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“When a claim is made on a living soul, it leaves a mark, a brand.” – Castiel, Episode 6x03, “The Third Man”
“Cas?” The familiar name falls out of Dean’s mouth on a sob when Castiel appears beside him in the bunker, and kneels, placing his hand on Dean’s shoulder. The faded mark, almost invisible now, tingles and Dean takes a shuddering breath. He’s so grateful to see Cas that he doesn’t even ask how he knew to come when he hadn’t even prayed.
“What happened?” Cas asks. Dean is breaking before his eyes, and the pain of it causing his soul to reach out and call to Castiel, not with words, but emotion, even though this grace is stolen and foreign to it.
“Kevin…” Dean points to the body lying a few feet away, then hides his face in his hands as his body shakes and tears leak past his fingers.
The first thing Castiel notices is the burned-out eyes, and though he doesn’t know why, he knows only one thing could have killed this way. “Which angel did this?” he asks gently.
Dean looks up, wiping at his face, to no avail. The tears won’t stop pouring out of him. “It’s my fault, Cas. When Sam was dying, and Ezekiel—well, not Ezekiel—whoever he was showed up, he said he’d been injured in the fall, and would only be able to heal Sam from the inside while he healed himself. I was stupid and desperate and helped him trick Sam into letting him in. I should have told Sam sooner. I should have told you sooner. He is the reason I told you that you couldn’t stay. He made me choose between you and Sam, and I…I couldn’t let Sam go, so…Anyway, as soon as you called and told me Ezekiel was dead, I tried to come clean to Sam. Kevin found a spell in on the angel tablet that would allow me to talk directly to an angel’s vessel, taking control from the angel. I tried it on Sammy, and thought it had worked, but the angel inside him overheard Kevin and me talking, and he tampered with the sigils before I activated them. I thought it was Sam yelling at me, and Sam that knocked me out, but it wasn’t. When I came to, I ran out here and he…” Dean swallowed, and swiped uselessly at his face again while Cas rubbed circles between his shoulders, something he’d seen other people do. “He killed Kevin right in front of me. I didn’t get here fast enough. Then he held me still, slammed me into that pillar, and he said…Oh, God, Cas, he said ‘there is no more Sam.’ Sam is gone, Cas, he’s gone. I don’t even know if he’s in there, anymore,” Dean pitches forward, forehead to the floor, keening in grief.
Castiel feels like he’s being stabbed, like Dean’s grief is his own, his soul still sending out that signal. He looks over at the body of the prophet again, and notices the yellow slip of paper laid on his chest. He knows that handwriting. It’s Metatron’s, but it makes no sense. Metatron is in Heaven. He pulls Dean up to look at him, and he quiets, sniffling. “Dean, did the angel say anything else?”
“He said he only did what he had to do,” he replies, “And the son of a bitch took both of the tablets! I really fucked everything up this time.”
For the first time, Castiel is the one pulling Dean into a hug, tucking Dean’s head under his chin and carding his fingers through his hair. This is when he realizes how much his short time as a human has changed him. “Dean, listen to me. Everyone makes mistakes. Angels, demons, humans, we all do. You didn’t know this would happen. You couldn’t have known. I’m not saying it was the best course of action, especially the lying, but after everything I’ve done, I can’t judge you. We’ll fix this, Dean. As you said once, ‘We’ll kick it in the ass like we always do.’”
This earns him a tear-filled huff of laughter against his chest. “I don’t know if we can this time, Cas.”
“I think the odds may be more in our favor than you think, since it appears Metatron has left Heaven,” he says. “If that is the case, it means that there is a loophole somewhere.”
Dean stops crying, and raises up to look at Cas. “What? What makes you say that? How is that even possible?”
“The piece of paper lying on Kevin’s body…The handwriting is Metatron’s. You said the angel said he did what he had to do. I think Metatron…” Castiel explains, as Dean interrupts
“You think Metatron is offering to let angels back into Heaven if they do his dirty work?” Dean asks, finishing Castiel’s thoughts.
“I think that is one of the few things that could motivate an angel to kill a prophet, yes, especially if this angel did not wish to side with either of the two factions currently forming. Malachi and Bartholomew and their respective followers, in addition to killing each other, are torturing and slaughtering angels who refuse to take sides. Since the tablets were stolen, I think there’s obviously something on them that Metatron doesn’t want us to know. With the prophet dead and the tablet missing, we can’t find out how to reverse the spell and send all the angels back to Heaven, at least not until a new prophet is called, and then we’d have to find the new prophet. It makes sense. As to whether it’s possible for him to come and go as he pleases or allow angels he selects back into Heaven, I don’t know. That may be covered on the tablet as well,” he says. Dean has gone still and quiet and stopped crying.
