The Stolen Man - Part I
Dean seems different.
This occurs to Sam shortly after his brother has come back from Fairyland, or whatever it's called. Dean seems jumpy, fretful. He's constantly glancing around, like there's something behind him. Quite frankly, it's starting to annoy Sam.
"Dude," he finally says, halfway through a drive on the way to their next hunt. Dean's driving, naturally, but he's doing a shit job of it: they're going incredibly slow, barely breaking thirty, and even though the highway is practically deserted and there's no one behind them to be pissed off, there's absolutely no reason for that. "What the hell's gotten into you?"
Dean glances at him, face pale and drawn, before he looks back at the road. "There is nothing wrong. I am as I always was."
And that's another thing - his speech is all formal now, like he's taken a page out of Castiel's dictionary, or something. It's weird.
"If you're the same as ever, why are you driving like our grandmother?" He almost said grandfather, but that would be inaccurate. Samuel Campbell drove just fine.
"I'm not." Dean presses down on the gas tentatively, and they speed up about ten miles. Sam rolls his eyes and leans back, closing his eyes. Once again, he wonders why the hell he's still with his brother. Probably because Dean would get himself killed on his own, and he feels some sort of stupid responsibility for him.
He waits until they get to the motel room. While Dean is in the shower, he sets up his supplies. When Dean comes out, Sam is ready.
Dean lets out an honest to god, incredibly high-pitched squeak when the silver slices into him. But it's a human sound, not a shifter's. The holy water gets another yelp, though not a demonic one.
Sam steps back, frowning. "You're not possessed, and you're not a shifter. I suppose you could be a goblin… but their imitations are usually good. You're not acting much like Dean at all."
His brother wipes at his face, frowning. "I told you, I am Dean. It's really me, Sam. What else would I be?"
Sam shrugs, picking up a cloth and wiping his brother's apparently untainted blood from the silver knife. "I don't know. I'd say a changeling, but those are kids. You're not."
"I'm not," Dean agrees complacently. He walks over to the bed nearest to the door and lies down. "I think I should get some rest, Sam. Before we start the hunt."
"Are you sure you didn't service Oberon?" Going through a traumatic experience might explain the personality shift in Dean.
"No. I didn't." Dean turns over, not facing Sam. "Good night."
Sam rolls his eyes, not bothering to answer. Instead, he grabs sweats from his bag and, not bothering to go inside the bathroom, strips off his jeans and puts them on. It's clear outside, a good night for a run. A good way to get away from his brother, and whatever's messed him up in the head this week.
(In the back of his mind, something whispers to Sam that that's not entirely fair, that Dean has literally been through Hell, and he's weak, isn't he, with his soul? It's understandable why he's so screwed up. But Sam doesn't particularly feel bad about thinking about Dean like that, because he knows it's true, and shying away from the truth doesn't get you anywhere. Dean is pretty fucked-up, and this latest personality change just goes to prove that. It would be stupid to pretend that it was any other way.)
Sam lets it go because there really isn't any other alternative. Dean says he's fine. He's passed all of their traditional monster tests. What the hell else is Sam supposed to do, pack them up and drive all the way over to Bobby's to sit his brother down and get him to talk about his feelings? Call down Castiel and ask him to play therapist? Dean has gotten through every other thing life has thrown at him. No reason why whatever's happening now should be any different.
And he's gotten better at driving, so. Really, there's nothing for Sam to complain about, were he inclined to complaining.
They hunt a woman in white, and then a rogue vampire after that. It's on the third hunt, which is for what looks to be some sort of cult dedicated to an ancient rain god, that Dean gets sick.
It begins with Dean sniffling into a tissue at the diner that morning. Sam notices it absentmindedly, doesn't bother to be concerned. He's been healthy himself ever since he came back, like lacking a soul supercharged his immune system or something. He doesn't think that he'll catch whatever it is that Dean has. And as for Dean himself, well, he's survived this much, he can survive a bug. It's no big deal.
Things began to go downhill in earnest when they're interviewing Francine Warner, a middle-aged woman with poorly-dyed red hair who claimed to have witnessed robed people chanting in the field right next to her, shortly before the storms began.
