A/N: Well, lots of different reactions to that finale. S12 should be very interesting, and I'm actually glad it didn't end on too terrible a cliffhanger, compared to previous seasons. ;) Anyway, this is the chapter that inspired that lovely piece of cover art by 29Pieces. If you want to see the full image, visit her on deviantart or this story on Ao3, which let me put the image with the text.
Chapter 5: Livin' On a Prayer
Castiel gasped as the mouth latched onto his throat tore itself away for the second time. Both sides of Castiel's neck were tattered and oozing blood, refusing to heal. His grace was barely able to stem the effects of exsanguination, and he was fairly certain he'd lost consciousness once already due to blood loss. He could feel his vessel's heart stuttering, unable to pump the proper volume throughout its arteries. His grace, in return, flickered and sputtered with the effort of healing. But in addition to draining his blood, the vampire had somehow found a way to siphon off Castiel's grace as well.
The creature took a step back from the stone coffin, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His body shuddered. "I need to pace myself," he intoned, and Castiel couldn't tell whether the vampire was speaking to him or not. It didn't seem to matter.
"An angel's power would normally burn out one such as myself," his voice continued to rumble.
Castiel's eyelids fluttered against a reeling ceiling and roaring shadows that seemed to grow razor sharp claws in his peripheral vision. He could barely tell up from down anymore, a sensation that wasn't quite foreign to him when he was flying. But even though the demon blood was gone from his system, his wings had become completely numb. There wasn't even strength in his limbs to tug against his bonds.
"Cas?" Dean's voice filtered through the haze of pain and confusion. "I don't know what's happened to you, but…Sam and I are on it. We're gonna find you, I swear."
Castiel foggily wondered how the brothers hoped to locate him. He didn't even know where he was. But, then again, Sam and Dean were the Winchesters, and they were good at making the impossible happen.
"We know you didn't just take off. I'm…I'm sorry I thought that. I shoulda known better."
Not for the first time, Castiel wished prayers could run two ways. He wanted to call out, to reach back through the tenuous connection and tell Dean he was here. As if making contact would somehow help Sam and Dean find him sooner.
"So wherever you are, just stay strong, okay?"
Castiel felt consciousness slipping once more, and he drifted away to the soothing sound of Dean's voice telling him promises only a Winchester could keep.
He jolted awake sometime later as piercing pain ripped through his shoulder where the vampire sank its fangs in again. Castiel couldn't stop from crying out under the deluge of pain that reverberated soul-deep, and for a moment he almost lost himself in the mind-breaking insanity of it.
But then Sam's voice perforated the torment like a lancing shard of radiant sunlight, loud and domineering in his earnestness. "Cas, we know Paul was working with that vamp, that he tricked us." Even in prayer, there was a hitch in his voice. "We know his plan is to feed off stronger supernaturals…so you just gotta hang in there. We're an hour away. Just hang in there, man."
Time didn't really hold much meaning for Castiel anymore. He had no idea how long he'd been strapped to this stone slab, fed on like chattel. It almost seemed like eternity. He wasn't even sure he was hearing a current, live prayer, or if his memory had dredged it up from the dark recesses when he'd been unconscious. Still, he tried to muster the strength to hold on, just as Sam had asked.
But the vampire suddenly sucked sharply, sending a twinge like a lightning bolt straight down to Castiel's core, and darkness blanketed everything yet again.
A gruff, irritated tone prodded him back to awareness. "I ain't really the praying type, so I'll just think of this as a one-way telegram using ESP."
Castiel had no idea what that was.
"So you listen good, Feathers. Sam and Dean are on their way, and you better not let them down by going and dying on them."
Was that what this was? Dying? It was rather…slow. And confining. Much like riding in a car. Castiel would have liked to be in the Impala at that moment. Its backseat was comfortable, and he wouldn't mind lying down there…
Wait, he was an angel; he shouldn't want to lie down and sleep. Castiel tried to rouse himself from the numbing blackness, only to find pain waiting for him on the brink of consciousness. His neck throbbed mercilessly and his body shivered from the cold. Despite his best efforts, Castiel felt himself sinking into oblivion once more as the voices he'd been hearing began to blur together.
"We're almost there, Cas."
"We're coming."
"Just hang on."
The vampire returned and untied Castiel's wrist. When his teeth gnashed across tender flesh, drinking away more blood and grace, Castiel clung to those prayers as though they alone had the power to raise him from this Hell.
The Impala roared down the highway, pushing the red line. Dean's knuckles were white around the steering wheel, and Sam wished he had something he could clutch that tightly. All he could do was sit in the passenger seat, flexing his fingers in and out of a fist as the landscape flew by. They were close, and yet still too far.
Sam's thoughts kept returning to Paul and what they were going to do with him. Because if they found Cas in bad shape…Sam couldn't deny that he'd want to exact vengeance on the hunter. But he had to abide by the same thing he'd told Dean.
