FIC: ripples in the river of time [2/4]
Title: ripples in the river of time
Author: Miss ‘Drea/placeofinsanity
Rating: Hard R (for sexual content)
Word Count: ~17,300
Summary: Set just after the end of Season 3, pre-Season 4. And just after “Serenity”. Castiel pulls Dean out of Hell, expecting the elder Winchester to become the pawn he’s supposed to. Instead, Dean wakes up on Serenity with no memories. Sam moves heaven and earth to find him.
Disclaimer: Firefly/Serenity and Supernatural don’t belong to me.
Notes: Title from “Time-Travel” by Indira Babbellapati
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four |
*
| 2 |
*
Sam barely looks up from his book when Castiel appears in his motel room. “I am sorry, Samuel Winchester,” he says. “But Dean’s soul is nowhere on this Earth.”
The words blur on the page and Sam is forced to close his eyes to stop from crying. “You pulled him from Hell,” he repeats uselessly. “Then what?”
“He was meant to find his Earthly body. He never did.” Castiel doesn’t move from his position in front of the door. “But there are no demonic traces around his grave. His body is simply gone.”
“How?”
Castiel, who is, Sam finds, generally expressionless, manages to look sheepish. “I do not know.”
Sam has nothing to say to that. They remain quiet in the motel room, neither of them moving, until Sam’s cell phone rings. He answers quickly. “Yeah?”
“I heard you’re looking for your brother,” the smooth, accented voice on the other end of the line says. “I’m willing to offer my services, as it were.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam ends the call. “That was Crowley,” he says to the silent Castiel. “He wants to offer his services.” Still Castiel says nothing. He’s never spoken much, at least not where Sam could hear him, even though they’ve been grudgingly working together for almost six months, ten months since Dean died.
Castiel had come to him when Dean went missing, and the most he’d ever said in one hour was when the angel killed Ruby. “Crowley may know more than he realizes he does,” Castiel says slowly, his voice gravelly and rough. “Let him come.”
At Castiel’s pronouncement, there’s a knock and Sam looks over at the salt line that lies undisturbed in front of the door. Castiel opens the door with one smooth movement to face the demon behind it. “Castiel,” Crowley says with some measure of surprise. “I definitely did not expect to find you here, with him.”
“Hello, Crowley,” Castiel says evenly, and breaks the salt line.
The demon saunters through the door and sits neatly across the table from Sam, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Sam,” he says, “how are you holding up?”
Sam raises one eyebrow in question. “You’re really here to exchange pleasantries?”
Crowley smiles, eyes flickering black. “Not really. We’re going to be working closely together, we are. I was just covering the basics.” His smile widens. “Do you know why our dear Castiel pulled Dean’s soul from Hell, Sam?”
Though he has an answer on the tip of his tongue, Sam bites the inside of his cheek and shakes his head. “No.”
“Because he started the apocalypse,” Crowley says evenly, not a trace of mirth or amusement in his face. “The Righteous Man. They thought it was supposed to be your father, but...” He shrugs one shoulder elegantly. “Didn’t work out that way.”
Sam glances at Castiel and is faintly surprised when Castiel refuses to meet his eyes. “What?” he says eventually. “Like, an actual apocalypse?”
“Mm,” Crowley murmurs. “Like the end of days, Lucifer rising, sun-going-out end.” He absently draws a manicured finger nail over the tabletop. “Dean rising from the dead was supposed to start that, but... he’s gone.”
“Is he in Heaven?” Sam asks, more to Castiel than to Crowley.
There’s a faint rustling sound that makes Sam turn his head towards Castiel, just in time to see the angel shake his head. “No. I have already looked.”
“So what, he’s just gone?” Sam says, too loudly, and he winces when his voice breaks. “He can’t just be gone.”
Crowley actually looks sympathetic, which makes everything even worse. “I’m sorry, Samuel,” the demon says. “I have a few contacts I can look into. Until Dean returns, the apocalypse is... well, it’s on hold like a bad phone call.”
Sam sighs and closes his book. It’s useless anyway. “Then what?”
“Then it’s a choice, Samuel,” Castiel says. “If there is a way to return your brother to this planet, it will start the apocalypse.”
Color drains out of Sam’s face. “What if I can go to him?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Crowley answers him. “We don’t even know where he is. If he’s just gone, then let him stay gone.”
Sam sits in the motel room, the human with the angel and the demon, and for once they’re in agreement.
None of them wants the apocalypse. Heaven does, and Hell does. But they don’t. It’s enough for Sam. “Leave him where he is,” Sam whispers brokenly. “He wouldn’t want to know. He wouldn’t want me to sell out the whole world for him.” It’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to say.
When he looks up again, both angel and demon are gone.
*
Withdrawing from demon blood is the most unpleasant thing that Sam has ever done. But without Ruby there to convince him that it’s what he needs, and with Crowley and Castiel being straight with him, it’s easy enough to see what she was doing. Sam is tired of being the pawn of both Heaven and Hell.
Dean is there with him though, even as Sam lies about the motel room trying not to vomit or cry or both. Dean kneels beside him and takes him in his arms, cradling him like he did when Sam was eight and was still afraid of the monster in the closet.
“Shh,” his brother soothes him, rubbing warm hands up and down Sam’s cold arms. “It’s going to be all right. You can beat this.”
“Dean,” he forces out between teeth chatters. “Dean, you’re dead. I couldn’t save you.”
His brother only holds him tighter, and when the shakes finally abate, he lifts Sam as easily as though he weighs nothing and tucks him into the clean bed.
Even after a year of being alone, Sam still gets a room with two beds. That night he lies on his side, too tired to move, too awake to sleep, and watches as his brother strips the opposite bed of the sticky and sweaty sheets and blankets, depositing them in a bag. He drifts off as soon as his brother disappears into the bathroom.
When he opens his eyes again, it’s daylight, and the bed opposite him is made.
He feels stronger than he did the day before, so Sam packs his things and gets into the car. There’s no telling what sort of things he was saying or doing while under the influence of the withdrawal. He needs to get as far away as he can, as soon as he can.
