Chapter Text
It had taken them two days to find the house.
Dean had finally discovered that Sam had actually vanished hours after he had been taken. When he hadn’t reappeared from his run, they thought that maybe he had gone into town (except that there were no cars missing). Eventually, an uneasy feeling in his gut told him to track Sam’s footsteps to where they suddenly stopped by a large boulder. The gravel of the road was furrowed, as though something large and body-shaped had been dragged away. Cas had confirmed that he could sense that another Grigori had been there. Then there had been a panic of epic proportions before the stone-cold calm of hunter mode set in.
He had called everybody they knew, and finally when he got to Charlie she told him about when she had phoned him and detailed the reason he had hung up. She offered to help, but Dean managed to persuade her to stay where she was. This was getting more and more dangerous, they didn’t know what they were walking into and they had no idea of how powerful the blonde woman was or if there were any more Grigori with her, and having more people with them wouldn’t help them find Sam faster.
Eventually Cas had been able to pick up a trail. Apparently the Grace left a mark, a signature, and although it was faint Cas told him in his usual grave tone that it was trackable.
Dean’s spirits soared. After hours of frantic searching, even hearing that there was a lead was music to his ears.
“Cas, I could kiss you!”
There were a few awkward seconds of silence, and Dean realised what he had just said. He felt his face instantly began to burn as he stuttered, “Cas, I… I…”
But Cas, rather than looking revolted, or freaked out, or any of the other emotions that Dean had seen whenever he imagined this (normally as a deathbed confession), Cas looked… Hopeful?
Dean walked hesitantly closer and placed a hand on Cas’ shoulder, squeezing gently. Yeah, that was definitely a spark in those deep blue eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved up into a smile. It suddenly occurred to Dean how few times he had actually seen Cas smile. Sometimes those rare expressions were for Sam, but those were different somehow.
He realised that Cas reserved that particular smile for him. He smiled back, ignoring the way that his heart was skipping in his chest and the strange squirming of his stomach.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, or it might have been a small eternity. Standing this close to another man while staring into their eyes should have been awkward, should have made him uncomfortable. But it didn’t. It felt natural.
Maybe because Cas isn’t actually a guy, a voice in the back of his head that sounded remarkably like Sam whispered sarcastically. And anyway, Cas had always been different.
Maybe I can have this. Just this once.
Eventually he sighed and released Cas’ shoulder, his fingers lingering on the lapels of the trenchcoat without his permission. Now wasn’t the time. Maybe later, when he wasn’t trying to save his brother from monsters trying to eat his soul, he could investigate the funny things that being near Cas did to his insides.
The story of Dean’s life.
.o0o.
They lost the trail several times and had to turn back on themselves. By the end of the day Dean had been driving for ten hours and was getting more and more frantic. Eventually Cas managed to persuade him to let him drive, and he grudgingly caught a few hours of sleep in the passenger seat.
As they got closer, the trail got stronger and Dean’s impatience got harder to ignore. The hours seemed to drag for eternity, but Cas’ directions from shotgun got more certain and precise. Finally, a dirt road rattled under the tires as the Impala pulled up a short distance from a dilapidated farmhouse.
It was almost sunset and the flat golden light cast long shadows as they got out of the car, making everything seem more solid than usual. Dean made sure he had his gun and an angel blade before nodding at Cas and they stalked towards the front door.
It was unlocked and swung inwards without a single creak, the hinges more oiled then the state of the house suggested they should be. It looked as though Cas’ spidey senses were right on target. They crept into a darkened hallway. Dean caught Cas’ eye and flicked his fingers. Cas nodded and went to investigate the dust shrouded living room.
Dean walked on to the back of the house, avoiding any floorboards that looked as though they might make a sound and give him away. At the end of the corridor there was a rotted panelled door, but unlike the others it was closed and when he gently tried the knob it was locked. When he stopped and listened he swore that he heard movement and voices in the room beyond. Cas emerged from checking the living room shaking his head and Dean waved him over, raising a finger to his lips.
He put an ear to the wood, just in time to hear a voice talking, muffled but discernible. “Well, I suppose there’s no point in keeping you alive then.”
