MNIC - Ch. 16: Lights Will Guide You Home

Jun 16, 2012 22:51

Title: My Name Is Castiel

Pairing: Dean/Castiel

Word Count: 4100 (Running Total: 57800)

Summary: After escaping from Death's clutches yet again, Cas jumps right into the fight against the Leviathans. Post-7x10. "I am an angel of the Lord. Let me tell you my story. Let me tell you everything."



Chapter 16 - Lights Will Guide You Home

The door opens and closes, and Sam’s heavy footsteps cross the room toward us.

“Should we be worried that Crowley still hasn’t showed up?  He is on your side, isn’t he?” Sam asks.

“He is on our side indeed.  And I know the incentive you need to call him in.”

“What is it?” Dean asks.

“Call Balthazar back.  He will be able to reach Crowley faster with a message.”

“What message, though?” Sam presses.

“The Winchesters and I are friends again.”

Dean frowns.  “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I am not.  Crowley believed that my worries about my identity were distracting me from the Leviathans, so he wanted to make sure the rift between us was mended.  That is what I believe his reasoning was for leading those two Leviathans straight to me while I was vulnerable and then calling you two in for the rescue.  Although I think this may have gone farther than he intended.”

Dean looks murderous.  “Farther than he-farther than he intended?  You almost died, Cas!  I am going to wring Crowley’s fat neck, next time I see him.”

“My, oh my, what a temper you have there.”

Dean whips around, but his motion is retrained because he still hasn’t released my hand.

“Watch it,” Crowley says.  “You might want to be nice to the demon who knows how to reverse the spell on your boyfriend.”

Dean growls something unintelligibly, and Crowley just snickers.

“Apologies, Cas.  I thought these two airheads would get to you faster than they did.  Shame-I lost five demons on the chase, too.  Only two of them made it into this room.  None made it out, of course.”

“Will you just fix this?” Dean demands.

“Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Crowley scoots out of my sight, and a moment later, the heavy bands around my chest lift away, and the room immediately erupts with bright light.  I gasp and force my Grace to calm, channeling it into healing the extensive damage it and my wings took from the holy fire.

I don’t realize that I’ve sat up or that I’m crying out until I feel the firm grips on my arms, rocking me back and forth gently.  Above the sound of a voice I hardly recognize as my own, I hear a comforting voice murmuring, “I got you, Cas.  Hey-hey.  Cas, look at me.  Cas.”

Dean.

I open my eyes.  My vision is blurred, but I force it to clear up.

“Hey,” Dean says, looking relieved.  “Better?”

I open my now-cloaked wings, stretching them out fully.  “I did not expect that to be so painful,” I say, directing a glare at Crowley.

“You say it as though I knew,” the demon says with a sigh.

“Leave,” I say.

“Well all right.  I’ll let you lovebirds have some time.”

Dean’s grips tighten on my arms for a moment, and I can sense his anger threatening to take over.  But he calms himself, and Crowley departs.

“Dean, you may release me now,” I say when he shows no inclination to move.

“You a hundred percent?”

I hesitate.  “…Percent?”

Dean nearly rolls his eyes.  “You okay?” he tries again.

I nod.  “Yes.”

“Okay.”

Still he does not loosen his hold on me.  “Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine.  I’m not the one who nearly got fried.”

“That is not what I meant,” I say, looking down at one of his hands.

“Oh,” Dean says, pulling his hands back quickly.  His cheeks are tinged pink, and I feel the corners of my lips tugging up into a smile.

“Uh, guys?  I’m still here,” Sam says.

“We weren’t-” Dean begins.

“Wait a second.  Dean, are you blushing?” Sam interrupts.

“No.”

Sam starts cackling, and Dean gets to his feet.  I watch, amused, as he takes a swing at his brother.

“Ow!  Jerk!”

“You asked for it, bitch.”

I swing my legs off the bed and get to my feet, stretching out my vessel and relieved at the feeling of power crackling beneath my skin.

Then Bobby enters the room.  “Oh, you’re up an’ runnin’ again,” he observes.

“Yes.”

“Where were you when we did the ritual?” he asks.

“I was about to follow Richard Griech back in time to his appearance on Earth.”

“Sorry,” Sam says.

“There is no need to apologize, Sam,” I say.  “Now, I’d like to get back to what I was doing.”

