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alchemyaliceTitle: On the Wings of War
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but probably 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 discreet. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: The next couple of chapters are extremely gory, so just be aware.
Prologue | Chapter One
Chapter Two
The ritual was pretty simple, as rituals go. Mostly because it wasn’t a ritual for archangels—it was one for Tricksters.
“But, he’s not a real Trickster,” Dean argued. “Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Like I said before,” Castiel said, “Gabriel has undergone transformation, of a sort. He’s between worlds, existing as both archangel and pagan god, and so long as we summon one of those two parts, he will come.”
So they laid out herbs and candles, and Sam went to the local butcher’s for a measure of calf’s blood that they poured into an old tin can along with lavender and chamomile. By the time they’re finished, it smelled like the basement of an old funeral parlor, flowers and wet copper and a sweet-sharp tang of chemical. Castiel lit the last candle, said a brief prayer, and then they waited.
Several minutes passed. And then like he always had been, Gabriel’s there.
“Winchesters,” he said, his face uncharacteristically blank. “Castiel. Long time, no see.”
“Reason for that,” Dean quipped. Castiel glared at him.
“Now is not the time,” he said. He looked at Gabriel. “I’m afraid we’re in need of your assistance.”
Gabriel…hadn’t taken his eyes off of Dean. “I can see that,” he agreed lightly, but his tone didn’t match up with his stillness. “But what makes you so sure I’d be willing to give it?”
There’s a beat of silence, and then Dean went out on a limb. “Do you think Michael will want a vessel that’s infected with War juice?”
Gabriel twitched but waited, his eyes narrowed. Dean made a frustrated noise and spelled it out.
“Look, you wanted us to play ball. Well now, even if we wanted to, we can’t. So help us find an alternative, or the world goes to Lucifer. No trick in the world is gonna fix that, and if you run away from this now then you’re an even bigger dick than the rest of your brothers.”
They were caught in Gabriel’s silence for what seemed an age. And then the archangel seemed to shudder slightly, like he was adjusting to a new skin.
“Well, Dean. Do you want the long version, or the short version?”
“Short,” Dean said.
“Long,” Sam said at the same time. They glared at each other.
Gabriel clicked his tongue at them both. “Always so difficult. Here it goes, kiddies: the four Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They’re another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call." He finally moved, and it’s to drag his focus back to Dean, as if it’s the last thing he wanted to do. "They are separate. They are discreet. They are neutral. And you, Dean Winchester, are not built like them."
“What’s happening to me, then?” Dean asked. “Or do you want to keep building the tension in this room a little longer?”
Gabriel didn’t even smile. And Sam was now officially more terrified than angry. There was a pause, and Sam couldn't bring himself to ask the question, Will he turn into something we'll have to kill? Because that shit? He was not ready for it, and never would be.
Then Gabriel said, “I don’t know, Dean. This was never meant to happen. That’s what happens when you go off book. But you won’t be entirely human for very much longer.”
Dean worked his jaw, and then said, “Okay. Okay, Cas—cut it off.”
“Too late for that now, I’m afraid,” Gabriel said.
“What do you mean?” Dean rounded on him.
“I mean, kiddo, that even if you decide to lop off a digit, the damage has been done. That ring’s got its claws in you, and it ain’t letting go.”
“Why would it matter when we cut it off the actual Horsemen, then?” Sam asked, not willing to think about the more horrifying implications of this conversation.
“Because they’re Horsemen?” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. “They’re built to withstand these kind of things. For them, the rings are just channeling devices, keys to their own innate power. But put a ring on a mortal body, and the thing’s not just unlocking or channeling, it’s building bridges and setting up shop because it doesn’t have enough to initially work with.”
“Okay, you’re making them sound alive, and that is really freaking me out,” Dean said flatly.
Gabriel tilted his head back and forth as if to say po-tay-to, po-tah-to. “They aren’t, per se. But they are objects of astronomical power, and with astronomical power comes at least a certain amount of autonomy. And now, one of them’s invested in you. Congrats.”
