Supernatural- "The Law of Conservation of Energy" (Ch 10)
Ten
“So,” Sam begins, once Dean is knee-deep in his watch-TV-and-explain-things-to-mini-Cas portion of the day and Cas has disappeared to stretch his wings or whatever it is he has to test out every time they get a new piece of him correctly placed in the puzzle.
Dean looks up at the sound of his brother’s voice when it interrupts a particularly dramatic scene where Dr. Sexy is fighting his own evil clone (or twin brother; no one knows yet). Sam can’t help but notice that there is a happy galaxy-swirl of grace cupped in his palm as he reclines on the bed closest to the bathroom and holds mini-Cas up like it will actually help the grace if it can see the television screen. “What’s up, Sam?” Dean asks absently, keeping a surreptitious eye on whatever is happening on the screen.
Sam clears his throat and tries to sound as normal as possible. Which isn’t a lot, under the circumstances, but he’s trying okay. “Uh… so you and Cas are um… devoted to each other, huh?” he manages, and pretends to keep typing on his computer. It’s very smooth.
Dean gives him a look like he smells one of Sam’s post-burrito farts, but at least he’s not still watching the TV out of the corner of his eye anymore, which probably means he’s actually paying attention now. “Dude,” is all he says.
Sam backs up quickly because he knows that tone. “Just saying,” he says, in his best placating voice. “That’s kind of…big. A big deal,” he manages. Clearly years on the road with Dean have caused him to backtrack in all the emotional growth he’d experienced in college, away from the Winchester Way of Thinking. Pause. “I mean, the you part is a big deal. The Cas part maybe not so much,” he adds, because yeah, that whole side of the story has always been way obvious.
Dean scowls at him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he demands. “Of course Cas matters to me, Sam. Jesus,” he adds when Sam just looks bewildered. And wow, that is not the reaction Sam had been expecting at all. Dean looks like he’s all disappointed too, like Sam should know that he’s not a total jerk like that.
Sam backtracks more. “Dude, I was just going to ask if you if you wanted to talk about it, is all. I’m not trying to suggest anything. Or say I didn’t think he mattered to you.”
“Want to talk about what, exactly?” Dean persists, just shy of fully irate now.
“About… that. About how you feel now that we all know that you uh… you feel that way about Cas.”
Dean’s eyes narrow and get flinty. “Feel what way?”
Wow this is going really swimmingly. Sam runs a hand through his hair. “You know, devoted. Like, willing to go to Hell for him level of devoted.”
Dean studies him for a second. “You’re not jealous are you?” his brother asks after a moment, in what is the obvious Dean Winchester conclusion to Sam’s entire line of reasoning (which is to say, completely wrong).
“What? No! I’m not jealous. I was just wondering, I guess,” Sam posits, cautiously. “You know, when that happened.” It is a fair thing to wonder about, after all. It’s not like Dean just lets anyone into their family circle willy nilly. The only club more exclusive that Sam knows of is the let-the-devil-wear-my-body-like-a-suit club, of which there remains only one living member.
Dean’s brow furrows as he seems to think about that for the first time, and Sam can tell by the level of scrutiny that his brother is giving it that he can’t really pinpoint the exact moment that Cas became so important to him. Eventually, Dean gives up and just says, “Yesterday. You were there, man.”
“Uh huh,” Sam replies, trying to keep the blatant skepticism from his voice. “Okay then.”
Dean seems to catch the not-so-blatant skepticism that he hadn’t managed to mask anyway. “What the hell are you getting at, Sammy?” he demands, looking super defensive now.
“Nothing,” Sam says. Pause. Sigh. “Just… are there any other important realizations in there that I should be preparing for, maybe?” He looks sideways through his bangs at his big brother, wondering if Dean’s picked up on the fact that they’ve got exactly two shards left and that they just so happen to be obedience and love. Sam has always been able to see patterns pretty easily because he’s got the brains-or so Dean says- and what he sees right now is leading him to jump to the end conclusion that means his brother might just be on a collision course with stuff that involve feelings and alcohol and possibly dangerous Winchester reactions to things that involve inadvertently ending the world.
It’s a thing they do.
Often out of a combination of duty and love. Which, go figure, is exactly what they have left to find between the three of them.
In the meantime, Dean just shakes his head at Sam like he has no idea what Sam is talking about. “No other big realizations about Cas,” he says, carefully. “But I’m having a few about you right now, man. Like how it must be that time of the month and you’re feeling kind of bloated and emotional. If you want, Samantha, I’ll hop into the car right now and go get you some Midol and a couple of those heat patches you like so much, to help with the cramping.”
This time, it’s Sam’s turn to make a face like he smells something putrid. “Dude,” he protests, “don’t be such a jerk.” He pauses to shut his laptop before turning intense eyes on his brother. I just wonder about you sometimes, is what he wants to say, but Dean is getting fidgety on the bed and mini-Cas is starting to swirl chaotically, like it can sense Dean’s roiling irritation and is on the verge of mirroring it. It is at that point when Sam throws his mental hands up in the air and decides that he gives up. “Fine. Whatever. Pretend I didn’t bring it up.” Knowing Dean, it’s better if he just wings it anyway. Sam will just brace himself for obedience and love to erupt into an explosion of whatever between Dean and Cas and hope that it is epic enough to save the world from an archangel that wants to bring on the end of times. Again.
In the meantime, he’ll just try to figure out where the hell to go next from this end, using books and the internet and CNN for clues while Cas flexes his powers outside, hoping to catch the next whiff of fragrant archangel grace for him to try and chow down on next.
Dean gives Sam one last, frowny expression before going back to explaining the latest season of Dr. Sexy, MD to mini-Cas while Sam’s e-mail pings him with a new message from Bobby that is actually a message from Balthazar that actually just says hurry the fuck up, things going badly, love Balthy-poo.
Which isn’t helpful at all to Sam because nothing is being helpful to Sam right now, and he would yell at his brother to help look for an archangel’s obedience except that Dean is very much in the middle of happy-fun-nurture-time with mini-Cas and the last time Sam had suggested that his brother cut it short, Dean had looked at him like he murdered puppies for fun on the weekends or something.
Which leaves Sam with Cas’s vague words of, “It feels east of here,” regarding the shard and no help from any other quarter except for his trusty sidekick Google and Google’s trusty sidekick youtube.
So far, both of them are pointing him towards the creepy cult in Appalachian Virginia.
Which is, obviously, exactly what they need to make this crisscross-the-country experience complete.
