Supernatural- "The Law of Conservation of Energy" (Ch 4)
Four
Ever since Lucifer’s impromptu massacre at the Elysian Fields motel it has been closed, abandoned, and subsequently condemned, its formerly cheerful interior vandalized by passing delinquents, its floors dirtied by squatters and other transients that had taken their chances within its confines before the overall bad vibes of what had transpired inside threatened to overwhelm them, sending them scurrying back into the safety of the open night. The locals avoid driving past the shabby sign after dark now, just in case, all the while silently mourning the loss of the hotel’s amazing kitchen, particularly the seven kinds of pie and two kinds of bread that used to be baked there fresh, daily.
The adults living in the surrounding area try not to talk about what had happened there but the children still weave stories about it even today, younger kids building on older kids’ overblown, sensationalized renditions of the tale about all the bodies that had been found inside the hotel one morning after a freak rain storm. They whisper about the dead people and the scorched wingmarks on the lobby floor, listening with wide eyes to the crazy account of that night from Old Man Peterson, who had worked the gas station down the street from the motel before he’d gone nuts. Haggard and worn, he regales the town’s children about how he’d been there that night, about how he had witnessed people eating people, raw and some still half alive. He sobs and shudders to himself, about the explosions of fire and light that meant the world would burn. He can’t remember all the details, he says shakily, but he thinks it had been the work of the devil himself and that his essence still lingers in the motel, even so long after the fact. The children sometimes ask him to tell them what the devil had looked like but don’t often get the chance to hear, because Old Man Peterson’s sad-eyed daughter usually finds him on the porch around then, and quickly takes him back inside the house so that he is no longer the town spectacle, the crazy, drunken old man who spins wild tales about Hell and damnation.
Universally, it is acknowledged that the owners of the Elysian Fields motel and many of its employees had been brutally murdered by nameless, faceless transients on that rainy spring night what seems a lifetime ago. To the townsfolk, it is a sad truth of the state of the nation in this day and age, when old fashioned hospitality and small town values are taken advantage of by drifters and lunatics and outsiders alike. The place where they live seems less open that in used to be because of that, much more wary and suspicious.
Mostly, the locals miss the pie and the sense of peace they used to have, driving up and down the freeway and knowing the town where they raised their children was safe.
And so this is the place that Sam, Dean, and Castiel are taken to, the three of them deposited right in front of the boarded doors to the lobby of the Elysian Fields in the rush of air that Balthazar’s wings create. The sudden disturbance to the scene’s equilibrium sends trash fluttering and vermin scurrying to the safety of moldy hiding places. What they see before them here is an echo of what had greeted them back in town, when they had checked in at the new, slightly less friendly looking Aegean Sea motel. This is no longer a place that wishes to see strangers, just as the shell of the Elysian Fields motel can no longer support anything but rats and roaches.
“Love what they’ve done with the place,” Dean mutters as he and Sam blink until their eyes get used to the dark. He stares at a faded red splatter on the wall that might be blood, but that he hopes is just weather-worn graffiti.
“Lucifer did always have a penchant for decorating things in a certain personal style,” Balthazar whistles humorlessly, as Castiel wordlessly strides forward and tries to pull the boards off of the front of the door. He struggles with it of course, looking frustrated at the reminder of how weak he has become for the time being, when just a day ago, he could have yanked these tiny pieces of dead wood from the entrance with a thought.
Sam and Dean share a helpless look as he does this while Balthazar mutters under his breath and pushes past the two dawdling idiot monkeys to help. The sooner this crazy mission is dealt with, the sooner Castiel can return to where he belongs and end this ridiculous war. Balthazar, while considered a commanding and convincing personality in certain lights, is no war leader. He has never had the patience or the head for leading others. Castiel, while quiet and friendly and devout, definitely has an edge of something more to him now, after the past few years apart from the Host on Earth. Balthazar sees something inside of his brother that goes beyond just brother, but that also tells him to obey and have faith. It has been a long time since he has felt this way about anyone. Balthazar surmises it is not since he had last felt the presence of his Father.
