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SpN: Come The Night, 16/?
Title: Come The Night, 16/?
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel, brief Dean/OFC
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 2122
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is (now) an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance. Some scenes are graphic. Feel free to ask if you'd like more info.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen
Icon by by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
caugraphics.
5
Angel insists that Dean get up and come with him to the central part of the market. Figures that Her Majesty is going to be preoccupied for a bit so it was in their interest to get ready to run now. So Angel's dragging him through the market, bitching and moaning and Dean's ready to kill him…or would if he could lift his arms higher than his hips or kick Angel in the face without toppling to the side.
Even though the sun's dropped and the sky's tinted more salmon than blue, Dean alternates between sweating and freezing. His freakin' keeper's got him wrapped up in a long sleeved robe, and God help him if he tries to roll the sleeves up some—Angel has a damn coronary, and a bitch-face that tops Sammy's easily. Dean wipes away the cold sweat dripping down his forehead with the edge of the scarf he's got wrapped around his head and most of his face. He's supposed to look like an Edger, what the Regulars and the Temporaries call the groups that trail after the caravans but aren't really a part of it. Angel's lame ass idea of disguise, like the fucking color of his eyes wouldn't give him away if anyone gave him more than a glance. Dean just goes along with it though, because Angel seems to get such a kick out of playing spies or whatever. Dean shakes his head and smirks. Goofball.
They end up at Zonda's tent without a major yelling match and with all their extremities, so Dean insists loudly that qualifies him for sainthood. Angel jabs him in the ribs hard enough to break them, and snorts when Dean barely muffles a scream. "We're supposed to be discreet," Dean hisses, just as Zonda pokes her head out of the tent flap and catches them on her doorstep, elbowing and jostling each other like twelve-year olds.
"Discreet? You'ns sure failed at that," she huffs and after a long, cold, meant-to-be-intimidating stare, she lets them in.
She's stirring a handful of tiny bones Dean hopes are a bird's in a tarnished metal dish. She's making odd faces, little humming noises, and Angel's rolling his eyes at her and at Dean. She finally sighs, her tiny body seeming to deflate, and leans back in her chair. Holds a glass out and a scowling giant of a guy is instantly at her elbow, filling it. She draws it out--fucking theater. Dean wants to snap at her to pick up the pace, and she knows that, takes her God damn time. She sighs again and smacks her lips before saying, "Not news to you, 'm sure, but you in deadly trouble boy, few times over. That girl's never played with a full deck and she's not just playing now—if she don't get something for you, she ain't gonna let you go. End up killin' you, I expect. She's a fool." There's a shrewd and measuring look in her beady eyes. "And you don't know the Boy King wants fellas like you…"
Dean frowns when what she's said hits him like a nailed two-by-four to the head. Sam's looking for him. And he knows in his gut it's not a good thing. Dean's not about to show up on Sam's doorstep at a disadvantage. He knows what a bitch Sammy can be if he's not getting his way.
Zonda emits a discreet little burp and waves her empty glass to be refilled. This time her little snake eyes zero in on Angel. "And you--I don't know who the heck you are, boy," she says to Angel, "but you ain't showing up here at all." She taps the bowl. "I seen him—" jerks her chin at Dean—"And he's exactly who he say he is though no one else believe it. Time in hell passes way different than time out here."
Dean jerks, pales and she cackles. "Don’t you worry none—this tall drink a'water behind me is deaf as a stone—and only a Goddamn fool gets theyselves involved in the affairs of angels or demons. Sure as a amen in a prayer it'll come back and eat yer ass clean off."
"So…Angel. That's a funny name for you, ain't it? You're about a mountain high and a brick wall wide—don't look much like an angel." She leans across the little marble table, grabs up a handful of fine white crystals and throws it at him. He yelps as it hits his eyes, instinct and pain makes him clap a hand over his face, and she stabs him right in the back of that hand with a long silver pin. Angel yowls, but his blood runs red and his skin doesn't blacken—he doesn't burn from the salt.
