Chapter Text
Darkness. Bubbles. Flashes of Hell skittered out of his mind, like a dream already starting to fade. Castiel opened his eyes in an attempt to discern his surroundings and felt the sting of saltwater. Wherever he was, it was very poorly lit. It was also filled with water, which meant he didn’t particularly want to stay. He tried to propel himself upward, but was prevented by a solid obstacle. His fingers ran across it, taking in the familiar sensation of wet wood. A similar surface barred his escape on either side and at his back, and he forced down the alarm that rushed through him at the thought of containment. Aware that he was running out of time to escape, he kicked on his cage once - hard - and the rotting box gave way. In his haste, he hardly noticed when a snag in the shattered planks of his prison tore his pant leg. Castiel swam upward, lungs burning. He was floundering, lost, until his head broke surface.
Castiel Bennett was in the middle of the ocean.
He cleared his nose, wiping the water out of his eyes while he tried to get his bearings. It was dusk, and the sea breeze was already starting to dry Castiel’s dark hair. He was weighted down by his clothing, his nice suit - which he wasn’t wearing when he died - soaked and feeling twice as heavy as usual.
It suddenly hit Castiel that he needed to find a way out of the water before his legs gave way. He scanned the horizon, looking for any sign of which way to swim. Panic started to sink in when he saw no signs of life or land, but he calmed when a shine of light caught his eye: a green shrimping boat glided towards him, his boat in shining armor. Castiel treaded water until the boat got close enough, and then flailed his limbs as much as he could to get the boat’s attention. After a minute or so, the boat veered off course, heading his way. He sank back into the water, conserving his energy until the boat reached him.
He was alive, and he was going to stay that way.
Needless to say, the fishermen aboard The Sea Nymph were as confused as Castiel was as to why he was three miles off the Santa Barbara coast. The sailor who hauled him out of the water, a black man in a beanie, shouted to someone else on the boat to abandon the net they had just pulled in and instead fetch a towel from the lower decks. “Jesus- okay, sit down here,” he muttered, helping Cas to sit on a metal bench, “What the hell are you doing so far from shore? You get riptided or something?”
Castiel shook his head, still in shock and trying to clear his head of water. “No, I- uh, the boat I was waiting tables on had a drunk captain. I got tossed off, and must have gotten knocked out,” he lied, almost disappointed in himself for falling into the habit so easily. “Ow,” he added half-heartedly, rubbing his head on his imaginary injury.
By then, the other man had gotten Castiel a towel, wrapping it around his shoulders. Castiel thanked him, using it to dry off his hair. “You’re lucky to be alive, my friend,” the fisherman- Dylan, the other man had called him- laughed, thumping him on the shoulder.
The sudden contact made Castiel jump, becoming hyper aware of his body. He hissed, undoing the buttons on his drying button down, and pulled it open. In the middle of his chest, red and raised, lay a burn in the shape of a handprint. It looked as if something had tried to tug his heart out of him. Or shoved him.
Dylan’s eyebrows raised so far they were obscured by his hat.
“Cattle brand accident,” Castiel lied quickly.
Cas thanked the fishermen, assuring them that he could find his way home from the docks. He didn’t need to confuse them by explaining that his home was a traveling ice cream truck run by his brother who may or may not still be alive.
The Santa Barbara skyline was beginning to darken, and Castiel quickly lost his way in the maze of warehouses and processing plants. He sat down on a stairway to rest, wet shoes still making an ungodly squelching noise. He rested his forehead in his palms, taking a few moments to breathe.
“Hey, man, you okay?”
Castiel turned to look behind him at the man who was trying to exit the doorway he was blocking. A tall man wearing a plastic apron was looking at Castiel, concern turning down the corners of his mouth, as he removed his thick rubber gloves.
“Yes,” Castiel responded, trying to wring some water out of his suit, “I just seem to have lost my way.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” the man huffed, draping his gloves over the railing. “Hey, stay there, I’ll be right back,” he said suddenly, disappearing back into the building. Castiel frowned, but remained where he was. Something poked him in the foot, and he removed his shoe to find a dead fish tucked in his instep. He sighed.
The door swung open again, and Castiel turned to see the man had returned with a bundle of items. “Okay, here. You’re gonna get cold, so take the jacket, alright? And some money for some food or a hotel room or something-”
“I really can’t accept-” Castiel started to refuse, standing to face the man.
“No, you’re taking this stuff. Consider it karma,” the man joked, his smile not quite meeting his eyes.
Castiel took a deep breath, before taking the offered items from the man. He unfolded the cloth to reveal a plastic bag with $200 dollars wrapped in a slightly-worn trench coat. He slipped the money into his pocket and looked up to thank the man, but he already appeared to have left.
Apart from a few moments of confusion, Castiel didn’t dwell on it too much. He turned back to the path and slid the trench coat on. His tie had been flipped backwards. He didn’t fix it.
