vail_kagami | SPN Big Bang: All the Streets Are Empty (and the Cars on Fire)

See masterpost for story information and art.

Waking up was unexpected, unfamiliar, and almost unwelcome.

Castiel first opened his eyes on water. There was hard metal beneath him, nothing but the sky above, looking stormy and slightly blurred, and he heard voices, human voices speaking words that made no sense. He knew he was on water because the air smelled of salt and he heard the waves, felt the movement of the floor, and because he just knew it. He also was wet, cold, tasted salt on his tongue and felt a desire to drink something, anything. His head hurt badly. This was the unfamiliar part. As an angel in a borrowed shape, he was not used to this kind of discomfort.

Moving was too much of an effort so he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift away.

He woke up again. This time it was less surprising, but no less painful, and the realisation came slowly of what he had lost. What he had given up.

And that it hadn’t been worth it.

He woke in a hospital, alone. It didn’t take long for someone to show up, though – a stranger with a white coat, a doctor. Castiel had been lucky, he was told. They found him drifting in the water, bleeding, with torn clothes. The police would be here soon, because he had been attacked and they wanted to find out who did it. Castiel told him he didn’t remember. Said he was Castiel when asked for his name but claimed not to know anything beyond that. Telling this man he was an angel would have been unwise, he knew. And he didn’t know if he even was an angel anymore.

He didn’t feel like an angel.

The doctor didn’t believe him. Maybe amnesic people were more confused, less calm. Castiel was a bad actor, though, so he didn’t try to pretend. The doctor left him alone anyway. He was a busy man and the police was supposed to take care of this.

Castiel reached for the phone beside the bed and called Dean.

He’d known he would not get an answer; maybe it was a masochistic, self-punishing impulse that made him call the number he memorized long ago and listen to the line of signals that ended with Dean’s voice telling him to leave a message. He didn’t.

Calling Sam would have been the next logical step. Castiel pushed it off until after the policemen came and left frustrated and irritated, and then it was late and he was supposed to sleep. He didn’t have a name or insurance information or money, so he understood that he would have to leave soon, and Sam was the only person he knew, and there was only one place where he could go. He’d need money to get there, so he had to call Sam, but he did not want to. Not yet.

There was a small television in the corner of the room and Castiel watched the news until the report came in about the city of Los Angeles having been destroyed by a weapon of unknown origin and nature. People were speaking of something called a hydrogen bomb. There was panic spreading quickly through the hospital even though Los Angeles was far away.

Castiel left the room and the hospital before the first reporter stopped speaking. When he tried to reach Sam from a public phone with money he found on the sidewalk, all lines were blocked.

Getting to South Dakota was hard. There were still planes going back and forth across the United States by the time Castiel started on his way, but they were fewer in number and Castiel had no money. He had never really needed any before, had always been in the company of Dean when it was used, but now he found that it truly was a necessity. He was hungry – an unfamiliar feeling, not at all like the craving for red meat that had come over him in the presence of Famine – but had no means of getting food. He was tired but had no place to sleep. He needed to travel a long way and had no means of transportation.

Flying was not an option. He couldn’t fly anymore. He had truly fallen from grace.

But he was not human, would never be because he had never been. He was a fallen angel. His strength was still greater than a human’s. His senses were sharper, and while he felt exhaustion and pain after his unobserved departure from the hospital, he could ignore them easily and go without rest for a long time. Though he felt hunger, it remained a background noise, information his body gave him about a need he could ignore for days before it became hard to bear.

Since he could not fly, he walked. After a while, a car stopped and the driver offered to take him along for a while. He even gave Castiel a beer and a sandwich. It stilled his needs and he allowed his body to rest until the driver could take him no further. After they parted ways, Castiel continued walking along the highway until another car stopped. Like this, he slowly made his way towards the only place he knew where to go.

On the second day of his journey, he passed Topeka, riding in the passenger seat of a truck driven by a silent, grim woman. She didn’t ask him where he was going or why. She didn’t say much at all, focusing all her attention on the road and the radio. There was no music playing like it had when he’d travelled in the Impala with Dean. Instead there was one news report after another, telling of bombings in Mexico, England, Russia. The day before, the same weapon that had taken out Los Angeles had levelled a large portion of Tokyo. They didn’t know who or what had done it. Speculations ranged from terrorists to alien invasion.

