FIC: Remaining Grace, Epilogue [20/20]

[todisturbtheuni]

Title: Remaining Grace, Epilogue
Author: todisturbtheuni
Rating: NC-17.
Genre and/or Pairing: Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Romance; Castiel/Dean Winchester
Spoilers: Through the end of season 5, but some minor for season 6.
Warnings: Explicit sex; graphic torture scenes, which I'll warn for at applicable chapters; minor/side character death (neither Dean nor Castiel).
Word Count: 110K (total)
Summary: Sam's missing his soul, Castiel has a pissy archangelic nemesis, and Dean wonders if he'll be spending the rest of his life making sure the Apocalypse doesn't go ahead as scheduled. Still, though. He's happy to see Cas. Indiana wasn't really working out. Unabashed six-fix, in a universe where Castiel made a different choice, and things snowball from that point forward.
Author's Note: Oh, god, I'm going to get all emotional. First of all, special thanks go out to all of you who read, bookmarked, and commented on this fic while it was being written. It was your support and interest that continually drove me forward, even when suffering from crippling self-doubt on the writing front. An extra special thank you to the boyfriend, who overcame his indifference toward male/male pairings and got super involved with the creation of this story. He often helped me figure out what was missing in certain scenes that I couldn't put my finger on, and suggested dozens of plot points, not all of which made it to final draft form, and many of which were frankly insane, but some certainly stuck. It has been my genuine pleasure to write (and finish!) this thing over the last nine months. I started writing in September, started posting in December, and still can't really believe that I'm done less than six months from when I started releasing chapters to the internet. I have been pretty much sold on writing a sequel--shorter and slightly less plotty than this piece, with a focus on Sam/Gabriel. There's just too much potential there for it to go to waste. I don't know yet when I'll start writing or posting that plot bunny, but I've already got a laundry list of ideas for scenes and events, and I'm sure it'll happen soon.

Masterpost!

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“Get the fuck off me, Gabriel!”

Dean kept his eyes firmly shut, even though Cas shifted a little closer into him, pressing his chest up firm against Dean’s back. Between Sam’s frequent breakdowns and Gabriel’s lingering presence in Sioux Falls, everyone was on edge, and Dean just wanted five more minutes. Five more minutes with Cas’s reassuring warmth pressed up against him under the blankets, the touch of his breath tickling the back of Dean’s neck.

“Don’t get touchy, kiddo, I was just-”

“Stop calling me that!”

“We should intervene,” Cas mumbled against Dean’s skin.

Dean shifted back, pressing closer against Cas’s stretched-out length. “We should let them fight it out. Last time I got punched in the face for my trouble. I’ve still got the black eye, Cas.”

“They’ll murder one another.”

“Doubt it,” Dean grunted. “Sam doesn’t have the firepower and Gabriel’s got a crush.”

Cas’s head tipped up; his chin dug into Dean’s shoulder. The proximity of his stubble to Dean’s ear made goosebumps erupt all over Dean’s body. “You’re making a joke, right?”

“No. It’s like he’s pulling Sam’s braid on the playground, the way he’s always setting him off.” Dean finally peeled back one eyelid to sideye Castiel’s thoughtful expression. “Stop. It’s too early to be thinking about this.”

“It’s nearly ten,” Cas pointed out, amused now.

“Too early. Day off, remember?”

There was a low thrum of arousal emanating through their bond as Cas propped himself up on his elbow. “I remember,” he replied, sliding his free hand lower to stroke softly over Dean’s stomach, nails scratching absently through the trail of hair there.

Dean cracked the other eye open. “That’s underhanded of you, Cas.”

Cas just smirked, his lips catching on Dean’s earlobe and drawing it into his mouth. Dean had already been half-hard-the way lust echoed between them only served to amplify Cas’s mood and pass it along to Dean-but he twitched now, a sudden jerk of pleasure as Cas wrapped a hand around Dean’s cock and tugged, slow, leisurely.

“Is it too early for this?” Cas asked, all innocence, a low rumble of a voice against Dean’s throat. “I promise I won’t think.”

