Ruin
Another prompt-fill! I don't know, I'm so addicted to them. :D
This was written for radiumgirl 's awesome prompt at the first-anniversary h/c comment-fic meme at ohsam.
Yet another wall!fic, people. I don't know, I can't seem to help it. Also: weird and dark and depressing.
Summary: Uriel's returned, with his own agenda to restart the Apocalypse. He kidnaps Sam and Dean as a means to this end, but none of them are prepared for what happens next...
Warnings: SPOILERS for s6 all the way till 6.16: And then there were none. Lots of blood, gore, violence, torture. Mild swearing, present-tense, metaphor-abuse, a lot of weirdness. And also, about the ending: please don't kill me? Please? *puts on hardhat*
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.
Ruin
For a Vessel destined to hold one of their very best, it is incredibly fragile.
Bones break under his gentlest touch - snap, snap, then scrrich as he grinds the fragments together. It doesn't scream much anymore, breath coming in stuttering gasps as its ribs dip and creak and shift. Uriel removes his hand from its chest and traces a hand upward, drawing slow, lazy circles around the bloody sockets that once held its eyes.
"Can you see?" he asks. "Can you see now, Sam?"
It continues to gasp and twitch, a low pathetic noise emerging from the back of its throat. If Uriel leans a little closer, he can make out half-formed words - please Dean no please - repeated over and over in a desperate litany. He sighs, digs a finger into an empty socket until Sam actually screams, broken body arching awkwardly off the mattress.
This is the problem, Uriel thinks. Give animals the power of thought and expression, and they drown themselves in so much hubris that they can't see the truth. Even this - the one that the Bringer of Light holds in such great esteem, does not seem to be able to resist its human trappings. Even with the stench of sulphur coiling within its veins; even with Lucifer's mark branded into its soul.
"Shall I take your tongue next, Sam?" he asks it pleasantly. "Then perhaps you will have one less distraction."
It whines, trying to move away even now, the arm that's not twisted and bent double grabbing desperately at the edge of the mattress. Uriel reaches out, grabs its jaw.
Its garbled screams echo in the small room.
Nobody ever dies.
"Hey. Sam. You okay?"
They only get recycled. From one plane to another, and back again.
"W-what? Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Why?"
Hell to Heaven, and everything in between. Such a waste, Sammy. Such a waste.
"I don't know - you looked kind of spaced-out over there."
Do you understand that your kind is an infestation? That they pollute what little there is to call the universe?
"Dean. I'm fine. Can we get back to the case?"
The way I look at it? I'm just doing my Father a favour.
"Geez, no need to bite my head off. Just sayin', if you're, y'know, feeling weird about this case or something, we can totally leave."
What do you say, Sammy? Will you cleanse this world with me?
"No, no, I don't think - uh. Gah. Dean oh god Dean -"
Just me and you. Forever. Let me back in, and we can escape to our destiny.
"Sam - Sammy? What the hell, man, what's wrong?"
You cannot refuse.
"Sammy!"
Dean stares at his hands in the meagre light that filters into the room. There's a lone window, small and barred, high on one wall. Save for that, a rickety old cot and the steel door, the room is completely featureless. Dean, who's lived in more anonymous motel rooms than he can count, feels the emptiness of the room like an itch between his shoulders, burrowing, burrowing deeper.
"Deeeeaaan!"
He flinches, but makes no other movement. He knows there's not much he can do; the wall opposite him (the wall between him and Sam and goddammit why does it always come down to walls) and the door are spattered with the blood from his previous attempts. His hands are bloody and swollen - definitely more than a few broken bones in there, he thinks, if the excruciating pain that accompanies every flex of his fingers is anything to go by - and his throat feels scraped raw from screaming.
"Pleaaase oh god oh GOD STOP PLEASE -"
He recognises the scream, on a level that's beyond visceral. The last soul he tortured - or perhaps the first, he's not sure, he thinks that the whole experience went around in circles, where he'd start up cutting through the ribcage of one soul and finish slashing into the abdomen of another and then slit the throat of the first again -
He. He needs to focus. He needs to -
(we can do this, Dean. We just have to wait.)
- wait. That's it. He'll wait and Sam will wait and they'll all wait for their next death, and then they'll wait to come back to life and pain and torment, and wait to die all over again -
"Your brother's getting close."