“No human weapon has the power for destruction on this scale,” one man on the radio had said, and he was right.

Dean had become a weapon. He had been human, but Michael was not. Michael could have done this before, on a smaller scale in a lesser vessel, but he had waited. Now he was making a point. He was calling for attention because Dean had given him the right.

Topeka got wiped out, completely, just hours after the truck had passed through. The driver clenched her fists around the wheel and clenched her teeth and fought for almost a minute before letting out an animal-like scream.

But she never stopped driving.

Getting picked up got harder after that. There were more and more people walking on the highways, trying to catch a ride, and the cars kept going past them. Some of the people were armed. Castiel had nothing with him that anyone could want so he felt safe, but he’d found the body of a woman by the side of the road after a day of walking, her clothes torn and a bullet hole in the centre of her forehead.

The number of cars going past increased for a day or two, and someone did pick Cas up, let him ride along. After just two hours there was a traffic jam, the road blocked by an accident and too many cars, and the blaring of horns made Castiel’s head hurt. He eventually left the car and walked on because his walking pace was still faster than standing still. Somewhere nearby there was the sound of a gunshot, quickly followed by another. Castiel left the road behind; it could not help him anymore and his sense of direction was still as good as it always had been. Between the trees and fields he felt better. He understood that he was fragile now. Mortal.

What he did not quite understand was why he bothered to go on.

Castiel was no longer the angel he had been, but he still had a sense of the world, a connection to Heaven that humans were lacking. Perhaps he would lose this over time, if he lived long enough to do so, but for now it was still there. From the moment he had woken up on the ship that pulled him out of the sea, he had known that Michael had taken his destined vessel and was going to war.

He also knew that Lucifer had not, that Sam Winchester had not yet given in. Castiel didn’t even know if he would feel it when that happened, but he knew that had it happened, more than some major cities would have been turned to dust.

It was ironic, if nothing else, that after everyone had been so focused on looking out for the first signs of Sam giving in, it had been Dean who had caved first. Perhaps it was also Castiel’s fault; if he had supported his friend more instead of letting him carry his burden on his own, Dean might have withstood longer, until…

…until what, exactly?

It was only now, when everything was too late and everything had gone wrong and Castiel was wandering shivering and hungry through the chilly night air of a doomed country, that he realised that after the Colt had failed and God turned his back, he hadn’t really thought there was any way left to defeat Lucifer. He had hoped, he had fought, but he hadn’t believed. Instead, he had been waiting for Sam Winchester to fail. Then, at least, no one else would have been too blame and Dean giving into the pressure weighing him down would have been a noble sacrifice that would not have soiled Castiel’s memory of his friend.

But Sam Winchester, with his unexpected, stubborn strength and faith in his brother, a faith that Dean had not been able to summon, had ruined even that.

He couldn’t keep out of the towns forever. Eventually, he came to a point where avoiding one would have demanded too much of a detour to be practical, and he was hungry, so he decided to pass through it and see if he couldn’t find something edible along the way. He soon regretted it.

During his absence from civilisation, fuel had become a problem. There were very few cars running, fewer people on the streets. The air was pregnant with tension and fear. Castiel did not attempt to approach anyone.

He found a grocery store and tried to take some pre-packed sandwiches, justifying the theft with his lack of money and a life being worth more than food that would be past its expiration date in two days, but the clerk caught him and threatened to shoot him so he left hungry.

Due to lack of alternatives, Castiel learned how to lure small animals into traps and end their lives with a quick snap of their necks, so he could eat them. The night after his attempt at shoplifting, he heard a roaring sound in the distance, far away and yet recognizable as the sound of something big ending. The horizon was lit up with a bright, holy light for hours.

The country hadn’t fallen completely into chaos yet, but Castiel knew it was only a matter of time. Sometimes, he heard gunfire in the night, and once he came across a farm that had recently burned down. He began to worry that the place he was heading towards would be deserted, or simply not there anymore.

It took him weeks to get there and his feet were covered in blisters by the time he made it. He was very hungry. He needed a shower and fresh clothes because he was human enough now to be bothered by the smell of his own body.

Before, his body had not smelt bad because he hadn’t sweated. His hair hadn’t turned greasy and keeping his clothes clean and whole hadn’t even cost him a thought. He’d never before had to walk around on oozing wounds on the soles of his feet.

People stayed away from him whenever he came across them. One time, a young woman had drawn a gun and threatened to shoot him should he come any closer.

