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alchemyaliceTitle: 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 | Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam looked up suddenly. “Do you feel that?”
Dean frowned. Or at least he tried to, but found it difficult to do so. It felt like...something he hadn’t felt in a long while. It was foreign and quiet and warm.
“Et in terra, pax,” Michael said.
“No way,” Gabriel breathed.
***
The wings were vast and effervescent. Fire billowed in their soft base folds, and then swirled out in great arcs as primaries. They stretched and unfolded above the burning church, and the air changed.
***
In Montana, the smouldering remains of an old farmhouse shivered, just slightly.
It began to rain, and putrid ash from the silhouette of broken wings began to seep into the ground.
What remained of Abaddon himself was mostly unrecognizable rot and flesh. From between shattered ribs, however, came the smallest hint of vibrant color.
A single violet, pushing towards the sun.
***
In Marrakech, Malaeka glanced up from a battered copy of The Big Sleep, and then paused.
The city had gone silent, the clamor of tourists and shopkeepers and bankers utterly gone. In its place, was the faint scent of freesias.
***
In New Mexico, a small group of survivors stepped out of their safe house.
***
The world calmed.
And the wings faded from sight, gone in curls of smoke along with the rest of the sigils.
***
Dean breathed out abruptly, wings sagging. “What was that?”
Even the battle over the water seemed to have ceased, the angels reducing to still points of blinding starlight, made only bearable to look upon by the strange lingering sheen of demonic smoke and the whirring presence of Dean’s army.
Michael looked out on the water. “The calm after the storm. Castiel has called a ceasefire.”
“Cas did this?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, “Apparently. Thing is, he shouldn’t have been able to. Only archangels wield that kind of power.”
Dean looked sharply at him. “How do you think he did it, then?”
Gabriel compressed his lips. “Well, either Dad’s staged another intervention, or…”
Sam watched from the side as Dean’s jaw tightened forcibly, no expression on his face, but unable to control how he unconsciously pulled his wings in closer.
“Or what?” Dean growled.
Sam’s phone rang.
***
Bobby pulled his gaze forcibly away from the fading silhouette in the sky and ignored the urge to just be still, just breathe. Instead, he ordered his legs to move, back towards the church that was still smoldering.
The metal of the door handles was blisteringly hot, so he pulled off his jacket and used it to shield his hands. The doors gave way with a groan, and promptly issued a plume of smoke that billowed out into Bobby’s face, making him cough and recoil. Waving his jacket in front of him to disperse it, he stepped cautiously inside.
The interior was a mess of black and gray, every inch sooty and uncomfortably hot, but it seemed that the actual fire had mostly gone out. The only surfaces that remained clean were, hauntingly, the original sigils Castiel had drawn out.
Stepping over crumbling pews and the remains of the carpeting on the aisle, Bobby approached the altar.
The motionless form of Castiel was half-draped across it, nearly unrecognizable.
A mess of ash was smeared over most of his skin, turning the spikes of his hair gray, and the trench coat was gone, as was his jacket. His legs were crumpled beneath him in a parody of kneeling, his torso and head only supported by the altar; one arm was flung across its surface. The empty jug of holy oil dangled loosely from his opposite hand.
“Shit,” Bobby said, and dug his phone out of his pocket.
***
Sam nearly jumped out of his skin. He fumbled the phone open with shaking hands. “Cas? Are you—?“
“This ain’t Cas. Is Dean there? Put Dean on the line, I was trying to call him but the line’s dead.”
Wordlessly and with growing dread, Sam handed over the phone. “It’s Bobby.”
Dean tensed, and snatched the phone out of his hands. “Bobby? What the hell happened, where’s Cas?”
He listened for a second. Then he snarled.
“Where the fuck is here? Russia’s a huge fucking country!”
Sam could hear as Bobby shouted back down the line, “Don’t raise your voice to me, boy! Get one of your angel friends to find him, and then get here.”
The line cut out, and Dean swore.
“I can find him,” Michael said, “If there is grace left in him.”
“And is there?” Dean demanded. “Is he okay?”
Michael looked at him with sympathy, and reached forward. “Let’s find out.”
***
It took several seconds for them to relocate as Michael searched out traces of Castiel’s grace to pinpoint him, several seconds in which Dean felt uncomfortably squeezed through spaces he was fairly certain he had no right, spiritually, biologically or molecularly, to be. When they emerged finally into somewhere recognizably on earth, Dean stumbled on landing.
“Dude, couldn’t you have looked for him before we took off? Seriously, if I get indigestion again from one of you feathery—oh Jesus Christ.”
