SPN Fic: And this Great Blue World of Ours | Part 2, Chapter 15

[vail_kagami]

Title: And this Great Blue World of Ours (2.15)
Fandom: Supernatural
Beta: currently unbeated
Characters (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 after season five.
Words (this chapter): 8,796
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

He tears himself out of the hands holding him as soon as the dizziness of instant travel has passed, and that is possible only because the hands let him go willingly. Jena doesn’t even blink as his hands close around the collar of her flimsy dress and he pushes her backwards, shaking her. “What have you done?” he hears himself scream. “You bastard! Tell me you didn’t want this! Tell me this was not your plan!”

Jena’s face is dark as she brushes his hands off with a casual gesture, but it’s Cas who speaks. “Of course it was.”

Dean whirls around, ready to punch where it will actually hurt, but then he sees his friend’s face, pale and shocked with dawning understanding and growing anger. “It makes sense now. No matter how powerful, Sam would not survive a minute in a physical fight.” Cas’ eyes meet Jena’s, hard and unforgiving. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t Sam tell us?”

Sam knew. Of course he knew, and he didn’t tell Dean, he knew he was going to die for weeks and he didn’t give a warning or say goodbye, had just let himself get killed while Dean was watching, had just left.

“Why?” Jena raises her eyebrows, letting him know it’s a stupid question. “This is why!” She nods at Dean who still wants to hurt her but can’t even move, paralyzed with rage and desperation. “Dean here would have made a drama out of it, and we didn’t have time for that. It was Sam who asked me not to tell you, by the way. He probably didn’t want to make it harder than it had to be.”

There is so much Dean could say to that. He doesn’t. Sam did this to him. Sam did this to himself. He can’t grasp it yet. What he knows is that Jena lied to him, to them.

“How long have you been planning this?” he asks through a closing throat. His voice sounds strangled. He’s being strangled here. “Did you ever even look for a way that had Sam survive this?”

“It was clear from the beginning that Sam’s survival was very, very unlikely. So, no. It just wasn’t in, and yeah, I’m sorry and all, but you need to understand that we’re talking about something that has been planned for millennia, and in the grand scheme of things, your brother is simply not meant to live. He never was.”

Because he is just a body for Lucifer to run around in. Just like Dean is for Micheal. And yet here they are. “Things didn’t turn out the way they were meat to.”

“Quite right. And yet the fact remains that there is no place in this world for Samuel Winchester.”

That’s not acceptable. It never was, never will be. Dean takes a step back and nearly stumbles when the magnitude of what happened, what is happening is crashing down on him. Sam is with Lucifer now, he willingly handed himself over.

He’s with Lucifer right now.

“Did he give in yet?” He doesn’t even want to know, doesn’t want to imagine Satan wearing his little brother’s face because he’s seen that before and it pushed him right over the edge.

“No. It’s too soon.”

“Too soon?” The meaning of those words doesn’t register immediately. “Too soon? You mean, he…” Dean can’t even say it. No.

No.

“That’s the plan,” Castiel says, his voice dull. “Don’t you see? Sam only has a chance to get a hold on Lucifer if he can take him by surprise. Lucifer can’t know what we’re planning. That’s why Crowley killed him. It had to look sudden, unintentional. If Sam gives in right away, it’s suspicious. He has fought far too long for that. No, he’ll hold on as long as he h-has to.” His voice falters. Dean needs to sit down. His knees feel like wax.

“Take me back there.”

“No.”

“Take me back to him!” It’s almost a surprise that somehow, somewhere he found the strength to yell.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can be there for him. He can’t do this alone.” Sam being tortured. Sam waking up with the Devil inside him, all alone. No.

“And how well do you think this will go when Sam has to witness Lucifer tearing you apart with his own hands?” Jena’s voice is surprisingly soft, almost gentle. Dean doesn’t want gentle, he wants to be taken back there. He needs to be with Sam because if there is one chance to get through this, one single chance to beat the angels at their own game, they have to do it together.

“What can we do here?” he whispers, or maybe he just thinks it. “We abandoned him.”

“No, we didn’t. I did what Sam asked me to: make sure you’re alright. You’ll be alright even if Sam loses – both of you will be. I’m sure he will make that the condition of his surrender.”

“Whatever that will be worth once Lucifer realizes Sam is trying to overcome him and…” Cas trails off in a way that somehow makes everything worse.

“And what?” Dean asks. “Sam’s gonna overcome him, right? And then he’ll open the damn cage and throw Lucifer back in and everything’s good.”

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice sounds pained. “Think.”

Dean just stares at him. He’s thinking, but it’s not going anywhere. There is an inevitable conclusion that his will is running against trying to move it out of the way. He stands still, staring at Cas who looks like he is going to cry.

“Okay, time to sit down, everyone.” Jena takes hold of Dean’s arm and starts pulling him along. He lets it happen without resistance. Eventually, his shins hit something hard and he’s turned around and gently prompted to sit. There’s no reason not to. He sits. It’s a chair. He’s in a kitchen.

“What is the plan?” he whispers without looking at any of them. “Tell me.”

Cas actually laughs; it sounds quiet and bitter. “Sam will let Lucifer in, and then, when he can, he will gain control and he’ll open the cage and he’ll-”

“Don’t,” Dean whispers.