It starts out normally: Dean interviews (albeit in a more hesitant, awkwardly-phrased way than ever before) and Sam sits next to him, keeping his face appropriately neutral and interjecting comments only when it seems necessary. Francine is a fluttery woman who seems quite charmed by Dean's questions. She giggles after almost every single one of her answers, and Sam doesn't take any pains to hide his rolling eyes.
Dean isn't flirting back, which is generally out-of-character for him, but Sam can excuse it, because he doesn't find Francine very attractive at all, and if even he wouldn't bother, then it's unlikely that Dean would. And anyway, maybe he's still missing Oberon.
He smirks a bit at the thought. Maybe that's what's behind Dean's personality shift: heartbreak over being worlds apart from his lover. He's so lost in thought over figuring out the logistics of that that he almost doesn't notice Dean's face going all pale.
As it is, Sam does see the exact moment that all the color drains from his brother's cheeks, which weren't looking so rosy that morning in the first place. Before Sam can comment (not that he knows what he's going to say) Dean stands up, bumping into the table they're at and causing the coffee Francine pushed on them to splash out over the sides of their mugs. "Do you have a restroom, ma'am?"
"Why, yes, I do. Right down the hall, first room on your left. Would you like me to show you where…" she trails off as Dean bolts in the direction that she's pointing in. A moment later the sound of loud retching can be heard from the bathroom.
"Poor man," she says sympathetically. All Sam can summon up is a bit of disgust and a hope that whatever this is, it passes quickly. "Is there something going around?"
Sam shrugs. "Hard to say."
Francine launches into some other area of speech, something to do with how when she was a girl she got the flu almost every winter and wasn't it an awful thing? Sam sips at his mediocre coffee and tunes her out to the best of his ability, waiting for Dean to reappear.
Which he does almost five minutes later, face still drained of color. He's broken out in a sweat, and his hair, usually vaguely spiky, is limp along his brow. Sam sighs as he stands up, letting Dean utter his apologies to Francine. It looks like this is one case that he's going to have to solve on his own. Which is probably a good thing, to be completely honest. Dean's been more and more of a burden lately, particularly since the fairy hunt. Sam is having trouble remembering why he hasn't just gone off on his own.
By the time that they get back to their motel room (which isn't long at all, since Sam took the keys and Dean didn't protest, just highlighting how sick he was) Dean's condition has gotten significantly worse. Sam isn't sure, but he doesn't think that the flu is supposed to go down this rapidly. Dean's gone from being stuffed up at around nine in the morning to being so shaky with chills that he can barely walk to his bed at two in the afternoon.
Sitting at the end of his bed, Sam frowns. Dean is huddled into a ball, shaking his head 'No' whenever Sam asks if he needs Advil or a blanket or a bowl of soup. His white shirt (he didn't bother taking his suit off completely, just threw the jacket onto the floor and kicked off the shiny black shoes) is completely soaked through, clinging to his back like a second skin.
"Do you need a doctor?" Sam asks.
Dean shakes his head again. His teeth are visibly chattering when he tries to answer. "I d-don't n-need anyth-thing… jus' got-ta get t' sleep…"
"I don't know if that's what you need right now." Despite what Dean might think about him, Sam's not cruel. He doesn't want his brother to die, really. It's illogical, because he's killed plenty of other people who were also brothers or sisters, or maybe mothers or fathers. All of them were someone's child. But Dean is… different, though he can't say why.
"Castiel," Sam decides, staring down at his brother's huddled form. "I'll call Cas."
"I don't n-need C-Cas…" Dean is shaking so strongly that he can barely get out the angel's nickname. That cements Sam's will.
He goes outside, although he could probably have prayed just as easily inside the salmon-colored walls of the motel room. Looking up at the cloudless sky he calls out, "Castiel? Got a situation down here."
Sam waits. A cold wind ripples through the air, and a lone crow caws in the distance. Late November on the outskirts of Illinois is a bleak time.
"Cas, Dean is sick. Dean needs you."
A quiet breeze, and then Castiel is standing in front of him, looking harried. At one time, Sam probably would have been offended by his refusal to come at his prayers, but now he doesn't care. He's a soulless abomination in Castiel's eyes. He can accept that.
"Where is Dean?" the angel asks without preamble. His eyes automatically go to their room, though, like he already knows the answer.
"Come on." Sam turns the knob and steps inside, wrinkling his nose at the stench. It smells like sick in here, like Dean's thrown up again or something. Maybe he has, though Sam isn't sure what else he has left inside him.
