Big Bang Fic: Immigrant Song (Episode 6x01)

[trinityofone]

Dean was busy picking out curtains when Castiel returned. “Hi, honey, I’m...home?”

The words emerged sounding choked. “Cas, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, face creasing in concern.

“I’m not...sure.” Castiel lowered himself shakily into a chair at the table where Dean had spread the samples. His eyes were busy, darting all around the room. “Doesn’t something feel...odd to you?”

Dean smiled and decided to humor him. He glanced around at the bright, cheery yellow walls, cocked his head at the low hum of the refrigerator and the quiet chirp of crickets outside the screen door. “Nope, looks like our kitchen to me. What’s the matter? Rough day at work?”

He reached out across the table to touch Castiel’s hand, but Cas drew back, frowning. “No, I. I’m not sure.” He looked up at Dean again, the lines of worry on his face smoothing away. “I suppose it’s nothing.”

“Good,” said Dean, and their smiles mirrored and magnified one another. Dean got to his feet. “Let me know what you think of those,” he said, inclining his head toward the samples. “I’ll get dinner started.” He pulled his apron off its hook and tied the strings around his waist. “Sammy, any requests?” he shouted.

Sam came lumbering into the kitchen, holding his heavily pregnant stomach. “Yeah, do we have any pickles?”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but before he could get a word out, a red-tipped streak flew past him and exploded in the corner behind the fridge. Dean was busy throwing himself in front of Sam, but he still saw the two figures as they emerged: a tall, red-headed woman jerking a short, dark-haired guy by the ear. “Ow! Okay, okay,” said the strange guy who was for some reason in the middle of their kitchen. “I’ll put it back, all right? Let go!”

The woman let go. Dean, Sam, and Cas watched, slack-jawed, as the man straightened up with a sigh. “I swear, I’m the only one in this family with the slightest sense of humor.” Then with a final roll of his eyes, he snapped his fingers.

The motel room’s nicotine-stained walls assaulted Dean like a slap. Behind him he heard Sam gasp, and Dean turned enough to catch sight of his brother scrambling to lift his shirt and perform a relieved examination of his abs. Okay, Dean wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended over that one. But then he turned farther and saw Castiel’s frown, and felt all traces of amusement wash out of him.

“Gabriel. That was uncalled for.” Castiel had a way of making a simple admonition sound like a dire threat, which Dean had come to appreciate.

“You’re a dick,” said Anna, much more succinctly. She folded her arms and stood glaring at her brother. “Am I really going to have to spend every second until my powers fade away following you around and making sure you behave?”

“Yeah, and how’s the great waning going for you so far?” Gabriel asked, pulling a Twix out of his pocket and biting off one end with a crunch. (Dean would bet good money that the former archangel was the one who came up with that damn “Two for me, none for you” campaign.) “Enjoying the descent into humanity?”

Anna met his gaze without a twitch. “As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen soon enough. I only wish I were as far along as Castiel.”

Castiel made a face that suggested he wished he wasn’t as far along as Castiel.

Gabriel shook his head and made condescending tisking noises. “When are you going to learn that the pagans are where it’s at?” He cocked an eyebrow at Castiel, confidentially. “There are a lot of openings right now. I could put in a good word for you, bro.”

Castiel regarded him coolly. “No, thank you,” he said, shoulders stiff.

“All right.” Gabriel looked regretful, like Castiel had just missed out on an exciting investment opportunity for which Gabriel had offered to get him in on the ground floor. “Well, have fun bouncing around in the Mystery Machine with these two. Try not to end up some werewolf’s chew toy.”

“Screw you,” Dean managed to interject. “We were grateful for the eleventh-hour sacrifice and all, but it doesn't give you the right to screw around with us just because Pops made another stellar executive decision and brought you back.”

Gabriel grinned like a shark and tried to wrap a fraternal arm around Anna's shoulder. She out-maneuvered him neatly. “Us Winchester-helping angels need to stick together,” he said, undeterred. “After all, you wouldn’t be enjoying this glamorous post-averted-apocalypse lifestyle,” he gave their surroundings a long, sad look and a slow, sorry shake of his head, “if it weren’t for little old me.”

Dean glanced up at the ceiling. “Yeah, hi, God. It's me, Dean. You can take him back now, thanks a bundle.”

“You wound me,” said Gabriel with an impressive lack of sincerity. His hands dropped to his hips. “Okay, well I guess I’ve worn out my welcome. See you, Shaggy,” he gave Dean a nod. Then he winked at Sam. “Velma.”

He vanished. Sam stared at the place the former archangel had been, his jaw set tight.

“Dude, he just called you a lesbian.”

Sam looked like he wished he could figure out a discreet way to pat down his abs again. “Someday I am going to make that little shit really feel the fact that I have a foot on him.”

Anna let out a sigh. “You’d think as the only three angels left on Earth, we’d be able to get along.”

The crickets were gone along with the screen door and the curtain samples, but for a second Dean felt like he could hear them in the strained silence of the room. “Right,” he said, “because it's not like any of us have ever tried to kill any of the others or anything.”

“I said I was sorry.” Anna actually looked hurt: her arms folded, the turn of her mouth petulant. It was the most human Dean had seen her since they'd first met, and it shocked him into something like a forgiving nod.

“Okay,” he said a second later, shaking himself. “So this little family reunion’s been fun. Let’s do it again sometime never, all right?”

Anna held up her hands. “I just came by to give Gabe a slap on the wrist. I’ve got a life to get back to, you know.”

Dean still wasn’t sure if he thought Anna was incredibly brave or completely crazy to be attempting to resume her old life as if she hadn’t started hearing voices, been locked in a loony bin, discovered her parents were murdered by demons, discovered she was an angel, and died a couple of times. Sure, he knew a thing or two about crawling out of your own grave, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and going about your business—but not when you had ordinary friends and family members to face. Not when you were planning to pretend like any of this was normal.

