Work Text:
“Oh fuck.”
“Language, Sammy,” Dean snaps on reflex. But really, there is no other appropriate response to some fucking Fae appearing in the middle of their fucking field, trampling their family’s carefully planted beans and squash as they seek their justice upon a tresspasser. Dean’s heard of people getting taken before, fools who thought it’d be fun to sneak into Fae and take a souvenir only to realize too late that the Fae charge heavily for these things. Normally Dean would say that it sucked to be them, that the gods loved fools, loved them to an early grave. But this was Sammy in danger now. There would be no grave for him while Dean still breathed.
“Don’t freak out. Just give back whatever you took, apologize like your life fucking depends on it because it does, and don’t try to make any deals.”
“I can’t give back what I took, I used it!” Sam fires back. “And what do you know about dealing with the Fae anyway?”
“More than you apparently, I’m not the one they’re trying to take!” Sam looks appropriately cowed by this, and since Sam never looks ashamed of anything, this means they are well and truly in some deep shit. “Come on,” Dean pulls his little brother to the edge of their field, home growing small behind them. Sam had apparently heard somewhere that Fae liked borders, liked settling business there. Hopefully this could be settled well.
There are five of them come for Sam, all vaguely human shaped. A large dark-skinned man with wings like molten silver and a smile like a blade; a pale red-headed woman bedecked with jewelry whose feet did not touch the ground; a woman-creature with bronze skin and horns and tail like she’d stepped from a forge fire; and two whose golden eyes shone brightly against their dark skin, marking them witches. Sam and Dean stand up as straight as they can, but poor farmer’s boys with holes in their trousers are not intimidating to Folk such as this. They’re barely interesting.
The Fae made of bronze speaks first, a foot away from the edge of the field, twice that from the brothers. “Samuel Winchester, you stand accused of trespassing and thievery. How do you plead before this Court?” Sam says nothing, and when Dean turns to look he is half frozen with fear, trembling before these creatures. “If you have nothing to say for yourself, we will take our payment now. Uriel, if you will?” The silver-winged creature begins to move forward.
“WAIT!” Dean shouts. “He pleads-he pleads forgiveness!”
“And who are you to speak for thieves?” The red-haired Fae asks.
“I’m his brother, his older brother. I’m responsible for him. He didn’t mean to trespass, opening the portal was an accident. He’s training to be a mage, ya see? And all he stole was what he needed to make another portal home.”
“He could have asked for help,” says one of the golden-eyed witches, the one who looked like a dark-skinned woman with long dark hair.
“I didn’t know!” Sam blurts out. “Our whole lives we’ve been told that Fae would rather eat you than treat with you. I...I just wanted to go home.”
“And in doing so, you stole from a coven,” the other gold-eyed witch, similar looking enough to the woman for them to be siblings. “This is not something easily forgiven.”
The one called Uriel speaks now. “Your plea for forgiveness is denied. For your crimes, a life is owed to Fae. You will come now and not return. Quietly.”
Sam trembles, then squares his shoulders as well as a teenage boy can. He steps toward the border of the field, extending a hand. The next instant he is on his back in the dirt and Dean has stepped into the field, screaming at the Fae. He is seventeen.
“You said a life! Not his life, a life! Take me!”
“Dean, no!” Sam scrambles for his brother.
“Go home, Sammy,” Dean says as he doesn’t turn around.
“This would be acceptable,” croons the witch-woman. She reaches out a hand. Dean takes it. Then they are gone.
------------------------------
Ten years. That’s now long a human must wait before re-entering Fae on their own terms. If Sam had the help of a Fae, he wouldn’t have had to wait so long. But if he were on good terms with the Fae, none of this would have happened in the first place. He’s smarter now, though. Stronger too. At twenty-three, he has a decade of mage training, vengeful planning, and a very generous puberty behind him. He’s quick and clever, good with any weapon you put in front of him, and taller than most. Add that to a set of enchanted armor, dozens of memorized spells, and a ten year mission for vengeance burning in his veins, and he was ready to take on the realm of Fae. Well, not the whole realm per say. Just whoever happens to be standing in front of him and his brother.