Castiel goes very still next to him, frowning at where Dean is lying on his bed, an immobile lump. If it wasn't for the shivers still wracking his body, Sam would think that he was dead.
All of a sudden, Castiel strides over to where Dean lies, seizes him by the collar, and pins him against the headboard. Dean blinks, his mouth gaping like that of a fish as Castiel stares intently at him, eyes narrowed.
Sam reacts automatically to the assault on his brother, pulling out his knife. "The fuck do you think you're doing, Cas?"
"Sam," Castiel says quietly, abruptly letting go of Dean and allowing him to crumple limply to the bed, "Sam, this isn't your brother."
"If I had been around more… if the war hadn't…" Castiel trails off. The look that Sam is giving him signals that he doesn't particularly care about Castiel's reasons for not having noticed Dean's disappearance sooner. Naturally, this soulless version of him wouldn't; Castiel doubts that even Sam with a soul would have been interested in hearing about how he's spent the last two weeks either leading raids against Raphael's soldiers or torturing Alphas for Crowley.
Sam doesn't drop the knife he's holding, although he must know that it would be entirely ineffective against Castiel. "If this isn't Dean, where the hell is he?"
Castiel doesn't answer right away. Instead, he looks at the cowering, shivering, human-shaped thing on the mattress. It's pathetic, he thinks, and he has the oddly human thought that he should put it out of its misery - although that doesn't really make much sense, because it's not alive. It can't feel at all.
Still, the image of something whose outside is identical to Dean in so much distress is… well, it affects Castiel more than it ought to, considering that he can tell from a glimpse at it that it's completely lacking a soul, and a small twist of his mind lets him see through the glamour. If it weren't for his awareness of how poorly Sam would react to him killing something with his brother's face, Castiel thinks that he would probably destroy it now. He's getting sentimental, allowing such a thing to bother him.
He tears his eyes away from the stock's huddling form. "Were you and Dean working on any cases recently that involved the sidhe?"
Sam frowns at him, irritation clear in his eyes. "What?"
"The sidhe. The fair folk, the mound builders. The fairies."
Sam's chin lifts in recognition, and he nods. "Yes. Yeah, we hunted them a couple of weeks ago."
Castiel closes his eyes. He can imagine all of the details already, but he needs to know for sure, needs to hear what Sam has to say. "Tell me everything."
So he listens while Sam impatiently relates the story to him: a town besieged by oddities, the two of them hunting, Dean getting kidnapped. "He seemed different when he came back," Sam says bluntly, "but I didn't think anything of it."
Anger flares inside of Castiel, mixed with an odd amount of guilt - a reminder that the Sam standing before him is his creation, that it's entirely his fault that Sam was brought back incomplete. He pushes both emotions down, though. What's done is done; there's a far more serious situation at hand than Castiel's own culpability. "You said this was a matter of weeks ago?"
"Four, I think. That doesn't really matter, does it? I just want to know where Dean is, and what that… thing is." He gestures vaguely at the dying thing lying on the bed. "So I can get him back."
"You won't be doing anything," Castiel says automatically, realizing as soon as the words are out of his mouth that that probably wasn't the best thing to say. Sam's eyes darken, and he takes a step forward. Castiel holds steady, keeping his eyes on Sam's as he continues to speak. "The thing that you see before you is a stock - a piece of wood from a certain tree that grows in Tir na nOg. Fairyland. It's not important," he says quickly, seeing how the lines in Sam's brow are deepening with almost every word he says. "The sidhe have your brother. They sent this… thing back in his place as a substitute. You would have noticed if you were you; it wouldn't have worked, but…"
"I'm not," Sam replies sharply. If he had an angel-killing knife, Castiel thinks it would be out right now. As it is, he's less than a foot away from Castiel, using his height to his full advantage to make him seem intimidating. Castiel refuses to let himself fall for it. "But that doesn't mean that I don't want Dean back, and it doesn't mean that you're not going to tell me where he is and how I can get him."
"He's with the fairies," Castiel replies impatiently. "In Fairyland, as your kind is wont to call it. Its true name is Tir na nOg, but I doubt that concerns you."
