Fic: The Earth and Heaven to You (Part 6)

[dauntperplexity]

 

Part 6

All right, Dean and Castiel met. At an alley on River Street. See, I knew there was a river there somewhere. And Castiel has a big secret.

I forgot how good this story was.

You guys probably want to know Castiel’s story, don’t you? Okay. So a long long time ago, there was an angel. His name was Castiel.

He was a good angel, you know. He followed orders. Listened to his brothers and all that. His brothers loved him too.

During one of the wars, I can’t remember which one, but it doesn’t really matter, Castiel fell in love with one of his brothers. But in angel families, everyone was called a brother, but they weren’t necessarily… incestuous.

Okay, so Castiel goes down to Earth and he’s fighting these Demons. And Balthazar. Balthazar is the angel that Castiel loved. Balthazar comes down and gets stabbed by this Demon named Alastair.

So Balthazar is dying and Castiel doesn’t know what to do. He’s in shock and his adrenaline is pumping and he’s calling out for help. Then Lucifer shows up and Castiel’s ready to rip his head off, but he doesn’t. Because Lucifer tells Castiel that he can help him.

Of course, Castiel doesn’t believe him, because he’s Lucifer. But then he’s looking down at Balthazar who is bleeding everywhere and dying.

He asks Lucifer what he has to do to save him. Lucifer says he wants his wings and his grace. He says that he wants Castiel to do a few favors for him and then he’ll give them right back. He really thinks about it because without his wings and grace, he’s just a Human. But in his head, he would have rather been a Human and still able to see Balthazar than live eternity without him.

He took the deal and gave Lucifer his grace and his wings. Balthazar was healed. And Castiel was Human.

It seemed like a good idea at the time and they tried to make it work, but eventually Balthazar stopped feeling the same way about Castiel. It came with spending so much time on Earth. Castiel couldn’t blame him.

Castiel never told Balthazar what he did to save him. He knew that if he did, then Balthazar would feel obligated to stay. Castiel would’ve rather lived with a broken heart than force Balthazar into staying because of guilt. And because of his unselfishness, that’s exactly what happened.

Castiel was heartbroken.

Years passed and he wasn’t able to do anything to earn his wings because Lucifer never asked anything of him. So he was basically doomed to wander the Human plane until Lucifer let him go. Or until he got his wings and grace. But that wasn’t going to be likely. So Lucifer was able to keep Castiel under contract as long as he wanted.

Biography lesson done.

Now onto the haunted state. Dean and company were out the door before the sun rose the next day.

So, there was this cemetery in Illinois where there were tons of reports of ghosts and poltergeists and demons just wreaking havoc on the people who lived there. Bobby and Pastor Jim thought that it was the perfect place for Dean’s first hunt to take place.

LRLRLRLRLRLRLR

The ride to wherever Dean was supposed to have his first official heroic moment as a Hunter was awkward. Bobby and Pastor Jim were waiting for him in the motel room when he got back. They were ready to give him a long and loud lecture about going out alone, but they saw that there was blood on his clothes and the anger dissipated.

The anger carried over to their car ride. Dean ignored it. He didn’t sleep at all when he got back; his mind was racing. He kept thinking about Castiel.

Every time he’d close his eyes, he’d see his messy, brown hair, or his deep, blue eyes, or the man wearing his jacket. He wondered if the man was okay.

Just when he was lulled into thinking that he was in the clear, Bobby started his lecture. He started yelling at him and asking what he was thinking and he isn’t taking trying to become a Hunter seriously and how he needed to be careful. Pastor Jim and Sam stayed silent while the lecturing went on. Bobby was yelling enough for all of them.

Dean felt bad for a little while until he realized that Bobby was just worried about him. That was just how he expressed it. He understood though because Bobby only wanted him to be a Hunter as soon as possible. It reflected well on him as a trainer, but if Dean was dead, then there would be nothing to show for it.

A day later, they made it to the part of Illinois where Dean was sure to find a hunt. Dean pulled the Impala into a parking lot and they got their two rooms like usual. Bobby and Pastor Jim went to the brothers’ room first. They took their seats on the chairs at the table in the room.

“Okay, kid. You’re on your own,” Bobby said.

“I’m on my own?”

“We’ll be here for some cheerleading, but besides that, you have to earn your stripes by yourself,” Sam replied. “Or it doesn’t count.”

“How will I know what to hunt?”

“Research,” the three Hunters replied.

“Really? You guys don’t have any special powers that just tell you a Hunter is needed?”

“We have them,” Sam said pointing to the three Hunters. Then he pointed to his brother. “You on the other hand. Human.”

“That’s bull.”

