[Fic] Our Bad Decisions Are Not Our Last
Title: Our Bad Decisions Are Not Our Last
Characters: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Chuck, Bobby
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: Too much cursing, too much talking, misappropriation of religious vocabulary, and Chuck tapping on the fourth wall
Word Count: 7,000
Summary: It’s 7,000 words of blatant fix-it fic for the sixth season finale, okay? The world is learning that a hands-on god is much worse than an absent one when Chuck comes by for a drink and gives Dean a choice.
Our Bad Decisions Are Not Our Last
Chuck finds them outside of Black Rock, Arkansas. This isn’t one of their safe houses, just an abandoned home they’ve holed up in for the weekend while they rest up for another fun week of being harried by their new douche overlord.
There’s no point in protective symbols or salt anymore. Cas could walk through most of them back when he was an angel, and angel-proofing is about as useful as kindergarden finger-painting now.
When the bathroom flushes despite the power and water being disconnected and Chuck walks out with a smile, saying, “At least there’s still toilet paper,” Sam shoots first and plans to ask questions never.
The bullet stops midair.
“Um, that would have...really hurt,” Chuck babbles. “Not killed me, but I try to avoid pain whenever possible. Well, all the time, really.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Dean demands.
“Chuck?” Chuck asks. “It’s been a while, so...hey.”
“You’ve got two seconds before I stab you,” Dean threatens, and Chuck holds up his hands, like that means anything when he can stop a bullet with his mind.
“I am Chuck,” Chuck protests, “I was born, grew up, got drunk, started writing bad prose about two brothers fighting monsters, and didn’t stop until you opened the Cage. Did you know Castiel got a Cherub to ghostwrite for me after my disappearance? What do you think about the change in---you don’t really care about that, do you?”
“Seriously, two seconds,” Dean reminds him, cautiously stepping closer while Sam flanks his other side.
“I’m Chuck,” he repeats. “I’m just not only Chuck. Chuck was a microspan of my existence where I locked away my true nature. Most of it, anyway. My ‘visions’? Knowledge I had pre-set to remember at regular intervals like your lives were on some fall television schedule.” Chuck shakes his head. “I’ve got to tell you, I did not realize how painful they’d be for a human brain to perceive. I feel really bad for Luke now.”
“That was our entire lives,” Sam says, casually, like he doesn’t still have his finger on the trigger and the barrel pointed at Chuck. “How could have have known all of that in advance?”
“Omniscience. It’s not quite as awesome as it sounds, but it’s close.”
“I am sick of you dicks withholding information and playing games with the truth,” Dean growls. “So, I’m only gonna ask you one more time--”
“Hello, Dean,” Chuck says, “I’m God.”
There is a pause which grows into an extended silence, so Chuck skirts around the two brothers to sit in one of the camp chairs they’ve set up by their makeshift dinner table. He tries to get comfortable, because he figures the reprieve won’t last long.
“You son of a bitch.” Dean easily switches from shock to anger. He has a lot of anger these days. “Where the hell have you been while one of your angels is fucking up the world?”
“He’s your angel too,” Chuck points out. “Well, he was before you forsook him. I always hated writing the word forsook. It never looks right in context.”
“Cas made his choices.”
“And you made yours, and together the culmination of those choices landed us here, which isn’t an ideal location. Black Rock has no narrative significance.”
“Why are you here?” Sam cuts in. He’s tired, Chuck knows, and frustrated and most of all worried, because Dean’s winding himself tighter and tighter these days and won’t stop.
“Yeah, why aren’t you out there giving Cas the ass-reaming he deserves,” Dean snarls. Chuck knows his mind is just a mess.
Chuck tries to give them his best disapproving look, but he didn’t construct this facial structure with stern in mind. At best, it comes out as a sad frown.
“I’m here because I’m wondering what you’re doing--figuratively! Since, omniscient.” Chuck points to himself. “So, I came to give you a pep talk. Kind of.”
“A pep talk?” Dean asks, low and unforgiving. “We have been working our asses off while you’ve been MIA, and you want to now play Herb Brooks?”
“You’ve been treating this like a monster hunt,” Chuck corrects quietly, looking around for a drink. Whiskey would be really good right now.
Dean’s eyes flick away, guilty. Chuck can read his struggle as easily as words on a page. This is Cas, who’s hard to pin down in Dean’s life. Who hasn’t quite earned the distinction of family despite all he’s done, despite the fact that Dean wants him to be family, because Dean can’t put him in the same category as Sam or Bobby. This is Cas who twisted a hand in his hair, forced him to his knees, and then sent him away with a merciless look.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Dean asks.
Chuck just stares at him.
“It’s not like it matters,” Dean continues, justifying and hating himself for justifying his actions to God, who, really, should be the one doing the explaining. “We’ve been able to do fuck all to stop him. Every time we get somewhere, he cuts us down that much harder. Every lead we have, he gets there first.”
“You don’t need to go anywhere,” Chuck says. “You have everything you need already.”
“Ruby’s knife never worked. The angel swords no longer work. The Colt is out of bullets,” Sam lists, as if God needs a reminder.
“Dean, did you trust Cas? Before he swallowed the souls. Did you trust his own judgement?”
“Yeah, and look where that’s got us.” Dean’s lips twist unpleasantly at the recollection.
Chuck raises one skeptical eyebrow. He did make sure this face was capable of lifting one eyebrow at a time.
“Fine, no, I didn’t. Because he has bad ideas, okay? Exhibit one, the world.”
“He chose you.”
“Also a crappy horse to back.” Dean bites off what he’s planning to say and sighs. “I’m not saying he doesn’t--he didn’t try to do the right thing, because he did.” The past tense of that gets Dean every time. He tries to brace himself for it, but the gulf between then and now is too large.
Nobody else seems to be planning to say anything, so Dean continues.
“He always wanted to do the right thing, and he was willing to turn his back on his family to do it.” That’s another blow, that Dean is now lumped into the same category as Heaven. “But he also had some really fucking bad ideas about how to go about it. He wasted a year trying to find God, like you’d fallen down a well and needed Lassie to come rescue you. He worked with Crowley and hid it. Someone needed to be figuring out the side effects of popping Purgatory, and he left it to Crowley. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Plan.”
“If you could go back to the day of the eclipse and warn him about what absorbing all those souls would do to him, would you then trust his judgement to decide what’s best?”
“If you take us back to that night, we’ll stop him,” Sam promises.
“That’s not what I’m asking. Dean?”
Dean’s grits his teeth, and God sighs.
“I’ll be back when you have an answer,” Chuck promises and leaves.
*
Dean has seen God chugging from a brown paper bag at ten in the morning. Unfortunately, the fact that God has apparently been passed out drunk for most of the past nine years doesn’t even make the list of Dean’s top fifty concerns.
What’s important is that God knows how they can stop Cas, and instead, he wants Dean to talk about his feelings, which just goes to show that all of Dean’s insults about our Heavenly Father were completely justified.
Screaming up at the sky is liable to attract Cas’s attention, so they drive to Chuck’s house in Kripke Hollow and break in. It’s still a mess, but the level of dust tells the brothers that no one’s been living here for the past two years.
“I don’t think we’re going have any more luck finding him that we did during the Apocalypse,” Sam says, and yeah, Dean is getting that picture too.
His phone rings once, and Dean finds a text from (000) 000-0000 that says “Not a trick question, Dean.”
God seems to genuinely want an answer, so despite the fact that he’s clearly a dick who still hasn’t explained why he’s sitting out the end of the world (take three), Dean tries to think about Cas the way he hasn’t allowed himself since his knees hit linoleum and Cas growled, “Now, we’re done, Dean.”
Even before he took the Winchester style of fucking things up and raised to a whole new terrifying level, Cas did some pretty dubious things. Dean thinks about him trying to kill Jesse. He didn’t stop because Dean told him to, Jesse turned him into an action figure. And that’s pretty much the only way to get Cas to change direction. He has to be forced, or he has to convinced.
Dean sits down on a musty couch, presses a palm over his mouth. He had forgot that. Cas was always so willing to help them, it was easy to forget those time when his opinion differed from Dean’s.
Appeals to authority hadn’t worked on Cas since he turned his back on Heaven. It was put up or shut up with Cas. He moved with the conviction that he was right until that conviction was shown to be misplaced, and then he’d change his ways. The only thing different now is that with those souls whispering in his ear, Cas doesn’t believe he can ever be wrong.
Cas knew that Crowley’s deal was shady. That’s why he hid it for as long as he could. Because he was afraid Dean or Balthazar or someone else would convince him he’d made a bad choice, and he couldn’t face that.
It was the wrong decision, but Dean knows Cas would kick his own ass now if he could.
“Yeah,” Dean says quietly. “Yeah, I would.”
“Great,” Chuck says brightly. “That’s really good news, guys.” He reaches under his chair and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a glass tumbler that is miraculously--literally--dust free.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t get what’s going on,” Sam says. “Other than Dean reaching a place of emotional healing.”
