Fic: The Tribulation of Chuck (2/5)
Title: The Tribulation of Chuck (Part 2/5)
Characters: Chuck, Cas/Dean, Sam, Missouri Mosely, Anna, Jesus...etc.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/spoilers for season 4, sacrilege (no, really - see character list)
Word Count: 5700
Summary: Chuck introduces Jesus to the finer things in modern life - notably foods with "pie" in the name and Star Wars - while the Scoobies arrange a reunion.
Note: Beta'd by the always fabulous psycocatgirl
Further note: Fat donut pie is a real delicacy, invented by sockkiah and her college roommate. If you ever find yourself at Super America at 2am in need of a sugar rush, the recipe Chuck gives in this chapter will tell you what you need to do.
Chuck woke in the middle of the night with his neck twisted at an odd angle against the arm of the threadbare couch and a spider crawling across his arm. He bit back a decidedly unmanly shriek and flailed, sending the bug flying across the porch. Outside the screened windows, he heard one of the demons in the tents chuckle, and he hoped it wasn’t at his expense. It was official: he hated this arrangement. Rude neighbors, a bed that made his back feel like it belonged to an octogenarian, a faint smell of mildew permeating his clothes after spending a day and night there, and spiders. Spiders on him! This place was like the worst motel ever - and he was pretty sure he could make that claim stick, having written several hundred awful motels.
His legs creaked as he stood up, and his head knocked into an empty birdcage that still had used newspaper hanging out of its door. He swore, holding his head. The demons in the yard laughed again, and this time he was pretty sure he was the butt of the joke. Screw this place - he was going inside.
There was a light in the kitchen. Chuck shielded his eyes for a second before they focused, and then he saw the source: the open fridge door, and in front of it, Jesus. The guy practically had his forehead against the freezer door, his shoulders hunched protectively over something in his hands.
“What’re you-” Chuck started, and Jesus started like a scared rabbit.
In his hands was a fork and the plastic container containing Dean’s slice of pie.
“Hey,” Chuck said, dropping his arms to his sides, “that’s for Dean!”
Jesus swallowed a mouthful of pie with a guilty expression, licked whipped cream off his lips, and looked longingly down at the remaining mess of a slice.
There was such sorrow in his eyes that Chuck paused. He drew closer, resting his hands on the outside of the door. “Have you-have you had pie before?”
Jesus blinked hard at the slice, then raised his eyes slowly to Chuck’s. The answer was written plain on his face, no need for a psychic to interpret.
“Oh my god,” Chuck said, and winced. “I mean-sorry. You know what I mean. Wow. Two thousand years and change, and you’ve never-? Wow.”
That earnest expression changed to one of annoyance. Jesus closed the pie container with a click.
“No, no, man - go for it.” Chuck shook his head. “Dean would want you to have it. Really. He’s all for pie-based education.”
And besides, Dean probably wasn’t coming back. But Chuck didn’t say that - like so many words he found himself thinking lately, those ones didn’t want to come out.
Jesus hesitated, then unclicked the corners on the pie container and dug the fork in. When he drew the forkful of pie into his mouth, his eyes closed and his shoulders relaxed. A small, appreciative sound escaped through his nose. Chuck found his own mouth watering. Dude was really enjoying that damn pie.
Chuck leaned over the fridge door. “Hey, uh, if you haven’t had a chance to try pie in the last two millennia, I bet there’s a lot of other stuff you never got to try. What about…Cheetos?”
Jesus polished off the crust of the pie and licked whipped cream off his fingertips, giving Chuck a curious look.
“Pop Rocks?” Chuck tried, and was met with the same perplexed head tilt. The guy reminded him of Castiel a little bit in that - and he was willing to bet that, just like Castiel, Jesus had never been party to the glory of KFC, or milkshakes, or Ace of Base, or-god, there was one wonderful thing he hadn’t even had the chance to introduce Castiel to. “I bet you’ve never had fat donut pie,” he said, nodding to the messiah.
Jesus tilted his head again, and Chuck knew he had to educate him. “All right,” he said, grabbing one of Missouri’s spare protection charms off the kitchen counter and tossing it to Jesus. “Put this on. We’re going to the Super America.”
Jesus followed behind him, and in minutes they were walking up the block toward the gas station. The Crocs that Jesus had borrowed from Missouri’s front closet made a faint slapping noise against the sidewalk with every step, and he seemed utterly fascinated with it. Chuck watched him, wondering what his world had been like. Quieter, probably. With fewer plastics.
The florescent lights in the Super America sign had been half burned out all week, but the moment Jesus and Chuck walked through the door, the broken bulbs glowed like midday sun. The clerk at the counter looked up from her copy of US Weekly like she’d just been shaken awake.
“Nice trick,” Chuck said.
Jesus shrugged - no big deal.
“Okay,” Chuck said, leading him to the rack of slightly stale baked goods at the back of the store. “Ingredient one: donuts.” He grabbed a couple at random, and Jesus followed suit. “Ingredient two,” he said, crossing to the display of Hostess fruit pies, “is these. Now, it’s not really a recipe, per se - more of a loose accumulation of ingredients stuffed into the microwave together and eaten at the same time, preferably with one of those 40oz slushy things on the side. But trust me on this - it’s the sweetest human existence gets. My college buddies came up with it at 4am during finals week.”
Chuck paid for their snacks, including a couple of slushies - cherry, because the blue raspberry just reminded him of Castiel and gangsta rap. The industrial grade microwave next to the coffeemaker whirred and clunked inside as it heated their purchases, and Jesus peered through the glass at the filling bubbling out of his fruit pie. Yep, using a microwave was definitely on the list of missing life experiences.
They sat down on the curb outside to eat. It was past 2am, at least, and the gas station was right across the street from an elementary school baseball diamond, so everything stretching in front of them was completely still. Street lamps flickered across the block, glowing a little brighter in Jesus’s presence. Following Chuck’s example, the guy took a bite of his donut, then a gooey mouthful of Hostess fruit pie. He didn’t need Chuck’s instruction to wave a hand at the hot food in his mouth and take a quick gulp of slushy. Chuck smiled a little. It was nice to know some things about modern life were instinct.
“Y’like it? Is it one of the best experiences you’ve had here?”
Jesus nodded.
“Well, good. I aim to please.” Chuck took a bite of fruit pie and wiped filling off his lip. “Actually, that’s not true. I pretty much aim to do the bare minimum and not get noticed. That’s kinda why I got so close to Cas, I think - he made me want to do more than that. When somebody makes you want to be a better person, you should keep ‘em around, y’know? Well. I’m sure you know. You’re charged with a lot of that.”
Jesus just watched him, head resting on one hand and the slushy straw between his lips.
Chuck sighed, weighing the snacks in his hand. “Guess I really screwed the pooch on the becoming a better person front. I tried, y’know - that’s gotta count for something. But I don’t know what I’ll do if we never get Castiel out of that green room. I had this vision, back when we first got here. Lucifer killing him. God, it hurt. I don’t think anything in my life has ever hurt that bad.” He paused to take a bite of donut, letting the sugary grit of the dessert wash over his tongue. “Well. Maybe gallstones. Those really sucked.”
Jesus was staring across the street at that baseball diamond with a look of polite disinterest on his face.
