Fic: The Shattered One (5/?)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
“What is he doing here?” Bobby asked with all the warmth of a grizzly bear as he sat in his wheelchair and looked out the window into the backyard.
Sam glanced up from the ancient tome he was reading and looked outside… though he knew what he’d find. Dean was leaning against the Impala, nursing a beer. Castiel was standing next to him, that creepy close that he only did with Dean (to the point that Dean had actually given up trying to get him to back off, so the two always looked a hair’s breadth away from embracing).
“He’s…. helping,” Sam offered lamely.
Bobby snorted. “If he wants to help, shouldn’t he be off finding us something to use against the Devil instead of watching Dean drown himself in booze?”
Sam frowned uncomfortably. “Lay off him, Bobby.”
That earned him a scowl from the old hunter. “Lay off him? Angel won’t get me up out of this chair and you want me to mollycoddle him?”
“I think he’d heal you if he could. He’s… going through a rough time. He hasn’t said so, but Dean and I think he’s… falling.”
Bobby turned his chair around to face Sam, suddenly attentive. “What do you mean?” That was tactician Bobby Singer, assessing their fighting fitness.
“He’s been losing his powers. Just a little at a time, but… he has to eat now. He can’t fly as far as he used to. He sleeps.” Sam trailed off, feeling somehow traitorous for telling anyone about the angel’s deterioration. Having the angel around so much of late had given Sam a chance to know him better, and he knew two things without doubt: 1) Castiel wanted to do the right thing for humanity, and 2) Castiel was painfully loyal to Dean. That was really all it took to win over Sam Winchester.
At the protracted silence, Sam glanced up and found Bobby staring hard at him. “And you think that’s an angel falling?” Bobby asked pointedly.
“Well, yeah… what else could it be?”
Bobby looked constipated. “I don’t know. I’d hardly call myself an angel expert, but after that mess with Anna Milton last year, I did some digging on fallen angels. I’ve never read anything about an angel falling being anything less than a comet plummeting to Earth deal.” Bobby rolled toward the table to dig around for a book. “Nothing in the literature about them just sort of sinking into being human like you’re describing.”
Sam frowned. “Well, if he’s not falling, then what’s wrong with him?”
Bobby shrugged. “Beats me… but maybe that angel’s not being honest with you.”
Sam stiffened at the notion of deceit. He’d traveled and worked with Castiel enough to feel the need to speak in his defense. “To be fair, we haven’t actually questioned him about it. We’ve been a little busy. Castiel’s been hanging around a lot lately, and as soon as we find something, a monster or a demon or whatever, he’s on it the second we say the word. He’s gone into angel Rambo mode or something… frankly, Bobby, it’s kind of scary.”
“Might be you two forgot what he is, then,” Bobby noted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, that angel’s always been scary. That’s angels.”
Sam had to concede that point. The first time he stood in front of Castiel and really looked at him, it sure as hell wasn’t a slim Midwestern boy he saw. Or that was what he saw, but it wasn’t what he felt. Castiel had a way of taking up a whole room without moving a muscle of Jimmy Novak’s lean body. Truthfully, Sam didn’t know how Dean could stand toe-to-toe with that and have those endless staring contests with the angel without feeling cowed.
“Ah, here,” Bobby unearthed a dusty old book with a cracked leather cover and held it out. “This had the most detail about angels falling… might be you can dig up some more to it after this, too, I just got sidetracked by that little Apocalypse thing.”
Sam took the book. “Yeah, sure.” He hefted the big book and frowned. He and his brother had just assumed Castiel’s symptoms were the signs of an angel slipping from Heaven’s reach. They’d brought him further into their fold the farther he fell from Heaven.
If Castiel wasn’t falling, what was happening to him?
****************
“You better double that,” Dean told Bobby as the older hunter put in a delivery order for two pizzas. Sam was in the library with his nose buried in a book (typical). Castiel was outside, warding the property against his own family.
Bobby covered the phone with his hand. “What’s that?”
“Cas eats now, and he can put food away like you would not believe.”
“Coming from you, that’s disturbing.”