“-get Lucifer locked up by jumping in with him.”

“God.” Dean can’t see anything. His eyes must be closed. He feels two tears run down his cheeks, one from each eye, and fall onto his jeans. More follow.

“It was Sam’s plan,” Jena says and it hurts worse.

-

“If it’s going to be any consolation,” Jena eventually says, after the silence went on for a long time and Dean just struggled to breathe, to go on, “it’s probably not going to work. Lucifer is too strong. Sam won’t win, which for him is the best thing that can possibly happen. Of course we’re all fucked then, but to Sam it’s the best possible outcome.”

Dean hopes he will lose. Right there, he doesn’t give a fuck about the world, about anything other than Sam not going to Hell, with Lucifer and his rage, for all eternity.

He looks at Cas, sitting on the floor. Leaning against a wall. There are walls. Three and a half walls. This isn’t one of Jena’s special places. This is a ruin somewhere on the planet. “Tell me you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know.”

It’s enough. Cas didn’t know. Dean believes him because his reaction left no doubt, and because it would be too much if he didn’t. Cas wouldn’t have let Sam do that to himself, no matter how much Sam wanted to do it. Would he?

Dean doesn’t ask that.

“Why the demon blood?” He turns to Jena again. She’s leaning against a table: plastic and metal. There’s grass growing on the kitchen floor. “Why put him through that? You saw what it did to him. Just to fool us?”

“The blood was necessary.” Behind Jena, half the wall is missing, allowing view on the meadow beyond. No snow. “Lucifer needs it to keep his vessels from falling apart too quickly. He’s basically bathing in the stuff. With his true vessel, he won’t need it. This was for Sam, to support him, something familiar to draw strength from. Lucifer won’t purge it from his system, not when it does more good than harm for him.”

After that, Dean is silent, trying to take in the information. Make sense of it, somehow. His brother is going to die. No, his brother is dead already, and he’s going to Hell, to a place in Hell where Dean can never, ever reach him.

Sam is lost. It doesn’t make sense. He thinks the words and they mean nothing to him (except an ever growing cold cancer of despair in his stomach that will never go away and it might kill him but Dean will still not get his brother back if it does).

Sam has to lose. He has to, because if he does, Dean might see him again, some day. One day. Maybe when the world is what Lucifer wants, he will let Sam go. Probably, he won’t. But he’ll keep his soul safe in Hell, keep it far from suffering and from everyone else and Dean will become the strongest demon there ever was if he has to in order to fight his way to his brother.

Why did they ever try to save this world in the first place? Why all the effort, the suffering? Why bother?

Why didn’t Sammy give in when Dean did? He could have spared himself, spared all of them so much.

A wave of anger at his brother washes over him, fuelled by his own pain and desperation, because being angry is so much easier than facing the pain. It’s then that Dean realizes that he’s already grieving.

-

“Where are we?”

It’s Castiel who asks. Dean doesn’t care where they are. There has been silence for a long time; he doesn’t quite know how long, nor does he care. He doesn’t care about anything anymore. There’s nothing left for him to do.

“Europe,” Jena replies. “Denmark. It doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re pretty far from everything. There are barely any intelligent beings left on Jutland, and those that are aren’t anywhere near us.”

Dean doesn’t care if there is anyone else left on the planet.

Silence falls again. In the silence, Jena is wandering through the kitchen, her bare toes drawing symbols into the dry dirt on the floor, before finally she wanders out through the hole in the wall. It takes a while, but eventually Cas gets up and follows her, walking like a zombie. He knows everything is lost, too, and he’s been fighting so much longer and harder than Dean.

Dean stays there, sitting on his chair, for a long time. When he does move, when he gets up and walks out and takes in his surroundings, it happens automatically, as if someone else were controlling his body.

“Michael,” he says, his voice toneless, but it all is so clear right now.

Jena looks up from where she is sitting in the grass. “No.”

“He will need a vessel.”

“And he will come to you.” Jena nods. “And you will tell him no.” Her fingers are playing with the grass and behind her are some bushes in bloom, the sweet scent of their pink blossoms so intense that Dean can smell them from where he is standing. He can’t see Cas, but he hears his voice, from around the corner of the house, after he asked, “Why bother?”

“Because Sam doesn’t want you to be Michael’s vessel,” Cas says. “Because he did so much to get you back and protect you and you owe it to him not to give up now.”

“Sam wants me to suffer?” Dean asks bitterly.

“If that what it comes down to, yes. It’s the least you can do for him.”

Cas is sitting with his back against the wall of the house; Dean can make out his sprawled legs through the tears in his eyes. “What’s the point?” he wants to know. “It’s over. We just handed the world over to Satan, why would Sam want me to live in it?”

“We don’t know that,” Jena reminds him; Dean would like nothing more than forget she exists. “Sam might win after all.”

“You don’t even believe that,” Dean accuses her, and Castiel as well.

Neither of them says anything in return.

-

Night fall slowly. The colour of the clouds has turned to a deep red, the dust drifting before it in black strands when suddenly Jena jerks upright from where she was lying in the grass with a gasp and a hand flying to her head.

