Fic: By Some Unseen Light, 4/5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
No sensation, no sound, no sight.
Floating freeform - formless - the darkness lapping-licking pushing-pulling.
Flowing - tipping - it’s an ocean: nothing-nothing reaching-racing-
Theo’s eyes fly open as he gasps for breath, sound and sight and sensation rushing into him.
“Well, well,” a lilting voice from his left, sounding oddly familiar yet not at all. There’s the brush of fingers along the side of his face, “Looks like this pretty pansy’s ready to see the light.”
“Don’t you fucking touch him, bitch.”
“Language, Deano.” A laugh, strangely girlish for such a deep voice, “But I always knew you weren’t one of those things that gets better with age.”
Theo blinks blearily at the dark blob in front of him, each of his breaths coming in time with the incremental sharpening of his vision, and soon he can see that he’s looking at a murky pond. It’s only a few feet away from him, and when he tilts his head a little, he figures out that he’s sitting, leaning against a tree and he must still be on Dean’s property.
Then he looks to his left, and things stop making sense.
Sam’s tied unconscious to the tree next to him, head lolling against his chest and blood trickling down his temple.
A few feet beyond that, right next to the pond, there’s a barren patch of land where Dean lies, spread-eagle within the outline of a dark circle.
And right beside Theo - a tanned face and a tangle of curls.
“Jake?”
“Sorry, Jake can’t come to the phone right now,” Jake - not-Jake - grins broadly, his eyes impossibly dark - black - in the firelight cast by the torches ringing the clearing.
“What does that mean?” Theo’s voice comes out too thin, but he can’t stop staring at the beetle black that somehow projects a feeling of amusement, like a twisted child stoning a dog, “Where - where’s Evan?”
“Ah, don’t worry about the little punk,” the thing that’s not Jake says, “He’s finally gettin’ that sleep he’s been missing out on.”
Theo’s eyes widen, “What - what did you do to him?”
Not-Jake doesn’t answer, instead leaning close and pursing its lips, “Hmm, you were always kind of a wet towel, but at least before y’had a lil’ something-something.” The thing quirks a smile and reaches a hand out towards him, “Guess it was all in the mojo, but we’ll get to that soon enough.”
Suddenly, there’s a furious roar from behind Not-Jake’s head, and both the thing and Theo’s eyes snap towards the source in time to see Dean lift one hand from the ground, the motion accompanied by a wet tearing sound - and that’s when Theo realizes that the reason Dean is spread-eagle is because he’s nailed in position.
“Get the fuck away from him,” Dean snarls, bright eyes locked on Not-Jake. The gaping hole in his palm is seemingly beneath his notice and he flings his arm around, sending an arc of blood across the dirt as he reaches to pry the spike - the tent stake - out of his other hand.
Not-Jake’s eyes widen briefly with shock, but Theo’s might be permanently fixed open now.
The tops of the tent stakes are curved in a generous hook, and Dean seems intent on either pulling who knows how many inches of metal out of the ground or tearing his other hand apart in the process.
Then Not-Jake is getting up from where he’d been knelt by Theo’s side and Theo tries to lunge forwards - to tackle the thing or trip it up - but he can’t move. He has no ropes tying him to the tree like Sam has, but he can’t move and he wants to scream because Not-Jake is walking so slowly, so casually towards Dean.
Dean tries to punch Not-Jake when it crouches down next to him, but his hand can hardly form a fist and Theo has a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered if he could. The thing simply catches Dean’s hand mid-swing and pulls the spike Dean had escaped from - twelve bloody inches - out of the ground with unnatural ease.
“Hold still ya moron,” Not-Jake frowns and stretches Dean’s arm out with a cruel grip. “If you wanted to be Jesus so bad, you should’ve told me earlier,” then the stake is coming down, and with a muffled smack, it’s sunk through Dean’s wrist and into the ground.
Dean doesn’t scream, but he knocks his head back into the ground, eyes squeezed shut and lips curling to reveal red tinted teeth.
“There we go,” Not-Jake smiles, giving Dean a pat on the cheek, “Happy, Deano?”
“So happy,” Dean grits out, peeling open one shining eye, “How ‘bout I - I spread you some of… of that joy?”
“That’s sweet, but I’ve always been a more…” Not-Jake pauses, scratching at its chin in mock contemplation before pulling something from its belt - another tent stake, “A more giving sort of gal.”
Theo watches helplessly as Not-Jake stabs another stake through Dean’s arm next to the one that’s already there.
Again, Dean doesn’t scream, but he must have nearly bitten through his tongue because there’s blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his face and drawing the illusion of a knife wound through his cheek.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” Not-Jake heaves a breath like a great burden’s been lifted from its shoulders, “But your damned wards-”
“This isn’t… this isn’t a - a monologue, is it?” Dean pants out, somehow managing a mocking grin.