Dean grabs her bony wrist with a shaky hand. "Do that again and I'll kill you." Angel stares at him, mouth open. He blushes, and a small pleased smile bows his lips. Zonda shakes her hand free and chuckles. It's an evil chuckle.
"Oh ho. It's like that, is it?"
"You could have just asked, you know," Angel snarls and at her incredulous snort he hisses, "This might have tipped you off I'm not some--monster." He rolls a handful of silver slugs in his palm before dropping them on the table, and again she cackles like an evil little gnome.
"Yeah, that might prove it fine, but it's not as much fun—"
"Fun—" Angel leans back, closes his eyes for a beat and slowly breathes out before speaking again. "Word is that you have ways of helping. Getting things done."
She's swooping up the slugs and says, "Knew you was gone' ask that. Psychic an' all. And that I can do, but this I tell you for free--he gonna get you killed, Angel-boy. He's rushing you to your death. I can't see how or who but this I see plain. You gonna walk in there where the Boy King rules an' never walk out. You will cease to be."
"I won't let that happen," Dean snaps. "Sam won't hurt him—once I get to him, it'll change, it'll get better. I'll fix it."
Zonda throws her arms up and curses in exasperation. "You won’t do that either! Death is all over you, boy--you running to him who more'n like will kill you'ns. Definitely gonna kill you—" she points at Angel and Dean shakes his head firmly. He knows. He's sure right down to his bones that--
"No. Not Sammy. He loves me; he won't kill Angel because I'll ask him not to." That fucking little voice whispers he'll kill Angel, just because Dean has the nerve to love him, too….
Angel jerks, nearly tumbling Zonda's glass off the table. She glares at Dean for a beat before huffing, "Idyits." She shoves a small piece of paper, scrawled over with what looks like a map drawn by a child, across the little tabletop. "Now, you go here, tell him Zonda said you need a safe pass. He'll know it come from me if he hears 'maybe the roses will rise'."
"What, and we don’t get a secret handshake with that? Maybe a decoder ring?"
"Dean—" Angel snaps and Zonda gives Dean a thin, non-amused, look.
"I might not know what the hell you're talking about boy, but I know a smart mouth when I hear one. You best watch yourself. You got no place to go but down, if I let you'ns loose. I'm all you got right now," she tells Dean and Angel grabs the paper before she can change her mind--digs his nails into Dean's arm just as Dean's about to tell the batty old gnome where she can cram her warning. They both ignore his yelp of pain…Angel gives Zonda a weak little smile.
"He's an idiot, Dona, please don't…"
She flaps her hands and says, "Take that jackass out of here before I change my mind." She peers closer at Dean and leers in a way that makes him more than a little uneasy. "Unless…there's a little bit of siren juice in him yet? If so I might see my way to givin' you back yer money."
Angel's eyes widen—his mouth twists into a scowl and before Dean can dodge him, he's yanking Dean to his feet. "We're going now—right now. Tha-thank you for your help, Dona."
Angel stalks out of the tent and Dean staggers after, the sound of Zonda's cackling chasing after them. "What the hell was that, Angel? What's she talking about?"
Angel hisses, "Bitch—she thinks it's funny. Talking about what the queen—what she gave you."
"Gave me? Gave me what?" Dean frowns, trying to recall his time with that whacked out bitch--and then it hits him. The only way he'd be so. So crazed, like that—even barely remembering, he had a sense of how out of his mind he'd been—how wrong. "Succubus "blood— fuck me." The very thought of how that stuff worked—the shit it could make a person do--makes him go weak in the knees with horror, lashed by twisted flashes of memory. The things he did…had been done to him….
He staggers, plants his hands on his knees and hangs his head—he's going to vomit again. Fuck, he's praying to vomit again.
