The Angel and The Devil, Heavy On Your Shoulders [20/22] Sam/Dean, R
Title: The Angel and The Devil, Heavy on Your Shoulders (Part VI. Two.)
Word Count: 1433 [35000 total]
MASTER POST for warnings, author's notes, and link to art
Part VI: This Is Gonna End Bad.
--Chapter Two--
“Drink, drink, drink!” Dean shouts at Sam, shoving himself to his feet and drawing his gun. He fires wildly, trying to watch Sam frantically bring the vial to his lips while trying to slow Cas down. The comforting metal goes flying from his fingertips and the glass vial sails across the room, tinkling in some corner, empty.
Dean grins, laughs triumphantly, offering Sam a hand and yanking him to his feet. The transformation is incredible-the brothers watch in wonder as the grey shadow that had claimed Sam’s body retreats under the moonlight. It recedes and shrinks until it’s pulled back to looking like just an infected cut on Sam’s palm and then disappears entirely. Deans wants to call it a victory, looking at a healthy--if not happy--Sammy, but he knows better.
“Dean, this is not the plan,” Castiel grates. The anger is coming off him hot and itchy, like static filling the air. Dean sees the fear on Sam’s face, and hopes he’s managing to look at least a little like he isn’t shitting himself.
“Yeah, well, screw the plan,” he replies, stepping closer to Castiel, in direct opposition of his body’s every instinct.
“That isn’t how it works,” Castiel’s voice is fuming, but his face is still and calm. The effect is turning Dean’s guts to goo. “Your brother is marked. He is the adversary. For you, I withheld from smiting him. For you, I allowed you to take up the charge issued to the angels. The plan, Dean, was to kill Sam.”
Dean looks at Sam, and feels a sinking sympathy for him. It’s one thing if your damaged half-wit brother tries to off you. It’s another entirely to know that it’s because God wanted him to. “Sam,” he starts, but he’s got no good follow-up and Castiel’s hand is on his shoulder, burning hot and yanking Dean around to face him.
“You said seven days,” Castiel seethed. “You said if our Lord could make the world in that time, it was enough for you to kill Sam.”
Dean flinches at his own callous words thrown back at him. He looks over his shoulder at Sam, who looks hurt and bewildered, and all the triumph of being healed and whole again has been scattered to the maniac winds of the storm they’re in the middle of.
“I can’t,” Dean replies lamely. Castiel roughly turns Dean around to face Sam, gripping his shoulders hard enough to break blood vessels.
“You know what he will become,” Castiel hisses into Dean’s ear. And to Dean’s horror, Sam’s eyes take on that familiar golden glow, and his lips curl into a cruel smile. “So you know what you must do.” Dean feels Castiel’s hand on his, wrapping his fingers around an ivory handle. Dean looks down to see a blade in his hand, its edge coated in an oily blackness-Anenexus. Dean’s stomach sinks miserably and he looks back up at Sam with panic crowding up his insides. “Remember Hell,” Castiel whispers.
Dean closes his eyes, and he does remember. He remembers Sam strangling him with his own intestines. He remembers Sam force-feeding him rusty barbed wire. He remembers Sam peeling off Dean’s skin. He remembers all that, and worse. They’re so vivid, the memories, that Dean can feel his knees threatening to buckle and a scream crawling its way up his throat. There’s a brush against his mind, like a feather tickling over his brain, and then there’s a comforting, cool black.
When he opens his eyes, he’s startled by the change in Sam. He’s gone from scared and confused to looking like the fury of hell was in him. And he’s focused on Castiel like he’s staring down Satan himself.
“What did you do to him?” Sam asks in a voice like far-off thunder. Dean is surprised to discover that Castiel is no longer got him in an angelic death-grip. No, instead, he’s matching Sam’s glower and Dean knows something’s about to happen, and it’s going to be bad, and it’s going to happen to Sam. Almost without thinking, Dean’s arm moves and everything stops.
