| Thursday, 7 November |
| Prompt: | Isolation | 3120 | WordCount: | 3154 |
"Very few hunters activily dealt with demons, with John Winchester being one of the even fewer that even considered them real. And as far as Bobby Singer or the Winchester brothers could find in the days leading up to Heaven and Hells war on earth, there were no coinfirmed Hunters that had ever dealt with Angels a all.
However, there where a few Hunters that dealt with all manor of occult items, although John Winchester wrote them as being more witch related than anything else. His journal listed, in an even more paranoid code than usual, a pair of Hunters that had power items that did not register as demonic, but Daddy Winchester had felt very uneasy in his dealings with them, becuase by that point he was learned enough to know whatever they were selling was most definatly /not/ human in origin.
Whoever they were, these Hunters had never been part of Bobby's circle, so the names had been lost to a code no one left alive could decifer. Sam had at least traked down a last known location; their dad having mentioned meetings starting in late 1995 to inquire about some blood of undeternaimal origin that had been used in a demonic banishment ritural that had actually worked.
The jounral had not listed having ever found out the soruce of the blood, or how the two Hunters had accutred it. It had said he'd traded for some, but it hadn't felt right, and John had salt and burned his sample later that year after he felt like something was sniffing around him. Whatever had been stalking him never came back, and John limited his contact with them as much as possible; trading information, but never again items. He had a suspision what whiel the items where not demonic, and where extramly effective against demon and other supernataul entited, they also seemed to /attract/ demonic energy to a dangersous degree.
Now, years later, the same impala pulled up unannounced to the safehouse, this time holding the sons of John Winchester.
Dean sat drumming his fingers agaist the sterring wheel of his baby, looking at the shack. Weeds grew heavy between him and the front door. Sam checked the notes in the infamous winchester journal, “the last time dad seems to actually have talked about them was ‘97. I can’t find any mention of them again after that”
“So, ten something years."" and it looked like maybe the reason they'd stopped talking was less to do with their dad's habiut of burning bridges everywhere he went and more that something likely ended their myster hunters story the way most of them were desinned to go, ""Pretty sure we hit a dead end sammy.”
Sam closed the book anyway, tossing it up on the dash, as both brothers obsered the house again. It looked like a place that nobody'd bother to go in a decade, forgotten to everyone but a few passing handwritten lines in a dead mans journal “Maybe they left soemthing behind? Best case, maybe something about whatever items they where dealing in?”
He didn't want to voice that they'd driven all this way, that they really counld not leave without at least looking around. They had Heaven and Hell breathing down their necks, and the few people in their corner didn't ave the juice to keep them safe indefinatly.
With a sigh, dean opened his door, and the two brothers stepped out into the weeds, walking up to the delapitatd house.
They’d barely stepped on the porch when dedn’s cell whent off, “Its cas?” he muttered, waving at sam to work on jimming the lock open.
“Hey Cas-”
“Where did you go?!”
Dean frowned, started by the steern but almost manic edge to the angels voice “I told you, we're checking out-”
“You’re gone dean! I can’t sence you at all.”
Sammy paused, looking up from the door as he finsihed pickign te lock. Cas' voice was just shy of panicked, and set both brothers on edge.It was a distraction neither needed right now. Entering a Hunter's house without invitation, no matter how long it had sat empty, was a dangerous thing. It was booby trapped, no doubt, and they both needed to be paying attention before procedding. For thir own sake.
Dean groaned, stepping back off the porch to where the impala was parked in the sun to argue with castiel, suddenly feeling odd having this coversation in earshot of sam. His relation witht he angel was getting more complicated, he felt, and having his little brother wieging in on it was starting to make him feel like some luve-struck teenager. not that he was Love struck or anything.
Some ward must be hidden in the overgrouth, as soon as dean unknowningly stepped across it, “there you are!” came out of the phone speakers, before Castiel was standing /right/ in Dean's face.
“Where is sam?” he asked into the phone, as Dean blanced and hung up on him.
Sam waved from his posiion still on the porch as dean grstured over his way.
Can followed the movement, but looked blankly over at the house, unseeing, as dean stepped away in a huff, grombling at the close quaters.
“In the field?”
“No. on the… cas?”
Castiel looked at dean in confusion, and then back at where sam was standing up. No. not at sam. Still blankly out int space.
“Cas?” sam called, walking over to join them. Cas jerked his head toword the sound, but still saw nothing.
“Sam? Where? I can hear you, but ....“
“Cas? I’m right… i’m like ten feet in front of you?”
Castiel held his arm out, blindly, groping at the air. Dean stood awkwardly at his side, looking worriedly between his angel and his brother. Carefuly, castiel stepped forward. Once.
Twice.
Three steps.
You could see when he hit the wards they hadn't known where even there, a whole body flinch, “Castiel?”
The angel graped dean's arm, grip harsh, his eyes wide and straining.
“Cas? What’s wrong?”
He cocked his head, not his usual gesture of struggling to understand, but more like he was struggling to hear a low far off sound, “I cant…. I cant see anything.. I can’t hear….”
“Cas?”
