on the bright side, there isn't a bright side - 10

Dec 02, 2012 02:05

Gods, as it turns out, are a lot easier to get rid of than one might think.

Sam is wide awake and extremely indignant by the time they make it back to their room, and what with his irritation-fueled energy, the fact that he’s managed to locate his room key, and the vast amount caffeine Dean and Cas have just consumed at such a late hour, they end up pulling an all-nighter just to get this damned Greek son-of-a-bitch figured out. Cas is right: there’s plenty of information, but anything remotely useful on how to kill them is conspicuous only by its absence. Then Sam, in a remarkable stroke of brilliance, suggests, “The only thing this guy, whichever one he is, can do in real life is put us to sleep, right? So if most of his power comes from being able to control our dreams, why don’t we just let him bring the fight to us?”

Cas frowns and says he doesn’t understand, but Dean’s getting a sinking feeling that tells him he probably knows exactly what Sam is talking about. Shit. Last time they tried this was two years ago, before Hell and Cas and Sam’s thing with Ruby and Jo and Ellen and the Apocalypse, and his mind was already insanely fucked-up then. If they pick his head as the battle ground, they’re going to be too busy wading through all his convoluted, never-ending problems to find one dumb god.

“Aren’t we missing some key ingredients?” he points out.

Sam shakes his head, looking annoyingly pleased with himself. “I’ve still got some leftover. I saved it, after last time. Just in case.”

“Okay, but…” A struggle to come up with another legitimate flaw in the plan fails, and all he can say is, “Just… not my head, okay? Not me.”

“What? What’s wrong with your head?” Sam protests, clearly alarmed at the alternative. “It was fine last time.”

Yeah, fine-except for the part where Dean met the other version of himself and started screaming things he’d never dare say to anyone else. He knows what his dreams are, what it’s like in there now. The last thing he needs is someone else poking around, stirring up everything he’s finally managed to successfully bury under layers of alcohol and sex and bad jokes and cheap dinner food and shit.

“Dude, I don’t want some random god poking around in there-anything could happen. What if…” Struck by a sudden flash of inspiration, Dean argues, “What if he makes me say yes to Michael?”

“Who’s the other vessel, idiot?”

Oh. Right. Well, one of them has to do it-

“I still don’t understand what is under debate,” says Cas.

Dean and Sam exchange looks, and he’s known Sam long enough to be able to tell when his brother’s thinking exactly the same thing he is. Perfect.

“Cas,” Sam begins, “you ever heard of something called African dream root?”

The plan, such as it is, is really quite simple: Cas gets whichever one of the Oneiroi is in town to take him down. Dean and Sam hang back, and from the relative safety of their motel room cram their dream-selves into his head, where the three of them meet up. Shit goes down (this part is admittedly a little hazy, but they figure they’ll work it out once they get to it) and they either kill or otherwise disable the god. Then they get the hell out of there and hope everyone who’s been put under and is still alive wakes up. Fail-proof, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Whatever. They’re doing it anyways.

Dean will admit he’s a little apprehensive about sending Cas off on his own like this, but he’s doing his best not to let it show because he knows Sam will insist on reading into too deep. Like, what? He’s not allowed to worry about someone without being in love with them? Lame. So he just slaps Cas on the back and tells him gruffly to be careful before they send him off-not that it seems to help, because Sam still looks at him in an I-see-what-you’re-trying-to-hide kind of way. If Dean’s hiding anything right now, it’s just the urge to strangle his little brother. Christ.

The stuff is no easier to choke down than the last time they used it, and also just like their past experiences there’s no immediate sign that it’s actually had any effect; they’re still in the motel room, staring awkwardly at each other as they wait for something to happen. Then the ceiling starts to cave upwards in a spiral like someone’s pulling a string attached to the middle, and the furniture starts to droop in odd, melting shapes, and Dean suggests that either the Apocalypse has given up on waiting for the Winchesters to cooperate and just gone ahead with kick-starting the party or they are currently inside Cas’s dream.

“Let’s go with the second option,” says Sam, and he opens the door.

Huh.

Interesting.

The grungy motel corridor is gone, replaced with a cavernous hallway lined with dozens of doors. In Bobby’s head, of course, places didn’t always match up properly; but there was always something random, something unfinished about the half-remembered scenes his sleeping brain paired together. This… Dean’s never seen a place like this, outside of maybe the genie’s cave in Aladdin, and it seems far more real, permanent, something, than anything he’s every dreamed up himself. Cas is nowhere to be seen, and judging by the size of this single hallway it could take them hours to find him.