“Tell me about it… oh, and order breadsticks.”
Bobby huffed but did as asked. When he hung up, Bobby turned his chair around and said, “All right, that’s twenty minutes… enough time to get this power pow-wow started. Go round up your brother and your angel.”
Dragging Sam away from his musty old book was easier than getting Castiel to come inside. He was in the middle of painting a sigil on a fencepost by the front gate, and he absolutely refused to move no matter how much Dean yelled at him from the porch. Only when he was finished did he turn to regard Dean from across the yard…
… then suddenly he was standing right next to him.
Dean flinched. “Jesus, Cas!” Dean’s hand went to his chest. “You’re trying to give me a heart attack, aren’t you?” Before Castiel could answer, Dean glanced down at the angel’s hands. They were covered in blood. “Uh… aren’t you going to mojo that?”
Castiel looked down at his hands, red fingers glistening in the light from Bobby’s front door. “I am… trying. It seems to be taking a little longer than normal.”
“Oh for…” Dean grabbed Castiel by the arm and hauled him into the house toward the kitchen. Sam came half out of his seat when he saw the blood, but Dean waved him off with a gruff, “It’s Castiel’s.” And how fucked up was it that just knowing Cas was the one bleeding was enough to have the troops stand down?
Dean led Cas to the sink, turned on the water, and pushed up Castiel’s sleeves. He hissed at the sight of both wrists slit neatly down the middle. The same cuts on a human would have been called a suicide attempt (and probably a successful one at that). “Damnit.”
“It won’t harm me,” Castiel said gently. Dean startled at how close and soft the angel’s voice was to his ear. He glanced into Castiel’s face and frowned. “I might feel better about that if you weren’t still bleeding. Come here.” He ran Castiel’s wrists under cold water to clean them off, then grabbed one of Bobby’s hand towels. “Hey!” Bobby started to protest, but in the next second Dean had the cloth wrapped around Castiel’s wrists, holding them both tight around the cuts, effectively making a set a cloth handcuffs out of the towel.
“You can’t just slice yourself up like this,” Dean scolded.
“I can… and I needed the blood for the wards.”
Dean seethed. “Listen, birdbrain, you can’t do things like you used to! You have to be careful, you gotta…” Dean fumed quietly, clamping down harder on Castiel’s wrists in his frustration. Part of him wanted to make Castiel flinch, to make him feel punishment for making Dean worry. Of course, no human grip could make an angel flinch… not even a falling one.
“That’s my brother’s emotionally stunted way of saying he cares,” Sam chimed in.
Dean glowered over at Sam then focused his eyes on the bloody towel around Castiel’s wrists. He could feel Castiel staring at him. Eventually, Castiel said lowly, “Thank you, Dean.” When Dean spared a glance up into his eyes, Castiel looked down at his hands. “You can take that off now.”
Dean peeled back one side to peek at the skin underneath and found the gash gone. All that remained was a tender pink line on white skin.
Dean grunted and tossed the bloody towel on the counter.
By then, the pizza man had arrived, and Sam went out to meet him at the gate and pay for their dinner (he’d probably shit himself when he realized how much food he was buying). He came back balancing an impressive stack of pizza boxes with a large sack of breadsticks on top. While the hunters dove into a box to pluck out slices, Dean passed an entire box and the breadsticks over to Castiel.
“All right, Power Puffs,” Bobby began, “put on your thinking caps and tell me… what can kill Lucifer?”
“God,” Castiel answered simply around a bite of pepperoni and sausage pizza.
Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, since he’s been No-Show Jones for this whole shindig, let’s count him out for now.”
Castiel cast a disapproving look at Dean.
“So what else?” Bobby pressed, not interested in hearing another lecture about faith.
“The Colt?” Sam suggested.
All eyes turned to Castiel. The angel swallowed the bite he had in his mouth and frowned. “I don’t think so. It was a weapon forged by human hands to defeat the dark creatures of Hell…”
“Sounds like it’d be perfect,” Dean said.
“But Lucifer is not a creature of Hell, for all that he rules them. He is an archangel.”