Sam surprised Dean by throwing her a magnanimous half-smile. “Give us a call if you need anything.”

Her mouth twitched, not quite a grin. “I’ve got your number. Yours too, Cas,” she added with a sudden gentleness; and then she was gone.

Dean, Sam, and Castiel looked around at each other, the three points of a loose triangle in a suddenly oddly empty room. Sam ran a hand through his hair. “What were we doing again?”

Dean let out a snort. “I have no idea.”

---

“Okay, that’s good,” Dean said, glancing again between the rolling black pavement and Castiel’s curled, sharp-knuckled hands. “You’re getting really smooth. Now why don’t we try pulling into that spot?”

“We’ve done that,” Castiel said. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, suddenly losing pitch; Dean had learned better than to laugh and make jokes about Castiel going through puberty in reverse. It made Cas’ eyes go cold and dead, and it didn’t actually do anything to make Dean feel less nervous.

“We’re practicing,” Dean said, keeping his focus. “That’s what practicing is: doing the same thing over and over until you’re good at it.”

“I can’t wait to be an expert at driving a car in slow circles around a parking lot.”

Jeeze. It looked like Cas might be able to win sarcasm back from Gabriel yet.

“My car, my rules,” Dean said stubbornly. Great, and now he sounded like Dad.

Castiel gave him a very deliberate look before swinging the Impala a bit too sharply into the slot and yanking on the parking brake. “Whoa!” Dean said. “Uncool! You got a problem, take it out on me, not on her!”

He felt like he ought to have more to add to that, but Cas had let out a shuddering breath, was already nodding his head. “Sorry,” he said, and swallowed hard: “My apologies.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, trying to study Cas without making it obvious that that was what he was doing. Then he remembered that Uncomfortable Stares were pretty much a cornerstone of his and Castiel’s relationship. So he stared openly at Cas’ bent head, at his hands as the opened and closed around the Impala’s steering wheel.

“Hey,” Dean said. “Are you—”

Dean totally didn’t jump when Sam tapped on the passenger-side window. “I think I found us something,” Sam announced, grinning widely.

“Finally,” said Cas, unbuckling his seatbelt and letting it snap back with too much force. He slid quickly out of the car.

“Yeah, great,” Dean told the empty vehicle. He followed them back inside the motel room.

Sam had several tabs of obituaries open on his laptop. Dean clicked through, glancing at and then glancing away from a series of photos of handsome, serious-faced young men. “A bunch of dead college students,” he summarized, stepping aside to give Castiel a chance to look.

“They were struck by lightning?” Castiel said after a moment, raising an eyebrow.

“Two of them, yeah.” Sam’s eyes had that shiny, glazed look that suggested he was deep in geeky research heaven. “The third was gored by a bull.”

Cas was clearly hooked. Dean took a seat on the bed and watched the two of them hunker down at the table. “They all attended the same university and were all straight-A students,” Castiel said, examining Sam’s notes. “Seniors. Two were members of the same fraternal organization, and two of the obituaries also mention activity in student government.”

“Are you making a Venn Diagram?” Dean asked, interrupting whatever Sam’s enthusiastic nod was about to convey. They turned and stared at him.

Dean shrugged. “You had me at ‘gored by a bull,’” he said. “Let’s hit the road already.”

Cas perked up a bit. “Can I drive?”

Dean laughed and laughed and laughed. “No.”

He didn’t miss the conciliatory pat Sam gave Cas’ shoulder. “Nice try.”

They loaded the car quickly, a well-oiled machine. Closing the trunk, it made Dean pause to think how easily, in a way, they had integrated Cas into their routine: the extra duffle bag packed with Dean’s cast-offs and thrift store finds; Sam and Cas standing by the passenger-side door and throwing rock-paper-scissors in place of calling shotgun. Years of going up against Dean had messed with Sam’s strategy: “Paper covers rock,” Cas said with a smirk.

Sam sighed and clambered into the back. “Dean, sometimes you should let other people have a turn.”

“It’s my car,” Dean said automatically, the last half of the sentence drowned out by Sam and Cas chiming in with “your car.”

“We know,” Sam said. “We’re not trying to take it away from you.”

“I might want my own car,” Cas said, like he was still practicing wanting things. Doing the same thing over and over until you get good at it, Dean thought.

“Oh yeah? And what kind of car would you want?” Dean smiled as he listened to the sound of the Impala opening up as she hit the highway; as far as he was concerned, there was really no answer besides this one.

Cas appeared to be giving the question some thought. “Well?” Dean prompted.

“A plane,” said Castiel, definitively.

“A plane?”

“Yes,” said Cas, looking satisfied with himself. “A jet.”

Sam started cracking up.

“A jet? What are you, Wonder Woman?”

Saying this immediately planted the image of Castiel dressed as Wonder Woman in Dean’s mind. Said mind stuttered and died halfway up hypothetical Wonder Woman-Cas’ bare thighs; Dean fumbled quickly for the radio dial.

“You asked me what I wanted,” said Castiel, over the sudden blast of Metallica. “I want something that goes really fast and can fly.”

Sam stopped laughing. “Uh, noted,” said Dean.

An awkward silence should be impossible when music was playing, Dean thought.

“I bet Sam wants a pony,” he said loudly.

Dean didn’t have to look in the mirror to see that Sam was rolling his eyes. “Yes, Dean. I want a pony.”

“A pretty pretty pony with pink fur.” Dean, though warming to his theme, realized this was wrong. “Hair. And you can braid its...” He gestured. “Mane-thing.”

“Why not just make it a unicorn?” Sam said with a sigh.

“Heh, yeah, and Cas can tame it for you. Because he’s, you know...”