“That’s life,” Bobby said. “And it’s how the Hunters used to do their jobs before we had these special, convenient powers.”

“So I have to like look stuff up? Like in the library and with computers?”

“You should just be lucky that the internet exists,” Pastor Jim said.

“Yeah, lucky me.” Dean made a noise that sounded like a cross between a groan and a sigh. “I guess I should find the nearest library,” he replied, defeated. “Anyone want to join me?”

“Nope.”

“No.”

“I’ll come.” Dean knew that Sam would agree to come along.

“Take your weapons with you,” Bobby said.

Dean rolled his eyes. He grabbed the sword from that Uriel guy in the alley, his desert eagle, and a shotgun. He pulled open the door to leave. Just as he did, he saw a woman running down the street.

She ran up and down the streets trying to get someone’s attention. “Somebody help me!” she screamed.

“Huh,” Dean said. “Maybe I don’t need a sixth sense.” He stepped out of the motel room.

Sam stayed in the doorway, staring at the scene in front of him with disbelief. “How does that happen?” he asked.

“You guys have your special Hunter sense, I’ll stick with luck.”

“Luck will run out,” Bobby said.

“Probably,” Dean replied. “But for now. I have to help a screaming woman.” Dean jogged up to the woman who was still screaming for someone to help her. It must have been an everyday occurrence for the people who lived in the town because she was being ignored. “Excuse me.”

“Help me, you have to help me,” she said.

“Yeah. Sure. What’s going on?”

“They took my baby. They took her. They’re going to kill her.”

“Who did, ma’am?” Dean asked.

“There were these men. And they took my baby from me.”

“Do you know where?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. But they look like those freaks that hang out at the cemetery. The ones with the darkened eyes.”

“Sounds like Demons,” Pastor Jim said who had appeared behind Dean.

“Which cemetery?”

“Bachelor’s Grove. They’re going to kill my baby.”

“No, they won’t.” Dean turned and stared at his brother. “Sam, bag.” Sam ran back into the room and grabbed Dean’s duffel that he used to hold most of his weapons. He threw it at his brother. “Now fly me to the cemetery.”

“Dean.”

“We’re wasting time. We can’t let her baby die.”

Sam looked at his brother and knew that no matter what he was going to say, his brother was going to end up at the cemetery with or without his help. He grabbed his brother’s arm and transported the two of them. The landed at the foot of a small hill with a house at the top. “Okay, we’re here. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask them to give the woman her baby back.”

“Really?”

“No. I’ll improvise.”

“You can’t improvise. You don’t even know what you’re going up against.”

“I’m going to say witches and Demons,” Dean said. He tore open his duffle and grabbed weapons to put into his waistband. “Pastor Jim said Demons. And probably Demon worshipers.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Dean,” Sam sighed.

“I have to go. Wait for Pastor Jim and Bobby and the mother. Keep the crowd back if they start coming.” He tried to head toward the house, but Sam grabbed onto his arm to stop him.

“I can help.”

“I… I have to see if I can do this on my own, Sam.”

“But for your first hunt, you’re supposed to hunt like a lady in white or a wendigo. Or a Demon. One Demon. Not—” he paused and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he glared at his brother. “Seven. There are seven Demons in there.”

“Seven is my lucky number.”

“Dean,” Sam groaned. “No.”

Dean dragged his hands down his face in frustration. “Fine. I’ll…” He then took off running toward the house. He was glad when he didn’t hear footsteps trailing behind him. He looked back and saw Sam’s hands flailing around.

He got to the front door of the house and saw it was open. He crept into the house, staying in the shadows. He kept against the walls, until he stood on the other side of the living room. It was filled with more than a dozen people.

A man stood in the middle, holding the baby that was fussing in his arms. “Now all of you must add at least a drop of blood into the bowl. We must use the cursed knife. The Humans must bleed first.”

Dean had enough when he saw the ones he assumed were Demons readying themselves to kill the Humans. He stepped into the doorway. “Aw, you guys started the party without me,” Dean said, announcing his presence.

“Who are you?” the man holding the baby asked.

“I’m one of you guys. Here for the big sacrifice thing.”

“Who are you?” the man repeated, but this time he was more angry than confused.

“Name’s Dean Turner. Occupation. Hunter. There seems like a good mix of creatures here. Humans, leave before I have to kill you, not that the Demons weren’t going to slit your throats just now. Witches, I’m way more charming than you could ever be, so you can leave and I’ll hunt you down later. And Demons, I’m going to make you regret stealing someone’s baby to sacrifice.”

The Humans looked at everyone wondering if Dean was serious or not. Dean lifted his shirt, showing all of the weapons had on him. They ran out of the house as fast as they could. The witches looked back and forth between each other and the Demons. They decided to cut their losses and vanish. Apparently they didn’t care that they outnumbered the Hunter a dozen to one.

