title: what fun it all would be (6/7)
summary: The torture doesn't stop because Dean wants it to. It stops because he gets sloppy.
pairing: Dean/Castiel
warnings:language, violence, gore, suggestive situations, eventual character death
vi.
Some mornings Papa doesn't feel well enough to get out of bed.
Usually he's the one who takes her to school, and Dad picks her up from Kid Care, but some mornings instead of Papa knocking on the door and saying, "Time to get up, Emma," Dad sits on the edge of her bed and strokes her hair to wake her up.
Emma always feels scared when she wakes up like that because she knows it means Papa doesn't feel good. It means Dad looking worried and sad and tired, and it makes Emma want to hide until Dad looks like Dad again. But Uncle Sam told her once that when Papa doesn't feel well enough to get out of bed, she has to be strong for Dad because it makes him really sad to see Papa hurting. So she crawls out of her covers into Dad's lap and hugs him. "Chick-flick moment," she says into his armpit, muffled, and he lets out a little breath, holds her so tight she almost can't breathe.
The hug lasts a long time, until Dad clears his throat and pulls back. "All right, kid, time to get ready for school."
When she's dressed, she creeps down the hallway to Dad and Papa's bedroom. She can barely hear Dad making toast downstairs, moving quietly like they all do when Papa's not feeling well, like noise could hurt him.
Papa's back is to her, the covers pulled up over his shoulders like he's cold. Emma stands in the doorway and wants him to turn around and see her but also doesn't. She curls her toes into the carpet and whispers, "Papa?"
He doesn't turn. Emma curls her toes tighter and swallows and makes her way downstairs. Dad's leaning against the sink, a hand over his eyes, but he looks up when she creeps inside and says, "Hey. Hey, baby, c'mere," and she buries her wet face in his neck even though he has morning pricklies, and he rocks her until Uncle Sam's car pulls into the driveway to take her to school.
- o -
The angels come after Emma falls asleep. Castiel has been waiting for them. He cannot feel his Grace inside him any longer, if any scrap of it even still lingers inside him, but he can still recognize Grace when he sees it. He knows that it was not luck, nor the vampire's arcane summoning, that carried them out of Purgatory.
They are in vessels, of course, and for the first time, Castiel cannot see through the human skins they wear to the entities underneath. Cannot tell which of his brothers and sisters have come for him. Only sees the moonlight reflecting off liquid human eyes, the starched shirts and creased trousers. He wonders if any of them are from his old garrison, are Sachiel, or Zadkiel, or Jophiel, and realizes that he does not know whether they survived his massacre of Heaven, if they were one of the bodies he left strewn in field of that man's eternal Tuesday afternoon,
"I am Zadkiel," says one, as though it has heard Castiel's thoughts (and of course it has). "I was in that human's heaven, Castiel, but you spared me. Took only one of my wings instead of both."
The vessel's voice is bloodied with pain and love as it unfurls it, as Castiel sees the terrible silhouette of a lonely wing, mangled and hanging like a dead creature from Zadkiel's back.
"I, whose Grace shredded alongside yours in Hell, I who grieved with you when Uriel's treachery became known, I who followed you even against Raphael." He steps forward. "I who loved you as a brother."
Castiel shuts his eyes. "There is no forgiveness for what I have done. I do not ask for it. But know, Zadkiel, that I am sorry. So sorry."
He felt, not for the first time, the unspeakable inadequacy of human words. Nothing could say how deeply he sorrowed for what he had done, how deeply he wished for the pain he had caused to be inflicted upon him, instead of those he had maimed and slain.
"I know that you are," Zadkiel says softly. He is close now, his words stirring the hair at Castiel's forehead. He touches his lips to Castiel's forehead, a benediction, and for a moment, something flutters within Castiel, something like worn leather and forgiveness.
But Zadkiel whispers against his skin, sadly. "It changes nothing."
As the silver blade slips into Zadkiel's hand, Castiel closes his eyes. He should be thinking of those he hurt, those for whom he deserves this fate. But all he can picture is a small hand curled around his. So much like the one that curled around him when he found that ragged soul in hell.
There are things that Castiel regrets.
Dean Winchester is not one of them.
- o -
Dean wakes to the jangle of keys. He'd fallen asleep in a chair in the bedroom, feet propped up on the bed where Emma's tucked in neatly. She's still lying in the exact same position as the night before, and that's his first clue something's wrong.
