A/N- Hello again, ya'll! For newcomers let me take this moment to say, this is a continuation to my first story, Power, Pride and Pleasure. If you liked what you read in the description, you might want to go back and read part one, or else you might be a little confused as my story varies greatly from the show. For any of you returning, thank you for your ever vigilant dedication to my story! Welcome to part two! Without further ado, I give you the first chapter! Enjoy!
Castiel's POV
Sam's scream echoed around the bare, concrete room, mournful and pained, making my heart seize. A blinding reddish-purple light was emanating from him, growing more intense and gaining in radius. I rushed over to where Dean's body had fallen, pulling him into my arms. What was once Ruby was a mess of melted flesh, blood and gore, bone decorating the floor where she had fallen in glistening bits of pinkened pearl, much like an obscene glitter. Sam stopped screaming, the silence almost worse, and the hum of energy flowing through the room thickened, making it impossible to breathe. I took Dean and flew, popping up at the rendezvous spot about ten miles away. I heard Jo before I saw her, panic ringing clearly in her plaintive cry as I moved toward the small group. I placed Dean gently on the grass, kneeling next to him and frantically felt for a pulse. I sighed and my head fell to hang loosely between my shoulder blades.
"What happened to him? Cass, what happened!" Her voice was rising as she ran her hands over Dean searching for a wound. "I- I can't find a wound! Is he okay? Cass? Is he alive?" I lifted my head up with a smile.
"He will be just fine." I said before Placing my fingers against his forehead.
I both felt and heard the twisted bones in his neck re-knit. His eyes flew open as he took a screaming inhale in and sat bolt upright, searching around him as if looking for something or someone. I knew who he was looking for. We all flinched when we heard a huge explosion behind us. The birds in the trees in the park around us filled the sky in a rampage of feathers and fearful squawks, fleeing the opposite direction from the convent. The ground rumbled beneath us as if it were tempted to fall out from under our feet. I felt the vibrations of the explosion rumble through my body like I was a tuning fork, my ears rang and then a profound silence wrapped around this part of the world so that I could only hear the rapid breathing of my companions.
"GET DOWN!" I yelled, throwing myself on top of Dean a second before the aftershock of the explosion swept over us.
I'm not sure who'd had the time to get down but the shock wave raked over me, blowing my coat and shirt up, exposing the bare flesh of my back. I hissed as the force of it burned across my skin and my head connected with the ground hard enough to rattle my teeth. I dug my hands into the dirt but felt my lower half lift off the ground. Dean's arms wrapped around my shoulders his legs locking around my waist, pulling me closer, in a moment of near intimacy that would haunt me in later days, as he buried his face in my chest. Then it was over. I gently, almost reluctantly pulled free of Dean and jumped to my feet, surveying the damage. Ellen, Jo, Bobby and Rufus were about twenty yards back. I ran to them as they were all crowding around Rufus who had been unfortunate enough to collide with a tree. Bobby's arm was broken from impact with the side of a stone bench not too far off to the right of the group. Ellen had a gash on her forehead. Jo had only sustained minor scrapes and a significant amount of grass and dirt stains. I healed them one at a time. As I was healing Ellen Dean came forward.
"What happened? Where is Sam?" I winced in time with Ellen then turned around to look at him then back at the faces of the people behind me.
They all seemed to be waiting for an answer. I opened my mouth to explain when a beam of brilliant white-blue light speared into the heavens, illuminating the destruction of the blast before us. A minor rumble accompanied by a subsonic ringing swept through the atmosphere. We stopped to stare and when it was over almost thirty seconds later a brief silence fell over the lot of us.
"You better get to explaining, Cass!" Jo exclaimed, whirling to point her finger at me.
"Lilith is dead." A thick silence fell over the crowd. "That was the final seal breaking on Lucifer's cage."
"That?" Bobby gestured vaguely in the direction of the church. "That blue beam of light we just saw? That was the seal breaking? Not the explosion that just rocked us and destroyed a huge chunk of the city?" I nodded my head.
"Then what the hell was the explosion from? Did you plant a bomb in the church or something?" Ellen's voice was thick with agitation.
"I have a better question." I looked at Dean, knowing what he was going to ask and wishing he wouldn't. "Where is Sam?" I just stared for a few moments. Dean stepped forward so that he was standing only a few feet back. "Where is my brother, Cass?" His voice quivered with the edge of tears and I could almost feel everyone holding their breath.
"I don't think he meant to, Dean. From what I saw he waged war against himself."