Okay, yeah, TMI. Chuck slouched. “What about you?”
Jesus glanced back at him, eyebrows raised and his lips a tight line.
“I mean, I can guess at the most painful part of your life. But what about the rest of it - how’s it compare to this?”
A pause. The man raised one hand and pinched his finger and thumb slowly toward each other. Then he furrowed his brow, shook his head, and spread his hands apart. Smaller - and at the same time, bigger.
Chuck snickered. “Just wait till you see the internet.”
***
It was kind of nice, having a friend who didn’t talk. Everybody else in the household, from Sam to the least intimidating demon, seemed to want something from Chuck, and they vocalized it any time he was in the same room with them. Help with this plan. Tell us what you saw. Give us your autograph, prophet. Where did you get that fruit pie? Any time he walked out into the house, he felt like he was being pulled in three different directions, none of them ones he was keen on following. But if he stayed behind the closed door of the den with Jesus, nobody bothered him. Missouri was the only one who would even approach the door - the demons got skittish with the messiah around, and Sam was weirdly flustered around him after the whole “Mr. Christ” thing, so only one set of knuckles ever rapped at that door, and they were usually followed by a plate of cookies.
Chuck did what any good liaison to modern culture would do in his place: he dug a pile of DVDs out of Missouri’s collection and used the laptop and an external DVD drive to introduce Jesus to the classics. Star Wars came first, because it was first chronologically. Jesus sat through the whole trilogy with his head tipped slightly to one side in a way that reminded Chuck of Castiel. He didn’t make a sound except when Han Solo said something that entertained him, and then he let out a huff and smiled.
The rest of Missouri’s DVD stack was slightly more sparse on classic scifi titles, but it was still pretty geek-friendly. Chuck pulled out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, The Breakfast Club, and a surprisingly battered copy of Clerks. Outside the den, feet stomped and voices battled. Chuck hunched in the corner of the couch with his hands at his neck, hoping they didn’t need anything from him. The door only opened once. It was Missouri, looking frazzled.
“‘Scuse me, boys, but have either of you heard of a sword with the ability to kill anything?”
“The Ultima Weapon?” Chuck tried.
Missouri pursed her lips. “This demon Crowley swears there’s an angel-killing sword in circulation on the supernatural black market - might help us get your friends out of Heaven’s hands, and then some. We need to know if it’s legit.” She pulled out an inkjet photo. “The seller sent us this picture. Look familiar?”
Chuck leaned over to get a better look, and his insides went icy. The weapon on the screen was the same one that Dickhead had swung straight through him. He hadn’t had a lot of time to look at it in the field, but he recognized the gold edge on the blade. Come to think of it, he’d never asked what happened to the sword - in the chaos that followed his death, it made sense that the sword would’ve been forgotten and picked up by someone scrying for magical objects to sell. And of course Dickhead would’ve brought his fanciest, most everything-killingest weapon onto the battlefield. The dude was all about overkill.
Curling back in on himself, Chuck swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, uh, that’s-that’s a little more than familiar. It belonged to Zachariah.”
“Yeah? You have a vision of that?”
“No. It sort of…uh…” Chuck hugged his stomach hard, trying not to remember the sensation of that blade slicing through him.
Missouri frowned deeply. “Oh. My condolences. Would you boys like something to eat?”
Chuck looked to Jesus, who was paying rapt attention to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eating pizza. “Yeah,” he said. “Food might be good.”
Missouri left. Chuck rested his head in his hands. The sword that had killed him was going to be in the house. Oh, goodie. That wasn’t a jarring reminder of his own mortality at all.
He tried to keep his cool through the rest of the movie, but it wasn’t happening. The beginning of Clerks didn’t hold his interest, either. He ate what Missouri brought into the room, averted his eyes when Jesus gave him curious looks for tapping his fingers, and picked at the loose threads on the sleeve of his hoodie until he’d worn a small bare patch into it. Giving in, he grabbed a day planner from the end table beside the couch and started writing.
Castiel leaned against the table, the marble surface pressing hard against his elbows. Dean was in the opposite corner, his face covered by his jacket, snoring softly. They’d started sleeping in shifts not long ago - a day, maybe, based on how many times Castiel’s stomach had required a meal - and it was his turn to stay awake. Dean didn’t want Anna “screwing with his crap” while he was asleep. Castiel knew better than to expect petty theft or wardrobe sabotage from the angels, but he didn’t want to say so and provoke another argument.
“Anna,” he whispered toward the painting of Lazarus on the wall. “Can you hear me? I’d like to speak with you.”
Air rustled to his left. “Trying to convince me to let you go again?”
“No,” Castiel said, bowing his head toward the table. “I just want to…talk.”
A shadow fell over the table, followed by a pair of thin arms and a cascade of red hair. Anna smiled slightly, her eyes dark. “What about?”
“I want to know why.” He raised his head. “Why, after all the host of Heaven has done to you, do you stay with them? I’ve been in your place. I’ve felt their hands on my soul, rearranging and forcing the message into me. ‘Bible camp,’ as Dean calls it, was an unpleasant experience. You might call it torture.”
“The Host doesn’t torture-”
“Like hell they don’t. They just don’t call it such because it’s for the greater good.” He closed his eyes, forcing back the flood of unwelcome memories the conversation brought up. “But would you argue that it’s not a violation, and that their methods caused you no pain?”
Anna ran her finger along the cap of a strawberry daiquiri bottle. “What’s your question, Cas?”
“Why put your faith in a group that has intentionally harmed you and intends to harm others?”
“Because they do it for the-”
“Greater good, yeah,” Castiel finished with a sigh. “After a certain point, that answer stops being enough.”
Anna leaned away from him, smirking. “At the point where you start feeling squishy hearts and candies love toward the man who’s arguing against it, you mean? That point?”
Castiel’s jaw clenched. “That wasn’t-”
“I was human once, Cas. I know a thing or two about romantic love. You had it bad for him since before I got my grace back, and everybody saw it except for you.” She wagged a finger at his nose. “So don’t try to tell me I’m going to have a change of heart like you did. My heart lies with Heaven, not with Dean Winchester’s rock-hard abs.”
Castiel pushed her finger away. “At least the side I’ve chosen doesn’t punish those who think for themselves.”
“Heaven only punishes for the sake of-”
“You think that!” Castiel interrupted. Shoving himself away from the table, he looked her in the eyes. “When all the hands have been shown in this war and Heaven has mowed down innocents in the name of victory, you tell me again whether your side is truly so righteous.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “And I suppose the humans on your side are infallible?”
Castiel thought of-
Chuck swallowed, not writing out the rest of the sentence. He’d avoided writing himself into the story his visions told, and he wasn’t about to start with a line about how much he sucked. It was a selfish omission, maybe, but screw it - nobody had to see this, anyway.
“No,” Castiel said, “they’re not. But they don’t pretend to be.”
Guilt surged up Chuck’s throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and tossed the day planner out of the fort. The DVD prattled on, Dante’s voice rising as his girlfriend walked out of the Quick Stop.
“Try not to suck any dick on the way through the parking lot!”