Sam was watching Dean as Gabriel talked, trying to parse his expression. He knew all of Dean’s faces, by now—the different shades of stillness that marked anger, boredom, despair, sorrow. This was different, like a stranger had tugged the muscles around his brother’s eyes and mouth in foreign directions and then froze them in place.
Dean swallowed without that expression going away, and said, “Will I still have control?”
Gabriel shrugged. “This isn’t Lord of the Rings—it’s a tool, not an influence.”
“But it’s power.”
“It’s more power than you can withstand. So it’s building you into something that can withstand it, yes.”
All of the unsettling kinks and pulls in Dean’s expression began to settle into something Sam recognized: resignation.
“We need to go to Bobby’s,” he said heavily. “I should be in the panic room. At least until this finishes.”
Gabriel quirked a grim smile, and snapped his fingers.
***
Bobby was, to put it mildly, beyond words.
He fumed as Sam explained what happened, he smacked Dean in the head at least twice, and as soon as the latter was safely locked away in the panic room, there was a lot of shouting.
“What did that goddamned brother of yours think he was doing?” he exclaimed, not for the first time. “What good has ever possibly come from wearing magical objects—“
“He was conned into it, somehow, or forced,” Sam said tiredly. “It could have happened to anyone. It has. So don’t expect me to get up on my high horse about it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. A part of Sam was furious, and angry that he was furious, but he really couldn’t let that out right now. He didn’t deserve to. Because he had started the Apocalypse, and Dean had just put on a ring.
A ring that was making him into…something.
Gabriel reappeared, shoulders still stiff, as if he was prepared at a moment’s notice to scram.
“He’s stable,” he said, “More than could be expected, considering.”
“Do we know what he’s actually changing into?” Bobby said acidly.
Gabriel smiled thinly. “A war machine, most likely. Rather useful, really, in lieu of Michael.”
“Any idea who could have done something like that?” Sam asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “There are a lot of pagans, demi-gods, others. Any one of them could have. None of them want the end of the world—they might be feeding on scraps, what with the current dominion of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t happy with their set up. Paradise would be just as distasteful to them as Lucifer.”
Sam growls in frustration. Gabriel rolls his eyes.
“Look, even if you did find whoever managed to finagle some further stupidity out of your brother, nothing you did to them would make a difference. Like it or not, Dean’s gonna be joining the unholy abomination club in a week or less, and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do about it.”
“There has to be something—“
“Sam,” Gabriel cut him off. “Always the same thing with you. There’s fuck-all you can do. Consider yourself lucky he’s not going to hell again.”
***
Dean lay on his stomach, limbs splayed out, listening to the creak of the fan above his head. His back still itched painfully, the soreness of earlier weeks now spanning from his shoulders to the small of his back. Like his spine was out of alignment, and his muscles were trying desperately to push it back into place. Castiel stood next to the bed, watching him with the same unsettling calm as always. Dean sort of felt like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.
“A week,” he repeated. “A week of this shit.”
Castiel shrugged. “Give or take a few days. And it won’t all be the same. There are more serious changes ahead.”
“Yeah, starting to get that.” A zing of irritation shot down his left shoulder, and he resisted the urge to roll over and writhe on the rough bedding like a dog on a rug.
“The skin will break soon,” Castiel observed. “I’m curious to see what emerges.”
“Can you not act like I’m a science experiment?” Dean snarled. “It’s really not helping.”
Cas shifted, but looked unrepentant. “I’m sorry, Dean. I did not mean to offend.”
Dean sighed and shifted. “You didn’t. I just…it’s like I’m backsliding.”
“You are not turning into a demon,” Castiel said sharply. “If you were, Gabriel would have killed you the moment he set eyes on you. As would I have.”
Dean snorted humorlessly. “Good to know.”
They were silent for a long moment, in which Dean shifted uneasily, feeling the stretch of something that he somehow suspected hadn’t been there a week ago. God, this shit was fucked up.
“Gabriel has agreed to stay for the duration of your transformation.”
“Yeah?” Dean cracked one eye open; he hadn’t realized that he’d closed them. “And after that, he’s fucking off again?”
