In Eridu Part 7a
Title: In Eridu
Full warnings, summary and notes at Part 1.
1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6a. | 6b. | 7a. | 7b.
.In Eridu.
7a.
They weren't being awkward, Dean told himself.
Cas was just tired and hurt and still kind of crazy, and that was why he hadn't spoken a word to Dean on the way back to find Sam. Cas hadn't made eye contact either, but that was because he was concentrating on the patterns on the walls, his eyes moving quickly over them as they passed. Dean had seen Sam do the same when he was reading complicated shit.
They found Sam and the civilians not far away, backed into a dead ended cave that was a lot less deep than Dean remembered it being the first time they'd passed it. It wouldn't offer much protection from the slug monster thing, and it definitely wouldn't hide them. It was creepy as hell, too, to be surrounded by the sigil-covered walls this up-close and personal. Dean didn't like to think what they were doing to Cas.
He meant to re-group, talk to Sam and try to come up with a plan. Let Cas rest a while. Even if Cas was more himself, more alert than he'd been in hours, he still looked like shit. They couldn't stop for long, because if they did Dean wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get moving again, but just a few minutes. A few minutes to take the weight off his busted ankle. A few minutes to close his eyes and try to forget how little sleep he'd had, how much his eyes ached, scratchy and raw and heavy. He would've done pretty much anything right then for some water, an ice-pack for his ankle, somewhere to sleep. From the way their two survivors leaned wearily against the walls Dean bet they would've too.
"Sam," Dean greeted his brother. He kept a tight hold on Cas, keeping him close and away from the walls, remembering what had happened to him the last time he'd touched the rock.
Glancing at Cas, Sam gave Dean a questioning look. Dean shook his head in response because now was really not the time to explain the method he'd used to get Cas to stop freaking out. There was a monster somewhere ahead of them and a crazy guy with a knife somewhere behind them and both had fallen silent. That was the most disconcerting thing of all. They were trapped, and Dean didn't have a clue which way they should go from here.
"You guys okay?" Sam asked, and Dean was relieved when he didn't press for anything more.
"Yeah." They weren't, not really, but they were still standing and that was something.
"I remember," Cas said. Then, in a move Dean wouldn't have thought Cas capable of considering the state he was in, Cas drew his sword from Dean's belt, shook off Dean's hold and split open a wrist before Dean could stop him.
"What the fuck-"
Dean tried to make a grab for Cas, to pull him back, because there was no way Cas could be back to being vaguely sane when he was busting open veins like that. But then Cas announced, "I can call down the creature responsible."
"Call that crazy dude here?" Sam sounded incredulous. "I thought we were trying to get away from him?" Sam hesitated, torn between staying with the civilians and helping Dean deal with Cas. Cas who was busy finger painting even more sigils on the walls with his own blood, wincing every time he touched the stone.
"A human couldn't have done this alone. The knowledge doesn't exist on Earth," Cas said. "Only something powerful- and old- could have raised the Asag."
Asag. Dean had heard Castiel mention that word a few times but there'd never been time to stop for an explanation. To ask how Cas knew what it was. Reaching out, Dean took a hold of Cas's arm and clamped his hand over the cut Cas had made across his own wrist, holding him back. It was ridiculously easy to hold him still. "You're going to kill yourself," Dean said. "Just stop for a second, would you?"
Scowling at Dean, Cas said dismissively, "There is no time to explain."
"Yeah," Dean scoffed. "You'd think by now you'd have learned that doesn't work on me. You tell me what the fuck is going on, Cas."
Dean didn't like the way Cas kept avoiding his eyes.
"I remember," Cas repeated, and he sounded so damn sad, like the words hurt, that Dean almost wished he hadn't asked. But he had to know so he could help. So he could keep them all alive.
"And?" Dean prompted.
"Six thousand years ago I- this creature caused a great flood."
Whatever Cas was remembering it didn't look good from the way he closed his eyes, his head bowed. Cas didn't seem inclined to offer anything more and Dean wondered what exactly had happened to put that look of loss and misery on Cas's face. Dean had never seen anything like it before.
It was the here and now and the staying in one piece that was important though. The rest they could deal with later.
Cautiously, knowing that these things never ended well, Dean asked, "How was it stopped?"
Cas still wouldn't meet his eyes. "It wasn't."
Yeah. Dean hadn't thought it would be that easy.
There was an uneasy silence as Dean tried to think of something he could ask that would make any sense of this. A billion years ago, or however long, the giant snake creature they were fighting had been released and done a shit load of damage and from the look on Cas's face he'd somehow been involved. Nothing had stopped it then, so what could stop it now? Sam must've been thinking the same thing because he asked, "Then what you're doing," he nodded towards the wall and Cas's blood, "If we bring it here, whatever it is that released that monster, then we can stop it?"
Beside Sam, the two remaining civilians stayed close, still blind and uncertain and Dean felt shitty for them because if he was in their situation- useless, defenceless and completely reliant on strangers- he'd hate it too.
"It is possible," Cas replied. It wasn't exactly the answer Dean had been looking for but it was better than running around clueless in the dark.
Irritably, Cas shook off Dean's hand, turning back to the wall. His fingers were stained red, spreading the shape of a line, another dissecting it, a half-circle. "Now let me finish," he ordered, and Dean was surprised by the anger in his voice. There was a lot more to this than Cas was saying but if this spell could get them out of here- or at least deliver the thing to them they needed to fight to get this hunt over with- then he could let whatever it was Cas wasn't telling them go. For now.
Cas paused suddenly and looked over his shoulder at Sam, considering. "I can bind the instigator here, so it cannot leave," he said. "But I will need to bind it to a person."
Sam pointed at himself, "To me?"
Cas held out a hand. "It would be preferable. I require your blood."
"Hey, now, hang on." Dean didn't like the sound of binding and he sure as hell didn't like it in the same sentence as to Sam.
"Sam will be in no danger, Dean," Cas assured him. "I can't fight the Asag. I must seek an alternative, and this is the only one I can think of. We are out of time."
Looking pointedly towards the main tunnel, Dean knew that Cas was right. That didn't make it any easier to accept. And Sam, the little suck-up, was already offering his hand to Cas.
"Do it, Cas." Sam sent an exasperated look at Dean, and okay so maybe he was being overprotective but he'd not long gotten Sam back and maybe he was kind of paranoid about his brother getting caught up with any more spells or deals right now.
"You'd better be right," Dean murmured.