*****
Castiel finds himself in the swampy summer heat of New Jersey when he is forced to stop and take a breath; wings feeling strained and twitchy when he lands in an abandoned packing factory near the wharf. It smells of blood and fish and oil from the sea creatures that had been processed here, preserved and packed and shipped off to all corners of the world in order to feed the humans.
The angel is confused at the fact that he can know this by looking but that he is still tired from flight; with the shards of grace they have so far collected he knows he is much larger, much fuller than he had been before, even with his original grace at full power. And yet there are still limitations on his abilities that he hadn’t had in his previous incarnation. Limitations which exist simply for the fact that he is not complete yet. In his mind he wonders if he is like one of the machines he can see on the factory floor, large and old and ominous but ultimately of little use at the moment, not until all the various parts can be fully upgraded, not until every cog and gear is capable of working in perfect concert as a single, completed whole.
In moments when he has expended himself like this, he can truly feel the open spaces inside, the gaping holes that he must fill before he can think to battle Raphael.
It is a curious thing to feel so vast at once and at the same time, so strangely empty.
“Well. Aren’t you looking big and important like that?”
Castiel does not have to turn to know Balthazar is there, tired-sounding and rough around the edges, but thankfully still alive, still speaking to him.
“Balthazar,” he greets, and when he glances to his left he sees his brother at his side again, looking exactly as he sounds.
“How’s the scavenger hunt going, Cassy?” Balthazar quips, a careful breath of space between them even as he stands beside Castiel, as if there is a distance he is not allowed to breach now, either because part of his irreverent brother still reveres what it means to be an archangel or because he is disgusted with the piecemeal creature that stands before him, some sort of affront to God’s intentions.
Castiel is not sure he wishes to have that clarified for him, and so he says, “You have news for me?” instead.
Balthazar nods, eyes never straying from Castiel’s form. His expression is unreadable. “Just a bit. We did some information gathering,” he begins, and pauses like the phrase is leaving a bad taste on his tongue. Castiel knows that by information gathering, Balthazar really means torturing one of our captured brothers, and the nuance sends a shiver of revulsion through him as well, despite the fact that it is something he has done countless times himself over the last year, despite the fact that he has killed his own brothers before for less. “From the sounds of it, Raph’s in a bit of snit over how little progress his demon bloodhounds are making. Seems like he’s sending out his own teams to find you now.”
Castiel sighs. “So then demons and angels both work against us. As you predicted.”
Balthazar snorts, humorlessly. “That is about the gist of it, yes, Cassy. I might have a plan to…cause a little dissention in the whole demon angel alliance, but you know planning was never my strong suit.”
Castiel eyes him. “But survival is.”
Balthazar smirks a little. “Touché,” he acknowledges, before he stops for a second, and gives his brother another careful once over. “But let’s talk about you. How are you feeling?”
“Incomplete,” Castiel answers, because it is the first word that comes to mind as an answer. “We are close, Balthazar.”
Balthazar’s eyebrow quirks. “Are you?”
“Two more pieces and I will be whole.”
Balthazar somehow looks unconvinced, but refrains from speaking right off, hesitation knit in his brows.
“Is something the matter?” Castiel asks.
Balthazar withdraws with a self deprecating smile. “Nothing. I was just going to say something pointlessly saccharine for a moment. Forget I even entertained the thought.”
Castiel is curious, but not enough to push his brother into sharing something he does not wish to. He’s forced too many people who matter to him into situations they want no part of as is.
So they stand in silence for a little while, just looking at the complicated human machinery as it sits in its quiet graveyard, covered in blood and dirt and no longer of any consequence one way or another.
Eventually, Castiel hears Dean’s prayers-somehow sounding faint and tinny even through the vastness of his senses- calling him back. “I must go,” is what he tells Balthazar, needlessly.
Balthazar nods, a hint of humor in his tone, though Castiel is uncertain as to whether it is genuinely amused or only facetiously so. “Right. Well. I’ll just get back to my own…fun, then.” Balthazar takes a step back, before clearing his throat and adding, in all seriousness, “Take care, Cassy.”
“You as well.”
Both angels disappear without another word.
*****
It is over dinner and lukewarm beer that Sam presents his case to Dean and Castiel, Dean eating a piece of pepperoni and sausage stuffed-crust while listening to his brother chatter on about why he thinks that the Natural Order Compound and its founder, David Green, is clearly the poster child for using archangel obedience shards like performance enhancing drugs because nothing else can possibly explain why he’s so successful. Which Dean can get; it’s like Twilight all over again. That sort of shit just doesn’t make sense unless someone has either a contract with a demon or luck from Heaven on their side to make it work.
“Apparently this guy’s convinced several dozen people to give up their lives and their families and all their worldly possessions so they can join him in this cult and call him master, or something,” Sam explains, while Dean watches Cas marvel at the wonders of cheese-filled crust and mini-Cas kind of curls up in a corner of the vial like it hates everything. Sam clicks through some random links on a random webpage in the meantime, where a guy with overly-bleached teeth and a receding hairline smiles at them from the corner. “I mean, most of the info I’m referencing is right here on the official website so we can’t be sure how accurate it is, but if they were going to lie, you’d think they’d try to cover it up better,” Sam points out, making a face like he has read some very disturbing things on this page in the last few hours. “So far, this guy promises everyone rich rewards in the afterlife if they follow his rules, but none of them seem to be based on any preexisting religious practices I can think of, except for maybe the beatings.”
Dean balks. “Beatings?”
“Ritualistic,” Sam clarifies. “Apparently it’s supposed to divorce his followers from their sense of self-their own bodies are worthless-and work towards the good of the community instead.”
“What leads you to believe this is the work of a shard?” Castiel inquires in all sincerity, his head going tilty and his eyes looking Sam over like he doesn’t understand the point of this exercise.
“The timing is right,” Sam says. “Three years ago, David Green was the successful CEO of a multinational corporation. In his bio, it says that he’d been cheating investors, suckering employees, some Enron level type stuff, basically.”
Dean’s eyebrows jump up as he pops the delicious, delicious cheese-stuffed crust of his slice of pizza into his mouth. “And an archangel grace chose to stick to this scumbag? Seems kind of the opposite of what we’ve been seeing so far.”
Sam shrugs. “I don’t know, he kind of sounds like God to me when you look at it in a big picture sort of way. Doing things that don’t make sense, messing with good people, never having to explain himself?”
Dean snorts. “Okay, point.”
Castiel looks torn between indignation at the slander and reluctant agreement.
