Desolation Comes Upon the Sky

Holy Terror

July 20th, 2014
Rexburg, Idaho

The sun was high in the sky, its golden rays cutting through the thin curtains that were drawn tightly together. They landed on a small figure curled up in a bed, which shifted as the light brought her into wakefulness. Alex groaned, pulling the sheets tightly around her as her head pounded against her skull. She had finally returned home in the early morning hours, having taken one of her old cars from Bobby's property and driven back herself, and the ex-angel had immediately collapsed onto the bed. She didn't remember much past that; just the warm, solid presence of Castiel that had curled around her as she drifted back into sleep.

The sun only got brighter, and Alex groaned again, louder this time. The light wasn't going to go away. Either she could man up and eat breakfast, or she could relocate to the couch, far from the morning's light.

Either way, it was going to involve moving.

With a resigned sigh, Alex pulled herself out of bed and made her way into the kitchen, the blanket still wrapped tightly around her body, a remnant of warmth from the bed. "You're awake."

Alex turned towards the voice with bleary eyes, surprised to find Castiel sitting on the couch. "Yeah, barely." She crossed over to him and collapsed onto the cushions beside him, resting her head in his lap. "My head hurts."

"You got home very late." Castiel's warm hand came to rest on her shoulder. "I didn't expect you to get up so soon."

"The sun woke me." Alex's eyes turned onto the manilla envelope that she had dropped on the coffee table late last night. It contained Bobby's letter and research, neatly tucked inside, with her name scrawled in thick black ink across the top. "Did you see..."

She motioned towards the folder with her free hand, and the ex-seraph followed her gaze. "I noticed it," he quietly agreed. "But no, I didn't look inside, if that's what you mean." He leaned forward, his stomach pressing into Alex's head as he stretched to pick it up. "What's in it?"

"Bobby figured it out. I don't know how he did it, but he somehow managed to piece together that whole ... soul thing." Alex took the file out of Castiel's hands and pulled the flap open. Her fingers brushed the paper inside, and she felt Bobby's letter, folded into thirds to hide the carefully written words. Behind that was the first set of notes, and Alex pulled them out and handed them up to her mate.

Pages rustled as Castiel turned through them, and Alex rolled back to bury her head in his warm stomach. She knew what the pages said; she had poured over them a hundred times before she had driven home.

"This is ... impressive." Castiel's voice was quiet and thoughtful. "When did he do all of this?" He turned the page. "There are some interesting thoughts here. He seems to think that souls are required to relive their lives over and over again until they finally make a decision that sends them either to heaven or hell." The papers rustled again, and Alex tilted her head upwards to see that he was looking through a photocopied rune with scribbling around the edges.

"That's either sanskrit or cuneiform." Alex pulled herself up into a sitting position, resting her cheek against Castiel's shoulder. "It must have taken him forever to even begin translating that."

"It's still unfinished; he only has a few fragments that are intelligible. And it seems a lot of his thoughts are incomplete." Castiel turned to the last page. "He doesn't know why you fell—"

"Yeah. That's because Metatron's spell hadn't happened yet."

"— but he seems to think there was a disruption at the end of one of the cycles which expelled your soul," the ex-seraph finished. "Interesting." He placed the papers down on the coffee table. "I'll have to look at this more in depth later."