SPN fic: Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Author: Furius
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel (primarily)
Spoilers: through 5x04 (episode tag)
Warnings: unpleasantness
Word count: ~4800
Summary: The cult of Castiel and the damnation of Dean reach equilibrium. (A closer look at the future as it draws nearer to an ending).
Author's Note: This fic is a companion piece to Generally Wingless. Thanks to peculiar_mind for giving it a read through.
-=-=
Behind a fallen vending machine, Dean made a sign. At the end of the line, someone struck the match.
The trail of fire hissed past Castiel's shoes, arced around his left knee, then ran through rectangles of light on the dark asphalt before disappearing into a pile of corrugated steel. When he saw a trace of a clawed hand and the first wisp of black smoke within the cracked doors of the building, Castiel turned and nodded at the man beside him, who brought up his binoculars and confirmed the sighting. Then, bending his neck until the black rim of the scope concentrated the world into the small area measured by the ticks of the crosshair, Castiel rested his cheek against the comb, braced his shoulder, counted, and fired.
The thick, black cloud gathered quickly from the ground, driving the horde of afflicted out from the block of offices and apartments, their limbs flailing as they clambered over the broken doorways and window frames running away from the gas with that loping, atavistic gait remind Castiel of simians and the blind cthonic demons seldom seen on the surface.
Small canisters whistled in the air as they hurtled toward the ground. Castiel shot again, this time followed by others. The flame trail flared, drawing close a circle around the crotes just as the last of them entered. Screams pierced the crackling walls of blue fire, the moving light casting strange shadows on pinched faces with the feverish eyes until they were suddenly still, mouths and eyes open but voiceless and unseeing.
Once the silence descended, Castiel turned away. The first time they tried this, he had continued to look and there was a moment, he thought, just before their bodies twisted out of the rictus to drop onto the ground that the eyes turned human and the fear in their expression was no longer purely physical. Of course, it might have been his own eyes playing tricks. Either way, it was a bit heart-wrenching. For those bodies roasting inside the rings of fire, or for him, suppressing the urge to pray for the souls, he was never quite sure.
Castiel never looked again into those circles of fire for fear of being certain. Instead, he turned his gaze upon the perimeter, picking off the straggling infected, crawling or leaping over the debris of fallen buildings, lured by the scent of burning flesh.
When the signal passed down for the all clear, Castiel climbed down first, almost one handed. The wound on his shoulder hadn't fully healed and the damp was making his ankle hurt again. He reached the truck, settled into his spot to make inventory for the return trip while listening to Dean Winchester ordering the men into the building over the radio.
"You're bleeding." The driver was young enough that the pitch shifted in the middle of the word and woke Castiel from a half-doze. He felt at his shoulder. Blood was seeping through the dark fabric from beneath the bandaging, but he felt numb. Silence had fallen.
He checked his watch, opened the door and stepped out. "Stay here and start the engine," he ordered then climbed up the back. Finally, he espied Dean and three others running towards him followed by enfilading fire.
"Shoot!" Dean was shouting; Castiel brought up his gun and hesitated; "What are you waiting for?" A scatter of shots wrecked the undergrowth very close to Dean's next step, the next whistled past his ear, hitting the floor beneath Castiel's feet; he cursed; "This is an order! Shoot! Castiel! Cas-"
Castiel's fired and brought them just enough time to reach the truck. Ignoring the wrenching pain on his shoulder, wordlessly, Castiel hoisted Dean up the truck-bed as the antennae of the tanks came into view. The starting jerk of the vehicle almost upset his balance. It dislodged Dean from his. Briefly, he held the man in his arms.
"Didn't realise they were coming into this zone, thought we had a truce," Dean said against his neck.
"We got the supplies?" he asked. The other two men nodded, putting down their bags, full to bursting and not quite cinched shut.
Dean wasn't looking at him, shuffling away to the other side as soon as he could/ "I think that's why they fired on us. Theirs must be getting low." The road had smoothed from dirt trail into a piece of unbroken highway, the small pile of tissue cartons was rocking gently between the men. They weren't followed.
"You could've seen them a mile off. You should've been with us, we could have used the warning." One of them said, sliding down to rest his back against the side panel.
"Not my orders," Castiel returned breezily. The danger had passed and they were still here. He could sleep for a day and a half. He probably should. The dull feeling suffusing his limbs and which he had learned to call fatigue was overwhelming; his body cried for rest. It amused him to imagine it to have a separate consciousness. Which, of course it did, once upon a time. He sometimes wondered if this feeling of divorce from his flesh was natural or an after-effect, a punishment, or a promise… The corners of his lips tugged at the unexpected optimism.
"What are you smiling at?" Dean's voice, annoyed.
"I'm so glad you're alive," he answered, heartfelt, and tried to hold Dean's eyes, but Dean turned away.
-=-=
The name Beatrice stirred Castiel's memory, but it was difficult to remember what, exactly, he wished to remember. Human brains had not evolved to adapt to ten millennia of celestial knowledge and ten millennia were not always worth remembering. A name could have belonged to a friend, an enemy, a stray past or future thought.
"A girl I knew," he said to the back where he was carefully burning a sigil meant for banishing touches of unwanted supernatural beings, invented when the earth was new both demons and angels coveted its creations, inanimate or animate; that particular memory had came upon him in the middle of the night and he had laughed, so suddenly and so loudly, that the sentry had poked her head into his house, "once said that this sigil represents a claim of possession."
Perhaps he really should sign it with his own mark, but he was uncertain whether his name still held power by itself.
"That is why it banishes and not just wards. Though of course, if something comes at you with claws the size of your head, banishing is not going to help you much." Beatrice was silent, probably still nervous. A thin sheen of sweat was gathering on her skin. Castiel had a steady hand and an acute sense of pain. He sympathized, and continued with the story. "And that's why it only works for objects and virgins." He added the simplest angelic name he could remember.
"There, done." He poured a dram of alcohol over it and taped it closed with the ointment and gauze she had saved or stolen for the occasion.
