Unexpected Destinies Chapter 136
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,999
Summary: Dean suddenly remembers the horseman rings.
PAST
Even though Raphael had told them about the discovery over an hour ago, Dean still couldn't believe it and he paced back to his dining and research table to look at the opened scroll once more. The text hadn't changed though and he turned to face his friends. Michael had actually parked his ass on the sofa while Raphael stood beside his brother, absently stretching a wing.
"Are any of the ingredients hard to get?" Dean asked, only recognizing some of them.
"Yes, the irena flower will need to be specially cultured to not be contaminated in such a way that it will adversely interact with some of the other ingredients, but that won't take longer than the cleansing process," Michael stated.
"Cleansing process?"
"Of your brother."
"Huh?"
"He is far too... tainted at the moment for this spell to work," Raphael explained.
The way that his friend said the word tainted told Dean that the archangel would normally use a different, no doubt far stronger and harsher, word and he was grateful that Raphael had toned it down a bit. It was a big sign of progress and one he didn't take lightly.
"The demon blood?" Dean guessed.
"That and his experience in Hell," Raphael replied. "However brief it was."
Dean frowned. "How has he been tainted from that? I didn't need cleansing afterwards."
"Only your soul went to Hell, Little One, and you actively rejected the Darkness. With his body and the demon blood, your brother took Hell into him far more readily than you did."
There was an odd tone to Michael's voice and the archangel's wings were shifting in a way that Dean hadn't seen before. He could tell his friend was uncomfortable and given the subject he didn't want to push, knowing only all too well what it felt like to be badgered with questions about his time in Hell. So if Michael said that Sam had opened himself to Hell more than he had, then he'd take his friend's word for it. Not only had his archangel been there when Sam had been in the cage, but Michael had seen his own soul in a way almost no one else had so his friend was well aware of the condition of it. Somehow he found it easier to believe that he'd actively rejected Hell on some level- even while breaking- than that he'd somehow managed to spontaneously purify himself after having acquired that kind of taint. It made more sense and was more familiar to him as he'd spent his life fighting rather than being a saint. Far from it in fact.
"So you think that we should contact Sam and get him started on the cleansing process?" Dean asked.
"It would be advisable," Raphael stated.
"Okay, I'll find us a good location and let him know." There was a flutter of wings and his lover was in the room with them. "Hey, Cas."
"Dean," Castiel replied warmly. "Raphael, Michael."
The fact that his lover walked right over to the table to look at the ancient scrolls told Dean that one of the archangels had been communicating with Castiel. He felt an odd pang at the thought, followed swiftly by a sense of loss at the memory of the bond and connection that he'd had and experienced while with Michael, and not only with his friend, but with his lover as well on some level. He was just all that much more aware of the bond he shared with Castiel when Michael was with him and he seriously missed that too at the moment, like a phantom limb almost.
Those thoughts reminded Dean of the kalsika and that kicked his longing and sense of loss up a thousand fold. Though he'd come to find that he always hungered for that connection now that he'd experienced it, actively thinking about it always made it worse. Practically unbearably so. It was only the fact that touching their kalsika without Castiel seemed horribly wrong to him that had prevented him from getting it out and losing himself in it on nights that he spent alone. True, those tended to be few and far in-between these days, but they still occurred and he couldn't begrudge his lover them. The simple fact of the matter was that his angel didn't need to sleep and so the fact that Castiel spent as many nights with him that he did was already far more than he could ever ask for.
He just missed Castiel when his lover wasn't there.
If he hadn't spent as long obsessing over whether he'd be able to find the right- no the perfect- kalsika himself, Dean would be starting to wonder why Castiel hadn't gotten the Andaluzyian crystal necessary to complete the bonding process or even whether his angel still wished to bond with him. The memory of his own desire to make things perfect and the ghosts of his lover's feelings for him were more than enough to negate any of those thoughts though. He just wished that he could urge Castiel on, but the knowledge that he wouldn't have budged from doing everything just right and getting the absolute best matched kalsika for his lover stopped him from doing so. Just knowing that Castiel wanted to do that for him was enough to suppress even his urgency as he'd never thought that anyone could come to feel that way for him, so the realization that someone had was still such a revelation to him.
"So what do you think?" Dean asked instead, reaching out to realign a few errant feathers on his lover's wings.
Castiel stretched one of the wings before using it to pull him a little closer. "I think that this is wonderful news and exactly what we require just now given that Simiel seems to have found a way to break the Rite of Contressa."
"It will provide Sam Winchester with critical extra protection as well as granting us more time to find an alternative solution," Raphael stated.