Even as puny and grotesque as Castiel is now-fallen, his grace thinks, like Lucifer-Balthazar loves him, and so hopes that he does not lose this brother as he had God, as he had Lucifer, Gabriel, Uriel, Rachel. Even if he does not agree with this plan, he will help because Castiel asked.
Absently, as he yanks the boards off with a crunch of splintering wood and the screech of breaking nails, he wonders if what he is feeling for his fallen brother now is exactly how Castiel feels when faced with whatever inexplicable power it is that ties him to Dean Winchester’s will.
But there is not time to dwell on these thoughts, because the minute the door is opened he feels it, the faint, familiar tingle of burned grace; to an angel it is the scent of death, the same as rotting flesh is to humans. He winces and takes a step backwards as an overwhelming sense of sadness overcomes him. This had been his brother’s last stand. This is where Gabriel- a magnificent and loving brother even for all the time he had abandoned them-had died. The archangel, millennia old, had, like Castiel, given up eternity for humanity.
Balthazar doesn’t understand it, but then again, he has never particularly tried to. He is okay with that. All he wants is to live now. All he wants is for Castiel to live.
Castiel is the first to step through the entryway.
Dean moves to follow, giving Balthazar a dubious look when the angel steps a little bit into his way to preclude his entrance. “You’ll have to use Gabriel’s ashes to bind his grace to Cassy’s in order to find the threads of whatever is left of him out there.”
The elder Winchester grows immediately defensive at Balthazar’s condescending tone. “Yeah, okay. Cas knows what he’s doing. We’ll handle it.”
Balthazar cocks and eyebrow at this proud, stupid human. “Will you?” Part of him wants to reach out and simply smash Dean Winchester, like one would swat an annoying bug that’s been buzzing around one’s ear. He refrains though, because right now, Dean Winchester is holding the most important thing in the universe.
“I’ll marshal Castiel’s forces for as long as I can to keep Raphael at bay, but you idiots are on your own for Crowley and the demons. Word is he’s put a hit out on the lot of you after Cassy tried to raze him to the ground right after you asked him if you two crazy lovebirds could run away together.” Balthazar’s mouth purses into a tight line at the memory of Castiel’s duplicity, the things his brother had admitted to him when he’d returned to the front lines after his attempts to destroy Crowley and his little workshop of horrors. He’d been slightly bloody, a little bruised, but mostly ruffled and repentant. Balthazar remembers how he’d smelled like corruption.
Dean just snorts at Balthazar, not a shred of respect or fear for the angels in the man. “Oh we’ll handle Crowley,” he growls, eyes glinting with feelings that Balthazar can actually get behind for once. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Balthazar thinks the stupid ape can do it, but the sentiment behind it is at least something.
Balthazar almost says so out loud, but that is when Castiel pokes his head back out, looking rumpled and irate and vaguely suspicious. “Is there a problem?” he intones, glancing between Balthazar and Dean as they scowl at each other in the doorway like two starving dogs fighting over a single, dirty bone.
Balthazar is the first to take a step back, to ease the frown lines around his face back into an easy smile at his brother. “No, no problem, Cassy,” he says warmly, and gallantly gestures Dean through first. “I was just telling your boy here that I’d best be getting back to the command post. Seems several small fires have already broken out in your absence, you see.”
Castiel’s brow furrows. “Are they very serious?”
“Little things in the grand scheme, Cassy. Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” Balthazar lies gently, before turning to go. He does however, stop to catch Dean’s arm first, as the human moves to walk past him.
Dean balks, naturally, but Balthazar’s grip on his arm is immobile. “Just know,” he murmurs with all the menace of a demon and all the certainty of an angel, “that you hold the greatest remaining treasure in all creation.”
Dean just looks confused at that, which just figures. Balthazar gives Castiel’s grace a brief glance as it sits, tiny and glowing and warm against the human’s chest. “Try to take care of it.”
He releases Dean and disappears before the human can say anything else.
