SPN fic: bright the vision that delighted 1/2 (Sam/Dean, PG-13)
Written for spn_reversebang, to the inspiring video below by zenamydog. I owe her many thanks for giving me free rein to write, and making helpful suggestions along the way. I really owe madame_meretrix and dancetomato, who did a heroic and high quality last-minute job of beta-reading. Thanks are due also to affabletoaster, for cheerleading and help with Assyrian. ~12,500 words of season 6 casefic - goes AU after 5.22 so no spoilers for s6.
The last time Dean saw his brother - both his brothers, but let’s face it, Dean only gives a damn about one of them - Sam beat the shit out of him, so Dean kind of figures it’s his turn.
Besides, Sam or something that looks like him, newly returned from the Pit, lurking across from Lisa and Ben’s house, blowing out streetlights? Evil until proven otherwise. It’s Dean’s duty to take him down.
Once the first punch lands, though, he’s done. He watches the blood trickle from Sam’s nose. Maybe it’s Winchester blood, maybe it’s not. He can’t really care.
He’s tired. He can’t do this again. Every night for a year he’s watched his brother fall, in every sense of the word, and every morning he’s woken to a world that’s the wrong shape for him.
He thought he wanted his brother back.
Between them, they broke the world. And okay, maybe they fixed it, stuck it back together like so many second-hand dishes over the years, but it’ll never be the same. You can see the cracks, the smear of glue with Sam’s thumbprint in it, and you probably wouldn’t trust it to hold coffee.
He drops his hands, unclenches his fists. His shoulders sag and his eyes close. Sam or something like him is here, and it’s not worth the fight. Anger takes too much energy, and hope is too painful to be embraced.
He wanted his brother back, and now that maybe he has him, he can’t think about anything. His brain is mush, his muscles cotton wool. It’s like the road ahead of him suddenly ended, he’s over the cliff and falling, and too in shock to care.
“Dean,” Sam says, and overwhelms him with a hug. Dean stands stock-still for ten seconds, letting himself be hugged, feeling maybe-Winchester blood drip onto his shirt collar and smear against his neck, and finally his arms come up to wrap around Sam.
“Hey,” he says, and his voice is raw and thick. “Sammy, hey. It’s okay.”
It’s not. But nothing else is, either, and this is at least familiar.
They sit in the back corner booth at the diner Dean goes to every Saturday with Ben, after baseball practice. Mandy always gives Ben an extra shot of chocolate syrup. It’s a different, unknown waitress at 10 pm, thank god, no explanations required, and if she gives Dean a funny look it’s probably only because he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
He may be sitting at a table with a ghost. He still hasn’t checked. He’s not sure he cares.
Sam digs into his salt-sprinkled fries when they arrive, though, so ghost is probably out.
“You can put holy water in my drink if you want,” Sam says, and he’s looking fondly at Dean.
Dean closes his eyes, shakes his head briefly, but when he opens them, Sam is still there.
“Don’t have any,” he admits. The flask in his inner jacket pocket hasn’t seen anything but liquor for months. “No silver, either. So, you know. Whatever.”
“I checked myself,” Sam says. “I didn’t know what to think either. I’m not a revenant.” He frowns. There’s ketchup on his lower lip. “Or, I guess technically I am, since revenant really just means ‘returned’, but, I mean. I’m not undead.”
Sam always wants to freaking talk. Dean would be happy just to sit here, eat his pie, drink his coffee, and watch his brother move and breathe and occupy space in the world.
“You’re looking good, man,” Sam says. Guilt pulls his face into familiar lines. “I uh. I know I messed you up pretty badly. Did I break your nose?”
Dean can’t even begin to enumerate the ways Sam has messed him up. He shrugs.
“Cas fixed it.”
“Cas?” Sam’s eyes widen. “He’s alive? Oh god. I thought I… didn’t I…?”
“You blew his head apart,” Dean supplies. Sam winces.
Dean relents. “Well. Lucifer did. He was pretty pissed about Cas fire-bombing Michael.”
“Yeah,” Sam says quietly. “I remember. I was in there, Dean. I just… I wasn’t strong enough to stop it. God, I’m sorry.”
“You got him in the end,” Dean says, and fuck he doesn’t want to be saying this, doesn’t want to let go of the anger. Because if anger’s gone then the last barriers are down.
“Not soon enough.”
“Can we not do this?” Dean says. “Water under the bridge.” He’s aware his shoulders are tense, his jaw locking, and that it’s blindingly obvious to Sam how uncomfortable he is. He can’t play it cool with Sam, no point trying. Sam knows all his tells, and nearly all his secrets.
Except the one. He’s pretty sure Sam never suspected that, or he wouldn’t be here.
“So Cas is back?” Sam says, mercifully dropping the issue of just how much he’s to blame for everything.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “I think so, anyway. He appeared right after you, uh.”
He has to stop and swallow, hard. Sam blessedly keeps quiet, but starts to lift a hand towards him. It’s Dean’s turn to flinch, hardly perceptible, but Sam pulls back again immediately.
“You and Adam went down. The ground closed in again. I got the rings and it was…”
Too quiet. Too sunny. A lovely mild day for the apocalypse. Lucifer hadn’t won, but Dean’s world still ended.
“It was over. I was in pretty bad shape - ” Sam grimaces at that, “- and I think I passed out for a bit, but then Cas was there. He fixed me up. Fixed Bobby too. Then he said he had work to do, and just vanished. I haven’t seen him since.”
Sam slumps onto his elbows, tension draining out of him. “Bobby. Thank god. I couldn’t - Dean, I - ”
Dean cuts him off. This isn’t going to help either of them. “He’s fine. I don’t… I haven’t talked to him since either.”
Sam frowns. “You…but - ”
“Lisa,” Dean says, and Sam falls silent.
“I went to her, like you said,” Dean says, poking at salt grains spilled on the tabletop, “and she took me in. Didn’t ask many questions, and let it go when I didn’t answer the ones she did ask. She fed me, gave me a place to sleep, did my laundry.
We’re not… Fuck, Sammy, I was a mess. The first couple months, I was drunk out of my skull half the time. I woke up nights screaming. I got a job in construction and got fired the first week. I kept zoning out, thirty feet up on scaffolding, holding power tools; I was a risk to me and everybody around me.
She put up with my shit for longer than anybody should have had to, and then she laid down the law. Said she knew I was hurting, and she’d cut me a lot of slack because… well, because.” Because you saved the world, she’d said, and he’d closed his eyes and swallowed against the razor blades tearing his throat, because she had it wrong, that wasn’t him, that was Sam, and he bet that wherever Sam was, nobody was cutting him any slack. “But she told me she had Ben to think of, and that either I could shape up or ship out. And you…”
He wipes his hand over his face. “I promised you. I had to make it work. I didn’t… at first I hadn’t called Bobby because I was such a fucking mess. After that, I didn’t call because I couldn’t - I couldn’t think about any of it without losing my shit again. You. Hunting. Our world. Our life.”
Fuck, he sounds like a crappy daytime soap opera.
He manages a weak smile “So, I shaped up. I’ve been staying sober,” during the day, at least, “and I landed a part-time job. I do shit around the house. Play ball with Ben. Even went to yoga a couple of times. Lisa told me to quit, though.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I was too distracting for her ladies.”
Sam snorts. Dean licks the pad of his finger and mops up the last crumbs of pie crust, not looking at Sam.
“I’m glad,” Sam says finally. “I wanted this for you. I didn’t know for sure you could do it, though.”
Dean laughs bitterly. Sam didn’t believe in him; it shouldn’t be such a shock.
Sam is already shaking his head though. “No! Dean, I - no. I mean. You’re a hunter. The best. I didn’t know if you’d be able to walk away from that.”
They sit in silence for a minute. Dean breaks it.
“I’ve seen them. The ones who don’t know when they’re a liability.”
Sam frowns.
“Dad came close, but he never lost it the way I did,” Dean says. “Maybe because he had us to think of, I don’t know. But you’ve seen ‘em too. The ones so out of it with grief or revenge that they don’t know when to back down, don’t care if they get themselves killed - and if you’re lucky, they do get themselves killed before they get you and a dozen civilians killed too. There were days I tried my best to convince myself that the hunt would be for the right reasons. That I could head on out, kill something evil, be home for dinner. But I knew I was lying.”
He stares at Sam’s hands. “It was cheating. I’d promised you I wasn’t going to off myself, and so, yeah. I walked away.”
Sam doesn’t say anything. Dean finally looks straight at him. Sam’s looking back, jaw clenched and eyes hot. He nods finally.
“Anyway, it wasn’t the same without you,” Dean says, aiming for lightness and missing by a country mile.
It’s Sam’s turn to look away.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he says. “I just wanted to see you were okay.”
Dean’s stomach turns to ice, cherry pie and all.
“Shouldn’t have… fuck that, Sammy!” he hisses, sitting bolt upright. “You fall into Hell with fucking Lucifer, you get out, and you think you shouldn’t come put me out of my fucking misery?!”
Anger is back, dancing down his nerves quick and bright as lightning. “What, you think you’d just check up on me and leave? Again?”