Dean starts and looks up. Uriel's in the room, that condescending smirk of his intact. He's not sure how he missed the angel standing there, but then again, he's not sure how long he and Sam have been cooped up here, with nothing but pain and terror as their fuel. It could've been days, hell, weeks, as his exhausted body and wavering vision keep insisting.
"Go to hell," he whispers.
Uriel snorts. "I've had my share of visits to Hell - one of which involved saving your sorry hide." He shakes his head. "Do you have any idea how many of my garrison I lost to that mission?"
Dean doesn't answer, only looks away.
"And then, I spend close to an eternity in Purgatory - crawling with the remains of scum even lower than you mud-monkeys - and now that I am back? I will not tolerate your insouciance." Another blink, and Uriel's so close to him that if Dean lets his head droop a little bit - and he wants to, so bad, he doesn't know how long it's been since he's slept - they can probably bump foreheads. The image draws a half-hysterical giggle from him.
"Your brother," breathes Uriel, "is being stubborn, and while I expect nothing more from something that's housed the Light-bringer, this obstinacy is not doing it any good. I've had to rip out every one of its extraneous human senses for it to start looking within itself - to look at what it truly is."
Dean's heart clenches with a familiar fear. "My brother," he forces through clenched teeth, "is a person. Not some random used toy."
"The only person your brother is, Dean, is what is locked away behind that wall. Everything else is just... window-dressing." He straightens and turns away, contemplating the blood-spattered wall. "Perhaps, when he breaks, I can offer him to Hell. Perhaps, if my brothers arrive, I can regain control of my old band of friends." He turns and smiles. "Have you been praying hard enough, Dean? I hope so - I know Castiel never lets you keep waiting."
He disappears.
Dean thunks his head back against the wall and lets the tears escape.
Uriel thinks he sees a crack.
It's not much - a sliver of light in a startlingly empty mindspace - but it's there, challenging him, beckoning to him. A thrill of anticipation runs through him at the thought of what he might see on the other side (the most beautiful of us all on his throne of flesh) but for all that he throws himself against it, the wall will not yield.
The wall is a fragile thing, a pathetic thing, but it will yield only to the prodding of its owner.
Uriel pulls out of Sam's mind; the body lies limp on the bed, breathing shallowly, blood bubbling at the corners of its lips. It should've died long ago - but it's still there, holding on to a frayed thread with preternatural tenacity. He's known for a long time that there's more to Sam Winchester than meets the eye, but -
"Hello, brother."
It's sitting up - ribs flailing and pushing under the skin, and it should be impossible, except when Uriel looks up he sees not two bloody holes, but sockets filling up with a coiling, oily miasma that reaches its tendrils down the sides of Sam's face, burrowing into the skin as if deriving strength from the blood that pulsed underneath. They're looking right at him, and they're - they're -
"You shall be rewarded," it - he - Sam-Lucifer says, through a mouth that has had its tongue ripped out several hours ago. "Rewarded richly for your loyalty," in a voice that sounds like the grating of fragments of brimstone and bone, and - Uriel reaches out one trembling arm, his grace seeping out of the pores of his vessel, desperate to touch the being he's been searching for for the better part of eternity...
"URIEL!"
Sam (Lucifer) collapses abruptly like a marionette with its strings cut, and when Uriel turns, Castiel is standing in the doorway.
"Hey. Hey hey hey - take it easy, Sammy, I gotcha -"
Of course he's got you. Until the next time you say or do something that he doesn't like, and then - you're a monster, right?
"Dean...?"
You'll always be that way to him, and you know it.
"I knew it. I knew this place wasn't good, this case - you know what? That's it. I'm calling Bobby and having somebody else take this over. Because - aaaagh!"
Have you ever noticed how much he wants to control your life? Mould you into his version of the perfect little brother?
"Gaaah... Dean? Dean!"
Pandering to his every wish... indulging his every self-destructive habit...
"Dean, Sam. You both are quite resilient, are you not? Like a particularly virulent disease."
When you can be you, and not just Dean's responsibility.
"Uriel? Yeah, you're one to talk about coming back from the dead!"
I'm here, Sam. I'll always be on your side, not on the side I want you to be.
"Funny how half an eternity in Purgatory drains one of all patience. I know, Dean. I know about what you did to stop the Apocalypse, I know what's happening to your brother. I can accelerate the process, unless you choose to have a smidgeon more respect!"
