[and then shall that wicked be revealed] Part III

[phantasmik]

To start with, it’s Cas’s idea. The problem could probably be fixed some other way, but this is the surest way. The safest way.

“And besides,” Cas adds-“It isn’t as if I’m not used to the sensation.”



They go for the first one they find, because it makes him feel skeezy to actively hunt them down, and taking down one monster daddy is hard enough as it is.

It’s tough, but they take it down.



The little girl cringes away from him, dirty brown hair half out of its ponytail. Her eyes are yellow, glowing, and Castiel wonders just how long she’s been here. Her protector is dead at their feet, and she’s shrieking at them, tears steaming down corpse-gray skin. “This isn’t right, Cas. I’m tellin’ you. This whole thing makes me queasy.”

Dean does appear sick to his stomach, for his face is nearly as white as the girl’s. “Dean, this is the only way, trust me.”

“And you’ll-your body will be safe here? Until we come back to it? You’re sure?”

He grimaces. It is a possibility that Jimmy’s body may be compromised while they’re gone, but it is a risk that they will have to take. There is no way around this. Jimmy is no longer with him, a fact that he is thankful for. After everything this body has been through, he would not wish that on the man. The place is frigid, and the temperature will keep the body from decomposing while they are gone.

“Everything will be fine, Dean. Pass her to me, please.”

Dean surrenders and passes the wriggling child to him. It is not difficult to take over the child’s mind, despite the lack of Novak blood within her. She may not contain his form for long, but it will not be a problem for what they need to accomplish.

The girl’s name is Masha Lutz, and she is nearly ten years old. Her mind is so cracked and splintered that Castiel is forced to put her to sleep after the initial onslaught of memories, where the madness catches on the edge of his grace, sticking to it like larva. Masha has a mother and a father somewhere in Rapture, was taken away from her family by Ryan, and thinks that a tree is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

It is strange, to be looking up at Dean from this perspective. Stranger still, is the way the little girls see the world around them-warm and safe, their own personal heaven. Castiel glances around the room with her eyes, and no longer wonders why the girls are not afraid.

Rapture lives up to its name in the eyes of a little girl-in the eyes of this particular little girl. The world shines with an ethereal light, all warm hues and soft textures. The gray room that he and Dean had crammed themselves into near Fontaine Fisheries is gone, replaced with marble floors and artfully hung white drapes, creeping ivy and rosebuds. It is beautiful, and it is all he can do to lock it down. If he concentrates, he can see beyond the mental conditioning, to the ice and the blood and the charred corpses a few steps away from Masha’s feet.

Jimmy’s body is half cradled in Dean’s lap, dead-weight. Dean stares at it, face white as chalk.

“You can put it down, Dean,” he says, letting a bright blue butterfly perch on Masha’s fingertip. When he blinks, a fly is in its place, beady eyes staring up at him. He shakes his hand to shoo it away. There is a vent to their right, past one of the Doctor’s turrets. The ice creeps up the wall, and Castiel is thankful that it does not obscure the opening because without Sam they have no way of melting it. He gets to his feet, and tries to shake free the vertigo that is wrapping around his head-the expectation of being much taller. He’s gotten far too used to Jimmy Novak’s body.

“Leave it here, Dean,” he says again, and Dean flinches when Castiel’s voice comes out birdsong high, Masha’s vocal cords and Masha’s voice. There is a faint obstruction there, grit stuck in her lower pharynx and trachea that is all Castiel’s grace, the power of heaven wrapped into one little girl’s larynx. Dean looks at him-at her, and there’s fear there, though of what Castiel is not certain. Dean’s gaze lingers on the glowing eyes, on the dirty feet, and the gray skin, as if he hadn’t seen the same on Jimmy’s body not even three days ago.

Dean swallows, and Castiel watches the line of his throat as he does so, and distantly, he hears Masha wonder sleepily what he would look like with a needle through the hollow of his throat. The madness is creeping around him again, vine-like, lulling Castiel to sleep. There is grit in his eyes, so he rubs it away with the back of his wrist, the wet smearing there like blood. Dean is looking back down at his old body, caressing its cheek like Castiel is still wrapped in its skin, like Castiel can still feel it. He steps delicately across the marble floor and stops before Dean, crouching down so he can meet his eyes.

“Dean,” he whispers, tugging on Dean’s sleeve urgently. “It is nothing, Dean. Merely a vessel. I am here now.” Castiel presses a hand to his chest and listens to Masha’s heart thump away inside him, pitter-patter, the slightly too fast heartbeat of a child. He offers his wrist to Dean, and when the hunter just looks confused, he uses his other hand to wrap Dean’s fingers around the wrist, to slide Dean’s fingertips across the beat of his pulse. “This is me,” he says, his breath coming out in puffs of white vapor. “My Grace runs through her veins now and will continue to do so until my true form either burns her to a husk, or I return to Jimmy Novak’s body. So please, Dean. Put it down.”

Dean's hand tightens around Masha's wrist, pulling him closer until Castiel is crouching just over Dean, gazing down into Jimmy Novak's half lidded dead eyes. “It’ll definitely be safe, right? ‘Cause there aren’t any do-overs with this, Cas. Something goes wrong, we might not have the time to come back for your body.” His voice is gruff. Castiel smiles, and watches his reflection in Dean’s eyes, little girl lips curving slowly upwards.

“Dean, who did you come here with? Trust me, we have all the time in the world.”



The bathysphere is just small enough for the Doctor to feel ever so slightly claustrophobic, especially with Sam’s bulk taking up a large majority of it. His legs are stretched across the floor, his head in his hands, and for all that the Doctor, if he’s being honest with himself, prefers Sam over Dean, he doesn’t have a clue what to say.

“We’ll find him, you know,” he says, patting Sam’s shoulder awkwardly.

Sam snorts and looks at him with red rimmed eyes. “Sure, we will,” is all he says.

Again, if he’s honest with himself, he feels a bit offended. “Now Sam Winchester, none of that,” he barks, in his best the-humans-are-being-stupid-again voice. Sam flinches slightly and looks away from his knees warily. “I’ve gotten you impossible boys this far. I’ve taken you to the bottom of the ocean to find your brother’s angel-my best friend-and you are not going to start doubting me now, got it?”

