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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): 9,779
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.
The demons keep away the second day in the city as well, but Castiel remains uneasy all the time, overly cautious, even though it’s clear by now that everyone and their dog seem to think the best course of action is leaving them alone until Cas tells Dean where to find the soul.
Dean doesn’t know if they are being monitored all the time, or if Michael and Lucifer simply expect him to tell them once he knows. Michael said he didn’t know everything that Dean and Cas were doing, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem finding him either.
He asks Cas about that at once point, after they’ve been walking side by side in silence for a while, and Cas tells him that Michael can find his mind when he is asleep but he can’t find his physical form due to some protective signs Cas once burned into Dean’s ribs.
However, Michael and Lucifer probably both know very well where they are right now. It’ll be hard to lose them again.
There’s something else that bothers Dean. “The guys who took me to Lucifer – you know, the ones you abandoned me to – those were fallen angels too, weren’t they? Like you.”
“Not like me,” Cas corrects him. “They’re fallen angels who joined Lucifer’s side. They’re cut off from heaven like me, but they get their strength from another source now. In a direct fight they’d have the advantage.”
“Besides outnumbering you, of course. I get it. What I don’t get is why you didn’t sense them the way you sensed Lucifer.”
“Because they are lesser angels and Lucifer is an archangel. My grace is nearly completely gone. It doesn’t pick up the presence of other angels like it used to. But Lucifer is widely visible, even to me.”
That makes sense, Dean supposes – it’s not like he has any idea how exactly Grace works. “Could Lucifer find my broth... Sam’s mind, too?” His tongue stumbles over that name like it’s from another language. “You know, come to him in his dreams and all that?”
“He did.” Castiel’s voice is quiet. He seems absorbed in the simple process of walking once again. “The connection was stronger between them than between you and Michael. Lucifer came often. There was no way to keep him out.”
“What did he do?”
“Sam never spoke much of it. As far as I know, he just talked to him.”
“Yeah, he seems to be rather fond of the sound of his own voice,” Dean recalls. “What did he talk about? The weather? His latest plans for universal domination?”
“Sometimes. I know he tried to seduce Sam into saying yes. Sometimes he tried to break him.”
They left the ruins of Atlanta hours ago and finally Dean feels like he can breathe again. Castiel seems more willing to talk, as if they’ve left the devil behind them with the city. As if that were possible.
“Lucifer told me he’d never hurt him.” Dean thinks back to his meeting with the devil, recalls the possessive protectiveness the archangel displayed towards his vessel and feels anger wash over him.
“He wouldn’t. Not physically.” Castiel sounds hesitant, as if unsure that his words are actually the truth. “He wanted Sam’s consent, so he needed him on his side. Just torturing him into saying Yes wasn’t his style. Lucifer showed your brother kindness where no one else did. He offered protection and love.”
Dean frowns. “Really doesn’t sound particularly cruel to me,” he says doubtfully.
“It was,” Castiel informs him bluntly. “And even Lucifer’s patience isn’t endless. He never harmed Sam physically, but he allowed others to do it. He knew physical torture wouldn’t get him anywhere, though.”
Dean doesn’t say anything, waits for Cas to continue on his own.
After a moment, he does. “He would threaten Sam. When offering to protect the people he cared about once Sam said yes, he also threatened to kill or torture them if Sam continued to refuse him.”
“And he did,” Dean whispers. He tries to imagine the pressure that comes with such a threat. Perhaps it was because of something like this that he gave in to Michael.
Castiel nods. “He did.”
Dean tries to imagine the guilt.
“Not all the devastation you see around you was caused by Michael and his angels,” Cas adds. Dean doesn’t feel like that lifts any of his own guilt.
Speaking of which… “Michael said I’d killed a friend of mine. That it was me, not him. Someone who was like a father-”
“Bobby,” Cas interrupts him. “As far as I know, you and Sam often stayed with him when you were children. You were close.”
“And I killed him?” Dean asks numbly.
“No. Michael did.”
Dean still feels like crying. For Bobby, for his brother… It’s strange, to feel so sad because of people he might, for all he remembers, never have met.
“Why?”
“To take away Sam’s support. Sam didn’t have many friends. It was widely known that he had broken the last seal. Bobby was the only one still caring for him. His loss was… difficult to bear.”
There doesn’t seem to be much more to say for the moment. Dean has learned about his brother today, and he knows now that there was a man he used to love like a father and that he’s dead, and somehow it’s leaving him feeling depressed and hopeless even though the man would have been dead anyway, two hundred years later.
“Where are we going now?” Dean is tired of asking this question, and he’s tired in general, so that’s kind of fitting.
“We’re going to a place I know. It’s well protected against demons and angels. There we will rest for a few days.”
“And then?”
Cas glances at Dean and gives him the hint of a smirk. “Then we’ll move on.”
-
Somewhere along the way, Cas found food. Dean has no idea where – he must have gotten it while they were separated, because he sure as hell doesn’t remember him stopping in a supermarket. That’s exactly what must have happened, though, since Cas pulls cans of dried or pickled food out of his bag the minute they sit down to rest; expiration date: the year five-thousand.
It makes Dean think of Jena and the way he first met her. (He still isn’t sure if he thinks she’s a demon, or an angel, or some other kind of monster. With all these apocalyptic events it’s hard to remember that those exist, too.)
The food tastes like he always expected food without expiration dates to taste centuries after being manufactured, but Dean doesn’t mind. He’s hungry enough to eat dust. Lucifer wasn’t exactly the best host in that regard. What kind of shitty behaviour was that anyway, presenting his guest with the corpse of his dead brother and then having the balls to tell him he cared more?
