Supernatural- "The Law of Conservation of Energy" (Ch 6)
Six
Sam watches Dean out of the corner of his eye as his brother sits at the motel room table, munching absently on an Egg McMuffin and studying the vial of grace where he’s set it down in front of him, in-between his Styrofoam cup of coffee and his half-eaten deep fried hash brown.
“You think it looks different?” Dean asks abruptly after a minute, around a mouthful of processed egg and biscuit. “Like… duller?”
Sam sighs. “No,” he says, because it doesn’t. He glances over to the bed, where Castiel is sleeping off the last bit of his archangel grace burnout, dead to the world and smeared in aloe vera because he’d experienced the equivalent of nasty sunburn all over his body when he’d absorbed bits of his dead brother into himself (which continues to be the creepiest thing ever, but whatever).
Cas is recovering at a pretty good rate all things considered though; five hours of burning and irritability and skin tightness had been followed by some rapid, vaguely grotesque monster-movie peeling- which Sam had never wanted to see on any human being ever, particularly on one whom he’d had aloe-rubbing duty for earlier this morning- while Dean had been out taking too long to get food so he could sit in the parking lot of a Burger King and angst about whatever it is that had happened in the court room while Sam had been busy watching Phil the night watchman napping at the security desk. Dean hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but Sam had been able to see past the dramatic princess carry his brother had had his angel in last night to find the roiling waves of man pain underneath. It had all been in the tightness of Dean’s jaw, the hard lines around his eyes, and the heartbreaking tenderness of his hands around Castiel.
Of course they are not talking about it now because Cas is healing up from his grace burn and Dean has been unusually helpful with running errands and research and volunteering to not be in the hotel room as much as possible.
Hence this travesty of a McDonald’s breakfast. Sam is pretty sure there had been an IHOP a mere two blocks from their motel and that the town’s one McDonald’s had been all the way on the other side of the freeway (mostly because he remembers blearily seeing it out of the corner of his eye when they’d first rolled into the county). Dean Winchester is many things, but subtle is not one of them.
Cas makes a muffled burbling sound from the bed across the room at that moment and Dean’s eyes are instantly off of the grace and onto its owner. Sam imagines he can see his brother mentally debating whether he should go back to McDonald’s to complain about that other hash brown they forgot to give him at the drive-thru window.
He sighs. “So I think I know where the next shard is,” he begins conversationally, before Dean can get up and flee while Cas shifts and blearily sits up in his bed. The angel’s hair is standing on end and he still has a thin ring of peeling skin visible around his eyes, which makes Sam wince and put down his already-gross breakfast because looking at the former angel’s face somehow just made it that much grosser.
“You’ve located the next piece?” Cas croaks, voice groggy and sleep worn. Dean eyes him and pushes the third bag of greasy breakfast foods in his general direction.
“Deluxe Breakfast,” Dean grunts, and it’s like a 1200 calorie monster that makes Sam wonder if his brother is trying to subtly kill Cas with fatness for whatever happened between them at the courthouse.
Cas eyes it dubiously too, like he’s thinking the same thing, but eventually gets up and pads to the bathroom to wash up. The sound of running water makes Dean relax a little in the shoulder area, and Sam feels a twinge of irritation at the world and his life in general, because last week, they’d had an out of control angel making deals with the new devil to open Purgatory and probably cause a whole shitton of badness, while this week, it’s like they’ve magically reset to the Dean and Cas romcom happy hour all over again.
“Well?” Dean barks after a beat, and drops his McMuffin on the wrapper with a wet, greasy thud. “Where to next, Sammy?”
Sam tosses a newspaper at his brother, where an article is circled twice in red pen. “Arizona,” Sam says, while Dean eyes the ominous photo of a swirling dust devil on the front page.
“Wrath?” Dean asks, after a moment of skimming at the article. His voice sounds grim.
Sam nods. “Looks like.”
Dean’s eyes slip sideways to the bathroom door. “Great. I might have some to spare.”
Sam snorts and goes to pack up his stuff.
*****
They get to Arizona several days and a series of long, awkward car rides later, Dean doing his best to forget everything he’d heard when they’d been hunting truth so they can move forward with this plan while Cas finishes up his peeling all over the backseat of the car and remains as stubbornly silent as physically possible.
