Never Come Back
2. Secrets and Lies
Dean sits and waits for his brother, AMA discharge papers crammed into his hip pocket. He glances up at the odd nurse striding purposefully by, and sometimes they look back at him and start to curl the corners of their mouths up, but then it's like a shadow falls over their faces, and something colder shines out of their eyes.
Dean knows it isn't the gash at the bridge of his nose, the dark bruises around his eyes, the livid ring of purplish-black that circles his throat. The packaging is marked some, but the jaw and the shoulder have been popped back in, the broken nose realigned. He's still pretty. He knows it's what they see staring back at them, what they see in his eyes. They see desolation, and fear, and horror, and suffering. They see Hell screaming, and writhing, and aching inside him.
He swallows, flinches, reaches a hand up to touch his neck almost unconsciously, can feel his hand shaking. Voice rest!, the doc snapped at him somewhere in the daze of pain, and bewilderment, and wondering why his angel was sitting vigil by his bed and not his brother. And he doesn't want to think about that again, doesn't want to think about where Sam might be, what he might be doing, who he might be with, because he's exhausted by it all, by the worry, by the fear, by the responsibility.
He remembers reading somewhere that Frank Zappa's voice lowered by a third after he crushed his larynx falling backwards into an orchestra pit during a show, so he husks that out to Castiel even though talking is like the drip, drip, drip of acid searing his flesh off his bones. And if anyone should know how that feels it's him, even though there usually wasn't enough of his mind left intact for him to register exactly how it felt when the acid reached his throat. Maybe it equates to the acid dripping on his eyelids, he muses, or other tender parts on the outside of him, the parts he does remember in vivid technicolor because he was compos mentis at the time.
Castiel just sits there staring into the middle distance and looking enigmatic, so Dean grinds it out again.
"I said, Frank Zappa's voice-"
"I'm aware of this, Dean," Castiel says calmly, just like he says everything, just like he said Dean, you started the end of the world and now you have to stop it. And how the fuck is Dean supposed to do that, when his heart flutters in abject terror at the thought it might mean what Alastair said as it all went dark, I'll see you back in class, bright and early, Monday morning…
"Mr Zappa was wheelchair-bound after his accident, which forced him off the road for over half a year," Castiel drones calmly, fuckin' calmly. "Upon his return to the stage in September nineteen seventy-two, he was wearing a leg brace, had a noticeable limp due to one leg healing considerably shorter than the other, and could not stand for very long while performing live because of chronic back pain."
Dean glares, even though the pain in the front of his head makes him regret it instantly. "Okay, smartass," he rasps. "Where did Bon Scott die?"
"I believe Mr Scott died of alcohol poisoning while sleeping it off in a car parked outside number sixty-seven Overhill Road, in East Dulwich, South London." Castiel pauses. "Dean. This is not-"
"You mean you were there?" Dean croaks, aghast. "You call that watching over people? Couldn't you have given him the magic finger or something?"
"Dean." It's patient, kind, it's I will wait for as long as it takes. "We need to talk. The situation with your brother is-"
Dean narrows his eyes and sets his jaw, wincing at the twinge. "No," he scratches out. "I know your game, you sonofabitch. You can pull all the Frank Zappa-Bon Scott male-bonding crap you like. Sam couldn't do that. You're lying. Look at me."
Castiel obliges, and his eyes are as clear and guileless as they ever were, because the real gut-clenching misery in all of this is that deep down inside Dean thinks Castiel might be the only one in the equation who isn't jerking his chain, pulling the wool, laying a false trail, serving up red herrings for dinner every fuckin' night. Like his brother is. His kid brother, who pleaded with Dean to end him if he ever became like those other demon kids, his kid brother who he died for, suffered for; who first swore he hadn't been using his shining and then swore he never would again. The same kid brother who's been looking Dean in the eye and spoon-feeding him bullshit with frosting and sprinkles on since Pontiac, and who might not be one hundred percent pure Sammy any more.
The disillusionment feeds Dean's faith and his trust through the shredder, turns his hope into wretched despair. "Admit it, Cas," he whispers desperately. "You're lying. Tell me. Tell me that you lied when you said that."
Castiel's eyes are infinitely sad, and wise, and knowing. And truthful. "I don't say these things to hurt you, Dean," he says, gentle. "It's because you need to know them."
"But how, how could he, ow, fuck…" Yawn alert, and Dean knows the drill, but he reaches too fast and sends a glass shard of agony through his shoulder and ribs. He cradles his jaw and the side of his face, groans out a sort of yawn-lite, can feel the bone grinding and clicking there at the joint as his ear throbs forcibly. In his head, he can hear the doctor yakking away at him when they brought him round, brandishing one of those plastic Hamlet skulls, the angle of the mandible in this position predisposes upward migration of the condylar head and can result in facial nerve palsy, cerebral contusion, or deafness, so you've been lucky, Mr Osborne… or not so much.
"Perhaps you should have permitted the doctor to bandage your jaw in place, Dean," Castiel observes. "Then you might be able to keep your mouth shut for more than a few seconds at a time."
When Dean throws a sideways look at the angel, the baby blues are all innocence. And this is it, as much as he trusts the guy, hell, likes him, sometimes Dean really doesn't know where he is with Castiel, whether the angel is jerking him down the road too, albeit a hell of a lot more stealthily than Sam and that black-eyed bitch of his. Even so, "I'm deaf on my right side," Dean complains at him.
Blinking slowly, Castiel says, "Perhaps you have earwax, Dean."
"Seriously, Cas?" Dean growls. "Earwax?"
Castiel inclines his head slightly. "This vessel had excessive earwax. Perhaps it bothers you too."
