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The thing was that Dean had tried. He'd said goodbye to Bobby and driven to Lisa's house. The first two weeks he couldn't remember clearly, but he had alternated between drinking, crying, and sleeping. One evening he looked up and saw Ben staring at him.
"What?" he grumbled.
Ben jumped. "Nothing. I was just going to put my backpack upstairs."
Tears started to flow down Dean's cheeks. He recognized the look on Ben's face. He'd worn that look. Sam had worn that look. That was the look of a kid trying hard not to piss off the scary drunk guy.
So Dean cleaned up. He still drank, but kept most of it until after Ben's bedtime. He came to meals, though he didn't eat much. He tried to talk to Lisa and Ben. He didn't have much to talk about, but he could ask how their days had been and listen to the answer.
A week into the new routine he started taking over the housework. Lisa quirked an eyebrow at the clean kitchen. "What's with all this?"
Dean shrugged, but he managed a little smile. It felt good, looking after Lisa and Ben. It helped fill the giant hole Sam had left behind. "Hey Lis," he said, "how about I drive Ben to school tomorrow? That way you won't have to rush."
It was just that easy. One day, one task at a time. It wasn't what he wanted, but he'd promised; and all of this had come from his inability to be without Sam the last time. (How is it possible for a memory to hurt like Cold Oak still did?)
"It's only a weekend. You could come?" Lisa asked again. Dean plastered on his fake smile.
"It's fine. I'm going to sleep in and re-caulk the tub upstairs."
"I know," Lisa said, chewing her lip. "I just feel guilty leaving your here alone."
"Lisa- GO!" Julie needs your opinion on hair colour and leggings and girly crap. And I am just not up for that much pink..."
"Ass," Lisa said, snorting.
"Mom, I'm ready!" yelled Ben, running down the stairs with a clatter.
"See ya Ben"
"Bye Dean," And Ben gave Dead a quick hug before grabbing his backpack and running to the car.
"Bye." Lisa smiled before kissing Dean's cheek.
He had good intentions. But the house was too quiet. Quiet was both good and bad. Good, because it made it easier, not having to deal with people and pretend. Bad because without the constant struggle to act like a civilian, he saw Sam everywhere.
Ben's forgotten soccer ball reminded him of taking young Sam to practices. A TV commercial reminded him of Sam mocking him for his love of Dr. Sexy. Stripping the mouldy caulking reminded him that Sam had never had a real home of his own to look after.
The last though tipped Dean into an emotional outburst. "Fuck!" he yelled, throwing the tool he was using into the bathroom mirror with a resounding crash. Dean stared blankly at the mess for a moment before he marched downstairs to the whiskey bottle. A few big gulps straight from the bottle and he stopped feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin. At least long enough to get a cup.
A couple of hours later he remembered the mess in the bathroom and stumbled upstairs to sweep up the broken glass. It didn't go well. Somehow, he fell and cut a big slice up his right arm.
Staring at the inches of bloody skin broke the dam, and Dean sobbed. He sobbed because he would have to find someone to stitch up his right arm, and he could have done it himself it it was his left arm. He cried because his brother wasn't there to bitch at him for such a stupid injury and he missed him so damn much. And most of all he cried because that cut reminded him that his beloved baby brother was in hell, subject to an angry Lucifer and it was stupid to cry about his arm when things were so much worse for Sam.
Dean cried, and sat, and watched the blood run down his arm. That might have been the end of everything, had Castiel not chosen that moment to pop in. "Hello Dean. Is something... oh." he said, spotting the gash amidst the broken glass. "Dean, you are injured. Why haven't you tried to stop the bleeding?"
Dean sniffed, "Never mind Cas. Why are you here?"
Cas quirked his head to the side. "I thought I heard you call out for me," he said uncertainly. "But I gather that I am mistaken. I will leave."
"Wait!!" Dean said before Cas could disappear. "Cas, just... wait. I need... I need some help here."
Moments later his arm was healed, and the mirror was fixed.
"Is that everything?" Cas asked.
"Can ya stay a minute?"
"A few. I have my duties, but they will wait."
Downstairs, Dean handed Cas a glass of water. "Dean, I do not need to consume liquids."
"I know, just..." Dean trailed off. "Cas I can't do this anymore. We gotta get Sam out."
“I know that he told you not to do this,” Cas began, “He was so concerned about the possibility of you trying something that he came to me separately, telling me not to help you.”
Dean groaned, wiping a hand over his face. Cas wasn’t going to help him.
“However,” Castiel continued, “I believe that a large portion of Sam’s request came from his own belief that he somehow deserved to go to hell. Since I do not agree with that belief, I agree with you. We must find a way to free Sam.”