The hallucinations pick strange times to visit him. Usually it’s Dean, but sometimes it’s their father or Jess or Mom. None of them has anything nice to say, and Sam feels another rush of guilt. Hallucinations or not, they’re right.
If he had never met Jess, she’d still be alive. If he’d never been born, maybe his mother and father would have been able to raise Dean without the threat of hunting hanging over their heads. He shakes his head sharply. It won’t help to think along those lines.
He turns up the Zeppelin and drives.
*
Bobby is waiting for him when he gets to the house. “How’re you feeling, son?” he asks the minute Sam closes the door to the Impala.
“Like shit,” Sam answers honestly. “And I need a way to summon the Trickster.”
Bobby startles bad enough that he drops his beer. “Sam, we already went through this once, two years ago. It doesn’t work, and it never ends well.”
Sam leans his head on the doorframe. “I’m sorry, Bobby. But we’re out of options.” He outlines what Crowley and Castiel told him and watches as Bobby’s face falls further and further.
“Boy, don’t you find it strange that the only two creatures who don’t want the apocalypse have found you?” Bobby asks when the flow of words finally stops and Sam falls silent. Instead of answering, Sam shrugs one shoulder, feeling the aches and pains of driving and withdrawal and despair weighing him down. “Get some sleep, son.”
Sam digs the heel of his hand into his left eye socket, where he can feel a migraine starting to develop. “I can’t, not right now. I need to find the Trickster.”
“There is no ritual that we can find to do that. How are you going to find him?” Bobby asks, ushering him into the house. “He could be anywhere.”
Sam runs a hand through his hair. “Well, the last two times I ran into him, he was punishing people who he thought deserved it. They were dying in weird ways, remember? He kept playing tricks on Dean and me to make us angry with each other.”
“Yeah,” Bobby scoffs. “From what I remember, it worked.”
“Not the point. The second time we ran into him, he was trying to get me to let Dean go.” Bobby scoffs again, but Sam ignores him. “I’m going to look up strange deaths. Ones that have weird stories around them.”
Bobby sighs, gets him a beer, and lets him work. When the hallucinations start, it’s Bobby who picks him up and puts him to bed.
That’s when Dean comes into the room. “Hey, Sammy,” he whispers, pulling Sam into a tight soul-crushing hug. “You’re working too hard.”
“I have to find you. I have to.” He clings to his brother, too tired and too worn out to be embarrassed by his behavior.
“Aw, baby brother,” Dean murmurs. “You’ll be okay.”
“No, no I won’t.” Sam pulls away from Dean to look him in the eye. “Dean, where are you?”
“I’m at peace, Sammy.” Dean pulled him close again. “You wouldn’t want me to find you like this, would you? Hopped up on demon blood and going crazy.” Sam stiffens and tries to get away, but Dean’s fingers tighten on his arms. “How are you going to save me from Hell if you can’t even get your act together?”
Sam starts struggling in earnest, but can’t get away from Dean’s clinging fingers. “You’re in Hell?” His voice breaks when he says it. “You’re still in Hell?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay,” Dean tells him, pressing a hot, dry kiss on Sam’s forehead. “I’m not being tortured anymore.”
Eyes flooding with tears, Sam shakes his head, not struggling anymore. “Dean...” he whimpers, and tugs his brother closer into another hug.
“I’m not being tortured anymore,” Dean repeats lightly, “because now it’s my turn to do the torturing.”
Sam jerks awake and lies there until morning.
*
He comes down the stairs just after eight to find Bobby at the breakfast table with Crowley and Castiel. Crowley is happily drinking something in a mug and Castiel looks at what’s in his with something akin to confusion on his face. “Uh, what the hell?”
“I heard,” Crowley says once he finishes swallowing, “that you’re on the hunt for a trickster.”
Sam blinks. “Is this my life now?” he asks rhetorically, and sees Bobby hide a smile behind his cup. “Yes, I’m looking for the Trickster.”
Examining his mug for the last dregs of what he was drinking, Crowley grins. “Interesting wording, that. ‘The’ Trickster, not ‘a’ trickster.”
“That’s because I’m looking for a specific Trickster.” Sam picks up the mug of coffee that’s sitting in front of Castiel and drinks it. “He and I... and Dean... have a history with him. He’s powerful.”
Castiel leans back in the chair. “How powerful?”
Sam drains the coffee. “I’m not sure how powerful they are, usually. This particular Trickster, the first time we met him, murdered or tormented his victims by making tall tales come true. Alligators in the sewers, alien abductions, and so on. We thought we could kill him by stabbing him through the heart with a holly branch drenched in innocent blood.” Crowley snorts and pours himself more coffee. “The second time we ran into him, he put me in a time loop.”
“That’s not possible,” Castiel interjects. “It would take too much power.”
Sam hands Crowley his mug for a refill. “He...” Two years, and it still hurts. “...he created over a hundred different Tuesdays, Tuesdays that ended when Dean died. In hundreds or thousands of ways. A car hit him once. He was electrocuted with the razor plugged into the wall. He choked on a sausage. I killed him with an axe. Someone shot him. A dog killed him. A piano fell on him.” Crowley puts a stop to the quiet flow of words by handing him another coffee.
“Drink,” he commands softly.
Sam does so, mechanically. “I begged the Trickster to stop... And when we woke up next, it was Wednesday. Dean was shot and I didn’t wake up. I spent six months in... in this not-real-reality hunting the Trickster.” He drinks again, when Crowley touches the bottom of the mug. “Turns out the entire thing was him.”
Crowley frowns and glances at Castiel. “Definitely not a trickster. Maybe one of the old gods?”
Castiel taps a finger against the table. “The old ones do not meddle in the affairs of Heaven or Hell.”
“Usually,” Crowley interjects. “Things... haven’t exactly been normal, lately.”
Sam drinks again. “If he can manipulate reality like that... maybe he took Dean when Cas raised him from Hell?” The angel gives him a startled look that Sam can’t quite interpret. “Anything you know that can do that?”
Scowling, Castiel looks down. “No. Only...” he trails off, voice deepening with displeasure.
“Only?” Sam prompts.