The square was quiet, most of the crowd having dispersed. There were, however, sirens in the distance, and a few remaining onlookers who seemed torn between concern and bone-deep calm. They barely even gave the sudden appearance of Dean and Michael a second glance.
Dean stared up at the sigil slowly fading in the sky. “Is that--?”
“The signal for peace, yes. They’re inside,” Michael said.
Dean nodded, and they started forward.
Bobby looked up when they stepped in through the doors. “Took you long enough. Dean—“
“No,” Dean muttered, and then he darted forward, automatically disappearing and reappearing at Bobby’s side. “What happened?” he asked. His hands shook as he reached forward.
“Kicked me out of the damn building before he set the whole thing, and himself, on fire,” Bobby grunted. “Your angel’s crazier than a bag of cats. And I wouldn’t touch him, if I were you. Tried to get him up and nearly gave myself second degree burns.”
Feeling like the air had been sucked from the room, Dean wrapped one hand around Castiel’s shoulder, ignoring how his hand made an awful sizzling sound at the contact.
Bobby rolled his eyes, and Dean distantly heard him add, “...Or you can do what you want as usual. Idjit.”
He was pretty sure the Horseman skin that had grown back on him was blocking most of the pain of it anyway. Carefully, he eased Castiel away from the altar, catching him as he slumped back. Where the angel’s jaw lolled against his arm, he could feel the faintest flutter of a pulse. Something tight and awful inside him eased, though only slightly.
“Perhaps we should return to the crypt,” Michael suggested. “So that we can decide what to do next.” He remained near the door, as if unable to venture further inside. There was something tight in his voice that Dean couldn’t pinpoint, and a part of him didn’t want to. There was something wrong, and he didn’t—couldn’t—think about it just now. Not with Cas slumped against him, breathing shallowly.
“What do you mean, ‘next’?” Bobby said. “It’s over, isn’t it? We’ve stopped the Apocalypse, haven’t we?”
“In a singularly unprecedented way, yes,” Michael agreed slowly.
Bobby swore under his breath in exhausted disbelief. Dean just exhaled. It was the first time any of them had said it aloud.
Probably because admitting it felt like the start of a really terrible punch line. Probably because all he felt right now was dread.
Castiel was unmoving in his arms, nearly painful to the touch with heat. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “I’ll follow you and Bobby there.”
Michael gave him a knowing, unhappy look, and then nodded. He stepped forward towards Bobby, and in seconds, the two of them were gone.
Dean looked down at the mess in his arms. “Cas?” he whispered. Instinctively, he put one hand over his chest, flattening his palm over singed shirt cloth, trying to feel for that lock, that connection he’d pushed across in Marrakech.
He couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there.
***
While Sam paced on the deck, Gabriel turned to Azrael, eyeing her carefully. She noticed.
“Is there something you wish to say to me, Gabriel?” she said. They were standing at the rail of the ship, still looking out on the ocean and the strange, suspended spectacle of the battle in the distance.
“Just thinking,” he said lightly. “That you weren’t particularly surprised to see me join this side. Or, you know, to see me at all.”
“Being Death has certain privileges of perception,” Azrael replied. But then she quirked a smile. “That’s not what you really want to ask me, though.”
Gabriel grinned, but there was little humor behind it. “I didn’t just decide on a whim to be generous to the Winchesters and give them a leg up with War’s ring. I decided to only when I looked forward, and saw a changed future. A future with this,” he cast a hand out. “Thing is, such a vision should only be readily available, readily present, once I’d decided to make Dean put on the ring. Chicken and egg conundrum, that.”
Azrael waited expectantly, the smile still small and curved.
“So I was thinking, how’d I see that before I technically should’ve been able to? How’d that idea, that future, unveil itself? And then I asked myself, who could plant it there, if not the workings of collective angelic sight?” He cocked his head, grin fading. “It would have to be someone very powerful indeed. Someone with…’privileges of perception’, perhaps?”
And Azrael looked away “Well done,” she murmured.
“Why?” Gabriel hissed. “Why did you do it?”
“To be free,” she said calmly. “I am old, Gabriel, I’m older than you, I am older than Michael. I was the first.”
“That’s impossible. Michael is—“
“The first to stay an angel for more than a millisecond,” Azrael corrected. “For that was how long I was merely an angel. Father created me, and bid me become Death. And I obeyed.”
Gabriel looked at her, expression unexpectedly open. “Azrael—“
“Don’t pity me,” she cut him off. “It is kind of you, particularly after what you now know of recent events, but it is unnecessary. As you can see, I’ve made arrangements.”
He nodded slowly. And then his eyes widened. “21:4,” he said suddenly.
