Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Oh, but worry not
The blessings rain on battles in the heaven's arms
And my polite offenses won't last for long
The eager apprehension is wearing off
I'd give anything
To balance your conviction with certainty
To fall asleep without you lying next to me
To sever my connection with everything
- Sleep Token, "Missing Limbs"

An angel’s memory, being perfect in clarity and recall, could be both a blessing and a curse. For to remember the minute details of one’s happiest moments meant also having to suffer through every excruciating second of the worst horrors as well.

Sometimes, those terrible memories were enough to drown out all that was good, to cloak everything happy and burning bright in a shroud of despair. 

Maybe that was why angels spent their afterlives in a vast nothingness, in the void known as the Empty. Perhaps nothing positive could ever sustain itself under the weight of millennia's worth of collected regrets and failures, experienced pain and sorrows. 

Castiel’s pleasant memories were many, some bright and vibrant as a blue giant star. And the center of his personal solar system, the celestial body who guided his heart, was the human Dean Winchester.

Castiel could vividly bring to mind when Dean had first smiled at him with genuine happiness. He could not forget how the streetlights had reflected in his hazel eyes, how his soul had sparked with mischievous joy as they’d escaped from a brothel at precisely 10:49 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on August 23, 2009. Dean’s voice still echoed in his head, his wheezing breaths as he proclaimed, “It’s been a long time since I laughed that hard. It’s been more than a long time. Years.”

The alley had stunk of stale beer, urine and trash-filled dumpsters. The air had been a mild fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and Dean’s hand had pressed warm onto his shoulder as he’d swayed in closer. It was, perhaps, the first moment Castiel had realized he was experiencing something building within his grace that he’d never felt before. 

It would be several years before he’d understand that feeling to be love—a love not born out of duty, like his love for his father and brothers in creation, but a love forged from all he and Dean had done and been through together. The memory of this love taking root was as strong now as if it had happened yesterday.

Castiel could also visualize, with photographic precision, Dean’s expression when they’d first reunited after the leviathans had ravaged his vessel. He had been living most of a year as “Emmanuel,” not even remembering he was an angel, nor his own true name. But he had stored away that stunned, disbelieving yet hope-filled look on Dean’s face, something inside of him screaming out that this was important to remember.

Remember.

And he could now, with perfect clarity. Just like he remembered when Dean had found him on that river bank in Purgatory. 

…and when they had reunited, months later, back on Earth.

…and when he’d thought Dean had died facing off against Amara.

…and when he himself had returned from the Empty.

Castiel clearly remembered those first moments shared after each death or near-death experience, the momentary collapse of Dean’s barriers where he’d let his pure feelings bleed through. Those rare times he saw Dean’s heart and soul bared before him were beautiful and he clung to them as some sign of genuine affection.

Castiel could similarly recall every detail of the night he first hugged Jack, at the bunker, when the child he’d given his life to defend had held him tight and told him through the grace-bond they shared, “I’ve missed you, father. I’ve missed you so much.” He’d felt the brush of Jack’s wings enveloping his body and his true form, and for a moment it transported him back to long gone history when the host had soared and sung praises together as one in Heaven.

He held on to Dean’s joy when watching a favorite movie, or singing along to a beloved song while driving his precious Baby.

And the two brothers, Dean and Sam, sleeping peacefully in a motel in the middle of America while he watched over them, guarding their dreams.

Castiel treasured these precious experiences like others might hoard priceless diamonds.

And yet….

And yet.

He could not stop the bad memories from spilling over to poison these good ones. The dark days that had become more frequent each passing year, when every victory seemed to come at an increasingly terrible price.

All the angels he’d watched die or had to kill with his own blade, his own hands.

Their grace stained his own and he could not rid himself of their dying screams, their expressions of betrayal, their wings burning to ash...

Their fear of what lay beyond.

(And Castiel knew what that was. He knew, perhaps better than any other angel.)

He could not forget Claire sobbing over her mother’s dead body. He would always carry the guilt and knowledge of how he’d destroyed her family before he’d even understood how important family was to humankind.

He could not let go of the times Dean had looked at him, his eyes brimming with hurt and betrayal. When Dean and Sam had trapped him in a ring of holy fire and fled, leaving him for Crowley, unwilling to listen to how he’d done it all for them. 

When Dean had threatened, “You’re dead to me” if Jack had hurt Mary. Well. He’d proven it by how cold he’d been this very evening before Castiel had walked away and left the bunker.

What Dean had said tonight. Those words had cut so deep that an angel’s blade could have inflicted similar wounds, bleeding out all that he had become.

“The plan changed, Dean. Something went wrong. You know this. Something always goes wrong.”

“Yeah. Why does that something always seem to be you?”

Maybe Dean was right. Maybe it was all his fault, his problem. From his first act of rebellion to having to smite the demon out of Jack’s dead body, maybe everything that had gone wrong since he’d begun his mission to raise the Righteous Man from perdition was his fault. His burden to carry.

And he was tired. So tired, he had no words for it. He didn’t think any Earthly language—certainly not Enochian—could accurately express how tired he was.

So he had left Dean standing there with his accusations and cold eyes. Left Dean, Sam and the bunker behind him for what he could only imagine would need to be the last time.

Yes, they had argued before, but something about this time…the accumulation of it all, and knowing how much of it Chuck had orchestrated…that knowledge had shattered a piece of Dean’s core. It had ruptured their trust and relationship in a way that might not be possible to come back from, not this time.

As Castiel drove from the bunker into the night, he wished he could forget everything, even if for only a little while, so he could try to regroup, rethink the future. Devise some sort of plan for where he should go, what he should do next. But the images and the memories simply wouldn’t leave him alone. 

Dead angels. 

Dead Jack. 

A warehouse full of dead Deans.

Jack smiling and laughing, an infant in the body of a young man. 

Jack killing the corn snake named Felix.

Dean pointing a gun at Jack’s head.

Chuck killing Jack.

Belphegor possessing Jack’s dead corpse.

Jack’s body turned to dust, h is own grace smiting the child who had saved him.

He wanted to scream, to rage, to let loose his true voice and cry, “Enough!”

Perhaps he should; he could head to an open field far from any population and release all his grief and anger. Let it tear up the ground, burn trees to ash, fill the sky with his tears like a downpour.

But what then? What good would such destruction do for any of them?

He might as well already be back in the Empty, cursed to dream of his regrets for eternity. 

He yearned for it, in a way. He’d said it once before, but he was genuinely beginning to believe that every one of his reincarnations was a punishment from God of some kind, not a reward. 

So yes, maybe it was time to put an end to it. Let the Empty claim him. After all, what chance did he have of achieving “true happiness” now?

Castiel considered this, incapable of escaping his thoughts as the dark highway stretched out before him. He hadn’t even been sure, when he’d set out from Lebanon, where he was driving, but a destination now formed in his mind. One final place he would visit to contemplate his choices, and then to reach out safely to the forces he would confront and challenge if need be.

It was only about an hour’s drive. 

The road passed beneath the wheels of his truck as he drove on in silence. 

Harlan County Lake was the second largest in Nebraska. Castiel had spent several tranquil days there with Jack—especially during that difficult time when Jack had lost his grace to Lucifer, and Michael had possessed and disappeared with Dean. Castiel had taken Jack to get outside of the bunker and escape all the chaos with Apocalypse World hunters, and to learn more about appreciating the world as a human. They’d gone fishing some mornings, trying their luck in the early morning hours. They’d taken long walks on the meandering nature trails, bird-watching, Castiel pointing out how each different species had wings inspired by a specific angel.

“So…God really created all the species? It wasn’t evolution?”

“It’s…complicated. God was and is the force behind evolution. Sometimes he—or the angels—guided things along a certain path to have a desired outcome. Or just to see what would become of it. Gabriel, in particular, took the lead to choose birds to resemble our brothers’ and sisters’ wings. The Roseate Spoonbills did not please your birth father, Lucifer.”

“Oh. So, which bird has your wings, Castiel?”

“The grackle. You’ve seen them in the woods near the bunker. Their wings are black with iridescent colors.” 

They’d spent hours like that, talking and communing with nature. Jack listened to the stories Castiel told him about the creation of Earth, the various tasks of the angels, the things each had contributed to the world or liked best about it. 

Those had been good times, pleasant memories regardless of the looming threat of Michael and worrying about Dean. There had even been one or two rare days once Dean had returned to them where they’d all gone to the lake as a “family” to unwind, to not worry about monsters or Lucifer or Michael or anything else. 

Those were some of the best days Castiel remembered, when he’d come as close to “true happiness” as he could allow himself. Now, pain and all things bittersweet tinged those memories.

True happiness, the threat the Empty had placed over his head? It seemed so futile. There was no chance he’d ever know that kind of happiness when the people he loved were all dead, or certain to never forgive him.

As he approached the lake, signs warned that the parking lot and public access were closed until 6 a.m. Castiel paid them no mind. Even his waning grace unlocked the gate easily, allowing his vehicle entry. He parked and walked the short distance towards the water’s edge where picnic benches sat empty in the night, everything still and silent around him. He chose a spot to continue musing over his situation, his options, and where he now stood in this world. 

The water’s surface shimmered in the dark, like an oil slick under the moonlight. It made Castiel think of the Empty, triggering a hazy and fleeting memory of sleeping beneath the surface of a similar slippery, black nothing.

He knew with that sleep would come nightmares, and torment promised to follow. And yet he was so desperate for rest, for all of this to be over, that even a nightmare-plagued sleep seemed a preferable alternative to this…this half-life of despair.

Because at least while caught in those dreams, he would be able to briefly believe that Jack was still alive. That Dean might be mad at him, but it wasn’t with an unbreakable hatred. He might look at him with pain and betrayal in his eyes, but not with the detached disdain and disgust that had been there tonight.

So yes, it seemed the more desirable option to him.

Now he just had to make it happen.

The Empty could only appear on Earth if summoned, so Castiel concentrated. He reached out for the coldness of the entity, the Shadow, which had touched him before and never fully let go. It was a part of him still, deep down inside his true form, there and ready to be called upon.

“I know you’re waiting for me to come join you again,” Castiel spoke both aloud and through his grace. “Well, you can stop waiting. I’m ready. You win. Come and take me.”

Almost immediately, an unsettling slithering, bubbling noise erupted from behind him.

“Well, well, Castiel. I’d say it was music to my ears to hear you call for me. But even I’m shocked you caved in this quick.”

The sound of that voice made Castiel’s grace turn to ice. He jumped to his feet and spun around and, for the briefest moment, allowed himself a shred of hope. 

Navy and white jacket. Washed out denim jeans. Golden hair and blue eyes—oh, those eyes that had been so cruelly burned away, now restored. “Jack?!”

Foolish, stupid hope. For almost immediately he noticed something was very much off.

Yes, the eyes were there. The smile. The gentle wave of “hello.” But soon it was clear this was just another twisted, horrible version, as hateful as seeing the demon Belphegor wearing Jack’s corpse as his own skin. “Sorry, not sorry,” the entity said. “Try again, bestie.”

The malicious energy emanating from the figure left Castiel with no doubt as to whom he was really facing. “How do you possess his form? I destroyed it to keep creatures like you out.”

“Pfft! You think a simple smiting can stop me? Me, the ruler of the Empty itself? Or are you forgetting that I may just be in your silly birdbrained head? I can resemble anyone I choose, so…” The figure before him wavered momentarily, and then a smirking Dean replaced Jack. “Is this better?”

No, not better at all. But Castiel wouldn’t give the Shadow satisfaction in admitting to it. With sagging shoulders, Castiel said, “Just tell me you honored our deal, and Jack is safe in Heaven. And then you can have me, because that knowledge is as close to happiness as I will ever get.”

“Oh, silly, silly Castiel. You are an earnest one. Jack is with me now, of course. As he should have been from the start.”

“But we had a deal!”

“Our deal was such that you could take him back from me one time. When he still had a soul that was up for grabs. But he burned that away, didn’t he? No soul, no ‘Stairway to Heaven.’” The Shadow laughed. “Hey, that’s a good one, if I do say so myself. Dean would appreciate the reference, don’t you think?”

Castiel closed his eyes. He had feared this, given the state of Jack’s soul. “If Jack is in the Empty, then at least let me join him there.”

“Oh, no. No no no no no no no. Let you find some new way to annoy me again? Keep me awake while you search for your precious Jack? I know you would. Besides, now you want it. You want death. I’d rather make you suffer here on Earth by denying you the one thing you want...since you can’t have this.” The Shadow held his arms wide and jutted his hip at an angle to flaunt Dean’s form.

Castiel let his blade manifest and drop to his hand, and then flipped it around so that the tip pointed to his throat. “You can’t stop me from taking my own life.”

“And if you do and have nowhere to go, you know what you will become: an aimless spirit with nothing to tether you. How quickly do you think you’ll grow vengeful, hmm? Causing more death and misery... Haven’t you done enough of that, Castiel?”

Oh, he had. And he could do that no more. The Shadow was right.

He was stuck here. He was as good as dead, but could not have the genuine death that he craved.

Once, he’d believed Purgatory had been his penance, but now he understood this was it. The punishment for all of his crimes. 

“Alright,” he sighed. “Once again, you win.”

“What was that? Say it again; it makes me all tingly.”

“You. Win.”

“Of course I do. Stubborn, stupid angel. You should realize you can’t take on the oldest entity in existence. You never should have fucked with me, understand? Now you get to find out what happens to stupid, irritating angels who fuck with me!”

The Shadow composed itself before continuing.

“Well then. If you don’t mind, I hear that God himself might be closing up shop and you know what? I’m all for it. So take heart; probably all of this’ll be gone soon enough. You and all the other angels. All the planets and stars…poof! All going bye-bye, and I say, good riddance. I’ll be looking forward to getting some serious sleep. But in the meantime, have a terrible life, Castiel. And don’t fucking bother me again.”

With that, the Shadow dissolved Dean’s form into a trail of inky goo. It flowed into the ground at Castiel’s feet, leaving him alone and even more despondent than before.

Castiel didn’t move from his spot on the bench for the rest of the night. He watched the water and the evening sky, contemplating the stars. He thought about them flickering out, one by one, if Chuck truly brought a premature end to his creation.

It was only when dawn broke over the lake, a few early joggers arriving for their daily exercise, that he worked up the impetus to move on. He’d been making one last effort to find Jack, to feel him—to prove the Shadow’s taunts right or wrong. But there was nothing but a complete void to meet his call, an emptiness where he used to sense even the thinnest thread of the child’s grace. Their connection had begun when Jack had first reached out to him from the womb; that link was, Castiel believed, how Jack had awakened him in the Empty.

But either the Shadow had somehow severed it, or he wasn’t strong enough to return the favor. 

He couldn’t save his own son like his child had once done for him.

That was perhaps his most shameful failure of all.

He sighed and got to his feet, wearier than before. If the Shadow would not take him, then he’d have to do something else. There was another way to kill this pain, he knew, and it might actually allow himself the chance to be useful for a change—even if only briefly. Maybe it would ease some of the guilt that plagued him every waking hour of his existence.

He returned to his truck and started driving again, backtracking toward the bunker but taking 136 instead of 36. He drove for almost five hours, only stopping to refuel twice, grabbing a cup of Gas ’n Sip coffee each time. For “old times’ sake,” perhaps, as even mediocre coffee brought a small comfort to him. It was one combination of molecules that never overwhelmed his angelic senses, and as his grace had faded, he could almost taste it and appreciate its qualities as he’d done when human.

…Late nights in the bunker, holding a hot mug in his hands. Jack, coming to join him, pouring out a too-large bowl of cereal he wasn’t supposed to eat, but Dean would buy for him each shopping trip…

“If you spill this in my Baby, you’re using every bit of your grace to clean her seats,” Dean telling him as he brought a paper cup of coffee out to Castiel from the Gas ’n Sip…

“Stop…you have to stop…” A woman with no eyes, collapsed on the floor of a Biggerson’s as the coffee in his mouth suddenly tasted like spilled blood….

Good memories, always chased by the bad. Castiel turned on the radio to the pop station he liked, hoping the music would drown out his thoughts. 

(Dean’s Led Zeppelin mix was in the truck’s cassette player. He couldn’t bring himself to play it.)

He reached his destination by noon: the sleepy town of Savannah, Missouri. It wasn’t much bigger than Lebanon; just another midwestern outpost of human civilization amidst thousands of acres of farmland. But it possessed something of unique interest, although no one who lived in the surrounding area knew it was there.

The town park had a small playground, where its sandbox disguised the world’s one working gateway between Earth and Heaven. Metatron had placed it here after the angels fell, keeping it guarded by those loyal to his faction. Hannah and then Naomi had later regained control of both Heaven and the gate, and had continued to keep it secured ever since.

The last time Castiel had been in Heaven, Dumah had seized authority from Naomi, but her hunger for power (and using Jack) had been her undoing at Castiel’s hands. He wouldn’t be surprised to find Naomi had reclaimed her ruling position; she seemed to be the one angel—perhaps somewhat like himself—who could face death and revolution time and time again and still turn up alive.

Even or especially when many would strongly wish otherwise.

Castiel frowned at seeing the sandbox unguarded. Some families with young children were present, but he identified none as angels. He felt the energy of the portal beneath the sand, ready to be activated by an angel’s approach. But he could not trigger it now, not with so many humans around. Proximity to it would separate one’s soul from their body and cause instant death.

So he would have to wait until he had a quiet moment alone. Maybe the guard on duty was just on break—he recalled Indra had developed a taste for alcohol, and he might be at the nearest liquor store. 

Castiel returned to his truck to sit in the meantime, so as not to draw attention as a single, middle-aged man watching children play. His frequent viewing of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and true crime series on Netflix had taught him that this was suspicious human behavior. 

He'd had his phone off for the drive, wanting to save battery power until or unless he might need it. He powered it back on, some small hope in his grace that, perhaps, there might be a message from Dean waiting for him. Sometimes Dean got mad but then would start texting the next day and if nothing had happened. And it would be clear from his messages trying so hard to be casual that he was, in fact, remorseful and wanted to apologize (without actually saying the words “I’m sorry.”) 

If he were to receive such a text…if Dean were to reach out to him now before he took this last step as planned…

He probably was weak enough, still, to turn around. To take that crumb of an offering as a sign that they could work through this mess. He wouldn’t be proud of his vulnerability with Dean, but he had to acknowledge it was there and he would come running whenever Dean called to him.

Hope sparked briefly when his powered-up phone pinged with a series of message notifications, one right after the next. But then he saw it was only Sam trying to reach him. 

Sam, with a long string of messages beginning at 9:51am this morning:

Hey are you ok?

Dean said you left

Like you might not be coming back

 

10:06am:

Cas don’t let my brother being a dick chase you off

Please tell me you’re ok

I know you’re hurting because of Jack

10:10am:

I don’t blame you for anything

Any of it

I know Jack never would have hurt mom on purpose even without his soul

I’m sorry

Sorry for letting Dean talk me into what we did with Jack and the box

That was wrong and I knew it then but

I don’t know

I guess I was too upset to think straight 

I loved Jack too

and I care about you

and you know Dean does but

he’s Dean

11:28am:

Cas please tell me where you are

Or text me back that you’re ok

I’ve lost too many people lately 

can’t lose you too

Castiel stared at the stream of messages. He appreciated Sam’s words and the apologies buried in them, but it was really too little, too late. He wanted to move on in peace, but the playground was still too busy to call upon the angel with whom he needed to speak.

He wanted to be dead. 

But now, even that was denied.

He sighed, closed his eyes. 

Sam deserved an answer. And if Dean ever got over his anger and wondered what happened to him, then Sam could pass along the information.

Castiel texted back a brief response.

I’m at the playground.

Thirty-two seconds later, he received:

Are you trying to go to Heaven to see Jack?

I’ve found out he’s not there. With his soul gone, the Empty has him.

I’m sorry Cas.

Sorry. Castiel was so beyond “sorry” he had no words for it.

I am lost, he ended up typing. I made a deal to save Jack. To protect him. And even on that I was betrayed.

Cas what are you talking about?

The Empty. Last year when Jack died, I traded my life for his so the Empty couldn’t claim him. But

Castiel wasn’t able to complete typing out the rest as his phone started ringing, the screen reading “SAM.”

He knew he shouldn’t have confessed to his deal, but it was too late now. He debated answering until the fourth ring when he picked up with a measured, “Hello, Sam.”

“Cas, what do you mean, you made a deal?”

“I meant exactly what I said. When I went to bring Jack back as you were working on the spell with Lily Sunder, I found the Empty attacking Heaven to claim Jack because of his half-angelic nature. I said it could take me instead. It agreed to the deal, with conditions I would need to meet first.”

“What conditions?”

“They don’t matter now; it’s all irrelevant,” he dismissed. “When Jack died soulless at Chuck’s hands, the Empty claimed him once again, and this time there is nothing I can do about it. Jack cannot ascend to Heaven without a soul. The Empty voided my deal and refused to take me instead, or at all. So I am…stuck here. Unless Heaven will accept me back.”

“Cas, stay where you are. I’m going to come meet you.” 

“Please don’t, Sam. I thank you for your concern, but this is for the best. I see no reason to remain here. Heaven needs all the angels it has left, so perhaps I can actually do some good there.”

In whatever time we have left.

The line was quiet for a long pause. When Sam spoke again, Castiel heard sad acceptance. “Are you sure? I’ll miss you.”

“I will miss you as well, Sam. Please look after your brother. I know…I know he is in a great deal of pain right now.”

“What did he say to you, Cas?”

“It’s not important.”

“I don’t believe that, because I know Dean and I know you. He wouldn’t tell me anything, he just…stormed out somewhere in his damn car and won’t answer his phone, either.”

In the past, Castiel might have worried at that news. Been fearful of Dean rushing off to make a foolish deal again. But now he figured it was Dean’s typical flight mode in action. He’d drive off so as not to take out his anger on Sam.

(Sam, who always mattered more to Dean than Castiel ever could.)

No doubt he’d end up in some bar at some point, drinking until he blacked out. If everyone was lucky, he would sleep it off in the car before returning to the bunker.

“Dean will be fine.”

There was no answer for a beat, and then, “Just…promise me you won’t do anything you can’t come back from, okay?” Sam prompted, and Castiel took it as his saying farewell.

“I only ask the same of you. Goodbye, Sam.”

He hung up before Sam could say anything more. He then turned off his phone again and watched over the playground in silent contemplation. 

An hour passed before the park cleared out of mortal humans—thankfully no longer than that, for he was concerned Sam would ignore his wishes and barrel off toward Savannah, with or without Dean in tow. He quickly took advantage of the moment, stepping out of his truck (leaving it unlocked, keys in the glove department for either the Winchesters to retrieve, or whoever might need the vehicle next), and went over the sandbox. He felt the vibrational energies he could integrate to step through to the other side, but he worried Heaven might not even be there anymore.

What if Chuck had immediately gone off and wiped it out? Or what if he had returned there and reclaimed the throne after all this time?

(Not that Castiel would be averse to showing Chuck what he thought of him in this moment. But he doubted he would get far with any confrontation now.)

So he kneeled down and wrote in the summoning sigil for a portal of communication. He sent out a prayer/request for Naomi or whoever was in charge, then stood back and hoped they would answer it before any other humans returned to the park.

Within two minutes, the sigil lit up beneath the sand, glowing and swirling with light as the gate unlocked. As the light cleared, Naomi stepped through. Her human vessel looked haggard and weary as she greeted him, and what he could perceive of her true form faired no better.

“Castiel. I suppose I should thank you for taking care of Dumah. Her play for my position was quite misguided. But please, make it quick. I cannot stray from the bounds of Heaven for long.”

“Because there are so few angels to provide enough power to ‘keep the lights on,’ I know. That’s…that’s why I wanted to meet with you. I wanted to offer my services once more to Heaven. If you will have me.”

Naomi rarely showed any spark of emotion unless it was anger. But in this moment, she looked genuinely taken by surprise. “You’re…asking to return. To be accepted home.”

“Yes. It has become all too apparent to me, perhaps after far too long, that my place was never here among the humans. I have caused far more harm than good.”

“That is all I have ever tried to impart upon you, Castiel.” 

Her saccharine tone made his stomach turn; in the past, he would have lashed out with a sarcastic retort. But not now, not today. “Yes, well. God—Chuck—declared an ‘end’ to his story. He opened a rift to Hell before vanishing…though I doubt for good. I assume Heaven knows Jack is dead.”

She nodded. “We are aware of this tragic turn of events. Jack was our last hope for making new angels. The first ones he brought us, they’re…it’s taken them some time to adjust and they’re not as strong as we were in our prime. But it has helped hold off Heaven’s eventual collapse. I had been hoping we could reach an agreement in the future for further aid from Jack.” She quirked her head. “What of your deal with the Empty, and Jack’s life for yours?”

“The Empty has voided it in order to keep Jack—and separate me from him.” Castiel watched as her tattered wings slumped. “Earth, Heaven…all of this universe may not have long left if Chuck gets his way. While the rift was closed, I suspect he is planning more once he gathers his strength again. He will not be happy until he gets the ending he wants for his ‘story’.” He paused, gathering himself. “I am not equipped to fight him now. If anyone can, it may be the Winchester brothers, but I must move on from thinking I can assist them. So I would ask to add what small grace I possess to help maintain Heaven as long as possible.”

“You have my word you would be welcome back, Castiel. No angel would dare harm another today. We must all forgive each other for our sins.”

He nodded his thanks. “There is only one thing I’d ask from you in return. I want…I need you to reset me. Wipe my memory of all that I have done since retrieving Dean Winchester from Hell.”

She blinked. “You want to be reprogrammed.”

