FIC: Remaining Grace, Chapter 11: Ashes [11/20]

[todisturbtheuni]

Title: Remaining Grace, Chapter 11: Ashes
Author: todisturbtheuni
Rating: NC-17, eventually.
Genre and/or Pairing: Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Romance; Castiel/Dean Winchester
Spoilers: Through the end of season 5, but some minor for season 6.
Warnings: Explicit sex; graphic torture scenes, which I'll warn for at applicable chapters; minor/side character death (neither Dean nor Castiel).
Word Count: 110K (total)
Summary: Sam's missing his soul, Castiel has a pissy archangelic nemesis, and Dean wonders if he'll be spending the rest of his life making sure the Apocalypse doesn't go ahead as scheduled. Still, though. He's happy to see Cas. Indiana wasn't really working out. Unabashed six-fix, in a universe where Castiel made a different choice, and things snowball from that point forward.

Masterpost!

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Dean didn’t sleep much-or even close his eyes much-the first few days that Cas was human. He was paralyzed by the fear that he would miss some wonderful and hilarious first-the first time Cas got hiccups, and they went on for a miserable twenty minutes, or the first time he accidentally cut his finger on a knife he was washing and swore, a steady stream of fucks and sonofabitches interspersed with Enochian curses that made Dean grin proudly-or, even worse, that he would miss something life-threatening: an allergy to a food they weren’t aware of, a medical condition that might have followed Jimmy Novak’s body into Cas’s second life. He laid awake at night in the panic room, listening to Cas snore-quietly-until he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open, waiting to hear the gurgle of something caught in his throat, waiting to hear his heart miss or fall out of rhythm. Cas said that Jimmy Novak had been perfectly healthy, that any damage done to his vessel was long after he’d taken control, and those wounds had healed before he became human.

But Dean worried, and worried, and worried. He wasn’t used to being physically stronger than Cas, had a hard time adjusting to Cas’s new vulnerabilities, and worried that any passing flu or demon could do him permanent injury. It was one thing to face down an imminent threat, the thing that any day could take Cas away from him-Cas, his salvation, his last Greatest Hit-but it was another to face down the pervasive, forever threat of everyday life, the one with a thousand small barbs that could all be full of poison, and it was impossible to know them all.

“Dean,” Cas yawned, shifting around on the small mattress beside him. He did that now, yawned. It had confused him the first time it happened, surprise blossoming on his features just beneath the exhuastion. “Why are you still awake?”

Dean kept quiet for another few seconds, but he knew it was ultimately a futile gesture. “How can you tell?”

“I can still hear you,” Cas mumbled into his neck, his words slurred with sleep and skin. “You’re loud. Stop worrying. I’m not dying.”

But that wasn’t true. They were all dying, and the next few decades stretched out scattered with land mines, all waiting to be stepped on. The rest of his life had never felt so short before, even when he’d been on the fast track to Hell.

Cas propped himself up on his elbow, squinting at Dean through the dim light of the panic room. “Dean,” he said, very seriously, “I’m thirty-three.”

“No, Cas, you’re about a billion,” Dean groaned. “Or older, I don’t know.”

“Biologically,” Cas said, undeterred, “I’m two years older than you. Two. I’m not dying.”

“We’re all dying,” Dean grumbled.

Cas leaned over and kissed him, roughly, heatedly; he couldn’t help but respond enthusiastically, giving a muffled groan into Cas’s mouth as the other man pressed against him. “Do I seem,” Cas hissed against his lips, “like a man who’s dying?” He dragged a hand down Dean’s chest and his mouth went dry, his body responding in a way it seemed programmed to. They’d had nothing more than passing kisses, casual brushes, since Cas had become human-Dean loathe to rush him, Dean terrified to pressure him-and his utter need for Cas like this woke up with a jolt of desire straight to his groin.

And then Cas’s hand was there, pressing against him through his boxers, applying pressure just right, and he had to breathe hard to keep from moaning again. “Whoa,” he said, reaching up to tangle his fingers in Cas’s hair. “Slow down.”

