FIC (Supernatural): Carry Me
Title: Carry Me
Author: blue_fjords
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Sam, Castiel, mild Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word length: ~5,400
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Mentions of 5x03, 5x04, 5x14, 5x16.
Summary: Five times Castiel saved a Winchester, and one time they saved him.
A/N: I started writing this months ago. And then came 5x16 and the whole structure changed twice. Now it’s my first “five times” fic.
Dean, at Humphrey & Hubert’s Sparkling Smile Office of Dentistry, Pillsbury, Kentucky:
He’s slumped into the far corner, giggles erupting, but surely he doesn’t giggle. Not Dean Winchester. But there’s another one, because his hand’s in front of his face and it’s fucking hysterical. Hands! They’re so blobby, and then there are those long things (“Fingers, Dean,” supplies the voice in his head that sounds like Sam) and he can make them twitch. Ha, they’re twitching now! His nose is twitching, too, because wow, there’s a lot of smoke in here. How’d it get here? Can he breathe it? He takes an experimental gulp and starts hacking. That’s a no to the smoke, Alec! Double Jeopardy now, another answer for Dean Winchester to question!
The answer breaks down the door, tan trench coat and smoke billowing around him.
“Yoo hoo!” Yoo hoo? Dean calls. “I’ll take Angels for a thousand, Alec!”
Castiel is immediately by his side, hauling him up, and an “oof!” escapes Dean’s lips as he realizes that his ankle is very tender, possibly sprained. He flails for a moment, grasping at Castiel’s arm for balance.
“Hold on to me, Dean. We have to walk out of this building. It’s a trap.”
Dean’s head is fuzzy, with the gas and the smoke, but it seems like Castiel is telling him they’re the mice in a game of Mousetrap (“TM,” says Sam’s voice, again, his eight-year-old voice this time) and they need to get the hell out of Dodge. His fingers scramble for purchase on Castiel’s trench coat, finally fisting into the fabric covering his lower back, and he’s able to drag his foot along. They stumble from the room, but the hall is black with smoke.
“Why’s there so much smoke?” Dean mumbles, coughing, and Castiel waves an angelic hand over his nose and lips. The air clears a bit, just around him, and he beams. “That’s sooooooo clever, Cas! What other party tricks can you do? Can you pull a flower out of my ear?”
Castiel glances down at him (“Down? Stand up straight, son,” Dad’s voice this time, and even now, Dean automatically snaps to attention, wincing as he puts more weight onto his hurt foot). Castiel is frowning.
“You are in an altered state,” he states, pausing, ignoring the smoke and what Dean is increasingly aware is a fire somewhere else in the building, the flames just barely licking the walls of the hall.
“Laughing gas! Cas! Gas and Cas rhyme! You should try it sometime!”
Castiel shakes his head and pulls him down the hall, towards the glowing green EXIT sign.
“Hey, Cas,” he says, tripping along beside him, “if we go through that door, does that mean it’s all over? We exit this life, let slip the mortal coil, buy the farm, kick the bucket? Or just, like, this thing right here, with angels and demons and vessels and all?”
“It’s an EXIT sign, Dean,” Castiel replies, and then his shoulder is shoving it open. The first breath of uncontaminated air practically burns with sweetness, and Dean shakes his head, throwing off the smoke and gas. His fingers tighten their grip of Castiel’s coat. There’s an open parking lot before them, so much air, and he tries to drag them there. There’s even a bench and his foot is really swollen to twice its size. Castiel stops him, keeping him to the shadows around the building.
“This is a trap, Dean, remember? There’s a ward around the building and humans watching this place,” Castiel warns him.
“If they knew I was here, why didn’t they come in for me?” he asks, lowering his voice on instinct.
“I should think Zachariah wanted to perform a rescue at the last possible moment, when you were most vulnerable.”
Dean stops short. “That is … a very Dick Cheney thing to do,” he says quietly.
Castiel gives him one of his rare half-smiles. “Yes it is.”
Sirens sound from down the road, and Castiel presses him into a corner of the building. The walls are hot, just this side of uncomfortable, and then the fire engines are there. Smoke pours out of the building as windows are broken and men in yellow-slashed black uniforms swarm everywhere. Castiel takes advantage of the chaos to shepherd Dean away from the building, beyond the warding. Dean’s sick from the gas and smoke and his foot is a throbbing knot of pain. Castiel has to practically carry him, and maybe it’s still the remnants of the laughing gas that calls to mind an old memory: his arms around Dad’s neck, his fingers tight on Dad’s leather jacket, his eyelids drooping as he looks behind them at Mom, cradling Sammy in her arms and smiling at him, singing a nonsense song to him, “Dean, Dean, my magic bean, grow up strong, right the wrongs, and come home again to me.” Castiel’s arm holds him up, two fingers go to his forehead and Dean’s last conscious thought is to hold tightly to what’s his, knuckles whitening in the folds of the trench coat.
***
Sam, five miles outside of Podunkville, Vermont:
The Impala stutters to a stop and Sam blinks in disbelief at the dashboard. The one day - the ONE day - Dean lets him take the car, and what happens? He breaks it. Of course he does.
He gets out of the car and manages to shove and roll it until it’s more firmly on the shoulder. At least there’s a shoulder here. He’s been driving through woodlands all morning, trees perilously close to the road. But now that he’s approaching civilization, there’s just a bit more space.
He leans against the trunk and pulls out his cell. He could check under the hood himself, call a tow truck or call Dean. Dad gave him exactly one car lesson before declaring him to be hopeless around an engine, so that’s not really an option. Dean would kill him. Another bad option. He’s got AAA programmed into his phone - policy under H. Caulfield - but his thumb pauses over the button as another number appears in the bottom of the screen.
“Castiel? It’s Sam. I’m at mile 32 on route 9 in Vermont…”
“Hello, Sam.” Castiel appears suddenly next to him and looks curiously around at the Impala. “Where is Dean?”
“I left him doing interviews at this diner in town. Listen, Cas,” Sam lowers his voice out of habit, “I’d appreciate it if we could keep this just between ourselves but I, ah, I appear to have done something to the car.”
Castiel walks over to the Impala and frowns at the hood before raising it up and propping it. Sam’s eyebrows attempt to crawl into his hairline.
“You know stuff about cars, Cas?” he asks.
“Dean gave me instruction when we drove to Maine,” he says, and bends his head to look under the hood. Sam hunkers down next to him. “This here is the thingamajig.” Castiel points to a valve and Sam’s lips twitch. “When the liquid is low, the engine is in pain. We need to procure a flask of Greyskull-powered juice to feed the engine and make the Impala well again.”
Sam smoothes his facial features and turns to face the angel. Castiel is deadly serious. The thing is, now that he’s pointed everything out, Sam can see what the problem is. “Thanks, Cas. I think Dean keeps an emergency stock of Greyskull-powered juice in the trunk.”
