Supernatural fic - "Leap That Makes the Fall" (Part Two)
See the masterpost for disclaimer, summary, and previous parts.
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Exhausted and at a loss for what else they could possibly do for now, Sam crawled into the second bed and in no time at all was fast asleep. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d wake up to find that the whole bizarre evening had been a dream.
*****************
Sam was not so lucky. Not only was it not a dream, but Sam was jerked awake by the sound of screaming.
The younger Winchester was half out of bed before he was even fully awake, looking frantically for the source of the screaming at the same time he heard his brother mutter, “Shit!” He saw Dean racing across the room, from the bathroom area to the bed by the door where the screaming was coming from.
Sam shook the sleep from his brain and realized that Castiel was lying in bed, thrashing and screaming in his sleep. A nightmare. The angel was actually having a nightmare… and a Winchester-quality one, from the looks of it.
Dean sat on the bed beside Castiel, took his shoulders in his hands, and shook him. “Cas! Cas, wake up! It’s okay, it’s all right, you’re safe.”
Which was possibly the biggest lie in the history of ever, they still had no clue what was going on, but Sam just stood dumbly and watched.
Castiel jerked awake with a strangled cry and looked up, wild-eyed and panicked, into Dean’s face. He looked freaked out seven ways from Sunday, but slowly he began to relax as awareness came back to him. “Dean?”
“Yeah, man… it’s me.” Dean’s grip on Cas loosened but he did not let him go. “What was that? Since when do you dream?”
A crease slowly began to form between Castiel’s eyebrows as he frowned up at Dean. “I… don’t?”
Dean shot a worried look toward Sam. Then he returned his attention to Castiel. “Cas… you know who I am, right?”
A fleeting look a little like peace passed over Castiel’s face. “Yes… you’re Dean.”
“Right, good… and you?”
“Cas… my name is Castiel.”
“So far so good… what about him?” Dean hitched a thumb toward Sam.
Castiel turned his head and seemed to only then realize Sam was even in the room with them. For a moment, Castiel just stared stupidly at him. Then he looked puzzled. “I… I don’t know. Do I know him?” He looked to Dean again, waiting for answers.
“Wow, man, that’s gotta sting,” Dean taunted Sam off-handedly, but there wasn’t much heart in it.
Sam stepped forward. “I’m Sam… remember?”
“Sam…” Castiel tested the name on his tongue. He mulled it over, then a fervent, scared/smitey look flashed in his eyes and he looked sharply toward Sam. It had that air of ‘angel first meeting the abomination with demon blood’ to it. Sam remembered that chilling reception when he first met Castiel years ago, and he didn’t miss the feeling.
“Easy,” Dean said as he splayed a hand on Castiel’s chest. “He won’t hurt you. Sam’s a friend… he’s my brother.” Dean peered closely at Castiel. “You don’t remember that?”
“I think… I remember… I don’t know. It’s all tangled and confused.” He looked plaintively toward Dean, like he was on the verge of genuinely freaking out.
“Hey, hey… it’s all right, Cas. It’ll come to you. Don’t worry about it. You’re safe with us.”
Cas seemed dubious about his relative safety in Sam’s company, but the look he turned on Dean was pure trust. “I know.”
“Castiel…?” Sam ventured.
Castiel tensed but turned his eyes slowly to regard Sam.
“Uh… do you know… remember… you know what you are?”
Dean looked down at Castiel expectantly.
Castiel frowned in consternation. “I… I’m like you. I’m human.”
Dean and Sam exchanged furtive looks.
“But I wasn’t… this is new… I was…” Castiel searched Dean’s face for guidance. “I was an angel.” Castiel’s hands gripped the comforter tightly. “Why am I not now?”
“Not sure,” Dean answered, “but we’ll figure this out. Promise.” Dean glanced toward Sam then back at Castiel, silently communicating the ‘we need to talk’ sentiment loud and clear. “Just rest, okay?”