“I think that he doesn’t know. He is conflicted.”
“Join the club,” Dean muttered. He looked over at Castiel’s unrelenting stillness, and said, “This can’t be God’s plan, can it?”
Castiel looked darkly at the far wall. “Demon or not, I doubt he would choose a fate like this for one of his Chosen sons.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever established that I was actually chosen.”
Castiel turned back to glare at him. “Is my mark not enough?”
Dean swallowed, and said nothing. Castiel said, “You were known as the righteous man, and now you are becoming something altogether different. Our hope, however, is that you will remain righteous, if nothing else.”
“Yeah,” Dean assented quietly. “If nothing else.”
Castiel crouched down and gripped his arm suddenly, as if he’d been compelled to by the word of his absent Father. “You will be fine, Dean,” he said. His voice was low with belief. “You’ll be fine.”
Dean flexed the muscles in his back, and nodded wearily.
***
The next few days were tense, mostly because it didn’t seem like anything was happening. Dean left the panic room for meals, and apart from closing and opening his hand reflexively to stop himself from rubbing at the ring and shifting his shoulders in discomfort, seemed perfectly fine. Sam paced and read compulsively about War, from its conception to its contemporary appearances, and Gabriel kept popping in and out like a nervous hawk. The only highlight (or lowlight, depending on how you looked at it) was when he appeared suddenly at the breakfast table with a Twix halfway out of his mouth and clamped a hand over the brand on Dean’s shoulder.
“Jesus, what the hell?” Dean exclaimed, jerking away, nearly spilling syrup over himself in the process.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Gabriel said, somewhat unintelligibly through Twix. “You should be dead by now.”
“Well that’s reassuring,” Dean snapped while Sam extricated the syrup from him and began compulsively pouring it over his own pancakes. They were all way too jittery in this household even without Gabriel appearing unannounced.
“But you’re not, because of this.” Gabriel squeezed the brand.
“Could you not do that? It’s making me extremely uncomfortable.”
“Explain yourself, Gabriel,” Castiel said, looking between the archangel and Dean’s shoulder with a dislike Dean sort of wondered about.
Gabriel snapped his fingers and suddenly there was an extra chair, as well as an extra serving of pancakes.
“There’s been something that’s bothering me. Just that, you put a Horseman’s ring on any other human being, and while it might try and make said human into a Horseman or something like it, it’d probably fail. It’d probably fail big time.”
“Like, ‘dead’ big time?” Bobby said dryly.
Gabriel jabbed a fork at him. “Precisely. So I keep asking myself, why’s Dean-o here still kicking? And then it occurs to me—it’s my little bro’s mark of post-Hell TLC. Put more than the usual elbow grease into this one, didn’t you, little bro?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, swallowing pancake in an effort to also swallow his general discomfort.
“It’s suffused with my Grace,” Castiel said. Dean dropped his fork.
“Dude. I’ve got Grace? From you?”
Castiel nodded, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
Dean said, “Jeez. Thanks, man.”
“It was an honor, Dean.”
“Christ,” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “This is why I don’t stick around with you people. Chick flick moments are out of control.”
Dean spluttered. Gabriel disappeared. Castiel resumed picking at a piece of melon.
Sam looked around like the world had turned upside down last night and he hadn’t been given advance notice. “So,” he said hesitantly. “I guess someone knows a lot about you, Dean.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed sourly, shoving pancakes into his mouth. “More than I’d like.”
***
And then on the fifth day, things started to suck.
Dean could tell something was wrong the moment he woke up. Castiel was once again standing right beside the bed, but he wasn’t quite as still as usual.
“Christ on a crutch,” Dean groaned. “What’s happening?”
“Your skin is about to rupture,” Castiel said. “I was debating whether or not to help it along.”
“Help it? Jesus Christ, Cas!”
“I’ll bring the others down to gain their opinion. Take your shirt off.”