“Yes. The memories are too painful. My regrets, too deep. Perhaps it is selfish of me to request this, but…”

“On the contrary, it is a wonderful thing! It shows me you have finally learned why humans and angels should know our respective places and not try to be friends or family. It only breaks us, Castiel.”

“I understand now. My family was never to be found with the humans. It is in Heaven.”

Naomi’s smile as she stepped forward to take his hands in her own was like a shark’s—cold, all teeth. “We shall return to Heaven together. And I will do as you ask, and I know the others will rejoice to have you rejoin the flock. We will protect the souls of Heaven as long as we are able.” 

“Yes. We will. I will.” Castiel followed as she returned to her place in the center of the sigil.

The doorway opened, and he took a last look at Earth before it dissolved around him, sending one last thought and prayer to the man he’d loved, even knowing he’d never hear it.

Good luck, Dean. I hope you some day find whatever makes you happy, before it is too late. I know it is not me, as much as you would have been mine.

Chapter Text

Of course, after being trained since childhood to keep a loaded gun under your pillow, and learning that the shadow-monsters lurking in your closet or under your bed really could kill you?

It was understandably difficult to get a single solid wink, let alone the proverbial forty.

This was part and parcel of the hunter’s lot in life. But then Hell had come for Dean, and all the associated nightmares he could never shake off. Not unless he drank enough to pass out cold, or a certain angel was there to block the bad dreams from taking root.

The problem with blackout drinking, however, was that he woke up the next day feeling shittier than if he hadn’t slept at all. And today was one of those days where Dean got up finding too many empty bottles by his bed, his mouth as dry as the Sahara, his head pounding like John Bonham’s bass drum and everything else just…

Just too goddamn much, period. 

He wasn’t sure what day it was. Didn’t especially care. What did it matter? He thought it might be two days since they’d sealed the rupture that had been puking out cursed souls from Hell to wreak havoc on the world.

Two days since they’d won that battle, but lost Rowena. 

Since they couldn’t save Kevin from a shitty fate wandering the Earth, a ghost without a tether or a chance to reach Heaven for some much deserved peace. 

Two days since Dean had said things to Cas that had led the angel to leave the bunker and the Winchesters behind him, maybe for good.

Which, if that was the case? Fine. 

Dean was tired of putting up with his bullshit. 

At least that was what he was telling himself. That he’d been right to call it as he saw it: Cas had fucked up—big time, more times than Dean could count, but especially and most recently with Jack. 

If Cas had simply stuck to the original plan and been honest with Dean, they could have saved a lot of trouble, and lives.

Lives like Rowena’s, and their mom’s. 

And yeah, it was easier to put everything on Cas than to examine his own actions. How he’d held that gun on Jack and come this close to killing the kid himself—the child whom, in all the ways that mattered, they’d considered their own son. The one whom the three of them had tried so hard to raise, to save, to teach how to be good.

But then Chuck had killed Jack in a fit of spite and anger. A snap of his fingers had undone years of struggle, hope, pain, joy…

…life.

Fuck Chuck. 

Fucking fuck everyone, really. 

And the way Dean was feeling? 

Fuck this hangover in particular.

He couldn’t decide what he needed the most: a shower or a massive injection of caffeine followed by an Advil chaser. Both sounded glorious, yet the prospect of getting up and out of his warm, comfy bed and doing anything was nauseating.

Still, he couldn’t lay around all day. In time, Sammy would come pounding on his door and demand that he needed to get up and do something, blah blah blah. 

Wanting to avoid a brotherly intervention, Dean made the effort to move. The process of sitting up, standing, and then putting on his robe required several pauses to make sure he wouldn’t hurl his stomach contents all over the floor. Eventually he staggered out and to the kitchen, the call of caffeine winning over any other bodily demands.

As he filled the coffee pot with water, unbidden memories started filtering through his fuzzy mind:

—mornings waking to the smell of coffee filling the hallways of the bunker. Knowing when he’d enter the galley, he’d find Cas sitting there at the table, still as a marble statue save for the steaming cup grasped in his hands. He’d look up at Dean with a small smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he’d say, “Good morning, Dean,” as if he’d been waiting there all night to do precisely that. Because he probably had. And then—

“Stop it,” Dean said under his breath, clenching his hand to avoid pounding the counter.

At this rate, he might as well grab the whiskey and forget the coffee. Although, a little hair of the dog might not be the worst thing in the world.

Of all the ways Dean knew he could die, cirrhosis of the liver seemed the least probable.

After a few minutes, the coffee began to trickle down into the glass carafe. The aroma cleared his head, and he started to piece together fragments of what had happened the day before, how he’d ended up in this state of misery.

He remembered running into Sam on his way to Baby, telling him only that Cas had left and not feeling like explaining the whys and hows. He’d just wanted to get in his car and drive, blow off some steam. 

He remembered pulling into some dive bar in the early afternoon, and everything grew hazy after that. He knew he’d drunk enough to know not to drive. So he’d slept it off in Baby until someone from the bar had come knocking on his window to check on him. By then it was pitch black, lights out, something like two in the morning. 

He’d headed back home when he felt capable of being behind the wheel. Too sober by the time he got to the bunker…which explained the empty beer bottles he’d found by his bedside. 

He poured himself a mug of coffee as soon as enough was ready and slunk over to the table. He’d barely gotten down his first welcome sip when his moose of a brother came barreling down the corridor, headed straight for him.

Dean grimaced and braced himself for impact.

“Dean! Where the hell have you been?!” 

“Out. And now I’m here. So could you lower the volume a little, man?” 

“Oh, am I disturbing your hangover? Too damn bad! We’ve got serious problems to deal with, way more serious than your alcoholic pity-party.”

There was a small part of Dean that, every once in a while, missed having the Mark. Because he really would have loved the excuse to knock his brother into the next county for that. Instead, he swallowed down his anger and managed, “Okay, so, spill about whatever is so serious.”

Sam pulled out a chair—scraping it so sharply against the floor Dean felt the sound like an ice-pick to his skull. “I talked with Cas yesterday after you vanished. He went back to Heaven. I tried to stop him, but he was already gone. He left his truck at the playground in Savannah.”

Dean nodded and tried not to show any emotional response to the news. He wasn’t even sure in his hungover, half-out-of-it state what emotions he felt. “And? I told you he sounded like he was leaving for good.”

“Yeah, you did. But did you know Cas made a deal to bring back Jack when he died last year? A deal to keep him out of the Empty? Cas traded his own life for Jack’s and never told us.”

That stupid son-of-a-bitch. “Sounds like something Cas would do.”

Sam blinked at him. “That’s...that’s all you’ve got?”

“What do you want me to say, Sam? That it was a dumb-ass thing to do? Of course it was! We know deals always end up leading to even more problems.”

Sam slammed his palm on the table. “I want you to maybe give a damn about the one person who’s been our friend for the past decade!”

Between Sam’s raised voice and the banging around, Dean’s head was about to explode. “Okay, so for one, Cas is not a person; he’s an angel. We can’t understand his motivations for half the things he does, can we? And two, he hasn’t always acted like a friend. Betraying us to work with Crowley? Wanting to replace God?”

“Yeah, well…there’s someone else here who’s worked with Crowley,” Sam said. “Maybe done more with him than that.”

Dean nearly spit out a mouthful of coffee. “Hey!”

“Am I wrong?”

“We’re not talking about Crowley. Or me. We’re talking about Cas!”

“Whatever. You know, some people might say we’ve done our own fair share of playing God. Deciding who gets to live or die. Trading other peoples’ lives for each other’s.”

“Not the same thing. Not anywhere near the same thing, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t ‘know it,’ Dean. In fact, there’s hardly a day I don’t think about how many people we’ve—” Sam cut himself off, then sighed and shook his head. “Forget it. I know it’s been bad for you lately. Real bad. But you’re not the only one hurting. And lashing out at the rest of us—at Cas, at me—it’s not helping anyone.”

“I know it isn’t, Sam. I do. I just...it’s like I don’t know what else to do,” Dean admitted, some of his anger fading. “I am angry, and I am mad at Cas, so what am I supposed to do, smile and act like everything’s okay?”

“Of course not. But we could have worked through it. We usually do.”

“Don’t know if that’s possible now. With mom gone, Jack dead, and Chuck making us question how much of anything we’ve ever done, ever been through, was by our own choice? I don’t…I don’t know how to feel any longer. If it’s worth trying to fight it.”

“I’m struggling with that, too. We lost good people these last few months, and I can’t…it’s hard to think about losing anyone else. So maybe we have to keep going if not for us, then for the people we care about. The ones who are still out there, fighting, hoping to make it through another day.”

“Is that your big rally-the-troops speech for today?”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a slight laugh. “I guess it is. Did it work?”

Dean didn’t answer immediately beyond a noncommittal shrug.

The people we care about…how many of them are left? he wondered. But he thought of the ones he could name right away: 

Donna, Jody, and the girls. 

Garth and his family—even if they were a bunch of weirdo werewolves.

Bobby and Charlie, despite not being their Bobby and Charlie. They’d seen their home world destroyed and were some of the last of the hunters still surviving after Michael.

The other hunters who were out there, including the few who’d gotten out of it, to just try to live some kind of normal life. Hunters like Cesar and Jesse, whom Dean often thought about, wondering if they were okay.

“Alright. I guess,” Dean agreed. “But before I even consider fighting another fight, I need a second cup of coffee, and then my hangover-proof breakfast of champions.”

“Two Advils, three eggs covered in hot sauce, and a half a pound of bacon?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” Sam got up from the table with a gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder. “And about Cas—”

“Cas can take care of himself. We’ll be fine without him.”

“But—”

Dean shrugged off Sam’s touch. “Drop it, Sam. Please,” he said, a little more plaintive in this request.

“Okay.”

Dean could hear the “...for now,” Sam no doubt was adding silently, but he paid it no mind.

He meant what he’d said. They’d be good on their own.

They would.

Maybe after some food and a lot more coffee, Dean would actually believe it.

Life went on, everything unusually quiet considering the barely averted ghost-pocalypse that had befallen the world. The media seemed content with the gas leak story to explain why people had experienced “strange hallucinations” and “violent outbursts” in Harlan, Kansas. The rapid resolution and quick cover-up by the recruited hunters limited the story’s reach, allowing everyone to return to business as usual…

…almost everyone, at least.

But a few days out from it all and suddenly Sam was the one moping around the bunker, sleeping half the day and hiding out in his room. When Dean poked him about it, Sam would say something about the loss of Rowena hitting him harder now that it was sinking in. That he needed some time, finally, to process losing Mary and Jack, too.

Dean snuck a look at Sam’s phone and saw a stream of texts to Cas, which had all gone unanswered.

Which, duh. Dean was pretty sure Heaven didn’t have T-Mobile.

So he set his mind to searching for a hunt, something to get them out of the bunker, back into the groove. Like Sam had said before he went all mopey: they needed to keep doing what they did best, for their friends. For all the “mundanes” out there who didn’t know that monsters and ghosts, angels and demons—they were all real, and mostly a giant bag of dicks.  

None more so than God himself.

When a cheerleader’s death in the aftermath of a string of cattle mutilations caught Dean’s eye, he jumped on the hunt and dragged Sam with him. They could both use it—for the distraction factor and hopefully, an easy win. It was the sort of case they used to live and breathe when they were younger, before all the mess of demon deals and a preordained apocalypse changed the trajectory of their lives.

In fact, when they got to the town of Beaverdale, Iowa and Dean found a vampire fang in the morgue? It felt a bit like winning the lottery. 

Sam brought up a concern, though. “Vampires drain their victims. Vamps don’t rip their bodies apart.”

“Apparently this one does.”

And it got weirder. Grim, in a way that took the “win” out of the whole affair.

Instead of a blood-thirsty lair of monsters, they uncovered a family protecting their teenage son.

Billy, recently turned, had dreamed of attending Yale someday. But now, drinking blood had taken priority over lacrosse practice and SAT prep. His parents seemed to have no remorse over resorting to kidnapping to maintain Billy’s supply, either.

“You don’t have children, do you?” Billy’s father had asked Dean when they’d figured everything out, yet couldn’t believe the things these parents had done. “Because if you did, you would know that to see your child in pain rips your heart out. And you’d know that you’d do anything. You’d die for them.”

You don’t have to fucking tell me that. How many times have I had to see it and live through it?

Dean cursed Chuck as he took the poor kid out into the woods for a beheading. Billy hadn’t even fought against it; he’d known his death was necessary, that all he’d do was kill again. Billy knelt on the ground and the memory of soulless Jack doing the same plagued Dean.

He thought of Cas, in the cemetery, pleading and desperate to do anything to save Jack’s life.

Damn you, Chuck. The blade was heavy in his hands, and the only way he could make the swing was imagining it was God there before him, ready to take the blow.

You’re still playing with us, writing the script, aren’t you? 

Or is this some leftover plot you forgot to scrap before disappearing?

You’re a bastard, either way. 

On the drive home, Dean couldn’t stop worrying and wondering about what else, what other lovely surprises Chuck might have left behind for them, like unexploded bombs sprinkled around the countryside after a war. Or maybe he was continuing to cook things up from wherever he’d gone to lick his wounds.

Sam was still rubbing at his shoulder where he’d taken that bullet from the Equalizer, leaving an injury that wasn’t healing—but at least it wasn’t getting any worse, either. 

“We should get someone to look at that,” Dean said.

“Like who?” Sam asked. “Cas tried to heal it and couldn’t. Rowena’s no longer an option. We don’t even have Ketch anymore to tell us if the Brits have something that could help.”

Dean shrugged. “I know, but…we do have our own library of vast, if often completely useless, information.”

“I’ve already been trying to find a fix or healing spell, believe me. But that gun is unlike anything the Men of Letters had ever heard of. Chuck made it up on the spot; I don’t think there’s going to be any lore on it.”

“Hmph. I wonder, though…” Dean thought of another time: Cas, wounded by a divine spear that had spread rot through his body and angelic self. Crowley, in the corner by himself, saving the day with a snap of said spear. “I wonder if we destroy the gun, if that would somehow heal the wound.”

Sam frowned at him. “Destroy it? It’s our only weapon against Chuck.”

“If he comes back.”

“I don’t trust that he won’t.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Dean confessed.

Sam sighed. “I know I’m being pessimistic lately, but you know, maybe I’ll…I’ll feel better in the morning.”

“And what if you don’t?” Dean asked him.

“I don’t know.”

Dean didn’t really know, either.

Days passed into weeks, with nothing changing. Nothing of note happening.

Dean distracted himself by cleaning and working on their cars. He restocked their pantry—which was a pretty straightforward task now that it involved only buying for him and Sam. 

Like old times.

He searched for more hunts. 

Because otherwise, every so often—too often—he found himself lying around in bed or zoned out in front of the television, thinking about Cas. Having to stop himself from praying to him. Wondering what he was up to. What was happening in Heaven. If Cas really was happier there, or if it was merely an escape from everything unfinished he’d left behind here. Somewhere and some way to process his own grief over all the shit that had gone down in recent months.

Cas always ran away instead of sticking around through the hard stuff. 

Dean didn’t ask Sam for any more details about this supposed “deal” Cas had made for Jack’s life, even if he lay awake at night wondering about what it might have entailed.

A life for a life? If so, why hadn’t the Empty taken Cas then and there when they’d gotten Jack back?

What had the terms of Cas’s deal been? A certain number of years before it got called in, like a demon deal? 

Did maybe some of this have to do with him going to Heaven now?

Was he hoping to find a way to resurrect Jack again?

The more Dean thought about it, the angrier he got.

Cas, you damn fool.

Why didn’t you tell me? We could have figured out how to get you out of it.

Or is that why you were so cagey about what was going on with Jack? Why you didn’t want to admit that his soul was gone? 

It bugged him so much that he searched their rooms for clues. Cas’s was a completely wasted effort; it was basically empty. Nothing to show the angel or anyone had ever used it, save for the neatly made bed, clean desk, and bare closet. He’d left one book behind on the nightstand, a Vonnegut novel borrowed from Dean. Galápagos.

Jack’s room similarly gave no clues about what happened with him, Cas, and the Empty. Jack only had a small wardrobe of clothes, most of which Sam had picked out from the local Goodwill. He’d kept an assortment of mementos on a shelf from some of their cases and travels: a keychain from Memphis, a rubber bracelet saying “Virginia is for lovers.” Jack had a pressed penny made at the “World’s Largest Ball of Twine,” along with several postcards he’d sent back to their own post office box from other attractions. A printed and framed photograph of his mother rested on his nightstand, holding clearly the most important position.

It was all that remained to mark the life of one of the most powerful beings ever to live.

After a week of moping, Sam finally got over whatever bug had crawled up his ass. Dean found him in the library one morning deep into his old work routine: going through stacks of books, making calls to hunters’ network, and spending hours typing away at his laptop. The bulletin board where he tracked suspicious activity around the country was filling up again, and seeing that pleased Dean.

“How’s the shoulder?” Dean asked him later on, after he’d made breakfast for them both.

“It’s…it’s still there.” Sam rubbed it through his shirt. “But it’s not, like…actually painful, the way you’d expect a normal bullet wound to be? And it doesn’t seem to be getting worse, so…”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Tell me about it. Anyway, so check out this story I saw on reddit last night…”

Sam was quick to change the subject, so Dean let it be.

There was a case involving a “mountain lion” killing three people Sam was following that intrigued Dean, too. The odds of getting attacked by a mountain lion—let alone dying from such an attack—were so astronomically low they both knew it had to mean “monster.” And when Sam said the death toll had risen to five, Dean knew it was time to get out there and find out exactly what type.

They weren’t prepared for how much of a monster they’d end up finding, though. Not by a long shot.

Dean suspected werewolves from the start—he even dragged out their ancient fish and wildlife IDs for the hell of it, feeling nostalgic. They had one hospitalized victim to interview, Ashley, who’d been lucky enough to escape her attacker without getting bitten, and who knew who he was. Tracking him down led Sam and Dean to a pair of brothers living in a cabin deep in the Black Forest of Colorado, so suspicious in their behavior there was no doubt what was happening.

Or so Dean thought.

It was all so easy, so rote, he should have known something was up. He should have been more on guard for a twist they weren’t expecting. Because the next thing they knew, the two werewolf brothers were dead in a murder-suicide and their victim, Ashley, turned out to be none other than their old foe, Lilith. She might be wearing a new vessel, but there was no mistaking her milky-white eyes and smile of pure malice.

“Well, this is a bitch,” she said after being caught out. Hard to keep pretending she was a poor human casualty after being run through with deer antlers yet still standing tall.

“No, you—you’re dead,” Sam sputtered. He should know, being the one who had killed her years ago. Killed her and thereby set off the apocalypse, releasing Lucifer from the Cage.

“Was dead. Yeah. In the Empty, sleeping the big sleep, until the boss brought me back.”

“The boss? Lucifer?” Sam guessed.

“God.” 

“Chuck sent you to kill us?”

“No. That’s not how this story goes,” she said, before demanding the one weapon they had in this fight: the Equalizer.

Chuck and his goddamned stories. 

There was no satisfaction for Dean in being proven correct, in finding out these last two hunts were thanks to Chuck being heavy-handed with his stupid story parallels. Real people had suffered, had died. Whole families torn apart by tragedy, all because Chuck fancied it and wanted to hit Dean and Sam over the head with his message.

Their lives were not their own to control. No matter what they did or tried to change, either Dean would kill Sam, or Sam would kill Dean. Sam confessed that he’d been seeing visions again, all the different ways it might happen.

So was there any way for them to fight it? To stop God?  The Equalizer was gone, thanks to Lilith—and Sam still bore its wound.

Restless and sleepless in bed that night, Dean had no clue what to do next.

“Maybe you had the right idea, Cas,” Dean said aloud, staring up at his ceiling in the dark.

This time he was praying on purpose, for real. His anger and hurt related to Cas’s actions and his decision to leave persisted. But it was eating away at him that they’d lost the one person who might help them. 

“Maybe it’s time to give up on beating God and move on. Accept there’s no way to beat him at his own game. Like you up and leaving on me and Sam. I mean…I guess I didn’t give you any other choice.”

Dean pondered the darkness, the silence, knowing he would not get any answer. 

But there was some not insignificant part of him desperately hoping that he would. 

“Cas, man…Where the hell are you, anyway?”

Chapter Text

Heaven was quiet.

That was good.

That was precisely as it should be.

Castiel, angel of the Lord, walked through the bright and silent corridors, verifying all was well. Everyone was where they belonged, each soul in their neatly separated, individual afterlife. Heaven was vast and eternally expanding as new souls were born, then died, then secured away in their private, peaceful, eternal reward.

(Provided, of course, they did not end up sentenced to Hell, or turned into a monster and cursed to Purgatory.) 

Heaven thrummed with the energy of billions upon billions of souls, all reliving the best and happiest moments of their lives on Earth. But without the grace of angels to hold those souls aloft, they would fall back to Earth to be stuck forever in the veil between the living and the dead.

The angels had one noble mission above all others: to keep the souls safe as long as possible. Protect God’s loyal subjects, his favorite creations. Pray to their almighty father that he might, some day, come back and save them all.

It was the only thing the angels who remained could hope for. And until then, it was their duty.

Castiel performed his with gratitude.

The corridors of Heaven were easily traversed by the angels, even with their clipped wings. Here such things mattered little, for through a simple fold in space Castiel moved from Cordell Maximus Sanderson, 1898 - 1940, to Yasmin Maria Rios, 1952 - 2010, where an alarm had sounded on angel radio. Every once in a while, a soul accidentally discovered the hidden door to their private afterlife and found themselves lost in the sprawling hallways. The experience was often traumatic and it was crucial to return them “home” before chaos ensued.

From what Castiel recalled, this used to be a very rare occurrence. These days, it happened far more frequently—part of the weakening of Heaven as a whole, apparently.

He surveyed his surroundings and saw no one, no souls stranded in the corridors despite the alert. 

Must have been a false alarm, he thought. 

A soul possibly cracking open their door, peering outside and immediately shutting it. The near infinity of Heaven could be terrifying, almost impossible for a human to comprehend. Still, Castiel lingered in the area to be certain.

A tremble in Heaven’s firmament passed through, causing the light above him to dim briefly, his grace absorbing the unsettling vibrations. He wondered if that could have been the cause for alarm. These power fluctuations happened regularly nowadays, but usually sorted themselves out without direct angelic intervention.

There were too few angels left, as Castiel understood it. Several major wars had cost them most of their ranks—at least that was what he had been told, what his memory revealed in scattered pieces.

“We nearly lost you, Castiel,” Naomi had told him when he’d awoken in a large reclining chair in her office, unsure of how he’d gotten there. Only after she introduced herself and explained she was the highest ranking angel left in Heaven did he even know who she was. “There was a great battle that depleted much of your grace. They almost called in the last remaining Rit Zien to ease your passage to death, but I insisted on trying to save you first.”

“A great battle? Against whom?”

“Against the agents of Darkness. Sadly, we seem to be losing. Even God turned away from this Creation, long ago, but we hope He may some day return before it is too late.”

“Then…what of us who remain? What of the souls in Heaven?”

“If Father never returns to save us, then we will hold strong to guard the souls until the last light of Heaven is extinguished. Will you stand with us, Castiel?”

“Of course. It is why I was created, is it not?”

“Yes, it is.”

Castiel completed his sweep of the area, and when nothing more revealed itself, he took a brief respite in one of the human afterlives that he particularly enjoyed visiting. He found humans curious and captivating creatures; their worlds were often so colorful and full of “emotions” he yearned to understand. The existence of angels was peaceful, but all very…bland. Sterile. In contrast, the humans were loud and raucous, sometimes, but also all unique.

Most human souls drifted from one beloved memory to another, shifting from childhood to old age to their wedding day and back again without thought of time or circumstance. But this soul never moved on from this one particular memory. Fisher James Schmidt, 1904 - 1953, spent his eternal reward in an everlasting Tuesday afternoon flying his kite in the gardens of the hospital he called home. It was a bright, late spring day, the flowers and bushes in full bloom, the air rich with floral scents and birds chirping in the trees.

Fisher’s kite never touched the ground. His vision rarely wavered from following its flight through the air. Sometimes, Castiel’s broken wings twitched as he yearned to fly as easily as that kite, forever weightless, permanently adrift. 

He’d asked Naomi what had happened to their wings, for he did not remember.

“Destroyed in one of the great battles I told you of before, Castiel. We all lost our ability to fly—all except for the archangels.”

“And where are they?”

“Lucifer is dead, thankfully. Raphael and Gabriel were both lost during that last war. Michael fell to the Cage that was meant to keep Lucifer away from Heaven and Earth.”

“What if we were to mount a rescue mission to free him? Bring him back to Heaven?”

“The forces of Hell would not allow it. He is their prize ‘trophy’ now, from all that I have learned. And we do not have the angel-power left to stage an assault on Hell.”

Castiel questioned whether that was really the case. He thought all it would take was one determined angel to fight through the inferior demons of Hell to rescue the archangel.

But he was not a commander. He was no leader. He was simply Castiel, Angel of Thursday, and if Naomi told him his duty was to monitor Heaven’s corridors for the safekeeping of souls, then that’s exactly what he would do.

With, perhaps, a little “down time” visiting his favorite heavens, every now and then.

Castiel wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there in this peaceful garden, meditating, when he sensed another angel enter Fisher’s heaven to join him. He turned to see his superior beside him and lowered his head in greeting. “Naomi.”

“Hello, Castiel. All is well on your patrols?”

