Chapter Text
The Rocky Road to Hell is paved both with good intentions and Target’s own-brand mini marshmallows. It’s hand-painted, family-run, and just quaint enough to make a profit from all the hyphens. The tables are a bit wonky. The main doorway has a ladder of pencil marks on both sides of it, one higher than the other. The menu is written in looping cursive in bright pink chalk on a board that hangs just-slightly askew on the wall up behind the counter. The uniform is just as bright, complete with ruffles on the edges of the bubblegum-pink apron, and Dean has been wearing it after school since he was ten years old.
He’s twenty-five now, and the only thing that’s changed is that he wears it full-time instead of just in the afternoons.
“Stop eating the sprinkles,” says his mom, coming out from the backroom.
“Mom.”
“I can tell when you’re lying,” she says. “Scoot.”
He shifts his ass over a bit so she can dump a box on the countertop where he’s been sitting. He reads the label upside-down. “I didn’t know we were out of ball bearings.”
“We’re not,” says Mary, cutting open the tape on the box with a craft knife that’s covered in stickers of smiling cats. “Just a hunch.”
“Rufus or Bobby?”
“Ellen. Bobby and Rufus like the honeycomb.”
“Is Jo coming with her?”
Mary side-eyes him. “Dean Winchester, if you even think about looking at that girl funny I will do nothing to help you when Ellen finds out and comes after you with a machete.”
“Pen-knife,” says Dean. “She’d want to make it last.”
The bell jingles, and Mary pinches his leg to make him get off the counter and go say hi.
* * *
Dean Winchester is the Righteous Man, says the hum and glory of the heavenly Host. He will break the First Seal, and start the Apocalypse.
Castiel remembers the day of Dean Winchester’s birth – the clamour and glow of a thousand wings lit up with joy. He’d been squashed a bit, near the back, Balthazar lifting him up for a closer look. He’d only gotten a glimpse – a flash of a tiny squirming thing, and when Balthazar asked him about the glory of the Righteous Man he lied and said the Man was beautiful and pure.
He wasn’t. He was a wriggling pink comma of flesh, his mind an empty crackle of life. Castiel had seen no glory. He had seen a human child.
But he kept watch over the Man anyway. The Host knew the sequence of events. Mother murdered, raised a soldier, broke righteous.
Castiel. The time has come. You must retrieve the Righteous Man from Hell.
Millennia spent waiting for this task. Castiel is ready.
* * *
The guy standing in the doorway looks lost. He’s wearing a suit, a tie in a nice colour but knotted all wrong, and a coat that’s near-drowning him and is way too hot for the Kansas summer heat.
But this isn’t an ordinary ice cream parlour, and Dean has seen weirder. “Hey,” he says. “Welcome to The Rocky Road to Hell! Can I make any recommendations for you?”
“You are Dean,” says the man. He looks a bit bewildered. His says the name without looking at Dean's name badge.
“Yeah,” says Dean. This isn't the weirdest thing to have ever happened to him when wearing the apron, and ain't that just the retail life, but there's something about this guy's contained intensity that has Dean turning to pay him all of his attention. The guy could just be high, but he sees his mom go quiet and still behind the counter anyway. Better safe than sorry, despite the fact that there’s salt running under the floor and devil’s traps drawn under the cupcake-patterned welcome mat.
“Dean Winchester,” says the man.
“Do you need a ride to the hospital?” Dean asks. His mom has bent a little, has her arm stuck beneath the counter. To a customer she looks like she's fumbling for extra napkins or something, but Dean knows that there are guns stashed behind the spare plastic spoons.
The parlour’s empty except for the three of them, and the guy’s eyes are looking crazier by the second. Dean meets his mom's eyes, and she nods.
"Look," says Dean, making a show of wiping his hands on his apron and hooking the surface spray onto one of the over-the-neck straps. "Are you on a bad trip or something?"
“What?” asks the man, steadily watching Dean as he comes towards him. His eyes narrow, and Dean stops moving. “I have not fallen.”
