Last Resorts
The Men of Letters bunker was home to every supernatural artefact or book that the society had ever managed to get their hands on, and though Sam had taken to going through and studying each one since Dean had left him alone, he couldn't possibly get to all of them, let alone understand each one. He spent hours in the cold, musty basement every night, squinting in the dim lighting to examine rusted weapons, jars full of questionable substances, parts of different creatures, and the scribbled bits of text that accompanied most things he found.
So far, he'd made little headway in discovering anything useful. There was one thing, though, with nothing but a title that caught his eye, and that was when he'd called in the cavalry and waited anxiously for it to get there.
"The Rod of Restoration," Castiel declared, running his hand reverently over the unpolished and frankly unremarkable piece of wood. "Heaven's means of assuring that no angel should ever be beyond saving. There was a rumor it was initially made to restore Lucifer to heaven if he ever repented his sins, but of course that was never in the plan."
"And you didn't think to mention it until now?" Sam asked incredulously. If anyone looked in desperate need of some saving, it was Cas, with the bags under his red-rimmed eyes that he couldn't ease because he was too immortal to sleep yet too mortal to be okay without it; nothing short of divine intervention was going to keep him from collapsing in a heap one of these days. As someone who had suffered from extensive sleep deprivation, Sam knew how miserable the angel had to be feeling. "You didn't think it might be important?"
"I thought it was a myth," Castiel admitted, gingerly placing the rod back into its spot on the shelf, easily identifiable by the rod-shaped island in the dust. "And to think, it was in the Men of Letters bunker all along. If the angels knew, all of heaven's forces would be at your door and more than prepared to kill for this."
Sam was becoming more and more grateful he hadn't just tossed the thing when he found it.
"So let me get this straight. You wave this wand, and all the angels magically get their wings back?"
"Rod," Cas corrected, "though I assume you were being metaphorical. Yes, this rod could easily restore an angel's wings. It could also restore my powers in full." Sam waited patiently for the "but," which Cas inevitably delivered. "There is one drawback. It can only be used once every century."
"What!" Sam exclaimed. "What's the point of that?"
Cas shrugged, a blanket apology for heaven's mysterious ways. "Angels do not often lose their powers. At least," he added with a wry grin, "they didn't before they came in contact with Winchesters. Before the two of you ended the apocalypse and the ripple effects did their damage, however, it was rare for an angel to lose his grace or his wings. Heaven simply didn't need a tool capable of repairing that loss more than once in a century."
"Well, that's too bad for the rest of them," Sam said firmly. "You're the commander in heaven, and unless you get patched up, you'll die. There must be at least one angel you can trust enough to do this for you."
"Hannah," Cas said immediately. "She is my second in command. She is a loyal soldier. I do not think she would betray me for her own gain. But Sam... there is far more to consider here than regaining my powers."
"Like what?"
"I think you know."
They fell silent. The niggling question in the back of Sam's mind since Castiel told him the name of the object was now growing more insistent. If Cas didn't bring it up, he wasn't going to mention it, but now that he had... "It doesn't just work on angels. Does it."
"This is perhaps the one object in all of creation that can return any creature to its original form. Werewolves, vampires, rougar0us... an angel wielding this rod could cure any one of them. I believe that includes demons, no matter the nature of their making."
Sam's eyes fell shut. He didn't want to look at the one object in the world they had found that could cure his brother. He couldn't bear to have it mocking him, the plainest item on a shelf full of dusty old relics in a building built specifically to hold dusty old relics. He had done things he wasn't proud of in his frantic search for Dean, only to learn that there was nothing in existence that could change what he'd become, except maybe for this one glorified stick.
And it still wasn't going to happen.
He squared his shoulders. "No, Cas. I'll pray to Hannah, she can find her way here, and she'll give you your powers back."
Cas fixed his sad, resigned eyes on him. "This is the only object in creation that can undo what the Mark did to Dean. You have to understand, there is no other way to fix-"
"Dean doesn't want to be fixed, Cas!" Sam all but shouted. "You're dying. Your grace is practically fried, and when that sparks out, you're toast. Keep the thing hidden here for the next century if you want and fix Dean then, but right now, there's no other way to fix you, either, and you're a little worse for wear than my party-hard demon of a brother."
Even as he said it, even as he silently begged Castiel not to do the bull-headed Winchester thing of needlessly sacrificing himself, he could see that his words had no effect. Cas had made his choice. Sam prayed to anyone who might still be listening that once Dean was cured, Cas would start to give a damn about himself. "I have to do this, Sam. The number of times I have failed Dean… All I've ever wanted was to help. What is the point in saving myself if I can't help the person who matters most?"
Sam raised his eyebrows but found he couldn't feel too surprised by what Castiel had just more or less admitted. If that was true, then Sam knew he was defeated. He decided to try a different tactic. "You know Hannah won't help Dean. Especially not when she knows you're giving up your best chance to the human you chose over your army."