It's said with the detached sincerity Dean has become used to hearing from Castiel, said like he cares, and Dean thinks he really does. But then sometimes Castiel looks at him with his eyes narrowed in a way that's analytical, that speaks of a purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, and what purpose Dean fulfills in the grand scheme of life. Dean ponders it for a beautiful, peaceful moment that doesn't involve thinking about his demon king kid brother, or his one-way ticket back down under; thinks that if he were some endangered species about to be chowed down on by something with big teeth perched higher up the food chain, Castiel would swoop in and pluck him out of danger, not necessarily because endangered-species-Dean is cute and fluffy but because it would disrupt said food chain if he got eaten, like rats would multiply beyond control or something.
"Rats would multiply beyond control?" Castiel inquires.
Dammit. "Thinking out loud," Dean covers, and he flaps a hand. "Food chain, you know. Like if I wasn't in it, the…" He trails off as Castiel tilts his head even further to the side, quizzical. "Uh. Forget it."
Castiel returns to gazing ahead, but Dean can see the angel pout thoughtfully in his side vision, so he pokes him with his elbow.
"What?"
Castiel glances at him again, and there is that slow blink, almost insolent. "Perhaps you need to be syringed, Dean."
Dean blurts out a brittle laugh at that, muses that he's been hung, drawn, quartered, carved, split, chopped, shredded, sliced, bitten, diced, filleted, slit, chewed, flayed, slashed, minced, pared, eaten, stabbed, peeled, melted, pierced, burned, hacked, snipped, dissected, dismembered, beheaded. Fuck it, may as well be syringed too.
"Your brother destroyed Alastair," Castiel says then, because it turns out he wasn't sidetracked from the point one iota.
It sticks in Dean and twists and hurts just like the first time the angel said it, and he can feel sweat beading between his shoulders, feels his muscles knot tight as he thinks about what it could mean, if you can't save your brother, Dean, you'll have to kill him. The memory of his father whispering the words in his ear makes him lean forward and clutch at his belly, makes him want to holler out. He thinks he might even make a whining sound way back in his throat, just past the rusty barbed wire fence surrounding his larynx, but he chokes it back.
"Dean? Are you alright?"
The voice is compassionate, tender even, and for a wild, insane instant Dean considers turning to Castiel and asking for a hug. "It's not possible," he murmurs faintly. "He can't have done it. I don't want to hear this, Cas, please." But he knows it won't work, for all the angel's apparent sympathy, because he can feel the blue lasering into him even though he isn't looking; can feel Castiel's gaze heat the skin of his cheek like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass, and he squirms as the rays burn him to a crisp.
"You have to hear it. It means that things have escalated." Castiel pauses a beat, clears his throat. "We need to know what this means, and why it has come to be."
Dean lets out a weak, mirthless chuckle that scours his throat. "Sam's making lemonade out of lemons, Cas, didn't you know?"
There is that skeptical narrowing of the eyes again. "Why would your brother embrace this power to manufacture soft drinks?" Castiel offers after a moment's consideration.
"Christ, that's not… I mean he's making the best of it." Dean leans forward, rests his head in his hands, tries to think past the ache, and the exhaustion, and the despondency. "He's trying to make the best of it. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. He thinks he can do some good with it. And he did." Something occurs to him then and he gives Castiel a suspicious look of his own. "So how is it you couldn't take that bastard down even when he was hurting?"
Castiel is silent for a moment, and Dean sees what looks like real regret pass across his features. "Our losses weaken us," he says. "We're joined, and when even a single one of us is destroyed, our strength wanes. I've-"
"Like the Borg," Dean cuts in.
Castiel frowns. "The Borg?"
"Yeah, the Borg." Dean leans back again so they're shoulder to shoulder, reaches up and kneads the muscle where Alastair dislocated the left side again. "Cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones organized as a collective. With a hive mind."
Tapping his fingers on his thigh, Castiel says, "I'm not aware of the existence of-"
"Star Trek, Cas," Dean cuts in, rolling his eyes. "Remember what I told you? About Spock? The Borg are from Star Trek too."
"I see." Castiel nods slowly. "Hive mind… I prefer to think of it as a collective consciousness we can access at will."
"You would," Dean snorts.
Castiel doesn't seem to register the sarcasm, and his voice drops low and confidential. "But there are gaps now. I've lost many of my kin due to Uriel's treachery, and he spoke of others who had joined him in his cause. I'm not sure who I can trust, Dean."
There is irony in that, and Dean huffs on the realization. "Looks like both of us have been screwed over by our brother," he observe, and he casts his eyes to where the angel is rubbing his jaw with his hand. It's a sign of anxiety, maybe the first one he has ever seen Castiel displaying, and it sends a little frisson of dread skipping through Dean, followed by the revelation that there is friendship here, affection and faith that snuck up on him when he wasn't looking. "You're being careful aren't you?" he says hoarsely.
"I'm trying," Castiel replies.
"Yeah, well, if you-"
"I was also distracted," Castiel races out then, and Dean thinks for a minute it's like the guy is blurting it out before he can think better and keep his trap shut.
"When I saw Alastair was free, and what he was doing, I was…" Castiel stops shakes his head, his expression pained. "It was distracting."
Dean smirks, and what the hell, he'll call it. "Expressing emotions there, Cas?"
The angel smiles, just barely, maybe even nudges Dean slightly in response. "My judgment was somewhat impaired, yes."
Dean finds he can see the humor in the understatement. "Somewhat? You were about as much use as a cat in a dogfight back there, Cas. Whatever you think of the powers, if Sam hadn't ganked Alastair, you'd be back upstairs, and I'd be… well. I guess I'd be back downstairs."
