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Sam, Dean, and Bobby were left gaping at the new so-called God, though Sammy was breathing a little too hard for Dean’s comfort.
One problem at a time, though.
Castiel stood before them, imposing a simple command: bow or suffer the wrath of God still.
Didn’t seem like he was gonna be the merciful type—more Old Testament.
Nobody moved for a long moment as Castiel appeared to be waiting for the hunters’ collective submission and surrender.
Bobby was the first to cave. “Well, alright then,” the veteran hunter actually got onto his old man knees and knelt before Castiel. “This good or you want the whole forehead to the carpet thing?”
Dean was left gaping at the new Castiel…wondering if there was anything left of the sweet, well-meaning nerdy angel he knew…the one who wanted mercy instead of bloodshed and fought like hell to protect him.
He didn’t want to be in this reality, where he and Castiel were enemies, and Cas was suddenly this unknowable entity that acted like the most hostile wildcard.
And Castiel, he was looking at Dean like he was less than a fly…
“Guys…” Bobby prompted the Winchesters.
However, as Sam and Dean were about to sink onto their knees as well, Castiel interrupted them.
“Stop,” Castiel ordered, and the brothers froze. “What’s the point if you don’t mean it? You fear me.” He acknowledged. “Not love, not respect, just fear.”
“Cas—” Sam spoke, but Godstiel interrupted him again.
“Sam, you have nothing to say to me; you stabbed me in the back.” Castiel chastised coldly. He turned to Bobby and commanded, “Get up.”
“Cas, c’mon, this is not you,” Dean tried to say to him. Please, still be in there, he thought yearnfully. Please let some shred of my Cas be in there somehow…
“The Castiel you knew is gone,” Castiel replied.
“So what then?” Dean said. “Kill us?”
“What a brave little ant you are,” Castiel remarked. “You know you’re powerless; you wouldn’t dare move against me again. That would be pointless. So I have no need to kill you. Not now.”
I am still in here, a small, tiny voice inside Castiel lingered. I won’t kill you, but I can’t face you, not with what I know now about myself…
“Besides, once you were my favorite pets before you turned and bit me.”
He didn’t sound like himself at all.
“Who are you?” Dean asked.
“I’m God.” Castiel declared. “And if you stay in your place, you may live in my kingdom. If you rise up, I will strike you down — not doing so well, are you, Sam?”
Sam was fidgety, and he looked like hammered crap. He may be walking and talking, but he was far from okay, thanks to the chaos Cas unleashed within his fractured mind.
“I’m fine,” Sam insisted with a stiff voice.
“You said you were gonna fix him!” Dean reprimanded.
“If you stood down, which you hardly did.” Castiel countered. “Be thankful for my mercy. I could have cast you back into the pit.” He said to Sam directly.
“Cas, this is nuts!” Dean exclaimed. “You can turn this around.”
If not him, then who?
He knew this shit was a bad idea. Cas changed so fast.
Like the flip of a switch.
“I hope for your sake that this is the last you see,” Castiel said. I don’t want to kill you…
He flew away.
Sam collapsed immediately, even cutting his hand.
Meanwhile in Heaven, Castiel was imposing his new world order.
It was time to show everyone what kind of God he would be.
If his Father didn’t want to get involved anymore, so be it.
He would pick up the slack. He would be what the world needed.
Justice.
“If you followed Raphael, if you stood against me, punishment is certain; there is nowhere to hide. As for the rest of you: our Father left a long time ago, and that was hard. I thought the answer was free will. But I understand now. You need a firm hand. You need a father. I am your father now. Be obedient, children. Or this will be your fate…”
Upon a flush meadow in Heaven were the remains of several of Raphael’s soldiers staining the grass with their scorched black wing marks.
It was a message to his brethren. Fall in line or die.
“It is a new day. On earth, and in heaven. Rejoice.”
He went to work. He began the culling of corrupt figureheads of Earth, now that Heaven was purged of sin.
For instance, there was a harmful reverend in the Lady of Serenity Church preaching about homosexuality being wrong: “Plenty speak for them and their so-called lifestyle. Media, Hollywood, Lady Gaga won't shut up for love or money.”
The congregation chuckled collectively, buying into this malarkey.
“Yeah, funny, but that's why we raise our voices! And picket their so-called weddings, and their funerals. Someone has to speak for God.”
“And who says you speak for God?” Castiel entered the church, beckoning everyone’s attention to him. “You're wrong, I am utterly indifferent to sexual orientation. On the other hand, I cannot abide hypocrites like you, Reverend.”
The reverend wrongly assumed that Castiel was some ordinary man, a naysayer, a madman. “Okay, fun's over, friend—”
“Tell your flock where your genitals have been before you speak for me.” Castiel reprimanded, stunning some of the flock in attendance.
“And who the heck are you?” The corrupt reverend questioned.
“I'm God.” Castiel proclaimed.
The congregation murmured in response. One parishioner tried to stand up and speak, but after a look from Castiel, he fell back, totally unconscious, and broke the church's pew with his collapse.
Castiel’s attention returned to the reverend, quoting the Bible, the tome that thousands of homophobic humans loved to quote to shame the innocent, “And he who lies in my name shall choke on his own false tongue, and his poisonous words shall betray him.”
The reverend began to choke at Castiel’s will and foamed at the mouth; he quickly fell to the floor, dead.
“For I am the Lord, your God.” The new god, Castiel, finished reciting the holy word to the shock of everyone in the pews.
As Castiel starts to exit the church, he stops when he hears a whispering voice in his head.
Castiel...
Castiel grasps the back of a pew.
Cas!
Castiel turns to look at an image of Jesus in a stained-glass window. He collects himself and resumes exiting the church, but leaves a singed patch of wood on the back of the pew where his hand was.