He says it with an odd vehemence. Dean isn't looking at his mom, but he hears a faint click and knows that she's ready.
"We don't want any trouble," says Dean. He studies the guy, who has walked over salt lines and traps and other tricks to trap a hundred different kinds of nasty, and still something is screaming at him, saying not human. From the second click that comes from behind the counter, his mom agrees.
Dean slides his right hand into the big pocket of his apron, and pulls out a bottle of water. Clear, still. Holy too, though there's no way to tell just by looking at it. "You thirsty?" he asks the man, holding out the bottle.
“No,” says the man. He lapses into silence and stares straight at Dean’s apron, his mouth twisted into a displeased crease.
“You got a problem with femininity?” Dean asks. He wouldn’t be the first, and Dean’s well schooled in how to treat assholes that think being like a woman is the worst thing a man can be. His mom taught him well.
“No," say the man, and he gives Dean another scrunchy-eyed look of utter incomprehension.
“Look," says Dean. "Can we help you or not?"
The man stands in silence for perhaps ten seconds, and then he looks at the water bottle in Dean's hand, and at the flowery welcome mat with its devil's trap beneath, and at the front window where a little of the salt line shows through via a gap in the floorboards. He looks at Dean's mom last, and his gaze is one of respect and wariness.
“No. It is all right. I believe I have made an error.”
The guy swings around and heads back outside. Dean moves to follow him but by the time he gets his head out the door the guy is gone.
* * *
Dean Winchester is not in Hell. When Castiel pins a demon to the heat-cracked dirt and demands his location, the demon doesn’t even know who Dean is. Frustrated, Castiel burns it; his wings a searing cold that smother the creature’s flames and smoke in an instant. All around him his garrison are drifting amid the chains of the Rack, eagle hunting faces gone to ram’s heads or lion heads in the confusion.
Where is the Righteous Man, goes up the cry. The Man is lost.
No, says Castiel, but he is too quiet, too small, and his Garrison are rising up – up through the gates they bent and broke to gain entry, up towards the luminous dust and starlight of the heavenly plane. The Man must be on Earth.
But angels are narrow-minded creatures, and they do not listen. Castiel is caught up in the comet’s tail of light that the angels leave in their wake, and rides it up through the gates. He doesn’t wait to watch their sealing, though it is a sight that will likely never coincide with his orders ever again. He is a continent away, cutting a line of fire through the between-space, following the memory of Dean Winchester’s soul as he saw it some twenty-six years ago. Ten kilometers above the tender shell of the Earth's crust, Castiel unwinds the coil of his grace and hurls it out in all directions, casting for the echo of Dean’s birth.
He finds the place. The hospital’s walls are warm when Castiel wings out of the between-space and alights on the roof, and they whisper to him when he slides down to a ward full of the vague light of infants and tired mothers. He can feel the thread of Dean’s time, goes to the point where it starts.
Dean Winchester is indeed on Earth. If Castiel is correct, he is at this moment less than ten miles from his birthplace. He knows that he should report to his superiors, but if he is incorrect in this report he will face severe punishment and Castiel is not a good enough angel to ignore that threat.
Their first meeting is not the glorious Raising that the Host ordained. It is awkward and Castiel leaves after only a few minutes, departing the visible wavelength to perch, invisible, inside the building he had just fled. It is very – pink. It is pink and flowery and charming, and it is not at all the destiny Castiel has been training to fulfill since the time of his creation. He feels strangely misshapen inside his vessel, and this destiny is hostile to him for all its pinkness. It is hostile because it is not what he has trained for, and he does not know what to do.
His orders were to Raise the Righteous Man from the bowels of Hell. Not to hide, afraid, inside a human food and beverage establishment. Jimmy Novak is angry with him, with this false purpose that he left his family for, and Castiel does not know what to do.