“Slow down?” Cas said mutinously, and he was still an angel in there somewhere because when he talked in that tone-all thunder and sandpaper and gravel, like his vocal cords had a hard time parsing his essence-he could still put the fear of God in Dean’s heart, reluctant, sure, but present. “You haven’t touched me since I became human, and you expect me to slow down? Dean,” and he was breathing with desperation now, speaking with words rolled together like a flood, “I wanted you while I was an angel, but being human is different, and I’m impatient, and I want-”

Dean cut him off with a kiss, fierce in its intensity, and Cas responded with enthusiasm, shifting until Dean had a lapful of former angel, Cas straddling his hips and digging fingers into Dean’s shoulders so hard that it might bruise. With Cas writhing on top of him it was easy to lose control, to let go, to claw his shirt off over his head in a way that rumpled that already-messy dark hair, to cling to the scar on his forearm in a way that made Cas moan so darkly that Dean nearly blacked out from sheer bliss at just the sound of it.

“Didn’t want to hurt you,” Dean mumbled, as he obeyed Cas’s frantic pulling and sat up, allowing his shirt to be yanked off. “Didn’t want to rush you-”

Cas’s blue eyes were so vivid, so luminous, sparkling with fury and desire all at once, as he leaned in and snarled, “I’m not a child, Dean,” and then went on kissing him, his hands running roughly through Dean’s hair. Dean’s hands came up and touched, ran fingers over Cas’s ribs, over his chest, dragged down his back, and Cas whimpered into his mouth, his tongue rushing forward to meet Dean’s.

They were grinding against one another now, muffled groans from Cas and soft curses from Dean. Cas had the presence of mind to push him down, trembling, and slip his fingers around the elastic of Dean’s boxers, pulling them down and off, and Dean wrapped an arm around the angel-because he always would be an angel, to Dean, would always be his angel in a way he felt rather than thought about-and rolled Cas beneath him. He rolled his hips down and felt the heat, the warmth of Cas rigid against him, and Cas groaned, pressing up to meet him. Dean pulled his boxers down and off and it was that much better, sliding together and Cas’s muted little noises beneath him.

It had never really been like this, before-sex had never felt this overblown, this all-consuming, dozens of one-night stands just bleeding together in his memories with the vague hint of pleasure compared to this, compared to Cas beneath him gasping his name, because all those girls couldn’t stand up to this, to blue eyes reduced to a thin rim and a voice like thunder wrecked in bliss and the hundreds of glances and touches that had led to this, led him to hold onto Cas like he’d never dared hold onto anything before. He hadn’t even known he could want something the way he wanted Cas, and God help him, he didn’t just want Cas like this, spread open beneath him, he wanted Cas with him in the Impala on every hunting trip, he wanted Cas wearing his old t-shirts and boots, he wanted Cas eating pancakes and Cas scrubbing a hand over second-day stubble and Cas muttering under his breath in Enochian all the curses in his impressive vocabulary-and to want those things, all those things, to really want them, that was new, that was different than anything he’d felt and it threatened to swallow him whole the way Famine’s disease hadn’t managed to, because maybe he hadn’t known it then, but he knew it now: Cas fulfilled a need he hadn’t even known he had, and he wanted that slot occupied.

He searched around under the bed for the lube that was still down there somewhere, let Cas’s knees fall open around him, trailed fingers down to the rim of muscle and slicked against it. Cas shuddered, and Dean watched his eyes close, trailed his free hand over the ribs that arched up following his spine, and pressed in, and Cas gave beneath him, whimpering now. But his hand lifted, shaky, curled around Dean’s hip and pulled him closer, and his fingers closed loosely around Dean and stroked languidly up; he had to breathe, hard, had to concentrate to crook his finger in just the right place and Cas’s hand tightened around him in reaction.

He added a second finger, going slow, and Cas moaned his name, low and dark and aching, and then he was panting, “I’m ready, Dean, I’m ready.” Dean’s hand freed itself, went between them and slid beneath Cas’s fingers, slicking himself up, and Cas’s eyes had opened again, dark and wanting, watching their hands and Dean’s cock with fascination and anticipation. He slid deeper, between Cas’s legs, came forward leaning on his elbows-their bodies just touching, a whisper of skin-on-skin-and pushed in, slow, while Cas panted and squirmed, his own dick hard against Dean’s stomach. With every stray touch as Dean slid home, the angel beneath him whimpered, his mouth slackening, so gone already, lost in it.