The sun rises in the sky, bringing Sam closer and closer to the moment he will be able to re-enter Fae. He checks his stock of potions, fastens and re-fastens his helmet, and otherwise tries to will time to move faster. He is nervous and desperate and hoping against hope that Dean isn’t dead already, because although it’s well known among humans that Fae torture their human prisoners, no one knows how long they keep those prisoners alive for. Another three candlemarks pass as Sam frets, checking and re-checking his supplies.
Suddenly it’s time. He stands wide and begins chanting. A portal spell, cast with confidence and accompanied by dozens of sigils to hide his presence in the Realm Next Door. There is a purple-gold glow, and then all at once he is in Fae.
Immediately, he kneels to the ground, not even bothering to survey his surroundings. Taking a piece of parchment from his bag, Sam places it on the ground and pours ink over it as he chants another spell. The ink runs into neat lines, forming a map full of impossible geography as it outlines the contours of Fae. Before the ink can dry, Sam takes another piece of parchment and places it atop the first, creating a copy. The original is burned to the sound of a few choice words, the parchment disappearing almost completely into the air. A single scrap remains, a rough circle depicting an area of lakes and hills. This is where he’ll find Dean. Sam marks the location on his copy, orients himself, and sets off.
Sam is careful to pace himself, not knowing how long it will take him to get to Dean. If the scale of the map is kind to him, it could be less than a day of travel. If the scale is not kind, who knows how long it could take to move stealthily across the strange landscape. Little progress is made, given that Sam stops to seek cover anytime he hears something that has even the slightest possibility of being another sentient being. He cannot afford to be caught. Who knows what the price for trespassing would be this time.
It takes Sam longer than it should for him to realize that the reason he’s not walking in full dark yet despite having started in mid-afternoon is that Fae has two suns, and the second has not yet set. Part of him is fascinated. The rest of him is angry at himself for being fascinated. This is the realm that has destroyed his brother’s life. It cannot be interesting. Or if it is, it can be so after a successful rescue mission.
After what he deems to be several hours of walking, Sam stops briefly, drinking one of the half-dozen potions he’s brought with him. It’s a strengthening blend, one that will hopefully make him more of a match for any Fae that will be imprisoning his brother. When one bottle is done, he drinks the next, and the next, until he feels vaguely nauseous from the amount of liquid in his stomach. He knows from experience(read: ill-advised tests of various methods and substances and combinations thereof) that drinking like this will give the potion time to set in and amplify its effects. Also, if he throws up, he would prefer not to do that in front of a Fae warrior. (He knows from experience that the vomit caused by this potion is mostly bile, and therefore not projectile, which would be vaguely helpful).
The second sun is four fingers from the horizon when Sam is finally in sight of the place his spell has told him he’ll find Dean. The map spell doesn’t mark houses or other built structures, so Sam had been slightly worried he’d have to canvas a few square miles of hills and lakes. But there is a structure in front of him, and it is unlikely that Dean will be held anywhere else.
It’s an odd looking place, to be sure. Part of it is buried in a hill and part of it is up a tree and part of it would look almost like a normal cottage if not for the enormous doors and windows and lack of a roof. No roof means it would be easy for a winged creature to enter and exit, and Sam grips his weapon tighter as he remembers the silver-winged creature of ten years ago. If he or one like him is guarding Dean, Sam will show no mercy.
Sam slaps down the visor of his helmet, drops his bag of supplies, and hefts his weapon. The time has come.
He charges towards the massive front door of the cottage-looking portion. His only plan is to find a way to get into the bit of the place that’s buried under a hill, the reasoning being that underground is a good place for dungeons, and therefore prisoners. The door, twice taller than he his and thrice as wide, comes off with a single sharp pull. Sam wiggles his fingers as he steps across the threshold. The potions are working perfectly. He is every inch the conquering hero.
The first room has no roof, and appears to be a sort of landing pad, with colorful mats strewn everywhere. Dozens of them. Dean’s captors must have company often. There are several doors leading out of the landing pad, and Sam chooses the one leading further into the dwelling, ripping it off its hinges as he goes. The next few rooms do not fulfill his expectations of a Fae fortress, being mostly full of books and tools. One vaguely resembles a kitchen, if kitchens had fish ponds in their centers.
