Disclaimer All recognizable characters/settings belong to their creators. The stories listed here are transformative works, from which I've made/am making no financial profit.

Warnings Language; references/allusions to torture and non-con.

16. The Second Gift

Hudak has to sit down and rest her head in her hands for a minute after she looks at the screen. When she focuses on the image again, her mouth drops open as Bobby pours a couple of fingers of whiskey into the glass from the bathroom.

She knocks it back in one, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. "They never found her body after the Bender place burned," she murmurs faintly. "Jesus. And no one seemed to know she even existed… I never said anything. I didn't want to make things worse than they already were, especially after that Fed turned up."

Sam pauses in his pacing behind her, his anxiety suddenly finding an outlet in a burst of acid anger. "You should have told us they never found her. We went back to Hibbing to help you out with your wendigo problem, Kathleen. Didn't it occur to you she could have popped up when we were in the woods? I think—"

"Cut it out, Sam," Bobby interjects sharply, and when Sam spins around to face the old man, Bobby's gaze flicks away like he's guilty before he goes on. "She told me they never found the body after the fire. I never told you or Dean." He shakes his head. "I just wanted to get your brother home. And it didn't seem likely a kid her age could survive out there after everything that went down."

And it's true, Sam realizes, albeit reluctantly, and this is wasting time when they have a solution. He turns his attention back to Kathleen, stabs a finger at the laptop. "Now we have this we can find her. Can you put out some kind of all-points-bulletin, whatever it's called, get the photograph circulating?"

Hudak rubs at her jaw. "Not using this," she says after a minute, and she raises a hand as Sam starts to protest. "We obtained it illegally. Coop's going through channels now, but…"

"But what?" Bobby pushes.

Hudak frowns, bites her lip as she studies the face staring back at them. "It's weird," she mutters. "Her eyes… serial killer eyes. They all have dead eyes. Like a shark. But there's something about her. She looks familiar. I mean, outside of her being Missy Bender."

Hudak's statement is slow and thoughtful, too slow and thoughtful for Sam. "Look, we really can't wait around for this," he snaps. "We have the picture, there's no reason why Bobby and I can't get out there and look… I can email it to my phone."

Just as Sam utters the word, his phone trills, and he curses under his breath as he pulls out the device again. "Jesus. Number withheld, like before. This is getting fucking old."

"S'mmy. S'me. Please."

Dean puts all of his desperation in there because he's running out of battery power, and running out of time. And when the call cuts out, he tamps down his despair, taps out the number again, diligently, laboriously.

Sam's just about to flip the phone closed again when he gets it, a creepy frisson of unease, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention feeling he gets before Castiel beams in.

He turns, almost expects to see the angel standing right up in his no-fly zone. But no one is there, and he furrows his brow, ponders on the oddness of it, wincing at the crackle in his ear and the breathy voice right there underneath it, unhappy, pleading, panicked. And he feels his knees give up the fight and buckle him onto the bed behind him, feels his guts twist, and suddenly he's drenched in a cold sweat, because it's Dean.

He croaks out his brother's name, sees Hudak and Bobby look up and around so sharply they'll be nursing whiplash injuries for sure.

"Dean… Jesus. Dean, where are you? Can you tell me?"

S'm… s'bout time.

It's weak, labored, at once the most beautiful sound Sam ever heard, and the worst. He swallows down his panic, the words of reassurance that want to tumble out of him. "Dean," he says tersely. "Do you know where you are? Can you get to the hexbag?" He can see Bobby motioning frantically for the phone number, shakes his head, mouths withheld at him.

Elevator… come soon, S'm… wreckers…

"Dean," Sam hollers. "You need to get the hexbag and throw it as far as you can. Dean… Dean? Dean? Fuck."

The line is dead, and now Hudak is up and in Sam's face, voice high and urgent.

"What did he say? Sam? Does he know where he is?"

Sam shakes his head, palms his eyes. "Just something about an elevator. And wreckers. He sounded out of it, like he was hurting."

"Wreckers?" Hudak is knitting her eyebrows, eyes darting furiously from his face to the phone "Elevator… so not a house, not anything low-level."

"I though it was you," Sam gasps. "Before, I think he tried to call before, just like you did. I thought it was you because the number was withheld."

Hudak turns away briefly, shields her cheeks with her palms, paces furiously, and, "Wait," she says. "Wait a minute." And then she's throwing herself down in front of Bobby's laptop, tapping furiously. "We use line blocks on our cells," she races out. "Cops, I mean… unofficially, but we use them." She reaches out, twists Sam's computer around to face her. "I know her," she says, as she squints at the details. "I'm sure I do… Melissa. Christ, it's her. It's her."