Ten minutes later, Sam’s roaring down the road once again, the theme song to He-Man playing in his head. True to his word, Castiel does not tell Dean about the thingamajig.
***
Dean, at Skin & Bones Revue in Bloomer, Nevada:
“Now this is more like it!” Dean slaps Castiel on the back and steers him to a table by the stage. Sam sighs and follows, scuffing his feet. “How many years we’ve been doing this gig, and this is the first haunting at a strip joint?”
“The sign said it was an exotic dancing showcase,” Castiel says, frowning.
“Sure it is, Cas. Sure it is.” Dean gestures to a scantily clad waitress and orders them beers while Sam glances surreptitiously around the room.
“I think we’re going to have to check out the changing rooms,” Sam whispers.
“That’s the spirit, Sammy!” Dean leans back in his chair and grins at the other two. They don’t look near as happy as him to be in this situation. His grin fades. “I swear it’s like traveling with Pollyanna and Mother Theresa sometimes,” he mutters.
Music starts up, a grinding beat punctuated with “uh-uh” gasps, and Dean winces at the widening of Castiel’s eyes as enlightenment dawns on him. Here it comes. “Dean, we are in another Den of Iniquity,” Castiel hisses.
Sam purses his lips and mouths “Another?” at him. Dean waves it off. “Weren’t you going to check out the changing rooms? Cas and I’ll provide a distraction out here.”
Sam rolls his eyes, but slouches off as if he was heading to the restroom. Castiel glances at the stage and immediately jerks his gaze away. Dean has to agree; he’s seldom seen such a disinterested stripper in his life, and to top it off, she could be Skeletor’s twin sister. ‘Skin & Bones Revue,’ indeed.
The waitress appears at their table and crinkles her nose in confusion. ‘Call me Brenda!’ her nametag implores. “I thought there were three of you? What happened to your boyfriend?” Brenda asks Dean.
Fuck a duck, not again. “He’s my little brother, actually. Had to take a leak. Can’t take him anywhere.” He gives her a tight smile and takes a swallow of his beer. Castiel moves closer to him, trying to get the waitress to block his view of the stage.
“Oh, I’m sorry! So are you then …?” she asks, leaning down to hand Castiel a bottle. The stripper winks broadly at Castiel over Brenda’s shoulder, and Dean smirks.
“I’m his angel,” Castiel says, gaze fixed desperately on the waitress, and Dean spit-takes his beer.
“That is so sweet!” Brenda coos, but the look she gives Dean is full of frustrated disappointment. Dean would tell her not to despair, but he’s having trouble forming coherent words. “How long have you been together?” she asks Castiel.
“Since September 18, 2008,” Castiel supplies. “You have beer dripping down your chin,” he informs Dean. Dean just stares at him until Brenda hands him a napkin.
Another customer, a burly trucker, comes into the bar, and Brenda brightens considerably, leaving them to show him to a seat on the other side of the stage. Dean is still watching Castiel. The angel calmly takes a sip of his beer and makes a face. “It’s rather bitter. Is yours the same?”
Dean stops him before he can try out his beer. “What the hell, Cas? Did you have to tell her we were … together?”
Castiel’s brow wrinkles. “We are together. There’s no one else here, Dean. The exotic dancer isn’t even dancing for us anymore.”
He’s right; the dancer is flapping around in an attempt at a seductive grind in front of the trucker, Brenda has sat down next to him and has her hand on his knee, and even the bartender, a little woman with an orange pixie cut, is watching the trucker instead of them. Dean sighs heavily. “You’re like Kryptonite to my sex life, dude.”
“You could do better, Dean,” Castiel says. “None of these women is Lois Lane.”
“I’ll be damned, Cas,” Dean says, a smile spreading across his face. “You just made a pop culture reference.”
Castiel smiles back, a full smile that crunches his nose and crinkles his eyes, and Dean feels something thrumming in his chest in response. A drop of beer is glistening on Castiel’s lower lip, and Dean’s own lips part slightly -
“Dean! Cas! Get down!” Sam yells, suddenly appearing on stage behind the stripper. Several things happen at once: Dean dives forward to knock Castiel to the floor, Castiel grips Dean by the shoulders and pulls him forcefully down on top of him, the stripper collapses to the ground and an angry spirit rises from her bag of bones, and Sam throws a chair at Brenda, missing and clunking the trucker between the eyes.
It takes awhile to sort everything out. Brenda, also known as Bertha Finkeltawny, had been using her witchcraft to lure men into sexual relations with the spirit of her dead sister to make up for stealing her husband two hundred years ago (“That is fucking MESSED UP!” Dean declares. “You should try reading her diary,” Sam replies. “They, uh, drink the blood of their victims after sex.” “Ah, afterglow.”). The bartender kicks them out on their asses as punishment for losing her a waitress and a dancer (and starting a fire on one of her tables), and they drag the trucker with them to hoist him into his truck on their way out, just in case.
The bartender follows them outside, yelling curses at “your sasquatch of a brother and your pretty little boyfriend, too!”
Sam gets a huge smirk on his face. Dean rolls his eyes, trying not to blush, but Castiel frowns back at the bar. “I didn’t think I was that little.”
Sam laughs so hard he drops the trucker’s feet.
***
Sam, Bumpass Public Library, Bumpass, Virginia:
Dust motes spin lazily in the air as Sam flips another page. His fingers are shaking. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. He can feel Dean’s eyes on him.
“I’m fine, Dean,” he says loudly, too loudly for their current location. The librarian looks up from her stack of books at the circulation desk and frowns. It’s a loud frown, and Sam inwardly winces as he shoots her an apologetic smile. She sniffs and goes back to checking books.
“Old bat is ten times louder than us with her sniffing and huffing,” Dean mutters. He closes his book and knocks on the cover. “This thing was worthless. You got anything?”
Sam looks back down at his book. It’s Latin, he should be able to read it just fine, but the words are swimming in front of his eyes and his skin is crawling. They should have waited a couple more days before leaving Bobby’s, but he couldn’t stand to stay there any longer. Even Virginia isn’t far enough away from the Panic Room, really. “I want to give it a little longer,” he tells Dean.
“Well, I’m bored; I’m calling Cas.” Dean scrapes his chair back from the table (loudly), waves to the librarian, and ducks behind a row of shelving to make his phone call. Sam can just hear his murmuring.
The movement of air that signifies Castiel’s arrival is a welcome relief. The library is too hot in the unseasonably warm spring weather. Sam watches his brother and the angel confer behind a stack of books. Castiel is standing too close to Dean, but lately Dean’s stopped fighting it.