Dean didn’t even have time to think. In one movement he drew back and aimed a heavy, desperate kick. The lock held but the force of it blew the door off its hinges and it crashed sideways as he stormed in.
He took in the sight in front of him in a second. There was Sam in the middle of the room, suspended from the ceiling by chains, red dribbling down from a deep cut on his forearm and another on his head. One side of his face was bruised and swollen, and his eyes were fixed on Dean with a mixture of relief and horror.
In front of him there was a young, blonde woman. Dean wondered for half a second if she was another captive, but that doubt disappeared in a second when her surprised expression morphed into a savage smile as she turned back to Sam. He saw the glint of a knife.
“No!” he yelled, leaping forwards, but he was too late. He saw the flash of silver, and then there was crimson soaking Sam’s shirt. It was all that he could see, the scarlet hue seemed to fill his vision as the woman turned to him, drawing the blade from Sam’s chest with a sickening sucking sound. He brought up his own angel blade to block her first swing and almost buckled under her supernatural strength. Cas joined him to fend off her strikes, and despite the advantage of a longer blade her smile transformed into a snarl as they ducked and wove around each other.
Finally, Cas knocked her sword to the side and Dean darted inside her guard. He stabbed upwards, twisting the blade under her ribs until the light poured from her eyes and mouth on a scream.
Dean was moving away before her body had even dropped to the floor, stumbling towards Sam. He could hear the bubbling rasp of his laboured breathing, and crimson blood dripped from his lips. He couldn’t reach the shackles, couldn’t let him down. He reached up with trembling hands and cupped his little brother’s face. Sam’s eyes wandered over him, not quite seeming to focus. Not again, he thought, memories of Sam slumping into his arms in that deserted town flashing in front of him.
“You’re going to be alright, Sammy, you’re going to be fine, just hang in there. Cas, get over here!”
Sam’s eyelids fluttered and he twitched, then he drew a rattling breath and sighed out a word, “Sigils…” More blood poured from his mouth and his chest convulsed as he tried to cough. Dean could smell it rusty in the air between them.
He heard Cas take a sharp breath behind him, then a metallic thudding. He turned his body to see Cas looking frantically around the room, then darting over to a wall and obliterating some dark lines with a slash of his blade. “Cas, what are you doing?”
“I can’t heal your brother,” Cas explained, looking around for another, “But he can heal himself. These runes are restraining his Grace. If I can destroy the net…”
“Yeah well hurry up, we’re running out of time!” Dean’s gaze was fixed on Sammy’s face, silently begging him to hang on as his laboured breathing began to slow. His eyes slid past Dean and focused on the middle distance, and to his horror he felt Sam’s pulse under his fingers falter.
“No, NO SAM DON’T YOU DARE! YOU GET BACK HERE!”
“Dean! Last one, get back!” he heard one last metallic slash and then Cas was dragging him backwards with one arm across his chest, ignoring his struggles. Half a second later the wards must have failed because a blue flash flared around the circle then flickered out. There was a second of calm.
Then a rush of wind blew into the room, flattening them backwards against the wall as it swept past them, forming a small tornado around Sam’s body. It whipped his long hair around his face, his shirt coming untucked and flapping violently. He swung wildly from his chains, feet dragging on the bare boards. Dean heard the piercing tone and put his hands over his ears, screwing his eyes shut. He felt Cas clap a hand over his eyes as well but he could still see the blinding light of the Grace as it screamed into the room and funnelled towards his brother.
The light died slightly and Cas withdrew his hand. Sam was rigid in the chains, his muscles bulging as he stared straight ahead, unseeing. His eyes glowed and swirled like pools of mercury and Dean could see the light at the back of his throat and through his ribs. Dean hesitated, wanting to go to his brother but self-preservation held him back.
He felt more than saw the last piece of Grace as it darted through the room, too fast to see with mortal eyes, but the result was spectacular and immediate. Sam went limp. Then he lit up from inside, more intense than ever before, as though he was made of light. Dean screwed his eyes shut again, but even through his eyelids he could see the great shadows of enormous wings unfurling and spreading, shaking themselves off, the light tinged pink by his blood.