“Exceedingly brave?” suggested Castiel, calmly. He leveled Dean with a look. “Unicorns are quite deadly, you know,” he continued. “They eviscerate their victims with their horns and then consume the person’s genitals while they still breathe. Fortunately, they are nearly extinct.”

Dean did glance in the mirror this time; Sam looked like he was about to be sick.

“Their manes are very shiny, though,” Cas said, picking at a hole above the knee of his jeans.

It took Dean another twenty miles to realize that Cas was fucking with them.

---

The college campus was all stern grey stone—very impressive-looking, Dean supposed, although like the angels’ glitzy interior design, it mostly just looked douchey to him. Sam, however, got out of the car with a sigh ready on his lips. He was already looking toward the library lustily. “Go for it,” Dean said, giving his brother a light push on the shoulder—which because Sam was a freakin’ giant, didn’t do very much. “Cas and I will go check out the frat—what was it called again?”

“Delta Kappa Epsilon.”

“Delta Crappy Epsilon. Got it.”

Sam waved him off, leaving Dean to turn to Cas. He inspected Castiel’s outfit: ragged jeans, pale green shirt, denim jacket. As usual, he looked sort of rumpled and messy, a couple of elbow patches away from the quintessential absent-minded professor. “I hope this frat pledges dorks,” Dean said, fixing Cas’ upturned collar.

Cas’ blatant nerdiness ended up not being the problem. “Aren’t you a little...old?” the first couple of guys Dean tried to pull his “we’re visiting brothers from Ohio” thing on asked.

“We’re mature students,” Dean snapped.

“I would not call you mature,” Castiel said, and for a moment Dean was worried that all his hours of lessons in careful application of the truth had been for naught. But then he caught Cas’ smirk, and the frat boys caught it too, and somehow they got the info they needed by playing it off like Cas was the cool one and Dean was the tiresome dork who wouldn’t stop rambling on with obnoxious, unnecessary questions. In other words, Sam.

“I hope your fears are assuaged,” Cas said as they walked back across the quad, Cas kicking up clouds of fallen leaves when he strayed carelessly, childishly from the path.

Dean shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shut up.”

Sam was waiting for them outside the library. “So apparently there are all these rumors about a campus secret society—” he started.

“We know.” Dean leaned back against the railing. “The Crossbones. Very spooky. Our frat boys were both members.”

“So was the Vice President of Student Affairs. Think the organization’s collectively pissed something powerful off?”

“Or the thing with the bull’s part of the worst hazing ritual ever.” Dean glanced around at the oppressive grey buildings, the students bustling between them laden with books, their scarves catching like nooses around their necks. “College is weird.”

Sam’s chuckle conveyed something that wasn’t quite humor. “You never wish you could have gone? Never?”

“It’s not too late for you to go back,” Dean pointed out instead of answering, voice level but slightly sharp.

“You could be a mature student,” Castiel said, shooting Dean a look.

“Yeah, no.” Sam looked over his shoulder, then back at them—or at least at their feet. “I think that ship has sailed.”

“Anna’s gone back,” Dean pressed without really knowing why.

“Anna is...Anna,” Sam said. “I just want to—” He shrugged his shoulders and Dean looked away; he had already decided to let it drop. “Did you find out the names of anyone else who might be a, a Crossbone?” Sam asked. “We need to find out where they meet, what they’re up to.”

“Yeah, we lucked into an angry frat boy who hadn’t been ‘tapped.’” Dean chuckled at the word tapped.

“Mature student,” Cas mumbled under his breath.

Dean kicked at his shin. “He seemed perfectly happy to sell out his brothers.”

He handed Sam the list of names he’d scribbled down once they’d left the frat. Sam squinted at it. “Okay, it shouldn’t be too hard to track them down. They weren’t home earlier?”

“Nope,” Dean said, “but there’s this bar we were told—”

“Can we perhaps continue this conversation indoors?” Castiel said with sudden force. They turned to him; Dean watched as his expression turned sheepish. “I’m cold,” he admitted.

“We should have bought you a better coat,” Dean said, plucking at the sleeve of Cas’ jacket.

“I like this coat.”

“It’s not doing its job, is it?” He looked Cas over again. “We should get you a leather jacket.”

Castiel’s expression was less than enthused.

“This is a cool coat,” Dean said, indicating his own. “You don’t want a coat like this?”

“I don’t want a coat exactly like yours, no,” Castiel said firmly.

“Okay.” Sam cut between them. “Cas is right, it’s cold. Let’s play dress-up later.”

“Like after you’re done grooming your unicorn, maybe?” Dean said, cutting back in front of him again and striding toward the car.

“I’m not the one treating Cas like he’s a life-sized Ken doll.”

Rather than punch Sam in the face, Dean took a deep breath and posed the theory that the reason Ken had no genitals was that they had been torn off and consumed by a ravaging unicorn. They drove to a motel called the Sea Breeze (they were nowhere near the sea) and checked in.

When Dean got back from the Coke machine, Cas was googling the proud achievements of the Mattel corporation. “You could just ask, you know.” He handed Cas his soda.

Castiel glanced at the can as he pushed back the chair. “I wanted a Dr. Pepper.”

Once it seemed late enough, they went to the bar where the Crossbones supposedly hung out. It was not at all what Dean expected. The flatscreen TVs mounted on the walls were all playing FoxNews, and that was the most sinister thing about the place. Dean squinted at the list of microbrews and made Sam order for him.

He found Cas flinging darts with frightening accuracy at a board whose cork looked like it had never before taken such a beating. “Still got it?” Dean asked.

“It?” Cas scored another bullseye.

“Yeah, ‘it.’ You know...” Dean didn’t even know. Dean had no idea what he was talking about. He took a swig of his beer. “Come on, stop fooling around,” he said instead. “We need to find one of these idiots and talk to them.”

