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vail_kagamiFandom: Supernatural
Beta:
minviendhaCharacters (overall): Dean, Castiel, Sam, plus a number of angels and demons
Rating (overall): NC-17
Warnings (overall): violence, torture, drug use, insanity, mentions of rape
Spoilers: Going AU during episode 5.18: Point of No Return. No spoilers for season six.
Words (this chapter): 11,820
Summary: A man wakes up in a ruined wasteland, without memories, without a name, without knowing the strange guy who claims he used to be an angel, or that he once had a little brother. All he knows is that the world is dying, everyone is lying to him and that somehow, somewhere, something went terribly wrong. Because someone said Yes when they should have said No, and someone else paid the price.
-*Interlude I*-
It was hot. Too hot for all the layers he was wearing, so Castiel had pulled the long sleeved shirt off his body two miles back and tied it around his waist, causing the arms to flop against his thighs with every step. Once, neither heat nor cold would touch him. He’d register the temperature but not really feel it. That was before he fell, when he was still full of grace, heavenly power barely contained by a human shell. It hadn’t been long ago, and sometimes he still felt like this was a phase, like a passing sickness in a human body. That this, the weakness and pain and limitation, wasn’t forever.
The heat was dry like bones and dust. It seemed to suck every fluid out of him, and he felt like he was turning into a shrivelled corpse with every step he took. This, he was familiar with by now. The heat had been going on for nearly a year, and it didn’t look like it was going to cool down anytime soon.
Castiel found himself longing for nightfall, but the sky above him was still glaring, the washed out bright spot telling vaguely where the sun would be found were it visible through the clouds far from the horizon. It would have been better to rest through the day and walk at night, but he had information he needed to share and couldn’t allow himself a break that long.
The outskirts of the city were visible in the distance, outlines in the gloom, mocking him. He kept walking, and they kept not getting closer. Then they did, and the ruins surrounded him. It was still a long way.
And the midday heat didn’t lessen. Time stretched in a way the Castiel of old hadn’t been aware it could. It was still an hour to sunset when finally he felt the familiar pull on his mind and knew he was passing through the sigils protecting the camp from angels more powerful than him.
Eventually, he reached the point where going on became painful and stopped. They were waiting for him and it wasn’t long before someone showed up to let him in, but he still found the wait annoying. He preferred to cross the ring of wards with his human companion by his side.
Once at the heart of the small village they had built of wood and steel and rubble from broken buildings, Castiel told Roger and everyone who happened to be close enough to hear him about the gathering of demons in the east, and that most of Chicago had fallen to the Croatoan virus. The small islands still spared were closed off, unreachable for anyone unable to fly. Those people were on their own, but even if there had been a way to get them out, the village wouldn’t have bothered. Chicago was too far away for an action that big.
The gathering was more interesting. It was close enough to the settlements at the other end of the city to force the assumption that an attack was planned. Those settlements were stretched over a large space, which made them harder to defend than small camps like theirs. They grew corn and raised cattle, and this camp just like many of the other small settlements in the area depended on the trade they did with those farming towns. Roger decided to send half of his fighting force as protection. Not only did they have to keep the entire area from suffering a devastating loss, Castiel knew their current leader also hoped for free corn and meat in return for their help. Castiel hoped he didn’t hope in vain – it depended on how much gratitude their friends in the North could afford.
Most of the men and women currently present in the village were gathered around him by the time he finished speaking, listening closely to his words. Some lingered on after he was done, waiting for further words from their leader, while most moved back to whatever they had been doing or went to get their weapons together. Iron. Salt. Holy water.
Everybody had the exorcisms memorized.
There was one face Castiel didn’t see in the small crowd, and while it did not come as a surprise, he felt worry. “It’s been eight days,” he said to Roger, and Roger shrugged vaguely, looking uncomfortable.
“He’s sick. It was rough.”
Castiel only nodded and left without another word. He had no doubt that he would be asked to accompany the group dispatched to help the farmers, but for now he had just returned from a very long walk, was hot and hungry and exhausted. Whether he would actually leave to fight the demons depended on what he found in the small shed he shared with his friend. He had no real obligations here. These people benefited from their presence more than they did from being allowed to stay. If Roger decided they had to leave here if neither of them fought this time, then they would leave. Castiel wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t be better that way. It wasn’t, however, his decision to make.
The shed was what was left of a house – the only room that still had all four walls, with a roof they built themselves out of wooden planks and sheet metal. Over time, they managed to find all the gaps in their construction and filled them with dried grass to keep out the wind that every now and then dragged dust and sand through their camp. They had created wooden shields that fit in the windows to close them if needed, but at the moment they were leaning against the walls below the openings, letting the hot, dry air move through the single room and hopefully provide some ventilation.
The sheet metal of the roof wasn’t ideal, made it heat up even more, but at least it provided shade. The inside of the shed was dim and coming out of the dusty glare of the daylight, Castiel’s eyes needed a moment before they could make out details. That, too, was a recent development.
It was barely cooler in here than it was outside, but the air did travel through the room from the open door to the windows, and it took away most of the stink of lingering sickness. There was a bucket standing beside the bed to the left, and a bottle of water beside it on the floor that made Castiel instantly angry in its thoughtless placement. If his friend was as sick as he appeared to be, he wouldn’t be able to grab it from there, let alone screw it open.
He sat down on the side of the bed and touched the forehead of the man lying on it, finding the skin hot and dry like the air. “Sam,” he said softly. “I am back.”
A shudder went through Sam’s body at the contact and he tried to move from his curled up position onto his back. The movement seemed to cause him pain, so Castiel stopped him, before turning him all the way on his back himself.
Half-closed, unfocused eyes sought out his face. Sam’s mouth opened ever so slightly, but he didn’t try to speak.
Castiel picked up the bottle beside the bed. As he’d expected, it was full, had never been opened. He carefully lifted Sam’s head and set the bottle to the dry, chapped lips. Sam managed to swallow three times before he choked and water ran down his chin.
His state did nothing to lessen Castiel’s anger. He knew most of the others had difficulties dealing with Sam, but they should have had someone care for him instead of letting him lie here on his own and slowly roast in the heat.
At least it seemed that someone had washed him every now and then in the past few days. He wasn’t as dirty as he should have been after days of illness, nor did he smell as bad.
Sam blinked, his eyes a little clearer. “Cas,” he finally managed, his voice little more than a rattling breath. “When’d you get back?”
“Just now. How are you feeling?”
“Where’ve y’ been?” Sam’s words were slurred, his longue barely managing to wrap around the syllables. Castiel found himself worried about how weak he was. It was getting worse.