"You'd be right," Sam snaps, stepping forward so that their faces are practically touching. His expression is one of fury, righteous and dark, and if Castiel weren't absolutely certain that he could defeat Sam with a flicker of his Grace, he would probably be afraid. "I don't care about the details or the technicalities. I care about getting Dean back. If you're not going to help me with that, you can get out. Now."
"Do you really think that threatening me will help your cause?" Castiel glares up at Sam. His wings itch to unfold at his back, but he forces himself to control them, to not give in to a petty display of power. "Dean is in danger. We don't have time for this - rather, I don't have time for this. I need to get him back."
"Just in case you've forgotten-" Sam's next statement is cut off by a plaintive keen from the thing in the bed. They both turn automatically to look at it.
It's stretched out on the bed, face and body covered with sweat. Green eyes, eyes that look like Dean's, are wide open. Its lips have turned a painful shade of purple, and its hands are clawing at its throat.
Sam is the first to turn away from it. His face is twisted, and he looks disgusted. Castiel follows suit, although with more reluctance than Sam displays. "He'll die soon."
"No shit." Sam shrugs it off, displaying a casual indifference to human life that the real Sam Winchester - the one that Castiel left behind to burn in a pit with his half-brother and two mad archangels - would never show. "And I'm not leaving this place without something that looks like my brother by my side, so we might as well go."
"You are nothing but a human. Your presence will mean nothing to the sidhe; if anything, they'll take you as well, and force you to undergo whatever torments Dean is enduring." Castiel tries not to consider the details. The specifics are irrelevant.
"You think I'm scared of that? Because I'm not. I don't think I can be. You, on the other hand… well." Sam smirks and looks Castiel directly in the eyes. His gaze is sharp and calculating with a deadly edge to it. "You can feel fear, can't you? Because, assuming you can, you'd better start now. Because Dean's getting out of there one way or another, and if you don't bring me along for whatever it is that you plan to do, then when he gets back I'll tell him everything. Every single thing you've done and everything that you're going to do." He grins a feral grin, and Castiel is frozen in place, more cowed by this threat from a human, of all things, than he has been for a very long time. "I'll tell him all of it, and I swear, Cas, we will hunt you like the monster that you are."
Sam keeps his expression steady, as fierce as he can make it without turning it farcical. In front of him, Castiel is motionless. He's scared, Sam can see it in his eyes. The sight makes him feel powerful, larger than life - how many humans have ever been able to instill fear in an angel?
Castiel turns away from him. There's a brief flash of wings against the wall, but the sight is more a defensive one, like a dog curling in on itself. "You wouldn't."
"Is that a risk you're willing to take?"
There's a short, heavy pause. Sam refuses to let his resolve waver.
Finally, Castiel lets out a short sigh. His voice is strained as he asks, "How did you find out?"
"You have your ears. I have mine." Sam finally turns away, deliberately examining the stock instead of the angel. Its breathing has gotten worse, a wheezy rattling coming out of its lips with every rise and fall of its chest. Its eyes meet Sam's, and it stares at him pleadingly. It doesn't affect him at all.
"You realize I could wipe your mind now? Make it so that you remember absolutely nothing?" Now Castiel's desperation is obvious, his pleading tones impossible to mistake for anything else. Sam knows then that he has, without a doubt, won.
"I'd find out again, and that time, I'd know you brainwashed me." Sam shrugs. "I mean, if you want to piss off Dean even more… I really don't think that snatching him from Fairyland will make him any more forgiving of you once he finds out."
It's probably true. Sam doesn't know for sure. After all, he isn't even really clear on what Castiel's done.
"Why," asks Castiel, "why do you even want to come? Why do you care so deeply for your brother's welfare that you would risk your own to rescue him?"
It's a fair question, and not one that Sam had really considered, beyond that it's the necessary thing to do. "I saved him before, when the djinn attacked him. It only seems… consistent that I do it again. And he's mine to rescue. I'm not letting us be in debt to you. Given what else you've done," he throws out, taking the calculated risk that it's the appropriate thing to say, "you'd just take this and hold it over our heads to make you look like our friend. You can't do that if I'm with you."
There's another break in the conversation as Castiel registers what he said. Sam wonders what exactly it was that he did, what was so bad that he thinks Dean would turn against him if he knew.
Finally Castiel says, sounding somewhat sad, "I am your friend. Not this version of you, but… the real you. It won't mean anything right now, but I promise you that everything I did, I did out of my loyalty to you and your brother. I would never have brought you back like this on purpose, Sam."
