Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.
Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.
Author's note: A slightly longer than usual chapter. Somewhat more serious as well.
It's All in the Details
By Colleen
Chapter 8
It was like one of those pictures in a picture. If he could just look at the articles the right way…
"Loophole, loophole. Can't weasel… " Sam blinked and looked at the contract a little closer. "No, can weasel, it only says Dean can't, it doesn't say anything about me trying to get him out of it. It only covers it if I try to do it by killing Cas. As long as Dean doesn't know…then maybe." He flipped back through the pages, looking for something to use.
"Upon death…" Sam's eyes got wide. "But what if you can't die?"
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Bela threw her clothing haphazardly into her suitcase.
"Hello darling." A man's voice said casually from behind her.
Bela froze, her expression giving the impression that she'd just discovered a poisonous spider making a home in her things.
"You know, you'd almost think that that 'I'd do anything to get out of my contract' speech you gave me a few months ago was a load of malarkey."
"Crowley." She turned to take in the dapper man. "I'll get you the Colt, just as soon as I find Sam and Dean."
He laughed. "I'm afraid the price of freedom has gone up and you're running out of time."
"What, no. We had a deal."
He shook his head. "That's what happens when you don't deliver on schedule." He smiled as he watched her shake and wondered if it was from anger or fear. Or both.
"So what's the cost now?"
"Well, Lilith still wants the Colt, of course. It's just that she also really wants Sam Winchester's head on a plate." He tilted his head and gave her a look. "Think you can handle that?"
She took a shaky breath. "Of course."
"Yes. Well, I guess we'll see."
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This close to the end, Castiel was keeping an eye on the Winchesters almost 24/7. The contract was simple by Hell's standards, he had seen enough of Crowley's work over the year they were partners to know that. However, the boys still didn't seem to understand how it worked, because while Sam had figured out the weaselling loophole, he had picked one of the worst ways to pursue it. Even using one of the ways out that required Cas' death would be better, although he would prefer not dying. Of course, given how many of the loopholes did require his death, the angel suspected that he had been more depressed than he'd realized when he'd crafted the agreement.
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Sitting at a table in their motel room, Sam laid out their Father's journal in front of his brother.
"Dr. Benton. Real life doctor. Lived in New Hampshire. Brilliant and obsessed with alchemy. Especially, how to live forever. 1816 doc abandons his practice…
"Right, yeah." Dean picked up the narrative. "Nobody hears from him for like, twenty years. All of a sudden people start showing up dead."
"Dead, or missing an organ… or a hand, or some other kind of part." Sam said, agreeing.
Dean nodded. "Because whatever he was doing was actually working. He just kept on ticking. Parts would wear out, he'd replace them." He paused. "I thought Dad hunted him down and took his heart out."
Sam shrugged. "Yeah, I guess the doc must have plugged in a new one."
"Immortality is a very poor escape clause to choose."
"Crap."
Both Winchesters were on their feet, breathing hard and looking at the man in a trench coat that was sitting on the end of one of the beds.
"Don't you ever knock?" Dean asked, the question somewhat rhetorical.
"That would mean using doors."
"Exactly!"
Sam leaned on the table and tried to get his heart rate back to where it should be. "What do you mean, it's a poor escape clause? It's the only one I've found so far."
Cas shook his head. "If Dean attempts that form of immortality in an attempt to break the contract, I will consider it weaselling and I will drop you into a coma."
"Whoa, whoa. Nobody said anything about becoming immortal, right Sammy." His brother looked away, suddenly finding the tabletop fascinating to look at. Dean's eyes narrowed. "You knew this was Doc Benton from the jump, didn't you?"
Sam shook his head. "I hoped. Wasn't sure until now."
"Why?"
Sam looked at Cas, whose expression was stony. "Because, you have to die before he can take your soul. If you can't die, then he's crap out of luck."
"Yeah, and you're in a coma, because I've got to agree, living for ever, that's trying to weasel out."
Sam expression hit bitch face and he focused it on Castiel. "You keep making like you want to help Dean get out of this, yet when I finally find something…"
Cas shook his head. "It's wrong. Believe me. As much as I would rather you not, shooting me with the Colt would be a better choice."
"No, I do that and Dean dies and your father, whoever that is, gets his soul."
Cas sighed. "You are still not looking at it the right way. Dean's soul would pass to Him upon Dean's death, yes. However, my Father would not be unkind to him and it is unlikely that He would take him before his time."
Dean rubbed at one of his ears. There was something odd and yet familiar about the way Cas talked about his father.