He steps up to the bathysphere’s window, and glares at a whale as it passes overhead. They’re going deeper, that’s for sure. Wherever this Hephaestus is, it must be deep. “Now, I know this isn’t exactly my forte, here.” He takes a deep breath and watches lava gleam bright in the distance. “All this killing, that’s your territory. But I know impossible cities, and I know how they work. I’ve been to enough so-called utopias by now to know that someone is pulling the strings behind all this. We just have to find out who or what that someone is and get my TARDIS back from them.”

He tears his gaze away from the huge structure looming before them, sinister with the lava winding around it like a good old-fashioned castle and moat, and meets Sam’s eyes. “You are strong, Sam Winchester. Stronger than I ever thought possible, and for that, I am glad that I am here with you. You boys have lived through more than what most humans go through in a lifetime, and have come out broken, bleeding, and cracked-but see, the brilliant thing here is that you use each other to make yourselves whole again. You piece your cracks back together, using each other's souls like glue. That is why there is no doubt in my mind that when I say we'll find your brother? We really will."

Sam blinks, and when he smiles, it makes the Doctor remember that little boy in a library, looking for a definition of family.

"Now get up here and see this. Ever seen an underwater volcano before, Sammy-boy?"



Predictably, Dean complains incessantly about the Big Daddy suit. The smell, the weight, the size, until Castiel finally turns around and just glares at him from his perch, half inside a vent already. "Would you perhaps prefer to be the one crawling through dark holes, then?” Castiel asks, vexed enough that Masha stirs in the depths of their mind, wondering why something is wrong with her daddy. Castiel soothes the little girl back to sleep with a quick pass over of grace, and chews on his lip, watching Dean for a moment before he crawls inside.

The tunnels are strangely warm, and from Masha’s eyes, they look like wonderland. Candy coats the tunnel, green grass lining its walls, fireflies surrounding him as he makes her way through. It lets him out just past the door they’re trying to get through, and though he can hear splicers, they’re still far enough off not to be a concern. He steps around another mockery of an angel and wishes ardently that it weren’t so tiring to see past the little girl’s conditioning. Castiel has always preferred to see things as they are, and like this, nothing is right.

He has to go up on tiptoe to override the door’s locks, and when it hisses open, Dean has his helmet off and is glowering down at him. It’s still strange for Dean to tower over Castiel, made even stranger by the unfamiliar bulk of the armor. Sometimes he turns around, expecting to see Dean, and startles when he’s greeted by the sight of the suit-the thumping footsteps and the harsh breathing. They learned earlier that Dean doesn’t have the voice of the creature, not with just its armor, and that while speaking, his voice is still his, but it’s an odd experience all the same.

Castiel glowers back at him and is unconcerned when Dean remains unfazed.

“I believe we should wait the night out here,” he says instead, because while he might tell Castiel that it’s all fine, Dean is drooping, eyes dull with exhaustion. Castiel doesn’t need him breaking on him, here of all places. With this body, he’s not sure that he would be able to protect him.

Dean sputters, and gestures to the room over Castiel’s shoulder, flooded with water and littered with artifacts. Most of them are biblical in nature-a stack of bibles half in, half out of the water, a chipped statue of the Virgin Mary next to a waterlogged painting of the Messiah. Castiel does not hold it against those who do not believe in his Father. While he cannot fathom the lack of faith, he who has lived in a time where God’s presence saturated every corner of the world, he does not blame them. His Father has been absent for far too long, long enough that the humans no longer believe. There are those who are devout, truly content in their faith, as Daphne was-and others who use her Father’s name for greed and gluttony, like the preacher that he had killed when all of Purgatory was inside him. It saddens him, because the humans fail to realize his Father’s most powerful gift to them-their free will. They hate each other so passionately, and do not understand that his Father would have never judged a human being for their sex or their beliefs or even their choice of a life partner. Once upon a time, his Father believed in love, and that was the one thing that He was best at.

He does blame Ryan though, just a little bit, for taking away someone’s faith. For creating a world in which Castiel’s Father is denied so thoroughly that those who believe in him have to smuggle objects in.

There are other things in the cave-bottles and bottles of liquor, cigarettes by the carton, even foods. The rocks do not look particularly comfortable, but there is no evidence of splicers in the vicinity, and they have shelter and food. “We can’t stay here, Cas,” Dean hisses. “Look at the place!”

He shrugs and settles against an outcropping of limestone, tucking his legs in beneath him neatly. “There is food and drink, Dean. If you are uncomfortable, there are tarps just over there. Lay them on the ground beneath you. But you need to sleep.”

Dean sighs and begins to shrug out of the suit, sliding it down until it’s slumped awkwardly on the ground and he’s left with filthy jeans and an equally filthy Led Zeppelin t-shirt. Castiel cocks his head and watches as Dean settles down a few feet away from him. Dean doesn’t sit neatly, no knees tucked beneath his chin, no Indian style-Dean sprawls, ass to the ground and legs spread apart across the stone, reclining backwards and propping himself up with his arms. He rolls his head, popping the kinks out of his neck and shoulders, eyes closing in bliss. Like this, he takes up more space than Sam, which is quite the accomplishment.

“If you’re uncomfortable, you can wash your clothes in the water there.”

Dean glances at him through slitted eyes and snorts. “And what, sit around here in my birthday suit til the splicers show up? Thanks but no thanks.”

“I do not understand what a birthday suit consists of,” he says, playing with a strip of ripped fabric on Masha’s dress.

Dean rolls his eyes and sighs, flopping down onto his back. He pillows his head with one arm, and regards him with a raised eyebrow. “Man, I do not get you,” he says. “You watch over the Earth for thousands of years, and you don’t even understand slang?”

Castiel fiddles with a puddle of water next to him, swirling a finger through it to make shapes with the ripples. “There has been much ‘slang’ as you say, over the years, Dean. I cannot keep track of all of it.”