While it’s obvious that someone-or multiple someones-live here, no creature has made themselves known yet. You’d think someone would care about the sheer amount of damage Sam is doing. (For all his virtues, Sam is a very petty man. And under the effects of the strengthening potions, destruction is just so easy). Or hear him at the very least, he’s not exactly being quiet. He’s over-prepared for a fight, and the lack of violent response to his intrusion is leaving him anxious.
Somewhat lost and confused at this point, Sam chooses his next door at random, entering into what is surprisingly recognizable as a bedroom. A bedroom for two by the looks of it. There are no doors out except the one he has entered through. He turns to leave, only to be faced with a massive gust of wind, a large mass passing close by as the door slams shut in his face. Behind him, there is the distinct sound of someone unsheathing their sword.
“What do you want?” The first Fae Sam has heard in ten years. The first Fae who will pay for the imprisonment of his brother.
Sam turns around slowly as he speaks. “I’m here for a human. Dean Winchester.” His first opponent is a pale man-shaped creature with enormous wings like night. (That explained the massive doors, at least.) It has a short silver sword like a comet’s tail, both in color and shine. It’s face is a scowl.
“Dean Winchester? You cannot have him. Not while I breathe.”
“I hoped you’d say that.” Sam lifts his weapon into full view. It’s an awe-ful, marvelous, nasty piece of work. A ball-and-chain mace made completely of iron, the ball larger than a man’s head with barbed spikes that detach themselves upon impact. Sam wields it as if it were a children’s toy, grinning beneath his helmet. He swings the mace once to demonstrate it’s heft, then swings at Dean’s captor without warning. The fight begins.
The creature ducks smoothly, darting at Sam with it’s shining sword. Sam twirls the mace once around his head as he stays out of the creature’s range. He consistently aims for the creature’s head or midsection. They continue this pattern of swing and lunge and dodge and duck, neither of them landing a blow for almost a minute. This is insanity given their cramped fighting quarters. Twice Sam has taken out a shelf, and once one of the bedposts. The creature does not react save for perhaps the slightest tightening of his mouth.
A lucky piercing maneuver cuts the strap of Sam’s pauldron, leaving his shoulder exposed. But first blood still has not been drawn. Sam uses the mace as a shield for a moment, spinning it vertically in front of him with one hand while he unhooks his pauldron with the other. The creature lunges at this weak spot, and Sam brings the mace down on his head. Or where his head had been anyway. The creature is fast, no doubt aided by strange magics for an unfair fight. Sam stops trying to be strategic then, swinging the mace without care where it lands. He’s bound to make contact eventually, and the creature is wearing no armor. Still the creature evades him, ducking and jumping and sidestepping with seemingly no effort at all. It is unflappable, and if Sam were lesser, this creature would no doubt be deadly.
As it is, the creature comes close to doing some serious damage, managing to cut Sam out of a decent portion of his armor and giving him a small wound on his shoulder. Sam can hear footsteps approaching the bedroom. The creature has back-up. It’s time to end this.
“If you surrender now, I may let you live,” the thing taunts, having the nerve to sound gracious as it does so. It can likely hear it’s friend approaching and wants Sam to surrender only to be surrounded. Sam won’t fall for that. He plants one foot behind him and begins swinging the mace in small figure eights in front of himself.
“No chance. My brother no longer belongs to you.”
“Your-” Whatever the creature was about to say next is cut off by Sam spinning in a circle, letting the momentum of the mace carry it into the creature’s stomach as it stands in momentary confusion. It goes flying into the foot of the bed, stunned and wounded as it crumples to the floor. Sam takes the opportunity to keep it there by walking over and landing a blow or two to each of the creature’s limbs, including the wings. The creature doesn’t make a sound, not even when the iron spikes detach and burn into it’s Fae skin. All Sam can hear is crunching bones and his own blood in his ears.