Castiel raised his chin. "I may not be much of an angel anymore, but I have enough grace left to do this one thing. Let me do this."
Dean did not look particularly impressed to be caught in the heart of a spray-painted devil's trap. He folded his arms over his chest and didn't bother to hide his eyes as Sam and Castiel watched him from a safe distance away. "Really, guys?" he said, drumming his fingers against his arm. "You couldn't have just called?"
"We would've if you hadn't chucked your phone and spent the last few months on the run from us," Sam snapped. "Luckily knights of hell aren't immune to demon summonings, or we would've had to come find you. Again."
"What, you mean now that you've stopped denying exactly what I am?" Dean grinned, then turned his head to Cas. "Gotta say, Cas, you look like hell. And trust me, I'd know. True form's looking a bit… see-through. Bit like glass. And we all know what happens to glass if you're not careful with it."
"I guess I'll have to be careful, then," Cas said tightly, his knuckles white around the weapon in his hand.
Dean's eyes travelled down to the rod. "Let me guess," he said, the hint of a laugh in his voice. "That stick in your hand is hopped up on angel mojo that you can swish and flick at me and turn me back into a real boy? Come on, guys. I'm touched, really, but it's not gonna work. Maybe you should both take a page out of my book and screw the whole "good guy" thing so you have more time for other kinds of screwing."
"Castiel," Sam said, struggling to keep his voice light and even, "would you please stab my brother?"
Dean rolled his eyes and let his arms drop at Cas stepped forward obligingly. "Oh, come on-" he groused, until Cas raised the rod and pierced it straight through his heart.
As soon as the blinding white light erupted, Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He clamped his hands over his ears against the high piercing noise that accompanied the divine burst of power, but it wasn't enough. He felt his knees hit the ground, felt the air grow cold, then searingly hot-
And then it stopped.
Sam opened his eyes.
The devil's trap was gone, wiped clean from the bare gray cement, along with every spec of dirt and dust in the room, as far as he could tell. The room seemed much dimmer now after the burst of heavenly light, but after a few seconds of adjusting, the dark shapes began to appear more substantial. What he saw wasn't a particularly welcome sight.
Cas was on the ground, his knees bent and his elbows trying and failing to prop himself up. Sam watched Dean - Dean with something other than indifference in his features, Dean with his lips parted and eyes wide, Dean with green irises - sink into a crouch beside Castiel, supporting the angel's head in one hand and cupping his cheek with the other.
"Cas?" Dean asked, his voice wobbling. "What was that? What's wrong with you?"
"I did it," Cas whispered, a small smile gracing his face. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. "I saved you."
"Yeah, Cas," Dean said after a pause. "Yeah, you did." He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Cas' forehead. Sam looked away, giving them the closest thing to privacy he could offer. He listened to Cas' ragged breathing until it faded and then ceased.
Heart heavy, still staring fixedly into space, Sam said, "What do you know, you're not completely heartless." He paused. "For a demon."
He turned to face his brother. Dean stood in one slow but fluid movement, watching Sam the whole time. His eyes liquefied to black. "How did you know?"
"Dean doesn't cry and accept his friends' deaths," Sam told him. "He yells and swears and denies it to the end. The only thing I don't understand is why you lied."
Dean blinks and the black gives way to normal, human eyes again. He looks down at Cas' motionless body, so far gone from his days as an angel that there are no wings scorched into the floor of their basement, no lasting marker to show that an angel had died here. Sam wondered if Dean was thinking the same thing: that heaven's bravest warrior deserved more than this muted mortal death with no one to bear witness except a demon and a sad excuse for a human.
"The guy gave his life to fix me," Dean said eventually. "The least I could do was tell him it wasn't for nothing."
He vanished into thin air. No rustle of wings like an angel; it was the silent, disconcerting departure that one could never get used to no matter how often they tangled with demons. To blink and find oneself completely alone was a bit like missing the last step on a staircase. And Sam was indeed utterly alone now, in every way. No half-angel to come to his aid. No hope of getting his brother back. The only friend he had who was still alive was in another dimension, and she was closer with Dean, anyway.
Sam squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden prickling sensation. He'd cried too many times over failing the people he loved. Tears wouldn't help him now. There was only one thing left to do, one option left to get what he wanted. He had never, ever expected it to go this far, not even in the last few months when he'd gotten more desperate and let himself go down this path, but there was no one left to let down anymore, so what did it matter?
Sam reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out four rings. When he nudged them closer together in his hand, they fused together like magnets. He couldn't do this here; it felt wrong to put the whole world in danger from inside the heart of a place built to keep the world safe.
So he left the bunker and Cas behind, bringing nothing but the clothes on his back, the rings, and the amulet he'd secretly rescued from the trash when Dean threw it away. He didn't know if he'd be coming back here, but he knew that one way or another, he wouldn't be alone if he did.