Named {PART TWO}

[mclachland]

They go back to Bobby's. There's really nothing else to do.

For three days, Castiel sits on the first step of Bobby's front porch and doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Doesn't as much as blink. Not for lack of trying. Dean spends the time bothering Castiel, every hour, on the hour for the dumbest reasons he can come up with. 'Hey, Cas, you hungry?' 'Hey, Cas, Sam found the funniest video on YouTube -- you ever hear of George Carlin?' 'Hey, Cas, Jurassic Park's on. Were velociraptors seriously that fucking creepy?' 'Hey, Cas, who really killed Kennedy?'

Sam says Castiel is in shock, is grieving, and Dean can totally understand that. Jesus dying a second time? Yeah, pretty out there. What he doesn't understand is why Castiel is mourning someone who obviously didn't give a shit about him. If Jesus Christ had been alive and well all this time, the least he could have done was step in during the Green Room fiasco, or had Castiel's back when they thought it was all going to fall apart at Chuck's, or stopped Sam from fucking things up with Lilith. Maybe not the last two -- he was dead at that point, right? -- but he could've prevented any number of seals from breaking. From where Dean's standing, it looks like the savior of Mankind dropped the ball one time too many. What a chump.

When he's not trying to annoy Castiel back into life, he divides his time between waiting for the angels to pop in and firebomb the Impala in retaliation for stopping the Apocalypse, and catching up on every episode of Dr. Sexy, MD he's missed in the last year.

He's watching the end of episode 35, "Breaking Adrenaline", when Sam comes in, pushes Dean's legs off the armrest of the couch, and shuts off the TV.

"I was watching that! Dr. Stefan just cut Johnny's LVAD wire!"

Sam doesn't look sympathetic. At all. "Dean."

That tone could mean one of two things: "Dean, I've decided that we're going green and we're going to conserve energy, starting with the TV" or "Get off your soap opera-loving ass and do something about your catatonic guardian angel." He's willing to bet it's not the first one.

"Sam, he doesn't even -- it's like he's not there. I don't think it matters if I'm out there bugging the shit out of him or in here watching TV." Besides, it's not like he's been concentrating all that well on the episode, what with his catatonic guardian angel on the front porch. Absurdly, he keeps wondering if Castiel is cold out there, alone. In the 70-degree weather.

"Dean," Sam begins with a sigh. A lecture or a heartfelt confession is about to follow. "Look, I get that you have the emotional maturity of, like, a fetus, but think about what this is like for Cas. I don't know what Jesus Christ was like, but I'm guessing he was… one hell of a guy. Like, the guy. It's freaking me out that Cas is like this, too, Dean, but there's got to be a reason for it."

"Dude, he was never there when Cas needed him!" Or when Dean needed him.

Sam shrugs, eyes vaguely guilty. "I wasn't always there for you. But that doesn't change the fact that --"

"You're a giant girl?" Dean suggests, giving in. He'd been planning on going out to the porch after the episode ended, anyway. "Seriously, Sam, let it go. We're good."

"I just feel like Cas is going through something huge. We don't know what Jesus Christ was to the angels -- He was the son of God, right? And God's their everything. I think Cas just lost a big part of himself, y'know? A big part of what makes him Cas."

"Cas is his own person," Dean snarls without meaning to.

Sam blinks in surprise, but doesn't comment on the odd remark. Dean's absurdly grateful. He has no idea how he'd even begin to explain that one.

"Cas isn't a person, Dean," Sam says softly, like Dean's slow and forgot that Cas -- no matter how loyal to Dean he is -- is still Castiel, an angel, answerable only to the great football coach in the sky. "I don't think he's ever felt a loss like this. He probably doesn't know how to deal."

"So, what," Dean asks, gut tight, "should I go out there, hold his hand and tell him everything's gonna be okay?"

Sam gives him an unreadable look before relenting with a sad shake of his head, hair swinging around like a fucking shampoo commercial. "I just think it'd… be good if he wasn't alone. Even if all you did was just sit with him for a bit instead of bug the shit out of him."

"Just sit."

"Yeah. Just… be there."

Castiel'd been willing to die for him. Castiel'd turned his back on Heaven for him. Castiel'd pulled him out of the Pit.

This time, Dean can be the one.