“Still?” Sam asked. “I mean… didn’t he fall?”
Castiel paused, getting that look on his face like he wasn’t sure how to explain something to the puny humans with the limited English language at his disposal. “There is more than one manner in which an angel can ‘fall’… it’s hard to explain, because English uses the same word for all of them, which is greatly misleading. In Enochian, the variations of falling have different words that are far more descriptive and accurate.
“There is the excising of grace, as Anael did. That method of falling transforms an angel into a human - and in Anael’s case, allowed her to be born a human. It strips an angel of all its Heavenly gifts, though a ghost of their former self remains, like a brand on the soul.
“But there is a type of falling - and far more common - where an angel is banished, outcast, but chooses not to remove its grace. It will still have all the powers it did before it was cast out, but it can no longer hear the Host or enter Heaven.”
“So I’m guessing Lucy went the second route,” Dean grumbled.
Castiel gave Dean a strange look for the nickname, then he nodded. “Lucifer never wished to abdicate his status as an archangel… nor the powers that come with it.”
Sam looked way too thoughtful, then he reached for a second slice of pizza. “Okay, so maybe what we should be asking is ‘what can kill an archangel’?”
Castiel opened his mouth to speak.
Dean held up a finger and went, “Ah! Don’t say ‘God’.”
Castiel snapped his jaw shut and narrowed his eyes. “Yes, but I was going to say another archangel.”
“Great, because we have one of those on speed dial,” Bobby snorted.
Dean and Sam were looking at one another uncomfortably, each waiting for the other to say it. Sam broke first. “Do you think… Gabriel…?”
Castiel stilled.
“I don’t know… our last attempt to convince him to join our little band of brothers didn’t do anything but give you genital herpes and me a bullet in the back,” Dean groused.
Bobby’s eyes widened. “Run all that by me again? You boys been carousing with an archangel while I wasn’t looking? And just what the hell were you doing with him, Sam?”
“Nothing! None of it was real! Or it was, but it wasn’t permanent, just… It’s a really long story,” Sam groaned. “But the highlights are that Gabriel’s around, he’s a dick, and he’s got zero interest in taking sides.”
“Unless you call trying to strong-arm us into saying yes to Michael and Lucifer ‘taking a side’, just the wrong one.”
“Michael’s sword…” Castiel mused.
Dean looked over at him and frowned. “Cas, I really hope you’re not about to suggest I say ‘yes’.”
“Of course not, but… it’s not necessarily the archangel that can kill another archangel. Technically, it is the archangel’s blade.”
Dean perked up. “Yeah? So, if we can get our hands on an archangel’s sword, we could use it against Lucifer?”
“I wish it were that simple,” Castiel muttered as he thought it through. “But as the vessel, you are called the Michael Sword for a reason… in that, it is not merely a matter of your language being limited. Only an archangel can wield an archangel’s sword.”
“So then you’re saying yours wouldn’t work?” Dean asked.
Castiel flicked his arm to the side, a gesture so casual like he was merely adjusting his coat, and the silver blade slipped down from his sleeve as if it had been tucked up inside it the whole time… though Dean knew damn well it hadn’t been there when he was manhandling Cas around to tend to his wrists.
Castiel laid the blade on the table, like an exhibit in a trial, and said, “An angel’s blade is matched to its grace. The power of my blade is proportionate to the strength of my grace.” He ghosted a hand over the weapon, familiar like the way Dean’s hands knew his favorite gun or the steering wheel of the Impala. “This is well-matched for any beast of the pit. It can…” Castiel winced, “it is capable of slaying angels of a caste equal to my own as well as any below. But against an archangel, this would be a nuisance at best.”
“And I’m guessing if an angel tried to use a blade beyond his power level…” Sam began.
“It would be fatal. The power in the blade would overwhelm the angel holding it.”
Dean scowled. “Well, great… so we need Michael’s sword to kill Lucifer, but the only way any of us could hold Michael’s sword without dying is if I become the Michael Sword? That really defeats the whole ‘fuck you, destiny’ motif we’re rocking, doesn’t it?”