It slips out without him really meaning it to, but it's there now, and Dean waits, waits for the comfort, the assurance that he's up and out of there forever, that he's never going back no matter what, that stopping it doesn't mean that, doesn't mean going back to what he was down there.
"The powers are demonic." Castiel's tone is level, utterly neutral. "And no good can come of that which was birthed from Hell."
Dean meets Castiel's stare, pours it all into his eyes, his fear, his need to know, holds onto that gaze. Christ, please give me this, Cas. Please tell me I'm not going back, even if it's a lie. Lie to me.
Nothing.
"That which was… birthed?" Dean finally scrapes out. "For Christ's sake, Cas. Enough with the sermon-on-the-mount crap, you sound like the Reverend Ike. Anyway…" He looks straight ahead again. "I was birthed from Hell. Thanks to you."
"That was different, Dean. You are different."
And there it is again, that underlying note of something, just like the first time the angel said it; something that's the total opposite of an abstract and purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, something that's like genuine respect, affection, something that's like I would give anything not to have you do this.
"That sounds like a doorway to doubt, Cas," Dean says tiredly. "Better watch that, huh?"
"Much good will come from you, Dean," Castiel continues. "I believe this."
There's such a vibe of religious fervor in the angel's voice that Dean looks back again, and he could swear Castiel is glowing at him. "Shut up," he wheezes faintly. "I'm supposed to be on voice rest."
He doesn't know how much time passes before Castiel speaks again. "Your brother doesn't appear to be coming."
Dean sniffs, clears his throat and regrets it because it feels like a dry shave with a cutthroat razor in there. "Do you know where he is? I mean - can you sense him? On your angel GPS doohickey?"
Castiel stares resolutely ahead. "No. He… conceals himself from time to time."
Subtext alert, and Dean goggles stupidly. "You mean he's cloaked? From you? Why would he do that? How would he-" And he stops, just stops dead, because in the same second he utters the words he realizes that he knows why, and knows how. "Hexbag," he whispers, and his hand drifts to the one he wears himself, resting on his chest under the fabric of his tee. "The extra-crunchy kind."
Castiel doesn't confirm it, doesn't react at all.
After a beat, Dean says, "Don't tell him, Cas. Don't tell him I know he ganked Alastair."
Ruby-red racing through Sam's veins doesn't help him see any better at night, and he squints at the doorknob in the dark, has to bend down so he can slot in the key. It's one of those doors that's cunningly designed to be fractionally too large for the space it fills, so he has to lean his full weight against it to force it open.
Once inside the room, he flicks on the lamp, and almost jumps out of his skin at the sight of his brother curled up in the bed farthest from the door, apparently out for the count judging by the fact he slept through Sam's bitten-off curses and the crack and creak of jammed wood.
"How the hell…" he murmurs.
"Your brother will sleep for twelve hours," the voice says from behind him, and Sam whirls to see Castiel sitting stiffly upright at the table. "I expect him to wake at approximately eleven o'clock tomorrow morning," the angel continues as he stands, eyeing Sam expectantly.
"But what is he even doing here?" Sam demands once his heart stops pounding in his ears. "He's ill. They said they wouldn't be discharging him until the end of the week."
"He wished to leave," Castiel says dispassionately. "And since you appeared to be otherwise engaged, he thought it best that he come to you."
I'll bet he fucking did, Sam says to himself, and his sudden stab of irritation takes him by surprise, just like it always does these days. But he can't help it, can't help thinking that the research, the liaising with Ruby, this whole fucking quest to make Lilith eat it and never mind the seals, because life was a whole lot less complicated without seals and angels in the mix, would just be easier sometimes if his brother wasn't here. "I was busy," he snaps, and he realizes he's pacing, nervous, running his hands through his hair.
"He called you several times," Castiel replies.
The angel's voice has taken on a more intense note that's totally at odds with its previous languid indifference, and it has Sam stopping in his tracks and looking sharply in Castiel's direction, wondering, not for the first time, if the angel can read minds. And sure enough it's just like before, in the hospital room; there is a sudden, pent-up energy in the air, power radiating out from the angel, the power to smite, and Sam shivers.
Almost as suddenly as Castiel switched it on, he switches it off again. "We waited until he became too exhausted and unwell to wait any longer. And then I brought him back here so that he could sleep."
Sam fishes out his cell, scowling. "He doesn't sleep. Not any more. Not since you brought him back." Seven new messages. Fuck. "Did the doctor say-"
"Would you have preferred that I did not bring him back, Sam?"
Cut off mid-sentence, Sam finds he isn't exactly sure what Castiel means, and he chooses his words carefully. "If he feels well enough, if he wanted to leave… that's fine by me."
"I can assure you that your brother wanted to leave that place very much," Castiel says then, blinking slowly at Sam. "I believe he missed you, and wanted to be with you again."
And it's loaded, Sam thinks, just like always it's fucking loaded, there's always a hidden meaning, and he wants to say, slow down, what is this, not bring him back from where, missed me where, missed me when? Missed me at the hospital? Missed me down there? "Or he wanted to keep an eye on me," he snarks instead.
Castiel just stares at Sam intently for a minute, before glancing over to Dean and back. "His sleep will be dreamless," he says softly, and his eyes are knowing. "I gave him the magic finger."
Sam snorts out a laugh despite himself. "Can you show me that trick? I've had enough of the damn dreams myself." And it comes out wrong, it comes out spiteful and harsh, because what Sam means, knows he means, thinks he means, hopes he means, is that he can't bear Dean's suffering; his stifled cries of pain that sometimes become frenzied screams, his frantic, sobbed-out exorcisms, his whispered pleas for help, for deliverance from evil, his huge shocked eyes in the dark when he jack-knifes awake, his constant exhaustion, and the ever-present bottle on the nightstand. "Can't you take it all away?" he snaps. "His memories? Can't you just take it all away, like the scars, so he can go on? So he can rest? So I can rest? I'm tired too. The dreams wake me too."