The image of Jesus in the window was altered to that of Castiel in his trench coat.
Dean was crouched inside the crushed and upside-down Impala, with his boots pressed against the roof, grunting from the effort as he worked to repair his baby. “Come on.” The metal groaned audibly as he kept pushing the dented roof out with his feet. “Come on, baby!”
“You fixin’ her or primal screamin’?” Bobby came over as Dean Toiled out in his salvage yard.
Dean extricates himself from the wrecked Impala to take a beer from the old man. “Ah, thanks. How’s Sam?”
“He’s still under but alive,” Bobby informed.
“Yeah?” Great. “What about God part deux?”
“I got all kinds of feelers out, so far diddly.” Bobby shared.
“And what exactly are you looking for?”
“Exactly,” Bobby said. “Miracles, mass visions, trench coat on a tortilla? I don’t know what I'm looking for.”
“Well, he’ll surface,” Dean stated. No way he wasn’t gonna turn up. Just a matter of how many bodies are drugged up in his wake now that he’s out and about as the newfound God.
What was he thinking? Dean wondered. Barely seemed to know anything about the world, wants to be God…was this about not being able to find him before? But a God who wanted to control everything, everyone…Dean didn’t think that was the answer.
What the fuck ever. All he knew was that Cas wasn’t alright…something bad was gonna happen. He just knew…
He couldn’t get the crazed look in those baby blues out of his head.
“Say we do suss out where new and improved flee off to; the hell we plannin’ to do about it?” Bobby asked the younger hunter.
“I don’t know Bobby, I got no more clue than you do.”
“I don’t even know what books to hit for this Dean.”
“Well figure it out,” Dean snapped helplessly. Bobby was taken aback.
“I’m sorry. This ain’t in no book.” This shit was something new entirely, because who could’ve banked on one worker bee angel going against the whole hive and filling in for the queen Bee like a tyrant? “If you stick your neck out, Cas steps on it.” Dr. Eleanor, Sam and even Raphael were proof of that.
“So you know what I’m gonna do?” Dean said to Bobby.
“What?”
“I’mma fix this car, because that’s what I can do. I can work on her til she’s mint. And when Sam wakes up, no matter what shape he’s in, we’ll glue him back together, too. We owe him that.”
“I’m with ya.”
After working on the Impala for a bit longer, Dean goes back to the house, enters the kitchen, and wipes his hands. Sam was in the doorway from the living room.
“Hey Dean,” the younger Winchester greeted.
“Ah, you're walking and talking.” Dean was honestly surprised.
“Yeah, uh, I put on my socks, the whole nine.” Crazy how that was the bar for the poor kid. His whole life, really, Sam had been put through the damn ringer.
Sometimes, Dean wished he had never gone to that apartment in Palo Alto. But he was too selfish for that.
“Well, that’s…are you sure you’re okay?”
“My head hurts a little, but basically,” Sam said.
“Seriously?” Dean expressed.
“I’m surprised as you are, but yeah, I swear,” Sam maintained.
“Good! No reason putting a gift horse under a microscope, right?” Dean just hopes it lasts this time.
“Yeah,” Sam sighed, “so what happened with Cas?”
Right. Dean had to go over it all with Sam now that he was conscious. He got his brother to come out and help him with the car a bit until Sam got tired and retreated to the house, but later on in the next few days, while Dean kept working on restoring Baby, a unique story broke out over the five o’clock news:
The sudden deaths of some 200 religious leaders are currently under investigation. The Vatican has yet to issue a statement, but some are already calling this an act of God.
Sam, Bobby, and Dean stood around the TV, watching the CBA newscast. A woman was interviewed outside one of the churches that Castiel let himself into.
The new God had been busy.
“We all saw him. No beard, no robe.” She relayed to the viewers. “He was young...and...and sexy. He had a raincoat.”
Okay, Dean thought, that’s enough.
The point was he wasn’t sitting still. Castiel was on a rampage, taking down those he deemed unworthy, sinful, and unfit to keep living on Earth.
Dean turned off the TV and went back to the Impala. He couldn’t stop Cas from flying around, but he could keep working on his baby, just like he said.
While the elder Winchester tended to his Baby, he kept the radio on, tracking Castiel’s movements, trying to see if a pattern would come up.
There wasn’t, as Dean kept hearing about the string of victims in Godstiel’s wake:
About a day and a half later, he heard about racist groups getting killed off: “Believed to be target hits high up in white-supremacy organizations, the FBI now believes the KKK has been forced to disband.”
“Can't argue with that one,” Dean said as he worked on the car windows of his Impala.
Two nights later, Castiel had moved on to smaller fish: “A freak lightning strike on the heels of the fire that burned down the Center for Vibrational Enlightenment earlier today. Said a spokesman, ‘this tragedy represents the largest loss in New Age motivational speaker history’.”
“Motivational speakers?” Sam scoffed, listening to the broadcast while Dean worked under the hood of his car.
“Yeah, I'm not sure new Cas gets irony any better than old Cas.” Dean shut the hood of his car. “Of course, old Cas wouldn't smite Madison Square Garden just to prove a point. He is off the deep end of the deep end. And there's no slowing down.”
“So, what, try to talk to him again?” Sam suggested.
“Sam,” Dean said incredulously. They were well past the point of talking here. Besides, Dean said all he could say to the angel, and he still wouldn’t back down from the path he was walking on. He didn’t care anymore, Dean supposed.
The things he was saying to him the last time they saw each other…
As for prayin’ to him – those were always Hail Marys or ways to summon the guy for his help, Dean coming to rely on him like a fool, and not at all in the way John raised him to be, him or Sam.
If John were here, he’d probably yell at Dean for being fool enough to trust anything supernatural as it is. So, Dean was pretty much reapin’ what he sowed, just sucked that yet again the world had to suffer for the consequences of his shitty decisions.