Sam stretches his arm out on the table and rests his head on his own shoulder, watching the other two from his skewed viewpoint. He supplies their dialogue in his head - “Thanks, Cas, for dropping everything just ‘cause I was bored.” “It is no problem, Dean. I prefer spending my time on basking in your presence rather than on wild goose chases.” “I love it when you use colloquialisms, Cas. You make them sound so sexy.” “I am impressed that you know what a colloquialism is, Dean. Kiss me.” - God, sometimes he misses Ruby. She’d make kissing sound effects for them, too. Dean got an angel who died for him, and he got a demon who betrayed him, and what does that say about him?
“Sam?” Castiel is at his elbow now, Dean is in a far corner of the library, peering up a shelf of books, and Sam jerks himself upright. There’s moisture on his face.
“Sorry, dust. Um, allergies,” he mutters. “Hey, Cas. I hope we weren’t bothering you by calling.”
“You are not a bother, Sam.”
Sam looks back down at his book. His head is pounding and the Latin looks more like the Cyrillic alphabet than the Roman.
“Something is troubling you.” When he glances up, Castiel has his blue eyes fixed on his face and Sam feels like he’s falling, falling, falling into their depths. No wonder Dean’s stopped fighting it.
“It’s nothing.”
“I am your friend, Sam. And friends fall on each other.”
Sam blinks. “I think you mean ‘lean.’ Friends ‘lean’ on each other.”
Castiel nods. “Of course.” He waits expectantly. Sam swallows hard and looks away. Across the library, Dean’s found a book in the art section that interests him and is pulling it down. Sam doubts Bumpass, Virginia has a book of nude figures in their collection, and from the way that Dean’s face falls, he’s correct.
“You’ve seen Dean’s soul, right?” he asks finally.
“Yes.”
“And … and you thought it was beautiful?”
Castiel doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Sam looks at him again. “Oh,” he says softly. Because as much as he’d joked in his head and with Ruby about it, he hadn’t actually thought there was anything there. That an angel could feel so much. “Oh,” he says again.
“You didn’t want to ask me about your brother,” Castiel says, voice slightly gruffer than usual.
Sam watches him silently for a moment, the question on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t ask it. Castiel sighs.
“You are my friend, Sam. I am … cut off … from my family. I only have two friends. I would stand … I have stood … between my family and you. You. You are worth it.”
Sam can’t speak past the lump in his throat.
A chair scrapes loudly next to him and he jumps. “This place blows,” Dean says in a piercing whisper. “Aren’t you done yet, Sammy?”
Sam gives himself a shake and looks back at the book. He can finally read it. Mating Rituals of the Egret stares back at him in Latin. He snorts. “Yeah, turns out we don’t need this one. We’re done here.”
Sam offers Castiel a hand up as Dean gives a relieved sigh and winks broadly at the librarian. Castiel’s hand is warm and dry, the brief grip strong and reassuring.
***
Dean & Sam, outside of Flatplain, Texas:
It’s 102 outside and below freezing in the Impala. Dean stares fixedly at the road, eyes on the dotted white line. His shoulders are hunched forward, his fingers are clenched to whiteness around the steering wheel. Sam is sitting right next to him, but his posture screams that he is alone in the car. Every few seconds his jaw spasms.
Castiel sighs from the backseat. He didn’t know what the demons had said to them. He’d gotten there just in time for the clean-up; two humans, formerly hosts to demons, needed to be whisked to the nearest hospital. And now it was just him and the ice sculptures formerly known as Dean and Sam Winchester, driving 15 miles over the speed limit into a dusty Texas dusk.
Castiel leans across the front seat and turns on the radio. Both Dean and Sam interrupt their sulk-off to stare at him in shock. He settles back into his seat as the announcer smarmily introduces a “love song for Amanda, from her teddy bear.”
I remember all my life, raining down as cold as ice -
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean interrupts. “Barry Manilow? Really, Cas?”
“I have not heard this song before. It doesn’t sound so bad,” Castiel replies.
Morning, just another day, happy people pass my way -
“I bet,” Sam mutters against the window. Dean snorts loudly. The temperature in the Impala thaws minutely.
Well you came and you gave without taking -
“That sounds rather selfless.” Castiel leans towards the radio. He’s aware of both Winchesters looking at him now.
But I sent you away, oh Mandy -
Castiel gasps. Dean starts chuckling at well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking and Sam joins in at I need you today, oh Mandy. Castiel looks back and forth between the brothers as the next verse starts up, Dean warbling the first two lines.
I'm standing on the edge of time
I walked away when love was mine
Sam takes up with the next two lines, and Castiel covers a wince. Singing is something Sam Winchester should not do.
Caught up in a world of uphill everyone in the car flinches when Sam’s voice breaks climbing
The tears are in my mind
Both brothers belt the next line, as if they have done it many times before, and Castiel has to wonder how they know all the words to this song they both derided.
And nothing is RHYMING, and Sam is laughing and shrieking the word at the same time oh Mandy!
Dean grins at him when he sings, and Castiel’s stomach gives a strange quiver. It’s been quivering a lot lately, which should worry him, but the quivering feels … good.
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
“Your turn, Cas!” Sam yells as Dean draws out the ‘Maaaaaaaaaandy.’
Well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy!
Castiel doesn’t chime in until the ‘Mandy,’ as the boys had been laughing over the lines the first time through, but he still gets approving nods from both Winchesters for playing along. He sits up straighter.
No one sings along to the next part:
Yesterday's a dream I face the morning (“Do you remember this part, Dean?”)
Crying on the breeze (“Not a fucking clue, Sammy.”)
The pain is calling, oh Mandy (“Maaaaaaaaandy!”)
They all three chime in for the last go round of the chorus, Dean with his head thrown back, Sam wringing his hands in fake histrionics, and Castiel singing intently to the radio.
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy!
Dean’s still smiling when the last notes fade away. He reaches out with one hand to ruffle Castiel’s hair. “Cas is a Fanilow; who knew?”
Sam grins back and rolls down his window. “It’s over a hundred degrees in here,” he comments, and sticks his head out the window with his eyes closed. He looks much younger to Castiel all of a sudden, and when he glances at Dean, he knows Dean sees it, too.
“Hey, Sammy. Why don’t you choose the next round?” Dean asks, rolling down his own window.
Castiel sits back in his seat and watches the boys as Back in black! fills the Impala, shooting out the windows and into the deepening Texas night.
***
Castiel, at the One-Eyed Norseman, Haslum, Minnesota:
Dean’s cell rings a little after 1:00 in the morning, and he scrambles for it before it can wake Sam, too. “Dean Winchester?” An older woman’s voice, clipped vowels and resignation traveling across the miles to roust him from sleep.
“Who wants to know?” The display had said Cas, he’s sure. First call since God told them to go fuck themselves. Sam opens his eyes in the depths of the other bed, and Dean hits the speaker phone.
“Tansy Larsson, owner of the One-Eyed Norseman in Haslum. You’re the first speed dial on a drunk I got here.”