It doesn’t stop him from staring nonstop at Dean through the rearview mirror for what has to be thousands of miles though.
Sam looks like he’s washed his hands of both of them, but at the very least the uncomfortable atmosphere inside the Impala gets everyone in the right mood to take on southern Arizona’s dry desert heat, anti-immigrant sentiments, and a whole lot of swirling sand.
Apparently the storms had begun at the edge of a small town on the Arizona/Mexico border a week or two after Gabriel’s death, the dust devils being intermittent but normal up until that winter, when some of the small town’s self-appointed militia members had caught a group of illegal immigrants on their land, quietly trying to cross the border under cover of night. Some sort of massacre had happened with all the illegals getting killed, but the court had acquitted the shooters for firing at unarmed people because of some cockamamie law about trespassing or something. It’s all kind of fucked up in Dean’s book, but according to Sam’s research, that’s when the storms had started getting particularly bad, and so far, several members of the anti-illegal militia have gotten caught up and killed in them, or in most cases, killed by freak accidents caused by the storms (Dean’s favorite had been the one where a guy had been crushed when his Ford pickup had been lifted right off the ground and deposited neatly on his head). Of course this whole affair has led to some sort of huge political fallout or something, with a lot of picketing for both sides and even more white-people-angry-at-Mexicans-for-getting-their-people-killed-because-they’re-out-in-the-danger-zone-doing-their-patriotic-duty-by-defending-their-borders and some other stupid shit that Dean thinks people wouldn’t care so much about if they knew that angels in Heaven are doing their damndest to blow the whole world up while they argue about boundaries.
In any case, Dean had eaten some decently awesome tacos earlier and is holding a fake US Meteorological Society research badge courtesy of Bobby. He is not looking forward to the vast expanse of desert they’ll have to comb over in the next few days in order to properly get their wrath on.
“From what Bobby and I have been able to figure out, the storms are basically centered around where the San Pedro river crosses from the US into Mexico. I’m guessing a lot of people get stopped or killed trying to cross there?” Sam prattles on absently as he juggles a map in one hand and a pen in the other, the route already marked with a bunch of little Xs that signify where each of the storms or accidents that had taken out a militia member had happened. “It’s kind of a lot of ground to cover though,” he admits after a thoughtful pause, tapping the pen against the map absently. “There’s uh, there’s a lot of wrath going on here.” He stops to look between his brother in the driver’s seat and the angel slouched in the back.
“I should be able to discern the positioning of the grace once we are close enough,” Castiel informs them, eyes still on Dean’s via the rearview mirror. “The piece I already have inside me will likely respond to having one of its counterparts in proximity. It will, at the very least, be slightly more accurate than the spell using my own grace to find it.”
Dean feels the vial tucked inside his shirt twinge a bit, causing a series of rapid, super small vibrations against the glass walls that are trapping it. The movements make the skin above his collarbone itch uncomfortably and he winces and rubs at it a little, in the same way he does whenever fast food gives him heartburn (which is increasing in frequency the older he gets, to be perfectly honest). “Considering that we had to out truth the truth to get it to come with us in round one,” he begins, with a pointed glance at the angel through the rearview, “what kind of shit storm should we be preparing for when we go and dig up a freakin’ archangel’s wrath? I mean, do we have to raze a city to the ground to out wrath it or something?”
“An angel’s wrath is retribution, Dean, not pointless violence,” Castiel tells him calmly. “It is punishment for a perceived crime or someone doing wrong to heavenly command. Archangels in particular are keepers of God’s will and the enforcers of His law. They have never been known to act upon their anger without good reason.” Pause. Frown. “For our case, I suspect that if you and I are to invoke it as we did truth, and become more attractive an environment to it than its current place of rest in order to claim it, we will most likely have to pummel each other bloody in the sand.”
Dean winces, but realizes that Cas is probably right about all of this. Dean’s not sure how he feels about it though.