“Can you bring Kevin back?” he asks.
“I am not sure. This grace isn’t mine. I stole it from another angel. I got kidnapped by Malachi and his followers, and I used it to get away, and hoped it would make me less vulnerable. What I did, I went on instinct. So far as I know, no one’s ever tried it before. I didn’t even know if it would work at all. I can use it to travel and heal myself, and it gives me extra strength, but past that…” Cas lets go of Dean, and looks down at his still bloodstained shirt.
“Guess that explains the blood on you.” Dean looks like he just noticed it, before he looks away. “I shouldn’t have left you, Cas. I knew something bad would happen to you. I should have told Zeke—whoever—to suck it.”
“Dean, what’s done is done. It was my fault I got caught, not yours. I will try to bring Kevin back. I just wanted to prepare you. It may not work.” He rises and walks over to Kevin, kneeling once again and touching his fingers to Kevin’s forehead. This grace is not cooperating. Nothing happens. He’s too weak. He looks back to Dean, whose face falls in disappointment.
“Your batteries are dead, huh?” he asks.
“It seems so, at least for the moment,” he replies.
“Uh, do you think…” Dean pauses and swallows. “Do you think that, if you touched my soul, you’d be able to do it?”
“Dean…You’re in enough pain. I can’t…” he starts.
“Can’t or won’t, Cas? I know I’m not the purest soul out there, so I don’t know how much of a charge you’d get, but I don’t care how much it hurts. If it means you can bring Kevin back, do it,” he says, getting up and invading Castiel’s personal space. “Hell, even if you still can’t, at least you’ll be able to try, so do it.”
Castiel doesn’t want to do it. For years, he’s been purposely avoiding touching Dean’s soul. Something happened in Hell, the first time he touched Dean’s soul, and during the process of resurrecting him, and if he touches Dean’s soul again, Dean may remember. He isn’t sure how Dean will handle it. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s a very delicate procedure, and if I am not very careful…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I know the drill, and I don’t care. I asked Kevin to trust me, and this happened. My brother is gone. I can’t do anything about him right now, but I asked Kevin to trust me, and he did and now he's dead, so I have to do what I can to bring him back. He's family, Cas.” He watches Dean pull off his denim shirt, leaving just the tee shirt on, and pull off his belt, doubling it up and tucking it between his teeth as he lies down on the table.
The look Dean gives him, full of trust and determination, makes it impossible to say no, and Castiel can’t deny that touching the soul of the Righteous Man will probably give him more than enough power to bring the prophet back from the dead. “This will hurt, and you may see or feel things that make no sense to you. I’ll be as gentle as I can.” He reaches forward, his hand melting past Dean’s skin, seeking his soul.
Dean’s eyes screw shut, his hands grip the edges of the table, and his teeth bite down on the belt as a strangled scream makes its way past his lips. Castiel doesn’t have to search for Dean’s soul. It rises to meet him, wrapping itself tightly around his hand, brushing against what has become his skin. The surge of power flowing into him is overwhelming, but that’s not all he feels. Along with the power, he feels something else, the same something that flowed between them the first time he laid a hand on Dean’s soul in Hell. Dean stops screaming, and his body relaxes. Castiel looks over to find that his eyes are open, his expression full of something he can’t read. He pulls back, but Dean’s soul doesn’t want to let him go. It clings to his fingertips until he touches skin, which instantly knits back together. He hazards another look at Dean’s face, and recognizes the expression this time as wonder.
Before Dean can say anything, Castiel returns to the fallen prophet, laying his fingers on Kevin’s forehead. He concentrates all his attention on Kevin, and when he sees his eyes have healed and hears the first gasp of breath, he removes his hand and rises. He can feel Dean at his back, nearly touching.
Kevin opens his eyes and sits up. “What the Hell happened?” he asks, voice hoarse. He looks up, over Castiel’s shoulder. “That wasn’t Sam, was it?”
Castiel hazards a glance at Dean as he steps forward to stand beside him. He looks heartbroken. “No.” The answer is almost whispered.
Kevin looks at Castiel, scrutinizing him. “You’re an angel again?”
“Yes, for the moment,” he replies.
“Was I…I was dead, wasn’t I?” Kevin asks. “Because Heaven is all your best memories on a loop, right? The dream…It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“It wasn’t a dream,” Dean confirms. “I am so sorry, Kevin.” Tears start forming in his eyes again.