Although, a dark voice whispered, Sam was already part monster himself, because of the demon blood. It wasn't the same as Dean, if Sam went dark side. He'd done it before. He was tainted anyway, an abomination…
Sam gave himself a rough mental shake. No. Those were lies and he wasn't going to buy into them anymore. He remembered what Cas had said once about Sam's soul, how it was good. Cas, an angel, believed in Sam in a way the young Winchester had never thought possible. It was practically earth shattering. So he wasn't going to dishonor Cas by sullying his soul now.
He'd been praying to Cas off and on, hoping it would help, but this next one he wasn't sure if it was to the angel or maybe God. "Just be okay."
Because if Cas wasn't, Sam didn't know if he'd be able to keep Dean—or himself—from breaking.
Sam cleared his throat. "I've been thinking…if this vamp absorbed a demon's powers, what if it'll be harder to kill?" He didn't say what if it'd absorbed an angel's strength as well.
Dean shifted his grip on the wheel, wringing it as though envisioning someone's neck. "Then maybe it can die like one too," he finally said. "We'll go in armed to the teeth."
Both of them winced at the accidental pun, and they lapsed into silence once more. Only a couple of miles left.
By the time they pulled into the cemetery, Bobby had texted a map of the place with a few locations circled in red. Crypts a vampire might have broken into and hidden. There were four, and Sam had the urge to split up, cover ground faster. But that wouldn't be the smart play, and if they were gonna get Cas out of this, he and Dean needed to go in together.
They loaded up with the demon-killing knife, an angel blade, flasks of holy water, and machetes, just in case the traditional vampire disposal method would still work. The cemetery looked so different during the day; the Winchesters normally did their hunting for salt and burns at night, and Sam just hoped no one coming to put flowers on a grave would spot them.
But the crypts were in an older section of the burial grounds that apparently saw little visitation, given the weeds climbing up elaborate tombstones and figure statues. The first crypt they checked was sealed, but the second had a torn spider web fluttering near the door. Sam moved closer and found it slightly ajar. Steeling his jaw, he nodded to Dean, and together they pried the stone slab open further before slipping inside.
Stairs descended a few feet into a depression partly underground. The tomb was lit with flickering candlelight, and Sam's worst fear was confirmed as he found Cas lying on a stone slab. The hunter took in the details in an instant: a vampire Sam had never seen before, and assumed was the 'Lamont' Paul had mentioned, was holding Cas's wrist up to his mouth. Bright crimson blood was smeared across his lips and staining Cas's coat sleeve. An altar of some kind had been set up against the back wall, and the air was heavy with incense and a deathly chill.
The vampire jerked his head up with a snarl at the Winchesters' intrusion. Sam and Dean launched forward, but Lamont merely waved an arm, and an invisible force slammed into Sam's chest, throwing him backward. He hit the wall and dropped to the floor, as did Dean not too far away. Shaking the daze off, Sam distantly wondered whether the vampire was channeling a demon's or an angel's power with that one. Because it might make his next move worthless.
He drew Ruby's knife and staggered upright, but before he could take another step, that supernatural force punched him again, driving him back against the wall and pinning him there.
Lamont stalked around the end of the stone slab, a macabre grin on his face. He licked his lips clean of blood. "The power…mmm, delicious."
Sam struggled, but couldn't move. Behind the vampire, he saw Cas's arm dangling limply off the side of the coffin, blood dripping from his fingertips onto the floor. The angel wasn't moving.
Sam heard Dean grunt, and the vampire shot a hand toward him next, pinning Dean to the other wall. Lamont then turned back to Sam, leering eyes roving him up and down.
"Hunters," he sneered, voice thickly accented. "Persistent buggers, aren't you?" He took a step closer. "You know, I have been so busy preparing for the Apocalypse, that it has been a long time since I've simply enjoyed a regular meal."
Sam thought he was gonna bust a vein in his forehead, he was fighting the invisible binding power so hard.
"There is a certain…satiation, with drinking power." Lamont cast a glance over his shoulder at Cas before looking back at Sam. "But it leaves an aftertaste. Unlike, fresh, pure, human blood." He extended his hand toward Sam's throat, cupping it gently. Then he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose.
Sam's heart pounded wildly, and his cheeks puffed with exertion that wasn't getting him anywhere. His fingers, wrapped around Ruby's knife, twitched, but couldn't do more.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean manage to work one arm up enough to grab his pistol, which he shakily aimed at the vampire. The loud report in the small space cracked Sam's eardrums, and he squeezed his eyes shut a split second before the bullet tore through Lamont's head and sprayed gore across his face. He knew the gunshot wouldn't kill the vampire, but it did distract Lamont enough that Sam felt the psychic power holding him release.
