Chapter 21 Wearing and Tearing
Warsaw, Missouri
The flutter of wings was loud in the enclosed cabin. Dean kept looking at the notes on the wall when he heard it.
"I got what we need," Castiel said.
"It's about time." Dean turned around, his expression hardening when he saw his brother, standing behind the angel. "What's he doing here?"
Sam recognised the expression on Dean's face. He'd seen it a few times before. Dean was angry, and angry that he was angry. "Don't worry, Dean. Once we save Alfie, I'm out," he said pacifically.
"Oh, once we save Alfie," Dean said sardonically. "Don't hurt yourself, Sam. Cas and I can handle it."
"Not according to Cas," Sam countered.
Dean felt the words as a betrayal. Another one. He looked at the angel. "I told you, we didn't need him."
Listening to them, Castiel felt his patience wearing thin. It was just bickering, as humans did. Emotional, illogical bickering. He turned to the hunter, seeing the emotions that seethed below the surface. They didn't have time to have tantrums. An angel's life was at stake here. "We need everything, Dean."
"And I need both of you," he said, looking at Sam, then turning back to Dean. "As you put it, to stow your crap. Can you do that?"
Dean's mouth tightened slightly as he stared at Cas. It wasn't often the angel got pissed. The last time had been when Raphael had been attempting to re-start the Apocalypse. Going into Crowley's latest hide-out, rescuing an angel who'd been tortured … he thought the angel was probably a little on the stressed side.
His gaze shifted to his brother, meeting Sam's eyes, seeing the faintly challenging expression on his face. So long as things stayed just business, he could handle it, he thought. But if Sam said one motherfucking thing about anything else, he'd be picking his teeth off the floor. He was done with fucking around and trying to resurrect the family he'd lost.
Geneva, Nebraska
Dean watched his brother get into the car without saying a word. Sam had automatically opened the passenger door and Cas had automatically opened the back door. He looked away, his fingers tightening over the wheel, and started the engine. If his brother could do the doesn't-matter-to-me-I'm-cool thing, he could too.
Pulling up next to the building fifteen minutes later, he realised that he could shut down the anger he felt, well enough to work with Sam for the next however many hours, anyway. He didn't need to worry about Sam's competence, at least. He turned off the lights and the engine as the car coasted silently down the narrow alley, stopping at the chain-link fence that marked the building's boundary. They got out, and Castiel walked to the front of the car.
"There are four main points of warding – north, south, east and west. Four Enochian symbols –" He dug into his pocket for a pen and caught Sam's hand, drawing the warding sigil on his palm. "– that you need to destroy before I can enter."
Dean nodded, going to the trunk. He pulled a couple of cans of black spray paint from the box to one side and tossed one to his brother. They were new, full, gloss-black enamel. They'd break the sigils' power. He put his into his coat pocket and closed the trunk, walking back to the hood and looking at Cas.
"Okay, so what? We go in, take care of the Hell-mooks, and you extract the angel?"
"Yes," Cas said, nodding to himself and lifting his gaze to Dean. "After killing so many, I have to save at least this one."
Dean saw pain in the angel's eyes, in his face. He didn't think Cas would ever get over that. He shrugged inwardly, there were things that you couldn't get over, couldn't make right. It was just the way it was.
"Sounds like a plan," Sam said softly.
Dean's gaze shifted to him briefly. "Okay." He pulled out Ruby's knife. "Let's do this."
"Wait. Here," Castiel said to Sam, holding out his angel sword. "This doesn't just work on angels, it kills demon too."
Sam hefted it, feeling the weight and balance, his eyes flicking to his brother to see his expression. Dean's face was hard as he walked past them toward the building.
"Thanks, Cas," Sam said and followed him.
Crowley tightened the screw on the left frontal lobe, Samandriel's cries bouncing off the hard surfaces in the room then cut off abruptly as the screw penetrated deeper.
"Vau may par lar less," the angel said atonally. "Vau may par lar less."
Crowley stared at him thoughtfully. They were on the right section, he thought, just hadn't reached the right page yet.
"What is it?" Viggo whispered, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
"That," Crowley said over his shoulder, "was tablet talk. Protecting the Word of God seems to be hardwired into these dingbats."
They took care of the three demons guarding the outside of the building, using a simple bait and wait process. Most demons were too stupid to think of ambush and misdirection when confronted by a genuine Winchester, their greed to kill them overwhelming what little thought processes they possessed. The angel sword did indeed work as efficiently as Ruby's knife, with a deeper penetration and more balanced feel to it as well, Sam thought, wiping the blade clean of blood.
