Chapter Text
Chapter Five
Cas (Two months later)
“Hey, motherfuckers!” Dean wrenches the mic stand forward in one hand. He points at the back of the auditorium with the other. “I got some bad news for ya!”
Sweat drips from Castiel’s purple-streaked hair where it’s fallen into his face. He stalks to the edge of the stage as Dean taunts the black-clad row of the SWAT team before he shakes his head like a dog, letting sweat spray onto the screaming crowd.
A sidelong glance at Dean sees a come and get me smirk plastered across his face as he stares out over their audience with their mohawks, tattoos, chains, and tattered leather. “We aren’t stopping. These people paid to see a show and we’re going to keep right on giving them one!”
Back at his place on the right of the stage, Castiel presses his lips to the mic. “What are you waiting for? Oh, right. Yeah. You can’t actually do anything until we break the law, can you?”
So far, this set has been so tame. A bunch of silly poppy punk songs about love and heartbreak. Not a sociopolitical comment has slipped from his or Dean’s mouths—yet.
The crowd roars like a beast in response, jeering at the riot squad. Castiel lets the feeling consume him. He’s come to crave this energy. It’s what keeps him on his feet through their fast-paced and energetic shows, onto the meet and greets, and getting everything stowed ready for the drive to the next gig.
He looks over his shoulder at Andy and Eli then across past Dean to Sam. All three have these grins on their faces, pumped up, (in Andy’s case especially) high, and ready for anything. He’s so fucking proud that My Bloody Addiction are standing up for what’s right, no matter what it might cost them.
Dean all snake hips, pink hair, and snarling fury, struts to the edge of the stage black fingernails punching the air. When he draws level with the front amp, he crouches down as if he’s going to either jump into the pit or haul someone out. Instead, he makes a sign with his free hand behind his back.
Go time!
“It’s been a blast Kansas City. Until next time! This last song isn’t one of ours, but I reckon some of you will know it. It’s called Desolation Row.”
Sam and Castiel let the first chord rip.
“Keep playing as long as you can, even if they’ve caught hold of you.” The sentence comes out almost as one long word as Dean keeps his head bowed low over the dead mic.
Castiel watches a circle form in the centre of the pit right on cue for Dean to lift his head and begin snarling the lyrics. He’s surprised that they get through the first verse before he even spots one of the SWAT team twitch. He’d laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious.
“The riot squad are restless...”
Indeed, they are.
The energy coming off the rest of the band is insane. For all that Castiel is now certain that what’s going on around him isn’t as real as it appears, the emotions and atmosphere are authentic. The members of My Bloody Addiction are a single entity, moving, breathing, acting as one in a dizzying display of defiance.
He stalks to the front of the stage, a swagger in his step. A maniacal smile spreads across his face as he approaches Dean.
Dean jerks his head towards Sam, who comes to join them clustered around Dean’s mic. As one, they yell, “You’re in the wrong place, my friend. You better leave.”
That’s when the order must go through. The final straw. A step too far against the Edlund Free Speech Act, even though they all know, as must those in charge of local law enforcement, that the song is already on the banned list and the move should have come as soon as Dean announced it. Not one of the black-clad, shield-brandishing figures takes a step but their demeanour changes as if ready to charge, instead of standing guard.
This time it’s Castiel urging his band members to stand firm in the face of what’s about to happen. He doubts even if they tried running there would be an exit that isn’t already covered. They aren’t in a television show or movie where crazy, miraculous, or impossible escapes happen.
No matter what happens to My Bloody Addiction, or any of the band’s members, they need to leave their fans fired up. One final message sent that they don’t have to accept Edlund’s world, that they can speak out against it, demand change—use their free will.
“Keep playing. The kids need to remember My Bloody Addiction as fighters. This band can be a powerful force for free will in the face of oppression. We don’t go down without a fight, okay?”