Traveling in his brother’s van had always helped Castiel learn to sleep on the road, so the eight hour bus ride from Santa Barbara to Oakland passed quickly. Castiel was almost amused thinking that a man who had just come back to life could sleep so much. The bus dropped him off in downtown Oakland, if it could be called that: the retail district consisted of about two blocks of stores, none of which were operating with full enthusiasm. As such, the area was never really busy with people or traffic. Castiel decided to save him money anyway and walk the twelve blocks to Chuck’s house, as tired as he felt.
Once he reached the rickety construction, he regarded the small stairway up to the door with irritation. It took a good measure of his limited remaining strength to climb the hill it was perched on, reach out, and knock on the dirty red door.
Silence followed, and Castiel reached up to try again. Before he could the door creaked open to a scruffy looking Chuck Shurley, clad in a bathrobe, undershirt, and a pair of shorts that had definitely seen better days. Chuck’s expression didn’t change as he looked Castiel up and down, locked in a resigned exhaustion that pursed his lips and cast shadows on his gray eyes.
“Don’t even try,” Chuck sighed, and slammed the door in Cas’ face.
Castiel knocked again. No response, though this time the hunter had a feeling it wasn’t due to a delayed reaction.
“Chuck!” he yelled, “It’s me. Castiel. Answer the door.”
“No,” The other man’s voice was quiet, muffled by the wall separating them.
“Fine. I’ll prove it’s me. Drop a silver knife through the mail slot.”
There was a pause, and then the mail slot opened, a silver knife thrown past Castiel to skitter into the grass behind him.
Castiel huffed slightly and turned around, bending over to pick the knife up. He recognized it as one of his father’s old ones. The blade was chipped a little where it had once collided with a concrete wall in a poorly-advised throwing competition between Chuck and Gabriel, but was otherwise unremarkable. It was a practical weapon, one with which Chuck had enough sentimental connection to not mind being stabbed by, if whatever creature he thought Castiel was managed to get inside, but not so much connection to mind the possibility of losing it.
By the time Castiel had turned back to the door, Chuck had moved to one of the side windows, pushing back the blinds to watch. Castiel raised his arm and the knife, and drew the blade across the flat of his arm, making sure to avoid going too deep or hitting any major veins. He pulled it away, and waved his arm to show that he hadn’t been affected.
Chuck nodded nervously, as if he was almost afraid of this outcome. The blinds fell back into place and Castiel slipped the knife into his pocket. The door opened again. Castiel had just enough time to see Chuck again before he was splashed with water, directly in the face.
“Sorry about that,” Chuck apologized, handing him a small towel, “I, uh, had to make sure.”
Castiel pushed past him, wiping his face off. “I spent hours on a bus making myself dry. Thank you for that,” he grumbled, hanging his trench coat on one of the wall pegs. Chuck winced.
“Oh. Yeah. The whole ocean thing.”
“And do you know how ‘the whole ocean thing’ happened?” The two men made their way through the entryway and into the living room. Cas took his customary seat at the table to the left of the door, facing toward the window, and Chuck plopped down across from him, picking up his half finished drink. He considered it for a moment, then took a long swig. Castiel took the opportunity to peel off his salt-stiff suit jacket.
“Gabe couldn’t burn you, after you died,” Chuck paused, probably considering the event. It had been bloody, Castiel was sure, invisible Hellhounds ripping into his flesh. Cas hadn’t considered that at the time, too preoccupied by his own screaming.
“How does that translate into an aquatic burial?”
“It was my suggestion, actually. Since we couldn’t give you, y’know, a proper send off, we had to do something to make sure you didn’t come back, especially given, um, where you went. I figured that the ocean was deep enough that no one would find your body, and it had enough salt to keep away demons or ghosts. Oh. And we used some of your furniture wood to make your coffin. Sorry.”
“That’s alright. You didn’t think I would be needing it.”
Chuck stared for a long moment, then stood, walked over to Cas, and hauled him to his feet, wrapping his arms around the hunter. Unused to contact after his months dead, it took Castiel a moment to return the embrace with a single, tight squeeze before letting go. Chuck returned to his seat, mouth twitching with embarrassment, but no regret of the gesture.
“I guess you’ll want to tell Gabriel you're not dead anymore.”
“Yes. Do you have his current number?” Chuck shook his head.
“He dropped it in a toilet, and I never got the new one,” he admitted, “Look... when you died, it- He hasn’t been the same. I think he blamed himself, and I couldn’t convince him it wasn’t because, you know, you sold your soul to bring him back. He got really intense about hunting, and when I told him to slow down he ran off.”
“So you have no idea where he is?” Castiel began running possibilities through his head. It would be hard work, but he could probably track his older brother down if he called in a few favors and begged the right people for help. His thoughts were cut off, however, when Chuck answered.
“No, no. I know where he is.”
“How?”
“Well,” Chuck pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and played around with it for a few moments, then slid it across the table, “He might have gone all hardcore boogeyman-killer, but he never got the paranoia part right. He updated his facebook.”
“And?”
“Facebook tells you where people make their posts at. He’s in Santa Barbara, and I think he’s drunk. Or he just forgot how to spell properly. I’m not sure.”
Cas looked down at the screen, which was horribly dim, squinting to read it. Sure enough, there was a status, below the name Hugh Jass - Castiel’s least favorite of his brother’s aliases - and sure enough, it was terribly spelled.