Dean arched back, letting Cas touch him, letting his eyes fall closed again. “You do that,” he groaned, and Cas tucked himself close along the line of Dean’s spine, his erection pressing to the small of Dean’s back. A door slammed down the hall, signaling Sam’s sudden exit from the house, and an exasperated ruffle of wings followed, but Dean only registered those facts distantly, because Cas was softly biting at the crook of his neck and then laving away the hurt with wet laps of his tongue, and that was distracting enough without the hand on his dick.

The rustling of wings sounded again, uncomfortably close, and then Cas’s hand was stilling under the sheets. “This is a bad time, Gabriel,” he said, in a voice too smooth and threatening to have the effect that it did on Dean, but dammit, it did, and he didn’t feel like opening his eyes to find that short motherfucker standing in their room, smirking at their morning sex.

“Someone needs to talk to him,” Gabriel countered, and all traces of smirking were gone out of his voice. Dean slitted his eyes open cautiously, just to make sure. No, Gabriel looked just as drawn and shadow-eyed as he had for the last several weeks-not a trace of humor about him. “He’s having one of those days.”

“I’ll handle it,” Dean muttered, getting an elbow under him to prop himself up.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Gabriel replied, and poofed out of existence.

Cas gave a sigh of regret, rolling away toward his side of the bed. Dean flopped back onto the mattress to watch him go, sunlight streaming in through the new window panes to gild Cas’s dark hair and fall on his lean torso. They were grounded at Bobby’s until Sam recovered-he had a hard time traveling the distance from the upstairs guest room to the kitchen, let alone being in a cramped car for hours-so together, they’d built an addition to Bobby’s house, a small spare room on the first floor, with a mattress that actually fit two grown men, unlike the bed in the panic room. There wasn’t much in it besides the bed, just a nightstand and a dresser, but Dean’s back was already unknotting in relief at sleeping on a decent mattress on a regular basis.

“Are you getting up,” Cas huffed, pulling on boxers, “or are you going to keep staring?”

“The second one,” Dean answered, grinning, but he rolled out of bed all the same. Sam wouldn’t have gone far, but it was best to diffuse these situations quickly.

His brother was improving. Slowly, that was true-painfully slowly-but improving. He could sometimes go several hours without Gabriel’s intervention, but the longer he went without the archangel’s healing touch, the more irritated he was when Gabriel eventually tried to lay hands on him. Sam was furious with Gabriel, and they still hadn’t worked out why. If Gabriel knew, he wasn’t telling.

Dean yanked on jeans and pulled a thick henley over his head, and while he wormed his feet into socks and boots, Cas pulled down a lined jacket from their single rack of hanging clothes. December was wearing onward, and the Midwest was freezing quickly. They’d had snow the day before.

“I could come, if you want company,” he said, offering the jacket to Dean.

“S’okay,” Dean said, shrugging into the jacket. “Could get breakfast started, though. He’ll be hungry if I ever get him inside.”

“I’ll make coffee,” Cas agreed, and pressed a quick, soft kiss into Dean’s mouth before padding off for the kitchen, still barefoot, his hair sticking up in the back.

Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets and braced himself for the blast of cold, the back of his mind on Cas, still warm and half-drowsy in the kitchen, his hands carefully measuring out coffee. Snow lay in heaps over Singer Salvage Yard, ice glittering on the windshields of junkers that hadn’t been beaten in. Dean crunched through the yard, following haphazard footprints toward the knot of trees where they’d burned Sam’s body. He could hear his brother’s voice, closer now, a streaming murmur of expletives and irritation, and the sudden thump of something-probably part of the standing pyre-being kicked over.

Anger, Dean could deal with.

They hadn’t talked much, him and Sam, since his little brother turned up at the door of that motel room. Most of the time, it was beyond Sam’s ability to have more than a five-minute conversation, and what was there to say, anyway? I’m glad you’re here. That was a given. It’s not your fault. Dean had already gone through every version of that sentence, and he didn’t get the feeling he was making an impression. It’ll get better. It has to. He didn’t know that, though, and he could see, every time he looked at Sam, that his brother didn’t believe it.