Sam pushes on. “Anyway, something must have happened, because he went from being a multi-millionaire to living in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of cultists without electricity or running water. And he’s trying to pull in as many people as he can into his lifestyle.”
“Apparently it is working,” Castiel murmurs, looking squinty-eyed as he stares at Sam’s computer screen and reads through the info there. “Membership in his organization is growing rapidly.”
“Exactly,” Sam says. “And I’ve read through the list of their practices. Trust me when I say the only way he could convince people to do some of this stuff is with divine assistance from the obedience shard.”
Dean snags another piece of pizza and automatically doesn’t like where this is going. “So what, now we join a cult?”
He doesn’t like the answering gleam in Sam’s eye one bit either.
*****
“Now don’t get offended when I ask you this, because it’s just a question I ask everyone when you step upon the sacred grounds of our combine. But what exactly are you boys looking for by joining us?” David Green himself asks Sam, Dean, and Castiel the following morning, when the three of them show up at the compound’s visitor and information center after a rapid trip via Almost Archangel Airways Flight Cas-You-Asshole.
“A…change,” Sam offers, doing that earnest eye thing of his again while Dean is obviously trying his best not to be very obviously weirded out by Green’s too-white teeth and his too-big smile. Castiel is not trying at all; it’s clear the angel finds Green’s appearance and mannerisms disturbing, like he’s something that no one is truly prepared to look upon without their eyeballs bursting into flame.
When Dean and Castiel offer no help on the explanation front, Sam grits his teeth and pushes on. “And by change, I mean that we want to look for a more simple way to live our lives. A more rewarding one. We’d heard good things about this from the testimonials on your webpage.”
“Ah, yes. Some lovely words our members have shared with you.” He claps Castiel encouragingly on the back, which makes Castiel look at him like he is trying to see through him, and into whether or not this man actually possesses a shard of archangel grace or if the people here are just that crazy. From over the back of Green’s shoulder, Sam makes abortive movements in the hopes that Cas will stop being a creeper.
But Green just stares right back at the angel, that creepy smile never changing for a moment, despite how awkward the whole thing is making Sam and Dean feel just from watching.
“You have a good, steady gaze, son,” Green declares after a minute, and smiles that white-washed smile at Cas one more time. “Shows you’re deep. I like that.” His grin lingers a little too long on Cas’s curious eyes before he turns and guides them through the doors of the surprisingly normal-looking visitor’s center, with its receptionists and computers and showroom-floor couches.
Then they pass outside, into the muggy heat of an early Virginia summer and go what feels like a hundred years back in time.
Contrasting with the dentist’s office feel of the visitor’s center is a dirt road lined on either side by simple, one-room looking cabins, outside of which men and women of various ages linger somewhat aimlessly, looking peaceful if vacant, relaxed if sedentary. They do however, all rise in cheerful unison at the sight of Green, and a chorus of, “Good morning, Lord!” greets the Winchesters as Green simply smiles and nods his thanks for the greeting.
“This is the housing quarter,” Green explains to the three newcomers. “Every member has a single room, a single bed, a single window. Every structure is identical to the others. The clothes, as you can see, are standardized.”
Dean stares at everyone’s white burlap sacks and makes a face at Sam that makes Sam look at him reprovingly because he’s clearly not trying to fit in or look interested at all. Dean can’t help it if those sacks aren’t doing anything for anyone’s figure. Some of those chicks might actually be hot otherwise.
“Everyone is equal here,” Green explains, “thus we have no need for differentiation.”
Dean looks Green over, in his douchy silk pants and button down. “Except for you.”
“Well of course,” he says, “The Lord does have to be different from everyone else, I suppose.”
“Huh,” Dean says, and earns himself an all out smack from Sam. Luckily, a distraction presents itself from these antics in the form of a young woman who approaches them, eyes trained on the ground. Once within three feet of Green she kneels at his feet.
“I apologize if I’m interrupting, Lord,” she begins carefully, “but my cycle will begin soon and you have not instructed me as to who will breed me.”
This gets both Winchesters to stop everything they are doing to stare down at the woman-who can’t be any older than twenty- in horror.
Green seems nonplussed by the supplication. “It’s not a problem, Angela. I was thinking perhaps Joseph would make a good father to your child; the both of you are equally pleasing to look at, and so your offspring should be as well.”
Angela lowers herself so that her forehead nearly touches the ground. “Thank you, Lord.” She gets up, head still bowed, and backs away.
“Wow, you really make all the decisions here don’t you?” Dean bites out after a moment, and is on the verge of maybe losing his breakfast. “Does she even like Joseph?”
“Everyone here loves everyone else equally,” Green shrugs. “The only person they are allowed to love more is me.” He says it with such surety that Dean is hard put not to pull back and punch him in the face. This shit is just facts for the guy obviously, even as he ruins people’s lives, even if he takes charge of them like slaves and makes them do whatever he says.
“It must have been hard,” Sam interrupts, before Dean can run his mouth off and piss off well, probably everyone here. “I mean, having them let go of everything they were attached to in their lives to surrender it all to you. Does that…does that take long?”
“Not at all,” Green says with a wave of his hand. “Really, they’re all usually ready for it once they’ve completed the tour.”
“You convince them in such a short amount of time?” Castiel asks, opening his mouth for the first time in a while as he abandons his intense examination of a nearby tree.
“It’s not about convincing. It’s about them realizing the benefits on their own,” Green says, again with that creepy smile at Cas, and Dean thinks maybe Green wants to have the angel personally worship him in the next few hours, probably on his knees. He scowls and steps into Green’s line of sight.
“What benefits?” he demands, before Sam can stop him. Because from what he can see, they give up everything to come out to the middle of nowhere, to be stripped of their individuality, to let this douchebag with the unnerving gaze tell them how to breathe and sleep and eat and live. It’s all a big downside as far as he can see.
Green’s smile never waivers in the face of these questions; it reminds Dean a little bit of Alistair, a little bit of Lucifer in Sam’s body. “It’s about easing the burden of responsibility,” Green explains, before gesturing at them to continue up the path, towards the top of the mountain. “You see, responsibility is this incredibly heavy weight people carry on their shoulders day in and day out; their actions and their decisions take a toll on us, no matter how good or how bad the outcome may be. I’m here to alleviate that burden. I take it on for them. I free them from that, from the weight of decision making, of having to think about consequences. I do that by telling them what to do. They don’t have to worry about anything. Just trust that what I tell them to do is in their best interests.”
“And it works?” Dean asks, sounding incredulous.