Tired pf dtama. Followed very closely by a comment of *Tired of dramma. Then *Tired of...You know what I fucking mean. Castiel considered the text in front of him for a moment then, very slowly, allowed his head to fall and hit the table.
“I just came from Santa Barbara,” he groaned, and Chuck at least had the decency to look sympathetic.
“I’d give you a ride but...I don’t think you want to sit on the back of my bicycle.”
Castiel attempted to sleep that night, but instead found himself awaking from a fitful rest at five in the morning. He pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of most likely dirty jeans and silently exited his room, which he had been unsurprised to find was in the same state as before his death - but incredibly thankful, as it meant his bus card and some spare clothes were still in the top dresser drawer - and through the basement floor of Chuck’s house. It was an easy feat, but once he reached the rickety stairs he was met with a challenge. Cas took a deep breath before setting about the difficult task of ascending to the top floor without causing a racket.
After narrowly avoiding the rotten fifth step, the slippery seventh step, and the ninth step that sounded a little like a plague victim, he reached the top floor. He left a note about his whereabouts for Chuck, slipped on a simple black jacket, grabbed the silver knife from his new trench, and stepped out onto the dark street.
Castiel arrived at the bus station about two minutes before the first bus, a fact for which he was thankful, as the young indian woman sitting beside him was giving him far too much attention - and reminded him too much of Gabriel’s deceased girlfriend - for comfort. He managed to restrain a sigh of relief when she didn’t follow him onto the vehicle, but that calm was stolen from him when he glanced back at the stop and found it empty.
He shut his eyes and tried to put it out of mind. Unsurprisingly, sleep eluded him, and when he reached Santa Barbara once more the momentary encounter still lingered at the back of his mind. His furtive glances as he stepped off the bus earned him a few strange looks, but he ignored them.
The realization that he had no idea where Gabriel was staying did not help his mood. The next few hours were spent on a library computer- using a card number and pin stolen via a glance at the librarian’s computer- researching local hotels. Most he dismissed as too costly for his older sibling, but he was still left with a list of seven hotels. Luckily, his brother drove a very noticeable vehicle, and he needed no more than a cursory look around the parking lots of the first six to eliminate them as possibilities. The long walks between locations did not help his rapidly declining mood, but if he had had to convince every receptionist to tell him whether Gabriel had booked a room he might have committed homicide.
At the seventh motel, he found what he was looking for. In the corner of the lot was a large, green ice cream truck emblazoned with the logo Spooky Scoops. Unless the older Bennett had somehow started a successful chain in seven and a half months, Castiel had found his brother.
The Lucky Strikes Motel was poorly maintained, gaudily decorated by faded bowling paraphernalia and staffed by a bored looking teenager named Paul. When Castiel asked him for Gabriel’s room, Paul jerked his head to the side to get the hair out of his eyes and said something about company policy. Castiel rolled his eyes, sliding a twenty across the desk, and Paul’s attitude improved immensely.
“Room 102,” the boy simpered with a smile that was much less attractive than he probably thought it was. Cas thanked him and departed, relieved that he didn’t have to walk far.
When he reached the door, he knocked and waited.
Gabriel opened the door ever so slightly, peering at Cas with one eye from underneath the chain. He looked even more burnt out than Chuck, only his exhaustion was desperate instead of resigned. It took him a moment to process what he was seeing, and when he did, the hopelessness on his face was replaced by an angry blankness.
“Who are you and what are you doing with my brother’s face?” The barrel of a gun appeared from the crack, a few inches from Castiel’s stomach.
“Well, it is mine, so I think I’m entitled,” Castiel deadpanned. He heard an intake of breath from Gabe and imagined his sibling puffing up with rage.
“I might not have much of a right to tell someone to stop joking, given my personality. But I’m telling you to stop joking. Now.”
Castiel sighed, looking down at the bandage around his earlier wound, and used the same silver knife to cut into the forearm of his other arm. Gabriel stared at the blood as it dripped from the wound, the tension around his eyes fading. Before Cas could react, the door was unlocked and flung open, and Gabriel had him in an almost painfully tight hug. Castiel was faster to respond to this embrace than he was to Chuck’s, and it lasted longer, stretching into a comfortable silence that was punctuated with the occasional hitching breath from Gabriel.
“Ooh, who’s this? I was led to believe you were unattached,” A man leered from behind Gabriel, his smile as slick and oily as his voice.
“No, this is-” Gabe pulled away, keeping close by Castiel’s side. The stranger held up a hand to silence him.
“Don’t bother, I know when my cue to leave is,” He made to move past the brothers, then stopped, brushing his fingers against Gabriel’s face,“Oh, and make sure to call, will you Gabe? You have to make up for the interruption. And for not being truthful with me.”
Castiel stared after him as he left, then turned back to a slightly sputtering Gabriel.
“Were you going to...?” Castiel questioned, making hopeless hand motions.
“Going to what?”
“You’re straight.”
“I never said that.”
“It was implied.”