“Yes. I found one human soul astray in Sector Nine-Three-Five-Oh-Four-Point-Five: Yukimura Shiki, 1920 - 1944. I guided him back to his afterlife and erased the memory of his wanderings. Since then, everything has been quiet, despite several alarms.”

“Very good.” She stood beside him for some time, silent, as he monitored the kite overhead. “I notice you come to this heaven with some frequency. Is there a particular reason for it?”

“Reason? No, I…I don’t think so. I just find it a pleasant afterlife in which to contemplate our mission. Rest my grace when I feel the need. Is that…not acceptable?”

“It is fine, provided you are only observing and not interacting with the human soul.”

“I would never, unless required to redirect one to their proper place.”

“I know it is common to be intrigued by humans and their small, simple lives. But never forget that we are not them. We are not like them. Even when we take on their likeness, use their bodies as vessels for our grace.”

“I will not forget.” Castiel had questions about that—about his own vessel—which Naomi and the others seemed to always avoid answering. The other angels, if they had a vessel (and all did currently except for Zarall, who staunchly refused), were shared with a living soul. Yet Castiel knew there was no one in this vessel except himself.

“Why am I alone in this vessel? Where is its human soul?”

“He died when you were injured. He’s in his own afterlife now.”

“I should like to find him and apologize for costing him his life.”

“That is not a good idea. He is happy. He is with his wife; his family will share an afterlife as a reward for his gracious sacrifice.”

It made sense, and yet…

It was also puzzling. 

Castiel looked around at the gardens, Fisher James Schmidt and his kite. An image flashed through his mind then, unexpected and unbidden:

Angels lying dead on the grass where he now stood. Dozens of them, more in the distance.

And he—

The image slipped away as quickly as it had come to him. He blinked, confused by what had just happened, what he had seen.

Another power fluctuation, playing tricks with his grace?

Perhaps a memory of those battles Naomi alluded to?

She was looking at him curiously and with some concern. For whatever reason, he thought it best not to make a point of mentioning his vision, so he merely said, “I suppose I should go back on my patrol now.”

And maybe he should find somewhere new to relax when need be. 

She nodded her approval. “I shall see you at our next scheduled session, unless anything critical comes up before then.”

“Yes, our next session. And then the staff meeting, of course.”

“Of course.”

After nodding and stepping away, he slipped out the door. A stray weed, out of place in the garden, triggered the portal where it remained otherwise hidden behind a grand fir tree. 

Castiel had important work to do. And he was grateful for it.

Chapter Text

Call me when you get the chance
I can feel the walls around me closing in
-Sleep Token, "Euclid"

“It don’t seem real…how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.”

“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”

“Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.”

“We all got it coming, kid.”

Dean had watched Unforgiven more times than he could count. Along with Tombstone and High Noon, he had never grown tired of it.

Not until today. 

There was no delight to be found in Clint Eastwood’s world-weary performance, as much as it had mesmerized him before. In all the ways it was a loving homage to his cherished Western genre, everything he’d loved about these films, he couldn’t find that spark on this rewatch.

Maybe it was inertia catching up with him. Dean was pretty sure he was on day three of not leaving his room except to use the bathroom, scour the bunker for any remaining booze stashes, and raid the fridge when he calculated Sam wouldn’t be there to intercept him and shoot judging looks.

So much for getting their groove back.

So much for Dean giving a damn about anything.

After that hunt in Colorado and the revelation from Lilith, Dean had lost his enthusiasm and motivation. He didn’t give a shit about hunting. Didn’t give a shit about Chuck.

He sure as hell didn’t care about Cas, either, after his turning tail and abandoning them for Heaven.

He certainly wasn’t sitting there thinking about those times he’d tried to introduce Cas to his favorite movies. Nope, definitely wasn’t remembering that. Or the time they’d gone to Carson City, and he’d bought Cas a cowboy hat, and…

Fuck.

Dean stared at the tv screen from his bed, zoned out and not really registering what he was seeing. It was just blurring together in his mind. Maybe he needed to switch it up, put on something different, like catch up on the latest season of Dr. Sexy or wallow in some mindless old Scooby-Doo reruns.

Both possibilities held their own caveats. Dr. Sexy had been his and Cas’ thing to watch, once the angel had caught up on the previous seasons a few years back. And Scooby-Doo had never been the same since they’d gotten sucked into an actual Scooby Gang mystery.

(Sam and Cas hadn’t even appreciated how good he looked in an ascot.)

So Dean let the film drone on, trying to get back into it until he actually passed out and caught some awkwardly positioned, dead-to-the-world sleep. When he woke up some unknown time later, Netflix was asking him if he was still watching. He hadn’t really been paying attention to begin with, so with a sigh he clicked “Exit” and signed off.

The clock informed him it was time to get up anyway. He had to take a leak and his stomach was telling him he needed to find something more substantial to eat than a box of Cocoa Crunch and a pack of Rolaids. So he ventured out into the bunker, whether or not he’d run into Sam.

What did it matter? Nothing seemed to matter anymore; it just felt like he was going through the motions.

One welcome surprise ended up interrupting Dean’s drudgery that day, for Sam returned from his morning run with an unexpected guest in tow. Apparently, someone had been haunting the bunker for weeks, attempting to get their attention, and had finally manifested herself from beyond the veil.

Dean blinked in shock as a familiar face flickered into sight beside Sam. “Eileen?”

She waved and smiled at him. “Hi, Dean.”

“Holy shit.” He had to stop himself from rushing at her for a hug—she was a ghost, after all, so he would just run right through her. “How are you—” he started, excitement turning to confusion. “Wait. After Sam identified your body, we claimed it and gave you a hunter’s funeral. Is there something you’re tied to here?” Like Bobby and his old flask; it wouldn’t surprise him if Sam had held onto a memento of hers, despite knowing the risk.

“No. Turns out she was in Hell,” Sam explained, and Eileen nodded. “She got out when Chuck blew the doors open.”

“And I hauled ass to find you guys,” she said.

“But why were you in Hell?” Dean asked. “You didn’t make a deal, right? You’ve been down there this whole time?”

“Unfortunately. The Hellhound that killed me? Kind of dragged me there.”

Dean exhaled. “Damn.” Eileen was as tough as they came, but there was no mistaking the haunted look in her eyes. Hell was no picnic for anyone, and demons especially loved to torture any hunters who ended up in their grips. 

He knew this well, from experience.

She could read the concern in both Sam and Dean’s gazes, too, the things they weren’t saying about this entire mess. “I’ve been trying to get you guys to see me for a while now. This whole ghost thing doesn’t really come with a handbook. I don’t know how all this works, but I know how it ends. We go crazy. We hurt people. I can’t stay here, and I won’t go back down there. So I thought…” she paused, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “You guys know angels. Maybe if you put in a good word, you know, up there…”

Dean jumped in to save Sam the heartache of having to tell her the bad news. “Eileen, even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. Souls from Hell can’t go to Heaven. A friend of ours just found that out. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said, doing her best to put on a brave face. “Me too. In that case…want to catch me up on what I’ve missed? Maybe I can at least be a useful ghost for a while.”

“Eileen…” Sam started.

“Humor me, Sam. Please. Or else, I might as well just go haunt the assholes who sent those Hellhounds after me.”

“Well, it’s a pretty long story,” Dean said. “The last three years have been a lot.”

They caught Eileen up on as much as they could: how they’d chased the British Men of Letters’ out of the States. Jack’s birth, Cas dying (and coming back). Mom getting trapped in another dimension with Lucifer for most of a year, and Jack getting stuck there, too.

Everything that happened with Michael from that other dimension, then Jack losing his soul…mom dying.

Hell breaking loose—literally.

“Wow. You guys have been busy,” was Eileen’s response to it all, and then: “Sorry about your mom.”

“Thanks. At least we know she’s in Heaven.” Dean immediately regretted bringing that up as Sam shot him a dirty look.

Eileen grimaced. “At least there’s that, right? So…what are you doing about Chuck now?”

“That’s a good question.” Sam glanced at Dean. “I guess we’re trying to figure out if there’s anything we can do. Any way to stop Chuck from messing with our lives further. Everyone’s lives.”

“Well, I don’t know if there’s much I can do, but I’ll try. Although I think I need to phase out for a bit.”

Sam frowned. “Eileen?”

“Staying manifested for this long takes a lot of energy. So I’m going to drop out now, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course. You do what you have to do,” Sam said.

“Okay. I’ll be back. Later.” She waved at Dean and smiled fondly at Sam before blinking out of sight.

Dean turned to Sam. “Okay…wow. That was unexpected.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed with a sigh. “I…I think I’m gonna go take my shower.” Sam got up quickly and ducked out of the kitchen before Dean could say anything else.

Dean sighed and shook his head. Just what they needed, another person in their orbit who’d gotten too deep into the Winchesters’ business and ended up dead—and not just dead, but an Earthbound ghost for their troubles.

Dean’s anger towards Chuck, already simmering, was close to boiling over into a furious rage.

While Sam showered, Dean prepared breakfast for them both, using the time to process Eileen’s (more or less) return.

Sam returned to the galley after about a half hour. “Hey, you doin’ okay?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, it’s…I never thought I’d see Eileen again, y’know? But it sucks that it’s like this.”

“No, for real.” Dean presented his brother with a veggie omelet as a peace offering. He sat down with his own ham and cheese scramble, shaking his head. “Who suddenly decided that souls that had been in Hell for any reason can’t get into Heaven?”

“Chuck, obviously…or, maybe Naomi?”

“Nah. We watched her send Bobby’s soul straight up top after you got him out of Hell, remember?”

“Right, and we know Bobby made it there, since he helped Cas and me one time. Plus, remember way back during the apocalypse, when you and I both died, and we went to Heaven and met Josha? You’d already been in Hell before then.”

“Hard to forget that. So either Chuck’s ret-conned things just to be more of a dick—which wouldn’t surprise me—or he’s such a shitty writer he can’t keep his continuity straight,” Dean said. “And I could sure believe that.”

“It’s a toss-up,” Sam agreed. He took a bite of his omelet, and then added, “I guess that means you and I won’t be seeing Heaven again, though, right?” 

“Probably not. Who knows.” Dean wasn’t sure he cared anymore. Billie had sworn she’d send them to the Empty the next time they kicked the bucket—and maybe that wasn’t the worst thing ever. Dean would take endless sleep and nothingness over having to relive this life, over and over.

But he wouldn’t worry about what’d happen after dying when they still had plenty of work to do here. “Listen, while you were in the shower, I was thinking…do we have any of those soul catchers, you know, like the ones we used in Harlan?”

Sam frowned at him. “You want to trap Eileen in a prison full of psycho ghosts?”

“No, no, no. Not with them. We’d make her one of her own, you know?” Dean had gotten the idea that, even if they couldn’t get Eileen up to Heaven right now, they might be able to keep her soul safe. Isolate her in one of the soul catchers until they could hopefully find some other solution, maybe sneak her in upstairs. “It’s better than where she was, and it’s better than where she’s going.”

“If it’s what Eileen wants, then…Maybe. The spell isn’t exactly easy, but…I’ve been meaning to go to Rowena’s place anyway to, uh…sort through her books and things. Probably a lot of stuff that’s not safe to leave out for just anyone to stumble on.”

“Probably some things she stole from us, too,” Dean said.

“Yeah, no doubt. Anyway, she might have a crystal that would work. Maybe some other alternative we haven’t thought of.”

“Great. You go do that.” Dean wolfed down the last bit of his eggs and then brought his plate to the sink to wash up.

“You’re not coming with?”

“It’s a milk run, and that magic business is more up your alley. I got things to take care of here in the meantime.”

“Things like what?”

“If it leads to anything, I’ll let you know.”

Dean could feel Sam’s eyes boring into him, but he had his reasons for staying behind. “Okay,” Sam finally said. “Guess I’ll…call you if I end up needing any backup.”

“You’ve got me, too.”

Dean turned to see Eileen had flickered back into view.

“So you heard Dean’s idea about the crystal?” Sam asked her.

She nodded. “Dean’s right, it’s better than my alternatives. So let’s do it.”

Dead hadn’t been lying to Sam; he genuinely had something he wanted to work on and he was glad to be left alone to get to it.

Research was his brother’s forte, not his own. Still, years in the bunker with its vast resources had taught him the answers to most of their problems were already here.

All they had to do was find them.

And there was nothing Dean wanted more than to take down Chuck. They’d defeated other gods and deities before, after all. Hell, he’d killed Hitler. He’d killed Death.

(Though he actually missed the old Death, and regretted that one.)

They’d seen Chuck down for the count once before, nearly offed by his sister. Surely there had to be some way to get to him. Not necessarily to kill him—that would be bad for the universe—but maybe to keep him off the table. Strip his powers so that existence didn’t need him to stay afloat. 

Contacting Amara could be one way, considering she was the one who had wounded him so gravely before. But Dean wasn’t sure he wanted to get in the middle of another sibling squabble like that. Moreover, if Chuck and Amara had truly made up, she might not want to fight him again.

Dean brewed a fresh pot of coffee and went to the library. He couldn’t say what he was looking for, but he kept thinking that there had to be something he was overlooking. Something that was right in front of him, yet he wasn’t seeing it. For all he knew, Chuck could’ve put a mental block in his mind—it almost felt like an obvious answer was tickling the back of his brain, waiting for him to remember, remember…

It was like trying to recall a vivid dream that faded the more you focused on remembering it.

He roamed the library in his dead man’s robe, picking up books at random, hoping for a title, a word, to spark his memory.

If Cas were here, he…

No, Dean stopped himself. He couldn’t think like that.

Only…

Were Cas present, he’d be at one of the library’s large tables, surrounded by stacks of books, diligently working through untranslated ancient texts. Dean could picture the scene as if Cas were there right now: the solid presence of him in that familiar suit and trench coat, unnervingly still save for his hands and eyes flicking quickly over the pages.

He might then close a book and sigh, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Weariness would fall over his features, his learned human mannerisms seeping in such that Dean would have to fight the urge to smile and tease him about it. 

This hypothetical scenario brought a specific memory to Dean’s mind, of when he’d had Michael locked up in his head. Sam and Cas had been working nonstop to find any solution short of what seemed like the only choice to Dean: locking himself up in the Ma’lak box and dumping his possessed ass to the bottom of the ocean…

“Dammit.”

Dean glanced up from his laptop at the curse and the sound of a book being slammed shut, surprised by the unexpected outburst. Cas rarely swore, and had been doing his best for so long to not lose hope—or at least, to not show Dean that he was. But his composure cracked in that moment, and Dean saw such grief in Cas’s eyes that he ached to do anything to ease it.

He got up and poured them both generous shots of the good whiskey. Putting one tumbler in front of Cas, he squeezed his shoulder gently and said, “Tired? C’mon, let’s take a break; I’m not getting anywhere either.” 

Cas shook his head. “Not tired, frustrated.”

“Yeah, me too. Cas, I know you’re sure there’s got to be some other way to deal with this, but maybe we should—”

“No, Dean. You don’t get to say it now. We agreed.”

“Right.” Dean tossed back his whiskey with a grimace. He’d love to down an entire bottle, but keeping Michael in check meant remaining mostly sober. “Tell you what, one more hour and then you come join me for a movie. Somethin’ dumb and mindless, you can pick.”

“Are you suggesting my taste in film is ‘dumb’ and ‘mindless?’”

“Well, last week you made us suffer through Maid in Manhattan.”

“And as I recall, you were the one who had it in your watch history on Netflix.”

“Shut up and keep looking.”

Dean shook himself out of the memory, of thinking back on those small, good moments they’d always somehow found even in their bleakest days. The silent, empty library reminded him that Cas was long gone. He wasn’t coming back. 

And if Dean was damned, like Eileen, to never set foot in Heaven again after having spent time in Hell? Then he likely would never see Cas again, either. 

He wasn’t supposed to care about that, not after everything that had happened. But it still made Dean’s chest ache. 

Like it or not, he did care about Cas. He missed him. He couldn’t picture a future without the angel at his side.

“Cas,” he said aloud, no longer able to resist the part of him that ached to reach out in prayer. “I hope you’re okay, man. I hope you’re doing better with things in Heaven than I’m doing right now with everything going on here. Maybe…maybe you could come back and we could talk, huh? It was shitty, the way you left. I should have…you should have reached out to me, not Sam. I would’ve told ya not to go anywhere, not to make any big dumb decisions.”

Dean paused, not sure what he was expecting. Cas wasn’t going to just pop up here in the bunker now, even if he wanted to. 

Dean was on his own.

He hoped Sam would have better luck helping Eileen, so his brother wouldn’t end up alone, too.

Chapter Text

Time lived again for just a moment
Missing pieces find me
And I'm whole again for just a moment
Missing pieces find me...

- Sleep Token, "Calcutta"

“Welcome back, Castiel.”

Castiel blinked, not realizing he’d left any place to which he needed to return.

His only knowledge was of the bright lights of Heaven’s offices framing Naomi's face as she looked down at him. Her fearsome trueform was tightly contained within her vessel, her human expression caring and serene. 

Castiel suppressed his panic and the queasiness caused by his disorientation, not wishing to appear weak before her. He had no memory of how he had arrived in this place, nor what he was doing restrained in this…strange, large chair. His trueform sought to break free, but he found it to be suppressed in the fifth plane of celestial space.

“Naomi.”

“Yes.”

“What—what am I doing here?”

“This is my office; you’re in Heaven.”

“That much I can observe.”

She either didn’t notice or chose to ignore his sarcasm. “You had a minor episode earlier, and came to see me for a ‘tune-up,’ as the humans might say.” 

Castiel’s restraints loosened as she moved back. He shot upright, watching her wipe her hands on a cloth before she secreted an instrument in her desk drawer. 

“A tune-up? What was wrong with me? What kind of episode?” He struggled to focus on what she was saying, what was going on. His head throbbed and his trueform vibrated with discomforting energies.

“Nothing to worry about; this is all to be expected given the severity of your…injuries in the war.” She sat at her desk and clasped her hands, and in an even tone asked, “Tell me, Castiel, when was the last time you were on Earth?”

“On Earth? I…” He tried to think back, but his mind, his grace, felt like someone had taken an ice pick to his skull. 

An angel blade-strength ice pick.

“I…it must have been when I obtained this vessel? When we fell, and lost our wings?”

She nodded, smiling. “Excellent. Do you remember what happened to the human who used to share that body with you?”

He did. At least, he thought he did. He remembered—

—pain!—

—a blonde-haired girl and a black car and a young man—

—no, two young men, and—

—pain stop STOP—

“He…when I was injured in battle. The wound was fatal for him. I…I only had enough grace left to save myself.”

“Very good,” Naomi said. Relief washed over Castiel at apparently giving the correct answer.

“Perhaps I should visit him in Heaven,” he wondered aloud. “He deserves gratitude for his sacrifice.” James was the man’s name, although he went by “Jimmy.” James Novak, and the blonde girl was his daughter, Claire. That much he remembered.

But who were the two men with the black car?

Naomi’s smile rapidly turned into a frown. “No, Castiel, we’ve gone over that before. That would be very unwise and I must forbid it! It could trigger another episode, one from which you might never return.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“Believe me, you’re doing remarkably well in your recovery. We’re all so pleased by your progress. Minor setbacks, such as today’s, are to be expected; don’t be disheartened. Provided you keep coming in for regular check-ups with me, we’ll have you fully recovered in, oh…no more than three or four decades. Barely the blink of a human eye.” The bright lights around them flickered and Heaven trembled. “If we survive that long, of course.”

“Yes.”

Castiel couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong—besides the obvious fragility of Heaven.

Naomi was keeping secrets from him. He didn’t remember coming to her office, “episode” or not. His last memory was…well, he wasn’t certain, and trying to recall what it could have been set off that stabbing pain in his grace again. 

He would not press the matter, not here. Naomi was his superior, and whatever she said had to be for the best.

There was a part of him that didn’t trust her, though. Maybe that was what he still needed treatments for? To work on his tendency toward insubordination? That thought struck a familiar note, as angels were not supposed to question authority, or their orders. So he did not dwell on or speak of it. 

“I suppose I should return to my duties,” he said, eager to escape Naomi’s office. “Is there anywhere in particular I am needed today?”

“You may resume regular patrols for any disruptions in Heaven’s firmament. I believe there may have been some activity in Sector Six-Oh-Four-Nine-A-Three-Six-D recently that Zotiel reported; perhaps you could see if he needs any assistance?”

“I will. Thank you, Naomi.”

“You are welcome, Castiel.”

He swiftly departed, keeping himself in check as he passed Shelley’s workstation just outside Naomi’s door. Shelley was one of the young angels created by the now deceased nephil, Jack Kline. She, like the other new angels, had a different resonance to her grace, not as strong as the older, “original” angels. However, because the curse of the Fall had not affected Jack, his angels had working wings, making them the envy of the remaining others. 

“Jack was supposed to fix our wings next,” Naomi had informed Castiel when catching him up on what he had missed while—reportedly—recuperating from his injuries. “But he was killed before he could return to Heaven to honor that promise.”

“Who killed him?”

“Those who feared his power, his angelic side.”

“That is a terrible shame.”

“Yes, it is.”

Castiel had hoped to skirt by Shelly’s desk with a brief nod of acknowledgement, but unfortunately she was a bit too polite—and nosy—for that.

“Hello, Castiel.”

“Hello, Shelley.”

“Is…is everything alright?”

“Of course.” He paused. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, no reason, I just…hmm.” She lowered her voice and leaned in to continue softly, “I thought I heard someone screaming in there. Working this close to Naomi, sometimes…sometimes I hear things I wish I couldn’t hear coming from her office. When she’s meeting with other angels. I try to concentrate on my work for the lord and Heaven but, oh I can’t help worrying!”

“I can assure you, I am perfectly fine. But if you’ll excuse me, I have my own work to attend to.”

“Don’t let me hold you up! I have to keep busy, too. These birth and death numbers aren’t going to crunch themselves!” She giggled, and he forced a smile in response. “I heard there used to be an entire department for that, but now there’s just little old me. Mind you, I’m not complaining! Serving Heaven in any way is the greatest honor I could’ve ever asked for!”

Numbers.

Number cruncher.

Shelley’s words triggered a flash of…something? A memory?

“I’m a number cruncher and you? Like I said, I’ve heard the stories.”

He blinked and the memory was gone before he could place the voice in his mind, what the comment had been about. Shelly was looking at him with concern again, so he told her, “No, I’m sure you’re not…complaining. Well…goodbye, Shelley.”

“Goodbye, Castiel. And…feel better?” she added in a caring tone that only left him more disconcerted.

“I…uh…thank you.”

He finally escaped from the main administrative complex and into the corridors of Heaven. Despite Naomi’s “suggestion,” he would avoid Sector Six-Oh-Four-Nine-A-Three-Six-D and instead look for somewhere quiet and restful to compose himself. To think. Somewhere Naomi wouldn’t likely find him if she were to come searching, so his old favorite eternal Tuesday Heaven was out of the question.

For now that he was away from the disorientation of Naomi’s chair, he recalled something. A directive to himself, which he must have left hidden in a corner of his grace after a previous “treatment.” It unraveled like a crumpled scrap of paper found in his coat pocket, a whisper through his consciousness:

Even if it hurts, you need to remember what you can. The longer you wait, the harder it will be.

He chose the Heaven of Timothy “Red Boots” Scall, 1969 - 2015. He’d visited this Heaven once before, when Timothy been a misplaced soul after a major power blink. Timothy had been an avid hiker whose happy memories mostly consisted of trails and vistas across the North American continent. Currently he was hiking the White Mountains of New Hampshire along the Appalachian Trail, which he had successfully through-hiked in 2010—five years before dying of an unexpected heart attack, alone at home.

The wind whipped through the crisp, clear skies as Timothy carefully placed his steps in the snow, his soul shining brightly in exhilaration at the challenge and the magnificent scenery laid out before him. 

In this memory, Timothy was with his trail partner nicknamed “Extra Cheese”—though it wasn’t actually him, merely Timothy’s memory of his friend.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Timothy said, as the two took a short breather.

“Can’t believe we’re finally here. What a view.”

“Almost makes me sad.”

“Why’s that?”

“That so few people in the world will ever see this. I mean, sure, I could take a picture, shoot some video to share, but it ain’t never gonna be like seeing and doing this for yourself, y’know?”

“Yeah, I hear ya. C’mon, we’d better keep moving. Gotta get off this ridge before sunset and make camp at the next shelter.”

Unnoticed by the human soul and his remembered companion, Castiel observed from a nearby rocky ledge, and contemplated.

He tried to remember.

He worked to recall the last place he’d been, what he’d been doing, before waking up in Naomi’s chair. His grace buzzed annoyingly the more he attempted to narrow it down. He couldn’t recall any of it. The last thing he could remember was the group meeting of the angels Naomi always held on Monday mornings at 8 a.m. in Heaven’s equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time. According to Castiel’s innate sense of time, it was now Thursday.

Three Earth-days later.

Where had the time gone?

The vibrational energy of a human prayer suddenly interrupted his efforts to puzzle out his missing memories. 

“Cas. Castiel.”

He heard the voice, as clear as if the person praying was sitting right beside him. The energy of that prayer pulsed through him, an almost irresistible call. Much as bright lights attracted moths and other insects, prayer metaphysically drew angels’ attention, impossible to resist. 

Castiel could do nothing except sit and listen, focusing on the words this human spoke to him in direct prayer. 

“Hey, so, it’s Sam. I hope you can hear me up there in Heaven. I hope you don’t mind me still praying to you.”

“Still” praying? Castiel puzzled over that wording. Why would a human regularly pray to him? He was not a particularly well-known angel. He was not a healer, nor one associated with any specific causes except for this day of the week.

