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PING

.

A sheet of paper flew from the Heavenly Fax Machine on a desk in the Pearly City's own Cupid Office.

The cupid to whom the desk belonged frowned in confusion: it was the days leading up to the Apocalypse. All matches were being cut down because not many humans were expected to live. She herself had just been let go, because of the cuts being made in the Department.

So what was this? One last job before retirement and a short life in the Garrisons before she was inevitably cut down in the imminent battles?

Scanning the form, she felt a wry smile lift her lips.

Castiel, you sly bastard

, she thought.

Always knew you were a dark horse

...

Grabbing her bow and quiver from the umbrella stand, she stuffed the piece of paper into her pocket,

The surface crunched together, the crumpled words reading:
 
CASTIEL (ANGEL) AND DEAN WINCHESTER (HUMAN, HUNTER).

*****

Eros, the cupid decided, was the way to go.

Dean Winchester was known for his sexual activities, and from the cupid's experience, she knew Castiel's vessel was attractive by human standards.

Just to be sure, the cupid pulled up the records for Dean Winchester.

Damn.

'Demiromantic, no specific preference on gender, but upbringing with abusive ex-marine father with negative attitude towards same-sex attraction has caused inclination towards those of the opposite gender and denial of homosexual attraction.'

Well, this threw a spanner in the works.
 
Still, eros was always a good place to start, and humans tended to endeavor more with relationships when there was an underlying degree of attraction.

Now there was only one thing to do: Wait for the perfect opportunity.

*****

The aforementioned perfect opportunity came about a week later, when Dean Winchester, freshly out of Hell, summoned the angel Castiel to a small barn in South Dakota.

The cupid, who had been running surveillance for several days now, was currently admiring the mark Castiel had made on the human. She had never pulled a human soul from Hell, and wasn't entirely sure whether the mark was needed, but if not, she admired the petty childishness of Castiel's claim. This was probably the best foundation she needed to make the match.

Of course, she doubted it was  the best idea to go throwing dibs signs at archangel vessels.
 
Nevermind; she didn't particularly care if Castiel got vaporized. She would only care of it happened before she finished her job.

Ah, hello, it was happening.

Carefully, the cupid drew back her bow string, making sure her aim was perfect, and let go, just as Castiel strode through the door. It hit the Winchester boy's chest, right over the heart, and was absorbed.

Excellent

.

The entrance the angel made was wonderful, and she almost wanted to applaud Castiel for making her job easier. The more impressive the entrance, the more enamored Dean Winchester would be, and that was precisely her job.

This train of thought lasted right up 'til when Winchester stabbed Castiel in the chest.

Ah, slightly problematic, but you know what they say: when you meet that special person, you can just

feel

it in your chest.

Still, you couldn’t expect fireworks on the first day, so the cupid left with Castiel (although not to his knowledge), and resolved to come back later.

******

Ah

, the cupid thought,

perfect

.

A darkened kitchen, a sleeping Sam, all manner of available surfaces!

The tension between the two was immense, now all she had to do was increase proximity and voila!

The eye contact though, that wasn't one of her's. Kudos to the chap who got that one going. But hush! They were speaking!
 
“You should show me some respect,” Castiel growled, taking a step closer to Dean. “I dragged you out of Hell, I can throw you back in.”
 
The cupid tilted her head at the scene below. The human’s heart seemed to be beating awfully fast, and his adrenaline was rising to peak levels. Outwardly, the other angel didn’t show any reaction, but when she dipped into the ethereal plain, his great wings shuffled and settled against his back once more. Which meant that-

Ooooh

!
 
He was

posturing

. And in a manner more suited to the suitor than the rival…

Very

interesting. Very, very good indeed. Back in the mundane, a flash of satisfaction sparked in his vessel’s eyes at Winchester’s reaction.
 
Perhaps something akin to arousal.

Excellent,

the show was on the road at last.

Now kiss

! she thought impatiently, dialing up the eros as Castiel stood closer and closer to Dean.

But no, the feathery dolt had to fly away!
 
She felt about as disappointed as the human was pretending not to be.

*****

It was almost as if the

blasted

human didn’t want to be paired.
 
Well, it’s true that good work can’t be rushed, but at this rate, the cupid thought her assignment was going to be one

hell

of a slow burn. She didn’t really care; this job was just going to take a bit more work than usual, but at least it kept her out of the upcoming Apocalyptic rubbish.
 
Or so she thought, right up until Castiel and bloody

Uriel

turned up at the Winchesters’ motel.
 
Drat it. Ah well, at least it meant even more socialisation between her charges.

Huh

: she wondered when it was she’d stopped thinking of the angel and hunter as Dolt and Idiot, and started regarding the two as under her watch. Didn’t matter. It was probably around the same time she’d realised Sam Winchester wasn’t the abomination Heaven claimed he was. The lanky young man was too worried about his hair and dogs to be leading demon hoards. Sighing, she went back to twirling one of her more lethal arrows mindlessly until something interesting happened and the party started.
 
The cupid started to regret these thoughts when she overheard the angels’ plan for the town.
 
“

What

?” she gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth as a blank-faced Castiel turned to Dean.
 
“I understand this is regrettable-”
 
“

Regrettable

!” the cupid hissed along with the older brother. She drew the arrow with quivering fingers- not from fear, but from rage. Over the course of millenia, she’d seen the worst in humanity, without a doubt! But to kill over a thousand people just to eliminate a single person,

that

crossed the line. While she had no particular love for humans, but she’d also seen the good they could do, and even so, the fate of one witch did not condone this

slaughter

.
 
She would have loosed the shaft, match be

damned

, but the Winchesters’ pleading stopped her. With great disdain, she watched Dean propose his plan. It was foolish, and she knew it. However, in the ethereal plain, something interesting happened: Castiel’s true form was fidgeting.
 
Unlike Uriel’s- stoic, proud and steaming with disgust- Castiel’s wings were performing an interesting dance around Dean. They would inch towards him, completely ignoring the human’s brother, never touching and only getting within a few centimetres of the fiery hunter’s body, before shying away from him and tucking into his body, as if feeling his brother’s unrelenting gaze. Then the whole dance would begin again.
 
The cupid watched the cycle for a few minutes, only blinking out of her daze when the two angels flapped out of the room. She could see why Castiel was so seemingly enamoured with Dean. His soul was so bright, she almost had to lower her secondary eyelids to look at him.
 
As she returned the arrow to its quiver, she hoped against hope that the humans would save the town.
 
*****
 
Later, out of curiosity, the cupid followed her brothers.
 
They landed in a park, and tired of the constant invisibility of her task, the cupid slipped into the mundane world. Drawing a book from her quiver, she sat a bench over from her winged brethren, and settled down to listen unassumingly. The cupid loved her kind’s quivers: they were like psychic paper, changing to whatever a person expected there to be. Certainly useful with the changing fashions throughout history: it could be a bread basket one day and a sword sheath the next.
 
Over on the other bench, Uriel was trying to convince Castiel to rebel against their orders. At any other time, she’d agree, but there was a glint in the burlier angel’s eye that hadn’t been there before. She shivered, the look reminding her too much of the executioner before he swung the axe.
 
“What would you suggest?” Castiel said quietly, twisting his hands in his lap. The seraph appeared to be intererested only in the mechanics of his vessel’s tendons and bones, but the cupid knew that he listening to every word.
 “That we drag Dean Winchester out of here and blow this insignificant pinprick off the map!” 
Something flashed in the other angel’s true form. Castiel’s wings snapped out, and fanned out in a distinct display of anger.
 
“You know our true orders,” he reminded Uriel coldly, citing his authority. “Are you prepared to disobey?”
 
The cupid froze in the middle of turning her page.

Their true orders

?

What could possibly be worse than wiping the town from existence

?
 
In a huff, Uriel flew away. Castiel, in a surprisingly human manner, combed a weary hand through his hair, tugging on the strands in frustration. Then he sat back, folded his hands in his lap once more, and studied the children.
 
He stayed there for hours. After a while, the cupid was forced to ‘leave’, only to return a few moments later, watching from another plain. A few parents gave him strange looks; Castiel was a lone, trenchcoated man, watching children in a park swiftly approaching nightfall, but as he made no move to do anything, they left him be.
 
Even as darkness fell, the angel sat on the bench patiently, waiting for a signal that the cupid couldn’t hear. Tiny, secret smiles ran across his lips briefly, as he surveyed the giggling elementary schoolers in their trick-or-treating costumes, and gradually, the cupid relaxed, enjoying the relative peace of the night as she tried to forget what was to come.
 
Eventually, the sun rose, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Samhain- had he risen at all- had been dealt with.
 
******
 
Later that morning, Dean Winchester came to the park. He sat on a different bench to the one the angels had frequented the previous night, but the peace the area induced was the same. He basked in the autumn sunlight, squinting against the brightness, as he too watched the children playing.

Flutter.

Her brother landed on the bench across from him, rubbing one thumb over the other as he joined the human. The Winchester let a beat pass before speaking:
 
“Let me guess; you’re here for the ‘I told you so’?”
 
The cupid smarted faintly:

how was she going to pair them with attitudes like

that?
 
“No,” Castiel replied, not looking over to the other man.

Sigh

.

Why was he so unresponsive

?
 
She missed the next line of dialogue, because she wasn’t paying attention, but something jumped out at her.
 
“Our orders were not to stop the summoning of Samhain.”
 
So that’s what their mysterious orders were! That’s why they were so prepared to destroy the town! Because they had no expectations of the situation going anywhere other than south! She

despised

Heaven and its non-interference policy sometimes.
 
But under the forced stoicness and calm face, Castiel looked so…

Weary

.
 
His wings drooped and the cupid blanched in shock as the unsheathed grace swords- which every seraph wore proudly- retracted back into his great hands. He was vulnerable. Despite their limited correspondence, Castiel was baring himself to Dean in a way few angels would. Perhaps he was not so unresponsive after all.
 
“You misunderstand me, Dean. It’s not like you think; I was praying that you would choose to save the town,” her brother replied, finally meeting his eyes.
 
“You were?” Dean said, a tad disbelievingly, and the cupid could see why. Without exposure to human interaction, the majority of angels gave the impression of being mindless, emotionless automatons. It wasn’t hard to believe (from a human perspective) that Castiel would not care one way or another.
 
And then of course Castiel had to put his foot in his mouth by referencing Dean’s time in Hell. The older Winchester snapped shut like an offended clam, closing off any emotional leeway her brother might have gained.
 
“Can I tell you something? If you promise not to tell another soul?” Castiel asked, missing the social cue completely,  and now the cupid saw a reason for his hesitancy and fear.
 
“Okay,” the man said, mollified.
 
“I’m not a… Hammer, as you say,” Castiel admitted. She tensed; he could be taken Upstairs for just saying that, and her too for not reporting it. “I have questions, I… I have doubts… I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore. Whether you passed or failed here. But in the coming months, you will have more decisions to make. I don’t envy the weight that’s on your shoulders, Dean. I truly don’t.”
 
They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments after that, and then, shaken by the admission he’d revealed to Dean, Castiel flew away. For a second, the cupid felt she’d caught a glimpse of what she might be able to create, and the sight awed her, understanding passing through her mind for the briefest of moments.
 
If she was part of something like that, she might just fly away in fear too.
 
*****
 
The girl certainly threw a spanner in the works: whoever she was, one didn’t have to be a cupid to recognise the way she and Dean looked at each other. The cupid hoped it was only lust, because she’d hate for her to…

Do

something, only for their affliction to be something that was flushed out the system with a few quick copulations.
 
There was something different about her though. Intrigued, the cupid had a quick peek in one of the ethereal plains to see what was up with the old bloodsack:

huh

.
 
Strangely, the body contained trace elements of something that looked like…

Angel

grace.
 
The cupid stretched out a hand (well, something that

passed

for a hand) and removed an eensy, weensy section from the cloudy clusters around the heart.
 
If she stretched it out enough, she'd be able to read it like DNA and…. Oh, it was

Anael

.

Well

,

this certainly made things more interesting

, the cupid mused, sitting back to think. Eventually, she”d have to report the missing angel, but for now, the cupid was more content to sit and wait.
 
*****

Content to wait

;

hah

!
 
The cupid barely restrained herself from shooting Anna out of annoyance. A mild sting, barely noticeable, just something that would stop the bint from interfering with her match! Maybe the older Winchester was attractive, maybe he believed that he only liked women, but even so, he was having sex with the

wrong angel

!
 
She glared at the night sky as the Impala creaked in the background. Maybe she ought to make the car sentient. Maybe then, it would cockblock Dean until he tried it with the

right

person. The night was cold, but a distinct source of heat was itching at her peripheral senses as the human and halfling coupled in the squeaking automotive.

Bah.

Damn Castiel and his orders

!

Why couldn’t he have demanded something other than Winchester’s beau’s death

?

She’d gone two steps forward and three back with these complete and utter clotpoles

!
 
The cupid was about to make something happen to discourage the pair, when Anna extracted herself from Dean’s post-coital cuddling slumber and marched over to the space beneath her.
 
“Come out!” The ex-angel commanded in a strained whisper, narrowed eyes searching the area of Bobby’s roof the cupid sat on. “I may not be an angel anymore, but I can still well tell when one is near. Come out, you voyeur!”
 
The cupid regarded her with a curled lip, before slipping onto the ground before the angry angel. Anna jumped slightly as she switched to the mundane plain, appearing to her dulled human eyes.
 
“A cupid? What’s a cupid doing here?” she said, frowning as her eyes traced the quiver sling over her back.
 
“Trying to stop people like

you

interfering with

my

match,” the cupid replied, flipping her bow pointedly. Comprehension flashed on Anna’s face, and she smiled sheepishly, the tension leaving her body completely.
 
“Castiel and Dean?” she asked, and the cupid nodded, pursing her lips. “Well that explains the chemistry; I must have been sensing the mark. Sorry, I won’t do him again. Once is quite enough for me, now that I know what it’s like, and I do know better than to get between a cupid and their assignment.”
 
The cupid relaxed, stopping from playing with her bow so threateningly.
 
“Thanks,” she breathed, stepping forward to offer her hand. Anna took it, smiling wryly. “The name’s Halaliel. Would you mind dropping a few hints? I’ve been on this job for over a month, and with the way these blockheads have been behaving, it’s likely to take a lot longer than that.”
 
“Nice to meet you, Hal,” Anna replied, shortening her name in the reflexive human manner. Suddenly, she jerked a thumb back at the Impala. “I’d best get back: Winchester Numero Uno might be missing me.”
 
“Don’t do it again!” Hal called, rather enjoying her new nickname as the other angel returned to the sleeping man. “And don’t tell them I’m here, either!”
 
“Don’t worry, of course I won’t!”
 
*****

Even though the poor sod had nothing to do with the Apocalypse, or even Heaven in general, the cupid was quite pleased with Dean’s siren. If it weren’t for the fact that it tired to get the brothers to murder each other, she would have been happy enough to take it out for drinks and discuss what it’d seen in Dean’s mind with it.
 
However, there was the irritating fact that it had tried to kill one half of her match, so she was rather viciously pleased when it was eliminated.
 
Oh, yes, and screw what it said about being Dean’s ideal platonic life partner and/or replacement brother. The XY chromosomes, brown hair and drive to do it’s ‘duty’ only served to remind her of a certain blue-eyed angel.
 
If only the annoyingly obtuse human would realise that.

Sigh.

If only Anna were here. Hal was beginning to enjoy her company and dry wit.
 
It was nice to know an angel that didn’t have all the humour of a dictionary.
 
*****
 
Don’t get her wrong, Hal would have

loved

to do something about the seal in Greybull- really, she would! But something powerful enough to kill reapers? To trap and repel angels? No

way

was she going anywhere near that, even if she had a choice in the matter.
 
This cupid was steering clear of Wyoming for the next

century

.
 
*****

OK, so maybe she was wrong about the Wyoming thing.

Bloody Winchesters

.
 
*****
 
Something about the breaking of the demon trap didn’t seem right.
 
The cupid knew the signs of angelic interference; it was practically her

job

to know it, and the leaking pipe just

stank

of grace. She couldn’t think of a reason for an angel to set a demon loose- after the Fall, everyone Upstairs was kept on leash, from the principalities to the seraphim, and their superiors would know if a single thought of defection crossed their minds. For this to happen, it would mean that someone in Higher Management had ordered the sabotage.
 
Something was not right at all.
 
Here Hal faced a problem. Duty-wise, she should have spoken up and inform the Up-Upstairs of what she’d discovered, but something made her stop: the way they’d been too blasé about the so-called ‘cleansing’ of a town. That they’d spent twenty Hell years

humming

and

harring

before they sent a garrison down to rescue Dean. The fact that it was a single garrison, rather than half of Heaven’s armies.
 
A nagging voice at the back of her brain reminded her of the room no angel in all creation liked to remember, that is, if they could remember it at all after a brief sojourn inside. The cupid was fine just being a cog in the machine: that way, she wouldn’t have to be ‘repaired’ unnecessarily.
 
So for now, she purged her mind of such thoughts, and resolved to return to her current task.
 
A few days later, when the traitor Uriel was killed by Anna, the confirmation of what Hal suspected was a foul and deep sinking in her stomach. How it hurt to call him that word! It had not been so long (relatively, anyway) that he’d braided flowers in the tendrils under her chin when they were fledglings
 
The end of days are good for no man, but the cupid was determined to make it right for her charges.
 
*****
 
Anna visited her later.
 
The cupid and the restored angel embraced briefly, reminding each other of their continued presence. The Apocalypse that had forced them together now threatened to break them apart, and after a near-infinite life of close shaves, they were aware of the fragility of their continued existence.
 
“I’ve spoken with Castiel,” Anna informed her as she let go. Hal felt a brief urge to return to the shelter of her arms. Since their last meeting, the two had exchanged correspondence; private prayers flitting their way across the cosmos, and the cupid had begun to grow fond of the other angel. Perhaps even in the humans’ primitive manner. “Sown doubt, ‘planted the seeds of blasphemy’ as Upper Management would put it. Even without my pushing, his proximity to the Winchesters has started to make him feel emotions.”
 
“

Thank you

,” Hal breathed, pulling her in for another swift hug out of gratitude. “Maybe this way I’ll see the match completed this side of the century. And what do you mean ‘started to feel emotions’? I’ve had them all my life!”
 
“Yes, but it’s in your programming to understand them,” Anna replied, a smile tugging at her lips. “You wouldn’t succeed as a cupid otherwise. Angels like I used to be… We’re expected to be emotionless. Conditioned to be afraid of the possibility of all they bring. They even encouraged to turn themselves in if they even suspect they’re becoming ‘defective’. I can only understand what he’s going through because I was there myself, and I’m luckier than he ever was because I served under Gabriel, before his garrisons were dissolved after his disappearance,” she continued, her face falling into a familiar, more sympathetic cast. “Our brother must be terrified.”
 
Hal rubbed her upper arm reassuringly.
 
“Thank you,” she said beseechingly. “Really, I- I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
 
Something indescribable passed over her friend’s face. Well, not really; Hal had seen it on enough humans’ faces to understand what it meant.
 
Still, it surprised her when Anna leaned down and pressed her lips against the cupid’s own, resolute in her conviction. Once a soldier, always a soldier.
 
When they parted a while later, the cupid’s face was stretched in a silly smile she knew wouldn’t leave her face for weeks.

*****

Idly, Hal flicked through one of the manuscripts she’d filched from the Shurley fellow’s house. The writing needed some work, and the smut made her think that if the author had fornicated at some point, it

certainly

wasn’t with a female, but there was something to be said for his overarching emphasis on family and dedication to helping the common man. Even if the prose made her want to vomit.
 
Something on the page made her frown.
 
Dean had entreated Castiel not to make him torture the demon, and Castiel had… Made him do it? He’d admitted he’d give anything to let the human leave, but in the end, the angel had still bowed to the demands of Heaven and forced Winchester into a situation from the worst of nightmares. Dreamt up in the depths of Hell- literally.
 
It must have shattered Dean’s trust in him like a doomed china plate, but still the human was devoted to him.

Kintsugi

, the cupid mused; when it had seemed their friendship, and possibly more, was ruined by Castiel’s duty, the angel had fixed it- possibly made what they had even more beautiful- with his admission that he would have wanted anything else for Dean. What appeared broken beyond all repair was made better by the gold joining the cracks.
 
The soft snick of a closing motel room door jolted her, and Hal tucked the crumpled and coffee-stained manuscript into her quiver, as a defeated Dean Winchester walked over to the vending machine. His hands tucked in his pockets, he surveyed the options, before slotting a few coins into it for a snack he didn’t care for.
 
A moment passed, and in a burst of motion, he threw his head back, searching the sky with desperation on his face. The cupid shuffled a little closer, perching on the roof’s edge to get the best vantage point of the human at his breaking point.
 
“I feel stupid doing this, but I am fresh out of options,” he muttered to himself, clenching his hands at his sides, before raising his voice to begin. “Look, please; I need some help… I’m praying, okay! C’mon! Please!”
 
“Prayer is a sign of faith,” her brother stated, landing so quietly the cupid almost fell off the roof in shock. Even so, she definitely didn’t imagine the way Dean’s soul brightened just by the other angel’s presence. Maybe they didn’t need her after all…

Nah

. “This is a good thing, Dean.”

Oh dear, things never are when someone says that.

“Does that mean you’ll help me?” the human replied, forcing himself not to step forward. Restrained energy was written into his entire body, almost quivering with the force of it.

Huh, perhaps, if the cupid dialed up the energy of the arrow… No, there was too large a risk of Castiel noticing. Damn

.
 
“I’m not sure what I can do, Dean,” the angel said, shooting his chances in the foot again as he brushed Winchester off.

Bastard

.
 
The cycle continued for a few minutes; Dean pleading with her brother and Castiel denying all possibility, before something changed, and a gleam appeared in his eye as the human tried to march away.
 
“Dean,” he said, turning to repeat at a louder volume when the hunter didn’t react. “

Dean

. You must understand

why

I can’t intercede. Prophets are very special-”
 
“

I get that

!”
 
“If anything threatens a prophet,” Castiel continued, raising his eyebrows at Dean in a half-challenge, but Hal saw what he was trying to do. She smiled gleefully at the realisation; there was a reason Castiel was a tactician. “Anything

at all

, an archangel will appear to destroy that threat. Archangels are fierce, they’re absolute, they’re Heaven’s

most terrifying

weapon.”
 
“These archangels are tied to prophets?” the human asked, finally coming to the same conclusion that Castiel was leading him to.
 
“Yes.”
 
“So, if a prophet... Were in the same room as a demon?”
 
“The most fearsome wrath of Heaven would rain down on that demon,” Castiel replied, a pleased smile beginning to play on his lips. “Just so you understand...

Why

I can’t help.”
 
He looked back at Dean, and the cupid’s wings quivered: they were finally going to do it! Surely, they would kiss now!
 
“Thanks, Cas,” the human said, and Castiel nodded imperceptibly.
 
“Good luck.”
 
They’d get together soon. She was sure of it. Hopefully.
 
*****
 
Some time later, the cupid was at her wits end.
 
She’d tried every trick in the book: strategic lighting to highlight handsomeness, smaller standing space for increased proximity, Norwich! Hal had even drained herself for a week, making seven consecutive females that Winchester slept with blue-eyed and brown-haired!
 
But no! The moronic, meaty, bloodbag hadn’t caught on that this match was literally meant to be!
 
She was the laughing stock of the Garden! Hal couldn’t even set foot in the public areas of Heaven for fear of getting laughed out of the Gates! A cupid that couldn’t do their job was no cupid at all.
 
All of her hard work ruined and forgotten, every successful match she’d made disregarded, because two monumental

idiots

couldn’t pull their heads out of their arses.

Or put something else in

…
 
But that wasn’t the point. Vibrating with barely suppressed fury, the cupid paced the thinning carpet of the Cupid Office, scouring her mind for something that would complete the match.
 
Suddenly, a thought pulled her up short; all this time, she’d been focusing on

Dean

. Of course she’d go for the human; they were creatures of lust and sins of the flesh, but Castiel was different. As an angel, Hal had thought she knew everything about Castiel, assuming he was the perfect cookie-cutter soldier of Heaven. He was divine. Absolute. Since the very beginnings of her memory- of her very

life

- she could remember the angel doing all that was ordered of him, without question, hesitation or doubt. However… It didn’t seem so at the time, but now that she looked back, the cupid recalled occasions when he had returned from an absence seeming colder and harder than usual, and that only happened when…

When an angel showed disobedience

.
 
Hal worried at her bowstring, frowning as she explored these memories, wishing she could call Anna to help her.
 
There were rumours after that time in Egypt of an angel who’d daubed lamb blood over every door he could find, to save the children inside. Was it really so impossible that it could have been Castiel?
 
In any case, even if the presence of Dean was enough to corrode the hold Upper Management had on Castiel’s beliefs, how would she go about this new tactic?
 
More reconnaissance was needed.
 
The cupid flapped off to find the happy ‘couple’.
 
*****

“-

In my head

?”
 
“

Exactly, someone could be listening

.”
 
The cupid looked around, finding herself standing beneath a dock in a sepia-toned lake. Swiftly, she crouched closer to the water, trying to conceal herself further. Peeking up, she spotted the shadows of the two she was interested in, and settled down to wait, wincing as the water splashed against her body.
 
“

Meet me here

,” the angel urged. “

Go

now.”
 
He disappeared with a single flap of his great wings (and

boy

, was the cupid jealous of those!), and much as she would have liked to stay and discover what the elder Winchester dreamt about... Time was of the essence.
 
Shifting into another plain, Hal surveyed the place she’d just appeared in. Castiel, in his human vessel, fidgeted, waiting for the two brothers under his charge to appear. In the plain most frequented by the angels, his true form’s wings folded and unfolded in jerky, half-aborted movements. His many eyes never stopped moving around the filthy room.
 
Suddenly, four angels dropped into the physical plain, and the cupid‘ shackles rose. Something was happening… But what? Was this a check up on his mission? Then she registered the engraved collars they wore, and the blades they held in their many hands.
 
They weren’t here to talk with him.
 
They were here to take him to the Inquisition, whether he liked it or not.
 
Frozen with indecision, Hal looked on in terror. If she tried to help, she would be punished, maybe even

killed

, but if she stood by and did nothing the match would never be completed!
 
The decision was made for her. As Castiel tried to run, one of the guards activated the blood sigil painted on the wall and both the cupid and Castiel were thrown from their vessels, with a burning clap of celestial thunder.
 
But while she was sent cartwheeling off into the ether, Castiel was pulled to Heaven.
 
This was not good

at all

.
 
By the time she’d clawed her way back to her empty vessel, Castiel was a stony replica of his old state. Washed clean, returned to his original programming, and wanted nothing to do with Dean. The cupid resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands and weep.
 
It

had

to be fixed. It

would

be fixed, surely?
 
*****
 
In the meantime, Hal returned to Heaven.
 
She was allowed, sure, but with the recent…

Upheavals

, the cupid was not above extra caution. In any case, if she got caught looking at things she shouldn’t be, it would be Anna she betrayed as well.
 
With these thoughts in mind, Hal passed through the increasingly dusty doors of the Great Library with a forced casualness, nodding to the angel on the desk as she made her way to the stacks. Eracus barely lifted xer head from Naomi Novik’s

Temeraire

to register her, looking smaller and more withdrawn than usual. The cupid was glad for that; in a time when angel turned on angel, it was safer for them to pretend their loved ones were never there. Hal barely knew Eracus and xer colleague Penemue, but the few interactions they’d had hinted that the pair were suffering under Heaven’s increasingly harsh regime. Books tended to inspire free thinking, and, day in, day out, they were surrounded by something of a poison to angels ‘true’ minds.
 
Indeed, the Library was even barer of occupants than usual, but it seemed that Penemue and Eracus were the only angels working in the cavernous space. The armies had no real need for librarians, but those that could fight had been taken, and the lucky two spared, by the skin of their teeth, for the running of the great space.
 
Following a path she’d been on only a few times before, Hal noted the footprints she left in the dust. No one had come this way in a long time, not even the librarians. For all that she should be glad, the cupid only felt dread at the thought that Upstairs would be able to track what she’d looked at.
 
Finally, she reached her destination.

Thank

goodness

the Cupid Office kept files in the Library

, she thought, flipping open a manila folder. They had their own, back in the office, but the decreased amount of employees meant she would be easier to track down, so the relative risk of the Library was better for the anonymity it offered.
 
Grimly, Hal scanned the pages, removing another folder when the one she had didn’t contain the information she needed. Something a long time ago, something about…

Matches 1965-1975 (pg. 403)

‘

... MARY DEANNA CAMPBELL (HUMAN, HUNTER) AND JOHN ERIC WINCHESTER (HUMAN, MoL LEGACY)…

’
 
Winchester was a legacy? That explained something; she’d always wondered why the orders had come to match them. But if John was a legacy, then did that mean Mary was one of

the

Campbells?
 
