FIC (Supernatural): Darkest Before Dawn
Title: Darkest Before Dawn
Author: blue_fjords
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Castiel, Dean, Sam, Gabriel; Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: through 5x18
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2400
Summary: Castiel dreams, and tries to make his way back. Coda to 5x18. The last scene made me rather hopeful, and this coda turned out rather more hopeful than I thought it would. Who knew?
The lake is placid, no wind to ripple the perfect sheet of dark water, or to tug the fall leaves from the trees along the water’s edge. There’s a man sitting in a lawn chair at the end of the dock that juts out into the lake. A cooler rests beside him on the weathered wood. The man is holding a fishing rod, but he is not watching the lure float gently on the water’s surface. He is looking across the lake.
Castiel stands in the grass at the edge of the dock and cocks his head in bewilderment. A minute ago, less than that, he’d been fighting for his life. No blood is staining his shirt. His tie is back around his neck. Something is not quite right.
At the end of the dock, the man turns in his chair. Castiel’s breath catches in his throat. He knows that soul, would know it anywhere, and it does not belong in that body. The body he had re-formed, completely re-created; breathed for, lived for, fought for. Died for. Castiel shifts, lifting his foot, and moves forward, towards Michael.
His foot comes down on hard linoleum. The peaceful lake has vanished, replaced with a hospital hallway. Three steps lead him to an open door. It’s quiet but for the blipping monitor next to the bed inside the room. Castiel pauses on the threshold, looks both ways down the hall. There is no one else in the hospital except the body lying in this room. That shouldn’t be. He takes a step forward regardless. What happened to the dock? The body shifts. Where is Sam? The body rolls over. Why are they even here? The body opens its eyes and Michael smirks at him.
Anger hastens his steps, but his feet scuff up dust. He’s in front of a park bench in a familiar little town. He drops heavily onto the bench. Children are calling to each other on the playground. Their voices sound like the beating of wings, like the cries of banshees, like the shriek Uriel’s soul made when Anna plunged a knife into him. They sound terrible, and he quickly pushes himself back to his feet. The form he hadn’t noticed on the bench beside him reaches out a hand to prevent him from leaving.
“Brother,” Michael says in Dean’s voice. “Don’t leave me.”
Castiel wrenches his arm away and turns to face Michael, but he’s back in the Den of Iniquity, in the little room the woman whose name was not actually Chastity had taken him. Michael closes the door behind him and smiles at him with Dean’s mouth. He begins to speak, but the words make no sense; they are underwater, across the universe, filtered through human ears and a human mind. Castiel stares at Dean’s mouth, the lips moving, the tongue flicking out, the teeth clacking - anything to break the connection between the body and the soul that shouldn’t be there. Castiel wants to reach past those lips, down that throat and pull out the offending soul. The mouth gets closer and Castiel inadvertently licks his own lips.
He falls.
The impact of the ground wakes him from his troubled sleep. Sleep. Dreams. Nightmares. The pain in his vessel returns with a suddenness that causes him to gasp out loud. He blinks rapidly in the harsh light, eyes adjusting. He’s on a road. The side of it, to be precise. He fell off a slab of dirty-yellow rock. Sand and scrub brush stretch to the horizon in front of him. He turns slowly on the spot. A mountain range is at his back. Heat sears his skin, and tiny grains of sand blow into his face, easily worming their way through the rags of his clothes to stick to his bloody chest. He looks down.
The symbols are still bleeding, the skin inflamed.
He begins to walk, away from the mountains.
He’s thirsty. He would like some water, not beer. Dean would … He stops that train of thought. He will find some water and make his way back to Sam. Sam is his friend. He’d told Anna that and he meant it. Sam is going to need his support. And if Michael kills him when he arrives, well, he hadn’t really expected to survive his stunt at the warehouse anyway. He would like to tell Michael what he thinks of him before he goes, though.
A vulture wheels in the sky above and he blinks up at it dazedly. When he looks back his brother is standing in front of him.
“Hey, bro,” Gabriel says, sneer firmly in place and arms crossed. “How’s tricks?”
