Le Chant Des Oiseaux: Chapter 2
Hunting, Dean thinks, is primarily a ditch digging job. One of his first hunting memories was listening to his dad explain the most efficient way to move dirt. He'd been assigned the job of look-out while his dad lectured him on the best way to swing a shovel through various kinds of earth: loamy soil scraped off with the back of the shovel; clay broken into chunks before scooping it out; sand powered through quickly before it had a chance to re-settle and double the time required.
Predictably, Lisa's backyard consisted of all three types in varying depths. Dean dug crisply through the layers struggling to not appear frantic. He'd decided one deep hole for all three bodies would probably raise less suspicion than three fresh graves. It was the same amount of work, regardless, to his aching back. Daylight was fast approaching, orange streaks broke through the twilight gray sky as Dean heard the tell-tale flutter of Castiel's wings.
"Dean. I need to talk to Sam."
Dean didn’t even bother looking at Castiel while he shoveled. He stood in a six-foot deep hole, throwing shovel-full after shovel-full of sand up and onto the grass. God, sand was a bitch.
"I'm fine, thanks for asking. Coulda used your help coupla hours ago. Hell, coulda used your help six fucking months ago when Sam was slicing his arm open for the umpteenth fucking time, but," Dean grunts as he slams the shovel point down into the make-shift grave, "sure, let me just scramble on out of here and do your bidding, Cas. That sound about right?"
Castiel eyes Dean placidly before reaching down and effortlessly hoisting him up to ground-level. "I am here to help. I need to talk to Sam about what happened last night."
Dean snorts, "You're two hours late and a couple hundred dollars short." Dean bends over to roll the headless, bloodless bodies of the vampires into the deep hole, soccer kicking all three heads in on top. Sam wasn’t the only one who could make a goal.
"Unless you're gonna levitate all this dirt back in, Cas, I gotta do it myself. So if you don't mind." Dean brushes past Castiel to start the back-breaking work of refilling the hole.
"Step away, Dean."
"What?"
"I said," Castiel repeats, "step away."
Dean backs up a step, and watches in amazement as Castiel replaces the dirt it had taken Dean hours to remove with a flick of his hand. Another flick, and grass sprouts from the disturbed earth. . "It's done. Now, I need to talk with Sam."
"Yeah, well," Dean waves towards Lisa's house, "he was inside babbling something about blackbirds or ravens or something when I left, probably still is."
Castiel peers over his shoulder at the house, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "Dean, there's a reason I met you outside that night with Sam, and a reason I cannot go in to talk with him. I need you," Castiel turns back to Dean, his eyes blazing, "to go inside and ask him to come talk to me, here."
Something tickles the edges of Dean's mind; an inkling of what Castiel meant about not being able to enter Lisa’s house on his own. But Dean is exhausted, and, honestly, can’t muster the energy to give a rat's ass about Castiel’s problems. Not after the fucking awful night he'd had, and the terrible year of watching Sam crawl back to this world. And never mind the year before that Dean had spent practically crawling into a bottle to avoid reality.
"Fine, Cas," Dean sighs, dragging himself to the mudroom door.
"Dean," Castiel calls after him, "remind him he chose."
Without pausing, Dean waves a hand backwards, muttering, "Yeah, yeah, he chose."
~*~
When Dean enters the kitchen, Lisa is mopping up the watery, bleached remains of blood on the floor. Ben’s watching her with - to Dean's eye - far more rapt fascination that any kid really ought to be.
Ben catches Dean staring at him and frowns. "This is taking fucking forever."
Lisa looks up, says sharply, "Ben."
"Sorry, it's taking effing forever," Ben sighs. "And I should at least get to stay home, today. It'd be kinda weird to go to school after," Ben gestures around, "all this. Besides, someone is gonna ask where Billy is. And what am I gonna say? 'Yeah, I was about to have some ice cream with him, turned out he was a vampire, and I watched his head get sliced off?’ Probably not gonna go over real well with the principal."
With a clatter, Lisa throws the mop to the floor. "Dean, you finished out there?"
"Yeah, I, uh," Dean feels there is some role he should be playing, here. He'd taken on the role of uncleto Ben, and ally with Lisa. But just like the rest of his life, there wasn't a rule book for this. Being an uncle and ally wasn’t the same as father and husband. He didn’t feel like he had any real say in the off-kilter domestic drama playing out in front of him.
He opted for clearing his throat to repeat, "Yeah, I'm done out there. Got kind of an assist from Cas."
"That’s cool. Can I talk to him?" Ben asks.
"No, Ben," Dean grits, "it isn’t. And the last thing anyone would say about Cas is 'cool'." It's disturbing how easily the kid is just taking everything in stride. And despite Lisa's declaration to the contrary last night, her pinched, face radiates concern and disgust at Ben’s question. "And he doesn't want to talk to you, and,” Dean steels his voice further, "I don't want you talking to him."
Glancing back at Lisa, Dean asks, "Sam still upstairs? He okay? You okay?"
Off Lisa's nod and gesture toward the ceiling, Dean takes the stairs two at a time. After Sam's outburst and the surprise beheadings last night, Dean is pretty sure his heavy footsteps register on Sam's scale of do not want anymore. Still, he opens his brother’s door carefully. No sense spooking Sam. Dean really isn’t in the mood to listen to more blather about bird song.
