Fic: Set the fire to the third bar = episode 3
Title: Set the fire to the third bar
Author: Seraphim Grace
Fandom = Supernatural
Pairing = Castiel x Dean (god is love in all its forms)
Rating = NC17
spoilers = yes for season 4, set between Great pumpkin and the one after that I've forgotten the name of
AUish - set in the world of american gods and sandman but also the spn universe, I just stretched it a little
prompts - Dean wonders how much is too much when you've already past that line and just how changed he is from being in hell.
suggested by keire_ke
betaed by bellajayd
Set the fire to the third bar - Episode 3
In which Dean begins to suspect just how far his brother has fallen, and just why Castiel doesn’t want him to be alone.
Soundtrack
Gold Dust Woman Stevie Nicks
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Bobby judges people in two ways, years of acquaintance that he views as the lesser and the reaction of his dogs.
He has three dogs, two mastiffs and a wirehaired terrier that showed up one day, full of disdain and had the mastiffs, both trained war dogs, cowed in moments. She is a foul tempered bitch called Lacey who considers mankind as some kind of personal insult and attacks anything that moves.
So when Dean, whom she tolerated as sort of pack, albeit with territorial pissing on his bag, shows up with a Mediterranean looking boy he is unsurprised when she comes flying out from under the crawlspace. What does catch him off guard, as Dean scrabbles out of the way unto the Impala’s hood, is that she jumps around as excitedly as a puppy, yipping and wagging her docked tail, rolling onto her back and showing her throat.
The boy falls to his knees babbling uselessly in a nonsense language scratching her flanks and rubbing her belly as she whimpers in canine ecstasy.
Bobby raises his eyebrow at the display and even Dean is speechless, which is probably even more surprising. “This is Horace,” Dean says, “Castiel sent him to look after me.” Even he sounds doubtful about how well Horace could hold his own if it came down to it.
Horace stands up with an armful of wriggling, squirming, blissed out terrier who is trying to climb inside him and lick his face off all at the same time. “Animals love me,” the boy grins and then scratching under her collar he begins to burble against her in his nonsense language.
“I’ll bear that in mind if I’m attacked by domesticated pets, or Lacey,” Dean gestures to the terrier.
“The devil himself would run from Lacey," Bobby says bluntly, and Dean suspects that it's true. Lacey would certainly put on a good show; she actually does to passing hawkers.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” Bobby says, “and you can tell your brother that you’re safe and that he can stop calling me,” he sounds sardonic more than pissed, “every ten minutes.”
Dean checks that Horace is obsessed with the dog before he says, in a low dangerous voice, “He’s fucking her, Bobby.”
Bobby frowns for a moment, “I’ll get something stronger,” he says then looks at the boy, “and him?”
“He likes fizzy soda.” Dean replies and that is the entire conversation, Bobby doesn’t do chick flick moments either.
Horace takes a bottle of root beer and refuses to let Lacey go even as the mastiffs, Hypatia and Copernicus, circle him happily. He insists on bringing her into the house, although she's not allowed, and has her on his lap, one hand on her flank as the other holds the glass bottle, resting it against her thigh.
He takes a drink and makes a happy like chirrup and holds it in his mouth where it fizzes against his teeth. When Dean excuses himself to visit the bathroom he comes back to find Bobby listening to Horace's excited retelling of the ferris wheel ride and how it's clear that Dean has become a fixture in his world by the way he says Dean this and Dean that.
Bobby is more patient with Horace than he ever was with either Sam or Dean, because he trusts Lacey’s opinion of people far more than he trusts his own.
When the coffee comes it’s hot and good, and when the cell rings Bobby looks at the screen before cutting the call.
Perhaps he's as pissed at Sam as Dean is, but Dean finds that hard to believe.
“He’ll look for you, you know,” Bobby says, offering him the good coffee in a field tin mug.
“I know,” Dean is chagrined, “I just need time.”
Bobby must understand that because he just shrugs, Dean doesn’t know it's because he's not sure what he to say - so he says nothing.
“He’s already looking,” Horace says then, “I like this house, is it yours?” He kicks out his feet, dislodging Lacey from his knee so she sits beside him. “Lots of books, can I read them?" He stops himself, “Seth says it's not Can I -- it's May I. May I read them? I like books, books are new worlds. Dean, do you like books too?”
“Not as much as you obviously,” Dean drawls, “but Bobby’s books are special. I’ve got some comics in the car you can read, kid.”
Bobby is amused, it seems Dean is a big brother regardless. “Who's Seth?” He asks.