Someone laughed. Chuck was pretty sure that wasn’t part of the movie, so he opened his eyes. Jesus was doubled over on the sofa-bed next to him, both hands clapped to his mouth and laughter rolling out between them. Chuck stared. He’d never seen so much as one real laugh from the guy, and here he was crumpled on the bed, shoulders shaking, incapacitated with laughter. Tears eked out the sides of his eyes.
“Really?” Chuck said, frowning. “You’ll lose it for Kevin Smith, but not even a chuckle for my Darth Vader impression earlier?”
That only seemed to make Jesus laugh harder. He fell onto his side, his hands slipping off his mouth, and his voice rebounded off the walls of the den, deeper than Chuck had expected. Chuck smiled a little. Then he started to grin. Then, as if something was tugging it out of his heart, he started to laugh, too. In seconds, both of them were rolling on the bed, laughing and clutching their stomachs. Everything seemed too funny for words, from the movie to the pillow fort to the fact that Chuck was pouring out his visions of the future on a computer old enough to have a fourth grade education. It wasn’t just the laughter that wrenched itself out of him unbidden; it was the whole mood. Through the hilarity, Chuck dimly wondered if this was part of Jesus’s power, like the lights at the Super America - projecting his energy. Making things glow. That was pretty freaking hysterical.
When the laughter subsided, Chuck’s ribs ached and he had tears streaming down his cheeks. “Dude, I so needed that,” he wheezed, and extended his fist. “Hit this.”
Jesus squinted at Chuck’s hand, then carefully curled his fingers into a fist and copied the motion, bumping their knuckles together.
“Yeah, you got it,” Chuck said.
Jesus’s smile stretched into a full-on grin, creases forming at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. It was the first time since he’d appeared that Chuck had seen him look genuinely, well, happy. He wouldn’t have expected dumb movies of all things to make the son of God crack a smile. Maybe this guy had the right idea, Chuck thought - in the midst of Heaven and Hell crap, it was the inane human details that made life enjoyable.
Or maybe the guy just thought dick jokes were really funny. Whichever the case, Chuck felt a weird kinship with him. Grinning back, he turned his end of the fist bump into exploding knucks. Jesus looked a little puzzled by that but copied the motion anyway.
***
Chuck envisioned himself and Jesus as the Jay and Silent Bob of the apocalypse - except, y’know, without the sex obsession and weed. While the main story of The Heroes Taking On Lucifer and Heaven went down in the foreground, Chuck and Jesus hung out nearby, not really paying attention. Sam left for half a day with Crowley and came back with a sword-shaped package and both of their shirts spattered in gore.
While Crowley complained loudly about getting blood on his custom made crocodile skin loafers, Chuck and Jesus watched Animal Planet in the living room.
While Sam polished Dickhead’s angel-killing sword, Chuck ranted about about the Galactic Empire’s disorganization and Jesus nodded knowingly.
While Sam and Missouri discussed plans to make Anna release her captives under threat of angel sword shanking, Chuck introduced Jesus to Ace of Base and The Proclaimers. Every so often he started to sing along and felt his voice shrivel in his throat when he realized that Castiel wasn’t there to harmonize with him, but he wasn’t going to complain. Jesus clearly had a long way to go before he’d be up for talking, much less singing synth-pop, and complaining just seemed like it’d rub that in his face.
They were in the middle of a Shark Week marathon when Jesus left for ten minutes and came back with a Super America bag full of Hostess fruit pies and donuts. He motioned Chuck toward the kitchen, and Chuck followed.
“Dude, you went to SA by yourself?” He slapped Jesus on the back. “Good for you!”
Sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of lore texts, Sam gave them a curious look. “I’m all for autonomy, but how did he pay for that?”
Jesus popped his fat donut pie into the microwave and turned to Sam. Raising two fingers, he made his expression neutral and waved his hand in an arc.
“You Obi-Wanned them?” Chuck said, laughing.
Sam’s jaw dropped, and he shot Chuck a glare. “You taught Jesus to pull Jedi mind tricks on the Super America clerk?”
“I didn’t teach him anything,” Chuck said, shrugging. “I just put the movie in front of him for him to absorb as part of his historical education. Anyway, he died for humanity’s sins - the least it can do for him in return is give him free fat donut pie.”
“Fat donut pie?” Sam said blankly.
“The sweetest snack known to modern man. You’d hate it.”
Sam pushed back his chair and grabbed Chuck by the arm, walking him out of the kitchen and into the back porch. Chuck didn’t fight it because, hey, sasquatch-sized guy looming over him with a displeased expression.
“What?” Chuck said as the door slammed closed behind them.
“Don’t you think you’re setting sort of a bad example?” Sam whispered.
“Don’t you think you should brush your teeth after having hummus for lunch?” Chuck said, clapping a hand over his nose.
Sam put a hand over his own mouth. “It’s just that we need everyone on the same page if we’re going to win this war, and corrupting the Lamb - our best shot at a trump card - with snack food and shark attack documentaries isn’t exactly helping the cause.”
“He doesn’t want to be part of your cause.”
“But we need him,” Sam said through his fingers. “It’s that simple, Chuck - we hardly have a snowball’s chance without his help. Don’t you want to stop the apocalypse? Don’t you want to get Dean and Cas back?”
That was a low blow. Chuck wrenched his arm away. “I know you’re the general here or whatever, Sam, but if he doesn’t want to follow your orders and let himself be a tool for world-saving shenanigans, that’s his own choice. And if he can’t tell you himself, I will: Leave him be.”
“Why?” Sam said with a scoff. “Because that’s the choice you made?”
Chuck came up with about fifteen really freaking snarky retorts, but only after Sam had already left the room.
***
Jesus seemed okay being out in the living room by himself, so while he was watching Shark Week, Chuck was on the couch on the porch, curled around the laptop. He’d seen everything Shark Week had to offer, he figured - every single show was “Look at this totally brutal shark attack!…but sharks are really more afraid of us than we are of them.”
So Chuck wrote instead, to keep from thinking about what Sam had said. He tried venturing into his happy-verse, but that only resulted in redundant pie scenes and a weird alternate universe where Sam and Dean worked contentedly at the Quick Stop, so he got sick of it quickly. He stared at the Google Doc for a minute, biting his lip.
Sam guilt was nearly as potent as Missouri guilt, and in the end, it forced his hand. Chuck went back to the document for his real visions, positioned his fingers on the keyboard, and flipped the mental switch labeled “Anna.”
Anna missed the sensation of grass under her feet, so when she went to seek revelation, she flew to a hill outside Vancouver and kicked off her shoes. The higher-ups wouldn’t approve. In the end, though, their approval didn’t matter as much as God’s. She’d never spoken to God, but she liked to think that He would be pleased with her appreciation of his work. Taking a deep breath, she sat down with her bare soles against the grass and opened her mind to orders.
The orders came swiftly, and with them her breath left.
“But-” she started, and the voice projected in her mind hushed her. She listened and frowned. “We already have Dean Winchester captive. I can persuade him on my own, if you just-” The orders repeated, louder, and she stood up, yelling at the clearing, “Listen! I’m telling you it’s not necessary! I know grief weakens his will, but this isn’t-”
The voice roared through her with the force of a small sun, all vengeance and ruffled feathers. Anna fell back into the grass, her head cracking against a tree root. She swore as the voice burned in her mind. After what seemed like eons, it paused.
