Mercy Comes With the Morning - Continued 4/4...
It’s in the middle of the night when he suddenly wakes. His eyes open easily like he hasn’t been basically unconscious for days.
Castiel can’t feel any inkling of pain and he wonders if maybe he’s been paralyzed, but only until he realizes the shadow looming over his bed is Uriel.
“Where’s Sam?” He immediately asks, clambering to sit upright, and Uriel gestures to his right. Sam is sitting, huge body bent at the waist, uncomfortably slumped forward over the side of the bed; he’s fast asleep.
“Apart from worrying over you, he’s fine.” Uriel assures him calmly. He doesn’t sound interested in the matter but merely reporting the factual details.
Castiel reaches forward to touch Sam but when he shakes Sam’s shoulder, Sam shows no signs of being disturbed.
“He won’t wake while I’m here.” Uriel states. “We have matters to discuss, you and I.”
Castiel pulls his hand away from Sam’s body reluctantly, eyes lingering over Sam’s serenely slumbering face.
When he finally forces his gaze away, he glances down over his own body, troubled.
“I am not injured?” He asks, bewildered.
“You were gravely injured. I’ve taken care of that. For the time being.”
“Kindness is not supposed to sound like a threat, Uriel.”
“It is not kindness. It is necessity. I need you coherent for the decisions you are about to make.” Uriel hands Castiel a shirt, which Castiel then pulls on over his newly perfect alabaster skin.
Uriel turns away and goes to the window, placing both his hands in the pockets of his suit.
“Have you given any thought to our offer?”
“What offer?” Castiel’s memory is hazy; he thinks back through the last of his remembrances and all that he recalls is Sam in Dean’s arms, bloody, hurt, too far away for Castiel to reach.
“Our offer to return.”
Castiel nods slowly, somberly.
“I have not exactly had much time to think it over.”
“It’s a simple question, Castiel. Do you still wish to stay here, in the darkness among these mortals, or do you wish to be bathed in the light of His glory?”
“If I choose to stay here…” Castiel looks down toward Sam again and he can see contempt wash over Uriel’s face. He doesn’t care. Uriel could never understand love, much less a love like this. Castiel brings a hand to the place on his body where he remembers the slice of Lilith’s knife plunging in. “Will you take this away? Will I die?”
Uriel considers Castiel carefully, lip curling. Castiel knows he gives the answer begrudgingly.
“No. You will survive. As human as ever. You will become weak. You will lose every semblance of grace you have ever possessed.”
“I only care for Sam. Not myself.”
“Which is precisely why you must not stay here with him.” Uriel replies. Castiel climbs from the bed, jostling Sam, but Sam does not stir. “Sam will never be entirely yours. You will not be satisfied. You will grow jealous. You will grow angry. Every sin, every vice, will take hold of you and they will not let go. There will be no temperance and no rationality. Only you and your love.” He says the last word with disdain, spitting it out as if it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“You say this to frighten me, Uriel. Our Father would not wish for me to enter into his service merely for fear that I possess not enough of the strong will needed to live as human.”
Castiel sits down on the edge of the bed opposite Sam and reaches over to touch the side of Sam’s face. His cheek is warm, rough and unshaven. He stares at the flutter of Sam’s eyelashes and his slightly parted, pink lips, and his heart fills with that indescribable sensation that only Sam can bring.
“Think of him.”
Castiel looks up and finds Uriel looking at him. He meets the challenge of Uriel’s dark eyes.
“Lilith is dead but you and I both know that it is only a matter of time before another wretched demon takes the mantle and tries again. How will you protect Sam then? They will never stop coming for him. Not until he is dead, or he is with them, fighting for their cause.”
“This is not true,” Castiel lies uselessly. He doesn’t believe his own words for even a moment. There is no hope that Sam will ever be free, not entirely. There will only be brief respites between battles, between leaders. It will never stop.
“The Winchesters have killed Azazel. They have killed Lilith. How many more times can they succeed, Castiel?” Uriel asks. “You aided their cause this time by the mere surprise of your mortality, but that is a gambit that will only work once. What will you do next time? Next time, when your lack of skill becomes a burden?”
“I will learn.”
“You will distract Sam from what needs to be done. You will create tension between he and his brother and you will destroy what you so recently sacrificed your holiness to rebuild.”
Castiel takes his hand away from Sam’s face, thumb dragging over Sam’s bottom lip as he pulls back. Then he faces Uriel.
“You do not believe in the Winchesters.” He comments. “You came close to blaspheming our Lord in your very opposition to placing our fate in their hands.”
“Yet I cannot deny that two great enemies of heaven have been slain by these two men. And neither can I deny that Lucifer has been held at bay not by our efforts, but by theirs. That is why I ask you to return, Castiel.”
“That is why?”
