Chapter Text
Sam has rarely felt so useless.
Any attempt to wake Dean up, to stem the water flowing from his mouth, to even drag him from his room, fails. In the end Sam just stands there, legs numb, watching the prone form of his brother under the water.
It’s agonising and boring all at the same time.
The water level stops rising eventually – upwards at least. The floor below Dean’s bed, however, steadily darkens until it’s a yawning abyss. The bed itself floats off to the side, leaving nothing between Dean and the darkness beneath.
Sam, seized with an instinctual panic, casts about for Dean’s duffle bag. Or, more specifically, the rope he knows Dean keeps in it. It’s floating on the other side of the room. Sam splashes over, then back, and loops it around Dean’s waist. The other end he lashes to the door handle.
Then all there is to do is wait some more.
He ends up zoning out. He doesn’t mean to, but his mind can’t help wandering. He thinks about other times he’s done this – keeping a vigil by Dean’s bed. He thinks about the hospital, after that first disastrous encounter with Azazel. Or again, much later, after Alistair. There’s the familiar itch in his shoulders right now – the pent-up energy, the need to move but with no clear direction to go in. The fluttering in his gut telling him it’s not enough to wait that he needs to do something.
He thinks about calling Eileen, she’s probably worried at this point, for some advice or back up. He even thinks about trying to get Rowena back, but he doesn’t want to leave Dean alone like this; not even for the seconds it would take to grab his phone.
He’s glad for his hesitancy when Dean starts sinking.
It’s the creaking of the rope that snaps Sam back into himself; just intime to see Dean disappear beneath the blackness of his floor.
“Shit,” Sam positions himself over the rope, which is already stretched taught. He tests it and it holds steady. He pulls on it, hoping to see Dean’s body re-emerge. Nothing happens, but he keeps a hold of the rope anyway.
The tension grows. The door begins to protest: creaking in its hinges. Sam presses more and more of his weight into his hands, trying to keep the rope steady. He hopes, fervently, that he weighs more than Dean.
He braces his feet against the floor and leans back. The downwards tension in the rope lessens, ever so slightly. Something (Sam carefully doesn’t think about what) pulls from the other end of the rope, and Sam slides forward a pace or two.
“Dean,” he grits his teeth, squares his stance. “Don’t be a fucking idiot.” He tries to pull, again, but nothing happens. All he can do, it seems, is hold steady.
His arms are beginning to shake, and he doesn’t know much longer he can hold on like this. The thought worms its way into his head – growing stronger with every twinge of pain. He might lose his brother here – to this warped spell.
“No,” he says out loud. “No.”
There is another, stronger, tug on the rope. Sam throws the last of his strength into his arms. Behind him he hears the door crack off its hinges.
Sam is pulling and pulling and pulling and then he is hitting the floor as tension in the rope disappears entirely and instantly.
He blinks at the ceiling for a second, before his brain processes that he should be wetter than he is. He sits up in time to see the last of the water draining away – into the gaping black hole on the floor– leaving a placid black lake where Dean’s bed used to be.
As he watches, the water ripples. Two large shadows are shooting towards the surface. For a moment the water bulges, stretching like fabric. Then the surface breaks, and two bodies sprawl chaotically on the floor. Sam gets the impression of limbs, of heaving chests. Of something long, black, and sleek.
Then the forms resolve into familiar shapes.
“Dean,” Sam can barely speak. The relief flooding him is so powerful he thinks he might pass out. “Cas?”
Neither of them seems to hear him. Cas looks like he might be unconscious, and Dean is focused on him entirely: tyring to wake him up, to drag them both to their feet.
Sam moves like he’s in a dream. Cutting his brother loose, stumbling off to the showers. Getting clothes. Changing his own.
He finds his phone in his room – several frantic texts from Eileen and a missed call from Rowena. He responds to the texts shakily. His fingers won’t hit the keys right, producing nonsense as much as actual words. The mundane action helps to ground him at least and he takes a few deep breaths, pressing his hands over his eyes.
After a few minutes he thinks he’ll be able to move without falling over. He leaves the towels and clothes by the showers but doesn’t go in yet. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready to see whatever it is Dean and Cas will be doing for each other in there.
He walks a little further down the hallway, bypassing Dean’s room after a quick look-in (the bed is on its side; guns and books and bottles all over the floor; black imprints of wings marring the walls and ceiling). He stops in front of the room Cas had claimed as his own, though had rarely ever used.
It’s dusty – neither of them have really been in it recently – and the bed is unmade. Never slept in. It’s good in a way. It gives Sam a clear list of tasks to focus on. He keeps his mind focused firmly on the monotonous and physical, refusing to let the deeper implications of what he’s doing surface.
The water had been so cold…he grabs extra blankets from the sofa; wipes down the surfaces with a damp cloth, turns on the lamp. The room looks better now – liveable if not lived in. It’s got to be more welcoming than the empty in any case. Sam hopes so, anyway. He sits on the bed he just made, rumpling the covers a bit.
Then he puts his head into his hands and cries.
He tries to keep quiet – just in case. His body is a mess of conflicting feelings. Legs weak with relief; stomach still churning with fear. There are images flashing behind his eyelids: Dean prone under the water, sinking away from him. Cas, pale and still. The two of them, sprawled out and gasping.
They’re here, he reminds himself. We’re all here.