He hears Angel snap, "God, yer like a fuckin' baby—can't you keep anything in?" but there's a broad, warm, hand on his back, rubbing big, warm circles into his curved spine and he ends up with Angel's long fingers knuckling the tight spot at the base of his skull, slow and sure and strong. Dean's eyes fall shut, he leans against Angel but mostly all he can only think of is what went into him and how desperately he wants to get it out.
It is nice to be touched by someone who doesn't want anything more than to comfort him.
Angel's good at this comfort thing, Dean thinks, as he coaxes Dean gently and firmly away from the main drag of the marketplace. He checks Zonda's map from time to time, leading them down back alleys and between tents and shops until they end up in front of a small wagon. A sign's propped up by the steps. Fortunes, Charms, Enchantments.
The wagon was probably, once upon a time, a brilliant red but now is a dull maroon, paint crocodiled and faded with age. There's a gilded crow's skull nailed over the door, incongruously bright against the shabby wreck of a wagon. They knock and a short, cadaverous man cracks open the door, peering at them through the narrow open strip in an owl-like way. He blinks, and it draws attention to how blue his eyes are, a peculiar robin's egg blue.
Dean flicks a half-hearted wave at him and mutters, "The uh…maybe the roses will…y'know, rise. Whatever," he finishes with a grimace. He digs his fingers into the base of his skull and blows out a breath—elbows Angel hard when the bitch lets out a breathy snicker.
"Ow," Angel mutters, "you jerk-off." Stops dead when the door is thrown wide.
"Oh dear," the painfully thin man flutters in place for a moment, glance flitting from Dean to Angel and back again. "Zonda, oh dear." He frowns, but steps aside to let them in. "I don't know what she told you, but I don't do anything more than basic readings and simple charms, that's all…sign's old, I don’t do enchantments anymore…."
The interior isn't much better, just as dull and shabby as the outside and reeking of cabbage, years and years of boiled cabbage.
"Sit if you like. You may call me Gavreel, if you need a name. Some people need names or it's like they've never met you. I know your name though I've never met you. You're--notorious," he says and chuckles briefly. "But here I am, I'm going on needlessly, I do that some times. My brothers used to complain of it frequently--" the cadaver guy—Gavreel--gives Dean a crooked smile but gasps a little when he catches sight of Angel. "You. You're…" He blinks, presses a hand to his mouth and stares at Angel with such naked hunger that Dean snarls, steps between them. His hand reaches for the weapon that should be at his back. Gavreel looks flustered for a moment before his face settles into a benign blandness. "Sorry, he just…your Boy is special, he's got…charm. Let me touch him. Just a tiny touch and I'll give you what you came for. Safe passage out, protection."
"Fuck no," Dean shouts, at the same time Angel says, "Yes, all right."
Dean's had about enough of standing on the sidelines and letting this kid take care of him. He's had enough of people doing more than they should, sacrificing too fucking much for him—"No! I'm not—selling you, trading you, not for anything," Dean snaps, "you're—"
Angel shakes his head and smiles at Dean. "De, it's nice you getting all warped about it, but what do you think I was raised to do? I've been taking care of myself for a long time, it's no big deal. Besides, he really does mean just touch, don’t you?" he asks Gavreel.
The man swallows thickly and nods, reaches a junkie-thin, shaky hand out to Angel and touches, sliding his index finger over the back of Angel's hand.
The effect it has on Gavreel is startling. His eyes roll back to a solid white and he trembles from head to toe. Instinct sends Dean grabbing for Angel, crashing to the ground with him. Gavreel yells something neither of them can understand and then--wings rip out of the man, spread wide, fill the whole of the little van. Dean feels them; they're like a shadow of feathers rushing over him, the cool moist feel of fog, the soft brush of cotton. The feeling rushes over his skin and inside of him in some way. Dean shudders and claps a hand over Angel's eyes, "Don’t look—" and closes his own tight. He's got a damn good idea what's coming next. He prays for their hearing and waits.
It's not so bad. There comes the sound of a tidal wave, the rush of a tornado, a high-pitched scream that burns, the feel of a nova exploding on the head of a pin. There's so much light—too much—and then darkness, quiet, and the faint smell of chocolate.