He stands and stretches, then reaches out and punches Sam in the arm as hard as he can. That surprised whine will never get old.

"You know what happens when you bring up feelings, Sam," he reminds his brother, taking great pleasure in the way Sam grumbles and rubs at his arm. "Try not to eavesdrop, Pollyanna."

"I'll try to contain myself," Sam says with an eye roll and then slinks off to wherever he came from. Probably geeking out over demon lore with Bobby, or talking about just how amazing Jesus was.

Dean grabs a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the way outside, because there's no way he can do this again without alcohol, and slams open the screen door.

Surprise, surprise. The statue formerly known as Castiel is right where Dean left him: sitting on the first step, hands in lap, staring at nothing.

Dean drops down next to Castiel with a grunt and follows Castiel's blank gaze into the front yard; Bobby's running light on the scrap, looks like. The place is almost empty, just an uninterrupted stretch of scorched land. Not the kind of place an angel should be spending all of his time.

"Hey, Cas," he says, uncapping the bottle and bringing it to his mouth. He pauses, rethinks it, and then offers it to Castiel first. "Drink?"

No answer. Dean shrugs and takes a pull. The whiskey cuts a straight path of fire all the way down, leaving warm embers in its wake. Good stuff. Bobby'll be pissed when he finds out that Dean drank it all, but it's his own fault for leaving it out for anyone to find.

He settles back against the porch, shoulder brushing against Castiel. Well, here he is. It's not going to amount to much, no matter what Sam thinks. Castiel is nowhere near Bobby's, drifting elsewhere in the universe, wherever it is people go when they can't deal.

"I'm sure it's nice," Dean says aloud, taking another sip from the bottle and relishing the burn in his nose. "I hear the weather's nice there this time of year. I've never been, never had the time, but I bet it's one hell of a getaway."

There's a flash of an image, the tan coat thrown over a chair and pale skin strewn across sun-soaked white sheets. He takes another, longer sip.

"You know, I've always wanted to take a vacation. To the places you always see advertised on TV, where you can ride a fucking horse on the beach. Just for a weekend -- no need to overdo it.

"When we were kids and Dad was off on a hunt, Sam and I would sit in the motel room and plan it out. We usually picked Hawaii because we didn't know much about Aruba or the Bahamas, plus we wouldn't need passports. Sam always wanted to try scuba diving; he had a thing for manta rays for a while. Me? I just wanted to plant my ass in the sand and not move the entire weekend. The sunburn'd be worth it, just to be able to relax."

He smiles against the mouth of the bottle, imagining an eight-year old Sam in a scuba mask and wetsuit. Too cute.

"And me?"

Dean nearly drops the whiskey, head snapping around to stare. Castiel hasn't moved but there is definitely some life in that body.

"What would I do on this vacation in Hawaii?" Castiel asks softly, staring straight ahead.

Dean says nothing for a long moment, practically an eternity, then bumps Castiel's shoulder with his. "You'd be in town, checking out the souvenir shops. And you'd probably steal all the hermit crabs up for sale and let them go at the beach. And then I'd have to explain to the cops that you're, like, a few tacos short of a combo meal and it totally isn't my fault. Either way, Sam'd have to post bail."

"It doesn't sound like a fun time," Castiel murmurs. "Perhaps I ought not go."

Dean laughs. "You kidding? It'd be a fucking laugh riot! Of course you'd go. I'm not going to Hawaii without you."

Finally, some movement. Castiel tilts his head down to stare at his hands. "Thank you."

The way he says it, like Dean's ten pounds of amazing in a five-pound bag, makes Dean uncomfortable. The only person who should sound that grateful is Sam for every day Dean doesn't pour itching powder into his underwear. Castiel shouldn't have to thank him for a goddamn thing -- he was willing to take on the whole of Heaven for Dean. He gets a pass.

"Dude, it's nothing. And it's not like it's ever going to happen. Vacations are normal and us Winchesters don't do normal. At the very most we'll luck out and land a motel with a pool."

Castiel lifts his head and stares out at the front yard again, as if seeing something worth looking at among the random bits of metal. "Perhaps… one day we will try normal and go to Hawaii."

He can't help the grin that stretches across his face. "Sure, Cas. When this is all over, we'll do Hawaii. Poor bastards won't even know what hit 'em. Pearl Harbor, part two. But only if you promise to steal hermit crabs and get us arrested."

