Beneath Every Layer of Skin - VI

[weareallpuppets]

“It's our only bet,” Bobby says to Jody as he throws a duffle bag into one of Rufus's old camper vans.

“I know, you're totally right, but do we have a plan at all? Do we even know where to head for specifically?”

“They said they were gonna make for a straight shot down the I-90, and try East Pennsylvania first, so that's what we're doing. We got the horn and a stupid hope the horn and Dean are all we need. We don't got Dean so we have to find Dean.”

“I know. I just... It seems like maybe we're walkin' into the same trap the boys did.”

“Sure. Except the trap's already been sprung. If there's one thing I've figured out over years of this apocalypse crap, it's that the big bad bastards only consider the biggest pieces on the board until the littler pieces bite them in the ass.”

“Sayin' we're pawns, Bobby?”

“Not exactly. But those devils and monsters and things think we are, so we use that. Have we hit a snag? It could be a trap, yeah, but I really don't think they even thought to consider the Winchesters' wouldn't be the ones to worry about.” Bobby smiles, tossing a case of water in the back. “They messed with my boys, so we're gonna give them hell.”

Jody matches his smile, albeit with worry tugging at the soft lines of her face. “I can see the legends now. An old drunk, a lost sheriff, and heaven's littlest angel, stopping the apocalypse. What number is this, three?” She softly kicks Bobby's boot.

“If only all the other apocalypses went this quickly,” Bobby jokes. “Next time I know to knock Dean and Sam out and do the work myself.”

“Hopefully, there will be no more,” Inias says, appearing behind Bobby with a flutter. Bobby jumps, hits his elbow on the van door, and swears. “When - if I get back to heaven, I will make sure of it.”

“Shit, you guys and your goddamned appearin',” Bobby grumbles.

“Do I really... need to ride in this...?” Inias asks, eying the van and seeming not to notice Bobby's rancor.

“Unless you know where to zap us, or where to fly over searchin', then yes.”

Inias frowns, like a child. “It seems so slow.”

Bobby pushes Inias into the backseat.




Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees a shadow in the fog, shaped like a stooping figure, seemingly blown huge in the approaching darkness of night. He's supposed to be searching for shelter - night in purgatory is no kinder alone than it was with Sam at his side, far less so - but he sees the drape of familiar coat, and Dean makes after it, approaching slowly, carefully. He readies his makeshift weapon, a bit of unwieldy pipe, though it's saved his life more than once. The second time he'd been cornered by hell hounds, after his brother had disappeared, he'd smashed in the head of the biggest, most mangled beast and broke through, though the slowly healing skin of his forearms will bear bite mark scars for the rest of his life, however long that may be. He wipes the grime and sweat from his face onto his already grimy sleeve, ready to call out to the figure, but he's startled when the shadow begins to run from him.

Cautiously, he follows, trying to keep his tread light and his breathing steady, but whatever he's following, be it his friend, or some memory less shell, or leviathans, is fast. Dean runs a bit faster through the streets. He turns the corner on some unmarked street and comes face to face with a lamppost. That is not strange in and of itself, for many litter the ruined landscape in mockery of a real town, but this is the first Dean's seen to still emit light.

Another springs to life in the fog, throwing the running shadow in huge relief, then another and another, in a long line stretching out of sight. Dean runs after him, aching legs protesting. He's been on the move constantly, since Sam disappeared five days ago, looking for any sign of him or Castiel, but he does not allow himself respite.

The lamps stop alighting before him, and as he approaches the last one, he sees a large building illuminated by its glare. It's largely unmangled, standing out suspiciously against the broken pavement and scorched land, but light from its front windows is flooding onto the street and the fronts doors are swinging wildly, so that's where Dean goes.

Just inside the wide foyer, the figure has stopped, and stares widely at Dean as he enters, panting from exertion. He's nearly unrecognizable, under the gore, but his pale eyes shine out of his dirty face like beacons. There's no tar-blood dripping from his body, but there's nothing of Castiel either.

“Cas,” Dean tries.

Castiel laughs, a choked, weak sound, and takes off running, thrusting open the door to the stair well. Dean follows with all the strength he can muster, but the flights keep climbing and Castiel seems to continuously be just out of sight, his trench coat whipping out of view with each corner Dean rounds. Dean's breath is coming in hard, sorry gasps, wrenching through his throat and stealing his precious little breath, but the stairs just keep carrying him up, up, up.

It's not until he thinks he can't manage another step that he hears a door slam and rounds the corner to find himself just below a single emergency door, trembling still with the force of its closing. Dean sucks in a painful breath and forces himself up the last flight, leaning heavily on the railing and sweating beneath his filthy layers. The door weighs like stone, screeching in protest as it takes all his strength to force open. Creeping, pure darkness, waits beyond, the weak light of the stairwell throwing a small square of dirty rooftop in to vision, but nothing further. Night had fallen as he'd run, just as dark and lightless as the now innumerable ones before it.