The truth of it was that he trusted Cas with this- Jesus- with Sam. Even if he was kind of crazy right now. Why the fuck else would Cas have kissed him?
"You can stand up at least now, right?" Dean asked. More magic could not be good, even if Cas wasn't looking anywhere near as unsteady as he had been. From what Dean could see the wound in his back had stopped bleeding, and Cas's eyes were much sharper, more aware.
"I can." Castiel gave Dean a long, searching look before he added, "I know this spell. Sam will be unharmed."
At Cas's assurance, Dean moved towards the edge of their cave, having to look away as Cas drew the point of his sword across the palm of Sam's hand. No matter how many times he'd seen it, Dean wouldn't willingly watch Sam get hurt. Instead, he leaned out into the tunnel cautiously, trying to work out where the monster and the knife-wielding maniac had gotten to. All he could see was a wide, empty passageway, and all he could hear was the occasional echo of falling rock, the shifting of the civilians, and Sam and Cas talking quietly behind him. In this maze of tunnels the sound reverberated, amplified, and Dean had to resist the urge to tell them to keep it quiet.
Just for a few minutes, Dean wished he could've sat down but he didn't dare even lean against the wall in case he fell asleep. He rubbed his hands over his face, blinking the sweat and the tiredness out of his eyes. He was unarmed again, he realised.
What felt like only a second later Cas called, "Dean," and at some point Dean had closed his eyes, propped himself against the arching rock. He must've fallen asleep after all, and he wondered how long he'd been out for. When he turned back to Cas and his brother, trying to look like he hadn't just passed out on the job, the expression on Cas's face was unlike anything Dean had seen before on the angel. It was like Cas didn't want to look away. Like he couldn't quite believe what he was looking at. It was hopeful, and there was- God- there was affection there, and Dean couldn't help but stare back.
"We must be ready," Cas said.
Dean nodded and moved to join them by the sigils Cas had drawn, hoping he survived this and hoping that when they got out of here Cas would maybe like to make out again sometime. Only without the craziness and the adrenalin and the exhaustion and the pain.
Once again Cas offered up his sword. "They will not be able to hurt Sam with this bond," he told Dean. He didn't need to mention that whoever or whatever they called down would be able to hurt him. Dean could work out that much from the way Cas placed the sword in his hand, his fingers lingering and warm against Dean's palm. Since the first time he'd held it, back in the woods when they'd been looking for Sam, the sword had felt perfectly weighted in his hand. Now the sword felt even more right, moulded around his fingers like a knife he'd been using for years. Dean ignored the implication, putting it down to crazy angel magic and nothing more.
"And you?" Dean asked, remembering the way he'd thought his fucking chest was going to explode when that asshole had sunk a knife into Cas's back. Cas had gone down and he hadn't gotten up again and it had been everything Dean could do not to freak the fuck out. Before that moment, Dean couldn't remember ever seeing Cas taken out by anything other than an archangel. And that crazy dude was no archangel.
"I will be fine." Cas looked confident as he turned away, back towards his sigils, but it was always hard to tell with Cas how much he was taking on blind faith. Standing beside Cas, watching him complete the circle that enclosed everything he'd drawn, Sam was frowning and nervous. He flexed his hand and Dean could see the blood on his palm. He didn't have time to tell Sam to bind it with something before Cas was speaking in a low voice, a string of short sounds. It wasn't the Enochian he'd been expecting, and it wasn't Latin. It sounded closer to whatever language Cas had been speaking in earlier, when he was half-crazed and confused. On the wall, Cas traced lines across the symbols he'd already painted. Right down in his toes, deep in his stomach, Dean felt the beginnings of powerful magic building around them and he gripped Cas's sword more tightly. Dean glanced around, not knowing where to expect this thing to appear. Close by, Sam was doing the same. His brother spared a glance to their two survivors. "Stay by the wall," he ordered. "Keep quiet and don't move, whatever happens."
They nodded numbly, both of them huddling against the wall. Dean saw the way their eyes were glassy with shock and confusion. There was nothing he could do about it, except protect them, and get them out of here alive. There had been so many he'd failed before, who'd been killed because he and his brother weren't fast enough or strong enough, and Dean was determined that these two wouldn't end up like that.
He made sure he was standing directly in front of the civilians before turning to Sam and calling, "Get over here."
Even if this thing couldn't hurt his brother, he was still unarmed and Dean had learned a hundred times over that it was better to be prepared, to be cautious, because anything could go wrong and usually did.
Sam shot him a mean sour face but did as he was told, moving to Dean's side and whispering, "I think I recognise that language."
"Language?" It hadn't occurred to Dean that Cas was doing something different, that this was something other than the usual abstract shapes that may or may not have been magical angelic script.
"Cuneiform," Sam said. "It's an ancient middle Eastern script."
"Human." Dean wondered just how many languages Cas could speak. "From about six thousand years ago?" he guessed, remembering that whatever Cas had forgotten had happened then. It never failed to feel seriously weird to think of Cas as that old. Half the time he acted like some clueless kid. There was so much he didn't know or understand and a lot of the time it had to do with humanity. How humans behaved. Emotions. It was the wrong time to be thinking about it, but Dean couldn't help wondering about how Cas had kissed him and if he even realised what it meant. Did angels even make out? Whatever was going on with them could all go so horribly wrong and Dean was almost glad he had Sam and a monster and a madman to distract him from having to deal with any of that right then.
"Yeah," Sam replied.
"Can you read it?" There was, Dean had found, no end to the amount of random crap Sam knew. But this time Sam shook his head regretfully.
They watched as Cas finished whatever he was writing, seemed to draw himself up to stand straight. He never stopped speaking and even though he never spoke any louder or sped up the words became heavier, somehow more.
Cas glanced back at them and Dean took it as a warning. He nodded to Cas to let him know he'd understood. In the next moment Cas slammed his palm down against the symbols like Dean had seen him do so often before, except this time he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Light erupted from the lines and curves, brightness filling the cave, spilling out into the tunnels and if the crazy dude and the monster hadn't known where they were before they certainly did now. All around them there was rumbling, like an earthquake, and somewhere in the distance Dean could hear stone cracking and splitting. Cas had never said anything about this damn spell causing a fucking cave-in. Wind rushed past his ears. It was the first air Dean had felt in too long and he didn't even have the chance to enjoy it. Over the noise, like thunder and gunshots but neither, Dean shouted to Cas, "Stop! You're gonna bring the roof down on us!"
