Fic: A Strange Ruin 2/2
Sam Winchester does not want to be found.
This is not a barrier to Castiel. The unique signature of his soul is easy to locate, its fierce brightness not dimmed but stained by the taint of demon blood. It mars an otherwise beautiful soul, tendrils of what could best be described in wavelengths visible to human eyes as an illuminated black-purple swirling angrily, sickly, among the diamond brilliance surrounding it.
But Sam’s companion is another story.
He almost brings Dean to them immediately. It might, he thinks, do the Righteous Man some good to be able to kill again, and it would do his brother a service, to be out of the thrall of the creature he has burdened himself with.
His superiors suddenly and firmly forbid it, and Castiel does not think of it again.
Instead he leaves Dean sleeping in an abandoned cabin he found and appears to Sam Winchester and the demon Ruby.
They are residing in a hovel of a motel, dingy green wallpaper fading and cracking off of the walls, water faucets dripping mineral-laden water into filthy receptacles. Sam Winchester’s lips are closed over Ruby’s arm, his eyes rolled back in an addict’s bliss. Ruby watches him, her hand in his hair, calculation in her eyes.
She looks up when she hears him enter, and jerks her arm away.
She shouts out and stands in front of Sam-a selfless gesture, Castiel thinks in some surprise. Perhaps she simply knows of Sam’s importance, and is willing to risk her life rather than have to report her failure to keep Lucifer’s vessel alive to her superiors.
Castiel is not allowed to kill her, though. He walks up to her and taps her on the temple, sending her several miles outside of town.
Sam has a gun raised at him when Ruby vanishes, and Castiel tilts his head.
Without preamble, he says. “Sam Winchester. I have news of your brother.”
Sam Winchester has several tells, it appears, when he is upset. The muscles in his cheek twitch, his brow furrows very slightly, and his fingers flex and tighten around his weapon. He shakes his head.
“My brother is dead,” he says.
“Was,” Castiel corrects him. “He is alive once more, and I require your assistance.”
Sam’s head continues to shake, and Castiel wonders whether he is denying assistance or denying that Dean is, in fact, alive.
“Who the hell are you?” Sam demands.
Castiel straightens, but still has to look up to meet Sam’s eye. It is a bizarre feeling, to be smaller. The sensation does not speak to his true form, of course, but it is still unsettling.
“I am Castiel,” he says. “I am an angel of the Lord.”
--
Sam’s reaction should not, in retrospect, have been surprising.
The hunter attacks him, and he is hesitant to defend himself too vigorously. Harming Sam Winchester will not endear him to Dean, however his mind has been twisted by Hell.
Castiel knows this: if any portion of Dean Winchester remains intact within his mind, it will be his loyalty to his brother.
So he does not hurt Sam.
He endures the shooting, the stabbing, the arm under his chin as he is pressed against the wall. He endures the interrogation, responds calmly to questions shouted at him as spittle flies against his vessel’s skin. He endures the disrespectful treatment of blessed holy water as it trickles down his neck.
It is when Sam picks up his cell phone to call the demon Ruby that Castiel decides that it is enough.
He flies in front of Sam and takes the cell phone. He crushes it in his hand.
“I advise against calling your demon,” he says quietly.
Sam looks appropriately cautious for the first time.
"Your brother will wake soon, and I do not want him to wake alone."
Sam's expression becomes strange, outside of Castiel's admittedly small repertoire of known human emotion. Dean has shown pain, anger, fear, exhaustion, bloodlust, glee, and resignation. These he would recognize on the face of his charge's brother, but Sam is displaying something else.
Perhaps it is sadness. There are tears in his eyes. But his mouth is curving, stuttering into a smile, indicating happiness. His chin trembles, lending credence to sadness or fear, but he is not touching any of his weapons, which leads Castiel to believe that Sam is not afraid. His brows pull together, but they tilt upward. Surprise? Confusion?
Sam may be a better case study in expressions of human emotion than Dean.
"He's really alive?" Sam asks. His voice is soft and hesitant.
"I have told you so," Castiel replies. It is an irritating human habit, this circuitous conversation.
"How?"
"I raised him from the Pit. I restored his body and him to it."
