We Are Nowhere and It's Now
Title: We are nowhere and it's now 2/2
Author: radioheading
Rating: R, language and violence.
Characters/Pairings: Cas/Dean
Warnings: Spoilers 6x22
Word Count: For this part, 2588
Summary: Just after the finale; Dean tries to get Cas back. This is what happens.
Castiel remembers his birth. The moment he flickered into being, pulled into existence by invisible hands, the streaks of stars, black-hole need for love and light gathered and focused until he came out the other side. The fact that he was filled with his Father's grace is the only evidence he has of the being humans call God. His brothers and sisters, nebulous bodies of light and heat and home drifted over him, like humans running their hands through one another's hair. Castiel was born into eternity, the rise of voices brimming into a crescendo of devotion and trust.
No one is special because they are all the same, cut of cloth that is uniform and grey as a rainy morning. Maybe that's why they were abandoned, why his Father chose the humans over the angels, the too-perfect children left to go insane after His departure, madness and the hunger for power descending to fill the hole He left. Castiel had orders. He followed them and they cost him everything-his home, his family. But he gained something, too. Something new, something he hadn't felt since the settling of his grace, the fingerprint like gunpowder his Father left on him.
Faith. Hope. Humanity. Love.
Now, though. Now he is surrounded by the echoes of the supernatural, hunger and desire rooted in the darkest of places, high-pitched wails calling out for more, a taste of blood or flesh or magic. Just more, now now now. He's sucked their lives down like whiskey, taking the kick with a lifted chin, forgetting about the burn as he was filled, completed, elevated. He let it take him, let it weave its easy web and was folded under its spell, cast aside into a sleepy sort of peace he hadn't felt in millennia. It's an infinity of nothing, but he's too tired to care, stretched too thin to do anything but relax into the lull, the upswing of a hammock as it cradles weight he doesn't really have. He is the stuff of planets and cold space funneled into a clipped-wing vessel, but here it doesn't matter so much. Here is nowhere.
Nothing matters until it does. Castiel's wake-up call is brutal, a sudden and jarring realization of what, exactly, is happening. He sees the Righteous man as he was in hell, bright like the North star in an abyss of agony and blindness, the shining impression of a body, a soul still lingering in human form. Castiel thinks he's dreaming, even though he's only done it once, a confusing barrage of images and sounds he'd slipped into during his stint as a mortal. But there's no other explanation, no way for a human soul to have made its way into his body. He houses only the passed-on supernatural, the remnants of things that go bump in the night. A ripple runs through him, anticipation and licked lips, saliva collecting behind teeth as the monsters decide in a single voice, that they want this soul. They want to rip and tear and bite until it's nothing but dust and bone fragments on the ground.
No, Castiel wants to say, and in the distance a part of the Righteous man burns brighter, a searing halo cast from his shoulder; the angel's hand burns. No, he tries, but his mouth is sewn shut, useless. His lake of calm has been disturbed, ripples fanning out, his unrest bubbling to the surface.
Dean! he's calling, the name passing through him like electricity from a sparking wire. It's old and familiar and it stills before it can pass over lips he can't feel. He's held hostage, just like the souls he'd trapped. Absorbed. No, can't hurt him, can't do this.
But his body has other ideas, closing in on the Righteous man, on Dean, like the moon slipping in front of the sun during a solar eclipse. His light is fading and Castiel shudders as the screams wash over him, twisted calls of monsters and his human mixed, bleeding into one. He can only watch as the sun goes down on the human trapped in his body, as the soul slips under the surface and falls away entirely, absorbed.
One last moment, Castiel begs, please Father, give him another chance. I'd give anything.
But all that comes back to the former angel is a gurgling rumble that increases until it's all he can hear; one unnecessary heartbeat, then two, and he's washed away into the blackness as well.
*
Whose son are you now?
It's a voice and a touch and a presence he recognizes without ever having met it before. It's full, throaty, fills him like hot mead on a cold day, had he ever needed to be warmed. He's broken a cardinal rule by caring, by wanting and needing. He was an angel. Now he's a god of fire and ash, and it was all so he could keep the world from ending, from letting the bad guys burn it to the ground around him (around Dean).