"Meant? Waged?" He stared unblinkingly at me. He hadn't missed the past tense and I knew that he already knew what I was going to say but he needed to hear it. I saw the world through a shimmering wall of tears.
"What is the last thing you remember, Dean?" He swallowed a few times before answering.
"Lilith using her demon hoodoo to throw Sam across the room and pull me to her. Her forcing me to my knees in front of her." He took a breath in. "I remember staring at Sam as Lilith broke my neck." I nodded.
"After your body hit the ground Sam-" I searched for the words I wanted, "He- Sam lost control. He... went nuclear?" I was unsure of my terminology but from the look of dismay on Dean's face I knew my vernacular had been right. "Lilith...Ruby, both died. I saw what was left of them before I grabbed you and got out."
"And Sam? Did he make it out?" He squeezed his eyes shut, tears slipping free. "Please. Please tell me he made it out." He was quiet for a moment and I watched his fists shake at his sides, his bottom lip slightly trembling. "Please." His voice was nothing but a whisper. I didn't want to say it but he was going to make me.
"No, Dean. Sam didn't make it out." I had to swallow down my own emotions and even then my next words came out as a whisper. "He died...Sam is dead. He's dead." I took a few calm, steadying breaths. "Oh god, I'm so sorry, Dean!"
My voice cracked slightly on the last few words and I looked down at the ground as a mournful silence settled over the group. I heard someone crying. There would be no body to burn this time to help them move on. Sam couldn't receive the funeral he deserved, nor Dean the closure he needed. I moved my head to follow Dean as he walked through the group and continued walking. He stopped about forty yards away and just fell to the ground, folding his legs Indian style. I couldn't look at Dean so instead I watched the hearts break of the hunters before me. Ellen held a sobbing Bobby, his face buried in the hair at her neck. His heart wrenching sobs speared through me making me realize I had been crying for some time now. Jo and Rufus stood stock still watching Ellen and Bobby, tears running silently down their faces. Dean stood suddenly and came to stand before me, determination written in the hard lines of his face. His face was free of any signs of tears, as if he simply couldn't bring himself to cry just yet.
"We are going to save Sam. Do you hear me? I will not leave him to rot." His voice was hard but his eyes flinched a little at the scene before him. Bobby was like a father to Dean so I knew how badly this must hurt him on top of everything. "Get us back to Bobby's house. We have work to do."
··········
Two months later
I sighed deeply as I walked to the refrigerator, pulling it open to grab a beer. I stared dismally down at the drink, almost wishing the answers Dean was seeking were at the bottom of the bottle. I hear the sounds of what I had come to know as a screw gun and the thud, thud, thud of a hammer. The rest of us had busied ourselves with cleaning up the mess of the giant battle we had fought here. The house was mostly whole again, minus the windows, which were still boarded up. We had decided against calling in a contractor to install new windows until we stopped finding bits of human and demon here and there, which seemed to hide in the oddest of places. I turned around and walked back into the study to see Dean where I left him, surrounded by mountains of books, Bobby's desk covered in ancient looking tomes open to seemingly random pages.
"Here." I said, holding out the open beer in my hand.
Dean reached up and accepted it without looking away from the book he was thumbing through. I stood there staring at him. His eyes were surrounded by dark, sleepless circles. His hair was the longest I'd ever seen it, oily from his fingers running through it too much and not enough showering. Over the last two months Dean had lost weight, a lot of it. If I could pull him away from his research long enough to get some food and drink, water not beer, in him and maybe a shower, if I was lucky, it was a good day. His collarbones protruded creating a shallow cavern in the flesh on both sides of it and my stomach did that twisting thing that made me feel slightly sick.
"Dean." He didn't even look up, I doubt he even knew I had been standing there. "You need to eat." Again I was met with silence.
The first few weeks after Sam all of us had been part of Dean's relentless search for a way to save his brother. It had worn everyone down and filled there eyes with a hollow look similar to that of a soldiers who had accepted defeat, death. I was the one who had gotten them to redirect their focus to fixing up the house and grounds. Dean's antics had kept all of us from mourning properly. He always kept presenting us with plans half baked enough to give us hope then break our hearts all over again when they failed. I was not exempt from this. I wasn't sure how many more failures everyone could take.
"If I make you some food, will you eat it?" No response.
My eyes stung with tears of helplessness. I turned around and went to the kitchen. Five minutes later I placed a plate before him with a sandwich, with everything I knew he liked on it, chips, some pasta salad Ellen had made the day before and a pickle. I had laid the plate right on top of the book he was looking through, fingers still gripping the plate.
"Please. Eat, Dean."