“Not cleary. Its… /I/ can’t hear you, but.. My vessel can. Jimmy can.”
Head still tilted, he squinted. It was strange, closing his own sight to force his gaze though the limited eyes of his human vessal. Soon, the house and sam came into murky view.
“This house it warded against Heaven’s gaze,” he muttered, Sam reacing out to take his elbow to help him up the porch steps, Dean allowing the agnel his near frantic strangelhild on his own arm to remain.
Inside, the house was just as torn and aged as the outside yard, wallpaper peeling and every surface covered in thic dust. The three of them carefully split up, looking over the room for clues, Casteil taking his time as he had to use only Jimmy's sences, and it took him longer than he would of liked to translate what he was seeing.
“oh man….” dean whispered, pulling a paper from the trash, “sam! look at this”
He held up a newpaper, headline warning of the upcoming Y2K danger. Sam shook his head in desbelief, while cas squinted at it. Pitying him, dean dropped it back in the trash down, “paper’s from 1999.” he explained. Ten years then, since the Hunters had been here.
There where a few salt lines - long since broekn by age, and wards painted around door frames and on the floor. Any traps that Sam or Dean would have had to personally worry about seems to have been long since triggerd just by the natural progression of time, but they moved though the shack looking for any that might still pose a danger. And so the continued exploration went on in otherwise quiet, until sam called out from a back room. Dean and Castiel found him standing in a filled with shelfing units, like a storage system of books, papers, weapons and boxes of assorted items. But specifially, Sam stood before a shelf of clear empty glass jars, but each with a lid that had been permantly sealled closed.
Maybe not empty, Sam feeling something ugly twist in him when he looked at the shelf, and when he came in sight of them, Castiel was staring at them in pure horror. His hands shook as he took one from sam, looking at it cocked eyed
“What is it?”
""I can't..."" He shook his head before taking the jar outside, moving like a man on a mission, dean and sam trialing behind him. He didn’t falter or pause until he’d nearly reached the car. As soon as his sight in unvieled, he dropped the jar with a curse, dean straightening in surprise. The words were echonian, but the intent behind them was clear.
""Cas?” sam questioned, picking the jar up form where it lays in the dry dirt at their feet. Castiel was looking at it what might be muted horror. It seemed empty, but the shadow left under it showed there was clealy something trapped in the glass.
“Cas?” dean asked this time, voice soft and pitched with a soothing quality usually saved for questioning kids or tramatized victums of the supernatural. He too is looking at the jar in sam’s hands questioning, but not able to see anything in the clear glass that would shake their angel freind so badly.
“Feathers from the Host.”
“Feathers? Like…” dean gestered at castiel’s back. The angel, solemn faced, knodded. Sam dropped the jar like it was hot, feeling wrong holding such a thing. The brothers looked back at the house warily, while Castiel can't find himself abel to look away from the jar ont he ground, shining innocently in the sun. it didn’t take much thought or power to summon an end to the jar, the glass shattering with a look and the contents coaxed inside to bursthing into flame once they touched the air.
The three of them stood torn with the overwealming desire to get in the car and never look back, and go back inside and destory any remaining feathers. The hunter insticts should be in over drive to hoard what is clearly poerful articats, but betwwen Castiel's reaction, and thir own fondness for the angel, neither one of them give that instict time to kick in, squashing it under a thick layer of 'I think not'
Once inside again, it didn’t take much looking to find a heavily marked door to the celler; a large steel baricade, unfamilour script paining the panels. “More wards,” castiel said, tracing the patterns and squinting.
“I don’t think i can go down there. Not if i want to leave again,” he warned, looking back at the brothers uneaisly.
Dean nodded, “finish getting rid of the..feathers. Sam and I’ll see whats going on downstairs.”
***
There's a body in the basemnt.
After the jars, the boys whre expecting somehting down there, so the body is not as much of a surpise anymore. How it was left however, is what leaves the season hunters uneasy. It is strung up in iron chains, starveld to skin and bones, left to rot in the dark. Arms streached out to its sides to keep the body upright, but given enough slack to fall it its knees on a heavily pained floor, complex spells on every visible incle of the cement, and the array moving up the walls to meet a matching design carved into the unfinished ceiling, varios object haning form the exposed rafters and pipes all ment to strangthen the trap.
The room smells of herbs and rot. The added horror is the tubing leading from the emancipeded arm to a long overflowed bottle on the counter, long dried blood having run over and flooded the workbench.
“They left the poor bastered bleeding…”
Sam looked away as Dean looked over the contraption, instead focusing on the completely unfamilor wards. At first glace they /looked/ like they might have started with a devils trap base, but none of the symblos are recognisable outright. But they do look like something they might have seen in one of Castiel's few castings.
Dean glanced over the body once more. Thin and naked, not a scrap of dignity affored the condemmed. It eevn looked like they might have shaved the poor bastards hair off, light catching what might be white stubble on its crown. The winchesters might have been cold bloded to monsters, but even this was too far. Whatever the creature was, it was a endowed as a ken doll, and Dean found the common barb he’s thrown at castiel twisting ungly in his gut.