“Cas?” he manages to croak out, squinting in the dark. “Cas, come on, man, I know you're in there, somewhere.” There's no answer, and no wind. The door slams behind him and throws him into total darkness.

He wanders blindly, grimacing as his feet stick and squelch in the ground beneath his feet, like he's stepped in tacky half-dried blood. He trips on something that covers his pants legs in lukewarm and similarly sticky liquid, swearing up a storm but daring not to feel around for whatever he tripped over. He doesn't want to know.

“Cas, listen to me. I know you're in there, I know you saved us, more than once. You're always saving us. Let me help you.” Dean hears the screeching of something like a bird overhead, though the sound of wings that passes over him sound far too large for anything smaller than a bus. “I need you.”

“You need. You always need. You're so needy.”

Dean hears the lighting of a match and instantly sees the flame flickering some ten feet off, illuminating Castiel's haggard face. His eyes look black in the half light.




Dean takes a few cautious steps forward, pointedly staring at Castiel. He's standing some several inches too tall- and in the seconds it takes Dean's eyes to adjust, Dean realizes Cas is standing on the crumbling roof edge. “What I am,” Dean chokes out, stretching forward a dirty hand to his friend, “is a helluva lot less important than you getting down offa there right this second.”

Castiel grins, more a baring of teeth than a smile. The match flame edges closer to his pinched fingers, close enough it should be starting to burn the skin, but Castiel doesn't react. “I could fly before I met you, you know, but now I have no wings, not anymore. They ripped out all my feathers. I have done so much for you, yet again and again you need.”

Dean's stomach lurches, but he steps a bit closer. Castiel leans back. Chunks of stone break off the ledge and fall down, down, down into the darkness, until there's a distant splash of water. The match burns out, but Castiel lights another, before Dean can force himself to speak again.

He holds his hands up before him, trying his best to look placating, though he's confused and utterly and uncontrollably terrified. He watches the match flame dance, seemingly unbothered by the howling wind. “Yeah. Yeah, we all fucked up. I'm not gonna pretend I know what's goin' on in your head Cas, but you've got to fight it, okay?” He takes another few steps forward, almost within reach of Castiel. “You're still you, even if it's coming back slow. You're not some drugged up asshole, you're not the leviathan's chew toy. You're my... my friend, alright? More than my friend. So how about we get off this creepy ass building, find Sammy, and figure a way out of this mess? We can play the blame game somewhere closer to the ground, and I won't even try to dodge any.” Slowly, he stretches his hand closer, fingertips just inches from Castiel's coat sleeve.

Castiel's grin falls. “No,” he says, one foot scooting backwards and hovering over empty, black air. He teeters precariously and more concrete crumbles into unseen water. For a moment, fear seems to flicker over Castiel's face. “Dean, help me.” Dean lurches forward just as Castiel starts to drop, watching helplessly as the last sputters of flame illuminate his friend's torn, maddened face and die out when his arms close around nothing.

Castiel's laughter echoes all the way down, through the darkness.

There's a moment's hesitation, before Dean steels himself and joins him.

Maybe he’s killing himself, he considers, as the freezing weightlessness of the air whistles through his greasy hair. Maybe he’ll meet a messy and unpleasant end on the concrete below.

Instead, he finds himself completely buried in water, icy, cold, cutting into his ribs like razors. He struggles to breach the surface, taking huge, desperate gasps from the pitch, black air. “Cas!” he calls out. Castiel’s pleas for help batters around his mind. “Cas!” The wind howls in his ears.

“Why aren’t you dead, yet?!” comes Castiel’s voice so full of rage, Dean almost slips beneath the churning water. What feels like a slimy rotting hand tries to grip his ankle and he strikes out at it.

“I’m like a cockroach,” Dean sputters, with as much malice as he can muster with salt in his eyes. “Keep trying to crush me, you son of a bitch.” The rotting hand multiplies into twenty, and as much as Dean kicks, he can’t keep them from coiling around his limbs. “Go on, kill me. Make him do it!”

Rather than dragging him under, the appendages oull him through the dark water. Salt water is forced Dean’s nose and mouth, and he chokes, flailing in the sea, until he slams hard up onto a rocky shelf, where he’s left to lay, choking and gasping.

“Still - guh - not dead,” he gasps.

Something rises out off the water, dripping heavily onto the rocks. “Why, why, why? We should have just killed you the second we laid eyes on your filthy face, should ripped out your nasty little eyes. No more.”

Castiel’s hands grab his throat and squeeze.

“No more.”




He's lost.

In what seems to be a motel, judging from the numbered doors and ugly décor. A never ending motel, since no matter how many corners he turns, there is another hallway with a string of doors, their numbers steadily climbing. He's been running and walking for time beyond his measure, and the numbers are in five digits, but he's seen no windows, no emergency exit doors.