The footsteps grow closer and closer until the door slams open, Sam’s next opponent racing through it. “Dean,” the creature gasps from it’s position on the floor.
“Cas!” The man barreling into the room screams, taking in the scene. Sam almost gasps when he gets a good look at his face. It’s Dean. It’s his big brother, all grown up and swinging a sword at him. Gods, the thing must have him under a thrall. He’ll see a savior as a threat until it wears off.
Sam drops the mace with a crash, doing the simplest thing he can think of at the moment. This happens to be rushing Dean, letting Sam’s still-intact breastplate turn the sword, and bodily tackling his brother out the door. Right now Sam is apparently strong enough to carry a full grown man while said man kicks and screams as Sam runs. The sword’s been dropped, however, and Sam can take the damage being done by Dean’s fists.
Sam races through the dwelling once more, hoping that the perimeter of the property also serves as the limit of the thrall. Dean continues to scream and beat him, but Sam doesn’t put him down until they’re a good fifty paces from the front door of the dwelling.
“Let me go!” Dean shouts. “Let me go, let me go, put me down you sick son of a fuck, I’m gonna tear your arms off-”
“Dean, it’s me!” Sam holds him still with one hand while he removes his helmet. “It’s Sammy!”
Dean stops fighting instantly, a look of complete shock and horror on his face. “Sammy?”
“I’m here to rescue you! I know you’re probably still under the effects of the thrall, but once that thing dies you’ll be free, we can go home-”
“That thing is my husband!” This statement stops Sam’s brain for a few good moments, allowing Dean to wiggle out of his grasp and start sprinting back into the dwelling. Sam follows almost immediately, needing to know what the fuck is going on.
Sam re-emerges into the bedroom to see something he’d never expected. Dean is kneeling on the floor with the creature’s head and shoulders in his lap, those giant and now-mangled black wings attempting to cover them both. Dean is talking frantically but tenderly.
“Hey, hey, hey, Cas, babe, look at me, I got you, you’re gonna be fine.”
“Dean-”
“You dumb son of a bitch, you don’t get to die on me!”
“Dean,” the creature says in the driest tone Sam has ever heard, “my mother was not a dog.” And now the both of them on the floor are laughing and sobbing and the thing called Cas keeps touching Dean’s face.
“We’ll get some help over here, I’ll take you to the healers, they’ll fix you up, can you sit up for me sweetheart?”
“Vertical motion is not happening right now, Dean.”
“Stop that.”
“What, Dean?”
“That! Stop saying my name like every time’s gonna be the last time.”
“Dean-”
“You’re not dying!” Dean explodes. The thing called Cas sighs weakly, as if it pains him. It almost certainly does, with his body being the bloody mess it is.
“Dean, there’s iron in me. More than you could get out. A good portion of my internal organs are pulverized. I’m only breathing because the rest of me doesn’t know I’m dead yet. The healers will not be able to fix this kind of damage.”
“I’ll get someone who can fix it then, Anna’s powerful, she can do something-”
“She can’t, and you won’t find her in time. Dean, I do not wish to spend my last moments without you.” Dean lets out a terrible sob at this, burying his face in Cas’ neck. “If it helps, I do not want to go.”
“I don’t want you to go either, let’s just call the whole thing off and stay here together.”
“I would if I could.”
“What did I say about going places I can’t follow?” Dean whispers, voice almost as hoarse wrecked as Cas’. Sam is suddenly struck by the realization that he is witnessing something deeply and terribly private.
“As I recall, you didn’t say much.”
“You perv.”
“It is not perverted if between consenting adults, one of which is me.”
Dean kisses him then. “I love you so fucking much.”
“And I you, micaloz. Never forget that.”
“Couldn’t if I tried.”
Cas’ breathing suddenly worsens, the pain more obviously showing on his face. He grips Dean’s arms tight, and Dean holds him back as if with enough love he can take the pain away. “Hey, hey, stay with me.”
Cas proceeds to give Dean what is perhaps the bitchiest bitch-face in existence. “What do you think I’m trying to do, Dean?”
“Please keep trying, for me ol hoath.” Dean says with a tone of desperation.
