[DCBB 2012] Angelhawke - Part V, Epilogue
Title: Angelhawke
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, minor Anna/Gabriel and Bobby/Ellen
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 418,000 (no, seriously)
Warnings: Very, very long. Includes graphic violence, homophobia and internalised homophobia, torture, death of minor characters; brief mentions of rape and past suicide attempts; explicit sex: comeplay, rimming, exhibitionism, intercrural, frottage; top!Dean, top!Cas. Heavy on blasphemy, purposeful historical inaccuracies, and swearing. Male/male slash. And... British spelling.
Summary: A Dean/Cas Fantasy-Drama AU, set in a medieval world where two men are separated by a curse: every sunrise and sunset, both are eternally bound to transform into animals. Every night when darkness falls, Dean Winchester becomes a wolf, and his human mind is lost until the dawn. As the sun rises, his lover Castiel becomes a hawk. Their story has been the same for five years - until the day that a young thief named Sam stumbles into their twisted lives. Without even realising it, he becomes a part of their destiny, their paths entwined in prophecy and fate. Together with a few old friends, they set off on a journey to break the curse, but it won’t be easy. To pass the time, Dean and Castiel take turns to recount their past to Sam, narrating the tale of how they met, how they formed their profound bond, and how they found themselves wanting what no man should ever want: the touch of another man. ‘Angelhawke’ is a saga of forbidden love, friendship, and magic - but above all, family. Partially based on the 1985 movie 'Ladyhawke'.
The first time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, they were made of lightning. They’d taken no power of Castiel’s own to create, all he had to do was sit there and they showed themselves at his back.
Bright, powerful. Beautiful.
The night Dean saw those wrinkles of crackling light, he declared it the best night of his life so far.
Then the storm came.
It was five years before Dean ever saw Castiel’s face again, let alone his wings.
~
The second time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, Dean had a brother.
They had been on the road for two months, after a long delay in the start of what Castiel insisted on calling their ‘honeymoon’.
Stay for a few days first, Ellen said. Days turned into weeks, weeks went by and made a month. Dean had never had a better month in all of his life.
By the time they left the Roadhouse, their ‘honeymoon’ became nothing other than an eternally extended road trip. Gabriel was happy, anyway. They all were.
Springtime came, and the thawed roads became easier to drag the cart over; a broken wheel or a misplaced axel was far less common an occurrence.
Castiel took Dean’s hand and led him to the edge of a cliff. Sam followed them. It probably said a little more about their relationship than Dean would care to dwell on.
Take my hand, Castiel said to Sam.
Sam didn’t hesitate. Like Dean, he never did.
They leaned into the spring wind, carried along on updrafts through the valley. It was dust, and fresh leaves, pollen and flowers and gentle caress.
Okay, so maybe seeing the wings was a bit of a stretch, but Dean felt them.
He felt them at his back, he felt them in the power of how they held to the cliff, in the way that they weren’t falling.
Not yet.
Castiel turned his face to Dean and honest-to-God winked.
Then they were falling. Castiel was laughing, Dean was screaming, Sam was doing some of both.
The wings this time were made of air.
Powerful, moving, like a safety hold over Dean’s back.
They landed in the ravine on a bed of thunder, the sound of it echoing like a monstrous creature up and down the valley. Dean fancied it even blew a few trees over.
The three of them lay on the soft ground, looking up at the sky and laughing.
Do you think we’ll ever get to Heaven?
I don’t know.
~
The third time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, it was the first summer he’d spent with Castiel since the summer they first met.
The sun was kind on the angel’s face, and its warmth touched his skin like a kiss.
When he woke up beside Dean, neither of them could do anything but smile. They would kiss and make love, whenever the mood took them. Sam grew used to knowing when it was about to happen, and took the horses away to give them some privacy.
Gabriel was a great friend. Lucifer too. While Lucifer had been gifted the power to speak by Castiel, he always chose to remain silent. It seemed he liked how much he could say with only his eyes. Sam learned to speak his language.