"I promise," Castiel says gravely, and Dean laughs. Best fake first vacation ever.

They fall into an almost companionable silence, Dean warm from the whiskey and Castiel giving out body heat like a furnace. With a sigh, Dean lies back against the wooden boards of the porch and closes his eyes, hand curled loosely around the neck of the bottle. If this is what it takes to have this kind of silence, the good kind, then he might have to start killing some of Heaven's favorites, too. And, wow, what a horrible thing to think.

Dean opens one eye and peers up at Castiel to make sure his stupid brain just didn't get his ass smote, but Castiel is back to staring at nothing. Dean closes his eye and exhales long and slow.

"Wanna talk about it?" He pauses. "I will never say those words again, so you might want to take me up on it."

Castiel blinks like he just came out of a daydream and looks at him. Even with his eyes closed, Dean can feel the gaze like a physical thing. Castiel has a way of looking at you, through layers of skin and tissue to get to the heart of the matter, cataloguing everything that makes you who you are on flashcards that he can pull out to use against you. Dean wonders which card Castiel is looking at now.

"I don't know where to start," Castiel confesses, his usual smoke on broken glass voice barely registering over the faint breeze that half-heartedly stirs. "There is… so much to say."

"Apocalypse's on hold for now," he reminds Castiel, shifting so his shoulder blade doesn't quite dig into the wood. "We've got time. And trust me, we don't have to hash out everything. But getting some of it off your chest helps. I hear it does, anyway. So, lay it on me. First thing that comes to mind."

"Jimmy."

Dean sits up, surprised. That'd been the last thing he expected to hear. "What, for real? What about him?"

Castiel licks his lips, chapped and cracked in this dry air and from sitting like a stone for three days straight, and tilts his head up toward the sky, toward the sun. The light falls on his cheeks like a revelation and Dean sucks in a surprised breath at the way those pale cheeks go rose under the heat.

"When I sent you after Sam, I released Jimmy Novak from this body," Castiel says quietly, reverently, like he's mourning Jimmy, too. He probably is. "There was no need to experience the wrath of an archangel, not after his many sacrifices for me. I promised him that he would finally find peace in the presence of his savior." Castiel smiles, and it's an ugly broken thing. Dean hates it. He's been waiting for Castiel to dislodge the stick from his ass, to smile, to laugh, and this isn't the kind Dean was hoping to see. "Jimmy had been so happy, so relieved at the prospect of meeting his Lord. And I sent him to a place devoid of the Son. It's all I can think about. He gave so much and in return received so little."

Dean says nothing for a moment, then ventures, "So… It's just you in there?"

Castiel huffs softly, like he's trying to laugh but still doesn't know how. "Yes. I am alone in this body."

"Shit, Cas, I'm sorry," he mutters, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard enough that he sees stars.

"I don't feel better," Castiel announces, like it's Dean's fault. At this point, it's pretty much just par for the course.

Dean snorts and finishes off the whiskey, taking comfort in the strong buzz he's got going on. Nah, scratch that, he's definitely drunk. It's five o'clock somewhere. "Was worth a try."

The barely-there breeze from before kicks up the dust at the bottom of the stairs. A piece of a dead leaf lands on Castiel's knee, the dried out brown bright against the black cloth. Castiel picks it up delicately between his thumb and forefinger and holds it up to the sun, studying it.

Dean is so out of his element here, it's funny. He's such an idiot. "So… you guys were… close?"

Castiel releases the leaf and watches it blow away, somehow making it the most profound thing Dean's ever seen. Totally the booze's fault. "He was my vessel, Dean."

"No, I meant Jesus," Dean clarifies, because duh. Of course he didn't mean Jimmy. You don't get much closer than a vessel.

Castiel smiles slightly, a little less fragmented than before, but still cracked to shit. "I have millions of brothers and sisters, so many that I don't know all of their names. Acquaintances and allies, Dean, is all we are afforded. But in the Son, I had a friend."

An ugly feeling oozes in his chest, sticking to his ribs, spreading black slime all over the place and making it really fucking hard to breathe normally. Some friend. Where was Castiel's friend when Uriel and Zachariah decided they wanted to run the show and use Castiel's unfailing loyalty as a poker chip? Where was his friend when Castiel needed to tell someone that he was beginning to question and doubt the shit the Host was doing in God's name? Where was his friend when Alistair was about to rip him out of his vessel and probably kill him?