Except that it was kind of true, because Dean doesn’t care. He can’t. He doesn’t remember ever having had a brother.
A brother who, apparently, still had faith in him after Dean betrayed them all.
That night they sleep in a forest, and Dean wakes up when Castiel presses a hand to his mouth and looks at him with worried eyes. At first Dean thinks they are being attacked again, but then he feels the beating of his heart and the sweat cooling in the chilly air.
“I dreamt I was holding someone who died,” he rasps when Cas lets him. Was it his brother? He doesn’t remember. He remembers a heavy weight in his arms and blood on his hands, remembers himself talking, then screaming, but he doesn’t remember the words. Did that really happen?
Cas nods, as if he expected that. “You were screaming your brother’s name.”
That answers that question, then.
“It felt so real. Like a memory. Did it happen?” Dean looks at the angel, desperate for answers. Wondering if he’ll get the truth for once.
“I don’t know the details of your dream,” Castiel informs him. “But your brother did die in your arms once. It was the first time you lost him. I didn’t know either of you then, but I know it made a strong impact on you.”
If nothing else, Dean can imagine that. Though actually, he kind of can’t.
He still doesn’t know if he really wants his life back.
“Tell me about that friend of mine Michael killed,” he asks.
Castiel makes a movement that looks like a shrug. “I met him through you. A rather gruff personality. He never hesitated to tell you what he thought, but he cared for you and your brother like a father.”
“What did he… I mean, how did he react when I said yes?” Dean swallows, not sure he wants to hear the answer.
“It broke his heart,” Cas tells him without mercy. “He’d tried to prevent it.”
“By locking me in. Yeah, you mentioned that. And… my brother let me out.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose…” What was the name again? “Bobby? Wasn’t happy about it, huh?”
Cas sighs. “No. But he was angry with you rather than Sam. I think he was impressed by the faith your brother had in you even then. He never forgave you for letting him down like that. It’s Sam who never forgave himself.”
“You really know how to make a guy feel good about himself,” Dean mutters. Cas throws him a level gaze from a face displaying no emotion.
“There’s nothing to feel good about here, Dean.”
So much for that.
“What happened after? Did the three of you stay together?”
“No. Bobby was bound to a wheelchair. He couldn’t move around with us while we were looking for you, for a way to separate you from Michael. He stayed behind and provided us with information he gathered, and a base to rest in. When the destruction started and the demons were everywhere he wrote books on them, on protection and how to fight them. By then everyone knew monsters were real. Bobby didn’t ask for money for the books as long as someone would print and distribute them. Many people are alive today because of him. He died five years after you left.”
“Did he know… I mean, did Michael pretend to be me?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
It’s not the comforting reply Dean hoped for. He sits in silence until Cas adds gently, “He knew you. If Michael pretended, he wouldn’t have believed him.”
“How did Sam take it?”
“Badly.”
Dean thinks about that until he drifts off to sleep again. He wakes up in the morning when Cas tells him they have to move on. It’s not until nearly midday that he realises that the fallen angel never got any sleep that night. He needs to make sure that Cas gets his turn of rest as well, in the future, since he doesn’t seem to take care of it himself.
Dean wonders if Cas and Sam were like this: walking and wandering and fighting, with Cas leaving all the sleep to Sam and Sam screaming in his dreams.
-
Dean doubts either demons or angels ever really let them out of their sight, but at least they leave them alone. Eventually, they cross a forest that looks a little more alive than any other they saw before, and Dean expects there to be settlements around. Of all the places he’s seen so far, this is the one he would have chosen, but there is no sign of human life anywhere to be found and Castiel never allows him to rest, keeps hurrying him along so they are out of the forest before nightfall.
Dean decides not to ask about that, nor does he ask why they keep walking half through the night until the forest is entirely out of sight.
He doesn’t sleep that night.
While the two of them avoided the major cities where they could all through their journey, they saw signs of human civilisation all the time, and Dean knows there are people living in those cities, finding shelter in the ruins and inside their groups. After they passed the forest, there is nothing more. Every now and then, there are the leftovers of small towns, or single, collapsing farmhouses, but none of them show any sign of life. Even though some of the towns look almost untouched, Castiel chooses a way that leads far around them, and Dean never protests. This doesn’t feel like the dead valley they crossed before, but in another way it feels just as bad.
Dean feels watched, is cautious of every shadow. Yet he knows, as certain as he ever knew anything, that they are alone.
The bad feeling gradually eases, and it’s like they crossed a barrier no one else ever crosses; the area remains empty, devoid of human life. There are animals, though, plenty of them, and the grass is a little greener, the trees carry a little more fruit. This would be a good area for humans to live in, Dean thinks – as good as it gets anymore.
There are no humans around, just them.
Castiel’s hideout is in a cave, not far from an abandoned farm. It’s up a steep slope, overlooking the area, which explains why Cas chose this place rather than the comfort of a real, well-preserved house. There are cans full of conserved food around, and a stack of furs from animals Cas must have killed himself. Dean tries to imagine it: the angel of the lord, sitting over a bloody carcass, cutting the skin off with his silvery knife while blood stains his hands. The picture enters his mind with surprising ease.
The entrance to the cave is hidden between bushes, but holes in the ceiling provide enough illumination for them not to run against rocks until Cas lights a torch and leads Dean deeper into the mountain where there are no holes anymore and no risk of getting rained on. Altogether, the cave isn’t too deep, but it’s deep enough. It’s protected from view and from weather, and the furs make for a comfortable resting place. Dean wonders how long the angel lived here to collect so many as he drops his bag beside a pile of furs and decides to claim it as his bed.