The words caused Dean's shoulders to slump. The good news had lifted his mood enough to make him forget that while this would protect his little brother and buy them more time, it wasn't actually a solution to their problems. Just like the Rite of Contressa, it was merely a stopgap effort and at best it would put them right back where they'd been before, when things had seemed at their bleakest before the showdown at Stull Cemetery. Well, okay, it wouldn't be quite that bad, but it wouldn't be all that much better either. What they gained by having Michael and Raphael on their side and Castiel far more powerful than before, they lost with not having a plan to work towards that the horseman rings had provided before.
"Shit," Dean cursed with feeling.
"What? What is it?" Michael inquired, rising to his feet.
"The horseman rings. I just realized, I still have all four of them and Death was quite clear on the fact that his ring was only a temporary loan. I'm kinda surprised that he hasn't come back for it."
"I had forgotten that you still possessed those," Castiel said, shifting. "Where have you been keeping them?"
"In the Impala in a heavily warded box protected by silver, iron, salt and anything else that I could think of. It seemed safer than leaving them in motel rooms while I went to hunt and I'd never risk losing them like this."
"Have you checked them since putting them in there?" Raphael inquired.
It took Dean a second to understand what his friend meant but when he did, he spun around. "Son of a bitch!"
Even without angelic speed, Dean was at the Impala faster than most people would have thought possible. He dug his keys out of his pocket, opened the trunk and unceremoniously shoved aside anything and everything between him and the safety deposit box that he'd used as it was made of iron. When he got hold of it, he pulled it forwards and turned his attention back to his keychain to find the right key to undo the silver chain wrapped around it.
"Don't!" Dean cried out, dropping his keys in order to grab Raphael's wrist as the archangel reached for the box. "Don't touch it!"
"What's wrong?" Raphael demanded.
"I poured Holy oil over it as an extra precaution." That made all three of his archangels take a step back and he shrugged apologetically. "I was afraid Raph or someone else might try and get at them in order to free you, Mike, along with Lucifer."
"A sensible precaution," Michael responded evenly.
Dean couldn't quite get a read on his friend's mood so he let it go. It wasn't like he'd really known Michael at the time yet, nor had the archangel been quite the same being then as he was now. Not that he was the same as he'd been back then either, but in Michael's case the changes made a whole world of difference, almost literally given his archangel's former intentions. Instead he focused on getting the chain off and then opening the box. When he did so, he felt his heart sink, knowing that the rings were gone even before he'd raked his fingers through the rock salt he'd filled the box with.
"They're gone," Castiel stated, the words giving a finality to the situation.
"You think Death took them?" Dean asked.
"Based on what you said he told you and the precautions that you took, I believe it to be the most likely conclusion," Michael replied.
"Well, it's better than having had to see him again I suppo-" Dean began and cut off as his fingers found something in the salt. "What the Hell?"
It was small and round and plastic. Extracting it, Dean stared at it for a moment in disbelief before he couldn't help it and started laughing. Okay, that made it official. It had definitely been Death who had taken the rings, this proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"What is it?" Castiel inquired, stepping closer, though still keeping his distance from the box.
"It's a token, a fair ground token," Dean replied.
"A fair ground token, I don't understand," Michael frowned.
The fact that his archangel had used a contraction caught Dean off-guard for a moment, but then he flipped the token at his friend. "Some fairs have people buy tokens that they can then use at rides or food stands instead of cash in order to speed things up and to avoid stands running out of exact change. That particular one comes from a fair that used to be near Blue Earth every year. I remember because we'd go whenever Sam and I were at Pastor Jim's and they had the best pretzels in the world."
"I do not believe that you can actually claim that," Raphael said, amusement clear in his eyes.
"Bite me, Raph."
"Why is this amusing?" Castiel inquired.
"Just 'cause I wondered about Death's cheap food taste when I saw him as he was eating pizza at this crappy hole in the wall joint. I'm sure this is his way of either letting me know it was him or a counter to my thought."
"You criticized Death?" Michael demanded, voice completely emotionless.
"Just in my mind, but uh, yeah, kinda, I guess."
He hadn't ever quite thought of it like that, but Dean supposed that he actually had. At the time it had been more of a snarky mental comment, aimed at helping him get his own terror under control, but it could easily have been viewed as criticism now that he thought about it. Which of course made him gulp. Really, it was nothing short of miraculous that he'd survived this long and maybe that was God's way of trying to tell Castiel that He was still around? He wouldn't put it past the Douche to try and communicate with His kids that way. It seemed like such a God-like thing to do, or at least in as so far as he understood and saw God.
Dean sucked in a sudden breath as something else occurred to him, causing his eyes to go wide.