“Well, why the hell not?” Not-Jake laughs, and another stake finds its way into Dean’s arm, sending Dean’s head snapping back into the dirt with a sharp crack, “You’re not going anywhere and I’ve been a little lonely the past few years.”
Another stake, another toss of Dean’s head, “Sometimes I feel like the last demon on Earth-” stab of stake, spurt of blood, “And we were so damn close to it being the exact opposite.”
Theo can’t find his voice and he’s not sure if it’s restrained like the rest of his body or if it’s simply bled out like Dean is bleeding out. He can’t understand how Dean is still conscious with the amount of blood he’s losing and the head trauma he must have by now and he prays the man will just pass out, pass out - oh God, just pass out.
But Dean doesn’t and the thing - the demon - continues, “At least I had something to fill my time. Tracking you down and pinpointing your location wasn’t easy, though really I shoulda guessed.” The demon smiles down at Dean, sliding a hand delicately over the man’s chest, “Home is where the heart is, after all.”
Theo’s afraid that the demon will put its hand right through Dean’s chest, and his throat feels raw like he’s swallowed the sun, but the demon doesn’t - and he doesn’t know if that’s good or not, because Dean’s still alive, but he’s still alive.
All it does is tear open the man’s shirt, revealing lines of silver-red spiralling across his skin and humming admiringly, “You’ve never been my favourite, Deano, but I’ve gotta admit - Alastair was right about you having talent. How long did it take ya to scribble these babies on?”
Dean’s mangled hand twitches grotesquely, his arm pinned and distorted with a neat row of stakes spanning from his wrist to his shoulder, the once white and grey checker of his flannel now a deep, solid crimson. Yet somehow he still grunts out, “’Bout as… as long as it took t’… to pull the trigger an’ shoot your dad in the face.”
The demon pulls a stake out from Dean’s arm, the abrupt motion drawing out his first whine of pain, a hoarse grating sound in the back of his throat that tears something apart inside Theo.
“Leave him alone, bitch!” Theo cries, a voice - and it must be his though it doesn’t sound like it - ripping through him with such force he feels fire lance up his spine and settle in his shoulder blades, a pulsing ache.
Theo thinks he might faint, something he’s never done before, and his vision is blurring to the point where Dean looks like little more than a red smear on the earth - Father, please don’t let this be - and his breath is caught, shaking somewhere along his ribs like a death rattle or a hurricane.
It’s not until something hot and wet lands on his arm that he realizes he’s crying.
The demon blinks blankly at him for a few seconds before a pointed smile spreads across its face, “Huh, so you’ve still got a little bark in ya. Not as refined as before,” it shrugs carelessly, “But hey, a yip is better than blip.”
The demon moves back to Theo’s side and leans in close, hot breath tinged with sulphur blowing across his skin as it takes a finger - red with Dean’s blood - and paints it across Theo’s lips, “And it’s a good thing you reminded me to stay on task ‘cause I do still need him,” it chuckles darkly, resting its face in a cupped palm and regarding Theo with head crooked in false innocence, “You, though, I’m almost done with.”
“What do you mean?” Theo’s face twists in hatred and fury and confusion. He wants to burn this abomination to ashes - wants to destroy it utterly in the most painful way fathomable - but he’s still held by invisible bonds, not for lack of trying, and his tears run like acid over his cheeks in a flow he can’t stop.
“I’d thought it would be less fun, telling you this when you won’t even get half of what I’m saying, but...” the demon drags its bloody finger from Theo’s lips and through a tear track, then leans even closer to whisper for his ears only, “Even now when you don’t know a damn thing - you still love him.”
The demon rolls back on its heels, laughing cruelly, “It’s really sickeningly cute, but I’m not complaining ‘cause otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept crawling back, time and time again, and none of this would’ve worked.”
Theo’s gut roils like lava tumbling into the sea, and he wants the demon to shut up, but it keeps talking, “Who knew that you’d be such a bad boy with your wings clipped, but surely you wondered why someone tried stabbing you?”
The demon arches a brow, but Theo doesn’t give a response and the thing isn’t looking for one, “And once you moved back to little Lawrence, why, it didn’t take much convincing to get you to drive that tractor right into old Planty’s shed. From there, things just rolled so smoothly on their own.” The demon beams with pride, “All I had to do was throw you some scraps and turn your head at ju-st the right time, and boom -” it wiggles its fingers before Theo’s eyes, “Sheds gone. Wards down-”
“Shut up. Just shut up.”
Theo startles at the sound of Dean’s voice, raspy and brittle as fall leaves underfoot. His eyes break away from the black stones that had been crushing him and fly towards the man.
Dean’s beyond pale, the scars across his skin seeming to glow, a fine tremor running through him that sends ripples radiating through the red mirror he lies in. The earth seems to have rejected his blood, letting it pool and slowly fill the outline of the black circle that rings him.