"Thank you," the man murmurs. He touches two fingers to Dean and to Angel and says something that Dean doesn't understand, but that still sounds vaguely familiar to him and then--Dean burns a million years in the flick of an eyelash. He grabs his chest, catches Angel when he falls against him. "Fucking what the hell was that?"
"I've enhanced the sigils that you possessed, gave the boy the same. Did you know that you had them?"
Dean rubs his chest. "Yeah…Cas did…man, I think he did that twice to me and now you—what the hell is it with you dicks tagging me?"
The angel laughs, "Graffiti, yes, put that way, it is amusing." He points to Dean's side, and says, "You have been made invisible to demons and angels, which you know. You've also had a block put on your memories. And…there's another non-detection aspect to that spell. Humans with demonic aspects can't pick you up either. 'Demonic aspect' pertains to those who, voluntarily or not, have scrawled the evil that demons carry over their souls. It is a bit like losing grace," he adds in a fussy, confiding sort of aside. "I feel this protective spell was crafted with your brother in mind. He has half his soul, what grace left was tainted by the demon blood inside him, it struck like a snake the minute there was nothing to hold it in check."
"Half his soul? How the fuck does a thing like that happen—was it the blood? Did it mutilate his soul?"
Graveel shakes his head. "No, not the blood—not alone. It tastes like divine intervention—though something tells me the result was…skewed. Your brother gave permission to the Fallen. I believe it was meant for what was deeply, essentially, good in your brother's soul to expulse the Morning Star directly into hell. It may be that when the Morning Star began to fall, he released his power to whatever was evil in your brother. Combining Lucifer, the blood, that part of Samuel that reveled in the power of the blood and…he became more powerful than anyone expected. Whatever took him…winnowed his soul, so to speak. The good in it is gone—disintegrated, lost somewhere between heaven and hell. Samuel pulled you right in with him when he went to take his crown. That was an unfortunate accident. He's come into his own now. But…there's a chance that you can destroy him. Your Boy knows how."
Angel snaps, "I'm not his Boy an' you're talking shit."
The angel ignores him. "I can't help you, none of my kind can. We who remain—we are the tainted, less than we were once…" Gavreel makes a grimace meant to pass for a smile. "You should take great care on the path from here to Chronopolis, there are eyes and ears everywhere, they can only do the best they can to conceal your presence. Hide from them, as well as you can. And you…” he turns to Angel. “He'll kill you. If Dean gets his brother back, you'll die, without a doubt. Samuel is…jealous. Terribly possessive."
"Nomine Dei! I wish the fuck people would stop telling me I'm gonna die! 'Cause I'm not dying for anyone, Dean included. I don’t—I won’t lay down for anyone.” He cast a narrow, furious look at Dean, his eyes and cheeks red. “I’m not—don't fuckin' dare ask me to do that."
"Of course not," Dean shouts. "Why would I—how can you think I’d sacrifice you, for fucks sake?"
"Because it’s your brother," Angel hisses and clamps his lips together. He glares at the floor, twists his arms across himself. "You know that's all it takes."
Gavreel flutters around a tall, thin chest covered with tiny drawers, dips his hand into one and comes up behind Angel, carefully not touching. "This is in thanks." He has something cupped in his hands, he drops his head, mutters a few brief words. Light leaks out between his clasped hands—for seconds bright as a welding arc before fading, leaving a scent in the air like after a summer storm. He opens his hands. There are two tiny silver bits in his palm, they look like stylized eyes. "These will act as masks--it only works against humans. As long as you're wearing the pendants, your own mothers wouldn't know you. Give me your fingers."
They reluctantly hold out their hands and the angel pricks a finger, instructs them to dot both the pendants with their blood. "So you will know each other."
Dean scowled. "I thought you didn't do enchantments and shit."
"I…got topped up…temporarily, I guess you could say." Gavreel smiles and it's awfully reminiscent of Castiel. Makes Dean feel homesick for his old life.