What was left were seven people standing in front of him. Seven Demons.

“Look at what we have here, boys,” the Demon holding baby said. “A Human who thinks that he’s a Hunter.”

“I am a Hunter.”

The Demon inhaled deeply. “I don’t smell any Hunter blood in you.”

“Maybe because all you can smell is your Demon stink. Now give me the baby.”

“Or what?”

“I kill all of you.”

“Funny. But seven against one aren’t very good odds for you.”

Dean shrugged. “I was only average at math. So odds mean nothing to me.”

“Get rid of the pest,” the Demon hissed.

Six of the Demons charged at him. The only one that didn’t move was the one holding the baby. Dean held up his shotgun and shot two of them in the chest with rock salt. They fell to the ground, writhing.

Dean ran out of the house and ducked into a bush after he turned a corner. The four Demons that were chasing him ran past him, not noticing where he was hiding. Dean took the time to reload the shotgun. The Demons ran past him again, but this time in the other direction. They were doubling back looking for him.

He crouched down and ran to the back of the house. He wasn’t going to enter through the front door again. They were probably waiting for him. He got in through the back door and found himself in the kitchen that was on the other side of the living room. He looked through the cabinets in the kitchen and found a carton of salt.

He peeked into the living room and saw that the Demons had moved on from trying to catch him and were going back to the ritual. He took the opportunity to shoot two of the Demons with rock salt. They fell to the ground screaming with a cloud of black smoke leaving through their mouths. He dropped the shotgun to the ground and put the leader in a chokehold. He started to pour salt into his mouth. He covered the mouth with his hand when the Demon tried to spit it out.

“Back off, or he gets it,” Dean yelled. He glared at the two Demons left standing that were contemplating an attack.

The Demon nodded once and the two others stood down. Dean pulled his hand off of the Demon’s mouth when he knew that the other two weren’t a threat.

“Go,” he ordered with salt falling out of his mouth. The two Demons left the two of them alone in the house. “What makes you think that I just won’t snap the baby’s neck?” the Demon laughed.

“Because you would have done it already. You need to finish your ritual or whatever.”

“I can kill this baby, then kill you.”

“If I don’t kill you first.”

“Or all three of us die.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked. The Demon sounded too ominous for his liking. “What does that mean?” he repeated, tightening his choke hold.

“I like the smell of smoke.”

Right after the Demon said it, Dean could smell the smoke wafting into the house. He looked at the front door and saw that it was covered in flames. “What good does that do?”

“This meat suit dies, but I just move on to the next city and try again. You can’t follow me everywhere,” the Demon said with a laugh. “I guess you don’t get to play the hero the way you wanted."

“Son of a bitch,” Dean hissed.

“It doesn’t matter, Human,” he said. “Your weapons wouldn’t have killed me anyway.”

He kicked the back of the Demon’s knees, forcing him to drop. He drew a circle of salt around the two of them and stepped out. He saw the bowl that was filled with a bunch of ingredients, but what caught his attention was the knife in the bowl.

He picked it up and stared at the blade. It was covered in blood, but the blade itself had symbols in them. “So, my weapons can’t do crap to you. But what about this? I mean, it had to be able to cut into a Demon, right?”

“That knife won’t do a thing go me.”

“Good poker face,” Dean said when Demon didn’t show any emotion. “He’s the thing, your eyes are telling me that this knife will do some damage.”

“How much damage can you do before this house burns down and falls on us all?”

“Enough.” Dean lunged forward stabbed the Demon through the neck.

The Demon screamed and body flashed before the blackened eyes returned to normal. Dean held body by grasping onto his shirt. He took the baby from the dead body and let the meatsuit fall to the floor. The baby cried when Dean held her to his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” He opened his jacket and wrapped her in it, hoping to protect her from the heat.

He ran into the kitchen and saw that the back door was also blocked by flames. He ran back into the living room since it was the safest part of the house at the moment. He picked up his shotgun and tucked the knife into his pocket. He began his hurried search for an escape.

The windows were looking like the best bet. But he had to find one to climb through. When he heard the sound of the walls and foundation of the house cracking, he knew that he had to find the window fast.

He checked each window he came across, but the windows he found were either too small or too hot.

He looked up when he heard the sound of cracking above him. Pieces of the ceiling fell on of him and he knew that there was only so much time before it was chunks. He put his arm over the baby’s head to shield it from the debris. He was running out of time.

Then, in the master bedroom, he found the window big enough to climb through. He put the back of his hand to the glass to see if it was too hot. He shattered the glass with his shotgun.