"You have friends," he says finally, the words slurred to his own ears. Castiel ducks his head, and fuck, that's almost adorable. He's too drunk for this.

"I know," Castiel says, and all Dean hears is 'I didn't know'. "But there are no friends to be had in Heaven."

Castiel shrugs, the gesture too stiff to be casual. Dean hides a laugh with the hand holding the whiskey bottle. Castiel definitely practices human body language in a mirror somewhere when no one's around. He'd put good money on it.

"Your brothers and sisters aren't your friends?"

Castiel looks at him as if he'd forgotten Dean was brain damaged. "No. My brothers and sisters are my brothers and sisters."

"That's stupid," Dean scoffs, winding back and hurling the bottle as hard and as far as he can. It disappears from sight but he can still hear the glass shatter. Getting rid of the evidence. Bobby'll never know.

"We are not all fortunate as to have the camaraderie you and your brother have," Castiel says tightly, obviously offended, probably thinking that Dean's mocking his manpain. Angelpain. Whatever. Dean Winchester is not a mocky drunk.

This is unsurprisingly turning out the way he thought it would: badly. At least he can cross 'Piss a grieving angel' off his bucket list.

"You should," he mutters, too warm from the whiskey and just plain tired. "You can be friends with family. You're not supposed to be able to differentiate between the two. That's what it's all about. Weird that they don't teach you that shit at Bible camp."

"Perhaps 'family' is the wrong word," Castiel supposes almost thoughtfully. "It's a hierarchy, a caste system. That we are related is almost incidental."

Dean twists the ring on his finger, sluggishly watching the resulting splotch of refracted light on the next stair. "I'm guessing you weren't one of the cool kids to begin with."

"I was a soldier."

"A nobody."

"I am expendable," Castiel says matter-of-factly, closing his eyes and taking in the sun. "My kind was created for that purpose. Follow, fight and fall."

He wants to look at Castiel, tell him that he's so much more than expendable, but the words won't penetrate Heaven's conditioning. His tongue's loose enough that he says it anyway. "Dude, you're not expendable."

"But I am, Dean," comes the expected answer, followed by the unexpected. "Ten-thousand others were born the moment I was. Ten-thousand meant specifically for my purpose. Follow, fight and fall. When one perishes in battle, there will always be one to take his or her place. That is what I am, what we are. That is how my brothers and sisters see me and mine."

"Cas --"

A slim-fingered hand lifts, forestalling his protest. "Jesus Christ saw us as individual. That's why I mourn him, because he treated me the way you do."

Dean can feel his cheeks grow hot. Throwing that bottle away had been a bad idea, almost as bad as drinking everything that had been in it. He wants nothing more than to press the glass against his dry mouth, his heated skin. Everything's so warm and shaky. It's the worst kind of drunk: the kind where his usual vise-like grip on control has loosened to the point where he can feel it sifting through his fingers.

"He made me feel… necessary," Castiel adds, turning his head just slightly, enough that Dean can see a sliver of blue between parted lashes.

"Yeah," Dean mumbles and scrubs the back of his wrist against his mouth. "Yeah, I got what you meant, Cas."

The silence shifts from almost-companionable to uncomfortable and Dean itches to fill the air with something.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Castiel turns his head completely to the side, staring at Dean full-on. "You said that once before. 'I'm sorry.' Why are you apologizing? It wasn't your doing."

Dean shrugs. "You say 'I'm sorry' when someone dies and you don't know what to say."

"Why not say nothing if there is nothing to say?" Castiel asks, head tilted in that curious way he has, too reminiscent of a bird.

"I don't know! It's just what you say!" he growls, annoyed, and then subsiding with a grumble. Way too drunk for this. His mind's floating in a warm haze, the conversation too substantial for him to even keep up.

Castiel stares at him for a long moment, then pulls back and looks away. The corners of his mouth twitch, a movement so brief that Dean totally would have missed it if he were sober and not staring at Castiel like a creep. But it’s there and it's real. Whole.

"Thank you," Castiel finally says, like what Dean was trying to do just clicked. Dean's heart thuds at the smile that isn't quite there. "For saying it."

