Genre: Gen
Characters: John, Castiel and others
Rating: PG
Words: 4800
Spoilers: Up to the end of season 6.
Summary: He has work for you.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: So this started out as a "What if?" story that suddenly decided it wanted to be told in the second person. As it's the first time I've done that, please be gentle. I'm not sure this does exactly what I wanted it to do, and it fudges the SN timeline a little bit, but hopefully it still makes sense!
WHEN YOU DIED
When you died, you went to Hell.
You were okay with that. You saved your boy's life. Gave your own to do it. Made sure he got to live, got to stay with his brother, got to keep an eye on him.
Good or bad.
Good or evil.
Dean would stay with Sam.
Dean would look out for Sam.
Dean would do everything you told him, just like he always did.
Dean's a good boy, a good soldier.
You died to save him, and that was okay.
When he and Sam opened the Devil's Gate, now that was something else.
An opportunity not to be missed.
You were there, you were ready. You crawled up out of the Underworld and you watched your boy put a bullet in that damn demon's brainpan.
The one who killed his mother.
The one who killed your Mary.
The one who did God knows what to Sam.
Your boy.
The one who did Hell knows what to Sam.
A look at each of them, and a blinding light, and you were on your way to Heaven.
Or so you thought.
But it was dark where you were. A guttering light above your head and endless miles of hallway.
People in line.
A number that kept changing and a shuffle of a million feet.
You can't remember if it was always like this.
When you got here, was it different?
You looked for Mary, wondered if you'd find her here.
She sold your son's soul to save your life.
You know that now.
Alastair took great pains to tell you when he had you strung up on his rack.
She deserves to be here with you.
She sold Sam's soul for you, and you sold yours for Dean.
And he sold his for Sam.
Around and around the Winchester family go.
But Mary's not here when you get here. When you climb up out of Hell and see your boys destroy the bastard who took away your family.
When you climb out of Hell and into Purgatory.
She must be here, you think. You didn't see her in Hell. If she'd been there, Alastair would have shown you. Would have shown you to torture you. To break you. To make you his one "righteous man."
You didn't know what he meant at the time.
But you do now.
You know everything.
What that bastard did to Dean. What Dean did to the world.
The Seals. The Apocalypse. Sam. Lucifer.
You know it all.
At first, you're not sure how you know.
But slowly you realize it's since everything changed. Since the line and the numbers and the shuffling feet are gone and you're someplace else.
You tried to leave when She got out. The Mother. Eve.
Somehow, she escaped, and your boys were involved, but you don't know how.
At least they're alive.
At least they're together.
But the line and the numbers and the shuffling feet are gone and you're someplace else.
It's warm and bright and there's a voice in your head, low, comforting. Soothing.
You're pretty sure you don't have a head, but there's a voice in there all the same.
"Wait," the voice says. "Be patient. I have work for you."
So you wait.
But Eve is gone, and so are the line and the numbers and the shuffling feet.
And you're someplace else.
And it's warm, and it's comfortable, and you think you might be in Heaven.
The voice is soft and soothing and gentle, and it's like being in the womb or your mother's arms, and for the first time in a long, long time, you feel…safe.
"Who are you?" you ask, your voice hesitant, trembling. Disembodied, for you have no body.
"I'm an Angel of the Lord," the voice tells you, and you believe it because the voice says that it is so.
"What do you want with me?" you ask, and the answer is a soft, gentle laugh.
"You are not alone, John Winchester," it tells you, and you realize you are only one of hundreds. Thousands. Millions of souls, all enclosed in this place.
"Where am I?"
"You are safe," the Angel of the Lord tells you, voice sweet like honey, low and deep and soft and you almost feel you have heard it before. "I have work for you."
"What work?" you ask, almost fearful of the answer.
But you can feel no fear, not here, not in the arms of the Angel of the Lord who soothes you with his love and his power.
"There is something I need you to do," he tells you. "Something I cannot."