Green doesn’t seem offended by his incredulity, waving his arms around him in an all-expansive gesture. “See how peaceful it is? How satisfied everyone is? This is the power of trusting in someone else enough that nothing else matters.” He looks at Dean in this grossly sympathetic way, like he understands everything Dean has ever been through. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to not be responsible for anything, Dean?”
A moment.
And then Dean scowls, which makes Green laugh. “C’mon,” he urges, “let me take you to the top of the mountain. The view is beautiful…vast. The kind of largeness that can make a man do some real soul searching.”
He picks up his step after that, sidling up next to Cas on the trail while Sam gives Dean this look that is somehow concerned and reprimanding at the same time. “Dude,” he says, in a hushed whisper, “stop being so antagonistic.”
“This douche is tricking people into being his slaves, man!” Dean hisses back.
Sam sighs and gestures off the path, where a couple of men wearing the white-sack things are chatting amiably with one another while collecting wood. When Green passes them they stop to wish their Lord good morning, which Green cheerfully returns before they continue on their way. “He’s not keeping anyone here against their will,” Sam says. “There’s nothing we can do about the choices these people are making. They decided to obey him, and this is where they are. What we need to concentrate on is finding the shard, because if we don’t, then the world ends and it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Dean sighs, because his brother’s logic has this habit of instantly squashing his righteous indignation. “Fine. Asshat needs to stop perving on Cas though,” he adds out of spite, when he glances up the path and sees a hand at the small of the angel’s back, guiding him up a rocky outcropping along the incline.
The corner of Sam’s lip twitches upward unexpectedly. “Yeah okay,” is all he says, before clapping Dean on the shoulder in the same way you clap the shoulder of a guy who just got cheated on by his girlfriend in broad daylight because he’s kind of a sucker.
Dean decides to ignore him.
*****
They stop for a breather twenty minutes later at a cabin that looks at least three times bigger than all the other ones in the housing area; Green explains that it’s their factory basically, where furniture and clothing and other necessities are made by people who he has assigned to be the commune’s carpenters or weavers or whatever else it is that needs to be done first. They get a brief tour of the facility and the workers inside seem overjoyed to have a visit from their Lord, singing high praises and showing off their accomplishments in the hopes of a small kernel of acknowledgement from Green.
Dean takes the opportunity to slip away to the side a little, where a woman is sitting, basking in the whatever-it-is that is Green. “Hey there,” Dean greets her, when he manages to catch her eye.
“Oh, hello,” she says, and the light in her gaze dims a little, though she looks at Dean pleasantly enough. “You are receiving the tour.”
“Yeah,” Dean acknowledges. “Mr. Green is showing us around.”
She flutters. “He takes great care to make all newcomers feel welcome.”
Dean tries not to roll his eyes, keeping the plastic smile on his face by clenching his teeth tightly. “Uh, yeah. So I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. You know, as someone who lives here.”
“Of course. Our Lord always says we must help each other see the light.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
She blinks at him like she doesn’t know what he means by that.
He coughs. “So I was wondering,” he hedges, “you guys do whatever he tells you to, right?”
She nods.
“Uh…why?”
Her eyes go wide. “Because we must. Because the sanctity of this place relies solely on obedience. If we listen to him, if we do not bother ourselves with questions or personal concerns, then our actions will always serve to benefit the greater good of our community, rather than the individual. We obey because it strips us of the selfishness humans innately harbor.”
Dean stares at her. “And giving up your identity benefits everyone? How?”
“We are all base, evil creatures at heart,” she says, sadly. “To listen to ourselves, to our own wishes and desires, is to fall off the path. To be able to listen to our Lord instead, to put him before ourselves, is to deny our dirty human nature and aspire to something greater.”
Dean refrains from slapping a hand to his forehead, but only because Castiel appears at his side then, nods once to the girl, and pulls Dean away by the arm. “The shard is here,” he confirms, once they are the only two within earshot.
“Here? Where?” Dean looks around the factory for signs of glowing things.
Castiel shakes his head. “On this mountaintop.”
Dean sighs. “Oh that narrows it down.” He runs a hand through his hair in a gesture that is disturbingly like one Sam would make. “Seriously, if I have to listen to any more of this garbage, I might actually give in and punch people.”
Castiel seems confused by this. “Why?”
“Because this whole place is a crock of shit,” Dean answers flatly. “And it sucks that a guy like Green gets to benefit from these people being gullible.”
“Obedience is obedience, Dean, as corrupted as this example of it may be. Green is a man who has always been accustomed to having his words obeyed; of course the shard for obedience then went to him under the circumstances.”
“So what, it’s just blind devotion? No thoughts, no feelings, no choices, no nothing?”
“It is obedience,” Castiel says again, simply. “As my Father intended it.”
Dean scowls. “So you’re defending this thing while it’s taking away all of these people’s right to free will?”
Castiel’s eyes darken. “I did not say that,” he murmurs, voice a low, dangerous rumble. “All I have said is fact. This is obedience as my Father intended it. Blind, unquestioning, absolute. It does not mean I agree with it. It does not mean I enjoy or support this mutation of it.”
Dean relaxes a little bit at that, but there’s still a tense line between his eyebrows as he pinches them together, trying to make sense of it. “So what is your definition?”
“Trust,” Castiel says, without hesitation. “Obedience stems from trust, Dean. I obeyed God because I loved and trusted in His will and it was the best way I knew how to manifest that trust into action. I stopped obeying when that was no longer the case. I stopped when…” he trails off abruptly, shaking his head. “I stopped.”
The unspoken for you hangs in the air between them, and even unsaid it flashes like a big freaking day-glo banner in the air in front of Dean’s eyes, because he knows that Cas took his word over God’s in the end, that he chose to trust Dean Winchester before his own Father and that he has been living with those consequences every day since that moment.
Castiel trusts Dean. He obeys Dean because he chooses to, as an outward sign of his faith in Dean.
Dean’s shoulders slump as he huffs a sigh and holds a hand up in surrender. “Okay, fine. I get it. I do. That doesn’t make it suck any less.”
Castiel shrugs one shoulder, in a move he must have pulled from Sam’s repertoire. “They are simply obeying his will because they believe his judgment will benefit them,” the angel says, without a hint of judgment in his tone. “It is not so long ago that you or I would have deferred our own wills to those of our respective fathers.”
Dean scowls at the reminder because it was uncalled for-and true- but mostly uncalled for.
