Episode 23: Achilles' Last Stand (Continued)

[redemptionmod]

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Dean lifts a cautionary finger to his lips as he eases silently into the Duck and pads over to where Sam is keeping vigil.

"I want to let him sleep," he mutters as he lowers himself to the deck. He doesn't meet Sam's look, and Sam can see that his brother's eyes are swollen and bleary, his face drawn in lines of stress and hopelessness. He looks worn out, Sam thinks. He looks stunned. He looks suddenly older, and it cuts Sam to the quick to see it and know the reason.

After a minute of sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sam, legs sprawled out carelessly ahead of him, Dean clears his throat. "I guess it wasn't Meg who flashed up on Coolio's radar."

"I guess not," Sam agrees quietly.

"The spell was right on the mark…we just got the mark wrong," Dean says then. "And I guess Cas really didn't believe in it. Subconsciously anyway. Fuck, I wasn't even serious when I said that, it was just a bad joke."

Dean's voice is hoarse, and Sam unscrews his bottle of water, offers it to his brother. "So you think it's true?" he broaches carefully, as Dean drinks long and deep.

"Yeah, I think it's true. Fits doesn't it? He says he began it all when he freed the souls and then worked all the damn miracles, says it prepared the way for the Beast." Dean takes another gulp, wipes his mouth and sidetracks. "Must be why Crowley went after the Novak kid, why he thought her blood might work to raise Hastur. She's Cas's blood. Theoretically, anyway. And he wore her for a while."

Sam glances across to where Meg's head is lolling drowsily on her chest. "It's why she wanted to trade him for Adam," he says, low and confidential. "She said she thought she might be able to use him to control Cthulhu."

Dean shakes his head. "It was right there in front of us, all along, all the clues. Even Cas had a gut feeling it all led back to him. Jesus."

He dips his head in his hand, and Sam steels himself to ask the question he doesn't want to ask, the question he has been practicing in his head since soon after the hatch closed down behind Dean, trying out different permutations on his tongue. But it comes down to cold, hard confrontation in the end, because there is no real point in trying to sugarcoat any of this even if it makes him feel ill to think of it. "Dean. What are we going to do?"

His brother sighs out for long seconds, his face still shielded, and he doesn't answer Sam's question. "I love him," he says instead, his voice brittle. "I love him, Sammy. Isn't that just the dumbest fuckin' thing? That I've been thinking about a future with him? No more hunting, a home maybe? Where I could tinker with cars, and he could grow a garden and bake pies, and maybe Claire might visit with him if she wanted to. And me and him would sit on the porch swing and be grumpy old guys together once the rest of his grace wore off."

Dean chokes out the last few words, swipes angrily at his eyes, and Sam feels the burn of tears starting himself, has to blink hard. "I'm so sorry, Dean," he whispers, and he knows it sounds damned inadequate, because it is damned inadequate.

Next to him, Dean is taking shuddering breaths, fighting for control. Sam can feel that his brother is shaking, feel the tremors through the press of Dean's shoulder, and he reaches across, grips Dean's upper arm, holds onto it.

"You should have seen him down there, Sammy," Dean murmurs, and it's a wistful-sounding tangent Sam didn't expect. "He was ugly as fuckin' sin, but - man, he was beautiful too. Like he was made of light or something. Things like him don't belong in places like that."

Sam slants his eyes left to see Dean biting down savagely on his bottom lip, and his brother clears his throat decisively.

"But. We have to save the world," Dean says, and his voice is steadier, slower. "No one wants the Apocalypse on their rap sheet, right?"

"Right," Sam answers softly, and even if Castiel's panic-stricken denials are ringing through his brain, he knows the angel would never, will never, shirk from this last act of atonement.

Dean is shifting now, moving around to sit in front of Sam, his back to the woman as if he doesn't want her to see their faces as they talk. "And the mother of all prophecies said the one who began it has to end it, right?" He leans forward a little as he speaks, slides his hand into his back pocket, and pulls out a slip of folded paper.

Sam nods. "Meg said it too." After a second or two, and for all the comfort it will provide, he adds, "she said if there was another way she'd tell us, and I don't think she was lying."

Dean is unfolding the paper as Sam speaks, and he swerves the conversation again. "I had this weird dream as I was waking. And I thought about it some, and then I found this. I kept it, don't really know why. Maybe I was just supposed to."

