Title: Faster Than Angels Fly
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,810 words
Disclaimer: I do not own anything even closely resembling Supernatural or the song used.
Summary: post 4.22 "Lucifer Rising"- 'Strong as the beads of a rosary; Never too young to die; Heaven can't help you if you go; Faster than angels fly.' Castiel was too late.
Warning: spoilers for 4.22, character deaths
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Despair. Guilt. Remorse.
He's heard the words; knows their meaning. But until this moment in time he had never know the feeling behind them. At first, he didn't understand the pit growing in his stomach, nor the undeniable urge to do something, anything, to make it right once again. He wanted to fix it, fix them; he wished he could have gotten to their side faster. All these sensations roiling around inside of the angel, it was overwhelming, staggering, confusing.
He had felt it at the time. There was a shift in the air sending shivers like lightning bolts up and down his spine. He could smell their fear, taste the danger. It sat heavily on his tongue; sulfur and copper. And he had wanted to run, to fly quickly to their sides and hold off the impending danger, to speed them to safety.
But he was too slow; it all happened too late for him to stop it. He had archangels bearing down upon him and a quivering, half-drunk prophet at his side. He had chosen and now there was nothing he could do without endangering them all further. So he stood his ground at Chuck's side and prayed that his charges would be safe, that they would heed the danger and flee out of harm's way.
Now, standing amongst the rubble of decimated hollowed ground, Castiel knew that was not the case. The air smelled of blood and ozone, was still but charged with energy like the sky after a storm. The weight of the dead weighing heavily on his mind, his heart.
But not all was hushed with death. No, there was one heart still valiantly beating life through a broken body; one soul still clinging desperately to this world. It was weak, but strong of purpose; fading quickly, but still shouting to heard above the clamor of a hectic world.
Castiel moved instantly, hauling away the demolished stone with effort until what he sought was found. There, lying mangled and bleeding on the ground, were two bodies. Two brothers. One lying atop the other, a last ditch effort and a deep-rooted need to protect the other 'til death.
Kneeling down next to the bodies, Castiel laid a hand on each and began to pray.
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"Sam, we need to get out of here now!" Dean shouted to be heard above the sudden chaos around them. There was a loud ring shrieking through the electrified air, the ground trembling beneath their feet. He feared if they didn't move soon, the building would come down around them.
"Dean, he's coming." Sam was transfixed by the light shooting up from the opening in the floor. Terrified. Shocked. In awe. He was frozen in place, oblivious to everything else happening around him.
The fissures in the stone beneath their feet began to spread, the walls around them beginning to crack and crumble. Dean jerked Sam forward, making it a step or two away from the door before the roof buckled. He watched in horror as their only escape was blocked by massive pieces of stone.
"Shit!" Dean hauled Sam back a few paces, safe for the moment from the falling debris. Fight or flight instinct kicking into overdrive, Dean ripped the knife, their only weapon, from Ruby's chest without flinching. When he looked back towards his brother he met Sam's wide, terrified eyes and breathed a small sigh of relief. As long as Sam had his back, Dean could do this.
"What are we gonna do?" Sam grabbed a fistful of Dean's jacket, leaning in close as he whispered his fear.
'Now would be the perfect time for a grand entrance, Cas', Dean thought. But even as he hoped, Dean knew Castiel wouldn't be coming to save them in the nick of time. He would be too late. Cas was occupied with archangels covering Dean's getaway.
No, Heaven would be no help to them now.
Instead, he met Sam's gaze, holding it with steely determination. "We end this. Right here, right now" he said, gripping the knife tighter with one hand and his brother with the other.
He expected Sam to nod his assent, or see his face harden with resolve. He even expected Sam to try and grab the knife, ready to end it all himself. What Dean never expected was to see was Sam's eyes go wide with terror as he stumbled backwards a step.
It took Dean a moment to process that Sam wasn't staring at him but behind him. Whipping around, Dean watched in trepidation as a figure emerged before them, all dark shadows even when illuminated by the bright light. He could hear Sam murmuring something behind him, something sounding strangely like Latin, but Dean couldn't focus on it. His sole concentration was on the thing looming before them.
It all happened so fast. Dean wasn't even aware of what he was doing until he was moving forward, knife poised to kill. With a scream of rage, he thrust the knife at the figure's chest but it only found air and fell from his fingers. His scream turned to one of agony as bolts of pain shot through his arm, echoes of it singing throughout his body. Then he was flying through the air, twisting and tumbling until he came to land against the far wall with a sickening crack.