“Move,” Cas demanded, when Dean paused too long buried in him, “move,” so Dean drew back and pushed forward, and Cas’s grip on his shoulder and hip was so tight that it was painful, but so good, because he could feel the faint, distant spark and catch of pleasure that Cas was adrift in, relishing, so overwhelming that he was barely tethered to what he was doing. Dean leaned down and brushed Cas’s already-bruised lips with his, languid and warm, and Cas pushed back, his tongue licking into Dean’s mouth.

He knew, could feel it when Cas was close by the way his mouth slackened against Dean’s, by the way he arched up against Dean’s thrusts. Dean leaned on one elbow and brought his hand between them, stroking Cas’s cock in time with every deep roll of his hips; Cas stared up at him, unblinking, moaning continuously now, and then his head tipped back, whole body stiffening, and he was spilling all over Dean’s hand as Dean’s name fell in a hoarse groan from his lips. It took only a few last, hard thrusts, and Dean let go, too, his voice choking as he buried himself deep in Cas.

Dean pressed his face into Cas’s neck, breathing hard, and Cas’s death grip on his shoulder finally relaxed. They were a mess, so Dean balanced again and groped for a towel, a shirt, anything-Cas gave a little whimper as their skin brushed together-and came up with enough fabric to wipe away the worst of it. And then they were still, Dean sprawled half over Cas on his stomach, one leg hooked around the angel’s and his face smooshed into the pillow, and despite the weirdness of the position, Dean finally felt tired.

Cas turned his head to the side and smiled, lips curving up just a little, and Dean wondered if the longer Cas spent human the more he would do that-quick grins like he’d seen in the last few days. He hoped so. “Feeling more positive?” Cas mumbled, clearly stifling a yawn.

“Tons,” Dean promised, curling a hand around Cas’s ribcage and stroking down. Cas’s eyes closed at the contact.

He fell asleep tangled up in sheets, blankets, and Cas, and it was almost easy.

They’d yet to leave Bobby’s house since the final showdown with Raphael, but the necessity of running into town for supplies hit Dean the next day. Cas couldn’t go on wearing his clothes forever; they were almost all too big for him, the jeans requiring a belt, the cuffs dragging on the floor. Though their heights differed by only a few inches, Cas was a lot leaner than him, and Dean suspected that Jimmy Novak had been one of those weird weekend distance runners.

“C’mon,” he announced after breakfast, holding the back door open. “You need clothes.”

They drove a few miles in the opposite direction of Sioux Falls proper first, though, and he didn’t need to tell Cas where they were going, because his companion already knew. Dean pulled off on the side of the road next to the field where the showdown had been, and Cas rested a hand on the door, uncertain.

“Come with me,” he requested quietly, and Dean obeyed. They walked through dirt and grass toward the center, shoulders brushing, and the imprint was still there. Just Cas’s wings; Raphael seemed to have blown away, though everything was dead and scorched where he’d stood.

Cas’s wings, though. The glittering black ash seemed to have sunk into the Earth, and when Dean leaned down to run his fingers through it, the way he’d accidentally done that day, it was hard and crusted to the touch, no longer the dust that had come away in his hand.

“Look.” Cas pointed to a spot near where his body had lain, where Dean’s hand had gone to grip into feathers that were no longer there. His hand was vivid in the pattern of the wings, an imprint in an imprint. “You tried to heal me,” Cas said.

“Yeah,” Dean said quietly, and Cas’s shoulder twitched against his. “Do you think it’ll stay here?”

Cas shrugged. The motion looked fluid on him now; it was strange how quickly he picked up on nuances like that after just a few days of being human, as though it was more natural, now. “I’ve never seen an angel’s wings harden like that. The way Raphael’s are blown away-that’s what usually happens. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Cas paused for a moment, considering. “Perhaps it is because I still live. I believe it is unprecedented.”

Dean lifted a hand to clap into Cas’s shoulder, then left it there, a silent show of support. “I’m starting to think that should be your tagline.”

Cas smiled up at him, looked back to his wings. Dean had expected Cas to grieve here, and he could feel a bone-deep, innate melancholy, but it was more than that. Cas looked at the remains of his wings and felt content.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” the angel murmured, “till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Dean had never really seen a spot in his life for religion. Even the knowledge that God existed didn’t do much for him, because what was He, anyway, besides a manipulative, short-sighted old man? Belief didn’t give Dean reverence, didn’t give him faith, but Cas’s voice murmuring over the words of a script they’d ripped up still sounded a little beautiful to him. Poignant. It was a good goodbye, and Cas seemed peaceful as he turned back to the Impala.

