All This Derision [3/3]
He didn't know how long it had been since Dean and the vampire had escaped. It had been too long; of that, Castiel was certain. Any time spent here was too much.
His breath was coming out in harsh pants as he ran desperately through the forest. The tips of his fingers were tender and sore from having been scraped against trees time and time again, as he guided himself more with his hands then his eyes. Decaying leaves made the ground slippery, and roots were known to jut up in places where they really had no business being. His wings were still tender from the run-in with the manticore, and Castiel knew that he couldn't fly, nor could he outrun the werewolf behind him for much longer. There was only one option left.
Castiel stopped so suddenly that he almost fell over his own feet. He whirled around, crouching into a fighting position. He could hear the beast coming, slobbering and snarling as it slammed its way through branches that he'd needed to dodge.
And then he saw it, barreling out from the path that he had just come down. Its eyes were eerily green, glowing with that feral edge that seemed to touch most of the pupils in Purgatory, and its mouth was pulled back in a growl. It spied him, leaped-
He was prepared for it. As soon as he felt its gigantic paws slam into his shoulders, he summoned up what little of his Grace remained and pushed back. They fell to the grown in a tangle of coat and fur, but Castiel managed to stay on top of the wolf. Adrenaline was pounding through him, motivating his body as much as his angelic power was, and nothing else mattered but what he was doing now.
The wolf tried to throw him, thrashing from side to side. The claws of its left front paw sank into his side, and Castiel snarled, and slammed it back down onto the carpet of rotting grasses and leaves. Not giving it time to react, he wrapped his arms around its neck, and twisted. He could feel the snap of bone against him, and he smiled grimly. It would heal eventually; things did not die in Purgatory. But it wouldn't be getting up any time soon. He had won.
Castiel pushed himself up onto his feet, and nearly fell back down. His hand went instantly to his left side, and he uttered a few choice words that he had learned from Dean. They felt strange on his tongue, wrong, but they reminded him of Dean, and sometimes he needed that.
He knew that he couldn't just stand around and wait for some other vile thing to come out of the bushes, made bold by the scent of his blood. So he began to walk, and then to jog, through the eternal nighttime of Purgatory. There would be a cave, an empty den, a hollow tree soon enough. There were always those little resting spots, places for hunters to recover after they were made prey.
He got a mile, maybe less, before he started to feel his guts squishing against his fingers. He stumbled, slowed down. A wave of pain clouded his mind, dizzying him.
Castiel leaned back against a nearby tree, biting down hard on his lip to keep his breath from coming out in overloud pants. He closed his eyes for a moment, just to block out the world around him and let him focus on turning the pain into something more easily ignored. He stayed very still and very quiet, trying to listen for any other hunters coming up on him, who'd be hoping to get an easy kill from his already weakened state.
It was pointless in the end, though. He didn't hear her approach at all, and by the time that he'd opened his eyes and seen her standing there, watching him, it would have probably been too late for him to react, if death was what she'd had in mind.
He opened his eyes, and he vaguely recognized the face that loomed above him. He had given her to Crowley… well, he couldn't remember how long ago it had been. Time was strange in Purgatory. A lifetime separated him from when he had appeared in Crowley's workshop following the demon's fake execution, his hand wrapped firmly around the tanned forearm of a jinn. She had struggled then, sworn at him-first in English, then Arabic, then a language that hadn't been heard on Earth for several centuries, at least.
Now, though, she wasn't yelling or protesting. Instead, her blue eyes were glowing dimly in the gloom of Purgatory, and she looked hungry.
Castiel pushed himself into a standing position against the tree, well aware of how damningly pathetic he looked. He kept one hand over the wound where the werewolf had clawed him open. He could feel his guts spilling wetly out against his palm. "Stay back."
She laughed. "Or what, angel? You'll bleed all over me?"
Castiel straightened, no longer relying on the press of slimy bark against his back to keep him upright. He called up enough of his fast-dwindling Grace to temporarily staunch the flow of blood, and allow his hand to drop to his side. With almost all of the strength that he had, he forced his wings away from the captivity of his vessel and let them flash outwards. They were too weak to fly with, but they could still make a half-impressive show of strength. "I could destroy you if I wanted to."