Sam shoots to his feet, crosses to look over Hudak's shoulder, can barely rasp out the words. "Who is it? Where will she have him?"

"Mel, it's Mel." Hudak glances up. "Look at her. Her eyes… shark eyes. It's the hooker, Sam. It's the hooker. Mel, Melissa, Missy. She's been playing us all along."

Sam feels the push of a chair at the back of his knees, sinks down gratefully into it, nods up at Bobby. "She recognized me," he whispers raggedly. "Something about the way she looked at me. I felt like I knew her, but I just couldn't put my finger on it… and she asked me about my partner."

"She asked me too, after you left," Hudak replies.

"I shouted the name of the motel back at you when I was walking to the car," he chokes out. "I told her exactly where he was."

"Can we find her?" Bobby grates out from behind them. "Do you have an address for her?"

"No, but what Dean said, about wreckers. I dropped her home one morning, other side of town. It's all condemned… warehouses, office blocks. It's slated for demolition. I think she might be squatting there." Hudak stops what she's doing, barks out a hollow laugh, turns and looks right at Sam. "My cellphone was stolen," she says, calm now. "Right after Coop and I first scoped the alleyway and questioned the hookers about Kevin Garner. She said she didn't take it and I believed her. I don't know why. She seemed so young, I guess I just didn't want to. Jesus. But now this." She looks back at the screen as the page reloads. "I think she took it, and I think Dean's gotten hold of it somehow, and if he has then—"

"You can get a bead on it," Bobby cuts in, and Sam can see his hands gripping her shoulders now, tight, white-knuckled.

"Yep… the beauty of web-based tracking," she murmurs, as the page loads fully. "Yahtzee," she snaps out, and stabs a finger at the map on the screen. "It's right where I dropped her. He's within a hundred yards of here. And we know it must be a building with an elevator."

Sam's already out the door.

She divebombs Dean from above just as his hand slips away from his face, a screaming whirlwind of rage, arms and legs windmilling and hitting him all at once like she's suspended in mid air.

Dean spits blood and cackles feebly at the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-ness of it all, while she lays into him and howls, barely intelligible. Her knife is flashing bright in the light, opening him up savagely, and he creeps his arm across his midriff, feels blood pumping again, clutches himself protectively, while his leg lights up into sparking fire as if she's spot-welding the broken bone back together. Her feet trample him down, the force of her attack pushing his body further away from his corner until he's hanging from his wrist, and he gets a sudden mental image of the plastic garroting through the bones and tendons there until he flops down all of the way, leaving his hand still tethered while its stump sprays the walls, and God help him if the idea of bleeding out doesn't seem like the best thing in the world right now.

He feels her hands on him, furiously rummaging, feels his fingers holding onto nothing now, blinks dazedly up at her as she stares down at the phone in her hand, and he can see her shaking with anger. She hurls it at him and it slams into the side of his skull so he sees stars, and then she's exploding again, hitting out at the air, screeching, her hair flying everywhere, until she stops, and stares ahead of her for a few minutes of silence.

And then she turns and stares right at Dean. "Did Al give you that phone?" she asks softly, strangely calm now. "He shouldn't have done that."

"No," Dean whispers faintly. "Took it… from him… didn't know…"

His vision is graying out, and he can just barely see her hitch herself up, disappear through the wedged-open doors. And he lies in his own blood, feels it bubble on his lips as he pants out breaths, dying breaths, and he wonders if that's what they mean by death rattle, because he can feel his breathing slowing down, feel his blood cooling on the floor underneath him, feel the pain fading, feel peace descending. He hugs it to him, the quiet and tranquility ahead of the cussin' weather, and the rack, and the depravity. For a second, he wonders how long it'll take Castiel to find him this time, wonders if his friend even meant what he said.

"Don't leave me there," he murmurs into the silence. "Cas. Don't."

Missy has fond memories of Big Al. She remembers how he piled in, fists flying, when her quick thirty-five buck trick turned into a gangbang against the north wall of the tower block they call home, remembers how he laid into those sons of bitches like the nameless whore he was defending meant something to him. When they were variously scattered like bowling pins, groaning and spitting teeth, he'd picked her up and carried her to the top of the tower, patched her up, fed her soup, came back the next day with a brand new copy of J-14 for her, like she was a real teenage girl, He'd told her she could stay when she got better, and helped her truck her stuff over from her squat.