“North.” Sam had been in the throes of his latest withdrawal when Castiel had left, had never seen him leave. The fallen angel had not liked leaving him alone, but the Croatoan outbreak had kept anyone else from making the journey. His nature made Castiel immune to the virus, and he understood and accepted that Roger did not wish to risk any of those without that protection in his place.
“How bad?”
“We’ll manage. Rest now. I will take care of you.”
All Sam did in response was close his eyes and drift back to sleep. Castiel threw a look into the bucket beside the bed and found some vomit in it – mostly just gall fluid. Sam couldn’t have eaten anything in days. He set emptying the bucket at the top of his list of things to do, to get rid of the smell.
He did that, then filled some clean water into the bucket and placed it back beside the bed in case Sam was sick again, all the while planning his next actions. Roger wanted his men to leave for the farms in the morning, and Castiel still hadn’t decided whether or not he would go with them. In any case, he needed sleep before that. He needed to eat and wash himself of the sweat and dust of his journey.
He needed to take care of Sam. That came first.
So he went to fetch water, cloths, and clean sheets. He closed the door to the shed, knowing Sam would prefer privacy for this, even though no one would come close enough to peer inside and Sam was too out of it to really care. Then he carefully stripped his friend of his clothes and moved to wash him.
Sam hardly stirred once through the process, and Castiel’s movements were sure and experienced – by now he was familiar with the task. He even knew how to move Sam so that he had enough access to the blanket to change it. Fortunately, Sam had lain on top of the blanket all the time, never actually touching the bed sheet; those were always harder to change.
In the end he dressed Sam into a clean pair of shorts and a loose shirt, before he used the remaining water to clean himself. Castiel didn’t own a lot of clothes, and he was pleased to see that someone had washed his remaining set while he was away. Feeling better already, though the exhaustion still seemed to drag him down, Castiel went in search of food.
He ate in the shed, then lay down on the empty bed after checking Sam’s temperature one more time and trying to feed him some more water. He got all of one and a half hours sleep, before someone came in to ask more about the demons he had seen – if there had been anyone he recognized, if those were Lucifer’s minions or rather those who did not like to see the fallen archangel in full power and full control. Castiel gave them all the information he could without getting out of bed, his body sticking to the sheets with sweat even though the sun was sinking now and the heat slowly subsiding.
Afterwards he drifted back to sleep, but he was woken twice more as the others planned their operation. Still, the fallen angel was mostly rested when he woke up with the light of dawn. The sun rose slowly in the east, invisible behind the clouds that hadn’t cleared away in five years and maybe never would. It was still blessedly cool and not for the first time Castiel held the irrational hope that perhaps today the temperatures wouldn’t climb too high as the day progressed.
It hadn’t rained in three months and the water of the river that fed them was slowly receding. Castiel worried about the future of their camp. He worried that Sam wouldn’t want to leave when it became the sensible thing to do; that he would have to force the issue.
Sam still slept when Castiel got up, but woke when the angel touched his forehead to check for fever. His temperature had gone down and his eyes were clearer. A look in the bucket confirmed that he hadn’t thrown up again during the night. He was able to drink more than a few sips of water, and Castiel was positive that the worst was over. Sam only needed rest now, and perhaps that was for the best, because if he was better, Roger would have asked him to go with them to the North and Sam would have gone.
Castiel had a quick breakfast and tried to make his friend eat something as well, but Sam claimed not to be hungry and instead curled up and went back to sleep. Castiel had expected nothing else and he let it go this time, since Sam had been sick and his body probably couldn’t deal with solid food yet. Still, his continued refusal to feed himself was quickly developing into a problem.
The demon blood and the withdrawal he had to go through after every use were killing his appetite, and Sam had lost a worrying amount of weight in the last years. Castiel knew he didn’t care – neither for his lack of strength and stamina, knowing that he could go on forever once he had some demon blood powering his system, nor for the effect the increased consumption of the blood had on him. The addiction was far beyond what could be cured now, and the withdrawal symptoms came closer and closer to killing him with every time he had to go through it. Castiel had seen his eyes go black when he used his powers, more than once.
He didn’t worry about turning into a monster anymore. It served the purpose, and there was no one to stay human for any longer.
Sometimes Castiel thought about Dean. Usually, he hoped that Dean’s soul was so deeply buried within Michael that he never knew what was going on. On rarer occasions, he hoped it wasn’t.
Most fighters were already finished with their preparations by the time Castiel entered Roger’s house. He had his bag by his side, his weapons in his belt, and was ready to go with them. Some of the demons they were fighting were of high rank, too dangerous, and too valuable to Lucifer to let them get away. The chances of killing them were much higher if Castiel fought them than any of these humans. His friend was well enough to not need him for a few days.
“Where’s Sam?” Lynn wanted to know.
“Sam’s not coming.”
“We’re taking the wagon. He can rest on the way – it’ll be two days before we get there.”
“Sam’s not coming,” Castiel said again, sharper this time. “He’s not well. He’s not going to be well in two days.” It was not entirely true. With proper rest, Sam would be able to function to a certain level in two days. But being dragged through the burning hot wasteland on a wagon was no proper rest.
“We still got some blood left. It’ll get him through.” She just didn’t want to understand. Yes, the blood would give Sam the power he needed to destroy those demons and the strength to stand on his own two feet unaided. And afterward the withdrawal, so soon after the last one, would most likely kill him.
Castiel would not let that happen.
“He isn’t coming, and if you keep insisting on it, neither will I.”
“Cas,” Roger said, and Castiel felt unusually grated by the nickname. These humans usually had more respect that that. “I understand that you don’t want to endanger your friend, but you know that no one can take down demons like Sam. His presence there would probably save many lives.”
“Besides, we wouldn’t have to kill the possessed ones,” Ben added.
Everyone was looking at Castiel expectantly, waiting for him to give in. Lynn said, “And it isn’t like he’d-”
“No.”
She shifted her jaw, a defiant look on her face. “How about we ask Sam about it? It’s his decision after all.” With that, she moved toward the exit, knowing fully well that Sam would want to come. Anything to save lives.
“Don’t wake him up.” Castiel’s voice was calm, but the command in it was sharp enough to hold her back. “Sam doesn’t know we’re going, or why. He doesn’t need to know.”
She looked at him, both agitated and increasingly unsure. Eventually she came back to the rest of the group, her face an angry mask. She didn’t want to die, didn’t want anyone else to die, and their chances were better with Sam around. Everyone else here shared her mindset. But no one else questioned Castiel’s decision.
They understood that he would either leave with them, or leave them with Sam.
In the end he left with them, and Sam slept through it, never knowing what was going on. Castiel checked on him one final time and didn’t dare to wake him from his nightmares.