"Who's the girl?" Beatrice asked, twisting around to see the tattoo on her waist, poking at the reddened skin with a dirty fingernail.
"Beautiful, pious, strong and possessed of many relatives with dubious character. I could speak to her in my own voice for I had to protect and spend her life with her. We wandered across fields, forests and strange roads until I led her to her father's house where she found rest."
"Why her?" She turned to face him, no longer worrying at the sigil.
"Death went to her as she slept but her line continued, for she beget-" Castiel stopped, realizing he no longer remembered her purpose, which was not of his design. He had obeyed, spending her life with her living forwards hour by hour, year by year, as if he, too, had been human. Though the memories seemed strange and fractured by the limits of his body Castiel was suddenly certain of a terrible truth; he was her soul's companion and her his even amidst the cacophony of heaven. His angelic self was immune from the implications. But now, each fragment of half-remembered laughter, each piece of prayer felt as if it was carving a new wound into his flesh. There had been so many charges in so many centuries and now all that remained of them were mere impressions, details invented when he could not see them until everyone he knew was reduced to mere figment.
"It is a secret," he replied, stunned by the pain.
"Gotcha," Beatrice said hastily. "So, can I sleep here now?"
"What?"
"I told people that you mentioned I could have a sigil, that's what they said. Chuck was all, 'Get thee to Castiel's. He even has curtains.' Am I wrong? I have stuff." The enthusiasm had ceased to shock him long ago. Teenaged female orphans only had so many options in a refugee camp short of supplies and under siege. He had brought them together for Dean's sake at first- sanctuary under his name. So much for that.
Castiel shrugged, then winced at the pull of his shoulder. "If you like." He looked around his cabin, its knick-knacks and paraphernalia dredged up from everywhere by its inhabitants: statues of Buddha, icons of Christ, and sculptures of saints. Behind the salt lines on the windowsill, the curtains in his room had the patterns of the overlapping circles of the flower of life. He supposed they find the things comforting. His cabin's a shrine to nostalgia and imagination, including himself, "Try to bring more soap than scented candles."
"You really must've been an angel." She hugged him, then said sincerely, "I've a stash." He tried to return the smile, failed, but she didn't notice.
-=-=
There is no such thing as an army of one. Armies go to war. Individuals could go on quests, odysseys, and adventures. Individuals cannot go to war.
Nonetheless, Dean stood in front of the room, arms crossed over his chest, trying to convince that his camp full of individuals, currently eking out a living under his protection in a world where the devil was walking free should go to war against the remaining forces of the United States army. He got them this far: roof over their heads, food on the table, and demons outside their walls. What else could they want? What else could anyone want? And the soldiers opened fire, first.
"They are human," Chuck had been trying to bring the agenda back to supply distribution, unsuccessfully. Finally, he slapped his clipboard on the table. "I thought we all agreed killing humans is a bad thing. We called them murder in my time." He looked around the room at the scores of men and women who were Dean's best soldiers, and more than half of them still didn't believe in ghosts.
"So are the crotes," someone said.
"They're infected. Believe me, there's nothing human about them. It's a sham. They're zombies."
"Exactly, soulless. Dead already."
"And the soldiers attacked us first!"
"Great, that'll save the evil things the trouble. We kill ourselves off first."
"We can expand the definition until even demons are human, but they aren't."
"They were. They are. At least, the ones you see and kill." Castiel raised his voice; it sounded like the clang of bells. "Demons take human bodies they call vessels. They're possessed, their souls imprisoned by the demons."
"What?" The information hushed the room. "I killed-" Everyone swallowed the names if they ever knew them.
"They're not." Dean said, looking hard at Castiel. "Demons are demons. Crotes are crotes. There's nothing human about them. I should know. I have been fighting them all my life."
"Dean Winchester, you know it's not true." The room had fallen so quiet that Chuck could hear a wristwatch ticking out-of-time. Dean's face was growing thunderous; his arms had dropped by his sides; those who knew found their eyes arrested by the sight of his right hand, inching toward his holster.
"The Exorcist is not a documentary. There's no trapped little girl, just the demon."
"You are lying. Why?" Castiel's eyes were blood-shot and bruised, the question came out barely a whisper. Chuck stared at the flask Castiel had been nursing all evening. Really can't blame the guy- that had been a bad battle.
"Stop looking at me as if I'm about to die. We've talked about this. Take a vicodin or something." Dean finally snapped and threw a bottle at him. Castiel caught it one-handed, and unscrewed the lid automatically.
"With alcohol?" Chuck looked aghast. Castiel paused in mid-motion, mouth open, almost comical.
"It is not going to hurt him." Dean said gruffly.
"How do you know?" Then Castiel put his feet on the table. Dean wanted to shout at him, but Castiel was suddenly smiling. The bottom of the soles were clean, as if they had been recently cleaned.
"I know, all right? He needs it." Castiel, to Chuck's dismay, swallowed.
"Now, if we are done playing doctor for the angel," Risa said, apparently willing to drop the issue altogether, "We still can't declare war on our only ally."
"They broke the truce first."
"But is it them, or a rogue faction? Or," She looked at Castiel, speculative, "They may even be possessed. We owe everyone in this camp some answers before we attack people with tanks."
"Reconnaissance mission then."
The room emptied quickly after that, but Chuck lingered to check on Castiel. He really didn't want the angel drop dead. He also really didn't want to overhear his conversations with Dean, but that was perhaps the lesser of the two evils; provided, of course, that there was actually a choice.
"Did you make me a murderer?" Castiel was asking. He barred Dean's way with an arm.
"You pulled the trigger."
"I did, didn't I? I also killed a couple of angels, I think, once."
"Self-defense." Dean said through gritted teeth, "Will you keep your voice down? People are jumpy enough as it is. Your little cult has been doing quite the publicity for you. Half the people here think you're the wrath of god, the other half think you're representative of god. Just which one, they haven't decided. You bleed, but drink enough to have killed a dozen men. You bless marriages while bedding down a trigger-happy harem. The last thing people need to learn is that while they're wrestling with the idea that they might've killed their family unknowingly, you had killed angels, who are, by the way, gone."
