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Title: On the Wings of War
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen |Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One | Chapter Twenty-Two
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen |Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One | Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Dean’s in trouble,” Gabriel said.
“What? How do you know?” Sam said.
“Look.” The archangel pointed. “Dean’s army is losing focus.”
Sam peered out at the storm. What had been a seething vortex of gray indeterminate mass that seemed to whirl and consume itself over and over now seemed to be resolving into contrasts of black clouds and caustic flashes of lightning. It was growing more orderly, too; swirls of it peeled off into corkscrews, enough to get glimpses inside the hurricane.
That was how Sam spotted it.
“What is that?” he pointed. “Is that--?”
“Bollocks,” Crowley said. He wrenched the yacht around and pulled out the throttle.
“That would explain it,” Gabriel said.
“Gabriel, can you--?” Terror was choking Sam off; he clutched at the archangel’s shoulder.
Gabriel complained, “He just punched me in the face ten minutes ago! You can’t expect me to--”
“Gabriel, for god’s sake!”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. But he looked at Sam squarely. “I’ll get him, Sam. Don’t worry.”
He disappeared.
***
Dean was aware of two things: His skin was on fire, and his wings were about an inch away from failing.
He spread them wide, trying to slow his fall, but the muscles were barely drawing taut, the force of the storm consolidating with gravity into an inevitable drag downwards that felt as much like drowning as the water itself.
“Heya, Deano. You look rough.”
He cracked one blistered eye open against the gale. Gabriel smirked, falling right along with him, but with two fingers extended towards his forehead.
“Good timing,” he croaked.
Gabriel pressed his fingers to his peeling skin.
***
Dean crumpled to his knees as he hit the deck, wings shuddering closed in a protective arch around him.
“Dean! Oh my god, Dean.”
He opened his eyes enough to see that Sam was clambering frantically up from the yacht onto the cargo ship, ignoring Crowley’s protestations. Also, since Gabriel had saw fit to land them on the cargo ship and not the yacht, he was apparently kneeling in rotting ex-demon vessels.
He wasn’t really sure whether to acknowledge how his skin was more raw than not or just vomit first.
“Deano. Get your army back in line, or they’re gonna start taking an interest in some easier targets. Namely, us.”
“Gimme a second,” he groaned.
“Don’t have one. Orders, now, or we die fast. Or faster at least.”
Dean winced, and did as he was told. The answering war cry started incoherent, but gained momentum after a strained moment that made Dean clench his burned hands as they rested on his knees.
“Jesus Christ, Dean, don’t move, you’re just gonna--”
“Shut up, Sam,” Gabriel said sharply. “Let him work.”
“He’s half dead!”
“And the other half’s working.”
“It’s done,” Dean said hoarsely, amid the carcasses. “Now fix me, goddamnit.”
Two fingers prodded at him again, and most of the pain abated, though not all. When he looked down at his hands again, they’d healed over completely in the sickly tint of Horseman skin.
“What the hell happened?” Sam demanded.
“Flew too close to the sun,” Dean smiled thinly. “Guess I should’ve kept a bit of Cas’s mojo on me a little longer.”
“You went into the fight without any Grace?” Gabriel exclaimed. “What the hell happened to it?”
Dean opened his mouth to answer, but Crowley cut through all of them. “Chaps, we need to get to the other side of this very literally godforsaken ship. Now.”
They all looked up.
The sky had gone dark. The storm was crumbling around them.
And there were twin shadows descending from miles above their heads.
“Oh shit,” Dean breathed.
Gabriel lunged for Sam, and Crowley snapped out of sight in a blink. Dean just staggered back, plastering himself to the rails as far from the gaping emptiness as he could get.
“Dean!” Sam shouted from the opposite end of the ship, but it was barely a whisper over the continued confusing roar of the gale.
Dean just watched as the dragons descended, a long arc of black flesh and in one pair of jaws, a supernova.
Or rather, two supernovae.
Michael was clawing his way down the second dragon’s back, streaking past it to grab hold of the first with the sword upheld, but Dean could tell even through his burning eyes that something was wrong. The hand that held the sword was bent and broken, the light pouring from its edges gray and feeble.
The archangel’s words echoed in his head: I couldn’t take it from you even if I tried. By the time this campaign comes to a head, no matter who remains in the lead, you or Heaven or Hell, no one will be able to claim it but you.
Jesus Christ. The archangel was crazier than Dean.
Actually, Dean thought, breaking slowly into a run forward towards the breach in reality that the dragons were mere seconds away from barrelling into, he wasn’t sure which of them was crazier. But it figured that he find out just how appropriate his being Michael’s vessel was now, of all times.
“Dean, what the fuck are you doing?!” Sam shouted. “Get out of the way!”
Dean looked up at the descending figures. “Michael!” he shouted, at the top of his lungs. “Let go!”
I’m almost there, Dean. Let me do this, or he is trapped forever, again.
“You’re going to die if you follow him down!”
There are worse fates.
“Dammit,” Dean muttered.
The throbbing burn of Lucifer’s being was closer now, beginning again to sear, but even as he thrashed the dragon’s jaws remained vice-like around his form, the creature almost grinning with its master in its maw.
And Michael wasn’t moving fast enough.