The cupid half ran to the genealogy section, forgetting for a moment where she was. In this particular part were the records of each line Heaven had cultivated for whatever reason. She stretched to reach the scroll- luckily, there was only

one

family listed as Campbell- and traced the family tree all the way back to-
 
Cain.
 
Uneasily, she fetched the Winchester one and repeated the process, unsurprised and yet shocked when it ran directly back to Abel.

Ah

.

Oh dear

;

the true vessel lines joined as one.

Now the cupid had a dilemma on her hands: she suspected something was up, and the increasing proof hinted that it was true, but if she investigated the one source that she knew would confirm or deny, Hal risked the chance of being hunted by Heaven forever.
 
Carefully, she returned each document to its proper place, doing her best to disguise that they’d ever been moved. If she was to do this, then she wanted the evidence to be as little as possible.
 
Then, Hal left the Library, waving at Penemue as she left. The other angel averted her eyes carefully, jotting notes onto a papyrus scroll.
 
A silent signal of secrecy.
 
Releasing a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, the cupid flew to a section of Heaven that very few frequented.
 
The Up-Up-Upstairs.
 
The Archangel Offices.
 
Thankfully, it was empty (apparently even the high-and-mighties kept regular office hours), but she wasn’t about to push her luck; this cupid needed to be in and out as quickly as possible.
 
Silently, she made her way over to the veritable wall of cabinets, and there they were- filed under A for Apocalypse- memos and order forms dating back to the BCs of BC detailing the prodding at humanity for the End of Days.

This was the kind of precision even chessmasters couldn’t aspire to

, she thought, whistling quietly as she marvelled at the array.
 
The cupid was so absorbed with reading the lengths the angels had gone to to bring this about (

the Great Fire of London, started to push the Campbells over to America, not Hell’s doing after all

) that she didn’t notice the archangel looming at her shoulder.
 
“AND WHAT,” inquired St Michael, Defender of the Church, Terror of Evil Spirits and Guardian of the Faith, “DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
 
“Eep,” said the cupid intelligently, and hightailed it out of Heaven.
 
*****

Skidding through dimensions and weaving around annoying, little planets, Hal shot back to Earth as quickly as she could, her mind focussed on one thing: telling Anna of what she’d found. Now that she could no longer go back, the cupid wanted her only ally and loved one to be as informed as her. That way they might be able to keep ahead of Heaven’s attack dogs.
 
It only took nanoseconds to reach her beloved, but by that point, it was all too late, and Hal could do was watch in shock, as Anna was dragged back up into the place she’d just ran from. The fallen angel’s enraged and primal scream of fear echoed in the cupid’s head as she responded with one of her own, filling the dimensions around her.
 
She wasn’t a fighter. Left in her less-than-capable hands, Anna was doomed from the start.
 
Eventually, the cupid came back to herself, huddled on the ground in a cold and lonely plain. She looked around, finally spotting the cause of Anna’s doom; Castiel sat alone on the floor, staring at his hands with empty eyes, his very being curled in on itself.
 
The flame reignited, and Hal flew at him, not caring about the consequences  as she returned to the mundane, an arrow in each hand as she tore at him.
 
But to no avail: for all that she may have been pushing into the very space he filled, the cupid may well have been made of smoke. Despite the fact that even a human would have seen her in that state, Castiel’s eyes were closed to her.
 
Again, she tried to strike him, and once again, her blow didn’t even make contact with his vessel’s skin. Something was keeping the angel wrapped in supernatural bubblewrap, and no matter how hard she tried, Hal couldn’t even touch him.
 
“I hate you,” the cupid told him, not even caring that he couldn’t hear her. Her brother turned his dagger over in his hands, examining the blade. “I hate that I’m tied to you, and I hate that you won’t bloody match with the Winchester and set me free! It’s your fault Anna is gone, and I

hate

you for it!”
 
Castiel held the elegant knife up, twisting it this way and that, and in the light of the sluggishly rising sun, Hal saw her narrowed and reddened eyes reflected in the surface.
 “Don’t you dare,” she said, hastening to stand as he rested its side against his neck. “Don’t you bloody dare!” 
Sighing, her brother removed it, looking at the gleaming metal wistfully. Then he pocketed it, stood, and flew off. The cupid didn’t follow.

Curse him and the Winchesters, curse them

!

Why couldn’t they just go away

!
 
Hal curled up into a ball and started to weep.
 
*****
 
The human paced the elaborately gilded walls of the Green Room desperately, broadcasting his emotions loudly enough that the cupid would have been able to smell his angst a mile away.
 
So really, it wasn’t a surprise when her brother dropped in to say hello.
 
“You can’t reach him here,” he said mildly, and Hal groaned. The bastard couldn’t be satisfied with ruining

her

happiness, he had to destroy

his

chances as well! “It’s outside of your coverage zone.”
 
Honestly, she was surprised that Heaven’s Proudest knew modern terms like that. The rest all seemed to believe humanity had only just progressed beyond woad and the wheel. No wonder they called them mud monkeys-

please

, the term was hardly above

mudblood.

Dean’s face hardened.
 
“What are you gonna do to Sam?” he said roughly, and the cupid tuned out the next few lines vindictively, already bored with their cyclical script.
 
A noise like something organic hitting metal knocked her out of her thoughts, and she looked round to see a grimacing Dean cradle his fist in pain as Castiel turned to face him, with a face as grim as stone. Probably as solid as it too, she thought, smirking as she heard the grunt the human made. Even if her brother showed no sign of feeling the blow, at least she had the satisfaction of knowing he was hurt emotionally.
 
Hopefully.
 
“This is Armageddon, Cas; you need a bigger word than sorry!” Dean cried as he turned to the angel.
 
“Try to understand; this is long foretold,” he plowed ahead, ignoring the desperate human. “This is your-”
 
“

Destiny

?” Dean interrupted, and despite his scornful tone, Hal didn’t have to be a cupid to recognise the face of a person whose life was collapsing around them. “C’mon, don’t give me that holy crap. Destiny?

God’s plan

? It’s all a bunch of

lies

, you poor, stupid, son of a bitch!”
 
Castiel showed no outward emotions as the human continued, but in the ethereal plane, the cupid surveyed the anxious fidgeting of his wings. Her brother was nervous. Afraid, even.
 
“It’s just a way for your bosses to keep

me

and keep

you

in line,” he continued blithely, not catching the steel forming in the angel’s eyes. “You know what’ real?” Dean entreated, dropping his voice as he stepped closer to the angel. He’d found a fault line and he meant to exploit it. “People, families-

that’s real

. And you’re gonna watch them all

burn

?”
 
“What is so worth saving?” Castiel bit out, his eyes narrowing, but unerringly fixed on Dean as he shortened the distance between them. Hal waited with bated breath for the kiss she was

sure

was imminent.  “I see nothing but

pain

here. I see inside you. I see your

guilt

, your

anger

.

Confusion

. In Paradise, all is forgiven. You’ll be at peace,” he said, half-pleading, but somehow the cupid had developed some kind of sixth sense for when the pair would mess up

every single time

. “Even with Sam.”
 
She groaned, dragging a celestial hand over her face as the human’s face shuttered, and anger began to almost

ooze

from his skin. No wonder he was Michael’s true vessel; righteousness seemed to cling to him like a bad smell on a hot day. Even if this were not the case, her moron of a sibling ought to know better by now than to bring the brother into the conversation. Things always went downhill from there.
 
Even Castiel seemed to sense it, and he dropped his eyes, moving his face away from Dean, but the human- whose bitterness was surrounding him in a miasma of the human soul- ducked his own head in order to make the seraph look him in the eye.

“You can take your peace,” he informed the other man, some bridled energy straining beneath the surface. “And shove it up your lily-white ass, ‘cause I’ll take the pain and the guilt- I’ll even take the same, as it’s a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in Paradise!” Dean powered on, doggedly keeping his gaze on Castiel, even as he made to turn away. “This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a ‘good soldier’! There is a

right

and there is a

wrong

here, and you

know

it. Look at me!”
 
The human span her brother around, and despite all the odds, all her resentment of him, Hal found herself chanting ‘

Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss

!’ as they stepped closer towards each other.

Ah well

,

it wasn’t like anyone could hear her in her lonely

,

little dimension

;

Castiel had taken care of that

.
 
Shaking her thoughts away from Anna, she turned her attention back to the duo.
 
“Now you were gonna help me once, weren’t you,” Dean said, his voice softening as he tried to appeal to the angel’s emotional side.

Good luck with that

, the cupid thought, curling her lip.

He was as cold as a living statue

. “You were gonna warn me about all this before they dragged you back to Bible camp. Help me, now,

please

.”
 
Even in her separated state, Hal’s interest was piqued. It would take something near a miracle for Castiel to rebel against Heaven, even for a human of the likes of Dean Winchester.
 
Then her brother asked quietly:
 
“What would you have me do?” and the human leapt on his words like they were manna from the palm of God Himself.
 
“Get me to Sam, we could stop this before it’s too late!”
 
“I do that, we will

all

be hunted,” the angel growled, finally meeting Dean’s eyes. Even when his human facade only showed anger and bitterness, the cupid could see true desperation carved into every aspect of his celestial form. “We’ll

all

be killed.”
 
“If there’s anything worth dying for,

this is it

,” Winchester breathed, beseeching her once stoic and stern brother in the final stronghold of his arguments.
 
But her brother shook his head silently, and looked away once more. Every single weakness and emotion but low, simmering anger was battened down in Dean’s body as he turned away.
 
“You spineless, soulless son of a bitch,” he spat. “What’d’you care about

dying

; you’re already dead. We’re done.”
 
“Dean-” Castiel tried, but his charge cut him off.
 
“We’re done,” Winchester repeated, and the cupid didn’t have to imagine the sorrow on his face when the human looked round to see that the angel had listened.
 
*****

Hours later (this was assuming that heavenly time was more compressed than that on Earth (the cupid had never quite figured it out)), Dean paced the Green Room, in much the same manner as he had been doing since Castiel left. It put Hal in the mind of a caged animal, and it was all the more worse for the fact that he knew what was to come, unlike some mindless beast.
 
Frankly, she was quite disappointed in her brother, and not just because it meant he was actively slowing the progression of the match’s completion. It wasn’t like she’d expected better of Heaven’s Favourite Soldier, especially after his latest round of brainwashing (

and Anna- poor, dear Anna

), but the cupid had hoped he might exhibit at least one crack in his near-faultless exterior for the human to exploit.
 
She just wanted them

all

to be out of the choking pressure of Upper Management’s hold.
 
A flurry of movement distracted her from her musings, as Castiel burst into the Room behind Dean, and slammed him into wall. Dean’s eyes flew amazingly wide and his heart produced an interesting dance of shock. They exchanged a long look- impossible to understand- until Castiel registered some invisible agreement and released him.
 
The other angel probably didn’t notice, given by the way he pushed away and immediately began pouring everything he had into painting the bloody sigil, but Hal didn’t miss the flood of adrenaline into the human’s system, and the rush of something that could only have been arousal.

Really, it was almost as if he was ignoring the signals on purpose

!
 
Cool, she glanced over the horror on his face as the seraph dragged the jagged knife over his forearm. The cupid was glad of his obvious concern, if a little annoyed that it ways destined for her brother.
 
He didn’t deserve Dean’s love at all, fragments though they may have been.
 
Dumb shock soon changed to understanding, as the human watched Castiel paint the grim sign with deft and bloody hands. Hal leaned forward:

someone

seemed to be rather fixated on a certain seraph’s fingers.

Ah well, all the better for the endgame.

“Castiel!” Zachariah’s grating voice called suddenly, and the cupid swore silently as the blasted, bleeding angel appeared in the Room. “Would you mind explaining just what exactly you’re doing-?”
 
With a burst of blinding light, he was banished as Castiel slammed a hand down on the sigil, smearing the once-pristine wall further with the viscous, ruby liquid.
 
The cupid herself was almost blown away by the force of the symbol’s completion, but some small, unheard voice made her latch on to a portion of Winchester’s soul, and by the grace of that alone, she was able to stay.
 
Still, the onslaught had about the effect on her as being plowed over by a ten tonne truck, and in her dazed state, Hal only just managed to follow Dean and Castiel as they flew into the prophet’s residence.
 
Even so, she still managed a weak grin at his reaction to their arrival.

Particularly his attempt at hiring prostitutes

: that

was laughable.

“You’re not supposed to be in this story!” Shurley yelped.
 
“Yeah, well… We’re making it up as we go,” Castiel answered, studying the manuscript. Dean’s head jerked up in surprise, and a lazy smiled played across the cupid’s lips at his reaction. At least

one

half was pulling his weight.
 
Then her hackles rose, and she glanced around fearfully as static began flashing across the screen of the prophet’s computer. As she realised what was happening, Hal felt the bottom drop out of her multiple stomachs as the presence of the Archangel Raphael began to fill the room.

Time to go. NOW.

Time was of the essence, and the cupid didn’t even bother to check on the humans as she flew for her life.
 
She shouldn’t have- she knew she shouldn’t have- but Hal just couldn’t help the sickening curl of vicious satisfaction as she fled the prophet’s house, Castiel’s grace scattering across the Universe as his essence was ripped apart by the archangel.

Anna was as good as dead, and it’s.

All.

His.

Fault.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Some time later, with her proverbial tail between her proverbial legs (in a sense; she had both- multiple, actually- they just didn’t match up), the cupid slunk back to watch over the Winchesters.

Hal had nothing else to do now: her purpose was gone, the match she’d been set to create impossible due to an extremely important, extremely missing component. Even her home was denied to her, because she’d put all of her eggs in one basket.

Curse Castiel! Curse him and the Winchesters! Because of them, the cupid had lost everything- the only person she’d ever truly loved- and now without anything better to do, she was stuck watching over their miserable lives until they dropped dead. Hopefully, soon.

The only one who seemed to be in a worse state than her was the older human.

Rolling over onto her side, Hal observed Dean from her favourite, private dimension. Despite the seemingly stoic front he was putting on, the Winchester’s soul told another story: it was in a constant state of turmoil, reaching out for something it couldn’t find and curling in on itself when it couldn’t reach the object of its desires.

The cupid’s lip curled, and she growled at him. The love that she’d been coaxing and nurturing from the lust-imbued arrow had finally poked its head out from the ground, and the one it was for couldn’t even be bothered to show up! How she hated the angel in that moment!

A knocking at the door shook her from her rage-filled thoughts, and Hal released her bow, looking around guiltily as she saw the way she’d been gripping it.

The destruction of one’s match shouldn't lead to the destruction of one’s property, after all.

Hal pursed her mouth in annoyance at the sight of the fangirl groping the younger brother. It had been funny to watch his uncomfortableness at first, given the irritation the two had caused her, but even so, refusing to remove oneself from the personal space of another was unaccountably rude. Even for a human, when it was less likely that grace would get intertwined in… Unfortunate places.

The statement about a hill of forty-two dogs was interesting, though… Even within her long memory, Hal had never come across such a thing.

So she settled back, and resolved to follow the idiot brothers for the foreseeable future.

Matches be damned.

***** Oh, oh indeed! The cupid had just about HAD IT with Castiel! First the bastard had to flap in unannounced (okay, he did save the Winchesters, lbut it wasn’t like she was about to step in to do it herself! Someone needed to be their guardian angel after someone got themselves killed!), and then, after offering no real explanation for the sigils he’d carved into the humans’ ribs, he flew away! With nothing more than a by-your-leave, or- or a passionate kiss for his grieving paramour!

And goodness! How it had angered Hal the way he ignored the pathetic glow of Dean’s soul brightening- like someone had blown on a dying flame- at his very presence! Why the poor human had been matched with her unbelievable, clotpole of a brother was beyond her!

Not to even bloody MENTION the way Castiel hadn’t a single kind word to spare for the distraught human after the ordeal he and his brother had been through!

Bleeding Manchester!

***** That night, Dean excused himself from the tense meal in the motel’s dingy main room, and headed to the bathroom. They were both bone-tired from the strains of the day, and had retreated (in their typical fashion) to the motel nearest to the hospital where their pseudo-father Bobby was currently mourning the loss of his legs.

Sam headed for the bed, barely shucking off his trousers, before he half-fell into its dubiously-scented embrace. The cupid wrapped her wings around herself and settled down for another night watching over the brothers, lest they get killed again.

However, just as she was dipping into a watchful, yet meditative state, distress pinged on her celestial radar. Curiously, she poked her head through the wall of the grimy bathroom, grimacing at the feeling of all the dirt particles passing through her body, to find the older human crying in the shower.

He was curled up, sobbing brokenly into the fist stuffed into his mouth to prevent his sibling from hearing him through the thin motel walls. Thankfully, his tightly folded legs prevented Hal from spying anything untowards, but there was something vulnerable about the man who was usually so comfortable in his body.

Dean tipped his head back against the cool, tiled wall, his breathing wrecked as the water washed away the tears streaming down his face. Manic eyes traced over everything and anything, never focusing on one thing, as he released his pain into the hollow space between tile and glass.

Even though there was only innocence and concern in the way she watched him, suddenly, the cupid felt like a voyeur as she saw him bury his face in his hands once more, and she retreated from the bathroom guiltily.

Some time later, when Dean emerged from the steamy room- his usual swagger and smirk painted on with a particularly fine brush- Hal looked away.

***** There was something about the fact that the human had gotten his should-be lover back that made the cupid feel the absence of another like the loss of a missing limb. Since Anna, Hal had shuttered her emotions regarding the angel, and now with Castiel returned from the dead, she felt them return with full force.

On a whim, she flew to the home Anna had lived in as a human. Surprisingly, no one had touched the house since the deaths of her parents and her subsequent disappearance, and as Hal made her way through the silent rooms of the once-lively home, she left behind footsteps in the dust.

There were photos on the walls, mementos of a happier time when the worst that troubles could become were skinned knees and mean words on a playground. When they weren’t hunted for thinking a certain way. When it didn’t seem so silly that the sun might be painted on the sky, and the ceiling was only miles away.

Hal paused beside one picture. A grinning Anna bared her teeth on the other side of the glass, cake smeared across her face as her parents took up arms beside her, protecting her from the world with bodies of breakable flesh and bone.

The answering smile flickered and died, and she turned away from the happy family, making her way up the stairs. Anna’s face followed her from cages of past times, and she turned her face away whenever she saw one. The eyes bored into her vessel’s back like blunted angel blades.

Soon, the cupid reached the landing and span in a slow circle.

The doors to the rooms were still open, a snapshot of before it all went to Hell. Passing by the parents’ and a bathroom, Hal came to the one she’d come here to see.

Pushing the door open wide, she stepped into Anna’s bedroom.

The faded pink walls were daubed with abstract murals of things she recognised as angel trueforms- even one that looked suspiciously like her own- and the wide window allowed beams of light to illuminate the scattered dust motes dancing in the disturbed air.

Paint brushes were scattered along the surface of a desk nestled in the corner, and as Hal approached, she saw a smart peacoat hung over the tall mirror that sat there. She removed it gently, bringing the soft yet sturdy fabric to her face, and inhaled the familiar scent of her favourite angel. Acting on impulse, the cupid slipped it on, smiling as she saw how the purple contrasted against the cream wool of her vessel’s jumper. Rolling the sleeves of the wine-coloured coat up so it would fit, she relaxed, surrounded by the almost embrace of her beloved.

It wasn’t as good as an actual hug, but it was near enough.

And with that, she left the house, just as she had entered it, the near-perfect fit of the peacoat a reminder around her shoulders.

*****

“Enough foreplay!” Bobby called gruffly, and the cupid perked up, hoping that maybe the two would be-

Alas. Oh dear. What a shame. Of course they were just arguing. What did a cupid have to do to get a break around here?

“Lay your damn hands on,” the wheelchair-bound hunter barked. “Get healing! Now!”

Hal winced, knowing what the angel was about to say.

“I can’t,” he admitted, and damn, even if she hated him, that must’ve taken some courage to say. “I’m cut off from Heaven,” Castiel explained at Bobby’s disbelieving face. “And much of Heaven’s power… Certain things I can do. Certain things I can’t.”

“You’re telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap the rest of my life!?” the grizzly man snapped. The cupid flinched; that was low, even for a human.

“Sorry,” her brother muttered, and Dean shifted behind him, clearly wanting to do something. Hal didn’t know what it was, but by the way his soul was beating out a constant concern for the angel, she had a pretty good idea of who it was for.

“Shove it up your ass.”

There was a muffled exchange that the cupid couldn’t be bothered to listen to, before a ruffled Castiel stepped (once more) into Dean’s personal space. The human’s heart did a double-beat, and Hal sighed. His increasing infatuation was being increasingly ignored, and it was really starting to tire her out.

She was starting to feel sorry for Sam; it was like he wasn’t even in the room.

“I don’t have much time; we need to talk,” Castiel said, his eyes fixed on Dean’s.

“Okay?” he replied in confusion, still rather flustered by the angel’s proximity, although Hal had a sneaking suspicion that was about to change.

And sure enough-!

“Your plan? To kill Lucifer?” Castiel said, lending a sense of ridiculousness to the words. The way he said them made it sound beneath him, and much to the cupid’s surprise (or perhaps not) this did everything to rile the humans up.

“Yeah? You wanna help-?”

“No,” the seraph answered, pushing it down completely. “It’s foolish, it can’t be done.”

“Oh,” Dean snarked, putting up his shields once more, and Hal groaned as she saw them ruin their chances, again! “Well, thanks for the support.”

“But I believe,” Castiel plowed on, maximising the gravity of his words with a hearty stare-down. Sigh. “I have the solution. There is someone strong enough, besides Michael, to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the Apocalypse.”

“Who’s that?” Sam asked warily, and the cupid felt a chill run through her as she realised who her brother spoke of. Oh dear.

“The one who resurrected me and put you on that airplane,” he replied, the religious, almost feverish, fervour in his eyes scaring her slightly. Hal wasn’t sure she liked this new Castiel. “The one who began everything; God.”

Ah.

The two brothers half-recoiled in shock. Oblivious to their surprise, Castiel turned back to Dean, repeating his intention near-manically:

“I’m gonna find God.”

Immediately, the older Winchester slammed the door, before turning back to the angel. The cupid thought she heard a hint of static.

“God?” he asked disbelievingly.

“Yes,” Castiel answered, oblivious to his incredulity. Hal sighed once more; at this rate, she’d be stuck with the muttonheads for millenia.

“God?”

“Yes, he isn’t in Heaven, he has to be somewhere.”

“Try New Mexico,” Dean said, smirking. “I hear he’s on a tortilla.”

What?

What on Earth could the human possibly mean? Even though she didn’t like to be lumped in with her brother, the cupid was about as befuddled as Castiel when it came to this.

“No... He’s not on any flatbread.”

The conversation continued in this vein for some time, with the two men getting more inscenced with each other as they blocked the others from it entirely. Finally, Castiel broke:

“I killed two angels this week,” he growled, his voice getting steadily lower and more intense with each step he took towards Dean. By the end of his vicious tirade, Hal wasn’t sure whether the human wanted to kiss him or knock his block off. “So, because of my brothers, I’m hunted, I’ve rebelled, and I did all of it for you, and you failed. You and your brother destroyed the world and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep. You opinions. To yourself.”

“You didn’t drop in just to tear us a new hole,” Bobby said shrewdly, surveying the tense scene before him. “What is it you want?” “I did come for something,” Castiel admitted, tearing his eyes away from Dean reluctantly. Despite herself, the cupid smiled. “An amulet.”

“An amulet? What kind?” “Very rare, very powerful,” the angel explained. “It burns hot in God’s presence and it’ll let me find him.”

“Like ‘God EMF’?” Sam asked, raising his eyebrows at the strange request. The cupid wondered where the conversation was going. Castiel nodded, and Bobby waved him off, muttering that he didn’t have what he needed.

“I know you don’t,” her brother replied, pausing for a few moments as his gaze wandered back over to Dean.

Or more specifically to the pendant around his neck.

The human figured this out at the same time as Hal did, ducking his head to stare at Castiel.

“What, this?” he asked, confused.

“May I borrow it?” Castiel stated more than asked, and the cupid despaired once more, as Dean’s hackles shot up like a flare.

Huh, if only a certain angel could see it too.

“No!”

“Dean,” he said, lowering his voice, and completely ignoring the look of complete betrayal the human was sending him. “Give it to me.”

The elder Winchester stared at him in dumb shock, his emotions and internal conflict playing out across his face as he went through it in his mind. Eventually- hesitating all the while- he slipped it over his head, and passed it over.

“Don’t lose it,” Dean commanded, seemingly gruff, but Hal detected a note of pleading in his voice. In the ethereal plane, Castiel showed the first signs that he had ever experienced emotions at all, and stilled. For a moment, he looked as though he was about to try and comfort his match, but then Dean broke the silence, and he returned to his energised and unfeeling state.

As he flew off with the most impersonal words possible, Hal cursed the moment she’d been assigned the pair.

*****

She'd thought she'd next have a stab at it when Castiel flapped up behind the Winchester boy in his bathroom. It was funny at first, watching the hunter jump as he turned to find the angel there.

“Cas,” he breathed, and the cupid had to slap hands over her many celestial mouths as his eyes flicked down to the other angel’s lips. Biting her cheek nervously, she vibrated the air particles as subtly as she could. Hopefully, even if Castiel didn’t notice, the heat would affect the human enough for him to act on the attraction, and then her job would be over. Thank Liverpool.

Then, of course, bloody Winchester had to ruin it.

“We’ve talked about this. Personal space?”

To be fair, she could see why Castiel hesitated before stepping away. Dean may have denied any possibility of things heading towards a steamier destination, but everything about him- from the hitch in breath at the angel’s proximity, to the involuntary biological signals- was screaming for things to turn in a different direction.

After all, one didn’t have to be a cupid to smell the waves of longing pouring off Winchester.

***** As the pair returned to the abandoned building in the Impala, Hal considered the way her match interacted in the past few hours. Castiel had been just as clueless about human interaction as usual, but for once it didn’t fill her with disgust. He may never understand what he’d done, but it had been rather amusing watching the human covering for his mistakes. Even if the deputy wasn’t that convinced.

However, there was something endearing in the way that Dean fixed the angel’s tie, even in the manner that he flipped the false identification card over when Castiel had gotten it the wrong way up.

The caregiving manner of the elder Winchester made her smile, putting her in mind of some other matches she’d formed over the millennia. Perhaps there was hope for them after all...

Gradually, she tuned back in as her brother flapped into the room of the derelict house.

“Where’ve you been?” Dean asked in his usual gruff manner.

“Jerusalem,” Castiel answered, being as succinct as it was possible to be. For some reason, his nonchalant way of stating what he found to be the obvious always seemed to rile the hunter up. Funny that.

“Oh? How was it?” he replied, putting on an air of fake politeness. Right on time, the cupid mused. The Winchesters had a tendency to be awfully predictable.

“Arid,” the angel stated, placing a stone amphora on the table with a dull clink.

“What’s that?”

Hal wandered between the two men, swiping a finger over the surface. It smelt strange, almost like it contained-

“Oil,” Castiel murmured, casting a look through the ratty curtains. It was surprisingly bright, given the lack of any streetlights. “Very special, very rare.”

And with that, he sat, offering no further information. The cupid groaned, burying her face in her hands: curse their ridiculous lack of communication!

Winchester shifted slightly, his discomfort with the absence of action making itself clear.

“Great,” Dean said, returning to snark as his primary source of defense. “We’re gonna trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?”

“No.”

“Argh!” Hal burst out, swinging her arms manically for a moment, before she regained control. “Full sentences! Non-monosyllabic words! Use your bloody words!”

Castiel frowned, twisting his head as his eyes passed over the area she was standing in. Immediately, the cupid froze, the First Rule of Cupiddom passing through her head: You Can’t Match A Match When They Know You’re There.

Thankfully, he looked back at the human just as he finished asking another question. Even though she didn’t need to breathe, Hal let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

The two discussed what it would be like to trap the archangel, but she ignored most of this. They could summon all the angels they wanted, but this cupid had no plans on being nearby when it happened.

“So… Odds are you’re a dead man tomorrow?” Dean asked slowly, processing that Castiel may die at Raphael’s hand.

“Yes.”

The human didn’t buckle, exactly, but there was a strange sway that rippled through his body as Castiel confirmed his imminent death.

Bollocks.

The moment he starts to care about the seraph, the same winged idiot swoops down to wipe the angel off the map! Couldn’t a cupid get a break around here?

“Wow,” he muttered, walking away from his feathered friend, processing his friend’s morbid statement.

Understatement of the century, Hal thought bitterly. Harrumph.

“Well,” Dean continued, swinging back round to look at Castiel, with a newfound, near desperate energy. “Last night on Earth? What are your plans?”

Hang on; this sounded familiar. Wasn’t that what Anna said?

“I thought I’d just sit here quietly,” her brother answered, twisting his hands in his lap. The cupid deflated: he never knew when to take a chance.

“Dude, c’mon, anything?” Dean coaxed, a smirk forming on his face. “Booze? Women?”