He was sitting stock still, tension singing through him, staring at the plate as if he could see through it to the book underneath. I let go of the plate and stood up straight, watching him do what he had done every time someone had brought him food. He picked the plate up and sat it on top of a stack of books on the corner of the desk. I closed my eyes and sighed, turning away and walking out of the house. I usually sat with him poring over the thousands of years of knowledge in Bobby's library. Someone had to. I didn't know what Dean would do if he ever thought that we had abandoned him. I spent the next three hours fixing a section of fence five cars lengths long. I had been getting better at the "handy man stuff" as Jo called it. Bobby called to me over a few rows of cars.
"Cass, why don't you join us? Ellen went to pick up some pizza." I nodded and waited for him, Rufus and Jo to disappear into the maze of cars.
I went back to staring at the fence I had just mended. It looked good. All I had left to do was paint it. I threw the hammer in my hand at the fence, embedding it in the wood. I stared at it for a second or two more before I raised my hand and waved it at the fence sending all my careful work splintering in an arc of wood nails and screws. As it all finished falling to the ground, looking as if something had driven through the fence I smiled. I undid the section of the fence I had mended two days before as well with a smile. I had been slowly undoing some things or creating more things that had to be mended around here. I had to provide them all with something to keep them distracted until Dean gave up this fight and mourned Sam the way he needed to. I walked back to the house and heard light conversation coming from the kitchen. Ellen's car was in the driveway so it was safe to assume she was back with pizza and probably soda or beer. I stopped in the doorway to the study, seeing Dean still sitting at the desk, the plate of food I had given him before I went to work on the fence still sitting where he had put it, untouched. I felt rage spark through me and fought to keep it under control. Dean didn't seem to notice me standing there or the light talk of his friends and companions in the kitchen. I felt eyes on me and briefly glanced at Ellen who was watching me, sipping the soda in her hand. I looked back at Dean to see him lifting a beer to his lips, the condensation running down the side of it told me it was relatively new and looking to the floor to his right showed me in the three hours I had been outside he had put away almost two dozen beers. I snapped. I was in front of Dean in a blink, the beer still at his lips. I snatched the bottle away from him, closed my fingers around it and smashed it on the open pages of the book he had been looking through. This was enough to startle him into action. I could have moved but I didn't. I stayed where I was, leaned over the desk, one palm pushed into the broken glass of the bottle, the other flat on yet another open book. I stood there as Dean drew the knife at his belt and pushed the point of it into my flesh. I felt the first hot trickle of blood on my neck. I let my rage and concern fill my eyes as I stared into the pure rage, almost hatred shining out of his eyes. The hatred baffled me for a moment.
"Eat." I said.
He leaned in to me a little, digging the point of the knife in a bit more. If he was expecting a reaction he didn't get it. A thin beam of light escaped the small wound he had made in my throat. During one of his kamikaze missions to save Sam, where we had figured out that the angels wanted Dean to be a vessel for the archangel Michael, I had given him an angel blade so that he could defend himself from angel or demon. Now that very blade was pressed into my flesh. He could very well kill me, but I would not move.
"I'm a bit busy." He growled into my face from inches away.
"Cass, back away and leave him alone." Ellen stood off to the right so I could see her out of my peripherals. It was then that I realized everything had fallen silent. Everyone was watching us. I never looked away from Dean.
"I used to pray that we could find a way, any way, to raise Sam from perdition. Now I pray to God that he give you the strength to give up." Dean's eyes flinched a little but the rest of him stood stock still. Then the point dug in a bit more and what had been a thin trickling of blood thickened, flowed faster, the light grew a little brighter.
"In little under a month Sam will have been in hell for as long as I was there." More pressure on the blade as he leaned in to where he was only one hard breath away from touching me. "I will never give up on him. Never!" I took a deep breath past the now sharp pain of the knife.
"You need to let him go and properly mourn him. You are killing yourself, Dean."
"I DON'T CARE!"
I flinched a little at those harsh words, screamed in my face from an inch away. Then my rage spiked and tears broke free to trail down my face. I was the one who leaned into the blade at my throat, pushing it in to where a little more pressure would sever something critical. I saw a brief, almost nonexistent flash of panic in Dean's eyes, that if I had blinked I would have missed, as he glanced down at the blade before I was too close to look at him, but he didn't move the blade. The side of my mouth brushed against his as I spoke.