There was every chance collapsing the tunnels would put an end to the monster and their crazy guy too, but Dean wasn't quite ready to take the self-sacrificing route yet.
He didn't know if Cas hadn't heard him, or if he was ignoring him, but he didn't stop, kept right on speaking with his hand pressed to the wall. The light around them intensified until it was blinding and Dean was forced to close his eyes, then cover his face with his arm when even that wasn't enough. Dean cursed and swore because he wasn't going to be much use protecting Sam and Cas if he couldn't even see. He yelled again, "Cas, stop!" Maybe Cas was caught up in his magic, or maybe he'd lost it again and just when Dean had damn well brought him back. As great as kissing Cas might be, necessity, to keep Cas sane, was not the way he wanted it to happen again.
The air filled with what sounded like the hissing, ear-splitting buzz of angel voices, growing steadily, piercing and painful. It was impossible to cover his eyes and his ears at the same time so Dean just had to grimace and bear it. It was more important, anyway, that he kept a careful hold of Cas's sword. Somehow, over everything, Dean could make out the civilians screaming. The air became choked with dust and the tang of electricity and Dean could taste it in his mouth; copper and power and ash.
Dean would've sworn he heard the familiar beating of angel wings but the screeching was so intense that his ears bled and it was impossible to be sure, or to concentrate, or to even remember which way was up and which way was down.
Suddenly, the sound was gone. The ground beneath Dean became solid again but his legs shook, his body fast enough in adjusting to the change. The air was still thick with dust and it made Dean cough and wheeze.
Somewhere in the distance the monster was howling and all Dean could think was that now they'd really made it angry. After its long silence it was a relief to know that at least it wasn't anywhere close.
Then, Dean remembered what Cas had just been doing and what the whole light and sound show had been for and he realised, fuck, he couldn't see a thing. He couldn’t see what they'd summoned. There were black spots blinding him, the air so full of crap his eyes watered every time he tried to open them.
"Sam? Cas, man, you okay?" he called, and hoped to hell that hadn't come out half as desperate and anxious as he thought it had.
No answer.
Damn it all but he should have known better than to let Cas do any magic shit in the state he was in.
He felt something bump into his shoulder, catching hold of him. "Dean."
It was Sam, voice rough and short of breath but there and strong and Dean felt himself relax slightly knowing his brother was safe. He would've asked Sam if he was okay, if he could see anything, if he could see Cas, but then another familiar voice cut through the coughing and the howling of the creature in the background and what the fuck.
"Well this is unexpected."
Balthazar.
There was no mistaking that smarmy bastard’s voice anywhere. As the dust cleared Dean could see his scruffy face smirking right at them. He knew Balthazar was capable of a lot of shitty things, but he hadn’t thought doing something that hurt Cas was one of them. They'd been too familiar with each other, Balthazar watching Cas too closely for Dean to believe it.
It made it even more unbelievable that Balthazar was out to do anything malicious when the next thing he did was to turn his attention to Cas with a concerned frown. "Cas. What happened to you?"
There were no demands to know what was going on, but instead a hand placed lightly on Cas's arm. "You're not healing," he said. "Cas. Heal yourself, you idiot."
He was an angel though, and despite his show of friendship Cas's spell had to have brought him to them for a reason and Dean did not trust him. Dean strode over to Cas's side, pulling him away from Balthazar's sticky fingers.
"Dean-" Cas frowned at him, annoyed, but Dean cut him off, "I don't wanna hear it. He started this crap. If your spell worked right," and Dean was not above playing on Cas's pride, "he was the one who messed with your head."
"I what?" Balthazar sounded incredulous and Dean turned to glare at him. Asshat. "Woah there, tiger. I think you're getting me confused with someone else."
"Cas's spell brought you here. You started this shit. Now tell us how to stop it."
"Stop what?" Balthazar took a step forward, stretching his arms out towards Cas and Dean raised Cas's sword in warning.
"I'd just love an excuse to use this. Please give me an excuse."
Balthazar looked at the knife in his hand, then to Cas, then back to the knife. There was surprise on his face. "Cassie-" he said in a low voice. "You gave him your sword." The grin that followed was sickeningly amused.
"Enough with the bullshit," Dean snapped. "You tell us what the fuck you did, and how we can undo it or so help me I will shove this-"
"Dean!" Cas gripped his forearm, pulling the blade away. "There's no need for this." He turned his attention to Balthazar. "Look around you, brother. I can't heal here. You can't leave. An Asag has been raised again, and I was not the one to do it."
It was a weird thing to say, because of course Cas hadn't done it. Balthazar blinked, looked taken aback, and when he turned his attention to the walls of rock arching over them he actually flinched.
"These weren't-" Balthazar shook his head. "I didn't-"
The creature's howling started up again and Balthazar fell silent, listening. "Well, crap."
"Indeed." Cas was watching Balthazar closely, uncertain about something. "I remembered Eridu," he said.
At that Balthazar's eyes snapped to Cas's and for what felt like a long time the two angels stood staring at each other. He could hear Sam behind him checking on the civilians. The monster's screeching was getting louder and Dean just hoped Cas was interrogating the bastard or something because Dean was getting antsy, not liking how long they'd stayed in one place.
When Sam finally came over to join him, Dean leaned in close and whispered, "You know what Eridu is?"
Sam looked confused for a second. "Um. It was a city, I think. In ancient Mesopotamia."
Dean pointed to the symbols Cas had written on the wall, now burned black into the rock. "Same place that language comes from?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Cas mentioned it."
"What're they doing?" Sam asked.
Dean shrugged because how they hell would he know? "Angel-talking?"
They watched Cas and Balthazar do a whole lot of nothing for a couple of minutes more until Dean couldn't stand it anymore. He unfolded his arms testily. "Enough with this shit."
He put a hand on Cas's shoulder, gratified when Cas's attention immediately turned to him. God but his eyes were awesome. There was that sadness again, old and somehow filled with guilt and when Cas looked at Dean now it was like he wanted to apologise for something.
"What's going on?" Dean demanded to know.
"Balthazar made me forget," he said. "Because I asked him to."
That was pretty much the last thing Dean had expected to hear.
"Okay," Dean said slowly. "Okay. Why would you do that? What did he do?"
Cas shook his head. "Balthazar did nothing."
"It was that psychopath of a human who is currently running around baying for blood. You teach them one little thing-" Balthazar laughed humourlessly. "Six thousand years and humans still haven’t learned to keep well away from what they don't understand."
"And how exactly did he know how to raise this thing?" Dean demanded to know. "Cas said it was old knowledge."