That looked like about the last thing Castiel was about to do, but he accepted the order without protest.
Sam threw on the rest of his clothes before he and Dean stepped outside the room. They stayed close to the door, in case Cas got into trouble. Dean jumped in first. “What the hell, man?”
“I have no idea… so what, he’s fallen?”
“Maybe… I don’t know. He’s been close to falling before, and it looked pretty much human. So he could still have some mojo in him, but hell if I know how to go looking for it.”
“And the amnesia could make things… tricky.”
“You think?”
It posed interesting questions about the angels in general, though. “What if this is what happened to all the angels?” Sam thought aloud. “What if there’s no sign of them around because they all fell?”
“I have no clue, dude. Does that mean the civil war upstairs is over? That’s one way to cut down the stakes, turn all the smitey heavy-hitters into poor human bastards. Couldn’t do as much damage that way.”
“And do they all have the addled memory that Castiel does? Maybe they won’t even remember they’re at war.”
Dean looked out at the clear, fresh morning breaking. It was deceptively serene, especially compared to the storm last night. “I don’t know… no angels in Heaven anymore? Does that sound at all right to you?”
“No.” But it was all he had.
“What could make all the angels fall? And what would do that and not be tearing the planet to pieces while it was at it? You’d think anything that could tear the wings off all the angels would be treating the rest of us like chew toys. We should be grabbing our ankles and kissing our asses goodbye, if that’s what went down.”
“But there’s nothing,” Sam concurred.
Dean shook his head, frustrated.
“What now?”
After a moment in deep thought, Dean dug into his pocket and handed Sam the keys to the Impala. “Get us breakfast. I should probably stay with him.”
Since Dean seemed to be the only person Castiel remembered and trusted implicitly, Sam wasn’t about to argue. If it turned out Castiel did still have some angel mojo in him, he didn’t want to find out by startling a confused angel into accidentally smiting him.
*****************
Dean went back inside and his eyes went immediately to the bed where Castiel lay. He couldn’t help the knot of wariness in his stomach, and he didn’t think it was just the epic wrongness of an angel nearly freezing to death last night. When he’d been intent on making sure Cas was okay last night, he’d been able to put aside how strained their friendship had been lately. Now that Cas wasn’t on death’s door anymore, that awkwardness and uncertainty was back.
And did Castiel even remember that they’d been at odds more times than not for the better part of a year? And the year before that, when Dean had been reeling from Sam’s ‘death’, Castiel had been a no-show. At first, being at Lisa’s had been really hard for him to take, and more than once he’d called out for Castiel. He just wanted someone who understood him. He just wanted someone who could actually comfort him. But Castiel never came. Eventually, Dean got the hint and stopped calling for him and applied himself to making normal apple-pie work. And when the angel was back in the Winchesters’ lives, Cas never once mentioned how he had abandoned Dean for a whole year. The world might not have been burning, but Dean had still needed Castiel, and the angel he thought was his friend ignored his prayers.
That betrayal was just beneath of surface of every terse word they said to each other in the past year. Sam had no idea, because if Castiel wasn’t going to bring it up, Dean wasn’t going to be the wussy and admit to a time when he’d needed anyone (especially someone who couldn’t bother to be there). If anyone asked, Dean would deny ever once asking for Castiel to come to him during his year with Lisa, but Castiel and Dean both knew the bitter truth. It was shitty, because Dean had thought Castiel was his friend, that he could count on him, even if he wasn’t human, and Castiel had let him down.
But now here he was, possibly fallen and needing Dean, and Dean was torn about what to do. Part of him wanted to take Cas in like a brother, but another part of him wanted to make Cas know what it felt like to be alone and in pain and be ignored. A petty part of him wanted Castiel to feel like he’d made Dean feel.