Entertained though she might be by the human’s suggestion, Hal didn’t miss the way Castiel looked at him when his words registered. It wasn’t quite lust, but there was a hint of surprise mixed with hope, and maybe just a little sprinkling of desire.

In any case, the jammy bastard was becoming a nervous wreck. As soon as his reaction was processed by the angel, he averted his eyes from Dean.

Now, that was telling.

“You have been with a woman before, right?” Dean questioned, a tad sceptically. She sniggered: it may not have occurred to Castiel fully yet, but she had a feeling it wasn’t women he was interested in… “Or an angel at least?”

The distracted rubbing of his neck was enough to realise the truth, but Dean pressed him again, just to make sure.

“You mean to tell me that you’ve never been up there doing a little… ‘cloud seeding’?” he prompted, and this time, Castiel answered him:

“I’ve never had occasion, okay?” her brother bit out, staring at the opposite wall.

The human leaned back, and the cupid could almost see the cogs turning in his mind as he weighed up the options. Carefully, taking extra precautions to be silent, she crossed numerous sets of fingers hopefully.

Well… Things that looked like fingers.

“Alright,” Dean said, a gleeful smile beginning to form as he started pulling on his coat. Hang on… What? “Okay! So, there are two things that I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin.”

Hal leaned forward in anticipation. Surely they would kiss now. Then Dean would tug Castiel out the door and into the Impala, pressing him back on the seats to-

Well, that hardly needed explaining...

The cupid was jolted out of her happy, little daydream, of finally being set free, by the growl of the Impala’s engine. Irritated and confused, she poked her head through the wall to spy the muscle car pulling out of the overgrown drive. Flapping her wings steadily, she set off to follow them.

Maybe Dean was going to pop the angel’s socket somewhere a bit classier than a derelict house. Didn’t matter, Hal wasn’t going to be watching either way.

*****

A few hours later, the cupid was rolling around laughing in the ethereal plain. For all that it hadn’t been the ‘last night on Earth’ she’d imagined, it had been encouraging to notice the way Winchester’s eyes had slipped to Castiel’s mouth every time he took a swig of beer.

And the way he handled the the pint glass.

Not to mention the seraph’s face in the brothel. That was going to last her through some long nights. Dean too, or so it seemed.

Anyway, it wasn’t how she’d thought it might happen, but as she watched them stroll down the dark alleyway, laughing with their heads turned to each other near-adoringly, she found she didn’t particularly mind.

Perhaps the slowness of her assignment was not so bad after all.

***** Suddenly, something pinged on her celestial radar: one of her charges had disappeared. Now here trueform’s senses were being overwhelmed with the flavour of Castiel’s grace, with none of Dean’s soul’s distinctive texture to temper the mix.

And not just in the manner that humans did, dropping off the map, etc… From what she could tell, Dean had dropped- not just off the face of the Earth- out of their dimension entirely.

Only a few steps from panicking, Hal followed the trail to the last place she’d felt his presence, and stopped dead.

There- right in the middle of the filthy excuse for a motel room- was a rip in the very fabric of space and time.

Hesitantly, she poked it, ready to draw back should anything happen, when it sucked her right in.

Immediately, the cupid was up on her feet, looking around to check her surroundings. She may not have been a fighter, but every angel- soldier or not- was required to go through basic training at least once a millennium.

However, wherever she was… Hal did not recognise her surroundings.

There was something off about the place, not just the post-Apocalyptic feel, but the energy keeping it together. If she had to guess, she would have said she was in a pocket dimension created by someone in the Up-Upstairs.

And that meant she had to tread carefully.

Carefully, Hal tucked her wings tightly against her body, and resorted to walking. She might still have be invisible- and indeed, her pace would still be faster than a normal human’s- but any extra grace-usage might attract the attention of the person running this gig, and that was not a risk she wanted to take.

So, the cupid set off to follow the trail of one Dean Winchester.

***** Hours later, Hal wanted to vomit.

Her very being was rebelling against the existence she found herself in, and that was not even the worst part. Heaven, Hell and Purgatory all missing, and the only supernatural beings were Lucifer, his demons, and the recycled monsters that trailed after them.

The Lightbringer’s tainted presence was a constant rotting stench on the edge of her senses, and she found herself cursing the elder Winchester constantly as she followed his trail closer to what was once the brightest of all angels.

Not to mention the people inhabiting this place.

Most of the humans she ran into (and away from- Hal wasn’t risking them sensing her) were soulless shells imitating those infected by the croatoan virus. And those that weren’t? Well…

The ones that the puppetmaster needed for his scheme were like automatons with limited programming: they could walk, talk and act like almost any other, but they were emotionless and without the only thing that could animate them.

A soul.

The worst, most abhorrent aspect of the reality the cupid had unwittingly stumbled into was its version of Castiel.

She didn’t care- never had, never would- about the real one, but there was something about this pitiful wreck of a creature that made her want to throw up bile and vomit until she was empty and shaking. The very thought that Castiel- the strong one, the brave one, the good soldier- could ever be reduced to such a state as the awful, pessimistic man she saw before her… It made Hal want to run and never come back.

To forget that her Dean was still stuck in this reality and flee back to the stoic and stern angel that she knew. Even one that had signed Anna’s death warrant was better than one who had fallen enough to hit the bottom and kept going.

She only caught up with her charge once darkness fell, and when she discovered what was there, she almost wished she’d never come at all. In the darkest corner of the war cabin, as the shell of a future Dean argued with the living, breathing one of her time, the cupid spotted something that made her pause.

There, up where the light struggled to reach, was a familiar, double-curved bow.

Hal drew her own with shaking hands, and held it up to the mounted weapon.

The traditional, Mongolian bow she’d adopted when their Empire had refined composite bodies matched with the trophy directly.

A quivering finger reached out, almost of its own accord, and traced the bound sinew, horn and wood. Even a tiny touch was enough to recognise the manufactured fingerprint of her grace.

Which meant that-

The person pulling the strings knew she was here.

Was this a threat? Did he seriously mean to hold her imminent death over her own head in such a symbolic manner? Or was this a way of letting her know he approved?

Whatever the reasoning was, Hal was not going to wait to find out.

With a snap of her wings, she propelled herself from the place of horrors, and flew to their entry point. But her normally-powerful appendages were slow, sluggish, and it was almost as though she was attempting to flap through honey.

Fear- thick, choking, primal fear- rose in her throat, and Hal fought to keep it down. To any outsider capable of seeing her, it may have appeared as though she was sculling through the air calmly, but the cupid knew that she was as trapped as an insect in amber.

Finally, after what felt like hours later, she reached the tear.

But it was no longer there!

Hal scouted around, searching with steadily increasing panic and terror for the doorway, but it was gone. Soon she came to a halt, her heart sinking with the realisation that even if the door had been somewhere in this cursed place, the maker had sealed it off.

There was no escape.

The cupid clambered into the space between two chimneys, a pile of rubble resting against her back as she ran through her options, forcing herself to think logically.

She wouldn’t be able to get out on her own, there was no doubt about it. Sadly, as a cupid, Hal’s powers were limited to what was needed to get a match together, and unfortunately, they didn’t extend to ripping the fabric of space and time.

However, she reminded herself sternly, this was a pocket dimension. Whoever was controlling this place, no matter how powerful they were, would have to end it eventually.

So Hal would have to wait it out.

In the meantime, she turned her attention to the matter of the bow.

Even if the puppetmaster knew there was a cupid around, how did he know it was her? And specifically, how did he know she was overseeing Dean and Castiel?

Such matters as matches were usually kept in the Cupid Office, with the exception of the records in Library. But, those available to the Host of angels at large were only submitted after the match was completed. So how did he know?

Slowly, she cast her mind back to the process:

The only people authorised to choose matches were archangels (or more usually their personal assistants) and the head of the Cupid Office. These then had to be signed off, either by an archangel aide or the deputy in the department, just to double check that the chosen humans were not too close to breed.

The problem with matches (especially with vessel lines), was that one had to make sure that the breeding stock were not too far apart (otherwise the required genes were too watered down) or too close together, in which case inbreeding and/or incest occurred. It was an irritating Catch 22.She was glad she hadn’t been the one to order the match between Lot and his daughters; the two angels in charge of that had received a right bollocking!Come to think of it, Hal hadn’t seen them in a while…As she meditated on the various possibilities, Hal started to become aware of a strange sensation at the edge of her senses. It was a weird tickling, like the edges of reality were curling up-Oh.Time to go, then.

She shuffled to her feet, stretching as she hopped off the roof. The dissolving of reality seemed to be happening at a rather slow rate, but the cupid didn’t want to be caught up in it anyway. Even if there was a high chance of just getting spat back out into the real world, the risk was too high.

She began a fast jog, sure she would be able to keep it up indefinitely, then increased to a sprint as the rate of destruction increased, finally taking to the skies as the edge raced inwards like a crashing wave; a tsunami that consumed everything in its path.

Bursting into the clearing, the central point of the pocket, wreathed in roses and surrounded by carnage, the cupid crashed into her brother, into the soul of her charge, and as their essences mingled together, crushed into an atom-thick point by the undoing of the fake world, Hal had only one thought on her mind.

Despite what she may have liked to think later, spurred on by the increasing belief in her better self, that thought could only have been escape.

***** WHOOSH!

With an almighty crash, the annihilated pocket universe spat out Dean and the cupid, before ceasing to exist entirely. She only just managed to hide herself in her own layers of existence, before Dean’s soul returned to his body, and he woke up.

Zachariah revealed himself (greasy arsewipe) and a burst of fear ran through both of her bodies, as his bulging eyes swept over the part of the room she hid in.

Of course it was him, she thought, as dread ran icy fingers across her numerous spines. She ought to have known, especially from the way he created the flowers.

Once upon a time, the pompous prat had just been an ambitious, little construction worker, crafting individual heavens with a flourish few accomplished. At one point, after a particularly catastrophic match, Hal had been demoted to supervise these malakhs in a period of angelic community service.

His flowers had always been perfect clones of each other, right down to the smallest of cells. They were the only part of the pocket dimension untouched by the blighted world.

Thankfully, Castiel yanked Dean out of the room soon after, and she kept a tight hold on him as she was pulled along for the ride.

Looking down on the two smiling as the human rested a hand on the angel’s shoulder, Hal found that she had some hope for the future after all.

***** Oh, this was it! The cupid did not care one whit whether the child was cambion, antichrist or no! Any person that thought cupids deserved to be stuffed into poncy, little robes made of bloody, Manchestering chiffon deserved to be dragged to the darkest pits of Hell and be tortured by the Inquisition!

Her arrows didn’t even look like arrows! They were weird, bendy things with cartoon hearts on the end!

She was going to hunt down the cantankerous, little snotberry that created this stupid image of her kind, and shoot him full of the decidedly less nice kind of arrow!

Caricatured representations aside, there was something about the way he had come to be that made Hal’s skin itch. That was partially the fabric- also the manner in which her trueform had been compressed- but even though the situation would have made her sick in any case, the similarity to the way the Cupid Office had managed things made her stomach roil.

Guiltily, she looked over at Castiel and Dean, and stowed her thoughts away where she could ignore them for as long as possible.

***** For goodness’ sake, the cupid thought angrily, she leaves them for one minute, and the next thing you know, Dean’s in his eighties!

Honestly, when she’d wished they he’d stop throwing his life away, she didn’t realise he would continue to do it quite so literally!

Gloucester and Nottingham! Hal was this close to summoning Castiel, so he could snog some sense into him!

But it wasn’t like that was ever going to happen, was it now.

***** The cupid swore as Dean disappeared again. For Glasgow’s sake! Did he go around looking for pocket dimensions to fall into!?

Grumbling, she flew to where he’d last been, and landed in (surprise, surprise!) an empty warehouse! She scouted around, trying to find the rip in reality, when Castiel flapped up behind her.

Not noticing her (thank goodness she always stayed hiddens), he went over the place with a fine-tooth comb. And again. In fact, Castiel hunted the place for several hours, before he traced a finger through thin air, and something reached out and yanked him in.

With not a moment to lose, Hal tore after him, skidding to a halt in shock as she saw what she had just run into. Her brother had much the same reaction, and she nearly went straight into his back.

All around them, in terrifying, sickening 3D, with sound and excruciating detail, was a mock-up of some nightmarish brothel.

Except, instead of the business happening behind closed doors and with nameless, faceless participants, each and every single coupling was Castiel and Dean. Out in the open. Every imagined possibility occurring.

At least whoever had done this had blurred out the naughty parts. Bleh.

Castiel was having much the same reaction he did to being in the whorehouse. His head jerked from side to side as he catalogued every grim aspect, his face flushed as he realised what was going on, and his normally flat visage contorted in fear and complete horror at the happenings inside the strange place.

Hal attempted to avert her eyes, looking up to the ceiling in an attempt to- nope! Okay, looking away from there!

Nowhere was safe.

In a fit of desperation, she flapped out of the loathsome place, trying to find the Winchesters.

But to no avail: every time she tried to find the brothers, Hal found herself redirected back to the house of sin.

Eventually, she just lay back on the floor, screwing her eyes shut as she tried her hardest to ignore the… Squelching around her.

Someone was going to need brainbleach after this.

***** A long time later, the icy cold of freezing water pulled her back into reality. Hal opened her eyes to find herself staring at the sky through a hole in a roof. Grimacing at the wetness on her back, she pushed to her feet, stepping out of the puddle she’d found herself in.

The cupid looked around with interest. She was back in the warehouse again. Not that she was complaining, but how did she get out of that abhorrent place?

Her gaze landed on some familiar figures: the Winchesters. They were standing beside a ring of Holy Fire, and within it stood-

Gabriel?

The trap had stripped him of any glamours or tricks to hide his real identity, and Hal was almost cowed by the sheer radiance of his grace.

Then she noticed the defeated curve of his wings, and the tarnish of the many halos: this wasn’t a defiant captain, fighting even in capture- this was a tired man who could run no more.

Even though the cupid was too far to hear what they were saying, she could guess what the tone of the conversation was. It hurt all the more to watch the angel who had once been her commander brought so low. It was difficult to match the bitter figure she saw here with the compassionate archangel who had engineered her transferral to the Cupid Office. He’d seen she was no fighter, just a cherub with little head for violence, and had nudged her in the direction of her current job. Apparently, Hal had a ‘flair for the dramatics’.

There was something about this broken person that made her want to curl up and cry. When Castiel was safe and accounted for (how could she leave her charges, even when she hated him?), she followed them without a second glance back.

***** Frankly, Hal found the entire convention a little bit creepy, especially the roleplay game. But they were having simple, innocent (or so they thought) fun, so she let it be. Anything to put the last few weeks behind her.

She did have to wonder how they would deal with Destiel, though. It would certainly make for some interesting cosplay...

*****

Once again, Hal longed to interfere.

She didn’t know who they were trying to fool, the cupid thought bitterly, watching the house, surveying the people inside. They were as good as dead; their piddly, little gun would be the death of all of them, not the Devil.

Still, she watched them, a tad wistfully, as the night went on. Castiel’s encounter with shots did make her smile, and for a single illogical moment, Hal wished she was inside with them, sharing in their warmth.

But the reminder of the hunters’ doom sobered her quickly, and she abandoned all hope for their survival.

At least she had something familiar in the way Dean tried (and failed, yay!) to persuade Jo to sleep with him. The burst of annoyance was enough to warm the cockles of her oven-sized hearts, but Jo’s put-down definitely endeared the hunter to her.

When all had gone to bed, and Castiel to his meditative state, the cupid slipped into the house. Her fingers danced over the necks of abandoned beers, and in a fit of foolishness, she lifted one to her lips, draining the dregs. It was pleasant for a moment, before each individual molecule made itself clear, and she wondered if that split second if that was what it was like to be human.

To chase the simplicity without worrying about each individual component that made life life.

Or were they the ones that searched for the deeper meanings and sought to look behind the curtain, unlike the angels, who were content with the show presented by Upper Management.

The taste of the gathered molecules was rather nasty, so the cupid put her musings from her mind, and moved through the darkened house silently.

This time, she stopped by Bobby’s mantlepiece. The photo was there, the hunters’ faces staring out at her. There was only one of these, Hal realised. If it were to be destroyed, there were no more of the group together, unlike the many in Anna’s house.

Nostalgia and longing swept through the cupid, and in a fit of thoughtlessness, she made a copy of the photograph. She tucked it inside her quiver carefully, before leaving the house as silently as she came.

When Jo and Ellen died in Carthage, Hal made sure to repeat their names to herself, every single day.

***** Later, the cupid glared down at Dean.

The human was sleeping, and was clearly having a very good dream, judging by his unconscious body’s movements. However, when she dipped into his sleeping mind, she was very much disappointed.

When Hal thought he might be dreaming of a certain angel, she didn’t realise he would be enjoying the company of a decidedly more sinful one clad in lingerie. And not even one with a passing resemblance to her brother!

Curse his believed ‘heterosexuality’! Curse it!

Dean’s body stilled unexpectedly. Disdainfully, she looked over, surprised when the sight was not accompanied by certain viscous liquids. Frowning, she looked inside and-

Anna.

Anna was standing on the stage, Anna was alive, Anna was real! Hal could feel the welcome shine of her grace, and it was good!

Then the other angel left, quicker than light, and the cupid was pushed out of Dean’s mind with the remnants of the dream.

The older Winchester called Castiel, conferred with him about what to do, and sent the seraph to meet with Anna.

Hal followed, finding to hard to remain silent- to remain hidden- when her beloved was alive and well. She landed in the convenient, abandoned warehouse with Castiel, planning to speak to her after he left.

But when Anna did appear, she was... Different. There was an odd edge that hadn’t been there before, and her vessel’s pale skin, which before had been like porcelain, was now closer to chalk. Even her trueform was jittery, but Hal put this down to her fear of Heaven catching her.

Of course Anna had escaped.

Of course she had.

She tuned out most of their conversation, only listening when they pulled out their knives, but settling down when she saw they were not about to fight.

At the end, Castiel flew away, and the other angel came out of her hiding place.

“Anna!” the cupid cried, unable to conceal herself any longer, as she flew down to embrace her lover.

But she was stiff and unyielding against her, the only movement a flinch as Hal’s hands touched her body. Slowly, Hal disengaged the hug, searching Anna’s face for clues as to why she was blocking her out.

“What’s wrong? Are you alright?” she said in concern. “What did they do to you?”

This question seemed to snap the angel out of her uncomfortable trance, and she shoved the cupid away from her violently. Hal tumbled, taken by surprise by her friend’s action.

“Don’t touch me,” Anna snarled, advancing on her fallen form, taking a step for each time the cupid shuffled back. “Don’t talk to me! I have had enough of your lies, your deceit! You are poison to angelkind!”

She stamped a foot down on Hal’s torso, trapping her there as she bent down, getting into her space. For once, the cupid wasn’t glad of the intrusion.

“Never speak to me again,” Anna spat, and she flinched away from the hatred in her words. “If I see you after today, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

The cupid nodded, tears of fear and shock streaming down her face. The other angel stepped back, curling her lip in disgust, before flying away.

She curled into a ball on the floor, letting out the pain of Anna’s words in ugly, heaving sobs.

She didn’t feel much like a ‘Hal’ anymore.

***** When the cupid felt Anna’s death a few hours later, it only confirmed what she already knew:

Anna had been dead from the moment Castiel sent her back to Heaven.

*****

OK, so it’s not like she didn’t know there was another cupid in town. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have a chat with the chap before the Brothers Grimm +1 tracked him down. He owed her a favour.

Brody was a lower level cupid; one recruited after his death once humanity had caught on to the matchmaking business. There’d been some debate in the Office over whether humans were up to the job, but since his start at the bottom of the ladder, Brody had been working his way up with surprising speed.

Anyway, he owed her a favour (Bangladesh 2003: an event no one Upstairs wanted to talk about), and it was time she called it in.

And if she paid a quick trip to the morgue before the Winchesters got there and Brody held up his end of the deal, it wasn’t like it was any of his business either.

She watched with growing satisfaction as the Righteous Man picked up the marked heart, examining it for long enough to absorb the boost she’d given it the rune.

Hopefully, whatever fledgling feelings he felt for Castiel would be heightened, and when they acted upon them, she’d finally be able to get the Skegness away from Castiel- killer twice over.

Thankfully, barely a minute passed before Dean pulled out his phone to call the angel:

“Cas, it’s Dean,” he said brusquely, wandering away from the gruesome table. “Yeah, Room 31c, Basement Level, St James Medical Cent-”

His words got stuck in his throat as Castiel appeared in front of him, his phone still held up to his ear. The cupid adjusted the lighting subtly, so it would glint off his irises in a manner more pleasing to the human.

“I’m there now,” her brother said unnecessarily.

Sigh.

“Yeah, I get that,” Dean replied, pursing his lips slightly, but to her satisfaction, his eyes never left Castiel’s.

“I’m gonna…” he continued, confused and not quite catching on to his match’s sarcasm. “Hang up now?”

“Right.”

A beat later, Castiel wandered over to the table and picked up the heart Dean had replaced, turning it over in his hands. The cupid froze.

Please don’t feel the mark, please don’t feel it, don’t pay attention to the boost she gave Dean’s arrow…

“You’re right, Sam, these are angelic marks,” he confirmed, and her own hearts skipped a beat, before she realised he was talking about the ones Brody made, rather than her own. Dean leaned in, his attention drifting from the bloody organ to the seraph’s fingers. “I imagine you’d find similar marks on the other couples’ hearts as well.”

Phew, disaster averted.

“So, what are they?” Sam asked, and the cupid regretted her previous statement. If they discovered too much about the way cupids worked, then Dean could realise there was angelic interference and her whole operation would go up in smoke. It was a good thing outsiders were never told too much about the inner workings of the Cupid Office. “I mean… What do they do?”

“It’s a mark of union,” Castiel sighed, putting the mutilated heart back in the tupperware box. This man and woman were intended to mate.”

He had to be ignoring the way Dean’s heart skipped at that. He had to be!

“Okay, but who put ‘em there?” the older Winchester demanded, trying to cover up for his mistake.

“Well,” her brother said, leaning into the hunter’s space. “Your people call them cupids.”

“A what?”

“What human myth has mistaken for cupids are actually a lower order of angel,” Castiel explained, looking for the life of him like someone was shoving horse manure up his nose. The cupid’s lip curled; there was no need to be so rude. “Technically, they’re cherubim, third-class.”

Yeah, she thought, starting to get riled up. But does anyone else get grace-grants? Huh? Aren’t we the most creative in the Host? What about it, soldier?

“Cherubs?” Dean blurted.

“Yeah,” Castiel continued, glaring at nothing in particular. “They’re all over the world, there are dozens of them.”

We’re not a bloody infestation! She screamed mentally.

Dean gestured, his face screwing up as he tried to imagine them, and the cupid had a horrible premonition of what was to follow.

“You mean the little, flying, fat kids, in diapers?”

Her brother span around to glare the hunter down, and despite the cupid’s annoyance, she was quite pleased that someone was standing up for the honour of the Cupid Office.

“They’re not incontinent.”

Thank you!

“Okay, so what you’re saying is-”

“What I’m saying,” the seraph interrupted, turning on the taller brother. “Is that a cupid has gone rogue, and we have to stop him before he kills again.”

… What? When did that become the plan?

“Course we do,” Dean nodded, his face turning mock-serious as he looked at Castiel.

His gaze dipped to the angel’s lips.

And up again.

ARGH!

***** While Team Free Will (as they were calling themselves these days) went to refuel, the cupid sought out Brody.

She hadn’t actually gotten round to telling him what she needed him to do for her earlier, because the Winchesters had gone to the morgue ahead of schedule, and she’d needed to get there first, so while Brody was open to requests, he had no idea of what she wanted him to do.

And had become sceptic.

“You need me to do what?”

“Look,” the cupid said desperately, holding up her hands to placate him. “Just get close and personal and check the arrowhead, that’s all I ask.”

“But these are the Winchesters!” he whined. “They’re gonna suspect something’s up when I hug ‘em that tight! Especially Dean and his overcompensating.”

“They suspect all supernatural beings!” she snapped, feeling a little satisfied when he was cowed. “And Castiel has never even met a cupid before! He’s always been on the battlefields, so of course he won’t know something’s up!”

“So all he knows about are the hug-handshakes,” Brody said, mulling it over. “Alright, I’ll do it. But c’mon Hal-”

“Don’t call me that.”

“O-kay?” he replied sceptically. “These are heavenly weapons; the arrow’s not defective.”

“Then why isn’t it working!” the cupid cried. “My previous assignments have take days at the most; this one has been over a year and they still haven’t kissed!”

“Dude,” the other angel said, attempting to calm her down. “Chill. Everything will work out, trust me. It’ll be fine in the end.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, checking their gear.

“You know,” Brody said, as he watched her string her bow with a speculative cast on his face. “You do go a bit OTT sometimes.”

The cupid raised her weapon and examined the string.

“You’re the one who uses a bloody rifle, Brody.”

“Okay, but Castiel’s gonna summon me in a while, might as well blow off some steam. Any suggestions for when he does?”

“Take off your clothes to make them uncomfortable,” she commanded, a smirk starting to play on her lips. “And when they arrive, hug each one for longer than usual. Jiggle. In fact,” she continued, openly grinning now. “Play up each and every stereotype about us. They think we’re just obese children, anyway.”

He was laughing now, great, full-body chuckles that lit up his entire form. The cupid smiled at him warmly. Brody was a good ally- friend to have, and one that was making her life much better.

“I used to hate hugs, but sure,” he said, shaking his head with a giddy grin. “I’ve never been happier that Hamaliel made the hugging rule! Now: hold my clothes...”

***** There was something everlastingly satisfying about the men’s reactions. It was funny, deeply amusing in fact, and the cupid had never been happier that she hadn’t cashed in that favour in 2001.

But it is endearing too, to watch Castiel’s panicked discomfort, and his complete and utter failure to ‘comfort’ her friend. If a little irritating: anyone who’d been to the Office in the last century would know they weren’t like that. The humans may have made the stereotypes, but she was a little ashamed of her stoic brother for falling for them.

Dean’s face was like a scene straight (ha, straight) out of a TV programme. The rushing of thoughts, the progression of processing- even his near-hysterical plea for a fight! He was just too predictable!

But the part the cupid enjoyed most- the part she knew would last her through some long nights- was when Castiel and the hunter stood together, presenting a united front against Brody’s jiggling self.

However, there was something about the confrontation that the cupid would give anything to forget.

The match of John and Mary Winchester.

This was something that the cupid regretted more than anything else, something that had played on her conscience for over thirty years. If it had been someone else under orders, some other angel in the Office pressed into service, she would have been able to let it go.

But she’d been the cupid to draw the bowstring and doom them.

She was responsible for their deaths.

At the time, the cupid had been riding on a wave of successful matches, and when the opportunity was presented to her, she took it with eager hands.

Stupidly, the cupid hadn’t done any recon beforehand. She’d just assumed, and with a single, ignorant arrow, the cupid had sealed their fates.

Of course, she’d realised since that the match would have been made anyway, even if she’d refused the mission. The secret files were enough to be sure of that.

Mary had hated him, the cupid had discovered, and he’d despised her in return, but it was all too late. The arrow hadn’t sparked love, it had grown into a furnace of infatuation, and that was enough to ruin John Winchester. And his children.

Begrudgingly, she shook herself out of memories of the past and returned to the present.

Maybe there was something she could salvage there.

***** The cupid hadn’t been banking on the presence of a Horseman, but if the presence of Famine meant her two charges got it on this millennium, then she would jump on this opportunity gladly. If only those idiots finally got their heads together and shagged!

But of course Winchester Numero Uno would have had years of repressing his own desires for the sake of his little brother, rendering her master plan useless and stopping Dean from pulling the angel in by the lapels of his thrice-damned trenchcoat and snogging the life out of him.

Why!?

As she watched them together in the car- a vehicle that had seen many of Dean’s conquests (and hopefully Castiel too)- the cupid noted the way the hunter’s body was even more drawn to the angel than usual. Maybe it was inspired by her brother’s addiction to red meat, or maybe it was the way he appeared more human than ever before, but when she dipped into another plain, his soul was reaching out for the other angel more ardently than she had ever seen it.

If only Castiel wasn’t cut off from Heaven, the cupid thought bitterly. Maybe then he would notice Dean’s hunger for him.

*****

Later, as she watched the domestic bliss of Bobby’s reunion with his wife, the cupid couldn’t help but wish for Anna to still be alive. She knew that she didn’t really mean that, and that if Anna was indeed resurrected, then she wouldn’t be the angel she knew and loved, but some horrible, Heaven-warped version, but the cupid couldn’t stop wondering.

Wishing for a universe in which they’d met at a park. Maybe in a coffee shop.

If they’d met in a world where there was no supernatural business keeping them apart, and that they lived in a place where the only troubles in their path came in the form of tax returns and car problems.

Again, she cursed her non-interference policy, and turned her heads away as the sheriff’s son killed her husband.