“You’ll learn Enochian yet,” Cas breathes with a faint smile.
“You gotta stay, Cas. You gotta teach me, who’ll teach me, huh? Please, stay.”
But Cas is fading, his lungs and heart and brain finally catching onto the fact that he is dead and has been since the mace first made a home in his chest. “Goodbye, Dean.” He closes his eyes.
The next few minutes are a terrible litany of Dean begging Cas to come back, to open his eyes again, to keep fighting because they’ve beat things worse than this, haven’t they? But then a final shallow breath leaves Cas and does not return. Dean lets out a horrible noise that perhaps started as Cas’ name but becomes a howl of intense rage and grief that has nowhere to go. He is still on his knees with a dead Fae’s head in his lap.
A short eternity but only a few minutes later, Sam moves towards his brother. “Dean-” he starts, not even sure what he is going to say.
“Leave me alone.”
“But-”
“I said leave me alone! DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Sam had apparently drawn too close to Cas’ body, and Dean hunches over it defensively. He looks wild and feral and utterly heartbroken. “Stay away, Sam.” And that, more than anything, is what lets Sam know how horribly he has fucked up. It’s Sammy, not Sam. He practically flees the room, leaving the man his brother had become to mourn his husband.
Sam sits outside the dwelling until well past full dark. He doesn’t know what else to do. He is suddenly thirteen again, scared and powerless and confused, not really knowing what has just happened and understanding only that he has hurt his brother in some way that can never be atoned for.
Dean emerges eventually, what feels like hours later. Neither of them say anything for a long while, and Sam just drinks in the sight of his big brother all grown up. Where Sam has gotten tall, Dean has gotten stocky. His hands were rough and his clothing simple, hair longer than Sam had ever seen it and touching the tips of his ears. He’d gotten darker in Fae sun than he ever had in the human world, and all his exposed skin is a light brown, including his face. Sam does not want to look at Dean’s face. But he has to. Dean’s face is striped with tear tracks, eyes pink and puffy from crying. There’s a not insignificant amount of snot. Dean looks at Sam looking at him, expression unreadable.
“You can’t be here Sam,” his voice is almost a whisper, throat hoarse from screaming and crying. “When they come, you can’t be here. They will kill you for this.”
“Who’s they?”
“Our family, mostly. Some friends. Few official types.”
“Our family?”
“Me and….and Cas’.” Dean is quiet for a moment, then starts making a strange noise. It takes Sam a moment to realize that it’s a laugh. An awful morbid laugh that sounds about three seconds away from full on sobbing. “I don’t know what to do with you sometimes, Sam. You’re just...you think you break into someone’s house and kill them and there aren’t gonna be any mourners? No funerals? No shit I gotta deal with even though I really just wanna lie down next to him and never get up again?” Sam is stunned by this last comment, and even Dean looks like he’s surprised it came out of his mouth. He keeps talking anyway. “We have a niece. She’s real good with knives and she’s gonna be angry. We have friends, he has siblings-FUCK. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK what am I going to tell Anna? I promised her I’d take care of him!”
“It’s not your fault-”
Dean turns on Sam with an insanity in his eyes. “It sure as shit isn’t, Sam. I know that much. This is all on you little brother. Be damn glad I love you or I’d let them kill you.” Sam quiets instantly. “Just go, Sam. However you snuck in here, just go.”
“You won’t come with me?”
Dean snorts. “I’m not answering that. Goodbye Sam.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Sam has nothing else to say now. He wants to be angry that he's wasted ten years of his life for nothing, for a rescue attempt that Dean won't accept, but what can he say in the face of...well, this. Sam tries again anyway. "I wanted to save you." Dean doesn’t respond, just goes back into the dwelling. His dwelling, Sam realizes. Dean’s home, where Sam has just killed his husband on their bedroom floor.
Despite a good deal of instinct and common sense telling him to do otherwise, Sam stays for the funeral. Invisibly, of course. He doesn’t have a deathwish and he does have an invisibility charm. While mostly concerned with ensuring that Dean will be okay-Sam is not above kidnapping someone out of concern for their mental state-there is also the smallest bit of morbid curiosity. A Fae funeral. Specifically, a Fae funeral for his brother-in-law. Sam feels as though you should attend a wedding for your sibling before you attend said sibling’s spouse’s funeral, but he cannot change what has happened. He cannot change what he has done, no matter how much he may wish to.