“Seth’s my friend,” Horace tells them, “he’s not meant to leave me, everyone says I flew too much and that's why I am the way I am but," he breaks off to break wind, “there was a girl in N’vada and she liked Seth and Seth liked her, and,” he stops to belch again, not bothering to cover his mouth, “he wanted me to see Sif and she said Castiel said you needed tiger stripes.”
“Tiger stripes?” Bobby asks, he just beats Dean to it.
“Yeah,” Horace says in that I’m explaining things to an idiot tone he seems to have perfected, “in the jungle, Sif said Castiel said Dean needed company with tiger stripes.”
“So you have tiger stripes?” Dean asks because that would be something to see.
“No,” Horace says, he sounds annoyed now, “I am tiger stripes.” He frowns, “Castiel is busy, and kinda scary," he drinks more of the root beer, “no one trusts me anymore, not since I flew, and I wanted to be trusted and I wanted to be tiger stripes.”
Bobby laughs, “Kid played you, Dean.”
“So Castiel didn't ask you, he asked the woman at the bar, fuck.”
“Uh huh," Horace says, proud of them now that they’ve worked it out. “Castiel's too busy and scary to talk to me,” he frowns, his emotions patently transparent on his face. “No one wants to talk to me, I’m just poor Horace,” he looks down at the dog with her head on his thigh, “You’re going to call Seth now, aren’t you, you’re going to make him come and get me. Please, Dean, don't call him, he’s going to be so pissed at me.”
Bobby laughs as Dean starts to anger. He doesn’t realize that he's treating the kid the same way that he treats Sam. “We have to call him, we’re a long way from Nevada and he’s got to be worried.”
“You can't stay here, kid,” Bobby tells him, “it's not that safe,” he turns to Dean, “I’ll boil some MREs and we’ll call this Seth to come and get you.”
The boy looks like he's just discovered his world is ending. “Do you have to?” He asks, “he’s mean, he only looks after me because she made him promise.”
“Yes," Bobby says and that is that.
Military rations always strike Dean as being powdery, like he can taste all the supplements that they’ve added after they’ve cooked any nutrients out of them.
Horace tucks into it like he hasn't eaten in months and the chicken he ate in the car less than three hours ago is a very distant memory. "I accept this offering," he says with a mouth full of reconstituted potato. “Can,” he stops himself, “may I watch television?”
“I aint got one," Bobby says, “only show I watched was Deadwood and that finished. I downloaded it.”
“Not Ghost Hunters International or Ghost Facers or any of that?” Dean is teasing him.
Bobby’s expression is answer enough.
When the angel, and it's a particularly extreme example Dean thinks, knocks on the door Horace is doing a headstand in the corner, against the wall, reading with Lacey standing guard, snapping at both Dean and Bobby as they pass.
The angel gives Dean two immediate impressions, one that he is very British, drinking tea - he brought his own tin of loose leaf and his own pot - and very gay.
He’s wearing tweed, has fine white hair and Bobby calls him Mr. Azriy and tells Dean that’s he’s THE book dealer for arcane works and Mr. Azriy practically orgasms over Bobby’s collection. Even the dog eared, coffee stained paperback Egyptian Book of the Dead that Horace has acquired from somewhere.
Letting him sit on his head reading just makes life easier so they let him. He barely notices the angel other than with a dull acknowledgement.
“This tea is perfect,” the angel sighs happily - he made it, “are you sure, Robert, that I can't tempt you? Or you, young Winchester?”
Dean shakes his head.
“Horace doesn’t like hot drinks as I recall.” the Angel says, and he’s clearly an angel, he stinks of old churches and sort of glimmers when caught out of the corner of the eye. “But I am here on a mission. I have business with you, young Dean. I happened to be free for five minutes and in the area on business so when my brother asked me to call in, especially with my acquaintance with dear Robert, I thought I’d just pop in. Of course if anything happened I’d be absolutely useless, why I’m more likely to throw my hands up and shriek.” He takes another sip of his tea.
“So you’re not at all hardcore?” Dean asks, because the other angels he's met certainly were.
Horace howls with laughter, “He’s not hardcore,” he says, “not like Castiel or Seth, he’s," and he laughs as the angel looks at him fondly, “civil service.”