“You have everything you need,” Chuck repeats, “to stop Cas. Or, to kill him. Which do you want to do?”
“Not kill him, of course,” Dean says. Chuck looks at Sam.
“Yeah, it’d be great, but it seems unlikely. We haven’t run into any lore that would allow us to trap someone as strong as Cas indefinitely, and we can’t take any chances.”
“Dude, it’s God. Omniscience, remember?”
“Before Castiel can be stopped, he needs to return those souls to Purgatory,” Chuck explains, and Dean should never have got his hopes up, because of course Chuck would still be useless even when he was God.
“That’s a Catch 22 that’s never gonna to happen,” Dean says, gruffly. “Cas is, ah, pretty adamant about keeping them.”
“We’ve tried spells to expunge them,” Sam explains. “He just blew up the spell.”
“And the building we were in.”
“Castiel must want to return those souls to Purgatory on his own free will,” Chuck agrees carefully. He tries to catch Dean’s eye, but the other man shakes his head, letting out a small bark of laughter.
“Good luck with that,” he says sarcastically before his head snaps up. “You could do it,” Dean says, slowly, like he’s receiving revelation. Not true, since Chuck wants him to figure this out on his own. “He’s been wanting to talk to you since forever. If you told him to send back the skanky monster souls, he would do it.”
Dean’s pleading now with his eyes and his soul. He’s pleading with the last dregs of his faith, and it’s hard for Chuck to hear.
“Castiel is beyond my power to help,” Chuck admits. Dean turns away, as if that impacts Chuck’s ability to see him or Sam’s ability to read his brother. “He doesn’t want to hear me anymore.”
“Then why are you here?” Sam asks, voice rough, eyes flicking between checking on Dean and watching Chuck.
“Because he’s not beyond Dean’s ability to help.”
“Cas doesn’t want to listen me either,” Dean says, turning back. “So if that’s your big idea, if that’s all God has to offer, you can get the hell out.”
“Dean, take off your shirt,” Chuck instructs and smiles as the hunter balks. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t that kind of writer.”
Dean continues to scowl, which is unfair because they’ve finally reached the show part of show and tell.
“Dean, I want you to look at your left arm.” Dean’s right hand rises to curl around his biceps, which Chuck figures is good enough. “It’s still there, isn’t it? The handprint.”
“Yeah.” Dean’s hand presses against the mark, not making a move to show them. Chuck realizes, knows, has always known that Dean is protecting the burn, his last link to the old Castiel.
“That scar is a physical sign of the imprint Castiel’s grace left on your soul when he pulled you from Hell. Your soul is still clinging to it,” Chuck explains.
Dean drops his hand as if that will change the state of his soul.
“If Castiel connects with the imprint of who he was, it should free him from the influence of the Purgatory souls. Temporarily.”
“Should?” Sam repeats.
“Dude, it’s God telling us. That’s like a hundred percent--”
“More like eighty. Sixty? Fifty? It’s hard to know. Castiel’s new state excepts him from the whole omniscience thing.” Chuck waves his hand in a sine pattern to represent the awesome totality of godhood. It ends up looking kind of wishy-washy.
“How would it work?” Dean asks. “We ask him nicely to take a break from his plans of inter-dimensional domination to feel my soul up, like he did Bobby’s?”
“Well, that’s an idea, but I doubt he’d be willing to do that,” Chuck says. “Touching your soul won’t achieve much when he has all of Purgatory to draw on.”
Sam gets it faster than his brother. “No, just no. No way.”
“What?” Dean asks.
“A soul freely given is even more powerful than one forcibly taken,” Chuck says quietly. “Castiel is still trying to increase his power.” He smiles sadly. “Classic mistake. That’s why I stuck myself in here. Time to step back from the ledge. Castiel has followed in his Father’s footsteps too well.”
“You want me to…” Dean can’t get it out.
“I’m suggesting a potential way to stop Castiel would be to give your soul to him,” Chuck corrects. “When he absorbs it, he’ll also assimilate the imprint of his past self. That, in turn, should suppress the influence of the Purgatory souls. Best of all, the imprint itself is just an echo. It’ll be like looking at a time capsule of who he used to be, but it won’t have any sway over his mind.”
“So, it comes down to this in the end,” Chuck continues. “You will only be trying to give him a moment of clarity. Everything else is up to him. So, in that moment, do you trust Castiel’s judgement to decide what’s best?”
“Jesus Christ,” Dean curses before glaring at Chuck like he’s daring God to make something of it. Chuck wants to tell him that Jesus’s virtue is safe and doesn’t need defending, but Dean has plenty on his mind already.
“We’ll find another way,” Sam interjects. “Dean, you are not giving your soul up. Okay? Trust me, it’s not a solution.”
“When Cas comes back to himself, he’ll give it back,” Dean argues.
“If. If he comes back to himself, he’ll give it back. Dean, even God doesn’t know if this would work.”
“On the upside, you do share a profound bond.” Chuck spares a moment to be glad he hasn’t had to go to any conventions since that line came out. “I think your soul might carry a little more weight with Castiel than the others.”
“Dean,” Sam says, before turning on Chuck. “Do you have anything else to say or was that it? Just popped by to tell Dean something even more reckless and dangerous he could try?”
“Well...I think we hit all the major points--”
“Then get out.” Sam looms over Chuck’s chair, torn between trying to physically intimidate God and blocking Dean’s path to the door, just in case his brother wants to run out into the street and hand over his soul. “I can’t believe you would come here and tell Dean he has to sell his soul--”
“It’s a choice,” Chuck corrects. “I haven’t told anyone what to do in a long time. I’m giving you options here, not taking them away. And Dean wouldn’t be selling his soul, he’d be giving it away. No guarantee of results.”
Sam scoffs. “Oh, that makes it so much better.”
“It’s not a bargain, but an act of faith,” Chuck explains.
“Well, we’re a little low on faith here.”
Dean is silent, mind wrapped up in its own arguments.
“Then I’ll go,” Chuck says and does.
*
For the next two weeks, Sam and Bobby watch Dean with the kind of creepy invasiveness reality television has made acceptable. It makes Dean want to ask how they score his shitting on a scale of one to ten, since Dean has apparently turned into a girl and can’t go to the restroom alone anymore.
Dean knows they’re worried about what Chuck said. Sam haltingly confesses what he did that year when he was soulless, and Dean knows that has to be hard as hell for him to talk about. Dean has some pretty spectacularly bad memories of Sam from that time himself, and he’d hate for his brother to have to deal with the reverse. It doesn’t change Chuck’s idea.
The fact is that Cas has to be stopped. If Dean can save Cas at the same time? That’s an idea that deserves serious consideration.
It deserves more than consideration because Cas is getting worse, losing what little pieces of himself remain. Dean knows that one day Cas isn’t going to look at him and see betrayal, he’s going to look at Dean and see nothing. That’s when they’re all going to be screwed for good, and that’s not even why Dean never wants to see that look.
Dean argues with himself while driving, while peeling the labels off beer bottles when Sam drags him out to bars, while staring up at the ceiling at night, unable to sleep because Chuck’s idea is still buzzing in his mind.
Cas was trying to do what was right, right up until the eclipse. Dean didn’t believe it at the time, but distance and the first hand experience of what Cas is like when he really isn’t on Team Free Will has shown him the truth.
Cas would give up the souls now if he was in his right mind. Dean knows that. But if Chuck’s plan doesn’t work, Sam and Bobby will be left having to save the world and babysit Dean’s soulless ass.
Dean rolls over and punches his pillow. He needs stop thinking and sleep. It’s three a.m, and they’re planning to be on the road by eight. Another “miracle” has being reported, this time in Coudersport, and it’ll take half a day of driving to get there.
The next day, like every day since Chuck’s little intervention, the dilemma is still there. Dean lets Sam drive through Kentucky while he drinks burnt gas station coffee on the basis that it isn’t freaking Starbucks and only costs a buck-fifty. Even with forged credit cards, you have to have principles.
When they pull into Coudersport, the entire town is paranoid and on edge after some have been “blessed” and others “punished.” Everybody’s now waiting for the hand of their new god to show them which of their neighbors are which.
Dean has to hand it to him. Cas has taken all the lessons from his little slide into mortality and figured out how to really fuck humanity up.
Cas’s “lessons” here are a little more cruel than usual. After a day of interviewing residents and digging in the town’s newspaper archives, they also seem to be growing out of proportion with the reasons behind them.
It’s what decides Dean, in the end. They’re clearly ticking into the final minutes before Cas does something there’s no coming back from, and Dean’s not going to sit back and let that happen. Not when there’s something he can do about it.
They get two rooms, but it’s Bobby and Dean who share. Sam hasn’t been able to sleep since the wall came down unless he’s under the influence of heavy narcotics, so guard duty is left to Bobby at night.
Bobby Singer is a paranoid bastard, but Dean’s been watching him right back these past two weeks, learning any patterns, looking for those moments when he does drop his guard, because Dean has been building this plan for a while.