Inside, the factory was laid out in a simple grid. Wide hallways ran around the perimeter of the building and crossed from one side to the other. Crowley had charged the generators, rather than plugging into the grid, and the lighting was the soft red of emergency lighting. Maybe kinder to demon eyes, who knew, Dean thought with a bare minimum of interest, looking down both empty halls as they came to a junction. He gave Sam a direction and turned left, hearing his brother's footsteps recede behind him.
It was a strange thing that Crowley used these monstrously large places but never brought up enough demons to really fortify them. He wondered if that was a misconception on the demon's part that they wouldn't be found, or if Crowley had little idea of military strategies and just hadn't cottoned onto the fact that it was either easier to defend a smaller place with fewer demons, or bring up half an army if he wanted to use places like this one. Either would have stopped a small, mobile force from getting in and killing off his guards one by one.
He stopped in the shadows of the doorway, slipping soundlessly to one side as he heard the hard click of leather-soled shoes in the long hall ahead of him. The demon walked slowly past him, head turning from side to side. He listened, hearing it turn and move away and came out of the darkness, pulling the spray can from his pocket and shaking it, the rattle loud enough to make him wince. Spraying a black cross over the sigil, the hiss of the compressed air masking any other noise for the moments it took, he looked up and down the hall. No one came and a quick glance at the wall showed the warding broken. He capped the can and slid it back into his pocket, the soft soles of his boots slurring over the floor as he walked on.
He'd found the southern ward. Sam had already broken the northern one. Two left, he thought. Picking up the movement in his peripheral vision, he saw his brother in a corridor parallel to him. Another movement of black against the darkness and he stopped, fading back into a pocket of shadow between the low-wattage overhead lights, watching a demon move along the edge of the wall and silently disappear around the corner. The layout of the place was clear in his head. The corner led to another cross-corridor, one that would take the demon to Sam.
He was moving fast through another parallel corridor when he heard Sam, saw the flickering red-gold light against the wall ahead of him, he rounded the corner and saw the demon he'd tracked jump onto his brother's back, an arm locked around Sam's throat, one knee raised high, braced against Sam's spine. Dean accelerated and grabbed the back of the demon's jacket, hauling him off and thrusting Ruby's knife into his back, the wide blade angled between the ribs to pierce the heart. The demon lit up as he dropped it, yanking the knife clear, and looked at his brother.
"Thanks," Sam said, still panting.
"You're welcome." He turned away, heading back for the western wall. Sam finished the cross on the eastern sigil and followed Dean, long legs striding out to catch up with his brother.
A muffled scream, directionless but rising in volume filled the wide hall as Dean and Sam turned into it, now on the western side of the building.
"Alfie," Dean commented, his teeth setting slightly, pushing hard at the memories that bulged along the wall in his mind.
They both slowed as they heard the footfalls behind, turning and moving apart at the sight of the shadows flickering on the wall at the hall's end. Sam pulled out the long slim cylinder from his jacket and Dean did the same when he looked back and saw two more demons running up the corridor toward them. The cylinders held a simple flare at the end, a potassium perchlorate oxidiser that would ignite the ingredients held inside on a ten-second delay.
They waited until the demons were close enough, then ignited the flares, throwing the cylinders into the demons' path and covering their eyes as the bombs exploded, the pulsing fire burning through the demons and vessels and leaving the shadows charred into the walls and floor behind them.
Crowley added another few turns to the screw, brows rising as he realised how deeply the spikes were inside the brain now. Samandriel's screams were no longer the warbling shrieks of a few weeks ago, he thought. Whatever pain was being generated, it was a deeper and more lasting type.
"Zar le fa."
"Demon tablet," Crowley said abruptly. "Tell me one I don't know, huh."
He tightened the screw again.
Over the groans and cries of the angel, Viggo heard something else. He tilted his head as the explosions sent a delicate shudder through the building, vibrating faintly through the soles of his vessel's feet.
He looked at Crowley, who stood listening to the angel's pain with a rapt expression on his face.
"M-M-Mr Crowley, not that this isn't important," he said, trying to find words that would get the point across without leaving him a pile of dust in the middle of the floor. Crowley hated to be interrupted. Hated it. "But perhaps we should be making preparations to leave – we seem to be under attack."
Crowley glanced at him, holding up his hand warningly. "Did you say something?"
Viggo shook his head unhappily, looking away. There were a dozen demons out there, even if something was attacking them, they had time, surely.
The screams were getting louder and they walked fast down the last hall, finding the warding sigil on a heavy steel door. Sam turned to look down the hall as Dean pulled out the can of paint and broke the warding.
He capped the can and looked around. "Alright, anytime now, Cas."
The angel appeared in front of them, his breath hissing through his teeth, swaying unsteadily.
"Cas? Hey –" Sam took a step toward the angel. "You okay?"