-
While mostly human, Castiel had retained some of his previous abilities: his senses were sharper, his reflexes quicker, and once he got used to feeling pain at all, he found that he had a higher tolerance level for it than most human males. In addition to the fact that he had been a warrior of God for millennia, this made him the best fighter in the group, and his sword struck down many demons. Besides Sam, it was the only weapon they possessed that was able to instantly destroy a demon. And Castiel didn’t like to think of Sam as a weapon, but that was how everyone saw him. That was how Sam saw himself.
It had taken them the assumed two days to get to their destination, and the farmers were more than happy to welcome them. The demons were still in the process of assembling themselves, which was fortunate since it was another day before Castiel and the others were ready to attack. They wanted to take the demons by surprise, attack first. It worked – hell’s minions still weren’t used to the fact that whenever Castiel was even somewhat nearby, he would find them.
It wasn’t until very near the end of the battle that Castiel looked up to the broken cliff in whose shadow they were fighting and saw Michael looking down on them, his painfully familiar outline unmistakable against the bright sky. Other silhouettes were beside him, four, five more angels, watching the slaughter going on below.
They didn’t interfere. They did nothing to conceal their presence. They just watched.
The group of demons was large – a hundred or more. They were trapped in the iron barriers and salt lines the humans had surrounded the area with, and exorcisms were thrown at them along with holy water and salt. But they could still fight, and the humans had to enter the barriers to get near enough, leaving themselves vulnerable. It was thirty-five humans and one fallen angel against a hundred demons. Casualties were inevitable.
Castiel didn’t stay to deal with the immediate aftermath. When the last demon had fallen – a powerful one, but nonetheless falling to his blade as he should – he made his way up the cliff from the other side. He was faster than a human would have been and still unbearably slow. By the time he arrived, only Michael remained, waiting for him.
He turned away from the view and looked at him with Dean’s face, said with Dean’s voice, “Hello, Castiel.”
-
Despite being a capable fighter, Roger rarely left the camp. It wasn’t safe from attack just because demons were attacking elsewhere as well. So no matter how badly they were needed, Roger himself and some of his men always remained to protect their own. It left Lynn in charge of the negotiation concerning the price for their help.
They’d helped themselves as well, the farmers argued, since they depended on the food they got from the village. It was a valid argument – the motives of the camp were hardly completely altruistic. But the fact remained that they had helped, and their help had cost them nine men and women while it saved all but two of the farmers. A little something should be given in return.
Castiel understood the need to get benefits wherever they could. He understood that the farmers were unwilling to give anything more than they absolutely had to, since the lack of rain was hard on them too and they worried about the months to come. But the negotiations dragged on, and all he wanted was return to the camp and to Sam. After his meeting with Michael, his desire to protect his friend had become stronger than ever.
Michael and the others had learned of the demons gathering and come to smite them. Upon seeing others were already involved in battle, they had deemed involvement unnecessary. So they had merely watched, ready to kill any demon that might still be alive when the battle was over. They never thought to help.
Castiel knew better than to expect them to.
He never expected to hear what Michael told him after the battle, either. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps, after everything, he was still thinking better of his former brothers and sisters than they deserved.
Despite knowing that in the camp Sam was safer than anywhere else, Castiel was anxious to get back, and despite the gash in his arm he had received during the battle making it hard to shoulder his bag, he was about to leave on his own when finally Lynn and the farmers came to an agreement.
It had taken them two days. Two days they needed to rest and care for their wounds, but two days none the less. It would be another two days to return to the camp. Castiel urged them to go, and was met with little resistance, though none of them looked forward to the long walk back through the wasteland.
The way home was slow. The wagon was full of corpses and the smell travelled with them. Castiel was aware that Roger’s son was among the fallen. His name had been Dillon. Another one was Mindy, who had once shared the bed with Castiel and told him about her family’s home in New York, about her childhood and her dog.
“Learn their names,” Sam had told him once, on a bad day years ago. “Learn their histories. You need to remember that they are people, too.”
It was all too easy for Castiel to reduce his understanding of humanity to Sam and Dean, and see everyone else as things that happened to be there at the time, sometimes convenient, sometimes not. He had little patience for them. Sam wanted him to see why every one of them mattered. Castiel knew it wasn’t only to keep him from being too cold.
Sam was aware that after Dean’s betrayal, Castiel was fighting this war on humanity’s side only for him. He wanted to give the fallen angel a reason to keep going should he ever give up and go the same way his brother had gone before.
-
In the end, they needed three days to make it back home, and even in the dimming light of the dying day, the signs of violence inside the camp were impossible to overlook.
Castiel needed only a minute to declare that the attack had happened nearly a week ago. The devil’s traps, the iron barriers, everything holding back demons had been destroyed and fixed again by the time of their return. Someone was still alive then, something in there was still worth protecting. Everyone was silent and tense when they made their way to the heart of the camp, not knowing what they would find. How many were still alive.
Whatever had happened, it happened not long after Castiel and the others had left. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was a coincidence, and what it was the demons might have so desperately wanted.
He was running before anyone else lost it. Jumping over rubble to get to the huts quicker, he didn’t care if anyone followed him. It was only when he heard Sam’s screams that he dared to breathe again.
Sam sounded desperate, almost hysterical, but Castiel could hear him and that meant he was still there, had not been taken. The angel had sworn not to let him get taken again, by either side.
The screams came from underground, out of the safe room they had created out of an old basement. Castiel wanted to get down there, but Ellen and Richard blocked his way, holding him back.
“It’s not safe,” Richard said. “Wait.”
Only then did Castiel really register that Ellen and Richard were there with him, instead of being dead. He looked around, saw the rest of his group come into view, saw the men, women and children coming out of their sheds and houses to greet them. Most of those whose names he had learned were still there, though some of them were sporting bandages.
“What happened?” he asked. Richard and Ellen stepped back but remained wary, ready to hold him back again should he try to get down into the basement.
Below them, Sam screamed for his brother.
“’Bout twenty of them. Came hardly a day after you were gone. Alex broke the barriers,” Ellen said with bitterness in her voice. “Don’t know what they promised her.”
“Her son died last year,” Castiel remembered.
Richard shrugged. “Don’t matter now, does it? Ain’t gonna meet that child where she’s going.”
“You killed her?”
“Not yet.”
The ground below them seemed to shake every so slightly.
“I want to speak to her,” Castiel demanded.
“Doesn’t have an awful lot to say. Some demon got there first. Cut out her tongue and left her for us to deal with.”
It was only a small portion of what the woman would have to endure in hell. It was only a small portion of what Sam would have had to go through (again) had the demons gotten him. Castiel didn’t try very hard to feel sorry.
“Where’s Roger?” he asked. Ellen’s mouth turned into an even thinner line.