Dean exhaled slowly, and bent his knees. His wings flared and arched.
He leaped.
Dean, no!
His wings cried protest but obeyed, and with his arms outstretched Dean caught Michael’s crippling form in a football tackle, dislodging him from the falling dragon’s back to send them crashing and rolling across the upper deck.
Michael exploded out of his grip, decking him in the process with a blow that almost made his neck snap, and he threw himself across the deck back towards the hole--
And then Gabriel was there.
“Unless you want to live in hell with his corpse for the rest of your life, stop,” he said, gripping Michael’s shoulder. “Please.”
Dean staggered to his feet, groaning and exploring the tender part of his jaw.
Michael stared at Gabriel. “Don’t you understand?” he said. “I need to save him. He’s my brother.”
“He’s our brother,” Gabriel corrected. “And he’s lost.”
Dean stepped past them. “Guys?”
They turned.
“Oh fuck me,” Gabriel breathed.
The first dragon had reached the crypt. But it wasn’t disappearing into its depths.
Instead, there were cracks of light shivering across its black skin, spidering and spreading like magma emerging from beneath cooling surfaces. The creature's front paws were digging into the edges of the crypt, pulling desperately downwards as its wings flapped and flailed in distress. Its snout was trailing mucus and blood into the abyss beneath it, and its eyes were rolling back in its blunt, malicious face.
“Now will you let me go?” Michael demanded, breaking free of Gabriel’s grip and launching forward.
Before anyone could do anything, he was descending upon the dragon to seize it by the collar and pull.
Lucifer, nearly wearing the skin of the beast, thrashed once, twice, and then in an almighty wrench, all three of them disappeared into the breach.
The second dragon followed, almost gamboling, its jaws open in anticipation.
There was darkness for a long moment in the mouth of the crypt, interrupted only by a moaning howl, and unearthly flashes of light.
Gabriel swore. “We can’t seal the crypt without the sword; if he doesn’t come back--”
“He will,” Crowley said grimly, appearing at their sides. He reached into his breast pocket, and pulled out a wad of silk handkerchief. The others stared at him in puzzlement. He glanced at them. “Search and rescue services,” he said smoothly, and tossed the whole thing, rather violently, into the chasm.
The silk fell away before it all disappeared from sight, and Dean got a flash of diamond brightness before it went. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
Gabriel was staring at Crowley like he’d lost his mind. “Whose was that?” he snarled, thunderous. “What right had you?”
“I was given express permission,” Crowley held up his hands. “I may have bent the conditions a bit, but I was following instructions.”
“Whose was it?” Gabriel demanded. “Who did you send after him who would so willingly take his place in agony?”
“Someone,” Crowley replied, “Who won’t.”
The ship groaned beneath their feet. There was a thunderous report from within the crypt, and then nothing.
“Now what?” Dean said.
“Now we wait,” Gabriel said tightly.
“The longer we wait, the more chance more things can escape and--”
“We. Wait,” Gabriel growled.
The silence was deafening.
The storm had ceased. Or at least, it had moved. Where before it circled them, one massive trapping wall around the ship like a whirlpool, it had moved to one side, and solidified. The dark clouds of demons were one thin column hovering above the sea, beset with the light of angels that held them like a cage.
And around them were the telltale formless signs of Dean’s army, eating away at the demons in slow inexorable snatches, like vultures tearing flesh from the bone.
“Jesus,” Sam said, stepping up to stand next to Dean.
Dean jumped and turned to glare at him. Sam shrugged.
“What? This seemed like a better view, and you all left me on the port side.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Dean said flatly.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“I don’t know about it,” Gabriel said. “But it’s something.” He tilted his head just slightly in Crowley’s direction, not looking at him directly. “Tell me who you sent down there,” he asked again, lowly.
Crowley arched his eyebrows in contemplation, and then shrugged. “I sent Azrael.”
Gabriel froze.
Dean blinked before frowning. “Azrael? As in, Death Azrael?”
“The same,” Crowley said. “She requested it.”
“She’s abandoning her duties,” Gabriel said tightly. "And you're letting her."
“Dude, I’m pretty sure you’ve got no room to complain about that,” Sam pointed out. And then to Crowley, “How the hell were you carrying Death around in your pocket?”
“I wasn’t,” Crowley replied. “I was carrying her grace. She hasn’t been able to hold it inside her since she took up the mantle of Death. Breaking it open is her ticket home.”
And on that note, the whole ship trembled, a guttural miles deep thrum like tectonic plates moving beneath them. Dean flared his wings to steady himself, and stepped right up to the edge of the upper deck to look down into the chasm below.
Where it had been an endless, inexplicable black, its infinite walls now flickered with a slowly growing light.
“Shield yourselves,” Gabriel said. “All of you.”
Dean threw himself at Sam, pulling them both down into a crouch, his wings enveloping them both, shutting his eyes just before catching a glimpse of the entire entrance of the crypt go from blackened emptiness to white, the iron deck of the cargo ship going from gray to red to white to falling away as magma.
He tightened his grip on Sam, and for what seemed the hundredth time that day, prayed his wings would hold.
***
Castiel tilted his head suddenly amid the crackling of burning wood and oil. “It’s started,” he said.
Bobby stood up. “They did it?”