Shut her eyes as gradually, the town’s new residents turned on their living neighbours.

Ignored their cries, until she could bear it no more.

The cupid broke, and lashed out at the nearest zombies. She couldn’t attack most of them herself, but what were angels for, but to whisper in the ears of humans?

Where she saw a hopeless case, the cupid smote the undead, and suggested to the living what they might do to survive. She couldn’t take out every single one in the vicinity; that would attract the attention of the Host, but where she could, she helped.

But there were still too may dead by the end of the day.

***** Pissbuggering bastards of Birmingham! Dead, disappeared, gone!

Why couldn’t the Winchesters just stay out of trouble, the cupid grumbled as she made her way up to Heaven, sneaking through every backdoor and hidden shortcut she could remember. Run a diner, go to university, instead of running straight into enemy territory!

A troop of principalities barreled past her, and the cupid barely had time to duck back into the hidden passage she’d been exiting, as they flew away, gossiping loudly. Fuming, she waited for a few moments, before shooting across the passageway to the next secret route.

Eventually, the cupid tracked the Winchesters down to a familiar bar.

The Roadhouse.

A man in a mullet was scrawling sigils on a door, runes akin to Enochian, but twisted and far-removed from their original purpose. She could sense the power they were leaching from the place. The human had none of his own to lend to the spell, so it the chalk symbols were absorbing energy from their surroundings.

“All access path to the Magical Kingdom!” Mullet-Man crowed, dusting off his hands. The cupid leaned in closer, a single celestial finger reaching out to trace over the lettering, but halted mere centimetres away. She didn’t recognise these things, and had no intention of being harmed by them. As she backed away, the cupid found the man staring at her, before he turned to the other souls.

Shaken, she fluttered a few steps back, attempting to shield herself from his vision by drawing further back through layers of plains. Finally, sure she was safe, the cupid paid attention to their interactions once more.

Only to find the woman snogging the life out of Dean Winchester.

Don’t smite her, don’t remove her eyes, burn out her soul for good, don’t do it!

Luckily, she managed to restrain herself from doing something she might regret, and looked back.

To see the same person slapping him on the rear as he turned to leave!

Bah!

But the hunter laughed, twisting to talk to her.

“Now, I know Castiel didn’t touch me there,” he said, chuckling.

“That one was just for me, Deano,” she replied, sticking her hip out as she leant against the bar, grinning. She looked like Wonderland had spat the Cheshire Cat out in human form.

The cupid tilted her head: despite what the human had said, there was a certain… Brightness barred across Winchester’s derriere that she hadn’t seen before. It must have been shrouded by the intensity of his soul, because it was only a shade darker that the handprint on his shoulder.

It seemed that someone had gotten a bit too close for comfort when retrieving a certain Righteous Man from Hell.

But she had to smile, a little wistfully, in fact: Castiel hadn’t just gripped Dean tight and raised him from Perdition- he’d cradled him on the way up.

Then the Winchesters were leaving, and the cupid snapped out of her wishing haze as she hurried after them.

This time, she cloaked herself in the light of their souls, confident that her own glowing grace would be disguised in the surrounding luminosity.

“What the-” Dean blurted, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Why’re we back home?”

The cupid looked around in interest: for most angels, personal heavens appeared to be like architectural designs, with the souls filling the details in with their own memories, feedback loop style. However, if she squinted a bit, closing a few of her more celestial eyes, the cupid was able to make out dim details of the Winchesters’ childhood home.

Another soul construct appeared, but this one was… Angelic? If she immersed herself in their souls a bit more, she might be able to see who it wa-

“Honey, why are you up?” came the soft voice of Mary Winchester, and the cupid stopped cold, suddenly recognising the essence for who it was.

The same one who’d trapped her in Apocalypse Now:

Zachariah.

Oh, that smug git had it coming!

In the midst of her charges’ confusion, the meddling cow himself arrived, and, as much as she would have liked to smite the ever loving fluff out of him, the cupid was struck with indecision:

This was the angel who had sent her the unmistakable message, the threat strung up on the cabin wall. A construct of her own bow, pointing towards the fate she’d face if she interfered.

So, instead of striking him down, the cupid cowered, her wings tightly folded against her back, ready to snap into flight. When she was finally in control of her mind again, she peeked up, flinching as the mangy lion’s head eyeballed her snootily.

“...Now look at me,” the angel’s vessel was still blathering on. “I can’t close a deal on a couple of flannel-wearing maggots? Everyone’s laughing at me!”

The cupid winced; she knew how he was feeling, and indeed had felt the same, but she’d grown fond of two thirds of the moronic team since the start of her mission. Even though she had a grudge the size of Turkey on Castiel, the cupid was in it for the long run.

Then another angel turned up. She tilted her head at him slightly, wondering who he was. The cupid hadn’t met this angel before, but from the distinct smell of celestial fertiliser, she had an idea where he was stationed.

After a brief conversation, he confiscated the Winchesters from Zachariah, whisking them off to the Garden, as she followed reluctantly. The Winchesters were wary of Joshua, and inevitably turned hostile.

Honestly, the cupid thought in annoyance, it wasn’t like she was expecting any better!

Once he’d informed them of God’s stance on the Apocalypse, he sent them packing back to Earth.

Before the cupid could follow, a tactful cough reminded her of the gardener, and she cringed, turning round to face him. Damn it, she cursed, why did he make her feel like an errant schoolchild!

His vessel raised an eyebrow at her, and she scuffed her foot petulantly, not meeting his eyes.

“Despite his absence,” Joshua said calmly, a tinge of warm scolding in his voice. “Our Father wishes to tell you your match is going well, and he commends you fo-”

“But I’ve failed!” the cupid protested, jerking her head up in surprise. “They’re not together, and show no signs of ever rectifying that!”

His face- both celestial and human facade- broadcasted a perfect ‘oh, really?’, and his mild tone took on a sharper note.

“You have not failed until you succeed,” he chided, turning as if to go, before pausing to look over his shoulder. “Besides, Our Father says that the best stories take time to reach fruition. It will happen, in due course. Be faithful, and your slow burn will become a furnace.”

And with that parting statement, Joshua resumed his weeding. The cupid dithered for a moment, then flew to find the Winchesters.

*****

She caught them, just as Castiel tossed the golden pendant to Dean.

“I don’t need it anymore,” he said bitterly. “It’s worthless.”

The cupid winced as Dean’s soul flickered, dimming for a mere nanosecond, at the angel’s damning words. He flapped off, and despite his exit, she could smell the desolation he left behind like a rotting corpse.

As the brothers left, the elder hunter dropped the necklace in the bin. They left without a word.

Manifesting in the mundane plain, the cupid crossed the room in three paces, plunging her hand into the bin to remove the pendant.

He would regret it, of that she had no doubt. And besides, she thought, trying to explain away her attachment to the object, the amulet had important supernatural properties.

Sighing, she stuffed it into her pocket, yanking it out with a hiss as it burned white-hot, with no warning.

In confusion, the cupid rummaged around, producing the only other occupant of the space: the original form. The time it had spent crumpled against her body had made deep-set creases across the paper, and darkened its pristine white to a grubby, bone-like colour, but the writing was there alright: stark and bold against the aged background.

Flipping it over, she studied the other side, looking for the commissioner's signature. Normally, the forms were drafted by the aides of the archangels, most commonly from the office of Raphael, before they were taken to have the unique Enochian sign scrawled in the designated box, but this one was blank.

So why did the pendant react?

Frowning, she flipped through the plains, searching for something to prove that this entire venture was not just a misfiled fool’s errand. That the time she’d spent on Destiel had not been wasted on a hopeless quest that was not meant to be, whatever her Father said. Surely, she could not be mista-

BRIGHTWHITESTOPITBURNSITBURNSITBURNSAWAYAWAYAWAYNONONOSTOPLOOKAWAYLOOKAWAY-

She yanked it away from her face, screwing every eye she possessed tightly shut. Whoever it was, whoever commanded that Dean and Castiel were to be paired had a signature unlike any other. It was an unlimited source of energy, burning hot and absolute zero at the same time. Even the traces of its creator were infinite, and, feeling as though someone had poured icy water down her multiple spines, the realised who that person was.Joshua was right: God had not been seen in Heaven for millennia, but it seemed he was still around, kicking, and shipping it like Fedex.

*****

Some time later, the cupid was minding her own business, watching the anemones sway underwater, in her usual fashion. The dim light filtering through the water gave the already-vibrant wildlife in the reef an ethereal cast, and as she leaned back against the reef, she relaxed for the first time in a year.

The fish had been wary of her at first- clad in her human vessel- but, with a wash of her grace, soon they learned to disregard her form. Now they were comfortable enough to wiggle around her fingers, nibbling at her skin gently.

The languid movement of the reef’s inhabitants lulled the cupid’s mind into a meditative trance, and she used her cleared mind to run through what she had discovered:

Her Father commanding the match? That was something she could believe, if with a little pinch of salt, as it had been done before, but she couldn’t see much of a motive behind it.

With Jesus’ birth, the reasoning was obvious: he’d been foretold for hundreds of years, and the prophecies sown among the Jews had practically plotted his life story. Even a blind man could see the connection between the King of Kings and his parents’ pairing.

But with Dean and Castiel? The cupid wasn’t so sure. Of course, there was a reason; it wouldn’t fit into the Great Plan otherwise, but unlike the Prince of Peace, those two muttonheads didn’t have even half of the source materials backing up the union.

In fact, other than the prophet’s work (of which there was very little), the she couldn’t find a single reason for why they were destined to be together.

Maybe it was the Apocalypse. After going through the archangels’ records, it seemed that it was not in the Plan after all. The dates were completely wrong, and perhaps that was why their Father had stepped in.

The angels should have known better than to try and make willing vessels of the Winchesters- they were too stubborn. But, even if they’d refused without Castiel switching sides, the show would still go on. Her brothers would find different bloodsacks to suck up to, and the End of Days would go right ahead.

So they needed a foot in both camps, she mused, an inside man who knew Heaven’s workings.

But it wouldn’t work with Castiel! the cupid fumed suddenly, slamming a hand down on the coral in annoyance. The fish scattered, only returning when she calmed them with a wash of grace. Her brother was relatively low in the Pecking Order, and Heaven knew he had little to nothing to do with Upstairs’ administration.

Bother.

The cupid pursed her lips in annoyance, screwing up her face as she tried to puzzle out her Father’s… Mysterious ways, before giving up. She reclined against the reef once more, determined to regain her Zen.

But no sooner had she closed her eyes, than a figurative hook yanked her up to Heaven.

Gasping, the cupid shook sopping wet hair from her eyes, spitting further brine from her vessel’s mouth. Quickly, she took stock of her situation, poised to run at any point.

She seemed to be in a soul memory of the Roadhouse, dripping on the edges of a runic circle. The mulleted man stood at the edge, frowning at her, his face scrunched up in a squint. Another glance registered several other familiar souls a few feet away, weapons at the ready.

“Where’ve you been? The Mariana Trench?” one spouted in fake bravado, flinching as the others glared at him. The cupid paused in the middle of wringing out her jumper. She could have miracled herself dry, but hunters were twitchy at best, and dead ones even worse.

“Great Barrier Reef, actually,” she said instead, in a calm, neutral tone. “... May I ask why you’ve summoned me here?”

“Cut the crap, angel,” another hunter sneered. The cupid tilted her head at him in confusion. “What’re you doing hanging around my sons?”

“Someone got out on the wrong side of bed this morning,” she huffed, becoming serious when he leveled his gun at her. They shouldn’t harm her, but she wasn’t about to take that risk. “Okay, okay! Just tell me… What are you doing out of Hell, John Winchester?”

The aged man twitched, nearly imperceptibly, but the cupid caught it.

“That’s none of your concern,” he warned, baring his teeth in a dangerous smile. “Now tell me why you’re following my boys like a bad smell.”

Stalling, she ummed and ahed for a few moments, glancing down at the floor. Bugger: this is Heaven, the water wasn’t smearing the sigils. Poking a few grace-feelers out, the cupid only confirmed what she already knew- she’s not getting out of this butchered Enochian circle any time soon.

“Quit stallin’,” another familiar voice threatened, and the cupid twisted to see Ellen with her shotgun at the ready, Jo by her side. “Start talkin’.”

Unable to help herself, she smiled at the two, flinching when several safety catches flicked off in response. Nevertheless, the cupid lifted her head again to beam at the two.

“I’m so glad to see you’re in Heaven,” she said, only to falter as she realised how it sounded. “Which isn’t to say I’m glad that you’re dead! What I meant was-”

“How do you know who we are?” Jo asked softly, ignoring her mother’s glare. Before the cupid could answer, another voice cut in:

“The damn thing’s an angel,” John Winchester growled, stepping forward. “They’re in the business of death.”

“Well that’s not true!” she burst out, unable to help herself. A Mexican Wave of weapon raising ran around the room, and the cupid gestured at herself helplessly. “I’m a cupid, it’s not my duty to-”

Here she cut off abruptly, realising her slip up.

“A cupid?” one of the ensemble questioned nervously, as the assembled souls began to murmur anxiously. “I didn’t sign up for this!”

“Shut it, all of you!” Jo snapped, before turning to her once more, her chin raised defiantly. “What’s a cupid doing following Sam and Dean?”

In the silence that followed, the angel scratched her head awkwardly.

“Well…” she said, peeking up at the blonde woman. “Dean and Castiel actually. I’ve been ordered to complete their match.”

She was then obliged to explain the pairing process, but even between fielding questions and scanning the plains for any angels, the cupid could see the Winchester patriarch growing steadily more agitated. Finally, he snapped:

“Whatever you’re doing to my son’s mind, stop it!” he barked, unable to restrain himself. “He’s not some- some queer!”

Ellen stepped forward, likely to slap some sense into the man, but Jo’s hand on her arm and the cupid’s words stopped her.

“I don’t think you know Dean as well as you think you do, John,” she stated cooly, if a tad distractedly as she rummaged in her pockets. “I’ve got something that might interest you. It was in here earlier…” she grumbled, before pulling out a crumpled sheet triumphantly. “Ahah!”

As the surrounding hunters flinched, Mullet-Man rolled his eyes.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out the kitchen!” he called sarcastically, reaching into the circle to take the paper. His eyebrows got steadily higher as he read the form, and he passed it over to John.

The hunter’s face became ashen as his eyes traced the words, and with a yell, he lunged to strike the cupid. Trapped as she was in the runic circle, the angel was helpless. Cringing back, she closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable blows.

When they didn’t come, the cupid lowered her arms in curiosity, looking up to find Mullet-Man holding the enraged man back.

“Hold it, amigo,” he chided, clapping the oldest Winchester on the back. “Can’t question her if she’s dead.”

At this, the cupid’s guard came up, and she stiffened, every muscle -celestial or not- tensing in response to his words.

Questioning? She wouldn’t tell them a thing. Even as a defector, even as an accidental enemy of Heaven, she wasn’t about to betray any more secrets. She’d already said too much by describing the match creation process.

“I won’t tell you anything,” she said instead, holding her head high with confidence she really didn’t have. “I may not be on Heaven’s side anymore, but I’m not on yours either. I’m a free agent; you can’t. Make. Me. Talk.”

Unfortunately, none of the occupants of the Heaven seemed to take her seriously, and after a brief conference, most of the gathered souls left. Thankfully, John left with them, and the cupid sank to the floor gratefully, crossing her legs in the barest semblance of control.

Jo wandered behind the bar, gathering liquor bottles with a familiarity left over from her mortal life. She shook together a fine cocktail of alcohol, before pouring it into several glasses. The first went to Mullet-Man (or Ash, as Jo called him), and took the other two over to the circle.

Smiling, Jo sat outside the runic array, mimicking the cupid’s pose, and slid one over to her. Cautiously, she took it, sniffing the concoction and flicking through the plains to find any evidence of tampering.

Nothing. The drink was a hundred percent clean.

The cupid took a precautionary sip, humming in delight when she discovered the taste. It seemed that inside a soul construction- without all the pesky molecules- alcohol tasted like alcohol. Not like ethanol with a dash of citric acid, mixed with hydrogen molecules…

No. This was pure, good, real bliss.

Before she was aware of it, the cupid had quaffed down the first glass, and was making grabby hands at the one in Jo’s hands. The surprised hunter laughed in shock, but passed it over anyway. Halfway through guzzling the second, the cupid looked up to find the gathered souls staring at her.

“What?” she said defensively. “This is the first time that I’ve had something that doesn’t taste of molecules! Cut me a break!”

“Angels can’t taste food?” Mullet-Man said, wondering to himself. “Interesting…”

“Shut it, Ash,” Ellen snapped gruffly, dragging a chair over to the circle. Sitting heavily, she placed her shotgun across her knees in an obvious display. “That’s not what we’re here to talk about. Now,” she said, turning her eyes on the cupid. “What do you want with Cas and Dean?”

“Is this it!?” The cupid gasped excitedly, clasping her hands together. “Am I getting the shovel talk! I’ve heard about them, even seen one or two, but to be the subject-!”

“Answer the question, sweetcheeks,” Jo said, cutting across her babbling with a appraising smile. The cupid blushed slightly. “Tell is what you’re doing with our friends.”

“I’m not doing anything untoward,” she explained awkwardly, looking between the trio. “And you must understand that… What we cupids do… It’s not mind-rape. We don’t create fake emotions. At most, we inspire lust and manipulate circumstances, but once the participants are past the first stages, whatever they feel is entirely genuine, if a little guided,” the cupid continued, seeing them looking sceptical. “And besides, I never shot Castiel. Only Dean, and that’s probably the reason it’s been taking so long-“

“What d’you mean; taking so long?” Ash interrupted, and she had to stifle a burst of irritation.

“What I mean,” she said pointedly. “Is that I shot Dean the first time he saw Castiel in his human vessel… Which if I remember correctly, was 8th September 2009.”

“That long?” Ellen said involuntarily, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

The cupid pursed her lips in annoyance.

“I thought Dean would just hop into bed with him at the first moment,” she muttered, shaking her head. “But, no: Denial, thy name is Winchester.”

Jo huffed a surprised laugh, returning to the bar. The cupid watched her intently, hoping she was fetching more of the alcohol.

“I still don’t trust you,” Ellen said, folding her arms. She let out a sigh of release as the hunter took her hands off the firearm. “So you’re just gonna sit tight in that circle ‘til we let you out on good behaviour.”

“What!?” The cupid gasped, her heart sinking. “But I need to look after Sam and Dean! Cas- my brother, is away too much. They need someone to watch out for their sorry necks! I don’t want Dean’s clogged arteries to kill him before I can complete the match!”

Ellen only raised an eyebrow at her.

“Then you’ll stay there until you care for them for their own sakes,” she said, the tone of her voice brokering no argument.

The cupid sighed, staring at the floor in dejection, until a sudden motion in her peripheral vision made her look up. Jo pressed another drink into her hands, placing a chair in the circle.

“You got a name, angel?” she asked, pulling up the one her mother had vacated. The cupid settled into her own comfy leather one.

“I can’t really,” she explained quietly, before perking up as she remembered a human book she’d read once. “Heaven doesn’t like me much at the moment, either… So let’s just call me Bartimaeus.”

***** The next few days passed calmly. At least, she thought they were days… Heaven was weird like that. Jo and she sat together, discussing many things over alcohol and an inexplicable amount of board games. The human was curious about the many things the cupid had witnessed in her great life, and once she’d warmed up to the ex-hunter, the cupid found she didn’t mind sharing as much.

As the hours flew by, the cupid found the iron grip on her heart relax slightly, and she felt herself smile- truly smile- for the first time since Anna’s death.

One day, just as she was lecturing Jo about the differences in strands of the werewolf gene between continents, the cupid felt a great pain strike through her. She gasped, doubling over, and Jo launched to her feet in panic.

“What’s going on!?” she called, alerting the other two to the cupid’s plight. “What’s happening?”

“He’s in danger!” The cupid croaked, fighting her way to her feet. “Someone’s hurting Dean! I have to get to him!”

“Not so fast,” Ellen snapped, drawing her shotgun. “How do we know this isn’t a trick?”

“Let me out!” she screamed, beating her fists against the barrier in hysteria. “I have to get to him! He can’t die! Let me out!”

The final words were punctuated with slammed hands against the invisible wall surrounding her, and on the last one, a burst of grace came from her hands, lighting it up. Something pinged on her radar, and she looked up, gasping in terror as she saw foreign angels approaching.

“You need to let me out!” the cupid entreated, begging the scared-looking hunters. “There are angels coming, you can’t let them get me, please! They’ll kill me or- or- or, I don’t know! Please, let me go!”

Shaken, Jo yanked her arm free of her mother’s death grip, and launched herself forward, scratching at the runes with a knife. As she felt the restrictions ease and release, the cupid sobbed with relief, and reached forward, enveloping the young woman in a teary embrace.

“Thank you,” she said, already curving her wings in preparation. “Thank you!”

The cupid was out of Heaven before the angels were even close enough to smell her.

***** Down on Earth, the cupid located Dean quickly, and swooped down to find him. When she landed, she was… Confused.

Why was Castiel harming him? Why was he touching Dean in such an unpleasant way? She knew her brother, she knew his nature, so what had the human done to get him so riled up?

As the other angel leaned into Dean’s personal space- the air charged with tension- the cupid found herself holding her breath.

This wan’t how she’d expected it to happen, this wasn’t even what she’d thought she would find here, but now it was here, and… Could it be? Were they about to kiss?

But once again, they disappointed her, and her brother barely stopped to heal Dean before flying him back to Bobby’s.

Bugger! And all that for nothing!

Harrumph; maybe once the Apocalypse was over, she’d go back and have drinks with Jo again. It might be a tad less painful than watching these two divvys.

***** Bugger, blast and fiddlesticks!

Curse Adam to Stornoway and back! He was going to get her charges killed!

Castiel was as good as dead; his waning grace only weakened further by the barbaric sigil carved into his chest. Even if she could no longer feel the empathy she might have had, there was something irreversibly wrong about an angel banishing himself. Curse him, and his urge to kill himself for the Winchesters!

She wrung her hands, unable to enter the Green Room. Something was preventing the interference of angels not allied with Heaven, and with the rest of her charges trapped inside, there was nothing she could do. The cupid hung her head as she realised they were doomed.

Suddenly, the burning grace of Zachariah flared and died, and despite her relief that he and his vendetta were off the board, the cupid sank further into despair as another of her siblings was killed.

At this rate, her family would be dead by 2018.

But even as the final glow of his being faded away, another, brighter, fiercer light came down.

The cupid gulped in terror.

Oh drat, she thought as Michael’s presence began to fill the room. Oh bollocks.

And with that she flew away, as if the whole of Hell was on her tail. Even she wasn’t that committed to her job. Even she didn’t have enough compassion to try and save the boys.

*****

Logically, the cupid knew this was a risk.

Of course, logic had thrown itself out the window a while ago, along with reason, morality and common sense, the cupid mused, as she crept through the hallowed halls of Heaven once again.

If she’d tried it earlier, she knew for sure that she would’ve been discovered and dealt with, but with Michael in his second-string vessel, all of Heaven’s finest were preparing for the final battle. Not a single angel wandered the corridors, and if she peered through the plains, the cupid saw them congregating in the Armoury and Training Fields.

The channels were alright with gossip and chatter about the upcoming fights.

How she pitied them.

Even so, the cupid took a fair amount of caution in her travels as she made her way to her destination.

The Great Library had only grown emptier since her last visit. As the cupid wandered in, she noted the flickering lights and ever-present shadows. It seemed that Paradise would have no need for literature.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Penemue entering the area behind the librarians’ desk. The angel gave no external signs of noticing the cupid, but she could tell the crafty librarian was watching her in her peripheral vision.

As she made her way over to the curved desk, Penemue began talking:

“What any onlooker must understand, is that the angels Penemue and Eracus- designation Principalities, level 3, Librarian Order- don’t know where the angel Halaliel- designation Cherubim, level 2, Cupid Office- is exactly, at this precise moment. The two angels in question,” she continued, carefully avoiding the cupid as her eyes danced around her. “Are completely loyal to the Michael Regime, and have not seen the traitor in celestial and earthly months.”

The cupid breathed a sigh of relief: the two couldn’t be seen to have sympathies for her, but they were doing all they could to keep her out of Upper Management’s hands.

A few seconds later, Eracus emerged from the stacks, pulling a trailer, stacked high with manuscripts, behind xer.

“The angel Eracus- designation Principality, level 3, Library Order- is leaving fanfiction, concerning the theoretical pairing between Castiel- designation Seraph, level 5, Anti-Demonic Attrition Force- and the human Dean Winchester, out for cataloguing,” xe stated, following Penemue to their office space. “What happens to it while xe is performing other librarian duties is not of xer concern, as xe will not return for the next twelve hours.”

The cupid smiled gratefully, pulling the overloaded trolley back into the stacks. In the quiet place, she would study the material for inspiration in peace.

*****

Some hours later, the cupid snarled with frustration, slamming the current book closed. Despite the many different circumstances, despite the multitude of ways in which Destiel could become real, none of them would work in the current parameters. She growled her annoyance allowed, before cutting off as-

Pain of the likes she had never felt before scoured her mind, and she felt out of her chair as a grace explosion, larger than the strongest supernova, burst into being. As soon as it had disappeared, the cupid shivered, her mind gradually scoured and stilled, as Lucifer’s grace- no longer balanced out by Gabriel’s- shone uninhibited on the ethereal plain.

The Host screamed as one; first exclamations of joy at their long-lost brother’s return, and then horror as he was killed just as quickly.

Lucifer had taken the hive-mind of Heaven and shot a bullet into it.

The cupid groaned, a continuous litany of grief pouring out her mouth, as strong hands guided her up.

“All of Heaven will soon be searched for safety purposes,” Penemue said calmly, her only reaction to Gabriel’s death a trembling lip. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. “All unsavoury persons will be exterminated.”

The cupid breathed shakily, running quivering hands down the fabric of her coat to ground herself.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before she flapped away.

The Apocalypse was driving her family to ruin.

Why couldn’t it all go away?

***** Finally, the cupid dropped in to check on Dean.

The hunter was stretched out on a motel bed, doggedly drinking himself into a stupor. She cocked her head at him, before flitting down to sit beside him.

“You know,” she said, not caring that the human couldn’t hear her. “I used to be really good at this whole ‘matching’ business.”

He continued his hand’s damning path from bottle to mouth, and she sighed, knowing she couldn’t take it from him. Bugger that non-interference rule.

“I mean, sure,” the cupid continued, poking her fingers into his circulatory system. “I didn’t always do research- Hell! Sometimes I didn’t even check their souls for compatibility! But, I was good at my job,” she mused, wiping away the grease and fat coating his arteries. “Good at taking order, in any case.”

The elder Winchester sighed morosely, letting the near-empty bottle slip from his fingers. Slowly, and then all at once, he fell back onto the stiff bed. Carefully, the cupid strengthened his lungs with a quiet touch of grace, and loosened the knots in the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry that I ever matched your parents,” she whispered to him, confidentially, running a finger down the mattress as she softened it imperceptibly. “Did I tell you that? I’ve never told anyone I’ve regretted something before… Shame isn’t encouraged in Heaven. That’s not the way angels are supposed to be.”

As she got up to leave, the cupid lengthened both beds, making sure Sam would be comfortable for the first time in his life. Then, as she readied herself for flight, the cupid looked back at the sleeping hunter, and pulled the blankets over him.

“I hope I don’t regret pairing you and Castiel,” she breathed, finally fleeing from the room.

***** The cupid looked on in revulsion as Castiel hacked off Pestilence’s finger.

She couldn’t get too close herself; not wanting to infect her grace with something as foreign as that, but still, she watched in fascinated disgust, as her barely angelic brother defeated the anthropomorphic figure.

Perhaps there was something that could be said for falling, after all.

However, this momentary admiration rubbed the cupid the wrong way, and when the trio returned to their father figure’s house, she remedied this feeling.

Hopefully, she thought spitefully, Castiel enjoyed his beer warm, his bed hard, and his showers weak!

Now what could possibly go wrong?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Apocalypse was over

!

Whoop whoop for the big man Castiel!

the cupid thought bitterly, winging her way to a small bar in Norway. Angels all over Heaven (

well, most of it

) were celebrating the resurrection and victory of their new favourite foot soldier, and many found that they suddenly liked the planet a whole lot more than they did when the End of Days started. It’s

amazing

what a super-powered leader with different ideals will do for a person’s attitude.
 
Anyway, the cupid was a little less inclined to party than the rest of the Heavenly Host. Her two charges were once again stubbornly separate, which was

really

quite inconvenient! She’d set it up perfectly: a grieving brother anxious to be comforted, an angel who ought to have been celebrating their victory with him! It was

obvious

that ‘We Just Saved The World’ sex was in order. Why didn’t they kiss? Was she even doing her job properly? There must have been something faulty with her bow… It just wasn’t performing at all.

Damn that Castiel

!

It was all his fault

!
 