After, when he’s managed to collect himself somewhat, he lets his feet take him back to the showers. The pile of dry things is untouched at the door. Worry spikes through his heart and he jogs the rest of the way.
The bathroom is steaming, almost overwhelmingly hot. In the centre of the room, water and fog swirling around them, Cas is awake and kneeling: naked. Dean is shaking in his arms.
As Sam gets closer he can hear them too. Dean is mumbling, on the verge of incoherence, words getting lost in the sobs and gasps. “I love you,” he keeps saying. “I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you…”
Cas is pleading, trying to get them both moving. “It’s ok, Dean. Please. Let me help you. I love you too. Please, can you hear me?”
“Cas,” Sam says, his voice cracking.
Cas turns to face him. “Help me please,” he’s crying. “I can’t…I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah. Here,” Sam turns the water off, kneels next to Cas, pulling at Dean so that his brother’s weight is on him now. “Get his clothes off.”
“Thank you,” Cas hands are unbearable gentle as he strips away Dean’s layers. “I don’t think he can hear me properly.”
“I think he’s in shock. It was…I don’t know. It must’ve been a lot, on his end.”
“Yes,” Cas agrees softly, but he doesn’t say anything else.
They work in silence, drying off, Cas pulling his dry clothes on clumsily while Sam dresses Dean.
“I’ve made your room up,” he says as they get Dean’s arms around their shoulders. “And your bed if that’s what…if you need to…and Dean…” he stops, holds his breath.
Cas nods. “Thank you, Sam,” he says. “We goth need rest, I think.”
Sam hovers as they get into bed together – Dean is asleep before his head can even touch the pillow, but he still manages to wrap himself around Cas, his head directly over Cas’ heart. Sam isn’t sure what do to with this show of vulnerability – the naked declarations of love. He isn’t sure what to do with himself either. He doesn’t want to intrude, but he doesn’t want to leave yet either.
Cas is watching him watch them, and he nods his head towards the desk chair.
“Are you sure?” Sam is careful to speak softly, though he doesn’t think Dean is waking up anytime soon. “I don’t want to keep you from sleeping. That’s if…do you need to sleep now?”
“I am human,” Cas acknowledges. “And I am tired. But I was asleep for a long time, so I don’t mind staying up a little longer,” he smiles. “And it’s good to see you, Sam.”
“Yeah,” Sam doesn’t try to hide the tears in eyes or his voice as he drops into the chair. “I’m glad you’re back Cas.” He reaches over to claps Cas’ hand for a second. “I’ve texted Eileen, she’s on her way. Tomorrow I thought we could call Jody and the girls – Claire. They’ll probably want to come through too.”
“I would like that very much,” Cas hesitates. “And Jack?”
“Jack…Jack left.” Sam starts to explain. Cas nods through it, closes his eyes, strokes his hand through Dean’s hair. His face is old with sorrow. “I’m sorry,” Sam finishes, his own grief for Jack flickering in his chest – more pronounced now the rest of his grief is fading somewhat. “I wish that he could’ve…but I think he’s doing good. Making you proud.”
Cas tips his head back, letting the tears run through the wrinkles around his eyes. “I would’ve liked to have seen him one last time,” he says. “But yes, I am more proud of him than I could ever put into words.”
They sit in silence for a while – both imagining the chatter Jack would be filling the room up with if he were here. The only sound are the three sets of breathing, and the rustling of sheets as Dean adjusts his grip on Cas.
“Before…when Jack was leaving. He said he was going to make things right. Try and get you back,” Sam says, hopefully. “Did he…do you remember anything?”
“No,” Cas shakes his head. “The last thing I remember is the dungeon. Then I was waking up in the empty with Dean – begging.”
“God, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Cas shrugs. “To me it felt like no time at all. I doubt it was like that for you. Or Dean”
“No,” Sam admits, looking at his sleeping brother, chest rising reassuringly. “These past few months…they haven’t’ been easy. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer Dean could’ve held out. He was close to giving up, truth be told”
“Hmm,” Cas hums, his hand tightening in Dean’s hair, just for a moment. “He had given up. He was trying to die, Sam.”
“What?” Sam sits up in his chair. The words echoing in his head. “But he…he brought you back with him.”
“That wasn’t his intention,” Cas sighs. “He was begging when I woke up – begging to be allowed to stay there with me.”
“No…” Sam isn’t really aware of the word leaving his lips.
“He made a deal, I think, with the empty,” Cas’ voice is hard. “I imagine it told him he could stay – it probably assumed that the bond we share would override the pull of the spell wearing off.”
“But it was wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Cas admits. “I don’t think it expected me to wake up,” he smiles. “As if anything could’ve stopped me from coming back to him.”
Sam isn’t sure he’s built to understand the enormity of that statement. “And then it what, let you both go?”
“Not quite – I couldn’t have left with my grace intact. It gave me a choice,” Cas meets his gaze. “It wasn’t a hard one.”
Sam looks at Cas. His friend. The love of his brother’s life. An ageless celestial being stuffed into the body of a man from Illinois. A being that watched the birth of stars and beheld the face of God. A man who had excised his own divinity for a bed in a bunker in Kansas. Someone who’d thrown away an eternity of peace to have Dean’s ear pressed up against his chest.
“Thank you, Castiel,” Sam says. “For bringing him back.”