That comes as a surprise. Sam refuses to let it show. His gamble has paid off so far; it would be foolish to screw it up now. "Do you think Dean'll see it that way?"
"I-" Castiel breaks off, staring down at the stock. Sam reads his face, and guesses what's going on in his mind. He calculates the odds, and decides that it's worth pursuing.
"You want to think that, don't you? That Dean's just going to stick by you no matter what? But deep, deep down, you know that he won't. He's going to be pissed when he finds out, even if you've deluded yourself into thinking otherwise."
Castiel doesn't deny that. Sam can see the struggle that goes through his mind, the weighing of the pros and cons, the acknowledgement of truth. He sees the precise moment that Castiel reluctantly gives way to his desire, and he can see that it angers the angel far more than he's letting on, but Sam doesn't care. He's got what he wanted, and that's all that really matters.
He doesn't know how long he's been here.
He remembers, sometimes, the moment that he came to - how he found himself unclothed, lying on dew-stained grass with flowers all around him, looking like precious gems sprinkled over the lawn. There were toadstools, too, as they are everywhere. And his hands were bound. He remembers the terror that flitted across his mind when he found he couldn't move his hands, how it reminded him of waking up in Hell, even though there were no meadows in Hell, and the sky had never been that hazy purple color that it was now.
They were all around him, tiny, ethereal figures with flitting butterfly wings. Their bodies were bright, their eyes dark and inhumanly shaped. He blinked as he stared at them, and tried to make his lips form the first word that came to mind: "Fairies?"
They flew off when they saw he was awake, and when they came back it was with the king (although, of course, he didn't know it at the time). He was tall, pale-skinned and gaunt-faced with translucent wings that arced above his head. There was something about him that shimmered, something not quite solid, not quite right - but that described most of the place, really. Beautiful, but off.
He was offered wine, and he refused, because his father had taught him never to drink what you were offered.
"You are very beautiful," said the king, touching his cheek with a soft, freezing hand. "We are lucky to have you."
He wanted to spit or snarl or shove the man's hand away, but his hands felt very heavy, and his thoughts were too slow. But the king got the idea, and so he drew away. "We'll talk later," he said, smiling with a mouth that seemed… not right. "When your mind has cleared."
They left then, left him naked and bound up in the fairy ring while his mind slowly cleared and he realized how much trouble he was in.
He thinks back to that on some days, but he doesn't know when it was, or how much longer he has to go. He knows very little about this place, least of all how to escape.
"There are some things that you have to understand before we go there." Castiel paces around the hotel room, mentally running through all of his knowledge of the sidhe. "Stay by my side at all times. Never wander off on your own, especially if you hear music. Refuse all refreshments that they offer you. Don't trust anything you see."
Sam nods. He's sitting perched on the side of his bed, seemingly calmer now that Castiel has given in to his blackmail. "What are we going to do, exactly?"
"Attempt to reason with the king. Oberon, I believe that's what he's been going by for the past several centuries."
"Reason?" Sam quirks an eyebrow up. "We're gonna walk into Fairyland, to where my brother's been held for the last month-odd, and try to reason with his kidnappers? Seems like a foolproof plan." He looks at Castiel with an intensely patronizing expression on his face. Castiel tries not to let it get to him; he's an angel, he shouldn't be affected, but… well, he's already let Sam manipulate him, hasn't he?
"If you have an alternative in mind…"
"We go in there, you smite your way to Dean, and we leave?"
Castiel forces himself to stay calm. Don't hurt Sam; Sam is still essentially human, and humans are fragile. The consequences, Dean's consequences, would be many if he somehow broke Sam. "That isn't possible."
"Why not?" Sam raises an eyebrow, looking exasperated, like Castiel is the problem somehow. "Aren't you the head honcho in Heaven now? If Dean and I were able to beat one, I'd think that you definitely could."
"I'm not the 'head honcho,'" he snaps, making sarcastic finger motions around the words, "because there's a war going on, and I'm not exactly winning. And the sidhe have considerably more power in their own realm than they do here. Whatever trick you used to beat them won't work. They have the advantage."
"But we'll beat them."
Castiel grinds his teeth together at the casual arrogance in Sam's tone. He should be reassured by Sam's confidence, that Sam believes so strongly in their success. As it is, it just irritates him. "Pray that we do."
