#so I barely talked to anyone until I was like 13-14 and so anemic I was blacking out and sleeping 14 hours a day

[gxlden-angels]

I don't know if it's the religious trauma or the dead mom trauma but the conservative christian insistence on not teaching children about their bodies in school and insistence that this knowledge should be private in all circumstances with no exceptions should be seen as suspicious at best and criminally malicious at worst

[anniehowsback]

Don’t Do Anything Stupid

Fandom: SPN

whump/ speculative fic based on spoilers/ pre-season 14 / 2k / Gen / PG-13

Characters: Castiel, Michael, Dean, Jack (backgound Sam, Mary, Bobby)

Warnings: aftermath of violence

Summary: “DO IT,” Castiel commanded, and Jack gulped past the knot in his throat, slammed his bloodied hand on the banishing sigil, and activated it.

He barely caught a glimpse of Michael’s widening eyes before the archangel was forcibly ejected from the bunker, dragging Castiel right along with him.

“DO IT,” Castiel commanded, and Jack gulped past the knot in his throat, slammed his bloodied hand on the banishing sigil, and activated it.

He barely caught a glimpse of Michael’s widening eyes before the archangel was forcibly ejected from the bunker, dragging Castiel right along with him.

When the flash from the spell faded out, Jack was surrounded only by the red emergency lights and the dull, anxious rumbling of the alarm. He looked down at his leg, splayed out in front of him, broken and twisted. It hurt, more than stabbing used to hurt him, but he suspected still less than what it would feel to a full human. He had managed to crawl all the way to the wall with it, but now he felt the strong desire to be helped and comforted, and not move anymore.

“Sam?” he called, his voice quivering. He could barely make out a hand and an arm sticking out from underneath a toppled bookcase, across the room. He got no reply.

“M-Mary?” he tried, craning his neck to look through the remnants of the door. “Bobby?”

Nobody answered him.

The alarm kept going.

Jack sniffed. Tears were starting to stream down his eyes, fat and salty. “Anyone?” he whispered, hugging himself, and wishing he could just make things move like he used to.

“Castiel,” he finally prayed, “please come back; I need you.”

They splash-landed in the northern Atlantic, tangled together like a poisonous vine and an ancient stone, startling a pod of whales. The large animals scattered, surprisingly agile for their volume. If Michael needed to conquer the depth of the oceans, he’d consider taking one of them as his vessel.

Human forms were so woefully inept for underwater battles. He felt even more constrained and limited than usual, and the cold, wet clothes actively bothered him.

He shook himself free of the seraph and took flight, heading back to the continental mass of northern America. He could have killed him, but it felt more satisfying to let that wingless, annoying pest find his way back with his human limbs.

Only, as he made a graceful touch down in a luscious field of wheat, he realized Castiel had managed to somehow cling to him, enough to ride his wake and tumble down only a few feet away, sowing a deep trench in the earth and spoiling the majestic landscape. Typical.

Now thoroughly irritated, he advanced on this version of his brother and grabbed him by the neck, yanking him up to his eye level.

Michael didn’t consider himself particularly squeamish, or sentimental, or any of that human nonsense, but he did find it uncomfortable to come face to face with just how low an angel could fall. If the broken creature in front of him could still be called an angel.

He wasn’t, he considered, that different from the real Castiel, at least as far as damage could be assessed, but of course Castiel had endured his own twisting and mangling to become a better soldier, while this sorry excuse of an imitation had gone completely in the other direction.

The merciful thing would have been to snap his fingers and incinerate him on the spot. And in the midst of warfare that’s exactly what he would have done. But his purpose now was intelligence-gathering, and it occurred to him that he wouldn’t find any another specimen quite like this. His circumstances were not just rare, but unique, and perhaps he could still do some good as a topic of study.

This, though, meant finding a way to stop him from pestering Michael until he was ready to open the rift again and call his army and his specialists.

The pathetic little abomination regarded him coolly from his one functioning eye, the other swollen shut and bloodied. He didn’t seem to have the energy to shed the icy water from his vessel, or the mud he’d rolled into.

