The Start Of Something, Part I

[safiyabat]

Title: The Start Of Something, Part 1
Authors LJ Username: safiyabat
Artists LJ Username: evian_fork
Beta: stolen_voices
Pairing(s): Sam/Castiel
Rating: R (this chapter PG-13)
Wordcount: 23,447 (this chapter 7,650)
Chapter Summary: Castiel knew that Dean had died at Metatron's hand, but he believed that his best friend's soul would enter Heaven. He quickly learned that this was naive of him. Although lack of faith in Dean's brother made him reluctant to reach out to Sam and work together, he soon finds that working with Sam Winchester elicits feelings in him that he never expected.
Warnings: Violence, suicidal ideation, depression
Link to fic masterpost here. View the next chapter here.
Link to art masterpost here.

It didn’t take long for Castiel to find his stolen Grace - his own Grace, the grace that had been stolen from him. It had been in the typewriter all along, the same device in which he’d concealed the angel tablet. In fact, Castiel’s Grace had been the very thing to power the arcane device. For all of his scheming, for all of his plotting and all of what he thought were such clever little plot twists, the evil angel turned out to be very predictable, indeed. Even though Cas had never really assimilated most of the books, movies and dreadful sitcoms forcibly implanted into his brain, even he could unravel the former Scribe of God’s plans fairly easily. Freshly re-charged, he threw himself into rebuilding Heaven. It was the only role in which he could see himself, the only way he could assuage his grief. There was no Dean to fight for, not anymore. Dean was dead, slain by Metatron and not even in a Pyrrhic victory. His blood, the blood Castiel had reconstituted himself from ash and smoke and memory, had dripped from Metatron’s blade. Cas had seen it with his own eyes and sensed it with his own Grace.



The prospect of resurrecting Dean did occur to him. It wasn’t exactly as though the process was unknown to him, and perhaps he’d be allowed to work on some of that liver damage and maybe the heart disease that had been laying its insidious little foundations for half a decade now. The Mark of Cain stopped him. Dean had damned himself when he’d put that thing on his arm. He could not allow that little sliver of Lucifer to get a better grip on Dean’s beautiful soul. It had already taken too much of a hold, if what he’d heard from the other angels was anything to go by. He could not be brought back without that brand, and the brand would continue to twist and burn away what had once been pure and righteous enough to be seen across Hell itself. So he allowed his friend to stay at rest. He’d earned it, after all.

The other angels quickly fell into line behind him. He considered objecting. He was no leader. They had abandoned him once and they would surely do so again. Still, they needed someone to follow. He’d said once that giving free will to angels was like teaching poetry to fish. These angels were not so bad as that, but they still needed guidance and they’d looked to him once again to find it. It gave him something to do, something to focus on instead of his grief. It allowed him to turn his attention to rebuilding and creation, instead of destruction. So he did the job that was in front of him and if the other angels wanted to follow him he allowed it. If they, in their free will, found someone better to follow then he would allow that too. As they rebuilt, he mourned. He had cared for no single creature as he had cared for Dean, and now he was gone.

Repairing the veil was the first issue. It wouldn’t do to condemn Dean to eternity as a ghost, and once Dean made it to Heaven, at least Castiel could visit him there. It wasn’t the same as being with him on Earth, when he was alive and when the angel could see the results of his handiwork shining in front of him. At least it would be something. At least he would be able to interact with Dean’s soul, unsullied by the Mark or by Purgatory. He had to admit that the prospect had its appeal. Neither experience had brought out the better parts of Dean’s personality.

When the veil was fixed and Heaven-bound souls were able to ascend to their rightful places, he found his way to the Winchesters’ private paradise. Much to his surprise, he found it empty, shuttered. The happy kitchen with the memory of young Dean consoling his mother was dim and dark. The field in which Dean shot off fireworks with his teenage brother lacked brothers, color or flame. Even the hastily thrown together constructs that had formed Sam’s side of the shared Winchester heaven were cobwebbed and vacant, burned out. He frowned. This should not be. Sam’s Heaven he could understand, more or less; he’d plunged into the Cage after all, but Dean’s place was guaranteed and he was dead. He should be there, happy and at peace.

Unless, of course, the Mark had taken too strong a hold to be broken in death. He sought out Hannah. She had fallen into her old place as his second in command, as though she hadn’t led his army right away from him when he’d refused to “punish” Dean. Perhaps that was the mark of a good second, to take charge when the leader was compromised. He’d been a second-in-command once, taking over for Anna when she’d Fallen. “I need to see the prayer logs,” he commanded.

She frowned. “Of course, Commander.” They appeared before her, a ledger that updated as human pleas poured in. “Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for?”

