So Fell the Angels - Supernatural Fanfic/Fanfiction (Castiel Fan Fiction)

Chapter 17: Dum Spiro, Spero

Chapter 17: Dum Spiro, Spero

"So. You guys find out anything useful?"

Sam and Dean pull up short at their sister's voice. They'd been walking to the Impala from behind it, each tugging their ties off. Surprised to hear her voice, they step around to the front of the car, seeing her lounging on the hood, leaning back against the windshield as she stares up contemplating the vastness of the night sky.

"Not really," Dean casually answers, throwing her a pointed look.

When she ignores their older brother's less than veiled accusation, Sam steps forward to point out, "We didn't realize you were gonna catch up with us all ready, Tab. You never called."

She remains reclined on the hood of the Impala with her arms folded behind her head, enjoying the lingering heat from the engine beneath the hood, and the majesty of the stars above her. It makes her feel small…and somehow, like all their problems are also small and simple; insignificant even.

"Bobby told me where you boys were," she finally offers, her only explanation for her sudden reappearance.

One of her brothers grunts in response, and she hears the telltale shuffling of them shedding the suits of whatever costume they'd most recently donned. CDC, she thinks she remembers Bobby telling her. Not that it matters, since they don't seem to have found anything useful on tracking the next Horseman on their hit list.

After a few minutes, Dean moves to the driver's side of the car, tapping the roof and gruffly telling her, "Get in."

With a single nod, she slips from the hood, passing by her older brother to open the back door.

His hand closes over hers along the top edge of the window to stop her. "Good to have you back," he tells her, offering a forced, but apologetic smile. It's the closest he comes to offering actual sympathy for her failure to find Castiel, and he doesn't bother to ask if she found him. For which she's grateful. She'd rather focus on their remaining tasks to beat the Devil.

Proving that he's as quick as anyone, Sam catches the somber undercurrents and mercifully doesn't comment or ask about the missing angel either. Just softly welcomes her back.

Partway down the road, Sam finally breaks the silence of the car, calling Bobby from his cellphone and putting him on speaker for both of his siblings to hear.

"Let me guess," Bobby greets, "another steamin'-hot pile of swine flu."

"Yep," Dean confirms in a clipped tone.

Sam puzzles, "Doesn't make any sense, Bobby. Pestilence touched down here. I'm sure of it."

"But why is he dealing them soft serve like swine flu when he's got the Croatoan virus up his sleeve?" Dean, too, marvels. "I-I-I don't get it."

"Maybe it's like War back in River Pass," Tabitha wonders from the back seat, sitting forward to lean over the back of the front seat between her brothers. "I mean, he didn't have to toy like that with some nothing little town. But he was having fun. Just...playing with them. Maybe that's what Pestilence is doing. Just...toying with us."

"Doesn't matter what the sick son of a bitch is doing," Bobby points out. "What matters is this is the fourth town he's hit—that we know of—and we're still eating his dust. Did you get anything? We got even a snowball at probable next target?"

"Uh, no pattern we can see," Sam responds.

Sighing, Bobby answers, "Okay. Hold on." They hear the squeaky sound of his wheelchair moving. "Well, as far as I can tell, he's still heading east, so...head east, I guess."