Supernatural/Stonehenge Apocalypse Fic - Super Special Doomsday Cult #15
Title: Super Special Doomsday Cult #15
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3360
Spoilers: Through 5.22 Swan Song; all of Stonehenge Apocalypse
Pairings: Background Dean/Cas, Dean/Jacob UST (brb loling forever)
Notes: Oh look, a Stonehenge Apocalypse crossover employing some rather overused tropes. Also contains mentions of robot heads. You've been warned.
Summary: Dr. Jacob Glaser wakes up completely naked with two rather large men looming over him. He really misses his quiet life of late-night conspiracy radio shows.
--
Jacob Glaser doesn't wake up so much as begin to exist again. One minute he's being enveloped in more energy than anyone's ever seen this side of a nuclear missile, and the next he's lying in a bed completely naked and two really large men are looming over him with rather frightening expressions on their faces. Which, the looming and the fuck-you-up expressions? Yeah, he's had enough of those lately.
He really misses his quiet life of late-night conspiracy radio shows.
--
This is what happens in the time between Stonehenge going haywire and Jacob Glaser regaining consciousness in a motel room in New Hampshire:
Dean Winchester is pissy as hell because his angel has gone missing. His brother Sam is forced to deal with it, which he does with progressively less grace as the days turn to weeks. By the time Stonehenge blows up half a dozen people, they're both starting to fear that maybe Castiel is in serious trouble. (Neither of them dare to bring up the word "dead" to each other.) It's been an uncharacteristically long radio silence, especially since Cas has tended to keep in closer contact ever since he and Dean had finally finally jumped each others' bones after a particularly harrowing hunt.
Sam is watching the news when they start talking about Stonehenge being closed to the public. This is hardly pressing information and he and Dean go out for food and don't really think about it. Then they get embroiled in hunting a rather nasty spirit and don't come up for air for several days. Dean loses his cell in the lake he's dragged into, and Sam's is crushed to death when he's thrown into a wall hard enough for him to see stars. When they do return to civilization, it's to find that several ancient landmarks have apparently exploded, an entire region of the world has been wiped off the map, and evidently Stonehenge was to blame.
Not for the first time, the Winchesters are really glad they aren't British hunters.
When they finally hear about the, uh, pyramid appearing in Maine a couple days before, they decide it's worth checking out. It all seems rather suspiciously apocalyptic, after all. Maybe not like the apocalypse they'd just been through (there seemed to be a distinct lack of pits and heavy-handed brother parallels, for example), but the whole thing definitely had a tang of angelic douchery to it.
They sneak onto the premises with a couple of black suits and a quick flash of some FBI badges, and then they get to poking things with sticks. It's pretty fucking weird, and although some of the symbols definitely look like Enochian, a lot of them definitely don't.
Then, of course, they find Cas in the woods. Well, somebody who looks like Cas, but has a couple of ugly gunshot wounds on him and is entirely naked, crumpled over on himself under a shrub. He looks small and really kinda vulnerable like that, which if you know Castiel, you know is really disconcerting. And for a minute, they're sure he's dead because, uh, naked and shot all to hell and not moving. Dean promptly wigs the fuck out and pulls the poor bastard out from under the shrub, and his skin's all cold and clammy and his wounds are gummy with clotted blood, and it looks like the end of Castiel, Angel of the Lord.
Then the guy makes this noise when a hand hits the hole in his leg, this mewl of utter misery, and Dean acts like it's the greatest thing he's ever heard. It's pretty hard to sneak a unconscious naked guy away from a site closed off by the military, but the Winchesters always seem to have a special kind of luck, and somehow they make it back to the car.
They drive straight outta the state, then stop and clean the guy up and dress his wounds and put him to bed.
Then, of course, he wakes up a couple days later and he's not Castiel.
--
"Why am I naked?" is the first thing that comes out of Jacob's mouth. Which is stupid, because he'd meant to say "what happened and where am I?," but, y'know, whatever.
"We were hoping you could tell us that," the taller one says.
"Jesus, Cas, where have you been? We were starting to get worried," the shorter one adds.
"Cas?" Jacob echoes wearily.
The two dudes exchange oh shit looks. "Castiel," the taller one says gently, "you remember who you are, right?"
"Um, yes, freakshow. I'm Dr. Jacob Glaser and I'm pretty sure I just stopped the damn apocalypse, so I would really like to know why I am naked in a motel room with two guys I don't know." Jacob's also pretty sure he's losing his tenuous hold on consciousness, though. He's already thinking sleep sounds pretty awesome again.