Sam sat down and stared at the tabletop again. "I can't risk it, not with Dean's soul."
Cas closed his eyes for a few moments. "Fine." He looked at Dean. "If this immortality is something you truly want, then I will not oppose it."
"So, what? No coma for Sam?"
Cas tilted his head. "A two minute coma for Sam. I'd have to hold you to that much of the contract." He hesitated. "Dean, please. If you do manage to find the way. Think hard before you follow it."
For once, neither of the Winchesters were surprised when he vanished.
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Since the usual, supernatural channels were coming up empty when it came to the Winchesters, Bela went in the opposite direction. Technology. She knew a geek or two who could hack computers and cell phones… and phone companies for that matter. She figured that a direct call to Bobby wouldn't work, so she started getting in touch with people he had connections to that were obscure enough that he might believe she simply hadn't known. Through them, she put out the word that she was looking for the Winchesters. Eventually one of them would pass that bit of information on to Bobby and he'd call Sam and Dean. All she had to do was supply her geek with junk food until he had a call that he could trace.
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Hearing from Rufus was a damned rare event. Bobby hadn't seen the man in fifteen years and had talked to him maybe once or twice a year in all that time. However, they had been partners at one time and even though Bobby had been the one to screw that up, the man still passed on information when it was important.
"Thanks Rufus, I'll let them know. Need anything on your end?"
"A bottle of Scotch."
"I'll send one your way."
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"She's looking for us? Any idea why?" Dean asked Bobby over the phone.
"Well, if I were a bettin' man, which I am from time to time. I'd lay one down on her still trying to get her hands on the Colt." Bobby told him.
"Yeah. Well, can't be worried about it now. We'll just have to keep it with us and hope for the best."
"You boys on a hunt?"
"Yeah. Something Dad went after once. It didn't stay as finished as he thought it had."
The older man grunted in acknowledgement. "I was wondering why you two were taking a hunt so close to your deadline."
"Hey, I'd rather do this than sit and fret. Anyway, thanks for the heads up, talk to you later Bobby."
Dean flipped his phone closed. "You catch that?"
Sam nodded. "Bela, right?"
"Yep. Girl is a pain in the ass."
"Yeah well, like you said, we've got more important things to worry about." Sam laid out a map with areas circled on it. He tapped his finger on one of them. "Hunting cabins. They've mostly been abandoned for years."
Dean nodded. "What are we waiting for?"
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They found the doctor's base. It had it all. Medical supplies, the good physician's lab book, which Sam lifted, a dead body and one injured civilian, the presence of whom made them opt for getting her to safety over staying to deal with Benton.
Of course, one of the perks was getting to drive over the doc as they made their escape.
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Sam and Dean had dropped the injured girl off at the hospital, pulling off a disappearing act before anyone could ask them any serious questions. Sam had his nose in Doc
Benton's lab journal all the way back to the hotel room. He only looked up from it once they were inside and he heard the sound of bed springs creaking as someone who was waiting for them stood up.
"Bela?"
The silenced shot shredded a corner of the lab book on the way by and lodged in Sam's chest. He dropped the book as a second bullet joined the first, his body following the book's path to the floor moments after. Bela turned the gun on Dean, only getting one shot off before he crashed into her. Not bothering with any finesse, Dean slugged her, hitting her hard enough that he broke her jaw, although she was lucky he hadn't also broken her neck. Not surprisingly, this rendered her unconscious.
He tossed her gun across the room and dove for his little brother, ignoring the fact that he himself had once again been shot in the left shoulder.
"Sam!"
His brother gasped when he grabbed him, his eyes not focusing on anything. "De.." He couldn't gather enough breath to talk.
"No, no, no, no, no." Dean put pressure on the wounds, not wanting to admit it was hopeless even as he watched blood begin to pool under his brother. He couldn't lose him. Not again.
"Cas, please!" It didn't matter anymore. Whatever he wanted, he'd do. He would pay the price gladly, just as long as Cas held to the contract and brought his brother back.
"Dean, move."
Cas was there, kneeling at Sam's other side.
Dean froze. Sam was still breathing and giving up on him while he was alive…
"Dean, it's easier for me to heal him than it is for me to bring him back from the dead. Move."
Dean moved.
Cas slammed one hand down on Sam's chest, the other one going to the young man's forehead. He put more power into the healing than was probably needed, but with Sam this close to death, he didn't want to risk a half measure.
Sam gasped and sat up, clutching at his now healed chest. Dazed, he looked from Cas to his brother.
