Losyngerie in the Devilles mouth (8/?)whit_meruleMay 17 2012, 08:55:27 UTC
The trouble was, Castiel might have been happy (by his standards), but he still didn’t have a great grip on reality. And that made him vulnerable.
For starters, Castiel didn’t understand logical progression anymore, didn’t follow conversations, wandered off on his own tangents. He understood need, and he usually answered direct questions, and he read emotion a little too well (and that could really screw him over because he had no shields against it anymore, against all the little cruelties and indifferences of everyone around him). But the physical reality of the world and the potential for consequences? Not in the slightest. He’d trip over a rake on the ground because he was too busy pondering the metalwork of the iron teeth to realise that if he stepped on it just so, the handle would spring up and hit him on the cheek.
Anyway. Wandering the streets in bare feet and hospital pyjamas and trenchcoat, looking vague and polite? Not really the way to avoid notice. And the most important thing for him, right now, was not being noticed. Because, sure, he could flap away if he thought he was in danger - unless he couldn’t. Unless something else happened, and they got the jump on him. Too many angels - even freaking archangels - had died in the last four years for that to sound impossibly remote. And Crowley’s gang, just in that first year after angels started showing their faces, had polished up on their angel knowledge pretty damned fast. If anything they’d have far more tricks up their collective bloody sleeves by now.
And, okay, so Sam had always cared about Castiel, never wanted him hurt or anything, even after the angel had broken his wall, but seeing him like this, so small and fragile and so wondrously delighted with the world? Just the idea of anyone laying a violent hand on him made Sam’s neck prickle like he had hackles to raise, got his blood hot with that slow angry burn he always got when he was lying in ambush for the monster of the week. Because, no. Just - no.
Sam coaxed him into jeans and a sweater, but Castiel stubbornly refused to discard the trenchcoat. Sometimes he and Dean were too much alike.
(Sam wasn’t quite sure why Lucifer snickered quietly pretty much all the way through that conversation, then gave him a double thumbs-up at the end. He was sure, though, that he should be deeply suspicious about it.)
For starters, Castiel didn’t understand logical progression anymore, didn’t follow conversations, wandered off on his own tangents. He understood need, and he usually answered direct questions, and he read emotion a little too well (and that could really screw him over because he had no shields against it anymore, against all the little cruelties and indifferences of everyone around him). But the physical reality of the world and the potential for consequences? Not in the slightest. He’d trip over a rake on the ground because he was too busy pondering the metalwork of the iron teeth to realise that if he stepped on it just so, the handle would spring up and hit him on the cheek.
Anyway. Wandering the streets in bare feet and hospital pyjamas and trenchcoat, looking vague and polite? Not really the way to avoid notice. And the most important thing for him, right now, was not being noticed. Because, sure, he could flap away if he thought he was in danger - unless he couldn’t. Unless something else happened, and they got the jump on him. Too many angels - even freaking archangels - had died in the last four years for that to sound impossibly remote. And Crowley’s gang, just in that first year after angels started showing their faces, had polished up on their angel knowledge pretty damned fast. If anything they’d have far more tricks up their collective bloody sleeves by now.
And, okay, so Sam had always cared about Castiel, never wanted him hurt or anything, even after the angel had broken his wall, but seeing him like this, so small and fragile and so wondrously delighted with the world? Just the idea of anyone laying a violent hand on him made Sam’s neck prickle like he had hackles to raise, got his blood hot with that slow angry burn he always got when he was lying in ambush for the monster of the week. Because, no. Just - no.
Sam coaxed him into jeans and a sweater, but Castiel stubbornly refused to discard the trenchcoat. Sometimes he and Dean were too much alike.
(Sam wasn’t quite sure why Lucifer snickered quietly pretty much all the way through that conversation, then gave him a double thumbs-up at the end. He was sure, though, that he should be deeply suspicious about it.)
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