“Did you live here with my brother?” he hears his own voice ask while his mind is still somewhere else.
“No.” Cas sets down his own bag and wanders back to the smaller cavern near the opening, where the cans are stored. “I came here afterwards.”
Afterwards. After he killed the kid and took his soul. Dean grits his teeth and doesn’t really know why, because Cas explained it to him and he knows it was probably best for Sam, and damn it, he doesn’t even know Sam, and from all he’s heard the kid’s the one who drove him to say yes, so Dean doesn’t really know why he cares. Maybe it’s because he feels that everything would make a whole lot more sense if only he could talk to his brother.
“How safe is this place?” he asks, because that’s important too.
“Safe enough. There are strong wards against demons and angels and sigils that will warn me if humans are nearing. It won’t hold off an archangel who really wants to come here, but at least we’ll know if one is coming.”
“If it’s protected against angels, how come you can come here?”
“I’m not really an angel anymore. And it’s my protection.”
That makes sense. Would suck to protect your own place with sigils you can’t cross. “Are there many places like this around?”
“A few.”
“How long are we staying?”
“As long as is safe.”
“That’s not helpful at all.”
“We’ll see.”
“What happened here? Why is there no one around but us?”
“It’s the apocalypse, Dean,” Cas answers in his ‘you are an idiot but I have patience’ tone. “Apocalyptic things happen, and they leave traces.”
“But there’s no destruction around.”
“Not all destruction is physical.”
“I want to speak with my brother.”
Cas drops the cans he was holding on Dean’s pile of fur. “Your brother is dead.”
“And you got his soul. I mean, he’s still around.”
“You are aware that to speak to your brother, his soul would have to get back into his body. Which is currently in Lucifer’s possession.”
“I know. I just… I mean, I’ve seen enough ghosts and spirits in my time. Can’t you just summon his soul, or something?”
“No. It’s not possible in this case. And even if it were, Lucifer would sense it. He would be here in an instant.”
Dean sits down, takes one of the cans and turns it around and around in his hands just to give his hands something to do. He doesn’t know why he’s so desperate to see his brother when even thinking about him still makes him feel physically sick.
“When did you kill him?” he finds himself asking, not wanting to talk about it any longer but unable to let it go. “How long ago, exactly? I don’t even know what year this is.”
“It’s 2232. I took Sam’s soul away in the year 2047.”
Dean calculates quickly, and he’s almost come to a result when something inside him remembers that he doesn’t even know when his brother was born – or himself for that matter. He is left with the feeling that something doesn’t quite add up, that this is too far from the time he himself lived in to make any sense. “How old was he?” he asks with a frown. “Hell, how old was I?”
“By date of birth you were thirty-one when you said yes,” Cas explains, and Dean almost asks what he means by that when he remembers hell and being dead. “Your brother was sixty-four.”
A memory comes to Dean, of Jena telling him it all started in the year 2010 (or so they say). If that was the year he said yes, it would mean he was born in 1979, four years before Sam. It feels right, and he decides it’s the truth. That isn’t what bothers him.
“The body Lucifer showed me didn’t look like sixty-four,” he informs Cas. “I mean, he didn’t look very good, and it’s hard to guess with how thin he was and all, but I’ll be damned if he was even thirty.”
“He wasn’t. Sam stopped aging around the time you said yes.”
“What? Why?”
“I suppose Lucifer acknowledged that Sam might not give his consent anytime soon. It might have been vanity – he didn’t want to wear an old-looking body when finally facing his older brother in your youthful form.”
Dean thinks of Lucifer, of the way he referred to the corpse on the table as ‘his’ body. The memory fills him with helpless, inexplicable rage.
“In any case, it’s easier to stop a human from aging than to reverse age, which would have been necessary had Sam lived long enough to die of old age,” Castiel adds, as if he didn’t really care. “It might have been an entirely practical precaution.”
Dean doesn’t know what to make of that, what to think. He’s tired. He wants to sleep and perhaps not wake up.
First he wants to eat, so he does. The canned food tastes like nothing good but he’s been hungry for so long and doesn’t care any more than when they ate before. Yet he wonders if this is the only thing he’ll eat for the rest of his life.
Wonders if Michael will keep him from aging too, should Cas be able to keep the soul hidden for much longer.
Wonders what would happen to him if he refused to let Michael in again. What they would do to make him. If he could win back Castiel’s respect by being like his little brother.
Something about the thought almost makes him laugh. Instead, he goes to sleep.
-*Interlude II*-
The demons were camping in the valley below, roasting a dead boar over an open fire. Castiel remembered that demons liked to eat even though they didn’t have to, and enjoyed the things they thought they missed about being alive, even if they didn’t remember. The words of their conversations didn’t carry up all the way to where he was crouching behind a rock, but their laughter did.
They looked like humans on a camping trip.
In the distance, against the darkening horizon, he could make out the outline of a large farm, consisting of two main houses and three stables. There were more demons there, much more. An entire nest had taken up residence in the abandoned farm, and they had to take out these demons below them before any of them could alert the ones at the farm.
Beside him, Sam shifted and pressed his hand to his mouth in an attempt to suppress the dry cough that shook his body. It would be unfortunate if the demons heard them. Individually, both Castiel and Sam were stronger than any of the creatures they were facing, but they were outnumbered greatly and depended on the element of surprise.
Castiel wrapped his fingers tighter around the hilt of his sword and prepared himself for the attack. Sam stood and jumped over the rock that had hidden him, making an almost casual gesture with this right hand as he tore the first demon out of the body of its host. It didn’t take two seconds.