“Mm,” Castiel said, and then he peered into the jug of the oil to check its contents. “Just enough,” he muttered.
“Just enough for what?” Bobby demanded. “I thought this thing was gonna ride the kick.”
“It will. But it also needs a focus. A gesture of intent, if you will.”
And without hesitation, Castiel lifted the jug above his head, and emptied it over himself.
Bobby moved without thinking; in three strides he was inside the ring of fire and tearing the jug out of the angel’s grip, throwing it with a crash to the side of the altar. “What the hell are you doing, son?” he shouted. “You can’t--”
“I can and I will,” Castiel answered calmly.
“Dean would never forgive you, and he'd never forgive me for letting you,” Bobby growled.
“You’re not letting me. I’m deciding.” Castiel reached into his pocket with his clean hand, and pulled out his phone. “You’re far from home. When this is over, call Dean or Gabriel and they will pick you up.”
Bobby glared at him. “Are they going to be picking up a body too?”
Castiel looked at him, and one corner of his lips twitched. “Hopefully not.”
“Then I ain’t gonna be needing your phone.”
“Keep it anyway.”
And with angelic inexorability, Castiel raised two fingers to Bobby’s head, and the next thing the hunter knew he was outside the church.
He didn’t even bother trying the doors. He just watched as smoke began to pour from the windows.
“Dean’s never gonna forgive me,” he murmured.
Inside, Castiel retrieved the lighter from where Bobby had first dropped it on the pews. His sleeve flared up immediately, which he ignored. Holding the small metallic item in front of him, he cocked his head for a moment, narrowed his eyes, and flicked the wheel.
Sparks flew up, and found fuel.
***
If Anna’s re-ascension into grace had felt like being caught in a firestorm, being in the radius of Azrael’s was like living on the surface of the sun.
“Dean. Dean.”
He could barely hear Sam over the roar of fire from the crypt. His brother was shifting in his hold, pulling away.
“You don’t have grace. You don’t have any protection, you’re burning up. Let me--”
“No. You’ll die.”
“I won’t.” Sam’s voice was urgent and earnest in his ear. “Believe me, I don’t want to die. But you will if you don’t let me help.”
Dean felt a fissure open in his wing, smelled burning flesh. It took a great deal of effort to speak rather than cry out. “How?” he said, through gritted teeth. He tilted his head up as far as he dared and opened his eyes.
For a second, Sam’s eyes looked golden. He shrugged in his helpless, believing way.
“Like this.”
He touched two fingers to Dean’s head.
***
The kick wasn’t anything like Bobby expected. He was waiting for a shockwave, or a ring of fire, anything.
Not the shivery, elusive feeling of the world slowing, breaking down invisibly somehow into component parts.
His skin contracted over unsteady nerves. He sat down abruptly on the steps of the church. He tilted his head up to look at the sky. There was nothing, except the slow progress of gunmetal clouds. But his gut knew just as well as his head that something was happening. He wondered if this was what animals felt before earthquakes hit.
He realized suddenly that the constant whooshing growl of oil fire had dipped into a gutteral rumble, something altogether unnatural. Staggering to his feet, he moved off of the steps down to the empty plaza to look back up at the massive domes of the orthodox church.
There was no sign of it being on fire anymore. Because as the rumble increased, moving into subsonic levels that made the earth shake, the only thing aflame it seemed was a slow scrawl of sigils and signs across the sky.
***
An eternity seemed to pass as Sam kept his hand on Dean’s forehead, eyes narrowed in concentration as the air itself seemed to be consumed by light, until finally, suddenly, it was gone.
It was as if someone had put out the sun.
Dean blinked and exhaled. “Well, now I can’t see a fucking thing,” he said hoarsely.
“Me neither,” Sam agreed, taking his hand back.
Dean flexed his wings carefully. The fissure stung hotly, but the rest of him felt oddly cool, untouched. “Thanks,” he said, eventually. “How’d you do it?”
As his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, Sam smirked and said cryptically, “Angel heartburn.”
Dean raised an eyebrow, but decided not to comment. He just crawled to his feet, and squinted to have a look around.
Most of the lower deck had melted clean through, the crypt opening now a black gaping maw that took up most of the back end of the ship. At the edge of the ragged opening stood Death--or rather, Azrael--as impeccably dressed as ever.
With her, stood Michael.
On unsteady legs, Dean lowered himself gingerly down the steps from the upper level to join them. Crowley and Gabriel were already there, peering down into the opening.
“Nothing else seems to be making a bid to come out,” Crowley commented.
Azrael looked at him with a fair share of irritation. “Breaking open my grace in there--” she said, and her voice sounded different now, laden with depth and unexpected irritation, “A condition I did not agree to, by the way, Crowley--was like cauterizing a wound. Other than Lucifer and the two dragons, nothing is down there that can break through.”
“And he is still down there,” Dean clarified. “You’re certain?”
“We left him in less than optimal condition,” Michael said quietly. “Though still alive.”
Dean glanced down, and then stepped to stand next to him. “Give me that,” he said, nodding downwards. “It’s killing you.”
