amberdreams | The Angel in the Woodshed

Title: The Angel in the Woodshed

Authoramber1960

Characters: Dean, Sam, John & Castiel (Gen)
Rating: PG-13

Words: c 4100
Summary: Season 5 – Set during My Bloody Valentine, and in 1987. Castiel is punished by his superiors for more than one demonstration of excessive empathy with Dean Winchester…and he proves himself wrong when one of his transgressions includes a successful manipulation of the past.

Warnings: None

I have seen the dark universe yawning

Where the black planets roll without aim,

Where they roll in their horror unheeded,

Without knowledge or lustre or name.

H P Lovecraft

Singer Salvage yard - 2010

Dean had called for help, his last desperate plea thrown at the heavens, and had received nothing in return except the touch of his own tears on his cheeks, mingling with the cold rain.

Castiel removed the whiskey bottle from Dean’s lax grasp with a gesture that was almost gentle. Gazing at the hunter’s flushed hostile face, the angel tilted his head in that characteristic, non-human way of his. Considering. A little sorrowful.

“You believed in angels once, too, Dean.” Castiel said. “You believed they were watching over you.”

Dean grunted and shoved past Castiel, repeating what he’d said outside the panic room - something about needing fresh air. Cas looked after his human in puzzlement.

“But we are outside, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t breathe for all the righteousness!”

Dean staggered drunkenly and fell against a rusty Ford pickup, and just stayed there with his back turned, shoulders hunched as he leaned sideways against the cold metal, and Castiel knew that the old heap of junk was the only thing holding his frail human charge upright. Castiel also knew that it wasn’t the whiskey that caused his friend to stumble. He could feel the human’s pain, pouring off him as insistent as the rain that was falling from the sky. He had witnessed Dean’s eyes gleaming with the unshed tears he’d tried so hard to conceal.

Castiel thought about the man that was Dean Winchester, and what had brought them to where they were today. Of the angels, watching over Dean. Watching them both.

Rural Minnesota – Fall 1987

Dean is 8, Sam is 4

Dad had rented a cabin. Said they would stay a while, just till Sammy got well again.

Dean hates it when Sammy is sick, and this time – well, this time is worse than any of the times before. His little brother just didn’t seem to be able to stop coughing, no matter how often Dean brings him warm milk to drink, or presses his candy allowance into Sammy’s small hot fists.

“Little kids get sick, Dean.” Dad says, and Dean knows it is true, but he hates it all the same. It was okay for him to be sick (though he very rarely was), or for kids at school to get sick (and they did, frequently), but it was never okay for Sammy to be sick. That was just all kinds of wrong.

Dean sits on the rug at Dad’s feet, leaning against those strong legs, listening and wincing at the harsh hacking sounds racking Sammy’s chest; while a tiny part of him, lodged somewhere deep in his chest, is begging to be that sick too, so that he could be the one to have Dad’s arms wrapped around him and feel Dad’s lips softly kissing his forehead. He is torn between the jealousy and fear on the one hand, and a deep longing to be the one providing the comfort – because Dad had always said that was Dean’s job, looking after his little brother. And what use is he, if he can’t even do that?

---------

They had been in that Minnesota cabin for ages when Dean found the creature in the outhouse.

Well, it feels like ages anyways, though maybe it was only a couple of weeks. The days are getting shorter, and colder, and Dad spends a lot of time chopping wood for the cast iron stove and Dean, eager to be useful (needed, wanted, loved) is keeping busy taking chopped logs, all fresh and pale yellow with curly rough bark, to stack them up in the small dark ramshackle outbuilding that leans up against their clapboard house as if it is too tired to stand up straight on its own.

It is dark inside the woodshed, and as Dean has good reason to know, bad things like to lurk in the shadows; so at first he keeps his forays near to the doorway, where the sunlight makes the tiny crystals in the earth floor sparkle, and the dust motes dance like minute fireflies. Dean likes that. But soon there is no room left to stack any more logs in the light, even when he reaches as high as he can on his tippy toes and makes the wooden tower wobble precariously. So he starts moving deeper into the shadows through great swathes of spiders’ webs, always keeping a wary eye on the darkest reaches, because Dad says you have to be vigilant. (Dean is proud that he knows what vigilant means, even though the kids at the elementary school in town had no idea what he was talking about when he’d told them all how important it was).

