Chapter Text
THEN
The faerie’s feet stretched to touch the ground, like gravity had forgotten her and she was straining not to float away.
Her hands were in the air like a shot, not even Cas had time to react. There was a flash of rose-gold light that lit up the abandoned cul-de-sac, and a gray-black cloud appeared in its wake. The mass stretched like taffy into a thin, floating line no thicker than the mark of a pen, which dove directly into Dean's chest and disappeared.
At least, that’s how human eyes would have seen it. Cas saw it still, coiled within Dean’s chest.
"My queen hunts you." The faerie said. “She bears no human weapons, but rather uses what she finds in you. If you hope to even survive, let alone to defeat her, you must carry no secrets, no illusions about yourselves and one another.”
“What did you do to him?” Sam demanded.
“I’m trying to help. To… disarm her.” She said, eyes appraising. She gestured to Cas. “Ask him.”
Damned faeries
Cas looked to Dean, whose hand was reflexively resting over his own chest where he’d been pierced, but who didn’t seem to be in pain.
What could he do? Try to kill her? It'd probably fail, faerie magic being what it is, and even if he succeeded he’d be right back where he started anyway.
Besides which, the truth was that he knew the answer, and more than that: He’d seen immediately what she was doing and why she was doing it – she’d made sure of that. The knowledge seemed a physical thing, pieces scattered around him at the moment of the spell’s casting. All he had to do was pick them up and slot them together.
“How long?” Cas asked.
“Three days.” She answered.
Cas drew in a long breath and let it out in an impatient sigh. Her initial assessment may have been accurate, but she was underestimating Dean Winchester’s stubbornness by orders of magnitude. Three days might not be enough.
"I won't tell them." The faerie folded her arms, a posture more suited to a petulant toddler than to the tall, broad-shouldered woman in front of them. "You want him to live? You explain it.”
She regarded Cas with a long, knowing look, and vanished.
Again: damned faeries. Nuisances, the lot of them.
“Cas? Was she telling the truth?” Sam focused in on Cas, searching warily. “If you know, you’ve gotta—”
"Yes. Fine." Cas agreed.
He explained everything.