More often, they sat in silence. Dean’s head was never quiet, not with Cas at the back of his mind, flitting around, occupying part of his attention, but he sat with Sam on the hoods of cars and in Bobby’s den and at the kitchen table and they were quiet. In a lot of ways it was just like it had always been-but without the beer, and with nearly a century of Hell trauma between them to make the silence dark. Dean hoped it helped that Sam knew he was there, rarely further than twenty yards away, often closer. He and Cas still took off for hunts, but strictly minor-league stuff, things that could be resolved in a day or two, and only as far away as they could drive in half a day. If they were gone, Gabriel was a constant presence at Sam’s side, whether Sam knew it or not. Dean got the feeling that Gabriel was spending a lot of time invisible these days.

“Hey,” he called out, announcing his presence from a safe distance away. Sam whirled to face him, eyes a little wild, and Dean held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Relax. It’s just me. Gabriel’s got angel business.”

For a moment, Sam just looked angrier, but then he deflated, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Dick,” he muttered, resentful but half-hearted.

“You know I’m with you, Sam, but I think he’s just trying to help. The way it sounds, he went through a lot of trouble to get you back.”

“That’s the problem!” Sam burst out, glaring. “Why? Why did he do it in the first place? And why is he hanging around to clean up his mess?”

Dean shrugged. “Cas asked him to. Maybe he feels bad.” He didn’t share the theory he’d floated to Cas fifteen minutes ago. It sounded ridiculous now, in the bright sunlight reflecting off piles of sparkling snow, with his brother knocking over the pyre that probably still had his own ashes clinging to it.

“Do you know what he had to do to even...” Sam trailed off, took a deep breath, and sat down hard on the box of supplies. “Do you know how he got me out?"

“No one’s been particularly forthcoming. I’m trying out a new thing where I don’t look gift horses in the mouth.” Dean sat down next to him, pressing his shoulder against Sam’s trembling one. The shaking eased, if only a little, and Sam huffed out a weak laugh.

“I remember it. Him finding me in Purgatory. Well, part of me, anyway.” Sam hunched down, looking at his feet. “Looked like he’d been through Hell. He was sooty and bloody and he still smirked. ‘Time to get out of the box, Sam,’ he said.” Sam shook his head. “I didn’t even want to go. Purgatory was...clean. Simple. Perfect place for someone without a soul. I could only hurt the monsters, not...not people.” His voice choked. “And I enjoyed it.”

Dean knocked his elbow against Sam’s. “Hey. It wasn’t you.”

“But I remember it like it was. I didn’t even...shut up,” Sam interrupted himself loudly, shooting a glare over his shoulder. At Dean’s raised eyebrows, Sam muttered, “He’s singing again. It’s been the same Gregorian chant for hours now.”

Dean’s side effects of his Hell tour had never included hallucinating the devil. That was, of course, just Sam’s shit luck. “I could give Gabriel a shout,” he said cautiously.

“No,” Sam said sharply. “I can’t think when he’s hovering around like that, and he still looks so busted, I just...I want him gone for a few hours.”

They lapsed back into silence. Dean wished Sam would picked up the thread of conversation that he’d dropped, but his mind was too chaotic, now, to always remember that he’d left something unsaid, and Dean didn’t want to rush him.

“You and Cas,” Sam said finally.

Dean tensed automatically. “Yeah.”

Sam finally smiled. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, but he still looked better than the day he’d staggered up to their motel room. “Saw that coming.”

There was something smug about the look on his face, something sickening and sappy that was just Sam. It made his chest constrict, reminded him that his brother was really here, worse for the wear, but here. Not the robot version he’d been saddled with for months, not back in the box with Lucifer and Michael, but here and girly as ever.

“Shut up,” Dean muttered, a weak defense, but the only one he had.

Sam shook his head, sobering again. “Man, when you died, I went off the fucking deep end. But you...you just fixed everything. Dried out, went hunting, started a relationship with an Angel of the Lord.”