“And thank the silver city that I am,” the angel says and Dean starts to notice something underlying and flowery in his scent, it's not unpleasant, but different, and the dusty smell of old books. “Can you simply imagine me at the front line, screaming and waving my hands at some nasty smelling undead revenant. Why it’d be Hell on earth in days.” He has a rueful little laugh at himself, “so I do what I can, of course I did my time in the front line, but that was more because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time than any design of my Father. I practically accidentally saved the world.”
Dean wonders exactly how this strange angelic creature managed to save the world, perhaps he talked to the demon where the poor creature killed himself just to make him stop.
“Anti-christs are like weeds,” the angel points out, “you no sooner yank one out of the way than another one of the little buggers pops up somewhere else. There's always some demon or another trying to take over hell.” He lifts the tea pot and refills his cup, and then a perfect splash of milk that suggests a very long practice. “No offense, of course, intended, Dean, what with this one being your brother and all, but I imagine it’s nothing to worry about because after all, when we stop this one he’ll be fine, and he’s not the first and he certainly won’t be the last we’ve stopped.”
It’s apparent that this angel is the polar opposite of Castiel who is stern and silent.
"I've been earthbound since forever,” the angel admits “helping hunters, supplying books, although it practically pains me to part with them. Is that the Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred? How much would you like for it, of course I’d pay to have it copied, and believe me when I say that money is no object.”
Bobby has clearly tuned the angel out, perhaps through long experience, “I’ll trade it for an original hand written Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. Of course, for a prophet she’s completely reliable, who else would know to sew gunpowder and nails into her skirt long before she was burned at the stake. Saw it coming, mark of a good prophet.”
Dean is losing his patience quickly, “Why are you here?” he demands an answer.
Bobby has dozed off and is snoring into his coffee cup. Dean is in no way surprised.
“Oh. Of course, pardon me for wandering off topic, I’m simply useless for these things, why I was just telling,” he stops himself at Dean's expression, “I’m passing on a message,” he starts fussing about in his pockets. The piece of paper he retrieves has strange markings on it that Dean recognizes as vaguely magical though he doubts that even Bobby could read it. “From Castiel of Dominions,” he says, “the boy-king searches for his brother. He is accompanied by the demon. He has summoned hellhounds to aid in the search. Dean Winchester is to be protected. Provide camouflage until further orders appear.”
“Fuck,” Dean curses.
“Exactly,” the angel agrees.
The angel, sipping his tea like nothing has changed, is adamant that Sam probably doesn’t know that he’s summoned the hell hounds. As anti-christs grow in power, sometimes it just leaks out and the hounds of hell are desperately eager to please.
“We could destroy them,” the angel continues, “but there’d just be more.”
“See,” Horace pipes up from his place in the corner, “tiger stripes, I’m tiger stripes.”
“As odd as it sounds,” the angel assures him, “poor Horace is right,” the angel says the name with an odd inflection that can't quite be explained away with his accent. “Of course, my dear,” he beams at the boy, still standing on his head, “we won't hold it against you, we know it will probably never happen again.”
Horace takes the teasing lightheartedly, sticking his tongue out at the angel before going back to his book.
“Castiel is holding the line, which is his duty as an angel of dominions. He has asked that we take you to Magda at the house of five aspects. I’m to give you this,” he throws him a wooden disk about the size of a coaster with a cuneiform design on it, “for the car, you’re going to have to leave it.” Dean feels the familiar rage in his stomach, but it's inevitable he'd have to leave everything behind, “I am to take you to an appointed meeting place where you’ll get a new car and . . .”
“If I leave the car here surely I’ll just bring the hellhounds to Bobby.”
The angel looks at the disk in Dean's hand, “That’s a seal of Metatron,” he says, “it took weeks to find the thing. Holed up in Damascus it was, in a junk store, they thought it was a coaster. It will keep them away from collateral damage in the area. It won’t hold them back from attacking you, because that’s how they think that they’ll please your brother, but it’ll scare them off the little things, and keep demons out of the house as long as they don't push it too hard. I’m sure dear Robert here can stop them getting too far, especially as it’s not him that is their prey.”
Dean remembers the hellhounds.
He certainly doesn’t like the word prey.
They ripped him into so much meat, and Dean remembers the pain and the smell of blood and shit and the sound of them swallowing and tearing as his intestines explode under their teeth. His hand goes back to the memory of their place as Castiel’s handprint blazes hot on his shoulder.
“So he wants you to confuse them,” the angel realizes none of this and continues to drink his tea, “with Magda.”
“Magda’s a meanie,” Horace tells him, all seriousness, “she washed my mouth out with soap and chased me out with a broom.”
The angel has a beatific smile that he shows to Horace. “I imagine that Seth must be frantic by now.”