Bobby’s careful with his drink, but he checks his bed before he goes to the bathroom to fill up a glass of water to put by his bedside, not after. He leaves the bathroom door open to listen for the sound of Dean running away into the night, but the angles mean he can’t see Dean slip under his pillow the satchel of witch’s sleeping mojo he lifted from the trunk two days ago.
After that, it’s just a matter of patience. Dean waits for the bedside clock to show two a.m, just to make sure, before slipping out of bed.
There’s a park two blocks away with plastic benches and a couple of streetlights. Dean makes sure there’s nothing on him or in the area that could be turned into a lock-pick before he handcuffs his left wrist to the bench.
“Oh Mighty Douche,” Dean calls up towards the night sky. “If you could spare a minute from your Extreme Makeover - Heaven Edition, I’d like to talk.” He waits, but two minutes turns into three, and the park is silent. “Like now.” Dean isn’t taking for granted that even witch’s mojo will keep Bobby down for long.
“You mock my purpose yet again,” Cas says, appearing under the nearest street lamp. There’s no anger to his voice. There’s no anything in his voice.
“No.” Dean licks his lips because this is his one chance, and he can’t fuck it up like he did six months ago during the eclipse. He wants to get up and walk over to Cas, but the handcuffs tether him down. “No, Cas. Actually, I came to say I’m sorry.”
“Because you’re frightened of me. Now, even more so than before.” The thought apparently doesn’t bother Cas. “You seek to placate me with false sentiments.”
“Have you ever known me to ‘placate’ anyone? I’m here to admit you were right, okay? You swallowed those janky Purgatory souls like a pro.”
Cas says nothing at all, and Dean lets the sarcasm go with a deep exhale.
“I know you don’t believe me anymore.” Dean looks into Cas’s eyes, but it’s something else that has become lost. Cas’s gaze used to be freakishly magnetic. Now, Cas stares at him like he’s no different from the bench he’s sitting on. “So, I want to show you.”
Dean’s mouth dries up and something heavy lodges in his chest. If he says this, there’s no taking it back.
If he doesn’t, Cas is never coming back at all.
“I want to give you my soul.” ‘Soul’ sounds weird on his tongue, too small for such a huge idea. Like it’s not really a word anymore, just a noise hanging in the air between them.
Cas isn’t staring at him like he’s considering the offer. He’s staring at Dean like he’s wondering if it’s worth the effort to smash this little bug.
“I want you to add it to your little Care Bear nuclear reactor. That should be a nice little power boost, right? The righteous man’s soul?”
Dean’s heart is beating too fast, and he’s sweating a little. The night air’s chilly, and he’s not sure if that’s nature’s doing or Cas’s.
“You would--” It’s the first time Dean’s heard Cas hesitate since the eclipse. “I accept your gesture of penitence. You may keep your soul.”
“No.” Dean tries to go to him, and the handcuffs jerk him back into his seat. Now is not the time for Cas to develop a merciful god act. “You’re still gonna to wonder, right? I want you to know. I want you to know, Cas, that even after all this crap, I haven’t given up on you. And the only way you’re gonna know that for certain is if you take my soul.”
“I have not felt your soul since I pulled you from the Pit.” Cas drifts closer, eyes shadowed in the dark. “Even in my struggles with Raphael, I did not ever consider drawing power from you.” He puts a hand on Dean’s chest, just lightly pressing against his diaphragm.
“Yeah, well,” Dean tilts his head back so he can catch Cas’s eyes again. “Now, I’m asking you to.”
Cas leans down, and maybe there’s some magnetization left. “If I take your soul,” he whispers, like this is just a secret between them, “I’m not going to give it back.”
Dean shudders, but doesn’t look away. “I know. I just want you know that I do trust you to want to do the right thing.”
Cas looks amused. “I am God. Whatever I do is the right thing.” His hand slides lower, palm turning so that his fingers can curl like they’re holding something.
“I accept your supplication,” Cas says and pushes into his chest.
Agony chokes him. Dean tries to swallow, and he can’t because he can’t breathe. Every part of him is locking up in a futile effort to minimize the pain. He grits his teeth to hold in a scream and catches his tongue. Blood floods his mouth, enough to drown in. His heartbeat is in his ear until it stops, and this is it, he has to be dying.
Cas withdraws, and Dean’s jaw unlocks enough for him to spew a mouthful of blood. His throat isn’t working right, and he can barely pull breath even as he spits out more blood. Flashes and black dots float across his vision, and his heart beats sluggish and woozy. Dean doesn’t even realize he’s shaking until warmth floods through him and he stops, takes a deep breath, and realizes his mouth is empty of blood.
“Dean,” Castiel breathes and vanishes.
Which is all well and good because Dean’s not in the mood for a heart-to-heart, but he’s still tied to a park bench. Why the fuck did he think that was a good idea again?
Dean knows one thing. He’s not waiting for Bobby and Sam to haul his ass back to the panic room and lock him up.
It’s mildly embarrassing bleating for help like a fucking civilian until someone calls the cops and an idiot with a beer belly comes around with bolt cutters to snap the handcuff chain. Dean lays him out with a punch and steals the police car. He drives back to the motel with the sirens on, because why the hell not? He’s not going to be the one answering questions in the morning.
It’s child’s play to liberate the Impala’s keys, and he and his baby are out of Pennsylvania by daybreak.
*
Dean’s on I-20 towards Augusta when an angel appears in his lane.
“Shit,” Dean curses and wrenches at the wheel, but there’s only three feet of distance and no time to avoid impact.
The Impala plows into Castiel at eighty miles an hour. It’s like hitting a concrete wall. The fender crumples, then the hood. The headlights pop out of shape before shattering. The windshield spiderwebs under the pressure as physics throws Dean forward so his forehead connects with the steering wheel. The entire frame shrieks as the car violently stops.
Dean is cursing and pressing a palm to his bleeding forehead when Castiel comes striding around the side of the car. Dean’s door is compressed, but Castiel yanks it off its hinges without noticing. His seatbelt dissolves, and Dean is pulled out of his seat and pressed against the side of his car.
“Never again,” Castiel shouts, holding on to Dean’s jacket with both fists. “ Don’t you dare do something like this ever again.”
“You ran into me,” Dean protests.
“Do you think I care about your car?” Castiel seethes. “I’m talking about the state of your soul, Dean!”
“Who cares about that?” Dean asks, and Castiel takes a deep breath.
“No, you’re right. I can’t talk to you like this.” He splays one hand on Dean’s chest to keep him in place before reaching with the other into his own stomach. His head dips down and he grunts as his arm twists and pulls back, gripping a bright, impossible glow.
“No, Castiel, please don’t--” Dean chokes on his protests as Castiel bears his soul back into his body. Prior experience doesn’t make the torture any easier to bear, and only Castiel’s hand keeps him upright. Then it’s over, and Cas still there holding on to him.
“Cas?” Dean asks. He breathes out shakily, leaning back harder on the Impala as a substitute for balance.
“Dean,” Cas says, just like he used to.
“The Purgatory souls? Did you send them back?”
“They’re gone, Dean,” Cas assures him. “As soon as I embraced your soul, I realized--”
And Dean doesn’t freaking care as he pulls Cas into a hug. It’s awkward as hell at first because Cas doesn’t catch on right away. He still has his hands between them, and you can’t force Cas to do anything he doesn’t want to do (this is a lesson Dean has finally learned). Finally, his angel gets with the program and pulls Dean away from the Impala to wrap his arms around Dean in return.
Just like with staring, Cas hugs for a little too long. It’s a huge win for them today, so Dean allows it. Even if they are standing on an interstate, and it’s either luck or divine intervention that no one has come along yet to see them hugging it out in the middle of the road.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas apologizes as he pulls away.
“Yeah, you should be, you son of bitch. But, we both fucked up,” Dean says. “Okay? I’m the one who turned us into enemies and put your back against the wall.”
“My sins go beyond you, Dean. These past few months, the things I have done...”
“You weren’t in your right mind, Cas.” Dean dips his head to catch Cas’s gaze. “You didn’t know what all those souls were gonna do to you. I don’t blame you for that any more than I blame Sam for that year without his soul.”
“I doubt all of my transgressions can be so easily forgiven,” Cas says quietly.
Dean thinks about Sam and his frenzies. His brother’s first instinct is now always violence, and his nightmares turned him into a paranoid nutcase before they started medicating him.
“I’m trying, okay, Cas?” Dean swallows. “Because I saw what happens when I push you away, and I don’t want that to happen ever again.”
“It won’t,” Cas promises, and it’s a stupid thing to say because no one can see when they’re going off the rails. That’s kind of the whole point.
“You’ve got to promise me. You get in trouble, you come to us immediately. We’ll work it out together. No more Lone Ranger bullshit, okay?” Dean claps a hand on Cas’s shoulder and holds on, because it seems almost dizzyingly impossible that this is happening. Yesterday, Cas was a distant, terrifying stranger and now he’s back, forlorn and disheveled, with that never-ending focus he turns on Dean.
“I swear it, Dean,” Cas says, solemnly.