“Yes. Sam is better served by your position as an angel, Castiel. Even you, in your blindness and devotion, must see that.” Uriel steps toward Castiel, his voice briefly losing its even timbre. “You can grant him greater protection if you return.”
Castiel takes a deep breath and nods. He knows what Uriel says is true. He wants it not to be true - he wants to stay - but there’s not much use in pretending differently.
“Will…will I be allowed to see him?” Castiel asks quietly. Uriel shifts, uneasy.
“There are rules.”
“I know. I broke them.” Castiel’s eyes wander back to Sam, the pull of him so near making it impossible for his gaze to rest elsewhere. “If I return, I will break them again.”
“Our Lord will grant you lenience.”
“But it will not be as it is now. I will be His first, and Sam’s second.”
“Yes.”
Uriel’s word is definitive.
Castiel’s decision is also made, but he cannot bring himself to speak it aloud. His hand grips the bed sheets and he struggles to breathe.
While he doesn’t say it, Uriel must know. He backs away from the bed.
“You may have tonight,” he says without a hint of malice, and then is gone.
Castiel heaves out a gasp of air and sucks it back in, fighting back the sob that is gathering deep within his chest.
Beside him, Sam blinks awake, lifting his head, rubbing his stiff neck. His slumber has left him confused, disoriented, and he’s halfway to sitting up before he realizes that Castiel is there, awake and uninjured, next to him.
“Cas, you’re…” Sam stumbles, at a loss. He reaches for him instinctively, automatically, hands touching his bruiseless face, running over his wounded side and watching for a telltale flinch. “You’re…you’re okay?” Sam’s relief is mixed with confusion that quickly changes into suspicion and concern.
“What’ve you done?” Sam rises from his seat, pulls up on Castiel’s loose t-shirt and Castiel fights his large hands back down. They grapple until Castiel shoves Sam down to the bed, his strength surprising even him.
“I don’t want to explain.” Castiel doesn’t want Sam to know this is good-bye, even though it’s obvious that Sam already senses it.
“Dean said they wanted you back. He said Uriel came to him and-“
“Please, Sam. Do not ask questions. I do not want to answer them.” Castiel lets Sam loose and turns from him, sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away.
Sam lies there silently, his breathing fast. Castiel can feel Sam’s mind racing a mile a minute. It’s like it’s always been but ratcheted up to inconceivable heights. The feeling of Sam surrounds him and every heartbeat, every movement, is like fire lapping at his skin. Uriel has already given him everything back and it is racing through his veins, filling him up, making him ready to burst from this human form and take Sam in an explosion of bright white light.
Castiel closes his eyes against the overwhelming surge of power, willing himself to calm.
Sam sets a tentative hand on his shoulder and Castiel tilts his head toward the feel of Sam’s body. He meets Sam’s hesitant, soft kiss without thinking and turns it insistent and needy in an instant, angling and pushing until he has Sam flat on his back.
“Give me this night. Please. Sam.” He whispers as he climbs over Sam’s body, straddling him and holding him down, his lips searing a hot path down Sam’s jaw, over his neck.
He feels Sam give, feels him nod, and Castiel reaches down and grabs hold of Sam’s t-shirt, peeling it off of his body. Sam's body is still bruised from Lilith’s captivity and Castiel runs his hands over each and every mark as he kisses Sam senseless, leaving warm, pristine skin in his wake.
Sam groans as heat floods through him. He arches into it and Castiel just keeps touching, touching, hands smooth over his stomach, his ribs, sliding underneath to press up into the arch of his spine as he stretches upward, desperate for more.
Castiel handles Sam roughly in a way he never has before, the pace set fast and hard from the very start. He can’t get Sam’s clothes off quickly enough, can’t wait to get there, to the point where Sam is falling apart under his hands. He wants to hear Sam scream his name just once, scream it like he’ll never forget it as long as he lives.
It’s a strange mixture of the angel and the man inside of him, he knows. The power and the lust and the insane anticipation of loss makes him grab Sam and bite at his neck, suck on the skin until he leaves a bruise that he’s careful not to touch again, not wanting to take it away.
Sam groans helplessly, his thick, beautiful cock twitching against Castiel’s lips when Castiel crawls down the length of Sam’s perfect body and wraps his mouth around his sensitive head, sucking at the tip and tasting Sam as his arousal surges, liquid seeping onto Castiel’s waiting tongue. Castiel places his hands on the insides of Sam’s strong thighs, urging them apart further before taking more of Sam in.
Sam’s fingers clutch at his hair, pulling and tugging, and Castiel knows he’s giving too much all at once, assaulting Sam with all the emotions that are being forced out as the Lord’s divinity twines its way back in. Sam’s breaking apart under his hands, a mess of sexual instinct and need, Castiel overwhelming his rationality and leaving nothing but desire and blunt want.