She got used to his presence, his bustling, his fussing, his damned cat, his disapproval at her line of work and her hobby. He didn't interfere, helped her clear up, helped her snare all those pretty boys she thought were the one, and helped her tote buckets of water to the elevator to swill out the mess when it turned out they weren't. He drove her over to the Econolodge while her heart sang because she'd finally found him, told her to stay in the truck all safe and sound when they came across the big black car, deserted in the road, lights blazing. And when she knelt down next to him as he lay there all broken and bloody and so darn purty, and reverently held his amulet in her fingers, Al smiled along with her because she'd found her heart's desire, and all he ever wanted was for his Miss Melissa to be happy.

She knows Al's lightbulbs aren't screwed in all the way, so sometimes they flicker and sometimes they don't come on at all. When that happens, his puzzled dumb hick expression and shambling bulk remind her of Lee before Lee got all crazyhaha and thought to take Gabriel away from her when he was hers.

Al is looking up at her right now from the couch with that smiley, dopey look on his face as he crunches Doritos, and his cat sits on his lap and purrs up at her.

No one's takin' my brother away from me again, she thinks.

"Hey, Al," she says, all sing-song and friendly. "Let's go up top and look at the stars."

It screams post-Apocalyptic wasteland, deserted, abandoned shells with broken windows and peeling condemned notices, burnt-out cars, trash, and abandoned shopping carts, the odd half-starved cat skulking in the shadows.

Hudak hands Sam a flashlight, leans close. "We'd cover more ground if we split up, but a lot of these buildings aren't safe. I think we should stick together just in case one of us falls through the floor."

Sam points. "He said elevator – maybe we should do the tallest buildings first?"

She nods, and they walk briskly, Bobby jogging up behind with his own Maglite and a blanket.

"In case we find him," he says at Sam's look. "Police reports said they were all…" he stops, starts again. "They were, uh…"

"Stripped," Sam says, and his voice trips over his tongue on its way out of his mouth, comes out strangled and raw. "The bodies were all stripped."

The old man stares back at him for a second. "Try calling the elevators," he says. "Some of the lights are on, so those buildings must still have power. If she's keeping him in an elevator, it won't be a working one. We might be able to deprioritize a couple of these wrecks if all the elevators show up empty and clean."

They trudge through debris, weave around cranes and bulldozers, and Sam thinks of his brother walking up close behind him, sniggering and maybe saying in that low scratchy voice that they should have a backhoe race now they're here.

"Do you think Castiel would come if we called him?" Hudak says suddenly. "I bet he could search these buildings a lot faster than us."

And fuck it, Sam never even thought of calling for his brother's angel. He opens his mouth to holler out his name into the night, wonders at the back of his mind if it will go ignored because he isn't the one who matters to Castiel, and movement distracts him. He stumbles as he narrowly avoids stepping on a fat, greasy looking rat as it skitters out underfoot and then, faint on the wind he can hear something.

He looks up, and, "Jesus!" he cries out before he can help himself, because there on the crest of the block to their left he can see a figure, up on the ramparts, arms flung out wide for balance so he looks like Philippe Petit walking his wire.

Sam starts to run, starts to shout, because even at this distance he can see the figure is tall, Dean tall. He can hear Hudak echo his hoarse cry as the man spins, starts waving his arms, and overbalances. He hangs in the air for an instant, as if he's floating weightless, before he plummets. In the next second they hear the slam-smack of the impact, and it's like a bomb going off.

Sam doesn't stop running even though he knows what to expect, he's seen pictures of jumpers, exploding water balloon filled with blood. And suddenly there the guy is, beside a battered looking truck, reasonably intact but spread out and spongey, no structure or volume to him now because he's smashed to smithereens inside his bag of skin. He's already leaking blood from every orifice, and it looks black in the dark, like he was dropped into a lake of oil. Sam knows that if he picked him up and shook him he'd hear all those loose broken pieces crunching around inside like he was shaking a cereal box.

Hudak and Bobby skid to a halt behind Sam, and he hears one of them, maybe both of them, start retching. And then Bobby is next to him, shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, face glistening with sweat and eyes staring wildly.

"It's not him," the old man mutters. "Christ. It's not him. This can't be a coincidence. Can it?"

"It isn't," Hudak chokes out from behind her hand as she ranges up behind them. "It's Jabba the Hutt… it's the guy she described to me. I'm sure of it."