While Dean was ranting, Castiel was thinking. Sam noticed. “Cas?”
At Dean’s questioning glance, Castiel took in a breath. “I was wondering how long it would take to kill me if I tried to wield Michael’s sword in order to slay Lucifer.”
“You mean before you…” Sam made some vague gestures with his hands.
Castiel got it and nodded. “Given the discrepancy in power, I suspect I would explode.” He considered that further for a second. “It would probably be fairly spectacular.”
“Oh yes, sounds like a regular Fourth of July.” Dean threw up his hands. “Listen up, Kamikaze Cas… we’re not going with a plan where you end up dead.”
Castiel looked somberly at Dean. “My death may be unavoidable.”
“Wow, way to look on the bright side. And I thought you were done believing that fate bullshit? You’re not dying, dumbass; I won’t let you.”
“Not that it matters,” Bobby grumbled, “how in the hell are we supposed to get hold of an archangel’s sword?”
Sam looked toward Castiel expectantly.
Castiel mulled it over a second. “Perhaps, in this instance, Gabriel is our best chance.”
“The guy who wants the Lucy-Mike showdown to happen yesterday? The same guy who beat the shit out of you?” Dean sneered. “If that’s our best hope, we are so screwed.”
“His is the only archangel blade within reach on the entire planet,” Castiel countered. “If we can somehow take it from him, and if I can handle it long enough to strike with it, I believe I can lure Lucifer into a trap.”
“Oh, really… what makes you think that?”
Castiel didn’t answer right away. “We must have the sword first… without it, how I mean to trap Lucifer does not matter.”
The table fell into a momentary silence.
“What about Raphael?” Dean asked, hesitantly because the last time they’d seen that particular ray of sunshine, Raphael had vowed to destroy Castiel next time they met. Again. Destroy him again.
Castiel shook his head. “Raphael is still commander of a powerful army of Heaven. Gabriel is powerful as well, but he is unaided. It is a small advantage, but the best we can expect for such a foolhardy endeavor.”
“You and me were able to corral Raphael and have a chat with him without turning into piles of ash,” Dean pointed out. Sam blinked and Bobby grumbled something about idiots getting in over their heads.
“We trapped him only to question him about God’s whereabouts. We did not present as a real threat to Raphael, despite your warning to deep-fry him.” Castiel almost smirked. “Had we truly tried, we could not have gotten close enough to him to do it without being smote first.
“Besides which, angels object very strongly to being confined. I doubt Raphael would be so docile the next time we encountered him.”
“Docile?” Dean squawked. “You call shutting down power in the entire eastern seaboard docile?”
“Yes.”
Sam tossed in soberly, “You know, hate to be the downer here, but we ‘confined’ Gabriel, too.”
Castiel had only a stilted half-shrug in response. “True… but you did free him. It might make him hesitate - however briefly - to kill you.”
For a moment, silence filled the room. Then Bobby heaved a sigh. “Well, balls… sounds like a truly shitty plan, but at least it’s something. First thing tomorrow, we start working on a way to steal a sword from an archangel and not get our asses fried in the process.”
A half-ass plan in place and morale pretty dismal, the group turned to finishing dinner. The three hunters demolished a pizza and a half between them, while Castiel ate two entire pizzas and all the breadsticks on his own. Bobby seemed torn between sickened and impressed.
When the boxes were cleared away and the leftovers stuffed in the fridge, Dean turned to Cas. “You, uh… you sleeping tonight?”
Castiel considered a moment. “Maybe… but I am going to draw some sigils on the walls for protection over dreams first.”
“Angel dream catcher, huh? All right, well… you get tired, crash on the couch or with me, just keep it quiet… okay?”
“I will… goodnight, Dean.”
Next
****************
A/N: Okay, you guys, I realize that as far as canon is concerned, Team Free Will had already set their sights on using the Colt against Lucifer in early season 5… so y’all are just going to have to bear with me futzing with the canon timeline on this one, because I ALWAYS thought it was stupid to think a gun made by some guy in the 1800’s could kill an archangel like Lucifer.