"What is it, Dean?" Castiel questioned. "What's wrong?"
"Death. When I met him in Chicago, he said that Lucifer had bound him and that was how your brother was able to control him."
"Lucifer bound Death?" Raphael demanded in disbelief.
"Yes," Michael confirmed gravely. "You fear that Lucifer may still have power over him, Little One?"
"It was why Death helped us as he wanted to be free," Dean replied. "He told me that we couldn't break his shackles for him."
"Of course you wouldn't have been able to, nor could Castiel at the time."
Dean's eyebrows rose in surprise. "But you can?"
"With Lucifer restrained as he is now, yes."
"Do you need anything to do that?"
"Nothing that you do not already have, though I will need to join with you once more or the damage to your aunt will be quite severe."
The words caused Dean's pulse to jump and the part of him that had mourned the loss of the connection and the awareness that came with being a vessel reacted with joy. Despite that, the second part of Michael's sentence wasn't lost on him. It was something he'd done his level best not to think on too much, which a lack of visible evidence of power decay had allowed him to do, but he now couldn't help by wonder if his friend had done his own best to ensure that the damage wasn't anywhere visible.
"Yeah, okay," Dean replied.
Raphael and Michael flew off, no doubt taking a shortcut inside and Dean rolled his eyes at this. It did, however, give him some time alone with his lover and so he turned to face Castiel.
"You okay?" Dean asked when he saw his angel's expression.
"Yes," Castiel replied but Dean sensed something more.
"Hey, you'll be able to reclaim me afterwards if you want."
The way Castiel's eyes went dark told Dean that he'd guessed right. Silly angel, as if Michael could ever come close to meaning what Castiel did to him, but he supposed that it had to do with millennia of hearing about the vessels and their connections to Michael and Lucifer. But perhaps there was slightly more to it then just that?
"You know that I don't mind it anymore, right, Cas?" Dean checked. "Letting Michael in, I mean."
"You don't?"
"No. Sure, the initial bit isn't pleasant, but the rest of it is fine. Mike's great, giving me as much freedom as he can and while I can't do anything on my own, I get to experience the awareness and connection you guys have. And that lets me feel our bond in a way that I just can't on my own. Besides, I also get to hear your true voice as well."
That seemed to ease his lover a little and Castiel reached forward and slipped his hand under the sleeve of his shirt. Dean closed his eyes as his angel's hand came to rest on the scar Castiel had left resurrecting him. There was a pulse of Grace that warmed him and then there was the brief disorientation of angel flight from a human perspective and they were back in their apartment.
"Are you ready for us to call Death?" Raphael inquired.
"Uh, shouldn't Mike jump into me first?" Dean questioned.
"No, since he knows you best-"
"I'd hardly call it that!"
"Since you are the only one who has met him before, we thought it best that you remain free to speak with him directly at first," Michael explained. "Just so he knows what we want to do and why."
"Oh, alright then."
It was a bit odd for Dean to watch Michael and Raphael moving about the place and collecting ingredients as if they always did so. Though the two had often been in the apartment, they'd never really done more than stand or sit around and speak with him or Castiel. At most they'd sat at the table, researching with him. Though he had gotten Michael to try certain foods here, the archangel had never needed to get anything out of the cupboards or anything like that. Not that their lack of experience seemed to be hampering either of them now.
Dean just watched the set up in silence and stepped forward to offer his hand when Michael picked up the knife. He'd had more than enough experience with angelic rituals to know that human blood was most likely involved. True to form, Michael cut his hand and, also true to form, Castiel didn't let him have the wound long enough to feel anything past the initial sting of it. Then it was done and he was surprised to see the two starting to clean up their mess.
"So that's it? That's all you need to do to summon Death?" Dean asked.
"It is less of a summoning as letting him know that we are requesting his presence," Raphael replied.
"Probably a good idea with him."
"Indeed."
Ever since he'd started being able to detect the flutter of an angel's wings, Dean had gotten out of practice of having beings appearing suddenly in the room with him and therefor he jumped at the unexpected voice now.
"Oh, hey," Dean said, turning to face the horseman, his eyes dropping down to Death's hands. "I see that you got your ring back."
"Yes, did you think that I'd let you keep it?" Death asked, stepping closer to him.
"No, no, I just didn't know how to contact you to give it back."
Death hummed an acknowledgement to that before his eyes narrowed and the horseman stepped closer still. The next thing that Dean knew, he had three archangels at his back, all close enough to be touching him. It helped calm him a little as all of the terror that he'd felt the last time he'd encountered this particular horseman had returned full force. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to soothe him entirely as he could only all too clearly recall Death saying that he'd reap God Himself one day, which meant that an archangel, or even three of them as was the case here, would be nothing for Death.