"You got me killed once," she said sharply. She sneered, and the tattoos on her face seemed to darken. "Don't think I'd let it happen again."
He stepped forward, letting his wings flare out again. "Do you want to risk that?"
Then, a flash of fear in her electric-blue eyes. Once that wouldn't have affected Castiel; at the most, he would have acknowledged it as a sign that he was doing his job correctly.
Now, though, it sent a savage pleasure shooting through him; he wanted-
He wanted her to hurt. He wanted her to fear him as an angel, one of God's warriors, almost as much as he had wanted to rip that werewolf's head from its body.
Castiel's wings slipped back into his vessel without his command. The front that he had put on fell away, and he was distinctly aware of what he must look like right then: a pathetic excuse for an angel trying to find redemption by suffering in this prison for monsters - except, there was one factor that he hadn't accounted for that he really should have, given all the things that he and Dean had seen in this place:
Purgatory didn't cleanse you of your evil. Purgatory found whatever small seeds of corruption lay dormant inside of you, and it brought them forth and nourished them. It tangled the roots of badness up with your bones and your muscles, and it made it so that they could never be separated.
Purgatory made you into a monster, and Castiel, in all of his arrogance - the same cursed hubris that he had been trying to cleanse himself of - thought that he would be strong enough to avoid it. And he was utterly and completely wrong; he would fall farther than he had ever fallen before, and he would become a monster no different from the werewolf, the jinn, or the leviathans that he had let loose.
"Still going to slay me?" the jinn taunted. The small flash of fear was gone, arrogance in its place, as though it never existed at all. "Think you can get me killed again? Fucking angel - don't you know that you can't kill what's already dead?"
"I could hurt you very badly. Go, right now, and I won't."
Instead, she stepped closer. Castiel stayed in place, glaring down at her. He would have shown his wings again, but that had already proven ineffective, and he really didn't have the strength. Nodding at the wound that had begun to sluggishly bleed again, she said, "You smell good. Delicious, I'd say."
"Do you think I'll just stand here and consent for you to feast on my flesh?"
She grinned, looking more like a feral predator than a jinn. "Demons aren't the only ones who can cut deals."
Castiel's fingers dug into the slimy bark of the tree closest to him; he could feel it flake off and stick underneath his fingernails. His legs were threatening to fail him again, and he knew that he needed to finish up with the jinn quickly if he didn't want to humiliate himself further. "You're not a sphinx. Riddles don't become you."
She rolled her eyes, and for a moment he was reminded of the demon Meg. Briefly he wondered what had become of her - if Crowley had gotten her, or if she had beaten him. But that was neither here nor there; Meg was the past, from a world he would never return to. "I've got a proposition for you, angel. I think you're gonna like it."
"A deal with a monster? How foolish do you think I am?"
The tattoos on her face swirled and blurred as she stepped closer. "We keep our word, the jinn. Never doubt that."
"I'm certain that the innocents you slay value your integrity as you bleed them dry."
"Mock us if you will. It's true." She spat on the ground. "We were born of pure fire, angel. Forged by the same Maker as you, if you hadn't forgotten. And there's honor in fire."
"It burns all that touches it. Hardly honorable."
"You're not nearly as dense as you're acting. You know full well that fire can help as much as it can harm. And little angel, I can help you. And if you get burnt along the way… well, it's all one and the same." She laughed and spat on the ground again. "Nothing dies in the land of the dead. You'll heal eventually."
It was true. He'd torn the heads from creatures and watched their fingers flail around, searching for the missing parts, and he very strongly believed that if he had stayed around to watch, he would have eventually seen muscle and bone knit back together, and blood coming from where there was no blood before. The reapers didn't care to pick up souls a second time. "What are you proposing?"
"I'm hungry, angel, and you… you smell better than most of the corpses here. And you're not a monster yet - you don't want to be one."