Castiel jumped after him, stuck his sword into the body of the demon next to him. The demon expired in a flash of light, the human shell fell lifelessly to the ground. In the time it took to kill the creature, Sam had taken out another one.
The first three demons died before any of the others had time to react.
When they did, they attacked with the material weapons they carried and with mental powers that tried to fling them aside and nail them to the rocks. Castiel felt them tearing at him stronger than ever, but these demons were too powerless to harm him, even now, and around Sam their powers flowed without any effect. He was way beyond their reach.
Eventually, there was only one more demon left. He wore the body of a middle-aged man with greying temples and a neatly trimmed beard, and a suit that didn’t fit with the camp scenery they’d found the group in. It probably was the demon’s preference rather than what the human had worn when his body was stolen. No one wore suits anymore. They weren’t practical.
The demon, knowing his powers were useless, drew a handgun and aimed it at Sam’s head. He knew who his opponent was, of course, but Lucifer no longer discouraged harming his vessel. Death wasn’t permanent, and another few years in hell might give Sam time to think over the devil’s offer of peace.
But the gun was knocked from his hands by invisible forces before he could squeeze the trigger. Sam didn’t waste any time as he stepped closer and pulled the knife from his belt – the knife once given to him by the demon Ruby.
Castiel could sense that the demon tried to escape the body he was in, smoke out and disappear into the night. Nothing happened. Sam kept him in simply by willing him to stay.
The knife was brought to the man’s throat without hesitation, without giving him a chance to complete the stream of curses and threats that came out of the stolen mouth. (The man it belonged to was not going to survive one way or another. The body was already damaged beyond repair. Castiel couldn’t see the evidence, but he knew Sam always chose them with care.)
Altogether, it didn’t take five seconds before Sam’s mouth was at the demon’s neck. Castiel could see the long, skinny fingers holding the body upright twitch, see the slight jerking that went through Sam’s body as it absorbed the blood and soothed the first symptoms of withdrawal that came sooner and sooner now. When he let go, the demon slumped to the ground and Sam’s shoulders slumped in relief as the painful craving was momentarily soothed. Castiel knew he could not imagine what Sam went through every day. He had long since stopped judging his friend for his addiction.
Seeing him like this, however, was painful. Almost more so than watching him scream his way through another withdrawal.
When the immediate need was seated, Sam took out a flask and filled it with the blood still spilling out of the demon’s vein, then another one when it was full. They would bring him through a few days. Castiel hoped they would last long enough.
When they were living in the camp, Sam only took demon blood when he needed it to strengthen his powers, going through detox, however painful, in between, preserving as much of his humanity as was possible under the circumstances. Now he had given up on it, giving fully in to the addiction. Castiel never tried to change his mind. Sam’s body was weak and the addiction was strong. He wouldn’t survive the withdrawal now.
The fight, in its entirety, was brief. Not a single demon escaped, the bodies of their hosts lying around in boneless heaps. Castiel checked for vital signs out of habit and was surprised to find two still breathing, and a third one, an elderly woman, moving to climb to her feet before he could touch her. She looked around, her eyes wide and terrified, and didn’t understand.
“What happened?” the angel heard her mutter, over and over. “What happened? What happened?”
“You were possessed by a demon,” he told her, walking over to steady her with a hand to her arm. Looking around quickly he found Sam standing with his back to them and seemingly unaware of their presence, staring in the direction of the farm. Good. One of the men he found alive started moving as well, the other one did not. Good. Castiel led the woman over to the man who moved, helped him up, asked him if he knew what had happened to him. As it turned out, he did. He had been possessed for a long time, and had experienced bits and pieces of the life the demon had lived in his body.
Most of all, he had an idea where he was and would be able to find a way back to the city he came from. Castiel told him how to find a settlement where he and the woman would be protected. Their chances of making it were realistic.
Both of them looked at him, briefly at Sam, as if expecting them to come with them and unable to understand why they wouldn’t. Why they saved them only to abandon them in the wilderness. Castiel didn’t tell them that their rescue was coincidental.
He let them go despite their pleading looks. They both were reasonably healthy, just confused and scared. The woman would have a breakdown soon. They would be safer if Castiel and Sam came with them, but Castiel and Sam had something else to do and it couldn’t wait.
Sam never turned around. He didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on, and for that, Castiel was glad. Sam would have wanted to protect the two of them, but he would also have known they couldn’t waste the time it would take. The decision would have tormented him, torn him apart, and he was already almost insane.
The unconscious man on the ground would die without ever waking up. For that, too, Castiel was grateful, though he didn’t know to whom.
The wind had picked up strength. It blew dust in their faces and clouds across the dark, brownish sky. It blew and tangled Sam’s hair as he stood unmoving, bloody knife clutched tightly in his hand. Castiel walked over to him as soon as the two humans were up the slope Castiel and Sam had jumped down and out of sight. Sam didn’t acknowledge the angel’s presence, staring straight ahead to where the nearest house of the farm was almost hidden by the drifting dust, visible only because they knew it was there. His one remaining eye was gleaming feverishly.
“You expect any trouble?” Castiel asked.
“I don’t know.” Sam’s voice was quiet and distracted, coming as if from far away. “No. There’s something, something… I don’t know.”
That wasn’t good. Sam didn’t understand his own senses. Knowing for sure would be better.
Speaking had aggravated Sam’s throat. He coughed again, his body shaking with the force of the dry, hacking coughs that originated from the disease in his lungs. The look on his face spoke of helpless confusion. He was drifting, and Castiel needed him here and functional.