“I am in charge now,” she said.
Castiel only nodded, thinking that Roger had died without learning of his son’s death. Dillon had died without learning of his father’s. Maybe this was as close to a happy ending as they could get.
“Sam,” he said. “He drank demon blood again.” It wasn’t a question. The attack had been five days ago and Sam was still screaming.
“We had some left, but most he provided for himself.” A shudder seemed to run through Richard’s body. Castiel could imagine. He had seen Sam like that.
“In any case,” Ellen took over, “without Sam, we would probably all have been slaughtered. But like… well, you now how it works. They didn’t stand a chance. Probably thought he was too weak to fight them, or that he’d gone with you or something. I can’t imagine they didn’t know about him.”
Castiel tried to interpret her words. Did she mean them like she said them? Did she really not know that the demons wouldn’t have been here if not for Sam? Or was she wilfully blind to the fact, telling Castiel this way that they wouldn’t chase them away; that it was still better with than without them? Even now it was difficult for him to deal with the indirect aspects of human communication.
It didn’t matter, in the end. Either way, they would continue to remain here.
And Sam had saved them. It didn’t surprise Castiel, but it worried him. He had decided to leave his friend behind to spare him another withdrawal so soon after the last, but he had been forced to fall back on the blood in order to defend the village anyway.
The earth trembled again. Sam’s powers were running wild, out of control. Ellen and Richard were right – it would be dangerous to go in there right now. Yet, it was hard for Castiel to remain up here and let his friend suffer through this on his own.
Castiel was aware that Sam didn’t really realise just how important he was to him.
Down, below them, Sam was yelling at Lucifer that he wouldn’t say Yes. Not now, not ever. It was interrupted by pure and simple screams of pain.
Castiel didn’t feel threatened by Sam’s powers, no matter how violent they were unleashed in his agony. He accepted that the others wouldn’t let him in there, though, and turned away. It was hard. It always had been, even Then, when Dean was still around. It always would be.
Speaking to Alex was the first thing he had to do now. He was tired, exhausted from the journey, hungry. But those were just impulses of his body. Castiel had never paid as much attention to them as a human would have. As long as they didn’t keep him from functioning to the necessary level, it was easy to ignore them.
Alex, as expected, didn’t say much. She seemed to know her fate and have accepted it. There were no ten years for her, not even the one year Dean had gotten, so long ago. There was just an execution waiting for her, and after that, hell, and she awaited it with the face of a person who knew she deserved what she would get but wasn’t ashamed of what she had done. She would do it again, Castiel could tell. Anything for her child.
He didn’t ask about her child. He asked about the demons’ motives, about Lucifer, about Sam. Simple questions she could answer Yes or No, without needing a tongue to speak. But she didn’t know anything. Only knew that the demons wanted to get into the camp and she would be rewarded for letting them enter.
She would never see the reward. Apparently, that was fine by her. Demons lied, but they were bound to the deals they made.
“You will know suffering beyond anything you can imagine,” Castiel told her before he left. “You will come back one day without caring for the life you left behind or the one you sacrificed it for.” It was cruel but he wanted to be cruel. She looked at him with blood drying on her chin and didn’t blink. She knew. She’d known before she betrayed them.
There was nothing more Castiel had to say to her.
He entered the basement that night, and Sam’s powers didn’t hurt him. But his friend didn’t react consciously to his presence either. He was whispering things in his ruined voice, his throat raw and bleeding after days of screaming. Some of the horrors he spoke of would come true, Castiel knew. Others wouldn’t. Some already had come true in the ruins of Sam’s mind. Visions and nightmares and memories mixed and there was no sanity left in the eyes that stared at Castiel without recognition. It didn’t matter if he was here, not to Sam.
He left only in the morning, when Sam had fallen silent. Michael’s words still rang in Castiel’s ears, making him unwilling to leave his friend alone, even though he couldn’t help him. Even though it didn’t matter, here and now.
Except it did. For the first time it really mattered whether Sam lived or died. For such a long time, the angels or Lucifer had just brought him back to life if he died that it seemed inconsequential if he did. It wasn’t, anymore.
‘Sam Winchester’s soul is not welcome in heaven anymore.’
Castiel should have seen it coming. Sam was rebelling against God’s plan with every day he refused to let Lucifer in and let him face off against his brother in their epic, world-renewing showdown. In Michael’s eyes he wasn’t any better than Lucifer himself. Reason enough to deny him entry to paradise.
It was justified, in the eyes of heaven.
So whenever he died, there was only one way for Sam to go. And even if it was only for a few hours, in hell it was months of torture. Even if Sam didn’t remember it any more than he remembered heaven, it was still real. It happened. Whenever Castiel allowed his friend to die.
It was only in the morning that Sam’s powers started running wild again and he once again stared screaming in his raw, broken voice. Castiel was surprised it hadn’t given out long ago.
The room didn’t contain anything but the bed Sam had been tied to with iron shackles around his wrists and ankles. Castiel had been upset to see how burned the skin beneath was – a sure sign that Sam had drunk a lot of demon blood, had sacrificed another part of his humanity. Every time he absorbed the blood, it turned him more and more demonic, and not all of the changes disappeared when the blood was out of his system.
Eventually, after an unseen power had thrown him over twice, Castiel was forced to leave the room. There was nothing he could do for his friend anyway.
By late morning, Sam calmed down and finally fell into the deep sleep that marked the end of his detox. He would be weak for a long time afterwards, and no matter what came up, Castiel vowed silently that he would take care of his friend and not leave the camp until Sam could come with him.
As he unlocked the shackles, his mind drifted back to another room below ground level, another time he had freed a detoxing Sam of his bounds, and the old shame came over him. Much of this war that had devastated the world could not have happened if not for him.
He had told Sam who had let him out of the panic room that day, years ago when the guilt over Dean became hard to bear and Sam’s own guilt became beyond unbearable. Sam had forgiven him. It had not made Castiel feel better.
Despite the difference in height, it was easy to pick the human up and carry him outside. Castiel was still stronger than his form would lead to believe, and Sam was little more than skin and bones. He didn’t stir once on the way back to the shed, nor did he move when Castiel bandaged his burned wrists and ankles, washed and redressed him. Afterwards the angel left him to get the rest his body needed and went to Ellen, to learn more about the attack that had happened while they were gone. To see who they had lost. (He’d learned their names.)
Alex was executed in the afternoon. Ellen had her kneel on a pedestal in front of everyone and put a bullet through her skull. The woman never tried to reason with her, make excuses, run. She didn’t even blink, just met the fate she had accepted the moment she made a deal with the demons. She didn’t seem to be sorry for what she had done either, accepted the deaths of the people who fell in the attack as willingly as her own.