The blue gaze is as remorseless as ever. "Are you familiar with the Greek poet Aeschylus, Sam?" Castiel queries, and it's a tangent that has Sam teetering on his back foot for a second before the angel continues.
"Even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." He glances over to Dean again. "Wisdom comes through suffering, Sam," he says quietly, and his voice is heavy and dark with regret, with care. "God commands that your brother remembers what he endured, and what he became. And what he did."
"But why?" Sam says desperately. "You're saying God wants this, wants Dean to suffer? How can that be right, how can he deserve this? He doesn't deserve it. You know he doesn't." On impulse he steps forward, puts his hands on the angel's shoulders, leans down so their eyes are level. "Cas, you know he doesn't."
Castiel doesn't flinch or look away. "All will become clear, Sam," he says simply, tolerantly. "But tonight… tonight your brother will not dream. Tonight he will be at peace."
Sam lifts his hands, lets them flop by his sides, steps back. "One night isn't enough," he says sourly. "And you know something. What do you know? Is it something to do with the reason you brought him back? Uriel said you raised him from Hell for your own purposes… does he know something? Something you need? Something he found out in the pit? Is that why you can't take away his memories?"
Castiel raises an eyebrow and Sam suddenly thinks he's getting a whole lot more interaction with the angel than he ever has, he's getting category-Dean interaction, and it occurs to him that he's not sure if that's a comfort or not.
"Yes," the angel says. "Yes, yes, no. And yes."
It's surprisingly inelegant, effectively baffling, not what Sam is used to from Castiel, and he backtracks hastily through his babbled out questions, can barely remember what he asked. "What… does that mean?" he asks helplessly.
"It's not for me to say. You must ask your brother."
And just like that Castiel is gone, in a caress of displaced air.
"Christ. I wish you wouldn't fucking do that," Sam breathes.
He walks to his bed, sprawls across it, and stares at the stained ceiling for a few seconds before rolling onto his side and examining his brother. Dean's features are slack, his lips slightly parted, he's dead to the world, and sightless eyes staring up, blood spattered face, warm but cooling rapidly, Dean, no, don't go, and Sam's hands and knees are slithering in blood pools, who knew there was so much in a body, his brother's life spilled and wasted, as he lifts him up, presses him to his chest and howls out his loss, and Sam explodes off the bed, crashes into the bathroom, retches into the toilet, practically turns himself inside out as he regurgitates kung pao shrimp and special fried rice so violently his eyes leak tears with the force of it.
When nothing is left, he spits bile, collapses on his butt beside the can, swiping his mouth across with his sleeve. He heaves in shuddering breaths, pulls his knees up, and the denim of his jeans is still stained, darker patches where the fabric soaked up his brother's blood. Sam rests his brow right there and hugs himself as he weeps. And in his head a voice asks him if he's ever thought of asking Castiel to take away that memory, rewind him back to some time in his past when he was happy, some time when a monster hunt was as bad as it ever got, maybe some time when they were coasting along the highway in between fuglies, with the windows open and Dean's cock rock blasting from the dash, and his brother singing along and alternately drumming and playing air guitar on the steering wheel.
Some time before.
And then the other voice chips in and tells him that it's the memory of New Harmony that feeds that black, heinous beast inside him, the beast that will make him strong enough to defend, protect, shield his brother from all-comers.
She always gets saddled with the relatives and Coop tells her it's because she has kind eyes, even though Hudak knows damn well they aren't that warm blue at all, more an ice-chip gray. And that means she knows damn well they send her to administer the Kleenex and sympathy because she's a woman, and they think she does emotion better.
The wife is young, mid-twenties, anxious, jumpy as a frog caught outdoors in a thunderstorm, eyes huge and scared.
"So, Mrs Garner…" Hudak glances down at the scribbled notes. "You say your husband didn't come home last night and that he doesn't make a habit of staying out since-"
"Since we had the baby," the woman says, and her voice is high and cracked. "He's three months. Kevin junior… he's a good baby, he even started sleeping through, and it's been a lot easier since… since…" She pauses, starts chewing her thumbnail. "I heard on the news that they found another body," she whispers.
"We haven't identified the body yet, Mrs Garner," Hudak says softly, and maybe she can be good at this after all. "Maybe Kevin's doing that thing new dads do. You know… sometimes they need to let off steam." Or maybe not that good at it, actually. What the fuck do new fathers do? she muses briefly. What is that thing they do where they lay it all on the line for a night with a hooker, because their wife is strung out caring for the baby and wants to sleep instead of-
"He wouldn't do that," the woman cries. "He wouldn't be thinking he needed to do that. He isn't like that…" She fumbles in her purse, pulls out a picture. "Here," she says. "Please look at this, please tell me. Tell me if that's the man you found."
Hudak sighs. "Mrs Garner," she says gently, as she takes the picture, "the body we found, it was… it was damaged. We'd need your…" She pauses briefly, glances down at the photograph out of courtesy really, and Jesus. She has to swallow before she continues, faintly now. "…Husband's dental records." She looks up, blinks hard, clears her throat. "Can you give us a number for your dentist? And can I keep this picture? Just in case?"
By some gargantuan effort, she manages to keep it together long enough to show the woman out, and then she has to lean up against the wall because her legs are shaking so much, and as she waits for the tremors to settle she looks long and hard at the picture.
"Dean," she breathes. "Dean Winchester."