Sam’s eyes are wide and earnest. “Dean. You’re - you’ve got what you deserve, what you always wanted. A real life. No monsters, no demons, no… cosmically screwed-up little brother to look out for. I didn’t want - I should have been strong enough to leave you alone.”
Dean wants to scream. He wants to pound the table. He wants to throw the napkin dispenser through the mirror behind the diner counter and open his veins with the shards. It would make as much sense, and might hurt less.
“You don’t get it, do you?” The words are bitten off between clenched teeth, because if he lets this out full-throttle, someone will get caught in the crossfire. “Nothing was the same without you.”
He stares Sam down as steadily as if there’s a gun barrel between them. “I tried. I did what you asked, and I’m still alive to talk about it. Or, you know, not talk about it. And you’re not leaving without me.”
Sam glares back. “You’re gonna just walk out on Lisa? After all she’s done for you?”
“Dude,” Dean says, “you grew up with me. You’ve shared bathrooms with me. You seriously wishing a lifetime of that on a girl as nice as Lisa?”
It’s a cheap joke and it falls flat, but the fact is, there was only ever one way this was going to go.
The light in the kitchen is on. He’d have preferred to have this conversation in the morning, but there’s no way around it apart from staying out all night and that’s not going to improve matters.
Lisa’s sitting at the table, hands cupped around a mug of herbal tea.
She looks up, a faint worried crease in her forehead, and then looks more closely. Her eyes narrow, then widen. She takes a sip of her drink and Dean can see her hand trembling, ever so slightly.
“You’re going,” she says. “Back out there. Aren’t you?”
Dean blinks. “Uh.” He hadn’t expected that.
“I’ll make it easy for you,” she says, trying to keep her voice light and warm. If you didn’t know her, it’d be so easy to miss the resignation underneath. “You’ve been - it’s been great having you around.”
Dean snorts, because, really? And then he wants to kick himself, because she shouldn’t have to be saying these things at all.
“I always knew you were married to the job.” She smiles ruefully. “This time around, I thought, maybe… You were so determined to walk away from it. Like, this time you’d make it stick. Something was different.”
She reaches out and lays her hand over his. He turns his palm up, gripping her fingers lightly.
“But half the time it was like you were sleep-walking. Part of you was dead inside. I thought, with time… it’d never be fixed, exactly, but I thought it could be better. We could be better.”
Dean swallows against a lump in his throat, and starts trying to apologize, because he tried, he really did, he knows Lisa and Ben deserve so much more - but she shushes him.
“Tonight… the minute you walked in, I could tell. You look different. It’s… it’s as if part of you’s come back to life.”
Dean thinks about souls bought and sold, a shared heaven, and thinks that’s maybe more literally true than she knows. But he can’t say that, so he grips her hand tighter, leans forward, tries to put everything he should say into his eyes.
She stands and comes round beside him, kissing the top of his head. He leans into her side, hugs her hard around the waist, and lets her go for the last time.
It’s easier than he would have thought, falling back into hunting with Sam. They start with easy stuff: a woman in white here, a poltergeist there, a chupacabra down south.
Last year, that was necessary, to build up them, their relationship. This year, it’s because Sam is solicitous of Dean, who’s maybe - maybe - a bit rusty after a year in suburbia.
Dean isn’t, of course, but he doesn’t mind Sam worrying about him for a change, and it’s nice to have straightforward jobs like this again. They’d spent so long - years, if you believe what a bunch of lying hellspawn and spoiled-brat angels say - being jerked around by the forces of Heaven and Hell, it feels liberating to set their own itinerary.
He doesn’t spend any time worrying whether Sam wants this life. Sam came to find him. Sam’s hunting along side of him. Sam’s laughing at Dean’s jokes and pulling faces at Dean’s food choices and snoring way too loud every night in a bed not three feet from Dean’s own.
It’s kind of perfect.
They give Bobby a call. Sam suggested they swing by, but Dean’s not up to watching Sam wallow in guilt right now over killing the man, however temporarily.
Bobby suggests they stop by. He admits, when Dean calls him on it, that he’d kinda like to run some tests on Sam himself. Dean declines on Sam’s behalf. Sam’s fine.
“I think we need some time on our own. You know?”
Bobby’s “uh-huh” is dubious, and the silence that follows feels like it contains some awkward questions, so Dean hastily reassures Bobby they’ll call him in a few weeks and hangs up.
They go out for a beer most evenings. Dean never has more than a couple. He gets phone numbers and not-so-subtle invitations from waitresses at least twice as often as Sam, and is duly smug about this.
Sam occasionally raises an eyebrow when Dean turns down yet another offer, but Dean just shrugs. He’s got what he wants. It’s maybe a little early to call it happiness, but Dean is perfectly content.
He should have known it was too good to last.
They’re in a tackle shop when Castiel comes to them. He blinks around at the hipwaders and brightly colored lures.
“I did not expect to find you here,” he says.
“Eh, Sammy just wanted to go fishing,” Dean says.
Sam shoots him an exasperated look. “We need some nylon line. For tripwires. What do you need, Cas?”
His tone isn’t overly welcoming. Dean wouldn’t have been so abrupt, himself, but he doesn’t call Sam on it.
“I am sorry I have not been in contact,” Castiel says. “I have been… occupied.” He hesitates. “It is… good to see you, Sam Winchester.”
Sam merely nods.
“You must have known he was out,” Dean says. “Or is the angel radio on the fritz these days?”
“Communication has been…” - that pause again, the one in which he chooses the word that will most closely wrap around an angelic concept that does not translate. “Disturbed. God is still nowhere in evidence, and with Michael gone, the army of Heaven is in disarray.”
He looks at Sam. “I had heard that you walked among us again, and that Michael’s vessel does not. Some are wondering how you managed this. You will not like their conclusions.”
“I bet,” Dean says grimly. “How’d you find us, anyway?”
“Sam.”
Dean looks at Sam. Sam blinks.
“I didn’t - oh.” He looks down at his chest, as if he could see through the layers of cloth, skin and muscle, to the cage of bones below. “The symbols. They’re gone, aren’t they?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. But it is not only that. You are... very visible.”
Dean squints. “I get the feeling you’re not talking about the fact he’s an overgrown freak of nature.”
“Your aura is changed. It reverberates for miles,” Castiel says to Sam. “I could sense you from the next state. Others will be able to do the same.”
“So you’re saying, Sam’s a homing beacon for angels?” Dean says angrily. “Well, that’s just great. Oh, and thanks for letting us know, ‘cause it’s not like it might be a problem.”
“Not just angels.” Castiel draws a finger through the dust on the shelf he stands next to. “Demons will sense this too. Have you had trouble with them lately?”
“No,” Dean says, when Sam remains silent and dark.
“Sam?” Castiel says, as if maybe Sam knows something Dean doesn’t.
Sam glares at him. “What he said.”
Castiel waits.
“Dude,” Dean says. “You heard us. Guess we’ve been lucky so far. Now, how about you mojo up Sam again?”
“No.”
“What?” Dean says incredulously. “Why not?”
“I don’t think I can,” Castiel says, squinting at Sam, who shifts awkwardly under the scrutiny. “They are a ward. Sam already has something there.”
“I - what?” Sam says.
“You are warded,” Castiel repeats. “I don’t see sigils, and whatever the purpose, it is certainly not concealment, but there is a… barrier I cannot breach. I would guess it has something to do with the change in your aura.”
Sam looks unhappy. “I don’t feel anything. It’s nothing like…”
He trails off, face falling.
Dean remembers the panic room and Sam, his brother, a stranger, chained to the cot. Sam, who couldn’t be trusted, handcuffed to a hotel sink. Sam grimacing, teeth white against blood-stained lips, as he exorcised demons without a word.
“It is nothing like before,” Dean says fiercely, and slings an arm round Sam’s shoulders. “This is Sam, Cas. You hear? The real deal. Whatever’s going on, we’ll sort it out.”
He glares at the angel. “The car’s outside. Go wait there.”
“Dean,” Sam says carefully as the bell over the door signals Castiel’s exit. “You shouldn’t…”
“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean says. “How much line do you figure we need?”
They pay for the fishing line and Dean manages to sneak in a package of fake worms as well. He figures they’ll be good for a prank at some point.
Outside, Dean hoists himself up on the hood of the Impala. Sam leans back against the door, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Dean looks, and looks away, and finds Castiel looking at him.
“So,” he says hurriedly, “what’s so important you decided to drop in for a chat?”
“You remember Claire,” Castiel says. “This vessel’s daughter. Jimmy Novak’s daughter.”
“Of course I do,” Dean says. “She saved your bacon.”
Castiel furrows his eyebrows slightly but to Dean’s immense relief, does not ask what salted cured pork product has to do with anything.
“The angels have her,” he says.
“Like a hostage?” Dean says. “Or like…” he trails off. Castiel is shaking his head.
“I should have said, an angel has her. Her vessel is occupied.”
“By whom?” Sam says.
“Michael’s right-hand man.”
“How come nobody ever has a left hand man?” Dean says.
“Because at His left hand you are cast down and abased among the goats,” Castiel says. Dean stares. Sam snickers.
“Let me guess,” says Dean, “it’s funnier in Enochian.”
Sam grins. “Probably, but it is actually in some religious texts.”
“Whatever,” Dean says. “So blondie’s back in the game, but on the wrong side?”