And as he flies, Balthazar can’t help but hope that those idiots will somehow defy the odds again and make this work.
Though chances are he’ll be long dead before he gets to see it through either way.
*****
Dean scowls at Balthazar’s abrupt departure and glances over at Cas, his hand absently grasping the black length of cord around his neck that Castiel’s grace hangs from. It’s not like he doesn’t already know; this is Cas’s mojo here. He doesn’t need Balthazar’s British accent of doom growling death and destruction in his ear to understand how important it is. He can fucking handle it, okay?
“Dean?” Sam asks after a moment, clearing his throat. “Everything okay, man?”
“Yeah. Fine. I hate that douche,” Dean mutters back, and stomps towards the door, letting his hand fall from the cord when he spies Castiel watching him all squinty-eyed and careful. He coughs and stands up straighter. “So let’s get this show on the road, huh? We got an archangel to beat up.”
“It is more likely that we will have to kill him,” Castiel corrects quietly from the door, voice mostly cold-hard-fact but tinged with regret all the same. The former angel turns and disappears into the lobby.
Sam and Dean share a look and follow.
It takes some digging after that but eventually they find the charred outline of a wing and work to clear the floor from there; Dean thinks it may be his imagination, but the first stroke of his finger against the burned lines makes the grace around his neck jump and flare in a bright burst of silent grief. It is so jarring that he freezes and just stares at the markings on the ground for a second, because he can’t breathe.
Sam taps him impatiently and hands him his backpack, inside of which are the components Castiel said would bind his grace to Gabriel’s essence in order to help them locate the pieces from wherever they may have been scattered by the winds.
“With my grace contained as it is, this spell will only be able to help it locate the shards when they are close by,” Castiel had explained on the first night he’d been conscious after falling without so much as a by-your-leave in the scrap yard.
Dean is still pissed about that by the way, but Cas is determined to do this with or without any help, and even Dean is quick enough on the uptake to know that’s the exact reason they got here in the first place. At least this time the stupid (former) angel decided to tell him about what he was planning to do first. At least this time he’s letting them come along.
The betrayal stings again, the blatant way Cas had disregarded his express wishes. But it’s not as bad as the first time. Dean wonders if this is him getting used to it, or something.
Now the angel is bustling around the outline like he’s at a crime scene on one of those douchy procedural TV shows, preparing ingredients in a big mixing bowl and concentrating very hard on getting it just right. “The seven components with which my father created all angels are faith, obedience, wrath, mercy, devotion, truth , and love,” Castiel explains absently as he works, like the sound of his own voice helps him focus on the task at hand and not the fact that he might itch or ache or hunger or thirst. “We will have to research, as it is, to find signs of those components manifesting on the earthly plane. Once our research brings us close enough, my grace should be able to determine whether it is indeed a piece of Gabriel.” He hefts one of Bobby’s good blood-sacrifice knives.
Dean frowns as he watches Castiel cut into his own hand with it, perhaps a little more deeply than necessary, like he apparently still forgets that he’s human right now. “Jesus, Cas,” he mutters, and feels the grace around his neck pulse almost sympathetically. “Go easy on the bloodletting, will you?”
Castiel winces as the blood pools in his palm but doesn’t say anything, just squeezing the wound into the spell ingredients before gesturing to Dean for the vial of his grace. Dean reluctantly pulls the cord over his head and gives it to the fallen angel, eyes still on the bleeding wound on Cas’s hand as he begins to chant something that sounds more like an onomatopoeia of a Sam Winchester being thrown down a flight of stairs (and Dean’s heard that plenty enough to know) than it sounds like ancient angel magic.
After about ten minutes of this and nothing happening, while Dean is busy shifting his weight from foot to foot and debating whether or not to call shenanigans on the whole thing, there is a sudden spark of light, like watching a fuse catch fire from the blood in Cas’s bowl and igniting everything inside of it. From there, a small puff of fragrant smoke rises up to envelop the vial of grace in a way that reminds Dean of every time he’s had to drive to Los Angeles over the mountains and seen the thick fog of greasy air that seems to always be there, choking the life out of what would otherwise be some beautiful California scenery.