There is still blood on his hand, sticky and mostly dried, but his blood regardless. He raises his hand, slowly, and Gabriel’s eyes go wide, panic replacing his nonchalant façade.
“Wait, wait, wait, Castiel! I’m not here to fight!” His hands are out in a placating gesture, his knees bent. He looks so very human. Castiel pauses, hand hovering above his bleeding chest, and Gabriel quickly continues. “I’ve been trying to find you; the Winchesters are looking for you, bro.”
Castiel flexes his hand. The Winchesters. Plural. “Which ones?” he asks finally.
Gabriel frowns at him, stands a little taller, eases slowly back into his carefree persona. “Sam and Dean, of course. How badly did you hit your head?”
His heart rate speeds up. It’s disconcerting, these things like thirst and heartbeats. Hunger. So much hunger. “Why should I believe you? You who have been a Trickster for so long?”
“Yeah, they weren’t sure you’d believe me, either. They said to give you this, so you’d know it was really them.” Gabriel reaches into his pocket and pulls out Dean’s amulet. Castiel stares at it for a long moment.
“I don’t believe you,” he says, and presses his hand to his flesh.
He wakes from blackness some time later. Every muscle in his vessel aches and tethers him firmly to Earth. His dreams this time had been … unsettling. He recognizes them for what they are: a distraction from his mission, and a byproduct of that same mission. Each one began as a dream of Dean, of Dean’s body and the warmth generated by his soul, until each had changed to a nightmare - Michael’s eyes looking through Dean into Castiel as Dean’s lips sought to brush over Castiel’s heated skin.
Castiel sits up groggily. It is foolish to dwell on the past, or dreams. He needs to get to Sam. His head spins and he growls in impatience. He needs to take care of his vessel - no. His body. As foolish as it is to dwell on dreams, it is even more foolish to deny reality. His vessel is his body now, and it needs sustenance and care.
Dried blood flakes off his chest as he rises unsteadily to his feet. He’s on a road, again. A coastal highway. A vast expanse of water stretches as far as his eyes can see on his right. He’s on a cliff, but he can hear the waves rolling in far beneath him. Stars twinkle in the night sky above him, lighting up the road and playing winking games amongst the waves.
He sets off down the road, more slowly this time.
Trees tower on the left of the road, blocking starlight from time to time. The sound of the waves mocks his thirst, but worse is the hunger. It’s not just for food, though his energy is seriously depleted. He’s craving a presence beside him, a quick grin and an arm flung across his shoulders. The smell of sun-warmed leather and the hair product Dean uses every morning before hiding it so Sam won’t see. The sound of a barking laugh and bitterness held at bay with a joke.
“I can’t deny that it’s a nice night for a stroll, Cas, but you look like shit. You want to come with us?”
Castiel stumbles and Dean’s hand shoots out to grasp at his elbow. Castiel looks over his shoulder. Sam and Gabriel are a few steps back. Gabriel looks disgruntled and gives a sardonic wave, but Sam … Sam doesn’t look like he’s lost his brother. Sam is even smiling a little.
“Cas? Cas, come on, will you look at me? It’s me here. It’s me.”
Castiel draws his eyes slowly up Dean’s face. His skin is tingling and his breath is coming in short gasps. He meets Dean’s eyes.
Dean is the only one who looks out at him. Relief turns his muscles to water and he’d collapse but for Dean’s hand at this elbow and Dean’s other arm coming around to circle his waist.
“Hey, it’s okay. I got you.”
Castiel can’t stop looking into Dean’s eyes, deep into his soul. His soul is so colorful, the entire spectrum of light, facets lightening and darkening and sparkling. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen then, when he held it in his hands and helped it shake off the shackles of Hell, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen since. He knows Dean finds the staring strange, but Dean would do the same if he was presented with such beauty.
“You still angry at me?”
“Yes,” Castiel replies hoarsely. “You were going to make the wrong decision.”
“But I changed my mind. Doesn’t that get me any brownie points?”
“You prefer pie,” Castiel says, and swallows drily. This hunger and thirst is downright painful. “Dean -” he begins, but has to stop and cough.
