Supernatural/Doctor Who - All Made of Stardust (1/?)
Title: All Made of Stardust
Fandom: Supernatural, Doctor Who
Disclaimer: They belong to Eric Kripke, the CW and the BBC
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Consider everything up through the beginning of Supernatural Season 7 and Doctor Who Series 6 fair game
Beta: sarcasticval, my usual enabler
Summary: That one story where it turns out Castiel has a fobwatch. Guest starring Chuck Shurley and a 1963 blue police public call box.
Note: Surprisingly serious crack. I don't know why I've become convinced that Castiel was secretly carrying around a fobwatch this whole time, but there it is. Feedback would be HUGELY appreciated.
PART ONE
There was a war in Heaven once.
But long before there was a Heaven, there were other places, with other gods and other Gods, and something that might have been the Devil in one language, but had so many other names over time that it became impossible to say what exactly It was in the first place. All anyone ever knew was that It was old and ill-tempered and something to be steered away from, if at all possible.
Some of these worlds worshiped their gods and some killed them and still others never knew they existed in the first place. Some named them and some had no names and one place in particular, which had no great value to anyone except in its thorough singularity among all realities, acknowledged that the only gods that were real - truly Real - were those that were eternal and inescapable, no matter what planet or world or species you might belong to. And so, in order to handle these Gods, to handle Their terrifying nature and place Them within a context one might comprehend without succumbing to madness, they Named Them.
One was called Pain.
Another Death.
And the last one was Time.
And, of course, it would be Time - in a war that took place before Heaven had been conceived of and stretching to a point when its celestial halls had long since crumbled to dust - that would kill Its namers.
The universe shuddered with their death throes, though Heaven would take little notice, as one could hardly expect them to acknowledge the unmaking of entire peoples. These were the concerns of lesser beings. Heaven had far bigger problems (a rebellion to put down, a Horde to fight) than a world that no longer existed, that had never existed in the first place.
It wouldn't be the first time their arrogance blinded them, more's the pity.
If it hadn't, they might have paid better attention to the lasting echoes.
Or the occasional refugee.
***
Looking back, Castiel probably should have figured it out the first time he was killed and resurrected.
To be fair, he was a little busy at that point, what with the approaching archangel and protecting Chuck and the sudden and complete atomization of all that he was. But as it was happening he caught a glimpse of golden light - not the eye-searing, white-hot approach of Raphael, but a comfortable yellow glow that for some baffling reason left him feeling both a bit relieved and strangely sad.
I should have opened it, he thought. As these things went, it was an odd and incongruous final thought, even for him, though he didn't have much time to reflect on it as he was in the midst of experiencing the aforementioned atomization. Still, he probably should have questioned the notion upon his return.
And at the very least, stopped reaching into his trench coat pocket, expecting to find a round bit of metal and chain to fiddle with.
***
The fobwatch left everyone who saw it with a vague impression of something aged and terribly important with no idea as to how they came to such a conclusion. It was quite lovely really, a burnished brass with intricate etchings on the front that resembled astronomical charts, even if anyone who knew anything about astronomy would point out that they didn't actually make any sense (if you assumed they were drawn from the point of view of Earth and honestly, there was no reason not to). It was altogether too bad, they agreed, that it was stuck closed, because it otherwise would have made a rather nice heirloom piece.
Still, important to handle with care, even if it was broken. Everyone, for the most part, returned it in the same shape they found it in.
Well, with the exception of Dean Winchester, who spent five minutes or so amusing himself by swinging it in an idle arc with one hand, pretending he was wearing a monocle with the other, and greeting everyone in the room with "Pip-pip cheerio, old chap."
Sam finally snatched it away from him - "Stop being an asshole" - and handed it back to Castiel. "Sorry. It's a nice piece."
"Yes."
"I guess that belongs to your host?"
Castiel stuffed it back into his pocket. "Yes."
Which was strange, because if you had asked Jimmy Novak the same question, he would have sworn up and down and sideways that it belonged to Castiel.