Castiel frowns. “I have trouble defining right and wrong in this situation.”
He looks uncomfortable. Sam peers at him. “You - Cas, you’re not suggesting Michael’s buddies are the good guys here?”
“I am back,” Castiel says. “I don’t know for certain what agency returned me after you destroyed my physical form, but I cannot imagine it being other than God. And yet, He has not shown Himself. Nor has He reined in those who acted with Michael.”
Sam frowns. “So you think… what, that God supports them?”
“Fuck that,” Dean says. “We already know he’s a total slacker. He checked out when Michael was trying to start Armageddon, you think he’s gonna pay attention to what they’re doing now?” He shakes his head. “It’s not part of some master plan. He just doesn’t give a shit.”
“There must be a plan,” Castiel says. “There is always a plan, a pattern. It is not always given to us to see it.”
“Yeah, well, cryptic bullshit aside,” Dean says, “you wouldn’t be showing up here after months of radio silence if you didn’t want us to do something.”
“Yes,” Castiel admits. He looks from Sam to Dean, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Jimmy Novak gave his body freely to me not once, but twice. The first time, he did not truly appreciate what was being asked of him. I did. I knew he would suffer, that his family would suffer, but I believed that it was for the greater good. He had prayed for such an opportunity; I was serving Heaven, doing the will of my superiors.
The second time, though, he knew the depth of his sacrifice. He knew that he would never be back, and that he would be destroyed.”
Castiel stares past Dean’s left ear. “He welcomed me in. He sacrificed himself so his daughter would be spared, just as your father did for you. That must not be in vain.”
Next to him, Sam lets out a long, slow breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Sam’s hand twitch, then settle. Dean himself is distracted by a startling need to punch Castiel in the mouth.
“You’re asking us to get her back,” Sam says.
Castiel’s stillness is palpable.
“Not exactly,” he says, and Dean thinks, he’s being careful, and he is surprised to realize that Castiel is uncertain. Nervous, even.
“I’m asking Dean,” Castiel says. “We are - I think we are friends, Sam, but I am not sure what you are now. I don’t think it is wise for you to interfere in the business of angels.”
“But you think it’s fine for Dean to interfere?” Sam spits, angry disbelief twisting his features. “You don’t think he’s been fucked around enough by your fucking brothers?”
“I think Dean will be able to accomplish this task with minimal risk,” Castiel says.
“What if I don’t feel like risking him?” Sam says belligerently.
“What if it’s none of your business?” Dean points out. “C’mon, Sam. We know this girl. And even if we didn’t, nobody deserves to have their body hijacked by one of those dicks.” He glances at Castiel. “No offense.”
“She must have agreed to it,” Sam points out.
“No shit,” Dean says. “I nearly agreed to it. They can be pretty fucking persuasive.” Christ, Sam can’t seriously be refusing? “We’re doing this, Sammy. Or rather, I’m doing this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Sam says.
“No, you’re not,” Dean says. “You heard the man, apparently you’re lit up like a Christmas tree. Plus the angels are pissed that you’re out and Michael’s not, I bet they’ll be gunning for you the moment you come within smiting range.”
“Well, I’m not staying here,” Sam says, setting his jaw. “I can’t be warded, fine. I’ll ward the motel room till I can figure out something better.”
“What motel room?” Dean says.
“The one in whatever city Claire’s in.” Sam gives him a ‘duh’ look. “Cas, we’ll need directions.”
“I still do not think you should come.”
“I don’t really care what you think,” Sam says coolly. “What’s the plan once we get there?”
Castiel pulls something out of one of his many pockets.
“This will bind her.” He hands over a small, flat metal disk, dull with the patina of age and etched with symbols Dean probably ought to recognize but he’s let his Enochian lapse over the past months. “You need to press this to her forehead. It will contain the angelic power, although not completely. I suggest you use holy oil to trap her, so you can get close enough. A narrow circle would be best.”
Dean spins the token between his fingers. “Nice little toy. Where’d you get it?”
“I stole it.”
Dean blinks. “Good for you.”
“So we trap her, and bind her,” Sam says. “Then what? How do we get the angel out of her?”
“I don't know.”
“You don’t know?” Dean blinks. “What, and you think we do?”
“No,” Castiel says, “but there will be a way. If all else fails, we bargain with Suriel.”
“The angel?”
“Yes,” Castiel says.
“What exactly are you going to bargain with?” Sam asks.
Castiel shrugs. “That will be easier to decide when we know what he wants.”
“You call this a plan?” Dean says, but he pockets the token and slides off the Impala’s hood. “Give Sammy the directions.”
Dean’s jittery as they approach the town’s borders. He swears the Impala can tell; her engine purrs reassuringly at him.
He pulls into the parking lot of the first motel he sees, and taps his fingers impatiently while the clerk fills in paperwork.
“We’re in eight. Go ward it, I’ll get the bags.”
When he closes the trunk, Castiel is standing beside him.
“Anyone ever drop dead of a heart attack from you doin’ that?” Dean says.
“I wanted to be sure you made it here.”
Dean rolls his eyes. When has he ever been lost?
Well, except that time. And… but that wasn’t lost.
“This is important to me. I made a promise.”
“Don’t worry, Cas.” Dean slings the duffel over his shoulder. “I’ll get her for you.”
“I have broken enough promises.” There is rare emotion in Castiel’s voice.
Dean nods and looks away. “I’ve broken promises too.”
He senses the movement as Castiel checks himself and turns towards Dean. He doesn’t look at Castiel. At the angel.
“You made me promise something,” he says quietly. “I swore to serve God and his angels. All his angels. How am I supposed to keep a promise like that, huh? Your side is fucking schizo.”
There is no answer. He looks over. Castiel is gone.
The motel door bangs.
“Throw that stuff in the room and let’s go eat,” Sam says, “I’m starving.”
“You’re not going anywhere, bitch. Highly visible, remember?” Dean chucks the duffel at him. “Stay in the room. I’ll get take-out.”
Sam’s got the laptop, papers and books spread all over the table by the time Dean gets back so they sit on one of the beds to eat.
“We made good time,” Dean says. “I thought I’d head out after supper, do a little reconnoitering.”
“No,” Sam says, around a mouthful of veggie burger. “It’s bad enough we came to her town without having a plan. We’re not going to walk right up to Michael’s deputy and announce ourselves until we know what to do with her when we’ve got her.”
“You’re not walking up to her at all,” Dean reminds him. “C’mon, Sammy. She’s a little girl.”
“Lilith was a little girl,” Sam points out.
“Yeah, and we snuck up on her,” Dean says.
“And that worked so well,” Sam says. “No.”
Dean finishes his chicken wing and licks his fingers noisily. “Look, we know she’s here, now. We got no idea what she’s up to or how long she’ll be here. All I’m saying is, it’s more efficient if I go pick her up now, while you get your geek on.” He grins at Sam. “You’ll have it all figured out by the time I get back.”
“I don’t like it, Dean.” Even Sam’s sideburns look mutinous. “I know what Cas said, but you know it’s not true, right? I think I should come with you.”
Dean sighs. “You know I’ve just been humoring you? A lifetime of hunting doesn’t vanish after a few months. I know what I’m doing.”
“Of course,” Sam reassures him, but his eyebrows betray his worry. Dean knows all of Sam’s tells, too.
Dean sighs and puts down his drink.
“Sam. I’ll be fine. I’ll be careful. Since we started up hunting again, you and me… For the first time in months, I got something I wanna live for. For me, not just because I made you a promise. I’m not gonna fuck that up, okay?” Christ, he can hardly believe he just said that. Sam is staring at him open-mouthed. He stands abruptly, backs away from the bed. “I gotta piss.”
Fuck, he does not do chick-flick moments well.
He sneaks a glance back as he swings open the washroom door. Sam’s watching him with - affection, compassion - a warm, goofy smile, and Dean’s heart turns over. He ducks into the bathroom before he can embarrass himself further; he almost let too much slip as it is.
It doesn’t mean Sam gives up, though. When Dean finally emerges from the bathroom, there’s a handful of quarters sitting on his bed.
“At least give me twenty-four hours, okay? Cas said she’s newly arrived in this town. Whatever she’s planning, it’s got to take a little while.”
He follows this up with the puppy dog eyes. And he’d done his research on the motel front. Dean isn’t capitulating, not by a long shot, but Magic Fingers? A quality evening with those isn’t to be passed up. Plus, hopefully in the morning, Sam’ll be a little less uptight about this whole gig.
“Hey, Sammy,” he says, and shit, is that his voice? He’s practically purring. He coughs and tones it down. “You’re too tense, man. You gotta give this a try.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Sam says drily, “but no thanks. I think it’d make it pretty hard to concentrate on translating Aramaic.”
The quarter runs out. Dean rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow. “You found something?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says, frustrated. “I won’t know until I’ve got it translated. There isn’t a lot of lore on this. It’s not like - hunters have been hunting evil things for centuries, there’s all sorts of stuff written about that. But angels? They’re supposed to be the good guys. People haven’t worried about angels, or how to get rid of them.”
“There’s gotta be a way,” Dean says. “Some sort of angelic exorcism. Couldn’t you, I dunno, change a few words or something?”