On the one hand, Cas hasn’t said much to him since they’d had their little verbal diarrhea explosion with one another back in Georgia, and part of Dean, the part Sam likes to call you confrontational asshole, is kind of raring to bring it up again, except not via the talking-it-out channels. Punching out their problems is kind of Dean’s best way of handling things. But then another part of him, the part that’s busy reminding himself of all the reasons he actually genuinely likes Cas, is telling his confrontational asshole side to shut the fuck up and remember that this guy is family and got blown up twice for him. It is possible that fighting with him on purpose probably won’t solve anything. Also, this second part adds, snootily, despite all the creeptastic things Cas had said last week, Dean has to remember that most of it had been focused on the fact that all the angel really wants is for Dean and Sam to live. Dean, in some of his more reasonable moments, gets that; before, choosing Sam had always been easy, had always been something he could do without hesitation even if the consequences might have included the world burning. So on the other hand, wanting to kick Cas’s ass for everything he’s done might also be kind of hypocritical.
Or you know, Cas might be the one to kick his ass, who knows? It’s happened before. Dean looks at his brother. “Right. Pummeling,” he says, eventually. “I guess I’ll have Sammy standing by with the first aid kit, then.”
“We will have to be more violent than a sandstorm,” Castiel tells him, gravely. “A sandstorm that invokes Heaven’s fury. I doubt a first aid kit will be sufficient to deal with any subsequent injuries.”
The flinty edge to Cas’s eyes tells Dean that they’re clearly on the right track, mostly because it looks like the angel is already starting to feel a little bit wrathful himself.
*****
Dean makes Sam talk to the border patrol guy they’d spoken to over the phone a few days ago about how they’re a team specializing in the study of abnormal weather systems and how these are strange ecological anomalies and that they’ll probably continue to be a dangerous loss of life if we don’t explore this phenomenon more seriously, mostly because he doesn’t think he can pull off the geek speak convincingly. So while Sam is doing all that official stuff, he’s busy staring off into the distance, at the desert and shrub and miles and miles of nothing stretching out in front of him. It’s kind of pretty, for all he knows that heaven’s murderous intent lies buried somewhere within it, and isn’t that just the story of his life, he thinks, as he leans against the hood of the Impala and waits for Sam to conclude his meeting and assure the border patrolman that if they see any illegals they’ll report it to the agents via radio immediately.
Dean feels a strange kind of pull when he looks off towards the south, the same kind he’d sort of felt when they’d stepped up to the haunted witness stand for the first time. He thinks it feels a lot like getting pricked by a needle. Or waiting to be pricked, but not knowing when the blow is going to come, exactly.
The sound of crunching gravel behind him signifies Castiel’s approach; Dean doesn’t bother turning around.
“It is there,” Castiel intones after a beat, and doesn’t move anymore either. “The grace within me recognizes it, as faint as it is right now.”
Dean doesn’t say anything about how the grace he’s holding seems to want to hurl every time it gets close to another piece of old, dead Gabe, but Sam gets back from his conference with the border patrolmen then, and eyes Dean and Cas dubiously as they stand together by the car, probably because his psychic gigantor frontal lobe can sense tension waves or suppressed rage pheromones or something. It’s annoying, and Dean is pretty sure it is the reason behind why those crags in Sam’s caveman brow have gotten exponentially more craggy over the last six years. “Everything okay?” Sam asks, looking between his brother and the grumpy angel.
“Fine,” Dean and Cas both say, and get inside the Impala.
From there, they wordlessly drive deeper into the desert.
*****
When Cas tells Dean to stop driving about thirty minutes later it’s mostly unnecessary; Dean already knows that they’re near by virtue of Castiel’s grace twisting against his shirt, a kind of writhing, uncomfortably tight feeling coming from the vial the closer they get to their perceived destination. What they get when they arrive on the scene is not particularly wrathful looking at all though. In fact it almost looks kind of tragically peaceful, as the three of them find the car coming to a stop before what seems to be a crude memorial built under the withered husk of a long-dead tree, the memorial itself being nothing more than two simple wooden crosses sticking up in the dirt and a pair of small flower wreaths long wilted by the heat of the sun and the dryness of the air. “Looks like someone put these up for the people who got shot for trespassing,” Sam reports as he checks the GPS coordinates on his phone with one of the little red Xs on his map.