He's squinting at the paper in the dim light, shaking his head in what looks like wonder, as if he's just now seeing something and is amazed it has taken him this long. "It's my fortune," he elaborates, so quiet his voice is almost inaudible. "From that crazy underwater palace, remember? An enlightened individual is one who knows his own true value."

Dean looks up and smiles at Sam then, and although the one-eighty turn he just made seems incongruous, there is something momentous in the smile, Sam thinks; something outside of the significance of preparing to destroy someone he loves. It's calculated but it's melancholy, the kind of smile that means Dean's mind is made up and Sam isn't going to like what he hears, the kind of smile that's so damn sorry for what Dean is about to say that it makes Sam protest even before his brother utters the words.

"Dean, no, don't-"

"It isn't him," Dean says simply.

Sam freezes statue-still on the outside, stares dumbly at his brother, and Dean's eyes are unblinking, shining with the sincerity that comes from knowing he's right.

"I began all of it, Sam," he says, glacially calm. "Down in the Pit, when I broke the first seal. And I never ended it like I was supposed to."

Inside Sam all is chaos as his heart skips a beat and then speeds up rapidly. "But Dean, that was then. It was Cas who began this."

"No, hear me out." Dean shakes his head, raises a hand, tells Sam slowly and assuredly, so that every word will sink in and be wholly convincing. "I am the Righteous Man." He pauses, blinks his incredulity at the notion, and gives a soft huff before he goes on. "And remember what Death said before we broke Cas out of Purgatory? How only I can do it, and I need to play my role?"

Sam can see the hawk-like black-clad figure in his mind's eye now, hear his clipped admonishments. "Like you were supposed to the last time…" he echoes the memory, in a gasp that sounds parched and frantic because it is.

His brother nods. "And I never did that, Sam. You did. And it never ended. It just played out different, like Death said. And it always will. Until I stop it."

Dean pauses for a moment, like he's waiting for Sam to catch up, but it makes no sense, Sam thinks, because they're following set rules with a set outcome, and this is an exact algorithm, not an approximate one. He shakes his head, persists even though there's a whisper of doubt that winds silky around the words, because the rules already went out the window when they lost the relics and the ritual that went with them. "You can't stop it, Dean. It won't work because you're not the False Prophet. Remember what Eloni told you and Cas back at the temple, about how-"

"How the second beast comes out of the earth?" Dean cuts in softly. "I came out of the earth, Sam, remember? I dug my way out of my own grave."

When he replies, Sam's voice has recovered enough to sound almost aggressive, like he really does believe what he's saying. "Dean, come on. It doesn't even mean the earth literally. It means…" He trails off and Dean cocks his head, knows where he was going with it.

"The underworld," he picks up. "Bible calls it the lower parts of the earth. Been there, done that. Him and me both. And the other stuff she said? About being given the power to give breath to the image of the first Beast? Well maybe I did that when I brought his False Prophet back from Purgatory."

At last, a maybe, and Sam doesn't let himself think about his friend. He thinks about his brother, and he seizes on the shred of doubt and holds on tight. "Maybe isn't good enough," he hisses. "You're not the one. It'll know."

"It'll work, I know it will," Dean counters, with the sort of gentleness Sam has seen him use when he speaks to the bereaved. "It'll work because I fit the profile for this gig close enough. It'll work because I screwed up the balance when I left Purgatory through the wrong door. It'll work because I carried Cas's grace inside me and I wear his mark, and that thing won't know the difference. And most of all, it'll work because this whole mess started with me when I broke the first seal, and when we do this spell we're both going to believe it ends with me." Dean's tone goes lower, and earnest. "You have to trust me to do it this time, Sam. You have to believe that I'm strong enough, believe that I'm the one, so the spell will work." He cocks his head, raises an eyebrow almost playfully, but there is meaning in it too. "You didn't think I was the one before."

It's incomprehensible to Sam even though his brother is taking his time and choosing his words deliberately, and raw protest finally scratches out of him. "No. If this works, if we bind you to that thing, you end up back in the Pit, and I-"

"I can't send Cas there," Dean interrupts him softly. "I won't do that to him. And it's time I end this, for once and for all. Like Death said."

Sam tugs his eyes away, clamps them shut. He feels numb inside. "But Cas isn't strong enough to get you back now," he chokes out.

