DCBB Black Glass Epilogue
Part 18
Epilogue: Sanctification
Homeward bound.
-o-
The white winter embraced them, pinching their cheeks till they bloomed red and their eyes watered. Cas shivered and hummed in pleasure. Snow was falling from the heather gray sky, thick, but soundless. He had grown accustomed to rain, and had forgotten the wonders and magic of fresh snowfall.
They would do it right this time. They would travel far away from any village and they procured supplies on their own to rebuild their old home. If they died on their own, they would die, but they would die together.
True peace had come to their hearts. They were one, they were cold, but they were one. Their breath fogged in their faces, freezing in the frigid air. Before, Cas had no need for excessive coverage, nor did he fear the cold. Now though he shivered when once he would have crowed in delight, naked under the moon. They were bundled tight in layers upon layers of animal skins and furs, and he nearly laughed at how foreign he felt in his own homeland.
Dean must have shared his amusement, for when he turned to look on his mate’s face Dean was grinning from ear to ear. His eyes wrinkled around the edges, but they were good lines, lines of laughter and love. He reached out with a wrapped a gloved hand-not a hint of blue nor rosy pink of flesh was visible-and he brushed stray flakes of snow from Dean’s greying hair. Dean turned to look at him, fondness shining in his watery green eyes.
“We’re home, Cas.”
Cas nodded and stretched his back, groaning in muted approval when he both heard and felt his spine pop. He flexed his shoulders and winced. His bones were old, temperamental, yet new life grew yet.
The Other had left him long ago-he’d like to think they parted mutual friends-and it took the rot and fire it had caused with it. New flesh had grown where it had been burned away. New bones had sprouted, had been cloaked in muscle and sinew and fat and flesh. Blood pumped in new veins, hearty and healthy. What the Other, what Lucifer, had sought to destroy was not so easily quenched. Age old blood from an age old line did not give up after the first defeat. Cas was special, he knew that very well by now. And perhaps the stunted, weak beginnings of wings were the Other’s gift to him, an apology as it were. Cas readily accepted them, loved them, embraced them as his own once more.
Burning was Lucifer’s way, had been Michael’s way, and had almost been Cas’s way. He did not want that for himself, and Dean didn’t either. If he hadn’t had Dean with him on that day that now seemed so long ago, he would have killed Lucifer, would have finished the pact, and would have been irrevocably poisoned against his own flesh.
Now, though, he was finally safe and sound, back in the cold with his mate and daughter who took to the snow with rabid curiosity. She had nearly fallen ill after a day spent frolicking in it, screaming with laughter as she threw it about and made shapes with it. Cas used the very last vestiges of his power to bring her back to health, and then that was it, his power was gone and he was but a man once more. As he watched his mate play with their child beneath the chilled winter sun, as they grew closer day by day, he found he didn’t care at all.
They had built their cabin by the same lake, practically on top of the blackened remains of their old home. They felled the trees themselves and harvested crops during the short summers and hoarded during the even longer winters. They created their stores again, stole what they absolutely needed but made sure to return once they finished. No one in the village ventured out that far, same as always, and no one knew of their return. It was just like normal, but better.
Sam made sure to visit twice every year. He was as tan as Gabriel now, more polished and sophisticated than Dean would have liked, but he loved him all the same. Sam was still Sam, and Cas would never forget it.
Girl had always grown quickly, as wilderness had demanded from her, but now it seemed she took her time. She let her roots grow deep in their home; she stopped wandering as she did the first few months, leaving for days on end to return with a brace of rabbits and a bloody grin. She started brushing her hair, started asking about the outside world, started actually bathing in the house-which was a shock to both Cas and Dean-and had asked one day many years after they had settled what it meant when she bled from between her legs.
Cas didn’t want to touch that conversation with a ten foot pole and left it to Dean instead.
She never asked why there weren’t any women in the house though. She never wondered or complained when she caught them kissing in a corner, slow and reverent.
“Daddy loves Papa, I get it okay?” She had said, exasperated when Dean had confronted her afterwards, treating her like a delicate little flower. Cas thought she was more insulted by that than what she had caught them doing. Girl was no flower, and Cas stifled a laugh when she threw her arms up and sharply proclaimed that Papa could fuck Daddy all he wanted just so long as they kept it down at night, they were waking her up.
“I bet you thought that was pretty funny, didn’t you?” Dean scowled later that evening as they lay entwined under the sheets. Neither of them bothered constructing a bed frame, they had scavenged pillows and blankets and scraps of textiles from the village and had formed a giant nest in their bedroom. It was all they were used to, Girl included, and actually sleeping in a bed hadn’t even crossed their minds.