"Well, isn't this interesting?" Death said, coming to a stop just a few feet away.
"Isn't what interesting?" Dean asked as Castiel's hand curled around his arm, though whether it was to warn him or whisk him away if needed he didn't know.
"You."
"Oh. Uh-"
"I think that I'm beginning to understand what God had in mind when he created your soul. Most interesting."
Dean was at a total loss as to how to reply to that. Given that the last time Death had compared him to an insignificant bacterium, this was a huge turnabout and he didn't have the first clue as to what to make of it.
"Now, I suppose that there was a reason that you little angels wanted to speak with me?" Death stated, turning his attention to Michael and Raphael.
The reprieve was nice and Dean took a moment to not only just breathe, but to also laugh in his head at anyone calling those two little in any way.
"Lucifer is out of the cage," Michael got right to the point.
"I know, but he doesn't have a vessel yet."
"Because we made it impossible for him to take one, at least temporarily."
"And this restriction is about to fail?"
"Yes."
"Wait, Lucy needs a vessel to jerk your chain?" Dean demanded before he thought about it.
Death's cold eyes briefly returned to him, but surprisingly the horseman deigned to answer. "Yes, it is blood based and now he has none. What are you proposing?"
"That I break the bond," Michael stated.
"And what do you want in return?"
"Just a promise that you won't kill Lucifer. If he dies-"
"Yes, I know. That is all you want?"
"It is in all of our interests not to have you bound to his every whim," Castiel said. "If he loses you, he will lose his most powerful weapon."
"Very well, I accept your offer."
"Good," Michael replied.
The next thing that Dean knew, his friend had a hand on his back and the room started to brighten with the light of an angel's true form. He allowed himself to be pushed down inside of his own meatsuit and he twined himself around Michael's Grace as soon as possible. It seemed to help the transition and soon he found himself cocooned safely with his archangel's essence, looking back at Death's fascinated face. The emotion made him shudder a little, not at all sure that he liked having the horseman look at him like that. He'd far rather never even be a blip on Death's radar. Give him a good old reaper any day, Tessa preferably.
"Really interesting," Death muttered to himself.
Something shifted inside of them and the next thing that Dean knew, he was looking at Death not with his own human eyes, but rather with Michael's. To angelic sights, Death looked far different. Instead of being a mostly human man with just an aura of the supernatural, the horseman now was far more akin to a dark flame than anything else. He briefly thought of the true essence of demons, but really there was as much likeness there as there was between a flower and a tree. He seemed dark, yes, but it was a darkness that burned with its own dark light, radiating it outwards just as much as the Grace of an angel did light. Unlike the true form of angels, though, Death wasn't even remotely human shaped, being rather some kind of entity composed entirely of energy. Or at least that was the closest thing that he could think of with his very human point of reference.
Since it made his head hurt to focus on it too much, Dean abandoned that thought and focused instead on the thin ruby red thread that started somewhere within Death's being and trailed off into the distance.
"Is that the bond?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Michael replied, concentrating all of his power on it. "Hold on, this may be unpleasant."
Unsure of quite what to do, Dean tried to relax himself as much as possible to not interfere with Michael's power. As soon as he did so, he could start to feel it flowing through his soul and he closed his mental eyes at the wash of awareness and connectivity that came with it. His bond with Castiel seemed to flare to life and he longed to reach out and touch it, even if only to get a shade of the kalsika's power, but he resisted, not wanting to make things more difficult or to cause any kind of backwash to his lover. Instead he concentrated on just what Michael was doing, both out of sheer curiosity as to keep himself occupied.
Michael's Grace swelled, all of its power coming down on the bond and Dean watched in fascination as it started to fray before slowly breaking apart. There was a suddenly wave of rage and hate that sent him staggering. It took him a moment to realize that it was Lucifer's emotions that he was experiencing, reaching them through the thread, before it snapped and the emotions just vanished. The abrupt lack of a target made the power crackle in the air around them and it took Michael a moment to reign it all back in. By the time his archangel had done that, Death had recovered from whatever the horseman might have experienced.
"I will not forget this, little angel," Death stated.
With that, the horseman disappeared, leaving Dean alone with his three archangels once more.
A.N.: This chapter turned out completely different from what I'd imagined at the start! For one, Death and the rings weren't even supposed to be in it, but once I remembered them, I realized that this could make something later on work better, so here they are. I'm pretty sure the fact that I was working on the sequel to Little Deaths over the weekend is why this occurred to me, so if you don't like it, blame that.