“No,” Sam says, in a tone of voice that implies Dean’s a complete moron for suggesting it; Dean lets it go only because he knows how supremely frustrated Sam gets when research fails him. “They’re completely different scenarios, Dean. Demons occupy a host without permission. It’s just a matter of finding the right words and rituals to kick them out. Angels… I don’t even know where to begin.”
“What about Anna?” Dean says. “She lost her groove.”
Sam’s brow furrows are deep enough to lose small change in. “That wasn’t the same thing at all. She fell. Her grace got lost along the way.”
“I’m just sayin’,” Dean says. “Since you don’t know where to begin.”
“It won’t work,” Sam says, but he’s already typing away again, then reaching around the screen to flip through the largest of the books, so Dean counts it a win and pops in another quarter.
Dean thought Sam might get suspicious when he volunteers to go do their laundry the next morning, but they’re both out of clean underwear and it’s not like Dean’s been making great contributions to research. Sam doesn’t even look up as Dean heads out, just nods and says, “Don’t forget the fabric softener.”
He chucks the laundry bags in the trunk, drives around the corner, pulls over and calls Cas.
Moments later, Cas appears in the road next to him and narrowly misses getting side-swiped by a station wagon.
“Dude,” Dean says, getting out of the car, “watch it.”
“I was expecting the back seat,” Castiel says, stepping onto the sidewalk. “I didn’t know you had protected it.”
“Come again?”
“I cannot materialize in the car. The Enochian symbols make it impossible.”
“Sam messed with the car?” Dean says incredulously. “Fuck, I told him not to douche her up.” He squints at the Impala’s paint job, but nothing looks different.
“It is probably a good idea,” Castiel says, “although I am glad you were not on the freeway when I discovered this.” He looks from the Impala to the sandwich shop she’s parked in front of. “What do you want?”
“Sam’s back at the motel, researching ways to get your pal out of blondie,” Dean says. “I’m gonna go pick her up. You wanna come with?”
Castiel looks shifty. “It is better that I do not.”
Dean folds his arms and stares at the angel. “Uh huh. What haven’t you told us?”
“I did tell you,” Castiel says. “Technically, Suriel and I are on the same side. His occupation of Claire is not something I should publicly oppose. This quest is a… personal one; it does not have the sanction of Heaven.”
“Right.” Dean draws out the word. “So you need me to do your dirty work for you.”
“Yes,” Castiel admits.
“Fair enough,” Dean says. “But you’re telling me where she lives, or all bets are off. This town’s not tiny and I got no idea where to start looking.”
“I can do better than that,” Castiel says. Dean sees it coming, but before he can do more than open his mouth to protest, Castiel’s hand is clamped around his upper arm and they are materializing in the middle of a warehouse.
“Goddamnit, my car,” Dean says, head spinning, but the hand on his arm is gone and its owner with it.
“Well, that’s just great,” he mutters, and takes stock of his surroundings. It’s not the usual dank, decrepit type of warehouse that’s seen better days; this one’s new and looks more like a Staples storage building. Maybe Suriel’s got some grand plan that involves surplus office furniture.
He pats his left jacket pocket, reassuring himself the vial of holy oil is still there and intact, before heading down the nearest aisle. Castiel’s token is in the right hand pocket; the Beretta’s in easy reach in the back of his jeans, in case of surprises.
Finding Claire among the metal shelving and ceiling-high stacks of boxes turns out to be surprisingly easy - she finds him. It’s disconcerting to see a girl less than half his age throw a large flat-pack bookshelf at him, although he dodges fine.
“Why are you here, Dean Winchester?” She cocks her head and regards him intently. The stance is startlingly familiar; Dean wonders if it’s the angel or the Novak in her showing.
“I’m just here to talk,” he says, moving forward slowly, hands open and visible in front of him.
“You are done meddling in the business of angels,” she says. “You have shown your true colors. We need you no longer.”
“Maybe not,” Dean says, “But much as I’d love to be done with the whole godforsaken bunch of you, you have something I want.”
He slides his left hand into his pocket, gestures with his right, trying to look casual.
“What, have you lost your brother again?” she says, curling Claire’s lip in a sneer. “You two. Unbelievable.”
Dean grips the vial, turning it slowly.
“Zachariah used to go on and on about you Winchesters,” she continues. “‘Psychotically co-dependent.’ Get him drunk and he’d start saying a lot more interesting things… No, if Sam’s gone off without you again, it’s not our fault. Look all you want, I don’t have him.”
She shudders, delicate shoulders shifting under her top. He flicks his eyes briefly to the wall behind her, but no wing shadows show in the cold fluorescent light.
“Maybe he’s finally picked up on how you really feel about him.”
Dean’s laugh is short and dismissive. “Whatever, blondie. Sam and I, we’re cool. I trust him.”
“Really?” She raises her eyebrows. “No worries about what he got up to with Lucifer? No niggling doubts, that maybe the Sam you’ve got isn’t the one that went away? Nothing strikes you as a little - off - about him? You’ve had your time in Hell, Dean, you know how it works.”
Dean takes a step towards her. “He’s fine. But thanks for asking.”
“Not having nightmares?” She takes a step of her own, eyes glinting, mouth narrowing into a cold, malicious smile. “But how would you know?”
Her voice drops. “Do you sleep in the same bed with him? Do you know what he does, in the dark?”
Dean’s eyes widen.
“But you’d like to. Wouldn’t you?”
He has to remind the part of himself that feels slightly sick and wildly inappropriate that he is not in fact talking to a barely pubescent girl.
“I wasn’t talking about his time in the Pit.” She presses the tip of her index finger against her pursed lips, then points it at Dean. “Maybe Sam’s figured out what his brother wants to do to him. Why Lisa was never enough.”
“Shut up,” Dean says hoarsely, stumbling backwards. He thumbs the cork out of the vial.
“You were so ready to walk right back out the door. Right into his arms.”
He whips his hand out of his pocket. His arm swings around in a wide arc, oil flying from the neck of the vial, drawing a circle around her.
Her piercing shriek echoes off concrete and metal. She raises her hands in front of her, palms together, and throws her arms to each side, shoulder height. The oil immediately in front of her glistens dully but halts its flow, soaking into the concrete and failing to join: the circle is incomplete.
A man with a dark suit and blank expression - angelic goon if Dean’s ever seen one - appears at the end of the aisle behind her. There’s a rustle behind him too.
She moves, faster than he can follow, through the tiny gap in the circle. Her hand is on his collar, pulling him down to her level.
“Maybe Sam will come for you,” she whispers at his ear. “Maybe he’s as fucked-up as you. But I wouldn’t bet on it. We have no use for you any more, Dean Winchester. And neither does he.”
Dean fumbles in his pocket for the talisman.
He gets it free but as he brings his hand up, Claire’s slender fingers close around his wrist like a steel band.
She looks down at it, then up at him, eyes impossibly wide and furious. And she’s gone.
The goons rush him.
Dean feints left, dodges an office chair, and shoots the angel in front of him squarely in the heart. It has little more effect than it ever did on Cas, but it’s a distraction, and he’s able to duck under its arm and race down the aisle.
There’s an almighty crash and the end of the aisle is suddenly blocked by a forklift on its side. Dean swears, looks round, and another boxed bookshelf strikes his left shoulder, throwing him back against the machine. His head clangs painfully against the metal and his ears ring.
One of the angels is standing directly in front of him. Over its shoulder he can see the other one approaching, idly twirling one of their apparently mass-produced heavenly steak knives.
The angel in front of him looks bored as it smashes its fist into his jaw. Dean’s head strikes the metal again. There is blood in his mouth and his vision blurs.
It reaches out with its other hand and Dean has little doubt it can crush his throat without breaking a sweat.
He shoots it in the crotch.
It shouldn’t have worked, he thinks, as he watches the angel flinch and stagger backwards, but they are in human vessels and certain of the body’s instincts are very powerful.
Like survival.
He lunges forward, ignoring the double vision and splitting headache, and shoves the angel hard, sending it back against its partner - who had brought up its knife in a defensive stance.
The knife pierces its throat. Light begins to burst from its face as it and its partner tumble to the floor. Dean averts his eyes and runs for the door, just managing not to slip on the patch of oil.
The second angel has lost precious seconds untangling itself from its dead colleague, but Dean can hear it coming.
He crashes through the door and scans the area desperately, somewhere he can hide, somewhere he can run, and shit, he doesn’t even know where he is, the Impala’s probably clear across town. He’ll never make it. Fucking Cas, better be fucking sorry, and shit, the last thing he ever said to Sam involved dirty laundry.
There’s a screech to his left and there she is, his baby, rounding the corner and racing towards him. She slows, and Sam’s reaching across with his freakishly long arms and shoving open the passenger door, god, he’s so happy to see them both he could cry.
He lunges in, his feet are still outside somewhere but there’s an angel leaving footprints in the asphalt as it runs towards them. Sam floors it; the Impala squeals away with Dean hanging on to the seat, scrambling to pull the door shut.
“Didn’t go so well, then,” Sam says, but there’s no mockery in his tone, only honest concern.
Dean shakes his head. The motion jars something inside and he winces. He’s already feeling nauseated and Sam’s driving isn’t helping.