“I’d never expect that sort of heteronormativity from a card carrying queer like you, Cas,” Gabriel had pulled himself together somewhat, though his expression was a bit more openly fond than he usually allowed himself to be.
“I’m just-”
“Yeah, I know,” Gabriel made a dismissive gesture, “Luke’s the only guy I’ve ever, you know.”
“So this isn’t the first time you’ve met, I take it?”
“No,” Gabe scratched his nose absently, “I mean, it’s not like we quite have a thing per say. Just once or twice. He’s a good distraction from...you know,” He gestured toward Cas, then seemed to become very aware that they were in a public place, “Want to come in and, uh, tell your story?” Cas nodded, following Gabriel back into the room.
“So,” Gabriel turned, sitting on the bed, “How’d you perform Mission Impossible?”
“I was going to ask you the same,” Castiel frowned, confused, “I had assumed you made some sort of deal to free me from hell.”
“I would have loved to,” Gabriel said bitterly, standing up, “But you said not to bother. You died for me. What kind ungrateful douche would I be if I wasted my life trying to get you back?”
Castiel stayed silent, choosing to lean against the wall. “What were you doing here in Santa Barbara?” he asked instead.
“Tracking some demons. They’ve been causing some random problems, but started their own march to the sea a few days ago. I made camp here ‘cause I lost their trail.”
“Do you think it might be connected to the fact my body was dumped off this coast?” Cas asked, “Maybe they’re part of a group meant to reinstate me in this world.”
Gabriel folded his arms, “You think it was a demon that helped you spoon tunnel your way out of the underworld?”
“What else could it be? The Bennetts don’t have any friends with that amount of power.”
“But why would the guys who were so focused on putting you in Hell help you break out? I mean, you’re not a demon, so this wasn’t standard procedure.”
“Maybe it’s a rebel group trying to pull a coup. Or maybe I’m being tested. Either way, there are ways we can find out,” Castiel let out a deep breath, the new plan grounding him. Gabriel nodded, guilt still carving lines on his face. Cas met his brother’s eyes and sighed.
“We should go back to Chuck’s to regroup,” he decided, and Gabe’s expression dissolved into relief at the change of topic.
Near the end of their drive back to Oakland, Castiel remembered that Chuck’s fridge had been empty of all but beer when he arrived the night before and suggested they stop off at a small diner. Gabriel, eager to interrupt the tense silence, pulled off the highway and into a Denny’s parking lot.
The man at the front counter was old and balding, and he regarded them with a mild disdain. Cas elbowed Gabe in the ribs to stop him from complaining. They were seated quickly, however, and their waitress seemed cheery, in a worn out and matronly sort of way.
Cas flashed her an equally tired smile when she fluttered off to get them their drinks.
“I’m not angry at you,” he sighed, staring at Gabriel with unnerving intensity after they both had a chance to skim the menus and confirm that their favorites were still there. Gabe avoided his gaze, eyes sliding over to the desserts menu.
“I know,” Gabe flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Castiel nodded, and looked out the window, trying to hide his repressed disappointment.
The waitress returned with a water for Castiel and a strawberry milkshake for Gabriel, a kindly smile on her face. “Do you need some more time, sweeties?” She asked when she realized they weren’t looking at their menus.
“No. I’d like the mushroom swiss burger, please,” Castiel replied, keeping his voice quiet and polite as he handed her his menu.
“And I’d like the chocolate chip pancakes,” Gabriel added, smiling broadly.
He held out his menu, but instead of taking it the waitress grabbed his wrist and held it with superhuman strength. She smiled, eyes covered in blackness. Gabe looked around the restaurant just as the rest of the patrons all turned demonic stares at their table.
“Well, it looks like we have a bit of a problem here,” Gabe said to Castiel, who glared at his sarcasm.
“I don’t know if problem would be the right word,” the waitress cooed, grip tightening, “More like opportunity for discussion. You see, me and my compatriots aren’t here to kill you, we’re here to ask little bro a question.”
“I’m listening,” Castiel’s stare was downright venomous, leaning forward. Gabe watched as he palmed the salt shaker out of the demon’s sight line.
“We were just wondering, dear dead little Bennett boy, how exactly you got off the rack.”
Cas met Gabriel’s eyes briefly. “You mean it wasn’t you?” He said slowly, weighing the new fact on his tongue.
“No,” The demon shrugged, “And not any other demon either. Hell’s its own little battleground right now. We’ve got a body count through the roof, but no one to do a suspect sketch on who or what ripped Hell a new one. All we know is that someone wanted your buttered butt badly.”
“Well, that’s more than we know,” Cas said. The demon regarded him for a long moment, running her tongue against her teeth in consideration, then abruptly grabbed Gabriel’s head and slammed his face into the table. She smiled wickedly at Castiel.
“I guess the only thing to do is put you back then,” She jumped at him, and he threw the now open salt shaker at her face. She screamed, more in rage than in pain, and the man at the front desk appeared with a snarl.
“Christo,” Gabe shouted as he sat up, voice slightly distorted by his bleeding nose but not enough to ruin the effect. The assembled demons all winced, and the Cas took the opportunity to push the woman back. The Bennett’s slid out of the booth, Castiel holding up his silver knife and Gabe the small super soaker of holy water he kept tucked beside the pistol in his belt.