“They’re over in the corner,” Cas said without looking. “But they won’t talk to us.”

“How do you know?”

Cas gave his last dart an almost absentminded flick and turned to Dean. “Their organization is based around secrecy. It’s like a religion to them. If its rites and rituals become known, they lose their power, so its members must guard its secrets above all else. We won’t be able to uncover them merely by asking, no matter how cleverly.”

“All right, Tyler Durden. What do you propose?”

“We should wait until they leave and follow them.”

As Dean considered this, Sam approached, shaking his head. “That’s them in the corner, I think,” he said, giving his shoulders a subtle roll. “But I couldn’t get anything out of them. It was like talking to a brick wall. A smarmy, rude brick wall.”

Dean shrugged. “Cas says the first rule of a douchey secret society is that you can’t talk about your douchey secret society. Probably something he learned in angel school, right, Cas?”

“Something like that.” He finished pulling his darts out of the board and weighed them in his hand.

“I think we should wait and follow them,” Dean suggested. He ignored Cas’ snort.

Sam nodded. He set his beer down on the table and stepped up to Castiel. “Hey Cas, you up for a game?”

“It depends. Do you enjoy losing?”

Sam laughed. “Has Dean been teaching you to trash talk?”

“No, he came by that one naturally.” Dean took a long pull of his beer and settled down to watch the Crossbones plot world domination or whatever stupid thing they were doing over peanuts and light beer.

He kept one eye on them and one eye on Sam and Cas and their game of darts. They both had excellent aim, so what it was going to come down to was which one of them would screw up first. Dean just never expected it would be Castiel.

Castiel clearly didn’t expect it either. He stood frowning at the board, at the double-eight he had just barely missed, hitting a double-sixteen instead.

“Uh, that’s a bust,” Sam said gently. “That means you miss a turn.”

“I understand the rules,” Castiel said. He sat down and didn’t pay much attention as Sam took his turn and won the game.

“Well, you win some, you lose some,” Dean said, because he was apparently clinically incapable of shutting the fuck up.

“So it seems,” said Castiel. He started peeling the label off his bottle of beer.

Dean was relieved when the Crossbones, in a weirdly synchronized, almost Borg-like fashion, slid out of their corner booth and headed toward the door. Dean said, “Sam,” under his breath, and got up to follow them.

He could feel Sam and Cas at his back as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. It had gotten colder—bitterly cold for September, which, Dean supposed, meant he was going to have to stop blaming weird weather on the devil. Lucifer was locked away and still the wind was whipping through the fallen leaves. Dean glanced over his shoulder and saw Cas forcing his hands into the pocket of the hoodie he’d put on under his denim jacket.

When he looked back up the road, it was to find that one of the Crossbones had paused under the light of a streetlamp and was staring back at them. Dean thought he saw the boy’s mouth twitch up; then he turned, and melted back into the shadows.

“Shit,” Dean hissed. “Were we just made?”

Even in the darkness, he could see Cas narrowing his eyes. “They’re protected by something. But they’re hunted, too.”

“You know, you don’t have to be cryptic anymore,” Dean snapped. “We’re all on the same side.”

He could see Cas scowling at him, too. “Exactly what about what I said was unclear?”

“Guys,” Sam sighed.

“What?”

“You suck,” said Sam succinctly. He gestured up ahead to the entirely empty road.

“Whatever. I’m starting not to care if these guys get struck by lightning anyway.”

The next morning there were cops and emergency vehicles all over campus. Sam went to play the innocent, but highly curious, bystander. “Young male college student,” he reported when he got back. “Senior. Star hockey player. Found this morning in the middle of the quad, dead from having his liver clawed out.”

“Clawed out?” said Dean.

“Or pecked out. Apparently there were feathers. Like he was attacked by a large bird.”

“When did this become an Alfred Hitchcock movie?”

“What kind of bird?” Castiel asked.

“What does it matter what kind of bird?” Dean asked, stupidly. He knew that details like that always mattered.

“I don’t know, the guy said something big and dark.” Sam shrugged. “Now all I can think is ‘a murder of crows.’”

“I doubt it was a crow,” Cas said with some authority.

“Oh, so you’re an ornithologist now?” Dean asked. Sam raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. “What?”

“I suspect it was an eagle,” said Castiel. “Belonging to Zeus.”

Sam and Dean were both silent for a moment. “Well, that’s an impressively Mulder-like leap of logic,” Dean said finally. “What’s Zeus doing harvesting livers? Is he palling around with Hannibal Lecter all of a sudden?”

“To answer the portion of that question that I understood,” Castiel said tightly, “I would guess that he’s taking revenge.”

“Oh, a vengeful god. That sounds fun.”

“What does Zeus need revenge for?” Sam asked. “And, uh, actually—what’s Zeus doing in New England?”

“It would be easier if I showed you,” Castiel said, turning without waiting for a response and walking purposefully across the quad.

Dean blinked after him for a moment. “You can take the angel out of the angel, but you can’t take the cryptic out of the...” Sam was giving him a pitying look. “You know what I mean!”

They caught up with Cas near where they’d lost the Crossbones the night before. He was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, squinting up at the row of grey stone buildings, and as Dean and Sam approached, he took a sudden step back, off the curb and toward the center of the road.

“Hey!” Dean cried out in alarm, darting forward without thought. He grabbed Cas tightly by the arm and yanked him out of the street. Castiel’s eyes widened momentarily: he seemed surprised to find himself being so easily moved. Then they narrowed into a glare, and he jerked without much difficulty out of Dean’s grasp. The expression on his face made it too easy for Dean to imagine him saying, Unhand me, sir! or something like that.

But all he said was, “Let go,” low and angry.

Dean wanted to shake him. “You can’t just wander out into the middle of the street, Cas! You’re not invulnerable anymore, and you’re not four, either, Jesus!”