“I can find it for myself, thank you. Hannah, I need you to look for a record of any angelic ritual that Sam Winchester might have enacted to resurrect another human.” He began flipping through the ledger.

She turned to go. “Of course, sir. But…”

“Yes, Hannah?”

“I can’t think that anyone would have failed to inform you.” One corner of her mouth quirked up. How quickly some of these angels had absorbed human mannerisms! Perhaps Naomi had been right after all. Maybe he had come off the line wrong, as they said. Maybe there was a crack in his chassis, that it had taken him so long to come off as anything other than a robot. He still got it wrong more often than not. “I don’t think that anyone is unaware of your attachment to Dean Winchester. If anyone had resurrected him or even sought assistance to do so, I’m sure you would have been informed immediately. I suspect you would have wanted to be involved with the project.”

Cas blinked. “So Sam has not made an attempt to resurrect his brother?”

“None that has reached Heaven,” she confirmed with a nod of her head. “Logs will show a lack of prayer from the Abomination for several years.”

To describe those statements as surprising would be to undersell them. After Dean had made his feelings about Sam’s lack of action following his last “death” after the events at Roman Enterprises clear, he’d have thought that Sam would have left no stone unturned to get his brother back. And Sam had been the most faithful of all the Winchesters, even Mary. “Things were tense between the brothers,” he mused aloud. “He was angry at Dean for some time.”

“His experiences with Heaven haven’t exactly been positive, Castiel,” Flagstaff pointed out. “Perhaps he’d rather seek assistance from those more inclined to give it.” Cas hadn’t even heard the healer enter the room but here she stood right behind Hannah.

“A demon deal,” he surmised grimly. “But what could he possibly offer Crowley?” Sam had never successfully made a deal with a demon before. What could he possibly bring to the table now?

“I can find no evidence that Dean Winchester was resurrected at all,” Hannah pointed out. “His soul never entered Heaven, and no matter what his crimes in life, as the Righteous Man, he was assured a place here.” Flagstaff winced. “Sorry - it was decided long ago.”

“That was before the Mark,” Castiel reminded them both. “What if the Mark changed him somehow? What if he is no longer… what if he is no longer human?”

“Perhaps the younger Winchester would be the person to ask?” Flagstaff urged.

“I can’t find him,” Castiel admitted, straightening up. “He was warded to hide him from angels during the Apocalypse and he carries an expertly made hex bag at all times to boot. If he does not wish to be found, he will not be found.” He sighed. “I wish no further dealings with Crowley. They feel… unclean.”

“You do know where Sam lives, correct?” the healer prodded.

“Well, yes.”

“And you have his cell phone number should he not be home?”

“Um, of course.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Perhaps you might consider a less celestial method of communication?”

Castiel felt his vessel’s cheeks warm up. “I - thank you, Flagstaff. Your suggestion is welcome.”

The women exchanged glances. He suspected that he’d said something funny without intending to, but this happened sometimes. To cover his confusion and suspicion he descended to Earth and sought out the bunker.

Every time he’d been to the Men of Letters’ bunker, he’d found it to be a welcoming place. Even when Dean had been angry with him, Sam had been solicitous of his health and comfort. When they’d brought him home after April had murdered him, he’d found the place cheerful and homey, with both brothers eager to give him every possible amenity and solace after his recent death and experience with homelessness. Dean had then ejected him, which he now understood to be Gadreel’s doing, but the place itself had still felt welcoming.

It did not feel welcoming now. In fact, the door gave him a sharp shock when he touched it, knocking him back several feet and onto his rear. He stood up and dusted himself off, adjusting his vision to truly see the door. Additions had been made to the warding, painted in Sam’s cramped, compulsively neat Enochian script. No angel was getting into this place, he realized as he read the wards. No angel, and no demon. No fae, either. No ghost, no revenant, no creature of the spirit… Sam’s tiny handwriting had been absolutely necessary to accommodate all of the new warding.

Castiel frowned. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Sam’s number from the contacts. He’d rarely ever called it. He’d almost never needed to call Sam. After all, when had he ever needed to speak to Sam without Dean? When had Sam ever been useful to him, to Heaven, without Dean? “Hi, Cas.”

“Sam. I cannot enter the bunker.” Sam’s voice had never sounded so empty, so dead. He’d heard Sam in the throes of withdrawal. He’d heard Sam when he was about to die, and the fact that he could compare Sam’s near-death voice from multiple experiences was probably not something that he should bring up right now. He’d heard Sam when Sam’s soul had been lost, and he’d heard Sam when Sam’s soul had been forced back into his body. He’d never heard Sam sound like this.

“Nope.”

“I need to speak with you. Please alter the wards so I may enter.”

“I’m not there.”

Cas waited to see if more information would follow. “Where are you? I need to speak with you.”