“How about no,” Castiel said, and the waitress let out a low growl.
“Fine, fine. But know this, Castiel,” She drew out the syllables, smiling widely, “We’re going to retrieve you, one way or another.”
The Bennett’s escaped the diner, never turning their backs, and slipped into the truck. It was silence, once more, but this quiet was almost a relief: the tenseness was caused by an external conflict, rather than the tangle of emotions between them.
Cas returned to Chuck’s house about two hours after the encounter at the diner, carrying a bag from a local clothing store and a Thai takeout box from his decidedly less stressful second attempt at dinner. He had purchased a new suit to replaced his salt-encrusted old one, nearly identical aside from a lack of holes, stains, and smell of sea water.
As he approached, he noticed something amiss. The door was propped open, something Chuck would never do given how much he complained about “letting the cold air out”. Castiel removed the gun from his belt, feeling the familiar weight of it in his palm for the first time since his resurrection. He pushed the door open, weapon pointed ahead of him carefully.
Instead of the scene he had feared encountering, he saw Chuck hovering on the edge of the front room, wringing his hands. A stranger faced away from him, discussing something with Chuck in a quiet voice. Castiel put away his gun just as Chuck noticed him.
“Oh! Hey, Castiel. Did you find what you needed?”
“Yes,” Cas held up his purchase, then set it beside the door. “Who is this?” he asked as he nodded politely to the red-headed woman sitting at Chuck’s kitchen table. She jerked her head back in greeting, face solemn. Standing up, the stranger walked over to Cas and held out a hand. He shook it, looking straight into her eyes. When she stared back unperturbed, his estimation of her rose.
“My name is Anna Milton. I’m a psychic,” she stated, not breaking contact with him. She was pretty, but with an abstractly melancholy air about her person that seemed to follow many psychics.
“She can help us figure out what did this,” Chuck added, running a hand through his hair. He smiled at her and she returned the expression, a quick, closed half smile.
“Yeah. And I owed him a favor after he got the Department of Mental Health off my back.”
Chuck shrugged, “I’m sure you would have figured something out. I mean, you aren’t actually crazy.”
“I didn’t know that at the time,” She turned to Cas, explaining, “I can hear things from beyond this world. The whole voices in my head might have gotten me in a bit of trouble with my high school counselor. But I think it will be helpful for finding out what got you out of Hell.”
Anna returned to her seat and Castiel took the one next to her, while Chuck hovered nervously. The door slammed open and the scruffy man jumped, then turned to glare at Gabriel, who ignored the venomous stare with practiced ease.
“What’s up? Did I miss anything? Ooh, who’s this beautiful young lady?” he smiled flirtatiously at Anna, taking the seat across from her at the table.
“My name is Anna Milton, I’m a psychic, and no,” She said, her expression that of a person who often had to deal with such attentions. Gabriel looked hurt for an instant but quickly recovered, shrugging and tipping his chair onto its back two legs. Chuck and Castiel let out a simultaneous sigh at his antics.
“I’ll go get the stuff for the seance,” Chuck said, and disappeared into one of the many rooms in his house that Castiel had never seen.
“So what are you going to be seancing for?” Gabriel asked, “Chuck just said to come over.”
“I’m going to see if I can find out what brought your brother back from the dead,” Anna explained.
Gabriel brought the front two legs of his chair back onto the ground. “Oh. Well, that is something important. I would have come faster if I’d known.”
“No you wouldn’t have,” Castiel muttered.
“Would too!” Gabriel sounded almost genuinely offended, but his voice had a bit of a slur to it that ruined any attempt at sounding sincere. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“If you were drunk before you found out I was alive, I would have thought it unhealthy but touching. Instead you wait until you know I’m back to disappear for an entire day and then show up obviously intoxicated after drinking alone.”
“I’m not drunk,” Gabriel tapped his fingers against the table hyperactively.
“You’re something.”
“And so what if I am, Mr. Recreational Marijuana User?” Gabe’s brow furrowed, but he showed no other outward signs of anger.
“I just think it’s a little fucked up that me being alive is what has you so upset enough to get wasted,” Castiel’s voice was more even then he would have liked given the subject of conversation. Gabe let out a little burst of harsh laughter.
“You have no idea what it was like for me when you were dead,” Gabriel breathed. His voice was low, flat, a lack of inflection there that Castiel recognized from his brother’s fights with their father. It meant that he had stepped over a line, somewhere, and unlike in those strange father-son interactions of the past its clear where that line was.
“Oh,” Cas muttered, not sure what else to say. Because looking at his brother now, he can imagine. Before he could properly apologize, however, Chuck returned. Gabriel shook off the atmosphere of the moment like a dog shook off water, mouth turning up into an easy smile. Chuck looked between the two brothers.
“Did I miss something?”
“No,” Castiel said.
“Yes,” Anna looked down at her nails, “They were having an emotional moment.”
“Yeah, they do that,” Chuck set down the pile of supplies in his arms, “So, this is everything, yeah?”