Castiel pushes on. “We have both since learned the value of making our own choices. They have not. You are the one who taught me that not all humans can be expected to be the same.”
Dean deflates a little at that, because like Sam logic, Cas reasoning can sometimes-every once in a while-be kind of convincing. “Yeah okay. Let’s find the freaking shard then and get the hell out of here, then. Just because it’s happening doesn’t mean I want to watch it. Especially if people get bred here.”
Castiel makes a sound like they’re in agreement about that at least, and before long, Green tears himself away from his fanboys and fangirls and takes the three of them back outside.
*****
The hike to the top of the mountain takes another grueling thirty minutes of steep uphill climbing, but eventually they arrive at a jagged looking cliff that Green steps right out to the very edge of, throwing his arms open wide in some choreography ripped off of Titanic . “This is my power point,” he says wondrously, gaze almost far away as he stares out at the expanse of mountains in the distance. “One day I was walking around up here on a hike. I’d just closed a multi-million dollar buy out, bought a new house in Atlanta, was going to get married to a girl who danced for the Hawks. Prettiest Georgia peach you could ever imagine. And I got to the top of this hill, and I couldn’t help but think that I still didn’t feel satisfied. There were still things I wanted, I just didn’t know what.”
Dean refrains from rolling his eyes, while Cas’s light up with thoughtful curiosity as he steps after Green towards the ledge.
Green seems too far gone in whatever flashback he’s reliving to notice. “Then I took a chance and came out as far as I could along the edge of this cliff and when I looked down, I had my realization. The reason I was feeling like that was because everyone feels like that. They’re all looking for something to catch them in case they fall. If they don’t think it’s there, they won’t chance stepping out onto the ledge like this and getting the best view in the world. It’s a heavy order to have that kind of courage. It’s not something that just comes along every day, you know.” Green allows a rueful smile. “So instead of look for it for myself, I told myself I’d become that instead, for everyone who was willing to accept me as their safety net. I was never afraid of falling.”
“So to become their safety net, you decided the best way was to become their God?” Sam asks, and even he can’t hide the skepticism from his voice when he asks it this time.
Green chuckles. “It’s like that Bible story about Abraham and Isaac, don’t you think? If someone is willing to give up what is most important to them on Earth and submit to my will, then I will use all my power to care for them in return. I will always catch them. They never have to fear falling again, so long as they obey.”
Cas is right behind him at this point, peering out over the ledge as well, a contemplative look in his eye that makes the grace against Dean’s chest jump and squirm in an all too recognizable feeling. When Green finally realizes that the angel is right there beside him, he almost startles, but regains himself with admirable speed and smiles again, almost leering, as he hooks an arm around Castiel’s shoulders and quickly steers him away from the cliff. “Well. Let’s get back to the others, shall we?” he asks brusquely, looking vaguely annoyed at Cas for intruding on his moment, or on his power point, or whatever.
Castiel just wordlessly nods and slips out from under Green’s arm, to drift down to Dean’s side again. Sam hastily takes up the space beside Green, feigning interest and asking the man questions about the day he’d come to that realization and whether or not he’d seen any flashes of light or divine signs that he had reached a holy epiphany or something.
“Well?” Dean asks, when Cas is out of the fake Lord’s reach again. “You feel what I felt?”
“The shard is there,” Castiel acknowledges. “Though I am under the impression he does not like the thought of others trespassing upon his power point.”
“Well if it’s what’s giving him the juice to keep tricking these people I guess that makes sense.”
The two share a silent look; eventually they wordlessly agree to slip away later.
*****
The rest of the tour is basically Sam pretending to care about what they’re seeing and Dean trying to think up a strategy on how to pull this off. The visitor’s guest cabin or whatever is basically right behind the visitor’s center, which means Cas will probably have to zap them up to the peak under cover of darkness to avoid detection (and having to battle the members of the commune, who all look and sound like they’d be willing to go kamikaze for Green in a fight to the death if he asked them to).
So Dean endures the rest of the day (as well as the meals that involve no meat and no salt and no sugar), endures Green’s gross leers at the women preparing the food, at Cas, and occasionally at him, and after what seems like an unendurable amount of time, Green finally leads them back to the visitor’s cabin, saying with regret that he’d invite them out for the night’s breeding showcase-and that better not mean what Dean thinks it means- except that it is a sacred ritual by moonlight that outsiders absolutely cannot see or participate in.
“Too bad,” Green murmurs, with another appraising look at Castiel and the Winchesters, “your genes are very appealing.” Pause. Leer. “Well, there will be other chances after you join. And I sincerely hope that you all choose to.”
“Yeah, uh, we’ll just hang out here and think about things, thanks,” Sam manages, and closes the door on Green while he’s making gross, come-hither eyes at Cas straight out of some low budget 80s porno.
Dean manages to wait a whole five seconds before he gives a full body shudder and says, “Well now I just feel dirty.”
Castiel doesn’t seem particularly bothered. “You do have appealing genes,” he says, obviously meaning both of them but looking right at Dean when he speaks, which makes Dean’s face go red and his eyes narrow.
Cas just keeps his eyes on Dean, social cues be damned. “Though if you were to procreate, it is likely your descendents will be used down the line to potentially end the world again, so I would suggest that only one of you do it, and only once, if possible.”
“So uncomfortable now,” Sam mutters, while Dean barks, “Dude, personal boundaries!” at the angel.
Castiel only seems to mentally shrug before extending a hand to either Winchester. “Shall we return to the cliff?”
“Please,” they both say.
*****
They arrive back at the foot of Green’s power point in a quiet rush of air, Dean holding onto Cas for balance and Sam holding on to him. The sun has just disappeared under the peaks of the distant mountains and it looks almost idyllic at that moment, the kind of spot you see in movies when two lovers finally share that momentous first kiss under the combination of waning sunlight and early stars.
Which is exactly the kind of atmosphere you want when you are digging up pieces of your BFF’s dead brother while your own brother blinks kind of owlishly at you and your angel. “So,” Sam decides after a beat, “I guess you two should…do whatever it is you do.”
Dean glares. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that the last shard I got directly involved in got someone stabbed,” Sam drawls, around what is clearly an attempt at suppressing that annoying smirk of his. “You guys obviously do it better without input from me.”
Dean glowers but can’t exactly argue the point. Triumphant, Sam excuses himself to go and take a piss after that, because the communal bathroom back at the commune had looked like the ones in Schindler’s List and Slumdog Millionaire had mated and had horrible stinky outhouse babies.