I'll always be here.
The wall explodes.
Dean's halfway to oblivion - he's so goddamn tired, tired of waiting, tired of living - when he's brought abruptly back into awareness by two figures crashing into the room. Decades of honed instinct has him scrambling out of the way of flying debris and two struggling angels. Castiel has his sword at Uriel's neck, straddling him as he pins him to the ground. Uriel's gripping his brother's arm, white-knuckled hands keeping the sword point from plunging into his throat.
"What could you have possibly hoped to achieve through this, Uriel?" Castiel says through clenched teeth.
Uriel smiles. "I have seen him," he says. "And that is enough."
Castiel's eyes widen. "You have -"
"Yes, I have, Cas-ti-el!" Uriel begins to laugh, high and hysterical. "You can kill me now, you can send me right back into Purgatory, but I have achieved what I set out to do!"
His grip weakens, and Castiel's sword finishes its trajectory, skewering through the other angel's throat. Castiel pulls it out even as the vessel begins to jerk in its death-throes. He looks at Dean, eyes wild with a panic Dean has rarely seen before. "Sam," is all the angel says, and Dean hurtles through the hole in the wall to his brother.
Sam lies on a mattress soaked in blood, sightless, deathly still. His body is twisted in strange angles (like the world's biggest pretzel, Dean thinks and he wants to laugh and laugh and laugh), and his jaw is slack, the stump of his tongue still oozing blood. And yet - when Dean gets closer, so close the smell of blood is like needles being pushed into his nostrils, when he sees Sam is still breathing, that's when the tears begin to come.
Please give up, Sammy. Just this once.
Castiel kneels beside him and places a hand gently on Sam's chest. The air shimmers and ripples, and Sam's body begins to knit itself back together - broken bones realigning, joints popping back into their sockets, lips of torn-open gashes rejoining. Sam gasps and arches his neck, back, back, and when he slumps back on to the mattress, his eyes and tongue are restored.
"Dean." Castiel is looking at him now, and there is regret and sorrow and hesitation on that face, and Dean thinks he should probably respond (we waited and then we waited are we going to die yet), but Sam's stirring; Sam's looking at him with wide eyes that dart restlessly, as if getting used to the fact that they're back.
"Sam," Dean says, carding a hand through sweaty, blood-matted hair, "it's okay, dude. It's over."
His brother shakes his head, limbs twitching. "I can, I can," he whispers, "I can still hear him... still, in my head, hear him..."
Then his eyes roll back, and he starts seizing.
Uriel falls.
From desolation above to hope below, he falls.
I trust you to save me, brother.
"Please, don't do this."
Don't beg, Sammy.
"Oh, I'm not going to do anything, don't worry. You'll be doing everything... with a little encouragement from me."
Take.
"Just - no. Please, please -"
Let me guide you, Sam. Let me in.
"Perhaps... we can start with simple physical torture. These kinds of things need to be worked from below upward, after all."
You think two centuries of being together is all that ties me to you? Oh, no, Sammy, we've been destined for each other from the moment my Father deemed I should Fall.
"You can't possibly hope to achieve anything substantial through this; Castiel won't -"
Let me through, Sammy. We have a mission.
"Oh, so now you're presuming my motives? Lucifer's vessel you might be, but you're just as dense as the rest of the mud-monkeys. We shall start!"
You will let me in.
"I... am not sure how this came about, but I am sorry."
Dean dips his head over his brother's chest, feeling too tired - too goddamn exhausted, that's it, like somebody'd pulled the plug on a vital reserve - to shout at the angel. "We waited," is all he says, "Sam said you'd come. Sam said this is how we helped you, helped in your goddamn civil war."
Castiel considers his sleeping brother with those sad eyes of his. "Uriel's return... was unexpected. The battles in Heaven, they've been - intense. And difficult. I -"
"I'd love to hear your excuses some other time, Cas," Dean says, and he pretends not to notice the twitching around Castiel's eyes, the hint of anger in the brief cock of his head. "But right now? You can either tell me if Sam's gonna wake up, or you can get the hell out of here."
Castiel doesn't say anything, just places his hand over Sam's chest again. It seems a long, long while before he moves again, eyes fixed on some distant spot, fingers twitching ever so slightly. When he does move, it's with a slowness that's as close to human grief as Castiel's ever gotten. His head hangs, and he runs the hand helplessly through his hair. Dean's heart drops like a stone.
