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— Day 154, continued —
Any questions?” Dean finishes, leaning back against the table beside Castiel and looking around. It occurs to Castiel this is the first meeting of (most of) Chitaqua they’ve ever been able to have without having to go outside or crowd into the very inadequate mess. They definitely need one of these in Chitaqua: perhaps offices might be useful, Ethernet-ready. That would certainly speed up the creation of the camp LAN. “Do me a favor and find out the answers yourself: I sure as hell don’t know.” He grins at the sprinkle of laughter.
“The Misborn,” Lee says from the back, tall enough that he sees easily over the others (Jane, for example, is up on her knees on the chair along with Evan while Brian just pretends he’s taller than he is). “Just getting clarification: we don’t know what they look like, can do, or even how many there are?”
Jane’s been an excellent influence: that is an entire sentence plus fragment. “Essentially,” Castiel answers. “To be blunt, they wouldn’t be alive if they weren’t both very dangerous and also very useful to Lucifer and they must have a stable form on this plane no matter what their true form might be. As I explained, their ancestry includes a sire that came from this plane, so simply beholding them shouldn’t drive you insane or cause you to die ecstatically, but the desire to suicide may not be out of the question. Don’t do that.”
“Yeah, suicide is never going to be the answer,” Dean announces solemnly. “That is your PSA for today.”
“No one should go alone anywhere, and Ichabod will be passing that to the united patrol,” he continues. “If for no other reason, two or more of you dropping dead for no reason is more noticeable and suspicious
than just one. Though as I said, it shouldn’t kill you on sight, this is merely a precaution.”
“So we don’t know how to kill them?” Amanda asks from the front row by Kamal. “Even a guess?”
“Be an archangel,” he answers. “And use Grace to dissolve them from reality without destroying reality itself. Short of that, there’s no way to know. They’ve never easy to kill—there’s a reason we left it to Cynothoglys when it came to one of them—so generally the solution was to put them to sleep and send them back or wait for her and hope they didn’t wake up. I leave you this comfort: they can be killed, at least, without resorting to asking Lucifer to do it for us, but without knowing the sire, it could be anything, and even knowing that, it will be far easier to eliminate options than select them.”
“Okay kids, shift change is coming up,” Dean says. “After lunch, I want new arrivals to get familiar with Ichabod’s defenses, the town, and the united patrol; duty for you starts at dusk, we’re already updating the shift schedule. Joe, you’re tour guide and you’re welcome.”
From Amanda’s other side, Joseph sighs. “Always wanted to babysit.”
“Fuck you,” Mel says amiably from between Liz and David. “Quick question: in town, anything we need to watch for? Or anyone?”
Castiel’s gaze is drawn to Alicia, but she seems oblivious, answering a murmured comment from Jody with a grin and shaking her head.
“So yeah, four of our exes are in town,” Dean agrees, crossing his arms. “And we’re gonna play nice,” someone snorts, loudly, “unless and until they don’t. Carol’s off-limits, people; bygones be bygones there, whatever they are, got it?”
Scanning the group carefully, he sees little disagreement but what he suspects is a great deal of reserving judgment and suspects Micah and his associates are the reason. Just behind Alicia’s team, he sees Kat whispering in Andy’s ear, looking unhappy.
“Teresa, Manuel,” Dean adds, waving to them on the two couches against the wall. “Special handling: now or later?”
“Now’s fine,” Teresa says, getting to her feet and coming to join him and Dean, Manuel on her heels. “We’ve officially set up secret zones for incoming people. Main is off-limits to everyone except those with kids at the daycare, residents, patrol, and Chitaqua. Alliance members go to Syracuse or Second; local towns we know go to Baltimore or Third; Fourth, Fifth, west Sixth, and Seventh, I’d have to get a chart, we’re doing this as organized as possible, but we’re trying to keep the residents together and near their friends if possible. Exception: the east side of Sixth is designated special handling: they don’t know that, and we’re not telling them. Right now, it holds any former residents of Ichabod or the Alliance that were exiled—which I’m going to tell you now, takes a lot—the residents of any town known for shooting on sight and showing no signs of changing
their policy in a different town, and Dean requested former Chitaqua members be housed there as well.”
“And anyone from the town that tried to burn you alive,” Alison says acidly, and Castiel watches in approval as the entire militia comes to alert without moving a single muscle: excellent.
“And that,” Teresa admits, frowning at Alison. “All the streets within Ichabod are under the jurisdiction of Naresh, our sheriff, and he decides who is on those teams. Ichabod’s patrol and Chitaqua’s are specifically excluded from those, and within the city limits excluding the wall, all of us—and that includes me and Manuel as well as Dean and Cas—defer to Naresh on civilian disturbances except by request. Naresh has requested that if we see a disturbance and his teams aren’t nearby, that’s the equivalent of a request but he’s to be informed immediately. I talked to Dean and Cas, so I know we all have the same basic civilian rules; don’t break them.”
“And a reminder,” Dean says, cocking his head. “Ichabod’s patrol are as much hunters as we are, and they know this town as well as defense better than we do. Integrated patrol means just that; we work with them, not against them, and checkpoints and wall duty are under joint supervision between Chitaqua’s teams and Ichabod’s. Priorities are as follows: civilian safety first, then kill all the monsters. Both at once is fine.” He grins at Teresa. “Anything else?”
“We’re good,” Teresa says wryly.
“All right, Joe will run you through the rules of civilian engagement while in Ichabod just in case,” Dean says, voice hardening. “You flash your gun, your knife, or throw a punch even once outside those rules, you better have one fuck of a good reason or you’re out of Chitaqua and under Ichabod’s jurisdiction if they want to deal with you; if they don’t, you’re also outside the walls, no appeal because I don’t care. That’s not who we are, and it sure as hell isn’t what we’re ever going to become. Got it?” The nods are universal and very enthusiastic, and Dean grins. “Not too worried about that, though. Dismissed.”
Castiel glances at Dean, who goes with Teresa and Manuel to talk to Alison as the Situation Room begins to clear, then gets up to approach James’ team—well, three of them, Zack seems occupied with Sean—and tries to decide if he should wait for acknowledgement or not. Fortunately, James turns around to see him and grins. “Hey, Cas.”
“James,” he says politely as their small circle opens, and Nate looks at him and his smile falls away. He regrets it very much; Nate so rarely smiles.
“Dean and I need to speak with you,” he says, and Nate stills before nodding. “If you would—”
“You mind if we stay?” Mira interrupts, stepping forward and looking up at him.
Castiel glances at Nate’s expression. “Of course. Part of this will be told to everyone when we know more.”
“See? It’s fine.” James says, squeezing Nate’s shoulder and almost bodily moving him toward the table, dragging another chair up so he and Mira can flank him, and lounging back in an exact copy of Dean. Glancing at Alison, he sees her also recognize the familiar slump and bites her lip. “No place we’d rather be.”
“Alison?” he asks. “I’d like to request a few more minutes of your time.”
“Sure,” she says, nodding to Manuel and Teresa. “I’ll check in before I start the afternoon inspections—”
“And lunch,” Teresa says with a smile that implies this is not negotiable. “Which we’ll all have together like people. At a table, baby. In our house. Remember, that place you used to visit sometimes?”
“Fine,” she answers, squeezing Teresa’s hand and watching her leave the room with a smile as Dean takes a seat across from Mira. Joining Dean, Castiel inclines his head and, curious, sits down beside him. “What’s going on?”