The motel rooms he's tried to open have been locked, if he was lucky, or burnt his hands if he was not, the metal doorknobs as hot as if they had been thrust in a fire. One such knob had nearly taken the skin of his palms off, heat sticking and grasping at his skin like glue, like it had a mind of its own and it wanted him.

He doesn’t know how he got where he is. He doesn’t remember who he is. He doesn't even remember what he looks like. He knows what a motel is- has a feeling they are significant to him in some way- he knows that this isn't normal, but there's a thousand empty spaces between the cracks. The things that remain don't make any sense. He remembers a tower and a fish. He remembers an impossible cacophony of light and noise. He thinks he has brothers, but he can't remember if there are two, one tall and one broad, or quite a lot more.

The sound of water grows behind him. It's been growing steadily as he has run, making sure his legs continue to propel him forward. He has no idea what the water is, but he fears it. He remembers the sensation of drowning.

He’s not fast enough. Every time he thinks he’s outrun it, the water grows closer. It laps at his heels, laughing, grinning (and how can water grin?), biting his skin, taking little chunks away. He forgets the tower. He forgets a friendly face. He forgets how to fly (has he ever flown, how can he, when he has no wings?).

The water climbs up his legs. Entire pieces feel stripped away from his bones, boiled raw and eaten up (he’s forgetting how to sing, how to fight, why did he need to fight?) and it just keeps swelling and taking from him, not content till it eats him through entirely.

“Help me,” he gasps when it laps at his ribcage, threatening to seep inside and devour his very heart.

“I’m sorry,” gasps a voice. The water cringes away from his heart, screeching.

“Who are you?” he asks (dusted freckles, dusted hair, dusted pink lips).

“I’m sorry,” it repeats. Strength finds him. The water tries to cling on, but soon he's outstripping it, though sneaky tendrils grasp and shriek desperately for his return. He feels pieces slipping back into place (overlong hair, sad eyes, dimples you could sink into).

He turns the corner, and, there, at the end of the hall, stands a solitary door- emergency door, do not open. The water rushes forward, trying to overtake him, but he can hear the voice calling softly from beyond the doorway. His hands find the bar and shove it open just as the water grasps at the skin of his heels, and he slips away in the moment before it can catch him, listening to the deep voice call out to him.

“Cas.”




When he comes to himself it's like breathing for the first time after coming back from the dead. It's a familiar feeling- it's happened to him enough.

He remembers that.

His vision is blurry, but Dean kneels before him and there's blood bubbling between his lips. A grey dawn has risen.

“I'm so sorry, Cas, I know, I know.” His lip is split, his nose cracked, and he's on his knees, hands limp and undefending at his sides.

Castiel releases him, scrambling back and falling against a rocky shore. Memories creep into places they shouldn't be, and he doesn't quite remember everything he feels he ought to. “Dean?”

Dean falls forward to his hands, but smiles with bloody teeth. “Cas. You did it.”

Castiel shakes his head. Things slot into place slowly, quietly.

Dean crawls forward, taking Castiel's palms between his own. He hacks blood onto the rocks. “You're you.”

Castiel grits his teeth and shakes his head. “They... are inside me. The leviathans. They're thrashing, fighting. They are not happy.”

Dean laughs, chest rattling. “Yeah, I got that. Let ‘em stew in it.”

A black eye is forming itself on Dean's face, but he looks hopeful for the first time in a long time. “They made me do so much to you,” Cas whispers, face scrunching up, as though in pain. “To Sam. They hid my Grace.” Desperation blooms in his tone.

“But look what you did. You saved our asses twice. You didn’t kill me. Do I look dead to you? What they made you do is nothin’.”

“And what about the things I did to you?” Castiel almost shouts. “What about the things I did and said? What about those pills I took? What about the way I broke Sam's wall? Lied to you?” He shudders violently.

Dean's smile slips off his face and into a look of contemplation, though marred by the forming bruises and slowly congealing blood. “Honestly?”

Dean pauses for a long time, eyebrows drawn together. “I’m angry - yeah, I'm still, really, freakin' angry. But. But, you know what. You've forgiven us for the shit we’ve done. Hell, Sam's forgiven both of us, way more than we deserve. I...” Dean coughs, frowning awkwardly and making a disgusted noise. “C'mere.” He pulls Cas forward into his arms, into a long overdue embrace.

Castiel leans into Dean’s wet chest, his arms resting on his waist slowly, cautiously. “Thank you,” he says, barely a whisper.

“Yeah, Yeah.” Dean says, releasing him and sitting back, embarrassed. “Freakin' chick flick stuff. Are you gonna be...?”