For the first time, Azrael smiled fully, eyes sparkling for the first time with something other than distant disinterest. “That’s right,” she said, meeting his eyes and taking in his shock with mirth. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
“Are you telling me,” Gabriel demanded, “That by preventing the Apocalypse, you prevented your own death?”
Azrael nodded, still smiling. “I shall not be Death, and I shall not die. And we are free from prophecy, all of us.”
Gabriel stared at her. “I think,” he said slowly, “That Lucifer was not the one we should have feared first.”
Azrael shrugged, in her strange, distant way. “I don’t think I’ve ever rebelled against our Father’s will,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve often suspected that he bid me take up the mantle of Death because he knew that he could trust me. He could trust me to be his failsafe.”
“By destroying his vision of the End?” Gabriel asked incredulously.
“If I thought life, real life over Paradise, was worth it,” Azrael answered. “And I’ve come to think, after taking life away since the universe began, that it is worth giving back.”
“It isn’t that simple, though. You know that.”
“Of course. There is always sacrifice. But that is as much part of life as anything else, don’t you think?”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “And don’t you think, much as I hate to admit it, that Dean has sacrificed enough?”
“Don’t you remember what I just said, Gabriel?” Azrael replied, quirking an eyebrow. “The time of prophecy is dead. Nothing is set in stone anymore, not even this. We all have choice now.”
Gabriel shook his head. “You should have been a Trickster instead,” he muttered.
There was a loud thump behind them, followed by Crowley cursing thoroughly. They both turned.
Bobby got to his feet, and glared. “What?” he asked. “I ain’t used to flying angel air, alright?”
Azrael looked at Gabriel
“Where’s Dean and Cas?” Sam demanded.
“They will be following soon,” Michael said. He looked at Gabriel with worry, however. “Castiel has made a sacrifice,” he said, more quietly.
Sam sucked in a breath. “No,” he said. “He can’t have. He isn’t—“
“He’s not dead,” Dean said. His wings were arched protectively over where he was crouched, Castiel’s limp form still unmoving. “But I don’t know what he is anymore. I can’t reach him.“ He looked up at Michael. “Tell me what to do.”
Michael looked at him heavily. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “He—“
“He burned his wings,” Gabriel said. “That was what he powered the spell with.”
“Is he fallen, then?” Sam asked, hushed.
Gabriel shook his head. “He still has grace, or Michael wouldn’t have been able to find him. But Dean's right, he’s not an angel anymore.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Dean snarled. “Tell me you know that much, at least.”
“Angels don’t survive without their wings,” Michael said. “They can’t support their grace without them, and so they burn out. I’m sorry.”
“No. No, there has to be another way, he doesn’t die like this, not after it’s over,” he said fiercely, wings tightening, arching around him and Castiel.
“Dean, you’re burning up,” Gabriel said quietly. “You hold onto him any longer, and he’ll barbecue you.”
“I’m not letting him go.”
“Dean—“
“Shut up, Sammy. There is another way, and one of you sons of bitches isn’t saying it. Tell me. Now.”
Very quietly, Crowley cleared his throat. Dean swung his head around to look at him. “You got something to say?” he demanded.
“I just wished to point out,” Crowley said, looking at his nails, “That you are a human with wings. Quite unnatural. And Castiel is currently an angel without wings. Also, quite unnatural. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Is that even possible?” Sam said. “I mean, Dean has wings because of being a Horseman, not because he’s part angel.”
“Don’t ask me,” Crowley held up his hands. “This has never happened before, so far as I know.”
“It’s possible,” Azrael cut in. “But I cannot allow it.”
Dean growled. “And why fucking not?”
Gabriel sighed. Dean glared at him. “Why?” he repeated, so low his voice shook. Sam swallowed. He didn’t think he’d ever heard his brother sound so dangerous.
Gabriel slid his gaze over to Azrael with surprising bitterness. “You’re the one who did this,” he said. “You tell him.”
Azrael was unaffected. She said, “Because you are my heir. My successor as Death.”
Sam froze. And Dean’s face went carefully, completely blank.
“No,” Dean said, toneless. “No. You can’t ask that of me.”
“There can’t just not be Death, Dean,” Gabriel said, his entire body so still. “Azrael’s left a vacuum, and ever since you took up War’s ring, she named you as her inheritor.”
Dean closed his eyes.
Clanging like bells, that same conversation echoed in Dean’s ears as he sat frozen on the ground, Cas burning against him. That conversation over chisels and bloody hands in a frozen Houston office building.
“If you’d let me kill this city, you would have felt it. And it would have felt like coming home.”