“The Misborn,” he says, and Alison straightens, looking at him. “From Manuel’s lack of surprise earlier, you saw that when I spoke to you that night?”
“Kind of,” she admits. “Mostly a name for Alicia’s Thing Outside the Barrier. Speaking of, is she okay?”
Dean leans over to look at her. “Why? You weren’t reading her—”
“No, of course not. Trying to read anyone in this room? I’d be killing everyone for looking at me wrong afterward.” Dean snorts. “Admin this morning, she was looking for the lists for the former Chitaqua residents. She seemed really—tense.” She makes a face. “Asked me to read it to her in case she was reading it wrong. Looked like she didn’t get much sleep, I was a little worried, okay?”
“A personal thing,” Dean says with a shrug. “That’s all.”
Alison nods, but she doesn’t look convinced, and Castiel makes a mental note to speak with her later. Succinctly, he tells them all the only thing he excluded from his explanation of the Misborn during the meeting: Winchester House.
“So you’re saying Winchester House is one of them?” James asks in surprise. “Oh, cosmic entity thing, they’re all—those?”
“No, but it’s not important,” he says quickly when Dean looks vaguely alarmed. “Most can’t interact with this plane at all. To return to the subject of Winchester House…” He looks at Nate. “It might be more accurate to say it’s only mostly like its brethren, at least now. Nate, with your permission—and Alison’s—I’d like Alison and I to see your memories of what happened in the attic at Winchester House.”
Nate blinks at him, startled. “I told you—”
“Yes, it was fascinating, but there’s something else I’d like to check. May we?” Nate exchanges confused glances with Mira before nodding, and he feels Alison’s hand touch his, projecting curious agreement. “Thank you both. Nate, concentrate on your last memory of being in the attic. Alison, are you ready?”
Lacing their fingers together, she nods. “What am I looking for?”
“We’ll know it when we see it,” he answers. “Don’t worry if you feel as if your mind is unravelling or your atoms seem to be coming apart; it’s an illusion. Mostly.”
Alison looks at him for a long moment. “Flu. Two more days, I never would have made the flight to Kansas. Right now, I’d be living under what is totally not martial law in Chicago. I think about that sometimes.”
“A psychic,” Dean drawls, “in Chicago. I would have loved to see this.”
“You’re still on my list. Nate,” she says, frowning at him thoughtfully, “don’t just do images or whatever. Try for smell—uh, a physical feeling, something as a hard anchor for me. You shouldn’t feel anything—no one has yet—but I’ll be able to tell if you’re upset and pull back. Or yell, that works, too.”
Nate opens his mouth, looks uncertain, and settles for nodding, closing his eyes. It only takes a moment—Alison is getting much better at this—and he feels her stiffen when she sees it, but it’s more surprise than anything. Taking a moment, Castiel deconstructs it for her, showing her how to interpret it and give it a concrete reference for context. While it should be out of the realm of possibility she’ll meet another such as Nate and need to read their mind, he can’t count on that.
Sitting back, Alison lets out a breath. “Huh.”
“Sharing with the class,” Dean enunciates from his other side, arms crossed. “We do it.”
“Yes, of course.” Under the table, Dean’s knee presses against his, and for no reason whatsoever, he forgets what he was going to say. Then, “Nate, you’re contaminated by Winchester House.”
That is not what he was going to say.
“What?” James yelps, and Castiel sees Mira’s arm move, like she’s putting a hand on Nate’s knee, while Nate simply blinks at him. “What does that mean?”
Abruptly, he feels a puff of warm breath against his ear. “Remember way back when, we talked about easing into a subject?”
“Not at the moment.” Especially with Dean breathing in his ear. He wonders if smiling would help; he suspects—from the expressions of the three across from him—it would not. “It’s nothing to be concerned with,” he says reassuringly, which doesn’t seem to help, either. “Nate, I suspect contamination is the reason that you were able to successfully repair Winchester House.”
“I just fixed some things,” Nate says uncertainly, looking between him and Alison and Dean. “Nothing big.”
“Actually, if I’m right—and I am—you were repairing the dimensional rift that Winchester House was sealing.”
Nate frowns. “With drywall?”
“And paint,” he confirms.
“Why does this sound familiar?” Dean murmurs, shoulder pressing against his.
He ignores that. Mostly. “Winchester House is—for all intents and purposes—a grandson of Ether, but its parentage is—convoluted and reproduction among them ineffable and to be quite honest I don’t want to discuss it, so we shall leave it at that. The children of Ether don’t have anything like a childhood; as they were at their creation, so shall they always be, that is their nature. The grandchildren are little better, but Winchester House—isn’t like them. For one, Winchester House was neither sentient nor sapient at its creation; that came later, which is my point. From what I can ascertain, it did something very new; it began to grow up. However, as with all children, it needed someone to model appropriate behavior, and for reasons we should all be very grateful for, it liked none of the examples it was exposed to and—”
“Ate them,” Dean interrupts firmly, looking haunted. “Ate, Cas.”
Inaccurate, but acceptable. “Ate them, yes. As I know the identities of all who disappeared, blessings upon Winchester House for sparing us their continued existence.”
“Yeah, I got that feeling,” Nate agrees. “But uh—so what’s contamination again?”
“When you went into that attic, you were dissolved from this reality,” he says, and Dean makes a very quiet sound with a suspicious resemblance to laughter while Nate’s eyes widen. “For less than a millisecond: in that time, Winchester House panicked and seems to have suspended time, rolled it back, pulled your entire genetic profile from you the moment before you dissolved—and for that matter possibly the entire human genome—found every infinite part of you within itself, and very carefully and very thoroughly put you back together. And to make sure that didn’t happen again, it traded some infinite parts of itself with you, which in essence is contamination.” He searches Nate’s face. “You’re fine, of course.”
“That,” Nate says, nodding, “was my next question.” He hesitates, looking at James, who makes a series of faces that must mean something, since Nate then asks, “Except for the parts that belonged to House that it… traded with me?”
“Nothing can make you less human, Nate,” he says reassuring, then thinks of something. “It’s like a free gift with purchase. Or reconstitution, rather.”
Nate’s set expression changes into—he thinks that’s hope. “So—it has part of me and I have part of it?” He nods, and Nate relaxes. “That’s cool.”
“Some people,” Castiel says for no reason at all, “take issue with having some tiny part of another being, even though it was done for their benefit and saved their life.” Dean’s boot would have hurt a great deal if he hadn’t taken the precaution of moving his leg. “It is very pleasant to meet someone who appreciates that.”
“Gonna get you for that,” Dean murmurs, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Dean smiling encouragingly at Nate.
“It was worth it.” Turning his attention back to Nate, he tries to ease into the next part. Fortunately, Mira does it for him.
“Okay, so got it—Nate’s special.” She throws Nate a quick grin. “Which we knew. But what does that have to do with the Misborn? Other than—cousins?”
“Best guess on relationship, yes.” He starts to explain the rest when Nate’s faint smile reminds him of something. “Nate, why did you leave Winchester House?”
Nate’s smile vanishes, replaced first with surprise, then much more worrying, bewilderment. “I don’t know.”
Beside him, he feels Dean come to alert despite no alteration in his slump. “What do you mean?” Dean asks casually.
Nate looks into the middle distance, starting to look alarmed. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “I never thought about it.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Castiel asks quietly.