Chapter 137
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,999
Summary: Dean suddenly remembers the horseman rings.
PAST
Even though Raphael had told them about the discovery over an hour ago, Dean still couldn't believe it and he paced back to his dining and research table to look at the opened scroll once more. The text hadn't changed though and he turned to face his friends. Michael had actually parked his ass on the sofa while Raphael stood beside his brother, absently stretching a wing.
"Are any of the ingredients hard to get?" Dean asked, only recognizing some of them.
"Yes, the irena flower will need to be specially cultured to not be contaminated in such a way that it will adversely interact with some of the other ingredients, but that won't take longer than the cleansing process," Michael stated.
"Cleansing process?"
"Of your brother."
"Huh?"
"He is far too... tainted at the moment for this spell to work," Raphael explained.
The way that his friend said the word tainted told Dean that the archangel would normally use a different, no doubt far stronger and harsher, word and he was grateful that Raphael had toned it down a bit. It was a big sign of progress and one he didn't take lightly.
"The demon blood?" Dean guessed.
"That and his experience in Hell," Raphael replied. "However brief it was."
Dean frowned. "How has he been tainted from that? I didn't need cleansing afterwards."
"Only your soul went to Hell, Little One, and you actively rejected the Darkness. With his body and the demon blood, your brother took Hell into him far more readily than you did."
There was an odd tone to Michael's voice and the archangel's wings were shifting in a way that Dean hadn't seen before. He could tell his friend was uncomfortable and given the subject he didn't want to push, knowing only all too well what it felt like to be badgered with questions about his time in Hell. So if Michael said that Sam had opened himself to Hell more than he had, then he'd take his friend's word for it. Not only had his archangel been there when Sam had been in the cage, but Michael had seen his own soul in a way almost no one else had so his friend was well aware of the condition of it. Somehow he found it easier to believe that he'd actively rejected Hell on some level- even while breaking- than that he'd somehow managed to spontaneously purify himself after having acquired that kind of taint. It made more sense and was more familiar to him as he'd spent his life fighting rather than being a saint. Far from it in fact.
"So you think that we should contact Sam and get him started on the cleansing process?" Dean asked.
"It would be advisable," Raphael stated.
"Okay, I'll find us a good location and let him know." There was a flutter of wings and his lover was in the room with them. "Hey, Cas."
"Dean," Castiel replied warmly. "Raphael, Michael."
The fact that his lover walked right over to the table to look at the ancient scrolls told Dean that one of the archangels had been communicating with Castiel. He felt an odd pang at the thought, followed swiftly by a sense of loss at the memory of the bond and connection that he'd had and experienced while with Michael, and not only with his friend, but with his lover as well on some level. He was just all that much more aware of the bond he shared with Castiel when Michael was with him and he seriously missed that too at the moment, like a phantom limb almost.
Those thoughts reminded Dean of the kalsika and that kicked his longing and sense of loss up a thousand fold. Though he'd come to find that he always hungered for that connection now that he'd experienced it, actively thinking about it always made it worse. Practically unbearably so. It was only the fact that touching their kalsika without Castiel seemed horribly wrong to him that had prevented him from getting it out and losing himself in it on nights that he spent alone. True, those tended to be few and far in-between these days, but they still occurred and he couldn't begrudge his lover them. The simple fact of the matter was that his angel didn't need to sleep and so the fact that Castiel spent as many nights with him that he did was already far more than he could ever ask for.
He just missed Castiel when his lover wasn't there.
If he hadn't spent as long obsessing over whether he'd be able to find the right- no the perfect- kalsika himself, Dean would be starting to wonder why Castiel hadn't gotten the Andaluzyian crystal necessary to complete the bonding process or even whether his angel still wished to bond with him. The memory of his own desire to make things perfect and the ghosts of his lover's feelings for him were more than enough to negate any of those thoughts though. He just wished that he could urge Castiel on, but the knowledge that he wouldn't have budged from doing everything just right and getting the absolute best matched kalsika for his lover stopped him from doing so. Just knowing that Castiel wanted to do that for him was enough to suppress even his urgency as he'd never thought that anyone could come to feel that way for him, so the realization that someone had was still such a revelation to him.
"So what do you think?" Dean asked instead, reaching out to realign a few errant feathers on his lover's wings.
Castiel stretched one of the wings before using it to pull him a little closer. "I think that this is wonderful news and exactly what we require just now given that Simiel seems to have found a way to break the Rite of Contressa."
"It will provide Sam Winchester with critical extra protection as well as granting us more time to find an alternative solution," Raphael stated.