"Look," the shorter one say, getting all up in his face, looking half-pissed and half-terrified, "you're Castiel, and you're an angel of the Lord." Almost as an afterthought, he tacks on, "Or you're Jimmy Novak, but probably not at this point."
"Bullshit," Jacob snorts. "Angels don't exist." And he's sure the shorter one's about to make a retort, but he takes this moment to pass back out.
--
The next time Jacob wakes up, the dudes are ready for him. The tall one is folded into a chair by the ugly little desk, laptop open in front of him. The only-slightly-less-tall one is perched on the end of Jacob's bed looking more dangerous than should be allowed by law.
"So," the tall one says, "I'm Sam, this is Dean. You don't know us?"
"Nope," Jacob replies, finding himself in a glaring contest with Really Large Man #2, recently identified as Dean.
Sam sighs. "All right. And do you still think you're Dr. Jacob Glaser?"
"Think? I am him, thanks!" He goes to get up, but Dean throws an unmovable arm across his legs and Jacob finds himself pinned. His life is getting worse and worse. Shot, blown up, and now kidnapped by Thing One and Thing Two for reasons unknown. The things he got into during his pursuit for the real story, honestly.
"We did a little checking up on you while you were out," Dean growls, and holy fuck his voice sounds like he swallowed a really pissed tiger. Jacob almost wants to ask if it hurts, talking like that, but then again these two look like the types that shoot people in the face, so maybe not. "You're some kinda crackpot, huh? Energy paths, key points, government conspiracies about aliens on the moon?"
"Jesus christ, don't you people ever read the article? It was a robot head," Jacob growls right back. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. How many times in the past week has he had to defend this particular piece of investigation? Ugh, normals.
"Whatever," Dean snarls. "Well, you don't actually exist. Oh, you've got the paperwork and the references and search engine results, but dig any deeper than that and there is no Jacob Glaser."
"That's not possible," Jacob replies testily.
Dean smirks. "Sorry, buddy-boy, but you're a fake."
"You're wrong," Jacob hisses, because this is just too much. "I have my house and my radio show and half a dozen pieces of international identification. I have a mother who lives in Virginia who makes the best damn blueberry crumble in the world. I have an entire life. You can't tell me I don't exist."
Sam shoots him this look that he thinks is supposed to be sympathetic. "What was your high school mascot?"
"I. Uh," Jacob stutters. He seriously cannot recall.
"What was the first phone number you learned?" Sam continues.
The earliest phone number Jacob remembers is for his own cell phone, followed by the caller number he uses for the show. He doesn't even know the number for his mother in Virginia.
"Have any pets growing up?" Dean asks. "What about girlfriends? Who was your first crush?"
"Enough!" Jacob barks. "I just survived a power pulse that should've killed anybody, and you're expecting me to remember trivialities?"
"That's pretty much our point," Sam says. "How did you survive that?"
"It's because you're an angel. An angel that's apparently been angel-whammied," Dean explains in a tone of voice like this is supposed to make even a lick of sense.
Jacob massages his temples. He's deciding he really hates these two.
--
They sneak back to the pyramid the next night, after giving Jacob some of Dean's old clothes and having a rather lengthy argument about whether or not Jacob could heal his gunshot wounds if he "tried hard enough." Jacob claimed that he didn't believe in that self-healing pseudoscience crap, Dean insisted that angels could heal themselves, Jacob declared it a moot point then because he's a fucking human, thanks. Sam had just ignored them and calmly packed a duffel with more weapons than Jacob had ever seen in his life. It wasn't comforting.
So they creep back into the pyramid, looking for any clues whatsoever as to what had happened there. Sam and Dean are convinced it's something supernatural, and keep bandying around the word "angels." This is bull and Jacob knows it, but he's actually secretly glad to be back without the deadline of the end of the world looming and is looking forward to investigating. For some reason the other two are perfectly all right with this, as if they think he's some sort of expert. Which, okay, he is, but not in the way they seem to expect him to be. When he finally gets his chance to take a closer look at the symbols carved painstakingly into the walls, though, he mutters a shocked profanity.
"What's up?" Sam asks, peering over his shoulder.
"I don't know, it's like..." Jacob murmurs, running a finger over the symbols. "It's like, if I concentrate, I can read this."
"Because you're a fucking angel," Dean mutters. Jacob doesn't dignify this with a reaction.
