Deracinate (Coprolalia Part One)

Forty Eight: Injured Angels

Chloe, Ben, and Jesse ran after Emma.

The Amazonian Winchester stopped right in front of the kitchen.

Sure enough, among all the steel, Cas was sitting on the table facing them, eyes closed, blood running down the side off her face.

Dean pushed past them and ran over to his angel.

"Cas, you alright?" He asked her, apparently not caring that the majority of the bunker's inhabitants stood behind them.

Cas opened her brown and blue eyes and nodded. "I'm fine, Dean. A few angels ambushed us, I just have this." She pointed to a place above her hairline, where the blood was coming from. "But it should heal in a few minutes, no worry."

"Where's Claire?" Ben asked.

Chloe elbowed him in the gut, he winced, but otherwise ignored her.

"I don't know where she is." Castiel answered. "She took my blade and told me to leave." The angel suddenly looked worried. "I'm sure she's okay. Those angels couldn't kill her."

There was a loud thump from behind the group. Chloe pushed through to see what it was, Ben and Jesse following closely behind her.

Claire lay in an opening, thankfully everyone had gotten away and she hadn't landed on them. But she was covered in bruises and deep cuts, and an angel blade had been stabbed clean through her shoulder.

She groaned in pain and tried to push herself up, but her arms mutinied and she fell. Her friends instantly kneeled down beside her.

"Claire, what happened?" Jesse whispered.

"Yeah, tell us who the hell did this to you so we can kick their asses more than you did." Chloe added with a half-hearted smile.

"Don't have to." Claire muttered with extreme effort. "Those angels are dead."

Chloe smiled. "Good job, then."

Ben stood up and scanned the crowd. Apparently he didn't see who he'd been looking for, because he turned to Emma, who had been standing there, looking uncomfortable. "Go get Alex." He told his half sister.

"No." Claire said with more force than someone in her condition should have been able to muster, but that was Claire -and archangels- for you. "I'll be fine, Ben. And Alex's healing wouldn't work on me, it's demonic, and invade you forgot in my absence, I'm an angel now."

Ben silently did some weird hand motion at Emma who instantly moved into the crowd, hopefully to go find Alexia instead of Alex.

Ben kneeled back down beside Claire. "What were their names?" He asked Claire.

"Whose?" Claire replied.

Ben rolled his eyes. "The angels who attacked you and Cas; what were their names?"

"I don't know." She replied after a few seconds pause. "I haven't seen them in, quite literally, a lifetime, at least. And honestly Ben, they're dead, it doesn't matter what their names were."

"Claire, what did they do to you?" Asked a familiar female voice behind them.

"Cas, thanks for running when I asked. That's the first time since you met the Winchesters that you've followed my orders at all." Claire said, obviously avoiding the question. She was leaning most of her weight against Chloe's shoulder, since even though some of her injuries had healed, she was still rather badly injured.

"Nice to see my occasional cowardice benefit someone." Cas replied, uncharacteristically sarcastic.

"Is my wing broken?" Claire asked he fellow angel. She adjusted her back in a way that Chloe could only assume was her moving her wings.

Cas shook her head. "Not broken."

Claire winced and flexed her invisible limbs again. "Well it bloody hurts." Most of her injuries had healed already.

Cas rolled her eyes. "It can't be that bad. Just let it heal and you'll be fine in a bit."

Claire nodded. Then she reached up and yanked the angel blade from her shoulder, barely wincing, and pulled another from her waistband. She stared at both for a few seconds, then handed the one that had been lodged in her shoulder to Cas. "That one's yours."

Jesse looked surprised. "They lodged Cas' blade THROUGH YOUR SHOULDER?"

Claire rolled her eyes. "Of course they did. What's the best way to attack and enemy? Pin them with their own weapon."

Chloe smiled. "Come on Claire, let's get you out of here and changed after you finish healing."

Claire nodded, apparently just then realizing that her jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt were ripped beyond recognition. "Okay."

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Chloe held up a blue dress which the top of was like a T-shirt with a high, belted waist and a skirt that flared out a bit. "Will this work?" She asked Claire.

The archangel looked mildly horrified. "Hell no! It's a dress, Chloe!"

"So?" Chloe asked, a bit confused.

The horrified look stayed on Claire's face. "So, I don't do dresses. Just like makeup. And, that's too big for me."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "One, dresses are actually better in fights than pants, since you can move your legs more. Two, it's easier to rip up a dress to make bandages, which is helpful to those of us who aren't you and don't heal automatically. Three, I know for a fact you can use your powers to shrink it down to size. Four, Evy burned your clothes after repeatedly saying they were hideous before I could stop her. And five, you need all the help you can get right now to look nice. I know you don't care, but right now Ben is majorly pissed at you, and I know for a fact this dress would look better on you than it does on me."

Claire's face looked emotionless. "I knew he was pissed." She said quietly.

Chloe's eyes widened. "How?" She asked. Then, seizing the opportunity, she made a joke, "Can you read his mind?"

Claire rolled her eyes. "Of course not. He was the only one I expected to pray while I was gone, and no one did."

The nephilim frowned. "I'm... Sorry."

Claire looked angry then and almost growled. "Do not pity me about this. Jut give me the stupid dress and look away."

Chloe smiled and handed the dress over, then turned around and covered her eyes with her hands.

A few minutes of silence later, Claire spoke. "How do I look?"

Chloe turned around, took her hands away from her eyes and smiled. She'd been right, Claire did look good in that dress. "You look great, Claire. A million times better than when you showed up with ripped clothes and a knife through your shoulder."

The nephilim walked over to her closet and dug around until she pulled out a black and white sneaker. She threw it to Claire, who caught it easily. "I found that spare in the pile of your old clothes Ev threw out, and I figured you might need it, so I saved it. Evy wasn't going to notice a pair of sneakers gone. You're welcome."

Claire smiled widely and switched out her shredded ones for the newer ones. "Thanks Chloe."

Chloe quickly ran to the door and pulled it open. She grabbed Ben's arm -both he and Jesse had been standing watch- and practically threw him inside. Then she grabbed her boyfriend's arm and ran. Se intended to get a ways away before Claire could come after her, and those two had a ton of shit to sort out, alone.