So maybe that was why this human was praying to him now?

And yet…

And yet, something pinged a sense of familiarity.

“Anyway, I guess we’ve got good news and bad news down here. Good news is, Kevin wasn’t the only wrongly damned soul who got out of Hell through the rift. Eileen Leahy did, too. She was a hunter Dean and I met a while back and I kind of…well. I really liked her. But she was killed when we were dealing with the British Men of Letters, and I thought I’d never see her again.”

All of this flowed through Castiel’s grace and left him bewildered, yet desperate to hear more. Hearing the name “Dean” made him think, I know this human. But how?

And then he remembered recently receiving prayers from a "Dean" as well. But if he thought about those prayers too much, the pain behind his eyes flared up.

He continued listening to Sam. 

Sam was quite verbose.

“Eileen came back as a ghost, but I found a spell that Rowena had been working on. It was the one that Jack tried to use for Mary—”

Mary? That was another name that triggered Castiel’s memories.

“—but she didn’t have time to get it right. This time, though, it worked. I figured out how to make it work. Eileen is back, and she’s alive. She might not go to Heaven when she dies—apparently none of us may—but at least for now, we have each other.

“So. I just wanted to share some good news, I guess, because things have been so tough otherwise. Dean’s still…well, he’s up and down. I can’t figure out what’s in his head. Some days, he acts like nothing’s bothering him and he just wants to hunt monsters. Other days I can’t get him to leave his room and it’s like he doesn’t see the point in anything anymore. Pretty sure he’s missing you really bad, Cas, but good luck getting him to admit it.

“But I think, if you came back—if you wanted to come back—he’d be a lot happier. I know he hurt you bad, too, so I’m not pushing you, just…we miss you, Cas. I hope you’re alright.”

This is all so strange, Castiel thought, as he sensed the prayer connection slipping away. Whoever this Sam and Dean were, apparently he’d spent a fair amount of time with them? Along with someone named Jack, and a Mary?

The only Jack that Castiel knew of—beyond any random soul in Heaven by that name—was the nephil, Jack Kline. But surely it wasn’t the same individual.

And when had all of this happened? Before the great war Naomi had told him about? After?

What had really gone on in his existence that he couldn’t remember?

Sam, Dean, Mary, Jack…

A searing pain shot through both of his eyes. He brought his hands to his face, only to find blood trailing out of the corner of his left eye.

That couldn’t be good.

He had to be more careful. This had to be what Naomi had warned him about. Maybe his memories really were dangerous to him, too terrible to recover.

He watched Timothy and Extra Cheese head off along the ridge, and endeavored to clear his thoughts.

The sense of wrongness wouldn’t leave him.

He knew he would not find peace until he uncovered the truth.

Chapter Text

And when you think I don't notice
The way that you were
And act like you don't feel it
The way that you were
And you barely believe it
The way that you were

- Sleep Token, "The Way That You Were"

Dean was happy for Eileen and Sam. 

Really, truly, he was. 

Sam’s trip to Rowena’s had proven way more successful than planned. Granted, Dean had needed to save Sam from a bunch of psycho witches also raiding Rowena’s stash for magical knowledge and rarities, but that had just been business as usual.

Turned out, Rowena had continued working on her resurrection spell up until her death—the one that hadn’t worked for their mom. Sam had found it in her journals, and realized it might actually work for Eileen.

And it had. She had a solid, human, fully functional body once again. No matter the future, what awaited any of them after death, at least she had the chance to live out this life once more.

Dean couldn’t be happier for her. 

And from the way she and Sam had spent the last forty-eight hours locked away in Sam’s room? Sock on the doorknob, even?

She had to be putting that new body to some serious use, too.

Good for her. 

Good for Sammy. 

His brother didn’t get nearly enough action in that department. Not that Dean could talk, either, considering he hadn’t seen any action himself since…

Fuck.

Longer than he cared to think about.

But being the third wheel in the bunker wasn’t exactly a picnic. He was trying to stay out of their way, but there was only so long he could hide out in his room, drinking beer and watching Netflix, before he started climbing the walls.

For some damn reason (—oh he knew, he knew, but he didn’t want to think about why—) it was making him miss Cas something fierce. And that made him cranky and resentful, and neither his brother nor Eileen deserved that from him when they were celebrating.

Dean needed to be elsewhere. It took a while scouring through his usual news feeds, subreddits, and other sources of dubious-yet-often-hunt-worthy information before he stumbled upon the potential of a case.

The headline “My Friend Was Raptured While I Was Drunk” was too insane to ignore.

So he showered and packed his stuff, finding Sam and Eileen, as expected, making heart-eyes at each other over a truly impressive breakfast spread.

“Damn. Either we’re expecting company, or that’s one hell of a hangover feast,” Dean remarked, eyeing up a pile of bacon that was easily a foot high.

“We might’ve gotten just a little carried away with the margaritas last night,” Eileen said with a mischievous smile.

Dean snorted and grabbed a piece from the bacon Jenga stack. “I knew I liked you.”

Sam blushed, but couldn’t hide the happiness lighting up his eyes.

“Sit, eat,” Eileen urged Dean.

“Nah, s’okay. I’ll take something for the road, but I gotta go. Long drive ahead of me.” At Sam’s concerned look, he added, “I need to get out of here for a while, okay? I’m gonna take Baby and clear my head. Go on a milk run.”

“Alone?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, could be a case, but it could be nothing, too. Hard to tell. You know how it is.” He wanted the excuse to commune with Baby on the road, and the six-hour drive to Texas sounded perfect for that. “You and Eileen, you guys are having fun. I don’t want to spoil that.”

Sam shrugged. “Uh, sure, okay. But stay safe. Call if you need us. We’re gonna hang out here, look for signs of Chuck and Lilith.”

“Uh huh. So that’s what you kids are calling it these days.” Dean waggled his eyebrows at Sam, who rolled his eyes. 

“I call it enjoying my ‘Get Out of Hell Free’ card,” Eileen put in.

Sam was turning all shades of red. “Eileen!”

“It’s cool, man. It is,” Dean said. “Look, trying to find anything useful in the library has fried my brain. If you can come up with something in the lore I missed, great. But I can’t look at another book for the life of me right now.”

Sam didn’t look thrilled—or that he really bought Dean’s explanation. “Okay, well…if something comes up you need help with, you bring us in, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. I promise to call.”

“Or, you know, text me, because I won’t hear the phone,” Eileen added.

Dean nodded. “Roger that.”

He let them get back to their giggly, sickeningly sweet fun while he fixed up a pancake-sausage-egg sandwich for the road.

Dean rolled into Texhoma by early afternoon, having only stopped to refuel and stretch his legs as needed. At the last gas station, he’d changed into his monkey suit so he could pull off his FBI agent routine, see what local law enforcement had to say.

These long drives weren’t as easy on his body as they used to be, and he felt stiff as a piece of plywood by the time he pulled in at the sheriff’s office. 

The sheriff—a bit of an odd duck, but helpful enough—didn’t seem to think Angela Sullivan had disappeared (let alone been “raptured”), but had more likely taken off on her own.

“Why would her friend report her missing?” Dean asked him.

“I don’t know. For the attention. Sally’s got issues,” the sheriff said.

“What kind of issues?”

“The kind that keep her over at Swayze’s Bar just about twenty-four seven.”

Swayze’s Bar? Of all the names for a roadhouse dive... It seemed like it had to be a joke, but Dean couldn’t miss the opportunity to hang out and “investigate” at a place named that.

But it was too early in the day to get anything useful there, even if they were open. Instead, he checked into the nearest motel and crashed for a few hours, figuring it could be a late night. He texted Sam to let him and Eileen know he’d made it okay. Since their only response was a belated thumbs up emoji, it appeared they were otherwise engaged.

Hopefully with something fun.

Dean’s sleep was restless at best, but better than none at all. 

Dean wandered in to Swayze’s at nine, when the evening action seemed well underway. Compared to the hunters’ hideaways and dive bars he’d haunted all his years, this place was like a Hollywood vision of a roadhouse come to life. The tables were too clean, and the waitresses too attractive. The live music didn’t make your ears bleed, and the patrons were all dancing and happy.

Where was the sullen drunk hurling insults from the corner of the bar? The locals who would side-eye anyone they didn’t recognize, the sticky floors and smell of stale beer? Dean didn’t care for their no cell phone policy, either, but he’d play along…

For now.

He still had his old “other other” phone outside in Baby if needed. 

Dean was in for the biggest surprise of the night, though, when he recognized the singer on stage.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath, seeing a man from his past he hadn’t even thought about in over a decade.

Lee Webb. Of all the folks Dean never imagined he’d run into again—certainly not alive and in one piece. Lee was a former hunting buddy he hadn’t crossed paths with since before dragging Sammy away from college to look for their dad.

Lee spotted Dean when he finished his song, and it felt like old times as soon as he came over to greet his old friend. “Dean frigging Winchester,” he drawled, putting on a menacing act until he busted out laughing.

“The hell are you doing here?” Dean asked him after an enthusiastic hug.

“What am I…I own this joint, man! What are you doing in here?”

“Working a case.”

“You’re still hunting, huh?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Dean Winchester. Unbelievable. Hey, uh, Lor…Lorna!” Lee called to the woman who’d greeted Dean when he came in. “Hey, can we get a couple of beers for me and my boy here?” Lee swung back around to Dean and asked, “You got the time, right?”

“Always,” Dean said, although this unexpected reunion encounter had him on alert.

As much as it was a treat to run across a long-lost friend, he trusted nothing random these days to be just that: random.

Purely coincidental.

Not at all suspicious. 

No, with the way Chuck had been pulling the strings all this time, and how their recent hunts had turned out, his suspicions were high. So while he played along with the “happy reunion” and hoped for the best, he was already waiting for the hammer to fall.

Because of all the people in the world, it had to be Lee Webb he’d come across now? This was a guy Dean had idolized as a teenager, almost as much as he’d worshiped his dad. Even though Lee was just a few years older than Dean, he’d seemed to have it all figured out when they had first met. 

“How’d you end up a hunter?” Dean had asked him on that first hunt, awestruck by this guy who embodied everything Dean had hoped to be some day. Hell, Lee’d had John Winchester’s respect and approval, which was practically impossible to come by.

“Lost my family to a werewolf pack. We’d been out camping… I was the only one who survived. Thanks to your old man.”

John had beamed and patted Lee on the shoulder. “Nah, kid kept his cool; that’s when I knew he had the hunter’s spirit in him. Got him in touch with Bobby, and he found a couple who could take him in, teach him how to survive on his own.”

Hunters were either born into the life, or came to it thanks to tragedy and misfortune.

Hunting on his own, or being one of the few hunters John Winchester would happily call in for the assist, had made Lee seem like a superhero to Dean. Once Lee had been old enough to move out on his own, he’d lived out of a stripped and refitted GMC van, and had always been full of tales of saving beautiful young women in distress.

“You could learn a lot from a young man like Lee,” Dean remembered his dad saying.

And Dean had been more than happy to learn what he could.

Not necessarily regarding hunting, either.

But that seemed like a whole other lifetime ago. In a way, it was: the life Dean had known before he’d found out about angels, demons, and a destiny involving God and the apocalypse.

Before Hell.

For the moment, maybe it would be fun to revisit that old life.

Lorna set them up at a table with a round of beers, several shot glasses and a bottle of better-than-average whiskey. “Must be doing pretty well to be drinking this, unless it’s only for special occasions,” Dean said, eyeing the bottle.

Lee shrugged. “Hey, life’s too short to drink cheap booze.”

Lee was clearly in his element here, proud to show off what he’d made of his retirement post-hunting. He poured a shot for Dean and raised his own glass. “Cheers, my brother.”

“Cheers.” The liquor burned like sweet amber fire, so smooth Dean couldn’t resist another immediate pour from the bottle. “I remember you saying you wanted a joint of your own someday,” Dean recalled. 

“Just never thought I’d get there, am I right?” Lee still looked good for what had to be pushing fifty, though he’d certainly gotten softer with age. He’d let his hair grow out longer than Sam’s, and put on some weight. He appeared… happy. Relaxed. 

Dean envied that. “Few of us make it long enough to do it.”

“You’re not that far behind me, kid. Hell, sure ain’t a kid no more, look at you.”

Dean shook his head. “You got no idea.”

The night wore on as they reminisced for hours about the “good old days”—hunts with John, the trouble they’d gotten into when the old man wasn’t around.

Dean remembered a hunting trip going after a werewolf pack deep in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Riding together in Lee’s van, sleeping on the mattress he had in the back. 

The night after the hunt, Lee had shared his weed and some booze to celebrate, and things…things had gotten hazy after that. But Lee had been one of the only friends Dean’d had at that age. He felt a touch guilty now that he’d never looked Lee up in all these years.

“So you’ve really been hunting all of this time, Dean?” Lee asked.

“More or less. Tried at one point to give it up, live a normal life, but…” Dean shrugged and took a pull from his beer. “I don’t think the normal world suited me, any more than I suited it. Sam’s almost gotten out of it a few times, and I think maybe someday he will, if we get the chance. I wish he would, to be honest.”

“What’s stopping him?”

“Stuff you don’t want to know about, believe me. Still…he just got back with a girl—a hunter—who we…well, we thought she was gone for good. Kinda why I took off for a while. I wanted to give him time to play house without big brother around, y’know?”

“Mm hmm. What about the relationship side of things with you? Got yourself an old lady waiting at home?”

“Me? Nah. You?”

“Eh, had a couple sort of serious relationships, but none that lasted. Guess I’m still waitin’ on ‘the one’ to show up.” Lee squinted at Dean. “You sure yours didn’t? Cause you got the look, man.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re either pining for the one who got away, or tryin’ to forget they were ever there.”

“Shit.” Dean took another drink. As much as he was trying to keep a sober edge, he decided he might as well spill to someone. Someone, and somewhere, that it wouldn’t come to haunt him tomorrow. “I don’t know what I’d call it, really. There was someone up until recently who…we’d had plenty of ups and downs, for sure. But they’d pulled me out of Hell and back—literally.”

“Literally?”

Dean nodded. “Don’t ask for more details on that; you don’t wanna know. Guess I…guess I thought we were ride or die. Then I found out they hid some stuff from me—to protect someone else. I get why they did it—but it ended up costing someone important to me their life. Along with some other stuff goin’ on, I just…I don’t know if I can ever forgive them for it. Granted, there’s stuff they probably can’t forgive me for, either.” 

“Sounds all kinds of fucked up, Dean.”

“It is.”

“This somebody…I’m assuming they’re a hunter too?”

Dean pursed his lips. “Let’s say hunter-adjacent.”

Lee leaned back in his chair. “See, that’s part of why I got out of the life, Dean! Hunters, we’re all basket cases. And I swear, the people who hang around hunters are even worse! No, hear me out!” he insisted, as Dean had been ready to object. “I got stories to last all night…”

So it went on—more drinking, plenty of bullshitting, and lots of reminiscing. They got up on stage together to share the mic and sing a song in tribute to John Winchester, and Dean reveled in the enthusiasm from the crowd. It was a far cry from his nights of drunken karaoke with Crowley, and nearly enough for Dean to lose himself along the wistful path of nostalgia.

And what was a night at a roadhouse without a bar brawl that sent someone flying through a window? When a couple of drunks started harassing a young woman in the crowd, Dean and Lee went into action fast to clear out the riffraff.

The adrenaline rush of the fight sobered Dean right up—that and finding out their “damsel in distress” was none other than Sally Anderson, friend of the missing Angela Sullivan. The girl Dean had come here to find in the first place.

A reunion, a night of fun reminiscing, and a lead falling right in his lap.

Of course it was all too easy, too good to be true.

Dean’s earlier suspicions ended up being correct that something was fishy about the entire set-up—and Lee would be the one responsible for it all.

Dean had a hunch from the moment Lee was so quick to dismiss Sally’s story once they talked—and then seemed so uncomfortable when Lorna mentioned the nearby scrap yard as the most likely place to dump a car.

“I think the lake,” Lee kept insisting, and Dean knew. He just knew, the way any shrewd hunter did when the pieces came together.

But he also needed to play it cool.

“Look, I’ll check the scrapyard, okay? You, you take the lake,” he told Lee.

And Dean found Angela’s car—and her body—in less than an hour of searching. Lee found him there subsequently, however—caught him off guard and knocked him out, and then tried to make Dean the next victim of the monster he’d been feeding in his basement in secret for all these years.

“It’s called a marid,” Lee explained, when Dean woke up in what appeared to be the roadhouse basement. “As long as you feed it, it gives you money, it gives you health, everything you dreamed of.”

“And so, what, it just costs innocent lives?”

“Dean, you and I both know no one’s innocent.”

It pained Dean to his core to hear someone he’d once idolized talk like that. To be completely unconcerned about the lives of others so he could have “a little happiness,” as he put it.

But Dean wasn't about to go down easy, not to some monster that looked like it came out of a 50s B-movie creature-feature. He figured Chuck had no intentions of it ending like this for him, anyway. Taking down the marid wasn’t hard once he got out of his restraints—the thing wasn’t as tough as it looked, and almost seemed relieved to be put out of its own misery after years in a cage. That left Dean to face off against his old friend in a fight that went from bullets to fists to a broken pool stick right through Lee’s chest.

“Why do you care so much, Dean?” Lee asked with his dying breath.

“Because someone has to.”

“Well, then…I’m glad it was you.”

Lee’s blank eyes stared up at Dean as he stood over the body, in the mess of what had been that all-too-perfect and pristine roadhouse a few hours before.

Fuck.

There was a monster’s messy remains to make disappear, and now the body of his former friend, too. The sun was up and that was going to make things harder, unless he bolted and ran—which, given how the world was unraveling, maybe wasn’t the worst idea. He didn’t have the time for this.

He was mentally running through his options when the front door swung open. “Lee, don’t tell me you passed out drunk again last—oh, shit!”

It was Lorna, currently staring at the decapitated head of the marid where it had rolled near the door. Her shocked gaze then traveled to Dean, bloodied and disheveled and standing over Lee’s dead body.

“I-I can explain,” he started, holding his empty hands up. A story was quickly taking shape in his mind: the monster attacked Lee out of nowhere, Dean killed it, but he was too late to—

“Please tell me you were the one to kill that son of a bitch,” she said.

”The monster?”

”No, Lee. Though I suppose he was a monster, too.”

Dean blinked. “You knew about this?”

“Why do you think I was flirting with you last night? I was trying to get you the hell out of here! So that bastard wouldn’t feed you to his pet.”

“And here I thought it was my charming personality and good looks.”

Lorna sighed and rolled her eyes. “I caught Lee feeding it one day when we were closed and I’d come in to work on inventory. I thought I was going to be its next meal. But Lee promised not to kill me if…if I kept my mouth shut. And look, I got a three-year-old kid at home and no-good ex who hasn’t paid child support in nearly as long.”

Dean got it. He didn’t like it, but he understood. Certainly more than he could understand Lee turning from hunter to a monster’s keeper, sacrificing innocent people to indulge his own fantasies and line his pockets.

“Alright, Lorna. Okay," Dean breathed. “Anyone else know about this thing?”

She shook her head. “No. Not a soul that I’m aware of.”

“You the only one coming in today?” 

“For the next…five or six hours, easy.”

“Then you ’n me have got some work to do.”

With Lorna’s help, Dean buried the marid out in the back and they cleared out the basement cell as best as they could (“Let the police think Lee built a creepy sex dungeon in the basement,” she had said. “Bastard deserves it.”)

What Lee didn’t get nor deserve, as far as Dean was concerned, was a hunter’s funeral. Instead, they wrapped his body up, put it in the bed of Lorna’s pickup, and drove it out to join Angela Sullivan in the scrap yard, in the trunk of another rotting out vehicle, one that looked like it had been there ten years.

“How many other bodies you think are out here?” Dean asked Lorna.

She shrugged. “Too damn many. So what now?”

“I should get out of town, if you can handle the rest of the clean-up,” Dean said. “Give Lee’s disappearance a few days, then if you want to drop the hint to the police about the junkyard and Angela, be my guest.”

“Yeah. Maybe once I’ve gotten a thousand miles from here myself.” At Dean’s questioning look, she shrugged. “I know where Lee kept some of his blood money stashed. Might as well put it to use getting me and my kid out of town.”

Dean smiled; he liked her. “Solid plan.”

She winked at him. “You know, I wasn’t just flirting last night to get you away from Lee. In case you want to spend some time doing something other than burying bodies before hitting the road.”

Dean laughed and shook his head. If his life wasn’t such a shit show…

If there wasn’t someone else he was realizing had some kind of hold on his heart instead…

“How about I give you my number, for if you run into any trouble in the future—and so you can let me know where you end up,” Dean said. “’Cause maybe then, I’d be in a state to take you up on that.”

“You never know, right?” But in her voice, it was clear she knew he never would.

The drive back to the bunker was somber, the silence broken only by the purr of Baby’s engine and the rhythmic thump of the tires on the road. Dean hoped Chuck could hear the litany of curses running through his mind, though the squirrelly little bastard probably enjoyed how much he was under Dean’s skin.

Couldn’t get me to kill Jack, and you’re still hung up on me killing my brother? You sick bastard. So what is this, the longer I say no to what you want, the more you’re gonna have me kill every person who ever mattered to me? 

Dean couldn’t get some of Lee’s words out of his head. Some of his taunting during their fight, his accusations once Dean had uncovered what he’d been up to.

“Aren’t we owed a little happiness, huh? Don’t we deserve that much?”

“…I’m just you that woke up and saw that the world was broken.”

“Why do you care so much?”

So much. Too much. Funny, that suddenly made him think back to something another angel had once said about Cas:

“Too much heart was always Castiel’s problem.”

Maybe that’s what they had in common. Maybe it’s what fucked them both up so badly; they couldn’t stop caring about things everyone else in the world seemed capable of getting over.

They cared so much, they only ended up destroying the very things and hurting the very people they…

…they loved.

Dean gripped the wheel tighter and hit the gas hard. He needed to get the hell home; they needed to end this.

One way or another.

Sam looked relieved to see Dean when he got in late that night. Relieved, and clearly excited. 

“How’d it go? Was it a hunt or not?” Sam asked. He was sitting at the map table with Eileen, a box of pizza and a six-pack between them.

“It was a hunt, and it sucked.” Dean didn’t want to go into the details. He wanted a shower, a drink, and his bed. Maybe a slice of that pizza first, though. “But the monster’s dead. New one for me; ever hear of a marid?”

Sam’s face went blank. “Nope, got me.” He signed to Eileen, who shook her head no as well.

“Story for another night, then. You look like you’ve got some news for me, though.”

“Yeah, we were pretty busy the last two days,” Sam said. “Like, we couldn’t find any weapons or ways to take on Chuck in the lore. No obvious signs of him or Lilith in the news. So in a bit of a ‘Hail Mary,’ I called on…you remember that shaman that Ketch hooked Cas up with a while ago?”

Dean searched his groggy brain for a moment, then recalled, “Sergei? The guy who said he could fix Jack, but only made him worse?!”

“Uh…yeah,” Sam said. “I thought, if the Men of Letters swore by him, he had to be good at some stuff.”

“Yeah,” Eileen put in. “Good at nearly killing Sam!”

Dean choked on his mouthful of pizza. “What?”

Sam raised his hands. “I’m fine, now, really! I thought he might be able to help with the Equalizer bullet wound. But, yeah, he…kind of made it worse by ‘probing’ at it with magic.”

Dean rolled his eyes and wanted to smack some sense into brother. “Oh, sounds like a brilliant plan!”

“It’s okay now, though,” Eileen said. “Sergei tried to barter Sam’s life for…something he called the ‘Key to Death’?”

“What the hell is that—do we have one of those?” Dean asked.

Eileen shrugged. “Beats me.”

“Then how did you get him to fix Sam?”

“I...kind of tricked him,” Eileen said. “Said I’d get it for him, but...”

“But you remember that cursed box we found in the archives a while back?” Sam interrupted. “The one that, if you open it without disarming first, it—”

“It makes you feel like a swarm of angry bees have taken up permanent residence in your nut sack?” Dean recalled, from unfortunate first-hand experience. “Oh, you didn’t…”

Sam grinned. “I showed it—and a few other things—to Eileen before Sergei got here, on the hunch he might try something. On the phone, he’d sounded a little too excited about being in the bunker, you know? Anyway, Eileen gave him the box saying the key was in there, and it wasn’t long before he was begging to fix what he’d done in order to make the pain stop.”

Dean shook his head and said to Eileen, “I said it before, but I’ll say it again—I knew I liked you for a reason.”

“But Dean, get this,” Sam added. “When he made me worse, I realized that the nightmares I was having before? They were actually visions.”

“Visions?”

Sam nodded. “The bullet’s been a connection to Chuck’s mind, all this time. I was in his head. I saw his memories…scenes from other worlds—or different endings, maybe, that he’d plotted for us. But more importantly, I realized he’s weak from his bullet wound, too. He’s not at full strength and…and as a result, I really think we can beat him!”

Dean stared at Sam, then at Eileen. “I don’t know, man. Being in Chuck’s head? Sounds dangerous. And what’s this ‘Key to Death’ business?”

“No idea, but Eileen and I were going to look for information on that tomorrow.”

After everything he had just gone through, this was more than Dean could take in properly. “Yeah. Okay. You know what? I’m gonna hit the hay and sleep on all of this. See if it makes any more sense to me in the morning.”

“Dean—”

“Listen, I’m glad you guys are both alright. But no more bringin’ shady shaman over here, got it?”

Eileen smirked. “Believe me, I don’t think he’ll be coming back anytime soon.”

“Good.”