“Oh yes I think so, Daddy,” Cas crooned, bumping their noses together as he laughed.
“Why does she still call us that? How old is she now, twelve?”
“Fifteen,” Cas responded, moving on to lazily suck at Dean’s neck. Dean faltered for a moment, breath hitching, before he rolled his hips into Cas’s, rumbling low in approval.
“Still she…she has to grow up sometime, I mean…how long can we possibly keep her cooped up here alone?”
“She goes to the town every Saturday.” Cas murmured against Dean’s collarbone, licking at it and tasting the faint trace of salt, of his sweat.
“What?!” Dean gasped, struggling to sit up.
“Relax, Dean, I follow her. She stays out of trouble, mostly.”
“Hunh,” Dean grunted when Cas suddenly flipped him onto his stomach, licking over the knob of his spine, trailing south.
“You’ll let me know when there’s a boy, won’t you? I’ll-oh-I’ll have words with him before he even thinks of touching my daughter.”
Cas sat back from where he was toying with Dean’s rim, still stretched from their coupling earlier.
“Can we please not talk about Girl while I do this to you?” Cas chided, running his hands over Dean’s smooth skin, placing his thumb where his mouth had been.
Dean moaned and bucked lazily, nodding and humming in pleasure when Cas increased the pressure, circling but not entering.
When he took Dean again that night-only once more, they weren’t as young as they wanted to be-he was at peace. He was in love, he was safe, Girl was growing into a Woman, and no one bothered them. He remembered how it was before the Empire, when he was an animal and Dean was his mate and he was selfish and cruel. He had changed, but his desires had not.
He rolled onto his stomach and stretched his now fully regrown wings, extending them into the air, holding the muscles till they trembled then he brought them back in. They were stronger now, but built slighter than his old ones. Brought back through strange magic that he would much rather forget. They were easier to hide and perhaps one day he could fold them against his back and he and Dean could walk into the village together, as two people, not as the savages they had been called for most of their lives. No one in the village would remember them, and they had changed so much, especially Cas. He had no fear of humans now, especially not after Michael's death, ending his dark hold over Dean.
Because that was all he cared about, perhaps all he would ever care about.
Let kings battle kings, let thrones clash and fall, Cas only wanted his family and the bite of a middle land winter with the promise of the hunt in a crisp white morn.
-END-
Epilogue: Sanctification
Homeward bound.
-o-
The white winter embraced them, pinching their cheeks till they bloomed red and their eyes watered. Cas shivered and hummed in pleasure. Snow was falling from the heather gray sky, thick, but soundless. He had grown accustomed to rain, and had forgotten the wonders and magic of fresh snowfall.
They would do it right this time. They would travel far away from any village and they procured supplies on their own to rebuild their old home. If they died on their own, they would die, but they would die together.
True peace had come to their hearts. They were one, they were cold, but they were one. Their breath fogged in their faces, freezing in the frigid air. Before, Cas had no need for excessive coverage, nor did he fear the cold. Now though he shivered when once he would have crowed in delight, naked under the moon. They were bundled tight in layers upon layers of animal skins and furs, and he nearly laughed at how foreign he felt in his own homeland.
Dean must have shared his amusement, for when he turned to look on his mate’s face Dean was grinning from ear to ear. His eyes wrinkled around the edges, but they were good lines, lines of laughter and love. He reached out with a wrapped a gloved hand-not a hint of blue nor rosy pink of flesh was visible-and he brushed stray flakes of snow from Dean’s greying hair. Dean turned to look at him, fondness shining in his watery green eyes.
“We’re home, Cas.”
Cas nodded and stretched his back, groaning in muted approval when he both heard and felt his spine pop. He flexed his shoulders and winced. His bones were old, temperamental, yet new life grew yet.
The Other had left him long ago-he’d like to think they parted mutual friends-and it took the rot and fire it had caused with it. New flesh had grown where it had been burned away. New bones had sprouted, had been cloaked in muscle and sinew and fat and flesh. Blood pumped in new veins, hearty and healthy. What the Other, what Lucifer, had sought to destroy was not so easily quenched. Age old blood from an age old line did not give up after the first defeat. Cas was special, he knew that very well by now. And perhaps the stunted, weak beginnings of wings were the Other’s gift to him, an apology as it were. Cas readily accepted them, loved them, embraced them as his own once more.
Burning was Lucifer’s way, had been Michael’s way, and had almost been Cas’s way. He did not want that for himself, and Dean didn’t either. If he hadn’t had Dean with him on that day that now seemed so long ago, he would have killed Lucifer, would have finished the pact, and would have been irrevocably poisoned against his own flesh.