This time, Sam lost track of where Dean and Castiel had run to. They’d left their clothes behind, and they’d been gone for hours.
They were in a field. It probably belonged to nobody, and the grass was waist-high. They chased each other until they couldn’t any more, then they rolled in the grass until their skin was sore and the grass was flat. Then Castiel stood, smiling. Dean had wanted to make love, but Castiel wanted to give him something else, first.
Turning his back, he strode away, and Dean scrambled to his feet to watch―
Feathers created themselves from the dirt of the ground, the stalks of broken grass. Green leaves, dandelion seeds. Wings spread from Castiel’s shoulder blades, Castiel turning half back to smile down at Dean, proud.
He was proud of his wings. He was proud of his angelic nature. But as Dean saw the glimmering debris, shining in the sun like dew on grass in the morning, he saw how human Castiel was. How flawed, how the dirt his wings were made from was every bit like the dirt on his soul.
Dean loved him for it. He loved the flaws.
He told Castiel so.
It was the first time he’d ever said the words so directly, the first time he’d said it so Castiel could hear.
They kissed, so slowly.
Dean’s feet left the ground before he’d even noticed. They were six feet above the Earth, turning so their bodies met, held up not by flapping wings, but only by the power of Castiel’s Grace. They were resting on a bed of glitter, still shiny in the light. Dust had never seemed so glorious.
They made love in the air, the wings eventually brushing away on the gentle wind. Dean’s whole weight was carried by Castiel’s hands, pressing handprints into his skin as the angel’s palms held his flesh.
They landed back on the ground, shaking with exhaustion and pleasure and love.
Dean’s favourite handprint was one on his arm, just by his shoulder. He didn’t know how Castiel had pressed so hard there; it wasn’t a weight-bearing touch, as all his weight had been on his hips as Castiel held him.
It was a mark, a brand.
Dean liked it.
He joked about getting it tattooed there, but he never finished the thought before he caught Castiel’s eye.
Brand me with it, he said. Put it there so it’s always there.
Make me yours.
You don’t belong to me, Castiel said.
I want to.
Dean never showed the mark to Sam. He hid it under his shirts, turned himself away should he ever undress in Sam’s presence.
It wasn’t shame that made him hide it. Simply that the mark on his arm was for Castiel’s eyes only.
Eventually he just stopped being unclothed if Sam was around. He went out of his way to make sure he never was. Sam never knew why the change had happened, but he was glad. He’d seen his brother naked and making love far too many times.
~
The fourth time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, Sam was there too.
The leaves were turning brown, falling. The air was golden, and hummed with the rise and fall of a thousand calling insects, screaming for a last mate before they were lost to the winter. It was still warm - hot, even.
They stopped their horses by a stream, Sam laughing and calling something about cutting Gabriel’s mane. Gabriel had learned to roll his eyes.
Castiel wandered some way ahead, where the trees were a little thinner and the sun broke directly overhead, washing them in scattered light. It was like he was walking over a shimmering pond, of packed earth and flattened leaves rather than water.
Dean, he said.
Dean looked up. Castiel was smiling again.
Dean knew that smile. That was the smile Castiel gave him before showing him something wonderful. Lovemaking, also. But this was no time for that, so Dean whacked Sam’s arm and pointed to the angel.
Now he had everyone’s attention, Castiel turned away, walking very slowly. The sunlight rippled over his body, mostly lost in his dark hair. His hair was the longest that Dean had ever seen it, pulled up in thick spikes on his head, a few strands curving down over his face. It was perfect for holding on to, whenever Castiel pushed inside him. Slick and heavy and thick inside him...
Dean snapped his mind back to the present, and then he gaped in awe.
Lifting from Castiel’s back was his magnificent pair of wings, feathers this time constructed from autumn leaves, picked up off the ground by a breeze that came from nowhere.
The wings were bigger than ever; stretching Castiel’s full height to either side of him, the tops of them reaching straight out, rising; the rest like jagged semi-circles beneath.