"He taught this man," Cas supplied.
"Let me guess," Dean spat. "In exchange for his soul. And who cares that this thing is boiling everyone in Chicago to death?"
Balthazar folded his arms defensively. "He wanted power. I gave it to him. How was I supposed to know he was going to try for the apocalyptic devastation thing? He shouldn't even have been able to-"
"Yeah, well, he did and now here we are." It was too hot for this and it wasn't getting them any closer to escaping the tunnels or defeating the monster. "Tell us how to stop it."
"Stop it?" Balthazar scoffed. "You don't stop this creature. You feed it."
Dean could guess exactly what the slug thing ate. "Humans."
"Souls," Cas clarified. "The Asag doesn't kill directly, but brings disaster and through that feeds off the souls of those who die."
Cas sounded so tired and hopeless and it occurred to Dean that maybe he could guess what had happened six thousand years ago. Something Cas felt guilty about, something he hadn't stopped, something that had been so bad he'd asked Balthazar to make him forget.
Dean asked, "How many? How many have to die?"
Cas had said there'd been a flood.
"Thirty thousand. Thirty thousand souls and then the Asag will be sated and sleep."
"You shouldn't have remembered." Balthazar shook his head regretfully. "I would never have let you remember."
Thirty thousand dead was a lot, too many, but over the course of human history Cas had to have seen hundreds of catastrophes. There had been a time not so long ago when Cas hadn't shown much regret over the death of humans, believing that they would find peace. Dean wanted to ask what had been different about six thousand years ago but Balthazar was glaring at him like he knew what he was thinking and Cas was enough of a mess without Dean pushing him about things he wanted to forget. So he let it go, saying instead, "Well, we don't have thirty thousand souls to spare. There has to be another way."
Silence.
The creature that Cas called an Asag was hissing and growling and Dean was almost certain the damn thing was laughing at them. Ancient and invincible and Dean wondered how many humans it had killed.
Behind him the surviving woman was crying softly. Dean could think of nothing to say that could comfort her, his mind weirdly blank because he couldn't think of anything to suggest. All his years hunting and he had nothing.
Sam was looking at his feet, his brow furrowed in concentration but it didn't look like he had any more idea what to do next than Dean did. Across from them Balthazar had wrapped his arms around his chest looking more defiant than anything, denying that any of this was his fault. On any other day Dean might've considered punching the asshole just for that; Balthazar was the one who'd given some fucked up human knowledge he should never have had and he hadn't given a shit about the consequences. But with Cas mostly out of commission, Balthazar might actually come in useful. Dean wasn't blind to the fact that Balthazar seemed to do pretty much whatever Cas asked of him. Even now Balthazar was watching Cas closely, concern written on his face.
Cas was staring over his shoulder out into the wider tunnel behind them.
"There is another way," he said, his voice unusually quiet. He turned to meet Dean's gaze, regretful and resigned in a way that put Dean on edge, made him not want to ask what his other way was because it could not be anything that wasn't going to suck.
In the next instant Cas was gone.
"Cas!" he called, his stomach suddenly feeling hollowed out. "Cas! Get back here." When there was no reply Dean rounded on Balthazar. "Where did he go? Where the fuck did he go?"
Balthazar's eyes were wide with shock. He was shaking his head. "He wouldn't," he said. "He wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?" Dean demanded. He raised Cas's sword and grabbed at the front of Balthazar's douchey t-shirt, hearing the fabric tear in his fist. Balthazar didn't resist even when he stuck the knife right up under his chin, just hard enough that the blade broke the skin. "You tell me what you've done. If you screw around I will end you." And he meant it. Dean didn't give a shit if he was Cas's friend. He would kill him for this.
Balthazar spared Dean a disdainful look, his body tensing and Dean knew what the bastard was about to do.
"Don't you fucking dare-" Dean warned, tightening his grip on Balthazar’s shirt as though that might somehow stop him, but before he'd even finished speaking there was the sound of beating wings and Balthazar was gone.
"Fuck," Dean swore. "Fuck."
The monster had fallen silent again and Dean's breathing was too loud in his ears. He turned to Sam.
"He's supposed to be bound to you, isn't he?"
Sam frowned at Dean. "I don't-"
A frantic sound cut Sam off, wings again only this time frantic and for a second Dean had the hope that it was Cas. It was difficult to reign in his anger when Balthazar appeared, doubled over and hissing, "You bastards. You've cursed me."
Dean didn't point out that it was Cas who'd done the cursing. "You deserve it."
It was clear Balthazar was in pain from the way he stood upright cautiously, unsteadily, but the asshole still managed to glare viciously at Dean.
Balthazar looked Dean up and down like he was searching for something. "Not bound to you, I notice. Your soul is already taken." Why was it, Dean wondered, that everyone was always bitching about his soul?
"My soul isn't taken by anyone," Dean snapped defensively.
Balthazar laughed unkindly, "You keep telling yourself that, Sunshine." His attention turned to Sam. "So I get you." Dean did not like the thoughtful grin spreading across Balthazar's face. "I think I can live with that." He took an unsteady step forward, reaching out to grab hold of Sam and oh, no. Dean was not letting Balthazar take Sam anywhere. He put himself between them, raising Cas's sword.
"You're not going anywhere."
"I can't get to our beloved Cassie to stop him doing something ridiculously stupid if you don't let me take Sam."
"No. You explain where Cas has gone. How he's gone. I thought you guys couldn't fly down here." It wasn’t betrayal, Dean told himself. There had to be a reason.
Balthazar's face twisted in irritation and impatience, but he backed up when Dean shoved the blade up under his neck again. He'd seen Cas fight enough times to know the throat was the weak point; the place that killed.
"We can fly short distances, and it isn't exactly pleasant, but I'm rather more concerned with saving my brother. The state Cas was in I doubt he could even carry one of you, let alone more, and being the caring guardian angel he is he stuck around."
"Then why did he leave now?" Sam questioned.
"Because Grace is worth a whole lot more than a human soul," Balthazar replied vehemently, looking between them like that should explain everything.
Then Dean understood and he felt his face go cold. "Worth thirty thousand souls?"
Beside him, Sam tensed. "Oh god. Shit."
"More than that," Balthazar replied. "I'm sure he thinks he'll survive."
Dean was going to find out, he determined, how to do that damn binding spell himself so he could make sure Cas never did this to him again. So he'd never have to feel this sick and afraid that everything he'd just gained was about to be lost forever.