Dean doesn’t have to ask. He’s seen angels taking their vessels before and the blinding white light that goes along with it. He has never before seen a light like the one that flashes across the sky only seconds after Jena’s reaction. It makes the clouds shine for a fraction of a second, like lightning in a thunderstorm and no one has to explain what it means.

As he falls to his knees, Dean finds that he has some strength left to care, after all.

-

It’s a lot warmer in Denmark than it was in the states. It’s not hot, not even mild, but so much better than being constantly subjected to freezing winds. If there were crickets chirping in the grass, Dean would be able to imagine that this was a summer night and he was lying on the porch of their house of the month while dad was hunting and Sammy sleeping in their room. But there’s only silence around him, all-consuming silence in which he can hear his own heartbeat. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine it anyway, longs for sleep.

A hand, hard and merciless, closes around his shoulder, startling him just when he is about to drift off. Dean’s eyes fly open; he makes out the familiar outline of Cas before the dark sky.

“You will not invite Michael to possess your body!” the fallen angel snarls. “You will not betray Sam that way!”

“Sam betrayed me, too!” Dean snaps back. “He just left! I couldn’t even say goodbye.”

“And he’s been saying goodbye to you for months. Let that be enough. Honour the fact that having gotten you back as your own person is the one thing Sam had to be happy about.”

He’s right, but it’s hard to accept. So fucking hard. Dean just wants it to be over, but that’s not all. He’s not only selfish.”

“Is Jena here?”

“Yes,” a female voice sounds somewhere in the dark.

“You’d know if Lucifer were back in his cage, right?”

“Yes.”

“And is he?”

A sigh. “No.”

“So Sam failed.” Dean shakes Cas’ hand off with an angry gesture. “And now Lucifer is running around in his body, finishing off what’s left of mankind. It’s exactly what Sam never wanted. What he was so afraid of. I don’t give a fuck about the world, but I can’t let that go on. I have to save him.”

“By letting in Michael?” Cas growls.

“How else? Michael is so eager for their fucking last stand. And if he had his true vessel, he might be stronger than his brother. He’s had time to get used to me, after all. He’d win.”

“And there is no way that Sam would,” Jena points out. “It might just take him some time to find the strength he needs to overthrow Lucifer. He’ll need a moment of carelessness. Right now, there is still hope. Throwing Michael at him is gonna be the worst thing that could happen. Did you know that all Lucifer ever wanted was to impress his big brother, back before he fell? Do you think Sam has any chance at all to fight him down once Lucifer sees Michael and wants to appear before him in all his pride and glory?”

The words echo inside Dean, knocking on the doors of his mind, and he finds himself staring at Cas while they keep talking to him, not listening. Why would he listen? The important thing has been said and they didn’t even notice.

It’s the only thing that makes sense and he doesn’t know, now the thought is in his mind, how it took so long for it to get there.

“Gabriel,” Dean says, using the angel’s real name without even realising it. “You need to take me back right now.”

“Excuse me, did this conversation, or any we had before, somehow pass without you hearing a single word we said?” There’s movement in the dark and then Jena’s slim outline appears beside Cas, her long hair hanging down like that of a Japanese ghost.

“I listened to the part that was interesting.” Dean gets to his feet and brushes Cas’ hand away when he reaches for him. “You’re right, don’t you see? Sam doesn’t have a chance if Michael is around, because Michael and Lucifer are brothers and love each other despite everything.” He tries to wait in silence for the others to understand, but they are taking too long for his patience and he continues after less than five seconds. “So are Sam and I. Both Michael and Lucifer gave us speeches about how we were modelled after them, and as much as I resent that, there are parallels that can’t be denied. Only difference is that the two of them want to kill each other and Sam and I do not. We just want to protect one another.”

“Could it be that you’re forgetting the other tiny difference where Michael and Lucifer are archangels and you and Sam are not?” There’s no doubt that Jena thinks Dean is an idiot and on any other day he would generally agree. But despite having spent so much time at their side and even more watching them, she doesn’t even know him and Sam. She doesn’t know the lengths they’d go to for each other. And she definitely has no idea what she’s talking about if she thinks that the love between them is somehow less powerful just because they are no feathered dicks with the means to crush the planet.

“Michael isn’t going to give up just because Dean won’t let him in,” Castiel unexpectedly says. “He isn’t as dependant on one single perfect vessel as Lucifer is, and while Dean is still his first choice, he will make do with the vessel he has should Dean turn him down. He will not ask for long.”

“Are you encouraging him to say yes now?” Jena asks, incredulous frown clearly audible in her voice.

“Not at all. On the contrary – Lucifer will be strengthened by Michael’s presence, and it will be even worse if Sam sees that Michael is back in Dean’s body and his fight has been in vain. But Michael is going to ask Dean once, and then he will go in the body of Adam Milligan. And Sam will still be lost. So if we want to help him, we will have to do it before Michael and Lucifer meet on the battlefield.”

The help is unexpected, but not unwelcome. “Take me to him,” Dean pleads. “What do you have to lose? You don’t give a fuck about me and you don’t give a fuck about what Sam wants, so don’t pull that card! You want Lucifer to go back in his cage, right? This is your best chance to get that, and if I get killed in the process, everything was lost anyway.”