The bar was an establishment often frequented by angels stationed on Earth, as even God’s favourite creatures got a little tiresome after a while, and that night the cupid was definitely feeling the need of a good drink. She wove her way through the dancing crowd, sliding onto one of the barstools and motioned to the bartender.
 
“Please serve me your strongest alcohol!” she hollered over the beating music. “Preferably in a large quantity!”
 
The blonde man adjusted his overly large moustache, and, with a salacious wink, managed to reach bottles that his short stature would not have suggested he could take from the high shelves. He began to mix the cocktail, handling each remotely phallic object in a manner not befitting a public premises.
 
The cupid looked away, uninterested in the strange ‘human’s’ behaviour, and made eye contact with a bemused man further down the bar.
 
Well, the guise he wore was of a man anyway. Taking her drink from the bartender, the cupid took the empty seat next to the reaper.
 
“Rough day at the office?” she asked, straining her voice to be heard.
 
“Don’t get me started!” he shouted back, taking another swig from his rapidly emptying glass. “Sam Winchester’s just been resurrected again!”
 
“Really?”
 
“Do I look like I would be bloody joking!? I’m the one who has to deal with the paperwork! And d’you know what’s even worse!?”
 
“I think you’ll tell me anyway, so go on!”
 
“It was a botched job! The damned angel who did it couldn’t stuff his soul back in!”
 
“You’re

joking

,” the cupid groaned, burying her head in her hands

before something made her pause. “This angel… Was he called Castiel, by any chance?”
 
“Yeah,” the reaper said, suddenly surveying her more seriously. “And what’s your stake in the business?”
 
“Ugh,” she replied, taking a swig of her alcohol. “I’m the cupid overseeing the match between the Righteous Man and Castiel.”
 
“Oh dear,” he murmured. “I bet that’ll be a long time coming…”
 
“You got that right,” the cupid snapped venomously, before sighing. “Anyway, what’s your affiliation to the plaid-wearing dolts?”
 
“I’m the reaper assigned to their case,” he grumbled, slumping over the counter. “The bastards can’t even die

properly

.”
 
“What’s so bad about that?” The cupid wondered. “I mean, no one complained when Jesus did it-“
 
“Because it looks bad on me when I can’t keep them bloody dead! And that’s not even mentioning the all the bleeding forms!” the reaper snapped, snapping open the briefcase propped against his stool. The cupid looked inside and winced: its bottom was almost 50 metres down. Looking up, she found a hand in her face. “Arnie.”
 
“Sorry?”
 
“My name’s Arnie, and are you gonna shake my hand or not?”
 
She took it gingerly.
 
“What’s your name?” he asked.
 
“Halaliel!”
 
“Fucking what!?”
 
“Halali-!”
 
“With all due respect,” the reaper yelled, trying to be heard over the roaring music. “

Sod that

! It’s a useless string of syllables, and I can’t keep calling you ‘the cupid’ in my head all the time!”
 
“Would ‘Hal’ work!?” Halaliel shouted, beginning to regret her choice of bar and her offer of name. Despite the time since Anna’s death, she still felt it belonged to her. “They used to call me that in the Office sometimes! ‘Cause we had a Haniel, Hamaliel

and

a Hayliel!”
 
“What the everloving fuck was up with you cupids?” Arnie spluttered, choking on his second drink of the night. “Screw that! Is there anything else you can remember being called. Anything you did that can be a nickname?”
 
“Gabriel used to call me Meatloaf occasionally?”
 
“No! Goodness, gracious me, why!?”
 
“I don’t really know… I created the cocoa plant after misspelling ‘coconut’ in a report once: would that work?”
 
“Hell ye- no,

Heaven

- no, uh… Norwich yes it does!” he crowed, slamming his glass down on the bar top. “From now on, may you be known as… (Drumroll please) Coco!”
 
It is possible they may have been a little drunk by that point.
 
“Coco?” The newly-christened Coco asked, unsure of the concept. “Are you sure you understand nicknames?”
 
“Do you? Anyway, I’m pretty sure,” he answered, circling the rim of his drink with a single digit. “I used to be Arnald the Great of Scandinavia, but that was before humans had concepts of nicknames, so here I am, a couple of thousand years later with ‘Arnie’!”
 
“Huh,” Coco mused, feeling the weight of her new name around her shoulders. It was… Liberating. She turned to Arnie with a grin: “Another round?”
 
Some time later, the cupid and the reaper were a little more inebriated than they”d meant to be. Both were leaning closer together in an attempt to hear better.
 
“You know,” Arnie slurred indignantly, wagging a finger at the the cupid as he toted his glass. “This is my first day off in five years.

Five years.

And you know why!?”
 
“The Winchesters,” Coco mumbled into her gin. That seemed to be the common answer.
 
“The Winchesters!” The reaper howled over the pumping music, sparking a bemused look from the strangely-moustached bartender. “My first day off in years since I was assigned to them, and only because Freckles isn’t scheduled to hunt again ‘til May!”
 
The sloshed cupid tried to pat the equally inebriated man on the shoulder, but gave up after missing the first three times.
 
“When I first got this job,” she said retrospectively, staring into the depths of her glass. She was starting to wonder if it was spiked with something: angels were supposed to have better tolerance than this. “I thought it would be a quick in and out assignment: you know, make ‘em fall into bed together and bond in the morning after, yeah? What I didn’t anticipate was sodding Winchester to have a stick up his arse larger than Castiel’s

dick

.”
 
The bartender choked on what sounded like a laugh, and Coco glared at him for a moment sullenly, before taking the shots he slid over to them and knocking them back one after another. She made a point of not trusting humans with moustaches. Especially ones that didn’t match their hair colour.
 
“Castiel’s penis?” Arnie asked, grimacing as he felt the burn of the alcohol. “How can you be sure?”
 
“Well, not Castiel’s

obviously

,” she muttered, signalling the blond bartender for another round. “I nipped back in time to the day before Novak was possessed to check. The vessel may not be hung like a horse, but I’ll be

damned

if something else gets up Dean Winchester before it!”
 
“What about fingers? I hear they need fingers to…

You know

…”
 
“Mmmnn, I guess,” Coco ceded reluctantly. “Humans are

gross

. What’s it like being their personal reaper anyway?”
 
“Oh, holy Chepstow, don’t get me

started

,” Arnie grumbled, summoning several bottles of various spirits. Suddenly, a mixer appeared in his hands, and the reaper began slugging in multicoloured liquids with wild abandon. “So, where do we begin? Oh yeah,

Mary.

Ugh. So, Mother Dearest dies, and I go down to take her up to Heaven, right? No! Because the cow won’t bloody go! And I’m like, you’re the mother of the

Righteous Man

, sweetheart. You get a free pass through the Pearly Gates-“
 
“Seriously?”
 
“

Barking Penvensey

, do you honestly think I would be drowning myself in liquor if I wasn’t?” Arnie spat, taking a great slurp from his chimera of a beverage. His face passed through several interesting expressions as he processed the drink. “Want some?”
 
“Alright,” Coco replied, taking the metal pot. She sipped it and grimaced at the taste, feeling her vessel leaking tears.

Bloody Winchesters

. “So what happened next?”
 
“Right, so, I launch into the ‘do you really want to stay’ speech, but I’m barely three words in when she gets all ‘Righteous

What

?’” Arnie continued as they passed the drink between them. “And before I can even start Plan B, she socks me in the jaw and banishes me.

Banishes

me.”
 
“A literal corpse managed to banish you. As in, an

actually dead person

.”
 
“Yep,” the reaper agreed gloomily, wincing as he set what Coco dubbed the ‘Paintstripper Cocktail’ on  the bartop.
 
The cupid thought she saw the bartender stifling a laugh, but put it down to the drink. Humans wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation. His moustache probably wasn’t slipping either. Probably.
 
“And that’s not even getting on to what happens next,” Arnie continued. “I must have brought John Winchester back from the brink countless times when he first started out hunting. That’s not counting the amount of times I repaired his liver or prevented internal bleeding either. And the boys, oh Leeds, the boys were worse. So. Much.

Worse.

”
 
“I thought they didn’t start hunting until later?” Coco said, confused.
 
“Yeah, but that didn’t stop them from trying,” Arnie groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Seven years old, Dean falls down three sets of stairs and breaks his neck whilst running from a ghost in the house they’ve been squatting in. I swoop in, revive him, wipe his memories and drag the soul up to Heaven whether they liked it or not. Two years later, Sam touches a cursed object John brought home by mistake. When I show up, he’s literally coughing his lungs up, and Dean’s in hysterics trying to find a solution. Same thing again: I save the day and destroy the damn thing, wiping their memory so they think it’s a normal day after school. Rinse and repeat for the next decade or so.”
 
“Bloody Winchesters?” Coco offered, raising her glass.
 
“Bloody

Winchesters

,” Arnie seethed, clinking his own against hers. They knocked back the searing liquor as one. The bartender topped them up almost immediately.
 
The cupid was half sure he didn’t even touch the glasses.

Probably

.
 
“So…” she started instead, searching for another topic. “Did you hear about Gabriel?”
 
The bartender fumbled suddenly, nearly dropping an armful of bottles.
 
“What about Gabriel?”
 
“You didn’t know he’s dead?” Coco said, surprised.
 
“Nah,” Arnie replied, grinning something. “Probably would’ve thrown a party.”
 
“Why?” The cupid asked, not comprehending his reason. “Upstairs nearly went to pieces when he died!”
 
“Fucking Gabriel!” Arnie snarled, slamming his glass down. The bartender jumped and tried to appear inconspicuous, even with his moustache starting to appear dreadfully lopsided. “If I ever get my hands on that weasly little prick, I will wrong his greasy, abhorrent neck! And I don’t even care that he’s dead!”
 
“Arn-?” Coco tried, but the incensed reaper just carried on.
 
“

Endless Tuesdays

! Endless bloody Tuesdays!” he roared. “Every day I collected Dean Winchester’s soul, only to send it back immediately afterwards. And then again a few hours later! All year I did my job, trying my best to tell him how to get out of his deal, and the poor fool still went straight to Hell at the end of his life. They never remember, Coco, why can’t they ever remember?” Arnie mumbled pathetically, and Coco rested her arm over his shoulders, squeezing gently. “I thought I’d seen all the ways a person could lose someone, but Gabriel had to show me more…”
 
“Dean’s alive now,” Coco said awkwardly, trying to appease the somber reaper.
 
“Yeah,” Arnie agreed bitterly, a twisted smirk flashing on his face, as he swigged his drink. “But for how long?”
 
The two sat in silence for a while, letting the thumping music and numbing alcohol get to them. Eventually, the cupid spoke:
 
“You know,” Coco grumbled, trying to lighten the mood. “I thought this was a slow burn to begin with, but this bloody ship makes convection currents in the mantle look quick! I didn’t use to hate my job, but now…”
 
“Amen, comrade,” Arnie laughed gleefully, regaining his cheer as he clinked his glass with hers. “To the Winchesters! Ruining our lives since 1983!”
 
“Bloody Winchesters!”
 
“Bloody Winchesters!”
 
Coco didn’t remember much of the night after that, but she had a feeling it involved ice cubes and strippers.
 
When she awoke the next morning, she found a fake moustache lodged inside her vessel’s bra, along with a phone number for Arnie. She pocketed the latter with a smile.
 
Maybe the post Apocalypse wasn’t so bad after all.
 
*****

In the following year, Coco dropped in on Dean occasionally.
 
The hunter was…

Coping

. The word might have been stretched to cover his current circumstances, but stagnating and rotting didn’t have the same kind of positivity the cupid was trying to express.
 
What he was doing, cutting the lawn with a blade-less mower, the cupid had

no

idea.
 
Still, if she swooped down to soothe his nightmares every now and again, who was to know?

Certainly

, not a particular brother of hers. The last time Castiel had spoken with Dean had been at Stull Cemetery.

Bastard

.
 
When the humans got boring, Coco returned to Heaven.
 
With Raphael’s faction growing steadily louder in their efforts to kickstart the next Apocalypse, and Castiel’s human-hugger force trying to convince more to join their side, tensions were rising, but it hadn’t progressed to outright war yet.

Yet

. If the cupid had learnt anything from history, it was that these things

never

ended well.
 
With nothing to do, Coco decided to check in on the Library.
 
The Great Library was seeing more visitors than usual, with more angels redundant in their jobs (not much cause for Rapturists when there were no humans to rapture), so the place was getting a steady trickle of curious malakhim each day.
 
A little smugly, with more than a few cherubim acquisitioned for various duties, Penemue and Eracus had more time on their hands with which to run a book club for angels. These were members of the Host who wanted to learn more about humans, and the eager pair had

many

sources to draw from.
 
On today’s list: Harry Potter.
 
They would read a book a day (many eyes equal faster reading), then adjourn to discuss them. Thankfully, the librarians kept the main focus on the emotions that led to the decisions, rather than the outcome and choices themselves, in order to help the angels understand the things that motivated humans.
 
Under the last regime, such an activity would have had her friends sent for re-education, but with no clear ruler, groups like this were ignored.
 
Every now and again, Coco added her own suggestions to the pot, and spent much time discussing human literature with Penemue and Eracus.
 
But today, the cupid had an important task:
 
Little Claire Novak struggled in her grandmother’s arms.
 
The elderly woman was out of her mind with paranoia, imagining things that weren’t there, and in her fear for their lives, had locked herself and Claire in her bedroom.
 
She seemed to suffer from the same condition Amelia had believed Jimmy afflicted by, but with no support from external sources and her closest relatives missing, the old woman had snapped.
 
The cupid saw empty pill bottles littering the cabinets, and her heart sank: she’d run out of medication. This wasn’t good.
 
Tears streamed down Claire’s face as she sobbed, trying to pull out of the death grip her grandmother had on her, mistaken in her belief she was protecting the child.
 
Unable to stand aside any longer, Coco stepped in. Flapping into the room, she placed a finger on the woman’s forehead and sent her to sleep. Claire scuttled away, her face stricken with fear as she screamed at the cupid.
 
“What are you!?” she shrieked, looking for an exit. “Angel or demon!?”
 
“Angel, actually,” the cupid answered calmly, pausing for a moment, before crouching down to her level and opening her hands. “I’m not here to harm you, Claire. I’m here to help: pinky-promise.”
 
“Why would an angel want to help me?” The little girl sniffled. “You took my dad away!”
 
“I’m not Castiel,” Coco said, before pausing. “Besides, it was you or him. Your father was protecting you.”
 
“Then what did you do to Grandma?” Claire asked, getting to her feet and pressing herself against the wall.
 
“She’s asleep, and if I hadn’t done that,” the cupid continued. “One or both of you would be dead. Where is your mother?”
 
“Gone,” the girl bit out, her bottom lip trembling as she level her gaze at the angel. “Looking for Daddy.”

Oh dear

.
 
“Your father is in Heaven, Claire,” Coco said, trying to channel the mystical angels of Abraham’s time.

Those blighters had it so much easier

! “Now, I need you to listen to me: your grandmother is as good as dead. Even if I do heal her, she still has an undiagnosed heart condition that would kill her soon enough, and if I help that, she’ll be dead within a few years anyway. If you’ll let me,” she continued, hoping the child would listen to her. “I can put her to sleep, let her drift off and never awake. You can play it off as natural causes, and then you can go to a family that will support and care for you. People who will make sure you never have to follow this dark path.”
 
Claire was silent for a few minutes, and then looked up.
 
“She’ll go to Heaven, won’t she?”
 
“I see no dark marks on her soul. She’ll be happy.”
 
“But what about my Mom!?” she burst out suddenly, fresh tears starting to escape. “What if she comes back for me!?”
 
“Your mother isn’t coming back, Claire, and I think you know it,” Coco murmured, her heart wrenching at the sight. Before she knew it, she was dropping to her knees, holding her arms out for the small child. “Would you like a hug?”
 
Something broke within Claire, and she ran into the cupid’s arms, seeking comfort instinctively. Coco wrapped them around her, murmuring comforting nonsense as she combed her fingers through her hair gently. She let the child sob into her shoulder, small fingers clenched in the fabric of her coat.
 
Eventually, the girl stepped back.
 
“

Okay

,” Claire whispered, nodding her head jerkily. Taking her hand, the cupid walked over to the clambering woman, and pressed her fingers into her forehead, ensuring she would never awake.
 
“I’m going to take you to the police station now,” Coco said gently, tugging the child away from the body. “You’re going to have to tell them what happened.”
 
The next moment, they were in the alleyway beside the building, and the cupid turned towards her newest charge.
 
“Claire,” she said, searching her eyes. “I can’t guarantee that everything will be fine. There will be downs, but there will be ups as well. I won’t always be there to help you out, but I need you to know that the worst will never happen while I am watching over you. Do you understand?”
 
Jerkily, Jimmy’s daughter nodded, the light catching her eyes. They were nearly the same shade as Castiel’s.
 
“Okay,” the cupid murmured, squeezing her shoulders one last time, before giving her a final hug. “Off you go.”
 
As she turned her back and set out for the station, the cupid set into motion the chain of events, that, someday, would lead one grieving Jody Mills into the path of a certain Claire Novak.
 
Hoping against hope, Coco wished for a happy ending.
 
*****

True to the cupid’s prediction, war broke out within a month of the Apocalypse’s aversion.
 
However, unlike the previous time, Castiel was not a one-man army. This time, he had supporters- granted, not as many as Raphael- but these were crafty angels, unlike the mindless automatons the archangel seemed to favour. Her brother seemed to favour quality over quantity, though he was lacking in the latter by a large margin.
 
By some unspoken agreement, the Cupid Office and Great Library remained neutral ground: untouched, untampered with, and places of peace.
 
In truth, with only one archangel left in Heaven, they weren’t getting many commissions anyway, but with the outbreak of war, Haniel (the Head of Department) had shut the doors, and refused any other jobs than the cultivation of vessel lines already created. Missions from on high were not permitted, but with so little work, the Office still welcomed jobs from individual angels. These were ones that had become more common since the Apocalypse that wasn’t:

Please find this woman her soulmate

.

Please gift this couple a child

.

Please help this lonely teenager

.

Please save this man’s life

.
 
With nothing better to do than sit around watching sitcoms all day (

or avoid the piles of paperwork

), the Cupid Office jumped on these requests. They were the products of prayers that Upper Management had stifled, but were now being heard and answered.
 
Castiel was busy fighting a war, with no intention of visiting his match, and with nothing else on her schedule, Coco completed task after task. She did all that was asked of her, and yet was still

bored

.
 
So when her Cockcimity alert went off, she was out from behind her desk faster than a rat out of an aqueduct.
 
The Cockcimity Meter was a little invention she’d created a while ago, when the cupid was despairing that her charges would never meet again. A few drinks with Arnie, and a conference call between the Library and the Ice Bar (

the reaper and the other two angels got on like a house on fire

), and

voila

! The Meter was born!
 
It was designed to give off alerts whenever Castiel and Dean were within a mile’s distance of each other, so she’d never have to waste time following the human around when she had much better things to do.
 
In short, it was a work of

genius

.
 
She dropped into the room just as her brother was speaking:
 
“Dean and I do share a more profound bond,” he explained to a gobsmacked Sam blithely. Sheepishly, he turned to Dean: “I was‘t going to mention it.”
 
Coco felt about as stunned as Dean looked:

a year of radio silence, and the prick had a ‘

profound bond’?

Complete and utter tosh; if the cupid had her way, they’d be bonded in a far more

physical

way

.
 
She tuned out the next few words, assuming they were normal Winchester angst, in order to examine Dean. For the first time in a year, his soul was shining again. It glowed- softly at first, but steadily getting brighter- and the tiny faults and cracks that Coco had noticed were healing over slowly.
 
Even in Castiel, despite his stern exterior, there was a new light in his grace. The tension seemed to unwind, and the tight coils of energy relaxed for the first time in months.
 
She was just about to attempt to move things along, when her brother flinched back at something Dean said. He tucked his wings back against his body, stopping his feathers from trailing against the elder Winchester’s body.
 
“You think I came because

you

called?” he growled, moving over to the table. Coco couldn’t see any reason for him to do so, but then she understood: her big, bad brother was afraid. He didn’t want to get hurt. “I came because of

this

!”
 
“Oh, well,” Dean sniped, and her heart sank as they started to argue instead of talk properly for the first time in over a year. “It’s nice to know what matters.”
 
If Castiel noticed, he certainly didn’t care. Instead, the cupid zoned out as the trio went back to butting heads, before zapping out of the room. She considered following them, but decided not to bother when they flew back a few minutes later.
 
Something made the hairs on th back of Coco’s head stick up, and she stopped paying attention to the goings on in the room.

There was someone else there

. She couldn’t sense where exactly, but in one of the plains, a supernatural being sat shrouded in secrecy.
 
Cautiously, the cupid stretched out a few feelers, searching for the presence, stiffening when she felt the familiar iron-tang of grace.

Angel

.
 
Whoever it was, she began to suspect they were one of Raphael’s, when Castiel gave no impression of noticing. Carefully, she reached towards her angel blades something she’d begun carrying a few months into the Apocalypse that wasn’t.
 
However, before she could act, the enemy angel burst into the mundane, attacking Castiel with reckless abandon.
 
Coco scoffed, sitting back to watch. Whoever the novice angel was, he wasn’t anyone to worry about. From the looks of his grace, he was even younger than her other brother, not to mention more naive and inexperienced. Castiel would be the victor; no doubt about it.
 
On the other hand, she didn’t expect the fight to end with a tip out the window. She was almost as worried as Dean, before she remembered what her brother was.
 
Still, it was good to see his concern for Castiel.
 
*****

Oh, bloody, buggering Hell

!

It was

Balthazar.
 
*****

Coco liked Bobby.
 
While the Winchesters were down hunting a lamia in Wisconsin, she popped in to check on the hunter.
 
She arrived just as he’s berating a hunter named Garth, and smiled. All was well. Trailing a finger across his shelves, she scanned them mentally, and- as a point of gratitude- corrected one on the proper way to dispose of a chimera.
 
Not that the goat legged curs would ever leave Greece, of course.
 
*****

Drat. Drat. Drat.
 
Hecking, hecketty heck.
 
Dean’s a bloody vampire.

Bugger

!
 
Not for the first time, Coco dreamed of dragging Castiel down there to solve the entire clusterfuck of a situation.
 
*****

Veritas provided an opportunity Coco was slightly wary of taking.
 
On the one hand, she could have used the truth compulsion to drive Dean into admitting his feelings for Castiel, whatever emotions he might have harboured, whether they were love or hate. It could’ve provided vital intel for the cupid’s mission.
 
But at the same time, it could’ve backfired, revealing her and all her various dabbling, ruining her work completely.
 
If she’s going to do something, Coco needed to be discreet about it.
 
While Dean Winchester was dozing off that night, the cupid snuck into his mind to watch his dreams. Carefully, she introduced the idea of Castiel, and watched what came next:
 
At first, the dream started out how she would have imagined Dean wanted their relationship; Castiel kissed him, hot and heavy, his lips lingering on Dean’s bruised ones. She sensed things were heading in a much dirtier direction, before something changed of its own accord.
 
They’re in bed together, but compared to beforehand, this was calm and warm. Dean lay in Castiel’s arms, their legs tangled together, as they traded soft kisses and gentle touches. The hunter turned over, and the angel drew an arm around him, the two spooning happily.
 
Suddenly, the dream picked up pace, and the cupid found herself witnessing a lifetime of shared moments. The two baked and ate together, watching late night TV whilst snuggled together on the couch. Sam was there too, but his appearances were fleeting, and always accompanied by the same figure: a petite, blurry-faced blonde. There was no hunting there- Castiel and Dean grew old together, living a simple, mundane,

loving

life. The idea of children flitted in and out of frame, but it was always Castiel the dream focused on.
 
Always Castiel.
 
Stunned, the cupid draws away from something she felt she shouldn’t have witnessed, and practically ran from the room.
 
*****

How did she not notice that Sam’s soul was missing

!?

How

!?
 
He’d been right there in front of her ever since he got back! How had she not seen that it was gone? Even if she’d been preoccupied with Dean, both of the Winchesters were her charges. She’d made it so herself!
 
And Castiel’s bedside manner certainly wasn’t helping. The angel was about as sympathetic as… Well.. As a soulless person.

Bugger

,

bollocks

,

and bugger again

.
 
The cupid never had language this bad before she met the hunters.
 
To take her mind off the awful situation, Coco took a look at Castiel’s grace. The angel was shining brighter than ever before, thanks to one particular Winchester, but there was something different about it that made her pause.
 
Carefully, she combed through the layers of light and gasped in shock: there, nestled within the folds of grace, was an infant soul.
 
It was tiny, barely past the embryonic stage of development, but sure enough, there was an

angelically generated soul

.

Holy

,

holy

,

holy

.
 
Castiel was growing a

soul

.

What in the holy fucking shit

.
 
*****

Like

Hell

, Crowley would die so easily

, the cupid thought, smouldering.

The sorry sod had gotten a taste of power, and was never going to stop going after more

.
 
He was going to try again, just you wait and see.
 
Also,

WHAT THE BLEEDING HELL DID CASTIEL THINK HE WAS DOING SNOGGING MEG

?

What even

?

Why

?
 
Was he doing it to create jealousy? Was he? Coco saw more than a smidge in Dean’s face, but it was overshadowed by his confusion. Despite this being a Castiel he’d fantasised about, he had no presence in reality, and this was beyond the hunter’s imagination.
 
The cupid was almost glad when the hellhounds came.
 
*****

“Holy shit,” Arnie groaned, as he slid onto the seat beside Coco’s. “The day I’ve just had- holy

Liverpool

. Mersey take me!”
 
He flagged down the bartender, and the cupid had a premonition or the night to come.
 
“What’s up?” she asked instead, taking the drink in front of her. “Must have been hard if we’re onto whiskey already.”
 
“So

sue

me,” he grunted, before grimacing. “Sorry. I’m taking a leaf out of the Winchesters’ book.”
 
“Ah,” Coco replied in understanding. “Would you happen to know why Dean died again today?”
 
“Bastard had to go make a deal with Death, didn’t he?”
 
“

Porlock

.”
 
“Exactly,” he said, toying with his glass. “More alcohol?”
 
“

Please

.”
 
*****

Some days

, the cupid thought as she winged her way up to Heaven,

the Winchesters decided to take the wasps’ nest of creation

,

and give it a good

,

old

kicking!
 
Only they-

only they

- would manage to screw something up so badly, that they let out the Mother of All.

Holy York

, she reflected bitterly.

It was almost like they were going through some celestial bucket list

:

last week Lucifer

,

today Eve

,

tomorrow

-

Hell

!

Maybe leviathans

!
 
And for goodness’ sake: why couldn’t the trio just communicate properly? Nobody trusted anybody!
 
This did

not

bode well for a successful match.
 
*****

There are some things that should never be mentioned, or even thought about again. The parallel universe was one of them.
 
Bloody Castiel and his allies!

Argh

!
 
*****

“Okay,

Balthazar

,” the cupid snarled, pooping into existence again, arms outstretched to throttle him. “I’ve got a

bone

to pick with

you

!”
 
The bemused seraph avoided her windmilling arms deftly.
 
“Is there any reason-“ the smarmy bastard called, as he dodged her hooked hands. “That you’re doing this?”
 
“I was

dead

because of you!” she screamed at him in pure fury. “

Dead

! One of your resurrected souls became a hunter! She

killed

me!”
 
“Look,” Balthazar entreated her, flying back a few steps. “You’d see this was none of my fault, if you just calm do-“
 
“‘

Calm down

’?” Coco shrieked, incandescent with rage. “‘

Calm down

’? If

you

think, that you’ll survive this with that

bloody

,

feathered ruff

you’re so proud of, you’ve got another thing coming,

sunshine

!”
 
“It’s all Cassie’s fault! Don’t blame the wrong brother!”
 
“Oh, I’m going after him

next

,” the cupid swore, before surging forward to pin him against the wall, roaring; “You bloody moron! Next time you want extra souls, make orgies! Fuck or die!

Sex pollen

! Don’t unsink a bloody ship!”
 
And with that, she flew away, screaming her anger into the next five dimensions.
 
*****

Exploit the cowboy kink

, Coco wished, crossing her fingers in a fit of human wistfulness.

C’mon

,

Castiel

,

you know you want to

.

He can barely keep his dick down in 1861

,

Castiel

:

go and knock his hat off with your

… Unique

sexual prowess

.
 
*****

“Now

that

is just

mean

,” the cupid remarked to anyone listening in. She tossed another popcorn kernel in her mouth, chewing noisily as she watched the conversation with distaste. “He’s not infallible, so don’t make him feel like something off the bottom of your shoe.”
 She groaned, dropping her head back in realisation: she’d just sided with Castiel, her sworn enemy. What was she doing? 
Arnie dropped in next to her, sneaking a hand into her paper bag. The reaper had been hanging around a lot more, their jobs meaning they spent a lot of time in the vicinity of the other.
 
“What’s going on?” he asked genially, surveying the scene before them. Castiel turned away from Dean in an offended huff. Coco wiped her hands on her smart slacks before replying.