He feels the light pressure of his brother's hand on his shoulder, and it slides up and around to the back of Sam's neck, as Dean pulls him in so that Sam is just inches away.

"I know that, Sam," Dean says. "But you're still letting go of me. Like I let go of you. You will believe I'm the one, and you will bind me to that monster. And I will drag it to Hell, and after I do that, there are no deals. You hear me? You live your life, for me. And take care of Cas for me." At the name, Dean's eyes go unguarded and grief-stricken, his composure lost for a second before he swallows hard. "He's not going to handle this, Sammy. Watch over him for me?"

There is a frozen hush when Sam thinks he might have options, that he might simply resist, that he might be able to talk Dean round. But even as he thinks it his mouth is saying the only word it really can, through the horror that swells his throat, even though all he wants to do is press his head against something cool and think of anything but the Lake of Fire.

"Yes."

Dean smiles, nods just slightly. "And you watch over yourself this time, okay? Not like last time. This time you handle it."

In the next moment, Sam is breathing Dean in, held tight in Dean's embrace like he has been so many times on this journey of theirs. He is safe in the arms of his brother, whose journey on this road will end in flames just like it started in flames, the blaze that burned their mother a foreshadowing of the Hell they both know, because the experience of fire is a thing that binds them, that makes them family. And Castiel is family too, and now he is going to understand what fire can take from you, feel the burn it leaves behind, seared into the heart; and he will know how so small a flame can make an eternity spent burning in Hell's inferno seem miniscule in comparison.

Dean is pulling away now, even though Sam doesn't want to let go, and he slides back to where he was before, at Sam's side. "Maybe after we gank this fucker, Cas will get the mojo back, beam you both up out of here," he says quietly.

Sam is scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Maybe," he mutters, even though he isn't sure if he really cares about getting out, but then he thinks of what Meg said before Dean emerged through the hatch. "From what Meg said, it sounds like it all resets after we do it, and we're up in the world again."

"Like after Stull," Dean muses. "It was like nothing ever happened there." He nudges Sam in the ribs. "Or we could always find a bike with a basket in the front, set Cas in it and you can pedal back home."

There is an instant of silence then, before Dean laughs. It's muffled, stunned laughter, with an undernote of hysteria, and Sam doesn't even register joining in but he finds that he is, snickering so hard that he can't draw breath. Dean doubles over, leaning heavily on him, and before they're done gasping like fish there are fresh tears in their eyes. It's bitter, Sam thinks, but sweet too, and he has a second of clarity when he realizes that these are the things he will miss that he can't share with Castiel or anyone else; these simple human moments of brotherhood, through shared memories of watching E.T. in a motel room in Kentucky, while Dean draped an arm around his shoulders and pulled the blankets up around them both as John slept it off in the next bed. Who would ever care so much for Sam? He thinks of Mira but that's not quite the same. Dean has been mother, father, brother; and there are plenty of brothers in the world who don't bother with each other. Blood doesn't obligate people to care or to love. Dean didn't have to tail him all these years, didn't have to check up on him at Stanford or stand between their father's wrath and Sam's desperate bid for independence. Who would ever do so much for so little in return?

Sam comes out of the thought to find their laughter has died away, and a hush fills the air, deep and endless, until Dean breaks it.

"We'll need to defuse him."

He's suddenly businesslike, because he's in the zone already, Sam realizes; working out a strategy, as if this is a hunt and not his own sacrifice. And Sam responds with no hesitation because he can do this too, he can pretend they're planning to end some fugly out in the backwoods of nowhere if it'll get them both through this. "But if he's blocked-"

"Remember Grant's Pass?" Dean cuts in. "As soon as the Mother croaked, he went nuclear. This thing is blocking him now, but once we start doing this it could wear off and he might power up. You know what he's like…I don't want him jumping in front of this bullet." Dean exhales thoughtfully, reaches up to pull at his bottom lip, and then his eyes go wide. "I got it. I can…" His voice trails away then, as a creak sounds, and his vision tracks past Sam.

Sam follows his brother's gaze to the barge, where Castiel is emerging from the hatch, his hair wildly disheveled. His eyes dart between the both of them before his stare settles on Dean, and his head cants a little as he just looks for a moment.

"We use the same spell," he says softly, and Dean nods.