Then Castiel was gone and Dean muttered a curse before pushing himself up from the mattress. And yeah, whole new muscles back there, whole new bones he could feel, grinding and pressing out and it felt like that compound fracture that had nearly punctured his arm when he’d gotten thrown out a window by a poltergeist that one time. Gritting his teeth and almost crying out, he pulled off his t-shirt and craned his neck around for just a moment, and oh shit, the skin was completely black beginning just over his shoulders, putrescent and sweaty. He flopped back down onto the mattress.
Gabriel appeared, along with Castiel, while Dean could hear Sam thundering down the stairs.
Gabriel made a hissing, sympathetic noise.
Sam said, “Oh my god,” as he skidded to a halt.
“What’s the verdict, guys?” Dean said through his teeth.
“If we don’t make the incisions ourselves, the ruptures to his skin may be…messy,” Castiel said.
“Ugh,” Sam grimaced. “God.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed, after a second. “Do it. At least it’ll be controlled then.”
“God dammit,” Dean said, and wrapped his arms around the frame of the cot, closing fists around the grating on its underside.
“Sam, may I use your knife?” Castiel said, extending a hand. Dean managed to look up long enough to see Sam make an awful face before pulling the knife out of his pocket. Then he started unbuckling his belt.
“I have a feeling you’re gonna need this,” he said to Dean, handing it over.
Dean looked up at him. “This is gonna suck, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah, man. It’s gonna suck.”
Dean folded the heavy leather belt in two, and bit down hard. He felt more than saw Castiel sit beside him on the bed. “Are you ready?” Castiel asked.
Dean just growled. And wielding the knife like a scalpel, Castiel pressed down, and made two deep incisions along his shoulder blades.
Dean could feel the wet heat of blood welling and pouring out across his ribs before the pain hit. And then it did, and he nearly lost the belt. Instead he bit down harder, and a keening, strangled noise ripped from his throat.
“Holy—“ Sam said.
“Stand the fuck back,” Gabriel growled.
“What—“ Castiel started, stumbling backwards, and Dean didn’t remember ever seeing him stumble before.
He didn’t get a chance to think about it though. It was like the final seal had been taken off of a pressure valve.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted.
His whole back exploded.
All of the shifting, grinding tendons and sinews snapped outward, like a dislocated joint popping sickeningly back into place, except instead of one dislocation he had about twenty, and Dean was surprised he hadn’t already started weeping like a little girl because god.
He gripped the cot, pounded one fist against it like it would distract him, but nothing could possibly tear his attention away from the impossible stretch and snap of something surging out, like his back was vomiting out his vertebrae, piece by jagged piece. He coughed, and tasted copper at the back of his throat.
Wet-sharp slapping sounds like oilcloth against sloshing water accompanied the pops and sandpaper crunches of ligaments slotting against bone, making him nauseous because he knew it wasn’t water sloshing, it was fucking blood, his blood, and when he opened his eyes for a brief second he immediately regretted it because now there was blood fucking everywhere, soaking the mattress, spilling out around him and slopping onto the floor.
Under the sounds of his body turning itself inside out, he heard Sam stumble out of the room to be sick. He wished he could join him. Instead, he just uttered another hoarse cry into the pillow that was rapidly becoming home to noxious splatters of plasma and mucous.
He vaguely registered an impact that he felt on his shoulder but not, and then the crash of something hitting the wall with a metallic clang. Then there was a final, sickening wrench Dean swore he could feel from his spine to his fingertips, like the trunk of a tree being snapped in half, and then…then there was nothing.
Sam made a retching noise outside the door. Dean coughed wetly.
“That,” Gabriel said slowly, all of the humor knocked out of him, “That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“Indeed,” Castiel said. He sounded uncharacteristically shocked.
In the groaning silence, Dean could pull a suspicion from his pain-battered brain. He felt sickly warm from head to toe, and knew he must look like a murder victim. A mutated, science fiction murder victim.
“Lemme guess,” he choked, and took a heaving phlegmy breath before finishing, “I’ve got a new set of limbs now.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Castiel said slowly.
Dean heard Sam step unsteadily back in through the door and then stop abruptly.
“Dude,” he said. His voice was blank with shock. “You’ve got fucking wings.”
Chapter Three.
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but probably 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 discreet. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: The next couple of chapters are extremely gory, so just be aware.