"It's too late," Castiel says, "his mind has been ravaged, and - everything in there reeks of Lucifer's pollution." He finally meets Dean's eyes. "There might not be much of Sam to salvage -"
(i never did thank you for saving my soul, did i)
Dean clutches at Sam's jeans, bows his head, feels his eyes burn. "Okay," he says. "Okay. You can leave."
(thank you, dean.)
"Dean -"
"I said you can leave!" Dean gets to his feet, swaying dangerously, but fuelled by an anger that's materialised out of nowhere (except he knows exactly where it's coming from). "You can go back to your friggin war, because Sam and me? We're having none of it. Not Purgatory, not that crazy Mother chick, not your dysfunctional family and their schoolyard squabbles. Do you understand me?"
"I understand, Dean," the angels replies patiently, "but you haven't let me complete. I said that there might not be much of Sam to salvage, not that he can't."
No. Dean shakes his head; he's given too much to blind hope before, only to have things end up ten times worse than they were in the first place. But Castiel is already talking, moving forward, hand ghosting over Sam's brow. "I can't rebuild the wall - nor can I guarantee a complete cure - but I can help your brother... fight back Lucifer."
Dean blinks at him. "What?"
"The devil is inside his head," Castiel says. "There's a part of Lucifer that'll always be a part of Sam, and I - I can help Sam to hold him back long enough to heal."
"Can he," Dean whispers, "can he heal?"
"It's Sam," Castiel says simply, and Dean feels the truth of that statement resonate in his bones. It's Sam, his little brother, the little brother who's been destined to be used as a cosmic chess-piece since he was six months old, who's been through more suffering than Dean can possibly take stock of - and he's always come through. Always.
(not revenge. redemption.)
"Okay," he says.
Castiel nods and leans over Sam. "Close your eyes."
Dean throws an arm over his eyes just as the whole room begins to glow, with Castiel at the centre, a tiny white sun. He feels the heat scorching his forearms just before it recedes, and when he opens his eyes, Castiel's vessel lies empty on the floor, and Sam's body glows with a soft, pulsing light. He settles down next to Sam's cot.
Dean waits and prays.
Finis
This was written for radiumgirl 's awesome prompt at the first-anniversary h/c comment-fic meme at ohsam.
Yet another wall!fic, people. I don't know, I can't seem to help it. Also: weird and dark and depressing.
Summary: Uriel's returned, with his own agenda to restart the Apocalypse. He kidnaps Sam and Dean as a means to this end, but none of them are prepared for what happens next...
Warnings: SPOILERS for s6 all the way till 6.16: And then there were none. Lots of blood, gore, violence, torture. Mild swearing, present-tense, metaphor-abuse, a lot of weirdness. And also, about the ending: please don't kill me? Please? *puts on hardhat*
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.
Ruin
For a Vessel destined to hold one of their very best, it is incredibly fragile.
Bones break under his gentlest touch - snap, snap, then scrrich as he grinds the fragments together. It doesn't scream much anymore, breath coming in stuttering gasps as its ribs dip and creak and shift. Uriel removes his hand from its chest and traces a hand upward, drawing slow, lazy circles around the bloody sockets that once held its eyes.
"Can you see?" he asks. "Can you see now, Sam?"
It continues to gasp and twitch, a low pathetic noise emerging from the back of its throat. If Uriel leans a little closer, he can make out half-formed words - please Dean no please - repeated over and over in a desperate litany. He sighs, digs a finger into an empty socket until Sam actually screams, broken body arching awkwardly off the mattress.
This is the problem, Uriel thinks. Give animals the power of thought and expression, and they drown themselves in so much hubris that they can't see the truth. Even this - the one that the Bringer of Light holds in such great esteem, does not seem to be able to resist its human trappings. Even with the stench of sulphur coiling within its veins; even with Lucifer's mark branded into its soul.
"Shall I take your tongue next, Sam?" he asks it pleasantly. "Then perhaps you will have one less distraction."
It whines, trying to move away even now, the arm that's not twisted and bent double grabbing desperately at the edge of the mattress. Uriel reaches out, grabs its jaw.
Its garbled screams echo in the small room.
Nobody ever dies.
"Hey. Sam. You okay?"
They only get recycled. From one plane to another, and back again.