"It must be the sigils –" Castiel said, looking around. "I can't reach through them for more power."
"Sam," Dean said, pulling out his paint can. "Help me mush this crud."
"No – Dean, wait," the angel reached out and stopped him. "There's not enough time, Samandriel won't last much longer." He stared at the steel door behind the brothers, as the screams rose. Dean turned and looked down at the lock on the door.
"Here, Cas, here, take this," Sam said, handing him the angel sword.
It wasn't just the sigils, the angel thought, his teeth clenching together as the pain rippled out from the room and reverberated in his vessel's bones and flesh. His vision was greying at the sides, every scream digging deeper into his mind.
His hand gripped the hilt of the sword tightly as he lifted it to cover his ears, Samandriel's voice and the palpable frequencies of pain piercing through the molecules of the metal door, the concrete walls, penetrating him and dragging out memories, memories he hadn't known he'd had, memories of terror, and pain, and a thick implement, aimed at his eye, memories of an auburn-haired angel with eyes the cold blue of the northern seas, leaning closer and closer to him, memories of agony, of unending anguish as his self, his core, was violated in a way that there were no words to describe.
Sam stared at the angel, as Castiel began to back away from the door, hands pressed tightly to the sides of his head, his breathing growing faster and harsher.
"Dean, hurry up," he said tersely to his brother, watching the angel.
"I'm trying!" Dean snapped back, looking around for something bigger than his knife he could use to lever the fucking thing free of the lock. There was movement in between the door and the jamb. Ruby's knife was holding but it was too short.
Sam watched as Cas backed to the opposite wall, sliding down it as his back hit, terror filling the angel's face, terror and a hopelessness, as if Cas was facing something he couldn't escape, couldn't bear to look at.
Behind him, Dean slammed his hand against the door in frustration. The knife was too short and he didn't have anything else.
"Plan B," he said, turning away.
"We have a Plan B?" Sam glanced back at him, brow creasing in surprise. He watched his brother turn, running hard and throwing himself at the door, the back of his shoulder hitting the metal with a massive bang, bouncing off as the lock refused to give in that easily.
Plan B, Sam thought, taking a breath and running at it, hitting it from a slightly different angle.
The door shuddered and gave incrementally with each of the blows against it. Too incrementally for Dean.
He ignored the throbbing in his shoulder-blade as he turned to look at his friend. "Cas, anytime now."
The angel was curled back against the wall, not seeing Dean, not seeing the hall, not seeing the recalcitrant red steel door. The memory had him, a high-pitched whining in his ears, the drill coming for him, coming to take what was him and change it, kill it, maim it.
Dean looked down at him, brows drawing together. There was nothing right about the angel, he thought. Nothing at all. He turned and rammed the door again, eyes screwed shut as the bruised muscle protested.
Viggo stared at the door as it shuddered in the frame, watching with widening eyes the metal bar holding it closed bending a little further with each hit.
Crowley glared at the door and the ruckus in the corridor and turned back to the angel.
"As you were saying?" he growled.
Samandriel sat upright, his eyes open and fixed, the thin lines of blood seeping down the sides of his face at the base of every screw.
"Var na sar-ee."
Crowley stared at him. "Yes?"
"Ar doz ar fay."
Crowley glanced up at the door, hearing the Winchesters out there now, seeing that the bar had been bent back further, was giving way. He looked back to the angel furiously. "Spit it out, you heavenly pile of filth!"
"Par day ra."
Crowley stared at him. "Holy mother of sin."
"What?" Viggo looked from the angel to Crowley, desperately trying to ignore the squealing of the metal door as it started to give more and more. "What is it?"
"There's an Angel tablet," Crowley said quietly. He'd known there would be. He'd known it. But it was nice to have it confirmed.
The flat metal bar bent the last few millimetres and came free of the bracket, the door swinging open with Dean behind it, and Sam behind him. He looked down from the height of the short flight of stairs that led down into the room. Alfie sat strapped into a chair, some metal frame enclosing his head, blood covering him. Behind the angel, a man stood, silvered hair brushed back, his white coat immaculate, staring up at them. Crowley had gone.
Dean watched the man's eye flick toward the cart holding the instruments of torture and launched himself down the stairs, catching the demon's arm as Viggo picked up the spike. He held the arm as he thrust the knife toward the demon's chest and the demon's strength lifted and shoved him back into a pillar. As they struggled, Dean felt the point of the spike slide through the thick fabric of his coat. He forced the knife closer, shifting his weight slightly and pushing hard against the strength holding him pinned, fingers clenched around Viggo's arm to keep it from crushing the base of his throat.
Sam skidded to a halt, his intention to help his brother blocked as another demon came in through a door on the far side, and accelerated toward him.