“All we can do is talk to the guy,” Sam argued.
That was precisely the problem. “He's not a guy.” Dean shot back. He never was, to be honest. “He's God. And he's pissed. And when God gets righteous, you get the hell out of the way; haven't you read the Bible?”
“I guess...”
“Cas is never coming back.” He said to himself as much as he said it to Sam. “He's lied to us,” so many fucking times. Enough lies to fill up a car. “he used us; he cracked your gourd like it was nothing.” And who knows how long Sam was gonna suffer for that, “No more talk; we have spent enough on him…”
Dean was certain there was nothing else he could say to the new God anyway. Was he supposed to keep beggin’ like a chump? Was he supposed to cry in the middle of the night and plead, knowing this God wouldn’t answer any more than the former one?
He thought he knew Cas. But he supposed he was wrong…about so many things…
Dean wished he could go back, find some way to make the angel stay with him in that car after Sam jumped into the Cage, make Cas help him find some way to get Sam out without losing his damn soul…
But he couldn’t go back. None of them could.
“Okay.”
“Hand me that socket wrench…” Dean said, determined to restore his Baby, the one helpful thing he could do in all this mess, and get back out on the road and stick to the classics — monster of the week hunts, before he ever met any real angels…
Bobby checked up on him again the next night. Dean got the Impala into a garage after getting nearly done. He was gonna get ready to paint her. He was almost done.
“She's looking good, considering.” The old man commented, handing Dean a beer.
“Considering?” Dean scoffed, “I should do this professionally.”
“So? You see Sam lately?” Bobby brought up cautiously.
Well, duh, they were all in the same house now. The fuck was Bobby getting at?
“Yeah, why?” Dean prompted, but Bobby seemed reluctant to say anything further. “What? Spit it out…”
Bobby sighed, “How is that kid even vertical? I mean, Cas broke his damn piñata.”
Great, they were going to talk about this again.
Was he ever gonna get any damn peace? It was bad enough hearing about the new God’s exploits on the damn radio, on the news. Apparently, Cas was doing miracles instead of just straight-up killing dudes. He healed a whole leprosy colony in India.
Dean was thinking all of that shit, all the things Cas was doing at a nonstop pace, without so much as one measly break to sit down for a minute, was using so much fuckin’ grace or energy or the millions of souls that Cas was on now…
Something was gonna break in him…
And Dean was gonna be the one to have to clean up the mess.
“I get how he came to help us back at the lab, adrenaline.” Bobby continued, worried about Sam. “But now…”
“He says he’s okay,” Dean said.
“How?”
“I don’t know, but I pray to God it’s true.” Dean expressed.
“We need to come up with a new saying for that…” Bobby remarked.
“Seriously, though, Bobby. Look at our lives. How many more hits can we take?” Dean was tired of taking hits, “so, if Sam says he's good, good.”
“You believe that?” Bobby questioned.
Dean hesitates for a moment but then presses on, taping the Impala’s antenna back on the car as he talks, “No. You wanna know why? because we never catch a break.” Like they were fuckin’ cursed or somethin’ — shit after everything they went through, of course they were. It was the only thing that came close to making sense.
No wonder Cas turned on them the way he did. It was only gonna be a matter of time before the Winchesters’ heavenly guardian broke bad. Because Dean doesn’t ever get to have anything good anymore than Sam does, even though Dean thought Sam deserved far more than he ever got, respecting the kid for trying to go after it even when it’d blow up in his face.
Dean hoped that Sam would be able to get back into the swing of things, but who even knows if that’s even possible?
“So why would we this time? I just…just this one thing, you know?” Dean said, “But I'm not dumb. I'm not going to get my hopes up just to get kicked in the daddy-pills again.”
After Cas, there was no point in hoping for anything anymore.
Sam popped into the garage, startling both Dean and Bobby. “Hey.”
“Hey, how are you feelin,’ sport?” Bobby asked the younger Winchester.
“Can’t complain,” Sam said.
“Great. What’s the word?” Dean remarked.
“Well, a publishing house literally exploded an hour ago. The guy has a body count that’s really getting up there.” Sam said of Castiel’s latest actions. “We gotta do something.”
“What we’ve got to do is hunt the son of a bitch. Unfortunately, I lost my God guns.” Bobby quipped.
“Is there some kind of heavenly weapon?” Sam speculated. “Maybe something out of that angel arsenal that Balthazar stole?” If that feathery douchewad was even still alive, which he probably wasn’t at this point. “There has to be something that can hurt him,” Sam said of Cas.
Hurting Cas…Dean thought acerbically. How times change…
“He’s God, Sam,” Dean repeated from his discussion with him earlier. “There’s nothing, but there might be someone…”
The demon Crowley holed up in some trailer park after Castiel let him run away like the coward he was. Most humans learned to stay away from the trailer Crowley lurked in, banishing sigils up on the large windows at the front of the trailer, even more scrawling on the interior. The demon contended himself with whiskey as he kept his eyes on the news, taking in Castiel’s exploits under his campaign as the new God of the world:
“…since biblical times. Leprosy was once so prevalent that colonies were found around the world. Today, we are witnessing the unprecedented shutdown of India's leper colonies after what many are calling a miracle healing. Here with us, health correspondent Rob Lewinsky.”
“Educate me, Lewinsky.”
But the TV shut off.
Crowley turned, finding Castiel standing nearby…inside the trailer.
Now the demon knew that the sigils were totally ineffective against who he was, as he was now.
Now he understood that there was nowhere he could run, not from Castiel.
“Hello, Crowley.” He said to the demon, as he nervously fidgeted in his chair. “You look stressed.”
“Bollocks.” Crowley sighed. He got up, standing across from Castiel. “So the jig is up, you found me.”