“Uh.” He shakes his head. “We weren’t getting tourists anymore—and I think my company quit or something. We were fixing one of the half floors to get it back in alignment with the others, and we’d just found the ocean in the cellar again, so we had a lot of work to do.”
“You know,” Dean says, “I’m going to assume that’s literal and not pipes breaking, so let’s jump to what ocean? Atlantic, Pacific, Indian…”
“South Pacific,” Nate answers, relaxing. “But yeah, broken pipes were the cause. Boiler exploded or something, blew out half the plumbing. We didn’t notice until the fish started walking up the stairs. Made a mess of the second to top floor: took forever to clean up, had to get new carpet.”
Broken pipes, yes. “Did anything,” Castiel starts, trying to remain calm, “surface while you were—cleaning up? Such as a city of some kind?”
“No, nothing like that, we caught it in time,” Nate answers reassuringly, and Castiel can breathe normally again. “It was expanding fast, though—a couple of islands showed up, House was so pissed—so we had to work fast. It was fine—went to Home Depot and got a pump to get rid of the water, cleared it all out.” Abruptly, Nate’s eyes unfocus. “There was no one around. I remember—I was trying to figure out how to pay for everything, but House said there was an account and not to worry about it. Since I was there anyway, grabbed the replacement pipes and House helped me pick out the new carpet. Really liked red even though I told it that color doesn’t wear well.”
Castiel can’t help but wonder if at any point, Nate questioned the fact he was debating carpet colors with House while shopping in an empty Home Depot. Then again, he supposes once one has dealt with walking fish and almost witnessed the rise of R’lyeh (as if they needed simultaneous Apocalypses; one at a time is enough) in the basement, that probably passes for normal. And informative as well: he’ll have to remember that about red carpet.
“What happened after you finished pumping the cellar free of the South Pacific?” he asks, setting aside for later a question on if that also applies to red rugs.
“Fixed the pipes. While House dried everything and got rid of the rest of the fish, I went to lay the new carpet,” Nate answers slowly, staring at the table. “I’d just started when it said—it said something, and then…”
“Nate?” Mira asks softly. “You okay?”
“I was on a road,” Nate continues, looking confused. “A couple of trucks passed, then one stopped—it was Debra and Vera. They asked if I was going to Chitaqua and if I needed a lift. It sounded familiar, so I said yes. I don’t know why.” The brown eyes look at them in confusion. “I never thought about it.”
Alison’s fingers tighten in his, and he silently projects agreement: there are very few reasons House would take the trouble to assure Nate didn’t question how he arrived on that road or for that matter, why he left, none of them good. “Nate, I need you to remember that moment with the carpet. Alison and I are going to see… how that happened. With your permission.”
This time, Nate hesitates, and Mira leans over, murmuring something in his ear as James rests a hand on his shoulder and—for the first time in Castiel’s experience—looks somewhat challengingly at them. Or at least tries very, very hard.
“Uh, do we really need to do this now? We were on duty this morning, and Nate worked half the night with the crews… which he wasn’t supposed to do,” he realizes belatedly, looking guilty. “Uh. I told him he could, by the way.”
“It’s fine,” Nate says with a poor attempt at a smile, and from the way he relaxes, Castiel’s almost certain that Mira just took Nate’s hand under the table. “Yeah, I want to know.”
“Alison and I are going to search your mind now,” he says quietly. “Relax; it won’t take long.”
With Alison’s growing skill, Castiel finds the two points in linear time—Winchester House laying carpet and standing on the road to Chitaqua—and understands immediately at least part of the reason Nate can’t remember anything between them. Instead of a straight or even slightly knotted line or vague curve (linear time does this all the time), between those two points are what looks like an endless series of loops and doublebacks on itself.
Exploring it, Castiel identifies the original line and begins to follow it, trying to find any kind of pattern. Entire areas of the sequence are bent backward and forward, sometimes the same ten minutes repeated a dozen times, sometimes hours only once or twice, all obviously constructed quickly and at random. There’s a long space of days where nothing seems to happen before it abruptly jumps backward to one second after it spoke to Nate and starts again. Stopping, Castiel takes a step back and realizes what he’s looking at now; within that seemingly random series of loops is a pattern created and then hidden by an expert.
Awed, Alison thinks: Groundhog Day, and yes, like that, but it’s also something else: it’s a maze, a labyrinth encompassing not just time but corporeal and non-corporeal space. Following the pattern, he reaches the last loop and doubles back to that second after House spoke to Nate as if to start another repetition, but this time, it pulls the end point—the road outside Chitaqua—to occur for Nate almost the moment that the last point ends.
Returning to the beginning, Castiel finds Nate kneeling on the new carpet and starts the full sequence there.
Winchester House said: Run.
And Nate did.
He ran through endless rooms both within linear time and not at all, and House was grateful for that tiny bit of itself inside Nate that made this possible. It created miles of new rooms for Nate to enter that had no more than the most superficial resemblance to reality, stairs that went up and sideways and sometimes it confused up and down and everything else as well, but Nate was used to such things and gravity, in any case, had always been more a suggestion than anything. It destroyed everything after his passage, but it wasn’t enough; what Winchester House gave Nate they could smell, he was unique; they could track him anywhere in that endless house.
The things that chased Nate were something new, that Winchester House never saw before but recognized, however diminished, in their common ancestor: Ether.
They followed Nate: half-seen beings sometimes scaled hounds whose bark shattered walls like glass; sometimes humanoids elongated impossibly and reaching arms of twisting tentacle vines with teeth that bit at his heels just as the door closed; sometimes things that fell apart when they collided with doors or walls; and sometimes all of those at once. Nate couldn’t run forever even with Winchester House’s help, but the things that chased him never seemed to tire; they’d catch him eventually, unless Winchester House could get Nate away and give them what they came for on that one terrible day that all the gods would die: itself.
That’s when Winchester House devised a plan, and only an entity who was the exception to every law of nature on this plane could have made it work.
It built a labyrinth of time and space itself in endless loops and endless rooms, creating a dozen false paths for the Misborn to follow, dead ends that would dissolve them from reality, others doubling back on themselves, but there were far too many and that wouldn’t be enough.
Once Nate entered the labyrinth, Winchester began the second part: room by room as Nate passed, it burned itself out of reality to buy him more time and destroy whatever tried to follow. It slowed the Misborn down, killed dozens, even hundreds, but their numbers were endless and they could smell him, they could smell him, and they were kin; they could follow his scent in and out of time.
When Nate reached the attic proper, House held Nate there out of time—for how long, he can’t be sure, but he hopes it was forever, all the time they had left—before the Misborn broke through the door and it let Nate go, leaving him on that road to Chitaqua while the Misborn gleefully began to consume Winchester House alive. It let itself be eaten slowly and terribly so the single mortal mind it learned to see, that became part of it and it him, could escape, and used the last of its power to turn part of itself into what it was before it learned to think: a mindless cosmic seal. To protect the world that Nate lived within.
Beyond that is the rest of Winchester House’s existence until the connection broke with its death; the tiniest remnants of it left—enough only to barely survive—were dragged by the sated Misborn to—
“Oh God,” Alison whispers, covering her mouth with her free hand while Nate looks between them; on his face is knowledge that until now he was very thoroughly able to deny, that Winchester had so carefully removed from his ability to remember.
“It…” Nate swallows. “House is dead, isn’t it?”