Dean put the windows down a crack in the car, and they drove through summer sunshine toward Sioux Falls. When the wind ruffled his hair, Cas smiled vaguely at the sensation, as though he enjoyed it. He liked, too, the stripe of sunlight warming his arm when he propped it on the sill, the smell of leather, the sound of the engine. Cas was a little like a kid; Dean felt him wondering at everything, in spite of his loss, curious and thoughtful and eager, the pain still lining his shoulder blades and spine a distant thing. For a moment, Dean stopped worrying. The quiet was peaceful and there was still work to do, but experiencing this secondhand awe of everything he usually took for granted made him go a little easier.

Dean took them to Walmart, because the clothes were cheap and if Cas was set on hunting, they wouldn’t last long, anyway. Cas wasn’t picky; he tried on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to assess what size he was, and then loaded their cart with enough clothes to get him through a week at a time. He’d clearly taken his cues for clothes from Dean and Sam: everything he picked out was solid, neutral colors, flexible and durable. Dean felt his thrill of pleasure as he passed fingers over a new, soft t-shirt, experiencing the sensation in a way he never had before. Dean wondered if he’d ever adjust to Castiel, Angel of the Lord, wearing jeans. Somehow, the tax accountant look had really suited him. Dean ducked away for a moment to the luggage aisle to pick out a duffel bag, a place for Cas to put his stuff, and he looked at it curiously when Dean came back.

“We don’t get to have a lot of stuff,” he said, dropping the bag into the cart. “Not a lot of space when you move from motel room to motel room at the drop of a hat. But you need at least a little space to keep things.”

Cas tilted his head to the side, processing as he sized up the duffel bag. “Like clothes.”

“Sure,” Dean agreed. “But also personal possessions. My dad’s journal, I’ve got a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, some tapes, you know. Stuff.”

Cas’s eyebrow arched up. He considered the bag thoughtfully. “And you just accumulate this ‘stuff’.”

“Yeah. Stuff you like. Stuff you wanna keep.” Cas went on squinting at the bag, thinking, as Dean tossed a package of socks in their cart. “Boots,” he remembered.

Cas turned his attention to his feet. “Yes,” he said, shuffling one foot to the side. The boots he was wearing-old ones of Dean’s-jiggled on his ankle. “Your feet are too big.”

Dean snickered. Cas gave him a confused look. “I’ll explain later,” Dean said, adding silently, when there aren’t packs of kids to overhear me. Cas smiled at him.

Dean let him smell all the deodorant he wanted and decide which one he wanted to use; he made Cas pick out a toothbrush and toothpaste, because those were things a lot of motels didn’t come equipped with; and Cas looked at everything curiously, like something so ordinary was strange and new, and it was sort of good to feel that through him.

Dean was watching Cas try on boots when suddenly, uncomfortably close, a husky voice with a feminine lilt spoke from the end of the aisle.

“Oh, Clarence, what did they do to you?”

She was closer to Cas, and he moved faster than Dean did; in an instant, he had Meg back against the shelves of shoes, his angelic blade at her throat. Dean blinked, still mid-step, but Meg was still grinning, just short of a laugh. Dean hadn’t even known that Cas was carrying his knife, but it had slid out of his belt so quickly, still an extension of him, and it looked no less right than it ever had.

“I assumed you burned in Carthage,” Cas said, his voice sliding down to a snarl. “I see that I left too early.”

“I’m also unpleasantly surprised,” Meg shot back. “I was hoping you’d have more mojo, hot wings.”

Dean was set to tell Cas to sic, middle of a store in broad daylight or not, because this was the demon bitch who’d killed Jo, and he could still taste that last kiss like ash on his lips, but that statement brought him up short. “What, you were hoping he could smite you faster, get it over with?” he snapped. “Cas can still kill you just as dead right now. You can, if you want,” Dean added, and saw Cas’s hand tighten until his knuckles were white, both on the blade and on Meg’s arm.