Castiel stumbled down the stairs, stopping in front of Alfie, his sword dangling limply from one hand as he unscrewed the spikes in the angel's skull.
Viggo gave suddenly against the hunter's weight, using the backward movement to lift and throw Dean across the room into a half-glass door. Tucking forward as he felt his head hit the glass, Dean fell to the floor with the broken shards. He rolled to one side as the demon grabbed his coat, unable to get enough purchase on the glass-covered floor to prevent the demon hauling him to his feet and wrapping an arm around his neck. He dropped the knife and twisted out from under the demon's arm, using the fulcrum of its shoulder to jacknife Viggo from behind to in front of him and slamming his knee into the demon's stomach, then jaw.
Sam watched the demon he faced lift his arm back for a wide haymaker with a trace of amusement, letting it go by and stepping in tight, the return jabs in quick succession breaking ribs, hitting the diaphragm and then the nerve centre behind it. The demon ignored the blows, swinging wildly but still there, not going down. He hit it hard and watched it stagger back, its attention caught by a long weapon on the cart beside it, picking it up.
Cas blinked rapidly as the flashbacks got stronger. The room, the pale and reflecting room. The angel, holding him down, telling him not to move. He pulled the last of the screws from Samandriel's head and clenched his teeth, lifting the metal frame gently clear. Samandriel stared at him, his eyes wide.
Dean reversed the knife and dropped beside the white-coated demon, fingers digging into its wrist as its hand closed around his throat. He heard his brother's whistling breath and flicked a glance at him.
Crap! Sam had no way to kill the fucker. The realisation flashed through his mind, seeing the other demon advancing toward him. Swinging his hand wide, he knocked Viggo's hand from his throat and drove the fist holding the knife into the demon's temple, on his feet and behind the demon as Sam's kick drove it back into him, the wide blade plunging into its back and the demon lighting up.
He was back on Viggo as the demon shook its head groggily, eyes focussing on the knife he held above it.
"Wait!" Viggo said quickly, desperately. "I know – I know things."
Dean stared down at him. "Cas, go."
The sounds of wings filled the room for a second and was gone, the two angels as well.
"Good, good," Viggo said, staring up at him, hope filling his eyes as the knife remained above him. "There's so much you don't know. You need me."
"Yeah." Dean nodded, looking at him. There was a lot they didn't know. A lot they needed to know. But there was something familiar about the demon, hidden behind the meatsuit's face and expressions, scratching at him. He doubted the recollection would be a pleasant one. And need – that was a word that he didn't ever associate with the hellscum. Wrong word, pal.
"Yeah, I don't think so," he said, driving the knife deep into the chest, watching the surprise disappear in the turgid red-gold light.
He straightened up, looking at his brother. Sam shook his head.
"Demons lie, Dean."
Dean nodded, and gestured to the door, rotating his shoulder slowly. It would stiffen up if he didn't keep moving it.
Samandriel leaned back against the car, Castiel holding him up.
"It's okay, you're safe now," Cas said. "I'm taking you home."
"No," Samandriel said, his eyes widening in fear. "You can't take me back there, Castiel."
"Why not?" Cas hesitated, wondering how badly the torture had affected the angel he held.
"You don't understand. I told Crowley – things – things he shouldn't have known," Samandriel said. "He got to our coding, our secrets – secrets I didn't even know we had."
"What secrets?" Cas looked down at him, a shiver tracing its way through his vessel's nervous system as somehow what Samandriel was saying seemed … familiar.
"Heaven?" Samandriel suggested. "Naomi."
"No, who's Naomi?" Cas stared into the battered angel's eyes as a flash an auburn-haired woman flared behind his own.
"Who's –?" Samandriel gasped disbelievingly, rolling his eyes as he realised all that the angel didn't know, needed to know. "Listen to me, listen to me closely. I've been there. I know. They're controlling us, Castiel."
"What do you mean?" Cas said slowly, his fingers tightening on the angel's clothes involuntarily.
He was in the chair, and she was there, looming over him. Naomi, auburn-haired, cold, ocean-blue eyes.
"Kill him!" She leaned close to him, pinning him back in the chair.
"What does he mean – they're controlling us?"
"Castiel!"
"Who is controlling us?" He stared into her eyes, memory flickering now. Auburn-hair. Cold eyes. Fanatical eyes. "Why did I see your face? Why was I so afraid? What did you do to me?"
The porcelain-smooth, expressionless face tightened, the cold eyes narrowing and she straightened abruptly, her hands fisted in his coat, dragging him up with her, holding him there.
"This is a direct order. Kill him!"
She thrust him back and he was falling, past the chair, past the office, back into his vessel standing next to Samandriel and the black car.
