Title: Dead Man's Bones
Author: ReincarnatedPoet
Category: Angst/Hurt&Comfort
Genre: Supernatural
Rating/Warnings: NC-17; strong language; spoilers
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, and I do not make any money off of the writing of this fan-based fiction. What I get out of it is the simple joy of writing and the exercise in the art.
Crowley had never been quite sure of exactly where his bones had been. After all, if he knew then someone could make him talk. No, when the angel pulled that skull from the bag, Crowley had been truly and completely surprised. His answer to the question hadn't changed however. He couldn't return the boy's soul. Not really. Sure, he could have popped back down into the cage, a bit of Celtic magic he'd learned from his grand-mum back in the old country before he'd died. It was more of the other end of the deal. There was no physical way to meld soul and body after they'd been separated like they were now. Of course, the demon hadn't known how completely and totally hewn they were until just before the angel had appeared.
No, that boy didn't want his soul back, didn't care to ever even catch scent of the thing. Not that Crowley could blame him. There were…ways of course…usually hell found methods of tying a soul to a body. A method of torture, it was, devised to rot away a person from the inside. Crowley, well he was more than willing to admit that he was twisted, but something always sat sour in his stomach with that particular form of torment…possibly because it had been done to him in his time as a "guest" in the pit. After all, the name of the game was suffering, and to win, you had to avoid it at all costs. A soul…well…a soul put you fifty grand in debt with only two turns left to buy up Boardwalk and Park Place, technically you could still win, but it was nearly impossible. No, Crowley didn't blame the lumbering oaf, not one bit. He wouldn't want the dreadful thing anyway, not after what it had been through. He prided himself on the fact that he never lied, if he could help it. Sure, he'd been known to bend the truth, work those little clauses in there just enough to give himself a way out. Phrases like "I'll do my best" or "baring complications" had become common place in his vocabulary, but he never flat out lied.
Sam's soul…Sam's soul would come from the pit less than a soul. It would be riddled with holes, large and torn like a tent after a hail storm. It would be excruciating, even by demon standards. No, Crowley felt absolutely no jealously when he thought about the possession of that soul. He wouldn't own it if it meant the cementation of his role as King of Hell. So, as the gunny sack collided with the ground and the red flames began licking up both his bones and his body, he watched the boy, watched his eyes. There wasn't anything there, of course, because there was nothing inside to make those eyes do much but see. Now, Crowley was a demon, and as a demon, he was a bit twisted. He was more than willing to admit that, and here stood these three men in front of him, the cause of the finality of this fatality. With a wicked little smile he did the thing that he said he couldn't, promised his own aching soul he wouldn't. He restored Sam's soul.
III
The second Crowley's ash hit the ground, Sam's knees did the same. A strangled cry erupted from his throat as his face went red with the pain, and thick chorded muscles forced his jaw shut and jumped in his neck. Shoulders tense, a series of quick, sharp gasps left his lungs without being replaced with more. "Sam?" Dean called, concern flooding his voice, but Sam didn't hear it. All Sam heard was screaming. His own, Adam's, Michael's and Lucifer's as they warred within the cage. Screams that his ears weren't made to hear. A ringing took up then, in those very ear drums, and a thin clear liquid dripped from his ear lobe, followed by blood.
"Sammy?" Dean couldn't fight his instincts any longer, and he collapsed next to his brother, forcing him to look up with two strong hands on the sides of his face. "Sam?" He nursed his hands slightly away from the burning skin, too hot to be lit with anything else but hell fire. When Sam's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he let out thick liquid gurgle as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, Dean's eyes left him to find Castiel. "Cas?" He asked, voice nearly broken. "Cas, please."
Wide eyed the angel took a step forward, hand outstretched and testing the air before burring itself into the chest of the youngest Winchester. Thick red lines made their way up the sides of Sam's face and Dean almost tackled the angel. In fact, he was about to tear that very arm off, when Castiel ripped it backward, away from the heaving chest. "It's restored." He whispered, looking down at his own hand. "It's terrible." He rubbed at the pale skin absentmindedly while staring at Sam's tense form. His breath was still coming in harsh, panting rhythms, but the blood had slowed from his ears and his eyes had slipped back to the correct direction.