“Gabriel’s wrath is here to bring down judgment upon those who harmed them unjustly, most likely,” Castiel says, voice lower than normal as he gets out of the Impala without another word. Dean and Sam scramble after him, and when they get to the base of the dead tree, Cas gets on his knees in front of the crosses and just goes for it, putting his hand on the ground there without hesitation. It’s a lot like he’d done back at the courthouse, except that wrath is way more dangerous than truth (though Sam might argue semantics about that). The fact that Cas doesn’t even warn them that he’s going in first annoys the crap out of Dean on principle, and he feels himself gritting his teeth and yanking on the angel’s shoulder. “Seriously, man? I know we’re not exactly star communicators ourselves, but you could at least warn us. This is Heaven’s wrath for fuck’s sake. What if it flung us to outer space or something?”
Castiel glares up at him. “What purpose would warning you to prepare for something you are helpless against serve except frighten you?” he answers. “Your reasoning has never made sense to me. Why should I tell you about the things you have no power to change?”
Dean feels his temper flare. “Hey, if I recall, we changed the fucking apocalypse man, so maybe you’re being a moron for underestimating what we tiny mortals can or can’t do in the first place.”
Castiel’s eyes are practically glacial despite the heat. “Maybe one or two incredibly lucky incidents have given you a bigger head than is prudent.”
In the background, a gust of errant wind starts to kick up some of the sand and dirt around them, and Dean, through a haze of indignation and anger, thinks that maybe this is where the rage pummeling is about to start, because he’s pretty sure wrath is answering the call they’re throwing out to it right the fuck now, which says a lot about all the feelings between them that have been simmering just under the surface since they managed to wrangle truth out of Georgia. His blood is beginning to boil simply by virtue of looking at Cas’s stupid face though, so he can’t be bothered to care too much about the logic behind it when he makes this realization.
“Uh, I think it’s working,” Sam warns them needlessly, holding his arms up against his face to shield himself from the sand as the winds begin to pick up at a steady clip. He gets ignored, mostly because duh but also because Dean has some wrath for him too, like about most of the last year, and right now he doesn’t have the time to start two fistfights in the middle of a storm in the desert.
This one should be more than enough.
“As always, your brother’s powers of observation are stunning,” Castiel drawls as he stands, squinting at Dean critically through the grit billowing around them.
“Fuck you, you don’t get to talk about Sam like that, Cas. Ever,” Dean answers, always on instinct. No one makes fun of his little brother but him, not even Cas. “Especially when you judge Sam for doing something and then afterwards, you go out and do the exact same stupid thing!”
Castiel scowls at him, ends of his trenchcoat starting to billow violently around his thighs. “They are hardly the same…”
“They’re exactly the same!” Dean shouts, partially because he’s probably nearing the top of his rage meter and partially because that’s the only way he can hear anything outside of the wind that is building way too quickly than is natural around them. “You think I want to be saved that way? You think I want to see people or angels, or whatever that matter to me running around with demons because they don’t think I can freakin’ take care of myself? You think I appreciate having this dealt with for me without getting a say in how anything goes? Been there, done that, fuck it in the ass, man! Next time you come to me! Next time, how about before something stupid like you pissing off the Mother of all Monsters happens, you drop in for a chat first? Let me know what’s going on? That sound good? What about that? I’ll bake freaking brownies man, I’ll make tea. Whatever it takes. Just tell me what’s up before you make stupid decisions like that!”
Castiel gets right into Dean’s face then, until their noses are scant millimeters apart. “So then I am to assume you are my new God, Dean?” he growls, voice low but somehow booming in Dean’s ears despite the flurry of angry activity around them. “For all your talk of free will and choice, what you say now seems to be familiar to me; I think I have heard the word of my Father demand the exact same thing of me-of all angels- in eons past. You may choose, but you must still obey; you must always obey. If you do not make God happy, if you do not bow to His word, then He can strike you down as He pleases. Am I to take it you are my new God, Dean? Is that it, then, Lord? Should I return to service then and clear every one of my actions with you first? Shall I kneel at your feet and do as you wish for fear of your wrath? You are the one who taught me choice, Dean, and now you take it away just as easily.” Castiel sinks to his knees then, but does not bow his head, something almost akin to an unpleasant sneer on his face. “What wish do you have of me now, Lord Dean? I have abandoned my own plans as you have commanded, Lord. I have come to this place, given up everything I have worked for on my own for the last year at your request, Lord. What else can I do to seek your forgiveness, Lord? How can I further atone for my sins, Lord?”