Prologue | Chapter One
Chapter Two
The ritual was pretty simple, as rituals go. Mostly because it wasn’t a ritual for archangels—it was one for Tricksters.
“But, he’s not a real Trickster,” Dean argued. “Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Like I said before,” Castiel said, “Gabriel has undergone transformation, of a sort. He’s between worlds, existing as both archangel and pagan god, and so long as we summon one of those two parts, he will come.”
So they laid out herbs and candles, and Sam went to the local butcher’s for a measure of calf’s blood that they poured into an old tin can along with lavender and chamomile. By the time they’re finished, it smelled like the basement of an old funeral parlor, flowers and wet copper and a sweet-sharp tang of chemical. Castiel lit the last candle, said a brief prayer, and then they waited.
Several minutes passed. And then like he always had been, Gabriel’s there.
“Winchesters,” he said, his face uncharacteristically blank. “Castiel. Long time, no see.”
“Reason for that,” Dean quipped. Castiel glared at him.
“Now is not the time,” he said. He looked at Gabriel. “I’m afraid we’re in need of your assistance.”
Gabriel…hadn’t taken his eyes off of Dean. “I can see that,” he agreed lightly, but his tone didn’t match up with his stillness. “But what makes you so sure I’d be willing to give it?”
There’s a beat of silence, and then Dean went out on a limb. “Do you think Michael will want a vessel that’s infected with War juice?”
Gabriel twitched but waited, his eyes narrowed. Dean made a frustrated noise and spelled it out.
“Look, you wanted us to play ball. Well now, even if we wanted to, we can’t. So help us find an alternative, or the world goes to Lucifer. No trick in the world is gonna fix that, and if you run away from this now then you’re an even bigger dick than the rest of your brothers.”
They were caught in Gabriel’s silence for what seemed an age. And then the archangel seemed to shudder slightly, like he was adjusting to a new skin.
“Well, Dean. Do you want the long version, or the short version?”
“Short,” Dean said.
“Long,” Sam said at the same time. They glared at each other.
Gabriel clicked his tongue at them both. “Always so difficult. Here it goes, kiddies: the four Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They’re another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call." He finally moved, and it’s to drag his focus back to Dean, as if it’s the last thing he wanted to do. "They are separate. They are discreet. They are neutral. And you, Dean Winchester, are not built like them."
“What’s happening to me, then?” Dean asked. “Or do you want to keep building the tension in this room a little longer?”
Gabriel didn’t even smile. And Sam was now officially more terrified than angry. There was a pause, and Sam couldn't bring himself to ask the question, Will he turn into something we'll have to kill? Because that shit? He was not ready for it, and never would be.
Then Gabriel said, “I don’t know, Dean. This was never meant to happen. That’s what happens when you go off book. But you won’t be entirely human for very much longer.”
Dean worked his jaw, and then said, “Okay. Okay, Cas—cut it off.”
“Too late for that now, I’m afraid,” Gabriel said.
“What do you mean?” Dean rounded on him.
“I mean, kiddo, that even if you decide to lop off a digit, the damage has been done. That ring’s got its claws in you, and it ain’t letting go.”
“Why would it matter when we cut it off the actual Horsemen, then?” Sam asked, not willing to think about the more horrifying implications of this conversation.
“Because they’re Horsemen?” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. “They’re built to withstand these kind of things. For them, the rings are just channeling devices, keys to their own innate power. But put a ring on a mortal body, and the thing’s not just unlocking or channeling, it’s building bridges and setting up shop because it doesn’t have enough to initially work with.”
“Okay, you’re making them sound alive, and that is really freaking me out,” Dean said flatly.
Gabriel tilted his head back and forth as if to say po-tay-to, po-tah-to. “They aren’t, per se. But they are objects of astronomical power, and with astronomical power comes at least a certain amount of autonomy. And now, one of them’s invested in you. Congrats.”
Sam was watching Dean as Gabriel talked, trying to parse his expression. He knew all of Dean’s faces, by now—the different shades of stillness that marked anger, boredom, despair, sorrow. This was different, like a stranger had tugged the muscles around his brother’s eyes and mouth in foreign directions and then froze them in place.