“I’m safe,” Horace argues, “I’m with Dean and Dean took me on a big wheel and let me eat chicken and didn't make me catch it or nuthin, and Bobby let me read his books and play with Lacey and, and Seth is a bully, he won't let me fly.”
“I know dear,” the angel sounds conciliatory but Dean knows it's a platitude, “but you know why, and she did make you promise.”
Horace, still upside down on the carpet, frowns, “I know, angel,” he makes the word an insult, “he was in N’vada, we can go by air.”
The angel’s tone is severe when he says, “Horace."
“On a plane,” Horace says as if he's explaining to an idiot or a small child, his careful tone makes Dean question for a moment that Horace is harmless, but he's still a kid standing on his head, reading from a book with illustrations. “She made me promise too.”
The angel concedes defeat drinking his tea.
Magda lives in a large house, built as an architect’s experiment, with five distinct fronts each in a different style laid out in a pentagon. The five fronts each face a different direction and there is a hazelnut tree on the threadbare lawn to the east.
Magda sits on the porch drinking something red. She looks like a hybrid of Augrah from the Dark Crystal and a hand knitted afghan shawl.
She’s not alone, Castiel is leaning amongst the various gargoyles on the verandah railing, his trench coat is thrown open and the old lady, who not only waddles, but can stand no higher than his waist is thrusting something in his face that is making the angel back away.
Dean climbs out of the piece of shit car he took from Bobby’s, a miscellaneous Honda with the back seat missing. It might have been blue but is now rust brown and just closing the door leaves an iron oxide stain on his hands.
The old lady, Magda, is waving a long piece of chartreuse knitting at the angel and Castiel looks physically relieved when he sees Dean. The woman's voice has a forty-a-day gravel to it, and the tassels of her afghan shimmy around a pair of hand knit socks and cheap plastic flip flops. “You must be Dean,” she says, “you can explain to this one here that it doesn't matter to me if he’s fighting a holy war on three fronts, it's November, and he’s going to take the damn scarf.”
Dean in that moment realizes that there are creatures in this world who can cow an angel of the lord, because Castiel bends down to let her wrap the scarf around his neck, she ties it loosely. “Just your color,” she says proudly, “don't you think?”
It’s a rather nasty puke green and Castiel just nods blankly. “Great and honored Magda,” Castiel says in his soft cream and broken glass voice, “can you leave us to talk?”
Magda looks Dean up and down, she only has one eye but she makes it count. “I have things around the house that need doing,” she tells him, “but I’ll go put the coffee on, make sure you get him in before dark. No shoes in the house and get that piece of shit car off my land in case people start thinking I’m running some kinda junkyard and start leaving old couches here. Like I don't already have problems with brownies.”
Castiel jumps down, “We’ll talk in the car,” he says and it’s clear that he wants to add Ma’am because whoever she is Magda is certainly fearsome.
Castiel looks relieved when he closes the car door. ”Magda is very powerful," he says, “much more than she seems. This is the house of five aspects.” He says the name carefully, and Dean remembers that so did the other angel who didn't introduce himself. “It is built on the confluence of five ley lines in a shape of power using many aspects of sacred geometry.” He looks at it from the car, it looks a little mad to Dean. “I have asked Ezraqueel of Thrones to watch your brother. The forces of hell are eager to please him, even against his will. This house will serve as a shield and Magda as your sword, to at least give you enough time to find another, more secure, refuge.”
“Why can't you watch me?” Dean realizes he's whining but it's been a real rough couple of days.
Castiel leans forward and presses his finger to Dean's lips, the pad resting perfectly in the philtrum, “before you were born I chose you,” Castiel says and he is intent, fixed, “and this is where I touched you in your mother's womb and said, hush, I am with you.”
It’s amazingly soothing, and Dean almost visibly softens against the touch. The intimacy calms him.
“Even as I fight, Dean" he says and he has voice like gravel in velvet that Dean could drown in happily, “I am with you, and you have a destiny, entwined with mine like two lovers, I will do all that I can, with everyone I know, to keep you safe. Then when Lilith is undone I shall give you back your brother.”
Dean wants to throw his arms about the angel, to bury his nose in the crook of the angel's neck and just breathe him in but that would be a chick flick moment and Dean doesn’t do those.
Castiel is offering the reassurances that Dean needs to hear, and Dean believes him because Castiel is an angel, because Castiel dragged him out of hell, and because Castiel touched him in his mother’s womb and reassured him that he would be safe, and that he would be there.