Michael looked at the gray, mutilated hand at his side. “For a moment,” he said, turning his wrist slowly, painfully, “I believed--”
“Yeah,” Dean said, easing the sword out of the archangel’s grip, wincing at the charred flesh beneath. The sword was warm and sickly damp to the touch, like fevered skin. “We all start out believing.”
“We need to close the crypt,” Crowley said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “How does that go, exactly?”
Michael looked between him and Dean. “The blood of the Lamb, of course,” he said. “Yours and Dean’s.”
Dean backed away abruptly. “How much blood are we talking here?” he said warily.
Michael snorted. “You are not to be sacrificed, if that’s what you’re asking.” He looked back down, almost longingly at the chasm. Then he said, “If this had been as God had written, you would have needed only your human blood. That, and the beginning of Paradise. But we don’t have Paradise. Instead, we need a restoration of balance.”
“Get to the point,” Dean said.
Michael nodded. “What began as human, became dark, and then was cleansed by light. Both of you, in your separate ways, are the melding of humanity and Horsemen, Heaven and Hell. Your blood is the answer, and it always has been. But it’s the way of choice, this path that you’ve forged in hybridity against the will of God or anyone else, that will leave this planet whole.”
Sam blinked, then he looked over at Gabriel. “Dean’s human and horseman. I’m human and demon and...you planned that too, didn't you? Giving me angel stuff in New Mexico.”
Gabriel tilted his head. “Well...no. I was sort of expecting Deano here to cover the angelic part of things, but seeing as he lost that somewhere along the way, I can’t say I’m not glad for taking advantage of your hospitality for a while.”
“Jesus,” Dean said fervently.
“The sword, Dean,” Michael instructed. “We need your blood and Sam’s on it.”
Dean glanced at Sam and met his eyes. Sam nodded.
With a slight grimace, Dean set his palm on the edge of the blade and pulled, one short tight stroke. Then he handed it over for Sam to do the same. “Now what?” he asked, when Sam was done.
“Now,” Michael said, “Toss it over the crypt.”
“Like, all the way over?”
“I suppose 'into' would be a better way of putting it.”
“We’re arming Lucifer--”
“Dean. Just trust me.”
Dean sighed, and with a hard shake of his head, tossed the sword in a spinning arc over the abyss.
It didn’t fall inside. Instead, the blade seemed to just stop, spinning slower and slower until it hung like a compass needle over the crypt. When it stilled, there was a moment of nothing.
It glinted.
And like a coral reef coming to life, the ship’s mangled deck groaned and then shifted, becoming liquid at the edges again but not with heat, instead with the strange roundness of mercury, reaching tendrils upwards like plants seeking sunlight, but the sword was the sunlight here, the Winchesters’ blood jewel-like on its edges.
It was over in less than a minute.
One moment there was a hole into nothingness gaping impossibly from the deck, and the next there was only smooth metal, as new as it was coming out of the factory.
The sword was gone.
“That was super anticlimactic,” Dean commented.
“Don’t be so sure,” Azrael murmured.
***
The circle of fire in the sky closed, the last sigil burning at its edge. Bobby held his breath. The buzz was growing louder and louder. “Come on,” he said, under his breath, “Come on, you crazy sonovabitch.”
Almost on cue, a final plume of fire lit up the sky. The plaza had gathered a crowd by now, all of them looking up at the sky, rapid-fire Russian being exchanged while camera phones clicked and whirred. There was a collective gasp.
The plume resolved into massive, incandescent wings.
Chapter Twenty-Four.
“Dean’s in trouble,” Gabriel said.
“What? How do you know?” Sam said.
“Look.” The archangel pointed. “Dean’s army is losing focus.”
Sam peered out at the storm. What had been a seething vortex of gray indeterminate mass that seemed to whirl and consume itself over and over now seemed to be resolving into contrasts of black clouds and caustic flashes of lightning. It was growing more orderly, too; swirls of it peeled off into corkscrews, enough to get glimpses inside the hurricane.
That was how Sam spotted it.
“What is that?” he pointed. “Is that--?”
“Bollocks,” Crowley said. He wrenched the yacht around and pulled out the throttle.
“That would explain it,” Gabriel said.
“Gabriel, can you--?” Terror was choking Sam off; he clutched at the archangel’s shoulder.
Gabriel complained, “He just punched me in the face ten minutes ago! You can’t expect me to--”
“Gabriel, for god’s sake!”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. But he looked at Sam squarely. “I’ll get him, Sam. Don’t worry.”
He disappeared.
***
Dean was aware of two things: His skin was on fire, and his wings were about an inch away from failing.
He spread them wide, trying to slow his fall, but the muscles were barely drawing taut, the force of the storm consolidating with gravity into an inevitable drag downwards that felt as much like drowning as the water itself.
“Heya, Deano. You look rough.”
He cracked one blistered eye open against the gale. Gabriel smirked, falling right along with him, but with two fingers extended towards his forehead.
“Good timing,” he croaked.
Gabriel pressed his fingers to his peeling skin.
***
Dean crumpled to his knees as he hit the deck, wings shuddering closed in a protective arch around him.
“Dean! Oh my god, Dean.”
He opened his eyes enough to see that Sam was clambering frantically up from the yacht onto the cargo ship, ignoring Crowley’s protestations. Also, since Gabriel had saw fit to land them on the cargo ship and not the yacht, he was apparently kneeling in rotting ex-demon vessels.