Jena sighs, long-suffering and irritated and in a way that tells Dean he’s won. He’s going to see what he fears more than anything, so much that it once pushed him to lose all hope and into Michael’s arms: Satan in his brother’s skin.

“Very well,” the archangel finally gives in. “You’re probably right. And you’re probably going to die. You know, I kind of liked the idea of keeping the two of you around after everything else got destroyed. People are more entertaining than plants and once Lucy is done here, the two of you would have been the only people left alive. If he was feeling gracious, of course, and didn’t think he’d need to punish Sammy for trying to get one over him.”

“Yeah, I know you’re a heartless bitch who doesn’t give a shit about anything but herself,” Dean told her. “You don’t actually need to confirm it at every opportunity.”

“One has a reputation to uphold.” He can see Jena’s shrug as a vague movement in the darkness as Dean pushes himself to his feet and reaches for her arm. Her bare skin is soft beneath his rough palm, a little cold from being exposed to the night air like this. Perfectly human but for what’s inside.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Where we left him, as far as I can tell: in Detroit.”

Detroit. Of course. This, at least, remained the same. Dean wonders if it’s a coincidence, fate, or if Jena knew of the vision Zachariah had shown Dean, of Lucifer’s own promise in Carthage that Sam would says yes to him in Detroit.

When they left their safe house, Dean didn’t see any signs of civilization, not even destroyed ones. There had been no ruins anywhere around then, not the in the area they saw, so they were either just outside the city or there is literally nothing left of it.

What Dean thought was the ocean must have been Lake St. Claire, then. He wouldn’t have been able to tell, but then, he didn’t exactly pay attention.

“But he’s moving,” Jena suddenly says. “It’s hard to get a grip on him. I’m not exactly in Heaven’s favour anymore, you know.”

“Is he coming here?”

“No, he’s still in the states, he’s… ah.” With an annoyingly casual movement, Jena shook the hair out of her face. “He’s in Kansas. Close to where you were born. How appropriate.”

“What is he doing there?” Somehow, Dean doesn’t like that. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence to him.

“If you want my guess? He’s waiting for Michael to show up. He’s in Stull Cemetery, near Lawrence – apparently his choice for the last epic bitchfight with his brother. If we want to do anything, we should go now, before Michael decides to skip asking for your support with killing your brother.”

“That’s all I want.” Finally, finally they are talking about the same thing. “Take me there, right now. I don’t care if you fuck off right after.”

“Oh, I will. No need to stay and witness you get killed, slowly, as a way to break any resistance Sam might still offer.” Jena says it like she doesn’t care but she has to care about something, because she’s still here and she’s taking hold of Dean’s arm now, preparing to take them away, deliver Dean where he wants to be. He’ll see his brother the way he hates most soon, but so will she, and maybe that’s the reason why she stayed out of this conflict so long: because she does love Lucifer and doesn’t want to face what he’s become.

“Take me as well.” Castiel’s hand is on Jena’s arm before they can leave. Jena snorts softly in irritation but doesn’t protest. Dean does.

“You know there’s really no hope to speak of,” he says.

Cas just looks at him, and thanks to his better night vision be can probably actually see him. “Sam is my friend.”

“We’re probably gonna die.”

“Would you rather live?”

Live as the last person in the world? Live to see the paradise both Lucifer and Michael want to bring and know the price paid for it? Live knowing he’s been unable to protect Sam or win the battle they have been fighting for so long? Castiel is right – it was a silly question. “Hell, no.”

“Let’s go, then,” Jena sighs. “With some luck this will be over before dinner time.”

-

It’s not broad daylight when they arrive in Kansas, if only because such a thing simply does not exist anymore. It’s day, though, and even the washed out light that gets through the clouds is enough to make Dean blink for a few seconds since his eyes had gotten used to the darkness in Europe.

Jena said something about Lucifer waiting in a cemetery, but Dean wouldn’t recognize the place for one if he hadn’t known. There are no headstones anywhere he can see, just dead grass rustling as it moves in the soft breeze. Some lumps beneath it make him think that maybe there are overgrown markers underneath them but he isn’t sure and he doesn’t really care. Either way, there hasn’t been anyone buried in this place since a lot longer than the apocalypse has been lasting.

A bird flies off the branch of a dead tree with his wings flapping loudly. A raven, if Dean isn’t mistaken – it’s a big thing, and under different circumstances he would have regretted missing the chance to shoot it for dinner. As things are, he lets it go, and when it’s gone, Jena is gone as well.

She wasn’t kidding about not wanting to stick around for the showdown.

There is no one else around, only Castiel, standing a few steps behind him. Dean throws him a questioning look but the fallen angel shakes his head: he can’t make out anything either.

The grass rustles as they walk. Not far from them they can see a pile of stones that might have been a small church once, so they wander over to it and then onwards where the ground rises in a very soft slope, hoping to have a better view from higher up.

They find Lucifer in the middle of the open flied that is the cemetery. He’s standing tall and still as if waiting for something, but he turns when they approach. The second Dean has to brace himself is not enough.