"There's no one to hear those anymore." Sam stands up. He rolls his shoulders and fixes Castiel with a bored stare. "Is there anything else I need to know? Or can we just go now?"
He spares one last look at the stock - unconscious now, breath just barely whistling through pale blue lips - and then meets Sam's eyes head-on. "We can go."
Castiel doesn't explain the ritual to Sam, and Sam doesn't ask. Instead, Cas grips his arm, and then they're in a green field somewhere. It's nighttime, and the sky is bright and full of stars.
Sam blinks and looks around. Endless green as far as the eye can see. "This is Fairyland?"
"This is Ireland. You're standing in a fairy ring. Don't move." Castiel closes his eyes and begins to speak in a low, lilting chant. Sam thinks that it's Gaelic, but it's not one of the languages he's overly familiar with, so translation is impossible.
Castiel's words grow stronger and more urgent. A perfect circle is glowing on the ground, pale gold that illuminates how mushrooms surround the area they're standing in.
The thing Sam notices first is the light. It's a dim, hazy sort of twilight, bruised lilac in shade. The sky is free of stars and clouds as far as he can see, a blank purple slate that is entirely unlike the sky he was underneath a moment ago.
The next thing that he does is take stock of his surroundings. They're in the midst of a forest, he thinks, standing in a ring of mushrooms similar to the one that they were in in Ireland. The trees around him are thick-trunked, with rough and twisted bark. For a moment Sam thinks that he can see rot creeping out from a knot in one of them, but he blinks and it's gone.
There's music playing in the distance. It sounds like it's being plucked off of some sort of string instrument, but it's light and… twinkly? Although he supposes that it's supposed to be enchanting, Sam doesn't like it very much. Maybe it only works if the person hearing it has a soul.
Next to him, Castiel has been standing completely still, head cocked, presumably listening to the same music. But then all at once he snaps to attention, brushing down his coat and stepping out of the toadstool ring. "We need to move. Oberon will be where that music is coming from, and I expect that Dean will be with him."
Sam shrugs and follows him as he starts striding through the forest. He feels uncomfortable without any weapons, but Castiel ordered him to leave them in the motel, saying that the faeries would take them as a threat, and their chances of retrieving Dean would be severely lowered.
They've been walking for five or ten minutes when the faeries surround them.
They come on without warning. One moment he and Cas are speedwalking their way between wizened trunks and over roots as thick as Sam's wrist; the next, a dozen brightly-colored creatures half a foot tall and with iridescent butterfly wings are in a cloud around their heads. Sam's first instinct is to swat them away. He raises his arm with every intention of doing so, but Castiel grabs him and gives him a warning frown. "Don't."
He turns to the faeries (or at least, Sam assumes that's what they are) and… talks to them? Sam assumes that's what he's doing, anyway. The language is a series of chirps and hums, nothing decipherable to him.
The faeries whir nervously around them until one, bright green with silver-tinted wings, flits forward and hovers in front of Castiel's face. It responds with the same speech, and Castiel answers it, his face firmly set. It looks like they're arguing.
Sam is just beginning to get impatient with the faerie abruptly turns away from Castiel and flies off. Castiel nods to himself, and then turns to Sam before Sam can ask what that was all about. "She's going to tell Oberon of our coming. The others will escort us there - an honor guard of sorts."
If Castiel thinks for a moment that he's buying that shit… "You mean they're going to make sure we don't do anything wrong. He's taking us as prisoners."
Castiel grimaces and looks ahead. "Essentially. But I can still get us out if need be."
"Why are you letting them do it now?" Unless the faeries have some sort of freaky abilities that they're not showing, Cas should be able to defeat them easily. They're tiny, and their wings look fragile. Sam imagines that tearing them apart would be no more difficult than pulling the wings off of butterflies.
"Because we are in their realm, and we are asking a favor of their lord. You don't simply walk into someone's house, assault them, and demand that they give up a prisoner that they fairly won."
"You were never this cowardly before," Sam says coolly. The music is louder, and he can see flicking colors and lights up ahead; he knows that they're almost to Oberon. He disregards this for the moment and focuses on Castiel. "What happened?"