"Sammy?" Dean asked again, as his brother finally went limp, no longer supporting his own weight. Dean slid his arms around his brother's shoulders, supporting him against his chest as he lolled forward on his knees. The position was far too familiar to the elder Winchester, reminiscent of the first time he had lost his baby brother. "Cas?" He asked the angel, who simply stared on, wide eyed with revulsion.
"Crowley tied his body and soul back together, just not…" The angel stopped speaking, mouth slightly slack. "I have to go, I'll return as soon as I can." The angel tore his eyes away from the brothers, the eldest of which was about to say something before he disappeared from the prison. He moved as all angels do, through time and space seemingly instantaneously.
III
"Ozrael!" He called as the world finally stopped its fleeting movement. "Ozrael, something has gone wrong." A wraith like figure, slim and linear with long dark hair which seemed to fade from existence as it reached its shoulders emerged from the ether in front of Castiel.
"Brother." The angel replied, words audible but not clear. "We fight and die in a war against our kind, nothing will ever be right again." Ozrael moved almost like a feather, slow and gentle, as it approached Castiel. "What could be more wrong than leading a brother's soul to rest far earlier than was planned or expected." The words were spoken in a deep masculine tone, but the way in which the emotions played out across those words was purely female.
"There's been a mistake. Sam Winchester's soul is-"
"Attached to his body, I know." The darker angel seemed to consider the issue a moment. "Incomplete, but tied to the martyr's body. Castiel, I cannot act in this. There is too much death already to choose a side against one brother or another. You know this. Raphael must be appeased, brother, saving the boy pain will do nothing to bring us peace. The boy can draw it back to himself in due time." The dark haired angel turned its back on Castiel, who seemed, for once, enraged at the very thought of peace.
"You want peace with a brother who has fallen far further than Lucifer before he was cast down?" Cas turned his back to the angel. "My kind have become weak and complacent." The world shifted yet again, and Castiel could see the figure whirl about to face him before it blurred from existence. Anger burned from that dark shadow of a face. This time, when he came back into himself, Castiel was again on the human plane, and stood beside the Winchesters yet again. Dean was still rocking his brother against his chest, murmuring promises and threats in the same breath.
"Come on, Sammy, just please, I swear…" He trailed off, recognizing the angel's return. Castiel stood for a moment, as if unsure as to whether or not he should move, before finally, crouching next to both boys. He laid a hand on each shoulder and again was moving through the ether, this time coming into a small hotel room. It was clean, clinically so, but it would serve. "Cas?" Dean asked, hopefully, and brokenly. It was that tone that truly broke Castiel. It had always been that slightly hopeful but completely and totally resigned tone of Dean's that fueled his need to help the man. For someone who claimed to not believe in god, he sure had a lot of broken faith.
"Nothing can be done." Castiel disappeared from Dean's left and appeared on his right, taking Sam's weight across his forearms and laying the tall, writhing man on the bed with ease. For Sam's part, he hadn't made a sound since the strangled cry a few minutes prior. "Sam is alone in this." When the words finally sank in, the anger returned to Dean's face. It really had never left, but the angel had hoped that for a moment, there was faith.
"Like hell he is." The oldest Winchester crossed the few steps between himself and his brother. He took a firm grip on the boy's shoulder, and sank to the bed on his knees. "Sammy!" He called, voice slightly louder than it had to be, in that tone of voice he reserved just for those special times when he feared for the boy's life. He shook those shoulders, trying to dislodge the tightness, make him do something. Still he lay there, firm and unmoving, eyes wide as if seeing something that the rest couldn't. Unlike living vision, however, his eyes didn't move, didn't jump like REM sleep, just stared forward, with a pained and horrified expression. Dean was sure that look was far worse than anything he'd ever seen. "Come on, Sam." He shook again, pivoting so he strattled the man's waist, jerking his shoulders far more fiercely than he should have. When the shaking didn't work, he tapped his face, harder and harder until a pale hand came out and caught his own.
"Dean, this isn't helping." The angel murmured, pulling him away with a strength that a human body didn't possess. It wouldn't have taken anymore strength than a child could have exerted to remove the eldest though. He was weak, shaking, and beyond flooded with a dismal resignation.