“Only another angel.”
Bobby blinks. “I thought all the other angels were into the apocalypse?” he questions.
“So did I.” Both Bobby and Sam startle when Castiel suddenly vanishes.
Crowley finishes the last of his coffee. “I’m off,” he announces. “I have to keep up appearances, you understand. Samuel,” he says and nods. “Sweetheart.” He winks at Bobby and then he too vanishes.
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Sweetheart?”
Bobby shakes his head and stands. “Don’t ask.”
From somewhere, Sam finds a smile. “Right.” Bobby grumbles indistinctly at him as he leaves the room. Sam pours another coffee and ignores the pounding in his head.
He’s not sure how many more days he can last without breaking.
*
It’s late, he knows it is. The moon is full and high, and he’s been staring at the same two pages for the last... he’s not sure how many hours. His hands are shaking and he knows someone is standing behind him; his mom, or maybe Jess. He doesn’t want it to be Dean. He’s so tired but he doesn’t want it to be Dean.
When he turns, it’s Madison. It’s unexpected enough that he actually recoils, because it’s new. She opens her mouth to say something, some more of the vitriol that Jess or his mother spews every time they appear to him. He braces himself and then Castiel blocks his view of the ghost. “Samuel,” he greets. “It is late, you must rest.”
Sam’s eyes focus just behind him, but Madison is gone. “Cas...” he says, mouth suddenly dry.
“Samuel.” Cas tilts his head to one side. He looks unbearably human when he does and Sam relaxes. “Samuel, how long have you been like this?”
“Since you killed Ruby,” he answers, the answer wrenched from him.
Castiel doesn’t exactly nod, but he does duck his head. “You need to rest, Samuel.”
“I can’t. I have to… I have to find Dean.” Castiel takes a step into Sam’s personal space, and places his hands on Sam’s elbows. “Cas?”
The angel draws him up the stairs, into the room that Sam has been using. “You will be useless if you do not rest,” the angel cautions him. “What are you seeing, Sam?”
“Everyone I have ever failed,” Sam says quietly. “My mother. My father. Jessica. Dean. Madison, for all of two seconds.” He lets Castiel urge him towards the bed. “Have you found out anything?”
The angel shakes his head. “Not yet. Rest, Sam. The research will be there in the morning.” Cas leans over Sam’s body to touch him delicately on the forehead, and Sam’s awareness blinks out.
*
When Sam comes downstairs the next morning, it’s much later than the day before. Three people sit at the table again, Bobby, Crowley, who is already a significant way through his first mug of coffee, and Castiel, who hands Sam his mug before he even sits down.
It’s weird because it already feels like a ritual.
“Anything new?” he asks, after taking his first sip.
“No,” Castiel answers. “No one in Heaven is talking.” He actually looks discouraged for a second. “But everyone is angry.”
Bobby clears his throat. “And from Hell?”
“Dean Winchester’s soul is no longer on the rack. Castiel removed him, and killed Alastair to do it. After that, nothing.” Crowley fills up his mug again. “I have a friend, an old one, I can ask him if he knows anything.” He smiles a little, eyes crinkling up at the edges. “He owes me a favor.”
Sam snorts into his drink. “Why does that make me worried?”
Crowley actually laughs out loud. “Why, Sam Winchester, I do believe you have a dirty mind.”
Both Bobby and Castiel have the same expression on their faces, and Sam has to laugh. It’s too early for shit like this. Crowley refills his coffee mug and says, “I have a contact within the old gods. He’s not a god, but he works for one. The Skull Cowboy.”
This time it’s Bobby and Sam who snort into their mugs. “The Skull Cowboy?” Castiel repeats, with audible distaste.
Crowley grins. “He works for a voodoo king. The Baron Samedi.” That registers, and Sam blinks. “Yes, the Baron.”
Castiel glances at him from the corner of his eye. “I am not surprised that you are acquainted with a Loa of Haitian Voodoo.”
The demon’s grin widens into a real smile. “And I am surprised you know who that is.”
Rolling his blue eyes, Castiel settles back in the chair. “I have Higher Knowledge. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Sam sighs and finishes his second cup of coffee. “Yup,” he says, faintly despondent. “This is my life.”
“We need a plan,” Bobby interjects. “Crowley, you get in touch with... with the Skull Cowboy. Cas, keep an ear to the ground on Heaven’s movements. Lay low. Sam, I have a few new books coming in. Those are your priority right now.” The room is silent for a long moment, before Bobby barks. “Well, get moving!”
Then they’re alone at the table again.
*
The books yield nothing on tricksters or how to summon them, but they do give a good idea as to how to not piss one off. Sam rubs one eye with the heel of his hand, and when he pulls it away, there’s a man standing in front of the fireplace.
He’s tall, nearly as tall as Sam, but dark-skinned and in a black leather jacket with a fringe. There’s a white bone bracelet in his left hand, held like a rosary. “Sam Winchester,” the Cowboy drawls. “I heard you were looking for me.”
“I need to summon the Trickster,” Sam says.
The Skull Cowboy looks surprised. “That’s specific of you,” he says with a half smile. “Why?”
Sam meets his unfathomable eyes and smiles. “I think you know why.”
The Skull Cowboy laughs. “To find your brother. What are you going to do when you find him, cher?”
“He died for me,” Sam whispers. “He sold his soul for me.”
“Oh, I get it, you want to repay the favor.” The Cowboy leans against the edge of the fireplace. “I haven’t seen such a hopeless case since... well, for quite some time, my friend. Y’see, cher, people only get second chances like this if they’re willing to give something up.”
Sam licks his lips, this throat suddenly dry. “What would I have to give up?”
“Ah, cher, you know how these things work. An eye for an eye, a life for a life.” The Skull Cowboy offers Sam the bone beads. “I’ll give you a trickster. Just remember the price you paid.”
Sam almost takes the beads, before he pauses. “Not ‘a’ trickster. ‘The’ Trickster.”
The Skull Cowboy freezes. “You’re good, my friend. Too good, almost. Which trickster?”