“I never lost you,” Castiel maintained, looking at all the scribbles Crowley vainly put up. “These scratches, they’re all useless.”
“Still, can’t blame a girl for trying,” Crowley replied. “Fancy a drink before you smite me?”
“No,” Castiel said curtly.
“Just like to bend them right over, don’t you?” Crowley mused. “Let’s go then,” he outstretched his arms wide open, scrunching up his eyes in anticipation.
“I’m not going to kill you, Crowley,” Castiel announced. “I have plans for you.”
“What?”
“Here’s our new arrangement: I let you live, you return to your post as king of Hell.”
“…but?” Crowley asked.
“I choose where each soul goes. I control the flow, and you take what I give you.”
Crowley turned around, mulling it over. “I take it you intend to keep the lion’s share?” The demon poured himself another drink. “You’re saying Hell is being downsized?”
“I would’ve done away with it completely, but I need a threat to hold over my enemies, and we need to keep Michael and Lucifer’s Cage.” It’s not like he damned himself over nothing…
“Right. I gather this is not a negotiation.”
“No.”
“Then I graciously accept, boss.” Crowley addressed him, tipping his glass to his new liege. But Castiel can taste the contempt all the same.
When Crowley turned his back again, Castiel found sores on his hands.
They weren’t from the lepers.
“I’ll be in touch.” Castiel was gone.
The demon would later be summoned to a familiar setting: the basement of Bobby Singer’s house.
But naturally, that involved being stuck in the middle of a devil’s trap.
“No, no! C’mon!” Crowley bemoaned. He looked like shit. His choice of a black, tailored suit was dirty and scuffed. The demon had a bottle in his hand.
“Don’t act so surprised,” Bobby said to the demon. The Winchesters were with him.
“My new boss is going to kill me for even talking to you lads,” Crowley said.
“You’re lucky we’re not stabbing you in your scuzzy face, you little piece—” Dean fumed, but Sam interjected with a question.
“Wait — what new boss?”
“Castiel, you giraffe,” Crowley responded shortly.
“Is your boss?” Bobby repeated.
“Is everybody’s boss,” Crowley stated. “What do you think he's going to do if he finds out we've been conspiring? You do want to conspire, don't you?”
“No, we want you to just stand there and look pretty.” Bobby rolled his eyes.
Odd thing for him to say to the demon he swapped spit with, but okay, Dean mused internally.
“Listening.” Crowley chimed.
“We need a spell to bind Death,” Dean told him.
“Bind?” Crowley replied in astonishment. “Enslave Death? You having a laugh?”
“Lucifer did it.”
“That’s Lucifer.”
“A spell’s a spell,” Sam argued.
“You really believe you can handle that kind of horsepower?” Crowley guffawed. “You’re delusional!”
“Death is the only player on the board left that has the kind of juice to take Cas,” Dean said.
“They’ll both mash us like peas,” Crowley warned. “Why should I help with a suicide mission?”
“Do you really want Cas running the universe?” Bobby countered.
The demon eventually caved, and sure enough, a delivery came through to Bobby’s—a parchment via FedEx envelope.
It was ancient.
The spell they needed to cast.
“Well,” Dean said to Sam and Bobby, who feels like hogtying Death tonight?”
Castiel spotted a man on the street, destitute and squalid, asking for spare change. He was homeless and blind.
When he touched the man and restored his sight, the man, upon looking up at him, spotted Castiel’s visage.
It was getting worse.
Castiel fled to an empty public bathroom. He looked into the mirror: his face was covered in red, angry blisters.
Mistake.
Too late
Let us out!
Castiel unbuttoned his shirt. The souls of Purgatory he consumed…they were ravenous. All too eager to break out and feast on the billions of humans on the planet.
His stomach nearly burst, his skin expanding at the monster’s persistent attempts.
Let us out, let us out!
“No…”
The Winchesters worked with Bobby to gather the necessary ingredients for the spell to bind Death for their purposes.
“We’ve got most of this stuff, but we’re gonna have to make a run for a few things…” a crystal, it turned out. A particular, special kind of crystal, “lightning strikes sand at the right angle,” Bobby explained, “it crystallizes into the perfect shape of itself.”
Bobby found records of an auction where the winner lived nine hours away.
They arrived at night. A security guard was patrolling the grounds of the large and expensive home. After dealing with him, Dean infiltrated the home, but the owner of the house, Dr. Weiss, was waiting for him with a loaded shotgun.
“Hi.” Dean said awkwardly, “I don’t want to hurt you, really.”
The good doctor’s wife was huddled up to him, “I’m the one with the firearm, son.”
“I get that.” And if John Winchester hadn’t trained him with blood, sweat, and tears since he was six, the doctor might’ve actually stood a chance with that gun.
He had them tied up in a jiffy. Dr. Weiss had a black eye for his trouble.
Sam and Bobby got into the house after tucking the security guard safely.
“Hey, guys,” Dean said to his collaborators. “So this is Dr. and Mrs. Weiss.” He gestured to the married couple tied up in the corner
“Hi,” Sam said stiffly, looking apologetic. “Sorry.”
“I found the God thingy.”
“Let's light this cradle,” Bobby said, and they got to work, setting up the ritual.
The married couple watched on with terror. They probably thought these three hillbillies were some crazy kind of satanic worshippers, Dean thought wryly.
Bobby recites the spell. As Bobby recited the spell, the ground began to shake, and the whole damn manor rumbled uncontrollably, resembling an earthquake.
“Um, hello?” Dean called out hesitantly. “Death?”
“You’re joking.” He was here.
And he was not happy. But he was bound, so thankfully, he couldn’t do anything about it.
