![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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): 7,568
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.
Masterpost
They needn’t have worried. They find the settlement some time after nightfall and it’s all there, unharmed and teeming with people. There are more people around here than in any other place Dean has seen so far. They don’t need long to reach a marketplace where people check out goods, or stand talking, laughing, sometimes yelling at each other. For a moment Dean closes his eyes and travels two hundred years into the past, to busy streets and a world that was alive.
The illusion doesn’t last. There are still far less people than in any market in New York even on a bad day. The light is provided by torches and gas lamps and the smell is all wrong. It smells of herbs and food he isn’t familiar with and the underlying stench of excrement is stronger than in the other communities, where Dean hardly noticed it at all.
The air seems warmer here.
As Cas predicted, no one pays them much attention at all. They are just two humans among a lot of other humans, and Dean hasn’t until now realised how much he missed being anonym in the mass in a way he doesn’t even remember.
Only when someone notices their unfamiliar faces they stare, and nudge their friends to bring attention to the new ones. But no one draws guns on them, which is a very nice change.
Dean wonders if there is something like an inn here. The visitors coming for trading have to stay somewhere, right? He looks at the buildings round him: rebuilt from ruins or constructed new using rubble, but definitely house-shaped, some with two storeys or more, some with thin lines of smoke coming out of chimneys. All the houses have doors, boards before the windows. In some open windows he sees curtains. Inside, the rooms are well lit.
This is the first place that truly feels like a town to him.
His stomach growls and he finds himself hungrily eying the stands that line the street in search for something tasty that hasn’t been dried or canned for the last two centuries. Then he remembers that they have nothing to trade. Which makes his wonderings about an inn pointless.
He’s been looking forward to sleeping in a bed again. In the other communities, they have been given food and lodging simply on the ground of them being human (or Cas). Somehow, Dean doesn’t think it’ll be as easy in this case.
Then again, tired and sore as he is, he still doesn’t feel like sleeping. They came here for a reason, and he’s eager to finally find out if the trip was in the least worth it.
“You think the library is still open?” Dean asks Cas. Instead of replying, Cas picks up speed as he wanders down the street, finding his path between people who show a remarkable talent for being in the way.
The streets get darker and emptier the further they get from the market, but they never clear completely, and in the end the walk doesn’t take all that long. This is, after all, not a city but a makeshift town with no more than a thousand inhabitants.
They end up in front of large wooden doors that are lined by torches left and right and inconveniently closed. There are two men standing before them, talking, one of them smoking a cigarette. Both of them are armed with machetes, and probably guns, too.
Castiel walks up to and stops right between them, making it impossible for them to ignore him. “We wish to enter the library,” he tells them without preamble. “Is that possible at this hour?”
Both guards stare at him with blank faces. “You… what?” one of them asks. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“At what hours is entry to the library possible? Time is of the essence.” Cas, who’s speech patterns have deteriorated to something slightly inhuman to Dean’s ears frowns at them. “This building still functions as a library, does it not?”
The guys are still staring. “It’s a library,” one of them finally says.
“We wish to enter it,” Cas tells them again.
“It’s not open to just anyone.” This time it’s the other one speaking. He doesn’t say it with the smug smirk Dean’s pretty sure he’s seen on thousand of greedy faces but like it’s something completely obvious and the two of them are idiots for even asking about it.
Still, the question comes over his lips automatically. “How much?”
“Let’s see your permit first,” the man says.
Dean looks at Castiel, who looks at the two guards. “What permit?” the angel asks.
-
As it turns out, there’s more than one permit they need if they want to get anywhere in this place. In order to enter the library, they need papers, and those papers have to be bought at – Dean nearly gulps when he hears it – the hunters’ guild.
He feels like he got knocked into the world of a fantasy movie.
Unfortunately, the guild doesn’t sell permits for anything after nightfall. Apparently, two hundred years and an apocalypse later, nothing has changed about sucky business hours.
Things are actually even more inconvenient than that, as Dean and Cas learn when they are informed that each of them needs a permit to even be inside the settlement. The two guards in front of the library get quite exited when they realise their visitors don’t have any – perhaps because they can’t believe anyone doesn’t know about that, or maybe just because they finally have an excuse to do something with those weapons of theirs.
Since Dean and Cas smartly don’t put up a fight, only one of the guards gets to use his gun, and that only to threaten them with it while he escorts them to the guild house. Apparently it is open after nightfall after all, when it’s about giving someone a hard time.