“Yes,” she said, blinking back tears. “I-I promised my allegiance to God and Heaven. I will not disappoint.”
The voice lingered for a moment as if waiting for further argument, then left her.
Anna lay still with grass prickling at the back of her neck and the smell of ozone sharp in her nose, staring up blankly at the sky. It wouldn’t motivate Dean, she thought. It wasn’t necessary. They didn’t understand. Or…they didn’t care. But no, the orders weren’t hers to be questioned.
“I will not disappoint,” she told herself. “I will not disappoint.”
If Heaven wanted her to do it, she would kill Castiel.
Chuck hurled the laptop down on the couch. “CRAP!”
Couldn’t Castiel go five minutes without some angel trying to kill him?
***
Chuck had written the words “Anna doubts” so many times they didn’t even seem like words anymore, and still, he wasn’t getting anything more off his switchboard connection.
“Work,” he hissed at his hand as it scribbled hard dark lines in a stack of copy paper on the kitchen table. “Dammit, work!”
“You can’t force these things, honey,” Missouri said, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. On his other side, Jesus attempted to repeat the gesture but changed his mind, shoving his hands into his lap and staring at the table instead.
“Like hell I can’t,” Chuck said. He wrote Anna’s name, gave his connection a mental shove, and waited for the words to come. For about the thousandth time in the last five hours, nothing happened. “It gave me every freaking detail of every freaking moment I didn’t care about earlier, and now that I need it, it’s silent. What’s that about? How the frak is that fair?”
“Anything?” Sam asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
“No!” Chuck yelled between clenched teeth.
Crowley strode into the room behind Sam, hands in his pockets, casual as anything. “We’ve got all the materials ready in the living room for the angel summoning ritual,” he said. “Just need the sigils taken down. In case you lot would like to, I dunno, save your friends.”
“Can we take the messy rituals outside, please?” Missouri said.
“Let’s get started, already!” Chuck cried.
“Didn’t that ritual require rare holy oil?” Sam said, furrowing his massive brow.
“I had a minion fetch it from my storehouse,” Crowley said, inspecting his nails. When the rest of the room only stared, he rolled his eyes. “I collect expensive oils. Anyone who wants me to elaborate on why, please continue gawking.”
Everyone’s eyes shifted away from him in different directions.
“Let’s set up the ritual,” Sam said, loudly clearing his throat.
At Missouri’s request, they poured the circle of holy oil in the driveway. In the twilight, the oil glistened eerily against the blacktop. A neighbor walking her dog gave them a strange look and hurried on past.
Chuck sat on the front steps, pressing paper against his knee and attempting to write while Sam reread the ritual directions and nervously clutched the sword. The words wouldn’t come. This was worse than trying to write the climax of his first pseudonymous romance novel.
“Anyone who doesn’t want to be seen by the eyes of Heaven, put on your amulets now!” Sam announced. The group of demons who’d pulled up lawn chairs to watch from the yard pulled amulets around their necks. Chuck already had his on, as did Jesus, who was hovering just behind him.
“Break it!” Crowley called back into the house. The air shifted as inside the house, Missouri swept a cleaning sponge across the protective sigil.
“All right,” Sam said, taking a deep breath. He stepped into the circle, gripped the sword tight, and started to chant in Enochian. Or maybe it was ancient Sumerian. All those dead languages sounded the same to Chuck, and he wasn’t paying much attention to linguistics right now, anyway.
Sam started the chant a second time, and-
The street lamps all down the block blew, and the air crackled with electricity.
“Was that it?” one of the demon spectators called. “That was easy.”
“No,” Sam said, double-checking his printout of the ritual’s instructions. “I barely even st-”
Light flashed, and Anna stood on the front lawn, her hair blowing wild around her. Beside her, one man’s collar clutched in each hand, were Dean and Castiel.
Dean wrenched himself away from the angel, stumbled forward, and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. “Man, that travel package really oughtta come with complimentary Dramamine.”
Chuck dropped his paper and pen and stood up, his mouth attempting to form words and failing.
“Dean!” Sam said, running to him. Once he’d checked that his brother was okay, he turned to Anna. “Why-?”
Anna released Castiel’s collar and passed him a smile that was almost shy. “After a certain point, ‘for the greater good’ isn’t enough of an answer. Wrath and cruelty aren’t what I signed on for.”
Castiel roped an arm around her and laid his forehead against the side of hers for a moment, whispering something in her ear. Anna’s shoulders sagged in what looked like relief.
Chuck took a step forward before he realized he was shaking from his knees to his fingertips. He wanted to say something, but his mouth wouldn’t form words. Why did the words always stop working when he needed them the most?
Castiel grinned, letting go of Anna, and searched the crowd of demons and hunters before his eyes landed on Chuck on the front walk. The grin faltered. His legs moved.
Castiel jogged across the grass, and Chuck seized enough control over his shaking limbs to meet him halfway. The impact knocked the wind right out of Chuck’s lungs. He wrapped his arms around Castiel, gripping fistfuls of his shirt, and Castiel’s arms enveloped him, lifting him in the air for a second. It probably looked like they were in a Hallmark Channel movie or a commercial for fabric softener or something, but Chuck didn’t care, because he had his friend back alive.
“I’m sorry,” he said against Castiel’s shoulder, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry, Cas.”
“I am, too,” Castiel said, letting him down but not letting go of him. “I never should have said-”
“Forget it. I should’ve told you-”
“It’s forgiven.”
Dean patted his brother casually on the shoulder and gave the fallen angel and the prophet a sneer. “God, you two are gay.”
Chuck and Castiel let go of each other to give Dean a slightly confused glare.
“Just sayin’,” he shrugged.
“Anyway,” Anna said loudly, “Dean’s deep-seated repression aside, we have some important stuff to discuss.”
“Like who’s going to pay for all that wasted oil,” Crowley muttered from a lawn chair.
“I want to help you,” Anna said to Sam. “And I know there are more angels willing to defect for the cause. I’ve heard others talk about the cruelty of their orders on Angel Radio, so they must be aware. Before coming here, I sent out a message-”
The sky flashed white from horizon to horizon, illuminating everything so bright that Chuck had to shield his eyes. When the light disappeared, the first thing he saw was red.
A trail of red dripping from Anna’s open mouth. Hands dug into either side of her head, which was twisted at a strange angle.
The demons on the lawn gasped and scrambled out of sight, upturning chairs in their wake.
“Angels,” said the blond man the hands belonged to. “Always rebelling. It’s such a fad these days - and like Farmville, it will get worse before it passes.” He smiled pleasantly at the group, dropping Anna. Her body crumpled to the pavement, looking miniscule at his feet. A shadow of wings burned into the blacktop on one side of her and the grass on the other.
Castiel made a choked sound in his throat and lurched forward. Chuck grabbed his arm to hold him back.
“Who are you?” Sam said, holding the sword out in front of himself.
The blond man raised a hand and swept the sword out of Sam’s hand with a flick of his fingers. It clattered across the blacktop. “Sam, Sam,” he said. “I think you already know.”
Sam’s chin wavered. “Lucifer,” he said, the syllables coming out stilted.