She stepped forward, closing in on him until he could smell her over Purgatory's endless stench of rotting leaves and stagnant water. Her scent was of fire and sand, of some old spice that he didn't care to identify. The jinn hadn't been dead long enough to completely lose herself to the land. "Give me yourself. Your blood, your flesh - whatever I crave. And in exchange, I'll craft you up a pretty little world to live in while I have my feast."
"You expect me to take you up on that?" He straightened, the pain in his side flaring up again. He couldn't suffer the indignity looking any weaker than he already did, though. "Get out, unless you want to be destroyed."
She laughed. "I can give you your own little place where all your brothers up in Heave bow down to your glory. Would you like that?" And she laughed, and said, "No, that's not what you want. I can make him love you, little angel."
Castiel didn't ask her who she meant. He already knew. "You think that's what I want?"
"I'm certain it's what you want. The things you've done for him, and for his brother? You'd have to be the most altruistic being this side of the universe, if it wasn't love that motivated you… and I think we both know that angels aren't nearly as benevolent and kind as the human masses seem to think."
He held her gaze, not denying it. He loved Dean, and he had for a very long time. Dean was who he looked to when God was gone; Dean was who he protected, more than he protected the Earth itself. Were he an angel, he'd be ashamed of himself - but he wasn't, not really. He was one in name, but he certainly didn't serve Heaven anymore. "I'm not a human. I can't be swayed so easily."
"You're a human with wings, Castiel, and one that's hunted by every damned creature in this place. And let me tell you, most of them aren't going to be as sweet as me. Most will wait until you're tired and bleeding from some other fight, and then… then they'll get you. Devour you, torture you, make you scream and cry and beg… but if you want that, go for it. You and your little pride will be better off for it, I suppose. All your memories of that human, the one who got out-they'll sustain you for a little while. You'll forget him eventually, though."
Her eyes were mocking, shining with mirth, and she was smiling. Her teeth were pointed and inhuman, and she looked as wild as he remembered the first jinn being. They'd learned to blend in eventually, but in the days of prophets and gods… they had been wild things back then. They still were, in a few old places. "You think I never took a lover in all the centuries gone by? You'd be wrong. There were some; I'm sure I cared for them… but I don't remember them. This place claims you, shapes you, makes you its own. Give it a few months, and you'll forget his name. A few more, and his face will be gone. In a year, all that'll be left of your precious little Dean is the idea that something might be missing - but even then, you won't be sure."
The jinn's tattoos were glowing, Castiel noted apathetically. She was readying what remained of her powers, as though he'd already said yes. "If you let me take you, you'll never forget him. You'll live it out in a pretty world, and it'll seem like a lifetime to you. And when you're all drained of blood, I'll leave you alone until your body repairs itself, and then I'll give you a whole new life with him. And so it goes, forever and ever. The closest to Heaven that you'll ever get."
Castiel looked up at the sky, black as tar and with an occasional star pinpricking its surface, no constellations discernible. The moon above glowed, bringing the most light that was ever shed onto this forsaken place. This was by far the loneliest of the realms, the one with most fury and hatred, and absolutely no hope - because even in Hell, the sinners who had yet to be broken prayed to their god, and every once in a thousand lifetimes, someone was lifted up and given redemption.
There were ways to get out of here, ways that were few in number and impossible to use without a companion by your side. But even so, getting out only changed where you were. It didn't change who you were, or that you were still damned, unforgiven.
He could stay here forever and become a monster as base and vile as the leviathans. He could wander around, hoping that Dean made good on his promise, and also hoping that he could keep enough of his self away from whatever it was that let this place twist and turn its creatures into things more wretched than demons. He might even escape eventually, and still have to face how terribly he had acted, how many people he had hurt.
Castiel wished that he wasn't a coward, that he could trust himself to keep being himself no matter how long he called Purgatory his home. He wished that he were strong enough, if he ever went back to Earth or Heaven, to somehow repent and make all of his sins right.