You are not the creation I wove all those years ago, Castiel.
I-Castiel's words come slowly, carefully under the strain of the proximity he has to a being he's only heard about before this. I tried to find you. I didn't want this, Father.
Neither did I, child. I took regrettable steps. I forgot myself.
Father...
Would you give it up, Castiel? Would you forget the allure of the gods for him?
Castiel doesn't have to ask who his Father speaks of. There is only one to him, one being, one soul, one gaze that roots his grace and ties him in knots. He's not sure when he slipped, when he left angelic stoicism behind, but now that he's entrenched, there's no going back.
Listen.
In the distance, there are words. A voice trilling in and out over a staticky horizon, one that professes truths too deep to talk about, too buried to admit but they're being transmitted just the same, weaving around the angel's heart and with each syllable he gets lighter, like he's leaving the solidity of his body behind.
Is he worth it?
Yes. Always yes.
There's no warning for the agony that comes with his answer, the ripping-tearing-breaking of a purge that should have happened after he killed Rafael. He's been carrying the souls around for too long; they've dug in, begun feasting on the parts of him he let fall by the wayside; empathy, caring, common sense. All of them are putrid, festering, a grace-deep sting that lets up only when the last soul slips past his teeth like a trickle of bile, destroyed by his father without a second thought.
Dean comes in clearer now; I remember, he's saying. His human speaks without vocal chords, presses emotion where thought falls short. He's curling fear and love and disappointment around every memory they have together. He's terrified of the new Castiel, the god who feels nothing.
Dean? Castiel's moving, stumbling through the confines of his own mind now because somewhere Dean is there and he's afraid, and the angel has to get it right this time.
I'm here, he assures, spreading out as far as he can, reaching for the summer-heat pulse of the Righteous man. The human is like an itch under his skin-there, but just out of reach. Castiel circles around himself, frantic now.
You rebuilt me and breathed life back into me. Call.
And I would do it again in a second. Even if it cost my own life. Response.
I never told you that I felt you.
I knew. I felt you too. Closer, now. Lighter, warmer-he's swimming up through stormy waters that would hold him down if he let them. But determination drives him where strength begins to wane. There is no going back, only reaching forward. And he breaks through, fueled by the charge of excitement and craving held in Dean's voice, the human need to touch and connect on a physical level.
Hold on, he tells the Righteous man as he surfaces, slipping back into the controls of his vessel, the familiar too-tight sensation that's like coming home. He is restored, himself again, though with something, someone extra. He houses Dean within himself, the soul flush against his grace and burrowing closer, deeper with every beat of his vessel's heart. Castiel gasps, stomach dropping to the soles of his feet as his grace shifts and flutters within him, drawing the soul close, playfully circling around it, cupping it like water sifted through hands.
Castiel opens his eyes to find a room, a comfortable torture chamber. Blood on the walls, on the floor pooling around Dean's body. His human is broken and sightless though his eyes are open. Lips gasp for breath that doesn't come, skin cracked with dried blood. And all of it was done by his own hand. He sinks to the floor, knees hitting heavy, hands drifting out to touch the cold, coagulating blood. He streaks skin red, war-paint lines across his cheeks as he covers his face, hiding from the brutality he inflicted without thought, without regret. He'd been greedy for the Righteous man's soul, the need for just a little more. His shame, his sorrow is hot, pooling in his stomach like acid.
Cas, he hears. It's ok. Don't-You can't blame yourself for this.
Dean. He's too broken to call out more than a name, too ashamed to try and explain.
Don't you think, Cas, that I understand what you did? That I'd get it better than anyone else?