Dean swallowed without that expression going away, and said, “Will I still have control?”
Gabriel shrugged. “This isn’t Lord of the Rings—it’s a tool, not an influence.”
“But it’s power.”
“It’s more power than you can withstand. So it’s building you into something that can withstand it, yes.”
All of the unsettling kinks and pulls in Dean’s expression began to settle into something Sam recognized: resignation.
“We need to go to Bobby’s,” he said heavily. “I should be in the panic room. At least until this finishes.”
Gabriel quirked a grim smile, and snapped his fingers.
***
Bobby was, to put it mildly, beyond words.
He fumed as Sam explained what happened, he smacked Dean in the head at least twice, and as soon as the latter was safely locked away in the panic room, there was a lot of shouting.
“What did that goddamned brother of yours think he was doing?” he exclaimed, not for the first time. “What good has ever possibly come from wearing magical objects—“
“He was conned into it, somehow, or forced,” Sam said tiredly. “It could have happened to anyone. It has. So don’t expect me to get up on my high horse about it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. A part of Sam was furious, and angry that he was furious, but he really couldn’t let that out right now. He didn’t deserve to. Because he had started the Apocalypse, and Dean had just put on a ring.
A ring that was making him into…something.
Gabriel reappeared, shoulders still stiff, as if he was prepared at a moment’s notice to scram.
“He’s stable,” he said, “More than could be expected, considering.”
“Do we know what he’s actually changing into?” Bobby said acidly.
Gabriel smiled thinly. “A war machine, most likely. Rather useful, really, in lieu of Michael.”
“Any idea who could have done something like that?” Sam asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “There are a lot of pagans, demi-gods, others. Any one of them could have. None of them want the end of the world—they might be feeding on scraps, what with the current dominion of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t happy with their set up. Paradise would be just as distasteful to them as Lucifer.”
Sam growls in frustration. Gabriel rolls his eyes.
“Look, even if you did find whoever managed to finagle some further stupidity out of your brother, nothing you did to them would make a difference. Like it or not, Dean’s gonna be joining the unholy abomination club in a week or less, and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do about it.”
“There has to be something—“
“Sam,” Gabriel cut him off. “Always the same thing with you. There’s fuck-all you can do. Consider yourself lucky he’s not going to hell again.”
***
Dean lay on his stomach, limbs splayed out, listening to the creak of the fan above his head. His back still itched painfully, the soreness of earlier weeks now spanning from his shoulders to the small of his back. Like his spine was out of alignment, and his muscles were trying desperately to push it back into place. Castiel stood next to the bed, watching him with the same unsettling calm as always. Dean sort of felt like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.
“A week,” he repeated. “A week of this shit.”
Castiel shrugged. “Give or take a few days. And it won’t all be the same. There are more serious changes ahead.”
“Yeah, starting to get that.” A zing of irritation shot down his left shoulder, and he resisted the urge to roll over and writhe on the rough bedding like a dog on a rug.
“The skin will break soon,” Castiel observed. “I’m curious to see what emerges.”
“Can you not act like I’m a science experiment?” Dean snarled. “It’s really not helping.”
Cas shifted, but looked unrepentant. “I’m sorry, Dean. I did not mean to offend.”
Dean sighed and shifted. “You didn’t. I just…it’s like I’m backsliding.”
“You are not turning into a demon,” Castiel said sharply. “If you were, Gabriel would have killed you the moment he set eyes on you. As would I have.”
Dean snorted humorlessly. “Good to know.”
They were silent for a long moment, in which Dean shifted uneasily, feeling the stretch of something that he somehow suspected hadn’t been there a week ago. God, this shit was fucked up.
“Gabriel has agreed to stay for the duration of your transformation.”
“Yeah?” Dean cracked one eye open; he hadn’t realized that he’d closed them. “And after that, he’s fucking off again?”
“I think that he doesn’t know. He is conflicted.”
“Join the club,” Dean muttered. He looked over at Castiel’s unrelenting stillness, and said, “This can’t be God’s plan, can it?”