But the city of Sioux Falls was still there, still untouched. This far north the destruction wasn’t as bad, but Castiel could still feel the strain, could sense the change in the lack of cars on the street and the almost empty supermarkets he passed. People avoided him here as well, but at least there were people around to avoid him.

The Singer Salvage Yard was where it had always been, looking as it always had. Old, broken cars stood in piles and in the middle there was the house, the windows unlit although it wasn’t a bright day. Castiel worried as he entered through the front door, opening it with the same certainty as he’d always had so that afterwards he wasn’t sure if the door had been locked or not.

In the badly lit rooms he heard the click of a safety catch being removed before he saw Bobby Singer in a doorway. There was a moment of silence as they both stared at the other and then Bobby said, “Castiel?” full of disbelief and without lowering the shotgun he had trained at the fallen angels face.

“What is left of me,” Castiel confirmed, and admitted, “My powers are gone. I did not know where else to go. If you wish, I can leave.” And as he spoke the words he realised that if he was asked to leave he could just as well ask the hunter to pull the trigger since there was nowhere else he could go and nothing else he could do.

But Bobby just put away the gun. “We thought you were dead.”

“So did I. Unfortunately, I was merely banned from Heaven and lost my grace. I am afraid I cannot be of much use to you.”

“Welcome to the club.” Bobby turned and rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle from the table and handed it to the fallen angel. “Drink this.”

It was, without doubt, holy water to test if a demon had moved into Jimmy Novak’s body the moment Castiel had disappeared from it. He drank without hesitation and felt nothing but faint, accepting disappointment when he tasted only water. He would have been able to tell the difference, before.

Afterwards, Bobby nicked him with a silver knife and threw salt at him. Once it was established that Castiel was Castiel, the hunter seemed to deflate, sinking deeper into this chair as if all his energy were gone. “You know what happened?”

“Dean said Yes.” The bitterness that came with the words was unexpected. Castiel had known all along; saying it out loud did not change anything about it.

“Yeah. And Michael’s been busy, for all I can tell. Or isn’t it him who’s wreaking havoc on the major cities of the world right now?”

There was something fragile, like hope, in the old hunter’s voice that Castiel had to crush. “It is Michael. He is trying to get Lucifer’s attention. Once the Devil has moved into his destined vessel, they will fight and nothing will remain.”

Bobby closed his eyes for a second, but shook his head at the same time. “Not if we can prevent it. There has to be something we can do.”

“There isn’t. Michael is far too powerful. The moment he got a hold on his true vessel, all was lost. There is a reason why we fought so hard to keep this from happening.”

Bobby opened his eyes, shot Castiel a warning glare, but that didn’t stop the next words coming from the angel’s mouth. “This is Sam’s fault.”

“Shut up,” Bobby hissed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. I was there. We did all we could to keep Dean away from Michael. We locked him in, where he was safe, but Sam let him out and led him to his downfall. What is this if not his fault?”

“How about everyone’s?” Bobby snapped. “Is Sam physically stronger than you? Did he pull an angel killing weapon and threaten to kill you if you didn’t allow Dean to run free? Hell, we didn’t even need Sam specifically to go after Adam that day. What kept you from locking him in with his brother? What kept me?”

Castiel opened his mouth to reply, but closed it when he realised he had no reply to that. Eventually he admitted, “Sam was so certain Dean would not say yes, that I wanted to believe him.”

“As did I. I love those boys, but they’ve broken my heart often enough. Still, I thought if anything could have made Dean change his mind, it was Sam.”

“Exactly,” Castiel confirmed, getting to the bottom of his own confused motivations. It did not make him resent Dean’s younger brother any less. “Sam knew Dean better than anyone. Better than me. If Sam trusted him, how could we be expected to see he was wrong to do so?”

“Hold on a minute.” Anger clouded the human’s face as he attempted to stare Castiel down from where he was sitting in his wheelchair. “I know it’s damn easy to blame everything on Sam, but don’t you think we’ve done that enough already? How about we see who really messed up before we place the blame on him, huh?” He pressed his lips together until they were only a thin line. “How about we blame Dean?”

“Dean never had a chance.” It was surprising even to Castiel how much he still felt the need to defend his friend. But maybe that was the point: Dean was his friend, and friends stood up for one another, didn’t they? That was what Dean had taught him, and if Dean had let him down and it was all his fault, then was anything Castiel had fallen for actually worth his sacrifice? “He relied on us to watch over him.”