Dean could make out impossible muscles. He knew a bird’s wing, he’d had five years to learn how birds work. While similar, these angel wings were bent a little differently; the leaves rippled like a coat along their edge, flashing bright in the sun.
Sam laughed, a hand to his head in astonishment. Gabriel was silent, for once.
Dean only smiled, the beat of his heart in time with the pulses that the wings gave, beating other leaves up from the ground.
Castiel had a storm at his back.
That was the last time Dean ever saw Castiel’s wings, at least like that.
~
Once.
Once more.
Dean doesn’t want to count this one.
Winter came. They’d almost been travelling a year, and they were still not tired of it. They never would be. This would go on forever.
Dean had hoped so, anyway.
He knew his angel was mortal. He knew he could die, and he could die like any human. Castiel and he had discussed it at great length, often with input from Sam and Gabriel.
There was no Heaven awaiting Castiel if he died as an angel, not one that included Dean. They’d been looking for a way to change that, but no option presented itself.
The way it had happened was always unclear to Dean. He wasn’t there until the last moment. Sam had been the one to try and protect the angel (not that he needed it), but he always said it happened too fast to comprehend.
Afterwards, Castiel said it felt like falling. Pleasant, like there was that cushion of air to catch him. It didn’t hurt, he said.
Dean didn’t believe him.
The hatred that humans were capable of was always too great for any of the men to understand. Dean gritted his teeth and sank to his knees, failing to hold in a tear. A single tear, that hit the sand and buried itself in a second.
Castiel was dead, body spread out across packed sand like he might have been sleeping. Were it not for the lash of blood through his chest, Dean would have believed it.
Black, charred wings.
They pooled out from behind Castiel’s shoulders like someone had dragged a leftover stick from the fire through the ground, marking out feathers and muscles and the edges of the bone, where the elbows bent when Castiel lifted them wide.
He can’t be dead, Sam said.
Feel his heart.
It’s not beating.
A shadow fell over them; not grief, not loss, but death.
Capital-D Death.
I can save him, Death said. I knew it would come to this, I have been waiting for this day. But I cannot simply give life, something must be given in return.
A gift. Dean was ready to give his freely.
No, Sam said.
Half of Dean’s remaining life, to be given to the angel. They would each live a life half as long as Dean’s might have been otherwise. They might live another five, ten years, each.
No, Sam said.
Why do you do this? Sam asked Death. Why are you so willing to help one man, one angel? Only Castiel. Every other man, woman and child, they die without respite from death.
Because, Death said, Castiel is my family.
He looked at Sam, then at Dean. The brothers caught each other’s eye.
You would do anything for your family, wouldn’t you?
Yes.
Half a life, to be given to Castiel. Do you agree? Death asked.
No, Sam said.
Shut up, Sam, said Dean.
Sam placed his hand over Castiel’s heart, fingers sliding against Dean’s.
I give my life, also, he said. One third of my life, one third of Dean’s. Gift them both to Castiel.
Death inclined his head. You will die together. When the end comes, you will all pass as one.
Do it.
I cannot make him an angel, Death stated. His Grace is gone along with his second life.
Dean and Sam looked at each other. Human’s not so bad.
Do it.
Death removed Dean’s shirtsleeve. What are you doing?
This is the only way, Death said. This is where his life is kept. He gave part of his soul to you.
Sam blanched as he saw the handprint on Dean’s arm. It was raised and swollen, redder than his skin. It was a scar, but one that Dean was not ashamed of, like so many of his other scars. He was Castiel’s.
Death put his hand over it, and Dean was less uncomfortable about that than he thought he might be. Castiel was coming back, that was all that mattered.
As a human, he could die once their life ran its course, and Castiel’s Heaven could be with Dean. Like he wanted.
The heart under Dean and Sam’s hands began to beat. Dean laughed, eyes closed. He didn’t need to see to know that Castiel was looking at him.
Death was gone.
Sam, Dean, and Castiel. They lay in the sand together, ignoring the chill of ice as it lay a blanket over them. They were warm together.