“I came by to say hello,” said Lucifer. He smiled broadly, making sure to meet every person in sight in the eye - ending with Chuck. “Hello, boys and girls.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Characters: Chuck, Cas/Dean, Sam, Missouri Mosely, Anna, Jesus...etc.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/spoilers for season 4, sacrilege (no, really - see character list)
Word Count: 5700
Summary: Chuck introduces Jesus to the finer things in modern life - notably foods with "pie" in the name and Star Wars - while the Scoobies arrange a reunion.
Note: Beta'd by the always fabulous psycocatgirl
Further note: Fat donut pie is a real delicacy, invented by sockkiah and her college roommate. If you ever find yourself at Super America at 2am in need of a sugar rush, the recipe Chuck gives in this chapter will tell you what you need to do.
Chuck woke in the middle of the night with his neck twisted at an odd angle against the arm of the threadbare couch and a spider crawling across his arm. He bit back a decidedly unmanly shriek and flailed, sending the bug flying across the porch. Outside the screened windows, he heard one of the demons in the tents chuckle, and he hoped it wasn’t at his expense. It was official: he hated this arrangement. Rude neighbors, a bed that made his back feel like it belonged to an octogenarian, a faint smell of mildew permeating his clothes after spending a day and night there, and spiders. Spiders on him! This place was like the worst motel ever - and he was pretty sure he could make that claim stick, having written several hundred awful motels.
His legs creaked as he stood up, and his head knocked into an empty birdcage that still had used newspaper hanging out of its door. He swore, holding his head. The demons in the yard laughed again, and this time he was pretty sure he was the butt of the joke. Screw this place - he was going inside.
There was a light in the kitchen. Chuck shielded his eyes for a second before they focused, and then he saw the source: the open fridge door, and in front of it, Jesus. The guy practically had his forehead against the freezer door, his shoulders hunched protectively over something in his hands.
“What’re you-” Chuck started, and Jesus started like a scared rabbit.
In his hands was a fork and the plastic container containing Dean’s slice of pie.
“Hey,” Chuck said, dropping his arms to his sides, “that’s for Dean!”
Jesus swallowed a mouthful of pie with a guilty expression, licked whipped cream off his lips, and looked longingly down at the remaining mess of a slice.
There was such sorrow in his eyes that Chuck paused. He drew closer, resting his hands on the outside of the door. “Have you-have you had pie before?”
Jesus blinked hard at the slice, then raised his eyes slowly to Chuck’s. The answer was written plain on his face, no need for a psychic to interpret.
“Oh my god,” Chuck said, and winced. “I mean-sorry. You know what I mean. Wow. Two thousand years and change, and you’ve never-? Wow.”
That earnest expression changed to one of annoyance. Jesus closed the pie container with a click.
“No, no, man - go for it.” Chuck shook his head. “Dean would want you to have it. Really. He’s all for pie-based education.”
And besides, Dean probably wasn’t coming back. But Chuck didn’t say that - like so many words he found himself thinking lately, those ones didn’t want to come out.
Jesus hesitated, then unclicked the corners on the pie container and dug the fork in. When he drew the forkful of pie into his mouth, his eyes closed and his shoulders relaxed. A small, appreciative sound escaped through his nose. Chuck found his own mouth watering. Dude was really enjoying that damn pie.
Chuck leaned over the fridge door. “Hey, uh, if you haven’t had a chance to try pie in the last two millennia, I bet there’s a lot of other stuff you never got to try. What about…Cheetos?”
Jesus polished off the crust of the pie and licked whipped cream off his fingertips, giving Chuck a curious look.
“Pop Rocks?” Chuck tried, and was met with the same perplexed head tilt. The guy reminded him of Castiel a little bit in that - and he was willing to bet that, just like Castiel, Jesus had never been party to the glory of KFC, or milkshakes, or Ace of Base, or-god, there was one wonderful thing he hadn’t even had the chance to introduce Castiel to. “I bet you’ve never had fat donut pie,” he said, nodding to the messiah.
Jesus tilted his head again, and Chuck knew he had to educate him. “All right,” he said, grabbing one of Missouri’s spare protection charms off the kitchen counter and tossing it to Jesus. “Put this on. We’re going to the Super America.”
Jesus followed behind him, and in minutes they were walking up the block toward the gas station. The Crocs that Jesus had borrowed from Missouri’s front closet made a faint slapping noise against the sidewalk with every step, and he seemed utterly fascinated with it. Chuck watched him, wondering what his world had been like. Quieter, probably. With fewer plastics.
The florescent lights in the Super America sign had been half burned out all week, but the moment Jesus and Chuck walked through the door, the broken bulbs glowed like midday sun. The clerk at the counter looked up from her copy of US Weekly like she’d just been shaken awake.
“Nice trick,” Chuck said.
Jesus shrugged - no big deal.
“Okay,” Chuck said, leading him to the rack of slightly stale baked goods at the back of the store. “Ingredient one: donuts.” He grabbed a couple at random, and Jesus followed suit. “Ingredient two,” he said, crossing to the display of Hostess fruit pies, “is these. Now, it’s not really a recipe, per se - more of a loose accumulation of ingredients stuffed into the microwave together and eaten at the same time, preferably with one of those 40oz slushy things on the side. But trust me on this - it’s the sweetest human existence gets. My college buddies came up with it at 4am during finals week.”
Chuck paid for their snacks, including a couple of slushies - cherry, because the blue raspberry just reminded him of Castiel and gangsta rap. The industrial grade microwave next to the coffeemaker whirred and clunked inside as it heated their purchases, and Jesus peered through the glass at the filling bubbling out of his fruit pie. Yep, using a microwave was definitely on the list of missing life experiences.
They sat down on the curb outside to eat. It was past 2am, at least, and the gas station was right across the street from an elementary school baseball diamond, so everything stretching in front of them was completely still. Street lamps flickered across the block, glowing a little brighter in Jesus’s presence. Following Chuck’s example, the guy took a bite of his donut, then a gooey mouthful of Hostess fruit pie. He didn’t need Chuck’s instruction to wave a hand at the hot food in his mouth and take a quick gulp of slushy. Chuck smiled a little. It was nice to know some things about modern life were instinct.
“Y’like it? Is it one of the best experiences you’ve had here?”
Jesus nodded.
“Well, good. I aim to please.” Chuck took a bite of fruit pie and wiped filling off his lip. “Actually, that’s not true. I pretty much aim to do the bare minimum and not get noticed. That’s kinda why I got so close to Cas, I think - he made me want to do more than that. When somebody makes you want to be a better person, you should keep ‘em around, y’know? Well. I’m sure you know. You’re charged with a lot of that.”
Jesus just watched him, head resting on one hand and the slushy straw between his lips.
Chuck sighed, weighing the snacks in his hand. “Guess I really screwed the pooch on the becoming a better person front. I tried, y’know - that’s gotta count for something. But I don’t know what I’ll do if we never get Castiel out of that green room. I had this vision, back when we first got here. Lucifer killing him. God, it hurt. I don’t think anything in my life has ever hurt that bad.” He paused to take a bite of donut, letting the sugary grit of the dessert wash over his tongue. “Well. Maybe gallstones. Those really sucked.”
Jesus was staring across the street at that baseball diamond with a look of polite disinterest on his face.
Okay, yeah, TMI. Chuck slouched. “What about you?”
