Past 4
Sam spent most of the drive home worrying about Dean. He had never seen his brother look like he had back in that cabin, and it scared him. When Dean had had the Mark of Cain it had been like his entire system was burning too hotly, full of rage and power, but when he had banished those ghosts he had been completely cold and passionless, neither of which were words that Sam ever thought he would associate with his brother.
Now though, Dean seemed to be back to his normal self, grumbling about the Impala's new look and finding the greasiest burger joint he could for them to stop for dinner at. Maybe Sam was worrying for nothing.
When they got back to the bunker, Castiel was there waiting for them.
"Cas? Where have you been?" Dean asked, greeting his friend exuberantly.
"My apologies for my unexplained absence. I was in Heaven."
"Heaven? Why did you go there?" Sam asked.
Cas swallowed uncomfortably, "among other things I wanted to check on Charlie."
The mood instantly darkened. "And was she okay?" asked Sam.
"She has settled in. She is not angry with either of you. In fact, she insisted that I return to earth to make sure the spell worked."
"It worked" Dean replied pushing his right sleeve up to show Cas his forearm. "Are you sure she's okay? It's just I was thinking we should probably try to bring her back."
Cas looked at Dean with sympathy, clearly sensing his guilt. "I'm sorry Dean but you know that both myself and Heaven are much weaker than we once were. It is beyond my current abilities to resurrect her."
"I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about me."
"You?" Cas questioned and turned his gaze more carefully to Dean, after a moment of careful study he must have discerned something outside of the human plane because his blue eyes widened, and he took a step back in surprise. "What happened to you?" he almost whispered.
"Why? What do you see?" Sam demanded but Cas ignored him and continued staring at Dean.
"I killed Death and apparently now I'm supposed to replace him" Dean answered with a shrug of his shoulders, before launching into the long version. By the time he finished catching Cas up, the Angel had finally managed to tear his gaze away and was staring into space instead.
"Do you know what this means?" Sam asked him.
"No. I was not yet created when Death came into existence and I did not expect that anything would ever end him. I am as surprised by this as you are."
"Well, it's good to have you back anyways" Dean said, trying to be reassuring but Castiel's face only fell even further.
"I wish it were otherwise" he started, "but I only came to tell you that I have to stay in Heaven for a while."
"You're leaving? Why?" Sam asked.
"The situation in Heaven is dire. Many Angels were lost in the Fall and the ensuing civil war. There are less than a score of us left. Even with all of us present, Heaven is barely being maintained. Now that I have my Grace back and Dean is free of the Mark, I must return there. If Heaven falls, then all of the billions of souls that reside there will plummet back down to Earth."
Sam and Dean shared a look. They could imagine all too well what kind of chaos that would cause. "We're going to miss you, buddy" said Dean.
"I will miss you as well, but for the time being, this is how things have to be."
After Cas left, they both felt the need for a stiff drink and soon they were sitting in the library with a bottle of whiskey between them.
"So, what now?" Dean asked.
Sam sighed. He was tempted to say that they should carry on as usual and ignore what was happening but his more mature side prevailed.
"We need to figure this out and since it's pretty obvious we're not going to find anything in books, we've got to move on to primary research."
"Primary research?" Dean echoed.
"We test you; figure out what you can do."
So, I'm playing guinea pig?" Dean asked, tugging self-consciously at his ring.
"Sort of" Sam answered.
"Okay, then" said Dean, getting up. "Let's get started."
'Now?" Sam complained. "it's almost midnight and we just got back from a hunt."
"Why, not? Come on nerd, give me a test."
Sam rubbed his forehead, wishing he could just crawl into bed. "I don't know. Why don't you try teleporting or something?"
"Teleporting?"
"Yeah, most higher-level supernatural beings can do it. Just jump yourself to the kitchen."
Dean looked dubious for a moment but seemed to be willing to try it. He stared ahead of him, took a deep breath, and disappeared. There was a sudden crash followed by the sound of swearing coming from the kitchen. Sam groaned and headed to his room to get some sleep.
By the time Sam got up the next morning, he'd managed to regain some of his academic curiosity and he was all ready to give Dean another challenge. Dean himself had spent the entire night getting the hang of teleporting. Sometime around 2:00 AM he had stopped crashing into things and at 8:00 AM he was amazed to find that he didn't even feel tired.
When Sam walked into the kitchen, Dean had a pile of pancakes waiting for him. "Sorry for ditching you last night" Sam said.
"No big. I was busy with the homework you gave me anyway."
"And how's it going?" Sam asked.
"Pretty well. I even got you a present."
"A present?" Sam asked, confused.
"Yeah, see I was making breakfast and I realized we didn't really have any fruit in the place, which I know makes you grumpy. So, I was going to drive over to the store to get some, but then I thought, why not just jump myself there instead, and then I thought, if I'm going to do the whole x-men thing anyways, I might as well go somewhere better than the local two-aisle grocery."