Damn

,

she needed a handkerchief

.
 
“Idiot A,” she stated, gesturing at the older Winchester. “Has just ruined Idiot B’s self esteem with a well-timed jab at his abilities. I swear,” the cupid continued, huffing an annoyed laugh. “I’m not making it up when I say they’re incommunative blockheads.”
 
“

Dover

,” the reaper grumbled as she swatted his hand. He’d tried to steal more of her sweet snack, only to be caught. Sugar was one of the few things angels could taste: Coco wasn’t about to let him have her share. “He’s not even going to

like

the sod, by the end of this, let alone

love

him.”
 
“I

know

,” Coco groaned, thankful that someone understood what she was going through. “And now, they’re going to go on their merry way, and get

killed

. I don’t know why I bother!”
 
When Eve was dead, and the Winchesters out of the building, the cupid accepted Arnie’s invitation to get royally pissed without hesitation.
 
It wasn’t like she was missing anything, anyway.
 
*****

Later, Coco hovered by the fireplace in Ellsworth’s house, wondering how she could have been so wrong.
 
Castiel stood defiant in the burning ring, the flickering flames highlighting his desperation. In the ethereal plain, Dean’s soul shrank away from the angel: he had crossed a line, and even the hunter’s helpless devotion had to recognise it.
 
“It’s hard to explain,” her brother blustered, his eyes always returning to Dean. “Just let me go. Let me out, and I can-“
 
“You got to look at me, man,” Dean interrupted him, almost pleading with him. Castiel’s trueform flinched away from his broken voice. “You got to level with me and tell me what's going on.

Look me in the eye

and tell me you're not working with Crowley.”
 
Castiel dropped his gaze.
 
Dean sucked in a violent breath, understanding flooding his mind.
 
“

Son of a bitch

,” he mumbled, his voice clogged with the threat of tears.
 
Coco curled up in the corner, unable to tear her eyes away from the horrific scene. How could she have been so foolish, trying to forgive him?
 
Castiel was the way he’d always been: a cold-hearted, utilitarian killer. He was responsible for Anna’s death and the continued butchering of Sam’s soul. How could she continue with the match and still have a clear conscience? He’d be better off

fallen

.
 
“I did it to protect

you

,” her brother said, looking straight at the elder Winchester, before jerking his head to include the others in his words. “I did it to protect

all

of you!”
 
Slowly, she looked up. If...

This

was what motivated Castiel… Then surely there was something to be salvaged? His motives were pure, solely rooted in protecting the brothers- in protecting

Dean

. Even though his crusade crashed and burned, perhaps the cupid could make something of his failure, because it was the product of

love

.
 
“It's not too late!” Dean said over the thundering of the wind. “Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!”

“Dean, it's not broken!” her brother shouted, his trueform trembling with something she couldn’t lay her finger on. “

Run

. You have to run

now

! Run!”
 
Then the demons were coming, and Coco ran with the hunters to regroup and rethink her approach.
 
*****

That night, at Bobby’s house, Coco was roused from her meditation. Selfishly, she’d stayed with them, wanting to feel like she could protect them. But now, there was an intruder, and she had let them in.
 
Quivering slightly, the cupid drew her blade, and crept into the room, then relaxed: it was only Castiel.

Wait a moment

-

Castiel

!?
 
Sure enough, her brother stood right there by Dean, gazing into the hunter’s eyes.
 
“I’m doing it for you, Dean,” he said, and she could not find an ounce of trickery in his words. “I’m doing this because of you.”
 
The hunter shook his head, and they exchanged more charged words, before it was time for the angel to leave.
 
Just as he was preparing to go, Castiel hesitated and apologised.
 
“I’m sorry, Dean.”
 
Dean sighed wearily, looking at his once-friend one last time.
 
“Well, I’m sorry too, then.”
 
*****
 
As the cupid watched her brother wipe the memories of Lisa and Ben Braeden, an epiphany occurred .
 
Castiel would do anything for Dean.
 
Of course, she already knew this: he has died for Dean once already. But this-

this

was something that could ruin the hunter, break his heart and bury the pieces.
 
Castiel loved Dean so much that he would do anything asked of himself, even if it would hurt the human, because he was lost without him. The screw up of the past year was down to her brother trying to stand without him. He needed Dean like no other.
 
She just hoped that one day the angel would realise this too.
 
*****

It hurt to look at Castiel.
 
The infernal intensity of the unnatural souls warped his grace’s natural light, outshining it in a hideous display of power. His trueform quivered and jerked its many heads from side to side, but always the bulging eyes were fixed on Dean. Even in his new state, the not-angel was obsessed with the human.
 
The hunter didn’t even realise the fixation their new ‘God’ had on him.
 
Coco retched in her personal dimension, the taste of blasphemy thick and cloying at the back of her throat. He would

never

be their Father,

never

replace or live up to

His

Glory.
 
Then the worst happened: Castiel turned his terrifying gaze on her.
 
She froze, stricken by his paralysing stare.

Was he going to kill her

?

He’d wiped Raphael off the map without a second thought

.

Would she be next

?

Oh gosh

,

oh no

-

he was going to kill her

!
 
Then, to her immeasurable relief, Castiel twitched his fingers, and the cupid was sent rumbling into the further edges of the Solar System.
 
Coco took refuge in the Kuiper Belt for a few precious minutes, catching her breath as she tried to process what a had just happened. When the gravity of the situation fully struck her, she fled, hiding on the surface of the largest planet in the TRAPPIST system, and waited for it all to blow over.
 
Some time later, she felt a ripping sensation in her grace.
 
It was the Meter.
 
Castiel was dead.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The cupid landed just as Dean spotted the stained trenchcoat.
 
Silently, she slowed, feeling strangely guilty for intruding on such a private moment. Even with what he’d done, even with the stink of the Leviathans still clinging to the sodden coat, she felt briefly sorrowful for the angel she’d never got past her hate for. Maybe one day, Coco would see the things that made Dean’s soul sing for her brother.
 
As she backed away, the cupid saw his knees buckles slightly, as he folded the only remnant of his Castiel to his chest.
 
It was too much for her.
 
Coco fled to the Great Library, calling out to Arnie and her friends on the way. They came gladly, and the four curled up in the private space behind the front desk. The three angels formed a wall around Arnie, draped over each other in their trueforms as they tried to ignore the evil that had been released into the world.
 
It was a long time ‘til they emerged.
 
****

There wasn’t much the cupid could do, but there was something she could try.
 
Carefully, gagging at the damp, swampy odour of the lake, she returned to the reservoir, and waded in. The contamination of the Leviathans had murkied its essence, and Coco shuddered as she immersed herself in the vile water.
 
It had been a while, but hopefully, she would find Castiel’s corpse, rotted or not.
 
Fruitlessly, the cupid searched the horrid place for hours, even following the pipes that were big enough to carry a body, but to no avail. The vessel was nowhere to be found. Twitching with disgust, Coco heaved herself out of the reservoir, resolving to never return again.
 
She’d have to bathe in the Jordan, Ganges and Yellow rivers to get clean again.

*****

“Oh, so you can counsel witches, but you can’t say three little words to Cas before he died?” Coco said snidely, watching the proceedings with studied irritation, as she picked at her strawberry laces. “Well, it’s too late now, buttercup! I don’t see

him

coming back anytime soon!”
 
Dean ignored her, getting thrown into a wall for his troubles.
 
“Well, that’s where love gets you these days,” the cupid muttered sourly. “Places you never bloody anticipated.”
 
*****

“So, I hear date-rape is the new sexy,” the cupid said faux-casually, idling in the darkened living room. Becky screamed, jumping a foot in the air as Coco flicked the light on.
 
“Who are you!?” the disgusting creature shrieked, whipping out a pistol with trembling hands. Coco raised an unamused brow at it, wondering where she’d got such a pitiful weapon. “Don’t move, or I

swear

I’ll shoot!”
 
“Sweetheart,” she said scathingly, getting up from the armchair she’d been lounging in. “That peashooter won’t do

shit

to me. I’ve come to talk to you about Sam Winchester.”
 
“W-What about him?” the snivelling woman asked, her bottom lip quivering as she came to the verge of tears. “I haven’t seen him in

ages

.”
 
“Becky, Becky, Becky,” the cupid chided, her lip curling in disgust. “You should know better than to lie to me. And besides: love potions?

So last century

. It’s just not the way we do things anymore. Not now,

not ever

.”
 
“Why are you telling me this?” Becky sniffled, appearing to find some mettle, as she straightened up slightly. “It’s none of your business!”
 
“It’s entirely my business, you useless cow!” Coco snarled, flitting across the room to menace her face to face. “I am a

cupid

, not some snotty, little rapist! I will not have you taking the consent away from my charges!”
 
“Charges?”
 
“If that’s the only part that got through to you,” the cupid continued, gritting her teeth. “Then I have no problem seeing how your selective hearing ignores ‘

no

’.”
 
“Really?” Becky started, hope forming in her eyes, as she edged away from the furious cupid.
 
“

Of course I have a fucking problem

!” Coco screamed, spit flying from her mouth in rage, as she slammed a hand down on Becky’s shoulder. A moment later, they were hovering about a hundred metres above a particularly choppy,

cold

part of the North Sea. “‘

No means no, consent is sexy

’- say it!”
 
“Aaaargh!” screeched Becky, her legs flailing in terror. The cupid gave her a little shake to get the message through.
 
“Say it, you

kleine Pferdschiesse

!”
 
“No means no, consent is

seeeeexy

,” Becky sobbed, her voice performing a funny somersault as Coco pretended to fumble her hold. The cupid gave her another shake for good measure, then dropped her.
 
The screaming fangirl was about five metres above the water when Coco caught her, zapping her back into her house to bounce on her bed harmlessly,
 
“And let that be a

lesson

to you,” the cupid sniffed, curling her upper lip as she left the incoherently sobbing creature behind her. “

Saumensch

.”
 
*****

“Oh,” Coco said quietly. She sat back on her haunches, dizzy with shock. Bobby’d been shot. “I don’t think this will end well.”
 
Glumly, she reached out, her fingers connecting with his skull as she attempted to heal him. But the flesh protested, and despite her powers, the cupid could not force the bullet out.
 
An outside influence was stopping her.

It was probably Him again

.

Damn His Great Plan

!

She wanted to save the hunter

!
 
Dully, she crossed her legs, cupping her chin in her hands, as she watched the Winchesters acting like panicked ants.

Oh dear

.
 
*****

“I get that you love a man in uniform,” the cupid hissed, not caring that Dean couldn’t hear her. “But couldn’t you have realised your love for one in a trench coat a bit sooner?”
 
The breathless hunter didn’t hear her, too giddy with joy at the prospect of working with his hero. And the fact that she was several dimensions too deep to get across to him.

Sigh

.
 
“I could just leave you,” she mused, eyeing his suited form appreciatively.

Damn

,

if only her brother could see this

. “Drop the great Winchesters and peg it to the other side of the universe. Meddle with star dust. Maybe create a planet or two.”
 
Dean knocked out the suspect with a single punch.
 
“Or maybe not,” Coco muttered, snorting at her fantasy. “You morons need me too much. I may have hated him, but I can’t help but wish for Castiel to be alive again.”
 
*****

The cupid cradled Emma’s soul gently. The poor child had only lived for a week at most, and she couldn’t help but pity the girl.
 
“There, there,” she whispered softly, nuzzling the glowing light. It had only a fraction of her father’s radiance, but even that was enough to outshine a billion others. “It’ll be alright.”
 
A quiet rustling behind her alerted Coco to Arnie’s presence. She turned to him, shared sorrow stamped on their faces.
 
“Give her to me, Coco,” Arnie murmured regretfully. “Monsters belong in Purgatory; you know that.”
 
“She’s only a

child

,” the cupid pleaded, clutching Emma tighter against her chest. “Don’t take her-

please

.”
 
“You know that’s not how it works,” Arnie said stiffly, but his words were reluctant, and -seeing the cracks- Coco pressed her point.
 
“But she’s a Winchester,” she insisted. “Surely, you can do something.  Come on, Arnie: you

know

this isn’t right.”
 
The reaper hesitated, then relented.
 
“I can put her into the Reincarnation Cycle,” he said, holding up a finger when Coco made to squeal with joy. “I can’t say that it’ll work, but hopefully, after a couple of lives her soul will have enough human in to counter the monster genes.”
 
The cupid hugged him slowly, careful of the precious bundle in her arms.
 
“Thank you, Arnie,” she said fervently. “

Thank you

.”
 
*****

Relations between herself and the reaper were somewhat

strained

for a while following the incident, so the cupid avoided him as she waited for the ice between to melt.
 
The humans had a funny saying about that: ‘

time heals all wounds

’.
 
Therefore, instead of bemoaning the sad state of, well,

everything

, Coco decided to follow the Winchesters.

Sam’s in a sorry state

, she reflected glumly, pressing her fingers to his forehead yet again, in an attempt to relieve his sleep deprivation. Removing madness was beyond her abilities, but she managed to hold off the symptoms of his ordeal for a while. If the hunter ever wondered how he’d stayed on his feet for so long, she doubted he’d suspect a cupid of all people.
 
Still, eventually it was too much even for her, and when the younger brother was interned in the psychiatric ward, Coco followed Dean.
 
“Emmanuel will do nothing but cut your purse strings!” she grumbled in the passenger seat of the Impala. Dean drove on, oblivious to her annoyance. She was still a little bitter that she had failed his little brother.
 
Sighing, Coco sat back in the leather seat, surveying the world flying by. Of course, automotive travel had nothing on her wings, but for a human invention, it certainly had

something

going for it. Quietly, even though Dean would notice nothing (

the colossal dolt

!), the cupid added a few runes to the car’s engine.
 
She would run a bit faster for longer now. That much the cupid could do.
 
*****

As Dean stabbed the demon, Coco stiffened, her wings rising in an involuntary display as she stared at the man before her. The dead had come alive again.

He

was here.
 
Castiel stared at Dean in unmasked confusion, fixing the hunter in place with his unwavering gaze. He seemed strangely unharmed for an angel who’d been dead for months.
 
Almost immediately, the cupid had to flinch away from the blinding light of the elder Winchester’s soul. Since her brother had died, Coco has become used to the gradual dimming of the human’s soul, but with Castiel’s resurrection, the brilliant radiance was back with full force.

Why won’t you let me be

! the cupid screamed mentally. She had only just come to accept his death, let go of her anger, and now he was back?

Why wouldn’t he just

go away?
 
Still, Castiel was her assignment- Coco would see it through to the end. She would be professional and take advantage of the situation.
 
But then he had to ruin it:
 
“What was that?” Castiel asked in bewilderment.
 
*****

Inside, Ca-

Emmanuel

released the bound woman. His hands cradled hers tenderly, ensuring that she was alright. The cupid was about as speechless as her charge; Dean was staring at the angel with unabashed astonishment.
 
“I’m Emmanuel,” he said calmly, looking upon Dean as though they were equals. He stretched out a hand.
 
“...Dean- I’m... Dean,” the elder Winchester stumbled, and Coco had to suppress a bitter laugh. She could almost hear the cogs turning.
 
“Thank you for protecting my wife,” Castiel continued solemnly, still showing no signs of recognition.
 
Transfixed, the hunter was unable to tear his eyes away from him, and she winced as she felt the glowing warmth of his soul curl away from her brother suddenly. His light retreated, contracted and burrowed closer into him, not a single part reaching out to the angel.
 
Castiel would never know what he’d missed. What he had thrown away.
 
“Your wife?” Dean said dumbly, almost unable to speak as his brain scrambled to catch up; stunned by the revelation. “Right…”
 
But

Emmanuel

had already turned back to his

wife

.
 
Spitefully, the cupid spat at him, regretting it as a glob of celestial saliva landed on his wings. The feathery appendages were safely tucked away in the ethereal plain, but she knew that if he regained his memories, Castiel would feel the viscous liquid like a drill in his brain.
 
Panicking, Coco scrambled to wipe it off, completely missing the next few lines of dialogue as she dabbed at it frantically. Finally, it was gone, and the cupid relaxed, tuning back into the conversation to hear the last words:
 
“What’s your issue?” Castiel asked, appearing for all the world to see as a good, kind,

caring

Samaritan. Dean floundered for a moment, as if trying to remember his original purpose. Then his soul crept out from behind its walls, and his jaw clenched in resolution.
 
“My brother.”

*****
 
“Hello,” Coco murmured, her eyes lingering on the other angel’s trueform pityingly. It had been a while since her brother had taken Sam’s madness, and it was beginning to show in his twitching mandibles.
 
“Hello,” Castiel replied, his smile wide and crinkly, as he brightened to find another person. He was heartbreakingly innocent, especially as she knew what had caused him to become so. “You are not like my other visitors. Do you like the bees as well?”
 
She hesitated, casting a glance out towards door. His demon caretaker was still otherwise occupied.
 
“Yes, they’re rather interesting,” the cupid replied simply, deferring any mention of her true name. “I’m your sister.”
 
“Oh!” he said, his gaze sliding away from her as his face took on a panicked cast. “I hope you are not like my other siblings. I hurt them quite a bit.”
 
“Yes,” Coco murmured, sitting beside him quietly. “Yes, you did.”
 
They sat in silence for a while, and the cupid was content to wait for her brother to speak before she heard him humming something absently.
 
“Is that-” she started, straightening in surprise. “Is that ‘

Ode To Aphrodite

’?”
 
“Sappho was a fascinating composer,” Castiel answered, smiling off into the middle distance. “It’s a shame none of her scores survived. I met her once,” he confided furtively, adopting a sly tone of voice. “I was in a female vessel at the time, you see, and when I revived her dead lover, she became convinced I was the pagan goddess.”
 
“I see,” she replied, pausing for a moment. “Castiel… I came to tell you I forgive you.”
 
The other angel didn’t reply, so Coco pressed on.
 
“I understand that it wasn’t truly your fault,” she admitted, biting out the words. Even though she’d had time to reflect on it, it still hurt to say them. “What you did to Anna. It was the programming. And- and, I

realise

,” Coco continued, gritting her teeth as she forced herself to speak, “That I pinned the blame on you, not on the people who were really responsible. That the mistakes you made most recently were because you were trying to help our charges. And I can understand that. Well, I can

now

, in any case...”
 
The cupid trailed off, waiting for Castiel to speak, but when she looked over, the seraph was fixated on the ant crawling over his finger.
 
“Brother?” she prompted hesitantly.
 
“Hello!” Castiel jerked around in surprise, his eyes widening as they landed on her. “You’re not like my other visitors. Do you like bees as well? I like ants, but not as much as bees. Still, it’s endearing the way they work together…”
 
Somehow feeling worse than when she came, Coco fled the room, wiping tears of frustration away roughly as she went.

Things would get better

,

wouldn’t they

? Even so, she breathed deeply, resolving to do the best she could.
 
*****

Nooooo

, the cupid thought, backing away from the pulsing corpse of Dick Roman,

not a chance

.

Nah

,

nopity

,

nopity

,

no

!
 
She jumped back, her wings twitching in agitation as she tried to choose between saving her charges and getting the Swansea out of Hull.

Ah

,

screw it

, Coco grumbled mentally, but just as soon as she stepped forward to zap them out, Roman’s body splattered apart.
 
The explosion had a strange double effect: those too close to the blast were sucked into God knows where, but beings as pure as herself (

or so she liked to think

) beyond a certain range were jettisoned away by the force of the released energy.

And unfortunately

, she found, scrubbing herself free of goo with the gritty mud of the Indus River,

Castiel and Dean were not in the latter

.

Drat

.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The cupid surveyed Sam skeptically.
 
“No,” she said decisively, snapping her fingers at him. “No, no no-

that

is

not

happening!”
 
The human was trying to decide between two plaid shirts, each one as hideous as the other. Coco wrinkled her nose in distaste.
 
“Bone yellow and oyster grey?” she sniffed with disgust. “I should think not!”
 
Irritably, the cupid dropped her head back, groaning aloud. Ever since Dean and Castiel had landed in Purgatory, her life had been nothing but

boring

. She was trying to watch over Sam, if only to see that he didn’t kill himself disposing of monsters, but the retired hunter had done exactly that.

Retire

.

Ugh

.

At least her other charges added some spice to life

, she grumbled to herself. Okay, so she was trying- Father help her-

trying

to help Sam with his love life. That was the least she could do as a cupid, but he didn’t even make it difficult! All she had to do was organise his wardrobe and prod his thoughts occasionally to stop him from messing up. It was.

Just

.

So

.

DULL

.
 
“Damn you Castiel,” Coco muttered, flicking her fingers so the younger Winchester’s eyes would land on a navy and pearl plaid shirt. It was only slightly less monstrous than the rest of his clothing. “You and your

stupid

match have ruined me for the rest!”
 
*****

“I wish he’d do something more exciting than go on bloody picnics,” the cupid grumbled, gnawing on a toffee apple as she surveyed the happy couple.

Bah

!

Best worker in the Office

,

and

this

was what she was reduced to

!?
 
A warm wetness pooled on the thighs of her trousers, and she looked down in disgust to find the younger Winchester’s hound drooling on them. It’s caramel eyes were fixed on her sickly sweet treat. Carefully, Coco held it out of reach, shifting on the dewed grass in discomfort as its gaze followed the amber orb.
 
“Oh, go away!” she cried at the dog, flapping at it with her hands. “You’re just a stupid mutt- stop that!”
 
It

uffed

at her happily, panting hot, damp breaths on her previously spotless slacks.

Ugh

:

she’d have to wait it out

.
 
Eventually, after fifteen minutes of vexed glaring, the cupid gave in, and fondled the shaggy ears delicately, moving the apple out to a safer range.
 
“How are you even able to see me?” Coco grumbled, scritching it under the chin reluctantly. “You’re not even a cat.”
 
The dog whined again, and she groaned in frustration.
 
“Fine,” she sniffed, retrieving some meat from an unfortunate butcher. The beast fell upon the snacks immediately, and the cupid used the distraction to fly away.

Hah

! The cupid thought spitefully, grinning around a mouthful of toffee apple viciously.

That’ll show him

!
 
*****

It’s funny how quickly things can change

, Coco mulled one day, nearly a year after her charges’ tumble into Purgatory. Warmly, she watched the happy couple make dinner together, Amelia laughing as she corrected Sam’s fumbling mistakes. They’d made a life together, and the cupid sighed contentedly as she found she was no longer needed.

Still

, Coco though childishly.

There’s no harm in one more day, wasn’t there

? She could stay here, with the beginnings of a happy family, and pretend it was her own- if only for a while… Then the cupid would return to Heaven. Wistfully, she remembered the cuddle piles in the Great Library, and winced guiltily as she realised she hadn’t spoken to Penemue and Co. for almost a year.
 
Anyhow, the cupid snickered happily: they had eternity to amend old mistakes. Humming quietly, she began peeling an apple with her angel blade, thinking about the future-

SHRIIING

!!!
 
The metal sliced her finger, and the apple went tumbling through the floor and the Earth below as the cupid shrieked in agony, all the lights in the house flickering as her grace felt an explosion of sensation she hadn’t felt in a year. Coco clutched her head in pain, whimpering as she realised what had happened:

Dean Winchester had returned.

*****

Later, after the brothers had reunited, the cupid watched over the elder Winchester. He’d taken the floor instead of the bed, which puzzled the angel: the hunter had lived in motels all his life,

surely

he knew the carpets weren’t safe? Sighing, she wandered into the next room, settling down to watch the programme playing on the television.
 
A telenovela.

Wonderful

.
 
*****
 
Hours later, distress pinged on the cupid’s radar, and she poked her head through the wall automatically, tearing herself away from the engrossing show she hadn’t meant to get so involved with.
 
“Cassss… No- No- Cas!” Dean groaned pitifully, writhing on the floor. “Where’re you?

Cas

! Come

back

!”
 
His fingers clenched and released the rumpled blankets he’d nearly shed in his discomfort, searching for someone who would never return. Coco’s collective hearts wrenched: she didn’t know what was worse, watching his debilitating grief or knowing Dean’s pleas for Castiel were hopeless. Purgatory was a trap for all things supernatural, whatever the origin. There was nothing she could do.
 
However, her charge was still in pain, and Coco dithered helplessly as she weighed up her options.
 
It was clear Dean was longing for Castiel, that much was obvious, but the human had only ever seen the physical facade her brother wore. The hunter’s memories of him were sensory, having never fully perceived the wonder of Castiel’s true form- despite their meeting in Hell- so perhaps there was something she could do.
 
Faster than the speed of light, the cupid zapped around all the drugstores and supermarkets surrounding Pontiac, Illinois. Relatively, it took some time, but finally, she returned with the required items.
 
Jimmy Novak had been especially fond of a certain kind of apple shampoo and body-wash, and after years of surrounding the scent, his trenchcoat and clothes had taken it on. Castiel’s vessel (at least to her refined nasal cells) practically

stank

of the fruit. It was no wonder that Dean associated her brother with the smell.
 
Carefully, using the several hundred bottles she’d…

Liberated

from the shops, Coco distilled an oil of apples. It was similar in design to the lavender kind parents dabbed on their children’s pillows to induce sleep, and that was exactly what she planned to do with it.
 
Delicately, she sprinkled some on his blankets, even lifting his head gently to leave a few light droplets near his face. Soon, Dean would be surrounded by the crisp scent, warmed and comforted by the familiar smell of his best friend. She even doused a few of his more worn clothes so he could keep the idea of the angel with him during the day.
 
And sure enough, the hunter stilled, lulled into a peaceful sleep by the illusion of Castiel’s presence.
 
Even in absentia.
 
*****

Coco liked Linda Tran

very

much. The woman’s briskness appealed to her, and she enjoyed the way she took no nonsense whatsoever.
 
The petite woman overcame all obstacles in her path, despite her teenage son’s occasional foolishness: for a prophet, he could be exceedingly dim sometimes.
 
She had a feeling that if the woman were ever a cupid, she would be

extremely

efficient.
 
*****

Castiel was back.
 
Again.
 
The cupid stared aghast at the angel, who had defied the natural order once again, and was standing right there before her eyes.

How

! She had made her peace with him, she had put to rest her hate and been somewhat relieved when he’d disappeared into Purgatory, even feigned annoyance at never seeing his face again, but now her brother was back!
 
Gaping in shock, Coco shook her head violently, trying to return her thoughts to their natural path. Castiel was on Earth- so what? This made her job infinitely easier, given that the other necessary ingredient was present.
 
Once more, she needed to put aside her own emotions and return to the task at hand.
 
Dean seemed to be feeling the same paralysed stupefaction as she did. The hunter remained silent while his brother talked excitedly, only managing to mumble monosyllabic answers whenever they were required.
 
But not once did he take his eyes off Castiel.
 
In contrast, her brother seemed to be avoiding his gaze at every turn. Before, it had seemed that nothing but a miracle could disrupt their magnetised staring, but here was the same angel, who had never understood foolish rules like personal space, doing everything he could not to be caught in Dean’s omnipresent scrutiny.
 
“What are you hiding, brother?” the cupid murmured, resting her chin on the palm of her hand as she surveyed the room.

This

had

certainly

piqued her interest…
 
*****

Coco covered her mouth in horror:

Castiel had stayed in Purgatory out of his own free will

?

An

angel

in the land of monsters

?
 
And worse yet, it wasn’t even to deliver divine justice upon the creatures- no, her brother had remained there out of some perverse sense of penance. Unknowingly, he’d let Dean believe it was his own fault, adding the unnecessary weight to his own soul when it could have been avoided altogether.
 
Even now, with the truth revealed, the cupid saw that the hunter didn’t release his guilt. The man only added the digging burden to his overbearing load- refusing to let go in the face of the possibility that it was not his fault.
 
She sniffed slightly, allowing a watery smile to break through: despite the pain, despite her despairing of the two, she was beginning to hope that there may be a chance for them. From what she could tell, Dean loved the angel so much, his rebelling brain had rewritten his memories, so he could be the one to blame- be the one who had left Castiel in that stinking,

fetid

place.
 
He couldn’t compute the chance that her brother could sever all ties with him.
 
Furthermore, Coco saw the deeper meaning in Castiel’s words:
 
“It’s where I belonged. I needed to do penance, for the things I did on Earth and in Heaven.”
 
Castiel’s time on Earth- his memories, struggles and hopes- could all be boiled down to one thing: Dean Winchester. And even if her brother didn’t quite realise it himself yet, she knew all too well what he was saying when he stated those words.
 
‘

I needed to do penance for the trouble I’ve caused you, for the things I’ve done to harm you

’.
 
Even if he was still too inexperienced to understand, Castiel was very much in love with Dean Winchester.

*****

Oh boy, oh boy

,

oh boy

, the cupid chanted mentally, almost hyperventilating.

They might be about to do it

!

About to have the sex

!
 
She had to muffle a delighted scream as she surveyed the scene: the hunter and the angel were alone in the motel, having a serious heart-to-heart- or at least what passed for one within these set perameters.