Sam looks from the sack of meat lying on the ground at his feet up, up to the top. "Do you think she pushed him?" he says quietly. "He sounded like he was shouting at someone. And he was waving."

Bobby is crossing over to the elevator bank, pressing buttons, screwing his nose up at the stench of urine. "Two, neither works," he grates out. "How many floors?"

Hudak steps back, counts up. "Fifteen," she says. "We're probably looking at two flights of stairs for every floor. Okay. We do this one first." She glances down at the body, lazily oozing where it landed, then looks at over at Sam. "There's no way she could have thrown this guy off there, she's too small. She must have forced him up there somehow. Which means she might be armed, so stay frosty." She shines her flashlight into the gloom. "Stairwell's over there.

Sam feels numb as they climb stairs, two flights between each floor just like Hudak said, and peer out cautiously into each elevator lobby before he and Bobby worm their fingers in between each set of doors and force them apart, grunting out exertion and despair as each comes up empty.

Seventh floor, same drill, and the smell that emanates as he pries the elevator open has Sam reeling and gagging. It's the smell of death, and he lurches away a few feet, leans over. He can hear Hudak spluttering, and then Bobby heaves him back upright with a hand under his arm, grips his chin between thumb and palm.

"Sam. Listen to me. It's a dog." Bobby speaks clear and firm. "It's a dog. You got that? Must've crawled in there to sleep and gotten trapped when they shut off the power."

"It's a dog?" Sam echoes, barely a croak.

The old man nods vigorously. "It's a dog. Come on… we're halfway there. In fifteen minutes, you'll have your brother back, boy."

Sam grins weakly. "You promise?" he breathes, but Bobby doesn't answer.

Hudak's loud whisper echoes up from behind him in the stairwell as they climb up to eight. "The elevators," she says. "They must be soundproof. I'm thinking this is where she killed them… that old truck out front looks abandoned but maybe it's his… Jabba's. They would have needed transport for the bodies. There should be – forensic evidence. If I'm right."

"And she'd have had plenty of cover too, with the racket from the demolition squad," Bobby offers. "You think any of the wrecking crew might have—"

Sam sees it, the flash of movement two flights up, and the stairwell door slams. His long legs take him up the rest of the way three steps at a time, and he ignores Hudak's warning cry as he crashes out through the door, looks wildly around him. He sees a shadow down at floor level for a brief second before it disappears as he sprints up to the elevator doors, and then he thanks Christ his own forward motion takes him beyond them as he sees the flash of the discharge, low down, and hears the shot ping harmlessly past him. He can see Hudak poking her head around the doorjamb, gestures at her, and she trots up, Bobby in her wake.

Sam waves them down until they're squatting opposite him. "She got in the elevator," he whispers. "She was down real low, looked like she had to slide in there. I think it must be stuck between floors."

"Did you manage to get a look inside there?" Bobby hisses.

Sam shakes his head, fists and unfists his hand. "She was firing by then."

"So we don't know if he's in there with her?" Bobby says and bites his lip. "Maybe I should search the offices just in case she moved him, she might have—"

He glances at Hudak as she nudges him. "Hang on…" She fishes out her phone, taps in numbers, and down at feet level they hear it, and Sam blinks at her.

"The X-Files theme?"

"I'm a fan," she says defensively. "So what?" She feeds her cell back into her pocket. "Assuming he still has the phone, he must be in there with her," she says carefully. "And she has a gun. And it looks like she just forced that guy to jump off this building."

Bobby pulls off his cap, wipes his brow. "So she's insane, armed, and desperate. Just what you need in a hormonal teenager."

The voice floats up, lilting, almost playful. "I can hear everything you're saying up there, Mister."

"Mouthy, too," Bobby snaps.

Sam twists around, shines his flashlight in, catches a glimpse of a white face looking up at him, dead doll eyes. He can't see much more before she lets a shot off. He ducks back and it zips past his nose, so close he can feel its heat before it buries itself harmlessly in the wall. "Is my brother alive?" he barks down into the gloom, and after a few seconds her voice drifts up again.

"Hey Sammy. That is you up there, ain't it? Lordy, Gabe's been hollerin' for you and that other guy, wonderin' why you don't come."

Sam swallows. "Is he alive?"