Sam sees the angel swallow then, and he climbs over the stern and into the Duck, squats beside the weapons duffel. He stays quiet as he fishes about inside it, placing some of its contents next to him, pulling out the small zip pouch Sam knows is Dean's gun cleaning kit. When he settles himself down, Sam can see he has arranged a selection of revolvers there on the deck. He crosses his legs, leans forward to reach for one of them, and starts taking it apart.

"We do it when he's ready," Dean breathes out. "Out there…not in the Duck, just in case you need her. We'll have to hope those fish-things don't follow us." He waits out a heartbeat. "Can you do this, Sam? Can you help me bring this home? Can you handle it?"

There are a thousand things Sam wants to say, and one thing only. No. He doesn't say it, doesn't tell Dean he loves him and will miss him, because Dean knows. "I can handle it," he says.

He glances to his right and meets his brother's gaze, as the familiar sounds of Castiel breaking down a gun, with a simple clack of metal and spring as he pulls the barrel out, echo around them. Dean reaches up, surreptitious, snags the cord around his neck and pulls it over his head. The amulet, and he presses it into Sam's hand. "Don't let him see that," he breathes out. "He might guess what's really going down if he does."

Sam closes his fingers around the metal, still warm with his brother's body heat, and he wants to scream that he lied, that he can't do what Dean asks. Instead, he nods just once, and slips his own head through the cord, guiding the amulet down under his t-shirt as Dean pushes up, crosses to sit next to Castiel, picks up the next gun in the line and starts to strip it down.



How many rituals and spells does he know? Sam lost count long ago, and the truth is that those long-ago spells and exorcisms don't matter. Not compared to this one, this final one that Sam holds inside his head and is prepared to recite from memory. But as significant as it is, it's only one part of this ritual. The most important part is the lie. He must not only be like a holy priest exorcising evil for the sake of the world and his family; he must be an actor putting on a tragedy mask. And he will hide his dismay and his heartbreak, and he can do this, because he made a promise to his brother and he will keep it this time.

He must do it, because he has no choice, and he supposes that there is irony in the fact he pulled one brother into Hell with him at Stull and now he will send the other there. He wonders if it would be easier if he knew how to be like Lucifer, and he spends the time leading up to this considering that other angel who went with him into the cage, like soldiers walking side by side into the trenches. He looks at the fallen angel from every angle of his memory and there is even a dreadful twinge of recognition from the present, as though even thinking about Lucifer is to call his attention, to pray to him. The monster he left rotting in the cage beside Michael was an angel once, answered prayers once; and perhaps the morning star hears his name and listens, staring up from fathoms away and setting his sights on Sam.

How do I do this? Sam pleads in desperation. How do I break my heart and watch Castiel's break, too? How do I do this? How?

Sam wonders if he imagines the low groan of wind that sounds like a tired sigh. He waits. He listens for that still, small voice that he's always being told is a divine, helpful presence, but there is none. Lucifer doesn't answer, though Sam imagines he catches the scent of sulfur on the air and that somewhere in a burning place, a weary soldier folds his arms and nods in Sam's direction, a quiet acknowledgment; one veteran to another.

Sam is so used to being in that role of youngest, second-in-command, last in line, demon-blood boy, the one his father told his elder brother to kill if he couldn't be saved. But the world and the role he has always occupied in it is slowly eroding, and he knows now, knows what Dean has always known - that evil is easy. Doing the right thing, the righteous thing? It'll make his stint in the cage look like a walk in the park. Compared to the heartbreak he knows will follow this, it is.

Dean carried that for all his years.

Now they're down to the last seconds of it and Sam will do this last thing his brother asks of him, and carry the heartbreak for him.

Castiel is another matter, and as if to push that knife in even deeper and twist it in the wound, in the instant he thinks it Sam hears the angel's voice, quiet and firm.

"I'm ready."

"Good luck, Clarence."

It's the one response Sam didn't expect, and he has almost forgotten Meg was even there, propped up in the cabin. He sees Castiel's eyes flick away from Dean and towards her, and he pushes up, steps over Sam's legs to make his way over to where she slumps, and squats down in front of her.

"Now you've found God, perhaps you might consider praying for me," he remarks.

She snorts. "Why not? After all, God's just waiting for my call."

Castiel makes a soft huff of what might be weary amusement, before he murmurs something quiet, in what sounds like Latin, and reaches to touch her brow. When his hand falls away, Sam can see a smudge of gunpowder residue there, the cross he knows accompanies a blessing forming a dark smear over her newly human eyes.