His being alert means it is not long before he notices that a patch of the darkness, over in the farthest corner where the sunshine had probably never touched, is moving.

And sighing.

The movement has his heart beating fast, thudding against his ribcage like a frightened rabbit, but the sigh – the sigh is sorrowful. Soft and sibilant and somehow, snares him into staying, even though his feet want nothing more than to run, fast as you like, out of the shadows into the sun and safety.

Dean grips his latest log as tight as he can in both hands because it is too large for his eight-year-old fingers to reach around, and takes a step towards the dark.

“Who’s there?” he demands, proud that his voice doesn’t quaver.

::Sigh::

Dean doesn’t notice that the sound of Dad chopping wood has ceased outside, or that he can no longer hear the birds singing. The sigh seeps through the dusty air, slipping like silk past his ears, stealing all other sounds away. He takes another step, and now his young eyes are adjusting and he can make out a shape, huddled against the loose wood panels. It doesn’t look like much, just a buddle of rags, but Dean isn’t stupid, and he is well trained, and he doesn’t lower his guard. Not even for an instant. Yet he doesn’t call out for his father, or even think of doing so. Maybe, later, he will find that strange.

“What’s wrong?” He asks now, because that sighing has snagged on something deep in his chest – he knows there is something not right here. Maybe the creature is hurt, wounded; probably got in a fight with some monster that his Dad had killed, because no way would their father leave something evil alive, so close to Sam. Dean knew that for a fact, because he wouldn’t let anything bad near Sammy either. That is why he always has one of Dad’s smallest knives hidden down his sturdy boot, tucked away secretly where even Dad doesn’t know about it.

So, Dean reasons, that means that this creature cannot be bad. Dad never failed to protect his boys, and if it was still alive, then Dad must have left it alive for a reason. Or maybe something bad had attacked the creature and Dad had told it to hide here.

So confident is he after hearing the second soft exhalation of breath, he lowers his piece of wood and steps forward, close enough now that he can see the individual fibres of the dove-grey raggedy stuff that is covering the rounded shape. At first he thinks that the sunlight must be reaching farther into the shed than he had thought, then he realises that the creature itself is kind of – glowing. A quiet, greyish sort of light that is draped like a blanket over the pale curved shape of a spine. A curve that is slowly unfurling as the creature sits up and looks at him.

The creature is just a man. Though he has the bluest eyes Dean has ever seen. The man’s dark hair is long and shaggy, all matted and messed up worse than Sammy’s mop when Dean had a go at cutting it because Dad hadn’t had time to do it for a while. Dean can’t see much of the man’s face through the dark scrub of beard, just those electric blue eyes, staring at him. He takes a step closer. Wrinkles his nose a little. The man smells bad. Like Dad did sometimes after a long hard hunt. He can smell blood, and stale sweat, and something else – he isn’t sure what it is, but he knows he doesn’t like it, it makes him feel all wrong inside, like someone is twisting his stomach into a big knot. He doesn’t recognise it then, but when he got older, he would remember that scent as the scent of fear and despair.

“What happened to you, sir?” Dean asks as he crouches down so he and the man are eye to eye – clear hazel to clear azure, changeable ocean to constant sky.

“Are you hurt?” Then Dean reaches out and touches the man’s dirty shoulder where pale flesh sticks out from its covering of rags. And discovers that the grey frayed material isn’t cloth at all, but feathers. The stranger staring at him is cloaked in feathers. His small hand can’t resist stroking their softness and the man gives a kind of shiver.

Cracked lips open, so Dean leans in closer to try and hear what the stranger is saying, but all that comes out sounds like a single letter, D, repeated over and over. Dean straightens up as realisation hits him. The man (his man) is hurt and naked and must be hungry and thirsty and cold. It is clearly Dean’s job to look after him, just like Dad is looking after Sam. Dean is good at looking after people, and is happy to have something important to do.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells the stranger, and runs out of the outhouse into the kitchen. Dad is busy in the living room, talking to Sam Dean thinks, though he doesn’t stop to check. He raids the cupboards and finds half a packet of Cheerios, a bowl and a spoon, grabs a carton of milk from the fridge and is out of the door before his father even notices he’s there at all. Yeah, Dean is like a ninja alright, stealth personified. He arrives back in the dark corner of the shed, slightly breathless and flushed with excitement. He is going to help this stranger. Dad will make Sam better, while Dean makes his new friend better and then everything will be okay again.

