Amen
This scene was inspired by "Amen" by Amber Run. Written to help me with my writer's block.
Coda 13x22. Sam's still not free. Dean comes to find his brother so they can shatter together. Jack sees and finally understands. And Castiel picks up the pieces.
Leaving Lucifer behind was not enough for a pair of brothers who had carried the world's salvation one too many times.
Jack was still angry. Lurking, seething, boiling the water in the kitchen as he walked passed it with the heat of his infant wrath. It made sense. Honestly, he was a baby practically. Innocent of the knowledge of what Lucifer had done.
Dean stumbled into the library aware that Jack was on his heels. He didn't feel like fighting, even though he knew a confrontation would come. Sam had left Jack's father behind. Never mind who he had been before the birth of this unadulterated angel.
"Sammy?" Dean knew in his gut from years of knowing. Sam wasn't free. He never really was. He may have escaped but there was always a Cage so long as the Devil was alive.
Jack was following Dean. His shadow was hot and cold. Dean expected Lucifer's ice and Kelly's fire would forever dance around the nephilim's heart. He wanted to cry for the child, which surprised even Dean. Maybe it was just like Sam. Even from birth Jack had no choice over Lucifer's pull on his life.
"All too bright...All of it so bright, so cold. Morning stars...Or are they jet airplanes? Maybe we could leave here?" Sam's chattering came from a table he was sitting on. Jack's brooding behind Dean paused. Dean held his breath. He knew what this meant.
"H-hey, little brother." Dean turned on a lamp. Sam flinched and covered his eyes. Slowly, his fingers spread to reveal the burning hazel beneath. Pale, he was like the scream painting. He was horror personified. Lucifer had made it so.
"D-Dean...Hey." Sam smiled at last. Dean felt his stomach churn. Sam was looking around in terror.
"What are you doing in here?" Dean stepped closer to Sam. Sam reached out and took Dean by both hands with all his failing strength.
"Who would have thought his voice reached across worlds, huh? Right. He can reach across worlds. I see him now. I know he's in my head. That he's not real, but I…"Sam cringed. The hallucination must be gruesome. Dean felt fear flood his body like icy dams breaking. Oh, God, no...Please, God. Not again.
"I didn't kill Lucifer...He-He's still Jack's father, Dean. I couldn't do that to Jack and...I left him...So Michael would do it and...Well, maybe then I would be clean of the deed, but I couldn't let him walk free, you know? I've done that one too many times." Sam's eyes were filling up with tears. Dean feels awkward knowing Jack has come into the room, revealing himself on purpose. He would address him later.
"Well, both times Lucifer escaped his cage...You may have had an accidental hand in it, but you aren't really to blame. No one could have known killing Lilith was a bad thing. Castiel...Bless him, damn him, he did what he thought was right. You know that…" Dean took Sam's chin in his hand. Sam blinked. He was gone. Dean knew he'd lost him.
"It's my fault, though, isn't it? He shows me all the things I've done. Counts them on his feathers, his favorite way to pass the time." Sam laughed, and swallowed, nearly vomiting at whatever horrible thing he saw Lucifer do.
" So many fires...I lit them. But I can never put them out, you know? Mom...I torched her, Dean, just for being born. And Jessica...Jessica...She was a bonfire in my heart before. A fire that bright wasn't meant to last, I guess. She burned beautiful with life and then I burned her out. See, I break everything I touch. Her heart when she died, I'm sure. Dad's trust. The last seal. My soul. Your life. Shattered by my hands. Damn me, Dean. I deserved to die, so why can't I stay dead? Damn him too. Lucifer...It's all some cosmic joke, I think, except the punchline...He won't let me die, will he? Never gonna let me go." Sam smiled as tears filled his eyes. Dean stared, slack-jawed. Sam didn't ever talk about Jessica anymore. He knew he thought about her every now and then. But all the rest. What did he mean?
"None of those things...None of those things can stick to you. Jessica...Azazel killed her. Azazel killed Mom. And Lucifer was the one behind all of it, Sammy. If anyone ever hurt them, it was Lucifer. Lucifer with his little puppet strings, playing everybody." Dean lifted Sam's face to look at him. Sam was crying now.
"I hear his voice in my head. He...He'll take Jack, Dean. I don't wanna let that-I can't. I know the kid will hate me…I know. But that's okay because I deserve to be hated, don't I? I mean, look at all the crap I've done." Sam took Dean's face. He was suddenly sputtering.
"I killed you too. I couldn't save you. If you hadn't been tasked with me, part of Lucifer's plan...Your life. All of it. The hellhounds that ripped you to pieces...The drink, the drugs, the women, the emptiness. Hell, becoming a demon...All of it is my fault! He can show me what you think, right? I've been such a burden on you. A curse from jump..." Sam touched Dean's mouth as it started to quake. Dean shook his head.
"Damn it, Sammy!" Dean shouted and took Sam by either side of his face, knotting his fingers in his hair.
"Don't let him do this to you again! Please, little brother!" Dean's shouting had summoned Castiel to the room, hearing the prayer in his heart. Cas clutched his chest, as if his heart was threatening to shoot through his bones, blazing like comets of desolation.
"What...what's happening?" Jack whispered. His knees were going weak. Castiel caught him as he sank to the floor.
"Shh...We should give them a moment."Cas was in tears already, to Jack's heart aching confusion.