If you had eyelids, you'd blink.
"What can I do that you can't?" you ask. "If you're an angel."
"I am…" he pauses, as if considering. "I am more than an angel now," he tells you carefully. "Now that I am entrusted with your soul, with those of your brethren. So many souls…" He trails off, and you hear each soul around you sigh contentedly.
Millions of souls.
Breathing as one.
In harmony.
With the Angel of the Lord.
"What's your name?" you ask, and don't expect an answer.
"I was known as Castiel," he tells you, and the name is familiar, like a word you've rolled many times around your nonexistent tongue.
"Did I know you?" you ask, because honestly, you don't know.
"In many ways," Castiel replies, and you don't know what he means, but that's okay.
"What do you want me to do?" you ask instead, and he pauses, as if considering.
"There is a Cage deep in the Underworld," he tells you casually, but something vibrates in his voice and it sounds oddly fragile. "Two of my brothers are trapped within it."
"Trapped?"
"Incarcerated."
"What did they do?"
"Offended our Father. His mercy is eternal, but so also is his wrath." Again, he pauses, as if considering some weighty problem you can never comprehend. "I would have you go to the Underworld, John Winchester," he tells you, as if he's asking you to walk to the corner drugstore. "I would have you go to the Cage."
"Why?" you ask. "If you've tried to get your brothers out, how can I—?"
"I did not try to rescue my brothers," he cuts you off sharply. "They must remain where they are at all costs."
"Then…what do you want me to do?"
The angel takes a breath, and every soul around you shudders.
"Your son, John," he says slowly. "You must save your son."
For a moment—or an eternity, you're not sure which—you're unable to speak.
Dean's safe. He busted out of Hell and Sam…
Sam.
It occurs to you that you don't know where Sam is. Whether he's safe. Whether he's…
You'd swallow if you could.
"What's wrong with my son?" you ask. "Where is he?"
"He fell into the Cage with my brothers," Castiel tells you gravely. "With Michael. With Lucifer."
"Lucifer?" you echo, and the name hurts your head. If you had one.
"Your sons were brave," Castiel tells you. "They stopped the Apocalypse."
"I know that," you say, and you do, but you don't know how you know or how they did it.
"You must save your son from the Cage," Castiel tells you gravely. "I tried. I failed. As did one older than the Lord, my Father."
"Who's older than God?" you ask, but the angel doesn't answer you.
"You must go to the Underworld and save him, John Winchester," he tells you instead. He pauses, as if swallowing something hard and prickly. His pride, perhaps. "Michael will help you."
"Why would Michael help me?" you ask.
"When you meet him, you will know," he tells you. "Now you must go. Save your son. Bring him to me here."
"Is he—" you hesitate, afraid to ask the question closest to your lips. The lips you no longer possess. "Is he dead? Is my son dead?"
"Yes," Castiel tells you, and if you had a heart, it would stop beating. "But he can be redeemed. Saved. Rewarded."
"How?" you ask. "How will you save him?"
"Bring him here to me, John Winchester. He will be with us forever. Safe. Eternal. One with his god."
"You're not God. Are you?"
The Angel of the Lord doesn't answer, and you're glad.
"Go to the Underworld, John Winchester. Save your son from his torment. Bring him to me here and I will reward you both."
You think of Sam, of the curse placed on his head by his mother so many years before he was born.
He doesn't deserve to suffer.
If he saved the world, if he stopped the Apocalypse, he deserves to be rewarded.
He deserves to be saved.
You saved Dean. You saved Dean when his body was broken, when Azazel twisted him inside and out, and you saved him again in that cemetery, with the demon standing over him, preparing to kill him.
You saved Dean.
You've got to save Sam, too.
"I'll do it," you tell the angel, and you feel Castiel's smile like sunshine.
"Go," he says. "Go quickly. Save your son. Do what I could not."
You nod—you try to nod—and once again you're someplace else, the ground warm and rocky and solid against your feet.