"You don't care? You don't care!" My laugh sounded like if it could brush against your skin it would feel like a steel sponge, and I felt him shiver a little. "Do you care that you are killing us, all of us one day, one failure at a time. Do you care that every day we have to carry on like we aren't watching you die kills a little piece of us. Do you care that we can't mourn Sam because you won't let us?" I felt the wetness of his tears and pulled away so fast that the blade sliced a shallow cut along the surface of my skin. Dean flinched and looked down at the blade in his hand. I stood in front of the desk, watching Dean, tracking the misery in his eyes, the tears running down his face.
"I can't give him up. I don't know how, and that you could ask me to shows me that I don't need you." My heart seized for a few moments and tears stung at my eyes before a liquid hot rage rolled through me.
"YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO LOST SAM!" Dean stumbled back at the almost roar of anger. I remembered watching Sam fight against himself, the way his magic tore him apart. The ghost of his screams crept along my skin, haunting me. "We all lost him, Dean! You won't let us heal. You won't heal and we are haunted daily by the fact that you are going to die too if you can't let him go!" Tears poured down my face. And my next words came out choked with pain. "I don't know if we will be able to handle losing you." I shook my head, "We lost Ash. We lost Sam. We cannot lose you too...we won't survive." That last we sounded more like an I to me, but I wouldn't take it back. Dean was just staring at me now, anguish written across his face. Dean let out a small sob before turning around and making to leave the room. He stopped in the doorway and turned his head enough that I could see the side of his face, gleaming with tears.
"You should have saved Sam. He is the one who matters." He swallowed hard a coupled times. "You should have saved him...or left me there to die with him." His voice sounded hollow. He turned to face the hallway and his next words broke whatever was left of my heart. "I WILL save Sam. No one will stop me. So, the next time you find your way beneath my blade will be the last." Then he disappeared around the corner. I stood there, staring after him with my broken heart pouring out of my eyes. I felt like the tears simply couldn't come fast enough to vent my pain. I jumped as I felt a hand gently touch my shoulder. I turned my head to see Ellen standing next to me with Jo right behind her. Jo's eyes were wide as she stared at me, as if were she to blink she would cry.
"Come on, love. Lets get you cleaned up."
I looked down to see my shirt soaked with blood and a small pool of blood on the floor at my feet as blood dripped from my hand onto the floor. I nodded and went with the two women into the kitchen. They sat me down at the table and Jo went to dig the first aid kit out from under the sink while Ellen looked my hand over. Bobby and Rufus made it a point to busy themselves with something in the study. Jo stood behind Ellen nervously, watching Ellen pull shards of glass out of my hand. When one piece of glass was imbedded so deep that blood squirted free in an arc onto Ellen's jeans Jo excused herself, looking a little pale. I smiled. A hunter, squeamish around blood. Ellen was bandaging my hand before she finally spoke.
"He didn't mean what he said." I didn't even look at her face when I responded.
"Yes he did."
"He may have meant it now but he'll see. There will come a time when he will remember what we mean to him and then he will regret what he said and do anything to make up for it." She fell silent, her hands stilling until I looked at her. "Words are powerful things. Once said they can never be unsaid. When that time comes It will take the both of you to fix things. He won't be able to mend what he just tore in a moment of grief unless you are willing to forgive him." She must have continued binding my hand at some point, but I hadn't noticed because I couldn't seem to look away from her face. Her fingers drifted across my hand in a final touch before she stood to prop herself on the table in front of me, leaving only a foot or so of space between us. She tipped my head back to look at the wound in my neck then started grabbing supplies to bandage it.
"This is going to need stitches. It'll scar if it doesn't get the attention it needs."
I was going to protest that I didn't need stitches but remembered that the wound was from an angel blade, so I would heal almost human slow. And it would indeed scar if left unattended. Ellen's face was close to mine as she tended to the wound. I felt the sharp pricks of pain as she began stitching my skin back together but strained to stare at her face. She was beautiful, the years of hard living only adding a certain grace, wisdom and intense strength to her features. Her eyes were critical of every detail as if nothing could slip her gaze. I could see why Bobby loved her. It had not slipped my notice how Bobby looked after this woman, trailing her movements, watching out for her in combat to the point of distraction. He loved Ellen, but I knew he would never tell her. Her eyes caught mine then she went back to focusing on her work.
"Do you love him, Cass?" My heart fluttered a little as I searched for an answer. Her fingers froze as she watched my face. "Cass? Do you love him?" She had asked if I loved him not if I was in love with him, though that was what I thought she was asking. I did love Dean. It was how I loved him that I was not familiar with. I wanted to turn my face away so she couldn't watch the emotions run across my face but couldn't due to her attentions on the wound at my throat. A small smile graced the corners of her lips as she went back to tending my wound. She must have gotten the answer she was looking for in my silence because I could almost feel her happiness and sincerity.