His mind was empty. The sword dropped smoothly from his sleeve into his hand. He pushed it, without thought or hesitation, into the angel in front of him, and light poured from Samandriel's eyes and mouth, pure white light and an aching celestial song that swirled around him and faded away, disappearing as the light did.
"What did I just do?" Castiel asked, sitting in the chair in the pale room.
"You killed a traitor," Naomi said calmly, sitting on the other side of the desk, the even, white light shining on auburn hair, lighting ocean eyes.
"Samandriel was good," Cas insisted, staring at her. "And I was trying to atone –"
"Samandriel was broken," she overrode him. "He revealed the existence of what I would die to protect. What any of us would die to protect."
Cas looked at her, brows drawn together in confusion. Samandriel was no traitor. The King of Hell had tortured him, and it hadn't been the pain that had broken the angel, but the knowledge accessed directly through the vessel's brain. He hadn't given it up willingly. Even if he had, what could possibly justify his death? His murder?
"The Angel tablet, Castiel. Crowley knows," she told him.
"I just murdered one of our own to protect a tablet," Castiel said, an edge of disbelief in his voice. All his penance, wasted. His regret and repentance. The good he'd done, wiped out by an act of murder for a … a piece of stone.
Naomi looked at him, smiling thinly. She got to her feet and walked slowly around the desk. "If the Demon tablet concealed demons in Hell, what do you think the Angel tablet could do to us?"
He looked up at her uncertainly. How could it be his Father's will to protect Heaven by killing? Thou Shalt Not Kill. That'd been made very clear to humanity. Were the angels exempt from that ruling?
"You're a hero, Castiel," Naomi said gently. "You've done Heaven a great service."
"And that's what I tell Sam and Dean?"
"Cas!" Sam called as he ran with his brother up to the car. The angel was slumped over Samandriel. "What the hell happened?"
Castiel raised his head slowly.
(You tell the Winchesters that Samandriel had been compromised)
"He was compromised," he said, staring at the side of the car.
(He came at you and you acted in self-defence)
"He came at me," he said, getting to his feet, looking from Sam to Dean. "I killed him in self-defence."
(Say you must return his body to Heaven … and then bring him to me)
Dean's eyes narrowed as he saw blood spill from the corner of the angel's eye. What the fuck? "Cas, you okay?"
Castiel looked down at Samandriel. He felt the slow trickle of the blood over his cheek and lifted a hand to wipe at it. "My vessel must have been damaged in the mêlée."
He couldn't think, his thoughts were cloudy, scattered. "I have to go. Samandriel's remains belong in Heaven."
In some far-away part of him, perhaps the part that Jimmy Novak clung to, he was aware of the brothers watching him, their confusion beating at him. There was an explanation, he thought vaguely, I just can't – I will be able to explain this to them later.
(I need to see just how far Crowley's dug into him, she spoke in his mind. Do you understand?)
Yes, I understand.
He bent to the dead angel at his feet. Another one. Dead at his hand. He didn't understand. Didn't understand at all.
"Cas, wait," Dean said.
"Thank you – both – for everything you've done," he said, looking at neither.
The sound of wings filled the night and Dean stepped forward. "Cas!"
The air closed together where the two angels had been with a soft sigh.
Dean looked around at the darkness surrounding them. He'd gone. Back to Heaven. The Heaven he'd been so afraid to see, he thought uneasily. None of it made sense. Not one fucking bit of it. He looked at Sam and saw the same doubts and concerns in his face. They couldn't talk about it here. Couldn't think about it. They needed somewhere safe.
Whitefish, Montana
The hiss of compressed air propellant filled the room and Dean looked around, from window to window, at the walls and the doors. He walked to the front door, watching as Sam finished the last sigil.
"Okay," Sam said, putting the can down on the table. "That should do it. Cas can't see or hear us now."
"Okay, what the hell?" Dean looked at Sam in bewilderment. "Cas was trying to atone, Sam. He said he couldn't return to Heaven because of what he'd done."
"I know," Sam agreed immediately.
"I told you something was off with him since he got back from Purgatory," Dean said belligerently. Sam shrugged, walking toward him.
"So, what? You think that someone's messing with him?"
"Who?"
"Angels?" Sam suggested.
"Why would the angels have him kill another angel?" Dean asked disparagingly. It made no fucking sense at all.
Sam looked away, unable to think of anything that might explain what the angel had done. What Cas had done after asking them to help him rescue Samandriel. It made no sense.
Watching his little brother bending his brain around the problem, Dean suddenly realised that Sam didn't have to be here. It wasn't his problem and he had other things to do. Other places to be. He didn't want to hold him here, didn't want be responsible for his brother's feelings.
"You know what, man? I got this," he said quietly. "You go."