“Sam,” he said. Sam blinked, though not at him, and started walking, his steps determined but oddly stiff. The wind got stronger, the dust it carried making Castiel cough as well, and the sand bit the skin of his face. He closed his eyes to little slits, glancing over to Sam, because his friend didn’t always have the instinct to protect himself in such simple ways.
But Sam seemed unbothered by the sand and the dust. The wind tore at his hair and clothes, but the dirt it carried never touched his body. Castiel shuddered, reaching out tentatively with the last remnants of his former self and felt the powers surrounding Sam. The angel wasn’t sure if this was telekinesis or something else. Sam probably didn’t even realise he was doing it.
All of a sudden, the wind stopped. It was as if a barrier had been crossed, like something was holding it back, but they were in an open field, with only a few rocks too small to offer much protection against wind that strong. The farm was before them, less than half a mile away, and it seemed to be abandoned but they knew better.
Castiel also knew better than to go there right now, no matter how much they had to. He slid behind a rock that provided some additional protection from being spotted and pulled Sam along. The human went down without resistance, but he didn’t look at Castiel, kept his eye in the direction of their destination as if afraid he might forget where they were going otherwise, until Castiel gently took hold of his chin and forced Sam to face him.
Sam’s skin was clammy under his fingers. The air was still too warm to be comfortable, but Sam’s body was cool, almost cold. Only the barely-healed scar on his face radiated heat even through the cloth covering his right eye. The left one eventually settled on Castiel with something like desperation in its depths.
“Are you with me, Sam?” Castiel asked gently. Sam’s body seemed to sink into itself as he nodded slowly.
“I’m… yes. I’m… sorry.” He looked around as if for the first time becoming aware of where they were, then hung his head and groaned, his hand coming up to press against the wound in his face. Castiel stopped him before he could, holding both hands firmly in his own. His fingers circled Sam’s wrists completely with ease.
“Don’t touch it,” he said. “You’ll make it worse.”
“Hurts…” Sam told him, sounding helpless and young. He was trembling, and then he coughed again, and Castiel thought they shouldn’t be here, not when Sam was vulnerable like this. The demon blood he’d just drunk would give him the power to defend himself, but he might stand in front of a dozen attacking demons and forget why he should do so. His mind was falling apart and his body held upright only by the blood that was poisoning him. The wound that had cost him his left eye wasn’t healing. The infection that had crept into it would eventually kill him if they found no way to treat it, as would the disease in his lungs. Castiel thought back to the day he had returned from a trip outside their temporary home to see a group of demons tear at his friend, dragging his naked body across the stony field. He remembered seeing the horrible wound on his face, the other wounds on his body, and being convinced that Sam would die within the day. He remembered fighting so hard to keep him alive through shock and fevers to spare him another few years of hell.
It had been nearly a year. Sometimes Castiel wondered if he had done Sam a favour
“Concentrate, Sam.” Castiel kept his voice clam and even, like a patient parent or something he had no name for. He let go of Sam’s hands and reached out to cradle his face between his palms. His thumbs brushed over Sam’s sharp cheekbones. “Hear my voice,” he murmured. “Just this. Can you follow me?”
Sam drew in a shaking breath, and another and another. His eye was closed. Eventually, his fingers reached up to take hold of Castiel’s wrists, gentle and familiar. They sat like this, motionless, for minutes, while Castiel continued to mutter softly. “Where are you, Sam?”
“Here,” Sam finally replied. “I’m here, Cas. I hear you.” He opened his eye, looking at his friend for the first time in hours. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Castiel assured him. He kept his hands on Sam’s head until the human’s shivers subsided and he began to pull away, out of Castiel’s reach. The angel knew it wasn’t shame that made him withdraw like that but urgency, a need to finish what they had come to do. Sam had long since given up on pointless emotions like embarrassment. The constant struggle for sanity left him too exhausted to care.
The blood he’d drunk earlier was helping him, strengthening his mind as well as his body because it took the painful craving away for a brief, merciful time. It was poison, but it was because of it that Sam was stable enough to go through with their mission.
Still, Castiel worried. The blood helped, but this had been a bad day to begin with. The sooner they got this over with and left, the better.
Sam climbed to his feet with movements more certain and coordinated than before.
“Are you sure she’s there?” Castiel asked. If she wasn’t, he would insist they left here. Attacking a demons’ nest like this was dangerous even under good circumstances – the way Sam was today, Castiel was only willing to risk this because it was an opportunity they had been waiting for for a long time and might not get again anytime soon.
“Yes,” Sam said, and Castiel was almost disappointed.
“There is no way you could be mistaken?” he insisted, needing to make absolutely sure. It made Sam frown at him.
“I know it, Cas,” he said. “She’s like an itch at the back of my mind I can’t scratch, and I’ll be happy when she’s gone.” He was definitely back for the moment, and the angel accepted that right now he knew what he was talking about.
The longer they lingered, the higher the risk of being discovered. Castiel didn’t know if the demons they had killed were expected to report back at a specific time, but he knew their chances, once again, were considerably higher if they had the element of surprise on their side. They couldn’t let the enemy suspect their presence or they would run into a trap and it would likely end with Castiel dead and Sam left in the hands of the demons, soon to be handed over to Lucifer, without protection or hope.
Sam always seemed to worry what Castiel would do once he was gone. But Castiel wasn’t invincible and unlike Sam, he wouldn’t come back ever again. He worried how Sam would take his loss; if he would be able to hold on once he was completely alone.
Dusk was almost over. The sky was filled with a deep red; bordering on black in places, looking like flames in others. Castiel had visited hell and knew that this didn’t look like hell at all, but he also knew that many humans imagined it did.