“She’s got bodyguards,” he says hoarsely. “I got one. You saw the other.” He wipes at his face, “She took off and left them to it. I’d be confetti by now if you weren’t here.”
“Huh,” Sam says, frowning, and takes the next corner on two wheels. Dean moans and hangs onto the door handle, gritting his teeth.
Part Two
The last time Dean saw his brother - both his brothers, but let’s face it, Dean only gives a damn about one of them - Sam beat the shit out of him, so Dean kind of figures it’s his turn.
Besides, Sam or something that looks like him, newly returned from the Pit, lurking across from Lisa and Ben’s house, blowing out streetlights? Evil until proven otherwise. It’s Dean’s duty to take him down.
Once the first punch lands, though, he’s done. He watches the blood trickle from Sam’s nose. Maybe it’s Winchester blood, maybe it’s not. He can’t really care.
He’s tired. He can’t do this again. Every night for a year he’s watched his brother fall, in every sense of the word, and every morning he’s woken to a world that’s the wrong shape for him.
He thought he wanted his brother back.
Between them, they broke the world. And okay, maybe they fixed it, stuck it back together like so many second-hand dishes over the years, but it’ll never be the same. You can see the cracks, the smear of glue with Sam’s thumbprint in it, and you probably wouldn’t trust it to hold coffee.
He drops his hands, unclenches his fists. His shoulders sag and his eyes close. Sam or something like him is here, and it’s not worth the fight. Anger takes too much energy, and hope is too painful to be embraced.
He wanted his brother back, and now that maybe he has him, he can’t think about anything. His brain is mush, his muscles cotton wool. It’s like the road ahead of him suddenly ended, he’s over the cliff and falling, and too in shock to care.
“Dean,” Sam says, and overwhelms him with a hug. Dean stands stock-still for ten seconds, letting himself be hugged, feeling maybe-Winchester blood drip onto his shirt collar and smear against his neck, and finally his arms come up to wrap around Sam.
“Hey,” he says, and his voice is raw and thick. “Sammy, hey. It’s okay.”
It’s not. But nothing else is, either, and this is at least familiar.
They sit in the back corner booth at the diner Dean goes to every Saturday with Ben, after baseball practice. Mandy always gives Ben an extra shot of chocolate syrup. It’s a different, unknown waitress at 10 pm, thank god, no explanations required, and if she gives Dean a funny look it’s probably only because he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
He may be sitting at a table with a ghost. He still hasn’t checked. He’s not sure he cares.
Sam digs into his salt-sprinkled fries when they arrive, though, so ghost is probably out.
“You can put holy water in my drink if you want,” Sam says, and he’s looking fondly at Dean.
Dean closes his eyes, shakes his head briefly, but when he opens them, Sam is still there.
“Don’t have any,” he admits. The flask in his inner jacket pocket hasn’t seen anything but liquor for months. “No silver, either. So, you know. Whatever.”
“I checked myself,” Sam says. “I didn’t know what to think either. I’m not a revenant.” He frowns. There’s ketchup on his lower lip. “Or, I guess technically I am, since revenant really just means ‘returned’, but, I mean. I’m not undead.”
Sam always wants to freaking talk. Dean would be happy just to sit here, eat his pie, drink his coffee, and watch his brother move and breathe and occupy space in the world.
“You’re looking good, man,” Sam says. Guilt pulls his face into familiar lines. “I uh. I know I messed you up pretty badly. Did I break your nose?”
Dean can’t even begin to enumerate the ways Sam has messed him up. He shrugs.
“Cas fixed it.”
“Cas?” Sam’s eyes widen. “He’s alive? Oh god. I thought I… didn’t I…?”
“You blew his head apart,” Dean supplies. Sam winces.
Dean relents. “Well. Lucifer did. He was pretty pissed about Cas fire-bombing Michael.”
“Yeah,” Sam says quietly. “I remember. I was in there, Dean. I just… I wasn’t strong enough to stop it. God, I’m sorry.”
“You got him in the end,” Dean says, and fuck he doesn’t want to be saying this, doesn’t want to let go of the anger. Because if anger’s gone then the last barriers are down.
“Not soon enough.”
“Can we not do this?” Dean says. “Water under the bridge.” He’s aware his shoulders are tense, his jaw locking, and that it’s blindingly obvious to Sam how uncomfortable he is. He can’t play it cool with Sam, no point trying. Sam knows all his tells, and nearly all his secrets.
Except the one. He’s pretty sure Sam never suspected that, or he wouldn’t be here.
“So Cas is back?” Sam says, mercifully dropping the issue of just how much he’s to blame for everything.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “I think so, anyway. He appeared right after you, uh.”
He has to stop and swallow, hard. Sam blessedly keeps quiet, but starts to lift a hand towards him. It’s Dean’s turn to flinch, hardly perceptible, but Sam pulls back again immediately.
“You and Adam went down. The ground closed in again. I got the rings and it was…”
Too quiet. Too sunny. A lovely mild day for the apocalypse. Lucifer hadn’t won, but Dean’s world still ended.
“It was over. I was in pretty bad shape - ” Sam grimaces at that, “- and I think I passed out for a bit, but then Cas was there. He fixed me up. Fixed Bobby too. Then he said he had work to do, and just vanished. I haven’t seen him since.”
Sam slumps onto his elbows, tension draining out of him. “Bobby. Thank god. I couldn’t - Dean, I - ”
Dean cuts him off. This isn’t going to help either of them. “He’s fine. I don’t… I haven’t talked to him since either.”
Sam frowns. “You…but - ”
“Lisa,” Dean says, and Sam falls silent.
“I went to her, like you said,” Dean says, poking at salt grains spilled on the tabletop, “and she took me in. Didn’t ask many questions, and let it go when I didn’t answer the ones she did ask. She fed me, gave me a place to sleep, did my laundry.
We’re not… Fuck, Sammy, I was a mess. The first couple months, I was drunk out of my skull half the time. I woke up nights screaming. I got a job in construction and got fired the first week. I kept zoning out, thirty feet up on scaffolding, holding power tools; I was a risk to me and everybody around me.
She put up with my shit for longer than anybody should have had to, and then she laid down the law. Said she knew I was hurting, and she’d cut me a lot of slack because… well, because.” Because you saved the world, she’d said, and he’d closed his eyes and swallowed against the razor blades tearing his throat, because she had it wrong, that wasn’t him, that was Sam, and he bet that wherever Sam was, nobody was cutting him any slack. “But she told me she had Ben to think of, and that either I could shape up or ship out. And you…”
He wipes his hand over his face. “I promised you. I had to make it work. I didn’t… at first I hadn’t called Bobby because I was such a fucking mess. After that, I didn’t call because I couldn’t - I couldn’t think about any of it without losing my shit again. You. Hunting. Our world. Our life.”
Fuck, he sounds like a crappy daytime soap opera.
He manages a weak smile “So, I shaped up. I’ve been staying sober,” during the day, at least, “and I landed a part-time job. I do shit around the house. Play ball with Ben. Even went to yoga a couple of times. Lisa told me to quit, though.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I was too distracting for her ladies.”
Sam snorts. Dean licks the pad of his finger and mops up the last crumbs of pie crust, not looking at Sam.
“I’m glad,” Sam says finally. “I wanted this for you. I didn’t know for sure you could do it, though.”
Dean laughs bitterly. Sam didn’t believe in him; it shouldn’t be such a shock.
Sam is already shaking his head though. “No! Dean, I - no. I mean. You’re a hunter. The best. I didn’t know if you’d be able to walk away from that.”
They sit in silence for a minute. Dean breaks it.
“I’ve seen them. The ones who don’t know when they’re a liability.”
Sam frowns.
“Dad came close, but he never lost it the way I did,” Dean says. “Maybe because he had us to think of, I don’t know. But you’ve seen ‘em too. The ones so out of it with grief or revenge that they don’t know when to back down, don’t care if they get themselves killed - and if you’re lucky, they do get themselves killed before they get you and a dozen civilians killed too. There were days I tried my best to convince myself that the hunt would be for the right reasons. That I could head on out, kill something evil, be home for dinner. But I knew I was lying.”
He stares at Sam’s hands. “It was cheating. I’d promised you I wasn’t going to off myself, and so, yeah. I walked away.”
Sam doesn’t say anything. Dean finally looks straight at him. Sam’s looking back, jaw clenched and eyes hot. He nods finally.
“Anyway, it wasn’t the same without you,” Dean says, aiming for lightness and missing by a country mile.
It’s Sam’s turn to look away.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he says. “I just wanted to see you were okay.”
Dean’s stomach turns to ice, cherry pie and all.
“Shouldn’t have… fuck that, Sammy!” he hisses, sitting bolt upright. “You fall into Hell with fucking Lucifer, you get out, and you think you shouldn’t come put me out of my fucking misery?!”
Anger is back, dancing down his nerves quick and bright as lightning. “What, you think you’d just check up on me and leave? Again?”
Sam’s eyes are wide and earnest. “Dean. You’re - you’ve got what you deserve, what you always wanted. A real life. No monsters, no demons, no… cosmically screwed-up little brother to look out for. I didn’t want - I should have been strong enough to leave you alone.”
Dean wants to scream. He wants to pound the table. He wants to throw the napkin dispenser through the mirror behind the diner counter and open his veins with the shards. It would make as much sense, and might hurt less.