"What are you getting at Dean?"
"I got you this" Dean said, shoving a full paper grocery bag into his arms.
Sam rooted around in the bag pulling out a pineapple, papaya, and even a few fruits he didn't recognize. "Where on earth did you get all this?" he asked.
"At this little farmer's market I found in Hawaii."
"You went to Hawaii?" Sam exclaimed. "When?"
"Like I said, just a few minutes ago" Dean answered.
Sam wasn't sure whether to be touched that Dean put in the effort for him or concerned that a quick trip around the world didn't seem to have taken much effort at all. "Well, since you've clearly mastered that, then I guess we move onto something new today" he said, choosing to play it cool.
"New like what?" Dean asked as he set a plate down in front of Sam.
"I have to go out and get something today" Sam answered, "I'll tell you after that."
"Alright then, if you insist on being secretive."
Sam took a bite of fresh papaya and didn't say anything. He knew that Dean wasn't going to like what came next.
When Sam got back from his errand, he found Dean sitting with his laptop watching Monty Python and determinedly ignoring Tessa who was lurking in the background making snarky comments. Dean looked up as he entered. "Sammy, good, you're here. Maybe now she can annoy you for a few minutes instead of me."
"I don't think it works that way" Sam said.
"It certainly doesn't" Tessa confirmed. "This is your responsibility, Dean."
Dean sighed heavily and slammed down the top of his laptop. "And what is it that you want me to do exactly?"
"Behave with some dignity to begin with."
Dean sent her a quick glare but then seemed to decide that ignoring her would be the best option. "What have you got in the bag, Sam?" he asked.
Sam pulled his purchase out of the bag like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat and held the clear plastic cage up for Dean to see.
"What is it?" Dean asked.
"It's a guinea pig" Sam told him.
Dean sighed again. "Look Sam, if you really wanted a pet, I wish you could have at least talked to me about it first."
"It's not for me" Sam explained. "It's for you, for your training."
"Training?" Tessa inquired from where she was still lurking in the background.
"Yes, training" Sam said grumpily. "Since you don't seem particularly inclined to help us with anything useful, we're having to figure it out ourselves."
"How am I supposed to train him?" Tessa asked indignantly. "He's supposed to be my boss. That would be like asking a secretary to train the CEO in how to run his company."
"Hah! So, you admit you're my secretary" Dean said latching onto Tessa's unfortunately chosen simile.
"Besides" Tessa continued, deciding to ignore the jab. "I figured if you two morons keep putting yourselves in life and death situations as you always seem to do, that he'll get the hang of things sooner or later."
"None of this explains why you got me a guinea pig" Dean said, trying to cut back to the point.
"You're going to kill it" Sam told him.
"What? Why would I do that?" Dean exclaimed and Sam smiled faintly in amusement that his tough-guy hunter older brother still balked at the idea of hurting an animal.
"Because you need to figure out how to do these things. But don't worry, after you kill it, you're going to bring it back."
"Bring it back" Dean echoed.
"You need to figure out how to do that too" Sam said confidently but then turned to look at Tessa. "He can do that, right?"
"He can" she confirmed.
"Okay, but why exactly can I do that?" Dean asked. "I thought I was supposed to be Death not Life."
"That's true" she agreed. "I imagine you wouldn't be able to create a new life or anything like that. You're not God. But you do have complete mastery over death and that includes reversing it."
"But it's . . . so small" Dean protested, gazing at the guinea pig. "Can't I just practice my weird death powers on the next demon we run across or something?"
"Are you going to resurrect the demon again after?" Sam challenged him, "because bringing things back to life sounds like a skill worth practicing."
"Fine" Dean huffed and Sam watched him try to gather his macho persona as he scooped the guinea pig out of it's cage and held it in front of him in both hands. "What is it exactly that I'm supposed to do now?"
"Whatever you want" Tessa answered. "There are a million ways to kill something. Choose whichever one you want."
"And which on is, you know, the quickest?" Dean asked.
Tessa stepped forward and rested a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Can you feel it's life?" she asked. "It's in the palm of your hand, literally and figuratively."
"I can feel it" Dean confirmed, and Sam felt a flash of unease as he wondered if Dean could sense his life the same way.
"Then all you have to do is extinguish it" Tessa said.
Dean nodded brusquely and blinked and in that millisecond as his eyes closed and opened, the guinea pig died. Dean stared at the dead thing sitting in his hands. "Now what?" he asked.
"Now bring it back" Sam prodded him.
Dean nodded nervously and closed his eyes for longer this time, concentrating hard. Reversing death seemed to take him more effort than causing it but it was still only the work of a moment and the guinea pig stirred in his hands. "Well then" said Dean, "that just happened."