Castiel, taking Sam’s words at face value, simply turns to Dean, and from there, the two of them stand quietly at the top of a mountain while trying to figure out how, exactly, to coax obedience out of the ground and away from the crazy commune that is right now, doing its best to impregnate some girls with the seed of the most genetically acceptable male specimens available as ordered by their Lord.
To be honest, Dean isn’t sure he can get more obedient than that, but Cas looks determined and he figures that’s half the battle, or something.
He turns to the angel and after a moment, clears his throat. “Well? What’s the plan, Columbo?”
Cas just kind of blinks at him. “The plan is to get the shard, Dean.”
Dean sighs. Tells himself to have patience. “Okay. How?”
Castiel’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t answer right off. Weird silence ensues, until Cas tilts his head a little and suggests, “Perhaps you could give me an order. I will do whatever you want.”
Dean’s mind automatically connects the dots between his last thoughts on obedience and what Cas is telling him to do. Blood rushes to his face inexplicably, and he’s pretty sure he feels mini-Cas crack a metaphorical eye in curiosity from under his shirt. “Uh…”
Castiel just kind of stands there, expectant. Like Dean’s ordered him around plenty of times before, like it’s old hat and he’s ready and willing the minute Dean gives the word.
Suddenly, Dean kind of feels like a douchebag.
Castiel notices his reticence and quirks a questioning brow at him. “I find it difficult to believe you are suddenly out of orders, Dean,” he says all Spock-like, and that makes Dean feel even more douchy, like he’s been beating a puppy or something and now the puppy thinks it’s weird when it doesn’t get its ass kicked.
Eventually, Dean looks pointedly away, though he does open his mouth to suggest that they try something maybe less conventional than him demanding something of Cas.
So of course that’s when Sam appears in front of them again, flanked on either side by two bulky, serious-faced angels in matching black suits that must mean they work for Raphael.
Timing. Clearly Sam Winchester has it in spades.
*****
Castiel whirls when he feels the familiar presence of his brothers and despairs at the sight of Sam placed between them, looking a mixture of sheepish and annoyed at being captured. He is unharmed though, which is what matters. Castiel hopes he can keep him that way.
“Sam!” Dean shouts, and has to be physically restrained by Castiel’s hand on his arm to keep from charging forward, fists (ineffectually) flying. Sam shoots Dean a look that tells him to cease and desist, even as Castiel’s iron grip around his forearm precludes him from making himself a second hostage.
“Castiel,” the angel on Sam’s left booms without preamble, “surrender to us or the human dies.”
“Hayyel,” Castiel greets in the meantime, and is pleased to find his voice still even considering the fact that two of Raphael’s henchmen have currently taken Sam hostage. As he speaks, he very carefully draws Dean closer to his side, eyes trained on the two angels standing beside Sam at the very edge of a cliff.
Hayyel grins, a feral glint in his eye as he and the smaller Hael stand with Sam between them. They are not touching him, however, either because they find contact with humans debasing or because they wish to avoid the taint of Lucifer that stains Sam’s blood. Castiel knows the feeling of the second option all too well, remembers the overpowering sensation of revulsion he’d felt before, upon first seeing Sam before him. But that had been a lifetime ago; nothing has tainted Sam in his eyes for a long time now. In all likelihood, he is the only amongst his brethren who thinks this way.
Angels have always avoided contact with the vessel of Lucifer, for as long as he has existed. Castiel thinks he must use this to his advantage somehow. “How did you find us?” he asks Hayyel in the meantime, feigning surprise and letting the edge of fear creep into his tone.
“We were not looking for you,” Hayyel says, not paying either of the humans any particular attention as he focuses on the only real threat here: Castiel. In the meantime, Dean’s eyes dart desperately from side to side and Castiel knows he is looking for some sort of opening he can use, some sort of distraction that will get his brother to safety. Hayyel does not notice though, simply smirks and barks, “How could we find you, when your humans are masked from the eyes of Heaven and you have turned yourself into such an abomination as to be unrecognizable to your brethren? That we stumbled upon you in our search was pure happenstance.”
Castiel’s eyes narrow. “Then you are here for the shard. I will not let you take it.”
“If you do not, we will kill the human. We will rip apart his soul and scatter the atoms across the universe so that not even you will be able to resurrect him again.”
Hayyel’s bloodthirsty declaration makes Hael wince a little, though he stands firm while Hayyel grins at Castiel like a wild animal.
“Hael,” Castiel says, turning to the weaker of the two, “an angel of kindness would profess do such a thing to an innocent bystander?”
“Hael and Hayyel? Seriously?” Dean pipes up when he hears the second angel’s name. “Does Raphael send teams in alphabetically or something?” His tone is laced with false bravado in an attempt to draw their attention to him rather than Sam.
But he is resolutely ignored by all angels present, as Hael frowns at Castiel instead. “You give us no choice but to resort to this violence, Castiel. You blaspheme when Raphael has become the true ruler of Heaven. You create a need for this war by refusing to stand down to those who were created to be better than us. You aspire to become more than you are, and as such, you become the creature we see before us, an abomination, an eyesore. It is not we who kill this human, but your hand that forces us to.”
“You follow one who would destroy the world, Hael,” Castiel says, not taking his eyes off of Hael as he takes a step forward. “What kindness would remain if Earth no longer existed? What is kindness can survive if you heartlessly fight to destroy that which our Father loved best?”
Hayyel looks impatient. “Enough!” he growls. “We will take the shard one way or another, Castiel,” he says plainly. “You are an added bonus. We will release Sam Winchester if you agree to become our prisoner instead.”
“Like hell,” Dean snarls, which earns him a quelling glare from Castiel.
“Dean,” he says, voice full of reprobation.
Dean looks back, eyes wild with indignation. “What, Cas?” he bites out, on the edge of losing all patience, “What?!”
Castiel locks eyes with him for a moment, as stern and demanding as he knows how to be, as he’s learned how to be after leading an army, after battling archangels for the fate of humanity. “Dean,” he says again, lower, voice barely audible.
Hayyel, impatient, takes a step forward, leaving Hael at Sam’s side as he hefts his sword threateningly at Castiel and Dean. “Your answer, Castiel?” Hayyel bellows hotly, even as Castiel summons his own sword and allows it to slip into his palm through the sleeve of his coat. “Or are you okay with Sam Winchester’s death simply because he is not the favorite of your two pets?”
Castiel ignores him. Instead, he reaches out with his free hand and grasps Dean’s shoulder, pulling the human tightly against his chest in quiet embrace.