Things are tense for a little while, but from the beginning it seems clear to everyone that Dean and Cas didn’t try to rob them of their fee but honestly didn’t know about it.
“Our camp is pretty far off the main roads,” Dean tells them. “No one has made it here in ages.”
The hunters accept it with grunts that could be translated as “Whatever.”
While Dean negotiates the price of their permit, Cas gives their names and origin to another guy who writes the information down on two dirty-looking sheets of brownish paper. They are now Dean Smith and Cas Jones from Lawrence, Kansas, apparently. That’s pretty far away for their light luggage and the fact that they came on foot, but despite Dean’s worry, no one notices the obvious lie. It takes a while before Dean realises that probably neither of them even knows where Kansas is.
Or used to be.
The names are a different matter. He can see why Cas doesn’t go with his real name – they don’t know him here, after all, and ‘Castiel’ sounds a little bit too much like ‘Angel’. Dean himself, on the other hand… He knows his last name is Winchester. One of the angels who abducted him in Georgia said so, and it felt so natural that he needed a few days before he realised the information was new. That Cas now thinks it necessary to keep his identity secret could be in order to mislead anyone who might come looking for them. Or it’s because his name is known and would cause them problems. He was Michael’s vessel, after all, and he did destroy the world.
Right. Not thinking about that.
Unfortunately, these hunters are insufferably smug pains in the ass after all. They demand pretty much all of their leftover food and all but two of the skins and furs as payment. Dean’s pretty sure they would have demanded more if the two of them only possessed more. And no, it’s not up for negotiation.
It leaves them with pretty much nothing to pay for the library permit, but without the entry permit they won’t get the library permit and so Dean can do nothing but wander up and down the street cursing quietly to himself during the long and cold night they have to spend outside – because in order to get a room at the inn – not that they could pay for it – the entry permit has to be shown, and they won’t get theirs until morning.
“But it’s already done,” Dean has protested as they were being shoved out of the door. “I just saw you fill it!”
“It needs a stamp, and the guy in charge of stamping is sleeping,” he was informed. “Now get out, before we decide to just kick you out of our city!”
“City, my ass,” Dean mutters as he kicks another pebble down the cobbled street. While before it was warmer than the chill he’s grown used to, it seems colder than usual now. That might be because he’s tired and has no place to sleep, though – and he’s hungry because, of course: no purchase of anything, including food, without the main permit.
Damn fucking piece of shit town.
Naturally, the hunters already kept everything they want as payment, and if they feel like it they can make true of their threat and kick them out again with nothing for their trouble. Dean’s so pissed he can hardly talk. Hunters aren’t supposed to be like this.
Or are they?
It’s for the protection the hunters offer. People are safe here, and in return, the members of the hunters’ guild can ask anything they want of them, at any time. There is no law protecting the people. Who doesn’t give the hunters what they want gets kicked out with barely the clothes they are wearing. Or killed outright, as a warning.
That’s what’s become clear after talking to a couple of people on the street. “It’s still better than anywhere else,” one of them added, making Dean want to punch him.
“I find it hard to ignore the irony of these hunters not even doing a very good job of protecting anyone,” Castiel says suddenly, right beside Dean, making him jump both in surprise and because of the telepathy. “At this point, I believe the reputation of this place is protecting the people more than anything else.”
“Damn it, Cas!” Dean curses, because he’s already in a cursing mood and just had the shit startled out of him. “When did you forget how to use normal sentences? Five words, no more. I’m tired.”
“I have food,” Cas tells him and hands him a thick slice of bread. This is the more pleasant kind of surprise.
“Where did you get that? Sold your pants for it?”
“I’m still wearing my pants. As you can see.” Cas’ voice is a little muffled because he’s chewing on his own slice. “Saw where one of the street traders kept his supplies. Stole it.”
“Huh.” Dean takes the bread and takes a bite. “Knew there was a reason why I kept you around.”
While he doesn’t know how bread is supposed to taste, he’s sure it’s not like this. Still, it’s edible, and he’ll be able to get used to it if he has no other choice. Also, right now he’s hungry enough to find everything tasty.