“And when you go back to Heaven, pop down every so often to tell us how it’s going. It’s not like the commute takes time. And no more invisible peeping tom. I want to know you’re there--”
“Dean,” Cas interrupts, “there’s no need to bind me in such a way.” His sword falls into his hand, and Cas spins the blade with easy dexterity before offering the hilt to Dean. “Please, kill me now.”
It’s a sucker punch after the fight’s supposed to be over. A physical blow would be kinder, the way Cas’s words make everything stop.
“What?” Dean barely gets the word out, but that doesn’t change the shape of the world. Cas is still holding his blade out to Dean, calm and inevitable. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“If you think I have done damage to Earth, you have no idea the horror I’ve inflicted in Heaven.” Cas turns away, but Dean sees the misery etched on his face before he does. “I returned to Heaven to help, and instead---” He laughs, bleak and jaded. “I’ve destroyed good angels. Better angels than me, in the end. I’ve become an abomination.”
“Cas--” Dean knows he’s totally out of his depth. “What do the other angels say?”
“I do not know. I am cut off from the Host.” He raises his hand again, as if Dean could forget the blade between them.
“That’s just…” Dean cuts himself off. “You think they’ll forgive you if you give ‘em some time? Want to ride in the backseat for a while?”
“Dean, I can never go back.”
“Well, you’re not dying,” Dean snaps. “Not now, not anytime soon, so get that suicidal bullshit out of your head, okay?”
Dean knew getting Cas back wouldn’t be the end of it, but he thought handing over his soul would be the most difficult part. Instead, it feels like everything is still balancing on a knife’s edge. Dean never knows what to say in moments likes these, but Cas needs him to, and Dean is scrambling to not screw up again.
“You deserve Heaven, okay? It’s your home. You messed up, but that just means you have to work to fix it.”
“Your faith is misplaced, and your argument is irrelevant. It’s not a matter of not wanting to go home. I can’t. Heaven’s doors are closed. I closed them,” he adds to cut off Dean’s protest.
Cas hesitates. “Dean, I didn’t send the souls back to Purgatory.”
Of course, Dean thinks, stomach sinking. There would be one more way to make this conversation even worse.
“I was going to, but then I realized the remaining angels would most likely restart the apocalypse themselves. Not to mention the threat Crowley’s reorganized Hell poses to the Earth--”
“Seriously, Cas, just get rid of them. Please, I’m begging you.”
“I told you, I don’t have them anymore. I repurposed one of Heaven’s weapons and fed them into it.”
“Jesus fuck.” Dean drags a hand down the side of his face. “And where is that? Do you have it up your sleeve too?”
“It’s in a separate dimension I created during my injudicious reign as a false god. Much like Purgatory, but more closely connected to this plane.”
Right, Dean’s resolution is to work on listening.
“And what are you planning to do with it?” he asks warily.
“Nothing. It will run on it’s own until long after the sun in this solar system has burned out. You see, I reversed the trans-dimensional siege hull. Now, instead of letting things in, it keeps things out.”
As if Dean has any clue what that means.
“That seems good,” he offers cautiously. “Double protection against some other bastard getting those souls, right?”
“That would have been an idea,” Cas agrees, “but it doesn’t keep things out that dimension. I set it to keep things out of this dimension. Earth. My last act as God,” Cas’s lips twist unpleasantly at the phrase, “was to order all the angels back to Heaven and for Crowley to wrangle all the demons back to Hell. Then, I closed the doors.”
“So--”
“So, no angel can come down and no demon can come up.”
It takes a minute for the full meaning of that to sink in. It seems impossible. That’s not good news, it’s fucking amazing news. Dean feels a smile tugging on his lips as he shakes his head.
“You are a clever bastard, Cas,” Dean says, getting his first, small smile out of the angel before Cas shrugs the praise off.
“I doubt Crowley recalled his entire hoard, but there should be a marked decrease in demonic activity. I also locked the angels out of the human portion of Heaven so they won’t bother you or your brother after your deaths.”
“Or you,” Dean points out.
Cas sighs. “I’m not human, Dean.”
“Not yet, but you will be. That’s what happens when all the other angels return to Heaven, isn’t it?”
“Dean.” Cas looks at Dean like he’s the one being difficult. “Dying is the only way I can repent for those lives I have unjustly taken.”
“Fine,” Dean says and takes the hilt from Cas’s hand. It’s simple and fast to turn the blade towards himself. Cas has an unbreakable grip around his wrist before he gets anywhere near his belly.
“What are you doing?” Cas demands. He rips the blade out of Dean’s grip and makes it vanish.
Finally, Dean thinks. Cas clutches Dean’s wrist like Dean’s the suicidal emo freak here.
“Isn’t that your new idea? You fuck up, you die on your sword?” Dean pushes up into Cas’s face, as if the angel has ever understood body language.
“Dean, you didn’t do anything--”
“You’re right, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do a single damn thing to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” Cas growls, low and cutting. His expression is dismissive, like Dean’s missing the point again. This, this is exactly what Dean should have been helping Cas with the first time around.
“Yeah, and I’ve had to live with knowing that if you had, I wouldn’t have given it to you.” Dean pulls back, but there’s nowhere to go on this empty stretch of road except the Impala, and Dean’s trying not to think about her. “You think I don't regret that? I fucked up, Cas. Family means being there for each other, and I let you get away with acting cagey for an entire freaking year. I wouldn’t have put up with Sammy pulling that crap, and I shouldn’t have with you.”
“Don’t overestimate yourself, Dean. You couldn’t have forced a confession.”
“No, but I should’ve been listening to what you did tell me.” Dean scrubs a hand through his hair. “You want to repent for your fuck ups? Then keep hunting. Sealing Heaven and Hell? That’s huge. That’s who you are, Cas. Keep being that guy, and you’ll be fine.”
Cas presses his lips together and bows his head.
“I am glad of your forgiveness, Dean. But I have broken my covenant with God in the worst ways. He would be so ashamed if he was watching.”
“That’s not true,” Dean blurts out.
There’s pagan lore out there on how to kill a god. It was only a question of whether they found it before Cas lost all attachment to them. Dean thinks about God getting off the bench for the first time in eons. Not to tell them how to defeat Cas, but how to save him.
He opens his mouth to tell Cas about meeting God, and nothing comes out. Dean can take a hint, so he tries another angle.
“I mean, you’re obviously here, right? How many other angels has God resurrected?” Dean thinks about how this interstate has been empty for an awfully long time during rush hour. No interruptions that would force them to move their chat and risk stop talking. “I think you must be really special to him.”
“That makes my failure even worse,” Cas points out.
“You sealed Heaven and Hell,” Dean reminds him. “We’ve been in a meat-grinder between those two these past eight years, and you stopped it.” Ever since the Devil’s Gate was temporarily opened, the number of demons on Earth had become more than hunters could deal with. Sometimes Dean had felt like he was in a shooting gallery where you knock down all the ducks, and at the end of the row, they pop right back up for you to start again. And now that’s all gone.
“Do you really think that can make up for everything else?” Cas asks. He’s finally listening, so Dean tries to give his best answer.
“I should have told you before. When you make choices, you’re going to make bad ones. But you can’t dwell on them forever, or it’ll eat you up. Good and bad things never cancel each other out. They just all pile up, and you’ve gotta live with the mess.”
Cas tilts his head to the side, and Dean stares back. “Your father told you something similar when you were fifteen. After the selkie hunt went poorly.”
“Yeah, it was good advice,” Dean says gruffly.
Cas lifts his gaze up to the sky for a long moment. The sun’s coming down behind him, and Dean squints against the glare. Cas has never looked like any of Dean’s preconceived notions of angels, and he still doesn’t. He looks like a man with shadows on his face, close enough to touch if Dean wants to.
“Thank you for saving me,” Cas says finally, stare returning to earth.
“All I did is return something you left when you pulled me from Hell,” Dean points out. “Let’s call it even.” Dean’s thinks it’s actually kind of a funny coincidence, but hunger makes the thought slide away.
“That’s not all you did, Dean,” Cas says, exasperated.
Dean decides that if nobody’s dying today, sharing and caring hour needs to be over.
“Let’s get out of here.” He walks back to the Impala, wincing as he finally allows himself a look at the damage. “Sam and Bobby are going to be pissed. Need to give them a call.”
“Shall I fix your car?” Cas asks, raising one hand and Dean physically interposes himself between the two magic fingers and his baby.
“Don’t you dare,” he warns. “Nothing goes into her that isn’t put there by human hands. Just zap us back to Bobby’s, and I’ll fix her up.”
“As you wish,” Cas says, but Dean sees him eyeing the crushed hood regretfully. As he should. That much damage is enough to make Dean want to weep. It’s going to be a hell of job getting her back in shape for the road.
“If you really want to help fix her, I could show you,” Dean offers. “None of that miracle crap. I’ll teach you how to put an engine back together with your hands.”
“I’d like that,” Cas says, expression lighter.
His car is a mess, and the world still has problems, but Cas is here, and Bobby and Sam are waiting to give him an earful, so Dean enjoys the momentary peace.