At the ledge, Sam’s eyebrows dart upward, even as Hayyel frowns in disgust and Hael stares in surprise.
“Saying your goodbyes, then?” Hayyel snorts, tone derisive at the sight of an angel debasing himself with human contact. “Hurry, Castiel. Our offer is not of infinite duration!”
Eventually, Castiel pulls away from Dean, who looks him in the eye questioningly.
“Are you ready, Dean?” Castiel asks.
And then Dean’s eyes go hard, determined. He nods once, definitively. “Yeah.”
Castiel takes a step backwards and touches two fingers to Dean’s forehead.
*****
The feeling of the bottom of the world dropping out lasts approximately half a second before they find themselves behind Sam and his angel entourage; Dean does exactly what Cas told him to do as he hefts the sword the angel had passed him during their impromptu embrace and slams it in the back of Hael’s neck before the nervous little guy can move. There’s a sense of regret there, killing an angel of kindness or whatever, but at the same time, that douchebag still threatened to scatter Sam across the universe, so the feeling doesn’t last long.
There’s a flash of light that means dying angel and Sam slams his eyes shut as Dean turns to Cas just in time to toss him his sword again; Cas manages to catch it, but the distraction is enough for Hayyel to open up a thin, glowy gash across Castiel’s chest with a swipe of his own sword. Cas gasps in pain, staggers back, and leaves himself completely helpless for a moment, in which Hayyel’s bulky vessel grabs onto Cas’s arm with his free hand and spins him around. Hayyel throws Cas down the hill with a satisfied grin. He follows as Cas hits the ground with an impact that feels like it shakes the whole mountaintop, that visibly cracks the rock layer underneath Cas’s back. Hayyel roars and appears in a blink in front of Cas, in time to stomp on the overthrown angel’s sword arm before he can bring the weapon up to defend himself.
Which leaves the situation as follows: there is a really crazy looking pissed off angel standing between Cas and the Winchesters. While the Winchesters are standing between said really crazy looking pissed off angel and the edge of a freaking cliff.
And Dean’s reaction to that? His reaction to seeing Hayyel his sword above his head and leering triumphantly down at Cas?
He grabs the nearest good-sized rock and throws it as hard as he can at the back of Hayyel’s head. It hits the messenger of Raphael with a good, solid thunk.
The angel turns with a snarl, giving Cas enough time to breathe, light leaking out of that slash across his chest in a way that makes Dean nervous. “You,” Hayyel growls at him, eyes kind of wild, a bit like a werewolf’s during the full moon, “you dare to strike down angels?! I will kill you and resurrect you so that I can kill you again, a thousand times for each of my brothers you have destroyed!” he vows darkly. “You slew the only angel left in Heaven who might have granted you a merciful death.”
Hayyel smiles. “I am no such angel.”
“Uh, Dean…” Sam begins, looking nervous as the cry of wolves suddenly pierces the air around them.
“The fuck,” Dean mutters, and then there is the sound of shuffling and growling, eyes glowing at them from the brush and the darkness. A bear steps out of the tree line and stands on its back legs, rearing up to look about ten feet tall and angry.
“Uh, I’m guessing Hayyel means he’s the angel of uh… animals, maybe?” Sam mutters, eyes darting from a pissed-off looking raccoon to his left and the pack of wolves emerging to the right. An eagle screams overhead.
“They will rip apart your flesh piece by piece and I will make Castiel watch every moment of it,” Hayyel promises, grinding his foot down on Castiel’s arm again. To Cas’s credit, he doesn’t make a noise, doesn’t react to the obvious crunch of broken bone that makes Dean wince on instinct. “Then I will take you to Raphael, and you will answer for your crimes, Castiel.”
“Cas?!” Dean demands, and takes a careful step backwards when one of the wolves snaps and snarls at him, hanging out a little too close to home. He hopes the angel has a few more brilliant plans up his sleeve, because he definitely did not survive the apocalypse just to get his ass handed to him by Balto.
“Dean,” Castiel says, voice somehow steady in everything. “I need you to jump.” He says it very matter-of-factly, no hint of regret or hesitation.
And it’s kind of crazy and possibly the worst plan Dean has heard of ever, but isn’t that what Dean had been going for earlier, before Hayyel and company crashed this party? He feels mini-Cas hum in quiet encouragement against his chest and that’s basically it.
It’s like Cas had said earlier (and yes, Dean does listen, always listens when it counts, he likes to think): obedience is about trust. And trust to Dean Winchester has always been about knowing a person, knowing what motivates them and how they think and what they hold dear.
And when it comes right down to it, Dean trusts Cas. He has no reason not to. Not after everything.
So he doesn’t hesitate when he grabs Sam’s arm with one hand, clutches mini-Cas tightly with the other, and runs them both off the edge of the cliff without a backwards glance.
*****
Castiel watches Dean and Sam’s heads dip under the ledge before turning back to Hayyel, who looks slightly confused but mostly irritated that his creatures hadn’t had the chance to take the Winchesters apart in front of Castiel’s eyes.
He doesn’t have very long to feel anything though, because the earth beneath them begins to rumble again and there is a glow in the air that Castiel is beginning to associate with success. He closes his eyes and offers silent thanks that Dean obeyed, that Dean can-despite everything- still trust him.
And that is enough. It must be, because that is the moment when the obedience shard unexpectedly slams into his chest in a burst of light and a roar of thunder, sending Hayyel stumbling backwards with the heat of the bonding, the archangel’s grace burning the edges of his as it sluices by, too close to be completely safe.
“No,” Hayyel breathes, as his animals yelp and hiss and screech and run for safety, away from the fire of archangel grace. “This is not possible! You, who has fallen, who has rebelled, who has defiled the will of our Father!”
Castiel has heard these words many times before. Instead of wasting time responding he stands slowly, stretching his wings-both old and new- and clutches his sword in his hands. He steps towards Hayyel, whose own wings have been burned from their contact with Gabriel’s grace shard, and solemnly shoves the sharp point of the blade into the back of Hayyel’s neck without hesitation, without a word of sorrow or regret or goodbye to one who had been his brother since time’s infancy.
A burst of light ripples across the air around them as Hayyel screams his final rage and slumps, the silhouette of his mangled wings burning themselves into the ground alongside his body in death, grace shattering into pieces and scattering to the winds.
And then Castiel falls to his knees, tired from the bonding, from the weight of the new wings that give him the mark of archangel and the death of two more brothers by his actions.
Silence reigns for a moment, on the mountaintop. Castiel takes the time to breathe, to fold heavy wings against his backside.
