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alchemyaliceAuthor: AlchemyAlice
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel
Spoilers: Season 5
Warnings: This chapter, given that it's Apocalypse time, bitches! was written under the influence of requiem masses, death metal, and excellent whiskey. It's all part of my process, dudes. Also, I should mention that further borrowing of Good Omens is afoot, because Odegra is too good of an idea to only use once. Oh, and cliffhanger. I'm sorry, but I felt like I shouldn't hold out on you guys, but at the same time, the Apocalypse is going to take more than one chapter to deal with.
Disclaimer: Riffing on stuff that isn’t mine.
X.
The hour before dawn is dull with ash. Dean can barely see it through the smog. It sucks to breathe, too, so rather than watch it on the balcony, he’s inside looking out from the living room. Sam emerges from one of the bedrooms, and Dean does a double-take.
“Dude. Dude. Did you--?”
“Shut up,” Sam says.
“Where is he now?”
“Starting the run. I’ll have to go soon.”
“Yeah,” Dean nods. He looks back out the window. “Auspicious day, huh?”
“What we’ve been waiting for,” Sam agrees. He looks at Dean. “You ready?”
“Born ready, bitch.”
“Jerk. Where’s Castiel?”
“Out. Putting the last touches on the Luxor.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
Dean swallows. “No. Michael had a word. We…disagree on some things.”
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
“Nah. Cas’s got my back.”
Sam huffs. “You should talk to him. Before this all goes down.”
“And say what, precisely?” Dean shoots back. “I’m sorry I asked you to defy your brother again, thanks for risking the wrath of the superior being hanging out inside me who can explode you even better than Raphael can?”
“It’s a good start, but you could tack on the part that would make it worth it for him, too,” Sam suggests.
Dean looks at him blankly. Sam throws his hands up in the air.
“Fucking hell…man up, Dean,” he snaps. “You know, I was all ready for this to happen in its own time, or whatever—“
“Wait, you were ready--?”
“Of course I was, Dean, I might be blind but I’m not that blind. My point is, you’ve just pushed it way farther than it ever had to be and I’m sick and tired of him looking at you like you’re going to leave and then somehow be happier without him, which we both know is fucking impossible—“
“Hey! Just because you and Gabriel can—”
“No, you need to tell him what the score is, because it’s not my job and it’s certainly not his, seeing as he’s the one who’s never done this before and doesn’t know how to even deal with what he’s feeling, let alone do something about it. It’s on you, okay? Jesus, you’re dense sometimes.”
Dean flinches a bit at that, and Sam should feel bad but he really doesn’t. Not when this could be solved so easily if Dean could just get over his qualms and take something for himself for once. If Gabriel’s taught him anything (and holy shit, there’s been a lot of teaching going around between them lately, which…never mind) it’s that Dean’s martyr complex goes far deeper than Sam’s ever will, and that it’s tied directly to a level of self-hatred that no one, but no one could think to mine in less than a lifetime.
Except, it seems, for Castiel, who went there the moment he fetched Dean out of Hell.
So yeah, Sam gets it now. And the fact that Dean doesn’t? Well, that’s just frustrating at this point.
Finally Dean takes a ragged breath and says, “Sam, he’s already falling, I can’t just…speed him along. I couldn’t do that to him. Not when we’re this close to putting everything right.”
“You just said it yourself,” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “He’s already falling. Soon enough, he’ll be fallen. It’s the Apocalypse. It may not even matter if--”
“No. Because if by some miracle we succeed…they can’t forgive him if he’s tainted. If I taint him. It’s his family, Sammy,” Dean glances over at him, tortured and resolute. Sam wants to shake him.
“Don’t you think it’s his choice then, Dean?” he asks.
“No. Because he’ll choose for me. And I’m not—“
“If you finish that sentence, I’ll kill you myself,” Sam replies flatly. “Jesus, Dean, you’re the fucking Chosen One. How much more worthy can you get?”
“Right now the guy who chose me is being a douchebag, so I don’t think it counts,” Dean mutters.
“He’ll still have family, dude. If he didn’t, do you really think Michael and Gabriel would be letting all of your little chick-flick moments with him slide? Disagreement or not, they’ll stand by him. I’ll stand by him.”
Dean looks up sharply at that. Sam rolls his eyes.
“What, d’you think I wouldn’t? You’re my brother. He saved your life, and apparently loves you enough to explode for you. Of course I’m gonna approve.”
They both look at the sky. A haze of orange has begun to creep along the horizon.
“It’s too late now, anyway,” Dean says, eyes too blank. “Time to fight.”
Sam shudders, just slightly, but he can still feel the echo of Gabriel’s breath on his cheek, and it strengthens him. He puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and pulls him into a hug. “Then I guess…I’ll see you,” he says thickly.