At the moment, Cas looked too miserable for Dean to actually toss him out on his ass, no matter how vindictive. He’d burrowed back under the covers while the brothers were outside. He clutched them tightly around himself, head buried in the pillow and his body curled in a fetal position. His brow was knit. Dean couldn’t help it. His concern pegged.
“Cas?” Dean went to the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Cold.”
The room was pretty damn warm. Dean had turned the heater down some when he woke, because it felt like a swamp in the middle of summer when he got up, but it was still uncomfortably toasty in the room. That didn’t change the fact Castiel was shivering under the covers that he clung to so desperately.
Dean reached down and rested his fingers against Castiel’s cheek. The angel leaned into the touch without opening his eyes, and Dean tried not to care. He pursed his lips. “You don’t feel cold.”
Rather than argue that he suffered all the same, whether Dean concurred or not, Castiel curled into a tighter ball and kept stubbornly silent.
Dean stole the comforter off Sam’s bed and covered Castiel with it. Castiel opened his eyes from under a mound of blankets and looked up at Dean. “Thank you.”
That made Dean’s lip twitch. “Sure. So…” Dean sat down on the edge of the bed. “Want to tell me what you remember before last night?”
His shaking at last beginning to abate, Castiel’s face screwed as he struggled to remember. “I was… air.”
“Air?”
Castiel held up one of his hands in front of his own face and stared at the digits. “I wasn’t like this, I was boundless. Light.”
“So wavelength of celestial intent, or whatever.”
“Then… something of enormous import happened.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Do you remember what, exactly, of enormous import?”
“No.” Castiel scowled. “It was huge, and the whole of existence bent to its power. Then I was flying.” Castiel shivered, but not from the cold this time. “No… I was falling. I only remember thinking one thing, over and over.”
Dean waited expectantly.
Castiel looked up at him beseechingly. “Find Dean.”
That made Dean squirm uneasily. “Well, here I am, you found me. You don’t remember anything else? Were you hauling ass here to tell me something… a warning, maybe?”
Castiel shifted under the mountain of blankets and looked flummoxed. “I don’t… I know it’s over.”
“What’s over? The civil war? The world? Heaven? Give me something here, Cas.”
“I don’t know… I just know it’s over.”
Frustrated, Dean sat back against the headboard. So much for having an angel on the team if his memory was scrambled.
Dean startled when a slim hand was slipping over his thigh, searching for Dean’s hands limp in his lap. He was too surprised by the touch to pull away when Castiel found Dean’s hand and he curled his fingers around Dean’s. “I’m sorry I can’t be more useful,” he said solemnly.
Dean shrugged and ducked out from underneath Castiel’s hand, standing in the process. “Yeah, well… we’re not any worse off than we were two days ago. Still stumbling around without a clue.”
Castiel looked wounded, though by what exactly Dean wasn’t sure. He drew his hand back underneath the blankets, withdrawing into himself like a chastised dog.
“Do you feel all right?” Dean thought to ask. When Castiel glanced up at him, blue eyes so damn innocent and open, Dean felt the gaze like a weight. “I mean, you know… I didn’t see any injuries on you last night, but are you hurt somewhere I can’t see?”
There was a very pregnant pause. “No.”
That had the ring of ‘lie’ to it, but Dean let it go. If Castiel didn’t want to be honest with him, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Remembering that Sam would be heading back with breakfast soon, and that Castiel was still stark naked under all those blankets, he went to his duffel and pulled out a pair of underwear (which he was officially giving to Cas, because sharing underwear crossed a line), jeans, belt, and a black t-shirt. “Here,” Dean said as he set them on the bed next to Castiel, “get dressed.”
For a second, Castiel just stared at the clothes before his hand snaked out to claim them. Dean thought he might actually try to get dressed under the blankets, but then Castiel stiffly climbed out of bed and fumbled with the clothing… understanding the idea but lacking the actual experience of dressing himself. Dean turned away from the sight of Castiel, badass angel of the Lord, struggling like a pre-schooler to dress himself, because it was hard not to offer to help.