"What does it say?" Sam presses, really trying to be the voice of reason here.
Jacob huffs irritatedly. "Something about a cage, I think? A lake of fire, too. A testing-stone, and unleashing." He rocks back onto his heels and whirls to face the other two. He prods at Dean's chest with a snarl, "What is this? Some sort of pseudo-religious crap? This is not the Book of Revelation, we don't have beasts with seven heads and ten horns running around, understand? I am a scientist and I do not appreciate being pulled into your crazy doomsday cult. I've already reached my quota for the month."
Dean quirks an eyebrow. "Remember that beam of light in Maryland last spring? How it leveled that convent? What do you think that was?"
Jacob scrunches his nose. "An electromagnetic pulse. One of the strongest naturally-occurring ones we've ever seen. It's what helped spawn Joseph's theories of--"
"Nope," Dean smirks, popping the 'p' at the end of the word with a mean sort of glee. "That was Lucifer himself rising from Hell. You know how I know? I was there." He's leaning into Jacob's space now, using his superior height to impose himself on the good doctor.
"That's insane," Jacob counters, but it's without much heat. He's starting to get really concerned about his own safety here. As he sees it, there's only two ways this ends. In Outcome One, these men are absolutely fucknuts and they use their very impressive weapons collection to finish the job Stonehenge started. In the Outcome Two, they're right and apparently Satan himself actually exists and Jacob'll probably get axed anyway.
But Jacob's not exactly the type to be easily cowed, so he doesn't back away into the wall like he kinda wants to. Instead, he stands his ground against Dean, tries to look as defiant and unkillable as possible. Dean looks him up and down and snorts.
That's when Jacob notices how close they're actually standing. Their chests are nearly touching with each breath they take. Weird thing is that Dean--who Jacob'd pegged as one of those hypersensitively macho dudes--seems to have no issue with it whatsoever. And suddenly he has to add Outcome Three to the equation, and Outcome Three has a lot of skin and sweat and lips and other things that Jacob is suddenly finding it really easy to imagine. Frighteningly easy. The images seem more real than even his mom's house in Virginia, and how fucked up is that? Sorry Ma, but this gay porno playing out in my head seems to have overwritten your phone number.
Dean apparently is thinking something pretty similar, because there's definitely a predatory look crossing his features. His head dips a little, a small aborted movement, but it's enough to send Jacob's mind whirling into speed of descent and angle of contact and pounds-per-inch pressure and a hundred other things that he really wished he wasn't nerdy enough to consider when sex was on the line.
Sam coughs uncomfortably behind them and totally kills the moment. Jacob remembers hey, psychopathic cultist probably-murderers and steps away quickly and Dean growls and stalks back to the middle of the passageway.
Well that was an uncomfortable experience.
--
Three hours later Sam and Dean are sitting against a wall, looking tired and bored. Jacob is still tracing his fingers over symbols, only understanding one out of every few, feeling like someone who never did the homework for foreign language class suddenly handed a final with a huge translation section. This is very frustrating, because Dr. Jacob Glaser always did the homework.
There's something interesting here, though. Something was supposed to happen that didn't, and now it's like the pyramid is just waiting. Jacob keeps reading the symbols for hand and hold and reseal and binding-altar. (Binding-altar is such a weird thing to recognize, by the way. Like, okay, hand. Fine, that's a common enough word. But binding-altar? What the fuck, why can he read that but not that half of these other symbols?)
He walks down the passageway, reading with his fingertips as he goes. The message goes something like this: if blah wish blah reseal the cage blah blah blah stop blah ritual and then blah blah hold hand upon the binding-altar.
In the next room, he pauses. There's a large upright stone in the middle, with an indentation in the middle that appears to be suspiciously hand-sized. "Well," Jacob grouses, not liking the looks of this at all. "I'm gonna bet you're a binding-altar."
"Dude, what're you doing?" Dean calls, poking his head around the corner.
Sam's voice overlaps Dean's when he yelps, "No, don't touch that!"
Unfortunately for Jacob, his fingers were already grazing the rough stone when Sam decided to give this warning. Which, isn't that always the way? Nobody ever gives the really important warnings well in advance. No, it's always a split-second too late. What bullshit.
Anyway, the world explodes.
Or maybe just Jacob does.