He wasn’t really sure whether to acknowledge how his skin was more raw than not or just vomit first.
“Deano. Get your army back in line, or they’re gonna start taking an interest in some easier targets. Namely, us.”
“Gimme a second,” he groaned.
“Don’t have one. Orders, now, or we die fast. Or faster at least.”
Dean winced, and did as he was told. The answering war cry started incoherent, but gained momentum after a strained moment that made Dean clench his burned hands as they rested on his knees.
“Jesus Christ, Dean, don’t move, you’re just gonna--”
“Shut up, Sam,” Gabriel said sharply. “Let him work.”
“He’s half dead!”
“And the other half’s working.”
“It’s done,” Dean said hoarsely, amid the carcasses. “Now fix me, goddamnit.”
Two fingers prodded at him again, and most of the pain abated, though not all. When he looked down at his hands again, they’d healed over completely in the sickly tint of Horseman skin.
“What the hell happened?” Sam demanded.
“Flew too close to the sun,” Dean smiled thinly. “Guess I should’ve kept a bit of Cas’s mojo on me a little longer.”
“You went into the fight without any Grace?” Gabriel exclaimed. “What the hell happened to it?”
Dean opened his mouth to answer, but Crowley cut through all of them. “Chaps, we need to get to the other side of this very literally godforsaken ship. Now.”
They all looked up.
The sky had gone dark. The storm was crumbling around them.
And there were twin shadows descending from miles above their heads.
“Oh shit,” Dean breathed.
Gabriel lunged for Sam, and Crowley snapped out of sight in a blink. Dean just staggered back, plastering himself to the rails as far from the gaping emptiness as he could get.
“Dean!” Sam shouted from the opposite end of the ship, but it was barely a whisper over the continued confusing roar of the gale.
Dean just watched as the dragons descended, a long arc of black flesh and in one pair of jaws, a supernova.
Or rather, two supernovae.
Michael was clawing his way down the second dragon’s back, streaking past it to grab hold of the first with the sword upheld, but Dean could tell even through his burning eyes that something was wrong. The hand that held the sword was bent and broken, the light pouring from its edges gray and feeble.
The archangel’s words echoed in his head: I couldn’t take it from you even if I tried. By the time this campaign comes to a head, no matter who remains in the lead, you or Heaven or Hell, no one will be able to claim it but you.
Jesus Christ. The archangel was crazier than Dean.
Actually, Dean thought, breaking slowly into a run forward towards the breach in reality that the dragons were mere seconds away from barrelling into, he wasn’t sure which of them was crazier. But it figured that he find out just how appropriate his being Michael’s vessel was now, of all times.
“Dean, what the fuck are you doing?!” Sam shouted. “Get out of the way!”
Dean looked up at the descending figures. “Michael!” he shouted, at the top of his lungs. “Let go!”
I’m almost there, Dean. Let me do this, or he is trapped forever, again.
“You’re going to die if you follow him down!”
There are worse fates.
“Dammit,” Dean muttered.
The throbbing burn of Lucifer’s being was closer now, beginning again to sear, but even as he thrashed the dragon’s jaws remained vice-like around his form, the creature almost grinning with its master in its maw.
And Michael wasn’t moving fast enough.
Dean exhaled slowly, and bent his knees. His wings flared and arched.
He leaped.
Dean, no!
His wings cried protest but obeyed, and with his arms outstretched Dean caught Michael’s crippling form in a football tackle, dislodging him from the falling dragon’s back to send them crashing and rolling across the upper deck.
Michael exploded out of his grip, decking him in the process with a blow that almost made his neck snap, and he threw himself across the deck back towards the hole--
And then Gabriel was there.
“Unless you want to live in hell with his corpse for the rest of your life, stop,” he said, gripping Michael’s shoulder. “Please.”
Dean staggered to his feet, groaning and exploring the tender part of his jaw.
Michael stared at Gabriel. “Don’t you understand?” he said. “I need to save him. He’s my brother.”
“He’s our brother,” Gabriel corrected. “And he’s lost.”
Dean stepped past them. “Guys?”
They turned.
“Oh fuck me,” Gabriel breathed.
The first dragon had reached the crypt. But it wasn’t disappearing into its depths.
Instead, there were cracks of light shivering across its black skin, spidering and spreading like magma emerging from beneath cooling surfaces. The creature's front paws were digging into the edges of the crypt, pulling desperately downwards as its wings flapped and flailed in distress. Its snout was trailing mucus and blood into the abyss beneath it, and its eyes were rolling back in its blunt, malicious face.
“Now will you let me go?” Michael demanded, breaking free of Gabriel’s grip and launching forward.
Before anyone could do anything, he was descending upon the dragon to seize it by the collar and pull.
Lucifer, nearly wearing the skin of the beast, thrashed once, twice, and then in an almighty wrench, all three of them disappeared into the breach.
The second dragon followed, almost gamboling, its jaws open in anticipation.
There was darkness for a long moment in the mouth of the crypt, interrupted only by a moaning howl, and unearthly flashes of light.