“What is he doing here?” Bobby asked with all the warmth of a grizzly bear as he sat in his wheelchair and looked out the window into the backyard.
Sam glanced up from the ancient tome he was reading and looked outside… though he knew what he’d find. Dean was leaning against the Impala, nursing a beer. Castiel was standing next to him, that creepy close that he only did with Dean (to the point that Dean had actually given up trying to get him to back off, so the two always looked a hair’s breadth away from embracing).
“He’s…. helping,” Sam offered lamely.
Bobby snorted. “If he wants to help, shouldn’t he be off finding us something to use against the Devil instead of watching Dean drown himself in booze?”
Sam frowned uncomfortably. “Lay off him, Bobby.”
That earned him a scowl from the old hunter. “Lay off him? Angel won’t get me up out of this chair and you want me to mollycoddle him?”
“I think he’d heal you if he could. He’s… going through a rough time. He hasn’t said so, but Dean and I think he’s… falling.”
Bobby turned his chair around to face Sam, suddenly attentive. “What do you mean?” That was tactician Bobby Singer, assessing their fighting fitness.
“He’s been losing his powers. Just a little at a time, but… he has to eat now. He can’t fly as far as he used to. He sleeps.” Sam trailed off, feeling somehow traitorous for telling anyone about the angel’s deterioration. Having the angel around so much of late had given Sam a chance to know him better, and he knew two things without doubt: 1) Castiel wanted to do the right thing for humanity, and 2) Castiel was painfully loyal to Dean. That was really all it took to win over Sam Winchester.
At the protracted silence, Sam glanced up and found Bobby staring hard at him. “And you think that’s an angel falling?” Bobby asked pointedly.
“Well, yeah… what else could it be?”
Bobby looked constipated. “I don’t know. I’d hardly call myself an angel expert, but after that mess with Anna Milton last year, I did some digging on fallen angels. I’ve never read anything about an angel falling being anything less than a comet plummeting to Earth deal.” Bobby rolled toward the table to dig around for a book. “Nothing in the literature about them just sort of sinking into being human like you’re describing.”
Sam frowned. “Well, if he’s not falling, then what’s wrong with him?”
Bobby shrugged. “Beats me… but maybe that angel’s not being honest with you.”
Sam stiffened at the notion of deceit. He’d traveled and worked with Castiel enough to feel the need to speak in his defense. “To be fair, we haven’t actually questioned him about it. We’ve been a little busy. Castiel’s been hanging around a lot lately, and as soon as we find something, a monster or a demon or whatever, he’s on it the second we say the word. He’s gone into angel Rambo mode or something… frankly, Bobby, it’s kind of scary.”
“Might be you two forgot what he is, then,” Bobby noted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, that angel’s always been scary. That’s angels.”
Sam had to concede that point. The first time he stood in front of Castiel and really looked at him, it sure as hell wasn’t a slim Midwestern boy he saw. Or that was what he saw, but it wasn’t what he felt. Castiel had a way of taking up a whole room without moving a muscle of Jimmy Novak’s lean body. Truthfully, Sam didn’t know how Dean could stand toe-to-toe with that and have those endless staring contests with the angel without feeling cowed.
“Ah, here,” Bobby unearthed a dusty old book with a cracked leather cover and held it out. “This had the most detail about angels falling… might be you can dig up some more to it after this, too, I just got sidetracked by that little Apocalypse thing.”
Sam took the book. “Yeah, sure.” He hefted the big book and frowned. He and his brother had just assumed Castiel’s symptoms were the signs of an angel slipping from Heaven’s reach. They’d brought him further into their fold the farther he fell from Heaven.
If Castiel wasn’t falling, what was happening to him?
****************
“You better double that,” Dean told Bobby as the older hunter put in a delivery order for two pizzas. Sam was in the library with his nose buried in a book (typical). Castiel was outside, warding the property against his own family.
Bobby covered the phone with his hand. “What’s that?”
“Cas eats now, and he can put food away like you would not believe.”
“Coming from you, that’s disturbing.”