“You don’t get it, do you?” The words are bitten off between clenched teeth, because if he lets this out full-throttle, someone will get caught in the crossfire. “Nothing was the same without you.”
He stares Sam down as steadily as if there’s a gun barrel between them. “I tried. I did what you asked, and I’m still alive to talk about it. Or, you know, not talk about it. And you’re not leaving without me.”
Sam glares back. “You’re gonna just walk out on Lisa? After all she’s done for you?”
“Dude,” Dean says, “you grew up with me. You’ve shared bathrooms with me. You seriously wishing a lifetime of that on a girl as nice as Lisa?”
It’s a cheap joke and it falls flat, but the fact is, there was only ever one way this was going to go.
The light in the kitchen is on. He’d have preferred to have this conversation in the morning, but there’s no way around it apart from staying out all night and that’s not going to improve matters.
Lisa’s sitting at the table, hands cupped around a mug of herbal tea.
She looks up, a faint worried crease in her forehead, and then looks more closely. Her eyes narrow, then widen. She takes a sip of her drink and Dean can see her hand trembling, ever so slightly.
“You’re going,” she says. “Back out there. Aren’t you?”
Dean blinks. “Uh.” He hadn’t expected that.
“I’ll make it easy for you,” she says, trying to keep her voice light and warm. If you didn’t know her, it’d be so easy to miss the resignation underneath. “You’ve been - it’s been great having you around.”
Dean snorts, because, really? And then he wants to kick himself, because she shouldn’t have to be saying these things at all.
“I always knew you were married to the job.” She smiles ruefully. “This time around, I thought, maybe… You were so determined to walk away from it. Like, this time you’d make it stick. Something was different.”
She reaches out and lays her hand over his. He turns his palm up, gripping her fingers lightly.
“But half the time it was like you were sleep-walking. Part of you was dead inside. I thought, with time… it’d never be fixed, exactly, but I thought it could be better. We could be better.”
Dean swallows against a lump in his throat, and starts trying to apologize, because he tried, he really did, he knows Lisa and Ben deserve so much more - but she shushes him.
“Tonight… the minute you walked in, I could tell. You look different. It’s… it’s as if part of you’s come back to life.”
Dean thinks about souls bought and sold, a shared heaven, and thinks that’s maybe more literally true than she knows. But he can’t say that, so he grips her hand tighter, leans forward, tries to put everything he should say into his eyes.
She stands and comes round beside him, kissing the top of his head. He leans into her side, hugs her hard around the waist, and lets her go for the last time.
It’s easier than he would have thought, falling back into hunting with Sam. They start with easy stuff: a woman in white here, a poltergeist there, a chupacabra down south.
Last year, that was necessary, to build up them, their relationship. This year, it’s because Sam is solicitous of Dean, who’s maybe - maybe - a bit rusty after a year in suburbia.
Dean isn’t, of course, but he doesn’t mind Sam worrying about him for a change, and it’s nice to have straightforward jobs like this again. They’d spent so long - years, if you believe what a bunch of lying hellspawn and spoiled-brat angels say - being jerked around by the forces of Heaven and Hell, it feels liberating to set their own itinerary.
He doesn’t spend any time worrying whether Sam wants this life. Sam came to find him. Sam’s hunting along side of him. Sam’s laughing at Dean’s jokes and pulling faces at Dean’s food choices and snoring way too loud every night in a bed not three feet from Dean’s own.
It’s kind of perfect.
They give Bobby a call. Sam suggested they swing by, but Dean’s not up to watching Sam wallow in guilt right now over killing the man, however temporarily.
Bobby suggests they stop by. He admits, when Dean calls him on it, that he’d kinda like to run some tests on Sam himself. Dean declines on Sam’s behalf. Sam’s fine.
“I think we need some time on our own. You know?”
Bobby’s “uh-huh” is dubious, and the silence that follows feels like it contains some awkward questions, so Dean hastily reassures Bobby they’ll call him in a few weeks and hangs up.
They go out for a beer most evenings. Dean never has more than a couple. He gets phone numbers and not-so-subtle invitations from waitresses at least twice as often as Sam, and is duly smug about this.
Sam occasionally raises an eyebrow when Dean turns down yet another offer, but Dean just shrugs. He’s got what he wants. It’s maybe a little early to call it happiness, but Dean is perfectly content.
He should have known it was too good to last.
They’re in a tackle shop when Castiel comes to them. He blinks around at the hipwaders and brightly colored lures.
“I did not expect to find you here,” he says.
“Eh, Sammy just wanted to go fishing,” Dean says.
Sam shoots him an exasperated look. “We need some nylon line. For tripwires. What do you need, Cas?”
His tone isn’t overly welcoming. Dean wouldn’t have been so abrupt, himself, but he doesn’t call Sam on it.
“I am sorry I have not been in contact,” Castiel says. “I have been… occupied.” He hesitates. “It is… good to see you, Sam Winchester.”
Sam merely nods.
“You must have known he was out,” Dean says. “Or is the angel radio on the fritz these days?”
“Communication has been…” - that pause again, the one in which he chooses the word that will most closely wrap around an angelic concept that does not translate. “Disturbed. God is still nowhere in evidence, and with Michael gone, the army of Heaven is in disarray.”
He looks at Sam. “I had heard that you walked among us again, and that Michael’s vessel does not. Some are wondering how you managed this. You will not like their conclusions.”
“I bet,” Dean says grimly. “How’d you find us, anyway?”
“Sam.”
Dean looks at Sam. Sam blinks.
“I didn’t - oh.” He looks down at his chest, as if he could see through the layers of cloth, skin and muscle, to the cage of bones below. “The symbols. They’re gone, aren’t they?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. But it is not only that. You are... very visible.”
Dean squints. “I get the feeling you’re not talking about the fact he’s an overgrown freak of nature.”
“Your aura is changed. It reverberates for miles,” Castiel says to Sam. “I could sense you from the next state. Others will be able to do the same.”
“So you’re saying, Sam’s a homing beacon for angels?” Dean says angrily. “Well, that’s just great. Oh, and thanks for letting us know, ‘cause it’s not like it might be a problem.”
“Not just angels.” Castiel draws a finger through the dust on the shelf he stands next to. “Demons will sense this too. Have you had trouble with them lately?”
“No,” Dean says, when Sam remains silent and dark.
“Sam?” Castiel says, as if maybe Sam knows something Dean doesn’t.
Sam glares at him. “What he said.”
Castiel waits.
“Dude,” Dean says. “You heard us. Guess we’ve been lucky so far. Now, how about you mojo up Sam again?”
“No.”
“What?” Dean says incredulously. “Why not?”
“I don’t think I can,” Castiel says, squinting at Sam, who shifts awkwardly under the scrutiny. “They are a ward. Sam already has something there.”
“I - what?” Sam says.
“You are warded,” Castiel repeats. “I don’t see sigils, and whatever the purpose, it is certainly not concealment, but there is a… barrier I cannot breach. I would guess it has something to do with the change in your aura.”
Sam looks unhappy. “I don’t feel anything. It’s nothing like…”
He trails off, face falling.
Dean remembers the panic room and Sam, his brother, a stranger, chained to the cot. Sam, who couldn’t be trusted, handcuffed to a hotel sink. Sam grimacing, teeth white against blood-stained lips, as he exorcised demons without a word.
“It is nothing like before,” Dean says fiercely, and slings an arm round Sam’s shoulders. “This is Sam, Cas. You hear? The real deal. Whatever’s going on, we’ll sort it out.”
He glares at the angel. “The car’s outside. Go wait there.”
“Dean,” Sam says carefully as the bell over the door signals Castiel’s exit. “You shouldn’t…”
“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean says. “How much line do you figure we need?”
They pay for the fishing line and Dean manages to sneak in a package of fake worms as well. He figures they’ll be good for a prank at some point.
Outside, Dean hoists himself up on the hood of the Impala. Sam leans back against the door, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Dean looks, and looks away, and finds Castiel looking at him.
“So,” he says hurriedly, “what’s so important you decided to drop in for a chat?”
“You remember Claire,” Castiel says. “This vessel’s daughter. Jimmy Novak’s daughter.”
“Of course I do,” Dean says. “She saved your bacon.”
Castiel furrows his eyebrows slightly but to Dean’s immense relief, does not ask what salted cured pork product has to do with anything.
“The angels have her,” he says.
“Like a hostage?” Dean says. “Or like…” he trails off. Castiel is shaking his head.
“I should have said, an angel has her. Her vessel is occupied.”
“By whom?” Sam says.
“Michael’s right-hand man.”
“How come nobody ever has a left hand man?” Dean says.
“Because at His left hand you are cast down and abased among the goats,” Castiel says. Dean stares. Sam snickers.
“Let me guess,” says Dean, “it’s funnier in Enochian.”
Sam grins. “Probably, but it is actually in some religious texts.”
“Whatever,” Dean says. “So blondie’s back in the game, but on the wrong side?”
Castiel frowns. “I have trouble defining right and wrong in this situation.”
He looks uncomfortable. Sam peers at him. “You - Cas, you’re not suggesting Michael’s buddies are the good guys here?”