<<6b. | 7b.>>
Full warnings, summary and notes at Part 1.
1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6a. | 6b. | 7a. | 7b.
.In Eridu.
7a.
They weren't being awkward, Dean told himself.
Cas was just tired and hurt and still kind of crazy, and that was why he hadn't spoken a word to Dean on the way back to find Sam. Cas hadn't made eye contact either, but that was because he was concentrating on the patterns on the walls, his eyes moving quickly over them as they passed. Dean had seen Sam do the same when he was reading complicated shit.
They found Sam and the civilians not far away, backed into a dead ended cave that was a lot less deep than Dean remembered it being the first time they'd passed it. It wouldn't offer much protection from the slug monster thing, and it definitely wouldn't hide them. It was creepy as hell, too, to be surrounded by the sigil-covered walls this up-close and personal. Dean didn't like to think what they were doing to Cas.
He meant to re-group, talk to Sam and try to come up with a plan. Let Cas rest a while. Even if Cas was more himself, more alert than he'd been in hours, he still looked like shit. They couldn't stop for long, because if they did Dean wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get moving again, but just a few minutes. A few minutes to take the weight off his busted ankle. A few minutes to close his eyes and try to forget how little sleep he'd had, how much his eyes ached, scratchy and raw and heavy. He would've done pretty much anything right then for some water, an ice-pack for his ankle, somewhere to sleep. From the way their two survivors leaned wearily against the walls Dean bet they would've too.
"Sam," Dean greeted his brother. He kept a tight hold on Cas, keeping him close and away from the walls, remembering what had happened to him the last time he'd touched the rock.
Glancing at Cas, Sam gave Dean a questioning look. Dean shook his head in response because now was really not the time to explain the method he'd used to get Cas to stop freaking out. There was a monster somewhere ahead of them and a crazy guy with a knife somewhere behind them and both had fallen silent. That was the most disconcerting thing of all. They were trapped, and Dean didn't have a clue which way they should go from here.
"You guys okay?" Sam asked, and Dean was relieved when he didn't press for anything more.
"Yeah." They weren't, not really, but they were still standing and that was something.
"I remember," Cas said. Then, in a move Dean wouldn't have thought Cas capable of considering the state he was in, Cas drew his sword from Dean's belt, shook off Dean's hold and split open a wrist before Dean could stop him.
"What the fuck-"
Dean tried to make a grab for Cas, to pull him back, because there was no way Cas could be back to being vaguely sane when he was busting open veins like that. But then Cas announced, "I can call down the creature responsible."
"Call that crazy dude here?" Sam sounded incredulous. "I thought we were trying to get away from him?" Sam hesitated, torn between staying with the civilians and helping Dean deal with Cas. Cas who was busy finger painting even more sigils on the walls with his own blood, wincing every time he touched the stone.
"A human couldn't have done this alone. The knowledge doesn't exist on Earth," Cas said. "Only something powerful- and old- could have raised the Asag."
Asag. Dean had heard Castiel mention that word a few times but there'd never been time to stop for an explanation. To ask how Cas knew what it was. Reaching out, Dean took a hold of Cas's arm and clamped his hand over the cut Cas had made across his own wrist, holding him back. It was ridiculously easy to hold him still. "You're going to kill yourself," Dean said. "Just stop for a second, would you?"
Scowling at Dean, Cas said dismissively, "There is no time to explain."
"Yeah," Dean scoffed. "You'd think by now you'd have learned that doesn't work on me. You tell me what the fuck is going on, Cas."
Dean didn't like the way Cas kept avoiding his eyes.
"I remember," Cas repeated, and he sounded so damn sad, like the words hurt, that Dean almost wished he hadn't asked. But he had to know so he could help. So he could keep them all alive.
"And?" Dean prompted.
"Six thousand years ago I- this creature caused a great flood."
Whatever Cas was remembering it didn't look good from the way he closed his eyes, his head bowed. Cas didn't seem inclined to offer anything more and Dean wondered what exactly had happened to put that look of loss and misery on Cas's face. Dean had never seen anything like it before.
It was the here and now and the staying in one piece that was important though. The rest they could deal with later.
Cautiously, knowing that these things never ended well, Dean asked, "How was it stopped?"
Cas still wouldn't meet his eyes. "It wasn't."
Yeah. Dean hadn't thought it would be that easy.
There was an uneasy silence as Dean tried to think of something he could ask that would make any sense of this. A billion years ago, or however long, the giant snake creature they were fighting had been released and done a shit load of damage and from the look on Cas's face he'd somehow been involved. Nothing had stopped it then, so what could stop it now? Sam must've been thinking the same thing because he asked, "Then what you're doing," he nodded towards the wall and Cas's blood, "If we bring it here, whatever it is that released that monster, then we can stop it?"
Beside Sam, the two remaining civilians stayed close, still blind and uncertain and Dean felt shitty for them because if he was in their situation- useless, defenceless and completely reliant on strangers- he'd hate it too.
"It is possible," Cas replied. It wasn't exactly the answer Dean had been looking for but it was better than running around clueless in the dark.
Irritably, Cas shook off Dean's hand, turning back to the wall. His fingers were stained red, spreading the shape of a line, another dissecting it, a half-circle. "Now let me finish," he ordered, and Dean was surprised by the anger in his voice. There was a lot more to this than Cas was saying but if this spell could get them out of here- or at least deliver the thing to them they needed to fight to get this hunt over with- then he could let whatever it was Cas wasn't telling them go. For now.
Cas paused suddenly and looked over his shoulder at Sam, considering. "I can bind the instigator here, so it cannot leave," he said. "But I will need to bind it to a person."
Sam pointed at himself, "To me?"
Cas held out a hand. "It would be preferable. I require your blood."
"Hey, now, hang on." Dean didn't like the sound of binding and he sure as hell didn't like it in the same sentence as to Sam.
"Sam will be in no danger, Dean," Cas assured him. "I can't fight the Asag. I must seek an alternative, and this is the only one I can think of. We are out of time."
Looking pointedly towards the main tunnel, Dean knew that Cas was right. That didn't make it any easier to accept. And Sam, the little suck-up, was already offering his hand to Cas.
"Do it, Cas." Sam sent an exasperated look at Dean, and okay so maybe he was being overprotective but he'd not long gotten Sam back and maybe he was kind of paranoid about his brother getting caught up with any more spells or deals right now.
"You'd better be right," Dean murmured.