His heart thuds painfully in his chest and he sits up too fast, the blood rush causing him to fall back again. “Where’s that? He okay? Can you keep him there til I can get there?”
“You can see us from Route 210. Can’t miss the sign. Bar closes at 2:00, sonny.”
Sam’s already at the computer. “Route 210, Norseman - that’s Minnesota.”
Dean sighs. It could have been much worse. Not too far across the border, but there’s no way they’re going to make it before 2:00.
They duck out into the cold rain together, and Dean smiles grimly as he gets into the driver’s seat. On this, at least, the Brothers Winchesters can see eye to eye: first order of business - rescue the angel. Then hit up a diner for pancakes on the way back, he adds.
The windshield wipers beat a stuttering time against the window. A little squeaky, and Dean adds it to his mental list of things to fix: the windshield wipers, the Winchester family, the world, Cas.
Something moves in the corner of his vision, and he thinks for a moment that he can see his older self there in the passenger seat, sporting both the thigh holster and closed-off expression. Dean swerves, but only a bit, despite the rain. Years of this life, and he’s inured to shock.
“Whoa, Dean!” exclaims Sam, and of course it’s Sammy there. The phone call was enough of a reminder of the future Cas, Dean doesn’t need to add hallucinations to the mix.
“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean mutters and ignores the sympathetic look that Sam shoots him.
“Dean, I know you’re - ”
“Enough, Sam. Just … enough, okay?” This is the same conversation they’ve been having for the past two days, and Dean’s royally sick of it. For once Sam bites his tongue. They don’t speak again for almost two hours.
It’s 3:00 in the morning when Sam spots the sign. The One-Eyed Norseman tickles something in the back of Dean’s head, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. The sign itself is garish and tasteless, a one-eyed Viking with a fluorescent orange beard, an affront to Norsemen everywhere. The place is a glorified truck stop and the parking lot is empty. The rain is fading to a drizzle, individual beads picked out in the headlights of the Impala, and no signs of life. Dean parks, but leaves the headlights on to provide at least a little illumination. No one answers when he pounds on the door to the bar. Sam runs around to try the back door, and Dean takes the other side door. He’s walking fast now, a familiar panic seizing his throat as he rounds the corner on the far side of the building.
A human-shaped lump is slumped against the wall, chin on chest. Castiel lost his tie and his right shoe. There are interesting stains on the infamous trench coat. Dean walks slowly to him and crouches in the muck. He clears his throat.
“Cas?” His hand goes out automatically to shake the angel from his stupor, but Dean freezes at the sight of his own hand. It’s shaking. He’s shaking. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Cas, come on, man, it’s cold out here, you’re soaked, you stink. Get up. Let’s go.”
Castiel moves his head, finally. It rolls back on his neck until he can squint up at Dean. “I’m in an altered state.”
“I can see that.” Dean rises from his crouch stiffly, joints creaking. “Come on, let’s get in the car and get you back to the motel. Clean you up.”
Castiel continues peering up at him. “I think I like being in an altered state.”
Dean reaches down and grabs him by the lapels, hauling him upright. “Well, I don’t! What the fuck, Cas, you’re not supposed to change! I don’t want to see you like this!” Castiel’s head lolls on his shoulder, and Dean gives him another quick shake. “Why didn’t you call me back for two days?”
“Cas! Dean, calm down, you’re hurting him!” Sam rounds the corner and skids across rain-slick asphalt
Dean turns quickly at his voice, still gripping Castiel. Sam shoots him an angry look and asks softly, “Cas? You okay?”
Castiel barks a laugh. “Okay? Okay? No I don’t think so.”
His laugh is so bitter and twisted that something inside of Dean just breaks. “Stop it, Cas! I can’t do this with you like this! So God didn’t work out - I could have told you he wouldn’t help us, way back when you started this search. Hell, I did!” Sam keeps trying to get a word in edgewise, but Dean’s on a roll. “Pull yourself together! I won’t have you become him. I won’t, Cas!”
He stops abruptly when he catches a glance of Castiel’s face. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, unmistakable despite the rain. His eyes are wide and unfathomably dark blue, as if they had soaked up all the light from the Impala’s headlights without a spark making it up to the surface. Dean wonders if he’s ever felt tears before.
“Cas,” he says softly, and stops. There’s nothing else he can think to say so he brings his hands up to cradle the angel’s face. Castiel makes a whimpering noise, and is there anything worse than seeing a grown man weep? Yes, Dean thinks automatically, but his mind skitters over things like war and starving children and immediately supplies, watching an angel weep.
He pulls Castiel nearer, and Castiel comes willingly, leaning his head on Dean’s shoulder and burying his face in the crook of Dean’s neck. Dean has to help him find those places humans use for comfort. He slides one hand underneath Castiel’s coats and begins to rub soothing circles over Castiel’s back. The other hand he uses to stroke the back of Castiel’s neck.
Sam clears his throat. “I’m going to, um, bring the Impala closer,” he mumbles, turning away.
Aside from that first whimper, Castiel is a quiet crier. His hands hang uselessly at his sides and his mouth opens and closes wordlessly against Dean’s neck. Eventually he begins to speak, and Dean has to strain his ears to hear his whispered mumblings.
“I just wanted to see Him. I just wanted to be in His presence. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought He would care, Dean. I wanted Him to care.”
Dean can feel his heart breaking, but the words strike too close to home and he doesn’t know what he can say back. He holds Castiel tighter.
Sam parks the car so close, they’re almost bumped in the shins. He helps Dean assist Castiel into the back of the car, then Dean climbs in after him. “Need to make sure he doesn’t hurl in my baby,” he mutters, and Sam lets him get away with it.
They’re about ten miles down the road and a flushed and sweating Castiel is lying half in his lap when Sam speaks up from the driver’s seat. “Look, you guys, I know this was a setback -”
“Sam,” Dean says in a warning tone.
“No, Dean, you shut up for a minute. Cas, Joshua said God brought you back to life. Don’t you see that that right there is an answer? Maybe not the one we were looking for - but, you guys, don’t you think that God thinks we can succeed? Doesn’t that count for SOMETHING?”
Dean looks at Sam in the rearview mirror. He’s all earnest and excited and Dean could almost wish he had even a small bit of that faith.
“I mean, He’s helped us out, and now it’s time for Team Free Will to, well, freely choose,” Sam’s voice sinks to a mumble at the end.
There’s silence in the car for awhile before Castiel says softly, “Thank you, Sam.”
Dean can see his eyes, and the pain and longing and anger are still there. It comes to him, then, the one-eyed Norseman. “Odin,” he says. “The One-Eyed Norseman? Odin traded his eyeball for wisdom. Well, I have a piece of advice for him: next time, hang onto your balls.”
Sam snorts and Castiel gives him a slight smile. His eyelids droop closed soon after, and Dean shifts a bit to make him more comfortable in his arms.