There was a deep sigh from the other end of the line. “Look, Cas. I’m sorry, I get that you’ve probably got a lot going on. Rebuilding Heaven’s going to suck. I get that, and I’m sure you’re going to have a lot of Metatron loyalists to hunt down. I’ve just, uh, I’ve got some pretty heavy stuff of my own going on right now and I don’t think I’m going to be real helpful to you. I’m sorry, I am, but I just can’t be what you need.”

“Sam, wait,” he barked before Dean’s brother could terminate the call. “I’m… suspicious, I suppose… about what it is that you’ve got going on. That’s why I’m here. Please. Let me talk to you. Just tell me where you are.”

Sam’s sigh had a different tone to it this time, less mournful and more exasperated. “You won’t be able to get in here either, Cas. Meet me at… um, Audrey’s Diner just outside of Laurel, Montana. Give me about an hour.”

The phone beeped at him twice, indicating that Sam had, in fact, hung up on him. Cas glared at the instrument. He was a celestial being, the leader of Heaven. He was not accustomed to being hung up on. Still, he supposed that he could make allowances for grief.

When the hour had run its course, he flew to the appointed place - a remarkably bright and sparkling place, considering the usual dives frequented by the Winchesters. A few customers spread out on the red-upholstered booths, none too close to each other. He looked around and finally spotted Sam sitting at a booth in the back.

He approached. Sam probably hadn’t shaved since the last time Castiel had seen him. His hair might have been washed, but he didn’t think the human had paid much more attention to it than that. His eyes burned bright, opals shining out from circles so dark they might as well be bruises. His trademark layers hung on him, unkempt and unbuttoned. His hand shook as he brought his coffee to his mouth, and he gave no indication that he noticed that it was far too hot for human consumption. “Sam?” he greeted, somewhat hesitant to approach.

His eyes flicked up to Castiel’s. “Hi, Cas.” He indicated the seat across from him. “How’s Heaven?”

“Coming along nicely. We’ve fixed the problem with the Veil, so the dead can go to where they need to be.” He glanced at the menus. “Sam, when was the last time that you ate?”

A waitress appeared from somewhere - Cas couldn’t quite tell where. Her hair was short and auburn. “He hasn’t been in here in over a week,” she pointed out. “And he didn’t even eat half a salad then.”

“You need to eat, Sam. It is a basic human requirement.”
Sam directed a vicious glare at him before smiling politely at the waitress. Her name tag proclaimed her to be Rose. “Just a salad, please.”

Cas frowned. “Sam will have a grilled chicken sandwich,” he objected. “He requires actual sustenance.”

“Damn straight,” Rose nodded. “And for you, sugar?”

Cas didn’t need food, and most kinds of food had lost their appeal since he’d regained Grace. Still, he needed to appear “normal,” whatever that meant. “I’ll have a burger, medium rare. Extra fries, please. Whatever I don’t eat I’ll see that Sam eats.” That did not seem to go over as well with Sam as he’d hoped; he thought the man looked somewhat green at the joke, but Rose just nodded and walked away with more of a spring in her step.

“Did you seriously come all this way to hassle me about my eating habits, Cas?” Sam growled.

“No. I did not. To be honest your eating habits have never been of concern to me until today.” He frowned. Perhaps someone should be hassling Sam about his eating habits, come to think of it. “They were sometimes of concern to your brother, I know.” He grabbed at the cup of coffee that appeared before him thanks to Rose’s stealthy action. “He used to worry about your diet regularly, in fact. He was often concerned that you were not eating enough, and I see that his concerns were well founded. We have not seen one another for a month and you have lost quite a bit of weight.”

“So?” He glowered. “Dean’s not going to be worrying about my eating habits anymore.”

“Dean is dead, Sam.” He tried to speak gently, but there was only so much that could be expected of him when he clearly needed to get through to someone in denial.

“Dean is worse than dead, Cas,” Sam sneered back. “Dean is a demon. Only it’s worse that that. Thanks to that mark on his arm, he’s a super-demon. He’s worse than Abaddon, in terms of power. The knife won’t kill him. The best I can do is trap and exorcise him, leaving his corpse behind so he can go possess some poor s-“ He cut himself off.

“No.” If Cas had a stomach, he’d have felt a pit in it. As it was, he couldn’t help but feel a roiling in his Grace, a horror that made the skittering of the Leviathans within his form seem like a pleasant tickle.

“Suit yourself.”

“That’s why you ran away?”