* * *
Dean’s taking out the trash a week later when he sees him again – the crazy eyed maybe-monster with the coat. He’s not wearing it now, and his eyes aren’t quite so crazy as before, which gives Dean the courage to tentatively approach him. He holds the trash bag in front of him as if it could do a damn thing if this guy really does turn out to be one of those things that go bump in the dark. “Hey, you feeling better?”
“I do not know,” says the man. “I am trying something new.”
“That’s great,” says Dean. He swings the trash bag a little when the guy doesn't say anything more, just stares. Dean stares back at him and recognises the guy's outfit at being exactly the same as last time. “Hey, uh. You got clothes? You got a place to stay?"
“I have more clothes,” the man says.
“There’s a cheap motel over that way,” says Dean, putting down one of the black bags and pointing. The guy's eyes doesn't follow his finger. It's like being an ant under a magnifying glass. “Sarah’ll let you stay free for a couple nights if you explain your situation.”
“My…situation?”
“Yeah, I mean. I know this is awful nosy, but – drugs, right? You got real messed up? It’s okay, I’m not gonna judge,” says Dean, when the man goes to speak. “My kid brother got into the wrong crowd a couple years back, if you know what I mean. You’re trying, right? That’s the important thing.”
“Yes,” says the man. He sounds a bit dazed. Maybe he really is a drug addict and not a monster. Then again, he could be both. Monsterhood drives people to desperate escapism, especially when unwillingly acquired.
“You can come in to get fed and watered any time you want ‘til you’re back on your feet,” says Dean. “We got a special policy for people who need the help.”
“I – yes. That is very kind.”
“It’s no problem, really. I do require at least a little payment, though.”
“I don’t have any money.”
Dean laughs, loud and long. “Christ, you’re a right case. What’s your name, dumbass? I can’t just keep thinking of you as rumply-suit-dude.”
“I am not wearing a suit.”
“That makes knowing your name even more important,” says Dean.
“I am Castiel,” says the man, and then visibly cuts himself off as if he’d been about to say something else.
“Well, Castiel,” says Dean. “How do you feel about ice cream? I get the feeling you’re going to be eating an awful lot of it.”
* * *
Castiel stays hidden inside the building for the rest of the day, watching Dean and Mary work. The parlour is quiet. They have a steady trickle of customers that swells at lunchtime, and Mary knows them all by name. The handles of the cupboards under the till have the blurred remnant of an etching, rubbed flat by years of use. Castiel can feel the echo of Mary and Dean’s presence in every mote of dust, in every floor tile and uneven splotch of paint. This is a home, and for the first time Castiel knows what it is to envy.
He unspools his grace, lets it fan out to fill every corner of the building. He knows the mind of every human that comes inside that day, and with every newcomer he understands a little more of why Dean and his mother has been so perturbed by him. Most humans have more than one set of outer garments, and Dean also appears to believe that Castiel had been under the influence of some kind of narcotic. Such substances have no effect on angels, but Dean would not know that. Castiel does not understand what he did to create this impression, but he would not like it to continue. He gathers from the old woman who comes in for a single-scoop of vanilla on a chocolate waffle cone that substance abusers are not much favoured by current human society, or at least not in this part of the world.
“That guy from earlier,” says Mary, at around two in the afternoon. “He trouble?”
“No, he’s just – lost, I think,” says Dean.
“What club did he join?” asks Mary.
"Not sure," says Dean, and Mary's eyebrows rocket upwards. "You saw him," he protests. "He walked straight in, no problemo. Guy could just be a regular old meatbag who need some help."
Mary shakes her head. "Honey, I don't know what he is, but he sure as Hell ain't a regular old anything."
Dean leans on the counter, props himself up by the elbows. "So we keep an eye on him?"
She nods. "Innocent til proven guilty, Deany. You know how it goes."
The Dean that Castiel has been trained to expect would fight the pet name, but the fact that this Dean doesn’t pales against the much bigger deviations present all around them. The Dean Castiel expected should be travelling with his brother, homeless, seeking sex and inebriation for entertainment. So far this Dean hasn’t even considered the latter two and clearly has a comfortable and much-loved home. This Dean hasn’t even thought about Sam.