"Sam's gone." He said it simply, like it was a comment about the weather. "I got him back, and it killed him." The angel let his eyes flicker to the man on the bed. His chest rose and fell, and there was a tension there that couldn't be confused for death, but he was slow to make a correction. For an angel, life was more than a beating heart and the pull of a diaphragm. Life was a spark, a wickedly sweet tang to a person's aura. Sam's aura was bland, tasteless as it hung from his body onto the bed like a wet blanket. "Ozrael said he could pull himself out of this." Castiel reassured the man, who let his eyes linger one more moment on his brother.
"Whose Ozrael?" He asked. It was a soft question, not a demand, and when Castiel answered, he wasn't sure if Dean actually listened or understood why he was explaining.
"Ozrael is the keeper of the human soul." Those green eyes were on Castiel in a flicker.
"So what's he doing? Light a fire under his ass, and get me my brother back!" Dean knew the answer to his demand far before the angel spoke. Castiel opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come. "Right, of course. Well, we never needed you before." He jerked himself away from Castiel's grip and settled himself in a stiff backed chair next to the bed. "You're lot never looked after Sam anyway. Wanted him dead, cause he was different. Yeah well, look in a fuckin' mirror." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the bed as his brother heaved in a ragged breath and held it, the first real sign of life in minutes.
"Dean, the keeper of souls can't choose a side. They have to stay neutral." Cas seemed lost as to what to do as the eldest ignored him. Finally, he blurred from existence. The sudden absence of the form drew Dean's eyes a moment, and his wrath soon followed. For a moment he contemplated throwing the chair at the empty space the angel had occupied, but the slow his of air from his brother's mouth drew his attention back.
"Come on, Sammy, you got this." Dean whispered before settling in for the long haul.
III
Inside the tall muscled body, Sam was small and emaciated. The twisted remnants of his soul where warring with his mind. Mentally, Sam didn't want the soul back. It was foul, stained, and it would only bring him pain. Refusing the emotional anguish, his mind set the pain to his body, attempting to break the bond Crowley had forced upon him. The bond would not be turned.
Flames didn't lick up from below him. There was no heat, no blistering. That would have been easier to deal with. Instead, there were words, whispered in his ear. Tiny little sounds that came together to bring more pain than any flesh searing fire could cause. Words from his own lips, from Dean's, from Adam's, all fell upon his ears. High pitched whistles and shrieks that he could feel to be Michael coupled with low lulling tones that were so clearly Lucifer. The one thing that they had in common was what they were saying. Simple words sometimes were the most damaging. Things like: please, help, why, and stop echoed in Adam's voice. They were little whispered pleas that wouldn't be answered, and they perhaps hurt the worst. Hurt because he'd put him there. He was the cause. Then there was Michael. Michael was the easiest to tone out, but the words didn't roll of like water. Dirty. Monster. Killer. They were dark, fierce, and words that he'd called himself over and over before he fell willingly into the pit. Sam had thought that maybe the sacrifice would cleanse him of those stigmas, but if an angel was whispering them, then he'd been wrong.
He wasn't sure why he heard Dean. His words weren't just simple stand alone sounds. They were sentences, echoing over and over without time and context. Overlapping clips from another time or life. They most assuredly caused the most harm. If Adam's words were pain, Dean's were hate.
I'd hunt you.
You're not my brother.
You aren't even human.
You sit there, and you suffer.
He was sure those were worse than anything he'd ever heard. Of course, then there was Lucifer. The angel hadn't ever really said anything hurtful. No words like the others. He only sat there, in the back of his mind, with a twisted little smirk in place. A smirk that said far more than any words ever could. Those thin lips were mute but screamed. They said: Here we are, Sammy boy, you and me, just like each other, in the cage. They said: So proud of you , Sammy, just as twisted as me. They said: Just wait til we get out, Sammy, we'll paint the world red, then black. And those words screamed and twisted together and they morphed and changed and tore. Showed him things, possibilities doled out by his hand.
It was that part that did it. His hands turned black by the thick dried blood. Then there was this...cry? Was it a whisper? It sounded too loud to be any of the others. He wasn't sure if it was a trick. Maybe it was Lucifer upping his game, like he'd always anticipated. Then there was pain, searing, tearing pain that erupted through his shoulders. He was sure that was Dean, calling to him. Screaming at him. He curled into himself, not able to withstand those words that loud. But something was different. When Dean whispered to him, he called him Sam or nothing at all, but now, the voice was chanting Sammy like it was a prayer. Sammy. Not Sam. They'd never called him that, in the cage, never, and it distracted his mind long enough for the weakened and bloody thing that was his soul to slip into place. Like Peter Pan and his Shadow it slipped in from the feet up, setting the world awash with color when it reached his head.