“So, Cas…” Dean said off-handedly, trying not to sound too friendly while he wandered toward the bathroom area.
“Yes, Dean.” Cas said it so plainly, like Dean had asked a question and Castiel was giving him the only answer he would ever have for Dean Winchester. It was eerie.
“How much about you do you remember? I mean… angel. Is that it?” He turned to see Castiel standing by the bed, fully dressed and looking down at his attire as if it were as odd to him as wearing a suit of armor or being dressed in drag. Maybe his tax accountant get-up had felt less like clothes and more like a second layer of his borrowed skin. Castiel looked up at Dean, bewildered, then he frowned. “I… I know I am - was, an angel of the Lord. I was a warrior of God.”
“So you remember Heaven and all that jazz?” Dean asked, maintaining the gaping distance between them. With Cas, the distance seemed even greater, but only because Castiel had such a habit of being inside Dean’s personal space bubble.
“Not in detail,” Castiel replied hesitantly. “I have impressions. I consider it home. I know I miss it.” He looked down miserably, staring at his bare toes against the fugly carpet.
Even trying to keep his distance in every sense of the word, Dean felt a pang of sympathy for Castiel.
“But I also remember… I remember strife. Unrest.” Castiel shook his head, “Then I just remember it all ending.” With a consternated look, Castiel crawled back into bed, under the double layer of comforters, and pulled the blankets close.
Dean thought that was the end of that, but just as he was turning back toward the sink Castiel spoke from underneath his mound of covers. “And I remember you.”
Not sure what he could possibly say, Dean just grunted and went into the bathroom, just to have a door to shut that didn’t require him ditching Cas. That door between them was all he wanted just then.
Part Three
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A/N: I have to say that it’s been driving me CRAZY how much Dean and Cas are fitting together like a square peg and a round hole this season, especially when they were so in-synch and on the same page last season. So my Muse sayeth ‘what the fuck?!’ I have to believe there was something big that we missed that made Dean pull back like he’d been burned. So this was my own way of trying to make the discord make sense!
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Exhausted and at a loss for what else they could possibly do for now, Sam crawled into the second bed and in no time at all was fast asleep. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d wake up to find that the whole bizarre evening had been a dream.
*****************
Sam was not so lucky. Not only was it not a dream, but Sam was jerked awake by the sound of screaming.
The younger Winchester was half out of bed before he was even fully awake, looking frantically for the source of the screaming at the same time he heard his brother mutter, “Shit!” He saw Dean racing across the room, from the bathroom area to the bed by the door where the screaming was coming from.
Sam shook the sleep from his brain and realized that Castiel was lying in bed, thrashing and screaming in his sleep. A nightmare. The angel was actually having a nightmare… and a Winchester-quality one, from the looks of it.
Dean sat on the bed beside Castiel, took his shoulders in his hands, and shook him. “Cas! Cas, wake up! It’s okay, it’s all right, you’re safe.”
Which was possibly the biggest lie in the history of ever, they still had no clue what was going on, but Sam just stood dumbly and watched.
Castiel jerked awake with a strangled cry and looked up, wild-eyed and panicked, into Dean’s face. He looked freaked out seven ways from Sunday, but slowly he began to relax as awareness came back to him. “Dean?”
“Yeah, man… it’s me.” Dean’s grip on Cas loosened but he did not let him go. “What was that? Since when do you dream?”
A crease slowly began to form between Castiel’s eyebrows as he frowned up at Dean. “I… don’t?”
Dean shot a worried look toward Sam. Then he returned his attention to Castiel. “Cas… you know who I am, right?”
A fleeting look a little like peace passed over Castiel’s face. “Yes… you’re Dean.”
“Right, good… and you?”
“Cas… my name is Castiel.”
“So far so good… what about him?” Dean hitched a thumb toward Sam.