“Let me,” Sam said quietly. “Let me take his place.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Winchesters. Same lines all the time. And you can’t, as it happens. You aren’t a Horseman. Dean is.”
“Yet Azrael wasn’t a Horseman, originally. She was an angel.”
Dean turned sharply. Michael lifted his chin, his eyes steady.
Azrael, unseen, curved her mouth to an odd, softer smile than before.
Gabriel exhaled like he’d been punched. “Brother, no.”
“Why not?” Michael asked calmly. “My last duty has been fulfilled, albeit not in the way that was written. And I...I owe penance.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Gabriel said, and he sounded desperate now, raw in ways Dean had never seen him. He pointed accusingly back at Azrael. "This isn't how it has to be, this is her doing, you can't--"
“It is necessary," Michael cut him off. His gaze flicked to Azrael for just a moment, understanding in his gaze. She nodded. The archangel closed his eyes briefly, and then turned to Dean. "You remember what Azrael said to you? Heaven’s supremacy will be challenged after this, with the end of our prophesied years. As Death, I can defend it.”
“That would be satisfactory,” Azrael said, still and demure. “And if you agree, then we don’t have much time.”
Dean looked up at Michael, almost unseeing. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the archangel replied, his expression strange and inscrutable. “Save Castiel.”
Dean swallowed, and turned back to Azrael. “Tell me how.”
“You can’t do it alone,” Azrael said. “And it will hurt.”
“Tell me how.”
She drew a sword from the sleeve of her tailored jacket. It looked much the same as any angelic blade, all slim smooth lines and stout unadorned handle. It was tarnished, though, and dark with rust. “First, I take them from you,” she said quietly. “And then, you gift them to his form.”
“Oh my god,” Sam said faintly.
Dean just swallowed again, with slightly more difficulty. He eyed the blade. “That thing’d better be sharp. And sanitary,” he added.
She smiled. “It is both.”
She knelt behind him, and then Dean felt the cool of sharp metal against the base of his wing. “Are you sure you want to do this?” the angel said into his ear.
Dean looked down at the crumpled form in his arms. “It’s Cas,” he said simply.
He felt her nod.
She said, “Then I will be quick.”
Chapter Twenty-Five.
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
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam looked up suddenly. “Do you feel that?”
Dean frowned. Or at least he tried to, but found it difficult to do so. It felt like...something he hadn’t felt in a long while. It was foreign and quiet and warm.
“Et in terra, pax,” Michael said.
“No way,” Gabriel breathed.
***
The wings were vast and effervescent. Fire billowed in their soft base folds, and then swirled out in great arcs as primaries. They stretched and unfolded above the burning church, and the air changed.
***
In Montana, the smouldering remains of an old farmhouse shivered, just slightly.
It began to rain, and putrid ash from the silhouette of broken wings began to seep into the ground.
What remained of Abaddon himself was mostly unrecognizable rot and flesh. From between shattered ribs, however, came the smallest hint of vibrant color.
A single violet, pushing towards the sun.
***
In Marrakech, Malaeka glanced up from a battered copy of The Big Sleep, and then paused.
The city had gone silent, the clamor of tourists and shopkeepers and bankers utterly gone. In its place, was the faint scent of freesias.
***
In New Mexico, a small group of survivors stepped out of their safe house.
***
The world calmed.
And the wings faded from sight, gone in curls of smoke along with the rest of the sigils.
***
Dean breathed out abruptly, wings sagging. “What was that?”
Even the battle over the water seemed to have ceased, the angels reducing to still points of blinding starlight, made only bearable to look upon by the strange lingering sheen of demonic smoke and the whirring presence of Dean’s army.
Michael looked out on the water. “The calm after the storm. Castiel has called a ceasefire.”
“Cas did this?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, “Apparently. Thing is, he shouldn’t have been able to. Only archangels wield that kind of power.”
Dean looked sharply at him. “How do you think he did it, then?”
Gabriel compressed his lips. “Well, either Dad’s staged another intervention, or…”
Sam watched from the side as Dean’s jaw tightened forcibly, no expression on his face, but unable to control how he unconsciously pulled his wings in closer.
“Or what?” Dean growled.
Sam’s phone rang.
***
Bobby pulled his gaze forcibly away from the fading silhouette in the sky and ignored the urge to just be still, just breathe. Instead, he ordered his legs to move, back towards the church that was still smoldering.
The metal of the door handles was blisteringly hot, so he pulled off his jacket and used it to shield his hands. The doors gave way with a groan, and promptly issued a plume of smoke that billowed out into Bobby’s face, making him cough and recoil. Waving his jacket in front of him to disperse it, he stepped cautiously inside.