Castiel nods. “I have the advantage now. Things are blurry, but I know what they're planning. I can hold them off, though I don't know how long. They thought I could never take control and they're fighting harder now because they want to kill you. It's not fun anymore- hasn't been fun for a while. You lasted a lot longer than they thought you would.” Cas gives Dean a half-smile.

Dean grimaces, wiping a hand over his grubby face, wiping away his own blood. “Always underestimating us. No worries, dude, we'll get them out of you.”

Castiel looks at Dean beneath his eyelashes. “Alright,” he says with all the conviction of a soldier about to die. Dean sends him a glare, but Castiel holds up a hand. “But before we can make any move, we must save Sam.”

“You can find him?”

“I can,” Castiel says solemnly. “The portion of purgatory we are fenced in is far smaller than it seems and he... he stands out like an explosion. But...”

“But?”

“But he's in bad shape.”

“Yeah, I know. I was...” He trails off, rubbing his lips uncertainly. “I was there. He had a bad hallucination. We just got to bring him back to reality.”

“It may not be so simple.”

“When is it ever. What is it?”

"Didn't you feel the power he wielded? He's using his powers again. There are few limits to this place, and he was strong already. Here, he might as well be Lucifer.”

Dean's eyes narrow. "He was weak, God, Cas, he was dying.”

“He’s in no danger of dying now,” Castiel says quietly. “If we save him, if we can break through to him, it will become a problem again, but now he is more in danger of losing himself. Here, he could - will become the boy king he was destined to, new Father of all monsters.”

Dean leans heavily on the rocks beneath his hands and knees. The grey sea beyond the rocks is quiet, and nothing stirs out in the ash shore. “Goddamnit. What do we do?” Dean closes his eyes, scrubbing his eyes and scrubbing his hand over them.

"We proceed with the original plan and try to get through to him." His arms uncharacteristically draw up around him. “I was simply warning you. There’s a good chance he will kill us.”

“One we have to take.”

“I know.”

Dean’s bloodied face stares out into the ocean and he kicks his legs against the rocks. “What a crappy vacation. We’re never going to Pennsylvania again.”

“We’re not in Pennsylvania.”

Dean rolls his bloodshot eyes. “Why are we trapped in such a little piece of purgatory anyway?” The gate that surrounds the town cuts across the water too. The water beyond it churns with the undead.

“My siblings,” Cas says simply.

“Your- What?”

Castiel gestures upwards. One of the towering winged figures stands before them in the sea, taller than a skyscraper. Dean traces the outlines of its great wings, stretching miles, until they meet tip to tip with another set barely visible in the fog.

“They're keeping most of them out. It's only due to them we have not yet died. There is an infinity out there and I have swallowed them all. They are very mad.”

“You're talking about the monsters? They're all out there?”

“All of them.”

Dean looks up at the closest figure. Unlike the one he had seen on the first day, it has six great grey wings. “So this is where angels go when they die. Huh. So that's...”

“Gabriel.”

Dean's eyes widen. “Wow. Never woulda thought. The others?”

“Haniel- Anna.” Castiel motions to the farthest figure, almost invisible, but for drooping feathers that gave the impression of a massive willow tree.

“And?”

Castiel ignores him and speaks instead to the smallest figure of the three. “Balthazar, I am so sorry.” The angel shifts in the fog, its wings rustling and bringing down a huge gust of air that nearly knocks them into the water.

“Whoa, he's dead? I thought he just went back into hiding.”

“I killed him.”

“Oh. Why?”

“He betrayed me, so I thought, for you.”

“So… you knew about that. But he's still protecting us?”

Castiel gazes up, grief breaking over his face. “There are endless things I regret, but of all things, I do not think I can repent for that.”

Dean sighs. “We all have a laundry list of screw ups ten miles long. All we can do is try to set things right, I think. Let’s start with Sam.” He turns to Castiel, their faces close.

Castiel frowns, his eyes dipping over Dean's very close profile. His arms fall stiffly to his sides. He licks his lips. “Yes.”

Dean begins to move away, but Castiel moves forward, and their noses bounce off each other. Dean swears and Castiel frowns. Quietly, he swoops forward again, pressing his lips against Dean’s for a silent moment. The kiss is chaste, though Dean's heart seems like it's intent on hammering out of his chest.

Castiel moves back, staring straight into Dean's eyes. Dean does not blink and Castiel matches him. “I owe Sam one, as well.” Dean swallows.

“Yeah... Me- me too.” His face is flushed bright red, shamed, but Castiel just nods, slowly, taking Dean's hand between his own. Dean's hard faced flush eases. Castiel helps Dean to his feet and they leave the shore.




Inias sulks in the back of Bobby’s van, fingers drumming on the window. “How can anyone stand to travel like this?”

“Don’t be a baby. You’re thousands of years old, and you haven’t even been in a car for two days,” Jody digs, with a smile.