Next
Dean sits and waits for his brother, AMA discharge papers crammed into his hip pocket. He glances up at the odd nurse striding purposefully by, and sometimes they look back at him and start to curl the corners of their mouths up, but then it's like a shadow falls over their faces, and something colder shines out of their eyes.
Dean knows it isn't the gash at the bridge of his nose, the dark bruises around his eyes, the livid ring of purplish-black that circles his throat. The packaging is marked some, but the jaw and the shoulder have been popped back in, the broken nose realigned. He's still pretty. He knows it's what they see staring back at them, what they see in his eyes. They see desolation, and fear, and horror, and suffering. They see Hell screaming, and writhing, and aching inside him.
He swallows, flinches, reaches a hand up to touch his neck almost unconsciously, can feel his hand shaking. Voice rest!, the doc snapped at him somewhere in the daze of pain, and bewilderment, and wondering why his angel was sitting vigil by his bed and not his brother. And he doesn't want to think about that again, doesn't want to think about where Sam might be, what he might be doing, who he might be with, because he's exhausted by it all, by the worry, by the fear, by the responsibility.
He remembers reading somewhere that Frank Zappa's voice lowered by a third after he crushed his larynx falling backwards into an orchestra pit during a show, so he husks that out to Castiel even though talking is like the drip, drip, drip of acid searing his flesh off his bones. And if anyone should know how that feels it's him, even though there usually wasn't enough of his mind left intact for him to register exactly how it felt when the acid reached his throat. Maybe it equates to the acid dripping on his eyelids, he muses, or other tender parts on the outside of him, the parts he does remember in vivid technicolor because he was compos mentis at the time.
Castiel just sits there staring into the middle distance and looking enigmatic, so Dean grinds it out again.
"I said, Frank Zappa's voice-"
"I'm aware of this, Dean," Castiel says calmly, just like he says everything, just like he said Dean, you started the end of the world and now you have to stop it. And how the fuck is Dean supposed to do that, when his heart flutters in abject terror at the thought it might mean what Alastair said as it all went dark, I'll see you back in class, bright and early, Monday morning…
"Mr Zappa was wheelchair-bound after his accident, which forced him off the road for over half a year," Castiel drones calmly, fuckin' calmly. "Upon his return to the stage in September nineteen seventy-two, he was wearing a leg brace, had a noticeable limp due to one leg healing considerably shorter than the other, and could not stand for very long while performing live because of chronic back pain."
Dean glares, even though the pain in the front of his head makes him regret it instantly. "Okay, smartass," he rasps. "Where did Bon Scott die?"
"I believe Mr Scott died of alcohol poisoning while sleeping it off in a car parked outside number sixty-seven Overhill Road, in East Dulwich, South London." Castiel pauses. "Dean. This is not-"
"You mean you were there?" Dean croaks, aghast. "You call that watching over people? Couldn't you have given him the magic finger or something?"
"Dean." It's patient, kind, it's I will wait for as long as it takes. "We need to talk. The situation with your brother is-"
Dean narrows his eyes and sets his jaw, wincing at the twinge. "No," he scratches out. "I know your game, you sonofabitch. You can pull all the Frank Zappa-Bon Scott male-bonding crap you like. Sam couldn't do that. You're lying. Look at me."
Castiel obliges, and his eyes are as clear and guileless as they ever were, because the real gut-clenching misery in all of this is that deep down inside Dean thinks Castiel might be the only one in the equation who isn't jerking his chain, pulling the wool, laying a false trail, serving up red herrings for dinner every fuckin' night. Like his brother is. His kid brother, who pleaded with Dean to end him if he ever became like those other demon kids, his kid brother who he died for, suffered for; who first swore he hadn't been using his shining and then swore he never would again. The same kid brother who's been looking Dean in the eye and spoon-feeding him bullshit with frosting and sprinkles on since Pontiac, and who might not be one hundred percent pure Sammy any more.
The disillusionment feeds Dean's faith and his trust through the shredder, turns his hope into wretched despair. "Admit it, Cas," he whispers desperately. "You're lying. Tell me. Tell me that you lied when you said that."
Castiel's eyes are infinitely sad, and wise, and knowing. And truthful. "I don't say these things to hurt you, Dean," he says, gentle. "It's because you need to know them."
"But how, how could he, ow, fuck…" Yawn alert, and Dean knows the drill, but he reaches too fast and sends a glass shard of agony through his shoulder and ribs. He cradles his jaw and the side of his face, groans out a sort of yawn-lite, can feel the bone grinding and clicking there at the joint as his ear throbs forcibly. In his head, he can hear the doctor yakking away at him when they brought him round, brandishing one of those plastic Hamlet skulls, the angle of the mandible in this position predisposes upward migration of the condylar head and can result in facial nerve palsy, cerebral contusion, or deafness, so you've been lucky, Mr Osborne… or not so much.
"Perhaps you should have permitted the doctor to bandage your jaw in place, Dean," Castiel observes. "Then you might be able to keep your mouth shut for more than a few seconds at a time."
When Dean throws a sideways look at the angel, the baby blues are all innocence. And this is it, as much as he trusts the guy, hell, likes him, sometimes Dean really doesn't know where he is with Castiel, whether the angel is jerking him down the road too, albeit a hell of a lot more stealthily than Sam and that black-eyed bitch of his. Even so, "I'm deaf on my right side," Dean complains at him.
Blinking slowly, Castiel says, "Perhaps you have earwax, Dean."
"Seriously, Cas?" Dean growls. "Earwax?"
Castiel inclines his head slightly. "This vessel had excessive earwax. Perhaps it bothers you too."
