Screaming from the Minarets

Zachariah wasn't stupid. If one knows their death with a way to prevent it, then one should do all possible to stop its eventuality. That's the only reason he'd left the warmth of heaven and was now flexing his wings, watching the semi crash into the vehicle that held three of the most pivotal characters of the upcoming apocalypse. At least one of them was going to die tonight, but he needed to make sure it was the right one, because if the wrong Winchester died then he was going to die in less than five years. While messing with time lines was indeed dangerous and heavily frowned upon, it had been done more than once. How did people think Gabriel knew that Mary's son was the son of God? As the crash settled, Zachariah flew down to Earth and glanced into the windows of the black mass of twisted metal and glass. Indeed, Dean Winchester was close to death. Normally this would have been good enough for the angel, but he needed to make sure that this man didn't become some Lazarus. They were ways to bring people back from the dead and the only way he could hope to make this permanent was to put his soul somewhere that no one would be able to reach it without the full force of an archangel or more and that would never happen.

Smiling at his handy work, marking up the soul of Dean Winchester to make sure it was due for a southbound trip; he turned away, facing the demon that had driven the semi. “Good evening, Azazel.”

“Zachariah, you bastard. Don't pretend you have the respect you imply. I've done your dirty work, now will you ensure that Sam Winchester plays his role?”

“As best I can, but as I said previously, I can only control the heavenly forces that would wish to interfere with events. If some human element chooses to intervene, I cannot do anything.”

“Yes, indeed, as I can only order my soldiers, you can only control yours. See you in the apocalypse.”

The demon vanished, leaving the poor bastard who he'd been possessing to rot on the side of the highway.

“I can't believe that heaven would let you do this, angel.” The reaper who'd appeared to collect the dead souls snarled. Zachariah turned to see the dark haired carrier. “What gives you the right to end this man's life early? I thought that he was the Michael sword.”

“That's of no concern to you, reaper. The line of vessels has two others who can easily take his place. Now just do your job.”

“Fine, but I doubt the fates or Death will be pleased with your tampering.” She didn't appear to do anything for a moment as she had easily coaxed the semi driver's soul into coming with her, and then she moved toward the car and had a look of concentration. Zachariah knew she was doing her job, but was mildly miffed at her slight of hiding the souls final moments from him; it was her way of smacking him in the face. She seemed to have to pull to retrieve Dean Winchester's soul, as if he didn't want to go or knew what was about to happen. “I hope this back fires on you, angel.” She vanished.

Zachariah scoffed, how could sending Dean Winchester to Hell backfire?

~.~.~.~

Last thing Dean could clearly remember was picking up a blade, hoping to the stop the pain of nearly two centuries of torture. Then, there was a bright light, Alistair screaming to let 'his soul' go, searing heat of some unfathomable sun, and then waking up to an empty room. The world was dark out the window, something that Dean hadn't seen in years. There is no dark in Hell, no light either, just the pain of existing. Just the endless giving and receiving and taking and making of agony. Dean wasn't sure of where he was, but it wasn't Hell. There wasn't enough pain.

This isn't to say that he wasn't in pain at the moment. Dean's chest felt bruised and sore, as if he'd just finished being a punching bag for Rocky. His shoulder also felt like someone had pressed hot metal to the skin just long enough to burn, but not to melt the nerves away. Nerves? He hadn't really thought about them in a long while. Nerves didn't have much bearing on how one feels Hellish torture as it is not torture to the body, but to the soul. Why was he thinking about this? He wasn't in Hell? How had that even happened?

A sudden bright light appeared in the room, Dean reeled away, trying to cover his eyes, not that it helped against the seeming supernova. The light seemed to moving closer.

“Gabriel, I need your help. I do not know what to do.” a man's voice was somewhere in or behind the light. Dean suddenly realized he was screaming. And just as sudden as it had appeared, it was almost completely muted by some sort of shadow.

“Damn,” another voice half-laughed, “He's quite the screamer, if you know what I mean.”