***
Hindsight being what it was, he could see just how much he didn't think about the watch. It was, after all, broken and not very useful as an actual timepiece, so it was no wonder that he never paid much attention to its absence after his abrupt, miraculous return.
Except, no, that wasn't quite true, was it? He did think about it, every time he reached into his pocket to feel its comforting contours, the groves of the etchings. It had become a habit he didn't even realize he had until he was startled all over again by its disappearance.
He would think, Where did it go? and wonder if perhaps he should go back to Chuck's and ask if he, by any chance, found a fobwatch among the bits and pieces of teeth and skin he had left behind. But then Dean would call or Sam would ask a question or he would have to duck the notice of his brothers and sisters and he would forget about it completely until the next time he reached out for something that simply wasn't there. Then the cycle would start all over, with idle wonderment leading to his thoughts skittering, sliding and turning away from the idea almost as soon as it was formed.
Later, he would realize this was a form of self-preservation. Later, he would realize his mind was trying to protect him from himself.
It didn't make him feel any better in the end, but at least it answered a few questions.
***
"You," Lucifer said, "are so very strange."
Castiel didn't answer. It wasn't the first time the fallen angel had commented on the matter, or the first time he had approached him alone. The two currently stood at the very edge of an isolated cliff side along the Icelandic coastline, wind carrying to them scent of seas and salt. While he wasn't trapped by oil and fire, Castiel didn't have much confidence in his abilities to fight should it come down to it. His power had been dwindling for months now and while he could still fly as needed, Heaven and all of Her Hosts lay far, far beyond his reach.
"Seriously, you are one odd duck. Even for one of us."
Castiel glared at him. "I am not like you."
Lucifer grinned, the rotting skin of his host pulling his lips into a parody of a smile. Castiel fought off the sudden human urge to take a large step back. Their proximity made Jimmy's borrowed skin crawl, while the shimmering essence that comprised his true self wanted to shrink into a tiny ball and hide from the sheer stench of corruption and decay.
"Really? Let's see." Lucifer began to tick off on his fingers. "Rebelled against the established leadership? Check. On the run from our Father's little band of stormtroopers? Check. Enjoying the new-found hedonistic pleasures of human existence? If you've been stuck with Dean Winchester this whole time, I'm going to assume that's a check as well." He leaned in close and Castiel dug his nails into his hand to keep from flinching. "The only question I have is: why in the world are you so weak?"
Castiel blinked at him and when it became evident he wasn't going to answer - mostly because he hadn't the first clue what to say - Lucifer continued. "I mean, I know I'm stronger than you, but since most of our siblings are stronger than you, that really isn't anything special. Still, dear brother Michael had to shove me into a hole for absolute eons before I lost any of the power I was created with and even now this poor excuse for a vessel can barely contain me. But you? It's been mere months, little brother, and you can't even properly exorcise a demon anymore. So again I ask." He rested his chin on Castiel's shoulder, his decayed mouth ghosting over his ear with a whispered, "Why are you weak?"
I do not know, I do not know, I do not know.
But a quieter, deeper part of him, one that, perhaps, had been searching something other than his Father this whole time, said, Run. Before he figures out what you are.
The sound of wings heralded the coming of angelic scouts and with dizzying relief, he used the distraction to fly from Lucifer's sight and all his terrible questions. It took him time to settle anywhere, popping from one location to another to throw off the trail of both angels and demons alike, before he finally found himself perched on Bobby Singer's roof. It was probably not the safest place for him to be - then again, so few places were these days - but he had a peculiar sort of attachment to the hunter and his scrapyard. Sam once made a comparison between Bobby's home and comfort food and though Castiel only had a vague notion of what the latter actually was (he kept getting different answers every time he asked), he did feel a little relieved at the sight of the familiar surroundings.
He thought about going inside, if only to see if Bobby had been updated on the Winchesters' whereabouts, but it was late and likely the human was already asleep.