Dean makes sure to tell his friend this, as he feeds him spoonfuls of cereal dripping with milk, because the feathered man’s hands are shaking so badly he just scattered the small golden hoops onto the bare earthen floor when he tried to feed himself. Dean doesn’t mind, he remembers doing this for Sammy when Sammy was really little, too little to manage the complicated task of loading up a spoon and shovelling the food into his own gaping mouth. Just like a bird feeding it’s chicks, in that programme Dean saw on the Discovery Channel.

“So I’m gonna take care of you now,” Dean says. “Don’t worry. When Dad goes to the store I’ll find you some clothes and ... and a blanket, maybe? Yeah. A blanket, to keep you warm at night.” He thinks the man is smiling at him, in between mouthfuls, but he can’t be sure, what with the shadows the stranger still refuses to come out of, and that bushy beard and the dirt and all.

“I’ll bring you something to wash in too,” Dean decides, because he thinks he wants to see his new friend’s face, or at least a bit more of it than just those disturbingly piercing eyes.

Soon the cereal is all gone, the last of the milk has been drunk. Dean takes the bowl and spoon and the empty carton, turns to go to get the all the other stuff he’s promised, when long slender fingers touch his arm – a touch is all it takes to stop him in his eager tracks. A touch that is warm and makes him think about summer all of a sudden. Then it’s the stranger’s turn to lean close to Dean, and he sighs all quiet-like into Dean’s ear.

“Thank you,” the sigh says, and Dean kind of glows himself now, deep inside. As he walks out into the late afternoon fall sunlight, he thinks he sees an electric blue butterfly flutter away like a promise, though he knows those kind of creatures only live where it is tropical and hot. Yeah, Dean watches Discovery Channel a lot, when he gets the opportunity.

His glowy feeling is soon snuffed out though, when he gets inside their temporary home to find his Dad carefully packing a duffel with bags of rock salt and various weapons.

“Dad?”

“That was Caleb on the phone, Dean, I’ve got to go. A job.”

Dean looks around, a little desperately.

“But…Sammy’s ill, Dad…?”

His father frowns a little and Dean straightens automatically, tries to be a man. He is a big boy now, after all. Holds himself tall as his Dad comes over and puts a heavy hand on his thin shoulder.

“I know, Dean. But it’s only for a little while, I’ll be back by tomorrow evening. You can cope for a few hours, can’t you, son?”

Dean swallows hard, ignoring the lump threatening to form in the back of his throat. Nods. He is rewarded with a brief hug and a warm hand ruffling his short buzz cut, and the glow is back in his stomach. He wants nothing more than to make his Dad proud, and so he ruthlessly suppresses the tiny butterflies of fear that are flitting around amid the glow. Not electric blue ones, these…they were probably black velvet, from the Amazon. Yeah, from Brazil or somewhere like that.

Then Dad is closing the door, and he hears the distinctive low rumble of the Impala outside, the roar building with the revs of the engine as she pulls away. Dean thinks Dad must have told him to take care of the salt lines because Dad always does, and he sees the matt-black hand gun where Dad left it on the kitchen table for him, but he hadn’t heard a word. He touches the gun, remembering how it feels heavy in his hand, the way it kicks when he fires it. He is good with guns. Dad said so.

“Deedee?”

Sammy is out of bed, cheeks flushed with fever, bare feet peeking out from Ninja Turtle flannel pyjama bottoms that used to be Dean’s and are still way too long for Sam’s chubby little legs. He coughs and Dean rushes over, gathers him up. Sam clings like a limpet, wrapping arms and legs round Dean’s skinny body. Dean carries him back to their bed. Hugging Sammy is like hugging a hot water bottle.

“Where’s Daddy? ‘M thirsty, Dee.”