Someone behind the scenes must have a sense of the dramatic because the charge doesn’t come until Dean gets to the lyrics about rounding up people. The rush starts. A swarm of heavily protected law enforcement heading straight for the stage without a care for who gets in the way.
The sea of security guards who’d been at the edge of the stage part like the red sea for the riot squad. The officers scramble onto the stage and sprint up the stairs as fast as their gear allows them.
Castiel sees Dean kick at the hands trying to grab him from below. So far, he’s managing to keep away from their grasp but for how long. That is when he spots the lone officer standing in a clearing on the floor dead centre of the width of the stage a launcher in hand.
Of course, it’s no secret that four out of five band members aren’t human. Not that he’s ever thought about it, but he guesses he’d assumed that it was highly likely that a good number of the SWAT team are supernaturals too. At first it looked as if they want to take My Bloody Addiction down by force alone. Now, Castiel isn’t so sure.
Time slows. It passes like a freeze frame in The Matrix. Castiel watches in horror as the officer raises his weapon to his shoulder and fires. A red-coloured spray flies out, in which Castiel swears he can see individual droplets—a mix of dead man’s blood and holy water. A blend guaranteed to slow the vampires down without knocking them out. Luckily, he isn’t going to be affected by it. So, Castiel takes the fight to the douchebag tackling Andy to the floor.
Behind them, Eli keeps drumming. A steady and driving beat with one hand and the bass as he waves a drumstick in the air like he’s ready to take out an eye if anyone’s stupid enough to get that close without their visor down.
Andy, apparently, doesn’t need Castiel’s help. In a move that could be straight out of a comic book, he beats his guitar over a guy’s head. Although not hard enough for Andy to smash his instrument. The move stuns Andy’s attacker enough that he pauses for a few seconds, shaking his head.
Castiel watches mesmerized as, instead of continuing to use his only available weapon like a sensible person in their situation, Andy grins that stoned smile of his (no doubt made worse by the shit the riot squad sprayed My Bloody Addiction with) and picks back up playing again.
Dean and Sam have teamed up, using their stands as weapons. Their movements aren’t as sharp as they should be. It won’t be long before the horde of law enforcement officers overwhelm the whole of My Bloody Addiction. Dean shakes his head at Castiel a sign to fight his own battle and not try to come to their aid.
In his head, Castiel works out the last lyrics he heard Dean scream. So far nobody has pinned him. He can continue. Castiel does not have a singer’s voice, but nobody will care with the carnage all around them. It’s more the principle of the band not going quietly. This will be a show their fans will remember, perhaps encourage them to keep up the fight against President Carver Edlund.
Every time he’s heard that name, it twists something in Castiel’s gut. A part of him knows, not suspects, but knows that the man he’s seen on TV isn’t called that. A memory floats around his head. An image of a bookshelf with tattered copies of paperback novels in a series known as the Supernatural stories or—the Winchester Gospels—about the exploits of brothers Sam and Dean Winchester the true vessels of the Archangels Lucifer and Michael respectively.
If he had the time, Castiel might actively pursue that thought. What does it mean? How do all the strange instances, including Crowley being a demon, string together? He doesn’t, though. There’ll be time enough, he thinks, when My Bloody Addiction are all sitting in the maximum security prison waiting for Carver Edlund to sentence them.
Dean beats him to it. The final verse pushed out into the ether above the sound of battle. It’s not in tune and doesn’t go with the stuttering intermittent beat Andy and Eli are bringing. But somehow, Dean manages to finish...
"Not unless you’re going to mail them from Desolation Row.”
Castiel stands transfixed watching his friend until he can barely see him for the swarm of bodies clustered around him. He picks up the gauntlet as hands claw at him. If Dean can’t do any more, Castiel will deliver a final reminder to the crowd.
“You came here for more than a gig tonight. You came to remind yourselves what it is to live. We’re going to be gone for a while—but you can keep the fire burning.” Castiel adopts Andy’s tactic and swats at the two members of the riot squad surrounding him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam has already been subdued, and Dean is kneeling, keeping himself off the floor only because he’s clutching onto his mic stand.