Next episode
Author: Seraphim Grace
Fandom = Supernatural
Pairing = Castiel x Dean (god is love in all its forms)
Rating = NC17
spoilers = yes for season 4, set between Great pumpkin and the one after that I've forgotten the name of
AUish - set in the world of american gods and sandman but also the spn universe, I just stretched it a little
prompts - Dean wonders how much is too much when you've already past that line and just how changed he is from being in hell.
suggested by keire_ke
betaed by bellajayd
Set the fire to the third bar - Episode 3
In which Dean begins to suspect just how far his brother has fallen, and just why Castiel doesn’t want him to be alone.
Soundtrack
Gold Dust Woman Stevie Nicks
----------------------------------
Bobby judges people in two ways, years of acquaintance that he views as the lesser and the reaction of his dogs.
He has three dogs, two mastiffs and a wirehaired terrier that showed up one day, full of disdain and had the mastiffs, both trained war dogs, cowed in moments. She is a foul tempered bitch called Lacey who considers mankind as some kind of personal insult and attacks anything that moves.
So when Dean, whom she tolerated as sort of pack, albeit with territorial pissing on his bag, shows up with a Mediterranean looking boy he is unsurprised when she comes flying out from under the crawlspace. What does catch him off guard, as Dean scrabbles out of the way unto the Impala’s hood, is that she jumps around as excitedly as a puppy, yipping and wagging her docked tail, rolling onto her back and showing her throat.
The boy falls to his knees babbling uselessly in a nonsense language scratching her flanks and rubbing her belly as she whimpers in canine ecstasy.
Bobby raises his eyebrow at the display and even Dean is speechless, which is probably even more surprising. “This is Horace,” Dean says, “Castiel sent him to look after me.” Even he sounds doubtful about how well Horace could hold his own if it came down to it.
Horace stands up with an armful of wriggling, squirming, blissed out terrier who is trying to climb inside him and lick his face off all at the same time. “Animals love me,” the boy grins and then scratching under her collar he begins to burble against her in his nonsense language.
“I’ll bear that in mind if I’m attacked by domesticated pets, or Lacey,” Dean gestures to the terrier.
“The devil himself would run from Lacey," Bobby says bluntly, and Dean suspects that it's true. Lacey would certainly put on a good show; she actually does to passing hawkers.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” Bobby says, “and you can tell your brother that you’re safe and that he can stop calling me,” he sounds sardonic more than pissed, “every ten minutes.”
Dean checks that Horace is obsessed with the dog before he says, in a low dangerous voice, “He’s fucking her, Bobby.”
Bobby frowns for a moment, “I’ll get something stronger,” he says then looks at the boy, “and him?”
“He likes fizzy soda.” Dean replies and that is the entire conversation, Bobby doesn’t do chick flick moments either.
Horace takes a bottle of root beer and refuses to let Lacey go even as the mastiffs, Hypatia and Copernicus, circle him happily. He insists on bringing her into the house, although she's not allowed, and has her on his lap, one hand on her flank as the other holds the glass bottle, resting it against her thigh.
He takes a drink and makes a happy like chirrup and holds it in his mouth where it fizzes against his teeth. When Dean excuses himself to visit the bathroom he comes back to find Bobby listening to Horace's excited retelling of the ferris wheel ride and how it's clear that Dean has become a fixture in his world by the way he says Dean this and Dean that.
Bobby is more patient with Horace than he ever was with either Sam or Dean, because he trusts Lacey’s opinion of people far more than he trusts his own.
When the coffee comes it’s hot and good, and when the cell rings Bobby looks at the screen before cutting the call.
Perhaps he's as pissed at Sam as Dean is, but Dean finds that hard to believe.
“He’ll look for you, you know,” Bobby says, offering him the good coffee in a field tin mug.
“I know,” Dean is chagrined, “I just need time.”
Bobby must understand that because he just shrugs, Dean doesn’t know it's because he's not sure what he to say - so he says nothing.
“He’s already looking,” Horace says then, “I like this house, is it yours?” He kicks out his feet, dislodging Lacey from his knee so she sits beside him. “Lots of books, can I read them?" He stops himself, “Seth says it's not Can I -- it's May I. May I read them? I like books, books are new worlds. Dean, do you like books too?”
“Not as much as you obviously,” Dean drawls, “but Bobby’s books are special. I’ve got some comics in the car you can read, kid.”
Bobby is amused, it seems Dean is a big brother regardless. “Who's Seth?” He asks.