“I know what I’m doing,” Castiel said in that same low, deadly voice.

“Playing live-action Frogger?”

Unsurprisingly, Castiel ignored this. “I know where the Crossbones’ lair is.”

“And now it’s a pirate movie,” Sam seemingly couldn’t help stepping in to interject. He did so sheepishly, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Dean at least had the courage of his smartassery. “Sorry. Where?”

“Through there.” Castiel pointed at the long, flat stretch of slate-grey wall in front of them. Dean consulted his mental map: the building was, if he remembered correctly, a gymnasium, barely in use since a newer facility had been built on the other side of campus. It did not have any doors facing the street.

“Huh?”

“That wall is three feet longer than the dimensions given in the blueprints.”

“You looked at the blueprints?” Sam sounded impressed.

Castiel directed his answer to Dean, though. “I am capable of looking up more on the internet than Barbara Millicent Roberts’ origins.”

Dean needed a moment. “Wait, you're googlestalking some chick now?”

Sam laughed. “Barbie. He means Barbie. That's her full name.”

Dean let out a breath. “Okay, one,” he pointed a finger at Sam, “we are so having a long, and for you, deeply humiliating conversation later about why you know that. And two—” His hand dropped and he turned back to Castiel, who was watching him from very close. “Cas, I still don’t see how the fact that somebody maybe wrote a number down wrong proves anything.”

“How do we get in?” Sam asked, ignoring him. The two of them seemed to be doing that a lot, Dean was noticing. “There’s gotta be an external entrance, because that would explain how they vanished last night.”

“They left traces,” Castiel said with certainty. “Look.”

He pointed at the muddy ground near the building’s base. There were a couple of indentations that maybe-kinda-sorta resembled footprints. Sam nearly started bouncing in excitement. “You’re right! It must be right here. See, now that I know where to look, I can totally see a difference in the coloration of the stone—do you see this crack?”

A bunch of ass jokes shuffled sloppily through Dean’s mind, but all he said was, “This is ridiculous.”

Comment: ignored. “I am fortunate to have spent some time in the great pyramids of Egypt,” Castiel told Sam. He put his hand over one of the knob-like architectural flourishes that ran at eye-height around the building. It looked to Dean disturbingly like he was cupping a giant stone boob.

“I thought Zeus was Greek,” Dean said—surprised, almost, at his own snappishness.

Castiel glanced around at him, expression too cold and blank for Dean to get a proper read on it. “He is. But the Egyptians are famous for their secret passages.”

He certainly hadn’t lost his sense of drama, Dean thought, the big wing-flashing bastard. The corners of his mouth twitching up into a grin, Castiel pushed the stone breast aside, revealing a metal hook secreted below it. Sam barked a laugh as Castiel cast one last look over his shoulder, then gave the hook a sharp twist and threw his shoulder against the stone. A large portion of the wall bowed inward easily.

“It’s more likely to be empty now that it’s daytime,” Castiel said, and beckoned for Sam and Dean to precede him into the passage.

“You know, cocky is not the best look for you,” Dean told him, ducking his head and following his brother inside. Dean had already plucked his lighter out of his pocket.

Even with Cas repositioning the door behind them and plunging the passage into near-darkness, Dean found the ambiance immediately spoiled: someone had used day-glo green spray-paint to scrawl CRIMSON SUCK on the wall. He jerked his thumb at it. “Is that some sort of vamp tag?” If vampires were involved in this along with the vengeful Greek gods and the rampaging bulls and the frat douches, Dean was seriously going to consider retirement.

Sam snorted. “It means the Harvard Crimson.” He took out his dorky little pocket flashlight and shone it down the corridor, which seemed to slope gently downward. “And they do suck. But not as much as the Golden Bears suck.”

Dean exchanged a look with Castiel. For once Dean was just as baffled as he was.

They continued down the corridor, Sam in the lead. It turned out to be much shorter than Dean would have guessed: not quite a hundred paces, and then an opening on their left. Dean ducked his head again, and then they were standing in a small round chamber that couldn’t seem to decide if it was the site of sinister ancient rites or a stoner crash pad. The basic architecture was all very Hammer Horror (despite the fact that Dean was pretty sure that that was the women’s swim team he could hear practicing above his head), with a half dozen stone columns and sconces on the walls crusted over with melted wax. One of the white tapers had been replaced by a rainbow-colored thing that was straight out of a headshop, though, and Dean could totally see a pizza box sticking out from behind the altar.

The altar... “Shit,” Sam said, looking at it. It was painted with sigils in what Dean could all-too-easily recognize as dried blood. At the center lay a piece of wood, delicately, beautifully carved. Even in the dim light, from several feet away, Dean could tell that it was very, very old. It was shaped like a lightning bolt.

“Is that...did they use that to summon Zeus?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” said Castiel. “It is made of oak.” He reached out and before Dean could somewhat hypocritically stop him, touched it, running his fingers over the grooves. “He is weak. They were able to bind him to it.”

Cas looked up then, eyes glinting in the flash of Sam and Dean’s small lights. For a second, Dean forgot that Castiel was all but human now.

“But not entirely.”

Sam bent closer but kept his hands to himself. “Not entirely?”

“He has retained power over his servants.” Cas gave a subtle, thoughtful nod. “The lightning, the eagle, the bull. He is taking his vengeance as he can. Like I said.” This last comment was directed at Dean, pointedly.

“Okay, pissed-off Greek god on a rampage,” Dean said with a conciliatory shrug. “So, we gank him, right?” The thought bummed Dean out a little; Zeus had always seemed kind of cool, turning into a swan and still managing to bang some chick. “And then what—give these Poindexters a slap on the wrist? What are they doing summoning a god, anyway? Where’d they even get this stuff?”

“It helps to have connections.”