Team Free Will drives along through the night, the sun rising at their backs.
Author: blue_fjords
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Sam, Castiel, mild Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word length: ~5,400
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Mentions of 5x03, 5x04, 5x14, 5x16.
Summary: Five times Castiel saved a Winchester, and one time they saved him.
A/N: I started writing this months ago. And then came 5x16 and the whole structure changed twice. Now it’s my first “five times” fic.
Dean, at Humphrey & Hubert’s Sparkling Smile Office of Dentistry, Pillsbury, Kentucky:
He’s slumped into the far corner, giggles erupting, but surely he doesn’t giggle. Not Dean Winchester. But there’s another one, because his hand’s in front of his face and it’s fucking hysterical. Hands! They’re so blobby, and then there are those long things (“Fingers, Dean,” supplies the voice in his head that sounds like Sam) and he can make them twitch. Ha, they’re twitching now! His nose is twitching, too, because wow, there’s a lot of smoke in here. How’d it get here? Can he breathe it? He takes an experimental gulp and starts hacking. That’s a no to the smoke, Alec! Double Jeopardy now, another answer for Dean Winchester to question!
The answer breaks down the door, tan trench coat and smoke billowing around him.
“Yoo hoo!” Yoo hoo? Dean calls. “I’ll take Angels for a thousand, Alec!”
Castiel is immediately by his side, hauling him up, and an “oof!” escapes Dean’s lips as he realizes that his ankle is very tender, possibly sprained. He flails for a moment, grasping at Castiel’s arm for balance.
“Hold on to me, Dean. We have to walk out of this building. It’s a trap.”
Dean’s head is fuzzy, with the gas and the smoke, but it seems like Castiel is telling him they’re the mice in a game of Mousetrap (“TM,” says Sam’s voice, again, his eight-year-old voice this time) and they need to get the hell out of Dodge. His fingers scramble for purchase on Castiel’s trench coat, finally fisting into the fabric covering his lower back, and he’s able to drag his foot along. They stumble from the room, but the hall is black with smoke.
“Why’s there so much smoke?” Dean mumbles, coughing, and Castiel waves an angelic hand over his nose and lips. The air clears a bit, just around him, and he beams. “That’s sooooooo clever, Cas! What other party tricks can you do? Can you pull a flower out of my ear?”
Castiel glances down at him (“Down? Stand up straight, son,” Dad’s voice this time, and even now, Dean automatically snaps to attention, wincing as he puts more weight onto his hurt foot). Castiel is frowning.
“You are in an altered state,” he states, pausing, ignoring the smoke and what Dean is increasingly aware is a fire somewhere else in the building, the flames just barely licking the walls of the hall.
“Laughing gas! Cas! Gas and Cas rhyme! You should try it sometime!”
Castiel shakes his head and pulls him down the hall, towards the glowing green EXIT sign.
“Hey, Cas,” he says, tripping along beside him, “if we go through that door, does that mean it’s all over? We exit this life, let slip the mortal coil, buy the farm, kick the bucket? Or just, like, this thing right here, with angels and demons and vessels and all?”
“It’s an EXIT sign, Dean,” Castiel replies, and then his shoulder is shoving it open. The first breath of uncontaminated air practically burns with sweetness, and Dean shakes his head, throwing off the smoke and gas. His fingers tighten their grip of Castiel’s coat. There’s an open parking lot before them, so much air, and he tries to drag them there. There’s even a bench and his foot is really swollen to twice its size. Castiel stops him, keeping him to the shadows around the building.
“This is a trap, Dean, remember? There’s a ward around the building and humans watching this place,” Castiel warns him.
“If they knew I was here, why didn’t they come in for me?” he asks, lowering his voice on instinct.
“I should think Zachariah wanted to perform a rescue at the last possible moment, when you were most vulnerable.”
Dean stops short. “That is … a very Dick Cheney thing to do,” he says quietly.
Castiel gives him one of his rare half-smiles. “Yes it is.”
Sirens sound from down the road, and Castiel presses him into a corner of the building. The walls are hot, just this side of uncomfortable, and then the fire engines are there. Smoke pours out of the building as windows are broken and men in yellow-slashed black uniforms swarm everywhere. Castiel takes advantage of the chaos to shepherd Dean away from the building, beyond the warding. Dean’s sick from the gas and smoke and his foot is a throbbing knot of pain. Castiel has to practically carry him, and maybe it’s still the remnants of the laughing gas that calls to mind an old memory: his arms around Dad’s neck, his fingers tight on Dad’s leather jacket, his eyelids drooping as he looks behind them at Mom, cradling Sammy in her arms and smiling at him, singing a nonsense song to him, “Dean, Dean, my magic bean, grow up strong, right the wrongs, and come home again to me.” Castiel’s arm holds him up, two fingers go to his forehead and Dean’s last conscious thought is to hold tightly to what’s his, knuckles whitening in the folds of the trench coat.
***
Sam, five miles outside of Podunkville, Vermont:
The Impala stutters to a stop and Sam blinks in disbelief at the dashboard. The one day - the ONE day - Dean lets him take the car, and what happens? He breaks it. Of course he does.
He gets out of the car and manages to shove and roll it until it’s more firmly on the shoulder. At least there’s a shoulder here. He’s been driving through woodlands all morning, trees perilously close to the road. But now that he’s approaching civilization, there’s just a bit more space.
He leans against the trunk and pulls out his cell. He could check under the hood himself, call a tow truck or call Dean. Dad gave him exactly one car lesson before declaring him to be hopeless around an engine, so that’s not really an option. Dean would kill him. Another bad option. He’s got AAA programmed into his phone - policy under H. Caulfield - but his thumb pauses over the button as another number appears in the bottom of the screen.
“Castiel? It’s Sam. I’m at mile 32 on route 9 in Vermont…”
“Hello, Sam.” Castiel appears suddenly next to him and looks curiously around at the Impala. “Where is Dean?”
“I left him doing interviews at this diner in town. Listen, Cas,” Sam lowers his voice out of habit, “I’d appreciate it if we could keep this just between ourselves but I, ah, I appear to have done something to the car.”
Castiel walks over to the Impala and frowns at the hood before raising it up and propping it. Sam’s eyebrows attempt to crawl into his hairline.
“You know stuff about cars, Cas?” he asks.
“Dean gave me instruction when we drove to Maine,” he says, and bends his head to look under the hood. Sam hunkers down next to him. “This here is the thingamajig.” Castiel points to a valve and Sam’s lips twitch. “When the liquid is low, the engine is in pain. We need to procure a flask of Greyskull-powered juice to feed the engine and make the Impala well again.”
Sam smoothes his facial features and turns to face the angel. Castiel is deadly serious. The thing is, now that he’s pointed everything out, Sam can see what the problem is. “Thanks, Cas. I think Dean keeps an emergency stock of Greyskull-powered juice in the trunk.”