“Yeah okay, squirt, lie down and I’ll get you a drink. Dad’s just popped out for a bit, he’ll be back later.”

Later.

Sam is sleeping, if fitfully. Dean sits on the edge of the single bed that the boys share, gun stuffed down the back of his jeans like Dad does, watching his little brother struggling to breathe. Remembers the man outside. The man with wings.

An angel. Because. Angels have wings. Though angels are bright creatures made of light and this winged being is dark, hugs the dark like Dean hugs Sam. Keeps close to the shadows.

Still. Maybe.

Dean touches Sam’s cheek. It is so hot. It shouldn’t be as hot as this; his brother’s skin nearly scorches him as badly as the gas flame on the old cooker when he’d accidentally burnt himself cooking Sam’s spaghettios last year.

He wants to go outside, to talk to the angel, but he knows the dark is dangerous, and he shouldn’t break the salt-lines. And how can he leave Sammy all alone when he is so sick?

“Dad.” He whispers, though he knows nobody can hear him. “What should I do?”

---------

In shadows of the woodshed, an angel of the Lord waits for Dean.

Shielding Jimmy Novak from the punishment meted out by his brother and sisters has taken a heavy toll on the nearly-rebellious angel. Castiel can’t remember how he had ended up fleeing here - he didn’t even know why he had fled at all, or why he was still resisting the will of his superiors. His thoughts were in turmoil, he couldn’t seem to fasten onto one idea before it skittered away from him and another took its place.

And everything hurt. If he had been human, he would have been weeping with the pain.

Then the child came to his hiding place, out of the sunlight into the dark.

Castiel recognised the firstborn Winchester brother instantly, even though he was just a child. Now he understood why he was here, in this rural backwater at this particular time. He had been drawn by the flame that was Dean Winchester, just as he had been drawn to that sputtering, intermittent brightness in Hell.

But this Dean was unbroken, young and shining so bright it brought tears to Castiel’s eyes in a way that all the pain inflicted on him by Zachariah and his cronies could not. The power of speech was lost to him as Dean reached out and touched wings the child should not have been able to see.

Now Castiel waits.

Dean promised to return with blankets and clothes the angel doesn’t need, any more than he needed the food the child had fed to him earlier. No, what Castiel had taken true sustenance from was the pure warmth of Dean’s spirit, and he found himself craving for more. The angel heard without realising its significance the roar of the Impala’s engine as John drove away, and his mind was blank and peaceful as he watched the sun set in a blaze of glory.

Inconsequentially, adult Dean’s gravelly voice chuckling and saying Bon Jovi slid through his thoughts and out again – in spite of the best efforts of his superiors, it seemed that Dean Winchester was a persistent presence in his head.

The temperature plummetted as night fell, and Dean did not return.

Slowly, Castiel begins to think again as his strength grows. With returning strength comes confusion and doubt. He had been weak and yet he had travelled far into the past. That should not have been possible - unless he had been helped in some way. Had he been sent here for a purpose? And if so, whose purpose would be served by the presence of a minor angel, a mere Seraph?

The longer he sits in the quiet darkness, the stronger he feels, the more coherent his thoughts become. Gradually the power of reasoning returns to him. Whatever force sent him here, it was a certainty that Zachariah will be searching for him. It was only a matter of time before he is discovered, and then his punishment is likely to be even fiercer than before. Cas cannot help a tiny shudder at the thought. Putting his own inappropriate fears aside, this means that Castiel only has a limited amount of time in which to find out his purpose here.

Then he realises that Dean may have already given him the answer to that question.

The angel stands up, gathering his grace to him, burning away the cobwebs and dirt that had been shrouding him. Spiders and beetles flee in confusion as their safe dark corners are all flooded with light. His nakedness is clothed in Jimmy’s garb, and for the first time in a long time, Castiel feels like himself. Feels like the angel he thought he was supposed to be. He reaches out with his grace, touches Dean’s anxiety and in a blink of an eye, the woodshed is empty. Dust settles into the space where an angel had bled.