“Dean—” Sam tried again, but Dean held up his hand to stop him.

“Tomorrow, Sam. Please.” And he didn’t wait for an answer, or to see his brother’s usual bitch face. He grabbed an unopened beer and headed straight for his room.

Chapter Text

'Cause I am broken into fractions
Oh, and I am driven to distraction, no
With each and every interaction
(It's too late for me)
-Sleep Token, "Distraction"

Castiel sat peacefully on the lakeshore beside Alexander James Sozio, 1951 — 2018. An avid nature lover, Alexander spent much of his afterlife fishing in his favorite spot, the gentle lapping of the water a constant, soothing sound which Castiel found conducive to stimulating meditative thought.

It was always the beginning of sunset, Alexander cracking open a beer to drink while Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” played on his portable radio. A cooler filled with the afternoon’s catch rested beside him, and soon he’d get one last bite and bring in the largest bass he’d ever caught. 

Something about this heaven, the vista before Castiel, pinged a familiar note within his grace. He wished he understood what drew him here, but that knowledge was more elusive than Alexander’s prize fish.

Angel radio disrupted Castiel’s thoughts with an urgent, direct message from Naomi.

/Castiel, I need you to investigate concerning energy fluctuations in Sector Five-Five-Two-Nine-Six-Point-Three-C. There may be several lost souls wandering freely and causing disruptions along the Axis Mundi./

/I will head there immediately,/ he replied without hesitation.

He turned away from the sparkling surface of the water, and the soul who had been unaware of his presence. Under the bark of a thick, old evergreen tree, Castiel found the doorway leading out of Alexander’s heaven. Emerging on the other side, Castiel was once again in the near infinite white corridors, navigating them with an angel’s speed to reach the designated sector. 

Even before opening the door to the heaven of Robert Harold Taylor, 1951 — 2015, Castiel sensed a major disturbance. But where he had been expecting interference, or perhaps an unusual dip in grace energies, instead he found the complete opposite. The energy in this section of Heaven was powerful, almost like what Castiel remembered from past times.

When he stepped inside, a wall of bodies, noise and light enveloped him—along with a heavy cloud of marijuana smoke. A moment passed before he oriented himself, and his grace identified Robert and this particular memory.

February 24, 1980, Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, United States of America. On that evening, the musical group Pink Floyd were performing their concert version of “The Wall.”

Robert’s soul shone out bright blue on the floor of the arena, surrounded by the memories of thousands of others there to share in the same event. Curiously, though the loud music came live from the stage, none of the band members were visible to the audience. They were all performing behind a giant wall with only a large, inflatable, featureless figure in front of it, propped up on a chair in the spotlight. 

“Hey you, out there on the road, always doing what you’re told
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall, breaking bottles in the hall
Can you feel me?
Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.”

The crowd cheered; Robert’s girlfriend, Stacey, whom he would marry two years later after she became pregnant, leaned in against her lover. They embraced for a kiss under the flickering zippo lights before the next song began.

Castiel noted that Robert’s soul glow wasn’t the only one he could sense in this heaven. There were others reliving the concert from their own memory vantage points—souls that shouldn’t be here, even if this was a favored memory of theirs as well. 

They didn’t belong in Robert’s heaven. They’d shared no connection in life beyond being present at this same event. Yet somehow, there were four other human souls in this heaven—souls connected only by this singular concert event. Two of those were a couple who were not soulmates, so they technically should not have been sharing a heaven at all!

What was happening? And how was Castiel supposed to “fix this,” as Naomi ordered, all by himself?

He was about to call for reinforcements, for more angels to help him round up and relocate the lost souls. But then he noticed a man—another soul—wearing a mask reminiscent of a melting face. The man stared back at him, his bright blue eyes peering out of shadowed holes.

“Castiel?” the man asked, his voice muffled by the rubber mask. The music shifted to a mournful acoustic guitar melody, David Gilmour now barely visible through a single opening in the styrofoam wall high above the stage.

Castiel frowned and moved forward, weaving in between people who all had their eyes on the guitarist. “You know who I am?” he asked.

“Of course I know you. Long time no see!” The man slapped Castiel’s shoulder, a strange gesture that was apparently meant to be friendly, not aggressive. “C’mon, amigo, you’re just the angel I need.”

“I am here to guide you to your proper Heaven before you cause any further disruption.”

“Disruption? Look around this place!” As if on demand, the firmament wavered despite the powerful energy from the multiple souls present. The arena momentarily flickered in and out of focus, the music wavering like a cassette tape caught up in a car stereo.

(—a hand banging on a cassette deck, a man’s gruff voice cursing before the song begins again— “Oh, c’mon, Baby, don’t ruin my favorite Zep tape”—)

“Heaven is falling apart and I’m workin’ on a way to fix it!” The masked figure’s words jarred Castiel out of the image or memory that had flashed through his mind. “Me and some familiar compadres. I hate to blow out of this concert early, but you should come with me. Let me show you.”

“But—”

Castiel’s protest was cut short as the man disappeared deep into the crowd, his soul’s light the only clue as to his whereabouts.

He could freeze the man in place at this distance, using his grace. But curiosity got the better of him, as he wanted to know how this random soul knew him—and what he meant by “fixing” Heaven.

So he followed the masked man, pushing through the concert goers, keeping his senses open for any other angels who might also be after this soul. He temporarily muted angel radio; his defiance in not immediately following orders would surely displease Naomi. The arena was quite large, so it took a while to get to the edge of the stadium floor, and then to escape into the mostly empty corridors surrounding it. The masked soul ran into the closest men’s washroom and Castiel watched, fascinated, as he whipped out a can and spray-painted a sigil on one of the stall doors.

Castiel identified it as a complex sigil used to fold fifth-dimensional space, similar to how angels moved quickly through Heaven without their wings. The door glowed brightly and Castiel yelped as the man grabbed his arm and pulled him through.

A blink and the landscape changed. They were now in another’s heaven, one that, in this moment, resembled a ramshackle drinking establishment. Castiel felt relief to note that the space vibrated with the correct energy to match this soul, so the masked man had led them both to his appropriate Heaven.

Ashton Xavier Miles, 1975 — 2007.

“Yes, good. This is where you should…be…” Castiel trailed off, his relief turning once more to concern.

The other figures gathered at this bar were not simply memories.

They were all souls, none of whom belonged here.

The souls were looking at him in varying and curious ways. Some appeared equally shocked and confused; others grinned at him and looked cheerfully surprised.

A dark-haired woman stepped back, her arms crossing defensively over the black tank top she wore. The bartender, her soul more mature in chosen appearance, ceased polishing glassware and swiftly picked up a shotgun. A bearded man in a baseball cap exclaimed, “Son of a bitch!” while a petite female with curly auburn hair rushed up and threw herself at Castiel.

It took a moment to realize she was hugging him, as if they were close friends. It was a human action he’d observed in many heavens, but it was the first time he’d ever experienced such a gesture—at least that he could recall.

“Castiel! It’s so good to see you!” she said.

“I…I thank you, but…you are not supposed to be here.” He spoke with the gentle tone he employed whenever he dealt with a confused or lost soul. “I must escort each of you back to your appropriate heavens to restore order.”

“The hell I’m lettin’ anybody lock me out of my own damn bar,” the woman with the shotgun warned. “I got angel-killin’ bullets in this here rifle, flyboy. I know we both rode with the Winchesters during the apocalypse, but that’ll only get you so far in here today.”

The man in the baseball cap turned to her, raising a hand in warning. “Ellen, maybe we take it down a notch? At least until we find out why Ash brought Cas here, okay?”

“Cas.” That was what the humans, Sam and Dean, had called him in their prayers. Could a shared connection explain why these souls all seemed to know him?

And what was this apocalypse they mentioned? The only war Castiel knew of was the Great War among the angels.

Withdrawing from the hug, the red-haired woman examined him with a frown. “Cas, you…you know who we are, don’t you?”

“Have we…met before?” He could, technically, establish their identities relatively easily. By touching their souls, such as when this woman hugged him, he could identify them and then lead them to their proper heavens. She was Celeste Middleton, 1985 — 2015, and she belonged in a heaven in Sector Eight-Nine-Nine-Two-One. 

The dark-haired woman snorted. “Figures. An angel burns my eyes out, and now he doesn’t even remember me. Worse than a one-night stand forgetting your name in the morning.” She turned to another young woman hanging back next to her, one with long blonde hair, who shook her head and laughed in agreement.

“Please, I am merely here on the orders of my superior,” Castiel explained. “For the safety and security of all souls in Heaven, you must disperse and return to your properly designated places of eternal reward. I can take each of you in turn, but—” 

“But safety in numbers is why we’re all here, Cas!” Celeste insisted. “Besides, once you figure out you’re only interacting with your memories, not your real friends and loved ones, it gets awfully lonely in the afterlife.”

“Seriously,” the young blonde chimed in. “Me and mom died to save the world, and we don’t even get to be together in death? What kind of Heaven is that?”

“I-I don’t…I’m sorry. I don’t know all the answers. I’m...I’m just a simple angel, following my orders,” Castiel pleaded. 

“Since when?” the bearded man said. “You sure don’t sound like the Castiel I knew—the one who practically burned the world down to take on Heaven’s ‘orders’ before.”

“Aw, sheeeet,” Ashton—or “Ash” as the other had called him—suddenly swore, interrupting the interrogation. He’d removed his rubber mask at last, revealing a youthful face set off by a strange haircut. “I think I know what’s goin’ on. Makes sense with what I’ve been pickin’ up on the airwaves for a while. Castiel here has had what they call the ‘angel lobotomy’ special. It’s like wiping a hard drive clean. He remembers nothing he hasn’t been programmed to remember.”

Castiel felt a cold, uneasy feeling twist in his gut, as if a part of him wanted to stop Ash from speaking further.

But another part of him was desperate to hear more. “What do you mean?” he asked, keeping a neutral tone.

“Cas, you really don’t remember any of us?” Celeste pleaded, peering at him with concern in her eyes he didn’t feel he deserved. He was an angel, after all. Their worry should be for their fellow human souls, not for him.

“I…I’m sorry,” he apologized to her. “I don’t understand what…what’s going on.”

“Easy, easy, Charlie,” Ash said to Celeste. “We gotta take this slow, or else we could short-circuit our angel buddy, here.” Ash walked up to him and put one hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “My man, I’m not gonna try to catch you up on everything right now, but I am gonna ask you a favor. You gotta keep quiet on what’s goin’ on here for us, okay? Believe you me, it’s in everyone’s best interests.”

“Why…what are you trying to tell me?” Castiel asked Ash.

“You return here again when you can, and we’ll try to help you remember. But look—you know it, and we all know it: Heaven is fallin’ apart. There ain’t enough angels left to keep it juiced. That, and God’s looking to maybe close up shop permanently.”

This soul’s awareness of the state of things surprised Castiel. “How do you know all of this?”

“Way back when, before you ’n I actually met, I figured out how to listen in on angel radio—and then how to jump from heaven to heaven. And you may not remember it now, but when you were going mano a mano against Raphael, this lil’ roadhouse here was one of the heavens you used to hide out in with some of your generals.“

Castiel could not believe what he was hearing. “I…Raphael? Me? When was all of this?”

Ash shook his head. “Story for another day. I dig that you’re already overdrawn at the memory bank. Long story short, we’ve been gathering here for a while, and we’re tryin’ to find a way to fix things.”

“This…assembly of human souls is going to fix Heaven?”

“We’re sure giving it our best try,” Celeste said. “With help from some other great minds, and the hunters we’ve been able to track down.”

Castiel had questions—so, so many of them. He had a feeling he shouldn’t be listening to any of this. He should send everyone back to where they belonged, perhaps even bring this “Ash” before Naomi, give him time in Heaven’s lock-up to contemplate and repent for his actions.

But with Heaven’s time indeed running out, was it really worth imprisoning any soul? A voice within him suggested that these humans might have discovered something important, and that he should lend them his ear, and possibly his aid.

A sudden burst of static crackled from the computer on the bar. Ash walked over to glance at the monitor. “Uh oh, someone’s gettin’ riled up out there.”

Castiel tensed, a wave of guilt washing over his grace. “That’s Naomi, my superior. I need to report in. The souls at the concert—”

Ash waved a hand and cut him off. “I’ll round ’em up and send ’em home for now, don’t you worry. Jo, we’re gonna have to work up some better angel-proofing for when we do any group movements and experiments like that again. Can’t be setting off the alarms that’ll just get us locked down.” The young blond woman nodded.

“Can we trust him to keep his mouth shut?” the brunette asked. “If not, this entire operation is in jeopardy.”

“I will not speak of what I have seen here,” Castiel assured her. “I’m not sure exactly why, but…I believe I should let you keep working on your plan.”

It was undeniable: Heaven was collapsing. So if some souls with superior ingenuity were looking for a solution that might save everyone, who was Castiel to stop them? Even though he knew Naomi would not approve. “I will try to keep the other angels away from this place,” he added, “if…if I may return some time, and you can tell me more about what is going on here. Including what we supposedly experienced together in the past.”

After a series of glances exchanged between the group members, Ash again moved towards Castiel, extending his hand. Castiel knew that gesture was a human indication of agreement and trust, so he held out his own hand to grasp it. “You got a deal, compadre,” Ash said. “You come back here any time, so long as it’s on your own. Maybe I can help get your noggin’ screwed on straight, too.”

Castiel nodded, despite not being sure how Ash planned to assist him. The man walked to the kitchen door, its surface marked with a different sigil, and laid his hand upon it. The doorway glowed and opened up a pathway to the Axis Mundi. “You know where we’ll be.”

“Just don’t double-cross us,” the bartender warned.

“I won’t,” Castiel promised. “I will return when it is safe to do so. You can also pray to me if you need my help, or to summon me for any reason.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m in no rush to do that,” the dark-haired woman said. He had a feeling he must have personally harmed her, somehow, yet the details of when and how escaped him.

And he had no time to try to figure it out now. So he departed, his thoughts swirling with unanswered questions.

Chapter Text

Well, I've been waking up under blades, blue blossom days
If only Damocles would hit me back
No alabaster carvings or faces on a farthing
Would prevent my head from fading to black
-Sleep Token, "Damocles"

Dean kept running on a gut feeling, a deep-seated certainty, that there had to be a way to get to Chuck. He was sure they were overlooking something important in all of their weeks of research.

Hell, maybe Chuck himself was somehow keeping them from uncovering the obvious.

Call it hunters’ intuition. Call it whatever you wanted. 

He just knew it.

Then, one night, it finally clicked. He’d fallen asleep in the library, head buried in yet another ancient yet so far useless book. And in his half-lucid, half-dreaming state, the solution came to him in a flash of insight, jolting him suddenly wide awake with his heart pounding.

He couldn’t believe they hadn’t thought of it before. But now, he couldn’t help but laugh in near hysteria and rush to the archives to get what he needed.

You son of a bitch. You bastard.

We’ve got you. I know we’ve got you.

Now he just had to lay it all out for Sam and Eileen.

Bounding back up to the main level of the bunker with his precious cargo in hand, Dean heard the two of them talking in the kitchen. They’d been out on a hunt—or rather, Sam had run out to check on Eileen after she left to bring down a Vetala alone. By the sounds of things, their light conversation and Sam’s laughter, all had gone well.

“Yo!” Dean called as he interrupted their festivities. “I’ve got it, right here.”

Eileen was deep into a takeout burger (that looked damn delicious) and Sam had one of his disgustingly healthy salads in front of him. Dean was too excited to bitch about them apparently not bringing him any food. “It’s been under our noses this whole goddamned time!”

“What’s been under our noses?” Sam asked.

“How to take down Chuck.” Dean put the cloth-wrapped object on the table with a solid thud. 

Sam blinked as he realized what Dean had brought out to show them. “The demon tablet? What could be on there that’s gonna help us with Chuck?”

“Think about it, Sam,” Dean started to explain. “What were the tablets originally written to be used for?”

“Well, they’re instructions on how to deal with God’s most powerful creations, should they threaten humanity. Leviathan tablet to kill leviathan. Angel and demon tablets to send them back into Heaven and Hell if they ever tried to take over Earth,” Sam answered, looking toward Eileen as he spoke, so she could follow the conversation. “God himself dictated the tablets to Metatron.”

Dean nodded. “But why would Chuck need to do that, to have this all recorded, if he’s so freaking invincible? Why wouldn’t he just be able to take on the dick demons and even dickier angels himself if they got out of line? These tablets were written before he stepped out to take a powder, before he vanished and let everyone muck around with no direction. So, if he wasn’t planning on doing that all along, why leave instructions like this? Unless…”

“…Unless he was afraid of something, too. And he’s not as untouchable as he wants everyone to believe,” Sam finished for Dean, who nodded enthusiastically.

“Bingo. He’s got to have some kind of weak spot. An Achilles’ heel.”

“And you think he would just…spell out his weakness right there on the tablet?”

“Maybe not,” Dean admitted. “But we know that, besides the major spells, these tablets contain a lot of other stuff. Kevin’s notes were full of random things he’d deciphered, comments from Metatron. We got the spell to open a door to Apocalypse World off this thing, right? Maybe…well, we know Chuck locked away his own sister for millennia, and the two of them are pretty equally powered. So maybe the instructions on how to do that, on how to lock Him up with a Mark, are right here in front of us.”

The wheels in Sam’s brain were spinning—Dean could tell by the constipated look on his face. “Okay, so…if that information is on there…you want to recreate the Mark, but use it to lock up Chuck instead?”

“If it worked on Amara, it should work for Chuck, too, shouldn’t it?”

“I guess, but…but that took the power of, well, God to do. With an entire legion of his archangels at his side,” Sam said.

“And you guys don’t even have one angel left to help you,” Eileen put in. Dean and Sam both looked at her sharply. She shrugged and added, “What? Sorry, but it’s true.”

“Maybe,” Dean acknowledged, “but we know Chuck’s not at full power since Sam shot him with the Equalizer. We’ve got this,” he pointed at the tablet, “and Sam, you’ve got Rowena’s magic archives, including the Book of the Damned. I bet between that and everything we’ve got here in the Bunker, it ought to be enough. At least enough to make a damned good try.”

“So, you guys can read what’s on that thing?” Eileen asked, pointing at the tablet.

“No,” Dean said, “but we know someone who can. Donatello.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to help us again,” Sam said. To Eileen, he explained, “Donatello is the current prophet, the only person who can receive the word of God and decipher the tablets. Last time we asked him to find a spell on the demon tablet, he…went a little crazy. He doesn’t have a soul anymore, so it corrupted him. He tried to kill Dean. After that, Cas nearly killed him in order to rip the spell from his mind.”

“Wow, sounds like good times.” Eileen picked up a French fry and chewed on it thoughtfully. “You know, some days, I’d really like to go back to just hunting monsters.”

“You and me both, Eileen,” Dean agreed, stealing one of her fries. “But we’ve got to put this mess to bed first.”

Sam didn’t seem fully convinced by Dean’s thought process. “Okay but…Dean, say Donatello finds the spell we need on here and we’re able to figure out how to do it, how to bind Chuck…who’s gonna bear the Mark this time? Assuming it will have the same kind of effects on whomever has to take it that the previous one did—maybe even worse—you certainly can’t, Dean.”

Dean would have taken it on if he could, but he knew it wouldn’t work. Back when they’d been searching for a way to remove it from him, or force it back on Cain, one of the few things they’d found made it clear that the Mark could only be given to an individual once and never returned to them. “Nope, and I wouldn’t let you do it, either, Sam, before you even suggest it. I don’t think it’s something any human can or should have to endure. But I have an idea about getting around that, too.”

“Go on,” Eileen said, watching Dean intently.

“It was actually Sam finding the spell to resurrect you that gave me the idea, Eileen. That spell…Jack originally tried to use it to bring back our mom, but it only created a lifeless body. An empty shell, kind of like a….a golem, or a tulpa,” Dean explained. “So, what if we used that spell to create a lifeless body on purpose? And then, we put the Mark on it. Throw the body in a Ma’lak box, sink it in the ocean. Boom! Mission accomplished, Chuck’s sunk like the Titanic. No one gets corrupted by the Mark, and hopefully it will stay that way for, well, another few billion years of creation, until humans blow the planet up or the sun goes supernova, whatever.”

Dean looked between the two of them, eager for their thoughts. Sam was quiet for a while but then had to admit, “It’s…a crazy enough idea that it just might work. If you’re right about the tablet telling us how to create the Mark, or at least having a lead on where to find the instructions. I know Rowena’s spell was only meant to work once to resurrect someone…Then again, what if Mark needs a soul to latch onto, and not just an empty body?”

“I was thinking about that, too,” Dean said. “If we could rig up one of Rowena’s soul catchers, get at least a single ghost in it, then that could serve as the anchor. Potentially.”

“Of course, we’d also need to know what’s involved in trapping God in the Mark, if this scheme of yours is even plausible,” Sam considered.

“Of course,” Dean agreed.

Sam appeared to be deep in thought, no doubt going over everything Dean had thrown at him in a big jumble of “what ifs” and “maybes.” Dean turned to Eileen, who merely shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me. I didn’t understand half of what you’ve both been talking about, even though I read your lips fine.”

“It’s alright. Sam, why don’t you catch Eileen up on relevant history while I round up Donny.”

“Uh…yeah, sure.”

“Awesome.” Dean, still riding high on the adrenaline rush of his idea, blew out of the kitchen and headed straight for the garage. He rushed to Baby with an eagerness in his step he hadn’t felt for what seemed like months. 

Sure, there was a lot he was speculating about, maybe too many jumps of logic and circumstance. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that this would work. That he’d stumbled on the answer. They’d just have to play it smart, keep it all off the radar, and pray that Chuck didn’t figure out what they were up to in the meantime.

Was it possible to pull a fast one on God? 

He supposed they would soon find out.

While driving to get Donatello, Dean found himself wishing he could give Cas a call and tell him their plan.

Because that’s what he would have done—before. Cas always served as his sounding board, someone who would chime in with his knowledge of what theoretically could or couldn’t be done.

But those days were over, Dean kept reminding himself. Cas was in Heaven. Cas had given up on them, on fixing things with Dean.

Now, if this plan of theirs worked, he supposed Cas would eventually find out how it all went down; surely Heaven would sense it if Chuck was incapacitated. A touch of self-satisfaction accompanied the thought of outsmarting God, proving three human hunters—Sam, Eileen and himself—capable of accomplishing such a feat.

But it was hard to let go of that part of him that wished he could hear Cas’s voice, get his input. 

Make sure he was okay.

All that had to be put aside for the moment, though. And Dean would soon discover there was one good thing about Cas being gone: Donatello was significantly more amenable to helping the Winchesters once he knew his least favorite angel wouldn’t be around to scramble his brains again.

“You promise he won’t be there?” the prophet asked, pausing at the door of his house, coat and quickly packed bag in hand.

“I promise. Dude’s gone back to Heaven. Left us high and dry to deal with this stuff on our own.”

“Heaven, well.” Donatello chuckled. “That’s the one place I’ll never get to see, you know, being soulless and all.”

“Yeah.” Dean put a sympathetic hand on Donatello’s shoulder. “Wish there was something we could do about that for ya, Donny.”

“Eh, it’s ok. Honestly, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Before I found out about all of this ‘god’ and ‘prophet’ stuff, I was an atheist anyway. I always figured when I died, pfft, that would be it! So it’s almost a comfort to know that in a sense, I was right all along. Kind of peaceful, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, better than some of the afterlife alternatives, at least.” And Dean had basically seen them all except the Empty. “C’mon, I’ll tell you about what we need you to look for on the way.”

Donatello’s anxiety about helping the Winchesters in their plan kicked in again once they got to the bunker. “Oh boy. I’m really not keen on being back here,” he fretted as he made his descent down the stairwell. 

“Sorry if it drags up unpleasant memories,” Dean said, trying to keep him on an even keel. “We’ll watch you real close as you work. Anything seems to go wonky and we’ll cut you off from the tablet.”

“And look, I loaded up on your favorite brain food,” Sam offered, bringing out an overflowing bucket of chicken wings.

“Well, what do you know; bribery will get you somewhere after all.” Donatello happily took the bucket from Sam and clutched it to his chest. “Show me to the tablet, and let’s see what I can find.”

The translation work was slow, and Dean wasn’t feeling the most patient—not when they were so close to getting what they needed. Sam had told Eileen to monitor them on camera from another room, in case Donatello went crazy again, but so far he’d been…normal. And sitting around simply waiting for Donatello to do his thing left Dean with too much time to brood.

Too much time to wonder about what Cas was up to. Was he keeping an eye on their friends and family up in Heaven?

Was he keeping an eye on mom?

If it turned out there was something angelic they needed in order to complete this spell to trap Chuck, would Cas get off his damn cloud and come down to help them?

“Oh. This is interesting,” Donatello said suddenly, breaking Dean out of his spiraling thoughts.

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“Well, I’m not seeing anything here directly about a spell to trap God. But there appear to be annotations—uh, personal observations, added alongside the main text by the scribe. Kind of like what you find in ancient tomes and bibles that were hand-written by monks.”

“I’ve seen stuff like that in old manuscripts,” Sam said, lighting up at the chance to geek out. “Sometimes it could be their thoughts on the text itself, but also they might complain about how their hands hurt from so much writing, or even criticizing the food served for dinner the night before.”

“Exactly.” Donatello chuckled. “But these notes are a little more interesting than bitching about a salty stew, and I think they’re precisely what you wanted me to find. Here,” he pointed to a section of the tablet, “it says: ‘The Almighty guards his secret fear, but it is always there.’”

“Fear of what?” Sam asked.