“We are My Bloody Addiction!” Dean shouts as someone punches him square in the stomach. He lurches forward until it looks as if he’s going to tumble off the stage. Two pairs of hands stop him. Castiel grins as he sees Dean is still clutching his microphone.
A swipe to the back of his knee takes Castiel’s legs out from under him. He’s face down on the stage but he manages to twist himself so he can watch Dean’s moment of triumph as he yells one final encouragement to the crowd.
“But you guys—you bring the rebellion!” The last syllable is lost as the sound cuts out and there’s a tussle to separate Dean from the mic stand.
Castiel feels his arms being wrenched out of their sockets. The pain radiates through every muscle and joint as he struggles against the knee pinning him to the ground and the hands trying to cuff him. One swift kick to the side of the head from another SWAT member has him reeling enough that he stops fighting. The next thing he knows, he’s being hauled to his feet and half stumbling, half being dragged through the venue towards the door.
Outside a police van is waiting. Sam, Andy, and Eli are already sat on the bench seats, feet chained to a metal bar that runs along the inside of the vehicle, hands still bound behind their backs.
“You can’t get away with this fuckers! You don’t own me!” Dean is still fighting, yelling and getting the attention of the vultures from the press who are bound to be clustered around the theatre already.
Castiel draws strength from Dean’s continued resistance. “Free Will. We will not be controlled. We will not comply.”
In a final act of defiance, he shakes off a backhander and sucks down a deep breath as he shares a look and unspoken conversation with Dean. If this is the last of the world they get to see for a while, he’s going to go out swinging.
Together they raise their voices one final time in an echo of Dean’s last words from the stage. “We are My Bloody Addiction, but you...you are the revolution.”
A voice that Castiel knows says, “Yeah, yeah. You made your made your point, brother. Now please be a good little angel and shut up for five fucking minutes, would you? I had to leave a perfectly charming menage à douze for this.”
As he shoves Castiel into the back of the van with perhaps a little too much care for Castiel’s wellbeing than any of the other law enforcement officers have shown, the man lifts his helmet off his head.
“Balthazar?”
Balthazar winks at him as he slams the door shut.
Everything finally clicks into place. None of the past year has been real no matter how deeply Castiel, Dean, and Sam have been immersed in it. The angels have been playing games, creating universes, or slipping them through to other places within their father’s creation. The truth that has eluded Castiel is now obvious. He was, and probably still is, an angel. Only in this place has he been devoid of his memories and his powers.
“You know that dude?” Sam’s tone is incredulous as the van jerks away from the curb, halting Castiel’s spiral.
“No, and also yes. I haven’t said anything before but I’m beginning to suspect that—”
Castiel doesn’t get to finish his sentence. The hatch that separates the driver’s cab from the prisoners slides back to reveal another face he recognizes, and the scales fall from his eyes. He was right. None of this world was real. To prove his point, Andy and Eli freeze as if statues caught in some bizarre caricature of the human justice system.
“Well, hello there little bro, Dean-o, Samsquatch! Enjoy your trip to superstardom?”
“The Trickster!” Both Sam and Dean’s tones are murderous.
Castiel cocks his head to one side trying to puzzle out why they are calling his older brother, the Archangel Gabriel, The Trickster. He and most of heaven presumed their sibling was dead.
“I would say in the flesh... but that wouldn’t be true to form now, would it? Oh, stop looking like a confused Pterodactyl, Cassie. It’s me. Surprise! I’m back.”
Dean’s mouth is working but nothing comes out.
Sam, however, manages to form a sentence. The same one he used a minute ago.
“As I was about to explain, Sam. I suspect we have been transported to a pocket universe or one of God’s many other creations. What I didn’t expect was—”
“His totally amazing, awesome, and astoundingly handsome older brother to be the rescue party!”