Besides, something was clearly wrong with his vessel as Jimmy's hands wouldn't stop shaking and he was having difficulty drawing in breath. Following some leftover human instinct this body still maintained, he sat down and tucked his hands under his arms, forming a half-hugged ball. He concentrated on willing the tremors to stop, his breathing to normalize, this strange, tight feeling in his chest to go away. Though he had no idea if his mental commands were effective, it all did eventually subside. If he decided to stay on the roof a while longer to ensure they didn't return, well, there was no one around to comment on it.
And if that quiet deep part of him said Oh, thank Our Father, thank the singing stars, he didn't see, there was no one but himself to acknowledge that, either.
***
Anael, he thought, probably figured it out and there were times when he desperately wished, with aching, irrational need, that she were still there to counsel him.
They met infrequently after she saved him from Uriel, but she always looked at him with eyes that held too much experience for her young face and he thought there were few who would mistake her for human now.
"You're always on time," she said.
"You were here before me."
"I was early. But look at you." Her smile was lovely and sad. "Always wherever you need to be, precisely whenever you need to be there."
"Of course." He had no idea what she meant by that. He'd always been punctual, as was only expected.
Something shifted into the edges of her expression, some hint of melancholy disappointment that never made it into speech. She just cupped his cheek with a calloused hand and brushed her lips against his.
"Of course," she murmured and steered the conversation toward other topics.
Years and years later, after his cowardice betrayed her and her imprisonment drove all reason from her mind and he himself was so utterly changed, that would be how he remembered her: the touch of chapped lips, a wistful smile and her sad, ancient eyes.
***
It was the talk of his brothers and sisters he missed the most. Angel Radio, as Dean put it.
He didn't speak much along those channels himself. He wasn't talkative by nature and Lucifer, for all the malicious lies he was capable of, was absolutely correct in one thing: Castiel had never been considered all that normal.
Still, the constant background murmur was forever a source of comfort to him and there had been times when he could simply stand on the dirt of the material world and drift mentally on the unceasing song, finding his own version of meditative peace for a time.
It reminded him of...
Of...
He could never remember. Only that whatever it was, he was still searching for it long after Lucifer was cast back into the pit.
The watch that was no longer in his pocket practically burned a hole in it.
***
The Leviathan were not like Angel Radio.
Or rather, they were if Angel Radio had been tuned to a station that played music composed solely by death metal frontmen jacked up on amphetamines and suffering from long bouts of bi-polar episodes and paranoid delusions.
In other words, exactly the opposite.
Only not, because, the hell of it was (so to speak), it was also almost precisely like that thing he kept not quite thinking of, the burn on the tip of his tongue that his thoughts kept turning to and slipping off again, that haunted his every moment until he no longer had any idea what it was he had even been looking for in the first place.
As his tiny shimmering self - tinier now than it had ever been - struggled to regain control of the body that was being torn from him bit by bloody bit, he realized there was a good chance that he was mad.
Had been for some time.
Like Lucifer. Like Anna. Like so much of his family.
Like a drumbeat heard from such a great distance.
here come the drums, here come-
should have opened it when-
sorry, I-
...still...have the...moment...
...Father...?
***
Oh.
There you are.
Silly boy.
Praying all this time to the wrong God. Gods.
You should have remembered there are only three constants in this universe.
Don't worry, We've fixed it up. Not the first time We've had to do it for you. Might not be the last, but then, it seems you still have a couple of lives left.
We'll see how it goes.
After all, you have Time.
***
"..iel...?
"...hear...me..?
"Castiel?"
He sucked in a breath, eyes popping open. Something held him down, gripping the front of his shirt and driving him back against the wall and he didn't know where he was or how he was or what was going on and he had to get out, get out getoutgetoutgetoutgetout-
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Cas, calm down!"
The dizzying moment of disorientation settled into realization. Castiel sat in a heap in a perfectly ordinary room with a perfectly ordinary floor and the ordinary, if perpetually haggard face of Chuck Shurley looking down at him. The thing holding him down, it turned out, were Chuck's hands, which weren't so much immobilizing him as keeping him upright.