The truth of it was that he trusted Cas with this- Jesus- with Sam. Even if he was kind of crazy right now. Why the fuck else would Cas have kissed him?
"You can stand up at least now, right?" Dean asked. More magic could not be good, even if Cas wasn't looking anywhere near as unsteady as he had been. From what Dean could see the wound in his back had stopped bleeding, and Cas's eyes were much sharper, more aware.
"I can." Castiel gave Dean a long, searching look before he added, "I know this spell. Sam will be unharmed."
At Cas's assurance, Dean moved towards the edge of their cave, having to look away as Cas drew the point of his sword across the palm of Sam's hand. No matter how many times he'd seen it, Dean wouldn't willingly watch Sam get hurt. Instead, he leaned out into the tunnel cautiously, trying to work out where the monster and the knife-wielding maniac had gotten to. All he could see was a wide, empty passageway, and all he could hear was the occasional echo of falling rock, the shifting of the civilians, and Sam and Cas talking quietly behind him. In this maze of tunnels the sound reverberated, amplified, and Dean had to resist the urge to tell them to keep it quiet.
Just for a few minutes, Dean wished he could've sat down but he didn't dare even lean against the wall in case he fell asleep. He rubbed his hands over his face, blinking the sweat and the tiredness out of his eyes. He was unarmed again, he realised.
What felt like only a second later Cas called, "Dean," and at some point Dean had closed his eyes, propped himself against the arching rock. He must've fallen asleep after all, and he wondered how long he'd been out for. When he turned back to Cas and his brother, trying to look like he hadn't just passed out on the job, the expression on Cas's face was unlike anything Dean had seen before on the angel. It was like Cas didn't want to look away. Like he couldn't quite believe what he was looking at. It was hopeful, and there was- God- there was affection there, and Dean couldn't help but stare back.
"We must be ready," Cas said.
Dean nodded and moved to join them by the sigils Cas had drawn, hoping he survived this and hoping that when they got out of here Cas would maybe like to make out again sometime. Only without the craziness and the adrenalin and the exhaustion and the pain.
Once again Cas offered up his sword. "They will not be able to hurt Sam with this bond," he told Dean. He didn't need to mention that whoever or whatever they called down would be able to hurt him. Dean could work out that much from the way Cas placed the sword in his hand, his fingers lingering and warm against Dean's palm. Since the first time he'd held it, back in the woods when they'd been looking for Sam, the sword had felt perfectly weighted in his hand. Now the sword felt even more right, moulded around his fingers like a knife he'd been using for years. Dean ignored the implication, putting it down to crazy angel magic and nothing more.
"And you?" Dean asked, remembering the way he'd thought his fucking chest was going to explode when that asshole had sunk a knife into Cas's back. Cas had gone down and he hadn't gotten up again and it had been everything Dean could do not to freak the fuck out. Before that moment, Dean couldn't remember ever seeing Cas taken out by anything other than an archangel. And that crazy dude was no archangel.
"I will be fine." Cas looked confident as he turned away, back towards his sigils, but it was always hard to tell with Cas how much he was taking on blind faith. Standing beside Cas, watching him complete the circle that enclosed everything he'd drawn, Sam was frowning and nervous. He flexed his hand and Dean could see the blood on his palm. He didn't have time to tell Sam to bind it with something before Cas was speaking in a low voice, a string of short sounds. It wasn't the Enochian he'd been expecting, and it wasn't Latin. It sounded closer to whatever language Cas had been speaking in earlier, when he was half-crazed and confused. On the wall, Cas traced lines across the symbols he'd already painted. Right down in his toes, deep in his stomach, Dean felt the beginnings of powerful magic building around them and he gripped Cas's sword more tightly. Dean glanced around, not knowing where to expect this thing to appear. Close by, Sam was doing the same. His brother spared a glance to their two survivors. "Stay by the wall," he ordered. "Keep quiet and don't move, whatever happens."
They nodded numbly, both of them huddling against the wall. Dean saw the way their eyes were glassy with shock and confusion. There was nothing he could do about it, except protect them, and get them out of here alive. There had been so many he'd failed before, who'd been killed because he and his brother weren't fast enough or strong enough, and Dean was determined that these two wouldn't end up like that.
He made sure he was standing directly in front of the civilians before turning to Sam and calling, "Get over here."
Even if this thing couldn't hurt his brother, he was still unarmed and Dean had learned a hundred times over that it was better to be prepared, to be cautious, because anything could go wrong and usually did.
Sam shot him a mean sour face but did as he was told, moving to Dean's side and whispering, "I think I recognise that language."
"Language?" It hadn't occurred to Dean that Cas was doing something different, that this was something other than the usual abstract shapes that may or may not have been magical angelic script.
"Cuneiform," Sam said. "It's an ancient middle Eastern script."
"Human." Dean wondered just how many languages Cas could speak. "From about six thousand years ago?" he guessed, remembering that whatever Cas had forgotten had happened then. It never failed to feel seriously weird to think of Cas as that old. Half the time he acted like some clueless kid. There was so much he didn't know or understand and a lot of the time it had to do with humanity. How humans behaved. Emotions. It was the wrong time to be thinking about it, but Dean couldn't help wondering about how Cas had kissed him and if he even realised what it meant. Did angels even make out? Whatever was going on with them could all go so horribly wrong and Dean was almost glad he had Sam and a monster and a madman to distract him from having to deal with any of that right then.
"Yeah," Sam replied.
"Can you read it?" There was, Dean had found, no end to the amount of random crap Sam knew. But this time Sam shook his head regretfully.
They watched as Cas finished whatever he was writing, seemed to draw himself up to stand straight. He never stopped speaking and even though he never spoke any louder or sped up the words became heavier, somehow more.
Cas glanced back at them and Dean took it as a warning. He nodded to Cas to let him know he'd understood. In the next moment Cas slammed his palm down against the symbols like Dean had seen him do so often before, except this time he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Light erupted from the lines and curves, brightness filling the cave, spilling out into the tunnels and if the crazy dude and the monster hadn't known where they were before they certainly did now. All around them there was rumbling, like an earthquake, and somewhere in the distance Dean could hear stone cracking and splitting. Cas had never said anything about this damn spell causing a fucking cave-in. Wind rushed past his ears. It was the first air Dean had felt in too long and he didn't even have the chance to enjoy it. Over the noise, like thunder and gunshots but neither, Dean shouted to Cas, "Stop! You're gonna bring the roof down on us!"
There was every chance collapsing the tunnels would put an end to the monster and their crazy guy too, but Dean wasn't quite ready to take the self-sacrificing route yet.