Sam looked back at him, brow wrinkling up. "What?"
"Don't you have a girl to get back to?" Dean reminded him, keeping his tone as even as he could manage.
Sam looked down awkwardly. "Yeah, I guess I do." He looked back at him, registering suddenly that he'd forgotten and it'd been Dean who'd had to bring it up. "Since when are you on the Amelia bandwagon?"
Dean looked away. He wasn't really, but he couldn't say that to Sam. "I don't know." He walked slowly past Sam. "I'm just tired of all the fighting."
He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. He felt tired and flat and empty. Nothing could go any more wrong with them, with his life, than it already had. He looked down at the bottle. What difference did it make now, if he told Sam the truth? Or some of it.
"And maybe, you know, I'm a little bit jealous," he admitted bluntly, lifting his gaze to meet Sam's. "I could never separate myself from the job like you could."
Sam watched him twist the top off the beer, tossing it across in the general vicinity of the trash can, not sure he was hearing any of this right. It'd been a long, long time since his brother had been this honest with him. He didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know if he was supposed to say anything.
"Hell, maybe it's time for at least one of us to be happy," Dean added, lifting the bottle and swallowing a mouthful.
"You being such a big hugger an' all?" Sam said, feeling his chest tighten as he watched Dean shrug it off.
What had he been doing, these last few months? He couldn't feel that anger now, that poison and fear and pain that had been driving him on and on since he'd stood on his own in a laboratory that had been covered in black ooze, alone and terrified.
"She does make me happy," he said, shoulders hunching up as he realised that the choice was here and he couldn't put it on anyone but himself. "She could be waiting for me, if I went back. I'd be a very lucky man if she was."
Dean looked at him, looked at the regret that flashed over Sam's face, hearing the 'but' behind those words. Sam worked things out weirdly. Left alone, with no pressure and no outside influences, he did better. It was one of the things he should've known about his brother, should've handled better, he thought.
"But now, with everything staring down at us, with all that's left to be done …" his little brother said, shaking his head, shrugging helplessly. "I don't know."
"Huh," Dean said noncommittally. This wasn't his call and it wasn't his place to comment on the change of heart or mind. But he couldn't let Sam roam with it too long either.
Sam nodded. "Yeah."
"Well, I do know this," Dean said, walking up to him, hoping that he'd find the words to say it right, this time. "Whatever you decide, decide. Both feet in or both feet out. Anything in between is going to get you dead."
He looked at him, waiting for the defensive kickback, waiting for a reaction.
"Yeah, I keep hearing that," Sam said softly, his gaze cutting away, thinking of Amelia. He looked back at his brother, saw the question in his eyes. "I'm gonna take a walk, clear my head."
He turned away, going to the door. He could feel Dean's gaze on him as he opened it. But there was no sense of impatience from his big brother, or exasperation. Or disappointment.
He stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. To the left, twisting around the cabin and up the side of the mountain, a deer trail was still visible. It led a few hundred yards higher, into the forest, meandering around the long line of the ridge. It was a good place to walk, to think. He headed for it, looking at the needles and matted vegetation under his feet, letting his thoughts drift.
He hadn't wanted anything, when he'd first seen her. Just to be left alone. But she'd seen him, really looked at him and seen him, and it had jolted him. For a long time, between his realisation that he'd failed his brother, that he'd lost his family, had lost everyone, and meeting her, he'd drifted across the country and very, very few people had looked at him and seen him. At the same time, she'd known that he'd seen her too.
Maybe that made what had connected them inevitable. Maybe they'd both been so relieved to be seen that they'd made it more than what it had been. He'd never know, not for sure. He knew that she'd saved him, stopped his freefall. He knew that she'd reminded him of what it meant to be human again, to be held and comforted, to laugh out loud, to have something to laugh about. He'd held those moments close to his heart and maybe he'd told himself it was love, when it really wasn't. When it just need and want and someone who'd seen him. He wouldn't forget her and he would always be grateful to her, but that wasn't love either.
It'd taken him a long time to tell Jess about his family, and he'd held things back. But, he'd always felt that in time, if they'd had the time, he would have been able to tell her. All of it, the truth about all of it. She'd been smart and brave and he could still feel her love, could still remember how it had looked in her eyes.
What had happened since her death … he wasn't sure he could share that. The one person who knew was his brother. Knew almost all of it. And even he didn't know what had happened in the cage, down with the archangels and the remains of a half-brother and everything that had been done to him. He wasn't sure he could tell anyone about that. But he knew, now, he couldn't pretend to himself that it hadn't happened, to him. That it hadn't changed something inside of him.