"W-what? Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Why?"
Hell to Heaven, and everything in between. Such a waste, Sammy. Such a waste.
"I don't know - you looked kind of spaced-out over there."
Do you understand that your kind is an infestation? That they pollute what little there is to call the universe?
"Dean. I'm fine. Can we get back to the case?"
The way I look at it? I'm just doing my Father a favour.
"Geez, no need to bite my head off. Just sayin', if you're, y'know, feeling weird about this case or something, we can totally leave."
What do you say, Sammy? Will you cleanse this world with me?
"No, no, I don't think - uh. Gah. Dean oh god Dean -"
Just me and you. Forever. Let me back in, and we can escape to our destiny.
"Sam - Sammy? What the hell, man, what's wrong?"
You cannot refuse.
"Sammy!"
Dean stares at his hands in the meagre light that filters into the room. There's a lone window, small and barred, high on one wall. Save for that, a rickety old cot and the steel door, the room is completely featureless. Dean, who's lived in more anonymous motel rooms than he can count, feels the emptiness of the room like an itch between his shoulders, burrowing, burrowing deeper.
"Deeeeaaan!"
He flinches, but makes no other movement. He knows there's not much he can do; the wall opposite him (the wall between him and Sam and goddammit why does it always come down to walls) and the door are spattered with the blood from his previous attempts. His hands are bloody and swollen - definitely more than a few broken bones in there, he thinks, if the excruciating pain that accompanies every flex of his fingers is anything to go by - and his throat feels scraped raw from screaming.
"Pleaaase oh god oh GOD STOP PLEASE -"
He recognises the scream, on a level that's beyond visceral. The last soul he tortured - or perhaps the first, he's not sure, he thinks that the whole experience went around in circles, where he'd start up cutting through the ribcage of one soul and finish slashing into the abdomen of another and then slit the throat of the first again -
He. He needs to focus. He needs to -
(we can do this, Dean. We just have to wait.)
- wait. That's it. He'll wait and Sam will wait and they'll all wait for their next death, and then they'll wait to come back to life and pain and torment, and wait to die all over again -
"Your brother's getting close."
Dean starts and looks up. Uriel's in the room, that condescending smirk of his intact. He's not sure how he missed the angel standing there, but then again, he's not sure how long he and Sam have been cooped up here, with nothing but pain and terror as their fuel. It could've been days, hell, weeks, as his exhausted body and wavering vision keep insisting.
"Go to hell," he whispers.
Uriel snorts. "I've had my share of visits to Hell - one of which involved saving your sorry hide." He shakes his head. "Do you have any idea how many of my garrison I lost to that mission?"
Dean doesn't answer, only looks away.
"And then, I spend close to an eternity in Purgatory - crawling with the remains of scum even lower than you mud-monkeys - and now that I am back? I will not tolerate your insouciance." Another blink, and Uriel's so close to him that if Dean lets his head droop a little bit - and he wants to, so bad, he doesn't know how long it's been since he's slept - they can probably bump foreheads. The image draws a half-hysterical giggle from him.
"Your brother," breathes Uriel, "is being stubborn, and while I expect nothing more from something that's housed the Light-bringer, this obstinacy is not doing it any good. I've had to rip out every one of its extraneous human senses for it to start looking within itself - to look at what it truly is."
Dean's heart clenches with a familiar fear. "My brother," he forces through clenched teeth, "is a person. Not some random used toy."
"The only person your brother is, Dean, is what is locked away behind that wall. Everything else is just... window-dressing." He straightens and turns away, contemplating the blood-spattered wall. "Perhaps, when he breaks, I can offer him to Hell. Perhaps, if my brothers arrive, I can regain control of my old band of friends." He turns and smiles. "Have you been praying hard enough, Dean? I hope so - I know Castiel never lets you keep waiting."
He disappears.
Dean thunks his head back against the wall and lets the tears escape.
Uriel thinks he sees a crack.
It's not much - a sliver of light in a startlingly empty mindspace - but it's there, challenging him, beckoning to him. A thrill of anticipation runs through him at the thought of what he might see on the other side (the most beautiful of us all on his throne of flesh) but for all that he throws himself against it, the wall will not yield.
The wall is a fragile thing, a pathetic thing, but it will yield only to the prodding of its owner.