The interior was a mess of black and gray, every inch sooty and uncomfortably hot, but it seemed that the actual fire had mostly gone out. The only surfaces that remained clean were, hauntingly, the original sigils Castiel had drawn out.
Stepping over crumbling pews and the remains of the carpeting on the aisle, Bobby approached the altar.
The motionless form of Castiel was half-draped across it, nearly unrecognizable.
A mess of ash was smeared over most of his skin, turning the spikes of his hair gray, and the trench coat was gone, as was his jacket. His legs were crumpled beneath him in a parody of kneeling, his torso and head only supported by the altar; one arm was flung across its surface. The empty jug of holy oil dangled loosely from his opposite hand.
“Shit,” Bobby said, and dug his phone out of his pocket.
***
Sam nearly jumped out of his skin. He fumbled the phone open with shaking hands. “Cas? Are you—?“
“This ain’t Cas. Is Dean there? Put Dean on the line, I was trying to call him but the line’s dead.”
Wordlessly and with growing dread, Sam handed over the phone. “It’s Bobby.”
Dean tensed, and snatched the phone out of his hands. “Bobby? What the hell happened, where’s Cas?”
He listened for a second. Then he snarled.
“Where the fuck is here? Russia’s a huge fucking country!”
Sam could hear as Bobby shouted back down the line, “Don’t raise your voice to me, boy! Get one of your angel friends to find him, and then get here.”
The line cut out, and Dean swore.
“I can find him,” Michael said, “If there is grace left in him.”
“And is there?” Dean demanded. “Is he okay?”
Michael looked at him with sympathy, and reached forward. “Let’s find out.”
***
It took several seconds for them to relocate as Michael searched out traces of Castiel’s grace to pinpoint him, several seconds in which Dean felt uncomfortably squeezed through spaces he was fairly certain he had no right, spiritually, biologically or molecularly, to be. When they emerged finally into somewhere recognizably on earth, Dean stumbled on landing.
“Dude, couldn’t you have looked for him before we took off? Seriously, if I get indigestion again from one of you feathery—oh Jesus Christ.”
The square was quiet, most of the crowd having dispersed. There were, however, sirens in the distance, and a few remaining onlookers who seemed torn between concern and bone-deep calm. They barely even gave the sudden appearance of Dean and Michael a second glance.
Dean stared up at the sigil slowly fading in the sky. “Is that--?”
“The signal for peace, yes. They’re inside,” Michael said.
Dean nodded, and they started forward.
Bobby looked up when they stepped in through the doors. “Took you long enough. Dean—“
“No,” Dean muttered, and then he darted forward, automatically disappearing and reappearing at Bobby’s side. “What happened?” he asked. His hands shook as he reached forward.
“Kicked me out of the damn building before he set the whole thing, and himself, on fire,” Bobby grunted. “Your angel’s crazier than a bag of cats. And I wouldn’t touch him, if I were you. Tried to get him up and nearly gave myself second degree burns.”
Feeling like the air had been sucked from the room, Dean wrapped one hand around Castiel’s shoulder, ignoring how his hand made an awful sizzling sound at the contact.
Bobby rolled his eyes, and Dean distantly heard him add, “...Or you can do what you want as usual. Idjit.”
He was pretty sure the Horseman skin that had grown back on him was blocking most of the pain of it anyway. Carefully, he eased Castiel away from the altar, catching him as he slumped back. Where the angel’s jaw lolled against his arm, he could feel the faintest flutter of a pulse. Something tight and awful inside him eased, though only slightly.
“Perhaps we should return to the crypt,” Michael suggested. “So that we can decide what to do next.” He remained near the door, as if unable to venture further inside. There was something tight in his voice that Dean couldn’t pinpoint, and a part of him didn’t want to. There was something wrong, and he didn’t—couldn’t—think about it just now. Not with Cas slumped against him, breathing shallowly.
“What do you mean, ‘next’?” Bobby said. “It’s over, isn’t it? We’ve stopped the Apocalypse, haven’t we?”
“In a singularly unprecedented way, yes,” Michael agreed slowly.
Bobby swore under his breath in exhausted disbelief. Dean just exhaled. It was the first time any of them had said it aloud.
Probably because admitting it felt like the start of a really terrible punch line. Probably because all he felt right now was dread.
Castiel was unmoving in his arms, nearly painful to the touch with heat. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “I’ll follow you and Bobby there.”
Michael gave him a knowing, unhappy look, and then nodded. He stepped forward towards Bobby, and in seconds, the two of them were gone.