Castiel is stating only fact. Sam's face transforms into something much more within an angel's experience: awe.
“Thank you,” Sam says. “Thank you. Oh my god-um. I mean, just-thank you so much, I don’t-”
“You’re welcome,” Castiel interrupts. “I did not come here for gratitude. I came to retrieve you for your brother.”
“He’s all right?” Sam asks.
Castiel frowns.
“No. He is not all right. That is why I have come for you. He is...disturbed. I hope that seeing you will restore him.”
“Disturbed?” Sam echoes, and Castiel watches as fear wraps around him, dimming the joy he’d felt only moments before.
“He has been in Hell,” Castiel reminds him.
“I know,” Sam says. “For months.”
Castiel knows that Sam Winchester tried to rescue his brother. He was battling his way through the Pit for most of that duration, but since his return he was privy to the knowledge of his brethren in regards to Lucifer’s vessel. He knows that Sam tried to make deals, that he tried to find spells, that he tried everything. It is not, then, for the purpose of hurting him, but for the purpose of providing him necessary information, that Castiel corrects him.
“Months here,” he says. “Decades in Hell.”
Sam’s face pales, and Castiel feels something oddly akin to guilt.
--
The cabin is quiet when Castiel arrives with Sam.
It is also on fire.
“Dean!” Sam cries, wrenching his arm away from Castiel. In the interest of not breaking Sam’s arm Castiel allows it, but grips him anew.
“Dean is unharmed,” Castiel says. “This is his own doing. He is likely to hurt you if you approach him wrong now. I will retrieve him; he will find it more difficult to harm me.”
“What do you mean, this is his doing?” Sam shouts, but Castiel ignores him as he walks toward the cabin. He is gratified when Sam at least obeys him and stays behind.
Vessel of the original rebellious son he may be, but perhaps even Sam Winchester knows his limitations.
--
The wooden beams of the ceiling crack and shatter above him. The flames lick up around him, testing the fabric of his vessel’s coat, the tips of his fingers. It does not hurt him, but it annoys him. Dean Winchester should not have woken alone, lost and fearful. Not again. If his brother had been more cooperative, he would not have.
As it stands, Dean is huddled in a corner, the flames obediently surrounding him without touching him. His knees are against his chest and he is rocking back and forth. Once in a while he sticks his hand out and lets it be singed by the flames, pulling it back afterwards and staring at it.
He looks up at the sound of Castiel’s footsteps.
“Send in the next one,” he says, his jaw set, his brow furrowed.
Castiel quenches the flames.
“Your brother is here,” he says.
Dean stops rocking.
“Ssss,” he says with effort. “Ssssend.”
He frowns.
“He is outside.”
“Sssssend in-”
“Come with me, Dean. Come to see your brother. He is waiting for you.”
Dean shakes his head, still hissing, tears filling his eyes.
Castiel bites back an inappropriate display of frustration, and instead snaps his fingers.
Sam Winchester appears in the room.
He looks startled for a moment, nauseated for another, then finally he lifts his eyes and sees his brother.
“Dean,” he says, crashing to his knees. The charred floor cracks beneath him.
Dean looks up at Castiel.
“It is Sam,” Castiel assures him. “This is not a trick. You are saved, and this is Sam.”
“Tell me what you did,” Dean whispers.
“I brought you to your brother, and him to you. Here, on Earth.”
Dean looks at Sam, reaches out with tentative fingers. Sam grips his hand, too tightly at first and Dean hisses from the contact on the burns, then more gently.
“Sssssend. Send. Ssssend,” Dean says.
“What?” Sam asks. “Send what?”
“Wait,” Castiel says, and Sam looks up at him, then back at his brother.
“Sssssend,” Dean tries once more, then lurches forward and grabs his brother’s face between his hands.
He takes a deep breath, as though preparing for a mighty effort.
“Sssssam.”
A dam breaks in both of them, and the Winchesters embrace.
The angels are quiet in Castiel’s head as the Host watches the reunion. It is the first step on the road to Apocalypse, to the end of the world and to the ruin of these men.
Castiel watches quietly as they hold one another, proving to each other that they are real, and thinks that it is a strange kind of ruin that they bring, that feels so much like hope.