“Already?” Dean blurts out.  Bobby raises an eyebrow at him.  Sam just grins.

“Uh… yes?” I say.

“You almost died,” Dean says, coming toward me but stopping a few feet away.  “Shouldn’t you be lying down or something?”

“Crowley removed the spell.  My powers are unrestrained now.  I am fine.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake-Cas, do you mind sticking around for a while longer?  My brother’s too much of a wimp to ask.”

“Sam!” Dean hisses.

“Would you like me to stay?” I ask Dean.  Perhaps this is a question I should have asked him a long time ago, instead of just making the decision for him.  But it’s too late to change the past, so I will settle for improving the future.

“No, go ahead,” Dean says.  “You’ve got more important things to be doing.”

I frown.  “More important?  Not much is more important to me than you are, Dean.”

Bobby coughs loudly.  “I’ll uh… go buy lunch-dinner-food.  Sam, you coming?”

“You don’t have to leave,” I say.

“No, it’s okay.  I’m actually pretty hungry,” Sam says, heading for the door.  “I’ll bring you back some pie, Dean,” he adds as he exits the room.

Dean heaves a sigh when the door swings shut.  “You can go,” he says, shaking his head and moving toward the nearest wall.  He scrapes through a few of the sigils.  It looks as though they’ve been scratched off and redrawn more than once, and I realize that they’ve been breaking and fixing them every time Balthazar enters or exits the room.  The restrictions on the room fall away, and I’m free to leave.

“Dean-”

“Just go already, all right?  We both know you’re gonna leave anyway, so-”

“I will indeed have to leave at some point, but it does not have to be now, and it does not have to be like this.  And I will come back.”

“Yeah.  Sure.”

I frown.  “Why don’t you believe me?”

Dean just shrugs.

“Dean.”

“Just go, Cas.”  He sounds tired.

I step over to him, reach out to touch his arm.  “I will not leave you,” I say.  “You seem to think I am capable of leaving without any intention to return to you.”

“Well?  Aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” I say firmly.  “I can’t leave you.  Can’t you see that, after everything I’ve done for you?  I’ve died more than once, for you.  Do you really think it’s that easy to walk away?”

“You did it easily enough last time,” he says roughly.

“There,” I say.  “The truth is out.  Now was that so difficult?”

“Truth?  What truth?”

“You didn’t want me to go, last time.  You could have said something.”

Dean stares at me, but I have no doubt that he knows exactly which time I am talking about.  Then his expression hardens.  “You flapped off to go join your brothers as soon as you got your shiny new pair of wings.  What was I s’posed to say?”

“You could have asked me to stay.  I… if you’d asked, I would have-”

“You’d made your mind up already.  I asked what you were goin’ to do, and you’d already decided on Heaven.”

“Well, you’d made me a promise to Sam,” I say.  “I already told you this-I wouldn’t force you to choose me just because I died for you.”

“Is that the only reason you think I would’ve had to choose you?”

“What else could there have been?” I ask.  “It’s not as though I was your family or anything.”

He bristles at that.  “Look, you were already practically family.  You had to know that, Cas.  You had to.”

I shake my head.  “If I were, you would have asked me to stay, without hesitation.  If Sam had been intent on leaving you, would you have let him go without argument?”

“I did let him go, Cas!  In case you don’t remember-”

“But as I recall, you tried the best you could to prevent him from leaving.  You didn’t even ask me.”

“Oh, screw this.  That was almost two friggin’ years ago, Cas.  This is pointless.  How’d we even get to talking about this anyway?”

“I was attempting to address and settle your obviously unresolved abandonment issues.”

“Wow, Cas.  Thanks.”

I ignore the sarcasm, and the little bit of pride that forms in me when I realize that I recognized it for what is was.  “I want you to accept that I will not just leave you,” I say.  “I will not abandon you.”

Dean looks edgy, and I realize that I’ve moved closer to him without thinking.  I back up a step.

“Well how about last year?” he asks.  “You only came when you thought-”

“I was fighting a war.  If I could have come, I would have.  We have had this conversation before.”

We fall silent for a moment, and without dialogue to distract me, all I can think about is the urge to reach out for Dean.  I really need to leave, but I just can’t bring myself to.  And after telling Dean that I won’t leave him, it would be too contrary to leave now.