Inias purses his lips. “It makes it no less boring.” The road stretches out before them, dark and seemingly without end. “Or less worrisome.” He rests his face against the cold glass windowpane.

“I’m worried too,” Bobby says gruffly. “About all three of ‘em. Your brother and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but he wasn’t a bad… person.” Bobby grits his teeth. “You can worry, but what you’re doin’ is moping. Moping ain’t doin’ them no good though, you hear?” He takes his foot off the accelerator, which he had been pushing a bit too hard.

Inias crosses his arms. “No, I suppose, it doesn’t. Sorry.”

Jody rolls her eyes and looks at the map, as though it’s interesting, as though she hasn’t pored over it a thousand times. They drive on in silence.

“Stop the car,” Inias says suddenly.

“What?”

“Stop.”

“What now?” Bobby rolls to a stop. The road is empty, and he and Jody turn in their seats to look at the wide eyed and smiling Inias. “What?”

“I know where my brother is.”




“I’m sorry I cannot heal your face,” Castiel says as he and Dean walk side by side.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m still the most handsome.”

Castiel gives him a half a smile, though it falters. “He is near.”

“So what chance do we have of reaching him?”

“It depends on how far gone he is.”

“And how far do you think that is?”

“Very far gone, I’d say,” says Sam’s voice. Castiel and Dean scrabble backwards as Sam, dressed all in white, but so spotless, emerges from the shadow between two burnt our buildings. “Little brother,” he nods to Castiel.

Castiel raises a clawed hand, but nothing happens.

“Oh, just don’t. You can barely even lift yourself. Use even a fraction of energy on your Grace and those squirmy little worms inside you will take over the whole operation, won’t they?” Sam lifts a hand and Cas goes flying, slamming into the asphalt some ten feet off.

“Stop it, Sam!” Dean cries out, stepping forward.

“I am not him,” Sam says, viciously. He flattens Dean on the ground with a twitch of finger. “I am not that freak!” He trembles with rage, twitching his fingers down, and down again, until Dean is screaming with pain.

“You’re not-guh,” Dean spits up more blood, laughing. “We’re freaks, yeah. We’re freaks,” the pressure on Dean relieves just a bit, so that Sam can fling Castiel down as well. “You and I are messed up, S-Sammy.” Sam clenches his fists, and both Dean and Cas cry out in pain. “But we can-gaah-suffer for it, or we can accept it.”

“Accept!” Sam shouts, his voice breaking. “Accept two centuries in hell, accept demon blood, accept that I want to do things with you that no brother should wish to? You never wanted to accept me. Either of you! Well, I am no longer nothing but the boy with the demon blood.” Sam's image swims, half Lucifer, half Sam, enraged both. He brings a boot to Dean's throat, pressing hard. Dean begins to choke.

“You stopped- being the boy with the demon blood long ago,” Cas grits out from the pavement. “You are Sam Winchester and you- proved an angel of the lord wrong.”

“Stop! Stop it! Sam Winchester is a mistake. I am not him, I won't be him. I am so much more than he ever was.”

“Sam,” Dean gasps. His eyes roll up into his head, but his limp fingers thread around Sam's ankle.

With a final, agonized cry, Sam snaps his fingers.




“It’s weak,” Inias says. “But I can sense him again. I know where he was. The trail is no older than a week.” He’s zapped the three of them, van and all, to an abandoned road outside an abandoned town. The Impala sits before their headlights, looking dusty.

“God,” Jody says, eying the damage. “What happened here?”

“No normal crash,” Inias says. It’s early, before sunrise, though that’s not far off. “The leviathan have their slimy hands in all of this. If Dean isn’t dead, he is close. They like to play with their food. Go up this road.”

Bobby takes the van over the smoothest pieces of road, easing them onto an old forest trail. “If Dean is dead?”

“Then we all die,” Inias says resolutely.

“Do we have back up, at all? Does your garrison have a plan if this fails?” Jody asks.

“Their plan, as it ever was, is to sit back and let it unfold however it may.”

“No pressure, then.”

“Turn here.”

A few roads and a few more turns leads them up to a drab, grey hill with a drab, grey church. Remains of what may have been a gorgeous stained glass window lies in scattered broken pieces.

“This is the place.” Inias’s brow furrows. “They’ve… done something. There’s something wrong here.”

“Do we just charge in?” Jody asks.

“I see no better option.”

“Stupidest thing I’ve ever agreed to,” Bobby grumbles, “but let’s do it.”

Bobby and Jody arm themselves with all manner of weapons, though Inias insists that swords would be most effective, while Inias twirls his small angel blade in hand. The horn of truth is tucked safely in the pocket of his jeans.

With any ado, they climb up the stairs and push open the front doors.

Inside stands a congregation of about twenty people. At their head, looking ragged and viciously angry, stands a handsome man in a torn priests raiment. All heads turn to them.