“So, let me see if I have this right…There’s an angel squatting in Sam, which is why you wanted that spell and why we painted the sigils in the store room, and that angel killed me?”
Dean swallows, and Castiel almost reaches out to hold his hand. He settles for reaching out to Kevin, intending to help him up. Kevin accepts and stands, wobbling a bit, before pulling out a chair and blowing out a long breath. “Yeah…Uh, yes,” Dean finally replies, pressing his thumb and forefinger to his tear ducts so he doesn’t start crying again.
Dean proceeds to give Kevin the nutshell version of how the angel came to use Sam as a vessel, and he and Castiel both explain their theory that Metatron was offering angels admittance back into Heaven in exchange for favors, the first two of which apparently being killing the prophet and taking the angel and demon tablets. All of this is peppered with Dean’s apologies, which start to annoy Kevin, who says that he heard the apology the first time and urges both of them to just tell him what was going on.
“It would make sense,” Kevin says. He turns to face Castiel. “When I was trying to translate the part of the angel tablet about the spell, I got the feeling Metatron was trying to hide something within the text. It didn’t translate directly to any living language, and we got Crowley to look at the dead language I finally translated it into, but he said it was irreversible.”
This was news to Castiel. “Wait, you didn’t kill Crowley?” He turns to Dean.
“Uh, no. We thought he’d be useful…Well, I thought he’d be useful, so I shoved him in the trunk and brought him back here. He’s chained up in the dungeon,” he explains.
“We have a hidden dungeon with a devil’s trap on the floor and warded chains,” Kevin adds.
“And you believe him?” Castiel asks.
Dean is the one to answer, cutting Kevin off. “No. Of course not. He’s affected by the aborted trials, but he’s still a demon…And a dick.”
“I could have mistranslated,” Kevin says, shrugging.
Dean sits on the edge of the table.
“I have never heard of a spell with no reversal. Even if it isn’t written down, there has to be a way to reverse it if you have the correct ingredients and the correct words or symbols,” Castiel says. “And if there wasn’t a reversal, why would he have commanded this other angel to take the tablet? If Metatron is safely tucked away in Heaven, alone for all eternity save for the deceased human souls, the tablet should be no threat to him.”
“Probably true,” Kevin says. “So what do we do now?”
Castiel turns his attention to Dean again, as Dean sighs. “Well, I don’t think there’s much else we can do right now,” he says as he looks at Castiel. He then turns his attention to Kevin. “Kevin, I think it would be best if I sent you to Garth again. We need to keep you hidden. So, pack up your stuff, try to get some sleep, and I’ll call him in the morning.”
“Fine,” Kevin says. “But I’m hungry, so I’m stopping by the kitchen first.”
“You do that,” Dean says. “I think there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge that’s still good,” he calls when Kevin is almost out of the room.
“Cool,” Kevin says as he disappears from view.
Castiel watches Dean as he sighs, slumps, and runs a hand over his face before looking up and locking eyes with him. “What was that, Cas?”
There it is, the question Castiel is afraid of. “I told you, it would hurt and you may feel or see things you wouldn’t…”
“Understand. Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Dean says, cutting him off. “That’s not what I’m asking. Why did it stop hurting? ‘Cause I’ve seen you do that before, and it looked like it hurt the whole time. What happened when you pulled me out of Hell, Cas?”
Castiel looks away, first at the ceiling, then to the right, then to the door Kevin had disappeared through, before directing his gaze to the floor. “I don’t think we should talk about it now. You’re tired, and we have other things to worry about…”
“Cas.”
He looks up, and finds himself face to face with Dean, who had moved while he was distracted. His eyes are locked onto Dean’s, and he can’t move, can’t think. He swallows nervously.
“You won’t like the answer,” he says finally, breaking eye contact to stare at the floor once more. He twists his fingers around each other nervously, wondering when he started doing that.
“How do you know?” he hears Dean say, and feels Dean’s fingers skim his jaw line before they catch under his chin and lift his face up to look at him again.
“Because I know you, Dean. I put you back together,” he says, looking over Dean’s shoulder to the door.
“If we go somewhere Kevin’s not gonna follow, will you stop looking nervously at the door and tell me?” Dean asks.
“If I must tell you, that would be better.”
“Well, you must. If I’ve learned anything from this mess, it’s that keeping secrets from each other has a way of biting us all in the ass. Come on,” Dean says, laying a hand on his shoulder and steering him out of the room.