“Take it easy, Cas. Come on, we’ll get back to the motel, get you a little TLC, and I’ll let you rip me a new one. You like that. Sound good?”
Castiel frowns. He understood about half of that. “I will go with you, Dean.”
Dean smiles, and it’s reflected in his eyes. “And tomorrow, we fight.”
“We should start tonight,” Castiel rasps back. They should. They should be relentless. But the press of Dean’s fingers around his waist reminds him that he can’t even stand on his own. Dean raises an eyebrow at him, and he capitulates with poor grace. “Okay. One night to recuperate.”
A throat clears next to them, and Sam begins to speak. “So, uh, we have bandages and water and stuff back at the motel. In, um, Michigan. Maybe Gabriel could bring us all there again?”
Gabriel claps his hands together. “Alrighty then! Angel Express, next stop: South Detroit. Don’t stop believing.”
***
Gabriel leaves them in Michigan. Castiel is not sorry to see him go, though he promises to check in the next morning to touch base on the search for Adam. Castiel tries to argue again to getting right to the fighting, but his body is loud in its insistence for restoration, and Dean and Sam have also gone too long without sleep. He gets his first shower that night, and his first change of clothes. None of them remark on the fact that his shirt hasn’t mended itself. His chest finally stops bleeding, but the scars are uncomfortable until Sam shows him how to wrap bandages in place so they do not chafe against Dean’s t-shirt. He drinks three bottles of water and eats three ‘Happy Meals’ that don’t live up to their name. Dean laughs when Castiel informs him of this, and the sound is shocking in how long it has been absent.
Something has changed in their attitudes, despite their dire situation. Castiel has seen something similar to it before, in other wars. The night is darkest just before the dawn. He just wishes he could remember this fact when he’s going through the night.
He lies stiffly on top of the covers of Dean’s bed while Sam takes up every square inch of the other bed and Dean sits at the little table, cleaning a gun.
“First time you’re going to sleep?” Dean asks quietly, wiping his hands carefully on a rag.
“I … slept after the warehouse. I had strange dreams.”
“Really? What do angels dream of?” He begins to put his cleaning materials away.
“I dreamed about Michael. I wanted to talk to him. To ‘rip him a new one’ as you would say.” He feels the mattress dip and Dean stretch out next to him.
“Have you forgiven me, Cas?” The words are so quiet.
Castiel stares at the ceiling for a long moment. “I’ve never had occasion to forgive someone personally. We … it’s automatic with us. But I choose to forgive you. Do you choose to forgive me?”
“What? Oh. For the smackdown? Hell, I deserved it.”
Castiel’s lips curl up in a smile. “Yes,” he agrees.
Dean barks a laugh and leans up on an elbow. His face takes up all of Castiel’s vision. “So. We back to being BFFs?”
Castiel reaches up and touches Dean’s cheek. Dean’s eyes close. “What are BFFs?” Castiel asks. He can feel Dean swallow against his thumb.
“Best Friends Forever. It’s something fifteen year-old girls say.”
“I see,” Castiel replies, but he doesn’t, not really. “If that’s the title you want, you can be my BFF.”
Dean stares at him for a long moment. “Yeah, okay,” he says, pulling away and flopping back onto the bed. “G’night, Cas.”
Castiel mirrors his previous pose, propped up on an elbow above Dean. “Good night, Dean,” he says gravely. Dean blinks up at him, soul safely ensconced in his own body, and Castiel has been thinking of this for a very long time. He leans down and presses his lips to Dean’s forehead, his cheeks, his lips. Dean’s mouth opens beneath him, and he runs his tongue across Dean’s tongue, over his teeth, into the corners of his lips. His teeth scrape against Dean’s bottom lip, sucking it into his own mouth for a moment. He pulls away after awhile and settles back into the bed.
“Is that how you say BFF in Enochian?” Dean asks faintly beside him.
“No. I just wanted to kiss you.”
“And how was it?”
Castiel thinks for a moment. “You taste like starlight.”
Dean snorts. “Go to sleep, you sap.” He rolls onto his side, and Castiel feels an arm flung across his midsection, a body pressed against the length of his own.