Chuck looked at him warily. "You - you are Castiel, right? Not, um, Jimmy?"
"No." He blinked again, trying to figure out precisely where he was. It looked like Chuck's living room, although it was in better condition than the last time he had seen it, which didn't mean much. Anything short of a full-scale apocalypse would be an improvement over Chuck's general sense of organization.
"How did I get here?"
"You tell me. I haven't seen any angels or demons or-or fictional characters for over two years and suddenly bam! You appear out of nowhere behind my couch." Chuck paused, sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "You, uh, want to get up on the couch instead of the floor?"
"Yes." And then, because it seemed appropriate to the circumstances, "Thank you."
Chuck blinked. "Uh, sure. No problem."
He helped Castiel to his - shakey, uncoordinated - feet, and balanced him with stumbling success until he could collapse onto the sofa. Castiel spent a few moments staring down at his hands, which were doing that trembling thing again and absolutely refused to stop no matter how much he glared at them. He tried to take stock of himself and what he was feeling, but that had never really been one of his strong suits, so he ignored his internal turmoil to concentrate on the man looking down anxiously at him.
"You-you alright?" Chuck asked, then grimaced. "Okay, that was probably a stupid question."
"Yes." Castiel made an effort to get his thoughts back into some sort of order, lined up neatly and sensibly, but he couldn't stop them from slithering through his shaking grasp, tumbling down sideways corridors into trivial contemplations, blurting out, "You disappeared. Afterwards."
"What? What are you - oh!" Chuck nodded. "Right. Well, no, not really. I went on hiatus." Castiel nodded like he knew what that meant, but Chuck must have picked up on his confusion (or just knew him well enough to assume he would need further clarification). "What I mean is, I took a break from writing. Novels. Writing novels. Went to Hollywood, made a couple of pitches, shopped around the Supernatural series because my agent said that was the next big thing after vampires. Which he was wrong about. Didn't even bother to reimburse my airfare," Chuck muttered and trailed off momentarily, frowning. He shook out of it and resumed at a higher volume. "Anyway, came back, decided to start working on a new series since I didn't have to worry about the end of the world anymore. Something lighter, you know? More superhero oriented, but with a bit of a horror twist." He took a look at Castiel's face. "And you have no idea what I'm talking about, so never mind. What about you? Because, no offense, but you look terrible."
"I was - I didn't..." Castiel grimaced, fighting down something that felt very much like shame. Which shouldn't be. He'd done what he needed to or what he thought he needed to, because he'd been desperate and hadn't seen any other way out and he'd been so damn scared even though he should have been incapable of that emotion. But it had all been falling apart even though he had
saved the world
only done what his Father wanted of him (which he knew he had, because otherwise, why would He keep saving him?) It felt far too much like that other time, when the dome above the city started to crack, the silver trees burning around them, and they wanted to make him to fight, wanted all of them to fight, even though they were too young to know what they were doing and he hadn't meant to...
to...
Wait.
What?
He buried his face in his hands and said, "There is something wrong with me."
"Yeah. I mean, no! I mean, well, you just seem like you're going through some things right now." The cushion sank slightly as Chuck took a seat next to him. He stayed quiet for a minute, then shifted as he dug around in his pocket. "Oh! Um, I know this probably isn't the best time, but I've been carrying this thing around forever and I think it's yours."
Castiel looked up and something in his chest made a little leap.
In the palm of Chuck's outstretched hand was a battered fobwatch.
He picked it up, not sure why his breathing suddenly started to speed up or why there was a staccato drumbeat coming from the general direction of his heart or a surge of desperate longing all but overwhelmed him. He traced the lines of the etchings on the face of it, the language of a place nowhere near the planet his feet were currently planted on.
"I, uh, I couldn't open it," Chuck said. "I think there might be a catch or something."
"No," Castiel said. "No catch, you just-"
For the first time in his life, he passed his hand over the latch and the watch popped open.
Something golden filled his vision.