“Yeah. Go be Lucy’s bitch one last time. And then you come back. You come back, all right?” Dean says fiercely, gripping tight to him. Everything he knows and feels inside of him is screaming to hold his brother, keep holding him back; but he doesn’t, and he knows that in a few moments, he’ll let go.
Of course it would only take the end of the world for them to start dealing with their codependence. If he ever gets to meet God, Dean's going to accuse him of being the worst psychotherapist ever.
Sam nods against his shoulder. “I promise.” He goes to the elevator. The doors close on him. It’s the last Dean sees of him before the end of the world.
Dean looks out. The world already looks war-torn from here. The ash is blowing in great gusts, now, Lucifer’s presence keeping the sunlight sickly and pale in its wake. There are fires burning in the west—California, probably. He works his jaw, feeling Michael buzzing inside him, the general, the commander, the Patriot of God, and pulls his shirt up over his head. The ink on his back burns like electrical circuitry coming to life.
He takes the silver trumpet from the table, its contours tarnished and battered, and steps towards the sliding door. There will only be a few seconds outside the wards before Zachariah comes down on his head and Michael’s.
He will take them.
“I can’t believe I’m going into the Apocalypse shirtless,” he mutters. “This is some Rambo shit right here.”
Michael laughs from inside him. It’s a low and grim sound in his gut. They go forward.
The trumpet is already at his lips as he opens the door. The breath is in his lungs, held, trembling.
He shoves the door open.
The sound. The sound.
The Seventh Seal is a call to arms, a call to battle, a choir of a thousand voices erupting from a single source, it is sound and motion and a thousand myriad of other things he cannot even understand, but he feels it in his chest, the vibrations of battle undeniable. He could breathe into the trumpet forever, suddenly addicted to the feel of the sound and the things coming to life because of it.
As it sounds, it is answered by a thousand invisible wingbeats. They catch the sound and keep it. Dean can feel them, all of them, and it’s not just Michael giving him that sense any longer. He blows the horn, shutting his eyes against the ash, feeling the call thrum in his ribcage, igniting him.
A hand materializes out of nowhere and closes around his throat. He chokes. The sound dies at the source, but its echo resonates, triples back against the buildings of Las Vegas. It does not fall silent.
“Shut up,” Zachariah roars, appearing in front of his face and squeezing hard. “Shut the fuck up!”
“Too late, Daddy-O,” Dean wheezes, and Michael flares his wings. “Big brother knows best.”
Zachariah’s eyes suddenly widen; he recoils as if burned. “No. That’s impossible.”
Your show now, Dean thinks, Just for now, but take it while you can.
Michael comes forward like an eagle swooping in for the kill. He burns like a supernova inside Dean’s eyes, flares through like sparks along the lines of the sigils imprinted on Dean’s back.
“You will stand aside, brother,” he spits, and Zachariah cringes. “Heed the cry of your Father’s voice and go to war. Or I shall send you down to the Pit with the Morningstar, and you will know the sting of sulfur like the lowest of us do.”
“You are saturated with humanity,” Zachariah growls. “You are tainted with their stench and their flaws. Take what you can of Dean Winchester’s sorry state but join us in what is right. We will bring Paradise to Earth, as it was always meant to be.”
“There will be a time when Paradise comes to Earth. But it will be when the good of humanity is dead and gone, and revelation comes from our Father, not from the voices of angels.” Michael steps forward and seizes Zachariah by his lapels, slamming him up against the edge of the balcony. “Now do your duty, and fight, or forever be called a traitor.”
He pushes. Zachariah flails back, and disappears off the edge of the balcony. There is no sound of impact; he takes wing far before that. Michael watches him wink out of sight.
One more time, Dean. So that all can hear.
Unhindered, Dean lifts the trumpet again and takes up the call.
***
Castiel stands at the peak of the Luxor pyramid, and for a brief moment closes his eyes. He can see Dean on the balcony, trumpet to his lips, making the earth tremble. He has orders, orders from Dean himself, and not his brother residing inside, but even now he wants to defy them and be there at the beginning of the end, if only because Dean is alone in body if not in spirit, and he shouldn’t be. But under Dean’s authority, Castiel is a good soldier.
He stands his ground.
***
“Show me,” Sam says, trying to look as enraptured as he can with Gabriel’s touch still resonating on his skin. He can’t possibly regret what happened last night though, not when it’s giving him the strength to withstand this level of temptation. “What will you do to win?”
Lucifer smiles, caresses his chin, and snaps his fingers.