It takes Castiel several long moments to find his voice: House’s mind was vulnerable to Lucifer, and it spent the very last moments of its life guarding the memory of Nate at all costs. It hurt—Lucifer wanted what it hid for no better reason than House wished to hide it—but that determination was stronger than anything Lucifer could do. It died without revealing who it was the Misborn chased, what it protected, and that fierce pleasure at Lucifer’s rage when he failed was the last thing it felt.
And fuck yourself,: he hopes Lucifer never stops feeling its triumph as it finally died with that one question left forever unanswered.
“Yes,” he says. “Lucifer killed it with the other gods that day.” He focuses on the table as Nate’s face crumples, shoulders slumping. “Winchester House was very dangerous to his plans; it wasn’t only very powerful, it was power unlike his own that he couldn’t take. He wouldn’t risk a single minor god surviving, much less an Elder God.”
James’s arm goes around Nate’s shoulders, squeezing gently, and Mira tightens her hold on his hand. Nate takes a deep breath, then another, before straightening, meeting his eyes. “I want to remember it.”
“Some of it…” Castiel looks at Alison helplessly. “There are parts it needed you not to remember, Nate. It’s mind was very different from your own, and for much of what you have, you don’t have the context to understand.”
“Give me everything I can, then,” Nate answers, voice breaking on the last word before he takes a shuddering breath. “It’s mine, and I want all of it.”
“I will,” Alison says before Castiel can answer, giving him an uncertain look. “I mean, I think I can—clean it up? Maybe?”
Alison is human; she might be able to translate at least part of it well enough for Nate to understand. “We can try,” he agrees, turning his attention to Nate. “It will take time for me to teach her, but we can certainly try to give you at least some of it.”
Nate nods shortly, a relief (to Nate as well, he suspects). “Nate, there’s something else—”
“The Misborn are here for me.” Nate licks his lips. “Not stupid. Only reason you would have—eased into it. And why it didn’t come up at the meeting.”
“Not for you: they can’t sense you yet.” He can feel Dean’s gaze flicker to him briefly. “However, within the next three days, the barrier will be weak enough that they will be able to. They have your scent and they don’t forget that; the second they have it again, they’ll come for you.”
Nate looks at him for a long moment, then straightens in alarm. “I need to get out of Ichabod. They’ll kill anyone around me to get to me.”
“Uh, no,” James says as Mira looks at Nate incredulously. “It’s fine, all of Chitaqua’s here, the wards—dude, we got kick ass walls!”
Nate doesn’t look away from Castiel. “That won’t be enough.”
“Then we fight,” Mira says, no doubt in her voice. “And we win.”
“We don’t even know what will kill them!” Nate argues. “The Misborn—they took House to Lucifer, didn’t they? Why didn’t it just—it was an Elder God! It could have gone back to—where the others were, through the rift!”
“Nate—”
“It stayed for me.” Angrily, he scrubs at his eyes with his free hand. “To protect me. Because they had my scent.”
“That wasn’t the only reason, just the most important to Winchester House,” he answers. “It wasn’t like its brethren; it was born here, and there—even if it could go, it didn’t want to. From what I could sense, it knew the part of you within it would be destroyed, and that it would not give up at any price.”
Nate glares at him through angry, pained-filled eyes. “You think it’d rather die—”
“I know,” he interrupts. “It wanted to remain as what it made itself and what knowing you made it; that was worth dying for, yes, and so were you. It wasn’t a sacrifice but a victory; its last thoughts were triumph, that Lucifer knew nothing of you, and that you were safe. Few gods could stand up to what he could do to them: Winchester House did. Lucifer took nothing from it that it wasn’t willing to lose.”
“So what can we do to protect Nate?” Mira asks into the brief quiet, looking around the table. “There’s got to be something we can use, anything.”
“I’m going to assist Teresa in adding several sigils to the wards tonight,” Castiel answers. “That should at very minimum delay them and buy some time.”
“And why send him to Chitaqua, no one asked?” Dean asks suddenly. “Anyone wondering about that but me? That wasn’t random, come on.” He looks at Castiel. “Our wards, had to be. Only reason to put him in Kansas on the road to Chitaqua while Vera and Debra were driving up. Get him behind those wards as fast as it could.”
He looks at Dean in surprise. “I don’t think they could hold out even the degraded offspring of an Elder God, at least not then.”
“Normally,” Dean replies, “I’d go with you here, but the cosmic-entity-house sure as hell thought they could. So three days from now: could we get Nate to Chitaqua before that?”
“We’ll go with him,” Mira says, and Castiel’s fairly certain from the way Nate closes his mouth and winces he just got kicked. “Get a jeep, or some motorcycles—”
“I can’t drive a motorcycle,” Nate starts.
“Neither can I, but I learn really fast,” Mira snaps, looking between Dean and Castiel. “We leave now—”
“It took Mel and company three days to get here—” Nate tries.
“We won’t stop in Kansas City!” Mira argues. “Use their route—whatever it was—and we get there in what—two, maybe two and a half days? Then Nate is safe, and the Misborn don’t have any reason to come to Ichabod.”
Dean looks at him, and that leads everyone else to do the same; Dean leads by example in all things. “Provided that my estimate is correct—and you do not stop for any reason—you should be able to get Nate behind Chitaqua’s wards before the Misborn can sense him. Though I did tell Leah and Mark to tell Chuck not to open Chitaqua’s gates except by my or Dean’s order, we can find a way around that. In case he won’t listen or read the letter I will write, I’ll tell you where you can climb the wall.”
“Good,” Mira says, taking a deep breath and slumping back in her seat while James slaps Nate on the back. “So we—”
“Cas,” Nate interrupts, “if I’m here when the barrier is down enough and the Misborn sense me, they’ll come for me, right?”
“Yes,” he agrees.
“And if I’m not here, who are they coming for?”
“What?” Mira and Dean say together, but Alison is suspiciously silent. “If they don’t sense you, why would they—”
“Because there’s someone else,” Nate says, still looking at Castiel with a fixed expression. “You said, the Misborn weren’t here for me, they couldn’t sense me yet. So there’s someone else here that’s going to bring them whether I’m here or not. Who and when?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he answers, though it matters very, very much. “They cannot be moved anywhere outside Ichabod’s walls for another two days at least, and we couldn’t get them to Chitaqua that quickly.” He tries again. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re here or not, they’re coming to Ichabod, but it matters very much to your survival if you’re not.”
“Cas,” Dean says, and it’s not a command yet, but it will be very soon, “what’s going on?”
“It’s not important to the subject at hand,” he answers steadily. “If I’m correct about the barrier’s rate of decay, it should break at dusk in four days’ time and must be raised again by dawn of the next day or it won’t be raised again at all; the barrier took time to build and the structure must remain intact to be raised again or they’ll have to start over from scratch, which I understand is not something they can do—or perhaps it won’t matter, I’m not sure. The Misborn are—at this moment—far more interested in the barrier itself and what it might contain; they won’t make any attempt to cross until they have reason.”
“When,” Nate asks, “are they gonna get confirmation? In two days?” Nate sits back and shakes his head. “I’m not going.”
“Nate,” James starts uncertainly. “Look, I get you—don’t want to leave a fight, that’s all of us, but come on.”
“I was thinking,” Nate says, never looking away from Castiel, “that I’m going to ask Alicia to narrow down who can’t be moved—possibly for two days—and would be cooler than House’s BFF, so much cooler that they can sense them a whole day before me even though they have my scent or whatever. If you try to tell me it’s you—”
“No, not until…” He cuts himself off too late.