"Dean. You're bleeding!"
Dean blinked. "I am?" He glanced down at himself and noticed the wound in his shoulder. "Oh, ow."
Cas reached over and gripped him lightly by the shoulder. That same clean feeling from the last time he'd done that whipped through Dean and he breathed a sigh of relief as the bullet hole healed instantly. He gave Cas a shaky thank you and then looked over at Bela.
"So, what do we do with her?"
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Given that she'd shot and would have killed Sam if it hadn't been for Castiel, Dean gave serious consideration to taking her out to the hunting cabins and leaving her out there for old Doc Benton to harvest for parts.
And that was just the part of him that didn't want to kill her himself.
Cas had surprised them by actually staying. He helped Dean tie Bela to a chair and slapped a sound block on the room, suspecting that the upcoming interrogation could become noisy. He was standing behind the thief when Dean pulled her head up by her hair.
"Wakey, Wakey. She came to, tried to say something and then moaned in pain. Castiel reached out and touched her shoulder, causing her to gasp in relief. Frowning, Dean looked at him.
"Did you just heal her?"
Cas returned his gaze. "She would be unable to answer questions with a broken jaw."
Dean nodded, even though his expression could best be described as grumpy.
"Okay Bela, this is how it's going to work. We ask, you tell and maybe you get to see tomorrow."
Her laughing wasn't how Dean expected her to react to being threatened. He became even more confused when it turned into jagged crying with gasping moments that bordered on screaming.
Cas stood behind her, his expression hard even though he felt some sympathy for the woman. Though he hadn't recognized her the first time he had seen her with Dean, he did know who Bela Talbot was. Albeit, in written form only. Given the time travel nature of his situation, he regretted not having read more of the Winchester gospels than he had. Still, he'd read enough to know what was coming for her this night.
"Bela… Bela!" Dean gave her a shake, and then slapped her. Her head snapped to the side and she breathed in great gasps of air as she attempted to bring her emotions under control.
"Why Bela? I understand you going after the Colt, but what the hell was up with trying to kill us?"
"Trying?" She looked around the room, her eyes widening when she saw Sam alive. He'd even cleaned up and changed his shirt while she'd been unconscious. "How?"
Sam frowned at her. "Dean's contract. Wouldn't be much point in him paying out if I'm dead."
She shook her head. "No, why..?"
"Why what Bela?" Dean asked her.
When she just continued to shake her head, Cas decided he could stay silent no longer. "She wonders why they would ask for Sam's death, if they knew that he wouldn't stay dead."
"Why would they know?"
Bela attempted to shake the hair that had fallen into her face back over her shoulders. "They have to. Lilith…she's the one holding the contract."
Dean threw Cas a look. "Since when."
Bela looked at him like he was missing a few cards from his deck. "I don't know what your friend here has told you, but she holds all the contracts for Hell."
"And you know this how?"
Bela looked away from him. "Because…she holds mine."
Dean sucked in a deep breath. "Well, crap." Dean stalked away from her and then back. "When's it due?"
She stared at the floor, not answering.
"Double crap."
Cas tilted his head in thought. "Did Lilith order Sam's death in person?"
Bela shook her head and attempted to twist around, trying to see whom she was talking to, even though she remembered the voice from the demon siege in Colorado. Giving up, she answered. "No, most of her orders come through her lieutenant, the guy who runs the crossroad demons."
Cas' eyes narrowed. "Crowley."
"Yes."
Dean watched Cas contemplate that for a few moments before interrupting.
"You think the guy was working against orders?"
Cas shook his head. "I am not certain. Knowing Crowley, he would have reason for wanting Sam dead. However, I do not believe he would be prepared to go against Lilith at this time." He tilted his head in contemplation. "She may have believed that Bela would fail, but that the attempt would continue the appearance that she wants Sam dead."
Sam laughed. "You make it sound like she wants me for something else."
Cas grimaced, realizing that he was giving away more information than a pagan trickster god should probably know. He forged ahead anyway. "She does."
Dean felt a shiver run down his spine. "I'm going to go with, that's probably not a good thing."
"It isn't. Lilith will present herself as an opposing force, as a being of vast power that still must be fought. Through these means, she hopes to push Sam to access his powers and learn to harness them."
"Why would that be bad?"
"Because what you would have to do to gain that power would not be worth the price and in the end, you would do the work she wished done."
Sam shook his head. "It would never happen."