Rounding the foot of Sam's bed, Dean is relieved to find Sam in his familiar back-to-the-bed, knees-to-his-chest position. For a moment, Dean simply watches Sam. He tries to envision a life without hunting, without rampant death and destruction chasing them or left in their wake. A life without hell or heaven, nothing but a house with a basketball hoop on some quiet suburban block. Once, Sam had called that kind of life safe. But that had been blown to shit with Jess' death, Brady's betrayal, and the knowledge that a thousand years of familial manipulation ended with Sam's birth to a seemingly safe, suburban couple. No, Dean muses, true safety means salted doorways and window sills. It means a handy silver knife and eyes in the back of your head. Along with a heaping dose of suspicion, mistrust, and wariness of all things demonic and angelic.
"I heard the mourning dove."
Sam's quiet, clear voice rouses Dean from his pointless thoughts.
Dean drags his hand across his face, then mutters, "Pretty sure you mean Cas, Sam. And, yeah, he says he's gotta talk to you."
Sam rubs his hands in a circular pattern on the floorboards, flexs his toes before replying, "Cause I chose, cause I chose."
Sam’s words echo what Castiel said the night he brought Sam back, and what he’d said minutes ago out in the yard. Dean’s head aches. Since when had Sam had the chance to choose anything? John Winchester taught his sons about a lot of topics over the years, but choice was never one of them. Last night's invasion emphasized Dean couldn't even allow freaking Mr. and Mrs. Bland USA into the house without everything going to shit. Of course the Blandy McBlands were fucking vampires. The only reason they even got inside the house was because Dean, hunter extraordinaire, allowed them to be invited in. Christ, how could he have been so stupid? He’d love to spend another hour or thousand berating himself, but this isn’t the time. Dean pushes that particular train of thought off the rails and concentrates on Sam.
"Yeah, he, uh, he told me to remind you of that, but seems - “
"I know," Sam interrupts. "Cas may hear many things, but I know that I chose, and I heard the mourning dove coo before he knew to."
"Okay, before this gets anymore, you know, weirder and all, how about you just go talk to him?"
Sam levers himself upright by pushing his elbows onto the mattress behind him. He nods at Dean and stalks toward the door. Dean catches Sam’s hand as he passes.
"This doesn't mean that you and I don't need to talk, either."
Sam’s gaze drifts toward Dean as he whispers, "You were always meant for a cold season and for leaving. I'm sorry, but it’s not time for either."
Dean feels like he’s free-falling, again, again. He jerks Sam’s arm, turns his head to look directly into Sam’s eyes. "Dammit, Sam. I know whatever is cooking up there," Dean points to Sam's head, "is on some kind of slow simmer, but I can't keep talking in riddles with you. And I sure as shit can't have a riddle conversation with you that involves, I don't know, canaries, after what you did last night while Castiel loiters in the backyard. Both of you keep mumbling some kind of choice you made and Lisa is mopping up devil's blood from her freaking kitchen floor. And Ben?" Dean takes a deep breath, continues in a quieter tone, "Ben thinks this is cool. You got me? You hear me," Dean presses a hand to Sam's head, "in here?"
Sam leans his head against Dean's hand. "You win a prize for that."
"Jesus Christ, Sam, just go."
~*~
Dean gives Lisa and Ben a concerned glance as he walks through the kitchen with Sam. They’re both eating grilled cheese sandwiches at the kitchen island, and Dean cringes inwardly when Ben flashes a thumbs up.
Sam pauses at the door. He turns back to Ben. "Your song was loudest of all," he says, before continuing outside.
Castiel is standing where Dean left him, beside the newly grown grass his eyes cast skyward.
They’re still a few steps away when, Sam places a halting arm across Dean's chest. "You can't hear that?"
Dean listens, straining for any unusual sounds. An early morning breeze rustles the leaves, a lone dog barks, a distant car's engine turns over. All muted in the dawn hour; all so stereotypical it borders on cliche.
"Just you, Sam."
Sam wraps his arm fully across Dean, commands: "Stay."
Dean stays, rooted to a spot several feet from Castiel. He watches warily as Sam approaches the angel. Sam's stride is sure and true, so unlike the night Castiel had to guide a stumbling Sam toward Lisa's mudroom, toward Dean.
Their words are low, their backs to Dean he struggles to hear what they’re saying. It looks like Cas speaks more than Sam, but that’s just guesswork on Dean’s part. It’s hard to tell since Sam stands like a statue throughout the whole conversation. At least Cas shakes his head a few times, nods, once he even looks heavenward. But mostly he just looks at Sam.
The early autumn sun has fully cleared the horizon when Lisa comes to stand beside Dean.
Dean opens his mouth to say sorry, thank you, I'm so sorry, but Lisa waves his prepared apology off.
Ben's sleeping. He was right, it would be too weird to send him to school, today. I just came to see how you were."
And once more, Dean feels nearly overwhelmed by the weight of her kindness. Whatever the outcome of Sam's mind-melding with Castiel, Dean’s going to treat Lisa better. She deserves more than a pathetic drunk leaching off her.
Dean murmurs, "Sam was wrong, it is a cold season for leaving." Lisa's open-handed slap across his face wasn't quite the response he'd been expecting.
"You think you can just pack up and leave? You don't just drop in our lives, you both don't just drop into our lives and say, 'By the way, saved the world, can we hang for a while,' slaughter three vampires in my home, and then pack yourselves back into that car headed off for God knows where.”