"Things beyond your understanding," Castiel growls. "Things that you, for all that you may know, have not yet bothered to consider. This might all be a game to you, one where the only objective is to get Dean back, but I cannot afford to make an enemy out of the sidhe."
"Coward," Sam says quietly, more out of curiosity to see what Cas will do than anything. There's a visible effect - Castiel's eyebrows draw in and his jaw tightens, and he looks like he's a moment away from striking Sam, but before Sam can figure out if that's true or not, the faeries flutter ahead over a thick row of hedges and vines just taller than Sam's head. He and Castiel have to push their way through the thorns, and by the time they get out, Sam's arms are scratched and bleeding.
He doesn't pay much attention to that, though. All of his focus is on the scene before him.
There are faeries everywhere. Some are like the ones that led them there, tiny, human-shaped, creatures who are colored with shades from the brightest points in the spectrum. Others are more ethereal, fuzzy shapes that seem to be pure light more than anything else.
Mostly, though, it seems to be filled with solid creatures, none of which come up beyond Sam's chest. Some are stout with long beards and aged faces; they look like garden gnomes come to life, and Sam figures that they probably more-or-less are. Others are small with pointed, elven features - elves, Sam concludes, are probably what they are. Still others are inhumanly beautiful, with purple eyes and large wings that flutter gently as he and Castiel walks by.
Almost all of them have long hair with flowers and vines woven in. Their clothes - the ones that wear anything at all - are rough and homespun. Some have bright gems, though, or elaborately-forged gold chains. Sam isn't one to sigh and bat his eyelashes at beauty anymore, but he has to admit that it's all impressive in its own sort of way.
He passes a particularly attractive faerie girl, whose head barely comes up to his chest. Her eyes are a vivid shade of green and her hair, which falls below her breasts and is woven with multicolored roses, is light golden-brown. A skirt made of woven grasses falls from her hips to her knees. She wears nothing but a necklace with a golden flower above it. Her wings are barely visible in the twilight, but he thinks they're indigo around the edges.
She catches his eye and smiles, turns her chest his way. It's a tempting prospect - Dean needs to be rescued, sure, but he's already been here for a number of weeks already; what difference will a few more minutes make?
"Sam!" Castiel snaps. He turns to the angel, glaring, and then glances back to the girl.
For a moment her hair seems to be matted and dirty, with grass and thorns in it instead of roses. Her eyes seem hollow, and her lithe body worn down. But Sam blinks, and that all goes away. She stands there as attractive as before, lips turned up in a coy smile.
He mouths Later at her, and she winks. Sam turns his attention back to the task at hand, ignoring the waves of fury he can feel rolling off of Castiel.
Their destination is clear to him now. At the end of the field where this gathering is being held is what Sam can only assume to be a throne. It's wooden, carved elaborately out of a tree that still grows from the ground, reach up high into the twilight of the evening. A figure sits upon it, and even from the distance Sam can tell that he's a king.
It becomes more obvious as they draw closer. The figure is a man; a faerie, obviously. His skin is pale and silver, almost, and his hair is long and dark. There are no flowers woven into it, though. Instead he wears a golden crown on his head, a ringlet that, as Sam draws closer, is apparently carved with symbols that he vaguely recognizes from a time in middle school when he read a book on Celtic mythology. Unlike most of the faeries, the man wears robes, dark green and lined with fur. There must be openings for his wings, though, because they rise up behind him, paler than any pair that Sam has seen.
The faerie that flew off before is hovering by his shoulder. As Sam and Castiel draw up to him, the rest of their guard whir up and hover in a bright cloud behind him.
"Go," he orders them, and they disperse to elsewhere in the glade.
Castiel stops when they are about a foot away from the throne. He inclines his head slightly. "Oberon."
"Castiel." His voice is accented, though Sam can't think of how to place it. "You should be bowing to me."
"I respect your position as ruler of this realm, but I stand before you as an equal. I will not bow." Castiel's voice is icy, his eyes steel as he addresses Oberon.
Oberon gives a soft snort at that. "Presumptive of you. The last time I heard, you children of Yahweh had yet to stop fighting amongst yourselves over who ought to sit in Heaven's throne. I don't see why I should treat you as an equal when you're really just an… insurgent."
"I am as much in charge of Heaven's forces as Raphael is. Treat me as you would anyone with an army a thousand angels strong behind him."