A great joyous pealing ring sounded out, ripping through the air. He clapped his hands over his ears but it didn’t seem to block the noise. The room was shaking, the whole house quaking on its foundations. The windows shattered and the boards over them were blown off, and the hair on his arms stood on end like the very air itself was electrified, as though lightning was about to strike.
Sure enough, the light intensified and the sound was so loud that it felt like it was boiling his very soul. He thought he might have heard Cas shouting, but it was overwhelmed by one last bright flash.
The light and sound abruptly cut out.
Dean cautiously peeled open his eyes, his ears still ringing. Cas was crouched over him, his trench coat ripped in places and a cut on his forehead. Past Cas’ legs Sam was hanging from the shackles, swinging slightly, deathly still and silent. His head hung limply and red dripped slowly from his bottom lip onto the floor boards. The room was dark and quiet and the air smelt like ozone and burning hair.
“What. The hell. Was that?” Dean heard his voice come out as a harsh whisper, as if anything louder might invite the chaos to return. He tried to move and found that he was on the floor, his muscles starting to cramp from where he was curled into a tight, protective ball. “Sammy,” he whimpered. He had to get up. He had to reach Sam.
Cas was already shaking himself off and getting to his own feet, his expression grim, holding a hand out to Dean. “That was Sam. No, don’t worry about the body, he’s not in it any more. He’s still alive, Dean, do you hear me? Come on. We need to hurry, we have to get out of here, now.” But Dean couldn’t seem to peel his eyes away from the hanging figure.
Cas strode off out of the front door with his coat flapping, and Dean wrenched himself away from the broken shell of what had been his baby brother and followed him on shaky legs, too shocked to ask questions and still wondering what the hell was going on.
.o0o.
They stepped out onto the rotted porch. Night had fully fallen while they were inside, although the sky was still stained with blue and indigo on its western edge. Cas closed his eyes briefly, head tilted back, then squinted around before looking directly upwards and stopping, staring into the distance. “There he is.”
Dean looked where Cas was pointing. The light he was indicating had the same diamond radiance as the stars around it, but it far outshone them. And it was getting bigger.
No, getting closer.
Soon it got close enough that he had to squint at the glare, even though it must have still have been miles away. Cas shouted up to it in the rough syllables of Enochian and it seemed to stop and somehow the light lessened as it turned itself inside out. Then it rushed closer again.
As it got nearer, Dean realised that he had made a serious error in judging its size and speed. It was immense, but as it got closer it shrank down, getting smaller and smaller until it came to within ten meters of them and began circling them eagerly, fluctuating from the size of a large dog to a horse. Cas said more to it in the rough tongue, and it seemed to settle down, coming to a stop in front of them.
It was roughly spherical, and it seemed to be made of shining liquid. Or maybe it was a gas, or flames, he couldn’t quite describe it, but the way it moved deliberately made him sure that it was alive. It sparkled, and he realised that it was actually a layer of brilliant liquid with a corona of light gilding the edges, stretched over a glowing orb inside. Dean just stood and stared at it, awestruck.
The thing was a beautiful amber colour, clear and bright, with wisps of moss green, cobalt blue and bright gold threaded through it. The sharp white light from the centre refracted through the outer covering and came out warm and buttery with shattered rainbows at the edges. He knew for a fact that he had never seen this thing before, he would have remembered this, but it seemed familiar. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what it was.
“That’s Sam, isn’t it?” his voice came out hoarse and raw. He saw Cas nod mutely, looking at the great glowing ball almost worshipfully, as though he wanted to fall to his knees in front of it.
Sam, whatever he was, seemed to hear his name because the threads of colour swirled excitedly, like smoke in a tornado, and he grew to around the size of a horse. He flowed forwards, his shape changing, and a projection slowly, cautiously extended towards Cas. He heard Cas inhale sharply beside him and the thing that was Sam stopped, warily, as though it was waiting for him to come closer.
Slowly, Cas inched forwards, ignoring Dean’s muttering and half-hearted attempts to hold him back. He could feel heat soft against his skin, as though he was warming himself near a fire, and he was sure that if Cas got much closer he would be burnt by it. Cas stretched out a finger towards the glowing tendril.
Sam closed the last few centimetres and without a sound of warning, Dean’s entire field of vision got whited out by a surge of light.