“I’m sorry, Death,” Dean said, not wishing to make yet another enemy of such a big player. The last thing any of them needed was to create an enemy of the Grim Reaper himself. “This isn’t what it seems.”
“Seems like you bound me.” Death frowned, at least Dean thought he did. He could never get a proper read on the guy. The entity unveiled the magical, otherworldly binds around the Grim Reaper's wrists.
“For good reason, okay?” Dean maintained, “Just hear us out, um…fried pickle chip?” The elder Winchester bought them on the way here, doing his best to keep them fresh. “They’re the best in the state.”
“That easy to soothe me, you think?” Death snapped. “This is about Sam’s hallucinations, I assume?”
“What?” Dean remarked, wholly taken by surprise.
“Sorry, Sam, one wall per customer. Now unwind me.” He commanded.
Dean knew Sam wasn’t okay, but hallucinations? Just what the fuck was he seeing? Best hits from the Cage?
That answers the question of Sam’s sanity, for fucks sake, Dean thought angrily, but one thing at a time.
“We can’t,” Sam said, causing Death’s visage to harden visibly. “Yet.” The younger Winchester stammered nervously.
“This isn’t going to end well.” Death declared, pacing around the room methodically.
“We need you to kill God,” Dean asked of the entity.
“Pardon?”
“Kill God,” Bobby echoed, “you heard right. Your…honor.” He finished lamely.
“What makes you think I can do that?”
“You told me,” over a year ago, in a pizza restaurant. He’d been so confident about it. Please don’t tell me he was talking shit, Dean thought desperately.
“Why should I?” Death demanded.
“Because we said so and we’re the boss of you.” Dean opted for. Bad calls, the remark earned him an icy cold glare from the big Daddy reaper.
But then Cas entered the room, and he did not look well.
His vessel was coming apart, kinda how the devil looked when he wore that guy when he was trying to get to Sam.
He still looked manic, that off-putting glare in those once beautiful blue eyes. Now they were just ready, like how a toad would look at a fly he was yearning to gobble up.
“Amazing…” so, Castiel thought. They conspired to turn Death against me. They bound him to their service.
Such arrogance. He was wrong to extend them mercy. Nostalgia be damned.
This truly wasn’t my day, Dean thought—or month or even year.
It was all going tits up.
“Cas.” Sam balked anxiously.
“I didn’t want to kill you.” He honestly didn’t. “But now—”
“You can't kill us.’ Dean declared. He wasn’t begging him anymore.
Dean could boast all he liked, Cas thought, but he’s nothing.
He could hear the cacophony raging within the hunter’s heart.
Castiel had killed for far less.
“You erased any nostalgia I had for you, Dean,” Castiel stated, raising up a hand to handle the defiant little hunters.
“Death is our bitch.” Dean reminded him. “We ain’t gonna die, even if God pulls the trigger.”
“Annoying little protozoa, aren’t they?” Death quipped, giving Castiel a disparaging once-over. “God?" he scoffed at Castiel’s withering vessel. “You look awfully like a mutated angel to me. Your vessel is melting. You’re going to explode.”
Exactly what Dean was afraid of.
“No, I’m not,” Castiel argued. “When I’ve finished my work, I’ll repair myself.”
“You think you can because you think you're simply under the weight of all those souls, yes? But that's not the worst problem. There are things much older than souls in Purgatory, and you gulped those in, too.” Death chastised the angel who flinched angrily.
“Irrelevant, I control them.” Castiel shot back. How dare this thing criticize him so callously? After everything he sacrificed, everything he took on as a burden?
“For the moment,” Death declared ominously.
“Wait,” Dean interjected between the two supernatural beings trepidatiously. “What older things?”
“Long before God created angel and man, He made the first beasts – the Leviathans.” Death recounted forebodingly.
“Leviathans?”
“I personally found them entertaining, but He was concerned they'd chomp the entire petri dish, so he locked them away. Why do you think he created Purgatory? To keep those clever, poisonous things out. Now, Castiel has swallowed them. He's the one thin membrane between the old ones and your home.” Death told the humans.
“Enough,” Castiel hissed.
“Stupid little soldier you are.” Death spat at the pretender.
“Why?” Castiel challenged. “Because I dared open a door that He shut? Where is He? I did a service, taking his place.” There was little chance Death even knew where Castiel's maker was.
“Service?” Death scoffed. “Settling petty vendettas?”
“No. I'm cleaning up one mess after another – selflessly.” Didn’t appear that anyone else was up to the task of taking care of the planet. There was rot in the Earth as there was in Heaven. Someone had to root it out.
“Quite the humanitarian this one,” Death muttered.
“And how would you know?” Castiel snapped. “What are you, really? A flyswatter?”
“Destined to swat you, I think.” Death shot back.
But Castiel wouldn’t back down. “Unless I take you first.”
“Really bought his own press, this one. Please, Cas. I know God, and you, sir, are no God.” Death proclaimed.
“All right, put your junk away, both of you. Look, call him what you want. Just kill him now!” Dean urged, and Castiel whipped his head around to glare at Dean.
Dean was surprised at his outburst, feeling as surprised as Castiel looked, but the hurt in his eyes, those angel blue eyes, struck him in a way Dean wouldn’t be able to forget in his dreams. Because after Castiel turned on him, he didn’t dream about Hell so much or about the monsters that spooked him over the years.
He dreamed about Cas smiling at him, all crazy and ripping his fucking heart out – literally. Right out of his face and his eyes changing from blue to none. ‘
Eyeless bastard.
After everything he did for this man, he turns around and resorts to this – all to eliminate him, the one angel who helped spare Dean a fate he never wanted, all to keep a brother, a relative in his life he was never meant to keep.
To gall of this man.
Castiel knew Dean was being driven by fear, and that he had boldly made his choice, but still...it stings.