Castiel turned his head and seemed to only then realize Sam was even in the room with them. For a moment, Castiel just stared stupidly at him. Then he looked puzzled. “I… I don’t know. Do I know him?” He looked to Dean again, waiting for answers.
“Wow, man, that’s gotta sting,” Dean taunted Sam off-handedly, but there wasn’t much heart in it.
Sam stepped forward. “I’m Sam… remember?”
“Sam…” Castiel tested the name on his tongue. He mulled it over, then a fervent, scared/smitey look flashed in his eyes and he looked sharply toward Sam. It had that air of ‘angel first meeting the abomination with demon blood’ to it. Sam remembered that chilling reception when he first met Castiel years ago, and he didn’t miss the feeling.
“Easy,” Dean said as he splayed a hand on Castiel’s chest. “He won’t hurt you. Sam’s a friend… he’s my brother.” Dean peered closely at Castiel. “You don’t remember that?”
“I think… I remember… I don’t know. It’s all tangled and confused.” He looked plaintively toward Dean, like he was on the verge of genuinely freaking out.
“Hey, hey… it’s all right, Cas. It’ll come to you. Don’t worry about it. You’re safe with us.”
Cas seemed dubious about his relative safety in Sam’s company, but the look he turned on Dean was pure trust. “I know.”
“Castiel…?” Sam ventured.
Castiel tensed but turned his eyes slowly to regard Sam.
“Uh… do you know… remember… you know what you are?”
Dean looked down at Castiel expectantly.
Castiel frowned in consternation. “I… I’m like you. I’m human.”
Dean and Sam exchanged furtive looks.
“But I wasn’t… this is new… I was…” Castiel searched Dean’s face for guidance. “I was an angel.” Castiel’s hands gripped the comforter tightly. “Why am I not now?”
“Not sure,” Dean answered, “but we’ll figure this out. Promise.” Dean glanced toward Sam then back at Castiel, silently communicating the ‘we need to talk’ sentiment loud and clear. “Just rest, okay?”
That looked like about the last thing Castiel was about to do, but he accepted the order without protest.
Sam threw on the rest of his clothes before he and Dean stepped outside the room. They stayed close to the door, in case Cas got into trouble. Dean jumped in first. “What the hell, man?”
“I have no idea… so what, he’s fallen?”
“Maybe… I don’t know. He’s been close to falling before, and it looked pretty much human. So he could still have some mojo in him, but hell if I know how to go looking for it.”
“And the amnesia could make things… tricky.”
“You think?”
It posed interesting questions about the angels in general, though. “What if this is what happened to all the angels?” Sam thought aloud. “What if there’s no sign of them around because they all fell?”
“I have no clue, dude. Does that mean the civil war upstairs is over? That’s one way to cut down the stakes, turn all the smitey heavy-hitters into poor human bastards. Couldn’t do as much damage that way.”
“And do they all have the addled memory that Castiel does? Maybe they won’t even remember they’re at war.”
Dean looked out at the clear, fresh morning breaking. It was deceptively serene, especially compared to the storm last night. “I don’t know… no angels in Heaven anymore? Does that sound at all right to you?”
“No.” But it was all he had.
“What could make all the angels fall? And what would do that and not be tearing the planet to pieces while it was at it? You’d think anything that could tear the wings off all the angels would be treating the rest of us like chew toys. We should be grabbing our ankles and kissing our asses goodbye, if that’s what went down.”
“But there’s nothing,” Sam concurred.
Dean shook his head, frustrated.
“What now?”
After a moment in deep thought, Dean dug into his pocket and handed Sam the keys to the Impala. “Get us breakfast. I should probably stay with him.”
Since Dean seemed to be the only person Castiel remembered and trusted implicitly, Sam wasn’t about to argue. If it turned out Castiel did still have some angel mojo in him, he didn’t want to find out by startling a confused angel into accidentally smiting him.