Ten minutes later, Sam’s roaring down the road once again, the theme song to He-Man playing in his head. True to his word, Castiel does not tell Dean about the thingamajig.
***
Dean, at Skin & Bones Revue in Bloomer, Nevada:
“Now this is more like it!” Dean slaps Castiel on the back and steers him to a table by the stage. Sam sighs and follows, scuffing his feet. “How many years we’ve been doing this gig, and this is the first haunting at a strip joint?”
“The sign said it was an exotic dancing showcase,” Castiel says, frowning.
“Sure it is, Cas. Sure it is.” Dean gestures to a scantily clad waitress and orders them beers while Sam glances surreptitiously around the room.
“I think we’re going to have to check out the changing rooms,” Sam whispers.
“That’s the spirit, Sammy!” Dean leans back in his chair and grins at the other two. They don’t look near as happy as him to be in this situation. His grin fades. “I swear it’s like traveling with Pollyanna and Mother Theresa sometimes,” he mutters.
Music starts up, a grinding beat punctuated with “uh-uh” gasps, and Dean winces at the widening of Castiel’s eyes as enlightenment dawns on him. Here it comes. “Dean, we are in another Den of Iniquity,” Castiel hisses.
Sam purses his lips and mouths “Another?” at him. Dean waves it off. “Weren’t you going to check out the changing rooms? Cas and I’ll provide a distraction out here.”
Sam rolls his eyes, but slouches off as if he was heading to the restroom. Castiel glances at the stage and immediately jerks his gaze away. Dean has to agree; he’s seldom seen such a disinterested stripper in his life, and to top it off, she could be Skeletor’s twin sister. ‘Skin & Bones Revue,’ indeed.
The waitress appears at their table and crinkles her nose in confusion. ‘Call me Brenda!’ her nametag implores. “I thought there were three of you? What happened to your boyfriend?” Brenda asks Dean.
Fuck a duck, not again. “He’s my little brother, actually. Had to take a leak. Can’t take him anywhere.” He gives her a tight smile and takes a swallow of his beer. Castiel moves closer to him, trying to get the waitress to block his view of the stage.
“Oh, I’m sorry! So are you then …?” she asks, leaning down to hand Castiel a bottle. The stripper winks broadly at Castiel over Brenda’s shoulder, and Dean smirks.
“I’m his angel,” Castiel says, gaze fixed desperately on the waitress, and Dean spit-takes his beer.
“That is so sweet!” Brenda coos, but the look she gives Dean is full of frustrated disappointment. Dean would tell her not to despair, but he’s having trouble forming coherent words. “How long have you been together?” she asks Castiel.
“Since September 18, 2008,” Castiel supplies. “You have beer dripping down your chin,” he informs Dean. Dean just stares at him until Brenda hands him a napkin.
Another customer, a burly trucker, comes into the bar, and Brenda brightens considerably, leaving them to show him to a seat on the other side of the stage. Dean is still watching Castiel. The angel calmly takes a sip of his beer and makes a face. “It’s rather bitter. Is yours the same?”
Dean stops him before he can try out his beer. “What the hell, Cas? Did you have to tell her we were … together?”
Castiel’s brow wrinkles. “We are together. There’s no one else here, Dean. The exotic dancer isn’t even dancing for us anymore.”
He’s right; the dancer is flapping around in an attempt at a seductive grind in front of the trucker, Brenda has sat down next to him and has her hand on his knee, and even the bartender, a little woman with an orange pixie cut, is watching the trucker instead of them. Dean sighs heavily. “You’re like Kryptonite to my sex life, dude.”
“You could do better, Dean,” Castiel says. “None of these women is Lois Lane.”
“I’ll be damned, Cas,” Dean says, a smile spreading across his face. “You just made a pop culture reference.”
Castiel smiles back, a full smile that crunches his nose and crinkles his eyes, and Dean feels something thrumming in his chest in response. A drop of beer is glistening on Castiel’s lower lip, and Dean’s own lips part slightly -
“Dean! Cas! Get down!” Sam yells, suddenly appearing on stage behind the stripper. Several things happen at once: Dean dives forward to knock Castiel to the floor, Castiel grips Dean by the shoulders and pulls him forcefully down on top of him, the stripper collapses to the ground and an angry spirit rises from her bag of bones, and Sam throws a chair at Brenda, missing and clunking the trucker between the eyes.
It takes awhile to sort everything out. Brenda, also known as Bertha Finkeltawny, had been using her witchcraft to lure men into sexual relations with the spirit of her dead sister to make up for stealing her husband two hundred years ago (“That is fucking MESSED UP!” Dean declares. “You should try reading her diary,” Sam replies. “They, uh, drink the blood of their victims after sex.” “Ah, afterglow.”). The bartender kicks them out on their asses as punishment for losing her a waitress and a dancer (and starting a fire on one of her tables), and they drag the trucker with them to hoist him into his truck on their way out, just in case.
The bartender follows them outside, yelling curses at “your sasquatch of a brother and your pretty little boyfriend, too!”
Sam gets a huge smirk on his face. Dean rolls his eyes, trying not to blush, but Castiel frowns back at the bar. “I didn’t think I was that little.”
Sam laughs so hard he drops the trucker’s feet.
***
Sam, Bumpass Public Library, Bumpass, Virginia:
Dust motes spin lazily in the air as Sam flips another page. His fingers are shaking. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. He can feel Dean’s eyes on him.
“I’m fine, Dean,” he says loudly, too loudly for their current location. The librarian looks up from her stack of books at the circulation desk and frowns. It’s a loud frown, and Sam inwardly winces as he shoots her an apologetic smile. She sniffs and goes back to checking books.
“Old bat is ten times louder than us with her sniffing and huffing,” Dean mutters. He closes his book and knocks on the cover. “This thing was worthless. You got anything?”
Sam looks back down at his book. It’s Latin, he should be able to read it just fine, but the words are swimming in front of his eyes and his skin is crawling. They should have waited a couple more days before leaving Bobby’s, but he couldn’t stand to stay there any longer. Even Virginia isn’t far enough away from the Panic Room, really. “I want to give it a little longer,” he tells Dean.
“Well, I’m bored; I’m calling Cas.” Dean scrapes his chair back from the table (loudly), waves to the librarian, and ducks behind a row of shelving to make his phone call. Sam can just hear his murmuring.
The movement of air that signifies Castiel’s arrival is a welcome relief. The library is too hot in the unseasonably warm spring weather. Sam watches his brother and the angel confer behind a stack of books. Castiel is standing too close to Dean, but lately Dean’s stopped fighting it.