And he said, "Oh."
END PART ONE
Fandom: Supernatural, Doctor Who
Disclaimer: They belong to Eric Kripke, the CW and the BBC
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Consider everything up through the beginning of Supernatural Season 7 and Doctor Who Series 6 fair game
Beta: sarcasticval, my usual enabler
Summary: That one story where it turns out Castiel has a fobwatch. Guest starring Chuck Shurley and a 1963 blue police public call box.
Note: Surprisingly serious crack. I don't know why I've become convinced that Castiel was secretly carrying around a fobwatch this whole time, but there it is. Feedback would be HUGELY appreciated.
PART ONE
There was a war in Heaven once.
But long before there was a Heaven, there were other places, with other gods and other Gods, and something that might have been the Devil in one language, but had so many other names over time that it became impossible to say what exactly It was in the first place. All anyone ever knew was that It was old and ill-tempered and something to be steered away from, if at all possible.
Some of these worlds worshiped their gods and some killed them and still others never knew they existed in the first place. Some named them and some had no names and one place in particular, which had no great value to anyone except in its thorough singularity among all realities, acknowledged that the only gods that were real - truly Real - were those that were eternal and inescapable, no matter what planet or world or species you might belong to. And so, in order to handle these Gods, to handle Their terrifying nature and place Them within a context one might comprehend without succumbing to madness, they Named Them.
One was called Pain.
Another Death.
And the last one was Time.
And, of course, it would be Time - in a war that took place before Heaven had been conceived of and stretching to a point when its celestial halls had long since crumbled to dust - that would kill Its namers.
The universe shuddered with their death throes, though Heaven would take little notice, as one could hardly expect them to acknowledge the unmaking of entire peoples. These were the concerns of lesser beings. Heaven had far bigger problems (a rebellion to put down, a Horde to fight) than a world that no longer existed, that had never existed in the first place.
It wouldn't be the first time their arrogance blinded them, more's the pity.
If it hadn't, they might have paid better attention to the lasting echoes.
Or the occasional refugee.
***
Looking back, Castiel probably should have figured it out the first time he was killed and resurrected.
To be fair, he was a little busy at that point, what with the approaching archangel and protecting Chuck and the sudden and complete atomization of all that he was. But as it was happening he caught a glimpse of golden light - not the eye-searing, white-hot approach of Raphael, but a comfortable yellow glow that for some baffling reason left him feeling both a bit relieved and strangely sad.
I should have opened it, he thought. As these things went, it was an odd and incongruous final thought, even for him, though he didn't have much time to reflect on it as he was in the midst of experiencing the aforementioned atomization. Still, he probably should have questioned the notion upon his return.
And at the very least, stopped reaching into his trench coat pocket, expecting to find a round bit of metal and chain to fiddle with.
***
The fobwatch left everyone who saw it with a vague impression of something aged and terribly important with no idea as to how they came to such a conclusion. It was quite lovely really, a burnished brass with intricate etchings on the front that resembled astronomical charts, even if anyone who knew anything about astronomy would point out that they didn't actually make any sense (if you assumed they were drawn from the point of view of Earth and honestly, there was no reason not to). It was altogether too bad, they agreed, that it was stuck closed, because it otherwise would have made a rather nice heirloom piece.
Still, important to handle with care, even if it was broken. Everyone, for the most part, returned it in the same shape they found it in.
Well, with the exception of Dean Winchester, who spent five minutes or so amusing himself by swinging it in an idle arc with one hand, pretending he was wearing a monocle with the other, and greeting everyone in the room with "Pip-pip cheerio, old chap."
Sam finally snatched it away from him - "Stop being an asshole" - and handed it back to Castiel. "Sorry. It's a nice piece."
"Yes."
"I guess that belongs to your host?"
Castiel stuffed it back into his pocket. "Yes."
Which was strange, because if you had asked Jimmy Novak the same question, he would have sworn up and down and sideways that it belonged to Castiel.