He didn't know if Cas hadn't heard him, or if he was ignoring him, but he didn't stop, kept right on speaking with his hand pressed to the wall. The light around them intensified until it was blinding and Dean was forced to close his eyes, then cover his face with his arm when even that wasn't enough. Dean cursed and swore because he wasn't going to be much use protecting Sam and Cas if he couldn't even see. He yelled again, "Cas, stop!" Maybe Cas was caught up in his magic, or maybe he'd lost it again and just when Dean had damn well brought him back. As great as kissing Cas might be, necessity, to keep Cas sane, was not the way he wanted it to happen again.
The air filled with what sounded like the hissing, ear-splitting buzz of angel voices, growing steadily, piercing and painful. It was impossible to cover his eyes and his ears at the same time so Dean just had to grimace and bear it. It was more important, anyway, that he kept a careful hold of Cas's sword. Somehow, over everything, Dean could make out the civilians screaming. The air became choked with dust and the tang of electricity and Dean could taste it in his mouth; copper and power and ash.
Dean would've sworn he heard the familiar beating of angel wings but the screeching was so intense that his ears bled and it was impossible to be sure, or to concentrate, or to even remember which way was up and which way was down.
Suddenly, the sound was gone. The ground beneath Dean became solid again but his legs shook, his body fast enough in adjusting to the change. The air was still thick with dust and it made Dean cough and wheeze.
Somewhere in the distance the monster was howling and all Dean could think was that now they'd really made it angry. After its long silence it was a relief to know that at least it wasn't anywhere close.
Then, Dean remembered what Cas had just been doing and what the whole light and sound show had been for and he realised, fuck, he couldn't see a thing. He couldn’t see what they'd summoned. There were black spots blinding him, the air so full of crap his eyes watered every time he tried to open them.
"Sam? Cas, man, you okay?" he called, and hoped to hell that hadn't come out half as desperate and anxious as he thought it had.
No answer.
Damn it all but he should have known better than to let Cas do any magic shit in the state he was in.
He felt something bump into his shoulder, catching hold of him. "Dean."
It was Sam, voice rough and short of breath but there and strong and Dean felt himself relax slightly knowing his brother was safe. He would've asked Sam if he was okay, if he could see anything, if he could see Cas, but then another familiar voice cut through the coughing and the howling of the creature in the background and what the fuck.
"Well this is unexpected."
Balthazar.
There was no mistaking that smarmy bastard’s voice anywhere. As the dust cleared Dean could see his scruffy face smirking right at them. He knew Balthazar was capable of a lot of shitty things, but he hadn’t thought doing something that hurt Cas was one of them. They'd been too familiar with each other, Balthazar watching Cas too closely for Dean to believe it.
It made it even more unbelievable that Balthazar was out to do anything malicious when the next thing he did was to turn his attention to Cas with a concerned frown. "Cas. What happened to you?"
There were no demands to know what was going on, but instead a hand placed lightly on Cas's arm. "You're not healing," he said. "Cas. Heal yourself, you idiot."
He was an angel though, and despite his show of friendship Cas's spell had to have brought him to them for a reason and Dean did not trust him. Dean strode over to Cas's side, pulling him away from Balthazar's sticky fingers.
"Dean-" Cas frowned at him, annoyed, but Dean cut him off, "I don't wanna hear it. He started this crap. If your spell worked right," and Dean was not above playing on Cas's pride, "he was the one who messed with your head."
"I what?" Balthazar sounded incredulous and Dean turned to glare at him. Asshat. "Woah there, tiger. I think you're getting me confused with someone else."
"Cas's spell brought you here. You started this shit. Now tell us how to stop it."
"Stop what?" Balthazar took a step forward, stretching his arms out towards Cas and Dean raised Cas's sword in warning.
"I'd just love an excuse to use this. Please give me an excuse."
Balthazar looked at the knife in his hand, then to Cas, then back to the knife. There was surprise on his face. "Cassie-" he said in a low voice. "You gave him your sword." The grin that followed was sickeningly amused.
"Enough with the bullshit," Dean snapped. "You tell us what the fuck you did, and how we can undo it or so help me I will shove this-"
"Dean!" Cas gripped his forearm, pulling the blade away. "There's no need for this." He turned his attention to Balthazar. "Look around you, brother. I can't heal here. You can't leave. An Asag has been raised again, and I was not the one to do it."
It was a weird thing to say, because of course Cas hadn't done it. Balthazar blinked, looked taken aback, and when he turned his attention to the walls of rock arching over them he actually flinched.
"These weren't-" Balthazar shook his head. "I didn't-"
The creature's howling started up again and Balthazar fell silent, listening. "Well, crap."
"Indeed." Cas was watching Balthazar closely, uncertain about something. "I remembered Eridu," he said.
At that Balthazar's eyes snapped to Cas's and for what felt like a long time the two angels stood staring at each other. He could hear Sam behind him checking on the civilians. The monster's screeching was getting louder and Dean just hoped Cas was interrogating the bastard or something because Dean was getting antsy, not liking how long they'd stayed in one place.
When Sam finally came over to join him, Dean leaned in close and whispered, "You know what Eridu is?"
Sam looked confused for a second. "Um. It was a city, I think. In ancient Mesopotamia."
Dean pointed to the symbols Cas had written on the wall, now burned black into the rock. "Same place that language comes from?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Cas mentioned it."
"What're they doing?" Sam asked.
Dean shrugged because how they hell would he know? "Angel-talking?"
They watched Cas and Balthazar do a whole lot of nothing for a couple of minutes more until Dean couldn't stand it anymore. He unfolded his arms testily. "Enough with this shit."
He put a hand on Cas's shoulder, gratified when Cas's attention immediately turned to him. God but his eyes were awesome. There was that sadness again, old and somehow filled with guilt and when Cas looked at Dean now it was like he wanted to apologise for something.
"What's going on?" Dean demanded to know.
"Balthazar made me forget," he said. "Because I asked him to."
That was pretty much the last thing Dean had expected to hear.
"Okay," Dean said slowly. "Okay. Why would you do that? What did he do?"
Cas shook his head. "Balthazar did nothing."
"It was that psychopath of a human who is currently running around baying for blood. You teach them one little thing-" Balthazar laughed humourlessly. "Six thousand years and humans still haven’t learned to keep well away from what they don't understand."
"And how exactly did he know how to raise this thing?" Dean demanded to know. "Cas said it was old knowledge."