A least she was aware of her priorities.
Her body was taken away and dumped just outside the wards of the camp. She would be eaten by wild animals, unless a stray demon in search of a meat suit was faster and found her while she was still useable.
In the evening, Sam woke up from his sleep without ever leaving his nightmares. He was incoherent, unable to recognize Castiel or anyone else. When Castiel came too close to him he tried to run, only to find that his legs wouldn’t carry him. When Castiel tried to help him back to bed, he fought him. His eyes were black.
He kept yelling the same word over and over; the same negative that told Castiel without a doubt who was tormenting him in his dreams.
When Castiel and two others had him pinned down and helpless on the bed, he started screaming for Dean.
They had to tie him down in the end. They gagged him because they couldn’t bear to hear his words, but even the gag couldn’t block out his screams. Castiel sat with him and waited for Sam to return to them, but he didn’t. He was too far away in a world where Castiel couldn’t reach him.
Castiel couldn’t reach him. Lucifer could. And Sam kept screaming his refusal into the night. Castiel could only listen and try to imagine what the devil was doing to his friend. What he was offering, what he promised. What kind of price Sam was paying this very moment.
Even when he wasn’t physically present, Lucifer always found his vessel. This was the one thing Castiel couldn’t protect Sam from.
By nightfall, a man walked into the shed, drew a pistol, and shot Sam in the head.
The screams stopped.
Castiel hadn’t seen that coming. He didn’t react fast enough, and afterwards he didn’t react at all. For a long moment he only stared as his mind and body were unable to decide what to do – or what not to do. Only seconds later Miro, Lynn and Richard came in, and Lynn took the weapon out of the man’s unresisting hands while Miro and Richard stood between him and Castiel, looking at Sam in shock and at Castiel in fear.
“He wouldn’t be quiet.” The man looked only at the one he had just killed, at the blood dripping from the edge of the bed. “I needed him to be quiet.”
Castiel wanted to walk over there and break his neck, send his soul to hell where Sam’s already was. He wanted to shake him and tell him what he had done, what he had damned Sam to, and then end his miserable existence. The rage that welled in him was divine more than human. Sam had already sacrificed so much for them, and this was what he got in return.
He wanted to make this man understand how very easy it would be for Sam to be free of any suffering as his blood dripped off the angel’s fingers. It would be justice, plain and simple.
But Castiel knew that the man was called Jimmy, that he was barely twenty-five, that he had been possessed by a demon last year and still carried the memory of killing his young wife. He had learned, as Sam had wanted him to. He knew that Jimmy didn’t know; that he was already broken.
It lessened his anger, but didn’t make it disappear. It didn’t change his desperation over Sam being torn apart this very moment. He was quiet to these people, as they wanted him to be, but where it mattered, Sam was still screaming – if he still had a tongue, or a throat.
“He’ll be back,” Richard said, as well an assurance to them as consolation to Castiel; an attempt to not have him kill the boy who had done this. “He’ll probably be better later than he was before. They’ll heal him.”
Castiel looked at him. At Miro, who looked anxious, at Lynn, who watched them with no expression at all. “He’s in hell,” he said. Six minutes. Sam had been in hell for half a day. ”Leave.”
They did.
Closing his eyes, Castiel took a deep breath. Tried to calm down. Cursed Jimmy and Dean and Michael. His hands were calm when he knelt down beside the bed and took off Sam’s restrains. Then he pulled the gag from his mouth, leaving it slack and half-open. Sam’s eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, and the irony was burning.
Eventually, Castiel cleaned away the blood. He carried Sam over to his own bed and changed the bedding for clean sheets and an unsoiled pillow while he waited for Sam to come back to life. An hour. Six days on the rack.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened for the rest of the day. Castiel waited by Sam’s side through the night, waiting for the moment when his wounds would heal and he would come back to life with a gasp. It didn’t happen. The night passed and the next day, and Sam had been in hell for half a year. Castiel began to wonder what he would get back. Half a year in hell wouldn’t be enough to break Sam Winchester, but his life was not so different from the pit. The addiction, the withdrawal, the things demons and angels did to him whenever they could, to make him say yes and let them finish their war. Sam had been tormented almost without a break since before Dean had turned his back on him. Castiel didn’t know how much was too much.
When the second night was over, the others began to worry. What if Sam didn’t come back this time? He scared them, with his crazy withdrawal and his unnatural powers, his visions and guilt and the way his awareness slipped when it was too hard to focus on reality for long with all the trauma of his memories and dreams, but they needed him too, knew no one could protect them from demons the way Sam could. They were scared of losing that – even Lynn, who never forgave Castiel for not taking Sam along to the North. Lynn, who checked in at least once an hour to see if Sam was back yet.
Castiel never worried about that. He knew it was only a matter of time, but time was so much crueller than any of the others could possibly imagine.
It took three days in the end, until suddenly a shudder ran through Sam’s body, and then he was convulsing in a way he never had before. He woke up with a scream and shot upright on the bed. Castiel caught him before he could fall back down, felt him go nearly limp in his arms. Sam’s whole body was trembling, and when the fallen angel let him down slowly, he saw that his friend was crying; tears running noiselessly down pale, hollow cheeks.
His eyes, for the first time in days, were clear.
“Cas,” he whispered. Drew his arms close to his body and shivered. Castiel ran a hand through his tangled hair in a brief gesture of consolation and they caught in a spot where he’d missed some blood and it had dried and stuck the hair together. Perhaps they would have to cut it. Sam’s hair was too long to be practical anyway. It wasn’t a matter of a style he had chosen for himself, he just never paid enough attention to himself to cut it.
The skin and skull under Castiel’s fingers were unbroken, whole. The fatal wound had disappeared. Everything else had not.
The burns around his wrists were still there. The slash across the ribs he had suffered in battle was still there, beginning to start bleeding now the blood was flowing again. All the scars, the badly healed fractures in his bones remained.
There had been a time once when Sam was brought back completely healed, in perfect condition. It hadn’t been like that in years. Now only the fatal wounds were healed, and sometimes even those only to an extent where survival was possible, but not a given. Sometimes Sam would come back to life only to die again in a matter of hours. Both Michael and Lucifer wanted him to suffer, to never let him have a break. Eventually, they figured, he would have to give in, if only to finally find peace.
Catiel knew Sam better than anyone now. He knew Sam was tired, and he knew that Sam knew he wouldn’t get any relief anytime in the foreseeable future. Sometimes Castiel wondered if his friend learned the names of the people he met too, so when he was tempted to give in he had something to hold on for. He had learned through Sam (and Dean) that it was easier to fight for Lynn, who wanted children and couldn’t have them, who’d lost her little sister when she was twenty and her parents when she was thirty and was planning to marry Ben before the end of this year, than for a hundred thousand anonymous faces.