“Three silver candles, salt, a silver bowl, a nightingale feather,” Anna touched each of the objects as she named them, “Yeah, that’s it. Can you go fill the bowl with water? It doesn’t have to be holy water, but it does need to be filtered.” Chuck nodded and took the bowl into the kitchen. Anna pulled a box of matches from her pocket and lit the candles, placing them in a triangle at the center of the table. When Chuck returned, she took the bowl and poured some salt into the water, stirring it with a spoon handed to her. Then she stood, walking around the table and sprinkling the salt water in a circle. Once finished, she set the half-filled bowl in the center of the shape and set the feather in the water.
“We need to sit in a circle around the table. But stay inside the circle,” The three men arranged themselves. Anna shut off the lights and took her place, “Alright. This will work better with a focus. Do you have something it touched?”
“No I... wait,” Castiel paused, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt and pulling the fabric aside to reveal the handprint seared over his anti-possession tattoo. He’d have to get that redone later. “I believe this belongs to whatever raised me.”
“Good,” Anna muttered, “Now I need everyone to hold hands except for Castiel and myself,” They did, and Anna reached out, her small hand settling over the larger wound. Her touch tingled uncomfortably against his the burn, but Cas swallowed the irritation. Anna shut her eyes, the dim glow of the candles casting dark shadows on her face. Castiel followed her example, closing his eyes. In the darkness, he heard Anna’s voice, professional and practiced.
“Spirit, we bring you gifts from life into death. Commune with us and move among us,” Silence. Castiel felt Chuck’s hand twitching nervously against his.
“Spirit, I command you. Speak to us.” More silence.
“Are you sure this is-” Gabriel’s complaint cut off with a yelp and something that sounded like “My foot!” Anna continued, irritation coloring her voice.
“Speak, spirit. I invoke, conjure and command thee, commune with us and move among us,” She repeated the chant once, twice, her hand pressing slightly harder against Castiel’s chest.
As she finished the third repetition, the darkness in front of Cas’ lids brightened to a rosy red.
“Hello Decanusel,” Anna greeted the light, and Castiel had to resist the urge to open his eyes. The light was familiar, the name less so, but it there was still a tug of recognition when it was spoken aloud, “No, Decanusel, don’t try that with me. Whatever you are, I can handle it,” Castiel heard a low buzzing, like electrical wire, a the center of the table.
“Who are you, and what business do you have with Castiel Bennett?” Anna asked, and there was a moment of silence, “Stop whispering and tell me!”
The light brightened to a painful red, and Castiel screwed his eyes shut. The buzzing grew to an annoying hum, though it was obviously more than just a slight bother for Anna. She let go of his chest with a scream and he heard her chair fall backward over the din. Gabriel also let out a yell, though he seemed to have stayed in his seat.
The light flickered out and Castiel slowly opened his eyes.
The room was dark once more, the candles burnt down to nubs and tipped over, wax spilling across the white table cloth. The feather lay inside the empty bowl, bone dry and singed around the edges. Gabriel was still in his chair, eyes wide and clear of the effects of whatever he had taken before arriving but otherwise seemingly fine. As Castiel watched him, he let out a shuddering breath and relaxed against the hard, wooden chair back. He gave his brother a reassuring nod, and they both turned their heads to look at the fallen medium.
Anna was curled up on the floor, eyes screwed shut and hands clamped over her ears. Chuck knelt at her side, trying to pull her arms away from her head.
“Anna. Anna? It’s over, Anna, it’s gone. You can take away your hands now,” Chuck sounded desperate. After a minute or so, her hazel eyes opened and she turned, meeting Chuck’s gaze. Her hands left her ears, palms covered in blood that continued to stream down the sides of her head.
“Are you okay?” He asked. She shook her head.
“What are you saying?” She asked, voice hitching a little at the end of her sentence, “Oh God. I can’t hear. I can’t hear!”
Early the next morning, the parking lot of Denny’s was empty. Parked in an alley behind it, however, was a dark green ice cream truck.
Gabriel’s foot tapped arhythmically against the cold pavement behind the diner. He checked his watch and let out a groan. Kali was a full ten minutes late and his nerves were fried. Whatever that light at the seance was, Gabe hated it on principle for burning away the demon blood he had just gotten into his veins. What’s more, it hadn’t eased his craving at all. So instead of doing his job, saving people and getting rid of demons, he was standing outside in the middle of the night and shivering from withdrawal.
“Looking scrawny, shortstop.”
“Kali was supposed to meet me here,” Gabriel shot back, turning around to face the smug demon behind him.
“Aww, does this mean you don’t like me?” Lucifer asked, sounding not at all upset. He wasn’t bothering to hide his black eyes; he never did, aside from the few instances where he had to be seen in public.
“Can it, Lucifer. Where is she?” Her absence had him worried, really. Kali had a lot of flaws, but tardiness was not one of them. His anxiety eased when Lucifer let out a put upon sigh. The other demon wouldn’t be so calm if something had happened to the woman who - they both acknowledged - had the two of them whipped.