***
Even at half speed, they are almost at the speed of light. Gabriel leads them, darting between buildings in the only formation possible in this changed city. Their wings pummel the air, sifting through pavement and glass, bursting the bulbs of show lights along the marquees as they go, leaving sparks for the demons to chase after. There are no intersections, just one long line of overpasses and underpasses, all of them chasing the same consequences—
--And with a force like Meg on their tails, the consequences should be locking into place quite soon. Gabriel looks back over his shoulder, sees her grinning face, and smiles right back. He’s going to have to thank Crowley for this little piece of genius, if they actually manage to live through the day.
The angels fly faster, and feel the power whipping up in their wake.
***
There is a clash of sounds in the wake of the trumpet—on the one side, the beat of wings, light and hard against the air, and then beneath them, the low buzz of black clouds rising from sewer grates and basements. Dean looks down on it all.
Time now? he asks. He feels almost clinical, at this point. The tattoos on his back burn, but it’s a satisfactory burn, like the flexing of new muscles.
Yes, Michael answers. Time now.
The sword materializes in their hand.
Without fear, he steps onto the balcony rails, and lets himself fall.
***
They meet on the strip, the central line that Michael has left unchanged in all of the cityscape. And it is unlike anything any hunter has seen in their lifetimes. On the ground, angels within their vessels materialize and draw swords, guns, maces. They are barely contained within their corporeal hosts; Dean can see light bleeding through their eyes and in flashes along their backs, wings all flared like falcons about to duel.
Amongst them, scattered in rendering any form of ranks obsolete, the demons gather, eyes black. Amongst them, hellhounds prowl, invisible claws clicking on the concrete. Alistair is among them, wearing a man with sunken cheekbones and bad teeth. He looks hungry, expectant. Angel and demon stand together, like light and shadow embodied.
Dean scans for Lucifer, and doesn’t find him. The echoes of the trumpet are still sustaining, but now it’s in stasis, unending, waiting for a signal. Dean’s not about to give it.
Then, below the trumpet call, undercutting the whispers of wings and the buzz of demonic anger, he hears it. He can’t see him in the crowd, but he’d know that low tone anywhere.
Sam’s disembodied voice amid the throng is quiet, and deathly serious. “No. Fight your war in the vessel you have.”
Dean smiles. His sword bursts into flame just as Lucifer’s roar of frustration rends the morning.
Mortal eyes see a gang war. Supernatural eyes see the clashing of Titans.
The demons try to break ranks, and find they can’t. Some of the angels, unsure of who to follow with Zachariah fallen silent, do the same. But they all reach the bounds of Las Vegas and can do nothing but pour themselves back into battle, the sigil built into the winding singular course of Las Vegas’s new road plan holding them more effectively than any devil’s trap or ring of holy fire when alight with the circuitry of six angels and a dozen demons traversing its contours.
And suddenly the battle is trench warfare at its most ruthless and cunning. Dean sort of hates it, in the way that makes him revel in it. He hadn’t known about the herd mentality of angels, but Michael had counted on it. Now as they battle they call their brothers into the fray, pulling them from India, Zaire, Madagascar, Germany, Australia. And when they arrive, they can’t leave. Demons pour out of the ground, no word but Lucifer’s last cry to the Pit to go on, and find themselves with no choice but to fight for their lives.
***
Sam whirls. Lucifer has disappeared, but there are about nine pissed off demons in his place. He bites his lip. Draws the Colt from the back of his jeans.
“Come on, then,” he says. “Fight for your boss’s honor.”
They lunge.
***
Above the ground, wretched swirls of tar clash with the massive streaks of lightning that are angels in the stratosphere. Together, they block out the sunrise and turn the sky into a study in contrasts like strobe lights in a pitch-black club.
Dean is surrounded. He’s never felt so claustrophobic, not even in crypts or sewers.
Michael’s wings erupt from his back. He feels them like the purr of the Impala against his back, and all of a sudden he feels right at home. “I’m really glad your sword lights up,” he comments, and brings it down in a singing arc.
Demons crackle in his wake.
***
Castiel ducks, dodges and swings, Ruby’s knife supple in his left hand, Lucifer’s in his right. Weakened as he knows he is, he is no mortal, and with that knowledge he cuts a path through the chaos of Heaven and Hell, and feels when he takes injury only in the most cursory ways.
He sees Dean/Michael half a mile down the strip, flanked by Sophiel and Barachiel, burning away the lesser demons and engaging the greater of them with blades. Sam is fighting tooth and nail along with Gabriel, who has broken off from the circuit of the road-sigil and burns with the righteousness of his forgotten faith.
It takes longer to find Lucifer. He weaves amongst the battling troops, seemingly unconcerned, wings tucked close to him, almost unknowable. Castiel only spots him when he bends to whisper in the ear of another angel, and she falters suddenly, looking wildly around for the source of her sudden doubt. She does not see the rusty stiletto Alistair plunges into her throat.