“I just know him as the Trickster.” Sam thinks for a second. “His preferred form is, well, short. Sandy-colored hair, weird-colored eyes. Amber, or whiskey.”
For the first time, the Skull Cowboy looks shocked. “Cher, are you talking about Loki?” He drops the hand with the beads and regards Sam quietly. “Son, what the hell you want with the original badass?”
“He’s dealt with me before. Crowley said that you could get him here.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest. “Is that true?”
“My friend, I can get you any trickster you want, but Loki? Cher, I haven’t got a chance of finding him.” The Skull Cowboy looks down at his beads. “I ain’t got that kind of power.” Sam can feel his entire body droop. “But, for you, my friend, I will... try.” Sam looks up to see the Cowboy back up, into the fireplace, into the wall, before fading away entirely.
Sam hears something shatter behind him. “Holy shit,” Bobby says conversationally. “Guess Crowley came through.”
“Guess so,” Sam says, but he feels better for knowing that Bobby could see him too.
Sam opens the book still lying on his lap. “Back to the drawing board,” Bobby mutters. “Damn it.”
*
Castiel finds him still in the chair, books in messy piles around his feet. He’s sleeping, mouth open and snoring lightly. It’s the first real sleep Castiel has seen Sam have. He brushes his fingers over Sam’s forehead and relocates them to the room upstairs. Arranging Sam’s long limbs over the bed and covering him with the light blanket, Castiel sits beside him to guard his new charge’s sleep.
Heaven had given him Dean Winchester, and someone had taken him away. He’s left with Samuel, someone his brothers had told him was evil, a demon spawn, and not to be trusted.
But if there is one thing that Castiel understands about humans, it’s their capacity to love. Sam loves his brother, loves him enough to stay on the right path.
“I promise,” Castiel says to him. “I will find your brother.”
He stays there until morning, when he meets Bobby and Crowley at the breakfast table and keeps Sam’s coffee warm for him.
*
When Sam stumbles down the stairs and takes the coffee handed to him, Crowley mercifully waits for him to take a few sips first before speaking. “Did the Cowboy come?”
Sam nods, and drinks again. Bobby answers for him. “The Trickster Sam’s dealt with? It’s Loki.”
Crowley chokes on his own coffee. “Christ, you Winchesters never do anything halfway, do you?” he asks. “Loki.”
Bobby glances at Castiel. “You said that a mere trickster couldn’t wield that sort of power. What about a god?”
“Y... well. Yes. Technically. Much of the power of the old gods is diminished.” Castiel concentrates briefly on a point just beyond Bobby’s left shoulder. “There are always people who believe in the old ones, the Pagans, the Wiccans, and so on. If enough people believed in one god, then yes... I assume they’d have enough power to do what you say he does.”
Sam taps a finger against his mug. “And if it’s Loki...?”
Crowley snorts. “Thanks to those Avenger comics, more people believe in Viking mythos than you’d think.”
Castiel shakes his head. “No, I’ve read those. The representation of Loki and the other gods in those comics are inaccurate. Even if a significant amount of people believed in that... It wouldn’t matter enough for this. Not if he’s the real thing.”
“Which,” a familiar voice says from behind them, “I am.”
Only Bobby and Sam whip around to look at the Trickster lounging in the doorway to the living room. Castiel turns slowly and Crowley grins, toasting him with the mug of coffee. “Loki! Glad you could join us.”
“Aw, now Crowley baby, if you’d wanted my attention, you could have just called. That Cowboy is so ham-handed!” Loki affects a wounded air. “Hello, Castiel. I’m surprised to see you here,” he says to the angel. “And Gigantor! I heard you were looking for me!” He snaps his fingers and sits in the chair he put at the table. “So, Scooby Gang. What’s the what?”
“Where is Dean?” Sam asks, staring at the god. “Please, just... do you know where he is?”
Loki’s face softens ever so slightly. “Aw, Gigantor. He’s safe.”
Sam can feel his entire body slump in the chair. “You took him?”
“Not... exactly.” Loki reaches out and tries to take Crowley’s coffee cup, but the demon won’t give it up.
“Get your own,” he snaps, and drinks the rest quickly.
Sam stands and gets another mug from the cupboard, pouring the Trickster a cup of coffee with shaking hands. “If you don’t have him, where is he?”
Loki takes the mug with a smile. “Thanks, Sammy.” He drinks for a minute. “I took him to a place where the apocalypse doesn’t matter.”
Putting his empty mug down, Sam looks at the Trickster. “Take me there.”
Bobby starts violently. “Sam.”
“Bobby,” Sam murmurs quietly, “what am I without my brother?”
“Think about it first, Gigantor,” Loki says. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.” Then he’s gone, with a jaunty finger snap.
Castiel, who has been completely silent for the entire conversation, looks up and says, “That’s no trickster.”
Crowley frowns. “Who is it, then?”
“That’s one of my brothers. He calls himself... Gabriel.”
*
Sam stands alone in his room, looking down at his collected things. There isn’t much, a few pictures of his family, ones Dean had taken of them when he was really young. Dean’s favorite gun, the keys to the Impala. Their father’s journal. He packs them in his duffle with his few sets of clothes.
“You’re really going?” Bobby asks, closing the door behind him when he enters the room. “Just like that?”
“Come with me,” Sam offers. “You’re like... you’re like a father, Bobby. I don’t... I don’t want to leave you behind.”
Bobby huffs. “Ah, son. You don’t want an old man like me dragging you down.” He pulls Sam into a hug. “You’re certain about this?”
“Yes.”
When he gets downstairs, Castiel and Crowley are waiting for them. “If it’s at all possible, Sam Winchester,” the angel says. “When you arrive... pray. I will come.”
Crowley nods. “As will I. Well. Not if you pray. Wrong end, I’m afraid.” He smiles a little. “For what it’s worth, good luck.”
Sam nods back. “Thanks. Out of curiosity...” he starts, “why are you helping me anyway?”
The demon laughs. “Because, my dear, while you’re around, business is good.”
“Gabriel?” Sam prompts. “I’m ready.”
There’s light, and fire, and pain in his muscles. The last thing he sees is Bobby’s face as the world around him dissolves.