Sam didn’t. He, too, knew what hell looked like, now.
The farmhouse was a dark outline in front of that sky, but as they came closer, they could see that it didn’t look as abandoned as it had appeared from the distance. There was light in one of the windows, the glow of a candle or weak gas lamp shining through a too thin curtain. Those inside the building did nothing to conceal their presence, which might mean they didn’t know anyone was coming for them – or that they knew their presence was already known and there was no point in pretending.
The two of them would find out soon.
Whatever protected them from the wind that blew over the plain was working to their disadvantage since it robbed them of the dust that had hidden them before. The growing darkness fulfilled this task now, masking their approach for anyone happening to look out of the window. It would be useless to anyone else, though – what really protected them were Sam’s powers that blinded the senses of the demons and kept them ignorant as long as they were not too close.
The building was large. It contained at least a dozen demons. Powerful ones, and Castiel once again thought that this was too dangerous, wasn’t worth the risk.
“She’s here,” Sam muttered beside him, as if he’d read Castiel’s thoughts but speaking only to himself. “I need her to go away.”
The only advantage Castiel and Sam had was the fact that in their power, the demons felt untouchable. They didn’t believe that even if their location was known anyone would dare come close enough to attack. Wards kept away any angel that came this way. There were only two weapons in the possession of man known to kill demons in the world, both of them lost to the best of their knowledge. And even a hundred hunters equipped with exorcisms, salt and iron were not a threat to these creatures of hell, not in such numbers. They felt safe, and therefore did not bother to look out for any threats.
Still, doubt remained. Castiel half-expected an attack the moment they reached the backdoor, or when they opened it, or as they slowly entered the dark room that lay behind. That nothing happened was not an assurance. He was worried for Sam more than for himself. They shouldn’t be here.
Sam went inside first. It was Castiel who pulled the door shut, handing them over to complete darkness. He had to stop for a moment to give his eyes time to adjust to the faintest hint of light entering through the space between the floor and a distant door. The light would have been far too weak for any human eyes to do anything with, but Castiel was not human. (Was not quite that human yet.) He could use this light, but it took time.
Sam never stopped in his steps. He moved as if through a dream, avoiding obstacles with a certainty Castiel suspected he wasn’t even aware of. By all rights, his friend should have been feeling around blindly in the dark. It was as if he had simply forgotten that he couldn’t see.
“Thirteen,” Sam whispered, his voice just within the range of Castiel’s hearing. The angel understood. Thirteen demons in this building. Sam could sense them, now. “She’s on the other side of the house. Most of them are.”
Sam stopped suddenly, his hand going up to rub his forehead. Castiel could barely make out his outline; his friend’s features remained invisible to him, but he imagined pain showing on his face. “Two are right ahead.”
Were he human, Castiel might have been tempted to curse. Depending on the element of surprise as they were, it was important to get all the demons at once. Every demon not present when they attacked the main group would be alarmed by the unavoidable noise of the fight and most likely kill them.
Seconds later Castiel could make out voices, one male, one female – a brief exchange of words before silence fell again. It was enough to tell Castiel where the demons were and give him hope again. The two were close, as Sam had said; probably in one of the adjoining rooms. Which meant they were far from the other end of the long building, and if Castiel and Sam were quick, managed to take them out before they made any noise, they might have a chance to make it to the main group before those demons suspected anything was wrong.
Sam didn’t wait for Castiel to voice any of his thoughts. He pushed open the door and silently stepped into the corridor behind. Light fell through a half-open door nearby. Within seconds, Sam pushed it open all the way and lifted his hand.
Things happened quickly after that and in a way only possible because Castiel and Sam had been together for a long time. Even with Sam’s mind struggling to focus on the present, they worked together too well for the two demons in the room to have any chance.
If given the chance, most demons screamed when Sam burned them out of their host bodies, so Sam didn’t. He merely pressed the possessed man and woman against the wall with his powers and held them still and silent until Castiel came in and pushed his sword deep into their bodies.
He felt sorry for the two unfortunate humans as their lifeless bodies crumbled to the floor before him. Had the circumstances been different, had Castiel and Sam been able to afford trying, they might have survived.
Looking at Sam, Castiel couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His human friend turned away the moment the demons were dead and hurried down the corridor, towards the eleven demons that would most likely be the death of them. Castiel could only follow and hope for the best. He didn’t waste time with prayer.
-
The room the demons had gathered in had two doors, and Castiel and Sam used this fact to attack from two sides. Castiel entered the room first, striking down one demon that would never learn what had ended its pathetic existence. He managed to separate the head of another from its neck before they had a chance to get over their shock, but in the end he didn’t have more than two seconds before the demons grasped the situation and threw themselves at him.
Two seconds were enough for Sam. He came in through the backdoor when everyone’s attention was on Castiel, and the angel once again had an opportunity to see how frighteningly powerful Sam had grown through the demon blood he had been consuming regularly for nearly a year.
But even Sam’s powers weren’t without limit. Three of the demons went out in a brief flash of light, their bodies crumbling to the ground scream even as the remaining six turned to face Sam, and for a second the angel saw real fear on the face of one of them, fury on another’s. Then another two died, burned out of their stolen bodies, but it took a little longer this time, and blood began to run from Sam’s nose. Castiel jumped forward to strike down two more demons with his sword, but before either of them could take care of the last two, one managed to slam Castiel into a cabinet hard enough for him to lose track of his surroundings for a moment.