Then he's screaming, because it's too much, way way too much, it feels like everything's on fire, like his fucking brain is on fire, similar to the column of energy at Stonehenge and yet somehow different, like this time it's changing him instead of just killing him. One of the last things he sees is Sam and Dean with their eyes covered, running for the exit, Sam pulling Dean along despite the other's shouted protests. Then the pyramid starts crumbling down, shaking itself apart with the power being funneled into him, and it's still way too much--
--
Sam and Dean watch aghast as the entire pyramid creaks and groans, sinking back into the earth. This is just too fucking weird.
Then it's gone, sunk back into the depths like it never existed, and a lone figure is left standing in the empty field.
"Oh, hm," Castiel says. "Apparently I am an angel."
Dean lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. (A normal Christmas tree, obviously. Not a Winchester Christmas tree, which--the one year they attempted it--ended up possessed by a dryad anyway.) "Cas?"
Castiel pauses for a minute, his hands clenching and unclenching in a way that Dean's like ninety-five percent sure mean's he's flexing his big scary invisible wings, then nods. "It seems so." His mouth quirks in this little half-smile that's definitely new.
"Oh thank god," Sam sighs as he and Dean cross the distance to the angel. "Dean's been insufferable for weeks, all Cas-this and Cas-that, and your little experiment with amnesia did not help. Can you just, like, hump each other and get it over with so we can put this behind us?"
Dean scowls and flips him a finger, and Castiel looks no less unimpressed.
What actually follows is rather a lot of exposition. It's a lot of explanation and by the end Sam's head hurts and Dean's pretty much lost, so here's the Cliff Notes version:
Cas, who had heretofore been doing rather a good job of keeping Heaven under control, apparently hadn't cottoned onto a fringe group dedicated to releasing Michael from the Cage. While Castiel had been preoccupied taking care of a near-revolt instigated by a group of deceased hunters, they'd set a plan to unlock an ancient back door to Lucifer's cage in motion. It wasn't nearly as simple or clean as the whole "two brothers of ultimate destiny" plan, but hey. It involved the activation of several key points around the world and the transference of a hell of a lot of angelic energy. If all went according to plan, these places should explode, breaking the charmed lynchpins of the Cage.
Of course, there was no way this was gonna happen while Castiel was still actively quelling mutiny, so several of the more brutish angels jumped him as he was taking a corporeal body. Next thing you know, the world's minus one Castiel but plus one Dr. Jacob Glaser, which the angels figured would be a safe enough identity to create for their deposed leader. Unfortunately, they forgot to take into account that Castiel is one stubborn, sneaky bastard, even in a whammied-to-think-he's-human state. Cue serious wrenches in their works courtesy of the most annoying angel-turned-scientist-turned-crackpot ever, culminating in said angelic crackpot absorbing all of the energy meant to break the final lynchpin and getting himself zapped straight to the Cage's Back Door in Maine, corporeally a little worse for the wear but successfully not-dead.
And then of course there'd been the adventures with Sam and Dean, and the resealing of the Cage when he'd inadvertently followed the proper ritual, the power of which jump-started his angelic mojo and wiped the effects of the whammy. Which was really quite convenient, considering, but awesomely convenient things like that seemed to happen to them on a fairly regular basis, so okay.
"So even human you managed to stop an apocalypse," Dean beams at him, after the story's over. "You're pretty badass, dude."
"Thank you," Castiel says. "I beat a man in the face with a priceless artifact. I think you would have been proud."
Dean grimaces, but from the way he bounces on the balls of his feet it's pretty evident he finds this bit of information totally awesome. Dean is all for improvised weaponry and face-smashing.
Sam claps Castiel on the arm and says, "We're all very proud. Mutual proudness. Now can we get out of here? That giant pyramid just disappeared into nothingness and I'm pretty sure this place is gonna be swarming with people any minute now."
While they're hightailing it outta there, though, Dean takes the opportunity to bump shoulders with Cas and grin. "You did good, y'know. Especially trapped as a guy who thought there were aliens on the moon."
Cas suddenly stops short, frowning deeply. "It was a robot head," he says, utterly serious.
"What," Dean asks flatly, swinging around to face the angel.
"It was a robot head. There is photographic proof of a vast government cover-up--"
"Whyyy are we not runniiiing?" Sam calls back irritatedly from some distance ahead, and red and blue lights can be seen flashing dimly on the horizon.
Cas glares at Dean until he relents with a rushed "okay, okay! Not aliens! Let's move!"
They start jogging again, but Castiel levels a look at Dean that says this conversation is far from over.
Which, great. Fantastic. Absolutely fucking peachy.