Dean spun: the jackass who’d paused under the streetlamp last night was standing in the far corner, on the opposite side of the room from where they’d come in. Dean could just see the opening of a second passageway.

“That one comes up in the girls’ locker room,” the guy said, smirking. “You should have checked your perimeter, Shaggy.”

“Great, this guy has the same sense of humor as Gabriel.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“I don’t find this funny at all, actually.” He stepped forward, but Dean already had a hand on his gun, and this guy had no idea what he was getting himself in to. “Unlike the three of you, I care about my future.”

“A future as a scorch mark or a smear of eagle shit? Oh yeah, sign me right—” Up, Dean was going to say, but then he heard an electronic crackle-hiss and Cas let out a choked scream. Dean whirled and caught his own taser blast in the stomach. It was not the worst pain he’d ever experienced, not by a long shot. But it did the job.

Some douchebag in a sweater vest bent over him and gave him another blast for good measure. “Don’t tase me, bro! Don’t tase me!” the guy said mockingly as Dean bit his tongue and said nothing of the kind, panting and twisting on the floor. He felt someone grip him under the arms and drag him.

He faded in and out for a while.

Then he was upright, his back up against a curved stone pillar. Dean jerked, and that’s how he discovered he was handcuffed—to Sam on his right side and Cas on his left. The cuffs attaching him to Cas were lined with pink fur.

Dean craned his neck and looked around. The candles were all lit now, including the rainbow-colored one, sputtering brightly. Cas was still out, slumped against the pillar and a little against Dean’s shoulder. Dean couldn’t see his other hand but it looked like Cas was chained to Sam as well. “Sam,” Dean hissed, kicking out at his brother’s calf.

“Yeah,” Sam whispered back. Dean could feel him squirming around; he was clearly working at the cuffs.

“This is fucking embarrassing,” Dean said. “We did not just defeat Lucifer in order to get taken out by the fucking Debate Team!”

“Cas isn’t the only one who got cocky,” Sam said with a sigh. “We came down here without any sort of plan, without taking any precautions...”

“Well, it wouldn’t have happened if Cas here,” he jerked against the fur-lined cuff, which did not oblige him by easily snapping, “hadn’t decided to give us the exposition Sherlock Holmes-style.”

Cas let out a quiet groan. “Who’s Sherlock Holmes?”

“A pompous ass, just like you,” Dean said, checking what he could see of Cas’ body for injury.

“I think you mean ‘Dead, just like you.’” The primo douchebag stepped into Dean’s line of sight. He was now wearing a long black robe. Dean took one look at him and burst out laughing.

“Let me guess: Hot Topic?”

Douche No. 1 gave his head a condescending shake. Three of his douchey friends gathered close, also now be-robed; Dean thought they looked like a Queen album. “Throw around as much mockery as you like. That’s always the last refuge of people who have nothing to contribute to society.”

“And what does this little circle jerk contribute? Besides giving your poor girlfriends some time off from your fun little games?” He waved a fur-rimmed wrist in the air. “Although maybe I’m being too generous, assuming there’s a woman involved.”

“And what do you know about women?”

Dean opened his mouth to start making a long and graphic list, but was interrupted by His Doucheyness, who was clearly in love with the sound of his own voice. “Do you know the one thing that attracts them above all others?”

“Your kicky wardrobe choices?” Dean suggested, though he was mostly drowned out by the Crossbone’s answer to his own question: “Power. Power, which is what people like us were born with, and people like you will never even touch.”

Dean sagged back against the column with a sigh. “Okay, you can smite them now, Cas.”

“I would very much like to.”

To Dean’s surprise, Sam spoke up next. “Don’t even bother. I knew plenty of guys like this at Stanford, guys who thought they were better than everyone else, who made fun of the scholarship kids when they only got in because their dads bought the school a new building. They think they’re going to rule the world, but in the end they’ll choke on the silver spoons they’ve got jammed down their throats.”

This little speech earned Sam a round of slow-clapping—and more time to work the cuffs, Dean knew. Dean was trying himself, though it was tough to be subtle with their hands in plain view. Also the fur was kind of throwing him off.

“Be careful, or you’ll choke on your own self-righteousness,” the lead douche said, pressing close to Sam and smearing some sort of orange powder over his forehead. “Thanks, by the way, for volunteering to go first.”

“Oh, goody, are we being sacrificed?” Dean grinned up into the douchebag’s sneer. “It’s been a while since someone’s tried to sacrifice me. You ever been sacrificed, Cas?”

“No.” Castiel was straining, uselessly and way too hard, against the cuffs. His eyes looked dark and murderous.

“Relax,” Dean told him, “it’s fun. Tell him, Poindexter. You’ve had a grand old time watching your friends get murdered, right?”

“Success requires sacrifice,” the guy said, his grin suddenly tight. “Certain risks must be taken. But I’m sure that soon the Overseer will consider our debts to him paid in full.”

Sam let out an angry breath. “You’ve had everything handed to you. Everything. You have your whole damn lives ahead of you and you’re throwing it away for this?”

“What do you know, greaser?” one of the backup douchebags interjected. “I’m going to be a senator. Do you know how much tail senators get?”

“Yeah, you been practicing your wide stance?” Dean started, but he was interrupted by the lead douche’s bellow of “Shut up! Get into position.”

“Sorry, Tom,” one of the others mumbled. They shuffled around in their robes. “Sam?” Dean took the opportunity to hiss.

“Dean,” Sam hissed back, his message clear.

Dean huffed and strained a little bit, uselessly. The Crossbones began to chant. “What about you, Cas?” Dean asked. “You just sitting this one out?”