Hell flashes before the angel's eyes, black blood and shining knives and the white of the Righteous man's eyes and teeth. He scuttles forward, taking Dean's doll-limp body into his arms, clutching it close so his heart beats into the other man's still chest. He feels his wings slipping out before he realizes he's letting them; they spread and curve, hiding he and Dean from the outside world, though they're safe from it anyway in Castiel's version of limbo.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, taking a breath before pressing his lips to a cold, still mouth. He draws himself out from the inside, the hope and sadness, the light dizzy ache that is love and fear of its loss. He bathes himself in the fount of love Dean pressed close to him earlier, thinks of the ache in his throat and heart and uses it, pushes it into the mortal body that is busy rebuilding, knitting tissue and sending renewed blood through whole veins. And then his human is perfect again, not a scratch on him, save the mark seared into skin, the outline of his own hand as they ascended from hell together.
Time to go back.
Dean is branches in the wind as he moves up Castiel's arm, then down his fingers; a delicate sway, soft rustling and hair blowing. A pang of loss comes over the angel when the human's soul departs, but it doesn't last. Dean moves in his arms a moment later, gasping and sitting up so they meet chest to chest, arms wrapping around his shoulders, though the human pauses, looking just over Castiel's head.
“What-Cas-are those your wings?”
Fingers trail through what looks like soft down in this manifestation, the feathers closest to his shoulder blades.
“Yes,” he answers simply, tilting his head back as he's stroked and caressed, pulled apart in the softest of ways. Light touches skate across his cheeks and jaw, fingers tracing tears backward, coming away pink. He watches Dean lick his fingers, tasting the angel's grief, hot and human.
“I've never seen you cry before.”
“I never had a good enough reason to.”
Dean smiles, but it's a grim little thing, lips stretched tight. And then, because neither of them know quite how to say what they're feeling, he ducks his head and presses skin to skin, a red flush of heat asking to be shared, closeness that's forgiveness and regret, lust and relief all tangled together, sharp and messy. Eventually, they'll get back to the real world. They'll find Sam and Bobby and explain what happened, with some censoring. But for now, Dean will work his hands through his angel's wings and hair, will moan Castiel's name and forget about time and space and war and monsters. Castiel will open his mouth and let Dean explore his world, his body and his grace. And they'll fall together, breathless, back down to Earth, where both belong, now.
Author: radioheading
Rating: R, language and violence.
Characters/Pairings: Cas/Dean
Warnings: Spoilers 6x22
Word Count: For this part, 2588
Summary: Just after the finale; Dean tries to get Cas back. This is what happens.
Castiel remembers his birth. The moment he flickered into being, pulled into existence by invisible hands, the streaks of stars, black-hole need for love and light gathered and focused until he came out the other side. The fact that he was filled with his Father's grace is the only evidence he has of the being humans call God. His brothers and sisters, nebulous bodies of light and heat and home drifted over him, like humans running their hands through one another's hair. Castiel was born into eternity, the rise of voices brimming into a crescendo of devotion and trust.
No one is special because they are all the same, cut of cloth that is uniform and grey as a rainy morning. Maybe that's why they were abandoned, why his Father chose the humans over the angels, the too-perfect children left to go insane after His departure, madness and the hunger for power descending to fill the hole He left. Castiel had orders. He followed them and they cost him everything-his home, his family. But he gained something, too. Something new, something he hadn't felt since the settling of his grace, the fingerprint like gunpowder his Father left on him.
Faith. Hope. Humanity. Love.
Now, though. Now he is surrounded by the echoes of the supernatural, hunger and desire rooted in the darkest of places, high-pitched wails calling out for more, a taste of blood or flesh or magic. Just more, now now now. He's sucked their lives down like whiskey, taking the kick with a lifted chin, forgetting about the burn as he was filled, completed, elevated. He let it take him, let it weave its easy web and was folded under its spell, cast aside into a sleepy sort of peace he hadn't felt in millennia. It's an infinity of nothing, but he's too tired to care, stretched too thin to do anything but relax into the lull, the upswing of a hammock as it cradles weight he doesn't really have. He is the stuff of planets and cold space funneled into a clipped-wing vessel, but here it doesn't matter so much. Here is nowhere.