“Seth’s my friend,” Horace tells them, “he’s not meant to leave me, everyone says I flew too much and that's why I am the way I am but," he breaks off to break wind, “there was a girl in N’vada and she liked Seth and Seth liked her, and,” he stops to belch again, not bothering to cover his mouth, “he wanted me to see Sif and she said Castiel said you needed tiger stripes.”
“Tiger stripes?” Bobby asks, he just beats Dean to it.
“Yeah,” Horace says in that I’m explaining things to an idiot tone he seems to have perfected, “in the jungle, Sif said Castiel said Dean needed company with tiger stripes.”
“So you have tiger stripes?” Dean asks because that would be something to see.
“No,” Horace says, he sounds annoyed now, “I am tiger stripes.” He frowns, “Castiel is busy, and kinda scary," he drinks more of the root beer, “no one trusts me anymore, not since I flew, and I wanted to be trusted and I wanted to be tiger stripes.”
Bobby laughs, “Kid played you, Dean.”
“So Castiel didn't ask you, he asked the woman at the bar, fuck.”
“Uh huh," Horace says, proud of them now that they’ve worked it out. “Castiel's too busy and scary to talk to me,” he frowns, his emotions patently transparent on his face. “No one wants to talk to me, I’m just poor Horace,” he looks down at the dog with her head on his thigh, “You’re going to call Seth now, aren’t you, you’re going to make him come and get me. Please, Dean, don't call him, he’s going to be so pissed at me.”
Bobby laughs as Dean starts to anger. He doesn’t realize that he's treating the kid the same way that he treats Sam. “We have to call him, we’re a long way from Nevada and he’s got to be worried.”
“You can't stay here, kid,” Bobby tells him, “it's not that safe,” he turns to Dean, “I’ll boil some MREs and we’ll call this Seth to come and get you.”
The boy looks like he's just discovered his world is ending. “Do you have to?” He asks, “he’s mean, he only looks after me because she made him promise.”
“Yes," Bobby says and that is that.
Military rations always strike Dean as being powdery, like he can taste all the supplements that they’ve added after they’ve cooked any nutrients out of them.
Horace tucks into it like he hasn't eaten in months and the chicken he ate in the car less than three hours ago is a very distant memory. "I accept this offering," he says with a mouth full of reconstituted potato. “Can,” he stops himself, “may I watch television?”
“I aint got one," Bobby says, “only show I watched was Deadwood and that finished. I downloaded it.”
“Not Ghost Hunters International or Ghost Facers or any of that?” Dean is teasing him.
Bobby’s expression is answer enough.
When the angel, and it's a particularly extreme example Dean thinks, knocks on the door Horace is doing a headstand in the corner, against the wall, reading with Lacey standing guard, snapping at both Dean and Bobby as they pass.
The angel gives Dean two immediate impressions, one that he is very British, drinking tea - he brought his own tin of loose leaf and his own pot - and very gay.
He’s wearing tweed, has fine white hair and Bobby calls him Mr. Azriy and tells Dean that’s he’s THE book dealer for arcane works and Mr. Azriy practically orgasms over Bobby’s collection. Even the dog eared, coffee stained paperback Egyptian Book of the Dead that Horace has acquired from somewhere.
Letting him sit on his head reading just makes life easier so they let him. He barely notices the angel other than with a dull acknowledgement.
“This tea is perfect,” the angel sighs happily - he made it, “are you sure, Robert, that I can't tempt you? Or you, young Winchester?”
Dean shakes his head.
“Horace doesn’t like hot drinks as I recall.” the Angel says, and he’s clearly an angel, he stinks of old churches and sort of glimmers when caught out of the corner of the eye. “But I am here on a mission. I have business with you, young Dean. I happened to be free for five minutes and in the area on business so when my brother asked me to call in, especially with my acquaintance with dear Robert, I thought I’d just pop in. Of course if anything happened I’d be absolutely useless, why I’m more likely to throw my hands up and shriek.” He takes another sip of his tea.
“So you’re not at all hardcore?” Dean asks, because the other angels he's met certainly were.
Horace howls with laughter, “He’s not hardcore,” he says, “not like Castiel or Seth, he’s," and he laughs as the angel looks at him fondly, “civil service.”
“And thank the silver city that I am,” the angel says and Dean starts to notice something underlying and flowery in his scent, it's not unpleasant, but different, and the dusty smell of old books. “Can you simply imagine me at the front line, screaming and waving my hands at some nasty smelling undead revenant. Why it’d be Hell on earth in days.” He has a rueful little laugh at himself, “so I do what I can, of course I did my time in the front line, but that was more because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time than any design of my Father. I practically accidentally saved the world.”