“Gabriel, if you’d move this along, please. I have far more enticing company to return to who possess style, taste and—”
“Balthazar! Gabriel!” Castiel hears himself before he realizes that he’s opened his mouth and is yelling at the other angels. “What is going on?”
“Yeah. What gives, feathered dicks? I mean there was shit that didn’t make a lick of sense that I didn’t wanna poke too much into so I kind of ignored it. I suppose I got my answer know, eh? That was you screwing with us, wasn’t it?”
“That my friends and baby bro is the sixty-four dollar question, isn’t it?”
Dean growls.
Sam mutters an impressive string of expletives under his breath.
Castiel grinds his teeth, boiling with fury. He skewers his older brother with an expression that would make anything other than an archangel cower.
“Enough posturing, Gabe,” Balthazar says, reading the rising tide of anger in the van.
“Oh, very well.” A reluctant sounding Gabriel snaps his fingers and the police van dissolves around them until the backdrop is the inside of a drab, disused warehouse somewhere.
It takes a second for Castiel to readjust. When he does, he sees that there are only five of them, Eli and Andy a part of the other universe. He’s dressed back in Jimmy Novak’s clothes of ill-fitting suit and trench coat.
Sam and Dean are wearing their trademark layers, with flannels and blue jeans. Apprehensive, they prod around in their mouths. Unsurprisingly, they don’t find a second set of razor-sharp vampiric teeth. Castiel surmises making them vampires was Gabriel being a great big bag of dicks. A cruel joke funny only to the archangel.
“Happy now?”
“No.” Sam takes a step towards Gabriel who backs away, hands in the air.
“Please. Some of us, as I’ve already pointed, out have better things to do than hang around with these...” Balthazar trails off as he motions disparagingly at Castiel and the Winchesters. “Badly dressed lumberjacks and their rogue tax accountant angel.”
“Look, douchebags. I’m done doing the monkey dance, capisce? Cas! You got any idea what’s going on?”
Castiel shrugs. He’s still trying to get his head around the fact that his favourite older brother and his best friend, both of whom he’d assumed were dead are alive and standing in front of him.
“Tell you what, Dean-o. Since you asked soooo nicely and my baby bro over there is still trying to work out whether this is reality or another fake universe, I’ll tell you.”
“So generous! Don’t, uh, you know, strain yourself there, buddy.”
“You’ve all been too busy running around worrying about being the puppets in Dad’s big celebrity deathmatch that you forgot something.”
“Well, technically Cassie here didn’t forget,” Balthazar says as if his words make all the difference in the world. They don’t. “He’s too used to following orders.”
“Hey!” Castiel bristles. He’s the one who’s been on Earth in amongst the crap and trying to find a way through to their father or something to stop the Apocalypse. What the fuck have these two done except hide—Gabriel for millennia! If Balthazar’s barb was still true, he wouldn’t be standing here now. Wouldn’t have been part of the stupid alternate universe game. Although, he thinks he gets what Gabriel’s point is—they’ve been trying to avoid things, been on the defensive rather than making a stand
“Whoa. Can we get back to the point, here. What is it you reckon we’ve forgotten, Gabriel?” Sam is now the one making a placating gesture.
“Free Will. Fight back. You don’t want to star as Michael and Lucifer in a world-ending fight to the death? Don’t! Stop them. I believe in you as does my companion here who definitely wants to keep enjoying the finer things of life on this Earth. Get to it, boys! We’ll be watching. Oh, and when you see your friend Crowley, the King of the Crossroads—tell him to play his fucking part too.”
With the sound of rustling wings, both Gabriel and Balthazar fly off to who knows where.
Sam and Dean share a look. One of those silent Winchester brother conversations which has Castiel wishing he could read minds without having to touch the person. He does, however, know the determined expressions settling on their faces.
The Winchesters are going to war against the Angels, Demons, and an absent God. And Castiel? He’ll be with them every step of the way, irrespective of the cost. Free Will and making it up as you go, right?