Nothing matters until it does. Castiel's wake-up call is brutal, a sudden and jarring realization of what, exactly, is happening. He sees the Righteous man as he was in hell, bright like the North star in an abyss of agony and blindness, the shining impression of a body, a soul still lingering in human form. Castiel thinks he's dreaming, even though he's only done it once, a confusing barrage of images and sounds he'd slipped into during his stint as a mortal. But there's no other explanation, no way for a human soul to have made its way into his body. He houses only the passed-on supernatural, the remnants of things that go bump in the night. A ripple runs through him, anticipation and licked lips, saliva collecting behind teeth as the monsters decide in a single voice, that they want this soul. They want to rip and tear and bite until it's nothing but dust and bone fragments on the ground.
No, Castiel wants to say, and in the distance a part of the Righteous man burns brighter, a searing halo cast from his shoulder; the angel's hand burns. No, he tries, but his mouth is sewn shut, useless. His lake of calm has been disturbed, ripples fanning out, his unrest bubbling to the surface.
Dean! he's calling, the name passing through him like electricity from a sparking wire. It's old and familiar and it stills before it can pass over lips he can't feel. He's held hostage, just like the souls he'd trapped. Absorbed. No, can't hurt him, can't do this.
But his body has other ideas, closing in on the Righteous man, on Dean, like the moon slipping in front of the sun during a solar eclipse. His light is fading and Castiel shudders as the screams wash over him, twisted calls of monsters and his human mixed, bleeding into one. He can only watch as the sun goes down on the human trapped in his body, as the soul slips under the surface and falls away entirely, absorbed.
One last moment, Castiel begs, please Father, give him another chance. I'd give anything.
But all that comes back to the former angel is a gurgling rumble that increases until it's all he can hear; one unnecessary heartbeat, then two, and he's washed away into the blackness as well.
*
Whose son are you now?
It's a voice and a touch and a presence he recognizes without ever having met it before. It's full, throaty, fills him like hot mead on a cold day, had he ever needed to be warmed. He's broken a cardinal rule by caring, by wanting and needing. He was an angel. Now he's a god of fire and ash, and it was all so he could keep the world from ending, from letting the bad guys burn it to the ground around him (around Dean).
You are not the creation I wove all those years ago, Castiel.
I-Castiel's words come slowly, carefully under the strain of the proximity he has to a being he's only heard about before this. I tried to find you. I didn't want this, Father.
Neither did I, child. I took regrettable steps. I forgot myself.
Father...
Would you give it up, Castiel? Would you forget the allure of the gods for him?
Castiel doesn't have to ask who his Father speaks of. There is only one to him, one being, one soul, one gaze that roots his grace and ties him in knots. He's not sure when he slipped, when he left angelic stoicism behind, but now that he's entrenched, there's no going back.
Listen.
In the distance, there are words. A voice trilling in and out over a staticky horizon, one that professes truths too deep to talk about, too buried to admit but they're being transmitted just the same, weaving around the angel's heart and with each syllable he gets lighter, like he's leaving the solidity of his body behind.
Is he worth it?
Yes. Always yes.
There's no warning for the agony that comes with his answer, the ripping-tearing-breaking of a purge that should have happened after he killed Rafael. He's been carrying the souls around for too long; they've dug in, begun feasting on the parts of him he let fall by the wayside; empathy, caring, common sense. All of them are putrid, festering, a grace-deep sting that lets up only when the last soul slips past his teeth like a trickle of bile, destroyed by his father without a second thought.
Dean comes in clearer now; I remember, he's saying. His human speaks without vocal chords, presses emotion where thought falls short. He's curling fear and love and disappointment around every memory they have together. He's terrified of the new Castiel, the god who feels nothing.
Dean? Castiel's moving, stumbling through the confines of his own mind now because somewhere Dean is there and he's afraid, and the angel has to get it right this time.
I'm here, he assures, spreading out as far as he can, reaching for the summer-heat pulse of the Righteous man. The human is like an itch under his skin-there, but just out of reach. Castiel circles around himself, frantic now.
You rebuilt me and breathed life back into me. Call.