The smile looks just so alien on Sam’s face; cold and calculating, amused and pitying. “Dean, Castiel, really,” he greets them. “I would like to say that I expected you to be smarter than to come, but that would be a lie. I did, however, expect my dear little brother to be smarter than to bring you.” He looks around as if looking for someone, but Jena is long gone. She was smart enough for that, after all.

Even the voice sounds wrong. It’s Sam’s, but speaking in a way Sam never would, like a bad imitation. Dean hated this before but he learns now that he didn’t really remember just how unsettling it was, seeing someone else in his brother’s skin. He wonders if Sam felt like this whenever he met Michael wearing Dean and feels even worse about himself.

The Devil has changed out of Sam’s jeans and oversized sweater and the coat Dean forced on him, the one Sam already knew he wouldn’t need. He’s not wearing a white suit, as he had in Zachariah’s version of the future (now long past) though, which is a relief, somehow. Instead, he’s dressed in something more like the clothes Sam was wearing when Dean first saw his corpse: black pants and shirt under a long and wide dark-blue vest held together with a broad leather band around his hips. It looks out of place, should look silly but only underlines the fact that Lucifer doesn’t belong here.

The clothes should fit tightly, but all they do is emphasize how skinny Sam is. Dean forces himself to look into his face and sees the old scars there, all of them. “You didn’t fix him,” he says without meaning to, his mouth just spurting out what he’s thinking. He expected Lucifer to make Sam’s body perfect again, all strong and unblemished and healthy.

Lucifer smiles his patronizing little smile and lets something like fondness flow into it as his – Sam’s – long fingered hands glide down his body. “You would think so. Of course you would. But it’s not that easy. These scars – I appreciate them, more than you could ever understand. They are beautiful.”

Dean just stares at him. This isn’t what he wants to talk about, nor whom he wants to talk to. And he finds that, without ever realizing it, he has been looking forward to seeing Sam whole and healthy once again, not this fragile shell of the strong man he once was. It would have helped him remember that Sam is still strong and made him believe they have a chance.

“Even now your brother is fighting against me, never giving up.” Lucifer reaches beneath his belt, pulls out, to Dean’s distant surprise, the rings that could open his cage. “Trying to trap me again. I have to admire his resilience. It makes my conquest of him all that sweeter, and his brother’s scars are a testament of his struggle,” the Devil tells him, either oblivious of Dean’s thoughts or all too aware of them. “They tell of his strength to endure for so long, of his resistance. They are the greatest mark of my victory. Why should I remove them?”

Someone has speculated that he would feel this way about Sam. Was it Jena? Cas? Dean can’t remember. It must have been Jena. Only she would know her brother like that. It has to have been her.

Dean doesn’t know why, but it seems so important right now.

“You’re waiting for Michael,” Cas says, somewhere behind Dean, and pulls him back to the present. (Dean could ask him; Cas has to know if he said that or not.) “He’s not coming. There’s just us.”

Right there, just like that, something clicks into place. “That’s why you kept the rings with you,” Dean realizes. “You want to trap Michael in the cage like he once trapped you.”

“I prefer it to killing him, so I’ll do it if I can,” Lucifer admits openly. “But if I can’t, I will kill him. My plan is no secret you can sell to him to be my downfall, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

“Do you really think you can kill him?” Dean remembers what Gabriel told them once, about Michael and Lucifer and what they meant to each other. He’s also stalling for time. “He’s your brother and you love him. Even now you are looking for a way to win without losing him. So when the time comes and trapping him is not an option, do you really believe you can look into his eyes and deal the killing blow?”

“Don’t assume to know me.” Lucifer’s voice is calm, but his eyes bore into Dean in a way that promises death. “I want him in the cage so he can suffer for all eternity. So he will know what he did to me by banning me there. Do you think the cage was a nice place to be? Do you think it’s just bars? Hell was built around it.” He straightens, his eyes becoming distant. “I know you’re stalling, Winchester. You hope you can distract me long enough for Sam to gain the upper hand and get me back to that place. You should be aware that he would come with me. And I would hurt him. So here you are, doing everything you can to ensure your brother will suffer in ways your language has no words to describe, for all eternity, and you dare tell me something about love.”

He means it. He regards Dean with cold contempt, on Sam’s behalf – Sam, whom he just promised to torture forever. There’s nothing about this that isn’t twisted, but Lucifer loves Sam, and right now, Lucifer hates Dean because Dean would rather let Sam suffer than save him. Dean hates himself, too. And he doesn’t want Sam to win, but that is not the point.

The point is that Sam is fighting and Dean cannot betray him.

“Sammy,” he whispers. “You can do it.”

“Oh, shut up already.” Lucifer doesn’t even move, or blink, or do anything at all, and yet Dean is flying backwards and landing in the grass (and for a millisecond or so he thinks he might be seeing something dark behind Sam’s skinny form, like the shadow of wings, three pairs of them stretching out toward the sky). Just him. Cas is still standing – turning to look how Dean is faring, turning back to Lucifer waiting for the next attack, then turning to Dean again when it doesn’t come, his eyes wide. Dean stares right back, understanding passing between them.

An outburst. Lucifer may look as irritated and impatient all he likes, but Dean and Cas know what this was. Sam is still with them, still fighting, and Lucifer feels it.

He wanted to shut Dean up because he can’t let him talk.