Now Sam had returned after a year in hell, and he’d returned as himself, which meant that once again he had refused to give up. Castiel knew that a Yes spoken in the deepest circle of hell was still a Yes, and he couldn’t support his friend there. Sam was all alone when he was dead. Castiel wasn’t entirely sure how he could hold on.
Holding on was hard enough for Castiel, who never suffered like that and who when something killed him would only die. But Castiel wasn’t fighting for his own people, and his affection for humanity had once been based almost entirely on his affection for Dean. It had been hard to keep to his chosen path after Dean had let him down.
He kept going, in the end, because Sam did. It had impressed Castiel then, when he’d seen his friend fall apart and was so sure he would follow his brother’s decision, just so he wouldn’t have to live with his guilt and because he had nothing left to fight for. But Sam had held on to his No, sometimes screaming it over and over through torturous days full of agony and desperation, hanging on to the word until he remembered why he had to. Castiel hadn’t thought much of the human boy when he’d first met him, had seen him as a threat more than anything else. Even when he’d come to see him as a friend, he hadn’t ever really had faith in him – perhaps because Dean didn’t. When Sam had fought even though there was nothing he could ever gain for himself, Castiel had been unable to let him do it on his own.
He was the only one left.
“Cas,” Sam muttered again, and from the way his voice sounded his throat was still raw from days of screaming. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Castiel found himself regretting that he didn’t think to bring a damp cloth to clean Sam’s forehead of sweat. On top of the erasure of discomfort, the simple activity usually had a calming effect on Sam when he was awake through it. Now the sweat remained on his pale skin and his eyes were wet with tears as he tried to roll on his side, away from Castiel.
“They came for me. If I hadn’t been here… Knew it was a risk, but I thought…”
“Do not blame yourself for this,” Castiel said, knowing Sam did. “It was Alex who made a deal with the demons.”
“Because of me.”
“If not for you, none of these people would be alive today.”
Sam didn’t point out that none of these people would ever have been in danger if he hadn’t killed Lilith and freed Lucifer, if he hadn’t allowed Michael to take his brother as a vessel. He didn’t need to. They had had this discussion too many times before.
“Is Alex still here?” Sam asked quietly. “I want to talk to her.”
“She died.” Castiel didn’t go into detail. This was all Sam needed to know. As an afterthought he added, “I believe she was fine with it.”
Had probably welcomed it. Alex had made her decision, had accepted that for her child to live she would have to do something she knew was wrong. Maybe knowing she wouldn’t have to live with the consequences had made it easier. (Maybe Sam envied her.)
Sam didn’t say anything in reply. He lay curled up and shaking on his bed, and after a few minutes he gave in and started to cry openly. Castiel allowed him that moment without comment. It was too much, and Sam needed to find relief in whatever form he could. He did not remember hell, but it had still happened to him and he felt the aftershocks, even if they seemed to come out of nowhere.
Castiel wondered if Sam knew.
“We should leave.”
Sam’s words came as a surprise. It was him who had always insisted on staying and using his powers to protect these people, and It was Sam who said they should use the camp as a home base for the trips he took to free as many possessed humans as possible of the demons who used them. Castiel had agreed without much resistance because he understood that Sam needed something to live for. He had often wanted to move on for good, though. They were limited here and while the people around them appreciated the help and knew how much they depended on Sam, they didn’t feel comfortable around him and Sam knew it. Castiel always felt the two of them would do better on their own.
It was only two weeks later, when they were on their way to Wyoming, that Castiel began to wonder if maybe Sam had wanted them to stay for so long because he wanted Castiel to have other people he knew and cared about after Sam had finally given up.
-
Michael waits for him outside, and Dean isn’t even surprised to see him. He’s also very much awake and thereby suspects that Michael is very much real.
“Little brother send you a text message?” he growls. “I thought you’d have something better to do than stalk me. Oh, wait! All the major cities are already gone, right? I’d wondered what you do to kill time now. Stealing candy from children was a favourite.”
Michael raises his eyebrows, looking to all the word like a child who has no idea why he’s being accused of being anything less than perfect. “You’re angry with me.”
“Yeah, I think I might be.”
Michael gives a long-suffering sigh. “Dean…”
“Don’t ‘Dean’ me! I think you’ve Deaned me long enough.”
“You used to understand,” Michael says. “I regret having to let you go, leave you to this world again. I know it isn’t pleasant. And I wish you hadn’t forgotten so much. You would understand if you could remember. You understood so well before.”
Dean wants to tell him how Castiel suspects that Michael erased his memories on purpose, but considering how he doesn’t exactly trust Cas at the moment, it might not be the best argument under closer inspection.
So he just asks, “Why did I forget?”
“We were one for a long time,” Michael says with some regret. “The separation was traumatic for both of us. You lost an important part of yourself. Your mind shut down and erased all memories because in your vulnerable state you wouldn’t have been able to deal with them.”
“Will I get them back?”
“You have been very lucky,” Michael says instead of a proper reply. “You only lost your memories. Other vessels are left almost completely useless; mindless and empty. They can only be restored to a functional being if the angel they hosted returns.”
“So you’re saying to get my memories back, I need to let you back in? That what you’re saying?” Dean isn’t entirely sure that’s what he’s supposed to take from Michael’s words, and he isn’t sure it’s true either. “Too bad if I did that I wouldn’t be me any more so it wouldn’t actually matter.”
“You misunderstand the details,” Michael tells him. “But that can’t be helped. Just remember that you knew the price you would have to pay for giving your consent, and that you deemed it acceptable.”
“Yeah, well. I might not be able to remember anything, but I’m sure I didn’t come to you and asked you to vaporize the state of Washington for me.”
“It was you who came to me in the end. But that is of no import right now. I am here to help you.”
“In exchange for…?”
A shadow of impatience appears on Michael’s youthful face. “You doubt my motives with you? Lucifer did not have a good influence on you. Perhaps you should consider that he is the devil to your people. Not the best person to listen to.”
“Funny how everyone tells me that about everyone else!” Dean snaps.
“Why is it so hard to believe that I simply do not wish for you to starve to death in search of your friend who might just as well have abandoned you?”
“I don’t know. But I guess it might have something to do with the fact that you took my memories and dumped me without food or water or a fucking clue in a fucking desert!” Yeah, it’s still hard not to be a little pissed about that.
“Come with me, Dean.”
“Come where?”
“I can take you back to Castiel.”
“Who abandoned me to the enemy. Your compassion is touching.”
“You should know, now more than ever, that you need to be with him.”