Castiel looked darkly at the far wall. “Demon or not, I doubt he would choose a fate like this for one of his Chosen sons.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever established that I was actually chosen.”
Castiel turned back to glare at him. “Is my mark not enough?”
Dean swallowed, and said nothing. Castiel said, “You were known as the righteous man, and now you are becoming something altogether different. Our hope, however, is that you will remain righteous, if nothing else.”
“Yeah,” Dean assented quietly. “If nothing else.”
Castiel crouched down and gripped his arm suddenly, as if he’d been compelled to by the word of his absent Father. “You will be fine, Dean,” he said. His voice was low with belief. “You’ll be fine.”
Dean flexed the muscles in his back, and nodded wearily.
***
The next few days were tense, mostly because it didn’t seem like anything was happening. Dean left the panic room for meals, and apart from closing and opening his hand reflexively to stop himself from rubbing at the ring and shifting his shoulders in discomfort, seemed perfectly fine. Sam paced and read compulsively about War, from its conception to its contemporary appearances, and Gabriel kept popping in and out like a nervous hawk. The only highlight (or lowlight, depending on how you looked at it) was when he appeared suddenly at the breakfast table with a Twix halfway out of his mouth and clamped a hand over the brand on Dean’s shoulder.
“Jesus, what the hell?” Dean exclaimed, jerking away, nearly spilling syrup over himself in the process.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Gabriel said, somewhat unintelligibly through Twix. “You should be dead by now.”
“Well that’s reassuring,” Dean snapped while Sam extricated the syrup from him and began compulsively pouring it over his own pancakes. They were all way too jittery in this household even without Gabriel appearing unannounced.
“But you’re not, because of this.” Gabriel squeezed the brand.
“Could you not do that? It’s making me extremely uncomfortable.”
“Explain yourself, Gabriel,” Castiel said, looking between the archangel and Dean’s shoulder with a dislike Dean sort of wondered about.
Gabriel snapped his fingers and suddenly there was an extra chair, as well as an extra serving of pancakes.
“There’s been something that’s bothering me. Just that, you put a Horseman’s ring on any other human being, and while it might try and make said human into a Horseman or something like it, it’d probably fail. It’d probably fail big time.”
“Like, ‘dead’ big time?” Bobby said dryly.
Gabriel jabbed a fork at him. “Precisely. So I keep asking myself, why’s Dean-o here still kicking? And then it occurs to me—it’s my little bro’s mark of post-Hell TLC. Put more than the usual elbow grease into this one, didn’t you, little bro?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, swallowing pancake in an effort to also swallow his general discomfort.
“It’s suffused with my Grace,” Castiel said. Dean dropped his fork.
“Dude. I’ve got Grace? From you?”
Castiel nodded, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
Dean said, “Jeez. Thanks, man.”
“It was an honor, Dean.”
“Christ,” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “This is why I don’t stick around with you people. Chick flick moments are out of control.”
Dean spluttered. Gabriel disappeared. Castiel resumed picking at a piece of melon.
Sam looked around like the world had turned upside down last night and he hadn’t been given advance notice. “So,” he said hesitantly. “I guess someone knows a lot about you, Dean.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed sourly, shoving pancakes into his mouth. “More than I’d like.”
***
And then on the fifth day, things started to suck.
Dean could tell something was wrong the moment he woke up. Castiel was once again standing right beside the bed, but he wasn’t quite as still as usual.
“Christ on a crutch,” Dean groaned. “What’s happening?”
“Your skin is about to rupture,” Castiel said. “I was debating whether or not to help it along.”
“Help it? Jesus Christ, Cas!”
“I’ll bring the others down to gain their opinion. Take your shirt off.”
Then Castiel was gone and Dean muttered a curse before pushing himself up from the mattress. And yeah, whole new muscles back there, whole new bones he could feel, grinding and pressing out and it felt like that compound fracture that had nearly punctured his arm when he’d gotten thrown out a window by a poltergeist that one time. Gritting his teeth and almost crying out, he pulled off his t-shirt and craned his neck around for just a moment, and oh shit, the skin was completely black beginning just over his shoulders, putrescent and sweaty. He flopped back down onto the mattress.