“What’s wrong, Deano?” the demon asks, “Don’t want him to hear how bad he’s hurt you?”
Theo’s muscles burn with the effort he puts into trying to move or even speak - just wail nonsense to drown out the words he can see sinking into Dean like another set of stakes - but this time his vocal cords have definitely been bound and he can’t escape the arm that’s thrown across his shoulders.
“Or maybe it’s you who doesn’t want to hear it?” the demon smirks, “I wonder how long you cried for when he left you - not even a goodbye - just up and left and died.”
Dean flinches, eyes rolling and mouth moving without voice, though Theo can read the mantra wishing death and silence on the demon.
“But you just had to be your usual dramatic self and couldn’t be satisfied that the world was ‘saved’,” the last word rolling off its tongue with disdain, “You couldn’t get it through your thick skull that people will always leave, Dean, and they leave because of you. Even after your touch literally became death, you couldn’t resist reaching out with your clingy paws, could you?”
Blood - half clotted and tinged black - starts to dribble out from the corners of Dean’s mouth in thick and steady streams, the lines carved into his skin no longer glowing, instead darkening - squid ink and pitch.
His eyes are glazed and he’s obviously no longer aware of his surroundings, but the demon walks over to Dean’s side, crouching down to brush a dirty hand over his forehead, “Oh Deano, and now I’ve got you and I know your boyfriend’s grace is in that nice tall tree right there.” It lays bloody palms against the edge of the now filled circle and coos into his ear, “You’ve made it way too easy for me to reopen Hell.”
Then there’s a thump like a heart beat amplified to shake the ground and the mirror of red - all that blood - turns black as the lines scrawled into Dean’s skin.
Theo doesn’t know what’s happening - stopped understanding an eternity ago - but the circle is no longer filled with fluid, if it’s filled with anything at all. No light reflects off its surface and the wind begins to howl like it’s being drawn into the void on which Dean floats, and then - and then-
And then Dean begins to sink into the inky dark, the shadows lapping at his skin, staining him as if it’s liquid slowly drinking him down.
And Theo is screaming - he’s certain he’s screaming - except his mouth is closed and he can’t hear over the wind or the preternatural thump that resonates through the earth - the shrill ring that resounds through his heart and bones and flesh and teeth. All he can taste is the iron bubbling up the back of his throat and the salt slipping past his lips.
He would tear his body to shreds if it would mean the freedom to move, but all he can do - like all he’s done this entire night, his whole fucking life - is sit there and watch through blurred vision as his world spirals apart around him.
He doesn’t even notice when the demon picks him up, dragging him to his feet by the neck and pushing his back up against the tree he’d been leaning on.
“Now for the secret ingredient,” the demon grins, blocking Theo’s view of Dean - sliding slowly, slowly into the dark - with its hateful beetle eyes and drawing a long blade that might be made of stone, “You.”
There’s a sharp wet smack, like an overripe fruit whipped against a wall; the muffled splintering of wood.
Theo looks down to see the hilt of the demon’s blade protruding comically from his chest and he wonders if it’s one of those plastic children’s swords with the collapsing blade because he doesn’t feel a thing.
The demon lets go of the blade, leaving it to pin Theo to the tree as it backs away, hesitating for a second like it’s expecting something more to happen before its expression straightens with confidence.
‘That’s it?’ he wants to ask as the demon turns its attention to Sam - still unconscious - taking a cloth from its pocket to dab at the blood on Sam’s forehead like its shining an apple for its teacher.
All this pain, all this suffering and heartbreak and unimaginable horror that he just saw Dean endure, and all he gets is a little knife in the chest?
And apparently, that’s it, and distantly Theo knows he must be dying - sees the red at the peripheral of his vision, blooming at an alarming rate - but he can’t find Dean anywhere. All he sees is a black circle on a barren patch of earth.
And he can’t find Dean.
There’s something spiking through him - maybe the stab wound making itself known - but it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt.
It curls over him, a wave of emotion that isn’t his - but it is his - too intense, too visceral and raw and foreign to be his - but it is.
It’s agony like he’s never known it - without fire, without heat, but burning all the same.
It’s something that grips the core of him and squeezes like he’s been thrown to the bottom of the ocean, asphyxiating beneath the weight of a desperate ignorance that’s cracking apart, waiting to be filled - has been waiting-searching-reaching all his life.
For all he doesn’t understand, some part of him knows something, and it tells him-
He pulls the knife out of his chest with surprising ease.
Lets it fall to the ground with a quiet thud.
The demon looks up sharply, confusion and shock clear on its face, but he doesn’t give it time to react.
He just steps forward and lets himself fall into the pond.
Breaks the surface and tips beneath.
He can’t feel anything but the cold bite of water.
There’s no sound but the thick silence in his ears.
It’s dark, murky, the mud and silt stirred into an envelope that blinds him.