His feet drop to the floor with a thud as Sam comes in carrying a box of donuts. He touches Emma's face, careful despite the urgency. "Emma, kiddo, wake up. C'mon." He turns her face to and fro, taps on her arm, her cheek, then on a wild whim tries tickling her armpits, like that'll do something.
Nothing. She's breathing, but she won't wake up.
"Okay," he says, dimly aware of Sam moving behind him to the window. "Okay. Sam, gimme your knife." His own teeth aren't sharp enough anymore, he grabs Sam's knife and ignores Sam's alarmed look when Dean cuts into his thumb and holds it to Emma's mouth, squeezing big beads of blood onto her lips, carefully cradling her head with his other hand to make them land on her tongue. But she doesn't move the way she always did before, doesn't suddenly shift and start sucking. "Shit. Shit shit shit-"
"Dean!"
"What?"
"This sigil-" Sam's pointing at one of the blood-painted symbols on the wall. "This one isn't a banishing symbol. It's Enochian for sleep."
Dean stares at him, still holding Emma. "Then what are you waiting for?"
Sam licks his thumb, scrubs at the sigil. Almost instantly, Emma's eyes snap open. Her head whips toward the window, and she's scrambling out to Dean's hold to it, like she doesn't even notice Sam there. She slaps her hands and face against the pane.
"Caa-aaas!" she shrieks. She whirls around, makes a grabby hand at Dean. "Dee-heen," and it's the first time she's said anything close to his name, but there's no time to untangle the balled-up knot of things it makes him feel because there's angry tears running down her face. "Caa-aaas!" she wails again, and jabs her finger at the window as he comes closer, crouches next to her to look down.
"Holy shit," Sam whispers above him.
Because there's footprints in the dirt outside the window. Lots and lots of footprints, all different sizes, like a dozen people had stopped and stood two feet away from the window.
And there's one set that advances right up to the window.
"Tooook," Emma says, "Caaaas. Make Emma-" She screws up her face and closes her eyes , slapping her palm insistently against the sleep sigil Sam had smeared out,
"Fuck," Sam says. He's pale. "Dean, you didn't hear anything-?"
My brothers and sisters are waiting for me.
"I screwed up," Dean whispers. "I screwed up really bad, Sam."
- o -
"-and then," Dad finishes with a grin, "the carnivorous, rainbow-farting unicorn galloped off into the sunset."
Emma is laughing so hard there's tears and snot running down her face. Papa's shaking his head and grabbing Kleenex from her dresser, saying, "I don't think that was an appropriate bedtime story, Dean, it did not make her sleepy at all."
Dad just puts a hand over his face and blows a humungous raspberry in reply. Emma falls off the bed in hysterics and slaps her hand over her face to blow one, too, and pretty soon they're engaged in a fart-noise-making war that has Papa rolling his eyes and saying, "I'll leave you two to it."
"Caaaas," Dad whines. He's a little breathless from all the raspberry blowing, his face flushed like Emma's. "You have to come back, you know you do the loudest ones."
"The loudest flatulence imitations?" Papa says wryly, clearly unimpressed, but he sits back down on the edge of Emma's bed where she and Dad are sprawled out. Dad nudges his back with his knee, and Papa smiles but says, "I'm not going to make the sound, Dean."
Dad glances at Emma, jerks his chin toward Cas. Emma understands.
"Please, Papa?" she says as pitifully as she can. She pushes her way into his lap and pouts up at him. "Pretty please with pie on top?"
Papa sighs. Puts his tea down on Emma's nightstand. Then he puts his hands over his mouth and blows so hard that one of his eyes suddenly turns red, and Dad's swinging Emma out of Papa's lap and saying, "Oh shit, Cas, are you okay?" even while he's laughing and Papa's saying irritably, "I appear to have burst a blood vessel," and Dad looks like he's trying to make a serious face but he can't; his eyes scrunch up and he's exploding with laughter and hugging Papa and saying, "Sorry, baby, sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I swear."
And Papa's submitting unhappily to the hug, brows all drawn and grumpy but putting his chin on Dad's shoulder, and Dad says, "C'mere, Emma, and give Papa a kiss for making us laugh so hard even though it made him pop a blood vessel," and then he's off again, laughing so hard he's doubled over. But Papa's watching him fondly now, even smiling a little himself, and he puts an arm around Emma as she hugs his leg.