“I’m aware,” Meg said, lifting her chin. “I killed your best girl, you sure don’t owe me any favors, but we’ve got something in common.” She eyed Cas, sizing him up as he glared down at her. “More with poor human Castiel here than I thought, in fact.” Her gaze slid down to his exposed forearm, where the mark stood out livid in the fluorescent lighting. “Man, you just couldn’t shake Dean, could you?”

“Talk,” Dean said, and to Cas, “hold off a minute, buddy. I want some clarification.”

“Crowley,” Meg spat.

“Ah,” Cas said; his smile was satisfied. “It certainly doesn’t pay to be a Lucifer loyalist when there’s a new King of Hell, does it?”

“It doesn’t pay to be a Winchester when the King of Hell’s been overthrown, either,” Meg barked. “You cost him his seat, boys, and he’s on the warpath.”

“Are you joking?” Cas said, a look of disbelief crossing his features. “If he couldn’t hold Hell without our help for one week, he was never going to hold it.”

“Not to hear him talk,” Meg retaliated.

“Let me get this straight,” Dean said, taking a step nearer to shield the confrontation from a passing sales associate. “Crowley’s been canned and he’s out for revenge. So what? He’s a punk-ass crossroads demon, what can he do to us that we can’t handle?”

“Something about a contract,” she said, with a roll of her eyes, “something about souls…”

Cas looked sideways at Dean, his grip on Meg and the blade never loosening. “Bobby,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she mused idly. “The way I hear it, Dean, you’ve already got one soul down there in the Pit, I’d hate to see you lose one more-”

“Do it,” Dean said flatly; Cas pressed the blade just into Meg’s throat, so that a bright red line of blood appeared.

“You still need me,” she said, her dark eyes fixed on Dean now. “How do you think you’re going to take him out, huh? He’s still Big Daddy Crossroads, and you have a hard time handling me on your best days. How do you think it’s gonna go?”

Cas paused, the blade still pressed into Meg’s throat, while Dean stared down the demon, revulsion and anger seething in his gut. “Why come to us?” Dean said.

“Crowley has a special place in his heart for me,” Meg sneered back, but fear flashed in her eyes. “I’ll spend the rest of my life running after he shreds you. Demons don’t fight, they hide. I’ve got no one else to back me up on this.”

“The way it sounds, you were hoping we’d do all the work,” Dean commented. “Unless you were bringing more to the table than pointing out Cas’s special powers.”

Her eyes flicked between them. “Yeah, well,” she said. “Since Cas here is all juiced out, I do have a contingency plan.”

“Enlighten us.”

She eyed the blade at her throat. “Don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll talk when I’m sure you’re not gonna sic your angel on me.”

Cas looked back at Dean. “It’s possible that she has the solution,” he said, voice low. “I doubt she would have risked coming here otherwise.”

“Our deals with demons don’t usually go well, Cas,” Dean muttered. “There’s a reason we turned down Crowley.”

“Not a crossroads demon,” Meg piped up; her eyes briefly flashed to black. “Don’t want your soul. Don’t want anything, really. It’s not a deal. It’s a…cease-fire. And considering what all you boys have done to me over the years, that’s fairly generous.”

A tense moment passed, Dean and Meg staring each other down, but finally, Dean gave in. “Put her in the trunk,” he muttered, holding the keys out to Cas. “I’ll get your stuff and meet you out there.” He pointed a finger at Meg. “One wrong move, we kill you for the pleasure.”

“Yes, sir,” she said sarcastically. Castiel lowered the blade, stowed it back in his belt-it was surprisingly well-hidden beneath his shirt-and kept one hand firm on Meg’s upper arm as they headed for the front of the store. Dean watched them go with a scowl on his face, then gathered the boots Cas had tried on from the floor and pushed the cart in the direction of the register.

Whatever brief respite the world had granted them, it was clearly over.

“You don’t think the angels would help us out with this, do you?” Dean muttered.

“No,” Castiel replied, worn. Dean was anxious, and feeling vengeful; he presented a good front, had managed it since Castiel pinned Meg against the rows of shoes with a knife to her throat, but Castiel could feel his suffering. Being in the demon’s presence was a hardship for him, the blood between them bad long before Carthage. Castiel hadn’t known Jo and Ellen as well as Dean had, but he had liked them. The impact of their absence on Dean was reason enough for him to loathe the demon, if seeing her true face didn’t already accomplish that.

And he could still see her true face, the lingering remains of his Grace enough to see the horror that had been melded in Hell.