Gabriel appeared, along with Castiel, while Dean could hear Sam thundering down the stairs.
Gabriel made a hissing, sympathetic noise.
Sam said, “Oh my god,” as he skidded to a halt.
“What’s the verdict, guys?” Dean said through his teeth.
“If we don’t make the incisions ourselves, the ruptures to his skin may be…messy,” Castiel said.
“Ugh,” Sam grimaced. “God.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed, after a second. “Do it. At least it’ll be controlled then.”
“God dammit,” Dean said, and wrapped his arms around the frame of the cot, closing fists around the grating on its underside.
“Sam, may I use your knife?” Castiel said, extending a hand. Dean managed to look up long enough to see Sam make an awful face before pulling the knife out of his pocket. Then he started unbuckling his belt.
“I have a feeling you’re gonna need this,” he said to Dean, handing it over.
Dean looked up at him. “This is gonna suck, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah, man. It’s gonna suck.”
Dean folded the heavy leather belt in two, and bit down hard. He felt more than saw Castiel sit beside him on the bed. “Are you ready?” Castiel asked.
Dean just growled. And wielding the knife like a scalpel, Castiel pressed down, and made two deep incisions along his shoulder blades.
Dean could feel the wet heat of blood welling and pouring out across his ribs before the pain hit. And then it did, and he nearly lost the belt. Instead he bit down harder, and a keening, strangled noise ripped from his throat.
“Holy—“ Sam said.
“Stand the fuck back,” Gabriel growled.
“What—“ Castiel started, stumbling backwards, and Dean didn’t remember ever seeing him stumble before.
He didn’t get a chance to think about it though. It was like the final seal had been taken off of a pressure valve.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted.
His whole back exploded.
All of the shifting, grinding tendons and sinews snapped outward, like a dislocated joint popping sickeningly back into place, except instead of one dislocation he had about twenty, and Dean was surprised he hadn’t already started weeping like a little girl because god.
He gripped the cot, pounded one fist against it like it would distract him, but nothing could possibly tear his attention away from the impossible stretch and snap of something surging out, like his back was vomiting out his vertebrae, piece by jagged piece. He coughed, and tasted copper at the back of his throat.
Wet-sharp slapping sounds like oilcloth against sloshing water accompanied the pops and sandpaper crunches of ligaments slotting against bone, making him nauseous because he knew it wasn’t water sloshing, it was fucking blood, his blood, and when he opened his eyes for a brief second he immediately regretted it because now there was blood fucking everywhere, soaking the mattress, spilling out around him and slopping onto the floor.
Under the sounds of his body turning itself inside out, he heard Sam stumble out of the room to be sick. He wished he could join him. Instead, he just uttered another hoarse cry into the pillow that was rapidly becoming home to noxious splatters of plasma and mucous.
He vaguely registered an impact that he felt on his shoulder but not, and then the crash of something hitting the wall with a metallic clang. Then there was a final, sickening wrench Dean swore he could feel from his spine to his fingertips, like the trunk of a tree being snapped in half, and then…then there was nothing.
Sam made a retching noise outside the door. Dean coughed wetly.
“That,” Gabriel said slowly, all of the humor knocked out of him, “That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“Indeed,” Castiel said. He sounded uncharacteristically shocked.
In the groaning silence, Dean could pull a suspicion from his pain-battered brain. He felt sickly warm from head to toe, and knew he must look like a murder victim. A mutated, science fiction murder victim.
“Lemme guess,” he choked, and took a heaving phlegmy breath before finishing, “I’ve got a new set of limbs now.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Castiel said slowly.
Dean heard Sam step unsteadily back in through the door and then stop abruptly.
“Dude,” he said. His voice was blank with shock. “You’ve got fucking wings.”
Chapter Three.
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 15:02 (UTC)I am thoroughly enjoying this and looking forward to the next chapter.
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Date: 18 May 2010 02:43 (UTC)