It's said with the detached sincerity Dean has become used to hearing from Castiel, said like he cares, and Dean thinks he really does. But then sometimes Castiel looks at him with his eyes narrowed in a way that's analytical, that speaks of a purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, and what purpose Dean fulfills in the grand scheme of life. Dean ponders it for a beautiful, peaceful moment that doesn't involve thinking about his demon king kid brother, or his one-way ticket back down under; thinks that if he were some endangered species about to be chowed down on by something with big teeth perched higher up the food chain, Castiel would swoop in and pluck him out of danger, not necessarily because endangered-species-Dean is cute and fluffy but because it would disrupt said food chain if he got eaten, like rats would multiply beyond control or something.
"Rats would multiply beyond control?" Castiel inquires.
Dammit. "Thinking out loud," Dean covers, and he flaps a hand. "Food chain, you know. Like if I wasn't in it, the…" He trails off as Castiel tilts his head even further to the side, quizzical. "Uh. Forget it."
Castiel returns to gazing ahead, but Dean can see the angel pout thoughtfully in his side vision, so he pokes him with his elbow.
"What?"
Castiel glances at him again, and there is that slow blink, almost insolent. "Perhaps you need to be syringed, Dean."
Dean blurts out a brittle laugh at that, muses that he's been hung, drawn, quartered, carved, split, chopped, shredded, sliced, bitten, diced, filleted, slit, chewed, flayed, slashed, minced, pared, eaten, stabbed, peeled, melted, pierced, burned, hacked, snipped, dissected, dismembered, beheaded. Fuck it, may as well be syringed too.
"Your brother destroyed Alastair," Castiel says then, because it turns out he wasn't sidetracked from the point one iota.
It sticks in Dean and twists and hurts just like the first time the angel said it, and he can feel sweat beading between his shoulders, feels his muscles knot tight as he thinks about what it could mean, if you can't save your brother, Dean, you'll have to kill him. The memory of his father whispering the words in his ear makes him lean forward and clutch at his belly, makes him want to holler out. He thinks he might even make a whining sound way back in his throat, just past the rusty barbed wire fence surrounding his larynx, but he chokes it back.
"Dean? Are you alright?"
The voice is compassionate, tender even, and for a wild, insane instant Dean considers turning to Castiel and asking for a hug. "It's not possible," he murmurs faintly. "He can't have done it. I don't want to hear this, Cas, please." But he knows it won't work, for all the angel's apparent sympathy, because he can feel the blue lasering into him even though he isn't looking; can feel Castiel's gaze heat the skin of his cheek like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass, and he squirms as the rays burn him to a crisp.
"You have to hear it. It means that things have escalated." Castiel pauses a beat, clears his throat. "We need to know what this means, and why it has come to be."
Dean lets out a weak, mirthless chuckle that scours his throat. "Sam's making lemonade out of lemons, Cas, didn't you know?"
There is that skeptical narrowing of the eyes again. "Why would your brother embrace this power to manufacture soft drinks?" Castiel offers after a moment's consideration.
"Christ, that's not… I mean he's making the best of it." Dean leans forward, rests his head in his hands, tries to think past the ache, and the exhaustion, and the despondency. "He's trying to make the best of it. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. He thinks he can do some good with it. And he did." Something occurs to him then and he gives Castiel a suspicious look of his own. "So how is it you couldn't take that bastard down even when he was hurting?"
Castiel is silent for a moment, and Dean sees what looks like real regret pass across his features. "Our losses weaken us," he says. "We're joined, and when even a single one of us is destroyed, our strength wanes. I've-"
"Like the Borg," Dean cuts in.
Castiel frowns. "The Borg?"
"Yeah, the Borg." Dean leans back again so they're shoulder to shoulder, reaches up and kneads the muscle where Alastair dislocated the left side again. "Cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones organized as a collective. With a hive mind."
Tapping his fingers on his thigh, Castiel says, "I'm not aware of the existence of-"
"Star Trek, Cas," Dean cuts in, rolling his eyes. "Remember what I told you? About Spock? The Borg are from Star Trek too."
"I see." Castiel nods slowly. "Hive mind… I prefer to think of it as a collective consciousness we can access at will."
"You would," Dean snorts.
Castiel doesn't seem to register the sarcasm, and his voice drops low and confidential. "But there are gaps now. I've lost many of my kin due to Uriel's treachery, and he spoke of others who had joined him in his cause. I'm not sure who I can trust, Dean."
There is irony in that, and Dean huffs on the realization. "Looks like both of us have been screwed over by our brother," he observe, and he casts his eyes to where the angel is rubbing his jaw with his hand. It's a sign of anxiety, maybe the first one he has ever seen Castiel displaying, and it sends a little frisson of dread skipping through Dean, followed by the revelation that there is friendship here, affection and faith that snuck up on him when he wasn't looking. "You're being careful aren't you?" he says hoarsely.
"I'm trying," Castiel replies.
"Yeah, well, if you-"
"I was also distracted," Castiel races out then, and Dean thinks for a minute it's like the guy is blurting it out before he can think better and keep his trap shut.
"When I saw Alastair was free, and what he was doing, I was…" Castiel stops shakes his head, his expression pained. "It was distracting."
Dean smirks, and what the hell, he'll call it. "Expressing emotions there, Cas?"
The angel smiles, just barely, maybe even nudges Dean slightly in response. "My judgment was somewhat impaired, yes."
Dean finds he can see the humor in the understatement. "Somewhat? You were about as much use as a cat in a dogfight back there, Cas. Whatever you think of the powers, if Sam hadn't ganked Alastair, you'd be back upstairs, and I'd be… well. I guess I'd be back downstairs."