The funeral is held atop a nearby hill, catching one of Fae’s sun’s first light of the day. A great number of people-some human shaped but a decent number in stranger forms-have congregated during the night, come to pay their respects. Dean is wandering among them, a glazed look in his eyes, and more than once someone has to keep him from accidentally falling down the hill. As dawn passes them by, the ceremony begins.
A dark-skinned woman holding a scythe takes charge immediately, an air of power around her. “As the representative of Death in this place in this realm, I call upon all present to honor the life lost today in the spirit of the deceased’s wishes and customs. Who may speak for the dead?”
Dean steps forward, looking half-dead himself but his voice is clear. “I do, I speak for the dead.”
“What lets you speak for the dead?” The words are ritualistic, demanding a proper answer.
“I-he was my husband. I knew him better than anyone.”
The woman extends her scythe, motioning for Dean to place his hand on it. “Name the deceased and speak their wishes.”
“Castiel, Angel of Thursday and Tears, pride of the Winged Folk of Fae, brother in name to countless, brother in practice to Anna, Gabriel, Balthazar, Samandriel, Inias, Uriel, Hannah, and Benjamin. Chosen to lead a garrison by his fellow warriors, chosen as family by his friends, chosen as uncle by Claire and Jack, chosen as husband by Dean.” The words are ritualistic, drawn out of Dean by the power of Death’s scythe. “His wishes….” here Dean pauses, grief and exhaustion slumping his shoulders. “He shouldn’t be buried. He wouldn’t want to be underground forever. I think, I think he’d have wanted to be burned.”
Death speaks again. “Those assembled, does the speaker speak true? Would this honor the dead?” A general murmur of affirmations goes up. Someone starts crying quietly. “Then we shall honor them. A pyre for the warrior, to give a body back to our land. So mote it be.”
“So mote it be,” the congregation says as one.
A pyre is quickly assembled, and Dean goes back into his home to emerge with Castiel wrapped in linens, held as carefully as if he were sleeping. Several people help Dean lift the body onto the pyre, and they clasp hands as a red-haired woman ignites it with a snap of her fingers.
People begin to talk. The Fae now burning was strange apparently, in both his speech and mannerisms, but he was no less beloved for it. Friendly to a fault, but a vicious warrior all the same. Someone mentions something about bees and half the group laughs and the rest groan. There’s a few jokes, some stories. The somber mood returns when a small blond child with wings asks “Where’s Unca Cas?” and several people make poor attempts to explain that end with the little boy crying. Several others take his bawling as permission to shed tears as well.
Dean speaks last, watching the last embers of the pyre burn down. “When I first came to Fae, I thought I was gonna die. Heard a lot of stuff about torture and prisons and you guys killing humans, and I was okay with that. There wasn’t much to recommend my life before. But you all kept me alive. Turns out you weirdos like entertainment more than death, and that scared the shit out of me. Living as someone else’s entertainment is...was the worst thing I could imagine. But Cas was different. He didn’t want to be entertained. He just wanted to talk. He cared. He was my best friend, and I’m a lucky son of a bitch for getting to marry him.” He takes a deep breath. “We got married Fae-style, and you guys promise each other forever. Real forever, because it’s real hard to die here. We promised forever, and we got four years, and I wouldn’t trade a single day of it for a life without him, but I’d give anything to have him be here with me. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. So damn good.” He stops then, no more words left in him.
And that’s the end of it. There’s a respectful silence lasting a few minutes, and then people start to depart with a variety of whispered blessings and kind words. Dean is gently escorted away by a small crowd of winged Folk, most likely Castiel’s siblings.
And that’s the end of it.
It’s been less than a day since Sam Winchester set foot in the realm of the Fae for the second time in his life. He vows then to never do so again. He’s ended his brother’s life twice now. He will not risk a third time.