“Better than Winchester House’s BFF, better than a Fallen angel,” Nate says, ignoring James’s frantic head shaking. “Okay, I’m no Alicia, but I got three: angel, another cosmic entity, or a god.”
“It’s Sean.”
“Cool,” Nate says, crossing his arms. “Gonna die trying to save him and he’ll be guilty forever. That’ll keep him up nights—when Zack doesn’t—no hammers required.”
“Oh God,” Mira mutters. “Nate—”
Alison tightens her fingers, pushing a thought to the top of her head: she visited the infirmary this morning before he did and would like to know why that it being two days since Sudha’s labor began, she seems to be doing fine, and Dolores wasn’t worried. However, she mentioned that Vera had performed an ultrasound, and when Alison saw her, Vera—not that she read more than mood—was very worried indeed.
“Mira, James, I need you to leave,” he says abruptly, shaking his head sharply at their protest. “For reasons I cannot explain, this is something you can’t know.”
Mira and James hesitate, but Nate nods quickly, reaching to grab Mira’s arm as she stands up. “Look—”
“You don’t go back on duty today,” Dean says quietly. “Our new arrivals need to get familiar with the wall and checkpoints, and volunteer services can live without the three of you today, okay?”
“Thanks,” James says gratefully.
“We’ll get our room ready,” Mira says to Nate, wrinkling her nose, and Nate relaxes. “More blankets, grab a late lunch, and you can try and win those socks of yours back, what do you think?”
Nate looks between them and nods, and James squeezes his shoulder. “See you soon.”
“Yeah, you will,” Mira answers, and reluctantly, she and James go out the door.
“Dean,” Castiel says quietly, “lock the door. Alison, verify no one is close enough to listen; if they are, gently push them in another direction.” He waits for Dean to return, who instead of sitting down drags his chair around and turns Castiel’s to face Alison before placing his beside him and then sits down. A glance at Nate, and he immediately brings his chair to set between Alison and Dean. “Alison, Teresa and Manuel are the only other ones who can know this, including Sudha. She can’t know, for her own safety and comfort.”
“The baby,” Alison breathes, closing her eyes. “That’s what…”
“What?” Dean asks, looking between them. “What about the baby? Catch me up here.”
“Sudha found out she was pregnant five months ago,” Castiel says and feels Dean still. “I can’t confirm the exact date, but I suspect it was near the time Alison went into a coma when her abilities manifested.”
Alison nods. “She told me a couple of days after I got released from the infirmary after Teresa…” She stops, looking at Castiel. “What’s happening to Sudha? What’s she got inside her?”
“A baby,” he answers, trying and failing not to drawl it for emphasis. “The union of an ova and a sperm, after which division—”
“Skip to the part she only found out around the time I was doing time in comaland? And the barrier came up,” she adds in horror, slumping back in her chair. “Lucifer’s temper tantrum knocked Sudha up? Tell me that she’s not—”
“No, my Brother would never reproduce. He—”
“Skip it,” Dean advises him. “Trust me, she won’t appreciate it. Right now, anyway.”
“Then what—?”
“A child formed of Sudha and Rabin’s genetic material,” he interrupts a little desperately. “She was probably not pregnant before that day,” Alison starts to open her mouth but Castiel used to hold forth at patrol meetings with hostile team leaders and even Dean never quite learned how to interrupt him when he was committed (and very stoned), “but that would be simple to achieve: sperm and ova would achieve union from their last sexual encounter and within her womb cell division would proceed as rapidly as was safe for her… like a time bubble.”
Alison and Dean both look at him. “She had a time bubble in her?” Dean asks when Alison seems unable to speak (but is thinking very, very loudly).
“Only long enough for cell division and development to match four month of gestation.” He looks between them and is insensibly comforted by Dean’s hand squeezing his shoulder. “Dean, I told you that the relationship between a god and their followers is very similar to a contract, but unbreakable, and the penalty for doing so—if they can—is unavoidable.”
“She’s carrying a god?” Alison demands. “I thought they were all dead!”
“Not all, but they’re either in very permanent exile or belong to Lucifer, and that wasn’t many, and I can promise you, it was none of them,” he answers patiently. “Let me finish: for a mortal woman to carry a god—any god, even one unaffiliated with her religious beliefs or lack thereof—the rules are the same as they are for angels; the child is born mortal, with no idea of its former nature, the couple must be infertile or unable to conceive, male and female both, and the mother always survives. That is non-negotiable. Some also grant fertility to the mother afterward so she can bear more children, as a thank you, or perhaps ‘free gift with purchase’ would be more appropriate.”
Dean and Alison’s expressions tell him that might not be; at a more appropriate time, he’ll ask why.
“Right,” Dean says, expression going through several variations of something before he reaches up to rub the bridge of his nose with his right hand, the one on Castiel’s shoulder staying very satisfactorily where it is, “so—Lucifer confirmed they were dead, right, wouldn’t appear in the future after that day? They couldn’t hide from him.”
“Not then, no,” he agrees. “Except for one place, as it turns out, which only began to exist five months ago.”
“Behind the barrier,” Dean says, nodding. “He can’t see inside it.”
“Exactly.”
“So are they still here?” Dean looks sour. “Any chance they could help out a little? We could use that.”
“They aren’t, if that helps—”
“How’d they even know about the barrier?” Dean demands abruptly. “And for that matter, how long it would last? I mean, are we the only people—and Lucifer—who didn’t know about it? Was there a newsletter or something?”
“I doubt it, that would actually be useful and therefore would never happen,” he says in exasperation. “For reasons we do not know, a god was near here in linear time at the point the barrier rose and impregnated Sudha, then left, again for reasons unknown. In two days the barrier will be weak enough for a god to pass it, and the Misborn will be able to sense them in here very soon after, and by that I mean possibly only minutes.”
“Why are they coming back?” Alison asks. “For that matter, why are you so sure they aren’t hiding out here?”
“Because Sudha went into labor two days ago and she has—according to Vera—no way to deliver that child even by caesarian without dying,” he answers and regrets it when Alison pales. “She’ll be fine; this is natural law, but if they were here right now, the child would have already been delivered.”
Alison’s eyes narrow. “You’re still worried, though.”
“It’s more a matter of how this happened,” he explains. “Gods can be in several places at once, but they are always themselves, even when they divide; to be born mortal, they have to descend, give up their godhood, and—grow much, much larger to be able to contain a human soul, which yes, would qualify as dead or gone, but that also qualifies as a cosmic event that it would have been very difficult for Lucifer to miss. The only reason I’m not using the word ‘impossible’ is because obviously, it either has happened or will. At least,” he admits, “I think. Linear time can make these things ridiculously complicated.”
“But this—god doing that thing could happen?” Dean persists, and Castiel keeps his expression impassive, wondering what he’s thinking. “I mean, you said it did… or will?”
Castiel thinks carefully about his answer, considering who he is talking to right now. “Yes. What I don’t understand, I suppose, is why.”
“I thought gods do that shit all the time,” Alison says unexpectedly, and Nate nods; obviously, both are far too well read in mythology. “So why not? Beneath them or something?”