“Think its really.. Ya know.” Dean murmered, not wanted to sound rediculaous, but also not wanting to picture his own angel having been left behind like this creature had been. More then 10 years since anyone had been in this room, yet they hadn’t even learned about angels until Castiel, maybe only a year ago. He gesstured to the macab setup on the counter, jars of dried and crusted blood, a collection of shelves with other untold collections in little containers he didn't want to examine. He thought about the feathers burned away just moments ago in the sun. “How’d they do this? How they learn this, and keep it quiet? No one else has anyhting close, and yet…..”
“They had an angel. And they drained it, cut it up, and sold pieces off to Dad, and Bobby, and how many others. And no one figured it out.”
“Damn…” Dean muttered.
Sam shuffeled from where he was kneeling to inspect to trap, to gently touch where the thick needle had been shoved into a vien in the creatures arm. He carefully pulled the neddle out, tossing the contraption aside, before working to unlock the chains around the bound beings arms. The chains had long broken the skin, had rubbed down to the bone, what flesh still remained dark purple nad bruised. “Its not."" /rotten/ he realised ""Stiff. Not.. cold?” /not dead/ came the dawning comprhension.
It spurred Dean to turn from the table and stepped up behind the creature, hand running around a set of chains behind the … angel … “Damn.” he swore again.
Sam looked up sharply, watching dean trace the chains to where they held /something/ aloft behind him. “...the .. is… Wings?”
Dean look ill, nodding.
Sam glaces at the creature’s face fianlly. It is as brused and wane as the rest of its body, and no expression crosses its features. However, the eyes have slitted open. They don’t look at him, jsut stare out blankely. Sam rests a wary hand on the check, unsure how much awareness the angel has, ""We're getting you out,"" he promised, Dean freezing in his own lock picking to start at Sam in growing horror. /Is it awake?/ he mouths.
Sam catchs his eye, shrugs uncertainly, and they resume their work on the locks. Just plain locks, nothing special, leaving them to note the wards must have been extreamly powerful.
It took time, but sam ans dean undo the shackels to the body. Sam carefully possisions the pale form on the floor; curled on its side, dean easing invisable wings as best as he can guess into folding thm agains its back.
At no point does the creature make any attempt to acknowlege them, barely open eyes still blank.
“Okay, lets get ‘im to Cas”
Sam holds the creatures torso close, funbling with heavy wings he can’t see, while dean holds stick thin elgs to keep them from catching on the steps. The walk is slow, and Dean can feel the spell work on the stairs fighting him. Castiel waits anxiously in the door frame above, unable to see the week points inside the house's wards to help them.
""how much of this house can you break without affecting the stiars, "" sam calls up to him when Dean can't pull their burden any farther. Castiel disappears from veiw, looking over the house and mapping out what he can see from the upper floor.
""Don't wait on the stairs, just in case,"" he says finally, disapperaing from both their views. they dutifuly return to the basement floor, setting the new angel back down for a moment. Sam looks over the wards; the hunter wants to take pictures, copy it down; this was a powerful prision, and could very extramly valuable to replicase. The part of him forever tained by demonic energy /thrills/ at the idea; all the more reason sam looks away, pointabldt keeping from retainng this room in his memories. He looks at the angel laying betwen he and his brother, and it's too easy to see Castiel in his place. Somehting horrible is on the horrizon, but Sam's pretty sure this room will only make it worse.
This time deans leans over to check on the angel, Sam wonders if he's chacing the same ideas out of his own head; he's met with the same blank look sam had recieved. ""anyone home,"" Dean asks reardless, waving a hand a few inches from the creatures face.
it doesn't react, nor does it respond at all when the entire building screams, Castiel tearing it literally into two. The structure above them growns and creaks, threatening to crumble doen on them, but holds fast. The wards do not however, and Castiel joins them in a blink at the stiars base. ""I'll keep the house up until we get out,"" he assures them, and Sam and dean pick thier burnden back up. This time, the wards lets sam and dean pass with ease, and castiel is there to help with doors until they get the body settled into the back seat of the impala. He is looking a the new angel, mortified. “There are wards carved into his body,” castiel warns, looking at down though jimmy’s eyes. “He is still hidden from my sight. Hidden from my touch. I hold him now, but feel nothing.”
The brothers don't say a thing. Once they are settled into the car, Castiel does look back to the building once last time, and the whole structure collapses in on itself.
""Any chance you wanna light it up for us too, while youre at it?"" dean asks, white knucked on the stearing wheel, but refusing to look at either hte house or the back seat in his rear-view mirror. Sam looks away from the two angelic entities in the car to study the house, nodding absently mindedly at dean''s request.
Castiel is more than happy to agree. He glances one last time to the building, making sure to keep hte erupting flames from catching the grasses the have weeded their way up to the now collabpsed walls, before he forces himself to push the entire thing from his mind.
The body resting aginst him is a solid weight to Jimmy's sences, but without the human's vessel to filter things, Castiel wound't even have known one of his brothers was crumbled next to him. Becuase of that, Castiel can't even reach out to learn /who/ is curled next to him. No name, and no idea how long he's been missing from Heaven's roll call."
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