They turn in the opposite direction Kevin had gone, and a short distance down a hall before Dean swings a door open and flips on a light. Castiel sees it’s a bedroom, and, noticing the weapons and items on display, quickly learns it’s Dean’s. Dean pulls him inside, shuts the door, and locks it. Castiel becomes more nervous and fidgety. He feels human again, the stolen grace out of sync with the rest of him.
“Alright, here we are. Kevin won’t interrupt us here. Now will you answer me?” He can hear the impatience in Dean’s voice.
Castiel sits on the edge of the bed, sinking into the memory foam and thinks he’d like to lie back and see if it would swallow him. He sighs. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. All I know is, one minute it’s all screaming pain, and the next it stops and I feel warm all over, and kind of…It was kind of like déjà vu. Like, part of me remembered feeling that before, and I had this flash of…I mean, I saw Hell for a minute, and then felt something grab me and take off…Then nothing, back to seeing you in there, still not hurting, and still feeling warm all over. Like I said, I’ve seen you touch someone’s soul before, and it looked like it was painful the whole time. Why wasn’t it like that for me?” Dean paces as he tries to gather his thoughts and explain himself. Then he sits beside Castiel, and when he does that warmth blooms in his chest all over again and spreads. He takes Castiel’s hand and laces their fingers together. He’s not sure why he does it, but it feels good, and that’s all he cares about after the day he’s had.
Castiel turns his face to Dean’s, an apology written all over it. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t know…” He takes a long, deep breath. “You have to understand, a group of angels from my garrison were sent in just before you broke. Our superiors told us that we were to rescue you, the Righteous Man, before you could spill blood in Hell, as that was the first seal. What they didn’t tell us was how differently time moves in Hell, and that it varies depending on what section of Hell you’re in. It’s part of the torment. They also didn’t tell us that they really wanted you to break the first seal before you could be rescued so as to fulfill the prophecy, and purposely sent us first into a very slow-moving section of Hell. We fought relentlessly, as soon as we entered and for what felt, at times, like days or weeks or years, and many of my brothers and sisters were killed. We didn’t know exactly where you were. After what felt like centuries, when there were only six of us left, we decided to split up into groups of two to look for you. Just before I found you, Alistair managed to sneak up on my partner, Hezekiah, and killed him. I escaped, and then I caught sight of you.”
He pauses, remembering, and swallows. He feels Dean’s fingers tighten for a second against his own, and continues. “Even after being tortured in Hell, your soul shone like a beacon. It was so bright, and still startlingly pure. There were just a few threads of darkness woven in, and even as you ripped into another soul, yours colored with remorse and empathy. It was the most…wondrous thing I’d ever seen, and certainly not what I’d expected to find. It had taken so long, I had expected you to be much more damaged, your light much dimmer. You were the brightest, most beautiful thing I’d seen since leaving Heaven.” Dean’s squeezing Castiel’s hand tightly now.
“Cas.” It comes out as a whisper.
When Castiel looks at Dean, he sees awe written across his face, and tears dancing in his eyes, but they don’t fall. He continues. “Once I saw you, I knew I had to hurry. You’d already broken the first seal, but I had been told that, even if you had, you had to be rescued because you were the only one who could stop what was to come, that Heaven had work for you. When I came closer, you stopped what you were doing, and turned toward me, and as soon as I touched you something…Something strange and unexpected happened. Your soul started wrapping itself around me, around my grace, and showed me everything, all your experiences and thoughts and feelings. It felt…I didn’t know what it felt like. I had no previous experience of the feeling. And my grace reciprocated, and began wrapping around your soul. I didn’t stop to think. I flew, and kept flying as the feeling intensified, as your soul wrapped itself more tightly around me. I felt light, and warm, and capable of anything. Demons reached for you, but the two of us together burned so hot and so bright they couldn’t touch us without dying. When we surfaced, I shouted louder than I ever had, loud enough to level a forest, loud enough for even Anna, and probably any other fallen angels, to hear, ‘Dean Winchester is saved!’”
He pauses and looks at Dean again, and reaches up to brush away a tear that had fallen. That same awestruck expression remains on his face, and Castiel feels his lips quirk up into a half smile, which Dean returns. He looks away, staring blankly in front of him and continues, “We rose at the site of your grave. Sam hadn’t given you the traditional hunter’s funeral, because he was looking for a way to bring you back. It made my job somewhat easier. Weaving your physical body took very little effort. I healed your soul as best I could, as much as I was permitted. You were supposed to carry some of the damage Hell inflicted, as it would help you serve your purpose. Since I wasn’t allowed to heal every scar in your soul, I healed every scar on your body. Then, I spent quite a long time trying to disentangle your soul from my grace, which proved extremely difficult. It didn’t want to let go. I had to expend great effort to force it, then stitch it in with my grace, and still tendrils of it escaped and curled around me, clinging to the fingers and hands and wrists of my true form. I didn’t notice at the time, but a few tiny traces remained, and when I sealed you into your body, I inadvertently left a mark.”