It wasn’t going to be easy. Cas was able to convince a few more angels to help them. But that still wasn’t enough – legions had laid siege to hell to retrieve Dean. Four weren’t going to cut it. Especially since Sam’s body had jumped too – they would need to bring it back as well, and that didn't touch on the fact that the cage was in the very deepest part of Hell.
But when Dean took a weekend trip to Bobby’s, hoping to broach the subject with him, Bobby started to get excited.
“I was looking for something else when I came across this Babylonian Summoning spell from way back in pre-biblical days. You know, when angels were on earth the first time?”
Dean nodded. He was only following about half of the story but knew from experience that it would take longer if he tried to skip to the end. Bobby liked to get his geek on and did not take kindly to being interrupted.
“And it seemed to be aimed specifically at summoning a human trapped by angels. But it was designed for a skilled magic user. So a witch, or a demon or”
“Or an angel. Or a few.”
Bobby smiled, his eyes twinkling. “I didn’t want to bring it up with you, in case it turned out to be nothing and then you turned up with the other half of the problem.”
Dean didn’t say anything. He was too shocked. He’d not expected this to be simple – he’d been fully prepared to wait months for a lead, to spend hours digging through dusty old books. And he wasn’t sure, but he hated giving names to his feelings, even in his own head, but he suspected that long wait he was expecting was why he hadn’t told Lisa what he was doing.
He should have, of course. But it all seemed so far away when they were eating a workday dinner in the kitchen.
“So, are you still going up to Bobby’s this weekend?” Lisa asked as she added weird goat cheese to her salad.
Dean nodded. “Yeah,” he said, trying to think of a reason other than ‘finalizing plans to rescue Sam from Lucifer’s cage’ but failing.
“Do you guys have any plans? Fishing? Hunting…HUNTING?”
Dean choked on his mashed potatoes. “No – no. I don’t do that anymore Lis.”
“Then why twice in a month? You’ve hardly seen the guy since you got here.”
Dean looked out of the corner of his eye at Ben. Lisa looked at Dean, and then at Ben. No one said anything.
Ben rolled his eyes. “Hey Mom. Can I eat my dinner in front of the TV with the volume turned all the way up while the adults talk about boring adult things? I can? Thanks.” He finished his sarcasm by picking up his plate and walking out.
“He’s a good kid.”
“He is,” said Lisa. “And he’s right,” she added as the sound of the TV came blaring in from the Living room.
“About what?”
“You’re up to something.” Lisa took a triumphant bite.
“Oh really?” Dean snorted. “What kind of something?”
“Something from your old life.”
“Not… really.” Dean sighed. “Bobby and Cas may have figured out a way to raise Sam from the Cage.” Dean was bizarrely proud that his voice didn’t break on ‘Sam’ or ‘Cage’.
Lisa stared at him with her mouth open. “What? Dean! And you weren’t going to tell me? Are you just going back to hunting and poof?” Her voice rose as she started to get angry.
“No!” Dean was frustrated. “Lis, we don’t know what shape he’s going to be in, or even if it’s going to work.”
“I see,” said Lisa, focusing on her plate. “So, when you say you don’t know what condition he’s going to be in….”
Dean groaned, swiping a hand over his face. “Time moves differently in hell,” he said, and then cleared his throat. Lisa said nothing. Dean had let her know about his trip downstairs a few months ago, so at least she didn’t ask how he knew. “Where I was, a month here was equal to about ten years there. Sam,” this time his voice did break, but he cleared his throat and moved on, “is in a much deeper part. We don’t know how long it’s been for him. And we can guess what he’s going through, but who knows really.”
Lisa, who’d been nodding along to encourage Dean, screwed up her face as she thought about it. “So he’s going to need some recovery time.”
Dean nodded.
She looked at him and took a deep breath. “So, do you have a plan?”
“No, Lisa, I don’t have a plan. Because I can’t even let myself think about what happens if this works. So I don’t have a plan, and I didn’t tell you about it.” He pushed his plate back. “I’ll go pack.”
“Pack?” Lisa jumped up and got between Dean and the stairs. “Pack for what?”
“I’ll go Lis, just… let me say goodbye to Ben?”
“I’m confused. Where are you going?”
“I’m getting my issues and my fucked-up family away from you and Ben.”
“Dean, will you give me a friggin’ minute to think before you run away please?”
Dean gave her his mean, tough guy glare, but he sat down at the table and folded his arms. Lisa took a minute to do some deep breathing exercises at the sink while she filled a glass of water.