Dean laughs at him, and the sound echoes around the cave. “If you must know, it means that I don’t want to sit around here with my ass in the air when the splicers get here. Gankin’ things naked sucks ass.”

“There are tarps. I would give you Masha’s dress, but I do not think it would fit you.”

He looks like he’s going to make a crack regarding the dress, but then his brows draw together and he looks at Castiel properly. “Who the fuck is Masha?” he asks, and moments later realization dawns in his eyes. He sits back up and frowns at Castiel. “That’s the little girl? Masha? You can speak with her?”

There are stalactites on the ceiling, and one of them appears to be cracking. Castiel shifts to the side a bit, just in case. “Her memories are here for me to see, but her mind is cracked. She has been sleeping since I took possession of her, and I will keep her that way.”

“So she’s there? In your head? She hasn’t gone batshit yet?”

“She is here in her own head, yes, but she is quite mad. Her mental conditioning has driven her nearly out of her mind. It is cracked and broken, and will remain so until well after this creature is out of her. She sleeps, and even sleeping her dreams are of gore and those metal creatures.”

Dean turns his head away from her, and glowers at the ground. “No kid deserves that,” he whispers, closing his eyes.

Castiel leaves him be. He needs the sleep.



Sam’s always been fascinated by the world around him. When he was six years old, it was dinosaurs. He’s spend hours in the libraries of whatever town they were in that week just learning about them-about raptors, triceratops, dilophosaurus, procompsognathus, and of course, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. When Jurassic Park came out, Dean snuck them out to see a showing of it, grinning over at Sam the entire time, watching him bounce with barely concealed excitement.

When Sam was eight, it was meteorology. When he was ten, it was volcanoes. The week he was supposed to do a research project on them, he spent the entire time nattering about them to Dean-about Olympus Mons, Vesuvius, and the super-volcano beneath Yellowstone. The week after that they were moving again, and it wasn’t until they got there that he realized Dean had looked up hunts in the area, then convinced their dad that it was a necessity. If John was annoyed about driving hundreds of miles for a mere poltergeist, he never saw it. So when they arrive in Hephaestus, the first few minutes are spent with him pressed against the glass in the first connecting tunnel, staring in awe at the magma feet away from them. The Doctor grins over at him, just watching him geek out like a little girl. “Oh yes,” he says. “Volcanoes are cool.”

They spend a few more minutes there, just talking about the various volcanoes the Doctor’s been to, and Sam nearly loses his shit when the Doctor says that he was at Pompeii when it happened.

“It was an accident, of course,” he says, nibbling at his lower lip. “Volcano Day, anyway. Donna was furious.”

There’s a look in his eyes that makes Sam bite his tongue instead of asking who she was, because Winchesters can tell what that look means a mile away. The sound of Splicers echoes down the tunnel, and Sam would roll his eyes if he weren’t too busy fumbling for his gun. There are only two of them, and the Doctor reluctantly pulls out the pistol Dean had given him, flinching first at the recoil and then again when one of the two drops heavily to the ground. Sam puts his down neatly, a bullet between the eyes, and spares a minute to mourn who they once were.

The few minutes’ happiness they’d had while geeking out over the volcano fades as they enter the next room-a bunker with metal beds and ankle-deep water on the ground. There are too many corpses here, and the smell makes them gag as they make their way through it.

The next one is worse, and the Doctor gazes at it in evident horror, taking in the corpses nailed to the walls-the others littering the ground. It appears to be Ryan’s trophy room, because the diaries they pick up near the corpses all seem to be about various people trying to assassinate the man. “I love Mr. Ryan. But I love Rapture. If I have to kill one to save the other, so be it,” Bill McDonagh tells them, and Sam stares at his corpse for a moment, trying to wonder what this man’s life was like-if he was truly a good man, like the diary makes him sound, or if he too had gone mad in the end.

“Come on, Doctor. We shouldn’t be here,” he whispers, tugging at the hole where one of the Doctor’s elbow patches used to be.

The next few rooms seem to be workshops, machinery whirring over their heads and desks littered with mechanical contraptions in various stages of completion. Sam can tell that the Doctor wants to tinker, can see it in the way that his hands twitch towards something that looks to Sam like a dismantled toaster. He resists though, drooping with a sigh before heading into the next room-a behemoth of a room with a huge glowing reactor in the center. “The heart of Rapture,” the Doctor breathes, laying his hand on a large metal pipe at their side.

It’s a majestic sight, and they spend long enough staring at it that three more Splicers creep up on them, costing Sam three bullets and the Doctor a long cut along his forearm. His jacket’s ruined by now, but he stubbornly keeps it on anyway, the same way he’d tried to cling to his bow tie until they finally forced him to get rid of it after the fifth splicer that tried to strangle him with it.

“I don’t think it’s here, Doctor,” Sam murmurs on their fourth cycle through the rooms.

“I know she isn’t.” The Doctor sighs, and turns back towards the entrance-back towards their bathysphere.



When Dean wakes with a stiff back and a crick in his neck, Cas has his-no, her eyes closed. Fuck, that’s gonna be weird. He’s sleeping not two feet from him, curled up on his side with one hand resting against Dean’s ankle, fingers curled around the denim of his jeans. His hand is so small that his fingers can barely curl half way around, and it’s strange to see the guy like this. The body he’s in could be Dean’s little sister, just a little girl with dirty brown hair and a fucked up dress. He supposes that’s where the name came from. Little Sister. He’s tried to keep his cool about it, but to be honest, it freaks him right the fuck out to see Cas in this little wisp of a girl. Just like how he’d been freaked out for the few minutes that Cas had been in Claire Novak. His Cas, trapped in a little girl with glowing eyes? Not his idea of a fun time.

He sits up, groaning as he does so. Fuck it, but his arm feels like it’s going to fall off. You would think he would have gotten used to sleeping on damp, uncomfortable rocks after these last few weeks, but nope. The sleep hurts him more than the constant running does. Slowly, he lifts Cas’ hand away from his ankle, smiling when he curls in on himself and tucks the hand beneath his body. It’s fucking weird to see the angel sleeping, but fuck, after what he’s gone through, he deserves it. Dean’s not about to wake him up yet.