He reached the top of the trail and sat on a rock, looking out over the steep fall of the ridge, beyond over the next valley, and the next. He'd never wanted to tell Amelia about his life. Any of it. He thought that told him something, right there. He could imagine, all too clearly, her face in the light of revelations like the ones he carried. He couldn't bear to see that. Somewhere, out there, there might be a person who could hear it. There might not. He would have to live with it, whichever way it went.
Something was happening, was still happening in the planes that bounded this one, he thought, watching a hawk circling on the updraughts absently. Something that Heaven was involved in, as well as Crowley. The demon tablet was just the tip of what they knew. And maybe it was a road that would take them where they needed to go, needed to end up.
He couldn't turn away from it. Couldn't say it wasn't his problem. Dean never had. Maybe he would stop seeing disappointment in his big brother's eyes if he could find the way back to who he'd been.
He sat on the rock and watched the hawk, feeling a peace stealing into him, different from the peace of being with someone, from seeing himself through someone else's eyes. It was the peace of being with himself, and for the first time in a long time, not wanting to run.
Dean looked at the door for a few moments after it closed behind his brother. He had no idea if Sam had realised that what he felt for Amelia wasn't what he'd seen in his brother when he'd seen him with Jessica. He had the feeling that Sam hadn't told Amelia all that much about himself, or his life, or what that encompassed. He had the feeling that Sam couldn't tell her. He knew that feeling. He'd told himself he didn't want to bring darkness into their lives, bring that knowledge that killed innocence and the idea that the world was a safe place, a good place. It'd been partially true, he guessed, but mostly he hadn't wanted to see Lisa's reactions to finding out what he was, inside, where he couldn't be clean.
He turned away from the door, lifting his beer and letting it run down his throat, pushing away those memories. He'd thought he could make it work, pretending to be normal. He never could. So much of who he was, was hunter. Killer. There was no point pretending that he could just jettison that part of himself, cut it out and be done with it. He didn't want to do that. Normal hadn't been exactly what he'd thought it would be.
Sitting on the sofa, his feet propped on the low table, he thought of Kevin's naïve assumption that he could save the world and go back to being Kevin Tran, nerdy, geeky student and normal guy. It would never happen, he knew. Sam had thought he could go back, when they'd killed Yellow Eyes and avenged their mother and Jessica. But a whole new can of worms had opened and the chance to change anything came and went without their even noticing it. Maybe that'd been destiny, pulling their chains and pushing them around. Maybe not. He'd never felt he could just ignore what had been happening, though he'd wished for that ignorance, time after time.
This time, at least they knew what they were aiming for. Closing the gates of Hell and shutting every damned demon down in the pit for the rest of eternity. But he couldn't do it alone.
Castiel was compromised. Whatever had gotten the angel out of Purgatory, it had affected him somehow. He couldn't begin to imagine what was going on with his friend but it was something that was confusing the crap out of Cas as well as them and it was no longer safe to trust him even on minor details. He exhaled deeply. He'd wanted them to be how they'd once been, back to back against Heaven and Hell and as usual, that possibility had been torn away. He shrugged inwardly. He'd wanted a lot of these things to go back to the way they'd been before and he should be used to the disappointment of that never happening.
Benny was even more compromised than the angel. He shifted his feet to the floor, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The vampire had never let him down, had had his back and saved his life and had nearly given up his own for him, more than once. He'd known down in the land of the monsters that they could never be what they'd been down there up here. Sam's reaction had been irrational but it was the same as most hunters would feel. And he'd heard Benny's hunger, in the plea to come. Sooner or later, if Benny didn't find a key to it himself, that hunger was going to take him. He rubbed a hand over his face.
The vampire felt too deeply. Needed connections and caring. And he couldn't give him that. He knew that Benny kept control through what he saw in the eyes of those he cared about. He found his strength in others, not in himself. He knew it because he'd been the same way, once. It'd been a long, rough road to the realisation that he couldn't do that. That he couldn't rely on anyone else, that he couldn't trust anyone else, that he couldn't care what others thought of him or felt about him. And it was a road that Benny was going to have to take because the alternative … there was no alternative. Only death and the return to Purgatory and this time there would be no way out for the vampire.
He was still angry with Sammy, he knew that. Still angry that the trust between them, which had once been the most important thing in the world to him, had been broken beyond any possibility of repair. It didn't change the fact that he needed him. There was no one else with whom he could face Hell, no one else he could hunt with and get this job done. There was just no one else.
He couldn't keep pushing at Sam, though. He had to find a way to let his brother recognise his mistakes for himself and work them out. Pushing hadn't done anything but escalate the confusion and the defensive anger between them. Pushing at his father had produced the same results, he should've recognised it earlier, he thought with a tired smile. And he needed something, something to show that things had changed. He felt a slow, seeping pain spread through him, a renting of a part of himself that he'd thought he'd never compromise. Apparently all things could be compromised, with the right leverage.
