Work Text:
They take him to Sam. More accurately: they parade him to Sam. They wrap Castiel in chains soaked in demon blood and black magic, a binding spell so vicious it’s like barbed wire coiled in and around the links. He can feel it chafing the vessel’s skin, the phantom prickle of thorns raising beads of blood. This is old magic, dark and dangerous, more powerful than ordinary demons have any right to. Castiel is wearing Lucifer's mark around his wrists, and it disconcerts him.
They walk him through the streets, past a hundred gloating black eyes, the empty shells of his brothers’ vessels and the shattered husks of buildings. The demons shove at him as he passes between the thick crowds, a few of the braver ones darting in to tug the tips of his wings and the hem of his coat, pull his hair like playground bullies.
Ha-qodeshim, they jeer. Melakh Adonai. Castiel.
His name sounds like a taunt from their mouths. Castiel shrugs off the attacks as best he can and reminds himself that these demons are not why he’s here. They’re scavengers, and they're beneath him. Castiel is no less dangerous now that they have bound him to this form, but ending the sorry little lives of the ones who dare touch him isn't his task to carry out. It would be… counter-productive to his goals.
Castiel isn't here for vengeance.
He steps into cool, dark shadow, and casts his gaze up.
Sam has built his fortress inside an old cathedral, his mere presence turning its delicate gothic spires into something foreboding and terrible, the jagged skeleton of some prehistoric monster. The jeers of the demons scrabble up into the delicate sweeps of masonry and echo back at him, and Castiel absolutely doesn’t allow himself to be surprised that the building is still intact. Well-kept, in fact. It’s going to seed in small, negligible ways: the shrubs are overgrowing, and there’s an empty box of fried chicken nestled on the steps, fluttering forlornly in the breeze. But the windows are still in one piece, the colors sparkling like precious gems in the sunlight.
It isn’t in deference to God that Sam keeps His house pristine. It's pride. The wrongness hits Castiel as soon as he crosses the threshold. He gasps in shock and pain, to the delight of the demons around him. Castiel can feel Sam’s presence in this place, an open wound that festers and weeps, and for the first time, he is angry. Angry at the impudence of this man, a demon king who would set up his home in one of God’s temples. The audacity of it.
The perspicacity of it.
The pews are lined with more demons who purr and coo at him: ha-qodeshim, Castiel, achinu. The urge to burn them from their bodies is stronger here, where the ugly blight of their presence cannot be ignored. He suddenly feels trapped, caged. His hands itch with the desire to fight, and his wings flex restlessly at his back, making the chains shiver. It would be easy, so easy, to just—
But no. That is not his task. That is not his mission.
Castiel grits his teeth and raises his eyes to the front of the church.
Sam Winchester stands as they draw near. He’s naked to the waist, jeans settled indecently low on his narrow hips, skin gleaming gold with sweat. His bare soles crush the carpet as he moves to meet them, and Castiel can’t help but stare at the incongruous fragility of Sam’s feet, paler than the rest of him, the delicate, bird-like sweeps of instep and ankle. He is what Castiel supposes some might call beautiful: healthy, sun-kissed, hot with power. But there is little in him now of the man Castiel once knew, who would tuck his huge body in on itself in order to appear less threatening. The Sam Winchester that Castiel knew used his strength to protect, to reassure, occasionally to harm, but never flaunted like this. Now he displays it openly, as a threat. The blood of Azazel pulses thickly through his veins in a ceaseless, war-drum rhythm. The light of Lucifer gleams in his eyes, his skin, his smile. This is not the Sam that once was but his shadow, stretching tall and proud in the dying light.
“Kneel.”
Castiel raises his chin to the King of Hell and says: “No.”
He tenses as Sam raises one broad, long-fingered hand – a hand that Castiel had once clasped between his own, as Sam looked up at him like revelation and absolution – and the sudden pressure across his shoulders drives Castiel to his knees. He recognizes the pain as the vessel folds to the floor and transcends it without a thought. The chains pool around him, weighing him down so that it’s all Castiel can do to rest his clenched fists on his thighs.
It’s a posture of submission, and something inside Castiel shrieks with fury even as Sam smiles and lowers his palm.
For a long moment, there is silence. Castiel is attuned to every minute shift of air inside the cathedral, the uneasy breaths from behind him, the thick, wet sounds of swallowing. Nobody knows what Sam is about to do; not even, Castiel supposes, Sam himself. That was one of John Winchester’s tenets: they zig, you zag, right boys? Don’t give them anything to go on.