Quietly, he gets to his feet, cursing as his back protests in the form of a loud series of cracks. Maybe he should take Cas up on his suggestion of washing the clothes-if they hadn’t been attacked in the middle of the night, they’re probably not going to get jumped now, and well, if they do, Dean’s just gonna have to live with fucking the things up with his balls out. He reeks.

The waterline isn’t too far away from where they’d collapsed, so it’s easy to slip out of his clothes and wade in, tasting the salt water in the air as it washes over his skin. He scrubs at his skin with his hands, vigorous enough that the dirt begins to slide off and the surface of it goes red and irritated. Whatever, if it gets all the blood and gunk off, he doesn’t give a shit. He starts in on his hair when most of the dirt seems to have sloughed away from his skin, dunking his head back and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. It’s a little longer than he’s used to, flopping down a bit onto his forehead. If they don’t get out of here soon, he’s gonna start looking like Sam.

By the time he’s done scrubbing his clothes, Cas is stirring, his facial features contorting as he makes the journey back to reality. Dean lays the clothes out a few feet away from him, and tries not to feel too exposed. He knows for damn sure that he isn’t grabbing one of those nasty-ass tarps, so Cas will just have to deal with getting an eyeful when he wakes up. Dean’ll let the clothes dry long enough for him to grab some breakfast, and then they’ll get going, wet clothes or no.

Cas wakes up fully when Dean’s grabbed them both some potato chips, a beat up pep-bar, and a few thermoses of coffee. Dean sits down in front of him as Cas rubs his eyes, trying not to seem to put off by their glow. “I got us some grub,” he says, tossing the food down as Castiel blinks at him slowly. “And hey, I thought you guys didn’t need sleep.”

Castiel keeps blinking at him, his movements awkward-stilted and kind of groggy. “We do not,” he finally says, and Dean shudders. Little girl voice, right. Fucking creepy.

“I made a habit of it when the people here had me captive. It made things... easier.”

Dean’s held back on asking him how long he’s been here for selfish reasons, because for all that they trolled around Rapture before-bouncing back and forth through time like a goddamn bouncy ball, he gets the feeling that Cas has been here for a lot longer than they think. He starts to ask, but then Cas moves, darting a hand out to grab one of the coffees, popping the seal on the canister. Immediately, steam fills the air above it, and Dean breathes the smell in blissfully. Ah, coffee. It’s been far too long.

Cas takes a sip, holding the thermos in both tiny hands as he tips it back. Fascinated, Dean watches the little girl’s throat work as Cas chugs it all down in one go. Afterward, he tosses it off to the side, where it lands in the water with a plop. Dean pops open a bag of chips and offers the Pep Bar to Cas.

“O-kay then,” Dean says, rolling his eyes.

Cas cocks his head and gets hair in his eyes for his trouble. It’s a good thing that most of the girl’s hair is tied back with a big blue ribbon, because otherwise this would be happening constantly. “What?” he asks, taking a small bite of the bar before passing it back to Dean. Dean takes one big bite and gives it back again.

“Nothin’, man. You just drank that a little fast, don’t you think?”

“I was thirsty,” Cas says, frowning. Dean rolls his eyes and goes in search of the bottle of water he’d seen earlier. “Drink this,” he says, handing it over to him. Cas accepts it and takes a small sip before chugging the rest the same way he had downed the coffee.

Dean tosses the chip bag away and climbs to his feet, crossing the room to start gathering his clothes, shaking out the excess water and sliding them back on. They’re damp, which sucks, but it’s not as bad as it could have been. He looks down at Cas, who is sitting demurely with his knees tucked under him, dress neatly tucked over them, nibbling on the rest of the Pep Bar.

“We should probably get going soon. Who knows where the hell the next bathysphere is.”

Cas sighs and tosses the bar into the water, climbing unsteadily to his feet. “Yes, this is true. Don’t forget the suit,” he says, pointing at the Big Daddy suit a few yards away from them. Dean grimaces at it and goes to shrug the damn thing on. It’s heavy as hell and it smells even worse, but Cas is right about one thing, the drill is totally handy. Once the suit is on, he can’t see all that well-his peripheral vision is shot to all hell, and he can only really see Cas through the dirty ass holes in the helmet of the suit. Not the most conducive to fighting, probably, but the suit’s got a hell of a punch, and the drill at his side doesn’t hurt things.

Cas tiptoes over to him and stands in his shadow. Dean glances down at him and thinks about all the other Big Daddies with the Little Sisters on their shoulders. Oddly, that might actually be a good idea. He can’t be all that heavy in this body, and it would definitely put him out of harms way. He kneels down next to her and waves one huge hand. Fucking huge-ass suit. “Climb on,” he tells her. When Cas gives him a scandalized look, he laughs.

“No seriously, get on. You’ll be safer that way.”

“Dean, I-”

“And don’t gimme that angel of the lord bullshit. You’re in a tiny-ass body, and I want you where I can see you.”

Reluctantly, Castiel puts one tiny hand onto the suit, curling his fingers into the fabric and hoisting himself up. It’s a struggle there for a minute while Dean tries to find his balance and Cas tries to wriggle his way all the way to Dean’s shoulder, but after some wobbling, they manage-Cas seated comfortably on his shoulders in a way that isn’t going to make Dean fall on his ass.

He steps into the water, and Cas squirms on his shoulder when Dean steps around a crate with a corpse crammed inside of it. The ramp isn’t too far away, just a few paces, but the way is littered with stacks of boxes-most jammed full of wine or bibles or even the occasional movie. There’s a turret stuck between more boxes at the top of the ramp, and they avoid the spray of bullets as Cas does something glowy to it and it explodes in a shower of sparks.

Down some stairs and past another corpse, and the tunnel leads out into something that used to be a submarine bay, though the submarine itself is just a charred hunk of metal that’s just barely poking out of the water. He has to clamber over some rocks and bust open a chain-locked door to get into the control room, but there’s nothing there except a switch for the dead submarine. The docks past there are oddly quiet, worn wood and spilled gasoline all over the place. “You get the feeling it’s a little too quiet down here?” he whispers, stopping before the bulkhead doors to Arcadia.