Dean wonders exactly how this strange angelic creature managed to save the world, perhaps he talked to the demon where the poor creature killed himself just to make him stop.
“Anti-christs are like weeds,” the angel points out, “you no sooner yank one out of the way than another one of the little buggers pops up somewhere else. There's always some demon or another trying to take over hell.” He lifts the tea pot and refills his cup, and then a perfect splash of milk that suggests a very long practice. “No offense, of course, intended, Dean, what with this one being your brother and all, but I imagine it’s nothing to worry about because after all, when we stop this one he’ll be fine, and he’s not the first and he certainly won’t be the last we’ve stopped.”
It’s apparent that this angel is the polar opposite of Castiel who is stern and silent.
"I've been earthbound since forever,” the angel admits “helping hunters, supplying books, although it practically pains me to part with them. Is that the Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred? How much would you like for it, of course I’d pay to have it copied, and believe me when I say that money is no object.”
Bobby has clearly tuned the angel out, perhaps through long experience, “I’ll trade it for an original hand written Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. Of course, for a prophet she’s completely reliable, who else would know to sew gunpowder and nails into her skirt long before she was burned at the stake. Saw it coming, mark of a good prophet.”
Dean is losing his patience quickly, “Why are you here?” he demands an answer.
Bobby has dozed off and is snoring into his coffee cup. Dean is in no way surprised.
“Oh. Of course, pardon me for wandering off topic, I’m simply useless for these things, why I was just telling,” he stops himself at Dean's expression, “I’m passing on a message,” he starts fussing about in his pockets. The piece of paper he retrieves has strange markings on it that Dean recognizes as vaguely magical though he doubts that even Bobby could read it. “From Castiel of Dominions,” he says, “the boy-king searches for his brother. He is accompanied by the demon. He has summoned hellhounds to aid in the search. Dean Winchester is to be protected. Provide camouflage until further orders appear.”
“Fuck,” Dean curses.
“Exactly,” the angel agrees.
The angel, sipping his tea like nothing has changed, is adamant that Sam probably doesn’t know that he’s summoned the hell hounds. As anti-christs grow in power, sometimes it just leaks out and the hounds of hell are desperately eager to please.
“We could destroy them,” the angel continues, “but there’d just be more.”
“See,” Horace pipes up from his place in the corner, “tiger stripes, I’m tiger stripes.”
“As odd as it sounds,” the angel assures him, “poor Horace is right,” the angel says the name with an odd inflection that can't quite be explained away with his accent. “Of course, my dear,” he beams at the boy, still standing on his head, “we won't hold it against you, we know it will probably never happen again.”
Horace takes the teasing lightheartedly, sticking his tongue out at the angel before going back to his book.
“Castiel is holding the line, which is his duty as an angel of dominions. He has asked that we take you to Magda at the house of five aspects. I’m to give you this,” he throws him a wooden disk about the size of a coaster with a cuneiform design on it, “for the car, you’re going to have to leave it.” Dean feels the familiar rage in his stomach, but it's inevitable he'd have to leave everything behind, “I am to take you to an appointed meeting place where you’ll get a new car and . . .”
“If I leave the car here surely I’ll just bring the hellhounds to Bobby.”
The angel looks at the disk in Dean's hand, “That’s a seal of Metatron,” he says, “it took weeks to find the thing. Holed up in Damascus it was, in a junk store, they thought it was a coaster. It will keep them away from collateral damage in the area. It won’t hold them back from attacking you, because that’s how they think that they’ll please your brother, but it’ll scare them off the little things, and keep demons out of the house as long as they don't push it too hard. I’m sure dear Robert here can stop them getting too far, especially as it’s not him that is their prey.”
Dean remembers the hellhounds.
He certainly doesn’t like the word prey.
They ripped him into so much meat, and Dean remembers the pain and the smell of blood and shit and the sound of them swallowing and tearing as his intestines explode under their teeth. His hand goes back to the memory of their place as Castiel’s handprint blazes hot on his shoulder.
“So he wants you to confuse them,” the angel realizes none of this and continues to drink his tea, “with Magda.”
“Magda’s a meanie,” Horace tells him, all seriousness, “she washed my mouth out with soap and chased me out with a broom.”
The angel has a beatific smile that he shows to Horace. “I imagine that Seth must be frantic by now.”