He doesn’t remember his dreams the next morning.
Author: blue_fjords
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Castiel, Dean, Sam, Gabriel; Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: through 5x18
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2400
Summary: Castiel dreams, and tries to make his way back. Coda to 5x18. The last scene made me rather hopeful, and this coda turned out rather more hopeful than I thought it would. Who knew?
The lake is placid, no wind to ripple the perfect sheet of dark water, or to tug the fall leaves from the trees along the water’s edge. There’s a man sitting in a lawn chair at the end of the dock that juts out into the lake. A cooler rests beside him on the weathered wood. The man is holding a fishing rod, but he is not watching the lure float gently on the water’s surface. He is looking across the lake.
Castiel stands in the grass at the edge of the dock and cocks his head in bewilderment. A minute ago, less than that, he’d been fighting for his life. No blood is staining his shirt. His tie is back around his neck. Something is not quite right.
At the end of the dock, the man turns in his chair. Castiel’s breath catches in his throat. He knows that soul, would know it anywhere, and it does not belong in that body. The body he had re-formed, completely re-created; breathed for, lived for, fought for. Died for. Castiel shifts, lifting his foot, and moves forward, towards Michael.
His foot comes down on hard linoleum. The peaceful lake has vanished, replaced with a hospital hallway. Three steps lead him to an open door. It’s quiet but for the blipping monitor next to the bed inside the room. Castiel pauses on the threshold, looks both ways down the hall. There is no one else in the hospital except the body lying in this room. That shouldn’t be. He takes a step forward regardless. What happened to the dock? The body shifts. Where is Sam? The body rolls over. Why are they even here? The body opens its eyes and Michael smirks at him.
Anger hastens his steps, but his feet scuff up dust. He’s in front of a park bench in a familiar little town. He drops heavily onto the bench. Children are calling to each other on the playground. Their voices sound like the beating of wings, like the cries of banshees, like the shriek Uriel’s soul made when Anna plunged a knife into him. They sound terrible, and he quickly pushes himself back to his feet. The form he hadn’t noticed on the bench beside him reaches out a hand to prevent him from leaving.
“Brother,” Michael says in Dean’s voice. “Don’t leave me.”
Castiel wrenches his arm away and turns to face Michael, but he’s back in the Den of Iniquity, in the little room the woman whose name was not actually Chastity had taken him. Michael closes the door behind him and smiles at him with Dean’s mouth. He begins to speak, but the words make no sense; they are underwater, across the universe, filtered through human ears and a human mind. Castiel stares at Dean’s mouth, the lips moving, the tongue flicking out, the teeth clacking - anything to break the connection between the body and the soul that shouldn’t be there. Castiel wants to reach past those lips, down that throat and pull out the offending soul. The mouth gets closer and Castiel inadvertently licks his own lips.
He falls.
The impact of the ground wakes him from his troubled sleep. Sleep. Dreams. Nightmares. The pain in his vessel returns with a suddenness that causes him to gasp out loud. He blinks rapidly in the harsh light, eyes adjusting. He’s on a road. The side of it, to be precise. He fell off a slab of dirty-yellow rock. Sand and scrub brush stretch to the horizon in front of him. He turns slowly on the spot. A mountain range is at his back. Heat sears his skin, and tiny grains of sand blow into his face, easily worming their way through the rags of his clothes to stick to his bloody chest. He looks down.
The symbols are still bleeding, the skin inflamed.
He begins to walk, away from the mountains.
He’s thirsty. He would like some water, not beer. Dean would … He stops that train of thought. He will find some water and make his way back to Sam. Sam is his friend. He’d told Anna that and he meant it. Sam is going to need his support. And if Michael kills him when he arrives, well, he hadn’t really expected to survive his stunt at the warehouse anyway. He would like to tell Michael what he thinks of him before he goes, though.
A vulture wheels in the sky above and he blinks up at it dazedly. When he looks back his brother is standing in front of him.
“Hey, bro,” Gabriel says, sneer firmly in place and arms crossed. “How’s tricks?”