Cas is quiet too, thin frame ramrod stiff, and he jerks his head forward in a brief nod.

“It should not be this quiet,” Cas whispers back. “Once you open those doors, be wary, Dean.”

Dean steps forward and opens the door.

His first impression of Arcadia is the smell-like the coastal states in the springtime.



Prometheus is one of the larger places they’ve been to, and they wander around it in horror for hours before they stumble, exhausted, into Rapture’s library. It’s extensive and gorgeous-hell, even the Doctor admits that the books they have on genetics are pretty impressive.

Sam breathes in the smell of books, and the Doctor helps him drag a heap of blankets between two stacks. Together they make a little nook in the physics section, complete with a gas lamp and the blankets pulled over their knees, guns and books laid atop the fabric. For a few hours they manage to talk and read in relative quiet, keeping half an ear out for splicers.

They huddle together, and when Sam’s eyes start drooping, the Doctor tells him that he’ll happily take the first watch. With the stack of books he has at his side, Sam believes him.

The Doctor pats his own shoulder and returns to his book. When Sam looks at him strangely, he rolls his eyes. “You humans,” he mutters. “Always doing your best to avoid physical contact with others, even when you pretend so hard that you’re good at it.”

He smiles to take the bite out of his words, and this time gestures to his lap. “I know I’m bony, but I’m a better pillow than the books.” He flips a page, idly licking his thumb as he does so.

“And don’t look at me like that! Your masculinity is perfectly intact and your sexuality hardly concerns me.” He finally looks away from the book and up at Sam, pinning him with a look so severe that Sam flinches. At this, the Doctor softens. “Now, go to sleep, Sam.”

Sam leans against the Doctor, just a bit.

He closes his eyes.



Arcadia is not all fun and games. It is beautiful in ways that most of Rapture is not, trees and false sunlight and a genus of rose that is exquisite in its beauty. Castiel relishes the wash of oxygen, in the familiar scent of nature. All would be well, if it weren’t for the cult of splicers in the bowels of the paradise. While searching for Sam and the TARDIS, they discover the altar, an underground room full of water and so-called sacred objects.

“There shall be no false gods before me,” Castiel mutters, climbing down from Dean’s shoulder to stand and tremble before the altar. There are signs of ancient gods, figures of pagan fertility etched into stone, symbols that Castiel has not seen in practice since Rome was new. It seems they worship nature above all else, and if this were any other place, Castiel would praise them for their faith. The Roman gods of old were pleasant enough, though they feared the angels above all else once Christianity gained power with the Romans. No god wants to be forgotten.

It is not this that upsets him. It is the teachings etched into stone, the human bones and blood upon the altar. ‘Harness the flame,’ they preach. ‘Harness the mist.’ It is the age-old human belief that gods want destruction and sacrifices-true enough in the case of the old gods, but here in this place of destruction and sin, the people do not need more sadness.

Dean watches with wide eyes, and Castiel turns his Grace on the altar.

He burns it to the ground.



When Sam comes to, there is a hand stroking slowly through his hair, soft and gentle, like the man it belongs to remembers what it was like to be someones Father and Mother. He opens his eyes, dragging them open like they’re sticky with molasses, and is greeted with the dim, dank interior of the library-dust motes drifting through the light like fallen stars. The Doctor is speaking to Sam softly, his books scattered at his side as if he’s finished them all, but hadn’t wanted to wake Sam to get another.

“We first met in a library, did you know?” he’s saying, those fingers slow and steady as they ease the snarls from Sam’s filthy hair. The Doctor stifles a laugh. “There’s this planet that’s one big, ginormous library, you see? Since then, I hadn’t much cared for them. But there you were-this tiny little thing. I couldn’t believe that you were Sam Winchester, vessel to Cas’s biggest, baddest brother. And when you spoke, you smiled, and said, ‘Thanks mister.’ It was brilliant.” Through slitted eyes, Sam can tell when the smile dims from his face. “You’re all so brilliant when you’re children. You deserve so much more than what life has given to you.”

Sam stirs, and mumbles sleepily, “That was you? Bu-”

The Doctor doesn’t pause in his ministrations, but nods, interrupting him with a wave of his hand. “Different face. Yep, I know.”

Finally, Sam sits up, reluctantly pulling away from the Doctor’s hand. He stretches, back flush to the bookshelves behind him and arms high over his head. He watches idly as a moth lands on one of the books nearest to them, wings fluttering. He blinks, and its feathered antennae wriggles once before it takes to the air once more. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he yawns.

“Time Lord,” the Doctor says, shrugging. “Bet you can’t guess my age.”

Sam’s not sure if he wants to. He’s about to ask when the intercom buzzes with static-

“There you are, Doctor! I’d wondered where you two had ended up. I see you’ve lost our little dove and his pet rat,” Cohen purrs. Sam tenses, slowly climbing to his feet. Suddenly, the library is no longer a comfortable place-no longer that safe haven it always was when he was younger. Now he can see the shadows clinging to the corners of the room, the faint red taint further down the aisles. The place is suddenly ominous and he doesn’t trust it. Cohen laughs at him, and says, “Oh, don’t bother getting up. You’re fine just as you are.”

The Doctor presses a hand to the bookshelves behind them and uses them to help ease the way to his feet. It’s odd to see him like this, old and weary, like the old man he claims to be.

“What do you want?” the Doctor sighs.

The voice on the other side of the intercom laughs. “Ah, Doctor. This is what I like about you. You ask, but you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”

Sam glares at the ceiling when the Doctor curses quietly, slumping back against the shelves-holding himself up. He speaks quickly, because he can already tell that Cohen is about to start taunting the Doctor again, teasing them, like all this is just some damn game to him. “Who gave you the demon blood, Cohen?” he asks, fists curled at his side so tightly that the knuckles have gone white.

“Me? You think they gave it to little ole’ me?” Cohen laughs again, and Sam feels sick. Demon blood and genocide and it’s the apocalypse all over again, just for this one city under the ocean.