“He’s not,” Dean said automatically. “Not anymore. And I was...” Dean cleared his throat. “I was on my way out. After I shot you I just kept drinking, and then I figured out what it was doing to Cas.”

Sam nodded, understanding. “2014?”

“Two thousand and fucking fourteen,” Dean muttered. “He’s the only reason I didn’t drink myself to death. I would’ve been cold in the ground when you got back if he hadn’t been around. I was still trying to track down Crowley, after I got through withdrawal, but...wasn’t getting anywhere. Could tell it wasn’t doing Cas any favors. Or me.”

“You always know what he’s doing?” Sam asked, eyebrows knitting together in curiosity. “Can you hear him, all the time?”

“Getting better at tuning in and out, but yeah, pretty much. Like right now. Swearing about the eggs.” Dean got to his feet and held out a hand to help Sam up. “How about breakfast?”

Sam let himself be helped, but when he was upright, he folded his arms around Dean, sudden and fierce. “I’m glad you’re okay,” Sam said, his voice tight again.

“No chick-flick moments,” Dean said weakly, but he hugged Sam back anyway. The amulet pressed into his chest beneath his shirt, and Sam’s bulk was warm and real. They’d come out of this one all right, and Dean didn’t know how that had worked out, but he was trying a new thing, and it was better not to overthink good fortune.

“Will you let me call Gabriel after we eat?” Dean asked as they trudged back to the house.

Sam made a miserable face. “It’s hurting him. When he helps me. Every time he pushes it down, he sees Lucifer. That’s his brother, Dean. Every time he tries to help me he has to see, firsthand, everything that happens in the Pit.”

“We don’t have a lot of options,” Dean pointed out. “We push you too close to breaking point, you break. You’re getting better. Eventually you won’t need him. Don’t see why you’re worried, anyway. Guy’s a dick. You were all pissed at him ten minutes ago.”

“I’m pissed because he did this and I still don’t know why,” Sam grumbled. “Neither do you. He made a deal with Death, Dean.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “High rollin’. To what?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, frustrated. “He won’t tell me.”

“Mysterious,” Dean drawled, and Sam gave him a shove. “Maybe cooperation is a better method of getting any info out of him, genius.”

“You try cooperating with Gabriel,” Sam muttered. “Your head will explode.”

“Managed all right during the Apocalypse. The latest one, anyway.”

They broke out in tired chuckles as they stamped off their boots and trudged into the house. The scent of coffee hit Dean, a warm wall of comfort. Bobby and Cas were in the kitchen, Bobby’s hands already wrapped around a mug, Cas settled at the counter with his cup of tea. He smiled at Dean, the barest twitch up at the corners of his mouth, the smile that made his crow’s feet crinkle deep.

Dean’s family was battered, but they were here, alive, and in the end, that was all he ever really needed: Bobby barking grumpily at Cas to hurry up with the food, Sam cautiously stretching out at the table with his too-long legs, and Cas, Cas’s fingers brushing his wrist as he passed Dean a mug of coffee, Cas’s smile tucked away in the corner of his mouth, Cas’s reassuring warmth at the back of his mind, a steady, permanent presence he’d have with him until the lights went out.

And maybe even after, if Gabriel was in a good mood the day they died.

In the dark, like a prayer, Dean panted his name.

He was always Cas until their clothes were off, and then, suddenly, Dean found the other syllables. “Castiel,” he breathed into the hollow of Castiel’s neck, thumbs smoothing out over Castiel’s hipbones; “Castiel,” he groaned into Castiel’s mouth, fingers knotting in Castiel’s hair; “Castiel,” he exhaled, pupils blown out in lust as Castiel opened him up, fingers slicking in and out of tight heat.

In the dark, Castiel could still see Dean, still feel him, maybe more clearly than at any other time, because Dean was vulnerable here, open: features contorted in pleasure, breathy wrecked sounds tearing from his throat, muscles writhing, fingers clenching into the sheets. He came unwound when Castiel was buried to the hilt in him, Castiel’s name falling from his lips in broken syllables. Beneath his fingers, the scar melded into Dean’s shoulder came alive, thrummed with the remnant of Grace that had burned mostly away; Dean was a live wire under his touch, a mess of wordless pleasure. Wordless, except for the chant of Castiel’s name, his thoughts a jumbled mess except for those exalted syllables.