Together.
They would always be together.
~
Dean counts this time as a single time.
This time the wings stay there. Castiel flashes them away at will, and lifts them back when he knows Dean is looking. Dean never gets bored of seeing them. How could he?
Pure light, pure Grace, pure energy. Pure love.
Heaven is not what Dean imagined. There are no cherubs, no golden harps, there’s no shining gate.
It’s only a garden.
The garden.
Not Eden. That was never what Dean wanted. It was never what Castiel wanted. Sam had never even considered anything else.
Limn’mere.
Dean is twenty-six, the age he was when he met Castiel and found his freedom.
Castiel is twenty-eight, the age his vessel was when he met Dean and found his free will.
Sam is twenty-two, the age he was when he met them both and found his destiny.
Gabriel is a horse. (So is Anna.)
Their friends visit, and often. Cupid, Andy, Balthazar, Missouri, Bobby, Ellen...
The list is so long. It makes Sam’s heart float to think of how many people he’s found now, how many friends and family members.
John, Mary.
Everyone was here long before Dean, Castiel, and Sam had joined them. It’s like a gathering at the Roadhouse sometimes, other times it’s a picnic on the grassy banks of Limn’mere’s pool.
Sometimes they recreate the hut by the waterfall that they dreamed of having. The landscape is different every time. Sometimes they sit in the sky and look down on the city where it all started.
Sometimes Dean and Castiel make love on the grass, other times in one of Ellen’s Roadhouse beds. Even in death, she is never very happy about that. Still, she insists on changing the sheets herself, despite being able to snap them clean with a thought. They all have the power of an angel here. But old habits die hard.
And sometimes Dean and Castiel make love as animals. A pair of wolves, male wolves. From the dock of the pool, bathed in the light of the fireflies, Sam can hear the howling.
It isn’t broken and sad as Sam had once known it.
This is a howl of pure joy. Endless, eternal joy.
~
Till Death do them part would be a fierce, fierce understatement.
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Pairings: Dean/Castiel, minor Anna/Gabriel and Bobby/Ellen
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 418,000 (no, seriously)
Warnings: Very, very long. Includes graphic violence, homophobia and internalised homophobia, torture, death of minor characters; brief mentions of rape and past suicide attempts; explicit sex: comeplay, rimming, exhibitionism, intercrural, frottage; top!Dean, top!Cas. Heavy on blasphemy, purposeful historical inaccuracies, and swearing. Male/male slash. And... British spelling.
Summary: A Dean/Cas Fantasy-Drama AU, set in a medieval world where two men are separated by a curse: every sunrise and sunset, both are eternally bound to transform into animals. Every night when darkness falls, Dean Winchester becomes a wolf, and his human mind is lost until the dawn. As the sun rises, his lover Castiel becomes a hawk. Their story has been the same for five years - until the day that a young thief named Sam stumbles into their twisted lives. Without even realising it, he becomes a part of their destiny, their paths entwined in prophecy and fate. Together with a few old friends, they set off on a journey to break the curse, but it won’t be easy. To pass the time, Dean and Castiel take turns to recount their past to Sam, narrating the tale of how they met, how they formed their profound bond, and how they found themselves wanting what no man should ever want: the touch of another man. ‘Angelhawke’ is a saga of forbidden love, friendship, and magic - but above all, family. Partially based on the 1985 movie 'Ladyhawke'.
The first time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, they were made of lightning. They’d taken no power of Castiel’s own to create, all he had to do was sit there and they showed themselves at his back.
Bright, powerful. Beautiful.
The night Dean saw those wrinkles of crackling light, he declared it the best night of his life so far.
Then the storm came.
It was five years before Dean ever saw Castiel’s face again, let alone his wings.
~
The second time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, Dean had a brother.
They had been on the road for two months, after a long delay in the start of what Castiel insisted on calling their ‘honeymoon’.
Stay for a few days first, Ellen said. Days turned into weeks, weeks went by and made a month. Dean had never had a better month in all of his life.