The congregation waits with bated breath for their leader’s next move.
The smile spreads across Sam’s face slowly, ink across water. “Castiel,” he says, and now Castiel does suppress a shiver, because there is something intimate about the way Sam Winchester curls his tongue around Castiel’s name. Something knowing.
Ha-qodeshim. Castiel, achinu.
“I guess you’re wondering why you’re still alive, huh?”
“If it is my submission you seek, then you will not find me so easily broken,” says Castiel, calmly. Inwardly, he marvels at how similar Sam sounds; how, in turn, he still sounds like his brother, who in turn sounds like their father, their mother.
Sam grins at that. “If it was your submission I wanted, I’d already have it.”
Castiel doesn’t doubt this, not even for a second. “Then what?”
“You saved my brother, once,” says Sam, and where he once might have glanced away bashfully at the display of vulnerability, now he holds Castiel’s eyes, like he’s daring him to act on it. Castiel reminds himself that this new Sam Winchester is a glass prism with many facets: Azazel’s casual cruelty coloring the edges of his words red and black, his voice shot through with Lucifer’s light. “I figured I should repay the favor.”
“Such actions will not earn your forgiveness with the Lord.”
The sudden anger darkens Sam’s face like a thundercloud, and Castiel wonders which this is: is it a summer-storm Winchester fury, or the hurricane of demonic rage? The air inside the cathedral crackles with electricity. Behind them, the demons shift and murmur restlessly, like power cables in a high wind.
“Do you think I want forgiveness?” Sam snarls, his voice unexpectedly deeper, making the ground beneath them tremble. “After what you did to my brother?”
Ah, yes. This is what Castiel had expected it would come down to, what it always comes down to with Sam. Dean.
He had heard frightened whispers of Sam’s first act as the Boy King, that he had rounded up any demon who had laid their hands on Dean in Hell and wiped them from existence. Though his passing was no great sorrow to them, the angels still hesitated to speak of the circumstances of Alastair’s demise. Two months into his rule, there had been whispers of the demons doubting Sam’s power, citing Dean as the cause. He made Sam weak, they had said. He made him vulnerable. He was a distraction.
Those rumors had died as abruptly as those who whispered them, and were never spoken of again.
If the demons are upset at Sam sparing Castiel’s life, then they’re wise not to show it.
“You manipulated him,” Sam continues, throwing his arms out like Castiel has seen him do a thousand times before, when he’s arguing with Dean. “You knew exactly how to get to him when he was most vulnerable, and you used him. You didn’t even give a shit about the consequences. He nearly died because of your God. See, that’s what really gets me. I mean, everyone says we’re His most-loved creations, right? So why did he feed us to the wolves? Why let innocent people die at the hands of demons? Why let good men go to hell for their children—”
“Or their brothers?” Castiel asks, mildly.
This time, the demons recoil with a hiss of fear. Castiel keeps his face impassive, his posture relaxed. He is not afraid of Sam. He should be, for he has seen Sam burn the strongest of his brothers into nothing with barely a word, but he’s not. He is an angel, one of God’s many warriors, ha-qodeshim, and he isn’t allowed the luxury of fear, least of all from this man.
“Where is Dean?” he asks.
For a moment Castiel thinks Sam is about to strike him down for his insolence. He watches warily as Sam steps down from the pulpit, his movements precise and delicate. The atmosphere fizzles and snaps around him as Sam’s dark gaze stirs storms in the air, and Castiel can hear the whispers behind him, unease beginning to bubble as the atmosphere reaches boiling point. He straightens his back slightly as Sam draws nearer, moving with the easy, rolling gait of a lion stalking its prey.
He tenses as Sam grabs his jaw, his hand more than big enough to encompass the vessel’s throat. He squeezes once, hard, fingers digging cruelly into to thin skin and brittle cartilage, as if to remind Castiel that, their current states, Sam could crush this vessel’s windpipe with barely a twitch.
“Dean is somewhere even you won’t be able to find him,” Sam tells him, the kindly tone of his voice underscored by the mockery in his eyes.
“The Lord sees everything,” says Castiel, automatically.
“No, he sees what I want him to see.” Sam grins that toothy smile again, dimples cutting into his cheeks. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again they’re black, fathomless. He reminds Castiel of the sharks Dean used to watch on the grainy motel television, the way they would smile before they sank their teeth in.