It was almost too much to ask for

,

but she was damn well demanding it anyway

.
 
Biting her cheek in anticipation, the cupid dialed up the heat slightly, enjoying the way Castiel’s eyes traced over the faint flush staining Dean’s cheeks. All she had to do was ensure they got there, then the cupid could escape.

And holy Sheffield

,

did she want them to get there

.
 
Not even paying attention to the dialogue, Coco nearly squealed as Dean wandered over to the other bed.

Not long now

!

C

’

mon

, she urged them mentally. Even if she had been hoping for love, maybe the physical act of joining would be enough to release her. Coco had grown fond of the Winchesters (and Co. only recently), but she still longed for her home.
 
Then what her brother said registered:
 
“I’m afraid I might kill myself.”
 
Her mouth snapped shut, and she stared with shock as the other angel dropped the bombshell.
 
She’d seen the defeated set of his shoulders in the past few days, that much was true, but had she been ignoring it on purpose?

Whatever was she to do if he died again

?

The match wouldn’t be completed otherwise, and there couldn’t possibly be anything worse than that

?

Could there

?
 
The silence stretched on, perhaps only for a few seconds, but that brief period of time was enough to last centuries.
 
Then Dean opened his mouth to say something, but Sam barged in, bringing new details for the case.
 
The moment was broken, and they all moved on.
 
*****

Cautiously, the cupid moved closer to the scene. The sigil were long gone, but she hadn’t felt safe enough to enter until Crowley’s dark presence was gone.
 
“They’re controlling us, Castiel!” The broken angel hissed, his voice growing stronger as Coco crept towards them.
 
“

What

do you

mean

?” her brother growled, his normally stoic face showing uncharacteristic panic.
 
Then, in the space of a nanosecond, his form flickered. Coco flinched, jerking back as she felt a biting cold emanate from him. Castiel stiffened slowly, his features flattening as he took on an absent stillness. Suddenly, his blade slid into his hand, and, between one heartbeat and the next, he buried the dagger hilt deep in his sibling’s body.
 
The cupid choked in fear, stifling the shameful noise with her hand:

Castiel had

-

he’d

-

he’d killed their brother

!

Why

!?
 
Realisation struck her like chimera on steroids- the colder scent, the blank face, his unnecessary actions!

He was being controlled

.
 
Upstairs had its fingers in more pots than she’d realised.
 
Still, the realisation didn’t fully compute until Dean and Sam stumbled across the scene.
 
“Cas!” Sam gasped. “What the hell happened?”
 
Again, his body flashed out of sight.
 
“He was compromised,” Castiel recited woodenly, raising his head in a resurgence of the robotic fashion he’d lost over time. The angel stood suddenly, never once making eye-contact with the other men as he stared over their heads. “He came at me. I killed him in self-defence.”
 
“Cas? You okay?” Dean urged, his eyes widening as he traced the trickle of blood emerging from his eye. Coco’s heart clenched: Castiel had fought the programming, but now he was defeated.

This was not good

.
 
Her brother rubbed it away automatically, sparing it only the briefest concern.
 
“My vessel must have been damaged in the melee,” he stated, not caring about the obvious falsity of the words. For a moment, his features regained a facsimile of motion, but then he ruined it: “I must go; Samandriel’s remains belong in Heaven.”
 
“Oh dear,” the cupid murmured fretfully, worrying at her bow string. “You’re playing right into their hands.”
 
“Cas, wait!” Dean blurted, as Castiel sank to his knees to gather their brother’s body.
 
“Thank you. Both,” he replied blankly, looking away. “For everything you’ve done.”
 
Not waiting for a reply, he flew off, leaving Dean’s ‘Cas!’ to echo in the cool night air.
 
*****

“Winchesters! Coming out of the closet since 2013!” Coco snarled savagely, tearing into her rainbow belts with wild abandon. “If only that were the case!”
 
She growled around the sugared, gay bacon, letting the sweetness placate her slightly as she watched Henry Winchester bleed out on the warehouse floor.
 
“You,” she spat, gesturing in the general direction of the brothers. “Are well and truly

screwed

.”
 
*****

“Oh, so you’re not having a gay moment, are you?” The cupid snarked, once again irritated with the hunter. “Couldn’t you just be… Getting bi?”
 
*****

“Fucking

shit

.”
 
*****

Coco glared at the nondescript door.

Or

-

pardon her French

-

the bane of her bloody existence

.
 
The Men of Letters Bunker was one of the most highly warded places on the planet. It kept everything out, and unfortunately, that meant her too.
 
Earlier, she’d tried to enter with the Winchesters, but the damned hunk of metal had thrown her out before she could even try. The cupid had tried touching it, but the surface had seared her hand pretty nastily. Later, she’d attempted it in the mundane plain, but even though it didn’t burn her that time, she still needed a key to open it.

Buggering Blackpool

!
 
Just as she was settling down to wait for morning, she felt a burst of longing from Dean. It had only grown since Castiel had returned to Heaven, but obviously the hunter had been tamping it down- ignoring his emotions in the classic style of the Winchesters.
 
Coco winced, trying to dampen the bond slightly. Now that he’d released the tight grip he held on it, the wave of longing held the spiritual power of a nuclear bomb. Even if Castiel wasn’t actively putting an ear in to whatever Dean had to say, he’d feel that surge of melancholic energy wash over him like a never-ending tsunami.
 
She hoped he listened soon.
 
*****

Coco followed the pair silently, flitting through the crypt walls as she kept an eye on them. Castiel- for all she knew- was still under the control of Upstairs, Dean was still none the wiser, and she was still not allowed to interfere.

Bugger

.
 
The other angel’s form flickered, then his features flattened once more, and he pointed towards the dusty wooden chest.
 
“Dean,” he called gravely, and the cupid had to suppress an annoyed sigh, as the human’s head whipped round so fast, she was afraid he’d get whiplash. “That’s it.”
 
“How’d you know?” Dean asked curiously, moving closer.
 
“It’s the only thing in here warded against angels,” Castiel explained, but there was no emotion in his words, as he watched the hunter remove the stone-encased tablet. Only cold anticipation.
 
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” Dean murmured, before Castiel interrupted him impatiently.
 
“Good. Hand it to me, and I’ll take it to Heaven.”
 
“No,” the elder Winchester said slowly, bringing the tablet closer to his chest. “We will take it to Kevin so he can translate.”
 
“Right. Of course,” her brother blustered, trying to cover up his mistake. “I'll take it to him right away. No time to waste.”

“Well, he's not that far,” Dean said defensively, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “I've been meaning to... go check on him, bring him some supplies.”
 
Castiel flitted in and out of the ethereal plane, too fast for the human eye to register, and the cupid tensed her wings, preparing for flight should something bad happen. If worse came to worst, she could sacrifice her mission, and save Dean, but at best it would ruin the pair’s chances, if not get both of them killed.
 
She’d never forgotten that Castiel was a soldier.
 
“How did you get out of Purgatory, Cas?” Dean questioned. The angel flickered once more, but this time, the cupid saw the cementing of grim, manufactured resolution sink into his being. The human pressed his point, continuing to speak even as the seraph’s angel blade slipped into his hand. “If you're in there and you can hear me, you don't have to do this-“
 
Castiel attacked, swinging with the same precise movements she’d studied over the past few years. Shocked, Dean gasped out a frantic “

Cas

!”, as he blocked the blow with the tablet.
 
Again and again, he struck Dean, first attempting with his dagger, and the with his hands. All the while, his form flickered in and out of view, as the human took each hit. Eventually, some of the human’s babbling pleas broke through to him:
 
“I know you can hear me. Cas…” Dean slurred, trembling as he stared up at Castiel with one eye swelled shut. “It’s

me

- we're

family

. We need you.

I

need you.”
 
The angel disappeared for a split second, and returned.
 
“

Cas

.”

CLANG

.
 
The blade dropped from his hand, the metallic noise echoing around the cold room as he bent to retrieve the tablet numbly.
 
“Cas?” Dean panted, almost crying from the pain and fear. “Cas?”
 
Her brother buckled slightly, and reached for Dean with a near-tender look on his face. The hunter shrank away from him at first, clearly expecting a killing blow, but Castiel merely wiped the evidence of his violence away. Coco breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing her wings. Dean blinked up at Castiel in shock, and the cupid let herself hope that this would be the moment that they-!
 
It was not.

Milton Keynes

!

ARGH!

The other angel helped Dean to rise, explaining, in an intimate murmur, that he had no idea what broke through the programming. The cupid snorted indelicately.
 
“Hmm, I

wonder

,” Coco said shrewdly, peering at the two. “Connect the events,

brother

, you’re not

that

thick.”
 
Maybe it was time to break out the rose petals.

Maybe

.

*****

“You know,” the cupid muttered, following Castiel onto the countless Greyhound bus of that day. “When I decided to follow you, I didn’t realise it would mean complete boredom and ridiculous repetition.”
 
Unsurprisingly, the angel didn’t reply, only leaning against the window more heavily. Not wanting to spend another trip in the luggage rail, the cupid dropped down next to him and examined the bane of her existence. Castiel’s face, despite the constant influx of grace, was beginning to look haggard and weary- the glaring white lights revealing all faults as the Greyhound sped away into the night.
 
He sighed, shifting in discomfort. Coco would have been surprised, if not for the constant, familiar and yet foreign warmth of the angel tablet. It pulsed again, and Castiel winced in pain, the heated stone shifting beneath his skin.

The damn thing had been doing that a lot

, the cupid mused, leaning against the stinking chair.

She couldn’t afford to lose him

, Coco reminded herself sleepily, blinking heavily. The aura of the stone was jamming the signal of the bond, cancelling it almost completely.

She might get a few winks in

.

Just maybe

…
 
*****

Yawning, Coco roused from her meditation as the bus pulled into a town. She looked around blearily, marvelling at the clear view out of the window, the late morning sun basking everything in liquid gold.

Wow

, she thought idly, smiling at the Fibonacci spirals and formulaic plants,

the

wonder

of our Father’s creation

.
 
Then it hit her.
 
She could see out of the window, because

Castiel was gone

!
 
Frantically, the cupid flapped out of the bus, winging her way back to the last station with previously untapped speed. But it was all for nothing, she realised in dismay: there had been at least three others since she’d fallen asleep (

something she hadn’t thought was possible

), and there were hundreds of places her brother could have gone to.
 
Castiel was well and truly in the wind.

Bollocks

.
 
Irritated with herself, Coco flew off to find her other charges. If any psychic was in the area, they would have wondered at the being made up of pure, condensed rage.
 
*****

“Bobby was in

Hell

!?”

*****

“That’s

Naomi

!? You complete and utter

COW

! When I get my hands on you I’ll-!”

*****

“For one thing,” Coco hissed, huddled in the back seat of the Impala. She crossed her arms across her stomach, feeling as self-righteous as it was possible for an angel to get- which, as it turned out, was

a lot

. “I am not

happy

that you went and spoke with the

Scribe

of

God

.”
 
The brothers ignored her, except for a minute further wrinkling of Sam’s brow, and she buffed in annoyance, scowling at them. The presence of Metatron had set her teeth on edge, and she hadn’t dared to get close to him.

Slimy cur

:

his dialogue was clunky as

sin.
 
“

Furthermore-

” the cupid started, getting into her groove, but then the younger Winchester turned to peer into the back. She shrank back, her mouth snapping shut as his eyes passed right over her.
 
“Sammy?” Dean asked, checking the rear-view mirror. “What’re you doing?”
 
“Nothing…” Sam murmured, coughing slightly. They turned back to the road, and a few minutes passed in silence, before the car came screeching to a halt. Coco was thrown forward, and she stared in confusion before her brain finally registered the bloodied body on the road before them.
 
“

Cas

?” Dean gasped, scrambling to help the angel. As he was lifted, Castiel crumpled into his arms gladly, and she would have savoured their reunion, were it not for the gaping wound in his stomach.
 
****

The next morning, Coco looked on mutinously. Finally, she’d managed to enter the Bunker, avoiding the door by the narrowest margin- and for what? Dean was blanking Castiel, and when he wasn’t being as cold as the 9th Circle, he was tearing into her brother for trusting in the wrong people.

Bollocking piss.

In the end, the cupid took to following them around aimlessly, only perking up when she saw the dungeon.

It was annoying to watch their interactions

, she mused, noting yet another slight from Dean.

So much hard work ruined, and yet the human was still acting like a wounded housewife

.
 
Eventually, the brothers left, and Castiel made his exit soon after. Idly, she followed him to one of the American grocery stores, smirking as she watched him gather items to please Dean with. Just to spite him, Coco nicked the last pie, only a few minutes before he approached the counter. She ate it with relish, licking the gooey cherry from her fingers as she watched him accost the salesperson.
 
A familiar presence flew in behind her.
 
Metatron.

Cheltenham

.
 
Frantically, the cupid booked it, flying as far away from them as possible: as much as she didn’t want to leave him to the higher angel, Coco was terrified of the Scribe finding her out. That would not do

at all

.
 
So, to Sam it was.
 
*****

Crowley was talkative. Unsurprisingly.
 
The demon moaned and groaned with each injection, weeping at intervals with alarming displays of emotion. At one point, he did show his more infernal colours, attempting to summon backup, but that backfired massively.
 
It didn’t matter though. The mess was dealt with, soon enough.
 
However, Coco found it encouraging to watch Sam’s soul become steadily lighter. Over the years, she’d barely noticed his soul in comparison to his brother’s amazing glow, but now that they were alone (

relatively

), she began to notice the enormous burden he’d been carrying lessen. It was gradual, but the change was still there. She smiled lightly, glad of the improvement in his spirits. After all, she was rather fond of Sam, and it was rather good to see him forgive himself.
 
There were occasional crackles of some strange energy across the aether, but she dismissed them to watch the proceedings more carefully.

They were probably just the final trial

, the cupid reminded herself quietly.

No need to worry

.
 
As the fateful hour approached, Coco found herself growing steadily more tense, as the concentration of demonic energy in the room increased, contained within the holy walls of the church. If she looked at Crowley, she could see the darkness seeping it of his soul sluggishly, leaving it as pure as a newborn child’s. If he made sure not to return to his evil roots, the soon-to-be-ex-demon would be sure to go to Heaven.
 
He might not reach it, but he was bound to head there.
 
Finally, Sam entered to the circle for the final dose. By this point, Crowley was barely conscious, his body trying to cope with the changes being made to his soul. Occasionally, he moaned, pulling at the chains slightly, but for the most part he was still.
 
The younger Winchester brother sliced his palm, slapping it over the almost-human’s mouth, chanting the sacred words.
 
At the last possible second, Dean hurled through the door, and the cupid blinked in surprise as he strode over to Sam, ready to tear his hand away.
 
But Sam released the last word, and the world was forever changed.
 
A single burst of power- of the likes she had never seen before- exploded from the room. All of the energy that had been drawing closer around the chair released at once, throwing Coco off her feet and jettisoning her far away.
 
She scrambled to her feet, staring at the field she’d landed in with shock. Shakily, Coco drew a hand over her face.

At least Hell was dealt with

, she thought numbly.
 
Then, just as she’d calmed her racing pulse, another sensation burned through her being, tearing down her spine, racing through her wings. The cupid gasped in pain, as the alien feeling turned to agony.
 
It destroyed her wings.
 
It ripped at her grace.
 
It cut off Heaven

forever

.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Arnie!” Coco screamed desperately, looking round the empty field as the reality of her situation began to sink in. “Arnie! Help me! Arnie please, help me!”
 
“Coco?” came Arnie’s horrified whisper behind her as he appeared a few feet away.
 
She spun, moaning in pain as her broken and blistered wings shifted, and fell to all fours, unable to cope with the agony of her very being burning up. He hurried over to her, running careful hands over the cracked and swelling skin. Coco shuddered, mewling at the bone-deep hurt it inspired.
 
“I can’t,” he murmured, his normally soft voice bordering on hysteria, as he pressed his hands to the wings over and over trying desperately to pour power into them. “I can’t heal them! Coco, what’s going on? Why can’t I heal you!?”
 
“The angels, Arnie,” Coco mumbled, staring up at the fiery sky numbly. “We’re falling.”
 
And they stayed there, in that dark and cold field, until the falling bodies, that burned so brightly even the stars were outshone, were gone and the sky was empty.
 
The sun crept over the horizon, shining for the first time on that new and terrible world.
 
*****

“What do you mean you can’t fly?” Coco grumbled as they tramped along the rough road. Her wings were hurting like a bitch, and it was taking everything she could not to let them drag along the road. “You’re not an angel! You didn’t fall,”
 
“Yeah, but I’m not human either,” Arnie snapped, his ruffled hair looking unfairly stylish in the weak morning light. “I guess people just forget that reapers are derived from angels, and as a result of the Fall, can no longer access all the powers that they used to have-“
 
“So what?” the cupid interrupted, sneering at him. Okay, maybe she was being a bit childish, but she had also just lost her livelihood, family and home in one blow.
 
“So, I can’t fly you anywhere you damn well please!” the reaper said hotly, before deflating slightly. “Look, I need some time to recharge, okay?”
 
She sighed her assent, and they continued on in silence for a few minutes. By this point, the sun had made steady progress into the sky, only to be defeated by a wall of cloud. Eventually, Coco managed to push her oozing wings further into the ethereal plain, sighing with relief as it took the burning pressure away. She rolled her shoulders, delighted at the freedom of movement, and turned to Arnie to tell him-
 
“What do we have here?” a snide voice called, and the two spun around to find a posse of demons smirking at them. The leader waved her pilfered angel blade at them languidly. “Two little angels all on their own?”
 
“Well, fuck,” Arnie said intelligently, and the demon threw her head back, snarling aloud into a savage laugh.
 
“That’s not a nice thing for dear, sweet angels to say?” she mocked, opening her arms wide. “Now, come and apologise to Mummy. If you say it nicely, maybe she won’t

carve your eyes out

.”
 
At once the demons rushed them. Coco fumbled her blade, unused to employing it, and only just managed to bury it in the first before the second was upon her.
 
Suddenly, a sunflower yellow VW minivan came barreling round the corner, an exorcism playing from hidden speakers. The demons that had beset them fell to their knees, groaning in agony as the 1970’s bus skidded to a halt.
 
A skinny, pale vessel, freckled so thickly that there were only a few square inches of unmarked skin, threw the doors open.
 
“Get in, malakhim!” Eracus roared over the recording, a feral grin on xer features. Penemue revved the car enthusiastically. “Time to rock and roll!”
 
Frantically, gasping for breath, Arnie and Coco leaped inside the van’s cushioned interior, and before the other librarian had even closed the door, Penemue took off with a exhilarated scream, laughing maniacally.
 
“

Whatthefukwhatthefuckwhatthefuck

,” Arnie muttered, his words running together in shock as he pressed his body against the side. Eracus sniggered, pulling the back door shut.
 
“I know right?” Penemue called, slapping the dash. “Sweet set of wheels alright! I’m so lucky my vessel had this instead of a Prius!”
 
“And

I

,” Eracus said fondly, settling into her seat. “Am lucky that my vessel was your vessel’s girlfriend. Don’t think I could have stood searching the world for you.”
 
Penemue

awed,

looking up to blow the other librarian a kiss in the rear-view mirror.
 
“Um,” Coco interrupted, panicking slightly. “What’s going on?”

“We just saved you, and now we’re going to get greasy takeaway food,” Eracus explained, looking out the back window. “But first, we’re going to weave around a bit, try to lose the demons you two ran into.”
 
“And then what?”
 
“We’re going to lose

ourselves

.”
 
*****

“

Aww yes

,” Eracus muttered triumphantly, as xe brought the burning lighter to the unlit spliff. “I always wanted to try human drugs.”
 
The lanky librarian took a deep drag, relishing the smoke, before turning to Coco.
 
“So where did you get the meat suit?” Xe asked, appraising her body as xe inhaled more smoke. They had pulled off the road after scarfing the promised meal, and were now seated around a campfire, the bright yellow minibus turned amber by the flickering flames.
 
Coco looked down at her Latino vessel, running a hand through her dark hair.
 
“Round about the 16th century,” she answered. “I had a male one before that, but he disintegrated when a demon thought I was encroaching on his territory. Valeria’s been with me ever since. Well, until around 100 years ago. She asked me to send her soul up to Heaven, and I let her go.”
 
“I thought your bloodline had lots of people, male and female,” Arnie said absently, craning his head back to look at the stars. “What made you choose a girl?”
 
The cupid stared at her chest.
 
“My true form has venom pouches, just about here,” she replied, motioning to her upper torso. “Male’s don’t have them, and, well… I like boobs.”
 
“Same,” Penemue agreed, nodding as she passed the joint to Coco. “Except… Not really? I just find penises a bit weird in all honesty. That’s why I’m in a female.”
 
“Well,

lucky

you,” Eracus grumbled, snagging the spliff from the cupid and taking a long drag. “Having so many possibles. I always wanted a penis, but because my bloodline is down to a baby and

this

,” xe said, gesturing to xyr body. “I get this thing: a vessel with a slimy hole and jiggly bits.”
 
“But what’s so great about penises?” The other librarian argued, swatting xem round the head as she tried to take the joint from him. “They’re just short, nonprehensile tentacles!”
 
“Can you imagine, though,” Coco murmured, a wide smile spreading across her face as she felt the drugs finally affecting her. “If penises

were

prehensile. Wouldn’t it be weird?”
 
Arnie laughed, using his arm to make a leviathan-esque sock puppet thing as he waved it back and forth, opening and closing his fingers.
 
“

Mew, mew, mew

.”
 
“Arnie, what the hell.”
 
The reaper just rolled his eyes and leaned forward to inspect the other two angels. His easy grin was cast in amber by the flickering flames.
 
“So,” he said, smirking at them. “The Great Library. What’s it like? Any shenanigans? Nefarious doings?”
 
“Mate,” Coco laughed uncontrollably, clapping him on the shoulder. She was

never

doing drugs again. “You’ve been looking at too much of Winchester’s porn!”
 
He shoved her lightly, accepting the smoking spliff as Eracus guffawed.
 
“Nothing of that sort, thank Coventry,” xe chuckled, scratching odd enochian symbols in the dirt. “But this one time, Raphael came in, and-“
 
“He wanted to know about the supposed powers of the ‘magical healing dick’,” Penemue chortled, almost breathless from the memory and the drugs. “Some hack had been praying to him, accidentally of course, while reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fanfic!”
 
“So, he comes up to me, this great hulking archangel, and looks me right in the eye, like this,” Eracus continued, shifting in place as xe locked gazes with Coco, struggling to keep a straight face. “And says, ‘I want you to impart all knowledge of the ‘magical healing dick’ into me’.”
 
The four beings fell about laughing, and sighed as one, staring at the kaleidoscope sky. Slowly, the flames of their small fire faded as they continued to exchange stories of their past.
 
“Did I ever tell you about that time with Gabriel and the Virgin Mary in Tibet? Well, she wasn’t a virgin by the end…”
 
*****

“So,” Arnie interjected the next day, as they were driving down a particularly long stretch of road. The cupid had never realised before

just how endless

American highways were. “Where

are

we going?”
 
Silence filled the van, as Penemue turned the radio down. She exchanged a glance with Eracus, who was flipping through a map in the passenger seat, before meeting their eyes in the rear-view mirror.
 
“We don’t actually know,” she laughed awkwardly, her face turning slightly panicked. “I thought we’d just do the tourist thing- you know. Find some good bookshops, eat local ‘exotic’ food, work it out on the way?”
 
“Heaven’s in shambles,” Eracus added defensively, backing up her fellow librarian. “No one would listen to us even if we managed to find any other angels. We’d be safer off on our own, and frankly, I haven’t had a holiday in millennia.

Ever

, really.”
 
Glumly, they reflected on the presumably sorry state of their siblings, but, eventually, Coco spoke up:
 
“That may seem like a nice idea, and we can have a little fun first,” she murmured softly, leaning forward to place her hands on their shoulders gently. “But, if I’ve learnt anything from watching the Winchesters for so long, it's our duty to do what we can to help, even if it’s only a little. Starfish, you know?”
 
“Yeah, alright,” Penemue muttered, turning the radio up slightly,a smile growing on her face with their purpose restored. “Adventures just seem so much more fun when they’re in the book, and not running alongside.”
 
“But with all the literary knowledge and craftiness in this van,” the reaper snarked, irritated at having been forgotten. “We’ll be

sure

to see

all

the obstacles in our way!”
 
“Don’t be such a Debbie-Downer!” The cupid chided him, slapping him round the head lightly.
 
“Ow! What was that for!?”
 
*****

A few days later, the group piled out into an empty park to eat. As promised, they’d spent their time pottering around odd second-hand book shops- some so unfriendly their brother Aziraphale would have been proud of them- and sampling the USA’s finest motorway cuisine.
 
The park was misty and cool on the damp morning, and was completely vacated of humans, apart from a father and child by the climbing frame.
 
“What I don’t understand,” Coco said, slurpingher slushy. The virulently blue ice offended her eyes (and her tongue), but that only made her love it more. “Is why our Father didn’t step in with the Apocalypse.”
 
“Well,” Penemue pondered mildly, leaning against the must table. “I suppose… It’s like those two over there.”
 
She gestured to the girl, who had just begun to clamber on the apparatus. Her father helped her with the first few steps, but stood back to keep an eye on her.
 
“What?” Eracus asked, confusedly. “The dad and the kid?”
 
“Yeah, exactly like them,” the other librarian responded. Coco stayed quiet, watching the humans carefully. “See? He helped her get started, but she’s got to learn to walk on her own. So, he steps back, and he’ll help if the worst happens and she

does

fall, but those little trips aren’t the worst thing; they’re steps to

learning

. And eventually, she won’t need him, because she’ll have grown. But she’ll still love him, and then they can have a relationship as equals.
 
“And that’s the same with our Father,” she finished solemnly, and they all sat in silence for a while, contemplating the revelation .
 
The father and child left the park soon after- the girl chattering a mile a minute- but the man looked down with her in adoration all the same. He gripped her hand, squeezing gently, and even jumped with her a few times in glee, as they walked away.
 
A few minutes later, Arnie broke the silence:
 
“I call dibs on the big-boy swings!” He yelled, already running, as his statement caused a stampede.
 
“No! No! It’s

my

turn!”
 
“You pig! I thought we agreed-!”
 
“Raaaaaghr!”

*****
 
“So, uh, Coco?” Arnie asked, peering out the window anxiously. His fingers drummed the steering wheel. “Where did you go? That time... around when the Titanic unsank?”
 
“I, uh, I hitched a ride into the universe Balthazar sent the Winchesters to-“
 
“You did

what

?” Arnie interrupted her, absolutely horrified. “Virgil

died

in there! Whatever possessed you to do that!?”
 
“I was fine,” Coco grumbled, shooting a glare at her friend as she shook out the map. “I managed to keep a link to our world, a safety line I could pull myself out by if everything went to hell, and it

didn’t

, stop looking at me like that, Arnie-“
 
“You kept the rift open?” Penemue interjected, digging in her bag for a notebook. “However did you manage that?”
 
“Never underestimate a cupid when the match won’t match up,” the aforementioned cupid replied snidely, pursing her lips in annoyance. “Anyway, turns out, in

that

universe, this is all a television programme. A Mr Ackles plays the elder Winchester, and a certain Misha Collins is everyone’s favourite angel.”
 
“Really?” Eracus said, flipping open xyr own pad of paper. “Where were we in all this?”
 
“We don’t even

exist

,” Coco said bitterly, her lip curling back in disgust. “Not in the show at least. Right now, we’re just a twinkle in the documents of a lonely fangirl who ought to get outside more.”

HEY

!

WATCH IT

!
 
“Oh,

bugger off

, TAKO.”
 
“Who are you talking to?”
 
“Nobody, don’t worry about it.”

I BEG YOUR PARDON-!

“Why now though?” Arnie said skeptically. “But it’s been

years

since Balthazar sent them through.”
 
“The multiverse is

all kinds

of messed up,” the cupid answered, leaning against the cool window as the Great Plains whizzed by. “Instead of the one the boys went to, I was sucked into an entirely different universe where they had filmed the incident as an episode. It was 2018, and Supernatural had just been renewed for a fourteenth season.”
 
Silence reigned in the rattling interior of the minibus as the other angels exchanged uneasy looks. Arnie tapped his fingers against the worn leather steering wheel, peering out at the road ahead.
 
“So…” he began, darting a look to his left at Coco. “Where are we in the timeline?”
 
“We’re either in the time between seasons eight and nine, or in the early episodes of the latter,” she replied, scrunching up her nose as she tried to remember. “TheAllKnowingOwl (that was the author’s pen name) was reviewing those episodes to fact-check. I don’t know what happens after this, but from the few notes I found, there’s somewhere we need to go.”
 
“And where’s that?” Penemue piped up, pausing her frantic scribbling.
 
“There’s a apartment building in Farmington Mills, Michigan,” Coco said, stabbing a finger at the map. “From there we’ll find Charlie Bradbury.”
 