"Oh, no, Dean,” Lisa continues, “that's not how it works. We're a part of this, now, whether you care or not. Because I do. I care about what happens to you, what happens to Sam. What happens to my son. I care about what goes bump in the night, and innocents turned to blood-thirsty killers, literally."
"Lisa, I can't ask you --"
"You're not asking me anything, Dean. You never did. When are you gonna get that? I'm telling you, you two aren’t taking off. You’re staying until he’s,” Lisa points to Sam, “at a point where he can eat, you know, actual food, and you,” she continues, pressing her finger into his chest, “and I figure what the hell is going on. Not the least because I don't think I can ever eat meat in my kitchen, again. But because all of this," Lisa sweeps her hand around, "matters. And you, Dean, you fucking matter because you saved us last night, and you saved us before, and you just can't help saving people. And your brother, for as exasperating as he is, and Lord knows if I hear one more litany of Latin names for migratory birds I just might snap, he's worth it, too. He saved us last night, too.”
Lisa slams her fist into Dean's chest before finishing, "So we’ll figure this out together. Got it?"
Softly Dean says, "Because."
"Damn right, because."
~*~
The noon-day sun blazes overhead. Dean and Lisa retreat to the stained concrete steps leading into the house, waiting out Sam and Castiel’s talk. Dean finds himself nodding off, alternatively resting his head against the door and Lisa's shoulder. At first, inchoate dreams flash through his mind, but none of the images stay long enough to form a full picture.
Flashes of bloody hunts gone by, patchwork conversations he'd had with Sam over the years, his father's gruff voice and his mother's sweet perfume. A collage of a life lived piecemeal floated in and out of his mind's eye.
He dreams of honking geese on a southerly migration, influenced, he supposes, by Sam's idle talk of such things.
He dreams of the night Sam returned. Of Castiel's trenchcoat draped across Sam's shoulders, of Castiel's insistence then, as now, that he couldn’t enter the house. Then, briefly, of how easily the vampires violated the sanctity of their shared home, how all of Dean's protective work and planted charms were undone by the simple, neighborly act of inviting them in. He'd let them cross the threshold because they'd seemed normal, safe. And that stood in stark contrast to everything he'd been taught, of how he lived his entirelife.
The dream changes shape, re-forms into Sam's bloody handiwork marking his bedroom, shiny red sigils lustrous even in the darkened room. And Sam at the center of it all, crouched on the floor with his hands pressed firmly to the hard wood.
The day Sam smashed the white noise machine as he screamed of dead things flashes through Dean’s mind, unwanted and reckless. Sam’s screams are quickly replaced by images of Sam trailing his hands along the walls, his bare feet slowly, softly padding through the house.
Throughout his dream, Dean hears Castiel repeat, He chose in sync with Sam's uttering of the same phrase.
He chose, I chose, I chose, Dean.
"Dean, I chose."
Dean jerks awake at Sam's voice. The words are no longer part of a dream, they’re from Sam himself. Sam crouches in front of him, one strong hand on Dean's shoulder.
Dean looks for Castiel, but he's gone. Without so much as a word. When Dean returns his gaze to Sam, he sees the familiar, child-like infectious grin on his brother’s face.
"C'mon, Dean, let's go inside."
Sam’s hand is still on Dean’s shoulder, and he guides Dean and Lisa back into the house.
~*~
That evening, and well into the night, Sam stands at the picture window in the kitchen. One hand is pressed firmly to the glass, the other opens and closes reflexively. He moves it from the window sill to his side, and back again, restless.
He ignores Dean’s pleas to tell him what he and Castiel discussed. He ignores Dean’s attempts to drag him away, to sit down, to eat. Eventually, Dean drags a chair over and sits next to Sam. It’s possible this is a momentary event, that Sam will shake his head, grin down at Dean, and they’ll at least be back to where they started a day ago. That’s all Dean hopes for now; he’s abandoned any pretense of hope for what they once were, years, years ago.
The air still stinks of bleach and the coppery tang of blood. Lisa and Ben take their meal in the living room, quietly but determinedly ignoring the brothers. The night grows deeper, a half-moon rises, shedding pale light across the lawn, over Sam’s face. And still Sam does not move.
Dean waits.
Sam’s gentle hand comes to rest on Dean’s shoulder, and finally, Dean succumbs to sleep.
~*~
A scraping sound jolts Dean awake. It’s Ben drawing a chair over to sit next to him. Ben nods to him, and Dean wonders if he’s supposed to say something. There are no words in his head, his vocal chords feel rusty.
Lisa steps into the kitchen, leans against the counter top. “Guess there’s no time like the present.” Off Dean’s questioning glance, she continues, “We should start figuring this all out.”
Dean doesn’t have the strength. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, presses so hard he sees multi-colored stars.
When he drops his hands, the stars linger, dotting the space orbiting Lisa’s head. Her face shows how little sleep she had the previous night. How little sleep she’s had over the past months - years - since Dean came back into her. Yet as his vision returns, he glimpses something besides weariness on her face: strength. He can see it in her stance, in the way she didn’t lie or try to placate him she said they’d figure this out together. She hadn’t just scribbled those words on a piece of paper to calm an irrational drunk. She believes in him, in their makeshift family. They’re indelibly tied together now, Lisa, Ben, and Dean in this found kinship.
He’s often regretted the weight he laid on them by honoring Sam’s last request. But, here, in this moment, it strikes him that she and Ben are as reliant on him for kindness and care and protection as he and Sam. The thought bolsters him. Maybe this is what Sam was looking for all those years ago, what Sam had gifted to him: the consistency of human compassion that radiates out, remains when everything else is gone, comforts when nothing else can.