“Sam,” Cas says and is grabbed by the throat, lifted off the ground easily. For the first time since their reunion months ago Dean becomes really aware how much taller than Castiel his brother is, but it still looks odd, wrong, because all the muscle mass Sam once possessed is gone and he shouldn’t be able to lift anyone like that.

Castiel’s legs kick at the air and his hands claw at the fingers holding him up.

“This is Sam.” Lucifer sounds almost bored. “These are Sam’s hands and this is Sam watching as I crush your throat. He’s screaming and clawing and… oh, nothing happens.” A forceful movement and Cas is send flying, crashing against a tree and lying still. Dean wants to go check on him but his brother’s body walking towards him keeps all his attention focused.

His legs are shaking when he gets back on them, but he’s not sure if that’s because he got winded by the attack or because his heart is trying to kill him.

There isn’t actually anything he can do. He can’t fight Lucifer. He can’t open the cage and he can’t push him in. He can’t do anything to help. All he can do is what he came here for.

“Sammy,” he starts, and his throat, too, is enclosed by a hard, unforgiving hand. “Sam, it’s okay,” he manages anyway, sort of; his lips are moving but he’s not sure he’s producing any sound at all. “It’s gonna be okay, Sam. I’m here.”

“And what is that going to change?” Lucifer spits. “All you do is make me angry. I’ve tried to be patient, I really did, for Sam’s sake, but you’re seriously pissing me off by now.” He throws Dean down, to the ground right beneath his feet, and kicks him in the chest. It knocks the breath out of him. It could have killed him if Lucifer had wanted that. “If you say one more word, Dean Winchester, I will kill you. I will kill you with your brother’s hands and I will make him feel every bone breaking between his fingers. I will let him rest for all eternity with the memory of your eyeballs turning to mush under his thumbs.”

He means it. His foot is resting on Dean’s chest, the pressure steadily building like a promise, and Dean is sorry, so sorry. He wants to give up just to let Sam have the easier fate of eternal oblivion in Lucifer’s care, but he can’t, because he made a promise. To his brother and to himself.

“I’m here,” he repeats and it’s at the same time the hardest and the easiest words ever spoken. “I’m not gonna leave you. I’m not gonna leave you, Sammy, please.”

Lucifer’s face twists into an ugly grimace. He bends down, lifts Dean up by the lapels of his coat, punches him right down again. “I warned you,” he says. “All this is your fault. Sam will hate you.” His fist hits again. Not full force, because he wants this to last. He could have killed Dean with a single punch but he wants this to last and Dean is so sorry. He wants to tell his brother he loves him but what he says is just over and over “I’m here,” and “I’m not gonna leave you,” and it means the same thing in the end. (Sam knows that, he does.)

Another blow. Dean thinks something in his face breaks and there’s a lot of pain, but it doesn’t matter. He wants to say ‘I’m sorry.’ Instead he says, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Nothing is going to be okay. Sam can’t make it, there never was a chance. Dean doesn’t want him to feel like he let him down. He just wants him to know that Dean is there for him, here, at the end.

So he keeps his eyes on Sam’s no matter how painful it is to have Lucifer look back at him through them. Somewhere in there is Sam and he can see Dean even if Dean cannot see him. “I’m here.” It’s just a whisper. Maybe Sam can’t hear him. A blow hits his temple and Dean has to close his eyes for the blood running into them. Not much longer now. Lucifer is too angry to really hold back. It’s pathetic, but it’s all Dean can do: be there as long as he can.

The next blow might be the last one, or the one after that. Tears sting his eyes; it’s neither the pain nor fear that make him cry. And Lucifer is playing now, found some self-control, maybe – the next blow doesn’t come and doesn’t come. Instead the hands around his coat let go and Dean falls down heavily. His head rings and vertigo overcomes him. Maybe he passes out for a second.

“Dean,” a voice says. It’s the same voice Lucifer is using, the same fucking voice, but this is Sam speaking. Dean knows, because he would recognize him anywhere.

“Dean,” Sam repeats. “It’s okay.”

‘No,’ Dean thinks.

-

He opens his eyes and Sam is already holding the rings in his hands. Those hands tremble as he throws the cage’s key to the ground but his voice is steady when he says words Dean would never have been able to remember after hearing them just once. There is a growling sound like distant thunder and the ground falls away, opening up to take his brother away.

Sam looks at him and he’s crying too, but he’s smiling as he says, “It’s gonna be okay, Dean. I got him.”

-

A strong, icy wind is blowing up from the endlessly black abyss and tears at Sam’s hair as he closes his eyes and spreads his arms. Dean watches him fall backwards as if in slow motion. Time seems to stand still and then suddenly Sam is gone and everything is over.

A scream sits deep in Dean’s throat and doesn’t move from there while he scrambles to his feet. He’s not making a sound. The hole is closing quickly, but it’s still open just wide enough when Dean gets there.

Arms close around his middle from behind, hold him back, and the scream in his throat finally is heard; it doesn’t escape, doesn’t want to move, but Dean forces it out because he can’t breathe around the pain, and when the sound leaves him it tears something up in the process.