“Didn’t they?”

Cohen tuts at him, sounding disappointed. “You silly, silly, boy. They didn’t give it to the songbird-they gave it to the king of the jungle, the great lion, himself. They gave it to Ryan, you silly children.”

The bottom drops out of his stomach and something must show on his face, because then Cohen is laughing again, giggling even as a voice speaks up from behind Sam-

“Oh, and it’s been years, Sammy-boy.”

The familiarity of the voice is a punch to the gut-that smooth, smokey tenor like aged wine. The hair on the back of his neck prickles, like spiders creeping down the collar of his shirt, and his heart picks up speed, because he does know that voice. He spins around, nearly knocking a few books off the shelves in his haste. Crowley looks older, gray in a shabby beard, haggard and run down-a mad glint in his eyes that wasn’t there the last time they saw him. He’s no longer that demon who reluctantly helped them overthrow Lucifer, the man who had turned and  grinned at Sam as he released his hound on the demons who’d tracked them down. This isn’t the same Crowley that gave Bobby back his legs and the location of Death himself for a kiss, then laughingly teased him about it with a picture later. No, this is an older Crowley, from god knows when-maybe years after they’ve last seen him. It makes him think of Ruby, so good and wonderful, then driven mad with power the longer she was with him.

Snarling, Sam lunges for him, and it’s only the Doctor lurching forward to fist a hand in his jacket that keeps him still.

Crowley grins at him.“Now, now, Samuel. Cool your feathers.”

He spits at Crowley’s feet-ready to hiss and hurt until the asshole tells him where his brother is. The Doctor beat him to it though, glaring and quietly asking, “Why are you doing this?”

Crowley paces closer to them, outright grinning when they edge backwards-away from him. He keeps coming until they’ve backed themselves into a corner, and he’s just feet away from them. “I had a friend, once, Doctor. And this friend-he told me so much about you. He showed me the world, and taught me how to watch it burn. There was something poetic about it-the Doctor with an angel on his shoulder and the Doctor’s greatest rival-no, not even that-his greatest friend having a devil on his.”

The Doctor goes white, his fist unclenching from fabric, arms going slack. He looks horror-struck and Crowley cocks a head at him, still smiling. “Isn’t that just a kicker?”

The Doctor stays silent, slowly breathing in and out-as if he’s trying to calm himself.

“Now, see, Harry Saxon taught me so very much,” Crowley says, reaching over to stroke a finger over the Doctor’s cheek. The Doctor flinches backwards violently, knocking his head back into a thick encyclopedia. “And one of those things that he taught me is that if you truly, truly want humanity to suffer, you just have to give them the keys to their own destruction.”

He smirks, eyes still on them as he walks backwards away from them, stroking his hands along the books that surround them. Above them, the intercom lets out a series of horrible sounds: a scream and a gurgle, the mad laugh of someone with evil on their mind, and Cohen, begging to know what he did wrong. Crowley gives a bow, smirking at them all the while. “Don’t you see, Doctor? As long as humanity’s around, there’s no such thing as a utopia-no paradise of love and puppies, because they will always destroy it themselves. Just sit back and watch, he used to tell me. Give them a match, and sit back and enjoy the show while they burn themselves alive.”

The Doctor’s mouth moves soundlessly, and Sam hates this silence, wants to rip Crowley’s vocal cords out and strangle the smug bastard. When he moves forward, intent on doing just that, Crowley crooks a finger and the room around them echoes with howls. Claws click-clack on the wooden floors, and Sam can feel it’s breath on him, hot and heavy as it creeps closer. He has moments to remember his brother on his back, chest clawed open and eyes glassy and terrible before the thing is on him, the smell of blood and rot filling his nose. Sam slams back into the bookshelves, held there by an unimaginably huge paw to his chest. Crowley spares a smile for him as he struggles, and keeps on talking like he doesn’t have Sam pinned by a fucking hellhound.

“You think your Master didn’t understand?” he asks the Doctor, the warped smile on his face made terrible by madness. He laughs. “He understood humans better than you do, pet. I was there that day the foundation of Rapture was set, and I did just one minuscule thing. Just one little thing. I gave them that key. A pint of my blood, and Ryan took the city and made it into a cesspool. So tell me, Doctor, where’s your faith in humans now?”



They find a bathysphere just outside of Arcadia, floating in a small pool of water in a large hole in the center of the room. There’s a ladder leading down to it, and it takes a few minutes of navigation to get Dean into it-in the end, he has to take off the suit and leave it in a pile on one side of the bathysphere while he and Castiel huddle together on the other side.

“I don’t see why we can’t just leave the damn thing here,” he says, glaring at the suit.

Castiel fumbles with a knob on the control panel and sets the location to a place called ‘Prometheus.’ It boasts having the largest library in Rapture, and if Castiel knows the Doctor and Sam, that’s where they’ll be. “We may have a use for it, Dean,” he sighs, jolting a bit when the door snaps shut and the contraption jolts into motion.

“We do not. It’s hard as hell to work a gun in it, it smells like shit, and I’m getting knots in my back just trying to move around in that thing.”

“Nevertheless, Dean. I believe we should bring it with us.”

Dean rolls his eyes at him. Mutters, “I think you just like getting free rides all the time. The Dean Winchester taxi service: next stop-hell.”

Castiel glares at him. Oddly, it’s apparently more intimidating coming from as Dean puts it, a ‘pint-sized little brat’ than it is coming from Jimmy Novak. “I can walk. I believe it was you who insisted on carrying me, despite my protests that I would be fine on the ground.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “As if.”

“Don’t be a child, Dean.”

“Takes one to know one.”

The bathysphere falls silent, and they don’t speak for several moments.

“Do you really think your body will be okay, Cas? I mean, not that you aren’t a fantastic little monster girl, but I really don’t enjoy the idea of watching that little girl burn when it gets to be too much for her.”

Castiel settles down to the floor, watching as a whale passes just outside of their sphere, singing a greeting to them as it goes. He looks up at Dean and gestures for him to sit as well. “I’m sure it will be fine, Dean. We know its location. We can come back for it with the TARDIS if need be.”