“Yeah,” says Dean, and now is when he finally thinks about Sam. “Yeah, I know.”
Castiel cannot describe what happens when he looks into Dean’s mind and sees Sam, dirty and greasy-haired, lying thin and wrecked in a hospital bed, but he finds himself on an empty shoreline one-tenth of a human second later, and the trees to his back are stripped bare and torn by his grace.
Not everything about this perfect alternate reality - and that is what this must be, Castiel must have flown into some other-world, as there is no way this dire aberration to the ordained chain of events could possibly be happening for real - is so perfect, it seems.
Castiel closes the vessel's eyes and cleanses his turbulent thoughts, and when all is at peace once more he steps through reality and returns himself to Kansas. Dean thought he needed more clothes, so he will acquire more clothes. However, having spent the last two millennium in heaven, Castiel is not acquainted with whatever form of currency rules Dean's region of the Earth. He feels a mild discomfort at the thought of stealing clothing, but knows enough from Mary and Dean’s customers to feel significantly less discomfort about taking a moment to lift the money he needs from the offshore accounts of a man called Mitt Romney.
The tags on the inside of most of the clothes in Dean’s closet said Old Navy, so that is where Castiel goes. His fellow customers are a mixed crowd, half of whom are uncomfortable with the dirty concrete floor and exposed ceiling, the other half to whom these things are so familiar as to be a mere fact of life. Castiel buys some black t-shirts in the same size as a man who appears to possess the same body type as the vessel, and some jeans. He also buys a couple of plaid shirts, because Dean seems to like those. He certainly has enough of them.
Changing clothes and immediately returning to the ice cream parlour could be construed as strange, so Castiel takes his purchases with him to a quiet street a few miles outside of the town and waits there until morning. Time is of little concern to him in human terms. He has waited millennia for this mission, warped as it is. A few hours is of no concern to him.
The sunrise is different from Earth. In heaven Castiel views it as it truly is, the atoms and connections and the vast space between. Here by the Kansas roadside Castiel sees the bleed of colour, the lavender that blooms to buttercup yellow before brightening to brilliant blue. The sun is a hot glow, a light that would hurt the vessel’s eyes without Castiel’s protection. It is the power source of almost all life on this humble rock with the exception of the strange creatures huddling around the volcanic oases of the deep oceans, and from this human vantage point Castiel understands the ancient peoples who died to built monuments to it.
He changes his clothes the human way up until a man slows his car and shouts at him. Castiel finishes changing in a subtle shift of planes and wipes the man’s memory before he leaves for the parlour. He leaves the rest of his clothes in a sealed natural cavern a kilometer below the surface, where they will be safe. He knows that Dean would call that ‘overkill’, but Castiel does not know enough of Earth yet to trust leaving his possessions in the open.
Dean is again carrying waste to a disposal unit outside the parlour when Castiel arrives in a doorway around the corner. Castiel walks by him, unsure how to initiate interaction, but Dean does it for him. Dean is pleased by Castiel’s new clothes, and – Castiel feels some aspect of that.
Angels are not supposed to feel.
Dean Winchester is supposed to be in Hell.
Only one of these things makes Castiel feel uncomfortable.
* * *
“Did you steal the clothes?”
“No,” says Castiel, truthfully. The clothing may have been purchased with liberated currency, but it was still purchased.
They have moved inside the parlour, Dean beckoning and Castiel drawn hopelessly in his wake. There’s a scruffy-looking old man camped out in one corner with a huge half-melted sundae at his elbow, but otherwise it’s empty. Castiel can feel the hum of Mary's presence behind the shop, in the part of the building restricted for family. She’s reading, and the placid melody of her mind in that action soothes Castiel a little when Dean snorts at him and shakes his head.