Sam stretches his arm out on the table and rests his head on his own shoulder, watching the other two from his skewed viewpoint. He supplies their dialogue in his head - “Thanks, Cas, for dropping everything just ‘cause I was bored.” “It is no problem, Dean. I prefer spending my time on basking in your presence rather than on wild goose chases.” “I love it when you use colloquialisms, Cas. You make them sound so sexy.” “I am impressed that you know what a colloquialism is, Dean. Kiss me.” - God, sometimes he misses Ruby. She’d make kissing sound effects for them, too. Dean got an angel who died for him, and he got a demon who betrayed him, and what does that say about him?
“Sam?” Castiel is at his elbow now, Dean is in a far corner of the library, peering up a shelf of books, and Sam jerks himself upright. There’s moisture on his face.
“Sorry, dust. Um, allergies,” he mutters. “Hey, Cas. I hope we weren’t bothering you by calling.”
“You are not a bother, Sam.”
Sam looks back down at his book. His head is pounding and the Latin looks more like the Cyrillic alphabet than the Roman.
“Something is troubling you.” When he glances up, Castiel has his blue eyes fixed on his face and Sam feels like he’s falling, falling, falling into their depths. No wonder Dean’s stopped fighting it.
“It’s nothing.”
“I am your friend, Sam. And friends fall on each other.”
Sam blinks. “I think you mean ‘lean.’ Friends ‘lean’ on each other.”
Castiel nods. “Of course.” He waits expectantly. Sam swallows hard and looks away. Across the library, Dean’s found a book in the art section that interests him and is pulling it down. Sam doubts Bumpass, Virginia has a book of nude figures in their collection, and from the way that Dean’s face falls, he’s correct.
“You’ve seen Dean’s soul, right?” he asks finally.
“Yes.”
“And … and you thought it was beautiful?”
Castiel doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Sam looks at him again. “Oh,” he says softly. Because as much as he’d joked in his head and with Ruby about it, he hadn’t actually thought there was anything there. That an angel could feel so much. “Oh,” he says again.
“You didn’t want to ask me about your brother,” Castiel says, voice slightly gruffer than usual.
Sam watches him silently for a moment, the question on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t ask it. Castiel sighs.
“You are my friend, Sam. I am … cut off … from my family. I only have two friends. I would stand … I have stood … between my family and you. You. You are worth it.”
Sam can’t speak past the lump in his throat.
A chair scrapes loudly next to him and he jumps. “This place blows,” Dean says in a piercing whisper. “Aren’t you done yet, Sammy?”
Sam gives himself a shake and looks back at the book. He can finally read it. Mating Rituals of the Egret stares back at him in Latin. He snorts. “Yeah, turns out we don’t need this one. We’re done here.”
Sam offers Castiel a hand up as Dean gives a relieved sigh and winks broadly at the librarian. Castiel’s hand is warm and dry, the brief grip strong and reassuring.
***
Dean & Sam, outside of Flatplain, Texas:
It’s 102 outside and below freezing in the Impala. Dean stares fixedly at the road, eyes on the dotted white line. His shoulders are hunched forward, his fingers are clenched to whiteness around the steering wheel. Sam is sitting right next to him, but his posture screams that he is alone in the car. Every few seconds his jaw spasms.
Castiel sighs from the backseat. He didn’t know what the demons had said to them. He’d gotten there just in time for the clean-up; two humans, formerly hosts to demons, needed to be whisked to the nearest hospital. And now it was just him and the ice sculptures formerly known as Dean and Sam Winchester, driving 15 miles over the speed limit into a dusty Texas dusk.
Castiel leans across the front seat and turns on the radio. Both Dean and Sam interrupt their sulk-off to stare at him in shock. He settles back into his seat as the announcer smarmily introduces a “love song for Amanda, from her teddy bear.”
I remember all my life, raining down as cold as ice -
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean interrupts. “Barry Manilow? Really, Cas?”
“I have not heard this song before. It doesn’t sound so bad,” Castiel replies.
Morning, just another day, happy people pass my way -
“I bet,” Sam mutters against the window. Dean snorts loudly. The temperature in the Impala thaws minutely.
Well you came and you gave without taking -
“That sounds rather selfless.” Castiel leans towards the radio. He’s aware of both Winchesters looking at him now.
But I sent you away, oh Mandy -
Castiel gasps. Dean starts chuckling at well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking and Sam joins in at I need you today, oh Mandy. Castiel looks back and forth between the brothers as the next verse starts up, Dean warbling the first two lines.
I'm standing on the edge of time
I walked away when love was mine
Sam takes up with the next two lines, and Castiel covers a wince. Singing is something Sam Winchester should not do.
Caught up in a world of uphill everyone in the car flinches when Sam’s voice breaks climbing
The tears are in my mind
Both brothers belt the next line, as if they have done it many times before, and Castiel has to wonder how they know all the words to this song they both derided.
And nothing is RHYMING, and Sam is laughing and shrieking the word at the same time oh Mandy!
Dean grins at him when he sings, and Castiel’s stomach gives a strange quiver. It’s been quivering a lot lately, which should worry him, but the quivering feels … good.
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
“Your turn, Cas!” Sam yells as Dean draws out the ‘Maaaaaaaaaandy.’
Well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy!
Castiel doesn’t chime in until the ‘Mandy,’ as the boys had been laughing over the lines the first time through, but he still gets approving nods from both Winchesters for playing along. He sits up straighter.
No one sings along to the next part:
Yesterday's a dream I face the morning (“Do you remember this part, Dean?”)
Crying on the breeze (“Not a fucking clue, Sammy.”)
The pain is calling, oh Mandy (“Maaaaaaaaandy!”)
They all three chime in for the last go round of the chorus, Dean with his head thrown back, Sam wringing his hands in fake histrionics, and Castiel singing intently to the radio.
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy!
Dean’s still smiling when the last notes fade away. He reaches out with one hand to ruffle Castiel’s hair. “Cas is a Fanilow; who knew?”
Sam grins back and rolls down his window. “It’s over a hundred degrees in here,” he comments, and sticks his head out the window with his eyes closed. He looks much younger to Castiel all of a sudden, and when he glances at Dean, he knows Dean sees it, too.
“Hey, Sammy. Why don’t you choose the next round?” Dean asks, rolling down his own window.
Castiel sits back in his seat and watches the boys as Back in black! fills the Impala, shooting out the windows and into the deepening Texas night.
***
Castiel, at the One-Eyed Norseman, Haslum, Minnesota:
Dean’s cell rings a little after 1:00 in the morning, and he scrambles for it before it can wake Sam, too. “Dean Winchester?” An older woman’s voice, clipped vowels and resignation traveling across the miles to roust him from sleep.
“Who wants to know?” The display had said Cas, he’s sure. First call since God told them to go fuck themselves. Sam opens his eyes in the depths of the other bed, and Dean hits the speaker phone.
“Tansy Larsson, owner of the One-Eyed Norseman in Haslum. You’re the first speed dial on a drunk I got here.”
His heart thuds painfully in his chest and he sits up too fast, the blood rush causing him to fall back again. “Where’s that? He okay? Can you keep him there til I can get there?”