“You know, I mean what I said earlier,” Dean says quietly.  “About you being a liar.  I mean, the first thing you did when you got back was lie to us.  And make another deal with Crowley, apparently.  What, are you two joined at the hip or something?”

“Demons are better-suited for this sort of reconnaissance.  They are closer to human because they were once human, so they can slip in unnoticed by the Leviathans.  Angels are too conspicuous.”

“So you’re trying to say that you’re just using him.”

“Yes.  We do not have a deal this time.  Just an agreement to work together against a mutual enemy.  Did you not make the same choice when the enemy was Lucifer?”

Dean concedes the point with a nod of his head.

“Dean… I am not… I have never wanted to lie to you.  Against Raphael, my actions were-”

“Can we not talk about this?”

I sigh, frustrated.  “How can we ever get past a problem if you never face it?  This is clearly affecting your ability to trust me.  We need to resolve it.”

“There’s nothing to resolve, all right?  Just go.  We’re done here,” he says, walking past me so that I’m just staring at a wall covered in sigils.

“Now you’re just running away.  Dean, I came to you and Sam as Camael because I did not want to face you,” I say, turning around to look at him as I speak.  “Because I was running away.  This angered you.  So you should be able to understand my frustration with you right now.”

He spins around to face me.  “You wanna talk about it?  Fine, let’s talk about it.  What should we start with?  The fact that you chose to go to a demon for help before me, or the fact that you were working with that demon to kill your own brother?  That’s pretty damn cold, Cas.”

I glare at him, and my wings-still invisible to him-flare automatically as my ire spikes.  “Do you think I wanted to kill my brothers?  Do you think I wanted a civil war in Heaven?  That I wanted to lead a fight that killed so many of my brothers?  I didn’t want to kill Raphael-I had to.”

“Don’t say you did it for me.  Don’t even-”

“But I did,” I say, drowning him out.  “I did it so that your sacrifice-Sam’s sacrifice-would not have been in vain.  Is it really so difficult for you to see that?”

Dean’s jaw clenches and unclenches a few times.  “You still picked Crowley-”

“Because you’d given enough, and I had no other options.  I doubt you would have been able to help, anyway.”

A flash of hurt crosses his face, but it’s gone almost instantly.  Dean’s voice is hard when he says, “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Cas.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true.  You would not have been much help in the war in Heaven.”

Dean huffs once but says nothing.  In this silence, I see his hand twitch a little, catalogue the way his eyes linger on my right hand.  So he still feels the bond as well.  I decide to rest on this topic for the moment, switch to something safer.

“I told Sam about our connection.”

“Yeah,” Dean says.  “He uh… we talked about it.  There’s really nothing we can do?  I’m sure Bobby and Sam will find something.”

“I asked Death himself.  Even he cannot interfere.”

“Or maybe he just won’t, because he doesn’t like you.”

“That is not entirely impossible.  I was disrespectful toward him.”

Dean chuckles, but I remember what he’d said.  My memories after taking in the Purgatory souls are sometimes blurry or incomplete, just snatches of color or conversation, swirling images and scenes in my head, but I clearly remember the instant in which Dean demanded of Death, Just kill him now!  I had thought it insolent at the time.  Now, it just hurts.

Then Dean’s fingers curl around my wrist, pushing the material of my coat sleeves up slightly.  I meet his eyes, searching.

“Cas,” he mutters.

His other hand comes up, rests along my jaw.  I press my face into the touch slightly, maintaining eye contact with him.  This feels much stronger than it did before.  Does the shape of my vessel really matter?  It shouldn’t affect my sensations.  But then I see the look in his eyes and realize that the difference is in the waves of affection coming from his soul, undiluted by confusion now that I am in the form he recognizes.

Dean leans in a bit closer.  “Cas,” he repeats, and I realize he wants permission.  Does he really need it, at this point?

I shut my eyes and close the distance between us, even as my mind screams at me that this is a terrible idea.  I kiss him gently, soft repeated presses of lips against his.  He allows this for a moment, but as I start to pull back, he slides his hand around the back of my head, pressing his tongue into my mouth.  And suddenly I have no choice but to respond, putting my arms around his waist and pulling him toward me.  He groans into my mouth, and the kiss deepens, tongues and lips slipping and sliding against each other.