“From their point of view, yes,” he answers honestly and from the corner of his eye sees Dean bite his lip in amusement. “Free will is mystifying when you don’t have it: to simply exist, unfettered by natural law or the restriction of your own nature. A human can be an architect, an artist, a dancer, an accountant, or all of those things; you don’t even have to be good at it, you can do it for pleasure or avocation. The child who wanted to be a doctor and liked bugs may at twenty may be a short order cook who has two cats and a president at forty with a dog; they will be and can be all of those things in a single short stretch of linear time and there’s no contradiction. That is your nature: change.”
“A thousand people,” Alison says softly, eyes distant. “Birth to death.”
“Exactly. A god is effectively immortal, is gifted with immense power, and they can do anything—but that’s all they can be and do for all of Time: be a god. As they were at their creation, so they will always be.” He sees Nate’s faint frown, brown eyes widening in sudden understanding. “Numbers and impossible home repair and spending time with you simply to learn more about you and enjoy your company: that is what Winchester House didn’t want to give up. The ability to do those things and learn and change.”
Nate licks his lips. “It—it was worth it?”
“Yes,” he says, forcing himself not to look at Dean. “It’s worth anything at all, to have that.”
Nate straightens, taking a deep breath, and Alison, smiling faintly at Nate, turns her attention back to the original subject. “Right. So—Sudha’s carrying a god. And they’ll come back so she can have the baby? When?”
“This is speculation,” he admits, “but I can still—in a very limited sense—sense the strength of the backlash when it comes in contact with the shield on the weather and calculate the increasing strength. It’s not in any way an exact science—or indeed any science you are yet aware of, we’re five hundred years from that—but by my estimate, in two days, the barrier will be weak enough to allow a god to pass but strong enough to block the perceptions of the Misborn for a very short time. They must cross at that point and will have a very narrow window to assist Sudha in delivering her child safely. However—and you must simply accept this as true for the ways of natural law are ineffable—they cannot be here in this place and time between the moment it leaves the protection of its mother’s body and the moment it draws its first breath on earth; between those times is also the point in which the birth of that child qualifies as a cosmic event. The barrier will protect it from Lucifer’s perception, but there’s no guarantee it will from the Misborn. We simply don’t know enough about them—or the barrier—to know to the second.”
“Would the god in question?” Alison asks. “Since they apparently knew about the barrier and how long it would last?”
“I certainly hope so,” he replies acidly. “If it allowed Sudha to take this risk, it should know to the second exactly how to keep her and her child safe.”
“Still saying newsletter, and we didn’t get it,” Dean mutters. “Demons know, gods who are already dead know, but angels, ex-angels, and humans? Not us. How does that even make sense?” Castiel tilts his head, and Dean scowls. “Just saying, they want us to save the world? Timely information might help.”
“Who?” Alison asks blankly and Nate looks curious as well.
“Demons, long story,” Dean says, waving a hand at Alison and Nate’s shocked faces. “That? Also was probably in the newsletter we didn’t get. I wonder what else was in there? Maybe how we win?”
“Demons want to save the world?” Nate asks weakly, like he’s not entirely sure he heard that correctly or—more likely—is rather terrified of the answer.
Castiel waits for Dean to show some sign that perhaps, they should have discussed revealing that information, but no, he just looks—as if he resents the lack of a newsletter. As Dean seems oblivious to his untimely revelation, “In any case, please exercise discretion on this subject. We’re still discussing the—ramifications.”
Alison nods without argument (a first), but Nate simply shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t think anyone would believe me if I did.”
Dean finally seems to decide he’s done pondering the lack of a newsletter and focuses on Nate. “Look, I get you want to stay, but—”
“I’m staying,” he interrupts. “If for no other reason than if they sense the baby, when they get through and they smell me, maybe I can distract them long enough for the barrier to come back up—”
“No,” Dean answers flatly. “We’re not doing a trade here.”
“It’s mine to make,” Nate answers simply, getting to his feet. “Is there anything else?”
Dean looks many things and says none of them. “No. Dismissed”
As soon as Nate is gone, Alison sighs and looks at Castiel and Dean. “Demons want to save the world?”
Dean simply looks at him, and Castiel controls the urge to kick him in the left ankle. “Something like that,” he admits, giving up. “I apologize if it seems we’re concealing information, but if you wish—”
“Cas,” Alison interrupts. “I have upward of twenty thousand people—Claudia says we’ll all be happier not knowing—to take care of, a barrier falling, a—thing driving people crazy, a close friend pregnant with a god and… oh God.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Cas, I can’t even remember how many things are going to kill us anymore or in what order. Freebie, once in a lifetime opportunity here: you can say ‘this is a secret and we can’t talk about it’ and I’m going to say ‘okay’.”
“This is a secret,” Castiel says obediently, since Dean obviously has become unexpectedly unfamiliar with ‘discretion.’ “We can’t talk about it.”
“Okay,” Alison says firmly. “Now, will those symbols you want to add to the wards really help?”
“From Nate’s memories of them, I can now confirm those and salt will both help,” he says, aware of Dean coming to alert beside him. “For how long, however, I don’t know. The earliest the Misborn should be able to cross is the dawn before the barrier falls in roughly four days, which means we’ll have to hold them for at least a day, assuming the barrier is raised again by the next dawn.”
“And if they get in the walls?”
“There are two possibilities: Nate and I will be the only two who they can sense that would be of interest, and for reasons having to do with the hierarchy that I am still—technically—a part of, I’m not their prey; their focus will be on Nate, and they’ll kill anything and anyone protecting him before turning on him. That—might—keep them distracted until the barrier rises and they’re expelled.” Alison winces; she saw the consumption of Winchester House as well. “If they sense Sudha’s child’s birth, then the child, Sudha, her husband, and all within the third degree of blood relationship to the child will be pursued and consumed and then Nate.”
Alison nods, mouth tight. “And we don’t know how to kill them.”
“Not yet.” She raises her eyebrows. “I do intend to kill them; it’s just a matter of finding what will do that most effectively.”
“Oh, that’s all,” she says, one corner of her mouth curving in reluctant amusement. “You know, I’d bet on you. Too bad we don’t have a time labyrinth to keep them distracted while you figure it out. Or something more interesting than a baby former god and a—Nate.” She tips her head toward the door. “If there’s nothing else, I’d better go—”
“Inspect things?” Dean says brightly, and her eyes narrow. “Tell Christina hi for me; they’ll be waiting somewhere near your house, where you’re going to go have lunch with your fiancée.” He waves at Alison’s deliberately turned back as she stalks to the door. “Have fun!”
Dean waits until Alison’s gone before looking at Castiel. “Nate said they could smell him; was he being literal?”
The very reasonable speech he just finished composing and was about to give regarding the lack of discussion between them regarding the subject of demons saving the world vanishes entirely. “Not literal as in referring to the olfactory sense, but yes, that’s one of the ways they track their prey.”
“Scent,” Dean says slowly. “And you said salt works. Cas, what did you get from Nate’s memories?”
“One of the several forms of the creatures that followed Nate in Winchester House was canine.” Despite his best efforts, revulsion ripens to active nausea. “Possibly Cerberus, but I doubt he’d risk a god—however diminished—siring any offspring by an Elder God, especially Cynothoglys.”
Dean licks his lips. “She was raped by Hellhounds.”
“The form was unmistakable, and Winchester House’s analysis confirmed their paternal line.”
Looking sickened, Dean shoves his chair back and jerks himself to his feet. “Hellhounds.”