“You can see us from Route 210. Can’t miss the sign. Bar closes at 2:00, sonny.”
Sam’s already at the computer. “Route 210, Norseman - that’s Minnesota.”
Dean sighs. It could have been much worse. Not too far across the border, but there’s no way they’re going to make it before 2:00.
They duck out into the cold rain together, and Dean smiles grimly as he gets into the driver’s seat. On this, at least, the Brothers Winchesters can see eye to eye: first order of business - rescue the angel. Then hit up a diner for pancakes on the way back, he adds.
The windshield wipers beat a stuttering time against the window. A little squeaky, and Dean adds it to his mental list of things to fix: the windshield wipers, the Winchester family, the world, Cas.
Something moves in the corner of his vision, and he thinks for a moment that he can see his older self there in the passenger seat, sporting both the thigh holster and closed-off expression. Dean swerves, but only a bit, despite the rain. Years of this life, and he’s inured to shock.
“Whoa, Dean!” exclaims Sam, and of course it’s Sammy there. The phone call was enough of a reminder of the future Cas, Dean doesn’t need to add hallucinations to the mix.
“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean mutters and ignores the sympathetic look that Sam shoots him.
“Dean, I know you’re - ”
“Enough, Sam. Just … enough, okay?” This is the same conversation they’ve been having for the past two days, and Dean’s royally sick of it. For once Sam bites his tongue. They don’t speak again for almost two hours.
It’s 3:00 in the morning when Sam spots the sign. The One-Eyed Norseman tickles something in the back of Dean’s head, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. The sign itself is garish and tasteless, a one-eyed Viking with a fluorescent orange beard, an affront to Norsemen everywhere. The place is a glorified truck stop and the parking lot is empty. The rain is fading to a drizzle, individual beads picked out in the headlights of the Impala, and no signs of life. Dean parks, but leaves the headlights on to provide at least a little illumination. No one answers when he pounds on the door to the bar. Sam runs around to try the back door, and Dean takes the other side door. He’s walking fast now, a familiar panic seizing his throat as he rounds the corner on the far side of the building.
A human-shaped lump is slumped against the wall, chin on chest. Castiel lost his tie and his right shoe. There are interesting stains on the infamous trench coat. Dean walks slowly to him and crouches in the muck. He clears his throat.
“Cas?” His hand goes out automatically to shake the angel from his stupor, but Dean freezes at the sight of his own hand. It’s shaking. He’s shaking. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Cas, come on, man, it’s cold out here, you’re soaked, you stink. Get up. Let’s go.”
Castiel moves his head, finally. It rolls back on his neck until he can squint up at Dean. “I’m in an altered state.”
“I can see that.” Dean rises from his crouch stiffly, joints creaking. “Come on, let’s get in the car and get you back to the motel. Clean you up.”
Castiel continues peering up at him. “I think I like being in an altered state.”
Dean reaches down and grabs him by the lapels, hauling him upright. “Well, I don’t! What the fuck, Cas, you’re not supposed to change! I don’t want to see you like this!” Castiel’s head lolls on his shoulder, and Dean gives him another quick shake. “Why didn’t you call me back for two days?”
“Cas! Dean, calm down, you’re hurting him!” Sam rounds the corner and skids across rain-slick asphalt
Dean turns quickly at his voice, still gripping Castiel. Sam shoots him an angry look and asks softly, “Cas? You okay?”
Castiel barks a laugh. “Okay? Okay? No I don’t think so.”
His laugh is so bitter and twisted that something inside of Dean just breaks. “Stop it, Cas! I can’t do this with you like this! So God didn’t work out - I could have told you he wouldn’t help us, way back when you started this search. Hell, I did!” Sam keeps trying to get a word in edgewise, but Dean’s on a roll. “Pull yourself together! I won’t have you become him. I won’t, Cas!”
He stops abruptly when he catches a glance of Castiel’s face. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, unmistakable despite the rain. His eyes are wide and unfathomably dark blue, as if they had soaked up all the light from the Impala’s headlights without a spark making it up to the surface. Dean wonders if he’s ever felt tears before.
“Cas,” he says softly, and stops. There’s nothing else he can think to say so he brings his hands up to cradle the angel’s face. Castiel makes a whimpering noise, and is there anything worse than seeing a grown man weep? Yes, Dean thinks automatically, but his mind skitters over things like war and starving children and immediately supplies, watching an angel weep.
He pulls Castiel nearer, and Castiel comes willingly, leaning his head on Dean’s shoulder and burying his face in the crook of Dean’s neck. Dean has to help him find those places humans use for comfort. He slides one hand underneath Castiel’s coats and begins to rub soothing circles over Castiel’s back. The other hand he uses to stroke the back of Castiel’s neck.
Sam clears his throat. “I’m going to, um, bring the Impala closer,” he mumbles, turning away.
Aside from that first whimper, Castiel is a quiet crier. His hands hang uselessly at his sides and his mouth opens and closes wordlessly against Dean’s neck. Eventually he begins to speak, and Dean has to strain his ears to hear his whispered mumblings.
“I just wanted to see Him. I just wanted to be in His presence. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought He would care, Dean. I wanted Him to care.”
Dean can feel his heart breaking, but the words strike too close to home and he doesn’t know what he can say back. He holds Castiel tighter.
Sam parks the car so close, they’re almost bumped in the shins. He helps Dean assist Castiel into the back of the car, then Dean climbs in after him. “Need to make sure he doesn’t hurl in my baby,” he mutters, and Sam lets him get away with it.
They’re about ten miles down the road and a flushed and sweating Castiel is lying half in his lap when Sam speaks up from the driver’s seat. “Look, you guys, I know this was a setback -”
“Sam,” Dean says in a warning tone.
“No, Dean, you shut up for a minute. Cas, Joshua said God brought you back to life. Don’t you see that that right there is an answer? Maybe not the one we were looking for - but, you guys, don’t you think that God thinks we can succeed? Doesn’t that count for SOMETHING?”
Dean looks at Sam in the rearview mirror. He’s all earnest and excited and Dean could almost wish he had even a small bit of that faith.
“I mean, He’s helped us out, and now it’s time for Team Free Will to, well, freely choose,” Sam’s voice sinks to a mumble at the end.
There’s silence in the car for awhile before Castiel says softly, “Thank you, Sam.”
Dean can see his eyes, and the pain and longing and anger are still there. It comes to him, then, the one-eyed Norseman. “Odin,” he says. “The One-Eyed Norseman? Odin traded his eyeball for wisdom. Well, I have a piece of advice for him: next time, hang onto your balls.”
Sam snorts and Castiel gives him a slight smile. His eyelids droop closed soon after, and Dean shifts a bit to make him more comfortable in his arms.
Team Free Will drives along through the night, the sun rising at their backs.