Death sighed, while the angel and the hunter locked eyes. “Alright, fine.”
While Castiel kept his eyes on Dean, he snapped his fingers and undid the binding the hunters imposed upon the ancient entity.
Death was freed. He looked at his hand. Whether he was surprised or not, he didn’t say.
“Thank you,” he said to Cas, who still glared at Dean, with a twinge of heartbreak in his eyes. “Shall we kickbox now?” he asked Castiel, who turned to glower at Death.
Dean backed away, despairing in failure.
“I had a feeling I’d be reaping someone very soon,” Death remarked as he went to fetch the pickle chips, settling down in a nearby chair. “Don’t worry, not you,” he said to the tied-up Dr. and Mrs. Weiss.
Castiel flew away.
“Well, he was in a hurry,” Death remarked.
The three hunters stood awkwardly in the room as the ancient entity munched on his pickle chips.
Dean wanted to say something, but Death shut him down. “Shut up, Dean. I'm not here to tie your shoes every time you trip. I warned you about those souls, how long ago? Long enough to stop that fool. And here we are again, with your little planet on the edge of immolation.”
Dean was indignant. He didn’t need the Grim Reaper giving him a damn lecture on top of everything else. “Well, I’m sorry, alright? I've been trying to save the planet, so maybe you should find somebody better to tip off!”
“Maybe I should spend my effort on a better planet.” Death stood up. “Well, it’s been amusing.”
“Wait,” Sam beckoned, “hold on. Just–can you give us something? You have to care a little bit about what happens to us.”
“You know, I really don't.” Death said scathingly. “But I do find that little angel arrogant.”
“Great, let’s go with that.” Dean encouraged.
“Your only hope is to have him return it all to Purgatory and quickly.” Death told the hunters.
“We need a door.” Sam pointed out.
“You have everything you need at that lab. Get him to return there and compel him to give up the power.” Death advised.
“Compel?” Dean echoed.
“Figure it out.” Death said impatiently.
“But that door only opens in the eclipse, and that’s over,” Bobby said.
Death looked at him, “I'll make another. 3:59 Sunday morning, just before dawn. Be punctual. Don't thank me. Clean up your mess. Try to bind me again; you'll die before you start. Nice pickle chips, by the way.” The entity departed.
Castiel appeared in a senator’s office, who was running for re-election.
An aide approached him, unnerved by the unseemly sight of Castiel. “Sir? Can I help you?”
“Excuse me?” the aide was incredulous.
Death’s words rattled in his head. Dean’s eyes, the fear, the resentment...
“I am not petty,” Castiel said, not caring that the humans surrounding him would be confused. “I'm punishing a woman who causes poverty and despair in my name. I put your needs first. Don't you understand?
The aide doesn't reply, staring at him confusedly. Castiel turns to the other staff members at the desk. “All of you.”
Mutated angel...
Just kill him now!
“I am a better God than my father. How can I make you understand?”
How could he make Dean understand?
He actually tried to kill him.
Did any of it mean anything to that man?
Castiel hears menacing voices call his name,
The monsters were at it again.
And in his moment of despair and weakness, they took over
The humans in the office would’ve said Castiel began to laugh manically.
And what Castiel thought was a mere second, a lapse of control, was something far worse.
Castiel found himself on the tiled floor after some time, covered in blood.
Their blood.
The humans that were standing before him, terribly confused, were now just bodies scattered across the floor of the campaign office, their blood staining it.
The monsters...they used him, his vessel to exact their violence. And it would only get worse.
His vessel was withering, and now he was losing control of this body and his newfound powers entirely.
He hated to admit it, especially after fighting so hard for so long to get to this point, but...he was wrong.
He couldn’t let the world suffer for his hubris or his pride.
There was only one thing left to do.
He just needed help to do it.
Sam found Dean huddled up in the kitchen, with a glassful of whiskey and his laptop open, volume up, and apparently playing some form of hentai – not giving a damn who else caught wind of it. The younger Winchester, on the other hand, was dressed up and ready to hunt.
“You want some coffee with that?” Sam remarked, pointing at Dean’s glass of whiskey.
“It’s 6 PM somewhere,” Dean said dejectedly.
“We've got to hit the road,” Sam told him. “I mean, how are we supposed to get Cas to that lab by friggin' 3:59 a.m.?”
“We don’t,” Dean said morosely. It was over. Even playing the Death card blew up in their fuckin’ faces.
What rotten luck.
“What do you mean we don’t?” Sam replied.
“I mean, we can't bring the horse to water, and we can't make it drink. Why fool ourselves?” It was already ludicrous enough to wrangle Death into being their bitch, and it was a miracle Death didn’t murder them all on fuckin’ principle. Because he totally could have.
But he must’ve figured Dean would get off too fuckin’ easy.
Clean up your mess. Wasn't even his fuckin’ mess to begin with. It's not like he ordered Cas to become the new God or gobble up millions of monster souls or all the other bullshit he instigated.
Cas wouldn’t even tell him about it until he got caught in his web of lies. And instead, he just doubles down on it and does everything wrong.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That's what this was.
“Dean, I know you think that Cas is gone--” Sam tried to say.
“It’s ‘cause he is,” Dean said adamantly.
“He’s not!” Sam argued. “He’s in there somewhere, Dean, I know it.”
And Dean was supposed to listen to him? Another delusional liar?
“No, you don’t.” Dean declared.
“No, I don’t,” Sam yielded, “but look, I was pretty far gone sometimes myself, and you never gave up on me.”
“Yeah, and it turns out that you’re about the same open book as you’ve always been. Hallucinations?” Dean threw at him. “Really? I gotta find out from Death?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Sam asked him.”
“How about not lying?” Why was everyone always lying to him? “How about telling me that you've got crazy crap climbing those walls?”