...there goes whatever hope Dean'd had for awesome welcome-back sex.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3360
Spoilers: Through 5.22 Swan Song; all of Stonehenge Apocalypse
Pairings: Background Dean/Cas, Dean/Jacob UST (brb loling forever)
Notes: Oh look, a Stonehenge Apocalypse crossover employing some rather overused tropes. Also contains mentions of robot heads. You've been warned.
Summary: Dr. Jacob Glaser wakes up completely naked with two rather large men looming over him. He really misses his quiet life of late-night conspiracy radio shows.
--
Jacob Glaser doesn't wake up so much as begin to exist again. One minute he's being enveloped in more energy than anyone's ever seen this side of a nuclear missile, and the next he's lying in a bed completely naked and two really large men are looming over him with rather frightening expressions on their faces. Which, the looming and the fuck-you-up expressions? Yeah, he's had enough of those lately.
He really misses his quiet life of late-night conspiracy radio shows.
--
This is what happens in the time between Stonehenge going haywire and Jacob Glaser regaining consciousness in a motel room in New Hampshire:
Dean Winchester is pissy as hell because his angel has gone missing. His brother Sam is forced to deal with it, which he does with progressively less grace as the days turn to weeks. By the time Stonehenge blows up half a dozen people, they're both starting to fear that maybe Castiel is in serious trouble. (Neither of them dare to bring up the word "dead" to each other.) It's been an uncharacteristically long radio silence, especially since Cas has tended to keep in closer contact ever since he and Dean had finally finally jumped each others' bones after a particularly harrowing hunt.
Sam is watching the news when they start talking about Stonehenge being closed to the public. This is hardly pressing information and he and Dean go out for food and don't really think about it. Then they get embroiled in hunting a rather nasty spirit and don't come up for air for several days. Dean loses his cell in the lake he's dragged into, and Sam's is crushed to death when he's thrown into a wall hard enough for him to see stars. When they do return to civilization, it's to find that several ancient landmarks have apparently exploded, an entire region of the world has been wiped off the map, and evidently Stonehenge was to blame.
Not for the first time, the Winchesters are really glad they aren't British hunters.
When they finally hear about the, uh, pyramid appearing in Maine a couple days before, they decide it's worth checking out. It all seems rather suspiciously apocalyptic, after all. Maybe not like the apocalypse they'd just been through (there seemed to be a distinct lack of pits and heavy-handed brother parallels, for example), but the whole thing definitely had a tang of angelic douchery to it.
They sneak onto the premises with a couple of black suits and a quick flash of some FBI badges, and then they get to poking things with sticks. It's pretty fucking weird, and although some of the symbols definitely look like Enochian, a lot of them definitely don't.
Then, of course, they find Cas in the woods. Well, somebody who looks like Cas, but has a couple of ugly gunshot wounds on him and is entirely naked, crumpled over on himself under a shrub. He looks small and really kinda vulnerable like that, which if you know Castiel, you know is really disconcerting. And for a minute, they're sure he's dead because, uh, naked and shot all to hell and not moving. Dean promptly wigs the fuck out and pulls the poor bastard out from under the shrub, and his skin's all cold and clammy and his wounds are gummy with clotted blood, and it looks like the end of Castiel, Angel of the Lord.
Then the guy makes this noise when a hand hits the hole in his leg, this mewl of utter misery, and Dean acts like it's the greatest thing he's ever heard. It's pretty hard to sneak a unconscious naked guy away from a site closed off by the military, but the Winchesters always seem to have a special kind of luck, and somehow they make it back to the car.
They drive straight outta the state, then stop and clean the guy up and dress his wounds and put him to bed.
Then, of course, he wakes up a couple days later and he's not Castiel.
--
"Why am I naked?" is the first thing that comes out of Jacob's mouth. Which is stupid, because he'd meant to say "what happened and where am I?," but, y'know, whatever.
"We were hoping you could tell us that," the taller one says.
"Jesus, Cas, where have you been? We were starting to get worried," the shorter one adds.
"Cas?" Jacob echoes wearily.
The two dudes exchange oh shit looks. "Castiel," the taller one says gently, "you remember who you are, right?"
"Um, yes, freakshow. I'm Dr. Jacob Glaser and I'm pretty sure I just stopped the damn apocalypse, so I would really like to know why I am naked in a motel room with two guys I don't know." Jacob's also pretty sure he's losing his tenuous hold on consciousness, though. He's already thinking sleep sounds pretty awesome again.