He gave a low chuckle. It occurred to the angel that he’d never heard Sam laugh, not really. Dean had described it once or twice, but he’d never heard it for himself. All he’d been privy to had been little half-laughs like this, the mirthless chuckle or the sarcastic snort or a self-deprecating little “heh” here and there. Once upon a time, the man had laughed, Dean swore it up and down, but it occurred to Cas that even Dean had referred to it as something long since lost. “Ran away. Sure. Okay.”

“You are not in your home, at the bunker where you belong,” he pointed out.

“That was Dean’s home.” He looked up at Rose. “Thanks, ma’am.”

“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me. Just eat something, would ya?” She grinned. Cas noticed that Sam’s plate overflowed with food. So did his own, particularly with fries.

Sam grimaced, but he picked up his sandwich and took a bite. “The place was Dean’s home, Cas. Not mine. I sealed it up and left once I knew what happened.”

“And where are you living now?” he prodded.

“There’s an old Campbell bolt hole not too far from here.” He shrugged. “Dean never saw it, so there’s no reason he’d know about it now. I don’t think Samuel ever took Crowley there.”

“And… what are you doing about Dean?”

“Right now? Research. Lots of research.” He put the sandwich down. “I know how to cure a demon. I don’t know if it will work on a demon of Dean’s caliber. I don’t even know if I have anything that will hold something like him, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve got exactly one shot at this. I need to make sure that I get it right.”

“You have not sought angelic assistance.” He bit into his burger.

Sam pulled his head back. “Why the Hell would I do that? What has ‘angelic assistance’ ever gotten us?” He didn’t sound angry, just genuinely confused.

Cas stopped chewing for a moment. “Well, it got you both out of Hell.”

“You pulled Dean out of Hell for Heaven’s purposes, not to help Dean. Same with me, and you’re forgetting that you brought me back a little, uh… screwy. And didn’t notice. And basically enslaved me to Crowley like that.” He snorted. “Oh, and that I never asked to be taken out of Hell in the first place.” He pushed his food away.

“What?” The statement made so little sense that Cas couldn’t process it. He must have misheard.

“I jumped, Cas. I chose to be in Hell. I made that choice. I did not want to come back. Me coming back didn’t benefit… well, anyone but you and Crowley. Dean lost out on everything he gained, once he figured out that I was alive. I haven’t gained a damn thing by coming back - hell, some days I’m not even sure I’m out. ‘Angelic assistance’ turned me into bigger liability to Bobby and Dean than I already was. ‘Angelic assistance’ didn’t keep Kevin from getting nabbed by Leviathan. ‘Angelic assistance’ got Meg knifed in an alley. ‘Angelic assistance’ got Dean dragged off and left me alone to defend Crowley from Abaddon while my body burned itself alive from the inside out. ‘Angelic assistance’ got me possessed by an evil angel -“

“Gadreel was not evil!” Cas seethed, slamming a hand down on the table. “He kept you alive and he sacrificed himself to save Heaven.” The few patrons in the place glanced at the pair as silverware clanked against the table.

“He forced himself on me against my will, using Dean’s face to guilt me into agreeing to something completely different,” Sam spat back, completely uncowed. “He murdered Kevin. That doesn’t matter to you, though, does it? At the end of the day, you’re an angel and we’re just humans to you. We’re just tools, to be used and thrown away whenever you don’t need us anymore.”

“Sam, you know I’m not like that,” he objected. He had pulled this man from the deepest pits of the Cage, had taken the time to heal him from the torture inflicted on him to eject Gadreel, and this was the gratitude he got?

“No? When I pointed out that you were trying to use my brother as your own personal little tac-nuke, you wouldn’t even listen. Even Dean was only valuable to you as a means of freeing Heaven from Metatron. Even Gadreel - Goddamn Gadreel, who wouldn’t know consent if it bit him on the ass - at least pretended to care. But you just ignored me because I’m the Abomination. Not even fully human, safe to ignore. What happened to Dean, what happened to my brother, was of absolutely no importance to you as long as your precious heaven was fixed. And now he’s worse than dead. The worst demon the world has ever seen has been unleashed upon the world and you’re worried about freaking gratitude.” He stood up and dropped some bills on the counter. “Thanks. But I’ll pass on more ‘assistance.’” He walked away.

Castiel gaped for a moment. Sam had never lashed out at him before, not like this. Even when soulless, he’d never verbally abused Cas like this, tried to lay blame for anything at Cas’ door like this. No human had. He didn’t need to take it from him. He was a creature of pure celestial intent. He could smite the man down with a mere thought. He could remind him, with a touch, of what Hell had been like for him. He did not need Sam Winchester’s judgment, thank you very much.

It was that thought that brought him up short. Sam was wrong, of course. He had never thought of humans as mere tools. The boy was just insecure, and grieving. But… perhaps Flagstaff was right that Sam had not always met with the kindest of treatment from angels. How many of his deaths had been at the hands of angels? That was discounting the Cage, of course. He followed Sam to the parking lot, where he saw him getting onto a vintage motorcycle and driving away.