He takes a deep breath, and hears Dean do the same. “Remember when I told you that when a claim is made on a living soul it leaves a mark, a brand?”
“Yeah.” Dean’s voice sounds deeper, rougher, and he squeezes Castiel’s hand again.
He doesn’t want to say what comes next, but he’s come this far. “Remember when I told you that my superiors thought I had become too close to the humans in my charge, to you? It was because…We claimed each other, Dean. You claimed me first, deep in Hell. The light and heat of your soul merged with my grace and that was what protected us as I flew, and I carried and still carry tiny filaments of your soul. And, when I accidentally left that mark, I claimed you, and you still carry the faded remains of that mark as well as, I suspect, the stitches of grace that put you back together. It’s why it’s always easier to hear you than it is to hear Sam, and why we always seem to find each other. It's what broke my connection to Naomi. I came tonight because your soul reached out to me in wordless prayer. It sent your anguish, and I followed it without even thinking. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I understand if you’re angry or don’t want it. I can’t remove it since it’s mutual, but I can keep my distance if that’s what you want.”
Dean stops thinking. For once, he just feels. Cas’s story feels like truth. Warmth settles in his chest and spreads. He feels like so much of the last five or so years has just been explained. He reaches out with his free hand and strokes the side of Castiel’s face, turning his head so their eyes lock. He leans forward until their foreheads touch. He feels Cas freeze, sees the unspoken questions dancing in those familiar blue eyes. He can’t find words right now, so he does the next best thing. He brings his lips to Cas’s, something he’s wanted to do for a long time, and lays a feather-light, chaste kiss there. He’s never been brave enough to do this before now, always unsure of himself and of how Cas felt, but now he knows. He feels Cas’s eyelashes flutter against his skin, and kisses him again, with more pressure, and when Castiel gasps, he deepens it. Castiel begins reciprocating, and they pour everything into the kiss, the years of longing, of uncertainty, the pain of separation, and relief of reunion.
Pretty soon, Dean has to pull back to breathe, and when he does, he once again leans his forehead against Castiel’s, one hand still on the back of Cas’s neck, the other still locked with Cas’s on the bed. “I don’t want you to leave me ever again, Cas. It was Hell, every time you’ve left, every time I’ve left you. Whatever happens, we have to tackle it together, okay?”
“Okay. I think I can live with that,” he replies, and he means it. Here, with everything out in the open and Dean clinging to him, he realizes that things go awry more often when the two of them are not together, and that Heaven was broken long before he fought Raphael. Furthermore, while he feels he carries some responsibility for the angels’ current predicament, he no longer carries all the responsibility, nor does he have any desire to return to Heaven himself, at least not as an angel.
“I love you, Cas,” Dean says, just above a whisper. “Human or angel.”
“I’ve loved you since the first time touched your soul, Dean Winchester,” he replies, smiling shyly.
Dean laughs and pulls back, disentangling their hands and running them through his own hair. “God, that was such a chick flick moment!” Then he notices Cas’s face fall. He leans back in, cupping Cas’s face with both hands. “Good thing I like them now,” he says, and kisses Castiel again. Castiel smiles into the kiss.
A little while later, after more kissing and a trip to Kevin’s room to check on him (he was fast asleep), Dean crawls into bed, completely exhausted. Castiel, wearing borrowed pajama bottoms, lies down and slides in beside him, gathering Dean into himself. Dean pillows his head on Cas’s chest, wrapping his free arm around Castiel’s torso, and tangling one leg with his. Things are far from perfect, there is a very long list of things the two of them still need to talk about, there is everything going on in the world with angels and demons, and worry over Sam still gnaws at him, but he feels better than he has in a very long time. Why? Because Dean knows now that neither of them will be facing anything that lies ahead alone. He knows that his soul and Cas’s grace together burned so bright and so hot that no demon could touch them as they rose from Hell, which lets him believe that they just may be able to do what seems impossible…Again.
As Dean’s eyelids begin to droop, he feels Castiel press a kiss to the top of his head. “You can sleep now, Dean. I’ll watch over you.”
“’Night, Cas,” he mumbles, before he falls into the most restful sleep he’s had since before his mother died.
In his dreams he hears his mother say, “Angels are watching over you.” And he knows it’s true.