“You said these hunters aren’t doing their job right,” Dean says after a few minutes only filled with the sound of their chewing. The bread’s pretty hard already. “What do you mean? The wards not right?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the wards. They are correct and seem to be checked and renewed regularly. But it appears the protectors of this place seem to rely mostly on them. The creeks we crossed on the way here are artificial and the water inside doubtlessly blessed, but not only did we come across no patrolling hunters outside the town, I don’t think they even do patrol outside. They place their faith in ancient magic and the strength of their numbers.”
Dean can see the problem in that. It doesn’t make him think any kinder of the guys running this place. “You don’t think that’ll protect them in the long run, huh?”
“Of course not. They can hold off simple demons and angels, but not humans. There are enough collaborating with their enemies, and those could come and break the wards. And even without them… a powerful demon can break a devil’s trap. Many powerful demons can break a ring of wards. This place doesn’t have much to offer for the demons that they couldn’t get elsewhere for less trouble, otherwise it would have been long gone.” Cas sits down on the street, his back against the wall of a house, and sighs. It sounds deceptively human. “Eventually, the demons will take this place. As soon as they realise it’s possible they’ll come here.”
“But why, if there’s nothing they want?” The questions is silly, Dean knows. Demons are evil by nature.
“There are many people here,” Castiel replies, as if that would be an explanation. And it is. “Numbers do not offer protection in this case. These people should know better than to attract attention by gathering in such great numbers, but I guess it’s part of your nature to seek company. I’m not saying the hunters assembled here are useless, but they would never be enough to protect everyone if taken by surprise.”
“And the demons would be drawn in by all the innocent, harmless people they can kill here. Or possess,” Dean finishes the thought. “I get it.” He snorts. “Guess the ‘hunters’ here wouldn’t even try to save everyone. They let them pay for their “protection”, but once an army of black-eyed bitches knocks on their door they’ll make sure to save themselves and fuck off.”
“Such is the nature of humanity.”
What a time to become philosophical. And what a time to become defensive. “Bullshit. It’s the nature of dickjerks.”
“From what I have seen, humans in general are first and foremost interested into saving themselves,” Castiel insists calmly. “It’s simply in their nature to be selfish.”
“Yeah?” Dean doesn’t know why Cas’ words piss him off. It’s not even that he disagrees. “And what about my brother, then? Did he run away to save his own ass?”
“No,” Cas admits, not sounding at all as if this changes his opinion. “But Sam was special.”
“I guess he was,” Dean mutters. He’s picking the leftovers of his bread apart rather than eating them until he feels Cas’ eyes on him.
“You’re special, too,” the angel assures Dean, as if he felt the need to comfort him.
“Well.” Dean’s not sure what to say to that. He stuffs the last bite in his mouth and chews slowly. “I miss burgers,” he tells his companion.
To his surprise, Cas nods slowly. “So do I.”
-
The night brings little sleep and the morning another unpleasant surprise, though this one without unpleasant consequences; it merely creeps Dean out, even though he should be used to shit like that by now.
His brain must still be stuck back in the unremembered past, because so far he simply accepted that the people here use paper. It seems a pretty normal thing to do. Only after they get finally handed their permits and he touches them for the first time does he realise that without trees in the immediate vicinity or any industry to speak off, paper should have become pretty rare by now.
“Please tell me it’s at least not human skin,” he groans as they leave the guild house. The permit lies in his hands with a heaviness that makes him uncomfortable and he hurries to put it away.
“It’s not human skin,” Cas tells him, but if that’s the truth or merely Cas doing as he was told remains a mystery Dean doesn’t want to explore.
The demands of the guild left them with precious few possessions. All they still have are the weapons they kept hidden under their coats – would have been a damn shame to lose Cas’ angel killing sword! – and Castiel’s bow, which made the hunters laugh at them. Their loss – Dean has seen what Cas can do with the thing.
Fact is, they came all the way here, paid a lot of… stuff in order to even be allowed to be here, all so they can enter the library, and now they can’t enter the library because they can’t pay for it. Because giving away the few weapons they still have or Dean’s leather jacket is out of the question.
Dean thinks about breaking in, or failing that burning the building down, just out of spite. Cas comes up with a better idea: theft.
They spend the day near the library, watching who goes in and who comes out. It’s obviously not the most popular place in town, but in the end it offers about half a dozen people to choose from, and that’s still more than Dean expected – Cas told him that this place has a school, but most of the people who came here from elsewhere can’t read.