---------

Dean hears a soft whump in the lounge, as if someone has shaken out a big blanket. The gun is in his hand so fast, Dad would have been impressed, and Dean is on his feet moving silent as feathers towards the open doorway. He can’t hear anything now, because his heart is beating so loud it is in his ears instead of his chest where it belongs. He does as he’s been trained, and like he’s seen in the movies Dad doesn’t know he’s watched. He leads himself into the room, gun first, cradled in both hands so it is harder to snatch it off him. Ignoring how his arms are trembling, Dean keeps the gun trained on the man standing in the centre of the room.

The man is tall, though not as tall as his Dad. He is wearing a long beige coat over a rumpled suit, and his tie is loose. His dark hair is messy, all standing on end, just like the angel in the outhouse.

“What are you doin’?” He demands, hoping the man won’t notice how his voice is not quite as steady as he like.

The man just looks at him, with those piercing blue eyes and Dean lowers the weapon.

“You’re the angel,” he says, not knowing how he knows this. He just does, is all.

“And you are Dean Winchester,” the angel says, his voice solemn and deep, like an angel should be.

Dean doesn’t quite know what to make of an angel knowing his name, but he doesn’t let that faze him, because he knows the angel isn’t here for him. There is only one reason an angel could be here, and that is to help Sammy. So Dean wastes no more time. He shoves the gun back into his trousers and grabs the angel’s hand.

“Sammy’s in here,” he says, as he virtually drags the angel into their bedroom. “Heal him.”

---------

Castiel feels the determination rolling off Dean the child and it feels familiar. When it comes to Dean Winchester’s little brother, nothing is going to change in the twenty odd years these two boys are set to live through.

Castiel sits on the rumpled single bed and looks at the pathetically small figure of Sam Winchester. The child’s cheeks have a hectic flush, and Castiel can hear each breath rattling in the small chest that is rising and falling too rapidly. The angel knows now that Dean was right to worry, and he feels a momentary flash of anger at John Winchester for leaving his children alone like this. He is startled when Dean grabs his hand again, and places it onto Sam’s chest. He looks down at Dean’s face that is a curious mixture of pleading and commanding, and almost smiles.

“You’re an angel, right? You can cure him, can’t you?”

Any urge to smile disappears as Cas feels the small boy’s fever burning bright under his fingers. Sam is dying and for a moment, Castiel is afraid he has come too late and is too weak to save him. He is not sure what would happen then – to the future he has already seen, to Dean and John, to the war that is to come - if Sam Winchester was to die now, here in this cold run-down cabin in the backwoods of Minnesota. Without Sam, would Azazel just find another key to open Lucifer’s cage? Was that even possible? Would Lucifer be able to find another vessel; would Michael even need Dean to be his meat suit?

Too many permutations, and too many ways Castiel could think of that would mean that the world might be better off if Sam Winchester did not survive this night.

Constant blue meets changeable ocean as his gaze locks onto Dean’s and Castiel makes his decision.

Singer Salvage yard - 2010

Castiel contemplated Dean’s back, still resolutely turned away from him. Felt the pain and despair rolling off the man in waves; thought about the clarity of Dean’s eyes before the child became a man. Cas stepped closer and reached out a hand, placing it on Dean’s shoulder. Before Dean could react to throw it off, the angel had touched two fingers to his rain damp forehead, and caught the unconscious man in his arms as if he weighed no more than he had when he was just eight years old.

Cradling him in his arms, Castiel unfurled invisible wings – no longer dove grey and bedraggled, but dark as smoke and magnificent – and with one silent flap was inside Bobby’s house, gently laying Dean down on the bed he’d moved to since Bobby had taken over the study as his sleeping space. Downstairs, even through the solid iron of the panic room doors and two flights of stairs, he could hear Sam screaming. But for a few hours at least, Dean would have some peace.

It was the least that he could do.

A/N Firstly I have to say, this is partially ~~a shameless rip-off~~ inspired by David Almond’s lovely book, Skellig. If you haven’t read it, do so – it might be classed as a kid’s book but it is both thoughtful and thought provoking.

Second – I apologise for my own time manipulation by talking about Sam having hand-me-down Ninja Turtle pyjamas when the film didn’t come out until 1990, but I wanted Dean to know about ninjas and this just seemed right!