Well, that wasn’t too difficult. The angel opted to not be seen as he flew over the hunter, following him as he returned to this lair of his. The ride took about forty minutes, following some fairly twisted back roads into the mountains. Dean would not want his brother riding a motorcycle in the mountains in bad weather, he thought distantly. He wouldn’t want him doing so in the winter, when he might hit a patch of black ice and wreck, and he wouldn’t want him doing so in the rain when he might encounter slick roads or get wet and catch cold. Perhaps he might not want Sam riding a motorcycle at all. He resolved to speak with the man about this sometime soon.

The place Sam had set up for himself turned out to be another bunker, although this didn’t seem to have quite the same comfort level as the one he’d left behind. Not that it was easy to tell, of course - he had the place warded so tightly that Cas couldn’t get within fifty feet of it. Nevertheless, there were no gas or electric lines going to the airlock-style door that was barely discernable on the ground. No running water had made its way here either.

Cas made himself visible on the very edge of the circle of wards. Sam seemed unsurprised. “The wards send a message, Cas.”

“Sam. You are grieving.”

“Astute observation, Sherlock.” He sighed. “Look. I’m sorry. I’m being a bit of a dick. You are what you are and you can’t help that. I shouldn’t… hold it against you, I guess. But I really don’t have the space to deal with Heaven stuff right now. All I care about is curing Dean. After that, I’m sure he’ll be right on board with whatever it is that you need. Okay?” He snorted. “He usually is.”

“Are you jealous, Sam?” Cas wanted to know. He tilted his head to the side. “Are you jealous of my relationship with Dean?”

“No, Cas. I’m not. It’s good that Dean has friends. Seriously, I’ve encouraged him to be friends with you. I don’t like the fact that he’s so eager to jump to Heaven’s tune without thinking about it. But I’m not jealous. Are we done here? I’ve got work to do.”

“You aren’t well, Sam. You need to sleep.”

“I can sleep when I’m dead. If anyone ever freaking lets me stay that way,” he muttered, looking away.

“Sam, I want to help you with Dean. I do. Let me be a part of this,” he insisted. He chose to ignore the last part of Sam’s sentence. He didn’t want to encourage those thoughts by giving them a voice.

Sam’s lip curled. “Why?” He rearranged his face, changing it from bitterness and contempt to curiosity with visible effort. “I’m sorry. I mean, why would you even want to? You don’t see this as any part of your responsibility. And you’ve got plenty on your plate dealing with Heaven.”

“Because you cannot do this on your own, Sam.”

He turned away. “I don’t need your pity, Cas.”

“It’s not pity, Sam. Angels are supposed to be guardians of humanity. Dean, in his current state, is a severe threat to your species. I cannot allow him to remain as he is. And out of respect for our friendship, for everything that he has taught me over the years, I want to see him restored to his humanity.” He sighed. “It is not obligatory to do everything yourself, Sam.”

The hunter paused. He stared at Cas for a long moment, and the angel found himself remembering that Sam was not simply the man who had broken the world. This was the man who had managed to derail plans millennia in the making. This was the man whose will had restrained a creature so powerful God Himself had been forced to create a special section of Hell to house him.

This was the man, the human man, who had fought two angels with nothing but his own mind and will. And won, both times.

“Fine,” he decided at last. “But no funny business. Got it?”

“I fail to see what comedy has to do with anything. But I suggest that we start tomorrow and that you get some food and real sleep. You are human. You will be going up against a super-demon. I will send Flagstaff down to see to your needs, if you will be willing to alter the wards to allow angels entry.”

“No. But I’ll see you in the morning.”

Cas sent Flagstaff down anyway. “Sam Winchester requires assistance,” he informed her after explaining the Dean situation to both her and Hannah. “I believe the lack of sleep is making him irrational and he is declining food. I need someone to go and speak to him. You worked at a hospital, you helped trauma patients. Perhaps you can help him in ways that I cannot?”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Are you asking me to offer counseling services to Sam Winchester?”

“I suppose that I am.” He frowned. “I would not have thought of it in quite that way. But I suppose that he might find them useful, which will render him more productive.” It was entirely about productivity. It had nothing to do with wanting to ease the contempt or resentment he’d seen in the man, aimed at Castiel himself. Nothing at all.

While his sister was gone, he set subordinates to work. Most of them needed to focus on Heaven, of course, but plenty could be spared to look for Dean. Still others could be persuaded to look for a way to cure him of the Mark, to cleanse him of the taint upon his soul and his spirit.