Just because he’s curious, he tugs open the door across the hall from the one through which they came: a room full of people drinking and laughing, and all dressed like they’re part of some Renaissance fair. It looks like one of those old-fashioned taverns, but seen through some sort of muted, fuzzy camera lens that makes all the colours a little bit duller and all the shapes a little less distinct. Dean glances at Sam, who’s peering into the room over his shoulder, and Sam shrugs. It’s a dream, after all, and who ever heard of a dream that actually made sense? No use wasting time trying to work out something that can’t really be worked out at all when they’ve got a god to smite.

He can’t resist checking just one more door, though, because the hall is insanely long and repetitive and he’s the kind of guy who can’t resist a good old mysterious closed door-except this one he has to slam shut again almost immediately, throwing his entire weight against the wooden frame to force it back against the furious sandstorm that comes howling out. “The hell kind of dream is this?” he asks indignantly.

One more door, just one-who can blame him after that weirdness? This time it’s an airfield with a vintage airplane (the design is vintage, anyways; the airplane itself looks nearly brand new), and there’s a woman strapping on a pair of old aviation goggles. Like the first door, and possibly the second if he’d had the time to notice, everything here is kind of… bland. Even the sound of the plane’s motor sounds distorted.

Sam stares at the woman. “Don’t tell me you’re seriously checking out one of Cas’s dream chicks,” Dean says, because come on. That’s just weird.

“No, I just… she looks like…” Sam trails off, shaking his head and still watching her intently. “Nah. Never mind.”

So that door’s closed, and where the hell is Cas? As glad as he is that they’re not digging around in his skull, Dean can’t help feeling a little uncomfortable wandering around his friend’s mind unchecked. Even if it is just really weird random stuff and not deep dark secrets, it’s still supposed to be private.

And he’s decided not to poke around any more, just to find Cas and deal with the god and get out of here, but then of course Sam has to go and open another door himself. Dean keeps walking, expecting Sam to catch up, then halts after a moment when he realizes he’s on his own-Sam’s still stood halfway in the doorway, watching something Dean can’t see with a look of surprise.

“Dean, come and see this,” he calls.

Dean comes, and he’s just about to remind Sam pointedly that dreams don’t count for anything in real life and anyways don’t they have a job to do; but then he sees what Sam’s seeing, and the words die on his tongue. It’s them, it’s Dean and Sam and Cas all slightly brighter and clearer than the last three scenes, and what the hell, Dean remembers this. It’s the first time Sam met Cas, when he went all flustered fan-girl about the fact that he was actually meeting angels, real live angels, oh-my-god-I-mean-um-sorry-I-guess-I-can’t-say-that-in-front-of-angels-but-look-Dean-angels angels. He recognizes the room, remembers the dialogue, and there’s even Uriel standing ominously behind Cas. The scene carries on uninterrupted by the real Dean and Sam’s presence, running like a film but more real.

“Why the hell’s he dreaming about this?” Dean demands. Because, really? This old, random, boring event is the best Cas would come up with? That’s just sad.

“I don’t think it’s a dream,” Sam says slowly. “In fact, I don’t think we’re in a dream at all. I think these are all… memories.”

Dean stares at Sam, then back into the room, then down the endless hall. His eyebrows shoot up reflexively-memories? All of these are memories? That’s not… it’s… sure, Dean’s got thirty years of memories stockpiled by now but most of them aren’t this detailed. Half of them he’s probably made up, or messed around with so much they’re as good as fake anyways, and way more than that he’s forgotten. And the first ones he and Sam saw looked old. Like, centuries old.

No way. No fucking way. This has to be just some weird dream.

He opens another door a way further down the hall, just to check, and this time it’s like being hit by a wall of sensation. Colour so vivid he can practically taste it-how the hell does that even work?-and the audio is like listening to the most epic, high-tech surround-sound stereo system in the entire world at a decibel level that’s just a little too loud, and he can, what the fuck, he can feel what’s going on inside. Ghosts not only of physical sensation but also the emotions or whatever, except just like everything else they seem to be multiplied by a hundred times compared to anything Dean’s ever felt before (not stronger, exactly, just… louder, like someone turned the volume up on every sense the human body has to offer), and holy shit, someone’s enjoying himself.

It’s another memory, definitely; from back when Dean was all dizzy and sick from their encounter with the kraken but still offered not-so-charitably to give Cas a hand with jerking off. And this is so, so crazy, because he can see the scene unfolding before him and his body remembers what it felt like when it was happening but now he can also feel what Cas felt, can feel his own weight on Cas’s lap and his own hand around Cas’s cock and whoa.