I feel myself growing hard, and with it comes the desire for completion.  My right hand twitches, and I know it yearns for its place on Dean’s shoulder.  No.  I can’t.

Dean backs up a step, pulling me with him, and sits on the bed.  He doesn’t allow our lips to separate, so I’m jerked downward awkwardly.  He breaks away, breathing through red, kiss-swollen lips.  “Get up here,” he says, tugging on my legs as he scoots back slightly on the bed.

I fall to my knees, straddling his lap, and kiss him again, hardly sparing a thought for the need that pulses through me.  This position brings our pelvises close together, and when Dean grinds his hips upwards, I can feel a definite bulge in the denim of his jeans.  I groan at the pressure and roll my hips down, seeking more friction, more pressure.

Dean kisses his way along my jaw to my ear and breathes, “Fuck, Cas.  I can’t… can’t control myself with you.  Need you.”

I rut against him, riding the hot flashes that explode in me at the sensation, and Dean groans, tonguing my ear.  Then his hands are scrabbling at my clothing, shoving my coat off, working on my jacket.

“Need to feel you, Cas.  Need you-need this,” he whispers hotly.

I shudder at the urgency in his words and remind myself with a jolt that this could be the bond talking.  I can’t let this happen.

He’s already shrugged out of his shirt and is about to remove his undershirt when I grab his wrists, stopping him and distracting him with a long, filthy kiss.  Apparently it’s not enough, because when I back up to let him breathe, he resumes the task of pulling his shirt off.

“No,” I say, and I’m surprised at how shaky my voice is.  I catch his hands again.  “Bond-too dangerous.  I can’t let you-”

Then his tongue is in my mouth, and his hands are working at my slacks instead.  I tighten my grips on his wrists and pull them away, pressing them to either side of him on the bed.

“Dean,” I say, turning my head away.

He noses at my jaw, neck.  “Don’t say stop now, Cas.”

“Dean-”

Clearly something in my tone is displeasing to him, because his teeth suddenly sink into the base of my neck, hard.  I gasp in surprise.  Dean pulls at his hands, but I don’t release them.  His tongue swipes over the bite languidly, and I resist the urge to squirm.

“Don’t stop this now,” he whispers.  “Please.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, spreading my wings out.

“You won’t,” Dean says quickly.  “I’ll keep my shirt on.  I won’t let you touch the scar.  Cas, don’t go anywhere.  You said you weren’t leaving.  You said you weren’t a liar.”

“Shh.  Shh, Dean.  Calm down.”

The threat of my departure dulls the heat down considerably, and I’m relieved.  It was-and still is-so tempting to reach out and cement the bond, to tie Dean to me permanently, but at least the primal need has faded, for now.  My Grace doesn’t seem to understand that it is impossible for me to bind Dean, that this will kill him.

I back up slowly, sliding away from Dean, and he looks up at me as I regain my feet.  I haven’t released his hands, a promise that I won’t be leaving him.  His eyes are still dark, pupils still blown wide, but he seems to be in a better state of mind now.

“I guess the uh, moth to a flame metaphor works pretty well for us, huh?” he says.

“Yes.”

Dean takes a shaky breath.  He seems to be in full control of his actions again.  “It’s always gonna be like this from now on, isn’t it?”

“I imagine that tolerance might be able to be achieved over time, but it would be difficult.  I can stay out of your way if-”

“Oh, no.  Fuck, no.  You’re not going to avoid me, you hear me?  When I call, you’d better get your feathery ass down here.”

“I will do my best.”

“Guess that’s as much as I can ask for.”  Dean stands, and I release his wrists.  He catches my face before I can back away and plants a quick kiss on my lips.  “Don’t get yourself killed, all right?  We’ve still got a mountain of shit we’ve gotta fight over when you get back.”

“I am not interested in fighting over excrement.”

This gets a small laugh out of Dean, and I count it as a win.

“See you later, Cas.”

I smile.  “Goodbye, Dean.”

His hands drop away from my face, and I fly away.

****************************************

Everything feels sharper, somehow.  I had far better senses with my Grace supporting me, yet it seems as though I never truly opened my eyes until the moment I awoke at the hospital.

“Dude.”

Even Dean’s voice sounds different to these ears.

“I told you to sit down, but you don’t have to stay there for hours just ‘cause I said to stay there,” he continues.