"For your defense, anyways. Always. I told them that until you put a stop to it. But I still like to know, Dean, why you want to go to war with the human army so badly? No one was hurt despite the machine guns." Chuck wanted to melt into the walls at Castiel's next words, "Would you ever tell me?"
Dean visibly recoiled, but did not answer, "For god's sake, get some sleep. You look like a zombie yourself. We're leaving tomorrow at dawn. Focus, Castiel, we need your eyes."
Tactical retreat, Chuck thought to himself as he watched Castiel drop his arm and Dean walked away. Dean was right, of course, Castiel should get his shoulder bandaged (again), and get some sleep and worry about tomorrow instead of today. Castiel lifted the rest of the alcohol to his mouth, making a face. He turned.
"Keeps the bad dreams away, Chuck, you should try it; it's the milk of paradise."
"What? The drink or dreamlessness?" Chuck muttered, but Castiel didn't answer.
-=-=
"You are drunk."
"A little," He admitted, "Our Dean gave me vicodin."
"For the shoulder?" She asked sympathetically, then with more alarm, "Did he know you've been drinking?"
"That's what Chuck said, but I'm fine. This body's difficult to kill. The bloodline's been carefully shaped and preserved through the millennia to survive; the bodies must be worthy temples."
"Not too difficult to wound," He let her take off his shirt and change the dressing; "The girl Beatrice said you said to let her stay. We are running out of space. Nice brand by the way. Does it work?"
"I'm a jealous angel," Castiel said, the thought falling harmlessly into the ether.
"Did you really tell her that you fell in love with a human woman once? They're all even more in love with you, now."
"You shall have no angel before me. I was hers; she was mine. Imagine," He said, staring at the icon on the strange makeshift altar someone had constructed, "Imagine that you are the companion to one single soul for an entire human lifespan and that the joys were your triumphs, the grieves your failures. Soldiers guarded lives. I was ordered to watch over them as part of God's infinite mercy and wisdom. Then, being mortal, they died, went to heaven, and I-"
"What?" She sounded wary. His eyes had grown distant.
"Imagine experiencing it a hundred times and feeling nothing except duty, of devotion to larger whole at the time. Then, as the memories dim and frayed, realizing it was…everything." Regret, Castiel had learnt, was a strangely human thing, a devout wish for something that was once possible. Yet, that he should miss the presence of his mortal charges who lived and died before this body was conceived was surely impossible, for angels did not love, and surely their charges did not love the voice in the wilderness except as manifestations of faith. Had they been happy in their mortal lives?
"Everything?"
"Everything I ought to have felt." He decided, glad for the cushion of chemicals in his mind. He buttoned up his shirt and noticed that she was looking at him oddly.
"You can just kiss me, you know," She said, "You don't even need to ask."
"I know," Castiel said sadly, that had not been the intent.
"Come to bed. To sleep," She clarified, "As you once did with Dean Winchester."
"He didn't like it." The clatter of wood suddenly echoed in the room. She had upset an icon.
"And we are alive, isn't that enough? We are living in the midst of a plague, not the end of the world. The devil has always been around even if he had not always worn a body. We are alive yet Dean wants to make war against the world. Why must you go wherever he leads? We can all fight. We can leave this camp. " Night had come. Shadows from the few gas lamps crept across the floor and everyone who claimed his sanctuary had returned and it seemed like he was looking at them for the first time. The world had fallen from civilization in their childhood and adolescence. Now, those faces, bright and hard, refined by chaos, seemed to have turned back the time. When he spoke, it was like he was speaking to those whom he guided when laws were merely spoken and empires were new ideas. Devotee, fanatic, adherent, acolyte, novice, the blessed, the cursed, the chosen-
"He is my last charge. He is the only one that remains." He answered them as though an interrogation, present and past melting together in his mind.
"Beautiful, fierce, Dean Winchester, is death, Castiel. He will never show us heaven even if he knows the way. You hesitated yesterday; you didn't want to save him. There's a part of you that wants him to rest that thought, perhaps if he rested, you would be able to."
"That is not true. I- " Castiel, horrified, tried to remember what had made him hesitate. Tried, in vain, to tell himself that in the secret court of this human soul, Dean Winchester was never on trial.
"You want to live. You've barely begun to live. And you will live for a long time, protecting us, and showed that we might live unharmed in the chaos."
"I'm not showing you heaven, either. I cannot."
"But you have eyes like the sky we barely remember, eyes that remember heaven we haven't seen and memories and sigil that give us proof that God has not deserted us," Before he could protest, she kissed him, and then there were hands, countless hands he might have cherished, once upon a time, had he the body to appreciate and to succumb. Soft lips, warm tongues, and the hot press of bodies in that most basic and ardent idea of worship: "Stay with us."
And he, Castiel, his being graceless and awkward with the knowledge for regret, shame, and guilt, though he wanted more than the desires fashioned from thoughts and hopes only as insubstantial as clouds was reassured by unyielding faith.
He left with Dean the next morning.
-=-=
Doubtless, in some small enclave on the West Coast where the epidemic had begun, the Winchester Gospels were still regarded as holy writ. And there, the demonic forces had not allowed technology to lapse. Two years after the American nuclear holocaust, Dean Winchester's name was still bandied about among the soldiers inside No Man's Land somewhere in Kansas, wondering aloud if he finally became Michael with the heavenly host at his call or if it was all bedtime story by the crazies in California.
"They shouldn't be here," Dean said when Castiel reported what he saw, "It's too close to where we are. See any sign of possession"
Castiel shook his head. According to the contract drawn up between Dean Winchester and the army last time, the forest had been deemed too difficult for either to manage. All the animals had long fled, or been eaten.
They stayed off the old hiking trail, barely visible beneath the litter of branches and leaves and approached the soldiers from the back. Six against two would not be boast-worthy odds but message delivered, the soldiers released, their party melted into the woods again to wait for acknowledgement.