"Well, I don't know. Let's see here…"

She's silent for another few seconds, then, "Sorry Sammy, but it ain't lookin' too good… I just kicked him real hard, and not a whisper. Lot of blood down here too. Fact he looks real purty, all covered in his own blood. I might just want to think about takin' me a souvenir while I'm here, seein' as it might be the—"

"Fuck," Sam hears himself cry out. "No!" And in the next second something is flashing past his eyes, smashing against the wall, and he can hear Hudak yelling at him to move, now. He flings himself flat, covers his head as shots sound and glass breaks, and then it's quiet and he dares to look over at the wall where the gun fell, because he can make the gun float to you there, psychic boy. When he lifts his eyes to meet Bobby's, the old man's gaze is stunned.

Sam rights himself slowly, shuffles back up against the wall again, shoots another glance over to his right.

"Did you do that?" Hudak says, and her eyes are huge.

There's a smudge of dirt on her cheek where she hit the floor, and Sam motions at his own face. "You got some dirt there," he says stupidly, and he nods. "And yes, I think I did do that."

Bobby cranes his neck around into the elevator, doesn't risk going any further, looks at Sam again. "You said you can move things," he says slowly, like the reality is only just dawning on him. "Jesus. Can you move the elevator up? So it's level with this floor?"

Sam leans his head back against the wall, closes his eyes, breathes long and slow, cleansing breaths. "I think I can manage that," he murmurs. He reaches into his pocket for his flask, unscrews the cap deliberately, drinks deep before replacing the lid and putting the small container away. He glances across at Bobby. "Dutch courage," he lies, and then he leans his head back again, waits for the rush, the tingle, the cresting pleasure, all underpinned by something infinitely darker and more powerful. He supposes idly that Castiel might call it wrath.

He pushes up then, moves to stand in front of the doors and he barely has to reach out his hand before they hear the grind of gears and the squeal of long-disused cables, and the doors slide open simultaneously.

Come out, come out wherever you are, Sam thinks, and after a few seconds she steps out of the gloom, stiff, like a mechanical doll, her movements jerky as he push-pulls her. She's making a strangled whining sound, can't move her jaws to speak because Sam wired them shut with his own willpower.

"I've come to get my brother," he says distantly. "Why don't you wait… over there?"

He glances over at the wall, and almost before his eyes shift there, she's slamming into it, sliding down to sit in a slumped heap, immobilized her eyes wide, confused, terrified. "Sit," Sam orders coldly. "Stay." He glances over at Hudak. "She won't move from there until I let her go."

Bobby is pushing past him, making far-off sounds of panic and worry, saying his brother's name, sobbing it out, and Hudak is moving to crouch down beside the girl, and reading her the Miranda. And Sam comes back down to earth, spins, and then he's in there, down on his knees.

He barely recognizes his brother, because Dean is a pitiful heap of butchered flesh, his tee shredded, and blood soaking into his jeans. Bobby is sawing furiously away at his wrist, tied to the elevator grab bar, and Sam can hear Hudak right behind him telling him to watch the leg, it's splinted. And Christ, even the smell is the same as before, after New Harmony, when the heat turned the car into a furnace on wheels and the miasma of rotting meat assaulted his nostrils as he and Bobby drove Dean home to bury him.

Hudak has her fingers against Dean's neck, turns his head around and lays her cheek over Dean's parted, bloody lips, but she's speaking up at Sam. "Can you lift him? It's too small to work in here, and I don't think we should drag him."

Sam's knees slip and slide in puddles of blood, same as before, and he stares down at his brother's half-lidded eyes same as before as he threads his arms under Dean's shoulders and knees, and pushes up. Dean's head lolls lifelessly against his chest same as before as he staggers outside into the lobby and on over to a window, as far away from the girl as possible, though he can feel her eyes following him, boring into his back as he lays his cargo down.

Bobby and Hudak are close behind, flashlights blazing, and Sam finds he can't move as Bobby busies himself up at his Dean's head, starts saying his name again, slapping his cheek, listening for breath sounds. "I'm not getting anything," he says tightly. "Dean. Come on." The old man laces his fingers together on Dean's chest, starts pumping with the heels of his hands. "He's still warm," he mutters, but his eyes are flicking up to Hudak, across to Sam and back to Hudak again, and his jaw is set tight.