Cas closed his eyes. "It would." He opened his eyes again and fixed his gaze on the younger Winchester. "It would because you would believe you were doing the right thing. You would believe that you were stopping her, when the opposite would instead be true."
He could feel Dean's gaze on him and he turned to find the man staring at him contemplatively.
"That sounds like the voice of experience talking."
Cas cast his eyes down, finding the floor to be more interesting than he'd previously noticed. "You wouldn't be wrong."
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Dean turned to look at Bela. "You've only got until midnight, right?"
Bela's eyes closed and a single tear traced a path down her right cheek. "Yes."
Dean shook his head. "Damn it. If you'd just asked us for help."
"What, you'd have gone after the Hell Bitch for me?"
"Yes."
She looked at him, disbelieving.
"Sure, it might not have just been to help you, but we would have. Given how much she wants to mess with Sam, I'd say we probably have to. If you'd come to us a few weeks ago we might have had a chance to do something for you too. Now…" He might hate her. Hell, he knew he out and out wanted to kill her, but… He looked at Cas. "Do you know anything about her contract?"
Cas realized that Dean's question was centred in the same empathetic reaction that the angel had referred to as crippling in another time line. Why he hadn't realized that something was wrong with him when he became angry with the Winchesters for caring he didn't know. Their empathy was one of the reasons he'd sided with them against his brothers in the first place.
"Cas? Is that a no? "
Blinking, he pulled himself out of his thoughts. "Sorry. " He stepped around to look straight on at Bela, finally standing so she could see him. She looked up, her eyes growing wide and her mouth dropped open when she saw him. "What?" She started to say, and then took in a breath, almost straining for the air. "What are you?"
"Bela?"
She looked at Dean, frowned and then looked back at Cas, wonder in her eyes. "I can see him." She blinked back fresh tears. "He's beautiful."
Dean gave Cas an assessing look. "If you say so."
The angel looked at her, his expression confused for the moment it took him to realize what was happening. She was piercing the veil. It was something that happened to those under contract in their last hours. He had even added it to Dean's contract because he knew it had happened to the Hunter the first time and he didn't want to deprive him of any advantages it would give him. It should allow him to see the true face of the demons hiding in human flesh. What Cas had not realized, was that it would also allow someone to see an angel residing in a human vessel. Apparently, it also protected them from having their eyes burned out from the sight of it. Still, feeling that safer would be better than sorry, he quickly moved to stand behind Bela again.
"Cas?"
"She has only hours until her contract comes due. Being this close to the end is allowing her to see that which is hidden."
Dean shifted uncomfortably. "So what's hidden about you?"
Castiel waved his hands down his body. "What you are seeing isn't my true form. Most people find the sight of it to be too much to handle. I am amazed that seeing what she did didn't… damage her."
"And it just keeps getting better and better." Dean gave his head a shake, obviously choosing to set aside this latest revelation. "Never mind. Back to the question I was asking. Do you know anything about her contract?"
Cas tilted his head, studying her. Looking a little self-conscious, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Hissing, Bela seized up and struggled against the ropes tying her to the chair. Writing started to appear across her body.
"What the Hell?" Dean asked, twisting his head as he tried to make sense of the words.
Standing in a position physically similar to Dean's, Cas answered. "Crossroad deals are written out on the body."
Sam joined them. Crouching down, he tried to read what was written on Bela's arm. Shaking his head, he looked up at Cas. "If I gave you some paper, could you write that out… in English?" They did not need a copy in whatever language this was.
"You don't have enough paper." He snapped his fingers again and a contract, over three inches thick landed on the table next to Sam's laptop with a thud.
While the younger Winchester paged randomly through it, Cas stared at his fingers, frowning. Since Gabriel seemed fond of the finger-snapping thing, he thought he'd try it. However, he was coming to the conclusion that it really wasn't him. With a wave, he cancelled the spell that let them see the contract on Bela's body.
Sam meanwhile, was paging through the paper copy and beginning to realize just how simple Cas' contract was in comparison to the real thing. He flipped to a page about three quarters of the way in and read part of it aloud. "All articles which are excluded shall be deemed included. What the Hell?"
"Precisely." Cas answered. "That is a fairly standard clause for a crossroads deal."
Sam knew when he was beat. "Is there anything we can use in this?"
Cas shook his head. "Not in the time she has left. If she had weeks, maybe…" Briefly, he considered just killing the hounds that would be sent for her, but it wouldn't work. They would just send more and he couldn't watch her forever. Also, there was a good chance that he would blow his cover doing it. While he didn't care if the Hell of this time knew what he was, he knew the information would get leaked to other sources and he wasn't ready to deal with Heaven just yet.