Dean already suspected that being a hunter in the old days meant mastering some of the less legal finer arts, and he finds confirmation when he just happens to bump into an older man on the crowded marketplace and just happens to snatch the permit from his pocket with surprising ease.
Castiel fares no worse. When they reunite, he has his own permit for the library, along with a small box full of strong-smelling spices. Apparently he’s learned a thing or two in the time they were separated.
…though how Dean knows Cas couldn’t do that when he knew him back in the day he wouldn’t be able to tell if anyone asked him.
“These are from the north,” Castiel explains as he shows Dean the spices in a hidden corner between buildings. “They have come a long way and are quite valuable.”
“So we could theoretically use them to buy permits of our own?” Dean asks, really hoping that isn’t what his friend has in mind.”
But Cas seems to think the same way Dean does: “We could,” he confirms. “But we can also change the names and dates on the ones we’ve stolen and use these to buy food and blankets.”
“In that case, we should do it now,” Dean points out. “If people haven’t changed completely since my times, us new arrivals will be the ones those guys are going to suspect as soon as they realise they’ve been robbed. By then I’d rather be elsewhere.”
“Their suspicions would be correct,” Cas reminds him. Dean nods grimly. It’s not like it’s their fault they have to resort to these methods.
“One more reason to hurry.”
-
The library is one of the old buildings, something that survived the destruction more or less intact and was repaired rather than rebuilt. It’s easy to distinguish the old from the new. Buildings that were erected from the rubble have smaller doors, just a few small windows and the ceilings are lower. Inside the library, the ceilings are high and the rooms large. Bookshelves separate the main room into several small compartments. The layout of the building lets Dean assume that it has always been a library, even before.
It probably had more books, once. Now almost half of the shelves are empty, though if the books were destroyed in the initial disaster or burned during a hard winter or whatever, Dean can only speculate.
Most of the books are, as expected, very old. Some are even mouldy. The air is dry, but just as cold as outside. Oil lamps on the walls and the sides of the shelves don’t do much to chase away the deep shadows that fill the room.
In case of this library, Dean can see why closing the place after nightfall makes sense: without the weak light falling through the high windows, it would be hard to even look for a particular book, let alone read it.
Which brings him back to the problem of what exactly they are even looking for. Fortunately, the books are sorted by category, which is one of the three things that excite Dean about this place. The other two are the fact that besides the guards at the entrance, there is no one here but the visitors, who at the present time include exactly himself and Cas, and the way the bookshelves hide many corners of the room form view.
Castiel seems to have as little orientation as Dean when it comes to actually finding anything. “It looked different last time,” is all he has to say in defence of him once again having no idea where to go. In this case, at least, Dean can help. He strides through the rows of books, hoping to find anything on angels in general, Lucifer in particular or perhaps even a book titled “How to End an Apocalypse – Beginner’s Guide”.
What he finds, to his surprise, is a small section of fictional literature. Tolkien stands beside Stephen King and Diana Gabaldon. There’s not much, only two or three shelves, but somehow, Dean had thought that everything that’s left would be practical reading.
Most is. Agriculture, farming, constructing. A few cook books as well. Dean looks into one of them and finds a lot of hand written notes on how to replace ingredients that will never be available again with others that may or may not be similar in taste.
It hits him then that he will never again eat French fries in his life. The thought is so depressing that he puts the book back and resumes his concentrating on what they came for.
“If we can’t kill Lucifer, then how about Michael?” he asks, taking out a book that looks old and therefore promising. It is, as it turns out, written in Latin and Dean puts it back with an annoyed grimace. “If he’s gone, will Lucifer pack up and leave?”
“Michael is more powerful than Lucifer,” is all Castiel says. It’s not exactly an answer to Dean’s question, but if there’s no hope at all of killing that one guy, there’s no point in speculating what the other would do in his absence.
Dean picks another book, a thin, leather bound volume without title or author. It looks like someone’s journal. When Dean flips through the pages, he catches words like ‘angels’ and ‘Lucifer’. “Looks good,” he comments.
Cas looks at the book through eyes cast in shadow. “Keep it,” he says. “Keep everything that looks promising. We won’t have time reading it here.”
Dean just nods and grabs the Latin book as well, figuring Cas’ll be able to make sense of it.