Dean isn’t sure what happens between that moment and the next, but something about the disillusioned, almost bitter look on Cas’s face looking at him like that takes him into a future three years forward and an eternity from happening, and before Dean knows it, he’s tackling the angel in the sand and punching him in the face. “I don’t want to be your dad, you asshole!” he shouts, and grabs the lapels of Castiel’s trenchcoat so he can shake the goddamned angel, maybe to rattle some sense into that thick head of his. “I just want you to fucking realize that what you did was wrong!”
Castiel grabs Dean by the elbows and throws him off of him, a dark, almost crackling aura in the air around him. It reminds Dean a little bit too much of Raphael’s, back when they’d trapped him in that circle of holy fire and called him a little bitch. It’s not quite the same, but still impressive for a guy only rocking 1/7th of an archangel’s grace. The force behind it-bolstered by the now maelstrom winds of the storm-sends Dean flying back a little, rolling down the slope of the hill. He feels sand getting into his shoes and his mouth, feels his gun and the demon hunting knife falling out of the waistband of his jeans as he tumbles. The angel, with very little regard for the storm, stands and stalks after him down to the foot of the dune, glowering the entire way.
“And all I wish is for you to understand why I did what I did, Dean, but it has been made clear to me recently that what I want is immaterial.” He picks Dean up again, hand slotting over the mark on Dean’s shoulder as he yanks the hunter to his feet and looks him right in the eye. “But I would rather you hate me than be destroyed, so hate me if you must. I will find a way save you. Whether we succeed in gathering all of Gabriel’s grace or not, whether we require an entirely different plan altogether, I will find a way to succeed. You may hate it all you like, but you will live, Dean. I will not apologize for wanting that. That is my free will. You have taken many things from me, but you will not take that.”
The sand is a whirling wall of angry intent cutting the two of them off from the world now, and Dean has to squint to keep the whipping particles of grit out of his eyes even as he feels them buffeting against his face and scraping the skin there raw. He can just barely make out the fact that the gun he’d dropped just now is getting picked up off of the ground and flung out of the swirling mass they are standing in like a rock out of sling, slamming the weapon into the husk of the dead tree nearby with a crack and a thud. He can dimly make out Sam’s silhouette nearby as well, crouched near said tree and doing his damndest to weather out the attack as he crawls low over the ground to get closer to his brother and the fallen angel.
Dean is too consumed by anger to focus on Sam-for once- turning to Cas and shoving the angel’s hands off of him in that moment before slamming his head into Cas’s chin to get him to back up a step. “I don’t want you to save me at that price! That stopped being your job a long time ago, Cas.” he hisses, staggering slightly at the impact of his head hitting partially-restored angelic flesh. “I’m not worth that. I’m not worth the world.”
Cas’s answer is to punch him again, and Dean feels it when his teeth break open the soft flesh along the inside of his mouth, sending hot blood gushing out against his tongue. He staggers back and gags a little, spitting up in the sand as Cas stands over him, as the wind picks up to what must amount to a tornado around them. “You do not get to tell me what is or is not worth the world, Dean,” he hisses darkly, seemingly more angry about Dean’s impression of his self-worth than at Dean’s hitting him.
“Guys?!” Sam’s voice rings out, distant and weak sounding as he fights to be heard over the storm as it grows in size around them with each passing second, like it is its own wailing, expanding universe full of chaos and strife and the explosions of dying stars. “Guys, you need to stop!” he shouts, even as Dean climbs to his feet and rushes Castiel with his full weight. It only sends the angel back a couple of steps though, before Dean feels Cas bunch the back of his shirt into two hands and hold on tight before shoving his knee up into Dean’s stomach.