Thinking for a moment, Sam picked up Dr. Benton's now slightly damaged lab book. "What about this. I mean, I don't understand it all, but I think it can work." He knew it was cold, but he would feel better testing it on someone else before using it on Dean anyway.
"Let me guess." Dean said. "All we have to do is drink blood from a baby's skull at midnight."
Sam shook his head. "No, as far as I can tell, there's no black magic involved. It's actually science. Really weird science, but still, just science."
Cas shook his head. "I read it while you were changing. The preparations have to work on the body for several days. She doesn't have the time." He thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "Even time travel wouldn't work to give her the time. The hounds will already have her scent. They would be able to move wherever and whenever she is.
Sam frowned. "You read the entire lab book during the whole minute you had free after helping Dean tie Bela up?"
"Yes."
"And you actually understood it. Amazing." Dean and Sam levelled their guns at the man standing by the door who had just spoken. Pale and slim, with his face crisscrossed with stitches, Doc Benton levelled his own gun back at them. Surprised, Cas realized that he couldn't sense the man. Even standing in front of him, he was only conspicuous by his absence. Benton essentially felt like a moving black hole in reality.
"I've come for my book. I had intended to collect a few parts as well, but you all seem a little occupied. "Both of the Winchesters chambered a round into their guns. The doc smirked. "What part of immortal don't you understand? The guns are useless against me."
Then Bela started to scream.
Concerned, Castiel dropped his vision into the same range hers was currently in to look at the doctor. Angels with their powers intact did not throw up, but he came close. He had never seen anything so twisted before in his life and he had seen things worse than what lay beneath a demon's stolen skin.
In self-defence, Bela finally squeezed her eyes shut and cringed away as much as she could while tied to a chair. "Don't want it, don't want it. Whatever it is you can keep it."
The doc laughed. "You'll change your tune when the hounds come. However, the young man is right. It would take longer than you have to make you immortal. Of course, the other young man, Dean, wasn't it. You would have time."
"No, thanks anyway."
"Dean."
"No Sammy, I mean look at him. I don't even need to know what Bela is freaking out about to know that the answer is no." Dean raised his gun.
The doctor shook his head. "I told you, that won't work."
"Wanna bet?" Every eye in the room focused on the elder Winchester. Cas had just long enough to wonder when Dean had exchanged his usual gun for the Colt before the hunter pulled the trigger.
When the bullet hit Benton, tendrils seemed to spread out from the impact site. Cas watched as they hooked into the doctor's twisted form. He looked away as light suddenly exploded from the point of each attachment, burning away what he believed had been the doctor's soul.
The body slumped to the floor, very dead and very empty.
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Three men and one woman stood near a cabin looking down into a very deep hole. An old refrigerator, wrapped in chains as a precaution, lay at the bottom of it. A red lab book sat on top of it, as if it were an odd spray of flowers laid out on a coffin.
"Enjoy oblivion doc." Dean said before he started to shovel dirt into the hole. His brother soon joined in. Cas and Bela watched from the sideline. After a few minutes, Cas interrupted them. "May I?"
Nodding, Sam and Dean backed away. "Go for it."
With a wave of his hand, the hole filled in. You would in fact, have been hard pressed to tell that one had ever been dug there. Dean passed his shovel over to Sam and his younger brother nodded before heading over to the Impala.
Cas moved away as well, actually picking up on the fact that Dean wanted a private word with Bela.
Bela looked up at the night sky. "Not much longer now."
"No, guess not." Dean studied her face for a few moments. "Bela… If you want, I could use the Colt on you. I'm pretty sure that if you got killed with that, that there wouldn't be anything left for the dogs to take."
She took in a deep breath. "Oblivion instead of Hell." She shook her head. "It's probably the better choice, but… I can't. I know what's waiting for me. I know eventually I'll become…" She stopped, shook her head and had to smile. "Even now, I'm pretty sure I can find an angle to work."
He had to smile. "If anyone can, it's you."
"Hey, Dean."
"Yeah?"
"I know you'd be doing it more to keep your brother safe than to help me get revenge, but… If you do go after Lilith, roast the bitch in my name too."
He nodded.
Bela jerked her head, listening to something he couldn't hear. "Now get out of here, please."
She waited until he was out of sight before allowing herself to cry one more time.
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Sam and Dean waited until morning before going back for her body. They found blood, giant paw prints and a dragline through the forest, but after three hours of searching were unable to find anything else.