*
Author: Miss ‘Drea/placeofinsanity
Rating: Hard R (for sexual content)
Word Count: ~17,300
Summary: Set just after the end of Season 3, pre-Season 4. And just after “Serenity”. Castiel pulls Dean out of Hell, expecting the elder Winchester to become the pawn he’s supposed to. Instead, Dean wakes up on Serenity with no memories. Sam moves heaven and earth to find him.
Disclaimer: Firefly/Serenity and Supernatural don’t belong to me.
Notes: Title from “Time-Travel” by Indira Babbellapati
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four |
*
| 2 |
*
Sam barely looks up from his book when Castiel appears in his motel room. “I am sorry, Samuel Winchester,” he says. “But Dean’s soul is nowhere on this Earth.”
The words blur on the page and Sam is forced to close his eyes to stop from crying. “You pulled him from Hell,” he repeats uselessly. “Then what?”
“He was meant to find his Earthly body. He never did.” Castiel doesn’t move from his position in front of the door. “But there are no demonic traces around his grave. His body is simply gone.”
“How?”
Castiel, who is, Sam finds, generally expressionless, manages to look sheepish. “I do not know.”
Sam has nothing to say to that. They remain quiet in the motel room, neither of them moving, until Sam’s cell phone rings. He answers quickly. “Yeah?”
“I heard you’re looking for your brother,” the smooth, accented voice on the other end of the line says. “I’m willing to offer my services, as it were.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam ends the call. “That was Crowley,” he says to the silent Castiel. “He wants to offer his services.” Still Castiel says nothing. He’s never spoken much, at least not where Sam could hear him, even though they’ve been grudgingly working together for almost six months, ten months since Dean died.
Castiel had come to him when Dean went missing, and the most he’d ever said in one hour was when the angel killed Ruby. “Crowley may know more than he realizes he does,” Castiel says slowly, his voice gravelly and rough. “Let him come.”
At Castiel’s pronouncement, there’s a knock and Sam looks over at the salt line that lies undisturbed in front of the door. Castiel opens the door with one smooth movement to face the demon behind it. “Castiel,” Crowley says with some measure of surprise. “I definitely did not expect to find you here, with him.”
“Hello, Crowley,” Castiel says evenly, and breaks the salt line.
The demon saunters through the door and sits neatly across the table from Sam, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Sam,” he says, “how are you holding up?”
Sam raises one eyebrow in question. “You’re really here to exchange pleasantries?”
Crowley smiles, eyes flickering black. “Not really. We’re going to be working closely together, we are. I was just covering the basics.” His smile widens. “Do you know why our dear Castiel pulled Dean’s soul from Hell, Sam?”
Though he has an answer on the tip of his tongue, Sam bites the inside of his cheek and shakes his head. “No.”
“Because he started the apocalypse,” Crowley says evenly, not a trace of mirth or amusement in his face. “The Righteous Man. They thought it was supposed to be your father, but...” He shrugs one shoulder elegantly. “Didn’t work out that way.”
Sam glances at Castiel and is faintly surprised when Castiel refuses to meet his eyes. “What?” he says eventually. “Like, an actual apocalypse?”
“Mm,” Crowley murmurs. “Like the end of days, Lucifer rising, sun-going-out end.” He absently draws a manicured finger nail over the tabletop. “Dean rising from the dead was supposed to start that, but... he’s gone.”
“Is he in Heaven?” Sam asks, more to Castiel than to Crowley.
There’s a faint rustling sound that makes Sam turn his head towards Castiel, just in time to see the angel shake his head. “No. I have already looked.”
“So what, he’s just gone?” Sam says, too loudly, and he winces when his voice breaks. “He can’t just be gone.”
Crowley actually looks sympathetic, which makes everything even worse. “I’m sorry, Samuel,” the demon says. “I have a few contacts I can look into. Until Dean returns, the apocalypse is... well, it’s on hold like a bad phone call.”
Sam sighs and closes his book. It’s useless anyway. “Then what?”
“Then it’s a choice, Samuel,” Castiel says. “If there is a way to return your brother to this planet, it will start the apocalypse.”
Color drains out of Sam’s face. “What if I can go to him?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Crowley answers him. “We don’t even know where he is. If he’s just gone, then let him stay gone.”
Sam sits in the motel room, the human with the angel and the demon, and for once they’re in agreement.
None of them wants the apocalypse. Heaven does, and Hell does. But they don’t. It’s enough for Sam. “Leave him where he is,” Sam whispers brokenly. “He wouldn’t want to know. He wouldn’t want me to sell out the whole world for him.” It’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to say.
When he looks up again, both angel and demon are gone.
*
Withdrawing from demon blood is the most unpleasant thing that Sam has ever done. But without Ruby there to convince him that it’s what he needs, and with Crowley and Castiel being straight with him, it’s easy enough to see what she was doing. Sam is tired of being the pawn of both Heaven and Hell.
Dean is there with him though, even as Sam lies about the motel room trying not to vomit or cry or both. Dean kneels beside him and takes him in his arms, cradling him like he did when Sam was eight and was still afraid of the monster in the closet.
“Shh,” his brother soothes him, rubbing warm hands up and down Sam’s cold arms. “It’s going to be all right. You can beat this.”
“Dean,” he forces out between teeth chatters. “Dean, you’re dead. I couldn’t save you.”
His brother only holds him tighter, and when the shakes finally abate, he lifts Sam as easily as though he weighs nothing and tucks him into the clean bed.
Even after a year of being alone, Sam still gets a room with two beds. That night he lies on his side, too tired to move, too awake to sleep, and watches as his brother strips the opposite bed of the sticky and sweaty sheets and blankets, depositing them in a bag. He drifts off as soon as his brother disappears into the bathroom.
When he opens his eyes again, it’s daylight, and the bed opposite him is made.
He feels stronger than he did the day before, so Sam packs his things and gets into the car. There’s no telling what sort of things he was saying or doing while under the influence of the withdrawal. He needs to get as far away as he can, as soon as he can.