"Damn it, no...No, I chose to do that! To save you. If I'd let you die, maybe Lucifer would never have risen, but the world would have gone unsaved too. Damn me! It's my fault. I'm the one who pulled you back into this freak show...It's practically me that dropped you in that freaking Cage to burn with him forever! I'm the one who should have saved you...I should have protected you from him." Dean was crying now. He buried his face in Sam's hair as Sam stared sidelong at Lucifer's shadow.
"That isn't fair. You couldn't have known that's what it would take…" Sam was shaking now. Dean's legs were trembling about to give out. Cas let out a tiny croak from his throat and muttered "Oh God…" Jack felt that his heart would explode just then.
"It doesn't matter. Saving you was my job. It was my job! Burden be damned, Sammy...Burden be damned. This is happening all over again! Round and round and round we go. Damn it, I can't! I can't do this again!" Dean and Sam slid into the floor, knocking over the table, the chairs, scattering the papers and books that were on it.
"I'm sorry...It's just. I know he isn't real, but I can't get him out of my head!" Sam was choking on his words. Dean pushed him to his shoulder.
"God! Just don't...You can't help it...I know. Neither can I right now, and damn that too! I can't save you. I could carry you from fires, I could sell my soul for you, I could trade my life a thousand times, bleed out, get drunk, burn in Hell and repeat. I could never save you from him. Damn it all! I wish this sorry sack of a world could burn for that! And now...Now the Devil can't die because he made a kid. And damn if that kid ain't worth saving, Sammy. What the hell are we supposed to do?!" Dean collapsed to the the floor, pressing Sam on his back. They curled around each other like little foxes and wept brokenly.
"This doesn't happen often, but when it does, they stay that way until they sleep. It's alright, Jack. Come with me now. I'll come back and help them when they can't cry anymore." Cas led Jack from the room.
Cas let Jack slide to the floor. Jack felt like crying but he was too numb. Sam and Dean's broken weeping was still audible from here. That massive bunker rang hollow with the soft cries as Dean's angry shouting was suppressed by the heaviness in his soul. The emptiness swallowed each sound so that the ripples only reached so far and the rest of the place was peaceful. These people they'd brought back from Apocalypse world. They were filled with the warrior's cheer now that they had heroes to lean on. How could they know their heroes were shattered? Homeless and broken boys they had been finding only a resting place in one another.
Inside, they were still the same crying children who fled from their mother's funeral pyre. They still wandered highway after hopeless highway hunting demons from an antiquated Chevy. And for all their decorations as the men who saved the world, some part of that would never change. That broken, bizarre, haunted life…It unravelled them and braided them together all at once, never to be freed from each other's coil in mortality or afterlife.
"I have to tell you everything. If anything they said matters to you, let me tell you why it should. And if you get mad, be mad at me only. Because I should have saved them...My little brothers...I-!"Cas' face collapsed around a silent sob as he tried to put it into speech. Seeing his surrogate father cry made Jack cry then.
"Did I? Did I do that to them?" Jack looked back. Sam and Dean were trying to get up, laughing bitterly at how stupid they felt. Dean collapsed and Sam caught him. They lay like one dead thing for a long time.
"No, Jack...No, but your father did. I want you to understand...Lucifer-" Cas swallowed as Jack laid a hand over his mouth. A memory of doing the same thing to Dean once flashed through Cas' mind.
"Castiel...You are my father. I didn't mean to get distracted by meeting the other guy. I...I'm so confused." Jack looked back. Dean was holding his mouth now so he wouldn't be sick on his brother. Sam was staring listlessly at the roof, jumping every now and then as the Devil played in his mind. Every time that he did that, Dean tried to shield him with his quaking arms, covering his eyes with one of his shaking hands. If anyone found them like that, this resistance would be over. They were fighting to compose themselves and finding it impossible.
"I will tell you the story of how Sam and Dean saved the world from your birth father. First, forgive me, but I want you to go to your room. I can't watch this anymore." Cas patted Jack's shoulder. Then, he crept to his friends.
Jack swallowed and looked on in amazement. Cas lifted Dean from Sam's limp body. Dean groaned in embarrassment and turned to look into Cas' red and stinging eyes trying to smile at the angel. With a trembling return smile, Cas caressed Dean's face. He used the angelic sleep power then and let him fold like a wad of crumpled dollars into his arms. Cas dragged Dean away a few feet, standing up the table and chairs. He sat Dean there bowed over the table top sleeping and went to Sam.
"Hello, Sam…"Cas whispered to his friend on the floor like he was talking to a baby. Sam flinched and took Cas' wrists.
"Cas, you see him too, right? He's coming for me. Don't let him get Dean. Or Jack. Please…"Sam nodded, smiling grimly. Childlike tears rolled down to his lips. Cas brushed them away.
"He's not coming for you tonight. I won't ever let him hurt you again." Cas frowned. Sam nodded, lucid for a moment.
"Don't make promises you know you can't keep, buddy…"Sam bit his lip 'til it bled. Cas leaned closer and touched his forehead.
"This will never make sense, will it? Go to sleep, Sam. Let it be my burden now." Cas kept talking as Sam's eyes rolled listlessly closed. Neatly stacking some open books, Cas laid Sam's limp body there.
"They will wake up like this. It will be better this way. Less humiliating than if they remember that I helped them." Cas knew that Jack had stayed even though he'd told him to go.
Cas took a deep breath and motioned Jack on.
"Come on, then, my son. The truth is like a prayer. You have to seek it to find it. It's time you know the answers." Cas looked back at Dean whose hand reached out toward Sam in his sleep. Turning away, eyes wide, face pale Cas took sleepwalking Jack away from there.