“Tell me about it… oh, and order breadsticks.”
Bobby huffed but did as asked. When he hung up, Bobby turned his chair around and said, “All right, that’s twenty minutes… enough time to get this power pow-wow started. Go round up your brother and your angel.”
Dragging Sam away from his musty old book was easier than getting Castiel to come inside. He was in the middle of painting a sigil on a fencepost by the front gate, and he absolutely refused to move no matter how much Dean yelled at him from the porch. Only when he was finished did he turn to regard Dean from across the yard…
… then suddenly he was standing right next to him.
Dean flinched. “Jesus, Cas!” Dean’s hand went to his chest. “You’re trying to give me a heart attack, aren’t you?” Before Castiel could answer, Dean glanced down at the angel’s hands. They were covered in blood. “Uh… aren’t you going to mojo that?”
Castiel looked down at his hands, red fingers glistening in the light from Bobby’s front door. “I am… trying. It seems to be taking a little longer than normal.”
“Oh for…” Dean grabbed Castiel by the arm and hauled him into the house toward the kitchen. Sam came half out of his seat when he saw the blood, but Dean waved him off with a gruff, “It’s Castiel’s.” And how fucked up was it that just knowing Cas was the one bleeding was enough to have the troops stand down?
Dean led Cas to the sink, turned on the water, and pushed up Castiel’s sleeves. He hissed at the sight of both wrists slit neatly down the middle. The same cuts on a human would have been called a suicide attempt (and probably a successful one at that). “Damnit.”
“It won’t harm me,” Castiel said gently. Dean startled at how close and soft the angel’s voice was to his ear. He glanced into Castiel’s face and frowned. “I might feel better about that if you weren’t still bleeding. Come here.” He ran Castiel’s wrists under cold water to clean them off, then grabbed one of Bobby’s hand towels. “Hey!” Bobby started to protest, but in the next second Dean had the cloth wrapped around Castiel’s wrists, holding them both tight around the cuts, effectively making a set a cloth handcuffs out of the towel.
“You can’t just slice yourself up like this,” Dean scolded.
“I can… and I needed the blood for the wards.”
Dean seethed. “Listen, birdbrain, you can’t do things like you used to! You have to be careful, you gotta…” Dean fumed quietly, clamping down harder on Castiel’s wrists in his frustration. Part of him wanted to make Castiel flinch, to make him feel punishment for making Dean worry. Of course, no human grip could make an angel flinch… not even a falling one.
“That’s my brother’s emotionally stunted way of saying he cares,” Sam chimed in.
Dean glowered over at Sam then focused his eyes on the bloody towel around Castiel’s wrists. He could feel Castiel staring at him. Eventually, Castiel said lowly, “Thank you, Dean.” When Dean spared a glance up into his eyes, Castiel looked down at his hands. “You can take that off now.”
Dean peeled back one side to peek at the skin underneath and found the gash gone. All that remained was a tender pink line on white skin.
Dean grunted and tossed the bloody towel on the counter.
By then, the pizza man had arrived, and Sam went out to meet him at the gate and pay for their dinner (he’d probably shit himself when he realized how much food he was buying). He came back balancing an impressive stack of pizza boxes with a large sack of breadsticks on top. While the hunters dove into a box to pluck out slices, Dean passed an entire box and the breadsticks over to Castiel.
“All right, Power Puffs,” Bobby began, “put on your thinking caps and tell me… what can kill Lucifer?”
“God,” Castiel answered simply around a bite of pepperoni and sausage pizza.
Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, since he’s been No-Show Jones for this whole shindig, let’s count him out for now.”
Castiel cast a disapproving look at Dean.
“So what else?” Bobby pressed, not interested in hearing another lecture about faith.
“The Colt?” Sam suggested.
All eyes turned to Castiel. The angel swallowed the bite he had in his mouth and frowned. “I don’t think so. It was a weapon forged by human hands to defeat the dark creatures of Hell…”
“Sounds like it’d be perfect,” Dean said.
“But Lucifer is not a creature of Hell, for all that he rules them. He is an archangel.”