“Guess I should start with finding something to revoke the vampire’s welcome mat,” Dean says with a crooked smile.
Ben’s eyes light up, “Can I help?”
“Ben,” Lisa sighs, “I’m pretty sure you’re gonna need to know something like Latin or Greek to do that. How about you let Dean handle that. You and me,” she looks towards Sam’s rigid back, “could try and get Sam to eat something.”
Dean nods, offers Lisa a small smile.
Ben opens his mouth to protest, when Sam’s grip tightens on Dean’s shoulder, and he gasps. Whirling around, Sam looks first to Lisa, then to Ben.
“No time, no time for Cardinal song, the Peregrine is coming.” Sam snatches Lisa and Ben’s hands, begins hauling them down the hallway toward the stairs. Stunned by Sam’s sudden action after the previous night’s calm , it takes Dean a moment to process what’s happening.
Dean runs after them. He calls to Sam, “What the fuck, man?” He grabs Sam’s shoulder, tries to stop his determined flight with Lisa and Ben.
Sam pulls free of Dean’s grasp. He doesn’t stop until he’s at the first step. “The Peregrine is coming, Dean. Now. Upstairs, upstairs, we gotta go.”
“Sam --,” Dean starts, but it’s Lisa that finishes his thought.
“--you promise me, Sam,” Lisa squeezes Sam’s hand. “You promise me that Ben will be safe. That if we follow you, Ben will be safe.”
Sam turns the full force of his gaze on Lisa. “I promise,” he states solemnly.
Hunting, by its nature, is an instinticual process. Time spent practicing, learning, training muscles so the very fibers retain the memory of how to fire a gun, evade a blow, attack when needed without neurons firing between brain and sinew can save your life. Time spent reading, researching, and memorizing knowledge so you know how to react the instant you see a creature is imperative. Time spent coordinating muscle-memory and thought-memory sways the odds of survival in the hunter’s favor, keeps him alive, the last one. Though each hunt is a series of semi-predictable events based on a pencil-sketched outline of all that’s gone before, a lifetime spent seeking mind-body synchronicity alters the survival odds from improbable to likely.
Sam and Dean have both passed the point of no return, both in terms of training and hunting, and with what they’ve seen. What they’ve (barely) lived through. They’ve experienced enough shit for ten lifetimes.
Despite Sam’s cryptic words wrapped in stupid bird metaphors, Dean knows Sam’s promise is true. He can and will keep Ben safe.
Dean places a hand on Lisa’s back, tells her, “Go, let’s go.”
Sam eyes flash quickly in brief thanks to Dean before he turns on his heel, and starts back up the stairs.
~*~
Sam crashes into his bedroom, Lisa and Ben in tow, Dean at their heels. Sam digs into his pocket, pulls out a small terra cotta jar.
“Just gotta do this first.”
Sam jams a finger into the jar. It comes out covered in blood, one fat droplet drips on to the floor.
“Sam, what-“ Dean gasps, because holy shit, Sam has a jar of blood.
“No, no,” Sam says quickly, “It’s not mine, no. Castiel.”
“Castiel. Gave you blood?”
“Yes, not his, not his. I told him, told him that I, I - “ Sam stutters, pauses to look at his scarred arm, then to Dean. “I told him that I drew the scarecrows, already. But falcons, they don’t mind them.” Sam drags his bloody finger across one wall. He repeats the gruesome process of dipping and drawing until a ragged, irregular line crosses all four walls. He makes quick work of it, stopping at the doorway.
Bloody finger held aloft, Sam sits Lisa and Ben on the floor next to his bed, in the same spot he’d occupied for months on end.
“Sit, sit. No shoes, no socks, take them off, feet on the floor, okay?” Sam instructs them as he ties back the drapes and pulls open the blinds on the window. Turning back to them, Sam raps on the glass pane. “Eyes here, yeah?” Tap, tap, tap. “Always look out here. See the sky, the houses, the street. Look at the trees, the leaves, watch cars go by. This is where you look, keeping looking here.”
Dean trusts Sam, he has to. If even a fraction of Sam’s crazy-ass actions and desperate pleas help keep the promise he just made - a promise Dean believes in - Dean will do whatever Sam asks. He’s known Sam for a lifetime, and regardless of the past year, Dean trusts Sam with his life. With Ben’s life. With Lisa’s.
Dean trusts Sam. End of story.
Dean grips the footboard, urges Ben and Lisa to trust the wild-haired man tapping on a window with a finger dripping blood he got from a freaking angel. The man who has saved them once already, despite having been through Hell and back -l iterally. The man who covered his room in protective designs drawn with his own blood. The man who spent endless hours fingering countless all manner of tchotckes while humming bird songs. This is the man who promised to keep them safe. Who will keep them safe.
“Lisa,” Dean says, “please, just do it.”
She flicks her gaze from Sam to Dean, then nods. She unties her shoes, tells Ben, “Take ‘em off, Ben. Bare feet on the floor.”
Sam kneels before them, bends their knees up to their chests, puts their hands on the floorboards next to their feet. It’s a perfect copy of the position Sam held for so long.
“Feel the wood, it’s quiet. Look, there.” Sam points to the window behind him. “Keep your eyes on the prize. If you feel the wood come alive, hold on, don’t let go. If you feel it die, put on your shoes. You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, though. But if you do, do what I say. And never, never look away. Okay, yes?”