Uriel pulls out of Sam's mind; the body lies limp on the bed, breathing shallowly, blood bubbling at the corners of its lips. It should've died long ago - but it's still there, holding on to a frayed thread with preternatural tenacity. He's known for a long time that there's more to Sam Winchester than meets the eye, but -
"Hello, brother."
It's sitting up - ribs flailing and pushing under the skin, and it should be impossible, except when Uriel looks up he sees not two bloody holes, but sockets filling up with a coiling, oily miasma that reaches its tendrils down the sides of Sam's face, burrowing into the skin as if deriving strength from the blood that pulsed underneath. They're looking right at him, and they're - they're -
"You shall be rewarded," it - he - Sam-Lucifer says, through a mouth that has had its tongue ripped out several hours ago. "Rewarded richly for your loyalty," in a voice that sounds like the grating of fragments of brimstone and bone, and - Uriel reaches out one trembling arm, his grace seeping out of the pores of his vessel, desperate to touch the being he's been searching for for the better part of eternity...
"URIEL!"
Sam (Lucifer) collapses abruptly like a marionette with its strings cut, and when Uriel turns, Castiel is standing in the doorway.
"Hey. Hey hey hey - take it easy, Sammy, I gotcha -"
Of course he's got you. Until the next time you say or do something that he doesn't like, and then - you're a monster, right?
"Dean...?"
You'll always be that way to him, and you know it.
"I knew it. I knew this place wasn't good, this case - you know what? That's it. I'm calling Bobby and having somebody else take this over. Because - aaaagh!"
Have you ever noticed how much he wants to control your life? Mould you into his version of the perfect little brother?
"Gaaah... Dean? Dean!"
Pandering to his every wish... indulging his every self-destructive habit...
"Dean, Sam. You both are quite resilient, are you not? Like a particularly virulent disease."
When you can be you, and not just Dean's responsibility.
"Uriel? Yeah, you're one to talk about coming back from the dead!"
I'm here, Sam. I'll always be on your side, not on the side I want you to be.
"Funny how half an eternity in Purgatory drains one of all patience. I know, Dean. I know about what you did to stop the Apocalypse, I know what's happening to your brother. I can accelerate the process, unless you choose to have a smidgeon more respect!"
I'll always be here.
The wall explodes.
Dean's halfway to oblivion - he's so goddamn tired, tired of waiting, tired of living - when he's brought abruptly back into awareness by two figures crashing into the room. Decades of honed instinct has him scrambling out of the way of flying debris and two struggling angels. Castiel has his sword at Uriel's neck, straddling him as he pins him to the ground. Uriel's gripping his brother's arm, white-knuckled hands keeping the sword point from plunging into his throat.
"What could you have possibly hoped to achieve through this, Uriel?" Castiel says through clenched teeth.
Uriel smiles. "I have seen him," he says. "And that is enough."
Castiel's eyes widen. "You have -"
"Yes, I have, Cas-ti-el!" Uriel begins to laugh, high and hysterical. "You can kill me now, you can send me right back into Purgatory, but I have achieved what I set out to do!"
His grip weakens, and Castiel's sword finishes its trajectory, skewering through the other angel's throat. Castiel pulls it out even as the vessel begins to jerk in its death-throes. He looks at Dean, eyes wild with a panic Dean has rarely seen before. "Sam," is all the angel says, and Dean hurtles through the hole in the wall to his brother.
Sam lies on a mattress soaked in blood, sightless, deathly still. His body is twisted in strange angles (like the world's biggest pretzel, Dean thinks and he wants to laugh and laugh and laugh), and his jaw is slack, the stump of his tongue still oozing blood. And yet - when Dean gets closer, so close the smell of blood is like needles being pushed into his nostrils, when he sees Sam is still breathing, that's when the tears begin to come.
Please give up, Sammy. Just this once.
Castiel kneels beside him and places a hand gently on Sam's chest. The air shimmers and ripples, and Sam's body begins to knit itself back together - broken bones realigning, joints popping back into their sockets, lips of torn-open gashes rejoining. Sam gasps and arches his neck, back, back, and when he slumps back on to the mattress, his eyes and tongue are restored.
"Dean." Castiel is looking at him now, and there is regret and sorrow and hesitation on that face, and Dean thinks he should probably respond (we waited and then we waited are we going to die yet), but Sam's stirring; Sam's looking at him with wide eyes that dart restlessly, as if getting used to the fact that they're back.
