You Set My Soul Alight

Inspired this gorgeous image set from sammyxinterrupted and the accompanying AU prompt:

Cas gave Sam his soul back and put up the wall in his mind—then accidentally breaks it down during some hardcore sex.

I’m choosing not to warn you, fair readers, about what may lie ahead.

You Set My Soul Alight

Sam’s soul’s burning a hole in Cas’ hand.

That’s what it feels like, in the moment before his fist strikes home.

The boy’s body ripples, a wave of pain through bone and flesh no longer independent. Grounded, again, in a kind of humanity, of ache, the boy hasn’t known for a year.

And the soul, God. It’s in tatters.

Once, Cas might have minded. Might have been concerned for the boy’s safety. Worried, even, about the state of the creature before him, writhing in fear. Brown eyes drowning in torment.

Yes. He would have, once.

But now, he just watches. Waits for the storm to subside.

Sam takes a breath, heaves air into his lungs and wails. One last time. The sound of the soulless.

Then he lifts his head, a boulder held by thread.

“Cas?” he moans, jagged and frail. “Castiel. What happened?”

“You died,” Cas says, harsh. “You died and I brought you back. And now your soul is back, as well.”

He flicks his wings and moves out, moves away and bids the door to slam behind.

The boy cries out, panicked, and perhaps, Cas thinks absently, shifting himself home. To Heaven. He should have unbound the man before he left.

The blade in his hand, though. It burns that thought away. Leaves only fury behind.

**

He returns to the boy, to Sam, in time.

He’s hoarse from screaming, his body rubbed raw by the knots Cas seems to have tied too tight. But that is irrelevant, for Cas bids him be free at once.

Sam flings himself up, tries to stand all at once, but his body rebels. His face bounces hard off the metal, off the dirty shine on the floor.

There’s blood.

Cas watches it pool crimson slick. Waits for the boy to stop weeping.

He doesn’t. Keeps at it, tears smearing his blood. His mouth moving over a word. The only one that mattered to Cas, once.

“Dean,” the boy moans. “Dean. Dean.”

Dull. Cas feels dull, even as he throws out his wings and brings his Grace full to bear. He doesn’t have time for this, for the boy on the floor or the sick tug in his gut, the one that wears the name: Dean.

“Get up,” he commands. Treats the boy like the soldier that he is. Cas’ soldier, one more weapon in his army.

Cas’ voice, it compels. And the boy stands, meets Cas’ eye. Trembling.

“Is this real?” Sam whispers.

Cas doesn’t answer. Just taps his fingers on Sam’s forehead and pushes.

“This is a wall,” he says in the boy’s ear. In his mind. “It will hold the not-real at bay, Sam. Keep you here with me now. But you must not touch it. Leave it be, leave this part of me be, in your mind, or else you’ll be back there. As you have been. Lucifer will be your master, Sam. Not me. And I am far kinder to my pets than he. Do you understand?”

The boy nods, his head and his heart in time.

“Yes,” he breathes. “Cas. I understand.”

“Good,” Cas says. “Sam. That is good.”

He pats the boy’s cheek and stops. Holds the flesh under his hand and strokes. Rests for a moment in the is-like in Sam’s face. The Dean that Cas can see there. Can feel.

The boy’s bloody and torn and barely coherent as a man and Cas can’t resist it. Him. He pulls Sam’s face down, takes the boy’s weight on his Grace, and kisses him eager and wet. Licks the rust from lips not-Dean and closes his eyes.

The boy does nothing, at first, a great slack dummy. But then Cas feels his soul alight, feels the part of this being that is Dean’s brother, John’s son, spark. It rushes to him, flings itself at his Grace and moans, reaches, wants. Lives again.

“Is this real?” Sam asks.

“Yes,” Cas says. “Yes. I am.”

The boy, he jams his tongue into Cas’ mouth and his cock into Cas’ hip. And Cas, he wades through the blood, the dirt, and what might once have been guilt and takes all the boy can give. Fucks him over the back of the chair, furious, their feet tangled in rope and Cas’ hand ripping into the boy’s hair until Sam comes, shoots white over black and red. It’s so like Dean, the clench of his body, the sound of his screams, the bittersweet taste of his come. So like and not-like that Cas’ cock can’t tell the difference. Even if what was once his heart can.