Characters: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Chuck, Bobby
Rated: PG-13
Warnings: Too much cursing, too much talking, misappropriation of religious vocabulary, and Chuck tapping on the fourth wall
Word Count: 7,000
Summary: It’s 7,000 words of blatant fix-it fic for the sixth season finale, okay? The world is learning that a hands-on god is much worse than an absent one when Chuck comes by for a drink and gives Dean a choice.
Our Bad Decisions Are Not Our Last
Chuck finds them outside of Black Rock, Arkansas. This isn’t one of their safe houses, just an abandoned home they’ve holed up in for the weekend while they rest up for another fun week of being harried by their new douche overlord.
There’s no point in protective symbols or salt anymore. Cas could walk through most of them back when he was an angel, and angel-proofing is about as useful as kindergarden finger-painting now.
When the bathroom flushes despite the power and water being disconnected and Chuck walks out with a smile, saying, “At least there’s still toilet paper,” Sam shoots first and plans to ask questions never.
The bullet stops midair.
“Um, that would have...really hurt,” Chuck babbles. “Not killed me, but I try to avoid pain whenever possible. Well, all the time, really.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Dean demands.
“Chuck?” Chuck asks. “It’s been a while, so...hey.”
“You’ve got two seconds before I stab you,” Dean threatens, and Chuck holds up his hands, like that means anything when he can stop a bullet with his mind.
“I am Chuck,” Chuck protests, “I was born, grew up, got drunk, started writing bad prose about two brothers fighting monsters, and didn’t stop until you opened the Cage. Did you know Castiel got a Cherub to ghostwrite for me after my disappearance? What do you think about the change in---you don’t really care about that, do you?”
“Seriously, two seconds,” Dean reminds him, cautiously stepping closer while Sam flanks his other side.
“I’m Chuck,” he repeats. “I’m just not only Chuck. Chuck was a microspan of my existence where I locked away my true nature. Most of it, anyway. My ‘visions’? Knowledge I had pre-set to remember at regular intervals like your lives were on some fall television schedule.” Chuck shakes his head. “I’ve got to tell you, I did not realize how painful they’d be for a human brain to perceive. I feel really bad for Luke now.”
“That was our entire lives,” Sam says, casually, like he doesn’t still have his finger on the trigger and the barrel pointed at Chuck. “How could have have known all of that in advance?”
“Omniscience. It’s not quite as awesome as it sounds, but it’s close.”
“I am sick of you dicks withholding information and playing games with the truth,” Dean growls. “So, I’m only gonna ask you one more time--”
“Hello, Dean,” Chuck says, “I’m God.”
There is a pause which grows into an extended silence, so Chuck skirts around the two brothers to sit in one of the camp chairs they’ve set up by their makeshift dinner table. He tries to get comfortable, because he figures the reprieve won’t last long.
“You son of a bitch.” Dean easily switches from shock to anger. He has a lot of anger these days. “Where the hell have you been while one of your angels is fucking up the world?”
“He’s your angel too,” Chuck points out. “Well, he was before you forsook him. I always hated writing the word forsook. It never looks right in context.”
“Cas made his choices.”
“And you made yours, and together the culmination of those choices landed us here, which isn’t an ideal location. Black Rock has no narrative significance.”
“Why are you here?” Sam cuts in. He’s tired, Chuck knows, and frustrated and most of all worried, because Dean’s winding himself tighter and tighter these days and won’t stop.
“Yeah, why aren’t you out there giving Cas the ass-reaming he deserves,” Dean snarls. Chuck knows his mind is just a mess.
Chuck tries to give them his best disapproving look, but he didn’t construct this facial structure with stern in mind. At best, it comes out as a sad frown.
“I’m here because I’m wondering what you’re doing--figuratively! Since, omniscient.” Chuck points to himself. “So, I came to give you a pep talk. Kind of.”
“A pep talk?” Dean asks, low and unforgiving. “We have been working our asses off while you’ve been MIA, and you want to now play Herb Brooks?”
“You’ve been treating this like a monster hunt,” Chuck corrects quietly, looking around for a drink. Whiskey would be really good right now.
Dean’s eyes flick away, guilty. Chuck can read his struggle as easily as words on a page. This is Cas, who’s hard to pin down in Dean’s life. Who hasn’t quite earned the distinction of family despite all he’s done, despite the fact that Dean wants him to be family, because Dean can’t put him in the same category as Sam or Bobby. This is Cas who twisted a hand in his hair, forced him to his knees, and then sent him away with a merciless look.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Dean asks.
Chuck just stares at him.
“It’s not like it matters,” Dean continues, justifying and hating himself for justifying his actions to God, who, really, should be the one doing the explaining. “We’ve been able to do fuck all to stop him. Every time we get somewhere, he cuts us down that much harder. Every lead we have, he gets there first.”
“You don’t need to go anywhere,” Chuck says. “You have everything you need already.”
“Ruby’s knife never worked. The angel swords no longer work. The Colt is out of bullets,” Sam lists, as if God needs a reminder.
“Dean, did you trust Cas? Before he swallowed the souls. Did you trust his own judgement?”
“Yeah, and look where that’s got us.” Dean’s lips twist unpleasantly at the recollection.
Chuck raises one skeptical eyebrow. He did make sure this face was capable of lifting one eyebrow at a time.
“Fine, no, I didn’t. Because he has bad ideas, okay? Exhibit one, the world.”
“He chose you.”
“Also a crappy horse to back.” Dean bites off what he’s planning to say and sighs. “I’m not saying he doesn’t--he didn’t try to do the right thing, because he did.” The past tense of that gets Dean every time. He tries to brace himself for it, but the gulf between then and now is too large.
Nobody else seems to be planning to say anything, so Dean continues.
“He always wanted to do the right thing, and he was willing to turn his back on his family to do it.” That’s another blow, that Dean is now lumped into the same category as Heaven. “But he also had some really fucking bad ideas about how to go about it. He wasted a year trying to find God, like you’d fallen down a well and needed Lassie to come rescue you. He worked with Crowley and hid it. Someone needed to be figuring out the side effects of popping Purgatory, and he left it to Crowley. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Plan.”
“If you could go back to the day of the eclipse and warn him about what absorbing all those souls would do to him, would you then trust his judgement to decide what’s best?”
“If you take us back to that night, we’ll stop him,” Sam promises.
“That’s not what I’m asking. Dean?”
Dean’s grits his teeth, and God sighs.
“I’ll be back when you have an answer,” Chuck promises and leaves.
*
Dean has seen God chugging from a brown paper bag at ten in the morning. Unfortunately, the fact that God has apparently been passed out drunk for most of the past nine years doesn’t even make the list of Dean’s top fifty concerns.
What’s important is that God knows how they can stop Cas, and instead, he wants Dean to talk about his feelings, which just goes to show that all of Dean’s insults about our Heavenly Father were completely justified.
Screaming up at the sky is liable to attract Cas’s attention, so they drive to Chuck’s house in Kripke Hollow and break in. It’s still a mess, but the level of dust tells the brothers that no one’s been living here for the past two years.
“I don’t think we’re going have any more luck finding him that we did during the Apocalypse,” Sam says, and yeah, Dean is getting that picture too.
His phone rings once, and Dean finds a text from (000) 000-0000 that says “Not a trick question, Dean.”
God seems to genuinely want an answer, so despite the fact that he’s clearly a dick who still hasn’t explained why he’s sitting out the end of the world (take three), Dean tries to think about Cas the way he hasn’t allowed himself since his knees hit linoleum and Cas growled, “Now, we’re done, Dean.”
Even before he took the Winchester style of fucking things up and raised to a whole new terrifying level, Cas did some pretty dubious things. Dean thinks about him trying to kill Jesse. He didn’t stop because Dean told him to, Jesse turned him into an action figure. And that’s pretty much the only way to get Cas to change direction. He has to be forced, or he has to convinced.
Dean sits down on a musty couch, presses a palm over his mouth. He had forgot that. Cas was always so willing to help them, it was easy to forget those time when his opinion differed from Dean’s.
Appeals to authority hadn’t worked on Cas since he turned his back on Heaven. It was put up or shut up with Cas. He moved with the conviction that he was right until that conviction was shown to be misplaced, and then he’d change his ways. The only thing different now is that with those souls whispering in his ear, Cas doesn’t believe he can ever be wrong.
Cas knew that Crowley’s deal was shady. That’s why he hid it for as long as he could. Because he was afraid Dean or Balthazar or someone else would convince him he’d made a bad choice, and he couldn’t face that.
It was the wrong decision, but Dean knows Cas would kick his own ass now if he could.
“Yeah,” Dean says quietly. “Yeah, I would.”
“Great,” Chuck says brightly. “That’s really good news, guys.” He reaches under his chair and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a glass tumbler that is miraculously--literally--dust free.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t get what’s going on,” Sam says. “Other than Dean reaching a place of emotional healing.”
“You have everything you need,” Chuck repeats, “to stop Cas. Or, to kill him. Which do you want to do?”