III
Dean wasn't sure exactly when he started chanting his little brother's name, but when those eyes snapped over to him, he to notice. Those eyes stared at him a moment, as if taking him in, bathing him in their knowledge and pain. It was clear that this was Sammy, it was his little brother down to ever last emotion that flashed across that face in the split second that their eyes connected. Fear. Anger. Joy. Pain. Exhaustion. It was the guilt that did it, Dean was sure. The second he saw guilt flash across those eyes, he was sure, because only his little brother could feel guilty after becoming the worlds martyr. He was almost in his lap, and if circumstances had been different, Dean would have been appalled, but as it was, he didn't care. All he cared about was pulling his brother closer. Hands buried in cloth and pulled tight, as if it were the only thing keeping them together.
"Dean?" The name slipped past Sam's lips, and the eldest smiled at the pain in it. Smiled because it was there, that it was possible again. He'd hate himself later for relishing in his brother's pain, but for now…for now he'd bathe in that sound because it was completely and totally his brother. "Dean?" He asked it again, and this time he got an answer.
"Yeah, Sammy, I'm right here." Those big hands moved from the bed then. They gripped hard into his shoulders and shoved. The smaller of the two, Dean found himself firmly planted across the room, as his brother flew from the bed, back against the wall several feet away. "Sam?" He asked, confused and angry.
"Just stay there. Not gonna use this." He murmured, looking around the hotel room. On occasions, Lucifer had twisted the reality around him. Make the dark reality of the cage into something more…something he felt would win him over to the cause. Never before had he been capable of getting the color though. Everything was black and white in the pit, but this…this was vivid. The confusion on his brother's face was palpable, and the smell of cleaning spray attacked his nose. That had taken some getting used to as well. In the cage there hadn't been any smell. He'd imagined there would be something, charred flesh or gunpowder, but there wasn't. Now, it seemed as though the very walls had a scent all their own. It was different, too different to be something Lucifer could do.
"Sam?" Dean called again from the floor.
"Dean?" He asked, letting his shoulders sag slightly and he slipped down the wall. He was out. Really out. He took in the world around him, slow and sure, every color and every nuance of light and dark. The pit hadn't really had any shadow, just blinding light, or piercing dark. Sam could almost understand why Lucifer was so twisted. "I'm out?" He needed to hear the words, needed Dean to tell him, because Dean had never lied to him before.
"Yeah, Sammy, you're out." Dean seemed to understand exactly what was going through his head and what he needed. He kept his distance, but stood up. "All out of the pit and in one piece." The last part seemed like a question so Sam nodded. "You alright?" Sam realized that this was something Dean needed to hear. Needed to know that his brother was going to be alright, like he always had. Recognizing that need as something he'd felt before, he did what Dean had done when he'd come out of hell. He lied.
"Yeah." He dropped his gaze slightly to the left, and it was a tell. Dean saw it, recognized it, and ignored it.
"Yeah." Dean responded, knowing and not knowing all at once. It didn't really matter though. He didn't have to know, just like Sam didn't have to know. Hell was specific, not general. Dean's hell or Sam's both were damaging just as deeply, and both were unique. They couldn't understand the other, but it was that knowledge that brought the understanding. They would sit like that for some time, just staring at the empty space between them before Sam finally crumpled to the floor, head buried between his knees and fist buried into the floor. Dean let him go for a moment before he collapsed beside him, a firm hand on his shoulder, not containing or halting, just lending strength and something solid to bring him back down when he was ready.
Sometimes all that could be done was to wait. Dean would wait, and Sam would be Sam in his own time. There was a pain there, in both of them, that wouldn't ever really go away, not entirely, but they'd grown accustomed to pain. And what was life anyway if not pain? Hadn't Dean said that? The name of the game was suffering? Sam somehow remembered that. It wasn't the best, but it was the only one in town, so he would play. He would play like his life depended on it, because it did.