“Isn’t that that CEO that disappeared a few weeks ago?” Jody squeaks, too terrified to focus on anything else. She readies her sword.

“Who the hell are you?” Dick Roman asks, baring his teeth. His followers stand and their mouths split wide, revealing a thousand sharp needle teeth.

“Friends of the Winchesters.” Bobby states clearly, cocking his shotgun and aiming it at the head of the nearest leviathan.

“Cockroaches!” Dick seethes, sharp teeth too big in his mouth. “Vermin! The lot of you. My poor children, sacrificing themselves to lock the Winchesters away and yet they refuse to die.”

“Humans are a bit like that, yeah.”

“Tasty little angel!” whispers one of the nearest monsters, leering at Inias. “Angel Grace, I have always wanted to try some.” Jody takes a great swing and looses the Leviathan’s head from its neck. It flounders on the ground, not dead, as its head is reattaching slowly, but screeching in pain.

The leviathans begin to attack. Inias brings the horn to his lips and blows.




In the second before Sam can snap his fingers and turn them into paste, a great blast rings out, beating through the ash sky, like the world's greatest trumpet. Sam stumbles, and falls to his hands and knees. His image flickers. “What… What is going on?” he asks, throat sounding bone dry. Blood seeps through and stains his white clad thigh, his eyes shut tight, as though he’s in agony. He groans, shuddering, screaming and finally falling flat onto his face, nothing for all intents and purposes, but Sam once more, in jeans and an ugly flannel shirt.

His face lies in a puddle of rainwater.

Dean and Castiel can barely move out of the craters Sam had made of them, but they manage to do so anyway, spitting blood and walking agonizingly slow to where Sam lay.

He barely moves, but to breathe.

“Get up, Sam,” Dean says, cradling an arm to him. The horn note goes on, unending.

Sam moves to curl in on himself.

Dean reaches down and, with great effort and a hand from Cas, pulls Sam to his feet. Sam leans into their arms, head cast downward.

"You hesitated," Cas says, patting Sam on the back. "Thank you."

“I meant what I said,” Dean says as they limp together down the way. "About acceptin' it."

Sam looks into Dean’s eyes, listlessly, until Dean presses a chaste kiss to the side of his mouth. He turns widening eyes to Castiel, who repeats the gesture. “Oh. Alright.”

As the horn blows, the fog clears away, their whole section of the world becoming well-defined before them. It's really quite small, nothing but an abandoned town once more.

And standing on the hill, straight down the street before them, no more than a mile off, lies the church, as grey as ever, the stained glass window in which Jesus hangs shining out onto the valley. He wears an angry frown.

“That is the Horn of Gabriel,” Castiel says, with a real smile creeping onto his face. “Our chance of survival just grew exponentially.”

Dean throws Cas a confused look. “How does a horn save our life?”

“It means the leviathans can be killed. And, I think, we can escape this place while we are at it.”

“Explain that to us,” Sam says mouth shrugging downward. He’s pale, but slowly moving on his own feet.

“To open the doorway here, the leviathans sacrificed many of their number at one time, to rip open a hole in the wall, so to speak. If the biggest of them all were to die, I think the same would happen. To kill him, we need Gabriel’s Horn, and Michael’s Sword. It was a topic of discussion for many eons amongst the garrisons. I always thought it was the weapons.”

“Cas…” Dean says, tersely.

“Yes, you are still Michael’s sword, Dean.”

“So I have to kill him?” Dean pulls Sam a little tighter into his arms.

“Yes, but we will be with you. And we’ll have the element of ‘surprise’,” Castiel says, making an airquote with his free hand. Cas sends the Winchesters a smile that they return, and they make their way slowly down the main street. “I have faith in you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “You're gonna watch over Sam, right?”

“Hey, I need both of you to watch out for me, so I can watch over you,” Sam says with a weak laugh. His leg is bleeding sluggishly, and he's as pale as ever.

The horn pauses for a moment and the world trembles at their feet, the road cracking as they pass and releasing steam that heats the air several degrees.

“Whoa, did you see that?” Dean asks. One of the three great winged figures has vanished. They look to the others, and see them disappear as well. The gates that have protected them begin to fall and they can just barely see that all the land beyond is writhing with monsters. “Fuck, what happened?” The horn begins to blow again.

“Don't worry, we're just pooling our protection a little closer,” says a voice from Dean's left. Dean whips out Ruby's knife and it finds itself pointed towards the neck of a very short man.

“Gabriel?” Dean asks. He narrows his eyes at him. “Why didn't you show up sooner?”

“Hey, don't get all bratty on the dude who has been protecting your ass. I've been here for thirteen years, which granted, ain't much for me, but it is when the fucking leviathans have been nibbling on the wires, taking the piss outta of the one they thought was supposed to kill them, however wrong they were. The sound of my horn gave me a little burst of juice, you might say.”

