Smoke

With his bonds loosened, Castiel’s vision swam. It was as though his eyes couldn’t quite focus, not for more than a moment or two, so that he saw smoke billow up in Dean, then it was gone, then he caught a flash of Dean’s colors, amber and green twining around each other, then nothing again but the shell of what Dean was.

He could see the way Dean moved, fluid and forceful, with the kind of lounging grace of a panther.

Sam stumbled back as Dean reached him, slashing with that knife so that Castiel was certain, just for a moment, that Dean had caught Sam. Wounded him.

Testing the bond, Castiel prepared to push himself from the throne. Dean was his heart, but Sam was family, too, and Castiel had lost enough family. He wasn’t losing Sam, not even for Dean.

Hannah’s look stopped him, just as he reached the point where one more inch would snap him free. Holding Castiel’s gaze just for a moment, she shook her head and mouthed a word in Enochian. Wait.

He trusted Hannah, of course he did, but Dean was closing on Sam again, his eyes black and shining, and if Castiel risked staying where he was and Sam died… Hannah didn’t understand the importance of either brother, not really. She would save them for Castiel’s sake, he was sure, if she could, but he doubted they’d be high enough on her list if she saw a chance to use the brothers’ fight as a cover to spirit Bela away.

Frowning, Hannah mouthed the word again, and Castiel sagged back. He would give her a few moments, but no more.

A roar of outrage pulled his attention fully back to Sam and Dean, to see Dean recoiling, holding his wrist. The knife hit the floor, clattering an echo in the chamber. Dean snarled, his lip curling, but there was shock there as well as anger. Wariness, even.

“How…?” he bit out. He paused, his head tilting as though he needed to see Sam from a different angle, and the expression that followed was chilling. “Where’d you get the demon blood, Sammy? You been snacking on one of my guys?”

The flick of Dean’s eyes to Bella and back to Sam was quick, but Castiel wasn’t the only one who noticed. Sam shifted, drawing Dean’s attention more fully, and Hannah’s wings flared. Bella herself stood her ground near Hannah, her chin up and her gaze fierce. From his position, Castiel could see the faint smear of blood on Bella’s arm where they didn’t wipe her skin quite clean.

Whether Dean noticed that or he was just making one of those leaps of intuition that neither Sam nor Castiel could manage, there was certainty in his next words.

“Bella. You think if I’d gotten her into bed, she’d have been on my side of this?”

And there was the smirk, which somehow Dean managed to express through his whole body, his lip quirking in a different way and his body language changing. Castiel had seen him use that exact move when trying to infuriate an opponent, the sarcastic, irreverent joker who was going to put a bullet in whoever he was currently winding up.

Hannah, less well versed in Dean, took a step forward, but Bella’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“You’d be the one switching sides,” Bella called out, and her smirk was almost as good as Dean’s. If Castiel couldn’t see how tightly she gripped Hannah’s arm, he might even have believed it.

“You think you’re that good, sweetheart?” Dean asked.

The low, simmering heat in his voice was part warning, part invitation, and Castiel wondered if that, too, was a kind of weapon.

“Leave her out of it,” Sam said. “Leave them all out of it. This is between you and me. It’s always been between you and me.”

“As above, so below, little brother?” Dean asked.

He still held his wrist wrapped in his other hand, but it no longer looked like he was cradling an injury. Dean may use Ruby’s knife or the First Blade or any other special weapon, and use them well, but he didn’t need them. The only weapon Dean really needed was Dean, and one little cut wasn’t going to change that.

Behind Dean, the demons clustered in a group, expressions rapt. As Castiel’s vision flickered between frequencies, he saw the smoke of them curl and coil in what had to be a mix of fear and excitement. Then again, if they had really been looking to change Dean back into a Knight, a full one this time, they already had to be desperate for a leader. Whichever brother won here, they’d be able to claim one. If not a Knight, if not Cain’s Heir, then a Boy King.

But the brothers hadn’t fought each other over the Earth, not even when Heaven itself had commanded it. Castiel wasn’t about to let them fight each other over Hell.

Sam thrust out an arm, hand raised and palm pointed at Dean. To Castiel’s eyes, the blast of power was a series of concentric rings, tearing at the reality around it. It caught Dean square in the chest, knocking him back, but Dean was stronger now than Alastair had been. He kept his feet, his eyes flickering from black to green to black, and the smoke inside him became a torrent.

If this particular plan was to work, Sam had to time this right. So did Castiel. He caught Bela’s eye and saw her nod.

As Dean closed on Sam, Castiel flexed, pushing the bonds further. He extended his angelic limbs as Sam brought up his left hand, closed around something, and he felt the first bond snap as Dean’s lunge brought him into contact with what Sam held.

The effect was more immediate this time. Dean’s skin flooded with marks, sigils inking themselves into being in an instant. Dean drew to a juddering halt, his eyes wide and his lips parted.

“What have you…?” he grated out.

Castiel reached Dean as he staggered back, pain and disbelief on his face, and caught him before his knees buckled. Behind Sam, Bela and Hannah crowded close, each holding a blade.

So far, the demons were held by shock and confusion, but that wouldn’t last for long. Seeing their newly acquired King in the arms of the angel they’d wanted torn apart, the demons would take action soon.

“Sam?” Castiel asked.

Sam held up his hands, now cradling the stone lamp between them.

“We’re putting the genie back in the lamp, Dean,” he said. “And we’re taking you home.”

This was the part they were least sure of, in many ways. The sigils Hannah had drawn on Sam’s hand could easily have been smudged in the fight, or might not work to get him out, let alone the rest of them. Hannah was intelligent and intent, but she lacked Castiel’s eons of work with such things.

Behind him, he saw one demon move, saw the panic that made it so dangerous, and gripped Dean more tightly.

“Sam, now!” he said.

Hannah and Bella each set a hand on Sam’s shoulders, and Castiel pushed Dean closer to his brother. Sam’s hand connected with the side of Dean’s face in an oddly tender gesture for something done so quickly and under such circumstances. But then, Castiel had often noticed the brothers could be gentle at the strangest of times. He thought it was part of how they hadn’t been broken entirely by their lives.

A moment later, Castiel felt the tug deep in his Grace, and the hellspace around him wavered. If this worked, they’d find themselves back in the Bunker, with Dean undergoing the transition back to human. They’d come up with a new plan to stop the demons from taking him again.

Under his hands, Castiel felt the smoke in Dean twist and writhe, and told himself it was part of the process. It was. They would have Dean back soon. He would have his Dean back soon.