“So I can find out where he’s hidden the soul of Lucifer’s vessel. Yeah, your brother told me about that. I still find it amazing that you so badly want to find it. I mean, you could end this whole mess any time, without breaking a sweat, but you want to give the fucking devil every chance to quite possibly kick your ass.”
“Our fight will have to happen in the right way,” Michael says with dignity, every inch the righteous archangel.
“And the world gets the short straw. You know, it’s really hard to tell who’s the evil guy here.”
“I believe that would be a matter of perspective. My brother certainly thinks he is in the right, that the world owes him something. That doesn’t make him right.”
“Doesn’t make you right either.”
“Yes, it does. I follow my father’s plan. Like you did yours, Dean. You and I are not so different. You used to see that. You saw that the best chance for reaching your own goals was through me. You were willing to make great sacrifices for that.”
“Except you didn’t do what I thought you would,” Dean defends himself. “I was willing to sacrifice myself to you to save humanity, and you let me believe you would do that. And then you took my body and used it to kill millions.” He took a step closer to the other, because Michael was an archangel pretty close to the peak of his powers and that was damn intimidating, but hell, Dean had just chatted with fucking Satan, and whether Michael liked it or not, in matters of intimidation he was a clear step away from that.
“That’s what my brother told you.” Michael nods, as if he didn’t expect anything else. “He would, of course. He was right in one thing: You did want the best for your people. And that was me. Yes, I killed millions. They then went to heaven, beyond the pain of this mortal plane.”
“A pain you are responsible for,” Dean reminds him.
“There is no point in discussing this with you as long as your mind is set on seeing evil in me,” Michael decides. “Just know, before you keep accusing me, that you knew that millions would die in this war if you chose me – and more if you didn’t. Know that you, too, had some control over our actions. Not everyone was killed by me. It was you who put an end to the life of a man who was like a father to you. It was you who forced yourself on your brother as punishment for his sins.”
Dean’s hands turn into fists. “What?”
“Oh, Dean.” Michael looks at him sadly. “You were so angry. So full of wrath. How could I not let you have that revenge after everything he put you through? He, more than anything else, pushed you to me.” He lifts a hand to cup Dean’s cheek and Dean is frozen, too shocked to move or even register it. “He deserved it, and more. Do not feel bad.”
“Don’t feel bad?” Dean’s voice is a whisper. He hopes he misinterpreted those words. He must have – he wouldn’t. No matter how angry he was. He knew he didn’t, and he shouldn’t even think about asking. But he couldn’t stop himself. “Did you just tell me that I raped my own brother?” He looks into the face Michael is wearing. The terribly young face of a boy he can’t even remember. “The brother you’re wearing right now?”
“Do not dwell on it,” Michael says calmly. “Just keep it in mind for the next time you feel the need to judge my actions. It all makes sense from where we are standing, even if from your limited view it seems wrong.” He looks up, at the building Dean has just left, and maybe Lucifer is looking down at him, at them, but Dean can’t care and can’t move. “Find Castiel without my help if you don’t want it. And find out where he hid the soul. Only then will this world finally know peace.”
He is gone before Dean can even blink.
-
He doesn’t find Castiel, but that’s okay. Castiel finds him, and when he does, Dean is sitting inside a burned out one-story building and staring into nothing. He’s still in Atlanta, and as far as he can guess Atlanta must be swarming with demons. But he never sees them, and Castiel makes it to him in one piece and with all his limbs attached.
“What was that about the demons wanting to torture me into joining their forces you told me about?” he hears himself say as a greeting, and it’s funny, because that’s not what he’s been thinking about. “I just had a nice chat with the devil. He let me go in one piece.”
“There are demons who would harm you if they got the chance. Not all demons are happy with having Lucifer back. Those who want to be rid of him would do anything to keep Michael from using you again,” Castiel explains, as if they hadn’t been separated for a day; as if he hadn’t left Dean behind.
“Ah. Would have been handy if you’d been more specific before.”
“My apologies. I didn’t think it was important as any kind of contact with demons would be bad.”
“Bad for me? Or for you? You’re the one they want to torture the information out of. I don’t have it, so I’m safe.”
“That’s why you don’t have it. They would have wanted to torture it out of you too if you knew.”
“You know, I would have said the same if I were you.” Dean finally looks at Castiel. The angel is dirty as hell, covered in the dust that must have stuck to him when he was still soaking wet, but apart from that he seems none the worse for wear. “I also would have claimed knowing they wouldn’t harm me as the reason for leaving me behind.”
“I’m sorry.” Castiel lets out a weary sigh. “I had indeed hoped that they would refrain from doing you any harm.”
“You hoped,” Dean echoes flatly.
“I don’t know how Lucifer thinks, what he’s planning in detail. It’s possible that he would have seen hurting you as the more promising course of action, although that is not his style. However, had he done that, Michael would have interfered.”
“Before or after Lucifer tortured me?”
Castiel hesitates long enough to make the answer redundant. “Probably afterwards,” he admits. “He would have healed you, of course. But he would have seen this as an opportunity to make you understand that Lucifer is your enemy. To keep you from listening to him.”
“I’m not listening to anyone right now,” Dean explains impatiently. “Everyone’s telling me something else, but I’m beginning to get a bit of a picture here. Why don’t you contribute to it and tell me why you were so quick to leave me behind?”
Castiel drops the bag he is carrying at Dean’s feet and sits down beside him. Dean looks at the bag – it’s his, the one left behind when he was taken to Lucifer. Castiel must have retrieved it.
“I am sorry,” the angel says again, with emphasis. “I had no other choice. Had they taken me, Lucifer might have found a way to get the information he wants. I could not risk that.”
Dean nods slowly, not exactly pacified, but a little more willing to listen now he has his bag back and can associate Castiel’s mysterious keepsake with something real. “The soul of Lucifer’s vessel?”
For a moment, Cas looks surprised. “He told you?”
“He showed me. Has the body barred up like a treasure there.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of the building he met the devil in and Cas follows his hand with his eyes, as if he could see right through the walls and the dark of night. “Told me you stole the soul so the guy couldn’t say yes to him.”
Castiel doesn’t look at him. He still looks at the building he can’t even see, and once again, Dean imagines Lucifer looking back at him. He wonders if Castiel can still sense him; if they can sense each other.
“How does he look?” Cas asks quietly, eventually.
“Lucifer?” Dean shrugs. “Disgusting. Wearing a teenager whose skin is falling off.”
But Castiel shakes his head. “The body. Lucifer’s vessel. How does he look?”
Dean frowns at him. After all, Castiel knew the guy and must know what he looks like. Then, finally, he gets what the angel is talking about. That man has been dead for more than a century, after all.
“Like he’s just died,” he says, summoning the picture from his memory with disturbing ease. “He’s very thin, and full of scars, but I didn’t see what killed him. Looks like he’s sleeping except… well. Deader.”