.
17
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel, brief Dean/OFC
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 2122
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is (now) an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance. Some scenes are graphic. Feel free to ask if you'd like more info.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen
Icon by by
caugraphics. Angel insists that Dean get up and come with him to the central part of the market. Figures that Her Majesty is going to be preoccupied for a bit so it was in their interest to get ready to run now. So Angel's dragging him through the market, bitching and moaning and Dean's ready to kill him…or would if he could lift his arms higher than his hips or kick Angel in the face without toppling to the side.
Even though the sun's dropped and the sky's tinted more salmon than blue, Dean alternates between sweating and freezing. His freakin' keeper's got him wrapped up in a long sleeved robe, and God help him if he tries to roll the sleeves up some—Angel has a damn coronary, and a bitch-face that tops Sammy's easily. Dean wipes away the cold sweat dripping down his forehead with the edge of the scarf he's got wrapped around his head and most of his face. He's supposed to look like an Edger, what the Regulars and the Temporaries call the groups that trail after the caravans but aren't really a part of it. Angel's lame ass idea of disguise, like the fucking color of his eyes wouldn't give him away if anyone gave him more than a glance. Dean just goes along with it though, because Angel seems to get such a kick out of playing spies or whatever. Dean shakes his head and smirks. Goofball.
They end up at Zonda's tent without a major yelling match and with all their extremities, so Dean insists loudly that qualifies him for sainthood. Angel jabs him in the ribs hard enough to break them, and snorts when Dean barely muffles a scream. "We're supposed to be discreet," Dean hisses, just as Zonda pokes her head out of the tent flap and catches them on her doorstep, elbowing and jostling each other like twelve-year olds.
"Discreet? You'ns sure failed at that," she huffs and after a long, cold, meant-to-be-intimidating stare, she lets them in.
She's stirring a handful of tiny bones Dean hopes are a bird's in a tarnished metal dish. She's making odd faces, little humming noises, and Angel's rolling his eyes at her and at Dean. She finally sighs, her tiny body seeming to deflate, and leans back in her chair. Holds a glass out and a scowling giant of a guy is instantly at her elbow, filling it. She draws it out--fucking theater. Dean wants to snap at her to pick up the pace, and she knows that, takes her God damn time. She sighs again and smacks her lips before saying, "Not news to you, 'm sure, but you in deadly trouble boy, few times over. That girl's never played with a full deck and she's not just playing now—if she don't get something for you, she ain't gonna let you go. End up killin' you, I expect. She's a fool." There's a shrewd and measuring look in her beady eyes. "And you don't know the Boy King wants fellas like you…"
Dean frowns when what she's said hits him like a nailed two-by-four to the head. Sam's looking for him. And he knows in his gut it's not a good thing. Dean's not about to show up on Sam's doorstep at a disadvantage. He knows what a bitch Sammy can be if he's not getting his way.
Zonda emits a discreet little burp and waves her empty glass to be refilled. This time her little snake eyes zero in on Angel. "And you--I don't know who the heck you are, boy," she says to Angel, "but you ain't showing up here at all." She taps the bowl. "I seen him—" jerks her chin at Dean—"And he's exactly who he say he is though no one else believe it. Time in hell passes way different than time out here."
Dean jerks, pales and she cackles. "Don’t you worry none—this tall drink a'water behind me is deaf as a stone—and only a Goddamn fool gets theyselves involved in the affairs of angels or demons. Sure as a amen in a prayer it'll come back and eat yer ass clean off."
"So…Angel. That's a funny name for you, ain't it? You're about a mountain high and a brick wall wide—don't look much like an angel." She leans across the little marble table, grabs up a handful of fine white crystals and throws it at him. He yelps as it hits his eyes, instinct and pain makes him clap a hand over his face, and she stabs him right in the back of that hand with a long silver pin. Angel yowls, but his blood runs red and his skin doesn't blacken—he doesn't burn from the salt.