Jesus glanced back at him, eyebrows raised and his lips a tight line.
“I mean, I can guess at the most painful part of your life. But what about the rest of it - how’s it compare to this?”
A pause. The man raised one hand and pinched his finger and thumb slowly toward each other. Then he furrowed his brow, shook his head, and spread his hands apart. Smaller - and at the same time, bigger.
Chuck snickered. “Just wait till you see the internet.”
***
It was kind of nice, having a friend who didn’t talk. Everybody else in the household, from Sam to the least intimidating demon, seemed to want something from Chuck, and they vocalized it any time he was in the same room with them. Help with this plan. Tell us what you saw. Give us your autograph, prophet. Where did you get that fruit pie? Any time he walked out into the house, he felt like he was being pulled in three different directions, none of them ones he was keen on following. But if he stayed behind the closed door of the den with Jesus, nobody bothered him. Missouri was the only one who would even approach the door - the demons got skittish with the messiah around, and Sam was weirdly flustered around him after the whole “Mr. Christ” thing, so only one set of knuckles ever rapped at that door, and they were usually followed by a plate of cookies.
Chuck did what any good liaison to modern culture would do in his place: he dug a pile of DVDs out of Missouri’s collection and used the laptop and an external DVD drive to introduce Jesus to the classics. Star Wars came first, because it was first chronologically. Jesus sat through the whole trilogy with his head tipped slightly to one side in a way that reminded Chuck of Castiel. He didn’t make a sound except when Han Solo said something that entertained him, and then he let out a huff and smiled.
The rest of Missouri’s DVD stack was slightly more sparse on classic scifi titles, but it was still pretty geek-friendly. Chuck pulled out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, The Breakfast Club, and a surprisingly battered copy of Clerks. Outside the den, feet stomped and voices battled. Chuck hunched in the corner of the couch with his hands at his neck, hoping they didn’t need anything from him. The door only opened once. It was Missouri, looking frazzled.
“‘Scuse me, boys, but have either of you heard of a sword with the ability to kill anything?”
“The Ultima Weapon?” Chuck tried.
Missouri pursed her lips. “This demon Crowley swears there’s an angel-killing sword in circulation on the supernatural black market - might help us get your friends out of Heaven’s hands, and then some. We need to know if it’s legit.” She pulled out an inkjet photo. “The seller sent us this picture. Look familiar?”
Chuck leaned over to get a better look, and his insides went icy. The weapon on the screen was the same one that Dickhead had swung straight through him. He hadn’t had a lot of time to look at it in the field, but he recognized the gold edge on the blade. Come to think of it, he’d never asked what happened to the sword - in the chaos that followed his death, it made sense that the sword would’ve been forgotten and picked up by someone scrying for magical objects to sell. And of course Dickhead would’ve brought his fanciest, most everything-killingest weapon onto the battlefield. The dude was all about overkill.
Curling back in on himself, Chuck swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, uh, that’s-that’s a little more than familiar. It belonged to Zachariah.”
“Yeah? You have a vision of that?”
“No. It sort of…uh…” Chuck hugged his stomach hard, trying not to remember the sensation of that blade slicing through him.
Missouri frowned deeply. “Oh. My condolences. Would you boys like something to eat?”
Chuck looked to Jesus, who was paying rapt attention to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eating pizza. “Yeah,” he said. “Food might be good.”
Missouri left. Chuck rested his head in his hands. The sword that had killed him was going to be in the house. Oh, goodie. That wasn’t a jarring reminder of his own mortality at all.
He tried to keep his cool through the rest of the movie, but it wasn’t happening. The beginning of Clerks didn’t hold his interest, either. He ate what Missouri brought into the room, averted his eyes when Jesus gave him curious looks for tapping his fingers, and picked at the loose threads on the sleeve of his hoodie until he’d worn a small bare patch into it. Giving in, he grabbed a day planner from the end table beside the couch and started writing.
Castiel leaned against the table, the marble surface pressing hard against his elbows. Dean was in the opposite corner, his face covered by his jacket, snoring softly. They’d started sleeping in shifts not long ago - a day, maybe, based on how many times Castiel’s stomach had required a meal - and it was his turn to stay awake. Dean didn’t want Anna “screwing with his crap” while he was asleep. Castiel knew better than to expect petty theft or wardrobe sabotage from the angels, but he didn’t want to say so and provoke another argument.
“Anna,” he whispered toward the painting of Lazarus on the wall. “Can you hear me? I’d like to speak with you.”
Air rustled to his left. “Trying to convince me to let you go again?”
“No,” Castiel said, bowing his head toward the table. “I just want to…talk.”
A shadow fell over the table, followed by a pair of thin arms and a cascade of red hair. Anna smiled slightly, her eyes dark. “What about?”
“I want to know why.” He raised his head. “Why, after all the host of Heaven has done to you, do you stay with them? I’ve been in your place. I’ve felt their hands on my soul, rearranging and forcing the message into me. ‘Bible camp,’ as Dean calls it, was an unpleasant experience. You might call it torture.”
“The Host doesn’t torture-”
“Like hell they don’t. They just don’t call it such because it’s for the greater good.” He closed his eyes, forcing back the flood of unwelcome memories the conversation brought up. “But would you argue that it’s not a violation, and that their methods caused you no pain?”
Anna ran her finger along the cap of a strawberry daiquiri bottle. “What’s your question, Cas?”
“Why put your faith in a group that has intentionally harmed you and intends to harm others?”
“Because they do it for the-”
“Greater good, yeah,” Castiel finished with a sigh. “After a certain point, that answer stops being enough.”
Anna leaned away from him, smirking. “At the point where you start feeling squishy hearts and candies love toward the man who’s arguing against it, you mean? That point?”
Castiel’s jaw clenched. “That wasn’t-”
“I was human once, Cas. I know a thing or two about romantic love. You had it bad for him since before I got my grace back, and everybody saw it except for you.” She wagged a finger at his nose. “So don’t try to tell me I’m going to have a change of heart like you did. My heart lies with Heaven, not with Dean Winchester’s rock-hard abs.”
Castiel pushed her finger away. “At least the side I’ve chosen doesn’t punish those who think for themselves.”
“Heaven only punishes for the sake of-”
“You think that!” Castiel interrupted. Shoving himself away from the table, he looked her in the eyes. “When all the hands have been shown in this war and Heaven has mowed down innocents in the name of victory, you tell me again whether your side is truly so righteous.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “And I suppose the humans on your side are infallible?”
Castiel thought of-
Chuck swallowed, not writing out the rest of the sentence. He’d avoided writing himself into the story his visions told, and he wasn’t about to start with a line about how much he sucked. It was a selfish omission, maybe, but screw it - nobody had to see this, anyway.
“No,” Castiel said, “they’re not. But they don’t pretend to be.”
Guilt surged up Chuck’s throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and tossed the day planner out of the fort. The DVD prattled on, Dante’s voice rising as his girlfriend walked out of the Quick Stop.
“Try not to suck any dick on the way through the parking lot!”
Someone laughed. Chuck was pretty sure that wasn’t part of the movie, so he opened his eyes. Jesus was doubled over on the sofa-bed next to him, both hands clapped to his mouth and laughter rolling out between them. Chuck stared. He’d never seen so much as one real laugh from the guy, and here he was crumpled on the bed, shoulders shaking, incapacitated with laughter. Tears eked out the sides of his eyes.
