The midseason finale was amazing. That is all, enjoy this chapter.
Two months after the most debilitating of Sam's injuries have healed, about five after he first received them, after endless weeks of what feels like absolutely nothing, it all comes down to a dusty old book that Castiel almost didn't even touch.
He's read half the library at this point—an exaggeration, because the bunker is enormous, but it sure feels like the truth. He doesn't sleep, and he rarely goes outside. Most of his time not spent on angel radio is spent in the archives and among the countless bookshelves the bunker has to offer. He's read almost every book that had anything to do with demons or sigils or early biblical times.
This particular book isn't all that thick, maybe about an inch. It looks ancient, with a faded brown cover that's hanging on to the binding by a few threads and worn, yellowed pages that crack apart in his hands if he's not careful when he turns them. There is no text on the outside and it's written in an old dialect of French. And he found it standing on its fragile binding on the floor between the back of a shelf and a wall.
He almost decided it wasn't worth fishing out. And he doesn't know what made him elect to put in the effort. But he almost can't believe what he finds about halfway through, to the point that he has to rush downstairs to ask Sam for a second opinion.
Half an hour later, they're standing in the middle of the main study with Eloise, ready to be transported to Shreveport, Louisiana to intervene in a case Sam recently contacted another hunter about—it was too far off their usual reservation so he asked a local hunter named Laura to take care of it. But it was definitely something demonic, and it's the last they've heard of any demonic activity, and they need a guinea pig to test this on.
According to the book, it's a sigil that, when painted on a person's face in a demon's blood, will draw that demon into that person's body. The catch—part of the sigil is the demon's name written in ancient Sanskrit. Its original, human name.
Sam's clearly ready to pull all the stops to get this one to spill its guts. He's already managed to convince Laura to have the sigil painted on her face, and that was no easy task, it's more than clear. And when they do manage to pin down the creature and toss it into a devil's trap in Laura's basement, with Laura, Eloise, and Castiel standing behind him, he starts out nice, saying, "I'm gonna make this simple for you. You're going to tell me your name—your real name, not some alias you've come up with, not the name of your host, but your real. Original. Human. Name."
"Arnold Schwarzenegger," it replies without missing a beat.
He doesn't glare. Doesn't roll his eyes. Just sprinkles holy water over his demon-killing knife, and jams it into the creature's thigh.
It screams. An unbridled, primal release of pure agony, as the burnt orange visage of its charred skeleton crackles like lightning underneath its host's skin. Sam doesn't even blink. Castiel isn't exactly surprised, because he's seen him like this before, especially when Dean's on the line, but it never gets any easier to witness. "Dammit, why do you want to know?" it shrieks near the end.
"I'm asking the questions here. Now once more: what's your name? I promise you won't hear me ask again."
Laura is standing beside Castiel, in a devil's trap of her own, and he can just feel her doubting the wisdom of her involvement. It's a fair doubt to have when Sam is like this.
Another flippant retort trembles obviously on the creature's lips. After giving it just enough time to answer twice, Sam raises the knife again, and it cries, "All right, all right! It was Rishyasringa."
"Can you write that in Sanskrit?" Sam immediately asks Castiel, and he nods. Sam silently hands him the knife, now coated in the demon's blood, and Castiel runs his thumb across the side of the blade, turns to Laura, and begins to trace the blood over her face. She looks very nervous at this point, but as he begins to draw the sigil on her face, she closes her eyes and compliantly refrains from all movement.
He hears Sam's flat words to the creature as he stabs a mundane knife into it and begins collecting more blood, "If you're lying, I won't kill you. That would be wasteful." And he cringes, for the millionth time just wishing the Winchesters peace, but he continues to draw. When he runs out of blood on the blade of the knife, he takes the now-full bowl from Sam.
The moment he finishes the last part of the sigil, the demon's name—which is difficult to fit on Laura's face—he hears its scream behind him, and instinctively leaps out of the way, because the energy in the room has just shifted dramatically.
He and Sam stand back in watch, awestruck and horrified, as the demon screams itself right out of its host, flooding out of his mouth, much like in an exorcism, only instead of disappearing through the ceiling or floor, the smoke cloud billows straight across the room and into the mouth of Laura. She screams as well as it flows into her, and for a good five seconds the demon fills the center of the room, one end in its original host and the other in its new one.
Finally, its first host drops to the floor, gasping, as its tail end leaves his mouth, and moments later Laura's eyes are black. This is, of course, when Castiel and Sam both begin to recite an exorcism in unison. The demon glares at them with hate in its eyes, and even Castiel is perturbed by the sight of the young black-eyed woman with blood all over her face who, minutes before, appeared perfectly normal and happy. But now is not the time to be affected by such things, and moments later the demon has been expelled from her, and she is on the floor gasping. Sam's expression is characterized by both exhaustion and ecstasy, and Castiel is far, far more perturbed by how long this reaction keeps him standing still, staring at the young woman nearly crying on the floor. Castiel doesn't witness the moment he shakes out of it, because he himself strides forward to help her stand back up and support her in whatever way he can. It's mere seconds later that he is joined by Sam.
A few minutes later, as Sam helps Laura clean herself up, Eloise comes to stand by Castiel. She quietly murmurs, "He is hurting badly."
Castiel swallows. It's nothing he didn't already know, but somehow hearing it said aloud makes him feel that much more helpless in the face of it. "He is."
She doesn't say anything else. Not until she's transporting them back to the bunker and renewing the deal they first made, which seems to have become her goodbye. And then she is gone.
She was right about Sam. But they're so much closer now to getting what he needs than they have ever been in the months since they lost Dean. Granted, there are still so many missing pieces to the solution, the first of which is actually finding him, but now, when they do… they'll have a plan.
Castiel can't express how proud he is at having found that book.
Emery thinks he hates Crowley even more than Dean did.
Of course, that's in large part due to the circumstances. Pretending to give even one percent of a crap about his plans is exhausting, and at times he starts to slip out of the act, but he knows Rowena is keeping very close tabs on him and her progress slows down when his resolve starts to shake. So, in the interest of fairness—though he's not sure why he cares about fairness—he really does try to pretend.
It's so difficult to get away from Crowley though, just for a little room to breathe. He could threaten him easily, scare him into backing off, but Rowena has discouraged that as well. She wants him to be as amicable as possible, which makes sense for her goals, but when he's reasonably sure she's not around or watching in any other capacity, he tends to be very short with Crowley. Then the guy will give him some space for a little while, and soon enough Emery will have to approach him and act all buddy buddy again, never actually apologizing because screw that noise, but nonverbally communicating a willingness to be more patient now.
This cycle goes on for weeks. As the frequency in trips above increases, Emery's patience decreases. Every time he manages to snag Rowena only to be told the spell still isn't ready, he wants to scream.
It's about two months after he makes his near-literal deal with the devil that he descends to the lower levels of hell to find Rowena and demand a detailed report, and she finds him first, bearing the words, "It's ready."