Dean grabs her bony wrist with a shaky hand. "Do that again and I'll kill you." Angel stares at him, mouth open. He blushes, and a small pleased smile bows his lips. Zonda shakes her hand free and chuckles. It's an evil chuckle.
"Oh ho. It's like that, is it?"
"You could have just asked, you know," Angel snarls and at her incredulous snort he hisses, "This might have tipped you off I'm not some--monster." He rolls a handful of silver slugs in his palm before dropping them on the table, and again she cackles like an evil little gnome.
"Yeah, that might prove it fine, but it's not as much fun—"
"Fun—" Angel leans back, closes his eyes for a beat and slowly breathes out before speaking again. "Word is that you have ways of helping. Getting things done."
She's swooping up the slugs and says, "Knew you was gone' ask that. Psychic an' all. And that I can do, but this I tell you for free--he gonna get you killed, Angel-boy. He's rushing you to your death. I can't see how or who but this I see plain. You gonna walk in there where the Boy King rules an' never walk out. You will cease to be."
"I won't let that happen," Dean snaps. "Sam won't hurt him—once I get to him, it'll change, it'll get better. I'll fix it."
Zonda throws her arms up and curses in exasperation. "You won’t do that either! Death is all over you, boy--you running to him who more'n like will kill you'ns. Definitely gonna kill you—" she points at Angel and Dean shakes his head firmly. He knows. He's sure right down to his bones that--
"No. Not Sammy. He loves me; he won't kill Angel because I'll ask him not to." That fucking little voice whispers he'll kill Angel, just because Dean has the nerve to love him, too….
Angel jerks, nearly tumbling Zonda's glass off the table. She glares at Dean for a beat before huffing, "Idyits." She shoves a small piece of paper, scrawled over with what looks like a map drawn by a child, across the little tabletop. "Now, you go here, tell him Zonda said you need a safe pass. He'll know it come from me if he hears 'maybe the roses will rise'."
"What, and we don’t get a secret handshake with that? Maybe a decoder ring?"
"Dean—" Angel snaps and Zonda gives Dean a thin, non-amused, look.
"I might not know what the hell you're talking about boy, but I know a smart mouth when I hear one. You best watch yourself. You got no place to go but down, if I let you'ns loose. I'm all you got right now," she tells Dean and Angel grabs the paper before she can change her mind--digs his nails into Dean's arm just as Dean's about to tell the batty old gnome where she can cram her warning. They both ignore his yelp of pain…Angel gives Zonda a weak little smile.
"He's an idiot, Dona, please don't…"
She flaps her hands and says, "Take that jackass out of here before I change my mind." She peers closer at Dean and leers in a way that makes him more than a little uneasy. "Unless…there's a little bit of siren juice in him yet? If so I might see my way to givin' you back yer money."
Angel's eyes widen—his mouth twists into a scowl and before Dean can dodge him, he's yanking Dean to his feet. "We're going now—right now. Tha-thank you for your help, Dona."
Angel stalks out of the tent and Dean staggers after, the sound of Zonda's cackling chasing after them. "What the hell was that, Angel? What's she talking about?"
Angel hisses, "Bitch—she thinks it's funny. Talking about what the queen—what she gave you."
"Gave me? Gave me what?" Dean frowns, trying to recall his time with that whacked out bitch--and then it hits him. The only way he'd be so. So crazed, like that—even barely remembering, he had a sense of how out of his mind he'd been—how wrong. "Succubus "blood— fuck me." The very thought of how that stuff worked—the shit it could make a person do--makes him go weak in the knees with horror, lashed by twisted flashes of memory. The things he did…had been done to him….
He staggers, plants his hands on his knees and hangs his head—he's going to vomit again. Fuck, he's praying to vomit again.
He hears Angel snap, "God, yer like a fuckin' baby—can't you keep anything in?" but there's a broad, warm, hand on his back, rubbing big, warm circles into his curved spine and he ends up with Angel's long fingers knuckling the tight spot at the base of his skull, slow and sure and strong. Dean's eyes fall shut, he leans against Angel but mostly all he can only think of is what went into him and how desperately he wants to get it out.