Upon reflection, perhaps one of them should have remembered that the demons Lucifer unleashed did not always need human vessels. At first, no one noticed the slight ripple across the pile of leaves, or the brief flicker of yellow amidst the tree trunks, winking in the recesses of the tangled roots. The weak morning dragged on to an ill-looking noon with no words from the army.
"How's the shoulder?" Dean asked.
"Better. It was an accident, I know. There is nothing to forgive." Castiel replied, forestalling further mentions. Things go wrong. He was used to it by now. And in the end, Dean's strategy had proved effective, practice notwithstanding. It had been his own fault. Castiel had tried not to remember a long time ago angels killed angels in a very similar manner- a conflagration, a ready-made pyre for immortals so that their ghosts may pass up upwards-and stood frozen while a badly aimed arrow struck and pierced through the muscle.
"I just-" The crackling of the branches overhead startled them, then small sticks, clumps of mud, and bits of pebbles showered down. "What the-" They couldn't see what was attacking them. A terrible high-pitched giggling began. Dean swore and fired upwards. A small, winged shape tumbled down.
"Flying monkeys!" Disbelief soon warred with horror, for they seemed innumerable, the wiry shadows crowding in from above and around with long nails and sharp-teethed grins. Fighting them with gun then knife, Castiel was distracted by the black, stunted wings and the way they seemed to dissolve into the earth until he turned and saw that six of them had wrapped around Dean, one for each limb, one sitting on his chest, the sixth knocking his head against the ground.
The world fell quiet. Vaguely, Castiel was aware that the army had approached and had trained their binoculars on the scene and still, made no move to help. But there, in No Man's Land, time slowed for Castiel, the remnant of his grace rattling its reluctant death throes, dying for a man who would be dead.
Castiel reached out and forced the lives out of the primitive creatures of Hell.
And then the radio they had gotten off from the patrolling soldiers crackled to life.
"Go," Castiel said; his hands were trembling over the broken skin of Dean's face, "Make sure it's not a mistake. I will wait here until you return."
It was not a mistake. The army wanted sole military control over the territory of Kansas. The ultimatum was simple: hand over the survivors, the supplies, and there would be no unnecessary bloodshed. After all, they were the government.
It was just as well Dean was incapacitated during that mockery of a negotiation. He would not, Castiel thought, hearing the account afterwards, welcomed the title of "warlord."
-=-=
"This new scar," Castiel heard himself say when Dean woke, "I don't recommend it." He watched his hand drift closer to the bare skin, exposed by a tear a demon had made during the ambush.
"Don't," Dean Winchester said, and he moved, but only a little. It was enough, Castiel's finger hovered over the broken line of the tattoo instead of touching it. The slash of white scar tissue, slightly raised, looked like it was glowing.
"I won't, because you asked," Castiel smiled, "But the demons will. I'm sure they would like that body of yours. I'm sure your brother would- " He gave into the impulse, letting his fingers trail ever so lightly over the skin.
"What?"
"To have you by his side again." Watching Dean's expression, the tell-tale wince of a man who could still be hurt by words, "Or not, but my brother would. You were, after all, going to be his brother."
Dean was silent and Castiel was overcome with realization. "Is that why you did it? You think that Michael can't come into you because of some silly paint on your skin?"
Dean's jaw tightened. Castiel was tempted to ask him to relax.
"I know you want me dead." The non-sequitur left Castiel nonplussed.
"If you want to shock me, someone else had already told me that before we left. You did, too, several times."
"I would understand if you do. There must be a part of you that wants it. Until the last moment, I wasn't sure if you would-"
"You cannot die." Castiel said firmly, "And I do not desire you dead."
"You have to understand, Cas, I can." Then, Castiel heard it, the intolerable grief in the voice of a man who no longer wept. He brushed away the small leaves that Dean had carried in from the woods. The red and gold blurred in front of his eyes and looked like bursts of firelight against dark denim.
"I walked through Hell for you. I turned from Heaven for you. Do not die." Ignoring a whispered protest, he got into bed with Dean, lying beside him.
"You can't expect that."
"I spoke incorrectly, you will not die on my watch. I have been awake for three days," He closed his eyes, "Amphetamines are interesting stimulants."
"Jesus! Cas! It's those girls isn't it? You tell them bed-time stories and in return, they drug you to the gills." It was unfair of him, Castiel thought, when Dean told stories, too: possessions ousted the soul, he will find a weapon that will kill Lucifer. It had been almost five years. Castiel knew Dean would not, that his instinct to protect those under his care had masked his reluctance to be the sword that will kill his brother. The broken anti-possession tattoo was old; his belated consent had been desperate.
The bed creaked when he turned until he faced Dean. Amidst the scratch-marks, there was a slash of mud on his cheekbone. He wiped it away with his thumb.
"I wanted to be awake until I can no longer dream, until I think this is a dream, whichever comes first. Dean, you're the last and first. My last charge, my first-" He never finished the sentence, for there was the a brief pressure across his lips. Dean's lips were dry, his jaw rasped against the skin of Castiel's neck. The noisy memories of a million old voices fell suddenly silent against the thrum of desire echoing inside his body. Castiel opened his eyes, surprised.
"I know. Don't talk," Dean said and muttered on endlessly, perhaps nonsensically. Castiel shed their clothes. Bare, he was the wax upon which Dean set his seals- the whorls on his fingertips pressed onto the hollows on his hip, the bow of his lips drawn onto his chest.
Castiel sank his fingers carefully into the damp spikes of Dean's hair and could not utter a sound, uncertain whether it was a dream, that he could weep and laugh in the same instance. The smell was antiseptics and three days in the woods, the subtle scent of pine barely detectable beneath the mud; but the slick heat of their mouths and skin gave them a rarified, ineffable moment as the rough joys of their bodies reached a climax.
Afterwards, with the morning light seeping lines through beneath the door, by some perfect understanding they remained silent and together and wished that tomorrow would not arrive. In that moment absent fathers, wayward brothers, and the difficulties of simply living day-to-day was no more and no less than what they had expected. It was a burden they could bear together. In that corner of Camp Chitaqua, there was a suddenly a precious measure of peace that required no words.