He thought he heard someone scream, but it was all too fuzzy to tell.
"Dean!" Sam watched in horror as Dean was flung around like a rag doll. The knife clattered to the floor, useless, on the other side of the room near his brother's body; a distance that seemed too far with Lucifer standing between them. He would never get near it before meeting a wall of his own. He would just need to do it another way, his own way.
Right before his eyes the figure began to solidify; shadows lightening, wisps of silvery gray twining with black where human appendages began to appear. It laughed at him, a resounding guffaw he could feel deep in his chest and down to his bones. It was amused at his shock, at Dean's fool hearted bravery. But Sam wasn't going to give it much longer to savor the experience.
Without a conscious thought, Sam lifted his hand and concentrated. He could feel the last vestiges of power, adrenaline high from the demon blood, pulling together within him and pulsing outwards, fed further by his fear and desperation.
He could hear Lucifer cackling harder, could almost feel Lilith and Ruby doing the same.
Guilt and shame and boiling anger gave him another push. This was what he had worked so hard for, why he'd lost his brother even as he got him back, why he'd fallen so far from grace in the eyes of so many. He could not, would not, fail now. And that's when he felt himself gain the upper hand.
He sensed more than heard Dean coming around just as the first spikes of pain bolted through him with knee-buckling force. But he stood strong, pushed harder, clamped down on his lip as he forced away the pain, focused it outwards. He could feel the first drops of blood hit his lips and knew he was near the breaking point but still he carried on, unwilling to stop.
Sam honed his concentration in on Lucifer, knowing that worrying about Dean right now would only weaken him, endangering them both. Instead, he tried to dredge up the power needed from his depleted reserves. But it was too much to ask, too soon, and something snapped within him.
Sam was vaguely aware of the scream that tore from his lips as he crumpled to the ground, white hot agony zinging through his head with excruciating force.
On the other side of the room, Dean came around quickly, fingers searching for the knife even as the now solid shape before him began to twitch and convulse. 'Sam's doing it' he thought in disbelief. He watched as Sam's face screwed deeper into concentration even as blood gushed from his nose and began to drip from his ears.
Cold bands of fear wrapped around his heart, but Dean watched on in amazement as Lucifer's body snapped and sizzled with electricity, wisps of demon smoke coming off of him even as he fell to his knee's before Sam.
Dean dared to hope for a moment that Sam could do this; that this would all be over in the next instant.
But his hopes were dashed as something palpable in the air changed suddenly. Sam's face shattered into pain as he screamed. And once again Dean was moving without thought, acting on instinct as he grabbed the knife up off the floor. He scrambled over and plunged the knife deep into the now solid flesh of Lucifer's back, through his heart.
Dean never gave it a second thought after that as he collapsed next to Sam. "Sammy!" he cried, grabbing his brother and pulling him close.
Sam's eyes rolled in his head for a moment before they slowly settled in Dean's vicinity, unfocused. There was blood coming from his ears in streams, trailing down his neck, and gushing from his nose, collecting in his mouth, choking him. He weakly grasped at Dean's jacket. "D'n."
"Shhh. I'm here. I gotcha." Dean cradled his brother close, mind barely grazing on an escape plan when the air around them began to hum.
"We … get … him?" Sam's ragged whisper had Dean whipping his head around to face Lucifer.
The shadowy figure lay slumped against the floor, the handle of Ruby's knife protruding out of it. Dean was about to answer in the affirmative when a high-pitched whine filled the air making the ground quake and the walls tremble. The body slowly crumbled in on itself, an empty shell turning to ash.
Dean barely had a second's warning before it all peaked, the rest of Lucifer's body exploding outwards sending out blasting shockwaves. But a second is all the time Dean needed to cover his brother with his own body before the rest of the building came down around them.
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When Castiel opened his eyes, he gazed first upon Dean's crushed body. Grief welled inside him as he felt nothing but hollow space where Dean's soul should've been. Gently, Castiel moved the body, uncovering a bloody Sam.
Resting an open palm on Sam's chest, Castiel could feel the slow faltering heart and the desperate soul clinging to life. He could feel Sam's fear, fear of failure, fear of leaving his brother unprotected, and wanted nothing more than to quiet it.
"You have done well, Samuel. Your work here is done." The angel placed his other hand over Sam's half-lidded eyes, sliding them shut as Sam's heart stuttered its final beat. "Be at peace, Samuel."
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End.
A/N: The song that inspired this fic is "Faster Than Angels Fly" by Big and Rich.