“‘Fear of what, I do not know,’” Donatello continued. “‘This he shares only with his favorite.’”

“His favorite,” Dean repeated, frowning. “His favorite angel?”

“Michael. It has to be Michael,” Sam said. “Because when the tablets were written, Lucifer was already in the Cage. Lucifer had been his favorite, but no longer by this time.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, Michael. A real daddy’s boy.”

“And we know it took the work of all the archangels to help Chuck overpower Amara,” Sam continued, “so maybe…maybe that means Michael would be the one who knows how to trap him. That would make sense as Chuck’s secret fear, right?”

“Right,” Dean agreed, “but then we’d have to actually talk to Michael, and he’s still in the Cage. In Hell. And we have no clue who’s running things down there now, if they’d be willing to let us go have a chat.”

“You think he’d even tell us if we could?”

“Maybe. I mean…if my dad kept me locked up in a cage for years, I might be looking to get some payback. It’s worth a shot if we can make the trip there and back safely.”

“Swell!” Donatello enthused. “So you guys talk to Michael. Problem solved.”

Dean wasn’t so sure about that. Especially when the next thing they knew, Donatello froze in his seat, then started laughing and saying in a creepy voice, “Oh, ho, ho. This story just gets better and better.”

Dean frowned. “Donny, you going crazy again?”

“Oh, Donatello’s not here any longer. Hey, guys!”

Dean’s blood froze and Sam looked ill, his hand clutching at his chest. There was no mistaking who had seized control of the prophet, from the way he spoke, the tone of his voice.

“Prophets speak the word of God, sometimes indirectly. Sometimes they’re my bluetooth,” Chuck taunted, his words coming out of Donatello’s mouth. “So, here’s the thing. Usually, I really love our little process. I toss something at you guys, and you slam it right back. It’s fun, like tennis. With monsters! But this? Let this one go.”

“Or what?” Dean challenged.

“Or I go all-powerful. Maybe not on you. Not right away. But, let’s see…there’s Jody, Donna, Claire. Pretty much everybody on your speed dial. So drop it. ‘Kay?”

Donatello was certainly fast to drop it after that. As soon as he regained control of his body, he packed up his things (including the last of his chicken wings) and declared, “Well, I think you got everything you need from me, and then some, dontcha think?”

“Yeah, think so. And it’s probably safer if we sent you home,” Dean said. They really didn’t want a direct line to Chuck in the bunker any more than Donatello seemed to want to stick around.

“Wonderful. I’ll send you the bill for my Uber home. Bye!” And with that, he hustled up the stairs, slamming the door hard behind him.

Sam sighed and looked at Dean. “So, do we drop this?”

“Hell, no, we’re not dropping it. Chuck’s not gonna back off just because we do, you know that. Our friends aren’t safe until we deal with him for good. No, we’re gonna have to speak with Michael. Even if that means going to Hell, to the Cage. Like we did with Lucifer, back when we had to figure out how to deal with Amara.”

Sam grimaced. “And that worked out so well.”

Dean didn’t need the reminder: Sam getting trapped in the Cage, Lucifer getting out by possessing Cas…Yeah, that had all been a great big bag of fun for everyone. But the fate of the universe was on the line—again—and at the moment, Michael was the only lead they had.

Sam appeared resigned to what they had to do, though, and raised no other objections. “At least we have the spell Rowena used to get to Hell. Just no Rowena.”

“I have faith in you to pull it off," Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You brought Eileen back from the dead; I think you can handle a little portal to Hell.”

Sam snorted. “You know, for someone who claims to hate witches so much, you sure have been encouraging me to do a lot of spellwork lately.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, Sammy. Besides,” Dean paused, going serious for a moment, “You are good at it. And I trust you to know where to draw the line on what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“You didn’t use to trust me like that. So…thank you.”

“Yeah. Whatever, bitch.”

“Jerk. I’m going to go tell Eileen; we’ll need her to help keep the spell going.”

“So,” Dean said, “all you have to do is feed the flames occasionally with these herbs. Don’t let them go down too low, got it? Because if the fire dies out, that means we’re stuck there.”

“Got it,” Eileen confirmed. She turned to Sam, reaching up to place a hand on his cheek. “Please be careful, both of you. Hell is no picnic.”

“I know, and I will,” Sam reassured her. “And if I run into the hellhound that dragged you down there, I’ll take out the bitch and bring you her heart.”

“Aw.” She smiled. “You’re so sweet.” 

Dean ducked his gaze as Sam leaned down to kiss her. After it went on a bit longer, he let out a soft cough and interrupted, “Alright, kids, let’s get this show on the road.”

Sighing, Sam let her go and joined his brother at the spellbowl. He worked with confidence, tossing in the various ingredients in a specific order and then handing a blade to Dean. With a grunt, Dean sliced it across his palm, then squeezed his fist to drip his blood into the bowl. The cut stung, but wasn’t deep; still, in the back of his mind, he thought of how Cas would’ve insisted on healing it if he’d been here, no matter how minor the injury.

But now wasn’t the time for reminiscing. “Initium ad inferna permittatur,” Sam recited, nodding at Dean to put his hand on the bowl’s lip and be ready. Sam followed suit once he lit a match and tossed it on top of the ingredients with his free hand.

The spell quickly took effect, a hot wind filling the kitchen, the entire bunker trembling briefly with the power of the portal opening across dimensions.

Brilliant light engulfed Dean as he inexorably fell into the infernal realm. A sulfurous stench filled his lungs, making him stumble, cough, and blink his watering eyes.

He had to stay sharp and recover immediately. Once he was stable on his feet, he whipped out the angel blade he carried and saw Sam do the same. Internally, he battled to maintain composure, fighting back the fear and panic. No journey to Hell was fun and games, and given the current state of things, they had no idea who or what lay ahead.

He had to focus on the mission at hand: find Michael, defeat Chuck. He just kept repeating that in his head like a mantra as they began walking: “Find Michael, defeat Chuck.” Anything to drown out the screams of the damned all around them, echoing through the dark corridors, the laughter and screeches of the demons, the smell of sulfur, the blood, the ash…

“You okay, Dean?”

Dumb, dumb question. “Yeah, just peachy. Any sense of where to start looking? We don’t have Google Maps down here.” Dean had no idea where, exactly, in Hell they’d landed. There was a gothic cathedral type of vibe around them that didn’t seem at all like the dreary industrial style Crowley had favored while in charge.

They probably should have thought this plan through a bit more, he realized. Like maybe having a clue as far as where they actually needed to go once they landed in Hell…

But Dean had little time to dwell on this before they were confronted with their first challengers. Two female-presenting demons dressed in dark business suits came out of the shadows, stopping Dean and Sam from going further.

Dean tried the casual approach. “Ladies. We’re not looking for trouble, okay? We just wanna talk with whoever is running things right now.”

That went over about as well as colicky baby on a twelve hour international flight. Dean barely got the words out before he got pummeled by one of the two demons. She fought like she was Hacksaw Jim Duggan, despite looking more like Kristen Stewart, and one direct blow was enough to leave him seeing stars.

Sam wasn’t faring any better, from what Dean could make out between getting thrown against the brimstone walls and ending up on the ground with a stiletto to his chin.

Panic clawed at his throat, pain spreading through his body as he looked up at the expressionless demon looming calmly over him. They couldn’t go down like this, could they? Taken out by two random demons? Leaving poor Eileen wondering how her boyfriend and his brother died in Hell?

This can’t be the ending Chuck wants for us, Dean once again thought, although he could see no way out of his current predicament.

“STOP!”

The command echoed through the corridors, silencing even the disembodied cries and screams in the distance. With it, the demons immediately backed off, leaving Dean and Sam stunned, gasping for air, and more than a little shell-shocked.

Dean staggered to his feet, still not exactly sure what all had just happened. And when his vision cleared, he was astonished by what he saw next. Because standing there before them was a petite, delicately featured woman in an elegant red gown, flanked by an entourage of muscular men.

“Hello, boys,” Rowena drawled, favoring them both with a tight, knowing smile. Noting their stunned-to-silence confusion, she added, “You did say you wanted to see the one in charge.”

Dean blinked, his vision still going in and out of focus after the pounding he took in the fight. “Rowena, we thought you were dead!” 

“Oh, I am, dear. Pretty much everyone here is. When I closed the fissure, it did cost me my life, and my soul went to Hell,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Big surprise!” 

“And you just…ended up becoming…Queen?” Sam asked.

She let out a small laugh. “Oh sweet Samuel, no one hands you anything around here, darlin’. I took the throne for myself. Nobody had made a successful claim for it since Asmodeus’ short and regrettable rule. All the knights and princes are now dead, and none as crafty as my Fergus worked their way up the ranks through hard work and dedication. No one except for me.

“But now, with these re-introductions out of the way…” She glanced between the two of them, taking a dramatic pause, “Why are you here?”

“Chuck,” Dean answered. “He’s back, and he’s outta control, and we need to rein him in.”

She gave him a familiar look—one he knew meant, How are the Winchesters going to make my life miserable this time?

“You want to rein in God,” she repeated slowly.

“That’s right. And we’re pretty sure there is a way,” Sam put in. “Dean has a plan, and we went to the prophet Donatello to find what we needed, but he says we have to speak to Michael. He’s the only one who knows ‘God’s weakness.’”

“Michael, the out-of-his-head archangel? Oh, this just gets better!” Rowena laughed sharply, before her expression turned more serious. “Ahh, well, anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“What? Why?” Sam asked, as Dean‘s chest tightened.

“He won’t be in the Cage. Every door here was flung wide when Chuck opened the fissure. Your archangel could be anywhere in Hell right now—or out of Hell, for that matter.”

Dean wanted to curse or hit something, but he suppressed in his anger. Here in Hell it seemed all too primed to boil up and over onto the surface, as if that part of his soul shaped by Alastair was ready to take over once again. “Rowena, we’re running outta time, okay? We need Michael yesterday.”

Rowena stood still and silent, hands clenched in tight fists, and Dean feared she was about to kick both their asses out of what was now her domain. The silence lingered until she said in a slow and steady voice to her demons, “Did you not hear the man? Find him!” 

Her command shook the firmament of Hell around them, coming at a volume far beyond what her diminutive form should be able to produce. If there’d been any doubt on Dean’s end that she was now the ruler of Hell, that faded quickly as the demons scattered at her order.

She barely moved nor let the mask of fearsome power slip from her face, save a small wink to Dean and Sam, until they were alone at last. Then she relaxed and a bit of the old Rowena slipped through as she smiled at them both. “Oh, it is good to be queen, isn’t it? Come, let’s adjourn to my chambers while my minions hunt for Michael. You can catch me up on all the news from the Earthly realm while we wait.”

Dean and Sam exchanged glances. Rowena turned on her impressive heels and they followed her after Sam shrugged as if to say, Do we have any choice?

Rowena led them to her throne room, where she took her seat on an elevated platform under blood-stained glass and an upside-down cross. A servant quickly emerged to bring her a drink as she got comfortable, and Dean and Sam sat on the lower floor beneath her feet.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Dean quipped.

“Thank you, Dean. Fergus’s taste in decor was so dreary! And Asmodeus cared for nothing beyond digging his claws in for power. No imagination or originality, that one. I rounded up all of the best designers in Hell to remodel to my tastes instead.”

“Yeah, well, it shows.” Somewhere in the distance, a blood-curdling cry echoed through the corridors and Dean suppressed a shudder. He still remembered what it was like to be on the rack and scream like that.

He remembered being the one to make that soul scream.

“Now then,” Rowena said, “while you must know I’m tickled to see you both, I find myself wondering where my beloved tweety bird is? You come all this way to Hell and there’s no handsome angel with you? What a shame!” She pouted. “Now that I’m queen I’m hoping that Heaven and Hell can move past our…previous grievances and allow good fences to make for good neighbors.”

Dean dodged the question about Cas by replying, “Well, if Chuck gets his way, there might not be a Heaven, a Hell, or anything else left for that matter. He still wants the end of his story, his way,” Dean said.

“And I’ve been having visions from Chuck, of other universes, I think…other endings…I think he’s planning on bringing it all to an end.”

“Oh dear,” fretted Rowena. “That would be quite the shame, especially now that I’ve finally gotten the power I truly deserve.”

As smug and content as Rowena looked upon her new throne, Sam still seemed uncomfortable. He fidgeted and stammered out, “Rowena, I—”

“Samuel, please,” she cut him off. “Let me assuage your guilt before it gives you any more unsightly wrinkles. You killing me was one of the best things that ever happened! Yes, there are things I miss about being alive. Flesh-on-flesh sex. Amazon doesn’t deliver here…yet. But, lads, I’m queen! My subjects revere me. Well, fear me, which is better. I should have died a long time ago.” 

Satisfied that Sam appeared soothed by her words, she turned her attention to Dean. “You still didn’t tell me where Castiel is—and Dean, I could see your soul dim when I mentioned his name.”

Dean frowned. “You can see souls now?”

“Darlin’, down here that’s all anyone is, or did ye forget?”

As if he ever could. “Yeah, well, Cas blew us off to go back to Heaven,” Dean answered. “We’re on our own with this—me, Sam, and a few other hunters we’ve got on alert.”

Rowena’s eyebrows arched up toward the vaulted ceiling. “And when did that happen?”

Sam answered, “Right after the mess with the rupture, actually, when you died.”

“How very peculiar of him.” She tapped her nails on the armrest of her throne. “Dean, you two didn’t have some kind of foolish lovers’ quarrel, did you?”

Dean stiffened. “We’re not—I mean, yes, we had a fight, but….”

Rowena put down her drink and leaned forward. Her expression took on the same weight as when she commanded her demons as she said, “You listen to me, Dean Winchester. You don’t want to carry regrets for letting a petty squabble ruin a good thing. As much as I do so appreciate all that dying has brought me, there are some things that you don’t want to bring into the afterlife if you don’t have to. I will never forgive myself for not making amends with Fergus…indeed, if there is one thing that damned my soul forever, it is the way I forsook my own child.”

“I’ve tried to tell him that,” Sam unhelpfully put in.

“Yeah well you can shut your pie hole,” Dean snapped back. He didn’t need this to become about Cas. He didn’t want Rowena’s words about forsaking a child to remind him of how he was about to kill Jack. “It’s…complicated,” he said, turning back to Rowena, “and we’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“Yes, yes, Chuck and the potential end of the universe,” Rowena tutted. “So tell me more about how you intend to fight God himself, and what Michael has to do with it?”

“We know Chuck’s still weak from being shot by the Equalizer,” Sam answered. He then explained all that had happened so far, including Eileen’s escape from Hell and creating a body for her soul by finishing Rowena’s resurrection spell. 

She appeared quite pleased by his success. “Well done, Samuel! Oh, in another lifetime I could have shaped you into such a powerful witch!”

“So then I had the idea to use the spell to create a body that could bear the Mark,” Dean continued, “this time to trap Chuck instead of Amara with it. And we could bury the body in a Ma’lak box so we weren’t putting the world or anyone at risk like the Mark did to Cain. And me.”

“That’s why we need Michael,” Sam said. “Because apparently he’s the only one who knows Chuck’s weakness; he was there, so he must know how to do it.”

“I see.” Rowena fell silent for a time, running a fingertip along the rim of her glass.

“Do you think it could work?” Dean prompted. “Our plan, I mean?”

“Theoretically? Yes…but from my understanding of at least the spell to remove the Mark, a soul must be involved—not just the empty shell of a body. Otherwise you could put the Mark on, why, anything at all! Well, as long as it had blood to shed.”

“I had that same concern,” Sam said. “And Dean had the idea of using one of your soul catchers to place a ghost’s soul in the body if necessary.”

“A vengeful ghost with the Mark of Cain?” Rowena laughed. “You’d better be sure you build a very sturdy box.”

“I know it’s kind of convoluted, and risky,” Dean admitted. “But we can’t ask anyone else to make that sacrifice. Or trust that they’d go along with the deal.”

“Aye, I understand. I have some notions of how you boys could make this work, and help bind a restless spirit safely to a body…But first, Sam, could you be a dear?” She raised her empty glass. “I’m feeling a wee bit dry.”

“Uh…sure.” Sam exchanged a quick glance with Dean, both clearly unsure why she needed Sam to provide the service when she had all her demonic minions available. 

But Sam did as she asked, and once Rowena and Dean were “alone,” she started in on him. “Now, tell your Auntie Rowena what really happened between you and Castiel.”

Dean sighed. “Why? What does it matter to you?”

“Because, believe it or not, dear, I’ve actually come to…care about you boys. As much as my cold, now-dead heart has the capacity, at least. Perhaps Samuel more than you, but poor Castiel! Why, one’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to notice you hung the moon and the stars in his eyes. Forgive me if I found that quite…romantic.”

Dean shook his head. “Things ain’t been right with us for a while. He didn’t tell us when he knew Jack had lost the last of his soul. That cost mom her life. And even after that, he was going to help Jack get away from us…”

“You mean, like any good father who would give up everything for his child?”

Dean sputtered, frustrated by this entire interrogation. “Cas is the one who left, not me.”

“And what have you done to bring him back?”

“Well, whatever he’s up to in Heaven, he’s not answering any of my prayers. So I’m guessin’ he’s in no rush to come back.”

“One of these days perhaps you’ll both get your heads out of your arses,” she bemoaned. Before Dean could protest further, Sam returned with a fresh cocktail for Rowena, who took it gladly. “Thank you, my dear.”

“What did I miss?” Sam asked.

“Nothing,” Dean insisted. “Absolutely nothing you need to know about.”

The large doors to Rowena’s chambers opened and a demon entered, bowing deeply before the queen. “Milady.”

“Aye?” she prompted.

“Michael, he’s nowhere to be found.”

Dean cursed under his breath at the news, and Sam wondered aloud, “Then where is he?”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to help with that if he’s not here in Hell,” Rowena apologized. “He must be somewhere on Earth, then, if he did not return to Heaven.”

“So, this was all a bust, then.” They’d gotten themselves all banged up and knocked around by a bunch of demons for nothing. And without Cas, it’d take days before they’d heal from it. There’d be no gentle touch of a hand, no warmth of grace flowing into him. No satisfied smile from Cas when he’d put Dean back to rights. Sam would at least have Eileen to fuss over him and make him feel better.

The one person who happily used to be there for Dean was gone. And more and more, he was feeling like it was all his fault.

Everyone else seemed to think so.

“I’m sorry, lads,” Rowena apologized. “But so you are not leaving empty-handed, there is one spell I have that might help you. Good for keeping an archangel powered down once you’ve found him, and far more secure than a simple pair of angel cuffs. I devised it with Gabriel’s help, when we bound Lucifer for his grace. But I’ll need to give you something potent to help cast it.” Rowena looked to the demon who’d just arrived. “Simone, please fetch me some parchment and fresh blood. I must write a few things down for our guests and prepare a special elixir.”

“Yes, milady. I’d be happy to bleed for you myself.”

“Aren’t you a dear.” Rowena smiled at her, and to Sam and Dean added, “As I said, it’s good to be queen.”

Chapter Text

Well, are you gonna dance on the line with me?
You know it's not a game or a fantasy
And I don't even know who I used to be
But nothing is the same and some things have to change now
- Sleep Token, "Past Self"

“Hey, Cas…it’s Dean. Again. Dunno if you’re sick of hearing from me, or just tuning me out, or…

Well, whatever.

But if do you care, me and Sam are still working on a way to take down Chuck. Kinda don’t want to spill too much of the details, in case anyone’s listening in, y’know…There’s a lot of weird stuff going on right now. Like, Lilith’s back, thanks to Chuck, and Michael’s out of the Cage, and—and hey, if Mikey's gone back to Heaven, could you tell him we’d like to have a word? It’s sort of important.

One bit of good news: Rowena is the Queen of Hell now. Can you believe that? I mean, I guess it’s good news, ’cause she certainly seems happy about it. Sam’s feeling a less down about having killed her and all, and…and I know I was kind of pissy with you about that, so…maybe I shouldn’t have been. Seems like she’s doing better than the rest of us are lately.

Anyway. That’s all, I just…I was thinking about stuff and figured I should catch you up. You’re missing out on a decent season of Doctor Sexy right now, too, unless you get streaming in Heaven or something. Alright. Bye.”

True to his promise to Ash, Castiel remained silent about everything he’d observed and the “Roadhouse” crew of misplaced souls. He reported absolutely nothing about it, nor any of the souls involved, to Naomi or the others. 

Even when he heard his fellow angels talking in distress, worrying about how much longer they’d be able to sustain Heaven in its current crippled state, he kept quiet. Something in his grace told him to trust these humans over his brothers and sisters—perhaps because they’d been so direct and honest with him. They had treated him as if he belonged with them, despite his not recalling who they were.

In contrast, the other angels still looked at him as if he were a stranger—or worse, someone to be feared—and clearly they were keeping secrets to which he was not privy. The human souls were actively looking for solutions to their current predicament, whereas the angels were merely waiting things out until the end.

“Even with the new angels Jack created, there’s not enough of us to keep Heaven going much longer,” Emmael sighed as they left Naomi’s latest debriefing. “Why, just the other day, I found Zotiel asleep in the Garden, trying to recharge his grace sufficiently to return to duty.”

“If we burn ourselves out, we’ll all be sleeping the big sleep forever in the Empty,” Flagstaff said. 

“The Empty?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah, that’s the place where we all end up when we die,” Emmael told him. “Wait, I thought you—oh, oh, right. Nevermind.”

Castiel frowned and demanded, “Nevermind what?”

“Emmail, don’t upset Castiel. Remember, he has suffered traumatic memory damage,” Flagstaff chided, and then to Castiel, she added, “We know little about the Empty, except that it claims our fallen brethren upon their deaths. Demons as well.”

“Hmm.”

Castiel was tired of feeling like he was some kind of broken angel. As if everyone knew more about who he was and the things he’d done than he did.

And he wasn’t stupid. Between his unsettled feelings, the prayers from those humans on Earth, and what he’d discovered from Ash and the Roadhouse, he wasn’t sure how much he believed of what Naomi and the others had told him about the cause of his memory loss, and what he’d done in the past. It didn’t seem to mesh at all with what he’d learned on his own.

Still, he played along and didn’t push, not wanting to stir up trouble until he understood more. Any time he seemed to express concern or confusion too loudly, he ended up back in Naomi’s office for another one of her “sessions” that left him more confused than before.

He had to move carefully, and slowly. At least, as slowly as he could, with Heaven’s very fate in the balance and the clock ticking down.

When he felt it was safe, he returned to Ash’s heaven, sneaking away after a day of uneventful patrols. The souls gathered there greeted him enthusiastically, welcoming him back and properly introducing themselves as they had not had time to do before. Most of the same souls as last time were there, along with a few others he had not encountered previously. Some of those came and went while he was there, apparently on “reconnaissance” missions for Ash, all slipping through sigil-controlled portals to keep their movements off angel radio.

“So, anything jog your memory yet?” Celeste—who he’d learned preferred to be called “Charlie”—asked him after bringing over a fresh round of beers. Castiel was sharing a rather sticky table with her, the bearded man with a baseball cap named Bobby Singer, and Ash, who was busy working on his computer throughout the various conversations and introductions.

Castiel shook his head and apologized, “I am sorry. I cannot say I recall meeting any of you until our first encounter here.”

“What about Dean? Or Sam?” she pressed. “After everything you all went through together, you don’t remember them?”

“You mean, the Winchesters?”

“Yes!”

“I have been receiving curious prayers from two brothers by those names. Prayers suggesting I know them in some fashion, but I have no recollection of any such encounters.” Castiel paused and, though he knew it would taste of nothing for him, took a sip of the beer Charlie presented to him out of politeness. “I was told by my superior, Naomi, that I had suffered great injuries in battle while defending Heaven, and that was why I lost my memory. But…the more time that passes, the more I find I have…many doubts about that. Questions.”

“You damn well should. That Naomi is one lying ass mother. I wouldn’t believe her if she told me my own name,” Bobby said. “She had me in Heaven’s lockup after I helped you and the Winchester boys pull off some shenanigans up here a while back. Only let me loose when the power drain got so bad, they couldn’t afford to lock up trouble-makin’ souls any longer.”

“Alright, well, we can all work on fillin’ in Castiel’s Swiss cheese memory later on,” Ash interrupted them. “You wanted to know more about our plan to save Heaven, am I right?”

Castiel nodded. Truly, he was interested in everything that was going on, all that was missing from his memories, but his own personal issues could wait. The lives and afterlives of billions of souls were more important. If they could solve that problem, he could deal with his amnesia later.

“Cool. So, here’s the 4-1-1 on that,” Ash said. “After I kicked the bucket and ended up in the great hereafter, I figured out pretty quick how things worked. How to move from one memory to the next on demand; how doorways, roads or passages were the transitions. Didn’t take me long after that to figure out how to escape my personal memory box and check out what the neighbors were up to.”

As Ash talked, he remained focused on the computer screen in front of him. The terminal itself appeared to be powered by some strange combination of soul power, Heaven’s grace, and a strong thread of Enochian magic. “Once I determined how to navigate around up here, I started mapping things out. Mainly for kicks at first, but then I found and hooked up with Pamela over there.” He pointed toward the dark-haired woman who still regarded Castiel with wariness. “And then, Ellen and Jo.” Castiel now knew those two were the bartender and her daughter. “I also hacked into your angel radio. That way I could keep an ear on things, if any of my friends were in trouble for skippin’ around.” Ash typed a string of commands, and then the screen’s view changed to a graph-like comparison of various waveforms. Castiel saw they were each labeled with a different angel’s name, including his own.

“You understand our true voices, despite not being a chosen vessel?” he asked, amazed at all Ash had accomplished. Not even a prophet was typically capable of such feats.