When he tried to climb back to his feet, he found that it wasn’t possible for him to move without causing himself a considerable amount of pain. Castiel had grown accustomed to the sensation over the years. He knew it was his body’s way of telling him something was wrong, and had learned to decipher the messages better than most humans could. He had also learned to ignore it when it had to be ignored, In this case, there was nothing he could do to lessen the pain or help his body heal, and his work here wasn’t done. Paying attention to the pain held no use. However, he found that the pain movement caused him was too strong to stand straight or walk normally.
Castiel realised that his part in this fight was over. If Sam could not take out the last demons on his own, all was lost.
A fleeting feeling of despair washed over the fallen angel; perhaps something like fear. When he looked up, though, he saw that only one demon was standing anymore, and even this one was only held upright by Sam’s powers pinning it against a wall.
The demon sneered, looking furious, but Castiel could see the fear on the stolen face as well. This one was wearing a woman, with long, ash-blonde hair showing the first streaks of grey, and a tight, revealing outfit around a slim, tightly muscled body. The demon inside was old, powerful, had escaped from hell a long time ago and gone through human bodies like suits. Castiel and Sam knew her as ‘Meg’.
Sam was still standing at the other side of the room, as if reluctant to step closer. His hand was still raised, half-closed to a fist and threatening to squeeze the essence out of her any moment, but he didn’t yet. As his vision cleared, Castiel could see that his friend was pale, covered in sweat, and that he was swaying on his feet.
“Why, if it isn’t little Sammy Winchester,” Meg said with a forced grin. “Fancy meeting you here. I see you got stronger since we last met. Didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to attack a so many demons of our pay grade at once, though.”
“We’re still alive and you’re not doing so well over there,” Sam replied with a twitch of his lips that was either an attempt to grin or a grimace. “So obviously, you’re the stupid one for letting yourself be attacked.” He exhaled sharply. “Or letting me know where you were in the first place,” he added nastily.
Meg’s face darkened and Castiel could feel an outburst of her demonic power like a knife through his brain. She struggled to break the hold Sam had on her, furious with him and the world, and with herself for opening this door so long ago.
“Tell me,” she hissed when her struggle chased. “How does it feel to voluntarily turn into one of us, Sammy? Are you so far gone that you can exorcise yourself yet?”
Sam didn’t take the bite. He was long since beyond caring, had given up on himself when he realised that he couldn’t save himself and everyone else as well, and that had been easy because he’d been there before and this time there was nothing to stay human for.
Castiel hadn’t been there when Dean said yes. He had wondered often if his presence would have made a difference, but knew better than to believe he had any influence on a Winchester who had made up his mind. (He wondered if that absolved him of any guilt.)
“Why don’t we find out?” Sam replied to Meg’s question. “I’ll just test it on you first, if you don’t mind.”
“You’ll send me to hell?” Meg laughed. “Out of juice already, Sammy? And here I thought you were going to finally kill me.”
“I can do that if you want me to. But I thought I’d be fair and offer you a choice.” Sam finally took a step closer. “You go back to hell and have to fight your way back out, or I kill you, and that’s it. Your choice.”
“So merciful today, Sweetie,” Meg said acidly. “I can’t say I really want to go back to hell, for however short a time – it’s just no fun being there. But, oh…” Her face lit up as if she just had a brilliant realisation. “You know that, right? I haven’t been there in a long time, but one hears things. Such fun things. Kinda did tempt me to take the risk and go down for a weekend, just to watch the show.”
“So you made your choice, then?” Castiel pressed out between clenched teeth. “Annihilation it is?”
Meg turned her head to look at him and threw him a grimace that might have been intended to be a smile, as if noticing his presence for the first time. “Cassy!” she called out in fake delight. “You’re still hanging out with the losing team? Well,” she corrected herself. “I say team, but I don’t think the word qualifies for the two of you, do you? I mean, it’s not like there’s anyone else fighting on your side, now dear Dean saw the light and beloved Bobby kicked the bucket…” Her speech ended in a sharp breath and then a pained yell, as Sam closed his fist a little further.
“Ouch,” the Demon said when she could. “Touchy subject, is it?”
“Make your choice, bitch,” Sam growled. He swayed a little on his feet, but recovered his balance in a second. “Or I’ll make it for you.”
“Cute, Sammy,” Meg commented. “As much as I want to believe that you want to spare me out of fondness for all the sweet memories we share, I can’t help but think that you want something from me.”
“Hezariel,” Sam said simply.
A grin slowly spread over the demon’s face. “Ah. That. Figures.”
“You tore an angel from his vessel,” Castiel pointed out. “Tell us how you did it, and we will spare your life.”
“And send me back for another century of suffering?” Meg spat. “We end up back on the rack we escaped from when we’re exorcised, Fluffball. It’ll take me ages to get out.”
“That’s the idea,” Sam told her. “We don’t want you here. This is the way of getting rid of you you’ll actually survive.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Sammy,” the demon spat. “I’d rather die than have you send me back. Again.”
“I know demons. You cherish survival over anything. You’ll do anything to keep your rotten, parasitic existence.”
“Yeah? You think you know me so well?”
In reply, Sam tightened his fist again. Meg’s body began to glow, the demon inside becoming visible as it started to burn away.
She let out a long scream of agony and rage, but once Sam withdrew his power, it turned into nearly hysterical laughter.
“You’re not going to do it,” she yelled. “You want to get Dean back so badly you won’t kill me!”
“If you don’t speak, you’re worthless to us and we’ll lose nothing by eliminating you,” Castiel pointed out. He threw a worried glance at his friend, who swayed again and didn’t seem to stop this time. He didn’t know how long Sam could keep holding her.
“I have another suggestion,” Meg said. “I’ll tell you if you let me go.”