Cas himself focused on a way to contain his former comrade. Abaddon, as he understood it, had only been contained by slicing her up into pieces and burying the pieces separately after she’d been shot in the head with a devil’s trap-etched bullet. Even if Sam could do such a thing to his brother’s body, Cas suspected that he himself did not want to see his handiwork undone again. Such a thing would also make it difficult to bring the man back to life as a human, which was, of course, the ultimate goal.

Flagstaff returned after three hours. “Did he allow you into his home?” Castiel demanded. “Did he eat food?”

“I was able to persuade him to eat some soup,” she acknowledged. “Not much. He wasn’t willing to let me into the place he was staying. He doesn’t refer to it as a home, Castiel. May I speak with you privately?” He nodded, and the other angels in the room departed. “What are your feelings toward Sam Winchester, Commander?”

He sighed. “He has made many mistakes, Flagstaff. You know this. He freed Lucifer from his Cage.”

“In which he was encouraged by you,” she pointed out sharply. “I was watching. I remember. He was never given enough information, enough factual information, to make the right choice. And when he had all of the information he sacrificed himself to atone for his error, to save the world. Against the will of Heaven, I would add, knowing he’d be unmourned by anyone save that brother of his.” She crossed her arms over her chest and he wondered how long she’d been on Earth, watching. “I believe that you only see his error when you look at him. In this, you are exactly the same as the brother.” Her face twisted, but she recovered herself.

“His sins were great. Are great,” he corrected himself. “He is simply all we have to work with.”

“If that’s truly your feeling then we will fail.” She shrugged elegantly. “I think he has come to believe what people tell him about himself. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you. But it matters to me. I will take him as my charge.”

“I don’t believe that he wants to be any angel’s charge. He’s not very fond of our species, apparently.”

“Perhaps if he had positive encounters with us he would think better of us. Did you really try to kill him by sending his brain into a spiral of flashbacks?”

He looked away. “I did what I had to do.” He’d warned Dean repeatedly to desist, but he had not. He’d never worried about the effect of his decision on Sam, he’d never cared. He’d absorbed the hallucinations, but he’d acknowledged even then that he could not completely repair the damage. Castiel shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps humans were not so easily fixed as that, in the end.

“Indeed.” She smiled thinly.



The next day, Castiel descended to Earth and telephoned Sam from outside his new bunker. Sam did not answer his phone. He did, however, come running up the road behind the angel. His body was drenched in sweat, and he wore only a tee shirt and baggy shorts. The garments clung to his body, emphasizing that while he’d lost weight, he retained a great deal of muscle tone. He frowned. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to stare?”

“No,” Cas replied absently. “Why are you running? Is someone chasing you?”

“Not at the moment.” He stretched himself carefully. It made perfect sense that Sam had been the vessel for Lucifer. Lucifer had been the most beautiful of God’s angels, back before he’d been cast out. Even angels had difficulty looking on his true form, not because of his Grace, but simply because they could become lost in the sight. Sam encapsulated that, even drenched in sweat and stretching. Perhaps especially drenched in sweat and stretching, Cas thought idly. The idea surprised him. “Running is important for conditioning. I’m going into a major fight with a seriously powerful demon, Cas. Letting my body get weak isn’t in my best interests.”

“And yet you refuse food and sleep.”

“I slept four hours last night. Which, I want you to know, is pretty much a record when I’m not drugged.” He stretched again. “Dude. The staring. You’re making me kind of uncomfortable.”

“Your form is pleasing to the eye, Sam. It is only natural that a person would want to look at it.”

“Getting creepy now.”

“Sorry.” He looked away. “We have been searching for Dean all night, but I’m afraid we’ve had no success. The warding on his rib cage still seems to be effective, as does yours.”

“He also has a hex bag that hides him from - well, just about everything,” Sam informed him. He took a seat on a large boulder.

“I remember that. You both carry them. Where did they come from?” Cas couldn’t remember when he’d given Dean such a thing.

“Me.”

“You?”

“Yeah. Back, uh, back before you put the sigils on our ribs, after I let Lucifer out. I made them. Why, you want one?”

“Uh, no, thank you, Sam. I was not aware that you were involved with witchcraft.” He frowned.

Sam rolled his eyes. “I had sex with a demon on a regular basis and drank her blood. You really think I was going to draw the line at putting some dirt into a bag? She taught me a lot. Anyway. Dean’s in Nevada.”

“You know this?” He turned to look at Sam. “How? Witchcraft again?”

“Tempting. But no. He called me last night. Woke me up, in fact. But he called me up to remind me that right about now is when we would have been making our annual trip to Vegas. I could hear the, uh, the sounds of a show in the background.” His face fell from its façade of calm for just a moment. Cas could have sworn Sam was blinking back tears.

“Did he ask you to join him?” he offered, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“What? No. No, that’s not why Dean called. Calls, I should say. He’s been having loads of fun calling me. This whole time. This time he called to point out that now was the time we took our annual pilgrimage to Vegas, but that he’d never wanted to bring me there in the first place and that he was so fucking glad he didn’t have to do that anymore. What a dead weight I’d been, dragging him down. Like an anchor in the fucking desert, is what he said.” He gave a soft little “heh,” like one of the ones that the real Dean had always hated. Or at least that he’d hated when he spoke to Castiel in private. “How he’d only dragged me along because he couldn’t trust me out on my own.”

“Sam, that’s not Dean,” he tried. He could feel so much underneath Sam’s skin - his blood, his muscle, his soul fluttering inside like a trapped bird.

“Actually, it is, Cas. It’s Dean. It’s a demon, who is Dean, but it’s him. It’s pure, one hundred percent Dean. My brother. The demon. He’s not constrained anymore. And he’s right. He never trusted me, and I always wondered why he dragged me along. I hated going. I hate Vegas. Hated it more after the Cage, you know? Too crowded, too much noise, too many people wanting to touch you.” He shuddered. “Anyway, now I have my answer. After Purgatory, Dean didn’t even try. He, uh, wasn’t so keen on doing anything ‘fun’ with me. You know. Um. Had to learn my lesson.” He exhaled, long and hard, and looked down for a moment. “But whatever. Because someone’s going to save him. Me. You. Someone. And this whole, long nightmare will be over.”

Cas stood up, not sure what to make of the non sequitur. “Um, all right. So if you know where he is, why don’t you go to him?” Sam’s words had a certain fatalism about them, which would have been fine five years ago, but disturbed Cas on a level he couldn’t entirely understand now.

“And do what? I need to have a plan in place before I can go charging in and just… have at it. Otherwise, he’s just going to rip me to shreds. Which is fine, I mean it’s not like I’m doing anything else, but that demon needs to be taken down and I’m the only one who cares about making him human again.” He glanced at the hatch to his bunker. “Have you guys found any way of restraining him?”

“Your bunker has an excellent dungeon if I remember correctly,” he pointed out, sitting on the ground near Sam’s rock.

The human started chewing on his nails. “Yeah, no. Dean knows every inch of that dungeon, remember? He found a way to summon Crowley to break him out of it the last time we locked him in there and that’s without the demonic superpowers. We need more.”

“You have the demonic shackles.”

“Crowley’s already familiar with them. So is Dean. We have to assume that what one knows, the other one knows. Let’s find some way of enhancing those. Back in the day you had Alastair trussed up to something pretty impressive.”

“And it failed, Sam,” Cas pointed out. “Spectacularly.”

“Because you had a traitor in your midst. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.” He glared and Cas felt something unpleasant stir within his Grace. After a fraction of a second he identified it as guilt. “But… I think it’s something to work from. If we can work the demonic shackles into it, and a better devil’s trap - better than the one that’s already on the ground in the Men of Letters’ bunker, better than the one that you used on Alastair, better than basically anything we’ve ever seen.” He looked away. “I mean, you guys have to have something, right? I’ll keep looking too, of course. I haven’t stopped.”

Cas stood and shook his head. “With what materials, Sam? You came out here on a motorcycle.”

Sam snorted. “You really didn’t pay much attention when you were at the Men of Letters’ bunker, did you? I can get back there when I need to. If they could do it, I can do it. Anyway, let’s just… if we can come up with a way to contain him while we’re curing him we can move on to the next step.”

“I have angels working on that,” Cas pointed out dismissively. “Even the Rit Zien.”

“Swell. If we can manage to cure Dean without him turning into a puddle of pink goo that would be ideal.” He gave a big grin without showing teeth, basically turning his mouth into a giant U shape. “I found a couple of rituals that show some promise, but I don’t know that they’ll work. And of course if they, don’t we’re screwed. We can’t risk having Dean loose in the bunker if we fail.”

“We need a test subject,” Castiel observed. They contemplated their options in silence for a moment.

“Cain,” they said together, with matching grins.

Cas returned to Heaven with a new plan. He set himself to looking for devil’s traps, sigils that would restrain even the fiercest of demons. Phanuel found himself assigned to designing shackles, which he decided came “close enough” to his sphere of repentance and hope. Arariel was dispatched to research cleansing rituals, which he supposed suited his typically assigned duties of watching over waters.

Castiel himself worked to ensure the smooth running of Heaven. He visited Sam on a daily basis, and he found himself surprised by how easily he fell into working with the younger Winchester. Sam was enjoyable. He spoke with Flagstaff about this after about a week of work. “Always before, my contact was with Dean,” he admitted. “But Sam seemed to be okay with this. I often believed I was respecting Sam’s wishes as much as my own.”