Dean chokes on his own blood as they fall onto the ground together, their backwards momentum causing them to stumble-unbalanced-into the wind. They are both flung downward for their troubles, and Cas lands on his back, head slamming into ground with Dean sprawled out awkwardly on top of him. Their impact with the earth results in an angry sounding crunch that means Dean is going to be walking funny for a week after this, but the throbbing ache in his knee doesn’t stop him from pressing the advantage he’s been granted as he rolls more fully onto Cas with a wince and slams his palm against the asshole’s chest. “Way to save me, Cas!” he shouts, the heel of his palm resting right over Castiel’s heart. “I feel great! You’re obviously real good at this man, I’m hardly bleeding at all!” he declares, wiping blood from his mouth and chin with the back of his free hand and waving it in Cas’s face with a nasty grin.
Cas scowls, grabbing Dean’s bloodied hand before Dean can hit him with it again, and just looks first at him, and then to the vial of grace now visible around Dean’s neck, after their fall had violently dislodged it from its hiding place under his shirt. Eyes slitted, Castiel simply says, “I will not apologize for what I have done. I am sorry that you are angry, and that I have pained you, but I am not sorry for doing everything I could think to do for you.”
Something snaps in Dean then, something more wild and angry than he’s ever been, and as he begins to punch Cas again and again and again, the wind whips up, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees it as Sam staggers determinedly towards them, covered in dirt and looking scraped raw as he nearly gets bowled over by the storm. “Dean, stop it!” he shouts, when he sees Dean wailing on Cas, the weakened angel’s blood (and some of his own) plainly visible on his bruised knuckles.
“You fucking idiot,” Dean shouts, ignoring Sam because right now his chest too tight and his whole world is too red, “I was never worth this. I won’t ever be worth this! When will you get that?! I keep telling you, Cas, but you never freaking listen!”
“Dean!” Sam shouts again, but Dean barely hears him, doling out his share of wrath on Castiel’s body as his vision melts into a white hot blur of angry disbelief and the tornado around them seems to increase in size and velocity with each landed blow.
The vial containing Castiel’s grace dangles between them, its own pleas as unheard as Sam’s, and finally, after much struggling, Sam manages to reach his brother and tries to haul him up by the arms while Castiel, dazed and bruised, sits up groggily in the dirt.
Dean is in some sort of mindless rage, because even as he hears Sam’s voice he doesn’t compute the words being used on him; all he wants is to lunge at Cas again and make him see how wrong he is about everything. How much it isn’t okay for Cas-a freaking angel-to keep throwing himself into the mud again and again for his sake.
It’s too much weight. It’s too unfair. He never asked for it.
And so Dean struggles out of Sam’s grip, sending his brother stumbling backwards, and Dean is too focused on getting his hands around Cas’s neck to choke him that he doesn’t notice it when the demon killing knife gets picked up in the winds this time, a lot like his gun had earlier.
Except instead of getting flung at a dead tree, it’s whipped right at Sam.
Dean might not see it right away, but Cas does, and even as the grace around Dean’s neck flares as bright as a tiny sun for a moment, the angel isn’t paying attention because he’s too busy ducking under Dean’s enraged grasp and diving at Sam.
A burst of light follows, and for a moment, it looks like the heavens are raining clouds of sand as the storm ceases, much more abruptly than it had begun.
Dean feels the anger from moments before evaporate with the wind.
“Dean!” Sam shouts a moment later, voice finally cutting through the cloudy haze of adrenaline in Dean’s veins despite how hoarse it must be from the inch of sand coating his throat. “Dean, get the first aid kit!”
Dean turns around, blinking blearily at the sight of Cas lying on his back facing sky. The angry lines that had been around the angel’s eyes are gone now, probably because he’s gritting his teeth through the pain of having a knife embedded into his shoulder while trying to reach for something tiny and bright, like a firefly hovering right above his head.
“Sam?” Dean manages, and sees his brother on the ground close by, looking kind of stunned but ultimately grateful.
“I’m okay,” Sam answers reflexively, though his eyes are trained on Castiel. “But Cas…”
Before Sam can finish, the firefly-shaped thing stops hovering and shoots right into Cas’s chest.
Cas shouts and Dean instinctively shuts his eyes as the ground starts to rumble again, clamping a hand around the vial of Castiel’s grace as it writhes and shudders against his skin as if it’s been shot.