“Dean betrayed us,” Bobby bust out, looking like he regretted the words the moment he said them but adding anyway, “We relied on him and he let us down. He let Sam down. You weren’t there.”

“Neither were you.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t. Because I’m bound to this metal death trap!” Bobby slapped the arms of the wheelchair, his voice betraying the frustration he felt about his condition more than Castiel had ever witnessed before. “I’m pretty useless like this, and you can’t begin to imagine how much I wish I had been there.”

“Dean would still have said yes. It was letting him go that was the mistake.”

“Maybe, but I could have been there for Sam after his brother betrayed him instead of stranding him in the middle of nowhere after Michael was done with him.”

“Sam is not the victim here,” Castiel pointed out, his own frustration rising. “It was him who betrayed Dean by failing to protect him from himself.”

“You know what? There is absolutely no point in discussing this right now,” After a second, Bobby added, “I’m glad you’re not dead.” With that, he wheeled his chair out of the kitchen, wearing irritation like a mask on his face. Castiel stayed, struggling with his own irritation and conflicted feelings. It took him a full minute and his stomach growling loudly to remind him of his hunger.

The fridge was anything but well-stocked, but he found a wrapped sandwich that looked like it was left over from something and still seemed edible, so he ate it. A glass of water helped with the thirst and second one helped even more. The thought flitted through Castiel’s mind that they were probably lucky to still have running water.

And electricity? There was still daylight outside, but the sky was overcast and there was not enough daylight to fill the house with more than a dim grey twilight. Castiel’s sight wasn’t as good as before his fall and yet he could still make everything out. He thought there was enough light without having to turn on the lamps, probably, but he wasn’t quite sure what was normal for human sight, knowing his was better even now.

Once it was quiet, however, he could hear a voice from behind the door leading to the living room. It was a stranger speaking and the voice had that slight distortion to it that made him understand it was a radio or television he heard. He couldn’t tell the difference as well as before but it was still very easy to make out.

The time he had spent hitchhiking had taught him much about the new limitations of his senses so the vagueness of the distortion no longer came as a surprise.

Castiel fond himself listening for the words being said, but it was difficult to make them out through the closed door since the volume was very low, just a distant electronic device that Bobby had forgotten to turn off. Something about recent events, about casualties, a warning to the people to leave the big cities. A news station, then. The fallen angel finally put down his glass and entered the living room so he could listen more easily.

He had only a vague idea how many places had been hit. He knew exactly how many were to follow.

The living room seemed darker than the kitchen as it was larger and offered more places for shadows to fall. The tv was turned off but there was a radio standing on a shelf at the far end. The coffee table was cluttered with papers. Sam sat on a chair next to the window, looking out. He did not turn to greet Castiel.

It took Castiel a moment to decide if he should acknowledge the human’s presence or not. Eventually he said “Hello Sam.”

Sam turned slowly, looking at him through bloodshot, empty eyes. No doubt he had heard every word that was spoken in the kitchen and suddenly Castiel felt awkward about it, if not ashamed. “Hey Cas.”

“How long have you been staying here?”

“Since Michael,” Sam replied. The time it took Castiel to wake up and come here. “More or less. There were some… wait a second.” He lifted his hand to call for silence and sat very still, his attention fully on the voice coming from the radio. Castiel listened as well. There was a story about a town in Minnesota where half the population had been murdered. It had nothing to do with the worldwide attacks the media still had no explanation for; instead it seemed that a lot of people had suddenly decided to kill their friends and family. A survivor was interviewed, talking hysterically about how his mother had suddenly gone after him with a knife, and how his father had tied his sister to her bed while she was sleeping and shot her when she woke up.

Sam muttered a word that Castiel, for all his superior hearing, could not make out, and added, a little louder, “Shit.”

“What did you say?” Castiel asked.

“I said we’ve got a problem. More than before, I mean.” Sam laughed humorlessly. “And that’s a real accomplishment, don’t you think?”

Castiel frowned, still so very confused about these humans and their way with words. “I don’t see how this would be something to be proud of.”

But Sam ignored him, getting off his chair to call for Bobby. He left the room with long strides, and having nothing else to focus on Castiel followed him, finding both hunters in the bedroom, Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed explaining to Bobby what he had just heard.