-=-=
Author: Furius
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel (primarily)
Spoilers: through 5x04 (episode tag)
Warnings: unpleasantness
Word count: ~4800
Summary: The cult of Castiel and the damnation of Dean reach equilibrium. (A closer look at the future as it draws nearer to an ending).
Author's Note: This fic is a companion piece to Generally Wingless. Thanks to peculiar_mind for giving it a read through.
-=-=
Behind a fallen vending machine, Dean made a sign. At the end of the line, someone struck the match.
The trail of fire hissed past Castiel's shoes, arced around his left knee, then ran through rectangles of light on the dark asphalt before disappearing into a pile of corrugated steel. When he saw a trace of a clawed hand and the first wisp of black smoke within the cracked doors of the building, Castiel turned and nodded at the man beside him, who brought up his binoculars and confirmed the sighting. Then, bending his neck until the black rim of the scope concentrated the world into the small area measured by the ticks of the crosshair, Castiel rested his cheek against the comb, braced his shoulder, counted, and fired.
The thick, black cloud gathered quickly from the ground, driving the horde of afflicted out from the block of offices and apartments, their limbs flailing as they clambered over the broken doorways and window frames running away from the gas with that loping, atavistic gait remind Castiel of simians and the blind cthonic demons seldom seen on the surface.
Small canisters whistled in the air as they hurtled toward the ground. Castiel shot again, this time followed by others. The flame trail flared, drawing close a circle around the crotes just as the last of them entered. Screams pierced the crackling walls of blue fire, the moving light casting strange shadows on pinched faces with the feverish eyes until they were suddenly still, mouths and eyes open but voiceless and unseeing.
Once the silence descended, Castiel turned away. The first time they tried this, he had continued to look and there was a moment, he thought, just before their bodies twisted out of the rictus to drop onto the ground that the eyes turned human and the fear in their expression was no longer purely physical. Of course, it might have been his own eyes playing tricks. Either way, it was a bit heart-wrenching. For those bodies roasting inside the rings of fire, or for him, suppressing the urge to pray for the souls, he was never quite sure.
Castiel never looked again into those circles of fire for fear of being certain. Instead, he turned his gaze upon the perimeter, picking off the straggling infected, crawling or leaping over the debris of fallen buildings, lured by the scent of burning flesh.
When the signal passed down for the all clear, Castiel climbed down first, almost one handed. The wound on his shoulder hadn't fully healed and the damp was making his ankle hurt again. He reached the truck, settled into his spot to make inventory for the return trip while listening to Dean Winchester ordering the men into the building over the radio.
"You're bleeding." The driver was young enough that the pitch shifted in the middle of the word and woke Castiel from a half-doze. He felt at his shoulder. Blood was seeping through the dark fabric from beneath the bandaging, but he felt numb. Silence had fallen.
He checked his watch, opened the door and stepped out. "Stay here and start the engine," he ordered then climbed up the back. Finally, he espied Dean and three others running towards him followed by enfilading fire.
"Shoot!" Dean was shouting; Castiel brought up his gun and hesitated; "What are you waiting for?" A scatter of shots wrecked the undergrowth very close to Dean's next step, the next whistled past his ear, hitting the floor beneath Castiel's feet; he cursed; "This is an order! Shoot! Castiel! Cas-"
Castiel's fired and brought them just enough time to reach the truck. Ignoring the wrenching pain on his shoulder, wordlessly, Castiel hoisted Dean up the truck-bed as the antennae of the tanks came into view. The starting jerk of the vehicle almost upset his balance. It dislodged Dean from his. Briefly, he held the man in his arms.
"Didn't realise they were coming into this zone, thought we had a truce," Dean said against his neck.
"We got the supplies?" he asked. The other two men nodded, putting down their bags, full to bursting and not quite cinched shut.
Dean wasn't looking at him, shuffling away to the other side as soon as he could/ "I think that's why they fired on us. Theirs must be getting low." The road had smoothed from dirt trail into a piece of unbroken highway, the small pile of tissue cartons was rocking gently between the men. They weren't followed.
"You could've seen them a mile off. You should've been with us, we could have used the warning." One of them said, sliding down to rest his back against the side panel.
"Not my orders," Castiel returned breezily. The danger had passed and they were still here. He could sleep for a day and a half. He probably should. The dull feeling suffusing his limbs and which he had learned to call fatigue was overwhelming; his body cried for rest. It amused him to imagine it to have a separate consciousness. Which, of course it did, once upon a time. He sometimes wondered if this feeling of divorce from his flesh was natural or an after-effect, a punishment, or a promise… The corners of his lips tugged at the unexpected optimism.
"What are you smiling at?" Dean's voice, annoyed.
"I'm so glad you're alive," he answered, heartfelt, and tried to hold Dean's eyes, but Dean turned away.
-=-=
The name Beatrice stirred Castiel's memory, but it was difficult to remember what, exactly, he wished to remember. Human brains had not evolved to adapt to ten millennia of celestial knowledge and ten millennia were not always worth remembering. A name could have belonged to a friend, an enemy, a stray past or future thought.
"A girl I knew," he said to the back where he was carefully burning a sigil meant for banishing touches of unwanted supernatural beings, invented when the earth was new both demons and angels coveted its creations, inanimate or animate; that particular memory had came upon him in the middle of the night and he had laughed, so suddenly and so loudly, that the sentry had poked her head into his house, "once said that this sigil represents a claim of possession."
Perhaps he really should sign it with his own mark, but he was uncertain whether his name still held power by itself.
"That is why it banishes and not just wards. Though of course, if something comes at you with claws the size of your head, banishing is not going to help you much." Beatrice was silent, probably still nervous. A thin sheen of sweat was gathering on her skin. Castiel had a steady hand and an acute sense of pain. He sympathized, and continued with the story. "And that's why it only works for objects and virgins." He added the simplest angelic name he could remember.
"There, done." He poured a dram of alcohol over it and taped it closed with the ointment and gauze she had saved or stolen for the occasion.