Sam lunged forward, driving the demon-killing knife into the vampire's chest before Lamont could recover from the gaping head wound. The creature went rigid, and spritzes of orange light flared around the puncture, but not in a complete skeleton as a real demon would have. Sam hovered with bated breath, disappointment and disbelief washing over him as Lamont's face melded back together and he pulled his lips back with a vicious snarl. He flung Sam to the side into the wall again, and then ripped out Ruby's knife. Breathing heavily, Lamont dropped the blade and staggered toward the exit, shock written across his features.
Dean charged forward with an angel blade, but with another wave of his arm, Lamont sent both Winchesters sliding backwards across the floor. The stone coffin stopped their momentum with a light thud, as the force behind the vampire's attack was significantly less that time. Sam and Dean scrabbled to their feet, but the vampire had already burst out into the cemetery. For a split second, adrenaline almost made them give chase, but then with a shared, panicked look, they turned to Cas.
His sleeves and collar were covered in blood from torn wrists and a shredded neck. From the wrist Lamont had just been feeding on, a tiny wisp of bluish-white light floated up like smoke before dissipating.
Sam had to swallow a surge of bile at the sight. "Oh god…"
"Cas?" Dean moved quickly to the angel's head, hands splayed as though to touch, but not knowing where. Sam wanted to reach out and check for a pulse, but there was no place to get a good read. He frantically dug out a handkerchief and began wrapping it around Cas's neck, trying to stem the flow of blood.
Cas's eyelids fluttered, blinking blearily up at him.
"Cas, hey buddy," Dean said, ducking in to also catch the angel's gaze.
A faint smile tugged at Cas's mouth. "You came," he rasped.
"'Course we did. We'll always come for you."
"I…know." Cas's eyelids started drooping. "I…heard you."
His head lolled to the side, sending a jolt of panic through Sam. He moved down to Cas's legs to try finding a pulse in his ankle, only to discover ropes lashed around them. Sam ripped them off, then tugged down a sock and pressed two fingers to cold skin in a desperate bid to find a pulse, and there it was, though weak. How much had that vampire managed to drain? Lamont had healed that gunshot with angelic speed, so what did that mean for Cas?
"We gotta get him out of here," Sam said.
Dean was already pulling out his own handkerchief and tearing it in half with the angel blade. He tied one strip around Cas's left wrist while Sam grabbed the second piece to bind the other. Then Sam grabbed Cas's arms and hauled him up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
Dean led the way out of the crypt, angel blade in one hand and gun in the other, head turning back and forth in search of danger. Lamont seemed to have taken the hint and split, though.
Sam staggered under Cas's dead weight—he suddenly hated that phrase, as it conjured horrific images in his mind. Blood from Cas's wrists dribbled down, making his grip slick, and Sam had to stop and readjust his hold a couple of times. But they made it back to the Impala where he gently laid Cas down in the backseat.
Dean stashed their weapons in the trunk, tossed the first aid kit at Sam, and then hurried to get behind the wheel. Sam climbed into the backseat, lifting Cas's head to rest in his lap. In the light of day, Sam could see how pale Cas was, lips bloodless. His skin was also cold to the touch, even though his hair was damp from sweat. Sam peeled back the edge of the bandana around Cas's neck, and grimaced. The wounds were bad, too shredded to be stitched. It'd be better if Cas could heal them.
But he wasn't healing, at least not yet. Sam wrapped more gauze around the angel's wrists and made sure they were tight. Then he clamped one hand over the side of Cas's neck to keep pressure on those wounds. He figured Cas couldn't afford to lose any more blood. And he didn't know whether the fact that grace wasn't leaking anymore was a good thing or bad thing.
"How is he?" Dean asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
Sam glanced down, then up again to meet his brother's gaze. "I don't know. It…looks bad."
Dean's jaw ticked, and he pressed the gas harder.
Sam swallowed hard as he took in Cas's ashen complexion, pale mouth parted slightly as faint breaths barely wheezed past his lips. Sam didn't know what to do. Should they take Cas to a hospital? What if he eventually healed up? What if he didn't?
"Dean, you remember that old friend of Dad's? The doctor? The one he said always stitched him up before you were old enough to do it."
"Yeah, uh, Dr. Robert, I think."
"Maybe we should call him."
Dean twisted around to look in the backseat, eyes wide with alarm.
Sam's stomach rolled. "I can't stitch any of this, and if Cas is completely drained…"
"Yeah, no, alright." He faced forward again and pulled out his cell phone. "I'll call Bobby, have him contact the good doc."
Sam nodded, gaze once again focusing on Castiel's lax face. He'd been praying so much these past twenty-four hours, and what had Cas said? That he had heard them. So Sam would keep it up, because it was the only thing he could offer at this point. He just hoped it would be enough.
"We got you, Cas. Everything's gonna be okay. Just hang in there. We got you."