“Why? You can't help. You got a lot of severe crap swinging your way lately, and -- and I thought --what? I thought, Why burst the one good bubble you had left? It's under control.” Sam maintained.
“What exactly is under control?” Dean asked dubiously.
“I know what’s real and what’s not,” Sam stated.
“Sam--”
“Dean, we can debate this once we deal with Cas.” Sam urged.
“You know how I'm gonna deal? I'm gonna stuff my piehole, I'm gonna drink, and I'm gonna watch some Asian cartoon porn and act like the world's about to explode because it is.”
Dean clicked on the laptop to find something he wasn’t trying to look for.
“Hey. You gotta be kidding me.” A new headline: Massacre at the campaign office of an incumbent Senator by a trench-coated man. There was security footage and live video of Cas, looking even worse than before, on a total fucking rampage.
Sam watched the footage along with Dean.
“Well, I think reaching Cas is, uh... out of the cards,” Dean grumbled as he watched the folks at the campaign office die.
As Castiel cautiously made his way over, he heard a prayer from Sam:
Hey, Castiel. Um... Maybe this is pointless. Look... I don't know if any part of you even cares, but, um, I still think you're one of us, deep down. I mean, way, way, way off the reservation, but... Look, we still have till dawn to stop this. Let us help. Please.
Sam’s prayer was kind. To think it was from him, whose mind he unmade, setting his trauma from Hell free and all Lucifer put him through, it was the younger Winchester who made the effort and held out the olive branch.
And Castiel was all too eager to reach for it.
To the Winchesters’ collective astonishment, Castiel appeared before them in Bobby’s kitchen.
“Sam?” Castiel had been put through the wringer, still stained with the blood of those from the campaign office.
“Cas!” Both brothers sat gaping at the weakened angel as he collapsed onto the nearby wall.
“I heard your call,” Castiel said weakly. “I need help.”
They took him to that lab, where he holed up right away, arriving ahead of the 3:59 AM deadline.
“We need the right blood. There's a small jar -- end of the hall, s-supply closet.” Cas told Sam, who rushed to fetch it.
Meanwhile, Castiel’s eyes lingered upon Dean, who asked him, “Do you need something else?”
“No. I feel regret about you and what I did to Sam.” The only comfort Castiel had now was that he managed to avert the apocalypse from occurring a second time, sparing the human race yet again from a brutal and horrific end. Because of Castiel, the world kept turning, whole and in one piece. That would be his legacy, despite all he’d done wrong, to the Winchesters in particular.
Dean glowered at his words. “Yeah, well, you should.” The words did nothing to lessen the pain, the shock of all he’d done.
But that’s not what rattled Dean the most.
It was that the regular drive, the need to kill the evil monster, wasn’t surging like it used to.
Maybe it was that damned profound bond Cas loved to bring up. Maybe it was the fact that Dean relied on Cas so much, trusting like a damn fool.
Or maybe it was because Dean cared. He grew to care for Cas in a way he never allowed himself to care for anyone. Lisa and Cassie made those exceptions. Sam, of course, because he’s family, Bobby too.
Everyone else he had to lose, no choice in that, the life made those choices for him. But Cas...
Cas was different. Always different.
And Dean was suffering for that. Because now he had to lose him. And he couldn’t even feel relieved that the significant threat Cas became was going to be gone, because he was at death’s door.
“If there were time, if I were strong enough, I'd -- I'd fix him now. I just wanted to make amends before I die.” Castiel said to him. It's not like he said the words 'I’m sorry,' but it wouldn’t have made a difference if he had. Damage was done.
Dean wasn’t sure what else to say other than, “Okay.”
“Is it working?”
“Does it make you feel better?” He asked Cas.
“No. You?” Cas replied.
“Not a bit.”
Since Sam was dragging his feet to get the blood they needed for the ritual, Dean went to check on him and found a troubling sight. Sam left the jar, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Sam?!” no answer, and they were pressed for time. “Damn it.”
He grabbed the jar and rushed back to get it over with.
As they got ready and Bobby began to recite the words, Castiel was wobblier than before, and Dean had to keep him upright to get to the finish line.
The door to purgatory began to open, and Cas looked back at him, riddled with sores, blood, and teeming with regret.
“I’m sorry, Dean.”
Dean looked back at him in shock.
So maybe there was just a speck of him left in there after all, where the apologies were coming from before.
The souls were unleashed as soon as Bobby finished reciting the spell, and Castiel fell to the floor after the massive amount of souls went back to where they belonged.
Bobby and Dean rushed to check on him.
“He’s cold,” Bobby noted.
“Is he breathing?” Dean asked him.
“No.”
“Maybe angels don’t need to breathe.” Please be alive. Please be alive and come back to me, a quiet voice chirped inside of Dean. Maybe they could fix it.
Maybe they could fix all of it.
“He’s gone, Dean.” Bobby insisted.
Dean looked upon Castiel’s unconscious, bloody form in misery. He stood up in melancholy. “Damn it, Cas, you child. Why didn’t you listen to me?” he bemoaned.
But as he glowered upon Castiel’s body, he began to heal quickl,y and his eyes snapped open to the hunters’ surprise.
“Cas?! Hey! Hey! Okay. All right.” Was he okay? Dean’s mind wondered urgently.
Was he the angel he’d come to trust to...care for?
“That was unpleasant,” Castiel remarked.
“Let's get him up. Easy, there.” Together, Bobby and Dean helped Cas up on his feet. Hell, even Bobby looked happy to see him.
“I’m alive,” Cas said in astonishment.
“Looks like,” Bobby remarked.
“I’m astonished,” Cas stated, “thank you, both of you,” he thought to say.
“We were mostly just trying to save the world,” Bobby replied sheepishly.
“I’m ashamed,” Cas reflected. “I really overreached.”