…… …… …… …… ……
Samuel was bright-white-light as he flew, up and up against the pull of gravity, towards the great emptiness of the sky. He stretched his brand-new-wings wide after months of captivity, his song of joy at being free still ringing out of him. He soared out of the atmosphere in half a second and expanded even more, comparing his size to the moon as he streamed past it. He found that they were about the same.
He could have gone faster. He could have been where he wanted to go in a two-and-a-half millionths of a second, but he dragged his metaphorical feet. First of all, he didn’t even know where he was going. He didn’t particularly want to go to heaven again, new archangelic instincts or not. Also there was something behind him, something he needed to go back to. It was important, but his mind was so flooded with new information, a plethora of new instincts and it was hard to concentrate…
He felt something sift up from below him, from the mass of lights. It was a thought. No, a prayer.
Samuel, we need you to come back. Please, come back to your body.
He halted his ascent by spreading out slightly. Pausing at the thin-cold edge of the solar system littered with gently-spinning rocks, he looked down. His awareness zoomed in, until he could focus on the light of friend-angel-Castiel among the multitude.
Samuel your brother needs you.
Samuel vividly remembered Dean, not only him but all the thoughts and emotions and memories that he associated with him as well, all of the love and anger and affection and annoyance. Through all of it was threaded the feeling of brother, of family. Yes, that was what was missing. He needed to return. Now.
With a flick of thought he let gravity take hold and plunged back down towards earth, angling towards the dilapidated farmhouse. As he drew close, Castiel cried out to him again, this time with a bright thread of his True Voice shining through,
No, Samuel! You will harm his vessel, you are too bright!
Samuel stopped dead and considered the problem. Yes, if he approached any closer (he was only fifty miles away) he would harm Dean’s eyes. Blurry human memories of blinding light and piercing-ringing surfaced. He didn’t want to hurt Dean, but what could he do? His vessel was broken, and he had no idea how to fix it.
He sifted through his memories and found the answer almost immediately. It was a memory of a bright-bluish-white soul rising form a jar and darting out of a window. The light of it had been bright enough to make him squint but hadn’t hurt his eyes. He debated his plan for a second. Would this even work? Maybe he would appear different to Dean now? But he had to try.
Carefully, he pulled his soul from the safe centre of his Grace and let it flow around the outside. His wings were slightly squashed as his True Form morphed and folded further into the pocket dimension, but eventually he managed to squeeze himself in. Making sure the Grace was cloaked completely, he made his way towards Dean’s soul, more slowly this time.
It seemed to work; the only things he could feel in Dean’s mind were awe and terror and a thread of recognition rather than pain, and his body didn’t seem to be harmed. Affection was a strange sensation to feel without a vessel; it tugged on his soul, an itching friction between himself and his Grace. He circled Dean a few times, and glanced over at Castiel.
He did a double take.
The first thing that struck him was how tiny Castiel was. He had always thought of him as an enormous, eldritch creature, had tried not to be fooled by the human shell he wore, but now Samuel dwarfed him. At first glance Castiel seemed to be made of only eager-white-bright Grace, so much smaller than his own but rippling with excitement at his presence like an eager puppy. But Samuel’s sight was stronger now and he was more aware, and he could see right to the centre of him. There, nestled deep in his Grace, was a soul. A tiny, miraculous soul. It was small but it glowed vivid-cobalt-blue, so intensely coloured that it almost looked solid. It shouldn’t have existed; angels were not created with souls, he knew by instinct that it should not be there, the Grace should have burnt it out.
Yet there it was, glimmering as stubbornly as its owner.
His mind hopped and jumped from that to another conclusion. If Castiel had made his own soul, did that mean that Gabriel could have as well? It seemed likely, he had spent so much time with humans that there was a chance he had picked up more than just a nasty sense of humour during his time on earth. Also Samuel knew from the memories that if Gabriel could have done anything to break the rules, and even spite his own nature, then he would have done it. Several possibilities occurred to him.
Later, he thought to himself, deal with it later. He turned back to Dean and Castiel.