Once the cloud dissipates Castiel hands the grace back to Dean, who instinctively puts it on again, tucking into it his shirt like he can protect it somehow, though he isn’t sure why he ought to.
Cas doesn’t seem to notice however, still making those ridiculous murmuring sounds as he reaches down to smear blood over the outline of Gabriel’s wing, sending up another spark, another cloud of swirling smoke. Dean feels his hand wrap around Cas’s grace when it gives a strange lurch that he can practically feel against his chest, like it’s protesting being tied down to something else, like it wants to burrow closer to Dean and away from whatever Cas is doing to it by binding it to Gabriel’s burned out remains.
And then, just like that, the cloud dissipates as if it was never there. The feeling of unease around Cas’s grace seems to go with it and Dean finds himself taking a breath that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Castiel quietly puts the bowl down and bows his head over Gabriel’s final resting place.
“Relax, man, he’s fine,” Sam murmurs at Dean’s side, giving his brother what must be his epic look of brotherly concern. “This is a good idea.”
Dean grunts noncommittally as Castiel slowly rises to his feet, still dripping blood from his hand. He turns to regard the brothers carefully, still somehow otherworldly even as a fine sheen of sweat causes his hair to stick to his forehead. His skin looks a little pale in the dim light ghosting in through the cracks between the hotel’s boarded up windows.
“Cas?” Dean asks, cautiously. “We all set?”
“I believe so,” Cas breathes back, and tries to straighten slightly. “Though I think…”
Dean feels it the moment that Castiel’s knees give out through the slight twinge of the grace around his neck, like a tinny, scraping sound against the inside of his insides that no words can accurately describe.
He does manage to catch Cas before he hits the ground though. Demands, “Cas?! Cas? What the hell?!”
Dean looks at Sam, who is kind of gaping in a helpless sort of way as Dean puts the back of his hand in front of the former angel’s face to see if he’s breathing (for the second goddamn time in so many days, he might add). Luckily there is breath there, tiny, tired sounding puffs of air against Dean’s skin as he struggles to keep them both upright one-handed. “Sam!?”
Sam shrugs helplessly, like he’s not sure what his brother wants him to do given the circumstances. “He didn’t bleed that much, did he?” he asks.
Dean looks down at Cas’s hand, which is still oozing slightly, but no longer a crime scene waiting to happen. He shakes his head. “No. But the idiot could have gone easier all the same,” he reports, irritated.
“Maybe ancient angel binding magic is tiring for humans or something,” Sam offers with that small frowny vee-shaped vein in his forehead protruding just enough to mean that he still gives a damn about Cas despite all the evidence to the contrary. He even moves to help Dean support the unconscious fallen angel from his other side.
But Sam just gets a scowl and a toss of a chin from his brother for his efforts though, as Dean barks, “Get the bags,” gruffly to him while dipping down a little and scooping Cas’s legs up off the ground so he isn’t half-dragging the poor guy. Some may call it a princess carry. Dean calls it not slinging the bleeding angel that got blown up twice for him around like a sack of manure.
“Motel?” Sam asks after he’s gathered up the supplies, looking around dubiously.
“Motel,” Dean answers, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world.
Sam’s eyebrows dart up, like he’s waiting for Dean to catch up to him on something.
Dean frowns. He does catch up eventually though. And says, “Shit,” once he does.
“Yeah,” Sam echoes, though somehow manages to seem a little smug about it at the same time. He reaches out to clamp a monster sized hand on Dean’s shoulder as he precedes his brother and his brother’s unconscious 160 pound armload back outside.
It is at that moment that Dean is full of regrets over the fact that he’d let Balthazar zap them here.
Which is exactly the moment when Castiel chooses to rest his head against Dean’s chest and murmur something incoherent. His oozing hand swipes a trail of blood across Dean’s shoulder.
Dean grits his teeth and thinks it’s going to be a long goddamned walk back to the motel.
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