“Gabriel,” he continued finally, “is far too busy with the angels, and Balthazar is far too busy with Gabriel.” He considered mentioning that Balthazar was also already looking into the issue of Sam’s soul, but decided against it; this wasn’t the time. “Any other angel would likely hurt more than they could help. Brute force is not the way to deal with Crowley.”

“Right you are,” Meg called from her prison. They had shuffled her from one devil’s trap to another and chained her to a chair in the basement, though she hadn’t fought them for a moment. Castiel could practically smell the fear on her, all tied up in the sweat soaking her hair, skimming her flesh. She had already been running for some time-weeks, maybe, or even months. “Which is why I have a better way.”

“First things first,” Dean said roughly, turning from Castiel to face the demon. “You’ve gotta want something out of this, you demon bitch. So tell us what.”

“I was honest when I said nothing,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. “Just Crowley dead. Maybe let me have the final shot. I’m not picky. And then I’ll melt out into the world and you won’t ever see me again.”

“If we do, we’ll kill you,” Dean commented neutrally.

Her eyes scanned the pair of them, and her lip curled up into a smirk. “God, you two are just adorable,” she said. “It’s just a perfect picture of righteousness and angst and big angry boots. Priceless.”

“All right,” Dean snarled, his irritation flaring out to touch Castiel. He brushed back, trying to soothe Dean with a vague touch, and Dean quieted. “Enough,” he continued, more calmly. “Time to talk.”

“Do we have a deal?” Meg pressed.

Dean took a deep breath. “If you cough up something useful, sure. We’ll leave you alone. What the Hell, right?” he added to Castiel, disgust curdling in his voice. “It’d be nice to have a guarantee to see the back of her. She pops up at the most inconvenient fucking times…”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed, “it is a worthwhile bargain. Talk,” he directed at Meg.

“You’ve heard the rumor,” Meg said, her lip still curled in that derisive sneer. “Find a demon’s bones-from when they were human-and burn ‘em.” Her shoulders lifted, just slightly. “Dead demon.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard the rumor,” Dean snapped, impatient.

“It’s not a rumor,” Castiel allowed, eyes on Meg. “It’s true.”

Dean’s head whipped sideways to stare at him. “You couldn’t have mentioned that sooner?”

“You had the Colt,” Castiel pointed out. “And the knife. Both easier methods to kill demons than tracking down their bones and burning them. Most demons don’t remember their own humanity; it would be impossible to find their bones. Even exorcism is a better option. Less permanent, but…”

“Well, bad news, angel,” Meg interrupted. “Those methods won’t work on Crowley.”

“Like Hell they won’t,” Dean snapped. “He’s a demon, plain and simple.”

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Meg sighed. “They can work. But chances of you getting close enough to use them are slim. The bones, on the other hand. He can’t dodge the bones. But he’ll always dodge the bullets. Even if you get him in one of these.” She gave a cursory glance to the devil’s trap acting as her cage. “He’ll dodge until you run out of bullets. He’s powerful enough to smash the knife out of thin air if you throw it at him. But the bones. Burn the bones from a distance and he’s dead.”

“That’s great, and all,” Dean said, frowning, “but we don’t know who Crowley was when he was human. Hell, we don’t even know where he was from.”

“Then you’re in luck, because I happened to do some digging when Crowley became the big man in town,” she replied. “And I know where he’s from. Even know where his bones are. They’d be great leverage against, say, a soul. If you’re in the market for that kind of thing.”

“You know,” Dean repeated. “Why haven’t you just finished him yourself?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Don’t see why you’re complaining, Dean.”

“Don’t see why you’re not explaining,” Dean said sharply.

Her jaw tightened. “I can’t be in two places at once,” she said coolly. “I go after them myself, there’s a chance he finds out before I even leave the continent. He’s had a tail on me for a while. Relax,” she added when Dean swore. “He already knows where you are, he’d have turned up by now if he wanted to.”

“So why hasn’t he?” Dean gritted out.

“I sense that he’s cooking up something big,” she sighed, slumping back in her chair. “He always was so theatrical. Dramatic.”

Dean glanced at Castiel, jerked his head toward the stairs, and they retreated out of her earshot. “What do you think?” Dean asked, his voice low, eyes still on Meg over Castiel’s shoulder.