You look down.
You have feet.
Two bare feet, standing on rock.
It's an odd sensation, a feeling you've not felt in so long, and you wiggle your toes, just to feel the rock beneath them.
Your eyes travel the length of your body, and you see the scars on your arms from that time in Connecticut, when the poltergeist threw you through the plate glass window.
Dean stitched you up and he didn't even cry.
Ten years old.
You think about Dean, and you think about Sam, and your resolve strengthens.
Your boys need you.
From somewhere up in front of you, you hear voices.
There are two of them, arguing.
You walk slowly toward the sound, following the vibration of the voices through each step you take across the rocky floor.
You don't know if this is Hell.
It doesn't look like the place you saw. The prison of blood and bone and fear and Alastair.
You think about the rack. You think about the years you spent saying "No," and shudder.
"Just pick up the razor. Just pick up the razor, John. I'll take you off the rack, John. Just pick up the razor."
You said "No," until your tongue withered and died.
Again and again.
But no matter what Alastair did to you, the next day you would be whole again.
But you still said "No."
You think of that, and you think of Dean, and you think of Dean saying, "Yes."
You don't know how you know, but you know.
From the angel. Somehow you know from the angel.
And you're not disappointed. Not in Dean. Never in Dean.
Your boy started the Apocalypse.
But your boy stopped it too.
You're proud of them both.
Your boys.
You only wish you'd told them so more often.
"Sam."
You hear your son's name vibrating through the rock, and you hurry onward.
"Sam Winchester."
It's said like a curse, words spit out of a mouth full of venom and hatred.
When the light grows darker and you can no longer see in front of you, you become aware of a shape darker than the blackness around you and somehow you see it more clearly for the utter lack of light.
It's a Cage, just as the angel said.
It's huge and it's tiny at the same time, infinite space trapped inside an all-encapsulating framework of metal, and inside you count three figures.
Two of them stand, the third curled into a ball between them, and you take a step closer, barely daring to breathe.
"It's his fault. It's all his fault," one of the figures says, gesturing wildly with his arms. He presents as a tall male, sandy blond hair and piercing blue eyes, but somehow you know that's not his real face.
Underneath is darkness, withering black feathers and oozing blood.
"You can stand here blaming Sam Winchester until Doomsday, brother," the other man standing tells him. "It makes no difference. It happened. Get over it."
The second man shines brightly in the darkness, so brightly you can't make out his face.
"He was gone too quickly," the blond man says. "The Old Man took him too soon. I wasn't done with him."
"Torturing him further would have made no difference either," the shining man says. "Nothing was gained by tearing his soul asunder."
"It would have made a difference to me!" the blond man retorts. "His soul was mine to tear! This one?" He kicks out at the figure crouched on the ground at his feet, a pained mewl the only reward for his efforts. "This one means nothing to me. He's no fun. Not like his brother."
You step forward then, into the not-light, your eyes drawn to the shape hunkered down on the floor of the Cage.
The shining man turns at your approach, and suddenly you see his face.
And it's your own.
His light dims, and he stands looking at you out of a face you wore thirty years earlier, the scar gone from beside your right eye, your hair still dark with no flecks of gray.
"John Winchester," he says, and you know instantly that you know him, but have no idea how or from where.
"I've come for my son," you say, your attention slipping from your younger self to the figure on the floor.
"Who sent you?" the blond man demands, and he's looking at you like you're a particularly disgusting specimen of mold he found on his toast this morning.
"An Angel of the Lord," you reply, straightening.
The blond man just looks at you for a moment, before suddenly breaking into peals of laughter.
Your younger self shakes his head at him.
"Excuse my brother," he says softly. "He has no manners."
"An Angel of the Lord, huh?" the blond man says, strolling toward the edge of the Cage, only a hair's breadth away from you now. "And what do you think we are?"