“Really?” Chuck said, frowning. “You’ll lose it for Kevin Smith, but not even a chuckle for my Darth Vader impression earlier?”
That only seemed to make Jesus laugh harder. He fell onto his side, his hands slipping off his mouth, and his voice rebounded off the walls of the den, deeper than Chuck had expected. Chuck smiled a little. Then he started to grin. Then, as if something was tugging it out of his heart, he started to laugh, too. In seconds, both of them were rolling on the bed, laughing and clutching their stomachs. Everything seemed too funny for words, from the movie to the pillow fort to the fact that Chuck was pouring out his visions of the future on a computer old enough to have a fourth grade education. It wasn’t just the laughter that wrenched itself out of him unbidden; it was the whole mood. Through the hilarity, Chuck dimly wondered if this was part of Jesus’s power, like the lights at the Super America - projecting his energy. Making things glow. That was pretty freaking hysterical.
When the laughter subsided, Chuck’s ribs ached and he had tears streaming down his cheeks. “Dude, I so needed that,” he wheezed, and extended his fist. “Hit this.”
Jesus squinted at Chuck’s hand, then carefully curled his fingers into a fist and copied the motion, bumping their knuckles together.
“Yeah, you got it,” Chuck said.
Jesus’s smile stretched into a full-on grin, creases forming at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. It was the first time since he’d appeared that Chuck had seen him look genuinely, well, happy. He wouldn’t have expected dumb movies of all things to make the son of God crack a smile. Maybe this guy had the right idea, Chuck thought - in the midst of Heaven and Hell crap, it was the inane human details that made life enjoyable.
Or maybe the guy just thought dick jokes were really funny. Whichever the case, Chuck felt a weird kinship with him. Grinning back, he turned his end of the fist bump into exploding knucks. Jesus looked a little puzzled by that but copied the motion anyway.
***
Chuck envisioned himself and Jesus as the Jay and Silent Bob of the apocalypse - except, y’know, without the sex obsession and weed. While the main story of The Heroes Taking On Lucifer and Heaven went down in the foreground, Chuck and Jesus hung out nearby, not really paying attention. Sam left for half a day with Crowley and came back with a sword-shaped package and both of their shirts spattered in gore.
While Crowley complained loudly about getting blood on his custom made crocodile skin loafers, Chuck and Jesus watched Animal Planet in the living room.
While Sam polished Dickhead’s angel-killing sword, Chuck ranted about about the Galactic Empire’s disorganization and Jesus nodded knowingly.
While Sam and Missouri discussed plans to make Anna release her captives under threat of angel sword shanking, Chuck introduced Jesus to Ace of Base and The Proclaimers. Every so often he started to sing along and felt his voice shrivel in his throat when he realized that Castiel wasn’t there to harmonize with him, but he wasn’t going to complain. Jesus clearly had a long way to go before he’d be up for talking, much less singing synth-pop, and complaining just seemed like it’d rub that in his face.
They were in the middle of a Shark Week marathon when Jesus left for ten minutes and came back with a Super America bag full of Hostess fruit pies and donuts. He motioned Chuck toward the kitchen, and Chuck followed.
“Dude, you went to SA by yourself?” He slapped Jesus on the back. “Good for you!”
Sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of lore texts, Sam gave them a curious look. “I’m all for autonomy, but how did he pay for that?”
Jesus popped his fat donut pie into the microwave and turned to Sam. Raising two fingers, he made his expression neutral and waved his hand in an arc.
“You Obi-Wanned them?” Chuck said, laughing.
Sam’s jaw dropped, and he shot Chuck a glare. “You taught Jesus to pull Jedi mind tricks on the Super America clerk?”
“I didn’t teach him anything,” Chuck said, shrugging. “I just put the movie in front of him for him to absorb as part of his historical education. Anyway, he died for humanity’s sins - the least it can do for him in return is give him free fat donut pie.”
“Fat donut pie?” Sam said blankly.
“The sweetest snack known to modern man. You’d hate it.”
Sam pushed back his chair and grabbed Chuck by the arm, walking him out of the kitchen and into the back porch. Chuck didn’t fight it because, hey, sasquatch-sized guy looming over him with a displeased expression.
“What?” Chuck said as the door slammed closed behind them.
“Don’t you think you’re setting sort of a bad example?” Sam whispered.
“Don’t you think you should brush your teeth after having hummus for lunch?” Chuck said, clapping a hand over his nose.
Sam put a hand over his own mouth. “It’s just that we need everyone on the same page if we’re going to win this war, and corrupting the Lamb - our best shot at a trump card - with snack food and shark attack documentaries isn’t exactly helping the cause.”
“He doesn’t want to be part of your cause.”
“But we need him,” Sam said through his fingers. “It’s that simple, Chuck - we hardly have a snowball’s chance without his help. Don’t you want to stop the apocalypse? Don’t you want to get Dean and Cas back?”
That was a low blow. Chuck wrenched his arm away. “I know you’re the general here or whatever, Sam, but if he doesn’t want to follow your orders and let himself be a tool for world-saving shenanigans, that’s his own choice. And if he can’t tell you himself, I will: Leave him be.”
“Why?” Sam said with a scoff. “Because that’s the choice you made?”
Chuck came up with about fifteen really freaking snarky retorts, but only after Sam had already left the room.
***
Jesus seemed okay being out in the living room by himself, so while he was watching Shark Week, Chuck was on the couch on the porch, curled around the laptop. He’d seen everything Shark Week had to offer, he figured - every single show was “Look at this totally brutal shark attack!…but sharks are really more afraid of us than we are of them.”
So Chuck wrote instead, to keep from thinking about what Sam had said. He tried venturing into his happy-verse, but that only resulted in redundant pie scenes and a weird alternate universe where Sam and Dean worked contentedly at the Quick Stop, so he got sick of it quickly. He stared at the Google Doc for a minute, biting his lip.
Sam guilt was nearly as potent as Missouri guilt, and in the end, it forced his hand. Chuck went back to the document for his real visions, positioned his fingers on the keyboard, and flipped the mental switch labeled “Anna.”
Anna missed the sensation of grass under her feet, so when she went to seek revelation, she flew to a hill outside Vancouver and kicked off her shoes. The higher-ups wouldn’t approve. In the end, though, their approval didn’t matter as much as God’s. She’d never spoken to God, but she liked to think that He would be pleased with her appreciation of his work. Taking a deep breath, she sat down with her bare soles against the grass and opened her mind to orders.
The orders came swiftly, and with them her breath left.
“But-” she started, and the voice projected in her mind hushed her. She listened and frowned. “We already have Dean Winchester captive. I can persuade him on my own, if you just-” The orders repeated, louder, and she stood up, yelling at the clearing, “Listen! I’m telling you it’s not necessary! I know grief weakens his will, but this isn’t-”
The voice roared through her with the force of a small sun, all vengeance and ruffled feathers. Anna fell back into the grass, her head cracking against a tree root. She swore as the voice burned in her mind. After what seemed like eons, it paused.
“Yes,” she said, blinking back tears. “I-I promised my allegiance to God and Heaven. I will not disappoint.”