"Who's the girl?" Beatrice asked, twisting around to see the tattoo on her waist, poking at the reddened skin with a dirty fingernail.
"Beautiful, pious, strong and possessed of many relatives with dubious character. I could speak to her in my own voice for I had to protect and spend her life with her. We wandered across fields, forests and strange roads until I led her to her father's house where she found rest."
"Why her?" She turned to face him, no longer worrying at the sigil.
"Death went to her as she slept but her line continued, for she beget-" Castiel stopped, realizing he no longer remembered her purpose, which was not of his design. He had obeyed, spending her life with her living forwards hour by hour, year by year, as if he, too, had been human. Though the memories seemed strange and fractured by the limits of his body Castiel was suddenly certain of a terrible truth; he was her soul's companion and her his even amidst the cacophony of heaven. His angelic self was immune from the implications. But now, each fragment of half-remembered laughter, each piece of prayer felt as if it was carving a new wound into his flesh. There had been so many charges in so many centuries and now all that remained of them were mere impressions, details invented when he could not see them until everyone he knew was reduced to mere figment.
"It is a secret," he replied, stunned by the pain.
"Gotcha," Beatrice said hastily. "So, can I sleep here now?"
"What?"
"I told people that you mentioned I could have a sigil, that's what they said. Chuck was all, 'Get thee to Castiel's. He even has curtains.' Am I wrong? I have stuff." The enthusiasm had ceased to shock him long ago. Teenaged female orphans only had so many options in a refugee camp short of supplies and under siege. He had brought them together for Dean's sake at first- sanctuary under his name. So much for that.
Castiel shrugged, then winced at the pull of his shoulder. "If you like." He looked around his cabin, its knick-knacks and paraphernalia dredged up from everywhere by its inhabitants: statues of Buddha, icons of Christ, and sculptures of saints. Behind the salt lines on the windowsill, the curtains in his room had the patterns of the overlapping circles of the flower of life. He supposed they find the things comforting. His cabin's a shrine to nostalgia and imagination, including himself, "Try to bring more soap than scented candles."
"You really must've been an angel." She hugged him, then said sincerely, "I've a stash." He tried to return the smile, failed, but she didn't notice.
-=-=
There is no such thing as an army of one. Armies go to war. Individuals could go on quests, odysseys, and adventures. Individuals cannot go to war.
Nonetheless, Dean stood in front of the room, arms crossed over his chest, trying to convince that his camp full of individuals, currently eking out a living under his protection in a world where the devil was walking free should go to war against the remaining forces of the United States army. He got them this far: roof over their heads, food on the table, and demons outside their walls. What else could they want? What else could anyone want? And the soldiers opened fire, first.
"They are human," Chuck had been trying to bring the agenda back to supply distribution, unsuccessfully. Finally, he slapped his clipboard on the table. "I thought we all agreed killing humans is a bad thing. We called them murder in my time." He looked around the room at the scores of men and women who were Dean's best soldiers, and more than half of them still didn't believe in ghosts.
"So are the crotes," someone said.
"They're infected. Believe me, there's nothing human about them. It's a sham. They're zombies."
"Exactly, soulless. Dead already."
"And the soldiers attacked us first!"
"Great, that'll save the evil things the trouble. We kill ourselves off first."
"We can expand the definition until even demons are human, but they aren't."
"They were. They are. At least, the ones you see and kill." Castiel raised his voice; it sounded like the clang of bells. "Demons take human bodies they call vessels. They're possessed, their souls imprisoned by the demons."
"What?" The information hushed the room. "I killed-" Everyone swallowed the names if they ever knew them.
"They're not." Dean said, looking hard at Castiel. "Demons are demons. Crotes are crotes. There's nothing human about them. I should know. I have been fighting them all my life."
"Dean Winchester, you know it's not true." The room had fallen so quiet that Chuck could hear a wristwatch ticking out-of-time. Dean's face was growing thunderous; his arms had dropped by his sides; those who knew found their eyes arrested by the sight of his right hand, inching toward his holster.
"The Exorcist is not a documentary. There's no trapped little girl, just the demon."
"You are lying. Why?" Castiel's eyes were blood-shot and bruised, the question came out barely a whisper. Chuck stared at the flask Castiel had been nursing all evening. Really can't blame the guy- that had been a bad battle.
"Stop looking at me as if I'm about to die. We've talked about this. Take a vicodin or something." Dean finally snapped and threw a bottle at him. Castiel caught it one-handed, and unscrewed the lid automatically.
"With alcohol?" Chuck looked aghast. Castiel paused in mid-motion, mouth open, almost comical.
"It is not going to hurt him." Dean said gruffly.
"How do you know?" Then Castiel put his feet on the table. Dean wanted to shout at him, but Castiel was suddenly smiling. The bottom of the soles were clean, as if they had been recently cleaned.
"I know, all right? He needs it." Castiel, to Chuck's dismay, swallowed.
"Now, if we are done playing doctor for the angel," Risa said, apparently willing to drop the issue altogether, "We still can't declare war on our only ally."
"They broke the truce first."
"But is it them, or a rogue faction? Or," She looked at Castiel, speculative, "They may even be possessed. We owe everyone in this camp some answers before we attack people with tanks."
"Reconnaissance mission then."
The room emptied quickly after that, but Chuck lingered to check on Castiel. He really didn't want the angel drop dead. He also really didn't want to overhear his conversations with Dean, but that was perhaps the lesser of the two evils; provided, of course, that there was actually a choice.
"Did you make me a murderer?" Castiel was asking. He barred Dean's way with an arm.
"You pulled the trigger."
"I did, didn't I? I also killed a couple of angels, I think, once."
"Self-defense." Dean said through gritted teeth, "Will you keep your voice down? People are jumpy enough as it is. Your little cult has been doing quite the publicity for you. Half the people here think you're the wrath of god, the other half think you're representative of god. Just which one, they haven't decided. You bleed, but drink enough to have killed a dozen men. You bless marriages while bedding down a trigger-happy harem. The last thing people need to learn is that while they're wrestling with the idea that they might've killed their family unknowingly, you had killed angels, who are, by the way, gone."