“Not kill him, of course,” Dean says. Chuck looks at Sam.
“Yeah, it’d be great, but it seems unlikely. We haven’t run into any lore that would allow us to trap someone as strong as Cas indefinitely, and we can’t take any chances.”
“Dude, it’s God. Omniscience, remember?”
“Before Castiel can be stopped, he needs to return those souls to Purgatory,” Chuck explains, and Dean should never have got his hopes up, because of course Chuck would still be useless even when he was God.
“That’s a Catch 22 that’s never gonna to happen,” Dean says, gruffly. “Cas is, ah, pretty adamant about keeping them.”
“We’ve tried spells to expunge them,” Sam explains. “He just blew up the spell.”
“And the building we were in.”
“Castiel must want to return those souls to Purgatory on his own free will,” Chuck agrees carefully. He tries to catch Dean’s eye, but the other man shakes his head, letting out a small bark of laughter.
“Good luck with that,” he says sarcastically before his head snaps up. “You could do it,” Dean says, slowly, like he’s receiving revelation. Not true, since Chuck wants him to figure this out on his own. “He’s been wanting to talk to you since forever. If you told him to send back the skanky monster souls, he would do it.”
Dean’s pleading now with his eyes and his soul. He’s pleading with the last dregs of his faith, and it’s hard for Chuck to hear.
“Castiel is beyond my power to help,” Chuck admits. Dean turns away, as if that impacts Chuck’s ability to see him or Sam’s ability to read his brother. “He doesn’t want to hear me anymore.”
“Then why are you here?” Sam asks, voice rough, eyes flicking between checking on Dean and watching Chuck.
“Because he’s not beyond Dean’s ability to help.”
“Cas doesn’t want to listen me either,” Dean says, turning back. “So if that’s your big idea, if that’s all God has to offer, you can get the hell out.”
“Dean, take off your shirt,” Chuck instructs and smiles as the hunter balks. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t that kind of writer.”
Dean continues to scowl, which is unfair because they’ve finally reached the show part of show and tell.
“Dean, I want you to look at your left arm.” Dean’s right hand rises to curl around his biceps, which Chuck figures is good enough. “It’s still there, isn’t it? The handprint.”
“Yeah.” Dean’s hand presses against the mark, not making a move to show them. Chuck realizes, knows, has always known that Dean is protecting the burn, his last link to the old Castiel.
“That scar is a physical sign of the imprint Castiel’s grace left on your soul when he pulled you from Hell. Your soul is still clinging to it,” Chuck explains.
Dean drops his hand as if that will change the state of his soul.
“If Castiel connects with the imprint of who he was, it should free him from the influence of the Purgatory souls. Temporarily.”
“Should?” Sam repeats.
“Dude, it’s God telling us. That’s like a hundred percent--”
“More like eighty. Sixty? Fifty? It’s hard to know. Castiel’s new state excepts him from the whole omniscience thing.” Chuck waves his hand in a sine pattern to represent the awesome totality of godhood. It ends up looking kind of wishy-washy.
“How would it work?” Dean asks. “We ask him nicely to take a break from his plans of inter-dimensional domination to feel my soul up, like he did Bobby’s?”
“Well, that’s an idea, but I doubt he’d be willing to do that,” Chuck says. “Touching your soul won’t achieve much when he has all of Purgatory to draw on.”
Sam gets it faster than his brother. “No, just no. No way.”
“What?” Dean asks.
“A soul freely given is even more powerful than one forcibly taken,” Chuck says quietly. “Castiel is still trying to increase his power.” He smiles sadly. “Classic mistake. That’s why I stuck myself in here. Time to step back from the ledge. Castiel has followed in his Father’s footsteps too well.”
“You want me to…” Dean can’t get it out.
“I’m suggesting a potential way to stop Castiel would be to give your soul to him,” Chuck corrects. “When he absorbs it, he’ll also assimilate the imprint of his past self. That, in turn, should suppress the influence of the Purgatory souls. Best of all, the imprint itself is just an echo. It’ll be like looking at a time capsule of who he used to be, but it won’t have any sway over his mind.”
“So, it comes down to this in the end,” Chuck continues. “You will only be trying to give him a moment of clarity. Everything else is up to him. So, in that moment, do you trust Castiel’s judgement to decide what’s best?”
“Jesus Christ,” Dean curses before glaring at Chuck like he’s daring God to make something of it. Chuck wants to tell him that Jesus’s virtue is safe and doesn’t need defending, but Dean has plenty on his mind already.
“We’ll find another way,” Sam interjects. “Dean, you are not giving your soul up. Okay? Trust me, it’s not a solution.”
“When Cas comes back to himself, he’ll give it back,” Dean argues.
“If. If he comes back to himself, he’ll give it back. Dean, even God doesn’t know if this would work.”
“On the upside, you do share a profound bond.” Chuck spares a moment to be glad he hasn’t had to go to any conventions since that line came out. “I think your soul might carry a little more weight with Castiel than the others.”
“Dean,” Sam says, before turning on Chuck. “Do you have anything else to say or was that it? Just popped by to tell Dean something even more reckless and dangerous he could try?”
“Well...I think we hit all the major points--”
“Then get out.” Sam looms over Chuck’s chair, torn between trying to physically intimidate God and blocking Dean’s path to the door, just in case his brother wants to run out into the street and hand over his soul. “I can’t believe you would come here and tell Dean he has to sell his soul--”
“It’s a choice,” Chuck corrects. “I haven’t told anyone what to do in a long time. I’m giving you options here, not taking them away. And Dean wouldn’t be selling his soul, he’d be giving it away. No guarantee of results.”
Sam scoffs. “Oh, that makes it so much better.”
“It’s not a bargain, but an act of faith,” Chuck explains.
“Well, we’re a little low on faith here.”
Dean is silent, mind wrapped up in its own arguments.
“Then I’ll go,” Chuck says and does.
*
For the next two weeks, Sam and Bobby watch Dean with the kind of creepy invasiveness reality television has made acceptable. It makes Dean want to ask how they score his shitting on a scale of one to ten, since Dean has apparently turned into a girl and can’t go to the restroom alone anymore.
Dean knows they’re worried about what Chuck said. Sam haltingly confesses what he did that year when he was soulless, and Dean knows that has to be hard as hell for him to talk about. Dean has some pretty spectacularly bad memories of Sam from that time himself, and he’d hate for his brother to have to deal with the reverse. It doesn’t change Chuck’s idea.
The fact is that Cas has to be stopped. If Dean can save Cas at the same time? That’s an idea that deserves serious consideration.
It deserves more than consideration because Cas is getting worse, losing what little pieces of himself remain. Dean knows that one day Cas isn’t going to look at him and see betrayal, he’s going to look at Dean and see nothing. That’s when they’re all going to be screwed for good, and that’s not even why Dean never wants to see that look.
Dean argues with himself while driving, while peeling the labels off beer bottles when Sam drags him out to bars, while staring up at the ceiling at night, unable to sleep because Chuck’s idea is still buzzing in his mind.
Cas was trying to do what was right, right up until the eclipse. Dean didn’t believe it at the time, but distance and the first hand experience of what Cas is like when he really isn’t on Team Free Will has shown him the truth.
Cas would give up the souls now if he was in his right mind. Dean knows that. But if Chuck’s plan doesn’t work, Sam and Bobby will be left having to save the world and babysit Dean’s soulless ass.
Dean rolls over and punches his pillow. He needs stop thinking and sleep. It’s three a.m, and they’re planning to be on the road by eight. Another “miracle” has being reported, this time in Coudersport, and it’ll take half a day of driving to get there.
The next day, like every day since Chuck’s little intervention, the dilemma is still there. Dean lets Sam drive through Kentucky while he drinks burnt gas station coffee on the basis that it isn’t freaking Starbucks and only costs a buck-fifty. Even with forged credit cards, you have to have principles.
When they pull into Coudersport, the entire town is paranoid and on edge after some have been “blessed” and others “punished.” Everybody’s now waiting for the hand of their new god to show them which of their neighbors are which.
Dean has to hand it to him. Cas has taken all the lessons from his little slide into mortality and figured out how to really fuck humanity up.
Cas’s “lessons” here are a little more cruel than usual. After a day of interviewing residents and digging in the town’s newspaper archives, they also seem to be growing out of proportion with the reasons behind them.
It’s what decides Dean, in the end. They’re clearly ticking into the final minutes before Cas does something there’s no coming back from, and Dean’s not going to sit back and let that happen. Not when there’s something he can do about it.
They get two rooms, but it’s Bobby and Dean who share. Sam hasn’t been able to sleep since the wall came down unless he’s under the influence of heavy narcotics, so guard duty is left to Bobby at night.
Bobby Singer is a paranoid bastard, but Dean’s been watching him right back these past two weeks, learning any patterns, looking for those moments when he does drop his guard, because Dean has been building this plan for a while.