He thrusts and keens and Castiel accepts it eagerly, urging Sam on with a firm grip, pushing him in even deeper than Sam is yet willing to go.
They will make love, with languorously sweeping tongues and never-ending kisses, in the aftermath of this. They’ll have each other all over again, Castiel knows, because he needs that too, just like he needs this now. Sam will lick over his every inch and drive Castiel to the brink, making him beg for Sam to take him in his mouth again and give him that unbelievable release. He’ll cradle Sam against his body, spooning his back to his chest, and push inside slowly, so slowly, that Sam will think that total connection will never be made, and then he’ll pull back and do it all over again.
But in this moment, with Sam gasping, God, god, please, Castiel is unsure if he’s asking for Castiel to give him what he so desperately wants or for God to actually release his hold on Castiel himself.
“Please, I need…” Sam groans and then loses his words, maybe even his ability to speak. Castiel pauses, staring down at Sam before climbing off the bed.
Sam sits up, eyes blown black and cheeks flushed red.
“Wha…What...?” Sam chokes out, panting. His entire body radiates desire, his cock dark and swollen and pressing upward insistently, glistening and dripping pearls of come onto the quivering muscles of his flat stomach.
Castiel takes off his clothes as hurriedly as possible. It’s bordering on the verge of unsafe, he knows, to want Sam this badly. Burns in the shape of his fingers already grace Sam’s hips and he wonders if he can go too far, far enough that even he won’t be able to erase the damage that his incredible passion inflicts.
“I love you too much,” he murmurs as he returns to the bed and climbs back on top of Sam. He barely gives Sam time to get used to the idea before he’s pushing himself down, the blunt head of Sam’s cock breaching his body. The pain is incredible but he doesn’t care in the slightest. It fades quickly, nearing the strange numbness he used to feel when he was one hundred percent pure.
“Please Sam…please.” He begs, not even sure what he’s asking for. Sam responds by reaching up, wrapping his arms around Castiel's back, and pulling him downward.
His kiss is the kind of perfection that Castiel knows others only dream of. The kind of perfection he'll never really have again, not after tonight.
*******
Sam comes to with Castiel’s arms wrapped around him, a familiar and comforting embrace will probably be the last.
“You’re still here.” Sam whispers and Castiel shifts behind him, laying a kiss to the bruise he left behind on his neck.
Castiel slides his hands over the cut of Sam’s hips, tracing the line of sharp muscle and the screaming red burns that decorate his skin, left from his fierce hold.
Sam knows what Castiel is thinking and he shakes his head just slightly, closing his eyes.
“Leave them.” He feels Castiel open his mouth to protest. “Just awhile longer.” Castiel touches him harder there, as if to make a point of how much it hurts. “You can fix it before you go.”
Castiel relents, body relaxing behind him, and his hand smoothes upward over Sam's lower stomach, coming to rest in the middle of his chest.
His body throbs, muscles screaming, lips swollen and sore, but Sam’s never felt more pleasure thrumming through his entire being. He, and Castiel too he knows, still feels that insatiable need, the one brought on by knowing that after this, nothing will be the same. This is their last chance to have each other exactly as they are, in this moment.
Castiel will never be human, and Sam will never be this close to heaven again. Even now Castiel’s transformation is nearly complete. Sam can see it in his eyes, hear it when Castiel says something and it echoes with the resonance of his angelic tone.
“How much longer?” Sam asks. Castiel has been careful to avoid mentioning what they both know is true but Sam can feel the time running out.
“We have the night.” Castiel’s answer is cautiously indirect and his hold tightens on Sam’s body. With light creeping in through the windows, Sam wonders how much longer it will be before night is considered officially over.
“And then what happens? Uriel shows up, drags you off?” Sam tries to keep himself from sounding upset, tries to make it sounds like a joke, but it all bleeds through.
“Then…I must leave.” Castiel says. “It is still a choice.”
“And where will you go?”
Castiel sighs.
“A few of Lilith’s faithful are attempting to break the next seal. I will go there.” He doesn’t offer anything more. It’s a situation Sam hasn’t found himself in since the very beginning, back before they even kissed for the first time. Castiel has that look on his face, distant and cold, talking of something he’s connected to in a way Sam’s not a part of. Castiel knows the actions of heaven again, can hear the words of his brothers and their directions from God.
Castiel’s attention is divided only for a moment. The warmth eases back over his face, lines softening and his eyes lighting up.
“Where will you go, Sam?”
“I think Dean and I are gonna stay here for awhile, with Bobby.” Sam doesn’t really know, but having a place that feels like a real home seems like a good idea to him right now. Sitting around, playing cards, drinking beer, maybe working on the Impala…
He hasn’t been able to simply enjoy his brother’s company in a long time.
“That’s a good idea.” Castiel presses a kiss to his jaw and reaches up, runs a hand through his hair. Sam closes his eyes and lets the comforting sensation of Castiel’s fingers relax him. “You should sleep now.”