"For your defense, anyways. Always. I told them that until you put a stop to it. But I still like to know, Dean, why you want to go to war with the human army so badly? No one was hurt despite the machine guns." Chuck wanted to melt into the walls at Castiel's next words, "Would you ever tell me?"
Dean visibly recoiled, but did not answer, "For god's sake, get some sleep. You look like a zombie yourself. We're leaving tomorrow at dawn. Focus, Castiel, we need your eyes."
Tactical retreat, Chuck thought to himself as he watched Castiel drop his arm and Dean walked away. Dean was right, of course, Castiel should get his shoulder bandaged (again), and get some sleep and worry about tomorrow instead of today. Castiel lifted the rest of the alcohol to his mouth, making a face. He turned.
"Keeps the bad dreams away, Chuck, you should try it; it's the milk of paradise."
"What? The drink or dreamlessness?" Chuck muttered, but Castiel didn't answer.
-=-=
"You are drunk."
"A little," He admitted, "Our Dean gave me vicodin."
"For the shoulder?" She asked sympathetically, then with more alarm, "Did he know you've been drinking?"
"That's what Chuck said, but I'm fine. This body's difficult to kill. The bloodline's been carefully shaped and preserved through the millennia to survive; the bodies must be worthy temples."
"Not too difficult to wound," He let her take off his shirt and change the dressing; "The girl Beatrice said you said to let her stay. We are running out of space. Nice brand by the way. Does it work?"
"I'm a jealous angel," Castiel said, the thought falling harmlessly into the ether.
"Did you really tell her that you fell in love with a human woman once? They're all even more in love with you, now."
"You shall have no angel before me. I was hers; she was mine. Imagine," He said, staring at the icon on the strange makeshift altar someone had constructed, "Imagine that you are the companion to one single soul for an entire human lifespan and that the joys were your triumphs, the grieves your failures. Soldiers guarded lives. I was ordered to watch over them as part of God's infinite mercy and wisdom. Then, being mortal, they died, went to heaven, and I-"
"What?" She sounded wary. His eyes had grown distant.
"Imagine experiencing it a hundred times and feeling nothing except duty, of devotion to larger whole at the time. Then, as the memories dim and frayed, realizing it was…everything." Regret, Castiel had learnt, was a strangely human thing, a devout wish for something that was once possible. Yet, that he should miss the presence of his mortal charges who lived and died before this body was conceived was surely impossible, for angels did not love, and surely their charges did not love the voice in the wilderness except as manifestations of faith. Had they been happy in their mortal lives?
"Everything?"
"Everything I ought to have felt." He decided, glad for the cushion of chemicals in his mind. He buttoned up his shirt and noticed that she was looking at him oddly.
"You can just kiss me, you know," She said, "You don't even need to ask."
"I know," Castiel said sadly, that had not been the intent.
"Come to bed. To sleep," She clarified, "As you once did with Dean Winchester."
"He didn't like it." The clatter of wood suddenly echoed in the room. She had upset an icon.
"And we are alive, isn't that enough? We are living in the midst of a plague, not the end of the world. The devil has always been around even if he had not always worn a body. We are alive yet Dean wants to make war against the world. Why must you go wherever he leads? We can all fight. We can leave this camp. " Night had come. Shadows from the few gas lamps crept across the floor and everyone who claimed his sanctuary had returned and it seemed like he was looking at them for the first time. The world had fallen from civilization in their childhood and adolescence. Now, those faces, bright and hard, refined by chaos, seemed to have turned back the time. When he spoke, it was like he was speaking to those whom he guided when laws were merely spoken and empires were new ideas. Devotee, fanatic, adherent, acolyte, novice, the blessed, the cursed, the chosen-
"He is my last charge. He is the only one that remains." He answered them as though an interrogation, present and past melting together in his mind.
"Beautiful, fierce, Dean Winchester, is death, Castiel. He will never show us heaven even if he knows the way. You hesitated yesterday; you didn't want to save him. There's a part of you that wants him to rest that thought, perhaps if he rested, you would be able to."
"That is not true. I- " Castiel, horrified, tried to remember what had made him hesitate. Tried, in vain, to tell himself that in the secret court of this human soul, Dean Winchester was never on trial.
"You want to live. You've barely begun to live. And you will live for a long time, protecting us, and showed that we might live unharmed in the chaos."
"I'm not showing you heaven, either. I cannot."
"But you have eyes like the sky we barely remember, eyes that remember heaven we haven't seen and memories and sigil that give us proof that God has not deserted us," Before he could protest, she kissed him, and then there were hands, countless hands he might have cherished, once upon a time, had he the body to appreciate and to succumb. Soft lips, warm tongues, and the hot press of bodies in that most basic and ardent idea of worship: "Stay with us."
And he, Castiel, his being graceless and awkward with the knowledge for regret, shame, and guilt, though he wanted more than the desires fashioned from thoughts and hopes only as insubstantial as clouds was reassured by unyielding faith.
He left with Dean the next morning.
-=-=
Doubtless, in some small enclave on the West Coast where the epidemic had begun, the Winchester Gospels were still regarded as holy writ. And there, the demonic forces had not allowed technology to lapse. Two years after the American nuclear holocaust, Dean Winchester's name was still bandied about among the soldiers inside No Man's Land somewhere in Kansas, wondering aloud if he finally became Michael with the heavenly host at his call or if it was all bedtime story by the crazies in California.
"They shouldn't be here," Dean said when Castiel reported what he saw, "It's too close to where we are. See any sign of possession"
Castiel shook his head. According to the contract drawn up between Dean Winchester and the army last time, the forest had been deemed too difficult for either to manage. All the animals had long fled, or been eaten.
They stayed off the old hiking trail, barely visible beneath the litter of branches and leaves and approached the soldiers from the back. Six against two would not be boast-worthy odds but message delivered, the soldiers released, their party melted into the woods again to wait for acknowledgement.