When he opens his eyes again, Cas is sitting up now, knife still in his shoulder, breathing hard. Dean is at his side before he knows what’s happening. “Cas?!”
“I have the shard,” the angel breathes, though his voice sounds strained and he looks like he can barely stay vertical.
Dean scrambles over the distance between them looks him over carefully as he catches his breath again, hand reaching out to steady Cas even though it feels like he won’t fall, like he’s sturdy enough to sit up and stand up on his own. “You uh, you okay?” Dean asks after a breath, because he doesn’t know what else to say in the face of what has already been said. The knife wound in Cas’s shoulder is oozing, but the blood doesn’t seem to be spreading, and Cas is still conscious, which is a step up from how he’d been after the first piece.
“I feel stronger,” Cas intones, and slowly, gingerly, stands up under his own power. He reaches into his shoulder and pulls out Ruby’s knife with only a bit of a groan.
Behind them, Sam finally scrambles to his feet again, looking alternately guilty and anxious. “Thanks, Cas,” he manages after a beat, as Cas winces a little, flexing his wounded shoulder. At least it already looks like it’s stopped bleeding.
Dean clears his throat as he stares at the wound, the red blood staining Jimmy’s white dress shirt not for the first time. “Yeah,” he manages eventually, voice thick. “Thanks, Cas.”
Castiel just studies him for a moment, before stepping forward, so that he’s nose to nose with Dean again. Dean half expects to get punched. But instead, Cas just looks at him, in the same way he had that first year they’d known each other, kind of alien, but with complete focus. “I hope you can at least understand,” the angel begins, voice barely above a whisper, “that your willingness to give up everything-your morals, your life, your soul- for Sam is exactly what I feel for you, Dean. Even if I forget everything else you have taught me, I will not forget that. And I will not let myself think that you are not worth this.” That said, he presses the demon killing knife back into Dean’s hands and steps away, limping back to the car and leaving the two Winchesters alone in the desert with the aftermath of Heaven’s wrath.
Dean eyes Sam, relieved that he’s alive and knowing that if it hadn’t been for Cas, Sam might not be right now. Same with Cas pulling Sam out of Hell, come to think of it. The way things got done was weird, but in the end, he realizes that even when it isn’t perfect, even if they get angry with each other and have knock down drag out fights over the stupid shit they’ve both pulled, when it gets right down to it, he and Cas have always been able to get over their issues in light of more important things. One of which Dean is looking at right now. “You sure you’re okay, Sammy?” he asks, by rote.
Sam frowns at him. “Yeah. I mean, except for inhaling a pound of sand, I guess.”
Dean nods and follows Cas back to the car, which the angel is standing patiently in front of, looking northeast as he clutches gingerly at the wound in his shoulder with his hand. “I believe,” he begins without prompting, when Dean comes to a stop at his side, “That the next piece is that way.”
“Homing powers getting a better range, then?” Dean grunts, rubbing sorely at his split knuckles. When he studies the angel he thinks he looks a little disoriented still, like he’s still gauging the extent of the sudden energy implant his two pieces of archangel grace are providing. “I guess this means the signal’s been boosted.”
“Yes,” Cas answers. “I can sense the other pieces of this grace trying to find one another. They wish to be whole.” He looks down at his own chest, as if he can see the grace in there. Maybe he can. “We should leave immediately,” he concludes.
“Woah,” Dean murmurs. “Maybe we should take a day or two, let you find your legs again. You look like shit, man.” A fluttering from just over Dean’s heart suggests that Cas’s grace agrees with him.
“I am weary, but my constitution is significantly improved now from what it has been,” Castiel assures him. “We can go as soon as you and Sam have removed your belongings from the motel. I can recuperate just as well in the car as there.” He turns and wordlessly slides into the backseat of the Impala, looking a little bit expectant and a lot impatient. It reminds Dean of save-the-seals Cas in a way, all business and entitlement. The reminder isn’t exactly a good one, to be honest. Mostly it just reminds Dean of how annoying the angel had been back then, though he doesn’t have the energy to fight Cas on it this time around.
Wordlessly, he tucks Cas’s grace back under his shirt and gets into the driver’s seat.
Cas ends up falling fast asleep five minutes into the drive.
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