And then Dean’s voice, irate sounding from worry, suddenly breaks the stillness of the night around him.
“Cas? What the hell, man?!”
Castiel allows himself a moment to smile. He’s not sure why.
*****
“Jesus, Dean, you could have warned me!” Sam gripes later, as the two brothers claw their way back up the side of the cliff to the top of the mountain. The rocky outcropping they had landed on about ten feet below Green’s Power Point had been hard and a little unforgiving on their knees, especially since they hadn’t expected the ledge, or that they would survive the fall at all.
“Hey, I didn’t know it was there either!” Dean bitches back, accepting the hand Castiel offers him as the angel effortlessly pulls them back to the top, where Hael and Hayyel’s borrowed bodies lay sprawled out and bleeding on the ground.
This information just seems to make Sam even more incredulous. “You jumped and didn’t know we weren’t going to die?!” he exclaims, eyes wide. “What? Why?”
Dean shrugs, feeling suddenly sheepish when he had been so sure a moment ago. “I dunno, I figured we’d you now, splat at the bottom. But at least that way Cas could bring us back or something, later.”
“Oh my god,” Sam mutters, articulately, that big craggy forehead of his getting all furrowed as he tries to come to terms with Dean’s obviously flawed reasoning. “Oh my god.”
Dean turns to Cas next, hoping for some sort of help or something, but Cas is just looking at him all enigmatically, like Dean’s this puzzle he’ll never figure out or understand even if he had a million or a billion years to make an attempt.
“You obeyed,” the angel says after a moment, needlessly, and Dean wants to growl at him and tell him to shut it, to say that he only did it because mini-Cas thought it might be a good idea. But he realizes that’s crazy talk, and mini-Cas is definitely not talking-or whatever it does- to him right now because it’s too busy being curled up into a tight ball about the size of the nail on Dean’s pinky finger, like all the hours he’d spent over the last few days talking to it and playing it music amounted to jack squat.
“And so what, Dean obeyed and you got the shard? Just like that?” Sam asks, filling the silence between Dean and Cas with his indignation and disbelief. “How is that showing more obedience than the people Green is conning into his bizarre eugenics program?”
Castiel’s head tilts sideways. “You,” he says to Sam, voice flat, “should know by now, the monumental task of getting Dean to listen to someone else.”
“Hey!” Dean protests, on principle.
Sam just considers this for a moment. “Okay, that’s fair,” he acquiesces eventually, and throws his hands over his head like he washes them of everything that’s going on here. He is grinning as he does it though, so Dean feels perfectly okay with shoving him out of the way so he can take a closer look at Cas.
“Well?” he asks, gruffly. “You feeling okay? Not explodey or anything, right?”
Castiel nods. “I am fine, Dean.”
Sam watches the two of them carefully. “So, just one more, right?” he pipes up, when Dean is looking Cas over from head to toe. Apparently Dean is fine with obeying the angel when he tells them to jump off a mountaintop, but when it comes to whether or not Cas is injured or not Dean doesn’t believe a word he says. That gash that had opened up across his chest seems to be gone now though, the only evidence that it had existed at all being the fact that Cas’s shirt is slashed open and he can see a sliver of skin underneath, smooth and unmarked.
“Yes,” Cas answers Sam in the meantime, as he grudgingly submits to Dean’s fussing. “Once my grace is complete, I should have sufficient power to defeat Raphael and take over the rule of Heaven without causing any more bloodshed amongst my brothers.”
Dean isn’t usually the kind of guy who quibbles-that’s Sam’s job- but part of him kind of stops short at the change from ‘defeat Raphael to save the world’ to ’take over the rule of Heaven.’ Mini-Cas doesn’t seem to like the idea at all either, if the fact that it can barely manage a passable firefly impression is anything to go by.
Dean thinks maybe he should say something, but before he can, Cas’s eyes flash and he reaches out to tap both brothers on the forehead.
The ground falls away from them despite Dean’s sputtered protests.
*****
They find themselves transported back to the visitor’s cabin just in time for Green to poke his head in, looking concerned and vaguely suspicious at the outsiders as he reports that there were explosions of light at the top of the mountain just now, and that they’re gathering a posse to go investigate. “Likely that it was just some stray bolts of lightning, but best to be safe and make sure no fires have broken out or anything,” he says in a placating sort of way as he takes in the strange glow to Castiel’s skin and the fact that Sam and Dean are still dressed for outside. The brothers manage to feign innocence well enough; Sam even musters up that concerned sympathy face of his, the one that makes people think that he’s trying out for Miss America or something, and that all he wants is world peace and to stop hunger and disease so that everyone can adopt an abandoned kitten.
Green seems to fall for it, wishes them all a good night, and closes the door behind him, though not before locking it from the outside, for the guests’ safety in case something really is amiss.
Dean bristles at that again, because if there might be fires in the woods from lightning, clearly locking people in their rooms is the worst idea ever, but whatever. It’s not like the lock isn’t something either he or Sam can pick in their sleep, and when push comes to shove, Cas has the keys to the universe or whatever. It’s still a douchy thing to do though.
Sam seems to think so too, but just shrugs to himself and flops down onto one of the cots. “Well, what now?” Dean demands after a moment of silence in which Castiel settles in a corner and kind of stares vacantly at nothing in particular. He’s still a little flushed from the heat of the grace shard crashing into him, pink across the cheeks and his throat and along the knuckles of his hands from where Dean can see. He looks glowy, for lack of a better word, in a heady, slightly feverish way. The tear in his shirt has been magically fixed.
“I will need to settle, Dean,” Castiel answers him after an unblinking moment. “It should not take long to fully incorporate the additional grace.”
“Swell,” Dean answers, and goes to plop down on the other cot. He eyes Cas one more time (the angel is still doing his best to reenact that time he’d been turned into an action figure apparently) before he rolls onto his back, pulls at the black chord around his neck, and looks at mini-Cas speculatively. “Hey,” he murmurs to the tiny ball huddled at the very bottom of the vial, “c’mon, we were doing so well yesterday.”
The grace gives a curious stutter, kind of weak and distant, but it’s definitely still there. Dean takes some comfort in that, and spends the next few hours chatting it up before Sam throws a flat, grass-stuffed pillow thing at his head and tells him to shut up.
Dean keeps the flat grass-stuffed pillow thing so Sam doesn’t have one anymore, stacks it on top of his own to make a slightly less flat, grass-stuffed pillow thing, and goes to sleep.
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