Yet Ash merely scoffed. “It’s all frequencies and equations, man. Nothing a solid foundation in quantum mechanics and particle physics can’t handle. And maybe a few consultations with some of the truly great minds up here. Euclid, Bohr, Dirac…shoot, you should see what Leonardo’s been up to since I set him up with his first PC!

“Anyway…we all started using this place, my heaven, as our headquarters. It was easy, given every one of us early adopters to my program had good memories of Ellen’s Roadhouse on Earth. With the shortcuts I made between our individual heavens, they all sort of ended up…merging into one, with time.”

“How is that even possible?” Castiel asked, shocked by this possibility.

“That’s what I wasn’t sure about at first, so I started experimenting with some different calculations and projections into fifth-dimensional space, and…”

Ash adjusted his computer monitor so Castiel could see it better. He understood right away how Ash had modeled the souls kept in the matrix of Heaven, and watched, fascinated, as the clusters of small dots representing them floated and flickered across the screen. The instability of the system was clear, and yet, when some souls overlapped and merged spaces, they spread stability to their neighbors. The energy between them grew more powerful and stable, and then began to spread like a spiderweb of connectivity.

“Fascinating,” Castiel observed.

“And convenient! And now we had a place we could all hang at together to keep track of things. The apocalypse. The civil war. Your little stint taking over after icing Raphael.”

“You mentioned that last time. I still don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Raphael tried to restart the apocalypse after you and the Winchester boys stopped it,” Bobby explained. “So you made an all-you-can-eat buffet out of the souls of Purgatory, and used that power to turn Raphael into roadkill. Thought you’d turned yourself into the new god, only those souls got hungry for more. The damn leviathans you unleashed as a result are what got me killed.”

Castiel searched his mind, to see if any of this sounded familiar to him. But his memory was a blank slate; not even a flash or feeling or anything came to him before pain warned him to stop pushing. “I…I still don’t remember. I’m sorry. Please accept my condolences if I was responsible in any way for your passing.”

“Boy, they really did a number on your noggin’ this time,” Bobby muttered, shaking his head before taking a drink of his beer.

“Focus, people—and celestial beings,” Ash said, clearly trying to keep his momentum going. “The long and the short of it is, a lot of shit’s gone down over the last decade or so, Earth-time. Shit that killed off almost all the angels in Heaven. The apocalypse, the civil war, Metatron casting y’all out of Heaven, the Darkness…”

“And every time there’s been a major kill-off of angels, Heaven’s gotten a bit more wonky,” Charlie added, and turning to the bar she asked, “Right, Jo?”

“For sure,” the petite blonde woman confirmed. “When I first got here, you never noticed, well, anything. Like, if I wasn’t a hunter who knew about all this stuff when I died, I might not have realized I was dead. I was just drifting through the best moments in my life like it was one big dream. Ash found me before everything started falling apart and it’s pretty stable in here now, while we’re together. But anytime I venture out of the Roadhouse, I notice it more and more. The blips and wavers. Sometimes opening a door and finding nothing but empty space.”

“That’s always the creepiest,” Charlie agreed. Castiel did not want to tell them, but a blank, empty heaven like that meant a soul had fallen through a weak spot in the firmament and was now lost. It was a small example of the fate that awaited all souls, should Heaven collapse entirely.

“There’s only so much we can do with so few of us remaining,” Castiel admitted.

“Only so much you can do. But us souls are a different matter,” Ash said. “You can feel it here in the Roadhouse, can’t you? It’s way more stable. We still get the occasional wibble-wobbles, but…”

“It’s true,” Castiel realized. “I hadn’t noticed it before.”

“I’ve figured out ways to keep this place low on the radar so you and the other angels wouldn't notice,” Charlie said. “With a little help from the great posthumous minds of computer programming...man, I can’t believe I got to write code with Margaret Hamilton!”

“It’s the soul power,” Ash said. ”At least, that’s my theory. By putting us all in these separate tiny Heavens, you guys are expending a lot more energy than necessary. Especially with the excessive redundancy. Like I said, we all mostly had good memories tied to Ellen’s Roadhouse—save Charlie and a few others we recruited later, usually after hearin’ you angels bitchin’ about them.”

“People who knew the Winchesters are always gettin’ in trouble whether up here or in the land of the living,” Ellen added as she passed by, bringing drinks to another table of souls.

“But instead of just having one Roadhouse in the hereafter for everyone,” Ash continued, “you had to maintain one for me. One for Ellen, one for Jo. One for Bobby and Pamela and every other hunter who ever came through those doors and had a lucky night. It’s the same with that concert you found me at. You know how many souls had that experience as one of their top memories? The Floyd only performed ‘The Wall’ like that thirty-one times, but the shows were legendary. What about The Beatles playing Shea Stadium in 1965? Every kid who screamed their heads off that night has that memory ingrained in their personal heaven; why should it have to be recreated over fifty-thousand times, when everyone who was there kicks the bucket?”

“Those are…unique events in history,” Castiel argued. He thought of the heavens he favored spending time in. “But many of people's best memories are of moments spent alone, or with just one or two loved ones.” 

“Maybe.” Ash shrugged. “But like, you feel it here yourself: when we bring souls together into united spaces and moments of happiness, Heaven becomes more stable. So I’m thinking we need to connect these shared points as much as possible. Break down the walls, open up all the doors, however it has to happen. I’ve done some models and predictions and I think if we hit ten percent connectivity, we’ll have enough power to stop the big fluctuations. Twenty-five percent and we’ll be golden, even if there are a percentage of folks who prefer to wall up in their own little Private Idahos.”

“But…you are still talking about millions of souls…breaking down all the barriers…there will be chaos!” Castiel objected.

“Will there? Or will souls come together like never before?” Bobby countered. “In a place free of demons and monsters, the bad souls that didn’t make the cut for Heaven…”

“It’d make Heaven more what it should be—a reward, a chance to do things we never got to do while we were alive,” Jo put in. “I mean, look at me—I was only twenty-four when I died, after getting gutted by hellhounds and turning myself into a suicide bomb so other hunters could escape.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Castiel told her.

“So am I. But with Ash figuring out how we could visit other souls, explore each other’s memories? I’ve gotten the chance to go sunbathing on the beach in Maui. Party in New York City on New Year’s Eve. I went on a date in Venice, Italy and took a sunset gondola ride with a smart, sexy, woman…” Jo paused and looked at Pamela, who smiled back at her. “It's been incredible! I mean, for someone like me who had kind of a really shitty life—no offense, mom—”

“None taken,” Ellen replied with a wave of her hand.

“—This actually feels something like paradise now.”

“But you’re still just a small group of souls,” Castiel tried to argue, shaking his head at the impossibility of what they were proposing. Yes, he could see how these people, these friends, benefitted from being together. But envisioning it on the full scale of Heaven…

It was more than he was prepared to accept quite yet.

“I need to think about this for a while. I wish…I wish we had any instructions left behind, as to why God had considered the way things are now the best way to handle his precious souls.”

“My theory is that God feared we would become too potent if we united as intended,” Pamela put in. “Don’t forget, I was a psychic; I’ve always been in tune with the metaphysical plane. God created humanity and claimed he loved us the most, but I think deep down, he was terrified of his own creation. When soul power unites, there’s nothing more powerful in the universe.”

Castiel bristled at how she talked of his father. But he couldn’t argue with the facts of what he saw here, and how Ash’s models showed things could theoretically work.

“I don’t know how I can help you,” he still said.

Ash was quick to reply. “There is something I could really use. I’ve heard through the angel radio grapevine that there’s a central control plan for all of Heaven, mapping it out from the Axis Mundi to every individual corridor. A guide for the method of expansion for new souls. If I could somehow get access to that, it would be the missing puzzle piece I need. I’ve found that similar Heavens tend to be banded close together, so if I could find enough of those common memories to link without having to rely on my scouting parties…”

“...you could potentially reduce the load on Heaven much faster. Before any collapse may happen,” Castiel finished.

“Boom!” Ash exclaimed, and then leaned back in his chair with a smile. “Exactly.”

Castiel thought his request over. “You’re asking a great deal of me. I don’t…I know where that information would be located, but not how I could get to it without raising alarms.”

“Shoot, even if you could somehow get me or Charlie there for a few minutes, we could hack in and download it onto my system,” Ash said, looking at Charlie. She nodded enthusiastically.    

“I…I do not know. Let me think about this,” Castiel said.

“Sure, yeah. Give us some time to work on our side of the plan, too,” Ash responded.

“We can pray to you when we’re ready?” Jo asked.

“Of course. Direct it to me and no one else will hear you.”

Castiel finished his beer and then said his goodbyes, wanting to depart before the other angels noticed his absence from his regular routine and patrols.

He had a lot to consider. Part of him couldn’t believe he was contemplating this act of rebellion.

But another part of him was ready to argue that he had no choice.

Chapter Text

I've got a river running right into you
I've got a blood trail, red in the blue
Something you say or something you do
A taste of the divine
- Sleep Token, "The Summoning"

So the trip to Hell didn’t end up being a total bust, but Dean and Sam were still lacking the one thing they needed the most:

Michael.

They might now know where he wasn’t, but they had no good leads on where he actually was. And until they located him, they could go no further with figuring out how to take down Chuck for good.

With Eileen’s help, they pulled a near all-nighter searching news feeds around the world for anything that looked or sounded, well…archangely.

Crazy, out-of-his-mind-archangely.

But nothing pinged their hunter-informed radar, and eventually Sam and Eileen begged off to catch a few hours of sleep in the early morning hours.

Dean put on another pot of coffee and kept working.

A break in their search came when Donatello called the following day to report that Michael was definitely on Earth and not in Heaven. However, he was bouncing around the planet so fast that the prophet could barely keep track.

“What’s he doing?” Dean demanded over the phone.

“How should I know? One minute he’s in Indianapolis and the next he’s in Cairo. Can’t tell if he’s running from someone, after someone, or just running like a dog with a case of the zoomies. I picked him up for the first time after a massive power surge hit me from a diner in New Winsor. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need bourbon.”

Dean huffed in frustration as Donatello hung up. “So, if Michael’s playing whack-a-mole, how do we get him to pop up here?”

“Well, we do have the current prophet on call,” Sam said, “and if I recall correctly, an archangel will be the first to defend a prophet if threatened.”

Dean frowned. “What, you mean… stage something, like we’re gonna try to kill Donatello? Hoping Michael shows up to stop it? I kinda feel like the dude’s been through enough thanks to us, y’know? Plus, he’s got the whole bluetooth-straight-to-God thing going on. I think we’re better off trying something else.”

Sam nodded in understanding. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Eileen suggested, “What about a summoning spell?”

Dean remembered performing an archangel summoning spell with Cas once, years ago, to call up Raphael. It had worked, but it hadn’t landed them a very agreeable archangel. “That’s a possibility,” he hedged.

“Or, we could simply try…praying to him,” Sam said.

Dean snorted. “Oh yeah, I’m sure we’re real high on the list of people Michael’d be jumping with joy hear praying to him.”

“I know,” Sam said, “But if we explain things to him…how his father is to blame for all of this, including his own imprisonment in the Cage all this time? Don’t you think there’s a chance we could get him on our side? Or at least, curious enough to come if we ask to talk, face to face? And then we’ve got Rowena’s spell and potion to bind him if necessary.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it will be.” Dean sighed. “Alright, I suppose we could give prayer a try. But let’s do it smart, and have this place secured if we manage to bring him in.”

They could, of course, use a ring of holy fire to trap Michael if he showed up. But that wasn’t always easy to set up in advance, especially if they weren’t sure exactly where and when the angel might appear. It also would only last as long as the flames stayed lit, so that was fine for a quick chat or to get a head start on running for cover. Not really as great for lengthy discussions, or if they had to bargain with him.

What Rowena had offered to Sam and Dean was a little different. It was a refinement of how she’d bound Lucifer with Gabriel’s help, fueled by a potion to power the spell’s caster if they lacked the inherent capability of a trained witch. 

A potion which the wielder needed to consume in very short order right before casting the spell.

“This elixir will temporarily give you control of magic comparable to my own,” she’d explained, after preparing a concoction of demon blood, rare herbs and a whispered incantation that made the blood glow lavender. “But only for a brief bit of time, oh…ten seconds, at best.”

“Ten seconds. Got it,” Dean had said as he reached for the vial. 

But she’d pulled it back before he could touch it, cautioning, “If for any reason Michael slips away before you can use it? You must dispel the magic quickly and cast the spell, even if you bind a pile of dishes! Or a lamp! Or else, well…things could get messy.”

Dean didn’t want to imagine what “messy” might be in Rowena’s terms, but he felt it could easily involve exploding bodies and splattered brains. So they’d do what they had to do, and do it quick.

“So, you gonna do the honors?” Sam asked Dean once they were ready to go.

“Yeah, I suppose. I mean, I guess we’ve got the best chance of him listening if it comes from me.” Dean was counting on the fact that he was, after all, Michael’s original “perfect” vessel that he could get the archangel to hear him out. “Besides, Rowena’s potent little helper here is laced with demon blood. Probably not a good idea for you to get a whiff of that again.”

Sam winced, but agreed. “Yeah, true.”

Still, there was a sour taste in the back of Dean’s throat as he prepared himself for this. He hadn’t prayed to anyone other than Cas, Jack, or—in the days long before their recent predicament—God, in a seriously long time.

They hadn’t wanted to attempt this in the bunker, either, in case things went sideways. So they’d driven to an abandoned warehouse not far away, a place they’d stumbled on a while back on a djinn hunt. After cleaning out the monsters, they’d decided it made a decent staging ground for spells, rituals, or any sort of situation in which they didn’t want to risk blowing up their underground home.

Eileen was holding down the fort in the meantime; she’d been worried about a fellow hunter who was tracking a vampire nest on the move toward Omaha, and had wanted to stay in touch with her, in case she needed back-up.

“You want me to stay here, or…” Sam trailed off, nodding toward the open door leading outside.

“Yeah, maybe it’s best if you’re not here. He might not be keen on seeing you again, y’know? Just give me a couple minutes to get my shit together,” Dean said. 

Sam nodded. “I’ll be right outside,” he said. “Don’t forget—”

“Yeah, yeah, toss down the magic juice and then say the fancy words real quick.” 

“Just checking.”

Dean patted his jacket pocket where he had the potion. Sam stepped outside, Dean watching him until he turned the corner and disappeared from view.

Dean paced around the large space for a few minutes, trying to ready himself, pull his thoughts into a coherent prayer. He’d been racking his brain all day, taking pains to figure out how to get through to Michael. He wasn’t sure this would work, but he was going to give it his best shot.

Cas had once explained to him that a prayer’s power resided in its heartfelt intent, not so much its specific phrasing. That, and being very clear about whom the prayer was intended to reach. So Dean envisioned Michael in his mind, how he had last seen the archangel in the vessel of his half-brother, Adam Milligan.

Dean knew that, deep within him, a remnant of the other Michael’s grace remained. He tried to focus on that as well, as much as he normally sought to deny and ignore it. Even if they were different Michaels, something told him it might help him reach this Michael, get his attention.

Finally he spoke:

“Michael? This is Dean Winchester. Y’know, the dude who was supposed to be your sword, your meat suit, all of that jazz a few years back. Anyway. We—me and my brother, Sam—we know you’re out of the Cage and somewhere here on Earth, and we really need to talk to you. Like, as soon as you could get your feathery ass over here.

“It’s not about tryin’ to put you back in the Cage or anything like that, I swear. Not that you have reason to trust us, I know. It’s just…well, your dad—God—he’s back. In fact, it turns out he never went away at all. He was hiding in plain sight all this time and orchestrating most of what’s happened to all of us. Including what happened to you.

“We’re trying to stop him from shutting everything down for good. But to do that, we need your help. We need to tap into some knowledge we think only you have.

“So c’mon…show your face and let’s talk, okay? I’m hoping—I’m praying—that you hear this and’ll give us a fair chance.”

Dean’s skin tingled, like an electric current rippling through his body. He knew the feeling all too well. The sound of huge wings slicing through the air was followed by a voice demanding, “Like the ‘fair chance’ you gave your own brother, Adam?” 

Dean turned to see Michael standing behind him, in the space between where he stood and the door to the outside. Michael still wore the vesseled body of Adam, though the icy determination in his eyes was clearly that of the archangel. He looked no different from that day ten years ago in Stull Cemetery.

“Hey, Mikey,” Dean said. ‘Lookin’ good.”

“For suffering the equivalent of twelve hundred years in the Cage?” He shrugged. “I suppose so. And you’re right, I have no grounds to trust you. Neither does Adam. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he said we should hear you out.”

“Adam, he…he’s still in there with you?” Dean’s oversight made him feel foolish, and he couldn’t predict whether it would help or hinder them.

“Of course. What, did you think all this time I was riding an empty vessel like Castiel, after Raphael atomized him? Nah, Castiel’s the only freak I’ve seen do that. Maybe that’s why he, in his unhinged state, set me on fire and rebelled against his brothers and sisters in Heaven. Why, I guess that’s what he has in common with you and Sam. No family loyalty.”

Dean slowly circled around Michel, as if he were sizing up dangerous prey…which certainly was the case here. Yet Michael remained unmoving—frustratingly so, especially as he appeared right beyond the perimeter of the holy oil circle they had poured out as a back-up plan.

But Dean had something more powerful than holy oil to trap an archangel right in his grasp.

“You feel better having gotten that out of your system?” Dean asked.

“Not really. Part of me would like nothing more than to give you a taste of what Adam and I have endured all this time. But once again, your brother is far more open to attempting some kind of detente.” Michael tilted his head and demanded, “How is it you dare to suggest God, my father, the creator of all things, could be my enemy? Wanting to destroy his creation, instead of making peace on Earth at long last?”

“You said it yourself: you’ve been out of commission for a long, long time. A lot’s changed. Amara was released. She tried to smash things up, but then took a chill pill and peaced out. Lucifer had a kid. We found another universe, where a different Michael hitched a ride over here and tried to take over this world.”

For the briefest moment, Dean thought he saw a flicker of shock and surprise in Michael’s eyes. But the angel quickly tamped it down to reply flatly, “Lies. You lie.”

Dean shrugged. “What reason do I have to lie to you, man?” 

“I don’t know, perhaps to save your pathetic asses from my vengeance?” Michael’s eyes flared blue and the air cracked with his grace once again, enough to make the hairs on Dean’s arms stand up. “All it would take is a snap of my fingers to reduce you and your lurking, lumbering brother Sam to ash.”

“If that’s what you wanted to do, you already would’ve gone done it,” Dean challenged back.

“Wait, Michael,” Sam interrupted, stepping in from outside. His hands spread in supplication, he continued, “Adam, please. After everything we endured together, can’t you—”

“You dragged us into the cage!” Michael-Adam roared, and with a flick of his wrist, he sent Sam flying back into the wall.

Dean had enough after that. He also finally had the opening to grab the flask containing Rowena’s elixir and chug it down, fast. He wouldn’t think about what it was, or how it tasted like Hell, all of his memories of torture and demons and sulphur and smoke. The magic burned through him, blazing like an unstoppable fire. Before he could panic and lose his chance, he clasped his hands and pointed them toward Michael and shouted, “Adligetur fera!”

Magical fire within shot out from his fingertips like lightning bolts. Michael faltered as the purple cords of binding power wound themselves around his wrists, and his whole body became momentarily shrouded in a shimmering veil. Dean staggered back and took a deep breath, dizzy but thankfully safe from—as Rowena had put it—getting “messy.” 

Sam rushed toward him, winded but otherwise in one piece. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, are you?”

Sam nodded.

Michael glared at them both and demanded, “You fools. What have you done?”

“What we had to do, since you wouldn’t come with us willingly,” Dean replied. “And now, you don’t have much of a choice if you want to get out of those bindings any time soon. So let’s get moving.”

Though clearly unhappy about the situation, Michael couldn’t do much except bitch and moan and threaten them non-stop through short drive back to the Bunker.

Kind of like a yappy, annoying dog.

“You think I won’t destroy you both the moment this magic wears off? Or I work my way out of these?” he taunted, raising his bound hands. Just to be on the extra-safe side, they’d added the pair of angel cuffs that’d been enhanced to hold the Apocalypse World Michael, as a reinforcement to Rowena’s magical bindings.

“I think you’re going to have a different target in mind once you understand what we were trying to tell you before,” Dean answered.

Michael scoffed, but at least shut his cake hole for a while.

Dean was not thrilled about having a pissed off archangel riding in his backseat. Especially as it was an archangel who previously had his sights set on riding Dean, and whose counterpart from another universe had done exactly that—all because Dean’d been idiot enough to think he could bargain terms of possession with an angel who had a massive hate-boner for humanity.

Yeah, that was near the top of his personal list of most idiotic decisions ever made.

But Dean hoped he could at least use that awful experience to reach this Michael, get him to see that Chuck had been up to a whole lot of no good and they’d all suffered thanks to it, humans and angels alike.

Dean parked outside the bunker, pulling up behind Eileen’s Plymouth. Michael didn’t seem particularly impressed, commenting only, “Interesting place,” as they led him down the staircase into the bunker.

“It’s an old Men of Letters bunker,” Dean said.

“Men of Letters,” Michael repeated in a derisive tone. “Hmph.”

“They were basically a secret society devoted to fighting and studying monsters, magic, the paranormal,” Sam explained, ignoring Michael’s attitude.

“Yeah, and apparently we’re ‘legacies,’ because our grandfather was a member,” Dean added. “Which means Adam is one too, by the way.”

“Well, Adam declines to join any clubs you two are in,” Michael said.

Dean rolled his eyes but said nothing.

Just as the three of them made it to the bottom of the staircase, Eileen came rushing past, weapons bag tossed over her shoulder. She only paused briefly to size up Michael. “That’s him? Everything go okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “All good.”

“Cool. I need to go.”

“What?! Wait—Eileen! Go where?” Sam asked, both in words and sign.

“My friend Sue called again—the one on the vamp case. She sent me her location and then…she just vanished. I think she got attacked. I have to go find her.”

Sam shook his head. “Not on your own, you don’t!”

“Sam’s right,” Dean cut in. “And you should take him with you.”

Sam turned to his brother. “But, Dean!”

“Mikey and I are just gonna have a little chat; we’ll be fine,” Dean tried to assure him. He could tell Sam was torn between not wanting Eileen to go off on her own, and feeling obligated to stay. But truthfully, Dean would actually be glad to have Sam away and out of the bunker for this part. Michael still looked at Sam as if he were nothing but the vessel for Lucifer, and it made Dean edgy.

“Yeah, you go, Sam,” Michael mocked. “The longer this takes, the more likely I free myself from these bonds and have some fun taking your brother apart, piece by piece.”

“Sam…?” Eileen prompted. Sam gave Dean a pleading look, but Dean just nodded that he was fine with letting Sam go.

“Alright,” Sam huffed, and to Eileen said, “Let me just help Dean get Michael into the dungeon, and then we’ll go. Wait for me, please.”

“A dungeon! How accommodating,” Michael gushed. “Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“No, only the total dickbags.” Dean pushed him by the shoulder. “Move it.”

“You know, even for you—especially for you—this is stupid,” Michael sighed. Seated in the chair in the middle of the dungeon, he looked more bored than worried or intimidated as Dean circled around him.

“How so? You have to know something big is up; the Cage didn’t just open on its own. That was God. He blew wide all the doors in Hell and tried to stage his own little ghost-pocalypse ‘cause he got pissed at us not wanting to follow his script.”

Michael smiled. “If my father is back, he will usher in Paradise. That’s what the original plan for the apocalypse aimed to achieve.”

“Nah, God just wants the action, the fight. He doesn’t want Paradise, because Paradise is boring. He wants to be entertained. Which means we’re his puppets. All of us, but especially you.”

Michael shook his head. “Lies. I won’t hear this. First, I had to listen to Lilith, of all the foul beasts in Creation, lying about my father. And now you? It’s pathetic.”

Dean paused. “Lilith came to you? What did she say?”

“She tried to tell me that God had sent her to summon me to his side. A demon, as a messenger of God? My father would never consort with such filth.”

“So what did you do?”

“I obliterated her for such blasphemy, of course.”

Well, that was at least one threat off the board. “Can’t blame you for that one. But c’mon, man…hear me out,” Dean tried again, but Michael’s eyes flashed grace-blue and his entire body language shifted to a more casual slump.

“Hey. It’s Adam. If I were you I’d give it a rest, ’cause Michael’s not listening.”

Dean stood back, momentarily caught off-guard. “Adam? It’s…he lets you talk? Take control?”

“Uh, yeah. Sometimes. In the Cage, we came to an agreement. We only had each other, after all. You’ve got one person to spend what seems to be eternity with, you do what you have to do. Michael’s actually not so bad, you know, just stubborn. Set in his ways. And I can tell you right now he’s tuned out of whatever you’re trying to tell him.”

“Then maybe you can get through to him.”

“Why should I? Why should I listen to you, when it’s your fault all of this happened to me? You and your brother Sam, and Castiel—” Adam laughed. “Castiel, who didn’t even spare me a glance when he rescued Sam from the Cage?”

“I wish there was something I could do or say to make up for that. All of it.”

“Well you know, ‘I’m sorry’ is always a good place to start.”

Dean knew he ought to say the words, hearing the bitterness in Adam’s voice. But they seemed so insignificant, so meaningless compared to the suffering Adam had been through.

Still, Adam’s anger appeared sated after that outburst. He slumped back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “You could also, maybe, bring me something to eat?”