You consider that for a moment. "I think you're Lucifer," you tell him succinctly, turning your attention to your younger self. "And you…" You pause, unable to fathom what he might be.
"Michael," he supplies, bobbing his head courteously. "We met before."
You don't remember. "Is that why you look like me?"
Your younger self examines his hands inquisitively. "Do I?" he asks. "How curious. I suppose this form is the only one in which your mind can conceive of me."
"When did we meet?" you ask him, unable to stop yourself, and he merely smiles serenely at you.
"In my hour of need," he tells you. "In your hour of need."
"Why don't I remember you?"
He shrugs. "Because I wished it to be so."
You have no answer to that, and he doesn't appear to expect one.
A soft whimper from the shadowy shape on the ground behind your younger self—Michael—the Archangel—draws your attention away from the shining man and reminds you of the task at hand.
"What did you do to him?" you demand, stepping as close to the Cage as you dare.
"He'll be all right," Michael tells you, glancing behind him at the young man huddled on the ground. "He—" he pauses, choosing his words carefully. "He did not fascinate my brother in the way your other son seemed to."
You stop, all the air suddenly gone from your too-corporeal lungs. "Other…?" You trail off, and Michael's brow—your brow—furrows slightly.
"You thought this was—?"
"Sam," you say softly, just as a tousled blond head raises itself out of the darkness, and blue eyes stare up into your own.
He has his mother's eyes.
"Dad?" His voice is raw, his eyes blinking back tears as if he expects you to be another hallucination. "Dad, is that you?"
"A-Adam?" You stumble over his name, never expecting, never thinking…
"You thought he sent you to save Sam?" Lucifer snorts. "Well that's just hilarious!"
Your youngest son is staring up at you like you're the last life jacket on the Titanic and you realize you've been so busy trying to discover what has happened to your older boys, you have absolutely no idea what happened to your youngest.
"I thought you were—I thought you were—safe…" Your words trail off, and Adam blinks wide, bloodshot eyes at you, his jaw trembling slightly as if he simply can't bear to tell you the truth.
"Ghouls," Lucifer supplies with a grin. "Him and his mom got themselves eaten by ghouls a couple years ago. Guess keeping them outta the Life wasn't such a great idea after all, huh, hotshot?"
You're not breathing, and it takes you a while to realize you really should.
"But—but how…?"
Michael seems to take pity on you, smiling indulgently as if you're a favorite pet. "It's all to do with bloodlines," he tells you. "We helped each other out many years ago, you and I. Angels need vessels just as demons do."
You're blinking at Adam, who is still staring up at you, and most of what Michael's saying makes no sense. "I was your—your meatsuit?"
He nods. "I'm surprised our little brother didn't show you."
You frown and he shrugs.
"Castiel. Castiel's the Angel of the Lord who sent you here?"
You nod, and you don't know why.
"Angels are more discriminating than demons," Michael continues. "We can only use certain bloodlines as vessels. Yours in particular."
You blink blankly at him, and Lucifer chortles again.
"Sam and me?" he says with a swagger. "Made for each other. What do you think that piss-eyed flunky Azazel was up to in Sam's nursery all those years ago?"
You swallow hard, straining to hear past the rushing of blood in your ears.
Alastair didn't tell you everything it seems.
"And Dean?" Michael continues. "Should have been my vessel. But he was stubborn. I borrowed you to try and convince him, but he fought me all the way until I was forced to take this poor boy." He indicates your youngest, who is still looking up at you with a mixture of bewildered trust and hatred in his eyes.
"How…?"
"Summoned from Heaven," Michael supplies without you needing to ask. "Ripped away from Paradise to find himself here." He pauses, running a gentle finger under Adam's chin. "It's really not fair. He was an innocent bystander. Collateral damage."
"Is that why Castiel sent me?" you ask. "Is that why he wants to save him?"
Michael squints at you oddly, his face—your face—unreadable. "I do not know," he admits, and you're fairly certain he's telling the truth.