By the time they left the Roadhouse, their ‘honeymoon’ became nothing other than an eternally extended road trip. Gabriel was happy, anyway. They all were.
Springtime came, and the thawed roads became easier to drag the cart over; a broken wheel or a misplaced axel was far less common an occurrence.
Castiel took Dean’s hand and led him to the edge of a cliff. Sam followed them. It probably said a little more about their relationship than Dean would care to dwell on.
Take my hand, Castiel said to Sam.
Sam didn’t hesitate. Like Dean, he never did.
They leaned into the spring wind, carried along on updrafts through the valley. It was dust, and fresh leaves, pollen and flowers and gentle caress.
Okay, so maybe seeing the wings was a bit of a stretch, but Dean felt them.
He felt them at his back, he felt them in the power of how they held to the cliff, in the way that they weren’t falling.
Not yet.
Castiel turned his face to Dean and honest-to-God winked.
Then they were falling. Castiel was laughing, Dean was screaming, Sam was doing some of both.
The wings this time were made of air.
Powerful, moving, like a safety hold over Dean’s back.
They landed in the ravine on a bed of thunder, the sound of it echoing like a monstrous creature up and down the valley. Dean fancied it even blew a few trees over.
The three of them lay on the soft ground, looking up at the sky and laughing.
Do you think we’ll ever get to Heaven?
I don’t know.
~
The third time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, it was the first summer he’d spent with Castiel since the summer they first met.
The sun was kind on the angel’s face, and its warmth touched his skin like a kiss.
When he woke up beside Dean, neither of them could do anything but smile. They would kiss and make love, whenever the mood took them. Sam grew used to knowing when it was about to happen, and took the horses away to give them some privacy.
Gabriel was a great friend. Lucifer too. While Lucifer had been gifted the power to speak by Castiel, he always chose to remain silent. It seemed he liked how much he could say with only his eyes. Sam learned to speak his language.
This time, Sam lost track of where Dean and Castiel had run to. They’d left their clothes behind, and they’d been gone for hours.
They were in a field. It probably belonged to nobody, and the grass was waist-high. They chased each other until they couldn’t any more, then they rolled in the grass until their skin was sore and the grass was flat. Then Castiel stood, smiling. Dean had wanted to make love, but Castiel wanted to give him something else, first.
Turning his back, he strode away, and Dean scrambled to his feet to watch―
Feathers created themselves from the dirt of the ground, the stalks of broken grass. Green leaves, dandelion seeds. Wings spread from Castiel’s shoulder blades, Castiel turning half back to smile down at Dean, proud.
He was proud of his wings. He was proud of his angelic nature. But as Dean saw the glimmering debris, shining in the sun like dew on grass in the morning, he saw how human Castiel was. How flawed, how the dirt his wings were made from was every bit like the dirt on his soul.
Dean loved him for it. He loved the flaws.
He told Castiel so.
It was the first time he’d ever said the words so directly, the first time he’d said it so Castiel could hear.
They kissed, so slowly.
Dean’s feet left the ground before he’d even noticed. They were six feet above the Earth, turning so their bodies met, held up not by flapping wings, but only by the power of Castiel’s Grace. They were resting on a bed of glitter, still shiny in the light. Dust had never seemed so glorious.
They made love in the air, the wings eventually brushing away on the gentle wind. Dean’s whole weight was carried by Castiel’s hands, pressing handprints into his skin as the angel’s palms held his flesh.
They landed back on the ground, shaking with exhaustion and pleasure and love.
Dean’s favourite handprint was one on his arm, just by his shoulder. He didn’t know how Castiel had pressed so hard there; it wasn’t a weight-bearing touch, as all his weight had been on his hips as Castiel held him.
It was a mark, a brand.
Dean liked it.
He joked about getting it tattooed there, but he never finished the thought before he caught Castiel’s eye.
Brand me with it, he said. Put it there so it’s always there.
Make me yours.