Dean looked down at the mess in his arms. “Cas?” he whispered. Instinctively, he put one hand over his chest, flattening his palm over singed shirt cloth, trying to feel for that lock, that connection he’d pushed across in Marrakech.
He couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there.
***
While Sam paced on the deck, Gabriel turned to Azrael, eyeing her carefully. She noticed.
“Is there something you wish to say to me, Gabriel?” she said. They were standing at the rail of the ship, still looking out on the ocean and the strange, suspended spectacle of the battle in the distance.
“Just thinking,” he said lightly. “That you weren’t particularly surprised to see me join this side. Or, you know, to see me at all.”
“Being Death has certain privileges of perception,” Azrael replied. But then she quirked a smile. “That’s not what you really want to ask me, though.”
Gabriel grinned, but there was little humor behind it. “I didn’t just decide on a whim to be generous to the Winchesters and give them a leg up with War’s ring. I decided to only when I looked forward, and saw a changed future. A future with this,” he cast a hand out. “Thing is, such a vision should only be readily available, readily present, once I’d decided to make Dean put on the ring. Chicken and egg conundrum, that.”
Azrael waited expectantly, the smile still small and curved.
“So I was thinking, how’d I see that before I technically should’ve been able to? How’d that idea, that future, unveil itself? And then I asked myself, who could plant it there, if not the workings of collective angelic sight?” He cocked his head, grin fading. “It would have to be someone very powerful indeed. Someone with…’privileges of perception’, perhaps?”
And Azrael looked away “Well done,” she murmured.
“Why?” Gabriel hissed. “Why did you do it?”
“To be free,” she said calmly. “I am old, Gabriel, I’m older than you, I am older than Michael. I was the first.”
“That’s impossible. Michael is—“
“The first to stay an angel for more than a millisecond,” Azrael corrected. “For that was how long I was merely an angel. Father created me, and bid me become Death. And I obeyed.”
Gabriel looked at her, expression unexpectedly open. “Azrael—“
“Don’t pity me,” she cut him off. “It is kind of you, particularly after what you now know of recent events, but it is unnecessary. As you can see, I’ve made arrangements.”
He nodded slowly. And then his eyes widened. “21:4,” he said suddenly.
For the first time, Azrael smiled fully, eyes sparkling for the first time with something other than distant disinterest. “That’s right,” she said, meeting his eyes and taking in his shock with mirth. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
“Are you telling me,” Gabriel demanded, “That by preventing the Apocalypse, you prevented your own death?”
Azrael nodded, still smiling. “I shall not be Death, and I shall not die. And we are free from prophecy, all of us.”
Gabriel stared at her. “I think,” he said slowly, “That Lucifer was not the one we should have feared first.”
Azrael shrugged, in her strange, distant way. “I don’t think I’ve ever rebelled against our Father’s will,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve often suspected that he bid me take up the mantle of Death because he knew that he could trust me. He could trust me to be his failsafe.”
“By destroying his vision of the End?” Gabriel asked incredulously.
“If I thought life, real life over Paradise, was worth it,” Azrael answered. “And I’ve come to think, after taking life away since the universe began, that it is worth giving back.”
“It isn’t that simple, though. You know that.”
“Of course. There is always sacrifice. But that is as much part of life as anything else, don’t you think?”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “And don’t you think, much as I hate to admit it, that Dean has sacrificed enough?”
“Don’t you remember what I just said, Gabriel?” Azrael replied, quirking an eyebrow. “The time of prophecy is dead. Nothing is set in stone anymore, not even this. We all have choice now.”
Gabriel shook his head. “You should have been a Trickster instead,” he muttered.
There was a loud thump behind them, followed by Crowley cursing thoroughly. They both turned.
Bobby got to his feet, and glared. “What?” he asked. “I ain’t used to flying angel air, alright?”
Azrael looked at Gabriel
“Where’s Dean and Cas?” Sam demanded.
“They will be following soon,” Michael said. He looked at Gabriel with worry, however. “Castiel has made a sacrifice,” he said, more quietly.
Sam sucked in a breath. “No,” he said. “He can’t have. He isn’t—“
“He’s not dead,” Dean said. His wings were arched protectively over where he was crouched, Castiel’s limp form still unmoving. “But I don’t know what he is anymore. I can’t reach him.“ He looked up at Michael. “Tell me what to do.”
Michael looked at him heavily. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “He—“
“He burned his wings,” Gabriel said. “That was what he powered the spell with.”
“Is he fallen, then?” Sam asked, hushed.
Gabriel shook his head. “He still has grace, or Michael wouldn’t have been able to find him. But Dean's right, he’s not an angel anymore.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Dean snarled. “Tell me you know that much, at least.”