It is nice to be touched by someone who doesn't want anything more than to comfort him.
Angel's good at this comfort thing, Dean thinks, as he coaxes Dean gently and firmly away from the main drag of the marketplace. He checks Zonda's map from time to time, leading them down back alleys and between tents and shops until they end up in front of a small wagon. A sign's propped up by the steps. Fortunes, Charms, Enchantments.
The wagon was probably, once upon a time, a brilliant red but now is a dull maroon, paint crocodiled and faded with age. There's a gilded crow's skull nailed over the door, incongruously bright against the shabby wreck of a wagon. They knock and a short, cadaverous man cracks open the door, peering at them through the narrow open strip in an owl-like way. He blinks, and it draws attention to how blue his eyes are, a peculiar robin's egg blue.
Dean flicks a half-hearted wave at him and mutters, "The uh…maybe the roses will…y'know, rise. Whatever," he finishes with a grimace. He digs his fingers into the base of his skull and blows out a breath—elbows Angel hard when the bitch lets out a breathy snicker.
"Ow," Angel mutters, "you jerk-off." Stops dead when the door is thrown wide.
"Oh dear," the painfully thin man flutters in place for a moment, glance flitting from Dean to Angel and back again. "Zonda, oh dear." He frowns, but steps aside to let them in. "I don't know what she told you, but I don't do anything more than basic readings and simple charms, that's all…sign's old, I don’t do enchantments anymore…."
The interior isn't much better, just as dull and shabby as the outside and reeking of cabbage, years and years of boiled cabbage.
"Sit if you like. You may call me Gavreel, if you need a name. Some people need names or it's like they've never met you. I know your name though I've never met you. You're--notorious," he says and chuckles briefly. "But here I am, I'm going on needlessly, I do that some times. My brothers used to complain of it frequently--" the cadaver guy—Gavreel--gives Dean a crooked smile but gasps a little when he catches sight of Angel. "You. You're…" He blinks, presses a hand to his mouth and stares at Angel with such naked hunger that Dean snarls, steps between them. His hand reaches for the weapon that should be at his back. Gavreel looks flustered for a moment before his face settles into a benign blandness. "Sorry, he just…your Boy is special, he's got…charm. Let me touch him. Just a tiny touch and I'll give you what you came for. Safe passage out, protection."
"Fuck no," Dean shouts, at the same time Angel says, "Yes, all right."
Dean's had about enough of standing on the sidelines and letting this kid take care of him. He's had enough of people doing more than they should, sacrificing too fucking much for him—"No! I'm not—selling you, trading you, not for anything," Dean snaps, "you're—"
Angel shakes his head and smiles at Dean. "De, it's nice you getting all warped about it, but what do you think I was raised to do? I've been taking care of myself for a long time, it's no big deal. Besides, he really does mean just touch, don’t you?" he asks Gavreel.
The man swallows thickly and nods, reaches a junkie-thin, shaky hand out to Angel and touches, sliding his index finger over the back of Angel's hand.
The effect it has on Gavreel is startling. His eyes roll back to a solid white and he trembles from head to toe. Instinct sends Dean grabbing for Angel, crashing to the ground with him. Gavreel yells something neither of them can understand and then--wings rip out of the man, spread wide, fill the whole of the little van. Dean feels them; they're like a shadow of feathers rushing over him, the cool moist feel of fog, the soft brush of cotton. The feeling rushes over his skin and inside of him in some way. Dean shudders and claps a hand over Angel's eyes, "Don’t look—" and closes his own tight. He's got a damn good idea what's coming next. He prays for their hearing and waits.
It's not so bad. There comes the sound of a tidal wave, the rush of a tornado, a high-pitched scream that burns, the feel of a nova exploding on the head of a pin. There's so much light—too much—and then darkness, quiet, and the faint smell of chocolate.
