A/N: Written for week 18 of SPN Hiatus Creations on tumblr. Prompt: "Let the Good Times Roll" (Episode 13x23).
Dean knew what he had to do. It wasn't a difficult decision, and maybe it should've been. Lucifer had Sam. Lucifer had Jack. He didn't give a damn about the universe, about what Michael had said, that the Devil would destroy everything. That wasn't the point. He wasn't trying to be some hero. The universe could suck it for all he cared. What mattered was that his brother was with his torturer again, and Jack was with them. His family. Dean had a job to do. He knew what that job was, had known since he was four years old.
Sam. Before everything, Sam.
He knew why Castiel didn't want him to do this. Dean didn't want to do this, but it didn't matter what he wanted. What he wanted never mattered, and it never had. Sam. It was all about Sam.
It was all about his family.
Dean was negotiating with Michael, Castiel trying to get him to stop. Dean hardly remembered what he said, remembered yelling at his friend, remembered the sheer panic and desperation he felt pumping hotly through his veins so powerfully that it hurt.
He was going to do it. He was going to say yes.
Zachariah, that smug son of a bitch, had never pushed the right buttons to get him to do it. No. The angels didn't know him, the demons didn't know him. Castiel did, though, which was why he was probably grabbing onto him now, grip tight, nearly bruising.
Each of his movements felt sluggish, like every second lasted too long. Every second that he wasn't saving Sam was more than he could bear. Even as time dragged on into anguished eternity his thoughts raced, coming up with a million sickening possibilities about what was being done to his family.
They were getting beaten, that was sure. Maybe strangled. Lucifer liked to do that. He had the archangel blade. Maybe he was using that for purposes that took much more creativity than murder.
Ripping, tearing.
Screaming.
The sound of their torment was loud in his head, penetrating his very being, dripping into his blood and spreading throughout him like poison.
"Dean, you can't do this!" Castiel urged, pulling him towards him, away from Michael and his damaged vessel.
Dean was breathing heavily now, could barely see Castiel in his vision, mind taken over with the images in his head, images of Hell, of Sam, of Jack, of the Devil's red eyes, of the power and evil he radiated, of the pain dealt out to him by Zachariah, of death, of the Apocalypse. It was all more real than his best friend who stood in front of him, hands on his shoulders.
"I have to," he told him, voice not sounding like his own, mouth wanting to form a different word, the word he needed to say.
"Please," Cas pleaded, eyes drowning him in sorrow, in fear so heavy it hurt to comprehend.
Maybe that was because Dean was also afraid.
Possession. He'd never been truly possessed before. Not like Sam. Oh god, Sam. Maybe this could teach him about the things he'd done to his brother, about how he'd hurt him, betrayed him. Maybe this could make up for all the pain he dealt him without truly meaning to. Maybe this could fix things.
Maybe Michael was lying.
"You can't trust him," Cas said. "Please, you can't. He… Why would he give you back to us when you're done?"
The weakened archangel coughed and then groaned before he got out, "Come now, Castiel, I'm not Lucifer. Why would I lie?"
"Because you need him!" his friend shouted back, directing his gaze to him momentarily before focusing on Dean. "Please, don't.Do this."
"Cas, I have to," Dean got out, pulling away from his friend's grip. "He has our family!"
"We'll save them."
"How?!"
Castiel said nothing, just lowered his head. Dean turned away, clenching his jaw, eyes stinging, throat aching.
"That's what I thought," he said, voice rough.
Castiel stepped up to him, a sturdy presence, seething with rage now, not at Dean, but at the universe, maybe even at God. Dean's eyes were on Michael as Castiel held onto his wrist lightly, fingers reassuring, searching for his hand. Dean wanted to reach out to him, to anchor himself against all he was about to do, against the change in the world. But he was going to be swept away by it, and he was the one releasing the floodgates.
Michael's gaze was calm, pleased, the look of someone who had just won, of someone who was going to get everything they had ever wanted.
Dean's fingers twitched back, reaching for Castiel, as blood flashed in his mind. Fingertips grazed together, reaching, but not holding, there but not quite. Their touch was in place of words, words unspoken, words that Castiel conveyed but Dean didn't have the strength to return. They weren't important. Dean didn't matter. Only this did.
Their hands found each other when he spoke, when he said the most important thing he would ever say in his entire life, when the ground shifted beneath him and his world became something he could never go back from:
"Yes."