Now, though, he was finally safe and sound, back in the cold with his mate and daughter who took to the snow with rabid curiosity. She had nearly fallen ill after a day spent frolicking in it, screaming with laughter as she threw it about and made shapes with it. Cas used the very last vestiges of his power to bring her back to health, and then that was it, his power was gone and he was but a man once more. As he watched his mate play with their child beneath the chilled winter sun, as they grew closer day by day, he found he didn’t care at all.
They had built their cabin by the same lake, practically on top of the blackened remains of their old home. They felled the trees themselves and harvested crops during the short summers and hoarded during the even longer winters. They created their stores again, stole what they absolutely needed but made sure to return once they finished. No one in the village ventured out that far, same as always, and no one knew of their return. It was just like normal, but better.
Sam made sure to visit twice every year. He was as tan as Gabriel now, more polished and sophisticated than Dean would have liked, but he loved him all the same. Sam was still Sam, and Cas would never forget it.
Girl had always grown quickly, as wilderness had demanded from her, but now it seemed she took her time. She let her roots grow deep in their home; she stopped wandering as she did the first few months, leaving for days on end to return with a brace of rabbits and a bloody grin. She started brushing her hair, started asking about the outside world, started actually bathing in the house-which was a shock to both Cas and Dean-and had asked one day many years after they had settled what it meant when she bled from between her legs.
Cas didn’t want to touch that conversation with a ten foot pole and left it to Dean instead.
She never asked why there weren’t any women in the house though. She never wondered or complained when she caught them kissing in a corner, slow and reverent.
“Daddy loves Papa, I get it okay?” She had said, exasperated when Dean had confronted her afterwards, treating her like a delicate little flower. Cas thought she was more insulted by that than what she had caught them doing. Girl was no flower, and Cas stifled a laugh when she threw her arms up and sharply proclaimed that Papa could fuck Daddy all he wanted just so long as they kept it down at night, they were waking her up.
“I bet you thought that was pretty funny, didn’t you?” Dean scowled later that evening as they lay entwined under the sheets. Neither of them bothered constructing a bed frame, they had scavenged pillows and blankets and scraps of textiles from the village and had formed a giant nest in their bedroom. It was all they were used to, Girl included, and actually sleeping in a bed hadn’t even crossed their minds.
“Oh yes I think so, Daddy,” Cas crooned, bumping their noses together as he laughed.
“Why does she still call us that? How old is she now, twelve?”
“Fifteen,” Cas responded, moving on to lazily suck at Dean’s neck. Dean faltered for a moment, breath hitching, before he rolled his hips into Cas’s, rumbling low in approval.
“Still she…she has to grow up sometime, I mean…how long can we possibly keep her cooped up here alone?”
“She goes to the town every Saturday.” Cas murmured against Dean’s collarbone, licking at it and tasting the faint trace of salt, of his sweat.
“What?!” Dean gasped, struggling to sit up.
“Relax, Dean, I follow her. She stays out of trouble, mostly.”
“Hunh,” Dean grunted when Cas suddenly flipped him onto his stomach, licking over the knob of his spine, trailing south.
“You’ll let me know when there’s a boy, won’t you? I’ll-oh-I’ll have words with him before he even thinks of touching my daughter.”
Cas sat back from where he was toying with Dean’s rim, still stretched from their coupling earlier.
“Can we please not talk about Girl while I do this to you?” Cas chided, running his hands over Dean’s smooth skin, placing his thumb where his mouth had been.
Dean moaned and bucked lazily, nodding and humming in pleasure when Cas increased the pressure, circling but not entering.
When he took Dean again that night-only once more, they weren’t as young as they wanted to be-he was at peace. He was in love, he was safe, Girl was growing into a Woman, and no one bothered them. He remembered how it was before the Empire, when he was an animal and Dean was his mate and he was selfish and cruel. He had changed, but his desires had not.
He rolled onto his stomach and stretched his now fully regrown wings, extending them into the air, holding the muscles till they trembled then he brought them back in. They were stronger now, but built slighter than his old ones. Brought back through strange magic that he would much rather forget. They were easier to hide and perhaps one day he could fold them against his back and he and Dean could walk into the village together, as two people, not as the savages they had been called for most of their lives. No one in the village would remember them, and they had changed so much, especially Cas. He had no fear of humans now, especially not after Michael's death, ending his dark hold over Dean.
Because that was all he cared about, perhaps all he would ever care about.
Let kings battle kings, let thrones clash and fall, Cas only wanted his family and the bite of a middle land winter with the promise of the hunt in a crisp white morn.
-END-