“But-”

Castiel looks at him curiously. “Why does this concern you so much?”

Dean looks both sheepish and defensive, which according to the Doctor (and Donna for that matter) means that he’s trying hard not to have a great big chick moment. “Maybe I’ll just miss that trench coat of yours,” he says. “It’ll take a little too long for the squirt to grow into it, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

Castiel considers. He’d promised Jimmy, but if need be, it was a possibility. The protection of the Winchesters has always made Castiel do stupid things, so it wouldn’t be the first time he’s broken a promise on their behalf. “Claire Novak is still alive, if need be. I believe she turned fourteen three weeks ago.”

Dean laughs at him. “Three weeks ago, she wasn’t alive, Cas. Hell, three weeks ago Marilyn Monroe died.”

Castiel glares at him, resisting the urge to fold his arms over his chest. “In your time, Dean Winchester. She turned fourteen three weeks ago in your time.”

The sphere goes silent again, and Castiel watches as Dean tracks a jellyfish’s progress through the water. Dean smiles as a fish brushes up against the glass, darting away again when Dean reaches a fingertip towards it. “I’ll give Ryan one thing-just the one that he did right. This place could have been beautiful.”

Castiel nods and Dean glances over at him. “Hey Cas? I’m sorry for everything. But man, you can’t keep tearing off looking for God, if it’s gonna get you stuck in situations like this one.”

Castiel frowns.

“He is my Father, Dean. I cannot give up on Him.”

Dean sighs and turns his whole body so that he’s facing Castiel, legs folded cross-legged beneath him.“Yeah, but see, there’s this thing you’ve gotta know about deadbeat dads.” He takes a large breath and lets it out again. “Sure, yours is kind of the biggest jackass of them all, but the thing is, when you really need them, they always come back for their kids.”

“Dean, I do not understand this belief. Your father left you to fend for your brother time and time again.”

Dean turns his gaze to his lap, eyes sad, and Castiel regrets his comment at once. After a moment, Dean looks back up, determined. “Yeah, he did. But I’ve been thinking-being a dad isn’t the easiest job. And sure, he could’ve done better by us, but he did the best he could. Would things have been different if mom was alive? You bet your lily-white ass they would. But he did his best, and he was always there when it counted. That’s what matters. Like how your Dad was there for you at Chuck’s place, and in the graveyard. He may be a dick, but Cas, that right there shows that he loves you.”

“Dean...”

“You’ve got a lot of people on your side, Cas. And after that shit with Crowley, I want you to know-if you ever need me, ever, I’ll be there. I don’t care if you want to happily leave me with my golden retriever and white picket fence. Hell Cas, after I’m dead and gone, as long as I make it to that weird-ass heaven of yours, you got a question? You pop right in.”

Castiel flinches. “I couldn’t-”

The sphere is slowing now, rising to dock in another part of this godforsaken city. Dean smiles and pats him on the knee. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Cas,” he grins. Affectionately, he threads a few fingers into Masha’s hair, ruffling it. He looks faintly embarrassed, red across the bridge of his nose, but it doesn’t stop him from continuing-“You need someone, I’m there for you. Because that’s what Winchesters do for family.”

The doors hiss open, and Castiel smiles.



“How could you do this to Cas?” Sam asks, chest heaving as he struggles to breathe under the hounds weight. The Doctor watches the demon before them sneer, and his hearts pound double-time.

“Cas?” it says, laughing as Sam gasps in pain. “That little bundle of feathers? Whatever heart I have left couldn’t give a damn about that bird brain. If our little angel was stupid enough to get himself nabbed by Ryan and his gang, that is in no way my fault.”

The Doctor flinches when the demon-Crowley-looks his way. “Was there ever a Canton Everett Delaware III?” he asks quietly, his hearts still stinging from the bite of Crowley’s words. From the knowledge that the Master taught such a creature to be even more brutal. His Koschei, so mad and lonely in the end that he turned to a demon for friendship.

The thing shrugs. “Oh, there was. You knew him. I didn’t even take him until a few years afterward. He’s very much dead up here, though,” it says, waving a finger at his skull.

The Doctor shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s easier this way, to not look at the creature and see Canton staring back at him with a sneer on his face. “You’ve murdered my friend-you wear his face as if it belongs to you. You stood by as Castiel was tortured. You’ve stolen my TARDIS, and you’ve let a city rot. How do you really think that this is going to turn out for you, Crowley?”

It smiles at him. “Doctor, I don’t really care how this turns out. I’ve only stuck around this long to meet you. My work here is done, darling, can’t you see that?”



Castiel stares blankly at the pink wall that the corpse is propped against, and feels suddenly, violently ill. Syringes decorate its decomposing body, and there’s a message written in blood on the wall behind him-as if the little girl who had done this was playing at fingerpaints, “Mister, mister, won’t you come play with me?”

Dean is the one that pulls him away, gripping his wrist as tightly as he can and pulling him out of the room-out of the Little Wonders Educational Facilities. Castiel has never wanted to destroy a human city before, as dank and dark a place as it may have been. It matters not what rat hides in the city’s bowels, because there has always been at least one person worth saving in the place.

Here, though? Castiel wants to tear Rapture apart brick-by-brick. He wants to destroy the glass of the tunnels, let the cracks spiderweb outwards until the ocean rushes in to cleanse the place of its vermin. Here there are no people left to save, because the few who were worth it are already dead, like Sam’s Langford-the nice lady who’d come into his cell and reattached his hands so he wouldn’t have to suffer.

“The library’s this way, Cas,” Dean tells him, pointing down a corridor opposite them. Castiel doesn’t want to find the Doctor right now. He doesn't want the Doctor to see him, because the Doctor alone could read the anger in his eyes.



Castiel should have realized it was Crowley. He should have taken care of the demon before, when he had all the souls of the damned inside of him. Before Crowley was allowed to hurt anyone else.