“Gabriel, I do not understand that reference.”

“Of course you don't, little brother.”

Dean cautiously opened his eyes and moved his arms. What he could see was two men, or probably not as the seemed to be the source of the bright light, one dressed like Colombo the other looking relatively normal beside his shortness. What the hell?

“More like Heaven, Dean-o.” the short one said, who was apparently named Gabriel, judging by how the other man had addressed him.Angels?  “That's right, Dean. Angels exist and blah blah blah... moving on to the impressive stuff like that you're no longer in Hell. Though, I'm sure you've figured that out, unless you think this is some really creative ploy to torture you.”

“What?” Dean said, or rather, tried to say. He sounded more like, “Wha- *choke* *gag* What?” with the word barely wheezed out of his dry vocal cords. Even moving such simple muscles as that seems tiring now that he wasn't acting on reflex.

“Yeah, I wouldn't try to do too much right now. You're a bit like Neo straight out of the Martrix for the first time. No muscle build. It wouldn't be a problem, but I don't have that much power. Afraid you're gonna have to rebuild it all the slow way.”

Dean was so confused. This Gabriel character was a bit too good at exposition.

“Whe- *cough* when is it?” Dean half-choked.

“What, the year? I guess they really don't keep people on schedules down in our warmer sister city. It's 2008.”

“200-” Dean was wheezing and somewhat panicking. It had been Three years since when he believed he had died. He could breathe suddenly, tensing up, something gripping his chest as he passed out.

Sometime later, water hit his face and Dean awoke to Gabriel leaning over him with a glass, now empty, of water. “Okay, I think I fixed the breathing problem. I haven't had to rebuild an entire respiratory system in a while. Sorry for misconnecting a few nerves.”

“What?” It seemed that Dean's voice was better now that he could breath. “Who are you? What the He-heck is going on?”

“I helped Castiel over there fix your body.” Gabriel motioned over to the Colombo look-a-like, “I am the archangel Gabriel, but you can just call me Gabe. And we had to rescue you from Hell so that a douche upstairs won't get away with completely screwing over humanity just because he's a pussy.”

“Gabriel,” Castiel said, “I do not believe that Zachariah is a feline of any sort. He is trying to alter the plans of Heaven for his own gain.”

“Castiel,” Gabe turned toward his brother, “same thing. Basically,” he turned back to Dean, “We got you out of a jam so that you can help stop the apocalypse.”

“Me? What? Am I gonna shoot up some monsters and save the world?” Dean scoffed, forcing himself into a semi-sitting position, “How am I gonna do that when I can barely move?” Dean was shaking from the exertion to push himself up and no way was he going to be able to move his legs more than a few inches, let alone fight or even stand.

“Don't worry about it, we just got to get you vertical and it'll be like riding a bike.”

“In what way is rebuilding muscle mass similar to riding a two wheeled vehicle.” Castiel tilted his head in confusion.

Gabe rolled his eyes. “At some point, you're going to understand figures of speech.”

Dean felt like this was a little absurd. If angels existed, which Dean wasn't entirely buying that these two weren't some other supernatural creature; he wouldn't peg them as being so weird. Lowering himself back down, Dean heard and felt something crash. Castiel and Gabe looked up in alarm.

“I think the horde just caught up.” Gabe vanished with a shifting sound.

“Stay here.” Castiel followed.

“Like I can go anywhere.” Dean looked around them room, hating the idea of being without a weapon. Luckily, there was a knife on the bedside table. As he grabbed for the blade, a crash coincided with something flying through the bedroom wall.

AN: Thanks for reading this bit. The rest of the story is a work in progress, I mainly want to get this up to spur myself into writing more. This will eventually be Dean/Cas, so if that gets your goat, this probably isn't for you. I have this mapped out pretty much all the way to the end, just need to write it. This is being cross posted to my fanfiction account and my livejournal.  Also, In search of beta for help who can double as a cheerleader and sounding wall.