***
Hindsight being what it was, he could see just how much he didn't think about the watch. It was, after all, broken and not very useful as an actual timepiece, so it was no wonder that he never paid much attention to its absence after his abrupt, miraculous return.
Except, no, that wasn't quite true, was it? He did think about it, every time he reached into his pocket to feel its comforting contours, the groves of the etchings. It had become a habit he didn't even realize he had until he was startled all over again by its disappearance.
He would think, Where did it go? and wonder if perhaps he should go back to Chuck's and ask if he, by any chance, found a fobwatch among the bits and pieces of teeth and skin he had left behind. But then Dean would call or Sam would ask a question or he would have to duck the notice of his brothers and sisters and he would forget about it completely until the next time he reached out for something that simply wasn't there. Then the cycle would start all over, with idle wonderment leading to his thoughts skittering, sliding and turning away from the idea almost as soon as it was formed.
Later, he would realize this was a form of self-preservation. Later, he would realize his mind was trying to protect him from himself.
It didn't make him feel any better in the end, but at least it answered a few questions.
***
"You," Lucifer said, "are so very strange."
Castiel didn't answer. It wasn't the first time the fallen angel had commented on the matter, or the first time he had approached him alone. The two currently stood at the very edge of an isolated cliff side along the Icelandic coastline, wind carrying to them scent of seas and salt. While he wasn't trapped by oil and fire, Castiel didn't have much confidence in his abilities to fight should it come down to it. His power had been dwindling for months now and while he could still fly as needed, Heaven and all of Her Hosts lay far, far beyond his reach.
"Seriously, you are one odd duck. Even for one of us."
Castiel glared at him. "I am not like you."
Lucifer grinned, the rotting skin of his host pulling his lips into a parody of a smile. Castiel fought off the sudden human urge to take a large step back. Their proximity made Jimmy's borrowed skin crawl, while the shimmering essence that comprised his true self wanted to shrink into a tiny ball and hide from the sheer stench of corruption and decay.
"Really? Let's see." Lucifer began to tick off on his fingers. "Rebelled against the established leadership? Check. On the run from our Father's little band of stormtroopers? Check. Enjoying the new-found hedonistic pleasures of human existence? If you've been stuck with Dean Winchester this whole time, I'm going to assume that's a check as well." He leaned in close and Castiel dug his nails into his hand to keep from flinching. "The only question I have is: why in the world are you so weak?"
Castiel blinked at him and when it became evident he wasn't going to answer - mostly because he hadn't the first clue what to say - Lucifer continued. "I mean, I know I'm stronger than you, but since most of our siblings are stronger than you, that really isn't anything special. Still, dear brother Michael had to shove me into a hole for absolute eons before I lost any of the power I was created with and even now this poor excuse for a vessel can barely contain me. But you? It's been mere months, little brother, and you can't even properly exorcise a demon anymore. So again I ask." He rested his chin on Castiel's shoulder, his decayed mouth ghosting over his ear with a whispered, "Why are you weak?"
I do not know, I do not know, I do not know.
But a quieter, deeper part of him, one that, perhaps, had been searching something other than his Father this whole time, said, Run. Before he figures out what you are.
The sound of wings heralded the coming of angelic scouts and with dizzying relief, he used the distraction to fly from Lucifer's sight and all his terrible questions. It took him time to settle anywhere, popping from one location to another to throw off the trail of both angels and demons alike, before he finally found himself perched on Bobby Singer's roof. It was probably not the safest place for him to be - then again, so few places were these days - but he had a peculiar sort of attachment to the hunter and his scrapyard. Sam once made a comparison between Bobby's home and comfort food and though Castiel only had a vague notion of what the latter actually was (he kept getting different answers every time he asked), he did feel a little relieved at the sight of the familiar surroundings.
He thought about going inside, if only to see if Bobby had been updated on the Winchesters' whereabouts, but it was late and likely the human was already asleep.