He slams the door shut before Sam can see anything, heart pounding and senses on overload; not that it matters, because once he’s gotten his bearings back (the corridor seems darker than before, like he’s just come inside on a sunny day) he finds Sam is already several feet ahead of him.

“…seem clearer than others?” Sam’s saying.

“Uh,” says Dean. His brain still seems to be moving rather slowly as it recovers. “I, uh. Well, maybe some of them are just newer than others. Fresher.”

“I guess so. Hey, look-”

They’ve reached the end of the hall. Shockingly. Dean was starting to think it just went on into infinitely (and possibly beyond), stretch after stretch of painfully accurate memories from, what? Forever? Seems like it. Anyways, there’s a wide arch at the end here, nothing fancy but it certainly makes a nice change from all those identical wooden doors. The lighting makes it hard to tell exactly what’s on the other side, but Dean hopes fervently that it includes Cas; there’s something just plain wrong about wandering around another guy’s head without him around, even if they probably haven’t seen anything Cas wouldn’t want them to see. Well-the last scene, maybe. But Sam wasn’t paying attention and Dean was there in the first place, so there doesn’t really seem to be a problem with that.

“I wonder if he can even-” Sam begins, taking a step through the arch-and this is when things start to fall apart.

Sam gives a strangled cry and sinks rapidly to his knees, eyes squeezed shut and hands clamped tightly over his ears as if to block out a sound only he can hear. He’s tilting crazily, barely able to stay upright even on his knees; by the time Dean gets to him a second later he’s already leaning on his elbows, and maybe Dean’s taken care of his share of scrapes and bruises and twisted ankles when Sam was a kid but seeing him like this now, hunched over and curled up and not even able to defend himself if he had to, it terrifies Dean more than any monster they could possibly face.

“Sam? Sam!” He shakes his brother’s shoulder desperately, conscious in the back of his mind that his eyes are stinging and there’s an uncomfortably high-pitched noise permeating the cavern through the archway that’s starting a sharp, precise pain in the back of his skull. It’s not what he would call pleasant, that’s for sure; nor, however, does he find it completely debilitating. Just a nuisance to be dealt with-so what the hell is wrong with Sam? “Hey! Sammy! Talk to me, okay? What’s going on?”

“Dean?”

He knows that voice, thank God, and when he tears his panicked eyes away from Sam writhing on the floor he sees Cas in the middle of the room. Which is actually a fair distance away, since the cavernous chamber is huge-but he’s got a clear view, because it’s also almost completely empty. Circular, with more of the arches like the one they just came through leading off to other, presumably equally infinite hallways, and he’d be utterly dumbfounded at what this implies about Cas’s memory if it weren’t for the all-important, all-consuming fact that there is something seriously wrong with Sam right now.

“Cas, fuck, you gotta help me, something’s wrong-”

Cas is at his side in an instant, and Dean can’t help noticing there’s something a little off about him, too. Like… he’s wearing the form Dean knows so well, he’s Jimmy Novak with the trench-coat and the rumpled suit and the blue eyes and the messy hair, but he’s also sort of-sort of flickering. To something strange and inhuman, something that Dean’s eyes won’t register properly because whatever kind of creature it is doesn’t seem to fit properly into this universe.

“We can’t help him, Dean,” says Cas, a distinct note of sorrow in his tone. Why sorrow? Why? Sam’s not going to die. He’s not. He’ll be fine. Sam can’t die.

“We have to-”

“Dean. Listen. My mind was not built to hold a human consciousness. It’s hurting him to be here, just as it’s hurting you.”

“Not like this it’s not!” exclaims Dean, who is beyond frantic at this point and barely taking in Cas’s words. “I’m fine! Why aren’t I on the ground?”

“Your body was rebuilt with my grace. It offers you some protection here, though even that will not last forever. Please listen to what I’m-”

“He was fine in the hall!” Dean says desperately. “He was fine! We can just move him back-”

“Dean-”

“Help me-”

“I AM TRYING.”

He doesn’t remember moving but when the terrible roar fades he’s on his knees beside Sam, ears ringing painfully. Above him Cas’s shape seems to settle again; the outline of a pair of shadowy black wings fades behind it until it’s just Cas, just his friend, not the terrifying unknown creature who blew out all those windows in the gas station when Dean crawled out of the ground a year and a half ago. Cas’s vaguely apologetic expression twists into one of hurt when he offers Dean a hand to help him to his feet and Dean instinctively flinches away.

His hand drops to his side. “I’m trying,” he repeats. “But you have to listen.”