He probably should feel bad for stealing books these people might desperately need someday. Maybe not for killing the devil, but there’s certainly a lot of knowledge in there that might come in handy in a world dominated by supernatural bullshit. He isn’t really sorry, though – partially because they need these to end the apocalypse, which everyone will profit from, but mostly because the hunters in this town thoroughly piss him off.
Though the fact that they took nearly everything from Dean and Cas comes in handy now. It leaves more room for the storing of books. Especially since their spices turned out to be mostly worthless, since even for the purchase of food within the town, special permits are needed. And everyone is too scared of the hunters and their law-enforcement to trade under the hand.
They kept the spices anyway. They might be useful somewhere else.
If not, they can still use them on their food. If they ever again find some, that is.
In the end, they take quite a lot of books. Dean collects more than Cas does, because he takes everything that seems to mention angels even once while Castiel is more picky. He’s probably read most of these before and knows which ones are promising.
There is the problem of how to get out with their packs full of books when they were so obviously empty when they entered. The solution is almost idiotically easy: They glance through a gab in the door and watch the street as well as the two guards that are also watching the street. When the street is empty, they slip out, position themselves behind the guards and knock them out with expert hits to the backs of their necks.
Castiel doesn’t need to show Dean the moves. His body remembered on its own.
After that, their time is limited They have to be gone before their victims wake up or are discovered, so they leave the town and quickly get off the streets in favour of striding through half-destroyed back alleys and through spaces that once might have been someone’s living rooms.
If someone follows them – and Dean doesn’t for one moment dare to hope no one bothers – they never come close enough for the two book-thieves to hear them.
The hunters of that place don’t like to leave the safety of their wards and reputation. They will not follow them out into territory where the risk of running into demons is higher, Cas says. Dean guesses he has a point there, but he isn’t too keen on going back into demon territory himself.
They find an alternative by hurrying to put distance between them and the settlement but staying within in the city. Just like on the way in, they get lost constantly, but this time it’s not as bad, since they are not aiming for any specific goal as long as they keep going in one direction.
Dean keeps wondering what city they are in. He looks for landmarks that will help him, but finds nothing. If anything, the destruction here seems to be worse than in Atlanta or wherever else he’s been before. Eventually they come to a place Dean at first believes to have once been a park. But it wasn’t. It’s just a large, empty space where the blast of Michael’s power levelled the buildings completely.
They avoid the wide open space, turn a little more to the east and walk on until dark. At night they once again sleep inside the ruin of a building, huddled together for warmth. Dean is hungry, has been for hours, and even though his companion never complains, he can hear Castiel’s stomach rumble as well.
They are entirely out of food. It occurs to Dean that they might not have to worry about killing Satan because they are going to starve before they can try. Considering they lost their food in order to get some information on devil-killing, that would be kind of ironic.
The fact remains that they need new food. And unless they come across a more accommodating town sometime soon or run into one of Castiel’s old shelters, they need to leave the city and hope to find some animals to eat. Inside the ruins, the animals have too many places to hide in. Dean rarely sees one even from the distance, though he hears their scuffling constantly. The city belongs to them now.
The books they carry are heavier than the food has been and offer no replacement for the energy they lose carrying them around. Altogether the first day after escaping from the library is impressively miserable, and the only change the second day brings is that Dean is even hungrier than he was before.
At least they find a river that still keeps some of its water, and as they follow it, it leads them out of the city, to where more plants grow and more animals roam.
Dean had thought they would start going through the books as soon as they got a safe distance between them and any egocentric hunters who might want to make them the subjects of a public execution, but food is the more pressing issue at the moment. The books will have to wait until they caught something to eat, which is inconvenient because the books are heavy and uncomfortable on his back, and as soon as he is able to look at them closely enough to judge them useless, he’ll leave them behind here to rot.
It doesn’t look like he’ll have an opportunity to read anytime soon. Dean takes a hungry break in one of the last ruins still intact enough to keep him from being seen while Cas goes out to see if he can shoot something with his bow, and knows they won’t linger here longer than they have to. The area is too open.
Cas is gone for hours. Dean sits around in the meantime, flipping through the books he stole. There are a lot of things that are interesting, but nothing that is useful, at least on first sight, and half of it he can’t even read. In the end he takes a thick volume with pictures and reads the description beside every picture showing a creature with wings. It helps kill the time, if nothing else.