There is still blood on his hand, sticky and mostly dried, but his blood regardless. He raises his hand, slowly, and Gabriel’s eyes go wide, panic replacing his nonchalant façade.
“Wait, wait, wait, Castiel! I’m not here to fight!” His hands are out in a placating gesture, his knees bent. He looks so very human. Castiel pauses, hand hovering above his bleeding chest, and Gabriel quickly continues. “I’ve been trying to find you; the Winchesters are looking for you, bro.”
Castiel flexes his hand. The Winchesters. Plural. “Which ones?” he asks finally.
Gabriel frowns at him, stands a little taller, eases slowly back into his carefree persona. “Sam and Dean, of course. How badly did you hit your head?”
His heart rate speeds up. It’s disconcerting, these things like thirst and heartbeats. Hunger. So much hunger. “Why should I believe you? You who have been a Trickster for so long?”
“Yeah, they weren’t sure you’d believe me, either. They said to give you this, so you’d know it was really them.” Gabriel reaches into his pocket and pulls out Dean’s amulet. Castiel stares at it for a long moment.
“I don’t believe you,” he says, and presses his hand to his flesh.
He wakes from blackness some time later. Every muscle in his vessel aches and tethers him firmly to Earth. His dreams this time had been … unsettling. He recognizes them for what they are: a distraction from his mission, and a byproduct of that same mission. Each one began as a dream of Dean, of Dean’s body and the warmth generated by his soul, until each had changed to a nightmare - Michael’s eyes looking through Dean into Castiel as Dean’s lips sought to brush over Castiel’s heated skin.
Castiel sits up groggily. It is foolish to dwell on the past, or dreams. He needs to get to Sam. His head spins and he growls in impatience. He needs to take care of his vessel - no. His body. As foolish as it is to dwell on dreams, it is even more foolish to deny reality. His vessel is his body now, and it needs sustenance and care.
Dried blood flakes off his chest as he rises unsteadily to his feet. He’s on a road, again. A coastal highway. A vast expanse of water stretches as far as his eyes can see on his right. He’s on a cliff, but he can hear the waves rolling in far beneath him. Stars twinkle in the night sky above him, lighting up the road and playing winking games amongst the waves.
He sets off down the road, more slowly this time.
Trees tower on the left of the road, blocking starlight from time to time. The sound of the waves mocks his thirst, but worse is the hunger. It’s not just for food, though his energy is seriously depleted. He’s craving a presence beside him, a quick grin and an arm flung across his shoulders. The smell of sun-warmed leather and the hair product Dean uses every morning before hiding it so Sam won’t see. The sound of a barking laugh and bitterness held at bay with a joke.
“I can’t deny that it’s a nice night for a stroll, Cas, but you look like shit. You want to come with us?”
Castiel stumbles and Dean’s hand shoots out to grasp at his elbow. Castiel looks over his shoulder. Sam and Gabriel are a few steps back. Gabriel looks disgruntled and gives a sardonic wave, but Sam … Sam doesn’t look like he’s lost his brother. Sam is even smiling a little.
“Cas? Cas, come on, will you look at me? It’s me here. It’s me.”
Castiel draws his eyes slowly up Dean’s face. His skin is tingling and his breath is coming in short gasps. He meets Dean’s eyes.
Dean is the only one who looks out at him. Relief turns his muscles to water and he’d collapse but for Dean’s hand at this elbow and Dean’s other arm coming around to circle his waist.
“Hey, it’s okay. I got you.”
Castiel can’t stop looking into Dean’s eyes, deep into his soul. His soul is so colorful, the entire spectrum of light, facets lightening and darkening and sparkling. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen then, when he held it in his hands and helped it shake off the shackles of Hell, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen since. He knows Dean finds the staring strange, but Dean would do the same if he was presented with such beauty.
“You still angry at me?”
“Yes,” Castiel replies hoarsely. “You were going to make the wrong decision.”
“But I changed my mind. Doesn’t that get me any brownie points?”
“You prefer pie,” Castiel says, and swallows drily. This hunger and thirst is downright painful. “Dean -” he begins, but has to stop and cough.