There is something singly predatory about Sam Winchester, now – everything he does, everything he says, is designed to bring his prey down. He was born and bred for this, and only this: first as a Winchester, and now as a demon.
Castiel is still contemplating this when Sam leans forward and kisses him.
He inhales a sharp, startled breath, as Sam pries his mouth open with the thumb on his jaw, his tongue a slippery wet thing in the vessel’s mouth. Kissing is unfamiliar to Castiel, and it stirs something hot and uncomfortable along his spine, something that makes his skin feel too tight, and causes panic to flutter distantly in his gut.
It’s over as quickly as it had started. By the time Castiel thinks to do anything, Sam has already drawn back, with a sharp, sly little grin.
Castiel wonders what sort of deal he has just sealed, with this demon.
“I always wondered what it’d be like to fuck an angel,” Sam says, almost as if he’s speaking to himself. His eyes sweep Castiel’s face covetously, thumb digging into the swell of the vessel’s lower lip, bruising the soft flesh like the round of a peach. “Guess I just found out.”
He stands, and the invisible pressure against Castiel’s shoulders eases slightly. The chains open with a clunk and fall from his wrists, coiling onto the floor.
“Go,” Sam says, turning away, dismissing him. “You have safe passage out of this city, so I suggest you do that. Other than that, I don’t care. Just stay away from us. My brother’s debt to you has been paid in full. Next time my demons see you, you’re fair game.”
The chains fall away as Castiel stands, cautiously, the vessel’s joints cracking in reproach. He watches the broad, soft expanse of Sam’s shoulders, dripping golden in the candlelight.
“We won’t stop until we’ve found him, Sam,” says Castiel. “You must know this.”
Sam glances over his shoulder at Castiel, and he sees it, then, perhaps in the way the light hits Sam’s face. The simple, devastating love Sam has for his brother, deep enough to rise up and drown the world.
“Well, then. I suppose I’d better make sure you never do.”
Perplexed and discomforted, Castiel leaves the church as silently as he came, head held high. He only barely glances at the crowd of demons, some of whom are watching him with outright terror, and spots the girl – Ruby. She’s lurking by the wall, staring at him with something that could be fear… if he believed that demons could feel such things. Castiel catches her eye and sees her bite her lip between borrowed teeth and flee, chasing after Sam’s shadow.
Doubtless she is going to warn him. Castiel wonders if Sam will listen. He’s always been complacent when it comes to Dean.
Outside, the world is black with blood and ashes, smoke and a few, faint screams lingering on the air. The demons crowded by the cathedral steps scatter as Castiel steps down, like they’re afraid of him. They probably are. He’s been spared by the Boy King; he’s already had more chances than some of them will ever get. Tellingly, none of them bother him as he leaves. They watch him as he passes, hissing at him like cats, spitting filth designed to make him cringe, but they don’t dare harm him.
Ha-qodeshim, they say, but it sounds like envy.
Castiel, they hiss, but it sounds like awe.
It’s cleaner beyond the city limits – the sky is brighter here, the air fresher. Castiel raises his face and lets the sun warm his skin, lets the cool breeze stroke his brow. He shrugs off the last, lingering unpleasantness from the chains, and lets the wind brush the dirty, grimy feeling of the cathedral from his skin and his soul.
Somewhere out there, Dean Winchester is alive. He was here, perhaps as recently as yesterday. Castiel can feel him sometimes, very faintly, the stubborn energy of his soul reminding him of the way Dean clenches his jaw when he doesn’t want to do something. Sam may have hidden Dean from the Lord, from Castiel’s brothers, but there is no way to hide him from Castiel himself, short of burning Dean’s soul into oblivion. They are connected in ways that defy all logic and expectation. He wonders if that was what Ruby was running to tell Sam.
There is no marker for Dean’s soul, no deep and shining light, but there is a… pull. A compass. The sense of compulsion is new to Castiel, as is the sense of singular responsibility. This task is for you, Castiel, and only you, Anael had said, her eyes filled with bright compassion, a strange kind of sadness.
Castiel is used to feeling cherished, but not unique, and never alone.
He breathes the clean air deep, fortifying himself with it, and spreads his wings. Somewhere out there, Dean Winchester is alive. That is all Castiel needs to know right now.
Enough of this. He has work to do.