What also helps kill the time are his nerves. A soft wind is blowing, for almost the first time since Dean got dumped by his archangel. It makes the dust drift by in shapes resembling bodies out of the corner of his eye and keeps him alert and very distracted from his literature. When Castiel returns around midday, Dean nearly shoots him.
When his companion left, Dean had offered to go looking for some destroyed supermarkets or convenience stores in the city. They’d passed through an area that looked like a shopping district, and maybe there’s some storage that still offers something edible in cans to be found. Like the storage he met Jena in. Dean was able to not instantly die or get taken those first days as well, but Cas seems convinced that he lost that ability when the angel found him and strongly suggests Dean doesn’t move at all while he’s gone.
The cans Dean never got to look for would have been an advantage in terms of durability and transport, but they are not necessary for their survival, in the end. Cas, it turns out, managed to catch two rabbits and also brings a handful of tiny, crippled looking apples and even a few potatoes.
The latter will have to wait until they have something to cook them in, because Dean sure as hell isn’t going to eat them raw.
The same goes for the rabbits. Dean would really prefer them roasted, and with the wind having the dust drift around them like a veil shielding them from sight, even Cas agrees that it’s probably almost safe to make a fire.
Safe enough, anyway.
They light it in a roofless house, using dry twigs and drier grass. There’s not much burnable material around, so it doesn’t burn long, but they manage to get one of the rabbits into an edible state. It’s skinny and small, but it helps against the worst of the hunger pains.
By the time they’re done, it’s almost dark. Dean wants to keep moving anyway, so they can make it to the smaller town that during daytime has already been visible in the not so far distance. The dust and the dark would make it harder for any pursuers to find them as they crossed the flat plain, but Cas insists they stay. Something about the way he looks over to where the town is hidden by the growing darkness makes Dean think about the forest that separates this dead land and the living one they left behind days ago, or the valley with the town Castiel let die.
He doesn’t question the decision to wait.
-
There’s little sleep that night. Dean nods off long after dark, but wakes up after what feels like minutes. For once he doesn’t dream, and Michael remains silent.
Castiel never even tries to sleep. He doesn’t react to Dean’s careful attempts to start a conversation, and Dean doesn’t pester him. Something is bothering his friend. He can understand. A lot of things are bothering Dean.
With sleep fleeing him and Castiel not talking, there is nothing to distract Dean from his thoughts. The night is very long.
Probably for both of them.
In the morning they eat the small apples and leave with the first light. Castiel is still quiet, but he answers when Dean asks where they are going.
“We need a place to stay for a day or two so we can see through the books. The next small town will offer one.”
“You’ve been there before?”
“Once. It’s far enough from the settlement in Tallahassee to be safe from any human pursuers.”
“Tallahassee? Oh.” So they are in Florida. Somehow, Dean got the direction they were walking in completely wrong. It’s slightly unsettling, but no match for Castiel’s words. “What about demons?”
“Those loyal to Lucifer won’t attack us. The others… won’t go there. And no one will expect us to be there. We should be safe for a while.”
Lucifer wants Dean and Cas to lead him to his vessel’s soul, which they can’t if they are dead, so none of his demons would kill them. That much is clear. “Why won’t the others go there?”
“Lucifer left his mark on the place,” is all Castiel offers as an explanation. It’s enough to make Dean expect to find a place as dead as the forest and the valley. Except that Cas wouldn’t have let them stay there for a day, let alone a few days.
And when they finally reach the town, hours later when they sun is already sinking and Dean’s stomach is growling loudly in the silence surrounding them, there is nothing special about it. The destruction is slightly less complete here than in the city, probably because the place was only at the edge of the blast that took out Tallahassee, but in the end it’s still just another ruined town among thousands. Nothing about the place feels off, or threatening.
But Castiel hasn’t spoken in hours and his face is grim and pale.
He stops a few times, contemplating the way, but this time Dean is very certain his angelic friend knows exactly where he is going.
The place he eventually stops at, in the last orange light of the day, is a normal street that looks like all the others. Small houses in small gardens line it. Some have collapsed, some show hardly any damage at all.
In one of the gardens that face the street three large wooden crosses are standing, their outlines a stark shadow against the dirty red sky. Their size is enough to tell Dean that these were used to crucify people. He swallows.
Castiel points toward the house on the opposite side of the street. Mostly intact, with large, glassless windows facing the empty crosses – a prime seat for the show. “I lost your bother, once,” he says. “This is where I found him.”