"He taught this man," Cas supplied.
"Let me guess," Dean spat. "In exchange for his soul. And who cares that this thing is boiling everyone in Chicago to death?"
Balthazar folded his arms defensively. "He wanted power. I gave it to him. How was I supposed to know he was going to try for the apocalyptic devastation thing? He shouldn't even have been able to-"
"Yeah, well, he did and now here we are." It was too hot for this and it wasn't getting them any closer to escaping the tunnels or defeating the monster. "Tell us how to stop it."
"Stop it?" Balthazar scoffed. "You don't stop this creature. You feed it."
Dean could guess exactly what the slug thing ate. "Humans."
"Souls," Cas clarified. "The Asag doesn't kill directly, but brings disaster and through that feeds off the souls of those who die."
Cas sounded so tired and hopeless and it occurred to Dean that maybe he could guess what had happened six thousand years ago. Something Cas felt guilty about, something he hadn't stopped, something that had been so bad he'd asked Balthazar to make him forget.
Dean asked, "How many? How many have to die?"
Cas had said there'd been a flood.
"Thirty thousand. Thirty thousand souls and then the Asag will be sated and sleep."
"You shouldn't have remembered." Balthazar shook his head regretfully. "I would never have let you remember."
Thirty thousand dead was a lot, too many, but over the course of human history Cas had to have seen hundreds of catastrophes. There had been a time not so long ago when Cas hadn't shown much regret over the death of humans, believing that they would find peace. Dean wanted to ask what had been different about six thousand years ago but Balthazar was glaring at him like he knew what he was thinking and Cas was enough of a mess without Dean pushing him about things he wanted to forget. So he let it go, saying instead, "Well, we don't have thirty thousand souls to spare. There has to be another way."
Silence.
The creature that Cas called an Asag was hissing and growling and Dean was almost certain the damn thing was laughing at them. Ancient and invincible and Dean wondered how many humans it had killed.
Behind him the surviving woman was crying softly. Dean could think of nothing to say that could comfort her, his mind weirdly blank because he couldn't think of anything to suggest. All his years hunting and he had nothing.
Sam was looking at his feet, his brow furrowed in concentration but it didn't look like he had any more idea what to do next than Dean did. Across from them Balthazar had wrapped his arms around his chest looking more defiant than anything, denying that any of this was his fault. On any other day Dean might've considered punching the asshole just for that; Balthazar was the one who'd given some fucked up human knowledge he should never have had and he hadn't given a shit about the consequences. But with Cas mostly out of commission, Balthazar might actually come in useful. Dean wasn't blind to the fact that Balthazar seemed to do pretty much whatever Cas asked of him. Even now Balthazar was watching Cas closely, concern written on his face.
Cas was staring over his shoulder out into the wider tunnel behind them.
"There is another way," he said, his voice unusually quiet. He turned to meet Dean's gaze, regretful and resigned in a way that put Dean on edge, made him not want to ask what his other way was because it could not be anything that wasn't going to suck.
In the next instant Cas was gone.
"Cas!" he called, his stomach suddenly feeling hollowed out. "Cas! Get back here." When there was no reply Dean rounded on Balthazar. "Where did he go? Where the fuck did he go?"
Balthazar's eyes were wide with shock. He was shaking his head. "He wouldn't," he said. "He wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?" Dean demanded. He raised Cas's sword and grabbed at the front of Balthazar's douchey t-shirt, hearing the fabric tear in his fist. Balthazar didn't resist even when he stuck the knife right up under his chin, just hard enough that the blade broke the skin. "You tell me what you've done. If you screw around I will end you." And he meant it. Dean didn't give a shit if he was Cas's friend. He would kill him for this.
Balthazar spared Dean a disdainful look, his body tensing and Dean knew what the bastard was about to do.
"Don't you fucking dare-" Dean warned, tightening his grip on Balthazar’s shirt as though that might somehow stop him, but before he'd even finished speaking there was the sound of beating wings and Balthazar was gone.
"Fuck," Dean swore. "Fuck."
The monster had fallen silent again and Dean's breathing was too loud in his ears. He turned to Sam.
"He's supposed to be bound to you, isn't he?"
Sam frowned at Dean. "I don't-"
A frantic sound cut Sam off, wings again only this time frantic and for a second Dean had the hope that it was Cas. It was difficult to reign in his anger when Balthazar appeared, doubled over and hissing, "You bastards. You've cursed me."
Dean didn't point out that it was Cas who'd done the cursing. "You deserve it."
It was clear Balthazar was in pain from the way he stood upright cautiously, unsteadily, but the asshole still managed to glare viciously at Dean.
Balthazar looked Dean up and down like he was searching for something. "Not bound to you, I notice. Your soul is already taken." Why was it, Dean wondered, that everyone was always bitching about his soul?
"My soul isn't taken by anyone," Dean snapped defensively.
Balthazar laughed unkindly, "You keep telling yourself that, Sunshine." His attention turned to Sam. "So I get you." Dean did not like the thoughtful grin spreading across Balthazar's face. "I think I can live with that." He took an unsteady step forward, reaching out to grab hold of Sam and oh, no. Dean was not letting Balthazar take Sam anywhere. He put himself between them, raising Cas's sword.
"You're not going anywhere."
"I can't get to our beloved Cassie to stop him doing something ridiculously stupid if you don't let me take Sam."
"No. You explain where Cas has gone. How he's gone. I thought you guys couldn't fly down here." It wasn’t betrayal, Dean told himself. There had to be a reason.
Balthazar's face twisted in irritation and impatience, but he backed up when Dean shoved the blade up under his neck again. He'd seen Cas fight enough times to know the throat was the weak point; the place that killed.
"We can fly short distances, and it isn't exactly pleasant, but I'm rather more concerned with saving my brother. The state Cas was in I doubt he could even carry one of you, let alone more, and being the caring guardian angel he is he stuck around."
"Then why did he leave now?" Sam questioned.
"Because Grace is worth a whole lot more than a human soul," Balthazar replied vehemently, looking between them like that should explain everything.
Then Dean understood and he felt his face go cold. "Worth thirty thousand souls?"
Beside him, Sam tensed. "Oh god. Shit."
"More than that," Balthazar replied. "I'm sure he thinks he'll survive."
Dean was going to find out, he determined, how to do that damn binding spell himself so he could make sure Cas never did this to him again. So he'd never have to feel this sick and afraid that everything he'd just gained was about to be lost forever.
<<6b. | 7b.>>