“You’ve got an idea?” Bobby asked. It was a rhetorical question, Castiel thought – it was obvious that Sam had some idea what was going on. “Think it’s Michael?”

“I think it’s Lucifer,” Sam explained. “Remember that story we told you about the town in Oregon three years ago? Where everyone suddenly turned violent and then disappeared?”

“That Croatoan thing?” Now he heard it, Castiel recognized the word Sam had muttered before. “That virus you happened to be immune to? Yeah, I remember.”

“I’m not sure I just happened to be immune,” Sam said with a grimace. “Anyway, this sounds a lot like it, and back then it was Azazel’s doing. So Lucifer is more likely the culprit.”

“It’s Pestilence.” Now Castiel had heard this much about it, the conclusion was clear. Both Sam and Bobby stared at him, for the first time realizing he was even in the room with them. “Working on Lucifer’s orders, of course,” he added, in case Sam thought he was arguing against him.

“Great. Just fantastic.” Bobby slapped the armrests of his chair, his dark face contradicting his confusing choice of words. “So it’s just a horseman of the apocalypse. No problem at all.”

“It’s very much a problem,” Castiel corrected him.

“How do we stop him?” Sam’s pale, tired face turned to the angel. “How can we stop the virus? There has to be a cure, somehow.”

“There is no cure,” Castiel said bluntly. “Everyone infected is lost.”

“Then how do we keep it from spreading?”

It was interesting, Castiel thought, that with all the billions of people in the world, Sam seemed convinced that it was his job to stop the virus. But then, he was the one to blame for all of this, so there was reason to it. At least, he was taking responsibility for his errors.

Castiel, however, had no answer for him – none that Sam would have liked. The silence stretched between them until Bobby let out a curse through clenched teeth.

“We kill all the infected,” he voiced what they were all thinking. It was the logical course of action and the infected were already lost, so Castiel didn’t see what the issue was, even as Sam closed his eyes for a second.

“It will be impossible for just us to find and take them all out ,” Castiel mentioned the one thing that actually was a problem here. “We do not have the means to isolate and cauterize the infected areas,” – now Sam was staring at him, wide-eyed and shocked, and Bobby looked at him as if he were a stranger – “but any other method will be less effective.”

“We are not going to kill countless innocents to ‘cauterize’ anything,” Bobby said with much more force than necessary.

“We don’t have the means,” Castiel agreed. “Perhaps we should contact the authorities that do.”

“We’re not going to do it. No one is going to do that. Especially with what’s happening at the moment. Don’t you think enough people have been killed already?”

“There will be more,” Castiel pointed out, unblinking, staring at Sam who wouldn’t look up. “You cannot kill every single Croatoan infected person yourself.”

“No,” Sam confirmed quietly. “We wouldn’t even know who is infected. There is a test, but… it’s not practical. We’ll need something else. But Cas is right.”

“What now?” This time, Bobby’s incredulous gaze was directed at Sam, but Sam shook his head, denying whatever the man was thinking.

“About contacting the authorities,” he clarified. “I know more about the virus than anyone else. Maybe they can profit from that. Find a better test, maybe something that doesn’t require taking blood. Like making them glow in the dark… I don’t know.”

“That would be too nice. No way that’s gonna happen.”

“Wouldn’t work anyway.” Sam’s shoulders slumped and he was looking towards the floor again. “This isn’t a zombie-virus. You can’t tell they are infected until they attack you. Even with a test telling they are no longer themselves, people aren’t going to attack their families if they act normal, their children…” He trailed off. Bobby placed a hand on his arm.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is,” Sam and Castiel said at the same time. Bobby looked up, glared at the angel as if he could chase him out of the room with the power of his gaze. Sam looked at the angel with something like gratitude.

“Anyway,” Sam cleared his throat. “We can’t just sit around deciding that fighting is hopeless. Also, there’s Dean.”

“Who’s gone,” Castiel reminded him flatly.

“But doesn’t have to stay gone.” Sam’s lips twitched. “We need to get Michael out of him, and the problem with the exploding cities, at least, will be solved.”

“Oh, right, there was that obvious solution.” Bobby’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “How come I didn’t think of that myself?”

Sam ignored him. “Cas,” he said, looking at the angel. “What can we do to get an angel out of his vessel?”