The hallucinations pick strange times to visit him. Usually it’s Dean, but sometimes it’s their father or Jess or Mom. None of them has anything nice to say, and Sam feels another rush of guilt. Hallucinations or not, they’re right.
If he had never met Jess, she’d still be alive. If he’d never been born, maybe his mother and father would have been able to raise Dean without the threat of hunting hanging over their heads. He shakes his head sharply. It won’t help to think along those lines.
He turns up the Zeppelin and drives.
*
Bobby is waiting for him when he gets to the house. “How’re you feeling, son?” he asks the minute Sam closes the door to the Impala.
“Like shit,” Sam answers honestly. “And I need a way to summon the Trickster.”
Bobby startles bad enough that he drops his beer. “Sam, we already went through this once, two years ago. It doesn’t work, and it never ends well.”
Sam leans his head on the doorframe. “I’m sorry, Bobby. But we’re out of options.” He outlines what Crowley and Castiel told him and watches as Bobby’s face falls further and further.
“Boy, don’t you find it strange that the only two creatures who don’t want the apocalypse have found you?” Bobby asks when the flow of words finally stops and Sam falls silent. Instead of answering, Sam shrugs one shoulder, feeling the aches and pains of driving and withdrawal and despair weighing him down. “Get some sleep, son.”
Sam digs the heel of his hand into his left eye socket, where he can feel a migraine starting to develop. “I can’t, not right now. I need to find the Trickster.”
“There is no ritual that we can find to do that. How are you going to find him?” Bobby asks, ushering him into the house. “He could be anywhere.”
Sam runs a hand through his hair. “Well, the last two times I ran into him, he was punishing people who he thought deserved it. They were dying in weird ways, remember? He kept playing tricks on Dean and me to make us angry with each other.”
“Yeah,” Bobby scoffs. “From what I remember, it worked.”
“Not the point. The second time we ran into him, he was trying to get me to let Dean go.” Bobby scoffs again, but Sam ignores him. “I’m going to look up strange deaths. Ones that have weird stories around them.”
Bobby sighs, gets him a beer, and lets him work. When the hallucinations start, it’s Bobby who picks him up and puts him to bed.
That’s when Dean comes into the room. “Hey, Sammy,” he whispers, pulling Sam into a tight soul-crushing hug. “You’re working too hard.”
“I have to find you. I have to.” He clings to his brother, too tired and too worn out to be embarrassed by his behavior.
“Aw, baby brother,” Dean murmurs. “You’ll be okay.”
“No, no I won’t.” Sam pulls away from Dean to look him in the eye. “Dean, where are you?”
“I’m at peace, Sammy.” Dean pulled him close again. “You wouldn’t want me to find you like this, would you? Hopped up on demon blood and going crazy.” Sam stiffens and tries to get away, but Dean’s fingers tighten on his arms. “How are you going to save me from Hell if you can’t even get your act together?”
Sam starts struggling in earnest, but can’t get away from Dean’s clinging fingers. “You’re in Hell?” His voice breaks when he says it. “You’re still in Hell?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay,” Dean tells him, pressing a hot, dry kiss on Sam’s forehead. “I’m not being tortured anymore.”
Eyes flooding with tears, Sam shakes his head, not struggling anymore. “Dean...” he whimpers, and tugs his brother closer into another hug.
“I’m not being tortured anymore,” Dean repeats lightly, “because now it’s my turn to do the torturing.”
Sam jerks awake and lies there until morning.
*
He comes down the stairs just after eight to find Bobby at the breakfast table with Crowley and Castiel. Crowley is happily drinking something in a mug and Castiel looks at what’s in his with something akin to confusion on his face. “Uh, what the hell?”
“I heard,” Crowley says once he finishes swallowing, “that you’re on the hunt for a trickster.”
Sam blinks. “Is this my life now?” he asks rhetorically, and sees Bobby hide a smile behind his cup. “Yes, I’m looking for the Trickster.”
Examining his mug for the last dregs of what he was drinking, Crowley grins. “Interesting wording, that. ‘The’ Trickster, not ‘a’ trickster.”
“That’s because I’m looking for a specific Trickster.” Sam picks up the mug of coffee that’s sitting in front of Castiel and drinks it. “He and I... and Dean... have a history with him. He’s powerful.”
Castiel leans back in the chair. “How powerful?”
Sam drains the coffee. “I’m not sure how powerful they are, usually. This particular Trickster, the first time we met him, murdered or tormented his victims by making tall tales come true. Alligators in the sewers, alien abductions, and so on. We thought we could kill him by stabbing him through the heart with a holly branch drenched in innocent blood.” Crowley snorts and pours himself more coffee. “The second time we ran into him, he put me in a time loop.”
“That’s not possible,” Castiel interjects. “It would take too much power.”
Sam hands Crowley his mug for a refill. “He...” Two years, and it still hurts. “...he created over a hundred different Tuesdays, Tuesdays that ended when Dean died. In hundreds or thousands of ways. A car hit him once. He was electrocuted with the razor plugged into the wall. He choked on a sausage. I killed him with an axe. Someone shot him. A dog killed him. A piano fell on him.” Crowley puts a stop to the quiet flow of words by handing him another coffee.
“Drink,” he commands softly.
Sam does so, mechanically. “I begged the Trickster to stop... And when we woke up next, it was Wednesday. Dean was shot and I didn’t wake up. I spent six months in... in this not-real-reality hunting the Trickster.” He drinks again, when Crowley touches the bottom of the mug. “Turns out the entire thing was him.”
Crowley frowns and glances at Castiel. “Definitely not a trickster. Maybe one of the old gods?”
Castiel taps a finger against the table. “The old ones do not meddle in the affairs of Heaven or Hell.”
“Usually,” Crowley interjects. “Things... haven’t exactly been normal, lately.”
Sam drinks again. “If he can manipulate reality like that... maybe he took Dean when Cas raised him from Hell?” The angel gives him a startled look that Sam can’t quite interpret. “Anything you know that can do that?”
Scowling, Castiel looks down. “No. Only...” he trails off, voice deepening with displeasure.
“Only?” Sam prompts.
“Only another angel.”