Besides, something was clearly wrong with his vessel as Jimmy's hands wouldn't stop shaking and he was having difficulty drawing in breath. Following some leftover human instinct this body still maintained, he sat down and tucked his hands under his arms, forming a half-hugged ball. He concentrated on willing the tremors to stop, his breathing to normalize, this strange, tight feeling in his chest to go away. Though he had no idea if his mental commands were effective, it all did eventually subside. If he decided to stay on the roof a while longer to ensure they didn't return, well, there was no one around to comment on it.
And if that quiet deep part of him said Oh, thank Our Father, thank the singing stars, he didn't see, there was no one but himself to acknowledge that, either.
***
Anael, he thought, probably figured it out and there were times when he desperately wished, with aching, irrational need, that she were still there to counsel him.
They met infrequently after she saved him from Uriel, but she always looked at him with eyes that held too much experience for her young face and he thought there were few who would mistake her for human now.
"You're always on time," she said.
"You were here before me."
"I was early. But look at you." Her smile was lovely and sad. "Always wherever you need to be, precisely whenever you need to be there."
"Of course." He had no idea what she meant by that. He'd always been punctual, as was only expected.
Something shifted into the edges of her expression, some hint of melancholy disappointment that never made it into speech. She just cupped his cheek with a calloused hand and brushed her lips against his.
"Of course," she murmured and steered the conversation toward other topics.
Years and years later, after his cowardice betrayed her and her imprisonment drove all reason from her mind and he himself was so utterly changed, that would be how he remembered her: the touch of chapped lips, a wistful smile and her sad, ancient eyes.
***
It was the talk of his brothers and sisters he missed the most. Angel Radio, as Dean put it.
He didn't speak much along those channels himself. He wasn't talkative by nature and Lucifer, for all the malicious lies he was capable of, was absolutely correct in one thing: Castiel had never been considered all that normal.
Still, the constant background murmur was forever a source of comfort to him and there had been times when he could simply stand on the dirt of the material world and drift mentally on the unceasing song, finding his own version of meditative peace for a time.
It reminded him of...
Of...
He could never remember. Only that whatever it was, he was still searching for it long after Lucifer was cast back into the pit.
The watch that was no longer in his pocket practically burned a hole in it.
***
The Leviathan were not like Angel Radio.
Or rather, they were if Angel Radio had been tuned to a station that played music composed solely by death metal frontmen jacked up on amphetamines and suffering from long bouts of bi-polar episodes and paranoid delusions.
In other words, exactly the opposite.
Only not, because, the hell of it was (so to speak), it was also almost precisely like that thing he kept not quite thinking of, the burn on the tip of his tongue that his thoughts kept turning to and slipping off again, that haunted his every moment until he no longer had any idea what it was he had even been looking for in the first place.
As his tiny shimmering self - tinier now than it had ever been - struggled to regain control of the body that was being torn from him bit by bloody bit, he realized there was a good chance that he was mad.
Had been for some time.
Like Lucifer. Like Anna. Like so much of his family.
Like a drumbeat heard from such a great distance.
here come the drums, here come-
should have opened it when-
sorry, I-
...still...have the...moment...
...Father...?
***
Oh.
There you are.
Silly boy.
Praying all this time to the wrong God. Gods.
You should have remembered there are only three constants in this universe.
Don't worry, We've fixed it up. Not the first time We've had to do it for you. Might not be the last, but then, it seems you still have a couple of lives left.
We'll see how it goes.
After all, you have Time.
***
"..iel...?
"...hear...me..?
"Castiel?"
He sucked in a breath, eyes popping open. Something held him down, gripping the front of his shirt and driving him back against the wall and he didn't know where he was or how he was or what was going on and he had to get out, get out getoutgetoutgetoutgetout-
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Cas, calm down!"
The dizzying moment of disorientation settled into realization. Castiel sat in a heap in a perfectly ordinary room with a perfectly ordinary floor and the ordinary, if perpetually haggard face of Chuck Shurley looking down at him. The thing holding him down, it turned out, were Chuck's hands, which weren't so much immobilizing him as keeping him upright.