"Then you can't give up on him." In that second I thought I heard a slight criticism in her voice. "You never give up on someone you love." Her eyes flicked to mine for a brief moment. Yes, she was criticizing me for my earlier words and I was suddenly very defensive.
"He needs to let go." She shook her head and again her fingers stopped as she leaned a little more solidly into my line of sight.
"If you truly love someone there is no way for you to let them go. It is like cutting a part of yourself away because no matter if they are gone out of your life or dead, they will always be a part of you. You cannot erase memories, Cass. They are what make us who we are." She blinked away the beginnings of tears and I knew she had lost someone she truly loved. "Dean and Sam have been together their entire lives. That's a lot of memories. To let go of Sam would kill him." I was crying again. Crying for Dean, for Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Rufus, for what came with this knowledge, for Ellen's bittersweet wisdom.
"How do we save him?" Because that was the only question that mattered. Her fingers fell still as she smiled down at me. She leaned forward and placed a chaste, motherly kiss on my cheek. When she pulled back her lips shone with a sheen of my tears.
"You stay with him, no matter what. Show him he has something more to live for." I smiled and my eyes slid closed. Ellen's fingers resumed their healing and a hopeful peace settled over us both in the companionable silence.
~~~§~~~
Dean's POV
Two months I had spent looking for a way to save him and I finally found it. I walked further into the salvage yard, everything I needed slung over my shoulder. Regret twinged within my heart as the image of Castiel seared itself into the back of my eyes. I shook my head violently. I needed to stay on task. I looked around surrounded by two vans, a truck that looked like it was ready to just fall apart in a pile of rust and dust, and a Chevy that looked like it could be beautiful with some work, a lot of work. If I crouched down no one would be able to find me. I sank into a crouch and began unloading my bag. I drew the circle with the sigils needed then inlaid the circle with a devil's trap. I got the bowl of sulfur set up and grabbed the knife off my belt and wrapped my fingers around it, squeezing my fist tight then sharply ripping the knife out of my hand. There was no pain to the initial cut so I knew I had sliced too deep, but the ritual called for a lot of blood. I mumbled the Latin chant I had been memorizing all day, lighting the five candles starting at the southern most tip, working around clockwise from there. I lit the last candle as the final syllable left my lips and the flames shot up about seven or so feet then the candles went out. I peeked over the top of the SUV, facing the house as if I could notice if someone saw that. I sank back down, hoping I was still in the clear, waiting for something to happen. Minutes passed by, five then ten and I fell back on my ass in defeat, dropping my head onto my upraised knees. It was supposed to work. I was sure it would work. The slice on my hand began to sting and I thought vaguely that it would need stitches.
"'Ello, Darling! I was expecting your call." I looked up to see a man around six feet tall with dark hair cut close to his head, dark eyes, with five o'clock shadow making his jaw and chin look dark as well in the moonlight. He was impeccably dressed in a suit with a long coat, falling to mid-calf, as if he was cold. "Where in the seven hells are we? Such a dismal place to make such memories, don't you think? Really? This is the first impression you want to leave on me? You've got a lot to learn, love." The man shook his head "The first time should be beautiful." He tsked almost as if he truly cared about the setting. I raised my eyebrows at the quirky demon before me. "Well? Take a picture. I certainly won't look like this forever. Oh wait...yes I will." He laughed a little then put his hands on his hips. "I have a lot to do, princess so if you like to open that trap of yours and spill your wishes, I'll wave my magic wand then go about my day." When I remained silent he rolled his eyes. "Newbies." He looked at me and leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees, a stupid grin stretching his mouth. "This is the part where you say what you want and I see you in ten years." He spoke in that voice most reserved for small animals and babies. I frowned.
"Who are you?" The demon rolled his eyes again.
"Ah, Hell. Call me back in a few years when you've figured everything out and we can try this again, 'kay bunny?" He gave me a lazy, mock salute then a few seconds later his face crashed into angry yet intrigued lines.
"Who are you?" My voice was flat with everything but a threat. I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it. The demon eyed me up then rotated in a circle looking at what was trapping him. He huffed a huge sigh then locked eyes with me.
"Crowley, King of hell, at your service." I smiled as the man gave a rather graceful though mocking bow with an uneasy grin. I was going to get Sam one way or another.
A/N- Hello all! So here is the first chapter of the second part to my story. I hope you all enjoyed this one. I am sorry it took so long to get this to you but here it is. I should have the next chapter to you as soon as possible. Thank you to all of those who returned for this story!