Dean looks at the crosses and swallows again, feeling sick. But Castiel walks over to the house with slow steps, and when Dean follows he can see inside through the glassless window and finds it empty, the sparse furniture bar any personal belongings and covered in dirt.
There’s not much in the large room. A long cabinet with drawers, a table without chairs. A bed with a metal frame, and off the frame something is hanging down that Dean can’t make out clearly in the meagre light. Maybe chains.
“Lucifer had three people crucified on those crosses.” Castiel’s voice is low, somewhat rough. “Every day. The crosses were never empty. Sometimes his victims lasted for days. He had his demons torture them, or did it himself. Lucifer has a great potential for cruelty.”
“And he made your friend watch,” Dean guesses. “Telling him they’d stop if he let Satan in.”
Castiel nods. “They would cut off those humans’ ears and noses. Pull out their teeth and fingernails. Or they set their hair and clothes on fire. Smashed their kneecaps and cut them open so their entails hung out of their bodies. Children, too.”
“I get the idea.” Dean presses his lips together and refuses to use his imagination. He doesn’t want to hear this.
“Some were left alone,” Cas continues, as if he hadn’t heard him. “They were simply left hanging until their bodies failed to function any longer. Crows would eat their eyes.” Castiel does turn to look at the crosses. “The demons never cut out their tongues.”
Dean closes his eyes.
“Lucifer let all the victims know that their suffering would end if Sam gave in,” Castiel tells him.
Dean knows where this is going. “How long did this go on?” he asks, refusing to think of his little brother chained to that bed, forced to watch innocent (children) people be tortured to death while they (blamed him) pleaded with him, and knowing so very well how easy it would be to save them.
“Weeks,” Castiel answers the question. And after a moment he adds, “Lucifer never hurt Sam.”
He doesn’t say it like that made things any better, and Dean supposes it didn’t.
“And you got him out all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“If that was so easy, then why is fighting the devil such a damn problem right now?” Dean hisses. He wants to leave this place; it makes him feel on edge, makes him want to scream. Lashing out at Cas without reason won’t get him anywhere, he knows, but Castiel is the only one around to be lashed out at.
“I never faced Lucifer when I freed Sam. And even so, there was nothing easy about it,” Cas lets him know, utterly failing to react to Dean’s aggressive tone. “I had to wait a long time for a chance, knowing Lucifer would have taken me out in a heartbeat. Eventually, it was Michael who offered an opportunity.”
“How so?”
“Some of his activities and those of his army could not be ignored even for the sake of breaking the vessel. Lucifer had to attend matters personally, leaving Sam with only his demon guards. I don’t believe Michael knew what was happening here, else he might have waited until Sam was broken.”
“You think he would have given in?” Dean shivers, or maybe he’s trembling. He doesn’t know why.
“Sam was only human,” Cas says gently. “Even he could only bear so much.”
“But you got him out in time.”
“Yes. It was difficult, though. There were many demons still around. I nearly did not make it.”
Dean looks into the room again, but the falling night has deepened the shadows and leaves him to sense, rather than see, the cabinet, the bed. He thinks about what Castiel told him once: that Lucifer never hurt his brother, but didn’t keep his demons from hurting him. He decides not to ask.
What he asks instead is, “How did you lose him in the first place?”
The fallen angel doesn’t reply right away, which is enough to tell Dean that he won’t like the answer – or that he wouldn’t like it if he remembered his brother and actually cared. He isn’t sure he does. This place, what happened here, it’s hitting him hard, but that’s just general pity and not at all connected to any personal feelings for one of the involved parties.
He kind of regrets having asked at all. He might not really be interested in the answer.
“Sam and I had taken out a group of powerful demons, but it drew Lucifer’s attention and Sam… was ill at that time. He overexerted himself, and was unable to get away afterwards. I had been injured in the fight. I couldn’t carry him.”
“And so you left him behind,” Dean finishes quietly. He closes his eyes for a moment and takes deep breath. Thinks about Cas saving his own ass and leaving Dean to Lucifer’s angels. “So you could get away yourself.”
“You must understand, Dean.” Castiel’s voice sounds pained. “I didn’t want to leave him. He asked me to.”
“How convenient!”
“Neither of us was a match for Lucifer, together not any more than on our own. If I had stayed, he would have killed me. I could not have helped Sam then. In that case, your brother would have broken. Knowing I had escaped, he knew he only had to hold on until I freed him.”