“Angels don’t survive without their wings,” Michael said. “They can’t support their grace without them, and so they burn out. I’m sorry.”
“No. No, there has to be another way, he doesn’t die like this, not after it’s over,” he said fiercely, wings tightening, arching around him and Castiel.
“Dean, you’re burning up,” Gabriel said quietly. “You hold onto him any longer, and he’ll barbecue you.”
“I’m not letting him go.”
“Dean—“
“Shut up, Sammy. There is another way, and one of you sons of bitches isn’t saying it. Tell me. Now.”
Very quietly, Crowley cleared his throat. Dean swung his head around to look at him. “You got something to say?” he demanded.
“I just wished to point out,” Crowley said, looking at his nails, “That you are a human with wings. Quite unnatural. And Castiel is currently an angel without wings. Also, quite unnatural. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Is that even possible?” Sam said. “I mean, Dean has wings because of being a Horseman, not because he’s part angel.”
“Don’t ask me,” Crowley held up his hands. “This has never happened before, so far as I know.”
“It’s possible,” Azrael cut in. “But I cannot allow it.”
Dean growled. “And why fucking not?”
Gabriel sighed. Dean glared at him. “Why?” he repeated, so low his voice shook. Sam swallowed. He didn’t think he’d ever heard his brother sound so dangerous.
Gabriel slid his gaze over to Azrael with surprising bitterness. “You’re the one who did this,” he said. “You tell him.”
Azrael was unaffected. She said, “Because you are my heir. My successor as Death.”
Sam froze. And Dean’s face went carefully, completely blank.
“No,” Dean said, toneless. “No. You can’t ask that of me.”
“There can’t just not be Death, Dean,” Gabriel said, his entire body so still. “Azrael’s left a vacuum, and ever since you took up War’s ring, she named you as her inheritor.”
Dean closed his eyes.
Clanging like bells, that same conversation echoed in Dean’s ears as he sat frozen on the ground, Cas burning against him. That conversation over chisels and bloody hands in a frozen Houston office building.
“If you’d let me kill this city, you would have felt it. And it would have felt like coming home.”
“Let me,” Sam said quietly. “Let me take his place.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Winchesters. Same lines all the time. And you can’t, as it happens. You aren’t a Horseman. Dean is.”
“Yet Azrael wasn’t a Horseman, originally. She was an angel.”
Dean turned sharply. Michael lifted his chin, his eyes steady.
Azrael, unseen, curved her mouth to an odd, softer smile than before.
Gabriel exhaled like he’d been punched. “Brother, no.”
“Why not?” Michael asked calmly. “My last duty has been fulfilled, albeit not in the way that was written. And I...I owe penance.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Gabriel said, and he sounded desperate now, raw in ways Dean had never seen him. He pointed accusingly back at Azrael. "This isn't how it has to be, this is her doing, you can't--"
“It is necessary," Michael cut him off. His gaze flicked to Azrael for just a moment, understanding in his gaze. She nodded. The archangel closed his eyes briefly, and then turned to Dean. "You remember what Azrael said to you? Heaven’s supremacy will be challenged after this, with the end of our prophesied years. As Death, I can defend it.”
“That would be satisfactory,” Azrael said, still and demure. “And if you agree, then we don’t have much time.”
Dean looked up at Michael, almost unseeing. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the archangel replied, his expression strange and inscrutable. “Save Castiel.”
Dean swallowed, and turned back to Azrael. “Tell me how.”
“You can’t do it alone,” Azrael said. “And it will hurt.”
“Tell me how.”
She drew a sword from the sleeve of her tailored jacket. It looked much the same as any angelic blade, all slim smooth lines and stout unadorned handle. It was tarnished, though, and dark with rust. “First, I take them from you,” she said quietly. “And then, you gift them to his form.”
“Oh my god,” Sam said faintly.
Dean just swallowed again, with slightly more difficulty. He eyed the blade. “That thing’d better be sharp. And sanitary,” he added.
She smiled. “It is both.”
She knelt behind him, and then Dean felt the cool of sharp metal against the base of his wing. “Are you sure you want to do this?” the angel said into his ear.
Dean looked down at the crumpled form in his arms. “It’s Cas,” he said simply.
He felt her nod.
She said, “Then I will be quick.”
Chapter Twenty-Five.
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Date: 13 Jan 2011 23:06 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:17 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Jan 2011 23:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 00:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:21 (UTC)But I'm glad you like it anyway!
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 02:12 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 02:36 (UTC)I cannot wait for the next part.