"Dude, it's nothing."

This is the longest conversation he's had with Castiel, ever, and he's not even sober for it. It feels like one of those moments, the ones he has more often than he'd care to admit, when he remembers that a fucking angel of God pulled him out of Hell and spends ten minutes with his head between his knees at the sheer enormity of it. It's easy to forget that Castiel isn't human, even with his weird quirks and lack of pop culture knowledge. Sam was right, the fucker. Castiel isn't human and has never experienced the death of a loved one -- sure, he probably loves all eighteen-million of his siblings, but to have someone who considers you special and then lose that person? Yeah, Dean can see why this is such a big deal. Why it warranted three days of exposure to the elements. Why saying something as stupid and inadequate as 'I'm sorry' means the whole world.

His thought process is about to shift into an introspective piece on all the shit he takes for granted when a light touch to the back of his left hand blows the fog away, leaving him almost too-aware of everything. He's sober.

"What gives?" Dean demands, but Castiel isn't looking at him. That stare is focused back on the yard again, and when Dean turns to see what's so interesting, he freezes

Someone's standing there, the outline of the silhouette glowing in the sun.

"Fuck," he mutters, then leans back without moving his ass from the stair and shouts, "Sam! Get your ass out here!"

When he rights himself, the silhouette is no longer a silhouette, but a woman. A woman who's awfully close all of a sudden, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Castiel," the woman says flatly, and it takes Castiel's incline of the head for Dean to realize it's a greeting. Hell, even Uriel and Zachariah had more personality than this bitch. "How are you."

Sam bangs out onto the porch, then freezes when she transfers her cold gaze onto him.

"He is crawling with sin," she announces and something cracks loudly behind the house, like thunder or a gun shot.

Castiel's face is fucking stone. "He is not to be touched, Barachiel."

Dean can hear Sam's shallow gasp of recognition behind him. Fuck. This must be one of the archangels, then.

Barachiel tilts her head. It's not nearly as funny as when Castiel does it, and that only serves to make Dean hate her more. "Fine."

Castiel stands in one fluid movement, but makes no attempt to leave the stair. Dean scrambles to his feet, too, palms scraping against the wood of the step and he definitely has a splinter or two. He wants to get his hand around the hilt of his knife, but it's not going to do dick against an archangel.

"Were you the one they sent to kill Cas?" Dean hears himself ask distantly, ignoring Sam's hissed 'Dean, shut up!' and Castiel's surprised exhale.

Barachiel studies him like he's a particularly interesting bug that she might feel bad about if she stepped on. Her eyebrows go up, and she turns back to Castiel. "You are 'Cas'? You allowed them to rename you?"

The way she says 'them' doesn't even make him sound like an interesting bug now. He's gone from butterfly to beetle in a matter of seconds.

"Look, lady," Dean begins, because if she's back to deliver more bad news -- like that she's here to actually kill Castiel -- then there's going to be a fight. A very one-sided, predictable fight. Bobby's going to kill them. "Sorry about your botched Apocalypse and everything, but don't you think that it's a bit soon for more cold-blooded murder?"

"What the hell is goin' on here?!"

Perfect timing.

"Bobby," Sam says slowly, placing a giant hand on Bobby's shoulder to stop him from shooting the archangel with the sawed-off shotgun in his hands. "This is Barachiel. The archangel."

"She has come for me," Castiel adds firmly, without taking his eyes off Barachiel, who lifts her pointy chin in an almost haughty way.

"I have come to tell you that the Mourning begins tomorrow at dawn," Barachiel says, narrowing her eyes. Dean glances down and suddenly can't look away from her wrists. How are they that skinny and still functional? "I thought perhaps, despite any… disagreements you may have with the Host, you would want to attend."

"Disagreements," Dean snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fancy way of saying 'your family wants you dead for thinking for yourself'."

"Dean," Castiel murmurs, "Please stop helping."

"Because you really aren't," Sam agrees quickly, ducking Dean's half-hearted swipe.

Castiel isn't paying attention to them, too busy regarding Barachiel blankly. Dean has no idea what's going on beneath that façade, but if it were him he'd be beyond pissed. Real nice of the family to invite him. Classy. It was probably in Jesus's will: Don't let all my hard work go to waste by ending the world, stop making bubblegum schnapps, and allow Castiel to come to the funeral.