Her features twist wryly. "Well, that was pointless. Soulless, remember?"

"Second chances are rare," Castiel sidetracks neutrally. "Don't waste yours."

Dean is ranging up beside Sam, machete in one hand, and he glances at his watch. "Coming up to noon," he murmurs distractedly, and then he clears his throat, addresses the woman. "We're taking this elsewhere in case we need the Duck to get out of here." He nods over to the milling crowd of mutants. "Make some noise so they think we're still here. Holler if they figure out we're not and they follow us."

He leans down to rummage in the weapons bag, hooks out a Beretta and sends it skittering over the deck towards her. "You might want to save yourself a bullet in case this goes wrong," he says.



Day is a subjective experience in the dark, deep belly of the earth. Sam can see Dean count time as they walk away from the Duck, glancing at the luminous glow of his watch, and knows his brother is thinking the exact same thing as him - high noon.

As they pick their way into the darkness, Meg starts singing. It's Ten Green Bottles, laced with sarcasm, and even if Sam knows she's doing it to fool the hybrids into thinking they're still on board the vehicle, it grates on his last nerve and he finds himself wondering if anyone would notice if he casually tipped her off a jagged ledge.

They play the beams of their flashlights out ahead of them as they walk, but in the event it's only a few minutes before they reach the end of the hike. One-hundred or so yards ahead, the crevice they are in stops dead, falling away into an abyss that stretches ahead and up, up, up, into a cavernous vault, gnarled and jagged with stalactites.

Sam edges forward cautiously, peers over and down to see a turmoil of white-capped water far, far below. He tips his head back to stare up then, finds a few seconds to marvel that the darkness isn't total black, that his eyes have acclimatized to this subterranean nightmare they are caught in sufficiently for him to see that there are deeper shades and shadows of jet and onyx and obsidian in the great halls of this earth. He thinks abstractedly that if they ever make it to the surface again, he will be as blind as a mole and the sun will be too bright.

"Don't forget to turn the vehicle around before you leave," Castiel murmurs. He gives a sloppy half-shrug when Sam glances at him, but even though he's breathing slowly, the sharp glitter in his eyes gives the lie to his composure. "The guns are all clean and in the bag," he says, and he pulls out his cell phone. He clears his throat as he looks at Sam. "Sam," he begins, "You've been kinder than I ever deserved. I would like to have done better, and to have done more for you."

Sam schools his features, sets his jaw, and starts the lie, soft and convincing. "It's called regret, Cas. It's a human thing."

"So I'm learning. But I fear the lesson is over, and this is as far as I've gotten." Castiel shifts on his feet, offers Sam his phone. "Would you take this for me?" he ventures, a little hesitantly. "There's a saved text message in the outbox…will you make sure it gets sent?"

Sam nods, takes the phone, and the plastic is still warm from his friend's grasp.

"Good luck, Sam," Castiel murmurs. "Take care of your brother for me."

The irony of the request is appalling, and as Castiel turns to walk away, stumbling a little on the uneven rock, Sam husks out his own remorse at what he's about to do. "I'm sorry, Cas. I'm so sorry."

Castiel half-turns, his reply barely audible. "It'll be alright, Sam."

But it won't, Sam thinks. It won't at all. He slants his eyes over to his brother. Dean's face is hard-bitten and drawn as he watches Castiel drift over towards the edge of the drop, and he looks thinner than usual. As he stands there watching, Sam feels an involuntary shiver go through him. Death should have a more final tone to it, a deeper strain on them, he knows. And it is distressing, but what makes it so is survival, and knowing he and Castiel might have to carry on in this existence without Dean for so much longer. Death is easy - they've had practice. This could be an ordinary day, with the all-too-present knowledge that one slip up and one fugly on top of its game could be the end of one or all of them, and he and his brother have acted out this scene a thousand times before, never verbally but with their eyes, watch yourself, okay? ever since their youth.

It's fresh in Sam's memory suddenly, the first frost-bitter winter morning after he found out what roamed the night, when Dean drove him to his newest school. The background play of the radio and the rattle of the heater had been so mundane and nondescript, but nothing was mundane and nondescript any more. It's the family business, Dean had said, and he had given Sam a long look, with regret and apology in his eyes, before Sam opened the door and hopped out to make his way to class, desperate to run back and cling to his safe, alive brother even while he wanted to run from him and everything he represented.