But he didn't trust himself to do either of those things - because after all, wasn't it that hubris that had made him free the Leviathans in the first place? Wasn't his belief that he was strong enough to act on his own ultimately what failed him?
He looked the jinn straight in her electric blue eyes. "Make it so that I can't tell it's a fantasy. Ever."
She laughed and held out her tattooed hand. He took it, sealing the deal as effectively as a kiss with a demon. "I'll do my best, angel. No promises, but I'll do my best."
*
Castiel's eyes opened to a dimly lit room.
It wasn't the bedroom that he had been in once upon a time; it was much smaller than that, and much darker. It wasn't his. He didn't know where he was, or how he had gotten there, or why he could feel several invasive objects pricking into his body.
But he did know who he was: Castiel, an angel of the Lord who had fallen and climbed back up multiple times. He wasn't a museum curator in Topeka, Kansas. He didn't live in a city called Lawrence, and he certainly wasn't in a relationship with Dean Winchester.
He closed his eyes as shame burned on his cheeks. For what, he wasn't entirely sure - thinking that he deserved Dean Winchester as a lover, maybe; thinking that Dean ought to choose his health over being with his brother; or maybe for being so weak in the first place that he had given himself over to the jinn. Most likely, it was a combination of both those things, and a hundred other actions he had foolishly taken over the course of his existence.
"Castiel?" A hand, larger than Dean's had been, gently touched him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes obediently.
Sam Winchester loomed over him. He looked older than when Castiel had last seen him, which made sense. He thought that perhaps the jinn's world had taken place at some point in the Winchester's past. Even if it hadn't, he didn't know how much time had passed in Purgatory.
Sam smiled when he opened his eyes, looking genuinely happy. He probably wouldn't have, Castiel thought, if he'd known what Castiel had done after Dean had escaped. "How do you feel? It's awesome to have you back."
Castiel licked his lips, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth was. The gesture didn't escape Sam; he stood up from the chair he had been sitting in, reaching over to steady himself against the wall nearest to Castiel's head. "Here, I'll go get you something to drink. You've been out for almost five days; you're gonna need it."
Then he was gone. Castiel took advantage of the room's sudden emptiness to brace his palms against the hard mattress he was lying on, and push himself up into a sitting position. Doing so took far more effort than it should have, and by the time he was leaning against the headboard, he was thoroughly exhausted. He closed his eyes for a moment, just long enough to catch his breath.
What had happened? He remembered the world he had emerged from very well, and the deal that he had cut with the creature in Purgatory to get it. But what had happened between his fantasy falling apart and now… it was shattered in his mind, fragments that alternated between burningly bright light and the overwhelming shadow of Purgatory.
He remembered the jinn's cave very faintly, the sound of voices (the Winchesters, he thought, though it was hard to be sure) and footsteps. He thought maybe someone had picked him up at one point, easily as though he was weightless. He hadn't been very aware, though.
Sam returned with a glass of water just as he was taking stock of his surroundings. It was a small, square room. His bed was pushed parallel against one wall, its headboard tucked into the corner of the wall with the only window. It wasn't very large, and was sparsely furnished - there was his bed, the chair that Sam had been sitting in, and a small nightstand next to his bed with nothing on top of it.
And the pricking that he had felt before, that had come from several medical devices set up nearby. An IV and a bag of blood. He didn't know where they had come from, and he thought that he should probably find out, once he got the more pressing matters out of the way.
Sam must have noticed him looking around, because he said, "We're in a place right on the outskirts of Vermont. Legally, I think. Inias got it for us." He grimaced, sitting back down in the chair. "We're kinda broke right now."
"Inias?" That couldn't be. His brother, although living in the hallucination he had had, was dead. All of them were.
"Drink this." Sam handed him the cup. "Yeah, Inias. He hooked up with me just before Dean and that vampire guy busted out, and he's been here since. I'm kind of surprised that he isn't here right now, to be honest. He's probably in Heaven; he's been working with Joshua - well, he'll tell you. Most of it doesn't make sense to me, anyway."