Disgusting. Michael wondered if this emotion was what humans called ‘gagging’.

“I know he’s dead,” he growled, “he was dead the moment you stepped inside. All I ask is that you release his soul. You have the body. Let him rest in Heaven, he’s earned it.”

Michael chuckled. He had to admit, if only to himself, that he was surprised.

“That’s all? Is that why you’ve been dogging my every step? Just to get rid of Dean Winchester’s soul?”

“To free him,” Castiel countered firmly. “I know what it means for a human soul to be trapped with an angel…”

“Careful.” He did want to let him live, but his patience had limits, and he couldn’t outright ignore blasphemy.

“Let him go, Michael,” he whispered, and something deep inside him twinged.

Michael blinked. “If that’s all you’re asking, you’re wasting your time, “ he explained, not unkindly. “I already sent Dean Winchester to his own pocket of Heaven the moment I took over. I’m more considerate of my vessels than some of my brothers.”

Castiel narrowed his eye. “That’s… not possible.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll show you.”

The place wasn’t much different, only somehow more. A wide field of high grass bathed in the golden light of the fading sun. A cabin, in the middle, and on the outskirts a deep green forest. Snow-capped mountains on the horizon. A peaceful lake, with a wooden pier that went all the way up to the cabin’s porch.

And on the pier, looking resplendent in his carefully tailored surroundings, Dean Winchester was walking home with an empty beer cooler and four freshly caught trouts.

“There he is,” Michael pointed out unnecessarily. Castiel had immediately and unerringly found his target the moment their surroundings had coalesced around them, his very atoms vibrating and straining in that direction. “Careful,” Michael warned again, actually starting to pity the poor wretch. “I didn’t say you could talk to him.”

They watched silently from afar as Dean reached his porch, and was greeted by his mother, who came out to relieve him of the fish and to warn him to shower before dinner. Next the nephilim rounded the house with an armful of wood, chattering excitedly about managing the barbeque on his own. And finally Sam Winchester came out with two cold, sweating beers. He handed one to his brother, they toasted, and then they stood for a while in silence, looking out at the glorious landscape.

Michael felt just a touch of pride at the idyllic scene.

“Satisfied?”

The seraph hunched under his grip, but then he managed to surprise Michael once again.

Castiel gave him a sideways look and chuckled darkly. “This isn’t Heaven,” he declared.

“How-?” Michael spluttered, not bothering to deny it.

“This isn’t a memory, it never happened.”

“What does it matter, and how would you even know?”

“In your universe things may be different, but in ours Heaven is strictly an endless repeat of good memories… and I know all about Dean. You can’t fool me.”

Michael scowled. So much for being magnanimous.

“But thanks for taking me this close,” Castiel smirked, and stuffed something in his breast pocket.

For the second time in as many hours, Michael was unceremoniously yanked away from the place he meant to be, but this time he was on his own.

Furious, he took a moment to gather himself and inspect the content of his pocket.

A tightly knotted pouch. Witchcraft. Michael swore bombastically in Enochian. Was there no low the treacherous little mongrel wouldn’t sink to? Oh, but he’d make him pay.

He concentrated, and an anemic tendril of smoke snaked out of the pouch.

Michael huffed. It might take him a while, but he’d make him pay dearly.

One minute Dean was sipping his beer and the next it crumpled into dust in his hand. Everything and everyone around him wavered and faded away like a mirage, leaving behind only dunes of grey, scorched sand. Even the sound had ceased to be, like vacuum in outer space.

What the… he thought, slapping his hand to the small of his back, wishing he had a weapon.

He spun around, looking everywhere, but the landscape spun with him, and the wind picked up, spitting soil in his face.

Still, some form of nameless instinct told him something was approaching. He squinted and tried to shield his face as best as he could, straining his eyes.

There.

A darker point, a silhouette, a figure right in front of him. He couldn’t make out any features, but he knew.

Cas! he tried calling, but the silence wouldn’t budge. He broke out into a jog, a clumsy parody of a run on the uneven ground, which sucked at his feet and held him fast, making him as slow as a car on an empty tank.