This time Sam is dropping Dean off, and if the spell works he doesn't know when he will see him again, if he will see him again.

Dean swallows thickly and holds out a discreet hand. His eyes are glazed. "I hope I don't ever see you on the flipside, brother," he whispers. "Remember what Joshua said, back in the garden…do it right this time, and when your number's called you'll be heading upstairs. You hear me?"

Sam nods but he doesn't want to. He takes Dean's hand, shielding the action from Castiel as he hovers nearby. A simple shake, a heartbroken locomotion of bone and muscle and calloused hands, shared DNA, accompanied by something Sam wanted to tell his brother on the other side of all of this. "Mira…she's the one, Dean. I'm going to tell her when I get back. And I'll be alright."

Dean smiles at him, sighs once and deeply, and then Sam's hand is released and his brother sets his flashlight down on the ground and makes his way over to Castiel.

Castiel's phone is solid in Sam's other hand, and he grips the plastic tight, takes a steadying breath before flipping it open. The message is there in the outbox, Castiel's own lie. I'm going to look after your father now, Claire. I will be at peace. Be well, and happy. Your mother also. I hope you both can finally forgive me.

Sam turns the phone off and puts it in his pocket. He can hear the low rumble of Castiel talking to Dean, and then his voice cracks on Dean's name and is lost, as Dean makes a ragged sound of distress and pulls him into a kiss, walking him back to the wall while Castiel's fingers knead at the back of his head. Sam looks down, focuses on his boots, because it feels wrong to watch them like this, to witness the pain of their final moments together.

After a moment he hears the shuffling of feet, and when he turns back Castiel and Dean are standing apart. Dean is swiping a hand across his eyes and Castiel's face is gleaming wet but he's nodding, squaring his shoulders back, ready and waiting like the soldier he is. "Now," he says.

A long moment ekes out before Dean chokes back a reply. "I can't look at you and do this, Cas. Please."

Castiel's eyes widen and he dips his head fractionally before he walks past them to gaze out over the abyss with his back to them, loose scree tripping over and tumbling into the darkness before his feet. Dean catches Sam's eyes and allows a small nod himself, and Sam clears his throat and begins. A second later Dean picks it up, forcing out the words stiltedly, but in reality this all hinges on Sam, he knows. He's the main thrust of power in this, because one meandering diversion away from the belief that it's Dean will end this. Can you help me bring this home? Dean asked, and yes, Sam will do it, and one day he might even find out what home is; not just all the good memories bundled in a car, but a place where he can hold all the things he loves together and safe, and never have them burned away.

Their voices begin small and then rise in cadence, and their brotherhood is evident in a flawless harmony as their voices interlock over the words. And Dean tugs his t-shirt up over his head as he speaks the incantation, lets it fall messily to the ground, bends to pull his ka-bar from his boot. He doesn't flinch and his hand is rock steady and mechanical as he cuts the banishing sigil he learned from Castiel into his chest, just as he etched it into Castiel's outside the warehouse in Van Nuys. He's methodical in this last betrayal, his brow creasing in concentration while blood beads out of the slashes and trickles down his abdomen, and all the while Sam says the words along with his brother and doesn't have time to think about the tears that drip hot down his face. He knows he weeps and he can see that Dean's face is finally starting to crumple too, but he can't buckle under this sorrow. There is a job to do, and Sam will honor his brother and bring them home. He will believe.

Their voices continue in unison, and in the limitless space of the cavern they sound like a Gregorian chant. Dean stares at Sam in the darkness as though he's looking for reassurance, and Sam gives it to him with a tight nod, before Dean fixes his eyes back on Castiel. And it's so much worse to watch the wistful, desolate loss in a doomed man who is not yet gone to his grave; to see how Dean studies Castiel as though he's locking the angel's image in his memory, even when that image is no more than a shadowed silhouette, his back turned away from Dean in the last moments.

And these are the last moments, Sam can feel it; can feel a buzzing sensation that thrums in the air and all around them, somehow more purposeful than the great pounding vibrations that led them into the Beast's vaults even though it's finer and more delicate. And Dean can feel it too, Sam knows, because his brother's eyes are blinking rapidly and he's dropping the ka-bar and making a fist around the blade of the machete, cutting open his palm with a wince. Blood drips thick from his fingers and he takes a breath, and keep talking, Sam tells himself.