Bobby blinks. “I thought all the other angels were into the apocalypse?” he questions.
“So did I.” Both Bobby and Sam startle when Castiel suddenly vanishes.
Crowley finishes the last of his coffee. “I’m off,” he announces. “I have to keep up appearances, you understand. Samuel,” he says and nods. “Sweetheart.” He winks at Bobby and then he too vanishes.
Sam raises an eyebrow. “Sweetheart?”
Bobby shakes his head and stands. “Don’t ask.”
From somewhere, Sam finds a smile. “Right.” Bobby grumbles indistinctly at him as he leaves the room. Sam pours another coffee and ignores the pounding in his head.
He’s not sure how many more days he can last without breaking.
*
It’s late, he knows it is. The moon is full and high, and he’s been staring at the same two pages for the last... he’s not sure how many hours. His hands are shaking and he knows someone is standing behind him; his mom, or maybe Jess. He doesn’t want it to be Dean. He’s so tired but he doesn’t want it to be Dean.
When he turns, it’s Madison. It’s unexpected enough that he actually recoils, because it’s new. She opens her mouth to say something, some more of the vitriol that Jess or his mother spews every time they appear to him. He braces himself and then Castiel blocks his view of the ghost. “Samuel,” he greets. “It is late, you must rest.”
Sam’s eyes focus just behind him, but Madison is gone. “Cas...” he says, mouth suddenly dry.
“Samuel.” Cas tilts his head to one side. He looks unbearably human when he does and Sam relaxes. “Samuel, how long have you been like this?”
“Since you killed Ruby,” he answers, the answer wrenched from him.
Castiel doesn’t exactly nod, but he does duck his head. “You need to rest, Samuel.”
“I can’t. I have to… I have to find Dean.” Castiel takes a step into Sam’s personal space, and places his hands on Sam’s elbows. “Cas?”
The angel draws him up the stairs, into the room that Sam has been using. “You will be useless if you do not rest,” the angel cautions him. “What are you seeing, Sam?”
“Everyone I have ever failed,” Sam says quietly. “My mother. My father. Jessica. Dean. Madison, for all of two seconds.” He lets Castiel urge him towards the bed. “Have you found out anything?”
The angel shakes his head. “Not yet. Rest, Sam. The research will be there in the morning.” Cas leans over Sam’s body to touch him delicately on the forehead, and Sam’s awareness blinks out.
*
When Sam comes downstairs the next morning, it’s much later than the day before. Three people sit at the table again, Bobby, Crowley, who is already a significant way through his first mug of coffee, and Castiel, who hands Sam his mug before he even sits down.
It’s weird because it already feels like a ritual.
“Anything new?” he asks, after taking his first sip.
“No,” Castiel answers. “No one in Heaven is talking.” He actually looks discouraged for a second. “But everyone is angry.”
Bobby clears his throat. “And from Hell?”
“Dean Winchester’s soul is no longer on the rack. Castiel removed him, and killed Alastair to do it. After that, nothing.” Crowley fills up his mug again. “I have a friend, an old one, I can ask him if he knows anything.” He smiles a little, eyes crinkling up at the edges. “He owes me a favor.”
Sam snorts into his drink. “Why does that make me worried?”
Crowley actually laughs out loud. “Why, Sam Winchester, I do believe you have a dirty mind.”
Both Bobby and Castiel have the same expression on their faces, and Sam has to laugh. It’s too early for shit like this. Crowley refills his coffee mug and says, “I have a contact within the old gods. He’s not a god, but he works for one. The Skull Cowboy.”
This time it’s Bobby and Sam who snort into their mugs. “The Skull Cowboy?” Castiel repeats, with audible distaste.
Crowley grins. “He works for a voodoo king. The Baron Samedi.” That registers, and Sam blinks. “Yes, the Baron.”
Castiel glances at him from the corner of his eye. “I am not surprised that you are acquainted with a Loa of Haitian Voodoo.”
The demon’s grin widens into a real smile. “And I am surprised you know who that is.”
Rolling his blue eyes, Castiel settles back in the chair. “I have Higher Knowledge. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Sam sighs and finishes his second cup of coffee. “Yup,” he says, faintly despondent. “This is my life.”
“We need a plan,” Bobby interjects. “Crowley, you get in touch with... with the Skull Cowboy. Cas, keep an ear to the ground on Heaven’s movements. Lay low. Sam, I have a few new books coming in. Those are your priority right now.” The room is silent for a long moment, before Bobby barks. “Well, get moving!”
Then they’re alone at the table again.
*
The books yield nothing on tricksters or how to summon them, but they do give a good idea as to how to not piss one off. Sam rubs one eye with the heel of his hand, and when he pulls it away, there’s a man standing in front of the fireplace.
He’s tall, nearly as tall as Sam, but dark-skinned and in a black leather jacket with a fringe. There’s a white bone bracelet in his left hand, held like a rosary. “Sam Winchester,” the Cowboy drawls. “I heard you were looking for me.”
“I need to summon the Trickster,” Sam says.
The Skull Cowboy looks surprised. “That’s specific of you,” he says with a half smile. “Why?”
Sam meets his unfathomable eyes and smiles. “I think you know why.”
The Skull Cowboy laughs. “To find your brother. What are you going to do when you find him, cher?”
“He died for me,” Sam whispers. “He sold his soul for me.”
“Oh, I get it, you want to repay the favor.” The Cowboy leans against the edge of the fireplace. “I haven’t seen such a hopeless case since... well, for quite some time, my friend. Y’see, cher, people only get second chances like this if they’re willing to give something up.”
Sam licks his lips, this throat suddenly dry. “What would I have to give up?”
“Ah, cher, you know how these things work. An eye for an eye, a life for a life.” The Skull Cowboy offers Sam the bone beads. “I’ll give you a trickster. Just remember the price you paid.”
Sam almost takes the beads, before he pauses. “Not ‘a’ trickster. ‘The’ Trickster.”
The Skull Cowboy freezes. “You’re good, my friend. Too good, almost. Which trickster?”
“I just know him as the Trickster.” Sam thinks for a second. “His preferred form is, well, short. Sandy-colored hair, weird-colored eyes. Amber, or whiskey.”