The words caused Dean's shoulders to slump. The good news had lifted his mood enough to make him forget that while this would protect his little brother and buy them more time, it wasn't actually a solution to their problems. Just like the Rite of Contressa, it was merely a stopgap effort and at best it would put them right back where they'd been before, when things had seemed at their bleakest before the showdown at Stull Cemetery. Well, okay, it wouldn't be quite that bad, but it wouldn't be all that much better either. What they gained by having Michael and Raphael on their side and Castiel far more powerful than before, they lost with not having a plan to work towards that the horseman rings had provided before.
"Shit," Dean cursed with feeling.
"What? What is it?" Michael inquired, rising to his feet.
"The horseman rings. I just realized, I still have all four of them and Death was quite clear on the fact that his ring was only a temporary loan. I'm kinda surprised that he hasn't come back for it."
"I had forgotten that you still possessed those," Castiel said, shifting. "Where have you been keeping them?"
"In the Impala in a heavily warded box protected by silver, iron, salt and anything else that I could think of. It seemed safer than leaving them in motel rooms while I went to hunt and I'd never risk losing them like this."
"Have you checked them since putting them in there?" Raphael inquired.
It took Dean a second to understand what his friend meant but when he did, he spun around. "Son of a bitch!"
Even without angelic speed, Dean was at the Impala faster than most people would have thought possible. He dug his keys out of his pocket, opened the trunk and unceremoniously shoved aside anything and everything between him and the safety deposit box that he'd used as it was made of iron. When he got hold of it, he pulled it forwards and turned his attention back to his keychain to find the right key to undo the silver chain wrapped around it.
"Don't!" Dean cried out, dropping his keys in order to grab Raphael's wrist as the archangel reached for the box. "Don't touch it!"
"What's wrong?" Raphael demanded.
"I poured Holy oil over it as an extra precaution." That made all three of his archangels take a step back and he shrugged apologetically. "I was afraid Raph or someone else might try and get at them in order to free you, Mike, along with Lucifer."
"A sensible precaution," Michael responded evenly.
Dean couldn't quite get a read on his friend's mood so he let it go. It wasn't like he'd really known Michael at the time yet, nor had the archangel been quite the same being then as he was now. Not that he was the same as he'd been back then either, but in Michael's case the changes made a whole world of difference, almost literally given his archangel's former intentions. Instead he focused on getting the chain off and then opening the box. When he did so, he felt his heart sink, knowing that the rings were gone even before he'd raked his fingers through the rock salt he'd filled the box with.
"They're gone," Castiel stated, the words giving a finality to the situation.
"You think Death took them?" Dean asked.
"Based on what you said he told you and the precautions that you took, I believe it to be the most likely conclusion," Michael replied.
"Well, it's better than having had to see him again I suppo-" Dean began and cut off as his fingers found something in the salt. "What the Hell?"
It was small and round and plastic. Extracting it, Dean stared at it for a moment in disbelief before he couldn't help it and started laughing. Okay, that made it official. It had definitely been Death who had taken the rings, this proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"What is it?" Castiel inquired, stepping closer, though still keeping his distance from the box.
"It's a token, a fair ground token," Dean replied.
"A fair ground token, I don't understand," Michael frowned.
The fact that his archangel had used a contraction caught Dean off-guard for a moment, but then he flipped the token at his friend. "Some fairs have people buy tokens that they can then use at rides or food stands instead of cash in order to speed things up and to avoid stands running out of exact change. That particular one comes from a fair that used to be near Blue Earth every year. I remember because we'd go whenever Sam and I were at Pastor Jim's and they had the best pretzels in the world."
"I do not believe that you can actually claim that," Raphael said, amusement clear in his eyes.
"Bite me, Raph."
"Why is this amusing?" Castiel inquired.
"Just 'cause I wondered about Death's cheap food taste when I saw him as he was eating pizza at this crappy hole in the wall joint. I'm sure this is his way of either letting me know it was him or a counter to my thought."
"You criticized Death?" Michael demanded, voice completely emotionless.
"Just in my mind, but uh, yeah, kinda, I guess."
He hadn't ever quite thought of it like that, but Dean supposed that he actually had. At the time it had been more of a snarky mental comment, aimed at helping him get his own terror under control, but it could easily have been viewed as criticism now that he thought about it. Which of course made him gulp. Really, it was nothing short of miraculous that he'd survived this long and maybe that was God's way of trying to tell Castiel that He was still around? He wouldn't put it past the Douche to try and communicate with His kids that way. It seemed like such a God-like thing to do, or at least in as so far as he understood and saw God.
Dean sucked in a sudden breath as something else occurred to him, causing his eyes to go wide.