Dean’s heels dug into the mattress, his legs open around Castiel’s hips, braced for the slow drag and thrust of Castiel’s body against his. Every day, every hunt, all the smallest movements weighted down on Castiel’s too-human body now; gravity was stifling when he was without the wings that Dean had given him. But here, bracing himself against the mattress, against Dean, watching the hunter come undone beneath him, gravity didn’t touch him.

“Stop,” Dean rasped out, scrabbling for somewhere to hold onto Castiel, wrenching his hands free of the sheets to pull Castiel by the back of the neck down to him. The kiss was drugged, heavy, and Castiel melted down into it, pressing deeper into Dean, harder. “More,” Dean panted into his mouth, fingers still tight in Castiel’s hair, little pinpricks of pain weaving through the pleasure. “Please-Cas-Castiel-”

Dean said his name with more reverence than he thought the Righteous Man possessed, and he lost himself in the sound of it, pressed into his lips with increasing urgency, sweeping through their bond like a tide that would drown him. Dean’s cock twitched against him, trapped between their bodies, and before Castiel could so much as touch him, Dean was coming, locked up around him.

Castiel held on, rocking him through it, the wave of bliss nearly blinding, and Dean breathed harshly into his shoulder, all ability for voluntary sound gone. He wasn’t far behind, the tight clench of Dean’s body too good to resist for long; when he came it was with Dean’s name on his lips, exhaled into the hunter’s neck, while Dean’s fingernails lazily scraped through his hair, one hand light on his hip to guide him deeper.

They were a boneless, sated mess in the aftermath, melted haphazardly into one another. Castiel felt the sharp jut of Dean’s hip pressing into his stomach, Dean’s knee poking up into his leg, but gravity had hold of him again, and he was unresisting, letting Dean stroke through his sweaty hair as their breathing returned to normal.

Eventually, though, Castiel cracked his eyes back open-he didn’t know when he’d closed them-and tipped his chin up to look at Dean, who was idly smiling at the ceiling. “What?” he asked drowsily.

“Nothin’,” Dean replied innocently. “Wanna go grab a towel?”

“Not really,” Castiel murmured, but peeled himself upward, anyway. They both winced at the sticky sensation of coming apart, and Castiel pulled on sweatpants to journey down the hallway to the bathroom, hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone. He was coated in a combination of sweat and come and a collection of bruising bites around his neck and shoulders, and it would be only too obvious what he’d been doing five minutes before; he could only imagine Gabriel’s endless innuendo, which would undoubtedly grind back into action at the sight.

The house was quiet, though. Castiel knew without having to sense it that Sam was restlessly asleep upstairs, and Gabriel was too busy watching over his new ward to pay them any shred of attention. He’d never known Gabriel to be so single-minded; he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time what Gabriel had promised Death in exchange for Sam’s soul, what an archangel could possibly have to offer a being as cold and timeless as the rider of the pale horse.

He pulled down a washcloth, wetted it, and scrubbed the tacky substances from his chest and thighs, leaving faintly pink skin in its wake. He’d learned, since becoming human, that the combination of sweat and lube was an uncomfortable sensation on the skin if it was allowed to dry. Dean didn’t seem to notice or mind nearly as much; by the time Castiel had wrung out the washcloth a second time and returned to their room, Dean was half-asleep, sprawled over more than half the bed. He startled awake when Castiel gently ran the damp cloth over his skin.

“I can do that,” Dean grumbled, but didn’t make more than a halfhearted effort to grab the washcloth from Castiel. “Not a creature stirring?”

“All’s quiet,” Castiel confirmed. “Sam must still be asleep.”

There was a sudden, loud thump from upstairs, accompanied by a startled yelp. The low roll of hushed, angry voices started a few seconds later.