Castiel had let his head drop back against the stone pillar; his eyes were closed. “Shh,” he whispered. His shoulders went slack, and Dean could feel Cas’ clenched fists relax, his fingers uncurling slow and gentle against Dean’s. Dean shivered and bit down on what he was going to say. The whole room appeared to be waiting. Even with the lead douchebag’s voice rising to a crescendo, the chamber felt like an empty space waiting to be filled, and in that little bubble of vacancy, Dean found he felt strangely calm. Maybe after battling Lucifer and archangels, everything else became anticlimax, but that wasn’t... He stopped twisting in the cuffs and simply sat back and watched.

He watched the carved wooden lightning bolt take on a bright, unearthly glow. He watched Tom the douchebag’s grin as the glow lit up his features, throwing them into a maniacal pattern of shadow and light. And he watched as white lightning began to leap from the wooden bolt as if from a charged coil, crackling across the room in a pattern far too precise to be remotely accidental.

Dean felt a tug and heard, dimly, Sam whispering, “Cas!” Then Sam’s hands were on their linked wrists. “Cas, help me out,” Sam said, but Cas didn’t move his newly freed hand. He stared at the crackling light, the strands resolving themselves into something approximately man-shaped.

Dean realized he was staring too, ignoring Sam’s pleas of “Guys!” as he worked at the cuff linking him to Dean. The lightning coalesced and Dean knew that he should be, if not frightened, then at least concerned. Instead he felt only a vague, patient curiosity.

He listened as Tom threw back his hood and proclaimed, “Behold, Overseer, the sacrifices we have brought you in appreciation for your service.” He faced down the lightning god eagerly, without fear or regret. Dean would admire his balls if he didn’t know first hand what that kind of empty, graceless courage was worth.

Then the old god turned the shining pits of its eyes on them. The three of them, linked hand to hand: Sam crouching, Cas with his eyes closed, Dean between them with his back up against the pillar. The air crackled; Dean was silent. He’d looked into the face of evil and this wasn’t it. This was a force of nature—an old, angry storm on the verge of blowing itself out.

For a long moment none of them moved; this bizarre tableau held. Dean was not at all surprised that Tom was the first to flinch. “Er,” he said, twitching a little under the looks his befuddled followers were giving him. “Your sacrifices, Overseer! Take them!”

In the second pause that followed, Dean just barely caught sight of Castiel, gently and without fanfare, opening his eyes. He said a few words in a language Dean didn’t understand—it was all Greek to him, and for once Dean figured that to be literal.

There was a final pause, and then everything exploded.

Birds, great black and white and brown bodies, shot down the passages on either side of the room. They swept past Sam and Dean and Cas without harming them, although Sam did fall over, yelping at least partially in surprise. The sound of flapping wings filled the room, louder than seemed possible, louder than the lightning-crackle and the college boys’ screams.

“Fuck,” Dean said. “A bull better not coming charging out of the women’s locker room next.”

“What do we do?” From beside him, he could just barely make out Sam’s shout. “Should we do something?”

“We will,” promised Castiel. The wings beat and the storm howled.

Then all at once, it grew silent. Three robed bodies lay slumped on the stone floor, in a liberal splatter of blood and feathers. The sight filled Dean with a sort of sick resignation. Good things do happen, Cas had told him once—and maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong. But this sort of thing happened, too.

The fourth robed figure was huddled in on himself, whimpering. Lightning crackled above his head. In his hand, the douchebag known as Tom still clutched the wooden bolt. Whenever the electric lightning tried to touch it, the shafts skittered and faded away.

Castiel spoke suddenly, clearly, with authority. “Only you can end this. Come here.”

Dean saw Tom lift his head. His face was streaked with tears but there was still something nasty and defiant in his eyes. “Why?”

“I assume you want to live,” Castiel said. “It’s not my place to judge you worthy of more life, but I can make it possible. Bring me the lightning bolt.”

“It’s mine. The power is mine. I deserve it!”

“You stole it,” Castiel said. “You took it, and you used it, all without considering the consequences of your actions, or who could get hurt. Now your friends are dead and you will, I have no doubt, do what I say to save your own skin.”

“Fuck you,” Tom said, even as he crawled forward and let the lightning bolt drop and roll forward to land at Castiel’s feet.

Castiel picked it up with his free hand, which was still dangling handcuff chain. He held it palm-out, as if on a platter, and whispered foreign-tongued words into the finely carved grain.

For a second Dean was impressed. Then the lightning-shape surged forward, pressing bright and deadly up against where they lay. “Shit. Cas!” Dean started, and attempted to scramble to his feet. But Castiel remained beside him a dead weight, staring unconcerned into the crackling glow. The almost-a-face pushed close to his. Dean’s heart was pounding as he heard it whisper something to Castiel, each word a sibilant hiss-snap.

“Thank you, cousin,” Castiel replied calmly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The shining streak of light seemed to bob, almost like a nod, before it raced, expanding, toward the ceiling, where it disappeared with a final electric crack.

Dean figured he ought to have a bunch of smartass things to say into the silence that followed, but he couldn’t think of any.

Sam, on the other hand, was all business. “Come on, you guys, get up,” he said, and finally Castiel got, haltingly, to his feet. Sam gave a tug and the three of them walked, in an awkward chain-gang shuffle, over to where Tom the douche still knelt.

“Give me the keys,” Sam said.

Tom glared at him and said nothing.

Sam grabbed him roughly by the arm and jerked him to his feet. “Hold him,” Sam said, and Dean did so gladly while Sam roughly pushed aside the robe and patted him down until he found a set of keys.

The cuffs attaching Dean to Sam were quickly unlocked and used to shackle Tom to the altar. The metal ring encircling Cas’ free wrist was easily dispatched as well. But when Sam tried to use the key to open the fur-lined cuffs, it became immediately apparent that it didn’t fit.

“Where’s the other key?”

No response. Dean took over. “Hey, asshole. Where’s the other goddamn key?”

Tom had clearly made the move from bombast to sullen silence. He sneered at Dean but said nothing.