It slips out without him really meaning it to, but it's there now, and Dean waits, waits for the comfort, the assurance that he's up and out of there forever, that he's never going back no matter what, that stopping it doesn't mean that, doesn't mean going back to what he was down there.
"The powers are demonic." Castiel's tone is level, utterly neutral. "And no good can come of that which was birthed from Hell."
Dean meets Castiel's stare, pours it all into his eyes, his fear, his need to know, holds onto that gaze. Christ, please give me this, Cas. Please tell me I'm not going back, even if it's a lie. Lie to me.
Nothing.
"That which was… birthed?" Dean finally scrapes out. "For Christ's sake, Cas. Enough with the sermon-on-the-mount crap, you sound like the Reverend Ike. Anyway…" He looks straight ahead again. "I was birthed from Hell. Thanks to you."
"That was different, Dean. You are different."
And there it is again, that underlying note of something, just like the first time the angel said it; something that's the total opposite of an abstract and purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, something that's like genuine respect, affection, something that's like I would give anything not to have you do this.
"That sounds like a doorway to doubt, Cas," Dean says tiredly. "Better watch that, huh?"
"Much good will come from you, Dean," Castiel continues. "I believe this."
There's such a vibe of religious fervor in the angel's voice that Dean looks back again, and he could swear Castiel is glowing at him. "Shut up," he wheezes faintly. "I'm supposed to be on voice rest."
He doesn't know how much time passes before Castiel speaks again. "Your brother doesn't appear to be coming."
Dean sniffs, clears his throat and regrets it because it feels like a dry shave with a cutthroat razor in there. "Do you know where he is? I mean - can you sense him? On your angel GPS doohickey?"
Castiel stares resolutely ahead. "No. He… conceals himself from time to time."
Subtext alert, and Dean goggles stupidly. "You mean he's cloaked? From you? Why would he do that? How would he-" And he stops, just stops dead, because in the same second he utters the words he realizes that he knows why, and knows how. "Hexbag," he whispers, and his hand drifts to the one he wears himself, resting on his chest under the fabric of his tee. "The extra-crunchy kind."
Castiel doesn't confirm it, doesn't react at all.
After a beat, Dean says, "Don't tell him, Cas. Don't tell him I know he ganked Alastair."
Ruby-red racing through Sam's veins doesn't help him see any better at night, and he squints at the doorknob in the dark, has to bend down so he can slot in the key. It's one of those doors that's cunningly designed to be fractionally too large for the space it fills, so he has to lean his full weight against it to force it open.
Once inside the room, he flicks on the lamp, and almost jumps out of his skin at the sight of his brother curled up in the bed farthest from the door, apparently out for the count judging by the fact he slept through Sam's bitten-off curses and the crack and creak of jammed wood.
"How the hell…" he murmurs.
"Your brother will sleep for twelve hours," the voice says from behind him, and Sam whirls to see Castiel sitting stiffly upright at the table. "I expect him to wake at approximately eleven o'clock tomorrow morning," the angel continues as he stands, eyeing Sam expectantly.
"But what is he even doing here?" Sam demands once his heart stops pounding in his ears. "He's ill. They said they wouldn't be discharging him until the end of the week."
"He wished to leave," Castiel says dispassionately. "And since you appeared to be otherwise engaged, he thought it best that he come to you."
I'll bet he fucking did, Sam says to himself, and his sudden stab of irritation takes him by surprise, just like it always does these days. But he can't help it, can't help thinking that the research, the liaising with Ruby, this whole fucking quest to make Lilith eat it and never mind the seals, because life was a whole lot less complicated without seals and angels in the mix, would just be easier sometimes if his brother wasn't here. "I was busy," he snaps, and he realizes he's pacing, nervous, running his hands through his hair.
"He called you several times," Castiel replies.
The angel's voice has taken on a more intense note that's totally at odds with its previous languid indifference, and it has Sam stopping in his tracks and looking sharply in Castiel's direction, wondering, not for the first time, if the angel can read minds. And sure enough it's just like before, in the hospital room; there is a sudden, pent-up energy in the air, power radiating out from the angel, the power to smite, and Sam shivers.
Almost as suddenly as Castiel switched it on, he switches it off again. "We waited until he became too exhausted and unwell to wait any longer. And then I brought him back here so that he could sleep."
Sam fishes out his cell, scowling. "He doesn't sleep. Not any more. Not since you brought him back." Seven new messages. Fuck. "Did the doctor say-"
"Would you have preferred that I did not bring him back, Sam?"
Cut off mid-sentence, Sam finds he isn't exactly sure what Castiel means, and he chooses his words carefully. "If he feels well enough, if he wanted to leave… that's fine by me."
"I can assure you that your brother wanted to leave that place very much," Castiel says then, blinking slowly at Sam. "I believe he missed you, and wanted to be with you again."
And it's loaded, Sam thinks, just like always it's fucking loaded, there's always a hidden meaning, and he wants to say, slow down, what is this, not bring him back from where, missed me where, missed me when? Missed me at the hospital? Missed me down there? "Or he wanted to keep an eye on me," he snarks instead.
Castiel just stares at Sam intently for a minute, before glancing over to Dean and back. "His sleep will be dreamless," he says softly, and his eyes are knowing. "I gave him the magic finger."
Sam snorts out a laugh despite himself. "Can you show me that trick? I've had enough of the damn dreams myself." And it comes out wrong, it comes out spiteful and harsh, because what Sam means, knows he means, thinks he means, hopes he means, is that he can't bear Dean's suffering; his stifled cries of pain that sometimes become frenzied screams, his frantic, sobbed-out exorcisms, his whispered pleas for help, for deliverance from evil, his huge shocked eyes in the dark when he jack-knifes awake, his constant exhaustion, and the ever-present bottle on the nightstand. "Can't you take it all away?" he snaps. "His memories? Can't you just take it all away, like the scars, so he can go on? So he can rest? So I can rest? I'm tired too. The dreams wake me too."