He shoots in the boy’s body, then, drives red from his hips as he fucks. Gives himself over to the Hell he’s made for himself, the one he’s consigned the boy to, the one from which he may never escape, now. Without Dean.

**

Even with his soul, Sam’s the best fighter in Cas’ army.

He’d been worried, back when he still cared, that the damage his brothers had done to it, that soul, would destroy Sam’s body should it ever be restored.

But Dean had been insistent.

“Please, Cas,” he’d begged, in those last moments of his life. “You gotta promise. I can rest easy, ok, knowing that Sam’s himself again. That I ain’t leavin’ the robot behind. Come on, Cas. Promise. Promise me.”

And that Cas, the one he’d been before, had wept at the sight of Dean’s body shredded and bled. At the life leaking out of his eyes, his mouth. What was left of his gut.

“Yes,” he’d sobbed. “Dean. I will. I promise. I will.”

Dean’d squeezed his fingers, a ghost of a smile amongst the gore. “Baby,” he’d breathed. “Ok. Ok. I’ll see you. See you soon.”

The Righteous Man rested, then. His soul slipped away to a heaven that Cas was told he could not enter. To which he was denied entry.

“No,” Joshua told him, gently. “Castiel. It is forbidden. Leave him be. Let him wait for his soulmate in peace.”

Peace. Something Dean’d never had, after Hell. After Cas.

And now, in his absence, peace was something Cas knew he’d never find again.

It was Crowley who reminded him, who slunk in and shook out what had once been Sam.

“Partner,” he said, cheerful. “I believe you’ve promised to make something from this material, yeah? Went to a lot of trouble to fetch it for you.”

“Not now,” Cas gritted. “Crowley. We have more important things to worry about than—”

“Oh, no. That’s where you’re wrong, peach.” Crowley caught his hand in one jagged edge of Sam. “You’re hurting, still. Even I can see that. Without the green-eyed monster at your side. So. Why not take a moment of of your busy smiting day and fulfill the man’s dying wish, eh? Surely, my friend”—and here he smiled, beguile and teeth—“surely. That will bring you some solace, yes?”

“No,” Cas said again, that time.

And the next. And the next.

When he was ready, he didn’t ask for permission. Just took a little corner of Hell as his own and dropped Sam’s body in. Took the soul shards from Crowley’s person and set about making things right.

But of course, he hadn’t.

For a time, Sam fought at his side. Back to back with blades turning, mindful and set only on the mission. At Cas’ command, yes. As Dean had never been.

It seemed that Sam without Dean was deadlier than Sam without his soul, and of this, Cas took advantage.

The boy never even asked why. Took Cas at his word—“they killed Dean, Sam”—and then plunged to battle like he was born for it. In truth, perhaps he had.

Legion after legion fell before them, Raphael’s followers scattered like wasps by the hundreds, dead and dying and lost.

“It’s our time now,” Cas would whisper, his nails in Sam’s neck, his cock hot deep in the boy’s mouth. “Ours.”

And Sam would look up, brown not-green, and nod. Pull his head back and catch Cas’ come in his face.

“Ours,” he’d murmur, tongue dragging on the white. “Now.”

Cas gave Sam more than he should. Gave him leave to move through Heaven at will, like an angel might: no sound no warning no whisper, until Sam’s face seemed always scorched by someone else’s wings, little traces of all he had slain.

Cas would lick that skin, taste the tears of his fallen brothers and sisters, yes, and make Sam fuck matching bruises into his hips, long fingers burned into Castiel’s not-flesh.

Something Dean would never do. Leave a sign of himself on Cas, like that.

Not-Dean. Not-Cas.

They caught Alphas and ripped up Heaven. And when the time came, with Crowley’s help, they split Purgatory.

Sam held him and helped him swallow the multitudes. Kissed the black back into his mouth when they rebelled. Kept Castiel the general in one piece.

Still. He was weakened.

He let the boy do more than he should. Let him lead a garrison. Bid them follow. And they did.

“Your boy’s good,” Crowley said, sipping daintily at his own set of souls.

“Yes,” Cas sighed. “He has no need of me now.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. All men have need of their god, don’t you think?”

Cas closed his eyes. It hurt him to see Crowley, sometimes. Once, some part of him would have mourned how far he’d fallen, more at home in Hell than in any part of Heaven.