He floats, but he is not suspended and he is sinking ever deeper; impossibly deeper.
Currents curl around him, the tiniest tug of push and pull wrapping about his limbs like hands and guiding him further-farther away from the world, towards some empty space.
An ocean of nothing.
Everything.
He breathes in and doesn’t drown.
Or if he drowns, he doesn’t know it, because whatever is sliding down his throat - filling his lungs, his stomach - isn’t water.
It is thunder and lightning, the mist of clouds and crisp of hail. It is molten rock and compressed earth, the dust of Saturn’s rings and the bend of space and time. It is power, unfathomable in its breadth.
And it is knowledge - memory.
Identity.
And with every drop he swallows - breathes - he knows-
The void.
The light.
His name.
Castiel
Cas
There is a prayer that needs an answer.
An unspoken plea - his own and another’s - and he has felt it echoing through him for seventeen years.
There is no sound, no sight, no sensation, but there is a feeling.
Like the warmth of sunlight, the ring of laughter and brush of breath, so close, so close.
And in this dark - this nothing space between worlds - it’s all he needs.
It’s all Castiel needs to find Dean.
So he grips him tight and raises him up out of the dark, the cold, the pain.
From the void, the water, the pond and forbidden circle, both, they fly.
He knows not how much time has passed - seconds, minutes, hours or forever - but the demon who calls itself Meg is still in the clearing and Castiel thinks it is a good position she is frozen in.
It is only fitting that she be on her knees as he purges her from the world.
She has no chance to escape, beetle black eyes round with terror. Castiel does not even bother laying a hand on her, not when his arms cradle Dean against his chest.
So with a thought and a glance, he burns her out. She has no time to draw breath and scream though he hears it in the combustion of her every particle before her host slumps to the ground, dead from nearly five months of abuse.
His broadened senses tell him that there are four children slowly bleeding on the corners of the property, but they are in no immediate danger.
He can hear the pound of footsteps at the main house as Chuck begins to panic at returning to find everyone missing.
Sam has stirred and is working at freeing his bonds, crying out at the sight that greets his waking eyes.
All this information is taken in like background noise when all he can see and feel and hear is Dean.
The man is at the edge of death, inky darkness clinging to his body like tar, the marks lining his skin distorted and dripping. What’s visible of him is pale as cloud or open red and weeping.
The flare of power in Castiel’s grace is temporary, but it is enough, so standing in the pond as he is, Castiel lowers Dean’s body into the pool of water. With gentle hands he washes away the liquid shadow that smears Dean’s skin; rubs away and erases the squid ink lines like they aren’t carved into flesh. His touch heals slowly, resets the bone that had been shattered under metal spikes and knits closed each hole in Dean, one by one.
And though Dean should be unconscious from his ordeal, bright green eyes open wide and wet, and fix unerringly on Castiel’s own.
“I’m sorry,” Dean rasps brokenly, stubbornly forcing his vocal cords to work.
Castiel’s brow furrows, “What is there to apologize for?”
“You’re an angel again.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
Dean blinks rapidly, lips twisting and voice gathering strength from the flow of Castiel’s grace, “You’re going to be forever seventeen and you’re - you’re going to be stuck here.”
Castiel sweeps a thumb over the man’s forehead to wipe away a black smudge, “Dean-”
“Don’t tell me it’s not that bad,” Dean scowls, one hand reaching up to clutch at Castiel’s shoulder, “It’s worse than being a vampire - I mean, you don’t have to eat people, but Heaven’s not gonna take you back and - and nothing on Earth can kill you.”
Dean deflates in Castiel’s arms, head bowed and voice plaintive, “The world’s going to keep going, and you’ll just have to watch it go.”
There is anger in Castiel. A hot flame of it that burns just for Dean - like so many things - and he’s been keeping it in check since the moment it was lit, but he feels it flare now because of Dean’s insufferable reasoning. What the man says is true - that Castiel may well be doomed to an eternal existence wandering the Earth, but he needs the man to understand-
“Dean,” Castiel tips the man’s face up, holding him still so he can’t look away, “I would rather have what few years I can - with you - than a lifetime of safety and contentment.”
“Yeah, try saying that a decade from now - hell, maybe even next year.”
Castiel’s eyes narrow fiercely, “No, I won’t regret this. I could never have been happy as ‘Theo’.” He tightens his arms around Dean, enfolding the man with every stray wisp and every solid strand of his being. And his voice is his voice, but it doesn’t sound like his, too strained and too frail, “Don’t you know that all this time, I was searching for something I could not even name?”
“Cas-”
“And now that I have found you, and you have found me,” Castiel presses the words into Dean’s temple, “I am happy.”
Dean doesn’t say anything for a long while, nestled motionless in Castiel’s arms.
Then, soft like sunlight on his skin, “Me too.”
Epilogue