Hudak is rooting out her phone and it's all happening in slow motion as Sam looks down at his brother's ragdoll body, empty now, white and bloodless, sightless eyes, same as before, his shoulder flayed raw. He runs his fingertip over the trail of cigarette burns that starts at Dean's belly and meanders up to his chest, where she signed her name in his hide, and he wonders if he'll be able to hear Dean screaming in Hell the next time he dreams. And a tiny crack is opening inside Sam, getting bigger, wider, dust spilling down into it, a sinkhole that gets deeper, turns into a chasm, a grand canyon that swallows up trees, houses, animals, people that tumble into the void, screaming as they fall, because this abyss goes straight down to the Pit and something is billowing up out of it, something noxious, toxic, poisonous gas that waits for the spark that will set it off.

He stands, walks a few steps towards the girl and she stares up at him, doesn't look away. He cocks his head, can hear Hudak coming up behind him, can feel her hand press lightly against the small of his back.

"Sam," she says softly. "We need to get out of here. I need to call this in, think up some cover story. She's in custody now, we have – evidence. She's going to the pen and she'll never get out."

Sam doesn't acknowledge her. "You stubbed out your cigarettes on my brother," he tells the girl, and he doesn't even recognize his own voice, it's guttural, ice cold.

She smiles up at him. "Gabe always looked purty when he was hurtin'," she sneers. "And I didn't have an ashtray."

Hudak freezes beside Sam, and he hears her gasp, feels her hand fist a handful of his jacket. He slants his eyes down at her.

"Fuck due process," she breathes.

It's easy, easier than she deserves, as Sam slides her across the floor and back into the elevator without moving a muscle. She reaches out to grab at the doors, starts babbling frantically, starts pleading for mercy, and Sam slams the doors shut, snaps the wires. There is a faint scream as the elevator freefalls to the bottom, and the crash resounds back up the shaft, buffets the doors with its force.

Sam stares ahead for a second before turning around, and Bobby is sitting back on his heels, gazing back at him, his eyes bleak, tears streaking his cheeks. "Sam," he says. "I'm sorry, boy. I'm so sorry."

Sam rolls his shoulders, breathes out deep, counts down from ten. He walks over to his brother's body, rolls him onto his side, forces his fingers down into the bloodsoaked fabric of his jeans. In the same instant he flings the hexbag as hard as he can, the angel is there, throwing himself down on to his knees beside them, expression appalled.

"Fix him," Sam says, and he says it soft, polite, but he makes it damn clear that it's an order. "I don't care about your prime directive. Fix him."

Castiel puts a hand out, and Sam can see that it's shaking as he lays it gently on the raw flesh where the mark was. "How long?" he says softly. "If his soul has descended… you must understand that if he is down there it isn't as simple as—"

"Not long," Sam grinds out. "He's still warm."

"Wait a minute, Sam," Bobby cuts in. "If his soul is in the Pit, couldn't he come back empty? What if—"

"I'll take what I get," Sam snaps, and he stares Castiel in the eyes. "Fix him. Please." His voice breaks then. "You fought for him when I couldn't, in places where I couldn't go. I know you love him, it's right there in your eyes. Don't leave him there while you wait for your orders. Please. Fix him. And make his skin like new."

After a long moment Castiel nods slowly. "I will. I will, Sam." He glances over at Bobby and Hudak. "Close your eyes, all of you," he says, firmly, and he places his hand over the mark again, flicks his gaze back up to Sam's face. His eyes are already blazing, but then they soften almost imperceptibly and he tilts his head slightly. "Put your hand on Dean's heart, Sam," he says suddenly. "But don't look at me, no matter how much you want to."

Sam reaches out, lays his hand on skin slick with blood, blinks his eyes hard closed.

And it's like electricity coursing up his arm, and it's soundless but not, because there is noise but it's inside Sam's head, roaring winds, a heated blast of air, and the light sears red and gold through his closed eyelids so he has to press his face into his shoulder. And then there is bliss, joy, ecstasy, comfort, rapture and awe, the grace of God, and underneath it all is something more personal, and maybe it's Castiel, because it's loyalty, it's devotion, it's love.

It's so beautiful, so pure, that Sam thinks he might even be weeping with it, and he knows that it's the angel's second gift to him, because life is the first gift and love is the second. And in that instant, he remembers that understanding is the third, and his understanding is the knowledge that he's feeling this by default. The realization twists his heart, because some small part of him knows it may never touch him again. And then, abruptly, it ends, and he feels emptiness, loss, grief. He opens his eyes, looks down.

Dean is staring up at him, white-faced and bleary eyed, but there's no recognition there, only wariness, suspicion.

"Dean," Sam chokes out.

And his brother's eyes flare and he shrinks back against Castiel, starts tumbling out the words in rapid-fire, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…"