“Don’t want to.” Sam forces his eyes back open and twists a little, nudging Castiel away as he rolls onto his back. Castiel settles back in beside him, resting on his elbow and looking down as Sam looks up. “I want to be here until you go.”
“It’d be easier if you weren’t.” Castiel states honestly. Sam frowns and Castiel runs a finger over the stern line.
“You’ll have to make me,” Sam replies just as truthfully. “I can’t just willingly let you leave, Castiel.”
Castiel nods, understanding.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Castiel’s expression is troubled and Sam knows his own face must mirror the feeling. This isn’t what either of them wants.
“We will see each other again, Sam.” Castiel promises softly. The kiss the follows is gentle, loving, tender, and the press of Castiel’s lips and the caress of his hand on his face are the last thing Sam feels before unconsciousness overtakes him.
*******
Dean looks up from his sandwich as Sam walks slowly into the kitchen. His brother is in a daze, his stare half there and half not, and he seems unsteady on his feet.
His jeans sit looser on his body than they did a mere week ago, days of not eating taking their toll. His unbuttoned shirt hangs open and Dean pretends that his eyes don’t catch on the glaring, painful burn arching over Sam’s hip.
Forcing his gaze upward sharply, he sets down his food and stands up.
“You all right, Sam?” He asks and Sam doesn’t seem to hear him for a moment, but then nods.
“I’m…I’m okay.” Dean isn’t so sure and he pulls out a chair, forces Sam to sit down. Bobby fills up a glass of water at the sink and brings it Sam’s side. Dean makes him drink like he used to when Sam was sick as a small child.
“Castiel’s gone.” Sam states when Dean lets him take the glass away from his lips.
“Gone gone?” Dean worries, thinking the worst. Sam nods, but belatedly seems to understand that he’s confused over Dean’s meaning.
“He’s gone back, I mean. Uriel came last night, convinced him to go.”
“Oh.” The pressure on Dean’s chest eases slightly at that news but then comes right back. “Are you…” He gives Sam a little bit of space, unsure what to say. “How’re you feelin’ about that?”
“How do you think I’m feeling, Dean?” Sam snorts a little but there’s no anger there. The corner of his mouth twitches upward, like Dean’s unease with this emotional situation actually provides him a bit of amusement, a bit of reassurance.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” Bobby claps him on the shoulder once. Sam nods, accepting the gesture.
“Seriously, man. I mean, I…we…both know what Cas meant to you, so…if you need to talk about anything…?” Dean glances at Bobby for a bit of help but Bobby shrugs, not knowing what else to offer Sam besides those few words.
“Don’t really want to talk,” Sam says. He looks from Dean to Bobby and then back to Dean. “I mean, we killed Lilith, didn’t we? And Castiel…” Sam forces a weak smile onto his face, setting his glass of water on the table. “I’ll see him again, I know it. It’s just…it’s gonna be different from now on, that’s all.”
Dean exchanges another look with Bobby, unsure, but Sam forces his smile wider.
“I’m fine. Really.”
“You’re full of shit,” Dean comments, taking the glass of water from the table and putting it in the sink. Within moments there’s a beer in its place, a bottle in Bobby’s and his own as well. “But that’s all right.”
Dean sits down next to Sam at the table, nudging Sam’s knee with his, an unspoken assurance that if Sam decides he does want to talk, he’ll be there to listen.
He takes a drink and then sets his beer down with a heavy thud, licking his lips.
“What do you say we go out and totally shit-faced tonight? We’ve earned it.”
Bobby tugs on the visor of his baseball cap and gives him a small, amused smile.
“You boys damn well have.”
“Sam?” Dean looks at his brother, hoping against hope that he’ll say yes. It’s all he wants right now - some smoke-filled bar, a cool bottle of beer in his hand, shooting some pool, and seeing Sam’s stupid, drunken smile light up his face.
Maybe his nightmares will never stop, but they’re just nightmares. Every day doesn’t have to be one too.
Sam grins a little, for real this time, and nods.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Good.” Dean picks up his beer and midway to bringing it to his lips, stops and arches a playful eyebrow at Sam, nodding down toward Sam’s waistline.
“Mine’s totally cooler, by the way.”
“Yours is what….?” Sam starts, confused, and follows his brother’s pointed look. Dean watches as Sam blushes, his face turning soft for a moment like he’s recalling something wonderful. Then Sam looks up, shooting Dean an embarrassed look and pulling his shirt closed.
Dean points to his own shoulder, drawing a little circle in the air around the handprint branded onto his skin that they both know is underneath his layers of shirts.
“You know, I got the whole hand and everything, and you just got like, some fingers.”
He cocks Sam a teasing smile and Sam rolls his eyes, grabbing his beer.
“Shut the fuck up, Dean.”
END