“Ok, look. Am I happy that you kept this from me? No. But realistically you are a part of this family. Which means that S…” she cut the name off as Dean’s glare got more intense. “Your brother is part of this family too.” No reaction from Dean beyond a quirked eyebrow. “So, he will always have a home here if he needs one.”
“Lisa are you sure?” Dean’s expression was suddenly full of hope and it made him look years younger. Lisa wasn’t as sure as she made herself out to be – sick people made her uncomfortable – but she didn’t want Dean to leave. Besides, she couldn’t picture the tall, smiling, sarcastic brother that she remembered staying with them for too long.
Dean was about the jump out of his skin. Four months of research had gone into this one ritual. Cas had had to do some serious searching for some of the ingredients. Time travelling to ancient Rome for some herb that was extinct, they’d all had to brainstorm on how to get an archangel’s feather, since Raphael was the only one left. Finally, one of Cas’ friends, Manakel, had gone to Raphael and begged.
Cas had been very surprised by the results. “Raphael has been to see me,” he told Dean.
“Crap, what did he want?”
“He gave me this,” Castiel showed Dean a deep brown feather.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Indeed, it is one of his feathers. He also gave me this.” Cas pulled out a small vial of water. “Holy water that he has made himself. With his best wishes.”
Dean snorted. “Where were his best wishes when we were going up against Lucifer alone? Where was he when Sam…” Dean trailed off, swallowing hard.
Cas cleared his throat. “He has had what you would call a ‘change of heart’. Heaven needs kinder leadership, needs it to be more cohesive, before it tears itself apart and takes the Earth with it. Raphael cannot be seen helping us. But, neither does he stop us, and he gave us what help he could.”
Dean snorted again but didn’t say anything.
“I think using these particular items will help Sam, when we summon him.”
“How? Other than adding more mojo to the spell?”
“Raphael is the angel associated with healing. I feel that adding these objects infused with his grace to the spell can only help heal Sam.”
Dean nodded but could say nothing around the lump in his throat. Because that was the wild card in all of this. What state would Sam be in when they got him back? It would be a little over a year since he jumped, as the ritual could only be performed on the blue moon. That was a minimum of 120 years of torture. The angels were all assuming that it would be more. 40 years of hell had left him an alcoholic, raging, scared, emotional mess. After 3 times as long, with no offer of escape? Dean shook his head to stop this line of thought.
“Yeah, yeah, healing is good. So what else do we have to do?”
“We can do nothing. Bobby is preparing the Psyllium, Manakel, Charmeine and Afriel have translated the spell from Sumerian to Enochian to increase its accuracy. And we have you and your blood to provide a focal point – blood calls to like blood.”
Dean nodded as he began to pace around the backyard. He knew all this. Cas knew he knew all this. The stakes were so high, and Cas was trying to be reassuring in his own geek-angel way.
“We are doing everything we can Dean.”
“I know Cas. We just can’t afford to screw this up. Sammy is counting on us.”
A few weeks later it was time. They were on a hill, with a river to one side and a forest to the other. It was the second night of the Blue Moon. Bobby started chanting and Cas joined him for some parts. If it wasn’t for the fact that this ritual would (should?) bring Sam back, then he would have found it incredibly boring.
As it was, he had memorized each syllable, each motion. He knew the meaning of each ingredient and the order they should be used in. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this nervous.
Cas began drawing on a large rock with a piece of chalk and all the angels began to hum. Not chanting, no Enochian, just a wordless hum. It was a wondrous, multi toned chord.
The sound made the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand up. Bobby knelt next to the rock and emptied a bucket of dirt (Not dirt - ‘loam’ from a northern forest) into a hole they’d pre-dug. On top of that he placed Raphael’s feather. The pitch of the wordless angel song grew and changed. New notes were added, some moved, producing a sound that had Dean swelling with sadness and grief.
Bobby carefully sprinkled the Raphael-blessed holy water in a circle around the feather. Cas, finished with his drawing, knelt next to Bobby. Together they spread the Holy Oil soaked, extinct herb on top of the feather.
Once they lit the feather and herb on fire, everyone began to move. The angels spread out, Dean moved forward, cut his arm and bled thoroughly on the small fire, thereby completing his only job.
Bobby’s voice got louder – sounding almost like it was tinged with the angel magic that was spread throughout the space. The fire grew brighter and brighter until Dean had to look away. The sound became the true voices of the angels leaving Dean and Bobby to cover their ears. It felt like it went on forever.
And then it stopped. Stopped except for on voice. One very human voice screaming. “GEN-GE!!!!”
Sam. Naked, bleeding, screaming something that wasn’t English, but Sam.
They’d done it.