“She’s around,” Lucifer gestured vaguely, “But she noticed that all that blood I let you drink up this morning is mysteriously gone, and she wants to know what gives.”
“If she’d just let me call her-”
“Too dangerous, now that your dearest bro is walking the earth again. The mousey little researcher would be easy to bullshit, but Castiel might ruin our plans. Or make you ruin them for him.”
“You think I would back out of this because Cas told me to?”
“I know you would back out if your little brother told you to. I know what you are, Gabriel.”
“Whatever. The point is, I could have explained this over the phone.”
“Well too bad. Explain it now.”
“Chuck brought in a medium to try and figure out what sprung Cas from Hell. Whatever it was burned the blood out of me. Do you honestly think I’d get rid of it on purpose?”
“Maybe.”
“You said you know what I am. What I am is a junkie. I’m miserable and crashing right now, Lucy, and I’d appreciate it if you’d help me,” Gabe spat back. Lucifer rolled his eyes at the nickname, but rolled up the sleeve of his shirt nonetheless. Flipping a switchblade out of somewhere, he casually cut into the skin of his wrist and held it out to Gabriel. The hunter grabbed the offered arm and began to drink.
“Not even a thank you,” Lucifer grumbled. Gabriel responded with a middle finger, too distracted to do much else, “I feel unappreciated,” he continued, though this sounded almost fond. Gabe felt the blood drip down his throat, coating it with sticky redness as it slid into his stomach and seemed to fill him up from his toes to the top of his head. Lucifer pulled away just as the blood began to spread into Gabe’s veins, and an abstract part of the hunter’s brain was ashamed of the little whine that escaped his mouth. Then the tickling sensation of a high was upon him, and the petulant noise turned to a euphoric giggle.
“Thank you,” he breathed, smiling.
“That’s better. Now get a hold of yourself. You can’t exorcise demons if you’re busy tripping everywhere and laughing your ass off,” Lucifer chuckled, slapping Gabriel lightly. When the human noticed it was the same arm he had previously drunk from, the mental effort he expended not grabbing it and draining Lucifer dry was enough to bring him back to earth.
“Alright. In I go,” Gabriel smiled and circled the diner, entering from the front.
He didn’t know what he expected to find in the demon-infested restaurant, but a room full of corpses wasn’t it. All of the workers from earlier that day were strewn about the room, unmoving. Gabe tilted back one of their heads and let out an involuntary hiss of sympathy for the monster. Its eyes were burnt out of its sockets, not something he recognized, but the blood dripping from its ears made the things cause of death easy to identify.
“Well don’t you move fast, you interfering asshole?” He was about to stand and leave when a demonic presence appeared off to his left. The waitress who had served them tackled him to the ground and held down his wrists, nails digging into the skin like claws. He struggled against the demon, but she held firm, empty eye sockets blinking down at him.
“What did this?” he asked, and the waitress snarled at him.
“The end of everything, demon blood boy. We’re all going to die, do you understand that? You, and your precious little resurrected brother.”
“What. Did. This?” She had the audacity to laugh at Gabe then, and spat at him. He could smell a bit of blood in the saliva when it landed on his face, and just barely resisted the urge to lick it off.
“Go to Hell,” she whispered in his ear, voice venomous.
“Naw, not today. But what about you?” He shut his eyes, reaching out with his mind into the very core of the demon’s roiling black essence and yanking. She let out a high-pitched scream, fingers digging deeper into Gabriel’s wrists and drawing little pinpricks of blood, before the hunter felt the hot rush of smoke against his face as the monster was pulled from their vessel. Beneath the collapsed and undoubtedly dead human body, he felt the blackness attempting to escape skyward, but he caught her before it reached the ceiling, pulling her down into Hell. She struggled and screeched, filling his mind with nails-on-chalkboard scream, before the screams were muffled by the shutting of the Earth’s core behind her as she disappeared into the underworld.
Gabriel let out a deep breath, opening his eyes and pushing the corpse off of him. Somewhere off to his left, he heard a slow clapping.
“Good job, Gabriel. That was,” Kali looked down at a stopwatch that she held in her perfectly manicured hand, “Less than a minute. A new record.”
“But the girl died,” he protested as he knelt beside the empty body, shutting her eyelids. Kali shrugged.
“Her eyes were burnt out, I don’t think there was much chance of saving her even if she had survived the exorcism.”
“Still-” Kali cut him off, rolling her eyes.
“Are you here to complain about your shortcomings or figure out how to kill demons?”
“You know I-”
“And what’s more important to you? Figuring out how to make sure that a demon’s gone for good or saving a few humans and letting that demon possess someone else?” She moved to stand by his side, letting her hand rest on his shoulder. He leaned into her touch, and she played with his hair. “We don’t have time for sentimentality, Gabriel,” she sighed.
“I know,” He let out a shuddering breath, “But I wish we did.”
She didn’t try and say that she thought the same, which was probably a good thing. He didn’t know if he could handle such an obvious lie. Instead she simply helped him stand, wrapping an arm around his waist and whispering some admittedly enticing promises in his ear. He let her lead him outside, where Lucifer was leaning against a wall and waiting for them. She let Gabriel kiss her, and he thought that he should probably be thankful that the only two people who knew about his less-than-stellar habits were so damn distracting.