Because now he’s got the Anenexus-soaked blade against his own throat. And he’s got everyone’s full attention. And now he figures he should do something with it.
“Dean, don’t.” Castiel says warningly, but he looks concerned, and Dean counts that as a win. Sam’s looking about one more surprise away from checking out, but he’s standing and he’s waiting.
“Alright,” Dean says, clearing his throat a little. “Someone tell me what the fuck it is that I just missed, and do it without killing each other.” Sam and Castiel exchange strangely guilty glances, like children caught doing something wrong.
“Sam used his supernatural abilities to touch your mind,” Castiel reports coolly.
“To protect you,” Sam protests. He smirks nastily. “And it’s nothing compared to what Castiel’s been up to.”
Dean watches them both carefully, momentarily stowing away his horror at having had his mind read. He knows from experience that his brain is no place to poke around. Castiel’s still looking as cool and still as marble, but Dean thinks maybe he can spot a few cracks.
“You never told me, Dean,” Sam says softly, sadly. “Your memories from Hell? I tortured you?”
“It wasn’t you,” Dean says dumbly. He felt inexplicably ashamed and uncomfortable, like he was under some giant horrible spotlight.
“No, it wasn’t me,” Sam replies. “It wasn’t Hell either.”
Now Cas is looking strained, and whatever Sam’s about to say, Dean knows it’s the truth.
“Sam,” Castiel growls, but Sam looks as though he’s enjoying watching the angel squirm, and Dean has no doubt that he is. Sam closes his eyes and Dean reels back, feeling a strange crawling sensation clamor over his skull and through his head. “Fuck,” he mutters, pressing the heel of one hand against a temple…but never lowering the blade.
“Those aren’t your memories, Dean. They were put there,” Sam says boldly, like the closing statement in a prosecution. “By them.”
“We had to prepare you for what was to come, Dean,” Castiel begins. “We needed you ready to face your brother and see him as he is…” Castiel goes on and fuzzes out while Dean tries to grasp the huge truth of it.
The angels used him. They turned him against Sam. They made him believe he was still in Hell, with Sam as his tormentor, to plant a seed. They wanted to root a hatred and fear of Sam in him, and they’d done it. He’d fucking let them do it. His head is throbbing with a familiar pain.
“The visions?” Dean says hollowly. “Those too? Cas? Is it true? You did this to me?”
Castiel remains silent, watching Dean closely. He’s no longer the stolid warrior of God in Dean’s eyes. He’s not Dean’s watchful guardian, and Dean’s not anyone’s savior. Cas is just another monster, toying with them and twisting their lives to suit some fucked-up plan. How had he not seen before? How could he be so stupid and blind as to believe that he might be chosen to…to do anything? But Dean can see from the shame and anger in Castiel’s eyes that, yes, this had been their plan all along. Drive Dean to the edge and kick him out and see if he’d off his little brother, because his brother was a threat… because it fit their god damned fucking plan.
Well, fuck that.
“Leave,” Dean says.
“Dean,” Castiel says in a calm and soothing tone. It only serves to piss Dean off that much more. “You have to understand-“
“No. You stop talking, you lying winged son of a bitch. You and I are done. I’m giving you 5 seconds to leave. After that, I’ll put this knife of yours to good use. I gave Sam a knick in his palm. Barely a drop. What do you think this much Anenexus will do to me, hunh? I’m guessing your boss would be pretty P.O.ed if you were responsible for the death of Dean Winchester, am I right?”
“Dean-“
“One.”
“Please-“
“Two.”
“Your brother is-“
“Three.” Dean pressed the blade against his throat, feeling the freezing goo slide against his skin in a spine-chilling way.
“Fine,” Castiel spat angrily. “This isn’t the end.”
One minute Cas is there, and the next he isn’t. Always the fucking show-off. Dean relaxes slightly, but a sadness is settling into his bones.
That’s where you’re wrong, Cas, Dean thought. That’s exactly what this is. The end.
-part VI.three-