“You did love the sound of your own horn.” Castiel says, completely straight faced. Dean snorts.

“Thirteen years?” Sam asked. “But--”

“Purgatory time, kiddo.”

“So how long has it been since we got here?” Dean demands.

“Only about a week on earth.” Anna appears behind Sam, long red hair trailing behind her. She gives Dean a small, sly smile and pats Castiel on the shoulder encouragingly.

Castiel stops cold, almost dropping Sam. Balthazar has appeared to his right, his shirt cut as ridiculously low as always. “Cassie.”

Castiel shudders, grief settling onto his face. “Balthazar. I am so - ”

“Tut! I don't need to hear it. I couldn't convey it properly before, but I am terribly miffed at the whole you killing me for these primates thing. Nonetheless, I stick by the fact that I am with you, always.” Balthazar shrugs. The howls and screams of the approaching waves of dead are becoming louder. “We really must move.”

“Best thing you've ever said to me,” Dean says. They walk on.

The first thing to reach them is a demon. Sam and Dean gape- their true faces really are hideous, a screaming burnt skeletal thing that looks so far removed from human that it's almost impossible to tell it once was. It moves as though half smoke, though it cannot seem to touch the main road. It beats its bony fists against thin air.

“We've got you covered,” Gabriel reassures them.

Many more join it, all demons, moving as fast as smoke, screaming and jeering. “Winchesters!” they call. “Winchesters!”

A small demon, jet black, moves to the front of the horde. “Dear Sammy,” she calls, like a lover.

Sam turns his face away from Ruby's glittering black eyes, his jaw tightly set. The church is but a block away,

Catcalls and jeers issue from the horde and two more demons emerge, one with white eyes, one with yellow. Alistair and Azazel say nothing, merely watch on with wide, empty grins.

“What are they waiting for?” Dean asks when they've reached the bottom of the hill the church stands on.

“I think just to see who wins.” Other beasts have started to collect at the bottom of the barrier. “And maybe to hitch a ride top side if you do. We won't let that happen.”

“Does that mean you could...” Castiel barely dares to ask.

“Maybe.”

The horn continues to sound as they push open the church doors.

They're not expecting the writhing mass they find inside. Leviathans, hulking oily creatures with a thousand mouths and appendages like great ropy tentacles, litter ever corner of the church, hanging from the ceiling, seeping out from beneath cracks in the stone floor. Everything appears to be moving in slow motion. Jody swinging a sword in swift arc, taking off heads and limbs that writhe in inky pools on the floor. Bobby at her side, taking shot after shot with his shotgun, keeping the leviathans at bay, though they seem to simply shake off the blasts. The whole scene is completely silent to them, but for the blowing of the horn.

Inias has the horn to his lips, a magnificent golden thing nearly as long as he is, and he keeps himself blowing even though the priest Dick Roman has one of his hands around his neck, and he's squeezing. Richard is the biggest of them all, oil slipping out from beneath his robes and writhing, snake-like in the air. Castiel gasps, and in a split second, Inias's eyes flicker over the beast's shoulder and bore into his brother. An angel blade appears in Bobby's hand and in Dean's at the same second. Dean eases Sam fully into Castiel's arms and stands, tall and straight behind the greatest beast of them all.

“Stab him the second after Bobby does,” Gabriel instructs, looking almost passively on.

“Why?”

“I want to watch the bastard's gloating slip right off his slimy face. Inias's blade won't even scratch him in Bobby's hands or his own, but in yours it’s as good as a bomb.”

In agonizing slowness, Bobby turns and makes a run at Dick Roman, blade in hand. The fake priest laughs, throwing Inias to the side, where he slams painfully against the wall. Dean, Sam, and Castiel watch on nervously as Bobby runs, takes a small jump, and buries the blade into the priest's breastbone.

A smile cuts across Dick's face, wide and gloating with needle teeth. Dean shoves the blade into his heart.




Dick Roman smiles. “Pitiful. This is not even an archangel's blade, let alone Michael -” his words are cut short as a silver blade tip emerges from his chest.

“Joke's on you,” comes Dean's gruff voice from behind him. “Hiya, I'm Michael's sword.”




The world becomes awash with sound and time, screaming, whistling by. Dick Roman's form bubbles and begins to be dragged backwards into purgatory as though with a great sucking wind. Jody, Bobby, and Inias move in real time and the grey that Dean, Sam, and Cas have seen the world in for so long begins to fade into colour.

“The door is open!” Gabriel shouts gleefully over the screaming rush of air. Dick attempts to grasp at them as he dies, though Anna and Balthazar's upturned hands seem to keep the dying leviathan from reaching though. The weaker leviathans try to dig their suckers into the earth, but the whirlwind caused by Dick's death is sucking them in too. “Dean, take Sam over first. He's gonna need medical attention.” Dean lifts a nearly unconscious Sam from Castiel's arms and takes him through.