Lisa looks like she’s swallowing bile. Ben stares wide-eyed, but nods his head. “Got it, Sam,” he whispers.
Sam exhales deeply, clasps their hands. He says softly, “When geese migrate, they fly in a V formation. It’s tiring for the lead, so after a while, it fades back and back and back until it trails at the end. While it rests, others take the lead, and then they, too, fall back and back untilthe first bird is in the lead again. The whole time, they honk to each other. For encouragement, for help, to make sure the bird that was in the lead is still there, with them at the end.”
“You’re at the end, now, but still a part of it all. If you need us, you honk, Lisa. You call out. But I promise you, this, “ Sam taps the wooden floor, “and that,” Sam again points to the window, “will keep you safe and a part of us.”
Sam dips his finger back into the jar, draws a red line around Lisa and Ben, onto the bed and back to the floor. Sam dips his fingers into the jar again, resumes the protective artwork around Lisa and Ben. He looks at Lisa “Your blackbird song, it’s strong,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Just not as loud as geese. Believe, remember, geese calls.” Sam inspects the rough loop of blood around Lisa and Ben. He wipes his hand on his jeans, leaves a faint red streak behind.
Lisa whispers, “I believe you.”
Sam’s body relaxes slightly at Lisa’s words. He quickly stands, in two steps, he’s at Dean’s side.
He whispers urgently: “Time to call the mourning dove.” Sam replaces the jar lid, strides for the door. Dean spares a final glance at Lisa and Ben, both resolutely staring through the window in front of them. Then he turns to leave with Sam.
Once in the hallway, Sam quietly closes the door, reverently running his hand along the wood grain.
“Now will you tell me just what the fuck is going on, Sam?”
Sam doesn’t respond at first. Instead, he opens the jar again, dips in a finger, and draws a circle upon the door.
Sam drops his hand, and then says, “The Peregrine is coming, and it’s time to call the dove.” He takes off running down the hallway, and bounds down the stairs.
Dean suddenly feels small and defenseless for the first time in his life.
~*~
When Dean reaches Sam, he finds him standing stock still in the living room. One arm is pointed toward the picture window. Dean turns to look. Outside, the thatch of ground Dean buried the vampires in swells and bulges.
“So not good.”
Sam closes his eyes. His voice is a low growl, “Ex abundantia enim cordis os loquitur. Requiem en pace haud magis. Esto quod es. Et lux in tenebris lucet. Esse est percipi; esto quod es.”
Dean never devoted much time or energy to Latin. He knows the basic pronunciations for exorcism and cleansing rituals, but Sam had always been the better student. Dean excelled in badassery, and determination to see a job through to the end, usually with Sam’s lilting Latin chants as atmospheric background. The hollow pull of vunerability that began to gnaw at him upstairs grows worse. He is frustrated by the epic weirdness before him, at his inability to understand the real meaning behind Sam’s birdspeak
A muttered, dammit, and Dean bends to retrieve the silver knife from it’s ankle sheath. The handle is worn from use, familiar in his hand. He clutches it like an anchor in an oncoming storm.
It’s all he has.
Everything else, the tools of his trade that had served his dad, himself, and Sam for so long and so well, are stored away, out of reach. They’re far across the back lawn, useless now, locked beneath the Impala’s false-bottom trunk.
Sam opens his eyes, calmly repeats the Latin words like a mantra. The walls of the house began to bow inwards as if pulled on their center line. The wood floor rises and falls like a wave, causing them to brace against each other for support. The windows liquefy, the glass sliding downwards from the panes holding them in place. What was once glass pools to the floor.
Despite the wreckage, the only sound is Sam’s voice.
With one final shouted esto quod es, Sam stops. The house comes to rest in disarray, the furniture upended, photograph frames lie broken on the uneven floor. The silence pushes into Dean, fills his ears with blankness, as if he’s gone deaf.
“Sam.” Dean grabs Sam by the arm. He’s not even sure Sam heard him, if he can hear him. “Sam, what did you do?”
Sam points at the gaping ruins of the room’s picture window, and whispers, “Castiel.”
Dean looks outside, stunned, and watches as Castiel alights next to the roiling grave. “Sam, what --”
Between an eyelid’s blink, Castiel stands before them. Scarcely glancing at Dean, Castiel clasps his hands on each side of Sam’s face, just like he’d done the night he brought Sam back.
“There isn’t much time. I can’t stop it.”
“No, I chose, Castiel. Have to fly through it.”
“Will someone for fuck’s sake, tell me what is going on?” Dean demands.
“There isn’t time, Dean. Let go of your brother.”
“The fuck I will. The goddamn house just dissolved and you two are talking in secret code, and I’m left standing here with my fucking dick in my hands. So, no, I will not let go until one of you gives me an answer. What did Sam just do, and what are you about to?”
Castiel lifts his hand and knocks Dean right on his ass, glowering, “There is no time, Dean.”
Dean knows it’s futile, but he struggles to get up anyway. He trusted Sam, Sam promised that Lisa and Ben would be safe. But here they are, Sam apparently bending space with words, a penetrating silence so deep it aches, and Castiel throwing him to the floor like some piece of shit toy. Meanwhile, there’s a timer ticking down to zero when what--? A goddamn bird is going to show up?
He knows it’s futile, but he struggles because of that.
Castiel and Sam ignore Dean. Sam hands the jar of blood to Castiel, who promptly drops his hands from Sam’s face. Instead, he places two fingers on Sam’s forehead.