Castiel lifted the cup to his lips and took a drink, hating the way that his hand shook, spilling droplets of water over the sheets that he was lying in. Sam, ever perceptive, reached out and patiently covered Castiel's hand with his own, ensuring that the drink wouldn't spill. That he needed help made Castiel feel worse, but all the same, he said, "Thank you, Sam. I… I find myself weakened, after being away for so long."
Sam nodded, his brown eyes sympathetic. "When Dean got out, he was… well, not as bad as you, but not great. He was really tired, and he just seemed kind of… I don't know. Not okay."
"I can imagine." With Sam's help, he set the glass down on the nightstand. The water made him feel nominally better, and Castiel knew that he couldn't keep dancing around the elephant in the room. "How did you get me out?"
"With a lot of help," Sam said simply. It wasn't really an answer at all, though, and Castiel was about to insist on the details when he asked, "Are you… can you heal yourself? Are you still an angel?"
Castiel leaned back against the headboard and took a deep breath, not answering immediately. Sam would wait, he knew. He was good like that.
Closing his eyes and evening his breath, he reached inside himself. It wasn't a meditative state, not exactly; he didn't have time to do it properly, but it was close. He focused in on his body, on the sensations that he was feeling. His head was sore, and almost every muscle in him ached. He was tired, cold and sweaty, and he was fairly certain that his muscles would fail him if he tried to walk. His throat was scratchy, despite the water.
But the more he pressed, the harder he concentrated… there was something there, curled up deep inside his chest. A spark. It wasn't much, but it filled Castiel with dizzying relief.
He opened his eyes and looked at Sam. "No, I can't heal myself. But I am still in possession of some Grace. I'm a poor excuse for an angel at the moment, but given time, I expect most of my strength to be recovered."
Sam nodded, leaning back in his chair. He gave Castiel a tentative smile. "That's good. That's awesome, Cas. We were really worried about you."
The concern was touching, in a way. More than he deserved. But it would be foolish to dwell on that; there were things he needed to be far more concerned about, things that he ought to have asked about already. "Where is Dean now? He's recovered from Purgatory?"
"Dean's sleeping. I didn't wake him up; it's the first time he's been out since you came back. And yeah, he's gotten a lot better. It's been almost four months since he came back, and almost eight since you two went in."
So Dean had been by his side for four months. It was far too long, but it could also have been much worse. Castiel counted himself lucky that Dean had gotten out before Purgatory had been able to forge him into some sort of monster. "And yourself? Crowley didn't capture you, after he imprisoned us?" That had been one of Dean's greatest fears, that the demon king had somehow harmed his brother. Castiel hadn't been able to assuage his concerns, mainly because he was unwilling to lie about how probable it was.
"No. Crowley…" Sam grimaced. "He captured Meg and Kevin. Kevin, we got back - he's with us now, actually; he was the one who translated the spell for getting us into Purgatory. He's sleeping in the other room. We don't really know what happened to Meg, but Kevin doesn't think she's dead."
That was good. She had saved his life on several occasions, and he was in her debt, even if he no longer harbored personal attachments to her. "You were safe until Dean got back?"
Sam glanced at him with an expression that was either amusement or mild offense. It was decidedly human, and Castiel had never been good with things that were that. "Yeah. I mean, I am a hunter. I… hunted." He shrugged haplessly. "Leviathans, mostly, and some demons. I was looking for Crowley."
"You must have found him eventually, if you freed Kevin."
"That was after Dean had come back." Sam stood up. "I'm going to go and wake him up now, all right? You're probably tired and all, but he'll have my head if he finds out that you woke up and I didn't get him."
Castiel nodded, and he left.
When Dean came back, it was alone. Sam had slipped off somewhere else. Castiel was grateful for that, although he couldn't have said why.
Dean settled into the chair next to his bed. They sat in silence for a moment and looked at each other.
And then Dean smiled. It wasn't hesitant, or worried, or any of that. It was a full-on, genuine grin, and Castiel thought that it had been quite some time since he'd seen that on the face of the actual Dean Winchester. "Cas. Man, I - I didn't think that you were going to make it for a while there."