Jody gasps. “You marvelous goddamned idiots!” She and Bobby rush forward, crushing the boys in an embrace, and Inias climbs slowly from the rubble, blood on his knuckles. Bobby and Jody support Sam while Dean goes back to the portal, reaching for Castiel's hand.

Castiel looks at him sadly. “Dean, I can't get through.”

“What? What? No way, not now. We need you.” Dean tries to barrel through the doorway, but can't get past the limp body of the poor hack the biggest leviathan had coiled up inside, as though an invisible wall spread out from him.

“No, no,” Sam calls out weakly, struggling in Jody and Bobby's arms.

Inias steps forward, limping terribly, his eyes wide in horror. “Castiel, Castiel. They've eaten almost all of your grace, brother,”

“They're inside me, still,” Castiel says. Tar drips from the corner of his eye. “They are attached to my grace. They will not let me leave.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Cassie,” Balthazar says, stepping forward and catching Castiel's hand with his own, fingers stroking tenderly over the bloody knuckles. “Those of us with Grace can't exactly leave either. Trust me, I tried when the door opened for the first time. Hurt quite a bit.”

“So I could never leave...?” Castiel asks quietly. “You're telling me, you led us here, knowing that?”

“Not exactly,” Balthazar says, squeezing Castiel's hand.

“Time is almost up,” Anna urges.

“You think we’d do that? That hurts, little bro. There is a way,” Gabriel says, holding his golden eyes against Castiel's own. “It will be painful. It comes with risks.”

“What do I have to do?” Castiel asks desperately.

“Rip out your Grace. Two problems taken care of in one.”

A beat passes. “Take it.”

“Are you sure, Castiel?” Anna asks gently.

“No. Of course not,” Castiel counters. "How could I ever be? You, Heaven, is all I have ever known. All evidence points to the fact that I make a terrible human.” He looks from his siblings to the real world, to Sam and Dean covered in blood and so very mortal. “But Sam and Dean need me now. I need them. I want to be mortal.”

“Then, go on!” Balthazar says, light heartedly, pushing Castiel through the rapidly shrinking portal. A bright white imprint fans out behind him, stuck to the barrier between worlds, with thick ropes of black coiled within it, before it too gets sucked back by the last of the torrent caused by the Leviathan's death.

Castiel falls into Dean's open arms, gasping with pain, but he manages to shout out through his agony. “Can't you be saved?”

“Maybe,” Balthazar calls from the shrinking doorway. “Not this way. We're nothing but Grace anymore. But it's okay, Cassie.”

“Goodbye, Castiel,” Anna says with a serene smile.

“Have a good life, bro,” Gabriel says. The door closes.




“Mortal!” Inias says, disbelieving, and more to himself than any of the others. “To make that choice, it seems so much...” He looks over Sam's leg regretfully. “If I were more powerful, I could heal it entirely, but the infection rooted itself deep. It won't ever... Most of us left are cupids and foot soldiers no more powerful than I am, but I could call my sister, Hester. Not too fond of humans, but she might do a better job.”

“No, you know what. It's okay. Leave it.” Sam pats Inias on the arm. “Thanks. I'm glad Bobby had the brains to call you.” Bobby and Jody stand at the door to the church, playfully nudging each other in the early morning sun.

Dean gives Sam a smile, real, and unbittered. “Yeah, yeah, rub it in.” The two of them scoot a little closer together, talking silently. Sam puts a warm palm over Dean's and Dean does not withdraw.

Inias moves over to sit next to Castiel quietly. Castiel rubs his knees, his elbows, and his neck. “I'm sorry, about causing you pain, when I didn't remember.”

“It's nothing. You were scared.” Inias crosses his arms. “Is that what it's like, being human?”

“It's confusing. Painful.” Castiel shrugs. “Weak. Your heart feels full a lot easier, I think.”

Inias brushes a bit of hair out of his face. “I kind of feel like that now.”

Castiel runs a hand over Inias's knuckles. “So what will you do about it?”

“What if I chose to fall?”

“You would be born as a human like Haniel was.” Castiel shrugs. “You would be born without burden, but you would be born without memory. You could also just stay on earth, until you fade from heaven.”

A long pause. “I need to go back. The others have not seen what you and I have seen. They chose humanity, your... side, but only marginally. I need to show them what I know. Maybe then I will...”

“I'll see you then, brother,” Castiel says with a small smile, squeezing Inias's hand. In a small flutter, he disappears.

He reappears before Bobby and Jody, startling them both. “And thank you.”

“Sure thing, kid,” Bobby says.

“See ya, squirt,” Jody says.

Inias smiles, and flies back to heaven.

Castiel scoots over to Sam and Dean, holding out his hands. Dean takes one and Sam takes the other. “So, where do we go from here?”

Epilogue