“I am back,” Castiel says. “I don’t know for certain what agency returned me after you destroyed my physical form, but I cannot imagine it being other than God. And yet, He has not shown Himself. Nor has He reined in those who acted with Michael.”
Sam frowns. “So you think… what, that God supports them?”
“Fuck that,” Dean says. “We already know he’s a total slacker. He checked out when Michael was trying to start Armageddon, you think he’s gonna pay attention to what they’re doing now?” He shakes his head. “It’s not part of some master plan. He just doesn’t give a shit.”
“There must be a plan,” Castiel says. “There is always a plan, a pattern. It is not always given to us to see it.”
“Yeah, well, cryptic bullshit aside,” Dean says, “you wouldn’t be showing up here after months of radio silence if you didn’t want us to do something.”
“Yes,” Castiel admits. He looks from Sam to Dean, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Jimmy Novak gave his body freely to me not once, but twice. The first time, he did not truly appreciate what was being asked of him. I did. I knew he would suffer, that his family would suffer, but I believed that it was for the greater good. He had prayed for such an opportunity; I was serving Heaven, doing the will of my superiors.
The second time, though, he knew the depth of his sacrifice. He knew that he would never be back, and that he would be destroyed.”
Castiel stares past Dean’s left ear. “He welcomed me in. He sacrificed himself so his daughter would be spared, just as your father did for you. That must not be in vain.”
Next to him, Sam lets out a long, slow breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Sam’s hand twitch, then settle. Dean himself is distracted by a startling need to punch Castiel in the mouth.
“You’re asking us to get her back,” Sam says.
Castiel’s stillness is palpable.
“Not exactly,” he says, and Dean thinks, he’s being careful, and he is surprised to realize that Castiel is uncertain. Nervous, even.
“I’m asking Dean,” Castiel says. “We are - I think we are friends, Sam, but I am not sure what you are now. I don’t think it is wise for you to interfere in the business of angels.”
“But you think it’s fine for Dean to interfere?” Sam spits, angry disbelief twisting his features. “You don’t think he’s been fucked around enough by your fucking brothers?”
“I think Dean will be able to accomplish this task with minimal risk,” Castiel says.
“What if I don’t feel like risking him?” Sam says belligerently.
“What if it’s none of your business?” Dean points out. “C’mon, Sam. We know this girl. And even if we didn’t, nobody deserves to have their body hijacked by one of those dicks.” He glances at Castiel. “No offense.”
“She must have agreed to it,” Sam points out.
“No shit,” Dean says. “I nearly agreed to it. They can be pretty fucking persuasive.” Christ, Sam can’t seriously be refusing? “We’re doing this, Sammy. Or rather, I’m doing this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Sam says.
“No, you’re not,” Dean says. “You heard the man, apparently you’re lit up like a Christmas tree. Plus the angels are pissed that you’re out and Michael’s not, I bet they’ll be gunning for you the moment you come within smiting range.”
“Well, I’m not staying here,” Sam says, setting his jaw. “I can’t be warded, fine. I’ll ward the motel room till I can figure out something better.”
“What motel room?” Dean says.
“The one in whatever city Claire’s in.” Sam gives him a ‘duh’ look. “Cas, we’ll need directions.”
“I still do not think you should come.”
“I don’t really care what you think,” Sam says coolly. “What’s the plan once we get there?”
Castiel pulls something out of one of his many pockets.
“This will bind her.” He hands over a small, flat metal disk, dull with the patina of age and etched with symbols Dean probably ought to recognize but he’s let his Enochian lapse over the past months. “You need to press this to her forehead. It will contain the angelic power, although not completely. I suggest you use holy oil to trap her, so you can get close enough. A narrow circle would be best.”
Dean spins the token between his fingers. “Nice little toy. Where’d you get it?”
“I stole it.”
Dean blinks. “Good for you.”
“So we trap her, and bind her,” Sam says. “Then what? How do we get the angel out of her?”
“I don't know.”
“You don’t know?” Dean blinks. “What, and you think we do?”
“No,” Castiel says, “but there will be a way. If all else fails, we bargain with Suriel.”
“The angel?”
“Yes,” Castiel says.
“What exactly are you going to bargain with?” Sam asks.
Castiel shrugs. “That will be easier to decide when we know what he wants.”
“You call this a plan?” Dean says, but he pockets the token and slides off the Impala’s hood. “Give Sammy the directions.”
Dean’s jittery as they approach the town’s borders. He swears the Impala can tell; her engine purrs reassuringly at him.
He pulls into the parking lot of the first motel he sees, and taps his fingers impatiently while the clerk fills in paperwork.
“We’re in eight. Go ward it, I’ll get the bags.”
When he closes the trunk, Castiel is standing beside him.
“Anyone ever drop dead of a heart attack from you doin’ that?” Dean says.
“I wanted to be sure you made it here.”
Dean rolls his eyes. When has he ever been lost?
Well, except that time. And… but that wasn’t lost.
“This is important to me. I made a promise.”
“Don’t worry, Cas.” Dean slings the duffel over his shoulder. “I’ll get her for you.”
“I have broken enough promises.” There is rare emotion in Castiel’s voice.
Dean nods and looks away. “I’ve broken promises too.”
He senses the movement as Castiel checks himself and turns towards Dean. He doesn’t look at Castiel. At the angel.
“You made me promise something,” he says quietly. “I swore to serve God and his angels. All his angels. How am I supposed to keep a promise like that, huh? Your side is fucking schizo.”
There is no answer. He looks over. Castiel is gone.
The motel door bangs.
“Throw that stuff in the room and let’s go eat,” Sam says, “I’m starving.”
“You’re not going anywhere, bitch. Highly visible, remember?” Dean chucks the duffel at him. “Stay in the room. I’ll get take-out.”
Sam’s got the laptop, papers and books spread all over the table by the time Dean gets back so they sit on one of the beds to eat.
“We made good time,” Dean says. “I thought I’d head out after supper, do a little reconnoitering.”
“No,” Sam says, around a mouthful of veggie burger. “It’s bad enough we came to her town without having a plan. We’re not going to walk right up to Michael’s deputy and announce ourselves until we know what to do with her when we’ve got her.”
“You’re not walking up to her at all,” Dean reminds him. “C’mon, Sammy. She’s a little girl.”
“Lilith was a little girl,” Sam points out.
“Yeah, and we snuck up on her,” Dean says.
“And that worked so well,” Sam says. “No.”
Dean finishes his chicken wing and licks his fingers noisily. “Look, we know she’s here, now. We got no idea what she’s up to or how long she’ll be here. All I’m saying is, it’s more efficient if I go pick her up now, while you get your geek on.” He grins at Sam. “You’ll have it all figured out by the time I get back.”
“I don’t like it, Dean.” Even Sam’s sideburns look mutinous. “I know what Cas said, but you know it’s not true, right? I think I should come with you.”
Dean sighs. “You know I’ve just been humoring you? A lifetime of hunting doesn’t vanish after a few months. I know what I’m doing.”
“Of course,” Sam reassures him, but his eyebrows betray his worry. Dean knows all of Sam’s tells, too.
Dean sighs and puts down his drink.
“Sam. I’ll be fine. I’ll be careful. Since we started up hunting again, you and me… For the first time in months, I got something I wanna live for. For me, not just because I made you a promise. I’m not gonna fuck that up, okay?” Christ, he can hardly believe he just said that. Sam is staring at him open-mouthed. He stands abruptly, backs away from the bed. “I gotta piss.”
Fuck, he does not do chick-flick moments well.
He sneaks a glance back as he swings open the washroom door. Sam’s watching him with - affection, compassion - a warm, goofy smile, and Dean’s heart turns over. He ducks into the bathroom before he can embarrass himself further; he almost let too much slip as it is.
It doesn’t mean Sam gives up, though. When Dean finally emerges from the bathroom, there’s a handful of quarters sitting on his bed.
“At least give me twenty-four hours, okay? Cas said she’s newly arrived in this town. Whatever she’s planning, it’s got to take a little while.”
He follows this up with the puppy dog eyes. And he’d done his research on the motel front. Dean isn’t capitulating, not by a long shot, but Magic Fingers? A quality evening with those isn’t to be passed up. Plus, hopefully in the morning, Sam’ll be a little less uptight about this whole gig.
“Hey, Sammy,” he says, and shit, is that his voice? He’s practically purring. He coughs and tones it down. “You’re too tense, man. You gotta give this a try.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Sam says drily, “but no thanks. I think it’d make it pretty hard to concentrate on translating Aramaic.”
The quarter runs out. Dean rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow. “You found something?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says, frustrated. “I won’t know until I’ve got it translated. There isn’t a lot of lore on this. It’s not like - hunters have been hunting evil things for centuries, there’s all sorts of stuff written about that. But angels? They’re supposed to be the good guys. People haven’t worried about angels, or how to get rid of them.”
“There’s gotta be a way,” Dean says. “Some sort of angelic exorcism. Couldn’t you, I dunno, change a few words or something?”
“No,” Sam says, in a tone of voice that implies Dean’s a complete moron for suggesting it; Dean lets it go only because he knows how supremely frustrated Sam gets when research fails him. “They’re completely different scenarios, Dean. Demons occupy a host without permission. It’s just a matter of finding the right words and rituals to kick them out. Angels… I don’t even know where to begin.”