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:22 (UTC)Glad you're enjoying! :D
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 04:03 (UTC)Daaamn. My love for this little slice of epicness only grows with each chapter. Keep it up and I'll be able to bottle it up and sell it on E-Bay! *grins*
Have to say, my favorite part this time was the reveal of Azrael as the first angel, a very awesome twist that makes perfect sense ^_^
Much loves to you!!!
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 12:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 13:08 (UTC)I only hope Dean will somehow keep his wings: If he can save Cas giving them to him it's great... but it'll sadden me to see him without them... TT__TT
(please, have him keeping his badass spiky wings!!)
That was great!!.
Winged Golden Tiger
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 18:42 (UTC)To be fair, having wings in daily life is kind of difficult, but we shall see :P
Thanks for reading and enjoying, as always!
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Date: 14 Jan 2011 19:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2011 23:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Jan 2011 06:36 (UTC)Also, there is something very heartrending about Michael's decision to be Death. I think I feel that way because of how Death can only enter Heaven when there is a death in heaven. And the idea of Michael being kept out of his home make me ache for him. Oh Michael.
I'll also wondering how the loss of wings is going to affect Dean. It's not like he'll go back to being human, he's stuck as human/Horseman hybrid. And I'm intriguied as how how the Horseman wings will affect Castiel.
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Date: 15 Jan 2011 12:29 (UTC)Somehow I always end up giving Michael the short end of the stick, even though I really like him. 'Oh Michael' indeed. I'm going to have to write a story with a happy ending for him sometime.
Anyway, thank you for reading and commenting as always, and I'm so glad you're continuing to enjoy it!
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Date: 23 Jan 2011 01:08 (UTC)I really can't.
Wow.
You know that feeling when you get punched in the gut? Well, it's not exactly like that, because part of me saw part of this coming (which is a glorious good point, because plot twists that don't come completely out of nowhere and at the same time are still surprising and breath-stealing are the best), but I definitely do feel winded, and waiting for my breath to come back. Oh, next chapter, please be here soon *longs for it*
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Date: 23 Jan 2011 23:00 (UTC)And never fear, I'm halfway through the next chapter, so hopefully it shouldn't be too long :)
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Date: 28 Jan 2011 13:21 (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the story though, thank you :)
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Date: 3 Feb 2011 08:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Feb 2011 13:09 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Feb 2011 09:15 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Feb 2011 23:38 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Feb 2011 16:11 (UTC)i just read this in one sitting and frankly i'm speechless.. what a fantastic season 5 this would have made..
can you jimmy it about and offer it as season 7?.. please?.. pretty please with jam on top??
i can't wait to read more.. thank you *so* much for sharing this..:)
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Date: 6 Feb 2011 22:17 (UTC)Honestly, I've completely lost track of season 6, so I'm just pretending this is taking up season 6 and 7, as well as re-working half of season 5 :P
It's my absolute pleasure, thank you so much for reading and commenting :)
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Date: 7 Feb 2011 08:34 (UTC)As expected I am up too late reading this, but at least I have the hint that things will work out in the end. *hugs Cas and Dean*
Thanks for the awesome ride so far!
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Date: 7 Feb 2011 09:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Feb 2011 20:34 (UTC)Just...OMG
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Date: 8 Feb 2011 18:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Feb 2011 03:35 (UTC)I just read everything in one sitting. So, so so much awesome. *stalks for update*
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Date: 8 Feb 2011 18:04 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Feb 2011 10:41 (UTC)Poor Michael! He can't ever go home, can he? I love what you've done with the cahracter though-- so much more real and better than what Show did (which was pure FAIL) with him, such a waste.
God. Just-- GOD. Just read everything longish you had up in one sitting-- Dies Irae, and this, and every chapter was stringing my nerves on a line and gut punching me at every turn. *shivers* Need to recover from the massive OD of awesome, because your writing? Holy fuckin' BBQ it is mighty great. You've spoiled me for just about every other SPN fic out there for a good 6 months, you know that? They're all going to look faded and pitiful next to the multiple supernovae that is THIS, your journal postings.
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Date: 8 Feb 2011 18:28 (UTC)And I'm incredibly flattered you saw fit to go through both this and Dies Irae. Thank you so much, it's so lovely to hear such wonderful comments. I'm so pleased you're enjoying these scribblings. Thank you again for reading and commenting :)
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Date: 9 Feb 2011 01:57 (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Feb 2011 13:45 (UTC)And it shall continue to be continued until it's finished, I promise! I'm determined :D
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Date: 16 Feb 2011 06:11 (UTC)Wow.
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Date: 16 Feb 2011 15:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2011 13:00 (UTC)Crowley, ever the voice of reason.