He tried to smile back, but the expression had always felt foreign on his lips, and now was no exception. "I did. You… you rescued me? Thank you, Dean."
"I told you that I wouldn't leave you there, and I meant it." His face grew serious. "How much did Sam tell you? I mean, I know that you just woke up, and we don't want to push you or anything, but…"
"He didn't say much. Just that Kevin was here, and also that Inias had helped you."
Dean nodded. "Yeah. We found Kevin-well, that's a long story, and Kevin should probably be here when we tell it. But anyway, apparently the Word of God wasn't just instructions on how to kill Dick. There were instructions on getting into Purgatory there too, so, well." He shrugged. "We did it. And Inias had this ritual that was supposed to work in any of the worlds out there, a finding spell. Once we were in Purgatory, he did it, and we found you and brought you back."
His face clouded over. "We didn't think you were going to make it at first. Inias thought you were fallen completely, and that that jinn bitch who'd captured you had you almost drained. You were so pale, Cas, Jesus…" he shook his head, passing his hand over his face. "Inias didn't know if the blood would take, either."
Castiel glanced up at the bag of red that was hooked into his arm. "Whose is it?"
"Mine." Dean looked surprised, as if Castiel should have known - which, really, he should have, he thought; were he fully powered, he would have been able to examine the structure of the cells floating into him and determine who they belonged to. "Inias said he couldn't do it, because his Grace would mess with yours or something. And he didn't think that Sam's would work, just 'cause of the demon blood that he's had. So it came down to me and Kevin, and I was the only match."
Castiel nodded. He looked at Dean more closely now, and noticed that, even in the darkness of the room, he looked pale. Too pale. He would have needed to give a considerable amount of blood to replenish what the jinn had taken, he thought. More than he should have. "You didn't need to do that."
"You're always glad to bleed for us, aren’t you? Figured I should return the favor. I mean, I wish that Sam had gotten me cookies and juice, but beggars can't be choosers."
Castiel pretended to know what that meant. "Still, it couldn't have been conducive to your health. Sam told me that Purgatory had hurt you…"
Dean waved that away. "I was tired, sure. It's not that easy, travelling between realms or whatever. But I was okay after a week or two. I'm fine now. What did the jinn show you?"
He started, looking sharply at Dean. The turn in conversation had been so sudden that he wondered if he'd let something slip. Had he been talking in his sleep, calling out to Dean? Had the jinn told him?
But Dean's face displayed nothing of that. Rather, it showed open curiosity.
Castiel thought of what the jinn had given him, his own little world crafted up from his subconscious. He remembered how Dean had been there for him, how he hadn't been so foolish as to ignore all of Dean's suggestions. He remembered the carnal pleasures he and Dean had indulged in, and the feel of Dean's lips on his.
He turned away from Dean, not willing to meet his eyes. "I don't remember. I - maybe I will after I've had more rest. I'm tired," he added. "As I'm sure you understand."
Dean nodded, standing up. "Yeah, I do. Trust me, I do. I'll just… leave you, then." He walked away and then paused in the doorway, his body silhouetted by the light from another room. "I'm glad you're back, Cas."
"Thank you. I'm glad to be back."
He waited until Dean had pulled the door shut behind him before he lay back down. He stared at the shadows on the ceiling, and thought that on the whole, they were better than the stars and the horned moon of Purgatory.
Castiel didn't know what he was anymore - an angel, in name, but in purpose? He had nothing left. Heaven was gone to him, and the world he had imagined was just that - an imagination. He didn't get Dean's love, because… because that was how things went. That was fair. It wasn't something he deserved, anyway.
But the night was growing late, and Castiel was tired. He closed his eyes, and forced himself to breathe in and out, until he had established a comfortable pattern. In the morning he could figure things out. He could face Dean in the light, and Sam, and maybe he could even admit to them that he had made a deal with a monster. Things weren't ideal, but maybe - maybe Castiel could confess, atone, make himself respectable again. It was possible.
He slept then, and for the first time in a very long time, no nightmares came.