He looked through the door just in time to see the ceiling in the living room collapse. He threw his shotgun out the window so he could have a free hand to climb out. He cut up his hand in the process. He picked up his gun and as soon as he adjusted the baby in his arms, he ran. He ran as far away from the house as he could.

The crowd at the bottom of the hill watched as the house caught on fire and collapsed. A gas main must have blown because the house exploded, bringing it to the ground. “Dean. Dean!” Sam yelled. He tried to fight his way out of Bobby’s hold.

“Sam, wait.”

“A house could have just fallen on my brother.”

“Sam, wait, look.”

The three of them looked at the building and saw someone walking toward them. “He’s alive,” Bobby whispered.

Dean trudged down the hill with a sleeping baby in his arms. He held it close to his chest, rubbing small circles into the baby’s back. “My baby,” a woman screamed coming out from the crowd. She ran straight toward Dean. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Sir.”

Dean handed the baby off to the woman. “Please, call me Dean.” He coughed a couple of times when the baby was out of his arms.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“A day in the life.” He would have shrugged, but his shoulders and back were hurting. He settled for a smirk. “You should get her checked out though. She might have inhaled some smoke.”

“I will,” the mother of the baby said with a smile.

“Well… um. Have a good night?” Dean said. He spun on his heel and walked away, unsure of what else he had to do. He made his way over to Sam, Bobby, and Pastor Jim who were standing at the edge of the crowd.

“You did it,” Pastor Jim said.

“You aren’t dead,” Sam added with a smile.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Dean replied.

“You idjit. You actually did it.” Bobby clapped him on the shoulder.

“You’re crazy. But that was… admirable.”

“Give me some credit, Sammy. I didn’t need your help at all. And I did that being one hundred percent Human.”

“It’s more like ninety-nine percent,” Sam corrected.

Pastor Jim walked over and patted Dean on the back. “Congratulations, Dean.”

“Right, congrats,” Bobby said. “And don’t you ever do anything that stupid ever again.”

“I got the job done,” Dean argued.

“Yeah, well, your father will murder me at the next reunion if you ever try to pull something like that again.”

“Just explain it to him.”

“Explain what? That his son is crazy?”

“Think that he’ll buy it?” Dean asked.

“Oh my goodness,” Pastor Jim laughed. “Let’s get you out of here. A crowd is forming.”

“Too late,” Sam said. They all turned to look at what Sam was staring at. There was a wave of people coming toward them. At the head was a news crew. Or two. “He’s going to have to talk to the news.”

“Think we can just sneak away?” Pastor Jim asked.

“We could run.”

A female newscaster ran up to them and pulled Dean away from them by his shirt.

“No,” Bobby said. He saw Dean get surrounded and engulfed by the crowd of people. “The vultures got him.”

“What do we do?” Sam asked as he watched his brother get swallowed whole by the people.

“We wait in the car,” Bobby said. “Let’s go.” The three of them sent one last look Dean’s way before they walked toward the Impala. They were trying to avoid the group of people as the crowd got bigger and bigger. It was best if they just ignored them.

They were so good at ignoring the people they walked by that the two elder Hunters didn’t even realize when they had crossed paths with a few Demons. Especially the ruler of all Hell who was walking with a dark haired, blue-eyed man.

“I’m impressed,” Lucifer said.

“It messes with your plan a little, doesn’t it?” Castiel replied, sounding quite smug. Because honestly, he was impressed too.

“I’m not worried."

“He’s still alive.”

“Doesn’t mean he’ll stay that way.”

Castiel rolled his eyes at Lucifer’s unearned cockiness. He spun around to separate himself from the crowd. “I’m out of here.”

“No.” Lucifer reached out and grabbed onto Castiel’s arm with a tight grip. “I need you for something.”

“What?” he hissed. He tried to pull his arm out of Lucifer’s grasp, which only resulted in the ruler of Hell holding onto him tighter.

“Azazel is lonely. He needs a friend. He said if I sent him someone whose company he can enjoy, then he’ll join me. You’ve been nominated.”

“Fine,” Castiel said. It wasn’t like he had a choice.

“Don’t screw this up, Castiel. Now that these simpletons failed to raise Lilith. I was already down one person since I lost the Uriel contract.”

“I got it.” He wanted Lucifer to stop talking as soon as possible, especially if he was going to bring up his failures.

Lucifer let go of Castiel. His hand left a bruise on the Human’s forearm. “Stay in touch, Castiel. And if you don’t, I’ll find you.” Castiel went off do Lucifer’s bidding while Lucifer stayed in the shadows and watched Dean earn hundreds of fans with his first rescue.

He began concocting a plan that would somehow involve Castiel in Dean’s downfall.

Part 7