Upon reflection, perhaps one of them should have remembered that the demons Lucifer unleashed did not always need human vessels. At first, no one noticed the slight ripple across the pile of leaves, or the brief flicker of yellow amidst the tree trunks, winking in the recesses of the tangled roots. The weak morning dragged on to an ill-looking noon with no words from the army.
"How's the shoulder?" Dean asked.
"Better. It was an accident, I know. There is nothing to forgive." Castiel replied, forestalling further mentions. Things go wrong. He was used to it by now. And in the end, Dean's strategy had proved effective, practice notwithstanding. It had been his own fault. Castiel had tried not to remember a long time ago angels killed angels in a very similar manner- a conflagration, a ready-made pyre for immortals so that their ghosts may pass up upwards-and stood frozen while a badly aimed arrow struck and pierced through the muscle.
"I just-" The crackling of the branches overhead startled them, then small sticks, clumps of mud, and bits of pebbles showered down. "What the-" They couldn't see what was attacking them. A terrible high-pitched giggling began. Dean swore and fired upwards. A small, winged shape tumbled down.
"Flying monkeys!" Disbelief soon warred with horror, for they seemed innumerable, the wiry shadows crowding in from above and around with long nails and sharp-teethed grins. Fighting them with gun then knife, Castiel was distracted by the black, stunted wings and the way they seemed to dissolve into the earth until he turned and saw that six of them had wrapped around Dean, one for each limb, one sitting on his chest, the sixth knocking his head against the ground.
The world fell quiet. Vaguely, Castiel was aware that the army had approached and had trained their binoculars on the scene and still, made no move to help. But there, in No Man's Land, time slowed for Castiel, the remnant of his grace rattling its reluctant death throes, dying for a man who would be dead.
Castiel reached out and forced the lives out of the primitive creatures of Hell.
And then the radio they had gotten off from the patrolling soldiers crackled to life.
"Go," Castiel said; his hands were trembling over the broken skin of Dean's face, "Make sure it's not a mistake. I will wait here until you return."
It was not a mistake. The army wanted sole military control over the territory of Kansas. The ultimatum was simple: hand over the survivors, the supplies, and there would be no unnecessary bloodshed. After all, they were the government.
It was just as well Dean was incapacitated during that mockery of a negotiation. He would not, Castiel thought, hearing the account afterwards, welcomed the title of "warlord."
-=-=
"This new scar," Castiel heard himself say when Dean woke, "I don't recommend it." He watched his hand drift closer to the bare skin, exposed by a tear a demon had made during the ambush.
"Don't," Dean Winchester said, and he moved, but only a little. It was enough, Castiel's finger hovered over the broken line of the tattoo instead of touching it. The slash of white scar tissue, slightly raised, looked like it was glowing.
"I won't, because you asked," Castiel smiled, "But the demons will. I'm sure they would like that body of yours. I'm sure your brother would- " He gave into the impulse, letting his fingers trail ever so lightly over the skin.
"What?"
"To have you by his side again." Watching Dean's expression, the tell-tale wince of a man who could still be hurt by words, "Or not, but my brother would. You were, after all, going to be his brother."
Dean was silent and Castiel was overcome with realization. "Is that why you did it? You think that Michael can't come into you because of some silly paint on your skin?"
Dean's jaw tightened. Castiel was tempted to ask him to relax.
"I know you want me dead." The non-sequitur left Castiel nonplussed.
"If you want to shock me, someone else had already told me that before we left. You did, too, several times."
"I would understand if you do. There must be a part of you that wants it. Until the last moment, I wasn't sure if you would-"
"You cannot die." Castiel said firmly, "And I do not desire you dead."
"You have to understand, Cas, I can." Then, Castiel heard it, the intolerable grief in the voice of a man who no longer wept. He brushed away the small leaves that Dean had carried in from the woods. The red and gold blurred in front of his eyes and looked like bursts of firelight against dark denim.
"I walked through Hell for you. I turned from Heaven for you. Do not die." Ignoring a whispered protest, he got into bed with Dean, lying beside him.
"You can't expect that."
"I spoke incorrectly, you will not die on my watch. I have been awake for three days," He closed his eyes, "Amphetamines are interesting stimulants."
"Jesus! Cas! It's those girls isn't it? You tell them bed-time stories and in return, they drug you to the gills." It was unfair of him, Castiel thought, when Dean told stories, too: possessions ousted the soul, he will find a weapon that will kill Lucifer. It had been almost five years. Castiel knew Dean would not, that his instinct to protect those under his care had masked his reluctance to be the sword that will kill his brother. The broken anti-possession tattoo was old; his belated consent had been desperate.
The bed creaked when he turned until he faced Dean. Amidst the scratch-marks, there was a slash of mud on his cheekbone. He wiped it away with his thumb.
"I wanted to be awake until I can no longer dream, until I think this is a dream, whichever comes first. Dean, you're the last and first. My last charge, my first-" He never finished the sentence, for there was the a brief pressure across his lips. Dean's lips were dry, his jaw rasped against the skin of Castiel's neck. The noisy memories of a million old voices fell suddenly silent against the thrum of desire echoing inside his body. Castiel opened his eyes, surprised.
"I know. Don't talk," Dean said and muttered on endlessly, perhaps nonsensically. Castiel shed their clothes. Bare, he was the wax upon which Dean set his seals- the whorls on his fingertips pressed onto the hollows on his hip, the bow of his lips drawn onto his chest.
Castiel sank his fingers carefully into the damp spikes of Dean's hair and could not utter a sound, uncertain whether it was a dream, that he could weep and laugh in the same instance. The smell was antiseptics and three days in the woods, the subtle scent of pine barely detectable beneath the mud; but the slick heat of their mouths and skin gave them a rarified, ineffable moment as the rough joys of their bodies reached a climax.
Afterwards, with the morning light seeping lines through beneath the door, by some perfect understanding they remained silent and together and wished that tomorrow would not arrive. In that moment absent fathers, wayward brothers, and the difficulties of simply living day-to-day was no more and no less than what they had expected. It was a burden they could bear together. In that corner of Camp Chitaqua, there was a suddenly a precious measure of peace that required no words.
-=-=