"He said you'd help me," you tell the Archangel, and Lucifer arches an eyebrow.
"Why would he help you?" he demands. "How can he help you? Your whelp's stuck in this Pit just as surely as we are. If we knew a way out, don't you think we would have taken it?"
Michael shifts from one foot to the other, glances briefly at his brother before sighing deeply as he returns his full attention to you.
"I owe you a debt," he tells you. "Castiel knows this. You helped me when I needed help the most."
Again Lucifer laughs. "You can't help him!" he scoffs. "You can't get his runt out of here any more than you can get yourself out of here!"
Michael considers him for a moment. "If I knew how to escape this place, you believe I would have gone?"
Lucifer rounds on him, and suddenly the two Archangels are so close they could be one being. "Brother, if you know a way out of here…" he growls menacingly.
But Michael merely pushes him aside.
"I can help you," he tells you instead, glancing back at your suffering son. "As you helped me."
But Lucifer is back at his shoulder, gripping him hard and spinning him as he stands.
"You knew how to get out of here all along?" he spits incredulously.
Michael calmly pushes him away. "I do," he admits, seemingly unshaken by his brother's incandescent rage.
"Then why—?" Lucifer begins to spit, but seems so incensed he can't find the words to rightfully express his incredulity.
"I was put in this Cage with you for a reason, little brother," Michael says slowly.
"What reason?" Lucifer demands. "Because Sam Winchester willed it?"
"No, because our Father willed it," Michael corrects him. "I would not be here if He did not wish it to be so."
Lucifer blinks blankly at him. "Let me get this straight," he begins, slowly circling the older angel. "All this time you knew how to get out of here, but you didn't go because you thought Daddy wanted you to stay?"
Michael doesn't meet his brother's eye. "Our Father has a plan for me. I am here. Therefore that must be his plan. I will leave only when he wishes it of me."
Lucifer shakes his head and grabs handfuls of his hair. "How do you know He doesn't want you to leave with these pitiful apes?"
Michael just looks at him. "Because He has not told me so."
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Lucifer explodes. "Don't you get it? Are you so stupid? Daddy's left the building, big bro! There's just us and them! If you want that Apocalypse, get us out of here and we can get back at it!"
Michael shakes his head serenely. "If our Father had truly desired the Apocalypse, it would have happened. It did not happen. Therefore our Father did not wish it be so."
"You've completely lost your mind," Lucifer tells him, shaking his head. "How can you be so damn trusting in a Father who's abandoned us?"
"He has not abandoned us," Michael informs his brother with a certainty that chills you to the bone, even as it reminds you of someone else. "He is testing us. Castiel calls it 'free will'."
"Oh, and Castiel is so right about everything, huh?" Lucifer spits. "If you're so down with our baby brother, how come you didn't offer him your magical insight when he came to rescue the other one?"
Michael sighs. "He did not ask for my help."
Lucifer pauses. "And if he had?"
The older brother considers for a second. "I would have given it. Sam Winchester did not deserve to be here any more than his younger brother does."
"Oh, and you do?"
"I displeased God. That is why I am here. I will serve penance until such time as He sees fit."
"So you're just going to help this mud-monkey vamoose on out of here?"
Michael turns to consider first Adam and then yourself. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because John Winchester asks it."
"And this magical escape plan. What does that entail?"
Michael frowns minutely. "A key."
If it's possible for Lucifer to become any more outraged, he does. "All this time you've had a key to the Cage?" he roars.
Michael shrugs. "I am our Father's general. Of course I have a key. Who else would He entrust with your security?"
Lucifer moves so quickly he's a blur, and you're not entirely sure what's going on until he has his older brother slammed against the side of the Cage, his fingers wrapped around his throat.
"Give it to me!" he demands, holding out his other hand.
Michael doesn't seem in the least perturbed by this turn of events. "And allow you to escape? Why would I do that, brother?"
Lucifer looks as if he's about to scream. "Give me the key, Michael."