*****************
Dean went back inside and his eyes went immediately to the bed where Castiel lay. He couldn’t help the knot of wariness in his stomach, and he didn’t think it was just the epic wrongness of an angel nearly freezing to death last night. When he’d been intent on making sure Cas was okay last night, he’d been able to put aside how strained their friendship had been lately. Now that Cas wasn’t on death’s door anymore, that awkwardness and uncertainty was back.
And did Castiel even remember that they’d been at odds more times than not for the better part of a year? And the year before that, when Dean had been reeling from Sam’s ‘death’, Castiel had been a no-show. At first, being at Lisa’s had been really hard for him to take, and more than once he’d called out for Castiel. He just wanted someone who understood him. He just wanted someone who could actually comfort him. But Castiel never came. Eventually, Dean got the hint and stopped calling for him and applied himself to making normal apple-pie work. And when the angel was back in the Winchesters’ lives, Cas never once mentioned how he had abandoned Dean for a whole year. The world might not have been burning, but Dean had still needed Castiel, and the angel he thought was his friend ignored his prayers.
That betrayal was just beneath of surface of every terse word they said to each other in the past year. Sam had no idea, because if Castiel wasn’t going to bring it up, Dean wasn’t going to be the wussy and admit to a time when he’d needed anyone (especially someone who couldn’t bother to be there). If anyone asked, Dean would deny ever once asking for Castiel to come to him during his year with Lisa, but Castiel and Dean both knew the bitter truth. It was shitty, because Dean had thought Castiel was his friend, that he could count on him, even if he wasn’t human, and Castiel had let him down.
But now here he was, possibly fallen and needing Dean, and Dean was torn about what to do. Part of him wanted to take Cas in like a brother, but another part of him wanted to make Cas know what it felt like to be alone and in pain and be ignored. A petty part of him wanted Castiel to feel like he’d made Dean feel.
At the moment, Cas looked too miserable for Dean to actually toss him out on his ass, no matter how vindictive. He’d burrowed back under the covers while the brothers were outside. He clutched them tightly around himself, head buried in the pillow and his body curled in a fetal position. His brow was knit. Dean couldn’t help it. His concern pegged.
“Cas?” Dean went to the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Cold.”
The room was pretty damn warm. Dean had turned the heater down some when he woke, because it felt like a swamp in the middle of summer when he got up, but it was still uncomfortably toasty in the room. That didn’t change the fact Castiel was shivering under the covers that he clung to so desperately.
Dean reached down and rested his fingers against Castiel’s cheek. The angel leaned into the touch without opening his eyes, and Dean tried not to care. He pursed his lips. “You don’t feel cold.”
Rather than argue that he suffered all the same, whether Dean concurred or not, Castiel curled into a tighter ball and kept stubbornly silent.
Dean stole the comforter off Sam’s bed and covered Castiel with it. Castiel opened his eyes from under a mound of blankets and looked up at Dean. “Thank you.”
That made Dean’s lip twitch. “Sure. So…” Dean sat down on the edge of the bed. “Want to tell me what you remember before last night?”
His shaking at last beginning to abate, Castiel’s face screwed as he struggled to remember. “I was… air.”
“Air?”
Castiel held up one of his hands in front of his own face and stared at the digits. “I wasn’t like this, I was boundless. Light.”
“So wavelength of celestial intent, or whatever.”
“Then… something of enormous import happened.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Do you remember what, exactly, of enormous import?”
“No.” Castiel scowled. “It was huge, and the whole of existence bent to its power. Then I was flying.” Castiel shivered, but not from the cold this time. “No… I was falling. I only remember thinking one thing, over and over.”
Dean waited expectantly.
Castiel looked up at him beseechingly. “Find Dean.”
That made Dean squirm uneasily. “Well, here I am, you found me. You don’t remember anything else? Were you hauling ass here to tell me something… a warning, maybe?”
Castiel shifted under the mountain of blankets and looked flummoxed. “I don’t… I know it’s over.”
“What’s over? The civil war? The world? Heaven? Give me something here, Cas.”