“Memento totus.”
A shockwave of sound rushes through the room as Sam throws his head back and screams and screams and screams.
Horrified, Dean helplessly watches Sam collapse like dead weight to the floor, his body crumpled like a rag doll. The oppressive silence returns, Dean’s shouted, ”No!” makes no sound. He turns furious eyes to Castiel who is looking at Sam with an infuriating mixture of fascination and pity. Dean attempts to move again and finds the invisible bonds holding him in place have dissolved.
Dean pushes himself to his hands and knees and crawls over the ruined floor to Sam’s still form. Pressing his fingers to Sam’s neck, Dean finds his brother’s pulse strong and steady. Dean pulls himself upright and grabs Castiel by his dirty, threadworn trenchcoat lapels.
“What the fuck?” he yells.
The words are gone before they’re even out of Dean’s mouth. Goddamn silence. Castiel lets himself be shaken several times before he pushes Dean against the far wall. The angel places one hand over Dean’s mouth and lifts an index finger to his own lips.
Dean fights the urge to punch Castiel. It’s fucking asinine to ask for silence when that’s all there is.
Dean shakes his head, knocking Castiel’s hand from his face, and mouths, Lisa and Ben?
Castiel glances in the direction of Sam’s room, then mouths, Safe.
Dean mouths, Sam?
Castiel pauses, then mouths, Yes.
Dean bites back a silent retort of What does that mean? when Castiel picks up the small terra cotta jar. He calmly dips his hand in the blood and smoothly, calmly draws a semi-circle on the floor around them. He continues the circle up along the wall, over Dean’s head, and back down to the floor in a wide arc. It’s the same odd, crude oval Sam drew around Ben and Lisa. Like Sam before him, Castiel keeps the sigil simple, without embellishment. The angel nods in satisfaction before slipping the jar into some secret coat pocket. Dean casts him a questioning look.
Castiel breathes deeply, calmly, and says, “Dove’s blood.”
Dean huffs a sigh of relief that he can hear Castiel inside the makeshift circle.
Castiel continues his explanation. “Dean, I asked you once which you desired: peace or freedom.”
Dean remembers. He remembers his hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to hurt as the Impala spirited him through the night towards Lisa and Ben, and away from Sam and Adam locked away inside Lucifer’s. Leaving Sam behind had left a hole in Dean as deep and dark as the one Lucifer’s cage was buried in. As the remnants of Dean’s soul fractured and spun in a thousand directions Castiel disappeared before Dean could take a breath, much less contemplate what the question meant. He’d pushed Castiel’s question away, buried with (Sam) all the other memories that were too painful to remember. He hadn’t thought of it since, either. He’d been too consumed with grief, both for himself, and Sam. Grief for all that could have been, but wasn’t. Would never be. Their futures had been planned out years ago, maybe even centuries, long before either of them -- or their parents -- were even born. What did the question matter? It wasn’t something Dean could ever choose.
“You remember,” Castiel continues, ignoring Dean’s eyeroll .“The same question was posed to Sam. This,” Castiel waves a hand around, “is the result.”
Dean blinks. At last, the pieces fall into place. “So which is this, Peace or Freedom?”
If Dean didn’t know better, he’d think Castiel actually looks rueful. “Freedom.”
“So, what. You fly into Hell, into Satan’s prison, waltz up to Sam and say, ‘Peace or Freedom?’ Sam chooses Freedom, and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, Lucifer just lets him leave?”
“No.” Castiel blinks slowly before continuing, “A discarded angel is still an angel.”
Dean’s exhausted, but fresh adrenaline propels him closer to Castiel. The pain and fear he’s locked away for so long is boiling over and he has no place to put it. He clenches his fists, desperate to lash out, to break something, anything. The weight of his life, Sam’s choice, everything, is too much, he can’t breathe. And then the final puzzle piece clicks into place and Dean feels like he really is suffocating.
“Lucifer. Lucifer gave him the choice, and set him free?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t even know what the fuck to do with that.”
Silence falls between them.
One minute, two, and then three pass as the silence stretches, surrounds them, the room, the world.
Sound rushes back with a sudden splintering of wood. The mud room door explodes. Dean wants to scream, to hear his own rage (fear), but Castiel silences him with a warning look. The angel points to the shattered remains of the splintered door. A man steps gingerly in and around the broken wood. As he comes into view, Dean recognizes a man who should be very dead: Mark Falls.
Tightening his grip around the hilt of his knife, Dean pushes off the wall, ready to lunge at the un-undead bastard before he reaches Sam’s prone body. Castiel’s hand closes around Dean’s arm in an iron grip; he shakes his head vehemently, mouths, No, wait. Dean’s about to tell him to go fuck himself when Castiel slams him back to the wall, hissing, “Wait.”
Dean has never wanted to shank an angel so badly in his life as he does right now. But he’s powerless, relatively unarmed, and -- he hates to admit it -- vulnerable. Dean still doesn’t know what’s going on, hasn’t known for years, hell, probably his entire life. And the one being who could help him, has helped him in the past, is causing this.
All he can do is wait and watch. Watch as a demon spawn with a freshly reattached head strides over to Sam, kicks his ass with a grubby, dirt-encrusted penny loafer for fuck’s sake, and taunts, “Wakey, wakey, Sammy baby.”