Gabriel swore. “We can’t seal the crypt without the sword; if he doesn’t come back--”
“He will,” Crowley said grimly, appearing at their sides. He reached into his breast pocket, and pulled out a wad of silk handkerchief. The others stared at him in puzzlement. He glanced at them. “Search and rescue services,” he said smoothly, and tossed the whole thing, rather violently, into the chasm.
The silk fell away before it all disappeared from sight, and Dean got a flash of diamond brightness before it went. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
Gabriel was staring at Crowley like he’d lost his mind. “Whose was that?” he snarled, thunderous. “What right had you?”
“I was given express permission,” Crowley held up his hands. “I may have bent the conditions a bit, but I was following instructions.”
“Whose was it?” Gabriel demanded. “Who did you send after him who would so willingly take his place in agony?”
“Someone,” Crowley replied, “Who won’t.”
The ship groaned beneath their feet. There was a thunderous report from within the crypt, and then nothing.
“Now what?” Dean said.
“Now we wait,” Gabriel said tightly.
“The longer we wait, the more chance more things can escape and--”
“We. Wait,” Gabriel growled.
The silence was deafening.
The storm had ceased. Or at least, it had moved. Where before it circled them, one massive trapping wall around the ship like a whirlpool, it had moved to one side, and solidified. The dark clouds of demons were one thin column hovering above the sea, beset with the light of angels that held them like a cage.
And around them were the telltale formless signs of Dean’s army, eating away at the demons in slow inexorable snatches, like vultures tearing flesh from the bone.
“Jesus,” Sam said, stepping up to stand next to Dean.
Dean jumped and turned to glare at him. Sam shrugged.
“What? This seemed like a better view, and you all left me on the port side.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Dean said flatly.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“I don’t know about it,” Gabriel said. “But it’s something.” He tilted his head just slightly in Crowley’s direction, not looking at him directly. “Tell me who you sent down there,” he asked again, lowly.
Crowley arched his eyebrows in contemplation, and then shrugged. “I sent Azrael.”
Gabriel froze.
Dean blinked before frowning. “Azrael? As in, Death Azrael?”
“The same,” Crowley said. “She requested it.”
“She’s abandoning her duties,” Gabriel said tightly. "And you're letting her."
“Dude, I’m pretty sure you’ve got no room to complain about that,” Sam pointed out. And then to Crowley, “How the hell were you carrying Death around in your pocket?”
“I wasn’t,” Crowley replied. “I was carrying her grace. She hasn’t been able to hold it inside her since she took up the mantle of Death. Breaking it open is her ticket home.”
And on that note, the whole ship trembled, a guttural miles deep thrum like tectonic plates moving beneath them. Dean flared his wings to steady himself, and stepped right up to the edge of the upper deck to look down into the chasm below.
Where it had been an endless, inexplicable black, its infinite walls now flickered with a slowly growing light.
“Shield yourselves,” Gabriel said. “All of you.”
Dean threw himself at Sam, pulling them both down into a crouch, his wings enveloping them both, shutting his eyes just before catching a glimpse of the entire entrance of the crypt go from blackened emptiness to white, the iron deck of the cargo ship going from gray to red to white to falling away as magma.
He tightened his grip on Sam, and for what seemed the hundredth time that day, prayed his wings would hold.
***
Castiel tilted his head suddenly amid the crackling of burning wood and oil. “It’s started,” he said.
Bobby stood up. “They did it?”
“Mm,” Castiel said, and then he peered into the jug of the oil to check its contents. “Just enough,” he muttered.
“Just enough for what?” Bobby demanded. “I thought this thing was gonna ride the kick.”
“It will. But it also needs a focus. A gesture of intent, if you will.”
And without hesitation, Castiel lifted the jug above his head, and emptied it over himself.
Bobby moved without thinking; in three strides he was inside the ring of fire and tearing the jug out of the angel’s grip, throwing it with a crash to the side of the altar. “What the hell are you doing, son?” he shouted. “You can’t--”
“I can and I will,” Castiel answered calmly.
“Dean would never forgive you, and he'd never forgive me for letting you,” Bobby growled.
“You’re not letting me. I’m deciding.” Castiel reached into his pocket with his clean hand, and pulled out his phone. “You’re far from home. When this is over, call Dean or Gabriel and they will pick you up.”
Bobby glared at him. “Are they going to be picking up a body too?”
Castiel looked at him, and one corner of his lips twitched. “Hopefully not.”
“Then I ain’t gonna be needing your phone.”
“Keep it anyway.”
And with angelic inexorability, Castiel raised two fingers to Bobby’s head, and the next thing the hunter knew he was outside the church.
He didn’t even bother trying the doors. He just watched as smoke began to pour from the windows.
“Dean’s never gonna forgive me,” he murmured.
Inside, Castiel retrieved the lighter from where Bobby had first dropped it on the pews. His sleeve flared up immediately, which he ignored. Holding the small metallic item in front of him, he cocked his head for a moment, narrowed his eyes, and flicked the wheel.
Sparks flew up, and found fuel.
***
If Anna’s re-ascension into grace had felt like being caught in a firestorm, being in the radius of Azrael’s was like living on the surface of the sun.
“Dean. Dean.”
He could barely hear Sam over the roar of fire from the crypt. His brother was shifting in his hold, pulling away.
“You don’t have grace. You don’t have any protection, you’re burning up. Let me--”
“No. You’ll die.”