“Scratch that,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “I think there’s a hunt in Wyoming. Wanna get out of here tomorrow?”

Castiel chuckled, and Dean pulled him down to the bed, discarding the washcloth to the floor. Castiel flicked through his recent memories of hunting with Dean over the last few months as the strain between them thawed: the first time he’d seen Dean smile absently again while driving the Impala; the many monsters he taunted, with more and more relish, shotgun in hand; the nights that followed, long and sultry and navigating around the wounds they’d taken during the day. Motel rooms were uncomfortable and anonymous, but Castiel loved being on the road with Dean, moving from town to town, hunt to hunt.

“You’re not worried about Sam?” he asked, because Dean had been reluctant at best to stray out of the radius of half a day’s drive since November.

“I’m always worried about Sam,” Dean grumbled, pulling Castiel closer to him. Cradled in the soft spot between Dean’s chest and shoulder, Castiel closed his eyes and wrapped an arm out across Dean, anchoring himself to the hunter. “But he’s got a babysitter now, and maybe if we get out of the way for a few days and force him to confront his issues, things’ll be better when we get back.”

“Okay,” Castiel said agreeably, drowsy already. He felt Dean being tugged down, too, his awareness flickering as the warmth of the bed set in. “What do you think it is?”

Dean turned his face into Castiel’s hair. “Sudden deaths. Bloody crime scenes. Could be a serial killer, or it could be a ghoul. Or a shapeshifter. Run of the mill stuff.”

“Totally normal,” Castiel mocked gently, hooking a leg over Dean’s.

“Compared to angels and demons and the Apocalypse, yeah,” Dean murmured, his words starting to slur. “Never thought I’d get back to this.”

The truth went unsaid-never thought I’d be happy to get back to this-but Castiel felt it as Dean melted away into sleep, the content warmth that bled into his tired muscles. There was the undercurrent of worry, of course-the nettling fear that it would somehow all be ripped away from him too soon-but Dean, for the moment, was doing his best not to focus on that, to focus instead on Sam, returned to him, a little broken, maybe, but weren’t they all; on Bobby, safe from Crowley’s deal, soul and legs intact; on the war they’d won in Heaven, and the haphazard ally they had in Gabriel.

And there was Castiel, too, suffused through it all. His place in Dean’s life still confused and bemused him; the sheer depth of feeling Dean had for him and all the descriptions that came along with it were things that Castiel had thought were impossible to earn. Best friend and partner and family and something that defied words, really, in any language that Castiel knew. It was the warmth that glowed in Dean’s chest when Castiel smiled at him, however small; it was the protective flare that bubbled up whenever Castiel was in harm’s way; it was the drifting wave of bliss whenever they were wrapped around one another, calling each other’s names.

Love seemed too simple a word, stiff and unyielding, for the thing they shared, because Castiel had loved Dean from the moment he touched the hunter’s soul in Hell, loved him when his wings burned and Dean made them new, loved him when his orders were to do everything but love him. He had loved him when recognition dawned in those green eyes in the prophet’s house-the realization that Castiel was going to die for him-and loved him for the relief in those eyes every time Castiel staggered back to him, crippled or wounded or towing mistakes in his wake, and Dean took him in, anyway, sheltered him under wings of understanding and friendship.

Castiel still had nightmares-about Hell, about war, about Sam holding a gun to his temple and the look on Dean’s face that would haunt him until the end-but sometimes, he dreamed of the lake where he’d gone to warn Dean of the angels’ plan. His hunter was beside him, jeans rolled up to the knees and feet drifting in the cool water below the dock, their shoulders pressed companionably together. The lines on Dean’s face were shallower, the scars fewer, Dean on the day Castiel had first met him in a barn in Illinois, where everything seemed to finally begin for Castiel, after so long being a passive participant in an unremarkable existence. The sun stayed forever at the horizon, brightening the sky to orange and pink and gold with blue wisping upwards, as if time had paused and they had forever.

Sometimes, Castiel slept well, and he woke up to sun on his face and Dean’s soft snores and forgot that he had ever been an Angel of the Lord at all.