And suddenly, there is light.

The light is diffuse but growing in intensity by degrees, so that Sam looks around for the source before his eyes finally settle on his brother with mute surprise. Phosphorus is coalescing from the atmosphere and outlining Dean in brightness, and it doesn't escape his notice. He runs his bloody hand over his shoulder as though he can cast its shine away, but it doesn't retreat. He continues to glow, steady and strong, reciting the words with a hint of wonder; and then he's rising, up an inch, and then another, until his boots lose contact with the rock, and even though Sam is keeping time with the spell his hands rise to his cheeks.

Without warning, Dean's mouth snaps closed, and this is the moment that Sam feared, the moment when they could no longer keep up the sham that this chaos magic they are weaving is made for Castiel. It has been for Dean, always for Dean; and he hovers a foot above the ground now, his arms outflung, the blade of the machete reflecting the light that surrounds him and the fingers of his free hand splayed and strumming the air.

Castiel hears the dissonance, notices that Sam's voice is alone and the chorus is gone. He whips around, gasps when he sees Dean rising rapidly above him, two feet, now three, now four, five, six; and in the blink of an eye Castiel understands, and his face contracts in helpless fright.

"Dean, no!"

Sam sees the effort play across Castiel's face, takes a breath as Castiel's eyes flash weak quicksilver and the air around him ripples as his wings unfurl, ripped from him on an agonized cry and insubstantial compared to the last time Sam saw them. He runs forward with his hands reaching out, as though he will tear Dean from the air, and in that moment Sam sees Dean's mouth open, his lips forming silent words, I love you.

And then Dean slams his bloody palm into the sigil on his chest.

Keep talking, Sam tells himself, even though he can hear his voice dry up and falter, even though his eyes are stinging. He's prepared for a supernova of light and power, even prepared to see both Castiel and his brother swept away to God knows where. But Castiel isn't the angel he was before and his desperate effort to gather and direct what grace he can down here only underlines his limitations. He doesn't zap himself and Dean into the ether. Instead he arches back as a muted blast, like the shockwave from a distant explosion, bends and billows from his epicenter much as it had when Meg used the sigil to neutralize him in Madisonville. And keep talking, Sam tells himself, and he does, driving the words of the spell out of his mouth like he's firing bullets straight into all of their hearts. Everything happens in slow motion, Castiel folding in on himself now, his legs buckling as his grace is blown from him; and Dean rising above them all with a terrified shout as light fills the cavern above, erupting from his skin, his eyes, his molecules and atoms.

"You want some of this, you sonofabitch?" Dean is hollering. "I'll take you…I'll take all of you, is that all you got?"

There's an answering howl from the depths of the abyss that curdles Sam's blood, and still he keeps talking, still he believes, as the walls, the ground, all the solid matter of this cavern shift, heaving with a deep breath in, because this place isn't dead rock at all, it's sentient and animated.

It is alive.

It is the Beast.

In that instant, Sam recalls hearing the story of a fisherman who took his small boat out onto ocean waters and found himself floating over a sandbar where none should be. And it wasn't a sandbar at all - his boat had drifted over the top of a surfacing whale. Sam knows what that feels like now; the confusing moment of utter disbelief and bewilderment as the entire world and universe reorients, followed by the dawning realization that something a thousand times larger and more infinite than him is all around them.

And still Sam says the words, and still he believes in his brother.

The walls bulge out like boils standing proud of the skin of this place, swelling to form protuberances that grow rapidly, flexing and reaching, snakelike now, tentacles like the one they saw on the surface, and at their center Sam can see the rock start to crumble, tectonic stress building and fracturing the surface. Boulders and great slabs of granite split away, arcing through the air gracefully and crashing down around them before they smash apart and smaller debris skitters past to tumble into the deep. Sam feels a stinging fusillade of stones rain down onto his head, lifts a hand up to shield himself, and still he says the words and believes in his brother, even while Castiel falls to his knees, his arms up and imploring, and his cries frantic.