“She’s telling the truth,” Castiel murmured back. “She’s angry, and afraid. She has no better option.”

“How do you know?”

“I can still see her true face.” Castiel didn’t look back at the demon; he’d always found them grotesque, but it was worse, somehow, now that he was human. “When demons lie, they lie with the bodies they possess, not with their actual essence. She’s telling the truth; whether she’s right, however, is another matter entirely.”

“Right.” Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, and Castiel found himself wishing that Meg had put off her impromptu visit for another few days; Dean had only just begun sleeping well again, and he was worried about the hunter, who’d been more tired and careworn since their battle with Raphael than Castiel had ever seen him. Angry, afraid, yes, but he had never seen Dean so thoroughly rundown. But the hunter squared his shoulders, shook the glaze from his green eyes. “We should talk to Bobby.”

“Yes,” Castiel said regretfully. “He should choose how we proceed.”

“I’ll just hang out, then,” Meg yelled after them as Castiel followed Dean up the stairs. “Don’t mind me.”

“God, she’s annoying,” Dean muttered over his shoulder.

Bobby and Sam were waiting in the den, Bobby’s fingers drumming on his desk, a constant, nervous hum that Castiel watched vaguely. “Well?” the older hunter said.

“Cas says she’s tellin’ the truth,” Dean answered, glancing sideways at Castiel, who nodded back. “She thinks she knows where Crowley’s bones are, claims that’ll kill him. And by the sound of it they’re far. She said something about leaving the continent for them.”

“How does she know?” Sam asked, frowning.

“Said she’d done some digging,” Dean said, rubbing a hand over his face again. “Don’t really know what that means. She must’ve been planning this for a while. Her and Crowley can’t have seen eye-to-eye since he abandoned ship on their whole…cause.”

“Crowley’s careful,” Sam fired back, standing up. “If that bones rumor is really true, no way he’d let something like that slip, even back in the good old days.”

“I don’t know how she knows it,” Dean snapped. Castiel reached out through the bond and he took a deep breath, backing down. “Sorry. I don’t. I don’t know how she knows, but she really believes she does.”

“Fine.” They turned as Bobby got to his feet. “We’ll find out where we need to go. I’ve done some research of my own on Crowley; I’ve already got suspicions about where his bones might be.”

“And you were planning on telling us when?” Dean barked.

Bobby glared back. “I’m tellin’ you now,” he returned. “He drinks a real specific Scotch, if you lot haven’t noticed-comes from a very particular region. If Meg thinks we’ve gotta leave the continent, I’m betting she’s pointing us toward Scotland.”

“You’re basing this theory on alcohol,” Dean said flatly.

“It matches up.” Bobby’s tone was exasperated. “I’ll have a word with your demon. If I’m right, I’ll take her to Scotland myself, seeing as you wouldn’t survive a flight that long.” Dean ducked his head, embarrassed, and Castiel received the swift impression of a hunt on an airplane, years ago now, and Dean’s raw, continuous panic. Perhaps that was why Dean had never taken to angelic travel. “And you can summon Crowley from here, keep him busy. It’s leverage, plain and simple.”

“Will he really go for that?” Sam asked, his brow furrowing. “Sure, it’ll kill him, but he’ll know you won’t get out of that deal if we send him up in flames.”

“Maybe,” Bobby grunted, already heading for the stairs. “But it’d sure give me some satisfaction. If I’m gonna burn he might as well, too.”

Dean showed Castiel how to launder all his new clothes that night, separating the jeans and the shirts. Bobby’s old washing machine rattled and clanked, but when he pulled out a tangle of damp t-shirts, boxers and socks they smelled pleasantly of detergent. While he untangled them and put them carefully in the dryer, Dean reloaded the washer with jeans. The hunter had been quiet since talking to Bobby a second time, buying tickets and cobbling together passports for a flight across the Atlantic, and Castiel hadn’t pushed him; the silence was pleasant enough, and if Dean needed time to think, he would give it to him.

But Dean leaned back against the washer and yawned, exhausted, and Castiel reached out because the feeling in his chest overwhelmed him, but it was still a surprise when he wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and Dean didn’t stiffen, didn’t lean back, just enfolded Castiel in return. He wondered if Dean was more patient with this because he was newly human, or if those barriers between them were just slowly deteriorating on their own, allowing an invasion of personal space that Dean didn’t even comment on but just accepted.