"Thank you, Barachiel," Castiel says. "I will be in attendance."

Barachiel nods. "I feel it prudent to mention that the ceremony will be led by The Voice."

Maybe it's because Castiel has spent so much time around him, or maybe it's because Castiel yanked him out of the Pit and they're connected in some way, but Dean knows the exact moment when Castiel is going to take back his RSVP. It's nothing overt or even noticeable. Castiel flexes the fingers of his right hand once, something he only does when he's upset or anxious. He did it on a park bench in Dean's head and again in the Green Room. Dean tries to be as subtle as possible when he glances down to watch those long, artistic fingers curl in and out. He probably should be paying attention to the archangel standing on Bobby's property, but that hand is too distracting for him to do anything else but stare.

"I see," Castiel says, fingers flexing. "Perhaps it will be… best if I do not attend."

"Yeah, no," Dean butts in, like he always does. None of this 'my grass is so emo, it cuts itself' bullshit. "Dude, if anyone should be there, it's you."

"Dean --" Sam starts, but if Sam's going to be a fucking buzzkill, then he doesn't get to talk right now. Big brother says so.

"Quiet, Sam," he interrupts. "Cas deserves to go. He's the only one who actually mourned this guy."

Barachiel stares at him in semi-obvious shock, as if no one's ever talked back to her. And knowing the heavenly higher-ups, he's probably right. Good. About time someone knocked these assholes down a peg or two.

She turns to Castiel, visibly annoyed. "This is your choice?"

Dean's more than confused, and it's pretty much his default setting these days. It's like they skipped an entire conversation, speaking in half-formed sentences and finding understanding in looks and awkward human body language. But Castiel tips his chin up and pinches his lips in such a way that his mouth all but disappears. "Do you have anything else to relay, Barachiel, or are you simply here to insult?"

Dean can't help but smirk at that. Atta boy, Cas.

Sam shifts uneasily behind him and Dean reaches back to punch him right in the thigh. "Stay still."

"This is going to get ugly," Sam whispers, too loud, even for the outside. Dean says nothing.

"You forget, brother, to whom you speak so informally," Barachiel growls, the words rattling around in her throat like broken glass and pebbles, making the hair on his arms stand on end. Man, he really misses Zachariah. At least with that douche he knew what to expect. Barachiel sounds like she could kill Dean with a napkin.

"I haven't forgotten," Castiel says evenly, but there's a thin line of steel beneath it. "I will not tolerate disrespect of any kind toward these men. You owe much to them, for all their sacrifices. For you."

Barachiel huffs derisive amusement through her nose, nostrils flaring with it. "So much faith in these base creatures. I no longer find it difficult to believe the Christ child held you in such high regard."

Castiel sucks in a breath like he's been punched in the gut, surprise and pain tangling together and riding inward to stake a claim in those new lungs of his, and that is fucking it.

Before his brain can catch up with the rest of his body and remind it what a bad idea this is, he's stepping onto the bottom step and staring Barachiel down. His fingers itch with the need to wrap themselves around the hilt of his blade and bury it into her borrowed skull. He wouldn't even feel bad for her vessel; the girl, whoever she was, had been the one to say yes.

"Okay," he says quietly, dangerously, feeling the sugary-sour urge to throw this bitch down on a stone tablet and rip her wings out through her chest. Put some of those torturing skills to work. He hasn't tasted this kind of blood thirst in a long while. "Okay, you're gonna leave now. That was about as low as you could take it and you can't possibly have anything left to say. So, you get to beat it the fuck back to your buddies, tell them you put Cas and his human pets in their place, and keep your pointy little crown for all your adoring fans to see."

She clenches her hands into fists. The air smells cloyingly sweet, like roses, with a hint of a buzz.

"Dean, shut your trap," Bobby snarls, but Dean's not done yet.

"I never met the guy, but I bet Jesus'd bitchslap you in the mouth for the shit you've been spouting. Cas is a thousand times more faithful than you'll ever be, and that may not count for much with you guys anymore, but it means a fuck of a lot down here in the mud."

Fingers close gently around his wrist, stilling his words. Castiel squeezes it once in warning, or maybe gratitude, before releasing him and looking at Barachiel with calm eyes.