“How about you tell us and then we’ll decide if the information is worth it?” Sam suggested back.
“Sorry, Honey, you’ll have to take the risk.” Meg smiled sweetly. Sam opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he wanted to say was drowned out by a new fit of coughing.
It offered the chance Meg had been waiting for. Castiel felt her powers flare up again, but before he could react in any way, he was slammed against the wall once again and the world exploded in pain. It took him seconds to regain his bearings, and when he did, Sam was lying on the floor with Meg sitting on top of him, a knife at his throat. It cut into his skin when he continued to cough helplessly.
“That doesn’t sound good at all, Sammy,” Meg commented. “Guess it won’t take long until you come home to us. Almost makes me think what I’m about to do will be a mercy.” She smiled broadly. “But that’s what friends are for, right? Think of me when you come back.” She didn’t cut his throat yet, though, but waited while Sam’s violent coughs continued until blood was specking his lips.
“Of course, the coming back part doesn’t go for the de-feathered chicken over there,” Meg continued and turned her attention to Castiel who was still trying to get back to his feet. “Just so you know,” she told him, “I want you to appreciate, before I kill you, that you’re dying for nothing. The spell that exorcised Hezariel was made centuries ago specifically for him, and only worked because he was half-fallen anyway. It wouldn’t impress Michael very much.” She shrugged. “Too bad for you.”
The next second she was thrown back and Sam was on her, holding her down by her shoulders while she shrieked beneath him as she burned.
Demons always had to talk too much, gloat for too long. Castiel had come to appreciate that on occasion.
Before the demon was gone, though, Sam faltered again. He didn’t let go of Meg completely, but his attack stopped as he first froze, and then pressed a hand to his head and squeezed his eye shut as what little colour remained in his face drained away.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no.”
“Sam?” Castiel came over as quickly as the pain allowed him, his sword in his hand, trying to keep his eyes at the same time on his friend and his enemy. “What is it?” This could be another episode, perhaps a side effect of having used too much power at once, and Castiel almost hoped it was, because the alternative…
“Lucifer,” Sam gasped. “He’s here.”
Castiel cursed in a way that reminded him of Dean whenever he had time to spare for heartbreak. Beneath Sam, Meg started laughing, the shock and fear on her face replaced once again by triumph. “I knew he wouldn’t let me die! I’m his most faithful servant! Hey Cas, looks like you’re going to die today anyway. And Sammy will get to know true suffering.” Her stolen face was radiant with fatalistic belief, right until the moment Castiel lifted his sword and stuck it between her ribs.
She was useless to them, and they had no more time to waste.
Sam collapsed to the floor the moment she died, but Castiel couldn’t tell if he’d even noticed the end of one of his oldest adversaries. He was clutching his head, looking as if he was about to throw up, and Castiel was clutching his shoulders, trying to pull him to his feet. They needed to leave, now!
After a second, Sam regained control over his body and got up, hurrying away before he was completely upright. He headed towards the back of the house and Castiel knew Lucifer was nearing from the other direction. He hoped that the storm was still blowing outside, that the dust would hide them quick enough to escape.
Perhaps they had been naïve to assume that the sudden death of a dozen of his most powerful followers wouldn’t come to the devil’s attention.
They were almost out of the door when Castiel realised that Sam never truly got upright but remained hunched over, much like Castiel himself, whose injuries didn’t allow for his usual range of motion. He wondered, as they ran, if his friend had been hurt when Meg attacked him, if this was overexertion or his illness, if it was bad.
It was. Before they made it more than ten yards from the house, Sam stumbled and collapsed. He tried to get up again and failed. Kept trying even as new coughs wracked his thin body and blood ran in a dark line down his chin, but his legs refused to carry him. Castiel tried to help, but all he managed was to pull Sam up enough to fall heavily back into the dust.
Desperate, Castiel threw a look back at the house. He couldn’t see anyone following them yet, but Lucifer and whoever he had with him was coming, and neither the darkness nor the dust were thick enough to hide them.
Sam made another attempt at getting up only to fail again, and this time he screamed in pain and desperation when he hit the ground.
Castiel read naked fear on his friend’s face. Sam couldn’t move, he simply couldn’t.
He couldn’t get away.
Ignoring his own injuries, Castiel slid his hands under Sam’s arms and began dragging him forward, driven by the sole thought that they had to get away, away. But his own injuries would not be ignored. Pain shot through him with every step, every breath, and soon it became crippling. Had he been healthy, Castiel could have carried Sam without effort. Now he could only let him fall and try not to fall with him.
They were not even close to the storm and its dust and noise, still in the bubble of eerie silence around the farm, but even so Castiel needed a moment to register the strangled word Sam was forcing out between clenched teeth over the pounding of blood in his ears.
“Run,” Sam said, ordered, asked of him.
Castiel shook his head. “I won’t leave you here,” he declared. “If Lucifer gets you…”
“If Lucifer gets you,” Sam interrupted him, his voice a series of painful gasps, “he won’t kill you. Not at once.”
As much as Castiel hated it, Sam was right, and as much as he wanted to, it wasn’t something he could afford to ignore. If Sam was taken now, he would suffer at the hands of Lucifer’s minions, die and go to hell, come back and suffer more until he said yes or Castiel managed to free him. If Castiel was taken with him, Lucifer himself would torture him, take him apart piece by piece while Sam had to watch, always offering to stop if only Sam let him in. And Sam wouldn’t, and it would destroy him a little more, maybe a little too much.
It would also take away his last friend and only hope of escape.
Torn and out of time, Castiel gazed from Sam to the house and then to the darkness ahead of him and wished Dean were here.