Dean prepared the best meal for Adam he could from their limited provisions, hoping a semi-homecooked dinner might warm him over to their side. He also brought him a pile of recent newspapers and magazines, saying, “Look, I don’t know if you can reason with Michael at all, but these’ll show you some of the messed up stuff going on lately, thanks to his father.”

Despite clearly not being thrilled with the situation, Adam seemed appeased enough by Dean’s leftover meatloaf sandwich and cheese fries that he said, “I’ll work on him. But no promises.”

Dean returned to the kitchen to eat his own dinner, one eye on the dungeon video monitor and one on his phone, eager for any updates from Sam or Eileen. When a few hours had passed with no texts, no nothing, he started getting anxious. He tried calling and texting them both repeatedly, but to no avail.

Fuck.

Dean couldn’t shake the feeling something had gone wrong. He shouldn’t have let them go in the first place; it was stupid to worry about a vamp nest in the middle of a battle against the almighty himself. He watched on the video feed as Adam (Michael? Midam? Yeah, he was going to go with that) started pacing around the room, seemingly…talking to himself? It was pretty weird—but then again, so was their entire “relationship,” whatever it had grown into.

Dean didn’t know what to do: leave Mr. Split Personality down there on his own while he ran off after his brother and Eileen? Or keep pushing and pray they’d simply lost cell reception or something, and both were perfectly fine.

C’mon, man, think.

…Cas, what should I do? What would you do?

It wasn’t quite a prayer, more…Dean trying to call back to the way Cas could so often calm him down, or talk him down from making a rash decision.

(Even if it hadn’t always worked.)

Sam and Eileen were both excellent hunters. Best of the best. Dean knew they could handle themselves. He had wanted Sam out of the bunker to deal with Michael on his own.

And besides, Chuck wouldn’t let Sam go down on a vamp hunt; that’d be ridiculous. That clearly wasn’t the ending he wanted.

…Right?

Dean needed to work harder on Michael, and stop dawdling.

He headed down to the dungeon, where Midam (whoever was in charge at the moment) had returned to the chair. He gave Dean a curious look as he entered and asked, “Back so soon?”

That was Michael, for sure.

“It’s been hours,” Dean replied.

“A blink in time. I could wait you out for an eternity. But I doubt this magic or these cuffs will last that long.”

“I take it Adam couldn’t convince you to help us.”

“How many times must I repeat myself? I will not betray my father and everything I believe in.”

“What if I told you that you’re not nearly as special in your daddy’s eyes as you think you are?” Dean proposed. “God made other versions of you, you know…and I think the one I dealt with from another universe was a damn sight tougher than you. He actually defeated his Lucifer and didn’t even need my help to do it.”

Michael grimaced. “You mentioned this fiction of another universe before. I don’t know why you’d expect me to believe such nonsense.”

“I could show you, if you don’t believe me. I let that Mikey hitch a ride on me for a while. Did it to save Sam, but then he wouldn’t let go.” Dean moved in closer, as he could see a flicker of interest in Michael’s eyes. “You guys always leave behind some grace after a possession, like an angelic STD. Bet even with those bindings muting your powers, you could feel it in me. Recognize it as basically your own.”

Dean pointed at his throat. “It’s stored up in here, isn’t it? Go on, permission to get touchy-feely. Just don’t try anything kinky.”

Michael still said nothing, but after a pause he rose to his feet, standing face to face with Dean. He raised his hands and placed one against Dean’s throat, his eyes flashing blue with grace.

Dean gasped as Michael’s grace pushed into him, without the care and gentleness that Cas would always use. It almost instantly connected to the remnants of the other Michael’s grace like they were magnets drawn together, and suddenly those terrible months of possession, of being trapped in his own body flashed before him:

The fight against Lucifer.

Struggling to cast out the angel who wouldn’t let go.

The monsters Michael had tortured and killed in his “experiments” to make them stronger with archangel grace.

All the memories of that other world, ravaged by war and the extermination of humans.

A tremor of anguish not his own coursed through Dean’s body, Michael’s grace surging as he pleaded, “Why? Why was I not enough?”

“Look around, see what else your father’s been up to,” Dean said. “See how he used and played with all of us.”

Dean tried to direct Michael to the memories he most needed to see. All of Chuck’s lies and manipulations of recent years. Pushing Dean to almost kill Jack, and then doing it himself when Sam and Dean wouldn’t bend to his will…

“I’m a writer. Lying’s kind of what we do.”

“Of all the Sams and Deans in all the multiverse, you’re my favorite show.”

Michael pulled back sharply, breaking the connection as quickly as it had begun. Dean struggled against the nausea and panic of having to remember and live through it all again, even briefly—but the look on Michael’s face told him it had been worth it.

“I…I can’t believe it.” Michael sounded like a small, lost child now. “God lied to me. Why? Why put us all through this misery for so long?”

“It’s Chuck’s form of sick entertainment, that’s why. That’s all. He doesn’t have any grand plan for ‘Paradise.’ He’s a washed-up hack writer, and now that he’s written himself into a corner, he wants to throw all of his work away. Meaning us. Every creature, every world he ever brought to life.”

Michael turned away and silently paced around the room. Eventually he managed to compose himself once more and asked, “What is it you require, then? When you first prayed to me, you said you needed to ‘tap into my knowledge’ of something.”

“The demon tablet says God’s favorite—that being you—knows his weakness. We figure that means you know how he originally locked up the Darkness. We want to do the same thing, but this time to God himself. To Chuck.”

“I do possess that information. You realize it requires someone bearing a Mark, a key, to lock them away.”

“I’m aware. I carried the Mark before, so I can’t do it again, but we have a plan for that.” Dean went on to explain their idea of using magic to create a lifeless body to take on the Mark.

Michael said nothing directly in response, but looked as if he were considering the mechanics of how it would work. It was then that Dean’s phone started vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw Eileen’s name on the screen.

Relief flooded him and he immediately answered with an impatient, “Eileen, where the hell are you?” In his rush he didn’t even put together, at first, that it wasn’t a video call like she usually made. It was merely audio, and he could only hear muted, far away voices…but soon he recognized who they belonged to.

And his relief turned into panic.

“So, what, are you gonna just cut it out?”

“Hey, good idea. You’re so helpful, Sam. Now sit still.”

Chuck. That was Chuck, talking to Sam. “Eileen? Eileen! What the—”

Dean’s heart dropped as he heard Sam cry out in pain.

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for here,” Chuck said next, “so this might get messy.”

Dean braced himself for another round of Sam screaming, but the line went quiet.

“I think we have an audience. Come on, Eileen.”

“Eileen? Eileen!” Dean tried again, not thinking how she wouldn’t be able to hear him. Clearly she’d secretly made the call so Dean would know they were in trouble.

“Hi, Dean,” Chuck said into the phone.

“Chuck, you dick.”

“Bye, Dean.”

The phone clicked dead.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” It took all of Dean’s self control not to throw his phone into the wall.

Michael frowned. “What’s the matter?”

“Chuck has Eileen and Sam. He’s torturing Sam, I heard it. I need to go.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“What?”

“For all you know, this is Chuck’s way of distracting you from doing what you need to do to stop him. And I will help you. What was done to the Darkness can be done to God. Especially if he has been weakened as you explained. But if you go running after your brother now, you’ll only be playing right into his hands.”

Dean had to calm his racing thoughts to realize Michael was correct. This was what he’d been telling himself earlier; Chuck wouldn’t kill Sam like this, anymore than he’d let him die thanks to a bunch of vampires. Dean drew in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Okay, yeah. I don’t like it, but you’re right. So how do we do this?”

“The spell is Enochian. I should recite it to ensure its correct pronunciation. You’ll need some ingredients first.”

“We have a lot of stuff here in the bunker, so hit me with what you need.”

“Myrrh, cassia, rockrose...”

Dean nodded. “We’ve got all that.”

“And the critical ingredient, nectar from a Leviathan blossom.”

That stopped Dean in his tracks. “A Leviathan blossom? What is that, like a flower?”

“A flower that only grows in one place. Purgatory. I believe from what I saw in your mind that you’re familiar with it.” Michael snapped his fingers and a golden, fiery rift opened up behind where he was standing.

“That’s the door. It’ll remain open for twelve hours. Now, if you’ll please.” Michael held out his bound hands. “I’ve done as you asked. Might I have some comfort while awaiting your return? I can also begin working on the rest of your plan while you retrieve the blossom, so we can move quickly when you return.”

Dean hesitated. “How can I trust that you’ll still be here when I get back?”

“Someone must monitor this rift, such that no monsters come through it while it’s open. I will not have the beasts of purgatory defile this world.” In a flash, Michael then also materialized a sheet of folded paper. “And here is the spell, just in case. You can take it with you, but keep in mind it needs to be spoken by the one who will bear the Mark. When you return, we can work on preparing the rest of what we need, and we will trap God, together.” 

“And save Sam and Eileen.”

“Yes, that too.”

Dean took the paper and stuck it in his breast pocket. He then pulled out the key to the angel cuffs and unlocked them, and said the words Rowena had taught him would remove the magic bindings as well.

Michael closed his eyes and straightened up, and Dean could see the shadow of his mighty wings stretching out—but not for flight, thankfully. “Better?” Dean asked.

“Much. Thank you. Adam thanks you as well; he says…he may wish to avail himself of some more food and drink while you are gone.”

“Help yourselves.” Dean turned to leave, to get armed before he dove back into Purgatory, but he paused at the doorway first. “Thanks, Michael. And I am sorry.”

“So am I, that it has come to this.”

Chapter Text

Your flesh and bone welcome me in
Welcome me in
(Are you in pain like I am?)
Will we remain stuck in the throat of gods?
Will the pain stop if we go deeper?

- Sleep Token, "Vore"

Castiel’s routine patrols and daily work in Heaven continued as normal—but in his mind, a battle of conflicting ideas and loyalties raged on.

He was an angel, he kept reminding himself. He served God, his father, even if the Almighty remained absent. Duty demanded he stick to performing his tasks exactly as intended and just as Naomi instructed him.

His sole purpose in existence was to maintain order and protect Heaven for as long as he was able, until the day his grace burned out or the universe itself ceased to be.

But then…if that were the case…didn’t protecting Heaven mean doing whatever might be necessary to sustain it?

What if saving Heaven meant going against God’s supposed orders? Against the will and mandates of his superiors?

Wouldn’t God want him to do what he could to protect His most treasured creations?

Such was the mental dilemma Castiel kept struggling with, over and over, unable to resolve to his satisfaction. Meanwhile, the power fluctuations in Heaven only intensified, and the strain on the remaining angels took its toll. Thousands of souls in various sectors were in critical danger. Naomi restricted the high-risk sections to increasingly limited memories per soul, a last-ditch effort to reduce the demand on grace.

Castiel imagined all of Heaven’s souls might soon become tethered to only one or two favorite memories, looped over and over ad infinitum. And if that happened, it would surely be too late to put Ash’s radical plan into action; there wouldn’t be enough overlapping memories left to combine and make the necessary inter-soul connections.

Time was running out.

Eager for hope or direction, Castiel kept his “ears on” for any prayers from Ash and his crew of rebellious souls at the Roadhouse—but for the moment, they remained silent. He took that as a sign they had perhaps increased their protective wardings to stay out of any other angel’s attention. But even the prayers from the humans on Earth had decreased to an occasional burst of longing or a brief, “Cas, what should I do?” from the one named Dean Winchester.

Castiel worried about what was happening with Dean and his brother Sam, too. The last full prayer he’d received had been troubling, with confusing talk of demons and a meeting with a witch, who was apparently the new ruler of Hell?

The silence only left Castiel with more time to wonder about his past, and the disparity between what Naomi had informed him and what he’d been told at the Roadhouse. Whenever he tried to reach deeper into his mind and his grace to recover his history, though, he only got scattered glimpses before the pain became unbearable.

Only one face kept appearing consistently in his brief flashes of memory, such that it stuck with him. A man with bright green eyes and an even brighter soul. A man with freckled skin and an infectious laugh, and Castiel could not be entirely certain, but surely, it had to be this Dean.

But it was not enough for Castiel to get a clear look into his true past, nor to recover the memories he believed he needed to make the right choice.

So he contemplated pursuing one course of action Naomi had strictly forbidden, and contacting the single soul in Heaven she’d warned him was completely off-limits.

That was how, when the opportunity arose and he had no immediate duties to complete, Castiel found himself outside a two-story home in the suburbs of Pontiac, Illinois, in the combined heaven of soul mates James Peter Novak, 1973 - 2010 and Amelia Novak, nee Hayes, 1976 - 2015.

Cupids brought together such couples to fulfill specific destinies for the angels or the Fates. James Novak carried the bloodline that marked him as a true vessel of Castiel, and his match was preordained in order to continue its strength. While angels could possess any consenting human, only a descendant of a true bloodline would be guaranteed to withstand that angel’s grace successfully for more than a brief period. 

Castiel watched through the front windows as the Novaks prepared for a meal together. This memory seemed several years into their wedded union; Amelia was setting the table, her soul full of optimism and excitement. Castiel could hear her thoughts of how she planned to surprise James—”Jimmy,” as she called him—later that evening with the news of her just-confirmed pregnancy. They had been trying to conceive a child since immediately after marriage, so Amelia viewed the pregnancy as a miracle, and in a way, perhaps it was. A new potential true vessel could only issue forth when declared the proper time by the Fates.

James carried a platter with a roast chicken and potatoes out to the table, kissing his wife after she thanked him for the help.

Castiel observed and listened with the same curiosity with which he studied so many human interactions. The way they showed and shared love for each other fascinated him, filling his grace with a strange sense of longing.

What was it like to love another in this manner? On such a personal level versus the dutiful love for God, a father he could not recall ever having met?

Why did thoughts of this kind of romantic love lead him to visualize the green-eyed man again?

He disliked having to disturb the Novaks by pulling them from this happy memory. But he had to speak with the man who had given him this vessel without further delay. Even as their dinner progressed and before Amelia could share her good news, Heaven’s power wavered once again, causing the lights to dim as the house shuddered. The drop was so strong Castiel felt it tugging at his grace, dizzying him until it corrected. The next he looked, James and Amelia were both glancing around in alarm.

“Jimmy?” Amelia asked. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, whatever ‘it’ is.” James sighed and reached across the table to squeeze his wife’s hand. “I don’t know what it means, love, but I don’t like it. Something’s wrong with Heaven; I can feel it. But I don’t know if there’s anything we can do.”

Castiel used that moment to reveal himself, walking in through the entryway to the dining room. “What you are observing is the firmament of Heaven breaking down, as there are not enough angels left in existence to maintain it.”

Amelia gasped in surprise and James leapt to his feet. James stared at him, shock fading as he demanded, “What are you doing here, Castiel?”

“Hello, James. Amelia. I need to talk with both of you. It’s a matter of grave importance, as you can tell by the condition of Heaven you just observed.”

James stepped forward, studying Castiel critically. “So this is what I would have looked like if I’d lived longer, huh? If I’d had the chance to age, to watch my daughter grow up. What’s it been, now, in Earth years? Maybe a decade? Must’ve been a pretty rough one. Your true form’s not looking so hot, either.”

James’ soul radiated hurt and anger; perhaps that was why Naomi had warned Castiel not to visit here. “I am afraid I remember almost nothing of how I came to possess this vessel, and why you are not with me in it,” he said.

“Do you remember what happened to my wife?” James pointed at Amelia, also on her feet but lingering back behind the dining table. “How she spent years being held prisoner and mentally tortured by a Grigori? By one of your kind? After desperately trying to find out what happened to me?”

“No, I…I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Jimmy, don’t be unkind,” Amelia interrupted. “Castiel was the one who found me, and reunited me with Claire.”

“And who still let you die minutes later. Forgive me for not singing his praises.”

The name ‘Claire’ pinged something deep within Castiel’s grace. But he couldn’t follow that thread just yet. “Please, I’m sorry for intruding on your peace. I would not do so if it were not critical to saving Heaven itself. The fate of billions of souls lies in the balance, and I…I need help to decide on the correct path to follow.”

“How can we help you?” Amelia asked.

“I’m not supposed to be here—in fact, my superior forbade contacting you—but I need to know what occurred…before. I need to know…how and why I first revealed myself to you. Why I needed you as a vessel on Earth.”

“You want me to paint you a picture?”

“No, that would be quite time-consuming, and I am unaware of your possessing any artistic abilities. With your permission, I would simply like to…review your memories in my own manner. By touching your soul, I would be able to see myself through your eyes. And hopefully then reconnect some of my memory pathways which have been disrupted.”

“Touch my soul?”

Castiel nodded. “If we were on Earth and you were alive, the experience would be traumatizing. But in this realm, all I would need is to grasp your hand, momentarily, and extend a small amount of my grace.”

Really, Castiel could touch James anywhere and achieve the same connection to his soul. The body he appeared in was merely a projection of that soul, how James chose to appear in Heaven. James began to close the short distance between them, but then paused to ask, “Is this some wild plan thanks to the Winchesters again?”

“No, it is not. I am in contact with some former associates of theirs, however. They are working to secure Heaven’s power, to improve this realm for all souls here…but I have to make sure they are on the right path. That I also am, if I assist in their efforts.”

“Alright, well...” James glanced back at Amelia, who nodded in encouragement. “Have a look around my memories, I guess. I lost my family once already; I don’t want to lose my wife again.”

James held out his hands—both of them, in a gesture of trust Castiel wasn’t sure he’d earned but for which he was grateful. He took them in his own and then allowed his grace to flow forth to envelop the human’s soul. It opened easily for him, like a flower unfolding to greet the morning sun.

James’ soul immediately felt familiar, felt right, like only a true vessel’s would. Castiel skimmed over the surface of James’ memories until he located the point of their first connection on Earth. Heaven’s construct of the Novak family home shifted and fell away as Castiel slipped into the memory, and he found himself in this specific moment from the past.

And here, he viewed it directly through James’ eyes…

A loud burst of static jolted him awake, the living room eerily aglow from the light of the television screen. Groggy and disoriented, James got up from his recliner to lower the volume before the noise awoke Amelia or Claire. Time, then, to get to bed properly or else he’d pay for it with a bad back and a cold wife tomorrow.

But the static only grew louder, the TV refusing to turn off.

“What the heck?” he wondered aloud as he kept clicking the remote, turning the dial. Was he actually awake, or maybe still dreaming? He sensed that something was wrong, maybe even dangerous. The static intensified, the air becoming electric and raising the hairs on his arms.

He covered his ears and closed his eyes against the increasing cacophony and harsh light, but it just kept getting louder and brighter. Overwhelmed, he collapsed to the ground, crying out in fear and pain.

Suddenly a voice cut through the static clear as a bell, a balm of calmness and clarity against his confusion.

“James Novak, be not afraid. You are a true and holy servant of God, and you have been chosen to fulfill a great destiny.”

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” he begged.

“I am Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”

The scene shifted; Castiel absorbed all that he could as he poured through the following days of James’s life.

He’d been so eager to embrace his calling, something that seemed so much more meaningful than the drudgery of selling airtime to car dealerships and real estate agencies.

But Amelia tried to sow seeds of doubt, fearful of her husband losing his grip on reality.

She simply didn’t understand.

“Take the pills,” she urged him.

“I’m not sick.”

“Jimmy, take the pills.”

“I know this is hard to understand, but he chose me.”

James took the pills to appease her and keep the peace at home, but they didn’t stop Castiel from appearing to him. Couldn’t diminish the love and wonder he experienced when the angel was present, speaking in that voice that vibrated through his bones and made him feel close to God in a way he’d never known before.

How could no one understand what this meant—not just to him but for everyone? Why did they all think he was crazy when Amelia had seen the unexplainable in Castiel’s test of his faith?

James did not want to lose his family, but it was time for his next great trial. Heaven needed Castiel, and Castiel needed to take possession of Jimmy’s body in order to complete his mission on Earth.

“I have delivered the Righteous Man from Hell, and the great battle has begun. But he cannot perceive me the way you do, James. Not unless I take on a human form. Your form.”

“Is it really the only way?”

“Yes. I need a physical body on Earth, one that is strong enough to contain me. Only you can provide this for me.”

James looked back at home from where he stood, at the bottom of the front steps. He was still hesitant, torn between duty to his wife and daughter versus duty to God.

“Promise that my family will be okay,” he asked Castiel, “and I’ll do it…Then, yes.”

“They will be safe under the flag of Heaven. And on the day you return to them, the entire world will sing the praises of what you have helped the angels bring to humankind.”

Castiel experienced James’ fear, acceptance, wonder and breathlessness as he welcomed the angel in. And then, for a time, all became a blur of scattered images, racing thoughts, sensations and feelings both too strong and oddly muted. He caught glimpses of things beyond normal human comprehension, Heaven and Hell and the dimensions in between that only a full-powered angel could reach.

And then there, at last—the green-eyed man.

Dean Winchester.

Castiel finally saw him properly, through James’ eyes along with his own senses. Dean had summoned Castiel to appear and greeted him with a barrage of gunfire and then a blade to his heart.

So this was the man who had spoken to him through so many prayers. Castiel peered closely at Dean, the memory allowing him a fuller picture instead of mere fragments.

“Why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

“Good things do happen, Dean.”

“Not in my experience.”

“What’s the matter? You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

More memories unspooled and revealed themselves to Castiel, somehow with a brightness and clarity greater than before. That brightness seemed to emanate from Dean Winchester himself, his soul more beautiful and brilliant than any Castiel could recall encountering before.

He understood, now, that Dean was to be the Michael sword, the vessel for the archangel in the final battle against Lucifer to secure humanity’s fate.

And ever since Castiel had first laid his hand upon Dean’s soul, every encounter with the man left him surprised and challenged like never before.

“Of course you have a choice. I mean, come on, what? You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both, just a couple of hammers?”

“I’m not a hammer as you say. I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here.”

“What’s going on, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?”

“My superiors have begun to question my sympathies…they feel I’ve begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt.”

At Dean’s side through it all was his brother. Sam Winchester. A young man touched by demon blood as an infant, forever tainted in the eyes of Castiel’s supervisors. Yet the bond between the two brothers was unlike anything Castiel had known before.

“So does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Drag Sam out of here, now. Before Lilith shows up.”

“It’s a prophecy. I can’t interfere.”

“You have tested me and thrown me every which way. And I have never asked for anything. Not a damn thing. But now I’m asking. I need your help. Please.”

There was a gap, then, a sharp disconnect where Cas was no longer with James for reasons he could not ascertain. It seemed perhaps Castiel’s growing doubts and questions had led his superiors to pull him from the fight on Earth. James found himself disoriented, bereft and filled with rage at the angel he’d sacrificed his family and “normal” life for. He believed he had been called to glory, but now he felt deceived. Played for a fool, and then discarded like worthless trash.

“Castiel, you son of a bitch! You promised me my family would be okay. You promised you were gonna take care of them. I gave you everything you asked me to give. I gave you more. This is the thanks I get? This is what you do? This is your heaven? Help me, please!”

James, near death, offered himself once more to Castiel, to spare his daughter the same fate of being an angelic vessel. Castiel sensed him resign himself to his destiny, and the knowledge that he’d likely never see his family alive again.

And then, a last act of rebellion on Castiel’s part—small at first, but then knowing he was risking it all. It was Castiel’s turn to sacrifice his life for the Winchester brothers and their efforts to stop the apocalypse instead of encouraging it to unfold.

“You guys aren’t supposed to be there. You’re not in this story.”

“Yeah, well… We’re making it up as we go.”

The last thing Castiel saw through Jimmy’s eyes was him standing beside the prophet, Chuck, prepared to die from an archangel’s wrath after sending Dean away to safety.

Chuck.

Chuck Shurley.

Chuck, who was…

…not just a prophet.

Chuck, who was—

Castiel snatched his trembling hands back from Jimmy’s and stared at them as he tried to process all he had learned. His grace was humming, his broken wings throbbing, and his mind awhirl with fragments and scenes from his past as seen through James’ eyes.

“Castiel? Jimmy?” Amelia asked with concern.

“I’m fine,” Castiel heard James answer her. He looked up to see James staring at him. “So, did you get what you needed?” he asked.

“I…yes. I think so,” Castiel said.

It was far from everything. But it was enough.

He required time to understand, to process. A significant crack had formed in the wall blocking him from his own memories, and he was beginning to remember who he really was, and what he had done.

Dean Winchester was the Righteous Man.

He had led Castiel to rebel once before.

If not more than once.

Castiel had the feeling he would have done so again and again for this man, and he was starting to understand why. But what had caused him to walk away and return to Heaven’s fold?

What was Naomi hiding from him?

James and Amelia stood together, embracing while they stared at Castiel with a mixture of concern and fear. Guilt fell over his grace as he realized he had been the reason their happy lives had been torn apart and ripped from them.

This guilt was a new emotion for him. He did not like it, but he had to accept it as a consequence of his actions.

His orders.

“Thank you, James, Amelia. I promise I will not disturb you again. And I am truly sorry for all the harm I have caused you both.”

He turned to depart, but Amelia called out, “Wait! Before you go, can you tell us how Claire is? Is she…is she alright?”

“I am honestly uncertain, beyond knowing that your daughter, Claire Novak, is not presently in Heaven. But if you wish, I will return to let you know as soon as I am able.” To James specifically, he added, “This is a promise I will keep.”

James nodded. Castiel left, his grace heavy and his entire self shaky, rattled.

A voice in his head—one that sounded a lot like Naomi’s—was telling him he should proceed to her office immediately. Clearly, her treatments were failing. He needed to be corrected before it got worse. Heaven required him to stop chasing after his memories and focus on obeying his superiors’ commands.

“Screw that,” he said aloud.

He had work to do.