Dean growned. Not the word he’d use. “You think?”
“I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.” Cas avowed to his human charge.
“Alright, well, one thing at a time,” Dean said, eager to leave this wretched place, “let’s get you out of here, c’mon.”
Cas grabbed his arm, beckoning his attention. “I mean it, Dean.” his eyes were the same blue they’d always been, so earnest and pure.
He was back. Cas was really back. Dean wasn’t sure how things would be between them going forward, but the fact that he was back and wanted to make things right, well, it was a hell of a start.
For a second, Dean thought he could breathe easier.
He was kidding himself.
“Okay, let’s go find Sam, okay?”
But then Cas shoved both hunters away from himself.
“You need to run now,” he urged suddenly, “I can’t hold them back!”
He was afraid of this. The monsters, when he gobbled them up from purgatory, were so insistent, so hungry...
Then he remembered what Death said.
Leviathans. They were the ones who remained, and their hunger knew no bounds, putting even Famine to shame.
Dammit, what now? Dean thought nervously, “Hold who back?”
“They held on inside me. Dean, they're so strong.” Castiel groaned in pain. He wouldn’t be able to hold him back, not after such a staggering loss of power and stamina.
They were going to breach. Spill out into the world.
Now, even that would founder.
Now, even the human race would die, all for Castiel’s hubris.
His pride.
And Dean, he had no idea what he was in for.
He damned them all, all those poor billions of meatsacks, all in the vain pursuit of trying to save them, spare them from oblivion..
He truly was the lowest form of failure.
And he couldn’t even tell Dean how much he---
HUNGRY, HUNGRY, HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
“Who the hell--”
“Leviathan! I can’t fight them. Run!”
Those would be Castiel’s last words for some time...
“Go,” Dean warned Bobby. “Go get Sam!” the old man ran ahead.
“Too late.” The Leviathans took the wheel and had no intention of letting go.
“Cas?” Dean asked in dread.
“Mm, Cas is hm—he's gone. He's dead.” They gobbled him up from the inside out like parasites and stole his vessel out from under him. “We run the show now.”
Dean was thrown across the lab room and clattered against a table up against the wall.
Bobby got thrown against another table on the other side of the room, and was older, so he couldn’t bounce back as fast from the attack.
“Ah,” his eyes weren’t blue anymore, Dean realized with horror. They were black, and black tiny tendrils crept up the side of Castiel’s neck.
“This is going to be so much fun,” the Leviathans declared. He leered at Dean predatorily, making the hunter’s skin go cold with anxiety.
The beast, or rather the amalgamation of them, paced around the lab, and the tendrils kept creeping up his skin.
Dean’s eyes drifted to Bobby, who was lying on his back after such a brazen attack.
“How many of you ass-clowns are in there?” Dean bit at the monster. “A hundred. More?”
The vessel began dripping black fluid.
“Your vessel's gonna explode, ain't it?” Dean said. “Wouldn't do anything too strenuous. In fact, I'd call it a day, head on home, huh?”
“We’ll be back for you,” the Leviathans declared with one creepy voice.
He wandered away, leaving the hunters alone.
“Well,” Bobby had sat up, watching the new beast go away. “This is a new one.”
Dean and Bobby knew they had to follow the Leviathans, but on the way, they finally found Sam, who was deep in a trance.
The hallucinations must be going off in his head...
“All right, we've got to button this up. Come on, let’s get out of here. Come on.” Dean said after he finally snapped Sam out of it.
Meanwhile, the Leviathans wandered to a water reservoir, which was all entirely too easy for them to do. The hunters caught up and watched as Castiel’s vessel went underwater, and a giant, black whirlpool appeared. Thousands of squiggling things move in hundreds of different directions, all over, leaving the used-up vessel behind and submerged.
“Aw, hell,” Bobby remarked.
A sign at the edge of the reservoir read Public Water Supply. No Swimming. No Fishing. No Boating.
“Damn it.” Dean hissed. Cas was gone. Again. For good this time.
There wasn’t a body left. Couldn't even fish it out if he tried.
“You said it,” Bobby remarked. “Those...whatever you call ‘ems--”
“Leviathan,” Sam supplied.
“Right. If they’re in the pipes, they got themselves a highway to anywhere.”
“Awesome,” Dean said acerbically.
But there was something left.
At his feet, Dean saw Castiel’s soggy trench coat.
It floated to the edge of the reservoir nearby, where Dean stood.
Dean picked it up mournfully. “So he’s gone.”
“Yeah,” Bobby and Sam looked upon the old wet thing. “Rest in peace. If that’s in the cards.”
Dean folded over the trench coat; his hands clenched around the sodden fabric tightly. His face flinched in agony.
“Dumb son of a bitch,” the elder Winchester remarked wretchedly.
“Well, he was friends with us, wasn’t he?” Bobby said. “Can’t get much dumber than that. Come on, those things will be coming up for air soon.”
Dean left with the others, holding the trench coat.
He should probably dump the thing. Or burn it to cinders.
Part of him wanted to for all the hell Castiel put him through.
But...it was all that was left of the angel, after everything.
Last time, well, the last two times, he’d been obliterated from head to toe. But this time, there was the trench coat.
In time, Dean would take it to a laundromat and clean it. Then he would keep it in the Impala, along with the scant tokens he had left of his childhood before the life took over completely, along with sparse photos of John and Sam. Dean didn’t get to keep much in his life, so when there was something to hold onto, he’d keep it as long as he could.
He couldn’t hold onto Cas.
But he could on to this – his trench coat, something that was synonymous with the quirky, nerdy little angel that tried to do what was right, even if he was damned for it.
Dean thought with a terrible pang in his heart -- I'm never gonna see him again...
He didn’t know how to feel about that.
He just didn’t.