He cringed slightly when he looked at Castiel again. He couldn’t help it. Now that he was closer, he could truly see the damage to Castiel’s Grace. It was more than ripped and torn, it was mutilated. He had known before when he first saw his true form that he had been hurt, but now seeing the damage that had been done to his friend he was almost crippled by the wave of guilt that flushed through him, not as intense as the feeling had been when he was human but more than enough. He knew that he was at least in part responsible for most of the damage, directly or indirectly, and he cringed with every part of his being with the knowledge that it was his fault and he couldn’t help.
Or could he?
Hope rose inside him as he mulled it over. Actually, he probably could, now he thought about it. Yes, definitely. Concentrating, he stretched himself out towards Castiel’s Grace. It was strange to feel himself reach without the familiar weight of contracting muscles pulling bone, but he was getting used to it.
After a moment of hesitation, Castiel stretched forwards with a tendril of Grace. As soon as he made contact Sam funnelled energy into him and Castiel grabbed for it greedily. He instinctively directed it so that it concentrated on Castiel’s shredded wings and the great holes weeping white light, and Sam watched with relief and fascination as the gashes closed and Castiel glowed brighter and brighter, letting out a musical sigh of relief.
He had a moment of panic when he saw the last few bedraggled feathers drop from the bare wings and tried to pull away, but Castiel twined his Grace through Samuel’s and gripped harder at the connection. Don’t worry, I have to moult them before I can grow new feathers. It will take them a few days to come through.
Eventually Sam had to cut off the energy flow when the amount of light in Castiel’s Grace looked as though, if he gave him any more, Castiel would burst like an overfilled balloon. He marvelled at how little of his own energy it had taken, maybe a thousandth. And already his Grace was recovering from the loss, greedily absorbing the energy that his soul was giving off.
You need to return to your vessel now, Castiel murmured to him, the melodious chime of his Voice slightly louder and less strained than it had been earlier. He noticed that the fiery green soul of his brother was dimmed, the swirling flames banked. Samuel felt a moment of panic and snapped over to where his brother’s vessel lay on the ground. He gently touched his forehead, making sure that his body was safe. I put him to sleep while we were exchanging energy so that he would not harm his eyes or brain, Castiel said to him reassuringly.
Samuel chuckled. He won’t approve of that, I’ll let you deal with that conversation later. He marvelled at his new Voice, quieter than Castiel’s but slightly deeper and with a thousand more undertones. He hummed and giggled as it made the earthly dimension quiver like the strings on a musical instrument, his amusement making the spiking currents of energy running across the surface of his own soul spike and undulate wildly, which only made him laugh louder.
He could see the awe streaking Castiel’s aura amber orange and royal purple as he inspected him, and he squirmed a little. It seemed that Castiel’s gaze had the same intensity whether he was corporeal or not. You are coping with this transition remarkably well, better than I thought you would, but still I think it would be better if you were in a body, more similar to what you are used to. Would you like me to show you how to heal your vessel? Possession shouldn’t be a problem, I would think.
He gave a sort of mental nod and flicked into the dark room at the back of the farmhouse where his vessel still hung from the rafters. The muscles were slowly beginning to stiffen with rigor mortis and the blood had stopped dripping, congealing in its veins and on the floor below.
He looked at it and the still-human part of him balked. The sight of his body, not backwards in a mirror and hanging so still and silent and obviously dead, was horrifying. It was almost like having double vision; one part of him wanted to curl up and look away, while the other regarded the vessel with calm ambivalence. Although panicking wasn’t possible in his current form, he felt a tight curl of unease. That made up his mind.
Yes, help me get back in, he asked Castiel, who had walked in to stand beside him in the gloom.
Castiel showed him with memories how to mend torn tissues and repair bone. The damage to the vessel’s nerves and brain was harder to mend, and finally he found the small clump of cells in the heart and reactivated them with a jolt, kicking the body back into life. Castiel stepped back and looked at the vessel in obvious satisfaction. There was no sign that it had ever been dead; the lungs breathed and electricity sparked through the nervous system, but he could see that it was empty. A life, but no soul. Well, obviously; he was out here.
Samuel was gathering himself to retake his vessel when he felt a crackle of energy as another being slid across the dimensions to land next to them.