“Took you long enough to do that.” Sudden, inexplicable anger makes Dean grab the lapels of Castiel’s jacket and shove him against the wall beside the window. “You left him behind! I thought you were supposed to watch over him!” he snarls. “Isn’t this the guy you wanted to protect at any cost? And then you ran away and left him to the fucking devil’s nonexistent mercy!”
“Dean.” Thin fingers wrap around Dean’s wrists and pull down his hands, and large blue eyes meet his unafraid, though full of pain. “I had no other choice. It would have destroyed him. He had nothing left but me. You understand? Nothing! And no one would ever have come to save him.”
Maybe there is not even an accusation in there. Cas seems desperate to make Dean understand, nothing else, but his words still hit like a fist to the face. They cause Dean to let him go and take a step back.
He doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He doesn’t know this guy they are discussing. He doesn’t feel anything for his brother when he thinks of him. The anger, the sadness and shame that nearly overwhelmed him came out of nowhere, and their lack of foundation makes Dean want to scream.
“Why did you even show me this?” he asks, surprised how rough his voice sounds. He has no control over his emotions, but when he tries to analyse them there’s nothing, and that paradox is making him sick. He wants to leave.
“I thought you should see it,” Cas answers. “I thought it would help you understand.”
“That this was all my fault? You made that clear enough from the start.”
But Castiel shakes his head. “I merely wanted to give you an idea of what Sam went through. What he endured. I feel I owe him that much – to make you understand how strong he was.” Castiel’s voice is little more than a whisper. “So maybe, if you ever again remember him, you will be proud.”
Dean takes another step back, takes a deep breath. “Hell, Cas,” he mutters.
“Also,” Castiel continues, his voice stronger now. “You need to know what happened so you will understand why I can’t allow anything like this to happen again. I failed to protect him far too often. I cannot fail now. All would be lost. And all would be in vain.”
Another deep breath, and Dean decides he’s had enough of feeling like acid is burning away something inside him. “Let’s just move on, okay? I really don’t feel like spending the night here.” He throws one last look into the room where his brother has spent far too many days at the devil’s mercy, suffering and hating himself. But night has fallen and inside, there’s only darkness.
Dean feels closer to his unknown brother now, somehow, as if for the first time he begins to understand that the man really exists. That he isn’t just stories and a dead body for Satan to show off. But at the same time, he doesn’t care about him. Why would he? He doesn’t know him.
Even if he wanted to, Dean wouldn’t be able to feel more for this man than for any other unknown victim of this war.
And while he dreads actually meeting the guy that makes him feel so out of balance it’s driving him crazy, he also finds himself convinced that once Lucifer is defeated and his brother back with them, everything will become clearer.
Perhaps he just needs to not be able to run anymore.
“Proud,” he mutters as they walk away, more to himself than his friend, moving the word on his tongue like something disgusting. “When he’s finally back here, I’m going to kick his ass for constantly making me feel like shit!”
Since he didn’t talk to Castiel anyway, he doesn’t mind that the angel is silent for a long time. Dean concentrates only on the next step and the next step, trying not to feel the looming crosses in his back like a threat that is going to jump at him. Trying not to run.
Eventually, Cas says, “Dean.”
“What is it?” Dean doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to think. He just wants to leave here and find some place to sleep.
“Sam won’t come back.”
Dean stops.
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he? It’ll be okay after we killed Lucifer, right? When the devil’s gone, there’s no reason to keep him hidden any longer.”
“And no reason to bring him back,” Cas says softly. “I can’t revive him, Dean. It’s Lucifer himself who does it, or Michael. With Lucifer gone, the angels won’t have use for Sam anymore. If against all probability we succeed, you will never see your brother again.”
NEXT
no subject
Date: 2014-02-26 09:57 pm (UTC)This puts me in mind of the latest episode and Dean somehow managing to turn Kevin's death into ALL ABOUT HOW DEAN FEELS. Oi. Even so, it's perfectly in character.
The ending of this chapter's a killer. Nails you right in the gut. Some part of me, having already read the rest, almost wishes that he didn't ever have to come back, but then again, maybe the end was worth it. At least, I think it would be to Sam.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-17 07:25 am (UTC)I think Sam is okay with the way things went. He would have wanted to see Dean be back, even if there was a price to pay. What in his life has ever been for free?