Bobby’s careful with his drink, but he checks his bed before he goes to the bathroom to fill up a glass of water to put by his bedside, not after. He leaves the bathroom door open to listen for the sound of Dean running away into the night, but the angles mean he can’t see Dean slip under his pillow the satchel of witch’s sleeping mojo he lifted from the trunk two days ago.
After that, it’s just a matter of patience. Dean waits for the bedside clock to show two a.m, just to make sure, before slipping out of bed.
There’s a park two blocks away with plastic benches and a couple of streetlights. Dean makes sure there’s nothing on him or in the area that could be turned into a lock-pick before he handcuffs his left wrist to the bench.
“Oh Mighty Douche,” Dean calls up towards the night sky. “If you could spare a minute from your Extreme Makeover - Heaven Edition, I’d like to talk.” He waits, but two minutes turns into three, and the park is silent. “Like now.” Dean isn’t taking for granted that even witch’s mojo will keep Bobby down for long.
“You mock my purpose yet again,” Cas says, appearing under the nearest street lamp. There’s no anger to his voice. There’s no anything in his voice.
“No.” Dean licks his lips because this is his one chance, and he can’t fuck it up like he did six months ago during the eclipse. He wants to get up and walk over to Cas, but the handcuffs tether him down. “No, Cas. Actually, I came to say I’m sorry.”
“Because you’re frightened of me. Now, even more so than before.” The thought apparently doesn’t bother Cas. “You seek to placate me with false sentiments.”
“Have you ever known me to ‘placate’ anyone? I’m here to admit you were right, okay? You swallowed those janky Purgatory souls like a pro.”
Cas says nothing at all, and Dean lets the sarcasm go with a deep exhale.
“I know you don’t believe me anymore.” Dean looks into Cas’s eyes, but it’s something else that has become lost. Cas’s gaze used to be freakishly magnetic. Now, Cas stares at him like he’s no different from the bench he’s sitting on. “So, I want to show you.”
Dean’s mouth dries up and something heavy lodges in his chest. If he says this, there’s no taking it back.
If he doesn’t, Cas is never coming back at all.
“I want to give you my soul.” ‘Soul’ sounds weird on his tongue, too small for such a huge idea. Like it’s not really a word anymore, just a noise hanging in the air between them.
Cas isn’t staring at him like he’s considering the offer. He’s staring at Dean like he’s wondering if it’s worth the effort to smash this little bug.
“I want you to add it to your little Care Bear nuclear reactor. That should be a nice little power boost, right? The righteous man’s soul?”
Dean’s heart is beating too fast, and he’s sweating a little. The night air’s chilly, and he’s not sure if that’s nature’s doing or Cas’s.
“You would--” It’s the first time Dean’s heard Cas hesitate since the eclipse. “I accept your gesture of penitence. You may keep your soul.”
“No.” Dean tries to go to him, and the handcuffs jerk him back into his seat. Now is not the time for Cas to develop a merciful god act. “You’re still gonna to wonder, right? I want you to know. I want you to know, Cas, that even after all this crap, I haven’t given up on you. And the only way you’re gonna know that for certain is if you take my soul.”
“I have not felt your soul since I pulled you from the Pit.” Cas drifts closer, eyes shadowed in the dark. “Even in my struggles with Raphael, I did not ever consider drawing power from you.” He puts a hand on Dean’s chest, just lightly pressing against his diaphragm.
“Yeah, well,” Dean tilts his head back so he can catch Cas’s eyes again. “Now, I’m asking you to.”
Cas leans down, and maybe there’s some magnetization left. “If I take your soul,” he whispers, like this is just a secret between them, “I’m not going to give it back.”
Dean shudders, but doesn’t look away. “I know. I just want you know that I do trust you to want to do the right thing.”
Cas looks amused. “I am God. Whatever I do is the right thing.” His hand slides lower, palm turning so that his fingers can curl like they’re holding something.
“I accept your supplication,” Cas says and pushes into his chest.
Agony chokes him. Dean tries to swallow, and he can’t because he can’t breathe. Every part of him is locking up in a futile effort to minimize the pain. He grits his teeth to hold in a scream and catches his tongue. Blood floods his mouth, enough to drown in. His heartbeat is in his ear until it stops, and this is it, he has to be dying.
Cas withdraws, and Dean’s jaw unlocks enough for him to spew a mouthful of blood. His throat isn’t working right, and he can barely pull breath even as he spits out more blood. Flashes and black dots float across his vision, and his heart beats sluggish and woozy. Dean doesn’t even realize he’s shaking until warmth floods through him and he stops, takes a deep breath, and realizes his mouth is empty of blood.
“Dean,” Castiel breathes and vanishes.
Which is all well and good because Dean’s not in the mood for a heart-to-heart, but he’s still tied to a park bench. Why the fuck did he think that was a good idea again?
Dean knows one thing. He’s not waiting for Bobby and Sam to haul his ass back to the panic room and lock him up.
It’s mildly embarrassing bleating for help like a fucking civilian until someone calls the cops and an idiot with a beer belly comes around with bolt cutters to snap the handcuff chain. Dean lays him out with a punch and steals the police car. He drives back to the motel with the sirens on, because why the hell not? He’s not going to be the one answering questions in the morning.
It’s child’s play to liberate the Impala’s keys, and he and his baby are out of Pennsylvania by daybreak.
*
Dean’s on I-20 towards Augusta when an angel appears in his lane.
“Shit,” Dean curses and wrenches at the wheel, but there’s only three feet of distance and no time to avoid impact.
The Impala plows into Castiel at eighty miles an hour. It’s like hitting a concrete wall. The fender crumples, then the hood. The headlights pop out of shape before shattering. The windshield spiderwebs under the pressure as physics throws Dean forward so his forehead connects with the steering wheel. The entire frame shrieks as the car violently stops.
Dean is cursing and pressing a palm to his bleeding forehead when Castiel comes striding around the side of the car. Dean’s door is compressed, but Castiel yanks it off its hinges without noticing. His seatbelt dissolves, and Dean is pulled out of his seat and pressed against the side of his car.
“Never again,” Castiel shouts, holding on to Dean’s jacket with both fists. “ Don’t you dare do something like this ever again.”
“You ran into me,” Dean protests.
“Do you think I care about your car?” Castiel seethes. “I’m talking about the state of your soul, Dean!”
“Who cares about that?” Dean asks, and Castiel takes a deep breath.
“No, you’re right. I can’t talk to you like this.” He splays one hand on Dean’s chest to keep him in place before reaching with the other into his own stomach. His head dips down and he grunts as his arm twists and pulls back, gripping a bright, impossible glow.
“No, Castiel, please don’t--” Dean chokes on his protests as Castiel bears his soul back into his body. Prior experience doesn’t make the torture any easier to bear, and only Castiel’s hand keeps him upright. Then it’s over, and Cas still there holding on to him.
“Cas?” Dean asks. He breathes out shakily, leaning back harder on the Impala as a substitute for balance.
“Dean,” Cas says, just like he used to.
“The Purgatory souls? Did you send them back?”
“They’re gone, Dean,” Cas assures him. “As soon as I embraced your soul, I realized--”
And Dean doesn’t freaking care as he pulls Cas into a hug. It’s awkward as hell at first because Cas doesn’t catch on right away. He still has his hands between them, and you can’t force Cas to do anything he doesn’t want to do (this is a lesson Dean has finally learned). Finally, his angel gets with the program and pulls Dean away from the Impala to wrap his arms around Dean in return.
Just like with staring, Cas hugs for a little too long. It’s a huge win for them today, so Dean allows it. Even if they are standing on an interstate, and it’s either luck or divine intervention that no one has come along yet to see them hugging it out in the middle of the road.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas apologizes as he pulls away.
“Yeah, you should be, you son of bitch. But, we both fucked up,” Dean says. “Okay? I’m the one who turned us into enemies and put your back against the wall.”
“My sins go beyond you, Dean. These past few months, the things I have done...”
“You weren’t in your right mind, Cas.” Dean dips his head to catch Cas’s gaze. “You didn’t know what all those souls were gonna do to you. I don’t blame you for that any more than I blame Sam for that year without his soul.”
“I doubt all of my transgressions can be so easily forgiven,” Cas says quietly.
Dean thinks about Sam and his frenzies. His brother’s first instinct is now always violence, and his nightmares turned him into a paranoid nutcase before they started medicating him.
“I’m trying, okay, Cas?” Dean swallows. “Because I saw what happens when I push you away, and I don’t want that to happen ever again.”
“It won’t,” Cas promises, and it’s a stupid thing to say because no one can see when they’re going off the rails. That’s kind of the whole point.
“You’ve got to promise me. You get in trouble, you come to us immediately. We’ll work it out together. No more Lone Ranger bullshit, okay?” Dean claps a hand on Cas’s shoulder and holds on, because it seems almost dizzyingly impossible that this is happening. Yesterday, Cas was a distant, terrifying stranger and now he’s back, forlorn and disheveled, with that never-ending focus he turns on Dean.
“I swear it, Dean,” Cas says, solemnly.