"I think you have worn out your welcome, sister."

Barachiel swallows audibly, like she doesn't know what to do with these odd human reactions and needs to consciously force the spit down. She exhales sharply and steps back, taking the smell of roses and lightning with her.

"I truly hope you understand what it is you are doing here," she says softly, unforgiving in every way. "Because I do not."

And she's gone.

Dean takes a moment for himself, mostly to stare at the place Barachiel had been and smirk in sweet, sweet victory.

"Fucking idgit!"

Bobby's fist catches him in the back of the head, sending him stumbling off the step and struggling gracelessly to regain his balance on the ground, boots kicking up dust and dirt. Dean puts his hand over the area. He can feel it throb as blood rushes there, pounding like a second heartbeat beneath his fingers.

"Dammit, Bobby!" he shouts, rubbing hard at the skin beneath his hair, wincing at the white-hot stab of pain that flares at his touch.

"Thank you, Robert," Castiel says roughly, eyes squinted in a glare. "You've saved me the trouble of doing the same."

"Dude," Sam chimes in, and suddenly Dean's victory isn't looking so sweet. "That was without a doubt the dumbest thing you've ever done. And you've done some dumb things. Remember the time with the succubus mayor and your eighty-three packs of Slim Jims? I think this was dumber, and I never thought I'd ever say that."

Dean frowns. "This totally wasn't as bad as the succubus mayor."

"Archangel, Dean," Sam reminds him, eyes wide with anger. Dean has to hide a smile, because that face is so unintentionally hilarious, especially since Sam's so serious. "Archangel who could have eaten the succubus mayor. And your Slim Jims."

"Cas totally had my back," he says, throwing a grin Castiel's way and trying not to take it personally when Castiel's eyes don't even soften under it.

"Cas would've been little more than flesh soup after an archangel was through with him," Sam volleys back, jaw set. He pauses, then glances guiltily at the angel in question. "No offense, Cas."

Castiel shrugs, the movement obviously practiced. "It's true. Dean, I understand your death wish is part of you, but could you please try and be subtle about it?"

Dean eyes him suspiciously. "Was that sarcasm?"

"No."

He laughs. "That was totally sarcasm, you shitty liar." And just as quickly as it had come, the levity is sucked from the air. He watches Castiel in silence for a good thirty seconds before shoving his hands into his pockets, if only to keep from touching the knob growing on his head. "So… What time is the funeral?"

Castiel shakes his head. "No."

Dean glances at Sam and Bobby, who look as confused as he feels, and then reaches out to clap Castiel on the shoulder. That can't be it. Castiel sat on a fucking porch for three days for the guy -- no way he was missing out on the burial, or whatever it is angels do. "Cas, you said he was your friend."

"He was." Castiel looks up at him through his lashes. "He was my friend. But I can't go."

Sam hunkers down one step. "An archangel invited you. I'm not really seeing a problem, Cas."

Something shifts under Dean's hand, something he can't see but can certainly feel hum against his fingers, and he withdraws in surprise. Castiel doesn't seem to notice and Dean probably wouldn't have gotten an explanation if he'd asked for one anyway. He files it away for future, futile questioning.

Castiel presses his lips together and shakes his head once, just a slight movement that would have been a full-on headbang on anyone else. "While I can appreciate Barachiel's attempt to include me in the ceremony, she is not leading it and I can't expect the same courtesy from --"

"The 'Voice'," Bobby pipes up gruffly, and Dean jumps. "May not be an all-knowing angel, but I do know my lore. It's the big boss, isn't it?"

"The Metatron," Castiel agrees quietly, eyes downcast as if he were standing in the Metatron's presence right now instead of three schmucks in South Dakota.

An image of a dark-haired man throwing back a tequila and spitting it back into a glass comes to mind, and Sam gives him a look like he knows exactly what Dean's thinking. Dean brings it up anyway.

"Alan Rickman?" He inquires sweetly, buckling slightly under Sam's swift kick to the back of his legs. "Dude, what? You liked that movie, too."

"The Metatron is the voice of our Father," Castiel explains, the blue of his eyes almost translucent in the sunlight, pupils practically non-existent. There once was a time when Dean wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere, away from that piercing gaze and all that it asked of him. Now? One of the few reassuring things he knows.