Stoneman Elementary was located 23 miles south of downtown San Francisco. Closed years ago when the school district had to make major, the complex stood abandoned. The school had been Chuck’s first suggestion when Castiel asked him for the nearest safe empty space. The inside walls of room 25-B, the gymnasium, were covered with spray painted sigils. Most of it was black, except for a section that was pink when the black paint had run out.
“Is that all of them?” Castiel asked from the floor, flattening a corner of the tarp laid out with their weapons. His tone wasn’t comforting, but it was obvious he didn’t like performing such a dangerous ritual without his normal partner, who decided to run a restock trip on his ice cream van.
“I mean, we could write out the whole Bible here, but if this Decanusel wants to put pokers up our asses then there’s not much I can do,” Chuck huffed nervously, accidentally knocking over a spray can. He paused for a moment, picked up the can, and sprayed another symbol onto the wall. “Are you sure you wanna do this, Cas? I mean, that thing nearly killed Anna. It’s not going to be happy.”
“Yes,” Castiel replied, tone resolute.
Chuck sighed, “Our joint funeral, I guess.” He picked up the book of spells, already opened to a yellowed page, and read a passage over the summoning ingredients that had already been set out. His normally timid voice echoed through the open space, amplified by the power of his words.
Thunder sounded and Castiel stood, slipping his knife out of his pocket. A tree outside slapped against the high windows, and rain sloshed against the panes. The din filled his ears, drowning out the words of the ritual.
The sound of the storm outside was punctuated by a loud thud, as though a meteor had struck the heavy concrete roof. The floodlights sparked and shut off, leaving only the light from the outside street lamps, which cast a dim glow that failed to touch all the corners of the large room. Castiel turned to Chuck, who grasped the ends of his sleeves nervously, barely visible in the newly born shadows.
Suddenly, the gym doors slammed open and a dark figure stepped through. Castiel squinted to make out the shape. It looked to be a man taller than himself, in nondescript jeans and a flannel jacket. The hunter gripped his knife tighter, prepared to lunge at the summoned being.
"You know, I said not to summon me," the man- Decanusel, Castiel assumed- huffed, crossing his arms.
“You mean it worked?” Chuck piped up, excited.
“Nope. I actually just felt it was about time to say hi,” the creature laughed.
Castiel stabbed him.
The knife went clean into the man's shoulder, wedging between bone and muscle. Decanusel didn't flinch, even when Chuck shot him in the back with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. The man suddenly turned, and pressed two fingers to Chuck's head, who slumped to the floor, nearly hitting his head on the summoning bowl.
Castiel moved to help Chuck, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, he's fine, but we need to talk one-on-one," the creature implored.
Castiel took a step back, wiping his mouth off. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm the dude who broke your ass out of Hell, that's who," Decanusel huffed. He barely paid attention to Castiel, instead taking long looks at the symbols graffitied around the room.
"Yes, but what kind of creature are you?" Castiel demanded, reaching over to reclaim his knife.
Decanusel flinched back but, realizing what Castiel was attempting, pulled the knife out himself.
"I'm an angel," he stated plainly, offering Castiel his knife back.
Castiel eyed him warily as he took the knife back. "An angel," he parroted back.
"Yeah, an angel," The creature replied impatiently.
“Forgive me for being without faith,” Castiel shot back, “but I’d like you to prove that.”
“Yeah, sure,” Decanusel huffed, backing up a few steps, “Let me just stretch out a bit, wait for a bit of lightning-”
On cue, several bolts of lightning hit in the distance, illuminating the gym in short bursts. Shadowed behind the man were two semi-transparent wings, stretching at least a foot above his head and three feet to either side.
Castiel took a deep breath, processing the visual proof. His shoes squeaked on the gym floor as he decided what to say next. "What does an angel want with me? Are you planning to rob me of one of my senses like you did to Anna?" Castiel asked, lowering his knife hand to his side.
“Look, you think I’m happy about that?” The angel shot back angrily, “I told her to back down. It’s not my fault she’s pushy as shit.”
“Are angels allowed to swear?” Castiel wondered out loud, unable to help himself.
“You really think that’s the most important question on your Q and A list right now?”
Castiel glowered at him, squaring his stance. “Why was I rescued?” he asked, voice low and threatening. Decausel seemed unimpressed.
“As hard as it is to believe, I was actually ordered to,” He explained, shrugging. The gesture was awkward, almost human.
“Why would you be ordered to save me?” Castiel frowned, tilting his head suspiciously.
“Heaven needs you in the playing field. There’s a lot going on up there,” Decanusel made a vague upwards hand motion, “And down there,” A sweeping motion toward the floor, “There are wars to prevent, demons to fight.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Oh come on, Castiel. Have you ever read an Abrahamic holy text before? We’re all about our Righteous Men up in Heaven. And guess what, you’re the lucky winner!”
Castiel furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to ask again what the celestial creature was talking about, but groan from Chuck distracted him, and when he turned back, the gym was empty.
The rain continued to pour.