He felt its anger and aggression, and faster than thought he reached out and caught the thing by the essence and the throat as it materialised. It wriggled and bucked wildly against his hold, squirming to get free as it hissed at him, murder in its eyes. Samuel looked into its mind and snarled as well, felt his own anger begin to burn.
If you didn’t want them to kill your friend then you shouldn’t have tried to kill my brother and me! The words came out on a hiss and a rumble and a shriek as his True Voice increased in volume. The twisted, blackened Grace in his grip just snarled louder and shrieked back curses at him, not stopping its efforts to get free.
Samuel’s growing temper began to manifest as lightning struck around the house from a cloudless sky. The air warmed dangerously and crackled with all the wild force of an approaching storm, but inside he felt the rage grow cold and hard as a ball of ice. The still-human part of him shuddered away from it; he’d felt that kind of anger before, from another angel. But it kept growing, it was out of his control, and he tightened his hold on the Grace of the snarling Grigori, throttling it with a savage glee as the instinct to smite roared through him. Unlike Castiel there was no shining soul at the centre of the Grace in his grip, and it crumbled to nothing as he punched a thousand holes in it and bled it dry, leaving only a burnt out husk. The body, human soul long gone, thudded to the floor, landing sprawled over the other woman.
There was a moment of ringing silence as he floated in front of his vessel. The rage poured out of him as though someone had opened the floodgates, leaving him reeling and shocked.
Did he really do that? He saw Castiel looking at him with a combination of awe and wariness and not a little fear, as though he was watching to see what he would do next.
It was a little like the time he had killed Gordon, he found himself thinking distantly. Except this time there was no adrenaline, no hammering pulse, only the rapidly ebbing chill of his own fury forcing him to face his actions.
Had that been him? He had known the instant he touched the Grigori’s Grace that it had wanted to destroy him; it wanted revenge for its accomplice and wouldn’t have stopped until they were all dead or worse.
His reaction had been so uncontrolled and sudden and violent, he had killed it almost without a though, but he wasn’t feeling guilty. He couldn’t feel anything. Was this what an archangel was, just a weapon of mass destruction?
No, he decided emphatically. He had a choice. Even if that’s what an archangel was, that wasn’t all he was. He had a soul and free will, and that had always been their point, hadn’t it?
Sam focused himself, corralling his thoughts. He needed to feel again, his emotional slate was still a worrying blank and it disturbed him. He needed to get back inside his vessel before he lost himself again.
He calmed the wild rippling of his soul and folded himself up, working on instinct, squashing and compressing until he flowed into the slightly open mouth of his vessel.
It was uncomfortable, he decided as he settled, to be condensed this small. But his vessel had been built for archangels, designed for it, so he wasn’t damaging the body even if it felt as though he would burst out of the seams at any second.
He folded away the last of his Grace and dropped fully into his vessel. With a jerk the world narrowed its focus through five senses, his thoughts cramped themselves into linear form. He took a deep breath with his lungs and blinked his eyes, looking down at Cas in front of him. He could feel the slow drain of blood away from his arms and the straining of his muscles, but the sensation registered as pressure rather than pain. With a thought, the metal of the cuffs around his wrists snapped like wet tissue paper and he dropped to his feet, staggering slightly.
“Wow,” he croaked. He had realised how muted his emotions were in his other form, but now that he was back in body the razor edge of worry was slicing at the back of his mind, only exaggerated by the leftover adrenaline flowing in his veins. It was so intense, even after only a few minutes. No wonder angels had trouble coping with emotions.
He wanted to check on Dean, even though he knew logically that he was fine. But there was something else he had to do. Right now.
“I need to go to Elysian Fields. Go back to the bunker, I’ll meet you there.” the words came out raspy and deep, but given that his body had been dead five minutes ago it could have been worse. Cas didn’t even argue with him, hearing the urgency in his voice, just nodded as though he knew exactly what he was going to do.
“Go. I’ll take care of Dean.”
Sam smiled in thanks and Cas returned it, turning away to walk out of the farmhouse towards the dim glow where his brother was still sleeping.
He spread his wings, marvelling at the broad, powerful span now that he was entrenched in his body again. He twisted them and snapped them back, pulling himself between the dimensions, memory and instincts guiding him. It was time to resurrect an ex-archangel.