snapped over to look at Michael. He'd never really allowed himself to put two and two together before, always having other, seemingly more pressing, matters to focus on, but now it finally surfaced. The archangel standing here so docilely in the room with them and whom his brother now freely allowed inside himself on a rather frequent basis was the same one that he'd been trapped with in that damn cage and which he'd observed tearing into the devil and being torn into in turn. That was really a good thing actually as it meant that Lucifer'd had far less time to focus on him, but the realization was still stunning.
That was Michael. Or rather, that was the archangel as he truly was, not disguised and made to seem far more vulnerable and powerless through the meatsuit of Sam's aunt. It was quite shocking and something which had just never quite sunk in for him as it was so mindboggling and because not only had he really not wanted to think about his time in the cage, but there had also always been other things to focus on. Not to mention that Michael now wasn't acting anything at all like the archangel had been in Hell. It suddenly made him a little worried about how Michael was going to react when confronted with Lucifer once more, but then that was kinda what they wanted.
Well, if it wasn't for the fact that Dean would be along for the ride next time. It was something which Sam couldn't just let go, but he put it aside for now, deciding to speak with his brother about it later.
"Well I doubt that we're going to be able to learn any of that," Castiel said before turning to look at Dean. "Unless you think that Crowley would be able to obtain some information?"
"Possibly, though I think it unlikely given that he doesn't really take any risks," Dean replied.
"Well, you could point out that Lucifer will undoubtedly be careless with demonic lives," Gwen pointed out. "And not only could that allow Crowley to potentially turn some peo- uh, demons, but it is also extra incentive for him because if Lucifer takes that route, then he could overcome us through sheer numbers."
"Which would mean that Crowley has more chance of being stuck with him instead of us at the end of it all," Sam finished his cousin's train of thought. "It might work."
Dean sighed. "I'll give it a try."
The irony that it was him and Gwen pushing his brother to call Crowley now when they'd both protested speaking with him in the first place was not lost on Sam but it seemed like the right thing to do. He was hyperaware of how this could look though and therefore glanced quickly at Bobby and the angels to gauge their reactions. None of them seemed particularly pleased with this course of action but neither did any of them look disapproving either. Just slightly annoyed at needing the assistance of a demon. Taken together with his brother's lack of verbal objection, he assumed that this was really what he'd thought it to be and not yet another example of his judgment getting warped.
Why did it always have to be such a fine line between the two? Or was the fact that he thought so just another example of how far he still had to go?
Sam desperately hoped that it wasn't the latter though he secretly feared that it was.
A.N.: Ug, only I could get a head cold in the middle of a heat wave. Take my advice, don't try it, it knocks you for one hell of a loop!
Chapter 195