The blue gaze is as remorseless as ever. "Are you familiar with the Greek poet Aeschylus, Sam?" Castiel queries, and it's a tangent that has Sam teetering on his back foot for a second before the angel continues.
"Even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." He glances over to Dean again. "Wisdom comes through suffering, Sam," he says quietly, and his voice is heavy and dark with regret, with care. "God commands that your brother remembers what he endured, and what he became. And what he did."
"But why?" Sam says desperately. "You're saying God wants this, wants Dean to suffer? How can that be right, how can he deserve this? He doesn't deserve it. You know he doesn't." On impulse he steps forward, puts his hands on the angel's shoulders, leans down so their eyes are level. "Cas, you know he doesn't."
Castiel doesn't flinch or look away. "All will become clear, Sam," he says simply, tolerantly. "But tonight… tonight your brother will not dream. Tonight he will be at peace."
Sam lifts his hands, lets them flop by his sides, steps back. "One night isn't enough," he says sourly. "And you know something. What do you know? Is it something to do with the reason you brought him back? Uriel said you raised him from Hell for your own purposes… does he know something? Something you need? Something he found out in the pit? Is that why you can't take away his memories?"
Castiel raises an eyebrow and Sam suddenly thinks he's getting a whole lot more interaction with the angel than he ever has, he's getting category-Dean interaction, and it occurs to him that he's not sure if that's a comfort or not.
"Yes," the angel says. "Yes, yes, no. And yes."
It's surprisingly inelegant, effectively baffling, not what Sam is used to from Castiel, and he backtracks hastily through his babbled out questions, can barely remember what he asked. "What… does that mean?" he asks helplessly.
"It's not for me to say. You must ask your brother."
And just like that Castiel is gone, in a caress of displaced air.
"Christ. I wish you wouldn't fucking do that," Sam breathes.
He walks to his bed, sprawls across it, and stares at the stained ceiling for a few seconds before rolling onto his side and examining his brother. Dean's features are slack, his lips slightly parted, he's dead to the world, and sightless eyes staring up, blood spattered face, warm but cooling rapidly, Dean, no, don't go, and Sam's hands and knees are slithering in blood pools, who knew there was so much in a body, his brother's life spilled and wasted, as he lifts him up, presses him to his chest and howls out his loss, and Sam explodes off the bed, crashes into the bathroom, retches into the toilet, practically turns himself inside out as he regurgitates kung pao shrimp and special fried rice so violently his eyes leak tears with the force of it.
When nothing is left, he spits bile, collapses on his butt beside the can, swiping his mouth across with his sleeve. He heaves in shuddering breaths, pulls his knees up, and the denim of his jeans is still stained, darker patches where the fabric soaked up his brother's blood. Sam rests his brow right there and hugs himself as he weeps. And in his head a voice asks him if he's ever thought of asking Castiel to take away that memory, rewind him back to some time in his past when he was happy, some time when a monster hunt was as bad as it ever got, maybe some time when they were coasting along the highway in between fuglies, with the windows open and Dean's cock rock blasting from the dash, and his brother singing along and alternately drumming and playing air guitar on the steering wheel.
Some time before.
And then the other voice chips in and tells him that it's the memory of New Harmony that feeds that black, heinous beast inside him, the beast that will make him strong enough to defend, protect, shield his brother from all-comers.
She always gets saddled with the relatives and Coop tells her it's because she has kind eyes, even though Hudak knows damn well they aren't that warm blue at all, more an ice-chip gray. And that means she knows damn well they send her to administer the Kleenex and sympathy because she's a woman, and they think she does emotion better.
The wife is young, mid-twenties, anxious, jumpy as a frog caught outdoors in a thunderstorm, eyes huge and scared.
"So, Mrs Garner…" Hudak glances down at the scribbled notes. "You say your husband didn't come home last night and that he doesn't make a habit of staying out since-"
"Since we had the baby," the woman says, and her voice is high and cracked. "He's three months. Kevin junior… he's a good baby, he even started sleeping through, and it's been a lot easier since… since…" She pauses, starts chewing her thumbnail. "I heard on the news that they found another body," she whispers.
"We haven't identified the body yet, Mrs Garner," Hudak says softly, and maybe she can be good at this after all. "Maybe Kevin's doing that thing new dads do. You know… sometimes they need to let off steam." Or maybe not that good at it, actually. What the fuck do new fathers do? she muses briefly. What is that thing they do where they lay it all on the line for a night with a hooker, because their wife is strung out caring for the baby and wants to sleep instead of-
"He wouldn't do that," the woman cries. "He wouldn't be thinking he needed to do that. He isn't like that…" She fumbles in her purse, pulls out a picture. "Here," she says. "Please look at this, please tell me. Tell me if that's the man you found."
Hudak sighs. "Mrs Garner," she says gently, as she takes the picture, "the body we found, it was… it was damaged. We'd need your…" She pauses briefly, glances down at the photograph out of courtesy really, and Jesus. She has to swallow before she continues, faintly now. "…Husband's dental records." She looks up, blinks hard, clears her throat. "Can you give us a number for your dentist? And can I keep this picture? Just in case?"
By some gargantuan effort, she manages to keep it together long enough to show the woman out, and then she has to lean up against the wall because her legs are shaking so much, and as she waits for the tremors to settle she looks long and hard at the picture.
"Dean," she breathes. "Dean Winchester."
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