“Scars…” Castiel mutters. “I see.”
“You see?”
“I burned the body,” Castiel tells him, finally looking at him but not, his eyes gazing back at a day long, long ago. “I burned him in holy fire. I didn’t expect Lucifer or Michael to be unable to recreate it from the atoms, but I hoped it would make it difficult for them. Distract them by looking for his molecules so they would not look for his soul right away. It’s… interesting that the body was resurrected not in ideal shape but the way he looked when he died. That is all.”
The thought going through Dean’s head isn’t a realisation, not really. “He was your friend. The one you told me about.”
“Yes.”
“And you killed him.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all? ‘Yes’? You generally treat your friends like this? It was convenient to leave me behind to save your own ass, so you did. It was convenient to kill him so he couldn’t say yes, so you did.”
“I would have killed him before had I found a way to make it stick sooner,” Castiel says without remorse. “He died often, and rarely quickly. He was brought back every time. When he died, he was denied the place in heaven he would have deserved, so he went to hell instead. When he was alive, the nightmares and guilt never stopped. There was no rest for him in life and none in death. I wasn’t worried he would say yes. I merely wanted for him to have peace.”
“If it was that bad he would have gone insane by then,” Dean points out. Constant torture does that to a person.
To his surprise, Castiel only nods. “He was. Sometimes.”
“Great,” Dean mutters and becomes aware that the topic got away from him again, away from the answers he wants. Though he thinks he might have gotten them, and he thinks he might be forgiving Castiel right now and that really sucks, because he doesn’t want to forgive Castiel. It’s just that he needs to trust someone, and while he certainly can’t trust Cas, out of all the people he’s gotten to know so far, Cas is the only one who never at least partially destroyed the world.
“It was wrong of me to leave you behind like that,” Cas says like he’s been reading Dean’s mind. “But I have to protect my friend. It takes precedence over everything. I can’t risk having Lucifer or Michael finding his soul.”
Dean thinks maybe be can understand that, except he’s sure he’s never had anyone he would go that far for. Sacrifice anything and anyone. He thinks he might be a little jealous.
His anger isn’t entirely gone, but his disgust is stronger. Disgust with himself and disbelief sitting in his guts like stones.
He has to bring it up, as much as he doesn’t want to. Because he trusts Cas a little bit more than anyone else, or maybe because he just has to (since he’s not entirely sure he does trust Cas that much).
“I met Michael again,” he says. “This time he was really there.”
“What did he want?”
“Help me. Or so he said.”
Castiel snorts. It’s the most open display of an opinion Dean has seen him offer since the night he told Dean of all the ways in which he’s betrayed them.
The sickness that has been sitting in his stomach since Michael disappeared on him gets stronger. The words leave his mouth like vomit. “Michael said I raped my brother. Said I was angry and he deserved it.” He closes his eyes. “Is it true?”
There are hands on his shoulders suddenly, gripping him too tightly not to cause pain, and he opens his eyes to Castiel staring at him.
“What exactly did Michael say to you?” the angel wants to know. “What did he say happened, Dean?”
The intensity in his words, his eyes scares Dean. He flinches back instinctively, tries to hide in the deeper shadows, but Castiel’s eyes always find him.
“He said he let me take control and I did it. Not him. Me.” The words burn on Dean’s tongue, and he doesn’t even care enough to feel ashamed for how his voice sounds so small. Like a little boy’s.
“He lied.” Castiel’s voice is hard, but he lets go of Dean’s shoulders and leans back. “You didn’t do it. You never even knew it happened.”
It’s a relief, but it doesn’t completely ease the knot in Dean’s stomach. “But it happened.”
“It was Michael. He pretended to be you. But your brother never believed it. Not for one moment. Not even after everything else.” Even in the shadow of the night, Dean can see Cas’ shoulders slump as the tension leaves him. “I did not believe you deserved such faith at that time.”
Dean is still trying to get the information into his mind. Somehow, it’s more shocking now that he knows it wasn’t him. Maybe that’s because he couldn’t believe he’s ever been able to do something like that, not really, not even while he hated himself for it. But this – Michael doing that; anyone doing that to his little brother is almost more than he can take in.
Slowly, anger is working its way up through the shock. “Michael did that… He hurt my brother like that?” He thinks of Michael, looking so comfortable in his vessel. It makes him feel sick. “Why did he do that to him? To Adam?”
“No…” Cas says, sounding uncomfortable. “Not Adam. Your other brother. Sam.”
For a second, it’s like everything suddenly makes sense. Like all the pieces are falling into place, like Dean remembers who he is just at the mention of a name, and he is left kneeling in the mud of a ghost town at night while the world ends without a word.
The second passes and Dean’s just Dean again, without memories of any brother he might ever have had, or of any life. But his heart remembers, sending wild, desperate beats that shake his whole body, and his lungs remember, refusing to breathe.
Perhaps his eyes remember, too.
“Sam?” he whispers, as if the name could fade away if he didn’t hold on to it. “He was the one you meant when you were talking about my brother, right? Not Adam.”
“Adam was your brother, too,” Castiel explains. “But you never knew him. And neither did I.”
“Why did Michael do it?” Dean has to know. “What was the fucking point? I thought he would... Was it because of me? Because he wanted to discourage you from trying to get me back?” It’s the only explanation he can come up with. It almost makes sense, in a twisted, psychopathic kind of way – he wouldn’t try to get back a guy who’s happily raped his own brother.
Once again Castiel hesitates before answering. The whole topic seems to be uncomfortable to him. It hardly comes as a surprise.
“Partially,” the fallen angel finally says. “But mainly to break your brother, take away his reason for fighting.”
And one of the puzzle pieces that has fallen into place just a minute before only to blow up in Dean’s face falls into place again, and he doesn’t get why he hasn’t seen it before when it is so glaringly obvious. “The body Lucifer showed me… His perfect vessel. That’s Sam, isn’t it?”
Cas’ voice sounds strangely sad in the darkness. “Yes.”
“God.” Dean leans forward, buries his head in his hands. He thinks of the scarred face, the crippled hands. The odd protectiveness that suddenly makes so much sense. “That’s my brother. And he’s dead. And… you killed him.”
“Dean…”
“No. I get it. You did it to protect him. I get it. I just…” Dean shakes his head, but it won’t clear. “Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning? You killed him and you took his soul and… Where is it, Cas?”
“I can’t tell you that, Dean.”
“Tell me!” Dean jumps to his feet and then he’s on Castiel, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “I need to find him! I need to know!”
Cas sighs sadly and gently removes the human’s hands from his shirt. “This is exactly why I can’t tell you.”
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