- o -
Cas doesn't answer any of their summoning rituals. They try with his name, with Balthazar's, Rachel's, even Gabriel's, and when those yield nothing either, Dean resorts to the names of angels he's never met, ones Sam finds on Google and in the old musty books Jody brings from Bobby's storage. It's only when none, none of them answer, that Dean begins to realize just how completely "Godstiel" must have devastated Heaven.
Two dozen, three dozen, dead. A score. Two score. The number climbs higher and higher. So does the dread in Dean's gut. He remembers Cas's bees, Cas's "pull my finger," Cas's sandwiches on shiny blue plates, and he closes his hand around his knife even though the summoning only needs a few drops, grips it and grips it until Sam takes it from him.
Behind them, Emma watches.
- o -
Days pass.
- o -
Finally one answers.
It's when they're down to a list on Google that Sam doesn't think it's real, mutters something about "no sources" and "probably from an RPG," and Dean is drizzling the holy oil as thin as he can because they're running out, running out, and Emma's gripping his hand too tight, tighter every time Sam comes too close, her fingers digging into the bandaged cut around his palm. He doesn't try to shift it, knows he deserves pain. He doesn't want to talk to her, resents her a little, because if they hadn't found her in Purgatory maybe Cas wouldn't have lost his Grace and he'd have been able to fight off the angels and he knows it's bullshit but he can't stop feeling it anyway.
Then Sam's saying the incantation, and there's a nearly silent sound of beating feathers, and Dean's rib cage squeezes so tight it nearly splinters him in two.
But it's a teenage boy in the circle, pimply and looking terrified. The Wiener Hut cap on his head darkens with sweat as it stares at them.
"I can't be here," it whispers.
Dean ignores it. "Where's Castiel?" Cas's full name sounds weird from his mouth, for all that they've used it in the dozens of summonings, said Cas and Castiel and even Jimmy Novak once in case it worked.
The angel trembles inside the ring of oil. "Please," it whispers.
Something inside Dean hardens. "No."
He hands Emma to Sam. Pushes away her grasping tiny hands, her scream as Sam takes her and lets her kick and scratch at him but doesn't let go. He knows his brother won't hurt her again, and it's time she learns it too. But that hitch just before she screams, that mute moment before a baby starts crying-he'd forgotten, forgotten how it makes your insides shrivel up waiting for the scream that comes scraping out of them like it's their life clawing its way out through their throat. Sammy had done it, after Mom died, and that's as much as Dean lets himself remember, gripping the angel blade in his hand and turning back to the angel.
He says: "I'm only gonna ask nicely one more time."
- o -
The torture doesn't stop because Dean wants it to. It stops because he gets sloppy. Draws too much blood, gets lost in the slippery grip and the scent, doesn't notice it drip onto the floor, ooze across the holy oil.
It's enough to break the circle. There's the smell of blood burning, and the angel stares at him for one instant longer through its remaining eye. Panting and burning.
Then it's gone.
Dean steps back from the empty chair. His tongue flicks up to trace his teeth, and maybe he's not imagining they feel sharper than they did a few hours ago.
- o -
"Dean," Sam says one night.
"Dean," when Dean doesn't answer.
And finally, "This is wrong, Dean. She'd be better off with the Amazons than..." Sam's quiet for a minute, looking at the newest angel Dean's summoned from the list they thought was bogus. Its eyes are rolling in terror, "this."
- o -
"Daaad," Emma says one day, halting. "Daad."
That's all.
- o -
Sam finds the article in the Pontiac newspaper. The body of one Jimmy Novak, missing person, long presumed dead, was found near Vermilion River. Police suspect foul play because of Novak's long disappearance and suspicious markings found near his body. An investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information about Mr. Novak is encouraged to contact the police.
- o -
That night, an angel appears on Bobby's doorstep. It's holding a tan trench coat.
"He does not deserve anything from me," it says. "Nor from anyone. But what he asked was not for himself. Move aside, Dean Winchester."
It lifts a hand, two fingers extended.
"Wait," Dean says. Voice hoarse and low. "Please. Just-"
The angel's face twists in hatred. "What should I give you, beast that broke the seals of hell? That dragged the grace from my brother, that sliced into my siblings like they were souls on hell's racks?"
Dean tells him.
And Zadkiel? Is merciful.
- o -
"Dean, you know, you've pulled some shady crap before, but this-"