Oberon laughs and leans back in his throne. "Bold of you to say that, Castiel. I can admire that. But your companion…"
He leans forward to study Sam, and Sam meets his probing gaze dead-on. His eyes are a very dark shade of green with small silver flecks. There's something decidedly inhuman about him, although Sam can't exactly place his finger on what, since - save for the wings - he looks like a miniature version of the people Sam is accustom to seeing every day.
"I believe I recognize you," Oberon says after a moment. He regards Sam with a more open curiosity now. "The would-be Boy King of Hell. Stopped the Apocalypse by going to Hell, but came back… different."
"And no more likely to bow to you than him." Sam tilts his chin at Castiel. This gets a chuckle out of Oberon. He seems mildly entertained by the whole situation. Sam gets the idea that's pissing off Castiel.
This is only upheld with the brusque way that Castiel says, "I believe you understand our reasons for being here."
Oberon stretches. His arms, Sam notes, are long. Unnaturally long. Maybe that's part of why he seems so… otherworldly. "I'd rather hear them from your own mouths."
"We want Dean Winchester. You took him, and we have come to ask for him back."
"Hmm? Dean? Oh no, I'm afraid I can't do that." Oberon shakes his head, dark lips curving up in a smile similar to the one that the fairy girl was giving Sam before. "He agreed to stay."
"Voluntarily?"
"Do I look like the sort who would coerce him? All I said was that we could give him back his brother's soul, if he would only stay with us until a year had passed." Oberon shrugs. "He agreed knowing our terms, and he sealed it in the… traditional way. You can't complain about that, Castiel. Not anymore than you can break the deal."
Castiel has gone very still, and Sam can tell that he's thinking. He notes the exact moment when revelation strikes. Castiel's eyes go wide, and he takes a step back from Oberon. A low undercurrent of fury runs electric under his skin. "No. He didn't know all of the terms; that's… unjust."
Oberon laughs. "He knows what he agreed to."
"But you didn't tell him…" Castiel finally catches on to the way that Sam is looking at him, how he's silently asking Castiel if he has something that he'd like to share with the rest of the class. "In Tir na nOg, there is no time. It's… there isn't. The twilight here lasts forever. Dean agreed to an impossible thing; he's bound here eternally."
That's bad. Even without a soul, Sam knows that's very, very bad. He turns to Oberon. "Let him go, or I swear, I will rip your wings from your back with my bare hands." He grins. "And I'll like it."
The fairy king laughs again, but now there's a definite undertone of cruelty to it. He lifts his hand. "I think that you should leave now, Castiel, Leader of the Rebel Angels, and Sam, Failed Boy King. Your beloved is mine now, by his own making. And I don't believe you'll be getting him back in the near future. Especially considering that there is no future here."
He twists his too-skinny wrist, and Sam is thrown back as if a giant hand had pushed him across realms, and when he opens his eyes again, he's back in the motel room, with Castiel lying on the floor next to him.
Sam blinks, and glances over to where Dean's bed is. There's nothing on it but a pile of broken wood. The stock is dead, he assumes. He's glad that it just lost its glamour instead of leaving behind a corpse. That would have been difficult to deal with.
Castiel is glaring at him, and as soon as Sam glances up, he launches in. "You utter fool. What did you think you would accomplish by insulting the fairy king? Did you think that would help our cause?" His fury rolls off of him in waves, and Sam can practically feel the air shift as his wings bristle.
It annoys him. He does his best not to show it, calmly shrugging his shoulders as he asks, "What do we do now?"
"Get him back," Castiel growls. "Through force or persuasion, just get him back."
"No shit, Sherlock." There's a fire in Castiel's eyes, some force electrifying the blue of them. Sam has to say, he kind of… likes it. A lot. "How are we gonna do that?"
"'We?' There's no we, Sam." Castiel's voice is low and gravelly, something Sam doesn't usually notice, but… well. He wants to rescue Dean, but if there's a bit of a delay, it's not like it's going to make much of a difference. "I will do it alone."
"I'll tell Dean."
"I don't care!" Castiel's wings flash out, and suddenly the angel is slamming him against the wall, wings flared out wide around him. "Tell him everything that you know, about the souls, and about Crowley, and about my failure to bring you back. What happens afterwards will happen; the important thing is that Dean is back."
Before he can control himself, the word is out of his mouth: "Crowley?"