Crowley takes one look at him and flashes his teeth, snaps the leash keeping the beast tethered to him, and the abomination digs his claws in before it lets go, slinking past Castiel, growling and flashing its teeth at him as it passes-its tremendous, heaving flanks towering a good foot over Masha’s head. Sam slumps to the floor, breathing heavy, and Dean lets out a wounded noise behind him.

Crowley creeps closer to them, turning his back on Sam and the Doctor. “Ah, Cas!” he grins. “How’s our little dove doing? I’ve gotta say, not appreciating the new meat-suit quite as much. She lacks those soulful blue eyes of yours.”

Castiel reaches for his Grace, but before he can act Crowley has an arm around the Doctor’s throat, whispering something in his ear. The Doctor’s eyes are wide and furious, but like this, Castiel can’t reach Crowley without hurting his friend. “Oh Cas,” Crowley purrs. “You pitiful little sap, you. Still looking for Daddy? Well, pet, I can tell you one thing: he sure as hell isn’t here.”

“And you, my darling Doctor, you thought you could save them, didn’t you?” He shakes the Doctor, rattling his skull, laughing when the Doctor chokes. “Even as our boys here plugged them all full of holes, you still thought you could save this pitiful excuse for a paradise.”

“Let him go, Crowley,” Dean growls, hands tightening on the shotgun in his hands.

Crowley’s laugh turns deranged, mad as all of Rapute’s inhabitants. He presses a sloppy kiss to the Doctor’s cheek, purring, “That was from your dearly departed Koschei, Doctor. He sends his love, I’m sure.” With another laugh, he shoves the Doctor towards them, hard enough that he stumbles, going down hard on one knee. “See,” he grins, shaking a finger at them. “This is why I like you little grease monkies. You’re all so lively, even when it’s clear that you’ve lost.”

Castiel glares up at Crowley then turns, offering a hand to Doctor and pulling him to his feet.

Crowley rolls his eyes at them. “Leave this place. You’ll find your TARDIS when you find Cohen’s corpse. But I promise you, there’s nothing left here to save. Have fun running, boys.”

Then he’s gone, black smoke in the air and a dead body on the floor.

The room is tight with tension, and even as Dean rushes to Sam’s side, patting him down to make sure he’s all right, the air begins to ring with the shrieks of splicers with their sights set on blood.

They run.



They find Cohen in Arcadia.

The escape from Prometheus isn’t easy, with Sam supported between Dean and the Doctor, running awkwardly down the halls as they take turns holding a cloth to his chest-making a valiant attempt to staunch the blood flow from the holes that the beast had ripped into his chest. It’s difficult though, practically carrying Sam down the hall, his bulk dragging them down. The splicers have been steadily gaining on them, a giggling twelve year old with half of her face bloated and disfigured leading the charge.

In the end it’s Cohen who saves them, telling them to follow his voice-follow as it weakly echoes through the corridors, telling them to find him with the trees, and asking them to bring him a sun.

“What I wouldn’t give to see the sun one last time,” he breaths, voice crackling with static over the intercom. Dean curses under his breath, staggering as he hands Sam over to the Doctor as they pass through the bulkhead into Arcadia. Castiel buys them time, darting between splicers, tiny bare feet splashing through puddles as he presses little girl hands to their chests and tears out their souls.

The Doctor turns his back to them for a moment to help Sam through the door, and behind him, Castiel shrieks, the lights above him trembling when his true voice bleeds through. He goes to look, shuddering at the sight of blood soaking the front of the little girl’s dress. Dean curses and fires three rounds into the closest splicers, gore splashing him as he scoops Castiel into his arms, hanging on tightly as he charges through the door after them.

“Close it!” Castiel frantically cries, voice bird-high with pain. The lights tremble and crack, the door slamming shut on its own, the power of Castiel’s words and fury ringing through the air like a crack of lightning.

When they finally find Cohen, he’s holding entrails in with a fist, singing a somber tune that the Doctor doesn’t know the name of.

“Ah, the little moths,” he whispers, blood on his lips. “Your box is just past that door. I would see you to it, but I believe you’d rather I took care of your other problem first.”

He nods at the door behind them, where the screams and snarls grow louder as the creatures pound on the steel. Dean looks furious, holding Castiel in his arms as the angel bleeds into the soil.

The Doctor stares at Cohen. “Stop it, Dean,” he says, when Dean looks like he’s about to assault the man. Sam glares at the door weakly, and when he holds a hand towards the door, there’s lightning and fire swirling around his fingertips.

“We have to get going, Doctor,” Sam hisses, using his other hand to keep the slowly reddening cloth pressed to his chest.

The Doctor looks at Cohen, bleeding out and pitiful, and thinks about what the demon said. There’s nothing left here to save, but closure... he can give this man that. He remembers a boy on the docks, grinning and asking the Doctor to watch him shine. Redemption, he thinks, and crouches down before the madman.

.

"You could have been so brilliant. You would have shined so brightly," says the Doctor when they last meet, beneath the brilliant trees of Arcadia, twenty years after their first meeting. Sander is not quite old, still young enough to feel the gravitational pull of this man, a star in his own right. He grins, playful and charismatic, though the boyhood has long since faded from his face. Instead there are laugh lines, crows feet, and madness in his eyes.

"Ah, but my dear Doctor, my clever little star," he sighs, smearing his blood across the Doctor's cheek with a single press of a kiss, featherlight and soft as rose petals-ever the entertainer. "I think you'll find that I was brilliant. I shined, and I shined, but no one was there to bear witness." He wets his lips, and tastes his own blood there. "Doctor, won't you stay to see me shine one last time?"

The demon's splicers spill into the room, and somewhere, that wretched angel is telling his star to run. A kiss to his brow, featherlight, an apology, and the Doctor is gone. Sander laughs, and waits three heartbeats, long enough for his star to escape to the doors, long enough for that beautiful blue box to fade out of existence. He curls his fingers into impossible grass, and wonders if in another life, he could have gone with them. If he’d stayed far from Rapture and let his mind bloom instead, maybe then the Doctor would have taken him to see the universe. He laughs weakly, and wishes he could see the sun one last time.

He presses a button and shines.

Big finish, take a bow.



Part VI - epilogue