“I won’t.” Sam’s voice was urgent and earnest in his ear. “Believe me, I don’t want to die. But you will if you don’t let me help.”
Dean felt a fissure open in his wing, smelled burning flesh. It took a great deal of effort to speak rather than cry out. “How?” he said, through gritted teeth. He tilted his head up as far as he dared and opened his eyes.
For a second, Sam’s eyes looked golden. He shrugged in his helpless, believing way.
“Like this.”
He touched two fingers to Dean’s head.
***
The kick wasn’t anything like Bobby expected. He was waiting for a shockwave, or a ring of fire, anything.
Not the shivery, elusive feeling of the world slowing, breaking down invisibly somehow into component parts.
His skin contracted over unsteady nerves. He sat down abruptly on the steps of the church. He tilted his head up to look at the sky. There was nothing, except the slow progress of gunmetal clouds. But his gut knew just as well as his head that something was happening. He wondered if this was what animals felt before earthquakes hit.
He realized suddenly that the constant whooshing growl of oil fire had dipped into a gutteral rumble, something altogether unnatural. Staggering to his feet, he moved off of the steps down to the empty plaza to look back up at the massive domes of the orthodox church.
There was no sign of it being on fire anymore. Because as the rumble increased, moving into subsonic levels that made the earth shake, the only thing aflame it seemed was a slow scrawl of sigils and signs across the sky.
***
An eternity seemed to pass as Sam kept his hand on Dean’s forehead, eyes narrowed in concentration as the air itself seemed to be consumed by light, until finally, suddenly, it was gone.
It was as if someone had put out the sun.
Dean blinked and exhaled. “Well, now I can’t see a fucking thing,” he said hoarsely.
“Me neither,” Sam agreed, taking his hand back.
Dean flexed his wings carefully. The fissure stung hotly, but the rest of him felt oddly cool, untouched. “Thanks,” he said, eventually. “How’d you do it?”
As his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, Sam smirked and said cryptically, “Angel heartburn.”
Dean raised an eyebrow, but decided not to comment. He just crawled to his feet, and squinted to have a look around.
Most of the lower deck had melted clean through, the crypt opening now a black gaping maw that took up most of the back end of the ship. At the edge of the ragged opening stood Death--or rather, Azrael--as impeccably dressed as ever.
With her, stood Michael.
On unsteady legs, Dean lowered himself gingerly down the steps from the upper level to join them. Crowley and Gabriel were already there, peering down into the opening.
“Nothing else seems to be making a bid to come out,” Crowley commented.
Azrael looked at him with a fair share of irritation. “Breaking open my grace in there--” she said, and her voice sounded different now, laden with depth and unexpected irritation, “A condition I did not agree to, by the way, Crowley--was like cauterizing a wound. Other than Lucifer and the two dragons, nothing is down there that can break through.”
“And he is still down there,” Dean clarified. “You’re certain?”
“We left him in less than optimal condition,” Michael said quietly. “Though still alive.”
Dean glanced down, and then stepped to stand next to him. “Give me that,” he said, nodding downwards. “It’s killing you.”
Michael looked at the gray, mutilated hand at his side. “For a moment,” he said, turning his wrist slowly, painfully, “I believed--”
“Yeah,” Dean said, easing the sword out of the archangel’s grip, wincing at the charred flesh beneath. The sword was warm and sickly damp to the touch, like fevered skin. “We all start out believing.”
“We need to close the crypt,” Crowley said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “How does that go, exactly?”
Michael looked between him and Dean. “The blood of the Lamb, of course,” he said. “Yours and Dean’s.”
Dean backed away abruptly. “How much blood are we talking here?” he said warily.
Michael snorted. “You are not to be sacrificed, if that’s what you’re asking.” He looked back down, almost longingly at the chasm. Then he said, “If this had been as God had written, you would have needed only your human blood. That, and the beginning of Paradise. But we don’t have Paradise. Instead, we need a restoration of balance.”
“Get to the point,” Dean said.
Michael nodded. “What began as human, became dark, and then was cleansed by light. Both of you, in your separate ways, are the melding of humanity and Horsemen, Heaven and Hell. Your blood is the answer, and it always has been. But it’s the way of choice, this path that you’ve forged in hybridity against the will of God or anyone else, that will leave this planet whole.”
Sam blinked, then he looked over at Gabriel. “Dean’s human and horseman. I’m human and demon and...you planned that too, didn't you? Giving me angel stuff in New Mexico.”
Gabriel tilted his head. “Well...no. I was sort of expecting Deano here to cover the angelic part of things, but seeing as he lost that somewhere along the way, I can’t say I’m not glad for taking advantage of your hospitality for a while.”
“Jesus,” Dean said fervently.
“The sword, Dean,” Michael instructed. “We need your blood and Sam’s on it.”
Dean glanced at Sam and met his eyes. Sam nodded.
With a slight grimace, Dean set his palm on the edge of the blade and pulled, one short tight stroke. Then he handed it over for Sam to do the same. “Now what?” he asked, when Sam was done.
“Now,” Michael said, “Toss it over the crypt.”
“Like, all the way over?”
“I suppose 'into' would be a better way of putting it.”