“What about Anna?” Dean says. “She lost her groove.”
Sam’s brow furrows are deep enough to lose small change in. “That wasn’t the same thing at all. She fell. Her grace got lost along the way.”
“I’m just sayin’,” Dean says. “Since you don’t know where to begin.”
“It won’t work,” Sam says, but he’s already typing away again, then reaching around the screen to flip through the largest of the books, so Dean counts it a win and pops in another quarter.
Dean thought Sam might get suspicious when he volunteers to go do their laundry the next morning, but they’re both out of clean underwear and it’s not like Dean’s been making great contributions to research. Sam doesn’t even look up as Dean heads out, just nods and says, “Don’t forget the fabric softener.”
He chucks the laundry bags in the trunk, drives around the corner, pulls over and calls Cas.
Moments later, Cas appears in the road next to him and narrowly misses getting side-swiped by a station wagon.
“Dude,” Dean says, getting out of the car, “watch it.”
“I was expecting the back seat,” Castiel says, stepping onto the sidewalk. “I didn’t know you had protected it.”
“Come again?”
“I cannot materialize in the car. The Enochian symbols make it impossible.”
“Sam messed with the car?” Dean says incredulously. “Fuck, I told him not to douche her up.” He squints at the Impala’s paint job, but nothing looks different.
“It is probably a good idea,” Castiel says, “although I am glad you were not on the freeway when I discovered this.” He looks from the Impala to the sandwich shop she’s parked in front of. “What do you want?”
“Sam’s back at the motel, researching ways to get your pal out of blondie,” Dean says. “I’m gonna go pick her up. You wanna come with?”
Castiel looks shifty. “It is better that I do not.”
Dean folds his arms and stares at the angel. “Uh huh. What haven’t you told us?”
“I did tell you,” Castiel says. “Technically, Suriel and I are on the same side. His occupation of Claire is not something I should publicly oppose. This quest is a… personal one; it does not have the sanction of Heaven.”
“Right.” Dean draws out the word. “So you need me to do your dirty work for you.”
“Yes,” Castiel admits.
“Fair enough,” Dean says. “But you’re telling me where she lives, or all bets are off. This town’s not tiny and I got no idea where to start looking.”
“I can do better than that,” Castiel says. Dean sees it coming, but before he can do more than open his mouth to protest, Castiel’s hand is clamped around his upper arm and they are materializing in the middle of a warehouse.
“Goddamnit, my car,” Dean says, head spinning, but the hand on his arm is gone and its owner with it.
“Well, that’s just great,” he mutters, and takes stock of his surroundings. It’s not the usual dank, decrepit type of warehouse that’s seen better days; this one’s new and looks more like a Staples storage building. Maybe Suriel’s got some grand plan that involves surplus office furniture.
He pats his left jacket pocket, reassuring himself the vial of holy oil is still there and intact, before heading down the nearest aisle. Castiel’s token is in the right hand pocket; the Beretta’s in easy reach in the back of his jeans, in case of surprises.
Finding Claire among the metal shelving and ceiling-high stacks of boxes turns out to be surprisingly easy - she finds him. It’s disconcerting to see a girl less than half his age throw a large flat-pack bookshelf at him, although he dodges fine.
“Why are you here, Dean Winchester?” She cocks her head and regards him intently. The stance is startlingly familiar; Dean wonders if it’s the angel or the Novak in her showing.
“I’m just here to talk,” he says, moving forward slowly, hands open and visible in front of him.
“You are done meddling in the business of angels,” she says. “You have shown your true colors. We need you no longer.”
“Maybe not,” Dean says, “But much as I’d love to be done with the whole godforsaken bunch of you, you have something I want.”
He slides his left hand into his pocket, gestures with his right, trying to look casual.
“What, have you lost your brother again?” she says, curling Claire’s lip in a sneer. “You two. Unbelievable.”
Dean grips the vial, turning it slowly.
“Zachariah used to go on and on about you Winchesters,” she continues. “‘Psychotically co-dependent.’ Get him drunk and he’d start saying a lot more interesting things… No, if Sam’s gone off without you again, it’s not our fault. Look all you want, I don’t have him.”
She shudders, delicate shoulders shifting under her top. He flicks his eyes briefly to the wall behind her, but no wing shadows show in the cold fluorescent light.
“Maybe he’s finally picked up on how you really feel about him.”
Dean’s laugh is short and dismissive. “Whatever, blondie. Sam and I, we’re cool. I trust him.”
“Really?” She raises her eyebrows. “No worries about what he got up to with Lucifer? No niggling doubts, that maybe the Sam you’ve got isn’t the one that went away? Nothing strikes you as a little - off - about him? You’ve had your time in Hell, Dean, you know how it works.”
Dean takes a step towards her. “He’s fine. But thanks for asking.”
“Not having nightmares?” She takes a step of her own, eyes glinting, mouth narrowing into a cold, malicious smile. “But how would you know?”
Her voice drops. “Do you sleep in the same bed with him? Do you know what he does, in the dark?”
Dean’s eyes widen.
“But you’d like to. Wouldn’t you?”
He has to remind the part of himself that feels slightly sick and wildly inappropriate that he is not in fact talking to a barely pubescent girl.
“I wasn’t talking about his time in the Pit.” She presses the tip of her index finger against her pursed lips, then points it at Dean. “Maybe Sam’s figured out what his brother wants to do to him. Why Lisa was never enough.”
“Shut up,” Dean says hoarsely, stumbling backwards. He thumbs the cork out of the vial.
“You were so ready to walk right back out the door. Right into his arms.”
He whips his hand out of his pocket. His arm swings around in a wide arc, oil flying from the neck of the vial, drawing a circle around her.
Her piercing shriek echoes off concrete and metal. She raises her hands in front of her, palms together, and throws her arms to each side, shoulder height. The oil immediately in front of her glistens dully but halts its flow, soaking into the concrete and failing to join: the circle is incomplete.
A man with a dark suit and blank expression - angelic goon if Dean’s ever seen one - appears at the end of the aisle behind her. There’s a rustle behind him too.
She moves, faster than he can follow, through the tiny gap in the circle. Her hand is on his collar, pulling him down to her level.
“Maybe Sam will come for you,” she whispers at his ear. “Maybe he’s as fucked-up as you. But I wouldn’t bet on it. We have no use for you any more, Dean Winchester. And neither does he.”
Dean fumbles in his pocket for the talisman.
He gets it free but as he brings his hand up, Claire’s slender fingers close around his wrist like a steel band.
She looks down at it, then up at him, eyes impossibly wide and furious. And she’s gone.
The goons rush him.
Dean feints left, dodges an office chair, and shoots the angel in front of him squarely in the heart. It has little more effect than it ever did on Cas, but it’s a distraction, and he’s able to duck under its arm and race down the aisle.
There’s an almighty crash and the end of the aisle is suddenly blocked by a forklift on its side. Dean swears, looks round, and another boxed bookshelf strikes his left shoulder, throwing him back against the machine. His head clangs painfully against the metal and his ears ring.
One of the angels is standing directly in front of him. Over its shoulder he can see the other one approaching, idly twirling one of their apparently mass-produced heavenly steak knives.
The angel in front of him looks bored as it smashes its fist into his jaw. Dean’s head strikes the metal again. There is blood in his mouth and his vision blurs.
It reaches out with its other hand and Dean has little doubt it can crush his throat without breaking a sweat.
He shoots it in the crotch.
It shouldn’t have worked, he thinks, as he watches the angel flinch and stagger backwards, but they are in human vessels and certain of the body’s instincts are very powerful.
Like survival.
He lunges forward, ignoring the double vision and splitting headache, and shoves the angel hard, sending it back against its partner - who had brought up its knife in a defensive stance.
The knife pierces its throat. Light begins to burst from its face as it and its partner tumble to the floor. Dean averts his eyes and runs for the door, just managing not to slip on the patch of oil.
The second angel has lost precious seconds untangling itself from its dead colleague, but Dean can hear it coming.
He crashes through the door and scans the area desperately, somewhere he can hide, somewhere he can run, and shit, he doesn’t even know where he is, the Impala’s probably clear across town. He’ll never make it. Fucking Cas, better be fucking sorry, and shit, the last thing he ever said to Sam involved dirty laundry.
There’s a screech to his left and there she is, his baby, rounding the corner and racing towards him. She slows, and Sam’s reaching across with his freakishly long arms and shoving open the passenger door, god, he’s so happy to see them both he could cry.
He lunges in, his feet are still outside somewhere but there’s an angel leaving footprints in the asphalt as it runs towards them. Sam floors it; the Impala squeals away with Dean hanging on to the seat, scrambling to pull the door shut.
“Didn’t go so well, then,” Sam says, but there’s no mockery in his tone, only honest concern.
Dean shakes his head. The motion jars something inside and he winces. He’s already feeling nauseated and Sam’s driving isn’t helping.
“She’s got bodyguards,” he says hoarsely. “I got one. You saw the other.” He wipes at his face, “She took off and left them to it. I’d be confetti by now if you weren’t here.”
“Huh,” Sam says, frowning, and takes the next corner on two wheels. Dean moans and hangs onto the door handle, gritting his teeth.
Part Two