"Look," the shorter one say, getting all up in his face, looking half-pissed and half-terrified, "you're Castiel, and you're an angel of the Lord." Almost as an afterthought, he tacks on, "Or you're Jimmy Novak, but probably not at this point."
"Bullshit," Jacob snorts. "Angels don't exist." And he's sure the shorter one's about to make a retort, but he takes this moment to pass back out.
--
The next time Jacob wakes up, the dudes are ready for him. The tall one is folded into a chair by the ugly little desk, laptop open in front of him. The only-slightly-less-tall one is perched on the end of Jacob's bed looking more dangerous than should be allowed by law.
"So," the tall one says, "I'm Sam, this is Dean. You don't know us?"
"Nope," Jacob replies, finding himself in a glaring contest with Really Large Man #2, recently identified as Dean.
Sam sighs. "All right. And do you still think you're Dr. Jacob Glaser?"
"Think? I am him, thanks!" He goes to get up, but Dean throws an unmovable arm across his legs and Jacob finds himself pinned. His life is getting worse and worse. Shot, blown up, and now kidnapped by Thing One and Thing Two for reasons unknown. The things he got into during his pursuit for the real story, honestly.
"We did a little checking up on you while you were out," Dean growls, and holy fuck his voice sounds like he swallowed a really pissed tiger. Jacob almost wants to ask if it hurts, talking like that, but then again these two look like the types that shoot people in the face, so maybe not. "You're some kinda crackpot, huh? Energy paths, key points, government conspiracies about aliens on the moon?"
"Jesus christ, don't you people ever read the article? It was a robot head," Jacob growls right back. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. How many times in the past week has he had to defend this particular piece of investigation? Ugh, normals.
"Whatever," Dean snarls. "Well, you don't actually exist. Oh, you've got the paperwork and the references and search engine results, but dig any deeper than that and there is no Jacob Glaser."
"That's not possible," Jacob replies testily.
Dean smirks. "Sorry, buddy-boy, but you're a fake."
"You're wrong," Jacob hisses, because this is just too much. "I have my house and my radio show and half a dozen pieces of international identification. I have a mother who lives in Virginia who makes the best damn blueberry crumble in the world. I have an entire life. You can't tell me I don't exist."
Sam shoots him this look that he thinks is supposed to be sympathetic. "What was your high school mascot?"
"I. Uh," Jacob stutters. He seriously cannot recall.
"What was the first phone number you learned?" Sam continues.
The earliest phone number Jacob remembers is for his own cell phone, followed by the caller number he uses for the show. He doesn't even know the number for his mother in Virginia.
"Have any pets growing up?" Dean asks. "What about girlfriends? Who was your first crush?"
"Enough!" Jacob barks. "I just survived a power pulse that should've killed anybody, and you're expecting me to remember trivialities?"
"That's pretty much our point," Sam says. "How did you survive that?"
"It's because you're an angel. An angel that's apparently been angel-whammied," Dean explains in a tone of voice like this is supposed to make even a lick of sense.
Jacob massages his temples. He's deciding he really hates these two.
--
They sneak back to the pyramid the next night, after giving Jacob some of Dean's old clothes and having a rather lengthy argument about whether or not Jacob could heal his gunshot wounds if he "tried hard enough." Jacob claimed that he didn't believe in that self-healing pseudoscience crap, Dean insisted that angels could heal themselves, Jacob declared it a moot point then because he's a fucking human, thanks. Sam had just ignored them and calmly packed a duffel with more weapons than Jacob had ever seen in his life. It wasn't comforting.
So they creep back into the pyramid, looking for any clues whatsoever as to what had happened there. Sam and Dean are convinced it's something supernatural, and keep bandying around the word "angels." This is bull and Jacob knows it, but he's actually secretly glad to be back without the deadline of the end of the world looming and is looking forward to investigating. For some reason the other two are perfectly all right with this, as if they think he's some sort of expert. Which, okay, he is, but not in the way they seem to expect him to be. When he finally gets his chance to take a closer look at the symbols carved painstakingly into the walls, though, he mutters a shocked profanity.
"What's up?" Sam asks, peering over his shoulder.
"I don't know, it's like..." Jacob murmurs, running a finger over the symbols. "It's like, if I concentrate, I can read this."
"Because you're a fucking angel," Dean mutters. Jacob doesn't dignify this with a reaction.
"What does it say?" Sam presses, really trying to be the voice of reason here.