“We’re arming Lucifer--”
“Dean. Just trust me.”
Dean sighed, and with a hard shake of his head, tossed the sword in a spinning arc over the abyss.
It didn’t fall inside. Instead, the blade seemed to just stop, spinning slower and slower until it hung like a compass needle over the crypt. When it stilled, there was a moment of nothing.
It glinted.
And like a coral reef coming to life, the ship’s mangled deck groaned and then shifted, becoming liquid at the edges again but not with heat, instead with the strange roundness of mercury, reaching tendrils upwards like plants seeking sunlight, but the sword was the sunlight here, the Winchesters’ blood jewel-like on its edges.
It was over in less than a minute.
One moment there was a hole into nothingness gaping impossibly from the deck, and the next there was only smooth metal, as new as it was coming out of the factory.
The sword was gone.
“That was super anticlimactic,” Dean commented.
“Don’t be so sure,” Azrael murmured.
***
The circle of fire in the sky closed, the last sigil burning at its edge. Bobby held his breath. The buzz was growing louder and louder. “Come on,” he said, under his breath, “Come on, you crazy sonovabitch.”
Almost on cue, a final plume of fire lit up the sky. The plaza had gathered a crowd by now, all of them looking up at the sky, rapid-fire Russian being exchanged while camera phones clicked and whirred. There was a collective gasp.
The plume resolved into massive, incandescent wings.
Chapter Twenty-Four.
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 03:21 (UTC)*blinks*
More coherent comments later...
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 10:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 04:19 (UTC)Yeah, I have no words except how amazing the imagery were. I caught a small typo Instead, their were. I believe you meant to write it as 'there' instead of 'their'.
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 10:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 04:25 (UTC)Okay, well. Wow, I'm kinda blown away right now. That was awesome. Like wow.
Dude, nothing I'm saying makes sense, that's how great this is.
But, but, one thing. CASTIEL!!!!!!! *cries* I know he'll be okay, 'cause you're not a terrible person, (how can you be with such awesome writing?) but still, it hurts my heart to see him do this. Alot like how the last SPN episode hurt me.
Anyway, I love you. Maybe in a 'I wanna have your childeren way' but not in the 'I wanna stalk you EVERYwhere way' luckily enough ;)
Just so you know ^_^
Oh, can't wait for more!!!!!
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 10:30 (UTC)Thank you for reading, I shall try to update as soon as I can!
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Date: 19 Dec 2010 04:25 (UTC)I'm just gonna go recover from this EPICNESS over here...
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Date: 19 Dec 2010 10:31 (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 04:32 (UTC)What happened to Cas? Is he dead or alive?
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 10:31 (UTC)Wow
Date: 19 Dec 2010 12:10 (UTC)Dean and Michael in the thick of it and burning with Luci's wrath, Sam and Gabby summoning the damn Dragons... Azrael Grace and Castiel...
What happened to Castiel?! Dean will deck him if he managed to try to beat his record of undeath deaths!
That was awesome! 8D
Winged Golden Tiger
Re: Wow
Date: 19 Dec 2010 16:10 (UTC)Glad you're enjoying it!
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 16:20 (UTC)This is utterly enthralling and amazing and holy shit, the imagery
(If Azrael's Grace was cracked open to free her, and someone needs to take her place, is Castiel about to step up? Or be stepped up?)
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Date: 19 Dec 2010 18:12 (UTC)(Bwahaha, we shall see!)
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Date: 19 Dec 2010 18:38 (UTC)Am speechless.
Wow.
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2010 22:53 (UTC)Thank you! Glad you're enjoying!
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Date: 20 Dec 2010 00:16 (UTC)Cant wait for an update just dude you win at spn fics!
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Date: 20 Dec 2010 13:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Dec 2010 08:49 (UTC)The archangel was crazier than Dean.
That made me lol so hard. Oh Michael. That Dean thinks this of you is just too hilarious for words. *giggles*
Heh. The angelic heartburn was helpful.
Oooh. Excellent use of Azrael. After all what could be more indestructible and resistance to being killed than Death.
When I read what Castiel is up to, pretty much all I could do was put my hands over my mouth and make strangled noises. Well, that and think that Dean is going to be so beyond pissed when he learns that Castiel covered himself in holy oil and then set himself on fire!
OMG! Need more. Soooo awesome.
no subject
Date: 23 Dec 2010 11:38 (UTC)Michael has serious issues. He's a matched pair for Dean if there ever was one! And so is Castiel, what with his unreasonable penchant for sacrifice. Dean is totally going to be pissed :P
Glad you're enjoying! I shall try to update as soon as I can!
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Date: 25 Dec 2010 22:35 (UTC)O_O WOW. THAT WAS SOME CRAZY SHIT OMG. So intense. I have to go lie down now and just think about how fucking awesome this story is. It would make such an amazing movie.
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Date: 26 Dec 2010 12:15 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Dec 2010 04:08 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Dec 2010 10:06 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Jan 2011 16:42 (UTC)Cas does make for agonizing cliffhangers. Be warned, I will be stalking you for update to this lovely read ;p
no subject
Date: 6 Jan 2011 18:19 (UTC)Stalk away, I'm pleased you like it so far! Hopefully my brain will cooperate so that I can update soon :P