*****

Some days later, the cheery minibus pulled up outside an old, rusty-red brick building. Coco peered up at it, before leaping out,
 
“Okay guys!” She called, waving them out of the warm car. “This is the place!”
 
“But it’s

cold

,” Arnie muttered, tucking his hands under his armpits.
 
“Suck it up, Arnie,” Coco said brusquely, already moving ahead. “You’re a reaper. Anyway, that’s what you get for choosing a suit over a

nice

,

warm coat

.”
 
However, despite the thick fabric she’d boasted of, the cupid still heaved a sigh of relief once they were inside the building. Michigan winters were

freezing

.
 
The four had already checked which flat was Bradbury’s when they’d greased the lock with a little grace, so now they hurried up the creaking stairs, hoping against hope that she would help them. By the time they reached her door, all them were panting and out of breath: the closure of the Gates of Heaven had weakened them dramatically, and it could be said that

none

of the angels were particularly fit in the first place. Still heaving, Coco rapped smartly on the door.
 
“Hello?” Charlie Bradbury said curiously, half-hiding behind the door as she saw the panting foursome. “Can I help you?”
 
“Hi!” The cupid wheezed. “Can I interest you in the word of our saviour Jesus Christ?”
 
*****

Once Coco’s fit of humour was cleared up, and they’d convinced Bradbury to let them inside, the human looked them up and down.
 
“So…” she asked cheerily, spreading her arms sheepishly. “What can I do for you, then?”
 
Coco opened her mouth to reply, revising what she’d meant to say, until-
 
“

Holy tabernacle

,” Penemue breathed suddenly, her eyes saucer-like, as she pointed a trembling finger. “Is that a

microwave

?”
 
“Yeah?” Charlie replied, slightly unsure, and made her way over to it. “We can put something in, if you like?”
 
It was like she’d fired a starting pistol: between one moment and the next, the librarians were off, leaping around the room.
 
“Wow! A TV!”
 
“A waste-disposal! I’ve read about one of these!”
 
“I can’t believe

this

is a

snood

!”
 
“Don’t be ridiculous! This

obviously

a horse blanket!”
 
“Actually,” Charlie interrupted awkwardly, holding up the item in question. “We call them throw rugs.”
 
“A ‘rug’ you can ‘throw’?” Eracus said disbelievingly. “That could be

anything

with the right mindset.”
 
“

Anyway

,” Coco growled, glaring at the two of them. “We came to ask for your help. We’re angels, you know that. However, we also have no identification, fake or otherwise, and no way to reach out to our other siblings in order to help them.”
 
“Angel Radio’s been crippled,” Arnie explained, poking at a Princess Leia bobble-head. “Whatever shut the Gates sent out a massive burst of energy, so if it still exists at all, it’s going to be on a completely different frequency after all that disruption.”
 
“So your Death Star got blown up, and now you're homeless stormtroopers trying to regroup?” the redhead asked shrewdly.
 
“Um…” the cupid mumbled, looking to the others for help.
 
“Yes, yes! Exactly, that’s it exactly!” Eracus confirmed, grinning wildly. Happily, xe turned to Penemue, confiding: “I’m so glad I read all that Star Wars fanfiction!”
 
“Okay!” Charlie said, beaming widely at Eracus’ enthusiasm. “I’ll join this band of merry men! You can stay here once we get to work.”
 
*****

“OK!” the computer whiz mumbled around the pen in her mouth, plucking it from between her lips as she span her chair to face them, a few hours later. “That’s everyone else’s details down, I just need yours now, and I’ll have them done in a couple of days. What name do you want?”
 
The cupid smiled sadly, thinking back to a flash of red hair and a warmth that made even the cosmos feel cosy.
 
“Coco,” she said. “Coco Hall.”
 
*****
 
Later that evening, Charlie entered the kitchen to find the group sat around the table, chowing down on local Chinese takeaway. Coco paused around the delicious mouthful of the savoury noodles she was shovelling down.
 
“

Ywh

?” she mumbled, then swallowed and tried again. “What did they say?”
 
“Sam and Dean are with Cas at the Bunker,” Charlie answered, fidgeting with her phone as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “They managed to close Hell, but Sam was really roughed up in the process. Dean said he’s barely holding on.”
 
“And the ritual?” Arnie asked. “We might be able to reverse it.”
 
“Apparently Cas got tricked by some douche-canoe called ‘Metatron’-“
 
“Metatron?” Eracus sniffed, stabbing xer spring rolls savagely. “ I know that dick-face: he was always trying to put his books in the library.”
 
“Utter drivel,” Penemue agreed, reaching for more food. “Littered with purple prose and split-infinitives. Arse-wad.”
 
“Eye-ovary.”
 
“Anyway,” Charlie breezed, digging some egg rolls out of a package. “Meta-douche did a ritual, including Castiel’s grace, and now we’re screwed. Cas is as good as human now.”
 
“So, what did it involve exactly?” Coco said, wandering over to the whiteboard, ready to take notes. “If we work with the opposites attract theory, we could probably counter some of the effects. Heaven will never be the same, but it’ll be open.”
 
“Dean said it used the heart of a nephilim,” Charlie replied, trying to remember. Coco barely suppressed a retch: even if she didn’t particularly care for them, she didn’t think children deserved to die for one maniac’s ambitions. “A cupid’s bow, and the grace of an angel in love with humanity.”
 
“In love with humanity?” Coco asked musingly. “Perhaps I’m not needed after all…”
 
“What do you mean?” the redhead interjected abruptly, narrowing her eyes.
 
“I’m the cupid assigned to Dean and Castiel’s case,” she replied, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly. “I’ve been working on it for years, but maybe my job is over.”
 
“And that’s why we can’t let Coco meet them,” Eracus mumbled suddenly, her eyes fixed on the last bit of mu shu pork. Irritably, Arnie shoved it over, and she gobbled it up quickly. “It would mean direct interference with the match, and that just isn’t the Cupid Office’s policy. It’s all chess with them cupids…”
 
“Ah…” Charlie murmured, understanding at last. “That’s why Dean is always talking about Cas…” Suddenly, she frowned. “You didn’t-?”
 
“Oh no! Oxford no!” the cupid blurted, shuddering in disgust. “I’ll admit, it used to be that way, but the only thing even close the that was when I shot Dean with a lust arrow. However, lust isn’t love- no matter

what

the movies say- and anything he’s feeling for my brother by now is completely true. All I’ve done is meddle with the situations, and fail…” she trailed off glumly.
 
“Most angels are asexual, anyway,” Penemue mentioned, in an offhand manner. “I expect that’s part of why it’s taken you so long.”
 
“Shut up,” Coco muttered. “I’d been talking to Balthazar…”
 
“So, let me get this straight,” Charlie said seriously, before they all cracked up at the pun. “No mentioning we have a cupid on our team, nothing about who you are, never meeting face to face- capisce? Okay, bitches,” she announced, grinning. “Let’s get down to business!”
 
A few hours later, after brainstorming everything they could think of, the mismatched team had narrowed it down to three options:
 
“Something to replace the dead nephilim, check!” Arnie barked, parade-sergeant style, as Coco rapped a selection of bold words reading ‘TEST-TUBE NEPHILIM BABY THING’. “Creation of new cupid and the grace of a humanity-hating angel: no and no.

Fuck

.”
 
“Luci’s still in the cage, isn’t he?” Eracus drawled, snapping open a fortune cookie. “Shame old Zacky’s dead, could’ve used him…”
 
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Penemue snapped, throwing half of hers at xem. “Luci never really hated them- he just threw his toys out of the pram at not being the favourite, and decided to roll with it. Prissy, little

cur

.”
 
“So we’re screwed,” Coco summarized glumly. “Great.”
 
“Not at

all

,” Charlie reminded them firmly. “Tomorrow, Penemue and I are going to replace a woman’s eggs with hers, and then we can regroup and rethink our approach.”
 
“Just remember to say the magic words,” Arnie reminded them like a sullen mother hen. “And Penemue, don’t be afraid to use your grace to get out of trouble; you’ll need it.”
 
“But what about the angel grace? I think it’s too dark,” Eracus spoke up, twirling a pen. “If anything, the last ritual was too bloody: we’ll need something that’s completely light to counter it.”
 
“The angel must be motivated by love, rather than hate…” Coco mused. The room fell silent for a few minutes, and Charlie yawned, stretching with weariness.
 
“I use the guest room as an office, so there’s no bed,” she said tiredly, rubbing at her eyes. “But the couch is pull out, and I could probably share with one of you. I think there’s a sleeping bag from my last LARPing trip somewhere. Sweet dreams, Charlie’s Angels.”
 
*****

The next morning, after Penemue and Charlie had returned from their early morning mission, the group discussed their options over breakfast.
 
“Well, that’s one down,” the redhead said brightly, shrugging out of her labtech coat. “Penny switched the samples just before the procedure: the eggs were fertilised, the nephilim will be born, and that’s the first part down.”
 
“They’ll probably be twins,” the aforementioned angel laughed briefly. “We left a few just to be sure!”
 
“So, what next?” Coco asked, slurping down honey cheerios. “Making a cupid, right?”
 
“Yep,” Eracus replied, scooping up her own cereal carefully. “This should in the medium difficulty range. We just need a willing subject.”
 
“I can do it,” Charlie said suddenly, all humour gone from her face as she straightened up. “I’m willing, I know what’s at stake. And if I don’t want to be one permanently, I can just cut out my grace like Anna did in the books!”
 
Coco winced at the memories that statement awoke, and reached over to pat her hand gently.
 
“But you won’t have a soul,” she reminded her. “Grace and the human soul can’t coexist- the first would destroy or absorb the latter.”
 
“Well…” Eracus scoffed. “That’s not exactly true. Grace-souls take about a decade or so to mature once created, and the ritual would only convert it to grace, not create grace out of nothing. Energy cannot be created or destroyed- remember?”
 
The four stared at xem.
 
“What!?” Arnie exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “How do you

know

this!?”
 
“It’s all in the Library, isn’t it!” Penemue said defensively, raising her hands. “I mean, Metatron was human once, did none of you know that?-” she gasped, gaping at the lot of them. “He was a guy named Enoch. The formula’s all been written down, used to be all the rage, you know.”
 
Coco remembered Brody with a rush-

damn it

!

How didn’t she think of that

!
 
“Yeah, but then they started planning the Apocalypse, and it stopped being popular. Humans were not the fashion anymore,” Eracus remembered, shaking xer head. “Sanctimonious bastards, the lot of them!”
 
“So what do we do?” Charlie asked, leaning forward. “Could we ask one of them?”
 
“Unlikely…” Penemue reflected, scratching her chin. “If memory serves, they’d be less resilient than normal angels; probably all died in the Fall.”
 
“Anyway, the records are gone now, no doubt about it,” xe said, xer lip curling in disgust. “That prig doesn’t want any of us to know he used to be a mudmonkey- no offense, of course.”
 
“Metadouche probably destroyed every edition of it, but the Library contains versions of every book ever made,” Penemue said, smiling as she tapped her temple knowingly, as they all turned to look at her. “And

I

am a librarian, and

I

remember.”
 
*****

“Are you sure this is right?” Charlie asked worriedly, as they strapped her down to the kitchen table.
 
“Absolutely,” Eracus muttered, shoving a rubber ball in her mouth. The strange apparatus had a piece of elastic attached, which xe hooked around her skull. Examining the redhead’s panicked eyes curiously, Coco wondered where the librarians had found it. “Now, bite down on this- we don’t want you biting your tongue off in all the thrashing.”
 
The rest of them drew near to the table, blinkging against the weak light peering throught he window, as the sun rose sluggishly. Deftly, Penemue painted Enochian symbols on Charlie’s pale skin, bare except for her undergarments. From what Coco understood, this was less fetish style, than it was to prevent the woman from sweating through her clothes.
 
Carefully, the other librarian approached the cupid, and Coco leant forward in the shair, bracing her head against the back as Eracus injected the needle. Grimacing, she felt xem extract the grace required to kickstart the transformation from her neck.

Ouch

.

It was necessary, but it still stung like Hell

.
 
Charlie was still now, and breathed shallowly through her nose, as Eracus inserted the needle to her right nostril. Slowly, the angel pressed the plunger down, and the sun’s light fell on her face as the foreign grace turned her eyes a great, shining electric blue.
 
With not a moment to lose, Penemue started her part, reciting the guttural words with increasing volume as the sun continued to rise. The words were strange and unnatural on the human tongue, but that didn’t deter her, as she continued the ritual without stops or stutters.
 
Suddenly, the librarian lit a match, throwing it into a bowl of crushed ingredients as xer partner finished with a screaming howl. As the powders gave out a climbing gout of flame, Charlie’s eyes burnt impossibly brightly, and she writhed in her bonds as she cried out wordlessly. Wincing, Coco’s eyes shuttered into the ethereal plain, watching in awe as the redhead’s wings manifested.
 
A bow appeared in her dominant hand, and they breathed a collective sigh of relief: it was done.
 
The hardest part was over.
 
*****

The newly created cupid remained in a coma-like state for hours, her body completely still. Fascinated by the process, Coco sat by her side for hours, watching as her trueform developed.
 
“Don’t worry,” Penemue chided her, swatting her on the head when she asked. “She’s only sleeping off the changes. Humans souls are shapeless, because they themselves can’t see beyond the mundane plain. Psychics are a bit more developed, but she’s got a lot to make up for to adjust to using the aether.”
 
Before her very eyes, Charlie’s ethereal body elongated, the finger, feet and hands stretching to near inhuman proportions, as small, tough claws grew, their sharp and pointed shape the same pigment as her hair. Her human vessel remained as motionless as a corpse, the only sign of the oncoming struggle the beaded lines of sweat drenching her skin.
 
Suddenly, without opening her eyes or showing any sign of awareness, Charlie sat up, her back muscles clenching and releasing, as bony nubs thrust through her trueform’s skin. They grew at an alarming rate, muscles and tendons forming along them. Then, once the wings fleshy foundations were complete, tiny, and then longer, wing casings emerged, their thin toothpick-like surfaces full in the late morning light.
 
Finally, as the sun reached its zenith, the resplendent feathers erupted from their prisons, bursting out from the base of the wings, and travelling to the pinion feathers in an awe-inspiring display. Coco touched her own burnt and broken ones self consciously. They had been the colour of the first dawn.
 
Charlie fell back and was still once more.
 
It was over.
 
*****

Not long after, Charlie groaned, rolling onto her side and curling into herself. Blearily, she opened her eyes, blinking in shock as she registered things with her new senses. The ex-human shifted, each individual movement weighted by the burden of her trueform.
 
Longingly, Coco stared at her wings, the beautiful appendages shimmering with lustrous feathers, each a new subtle shade of pink. Lavender fading into magenta into fuschia as they rustled in the aetherous wind.

How she missed her own wonderful wings

, she thought wistfully, tracing the awesome tools with her eyes.
 
Carefully, the new cupid rolled into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes. No her true ones, obviously: her ethereal eyes would have seared any mundane digit that attempted to touch them.
 
“Hey Charlie,” Penemue greeted her happily. Charlie gave a startled

eep

, jolting off the table in surprise, and then into-
 
“What!?” Coco screamed, jumping up from her chair. “Where did she go?”
 
“Oh,

bollocks

,” the librarian groused, dragging a hand over her face in annoyance. Coco gaped at her, shocked by the rare cuss. “She’s gone into an ethereal plain. Bugger, bollocking fuck!”
 
Their collected noise attracted Arnie and Eracus- the latter of which wandered into the kitchen chewing a mysterious vegetable.
 
Shrieking with joy, the novice cupid hurtled back into existence. Startled, Eracus choked, and the angels rushed to help xem. Technically, they didn’t need to breathe, but having an unknown organism lodged in one’s lungs is never pleasant, celestial or not.
 
“What?” Coco snapped once Eracus was saved, noticing Charlie staring at somewhere above her head. She jerked in surprise, snapping out of her reverie.
 
“Your eagle head is watching me,” she admitted never tearing her eyes away. “It’s a bit disconcerting.”
 
“Oh, sorry,” Coco apologised self-consciously, noticing the others leave the room, Arnie half-supporting the librarian. “He does that.”

They sat in silence for a while, each alone in their thoughts. Pensively, Coco tracked the path of the reddening sun downt the creamy wall. In only a day, they had gone so much further in their goals, and yet there was still so far to go.
 
“I want to go outside,” Charlie started suddenly, straightening up so quickly that the other cupid flinched in surprise. “Things’ll be different now, with all these new senses…”
 
Recovering swiftly, Coco grabbed her wallet from the counter, lobbing it at the redhead. She caught it with a deft ease that surprised the cupid, who grinned at the youngest angel in the… Well…

Everywhere

.
 
“Go down to the chippy,” Coco ordered, a wry smile playing on her lips. “And tell me how you feel once the grease’s soaked into you plumage.”
 
Grinning, Charlie flipped her off, grabbing her coat as she sped out the door. Coco hummed to herself absently, drumming her fingers mindlessly. A careful cough woke her from her reverie, and she turned, half-frowning at the uncharacteristic introduction.
 
Silhouetted in the kitchen doorway, Penemue fiddled with the strap of her bag nervously, Eracus a ready guard by her side.
 
“W-We’ve decided not to go back,” she said, licking her dry lips anxiously.
 
“What?” Coco asked quietly, looking up at them in surprise.
 
“Eracus and I,” she replied, exchanging a look with the librarian. “We’re not going back. To Heaven, that is, we want to stay here.”
 
“Oh,” the cupid said, ducking her head. “I- I thought- I thought you wanted…”
 
“Yeah,” Eracus murmured, squeezing Penemue’s hand. “It’s what we thought as well. It wasn’t until going back became a possibility that we realised...”
 
“We’re opening a bookshop with Charlie,” Penemue blurted. “For hunters, well, normal people too, but we can help them down here, Coco!”
 
“One last trip to Heaven to get the books we need, and we’ll be set,” xe said awkwardly, unsure of Coco’s silence. “I know we’ll never replace Bobby Singer, but the hunters in this country have no coordination! We’re going to fix that,

I’m sure

.”
 
“Ok,” Coco muttered, stepping up to hug the two of them. “I’ll visit, I promise.”
 
“We’ll miss you,” Penemue whispered into her ear. Eracus’ arms squeezed the cupid one more time before she stepped back again.
 
“You know where to find me,” Coco sniffed, trying to hold back tears. “Down here trying to shove my two muttonheads together, or Upstairs plotting how to do it.”
 
They embraced in a puppy pile-esque circle, and that was how Charlie found them, when she returned some time afterwards.
 
*****
 
“I’ve got it!” Arnie shouted, running into the sitting room, a piece of paper waving in his hand. “I think I’ve actually got it!”
 
Owlishly, several pairs of eyes blinked at him, and he wilted slightly, rubbing a hand across his face wearily. In all truth, the cupid thought to herself, he only succeeded in smudging the ink stains further.
 
“Got what?” Charlie asked, carefully working herself free from the pile of bodies on the sofa. Newly created fledglings had a habit of being clingy, so the three of them were snuggling with her to comfort the cupid with their grace. “A bike? A million dollars?”
 
“The final ingredient!” the reaper practically screamed. In a flash, he’d produced another whiteboard from nowhere and scribbled on it frantically. “Look, we knew it needed to be something grace based, right? But it had to be opposite to what we had before, which was where we hit a bump, because the answer we found was too dark. So, I thought, if what was needed last time was the grace of one in love with a human, which triggered the Fall, we need something to help us

Rise

,” he finished triumphantly, stabbing the board with his pen, for emphasis. ”You get me?”
 
“‘Gay Angel Grace’?” Coco asked skeptically, peering round Arnie to read the words, before the meaning of them hit her, and she jumped up in shock. “Oh, Arnie! That’s brilliant!”
 
“What?” Eracus grumbled, struggling to extract xyrself from Penemue’s dead weight. “What’s brilliant?”
 
“We need the grace of an angel in love with angelkind!” the cupid shrieked with euphoria. “Don’t you get it!? We’re saved!”
 
“Then I volunteer,” Penemue said, every ounce of conviction present in her voice. “I care for angels deeply, and I will do whatever it takes to get them back home.”
 
A silence followed her words. Eracus stepped closer to the other librarian, xyr eyes fixed on her face desperately.
 
“Then I’ll give mine too,” xe said, but Penemue interrupted xem.
 
“No, you can’t do that!” she pleaded, taking Eracus’ hands in hers. “You’ll be human! You’ll die!”
 
“We will need both to counter Metatron’s spell,” xe replied firmly, but there was a tremor in xyr voice. “You

know

how wiley he is.”
 
“But Eracus-!”
 
“You don’t get it, do you Penny?” Eracus asked quietly, rubbing a thumb over her hand. “It’s not that I want to die, it’s that I don’t want to live without

you

. I’m in

love

with

you

.”
 
And- as gentle as a lamb- xe leaned forward to brush a kiss across the shocked librarian’s lips. She remained still for another moment, shocked beyond belief, but when Eracus tried to pull away, xyr brow furrowed in disappointment, Penemue grabbed xyr face and yanked xem back in, snogging the life out of xem.
 
A few awkward minutes (

at least for the rest of them

), the librarians disengaged with a disgusting squelching noise.
 
“Well,” Eracus laughed, a little self-consciously as xe wiped xyr chin. “I guess that means you can use both of our graces.”
 
“We can have our bookshop after all,” Penemue said softly, her doe-eyes never leaving her beloved.
 
*****
 
The final part of the spell had to be performed in the location of where the Gates would reopen, so the next morning, the mismatched group made their way to a disused park on the edge of town.
 
While Eracus marked the sand with the Gate rune, Coco carved sigils into the wooden sides, ensuring that humans with no supernatural knowledge or tampering would be turned away. She didn’t want to risk the Winchester being unable to kill any evil dictators that came up, but at the same time, random kids wandering round Heaven would be hell to clean up.
 
Penemue watched her partner with a dizzy grin, her fingers tracing her new credit card lazily. Charlie, using all of her computery might (

some now powered by grace, or so the cupid thought

), had transferred nearly a million dollars to it, more than enough to last a lifetime. The soon-to-be-ex-librarians were planning on using the bulk to build their shop’s stock: not only books and supernatural tomes, but protections the Men of Letters would be envious of, and many miscellaneous spell ingredients. They were setting up in the town, and the new cupid had promised to fly to many parts of the world for some of them, once her wings were repaired.
 
Wiping her hands on her trousers, Coco stood, surveying the finished runes carefully, looking for any mistakes. Noticing none, she stood back, and wandered over to Charlie.
 
“I called the Winchesters last night,” the redhead informed her, cheerily, near gleeful at what they were about to do. “They should be soon, Castiel too. We’ll perform the ritual, and then they’ll kill Metatron, so you should better leave.”
 
Coco smiled at her, recognising it for the blessing it was, and hugged the other cupid tightly. Charlie squeezed back just as hard, and then she was off, running into the trees and back towards town, hearing the familiar rumble of the Impala’s engine behind her.
 
Some time later, she felt the burst of power, as Heaven opened her arms to all angels once again, and revelled in the fresh feeling. All of the grace that had backed up in Heaven’s walls flooded out, and Coco sighed as it replenished her own meager supply.
 
Not even an hour after, Metatron’s foul form burnt up, and she let a grim smile curl on her lips, as his grace erupted into the ethereal plain.
 
Later, she would return to let Heaven’s soothing energy heal her battered wings, but for now, Coco was content to experience Earth the human way.

*****

A few months later, Coco was browsing through the shelves in one of the American supermarkets, when a flash of grace behind her caused her to duck as a familiar angel blade plunged into the loaf of

Mama Marie’s Homemade White

where she’d been standing mere nanoseconds before.
 
She scooted out, scrambling away in shock as she looked up to find a certain trench-coated figure glaring down at her as he yanked his dagger out of the display and advanced towards her. The cupid scrambled to her feet and tore away into the maze of shelves, hoping to lose the incensed seraph in the bustle of the shop.
 
The non-existent bustle of the shop, because of course, she

had

to decide to go on the

one

day when everyone stayed at home!
 
Coco’s steps faltered as she heard the pounding of Castiel’s feet behind her, growing closer and closer with every second. Why didn’t she do more exercise! Why couldn’t she have her wings back! Why didn’t Deus Ex Machina exist in real life!
 
Her laboured breathing quickened as she ran through the seemingly endless corridors. The store was one of the large warehouse types, and now the cupid hated her idea to come here. What was she even doing!? She didn’t need to eat!
 
In a split second decision, Coco twisted left, praying that this would surprise Heaven’s deadliest angel.
 
It didn’t pay off.
 
Her foot caught on the corner of the shelf, and down she went, tumbling and falling, rolling over and over as she tried to return to her feet-

BAM

.
 
A hand slammed down on the back of her neck, a set of knees and meaty thighs bracketed her hips, and with a prickling dread- matched by the point of an angel blade under her chin as she turned her head to the side- Coco knew she was trapped.
 
What was she supposed to do!? She was a cupid, a sniper, someone who’s entire job dictated she stay away from the battlefield; how was she going to get out of this mess?
 
While she was still frozen, the grip on her neck tightened, and she sensed the angel leaning forward.
 
“What have you done to Dean?” Castiel’s voice growled, his hot breath close to Coco’s skin as he brought his face close to hers. She blinked and tried for a disarming smile, grimacing as the motion caused the sticky linoleum to pull against her face.

Ew

.
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking abou-

Ow

! What was that for!?” the cupid yowled as he dug the dagger into the tender underside of her chin.
 
“Don’t lie to me,

cupid

,” the seraph snarled, and

oh, ouch, he really wasn’t holding back with that pigsticker

! He increased the pressure a fraction as she tried to pull away. “I sensed something around here, and I

know

you’ve done something to him.”
 
She froze.

Oh dear.

“Now, don’t get mad, mate, alright,” Coco babbled, cursing the emptiness of the shop. “I admit, I did shoot hi-”
 
“Reverse it

immediately

.”
 
“

What

? I can’t do that!” the cupid blurted.
 
“Why not?” Castiel asked, tightening his grip on her neck. “The arrow was only released this year. That’s why he’s been acting strangely.”
 
A bubble of hysterical laughter burst from Coco’s lips, even as the seraph tensed behind her.
 
“This

year

? You think I only started this clusterfuck of a match this year?” she gasped, fighting for breath. “I shot him on the day you met! Eons ago! The only reason I’m not dead is because I’ve spent the better part of the 21st century trying to get you muttonheads together. I haven’t had

time

for wars! And you only noticed this

now

?”
 
“I don’t care

when

you cursed Dean Winchester,” Castiel stated coldly, and

yep, she’d definitely made a mistake there, because those were some interesting patterns he was tracing on her neck

. “I will not have him experience manufactured emotions for me. I have seen what your arrows can do to human minds, and I will not have him be infatuated with

me

!”
 
“Ok, alright, calm down,” she replied, doing mental gymnastics on how to escape this mess. “The Office went through the same waves of feminism the humans did; nowadays arrows don’t force love, not the way they did with Mary and John Winchester. The arrow I shot Dean with is identical to most of the ones shot these days.

Lust

. That’s it, pure and simple, although I realise now that it wasn’t the best approach with you as an asexual being-”
 
“You mean you haven’t cursed him?” Castiel asked quietly, and

was that a note of uncertainty in his voice

?
 
Gingerly, Coco shook her head, or at least tried to. Noticing this, Castiel released her, standing up and lending her a hand to do the same.
 
“And… You didn’t shoot me either?” he said almost hopefully. Coco shook her head, rolling her neck to get the cricks out of it.
 
“Nope, whatever you’ve been feeling is 100% guaranteed, genuine emotion. Company promise, or you… Money back...”
 
The angel looked to his right, and Coco followed his gaze through the window to a familiar figure leaning against the Impala in the parking lot. Suddenly, she grinned, slapping the surprised seraph on the shoulder.
 
“Go get him, Tiger.”
 
He nodded absently, his eyes still fixed on the human, and strode off through the doors. Outside, Castiel swept Dean up in a kiss. The hunter flailed at first, but relaxed into his embrace, returning the angel’s love. Eventually, they disengaged, and barely looking away from the other with giddy adoration, slipped into the Impala and drove away silently.
 
The cupid surveyed what she had done with satisfaction, and saw that it was good.

Some years later...

“Just kiss!” Coco shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth as she hollered at the oblivious two. “MAKE IT

GAY

, you cowards!”
 
“Popcorn?” Arnie offered, dropping into existence. He leaned on her shoulder as they surveyed the two young women. “Who’re they? A new match already?”
 
“K’ya ‘n ‘laire,” the cupid mumbled around the greasy goodness. She swallowed with some difficulty, and gestured at the humans. “Kaia Nieves and Claire Novak. Thought this would be an easy one, didn’t I? But

noooo

; Blondie here, has

his

genes. Bastard.”
 
“In it for the long haul, are we?” the reaper asked genially. Coco grinned at him, pulling another arrow tight on her bowstring.
 
“Wouldn’t miss it for the

world

.”

THE END (

for realsies this time

).