The voice lingered for a moment as if waiting for further argument, then left her.
Anna lay still with grass prickling at the back of her neck and the smell of ozone sharp in her nose, staring up blankly at the sky. It wouldn’t motivate Dean, she thought. It wasn’t necessary. They didn’t understand. Or…they didn’t care. But no, the orders weren’t hers to be questioned.
“I will not disappoint,” she told herself. “I will not disappoint.”
If Heaven wanted her to do it, she would kill Castiel.
Chuck hurled the laptop down on the couch. “CRAP!”
Couldn’t Castiel go five minutes without some angel trying to kill him?
***
Chuck had written the words “Anna doubts” so many times they didn’t even seem like words anymore, and still, he wasn’t getting anything more off his switchboard connection.
“Work,” he hissed at his hand as it scribbled hard dark lines in a stack of copy paper on the kitchen table. “Dammit, work!”
“You can’t force these things, honey,” Missouri said, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. On his other side, Jesus attempted to repeat the gesture but changed his mind, shoving his hands into his lap and staring at the table instead.
“Like hell I can’t,” Chuck said. He wrote Anna’s name, gave his connection a mental shove, and waited for the words to come. For about the thousandth time in the last five hours, nothing happened. “It gave me every freaking detail of every freaking moment I didn’t care about earlier, and now that I need it, it’s silent. What’s that about? How the frak is that fair?”
“Anything?” Sam asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
“No!” Chuck yelled between clenched teeth.
Crowley strode into the room behind Sam, hands in his pockets, casual as anything. “We’ve got all the materials ready in the living room for the angel summoning ritual,” he said. “Just need the sigils taken down. In case you lot would like to, I dunno, save your friends.”
“Can we take the messy rituals outside, please?” Missouri said.
“Let’s get started, already!” Chuck cried.
“Didn’t that ritual require rare holy oil?” Sam said, furrowing his massive brow.
“I had a minion fetch it from my storehouse,” Crowley said, inspecting his nails. When the rest of the room only stared, he rolled his eyes. “I collect expensive oils. Anyone who wants me to elaborate on why, please continue gawking.”
Everyone’s eyes shifted away from him in different directions.
“Let’s set up the ritual,” Sam said, loudly clearing his throat.
At Missouri’s request, they poured the circle of holy oil in the driveway. In the twilight, the oil glistened eerily against the blacktop. A neighbor walking her dog gave them a strange look and hurried on past.
Chuck sat on the front steps, pressing paper against his knee and attempting to write while Sam reread the ritual directions and nervously clutched the sword. The words wouldn’t come. This was worse than trying to write the climax of his first pseudonymous romance novel.
“Anyone who doesn’t want to be seen by the eyes of Heaven, put on your amulets now!” Sam announced. The group of demons who’d pulled up lawn chairs to watch from the yard pulled amulets around their necks. Chuck already had his on, as did Jesus, who was hovering just behind him.
“Break it!” Crowley called back into the house. The air shifted as inside the house, Missouri swept a cleaning sponge across the protective sigil.
“All right,” Sam said, taking a deep breath. He stepped into the circle, gripped the sword tight, and started to chant in Enochian. Or maybe it was ancient Sumerian. All those dead languages sounded the same to Chuck, and he wasn’t paying much attention to linguistics right now, anyway.
Sam started the chant a second time, and-
The street lamps all down the block blew, and the air crackled with electricity.
“Was that it?” one of the demon spectators called. “That was easy.”
“No,” Sam said, double-checking his printout of the ritual’s instructions. “I barely even st-”
Light flashed, and Anna stood on the front lawn, her hair blowing wild around her. Beside her, one man’s collar clutched in each hand, were Dean and Castiel.
Dean wrenched himself away from the angel, stumbled forward, and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. “Man, that travel package really oughtta come with complimentary Dramamine.”
Chuck dropped his paper and pen and stood up, his mouth attempting to form words and failing.
“Dean!” Sam said, running to him. Once he’d checked that his brother was okay, he turned to Anna. “Why-?”
Anna released Castiel’s collar and passed him a smile that was almost shy. “After a certain point, ‘for the greater good’ isn’t enough of an answer. Wrath and cruelty aren’t what I signed on for.”
Castiel roped an arm around her and laid his forehead against the side of hers for a moment, whispering something in her ear. Anna’s shoulders sagged in what looked like relief.
Chuck took a step forward before he realized he was shaking from his knees to his fingertips. He wanted to say something, but his mouth wouldn’t form words. Why did the words always stop working when he needed them the most?
Castiel grinned, letting go of Anna, and searched the crowd of demons and hunters before his eyes landed on Chuck on the front walk. The grin faltered. His legs moved.
Castiel jogged across the grass, and Chuck seized enough control over his shaking limbs to meet him halfway. The impact knocked the wind right out of Chuck’s lungs. He wrapped his arms around Castiel, gripping fistfuls of his shirt, and Castiel’s arms enveloped him, lifting him in the air for a second. It probably looked like they were in a Hallmark Channel movie or a commercial for fabric softener or something, but Chuck didn’t care, because he had his friend back alive.
“I’m sorry,” he said against Castiel’s shoulder, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry, Cas.”
“I am, too,” Castiel said, letting him down but not letting go of him. “I never should have said-”
“Forget it. I should’ve told you-”
“It’s forgiven.”
Dean patted his brother casually on the shoulder and gave the fallen angel and the prophet a sneer. “God, you two are gay.”
Chuck and Castiel let go of each other to give Dean a slightly confused glare.
“Just sayin’,” he shrugged.
“Anyway,” Anna said loudly, “Dean’s deep-seated repression aside, we have some important stuff to discuss.”
“Like who’s going to pay for all that wasted oil,” Crowley muttered from a lawn chair.
“I want to help you,” Anna said to Sam. “And I know there are more angels willing to defect for the cause. I’ve heard others talk about the cruelty of their orders on Angel Radio, so they must be aware. Before coming here, I sent out a message-”
The sky flashed white from horizon to horizon, illuminating everything so bright that Chuck had to shield his eyes. When the light disappeared, the first thing he saw was red.
A trail of red dripping from Anna’s open mouth. Hands dug into either side of her head, which was twisted at a strange angle.
The demons on the lawn gasped and scrambled out of sight, upturning chairs in their wake.
“Angels,” said the blond man the hands belonged to. “Always rebelling. It’s such a fad these days - and like Farmville, it will get worse before it passes.” He smiled pleasantly at the group, dropping Anna. Her body crumpled to the pavement, looking miniscule at his feet. A shadow of wings burned into the blacktop on one side of her and the grass on the other.
Castiel made a choked sound in his throat and lurched forward. Chuck grabbed his arm to hold him back.
“Who are you?” Sam said, holding the sword out in front of himself.
The blond man raised a hand and swept the sword out of Sam’s hand with a flick of his fingers. It clattered across the blacktop. “Sam, Sam,” he said. “I think you already know.”
Sam’s chin wavered. “Lucifer,” he said, the syllables coming out stilted.
“I came by to say hello,” said Lucifer. He smiled broadly, making sure to meet every person in sight in the eye - ending with Chuck. “Hello, boys and girls.”
TO BE CONTINUED...