Nothing is better afterwards, but his throat closes and he can’t scream again. He claws at the arms holding him, throws himself forward, but the arms are too strong and in a second the hole will be gone as if it had never been there.

“No,” he chokes out. “Let me go.” But the arms hold tight.

“No, Dean.” Cas is choking as well. “You can’t.”

“Let me go!” Dean yells. Castiel doesn’t answer. He just keeps holding him back and Dean doesn’t understand why he would do that. What does he care? Lucifer is gone. They won. They fucking won! Only Dean is losing everything.

The hole is almost gone, the cage almost closed. Dean wouldn’t fit through the opening even if he could reach it now. It’s over. It’s too late.

He sinks to the ground and sobs. Castiel’s arms are still around him, but he’s no longer holding him back. He’s just holding him.

At the very last moment before the hole closes, there is a light.

-

It’s bright and white and for a terrible second Dean thinks it’s Hell shining through, like the light that had broken out from the cage when it had opened in that chapel in Maryland. But of course that had not been Hell either but Lucifer, shining brighter than any sun and coming.

Now it’s just a single bust of light; Dean gets the impression of giant, bright wings flapping once, far too large to fit through the rapidly closing opening in the ground and then it’s gone and it doesn’t matter what it was because it’s over and Sam is unreachable to him, as he will ever be.

Afterwards, there is only silence.

-

The silence lasts for seconds, and those seconds once again prove Dean wrong in his belief that the more terrible moment of his life has already happened long ago. He’s slumped on the ground and Cas is still holding him even though there is no more reason to hold him back. Dean thinks of taking his knife and sliding his throat while his fingers claw listlessly at the dead grass, but even to that there would be no point.

The silence ends with the thud of something falling from above. Looking up startled and nearly insensate with grief, Dean finds Jena crouching in the grass where the hole used to be, Sam’s motionless body sprawled in her arms.

“What?” he asks, when he finds his voice.

“Gabriel.” Castiel sounds strained and his arms around Dean tighten once again. “If that is Lucifer-”

“It’s not,” Jena interrupts him, and her voice is almost gentle, as is her hand when she moves to brush a long strand of hair out of the face of the man she is holding. “It’s just Sam.”

-

Sam is breathing. He doesn’t look alive, but he’s breathing – Dean can see it when he looks very closely and hear it when everyone is quiet and he holds his own breath to make out the thin rattle of his brother’s. Sam’s eyes are closed and his face pale and he is completely limp, but he seems unharmed, on the outside. All the scars he was sporting before are still there but there are no new wounds from whatever happened to him.

“What did you do?” Castiel whispers, his voice reverent. He reaches out to touch Sam’s hair but hesitates at the last second, letting his hand drop.

Jena smiles, looking almost amused. “What else? I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition.”

“But how? How just him and not Lucifer, too?”

“Because the cage was designed for an angel and the moment Lucifer touched it he was torn from his host. I managed to snatch Sam in just that moment, before the cage could close behind him forever.”

It sounds easy. It probably wasn’t. Dean doesn’t care. He reaches out and Jena willingly gives Sam to him, Dean’s whole body sagging with too many emotions when he feels the familiar weight resting in his arms. Sam is cool and still but not like a corpse and Dean can’t bring himself to look away from his face; the slightly parted lips, the closed eyes.

Behind him, Castiel says, “Thank you.”

Jena doesn’t reply and Dean couldn’t have cared less if she did. He pulls Sam’s head against his shoulder and holds it there, focusing on the only question he cares about right now. “Is he ever going to wake up?”

“Yes. It won’t be long. No side effects, too. Lucifer is all gone and Sam is all there.”

“So he will be okay?” Castiel asks. Jena hesitates just long enough for Dean to know the answer.

“He will be as okay as he was before,” she finally says.

Dean closes his eyes. His relief was all-consuming; a part of him hasn’t even accepted yet that this has happened – not that he lost Sam and not that he has got him back. He can’t deal with this, he can’t.

“He was not very okay to begin with,” Cas points out. He sounds careful, apprehensive. Jena, still crouching in the grass, sighs and reaches out to Sam and Dean allows her to touch him, to gently lower him to the ground together with Dean, so he’s lying stretched out between them. She’s touching Sam’s chest, his forehead, but those are casual touches without meaning. She’s not doing anything.

“I haven’t been able to heal Sam properly before, and I am unable to do so now, for the same reasons,” she tells them. Dean doesn’t know why he’s disappointed. He should have known, and yet, the desperation that has been banished when he saw the archangel carry his brother out of Hell comes back like a hole of his own to fall in as he realizes what this means.

“So he’s going to die anyway?” Dean can’t keep the hint of hysteria out of his voice. Hearing it surprises him when inside he only feels numb. It’s like his body hasn’t realized yet that he doesn’t have any energy left to feel.

“Yes.” Jena isn’t one to sugar coat things. “However,” she adds. “Lucifer healed some of the damage when he possessed Sam. It wasn’t much, though. He didn’t do it on purpose – why would he? The damage didn’t affect him. But a little bit of healing happened through his grace leaking into the cracks.”

Dean doesn’t want this hope when it’s going to be crushed again. He wants Sam to wake up so they can walk away from there and see how far they can go.