For the first time, the Skull Cowboy looks shocked. “Cher, are you talking about Loki?” He drops the hand with the beads and regards Sam quietly. “Son, what the hell you want with the original badass?”
“He’s dealt with me before. Crowley said that you could get him here.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest. “Is that true?”
“My friend, I can get you any trickster you want, but Loki? Cher, I haven’t got a chance of finding him.” The Skull Cowboy looks down at his beads. “I ain’t got that kind of power.” Sam can feel his entire body droop. “But, for you, my friend, I will... try.” Sam looks up to see the Cowboy back up, into the fireplace, into the wall, before fading away entirely.
Sam hears something shatter behind him. “Holy shit,” Bobby says conversationally. “Guess Crowley came through.”
“Guess so,” Sam says, but he feels better for knowing that Bobby could see him too.
Sam opens the book still lying on his lap. “Back to the drawing board,” Bobby mutters. “Damn it.”
*
Castiel finds him still in the chair, books in messy piles around his feet. He’s sleeping, mouth open and snoring lightly. It’s the first real sleep Castiel has seen Sam have. He brushes his fingers over Sam’s forehead and relocates them to the room upstairs. Arranging Sam’s long limbs over the bed and covering him with the light blanket, Castiel sits beside him to guard his new charge’s sleep.
Heaven had given him Dean Winchester, and someone had taken him away. He’s left with Samuel, someone his brothers had told him was evil, a demon spawn, and not to be trusted.
But if there is one thing that Castiel understands about humans, it’s their capacity to love. Sam loves his brother, loves him enough to stay on the right path.
“I promise,” Castiel says to him. “I will find your brother.”
He stays there until morning, when he meets Bobby and Crowley at the breakfast table and keeps Sam’s coffee warm for him.
*
When Sam stumbles down the stairs and takes the coffee handed to him, Crowley mercifully waits for him to take a few sips first before speaking. “Did the Cowboy come?”
Sam nods, and drinks again. Bobby answers for him. “The Trickster Sam’s dealt with? It’s Loki.”
Crowley chokes on his own coffee. “Christ, you Winchesters never do anything halfway, do you?” he asks. “Loki.”
Bobby glances at Castiel. “You said that a mere trickster couldn’t wield that sort of power. What about a god?”
“Y... well. Yes. Technically. Much of the power of the old gods is diminished.” Castiel concentrates briefly on a point just beyond Bobby’s left shoulder. “There are always people who believe in the old ones, the Pagans, the Wiccans, and so on. If enough people believed in one god, then yes... I assume they’d have enough power to do what you say he does.”
Sam taps a finger against his mug. “And if it’s Loki...?”
Crowley snorts. “Thanks to those Avenger comics, more people believe in Viking mythos than you’d think.”
Castiel shakes his head. “No, I’ve read those. The representation of Loki and the other gods in those comics are inaccurate. Even if a significant amount of people believed in that... It wouldn’t matter enough for this. Not if he’s the real thing.”
“Which,” a familiar voice says from behind them, “I am.”
Only Bobby and Sam whip around to look at the Trickster lounging in the doorway to the living room. Castiel turns slowly and Crowley grins, toasting him with the mug of coffee. “Loki! Glad you could join us.”
“Aw, now Crowley baby, if you’d wanted my attention, you could have just called. That Cowboy is so ham-handed!” Loki affects a wounded air. “Hello, Castiel. I’m surprised to see you here,” he says to the angel. “And Gigantor! I heard you were looking for me!” He snaps his fingers and sits in the chair he put at the table. “So, Scooby Gang. What’s the what?”
“Where is Dean?” Sam asks, staring at the god. “Please, just... do you know where he is?”
Loki’s face softens ever so slightly. “Aw, Gigantor. He’s safe.”
Sam can feel his entire body slump in the chair. “You took him?”
“Not... exactly.” Loki reaches out and tries to take Crowley’s coffee cup, but the demon won’t give it up.
“Get your own,” he snaps, and drinks the rest quickly.
Sam stands and gets another mug from the cupboard, pouring the Trickster a cup of coffee with shaking hands. “If you don’t have him, where is he?”
Loki takes the mug with a smile. “Thanks, Sammy.” He drinks for a minute. “I took him to a place where the apocalypse doesn’t matter.”
Putting his empty mug down, Sam looks at the Trickster. “Take me there.”
Bobby starts violently. “Sam.”
“Bobby,” Sam murmurs quietly, “what am I without my brother?”
“Think about it first, Gigantor,” Loki says. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.” Then he’s gone, with a jaunty finger snap.
Castiel, who has been completely silent for the entire conversation, looks up and says, “That’s no trickster.”
Crowley frowns. “Who is it, then?”
“That’s one of my brothers. He calls himself... Gabriel.”
*
Sam stands alone in his room, looking down at his collected things. There isn’t much, a few pictures of his family, ones Dean had taken of them when he was really young. Dean’s favorite gun, the keys to the Impala. Their father’s journal. He packs them in his duffle with his few sets of clothes.
“You’re really going?” Bobby asks, closing the door behind him when he enters the room. “Just like that?”
“Come with me,” Sam offers. “You’re like... you’re like a father, Bobby. I don’t... I don’t want to leave you behind.”
Bobby huffs. “Ah, son. You don’t want an old man like me dragging you down.” He pulls Sam into a hug. “You’re certain about this?”
“Yes.”
When he gets downstairs, Castiel and Crowley are waiting for them. “If it’s at all possible, Sam Winchester,” the angel says. “When you arrive... pray. I will come.”
Crowley nods. “As will I. Well. Not if you pray. Wrong end, I’m afraid.” He smiles a little. “For what it’s worth, good luck.”
Sam nods back. “Thanks. Out of curiosity...” he starts, “why are you helping me anyway?”
The demon laughs. “Because, my dear, while you’re around, business is good.”
“Gabriel?” Sam prompts. “I’m ready.”
There’s light, and fire, and pain in his muscles. The last thing he sees is Bobby’s face as the world around him dissolves.
*