Jacob huffs irritatedly. "Something about a cage, I think? A lake of fire, too. A testing-stone, and unleashing." He rocks back onto his heels and whirls to face the other two. He prods at Dean's chest with a snarl, "What is this? Some sort of pseudo-religious crap? This is not the Book of Revelation, we don't have beasts with seven heads and ten horns running around, understand? I am a scientist and I do not appreciate being pulled into your crazy doomsday cult. I've already reached my quota for the month."
Dean quirks an eyebrow. "Remember that beam of light in Maryland last spring? How it leveled that convent? What do you think that was?"
Jacob scrunches his nose. "An electromagnetic pulse. One of the strongest naturally-occurring ones we've ever seen. It's what helped spawn Joseph's theories of--"
"Nope," Dean smirks, popping the 'p' at the end of the word with a mean sort of glee. "That was Lucifer himself rising from Hell. You know how I know? I was there." He's leaning into Jacob's space now, using his superior height to impose himself on the good doctor.
"That's insane," Jacob counters, but it's without much heat. He's starting to get really concerned about his own safety here. As he sees it, there's only two ways this ends. In Outcome One, these men are absolutely fucknuts and they use their very impressive weapons collection to finish the job Stonehenge started. In the Outcome Two, they're right and apparently Satan himself actually exists and Jacob'll probably get axed anyway.
But Jacob's not exactly the type to be easily cowed, so he doesn't back away into the wall like he kinda wants to. Instead, he stands his ground against Dean, tries to look as defiant and unkillable as possible. Dean looks him up and down and snorts.
That's when Jacob notices how close they're actually standing. Their chests are nearly touching with each breath they take. Weird thing is that Dean--who Jacob'd pegged as one of those hypersensitively macho dudes--seems to have no issue with it whatsoever. And suddenly he has to add Outcome Three to the equation, and Outcome Three has a lot of skin and sweat and lips and other things that Jacob is suddenly finding it really easy to imagine. Frighteningly easy. The images seem more real than even his mom's house in Virginia, and how fucked up is that? Sorry Ma, but this gay porno playing out in my head seems to have overwritten your phone number.
Dean apparently is thinking something pretty similar, because there's definitely a predatory look crossing his features. His head dips a little, a small aborted movement, but it's enough to send Jacob's mind whirling into speed of descent and angle of contact and pounds-per-inch pressure and a hundred other things that he really wished he wasn't nerdy enough to consider when sex was on the line.
Sam coughs uncomfortably behind them and totally kills the moment. Jacob remembers hey, psychopathic cultist probably-murderers and steps away quickly and Dean growls and stalks back to the middle of the passageway.
Well that was an uncomfortable experience.
--
Three hours later Sam and Dean are sitting against a wall, looking tired and bored. Jacob is still tracing his fingers over symbols, only understanding one out of every few, feeling like someone who never did the homework for foreign language class suddenly handed a final with a huge translation section. This is very frustrating, because Dr. Jacob Glaser always did the homework.
There's something interesting here, though. Something was supposed to happen that didn't, and now it's like the pyramid is just waiting. Jacob keeps reading the symbols for hand and hold and reseal and binding-altar. (Binding-altar is such a weird thing to recognize, by the way. Like, okay, hand. Fine, that's a common enough word. But binding-altar? What the fuck, why can he read that but not that half of these other symbols?)
He walks down the passageway, reading with his fingertips as he goes. The message goes something like this: if blah wish blah reseal the cage blah blah blah stop blah ritual and then blah blah hold hand upon the binding-altar.
In the next room, he pauses. There's a large upright stone in the middle, with an indentation in the middle that appears to be suspiciously hand-sized. "Well," Jacob grouses, not liking the looks of this at all. "I'm gonna bet you're a binding-altar."
"Dude, what're you doing?" Dean calls, poking his head around the corner.
Sam's voice overlaps Dean's when he yelps, "No, don't touch that!"
Unfortunately for Jacob, his fingers were already grazing the rough stone when Sam decided to give this warning. Which, isn't that always the way? Nobody ever gives the really important warnings well in advance. No, it's always a split-second too late. What bullshit.
Anyway, the world explodes.
Or maybe just Jacob does.