Castiel takes over the talking again. “What exactly does that mean?” His hand found its way to Sam’s hand after all and he’s holding on to it as if afraid that if he let go, Sam would just sink through the round again and be gone. (Dean’s own hands are clamped around Sam’s arm, holding so tightly that he has to leave marks under the black sleeve of his shirt.)

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” Jena says with faint amusement. Then she turns sombre again. “He’s not going to live forever, in any case.”

“So he could fall over tomorrow?” Dean asks numbly.

“Dean, dear, you all could fall over tomorrow, for whatever reason. Baring accident and further illness, through, I would give him a couple of years.” She lifts her hands in a placating gesture when Dean looks up sharply. “It’s no guarantee, through.”

Years. That’s… that could mean anything, from twelve months to three decades. It’s better, in any case, than nothing. But it’s not enough because it’s not the most important question. “What happens then? After? Can you still get him into Heaven now he’s been possessed by Lucifer? Will you?”

“I can. I don’t know if I have to, and basically, I think I just paid every depth I owed him for defeating Lucifer when I saved him from the cage, but,” she hurries to add when both Dean and Cas glare at her. “I’ll keep my promise. Sam will go to Heaven, and so will you. That is one thing you won’t have to worry about.”

“Me?” Dean didn’t really worry about that until now. It’s not that he feels any more certain he would be let into Heaven than he was with Sam, but making sure his little brother isn’t going to Hell was taking up too much of his attention to worry about his own fate. It’s good to know that he won’t be separated from him forever.

Good. It’s good.

It’s all good.

“What about Michael?” Castiel asks.

“Well.” Jena pulls a face. “There’s that.”

-

Michael knows Lucifer is gone. He must have felt it the moment the cage closed to lock him away forever and now he thinks about it, Dean is more than a little surprised that he didn’t show up yet to tear them all apart out of spite.

Michael never wanted Lucifer back in the cage, he wanted him dead. And most of all, he wanted to do it himself.

“I will take care of Michael,” Jena promises as she stands. Then she leans in and brushes Dean’s forehead with her fingers, the movement so surprising he can’t even flinch back. Adrenaline rushes through him, but whatever he expected, it doesn’t happen. All that happens is that the pain that filled him from Lucifer’s beating disappears.

It seems almost unfair that he shouldn’t even keep a scar.

“What, you are going to kick him in the balls?” Dean is surprised he manages so many words on something he cares about so little. Except he does care. If Michael wants revenge, Sam is the one he will go after.

“We will talk. He will understand that it is too late. No one else will be tricked into opening the cage, even if it were still possible. Lucifer and the final battle are out of his reach. It is, I believe, about time my dear brother learned to think for himself instead of following foreordained paths.” She smirks. “Maybe I can simply convince him that thinking for himself is the foreordained path our father wants him to follow.”

Dean should probably say something to that. He would like Michael’s balls to be kicked, after all. He wants Michael’s head on a stick, to be completely honest, and he wants to be the one sticking it there, but even that desire is forgotten when Sam stirs.

The first thing he does is let out an ever-so-quiet moan, and Dean’s hands are on him immediately. So are Castiel’s. Dean half-expected him to do the talking in his stead, maybe demand some violence or ask what will happen when Michael doesn’t see reason, or ask what will happen to him now because he’s a fallen angel and perhaps he can go back to Heaven after all now the side he chose turned out to be the winning one, but all Cas says when he leans closer is “Sam?”

Sam moans again, his eyes fluttering. It seems that for once Jena was right when she said he would wake soon and Dean’s heart flutters like a bird while at the same time it’s getting hard to breathe. She said he would be fine, that there would be no consequences of the possession, but he won’t know until Sam opened his eyes and looked at him.

Sam doesn’t open his eyes just yet. After the first attempt at waking he seems to give up for the moment, all tension leaving his body as it goes limp again. At the same time, Jena takes a step back. “I believe it’s time for me to go.”

“Wait.” There’s something else Dean needs to tell her, but when he looks up she’s already gone.

It’s okay. He can tell Sam and that will be just as well. He doesn’t trust her promises anyway, and Sam’s stirring again and…

…there’s a hand on Dean’s back. He turns and sees Cas, who smiles at him – a real smile that reaches his eyes. Dean realizes, that moment, that he has never seen him do that before.

Then Dean turns back to his brother, gently pulling him up until Sam’s head rests in the crook of his arm, and that’s where Sam opens his eyes.

At first he seems confused more than anything, then, for a second, there’s panic written all over him and he tries to jerk out of Dean’s arms. But under his brother’s soothing touches and whispered assurances, he calms down quickly and eventually, when his eyes fall on Dean’s, there is recognition in them, and amazement.

“Hey,” Dean says. It’s lame, but it’s a start. “Looks like Jena was good for something after all. She pulled you out at the last minute, and just remind me, when you’re up and running again, to kick you in the ass for pulling that stunt on me.”

Sam doesn’t say anything in return, his eyes travelling between Dean and Cas and the empty field around them, still not quite comprehending, so Dean takes mercy on him and adds with a grin that somehow snuck on his face when he wasn’t looking, “Yeah, Lucifer’s gone for good. It’ over. Oh, and by the way, we’ve won.”

EPILOGUE