“You can be honest,” says Dean. “I mean, you did say you haven’t got any cash, so there’s no other way you could have got them.”
“I paid,” says Castiel.
Dean’s eyes narrow. “Who’d you steal the money from? You don’t look like the type to hustle.”
“No,” says Castiel. “Though I was not aware such deeds attracted a ‘type.’”
“Who’d you steal from? It’s a small town. Humour me.”
“A man called Mitt Romney,” says Castiel.
Dean stares at him for a long moment and then laughs, loud and belly-deep. “Are you for real? Fuck, man. You’re exactly the type to hustle with a poker face like that.”
“He is not a nice person,” Castiel informs him, with absolute solemnity.
“No, I got that. He’s a regular pile of horse shit. Okay, I get it. I’ll stop asking. Just keep your nose clean while you’re coming here, yeah? We do honest work here.”
The Dean that Castiel had been told of was a hustler and a cheat. This Dean knows how to hustle but has only done so on a few occasions and takes little pleasure in it.
“I do not know how to get honest work,” says Castiel. Dean has been helpful so far. Castiel can only hope that his hospitality extends still further.
Dean eyes him. “You got ID?”
“No,” says Castiel.
“We can help you out,” says Dean. “You should come up with a better alias than ‘Castiel’, though, if you want to keep your head down.”
“It isn’t an alias,” says Castiel.
Dean looks visibly taken aback. “Oh, uh. Wow. Guess your parents kinda screwed you over there, huh.”
“I do not have parents,” says Castiel, although he knows Dean wasn’t expecting an answer. He doesn’t know why he tells Dean this, just that he wants to. It isn’t strictly true, of course, because he does have a Father - just not in the human sense, and certainly no mother.
“Oh, uh. Sorry about that.”
“It is not your fault,” says Castiel. Then, because Dean is looking increasingly uncomfortable, he points at the jar of sprinkles on the counter. “They look nice.”
“Oh? Yeah. They taste better than they look.”
“I would like some of those, if your offer of sustenance is still open.”
Castiel does not require nutrition, but Dean had offered and Castiel sees no other way to change the topic to something less likely to disturb Dean.
“Just – sprinkles?” Dean raised an eyebrow at him. “Free reign in an ice cream parlour, and you just want sprinkles?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“A portion,” says Castiel, after a moment’s careful thought.
“Where’d you get this whackjob,” calls the man sitting in the corner. “I know you and your mama love to pick up strays, Deany, but this one needs more help than you can provide."
Whackjob, Castiel surmises, is a derogatory and ableist term. Castiel does not appreciate its use.
The old man is reading something on his communicative device, and by redirecting his true eyes Castiel can read the screen without moving. “You are translating incorrectly,” he tells him, tone placid. “If you attempt to use that enchantment in the way you are trying to it will result in your quick and painful death.”
Dean goes very still.
The man’s hand has moved very unsubtly to his hip, where Castiel can detect a short blade. “How’re you reading that from over there?”
Ah. It appears he has made a mistake in conduct. “I have very good eyesight,” he says.
“You don’t say.” The man stands up and starts coming towards them.
Castiel has no wish to reveal himself like this, especially when his purpose is so confused. He remains seated. “I have very good eyesight,” he repeats.
The front bell tinkles and they all turn to see the newcomer. To Dean and the angry old man with the knife – Eddie Prentis, fifty-seven years of age, driven to hunting after the murder of his classmates on a camping trip as a teenager, full of the kind of hate and suspicion and hurt that Castiel had expected to see in Dean – it is a tall white man, broad, with a large oval face and a hooked nose.
To Castiel the newcomer is a pillar of brilliant light, encircled by the steady rotation of the wheels that mark the angel’s rank. The many eyes that cover the angel’s wings are familiar to Castiel, and he shrinks down a little inside his vessel.
Castiel, says Zachariah. What have you done?
I have done nothing, says Castiel. The pressure of Zachariah’s gaze is heating the skin of Castiel’s vessel, prickling at his wings.