The answer to Sam’s question, of course, was ‘Nothing’. Getting an angel out of their vessel without consent was easy as long as it was the Heavenly Host doing it. When Castiel had been called back to Heaven that time, leaving Jimmy Novak behind, unexpectedly, in control of his own body, Castiel hadn’t had a chance. But he used to be a low-ranking angel and now he was even less. Exorcising the vessel of an archangel was nearly impossible even with the power of Heaven on their side. Without it, it was impossible.

Sam would not have that. He was stubborn, insisting there had to be a way if only they looked hard enough. He would not give up on his brother; Castiel wanted to remind him that they would not need to look if Sam hadn’t pushed Dean into Michael’s arms but knew it would not contribute to the discussion.

He learned that Sam had already done some research. Somehow, Castiel had thought he had been sitting here, in Bobby’s living room, shell shocked since Dean left, but Sam had started looking for a way to get his brother back the moment he got to Bobby’s place after losing Dean, never taking a break unless exhaustion forced him to. Now he was presenting the lore he had found, the rumours and the myths and the theories to Castiel. Asking his opinion on this, the chances of success for that. He was desperate, that much was clear, and Castiel learned more and more about the cruelty of emotions when he took perverted glee in pointing out the errors and destroying every hope.

He wanted hope himself. He wanted Dean back and he wanted to have won this war, but no one cared about that either.

To be fair, he had known from the beginning that there was next to no hope. But at least he had fought for what he considered to be the right thing. At least he had not given up and surrendered like Dean.

The first night at Bobby’s house was more restful, despite everything, than Castiel’s nights had been in a long time. He hadn’t slept much on the road, and the few times he had, he’d done it sitting in the passenger seat of a car, then laying half-aware in between trees or bushes, listening to his surroundings even in his sleep. Now he had a bed and walls to keep away intruders and was in the presence of only people he trusted.

This was his first night in which he’d slept sheltered, ever.

And yet, sleep did not come easily, for all he was exhausted and in need of it. His thoughts kept circling, and when sleep finally claimed him, they followed him down into what he believed humans called dreams, creating images and scenes that made no sense.

He was woken by screams. They came from inside the house and Castiel was awake in an instant, jumping out of the bed and running down the stairs. It was Sam screaming, and it sounded agonized. Castiel thought that maybe they were being attacked, although there was no sound of fighting, no voices but Sam’s and then, when Castiel reached the ground floor, Bobby’s, cursing in his bedroom.

The older hunter sounded unhappy, but not alarmed. He knew what this was, then. Castiel did not, and he decided to have a weapon at the ready whenever he slept from now on, so he would not have to look for one with the attackers already upon them.

But the house was silent and empty and the screams had stopped within the twenty-one seconds it took Castiel to get to the living room. The moonlight falling through the windows was enough to let him see everything as clearly as an electrical light would have done for a human and he saw Sam on the couch, his limbs sprawled, one leg hanging off and the woollen blanket twisted around him. It looked uncomfortable, though Castiel knew he had slept on this couch often. There was no reason for him to do it now, though, since Bobby’s bedroom on the second floor was unreachable for the older man and he had moved his sleeping quarters downstairs. Perhaps Sam had given the room up so Castiel could have it. In that case, he had made a foolish decision. Castiel could have slept sufficiently on the floor.

A flashlight in Bobby’s room was turned on – Castiel saw the light falling through the gap under the door and heard a grunt and the rustling of clothes as the hunter moved to get himself into his wheelchair. Castiel thought about calling to let him know that there was no danger, but then he looked at Sam and was distracted.

That Sam wasn’t screaming anymore didn’t mean he was fine. His hands were clenched around the blanket and he was tossing weakly, breathing as if in pain. Castiel wondered if he was sick or just having a nightmare. Both Sam and Dean were prone to them. After everything that had happened lately, it wouldn’t have been unexpected.

Sam’s face was white in the colourless gleam of night. His breathing was too harsh. His lips were moving and he whispered the word ’no’, as tears escaped his closed eyelids to disappear into his hair.

“Sam.” Castiel touched his shoulders, not gently. He shook the boy he’d once considered something like a friend but Sam did not wake. His back arched and his arms started flailing so Castiel had to take hold of them to keep him from harming himself, but his eyes remained closed. After a few seconds, he started screaming again.

Castiel shook him again, harder. It was of no use. He captured both wrists in one hand, finding them unexpectedly thin, and pressed the other to Sam’s forehead, reaching for the last remnants of the powers that once were a part of him.