“I’m safe,” Horace argues, “I’m with Dean and Dean took me on a big wheel and let me eat chicken and didn't make me catch it or nuthin, and Bobby let me read his books and play with Lacey and, and Seth is a bully, he won't let me fly.”
“I know dear,” the angel sounds conciliatory but Dean knows it's a platitude, “but you know why, and she did make you promise.”
Horace, still upside down on the carpet, frowns, “I know, angel,” he makes the word an insult, “he was in N’vada, we can go by air.”
The angel’s tone is severe when he says, “Horace."
“On a plane,” Horace says as if he's explaining to an idiot or a small child, his careful tone makes Dean question for a moment that Horace is harmless, but he's still a kid standing on his head, reading from a book with illustrations. “She made me promise too.”
The angel concedes defeat drinking his tea.
Magda lives in a large house, built as an architect’s experiment, with five distinct fronts each in a different style laid out in a pentagon. The five fronts each face a different direction and there is a hazelnut tree on the threadbare lawn to the east.
Magda sits on the porch drinking something red. She looks like a hybrid of Augrah from the Dark Crystal and a hand knitted afghan shawl.
She’s not alone, Castiel is leaning amongst the various gargoyles on the verandah railing, his trench coat is thrown open and the old lady, who not only waddles, but can stand no higher than his waist is thrusting something in his face that is making the angel back away.
Dean climbs out of the piece of shit car he took from Bobby’s, a miscellaneous Honda with the back seat missing. It might have been blue but is now rust brown and just closing the door leaves an iron oxide stain on his hands.
The old lady, Magda, is waving a long piece of chartreuse knitting at the angel and Castiel looks physically relieved when he sees Dean. The woman's voice has a forty-a-day gravel to it, and the tassels of her afghan shimmy around a pair of hand knit socks and cheap plastic flip flops. “You must be Dean,” she says, “you can explain to this one here that it doesn't matter to me if he’s fighting a holy war on three fronts, it's November, and he’s going to take the damn scarf.”
Dean in that moment realizes that there are creatures in this world who can cow an angel of the lord, because Castiel bends down to let her wrap the scarf around his neck, she ties it loosely. “Just your color,” she says proudly, “don't you think?”
It’s a rather nasty puke green and Castiel just nods blankly. “Great and honored Magda,” Castiel says in his soft cream and broken glass voice, “can you leave us to talk?”
Magda looks Dean up and down, she only has one eye but she makes it count. “I have things around the house that need doing,” she tells him, “but I’ll go put the coffee on, make sure you get him in before dark. No shoes in the house and get that piece of shit car off my land in case people start thinking I’m running some kinda junkyard and start leaving old couches here. Like I don't already have problems with brownies.”
Castiel jumps down, “We’ll talk in the car,” he says and it’s clear that he wants to add Ma’am because whoever she is Magda is certainly fearsome.
Castiel looks relieved when he closes the car door. ”Magda is very powerful," he says, “much more than she seems. This is the house of five aspects.” He says the name carefully, and Dean remembers that so did the other angel who didn't introduce himself. “It is built on the confluence of five ley lines in a shape of power using many aspects of sacred geometry.” He looks at it from the car, it looks a little mad to Dean. “I have asked Ezraqueel of Thrones to watch your brother. The forces of hell are eager to please him, even against his will. This house will serve as a shield and Magda as your sword, to at least give you enough time to find another, more secure, refuge.”
“Why can't you watch me?” Dean realizes he's whining but it's been a real rough couple of days.
Castiel leans forward and presses his finger to Dean's lips, the pad resting perfectly in the philtrum, “before you were born I chose you,” Castiel says and he is intent, fixed, “and this is where I touched you in your mother's womb and said, hush, I am with you.”
It’s amazingly soothing, and Dean almost visibly softens against the touch. The intimacy calms him.
“Even as I fight, Dean" he says and he has voice like gravel in velvet that Dean could drown in happily, “I am with you, and you have a destiny, entwined with mine like two lovers, I will do all that I can, with everyone I know, to keep you safe. Then when Lilith is undone I shall give you back your brother.”
Dean wants to throw his arms about the angel, to bury his nose in the crook of the angel's neck and just breathe him in but that would be a chick flick moment and Dean doesn’t do those.
Castiel is offering the reassurances that Dean needs to hear, and Dean believes him because Castiel is an angel, because Castiel dragged him out of hell, and because Castiel touched him in his mother’s womb and reassured him that he would be safe, and that he would be there.
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