“Take it easy, Cas. Come on, we’ll get back to the motel, get you a little TLC, and I’ll let you rip me a new one. You like that. Sound good?”
Castiel frowns. He understood about half of that. “I will go with you, Dean.”
Dean smiles, and it’s reflected in his eyes. “And tomorrow, we fight.”
“We should start tonight,” Castiel rasps back. They should. They should be relentless. But the press of Dean’s fingers around his waist reminds him that he can’t even stand on his own. Dean raises an eyebrow at him, and he capitulates with poor grace. “Okay. One night to recuperate.”
A throat clears next to them, and Sam begins to speak. “So, uh, we have bandages and water and stuff back at the motel. In, um, Michigan. Maybe Gabriel could bring us all there again?”
Gabriel claps his hands together. “Alrighty then! Angel Express, next stop: South Detroit. Don’t stop believing.”
***
Gabriel leaves them in Michigan. Castiel is not sorry to see him go, though he promises to check in the next morning to touch base on the search for Adam. Castiel tries to argue again to getting right to the fighting, but his body is loud in its insistence for restoration, and Dean and Sam have also gone too long without sleep. He gets his first shower that night, and his first change of clothes. None of them remark on the fact that his shirt hasn’t mended itself. His chest finally stops bleeding, but the scars are uncomfortable until Sam shows him how to wrap bandages in place so they do not chafe against Dean’s t-shirt. He drinks three bottles of water and eats three ‘Happy Meals’ that don’t live up to their name. Dean laughs when Castiel informs him of this, and the sound is shocking in how long it has been absent.
Something has changed in their attitudes, despite their dire situation. Castiel has seen something similar to it before, in other wars. The night is darkest just before the dawn. He just wishes he could remember this fact when he’s going through the night.
He lies stiffly on top of the covers of Dean’s bed while Sam takes up every square inch of the other bed and Dean sits at the little table, cleaning a gun.
“First time you’re going to sleep?” Dean asks quietly, wiping his hands carefully on a rag.
“I … slept after the warehouse. I had strange dreams.”
“Really? What do angels dream of?” He begins to put his cleaning materials away.
“I dreamed about Michael. I wanted to talk to him. To ‘rip him a new one’ as you would say.” He feels the mattress dip and Dean stretch out next to him.
“Have you forgiven me, Cas?” The words are so quiet.
Castiel stares at the ceiling for a long moment. “I’ve never had occasion to forgive someone personally. We … it’s automatic with us. But I choose to forgive you. Do you choose to forgive me?”
“What? Oh. For the smackdown? Hell, I deserved it.”
Castiel’s lips curl up in a smile. “Yes,” he agrees.
Dean barks a laugh and leans up on an elbow. His face takes up all of Castiel’s vision. “So. We back to being BFFs?”
Castiel reaches up and touches Dean’s cheek. Dean’s eyes close. “What are BFFs?” Castiel asks. He can feel Dean swallow against his thumb.
“Best Friends Forever. It’s something fifteen year-old girls say.”
“I see,” Castiel replies, but he doesn’t, not really. “If that’s the title you want, you can be my BFF.”
Dean stares at him for a long moment. “Yeah, okay,” he says, pulling away and flopping back onto the bed. “G’night, Cas.”
Castiel mirrors his previous pose, propped up on an elbow above Dean. “Good night, Dean,” he says gravely. Dean blinks up at him, soul safely ensconced in his own body, and Castiel has been thinking of this for a very long time. He leans down and presses his lips to Dean’s forehead, his cheeks, his lips. Dean’s mouth opens beneath him, and he runs his tongue across Dean’s tongue, over his teeth, into the corners of his lips. His teeth scrape against Dean’s bottom lip, sucking it into his own mouth for a moment. He pulls away after awhile and settles back into the bed.
“Is that how you say BFF in Enochian?” Dean asks faintly beside him.
“No. I just wanted to kiss you.”
“And how was it?”
Castiel thinks for a moment. “You taste like starlight.”
Dean snorts. “Go to sleep, you sap.” He rolls onto his side, and Castiel feels an arm flung across his midsection, a body pressed against the length of his own.
He doesn’t remember his dreams the next morning.