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Is that what we are? Jack asked Amara. God?
That's one of the many names my brother used, Amara thought back at him in their newly shared mindspace.
But it's not who we are.
Jack's not family. He's not like you. He's not like Cas. He's just not.
"So you are… him," Sam said quietly.
"I'm me," Jack insisted, forcing a smile back onto his face against the sting of loss in his chest.
I understand the pain you feel, nephew, Amara said softly inside their mind. I've been betrayed by everyone I have ever cared about.
Tears gathered and spilled over, running down their face.
"Chuck put himself in the story. That was his mistake."
"Finally free," Dean agreed with a slow nod.
"All right," Sam finally said. "Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere, man. Anywhere but here."
Take me. In his stead. Take me.
"Can't believe we lost the kid, too. As if everything else wasn't already—"
One more wrong we have to right. Someone else who deserves to be free.
The oily darkness coalesced in front of them, needlessly taking a human shape.
"Not you again."
"Yes. Me again," her nephew confirmed.
"We are what God was," Amara declared calmly.
"Oh, but God holds no sway here. He knew that. Everyone knew that. This realm is mine."
She angled their chin to see that the Mark had burned a hole straight through the fabric of the shirt and jacket they were wearing. The angry orange glow came with the knowledge of something terrible.
"No!" he gasped in terror, and they were back on Earth in the blink of an eye. They followed the source of the searing pain in their shoulder to a crossroads, idyllic in the sunset if it wasn't for the dark smoke of a car crash rising into the golden sky.
They were in harmony as they raised their arms to the sky, enveloped in streams of black mist and white radiance intertwining.
Time stopped.
"What if we made a new deal?" Jack offered to the shadow.
I cannot let you do this, nephew. You're the only family I have left.
The derisive smile in front of them blurred, oily blackness billowing and twisting until they were looking into a different face.
Castiel's.
But everything about it was wrong, from the misshapen, wide smile to the cold glint in his eyes.
"Time here is mine."
Sam exchanged another look with Dean, sure they were thinking along the same lines.
This had to be a trap.
And it sprang.
Now Jack was the one screaming. Pure protective rage suffused him, overrode any and all restraint as he unleashed the power of God through their outstretched palms straight into the billowing clouds of blackness all around them.
Sam had been mistaken in thinking it was Dean's hull that would crack first, because his own was unraveling where he stood, at the verge of combat.
All around them, fissures appeared in the blackness, allowing light and colors as they could only be found on Earth to seep through into the Empty.
"Well, that was easier than expected," the entity said with an insufferable smirk.
No, Jack sent into their shared mindspace, completely frozen in shock. Nonono. What have I done?
Suddenly, there was an impact at Sam's side and the sensation of getting lifted. When he hit the floor hard, the machete was knocked out of his grasp while the vampire held him pressed against the wood planks with one hand against his chest, powered by inhuman strength.
The dark mist of her power swirled around their body in a display that—judging by the gasps leaving multiple mouths—may have been breathtaking.
"Dude, who the hell are you?" a burly figure in a ridiculous mask asked, dispelling the illusion of frozen time. "And what are you doing there? With your arms, and the—," he made a vague swirly motion with his fingers.
What you did, nephew, I could sense that it happened out of— This time, it was Amara who hesitated, her next word filled with surprise. Love.
He nodded.
So that's what it's really like. Thank you.
"Dean!" he called out in a stab of panic, throwing the entire weight of their invisible body into a shove that sent the pile of vampire and Dean tumbling.
Did I destroy the world, Amara?
He felt their eyes roll and a breath escape through their nose.
Oh, don't be so melodramatic, nephew.
"Did you—"
"Hear it, too? Yeah."
"Son of a bitch," Dean cursed quietly and did a 360. "Jack!" he called out, hating the stupid tremble in his voice.
"Jack!" Sam echoed.
This should suffice, Amara declared, letting their arm sink down and turning them invisible again before they could be spotted. Movement around them sprang back to its normal sequence.
"Look, man, I don't know what—what all that raindrop crap was about. And I just—I'm sorry, okay? For everything I've—"
The black oil that had been spilling through in multiple spots retreated slowly, while Sam and Dean moved backwards through the barn and through time.
"Dude, it's Jack."
"Yeah, but he's also—"
"God?" Jack asked, and Sam nodded. "Sam, I promise, I'm still me."
"I'm still here, too, by the way," Jack's voice announced with an intonation that didn't sound like him at all any longer.
A light bright enough to make him squint appeared around Jack's body, and when it was over, there were two people standing next to Sam instead of just one.
The sight of his own name carved into the table next to the others made tears shoot into his eyes. He held out his hand, traced the lines of the letters with the tips of his fingers, and swallowed heavily.
"That method should also ensure that the deal still counts as fulfilled."
"Wait a second. What deal? What are you—" Sam cut in once more, and was met with nothing but silence.
"What are we waiting for then?" Dean bit out the words as if they pained him.
Sam… I'm the one who raised you from Perdition, Castiel revealed, feeling miserable and weak.
We were family once.
Without any strength left to fight, he fell to his knees, no longer able to withstand the onslaught.
You're not my family, he whispered, his voice brittle in dejection. I have no family.
"We'll get him back," Sam added in that whisper-soft tone that Dean would have hated in any other situation.
They stood and watched in silence as Amara and Jack both held out one arm until their fingers met in the middle between them. A glow appeared around their clasped hands, just a small ball of light at first that grew rapidly until Dean had to close his eyes against the explosion of brightness, releasing more tears down his cheeks.
"CASTIEL!" he screamed into the void and flinched at the distorted sound of his own voice in here.
~
(Read The Little Issue with the Mission to Perdition here!)