Before he was mortal, Castiel would have very likely pointed out it could have been worse; now he knows how utterly stupid that would be to even think, much less say.
“How many offspring, Cas?” Dean demands, almost pleading. “Tell me—not many, this wasn’t… it couldn’t have been many, right?”
He remembers Nate’s memory of how many died and how many still came after him. “He had all of time in that pocket, so he used it. There’s no method by which to calculate the number of offspring per period of gestation, much less how many… what is he thinking, once was far too many. The only acceptable number is zero. The only acceptable scenario is that this never happened at all. “At least a hundred died at Winchester House—I think—but they were replaced almost immediately. I think we can safely say ‘far too many’.”
“Christ.” He slashes a look at Castiel. “This was an experiment. What are the chances Hellhounds were the first he tried or—or…”
“Very low,” he whispers. “And even—even if Hellhounds worked, there would have been many non-viable…” He trails off, thinking of the infinite expansion of stars and Cynothoglys within the heart of a supernova, ecstatic, who counted the seconds until the heat-death of the universe and end of all things. Chained to dead, rotting flesh, her Self spread in a thousand pieces and buried in dirt for eons before he took her out, put her back together, and watched her be raped over and over, carry the offspring to term, and kill the survivors if they weren’t to his taste.
For Lucifer is practical in his spite, but sometimes his spite isn’t practical at all.
Lucifer didn’t kill her, that much he knows, having seen the nature of the creatures he found acceptable that he had made from her; when he was done with her, he didn’t let her finally die, no. When he was done with her, he took her apart again and buried each piece in cold dirt across the surface of that world within that pocket of time. For he is spiteful when denied: like a child, he is the center of all and he would punish her for her defiance, but unlike a child, he knew exactly what horror he would inflict upon her and simply did not care.
Then strong hands are gripping his shoulders, and he realizes Dean’s crouching in front of him, peering up at him worriedly before reaching up, fingers brushing his wet cheek.
“If I were still an angel,” Castiel whispers, “I would search every pocket of time in existence and find that one. I would gather the pieces of her in that rotting mortal flesh—every single cell of her—and bring them together and make that body whole. And I would take her to the end of the universe under the protection of my Grace, and there I would burn away that body so her true form was free. I would let her go so she could watch the heat death of the universe and the end of all things, and in her madness hope to see her experience joy one last time.”
Dean nods, mouth quirking gently. “Wouldn’t looking at her kill you?”
“Yes,” he agrees, voice barely a thread. “It is not preferable, but at least, I would no longer have to remember what was done to her by my Brother, to create those things. They don’t merely hunt their prey, Dean; they eat it alive and keep it living for as long as they can while they eat. Dead, it gives them no pleasure; he bred them of Cynothoglys’ joy in death perverted to pleasure in causing suffering and pain. That is what satisfies them; their food must be alive and saturated with all the pain they can inflict as they consume it or there’s no pleasure in eating it. It doesn’t taste good.”
“He really only has one idea,” Dean remarks. “Croats and Misborn: variations on a theme.” He squeezes Castiel’s shoulders, silently encouraging him to continue if he wishes; he doesn’t, but the words fall from his lips anyway.
“Winchester House knew their nature: it couldn’t let Nate suffer that. And for all it could do, for all its power, it couldn’t keep Nate running forever; it got tired, but the Misborn never did.”
“How long?”
“If in linear time, perhaps a thousand years are within those loops,” he answers. “It even tried taking him out of time in hope the Misborn would lose the scent; they didn’t. They followed him in there, too, and it was so tired…” He frowns. “Winchester House was getting tired.”
Dean nods. “A thousand years, yeah. I would be, too.”
“No, I mean—Winchester House was tiring—they exhausted an Elder God—but they weren’t tired.” Dean cocks his head, waiting. “That was stupid of me, how else could Lucifer have—that’s how he made sure the gods couldn’t affect the future or past: the gods were chased from the moment the Misborn caught their scent and they ran them into exhaustion.” Pulling up Winchester House’s last memories, he examines them, setting them carefully in order and watches the whole in growing understanding. “And he is spiteful, Dean.”
“Cas?”
“The Misborn ran them to exhaustion,” he tells Dean. “When they finally caught them, they began to eat them alive where they fell. It was their nature; knowing exactly how much they could consume and still leave their prey alive.”
Dean winces. “Christ. Just for kicks?”
“Spite,” he says, meeting Dean’s eyes. “When the Misborn could consume no more without death, they dragged their prey to that point in linear time Lucifer chose, and that’s where Lucifer would administer the death blow to what remained.” He wonders why he never questioned that before. “That’s how he got all of them to that place and time: the Misborn brought them.”
“He could beat them anyway,” Dean says softly. “And still—Jesus Christ. Guy won’t fight straight even when he’s gonna win. You got that from Nate?”
“Winchester House’s connection with Nate meant it gave him the memories,” Castiel says absently. “Nate couldn’t interpret them, so his mind simply set them aside. But they’re there, everything until the connection broke with Winchester’s House final death.”
“And it—wait. Wait. Cas, you said it kept looping time, right?” He nods, not sure of the relevance. “Could you tell how long was it in real time—linear time, here—between points Winchester House and point road to Chitaqua?”
“One hundred and forty two days,” he answers without thinking, then stops short, looking down at Dean’s slow smile. “Nate arrived in Chitaqua on September sixteenth.”
“Your time thing? Awesome. Cas? How long—”
“April twenty-fourth,” he answers slowly. “That was when the gods were killed. No wonder I couldn’t remember when I knew they died.”
Dean grins up at him. “So the church—at least one god was alive then, the goddess, and you were there, so—” He stops, searching Castiel’s face, and his smile fades. “Cas? We got—narrowed down when you were in the church.”
“I was in Chitaqua.”
Dean nods impatiently. “Okay, yeah, you went there and removed your memory after.”
“No—I was in Chitaqua,” he insists, hearing the frantic note in his voice and unable to control it. “I couldn’t have been gone, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Dean didn’t unlock the bedroom door until the day after!”
“After you Fell.” Dean stills, expression suddenly unreadable. “I thought—you didn’t remember so I thought—you weren’t conscious for most of it, right?”
“If I hadn’t been conscious, he wouldn’t have needed to ward that room or lock the door.” It’s odd; he doesn’t remember it, and yet. “Bobby said—he said I never slept.”
Dean stills. “How’d he keep you in there?”
“Bindings, I think,” he whispers. “Some—I think I may have told Bobby to use, but I’m not sure; he wouldn’t talk about it. I don’t remember any more than that. They erased those—at some point—but they were very effective. There were signs—the walls, there were gouges…” He sucks in a breath and Dean drops onto his knees, moving closer, and Castiel is aware Dean’s restraining himself with an effort. “They couldn’t—couldn’t risk letting me out, Dean. I would have killed everyone.”
“That what they told you?”
“They didn’t need to.” He steadies himself with an effort. “The gods died two weeks after I Fell, however, to the day; that would explain why I don’t remember when I knew the gods were dead. I would have—I assume—have felt it in there.”
Dean nods slowly, wetting his lips before asking, “And you never got out? And maybe he—and Bobby, they just didn’t tell you?”
“Even if I did and no one I knew was killed,” which he reflects horribly, isn’t impossible, but surely Bobby wouldn’t have continued to be so kind if he watched Castiel slaughter people in front of him, “I doubt I was in any condition to think, much less drive to a church I’d never seen before or even knew existed”
“There’s that.” Dean pushes himself up, looking at him worriedly. “You okay?”