“Can’t say I’m excited to see Crowley again so soon,” Dean muttered. “Fuck. I wish we were done.”

“Done?” Castiel repeated, and Dean pulled back, just enough to look down at him.

“Just seems like one thing after another,” he said, his hands light on Castiel’s shoulders. “Raphael-Bobby-and…Sam.” His mouth twisted down, fast and sharp. “We’ve still gotta deal with Sam.”

“We’ll find a way,” Castiel soothed. “One problem at a time.”

“Just doesn’t seem right,” Dean muttered.

“Leaving him in Hell?”

“No,” Dean said, meeting his gaze with a piercing stare. “Leaving him here.” He shook his head. “Sam…Cas, I miss him. Every day. Like a limb got cut off, or something. But at least when I thought-when all of him-was still downstairs, at least then, me missing him had some kind of purpose. My little brother, he made the ultimate sacrifice, and having that shell of him walking around, it just…cheapens it, feels like.”

“Dean...” His guilt was suddenly new and sharp, a knife in his gut, and being human really magnified things in a way he hadn’t expected.

“Stop,” the hunter said, his voice harsh. “I’m not sayin’ it to blame you, I’m only sayin’ it because I don’t know who else to say it to. Truth is, it scares me to death, the thought of putting his soul back in him. I know what my tour of Hell looked like. His has gotta be that much worse. And it’s already been thirty years for him.” His hands tightened on Cas’s shoulders. “Cas, I still…I still dream about Hell. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop. And I’ve gotta get Sam back because I can’t stand the thought of him bein’ down there, but I can’t stand the thought of having to watch him suffer here, either. I want to help him, and I don’t even know how.”

“You still function,” Castiel said quietly, because he wanted to believe it himself, that Balthazar’s warning was wrong, even if he knew otherwise. “You might dream of Hell but your existence is not defined by Hell. When we retrieve Sam’s soul from the Pit, you will be the person best equipped to help him. You always have been.”

“What if we can’t?” Dean asked, and he sounded lost, vulnerable. “What if for the rest of my life I have that Robo-Sam hanging around to remind me, constantly, of what I’ve lost?”

Castiel didn’t know how to answer that. Sam was potentially horribly beyond repair; he couldn’t deny the truth there. Even if his soul was put back in his body, there was very little chance that he would ever be the Sam they’d known. Even worse, there was a chance that his soul would truly kill him, and Castiel had to acknowledge the truth of that, even if he didn’t want to.

“Dean,” he said slowly. “I spoke to Balthazar, about retrieving Sam’s soul.”

The flare of hope was sudden and instantly squashed again. “And?”

“He expressed to me what we already fear,” he said. “That giving Sam’s soul back wouldn’t be what’s best for him...for the part of him that lives here. It will be very damaged, Dean. He has been in Hell for decades now. Sam will be the person who determines whether or not he can survive such trauma, and his odds are very poor.”

Castiel could tell that Dean had expected nothing less; he nodded stiffly, his jaw set.

“Balthazar is still looking into it,” Castiel said, trying to reassure. “If there’s a way to get Sam’s soul back, he’ll find it.”

Dean squeezed his shoulders, tried to smile, but the look in his green eyes was lost. “Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel heard a shuffling near the front of the house, turned toward the door that led out of the laundry room; Dean turned, too, frowning, and raised his voice, calling, “Sam?”

But the front door just shut quietly in response.

“Must’ve been on his way out,” Dean grunted, and pulled Castiel toward the den. “Don’t think he can stand to stay away from that bar.”

It suddenly occurred to Castiel that he hadn’t seen Dean drink since he Fell, hadn’t seen a single bottle of whiskey or cracked-open beer in the last few days, and wondered why that was. Dean offered no illumination on the subject.

“Let’s stay up here tonight,” he said instead, nodding at the couch. “I don’t wanna have to listen to Meg talking to herself downstairs.”

A few syllables trailed up from the basement, not enough to make sense of, but it sounded like the demon was singing.

“I agree,” Castiel said grimly, and then, because the unease in his gut felt like instinct, he asked, “Dean, do you think Sam was listening?”

For a moment, Dean’s eyes darkened. “I hope not.”

Go on... Chapter 12: One Down.