Then he's screaming, because it's too much, way way too much, it feels like everything's on fire, like his fucking brain is on fire, similar to the column of energy at Stonehenge and yet somehow different, like this time it's changing him instead of just killing him. One of the last things he sees is Sam and Dean with their eyes covered, running for the exit, Sam pulling Dean along despite the other's shouted protests. Then the pyramid starts crumbling down, shaking itself apart with the power being funneled into him, and it's still way too much--
--
Sam and Dean watch aghast as the entire pyramid creaks and groans, sinking back into the earth. This is just too fucking weird.
Then it's gone, sunk back into the depths like it never existed, and a lone figure is left standing in the empty field.
"Oh, hm," Castiel says. "Apparently I am an angel."
Dean lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. (A normal Christmas tree, obviously. Not a Winchester Christmas tree, which--the one year they attempted it--ended up possessed by a dryad anyway.) "Cas?"
Castiel pauses for a minute, his hands clenching and unclenching in a way that Dean's like ninety-five percent sure mean's he's flexing his big scary invisible wings, then nods. "It seems so." His mouth quirks in this little half-smile that's definitely new.
"Oh thank god," Sam sighs as he and Dean cross the distance to the angel. "Dean's been insufferable for weeks, all Cas-this and Cas-that, and your little experiment with amnesia did not help. Can you just, like, hump each other and get it over with so we can put this behind us?"
Dean scowls and flips him a finger, and Castiel looks no less unimpressed.
What actually follows is rather a lot of exposition. It's a lot of explanation and by the end Sam's head hurts and Dean's pretty much lost, so here's the Cliff Notes version:
Cas, who had heretofore been doing rather a good job of keeping Heaven under control, apparently hadn't cottoned onto a fringe group dedicated to releasing Michael from the Cage. While Castiel had been preoccupied taking care of a near-revolt instigated by a group of deceased hunters, they'd set a plan to unlock an ancient back door to Lucifer's cage in motion. It wasn't nearly as simple or clean as the whole "two brothers of ultimate destiny" plan, but hey. It involved the activation of several key points around the world and the transference of a hell of a lot of angelic energy. If all went according to plan, these places should explode, breaking the charmed lynchpins of the Cage.
Of course, there was no way this was gonna happen while Castiel was still actively quelling mutiny, so several of the more brutish angels jumped him as he was taking a corporeal body. Next thing you know, the world's minus one Castiel but plus one Dr. Jacob Glaser, which the angels figured would be a safe enough identity to create for their deposed leader. Unfortunately, they forgot to take into account that Castiel is one stubborn, sneaky bastard, even in a whammied-to-think-he's-human state. Cue serious wrenches in their works courtesy of the most annoying angel-turned-scientist-turned-crackpot ever, culminating in said angelic crackpot absorbing all of the energy meant to break the final lynchpin and getting himself zapped straight to the Cage's Back Door in Maine, corporeally a little worse for the wear but successfully not-dead.
And then of course there'd been the adventures with Sam and Dean, and the resealing of the Cage when he'd inadvertently followed the proper ritual, the power of which jump-started his angelic mojo and wiped the effects of the whammy. Which was really quite convenient, considering, but awesomely convenient things like that seemed to happen to them on a fairly regular basis, so okay.
"So even human you managed to stop an apocalypse," Dean beams at him, after the story's over. "You're pretty badass, dude."
"Thank you," Castiel says. "I beat a man in the face with a priceless artifact. I think you would have been proud."
Dean grimaces, but from the way he bounces on the balls of his feet it's pretty evident he finds this bit of information totally awesome. Dean is all for improvised weaponry and face-smashing.
Sam claps Castiel on the arm and says, "We're all very proud. Mutual proudness. Now can we get out of here? That giant pyramid just disappeared into nothingness and I'm pretty sure this place is gonna be swarming with people any minute now."
While they're hightailing it outta there, though, Dean takes the opportunity to bump shoulders with Cas and grin. "You did good, y'know. Especially trapped as a guy who thought there were aliens on the moon."
Cas suddenly stops short, frowning deeply. "It was a robot head," he says, utterly serious.
"What," Dean asks flatly, swinging around to face the angel.
"It was a robot head. There is photographic proof of a vast government cover-up--"
"Whyyy are we not runniiiing?" Sam calls back irritatedly from some distance ahead, and red and blue lights can be seen flashing dimly on the horizon.
Cas glares at Dean until he relents with a rushed "okay, okay! Not aliens! Let's move!"
They start jogging again, but Castiel levels a look at Dean that says this conversation is far from over.
Which, great. Fantastic. Absolutely fucking peachy.
...there goes whatever hope Dean'd had for awesome welcome-back sex.