Castiel narrows his eyes, and presses forward.
Dean, he calls. He is sowing doubt. You must bring him to me.
And how the hell am I supposed to do that? Dean demands, and Castiel can almost feel the shudder that runs through him as he finally finds an opening and tears into the vessel of Belial, his sword scalding the crown prince of Hell into nothing.
I don’t know, but you must do it. Castiel plunges his knife into the jaw of a charging hellhound and tosses it yelping aside.
Dean growls. Belial had been persistent, and now his muscles are burning with strain, unused to handling a sword instead of bowie knives and shotguns. Michael restores him somewhat, but they are both tiring. And the greatest battle has yet to come.
Let me come forward, Michael prods. Lucifer will come for me.
“Fine, buddy. Better you than me,” Dean mutters. Slips backward.
Michael surges, leaving Sophiel and Barachiel behind in the crowd with a passing message. Dean’s body still strains around him, but he remembers the motions of blade combat, and he pulls that soul-deep muscle memory forward to aid him. He cuts his way forward.
***
Lucifer feels him before he sees him. He turns, sniffs at the air.
“Michael,” he breathes. “So you’ve come after all.”
For the first time since the break of dawn, he draws a thin sword from the air. He winks out of sight.
***
“Coward,” Michael spits through Dean’s gritted teeth. He follows the trace of Lucifer’s blackened grace. Dean picks up on his thoughts, now projecting loudly in the archangel’s frustration and bloodlust.
Cas, he calls in the darkness. We can’t get him to you, not soon at least. We’ll get him there, but you’ll have to be ready.
I can still help my brothers, Castiel protests.
Then you had better be ready to bamf your sorry ass over at a moment’s notice, because that’s about all you’re going to have.
Fine. I will be ready.
Michael skids to a halt on the roof of the MGM Grand. Lucifer raises an eyebrow.
“Michael. I’m surprised. I thought Dean would never agree to this. How is Sam coping?”
Michael shrugs slightly. “Sam is fine, as I’m sure you’ve realized, given his resistance to your charms. He does, after all, still have his brother to rely on, among others.”
He nudges Dean forward, and soon Dean’s looking out from his own eyes comfortably. He slaps on a cocky grin, just to make sure Lucifer gets the point. “Heya, Lucy.”
Lucifer’s eyes widen slightly, but he collects himself disappointingly quickly.
“Dean,” he says, a bit sorrowfully. “You frustrate me.”
Dean shifts forward, and leans on his flaming sword, point resting on the concrete. “Why? Aren’t you glad to see your older brother again?”
“I always rejoice at the presence of my brother,” Lucifer nods, and indeed, when he looks at Dean, his gaze is not directed at Dean at all, but instead penetrates towards the light that bleeds through his skin. “But my frustration is not with you for taking him in. I’m merely disappointed that you haven’t been shredded in the process.”
“Mike’s accommodating like that,” Dean agrees. “He has this thing where he values people, which I’m sure you know nothing about.”
“He is merely doing his duty for his Father,” Lucifer says dismissively. “Always putting Daddy first, isn’t that right, Michael? Even when you and I could be masters of this place?”
“Well see, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Dean counters. “He’s not, alright? This isn’t a duty. It isn’t for any of us. We’re doing it because we want to save people.”
“You’re not doing much to convince me, given how often Zachariah has attempted to turn tail this day,” Lucifer points out, raising an eyebrow.
“Zach’s…not with us, precisely,” Michael says, sidling forward. He quirks a tired smile at his brother. “You presume too much, Morningstar.”
Lucifer seems to relax slightly, which Dean doesn’t really get, except maybe there’s comfort to be found in angel-to-angel communication. Even when apparently in to-the-death face-offs. Whatever, angels are weird.
“What, is Heaven divided yet again?” he inquires. “I’ve heard no news of such, except for Gabriel and Castiel’s petty defection.”
“Their defection, and mine,” Michael says lightly, but Dean can feel his wings flexing in massive shadows. “Just a faction of those who believe that now is not the time for war.”
“The signs are right,” Lucifer points out, but unevenness has crept into his voice.
“We’ve manipulated the signs for millennia. Surely even you know that.”
“Doesn’t make them less true.”
“I should really think they would. Brother,” Michael takes a step forward. “You, and so many others, have overstepped their bounds this time. I cannot in good conscience—“
“—What? Let me live? Try then, brother,” and Lucifer raises one deteriorating hand still inflamed with power. “Try to do what you could not commit to when this all began.”
“He can’t,” Dean says, with a smile. “But I will.”
Chapter Eleven.