Chuck looked at him warily. "You - you are Castiel, right? Not, um, Jimmy?"
"No." He blinked again, trying to figure out precisely where he was. It looked like Chuck's living room, although it was in better condition than the last time he had seen it, which didn't mean much. Anything short of a full-scale apocalypse would be an improvement over Chuck's general sense of organization.
"How did I get here?"
"You tell me. I haven't seen any angels or demons or-or fictional characters for over two years and suddenly bam! You appear out of nowhere behind my couch." Chuck paused, sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "You, uh, want to get up on the couch instead of the floor?"
"Yes." And then, because it seemed appropriate to the circumstances, "Thank you."
Chuck blinked. "Uh, sure. No problem."
He helped Castiel to his - shakey, uncoordinated - feet, and balanced him with stumbling success until he could collapse onto the sofa. Castiel spent a few moments staring down at his hands, which were doing that trembling thing again and absolutely refused to stop no matter how much he glared at them. He tried to take stock of himself and what he was feeling, but that had never really been one of his strong suits, so he ignored his internal turmoil to concentrate on the man looking down anxiously at him.
"You-you alright?" Chuck asked, then grimaced. "Okay, that was probably a stupid question."
"Yes." Castiel made an effort to get his thoughts back into some sort of order, lined up neatly and sensibly, but he couldn't stop them from slithering through his shaking grasp, tumbling down sideways corridors into trivial contemplations, blurting out, "You disappeared. Afterwards."
"What? What are you - oh!" Chuck nodded. "Right. Well, no, not really. I went on hiatus." Castiel nodded like he knew what that meant, but Chuck must have picked up on his confusion (or just knew him well enough to assume he would need further clarification). "What I mean is, I took a break from writing. Novels. Writing novels. Went to Hollywood, made a couple of pitches, shopped around the Supernatural series because my agent said that was the next big thing after vampires. Which he was wrong about. Didn't even bother to reimburse my airfare," Chuck muttered and trailed off momentarily, frowning. He shook out of it and resumed at a higher volume. "Anyway, came back, decided to start working on a new series since I didn't have to worry about the end of the world anymore. Something lighter, you know? More superhero oriented, but with a bit of a horror twist." He took a look at Castiel's face. "And you have no idea what I'm talking about, so never mind. What about you? Because, no offense, but you look terrible."
"I was - I didn't..." Castiel grimaced, fighting down something that felt very much like shame. Which shouldn't be. He'd done what he needed to or what he thought he needed to, because he'd been desperate and hadn't seen any other way out and he'd been so damn scared even though he should have been incapable of that emotion. But it had all been falling apart even though he had
saved the world
only done what his Father wanted of him (which he knew he had, because otherwise, why would He keep saving him?) It felt far too much like that other time, when the dome above the city started to crack, the silver trees burning around them, and they wanted to make him to fight, wanted all of them to fight, even though they were too young to know what they were doing and he hadn't meant to...
to...
Wait.
What?
He buried his face in his hands and said, "There is something wrong with me."
"Yeah. I mean, no! I mean, well, you just seem like you're going through some things right now." The cushion sank slightly as Chuck took a seat next to him. He stayed quiet for a minute, then shifted as he dug around in his pocket. "Oh! Um, I know this probably isn't the best time, but I've been carrying this thing around forever and I think it's yours."
Castiel looked up and something in his chest made a little leap.
In the palm of Chuck's outstretched hand was a battered fobwatch.
He picked it up, not sure why his breathing suddenly started to speed up or why there was a staccato drumbeat coming from the general direction of his heart or a surge of desperate longing all but overwhelmed him. He traced the lines of the etchings on the face of it, the language of a place nowhere near the planet his feet were currently planted on.
"I, uh, I couldn't open it," Chuck said. "I think there might be a catch or something."
"No," Castiel said. "No catch, you just-"
For the first time in his life, he passed his hand over the latch and the watch popped open.
Something golden filled his vision.
And he said, "Oh."
END PART ONE