“Still?” Sam asked. “I mean… didn’t he fall?”
Castiel paused, getting that look on his face like he wasn’t sure how to explain something to the puny humans with the limited English language at his disposal. “There is more than one manner in which an angel can ‘fall’… it’s hard to explain, because English uses the same word for all of them, which is greatly misleading. In Enochian, the variations of falling have different words that are far more descriptive and accurate.
“There is the excising of grace, as Anael did. That method of falling transforms an angel into a human - and in Anael’s case, allowed her to be born a human. It strips an angel of all its Heavenly gifts, though a ghost of their former self remains, like a brand on the soul.
“But there is a type of falling - and far more common - where an angel is banished, outcast, but chooses not to remove its grace. It will still have all the powers it did before it was cast out, but it can no longer hear the Host or enter Heaven.”
“So I’m guessing Lucy went the second route,” Dean grumbled.
Castiel gave Dean a strange look for the nickname, then he nodded. “Lucifer never wished to abdicate his status as an archangel… nor the powers that come with it.”
Sam looked way too thoughtful, then he reached for a second slice of pizza. “Okay, so maybe what we should be asking is ‘what can kill an archangel’?”
Castiel opened his mouth to speak.
Dean held up a finger and went, “Ah! Don’t say ‘God’.”
Castiel snapped his jaw shut and narrowed his eyes. “Yes, but I was going to say another archangel.”
“Great, because we have one of those on speed dial,” Bobby snorted.
Dean and Sam were looking at one another uncomfortably, each waiting for the other to say it. Sam broke first. “Do you think… Gabriel…?”
Castiel stilled.
“I don’t know… our last attempt to convince him to join our little band of brothers didn’t do anything but give you genital herpes and me a bullet in the back,” Dean groused.
Bobby’s eyes widened. “Run all that by me again? You boys been carousing with an archangel while I wasn’t looking? And just what the hell were you doing with him, Sam?”
“Nothing! None of it was real! Or it was, but it wasn’t permanent, just… It’s a really long story,” Sam groaned. “But the highlights are that Gabriel’s around, he’s a dick, and he’s got zero interest in taking sides.”
“Unless you call trying to strong-arm us into saying yes to Michael and Lucifer ‘taking a side’, just the wrong one.”
“Michael’s sword…” Castiel mused.
Dean looked over at him and frowned. “Cas, I really hope you’re not about to suggest I say ‘yes’.”
“Of course not, but… it’s not necessarily the archangel that can kill another archangel. Technically, it is the archangel’s blade.”
Dean perked up. “Yeah? So, if we can get our hands on an archangel’s sword, we could use it against Lucifer?”
“I wish it were that simple,” Castiel muttered as he thought it through. “But as the vessel, you are called the Michael Sword for a reason… in that, it is not merely a matter of your language being limited. Only an archangel can wield an archangel’s sword.”
“So then you’re saying yours wouldn’t work?” Dean asked.
Castiel flicked his arm to the side, a gesture so casual like he was merely adjusting his coat, and the silver blade slipped down from his sleeve as if it had been tucked up inside it the whole time… though Dean knew damn well it hadn’t been there when he was manhandling Cas around to tend to his wrists.
Castiel laid the blade on the table, like an exhibit in a trial, and said, “An angel’s blade is matched to its grace. The power of my blade is proportionate to the strength of my grace.” He ghosted a hand over the weapon, familiar like the way Dean’s hands knew his favorite gun or the steering wheel of the Impala. “This is well-matched for any beast of the pit. It can…” Castiel winced, “it is capable of slaying angels of a caste equal to my own as well as any below. But against an archangel, this would be a nuisance at best.”
“And I’m guessing if an angel tried to use a blade beyond his power level…” Sam began.
“It would be fatal. The power in the blade would overwhelm the angel holding it.”
Dean scowled. “Well, great… so we need Michael’s sword to kill Lucifer, but the only way any of us could hold Michael’s sword without dying is if I become the Michael Sword? That really defeats the whole ‘fuck you, destiny’ motif we’re rocking, doesn’t it?”