This shouldn’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
Sam doesn’t stir, much to Mark’s apparent disgust. He kicks Sam a second time, harder, and bends forward, close to Sam’s ear. “Wakey, wakey, Sammy baby!” he shouts.
This time, Sam’s whole body jerks. He opens his eyes, blinks up at Mark. Or what used to be Mark. The demon steps back as Sam hoists himself upright using an overturned chair for leverage. It’s a kitchen chair, tossed into the living room during Sam’s Latin recitation and its aftermath.
Mark studies the chair ruefully and remarks, “You know, I bet it really fucking hurt when you jammed that chair leg,” he gestures to himself, “into this chest.”
Sam coughs, shakes his head to clear the hair from his face. “It was supposed to.”
“Oh, tough words from a guy who sings along with birds and clings to his brother like he’s four years old again.”
“You know,” Sam says slowly, “my memory is a bit foggy, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be able to take an unconsenting body.”
Dean only has a moment to realize Sam’s in complete sentences before Mark tilts his head to the side and extends wings. Angel’s wings. Holy shit.
“All these years, all that time spent in Lucifer’s cage, and you’re still surprised at what angels can do. So sad. Thought you’d be teacher’s pet, sitting at Lucifer’s right hand. You know what they say, Sammy baby, once you go Satan, there’s no going back.”
Mark folds his wings, begins to circle Sam. “So tell me, why are you here, topside, roaming around with all the other humans, like you belong.” Mark leans into Sam, very nearly brushing his lips against Sam’s face. “Like you’re allowed?”
Dean watches Sam struggle to refuse the bait.
Sam deliberately turns his head to face Mark dead on, and smiles. “I asked you first.”
Mark snorts. “That’s what you’ve got for me? ‘I asked you first’? Gotta say, I’m so very unimpressed with you. Thought you were smarter than that idiot brother of yours.” Mark’s eyes roam around the room, seeking Dean out. “Hangs out with dirty, disheveled Castiel, doesn’t he?”
Understanding sparks through Dean: Mark the un-undead vampire cum angel, can neither hear nor see Dean. He and Castiel are secluded voyeurs to the scene before them. Castiel seems to sense the moment of Dean’s realization because leans over and mouths, Noah’s Dove Blood. His words are as incoherent to Dean as Sam’s ramblings about geese migration habits, yet Castiel appears to believe that these three words will explain everything.
Dean shakes his head, returns an inaudible, No.
“I know much about heaven and hell, and all there is betwixt and between.” Mark slides a thumb down Sam’s jaw to his lips, pushing Sam’s smile down and down. “I know of Lucifer’s cage and all the pretty, pretty things he keeps in there, Sammy baby.”
Sam’s voice rings out, “Tell me, angel, how would you know that?” A devious grin lights Sam’s face clear to his eyes. He laughs. “You know nothing, Raphael.”
A low-pitched, rumbling laugh sandpapers Dean’s skin, burrows deep in his bones. The terrifying, booming laugh comes from Sam and his dimpled smile. Dean shivers. He would gladly take those first few months of Sam’s endless screaming for the rest of his cursed life, if it meant he never had to hear that laugh from Sam again.
“I know you belong in that pit, Samuel. I know you belong among the detritus and carnage of broken bone and twisted sinew. I know you belong amongst screams of agony and despair.”
Raphael’s voice is thunder. Dean fights not to cower under the force of it; Sam stands strong and true, immune to fear. He stares straight at Raphael.
“You belong in a place of unrelenting pain and fear and loathing. It’s what you deserve. For what you did, for the abomination you are, will always be. You do not belong on Earth, you do not deserve my Father’s creation. And you do not deserve,” Raphael pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s in a whisper thick with venom, “nor should you know of your brother’s love. Because you destroyed mine, and you are nothing.”
Sam inhales deeply through his nose, takes a step closer to Raphael. His voice rings out, “I know.”
The words cut Dean’s heart. He wants to scream out, No, but Castiel restrains him once more.
“Listen,” Castiel says softly.
Sam reaches out, places one hand on the rotting, clay-covered, dead body Raphael wears. “I know what you don’t, because I learned at Lucifer’s hand. You see, Hell is all those things. But Lucifer’s cage is not.”
“His punishment, my punishment,” Sam continues, “was not to suffer through agony. It was to know none.”
Raphael bares his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “You lie.”
“Lucifer’s cage is a place of light and contentment.” Sam’s voice takes on an almost wistful quality. “There is no fear, no pain; there is no terror or dread. But all around it there is. Misery and butchery press against its walls. Inside, inside is nothing. That,” Sam spits out, “is your Father’s penalty for an angel who dares to question: an eternity of heaven wrapped in bile and blood and horror.”
Sam risks a glance toward Dean and Castiel. His eyes are bloodshot, bright with unshed tears. But when he speaks, his voice is clear and calm, his words betray none of his hidden sorrow, “Look around you. This is hell for me. Fear of things that go bump in the night. Fear that my brother will die, again.” Sam breathes deeply, closes his eyes. His voice waivers, “Sunlight that threatens to blind me. Wood that pricks me with splinters, and food that tastes of ash. Sounds that rip my eardrums and roll through my head like thunder. And everything I touch reminds me of where I am not. The pain of this place, this world, is almost more than I can bear.”
Sam opens his eyes, raises his voice, practically screams, “But I do bear it, because I made a choice. Between the Peace of Satan’s Pit and the Freedom of Earth, I chose Freedom. So back off, angel, you know nothing.”