"What is it, Dean?" Castiel questioned. "What's wrong?"
"Death. When I met him in Chicago, he said that Lucifer had bound him and that was how your brother was able to control him."
"Lucifer bound Death?" Raphael demanded in disbelief.
"Yes," Michael confirmed gravely. "You fear that Lucifer may still have power over him, Little One?"
"It was why Death helped us as he wanted to be free," Dean replied. "He told me that we couldn't break his shackles for him."
"Of course you wouldn't have been able to, nor could Castiel at the time."
Dean's eyebrows rose in surprise. "But you can?"
"With Lucifer restrained as he is now, yes."
"Do you need anything to do that?"
"Nothing that you do not already have, though I will need to join with you once more or the damage to your aunt will be quite severe."
The words caused Dean's pulse to jump and the part of him that had mourned the loss of the connection and the awareness that came with being a vessel reacted with joy. Despite that, the second part of Michael's sentence wasn't lost on him. It was something he'd done his level best not to think on too much, which a lack of visible evidence of power decay had allowed him to do, but he now couldn't help by wonder if his friend had done his own best to ensure that the damage wasn't anywhere visible.
"Yeah, okay," Dean replied.
Raphael and Michael flew off, no doubt taking a shortcut inside and Dean rolled his eyes at this. It did, however, give him some time alone with his lover and so he turned to face Castiel.
"You okay?" Dean asked when he saw his angel's expression.
"Yes," Castiel replied but Dean sensed something more.
"Hey, you'll be able to reclaim me afterwards if you want."
The way Castiel's eyes went dark told Dean that he'd guessed right. Silly angel, as if Michael could ever come close to meaning what Castiel did to him, but he supposed that it had to do with millennia of hearing about the vessels and their connections to Michael and Lucifer. But perhaps there was slightly more to it then just that?
"You know that I don't mind it anymore, right, Cas?" Dean checked. "Letting Michael in, I mean."
"You don't?"
"No. Sure, the initial bit isn't pleasant, but the rest of it is fine. Mike's great, giving me as much freedom as he can and while I can't do anything on my own, I get to experience the awareness and connection you guys have. And that lets me feel our bond in a way that I just can't on my own. Besides, I also get to hear your true voice as well."
That seemed to ease his lover a little and Castiel reached forward and slipped his hand under the sleeve of his shirt. Dean closed his eyes as his angel's hand came to rest on the scar Castiel had left resurrecting him. There was a pulse of Grace that warmed him and then there was the brief disorientation of angel flight from a human perspective and they were back in their apartment.
"Are you ready for us to call Death?" Raphael inquired.
"Uh, shouldn't Mike jump into me first?" Dean questioned.
"No, since he knows you best-"
"I'd hardly call it that!"
"Since you are the only one who has met him before, we thought it best that you remain free to speak with him directly at first," Michael explained. "Just so he knows what we want to do and why."
"Oh, alright then."
It was a bit odd for Dean to watch Michael and Raphael moving about the place and collecting ingredients as if they always did so. Though the two had often been in the apartment, they'd never really done more than stand or sit around and speak with him or Castiel. At most they'd sat at the table, researching with him. Though he had gotten Michael to try certain foods here, the archangel had never needed to get anything out of the cupboards or anything like that. Not that their lack of experience seemed to be hampering either of them now.
Dean just watched the set up in silence and stepped forward to offer his hand when Michael picked up the knife. He'd had more than enough experience with angelic rituals to know that human blood was most likely involved. True to form, Michael cut his hand and, also true to form, Castiel didn't let him have the wound long enough to feel anything past the initial sting of it. Then it was done and he was surprised to see the two starting to clean up their mess.
"So that's it? That's all you need to do to summon Death?" Dean asked.
"It is less of a summoning as letting him know that we are requesting his presence," Raphael replied.
"Probably a good idea with him."
"Indeed."
Ever since he'd started being able to detect the flutter of an angel's wings, Dean had gotten out of practice of having beings appearing suddenly in the room with him and therefor he jumped at the unexpected voice now.
"Oh, hey," Dean said, turning to face the horseman, his eyes dropping down to Death's hands. "I see that you got your ring back."
"Yes, did you think that I'd let you keep it?" Death asked, stepping closer to him.
"No, no, I just didn't know how to contact you to give it back."
Death hummed an acknowledgement to that before his eyes narrowed and the horseman stepped closer still. The next thing that Dean knew, he had three archangels at his back, all close enough to be touching him. It helped calm him a little as all of the terror that he'd felt the last time he'd encountered this particular horseman had returned full force. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to soothe him entirely as he could only all too clearly recall Death saying that he'd reap God Himself one day, which meant that an archangel, or even three of them as was the case here, would be nothing for Death.