“And when you go back to Heaven, pop down every so often to tell us how it’s going. It’s not like the commute takes time. And no more invisible peeping tom. I want to know you’re there--”
“Dean,” Cas interrupts, “there’s no need to bind me in such a way.” His sword falls into his hand, and Cas spins the blade with easy dexterity before offering the hilt to Dean. “Please, kill me now.”
It’s a sucker punch after the fight’s supposed to be over. A physical blow would be kinder, the way Cas’s words make everything stop.
“What?” Dean barely gets the word out, but that doesn’t change the shape of the world. Cas is still holding his blade out to Dean, calm and inevitable. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“If you think I have done damage to Earth, you have no idea the horror I’ve inflicted in Heaven.” Cas turns away, but Dean sees the misery etched on his face before he does. “I returned to Heaven to help, and instead---” He laughs, bleak and jaded. “I’ve destroyed good angels. Better angels than me, in the end. I’ve become an abomination.”
“Cas--” Dean knows he’s totally out of his depth. “What do the other angels say?”
“I do not know. I am cut off from the Host.” He raises his hand again, as if Dean could forget the blade between them.
“That’s just…” Dean cuts himself off. “You think they’ll forgive you if you give ‘em some time? Want to ride in the backseat for a while?”
“Dean, I can never go back.”
“Well, you’re not dying,” Dean snaps. “Not now, not anytime soon, so get that suicidal bullshit out of your head, okay?”
Dean knew getting Cas back wouldn’t be the end of it, but he thought handing over his soul would be the most difficult part. Instead, it feels like everything is still balancing on a knife’s edge. Dean never knows what to say in moments likes these, but Cas needs him to, and Dean is scrambling to not screw up again.
“You deserve Heaven, okay? It’s your home. You messed up, but that just means you have to work to fix it.”
“Your faith is misplaced, and your argument is irrelevant. It’s not a matter of not wanting to go home. I can’t. Heaven’s doors are closed. I closed them,” he adds to cut off Dean’s protest.
Cas hesitates. “Dean, I didn’t send the souls back to Purgatory.”
Of course, Dean thinks, stomach sinking. There would be one more way to make this conversation even worse.
“I was going to, but then I realized the remaining angels would most likely restart the apocalypse themselves. Not to mention the threat Crowley’s reorganized Hell poses to the Earth--”
“Seriously, Cas, just get rid of them. Please, I’m begging you.”
“I told you, I don’t have them anymore. I repurposed one of Heaven’s weapons and fed them into it.”
“Jesus fuck.” Dean drags a hand down the side of his face. “And where is that? Do you have it up your sleeve too?”
“It’s in a separate dimension I created during my injudicious reign as a false god. Much like Purgatory, but more closely connected to this plane.”
Right, Dean’s resolution is to work on listening.
“And what are you planning to do with it?” he asks warily.
“Nothing. It will run on it’s own until long after the sun in this solar system has burned out. You see, I reversed the trans-dimensional siege hull. Now, instead of letting things in, it keeps things out.”
As if Dean has any clue what that means.
“That seems good,” he offers cautiously. “Double protection against some other bastard getting those souls, right?”
“That would have been an idea,” Cas agrees, “but it doesn’t keep things out that dimension. I set it to keep things out of this dimension. Earth. My last act as God,” Cas’s lips twist unpleasantly at the phrase, “was to order all the angels back to Heaven and for Crowley to wrangle all the demons back to Hell. Then, I closed the doors.”
“So--”
“So, no angel can come down and no demon can come up.”
It takes a minute for the full meaning of that to sink in. It seems impossible. That’s not good news, it’s fucking amazing news. Dean feels a smile tugging on his lips as he shakes his head.
“You are a clever bastard, Cas,” Dean says, getting his first, small smile out of the angel before Cas shrugs the praise off.
“I doubt Crowley recalled his entire hoard, but there should be a marked decrease in demonic activity. I also locked the angels out of the human portion of Heaven so they won’t bother you or your brother after your deaths.”
“Or you,” Dean points out.
Cas sighs. “I’m not human, Dean.”
“Not yet, but you will be. That’s what happens when all the other angels return to Heaven, isn’t it?”
“Dean.” Cas looks at Dean like he’s the one being difficult. “Dying is the only way I can repent for those lives I have unjustly taken.”
“Fine,” Dean says and takes the hilt from Cas’s hand. It’s simple and fast to turn the blade towards himself. Cas has an unbreakable grip around his wrist before he gets anywhere near his belly.
“What are you doing?” Cas demands. He rips the blade out of Dean’s grip and makes it vanish.
Finally, Dean thinks. Cas clutches Dean’s wrist like Dean’s the suicidal emo freak here.
“Isn’t that your new idea? You fuck up, you die on your sword?” Dean pushes up into Cas’s face, as if the angel has ever understood body language.
“Dean, you didn’t do anything--”
“You’re right, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do a single damn thing to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” Cas growls, low and cutting. His expression is dismissive, like Dean’s missing the point again. This, this is exactly what Dean should have been helping Cas with the first time around.
“Yeah, and I’ve had to live with knowing that if you had, I wouldn’t have given it to you.” Dean pulls back, but there’s nowhere to go on this empty stretch of road except the Impala, and Dean’s trying not to think about her. “You think I don't regret that? I fucked up, Cas. Family means being there for each other, and I let you get away with acting cagey for an entire freaking year. I wouldn’t have put up with Sammy pulling that crap, and I shouldn’t have with you.”
“Don’t overestimate yourself, Dean. You couldn’t have forced a confession.”
“No, but I should’ve been listening to what you did tell me.” Dean scrubs a hand through his hair. “You want to repent for your fuck ups? Then keep hunting. Sealing Heaven and Hell? That’s huge. That’s who you are, Cas. Keep being that guy, and you’ll be fine.”
Cas presses his lips together and bows his head.
“I am glad of your forgiveness, Dean. But I have broken my covenant with God in the worst ways. He would be so ashamed if he was watching.”
“That’s not true,” Dean blurts out.
There’s pagan lore out there on how to kill a god. It was only a question of whether they found it before Cas lost all attachment to them. Dean thinks about God getting off the bench for the first time in eons. Not to tell them how to defeat Cas, but how to save him.
He opens his mouth to tell Cas about meeting God, and nothing comes out. Dean can take a hint, so he tries another angle.
“I mean, you’re obviously here, right? How many other angels has God resurrected?” Dean thinks about how this interstate has been empty for an awfully long time during rush hour. No interruptions that would force them to move their chat and risk stop talking. “I think you must be really special to him.”
“That makes my failure even worse,” Cas points out.
“You sealed Heaven and Hell,” Dean reminds him. “We’ve been in a meat-grinder between those two these past eight years, and you stopped it.” Ever since the Devil’s Gate was temporarily opened, the number of demons on Earth had become more than hunters could deal with. Sometimes Dean had felt like he was in a shooting gallery where you knock down all the ducks, and at the end of the row, they pop right back up for you to start again. And now that’s all gone.
“Do you really think that can make up for everything else?” Cas asks. He’s finally listening, so Dean tries to give his best answer.
“I should have told you before. When you make choices, you’re going to make bad ones. But you can’t dwell on them forever, or it’ll eat you up. Good and bad things never cancel each other out. They just all pile up, and you’ve gotta live with the mess.”
Cas tilts his head to the side, and Dean stares back. “Your father told you something similar when you were fifteen. After the selkie hunt went poorly.”
“Yeah, it was good advice,” Dean says gruffly.
Cas lifts his gaze up to the sky for a long moment. The sun’s coming down behind him, and Dean squints against the glare. Cas has never looked like any of Dean’s preconceived notions of angels, and he still doesn’t. He looks like a man with shadows on his face, close enough to touch if Dean wants to.
“Thank you for saving me,” Cas says finally, stare returning to earth.
“All I did is return something you left when you pulled me from Hell,” Dean points out. “Let’s call it even.” Dean’s thinks it’s actually kind of a funny coincidence, but hunger makes the thought slide away.
“That’s not all you did, Dean,” Cas says, exasperated.
Dean decides that if nobody’s dying today, sharing and caring hour needs to be over.
“Let’s get out of here.” He walks back to the Impala, wincing as he finally allows himself a look at the damage. “Sam and Bobby are going to be pissed. Need to give them a call.”
“Shall I fix your car?” Cas asks, raising one hand and Dean physically interposes himself between the two magic fingers and his baby.
“Don’t you dare,” he warns. “Nothing goes into her that isn’t put there by human hands. Just zap us back to Bobby’s, and I’ll fix her up.”
“As you wish,” Cas says, but Dean sees him eyeing the crushed hood regretfully. As he should. That much damage is enough to make Dean want to weep. It’s going to be a hell of job getting her back in shape for the road.
“If you really want to help fix her, I could show you,” Dean offers. “None of that miracle crap. I’ll teach you how to put an engine back together with your hands.”
“I’d like that,” Cas says, expression lighter.
His car is a mess, and the world still has problems, but Cas is here, and Bobby and Sam are waiting to give him an earful, so Dean enjoys the momentary peace.