“There you are,” says Zachariah’s human mouth. “I was very worried about you, Castiel. We all were.”
It is a lie, and that is – unsettling.
I went to the Pit, and Dean Winchester was not there, says Castiel. I found him here, living in the light. He is not as Prophesized.
I can see that.
“Come with me,” says Zachariah, so the humans can hear. “We’d best get you home.”
“Home?” I have not yet fulfilled my orders.
“Yes. Your sister was very worried.” Your orders are now irrelevant. You will be issued with new ones once He has told us how to react to this situation. This must be part of the Plan, as are all things.
“Yes,” says Castiel. “My sister.” Who is to be stationed with me?
Anael. Be quiet, Castiel. You have said and done enough here as it is. We do not want to increase their suspicions.
“I’m sorry,” says Dean, his body language gone subtly bolder, hip cocking. “Who are you and how do you know him?”
Castiel does not speak, because he has been ordered not to.
“I’m his brother,” says Zachariah. “He gets away from us, sometimes. He had an accident at work a few years ago and it’s changed him up a bit. Sorry if he’s bothered you, Dean. We’ll pay for any damages.”
Dean does not like being called by name by this man. He is concerned that Zachariah is either abusing Castiel and that Castiel ran away, or that Zachariah is a monster that converted Castiel against his will, but Castiel cannot speak to assuage either concern. He places his hands on his knees and stares at the veins on the backs of the vessel's hands.
“Keep him on a leash,” suggests the man who had been approaching Castiel before Zachariah’s entrance. "He'll get killed, pulling stunts like that around these parts."
There is a millisecond where Castiel quakes under the blooming heat of Zachariah’s grace, but it subsides just as suddenly as started. Zachariah quirks a strange smile at the man and exits the shop, obviously expecting Castiel to follow. He stands to do so, but is stopped when Dean puts a hand on his elbow.
Dean is – still concerned.
“I am fine,” says Castiel. When Zachariah takes no notice in him betraying his order, he adds, “He is who he says.”
“You sure? He ain’t messing you around?”
“He is my brother,” says Castiel, startled.
Dean nods and lets him leave, but his thoughts say exactly.
* * *
Once out of sight of the ice cream parlour, Zachariah folds away his vessel’s form and seizes Castiel by the horns of his ram face, dragging them both sideways to the space between atoms. Anael is waiting for them.
Release him, Zachariah.
He complies and Castiel straightens, trying not to show his discomfort. Sister, he greets.
Brother, she replies. Zachariah tells me that you have disobeyed.
I was ordered to find and retrieve Dean Winchester. The Man was not in Hell, and I planned to report to you after discovering him in this place, but I preferred to stay a short time and investigate. It could very well have been a trap for the Host.
Castiel is not typically one to talk so brazenly to his superiors, and Zachariah’s surprise registers in the flip of his lion face to his eagle one. Castiel refuses to shy away under Zachariah’s war stare, and remains resolute, respectful ram locked in place.
Anael roars at Zachariah with the snarling jaws of her lion, and he flinches away from her, bowing his wings and closing the eyes on them. He has not disobeyed, she says, and her Voice is a rattle that spikes up through the atmosphere and out into the cosmos.
He did not retrieve Dean Winchester, says Zachariah.
He did not disobey, says Anael. You described him as a traitor.
Castiel can’t help the flip to eagle, or the way his wings crackle and spark when he turns to face Zachariah. I am no traitor.
Be quiet, says Anael. You are still our subordinate. I have new Orders for you, Castiel.
He returns to his ram face and closes his eyes, awaiting Revelation.
The Righteous Man will break the first seal and bring the Apocalypse, says Anael. It is foretold, and so it shall be. You, Castiel are to discover the point where this reality deviates from the Word, and report to us. This task is all you should concern yourself with. Do you understand?
I do, says Castiel, and they leave him in a great rush of wind until he is kneeling in darkness, alone.