You don’t belong to me, Castiel said.
I want to.
Dean never showed the mark to Sam. He hid it under his shirts, turned himself away should he ever undress in Sam’s presence.
It wasn’t shame that made him hide it. Simply that the mark on his arm was for Castiel’s eyes only.
Eventually he just stopped being unclothed if Sam was around. He went out of his way to make sure he never was. Sam never knew why the change had happened, but he was glad. He’d seen his brother naked and making love far too many times.
~
The fourth time Dean saw Castiel’s wings, Sam was there too.
The leaves were turning brown, falling. The air was golden, and hummed with the rise and fall of a thousand calling insects, screaming for a last mate before they were lost to the winter. It was still warm - hot, even.
They stopped their horses by a stream, Sam laughing and calling something about cutting Gabriel’s mane. Gabriel had learned to roll his eyes.
Castiel wandered some way ahead, where the trees were a little thinner and the sun broke directly overhead, washing them in scattered light. It was like he was walking over a shimmering pond, of packed earth and flattened leaves rather than water.
Dean, he said.
Dean looked up. Castiel was smiling again.
Dean knew that smile. That was the smile Castiel gave him before showing him something wonderful. Lovemaking, also. But this was no time for that, so Dean whacked Sam’s arm and pointed to the angel.
Now he had everyone’s attention, Castiel turned away, walking very slowly. The sunlight rippled over his body, mostly lost in his dark hair. His hair was the longest that Dean had ever seen it, pulled up in thick spikes on his head, a few strands curving down over his face. It was perfect for holding on to, whenever Castiel pushed inside him. Slick and heavy and thick inside him...
Dean snapped his mind back to the present, and then he gaped in awe.
Lifting from Castiel’s back was his magnificent pair of wings, feathers this time constructed from autumn leaves, picked up off the ground by a breeze that came from nowhere.
The wings were bigger than ever; stretching Castiel’s full height to either side of him, the tops of them reaching straight out, rising; the rest like jagged semi-circles beneath.
Dean could make out impossible muscles. He knew a bird’s wing, he’d had five years to learn how birds work. While similar, these angel wings were bent a little differently; the leaves rippled like a coat along their edge, flashing bright in the sun.
Sam laughed, a hand to his head in astonishment. Gabriel was silent, for once.
Dean only smiled, the beat of his heart in time with the pulses that the wings gave, beating other leaves up from the ground.
Castiel had a storm at his back.
That was the last time Dean ever saw Castiel’s wings, at least like that.
~
Once.
Once more.
Dean doesn’t want to count this one.
Winter came. They’d almost been travelling a year, and they were still not tired of it. They never would be. This would go on forever.
Dean had hoped so, anyway.
He knew his angel was mortal. He knew he could die, and he could die like any human. Castiel and he had discussed it at great length, often with input from Sam and Gabriel.
There was no Heaven awaiting Castiel if he died as an angel, not one that included Dean. They’d been looking for a way to change that, but no option presented itself.
The way it had happened was always unclear to Dean. He wasn’t there until the last moment. Sam had been the one to try and protect the angel (not that he needed it), but he always said it happened too fast to comprehend.
Afterwards, Castiel said it felt like falling. Pleasant, like there was that cushion of air to catch him. It didn’t hurt, he said.
Dean didn’t believe him.
The hatred that humans were capable of was always too great for any of the men to understand. Dean gritted his teeth and sank to his knees, failing to hold in a tear. A single tear, that hit the sand and buried itself in a second.
Castiel was dead, body spread out across packed sand like he might have been sleeping. Were it not for the lash of blood through his chest, Dean would have believed it.
Black, charred wings.
They pooled out from behind Castiel’s shoulders like someone had dragged a leftover stick from the fire through the ground, marking out feathers and muscles and the edges of the bone, where the elbows bent when Castiel lifted them wide.
He can’t be dead, Sam said.
Feel his heart.
It’s not beating.
A shadow fell over them; not grief, not loss, but death.
Capital-D Death.