And I would do it again in a second. Even if it cost my own life. Response.
I never told you that I felt you.
I knew. I felt you too. Closer, now. Lighter, warmer-he's swimming up through stormy waters that would hold him down if he let them. But determination drives him where strength begins to wane. There is no going back, only reaching forward. And he breaks through, fueled by the charge of excitement and craving held in Dean's voice, the human need to touch and connect on a physical level.
Hold on, he tells the Righteous man as he surfaces, slipping back into the controls of his vessel, the familiar too-tight sensation that's like coming home. He is restored, himself again, though with something, someone extra. He houses Dean within himself, the soul flush against his grace and burrowing closer, deeper with every beat of his vessel's heart. Castiel gasps, stomach dropping to the soles of his feet as his grace shifts and flutters within him, drawing the soul close, playfully circling around it, cupping it like water sifted through hands.
Castiel opens his eyes to find a room, a comfortable torture chamber. Blood on the walls, on the floor pooling around Dean's body. His human is broken and sightless though his eyes are open. Lips gasp for breath that doesn't come, skin cracked with dried blood. And all of it was done by his own hand. He sinks to the floor, knees hitting heavy, hands drifting out to touch the cold, coagulating blood. He streaks skin red, war-paint lines across his cheeks as he covers his face, hiding from the brutality he inflicted without thought, without regret. He'd been greedy for the Righteous man's soul, the need for just a little more. His shame, his sorrow is hot, pooling in his stomach like acid.
Cas, he hears. It's ok. Don't-You can't blame yourself for this.
Dean. He's too broken to call out more than a name, too ashamed to try and explain.
Don't you think, Cas, that I understand what you did? That I'd get it better than anyone else?
Hell flashes before the angel's eyes, black blood and shining knives and the white of the Righteous man's eyes and teeth. He scuttles forward, taking Dean's doll-limp body into his arms, clutching it close so his heart beats into the other man's still chest. He feels his wings slipping out before he realizes he's letting them; they spread and curve, hiding he and Dean from the outside world, though they're safe from it anyway in Castiel's version of limbo.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, taking a breath before pressing his lips to a cold, still mouth. He draws himself out from the inside, the hope and sadness, the light dizzy ache that is love and fear of its loss. He bathes himself in the fount of love Dean pressed close to him earlier, thinks of the ache in his throat and heart and uses it, pushes it into the mortal body that is busy rebuilding, knitting tissue and sending renewed blood through whole veins. And then his human is perfect again, not a scratch on him, save the mark seared into skin, the outline of his own hand as they ascended from hell together.
Time to go back.
Dean is branches in the wind as he moves up Castiel's arm, then down his fingers; a delicate sway, soft rustling and hair blowing. A pang of loss comes over the angel when the human's soul departs, but it doesn't last. Dean moves in his arms a moment later, gasping and sitting up so they meet chest to chest, arms wrapping around his shoulders, though the human pauses, looking just over Castiel's head.
“What-Cas-are those your wings?”
Fingers trail through what looks like soft down in this manifestation, the feathers closest to his shoulder blades.
“Yes,” he answers simply, tilting his head back as he's stroked and caressed, pulled apart in the softest of ways. Light touches skate across his cheeks and jaw, fingers tracing tears backward, coming away pink. He watches Dean lick his fingers, tasting the angel's grief, hot and human.
“I've never seen you cry before.”
“I never had a good enough reason to.”
Dean smiles, but it's a grim little thing, lips stretched tight. And then, because neither of them know quite how to say what they're feeling, he ducks his head and presses skin to skin, a red flush of heat asking to be shared, closeness that's forgiveness and regret, lust and relief all tangled together, sharp and messy. Eventually, they'll get back to the real world. They'll find Sam and Bobby and explain what happened, with some censoring. But for now, Dean will work his hands through his angel's wings and hair, will moan Castiel's name and forget about time and space and war and monsters. Castiel will open his mouth and let Dean explore his world, his body and his grace. And they'll fall together, breathless, back down to Earth, where both belong, now.