“I don’t know… I just know it’s over.”
Frustrated, Dean sat back against the headboard. So much for having an angel on the team if his memory was scrambled.
Dean startled when a slim hand was slipping over his thigh, searching for Dean’s hands limp in his lap. He was too surprised by the touch to pull away when Castiel found Dean’s hand and he curled his fingers around Dean’s. “I’m sorry I can’t be more useful,” he said solemnly.
Dean shrugged and ducked out from underneath Castiel’s hand, standing in the process. “Yeah, well… we’re not any worse off than we were two days ago. Still stumbling around without a clue.”
Castiel looked wounded, though by what exactly Dean wasn’t sure. He drew his hand back underneath the blankets, withdrawing into himself like a chastised dog.
“Do you feel all right?” Dean thought to ask. When Castiel glanced up at him, blue eyes so damn innocent and open, Dean felt the gaze like a weight. “I mean, you know… I didn’t see any injuries on you last night, but are you hurt somewhere I can’t see?”
There was a very pregnant pause. “No.”
That had the ring of ‘lie’ to it, but Dean let it go. If Castiel didn’t want to be honest with him, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Remembering that Sam would be heading back with breakfast soon, and that Castiel was still stark naked under all those blankets, he went to his duffel and pulled out a pair of underwear (which he was officially giving to Cas, because sharing underwear crossed a line), jeans, belt, and a black t-shirt. “Here,” Dean said as he set them on the bed next to Castiel, “get dressed.”
For a second, Castiel just stared at the clothes before his hand snaked out to claim them. Dean thought he might actually try to get dressed under the blankets, but then Castiel stiffly climbed out of bed and fumbled with the clothing… understanding the idea but lacking the actual experience of dressing himself. Dean turned away from the sight of Castiel, badass angel of the Lord, struggling like a pre-schooler to dress himself, because it was hard not to offer to help.
“So, Cas…” Dean said off-handedly, trying not to sound too friendly while he wandered toward the bathroom area.
“Yes, Dean.” Cas said it so plainly, like Dean had asked a question and Castiel was giving him the only answer he would ever have for Dean Winchester. It was eerie.
“How much about you do you remember? I mean… angel. Is that it?” He turned to see Castiel standing by the bed, fully dressed and looking down at his attire as if it were as odd to him as wearing a suit of armor or being dressed in drag. Maybe his tax accountant get-up had felt less like clothes and more like a second layer of his borrowed skin. Castiel looked up at Dean, bewildered, then he frowned. “I… I know I am - was, an angel of the Lord. I was a warrior of God.”
“So you remember Heaven and all that jazz?” Dean asked, maintaining the gaping distance between them. With Cas, the distance seemed even greater, but only because Castiel had such a habit of being inside Dean’s personal space bubble.
“Not in detail,” Castiel replied hesitantly. “I have impressions. I consider it home. I know I miss it.” He looked down miserably, staring at his bare toes against the fugly carpet.
Even trying to keep his distance in every sense of the word, Dean felt a pang of sympathy for Castiel.
“But I also remember… I remember strife. Unrest.” Castiel shook his head, “Then I just remember it all ending.” With a consternated look, Castiel crawled back into bed, under the double layer of comforters, and pulled the blankets close.
Dean thought that was the end of that, but just as he was turning back toward the sink Castiel spoke from underneath his mound of covers. “And I remember you.”
Not sure what he could possibly say, Dean just grunted and went into the bathroom, just to have a door to shut that didn’t require him ditching Cas. That door between them was all he wanted just then.
Part Three
*****************
A/N: I have to say that it’s been driving me CRAZY how much Dean and Cas are fitting together like a square peg and a round hole this season, especially when they were so in-synch and on the same page last season. So my Muse sayeth ‘what the fuck?!’ I have to believe there was something big that we missed that made Dean pull back like he’d been burned. So this was my own way of trying to make the discord make sense!