While Dean was ranting, Castiel was thinking. Sam noticed. “Cas?”
At Dean’s questioning glance, Castiel took in a breath. “I was wondering how long it would take to kill me if I tried to wield Michael’s sword in order to slay Lucifer.”
“You mean before you…” Sam made some vague gestures with his hands.
Castiel got it and nodded. “Given the discrepancy in power, I suspect I would explode.” He considered that further for a second. “It would probably be fairly spectacular.”
“Oh yes, sounds like a regular Fourth of July.” Dean threw up his hands. “Listen up, Kamikaze Cas… we’re not going with a plan where you end up dead.”
Castiel looked somberly at Dean. “My death may be unavoidable.”
“Wow, way to look on the bright side. And I thought you were done believing that fate bullshit? You’re not dying, dumbass; I won’t let you.”
“Not that it matters,” Bobby grumbled, “how in the hell are we supposed to get hold of an archangel’s sword?”
Sam looked toward Castiel expectantly.
Castiel mulled it over a second. “Perhaps, in this instance, Gabriel is our best chance.”
“The guy who wants the Lucy-Mike showdown to happen yesterday? The same guy who beat the shit out of you?” Dean sneered. “If that’s our best hope, we are so screwed.”
“His is the only archangel blade within reach on the entire planet,” Castiel countered. “If we can somehow take it from him, and if I can handle it long enough to strike with it, I believe I can lure Lucifer into a trap.”
“Oh, really… what makes you think that?”
Castiel didn’t answer right away. “We must have the sword first… without it, how I mean to trap Lucifer does not matter.”
The table fell into a momentary silence.
“What about Raphael?” Dean asked, hesitantly because the last time they’d seen that particular ray of sunshine, Raphael had vowed to destroy Castiel next time they met. Again. Destroy him again.
Castiel shook his head. “Raphael is still commander of a powerful army of Heaven. Gabriel is powerful as well, but he is unaided. It is a small advantage, but the best we can expect for such a foolhardy endeavor.”
“You and me were able to corral Raphael and have a chat with him without turning into piles of ash,” Dean pointed out. Sam blinked and Bobby grumbled something about idiots getting in over their heads.
“We trapped him only to question him about God’s whereabouts. We did not present as a real threat to Raphael, despite your warning to deep-fry him.” Castiel almost smirked. “Had we truly tried, we could not have gotten close enough to him to do it without being smote first.
“Besides which, angels object very strongly to being confined. I doubt Raphael would be so docile the next time we encountered him.”
“Docile?” Dean squawked. “You call shutting down power in the entire eastern seaboard docile?”
“Yes.”
Sam tossed in soberly, “You know, hate to be the downer here, but we ‘confined’ Gabriel, too.”
Castiel had only a stilted half-shrug in response. “True… but you did free him. It might make him hesitate - however briefly - to kill you.”
For a moment, silence filled the room. Then Bobby heaved a sigh. “Well, balls… sounds like a truly shitty plan, but at least it’s something. First thing tomorrow, we start working on a way to steal a sword from an archangel and not get our asses fried in the process.”
A half-ass plan in place and morale pretty dismal, the group turned to finishing dinner. The three hunters demolished a pizza and a half between them, while Castiel ate two entire pizzas and all the breadsticks on his own. Bobby seemed torn between sickened and impressed.
When the boxes were cleared away and the leftovers stuffed in the fridge, Dean turned to Cas. “You, uh… you sleeping tonight?”
Castiel considered a moment. “Maybe… but I am going to draw some sigils on the walls for protection over dreams first.”
“Angel dream catcher, huh? All right, well… you get tired, crash on the couch or with me, just keep it quiet… okay?”
“I will… goodnight, Dean.”
Next
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A/N: Okay, you guys, I realize that as far as canon is concerned, Team Free Will had already set their sights on using the Colt against Lucifer in early season 5… so y’all are just going to have to bear with me futzing with the canon timeline on this one, because I ALWAYS thought it was stupid to think a gun made by some guy in the 1800’s could kill an archangel like Lucifer.