All he felt was the loss. There was nothing reverberating in him and Sam kept screaming. Then the door down the hall opened and Bobby rolled out dressed in sweatpants and an undershirt and surrounding himself with an unending litany of curses like a shield. He moved his wheelchair over to the couch, nudging Castiel to step out of the way.

“What are you standing around here for?” he growled, reaching for something beside him on the table.

“I am unable to wake him,” Castiel explained, stepping aside to make room for the chair that fit in the space between couch and table only with difficulty. Bobby snorted something under his breath and reached out to take Sam’s left arm out of Castiel’s grip. Even though he was having more trouble keeping it still, the angel did not offer further help.

Bobby lifted his other hand and brought it down onto Sam’s arm with force. Sam jerked, stopped screaming, and opened his eyes.

“Welcome back,” Bobby grumbled, his glare only insufficiently masking his concern. “There goes another night.” He pulled back his hand; Castiel saw something thin and pointed glittering with blood for a second before Bobby wiped it off with a cloth and placed it back on the table.

“Sorry.” Sam sat up, rubbing his face. Only then did he notice Castiel sitting beside him. “Hey, Cas.” He gave a slightly bashful smile. “Did I wake you?”

“You did, but it is nothing to worry about. What was that? You are hurt.” Castiel reached for Sam’s arm, but Sam withdrew it and pressed it to his chest in a gesture that seemed more embarrassed than protective.

“It’s nothing.”

“What it is, is the only way to wake him,” Bobby explained. “And believe me, it was luck that we figured that out. And with luck I mean after freaking out for an hour when I couldn’t snap him out of it, I resorted to desperate measures.” He lit a candle and got a box of paper towels and band aids, all ready on the table behind him, and got to work on Sam’s arm. Castiel saw the other small, deep puncture wounds that marred Sam’s skin, some barely scarred over, none of them very old.

“How often does this happen?”

“Every night so far, since Dean’s stunt with the archangel. Less often before.” Somehow, Bobby managed to make the statement sound like a question, looking at Sam, and Sam nodded in confirmation. “We’ve tried to prevent it, but it seems that we still haven’t got the angel-proofing right. Maybe you can take a look at it and tell us what we’re doing wrong.”

“What does preventing the entry of angels have to do with Sam’s nightmares?” Castiel found himself asking. “Do you know what is causing them?”

Bobby snorted. “Of course we do. It’s Lucifer, trying to crack Sam like they cracked his brother.” He probably didn’t notice Sam’s flinch at his words but Castiel did, and yes, it did make sense. Lucifer was patient, but he was also without his vessel when Michael wasn’t and everyone had expected Sam to give in first. Including Castiel. Including Dean.

Including, possibly, Sam.

“I will look at them,” he promised. “But I cannot assure you that anything will work. Why aren’t you sleeping in the panic room?” He turned to Sam. “Even if it does not prevent the access of angels, it would be safer for you.”

“But not for Bobby,” Sam reminded him. “He can’t get down the stairs.”

“And I can’t wake him if he’s sleeping down there alone,” Bobby added. “Although, now you are here, it might be worth a thought.”

The Enochian symbols that shielded Bobby’s house were faulty. There was just one small mistake that had rendered the protection useless; Castiel had fixed it easily, and there was hope the next night would be more restful for Sam.

Sam protested the idea of Castiel staying in the panic room with him so he could wake him if needed, unwilling to leave Bobby upstairs and unprotected in the event of an attack. Only Castiel promising that after the sleep he’d got the night before he would not need sleep for several days and could keep an ear out for trouble, made him give in in the end.

It was of no use. The nightmares still came, Lucifer trying to talk – or torture – Sam into giving his consent, and only Castiel applying a minimum of violence to the boy could wake him from the torment. Questions did not lead to an explanation of what exactly it was the Devil did to Sam in his dreams. After it was clear that there was no possibility of granting Sam restful sleep, he started trying to avoid sleep altogether, if possible.

Three days after Castiel had arrived at the house, word reached them of a couple of hunters fighting the inhabitants of a small town not three hours from Sioux Falls and Sam decided to go and help. He did know more about the Croatoan virus than any other human, after all. There was no stopping him, so Castiel went along as well. It was not like he had anything better to do.

SPN Big Bang: All the Streets Are Empty (and the Cars on Fire) | Part 1

Post a comment in response: