Episode 23: Achilles' Last Stand
Title: Achilles' Last Stand
Masterpost: Supernatural: Redemption Road (for full series info,
warnings, and disclaimer)
Authors: swordofmymouth and zatnikatel
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam, OC and canon characters
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: ~15,000
Warnings: language, violence, sexuality, suggested dubcon
Betas: dotfic and murron
Art: Chapter banner by swordofmymouth and zatnikatel; digital illustration by quantum_witch, which you can also find here (art contains spoilers for the chapter).
Summary: "There are things out there…bad things."
Castiel awakens to a sound.
It's a quiet sound, modest, as though someone is trying to muffle it, and immediately after he hears it, all falls silent again.
Silent except for faint out-breaths a short distance away, and for a moment Castiel is confused, can't ascertain where he is or who is with him there. He pores through a flood of memories unique to him: the Host, angels as he once was, nestlings comfortable with each other and their effortless comradeship, forged in countless battles. But they never breathed, not like this.
He listens, his own near-human breath bated, until he hears the other sound again. With it he discards his past, because this is the now and he knows the sound he hears is Meg weeping. Her stifled, hitching sobs are strangely lulling, and he keeps his eyes closed, drifts back into half-sleep. He imagines that he is in his bed at Bobby's house, and that if he turns over he will come to rest against the warm curve of Dean's back, that he will nuzzle the nape of Dean's neck and Dean will grunt in his sleep and push instinctively into him.
Dean isn't here.
The realization that he can't sense Dean nearby jolts Castiel back to the present again. He's lying on something uncomfortable, that digs into his back…his rucksack, he realizes. He snaps his eyes open to black, pushes up onto his elbows, pats his hand cautiously around him. Rough woodgrain meets his touch, and as his eyes become accustomed to the darkness he can see a greenish, phosphorescent glow stretching up above him, reminiscent of the strange light in the chimney-crevice he ascended with Claire Novak. He backtracks, remembers being surrounded by something soft, and alive, and malevolent, remembers how it pulled at him even while it repelled him, remembers the world turning upside-down and spinning madly as they fell. His ears pop and he swears the sound they make must be audible, a sign of the rapid change in pressure that signals they are leagues beneath the surface of the world.
Dean, where is Dean?
Separation anxiety clutches at Castiel, the same ache and need he always feels when Dean isn't in close proximity. He reaches back into the recesses of himself, into those old places where his dying grace still lingers like a fog, and he tests it, tries to take what he wants from the elements, from time and dimension and space, tries to shape it into force of will and intent that will take him to wherever Dean is. It fizzles uselessly, as it did on the surface after the Beast awoke and Castiel thought to beat his wings and take to the sky with the Winchesters clutched tight to him while shit happened all around them. Here, what's left of his grace is dormant when he needs it most, and in a flash of insight he thinks he understands why Meg sobs, can empathize with her tears. While he can imagine the size and extent of her loss, her demonhood scattered and gone in the wind, swallowed up in the belly of the Beast, he can't imagine what it would be like to do it alone.
Meg has no one.
He has Dean.
If he can find him.
Dean. Again, it aches through Castiel, a mixture of longing and fear. He can't help forming the name on his tongue, needing to hear himself say it here in the darkness, and the sounds of distress stop abruptly. "Meg?" he fishes cautiously.
"There are things out there," she says softly, after a beat of silence. "Bad things. One of them was in here, I killed it. I warded the truck."
Bad things. There is an irony in it, Castiel supposes. "When you say bad things, I assume you mean things that are worse than you?" he remarks, as he sits up and casts his eyes about him properly.
"Things that are worse than us," she replies after a second or two, and maybe the old acid is creeping back into her tone. "You're no angel, angel."
Touché, but there is no time for this, because now that Castiel's vision is sufficiently acclimatized it falls on a long, bulky shape at the cabin end of the truck bed, and he finds he is frozen in place by the ghastly possibility that flits through his mind. "What you killed," he croaks. "Are you sure it was-"
"One of those mutant fish-zombies. Your boyfriend and his brother aren't here."
The relief is like balm but Castiel has no time to take comfort in it, as he vaguely sees a missile arc through the darkness towards him. Something heavy clunks down onto his lap, and he startles, manages to bite back a curse, and puts his hand there before he can stop himself. Round, wet, icy-cold. It gives when he presses on it, and it feels disturbingly like-
"I cut its head off with Sam's machete."
"Dean would say you got your groove back," Castiel rasps out, as he tosses the evidence of her defensive expertise over his shoulder, and the name has his chest squeeze his heart tight again. "Have you heard anything that might-"
"Nothing. I couldn't even make out which one of you was here with me until you woke. I thought you were dead."
Castiel hears the rustle of fabric, can just barely pick out the figure moving inside the cabin. She sucks in a noise that suggests extreme discomfort, but he puts her out of his mind, lets it fill it with grim resolve instead. He needs his sword, and he sets his jaw, concentrates as he reaches inside himself for his grace again. It barely flickers, muted into submission by this realm and the thing that rules here, and Castiel can't help the harsh sound of frustration he makes. Dean.
He shrugs off his pack, pushes up to his knees, and when he sees that the barge is still chained to the Duck he throws up a prayer out of habit, even though he isn't sure if he believes any more. He crabs his way over the stern of the Duck, pops the hatch in the deck of the barge, and drops down into the cargo hold. The larger weapons duffel is where Dean left it before they set off on their trek, dumped beside the mattress the demon had been occupying during the voyage, and Castiel hoists it up and out, pulling himself back out behind it.
He eases the duffel up and over into the Duck, scanning the darkness beyond the sides of the craft, and alert to any sounds of movement, slithers his way after the bag and pats about inside it, finding a flashlight he sets down on the deck next to him. He roots through the jumbled weaponry again, until his fingers fall on the flare gun Jonas Harper's friend thoughtfully provided, and then he pokes further, locates the cartridge-packed bandolier that goes with it.
"You say this vehicle is warded?" he directs over towards the top end of the Duck.
After a sniff, Meg answers, "Standard devil's trap and a few others, just to be sure. There haven't been any more of those guys climbing in here, so I think it's working."
There is a thigh holster in the bag too, and Castiel straps it on, fills its slots with two lethally sharp knives and one of the guns. "You seem somewhat calmer," he observes as he works. "You have Sam's machete still? We may need it out there."
He hears the metallic clink of its blade tapping against something. "It's amazing how shock, blood loss and intense pain focus the mind," she says randomly, before adding, "My leg is broken."
And, time, there is no time for this.
There is a baseball bat in the bag, and Castiel tugs it out, crawls over to where she is sitting, stopping briefly to hoist the headless body up and over the side of the Duck. He snaps on the flashlight, looks into a shell-shocked, moon-pale face.
"Looks like you're on your own, Clarence," she says, curling her lips into a feeble smile before she casts her eyes down.
Castiel doesn't respond, shines the beam over her leg. Blood is congealing underneath it, tacky and dark, and just below her knee the limb diverts into a slight angle at a wound through which the pearly, splintered ends of snapped bone protrude.
"It's a compound fracture," she murmurs distantly. "If we ever get out of this sewer, I'm looking at plates, rods, pins. I'll limp for the rest of my life, assuming gangrene doesn't set in and they take the leg off."
Castiel meets her gaze and she shrugs. "My last meatpuppet was a nurse." She watches him for a moment, licks her lips, and her tone turns harder. "Come on, choose the moral high road. You owe me for taking care of Crowley for you."
It's clear what she's asking. "Ending your misery might be the moral high road," Castiel parries brusquely. "And you destroyed Crowley for your own gain. It was purely personal, there was no altruism in the gesture."
Her lips pull tight. "Are you telling me it wouldn't have been even a little bit personal if you'd ganked the bastard?"
Castiel knows he can't claim that with any degree of credibility, so he bypasses the question. "In any case, I can't fix it," he says. "My grace is blocked here." He doesn't dwell on whether he would if he could, or whether he would hold onto whatever is left of himself in case he needed it for Dean. He lays the flashlight down, notices abstractedly that its beam is playing across sigils daubed on the wooden decking in what must be the woman's own blood. He lays the baseball bat alongside her leg, rises to his knees to unbuckle his belt. "Are you wearing one of these?" he asks.
Her eyes widen and she smirks a little, like the demon in her always used to, and Castiel can't help acknowledging that there is something admirable in her bravado.
"I'll need it to secure the splint," he clarifies.
She grimaces, straightens up slightly and mimics him, tugging her own belt out of its loops and handing it over.
Castiel sets it down on the deck, slips his bowie out of his boot and uses it to slice off a strip of the leather at the end of the belt. He hands it to her and her eyebrows tent curiously.
"You'll need to bite down on something while I try to set this," he says.
"I doubt it's settable, but you have at it." She snorts then. "I guess this is my penance," she jokes, a little defiantly, and after swallowing hard she lifts the leather strip to her mouth, fastens her teeth to it.
"Ready?" Castiel asks her, and she rolls her eyes.
Her frame locks up tight as he puts his hands on her leg. He doesn't look at her, ignores the way her hands flap at his, ignores the strangled whining. He is gentle but thorough as he straightens the limb, lifting it slightly to run the belts underneath it and around the bat, above and below the break. It's inadequate at best, he knows, but he can do no more for her. When he's finished she's still and quiet, and her oblivion is a relief because it means he can leave.
He crawls back to where he propped his rucksack, feels about inside it. Water, two bottles, and he retrieves one, stands and picks his way back to where the unconscious demon - woman, he corrects himself - is slumped. He places the bottle on her lap before he makes his way back to the duffel, hefts it, and drops it over the side of the Duck. He snags the flare gun and lowers himself overboard, to the surface.
There is solid rock below him, faint impressions of craggy walls surrounding the Duck. Castiel pauses to listen for any sounds, but he can't hear them or sense anything. He raises the flare gun over his head, pulls the trigger, and pink light explodes to reveal an endless, empty cavern stretching up into the sky and continuing on into the distance here at ground level. It's a mirror image of the crack in Mendocino, magnified exponentially, and Dean and Sam are lost in it somewhere. Castiel breathes deeply for a moment, closes his eyes and pushes his hand up inside his t-shirt to his scar. It worked before, in the other rift, and he concentrates. And there it is, the barest tingle of heat, like a tiny electric shock, and he gasps with the sheer relief of it.
"Dean," he breathes out into the darkness again, and it strengthens his resolve like he knew it would.
He bends to pull a machete out of the bag, hoists it up on his shoulder, and steals forward into the darkness.
Dean comes round with a college marching band playing Sousa music in his head, and this time is even worse than every other time he's done it because Bobby's dog is snuffling at his face, dolloping drool on him, and Jesus, that can't be healthy because the damn mutt probably just finished licking its butt clean after its morning dump.
"Fuck off, Cheney," he manages, and he flails a hand up to grab the dog's collar and heave it away.
And…fabric, too-long hair, slick, gluey flesh under his questing palm, and that isn't the sour blast of dog-breath, it's the fetid stench of rotting marine life, danger-Will-Robinson.
Dean snaps fully awake and looks up into the soft glow of golden eyes surrounded by shimmering scales, a lipless mouth bared over fangs, and fuck, fish-guy. They share a frozen moment of mutual huh?! and then Dean bucks with all his might.
The mutant is taken unawares and bounces up off him to land on its back right beside him, where only Castiel should lie, and Dean flips himself up and over as adroitly as he can with a headache the size of Texas slowing him down, straddling the thing before it can recover. He fumbles the Glock he commandeered from the duffel out of his waistband, curses as the thing's hand streaks up lightning-fast to smash it from his grasp. He doesn't have any other weapons on him that he can reach without leaving himself unprotected, but he can improvise and does, pinning the hybrid in place with a hand wrapped around its throat while he pats the other around wildly, searching for something, anything. His fingers fall on what feels like a football-sized rock and he grasps it, raises it above his head and slams it down, once, twice, three times, and then once more with feeling while the thing jerks weakly under him.
The creature falls still, and Dean flops back over onto his ass, squinting into the dim light of what appears to be a cave as he tries to quieten his breathing. It's silent, no sign of any more of the mutants. "Cas?" he whispers. "Sam? You there?"
He waits, poised and listening, but there's no answer. Worry squirms its queasy way through the pit of his belly as he eases off his pack and fishes out his penlight, training the faint beam briefly across the body at his side. It's wearing a safari vest with what looks like the corner of a billfold poking out of the top pocket, and Dean eases his fingers in there gingerly, pulls out a slim leather wallet and shakes it open to see a Louisiana driver's license. Edward Robicheaux, the kayaker who was taken near Crystal Beach, he recalls. "Sorry, Ed," he croaks. "But thanks for the camera, buddy."
He slides the wallet back where he found it, lifts up his makeshift weapon, finds he was correct and it is in fact a football-sized rock. It's spattered with blood, gray matter and hair, but as of now it's his lucky rock, and he's keeping the damn thing. His gun is several feet away, and he reaches for it before pushing up to a wobbly stand, and fuck, a noise, the scrape of a boot, and he spins around so fast he loses his balance and starts to poleaxe, only to be caught and steadied by hands gripping firmly at his forearms.
"Dean," his brother rasps out. "Thank God."
One of Sam's palms lands against Dean's cheek, taps it, and the other hand stays fixed around his wrist, starts pulling at him. "You okay?" Sam asks breathlessly, as he hustles Dean along.
"Yeah, but Cas-"
"Then start running. It's like Helm's Deep down here."
Dean doesn't need telling twice.
The place is a labyrinth of shafts that spiral down and drop to nowhere and nooks, cracks and larger tunnels that branch out of the main cavern and coil away into the distance. It's a jumble, a complicated snarl of paths, roads, escape routes perhaps, though Castiel doubts that.
He moves stealthily through the maze, machete extended and ready, listening for the slightest sound, his eyes scanning as keenly as they can in this dim light without his grace to sharpen his senses. He detours carefully around boulders, vast spherical limestone and granite formations and stalagmites that could be hiding an ambush, maneuvers cautiously into apertures that lead nowhere but loop back into the main system, squeezes himself past jagged pustules that suppurate foul-smelling liquid. This place is the next level on from where he fell with Claire Novak, he supposes, and he recalls how that place felt alive, felt oppressive, felt as if it was sentient and observing his every move.
He ponders the memory, slows to press his hand flat to the damp wall, and lets the duffel slide down to the ground as he leans in to examine the rock more closely. It glitters with something he assumes is calcite crystals, but it exudes heat and its surface is less hard than he expected. There is give there, and he can feel a far-off vibration, feel pits in the rock like pores in skin, slimy fluid that feels like a film of sweat. He gazes at the way his palm glistens moist with it, drifts for a moment on the notion that this might be interstitial fluid, that it might perhaps bathe the internal organs of this cavity with nutrients, that the intricate network of channels might be the island's lymphatic system. He touches the rock again, feels the hum of it, finds that its warmth is somehow comforting, welcoming, that it is like reconciliation. Solace he thinks hazily. Sustenance.
Castiel senses them before he sees them, a blur of dimly lit motion in his peripheral vision, and he acts purely on instinct, whirling just before the first one reaches for him, bringing the machete up in a scything arc that separates its head from its body with surgical precision.
He backs away warily as they advance, light on his feet, knees bent for fast propulsion into his next move. Even in this huge space they make him feel claustrophobic as they close in, forming a semicircle around him like they did in Rhode Island. They sway from side to side on their feet and Castiel notes abstractedly that their shoes are long-lost and their toes are elongated and as webbed as their fingers are when they point at him.
He means to destroy them, and destroy them he will. But their noise, their incessant, maddening jabber, is somehow soothing, enthralling. It isn't hostile at all, it's welcoming; it speaks of familiarity, of home, of peace.
"No," Castiel hears himself plead once only, ineffectually, the word followed by a shudder and a chill that turns his blood to ice.
But then, suddenly, his foreboding is draining away. He opens himself to their conversation, their dialect bleeding into him, becoming ever more clear in his head, so that any moment now it won't be eerie, formless nonsense at all, it will be a tribute, a call, poetry; a song he joins in with because he knows the words by heart and always has. He smiles, drops his flare gun and his blade, and reaches out with a-
-dull, solid thwack of body on body it ends, tearing Castiel back to the now so violently it dazes him for a moment, so that his eyes can barely track the brawl that is going on around him. He can hear the crunch of fists, harsh grunts of effort, muttered oaths, shouts, and animal shrieks; can see the flash of pale metal as another hand swings the machete he can vaguely remember slipping from his grasp. A gun blats loudly, the noise echoing up into the chasm and the flash illuminating swift-moving silhouettes, and the single blast is followed almost immediately by a barrage, as irrational fury erupts all around him. The flare gun ignites brightly, the cartridge ejecting and burying itself in the midriff of one of their assailants, where it sparks and combusts, the flames leaping out to catch other figures close by and shrouding them in fire.
Still disoriented, Castiel stumbles backward and starts to sink to the ground, only to be gripped at the scruff and hauled upright again. He finds himself staring into Dean's eyes, and even in the poor light he can see they are shining with a basic, atavistic fear.
"Don't pow-wow with them, you fuckin' idiot," Dean hollers at him. "Run."
Castiel points back in the direction from which he came. "The Duck," he manages. "It's warded."
Dean nods. "We're right behind you."
Castiel runs, hears footfalls pounding along behind him as they race through blackness, and he knows the ground is uneven, knows their pace is reckless, and that one slip could be the end for all of them. With every last particle of faith left in him, he prays - and suddenly there she is, sanctuary in the shape of a half-century old hybrid boat-truck, and they variously vault and clamber in over the sides, landing in a panting, cursing heap of exhausted limbs.
After a moment where Castiel sucks in a breath of dizzy relief, someone he thinks is Dean unthreads himself from their tangle and crabs back to the side to peek over.
"Are you sure this place is safe?"
It is Dean, his question hissed out urgently. "Meg warded it," Castiel responds wearily as he sits up, Sam flopping over onto his back next to him, an arm coming up to cover his face as he groans out the exertion.
"She's here?" Dean whispers.
"Her leg is broken." Castiel gestures towards the other end of the vehicle, to where the woman is still lying. It crosses his mind she could be dead but he's too worn out to check. "Badly broken," he adds. "I can't fix it, my grace is inhibited down here too."
Sam finally sits up next to him, bends his legs and rests his forehead on his knees, asks, "What are they doing?"
"Just milling about as far as I can see," Dean reports, his voice a little louder and more confident now it doesn't seem like an attack is imminent. "You got the flare gun?"
"Yeah, I managed to grab the bag too." Sam leans across to where the duffel is spilling its contents out over the deck, sends the weapon skittering across the wood.
The gun sounds, starbursts lighting up the space again, and Castiel rises to his knees behind Dean's shoulder, sees the thronging figures roughly thirty yards away. They don't seem to be doing anything but waiting, and the notion fills him with the same confusing mix of unease and comfort he felt as they surrounded him out there, before…the thought fades away to nothing. His recall is nebulous and unsure, his memories incoherent and disjointed. He turns away from them, closes his ears to their distant murmur, but still it buzzes in the back of his mind.
The sharp jab of an elbow into his ribs has him jump, swiveling his head around fast, to where Dean is sitting next to him now, apparently satisfied the mutants won't venture closer. He has a flashlight set next to him, illuminating the gloom, and he's biting his lip.
"We need to figure out a plan," he says, casual, but not, and Castiel thinks he might be doing it for Sam's benefit, because when he glances over Sam is slumped in the kind of dejected huddle that signals resignation.
"We still have the False Prophet," Dean goes on, "so maybe we just give it another shot." He chuckles then, but in the yellow glow that lights him Castiel can see his eyes are flat and humorless. "So which one of you guys wasn't believing hard enough up there? Because I believed so damn hard it hurt."
"I believed," Sam offers after a brief hush, and he throws up a tired hand. "At least I think I did."
Another nudge at Castiel's side. "Then you're it, Cas."
Castiel frowns, thinks his way back to the ritual, swallows. His head is cloudy again, and he sees Dean's expression soften.
"You okay?" Dean lays his hand on Castiel's cheek again, traces the skin under Castiel's eye with his thumb. His eyes flit over to his brother briefly before he leans in and nuzzles Castiel's lips with his. "We're getting out of here," he murmurs. "We are." He pulls away, rubs at his stomach, and scowls his way into a detour. "I'm fuckin' starving. I wish we had one of your pies."
He launches himself onto all fours, disappears over the stern into the barge for a few minutes before clambering into the Duck again. "Bagels," he announces, as he returns to Castiel's side, and he presses one into Castiel's hand, tosses another over to Sam. "Stale, but better than nothing." After sinking his teeth in to take a mouthful of the bread, he continues. "We rest now. Think about where to go from here after that. Clear heads make better plans. It'll come together. Sam, you're first watch."
He sounds optimistic, confident, and Castiel looks from him over to Sam, who scrubs a hand through his hair, and motions towards the fuel tanks.
"At least we have gas."
Gas, yes, but their food and water will run out in the next few days, and Castiel suspects they won't be driving out of here any time soon. He casts his eyes towards the woman a few feet away, looks down to the bottle of water on her lap, finds himself thinking bleakly that it might be a waste of their resources given her chances.
"Shoo-dobe-rof-ay-tase, what does that even mean?" Dean grumbles out abruptly as he shoves the rest of the food in his mouth.
Castiel is at a loss for a moment until Sam shrugs. "It's what those things were chanting when we found you out there."
Dean yawns widely as he turns in and settles himself down on Castiel's shoulder. "It's what they were saying to you last time they hypnotized you like that, in Rhode Island. Bobby said so, remember?"
It strikes something somewhere inside Castiel, and unbidden he finds he's folding his arms protectively across his chest. "I don't know, I don't - remember. Was I? Hypnotized?" His mind churns confusion, and his voice cracks, although he doesn't know why. "I don't know what that means, I don't. I'm…not."
Dean is straightening now, body going taut as he comes alert again, and he points a look over at Sam and back. "It's alright, Cas," he reassures gently. "It was just a spell. Rest. Okay? We'll figure it out."
He slides his arm around Castiel's belly, pulls him over and into his warmth, and Castiel sinks into it gratefully.
"Pseudoprophetes."
It's quiet, and her voice might even be regretful when she says it.
Castiel feels Dean shift next to him, his interest piqued. "Come again?"
Meg is moving slowly, unscrewing the cap of the water bottle Castiel left on her thigh and raising it to her lips to gulp a mouthful. "Pseudoprophetes," she repeats after wiping her chin. "Not shoodobe - whatever it was you said. It means-"
"False Prophet," Sam finishes. "Of course. Pseudo, that's Ancient Greek." He huffs. "Bobby wrote it down phonetically, remember?"
"Yeah, and fish lips, hard to understand," Dean sighs ruefully. He clucks his tongue as he studies Meg, and it sounds loud in the hush. "How's the leg?" he asks diplomatically.
Castiel knows Dean's concern makes no difference, that they are going to kill the woman, the pseudoprophetes, because it will save the world. And he isn't sure if he believes it will, if the chaos magic principle will work, because he didn't believe it would the first time, back in the jungle. He realizes this in a fraction of a second during which he can hear them in his head as if they never left, the souls, whispering and plotting, mocking him; and he remembers how he railed against them for turning him into something he was never meant to be, and-
"It's not me," she cuts in simply, from far away. "The False Prophet."
Castiel sits up slowly, and his body feels heavy, weighed down with knowledge, because the murk is lifting and he is seeing the truth of the buried thing in his memory as the cloud that obstructs it from view drifts away. He can hear Dean's response, terse and dismissive background noise, but his mind is clear now, painfully sharp, and the clarity sends cold coursing through him. He wants to curl up and whimper, and there isn't enough oxygen in the fast, shallow breaths he's taking, because-
"Not this time." She keeps going, quiet but firm. "The first time, yes. For Lucifer. But not this time. I didn't help prepare the way for the Beast this time round, it was-"
"Me."
Castiel doesn't recognize his own voice, is amazed he even manages to get the word out past the dryness in his throat, the nausea swirling through his gut, and the fear, the guilt. "Me," he gasps again, in dread and sheer wonder. "It's me. It always was."
There is fear in Dean's expression when he twists around to look at Castiel, bewilderment too, and his eyes are suddenly too big for his face. He reaches out to Castiel, but there can be no comfort for this, not really, and it suffocates Castiel, makes him giddy with horror and disgust at himself.
"No…"
Castiel can hear someone saying it, over and over, no-no-no-no, but Dean's lips aren't moving, Dean is just staring at him, his mouth slack.
"No," Castiel cries, because it's his denial, breathless and reedy with devastation. "No, no, no, no," he cries, and he's shuffling away, rapidly, his boot heels skidding on the wood, his head shaking, no, as Dean crawls after him, pulls him back and into his arms. Over Dean's shoulder Castiel can see Sam, his face appalled, a hand pressed to his head, and he hears Dean gruff above him, throwing a jumble of sharp words back at his brother, …need to be with him, talk some sense into him.
Sam nods swiftly, doesn't speak, and Castiel feels himself being heaved up and chivvied over the stern of the Duck and down through the hatch Dean only recently disappeared through to forage for food. Balthazar, he's thinking, out of the blue; and only now does he comprehend what his dream-brother meant when he told him, the one who begins it is the one who must end it, and only now does he understand the sorrow and pity in Balthazar's eyes. "I'm damned, Dean," he chokes out into the dark. "I'm damned, and I'm afraid, afraid to go back there, I'm-"
The blow isn't particularly hard but the sound of Dean's hand on Castiel's cheek is loud as a pistol shot, and when the cargo hold lamp snaps on Dean's eyes are fierce, even if his palm is gentle when he touches it to Castiel's face again.
Castiel swallows through the throbbing sting of it, and, "I began it, Dean," he whispers, and he hears his own deranged laugh as he thinks suddenly of that small kernel of suspicion that has nagged at him, that small part of him that knew this and always has. "I am the False Prophet…when I freed the souls I began it, and my miracles prepared the way. And you have to destroy me, you-"
Dean pulls back and hits him again, harder, with his fist this time. His knuckles slam into Castiel's jaw, sharp and unforgiving, and Castiel tastes blood as he loses his balance and crashes into the wall. His slide down it is halted by Dean's fingers twisting in the fabric of his t-shirt, and Dean is up close now, his eyes already wet and red, his expression stricken and too young for more loss.
"How dare you," Dean chides him hoarsely, "how fuckin' dare you say that to me. I'm in love with you. How dare you think I can do that to you…"
There is blind fury and numb shock in his gaze as he trails off, and Castiel knows the same desperation and horror, felt it himself in an alleyway in Cicero at that moment when he knew he would do anything to keep Dean, anything. He puts his hand on Dean's cheek now, wipes the pad of his thumb through Dean's tears. "The one who begins it is the one who will end it," he says, suddenly calm and controlled, because he has accepted it. "I began it. And Michael shall bind together the False Prophet and the Beast, and he shall hurl them for all eternity into the Lake of Fire."
Dean makes a small, unintelligible sound from far back in his throat, and it seems that if he can't stop Castiel with a beating, he will stop him with his mouth. He falls in and swallows down Castiel's words, his hands clamped to the sides of Castiel's head, fingers twining themselves in Castiel's hair as he tumbles them down onto the mattress. He covers Castiel with his body, grinding down onto him, and Castiel gives himself up to it, swept along in this passion Dean is using to build a wall between them and what must happen.
Suddenly there is naked skin, so much of it, smooth and hot, and damp breath panting out softly, mine, always mine, as greedy hands touch and map and cling; and suddenly there are lips and teeth and tongue on Castiel, rough and frantic, never let go of you, never. Suddenly there are spit-slick fingers working inside him, and then the hard press and the first agonizing, forced thrust of Dean, rigid and burning hot as he splits Castiel apart; and Castiel welcomes the ferocity of it and loves it with all of his heart, snapping his hips up instinctively to meet Dean. A whiteout of pleasure explodes inside him, cauterizing the pain, and Castiel gasps at the sensation, pulls Dean in again and again to slam into that same spot, savage enough to bruise and scar him deep inside just as Dean scarred his skin. It feels like he is taking what's his, finally, and all the while Dean sobs out his grief, Cas-Cas-Cas, biting frantically at the skin of Castiel's neck, until his muscles lock in spasm and he pours himself into Castiel at last, love you, love you, always, I love you, while Castiel clenches around him and spills across their bellies.
It is over in bare moments, but Castiel will have the memory of this at least, and he wraps his legs around Dean and holds him there in the empty ache and despair of afterwards, stroking Dean's back as Dean shatters in his embrace, his tears tracking warm, wet tributaries along Castiel's chest.
"I'm afraid, Dean," Castiel whispers, as Dean's breath finally evens out and his body grows heavy with exhaustion. "I'm afraid of damnation. But I would have stayed tethered to my post down there willingly to spare you this."
Dean isn't asleep yet, and he rouses slightly. His fingers move restlessly in Castiel's hair, and his lips mouth tenderly at Castiel's throat. "Sssshh," he breathes. "Don't be afraid, Cas. Ssshhh. I got you."
Meg is making small noises of discomfort, but even though Sam is staring right at her, he's seeing through her.
He's thinking of penance, reparation, atonement. He thinks maybe he has atoned - or at least he thought he had. He thought Castiel had too, that the angel's atonement might be the knowledge that his own hands were used to commit sins and crimes that he never would have consented to, even if he did choose his path himself. Like Sam had, and they have both suffered for their pride and misdeeds. But it isn't enough, or so it seems.
"Maybe it's divine justice," he says out loud.
Meg clears her throat, interrupting his reverie, and when he focuses on her she gives a listless shrug. "The wrath of God is a hungry animal with a big appetite," she says faintly. "The big kahuna can't just overlook violations of His law…it would bring moral confusion upon His creation." She pauses to drink from her bottle of water. "Bible study," she adds then. "Know thine enemy."
Sam studies her. "Not your enemy any more, though."
His tone is skeptical enough that she smirks at him. "Nope. And there's nothing so zealous as a convert."
"But you have no soul," Sam reminds her, and damn, but he knows the difference that makes, remembers the thing he was and its moral nihilism; its lack of any real purpose other than the impulse to destroy anything that got in its way.
"Maybe I'll grow one," she wheezes, and she shifts slightly, sucks in a breath of pain.
A few feet away is the first aid kit Dean used to dress the cut on Sam's head, and Sam isn't the soulless void he once was even if she is, so he leans across to snag it, crawls over to her. The machete he was using to beat the jungle into submission is resting next to her thigh and he eyes it dubiously. After a mildly derisive roll of her eyes, she pushes it over in his direction, and he skitters it well away from her reach.
There is a bottle of Bactine in the kit, painkillers too, and he shakes out two, glances at her waxy, drawn face and shakes out two more, offers them over. She takes them wordlessly, washes them down with a gulp of water from her bottle, braces herself as he brandishes the antiseptic. He pauses, can't help wincing as he looks down at her leg, and he wonders if it's even worth putting her through this.
As if she read his mind, she says, "It's worth it."
Her eyes are oddly dark again when he meets them, so that he wonders if the demon is simply dormant, inhibited like Castiel's grace.
"It's worth it," she repeats. "We have an escape route. End him, and you end this. You save the world, and we get out of here." Her lips go thin. "I'll be needing my leg for that."
There's a minute when she stares at Sam as if she's daring him to refuse, but he unscrews the cap of the bottle, pours the liquid over the gash, and she bites into her knuckles as she whimpers through the sting of it. He sits back on his heels, gives her some time.
"To think I used to find pain such a turn-on," she chokes out eventually, and her smile is like a snarl.
There are gauze pads in the kit, and Sam places a couple over the jagged ends of bone, tapes them in place. It's a rudimentary dressing, but it might help keep the wound clean.
He isn't sure how much time has passed. He crawls back to his post, rises to his knees and peers over the side of the Duck to where the creatures still wander around aimlessly, no closer than they were when his brother disappeared into the gloom, pushing Castiel ahead of him. Sam finds himself suddenly thinking of Castiel diving into the sea, and how the storm whipped the water into a frenzy as this place rose from the deep; remembers how his brother concluded that the Beast must know they had his False Prophet. And Dean was right, in the cruelest possible way.
Sam sighs, flops back down onto his ass, pulls his knees up and hugs them as he eyes the ex-demon. "What were you going to do with him?" he asks her after a moment. "Back when you were bartering Adam for him?"
She shrugs. "Use him to control the Beast. Or to end it, if it didn't play nice. When you have the thing that can help lock it back in its cell, you're holding all the cards."
Sam swallows. "What happens if we don't play our hand?"
"You're so predictable." She tsks. "You know what happens, what this is. It's bigger than him. It's bigger than whatever your brother has going on with him. You don't do this, the Earth dies screaming. It's probably happening up there right now. Is he worth that? After what he did to you?"
Sam regards her for a moment. "This is never going to be about revenge for me," he says softly. "Never. And it's not my decision to make anyway."
She cants her head, doesn't answer him, and they fall quiet for a few strained minutes until Sam pushes up and twists around again, fixing his gaze over the back of the Duck into the barge, to the seam of soft light seeping up around the hatch. He chews his lip. It's been deathly quiet for what seems like a long while after the brief turmoil of raised, overwrought voices and sheer distress that had him pressing his hands to his ears to give them some privacy.
Sam debates what to do next, finally gives in and slides himself up and over the stern to slip his fingers in the latch and lift the hatch cover up a few inches. His eyes flash over a tangle of naked limbs, half covered with a blanket and discarded clothing; the back of Dean's head, his brother's face hidden in Castiel's neck, and Castiel's eyes closed, one arm wrapped protectively around Dean.
"Jesus, Cas," Sam mutters wearily, through the awful, hollow sadness he feels. He lowers the hatch as stealthily as he can, glances back at Meg. "Is there another way?" he asks.
"Not that I know of," she says, "and I would tell you if there was, Sam." She smiles, but Sam thinks there isn't any real pleasure in it. "I always had a soft spot for Clarence," she muses. "But…the one who began it has to end it. That's the way it works."
Dean wakes slowly, out of a dream of a cottage in the Ozarks, aged by weather and time, and the woman who told him he shone so brightly she could see him for miles. Beware little boy, for your journey is just beginning, she tells him, and then light lasers out of her eyes because she isn't Sula at all, she is the gatekeeper angel on his granite throne at the borders of Purgatory. His sword bleeds flame as his words ring out, there are rules you have to follow…use the same door for going in and going out…the Balance depends on it, but even as he is speaking, his face is blurring and running together, like a painting out in the rain, into something harder, narrow-sculpted, and beaky. Death, who lifts one skinny eyebrow into a supercilious curve and hisses play your role, like it means something.
Dean blinks himself fully awake with a wince, because he knows it does mean something, that it all does.
He's draped across Castiel, his cheeks tight with the salt of dried-on tears, and his eyes lethargic with weeping. His nose is stuffy with it, and there is a tight band of pressure around his brow, the headache he came round with out in the caverns still lurking. He lifts his head up cautiously, studies Castiel's face, gone soft and oddly innocent in repose. There is a black bruise starting to blossom on Castiel's jaw, where Dean's fist landed, and Dean can still taste Castiel's blood on his tongue. A wave of tenderness wells up inside him, and he tips his head down, kisses the scar he left on Castiel's chest, before he slides his way out from under Castiel's arm in tiny increments, watching for every twitch of muscle and flicker of eyelid, careful not to wake his friend.
Once up, Dean dresses swiftly and silently, and as he pulls on his jeans, his finger catches on a crumpled edge of paper poking out of his back pocket. He pulls it out, unfolds it, marvels that he even still has it as he reads the words.
He watches Castiel sleep for another moment, like he knows Castiel has watched him sleep; and this is the last time he will do it, the last time he will wake up to this.
"I love you," he whispers. "And I wanted more time for us."
He gazes at Castiel for another long moment, and then he climbs stealthily out of the hull to speak with his brother.
Episode 23: Achilles' Last Stand (continued)
Masterpost: Supernatural: Redemption Road (for full series info,
warnings, and disclaimer)
Authors: swordofmymouth and zatnikatel
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam, OC and canon characters
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: ~15,000
Warnings: language, violence, sexuality, suggested dubcon
Betas: dotfic and murron
Art: Chapter banner by swordofmymouth and zatnikatel; digital illustration by quantum_witch, which you can also find here (art contains spoilers for the chapter).
Summary: "There are things out there…bad things."
Castiel awakens to a sound.
It's a quiet sound, modest, as though someone is trying to muffle it, and immediately after he hears it, all falls silent again.
Silent except for faint out-breaths a short distance away, and for a moment Castiel is confused, can't ascertain where he is or who is with him there. He pores through a flood of memories unique to him: the Host, angels as he once was, nestlings comfortable with each other and their effortless comradeship, forged in countless battles. But they never breathed, not like this.
He listens, his own near-human breath bated, until he hears the other sound again. With it he discards his past, because this is the now and he knows the sound he hears is Meg weeping. Her stifled, hitching sobs are strangely lulling, and he keeps his eyes closed, drifts back into half-sleep. He imagines that he is in his bed at Bobby's house, and that if he turns over he will come to rest against the warm curve of Dean's back, that he will nuzzle the nape of Dean's neck and Dean will grunt in his sleep and push instinctively into him.
Dean isn't here.
The realization that he can't sense Dean nearby jolts Castiel back to the present again. He's lying on something uncomfortable, that digs into his back…his rucksack, he realizes. He snaps his eyes open to black, pushes up onto his elbows, pats his hand cautiously around him. Rough woodgrain meets his touch, and as his eyes become accustomed to the darkness he can see a greenish, phosphorescent glow stretching up above him, reminiscent of the strange light in the chimney-crevice he ascended with Claire Novak. He backtracks, remembers being surrounded by something soft, and alive, and malevolent, remembers how it pulled at him even while it repelled him, remembers the world turning upside-down and spinning madly as they fell. His ears pop and he swears the sound they make must be audible, a sign of the rapid change in pressure that signals they are leagues beneath the surface of the world.
Dean, where is Dean?
Separation anxiety clutches at Castiel, the same ache and need he always feels when Dean isn't in close proximity. He reaches back into the recesses of himself, into those old places where his dying grace still lingers like a fog, and he tests it, tries to take what he wants from the elements, from time and dimension and space, tries to shape it into force of will and intent that will take him to wherever Dean is. It fizzles uselessly, as it did on the surface after the Beast awoke and Castiel thought to beat his wings and take to the sky with the Winchesters clutched tight to him while shit happened all around them. Here, what's left of his grace is dormant when he needs it most, and in a flash of insight he thinks he understands why Meg sobs, can empathize with her tears. While he can imagine the size and extent of her loss, her demonhood scattered and gone in the wind, swallowed up in the belly of the Beast, he can't imagine what it would be like to do it alone.
Meg has no one.
He has Dean.
If he can find him.
Dean. Again, it aches through Castiel, a mixture of longing and fear. He can't help forming the name on his tongue, needing to hear himself say it here in the darkness, and the sounds of distress stop abruptly. "Meg?" he fishes cautiously.
"There are things out there," she says softly, after a beat of silence. "Bad things. One of them was in here, I killed it. I warded the truck."
Bad things. There is an irony in it, Castiel supposes. "When you say bad things, I assume you mean things that are worse than you?" he remarks, as he sits up and casts his eyes about him properly.
"Things that are worse than us," she replies after a second or two, and maybe the old acid is creeping back into her tone. "You're no angel, angel."
Touché, but there is no time for this, because now that Castiel's vision is sufficiently acclimatized it falls on a long, bulky shape at the cabin end of the truck bed, and he finds he is frozen in place by the ghastly possibility that flits through his mind. "What you killed," he croaks. "Are you sure it was-"
"One of those mutant fish-zombies. Your boyfriend and his brother aren't here."
The relief is like balm but Castiel has no time to take comfort in it, as he vaguely sees a missile arc through the darkness towards him. Something heavy clunks down onto his lap, and he startles, manages to bite back a curse, and puts his hand there before he can stop himself. Round, wet, icy-cold. It gives when he presses on it, and it feels disturbingly like-
"I cut its head off with Sam's machete."
"Dean would say you got your groove back," Castiel rasps out, as he tosses the evidence of her defensive expertise over his shoulder, and the name has his chest squeeze his heart tight again. "Have you heard anything that might-"
"Nothing. I couldn't even make out which one of you was here with me until you woke. I thought you were dead."
Castiel hears the rustle of fabric, can just barely pick out the figure moving inside the cabin. She sucks in a noise that suggests extreme discomfort, but he puts her out of his mind, lets it fill it with grim resolve instead. He needs his sword, and he sets his jaw, concentrates as he reaches inside himself for his grace again. It barely flickers, muted into submission by this realm and the thing that rules here, and Castiel can't help the harsh sound of frustration he makes. Dean.
He shrugs off his pack, pushes up to his knees, and when he sees that the barge is still chained to the Duck he throws up a prayer out of habit, even though he isn't sure if he believes any more. He crabs his way over the stern of the Duck, pops the hatch in the deck of the barge, and drops down into the cargo hold. The larger weapons duffel is where Dean left it before they set off on their trek, dumped beside the mattress the demon had been occupying during the voyage, and Castiel hoists it up and out, pulling himself back out behind it.
He eases the duffel up and over into the Duck, scanning the darkness beyond the sides of the craft, and alert to any sounds of movement, slithers his way after the bag and pats about inside it, finding a flashlight he sets down on the deck next to him. He roots through the jumbled weaponry again, until his fingers fall on the flare gun Jonas Harper's friend thoughtfully provided, and then he pokes further, locates the cartridge-packed bandolier that goes with it.
"You say this vehicle is warded?" he directs over towards the top end of the Duck.
After a sniff, Meg answers, "Standard devil's trap and a few others, just to be sure. There haven't been any more of those guys climbing in here, so I think it's working."
There is a thigh holster in the bag too, and Castiel straps it on, fills its slots with two lethally sharp knives and one of the guns. "You seem somewhat calmer," he observes as he works. "You have Sam's machete still? We may need it out there."
He hears the metallic clink of its blade tapping against something. "It's amazing how shock, blood loss and intense pain focus the mind," she says randomly, before adding, "My leg is broken."
And, time, there is no time for this.
There is a baseball bat in the bag, and Castiel tugs it out, crawls over to where she is sitting, stopping briefly to hoist the headless body up and over the side of the Duck. He snaps on the flashlight, looks into a shell-shocked, moon-pale face.
"Looks like you're on your own, Clarence," she says, curling her lips into a feeble smile before she casts her eyes down.
Castiel doesn't respond, shines the beam over her leg. Blood is congealing underneath it, tacky and dark, and just below her knee the limb diverts into a slight angle at a wound through which the pearly, splintered ends of snapped bone protrude.
"It's a compound fracture," she murmurs distantly. "If we ever get out of this sewer, I'm looking at plates, rods, pins. I'll limp for the rest of my life, assuming gangrene doesn't set in and they take the leg off."
Castiel meets her gaze and she shrugs. "My last meatpuppet was a nurse." She watches him for a moment, licks her lips, and her tone turns harder. "Come on, choose the moral high road. You owe me for taking care of Crowley for you."
It's clear what she's asking. "Ending your misery might be the moral high road," Castiel parries brusquely. "And you destroyed Crowley for your own gain. It was purely personal, there was no altruism in the gesture."
Her lips pull tight. "Are you telling me it wouldn't have been even a little bit personal if you'd ganked the bastard?"
Castiel knows he can't claim that with any degree of credibility, so he bypasses the question. "In any case, I can't fix it," he says. "My grace is blocked here." He doesn't dwell on whether he would if he could, or whether he would hold onto whatever is left of himself in case he needed it for Dean. He lays the flashlight down, notices abstractedly that its beam is playing across sigils daubed on the wooden decking in what must be the woman's own blood. He lays the baseball bat alongside her leg, rises to his knees to unbuckle his belt. "Are you wearing one of these?" he asks.
Her eyes widen and she smirks a little, like the demon in her always used to, and Castiel can't help acknowledging that there is something admirable in her bravado.
"I'll need it to secure the splint," he clarifies.
She grimaces, straightens up slightly and mimics him, tugging her own belt out of its loops and handing it over.
Castiel sets it down on the deck, slips his bowie out of his boot and uses it to slice off a strip of the leather at the end of the belt. He hands it to her and her eyebrows tent curiously.
"You'll need to bite down on something while I try to set this," he says.
"I doubt it's settable, but you have at it." She snorts then. "I guess this is my penance," she jokes, a little defiantly, and after swallowing hard she lifts the leather strip to her mouth, fastens her teeth to it.
"Ready?" Castiel asks her, and she rolls her eyes.
Her frame locks up tight as he puts his hands on her leg. He doesn't look at her, ignores the way her hands flap at his, ignores the strangled whining. He is gentle but thorough as he straightens the limb, lifting it slightly to run the belts underneath it and around the bat, above and below the break. It's inadequate at best, he knows, but he can do no more for her. When he's finished she's still and quiet, and her oblivion is a relief because it means he can leave.
He crawls back to where he propped his rucksack, feels about inside it. Water, two bottles, and he retrieves one, stands and picks his way back to where the unconscious demon - woman, he corrects himself - is slumped. He places the bottle on her lap before he makes his way back to the duffel, hefts it, and drops it over the side of the Duck. He snags the flare gun and lowers himself overboard, to the surface.
There is solid rock below him, faint impressions of craggy walls surrounding the Duck. Castiel pauses to listen for any sounds, but he can't hear them or sense anything. He raises the flare gun over his head, pulls the trigger, and pink light explodes to reveal an endless, empty cavern stretching up into the sky and continuing on into the distance here at ground level. It's a mirror image of the crack in Mendocino, magnified exponentially, and Dean and Sam are lost in it somewhere. Castiel breathes deeply for a moment, closes his eyes and pushes his hand up inside his t-shirt to his scar. It worked before, in the other rift, and he concentrates. And there it is, the barest tingle of heat, like a tiny electric shock, and he gasps with the sheer relief of it.
"Dean," he breathes out into the darkness again, and it strengthens his resolve like he knew it would.
He bends to pull a machete out of the bag, hoists it up on his shoulder, and steals forward into the darkness.
Dean comes round with a college marching band playing Sousa music in his head, and this time is even worse than every other time he's done it because Bobby's dog is snuffling at his face, dolloping drool on him, and Jesus, that can't be healthy because the damn mutt probably just finished licking its butt clean after its morning dump.
"Fuck off, Cheney," he manages, and he flails a hand up to grab the dog's collar and heave it away.
And…fabric, too-long hair, slick, gluey flesh under his questing palm, and that isn't the sour blast of dog-breath, it's the fetid stench of rotting marine life, danger-Will-Robinson.
Dean snaps fully awake and looks up into the soft glow of golden eyes surrounded by shimmering scales, a lipless mouth bared over fangs, and fuck, fish-guy. They share a frozen moment of mutual huh?! and then Dean bucks with all his might.
The mutant is taken unawares and bounces up off him to land on its back right beside him, where only Castiel should lie, and Dean flips himself up and over as adroitly as he can with a headache the size of Texas slowing him down, straddling the thing before it can recover. He fumbles the Glock he commandeered from the duffel out of his waistband, curses as the thing's hand streaks up lightning-fast to smash it from his grasp. He doesn't have any other weapons on him that he can reach without leaving himself unprotected, but he can improvise and does, pinning the hybrid in place with a hand wrapped around its throat while he pats the other around wildly, searching for something, anything. His fingers fall on what feels like a football-sized rock and he grasps it, raises it above his head and slams it down, once, twice, three times, and then once more with feeling while the thing jerks weakly under him.
The creature falls still, and Dean flops back over onto his ass, squinting into the dim light of what appears to be a cave as he tries to quieten his breathing. It's silent, no sign of any more of the mutants. "Cas?" he whispers. "Sam? You there?"
He waits, poised and listening, but there's no answer. Worry squirms its queasy way through the pit of his belly as he eases off his pack and fishes out his penlight, training the faint beam briefly across the body at his side. It's wearing a safari vest with what looks like the corner of a billfold poking out of the top pocket, and Dean eases his fingers in there gingerly, pulls out a slim leather wallet and shakes it open to see a Louisiana driver's license. Edward Robicheaux, the kayaker who was taken near Crystal Beach, he recalls. "Sorry, Ed," he croaks. "But thanks for the camera, buddy."
He slides the wallet back where he found it, lifts up his makeshift weapon, finds he was correct and it is in fact a football-sized rock. It's spattered with blood, gray matter and hair, but as of now it's his lucky rock, and he's keeping the damn thing. His gun is several feet away, and he reaches for it before pushing up to a wobbly stand, and fuck, a noise, the scrape of a boot, and he spins around so fast he loses his balance and starts to poleaxe, only to be caught and steadied by hands gripping firmly at his forearms.
"Dean," his brother rasps out. "Thank God."
One of Sam's palms lands against Dean's cheek, taps it, and the other hand stays fixed around his wrist, starts pulling at him. "You okay?" Sam asks breathlessly, as he hustles Dean along.
"Yeah, but Cas-"
"Then start running. It's like Helm's Deep down here."
Dean doesn't need telling twice.
The place is a labyrinth of shafts that spiral down and drop to nowhere and nooks, cracks and larger tunnels that branch out of the main cavern and coil away into the distance. It's a jumble, a complicated snarl of paths, roads, escape routes perhaps, though Castiel doubts that.
He moves stealthily through the maze, machete extended and ready, listening for the slightest sound, his eyes scanning as keenly as they can in this dim light without his grace to sharpen his senses. He detours carefully around boulders, vast spherical limestone and granite formations and stalagmites that could be hiding an ambush, maneuvers cautiously into apertures that lead nowhere but loop back into the main system, squeezes himself past jagged pustules that suppurate foul-smelling liquid. This place is the next level on from where he fell with Claire Novak, he supposes, and he recalls how that place felt alive, felt oppressive, felt as if it was sentient and observing his every move.
He ponders the memory, slows to press his hand flat to the damp wall, and lets the duffel slide down to the ground as he leans in to examine the rock more closely. It glitters with something he assumes is calcite crystals, but it exudes heat and its surface is less hard than he expected. There is give there, and he can feel a far-off vibration, feel pits in the rock like pores in skin, slimy fluid that feels like a film of sweat. He gazes at the way his palm glistens moist with it, drifts for a moment on the notion that this might be interstitial fluid, that it might perhaps bathe the internal organs of this cavity with nutrients, that the intricate network of channels might be the island's lymphatic system. He touches the rock again, feels the hum of it, finds that its warmth is somehow comforting, welcoming, that it is like reconciliation. Solace he thinks hazily. Sustenance.
Castiel senses them before he sees them, a blur of dimly lit motion in his peripheral vision, and he acts purely on instinct, whirling just before the first one reaches for him, bringing the machete up in a scything arc that separates its head from its body with surgical precision.
He backs away warily as they advance, light on his feet, knees bent for fast propulsion into his next move. Even in this huge space they make him feel claustrophobic as they close in, forming a semicircle around him like they did in Rhode Island. They sway from side to side on their feet and Castiel notes abstractedly that their shoes are long-lost and their toes are elongated and as webbed as their fingers are when they point at him.
He means to destroy them, and destroy them he will. But their noise, their incessant, maddening jabber, is somehow soothing, enthralling. It isn't hostile at all, it's welcoming; it speaks of familiarity, of home, of peace.
"No," Castiel hears himself plead once only, ineffectually, the word followed by a shudder and a chill that turns his blood to ice.
But then, suddenly, his foreboding is draining away. He opens himself to their conversation, their dialect bleeding into him, becoming ever more clear in his head, so that any moment now it won't be eerie, formless nonsense at all, it will be a tribute, a call, poetry; a song he joins in with because he knows the words by heart and always has. He smiles, drops his flare gun and his blade, and reaches out with a-
-dull, solid thwack of body on body it ends, tearing Castiel back to the now so violently it dazes him for a moment, so that his eyes can barely track the brawl that is going on around him. He can hear the crunch of fists, harsh grunts of effort, muttered oaths, shouts, and animal shrieks; can see the flash of pale metal as another hand swings the machete he can vaguely remember slipping from his grasp. A gun blats loudly, the noise echoing up into the chasm and the flash illuminating swift-moving silhouettes, and the single blast is followed almost immediately by a barrage, as irrational fury erupts all around him. The flare gun ignites brightly, the cartridge ejecting and burying itself in the midriff of one of their assailants, where it sparks and combusts, the flames leaping out to catch other figures close by and shrouding them in fire.
Still disoriented, Castiel stumbles backward and starts to sink to the ground, only to be gripped at the scruff and hauled upright again. He finds himself staring into Dean's eyes, and even in the poor light he can see they are shining with a basic, atavistic fear.
"Don't pow-wow with them, you fuckin' idiot," Dean hollers at him. "Run."
Castiel points back in the direction from which he came. "The Duck," he manages. "It's warded."
Dean nods. "We're right behind you."
Castiel runs, hears footfalls pounding along behind him as they race through blackness, and he knows the ground is uneven, knows their pace is reckless, and that one slip could be the end for all of them. With every last particle of faith left in him, he prays - and suddenly there she is, sanctuary in the shape of a half-century old hybrid boat-truck, and they variously vault and clamber in over the sides, landing in a panting, cursing heap of exhausted limbs.
After a moment where Castiel sucks in a breath of dizzy relief, someone he thinks is Dean unthreads himself from their tangle and crabs back to the side to peek over.
"Are you sure this place is safe?"
It is Dean, his question hissed out urgently. "Meg warded it," Castiel responds wearily as he sits up, Sam flopping over onto his back next to him, an arm coming up to cover his face as he groans out the exertion.
"She's here?" Dean whispers.
"Her leg is broken." Castiel gestures towards the other end of the vehicle, to where the woman is still lying. It crosses his mind she could be dead but he's too worn out to check. "Badly broken," he adds. "I can't fix it, my grace is inhibited down here too."
Sam finally sits up next to him, bends his legs and rests his forehead on his knees, asks, "What are they doing?"
"Just milling about as far as I can see," Dean reports, his voice a little louder and more confident now it doesn't seem like an attack is imminent. "You got the flare gun?"
"Yeah, I managed to grab the bag too." Sam leans across to where the duffel is spilling its contents out over the deck, sends the weapon skittering across the wood.
The gun sounds, starbursts lighting up the space again, and Castiel rises to his knees behind Dean's shoulder, sees the thronging figures roughly thirty yards away. They don't seem to be doing anything but waiting, and the notion fills him with the same confusing mix of unease and comfort he felt as they surrounded him out there, before…the thought fades away to nothing. His recall is nebulous and unsure, his memories incoherent and disjointed. He turns away from them, closes his ears to their distant murmur, but still it buzzes in the back of his mind.
The sharp jab of an elbow into his ribs has him jump, swiveling his head around fast, to where Dean is sitting next to him now, apparently satisfied the mutants won't venture closer. He has a flashlight set next to him, illuminating the gloom, and he's biting his lip.
"We need to figure out a plan," he says, casual, but not, and Castiel thinks he might be doing it for Sam's benefit, because when he glances over Sam is slumped in the kind of dejected huddle that signals resignation.
"We still have the False Prophet," Dean goes on, "so maybe we just give it another shot." He chuckles then, but in the yellow glow that lights him Castiel can see his eyes are flat and humorless. "So which one of you guys wasn't believing hard enough up there? Because I believed so damn hard it hurt."
"I believed," Sam offers after a brief hush, and he throws up a tired hand. "At least I think I did."
Another nudge at Castiel's side. "Then you're it, Cas."
Castiel frowns, thinks his way back to the ritual, swallows. His head is cloudy again, and he sees Dean's expression soften.
"You okay?" Dean lays his hand on Castiel's cheek again, traces the skin under Castiel's eye with his thumb. His eyes flit over to his brother briefly before he leans in and nuzzles Castiel's lips with his. "We're getting out of here," he murmurs. "We are." He pulls away, rubs at his stomach, and scowls his way into a detour. "I'm fuckin' starving. I wish we had one of your pies."
He launches himself onto all fours, disappears over the stern into the barge for a few minutes before clambering into the Duck again. "Bagels," he announces, as he returns to Castiel's side, and he presses one into Castiel's hand, tosses another over to Sam. "Stale, but better than nothing." After sinking his teeth in to take a mouthful of the bread, he continues. "We rest now. Think about where to go from here after that. Clear heads make better plans. It'll come together. Sam, you're first watch."
He sounds optimistic, confident, and Castiel looks from him over to Sam, who scrubs a hand through his hair, and motions towards the fuel tanks.
"At least we have gas."
Gas, yes, but their food and water will run out in the next few days, and Castiel suspects they won't be driving out of here any time soon. He casts his eyes towards the woman a few feet away, looks down to the bottle of water on her lap, finds himself thinking bleakly that it might be a waste of their resources given her chances.
"Shoo-dobe-rof-ay-tase, what does that even mean?" Dean grumbles out abruptly as he shoves the rest of the food in his mouth.
Castiel is at a loss for a moment until Sam shrugs. "It's what those things were chanting when we found you out there."
Dean yawns widely as he turns in and settles himself down on Castiel's shoulder. "It's what they were saying to you last time they hypnotized you like that, in Rhode Island. Bobby said so, remember?"
It strikes something somewhere inside Castiel, and unbidden he finds he's folding his arms protectively across his chest. "I don't know, I don't - remember. Was I? Hypnotized?" His mind churns confusion, and his voice cracks, although he doesn't know why. "I don't know what that means, I don't. I'm…not."
Dean is straightening now, body going taut as he comes alert again, and he points a look over at Sam and back. "It's alright, Cas," he reassures gently. "It was just a spell. Rest. Okay? We'll figure it out."
He slides his arm around Castiel's belly, pulls him over and into his warmth, and Castiel sinks into it gratefully.
"Pseudoprophetes."
It's quiet, and her voice might even be regretful when she says it.
Castiel feels Dean shift next to him, his interest piqued. "Come again?"
Meg is moving slowly, unscrewing the cap of the water bottle Castiel left on her thigh and raising it to her lips to gulp a mouthful. "Pseudoprophetes," she repeats after wiping her chin. "Not shoodobe - whatever it was you said. It means-"
"False Prophet," Sam finishes. "Of course. Pseudo, that's Ancient Greek." He huffs. "Bobby wrote it down phonetically, remember?"
"Yeah, and fish lips, hard to understand," Dean sighs ruefully. He clucks his tongue as he studies Meg, and it sounds loud in the hush. "How's the leg?" he asks diplomatically.
Castiel knows Dean's concern makes no difference, that they are going to kill the woman, the pseudoprophetes, because it will save the world. And he isn't sure if he believes it will, if the chaos magic principle will work, because he didn't believe it would the first time, back in the jungle. He realizes this in a fraction of a second during which he can hear them in his head as if they never left, the souls, whispering and plotting, mocking him; and he remembers how he railed against them for turning him into something he was never meant to be, and-
"It's not me," she cuts in simply, from far away. "The False Prophet."
Castiel sits up slowly, and his body feels heavy, weighed down with knowledge, because the murk is lifting and he is seeing the truth of the buried thing in his memory as the cloud that obstructs it from view drifts away. He can hear Dean's response, terse and dismissive background noise, but his mind is clear now, painfully sharp, and the clarity sends cold coursing through him. He wants to curl up and whimper, and there isn't enough oxygen in the fast, shallow breaths he's taking, because-
"Not this time." She keeps going, quiet but firm. "The first time, yes. For Lucifer. But not this time. I didn't help prepare the way for the Beast this time round, it was-"
"Me."
Castiel doesn't recognize his own voice, is amazed he even manages to get the word out past the dryness in his throat, the nausea swirling through his gut, and the fear, the guilt. "Me," he gasps again, in dread and sheer wonder. "It's me. It always was."
There is fear in Dean's expression when he twists around to look at Castiel, bewilderment too, and his eyes are suddenly too big for his face. He reaches out to Castiel, but there can be no comfort for this, not really, and it suffocates Castiel, makes him giddy with horror and disgust at himself.
"No…"
Castiel can hear someone saying it, over and over, no-no-no-no, but Dean's lips aren't moving, Dean is just staring at him, his mouth slack.
"No," Castiel cries, because it's his denial, breathless and reedy with devastation. "No, no, no, no," he cries, and he's shuffling away, rapidly, his boot heels skidding on the wood, his head shaking, no, as Dean crawls after him, pulls him back and into his arms. Over Dean's shoulder Castiel can see Sam, his face appalled, a hand pressed to his head, and he hears Dean gruff above him, throwing a jumble of sharp words back at his brother, …need to be with him, talk some sense into him.
Sam nods swiftly, doesn't speak, and Castiel feels himself being heaved up and chivvied over the stern of the Duck and down through the hatch Dean only recently disappeared through to forage for food. Balthazar, he's thinking, out of the blue; and only now does he comprehend what his dream-brother meant when he told him, the one who begins it is the one who must end it, and only now does he understand the sorrow and pity in Balthazar's eyes. "I'm damned, Dean," he chokes out into the dark. "I'm damned, and I'm afraid, afraid to go back there, I'm-"
The blow isn't particularly hard but the sound of Dean's hand on Castiel's cheek is loud as a pistol shot, and when the cargo hold lamp snaps on Dean's eyes are fierce, even if his palm is gentle when he touches it to Castiel's face again.
Castiel swallows through the throbbing sting of it, and, "I began it, Dean," he whispers, and he hears his own deranged laugh as he thinks suddenly of that small kernel of suspicion that has nagged at him, that small part of him that knew this and always has. "I am the False Prophet…when I freed the souls I began it, and my miracles prepared the way. And you have to destroy me, you-"
Dean pulls back and hits him again, harder, with his fist this time. His knuckles slam into Castiel's jaw, sharp and unforgiving, and Castiel tastes blood as he loses his balance and crashes into the wall. His slide down it is halted by Dean's fingers twisting in the fabric of his t-shirt, and Dean is up close now, his eyes already wet and red, his expression stricken and too young for more loss.
"How dare you," Dean chides him hoarsely, "how fuckin' dare you say that to me. I'm in love with you. How dare you think I can do that to you…"
There is blind fury and numb shock in his gaze as he trails off, and Castiel knows the same desperation and horror, felt it himself in an alleyway in Cicero at that moment when he knew he would do anything to keep Dean, anything. He puts his hand on Dean's cheek now, wipes the pad of his thumb through Dean's tears. "The one who begins it is the one who will end it," he says, suddenly calm and controlled, because he has accepted it. "I began it. And Michael shall bind together the False Prophet and the Beast, and he shall hurl them for all eternity into the Lake of Fire."
Dean makes a small, unintelligible sound from far back in his throat, and it seems that if he can't stop Castiel with a beating, he will stop him with his mouth. He falls in and swallows down Castiel's words, his hands clamped to the sides of Castiel's head, fingers twining themselves in Castiel's hair as he tumbles them down onto the mattress. He covers Castiel with his body, grinding down onto him, and Castiel gives himself up to it, swept along in this passion Dean is using to build a wall between them and what must happen.
Suddenly there is naked skin, so much of it, smooth and hot, and damp breath panting out softly, mine, always mine, as greedy hands touch and map and cling; and suddenly there are lips and teeth and tongue on Castiel, rough and frantic, never let go of you, never. Suddenly there are spit-slick fingers working inside him, and then the hard press and the first agonizing, forced thrust of Dean, rigid and burning hot as he splits Castiel apart; and Castiel welcomes the ferocity of it and loves it with all of his heart, snapping his hips up instinctively to meet Dean. A whiteout of pleasure explodes inside him, cauterizing the pain, and Castiel gasps at the sensation, pulls Dean in again and again to slam into that same spot, savage enough to bruise and scar him deep inside just as Dean scarred his skin. It feels like he is taking what's his, finally, and all the while Dean sobs out his grief, Cas-Cas-Cas, biting frantically at the skin of Castiel's neck, until his muscles lock in spasm and he pours himself into Castiel at last, love you, love you, always, I love you, while Castiel clenches around him and spills across their bellies.
It is over in bare moments, but Castiel will have the memory of this at least, and he wraps his legs around Dean and holds him there in the empty ache and despair of afterwards, stroking Dean's back as Dean shatters in his embrace, his tears tracking warm, wet tributaries along Castiel's chest.
"I'm afraid, Dean," Castiel whispers, as Dean's breath finally evens out and his body grows heavy with exhaustion. "I'm afraid of damnation. But I would have stayed tethered to my post down there willingly to spare you this."
Dean isn't asleep yet, and he rouses slightly. His fingers move restlessly in Castiel's hair, and his lips mouth tenderly at Castiel's throat. "Sssshh," he breathes. "Don't be afraid, Cas. Ssshhh. I got you."
Meg is making small noises of discomfort, but even though Sam is staring right at her, he's seeing through her.
He's thinking of penance, reparation, atonement. He thinks maybe he has atoned - or at least he thought he had. He thought Castiel had too, that the angel's atonement might be the knowledge that his own hands were used to commit sins and crimes that he never would have consented to, even if he did choose his path himself. Like Sam had, and they have both suffered for their pride and misdeeds. But it isn't enough, or so it seems.
"Maybe it's divine justice," he says out loud.
Meg clears her throat, interrupting his reverie, and when he focuses on her she gives a listless shrug. "The wrath of God is a hungry animal with a big appetite," she says faintly. "The big kahuna can't just overlook violations of His law…it would bring moral confusion upon His creation." She pauses to drink from her bottle of water. "Bible study," she adds then. "Know thine enemy."
Sam studies her. "Not your enemy any more, though."
His tone is skeptical enough that she smirks at him. "Nope. And there's nothing so zealous as a convert."
"But you have no soul," Sam reminds her, and damn, but he knows the difference that makes, remembers the thing he was and its moral nihilism; its lack of any real purpose other than the impulse to destroy anything that got in its way.
"Maybe I'll grow one," she wheezes, and she shifts slightly, sucks in a breath of pain.
A few feet away is the first aid kit Dean used to dress the cut on Sam's head, and Sam isn't the soulless void he once was even if she is, so he leans across to snag it, crawls over to her. The machete he was using to beat the jungle into submission is resting next to her thigh and he eyes it dubiously. After a mildly derisive roll of her eyes, she pushes it over in his direction, and he skitters it well away from her reach.
There is a bottle of Bactine in the kit, painkillers too, and he shakes out two, glances at her waxy, drawn face and shakes out two more, offers them over. She takes them wordlessly, washes them down with a gulp of water from her bottle, braces herself as he brandishes the antiseptic. He pauses, can't help wincing as he looks down at her leg, and he wonders if it's even worth putting her through this.
As if she read his mind, she says, "It's worth it."
Her eyes are oddly dark again when he meets them, so that he wonders if the demon is simply dormant, inhibited like Castiel's grace.
"It's worth it," she repeats. "We have an escape route. End him, and you end this. You save the world, and we get out of here." Her lips go thin. "I'll be needing my leg for that."
There's a minute when she stares at Sam as if she's daring him to refuse, but he unscrews the cap of the bottle, pours the liquid over the gash, and she bites into her knuckles as she whimpers through the sting of it. He sits back on his heels, gives her some time.
"To think I used to find pain such a turn-on," she chokes out eventually, and her smile is like a snarl.
There are gauze pads in the kit, and Sam places a couple over the jagged ends of bone, tapes them in place. It's a rudimentary dressing, but it might help keep the wound clean.
He isn't sure how much time has passed. He crawls back to his post, rises to his knees and peers over the side of the Duck to where the creatures still wander around aimlessly, no closer than they were when his brother disappeared into the gloom, pushing Castiel ahead of him. Sam finds himself suddenly thinking of Castiel diving into the sea, and how the storm whipped the water into a frenzy as this place rose from the deep; remembers how his brother concluded that the Beast must know they had his False Prophet. And Dean was right, in the cruelest possible way.
Sam sighs, flops back down onto his ass, pulls his knees up and hugs them as he eyes the ex-demon. "What were you going to do with him?" he asks her after a moment. "Back when you were bartering Adam for him?"
She shrugs. "Use him to control the Beast. Or to end it, if it didn't play nice. When you have the thing that can help lock it back in its cell, you're holding all the cards."
Sam swallows. "What happens if we don't play our hand?"
"You're so predictable." She tsks. "You know what happens, what this is. It's bigger than him. It's bigger than whatever your brother has going on with him. You don't do this, the Earth dies screaming. It's probably happening up there right now. Is he worth that? After what he did to you?"
Sam regards her for a moment. "This is never going to be about revenge for me," he says softly. "Never. And it's not my decision to make anyway."
She cants her head, doesn't answer him, and they fall quiet for a few strained minutes until Sam pushes up and twists around again, fixing his gaze over the back of the Duck into the barge, to the seam of soft light seeping up around the hatch. He chews his lip. It's been deathly quiet for what seems like a long while after the brief turmoil of raised, overwrought voices and sheer distress that had him pressing his hands to his ears to give them some privacy.
Sam debates what to do next, finally gives in and slides himself up and over the stern to slip his fingers in the latch and lift the hatch cover up a few inches. His eyes flash over a tangle of naked limbs, half covered with a blanket and discarded clothing; the back of Dean's head, his brother's face hidden in Castiel's neck, and Castiel's eyes closed, one arm wrapped protectively around Dean.
"Jesus, Cas," Sam mutters wearily, through the awful, hollow sadness he feels. He lowers the hatch as stealthily as he can, glances back at Meg. "Is there another way?" he asks.
"Not that I know of," she says, "and I would tell you if there was, Sam." She smiles, but Sam thinks there isn't any real pleasure in it. "I always had a soft spot for Clarence," she muses. "But…the one who began it has to end it. That's the way it works."
Dean wakes slowly, out of a dream of a cottage in the Ozarks, aged by weather and time, and the woman who told him he shone so brightly she could see him for miles. Beware little boy, for your journey is just beginning, she tells him, and then light lasers out of her eyes because she isn't Sula at all, she is the gatekeeper angel on his granite throne at the borders of Purgatory. His sword bleeds flame as his words ring out, there are rules you have to follow…use the same door for going in and going out…the Balance depends on it, but even as he is speaking, his face is blurring and running together, like a painting out in the rain, into something harder, narrow-sculpted, and beaky. Death, who lifts one skinny eyebrow into a supercilious curve and hisses play your role, like it means something.
Dean blinks himself fully awake with a wince, because he knows it does mean something, that it all does.
He's draped across Castiel, his cheeks tight with the salt of dried-on tears, and his eyes lethargic with weeping. His nose is stuffy with it, and there is a tight band of pressure around his brow, the headache he came round with out in the caverns still lurking. He lifts his head up cautiously, studies Castiel's face, gone soft and oddly innocent in repose. There is a black bruise starting to blossom on Castiel's jaw, where Dean's fist landed, and Dean can still taste Castiel's blood on his tongue. A wave of tenderness wells up inside him, and he tips his head down, kisses the scar he left on Castiel's chest, before he slides his way out from under Castiel's arm in tiny increments, watching for every twitch of muscle and flicker of eyelid, careful not to wake his friend.
Once up, Dean dresses swiftly and silently, and as he pulls on his jeans, his finger catches on a crumpled edge of paper poking out of his back pocket. He pulls it out, unfolds it, marvels that he even still has it as he reads the words.
He watches Castiel sleep for another moment, like he knows Castiel has watched him sleep; and this is the last time he will do it, the last time he will wake up to this.
"I love you," he whispers. "And I wanted more time for us."
He gazes at Castiel for another long moment, and then he climbs stealthily out of the hull to speak with his brother.
Episode 23: Achilles' Last Stand (continued)