He’s not sure, but at this time, he doesn’t have any choice. “I think so.”
“Then you know what time it is?” He shakes his head. “Lunch.”
Dean decides Cas and lunch are going to get reacquainted immediately, but a glance at the overcrowded mess confirms that’s not gonna work, or at least, not here. Go up to their room or stay in the Situation Room: actually, he has a thought on that and honestly, now he can’t work out why he didn’t think of it before.
“Wait here,” Dean tells him and even nudges the laptop temptingly closer in the spirit of compromise or something. “Update the shift schedule until I get back.”
Cas brightens, and there we go: he’s a genius. He’ll have to figure out how to pry it away for Cas to eat, but whatever.
Going to the mess, Dean eyes the room while filling plates and spots two teams of recruits who probably need something to do: awesome. Setting the tray on the end of the table, he smiles at them and sees their faces light up; sometimes, he likes being their leader.
“So what are you doing for the next couple of hours?” he asks. “Something I need you to do. Y’know, if you’re not busy.” The eager agreement is exactly what he hoped for. “Meet me outside my door in about… thirty minutes, okay? I’ll explain then.”
After, he takes the tray to the Situation Room and for a wonder, Cas actually closes the laptop. “I’m finished for now,” he says, looking at the plates curiously: carne guisada, rice, and a pile of greens, type unknown (as it turns out, there’s more than one kind despite the fact they all look alike, which seriously, how can you tell). “They must be slaughtering their breeding stock by now, no matter how many supplies the other towns brought.”
He should probably ask, but there’s nothing he can do about the answer, at least until the barrier’s back up—Christ, hopefully back up, hopefully it worked, hopefully all those goddamn people won’t die for nothing because they’re definitely going to die.
Instead, Dean encourage Cas to eat via strategic questions about pretty much anything not related to the barrier, Lucifer, demons, the Misborn, Nate, elder gods, any gods, which means they end up talking about the shift schedule, which results in Dean understanding even less about Cas’s system than he did before he knew absolutely nothing and God he misses that already.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about,” Cas inserts between column alignments and VBA macros (cats?), and Dean’s nod this time is actually true. Looking amused, he pushes his (empty, thank you) plate back. “If you’re not interested, you don’t have to pretend to be for my benefit, I promise.”
“I’m interested,” he protests, finishing the last forkful of rice. “One night, we sit down and you show me the entire… process of how it—works.”
Cas raises an eyebrow that implies there are other things they could be doing at night that (hopefully, please God) don’t involve a laptop (seriously, no). Or Dean’s thinking it and assuming Cas will be on board because if he thinks sex and laptops go together… he’s not going to even think that.
“I should go to the infirmary,” Cas says without making any move to stand up and eyeing his plate as if searching for food-related reasons to avoid it. “It would be rude to keep everyone waiting.”
Taking Cas’s empty plate—and earning himself a betrayed frown—Dean stacks it on his with the silverware on the tray. “What are you worried about? Haruhi’s getting out, party time. If we had time for a party or,” he adds honestly, considering the last party they went to might technically still be going on (was it only a few days ago?), “a quiet dinner or something. Is her team going to be there? Besides Rosario, I mean.”
“Derek’s assisting Walter at the power plant, though he should be back in a few hours to welcome her home,” Cas replies, still frowning at the table. “Alicia said she thinks—thinks that we’re angry with her because of what happened.” He looks at Dean worriedly. “I am supposed to be reassuring and that is—as you know—not among my skillsets when drugs, alcohol, or sex aren’t involved.”
“No, you’re fine,” Dean protests immediately though that’s God’s own truth and what was Alicia thinking? “Dude, just—” He’s drawing a blank. “Don’t overthink it.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“Never does.” Picking up the tray, Dean cocks his head. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the infirmary.”
Reluctantly, Cas gets to his feet. “I need to get my coat from upstairs—”
“You take this to the mess,” Dean says immediately, shoving the tray into Cas’s hands. “Gotta grab mine, too, okay? I need to stop by Volunteer Services anyway, tell ‘em James’ team is unavailable. Meet you in the lobby.”
Cas blinks at him, but thank God for ex-angels worried about their people skills, he just goes with it, and Dean jogs up to see his recruits are early (totally saw that coming) and gives them their orders while finding his and Cas’s coats.
“How do you not overthink something?” Cas asks after politely waving at Jeremy on desk duty (with Joelle, what a surprise) and following Dean outside. “I’ll tell her we feel no ill-will toward her and she should put the matter out of her mind.”
Once again, Dean draws a blank, even knowing that is very possibly exactly what Cas will tell her, word for word. “Sure,” he says, giving up; it’s not like she hasn’t met Cas and won’t be living with them soon, might as well break her in early. “That’ll work.”
Leaving Cas at the infirmary, Dean continues to the end of the street, his mind drifting to how Cas looked when he talked about Cynothoglys and the Misborn, how the gods were killed: spiteful. Lucifer is spiteful.
Dean’s always hated Lucifer and honestly, there’s nothing Lucifer could do that would genuinely surprise him, though he doubts horror is something he’ll ever run out of. He hates him and he’s afraid of him, and Cas’s dream of that rack custom-built for angels hovers in his mind, all the ways he’d use it, he could list a thousand without even trying. No demon in Hell deserved it more than Lucifer does for what he’s done; none of them could compare to Lucifer when it comes to crimes against not just humanity but against existence itself, and no matter what Cas thinks, Dean wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out those holes in reality weren’t accidents.
For Lucifer isn’t just something so far beyond a monster it’s undefined; he’s spiteful.
An archangel with the forces of Creation itself at his command, who can do anything and everything, and among the atrocities he’s committed for his fucked up cause against humanity in revenge for thinking he wasn’t daddy’s favorite, very epic, he—does shit like this. It wasn’t enough to use Cynothoglys in the most unthinkable way possible; when he was done with her, he didn’t kill her, he cut her up again and left her to rot forever. Because she said no: for spite. The gods that wouldn’t bow to him; it wasn’t enough to kill them, he bred something to hunt and eat them alive as horribly as possible but not quite to death. Because they said no: for spite. Croatoan makes a human being into little more than an animal, is a hundred percent infectious, and guarantees they all kill each other in insane rage: he added in cannibalism. Because they said no: for spite. No, I won’t help you; no, I won’t join you; no, I won’t lay down and die for you; no. Like it’s not enough for him to win: he has to punish not just those that opposed him, but simply didn’t want to help.
Spite: that’s why Lucifer came back to Kansas City: to make Sam Winchester look one last time at his brother’s dead body; that’s why he let Cas walk away that night: to make Cas live the slow death of the world he tried to save while grieving for the man he Fell to help. It’s not enough for him to win or even his enemies to lose and it occurs to Dean it may not even be about winning and they may not actually be fighting a war against Lucifer. They might be fighting to stop an archangel from methodically punishing each and every single being that ever told him no straight up to his Father before he destroys Creation itself, not by accident or plan, but from sheer spite.
Halfway down Third Street, he finds himself wondering uneasily if they can win something that may not be a war at all.
The sound of screaming jerks his attention back to the empty street just in time to hear gunshots, and fuck his life, that’s from Volunteer Services. Before he can think about it (overthink it), he’s running straight toward it, reaching for his gun just as he bursts through the door and into a perfectly silent room.