Cas was fighting his damnest to reach him as well. Dean could see him now, beaten half to hell, urgently trying to shout something. But Dean couldn’t hear him, and he couldn’t read his lips.

They were nearly there. Dean reached out his hand, and he saw Castiel do the same. A couple of inches and their fingertips would have touched. Cas mouthed the only word Dean understood: No!, and suddenly the whole world seemingly rebooted.

Dean was on his perfect porch again, with his perfectly cold beer, looking out at his perfectly peaceful lake.

Castiel was standing next to him, smiling benevolently. He looked healthy, powerful, put together. Windswept and tanned, but then he used to always look like that at his most angelic.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Cas! What the hell?”

“My apologies. I wanted to visit you, but I fear my presence-“

“Is ‘disruptive’, yeah, you’ve said before.” Dean took a swig of his beer. It was the exact kind of tangy that he preferred. He had to make an effort to choke it down with a neutral face. “Are you staying for dinner?”

Castiel looked at him fondly, like a teacher would a slow but hardworking child. “I can’t. I have a rather delicate matter I have to attend to. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been to see your brother and your mother, and I found them both well. He’s entering his second semester of law school with an impressive score, for a working student. And she is looking for a house with Bobby Singer. I am under the impression that they are willing to settle down together.”

Dean nodded. “Second semester, huh? Wow, has it already been that long?”

“Time flows differently in Heaven. You needn’t trouble yourself with it, anyway. Human lifespans are so brief, especially seen from here. Soon enough they’ll outlive theirs, and join you here. Then you’ll be together forever.”

“Creepy, Castiel. Creepy.” Dean put down his beer, no longer able to pretend to enjoy it. “And Jack?”

For the briefest of moments, Castiel’s serene smile wavered, but he rallied like a champ. “Hunting, doing much good to honor your memory. Though since you sacrificed yourself to save the world, hunter jobs have gotten scarce and far in between. I’m afraid he might eventually drop out of them altogether.”

“No, that would be good. Nothing good comes from a kid hunting.”

“He’s not-“ Castiel pulled his smile back up. “You needn’t worry about him. He’s still basically unkillable.”

“Oh, good,” Dean quipped, unable to help himself. Before Castiel could fully narrow his eyes, he hurried on: “it was good to see you, buddy. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t be a stranger, eh?”

Castiel smiled beatifically again, and inclined his head. “I come as often as I can, Dean, but this isn’t my place. It’s meant for humans, not angels. Besides, don’t you already have all the company you need?”

From behind the windows, Dean could make out Sam, Mary and Jack’s faces, peering out and waiting for their cue.

Dean nodded, grinning wide with all his teeth. “Yep, I have everything I could ever want here. That’s what paradise is for, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is, Dean Winchester. Indeed it is.” Castiel clapped him on his right shoulder, and vanished with a faint sound of flapping wings.

Sam, Mary and Jack walked out, watching him silently and unblinkingly.

Dean gulped, and quickly walked out on the pier on his own. They never followed him there, unless he took them. The edge on the lake was the only place he could be alone.

When he reached it he sat down, gripping the worn wood until his hands stopped shaking.

The others remained at the house. Dean could hear them busying themselves with the barbeque. The fish already smelled delicious.

Keeping his back ramrod-straight, he hooked his foot on a piece of string hanging down into the water, brought it up to his hand, and then pulled the mason jar attached to it from under the murky lake.

There was a journal inside, and a pen. Dean opened it and stared at the first page.

DEAD.

Slowly, he put a question mark next to it.

On the next page there was Djinn?

He added another strikethrough.

Under it there was how much time? Hours Days Weeks

He crossed out Weeks and wrote Months?

And on the third page:

Where is the real Cas?

He underlined ‘real’, and added searching, and also in danger?

He closed his eyes and exhaled. He didn’t dare pray, in case the fake Castiel heard him, but he turned to the last page and wrote: don’t do anything stupid.

Don’t do anything stupid.

Yeah. If only.