"Sam," Dean says, carding a hand through sweaty, blood-matted hair, "it's okay, dude. It's over."
His brother shakes his head, limbs twitching. "I can, I can," he whispers, "I can still hear him... still, in my head, hear him..."
Then his eyes roll back, and he starts seizing.
Uriel falls.
From desolation above to hope below, he falls.
I trust you to save me, brother.
"Please, don't do this."
Don't beg, Sammy.
"Oh, I'm not going to do anything, don't worry. You'll be doing everything... with a little encouragement from me."
Take.
"Just - no. Please, please -"
Let me guide you, Sam. Let me in.
"Perhaps... we can start with simple physical torture. These kinds of things need to be worked from below upward, after all."
You think two centuries of being together is all that ties me to you? Oh, no, Sammy, we've been destined for each other from the moment my Father deemed I should Fall.
"You can't possibly hope to achieve anything substantial through this; Castiel won't -"
Let me through, Sammy. We have a mission.
"Oh, so now you're presuming my motives? Lucifer's vessel you might be, but you're just as dense as the rest of the mud-monkeys. We shall start!"
You will let me in.
"I... am not sure how this came about, but I am sorry."
Dean dips his head over his brother's chest, feeling too tired - too goddamn exhausted, that's it, like somebody'd pulled the plug on a vital reserve - to shout at the angel. "We waited," is all he says, "Sam said you'd come. Sam said this is how we helped you, helped in your goddamn civil war."
Castiel considers his sleeping brother with those sad eyes of his. "Uriel's return... was unexpected. The battles in Heaven, they've been - intense. And difficult. I -"
"I'd love to hear your excuses some other time, Cas," Dean says, and he pretends not to notice the twitching around Castiel's eyes, the hint of anger in the brief cock of his head. "But right now? You can either tell me if Sam's gonna wake up, or you can get the hell out of here."
Castiel doesn't say anything, just places his hand over Sam's chest again. It seems a long, long while before he moves again, eyes fixed on some distant spot, fingers twitching ever so slightly. When he does move, it's with a slowness that's as close to human grief as Castiel's ever gotten. His head hangs, and he runs the hand helplessly through his hair. Dean's heart drops like a stone.
"It's too late," Castiel says, "his mind has been ravaged, and - everything in there reeks of Lucifer's pollution." He finally meets Dean's eyes. "There might not be much of Sam to salvage -"
(i never did thank you for saving my soul, did i)
Dean clutches at Sam's jeans, bows his head, feels his eyes burn. "Okay," he says. "Okay. You can leave."
(thank you, dean.)
"Dean -"
"I said you can leave!" Dean gets to his feet, swaying dangerously, but fuelled by an anger that's materialised out of nowhere (except he knows exactly where it's coming from). "You can go back to your friggin war, because Sam and me? We're having none of it. Not Purgatory, not that crazy Mother chick, not your dysfunctional family and their schoolyard squabbles. Do you understand me?"
"I understand, Dean," the angels replies patiently, "but you haven't let me complete. I said that there might not be much of Sam to salvage, not that he can't."
No. Dean shakes his head; he's given too much to blind hope before, only to have things end up ten times worse than they were in the first place. But Castiel is already talking, moving forward, hand ghosting over Sam's brow. "I can't rebuild the wall - nor can I guarantee a complete cure - but I can help your brother... fight back Lucifer."
Dean blinks at him. "What?"
"The devil is inside his head," Castiel says. "There's a part of Lucifer that'll always be a part of Sam, and I - I can help Sam to hold him back long enough to heal."
"Can he," Dean whispers, "can he heal?"
"It's Sam," Castiel says simply, and Dean feels the truth of that statement resonate in his bones. It's Sam, his little brother, the little brother who's been destined to be used as a cosmic chess-piece since he was six months old, who's been through more suffering than Dean can possibly take stock of - and he's always come through. Always.
(not revenge. redemption.)
"Okay," he says.
Castiel nods and leans over Sam. "Close your eyes."
Dean throws an arm over his eyes just as the whole room begins to glow, with Castiel at the centre, a tiny white sun. He feels the heat scorching his forearms just before it recedes, and when he opens his eyes, Castiel's vessel lies empty on the floor, and Sam's body glows with a soft, pulsing light. He settles down next to Sam's cot.
Dean waits and prays.
Finis