“To some extent you probably were,” she told him. “He has no reason to love angels, and he’s had enough people telling him that he wasn’t good enough and reminding him of his shortcomings.”

“Is that what he tells you?” he asked her.

“He doesn’t have to. I see it every time that he speaks. He still sees himself as a tool in your eyes. Our eyes,” she corrected. “It wouldn’t kill you to be friendlier with him.”

“I told him that he had a pleasing form and that people would want to look at it. He told me I was creepy.”

She folded her lips together and looked at him out of the side of her eye. “Maybe because saying that sort of thing out of the blue is fairly creepy, Castiel.”

“But his form is pleasing. He is intelligent, he must know this to be so.”

“Considering his history, I believe he’s uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Castiel, you saw him in the Cage and you touched his mind twice to directly address the trauma he experienced. Can you perhaps begin to understand why it’s not okay for you to just view him as a body and a tool?”

“But I don’t!” he exploded. “He has a beautiful form, but he also has a beautiful spirit!”

“Then try to get to know him as a separate entity from Dean,” she advised. “Decide how you feel about him. He’s very certain that you see him as an extension of his brother, at best.”

Castiel wanted to argue, but he found that he could not. He had not wanted to make Sam feel as though he was not a welcome contributor in his own right, but his frequent insistence that he call on Dean so soon after Dean’s abandonment had probably done exactly that. “I need to find a way to let him know…” he mused.

When Castiel descended to Earth the next day, Sam handed him a piece of paper. “It’s the password to a secure account,” he explained. “All of my research will be updated every night and stored there. If anything happens to me - that’s where you can find my work.”

Cas narrowed his eyes. Sam had a goal now. He’d expressed certain tendencies before but he wouldn’t try anything now, right? “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Sam? Because we’ve talked about this. All life is sacred -”

“I’ve found Cain,” Sam interrupted. “Ready to try out those shackles?” He raised his eyebrows and grinned, even showing dimples. A true grin, then.

The angel’s mouth hung open. “You found Cain.”

“The Mark of Cain comes from Lucifer, right?” When Cas nodded, he shrugged. “Remember what we found after…” He looked away. “I figured that there would still be enough of his Grace lingering, all things considered.”

“You were down there for a long time, Sam.” He thought about the look on his companion’s face. “The fact that there… that whatever ritual you used was possible is not a personal indictment.”

He sighed. “Kind of is. I mean, really. But - we got some use out of it. So. Let’s, uh.”

Cas stepped forward and gently stroked Sam’s face. It was something he’d seen done before, in film and television. He’d touched Meg in this way once and it had made her smile. Sam did not smile. His eyes narrowed. His lips parted. He shook his head ever so slightly, as though trying to make sense of something. “Sam,” Cas said softly. “It really is okay.”

Sam’s breath hitched a little. His pupils had contracted. “Um, sure. Uh. Okay, right. Let’s, uh, cuffs -- can you?”

He withdrew his hand. “Yes. Of course. Tell me where you need me to be and I’ll meet you there.”

Hazel eyes clouded over. “Right. Um.” He rattled off coordinates in Utah. “If, uh, I mean.”

“Are you unwell? Shall I send for Flagstaff?” If Sam was having a stroke he needed to get help for him as soon as possible.

His cheeks turned bright red. “No. No no, I’m fine.” Even Cas knew that “fine” was Winchester for “a wreck.” “Um. I - ’ll meet you there.”

Castiel took the precaution of bringing Flagstaff with him anyway. He wanted to discuss Sam’s reaction with her. She frowned. “I think you may have shocked him, Castiel,” she pointed out as they waited to descend. “It has been some time since anyone has touched him with affection.”

“That is not true. Sam and I have exchanged two hugs.” He crossed his arms across his chest and stuck his chin out defiantly.

“Indeed. That kind of touch is more intimate, Castiel. Only people who are very close would attempt that. Very, er, personally close. Close family, like siblings or parent and child. Or lovers.”

“Oh.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Sam and I are not lovers.”

“No.”

“Sam prefers women.”

“Does he?” Her voice gave nothing away.

“His brother tells me - told me - that he is heterosexual.”

“His brother also believes him to be an incompetent who needs constant guidance when hunting, and yet it’s Sam who found Cain and not the entire heavenly host.” She gave a thin, tight smile. “Don’t lead the boy on, Castiel. He can’t take it. Right now he doesn’t believe that you would be interested. But if you give him signals that you don’t actually mean, the results could be catastrophic.”

“I see.” He nodded.

Sam’s motorcycle rolled into town. They were ready to take down Cain.

Keep on rolling