"Well, isn't this interesting?" Death said, coming to a stop just a few feet away.
"Isn't what interesting?" Dean asked as Castiel's hand curled around his arm, though whether it was to warn him or whisk him away if needed he didn't know.
"You."
"Oh. Uh-"
"I think that I'm beginning to understand what God had in mind when he created your soul. Most interesting."
Dean was at a total loss as to how to reply to that. Given that the last time Death had compared him to an insignificant bacterium, this was a huge turnabout and he didn't have the first clue as to what to make of it.
"Now, I suppose that there was a reason that you little angels wanted to speak with me?" Death stated, turning his attention to Michael and Raphael.
The reprieve was nice and Dean took a moment to not only just breathe, but to also laugh in his head at anyone calling those two little in any way.
"Lucifer is out of the cage," Michael got right to the point.
"I know, but he doesn't have a vessel yet."
"Because we made it impossible for him to take one, at least temporarily."
"And this restriction is about to fail?"
"Yes."
"Wait, Lucy needs a vessel to jerk your chain?" Dean demanded before he thought about it.
Death's cold eyes briefly returned to him, but surprisingly the horseman deigned to answer. "Yes, it is blood based and now he has none. What are you proposing?"
"That I break the bond," Michael stated.
"And what do you want in return?"
"Just a promise that you won't kill Lucifer. If he dies-"
"Yes, I know. That is all you want?"
"It is in all of our interests not to have you bound to his every whim," Castiel said. "If he loses you, he will lose his most powerful weapon."
"Very well, I accept your offer."
"Good," Michael replied.
The next thing that Dean knew, his friend had a hand on his back and the room started to brighten with the light of an angel's true form. He allowed himself to be pushed down inside of his own meatsuit and he twined himself around Michael's Grace as soon as possible. It seemed to help the transition and soon he found himself cocooned safely with his archangel's essence, looking back at Death's fascinated face. The emotion made him shudder a little, not at all sure that he liked having the horseman look at him like that. He'd far rather never even be a blip on Death's radar. Give him a good old reaper any day, Tessa preferably.
"Really interesting," Death muttered to himself.
Something shifted inside of them and the next thing that Dean knew, he was looking at Death not with his own human eyes, but rather with Michael's. To angelic sights, Death looked far different. Instead of being a mostly human man with just an aura of the supernatural, the horseman now was far more akin to a dark flame than anything else. He briefly thought of the true essence of demons, but really there was as much likeness there as there was between a flower and a tree. He seemed dark, yes, but it was a darkness that burned with its own dark light, radiating it outwards just as much as the Grace of an angel did light. Unlike the true form of angels, though, Death wasn't even remotely human shaped, being rather some kind of entity composed entirely of energy. Or at least that was the closest thing that he could think of with his very human point of reference.
Since it made his head hurt to focus on it too much, Dean abandoned that thought and focused instead on the thin ruby red thread that started somewhere within Death's being and trailed off into the distance.
"Is that the bond?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Michael replied, concentrating all of his power on it. "Hold on, this may be unpleasant."
Unsure of quite what to do, Dean tried to relax himself as much as possible to not interfere with Michael's power. As soon as he did so, he could start to feel it flowing through his soul and he closed his mental eyes at the wash of awareness and connectivity that came with it. His bond with Castiel seemed to flare to life and he longed to reach out and touch it, even if only to get a shade of the kalsika's power, but he resisted, not wanting to make things more difficult or to cause any kind of backwash to his lover. Instead he concentrated on just what Michael was doing, both out of sheer curiosity as to keep himself occupied.
Michael's Grace swelled, all of its power coming down on the bond and Dean watched in fascination as it started to fray before slowly breaking apart. There was a suddenly wave of rage and hate that sent him staggering. It took him a moment to realize that it was Lucifer's emotions that he was experiencing, reaching them through the thread, before it snapped and the emotions just vanished. The abrupt lack of a target made the power crackle in the air around them and it took Michael a moment to reign it all back in. By the time his archangel had done that, Death had recovered from whatever the horseman might have experienced.
"I will not forget this, little angel," Death stated.
With that, the horseman disappeared, leaving Dean alone with his three archangels once more.
A.N.: This chapter turned out completely different from what I'd imagined at the start! For one, Death and the rings weren't even supposed to be in it, but once I remembered them, I realized that this could make something later on work better, so here they are. I'm pretty sure the fact that I was working on the sequel to Little Deaths over the weekend is why this occurred to me, so if you don't like it, blame that.
Chapter 137