Sam launches himself forward, unbalanced and clumsy as their ledge shifts and roils under his boots, until he feels Castiel's t-shirt beneath his fingers. He's vaguely aware of Meg screaming in the distance, and he has a moment of unexpected regret that he doesn't know where she has gone to, but the thought is lost in a rushing like the noise of a roller coaster, a subway train, a jet airliner, as the Beast explodes out of the bedrock in an atomic eruption of fire, its limbs thrashing like giant serpents; and still Sam says the words, and still he believes in his brother.

It is silhouetted in the flames that have set it ablaze as it looms over them, a horned, dome-headed colossus formed of rippling bands of muscle, leathery bat-like wings flapping. It smacks a massive fist down onto the ledge in its fury, its talons scoring fissures in the rock, and the force sends Sam crashing down onto his butt. He scrabbles himself as far as he can from its grasp, dragging Castiel along even as the angel squirms and tries to wriggle free, and still Sam says the words, and still he believes in his brother.

Through the smoke and scarlet glow of the inferno, he can see the Beast throw its head back and snap its mouth open, see gleaming fangs in there, and it roars, a deep bass threat that rises into a screech of rage. The sound is unearthly, piercing Sam's eardrums, sending blinding pain zinging through his head and making his heart stutter as if he's a child again and this is the monster in his closet, the thing that will reshape his reality; and still he says the words, and still he believes in his brother. And it's working, somehow he knows, and pure grief tears and rips through him because he knows what it means for this spell to be working.

Blinking grit and tears from his eyes, Sam peers up to see Dean floating so high now that he is as tiny as a child's doll. But there is the flash of the machete swiping and thrusting as Dean is buffeted and smashed back and forth by the crazed twist and whirl of the creature's limbs, until its hand swoops to snatch him up and dash him against its own chest; and Sam wants to stop, wants to scream Dean's name, but still he says the words and still he believes in his brother. He can smell the acrid stench of his own hair as it singes, breathes in smoldering air that scorches his lungs as he pulls Castiel to him. He thinks of his mother, rendered into smoke fumes and charred bones at the moment this all started for them, and now Dean at the end of it all; and still he chokes out the words, and still he believes in his brother.

Castiel screams, fists flying, and he struggles like a wild animal in Sam's arms, but Sam keeps his grip on the angel and squints up through the murky, sooty smog that hangs in the air, morbid fascination and curiosity compelling him to watch until the end. What sounds like the creature's death throes are transmitted in its shrieks, in the crunch and crack of its limbs against the rock, in the clatter of rubble, and in the tremors that quake through this place; and still Sam whispers the words, and still he believes in his brother.

Fire is licking up all around and above them now, as if a backdraft has set the conflagration to consuming itself, and it's so hot that Sam's skin feels as if it might melt off his bones. The creature's rage still thunders and its wailing still resounds, and if Dean is still alive up there, Sam can't see him. But he thinks he sees faces in the inferno, faces that flex and metamorphose, faces from a thousand hunts past, faces belonging to people he once knew who are dead forever and can never come back from death. He thinks he sees his parents, Jess, Caleb, Pastor Jim; he thinks he sees Madison, Ellen and Jo. He thinks he sees Samuel Campbell, Christian, Gwen; he even thinks he sees Zachariah, Gabriel, Balthazar, and a thousand more tortured, screaming people he couldn't save from Fate, sometimes because they didn't want to be saved.

Sam grapples with Castiel and longs for water, cool, clear water, and still he believes in his brother, but he knows his voice is lost now, that his lips move but no sound is coming out of his mouth. He finds himself dazedly thinking of the ocean at Crystal Beach, of how Kali pulled him from the depths, remembers that moment when everything suspended for him. And he thinks he understands now, thinks he understands everything about the blackness that came for them, because it's like being underwater.

Fire and the wails of long-dead ghosts press down on them from above. There is only one way out.

Sam learned how to drown once. He can do it again, and suddenly he isn't scared any more.

He takes a breath. There's no time to warn Castiel, and Sam hopes and prays that he will understand. He's abstractedly thankful that Castiel lacks his extra thirty pounds of muscle, but even if he has a physical advantage over the weakened angel, that doesn't make it easy. Castiel is wiry and whip-fast as he flails and fights and sobs, but from somewhere Sam finds the presence of mind to wrestle him into a choke-hold that sends him flopping limp within seconds.

And with a final burst of adrenaline, Sam wraps the angel in a bear hug and rolls them off the cliff together, into the darkness, and into the deep.



Episode 24: Redemption (Part I)