Only Dean’s moral fortitude and the furry cuff still attaching him to Cas held Dean back from roughing Tom up until he squealed. “Hey, hey,” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter, we’ve got plenty of lockpicks back at the motel.”

“Douche,” Dean spat. Then for a change he turned and glared at Cas some, who was committing the offense of standing remarkably still while Dean strained against the cuffs that held them together. “You’re just cool with this?” he snapped.

“It is not of import,” Castiel said. “We need to collect the other artifacts these young men stole and leave.”

“What other artifacts?”

Castiel still slipped easily into lecturing angel mode. “Associations such as these are known for pilfering rare objects thought to have occult value.” He slid a slow, disdainful look in Tom’s direction. “The best that could be said of this chapter is that their eye for legitimacy was better than I believe is usual.”

Dean was pretty sure that all this fake fur rubbing against his wrist was going to give him some sort of rash. “Since when are you an expert on secret societies? I mean, where’d you learn all this Skull & Bones stuff—is that standard for angel school?”

Castiel shook his head. “No. Wikipedia.”

“Hey, and it’s accurate for once,” Sam said. He had moved behind the altar and kicked the pizza box out of the way. “Look at this.”

Lacking much of a choice, Dean and Castiel walked over together. Together, they bent and peered at the wooden chest Sam had discovered. “Ignore the hockey jersey,” he instructed.

“Hey, Gretzky, nice,” Dean said, plucking it out of the way. An impressive array of old, dusty, odd, and clearly powerful objects lay beneath.

“I would avoid touching things indiscriminately,” Castiel said. Dean held up his hands in a gesture of affronted innocence, but it was Sam Castiel was looking at.

Sam carefully put the book he’d been flicking through back down. “I’m betting that’s where they got their summoning and binding ritual from.” He shook his head, glancing around at the devastated room, the bodies crumpled on the floor. “What a waste.”

“How heavy is that, can you take it?” Sam closed the chest and hefted it, then nodded. “Okay, good. We better scram. I’m betting the flock of angry seagulls drew some attention.”

“They were eagles,” Castiel said. He gave Dean a look that suggested he was concerned for Dean’s mental health.

“What are we going to do about him?” Sam asked, nodding toward Tom, still cuffed and scowling at the base of the altar.

“I say we leave him here, then tip off the cops and let him explain this mess.”

That provoked a reaction, at least. Tom sat up, straining. “Leave me here? You can’t just leave me here! Do you have any idea who my father is?”

Dean laughed without humor. “Buddy, let’s not play ‘my dad can beat up your dad.’ I’m pretty sure Cas here has you beat.”

Tom stared at him blankly.

“Oh, and by the way,” Dean added, pausing at the foot of the passage, Cas at his side. “Sherlock Holmes isn’t dead, he’s a fictional character.” He shook his head sadly. “Just what are they teaching kids in school these days?”

---

“Well, that was the weirdest walk of shame ever,” Dean said, once the three of them—Sam huffing under the weight of an old-timey treasure chest and Dean and Cas shackled together with furry handcuffs—slunk back inside the motel.

“This whole case has been...yeah.” For once, Sam seemed at a loss for words.

“Can we save the post-game analysis for later? I like Cas and all, but I think he and I might be getting a little too attached.” He jiggled their enjoined hands.

Castiel looked down at the cuffs as if he were noticing them for the first time. He frowned. “I’m surprised he was so considerate.”

“Considerate?” Sam asked, glancing up from the bag he was ruffling through.

“These restraints were clearly designed for greater comfort...” Castiel’s expression changed as he took in the looks Dean and Sam exchanged before they both lost it entirely.

“I’m glad my ignorance continues to be hilarious,” Castiel said tightly, once they both had calmed down.

“I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry.” Sam, needles in hand, made quick work of the cuffs. “Cas, it isn’t personal.”

“We just think you’re...adorable,” Dean teased, and immediately lost it again.

He kept laughing a little too long, feeling like he had missed his cue to stop: the moment where Cas would have once been able to flap indignantly away. Instead he stood there, rubbing his wrists and staring balefully, taking it and— Dean felt his stomach twist.

“Give me a minute, I’ll be right back,” Dean said, feeling suddenly decisive as he plucked his keys from his pocket.

“Dean, we gotta get out of here,” Sam said. “They might find that Tom guy before we’re ready and he might be able to set somebody on us. Plus we’ve got a chest full of powerful artifacts...”

“I know, I know,” Dean said. “I just need ten minutes, okay?”

It took him closer to twenty, but that meant Sam and Cas were all packed up and ready to go by the time he got back. They quickly loaded the car, Castiel carefully sliding the chest of artifacts into the backseat and then getting in beside it. Sam snagged shotgun.

Dean started his baby up but paused before backing out. He pulled his purchase out of his jacket and chucked it into the backseat.

“What’s this?” Castiel asked, fumbling to catch the chunky, rectangular object.

“It’s a book, Cas.” Dean reached up to adjust his mirror. “You may have heard of them.”

“The Complete Sherlock Holmes,” Castiel read, his tone surprisingly halting for someone who spoke a bagillion different languages.

“Just Volume One,” Dean said. “We’ll see how you like it. What?” he snapped, this last directed at Sam.

“Nothing!” said Sam. But he was smirking when he turned to look out the passenger-side window.

When Dean turned away from his brother to put his eyes back on the road, he caught a glimpse of Castiel in the rearview mirror. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean shrugged. “If you’re going to be the cocky, socially-awkward know-it-all of the group, you ought to know about your ancestors or whatever.” He paused with his hand halfway to the radio. “Uh. Just ignore all the stuff about cocaine, okay?”

“If you think that’s best,” Castiel said with something like a smile.

Dean nodded and returned his attention to the road. “I think it’ll work for now.”

---

Masterpost / Episode 6x02