I can save him, Death said. I knew it would come to this, I have been waiting for this day. But I cannot simply give life, something must be given in return.
A gift. Dean was ready to give his freely.
No, Sam said.
Half of Dean’s remaining life, to be given to the angel. They would each live a life half as long as Dean’s might have been otherwise. They might live another five, ten years, each.
No, Sam said.
Why do you do this? Sam asked Death. Why are you so willing to help one man, one angel? Only Castiel. Every other man, woman and child, they die without respite from death.
Because, Death said, Castiel is my family.
He looked at Sam, then at Dean. The brothers caught each other’s eye.
You would do anything for your family, wouldn’t you?
Yes.
Half a life, to be given to Castiel. Do you agree? Death asked.
No, Sam said.
Shut up, Sam, said Dean.
Sam placed his hand over Castiel’s heart, fingers sliding against Dean’s.
I give my life, also, he said. One third of my life, one third of Dean’s. Gift them both to Castiel.
Death inclined his head. You will die together. When the end comes, you will all pass as one.
Do it.
I cannot make him an angel, Death stated. His Grace is gone along with his second life.
Dean and Sam looked at each other. Human’s not so bad.
Do it.
Death removed Dean’s shirtsleeve. What are you doing?
This is the only way, Death said. This is where his life is kept. He gave part of his soul to you.
Sam blanched as he saw the handprint on Dean’s arm. It was raised and swollen, redder than his skin. It was a scar, but one that Dean was not ashamed of, like so many of his other scars. He was Castiel’s.
Death put his hand over it, and Dean was less uncomfortable about that than he thought he might be. Castiel was coming back, that was all that mattered.
As a human, he could die once their life ran its course, and Castiel’s Heaven could be with Dean. Like he wanted.
The heart under Dean and Sam’s hands began to beat. Dean laughed, eyes closed. He didn’t need to see to know that Castiel was looking at him.
Death was gone.
Sam, Dean, and Castiel. They lay in the sand together, ignoring the chill of ice as it lay a blanket over them. They were warm together.
Together.
They would always be together.
~
Dean counts this time as a single time.
This time the wings stay there. Castiel flashes them away at will, and lifts them back when he knows Dean is looking. Dean never gets bored of seeing them. How could he?
Pure light, pure Grace, pure energy. Pure love.
Heaven is not what Dean imagined. There are no cherubs, no golden harps, there’s no shining gate.
It’s only a garden.
The garden.
Not Eden. That was never what Dean wanted. It was never what Castiel wanted. Sam had never even considered anything else.
Limn’mere.
Dean is twenty-six, the age he was when he met Castiel and found his freedom.
Castiel is twenty-eight, the age his vessel was when he met Dean and found his free will.
Sam is twenty-two, the age he was when he met them both and found his destiny.
Gabriel is a horse. (So is Anna.)
Their friends visit, and often. Cupid, Andy, Balthazar, Missouri, Bobby, Ellen...
The list is so long. It makes Sam’s heart float to think of how many people he’s found now, how many friends and family members.
John, Mary.
Everyone was here long before Dean, Castiel, and Sam had joined them. It’s like a gathering at the Roadhouse sometimes, other times it’s a picnic on the grassy banks of Limn’mere’s pool.
Sometimes they recreate the hut by the waterfall that they dreamed of having. The landscape is different every time. Sometimes they sit in the sky and look down on the city where it all started.
Sometimes Dean and Castiel make love on the grass, other times in one of Ellen’s Roadhouse beds. Even in death, she is never very happy about that. Still, she insists on changing the sheets herself, despite being able to snap them clean with a thought. They all have the power of an angel here. But old habits die hard.
And sometimes Dean and Castiel make love as animals. A pair of wolves, male wolves. From the dock of the pool, bathed in the light of the fireflies, Sam can hear the howling.
It isn’t broken and sad as Sam had once known it.
This is a howl of pure joy. Endless, eternal joy.
~
Till Death do them part would be a fierce, fierce understatement.
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