Dean clambers upright on his own, wincing; it feels like that voice full-out body slammed him. Ow. But Cas is right, he’s freaking out and that’s not going to help any of them-“Okay. Okay. I’m listening. Tell me what to do.”

“We need to get him out of here-both of you, really”-and Cas is right again, because once the pain’s faded from that shout the ache in his head returns persistently, a stabbing pressure growing in his head like some sort of tumour-“as soon as possible, and the only way we can do that is if I wake up. And to wake up-”

“We gotta find this god dude.”

“Exactly. Well.” Cas hesitates. “Finding isn’t so much the problem. He’s over there; I just don’t know what to do about it.”

Sure enough, when Dean looks where Cas is pointing, there’s a fourth figure in the room, crouched over like Sam on the floor. He’s worse than Cas, rippling between something humanoid and something smoky and shadowy and something with horns and probably a half-dozen other things in between so that he’s never all one shape, and Dean has to look away after only a second or two because it’s making him feel nauseous.

“It’s the same issue-even with only an echo of my grace left my mind is incompatible with this being. He can’t control my dreams, nor can he kill me, nor can he abandon me. He’s just… trapped.”

Well, great, but how the hell should Dean know what to do? This was the part of the plan they left to figure out when they got to it, which was fine at the time except that now Sam’s down and Dean’s freaking out and also kind of feeling like there’s an aneurism building somewhere in his brain and this whole turn of events seems to have taken Cas by surprise so what the fuck do they do?

“Can’t you just use the voice on him?” Dean asks helplessly. “Tell him to piss off?”

Cas looks doubtful, but neither of them has a better idea so they walk back over to the god-thing and Cas says, “I’ll let you go if you agree to waken your victims and leave this place.”

“Please,” the god moans, in a slithery, raspy tone that makes Dean’s skin crawl. Dean can’t help wondering what it thinks of Castiel-does it know he’s only an angel, and an almost-human one at that (not that you’d be able to tell from everything that’s going on in here. Jesus. In terms of brains, the guy’s is like some sort of nuclear reactor compared with Dean’s own spark plug)? Do they even have angels in whatever-the-hell religion it’s from? To be honest if he’d had to place bets in a fight, his money definitely wouldn’t have been on dead-battery-angel Cas going up against a freaking god. Maybe it would have turned out differently outside of Cas’s head, with the playing ground level; but hey, they’re here now and Cas has literally got this guy on his knees so what the hell.

“Give me your word,” Cas instructs. “Swear on…” And here he falters, because swearing on the Bible or whatever doesn’t seem like it would be very effective. To this guy the Bible’s just another book; Cas might as well get him to swear on the dog-eared copy of The Hobbit Sam’s got him reading now.

“The river Styx,” the god supplies hurriedly. “I swear on the river Styx to do as you say.” There’s a sort of other-y feeling, different from the electric crackle of angel magic, that tells Dean and Cas whatever he’s sworn on is pretty legit. This guy must be really desperate.

“Very well,” says Cas. He sneaks a glance at Dean, as if checking for Dean’s approval-like he’s got a clue what to do, but he supposes it’s nice that they’re keeping up the whole teamwork thing. So Dean shrugs, and Cas looks more or less mollified, and then he turns back to the god (Dean realizes he still doesn’t know which one of the Oneiroi is it, not that knowing would mean a lot to him anyways) with such a different expression than the tentative one he just gave Dean that it hardly looks like the same person. This one is ancient, commanding, powerful, closer to the way he was that first night in the warehouse, except that this time it’s not directed at Dean-and hell, Dean would be lying through his teeth if he said it didn’t turn him on just a little. Which is so totally fucked up, because Sam’s in so much pain he can’t even speak right now and they’re supposed to be fighting this old god dude (though it’s not much of a fight, as fights go), and all Dean can think about is how long it’s been since he bottomed for anyone but fuck, he wants to give it another shot.

Then Cas thunders, “GET OUT.” There’s an odd shift to the room that makes Dean stagger slightly as he tries to regain his balance, and when he looks up it’s just the three of them again. That’s it. No more god. It’s done.

“I’m going to wake up now,” says Cas.

He does, and it’s fine. Sam’s fine, if a little disoriented from the memory of a pain his physical body didn’t actually experience. The god is gone, and when Cas gets back to their motel room he reports that everyone else seems to have woken up as well. As hunts go for the Winchesters, this is an almost unparalled success; no permanent damage, no unwarranted deaths, and all with a minimum of effort on their part. Perfect. Basically.

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on the bright side, my writing

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