He got up, and walked to the table, lifting his coat from the back of the chair and pulling his cell from the pocket.
Swan Lake, Catskill Mountains, New York
Benny finished the blood bag, glancing around to make sure no one was watching. He had one more left in the bottom of the cooler. He would either need to do another run, find a hospital with an unguarded blood bank or … he pushed his thoughts away from that. Dean would come and get his head back together again. He'd be fine. He shut the cooler and pushed it back into the tray, lifting the tail gate and locking it in, and closing the top gate.
The phone rang and he let out a deep exhale of relief when he saw the caller.
"Dean, thank you mightily, blood," he said, looking around. "I'm in a hard way here, how close are you?"
"I'm sorry, man, I … um, I'm not going to make it," Dean said.
Benny walked away from the camper, feeling his nerves jumping and his muscles twitching as anxiety zipped through him. The hunter's voice was strained. "You mean, now or …"
"Listen, Benny, everything you done for me, I'll never forget … but uh … this is it."
Benny heard the regret in his words, regret and something else, a resolution, clear and hard and inarguable. Whatever had happened to his friend, on that case on the other side of the country, it had changed something fundamental in the man. Changed the loyalty that he would have bet his life on. And changed it for good, he thought.
"End of the line?" he asked lightly, swallowing against what that meant for him.
"End of the line," Dean confirmed.
There was a moment of silence and Benny realised it was his move. "Yeah, well, I never liked these cell phones, anyway," he said, forcing a smile through the stiffness of the muscles in his face.
"You, uh, you stay good, alright?" Dean said. And again, Benny heard regret.
"You too, Dean," Benny said quietly. For his friend, the decision had been made and there would be no turning back from it. He looked down, feeling the loss of that man beginning to flower inside of him. The loss of the friendship and the loss of the last stopper he had to fight against the hunger. "And thanks for the ride."
"Yeah, man," Dean said. "Adios."
Benny heard the line cut out and he closed the phone. The anxiety was rising and he wasn't going to be fine. He could feel the scratching of the hunger, just a little scratch so far, down deep inside. It would become stronger. It would become a tearing. It would become unbearable without someone else, someone else's eyes to see himself through, to keep him from doing what his body, the vampire inside of him, wanted him to do.
At first, it hadn't mattered. Then when he'd met Andrea, it had. He couldn't bear the thought of seeing her look at him as if he was a monster. And the thought of her disgust, of seeing it in her eyes, it had killed the hunger stone-dead. Just like that. For ten years, he'd never fed on a live human being, the need to see her look at him with love, look at him as if he were human, had overcome the hunger and carried him with it.
By the time they'd made it out of Purgatory, he'd realised that Dean did the same thing. When the man looked at him, it was as a friend, not a monster, a friend that he trusted, with his life. So looking into Dean's eyes had stilled the hunger too. And then Elizabeth.
Well, he thought, getting to his feet. All three were gone now. It was just him. And he could fight it, in the memory of them, or he could give in and turn into the monster and to hell with the consequences.
He walked back to the camper and climbed into the cab, pulling out the maps that littered the long seat. He needed a hospital. Somewhere big, but not too big, somewhere busy. He looked at the map and nodded. That would be fine.
The engine started up and he eased off the lake shore, trundling along until he could turn onto road. It was up to him, to be a monster or not. He couldn't rely on having friends to keep him on the straight and narrow. It was either important enough to make sure he did it on his own, or it wasn't.
Whitefish, Montana
Dean sat on the sofa, his gaze on the television in the corner, taking in the fight without seeing or hearing it. He'd heard the anxiety in Benny's voice. Heard the fear. Another person he'd failed, he thought. Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn't hesitate, I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just ... it scares me sometimes. And it wasn't just killing. He would break a promise for them – for Sam, turn his back on what he wanted, give up whatever it took …
Sam plunked the two bottles down on the low table, his gaze on the fight on the screen, and Dean picked one up, twisting off the lid. He looked at the bottle as Sam put one bowl of stew down in front of him, and set the other in front of himself. For a moment, they looked at each other, and Sam nodded slightly, picking his own beer up.
Once, Dean would have clinked his bottle against his brother's. Sam knew it. Dean knew it as well. He didn't, just tipped his up and swallowed a mouthful, turning back to the TV.
Sam looked at him for a moment longer, before he put his bottle down and picked up his food.
It was an armistice, he thought. Not peace. Not forgiveness. Maybe not even a way back. Dean had said he was tired of fighting. He could have left. There was still something between them, something that they needed each other for, something they had to finish.
And it would have to be enough.