“So you want me to stay here, but you… don’t?  I do not understand.”

Dean grins.  “Going human hasn’t changed you a bit, has it?”

A strange fluttering sensation starts in my stomach at the fondness that shows in his voice, the crinkles beside his eyes and the curl of his lips when he smiles.  The memory of what I had experienced when Famine was near surfaces, and I realize that this is attraction.  And it’s very inconvenient, as Dean does not appear to reciprocate in any way.

“Come on.  We’re getting food.  Bobby’s chili is friggin’ amazing, but if I eat any more of it, I’m gonna be sick of it in my next life.”

I get to my feet, realizing that the strange gnawing sensation that accompanies the fluttering in my stomach is probably hunger.  The wisps of Grace left in me are too weak, far too weak to sustain this body without food or sleep.

I allow Dean to drag me out of the house toward the Impala.

“Where is Sam?” I ask as he pushes me toward the front passenger seat.

“Looking at omens with Bobby.  I tried to interrupt, but he made one of his bitchfaces at me and told me to get lost.”

“I take it we will not be bringing food back for him.”

Dean chuckles.  “Oh, you know me too well.”

He starts the car, and I wonder how anyone can know something or someone “too well.”

“So uh… is Jimmy still in there with you?” Dean asks. “Now that you’re human, I mean.”

I nod.  “I’ve been trying to keep him under, but he still surfaces sometimes.”

“Poor bastard.”

“He was not a bastard, nor was he necessarily poor, though he would have appreciated more money.”

Dean laughs, and warmth curls in my chest.  “Sometimes I wonder if you say shit like that just to fuck with me,” he says.  “And then I remember that you’re… well, you.”

“And I suppose that explains everything,” I say.

He just nods, grinning.  But the amusement eventually fades away, and we sit in silence for a while.

When we reach the town, Dean doesn’t stop anywhere, just cruises through streets aimlessly.  I wait for him to speak-it’s become clear that this is not about food, and that Sam is not here because Dean didn’t want him to be.

Finally, Dean speaks up.  “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, Cas.  It’s insane, right?  Letting Sam say yes to the Devil… How am I supposed to do that?”  He pulls over and stares blankly out the windshield, letting the car idle on the side of the road.  “I don’t think I can do it, Cas.”

Before I’ve registered my intentions, my hand covers his where it’s been resting on the gear shift.  “Dean, you are capable.  You can do this.”

“It’s Sam,” he says, voice breaking on his brother’s name.

I want to banish the note of pain in his voice, the fear in his eyes, but I can’t.  That he hasn’t pushed my hand off or pulled his own hand away already counts as a small miracle.

“It’s my brother, or the world.  Why should I have to choose?”

“You shouldn’t,” I say.  “It’s not your choice; it is his.  Your choice is whether or not you will support your brother, and the decision he’s made.”

Dean laughs humorlessly.  “Not my choice, huh?  I could still lock him up in the panic room if I needed to.”

“You could,” I agree.  “But you won’t.”  Dean opens his mouth to protest, but I continue before he can get the words out, “I built you from your bones up, Dean.  I know you, every cell and every thought of yours.  I know you, Dean.  And you love your brother too much to lock him up and take his choice completely out of the equation.  Especially when you know that he’s right.”

Dean’s staring at me when I finish.  “I uh…” he clears his throat.  “Thanks, Cas.”

I blink, surprised.  “For what?”

“For keeping me honest.”

I just smile.  The car starts moving again, and I pull my hand back, sensing that the moment’s over.

“Let’s get us some burgers,” Dean says.

I like the sound of that.

“And some pie,” he adds as an afterthought.  “You’re gonna love it.”

I’ll certainly try my best to.

Author’s Note: I wish they’d had a scene like this last flashback on the actual show. I mean, we get Dean’s talk with Bobby where Bobby asks what Dean’s really afraid of-“Losing?  Or losing your brother?” And I understand that that’s an impactful scene. But I feel like Dean would have second thoughts, and he wouldn’t want to bring them to Sam because Sam needs to feel trusted, and he wouldn’t bring them to Bobby ‘cause he’d just be called an idjit, but Cas, Cas wouldn’t judge him. I wish this conversation had happened.

char: sam winchester, char: castiel, my name is castiel, char: crowley, destiel, char: bobby singer, char: dean winchester

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