Michael shrugs. "It's not that kind of key," he tells his brother. "And anyway, you're still too young to be trusted with such things." He twists so he can look at you before smiling enigmatically. "Thank you for your help, John Winchester," he tells you. "Now you must go. Only remember this: Castiel made no attempt to rescue Adam when he tried—and mostly failed—to rescue Sam. If he wants Adam out now, there has to be a reason."
You nod. "I don't care," you tell the Archangel. "I want my boy out of that Cage. Now."
Michael returns your nod with a curt bob of his head, his brother's fingers still wrapped about his windpipe. "Very well. We shall meet again, I have no doubt."
He closes his eyes for a second—your eyes—and when he opens them again, there's nothing but a blinding light and the sound of someone screaming.
It might be you.
Or it could be Adam.
Your son.
Your son has been in Hell for who knows how many years.
He needs you.
You realize your eyes are closed and force them open, trying to gauge where you are.
Once again, you have no body and the angel's voice is soothing in your nonexistent ears.
"You did well, John," he tells you, and for a second your throat constricts at the praise and you want nothing more than to sink down in his all-encompassing embrace.
It's warm here. Safe. No one is screaming and no one is dying.
But…
"Adam," you say softly. "Where's my son? Is he all right?"
Castiel is a warm and comforting presence all around you, and you have never felt so loved.
"Adam is fine," he tells you, his voice a soothing balm on jagged nerves. "Or he will be."
"Are you sending him back?" You barely dare ask.
"To Heaven?" Castiel clarifies. "Eventually. But first I must take him somewhere. Show him to someone."
You don't understand.
"I failed when I tried to save Sam," the angel adds, and you're not entirely sure he's talking to you anymore. "I brought him back wrong. But this time, this time I'll prove myself to him."
You wish you could frown. "To Sam?" you venture, confused.
You can't see the angel's face, but you feel his eyes on you nonetheless.
"To Dean." He corrects you as if the answer should be obvious. "I must prove myself to Dean."
"By saving Adam?"
The brightness around you intensifies, and something seems to shift sideways.
"I didn't save Sam," Castiel repeats. "If I'd just asked Michael for his help… Sam suffered for my pride. I must prove to Dean that I have changed. That I am worthy of his devotion."
"Devotion?"
The word sounds odd on the lips of an angel who only seconds earlier was lamenting his own pride.
"He will worship me," Castiel tells you, a hard certainty in his voice that would make you shudder if you could. "I will regain his love by saving his brother, and he will worship me."
"That's why you wanted me to save Adam? That's why you sent me to the Cage?"
"I did not believe Michael would help me, for he did not help me when I tried to save Sam. Had I known at the time I had only to ask…"
"You heard all that?"
"I hear everything," the angel tells you. "I believe there is only one way to restore Dean's faith in me. I failed with Sam. I had to ensure I would not fail with Adam. Family is everything to Dean. Once I show to him the brother I have freed from eternal torment, he will be grateful. He will love me once more. Then all will be as it was."
You want to shake your head. You want to tell him he doesn't understand your son at all. But all you can do is listen in mute horror as he continues to speak.
"I will take Adam to Dean and Dean will forgive me. He will love me. He will bow down before me. For this is what his god commands."
"You're not his god," you tell the angel, even as your words begin to fade into the static background of a million souls with voices raised in worship of their angel-savior.
"No," Castiel agrees with you, his voice becoming distant and indistinct, blurred into the collective consciousness of which he is now master. Of which you are now part. "I am not."
He pauses, and you try to struggle, try to resist, try to put up a fight as you feel yourself—your soul—slowly slipping away.
You're becoming one with the things you spent your life hunting.
Evil things. Wicked things.
Monsters.
And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
"I am not Dean's god," Castiel tells you, as, at last, you lose all sense of being, all sense of self, finally becoming one with the monsters, the demons, the damned.
And the angel.
"But I will be."
The End
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