“Gods have need of their men,” he said.

He left the battles in others’ hands and went to see Joshua again. Joshua, whose garden lay safe by Cas’ order, guarded by some of his most trusted brethren.

But that wasn’t enough.

“No,” Joshua said, patient. “Castiel. You cannot. It is forbidden by someone more important than I.”

“No one is more important than I,” Cas growled.

Joshua didn’t flinch in the face of the blade.

“Castiel,” he sighed. “My friend. This will change nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Cas said, and reveled in the sound of Grace breaking.

But Joshua was right. Even with all his power, with the path cleared by all means he knew possible, Cas still could not go to Dean. Could not see him or touch him or hear his voice and oh, Cas was terrible in his wrath.

He burned the garden, his guards, the whole swath of Heaven around and still. No Dean.

Sam found him crumpled and aching, souls leaking out of his eyes, his mouth. Carried him home, laid him out on bloody, silken sheets. The boy, he pulled out his cock, flushed and beautiful and alive, and painted Cas pure with his come, hissing: “Our time now, Cas. Ours.”

In the end, they claimed what was left of Heaven and left Crowley munching happily on Hell and most of the lower 48.

“Leave the rest be,” Cas said, tried to command, but the monsters within him had long ago devoured his voice. So Sam said it for him. And the multitudes, angels and demons alike, they listened.

Sam left him in their room, in that little corner of Hell Cas had long ago claimed as his own.

“To rest,” he said, eyes gleaming, fingers streaming through Cas’ hair. “You’re so tired, Castiel.”

“Yes,” Cas breathed, battered body bare. “I’m tired, Sam.”

“Good,” Sam murmured, tugging at his belt. “Good boy. Just lie there, baby. I’ll take care of you.”

He let Sam be too much like, in the end.

Let the boy—his weapon—lick him open, ignore his cock and drive hard into his body. Deep. Let Sam push him over that old forgotten chair and fuck him until Cas was screaming, the souls inside of him shrieking, until Sam’s hands pulled blood from Cas’ long-dead flesh.

“Fuck, yes,” Sam moaned in his ear. “Take it, Cas. Goddamn it. Take it, you son of a bitch!”

And Cas, he felt it the moment before it happened—that crack in the wall, that little part of him he’d tacked up inside of Sam so long, so long ago.

When it broke, Sam not-Sam Lucifer, it broke Castiel, too. Snapped his vessel in half and came like a banshee as he-it-angel drove the blade home. Grace souls Cas: done.

“Oh Cas,” Dean sighed, breath sweet under the wind.

Cas sat up. Took in the fields, the lake, the love of his life at his side.

Heaven.

“Dean!” he cried, face twisting to remember joy.

Dean stood up, his face soft and sad. Didn’t turn. Didn’t look down.

Cas reached for him, urgent. “Dean!” he said again.

He felt flesh and bone. The hum of pulse familiar under his palm.

But when he yanked, frantic, tried to pull Dean back to his side—his hands slipped over Dean’s body like ice.

Heard Lucifer’s voice in his ear.

“Little brother,” he purred. “Don’t manhandle the merchandise.”

Castiel turned, ripped his eyes from the beauty for which he’d ached for so long. So long.

Sam smiled. Stroked his cheek, dirty and certain. “You’re not here, for him. He can’t see you. Your beloved Dean. But you can. See him, hear him, even put your hands on his body, yes. But he’ll never see you. Never hear your voice. Never feel your touch, Castiel.” He sighed. “You were his soul mate, you know. Once. But, oh, what you’ve become, brother. The way you’ve stained your Grace. He doesn’t want you anymore.”

Cas screamed, hurled himself at Sam. Sam, who laughed, who caught him with two fingers like a moth, a broken butterfly. Held him at arm’s length.

Beside them, Dean let his breath out in a rush.

“Cas,” he whispered again. “Oh, Cas. Where are you, baby?”

Cas closed his eyes. Let the tears come.

“Is this real?” he whispered.

Sam kissed him, petals over flesh.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. I am. And so, Castiel, are you.” He smiled, soft curve in Cas’ cheek. “This. This is my gift to you.”

He was gone before Cas could shriek, or even draw a breath, and he knew where he was, then.

Not in Heaven. No. In his own little corner of Hell.