"Thank you," the man murmurs. He touches two fingers to Dean and to Angel and says something that Dean doesn't understand, but that still sounds vaguely familiar to him and then--Dean burns a million years in the flick of an eyelash. He grabs his chest, catches Angel when he falls against him. "Fucking what the hell was that?"
"I've enhanced the sigils that you possessed, gave the boy the same. Did you know that you had them?"
Dean rubs his chest. "Yeah…Cas did…man, I think he did that twice to me and now you—what the hell is it with you dicks tagging me?"
The angel laughs, "Graffiti, yes, put that way, it is amusing." He points to Dean's side, and says, "You have been made invisible to demons and angels, which you know. You've also had a block put on your memories. And…there's another non-detection aspect to that spell. Humans with demonic aspects can't pick you up either. 'Demonic aspect' pertains to those who, voluntarily or not, have scrawled the evil that demons carry over their souls. It is a bit like losing grace," he adds in a fussy, confiding sort of aside. "I feel this protective spell was crafted with your brother in mind. He has half his soul, what grace left was tainted by the demon blood inside him, it struck like a snake the minute there was nothing to hold it in check."
"Half his soul? How the fuck does a thing like that happen—was it the blood? Did it mutilate his soul?"
Graveel shakes his head. "No, not the blood—not alone. It tastes like divine intervention—though something tells me the result was…skewed. Your brother gave permission to the Fallen. I believe it was meant for what was deeply, essentially, good in your brother's soul to expulse the Morning Star directly into hell. It may be that when the Morning Star began to fall, he released his power to whatever was evil in your brother. Combining Lucifer, the blood, that part of Samuel that reveled in the power of the blood and…he became more powerful than anyone expected. Whatever took him…winnowed his soul, so to speak. The good in it is gone—disintegrated, lost somewhere between heaven and hell. Samuel pulled you right in with him when he went to take his crown. That was an unfortunate accident. He's come into his own now. But…there's a chance that you can destroy him. Your Boy knows how."
Angel snaps, "I'm not his Boy an' you're talking shit."
The angel ignores him. "I can't help you, none of my kind can. We who remain—we are the tainted, less than we were once…" Gavreel makes a grimace meant to pass for a smile. "You should take great care on the path from here to Chronopolis, there are eyes and ears everywhere, they can only do the best they can to conceal your presence. Hide from them, as well as you can. And you…” he turns to Angel. “He'll kill you. If Dean gets his brother back, you'll die, without a doubt. Samuel is…jealous. Terribly possessive."
"Nomine Dei! I wish the fuck people would stop telling me I'm gonna die! 'Cause I'm not dying for anyone, Dean included. I don’t—I won’t lay down for anyone.” He cast a narrow, furious look at Dean, his eyes and cheeks red. “I’m not—don't fuckin' dare ask me to do that."
"Of course not," Dean shouts. "Why would I—how can you think I’d sacrifice you, for fucks sake?"
"Because it’s your brother," Angel hisses and clamps his lips together. He glares at the floor, twists his arms across himself. "You know that's all it takes."
Gavreel flutters around a tall, thin chest covered with tiny drawers, dips his hand into one and comes up behind Angel, carefully not touching. "This is in thanks." He has something cupped in his hands, he drops his head, mutters a few brief words. Light leaks out between his clasped hands—for seconds bright as a welding arc before fading, leaving a scent in the air like after a summer storm. He opens his hands. There are two tiny silver bits in his palm, they look like stylized eyes. "These will act as masks--it only works against humans. As long as you're wearing the pendants, your own mothers wouldn't know you. Give me your fingers."
They reluctantly hold out their hands and the angel pricks a finger, instructs them to dot both the pendants with their blood. "So you will know each other."
Dean scowled. "I thought you didn't do enchantments and shit."
"I…got topped up…temporarily, I guess you could say." Gavreel smiles and it's awfully reminiscent of Castiel. Makes Dean feel homesick for his old life.
.
17