Dean stretches out his leg. Dammit, Sam. "Bet he hasn't been saying much these days. So, what's the problem? You don't even need to see this guy -- stand somewhere in the back. Not a big deal."

Castiel says nothing. Dean's thinking that maybe it is a big deal and says as much.

"Our orders are usually handed to us from our superiors, who in turn get it from their superiors, and so on. In Heaven… I was given a direct order from the Voice himself."

"That's cool," he says for lack of anything else. It sounds like getting any kind of attention from the Metatron would be the angel equivalent of a twelve-year old girl getting a marriage proposal from Justin Timberlake. "So, what happened? Did you say no?"

Castiel gives Dean a sideways look, troubled and dark but somehow lacking in regret. Warmth, like holding your palm over a candle's flame, settles beneath his ribcage and spreads, and he wonders if Castiel chased away all the alcohol, all that numb haze. Then it's gone, sharp as the broken ice in Castiel's eyes, leaving Dean shivering in the 70-degree weather.

"Yes," Castiel says, and it's like a nuclear explosion. "I said no."

Next

Comments

[kalliel]

When this is all over, we'll do Hawaii. Poor bastards won't even know what hit 'em. Pearl Harbor, part two. But only if you promise to steal hermit crabs and get us arrested."

Oh. <333 That is all.

And the Dogma reference--because I mean, hey. That's what I always think of when Metatron comes knocking. Alanis Morisette, too. ;)

Completely hooked!

[aenissesthai.livejournal.com]

I ought to be in bed right now, but I can't stop reading! All the threads you are casting forth are drawing me in, and I -have- to find out where they're leading. This is the most skilled type of story-telling, the type that delicately engages the reader one deceptively effortless line at a time.

I find your Barachiel hair-raisingly chilling; her physical description from the last chapter makes me picture a reanimated corpse, a zombie raised from a victim of malnutrition. (Also causes me to wonder about the horror of her vessel's backstory, while at the same time my mind shies away from it.) Dean's confrontation is all the more reckless and yet heart-touchingly loyal toward Cas. (Why, oh why can't we see this reciprocal loyalty in canon?)

Most of all, I congratulate you on a shockingly original premise. My own religion holds to the concept of the Trinity, which means that if Jesus is dead, then a fairly large portion of God is dead as well. This viewpoint adds in a whole 'nother level of "What will happen -now-?" to the growing suspense.

You have created excellent characterizations (Dean is definitely Dean, Sam is also true to early Season 5 Sam, and Castiel is undoubtedly pre-Season 5), and also made me smile with lines so subtle, they are almost throwaways, i.e. "He files it away for future, futile questioning." Perfect!

Will be reading more!

[laura-trekkie.livejournal.com]

Awww Cas :(. I'm glad Dean finally got through to him- after judicious prodding from Sam, of course. I hope they get their vacation in Hawaii, hermit crabs and all.

Dean is such an idgit, but an awesome one. There's no way he could've stopped Barachiel if she'd been in a mind to smite any or all of them, but all he saw was his friend being upset and belittled and he stepped in to fix that. Go Dean, you stupid idiot ;).

Will Cas decide to attend the mourning? He may have turned down an order from Metatron, but it would be sad if he misses the chance to say a proper farewell to his friend.

Laura.

[cotymundi.livejournal.com]

Ooh... I'm going all tingly, Castiel is just dripping power at the moment, isn't he? That reference to a nuclear explosion feels just right, more like the meltdown of a reactor core, he's just shooting alpha particles off everywhere; can Dean see through to his bones yet? Feels really dangerous, must have more.

[quenderra.livejournal.com]

Oooh... further intrigue. What was the order, I wonder?

[senbo-sama.livejournal.com]

I've read this whole story, going through my second read now, and have officially replaced this as canon in my head. But what I want to say is that I spent the whole fic reading "Metatron" as "Megatron" and I'm not sorry. xD

[destielfan06.livejournal.com]

This is Too much<3
Dean,You Beautiful Dumbass
Everyone is so Spot on and I Loved it. This is my 2nd time reading this and i love it.

[dom pereira (from livejournal.com)]

dude, i'm reading this with season 8 for hindsight and all i can say is HOLY SHIT!! freaking awesome!! :)