To The Beat Of The Devil's Drums [Supernatural]

They Both Fall Down

They're lying on the floor when Cas finds them. A building burns behind them, orange flames licking at the sky while two boys lie in the dirt. It's almost peaceful. The fire is warm, the blanket of smoke thick and heavy as it wraps the brothers in its embrace and invites them to sleep forever.

Castiel doesn't know what happened. He draws closer, dread curling inside him as he curses everything that he couldn't get here sooner. He'd tried. From the first fragment of prayer that had made it through he'd listened, tried to make out the distant cry for help, but with each effort to sense where Dean was some dark force had pushed back against his grace. He'd tried to call, each dial of Dean's phone taking him to a dead line, so many calls to Sam failing...until one had been answered.

Then Cas knew. The brothers were in trouble. They needed him. And still he had no idea where they were.

Hours passed before, without warning or explanation, the dark force suddenly lifted. A desperate prayer reached his ears. "Cas, we need help..."

The angel answered. Immediately his wings carried him to where he felt the faint glimmer of two souls, only to find them lying at the foot of a metal staircase bleeding into the dirt.

It seems redundant for an angel to pray, but Cas does, pleading with a Heaven that despises him that he isn't too late. He draws closer and kneels down beside the brothers. Sam is pale as a sheet, while Dean seems to be covered in twice as much blood as he should rightly have. Even now, their bodies incline towards each other, Dean's arms around his brother as if he can surrender his unconscious body as some last vestige of protection.

Castiel reaches out his hands, one to rest on each boy's chest as he senses the life force rapidly fading inside. He touches each throat for a pulse, two heartbeats fluttering and weak, but even now in sync. It will take more power than he currently has to heal, but neither is beyond hope.

A left hand grasps onto Sam's shoulder and a right hand closes on Dean's. Castiel unfurls his wings. He's taking his boys home.