Dean slumps to the broken floor at Sam’s words. Sam sacrificed himself. And his punishment is a reward. He doesn’t want to hear anymore.
All those months Dean assumed that Sam was hiding away from the world because of the horrors he’d seen below, because of the damage inflicted upon him. Sam hadn’t flinched from Dean’s touch because of some remembered pain, but because the true agony was around him now. He’s been forced to suffer through the sounds, sights, tastes, smells of this world, when he’d been at peace, free from pain, for probably the first time in his life. Sam had been at peace and he’d still chosen to return to Dean.
Dean wants to blame Lucifer. Lucifer is cruel, exacting, a being of infinite debasement. Yet in his defeat, he’d offered Sam more than God or Karma or Heaven or whoever ever had. He’d offered Sam the chance to decide his own future. Whether Sam knew the full consequences of that choice, why the fuck Lucifer even offered it is beside the point as far as Dean is concerned. Everything he’s done has been stupid and pointless, and still is. Dean sits impotently at the feet of one angel, while another taunts his brother.
Castiel bends low and places a foot atop the bloody circle enclosing them. He puts a hand on Dean’s cheek and gently turns his head. “Wait, listen.”
It’s Raphael’s turn to laugh. He emits a guttural rumble through his teeth. He grabs Sam’s arms, still laughing, and says, “You lie! Lies from Lucifer’s right hand man.”
“The greatest gift God bestowed upon humans, his favorites, was Free Will. The chance to choose, every day, to be or do or act or say whatever we desire. You,” Sam’s hand slides up to grasp Raphael’s borrowed arms, “must ask permission. No one would grant it in time for you, so you parade in here, in the reanimated body of a vampire, desperate to force me to allow you to return me to Hell, to undo my choice.”
Sam abruptly drops his hands, steps out of Raphael’s grip. He raises his voice to finish. “And I know. I know where your manipulation, your desperation to grind me down and force me to bend my will to yours comes from.”
“You love your brother, Michael. Here’s the thing, angel,” Sam says, shifting his gaze toward Dean, “I love mine, too. And there isn’t anything, anything, in this world, below or above, that I wouldn’t do for mine.”
“So you can pretend to ask all you want. I will not trade my soul for Michael’s. Look what I’ve already done for mine.”
Raphael extends his wings once more. They shimmer and glow in the fading daylight streaming through the gaping walls. He screws his face into a terrible parody of righteousness. “You dare compare my love for my brother to yours? You condemn an angel to suffer? You will regret that, human.” Raphael lunges at Sam.
Sam doesn’t move. He simply calls out, “Noah’s Dove returns.”
Castiel wipes his foot across the haphazard bloody circle, breaking its protection. He leaps out, landing at Sam’s shoulder. Raphael seems indifferent to Castiel’s presence; he’s intent on choking the life out of Sam.
Castiel places his sword in Sam’s hand and says, “You cannot make that choice, Raphael.”
Sam thrusts the sword into Raphael’s side.
The wounded angel immediately releases Sam and presses both hands to his injured side. He gasps and splutters, staggering backwards stumbling over the uneven floor and shattered glass. Sam stalks after him, the sword held tight in his hand.
Dean expects his brother him to kill Raphael. And a human killing an Angel of God - no matter how big an asswipe the angel is - has got to be high up on God’s list of don’ts. . Dean rolls to his knees, flings himself outside the circle of blood, yells out, “Sam, no!”
Raphael has fallen. He lies broken in a disjointed mess of bent wings, leaking grace from his wounded side. Dean contemplates hauling him inside the safety of the bloody oval. But Sam is already upon Raphael, sitting astride the weakened angel. Sam looks up and meets Dean’s eyes. He smiles. It’s the familiar boyish, deeply-dimpled grin of Sam’s youth. Dean can’t remember the last time he saw that smile. It’s been dampened by years of damage from a lifetime of hunting and killing. It’s been erased by the realization that Sam was never more than a tool used in an attempt to screw over the world at the hands of angels, demons, and humans. Humans like Dean who unknowingly asked more of Sam than he ever should have agreed to. If being on Earth with Dean is Sam’s Hell, then Dean does not want him. It’s too much, the anguish of knowing he failed Sam again.
But if Sam kills Raphael wearing that smile, Dean knows Sam will use up any lingering good will he has with God or Lucifer, whoever the fuck counts these days. If Sam kills Raphael, he’ll truly be damned. Damned the way Dean was, on the rack and at the mercy of endless suffering. Sam won’t just be surrounded by suffering, he will become it. Dean cannot fail Sam again.
Dean forces himself to return his brother’s smile and says, “Sam, no.”
“Freedom, Dean,” Sam replies. Gripping Castiel’s sword, Sam raises both hands above his head, then violently plunge it into one of Raphael’s wings, pinning it to the floor beneath. Sam bends forward and gently, delicately, plucks a feather from the trapped wing. He holds it triumphantly out to Dean and repeats, “Freedom.”
Castiel winds his way over to Sam and Raphael. He lays a hand atop Raphael’s wound. “Come, brother, let me bring you home.”
Raphael shudders. “How can you allow this? That’s your brother trapped down there, too.”
Castiel simply places two fingers against Raphael’s forehead and a blinding light engulfs the room.
Dean blinks away the aftereffects to see Sam still astride the now empty body of Mark Falls. Raphael and Castiel are gone. They’ve left Sam clutching an angel’s feather, Dean holding a silver knife, and a world of shock between them.
~*~
Master Post || Chapter 3